An alien perspective-very interesting

[Meatball]

Alan M. Dershowitz
National Post

If a visitor from a far away galaxy were to land at an American or Canadian university and peruse some of the petitions that were circulating around the campus, he would probably come away with the conclusion that the Earth is a peaceful and fair planet with only one villainous nation determined to destroy the peace and to violate human rights. That nation would not be Iraq, Libya, Serbia, Russia or Iran. It would be Israel. There are currently petitions circulating on most North American university campuses that would seek to have universities terminate all investments in companies that do business in or with Israel. There are also petitions asking individual faculty members to boycott scientists and scholars who happen to be Israeli Jews, regardless of their personal views on the Arab-Israeli conflict. There have been efforts, some successful, to prevent Israeli speakers from appearing on college campuses, as recently occurred at Concordia University. There are no comparable petitions seeking any action against other countries that enslave minorities, imprison dissidents, murder political opponents and torture suspected terrorists. Nor are there any comparable efforts to silence speakers from other countries.

The intergalactic visitor would wonder what this pariah nation, Israel, must have done to deserve this unique form of economic capital punishment. If he then went to the library and began to read books and articles about this planet, he would discover that Israel was a vibrant democracy, with freedom of speech, press and religion, that was surrounded by a group of tyrannical and undemocratic regimes, many of which are actively seeking its destruction. He would learn that in Egypt, homosexuals are routinely imprisoned and threatened with execution; that in Jordan suspected terrorists and other opponents of the government are tortured, and that if individualized torture does not work, their relatives are called in and threatened with torture as well; that in Saudi Arabia, women who engage in sex outside of marriage are beheaded; that in Iraq, political opponents are routinely murdered en masse and no dissent is permitted; that in Iran members of religious minorities, such as Baha'is and Jews, are imprisoned and sometimes executed; that in all of these surrounding nations, anti-Semitic material is frequently broadcast on state-sponsored television and radio programs; in Saudi Arabia apartheid is practised against non-Muslims, with signs indicating that Muslims must go to certain areas and non-Muslims to others; that China has occupied Tibet for half a century; that in several African countries women are stoned to death for violating sexual mores; that slavery still exists in some parts of the world; and that genocide has been committed by a number of countries in recent memory.

Our curious visitor would wonder why there are no petitions circulating with regard to these human rights violators. Is Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza -- an occupation it has offered to end in exchange for peace -- worse than the Chinese occupation of Tibet? Are the tactics used to combat terrorism by Israel worse than those used by the Russians against Chechen terrorists? Are Arab and Muslim states more democratic than Israel? Is there any comparable institution in any Arab or Muslim state to the Israeli Supreme Court, which frequently rules in favour of Palestinian claims against the Israeli government and military? Does the absence of the death penalty in Israel alone, among Middle East nations, make it more barbaric than the countries which behead, hang and shoot political dissidents? Is Israel's settlement policy, which 78% of Israelis want to end in exchange for peace, worse than the Chinese attempt at cultural genocide in Tibet? Is Israel's policy of full equality for openly gay soldiers and members of the Knesset somehow worse than the policy of Muslim states to persecute those who have a different sexual orientation than the majority? Is Israel's commitment to equality for

[bam44]

Huh?

[ToddEVF]

you lost me after Earth is a peaceful and fair planet with only one villainous nation determined to destroy the peace and to violate human rights.

whats the rest about. . . In english, please?

