Israel to let Presidential Guard train near West Bank city of Jericho

Ruth Broch would like us to believe she writes from Shadmot Mehola, Israel. The truth is that Shadmot Mehola is not in Israel, but is a settlement located in the Jordan valley, West Bank, populated by some 517 settlers, somewhere between the lake Kinneret and the Dead Sea, an area which, up to now, has never been annexed to the Israeli sovereign territory. "According to Peace Now's Settlement Watch Director Dror Etkes, the general feeling which one hears from many settlers in the area is that it is just a question of time until the Jordan Valley will be evacuated. Many of the settlers reflect this feeling by expressing their desire to be compensated in order to move and live within the borders of the state of Israel." See: www.fmep.org/analysis/articles/eastern_strip_of_the_west_bank.html Ruth Broch is either a fool and/or a liar.

TA, you are so condescending to Linda. But the reason Israel is there at all is that no one wanted refugee Jews in their countries following WW2. Yes, you may not be a Jew-hater, but the world is filled with them, and the policy of many governments toward Israel is made by Jew-haters who would like to see the Jews of Israel commit collective suicide by being nice to their enemies, who will, one day, I am sad to say, win.

With Jewish arms and Jewish targets? As usual Messrs no good at the helm of the state.

There should be no movement on this until Abbas ceases launching anti-Israel public incitement and tirades at the UN. Israel doesn't want a UN cease fire resolution, and if Abbas continues seeking one, the "training" deal for Abbas' troops with Gen. Dayton should go on ice. Abbas already has 37,000 AK-47 armed police (more "police" per capita than any other country on Earth); if he can't deploy them intelligently to stop rocket fire from a Jericho-sized zone of N. Gaza, he doesn't need more, he needs Israel to do it. UN has already demonstrated its worthlessness in Lebanon, completely ineffective at its job of stopping arms smuggling from Syria - so the "experiment" is over, the data is in. UN failed, and no model to copy. Israel just needs the freedom to apply without limit against Jabaliya camp the methods Lebanon is now using to stop shooting from the Tripoli camp, i.e., concentrated 155mm howitzer barrages, regardless of the thousands it displaces. Double standard has to stop.

EXACTLY what both the PA and GOI should be placed under!! Like an immediate intevention by mental health experts, a peacekeeping force of soldiers, and various professionals to come into this region, work out a basis for coexistence. Obviously all people there have a right to exist, and to be treated humanely. Minus self-defense, someone with missile, guns etc can be shot/arrested on the spot. Both sides apply too. The extremists on both sides that desire the elimination of the other and only have a tolerance for their OWN ideaological bases have to be weeded out or there is no hope. There IS an apocalyptic fever raging, and so many are to blame it is absolutely nuts to favor one side over another. UN, someone should immediately acquire a mental health warrant stating the Pa and GOI is attempting suicide and without immediate help and care the death/grave injury of each is imminent. Nothing else has worked!

Mr. Vickery, easy to talk from afar, isn't it? Israel is tiny--and no place is safe.

I think arming Abbas, who is knowsn for his record of Holocaust denial and support for the Munich massacre, would be a great mistake. I know, from living near Toronto, how many Jews have left the Montreal area, because of the antisemitism of the Parti Quebecois. It is interesting that you post from there

Not all who are critical at israeli policies are jew-haters. I know it's easy and handy to just yell anti-senite and jew-hater but please, for the sake of a viable and possible peace plan, don't be so extreme, really is unhelpful. Many of us have issue with policies and treatment of the palestinians, that does not imply we hate jews. I do believe some nonJews are citizens in Israel, too? I understand Israel would far prefer ALL citizens be jewish, but the fact is that would be racista nd really just an apartheid state. One could argue Israel qualifies as this already.

