Dear Brethren (Palastine-Israel )

[Inglor]

Written by Youssef Ibrahim, Egyptian-American journalist, published: The Sun.

Dear Brethren, the War With Israel Is Over

As Israel enters the third week of an incursion into the same Gaza Strip it voluntarily evacuated a few months ago, a sense of reality among Arabs is spreading through commentary by Arab pundits, letters to the editor, and political talk shows on Arabic-language TV networks.The new views are stunning both in their maturity and in their realism. The best way I can think of to convey them is in the form of a letter to the Palestinian Arabs from their Arab friends:

Dear Palestinian Arab brethren:

The war with Israel is over.

You have lost. Surrender and negotiate to secure a future for your children.

We, your Arab brothers, may say until we are blue in the face that we stand by you, but the wise among you and most of us know that we are moving on, away from the tired old idea of the Palestinian Arab cause and the "eternal struggle" with Israel.

Dear friends, you and your leaders have wasted three generations trying to fight for Palestine, but the truth is the Palestine you could have had in 1948 is much bigger than the one you could have had in 1967, which in turn is much bigger than what you may have to settle for now or in another 10 years. Struggle means less land and more misery and utter loneliness.

At the moment, brothers, you would be lucky to secure a semblance of a state in that Gaza Strip into which you have all crowded, and a small part of the West Bank of the Jordan. It isn't going to get better. Time is running out even for this much land, so here are some facts, figures, and sound advice, friends.

You hold keys, which you drag out for television interviews, to houses that do not exist or are inhabited by Israelis who have no intention of leaving Jaffa, Haifa, Tel Aviv, or West Jerusalem. You shoot old guns at modern Israeli tanks and American-made fighter jets, doing virtually no harm to Israel while bringing the wrath of its mighty army down upon you. You fire ridiculously inept Kassam rockets that cause little destruction and delude yourselves into thinking this is a war of liberation. Your government, your social institutions, your schools, and your economy are all in ruins.

Your young people are growing up illiterate, ill, and bent on rites of death and suicide, while you, in effect, are living on the kindness of foreigners, including America and the United Nations. Every day your officials must beg for your daily bread, dependent on relief trucks that carry food and medicine into the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, while your criminal Muslim fundamentalist Hamas government continues to fan the flames of a war it can neither fight nor hope to win.

In other words, brothers, you are down, out, and alone in a burnt-out landscape that is shrinking by the day.

What kind of struggle is this? Is it worth waging at all? More important, what kind of miserable future does it portend for your children, the fourth or fifth generation of the Arab world's have-nots?

We, your Arab brothers, have moved on.

Those of us who have oil money are busy accumulating wealth and building housing, luxury developments, state-of-the-art universities and schools, and new highways and byways. Those of us who share borders with Israel, such as Egypt and Jordan, have signed a peace treaty with it and are not going to war for you any time soon. Those of us who are far away, in places like North Africa and Iraq, frankly could not care less about what happens to you.

Only Syria continues to feed your fantasies that someday it will join you in liberating Palestine, even though a huge chunk of its territory, the entire Golan Heights, was taken by Israel in 1967 and annexed. The Syrians, my friends, will gladly fight down to the last Palestinian Arab.

Before you got stuck with this Hamas crowd, another cheating, conniving, leader of yours,Yasser Arafat, sold you a rotten bill of goods — more pain, greater corruption, and millions stolen by his relatives — while your children played in the sewers of Gaza.

The war is over. Why not let a new future begin?

------------------------------------------
-
What do you think about this?

[firstJEWISHpope]

wow man this tells everything that needs to be told to the palestinians in Gaza and the west bank. It is too bad that this letter wont reach the palestinians beacause the people there are too poor to have computers.

[SouthAsian]

At 7/10/06 12:35 PM, firstJEWISHpope wrote: wow man this tells everything that needs to be told to the palestinians in Gaza and the west bank. It is too bad that this letter wont reach the palestinians beacause the people there are too poor to have computers.

