Hugo

Yep. Then they trashed it in 1993. Ever since they've been struggling terribly.

It was regulated. The Californian legislature vetoed all new power plant construction for ten years. Surprise surprise, demand exceeded supply and they had rolling blackouts and a hole they couldn't climb out of. I suppose you missed all the scandals and waste our government is/was mired in. I'd say that government is way to be corrupt to be left on its own. What I'm in favour of is more economic freedom, to leave the lives of Canadian citizens more up to them and less up to the government. You're against that - unfathomably.

It won't. However, Palestine won't accept any kind of lasting or meaningful solution, so Israel is forced to go to the next-best option, which is occupying the territory and trying to excise terrorism at the source. Israel is not interested in "occupying and repressing Palestine." It has offered to cede virtually all of Palestine and it has offered numerous increases in autonomy and self-government to the Palestinians. All have been rejected. You haven't. I see two posts where I said that a return to earlier borders would, under the circumstances, create further problems. I didn't say that Israel would be destroyed if she did. That was you, putting words into my mouth. Now stop it and debate properly. Not impotent enough that they can't butcher their own with impunity. In the first intifada, more Palestinians were killed by other Palestinians than by the IDF (Jerusalem Post, (January 12 & 14, 2004); Jay Bushinsky, "Arafat's rule a nightmare for Palestinian journalists," Chicago Sun-Times, (March 5, 2004). Arafat has shown himself most potent at eliminating his political opponents and establishing his rule with an iron fist - and yet you claim the Israelis are keeping him under lock and key. The two don't add up, Blackdog. Furthermore, at the Camp David negotiations Israel offered an autonomy plan for Palestinians. It was rejected. It is not wrong. You have grossly misinterpreted Resolution 242. Let's deal with "inadmissability of the acquisition of territory by war." That refers to an offensive war. The 1967 war was not offensive for Israel and was not fought for acquistion of territory. If it did not refer to an offensive war the resolution defeats a primary purpose of the UN because it gives a "free shot" to aggressor states, guaranteeing that if they lose the conflict they cannot lose any territory. 242 does not state that Israel must give up "all territory." That wording is very deliberate. The USSR and Arab states pushed for "all territory" to be stipulated, but it was overruled. 242 states that Israel must withdraw "from territories occupied." That means that Israel must withdraw from all, some, or none of that territory. Since Israel has withdrawn itself from 91% of that territory when it gave up Sinai alone it can consider itself in full concord with 242. Israel has since entered separate settlements in all states except Lebanon and Syria. The acquisitions from Lebanon were made after 1967 and so are not relevant. The acquisitions from Syria comprise the Golan Heights and their return was rejected. According to 242, Israel is under no obligation to return Golan until Syria makes peace. According to UN Resolution 242 and international law scholar Stephen Schwebel, Israel has every right to settle the West Bank. Furthermore, settlements have never been an obstacle to peace in the past. Between 1949 and 1967, Israeli settlement in the West Bank was expressly forbidden and yet no Arab nation would make peace with Israel. In 1978, Israel froze settlement in the hope that this would draw other Arab nations to the Camp David accords. It didn't. In 1994, Jordan made a peace treaty with Israel. Settlements were not even mentioned. The entire international community except for Britain and Pakistan. According to international law it is not an occupation. It's a misnomer that is being used to discredit Israel, much like the substitution of "militant" for "terrorist" in Iraq. According to one study, Palestinian noncombatants were mostly teenaged boys and young men. In the words of the study, "this completely contradicts accusations that Israel has ‘indiscriminately targeted women and children... There appears to be only one reasonable explanation for this pattern: that Palestinian men and boys engaged in behavior that brought them into conflict with Israeli armed forces." An Engineered Tragedy: Statistical Analysis of Casualties in the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict, September 2000-June 2002," International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism, (June 2002). As to the rest of the casualties, terrorists hide in crowds of noncombatants. The use of human shields is outlawed under Article 51 of the 1977 amendment to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, therefore, the Palestinians are guilty of this particular crime, not the Israelis. When Palestine was occupied by Jordan there was no call for a Palestinian state. Israel has never ruled out the possibility of a Palestinian state in the future, but wants to be reassured that such a state would not be a danger to Israel, and no such assurance is evident.