The majority of Palestinians believe that Israel is and always has been their oppressor, and that, therefore, destroying Israel would be an act of simple justice. Hamas loyalists believe that it is their religious duty to destroy Israel. Abbas loyalists believe that attempting to destroy Israel is disastrous for the Palestinians, and that it is better to make a deal with the Israeli devil. Israel?s past attempts to manipulate the internal Palestinian situation have been uniformly failures. This includes helping to install Hamas in order to weaken the PLO (under Eshkol and Perez) sponsoring the Christian Lebanese forces (under Begin), unilaterally withdrawing from Gaza (under Sharon) and arming Fateh (under Olmert), while trying to drive the Palestinians out of the territories by home and crop destruction, land seizures and economy-destroying limitations on travel, transport and communication. Hamas came to and retain power because the Sharon and Olmert governments have seen to it that Abbas was unable to deliver any relief to the Palestinian people. In view of the prevailing Palestinian view, improving the effectiveness of any Palestinian forces is self-destructive foolishness. Instead, it is time for the Israeli Government to acknowledge that the Palestinians are not going to leave the territories and, therefore, to set about making the founding of an Israel-dependent prosperous Palestinian state possible. This means working with Abbas to withdraw roadblocks and settlements, to open the transport of goods and individuals from/to Gaza and between the territories and the rest of the world and to permit the Palestinians to build new homes and production facilities. At the same time, it must be made clear that these improvements are not due to Palestinian militance. And, this means a ground campaign in Gaza to eliminate those firing Qassams and to destroy militant?s arms and arms factories.

Your enemy's enemy is your friend. Unless of course, your enemy's enemy is your enemy. Weren't a lot of the Qassams, shootings and bombings of Israeli civilians carried out by proxies of Fatah? Not that I am thrilled about a Hamas dominated Palestinian government mind you.... Isn't it wiser that Israel plays no favoritism with the Palestinians here? It seems that every time Israel tries to meddle in internal Arab affairs, both sides (us and the party we try to help) get burnt. I would rather that Israel keep out of this Palestinian battle and let the Palestinians learn to float or drown themselves, but without our meddling what-so-ever.

Get yourself and your family back to safety inside the state of Israel !

Maj.Gen. Galant stated Abbas's Fatah has become an Iranian organization. Abbas, praised and admired by the US, paid the terrorists who massacred Israeli athletes in 1972 in Munich. Abbas's security forces have MURDERED MORE JEWS than Hamas. The Palestinian Authority call for the MURDER OF ALL JEWS and the MURDER of AMERICANS: Broadcast from Gaza mosque, Oct 13 2000, Dr. Ahmad Abu Halabiya, on Palestinian Authority TV (transcribed by Memri): "Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country. Fight them, wherever you are. Wherever you meet them, kill them. Wherever you are, kill those Jews and those Americans who are like them..." Islamic persecution in Bethlehem drove out Christians-Bethelehem was a 90% Christian town-it is now 12% Christian. STOP the wicked BETRAYAL. Stop training Abbas's Palestinian Guard to MASSACRE JEWS. G-D commanded: YOU SHALL NOT MURDER.

and arrogant attitudes are getting you killed. if we're no friedn to you wht the hell do you live HERE, and not in Israel? Fund raising perhaps, part of some lobby group I suppose. Israel does all kinds of things that gets them killed, why start complaining now?

The West Bank is NOT your land! You have Israel: let the Palestinians have what is left of their land. love you too, David

Always entitled, no responsibilty or accountability, just write ya all a blank check and let ya go at it???? You ARE out of your mind. We let Israel get away with enough already....... Good grief, the boldness and rudeness...is shocking.

This is just going to turn into another lebanon- by getting involved with one specific faction, israel is preventing future cooperation with a moderated hamas

Sam your comment #4 would make some sense if you actually resided in Israel. But the fact that you are firmly planted in the U.S.A. makes me wonder which country you are actually loyal to.

...since the vast majority of Palestinians are only nominally religious, support for Hamas will eventually recede, especially when the average Palestian has productive work and the ability to support his family. Work and family are central to Palestinian men. This can only really happen when Israel abandons the zionist project and gets out of what remains of Palestine...the army and all the settlers must leave the West Bank, including East Al-Quds.

