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| Posted by: nerveclinic
- [66138] Tue, Jul 03, 2007, 09:01
I am moving the thread because it was getting rather large.
Because of my current location I am at times posting here with a proxy server for obvious reasons, particularly when writing political posts, and it only allows me to download...open, limited sized files and this thread had gotten so big it wouldn't open.
Dave...Guru...in case you are wondering, the proxy is because of my current status living in a highly censored country.
The original thread is here...dang can someone else add the link, the proxy won't let me click the link button.
I will pick back up with Torals last question though.
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| | | 1 | nerveclinic
ID: 596238
Tue, Jul 03, 2007, 09:02
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Toral's last post...
I'm wondering something here. What I say shouldn't be considered as an accusation, just wondering....
Hasn't nerveclinic made it clear enough yet? When he talks about "international conspiracies" he means "the Jewish international conspiracy".
He's not blunt about it, because he knows that, unlike his other pretend fears, this fear is real. If he started talking about "the Jewish international conspiracy" instead of vague conspiracies, he would be in immediate danger of being targeted by Jewish organizations and losing his job. Jewish/Zionist organizations do regularly target proponents of Jewish conspiracy theories -- even unimportant people-- and take their jobs and reputations. Just as, as Voltaire pointed out, the English Navy, whether there was trouble or not, often picked out, court-martialled and executed a captain or higher officer, even an admiral -- pour encourager les autres.
Toral
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| | | 2 | nerveclinic
ID: 5361338
Tue, Jul 03, 2007, 09:13
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I appreciate the fact you said it "wasn't" an accusation, but for the sake of entertainment value, I will respond as though it were. It certainly seemed so by the end of the post...
When he talks about "international conspiracies" he means "the Jewish international conspiracy".
Toral are you drinking again?
I don't buy into that angle at all, and it's not because I am worried about losing my job...the owner of my company is a Muslim.
In the last 4 years the owner of another company I worked for was a Jew. I worked directly for, reported directly to both of them.
I have plenty of criticisms of both religions but they were/are both a pleasure to work for.
Any discussions of conspiracies I been involved in involves people from all faiths and nationalities. It is not controlled by a single religious body or nation or race of people.
Most of it's members likely practice their religion for political purposes rather than any true strong faith. Allegiance to "the cause" trumps all race, nationality or religious affiliations.
He's not blunt about it, because he knows that, unlike his other pretend fears, this fear is real. If he started talking about "the Jewish international conspiracy" instead of vague conspiracies, he would be in immediate danger of being targeted by Jewish organizations and losing his job.
Wow, this is news, I had no idea that there are people being fired because they believe there is a "Jewish conspiracy".
Can you reference some examples? I don't believe it.
I've literally been involved with a "Conspiracy convention", (Well over 1,000 people attended by the way)I've spoken with prominent writers in the CT community. I've been involved with the subject matter, at times very, very intimately for around 20 years. I've never once heard it referred to as a "Jewish" conspiracy.
I've never read in any of my books (And I own two wine box sized cases of them) that there is a "Jewish" conspiracy. You read Sutton's book which is probably my biggest influence and as you know he doesn't call it nor imply a "Jewish" conspiracy.
I've never heard of anyone being fired because they believe in a Jewish conspiracy. In fact your post above is the first I have ever heard of it happening and doubt you are serious.
The only time I've heard the phrase "Jewish conspiracy" mentioned was by Adolf Hitler and some white supremacists in Idaho etc.
You say it as though you do know it for a fact. I've never heard of such a thing in my life. (These firings) Care to enlighten us?
It sounds like maybe YOU believe there's a Jewish conspiracy. Is that what's up?
In my opinion, discussions of a "Jewish conspiracy" are attempts to make the conspiracy theorist appear anti Semitic as a smear tactic to discredit his arguments, just as the "space alien" and other wacky theories have the same effect.
So if you are trying to paint me into another corner Toral, get out the turpentine.
Frankly I suspect you are just on the bottle and having some fun.
So what is it, anyone who comes on here and criticizes Muslims, Palestinians, Syrians and Israel is anti semitic for the criticizing Jews part?
Trust me I have plenty of criticism for all entities mentioned above, (like I said I am posting using a proxy for Gods sake) but there needs to be some balance here.
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| | | 3 | Toral
ID: 575542418
Tue, Jul 03, 2007, 09:39
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Nerve: Bite at troll bait much?
Frankly I suspect you are just on the bottle and having some fun.
Well if so.. I got a lot for my money tonight.
Thanks, nerve, you're a continuing source of entertainment.
NEXT UP: Nerve's move to Dubai, and greatly increased fliying saucer sightings there: Conspiracy, or "Mere Coincidence"?
And just exactly why would someone voluntarily move to Dubai -- considering the true facts of the "Building 7" sham story and its links to Dubai Oil Shieks?
Perhaps to bolster the story?
Toral
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| | | 4 | nerveclinic
ID: 5365938
Tue, Jul 03, 2007, 09:59
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Nerve: Bite at troll bait much?
Hats off Toral you got me. Nice.
I always suspected you were a troll... 8-}
And just exactly why would someone voluntarily move to Dubai
I can give you the name of my accountant if you want a verified answer to that one.
Also trust me, aside from some obvious downside, like freedom of speech being against the law, there are some pretty nice upsides to living here.
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| | | 6 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 454491514
Tue, Jul 03, 2007, 10:21
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it's not black and white?
Is Hamas far more condemnable? Of course.
Would the issue be largely resolved for the betterment of all if Hamas peacefully negotiated a land exchange/share deal and committed itself to the terms of the treaty? Yes.
Is Israel more dedicated to a peaceful resolution than her enemies? Yes.
But its not black and white. If it were black and white, there would be no reason to distinguish between Hamas and the Palestinian government today, as Tree and the Israeli government both currently do.
If it were black and white, Israel would share no responsibility whatsoever in the state of affairs there. But she does.
If it were black and white, there would be no citable atrocities committed by Israel. But there are.
Tree your incessant contentions that Israel does not target citizens are hedged by her aggressive retaliation policies that see many civilians indiscrimintly killed in the process (very often more civilians than militant targets). As we know and has been pointed out ad nausem (but not nearly as often as Tree reminds us that Israel doesn't "target" civilians) the inevitable result of civilian deaths is that the cycle of violence is always reinforced by them and in the end the greatest result of sending in tanks and jet fighters in response to backback bombs is that Israel effectively contributes to the attacks perpetrated against her. In the eyes of everyday Palestinians, these assaults support and confirm the propaganda they are raised on.
