NationStates Jolt Archive

I wonder - did anyone see the programme Death In Gaza on Channel 4 (UK) last night? It told the story of James Miller, a British cameraman who was working in the town of Rafah, Gaza (on the border with Egypt) last year. On 2nd May 2003, he was shot dead by Israeli troops as he (and the rest of his crew) attempted to leave a Palestinian house and return to their accommodation.

The programme made no attempt to comment on the rights and wrongs of the conflict. Miller was killed by an Israeli soldier; however, it is likely that the soldiers patrolling the area were in fact professional Bedouin - Muslim - soldiers employed by Israel. All the footage (with a couple of exceptions) was shot by Miller, the story told by his translator, Saira Shah.

The programme shocked me. It's quite something to have proof of the appalling acts of both sides thrust in your face in this manner. It's doubly affecting when attention is focused on the children.

The Israelis want a security buffer zone on the Egyptian border. Fine, but to get it they bulldozer the homes of hundreds, maybe thousands of Palestinians. Kids throw rocks at them - rocks - so they shoot at them. One boy, only 14, died. And the Israelis carried on shooting the next time kids threw rocks at them. The Israelis also have sniper towers on most street corners. It makes it very easy to kill people.

The Palestinians are suffering immensely. Najla, a fifteen year old girl, has lost eight family members at the start of the programme. She loses more. I was watching this, ready to sympathise with the Palestinians, and then...

The paramilitaries train children (including Ahmed, 9) to use machine guns and rocket launchers and be their scouts on night-time raids. These kids dream of being martyrs, it’s the focus of their lives. The imams call from their followers to prayer over tannoys. They propagate the message that martyrdom is glorious, that the Jews must die. The kids say that they want the world to be happy, except for Jews (this came from the mouths of children aged 9 and 4). The bodies of dead Palestinians are paraded amongst the crowds, the imams blithely telling their congregation that death has brought glory, not suffering or pain. In the case of a suicide bomber, a group gather to collect gobbets of flesh and bone in order that he may be accorded a proper burial.

There were other horrors.

Finally, Miller is shot, despite clearly waving a white flag, despite the group calling out that they were British journalists. He was killed and they kept shooting. After, the crew plead with the Palestinians to leave him be but they ignore this and present him as the latest martyr to their cause.

Any hope? Well, Ahmed and his friend, Mohammed decide that they don’t want to be martyred, that they want to be cameramen. For me, this means next to nothing. Two kids saved (maybe) but it cost a life. Meanwhile, the other kids are indoctrinated into hating Israelis and seeking a glorious death.

I feel sick. I have no hope any more.

Your thoughts?

Is anyone interested?

Is anyone interested?

I read it..quite insightful...course...since it doesn't have IDF Jewish soldiers doing the killing but in fact Arab muslims it doesn't fit into one sides anti-Israel's argument philosophies.

Is anyone interested?

I read it..quite insightful...course...since it doesn't have IDF Jewish soldiers doing the killing but in fact Arab muslims it doesn't fit into one sides anti-Israel's argument philosophies.

Yeah, it really surprised me.

I finished the programme having lost all respect for either side. The only sympathy I have is for the people who are suffering and don't take either side. The people who make most sick, most upset, most ANGRY are the bastard soldiers/preachers encouraging the kids to throw their lives away.

but this is not the only incident like this. A young man (early 20's late teens i think) was shot bu an israeli sniper while he carried a small child out of the path of a tank. He was shot in the head at a range all the balistic experts said a anyone owuld have been able to take his buttons off. Th most disgusting thing of this whole conflict inmy view is the abuse of the holocaust, the isrealis continually point to it to prevent intervention and keep the arms flooding in while they commit genocide

but this is not the only incident like this. A young man (early 20's late teens i think) was shot bu an israeli sniper while he carried a small child out of the path of a tank. He was shot in the head at a range all the balistic experts said a anyone owuld have been able to take his buttons off. Th most disgusting thing of this whole conflict inmy view is the abuse of the holocaust, the isrealis continually point to it to prevent intervention and keep the arms flooding in while they commit genocide

ahmm...actually the most disgusting aspect is that the Palestinians teach their children from age 4 to Jews merely for being Jews and alive, that they revel in death so much they dress their children up in a bombing jacket. But as in the case of the article..it wasn't a Jewish IDF soldier who shot the Brit..but an Arab muslim..quite intriguing no?

