Palestinian election: Fatah names Abbas as candidate to replace Yasser Arafat

Does anybody know or can point me to somewhere on the web that can show concrete political differences between different candidates running or who might be running for President of the Palestinian Authority?

Mahmoud Abbas is probably the one who knows best the reality of Sharon's objectives, what with his four-month government experience last year.

Abbas is against the militarization of the Intifada, which is his declared and persistent policy. After he was assigned to form the Palestinian government, he worked on a truce in which all the Palestinian factions participated. The truce was in fact declared by the end of June 2004 and lasted 59 days. It then collapsed because of the Israeli violence. A quick playback of last summer will show that the Israelis murdered a Hamas leader a few days before declaring the truce. Later, they murdered another only a few days after announcing it, hoping to thwart it. Israeli violence continued despite the truce, the last straw being the murder of an Islamic Jihad leader, Mohamad Sadr in Hebron, to which Raed Misk (from Hamas) retaliated with a major suicide operation in Jerusalem to avenge his friend. The truce ended as Sharon wanted.

http://english.daralhayat.com/opinion/OPED/11-2004/Article-20041122-60f6622c-c0a8-10ed-002f-9924aa7cd896/story.html

GAZA: Five Palestinian factions, including two radical groups, have agreed to field a joint candidate in the January 9 presidential election to replace the late Yasser Arafat, an official said on Thursday.

Two of the groups, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PLFP) and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, boycotted the previous Palestinian election in 1996. Both factions rejected Arafat’s interim peace deals with Israel.

The factions that also include the Struggle Front, People’s Party and Democratic Federation (FIDA) — all of them small groups — agreed in recent meetings in Gaza to run a joint candidate, but have yet to select one.e.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_19-11-2004_pg7_15

After years of building popularity through sponsoring suicide bombings, an Islamic social welfare network, and criticism of government corruption, Hamas has moved from the margins as the main rival to Arafat's Fatah Party. A September poll found the combined support of 27 percent for Hamas and the much smaller Islamic Jihad faction, compared with Fatah's 25 percent.

Now, the Islamic group is poised to translate years of rising popularity into political power. "Fatah and the Palestinian Authority are always making the decisions. The only way for Hamas to be part of this process is to be in the legislative council,'' says Ghazi Hamad, the editor of a weekly newspaper in Gaza affiliated with Hamas. "Hamas will try to move closer to the national consensus. This may affect the tactics and the strategy of Hamas [pushing it] to be more pragmatic and more realistic.''

Hamad adds that Hamas's shrinking from the presidential contest is an implicit recognition that its rejection of talks with Israel is out of step with political realities. "It is very difficult for Hamas to take responsibility for the whole situation. If you're the No. 1 power, you have to pay the price for the previous commitment of the Palestinian Authority with Oslo.''

For now, the organization continues to toe a hard line, refusing agreement on a collective cease-fire among Palestinian militant groups in attacks on Israelis. Negotiations with PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas have made little progress so far, though talks are expected to continue in Cairo in the coming weeks.

While standing before Arafat's grave site, Youssef repeated Hamas's demand that thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails be granted amnesty in return for a cessation of violence.

"It is impossible to have a cease fire if the issue of prisoners isn't solved,'' Youssef said. "They should all be released.''

Youssef's diminutive stature belies his standing as Hamas's most charismatic politician in the West Bank. His release at the end of a 28-month prison sentence comes at a critical time for Hamas, which lost top leaders like Abdel Azziz Rantisi and Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in Israeli assassination strikesearlier this year.

Considered to be a Hamas moderate who supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Youssef told reporters that he would run for parliament when elections are called.

The Islamic group is weaker in the West Bank compared to the religiously traditional Gaza Strip, but it could tap into voter anger over the violence and corruption among the ruling Fatah Party.

"Everybody inside Fatah feels the danger of Hamas gaining at the expense of Fatah,'' says Omar Assaf, an activist in Palestinian Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, an opponent of peace talks. "Hamas has consolidated its power in the last few years.''