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| | | 9 | Perm Dude
ID: 386132511
Wed, Jul 25, 2007, 15:14
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Arab League visits Israel
The moderate Arab states appear willing to step into the breach. Good for them.
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| | | 10 | boikin
ID: 59831214
Wed, Jul 25, 2007, 21:51
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does this acctaully mean a real step towards peace or maybe acceptance? what are they going to do for fun in the ME if they can not throw stones(missles)? Hopefully it means i can take a vacation egypt, isreal, jordan, and lebanon soon.
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| | | 11 | Perm Dude
ID: 386132511
Wed, Jul 25, 2007, 22:28
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Actually, you probably can take vacations in Jordan and Egypt right now.
Lebanon...well, maybe wait until the dollar rallies.
:)
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| | | 13 | Tree
ID: 3533298
Wed, Sep 19, 2007, 09:33
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we come in peace...
my ass.
Hamas-controlled Gaze "Hostile entity" - Israel
i'm sure, once again, Israel will be condemned for defending themselves, but enough is enough. when the settlers were removed a couple years ago, i was all for it, because i felt it would lead to peace.
but, once again, some Palestinian leadership has shown that peace is the LAST thing they want.
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| | | 14 | sarge33rd
ID: 99331714
Sat, Mar 22, 2008, 11:46
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Perhaps hope does exist
In an audiotape released this week, Osama bin Laden urges Palestinians to shun negotiations with Israel in favor of armed resistance. In spite of such calls, however, pleas for talks are coming from unexpected players on both sides of the divide. One of them, Shifa al-Qudsi, recently finished serving a six-year sentence in an Israeli prison for planning to carry out a suicide bombing. Back in 2002 the Palestinian had been fitted with an explosive belt by Fatah's Al Aqsa military brigade but was arrested shortly before carrying out her deadly mission. Since then al-Qudsi, now 30, has undergone a radical change of heart and today insists that a solution can be achieved only through dialogue. NEWSWEEK's Joanna Chen met with al-Qudsi at her family home in the West Bank town of Tulkarem and heard why violence isn't an option and life is worth living after all. Excerpts:...
Maybe, just maybe...this womans message can spread?
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| | | 15 | Boxman
ID: 571114225
Sat, May 24, 2008, 20:57
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A nice long history lesson from the fine folks at the WSJ.
1948, Israel and the Palestinians: The True Story
May 8, 2008
Sixty years after its establishment by an internationally recognized act of self-determination, Israel remains the only state in the world that is subjected to a constant outpouring of the most outlandish conspiracy theories and blood libels; whose policies and actions are obsessively condemned by the international community; and whose right to exist is constantly debated and challenged not only by its Arab enemies but by segments of advanced opinion in the West.
During the past decade or so, the actual elimination of the Jewish state has become a cause célèbre among many of these educated Westerners. The "one-state solution," as it is called, is a euphemistic formula proposing the replacement of Israel by a state, theoretically comprising the whole of historic Palestine, in which Jews will be reduced to the status of a permanent minority. Only this, it is said, can expiate the "original sin" of Israel's founding, an act built (in the words of one critic) "on the ruins of Arab Palestine" and achieved through the deliberate and aggressive dispossession of its native population.
This claim of premeditated dispossession and the consequent creation of the longstanding Palestinian "refugee problem" forms, indeed, the central plank in the bill of particulars pressed by Israel's alleged victims and their Western supporters. It is a charge that has hardly gone undisputed. As early as the mid-1950s, the eminent American historian J.C. Hurewitz undertook a systematic refutation, and his findings were abundantly confirmed by later generations of scholars and writers. Even Benny Morris, the most influential of Israel's revisionist "new historians," and one who went out of his way to establish the case for Israel's "original sin," grudgingly stipulated that there was no "design" to displace the Palestinian Arabs.
The recent declassification of millions of documents from the period of the British Mandate (1920-48) and Israel's early days, documents untapped by earlier generations of writers and ignored or distorted by the "new historians," paints a much more definitive picture of the historical record. These documents reveal that the claim of dispossession is not only completely unfounded but the inverse of the truth. What follows is based on fresh research into these documents, which contain many facts and data hitherto unreported.
* * *
Far from being the hapless objects of a predatory Zionist assault, it was Palestinian Arab leaders who from the early 1920s onward, and very much against the wishes of their own constituents, launched a relentless campaign to obliterate the Jewish national revival. This campaign culminated in the violent attempt to abort the U.N. resolution of Nov. 29, 1947, which called for the establishment of two states in Palestine. Had these leaders, and their counterparts in the neighboring Arab states, accepted the U.N. resolution, there would have been no war and no dislocation in the first place.
The simple fact is that the Zionist movement had always been amenable to the existence in the future Jewish state of a substantial Arab minority that would participate on an equal footing "throughout all sectors of the country's public life." The words are those of Ze'ev Jabotinsky, the founding father of the branch of Zionism that was the forebear of today's Likud Party. In a famous 1923 article, Jabotinsky voiced his readiness "to take an oath binding ourselves and our descendants that we shall never do anything contrary to the principle of equal rights, and that we shall never try to eject anyone."
Eleven years later, Jabotinsky presided over the drafting of a constitution for Jewish Palestine. According to its provisions, Arabs and Jews were to share both the prerogatives and the duties of statehood, including most notably military and civil service. Hebrew and Arabic were to enjoy the same legal standing, and "in every cabinet where the prime minister is a Jew, the vice-premiership shall be offered to an Arab and vice-versa."
If this was the position of the more "militant" faction of the Jewish national movement, mainstream Zionism not only took for granted the full equality of the Arab minority in the future Jewish state but went out of its way to foster Arab-Jewish coexistence. In January 1919, Chaim Weizmann, then the upcoming leader of the Zionist movement, reached a peace-and-cooperation agreement with the Hashemite emir Faisal ibn Hussein, the effective leader of the nascent pan-Arab movement. From then until the proclamation of the state of Israel on May 14, 1948, Zionist spokesmen held hundreds of meetings with Arab leaders at all levels. These included Abdullah ibn Hussein, Faisal's elder brother and founder of the emirate of Transjordan (later the kingdom of Jordan), incumbent and former prime ministers in Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, and Iraq, senior advisers of King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud (founder of Saudi Arabia) and Palestinian Arab elites of all hues.
