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Russian military leaders have expressed concern about US plans for a national missile defense system. Will defense technology be limited by possibilities for a strategic imbalance? Is this just SDI all over again?

lunarchick - 09:33am Apr 20, 2001 EST (#2418 of 2422)
lunarchick@www.com

CyberVacating at this hotel at a town with a history of falling over ... falling over ... falling over ... and still today ... falling over?!?

Here's a Philistine City hosting the grave of the grandfather of Prophet Mohammed

Local SPORT

My favourite MidEastPolitician

Enter IN

lunarchick - 09:40am Apr 20, 2001 EST (#2419 of 2422)
lunarchick@www.com

Raises a question. Is truth more peculiar to some cultures and religions than others? Are the Nations that 'value truth' doing better than those that evade it; work on Old Testament (an eye for an eye); suffer loss of 'face' complexes; are run by Gangsters; exclude gender and 'other' 'outer' groupings.

rshowalter - 10:40am Apr 20, 2001 EST (#2420 of 2422)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

All cultures are complex and many faceted, and have many imperfections. And all the major cultures have much to be praised, much that is beautiful, too. But I think your question is a profound one, and one that ought to be seriously considered, by all sides, in the Middle East, all across Eurasia from Ireland to Japan, and in the rest of the world as well. When things go breathtakingly, horribly wrong, and stay wrong --- perhaps there are fundamental reasons.

Reasons that need to be understood - problems to be adressed, and patterns to be changed, and "certainties" to be retired.

Reasons it takes some time to think about, and to tactfully phrase.

Sometimes, perhaps, tact ceases to be right.

Some things are ugly.

almarst-2001 - 11:49am Apr 20, 2001 EST (#2421 of 2422)

The creation of the modern Israel is a result of a terrible fate of Jews in Europe, prior and during the WWII.

The zionist idea of resetteling the Jews in Israel ignored the potential conflict with Arabs as a minor problem in face of a catastrophy in Europe under the assumption that only the pure Jewish state and army can provide the safe future for the generations.

As long as that assumption is not chalenged, I see no solution to this problem.

The territorial separation evisioned in Camp David accord will not create even one viable state. Unless they share the resorces and cultural and religious heritage.

In order to allow such shearing, the main reasons for friction of Jewish-Arab cohabitance must be eliminated. Primerely the religious extremism. That would very much depend on an influence of the fundamental islamic nations, primerely the Saudi Arabia and other "Oil Kingdoms".

rshowalter - 12:21pm Apr 20, 2001 EST (#2422 of 2422)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

almarst , you're exactly right that

" The territorial separation evisioned in Camp David accord will not create even one viable state. Unless they share the resorces and cultural and religious heritage.

and at Camp David, that was an explicit, hopeful, necessary assumption made, and implicitly "signed on to" by all parties -- or at least tacitly considered, and not contradicted.

" In order to allow such shearing, the main reasons for friction of Jewish-Arab cohabitance must be eliminated."

Those involve the present (hard enough) and the facts of the past, which need to be acknowledged.

Doctinaire religious and cultural patterns, held as unquestionable, on all of the many sides involved, stand in the way of finding ways to accomodate the needs of all sides.

Dawn Riley and I worked on a Guardian Thread, now retired, that was the featured thread connected to the Middle East for the Guardian for four months. Again and again, we talked with other posters, including both Israelis, Palestinians, and some who may have been leaders, about what solutions would take.

The needs for a redemptive solution, in a situation too complicated for any "strictly logical" justice were apparant. The difficulteis corresponded closely to issues traced in the links at rshowalter 4/20/01 6:43am .

The difficulties with nuclear terror, and the Middle Eastern standoff, have many similar elements, both at the level of logic and emotion.

You're right that other fundamentalist nations need to show support of reasonable outcomes -- but in many ways, they seem prepared to consider doing so. The main impasses are the responsibility of the Palestinians and the Israelis themselves. Each side has a remarkably clear sense of the shortcomings of the other side -- neither side seems nearly as perceptive about shortcomings of their own. The consequences are frustrating, dangerous, and tragic.

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