I had lunch with my ex-boss today, who just returned home last week after spending close to two months in Egypt. He’s Greek, but grew up in Egypt, as his father was an engineer working on the Suez Canal during the 60’s. My ex-boss spent all his school years in Egypt, up until 1963 when he moved to the Bay Area to attend UC Berkeley and study Physics.

He’s spent quite a lot of time in the Middle East -- as a child and as an adult, so he has firsthand knowledge of the situation. He’s Greek Orthodox, so he has nothing to gain either way in terms of being biased.

He was in a ferryboat on the Red Sea when the attack took place. I believe it was in the evening over there. According to him, some people were jumping for joy, but the majority was sitting silently, some with just a stupid grin on their face. He said he felt very uncomfortable being on that ferry with a US passport in his possession.

Afterwards, he spoke with his relatives, old school friends, friends of friends, etc. The consensus was this: They could care less that the US has a presence in the Middle East. The real problem is our support of Israel.

Now, it is true that Israel has kicked Egyptian butt on numerous occasions, so they could be preoccupied primarily with Israel. But he also met quite a few Arabs, and again the consensus was that Israel is the problem.

And it was by a large margin. He said 90%, meaning 90% of the people he spoke with feel our support of Israel is the primary reason we are being terrorized. Our presence in Saudi Arabia, the Gulf War, etc., accounted for perhaps 10%.

He also stated that we’re screwed in that if we support a Palestinian state at this time, it will do nothing but send a message that terrorism brought the US to her knees -- that terrorism is a viable means to achieve political ends. Yet if we do not support the formation of a Palestinian state, we better be prepared to endure more attacks or be willing to kick major butt and make a lot of enemies in the process.

He says we must:

1. Kill Bin Laden.
2. Remove the Talaban from power, eliminating extremist clerics as necessary in the process.
3. Support the formation of a Palestinian state only after we have eliminated our enemies, as this will show we are not bowing under to terrorism, simply that the creation of a Palestinian state was always our game plan, it was just the timetable that needed to be worked out.
4. Put pressure back on Iraq, destroy their nuclear and biological capability, etc.

This is what he said. My feelings are somewhat different. What do you think?

Sounds like an informed, intelligent, and well thought out opinion to me.
I'd say we need to squash all other terrorist groups everywhere. Find them, Surprise them and kill them all. Take no prisoners. Prisoners will only be let go eventually or used to foment other acts of terrorism. If this is war, and not a police action then kill them all.

Sounds like they have a point.  Always better to hear opinions from other viewpoints.

I agree as well and can verify what he says from many other sources. With the advent of an arabic CNN the entire arab (and muslim) world focuses intently on every palestinian that is killed by Israel, with our weapons. To varying degrees they all hate us and would like to see us dead, even in the nations that are supposedly are allies. Heck, their nationals  seem to make up the majority of the terrorists! Bin laden and his ilk are very preoccupied with our presence in his homeland Saudi Arabia (which we defile merely with our presence, the height of intolerance) - the rest don't care as much.

Agree also on his four points.

If we support a Palestinian State now, then we have caved to terrorist.  What other signal could this give?

There's some game going on in the background between the U.S. and Israel.  All of a sudden we're supporting a Palestinian State, and Israel is giving us warnings while pledging a renewed and independant effort against terrorists.  (Not that they wouldn't do this anyway).  Almost like watching a well thought out play.  But hey, I probably just need to adjust the tin foil hat a bit, right? [:)]

Just thinking out loud.  It's always good to get info as to what the enemy thinks and desires.  Thanks mattja!

I have never been there (the middle east) and I could have told you that.  The Arabs are bastard decendants of Abraham and the Jews are the proper decendants of him.  That is the whole situation, period.  Sounds really stupid to us but to those involved holding a grudge for 4000 years is situation normal.  Planerench out.

His statements are dead on in my book. Not that I agree with the way the Egyptians look at everything but we can't change that. His four steps are exactly what we need to do.

As soon as you split up some of Israel to make a Palestinian state you will create many other problems that they will have to be ready to deal with. Hopefully the Israelis that reside in that area will be smart enough to get the hell out, unlike the white farmers in South Africa. It's just stupid to stick around with that much hatred for that long.

Planerench is right about the old grudge but he is missing, like many of us westerners, the important point. Many of them have lost loved ones in recent years to the extremists on each side. So although the grudge is based on events of thousands of years ago, there is plenty of recent events to fuel the hatred of each side. Look how much we hate the terrorists who were responsible for the 9/11 attack. Not many are willing to forgive that, when you consider the 90% supporting the president in going to war. I am also one of those 90%, but I also realize that I can't turn around and expect Israelis or Palestinians to forgive and forget any time soon cause they have every right to be angry as I do.

Peace between the two will only come when each side becomes intollerent with the atrocities that their side commits against the other. It will only be at that time that the other side will start to trust them and there can be peace, and that isn't going to happen overnight,,, if at all.

That would be our best solution in our situation and that is what our leaders are trying to accomplish. If a bunch of Muslims proclaimed bin Laden's attacks as evil and unacceptable, then went in and destroyed his organization,,, then the rest of the Middle East would have no reason to hate us. Well not as much of a reason anyway.  

Remember also that Israel's expansion into other territory only comes after war and invasion- begun by surrounding nation/states. If one starts a war, and loses (the major ones completely without US weapons or support on wither side), and the winner keeps some real esate- too bad.

Eric the Hun had a good thread with a great read yesterday pertaining to this [url]http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?id=57629[/url]
My take on it stands. Or, at the very least, we need to whack Arafat and several thousand of his followers. He's the most important.

What I don't understand, and perhaps some of you can enlighten me here, is why is it okay for Jordan to steal land from the Palestinians, but not the Jews? I mean, Jordan took more of their land than anyone, correct?

"What I don't understand, and perhaps some of you can enlighten me here, is why is it okay for Jordan to steal land from the Palestinians, but not the Jews? I mean, Jordan
                         took more of their land than anyone, correct?"  posted by mattja



Same reason it is okay with your family when your brother kicks you ass but not when some jerk from down the street does it. It's in the family and they can tolerate it a lot better. Just a sibling rivalry thing.

Egyptians.

I ran across an article in Jane's Defense Weekly that the Eytptians wanted to buy another group of M1A1 US Main Battle Tanks.  That would bring their total to 640 US M1A1's. 1998

I have a problem with us selling Main Battle Tanks to Egypt.  This was begun during Clinton. But was through General Dynamics.  

Let me ask something, when we sell M1A1's to Egypt do we ship them with some sort of explosive attached somewhere in them so that we can blow them up by pushing a button in Washington???

Benjamin

Stealth,
the U.S. government and this President is on record favoring a Palestinian state.

Sweeeeet Jesus, [b]subsailor![/b] Is the fleet out of port leaving you with little to do?

But I do appreciate this post, 'cause it brings attention to one of my better threads!

Who should I thank? You or Garmentless?

Eric The(Astounded)Hun[>]:)]

There are presently two Palestinian states and the US supported the formation of both of them:

Israel and Jordan.

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great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather (approximately) WHY exactly??

(Edited to add some #*$&ing linebreaks. . . .)