As late as Sept. 15, 1947, two months before the passing of the U.N. partition resolution, two senior Zionist envoys were still seeking to convince Abdel Rahman Azzam, the Arab League's secretary-general, that the Palestine conflict "was uselessly absorbing the best energies of the Arab League," and that both Arabs and Jews would greatly benefit "from active policies of cooperation and development." Behind this proposition lay an age-old Zionist hope: that the material progress resulting from Jewish settlement of Palestine would ease the path for the local Arab populace to become permanently reconciled, if not positively well disposed, to the project of Jewish national self-determination. As David Ben-Gurion, soon to become Israel's first prime minister, argued in December 1947:
If the Arab citizen will feel at home in our state, . . . if the state will help him in a truthful and dedicated way to reach the economic, social, and cultural level of the Jewish community, then Arab distrust will accordingly subside and a bridge will be built to a Semitic, Jewish-Arab alliance.
On the face of it, Ben-Gurion's hope rested on reasonable grounds. An inflow of Jewish immigrants and capital after World War I had revived Palestine's hitherto static condition and raised the standard of living of its Arab inhabitants well above that in the neighboring Arab states. The expansion of Arab industry and agriculture, especially in the field of citrus growing, was largely financed by the capital thus obtained, and Jewish know-how did much to improve Arab cultivation. In the two decades between the world wars, Arab-owned citrus plantations grew sixfold, as did vegetable-growing lands, while the number of olive groves quadrupled.
No less remarkable were the advances in social welfare. Perhaps most significantly, mortality rates in the Muslim population dropped sharply and life expectancy rose from 37.5 years in 1926-27 to 50 in 1942-44 (compared with 33 in Egypt). The rate of natural increase leapt upward by a third.
That nothing remotely akin to this was taking place in the neighboring British-ruled Arab countries, not to mention India, can be explained only by the decisive Jewish contribution to Mandate Palestine's socioeconomic well-being. The British authorities acknowledged as much in a 1937 report by a commission of inquiry headed by Lord Peel:
The general beneficent effect of Jewish immigration on Arab welfare is illustrated by the fact that the increase in the Arab population is most marked in urban areas affected by Jewish development. A comparison of the census returns in 1922 and 1931 shows that, six years ago, the increase percent in Haifa was 86, in Jaffa 62, in Jerusalem 37, while in purely Arab towns such as Nablus and Hebron it was only 7, and at Gaza there was a decrease of 2 percent.
Had the vast majority of Palestinian Arabs been left to their own devices, they would most probably have been content to take advantage of the opportunities afforded them. This is evidenced by the fact that, throughout the Mandate era, periods of peaceful coexistence far exceeded those of violent eruptions, and the latter were the work of only a small fraction of Palestinian Arabs. Unfortunately for both Arabs and Jews, however, the hopes and wishes of ordinary people were not taken into account, as they rarely are in authoritarian communities hostile to the notions of civil society or liberal democracy. In the modern world, moreover, it has not been the poor and the oppressed who have led the great revolutions or carried out the worst deeds of violence, but rather militant vanguards from among the better educated and more moneyed classes of society.
So it was with the Palestinians. In the words of the Peel report:
We have found that, though the Arabs have benefited by the development of the country owing to Jewish immigration, this has had no conciliatory effect. On the contrary . . . with almost mathematical precision the betterment of the economic situation in Palestine [has] meant the deterioration of the political situation.
In Palestine, ordinary Arabs were persecuted and murdered by their alleged betters for the crime of "selling Palestine" to the Jews. Meanwhile, these same betters were enriching themselves with impunity. The staunch pan-Arabist Awni Abdel Hadi, who vowed to fight "until Palestine is either placed under a free Arab government or becomes a graveyard for all the Jews in the country," facilitated the transfer of 7,500 acres to the Zionist movement, and some of his relatives, all respected political and religious figures, went a step further by selling actual plots of land. So did numerous members of the Husseini family, the foremost Palestinian Arab clan during the Mandate period, including Muhammad Tahir, father of Hajj Amin Husseini, the notorious mufti of Jerusalem.
It was the mufti's concern with solidifying his political position that largely underlay the 1929 carnage in which 133 Jews were massacred and hundreds more were wounded -- just as it was the struggle for political preeminence that triggered the most protracted outbreak of Palestinian Arab violence in 1936-39. This was widely portrayed as a nationalist revolt against both the ruling British and the Jewish refugees then streaming into Palestine to escape Nazi persecution. In fact, it was a massive exercise in violence that saw far more Arabs than Jews or Englishmen murdered by Arab gangs, that repressed and abused the general Arab population, and that impelled thousands of Arabs to flee the country in a foretaste of the 1947-48 exodus.
Some Palestinian Arabs, in fact, preferred to fight back against their inciters, often in collaboration with the British authorities and the Hagana, the largest Jewish underground defense organization. Still others sought shelter in Jewish neighborhoods. For despite the paralytic atmosphere of terror and a ruthlessly enforced economic boycott, Arab-Jewish coexistence continued on many practical levels even during such periods of turmoil, and was largely restored after their subsidence.
* * *
Against this backdrop, it is hardly to be wondered at that most Palestinians wanted nothing to do with the violent attempt 10 years later by the mufti-led Arab Higher Committee (AHC), the effective "government" of the Palestinian Arabs, to subvert the 1947 U.N. partition resolution. With the memories of 1936-39 still fresh in their minds, many opted to stay out of the fight. In no time, numerous Arab villages (and some urban areas) were negotiating peace agreements with their Jewish neighbors; other localities throughout the country acted similarly without the benefit of a formal agreement.
Nor did ordinary Palestinians shrink from quietly defying their supreme leadership. In his numerous tours around the region, Abdel Qader Husseini, district commander of Jerusalem and the mufti's close relative, found the populace indifferent, if not hostile, to his repeated call to arms. In Hebron, he failed to recruit a single volunteer for the salaried force he sought to form in that city; his efforts in the cities of Nablus, Tulkarm, and Qalqiliya were hardly more successful. Arab villagers, for their part, proved even less receptive to his demands. In one locale, Beit Safafa, Abdel Qader suffered the ultimate indignity, being driven out by angry residents protesting their village's transformation into a hub of anti-Jewish attacks. Even the few who answered his call did so, by and large, in order to obtain free weapons for their personal protection and then return home.
