Yasser Arafat

[heavyLox]

what wonders now await the middle east.

power struggles here we go again.

[heavyLox]

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/images/0222-01.jpg

[GLIK$]

REST IN PAKISTAN

OH SHIT.

[JerryCurl]

http://cbg.nohomers.net/images/newgrab4.gif

Way to go, Mr. Current Events...

[Nekro]

Fuck him, maybe we can get somewhere with this shit now.

[WatcherSB]

Great! ~
power struggle that maybe US will help with, like most of the time.

[ClueTwo]

I heard some sope in my office talking about Arafat's wife and how she can't get the bajillions of dollars he has willowed away in his plentiful years...Anyone else hear this?

[fermentor666]

Fuck Yasser Arafat. Rest in Hell.

[seeking]

i dont give a shit, i liked arafat. dude was in a very bad position and did just about as well as anyone possibly could.
there was even (relative) peace in the region for a while under his leadership.

respect.

[BROWNer]

he was a criminal, but.....rip.
now if only the real slimebags would croak.

[fermentor666]

I disagree, he ruled via corruption and hate. He was so power-hungry that there is now a problem as to who will take his place because everyone below him was far below him.



Plus he's ugly.

[Weapon X]

PLO Style!

[uncle-boy]

no respect.

[ledzep]

Originally posted by fermentor666@Nov 11 2004, 01:44 AM
Plus he's ugly.
Quoted post


I always thought he was cute in a sickly chihuahua sort of way...

[KaBar2]

The thing that really pissed me off about Arafat was that he helped engineer the "permanent refugee status" of the Palestinians in various Middle Eastern countries. So for well over fifty years, the Palestinian people have remained in these squalid camps, which became breeding grounds for the most despicable sorts of hatred and terrorism, rather than declaring a cease fire and beginning to build normal lives. The West Bank could have easily become a Palestinian homeland, if Arafat and his fanatical minions had just been willing to live in peace.

But, long story short, they were not willing to accept the facts on the ground. The relentless terror attacks against Israel have just pushed the Israelis father and farther into a militaristic defense posture that guarantees things like armored gun towers with permenant sniper positions, electrified fences, concrete barrier walls to prevent infiltration, continuous occupation patrols by the IDF, rubber bullet fusillades, bulldozing houses used by terrorists, etc., etc.

I can understand why each side despises the other, after fifty years of killings, bombings, attacks and counter-attacks.

Maybe with Arafat gone, the peace process can get going again.

[spectr]

Originally posted by KaBar2@Nov 11 2004, 02:29 AM
The thing that really pissed me off about Arafat was that he helped engineer the "permanent refugee status" of the Palestinians in various Middle Eastern countries. So for well over fifty years, the Palestinian people have remained in these squalid camps, which became breeding grounds for the most despicable sorts of hatred and terrorism, rather than declaring a cease fire and beginning to build normal lives. The West Bank could have easily become a Palestinian homeland, if Arafat and his fanatical minions had just been willing to live in peace.

But, long story short, they were not willing to accept the facts on the ground. The relentless terror attacks against Israel have just pushed the Israelis father and farther into a militaristic defense posture that guarantees things like armored gun towers with permenant sniper positions, electrified fences, concrete barrier walls to prevent infiltration, continuous occupation patrols by the IDF, rubber bullet fusillades, bulldozing houses used by terrorists, etc., etc.

I can understand why each side despises the other, after fifty years of killings, bombings, attacks and counter-attacks.

Maybe with Arafat gone, the peace process can get going again.
Quoted post


RIP
Rahman Abdel-Raouf Arafat Al-Qudwa
AKA
Yaser Arafat
1929-2004 :sadcrying:
and since when has israel been about peace?? is my question?

[imported_Tesseract]

Originally posted by Nekro@Nov 10 2004, 11:30 PM
Fuck him, maybe we can get somewhere with this shit now.
Quoted post



Who exactly do you refer to as WE?.....

RIP arafat

[villain]

Funny how Arafat USED to be considered a freedom fighter by us and an ally. Things were relatively okay, there were still problems with an encroaching Isreali people upon the Palestinians, but since Sharon (a well known extremist) took office and legalized previously illegal settlements upon Palestinian land, all hell has broken loose. Is it a coincidence that Sharon took power around the same time that Bush did? Probably not.

This is pretty much what has really been going on.

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/mapstellstory.html

[seeking]

oh, did i ever mention 'fuck israel'?

seeks/just checking

[imported_El Mamerro]

Like I said before, no love for Arafat. Now Sharon needs to kick the bucket as well. THEN we might see some progress.