Why do you have to add injury to insult to the Palestinians?Have you ever felt bad for the Palestinians who live in squalid conditions compared to the Israelis who currently live on American taxpayers dollar?

[lapis]

Haha, what the hell is this? We should see more of these "you lost, we don't care" letters.

Dear Non-Arab Sudanese "Brethren",

You have lost. Just flee the country and do your best to build up some sort of a life in an overcrowded refugee camp in Chad. The Janjaweed are stronger and any attempt at fighting them will be fruitless. You truly are fools if you think the international community gives a crap about some pit of a country in Africa. We did the right thing years ago and migrated to Europe, now we make decent livings as paperboys and garbage collectors and we quite frankly can't be arsed to do something about your situation or even speak out about it.

The war is over. Why not let a new future begin?

Yours sincerely,

Migrated blacks in Europe.

---

Admirable. The pinnacle of human morality.

[SouthAsian]

United Church of Canada's Toronto Branch Announces Boycott of Israeli Products

TORONTO, June 29, 2006 (WAFA)- United Church of Canada's Toronto branch announced a boycott Thursday of Israeli products and companies that do business with the Israeli Army.

Their decision also supports CUPE's (the National Public Employee's Union, Ontario branch) decision to join an international boycott of Israel to protest how the country has treated Palestinian refugees, Ynetnews said.

The Toronto Star reported that United Church of Canada's Toronto branch unveiled boycott of Israeli products, companies doing business with its military to end 'illegal occupation of Palestinian lands'.

The plan calls on Ottawa to require that products originating in the occupied territories be labeled differently from those coming from the rest of Israel.

The move comes on the heels of a similar controversial move by the Ontario wing of CUPE, which last month voted to support an international boycott campaign against Israel to protest its treatment of Palestinian refugees.

"We want to commend that position," Frances Combs, co-chair of the Toronto Conference of the United Church of Canada's task force on Israel was quoted by the Toronto Star as saying.

According to the report, the boycott is being undertaken only by the 300-church Toronto conference of the United Church, not the church as a whole.

The Toronto Star said Combs's task force was asked three years ago to devise a plan for implementing a resolution passed by the Toronto conference to pressure Israel to leave the occupied lands. That resolution has never been made public until now.

The plan called on Ottawa to require that products originating in the occupied territories be labeled differently from those coming from the rest of Israel, the report said, adding that the group asked that occupied-territory products be boycotted by church members.

According to the report, the group also wants the church and its members to divest from companies supplying the Israeli military, and will be pushing for the church as a whole to adopt similar measures at its general council meeting in Thunder Bay in August.

A 20-page resolution to be debated in Thunder Bay also calls on the church to invest in Palestinian companies, the Toronto Star said.

Bruce Gregersen, who heads international programs at the United Church's national office, told the Toronto Star that the occupation of parts of the West Bank and Gaza since 1967 has had a destabilising effect on the entire region.

http://english.wafa.ps/

[troubles1]

god loves israel ,but could not give a crap for muslims esp, palastine. time to move.

[SouthAsian]

At 7/10/06 06:43 PM, troubles1 wrote: god loves israel ,but could not give a crap for muslims esp, palastine. time to move.

Well actually God didn't do anything to help the Jews.It was the US who gave the land to the them.

[HighlyIllogical]

Holy crap! That essentially says everything that needs to be said. The Palestinians should just stop wasting time and money on killing others and spend it on building a society. Geez.

[Inglor]

At 7/10/06 07:47 PM, -MuTe_EcHo- wrote: Well actually God didn't do anything to help the Jews.It was the US who gave the land to the them.

The US had never given any land to Israel, nor it supported it for the first 27 years of existance. Stop taking credit for stuff we never did.

At 7/10/06 06:43 PM, troubles1 wrote: god loves israel ,but could not give a crap for muslims esp, palastine. time to move.

