what baised sources?!...listen guys i'm really sorry i'm gonna post this REALLY longggg post now but it's really good...WITH SOURCES!..but i'm not even sure it's all gonna fit here..ok here goes:We present below a transcript of the presentation given by Thierry Meyssan on 8 April 2002 at the Zayed Center in Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates), at a gathering organized under the auspices Arab League and attended by the diplomatic corps and the international press corps. This presentation was followed by questions and answers, which are in the process of being transcribed and translated.
Your Highness, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
In the first minutes following the first attack on the World Trade Center, officials suggested to the media that the person behind the attacks was Osama bn Laden, the epitome of Muslim fanaticism. Not long after, the recently appointed director of the FBI, Robert Mueller III, designated nineteen kamikazes by name and mobilized all the means at the disposal of his agency to track down their accomplices. The FBI thus never undertook any investigation but, instead, organized a man hunt, which, in the eyes much of the United States public, quickly took on the appearance of an Arab hunt. This reached such a pitch that people were incited to attack - even kill - Arabs whom they naively considered collectively responsible for the attacks.
There was no investigation by Congress, which, at the request of the White House, renounced exercising its constitutional role, supposedly in order not to adversely affect national security. Nor was there investigation by any media representatives, who had been summoned to the White House and prevailed upon to abstain from following up any leads lest such inquiries also adversely affect national security.
If we analyze the attacks of September the eleventh, we notice first off that there was much more to them than the official version acknowledges.
1. We know about only four planes, whereas at one point it was a question of eleven planes. Further, an examination of the insider-trading conducted in relation to the attacks shows put-option speculative trading in the stock of three airline companies: American Airlines, United Airlines and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines.
2. The official version does not include the attack on the White House annex, the Old Executive Office Building (called the "Eisenhower Building"). Yet, on the morning of the eleventh, ABC television broadcast, live, pictures of a fire ravaging the presidential services building.
3. Neither does the official version take into account the collapse of a third building in Manhattan World Trade Center complex, independently of the twin towers. This third building was not hit by a plane. However, it, too, was ravaged by a fire before collapsing for an unknown reason. This building contained the world's biggest secret CIA operations base, where the Agency engaged in economic intelligence gathering that the military-industrial lobby considered a waste of resources that should have been devoted to strategic intelligence gathering.

If we look closely at the attack against the Pentagon, we notice that the official version amounts to an enormous lie.
According to the Defense Department, a Boeing 757, all trace of which had been lost somewhere over Ohio, flew some 500 kilometers (300 miles) without being noticed. It supposedly entered Pentagon air space and descended on to the lawn surrounding the heliport, bounced off the lawn, broke a wing in collision with an electric transformer station, hit the façade at the level of the ground floor and first story, and was totally consumed by fire, leaving no other traces than two dysfunctional black boxes and pieces of passengers' bodies.
It is obviously impossible that a Boeing 757 could, for some 500 kilometers, escape detection by civil and military radar, by fighter-bomber planes sent in pursuit of it and by observation satellites that had just been activated.
It is also obviously impossible that a Boeing 757 could enter the Pentagon's air space without being destroyed by one or more of the five missile batteries protecting the building.
When one examines the photographs of the façade, taken in the minutes following the attack (even before the Arlington civilian fire fighters had time to deploy), one sees no trace of the right wing on fire in front of the façade, nor any hole in the façade into which the plane could have been swallowed up.