There was an economic aspect to this peaceableness. The outbreak of hostilities orchestrated by the AHC led to a sharp drop in trade and an accompanying spike in the cost of basic commodities. Many villages, dependent for their livelihood on the Jewish or mixed-population cities, saw no point in supporting the AHC's explicit goal of starving the Jews into submission. Such was the general lack of appetite for war that in early February 1948, more than two months after the AHC initiated its campaign of violence, Ben-Gurion maintained that "the villages, in most part, have remained on the sidelines."
Ben-Gurion's analysis was echoed by the Iraqi general Ismail Safwat, commander-in-chief of the Arab Liberation Army (ALA), the volunteer Arab force that did much of the fighting in Palestine in the months preceding Israel's proclamation of independence. Safwat lamented that only 800 of the 5,000 volunteers trained by the ALA had come from Palestine itself, and that most of these had deserted either before completing their training or immediately afterward. Fawzi Qawuqji, the local commander of ALA forces, was no less scathing, having found the Palestinians "unreliable, excitable, and difficult to control, and in organized warfare virtually unemployable."
This view summed up most contemporary perceptions during the fateful six months of fighting after the passing of the partition resolution. Even as these months saw the all but complete disintegration of Palestinian Arab society, nowhere was this described as a systematic dispossession of Arabs by Jews. To the contrary: with the partition resolution widely viewed by Arab leaders as "Zionist in inspiration, Zionist in principle, Zionist in substance, and Zionist in most details" (in the words of the Palestinian academic Walid Khalidi), and with those leaders being brutally candid about their determination to subvert it by force of arms, there was no doubt whatsoever as to which side had instigated the bloodletting.
Nor did the Arabs attempt to hide their culpability. As the Jews set out to lay the groundwork for their nascent state while simultaneously striving to convince their Arab compatriots that they would be (as Ben-Gurion put it) "equal citizens, equal in everything without any exception," Palestinian Arab leaders pledged that "should partition be implemented, it will be achieved only over the bodies of the Arabs of Palestine, their sons, and their women." Qawuqji vowed "to drive all Jews into the sea." Abdel Qader Husseini stated that "the Palestine problem will only be solved by the sword; all Jews must leave Palestine."
* * *
They and their fellow Arab abetters did their utmost to make these threats come true, with every means at their disposal. In addition to regular forces like the ALA, guerrilla and terror groups wreaked havoc, as much among noncombatants as among Jewish fighting units. Shooting, sniping, ambushes, bombings, which in today's world would be condemned as war crimes, were daily events in the lives of civilians. "Innocent and harmless people, going about their daily business," wrote the U.S. consul-general in Jerusalem, Robert Macatee, in December 1947,
are picked off while riding in buses, walking along the streets, and stray shots even find them while asleep in their beds. A Jewish woman, mother of five children, was shot in Jerusalem while hanging out clothes on the roof. The ambulance rushing her to the hospital was machine-gunned, and finally the mourners following her to the funeral were attacked and one of them stabbed to death.
As the fighting escalated, Arab civilians suffered as well, and the occasional atrocity sparked cycles of large-scale violence. Thus, the December 1947 murder of six Arab workers near the Haifa oil refinery by the small Jewish underground group IZL was followed by the immediate slaughter of 39 Jews by their Arab co-workers, just as the killing of some 100 Arabs during the battle for the village of Deir Yasin in April 1948 was "avenged" within days by the killing of 77 Jewish nurses and doctors en route to the Hadassah hospital on Mount Scopus.
Yet while the Jewish leadership and media described these gruesome events for what they were, at times withholding details so as to avoid panic and keep the door open for Arab-Jewish reconciliation, their Arab counterparts not only inflated the toll to gigantic proportions but invented numerous nonexistent atrocities. The fall of Haifa (April 21-22), for example, gave rise to totally false claims of a large-scale slaughter, which circulated throughout the Middle East and reached Western capitals. Similarly false rumors were spread after the fall of Tiberias (April 18), during the battle for Safed (in early May), and in Jaffa, where in late April the mayor fabricated a massacre of "hundreds of Arab men and women." Accounts of Deir Yasin in the Arab media were especially lurid, featuring supposed hammer-and-sickle tattoos on the arms of IZL fighters and accusations of havoc and rape.
This scare-mongering was undoubtedly aimed at garnering the widest possible sympathy for the Palestinian plight and casting the Jews as brutal predators. But it backfired disastrously by spreading panic within the disoriented Palestinian society. That, in turn, helps explain why, by April 1948, after four months of seeming progress, this phase of the Arab war effort collapsed. (Still in the offing was the second, wider and more prolonged phase involving the forces of the five Arab nations that invaded Palestine in mid-May.) For not only had most Palestinians declined to join the active hostilities, but vast numbers had taken to the road, leaving their homes either for places elsewhere in the country or fleeing to neighboring Arab lands.
* * *
Indeed, many had vacated even before the outbreak of hostilities, and still larger numbers decamped before the war reached their own doorstep. "Arabs are leaving the country with their families in considerable numbers, and there is an exodus from the mixed towns to the rural Arab centers," reported Alan Cunningham, the British high commissioner, in December 1947, adding a month later that the "panic of [the] middle class persists and there is a steady exodus of those who can afford to leave the country."
Echoing these reports, Hagana intelligence sources recounted in mid-December an "evacuation frenzy that has taken hold of entire Arab villages." Before the month was over, many Palestinian Arab cities were bemoaning the severe problems created by the huge influx of villagers and pleading with the AHC to help find a solution to the predicament. Even the Syrian and Lebanese governments were alarmed by this early exodus, demanding that the AHC encourage Palestinian Arabs to stay put and fight.
But no such encouragement was forthcoming, either from the AHC or from anywhere else. In fact, there was a total lack of national cohesion, let alone any sense of shared destiny. Cities and towns acted as if they were self-contained units, attending to their own needs and eschewing the smallest sacrifice on behalf of other localities. Many "national committees" (i.e., local leaderships) forbade the export of food and drink from well-stocked cities to needy outlying towns and villages. Haifa's Arab merchants refused to alleviate a severe shortage of flour in Jenin, while Gaza refused to export eggs and poultry to Jerusalem; in Hebron, armed guards checked all departing cars. At the same time there was extensive smuggling, especially in the mixed-population cities, with Arab foodstuffs going to Jewish neighborhoods and vice-versa.