But Hamas's political maturity has also brought confusion to the movement, say political rivals. "On the one hand, they are trying to stick to their traditional stand. On the other hand they're trying to find a new place on the political map,'' says Elias Zananiri, a former spokesman for the Palestinian Interior Ministry. "The leaders are moderate, and more prone to pressure from the PA and the Palestinian street.''

And yet, Mohammad Yaghi, a columnist for the Palestinian Al Ayyam newspaper, says the movement has a well- thought-out strategy. Dodging the presidential elections would avoid the possibility of an outright defeat for Hamas's rejection of negotiations. Although the parliament was set up by Oslo, a foothold there would provide Hamas politicians with a platform to criticize Fatah while gathering strength for the next election.

"This will reinforce their position among the people, he said. "They are preparing for the future. They want power, but not now.''

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1122/p04s01-wome.html

The political differences used to be as follows:

The PA supported a two state solution with the Palestinian state including parts (or all) of Jerusalem and the right of return for refugees from Israel proper. Most in the PA supported armed struggle but Barghouti was opposed to attacked inside Israel and fovaored only attacks on military targets and settlers. Abbas has been against all armed struggle and because of this has little popularity among most Palestinians (but he still could win an election if he is the offical candidate of Fatah since it has so much power)

The PFLP and DFLP are Marxist groups that have sectarian marxist differences (the DFLP received money from the Soviets into the 80s). They opposed the idea of a two state solution and want a single secular state. The both support armed struggle (not sure of the qualifications they put on tragets though). Following the collapse of the Soviet Union the PFLP and DFLP lost most of their power and are now very small groups.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad are Islamic fundamentalist groups that have opposed a two state solution. Hamas is quickly becoming one of the most popular groups among Palestinians because it runs many community based programs that help everyday Palestinians. They are openly supportive of sucide bombings inside Israel. They have been opposed to a two state solution but their demands have recently decreased a lot to the point where its not apparent that under the right circumstances they wouldnt support some sort of Palestinian state next to Israel.

I'm sure others can provide a lot more detail but I cant find any good sites with the candidates, groups and differences of opinion (there are some describing the demands of each group in years past but the demands have changed a lot in recent years ...)

The resistance group Hamas might support an independent presidential candidate in the elections due on 9 January, according to a prominent leader in the West Bank.

In an exclusive interview with Aljazeera.net, Hasan Yusuf said it would be futile and inexpedient for the movement to adopt a passive role in the elections.

"This is a crucial phase of our national struggle, and taking a passive or indifferent stance towards the elections undermines the interests of both the Palestinian people and the Islamic movement," he told Aljazeera.net on Saturday.

Yusuf said it was only logical that Hamas would chose the best possible, or least disagreeable, candidate.

"If a candidate declares that he is committed to true democracy, and if he pledges to defend the paramount issues such as Jerusalemfavo, the refugees, then it will be foolish not to support him," he said.

"Not supporting him would only help other candidates who might compromise the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people."

Yusuf was released from an Israeli prison on Thursday after serving 28 months of administrative internment for his role as Hamas spokesman in the central West Bank.

Full elections

Yusuf dismissed the PA stance that, according to the law, a presidential election must take place within 60 days from the time the president of the PA dies or is declared senile or unable to perform his constitutional powers.

"Is this law a Quranic injunction? The term of the legislative council expired four years ago, but the council is still functioning, and nobody is invoking the law."

Yusuf voiced worries that the PA may be seeking to create a "new dictatorship" to replace the "autocracy" of the late Yasir Arafat's leadership.

"They should demonstrate their commitment to democracy by designating a date for legislative and local elections," he said. "I don't understand why they are afraid to do so."

Candidates come forward

The moderate Islamist leader said he had already been contacted by a number of potential candidates who, he said, expressed their inclination to work with Hamas for the purpose of promoting a credible candidate for president.

Yusuf, however, said he was strongly opposed to Hamas taking the leadership seat because this would harm the interests of the Palestinian people.