Apparently without the least fear of laying itself open to ridicule, the Defense Department declared that the jet engines, made out of tempered steel, had disintegrated under the shock of the impact - without damaging the façade. The aluminum of the fuselage is claimed to have combusted at more than 2,500° Celsius within the building and to have been transformed into gas, but the bodies of the passengers which it contained were so little burned that they were later identified from their finger prints.
Responding to journalists during a press conference at the Pentagon, the fire chief claimed that "no voluminous debris from the aircraft" had remained, "nor any piece of the fuselage, nor anything of that sort". He declared that neither he nor his men knew what had become of the aircraft.
Close examination of the official photographs of the scene of the attack, taken and published by the Defense Department, shows that no part of the Pentagon bears any mark of an impact that could be attributed to the crash of a Boeing 757.One must acknowledged the evidence: it is impossible that the attack against the Pentagon on September 11, killing 125 persons, was carried out by a jet airliner.
The scene of the attack was thoroughly disturbed on the following day by the immediate launch of new construction work, with the result that many of the elements necessary to reconstruct what had happened are missing. The elements that do remain, however, converge in a single hypothesis that it is not possible to prove with certainty.
An air traffic controller from Washington has testified seeing on radar an object flying at about 800 kilometers per hour, moving initially toward the White House, then turning sharply toward the Pentagon, where it seemed to crash. The air traffic controller has testified that the characteristics of the flight were such that it could only have been a military projectile.
Several hundred witnesses have claimed that they head "a shrill noise like the noise of a fighter-bomber", but nothing like the noise of a civilian aircraft.
Eye-witnesses have said that they saw "something like a cruise missile with wings" or a small flying object "like a plane carrying eight or twelve persons".The flying object penetrated the building without causing major damage to the façade. It crossed several of the building rings of the Pentagon, creating in each wall it pierced a progressively bigger hole. The final hole, perfectly circular, measured about one meter eighty in diameter. When traversing the first ring of the Pentagon, the object set off a fire, as gigantic as it was sudden. Huge flames burst from the building licking the façades, then they shrank back just as fast, leaving behind a cloud of black soot. The fire spread through a part of the first ring and along two perpendicular corridors. It was so sudden that the fire protection system could not react.
All these testimonies and observations correspond to the effects of an AGM[air to ground missile]-86C of the third (most recent) generation of CALCM [conventional air launched cruise missile -- see picture at http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/smart/agm-86c.htm], equipped with depleted uranium warheads and guided by GPS [global positioning system]. This type of missile, seen from the side, would easily remind one of a small civilian airplane, but it is not a plane. It produces a shrill whistle comparable to that of a fighter-bomber, can be guided with enough accuracy to be directed through a window, can pierce the most resistant armor and can set off a fire - independent of its piercing effect - that will generate heat of over 2,000° Celsius.
This type of missile was developed jointly by the Navy and the Air Force and is fired from a plane. The missile used against the Pentagon destroyed the part of the building where the new Supreme Naval Command Center was being installed. Following the attack, the Navy Chief of Staff, Admiral Vern Walters, failed to show up in the crisis room of the National Military Joint Intelligence Center when the other members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff reported there. Instead, he abruptly left the Pentagon.
Who, then, could have fired such a missile on the Pentagon? The answer was given by the off-the-record revelations of Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, and by Karl Rove, senior advisor to the president, to journalists from the New York Times and the Washington Post. Eighteen days later, these men discounted the veracity of the information they had given the journalists, claiming that they had been speaking under the stress of great emotion.
According to those close to George W. Bush, in the course of the morning, the Secret Service received a telephone call from those behind the attacks, apparently in order to make demands. To give credence to their demands, the masterminds revealed the secret codes giving access to the secure telephone lines available to the president for secure communication with the various intelligence agencies and services as well as for access to the nuclear arsenal. In fact, only a very few persons with the highest security clearances, in the top ranks of the government, could have had these codes. It follows that at least one of the persons behind the attacks of September 11 has a top government post, either civilian or military.
To give credence to the fable of Islamic terrorists, the United States authorities invented kamikazes.
Although it would have been possible for a well organized group of persons to bring fire arms into commercial air liners, the kamikazes apparently used cardboard cutters as their only weapons. They are said to have learned to pilot Boeing 757s and 767s in the space of several hours of simulator training, becoming better pilots than professionals. This mastery allowed them to carry out complex in-flight approach maneuvers.
The Justice Department has never explained how it established the list of the kamikazes. The airline companies have furnished the exact number of passengers in each plane, and the passenger lists, incomplete, do not mention the persons who boarded at the last minute. In checking the these lists, one notices that names of the kamikazes are not on them and that only three passengers are not identified for flight 11 and only two for flight 93. It is thus impossible that 19 kamikazes boarded. Further, several of those listed as kamikazes have turned up, alive. The FBI nonetheless maintains that the high-jackers have all been definitively identified and that complementary information such as birth dates makes it improbable that they could be confused with persons of the same name. For those who might doubt this, the FBI has a ridiculous proof: whereas the planes burned and the twin towers collapsed, the passport of Mohammed Atta was miraculously found intact on the smoking ruins of the World Trade Center.The existence of high-jackers, whether these or others, is confirmed by telephone calls made by several passengers to members of their families. Unfortunately, these conversations are known to us only by hearsay and have not been published, even in the case of those that were recorded. Thus, it has been impossible to verify that they were actually made from a particular cell phone of from a telephone on board. Here, too, we are asked to take the FBI at its word.
Further, it was not indispensable to have high-jackers to carry out the attacks. The Global Hawk technology, developed by the Air Force, makes it possible to take control of a commercial airliner regardless of the intentions of its pilot(s) and to direct it by remote control.There remains the case of Osama bn Laden. If it is generally admitted that he was a CIA agent or collaborator during the war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, the current version of events claims that he turned coat and became public enemy number one of the United States. This story does not bear up under scrutiny either. The French daily le Figaro revealed that last July, Osmam bn Laden was a patient at the American hospital in Dubai, where he was visited by the head of CIA regional office. CBS television in the United States has revealed that, on September 10, Osama bn Laden was undergoing dialysis at the Rawalpindi military hospital, under the protection of the Pakistani army. And the renown French journalist Michel Peyrard, who was a prisoner of the Taliban, has recounted how, last November, Osama bn Laden was living openly in Jalalabad while the United States was bombing other regions of the country. It is difficult to believe that the greatest army in the world, come to Afghanistan to arrest him, was unable to do so, while the mollah Omar was able to escape from United States military force on a moped.
In view of the elements that I have just presented, it appears that the attacks of September can not be attributed to foreign terrorists from the Arab-Muslim world - even if some of those involved might have been Muslim - but to United States terrorists.The day after the attacks of September 11, United Nations Security Council Resolution 1368 acknowledged "the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense in accordance with the Charter", calling on "all States to work together urgently to bring to justice the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of these terrorist attacks and stresses that those responsible for aiding, supporting or harboring the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of these acts will be held accountable".
If one wishes to heed the call of the Security Council, to enforce Resolution 1368 and to punish those who really are guilty, the only way to accurately identify the guilty parties is to set up a commission of inquiry whose independence and objectivity are guaranteed by the United Nations. This would also be the only way to preserve international peace. In the meantime, Your Highness, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, the foreign military interventions of the United States of America are devoid of any basis in international law, whether it be their recent intervention in Afghanistan or their announced interventions in Iran, Iraq and in numerous other countries.
Zayed Center website : www.zccf.org.ae
Arab version: www.zccf.org.ae/LECTURES/A2_lectures/201.htm
http://www.asile.org/citoyens/numero13/pentagone/erreurs_en.htm
http://www.reseauvoltaire.net/actu/ligue-arabe_en.htm