The former may have a resolution and Israel has offered to give up the West Bank and Gaza Strip almost completely in exchange for peace. That's a complete non-argument. The problem is that the Palestinians have rejected all such proposals in favor of further violence and are stalling the peace process. The reason why is because Arafat uses the Jews as a scapegoat for his despicable little regime and so is not genuinely interested in a solution. The occupation of Palestine is a problem, but it's a problem because the Palestinians insist on making it one. But the latter is always going to be a problem no matter what the Palestinians do. I can't see the Jews going quietly this time, nor should they be forced to. Israel is, historically and culturally, their homeland too. I never said they were not. I said that your proposed solution to them wouldn't work. I was responding to your point that Israel had been "entirely successful" in defending herself with the counterpoint that such a high bodycount and material destruction renders any such victory bittersweet at best. I feel that the policy you advocate will be more costly in human lives and damage and so is subject to the criticism I made. I have repeatedly explained why. I don't disagree with what you said, but it just wasn't a valid response to my original post.

My point, Blackdog, is that the hatred will not go away if Israel retreats to the Green Line and only a fool would believe otherwise. Officially. Unofficially, many of them are still endorsing, sponsoring and training terrorists. Remember Hussein's Al-Jazeera promises? Buildings in Gaza, near the Egyptian border, are used to conceal tunnels that smuggle weapons and explosives from Egypt in order to attack Israel. The Egyptian government could easily stop this. It does not. Please, show me the post where I said that. Because going after terrorists in their own territory is a more effective policy than allowing them to come to you. And I had, in fact, already suggested that: Me, 09:42am, July 14th, 2004, this thread. I have given my evidence for that. You haven't proven anything you have said so far. I think it is you who is holding subjective views. Israel ceded civilian authority to the Palestinian Authority in the Oslo accord. Israel retains the right to control external Israeli security and Israeli citizens but 98% of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority. I can tell you that between September 1993 (signing of Declaration of Principles between Israel and the PLO) and September 2000, before the current intifada, 256 Israeli civilians and soldiers were killed in terrorist attacks within Israel (Israeli Foreign Ministry). Israel has withdrawn from 40% of the West Bank and 80% of the Gaza Strip, to date. Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered to up that to 95% of the West Bank and 100% of the Gaza Strip. Israel has repeatedly offered to cede territory for peace. They returned vast amounts of land that they occupied during wars of Arab aggression, for example, Sinai, and they offered to allow Syria to reoccupy the Golan Heights in exchange for peace. I notice there's no evidence given for your allegations. Figures. All of which have been offered and rejected in the past. I was being ironic in order to point out to you the fallacy in your argument. I see that you have conceded that the Palestinian Authority is undemocratic. From that, it's easy to see how it is an enemy to peace. Despotic regimes are usually the warmongers, democracies usually peaceloving. A "military occupation" means that you have occupied land that was previously part of a foreign sovereign state. The West Bank was illegally occupied by Jordan between 1948 and 1967, so there is no military occupation. Israel also came into this land in the course of a war in which it was the defendant. That, also, means that it is not an occupation. In Resolution 242 the UN Security Council rejected Arab demands that Israel withdraw from territories won in 1967 and legitimised Israeli claims to at least part of these lands for new and more defensible borders. Magen David Adom treated 6,362 casualties of terrorist attacks between September 29, 2000 and June 1, 2004. That was 860 killed and 1,344 injured, 554 of them severely. That total does not include a single IDF soldier. The Palestinians are primarily targeting civilians.

Rubbish. State-run power in Ontario has been an unmitigated disaster - the blackout, more blackouts to come, the Pickering black-hole of taxpayer cash... it goes on. Look at California. Government has interfered in power generation and as a result they have some pretty enormous power problems. Look at Great Britain. Since their power industry was privatised they have had more reliable delivery and much cheaper prices. My entire family lives there, trust me. My mother, who lives in rural Wales in a village of about 2,700 people, pays half what I do for power in the largest city in the Niagara region - and she has less blackouts. Government has proven time and time again that it has no business in business. Some people (you) never learn that. Government involvement in industry guarantees you a more expensive and shoddier product and fewer, if any, consumer rights. And if you talk about planning for the future, tell me, what Ontario authority was responsible for failing to invest in new equipment to the extent that it caused a massive blackout? Was it... the government? Why, yes, it was.

