Free at last?

[Ali]

Monday, September 12, 2005, at 7:00 AM, IDF forces completed their exit from the Gaza Strip (http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=&q=gaza&btnG=Search+News) after 38 years of occupation.

Let's hope this is the beginning of the end for the violence in the area.

Not everybody thinks so. (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1126491572998) Some scary ideologies being expressed in those comments, such as:I fail to understand how Israelis and Jews in the Diaspora can continue to kid themselves that there is any chance of 'peace' in our times. The so-called "Palestinians' and other Arabs have made it abundantly clear that they will never be satisfied with less than the total annihilation of the Israeli State. Leaving Gaza will only give Israel's many enemies the fuel to fan the fires of Jewish evacuation of all of the West Bank and all of Jerusalem. and Gaza was a major liability in Israel's life; what little asset it represented is no longer important. The greater profit is to let the world - the international community - see what Palestinians will NOT be capable of. Terror groups will continue to rule. They will kill each other for a long period of time. What is most important is that the ugly face of Muslim fundamentalism, unfortunately shared by most Arabs, will be seen in the open by that international community that refused to see it for decades.

Israel's right to live in peace within secure borders will be acknowledged by all the nations with the exception of Muslim states. Their fundamentalist elements who are not a minority are already waging war against the Western World and not only against Israel. Everybody who has eyes to see and ears to hear will see their arrogant and "imperialist" philosophy which can be summarized as "become a Muslim or die". They will be stopped by the same means they are using themselves: FORCE! The second advantage is tactical: Israel can strike at this open target with the full firepower of the army, if and when it wishes to do so, when Palestinians continue their attacks on Israel screaming for its destruction. and It was a very sad day when Israeli troops pulled out of the Gaza Strip. Israel is beginning to tread down the same slippery path that Czechoslovakia did in 1938, and anybody who knows their history knows what happened to Czechoslovakians afterwards. I understand the sentiments of those who felt exhausted after maintaining administrative control over close to 2 million Palestinians in an area the size of the District of Columbia. However, this alternative is preferable to the prospect of a Hamas-dominated, al-Qaeda supported, enclave right on Israel's doorstep.

The efforts by President Bush to encourage and support this pullout go counter to the basic premises of the war on terror. President Bush has almost kicked al-Qaeda out of Afghanistan, only for it to reappear on Israel's doorstep. The Gaza pullout only rewards terror, and it has grossly undermined Bush's war on terror. I believe that Israel will be facing a situation much like that between 1993 and 2000, where Israel makes concessions with virtually nothing in return. It is time for the believers in the "New Middle East" to face reality, and for Israeli Prime Ministers to realize that until there is a major change in the overall Arab attitude, they will not be the Prime Minister that will bring peace to Israel. The rest are just as pessimistic and resentful.

Interesting to see where a lot of the most ardent critics of the pullout are located (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1126491572998&apage=3).

This guy makes sense to me: Israel will not know peace until she gets her people out of the West Bank, lock stock and barrel, and the UN takes over Jerusalem (all of it).

The Palestinians will not know peace until they stop fomenting the desire for the destruction of Israel in their children.

The arrogance and greed on both sides of this debacle is appalling. Equally disgusting is the fact that Europe, the US and the UK, the powers that arbitrarily carved unnatural borders into the whole middle east a hundred years ago, don't step up and take the blame.

We promised the Arab peoples independence in exchange for help against the Ottomans and the Nazis, and then at the same time telling the early Zionists to go ahead in there and build a homeland. It was never ours to give away, to either party. We are now reaping the bitter harvest that our collective hubris sowed. He's absolutely right. It was Europe, the US and the UK who created this mess in the first place! Neither side will rest until the other is obliterated and both crave Jerusalem. The powers who created this mess must now clean it up!

[ms.peachy]

This doesn't sound pessimistic or resentful to me. In fact it looks pretty optimistic and forward thinking.
With great sadness for thousands of Israelis, Israel left behind the Gaza Strip with nothing to show for this evacuation other than a goodwill measure, the hope that the Palestinians will determine to stop their quest for the entire land of Israel and disarm the terrorist organizations in their midst. The world should salute Israel's sheer courage in such a monumental move in the name of peace. Many countries who have looked askance at Israel in the past may very well affirmatively rethink their perspective about a tiny country which is willing to put so much on the line without any reciprocal compensation from its neighbor at this point in time. Hatikvah for the settlers who have left Gaza, Hatikvah for all of Israel!

[Ali]

This doesn't sound pessimistic or resentful to me. In fact it looks pretty optimistic and forward thinking.You had to look hard for that one, didn't you?

I agree, I think it's a very noble move by Israel and I really, really hope that those nutters in Hamas stop their shit and can be controlled by the PA.

The Palestinians have been given a chance (although they still can't go and look for work in Israel). It's up to them not to support the minority of extremists who invite the wrath of the IDF on all of them each time they fire a rocket or detonate another bomb. Israel has made a move, the Palestinians will battle to get sympathy if they don't reciprocate, regardless of how they feel about the land.

[ms.peachy]

You had to look hard for that one, didn't you?

well, not really, it was right there on the same page as you linked to.

I agree, I think it's a very noble move by Israel and I really, really hope that those nutters in Hamas stop their shit and can be controlled by the PA.

The Palestinians have been given a chance (although they still can't go and look for work in Israel). It's up to them not to support the minority of extremists who invite the wrath of the IDF on all of them each time they fire a rocket or detonate another bomb. Israel has made a move, the Palestinians will battle to get sympathy if they don't reciprocate, regardless of how they feel about the land.
We'll see how it goes. I just have to believe that there are enough people who are sick of living this way on both sides that want to look for a way forward. Otherwise, what hope is there?

[Ali]

well, not really, it was right there on the same page as you linked to.OK, did you manage to look at the others?
We'll see how it goes. I just have to believe that there are enough people who are sick of living this way on both sides that want to look for a way forward. Otherwise, what hope is there?It's the minority of people on both sides who keep stirring up the trouble who have to be stopped.

[ms.peachy]

OK, did you manage to look at the others?

I did. But I was responding to your comment that "the rest are just as pessimistic and resentful", when that one clearly wasn't. Were the rest on that page on balance more negative? Absolutely. And I didn't look at any of the other 14 or however many pages of comments there were to do a survey. But I just didn't see any point in portraying ALL of the comments as being fatalistic. Look to the light, not the darkness.

[Ali]

I did. But I was responding to your comment that "the rest are just as pessimistic and resentful", when that one clearly wasn't. Were the rest on that page on balance more negative? Absolutely. And I didn't look at any of the other 14 or however many pages of comments there were to do a survey. But I just didn't see any point in portraying ALL of the comments as being fatalistic. Look to the light, not the darkness.OK, OK. Not all the rest, then. Some of them. I read up until page 8, looking for a positive response. The one I quoted above was about as postive as it got.

I was looking to the light, until I started reading those comments. A LOT of bitterness from some of them, not all, but some. It's as if some of them don't want the Palestinians to succeed in Gaza.

I want the plan to succeed, but I'll bet you anything you like that there are small, infulential groups from both sides who share the beliefs of some of the commentators, who don't want the Palestinians to prosper in Gaza.