Is anyone interested?

I saw the programme. It was... grotesque. Not the programme itself, but what it depicted. It would make you scream, for the sheer bloody stupidity of it all. All the pustulent horrors of the human imagination -- nationalism, racism, sectarianism, fundamentalism -- seem to have been concentrated into one little chunk of not-very-desirable land in the eastern Mediterrainean. Both sides are afflicted, both sides feed off each other and reinforce each other as this stupid, pointless, needless murder is paid for by that stupid, pointless, needless murder. Over all of it hovers glassy-eyed fundamentalists -- Jewish maniacs who think they have a right to everything, because a big old book says so; slavering Imams who fill the heads of children with lies, and send them off to die ("martyrdom is gloriouis! Who, me? No, er, bad leg..."); crackpot Christians who think that "the Rapture" won't come until Israel is restored to its "Biblical Boundaries", and who are not incapable of trying to give the End of the World a little nudge as they seep their poisonous superstitions deep into American foreign policy... it makes you sick, does it not?

There was really very little hope on offer. As you say, two kids with a (possibly passing) notion to become cameramen, rather than martyrs. Man, do we ever need a plan. We need to drag all those involved -- Palestinians, Israelis, dingbat US lobbyists -- into some semblance of decent behaviour. How we do that is another question entirely. A few more James Millers -- live ones, not "martyrs" -- wouldn't go amiss. It makes you think that maybe a panoptic society wouldn't be so bad, after all.

No man is inherently bad. They're just stuck in some kind of historic catastrophe. I don't know how they can get out of it, but they have enough hate and they don't need ours. We should give love instead.

I think Mojo Jojo started it all but I'm not sure.

Why exactly is it interesting, Salishe, that the killers were Bedouin Arabs? What exactly is that suppossed to tell us about the conflict? The most annoying thing about the programme was its ahistorical nature. Obviously it is impossible to give an outline of causes, historiographical debates, etc in an hour - that'd actually take years - but, despite its rhetoric, there was very little about causes or history. Salishe would do well to bear in mind that, quite beyond the fact that the Bedouin Arab soldiers were still citizens of the Israeli state, and so acting under its authority and in its name, that there are more than a few examples of atrocities carried out by other IDF soldiers/ideological settlers against Palestinians. Which tells us absolutely nothing about the respective merits of Jews or Arabs but quite a lot about human beings.
And just to offer a slightly different perspective consider the insight offered by Israeli Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'Alon in 2002 -
"The Palestinians are like a cancer. There are all sorts of solutions to cancerous manifestations. For the time being, I am applying chemotherapy".

peace

Shalom & salaam aleikoum. Don't forget justice as well.

I didn't see the show, and not sure what was in it... I'm from Israel. I'm 14 years old, and my English is not that good...
I want to say... that the soldiers don't suppose to shoot people throwing stones on them with real bullets.
The tank that shot on a demonstration, if you can call it so, was a mistake. I was suppose to explode in some distant, only to scatter them.
The court didn't agree to ruin the houses to make Philadelphi (sp.) wider.

I want to add that all of it could be prevented if the terrorists hadn't used the innocents as a protection, knowing we won't shoot them - and we, as I said, don't. If a few had done it once, it doesn't reflect the whole army, and I haven't even heard of it.

I don't have much time now, I'll continue afterwards...

I didn't see the show, and not sure what was in it... I'm from Israel. I'm 14 years old, and my English is not that good...
I want to say... that the soldiers don't suppose to shoot people throwing stones on them with real bullets.
The tank that shot on a demonstration, if you can call it so, was a mistake. I was suppose to explode in some distant, only to scatter them.
The court didn't agree to ruin the houses to make Philadelphi (sp.) wider.

I want to add that all of it could be prevented if the terrorists hadn't used the innocents as a protection, knowing we won't shoot them - and we, as I said, don't. If a few had done it once, it doesn't reflect the whole army, and I haven't even heard of it.

I don't have much time now, I'll continue afterwards...