What the fuck is that supposed to mean?

At 7/10/06 12:35 PM, firstJEWISHpope wrote: wow man this tells everything that needs to be told to the palestinians in Gaza and the west bank. It is too bad that this letter wont reach the palestinians beacause the people there are too poor to have computers.

God you're such a dickface, first of all this was written in an actual newspaper, second of all a lot of Palastinians have access to, or own computers.

At 7/10/06 01:03 PM, lapis wrote: Haha, what the hell is this? We should see more of these "you lost, we don't care" letters.

This was written by an Egyptian writer with some Palastinian origins, he is muslim and Arab...

[MortifiedPenguins]

At 7/10/06 08:07 PM, GSgt_Liberal wrote: Holy crap! That essentially says everything that needs to be said. The Palestinians should just stop wasting time and money on killing others and spend it on building a society. Geez.

They try.

But they can't controll all of thier people.

Then thier people bomb or attack some Isreali settlement.

Then the Isrealis come in do more damage to the existing infrastructure and the like.

Then the Palistinians get pissed and attack again.

It's a never ending cycle.

[Guitarmy]

What I think is really funny here is that Palestenians aren't Arabs, you fuckhead.

[Inglor]

At 7/11/06 02:31 AM, Guitarmy wrote: What I think is really funny here is that Palestenians aren't Arabs, you fuckhead.

Not all Palastinians are Arabs, but most are...

[lapis]

At 7/10/06 10:08 PM, Inglor wrote:

At 7/10/06 01:03 PM, lapis wrote: Haha, what the hell is this? We should see more of these "you lost, we don't care" letters.

This was written by an Egyptian writer with some Palastinian origins, he is muslim and Arab...

That doesn't change anything, he is obviously not directly affected by the situation. My example was "written" by non-Arab Africans like the Darfur victims but that doesn't mean they can't write a "you lost, we don't care" letter. Besides, the author of your letter doesn't identify himself as Palestinian or he would have said "we lost", rather than "you lost".

[SouthAsian]

At 7/10/06 10:08 PM, Inglor wrote:

At 7/10/06 07:47 PM, -MuTe_EcHo- wrote:

The US had never given any land to Israel, nor it supported it for the first 27 years of existance. Stop taking credit for stuff we never did.

The US came to become Israels strongest ally and sole provider of military goods and economic benefits.We may have not given direct birth to the state but we did heavily influence it's conception.Doesn't matter wether we supported it from the beginning it's that we caused the problem by helping establish the state in such a volatile area..

[Inglor]

At 7/11/06 06:15 AM, -MuTe_EcHo- wrote: The US came to become Israels strongest ally

Doubtly honestly... strong in what way, all we ever did is get missles shot at them from the useless war at Iraq.

and sole provider of military goods

actually, currently Israel sells the US more military goods than vice versa, they also buy/sell stuff from/to other countries, once in a while we embargo a deal with china or russia or some other country.

and economic benefits.

True, but that's two sided, we only let them spent in on US products and stuff.

We may have not given direct birth to the state but we did heavily influence it's conception.Doesn't matter wether we supported it from the beginning it's that we caused the problem by helping establish the state in such a volatile area..

But we only started supporting it when we had a clear political interest to, it's not like the US is the saviour of Israel who is all thankful, Israelis did just fine, we interfered because russia did and we were in a cold war with them. Now we're pretty welcomed there, but still I don't think anyone there thanks the US for saving his ass.

At 7/11/06 04:40 AM, lapis wrote: Besides, the author of your letter doesn't identify himself as Palestinian or he would have said "we lost", rather than "you lost".

Interesting point, I haven't spotted that before, still, he is obviously not 'pro israeli' with his origins and is saying this from an arab world point of view

[Dragon-Smaug]

@Inglor:

I’m amazed. I’m glad someone in the Arab world is trying to convince the Palestinian terrorists to abandon terrorism.