SORRY AGAIN 4 THE LONG POST!..BUT IT MAKES U THINK DOESN'T IT...PEACE...

Why not weep? They didnt ask for it. And unless you're prepared to back up the assertion of bias, leave it.
Setting up borders is what made this whole mess in teh first place. How will new borders make a difference? No, I will do something about it. You can talk all you want, but unless you're prepared to fight for what you believe it means nothing. You shouldn't have much faith in someone who would delaegate solutions to all the worlds problems but would not lift a finger to make the idea real, to do all that is necessary to make it more than a dream.

Well, you've succesfully flooded the thread with information. Too much to reply to, at least for myself. I'll just say this:

marom- Two words: Baised Sources

Dante- Your being extremely overly sentimental about the conflict. How's that for cold, callous, and uncaring? Mutilation of a body doesn't really strike me as something that is a horrible and disgusting thing when you're in a combat zone. I don't find it shameful, I find it logical.
We can sit back and say "oh, this violence is so horrible." But that will do nothing.
What must be done is to stablize and secure the West Bank. A Palestinian democracy must be set up, and the money we give to the PLO every year (upwards of 100 million from the US alone) must be put into building cities and infrastucture instead of perpetuating the refugee camps.

Isreal doesn't have to compensate for land taken. They were invaded by thier neighbors, and they captured the land from those attackers. This action does not require compensation.

In a nutshell: Build a wall, let the Palestinians fend for themselves.

These are simply lies about the Jews.

Teenagers shot by Israelis, then run over with a tank
After their mutilated bodies are returned, families of three teenagers
struggle to understand why they attacked Jewish settlers
By Robert Fisk in Gaza City
26 April 2002

Two of the schoolboys were 14, the other was 15; they were internet surfers
in the local cyber cafe, one of them idling his hours away drawing
children's cartoons; all three were football enthusiasts. Hours after they
had been shot dead by the Israeli army near the Jewish settlement of
Netzarim, their fathers received the three young bodies. They had been
driven over by an armoured vehicle which - in 14-year-old Ismail Abu-Nadi's
case - cut his corpse in half.

Knife-wielding suicide bombers approaching the Jewish settlement, according
to the Israeli army and, of course, The New York Times. But even Hamas,
creator of the vicious Palestinian campaign of suicide bombing, admits that
the three schoolchildren - all ninth-graders in the Salahadin School in Gaza
City - had naively planned to attack the settlement of their own accord and
with, at most, knives. It urged preachers and schoolteachers to tell
children that they should never embark on such wild schemes again.

And when the three boys' fathers talked to The Independent yesterday, they
told a story of waste and tragedy and childhood anger at Israel's bloody
invasion of the Jenin refugee camp. "I spent all last night asking myself
why my son did this,'' Mohamed Abu-Nadi told me as we sat among mourners
outside his middle-class home. "Did Ismail need money? No. Did he fail at
school? No. He was first in his class. Were there problems with his family
or friends? No. I asked myself the same questions over and over. Why? Can
you tell me?''

It's a painful question to be asked by a distraught father, a highly
educated civil engineer. Did Ismail want to die? His father said this would
have been impossible until "three or four months ago''. That was when the
schoolboy, born in Abu Dhabi and a fluent English speaker, began to ask his
father why the Palestinians were given no outside help in their struggle for
a state. "He asked me: 'Why is it that only the Palestinians cannot have a
state? Why doesn't America help? Why don't the other Arab states help?'."