I didn't see the show, and not sure what was in it... I'm from Israel. I'm 14 years old, and my English is not that good...
I want to say... that the soldiers don't suppose to shoot people throwing stones on them with real bullets.
The tank that shot on a demonstration, if you can call it so, was a mistake. I was suppose to explode in some distant, only to scatter them.
The court didn't agree to ruin the houses to make Philadelphi (sp.) wider.

I want to add that all of it could be prevented if the terrorists hadn't used the innocents as a protection, knowing we won't shoot them - and we, as I said, don't. If a few had done it once, it doesn't reflect the whole army, and I haven't even heard of it.

I don't have much time now, I'll continue afterwards...

I didn't see the show, and not sure what was in it... I'm from Israel. I'm 14 years old, and my English is not that good...
I want to say... that the soldiers don't suppose to shoot people throwing stones on them with real bullets.
The tank that shot on a demonstration, if you can call it so, was a mistake. I was suppose to explode in some distant, only to scatter them.
The court didn't agree to ruin the houses to make Philadelphi (sp.) wider.

I want to add that all of it could be prevented if the terrorists hadn't used the innocents as a protection, knowing we won't shoot them - and we, as I said, don't. If a few had done it once, it doesn't reflect the whole army, and I haven't even heard of it.

I don't have much time now, I'll continue afterwards...

I'm not interested in the rights and wrongs of the conflict anymore. Anyone with any influence seems to me to be failing to use it correctly or, more disgustingly, uses their power to perpetuate the horror. No one is inherently evil, true, but these fuckers have such a shrivelled, withered and contemptuous regard for human life that they might as well be.

Of course the show wasn't historical in its perspective, it was the journal of a dead man. History doesn't mean a thing when you have monsters telling kids it's a great thing for them to go and 'martyr' themselves, when you have soldiers in tanks and bulldozers shooting kids with rocks.

History is not an excuse.

Can anyone give me a reason to hope?

Shalom, Gallenland. I just want to let you know your government is bulldozing palestinian homes because it is scared of weapons coming from Egypt. This indeed may improve security but Palestinians are left with nothing to call their home. They may end up being a threat to security again.
You're not at all guilty of that but you may end up paying the price. If nobody helps the palestinians, then the terrorists will.

I didn't see the show, and not sure what was in it... I'm from Israel. I'm 14 years old, and my English is not that good...
I want to say... that the soldiers don't suppose to shoot people throwing stones on them with real bullets.
The tank that shot on a demonstration, if you can call it so, was a mistake. I was suppose to explode in some distant, only to scatter them.
The court didn't agree to ruin the houses to make Philadelphi (sp.) wider.

I want to add that all of it could be prevented if the terrorists hadn't used the innocents as a protection, knowing we won't shoot them - and we, as I said, don't. If a few had done it once, it doesn't reflect the whole army, and I haven't even heard of it.
I don't have much time now, I'll continue afterwards...

I've got the answer but no-one wants to hear it -abolish all religion- destroy all places of worship & religious texts & start again-Religion has caused more problems-especially wars-than anything else (pick up any history book) Start with any religion that tells people how to live their lives to the letter.I despair at the human race-Am I the only person who thinks it is ridiculous that God/Allah/Deus/Whoever should value one person more than another because of how often they pray,what meat they eat,clothes they wear,etc.? If we were supposedly merely judged on how we treat each other,that I could understand.
A famous thinker once said something along the lines of- "You may as well believe in god as you have nothing to lose,if you die & there is no heaven you haven't lost out " -(I know thats not the exact quote but you get the idea)-But you have lost out-You have lived your life to a set of rules you may not agree with.If you have lived your entire life fantasising about how,for example,drinking cherry coke was,but your religion forbid it ,so you didn't,have you lived :? I say forget the "maybe there's an afterlife/heaven/reincarnation"stuff. One thing is 100% certain-You're alive now,so live your life.Why gamble on there being a heaven ? -Don't most religions forbid gambling?

Luckdonia, that's absurd. I've seen this kind of argument trotted out so many times and it's wrong. The men (yep, they're almost all men) who use Islam/Judaism/Christianity/whatever are perverting the very values of the religions they espouse. Geting rid of rligion won't do a thing aprt from make a lot of people even more embittered and hateful than they already are.