At 7/10/06 07:47 PM, -MuTe_EcHo- wrote: It was the US who gave the land to the them.

Actually it was Britain.

@lapis’ comparison of the Palestinians to the Darfur refugees:

That is a very foolish comparison. I actually don't see any similarities between them besides the fact they have poor living conditions.

[lapis]

At 7/11/06 03:56 PM, Dragon_Smaug wrote: @lapis’ comparison of the Palestinians to the Darfur refugees:

That is a very foolish comparison. I actually don't see any similarities between them besides the fact they have poor living conditions.

If you can't see any more grounds for a comparison then you're the fool, not me. The obvious similarity is the message behind it, which is made up of two main parts:

1) The other party is stronger so just give up.
2) We, your"brothers", don't care, we have made our peace with it.

Nowhere does the author of the original letter mention the wrongdoings of Israel or the causes of the problem, nowhere does he say that the struggle of the Palestinians is not justified, he only comments on the fact that, since Israel has a more powerful army and future uprisings will only incur more retaliatory violence, the best thing the Palestinians could do is just turn back and let the Israelis annex land they didn't have before 1967. He asks his "brethren" whether or not the struggle is worth it, not whether or not it is righteous. In this aspect the Darfur situation is entirely comparable: the Janjaweed are stronger and fleeing the country might do more good for the non-Arabs than trying to stay and fight an already lost battle.

The message behind the two letters is realistic but also very weak of heart, that's the way I feel about it. I posted a second spin-off letter because I think a lot of people here like the original one simply because it specifically deals with the Israeli/Palestinian problem and wouldn't like it when the underlying message is extended to situations like Darfur.

[HighlyIllogical]

Oh, and, lapis, the "other party" also has international law behind it.

[Korriken]

right and wrong are a matter of perspective, some people believe that israel has the right to completely obliterate palestine, and take over, and some people thing palestine has the right to obliterate israel and take over.

personally, I think they should come to SOME kind of agreement instead of all this nonsense almost happening peace talks.

[HighlyIllogical]

At 7/11/06 06:15 AM, -MuTe_EcHo- wrote:

At 7/10/06 10:08 PM, Inglor wrote:

At 7/10/06 07:47 PM, -MuTe_EcHo- wrote:

The US came to become Israels strongest ally and sole provider of military goods and economic benefits.

We are because it's good to support liberal democracies.

We may have not given direct birth to the state but we did heavily influence it's conception.

Yeah, we support a democracy that is consistently under siege.

Doesn't matter wether we supported it from the beginning it's that we caused the problem by helping establish the state in such a volatile area..

None of the original Zionists wanted it anywhere else. That'd be contrary to the principle of ZIONism (caps are intentional...).

[HighlyIllogical]

At 7/10/06 12:54 PM, -MuTe_EcHo- wrote:

Why do you have to add injury to insult to the Palestinians?

Because the Arab world kicked them out, but Israel took them in? Because Israel gives them money? Because Israel doesn't attack first? Because Israel is a democracy?

Have you ever felt bad for the Palestinians who live in squalid conditions compared to the Israelis who currently live on American taxpayers dollar?

No. Because if the Palestinians spent as much time and money on improving their state of living and working towards peace as they do blowing up Israeli civillians and smuggling weapons in, then there would be peace. Israel doesn't live on American dollars. It lives on the high tech industry and tourism.

[lapis]

At 7/11/06 04:35 PM, GSgt_Liberal wrote: Oh, and, lapis, the "other party" also has international law behind it.

I'm not going to comment on the Israeli violations of, for example, the 4th Geneva Convention, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the resolutions regarding the separation wall again. Yugh, your comments are pretty much something I'd expect from someone who manages to post in 9 different topics in about 10 minutes, not much to look forward to.

