Yus, You know that I admitted my biasness towards the oppressed Palestinians from the onset of our discussion (No apologies for that!). On the other hand, you proclaimed that you were neutral in the conflict (Well and good). However in the aftermath of your last contribution, your claim to neutrality can no longer hold ground. In all fairness and truth, whether you choose to proclaim it or not your sympathy squarely lies with Israel. Unless you admit this, which is within your rights to do so or not; it is either 1. You are indulging in hypocrisy as far as your stance on the conflict is concerned or 2. You are aware of the history of the conflict but potraying 'intellectual dishonesty' in your perspective of it or 3. You do not know the history of the conflict's origin. Yus, choose one of the above and spare me from your previous stance that you, yourself have now completely demolished. No more vagueness please! clarity is needed. Should you be honest or informed about how Israel came into being in 1948, you would not have attempted to query the following assertion: >"The on-going conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis has its >origins in terrorism. The conflict is sustained through terrorism practiced >by the Israeli army and it is in part resisted through terrorism against >Israeli civilians. Therefore terrorism is both the cause and effect in the >conflict; it is also the symptom BUT IT CAN NEVER BE THE SOLUTION." > In the end you only succeeded in 'moppetting' yourself since you failed to pinpoint any inaccuracy in my statement. You indicated: >This is an extremely inaccurate assertion on your part. Let's take a look >at >the definition of terrorism. Merriam-Webster defines this as "the >systematic >use of terror especially as a means of coercion. " As far as your attempt to sell me a borrowed definition of terrorism is concerned, I am not buying it because it is just one version of what terrorism is. If an army that enters a refugee camp at night to bombard and bury alive civilians in their homes on the pretext of fighting terrorism is not engaged in terrorism, then who else is? The suicide bombers, certainly, but not the Israeli army, insists your president: George Bush, according to whom, the latter is just defending their state. As for the Palestinians, how should they defend their land? forever with stones? Yet stones vs bullets would be considered resistance but bullets vs bullets, that is terrorism by the Palestinians. With the following statement, you had completely ignored the fact that it is the Palestinians that are under the brutal military occuption and siege of the Israeli army. As it was legitimate to resist the occupation by Hitler's Germany of other countries in World War II, so does the Palestinians have the God-given right to resist the Israeli occupation forces and fight against all the agents of the occupation in their land: the settlers. You follied yourself by stating: >1. That what you called terrorist activities were in fact started by the >Palestinians. It is therefore more accurate to state that this violence is >sustained through terroristic acts against innocent Israelis started by >fringe groups and continued through the PLO and more fringe groups today. What a gibberish dishonesty! It is hard to believe that the above emanated from you. Don't you know that even the UN recognises that the Palestinian are under military occupation against their will or Is it that you do not regard coercive military occupation as an act of terrorism? The following scenario is most unlikely to ever happen but assuming that Senegal invades the Gambia in a bid to annex our territory and Gambians in reaction put up a military resistance resulting in the dead of Senegalese and Gambians civilians, then are we Gambians to be branded as the initiators of the terrorism? It is exactly this scenario which is going on between the Palestinians and the Israelis from my biased perspective. Lest you also forget,let me remind you that Yasser Arafat was awarded the nobel peace prize for his readiness to arrive at a dignified negotiated settlement with the Israelis. Do you also know that Madiba Nelson Mandela was once branded a terrorist by the US Government and that he even featured in a hit list of the CIA for being falsely regarded as a communist agent. Check up this fact, the year was 1962. To you, Ariel Sharon and others, Yasser Arafat is a terrorist but to his people and the majority of people throughout the world, he (Arafat) represents an embodiment of legitimate Palestinian struggle for Freedom, Dignity and Statehood against occupation. You wrote: >2. It is also important to note that since Arafat assumed leadership of the >then terrorist PLO group, he is also in principle like Sharon, a terrorist. > Finally, I strongly detest what is now a rather desperate attempt by you to distort my views. You may insult me, hate me, or brand me whatever you like but please do not act so cheaply by plainly attempting to distort my statement as you attempted to do when I condemned the hypocriticism of some of us for remaining mute over the mass murder of the Palestinians while condemning the suicide bombers. Then you implied that I was referring to all those who contributed to the topic, with the exception of myself. In attempting to do so, you are not only being unfair to me but will also be degrading yourself in the end because as long as as there is an once of eneregy in me, I will debunk all such lies and expose your dishonorable motives. How dare you state: >What I don't like >is your attempt to cast aspersions on George Bush by comparing his actions >to >those of Yahya Jammeh. This IMO is a very disingenuous comparison to be >expected only from his supporters or sympathizers. This dishonest analogy >has no place in this debate. > when what i stated here is exactly the following: " Even the UN representative to the Occupied territories described the sight of devastation in the Jenin refugee camp following his visit there today as 'horror beyond belief' but your President, not Yahya Jammeh this time, but George Bush today of all days decided to hail Ariel Sharon as 'a man of peace' instead of condemning him for the atrocities committed by his army." In other words, What the above meant is: It was your other President: George Bush, not Yahya Jammeh this time who hailed Sharon as 'a man of peace'. I did not make a secret of it since i stated on this very forum that in the early days of the AFPRC i supported them by virtue of what they proclaim to represent. I did, no apologies to anyone; now I do not, no apologies again to anybody. So where in the above quoted statement did i compare George Bush to Yahya Jammeh? Please Yus, You understand the english language very well, therefore, you were simply engaged in dishonesty and cheap distortion of the fact. My case is closed! The yoke of oppression must be shattered! BMK BMK _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: [log in to unmask] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~