I confess, there are times when I think the best thing to do would be to evacuate Jerusalem, round up the leaders of Israel and Palestine and drop a whacking great bomb on the lot of them. Leaders, history, religion, culture - all destroyed. But that's an anger fantasy, where you just want to punish the inhuman bastards that perpetuate this conflict. It doesn't actually address the issue.

Anyway, I ask again: where do I look for hope here? Or do I write it all off and hope people die quickly and relatively painlessly?

Luckdonia, that's absurd. I've seen this kind of argument trotted out so many times and it's wrong. The men (yep, they're almost all men) who use Islam/Judaism/Christianity/whatever are perverting the very values of the religions they espouse. Geting rid of rligion won't do a thing aprt from make a lot of people even more embittered and hateful than they already are.

I confess, there are times when I think the best thing to do would be to evacuate Jerusalem, round up the leaders of Israel and Palestine and drop a whacking great bomb on the lot of them. Leaders, history, religion, culture - all destroyed. But that's an anger fantasy, where you just want to punish the inhuman bastards that perpetuate this conflict. It doesn't actually address the issue.

Anyway, I ask again: where do I look for hope here? Or do I write it all off and hope people die quickly and relatively painlessly?

DP

DP

Of course the show wasn't historical in its perspective, it was the journal of a dead man. History doesn't mean a thing when you have monsters telling kids it's a great thing for them to go and 'martyr' themselves, when you have soldiers in tanks and bulldozers shooting kids with rocks.

History is not an excuse.No it's no excuse but it is explanation.
You talk about the monster who teach his children to kill but this monster has been teached by his parents to teach his children to kill and his parents were teached to act this way.
It is not as simple as calling someone a monster to end the hate. You got to heal the monster not to let the monster turn you into another monster.
For that you got to help him to break the cycle of hate. You got to give him something that shows him the better path because the people this monster kills are monsters in his eye. No they're not monsters they're humans faced with locked situation created by history, like the hutus in Rwanda.

Of course the show wasn't historical in its perspective, it was the journal of a dead man. History doesn't mean a thing when you have monsters telling kids it's a great thing for them to go and 'martyr' themselves, when you have soldiers in tanks and bulldozers shooting kids with rocks.

History is not an excuse.No it's no excuse but it is explanation.
You talk about the monster who teach his children to kill but this monster has been teached by his parents to teach his children to kill and his parents were teached to act this way.
It is not as simple as calling someone a monster to end the hate. You got to heal the monster not to let the monster turn you into another monster.
For that you got to help him to break the cycle of hate. You got to give him something that shows him the better path because the people this monster kills are monsters in his eye. No they're not monsters they're humans faced with locked situation created by history, like the hutus in Rwanda.

Objectively, I agree with you. Subjectively, I can't look at the paramilitaries etc without disgust. I'm a committed Amnesty International member and your archetypal fluffy bleeding heart. But how do we/you/whoever turn these people around?

DP

DP

but this is not the only incident like this. A young man (early 20's late teens i think) was shot bu an israeli sniper while he carried a small child out of the path of a tank. He was shot in the head at a range all the balistic experts said a anyone owuld have been able to take his buttons off. Th most disgusting thing of this whole conflict inmy view is the abuse of the holocaust, the isrealis continually point to it to prevent intervention and keep the arms flooding in while they commit genocide

ahmm...actually the most disgusting aspect is that the Palestinians teach their children from age 4 to Jews merely for being Jews and alive, that they revel in death so much they dress their children up in a bombing jacket. But as in the case of the article..it wasn't a Jewish IDF soldier who shot the Brit..but an Arab muslim..quite intriguing no?

Actually no, I have probably never been less intrigued in my entire life, whether it was a Jew, a Muslim or even a Welsh farmer that was responsible for his death makes absolutely no difference to me, although I do find it worrying that you believe the nationality of the killer is symptomatic of some wider truth.

That said, thus far nobody has been held to account for the murder of James Miller and probably nobody ever will, just like every war crime committed by the Israeli army.

I did watch the program and I actually found parts of it very moving, particularly at the end when it stated that the two children had stopped working for the militants and wanted to become cameramen. It gave me a little hope anyway.

