[CesseOveldset]

Political Commentary
by Rabbi Ariel Bar Tzadok


There is a wise old saying attributed to Abraham Lincoln: \"How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Answer, four. Calling a tail a leg does not make it a leg.\"

Sometimes, the simplicity of plain old rational logic is lost in our complicated world. This example of the dog can be very accurately applied to the present round of Middle East peace attempts, called the \"Road Map.\"

Let us rephrase old Abe\'s question. How can the Road Map bring peace between Israel and the so-called Palestinians? Answer, it cannot. Palestinians truly do not want to live in peace with Jews.

You can call the Road Map a way to bring peace, but this is like saying a tail is a leg. Simple, plain logic shows it simply is not true, no matter how hard you want to believe the opposite.

The problem with the so-called Palestinians will not be solved with the creation of a Palestinian state. Such a state could have been created numerous times in the past, with Israeli leaders, ready to surrender almost everything. However, the Palestinians, as Abba Eban used to say, never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Nothing has changed, and nothing will change until we have the courage to address the real issue.

The real issue is that the most virulent forms of nazi-like anti-semitism are still being taught daily in all Palestinian/Moslem schools. This problem has nothing to do with \"land for peace.\" It is not limited to the Middle East. Indeed, in a recent article published in the New York Daily News, such racial hatred against Jews is taught in Islamic private schools right here in the U.S., within English language textbooks.

The problem is not one of \"land for peace.\" The problem is one of hatred. Simply put: we must address the virile hatred of Jews swallowed whole in every corner of the Moslem world today. Fight the hate and kill it. Maybe when Moslems and Palestinians stop hating Jews, they may accept living in peace side by side with us.

As long as the Palestinians and their Moslem brethren continue to hate the Jews, this entire planet will not be big enough to hold us both. Address the hate or we will ultimately have to face a global \"shootout at the OK Corral,\" where only one side will come out alive. Address the hate, or WWIII is unavoidable.

For those of us who truly wish to live in a sincere peace, with all people everywhere, we must realize, accept and act upon the real problem. The problem is not one of land or statehood. Moslems worldwide are not trying to destroy America and Western Civilization because of Israel. The creation of a Palestinian State would not have prevented 9/11; not will it prevent the next horrific terror attack that we do not have a name for yet.

Old Abe already told us a tail is not a leg regardless of what you say. The Road map will not bring peace, regardless of what you say. As sorry as it is, we Middle East watchers are ready to watch the next \"season\" of Middle East sitcom drama, the newest episodes in the continuing story of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Like an afternoon Soap Opera, the drama will continue, politicians will continue to talk, new secret schemes will be hatched, and Jews will continue to be murdered. On and on, so the story goes.

The Road Map plan is not worth the paper it is written on. More than this, I believe the politicians in Israel and around the world know this. They will nonetheless pursue the Road Map because it is the easiest path to follow.

It is easier to throw a dog a bone that to train it to behave.

It is easy to call a tail a leg, but it still does not make it so. It is easy to say the Road Map will bring peace. Time will prove that this will not be the case.

Mr. Sharon, like Ehud Barak, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin, will fail to bring peace to Israel simply because, like his predecessors, he is trying to cure a cancer with a Band-Aid.

The only way to remove a cancer is with serious intervention and surgery. The only way to remove the cancer of Palestinian/ Moslem hatred of Jews and Western Civilization is with serious intervention and surgical strikes to remove its head. Strikes against Afghanistan and Iraq are a beginning, but there is a tremendous amount of work left to be done before the battle against global terrorism fired by the anger of racial and religious hatred is won.

Creating a Palestinian State now will only fire these flames of hatred and world terrorism. Do not call a tail a leg. At best, you are mistaken; at worst, you are a liar. First, address the hate, then the State.

Peace,
Rabbi Ariel Bar Tzadok
KosherTorah.com - Yeshivat Benei N\'vi\'im

[tramdoctorsss]

The leadership under Arafat has been fanning the flames of hatred for years. In this he has been supported by neigboring Arab states who welcome conflict there as a way to divert attention from their own misrule.

With the forceable removal of Saddam in Iraq and the positioning of two powerful US military land armies there, other nations are getting the message that the US intends to make fundamental changes in the governments of the region. Hence, external support for Arafat is fading.

Abu Mazan is now in the position to begin to wrest control of the Palestinian Authority from Arafat. I suspect that many \"normal\" Palestinians are tired of the fight and that, given a chance and better leadership, will welcome peace. This is a fundamental assumption about human nature that Americans believe is true.

Arafat and Hamas, et al, will not leave quietly. Some of the membership of Hamas, Hizbollah, etc, will accept Mazan\'s leadership and peace initiatives; some will not. The latter will have to be constrained by use of force.