The lack of communal solidarity was similarly evidenced by the abysmal treatment meted out to the hundreds of thousands of refugees scattered throughout the country. Not only was there no collective effort to relieve their plight, or even a wider empathy beyond one's immediate neighborhood, but many refugees were ill-treated by their temporary hosts and subjected to ridicule and abuse for their supposed cowardice. In the words of one Jewish intelligence report: "The refugees are hated wherever they have arrived."
Even the ultimate war victims -- the survivors of Deir Yasin -- did not escape their share of indignities. Finding refuge in the neighboring village of Silwan, many were soon at loggerheads with the locals, to the point where on April 14, a mere five days after the tragedy, a Silwan delegation approached the AHC's Jerusalem office demanding that the survivors be transferred elsewhere. No help for their relocation was forthcoming.
Some localities flatly refused to accept refugees at all, for fear of overstraining existing resources. In Acre (Akko), the authorities prevented Arabs fleeing Haifa from disembarking; in Ramallah, the predominantly Christian population organized its own militia -- not so much to fight the Jews as to fend off the new Muslim arrivals. Many exploited the plight of the refugees unabashedly, especially by fleecing them for such basic necessities as transportation and accommodation.
Yet still the Palestinians fled their homes, and at an ever growing pace. By early April some 100,000 had gone, though the Jews were still on the defensive and in no position to evict them. (On March 23, fully four months after the outbreak of hostilities, ALA commander-in-chief Safwat noted with some astonishment that the Jews "have so far not attacked a single Arab village unless provoked by it.") By the time of Israel's declaration of independence on May 14, the numbers of Arab refugees had more than trebled. Even then, none of the 170,000 to 180,000 Arabs fleeing urban centers, and only a handful of the 130,000 to 160,000 villagers who left their homes, had been forced out by the Jews.
The exceptions occurred in the heat of battle and were uniformly dictated by ad hoc military considerations -- reducing civilian casualties, denying sites to Arab fighters when there were no available Jewish forces to repel them -- rather than political design. They were, moreover, matched by efforts to prevent flight and to encourage the return of those who fled. To cite only one example, in early April a Jewish delegation comprising top Arab-affairs advisers, local notables and municipal heads with close contacts with neighboring Arab localities traversed Arab villages in the coastal plain, then emptying at a staggering pace, in an attempt to convince their inhabitants to stay put.
* * *
What makes these Jewish efforts all the more impressive is that they took place at a time when huge numbers of Palestinian Arabs were being actively driven from their homes by their own leaders and by Arab military forces, whether out of military considerations or in order to prevent them from becoming citizens of the prospective Jewish state. In the largest and best-known example, tens of thousands of Arabs were ordered or bullied into leaving the city of Haifa on the AHC's instructions, despite strenuous Jewish efforts to persuade them to stay. Only days earlier, Tiberias's 6,000-strong Arab community had been similarly forced out by its own leaders, against local Jewish wishes. In Jaffa, Palestine's largest Arab city, the municipality organized the transfer of thousands of residents by land and sea; in Jerusalem, the AHC ordered the transfer of women and children, and local gang leaders pushed out residents of several neighborhoods.
Tens of thousands of rural villagers were likewise forced out by order of the AHC, local Arab militias, or the ALA. Within weeks of the latter's arrival in Palestine in January 1948, rumors were circulating of secret instructions to Arabs in predominantly Jewish areas to vacate their villages so as to allow their use for military purposes and to reduce the risk of becoming hostage to the Jews.
By February, this phenomenon had expanded to most parts of the country. It gained considerable momentum in April and May as ALA and AHC forces throughout Palestine were being comprehensively routed. On April 18, the Hagana's intelligence branch in Jerusalem reported a fresh general order to remove the women and children from all villages bordering Jewish localities. Twelve days later, its Haifa counterpart reported an ALA command to evacuate all Arab villages between Tel Aviv and Haifa in anticipation of a new general offensive. In early May, as fighting intensified in the eastern Galilee, local Arabs were ordered to transfer all women and children from the Rosh Pina area, while in the Jerusalem sub-district, Transjordan's Arab Legion likewise ordered the emptying of scores of villages.
As for the Palestinian Arab leaders themselves, who had placed their reluctant constituents on a collision course with Zionism in the 1920s and 1930s and had now dragged them helpless into a mortal conflict, they hastened to get themselves out of Palestine and to stay out at the most critical moment. Taking a cue from these higher-ups, local leaders similarly rushed en masse through the door. High Commissioner Cunningham summarized what was happening with quintessential British understatement:
You should know that the collapsing Arab morale in Palestine is in some measure due to the increasing tendency of those who should be leading them to leave the country. . . . For instance, in Jaffa the mayor went on four-day leave 12 days ago and has not returned, and half the national committee has left. In Haifa the Arab members of the municipality left some time ago; the two leaders of the Arab Liberation Army left actually during the recent battle. Now the chief Arab magistrate has left. In all parts of the country the effendi class has been evacuating in large numbers over a considerable period and the tempo is increasing.
Arif al-Arif, a prominent Arab politician during the Mandate era and the doyen of Palestinian historians, described the prevailing atmosphere at the time: "Wherever one went throughout the country one heard the same refrain: 'Where are the leaders who should show us the way? Where is the AHC? Why are its members in Egypt at a time when Palestine, their own country, needs them?' "
* * *
Muhammad Nimr al-Khatib, a Palestinian Arab leader during the 1948 war, would sum up the situation in these words: "The Palestinians had neighboring Arab states which opened their borders and doors to the refugees, while the Jews had no alternative but to triumph or to die."
This is true enough of the Jews, but it elides the reason for the refugees' flight and radically distorts the quality of their reception elsewhere. If they met with no sympathy from their brethren at home, the reaction throughout the Arab world was, if anything, harsher still. There were repeated calls for the forcible return of the refugees, or at the very least of young men of military age, many of whom had arrived under the (false) pretense of volunteering for the ALA. As the end of the Mandate loomed nearer, the Lebanese government refused entry visas to Palestinian males between 18 and 50 and ordered all "healthy and fit men" who had already entered the country to register officially or be considered illegal aliens and face the full weight of the law.
The Syrian government took an even more stringent approach, banning from its territory all Palestinian males between 16 and 50. In Egypt, a large number of demonstrators marched to the Arab League's Cairo headquarters and lodged a petition demanding that "every able-bodied Palestinian capable of carrying arms should be forbidden to stay abroad." Such was the extent of Arab resentment toward the Palestinian refugees that the rector of Cairo's al-Azhar institution of religious learning, probably the foremost Islamic authority, felt obliged to issue a ruling that made the sheltering of Palestinian Arab refugees a religious duty.
