I will say what most people are thinking. Good riddance.

Link

I've said it, I'll say it again. It's been a long time coming and it's about damn time.

I wanna see what the effect on the whole Palestinian situation will be.

First a mess, then things will die down and get better.

The usual stuff.

It's good that there'll be a change of leadership on the Palestinian side...Arafat had become more of an obstacle than a means to peace over the years. Let's not forget that the conflict works both ways...I don't see too much difference between the Palestinian terrorism and the Israelis way of handling things. Both Sharon and Arafat are blinded by their own beliefs, assholes and terrorists. W00t!

Anyway, to keep it political: the fall of the Berlin Wall celebrated its birthday 2 days ago. It's a remarkable piece of history, and one of my personal favorites. The idea of two parts of the same country living in completely different circumstances is just plain bizarre.

I agree Ox.

I don't know alot on the Israel vs. Palestine affair, but from what ive been hearing things have been shitty for a long long time. This guy being dead can only mean good.

Which brings to mind another discussion which i meant to open, but i think ill link it here. I find it funny that all of the shit us humans are capable of always revolve around one guy. One leader. Its never a collective bunch of people that get things going, it usually takes a Stalin, a Bin Laden or a Hitler.

Which i think points out how pathetic we really are, how flexible our morals are and how short our lives are.

That's not true, those people are just headfigures of a movement. Radical islam is a global franchise, set up by people decennia before Bin Laden. Bin Laden just became the best known leader of that movement, and now many younger fundamentalists refer and look up to him.
But only when they are in trouble and want to show their discontent, like many young Palestinians.
Fascism was invented by Mussolini, and Hitler used it for his own goals, but anti-semitism has existed in Europe for centuries. Jews formed an easy scapegoat to people discontented during the recession.
Stalin never really got things going. He cheated himself in office as leader of the party, and since then he was unstoppable (and went mad), but unstoppable because his office just had too much power.

Hmmm. Yes i suppose there is an element of foundation belief, BUT, i believe if you remove the leaders youll remove the belief. Thats what makes it pathetic.

Saddam
Hitler
Stalin
Mussolini
Bin Laden (maybe)
Al Zarqawi

I mean, you can also do it on Shogun Total War Get a Geisha to eliminate the enemy Daimyo and the whole country falls into rebellion.

ok... here we go.

So, when Israel gets 5 car/suicide bombers in 1 week, for instance, then Isreal defending itself is "the wrong way to handle things"?

Whats Israel supposed to do, wave a white flag and say "We give up?" or put metal detectors in front of every building? The wrong way to do it would be to not do anything.

Please explain your comment.

The Israelis have been know to have been too gung ho. E.g. Sniping an old woman. In proportion, the Palestinians might be winning at this game, but the Israeli armed forces have been far from responsible compared to the US.

Israel doesn't just defend itself, it colonizes new land all the time. And 'defend', well...that's exactly what the Palestinians claim to be doing.

It's a spiral without ending and meanwhile almost without a beginning either. The Palestinians bomb the Isrealis, they react, the Palestinians bomb again, Israelis react...

When it réally comes down to it, the Palestinians are in their own right, as Isreal effectively took their land. While I obviously condone any bombings, it's israel that should take the initiative. They're militarily far and far superior and like I said, it's (historically speaking) the Palestians' land.

When i say that both Sharon and Arafat are terrorists I mean that neither of them gives a crap's ass about civilians. The way Israel systematically bulldozes Palestian villages and bomb infrastructure (schools etc.) isn't very pretty either. Of course they kill civilians too, you just don't hear about those in the news most of the time.

For the record 11b...I'm on no one's side. I think they should both shape up.

I'm gonna disagree on the "remove the leader, remove the belief" thing. Take Iraq for example, many thought that the capture of Saddam would cool things down, i don't think that went as planned. If you remove the leader, you often get a new face that takes the roll. Not always, but often.
That's for example one of the main errors (imo) in the "war on terrorism": you put Bin Laden in the center of attention, and you pretend that with the removal of the head of Al Qaida you win the war. You can make a martyr out of the guy maybe if you kill him that's for sure, and maybe you will give the organisation a big blow. But you can't expect the problem to be totally solved.

But overgeneralisation and simplifying things seems something that is common. You can't bring the Palestinian-Israelian problem down to Palestine bombers and (rightfull) Israelian retaliation. There's a lot of blood on the hand off both sides, and very often innocent blood.

I agree, Israel should stay in it's pre-'67 borders.
I don't like those Palestinians though, they're dirty motherfuckers. Just read Leon Uris' Exodus, and you know what I mean.

That works. This is why.

Look at Saddam for example. Saddam was the figure head of Iraq and its power. The buck stopped at Saddam. So you take out Saddam, yes a new leader will arise but he wont be nearly as effective as Saddam was because over the year Saddam has build up trust in his followers. When the new guy steps up they dont trust the new guy as much as Saddam. Plus the new guy might not be as smart as Saddam. Then you remove that guy....well now you starting to pull leaders from the bottom of the barrel. Men who might not be good leaders, and followers of Saddam might not like what this new leader has to say or might not like the way he leads. The there might be a spilt. Eventually it trickels down to a small group of maybe 5-10 guys who dont have the funds or the leadership capablitly or knowledge to make a succesfull campaign against those they oppose. So taking out the leader is like cutting the head off the snake, at first it flails around like crazy then it dies.


Now

show me in the bible, where Palestin is? Better yet, show me where in the bible muslims rules Jeruselum. Your not going to find it. Because they werent there. It would be like if some Japanese came over to the UK and claim that this land was theirs and its always been our land.

I agree with 11B here. Yes, there will still be the leaders loyalists, but:

1) Theyll not be as effective.
2) In the space of 1-2 generations the probalem will be largely reduced.

You're right about the snake, BUT if you cut off the head of a hydra, it will grow an extra head. And you can't always tell here if it's a snake or a hydra.

Uhm, 11b, i respect you're a christian and all, but if you're going to use the bible to divide the territories .. that must be the dumbest thing i've heard in years. We've had our share of "Liberation crusades" for the 'holy city of Jerusalem'('kruistochten' in dutch is what i mean) and that's one of the bloodiest pages in christian history.
Since then humans have become smarter in general.