Arafat under the Oslo security contract was able to convice Israel and the US that he is the best security contractor ( Palestinian Blackwater)and convinced Israel he needed 60,000 armed militia and 12 different security agencies competiting for his favor and loyalty. As it turned out these militias are now the source of insecurity. It is waste of time for Palestinian leadership to invest any money in arms and weapons and militias. We need an end of the occupation and the disarming of both Palestinians and Israelis within the Occupied Territories. More over best options now is to simply disband the PA. Both Hamas and Fatah have failed at every thing and proved they are unfit and unqualified to lead to indpendance. What a waste. The people are also to blame for putting up with such stupid nonsense.

Why stop at merely arming and improving the killing techniques of the low level terrorists ? Why not go for the gusto and invite Ahmadinejad on a tour of Dimona ? Or send a few Israeli physicists to Iran to share nuclear tech with the Ayatollahs of Doom. And for pity's sake don't forget about Osama bin Laden . He could probably use a refresher course or two since the CIA dumped him .Will Israel supply a video log of the training exercises? The lefty media machine could use some new stuff. Al Qaeda jumping through flaming hoops is soooo passe. The Olmert govt is nuts. Most Israelis recognized this about a war and half ago. The truly frightening question is this - Why do the opposition parties allow this govt to remain in power? IT IS THE JOB OF THE OPPOSITION TO INITIATE A VOTE OF NONCONFIDENCE THAT WILL BRING DOWN THIS GOVT . It's as I suspect. ALL the politicos( current govt PLUS oppostion) are stunned,frozen, lost, corrupt, clueless and gutless. God help us all !

ANOTHER MAYDAY JOKE IN PROCESS .

So, it would be preferable to you to have dead Pals who are caught up in factional fighting? I would like to see thePals governed by a less extreme group and have a State. Hamas is run from Damascus, not from the territories. Theydon't care one wayor the other about the Pals or a seperate state. And the Imperialist Arab League is involved as well. Both inPalestine and in Lebanon.

While walls and settlements expand and expand and Jerusalem and condos brand, Palestinians destroy each other with the help of Zionist hands.

It is absolute delusional to think that abbas and his fatah who has formed a unity govt. with Hamas is a moderate force. What a pathetic joke!!! until Israel comes to terms witht he fact that the Palestinian elites and political eshelon as a whole are genocidal extremists then the rockets and terror will continue!!! It's time to reconcile the reality with a responsible policy in actually curbing the Palestinian terror machine or we will continue seeing more and more ghost towns in Israel. We must take the philadelphia corridor and destroy any remnant of a PA infrastructure and start from scratch!!!

The more we get close to Abbas and Dahlan, the stronger Hamas will become. ALl people under occupation just don't like collaborators and quislings...this is also true with the Palestinians. Just How Dahlan has lost the latest battle in Gaza..even his own people are shunning him.

Why don't you give them HUMVEES, Scorpion TANKS (or MERKAVA), and million of amunitions for them to bring homes, so you can blame ABBAS if those weapons fall to the hands of the so called TERRORISTS and EXTREMISTs in West Bank and GAZA to use for fighting against Israel.

IF THE US COULD JUST SEND US PEACEFUL ISRAELI JEWS THE MONEY WITHOUT STICKING THEIR NOSE IN OUR BUSINESS, AND LET US TAKE CARE OF THE p'arabs BY KICKING THEM OUT, THEN WE WILL GET MORE PEACE & SECURITY & THE p'arabs WILL GET WHAT THEY DESERVE, A PERMANENT VACATION IN ONE OR MORE OF THE 22 arab DICTATOR STATE THAT WILL ABUXE THEM TO THEIR LIKING. LOVE MOSHE

not an orginisation which has Palestines intrests at heart, I think Israel should start talking to PFLP(Popular Front For The Liberation Of Palestine)aswell as Fatah whom both should form a coalition, NB:you cannot negotiate with Any Religous fanatics wether they Islamic,christian,Tamil,Buddhist or even Jewish for argument sakes.look what those two french guys did to the taxi driver in Jerusalem and Baruch Goldstein in Hebron, both sides should shed their extremist elements before any realistic agreement can come about,EVEN MUBARAK(EGYPT)HIMSELF SAID HAMAS WILL NEVER AGREE TO PEACE.