<IMG SRC=http://members.aol.com/vikorynotvengnce/images/trenttodd.gif>
Todd Evf's Current Mood is:<a href="http://www.imood.com/query.cgi?email=vikorynotvengnce@aol.com"><img src="http://www.imood.com/query.cgi?email=vikorynotvengnce@aol.com&type=1&fg=#FF000&trans=1" alt="The current mood of vikorynotvengnce@aol.com at www.imood.com" border="0"></a>
<Marquee>hes really the betstst - AngelAmy/todds the man - canofsoup15/todd is the shiznit! - Contra/Toddevf just rocks that much he gets two appriciation threads, but whatever - DCReed/dint mean to come down on him earlier. . . I like Todd - Doogie76/And he supports my nicotine-fits - DynamiteK/But it's great to see the end result with Todd!! - Gaia/How can I be the man if he's the man?!? - FlavorSaver/Todd Rocks and has a HUGE cock. . . so I heard!!!! - Green Lantern/i can actually say that i love the little fuck - GrlNiN/Todd Will always be a DARLING! - LatinSpiceXoX/your the bestest, greatest, coolest todd! - Lulu/TODD EVF RULZ THE SCHOOL - NJDMMoe/I like Toddevf. He seems like a fine young gentleman. - pinkyfloyd/I appreciate my Mini-Me! - RonFez Mark/So screw all the Todd-haters! - Shorty/I admire todd's ability to slyly and skillfully turn any and every thread into one about HIM - TheMojoPin</Marquee>

[Recyclerz]

Dershowitz' point is that Israel is held to a different standard of behavior because of there are still anti-Semitic feelings and rhetoric throughout the Islamic world & beyond. <P>
Let me state my own feelings Superstar-style:
anti-Semitism = No good!
Palestinian terrorism = No good!
Preventing the establishment of a Palestinian homeland in the West Bank with too many Israeli settlements = No Good!
Making your points succinctly = Good! <P>
<P>

You're only young once, but you can be immature forever. :-)

This message was edited by Recyclerz on 11-24-02 @ 11:47 PM

[DarkHippie]

i miss Hemmingway's "iceberg theory"

<IMG SRC=http://members.aol.com/vikorynotvengnce/images/darkhippie.gif>
<marquee>Who is DarkHippie? "You look like an Amish child molester"-- Jim Norton. "Watch out for this one. Someday he's gonna snap and kill you all."-- Rich Vos </marquee>
<i>LABELS ARE FOR PRODUCTS, NOT PEOPLE! DON'T HUG A TREE, PLANT ONE!
</i><a href=http://www.freeopendiary.com/entrylist.asp?authorcode=A537085>Gonads and Strife: a journal</a>

[ADF]

That's great and all, but next time just post a link to the article, rather than posting the entire thing verbatim.

<center><img src=http://thereisnogod.faithweb.com/images/beans.gif>
Ce sachet d'emballage n'est pas un jouet.</center>

[The Chairman]

That's great and all, but next time just post a link to the article, rather than posting the entire thing verbatim.

This is not a link. These are my thoughts...

Looks like Professor Dershowitz, usually an avatar of liberalism and freedom of speech - has let his religion overshadow his legal dogma.

On the one hard, what the Muslim terrorists have done and are doing is reprehensible. Yet there is a great deal of irony in that the same colleges that are protesting our foreign policy on Iraq (and who give Dershowitz lifetime tenure) gladly fund their African American Student Associations so they can invite Minister Louis Farrakhan to speak there. The money is better served on getting a guest speaker on Female Genital Mutilation in African and Islamic countries, these folks at least have a point and make sense.

I recently went back to Boston for Homecoming. At Harvard they were spray painting (not chalking) anti-US slogans all over Cambridge.

What makes this country great is that we have the freedom to express these views. Yeah I didn't like it too much when Farrakhan spoke at my school, but I hate it more when the same liberal students who are protesting our foreign policy and filling lecture halls to see him are calling for divestiture in companies that do business in Israel . Israel is not South Africa circa 1985. These students are all hypocrites. I say let guys like Farrakhan or Arafat for that matter speak on campuses, as long as you let members of the John Birch Society or KKK speak as well. Imagine that. And don't get me started on "The Debt."

The liberals get their asses kicked in the recent election, but they rule higher education. Interesting how Harvard Professor Dershowitz was a conspicuous supporter of OJ Simpson, but when it comes to Israel he's Mr. Zionist.

Israel, hiding behind the USA and pro-Israeli Zionists needs to wake up and realize that ADDING settlements to the West Bank and Gaza strip is just making matters worse.