Bassem Zaqout, the father of 15-year-old Yussef - none of the fathers have
met, though their sons all attended the same school - also thought the Jenin
bloodbath influenced his son.

"When I came back from evening prayers on Tuesday, he had left the house,"
he said. "I had no idea why. Now I think the boys were walking towards the
Jewish settlement with some kind of idea of attacking the Israelis there,
but he never touched a weapon. When we got his body back yesterday, it was
in a terrible state. Dogs had been at it in the night and his face was
unrecognisable because it had been crushed by a heavy vehicle driving over
it."

Adel Hamdona's 14-year-old son Anwar was returned to him in a similar
condition. The father's description was cold, emotionless. "He didn't have a
face. His legs had been severed. He had been driven over several times and
had been pretty well disembowelled.''

Anwar's body, too, had been gnawed by dogs. Mr Hamdona said: "He was just a
boy, a child. I am a teacher at his school. At five in the evening, he told
his mother he was going to an internet cafe to surf the net. When he hadn't
come home by nine, I felt something was wrong. Then we heard shooting from
Netzarim."

And there's a clue as to why Mr Hamdona felt that "something was wrong". For
Anwar had begun talking to his family about "martyrdom". "The events here
had an effect on the boy. He was always talking about the suicide
operations, about martyrs and the concept of martyrdom. He used to want to
become a martyr. I had a suspicion that a few years later, when he grew up,
he might do this - but not now."

Ismail left what appears to be a farewell note to his parents. "One of his
friends brought me a paper he had written," his father acknowledged after
talking of his son's education and his puzzlement at the world's abandonment
of Palestinians. "On the paper, Ismail had written: 'My father, my mother,
please try to pray to God and to ask for me to succeed to enter Netzarim and
to kill the Israeli soldiers and to drive them from our land'.

"I could not believe this. At his age, any other boy - and I've been to
England, the United States, India, Pakistan - yes any other boy just wants
to be educated, to be happy, to earn money, to be at peace. But our children
here cannot find peace."

As for the condition of the bodies, none of the fathers wished to speculate
on the reasons. Would the Israelis deliberately mutilate the bodies? It
seems unlikely. Or did they, after shooting the three schoolboys, avoid the
risk that one may be still alive - and with a bomb still waiting to go off -
by driving over their remains? And when their bodies were crushed, were they
all dead?
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=288987
http://ontario.indymedia.org:8081/front.php3?article_id=9049&group=webcast

War is war. There are no rules in war. They are especially not governed by a treaty they never signed. War is brutal and lawless. War is not fought by "civilized" countries but by barbarians and tyrants. War is not democratic or moral. You cannot expect anyone in war to behave in any manner more than their situation would dictate.
Thinking the death of three young boys is anything less than a tragedy deserving of tears and anguish, thinking of it as 'acceptable' in any way, even thinking the circumstances surrounding it were sane is shameful.
I read that and I cried. Three boys. They were going to attck the settlement with knives. They were playing games, and their bodies come home mangled and torn. All this fighting is insanse, it fills me with so much anger and hatred that i just want to grab these peopl and show them the corpses and say "look at this, look at what you did". THe same could be said for the girl eating a pizza, or the boy dancing in the club killed by men blinded by hate and access to explosives. This is just wrong and I can't understand taking sides in a battle where things like this are overlooked! What is happening here? What is going on? Why the hell are we arguing and fighting? These are our children!
The article ends appropriately. All we are ever left with, are questions.....

Ariel Sharon, current Prime Minister, In an interview with General
Ouze Merham, 1956]
quote:-
"I don't know something called International Principles. I vow that
I'll burn every Palestinian child (that) will be born in this area. The
Palestinian woman and child is more dangerous than the man, because the
Palestinian childs existence infers that generations will go on, but the
man causes limited danger. I vow that if I was just an Israeli civilian
and I met a Palestinian I would burn him and I would make him suffer
before killing him. With one hit I've killed 750 Palestinians (in Rafah
in 1956). I wanted to encourage my soldiers by raping Arabic girls as
the Palestinian women is a slave for Jews, and we do whatever we want to
her and nobody tells us what we shall do but we tell others what they
shall do."


WHAT THE....!!!!!

guys..i know this's gonna b really long...but trust me!..it's worth it!...i saw it in another website and thought u'd like it..i have lots more if u want....ok...here goes....:Wake up America!
By Karen Grundhofer El-Kawa, Special to Arab News
At the risk of being labeled an extremist, I send you
this list of undisputed facts regarding the history of Palestine.
While I watch the American media distort the
facts of what is going on recently in the occupied
territories, I send you this information in the hope that you will
re-evaluate your viewpoint and ask yourself the following questions:

Why do UN resolutions only apply when the US wants them
to?
For example, we need to bomb Iraq because Saddam
Hussein will not comply with the resolutions, while Israel can completely
ignore the recently passed resolutions 1402 and 1403 (backed by the US) without
any punishment whatsoever or even condemnation by our government
(like they have ignored many other standing resolutions in the past).