Contempt for the Palestinians only intensified with time. "Fright has struck the Palestinian Arabs and they fled their country," commented Radio Baghdad on the eve of the pan-Arab invasion of the newborn state of Israel in mid-May. "These are hard words indeed, yet they are true." Lebanon's minister of the interior (and future president) Camille Chamoun was more delicate, intoning that "The people of Palestine, in their previous resistance to imperialists and Zionists, proved they were worthy of independence," but "at this decisive stage of the fighting they have not remained so dignified."
No wonder, then, that so few among the Palestinian refugees themselves blamed their collapse and dispersal on the Jews. During a fact-finding mission to Gaza in June 1949, Sir John Troutbeck, head of the British Middle East office in Cairo and no friend to Israel or the Jews, was surprised to discover that while the refugees
express no bitterness against the Jews (or for that matter against the Americans or ourselves) they speak with the utmost bitterness of the Egyptians and other Arab states. "We know who our enemies are," they will say, and they are referring to their Arab brothers who, they declare, persuaded them unnecessarily to leave their homes. . . . I even heard it said that many of the refugees would give a welcome to the Israelis if they were to come in and take the district over.
* * *
Sixty years after their dispersion, the refugees of 1948 and their descendants remain in the squalid camps where they have been kept by their fellow Arabs for decades, nourished on hate and false hope. Meanwhile, their erstwhile leaders have squandered successive opportunities for statehood.
It is indeed the tragedy of the Palestinians that the two leaders who determined their national development during the 20th century -- Hajj Amin Husseini and Yasser Arafat, the latter of whom dominated Palestinian politics since the mid-1960s to his death in November 2004 -- were megalomaniacal extremists blinded by anti-Jewish hatred and profoundly obsessed with violence. Had the mufti chosen to lead his people to peace and reconciliation with their Jewish neighbors, as he had promised the British officials who appointed him to his high rank in the early 1920s, the Palestinians would have had their independent state over a substantial part of Mandate Palestine by 1948, and would have been spared the traumatic experience of dispersion and exile. Had Arafat set the PLO from the start on the path to peace and reconciliation, instead of turning it into one of the most murderous terrorist organizations in modern times, a Palestinian state could have been established in the late 1960s or the early 1970s, in 1979 as a corollary to the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, by May 1999 as part of the Oslo process, or at the very latest with the Camp David summit of July 2000.
Instead, Arafat transformed the territories placed under his control in the 1990s into an effective terror state from where he launched an all-out war (the "al-Aqsa intifada") shortly after being offered an independent Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and 92% of the West Bank, with East Jerusalem as its capital. In the process, he subjected the Palestinian population in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to a repressive and corrupt regime in the worst tradition of Arab dictatorships and plunged their standard of living to unprecedented depths.
What makes this state of affairs all the more galling is that, far from being unfortunate aberrations, Hajj Amin and Arafat were quintessential representatives of the cynical and self-seeking leaders produced by the Arab political system. Just as the Palestinian leadership during the Mandate had no qualms about inciting its constituents against Zionism and the Jews, while lining its own pockets from the fruits of Jewish entrepreneurship, so PLO officials used the billions of dollars donated by the Arab oil states and, during the Oslo era, by the international community to finance their luxurious style of life while ordinary Palestinians scrambled for a livelihood.
And so it goes. Six decades after the mufti and his henchmen condemned their people to statelessness by rejecting the U.N. partition resolution, their reckless decisions are being reenacted by the latest generation of Palestinian leaders. This applies not only to Hamas, which in January 2006 replaced the PLO at the helm of the Palestinian Authority, but also to the supposedly moderate Palestinian leadership -- from President Mahmoud Abbas to Ahmad Qureia (negotiator of the 1993 Oslo Accords) to Saeb Erekat to prime minister Salam Fayad -- which refuses to recognize Israel's very existence as a Jewish state and insists on the full implementation of the "right of return."
And so it goes as well with Western anti-Zionists who in the name of justice (no less) call today not for a new and fundamentally different Arab leadership but for the dismantlement of the Jewish state. Only when these dispositions change can Palestinian Arabs realistically look forward to putting their self-inflicted "catastrophe" behind them.
Mr. Karsh is head of Mediterranean Studies at King's College, University of London, and the author most recently of "Islamic Imperialism: A History" (Yale). This article appears in the May issue of Commentary.
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| | | 16 | Mattinglyinthehall
Dude
ID: 01629107
Sat, May 24, 2008, 23:40
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Far from being the hapless objects of a predatory Zionist assault, it was Palestinian Arab leaders who from the early 1920s onward, and very much against the wishes of their own constituents, launched a relentless campaign to obliterate the Jewish national revival. This campaign culminated in the violent attempt to abort the U.N. resolution of Nov. 29, 1947, which called for the establishment of two states in Palestine. Had these leaders, and their counterparts in the neighboring Arab states, accepted the U.N. resolution, there would have been no war and no dislocation in the first place.
Yes, yes, it was the fault of these techerous natives who refused to split up their homeland to accomodate the ever increasing multitudes of immigrants who were already rapidly growing out of their own settlements prior to WW2.
Sorry, couldn't read any more after that.
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| | | 17 | Boldwin
ID: 58452178
Mon, May 26, 2008, 10:35
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MITH
You do understand that there was no state of Palestine ever. The only question was whether the inhabitants were willing to live in peace with their neighbors and be given their own state. The UN wasn't going to re-establish the Ottoman Empire. How did you expect that to be resolved? Do you think people who promise to destroy their neighbors should be handed their own nation from which to carry that out?
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| | | 19 | Mattinglyinthehall
Dude
ID: 01629107
Mon, May 26, 2008, 11:01
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You do understand that there was no state of Palestine ever.
Had the USA suffered the fate of the Ottoman Empire you would accept the terms of Resolition 181 enacted upon your part of the country? Would you shrug it off as half of Northern Illinois were handed over to a traditional cultural nemesis (and in recent decades, invader, as well) because there never was a State of Northern Illinois in the first place?