"If Hamas assumed the leadership at this time, it would be vilified and isolated by the international community, and then the people would suffer," he said.

"Therefore, Hamas wants to be in a position where it can influence the leadership through the democratic process."

Future prospects

Asked if he was optimistic about the future following the death of Arafat, Yusuf said Palestinians had no choice but to be optimistic.

"We can't be pessimistic. We are actually optimistic because the Palestinian cause is now topping the international agenda and the entire world is coming to terms with the fact that there can be no peace or stability in this world without a just resolution of the Palestinian question."

Yusuf accused the Israeli government of diversionary tactics. "It always seeks to divert attention from the fundamental issues, namely their occupation of our homeland and persecution of our people," he said.

"They always invent things to escape responsibility and distract attention from the root cause, the occupation.

"When Arafat was alive, they said he was the problem, and if only he died or was killed, everything would be fine," Yusuf said.

"Now they are coming up with the issue of incitement, ignoring the fact that the real source of incitement against them is their daily crimes against our people.

Israeli incitement

Yusuf said, "Don't they engage in incitement against us? When will they stop teaching their kids that non-Jews are animals and that their lives have no sanctity? When will they outlaw all these computer games which teach Israeli children the most efficient ways to kill an Arab?"

Yusuf said Hamas would be willing and ready to observe a ceasefire with Israel if the latter met two conditions.

"First, Israel must stop all attacks on Palestinian civilians, including assassinations, and, second, release all Palestinian prisoners and detainees."
Aljazeera

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/07BB1E25-2B79-4959-9B4E-00D9F8D507AC.htm

"paramount issues such as Jerusalemfavo, the refugees"

Not they didnt say recognition of Israel. This is a major change if thats not their main sticking point with Abbas.

Hamas may be hated by the US, supporters of Israel and most of the "Left" but it exists and because it hasnt been tarnished with corruption as has the PA, it may be the main force all sides have to deal with in the future.
While it is a fundamentalist group it is good to see it is not making a huge deal about demanding Sharia etc.. since that suggests much of the support for Hamas could just be comming from those who are not necessarilly demanding a religious state (and may just be backing Hamas because of the lack of real alternatives)
Hamas is perhaps in these ways similar to Hezbollah, which is seen by Israelis and many in the US as a terorist organization but is seen by many in Lebanon as having helped to end the Israeli invasion and hlped to create Lebanon's current relative peace and stability.

" hlped to create Lebanon's current relative peace and stability."

LOL!!!! The bloody Syrian Military Occupation of Lebanon is what "stabilized" Lebanon...Fascism has a way of doing that...

The Syrians were already occupying Lebanon when Israel invaded and Israel crushed them. If all the opposition in Lebnaon has been secular nationalists Israel would have won but life was so hard under Israeli occupation and so many civlians were killed by Israeli bombs and the Phalange proxy army (that got its name from José Antonio Primo de Rivera's Spanish Falange and was thus in many ways an actual fascist political party) that fundmentalism became the weapon of last resort. While suicide bombings and other forms of modern terrorism existed before the war in Lebanon (and were even used by the Israelis against the British in the 40s) Lebanon is largely responsible for the modern set of tactics used by Islamic fundamentalists as an effective form of asymetric warfare. Syrian tanks were burnt to a crisp and secular Palestinian gunmen fared poorly against Israelis troops, but suicide bombings drove the US out of Lebanon and kidnappings and the like really created the situation that allowed the current peace (and for all its current problems the current peace is much better for all in the country compared to what existed under Israeli occupation).

"The Syrians were already occupying Lebanon when Israel invaded and Israel crushed them"

That's right...the Syrians have Brutally OCCUPIED Lebanon for over 30 years...they were there when the PLO started the civil war, and stood by, and even helped the PLO as they massacred village after village of unarmed christian Arabs...nice guys , huh?

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The Lebanese Civil War was a bloody and complex conflict that raged in Lebanon from 1975 until 1990.

During the era between independence and the 1970s Lebanon was viewed as a paragon of post-colonial success. It was the wealthiest state in the region, had a freer and more open society, and was a frequently cited example of inter-faith coexistence and cooperation in a region beset by internecine violence.

There were early problems, however. The cooperation between the economically dominant Maronite Christians and the majority Muslims was always tenuous. The very existence of the state was called into question by Arab nationalists leading to a brief civil war in 1958 that was only ended by the intervention of American soldiers.

On 13 April 1975, in retaliation to an assassination attempt on a leader of the Phalange, Pierre Gemayel, the Phalangists, led by the Gemayels, massacred 27 Palestinians travelling on a bus in Ein Al-Rumaneh. In December, 1975, four Christians were killed in east Beirut. In growing reprisals, the Phalangists and Muslim militias subsequently massacred at least 600 Muslims and Christians at checkpoints, beginning the 1975-1976 civil war. Full-scale civil war broke out, with the Palestinians joining the Muslim forces, controlling an increasingly lawless West Beirut. In June, 1976, with the Maronites on the verge of defeat, the President called for Syrian intervention, who moved into the country and imposed a ceasefire (Fisk, pp. 78-81). After the arrival of Syria, Christian forces massacred 2,000 Palestinians in the Tel al-Za'atar camp in East Beirut [1] (http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/jun2000/assa-j16.shtml). Other massacres by both sides were committed at Karantina and Damour, where the PLO murdered 350 Christian civilians (Fisk, 99). Despite the Syrian occupation, fighting continued in Southern Lebanon. In the Fall of 1976, Arab summits in Riyadh and Cairo set out a plan to end the war. The resulting Arab Deterrent Force, which included Syrian troops already present, moved in to help separate combatants. An uneasy quiet settled over Beirut, and security conditions in the south began to deteriorate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanese_Civil_War

" During the era between independence and the 1970s Lebanon was viewed as a paragon of post-colonial success."

Just as Moslem Arabs hate israel, they also hated Christian lebanon...Islamic INTOLERANCE is the basic cause behind all of these wars for Islamic expansion...it's nothing new, it's been that way since mohamed was making love to little girls.

Lebanese Christian political party and militia. The name Phalangists (Phalange and Phalange party are variations on the same) is both a translation from Arabic and a small distortion, coming from phalanx. The correct name would have been Lebanese Kataeb Social Democratic Party.
The Phalange attracted Christian youths from the mountains northeast of Beirut as well Christian students in Beirut. The politics of the Phalange party was pro-Western, and they opposed any pan-Arabism. The Phalangists have shown an unusual amount of pragmatism in dealing with allies.
In the beginning of the Lebanese Civil War they cooperated with Syria, but from 1982 Israel became their most important ally. This was also the year that they performed the act for which they always will be remembered: the massacre of Sabra and Chatila. This was a retaliation for the murder on their leader Bashir Gemayel, and from this year the Phalange gradually lost its momentum and importance.

History:
1936 November: Founded by Pierre Gemayel, inspired by the Nazi Youth Movement that he had seen in Hitler's Germany.
1949: The discovery of a Syrian plot to merge Lebanon with Syria stirs up anxiety and nationalism in Lebanon, giving the Phalange party many new members.
1958: In the 1958 Civil War, the Phalangists supported president Camille Chamoun.
1968: The Phalange party cooperates with the parties of Chamoun and Raymond Edde, and gets 9 of the 99 seats in the parliament.
1975: The Lebanese Civil War starts. The Phalangists have 20,000 members and their own little army. They were part of the umbrella organization Lebanese Front.
1976: The Phalangists support Syrian intervention in the conflict, as they were losing ground to the Muslim troops.
1980: The Phalange destroys the militia of the National Liberal Party of Chamoun, which was another member of the Lebanese Front.
1982: The Phalangists cooperates with Israel, in planning an attack on Lebanon.
— June 6: Israel invades Lebanon from its southern border, and its forces start advancing north, reaching Beirut in short time.
— September: The Phalangists have become the strongest party in Lebanon, thanks to the aid of Israel.
— September 13: Bashir Gemayel is killed few days before he is to be sworn in as president of Lebanon.
— September 16: As a way of retaliating the killing of Gemayel, the Phalange militia gets help from the Israeli army to close off the Palestinian quarters of Sabra and Chatila. Then a campaign of killing 2,000 Palestinian civilians over the next 3 days. This stands as one of the most dramatic moments from the 16 year long civil war.
— September 21: Bashir's brother, Amin, also a Phalange member, is elected president.
1985: Break between the Phalange party and the Lebanese Front, and thereby reducing the Phalange importance.
1988 September: Gemayel steps down as president, leaves the country and a weak party.
1992: The Phalange party decides to boycott the general elections, as a protest against the continued presence of Syrian troops in Lebanon.
— December: The headquarters of the Phalange party are blown up.

http://i-cias.com/e.o/phalangists.htm

Note that the hero of the proIsraeli right are a group inspired by the "Nazi Youth Movement" and named after a Spanish fascist group. But hey they are Christians and thus good while Muslims (and especially Palestinians) are by definition "terrorists" (which is in many ways the modern way of calling a people Untermenschen) so its ok when they are massacred in large numbers either by Israel and the Phalange in Lebanon, by the Syrians at Hama or by the US in Falluja.

"inspired by the "Nazi Youth Movement"

It's not news that the Arabs were (and many still are) nazis...

Secular Arab nationalist leaders do (And did) bare a resemblance to fascists. Since Arab countries were occupied by allied power following WWI its not too surprising that many Arabs also did sympathize with the enemies of Britain (just as many in India did too) but its completely nonsensical for supports of Israel to demonize Arab leaders for past WWII ties and then go around supporting groups like the Phalange who saw Palestinians as subhumans who needed to be cleansed to make Lebanon a pure Christian state.

The strange part about the history of the region is that this type of demonization of secular and Socialist Arab (and Persian) groups is what weakened the left and resulted in the current rise of Fundamentalism. Assad's main enemy used to be the fundmantalists which is why he massacred thousands at Hama. The destruction of a viable Left in the region by the US and Israel has created what we have today.

Itrs very hard top understand the goals of the US and the proIsrael types since what they push for is the rise of Fundamentalism more than anything else. US support for the Shah created Khomeini. Lebanon created Hezbollah. US support for the Mujahaden,in Afghanistan created Al Qaeda and the Taliban. The undermining of the PA by Israel and the US created the current power of Hamas ande the war on Iraq has created both Shia and Sunni fundamentalist militias where few existed before. One wonders if the US push to get the UN to pressure Syria out of Lebanon isnt an attempt to restart the civil war (although it seems like its probably another act of US stupidity rather than anything intended to create chaos but thats always the US's excuse...blame it on the US education system)

If the US can now just destabilize Syria and Iran there will be a contiguous area of collapsed states full of warlords and fundamentalist non-government militias all the way from the Mediterianean to the border of China.

I would be interested to hear a right-wing defense of the Phalange. Right-wingers keep posting on here demonizing the Palestinians and the Syrians and blaming both for things like Lebanon, so I would guess they have some alternative explanation for the origin of the Phalange, the origin of its name and a defense of its actions when it was under Sharon's command in Beirut. Do right-wingers merely regard them as the lesser of many evils or do they actually have a defense of this group that carried out the massacres that turned the world (and even the Israeli public) against the Israeli war.

PS I already know that many Europeans backed the Phalange because it was a Christian militia, but that isnt an excuse for Israel's support for the Phalange but instead a good reason to oppose how European countries deal with third world countries (and favor countries and peoples with cultural ties to Europe over other groups)

I keep noticing that Syria supporters continue justifying Syria's occupation of Lebanon as necessary for what they term maintaining stability and order by preventing rival factions from fighting it out. One would be justified assuming that Syria seems to deliberately avoid real attempts on a fundamental level at bridging gaps between the Lebanese adversaries so that its presence in Lebanon to keep them beyond arm's reach of each other wouldn't be needed, or attempts to facilitate the creation of a strong democratic Lebanon whose constitution and police would be sufficiently potent both to prevent the prospect of a renewed civil war and to ensure no serious domestic anti-democratic challenges to Lebanon's sovereignty will go unchecked.
No, it's convenient for Syria to rule Lebanon through a puppet regime and reap all the accompanying benefits, like drug profits, having many Syrians work in Lebanon, the exploitation of Lebanon's economy, etc.

Are Syria supporters and apologists even interested in seeing such changes as the aforementioned introduced in Lebanon so that Syria's occupation will lose its appeal even for them?

So CT do you support what the Phalange did during the Lebanon civil war. Do you think what happened in Sabra and Chatila was ok? Do you think Israel's support for the Phalange had anything to do with what happened there? Do you think Sharon was at least partly to blame, or do you oppose that he lost his job because of the horror of what happened?

http://www.littleredbutton.com/lebanon/

http://www.littleredbutton.com/lebanon/page38.html

http://www.littleredbutton.com/lebanon/page38.html

Gee, nessie must be proud of how my questions pertaining to the present situation in Lebanon are being brushed aside in favor of the past.

I never support any murder of innocents.
Do you support the murders of Israelis by the PLO from Lebanon from 1970 through 1982? And, do you think the PLO murders of Christians was OK? Hope you'll tackle these questions.

Israel, through Sharon, had an indirect connection to what happened in Sabra & Shatila as he should have foreseen the massacre was coming following Bashir Jumayil's murder. I've already said this not long ago. Yet I'm quite fed up with hearing ad infinitum about how Sharon should be brought to stand trial in the Hague and further punished after a natonal committee of inquiry headed by the president of Israel's Supreme Court and also included Supreme Court Justice Aharon Barak removed him from his post of defense minister, all the more so when I never hear leftists complaining about the other, Muslim massacre that occurred in Shatila 3 years later, when Muslim militiamen attacked the Shatila and Burj-el Barajneh refugee camps. According to UN officials, 635 were killed and 2,500 wounded. There is no record of any protests or public investigation.

Hopefully someone will pick up the gauntlet I dropped concerning the *present* situation in Syrian occupied Lebanon.

Syria also killed more people at Hama than Israel had killed at Sabra & Shatila. The point is that proIsrael types go around lecturing the world about how horrible neighboring countires are and hare orrorified that anyone can support them when the most disturbing regional massacre in the past 40 years was at least indirectly a result of Israeli actions.

Why Sabra & Shatila is worse than Hama should be obvious. The international community and Israel had arranged for all militants to leave the country and the camps were largely full of women, children and other noncombatants. There was nobody left to fight back and yet for a full day thousands of women were raped and piles of bodies were left in the streets. Perhaps you are tired of hearing about how bad this was, but to be too tired to care about thousands of civilians slowly killed in cold blood (not in the heat of battle or by bombs where those killing couldnt see their victims) This doesnt mean that Syria should not be ever condmened byt the righteous indignation one hears from Israel supporters while Sharon is now President is sick (the above thread started with some poster talking about how Muslims in Lebanon were evil terrorists while the Christians were good which is the exact Israeli rhetoric that created the dehumanization that allowed the massacres to take place)

Before he died Assad shoudl have been tried for Hama (where 10,000+ were killed) and Saddamn should be tried for killing kurds and Shia, but for the US or Israel to try others for evil acts while ignoring their own history is the hight of hypocracy. The masscare in Beirut was only a few years before the gassing of the Kurds. One can claim that somehow Israel isnt to blame anymore because reports condemned the massacre but Sharon is now in power!! And the same rhetoric where terrorist is a word reserved for Arabs still carries with it the motivation for the massacres; while killings have taken place in the region on all sides it is only the Palestinians and Arabs who are seen as subhuman terrorists (in the US and Israeli press) wheras those who carried out Sabra & Shatila are evil people but somehow not terrorists (since its a word reserved for a given ethnic group)

Obviously you've been way too bored over the last few hours at your sandbox, so you've been very busy stirring crap here, trying to change the topics of threads and certain discussions with your tired trolling.

I'm all too aware that 'curious' wasn't you. So? That doesn't mean you won't try to forge him/her at some point down the road.

Now the subject is the problems arising from the Syrian occupation in Lebanon, you simpleton (not only is this an ad hominem, it's even deliberate). When we'll need you as a moderator, we'll summon you over. Until then, crawl back whence you came.

There he goes again, trying to change the subject yet another time. This thread isn't about me. it's about Abbas. Don't let this guy distract you. Stay on the topic. If it wasn't important, the Zionist propaganda mill wouldn't be trying to divert your attention away from it.

As far as whether the PLO gunmen had been evacuated from Sabra & Shatila, the Israeli military actually feared that a certain number of them had managed to avoid evacuation from Beruit by hiding among the refugees. There were estimates of perhaps 200 armed men in the camps working out of the countless bunkers built by the PLO over the years, and stocked with generous reserves of ammunition.
I'm not about to apologize for the Phalangists; I just wish to remind anyone who's forgotten that they were motivated to a considerable degree also by revenge for the years of brutality Lebanese Christians had suffered at the hands of Palestinians during the PLO occupation of Lebanon

As for what you're distorting, I can't say I'm surprised you're attributing to me something I don't feel nor said. You're obviously too upset not to twist what I stated about my repugnance about constantly hearing that Sharon should be tried.

Israel cliamed there were some terrorists in the camps and used that to justify helping with the massacre by dropping flares to provide light for the militias, letting the militias in to do the killings, handing prisoners over to the militias, and ignoring the piles of dead bodies for almost a day before the internatinal news media broke the story.

Im sure you do feel bad about what happened and didnt mean to suggest otherwise. What bothers me is that the same use of the word terrorist that helped dehumanize Palestinians and lead to the massacre is still around (and not just in Israel the US military even talked about going in to Falluja to fight "Satan"). People are going around trying to make Arabs and Palestinian out to be universally wrong and never victims wheras Christian and Jews never commit wrongs (look at the above thread and how the discussion of Lebanon started)

History is obviously complicated and no side is completely innocent or guilty in any conflict. Many in the world associate Sharon with the images of hundreds of corpses of women and children piled up the streets of Palestinian camps in Beirut (and for some reason most Israelis also blamed him more than Begin at the time). But now we have people calling Sharon a "man of peace" while the Syrians are being blamed for Lebanon (as if they are somehow more guilty than other groups for what happened rather than equally guilty). Syria is guilty for many horroris in Lebanon but to manipulate history and have Israelis and Americans scold Syria while ignoring their own history is a little too much to take.

No matter how many times you insinuate to the contrary, or inadvertently cause some readers to believe Israel acted through an intention to aid and abet a massacre, it won't become any more true.

As for the use of the word "terrorist", if no Arabs should be tagged as terrorists, should this word be discarded across the board in a bid for a supposedly enhanced level of political correctness? If some Jews commit terrorism, shouldn't we use that word to denote their terrorist action/s and what they engaged in? Does it really make sense not to use it to describe any such actions by individuals who've practiced or engaged in it, regardless of their ethnicity?
It's unfortunate that some make overgeneralizations about Arabs and Palestinians, but we can condemn them without letting their racism distract us from reasonable judgements about actions taken by certain people or groups.

I agree that there's certainly blame to go around, for when we look back into the past we also notice Israel's excesses. The present -- or actually the last four years -- however, is a different story when the Lebanese topic emerges -- Syria is the only occupying force there nowadays, and it's unfair for certain people to try to artificially insert Israel into the Lebanese arena, notably by raising the kind of speculations that argue it is scheming together with the US to instill a Christian leadership into power once the US ejects the Syrians, in order to gain from the end of the Syrian dominance.