The historical analogy is Ireland. The IRA faught the British and in 1922 won independence for all except the Protestant Northern counties. The main faction accepted this compromise and the State of Ireland was born. Some more radical IRA people refused the compromise, wanting ALL of the island under one government. The result was the Irish Civil War where the moderates defeated the radicals, bringing peace to the Catholic portions of the island. 3,000 Irishmen died. The radicals later revived their fight in the north but had no support from the State of Ireland and depended on foreign support, largely from ex-pats in the US.

So, by this model, Mazan will have to surpress the radical factions as the US blocks outside interference.

The goal is a separate, moderate Palestinian state. It will receive substantial foreign support so that the Palestinians have a chance to build a peaceful, prosperous life for themselves. Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Iran will interfer at their own peril.

Sharon is backing Bush on this - this is wise since Bush has shown he is a man of action and a man of his word. Hard-line Jewish groups that oppose this plan do so at their own peril too.

[Ferrotoral]

Quote:


Mr. Sharon, like Ehud Barak, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin, will fail to bring peace to Israel simply because, like his predecessors, he is trying to cure a cancer with a Band-Aid.

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Mr. Sharon is a right-wing politician. This means he has to have less fear for the next election when trying to make peace with the Palestinians, because the left-wing politicians traditionally also want \"peace\".

Other than that, he never lost a fight in his long career as a general (and a politician). [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

The REAL question is: Does he want peace or is he playing a game just to satisfy Bush and the international opinion. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[gennickO]

As long as Sharon put the clause in the plan to says nothing will be done until Hamas, Hizbollah and Islamic Jihad stop the terrorism, Sharon could agree to just about anything. Hell.....dismantal all of the setlements, maybe even agree to give every Palestinian family $100,000.00.

Why not? They are incapable of stopping their terrorist ways. I am afraid that the \"average\" Palestinian citizen still supports the use of suicide bombs as a fair cause. If they had their way, Abu Mazan would be dead.

I give Bush such credit for his strong stance against terrorism, but unfortunately, this will not work.

G-d I hope that I am wrong.

[gennickO]

Quote:
The REAL question is: Does he want peace or is he playing a game just to satisfy Bush and the international opinion.

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My guess is he is a little tired of watching his citizens get blown up.

[Ferrotoral]

Quote:

Quote:
The REAL question is: Does he want peace or is he playing a game just to satisfy Bush and the international opinion.

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My guess is he is a little tired of watching his citizen get blown up.

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But what how does he see the future of the Middle-East? With a palestinian State? Like the current Situation? Does he want to get rid of the Palestinians forever (deportation)? [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[gennickO]

Quote:
But what does he want? A palestinian State? The current Situation? The Deportation of Palestiniansto other countries?

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Sharon has never once suggested the deportation of Palestinians. This is a give and take. The terrorist groups only want to take. They don\'t want to share Israel. They want all of it. Maybe Sharon doesn\'t \"want\" a Palestinian state. I would be lieing if I said that I did. But.......for all of these people to live in peace, it must be done, but not at blood shed of more Israelis. Either they stop the terror, or everyone continues to suffer.

[Ferrotoral]

Like Whitehall says, the historical analogy is Ireland. Now, don\'t tell me catholics and/or protestants will always be out to fight each other because of their religion.

The same with the muslems (and the Jews) I guess. The HUGE problem is the way most moslem people are raised and educated. This is not only a problem in the Middle-East, but also in Europe. The problem is children are taught to hate (and in the Middle-East) to kill. That is where islamic religion needs to calm down, where schools and parents need to change. But why wouldn\'t they be able to change? The differences between protestants and catholics were just as bad as they are now between Jews and Palestinians/Muslems.

Most protestants and catholics in the world leave peacefully together now, so do most christians and jews, so there is some hope eventually the same will happen to western people (jews, christians) and muslimic people..

I heard they are building a new kind of Berlin Wall between Israeli and Palestinian people. Do not worry, the original Berlin Wall has been teared down eventually too! [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[gennickO]

As long as Arab governments are providing children text books that tell them to kill all Jews and Westerners.....I don\'t think that they are capable of having their own state. I believe it would be anarchy. I don\'t think it is fair to make any democratic nation live amongst an out of control society.

[gennickO]

I posted the same time you did. It seems that I repeated one of your points.

[gennickO]

Quote:
Do not worry, the original Berlin Wall has been teared down eventually too!

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I doubt it will be in my lifetime.

[Ferrotoral]

Quote:
I posted the same time you did. It seems that I repeated one of your points.

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No wonder, because young palestinians/arabs that are taught to hate Jews (and Christians) are the biggest problem.