[HighlyIllogical]

Oh, and lest we forget, Arafat, Mr. "Peace and Joy", stole $900 million dollars that the international community gave the Palestinians. And in all likelehood, the Hamas government is squandering its money to blow people up.

So shut the fuck up about the Palestinians living in squalor. They can fix it. We give them money and a chance for peace. They respond with bombs.

[MortifiedPenguins]

At 7/11/06 04:46 PM, GSgt_Liberal wrote:

So shut the fuck up about the Palestinians living in squalor. They can fix it. We give them money and a chance for peace. They respond with bombs.

And you respond by shooting kids playing soccer.

Sounds fair.

[HighlyIllogical]

Fenrus- Source please.

And Lapis, if you want to talk "geneva convention" and international law...

1. There is no freedom of the press in PA areas (Arabs in ISRAEL have this right)
2. There is no freedom of speech in PA areas (Arabs in ISRAEL have this right)
3. Homosexuals are persecuted and often victims of honor killings (Arabs in ISRAEL don't have to worry about this, and that's why many homosexual Palestinians move to Israel)
4. Geneva Convention-"1. Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria." Oh, look at that, it's Israelis being kidnapped, murdered or both. Not Shalit, but there's others. Oh, and those Qassams too.
5. "To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons...
(b) Taking of hostages." Doesn't get any more obvious than that.
6. "(c) Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment;" Oh, like dragging dead bodies through streets?
7. "An impartial humanitarian body, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, may offer its services to the Parties to the conflict." The ICRC is not being permitted to see Gilad Shalit (prohibited by Hamas). For all we know, he's dead or being tortured.
8.

"A. Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy:

(a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;

(b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;

(c) That of carrying arms openly;

(d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.
etc...
6. Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war."

Sorry, but no. The terrorists don't have to be treated as prisoners of war. They don't have a "fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance," "carrying arms openly," "commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates," OR "conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war".

9. "Each Party to a conflict is required to furnish the persons under its jurisdiction who are liable to become prisoners of war, with an identity card showing the owner's surname, first names, rank, army, regimental, personal or serial number or equivalent information, and date of birth. The identity card may, furthermore, bear the signature or the fingerprints, or both, of the owner, and may bear, as well, any other information the Party to the conflict may wish to add concerning persons belonging to its armed forces. As far as possible the card shall measure 6.5 x 10 cm. and shall be issued in duplicate. The identity card shall be shown by the prisoner of war upon demand, but may in no case be taken away from him." Gee, the Israeli soldiers have IDs, but the Palestinian terrorists don't.

10. "Spies and terrorists may be subject to civilian law or military tribunal for their acts and in practice have been subjected to torture and/or execution. The laws of war neither approve nor condemn such acts, which fall outside their scope." (Wikipedia. It's not a GREAT source, but it's quite true. Torture's not going on, but Israel is legally allowed to execute terrorists on the spot.)

All of this leads up to one thing. The Hamas and assorted terrorists are CRIMINALS, NOT SOLDIERS.

[MortifiedPenguins]

At 7/11/06 07:26 PM, GSgt_Liberal wrote: Fenrus- Source please.

http://www.truthout...ec/view.cgi/37/10248

http://news.bbc.co.u..dle_east/4428351.stm

[Korriken]

Personally, you would THINK the israelis would have sufficient things like... binoculars, to see what the hell was going on. Personally i think the israelis are just a little too overprotective of their borders, considering we continuously hear incidents of them killing palestinian civillians.

Either that or they think they're TRYING to provoke the palestinians.

[Dragon-Smaug]

At 7/11/06 04:26 PM, lapis wrote:

At 7/11/06 03:56 PM, Dragon_Smaug wrote: @lapis’ comparison of the Palestinians to the Darfur refugees:

That is a very foolish comparison. I actually don't see any similarities between them besides the fact they have poor living conditions.

If you can't see any more grounds for a comparison then you're the fool, not me. The obvious similarity is the message behind it, which is made up of two main parts:

1) The other party is stronger so just give up.
2) We, your"brothers", don't care, we have made our peace with it.