[Nic Thamaire]

[quote]ClueTwo




I heard some sope in my office talking about Arafat's wife and how she can't get the bajillions of dollars he has willowed away in his plentiful years...Anyone else hear this?[Quote]

ye,its what the story is about,she was living in europe for 4 years now,spending money in shoppin,and she haven't seen him for a while.

[Nekro]

Originally posted by Tesseract+Nov 11 2004, 09:38 AM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Tesseract - Nov 11 2004, 09:38 AM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteBegin-Nekro@Nov 10 2004, 11:30 PM
Fuck him, maybe we can get somewhere with this shit now.
Quoted post



Who exactly do you refer to as WE?.....

RIP arafat
Quoted post
[/b][/quote]
WE are people who want a peaceful solution to the conflict over there. I used it in the same context mams did, as a refrence to peole who want this whole bullshit scenario to be over.

[imported_b0b]

I am not 100% on all the facts, but am informed at the Isreali/Palestinian situation and I thought Yasser did an ok job. RIP to him

[seeking]

arafat was not standing in the way of peace. arafat was futilly trying to control a group of people who would rather kill (and die) than live in proverbial cages. he wasn't perfect, but that situation is so jacked, that if he was an angel, he'd be useless. neither gandhi or ghengis khan could have been as effective as he was (no matter how ineffective that was at times).

peace will happen when israel gets put in check.

[SteveAustin]

RIP

shits gonna get uglier.
we all know it.

although, I'd love to be proved wrong.

[!@#$%]

"I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter's gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand."

-- Arafat, addressing the United Nations on November 13, 1974


"The peace process has begun. And the peace train must reach the terminal because the forces for peace in the world will not allow the hands of the clock to be turned back to the times of calamity."

-- Arafat, before an Oxford University audience in 1996


"The daily Israeli aggression is offensive to our people, our villages, our refugee camps and holy sites which belong to Muslims and Christians. Our duty today, the duty of all of us is to continue the work that I started with my late partner Yitzhak Rabin, to protect the peace of the brave and to continue and complete that work."

-- Arafat addressing his followers in September 2003, on the tenth anniversary of the Oslo Accords

[Catch22]

The Palestinians should've kicked Arafat out long time ago. He is the main reason the palestinians live in the conditions they do. According to the International Monetary Fund, Arafat has diverted $900 million in Palestinian aid to a private bank accounts. No wonder he didn't want peace. As long as the Palestinians were being oppresed then he could steal all the money sent to help them.



Here's some more references:
● Times of London: 'Arafat's policy of divide and rule has not only neutralized Palestinian rivals but stymied any political and economic progress.... Mr Arafat's cynicism has now run its course, and stoked the present conflict.'

● MSNBC: 'The walls are closing in on Yassir Arafat...never before have so many disparate groups of Palestinians, including those from Arafat's own Fatah movement, formed such a united front on such a clearly definable issue - end corruption or else.'

● Arab Times (Kuwait): 'Mr Arafat should quit his position because he is the head of a corrupt authority. There is no point for him to remain in politics... He has destroyed Palestine. He has led it to terrorism, death and a hopeless situation... All Arab leaders know this fact. It won't be possible for us to gain from the Middle East road map for peace if this man remains in power.

● BBC quoted a Jenin Martyrs' Brigade spokesman: 'With all due respect to President Arafat, the Palestinian Authority cannot continue being monopolised by [Arafat] and his relatives...we have our own ways to show our rejection.

● Al-Quds Al-Araby (London): 'What is happening in Gaza is a healthy phenomenon because it is a revolution against corruption and the corrupt... This is a warning not only to Mr Arafat... but to all Arab regimes which subjugate their people by turning a deaf ear to their calls for comprehensive change.

● Pravda: Under the headline, 'Nobody trusts Arafat any more,' stated that 'Everything Yasser Arafat has been doing can be described as an illusion of reforms.

Icould post more but you all get the point. :evil2:

[imported_Tesseract]

Originally posted by Nekro+Nov 11 2004, 10:31 AM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Nekro - Nov 11 2004, 10:31 AM)</div><div class='quotemain'>Originally posted by Tesseract@Nov 11 2004, 09:38 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-Nekro@Nov 10 2004, 11:30 PM
Fuck him, maybe we can get somewhere with this shit now.
Quoted post



Who exactly do you refer to as WE?.....

RIP arafat
Quoted post

WE are people who want a peaceful solution to the conflict over there. I used it in the same context mams did, as a refrence to peole who want this whole bullshit scenario to be over.
Quoted post
[/b][/quote]


Word, in that context, WE had no problems with Arafat or atleast WE had and still have bigger problems with Sharon. Its easy to sit back and discredit whoever you want from your computer but its atleast ignorant not to realise just how much it takes to be Arafat in Arafat's shoes for so many years. This is not a personal attack to you Nekro but i get pissed when all shit goes in the same bucket. We want peace in the middle east? WE want israel to back the fuck off. Its that simple.

