re: falkland islands - 4 chuck What Ridge's message is...

re: falkland islands - 4 chuck What Ridge's message is attempting to get across is that after all the confrontation in Ireland, A political solution was the only one with any chance of getting up at the end of the day. You claim tha Israel has attempted the political approach to no avail but is the current approach working? It seems not. No matter how much Israel increases "the level of pain" to use your phrase it only seem to aggravate the situation.
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Chuck, I understood where Ridge was coming from...and I take your point.

However Barak did try. He offered more than anyone ever imagined. Doesn't matter whether it was 95% or 98% or even 85% of what the Pallies wanted.

It was a damn good offer from which the Pallies should not have walked away....They should have negotiated and then kept up negotiating and then practicality hopefully would have dawned on them.

There is no denying that Arafat just blew a fuse and walked.

During the entire period ogf negotiating the groundwork was being put in place for the Intifafa.

All they needed was an excuse for a spark.

Whether it would have been Sharon on the Temple Mount (which is just as holy to the Jews as it is to Muslims, but that's irrelevant now) or some other incident....the Intifada was going to happen.

It was planned. There is no escaping that fact Chuck.

Arafat wants 100% of all of his conditions met.

That is not possible if Israel wants to stay in existance.

Barak didn't bolt.....It cost him his Prime Ministership.


I'm afraid that any negotiating now will send the process backwards.

Now is the time to kill off the masterminds of terror, their goons their henchmen.....and let the world stew for a few days or weeks........

The message will sink in. We have to break the pain threshold of the terrorists.

We are not even close!!!!

As I type Arafat tries to undetmine Abbas...who in turn is a leading member, and founder of Hamas...who have been declared a terrorist group and Israel has to deal with him?

Because he wears an Armani suit? Or because he is the best show in town?

I'd take him out together with Arafat and 200 of his cronies holed up in the Muquata. In one damn foul swoop.

There will be a stunned silence from the Arab street just as I predicted there would be no Arab street uprising during the Iraq war.

They won't know what hit them. But they'll be grateful!!!