Mike Sanders is disturbed over a recent poll that shows the majority of Palestinians favor the elimination of Israel, as well he should be. He should also be disturbed by another poll published in Ha'aretz that I posted March 13.

More Israeli Jews favor transfer of Palestinians, Israeli Arabs - poll finds

Some 46 percent of Israel's Jewish citizens favor transferring Palestinians out of the territories, while 31 percent favor transferring Israeli Arabs out of the country, according to the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies' annual national security public opinion poll.
[read more]

There has always been a extreme element in Israel that has worked towards the total expulsion, by whatever means, of Palestinians from Greater Israel. The current actions of Sharon and the IDF are implementing those policies. The Israelis call it transfer. Others call it ethnic cleansing and genocide. Don't forget that the Nazi's were calling for the "transfer" of Jews in 1938.

My efforts in this blog are not to show that one side is worse than the other so that the other's actions are "justified". The concept of "justification" is irrelevent. It is terrible that the Palestinians want the destruction of Israel. But, if the Palestinian's bad attitude is caused the humiliations and brutality of the Israeli occupation, more humiliations and brutality aren't going to improve that attitude. Doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result, is insanity.

We all want the terrorism to stop. Applying more of the tactics that created the terrorism isn't going to work.

Mike Sanders reported the following:

The Palestinians need to abandon terrorism before we can move forward. Any appeasement or rewarding of terrorism will neither serve our goals or theirs. They are clearly not hearing this message as it was recently reported that
In a speech broadcast today, Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat threatened that if Israel does not retreat from PA-ruled areas that there will be a "disastrous explosion that will impact stability of the whole world."
What exactly he meant by disastrous explosion is not clear, but it is clearly another example of terrorism politics.

Mike, I would like to suggest that maybe you are not clearly hearing the message. You, and the Jerusalem Post, see it has the all-powerful and evil Arafat sending his hoards of matyrs to destroy more innocent civilians. There is another way of looking at what Arafat is saying. Perhaps he is trying to warn the world that the Arab street is going to rise up if the destruction of the Palestinians continues. This has the potential to be a popular uprising, not controled by anyone, that can bring down the entire Middle East.

That would not be a good thing.