[Nekro]

Chill out, nobody is blameless over there by any means. I'll be just as happy when Sharon and all the crazies on both sides back the fuck off and let some rational people negotiate.

[seeking]

rational people were negotiating....then the israelis assasinated their guy and elected a war criminal.

arafat very well have been corrupt but to blame him for the current plight of the palestinians is like blaming bill clinton for the increase in oral sex amongst high schoolers.
shit was going on before and it will be going on after.

[villain]

According to the UN, the stepped up occupation of palestine and imposition of curfews, closures, a mounting humanitarian conflict, and whatnot had increased the unemployment rate to 60%.
There are even reports of Isreal destroying UNRWA installations.
Most of the mounting violence and occupation has occured within the last 4 years. Bush is dumb, Sharon is an extremist, and this is fucked.

Here's the UN press release:

http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2002/gaspd251.doc.htm

[imported_Tesseract]

Nekro thats just great, you wanna weight up blameless or not? start from scratch. ISREAL STOLE THE LAND AND AFTER WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM BY THE NAZIS THEY'RE 1000 TIMES WORSE THAN THEM TODAY. i guess thats a good measure.

[seeking]

haha, im not so sure i'd go with 1000x's worse than the nazi's, ha, but they're pretty damn bad.

mostly i tend to just blame the blacks and gays though. you wanna talk about ignorance, just take a look at gay-on-gay violence. it's out of hand. did you know that 9 out of 10 gay males will be sodomized in their life?! that's just insane. something needs to be done to stop numbers like that.

[Nekro]

You want to start from scratch?

How about this: Israel was allotted some land in palestine by the UN after six million of them were systematically killed in Europe. They were allotted 6% of the British colony in palestine. Even before Israel became a country the Palestinians were trying to destroy it. There were terrorist attacks on both sides. The Israelis fought back and took a ton of land that they weren't supposed to get (they ended up with 77% of the colony). Then the Muslim countries around them tried to invade and destroy them a few times, starting on the day Israel became a country. At this point Israel hit back and defended themselves against enemies hell bent on their destruction.

That's not to say that the israelis haven't done some brutal, fucked up shit since '47, but come the fuck on. 1000 times worse than the fucking Nazis? That's just some ridiculous, over the top shit right there. They might have done some extroardinarily stupid shit (settlements, not giving back the territory they won in their various wars), but they're not systematically exterminating Palestinians by any stretch of the imagination.

There's been injustice on both sides of this, but I don't think the Israeli leadership is the moral equivalent of Hitler.

[Rodney Trotter]

Thursday, November 11, 2004 19:42 IST

JNW HEADLINE NEWS

Homosexual Arafat said dying of AIDS
By Jerusalem Newswire Editorial Staff

November 7th, 2004

‘So may all your enemies fall, O God!’

World clings to ‘man of peace’ illusion

Law forbids monument to Arafat in Israel
JERUSALEM - Based on the symptoms Yasser Arafat is suffering from, as well as accounts of his rampantly homosexual past, political pundits and medical experts believe the blood-soaked Muslim terror chief is dying from complications related to the AIDS virus.

Arafat has been hospitalized outside of Paris for more than a week with blotchy skin, a low platelet count that is affecting his immune system, decreased mental capacity and a considerable loss of weight – all indicators of the presence of AIDS.

His homosexual tendencies have been attested to by numerous sources, including a now infamous set of surveillance videos taken by his former communist allies in Romania showing Arafat in perverted encounters with his bodyguards.

Though he reportedly slipped into a terminal coma last week, Arafat’s wife is said to be keeping him connected to life support long enough to gain access to the vast wealth he had horded over the years.

“Palestinian” officials in Ramallah suggested his death would be officially announced on Tuesday to coincide with the Muslim holy day of Lailat al-Kader, when, according to Islamic lore, the Koran was given to the Prophet Mohammed.

Israel has stated Arafat would not be allowed burial in Jerusalem or Judea and Samaria, but have granted tacit approval to inter the “father of modern terrorism” in the Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, PA Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia and former premier Mahmoud Abbas work to secure their positions atop the “Palestinian” power structure by seeking unity with terror groups such as Hamas.

Arafat, however, has reportedly named openly anti-Israel PLO official Farouk Kadoumi as his successor.

All signs point to AIDS

"We know [Arafat] has a blood disease that is depressing his immune system. We know that he has suddenly dropped considerable weight - possibly as much as one-third of all his body weight. We know that he is suffering intermittent mental dysfunction. What does this sound like?” Israel Insider quoted former White House speechwriter David Frum as asking.