No, you misunderstand me. I clearly see how you made a letter in the same vein as the actual letter. Your 1 and 2 points show how those letters are similar. I already saw how the two letters were similar. I didn’t see how the Darfur refugees were in the same situation as the Palestinians, which is an opinion you implied. You go on to explain what I wanted you to explain below, in any case.

Nowhere does the author of the original letter mention the wrongdoings of Israel or the causes of the problem, nowhere does he say that the struggle of the Palestinians is not justified, he only comments on the fact that, since Israel has a more powerful army and future uprisings will only incur more retaliatory violence, the best thing the Palestinians could do is just turn back and let the Israelis annex land they didn't have before 1967. He asks his "brethren" whether or not the struggle is worth it, not whether or not it is righteous. In this aspect the Darfur situation is entirely comparable: the Janjaweed are stronger and fleeing the country might do more good for the non-Arabs than trying to stay and fight an already lost battle.

The Darfurians aren’t fighting, they are being killed. The author doesn't mention the orignins of the conflict because the terrorists and Arab countries were the originators.

The message behind the two letters is realistic but also very weak of heart, that's the way I feel about it. I posted a second spin-off letter because I think a lot of people here like the original one simply because it specifically deals with the Israeli/Palestinian problem and wouldn't like it when the underlying message is extended to situations like Darfur.

I’m saying you can’t extend it to situations like Darfur. Most importantly, because in the region of Palestine the Palestinians are the agressors, and in Darfur the Janjaweed are the agressors. People here don’t like it when the message is extended to situations like Darfur because it is a different situation. The Darfur refugees couldn't defend themselvs as well as Israel can defend itself.

At 7/11/06 04:36 PM, DarthTomato wrote: right and wrong are a matter of perspective, some people believe that israel has the right to completely obliterate palestine, and take over, and some people thing palestine has the right to obliterate israel and take over.

I hope no one believes that anyone has a right to obliterate any people. Israel certainly has no intention of doing anything like that, and anyone who believes either of those two beliefs about obliteration is as bad as a terrorist or a nazi.

personally, I think they should come to SOME kind of agreement instead of all this nonsense almost happening peace talks.

I agree. Unfortunately, I don’t know if it would work. There have been numerous agreements in past that were completely ignored by either all the terrorists or terrorist factions.

At 7/11/06 04:54 PM, Fenrus1989 wrote: And you respond by shooting kids playing soccer.

Sounds fair.

Quote from sources:

Israeli military sources said troops spotted five Palestinians inching toward the Israel-Gaza border a number of times and fired at them after they failed to heed calls and warning shots in the air to stop.

That sounds fair. Minors can be terrorists too, and not all Palestinians were observing the truce:

Israeli-Palestinian violence has dropped sharply. Palestinian militants fired a rocket at a town in southern Israel on Thursday, causing no casualties. On Saturday, militants fired mortar bombs at Jewish settlements in Gaza. No casualties were reported.

Witnesses say they were killed trying to retrieve a football in a no-go area near the Egypt border; Israel says they were involved in smuggling weapons.
The sources say that warning shots were ignored and then the teenagers were fired at, our correspondent says, noting these are the first Palestinian deaths in violence in Gaza for weeks.

A no-go area means a no-go area. When you are a Palestinian living near the border to Israel, you have to be aware of where you can’t go. 14 and 15 year olds could easily be terrorists pretending to merely be playing.

At 7/11/06 08:43 PM, DarthTomato wrote: Personally, you would THINK the israelis would have sufficient things like... binoculars, to see what the hell was going on. Personally i think the israelis are just a little too overprotective of their borders, considering we continuously hear incidents of them killing palestinian civillians.