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| | | 20 | Boldwin
ID: 58452178
Mon, May 26, 2008, 15:41
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Let me get this straight. You have no problem with Mexico walking across the border and building Aztlan right over the top of the USA, but if the UN divides up the Ottoman Empire into Syria and Turkey and Lebanon and Isreal, that the arabs have a perfect right to 'ethnically cleanse' the 'Isreali interlopers' who had only lived there 4,000 years.
And I should accept liberal's characterization of the minutemen.
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| | | 21 | Mattinglyinthehall
Dude
ID: 01629107
Mon, May 26, 2008, 15:54
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Don't pigeonhole me into your characature of the left's position on illigal immigration. Your next sentence is even better:
if the UN divides up the Ottoman Empire into Syria and Turkey and Lebanon and Isreal, that the arabs have a perfect right to 'ethnically cleanse' the 'Isreali interlopers' who had only lived there 4,000 years.
I can only imagine the combination of bizarre historical revision and absurd opinion asserted upon me that your brain conjured to support that sentence.
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| | | 22 | Boldwin
ID: 58452178
Mon, May 26, 2008, 22:37
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What revisionism?
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| | | 23 | Boldwin
ID: 58452178
Mon, May 26, 2008, 22:40
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Further, [and it's hard to keep track of who takes what position] you are happy with the USA pushing a three state federalism on Iraq thus handing power to everyone's favorite enemy the Kurds...
But you are gonna take issue with the UN handing Isreal some land?
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| | | 24 | Mattinglyinthehall
Dude
ID: 01629107
Mon, May 26, 2008, 23:14
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What revisionism?
If your claim here is that splitting up the Ottoman Empire directly prompted ethnic cleansing of Jews in Palestine, there are a few key bullets missing from your timeline.
you are happy with the USA pushing a three state federalism on Iraq
I've offered very little here regarding the Iraqi power structure (yet another of your gotchas falls short). That said, to my knowledge the impact is something more like the opposite of Res 181 in that cultural balances in specific regions aren't being displaced, rather, throughout the country - for better or for worse, minority groups have been moving out of various areas and either resettling among their own kind, if not leaving the country all together.
But you are gonna take issue with the UN handing Isreal some land?
Come on, B. Its not like this arrangement has been a smashing success, both locally and in terms of global impact.
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| | | 26 | Tree
ID: 3533298
Thu, May 29, 2008, 09:12
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Yes, yes, it was the fault of these techerous natives who refused to split up their homeland to accomodate the ever increasing multitudes of immigrants who were already rapidly growing out of their own settlements prior to WW2.
yea, and its been more than 60 years since.
generations have passed. and yet, people are still killing. and its as if you are almost condoning that.
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| | | 27 | Mattinglyinthehall
Dude
ID: 01629107
Thu, May 29, 2008, 09:20
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You see what you want to see, tree. I'm not condoning anything.
That staement was in response to a very specific argument (an absurd one, at that). How in the world do you read any condoning of modern violence there?
Between you and I, there's only one of us who regularly condones modern violence enacted upon innocents in this conflict - and it isn't me.
Drop the Jag act and try responding to the point I made rather than one you invent and ascribe to me.
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| | | 28 | Boldwin
ID: 58452178
Thu, May 29, 2008, 17:22
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Yes, yes, it was the fault of these techerous natives who refused to split up their homeland to accomodate the ever increasing multitudes of immigrants who were already rapidly growing out of their own settlements prior to WW2. - MITH
Your responses since this statement have been so scattershot I have no idea how to interact with them.
You actually believe the palestinians both deserve to be handed a state and not be made to renounce genocide against their neighbors as a precondition?
Be clear about what that 'moral' argument would be.
Are you agreeing with...- Killing every last Jew is a religious freedom issue for us and an internal decision, please butt out...?
- You see there are just so many Jews that we need to thin the herd...genocide is just our anti-immigration policy?
- Since the UN's approach has failed to get us to give up genocide as our main foreign policy for so many years, please stop asking us to...?
Your position is so ludicrously unsufficient I don't know how to even give it any benefit of the doubt.
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| | | 29 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 56118297
Thu, May 29, 2008, 21:49
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You and tree have made the same mistake in reading my posts. You're taking comments intended in a historical context and applying them to the modern conflict.
Everything I've written here this week until the last line of post 24 referred to events in 1947 and prior. I don't think I've been unclear.
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| | | 32 | Tree
ID: 61411921
Wed, Mar 25, 2009, 19:37
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Netanyahu reaches out to Palestinians
JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Incoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday his government will be a "partner for peace" with the Palestinians.
Speaking to an economic forum, Netanyahu said, "Palestinians should understand that they have in our government a partner for peace, for security and for rapid economic development of (the) Palestinian economy; I believe that this could be done."
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| | | 33 | Boxman
ID: 571114225
Wed, Mar 25, 2009, 20:30
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Is that the same Israeli government that used artillery shells near a refugee camp and hit it instead of the intended target? THAT "partner in peace"?
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| | | 34 | Tree
ID: 61411921
Wed, Mar 25, 2009, 20:49
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Israel being partners in peace to a group of murderers who don't believe she should even exist? yep, THAT partner of peace.
the keywords of your attack post is "intended target". The intended target of the palestinians is anything israeli, from civilian to military, from adult to child, from jew to arab.
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| | | 35 | Boxman
ID: 571114225
Wed, Mar 25, 2009, 20:55
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Well OK, if you want to put Israel on the same playing field as a bunch of murderers who are the elected government of Palestine then by all means go ahead.
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| | | 36 | Tree
ID: 61411921
Wed, Mar 25, 2009, 22:38
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i did no such thing. i'd love nothing more than peace in the region.
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| | | 37 | Mith
Dude
ID: 01629107
Thu, Mar 26, 2009, 08:47
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From tree's link:Just before the Israeli elections, Netanyahu had been visiting the West Bank settlement of Beit Arieh when he was asked why he was visiting a community considered illegal by much of the world community.
He said leaving the spot would hurt Israel's security and accused his rival Kadima party of contemplating a pullout from the area, a policy of "retreat and weakness."
"Behind us is the Israeli national airport, Ben Gurion International Airport, behind us is Tel Aviv and the coastal plain in which most of Israel's population lives.
"The Kadima platform would have us vacate this place in the belief that it would purchase peace. It won't. It will simply implant another Hamas base, terror base here, backed by Iran with Iranian missiles that would be fired on Tel Aviv and Ben Gurion national airport. And this is something we cannot accept.