Writing for National Review Online, Frum blasted the mainstream media for their “bias” in refusing to question whether or not Arafat was infected with the killer disease.

Frum is only the latest of a growing number of political pundits and medical experts that have speculated Arafat is dying from the AIDS virus.

Intelligence analyst John Loftus told ABC News last month that the CIA had known for years Arafat was infected with AIDS, and it was largely due to this fact Washington had urged Israel not to eliminate him.

“It was deemed better to have Arafat discredited as a homosexual,” Loftus said.

Israel Insider notes that while “homosexuality is rife in the Arab world, it is at least officially consider a sin and a crime, and regarded - especially in fundamentalist circles - as a mark of great shame and depravity.”

Roaring tiger

Allegations regarding Arafat’s homosexuality have been fueled primarily by evidence provided by his former communist allies in Romania.

During the 1970’s and 1980’s, Arafat was a regular in Nicolae Ceausescu’s Bucharest, where Romanian intelligence and its KGB overlords were providing the PLO with the means to gain legitimacy in the West.

Little did Arafat know that Lt.-Gen. Ion Pacepa, the deputy chief of Romania's intelligence service, had rigged his guest suites with surveillance equipment.

In his book “Red Horizons”, Pacepa unveils Arafat as an insatiable homosexual by recalling a telephone conversation with Constantin Munteaunu, a general assigned to the PLO.

"I just called the microphone monitoring center to ask about the 'Fedayee,'" Arafat's code name, explained Munteaunu. "After the meeting with the Comrade, he went directly to the guest house and had dinner. At this very moment, the 'Fedayee' is in his bedroom making love to his bodyguard. The one I knew was his latest lover. He's playing tiger again. The officer monitoring his microphones connected me live with the bedroom, and the squawling almost broke my eardrums. Arafat was roaring like a tiger, and his lover yelping like a hyena."

Pacepa wrote that after reading the full intelligence reports, “I felt a compulsion to take a shower whenever I had been kissed by Arafat, or even just shaken his hand."

Where’s the money?

For days Arafat has reportedly been hooked to life support machines, after suffering a full collapse of all vital organs.

His wife, Suha, is said to be in control of when the plug is pulled.

But before doing that, Suha and top PA officials hope to gain access to the vast hordes of money to which Arafat alone had access for the past 30 years.

It was on the strength of these finances and his sole control over them that Arafat maintained his position.

According to reports, Arafat has as much as $5 billion stashed away in Swiss bank accounts. Most of it came from the PLO’s long years of drug trafficking in Lebanon, but much was also pilfered from international aid meant to help the “Palestinians” establish a state.

“It is amazing that some US officials still see the Palestinian Authority as a partner even after US congressional records revealed authenticated PLO papers signed by Arafat in which he instructed his staff to divert donors' money to projects benefiting himself, his family and his associates,” Issam Abu Issa, founder of the Palestine International Bank, said in a report for Middle East Quarterly.

When asked by Qureia and Abbas last week as he boarded a Jordanian military helicopter in Ramallah how to access the funds needed to keep the PA functioning, Arafat simply replied, “I'm still alive, thank God, so don't worry.”

Postponed death announcement

An official announcement regarding Arafat’s death has also reportedly been postponed until Qureia and Abbas have are able to secure their positions atop the “Palestinian” power structure.

Over the weekend, Qureia met with representatives from Hamas and other terrorist organizations in order to persuade them to join the Palestinian Authority under his leadership.

Hamas instead demanded the formation of a power sharing government in which it would retain its independent status. Qureia rejected the idea.

One official source in Ramallah suggested Arafat’s death would be announced on Tuesday, to coincide with the Muslim holy day of Lailat al-Kader, when, according to Islamic lore, the Koran was given to the Prophet Mohammed.

Burial site battle lines

Whenever Arafat’s death does become official, the first point of contention that is to mark a tumultuous aftermath to his death will likely be over his burial site.

Israel says it is ready to let Arafat be interred in the Gaza Strip, but that Jerusalem and even Judea and Samaria are off limits.

Prior to his death, Arafat had expressed a desire to be buried atop Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. “Palestinian” officials are expected to demand Israel acquiesce to this wish.

Israeli Justice Minister Yosef Lapid told the Associated Press last Friday that “Jerusalem is the city where Jewish kings are buried, not Arab terrorists.”

http://www.jnewswire.com/library/article.php?articleid=350

[imported_Tesseract]

Originally posted by Nekro@Nov 11 2004, 12:53 PM


That's not to say that the israelis haven't done some brutal, fucked up shit since '47, but come the fuck on. 1000 times worse than the fucking Nazis? That's just some ridiculous, over the top shit right there. They might have done some extroardinarily stupid shit (settlements, not giving back the territory they won in their various wars), but they're not systematically exterminating Palestinians by any stretch of the imagination.

