This past week has shown great accomplishements and steps towards a peace truce between Israel and Palestine. Hamas has announced that it does not recognize this truce.

Why doesn't Sharon and Abbas join forces together to go into Lebanon to eliminate the Hamas? This is their problems... their fued.... their war. The USA diplomats have supported the peace process, but there's no reason for USA military forces to step one foot into Lebanon to mix it up with the Hamas and Jihad that is inside Lebanon. This is Israel's and Palestine's fight to jointly resist the Hamas and eliminate it... in their 'genuine' efforts to maintain peace in their state.

Isn't this what countries should do that seek peace together who has a known enemy that disrupts their peace process???
:o

The Palestinians don't even have well trained police force, much less an army cabable of going into Lebanon. Syria is occupying Lebanon as it is, and Israel already went to Lebanon and found themselves REALLY fighting Syria and Iran by proxy. Israel had to withdraw from Lebanon.

The headquarters of Hamas is Damascus, but that isn't their only office, they have offices in Europe too.

I wish that the Palestinians would join with the Israelis to fight Hamas, but when Arafat and his Tunisian mob were spending millions on themselves the only people that were providing social services was Hamas. Many families are greatly in their debt and so they will not turn on them. It's a very complicated matter no? But there is a 'diwan" system in Lebanon, Jordan, and the PA in a different form and what the representatvie of that family says is what people do. That's kind of true all over the middle east except in the large cities.

Like all countries who have these similar problems, they either work to train themselves to defend themselves and fight their own battles or simply go along with the enemy who is invading them. The USA taxpayers gives $millions and $billions to both Israel and Palestine every year ..... it's time they took some of that money and train MORE of their own to fight their own battles!

I have read several articles explaining where the Hamas comes out of Lebanon, but I'm sure they have some trails that leads to Damascus too. If the Hamas started to see Israel and Palestine go after the Lebanon Hamas Lebanon headquarters and take them out, then the rest may find it better to stay away from the West Bank/ Gaza region. It has to start somewhere.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4248783.stm
Hamas representative Osama Hamdan said in Lebanon that the ceasefire declarations were "not binding" on Hamas members.
"We agreed with [Mahmoud Abbas] that any truce that should take place must be according to the result of an inter-Palestinian dialogue," he told the Associated Press news agency

This is a part fo a transcript off the Meet the Press Feb 13, 2005 where Pat Buchanan discusses with Sharnansky about how the Israelis have pushed for trouble in the Middle East and the Palestinians. Now as peace talks are still fresh with Sharon and Abbas, I wish to display some of the subject matter of this morning's discusion on Meet the Press. He explains how it was the Israelis who created problems with the Lebanan Hezbollah.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6954712/

MR. BUCHANAN: ...that much, would you allow the fate of the settlers in Gaza...

MR. SHARANSKY: Yeah.

MR. BUCHANAN: ...to be decided by all the people of Gaza? Let them vote on whether the settlers should stay or go. You think they should stay. I want to make one more point. The Israelis, when they invaded Lebanon to chase out the PLO, there was no Shia uprising against them. They called into existence that invasion and occupation did, Hezbollah, which eventually drove the Israelis out of Lebanon. Interventionism is not the cure for terror. It is the cause of terror.
MR. SHARANSKY: I have to say that we have occupied Gaza and all the other territories which were under the control of Egypt and Jordan because we were threatened to be destroyed, to be thrown into the sea and until this day, every day there are forces which want to destroy us. And they were saying...

MR. BUCHANAN: Why do you not get out of there?

MR. SHARANSKY: I tell you: Because we don't want a terrorist state to emerge which will destroy us. That's why I'm saying all the time, I want the state which will emerge will be democratic. And that's why...

****************************

MR. BUCHANAN: No one objects to the Israeli army...

MR. SHARANSKY: Yeah.

MR. BUCHANAN: ...defending the frontier of Gaza. The question is: What are 8,000 Israeli settlers doing on that Palestinian land? They are the cause why Hamas won a 70 percent vote. You have got to stop occupying countries. That is the cause of terrorism.
MR. SHARANSKY: I have to say this.

MR. BUCHANAN: Imperial interventionism. You want to end terror...

MR. SHARANSKY: Right.

