Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site lsuc.UUCP Path: utzoo!lsuc!dave From: dave@lsuc.UUCP (David Sherman) Newsgroups: net.followup Subject: Re: Terrorism and TWA 847 Message-ID: <719@lsuc.UUCP> Date: Fri, 19-Jul-85 02:24:20 EDT Article-I.D.: lsuc.719 Posted: Fri Jul 19 02:24:20 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 19-Jul-85 03:32:52 EDT References: <600003@ur-univax> <9700099@uiucdcs> Reply-To: dave@lsuc.UUCP (David Sherman) Organization: Law Society of Upper Canada, Toronto Lines: 108 Summary: try to understand Israel In article <9700099@uiucdcs> acheng@uiucdcs.Uiuc.ARPA writes: > > Just because other people are committing murders, doesnot give > Israel a permit to commit murders too. Israel has tried hard to survive without using excessive force. However, protecting her citizens comes first. Since it appears retaliatory bombings are the only deterrent against terrorist attacks, that is what Israel does. Many Israelis don't like it either, but no-one has a better solution. > I never say the Syrians, > PLO or even Lebanonians, be it christian or muslim, have any > rights to kill innocent people. If Cuba, as a country, commits > acts of war against U.S., yes, U.S. has a right to defend herself, > even by counter attack. But Leboron did not declare war or attack > Israel. Hold it right there. Lebanon DID attack Israel, in 1948, and has never ceased its formal state of war on Israel. Furthermore, attacks on Israel were made regularly until 1982, in theform of Katyusha rocket attacks and terrorist border attacks on Israeli villages and kibbutzim. These attacks were made from Lebanon. The Lebanese government was unable or unwilling to stop them. That gave Israel the right under international law to move into Lebanon itself. > No one has rights to kill bystanders when he is chasing > after his enemies. Remember the incidents of the MOVE in Philedelphenia? > The police claimed it was an accident that 5 blocks of houses burned > to level. If the police chief claimed he burned down the whole > place to flush out those MOVE members, I bet no one would tolerate > that. Maybe you should learn a little about how the PLO intentionally used schools, hospitals and residential areas to hide behind, so that Israelis would be unable to attack them without hurting innocent people. (I can post extensive documented evidence to the net, as I did a couple of years ago; this is hardly anything new.) The Israeli army makes every effort not to harm innocent people; however, it can only go so far, and protecting itself and its people comes first. > >"Palistine"? Or did you mean Palestine? At any rate, there is no such country. > >Unless you mean Jordan, which is 77% of Palestine. > > Forgive my spelling. Don't tell me there is no such a country and pass > the buck to Jordon. What was there between Syria, Leboron, Jordon and > Eygpt before 1948? Before 1922 there was a large British colony, seized from the Turks, called Palestine. Britain carved over 3/4 of this off and handed it to the Hashemite clan, and King Hussein is still there. (What? No complaints about the legitimate rights of the residents? Horrors!) Before 1948, in Western Palestine, there was a Jewish community and an Arab community, of roughly equal populations. The Jews had purchased (note: purchased) land which was largely unused, and turned swamp and desert into flourishing communities. The UN voted in 1947 to partition the land into two states, one for the Jews, one for the Arabs. The Arabs rejected this entirely. Arab leaders told their people to leave their homes so that they could destroy the Jews. They lost. Still, from 1949 to 1967 the Arabs could have formed a state on the West Bank. But no, they insisted on total destruction of Israel. Again they lost (in 1967). How many times is a vicious aggressor, whose one goal is to kill you, entitled to come back and say "we lost, but give us back our land and let us set up a state next to you so we can attack you again and destroy you"? > Why are there Palestinian Refugee camps in Leboron, > Jordon now? Where did those people come from? Why are they there? Simple. Because NO ARAB COUNTRY GIVES A DAMN. They were told to leave their homes, and that they'd be back soon, in a few days or weeks, after the Jews had been wiped out. Instead they became refugees. OK, they're refugees. Do you know how many Jewish refugees from Arab countries Israel absorbed in a few short years? Something like 600,000. Israel offered to take in 100,000 of the Arab refugees too. But no other Arab country wanted any of them. These people are culturally, ethnically, linguistically and religiously affiliated with 20 Arab countries. Why are they Israel's problem? If the Arabs had used a tiny fraction of their oil revenues, they could have resettled all the refugees years ago. They left them to rot because they care more about their hatred of Israel than about their own brethren. > I am not against Israel or advocating them be "pushed" into the > sea. No, i am saying "all men are created equal" and that applies > to all mankinds, be it Jews, Arabs, or even Orientals (i am one). > Let us make solutions to let everyone live equally in peace. That's easy to say when you don't know anything about the history of the area. Unfortunately, until the Arab countries and the Palestinian Arabs agree not to push Israel into the sea, Israel has no choice but to use force to maintain its existence. Dave Sherman Toronto P.S. if you want to understand the problems Israel has faced, read a book like "O Jerusalem", an unbiased history of the 1948 war. Or read Leon Uris' recent novel, "The Haj". -- { ihnp4!utzoo pesnta utcs hcr decvax!utcsri } !lsuc!dave