<begin sarcasm>

We never hear incidents of Palestinians killing Israelis though, do we? We never hear of terrorists going into Israel and killing or kidnapping someone, do we? Israel shouldn’t be protective of its borders, because who’s trying to harm it?

</end sarcasm>

[lapis]

At 7/11/06 07:26 PM, GSgt_Liberal wrote: Fenrus- Source please.

And Lapis, if you want to talk "geneva convention" and international law...

This would have been a lot more interesting if it actually had a point. What did you just prove? That the Palestinian militants also violate international conventions? Did I ever claim the opposite? More importantly, does that excuse Israel's violations of international conventions like resorting to collective punishment, resettling of civilians in occupied territories, keeping children in administrative detention, locking up children among adults and discriminating based on ethnicity by keeping the age at which a child becomes adult at 18 for Israelis in the occupied territories but lowering it to 16 for Palestinian Arab children in the same area? (For sources read here, somewhere after page three I think, it's your topic so you should know what was written there anyway.)

You rebutted or proved nothing. "Israel has international law on it's side" remains to be a completely unfounded claim. Both sides have parts of international law on their side and both violate others. And if we get technical, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (alternatively here) calls all Member States to enforce the convention both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction. Palestine isn't an independent country, let alone a Member State, so the Israelis are responsible for seeing to it that what was laid down in the convention is being upheld in the occupied territories. So your points 1 and 2 for example say nothing more about the Palestinians than they do about Israel.

At 7/11/06 10:00 PM, Dragon_Smaug wrote: The Darfurians aren’t fighting, they are being killed.

Incorrect, the Darfurian militias of the SLA and JEM have been fighting all along. Although there have always been tensions in the region, the real conflict started in February 2003, when the SLA launched attacks on government positions in Darfur. They shot down a government helicopter in March and continued attacks during April, provoking a government response which led to the humanitarian crisis.

The author doesn't mention the orignins of the conflict because the terrorists and Arab countries were the originators.

If you go as far back in time as to name the Arab countries as originators of the conflict then I'll state the simple observation that if there had never been Zionism this whole problem wouldn't exist. The Aliyah immigrants knew very well that if you claim an independent, inherently Jewish country on land in which others had been a vast majority for hundreds of years it might the irk the locals, the fact that the immigrants had the backing of an Imperialist overseer does not negate this. Every conflict that has sprung up in the former Mandate territories over the past decades has been a direct result of Zionism for that matter.

As for the current problem with Shalit and the ensuing military intervention, there are a myriad of people who carry some responsibility for the situation and they can be found on both sides. The author of the original letter does not pass judgement however, he only observes that the fight is no longer worth it for the Palestinian Arabs since they are incapable of winning any sort of violent confict.

I’m saying you can’t extend it to situations like Darfur. Most importantly, because in the region of Palestine the Palestinians are the agressors, and in Darfur the Janjaweed are the agressors. People here don’t like it when the message is extended to situations like Darfur because it is a different situation. The Darfur refugees couldn't defend themselvs as well as Israel can defend itself.

Since the SLA started the conflict by attacking government military installations, and the Hamas started this particular incursion by capturing a soldier, I don't see how the Darfurians are any less of an aggressor than the Palestinians. The Sudanese government and their allies among the Janjaweed then proceeded to impose collective punishment on the civilians from whom the SLA and JEM recruit their members. The main difference I see is that while Israel only mildly violates international conventions the Janjaweed are severely violating international conventions. Then again, these violations were in no way the crux of the original letter so my comparison remains to be completely valid.

Just out of curiosity: what do you think the SLA and JEM should do, Dragon? Keep up the fight against a more powerful enemy or accept their loss, disarm and flee to Chad? Would it be realistic? Would it be the right thing to do?

[Cahenn]

Lol, this letter is pretty much bullshit, having an easy time telling them all what to do, having a hard time making them do it. As much as just having peace would benefit everyone, noone thus far figured how to do that. It'll be extremely hard to get every single palastinian to agree to that.