My solution: Create three countries: Israel, West Bank and Gaza. Didn't work to well with India, Pakistan and Eastern Pakistan (now Bangladesh) but that was done badly. Get rid of Arafat. Let the UN figure out what to do with Jerusalem. That will give this inept institution something to do aside from being a forum for Third World anti US rhetoric.

And force America's colleges to be more than bastions of liberalism and the home of the oxymoric self-hating yet Zionistic Jews. Even one of my heroes, Harold Bloom, who decries liberal Groupthink as a blight in our Age of Information........ (recognizing it in its most pernicious form in our obsolete academic institutions)..... caves in when it comes to Israel.

I dare anyone to contest my view that religion always has and always will continue to cause more harm than good in this world.

"I may not agree with what you say, but I shall defend to the death your right to say it."

Voltaire, In Philosophy.

PS - I really wish I had time to proof read this. I just rambled and free form typed for five minutes. It's all over the map. Perhaps I'll collect my thoughts better and distill them in a more concise and compelling form. There is a lot to be said on this topic, from every side. But we are on the verge of a war that will make The Crusades look like a children's game of Cowboys and Indians.

I mean Cowboys and Native Americans....






This message was edited by Chairman_Kaga on 11-24-02 @ 6:05 PM

[Abrasive Dean]

Looks like Professor Dershowitz, usually an avatar of liberalism and freedom of speech - has let his religion overshadow his legal dogma.


I totally agree, I think Professor Dershowitz has done little to further the cause of Isreali's. In fact writing such as this might incite, rather than quell, anti-semitism.

<img src="http://homepage.mac.com/deanmcg/sig/sig.jpg">

[HordeKing1]

The Jerusalem Post, November 20, 2002

15,000 and counting

By Michael Freund [msfreund@netvision.net.il]

Though hardly anyone seems to have noticed, Israel recently set a new world's record.

It is unclear when precisely it occurred, or what the exact
circumstances were. But at some point earlier this month, Israel became the first country to endure its 15,000th terrorist attack in just over a two-year period.

That's right, you read that correctly. According to statistics compiled by the IDF, as of November 17, 2002, there had been a total of 15,298 Palestinian terror attacks against Israel since the intifada began in September 2000.

That works out, on average, to nearly 1 terror attack every hour of every day over 25 consecutive months.

But that is not what qualifies Israel for a place in the record books.

After all, many countries have experienced periods of civil unrest, subversive violence and lethal terrorism, albeit not nearly as intense or as prolonged as that which Israel has known of late.

What truly puts the Jewish state in a category all its own, however, is its willingness to tolerate this ongoing terror campaign, which should have been defeated long ago.

Everyone, it seems, knows what the answer is to the current predicament. Everyone, that is, except for the government, which has neither the courage nor the vision to move into Judea, Samaria and Gaza and topple
the Palestinian Authority once and for all.

Instead, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon prefers to play ping-pong with the terrorists, sending in the army only to withdraw it a few days later,
bouncing back and forth with no long-term plan and certainly no clear-cut strategy.

Indeed, much of the military activity undertaken by the army seems purely reactive in nature, coming only after Jews have been killed, rather than before.

Take, for example, the recent IDF response to the terror attack on Kibbutz Metzer, in which a member of Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction
murdered five Israelis.

Two hours later, Israeli helicopters fired four rockets into a car-repair shop in Gaza City that was being used as a clandestine
weapons factory. Army spokesmen said that terrorists were using it to
manufacture explosive devices and mortar shells.

If Israel knew that the place was a death factory, one in which the terrorists were actively producing tools to murder the innocent, then
why did we wait until after the Metzer attack to knock it out? The minute the intelligence information regarding the garage's true nature was confirmed, why wasn't it taken out of commission forthwith?