How can we allow Israel to make comparisons to their
political situation and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks? It is insult
to the memory of those who died on 9/11 to make these comparisons.
Israel has been in a state of war for over 50 years. There are three
times as many Palestinians who have died as Israelis since the Intifada
began in October 2000. Why do we Americans value the life of an
Israeli more than a Palestinian?

I would like to make the distinction right now between
“the real terrorists” of the world and the Palestinian suicide bombers.
Since Sept. 11 governments and the media have distorted this issue to no end. The
Israeli government has latched onto this new terminology taking
advantage of America’s misfortunes.

The “war on terror” has nothing to do with the
Palestinian/Israel war that has been going on for over 50 years.
Recent terrorist attacks against the US include US embassy bombings,
Sept. 11, and the attack on the USS Cole. Foreigners committed these
“acts of terror”. Yes they were Arabs,but there was not one Palestinian
among them. Israel is an occupier in a land
that is not their own. They have never compensated the Palestinians
for their land. In the current Intifada, Palestinian suicide bombers have never
attacked anyone outside their own borders. This in my opinion is
not an “act of terror”. I realize this issue is extremely debatable.
But how can the Israelis make comparisons to Sept. 11 when they
have been in the middle of this conflict for so long?

Why today is the idea of “dying for a cause” so foreign
to Americans? We have been taught since childhood about the heroes
in American history who have died for our freedom or what they believe in.

Our founding fathers would be rolling in their graves
if they could see us now bowing to the Israel government, denying
the individual freedoms we take for granted everyday in America.

If you think the Palestinians are willing to die for
anything less than their freedom, you are incorrect. Martyrdom and
the fact that they also go straight to
Heaven according to Islamic teachings, is just a bonus.
While those who died in the American Revolution are definitely heroes,
we denounce the Palestinians who defend themselves the only way they can.

Israel citizens are allowed to carry arms, Palestinians
are not. Israel citizens are allowed to go anywhere they want, Palestinians
are not. Israel army personnel are allowed to act as judge, jury and
executor. Palestinians are like lambs going to the slaughter with no means of real defense.

Israeli Army can enter any home, kill its inhabitants,
and destroy any personal property without blinking an eye. Israeli
soldiers can bulldoze any home of their
choosing without a flinch, build a set of condos in its
place, call it a settlement and deny access to the land’s original
owners (if they are even still alive).

Nobody would bat an eye if the original owners were
killed in the process. We Americans treat minks and lab rats better
than the Israelis treat the Palestinians. You might be willing to die for freedom
in such circumstances too. Wouldn’t you? It is their only hope.
More soldiers and civilians died in the
US Civil War than any other war — over what — slavery.
And you think thePalestinians are crazy? For those of you who think
you will be accused of being an anti-Semite for backing a Palestinian
state,this is not a religious issue for the Israelis. It is a political
one! It is all about land and borders and control of an oppressed
people. When Israelis turn it into a Jewish issue, they are trying
to manipulate you. There are many Jewish people all over the world
(especially in Europe), who denounce the Israel government and their tactics.

They can see how oppressive the Israeli Army is. It can
only be compared to how the Jews were treated by Adolph Hitler and his regime.

Ariel Sharon is without a doubt a murderer and a liar.
Say what you want about Yasser Arafat. Before this current incursion,
Arafat was hated more by the Arabs than anybody. But Sharon is a convicted murder.

He was found directly responsible for the massacres at
the refugee camps in Sabra and Shatila where over 2,000 Palestinians
died in 1982. But what you don’t know,

Sharon is nothing more than a Mafia boss. The Christian
militia who were his partners in Lebanon during the early 1980s
are literally “swimming with the fishes”. Three different Lebanese
leaders (his ex-partners) have been killed in Mafia style killings
including one in February in a car bomb. These leaders were
supposed to testify against Sharon in the Belgium world
court. Now that they are dead, there is no case. (I can get you
the details of this if you want supporting documentation).

Would we let a Mafia boss run our country? Sharon has
no regard for human life. Any democratically elected leader who
threatens another elected leader with exile or death threats as well stating he should
have killed Arafat when he had the chance all those years ago, is
not fit for office. I hope you will agree
with me that our fellow Americans are misinformed and
reading the situation incorrectly. If you care at all, I would ask
you to think carefully about this. If we
want to reduce the terrorist threat against America, we
have to try and understand why people are so fed up with our government and their policies.