The real Quislings are those sad clowns who fire qassams at Israel from Dense resedential areas, so I presume this is acceptable behaviour?

if they do the Naqba will look like a vacation compared to the consequence of such sheer stupidity, in 1948 haganah offered you to live in peace but you spat in their faces and then revisionist Irgun took you on and you ran away from your towns and cities,oh did I forget to mention Moshe Dayan let refugees from the west bank return after the six day war? please reply otherwise I know you a real moron.

Gaza/Judea/Samaria are already awash with weapons. What does the Israeli government think it is doing by allowing this? If there is a major ME war again, what are Abbas' people going to do - defend Israel??? This policy is absurd. As for training these guys - why not just dispand the IDF, expel everyone from Israel, turn out the lights & hand over the keys. This is suicide in slow motion....

Is the USA advocating the overthrough, by force, of a democratically elected government? The USA cries all the time that Syria is interfering in Lebanese affairs by arming militias that are bent on overthrowing the government. They also complain that Syria & Iran are allowing armed groups to cross into Iraq to fight the government. What hypocricy! The mask, if there ever was one, has fallen! Is that the type of democracy that the US is advocating? American policy has been a failure in Iraq, Afghanistan, and it will fail just as bad in Palestine. The Abbass's & Karzai's of the world have been OPENLY exposed as tools of American imperialism!

"..near Jericho"

who refuse to do the right thing by the residents od Sderot but will train and arm terrorists who will no doubt be using that training against our soldiers and civilians one day soon. What a corrupt bunch of imbicles.

Wallac , with the cover of Arab League, this Abbas seats quietly and has PMO ,leftists , Meretz , Peace Now , US , EU ect...working for him for the fabrication of a pal state , while pals have fired him with his corrupted fatah thieves , and have elected instead Hamas,

Colin Wright's assessment (#8) is essentially correct. The more Israel and the USA provide help to Mahmoud Abbas, the more Palestinians support the resistance.

Arm the Palestinians and train them near Jericho? Are you CRAZY, arming them again? We in Mitzpeh Jericho, Kfar Adumim, Alon, and Maaleh Adumim are tempting targets. REMEMBER OSLO.

This goverment has to go. National Strike is needed to force this goverment out of power.

Hamas is in the inner hearts of palestinians. no way with this dirty bloody racist ,etc occupation palestinians can or should turn back to martyr HAMASANS, NO WAY.

To the extent that Fatah serves Israel's interests, to that extent will they come to be viewed as turncoats by the Palestinian people. This is futile. It's born out of an unwillingness to grasp that the cause of resistance to Israel is valid and that all who fight to suppress this resistance are therefore traitors.

Israeli stupids should tell USA and their morons to get lost finally , take a hike together with their pan-Arabic crap.

Olmert needs to be impeached immediately. He is arming our sworn enemies and letting them train on our land. Olmert is either a fool and/or a traitor.

GO.....Saudis, Egypt, Jordan,Lebanon and Israel as well have to stem the fundamentalism and extremism of the Jihadists. Iran will have to be stop and their evil step sister Syria. The moderate Arab world has to fight the terrorists now and let Israel and the US support Abbas.. There will be no peace as Hamas wants no peace. They have to be brought to their knees.

This idiotic We are Training People to Kill Us. The US is no friend.

Israel should be helping Fatah by attacking Hamas, not by arming it. At the end of the day we want Palestinians disarmed regardless of which group they belong to.

Enough traning they have been traning since Abbas came to office nearly 3 years ago what they need is weapons now to counter Hamas in the Gaza Strip if u want the PA to stop Qassams give them tools to do what you ask to do!!!