MR. BUCHANAN: ...stop it the way the British stopped it in Palestine. They got out. The French got out of Algiers. It ended. The Russians got out of Afghanistan. It ended. They got out of Lebanon. That ended it. MR. SHARANSKY: I say you one difference. One difference that we cannot get out from Tel Aviv and we can't get out from Jerusalem and from Haifa because we want to have one Jewish state. And they want us to get out of Tel Aviv, of Haifa and Jerusalem. That's why I'm saying again and again it is...

MR. BUCHANAN: How about Nablus, Bethlehem and Arab East Jerusalem?
MR. SHARANSKY: OK. The moment there is challenge, it is in the hands of democratic Palestinian state, we can survive and live together. That's why I believe our concessions should be connected only to one thing, to real democratic reforms on Palestinian side. And thank God the leaders of Free World finally understands it and says it.

MR. BUCHANAN: And then you will get out of all of the West Bank that's been occupied since 19...

MR. SHARANSKY: You know, the moments to democracy always will find a compromise, and I think- -as a matter of fact, today you will saying something, it goes without say, that every piece of territory which is under Palestinian control should be free from Jews. Well, it is clear that every piece of territory which is under control of Israel should not be and I think should not be free from Arabs. Let's prove that you have different types of societies and let...

MR. BUCHANAN: Would you let the Palestinians who lived in Israel before 1948 in a peace agreement return to their homes in what is now Israel?

MR. SHARANSKY: No. Look, exactly as modern--millions and millions of Jews came from different countries...

MR. BUCHANAN: Right.

MR. SHARANSKY: ...and live there and they're not returning to those countries and...

MR. BUCHANAN: But...

MR. SHARANSKY: ...even to absorb all those millions and millions grandchildren of those people who live over there, there would be no Jewish state anymore. Not one Jewish state. There's so many Arab states and you don't want to tell me one Jewish state...

MR. BUCHANAN: No, no.

MR. SHARANSKY: ...in the world.

MR. BUCHANAN: No, what I'm saying is you're saying--and I agree--in a peaceful agreement in Palestine...

MR. SHARANSKY: Yeah.

MR. BUCHANAN: ...that Jews ought to have a right to live...

MR. SHARANSKY: Yeah.

MR. BUCHANAN: ...on the West Bank. But if that is true, why cannot Palestinians, whose families have lived in that--where you live now for a thousand years, why cannot they in peace come home?
MR. SHARANSKY: And so there are more than a million Arabs who are full citizens of...

MR. BUCHANAN: Who want to come to Israel?

MR. SHARANSKY: ...Israel, who live in Israel, who--I think that we are the only country where Arab members of the parliament can freely criticize their government and enjoy all the freedoms and it is very important for us that not a one Arab citizen of Israel will leave it. But again, the problem in the Middle East was not created because of the lack of democracy...

MR. BUCHANAN: All right.

MR. SHARANSKY: ...but it cannot be solved if it will be not--if we will be the only democratic society there.

MR. BUCHANAN: Well, you're a democracy, but look...

MR. SHARANSKY: Yeah.

MR. BUCHANAN: ...and you say democracies are peaceful. Israel has fought five major wars since it was established. In three of them, 1956, 1967 and 1982, Israel launched pre-emptive strikes. It has been one of the most warlike countries in the Middle East. You have the king of Morocco, king of Jordan, king of Saudi Arabia and Ariel Sharon. Which of those four has been more warlike?

****************************************************

MR. BUCHANAN: ...however, we do believe that Israel has got to give up the occupied territories in Gaza and the West Bank because this problem in the Middle East, which is caused there, is causing acts of terror, not only against you, but against us. It is making us hated in a part of the world where the United States was never before hated, was admired, if you will.

MR. SHARANSKY: I am willing, I wish, I want, I insist to give the Palestinians all the rights in the world except the right to destroy me. And the only way to do it is to encourage democratic reforms and a merging of a Democratic Palestinian state.

MR. BUCHANAN: Justice can't wait upon democracy.

<Tim Russet ends the discussion>

Buchanan is wrong, the terrorism did not stop when Israel pulled out of Lebanon as Hizbollah fires rockets into Israel on a regular basis, but they have bad aim. It happens once a week. Second, Hizbollah sprung up as a big player after the Iranian revolution in 1979, so the correlation is more likely between the emergence of the Shia Theocracy than it is with Israel.

The British got out of the middle east, in fact they GOT OUT of palestine. Israel has no place to go but the area the Romans' named palestine where before it had been called Judea.