Why are there people willing to spend years and years
plotting against innocent Americans? We have to make some changes
and pay attention to world opinion. We cannot remain the isolationists
we are today and were before we joined World War II if we want to reduce the terrorist threat.

Solving the Israel/Palestinian issue would be a step in
the right direction. Arabs(Muslims and Christians) are completely
insulted by the lack of regard for human life in the Arab world.
Arabs are frustrated by the one-sided American policy.

For those of you who believe this is not our battle to
resolve, please realize every tank, gun, F-16, helicopter, and bullet read “Made in the USA”. As the
arms suppliers for the Israelis (some paid for by the
American government or private US citizens), we have to take somer
responsibility as to how thoseweapons are used. Don’t we hold drug dealers in some
part responsible forselling drugs to our youth?

Yes, I realize there is more than just one side to
every fight. But while our fellow Americans sit waiting in fear for the next terrorist
attack on the US, our government continues to insult the intelligence
of the Arab people. Individuals
who were once considered moderate are now thinking
maybe the US got what it deserved. Whether you agree with me or not is not the issue.

We have to do something to eradicate this hatred toward
America, or we will pass this horrible legacy to our children. What worries me even more is that
according to the polls, Americans actually believe
getting rid of Saddam is the answer. Believe me; attacking Iraq
will only increase America’s enemies. If you want to really have
a “war on terror”, fix the problem in Palestine. Our government
has to start playing fair and begin to really be impartial, if that
is even possible. I hope for the future of America, the
world and all our children, they can do it. Please read the following
facts about Palestine and how we got
where we are today. I ask that you show this
information to everyone you know so we can at least give the another point of view.

Did you know?

1 — THAT, when the Palestine problem was created by
Britain in 1917, more than 90 percent of the population of Palestine
were Arabs, and that there were
at that time no more than 56,000 Jews in Palestine?

2 — THAT, more than half of the Jews living in
Palestine at that time were recent immigrants, who had come to Palestine
in the preceding decades in order to escape persecution in Europe?
And that less than 5 percent of the population of Palestine were native Palestinian Jews?

3 — THAT, the Arabs of Palestine at that time owned
97.5 percent of the land, while Jews (native Palestinians and recent
immigrants together) owned only 2.5 percent of the land?

4 — THAT, during the 30 years of British occupation and
rule, the Zionists were able to purchase only 3.5 percent of the
land of Palestine, in spite of the
encouragement of the British Government? And that much
of this land was transferred to Zionist bodies by the British Government
directly, and was not sold by Arab owners?

5 — THAT, therefore, when British passed the Palestine
problem to the United Nations in 1947, Zionists owned no more than
6 percent of the total land area of
Palestine?

6 — THAT, notwithstanding these facts, the General
Assembly of the United Nations recommended that a “Jewish State”
be established in Palestine? And that the Assembly granted that proposed “State” about
54 percent of the total area of the country?

7 — THAT, Israel immediately occupied (and still
occupies) 80.48 percent of the total land area of Palestine?

8 — THAT, this territorial expansion took place, for
the most part, before May 15, 1948 i.e., before the formal end of
the British forces from Palestine, before the entry of Arab armies
to protect Palestinian Arabs,and before the Arab-Israeli war?

9 — THAT, the 1947 recommendation of the General
Assembly in favor of the creation of a “Jewish State” was outside
the competence of the Assembly under the Charter of the United Nations?

10 — THAT, all attempts by the Arab states and other
Asian countries to have the Assembly submit “the question of constitutionality” of its recommendation
to the International Court of Justice for an “advisory
opinion” by the Court were rejected or ignored by the Assembly?

11 — THAT, when the Assembly began to experience
“second thoughts” over the matter and convened for its second special
session in 1948, it failed to reaffirm the 1947 recommendation for the partition of
Palestine — thus destroying whatever dubious legality that recommendation
for the establishment of a “Jewish State” had had?

12— THAT, that original 1947 recommendation to create
a “Jewish State” in Palestine was approved, at the first vote, only
by European, American and Australian states... for every Asian state, and every
African state (with the exception of the Union of South Africa)
voted against it? And that, when the
vote was cast in plenary session on Nov. 29, 1947,
urgent American pressures (which a member of the Harry Truman Cabinet
described as “bordering onto scandal”) had succeeded in prevailing only upon one
African country (Liberia), both of which had special vulnerability
to American pressures, to abandon their
declared opposition? And that, in other words, the
“Jewish State” was planted at the point-of-intersection of Asia and Africa without
the free approval of any Middle Eastern, Asian or African country
except that Union of South Africa,
itself ruled by an alien minority?

13 — THAT, Israel remained, ever since its inception, a
total stranger in the emerging world of Afro-Asia; and that Israel
has been refused admission to any inter-state conference of Asian, African, Afro-Asian,
or Non-Aligned States ever held?