But how do we/you/whoever turn these people around?That is one hell of a nightmare. Not gonna happen in your lifetime I'm afraid. I feel like you. When I watch Mojo Jojo on TV I feel like punching him in the face. He is such an fucking evil monkey!
Well that's the same when I see Bush actually. Maybe there is no way to stop them. Maybe the human race is fucking screwed anyway. The kalashnikov already speaks louder than the man. The nukes will speack louder than humanity one of these days. If there is a god he must want to be alone and eradicate the man from the face of the earth.
Is that the hope you're looking for?

Why exactly is it interesting, Salishe, that the killers were Bedouin Arabs? What exactly is that suppossed to tell us about the conflict? The most annoying thing about the programme was its ahistorical nature. Obviously it is impossible to give an outline of causes, historiographical debates, etc in an hour - that'd actually take years - but, despite its rhetoric, there was very little about causes or history. Salishe would do well to bear in mind that, quite beyond the fact that the Bedouin Arab soldiers were still citizens of the Israeli state, and so acting under its authority and in its name, that there are more than a few examples of atrocities carried out by other IDF soldiers/ideological settlers against Palestinians. Which tells us absolutely nothing about the respective merits of Jews or Arabs but quite a lot about human beings.
And just to offer a slightly different perspective consider the insight offered by Israeli Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'Alon in 2002 -
"The Palestinians are like a cancer. There are all sorts of solutions to cancerous manifestations. For the time being, I am applying chemotherapy".

peace

I actually thought that the fact that it didn't significantly deal with the history or the politics of the region was the best part. It was a humanitarian film about children, not a political one. If it had delved too deeply into politics and religion it would have diluted what I felt was a very simple message and lost its power.

obviously history is not an excuse.
but theres several layers to interest in a conflict.
it is entirely understandable that one of the first reactions is just to throw our hands up in the air, despair of the whole mess and bemoan the situation, whoever caused it and however it came about.
but this doesn't really achieve much except re-assuring ourselves that we have the correct moral outlook.
a vital part of coming to terms with this kind of suffering is understanding, and that means perceiving cause and consequence. understanding is not justifying.
explaining how or why the spanish civil war or cold war or any other example came about says nothing about moral judgements.
and herein is the problem. a documentary is made. a bunch of people are touched by it and feel compelled to write about it on a message board. so what have we achieved? nothing.
general blaming is of course stupid - saying its about jews or arabs or all religion etc is all pointless. but is it, for example, pointless to say that a suicide bomber or soldier who deliberately fires on someone unarmed etc, is it wrong to aportion responsibility there? i think not. i think that might be letting some people off the hook.
this isn't an Amnesty International issue or a left/right issue or any of that ideological cover. this is about comprehending the world we live in and how things came to be this way.
such a process is long, difficult, confusing and often painful but it is the essential precondition to figuring out ways to get out of it all.

eg.
in the film there was a clip of that young palestinian girl who, when asked if she liked jews, called them all dogs. saira shah asked if she had ever seen a jew and she said yes. on tv. in helmets. with guns. firing from tanks. you could find the same example on the other side vis-a-vis suicide bombers. if i am brought up to hate or am only ever exposed to jews as killers/soldiers/occupiers/the people who make my mother scared while they're building down a home [regardless of whether that home should be demolished or not], then what example will tell me otherwise? in what situation will i exposed to an alternate viewpoint of that concept 'jew', so indistinct in my young mind? will it be if a wall is built around the gaza strip so that i can not even see a jew never mind meet one? will it be if the IDF launches a massive campaign in the gaza strip to win the initiative from Hamas etc? i think you see the point. same goes for Israelis. how am i to think of Arabs as anything but terrorists/killers if the only ones i ever see are Arafat and suicide bombers on tv? [Israeli Arabs tend to live highly segregated lives from Israeli Jews so integration and mixing isn't as frequent as the figures of 15-20% Arab Israeli population would suggest....

it is also intriguing that people consider that history is impersonal or dead or somehow detracts from the humanity of the story. the elderly Palestinians who still have the deeds and keys to their houses, which they were forced to abandon in 1948, that history is very real for them. that history is very real for their children. house demolitions are a historical policy, imbued by social and political events that brought that policy about. it is part of history. the children in the film are now homeless because of the actions in Rafah these last few weeks. they are living with the history. it is real. it is alive. it is personal.