Similarly, after last Friday's massacre in Hebron, when terrorists killed 12 Israelis near the Tomb of the Patriarchs, the IDF re-entered
Palestinian-controlled portions of the city which it had evacuated just three weeks earlier, on October 25th. According to a statement issued by
the IDF Spokesman's Office, the purpose behind retaking the city was "to continue the determined action against the Palestinian terror infrastructure."

That sounds good, except for one nagging question: if Hebron's terrorist
infrastructure was still in place, then why did the army withdraw last month? Why did it leave the job only half-finished?

Israel's critics at home and abroad suggest that the government's response to Palestinian terror is immoral because it results in the
needless deaths of innocent Arabs. Frankly, I think they have it all wrong. If the government's policy qualifies as immoral, it is because it
results in the needless deaths of innocent Jews.

For, by allowing the intifada to continue, and by refraining from taking
the necessary steps to dismantle the PA and defeat the terror organizations, the government has undermined Israel's security and that
of its citizens, leaving the terrorist threat in place to regroup and fight another day.

But we, the public, must also acknowledge our share of the blame for the current situation. We have been too silent in expressing our outrage over Palestinian terror and the government's feeble respons

[HordeKing1]

23 November 2002

Louis Rene Beres
Professor of International Law
Department of Political Science
Purdue University
West Lafayette IN 47907
USA

As of November 20, 2002, there had been a total of 15,298 Palestinian terror attacks against Israel since the start of the "intifada" in
September 2000. The number increased by one a day later, on November 21, when a Palestinian bomber blew up a bus filled with elderly women and young children in Jerusalem. Not surprisingly, the world has likely taken more angry notice of Israel's defensive actions to prevent further terror than of the grotesque cowardice of Palestinian terrorism. Murdered Jews, after
all, are an old story.

Israelis have endured nearly one terror attack every hour of every day for twenty-five consecutive months. These attacks have had nothing
to do with self-determination or freedom-fighting. Rather, they have targeted, almost exclusively, the most vulnerable and defenseless
civilians. And while Palestinian propaganda, funded heavily from Egypt,
Saudi Arabia and Iraq, always seeks to suggest equivalence between Arab terror and Israeli counterterror, there is a longstanding and meaningful difference between premeditated murder and unintentional casualties of
essential self-defense against murder.

Nonetheless, the world chooses not to notice. At best, public opinion
refuses to blame the Palestinians or supporters of Arab/Islamic terror in
other countries. At worst, public opinion openly supports such terror as
"national liberation."

Universities, at best, are unmindful. The scholars are busy with more weighty matters, especially those that do not pertain to real life in any way. In academe the truly fashionable concern is now for "diversity,"
"strategic planning" and "multiculturism." Understandably, there is no
time for Jewish agony, anguish and suffering.

Who is to blame for cowardly forms of terror? If the Palestinians are to be blamed at all, we hear from almost all educated quarters,
responsibility belongs only to Hamas, or to Islamic Jihad, or perhaps to
Nobel laureate Arafat's Fatah. But surely it does not belong to the broader Palestinian community. Surely only the Arab "extremists" are
blameworthy.

Yet, as we learn from all reliable survey research, an enormously disproportionate share of Palestinians fully supports the bus bombings,
the burnings, the lynchings, and the shootings of Jewish noncombatants.

Enjoying the now open support of Al Qaeda - support which is often accepted gratefully and without embarrassment - Palestinians in Israel
as well as in Judea, Samaria and Gaza revel proudly in shedding the blood of Jewish children. And why not? Most of the "civilized world" argues that they may wage their particular armed struggle "by any means necessary." And the killing of Jews always buys them and their families a secure place
in Paradise.

What could be easier to understand? Of course they could earn such a piece of immortality just as confidently by targeting Israeli military personnel, but they avoid such an option wherever possible. That course, after all, would require courage.

