"pac plyer" wrote in message
om...
Aviv,

Sorry did not get back to you, was busy fighting windmills. I think
many of your points are very valid and that you're a very reasonable
and intelligent guy.

Thank you. The feeling is mutual.

I don't feel Israel is illegitimate!

Good. This is critical for any reasonable discussion about the conflict.

However, I
fear funding Israel merely emboldens them to be more aggressive,
perpetuating endless violence.

The word 'perpetuating' suggests that Israel has the power to single
handedly stop the 'endless violence'. I disagree. I just hope that our
exchange highlighted that the whole thing is complicated, and that no single
move by either side will stop the violence. There has to be a process to
gain trust, and this includes both sides taking care of their own
extremists.

The underdog here in my mind is the
Palestinians.

This is where our perspective differs, and that's fine. However, I'd like
to point out that I'm less intersted in labeling either side 'victim' or
'terrorist' and more intersted in finding a pragmatic political solution. I
think this is where we agree, and it's by far more important.

Although we, the U.S. will not negotiate with
terrorists, we old Americans have a penchant for sticking up for the
underdog. (remember WWII?) My family is all from North Carolina and
has roots on both sides back to Jamestown in the 1600's. In the
1700's, many Revolutionaries like Ben Franklin, were considered by the
Royal Crown to be "terrorists" or translated: "rebels." So the term
"terrorist" in my mind is a very relative term.

I can see your point about perspective, but does ANYONE deserve to be bombed
while eating pizza with their children? To be ripped to shreds while
celebrating a holiday with family? To be killed in cold blood on the bus to
work? To be murdered in their own home by knife wielding 'Shahid?' Did
anyone here deserve 9/11? I don't see a moral equivalence between current
Palestinian terrorist tactics and the American struggle for independence
from England. There is a way to solve this conflict diplomatically, but
this is not going to happen so long as we grant terrorist acts any bit of
legitimacy. I am not willing to accept it under any circumstances. I know
you don't think that the above terrorist murders were justified - you
merely recognize the legitimacy of the Palestinian desire for a state of
their own. I do too. But we need to be careful not to send the message
that terrorist murders are 'understandable' given a particular grievance.
Terrorism is NEVER justified. Ghandi did not use suicide bombings, yet he
had a legitimate grievance. He got a lot further with his tactics of
nonviolence.

I suspect anyone who
commits acts that threaten others lives or security could be
considered a "terrorist" by someone somewhere. (But CNN is deluded to
reject the use of the term altogether!)

We can go on about the semantics of the definition of 'terrorist' all we
want, but in my value system, the killing of RANDOM people as a lash out for
your cause is a terrorist act. The fact that CNN is no longer using the word
to describe clearly terrorist attacks irks me to no end.

As an aside, if you want to do a comparison between the violence inflicted
by Israel on Palestinians versus the violence done by Palestinians on
Israelis, take a look at this link:

http://www.ict.org.il/articles/resea...m?researchid=2

What you should notice is that the population of Israelis killed by
Palestinians cuts across the board with respect to age and sex. The
statistics clearly show indescriminate killing. Compare this with
Palestinian casualties. Virtually all killed on the palestinian side are
male (95%) and young. In fact, there is a huge jump in the number of deaths
of Palestinians after the age of group of 15-19 (graph 2.29).

This erases moral equivalency for me. Terrorist violence is by definition
indescriminate. The statistics tell a very clear story of which side is
lashing out in terrorist violence. Something tells me that if you did a
similar study on revolutionary war violence, you would not find that the
Americans killed random people on the street. Hence, American
revolutionaries did not, on the whole, use terrorist violence and hence were
not terrorists.

Having said that, I wish to express my dismay at the continuation of killing
on both sides. If there is strong enough political will to go through with
the road map, then the killing will stop and the conflict can draw to a
close. It ain't gonna be easy, though. This is where the United States and
the Quartet comes in. To help create the political will. It seems to be
working better than anyone ever imagined so far.

Underdogs have extremist elements in their ranks which make life
terrible for the rest of their population.

Yes.

So I guess I should give
up on solving the world's problems and accept the paleontologist view
of the world:

"No single species has ever ruled this planet for more than a few
million years.
And Homo Sapien is not going to be the first!"


No! Don't give up. Sheesh... I'm Israeli and I haven't given up... :-)
I think we both want the same ultimate goal: more justice, security, and
stability in this world. I think it is important to keep pressing for
(better word than 'fighting for') peace. In the Israeli-Palestinian
context, I think the Road Map is correct. Terrorism must be eliminated
first in order to achieve a peace. We can't make excuses for it, because it
has always been the principle agent for stopping peace.


Aviv, I wish the best for you, and for Israel. Enjoyed the banter.

Very Best Regards,

pacplyer

Enjoyed it too, Pac.

-Aviv