14 — THAT, since the General Armistice Agreements were
signed in 1949,Israel has maintained an aggressive policy of waging
military attacks across the Armistice Demarcation Lines, repeatedly
invading the territories of the neighboring Arab states. And that
Israel has been duly rebuked, censured, or condemned for these military
attacks by the Security Council of the General Assembly of the United
Nations on 11 occasions — five times by the Security Council and
six times by the General Assembly?

15 — THAT, no other country in the world, whether
member of the United Nations or non-member, has been so frequently
condemned by the United Nations?

16 — THAT, no Arab state has ever been condemned by any
organ of the United Nations for military attacks upon Israel?

17 — THAT, besides expelling the bulk of the Arab
inhabitants of Palestine,and besides constantly attacking the neighboring Arab states, Israel has also
consistently harassed the United Nations observers and
other personnel stationed along the Armistice Demarcation Lines: It has assassinated the first
United Nations mediator and his military aide; it has
detained some truce observers; it has militarily occupied and illegally searched the headquarters of
United Nations personnel; and it has boycotted meetings
of the Mixed Armistice commissions?

18 — THAT, Israel has additionally imposed a system of
apartheid upon the Arabs, who stayed in their homeland? More than
90 percent of these Arabs live in “security zones”; they alone live under martial law,
restricting their freedom to travel from village to village or from
town to town; their children are denied equal opportunities for
education; and they are denied decent opportunities for work, and
the right to receive “equal pay for equal work?”

19 — THAT, notwithstanding the foregoing facts, Israel
has always been, and still is, widely portrayed in the Western press
as the “bastion of democracy” and the “champion of peace” in the Middle East?

20 — THAT, the Western powers have persisted in
declaring their determination to ensure a so-called “arms balance”
in the area, as between Israel, on the one hand, and the 100 million
inhabitants of the 13 Arab states, on the other hand? And this unilateral
Western doctrine of so-called “arms
balance” is no more reasonable than the suggestion that, in the
Cuba-US conflict, there should be “arms balance” as between Cuba
and the United States.... or that the whole Continent of Africa
should not be allowed to acquire more arms than South Africa...
or that Mainland China should not be permitted to have more arms
than Taiwan... or that the military allowed to acquire more arms
than South Africa... and that only thus can peace be safeguarded
in the Western Hemisphere, in Africa, in Asia, or in Europe?

21 — THAT, Israel allots 85 percent of the water
resources in the occupied territories for Jews and the remaining
15 percent is divided among all Palestinians in the territories?
For example in Hebron,85 percent of the wateris given to about 500
settlers, while 15 percent must be divided among Hebron’s 120,000 Palestinians?

22 — THAT, the United States awards Israel $3 billion
in aid each year, more than to any other country in the world: US
aid to Israel exceeds the aid the US
grants to the whole sub-Saharan Africa?

23 — THAT, GDP, per capita, and consumption per capita
in the occupied territories have dropped about 15 percent in the
West Bank and Gaza since 1993 — that’s even with large foreign assistance
pouring in, from Europe, mostly?

24 — THAT, up until 1993, the US and Israel permitted
humanitarian aid to come into the territories. UN humanitarian aid
was permitted into the West Bank and Gaza. In 1993, that was restricted?

25 — THAT, Israel is the only country in the Middle
East that has nuclear weapons?

26 — THAT, Israel is the only country in the Middle
East that refuses to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and
bars international inspections from its sites?

27 — THAT, Israel currently occupies territories of two
sovereign nations (Lebanon and Syria) in defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions?

28 — THAT, high-ranking military officers in the
Israeli military have admitted publicly that unarmed prisoners of
war were executed by the Israeli Army?

29 — THAT, Israel refuses to prosecute its soldiers who
have acknowledged executing prisoners of war?

30 — THAT, Israel routinely confiscates bank accounts,
businesses, and land from Palestinians and refuses to pay compensation
to those who suffer the confiscation?

31 — THAT, Israel stands in defiance of 69 United
Nations Security Council Resolutions?

32 — THAT, Israel’s current head, Ariel Sharon, was
found by an Israeli court to be “personally responsible” for the
Sabra and Shatila massacres in Lebanon in which thousands of unarmed
Palestinian refugees were slaughtered in 1982?

33 — THAT, today’s Israel sits on the former sites of
more than 400 destroyed Palestinian villages, and that the Israelis
renamed almost every physical site in
the country to cover up the traces?

34 — THAT, Sharon’s coalition government includes a
party — Molodet — which advocates expelling all (of the over two
million)Palestinians from (their homes) in the occupied territories?

35 — THAT, Israel’s illegal settlement-building in the
Occupied Palestinian territories more than doubled in the eight
years since the Oslo agreements?

36 — THAT, illegal settlement building under Prime
Minister Ehud Barak doubled compared to settlement building under
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu?

37 — THAT, more illegal settlements in the occupied
Palestinian territories were built under Barak than at any other
time in the history of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land?