The cowardice of the Palestinian terrorist is unparalleled in the
history of insurgent warfare. Although there is no shortage of examples of revolutionary fighters who disregard humanitarian boundaries in battle, the record of fighters who purposely and consistently seek utterly
innocent and defenseless targets is actually very small. Several weeks ago, when a Palestinian terrorist machine gunned two Jewish infants still sucking on pacifiers (after stabbing the mother), the image of the
murdered children was a source of feverish exaltation throughout the Palestinian
communities in Jenin, Ramallah and Gaza. When, a year earlier, a newborn
Jewish child was shot deliberately by a sniper, Palestinian celebrants
hailed the murder as "yet another military victory against the Zionist occupation." When, several years ago, two Russian-Jewish Israelis who had not yet learned to speak H

[TheGameHHH]

This thread is seriously depressing.

IT'S TIME TO PLAY THE GAME-AHHH!

<IMG SRC="http://www.silentspic.com/images/sighost/hhhsig.jpg">
Aggie rules!!!

[The Chairman]

This thread is seriously depressing.

IT'S TIME TO PLAY THE GAME-AHHH!

Agreed. To take an idea from a thread on the Entertainment Board ("Cover Songs") how about:

Smashmouths cover of War's "Why Can't We Be Friends?"

No irony there...

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ *~
I'll take that Chesterfield now...
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ *~

[HordeKing1]

The Jews took no one's land
By Joseph Farrah
WorldNet Daily - November 19, 2002

As the most visible Arab-American critic of Yasser Arafat and the phony "Palestinian" agenda, I get a lot of hate mail.I've even received more than my share of death threats. Most of those who attack me - at
least those who bother to get beyond the four-letter words and insults - say I just don't understand or have sympathy for these poor Arabs who were displaced, chased out of their homes and turned into refugees by the Israelis.

Let me state this plainly and clearly: The Jews in Israel took no one's land.

When Mark Twain visited the Holy Land in the 19th century, he was greatly disappointed. He didn't see any people. He referred to it as a vast wasteland. The land we now know as Israel was practically deserted. By the beginning of the 20th century, that began to change. Jews from all over the world began to return to their ancestral homeland - the
Promised Land Moses and Joshua had conquered millennia earlier,
Christians and Jews believe, on the direct orders of God. That's not to say there wasn't always a strong Jewish presence in the land -
particularly in and around Jerusalem. In 1854, according to a report in the New York Tribune, Jews constituted two-thirds of the population of
that holy city. The source for that statistic? A journalist on assignment in the Middle East that year for the Tribune. His name was
Karl Marx. Yes, that Karl Marx.

A travel guide to Palestine and Syria, published in 1906 by Karl Baedeker, illustrates the fact that, even when the Islamic Ottoman Empire ruled the region, the Muslim population in Jerusalem was minimal. The book estimates the total population of the city at 60,000, of whom
7,000 were Muslims, 13,000 were Christians and 40,000 were Jews. "The number of Jews has greatly risen in the last few decades, in spite of
the fact that they are forbidden to immigrate or to possess landed property," the book states. Even though the Jews were persecuted, still
they came to Jerusalem and represented the overwhelming majority of the population as early as 1906. And even though Muslims today claim
Jerusalem as the third holiest site in Islam, when the city was under Islamic rule, they had little interest in it.

As the Jews came, drained the swamps and made the deserts bloom, something interesting began to happen. Arabs followed. I don't blame
them. They had good reason to come. They came for jobs. They came for prosperity. They came for freedom. And they came in large numbers.

Winston Churchill observed in 1939: "So far from being persecuted, the Arabs have crowded into the country and multiplied till their population has increased more than even all world Jewry could lift up the Jewish
population." Then came 1948 and the great partition. The United Nations proposed the creation of two states in the region - one Jewish, one
Arab. The Jews accepted it gratefully. The Arabs rejected it with a
vengeance and declared war.

Arab leaders urged Arabs to leave the area so they would not be caught in the crossfire. They could return to their homes, they were told, after Israel was crushed and the Jews destroyed. It didn't work out that way. By most counts, several hundred thousand Arabs were displaced by
this war - not by Israeli aggression, not by some Jewish real-estate grab, not by Israeli expansionism. In fact, there are many historical records showing the Jews urged the Arabs to stay and live with them in
peace. But, tragically, they chose to leave.