and if one of the more than a 1,000 made homeless in the last days, if one of them joins Hamas or Islamic Jihad, if a group of them decide to carry out a suicide bombing, will we then be seeing messages on this board on what this tells us about the 'arab mind' or the brain-washing of palestinian children. let us be clear. propaganda and brainwashing are powerful tools. but they are not as decisive as what a child sees and experiences every day of their young lives. a tv broadcast by arafat will not be as character forming as what those kids did on the film - picking up pieces of flesh from an assassinated human being.

but thats just my opinion.

justice and peace.

I don't even know what to think about this situation anymore.

I remember last year, asking a member of my business class why his friend was always so angry, and he told me about how his friend was sent to boarding school in Israel by his parents, and how he had served in the Army as a sniper. What a terrible thing to go through as a teenage boy.

It's hard to be anti Isreal when you know someone who had to go through that. My university is one of those crazy liberal ones, with people protesting all the time, and all the guy from Israel can say is that they don't know everything. And it's true. It's not the soldiers fault, it's the fault of their parents who make them live with hate, and the fault of the government, or leaders for giving orders on BOTH sides.

but this is not the only incident like this. A young man (early 20's late teens i think) was shot bu an israeli sniper while he carried a small child out of the path of a tank. He was shot in the head at a range all the balistic experts said a anyone owuld have been able to take his buttons off. Th most disgusting thing of this whole conflict inmy view is the abuse of the holocaust, the isrealis continually point to it to prevent intervention and keep the arms flooding in while they commit genocide

ahmm...actually the most disgusting aspect is that the Palestinians teach their children from age 4 to Jews merely for being Jews and alive, that they revel in death so much they dress their children up in a bombing jacket. But as in the case of the article..it wasn't a Jewish IDF soldier who shot the Brit..but an Arab muslim..quite intriguing no?

I think both of your have missed the point - the programme was intending a message of 'a plague on both your houses'. Both of you have choosen to ingore that facts that don't fit your views - the programme intended to show that each side is as despicable as the other, and that it is a primtive dualistic view to say that one side was entirely to blame. Yes, the creation of Israel started the problems, but that does not give future generations an excuse to continue the suffering.

Can anyone give me a reason to hope?

This might:

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/431880.html

NEW YORK - Expressing views that may go unnoticed amid the headline-grabbing violence in the Mideast, 76 percent of Israelis and Palestinians favor a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, according to a poll of people on both sides.

That finding was offered Tuesday by leaders of OneVoice, a privately funded group that aims to promote peace in the Mideast. While preliminary, they said, the survey suggests that giving ordinary citizens an "active role" might help end the region's 60-year cycle of bloodshed.

Meeting with reporters in New York, the group's founder-president, Daniel Lubetzky, and Mideast regional director, Mohammad Darawshe, said their ultimate aim was to survey a quarter-million people, to show there is a "silent majority" on each side that favors mutual agreement instead of violence and extremism.

"Every Palestinian and Israeli says they are for peace, but the people have not been held accountable for their beliefs," said Lubetzky. "What's happening now is that 40,000 people stood up and said this is what they want."

The issue now seems to be how to get these moderates into positions of power. I think this will be easier in Israel, which, despite all of its problems, is a democracy which can- and has- vote out leaders when it must.

Unfortunately, there is no similar system currently in place among the Palestinians, making me think that some sort of power struggle (likely one including violence) will be necessary in order to get some better leaders into power.

Can anyone give me a reason to hope?

This might:

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/431880.html

NEW YORK - Expressing views that may go unnoticed amid the headline-grabbing violence in the Mideast, 76 percent of Israelis and Palestinians favor a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, according to a poll of people on both sides.

That finding was offered Tuesday by leaders of OneVoice, a privately funded group that aims to promote peace in the Mideast. While preliminary, they said, the survey suggests that giving ordinary citizens an "active role" might help end the region's 60-year cycle of bloodshed.

