Yes, Seagull, that's the Peace link.

Certainly the Munich Betrayal made WW II much worse -- the first CSR (? - Czechoslovakia) defenses included large numbers of excellent guns which were all surrendered to Hitler as he annexed the Sudentenland.

Today, the Benes Decree (returning Pres.) expelling all Germans & Hungarians after the war, has become a minor issue against the Czechs & Slovaks of the 3.5 m Germans who were expelled (by the Czechs; the Slovaks did not expel the Hungarians, so have a 10% minority which is often a minor political issue). The Decree is still "in force", but ignored, so as to not reopen any compensation claims, etc. This is an EU expansion issue. It's also clear evidence of how "ethnic cleansing" was used and approved by the US and allies after the war.

My wife feels the US, or somebody, should have helped Hungary in their '56 anti-commie rebellion, and the CSSR in the '68 Prague Spring anti-commie protest.

But my current Mid-East point is this: the Palestinians lost. They need to give up and get over it. That's my advice, my premise.

The terrorists & their supporters are willing to fight to the last man (?), so they don't accept my premise that they've lost. IF I accept their premise (which I don't), then there is a question about tactics. It is in this respect that I don't condemn them; I'm not sure I have better tactics to offer. (i.e. ML King style non-violent protests, pressure in and on the US to offer US citizenship to all Israelis and immediate immigration visas, the US spending some 10-50% of their "aid to Israel" on buying Israeli land, and renting it to Israeli-Palestinians, etc. I have lot's of maybe ideas, but none that I think are really fine.)

I would advise Hitler, for instance, not to invade Crete with his few paratroopers, but rather Malta � as a matter of tactical advice for his goals of winning.

Another interesting aside is criticism of the WW II Pope for "not doing enough" to oppose Hitler; this has become a recent fad because of disillusioned/ anti-conservative (gay supporting?) Catholics wanting to attack the current Pope. In fact, many Jews alive at the time thought the Pope had done a great deal to save thousands of Jews. In a certain sense, the critics are condemning Pope Pius for not being a "suicide protester".


You ask about how many deaths before taking action. Since I have confused/ conflicting feelings that Sharon may be using too much oppression, let me rephrase it more specifically: how many terror deaths before I cease condemning Sharon's retaliatory assaults on high level terror supporters.

It seems like too many, already -- so I might be changing my mind about condemning Sharon's heavy handedness ...

Maybe the suicide terrorists are the best way to build a national consciousness -- I'll switch to your new thread for more of these thoughts.



It's good to be reminded of the Palestinians� terror-murdering of other Palestinians.

As long as this continues, they are not ready for Western, open society democracy. Is this really the only kind of state that they can be allowed to have? I�m not sure. Can Israel have real peace with any other state? Maybe not.

What is to be done? Maybe the Likud/ Sharon strategy of targeting terror supporters, and assassinating or jailing/ prosecuting them can create a situation where another try at having real democratic mayors with some real powers can be tried again. Maybe the Israelis need to be MORE heavy handed in their martial law style occupation governing, accepting more gov�t responsibilities of providing Palestinian municipal services � as effective colonial powers. And perhaps supporting more economic businesses and joint ventures.

But I read that there were property records which were found and destroyed by the Israelis. This has to be wrong, if the goal is to have a property rights based society.