Fifty-four years later, the sons and daughters and grandsons and granddaughters of those refugees are all-too-often still living in refugee camps - not because of Israeli intransigence, but because they are misused as a political tool of the Arab powers.

Those poor unfortunates could be settled in a week by the rich Arab oil states that control 99.9 percent of the Middle East landmass, but they
are kept as virtual prisoners, filled with misplaced hatred for Jews and
armed as suicide martyrs by the Arab power brokers.

This is

[TheMojoPin]

What's the answer?

Continually supporting any and all of Israel's decisions in terms of dealing with its neighboring countries (Not just retaliating against terrorist attacks, which I feel is usally a justified response) is hardly a practical solution. Only until recently, the US pretty much just gave Israel carte blanche to do whatever the hell they wanted in terms of nuclear weapon development and land settlement.

Israel IS a victim here, and we should protect them. But at the same time, we can't just continually assume that they're right all of the time. If they're going to allow Arabs (Many of which have simply lived there all their lives and just want to work and not lose their homes) to remain in their borders, they can't treat them like second class citizens. It's going to be an unpopular decision, but it's just common sense. You stop feeding terrorist rhetoric, they'll have a lot more trouble convincing people that their "cause" is worth fighting. Sure, it obviously won't deter all or most of the terrorists already out there, but such policies could very easily keep people from joining up in the future.

Israel doesn't have to bend over and just take what's given to them. They have fought hard and should still fight even harder to keep what's theirs and to keep those that live within Israel safe. But they need to make social and politcal concessions to help stem the tide of terrorism, which you'd think would be everyone's main concern.

<img src=http://thereisnogod.faithweb.com/images/themojopin2.gif>
VP #2 for the Coalition of Angry Micks, and Minister of Bloody Mayhem.
"You can tell some lies about the good times you've had/But I've kissed your mother twice and now I'm working on your dad..."



This message was edited by TheMojoPin on 11-25-02 @ 1:54 AM

[Yerdaddy]

I love OP/EDs. They're so much easier than thinking for yourself.


<a href="http://www.btselem.org/English/Statistics/Al_Aqsa_Fatalities.asp" target="_blank">B'Tselsm - Summary Data - Fatalities in the al-Aqsa Intifada,: 29 Sept. 2000 - 20 November 2002</a>
<a href="http://www.btselem.org/" target="_blank">B'Tselem - The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories
</a>
<a href="http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2001/nea/8262.htm" target="_blank">U.S. State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, (Israel and the Occupied Territories) - 2001</a>
<a href="http://usinfo.state.gov/regional/nea/mitchell.htm" target="_blank">Mitchel Report on the Causes of the Current "Al-Aqsa Intifada"</a>

<img src="http://yerdaddy.homestead.com/files/pics/sigruby.jpg" >
It was a joke goddammit!

This message was edited by Yerdaddy on 11-25-02 @ 1:13 AM

[The Chairman]

I think if more Palestinians ate a Pastrami Sandwich on rye with a knish and Cel-Ray from the 2nd. Ave. deli some sort of agreement could be made.

As Horde King might say, "delish"...

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ *~
I'll take that Chesterfield now...
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ *~

[The Chairman]

Or at least a Corned Beef on rye from Carnegie.

This message was edited by Chairman_Kaga on 11-25-02 @ 10:51 AM

[TheMojoPin]

Peace through deli-knoshing. Makes sense to me...and now I'm starvin'.

<img src=http://thereisnogod.faithweb.com/images/themojopin2.gif>
VP #2 for the Coalition of Angry Micks, and Minister of Bloody Mayhem.
"You can tell some lies about the good times you've had/But I've kissed your mother twice and now I'm working on your dad..."

[Coco]

Is there any way to sort of cut the territory of Israel out like a piece of pie and place it in the midwest U.S. for instance? I mean, just for safe keeping that is.

______________________

We can't change our past, but we can change the way we look at it - into something more positive