The simple fact, Blackdog, is that hatred of Jews has nothing to do with the occupation of Palestine. The entire Arab world has been violently opposed to the state of Israel ever since it was created - hence the multiple wars and terrorism that stretch way back before the occupation. Hatred against Jews is as old as the hills. Tsarist Russia and the USSR conducted many pogroms, Hitler gassed 6 million of them, heck, Pharaoh enslaved them. This is borne out by the messages the Arab world has for Jewry: not that "we want you out of Palestine", but "we want you dead, every last one." That is what they want. I don't think that's true. The violent hatred and aggression is virtually all on the Arab side. Israel has never initiated a war against the Arabs and has never taken action against terrorists without severe provocation. All the cards, you could say, lie with the Palestinians. If they can stop the hatred and the violence I think they'll find that Israel will make a good and friendly neighbour. It might take them a while to forgive all that the terrorists have done to them, but it'll happen. It was your contradiction. You claimed that Arafat was democratically elected, and then asked me why the Palestinians could be blamed for the terrorist actions endorsed by what you say is their democratic government. The answer, you might say, is in the question. Caught in a lie. Shame. You're going to have to climb down on at least one point, which is it going to be?

You have it backwards. You're still mired in centuries-old mercantilist thought, which has been proven fallacious and replaced with newer economic theory. Foreign investment is a good thing, and a sign of a healthy economy. For instance, the USA runs a large deficit and has a very strong economy. Russia, China and Germany all run trade surpluses and are having economic problems. The simple question that will explain this is, "where is the money going?" When you have a trade deficit, it means a lot of foreign money is flowing into your country. When you have a surplus, it means that like rats on a sinking ship, a lot of your money is flowing out of the country. Foreign investment in Canada is good. It means that foreigners are sending lots of money to us. It's a lot better than us sending lots of money to them.

Not necessarily all Arabs, but certainly almost all Palestinians, thanks to their leadership, schools, culture etc. You have to admit that anti-Jewish sentiment runs very, very high throughout the Arab world, far higher than in North America or Europe, for instance. The entire Palestinian culture is infused with hatred for Jews. As I said before - and as you did not dispute - the first song Palestinian children learn in school is, "Arabs are chosen, Jews are dogs." Hence my comparisons to Nazi Germany - a state that endorses and fosters intense racial hatred and then uses violence against the object of that hatred. Netanel Lorch, One Long War, (Jerusalem: Keter, 1976), p. 110. A joke. You might have missed it, but the UN Mideast envoy has just finished lashing out at Arafat's administration before the Security Council, saying it has not reined in the "extremists" you claim are not representative of Palestine, has not made any promised reforms, is not co-operating with Egyptian security policies, and is essentially "lawless." Arafat's aides have replied by saying the guy is "useless", "unwelcome" and "unwanted" - and this is about the man who has been on good terms with Arafat for years and used to meet with him on a regular basis. The Palestinian state says one thing and does another. Arafat's Arabic speeches are very different in tone to his English ones. It's common knowledge that Arafat's regime is sponsoring and endorsing terrorism against Israel and is violently silencing Arab Palestinian dissent as it does so. They are the true enemies of peace, not the Israelis. Because their views are endorsed by what you claimed is the democratic Palestinian leadership. Democratic, of the people, y'know.

No, it isn't. I already cited my source for this, we had a whole thread about it and you had very little to refute it, and could not dispute my source. The fact is that 1.5m Arabs live in Israel, and there are Arab-Israeli MPs, and that is a level of tolerance far, far exceeding anything the Palestinians show no matter what you say. There were substantial terrorist attacks before Israel ever occupied Palestine. For instance, in the four months before the 1967 war, there were 37 separate terrorist attacks within Israel. Secondly, it's the stated goal of Arafat and other Palestinian groups not to push Israel back to her own borders but into the sea. They chant slogans not about the reclamation of Palestine, but of the slaughter of world Jewry and after that, of Christendom. Their goal is not an independent Palestinian state but a second Holocaust.

Or the destruction of their leadership, who believe in hatred, oppression and abrogation of freedom. If you look at that leadership it's obvious that, once again, Jews are being served up as scapegoats for somebody else's problems. In terms of their brainwashing, racism, endorsement of violence and irrational hatred the Palestinian state is an equal of Nazi Germany. This is not hyperbole. Unfortunately, as 9/11 showed, you simply can't sit at home and wait for terrorism to come to you. Not if you want to maintain a scrap of civil freedom and avoid living in a police/security state. The only way to defeat terrorism is to excise it at the source, and that won't be served by retreat. The current policy may not be the best one, but a retreat to the Green Line would be the worst. As to the destruction of Israel, there are 1.5m Arabs living in Israel, so Arab terrorists can move with relative impunity. It doesn't take an imagination the size of Tom Clancy's to envision a nuclear device or strain of plague in Tel Aviv.

