On 5 Aug 2002 at 12:06, kharin wrote:
>
>
> "And with some Europeans, too (cf. the French commando sinking of the
> Rainbow Warrior and the atrocities perpetuated in the former
> Yugoslavia.)"
>
> I must admit that, like many others, I have fallen into the habit of
> using Europe to denote a political, rather than a geographical entity,
> in which case Yugoslavia is a different matter (though the point is
> well made). Such statements are, of course, generalisations but there
> is nonetheless a very long list of international treaties that
> European states have signed and that the United States has not which
> would seem to a tolerable indicator of the respective attitudes.
>
Refusing to sign such accords is a different matter from violating signed
ones, now isn't it?
>
> "The only such Islamic state that exists is Turkey. "
>
> Almost certainly due to the fact that it is politically secular. The
> recent advances made by Turkey as part of an increasingly serious bid
> for EU membership are very welcome, though the prospect of a new
> government in Istanbul, legal challenges to these reforms, and a
> possible second Irish rejection of the Treaty of Nice (upon which the
> first wave of EU expansion depends) makes matters still very
> precarious.
>
I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
>
> "No they are not; the many Palestinian pronouncements on this issue
> are conclusive, as well as the PLO charter which called explicitly for
> the destruction of Israel."
>
> I seem to recall that the PLO did recognise the right of Israel to
> exist (clearly a great many Palestinian organisations did not, and
> clearly over half the Palestinian public do not).
>
They finally, after having it continuously disparagingly referred to by the
global community, voted to remove that passage from their official
charter, but speeches that PLA leaders subsequently made in Arabic to
Palestinian audiences made it clear that this was only a cosmetic
propaganda measure, and that the real, although unofficial, policy was
still Israel's total destruction.
> ----
> This message was posted by kharin to the Virus 2002 board on Church of
> Virus BBS.
> <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=51;action=display;thread
> id=25957>
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