38 — THAT, despite a ban on torture by Israel’s High
Court of Justice, torture has continued by Shin Bet interrogators on Palestinian prisoners?

39 — THAT, Palestinian refugees make up the largest
refugee population in the world?

40 — THAT, Israeli military checkpoints surround every
Palestinian population center in violation of the Oslo Accords?

41 — THAT, the right of self-determination is
guaranteed to every human being under the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights (December, 1948), yet
Palestinians were/are expected to negotiate for this
right under the Oslo Accords?

42 — THAT, Palestinians have the highest ratio of PhDs
per capita in the world?

***

(Riyadh-based Karen El-Kawa has a degree in sociology
from the University of California, Berkeley. She is actively involved in the American expatriate
community in the Saudi capital. Karen can be reached at

kelkawa@hotmail.com.)
so....isn't it somethin 2 consider....peace!...

hi guys!...i just wanna say that somethin MUST be done when someone attacks yr country..BUT not pointin fingers at anyone who MIGHT b a suspect..and then bombin a country that he MIGHT b livin in!!!!...killin innocent ppl all over again who have nothin 2 do with what's happened 2 u!...u each have a point..but even though we're all sad and angry that many ppl died..we don't have 2 kill some more!!!!...why didn't they use the help of the united nations 2 really investigate and just get the person or the ppl who really did it,or were behind it!!!...and by the way,i strongly think that the U.S. govern. didn't investiate the whole thing enough...let's keep an open mind guys...put yr emotions aside 4 just a while..and really think it over !

I think that joyflgrrl is right. Yes in an ideal world everyone would remain a virgin until he/she got married, but THIS IS NOT AN IDEAL WORLD. TEENS HAVE BEEN AND WILL CONTINUE TO HAVE SEX. Futurewrite said that a teacher telling teens to use other ways of protecting themselves is like saying that teachers think that we don't have the will to say no. The truth is, most (68%)don't. So if they're going to have sex then they should at least know how to protect themselves. Or, if they didn't protect themselves, they should know where they can turn for help.
If teens knew where to go and how to protect themselves from unwanted pregnancy and STDS, we'd have a lot less abortions and sick kids.
I myself am still a virgin, but it's not fair to say that kids who aren't shouldn't be told ways to protect themselves. It's the government's responsibility to teach us the consequences of sex.
If the Bush administration doesn't teach us how to take care of ourselves now, how can they expect us to take care of them when our generation is in charge?

Personally I practice abstinence because I'm Christian and a young teenager. Later on in my life I may decide that abstinence is not for me and that I want to have sex before marriage. My school does not use an abstinence-only program. They do talk a lot about abstinence and constantly say that abstinence is the only 100 percent method against STD's and pregnancy. They also tell us about other methods of birth contol, which I personally believe is a great idea. Not everyone is going to practice abstinence and we have to accept that. If teenagers are going to have sex, then it should at least be safe sex. Like President Bush I am pro-life. I do however believe in abortions for medical reasons either concerning the mother or fetus, and for rape and incest. To prevent teen pregnancy and teen abortions we need to spread the word about ALL types of birth contol, abstinence included.

We also continue to fund israel's genocide against palestinians, and conveniently enough, we always are shown the realatively small israeli death tolls on television, but never the thousands of palestinians who are killed in ridiculous raids in the name of the war on terrrorism.

Herman Goering, propaganda minister for the nazi party, said during the nuremberg trials that the people never want a war, but in any government, fascist, democratic, or any other, the government can easily prod them into it by telling them that they are being atttacked, that there is a threat against them, and that those who dont support the wars are traitors who contribute to the downfall of the nation. Interestingly enough, those are exactly the tactics used by our and other government to justify any actions nessecary, regardless of relation to any real events.

Government sponsored hysteria allows any action to go throw and a frnzy of anti 'terrorist' philospohies are applied to everything else, including the failed war on drugs. The War on Terrorism is the war on freedom, the war on limitations of the government, and the war on the people all rolled into one.

One more thing to ruminate on, guess who trained Osama Bin Laden in guerilla warfare/ clandestine operations (official government terrorism) ? Thats right, the american CIA, intending that bin laden and the taliban drive out the soviet sponsored northern alliance.

Fact: We have killed at least twice as many civilians as soldiers. In January the civilian death toll was around 3,000. No military death toll was even close to that. We have had a total of 43 deaths of our soldiers. Is one life worth more?

I personally believe that you should wait to have sex till marriage or at least, I try to live by that but first of all, not everyone is Catholic and second of all, some teens dont even follow that rule. Teens are going to have sex no matter what you say to them so my answer to your question is Bush should not only be promoting not having sex but also having safe sex. I know it must sound like I'm contradicting myself but I can't stop random teens from having sex, so why not teach them to have it safely?