Meeting with reporters in New York, the group's founder-president, Daniel Lubetzky, and Mideast regional director, Mohammad Darawshe, said their ultimate aim was to survey a quarter-million people, to show there is a "silent majority" on each side that favors mutual agreement instead of violence and extremism.

"Every Palestinian and Israeli says they are for peace, but the people have not been held accountable for their beliefs," said Lubetzky. "What's happening now is that 40,000 people stood up and said this is what they want."

The issue now seems to be how to get these moderates into positions of power. I think this will be easier in Israel, which, despite all of its problems, is a democracy which can- and has- vote out leaders when it must.

Unfortunately, there is no similar system currently in place among the Palestinians, making me think that some sort of power struggle (likely one including violence) will be necessary in order to get some better leaders into power.thats why Palestine must be rebuilt and democratic institutions installed like Bush is trying to do in Iraq now

thats why Palestine must be rebuilt and democratic institutions installed like Bush is trying to do in Iraq nowBush is doomed to fail however. Isreal was not successful in taking the land and installing democracy by force because the palestinians will never trust Israel and the 'democratic' government installed by Israel (yes because of history). Iraqis will never trust the US installed 'democratic' government because of history. Iraqis see the US as a zionist imperial power. The US supported Saddam and fled in 1991 after supporting the rebellion. That is history. Democracy has to come from someone they trust. That is my opinion.

Can anyone give me a reason to hope?

This might:

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/431880.html

The issue now seems to be how to get these moderates into positions of power. I think this will be easier in Israel, which, despite all of its problems, is a democracy which can- and has- vote out leaders when it must.

Unfortunately, there is no similar system currently in place among the Palestinians, making me think that some sort of power struggle (likely one including violence) will be necessary in order to get some better leaders into power.

Thank you. I think your assessment is pretty accurate.

Looking back at my contributions to this thread, I see that my possibly inherent misanthropy came bubbling to the surface. The programme shocked me so much and it's taken a day to regain some balance and perspective.

Even so, there's a part of me that believes that we're doomed to failure. Not just in this, but also in other areas of conflict, environmental issues, etc. I'll not stop fighting for what I believe in, but I have little confidence in success.

Amandlaa, I particularly appreciated your comment. It's all very well to wring our hands in an internet forum. What are we actually doing about suffering and misery? What can a small person with little political influence do to make a difference?

Looking back at my contributions to this thread, I see that my possibly inherent misanthropy came bubbling to the surface. The programme shocked me so much and it's taken a day to regain some balance and perspective.

Even so, there's a part of me that believes that we're doomed to failure. Not just in this, but also in other areas of conflict, environmental issues, etc. I'll not stop fighting for what I believe in, but I have little confidence in success.

Amandlaa, I particularly appreciated your comment. It's all very well to wring our hands in an internet forum. What are we actually doing about suffering and misery? What can a small person with little political influence do to make a difference?

I don't think it's important to make a difference. It's just important to try. It's like if you find a wallet on the street; just because most (or even some) other people might keep the money and dump the wallet, doesn't mean that we have to. Do the right thing, because it's the right thing to do, not because you think it'll change anything. OK, there's the hope that it will, and indeed sometimes it does. As an Amnesty International member, you will have actively contributed to the release of, or improvement in conditions of, or reduction in torture of, political prisoners and innocents all over the world. That's something.

I hope that it all adds up, that it is in some way cumulative, that maybe a better future might come just that bit sooner because some people chose to do the right thing when they could. It might not. We might rush into self-generated extinction, moth ourselves in a fireball or poison ourselves or the planet beyond our endurance. But at least we'll have gone down trying. Ultimately I suppose it's an issue of personal pride.

thats why Palestine must be rebuilt and democratic institutions installed like Bush is trying to do in Iraq nowBush is doomed to fail however. Isreal was not successful in taking the land and installing democracy by force because the palestinians will never trust Israel and the 'democratic' government installed by Israel (yes because of history). Iraqis will never trust the US installed 'democratic' government because of history. Iraqis see the US as a zionist imperial power. The US supported Saddam and fled in 1991 after supporting the rebellion. That is history. Democracy has to come from someone they trust. That is my opinion.

Excuse me??...Is that what your nation teaches you youth what the US did at the end of the First Gulf War?? That we supported the rebellion of the Shiites and then fled?