[Catieliecutty]

Quote:


Protestants and Catholics in Ireland will hate each other as long as there are Protestants and Catholics, because each believes its version of Christianity is the only true version, so that the other is promulgating notions that will endanger the eternal lives of other people.

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Catholic and protestant people in the States (or in Germany or in England or wherever) don\'t fight each other. They did in the past (at least in Europe), but don\'t do so now. Why wouldn\'t the same happen to Ireland??

[tramdoctorsss]

When the Palestinians have their own state under Mazan with the foreign aid rolling and their standard of living going up, and the schools and the press no longer in the hands of radicals, the impetus for the average Palestinian to send their kids as suicide bombers will disappear. It may take a generation but that\'s what will happen.

Religon may still be a cause for disagreement, but with separate states, they won\'t have to get in each others\' faces about it except, perhaps in Jeruseleum, where accommodations will have to be made.

[Dertrioz]

@Franki

I guess this roots in the historical background. The participation of the Anglo-Norman nobility from the coastal Pale in the War of the Roses greatly impaired English strength in Ireland. When Henry VII became king of England, he left Gerald Fitzgerald, 8th earl of Kildare (d. 1513), as viceroy of Ireland, although Kildare belonged to the Yorkist party. The assistance rendered by Kildare to the Yorkist pretenders, however, finally compelled the king to replace him in 1494 with the English soldier and diplomat Sir Edward Poynings (1459-1521). Poynings represented the purely English interest, as distinct from the Anglo-Norman interest, which up to that time had prevailed in Ireland. He at once summoned the Parliament of Drogheda, which enacted legislation providing for the defence of the Pale and the reduction of the power of the Anglo-Irish lords. The nobility was forbidden to oppress the inferior baronage, to make exactions upon the tenantry, or to assemble their armed retainers; and the Statute of Kilkenny, which compelled the English and Irish to live apart and prohibited Irish law and customs in the Pale, was confirmed. All state offices, including the judgeships, were filled by the English king instead of by the viceroys, and the entire body of English law was declared to hold for the Pale. Most important of all was the so-called Poynings Law, which made the Irish Parliament dependent on the English king by providing that all proposed legislation should first be announced to the king and meet with his approval, after which he would issue the license to hold Parliament.

The religious changes under King Edward VI and Queen Mary I had little effect on Ireland. Although Mary was herself a Roman Catholic, she was the first to begin the colonisation of Ireland by English settlers. The Irish people of Kings and Queens Company were driven out and their lands given to English colonists. Queen Elizabeth I at first followed her father\'s policy of conciliating the Irish chieftains, but the rebellion of the Ulster chieftain Shane O\'Neill (1530?-67) caused her policy to become more severe; an act was passed dividing all Ireland into counties, and the commissioners of justice were invested with military powers, which they used in arbitrary fashion. The religious wars of Elizabeth were attended by rebellions of the Irish Roman Catholics. James Fitzgerald, 16th earl of Desmond (1570?-1601), a member of the great house of Geraldine, which ruled over the larger part of Munster, was defeated after a long struggle. The Irish soldier Hugh O\'Neill, 3d baron of Dungannon, called by the English the earl of Tyrone, annihilated an English army on the Blackwater and also defeated Robert Devereux, 2d earl of Essex, whom Elizabeth had sent against him. About 1603, however, O\'Neill was compelled to submit to the English. During the war the greatest cruelty and treachery were practised on both sides. In order to destroy Irish resistance, the English devastated villages, crops, and cattle, putting many people to death. The greater part of Munster and Ulster was laid desolate, and more inhabitants died from hunger than from war.

You see ... the religious hassle is only kinda side effect that has it\'s origin in political decisions.

This might be of interest too ....

A \"Perverse and Ill-Fated People\"

Hope that helps ... [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Ferrotoral]

Every \"religious\" struggle like this is also a political one, because is it all about power. There are hundreds of examples of conflicts like the irish one, that have been (somewhat) solved.

[Dertrioz]

Sure ... it\'s always a smart leader that utilizes religion to fool his stupid followers by tricking them into doin\' the stuff he wants them to do. Religion is the best medium to achieve power the easy way.

[BinasiDombrs]

That\'s right .. religious fundamentalism is a greater threat to mankind than SARS, HIV and Cancer together.

[gennickO]

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That\'s right .. religious fundamentalism is a greater thread to mankind than SARS, HIV and Cancer together.

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That\'s correct.

[Dertrioz]

What really turns me mad is the fact that most hardcore religious people are so damn stupid and limited in their view. All this dogmatic babbling of nonsense that is even reflected wrong and completely missunderstood.