There's been injustice on both sides of this, but I don't think the Israeli leadership is the moral equivalent of Hitler.
Quoted post


So you have a state that is rich as fuck backed up by the US more than anyone else, never questioned for their nuclear project while other countries in the area get the shit kicked out of them for a hunch of WMD's. They do exterminate palestinians SYSTEMATICALLY and build walls to protect them selfs in territories that dont belong to them.
On the other hand you have a poor state that NOONE recognises while each member of it is constantly a suspect....if those dont ring a bell i cant persuade anyone.
Demonising hitler as being something so unique that will never happen again is easy. If anyone, Israelis should be the most humanitarian people for obvious reasons, instead they behave in the most arrogant way they could.

[seeking]

ugh. i really dont even know how to reply to that, other than to just shake my head and be reminded how much i cant stand israel and how it makes it difficult to keep the 'enemy' in focus, and not let my frustration run over the cup.

i am very interested to see how much money arafat did have stashed away though. it's hard to imagine why he would want to embezzel 5 billion dollars from his people, and how those around him would let him get away with it. palestinians blow up innocent israeli's to prove a point, you think they're going to be much kinder to a palestinian that is doing them direct harm? i kind of doubt it.

[!@#$%]

israel was not founded by the u.n.

there were [very few] instrumental jewish politicians at work in europe post WW1
they secured land formerly belonging to the Ottoman Empire by the winners of WW1, including Britain and U.S.A.

many of the inhabitants of the former ottoman and persian empires were promised sovereignity by the very same leaders who would take that land and later hand it over.




The Middle East during World War One
By Professor David R Woodward

The war ended with the British occupying the territory that was to become Iraq, Palestine, Trans-Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. With the Ottoman Empire destroyed, Russia paralysed by foreign intervention and civil war, and French influence limited somewhat by their minor military role in the Middle East, Britain's military success made her the dominant power in the region. The resulting settlement, which fostered an instability that continues to be a source of conflict today, generated much controversy at the time and has continued to do so ever since.

Employing bags of gold, the diplomacy of Lawrence of Arabia, and promises of Arab independence, the British had encouraged an Arab uprising in 1916 against the Turks. Although the Hashemite Arabs were rewarded with considerable territory, they and other Arab nationalists believed that they had been 'robbed' when the British did not fully deliver on their pledges of independence. They believed that the western powers, especially the British, had acted with arrogance, drawing borders and creating nations with little or no regard for the wishes of the local inhabitants.

The fate of Palestine, occupied by the British, especially provoked Arab frustration and anger. (In 1917 the British Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour, had supported a Jewish home in Palestine.)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/war/wwone/middle_east_07.shtml

read and learn.

[Nekro]

I usually don't get involved in these discussions because everyone thinks that "their" side is gettin screwed by the other side in some monumental fashion. Both sides are wrong, and there's this self-perpetuating spiral of bullshit where the actions of one side justify the actions of another until everyone's forgotten why they're fighting in the first place.

[villain]

If Arafat died of AIDs then test results would show that. He was not killed by poison either according to doctors. He came to the hospital with intestinal problems. He had kidney and liver failure, coma, coma, coma, his heart stopped... he's dead. The doctors also said that being trapped in his HQ for 3 1/2 years contributed to his condition. Isn't it strange how Arafat was beseiged almost the entire time Bush has been in office?

Anyways.... After Arafat.... Who knows? A new leader could kiss the butt of Isreal and gain US and Isreali favor (however I don't think the settlement will stop as long as Sharon is in power) while risking his own credibility amongst the palestinian people. Or he could demand a return of the Oslo treaty and eastern jerusalem like Arafat was doing and they will continue to take a hostile stance against each other.
When you think about it, even the Oslo accord is generous because it allows Isreal to keep land it aquired previous to it... what was it? 1967 I think. Following that 7 year war or whatever.

The situation is all fucked. I don't believe Arafat was a closet homo and embezzling money.... however his wife did recieve a stipend of 100,000$ a month. wowzers. So alot of people were upset about that i guess.... but it is simply not true to say that she didn't represent the Palestinian people. She always has.

[imported_El Mamerro]

Originally posted by Nekro@Nov 11 2004, 02:05 PM
I usually don't get involved in these discussions because everyone thinks that "their" side is gettin screwed by the other side in some monumental fashion. Both sides are wrong, and there's this self-perpetuating spiral of bullshit where the actions of one side justify the actions of another until everyone's forgotten why they're fighting in the first place.
Quoted post


A+

[imported_Tesseract]

And thats why its so damned important to remember what was going down in the first place.

