Seething resentment in Bethlehem will fuel more violence

Crispin Hull
Saturday, 16 July 2005

"Oh little town of Bethlehem how still we see thee lie."
Bethlehem is no longer a little town, but it is certainly "still".

Shops are shuttered. Many of the Palestinian population have left, unable to survive the virtual drying up of tourism since the second intifada (Palestinian uprising) began in 2000.

<snip>

Friends and relatives in Australia said I was mad going to the Middle East for a holiday. The official Australian Government travel warning said the same thing.

"Australians in ... the West Bank should leave," it says.
No such advice for London. Yet George Bush's war on terror has made the whole world - not just the Middle East - less safe. We should be more even-handed in our scare campaigns.

So why is Bethlehem deserted? Because it is beyond the Wall and because of a scare campaign.

http://canberra.yourguide.com.au/detail.asp?class=news&subclass=international&category=general%20news&story_id=409175&y=2005&m=7

Crispin Hull is the former editor of the Canberra Times

:hippie:

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It destroys homes, people have been killed for protesting against it, and it grabs more land away from Palestinians. The only way it could be called a Peace Fence is if all that is ignored and the Palestinians are looked at as something verging on non-human...

Violet...

:evilgrin:

you can stick it .........



..................on the green line :smoke:

"Of course, on the Palestinian side, Yasser Arafat was their worst enemy. For years he held out against a peace settlement and refused to end terrorist violence because a peace settlement with a Palestinian state would have seen him lose his position as fighter for that very Palestinian state. Yet each time over nearly 40 years that he refused settlement he ensured only that the next offer would be for even less land for the Palestinians."

i tend to look for some kind of balance in the articles....if i find something which at least makes it clear that this whole thing is not 'black and white" i tend to "relax".....and then place the article in the area of different opinions, point of view etc....a very legitimate aspect of life.....

I only posted it because there's very little of an original nature in our local newspaper when it comes to opinion pieces about the I/P conflict. I think Crispin Hull got it pretty spot on about Arafat. All Arafat knew what to be was a fighter, and he was awkward and clumsy whenever he tried to step out of that role into a more diplomatic one. It reminds me of the gun and the olive branch address to the UN - the Tunisian president suggested to him he go armed with two olive branches and ditch the gun, but he didn't do it...

Violet...

or if we put it in a more benign area....the difference between makeing a "start up company" vs running one...takes a very talented person and a very wise one to be able to do the change