From: Jeremy Peter Howells, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Nick Steadman has done some articles on this in SADW.
Essentially most of the 'rubber' bullets the Israeli's
are using are FMJ with a rubber coating.
I believe Nick is still away at the moment - if he's
home he may well have flood problems as he lives inthe
Brighton-Hove area - otherwise I believe he would have
commented himself.
The Israeli's have always been rather heavy handed in
dealing with the Palestinians. This may stem from the
early 1930's and 1940's when Arabs regarded it as good
sport to attack buses loaded with Jewish immigrants
(at this time the Jews were forbidden to possess
weapons outside their own settlements so were 'legally'
unarmed while in transit - the British were enforcing
the rules remember) .
Later in 1948 many of the 'displaced' Palestinians
left because they expected the fledgling Israel to be
smashed by the oncoming Arab armies and the Jews
massacred almost to the last man, woman and child -
incidentally leaving their lands, settlements and
property to the returning Palestinians. Imagine their
shock when the fledgling IDF fought them to a
standstill and left hundreds of thousands of these
Palestinians away from their homes and lands with no
way of going back.
The rump of Palestine not held by Israel, the Gaza
strip and West Bank, were administered by Egypt and
Jordan respectively, though neither helped the
Palestinians that much in the intervening years. 1967
saw Israel again trounce the vastly superior (in numbers
and equipment) Arab armies and take those areas under
Israeli control together with the Golan Heights and the
Sinai Desert up to the Suez Canal.
Later the Palestinian terrorists plagued Israel and the
West with their terrorist acts and the PLO grew to be a
substantial force. Remember the Jordanians threw the
PLO out after they threatened the stability of the
country and Labanon eventually did the same.
The history of the animosity between Arab and Jew goes
back thousands of years. Recent years have seen Israel
cast as the Goliath with the Palestinians as the David
(forgive the pun here). However, the history is so
convoluted, the intial causes so far back and modern
problems rubbing salt into the wound that this problem
is not going to reach an easy solution. The butchering
of two Israeli soldiers by a crowd after the police
(whose custody they were in) failed to protect them was
obviously going to receive a prompt and violent Israeli
response.
Lets hope they can calm the situation down so that both
sides can talk - easier for the Israeli's as they have
some semblance of control of their troops (though ot
always of the settlers), while Arafat appears to have
lost what little control he had of the mob.
Regards
Jerry
Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org
List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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