[villain]

Yeah props to symbols for the history lesson. That helped consolidate alot of the bits and pieces I know.
For instance, as I've said before, that those jews are not even native to that land. They are european jews. And the native Jews, the Essenes are no more.
So the religious extremists over there are saying they have some kind of divine right to that land.
Sheesh there's an awful lot of religious extremism going on.

[Jesus Velour]

AHHAHAHa! ....BROWNer said "he was a criminal, but.....rip."

[BROWNer]

people can dilly dally over what happened before, but the facts are that the palestinians have been under a brutal 'occupation' for 3+decades and you can directly thank israel and more importantly, the united states for that and the ramifications.

[Weapon X]

damn, reading the responses on this thread opens my eyes to how Americans = Jews, save for some people. Anyway, I've spoken with Palestinians who didn't like him, but understood that he was their symbol, and now, that symbol is gone. The voiceless are now headless, sort of.

[imported_Tesseract]

haha, that was great.

[mental invalid]

the bush admin really needs to sharpen it diplomacy skills...

so far i have been unimpressed not only with their sour public statements, but also with who they sent to the funeral...

just cause this is an opportunity to move the process along or maybe you did not agree with the man does not mean you cant put on a more somber public face and atleast acknowledge his role for his own people...

i mean honestly, isnt this shit 101 by now....

roe, watching common sense take off around the corner

[seeking]

who'd they send and what have they said?

[imported_El Mamerro]

CALL TO ACTION:

I made a statement on the Cigar Aficionado board regarding Arafat's death and how now we need Sharon to get the fuck out or die as well. I received the following reply:

El Mamerro,

Sharon? Youv'e got a beef with him? For defending his people, perhaps? Maybe you see the issue as one group evenly fighting another, but without rehashing the whole mideast trouble here, there are some things you should know. First, Arafat INVENTED terrorism, going back to the 1972 Olympics, when he was involved in the murder of innocent Israeli atheltes. He INVENTED the hijacking of airplanes and advocated an armed struggle. That armed struggle included the deliberate killing of innocents, including women, children and babies.

Sharon, like Bush, understood the nature of Arafat's terrorism and fought it. Not by the deliberate killing of innocents, but rather by the targeted killing of terrorists. Would you criticize Sharon for defending his own people?

Don't equate a murderous terrorist dictator with the elected prime minister of the only democracy in the Middle East.


I want to make this guy eat his words with a side order of his own ass, but I need help formulating a proper answer. Anybody up to it? No personal attacks allowed.

[seeking]

correct me if im wrong, but wasnt the 72 olympics a result of the conflict between israel and lebanon? and wasnt the action, while 'improper' to the say the least, somewhat justified as a response to the lack of attention the world was paying to the lebanese people? i dont know much about that whole thing, but thats what i seem to remember.

as far as him 'inventing' terrorism, i dont know enough about modern terrorism to be of any use, but i'd be more than willing to bet any 'inventing' would have more likely been done by us, ie: school of the americas.
also, how does your friend want to explain mosad (sp)?

one good angle could be israels proven propencity for using israeli's to conduct bombings that they then blame on islamic groups. this has been PROVEN on atleast two occasions that i can think of, and dozens more suspected (all over the world, including latin america and several very suspicious events surrounding 9.11). this doesnt get arafat off the hook for anything, but it certainly casts doubt as to israel's 'innocence'.

honestly, i'd say you're going to be fighting an uphill battle here. those dudes are never going to listen, ever. anyone that believes in the rightesousness of israel is already a lost cause.

[seeking]

http://images.animationfactory.com/animations/sports/miscellaneous/girl_walking_with_palestine_flag/girl_walking_with_palestine_flag_lg_wm.gif
haha

[seeking]

ok, i take the first part back, they were plaestinians. i dont know why i thought they were lebanese.

it's funny, if you do a google search on the 72 olympics, all you get are stories about how peter jennings is pro-palestinian. i never knew that. now i have a favorite journalist. awesome!

[heavyLox]

team america "FUCK YEAH"; so what we need to do is take over both Isreal and palestine; kick everyone out and not let them back in until they have made up.

General Heavy says, " jews and arabs go stand in the corner until you can talk calmly!"

[seeking]

"It takes a peculiar combination of killing and public relations to run a country."

read that while trying to find info on the 72 olympics. thought it was pretty dope in a very simple way.

why is it so difficult to find 'unbiased' info on anything dealing with israel?
oh right, cause it's israel.

anymore hoopla about arafat dying of aids?

[GamblersGrin]

NEWBORN TWINS NAMED YASSER AND ARAFAT

http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/1104/186905.html

Newborn Twins Named Yasser and Arafat
UPDATED - Thursday November 11, 2004 2:25pm


GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - When Safra Hassan went into labor Thursday, she told her husband she wanted to name their child Yasser after Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who died hours earlier.

It was only in the delivery room at Gaza's Shifa Hospital that Hassan, 32, discovered she was carrying twin boys.

"I looked at my husband and I said, we will call them Yasser and Arafat," she told The Associated Press. "I'm so proud that the name of Yasser Arafat will be in my house every day, just as the name of Yasser Arafat will be in every Palestinian house forever."

The boys, each weighing about 4 1/2 pounds, are doing well, doctors said. Safra Hassan and her husband, Rafiq, have two other children, a 7-year-old daughter and a 5-year-old son.

Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press.
All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

[ledzep]

^that reminds me... In Nicaragua during the Sandinista years, alot of people named their Kids Daniel (after Daniel Ortega), Breshnev, Engel, as well as a few others...

[Ferris Bueller]

It is not common for a single person to have such a widespread impact on a group of people. I was reading articles on the BBC about the memorial service in Cairo and the burial procession in Ramallah, and it was something else. Representatives from over 50 countries were in Cairo to pay their respects, and Bill Clinton was rumored to have been there as well. Mobs of people poured into the streets to express their adoration and sorrow upon the arrival and burial of Arafat...just something else. Only few people can and have had such a huge impact (Princess Di, Mother Teresa). It is truly a beautiful thing.
RIP Yasser Arafat.

[villain]

I believe the Lebanese carried out the first airline hijacking. The Lockerbie bombing or something like that.
Anyways... it has always been clear to me that po' folk use terrorism cause they don't have ICBMs....

[Nekro]

For real, my friend's aunt died in that Lockerbie thing. Last year their family got a ton of money from Libya. They bought new cars and built an addition on their house.

In other news, there will be no peace in the middle east until BOTH sides want peace. That is my position.

[BROWNer]

^obviously, BUT with one elementary fundament...that the US stops its continual and unilateral blockage of a political settlement that the whole world supports.

mamerro, i'd start with the sabra and shatila massacres(which the un general assembly called genocide) as a jump off..here's a backgrounder on sharon..take it or leave it: http://www.zmag.org/ZMag/articles/jun02herman.html
here you can peruse photos of the massacre to drive home your argument that sharon is a chump: http://www.littleredbutton.com/sabra_shatila/

[BROWNer]

and here's an online book of the sabra and shatila massacres..eyewitness accounts from 91 international correspondents: http://www.littleredbutton.com/lebanon/

[Weapon X]

Originally posted by seeking@Nov 12 2004, 11:03 AM
honestly, i'd say you're going to be fighting an uphill battle here. those dudes are never going to listen, ever. anyone that believes in the rightesousness of israel is already a lost cause.
Quoted post


no doubt. I've told this story before, and I'll say it again.

In high school, I had a substitute teacher in religion class saying to this mad Christian student how Hitler was an evil, disgusting man. I butted into the conversation by saying that Hitler, while he was an evil, disgusting man, did what he thought was right for the German people, so he was, to me, relatively noble.

This teacher went off, saying how I need to get my facts straight and what not.

Then, my Egyptian buddy with the gold rolex came in, heard something about Hitler, and sensing that the teacher was a Jew, said "Miss, Ariel Sharon is Hitler 2001".

The teacher went off again and one could tell just how hard she was to keep from saying something she'd regret. But she did go off somewhat, and told us that we were ignorant, and that Sharon is a great man who has world peace and happiness in mind, and that he is not at all a war monger, or anything to that effect.

I tell her "psssh, puhlease! Maybe I don't get the correct facts, but the whole world, minus the US and Israel can't be talking out of their ass!"

Her response? She pulls out a copy of Toronto Jewish Weekly Newspaper. "THIS is where I get MY facts from! These people know what they're talking about!"

I forgot what I said after, but it was something along the lines of 'why can't a Jew ever surprise me?'

I got sent to the office for being a Nazi sympathizer.


It's the way it is. I don't know if it stems from the Crusades, or the early 20th century, or Antiochus or some shit, or if it's in their blood, but Jews/Israelis (they're only not Israeli when it conveniences their argument) are thick headed as fuck when it comes to the despicable actions of their people.

[ledzep]

Weapon X:

"I got sent to the office for being a Nazi sympathizer."

:haha: it can happen to the best of us.