You have not proven either. I think it fair to say that the former policy, the one you advocate, would perpetuate this conflict longer than necessary. The source of the hatred and violence in this conflict is the Arab world, excising it requires going to them, as much as excising Nazism required the invasion of Germany. Then what was your point? Israel has been doing pretty well, so don't worry about the destruction caused by the wars and 10,000 dead? I think it is the case that Israel has done very well and, had it not had to fight off Arab aggression for so long, it would have done even better. And so, possibly, would the Arabs. I originally said: To which your reply was, basically, "Ah, no, in one of those wars Israel actually fired the first shots despite not actually being the aggressor." I said that there were "surprise attacks." There were. You tried to find an exception to a general rule you thought I made but did not. Certainly a great deal fewer Arab dead than they have lost repeatedly trying to invade Israel. Between Israeli occupation and excursion beyond her borders and a retreat to those borders, it's clear to me that the latter choice will result in more death and suffering in the long term. That choice has no chance for peace, the current one has a little.

The Arab-Israeli wars killed far many more Arabs than Israelis. I'm not interested in returning to a situation that made these wars more possible and likely. Because the Palestinian government endorses, aids and abets the actions of Hamas. The Northern Irish government does not endorse the IRA, the Quebec provincial government does not endorse the FLQ and so forth. I am confused as to why you would say this were false when you are advocating a return to a policy that made possible wars costing tens of thousands of lives when an alternative exists. You think the wars cost Israel nothing? I beg to differ. I forget who this is attributed to, but there was never a bad peace, nor a good war. Because, for instance, you asked me: And the answer to that, by the way, would be the Egyptian blockade of the straits of Tiran. I never denied that Israel struck first, what I am claiming is that Israel was not the aggressor in the 1967 war or any other.

None will be offered. I believe that your earlier ideas show that you have a blatant disregard for human life, because you advocate deserting a policy that demonstrably saves lives and returning to one that cost hundreds of thousands. If you do have a regard for human life I suggest you rethink your reasoning on this issue because it isn't in keeping with your ethics. In that it exists, yes. Along the same lines, you could say that WWII had been entirely successful, but the simple fact remains that had France and England gotten rid of Hitler in the mid-1930s, many tens of millions of lives would have been saved and untold damage would have been avoided. What you are saying is that a successful defence is irrelevant of the costs, that a phyrric victory is as good as a bloodless victory. It is not so. Your posts show otherwise. According to the United Nations and international law, Egypt committed the first act of war and was the aggressor in 1967. The fact remains that Israel has never initiated a war against it's neighbours. in response to what could only have been a surprise attack being planned. It's called a pre-emptive strike and it does not shift the onus of aggression. Note, too, that Arab-sponsored terrorist attacks in Israel were on a massive rise shortly before the war. With our newly heightened awareness of terrorism, it would not be unfair to call those the first shots of the war.

Israel sustained almost 10,000 casualties. To put that in perspective with the Israeli population, that's as though the US lost half a million troops - almost as many casualties as the US lost in WWII. Perfectly satisfactory. You're a heartless one. Seems to me that what's satisfactory to you is dead Jews. You need to read up on the history. The attack was made in response to: Massive Arab armies suddenly gathering on the Israeli borders, with no plausible explanation except the rather blatant statements by Nasser that "we challenge the Jews to fight", "we will enter Palestine with the soil drenched in blood", "the Arabs are ready for war" and so forth Nasser's order for UN peacekeeping forces to withdraw entirely, shortly before the attack The Egyptian closure of the straights of Tiran - which, according to the peace terms of the last conflict, was an act of war which would make Egypt the aggressor and not Israel, as you claim

Been there, done that. The result was several wars of aggression against Israel by her Arab neighbours, from which Israel was barely able to prevail, given the size of the armies set against her and the surprise attacks. The problem is that Jewish Israel next to any Arab state is much like the USSR next to Nazi Germany - you know there will be trouble, the only question is when. Israel seeks to establish a buffer zone for its own security and to preserve the freedom and lives of Israeli citizens.

This was already dealt with earlier in the thread. Parental neglect and poverty are definitely factors in creating less well-adjusted children who are more likely to become criminals, welfare cases or other "bad citizens." However, if you want a great way to guarantee lack of parental attention and/or material poverty, single parenthood will do that. See further back in this thread.

No, they take maternity leave, and often choose to work part-time to raise children. So, on average, they earn less because they work less.