"We want a policy of security -- we know that we will achieve peace only if Israel is strong, only if it can fight terror, only if it can defend itself. This is our policy, the policy of Likud." Netanyahu's logic is that Israelis should occupy any area in the West Bank that they wish, because if they don't than terrorists will live there.
Tree, when I saw the link in #31, I was curious about the position you were taking. Were you accepting the liklihood that another Netanyahu reign would invite a new era of heightened tragedy to the conflict? Or were you so desperate to respond to what you peceived as a slander to your people that you hastily posted the first counterargument you could find, without reading the article?
Because even if he hadn't read the article, it was strange that he would post that as his response, since anyone reading the two headlines would say, "here is a politician whose rhetoric clearly does not match his reported actions, so on top of whatever I think of the new settlements, he's clearly going to serve them up with a big steaming pile." And that didn't sound like a position that Tree would take. But then even if he had read the article, he presumably would have realized that information contained right there in the piece contradicted the words that Netanyahu was quoted as saying, words which Tree used to hyperlink the article in post 31.
But then post 34 cleared it up:
Israel being partners in peace to a group of murderers who don't believe she should even exist?
What can you do but shake your head?
Tree, who are the partners in peace with the innocents in E1 whose homes are about to be razed?
Perhaps one day you will realize that you are doing far more harm than good to your beloved Israel as you sacrifice your credibility in blind defense of her for every atrocity she commits. Until you can acknowledge and recognize her responsibilities, no one will take you seriously on the topic, as your unconditional support for Israel and whatever she does is undoubtedly the single greatest and blindest political bias held by any regular poster at this forum.
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| | | 39 | Tree
ID: 61411921
Thu, Mar 26, 2009, 09:48
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Israel being partners in peace to a group of murderers who don't believe she should even exist?
What can you do but shake your head?
deny my statement is true. go ahead. deny that Hamas's charter calls for the destruction of Israel, that it is anti-Semitic in that it references the "Protocols of Zion", that the only solution is through Jihad.
go ahead. deny all that.
Israel's enemies have sworn to wipe her out literally since the moment she was created. They attacked her at birth. They attacked her at the most sacred of Jewish holidays, to try and catch the defense forces in a moment of weakness. They have *targeted* her children.
so, go ahead, deny all that. it renders *any* argument you might have as false, and based on lies.
I've got no problems admitting Israel has made her share of mistakes. And while most of those truly were mistakes, there were certainly a handful of times when they were not accidental at all.
there is no blind defense on my part. it's on the part of those who feel it's perfectly acceptable for the Palestinians to target children, and think that Israel should continually turn a blind eye.
you can't have peace with people who don't want peace, and Hamas - and Arafat before them - has not truly indicated they want peace. it's not in their best interest, after all.
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| | | 40 | Mith
ID: 2894309
Thu, Mar 26, 2009, 11:09
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deny my statement is true. go ahead. deny that Hamas's charter calls for the destruction of Israel, that it is anti-Semitic in that it references the "Protocols of Zion", that the only solution is through Jihad.
go ahead. deny all that.
There's no reason to deny that. It's not a point of contention and it doesn't challenege anything I've written here. I guess you're just so delusional that you aren't even capable of understanding criticism of Israel as anything other than "Arab=good, Jew=bad".
I've got no problems admitting Israel has made her share of mistakes. And while most of those truly were mistakes, there were certainly a handful of times when they were not accidental at all.
Right, you've said that before. But, again, it's not a response to what I said. I said you don't acknowledge and recognize her responsibilities, not that you refuse to admit they exist on a general and ambiguous level, which is as far as you'll ever go. And you can't even do that without sandwiching it between refutations of imaginary straw men.
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| | | 42 | nerveclinic
Leader
ID: 05047110
Thu, Mar 26, 2009, 18:33
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Tree you are basically Baldwin when it comes to your defense of Israel.
Of course everyone knows about Hamas. Even the Arabs. You post like we are apologists. No one is apologizing for Hamas. We are just recognizing the crimes Israel is also committing. The crimes even Israeli soldiers admitted the last few weeks. intentionally targeting civilians.
Israel has killed 10X the number of civilians the Palestinians have but it's OK because Hamas is always standing next to civilians.
Your defense is to say anyone who disagrees is anti Semitic.
Liberals all over Europe and America are protesting against Israel. Because they hate Jews? Please. You can't keep using the holocaust as a license for all Israels actions.
Your Baldwin Tree.
You are really no different in your defense of Israel.
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| | | 43 | Tree
ID: 61411921
Thu, Mar 26, 2009, 19:16
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Israel has killed 10X the number of civilians the Palestinians have but it's OK because Hamas is always standing next to civilians.
Hamas stands next to the civilians intentionally, so yea, there's a difference.
Your defense is to say anyone who disagrees is anti Semitic.
that's not what i said. i said that Hamas' charter was anti-Semitic. which it is.
Liberals all over Europe and America are protesting against Israel. Because they hate Jews? Please. You can't keep using the holocaust as a license for all Israels actions.
1. liberals all over europe have always been anti-israel. never mind France's long history of anti-Semitism, including suching wonderous events as the Dreyfus Affair.
2. Have i used the holocaust as a license?
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| | | 44 | bibA
Leader
ID: 261028117
Thu, Mar 26, 2009, 19:31
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Hamas stands next to the civilians intentionally, so yea, there's a difference.
From the first link in post 41:
One squad leader said he argued with his commander over rules of engagement that allowed the army to clear out houses by shooting the residents without warning.
"When we entered a house, we were supposed to bust down the door and start shooting inside and just go up story by story," he was quoted as saying. "Each story, if we identify a person, we shoot them. I asked myself: 'How is this reasonable?'
I don't know Tree, it sounds like some in the Israeli army do not necessarily believe that killing everyone in a building is the same as confronting armed terrorists in a firefight. The safest way to clear a dwelling may be to kill on sight, but is it the high road?
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| | | 45 | nerveclinic
Leader
ID: 05047110
Fri, Mar 27, 2009, 06:17
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Hamas stands next to the civilians intentionally, so yea, there's a difference.
So the interviews with Israeli soldiers last week on the BBC who admitted they were intentionally targeting women and children didn't make the news in the USA?
Figures.
link
link
Soldier being interviewed and claiming it is Israeli government policy to kill civilians.
link
You'll continue to defend though because this is your Baldwin issue.
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| | | 46 | Tree
ID: 61411921
Fri, