I've found that most people labeled "Palestinian apologists" simply have the audacity to suggest that Israel occasionally does something even remotely immoral. A != !B.

George Washington was responsible for the murders of ten or so French officers who were killed and scalped by Indians under his command as he dithered about what to do with them. He was held accountable by the French, who captured him not long after and considered killing him for the needless atrocity, but sent him back with messages instead. Washington later became the leader of a revolt against his country and successfully broke away from it, becoming it's first official leader. We celebrate him as a valorous and upstanding leader.

Nelson Mandela, an engineer who was involved in the insurgency against the South African government, headed up a terrorist organization and was caught and imprisoned for decades after his personal involvement in terrorist attacks. He was later celebrated as a freedom fighter and became President of South Africa - even though charges of corruption and worse continued to attend his family, he's well thought of.

I'm surprised Reynolds left out Bush I's involvement in planning and executing the Bay of Pigs operations. That was a covert invasion of another country that *failed*! A man like that could *never* lead the Free World!

Arafat was a terrorist leader for decades, until he added the role of politician. No one should be surprised that he committed terrorist acts, just like we are not horrified by Washington's youthful problem or Mandela's involvement in terrorism. How one more act makes a dead man have worse influence on his political party is beyond me. He was a terrorist, and he was the leader of his party and his country - that's fact, that can't be changed.

The choice in Palestine is simple - Fatah or Hamas. Fatah sprang from the terror movements of the 60's; Hamas was created by Israel as (at first) a socially-focused alternative to it, which eventually moved beyond Israeli control. Both of them are flawed, but that's what we have to work with. Putting a few more killings on Arafat's tab not only does not change anything positively, it masks the problem that actually exists. Arafat is no longer the problem.

As long as we stay detached and let Israel dictate events in Palestine, the terror attacks will continue, no matter how strongly the Israelis respond. Heck, they understand that - look at the current handling of the cease fire. Only when the world re-engages and brings both sides to the table to figure out how to reform the Palestinian government and stabilize it internally will we see a change. Bush's policy of not engaging enemies diplomatically ensures that this conflict and others will continue to be a problem.

I'm not a Palestinian apologist. I'm just noting that there's nothing useful in bashing Fatah at this point, or Arafat. It's political bluster - we already know our enemy, we knew what kind of guy Arafat was, and frankly using a little more information about that to bash Palestine's supporters just widens the gap between the two countries.

Next up - Manson killed another person we didn't know about. Weak-kneed Liberal death penalty opponents thanked for sparing his life! More at 11.

That's the purpose of instapundit and his ilk. Split every issue into two sides, with one side in white hats, the other in black. You have to expect this from pundits who make their living by reaching a market longing for this outlook to be represented in the media.

Both sides in that conflict are doing evil things. However, only one is a 'liberal' democracy, and our ally. I think holding that side to a higher standard isn't unreasonable. No ally of ours should be allowed to engage in targeted assassinations or collective punishments of a population. Period.

I see very strong parallels between modern Palestine, which is a gigantic walled prison camp, and the Warsaw Ghetto. The recent attempt to starve them out when they dared to elect a government the Israelis didn't like only made the parallel stronger.

The abused have become the abusers.

I recently started reading a book about "game theory" and said that one strategy is to play Stuborn like de Gaulle and refuse any consessions. They said that the problem with this strategy is that you usually gain very little with it and eventually other "players" will refuse to "play" with you.

Arafat was very stuborn so at one point Israel decided that the best way to beat him is to not play his game and also not let him play his games with other people. So Israel went in and isolated him

That tough guy tactic is used by most Palestinians leaders but still they can't control their own people because they are so factioned. Their signitures are worthless so there is no point in midiating with them.

Currently Hamas and Fatah are fighting eachother and the Jihad is attacking Israel. Israel is curently not interfearing other than giving money and guns to the Fatah so they can fight Hamas better. Israel dislike both factions so it is very happy they are killing eachother eliminating combatants that may turn their weapons to fight Israel.

Currently small arm fire is fairly ineffective against Israel. The only problem is that the Palestinians shoot short range (10-20km) rockets at the Israeli population but the goverment decided that not enough people died yet to care about those rocket attacks and it can take the heat.

Most Israelis consider Europeans and the UN as hostile because they judge Israel with a different standard they judge palestinians . Israel is playing this game with a handicap and already did it's moves to seperate from the Palestinians and walling them out. This lead to economic development and more public safty. Despite the War Israel has exceeded it's economic growth standard for 2006 which had 5% growth . The Palestinians on the other hand are suffocating economical. Israel is currently in a pretty good condition where their opponnants are suffering and trying to eliminate eachother .

It all depends on what you read, it is too easy to just blame America and Britain. America was, however, the first to recognize Israel.

One side:

The Arab world warned Palestinians that Israel was going to do to the Palestinians what the Nazis did to the Jews, and told them to get out of the area. There's conflicting accounts on all sides- you can't blame just Britain and the United States.

Another side:

Israel was created in 1948, after UN Resolution 181 partitioned the territory of the British Mandate for Palestine into two states for Jews and Palestinian Arabs. The Arabs objected to the creation of the Jewish state and fought a war against it. The Arab side lost the war, and the Palestinian state never really came into being. The territory allotted to the Palestinian state by the UN partition resolution was taken over by Israel and Jordan. About 780,000 Palestinians became refugees.

Hey look another one:

The Arab countries agreed to it, thus selling out the Palestinians, then didn't take in some of them that they were "supposed" to.

The CIA:

Following World War II, the British withdrew from their mandate of Palestine, and the UN partitioned the area into Arab and Jewish states, an arrangement rejected by the Arabs. Subsequently, the Israelis defeated the Arabs in a series of wars without ending the deep tensions between the two sides.

Hmm.. Iceland:

The Declaration of Independence of the State of Israel was publicly read in Tel Aviv on May 14, 1948, before the expiration of the British Mandate of Palestine at midnight. It was drafted during the preceding months, and the final version was a result of a compromise between the various parts of the Israeli public of that time. On May 14, 1948, the Vaad Leumi (Jewish National Council) gathered at the first site of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art - a site today called "Independence Hall", and approved the proclamation.

Iceland played an important role in the establishment of the State of Israel, as Ambassador Thor Thors tabled the historical resolution of the establishment of the State of Israel on November 29, 1947 at the United Nations General Assembly, and thereby paved the way for the proclamation of Israel's independence on May 15, 1948. (Mr Peter Gad Naschitz, Honorary Consul General of Iceland 2006)

However, "On May 12, the Jewish national administration was convened in order to decide whether to accept the American proposal for a truce or to declare the new state. A vote was taken and the decision to declare independence forthwith was supported by six of the ten voting members." (pages 5 & 7 of "The Evolution of the Israeli-Egyptian Rivalry, 1948-1979" by Professor of Political Science Dr. Zeev Maoz of Tel-Aviv University [1]).

The new state and its government was recognized de facto minutes later by the United States and three days later de jure by the Soviet Union (Stalin thought a communist or communist-oriented Jewish state could be a useful "thorn in the back" of his capitalist rivals in the Middle East). It was however opposed by many others, particularly Arabs (both the surrounding Arab states and the Palestinian Arabs), who felt it was being established at their expense.

The declaration is written in a style reminiscent of UN resolutions, beginning with preambulatory sentences explaining the causes for the declaration and the right of Jews to an independent country, and then operative sentences detailing the attributes of the forthcoming State of Israel.

The never-really reliable Wikipedia:

11 minutes after the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel at 18:00 (Washington, D.C. time), on 14 May 1948, the United States formally recognized the State of Israel, followed by Guatemala, Nicaragua and Uruguay. The Soviet Union recognized the State of Israel on 17 May 1948, followed by Poland, Czechoslovakia (formally), Yugoslavia (formally), Free Republic Of Ireland and South Africa.

(again... I hate P&C.. WHY do I come in here into discussions about stuff that pisses me off? this Bull Sh_t is not black and white- it has all color and shades of sh_t. it's too f_cking easy to want to blame one side or another in everything that happens in the world)