[imported_Tesseract]

weapon x, awesome man, awesome

[Weapon X]

...The world also acknowledges that there was far more to Arafat than the Israeli-American narrative would have you believe.

He forged a national identity for his people, who'd been displaced by the creation of Israel and shunned by Arab states. He produced a nationalist ideology free of communism, Ba'athism or pan-Arabism. He created the umbrella institutions under which the fractious Diaspora gathered.

He made some, but not all, of the needed compromises: implicitly recognizing Israel in 1974; accepting Resolution 242 of the United Nations in 1988 and hence the legitimacy of Israel within the pre-1967 borders; and signing the Oslo peace accords in 1993.

As the famous Israeli writer Uri Avnery wrote last week, Arafat saved his people from oblivion. But he also left them in a state of hopelessness.

His failings are well recorded: self-centred, undemocratic, corrupt, tolerant of terrorism and incapable of making peace.

But those failings have not eclipsed, for most people in the world, including Canadians, the other reality: the illegal Jewish settlements; the penning of Palestinians into ever smaller areas; the demolition of their homes and olive groves; the collective punishments that cripple their movement and jeopardize their livelihood.

All this has been done in the name of security, which, not surprisingly remains elusive.

Much of the world also accepts that it was not all Arafat's fault. The Likud party governments of Benjamin Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon helped derail Oslo.

Uri Avnery: "Arafat's (and our) tragedy was that whenever he came closer to a peaceful solution, the Israeli governments withdrew it."

In fact, many Arabs excoriated Arafat for signing Oslo, which postponed the most serious issues — final borders, the fate of refugees and Jerusalem.

"Oslo transformed what should have been a negotiated outcome into a wish list," said Clovis Maksoud, former Arab diplomat and now professor at American University in Washington, D.C.

As with everything else that Arafat was involved in, there are parallel narratives on the 2000 Camp David peace talks as well.

The Arab world did not see Israeli leader Ehud Barak's offer as generous as the mythology now surrounding it. And there's consensus that Bill Clinton should have lined up Saudi Arabia and Egypt to steel Arafat's back for the needed concessions.

Similarly, Arafat was not the only one to frustrate his prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, who resigned after four months.

Sharon undermined him as well, says Yossi Beilin, one of the Israeli architects of Oslo.

In short, America and Israel found nothing right with Arafat and most Palestinians found little wrong with him. The truth lay in between...

-an excerpt from an article by Haroon Siddiqui of the Toronto Star

[villain]

There's already been assassination attempts in palestine. But then again theres an agreement being signed with isreal? wtf is going on?

[villain]

Oh I should mention U of M prof. of middle eastern studies website

http://www.juancole.com

[fatalist]

One terrorist is dead and another one will take his place

[mental invalid]

Quoted post


no doubt. I've told this story before, and I'll say it again.

In high school, I had a substitute teacher in religion class saying to this mad Christian student how Hitler was an evil, disgusting man. I butted into the conversation by saying that Hitler, while he was an evil, disgusting man, did what he thought was right for the German people, so he was, to me, relatively noble.
Quoted post
[/quote]


i got into trouble in 8th grade cause i said that regardless of what you think of the man, you gotta give a guy credit who can take power and control like that, run a nation and almost conquer all of europe...

i was in the process of being torn to shreads for even considering such a notion, when a jewish kid in my class stood up and agreed with me...

end of discussion...


seeks, not sure who they sent but i found this:

"There will probably be a mid-level representative at Arafat's funeral," a State Department official said. "The official could be Assistant Secretary of State William Burns."

boooohhhh-urrrnnnnnns!!!

"Bush saying he saw an "opening for peace" with the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat."

thats what im saying...we all know that to be the case...why not just say, we understand what he meant to his people, and though we had some disagreements, we offer our condolences to the palestinians...

i mean what about the old saying if you dont have anything nice to say....

[!@#$%]

haha.

if they are on our side, they are "freedom fighters"
if they aren't on our side they are "terrorists"
and if we don't understand the nature of their conflict, or are too far removed from it too understand it, we say "both sides are wrong"

fuck that.
right v wrong doesn't matter in this situation.
both palestinians and jews are persecuted people.
if america stopped funding israel, the middle east would swallow it whole.
the region does not want to support an israeli state right now, only america and israel do.
it paints the u.s. and israel as agressors.
if the agression [of enforcing our agenda] doesn't end, the conflict won't ever end either.

the western world promised autonomy within the middle east.
then it drew a bunch of borders and installed puppet dictatorships.
why people didn't see revolution coming a mile away is beyond me.
except now, the revolutinaries are terrorists because they'll stop at nothing.

[imported_Tesseract]

amen symbols..i love it when you do that