Your thoughts on the conflict in the Mideast
Do you think the Israeli offensive in the West Bank is an effective way to halt terror attacks against Israelis? Do you think the United States has been an effective leader in Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations? Are you concerned the conflict is making a terrorist attack on the US more likely? Share your thoughts.
Page 2
No, No, and Yes. Military occupation (for 35 years now) only breeds resistance THe only way to end violence is a political settlement. Israel must remove all its troops AND its settlers from the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and recognize a Palestinian State. Only then is there any hope of ending the violence, and even then there are serious issues to be negotiated.
Bruce Hawkins, Northampton
To all the historians out there - don't forget that after the signing of the peace treaty in 1948 that established Israel and equally divided the land, it was the Arabs that went to war against the Israelis. The PLO and Arafat have always existed under the objective that Israel should be destroyed and despite the messages that Arafat relays in English he is a cold blodded murderer, a crook whose picture should be placed next to that of Osama bin Laden. There will not be a solution to the palestinian problem until there is a Palestinian leader who is supported by the majority of the Palestinian people, whose hands are not smeared by murders and acquisition of weapons from Iran and who has the respect of all Arab neighbors. That man is not Arafat and if he is to take a bullet, well then he deserves it.
Michael, Brookline
There will be peace after these wretched Arab terrorists are defeated. Not before. As long as Arabs are blowing up pregnant women in cafes, Israel has every right to respond with great force and crush them. As Victor Davis Hanson has argued in recent weeks, peace comes with defeat. Why do the Palestinians demand our support and sympathy? I remember running from the WTC while they were dancing in the streets of Ramallah, celebrating our 3,000 dead in America 6 months ago. Defeat these people and you will have some peace. Crush them. No one should have ANY patience for their pathetic whining.
Mike, New York, NY
It's time for Bush to pull his head out and show some leadership! His hands-off approach has been a dismal failure and severely damaged our reputation abroad. We can only hope that Dick sits him down soon for a man-to-man talk and gets him straightened out on this critical issue.
George Kuboaa, Springfield, MA
Our president's lack of involvement in the Mideast crisis and his continued pressure to get his energy bill passed appear to point to one thing--he wants to force us to agree to his desire to drill in the Alaskan wilderness for oil. I assume that he thinks that keeping SUV's filled up is more important than the many lives lost in this warfare.
Janet S., Wellesley
We have not been effective in negotiations because we are and continue to portray to the world through our actions, recounted in the media that our involvement is purely to protect our "interests" ie: business/oil in the area. Let the free market take care of itself. Neither Palestine nor Israel are part of the U.S.. They like us are part of the world. Humanitarian reponses / with safety support by a global organization should be the only involvement by individuals outside of their respective borders... There has been fighting in the mideast for thousand of years... fighting in Ireland for hundreds of years... Wars with religions on opposite sides that will never be resolved until ALL of humanity lives by a very simple rule, the Golden Rule!
k.l. sadowski, saco,maine
Israel has been the #1 racist and terrorist nation for such a long, long time. Israel is occupying the land of the Palestinian people and is holding those people in the grip of U.S. sanctioned terrorism. Why is it not at the very least "politically incorrect" for Israel to be racist. With the help of the media, the people of the United States have been seeing the situation from the point of view of our "friend",Israel, for so many years that we have stopped using our rational and intellectual faculties. We need to start thinking again. If we, here in the U.S., were being held hostage in our own land with foreign tanks storming the White House, how would we respond? Wouldn't we act? The Palestinians have no planes and warships and bombs and troops! If they did, we would probably respect their sophisticated efforts to defend their land and their homes and their families and their leaders. Are we viewing the Palestinians as terrorists because they are a poor people with primitive defenses? Yes we are!
Peg, Franklin
Let the Israelis settle the problem, stay out there. The Palestinian need to be dealt with once and for all. Negotiations are futile and are never adhered to anyway.
paul, washington dc
First of all, for those who think Israel "stole" a legitimate Palestinian territory, is our own country not stolen property, from Indians, from Mexico? Unlike the US, Israel has been a historical Jewish homeland for 5,000 years. Jerusalem is mentioned hundreds of times in the bible -- not once in the Koran -- and played a huge role in Jewish history. The West Bank and Gaza are really parts of Israel - there were lots of Jewish towns and Jews in both areas until the Arabs destroyed the areas after the 1948 war, a war intended to destroy Israel on the day of its birth. The reason the UN agreed to create Israel was because of the holocaust, so that Jews would always have a safe homeland. In fact there still aren't as many Jews in the world now as there were in 1939 - they killed that many, and there are so few to begin with. Finally, Palestinians were living quite well in Israel until Hamas destroyed the peace. In Israel, all people - Jews, Christians, and Arabs -- work, vote, enjoy a free press, free speech and other civil liberties that no other society in the middle east has. And it's the only country in the middle east with a democratic government. In places like Saudi Arabia and Syria, they remian in tent camps, used as bartering chips by those dictators to force public opinion and force Israel to one day become an Islamic state - the same kind of place that bred the 9/11 bombers. Saudi Arabia publicly beheads almost 400 people each year, and refuses to permit any religion but Islam. They chop off your hands for stealing. Syria has paved over whole towns of Islamic protestors, killing thousands. And we criticize Israel?
Jason, Boston
The Israeli's are fighting a battle they cannot win. They are polarizing the Arab states and are turning world opinion against them. It further complicates things for the United States and drags them into this quagmire. We must distance ourselves from Israel,
Jeff Boston