The French withdrew from Algeria and civil war, and a BRUTAL civil war broke out. Jews suffered incredible death and destruction after the French pull out so maybe the French had no more terrorism but the Jews did, because, once again, the French had a place to go and the Jews did not.

The Russians got out of Afghanistan, yes and again, they had someplace to go, but look what happened to Afghanistan after they left. Now the country of Pakistan is always under attack from the Afghanistan terrorists and they then went to train the Chechens to fight Russia, so ultimately that did not stop terrorism.

Buchanan is also wrong that the US was NOT hated before Israel's creation or before Israel's war in 1967. I have documentation about this if you want I will dig it up, but I hope you will take my word for it. They did not like the US because of WWI and because of Colonialism...we were not separate from those they saw as colonizers.

Buchanan's arguments are just so much talk and talk, he never has been a deep thinker and all he really thinks about is symptoms of problems, not the problems themselves.

Respectfully heart,

I am sure there is many viewpoints and interpretations that takes place in matters like this... much like it does with religion. I am open to everyone's own viewpoint.

Will you comment on the point of view that both Buchanan and I take.... that Israel and Palestine should themselves fight the Hamas in Lebanon with all the money and weapons that we already supply? USA can not fight everyone's battles or afford them either.

I'm not very well versed in this issue, so I will give an un-informed opinion.
I believe at this early juncture of renewed Israeli/ Palestinian relations, that joint military operations would be counter-productive.
I believe that the peoples on both sides would have problems accepting it.
There is a trust bridge that has to be crossed first.

This is one of those days that make it hard to be a pacifist. But the increase in terrorist activity is hardly unexpected. It fits the pattern of increased peace activities followed by terrorist responses.
See, there is a major push on several fronts to bring peaceful solutions to long term conflicts in the region.
It is too soon to believe that complete cooperation between Israel and the Palistinians on security issues can probably happen, it isn't impossible.
IMO, terrorists are more localized and react independently, but often, because of similar goals, they react at the same general time.
Though not as 100% as the scientific law of each action draws an equal and opposite reaction, but it does beg the question, does each political action cause an equal and opposite reaction?
This is what is at, IMO, at the root cause of the cycle of violence that has permeated the activities to create a fair two-state solution in what was formerly known as Palestine, according to pre-WWI maps.
As was pointed out earlier, varying peoples in an area under colonial control will often oppose colonial power jointly, but when the colonial power is removed, a power vacuum develops, and different types of struggle occur.
This is the stuff of political science, predicting what may happen in a region when the political and power reality is drastically changed. New alliances and institutions arise, and will rarely meet with everyone's approval, thus turmoil often arises.
One possible exception, perhaps, was the fall of the apartheid government in South Africa because of the near universal belief that apartheid was so particularly odious that there was little opposition to that change.
Is that too vague? But, much of this stuff is opinion, and not as quantifiable as physical science, as opposed to social science...

Ghost I have commented on the inability of the Palestinian police forces to join Israel to combat HAMAS and Hizbollah. But poetpj is right. Today is a hard day to think straight. I don't think anyone knows how much people loved PM Hariri. The people of Beirut rebuilt after the civil war with their hands and PM Hariri helped with construction money and equipement. Some terror group is claiming responsibility and Hariri was opposed to Syria's continued occupation of Lebanon. I don't think anyone knows what to do about Hizbollah, but today would not be a good day to ask, because tears in my eyes prevent me from thinking about it. The people of Lebanon have my condolences and I just can't think about it now.

Welcome to the discussion frenchy,

In most postings, we all can only best speculate matters and present it as such just as you did. I do assume that when you stated joint military operations, that you was referring to Israel and Palestine. Your comment is accurate in saying that. In the Middle East, any peace truce may exist for years and still not have the appearance of peace. Islolated militant groups and govt special ops will operate independently and create problems. Thus, no real peace.

My intent in this thread is to make aware how impossible it is for the US forces and taxpayers of America to continuously take on that burden of fighting so many fights all around the world sinking itself in huge debts. As you already know, we are spread very very thin militarially. So my opinion here is, before America crumbles under it's own unstablization that brings collapse, we simply can not continue to pursue this madness with supporting so many countries physically and financially. It's time these other countries takes on the task at hand themselves.

Indeed!

I have something of a Libertarian view when it comes to US military intervention into other countries affairs.
I don't believe in spreading democracy at the point of a bayonet. I am happy and proud of the Iraqis for their stand on Election Day. And I do support our troops in their quest, but our reasons for going there lacked sane reasoning, IMO.