Then your school textbooks are sadly in need of revision..Our Mandate from the UN was to remove Saddam from Kuwait...that was all...we Marines of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force were smack dab in Kuwait City waiting for the order to move forward into Iraq...the US Army's 24th was on our left flank 150 miles from Baghdad and there wasn't anything stopping them...the Iraqis had raped Kuwait City for all it was worth, looting anything they could lay hands on before they fled like rats up Highway 1 leading north to Basrah...

We were not allowed to move farther into Iraq..because no Arab nation was going to support the removal of one of their "brethren" as a Head of State..therefore...we had to sit in Kuwait City on our hands while the Shiites who naturally assumed our forces would assist them, rose up against Saddam...our Armistice was between Saddam's regime and the UN, I heard of Army units a stone's throw away from Shiite rebel units and were helpless to do anything in what was a purely internal matter between Iraqis....they had to watch as Saddam's forces slaughtered the Shiites...by that time the orders had gone out..."Pull back to the border with Saudi Arabia"..the Army had not "fled"..and we Marines sure as hell didn't "flee".

I meant left, sorry for the flee word. The way I wanted to say it wasn't dishonnorable. There is no clear distinction in my language and I made a mistake.
Anyway the point is that in the mind of the iraqis the US is the "great satan". Maybe they should hadover the administration to the UN before the UN hand over power to a government they trust.

We were not allowed to move farther into Iraq..because no Arab nation was going to support the removal of one of their "brethren" as a Head of State..[/quote]

But you support the current war, so what has changed?

I think in fairness other Arab nations would have objected to the subsequent US occupation which would have to follow rather than the removal of Saddam, who was never particularly liked by other Arab regimes.

So does the U.S object to influencing the outcome of "internal" matters in other states, I think history tells us that it does not - Venezuala, Korea etc. The reasons for not supporting the insurgency were ones of pragmatism, (such as wanting to maintain a strong bulwark against Islamic fundamentalism in the middle east), they certainly were not along the lines of "gee, we'd like to help you but our hands are tied".

Actually the CIA did support the insurgency in the beginning. Not the marines, but the CIA.

Looking back at my contributions to this thread, I see that my possibly inherent misanthropy came bubbling to the surface. The programme shocked me so much and it's taken a day to regain some balance and perspective.

Even so, there's a part of me that believes that we're doomed to failure. Not just in this, but also in other areas of conflict, environmental issues, etc. I'll not stop fighting for what I believe in, but I have little confidence in success.

Amandlaa, I particularly appreciated your comment. It's all very well to wring our hands in an internet forum. What are we actually doing about suffering and misery? What can a small person with little political influence do to make a difference?

I don't think it's important to make a difference. It's just important to try. It's like if you find a wallet on the street; just because most (or even some) other people might keep the money and dump the wallet, doesn't mean that we have to. Do the right thing, because it's the right thing to do, not because you think it'll change anything. OK, there's the hope that it will, and indeed sometimes it does. As an Amnesty International member, you will have actively contributed to the release of, or improvement in conditions of, or reduction in torture of, political prisoners and innocents all over the world. That's something.

I hope that it all adds up, that it is in some way cumulative, that maybe a better future might come just that bit sooner because some people chose to do the right thing when they could. It might not. We might rush into self-generated extinction, moth ourselves in a fireball or poison ourselves or the planet beyond our endurance. But at least we'll have gone down trying. Ultimately I suppose it's an issue of personal pride.

We think alike (at least, when I'm in a more 'normal' mood).

Thank you.

We were not allowed to move farther into Iraq..because no Arab nation was going to support the removal of one of their "brethren" as a Head of State..

But you support the current war, so what has changed?

I think in fairness other Arab nations would have objected to the subsequent US occupation which would have to follow rather than the removal of Saddam, who was never particularly liked by other Arab regimes.

So does the U.S object to influencing the outcome of "internal" matters in other states, I think history tells us that it does not - Venezuala, Korea etc. The reasons for not supporting the insurgency were ones of pragmatism, (such as wanting to maintain a strong bulwark against Islamic fundamentalism in the middle east), they certainly were not along the lines of "gee, we'd like to help you but our hands are tied".[/quote]