Everything After - A 9.11 Youth Circle - How do you guys think that holding Arafat hostage will help?

What?
I question your meaning. Was this message out of pure anger? I agree with your point that holding him will do no good, but the anger with which you assaulted Arafat in this message is a perfect example of why things like this happen.
  I will agree on one point: He isn't a good leader of people. He's not very charismatic, he's not a good strategist, he's not a good leader. But he deserves just as much a right to live and attempt to serve his people as Mr. Bush does.
  Arafat does not deserve the blame for the suicide bombers or most of the deaths. In Palestine and Israel, they are caught in a war frenzy. Have you ever read "1948" by George Orwell? It's an excellent book, and will give a great example, if extreme, of this.
  The war that is raging over there started millenia ago. If you believe that the stories of the Bible are true, you can even trace a grain of animosity back to the stories of Abraham and Sarah. They were married and had no kids, so Sarah gave Abraham her servant, Hagar, to have child. Hagar bore Ishmael. At the age of 80, Sarah bore her own child. There was a ton of animosity.
  Of course, these are all biblical references, and they don't start wars. It's just an interesting bit my mom was talking about. (She's going to Divinity school and it's all we ever hear :) )
  From what am informed, which is, unfortunately, not as much as I would like, only bits of the newspaper, there has been animosity breeding in that region for hundreds of years. It has always been a contested region, and the land there has been conquered and ceded by and to countless countries and powers.
  When the land of Israel was granted to it, Palestine had little say in the matter. Hundreds of Palestinians found themselves displaced or suddenly living on the land of a Jewish nation!
  Although it is clear that the Zions and the Jewish people needed a homeland, being kicked away and bullied at the very least in almost every residency - even the U.S. - the placement of their homeland in that area simply added to the conflict already brewing there.
  Please, do not throw random insults with little information out to complex issues. What I have said here digs only a shallow opening into the complicated store of history and politics that brew there.

I am not saying that Arafat is bad or whatever. I am tryign to make the point htat holding a man such as Arafat will not help the attacks on Israel. ANd secondly i think the last time i read these boards are for free talk and opinion. SO i can throw any little "random insults" that I want. I dont understand how you guys talk of peace and freeness and how everyone is innnocent and thigns of that matter when you tell me not to say my feelings freely as i chose. okay we need some more people to join our discussion because it seems as though everyone is on one side. and i am on the other

I think we should stop looking at this as a matter of sides. Maybe it doesn't seem like that big a deal in a youth discussion forum, but this is exactly what's happening on a global level. Most of Asia supports Palestine. Most of the West supports Israel. We need to begin searching not for a way to satisfy our own agenda but to bring about peace.

I sympathize with both sides. Muslims and Arabs need to come to terms with the existance of Israel, whether they agree with it or not. All the Jews are not going to pack up and go to Brooklyn. And the US needs to stop is unconditional monetary and military aid to Israel, as long as the Israeli army continues to commit brutal and oppressive acts throughout the West Bank and Gaza.

Israeli soldiers have recently invaded Bethlehem and Nablus, indiscriminately taking as many civilian lives as possible. They have even been firing on the ambulances ferrying Palestinians to safety. What's more, Palestinian suicide bombers have attacked where Jews are most vulnerable. Coming out of synagogue. At a passover feast. For this I blame religious leaders, who instill this hatred in young men and women, and teach them that they will go to heaven for their crimes.

This is an outrage and no one will ever win. Keeping Arafat hostage with no connections and no power in Ramallah will only exacerbate the feelings of degredation and worthlessness in Palestine, and it is this humiliation that breeds bitterness and prejudice. In my opinion, Israel and Palestine should be separate states. However, Palestinians must be able to cross freely from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip; Jerusalem should be a separate city dedicated to the peaceful practice of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Right. Thanks for that calming bit of input. What I said was a little rash, and I get really inflamed with anger when I see things like "flabber bottom lipped old hag." sentfr0mabove13, I'm sorry about my comment. You're right, I shouldn't be monitoring your comments or whatever. I just don't feel that names like that add anything - instead they distract and breed more animosity. When I read your comment I misinterpreted it. That second one which woke me up (thank you for it) made it a whole lot clearer. I thought you were saying the opposite, or at least drastically different things, because of the description of Arafat etc. Apologies again.