We're in a cold summer after a cold winter. It's been proven that the Middle Ages were significantly warmer than the modern ages. Were all those knights and peasants releasing too many CFCs into the atmosphere? It's been proven that sea levels rise and fall and have been doing so for countless millenia, without human intervention. So far, I haven't seen any good evidence that what we do has any significant impact on the climate. Humans are responsible for 5% of global CO2 emissions. At most, humans produce localised and easily reversible changes, for instance, inner-city industrial areas in the 19th Century as opposed to today. The ice caps did not melt during the industrial revolution, when there were no pollution controls at all and everything was powered by fossil fuels. Nor did Great Britain suffer any lasting environmental damage from that era of massive emissions and pollution. Yes, because governments have always been 100% trustworthy, and never murdered hundreds of millions of people or started wars of wanton aggression and conquest.

The Poles seem to believe it. Proof of the pudding, you might say.

However, a shadow of a hope is better than no hope at all. Saddam knew that his WMD, while successful against badly-trained and poorly-equipped Iranians, would have very little impact on Coalition troops. Using them would have been pointless. Better to stash them away in the hopes that he could fight a guerilla war later.

This question has been answered so many times on this forum it is not even funny. I don't know which is more ridiculous from you, the fact that you can't remember how many times you've been told this (slow learner, Blackdog?), or the fact that you can't figure it out for yourself. The USA and Britain have spent a lot of money and resources developing anti-WMD measures for their troops. Most of this stuff was developed during the Cold War and we had to assume that a European battlefield would be irradiated and contaminated because the Soviets made it no secret that they were building all the WMD they could and fully intended to use them. Because of this, Coalition forces are well-prepared for WMD attacks. Had Saddam used them, it would have slowed their advance, at best. They would not have been stopped and would not have sustained serious casualties. However, if Saddam was to have fired his WMD at the Coalition, he would have instantly galvanised world opinion against him, proven Bush and Blair right and lost his only hope - that morally bankrupt nations such as France, Germany, Russia and Canada and pacifist US citizens would have put enough pressure on Bush to force him to call it off. In short, Saddam had everything to lose and little to gain from using any WMD he might have had. A man like Saddam is many bad things, but he isn't a moron. I shall be sure to bookmark this post, so that when you inevitably ask this question yet again I don't need to type it all out for you.

You can say that again - for the Swedish taxpayer, that is. The most crucial thing to know about Swedish social programmes is that they are, in the words of the Swedish government, "unsustainable." This is why they are experimenting (successfully) with private healthcare and cutting social programmes and the public sector as fast as they reasonably can. Otherwise, they face economic collapse, possibly only a decade away. Canada faces a similar situation. Romanow and Kirby both agree that Canada's healthcare system is, again in their own words, "unsustainable", for instance. Ralph Klein feels the system has failed so dismally he is threatening to go it alone and violate the Canada Health Act. I did not mention Canadian poverty rates. The method you show is very poor. For instance, if every single wage-earner in the country got an extra $10,000 p/a, the poverty line would not shift at all. Using the "real-world data" this method gathers, Slovakia measures at 2.1% and the Czech Republic at 2.3%, while the US measures at 16.9% and Australia at 14.3%. I know for a fact that Slovakia and the Czech Republic have far greater problems with poverty than either the USA or Australia. The best way to get poverty line information is the internationally accepted method of determining costs of living by geographical area and household size and comparing them with purchasing power parity (e.g. what the local currency can buy). By that standard, the US poverty level in 1990 and 1999 was 13.5% and 11.8% (decrease). In Canada, 15.3% and 16.2% (increase).

Swedish data: Henrekson, Magnus, 1996. "Sweden's Relative Economic Performance: Lagging Behind or Staying on Top?," Economic Journal, Vol. 106 (439) pp. 1747-59. Royal Economic Society No URL, however, it's publicly available information. Norwegian data: http://www.nationbynation.com/Norway/ Note that Norway publishes no official figures on poverty levels. These are unofficial analyses.

Your reasoning is perfectly sound, Blackdog, and I won't argue with it. You are free to believe what you want, religion is a personal matter and you have no obligation to anybody's spiritual welfare but your own (and you can quote me on that the next time the Jehovah's Witnesses come a-knocking). I was just explaining why I believe what I do. I think what we are just debating is either/or, and since neither of us can prove anything it's mere conjecture. It comes down to faith, or if you prefer, "do you believe?"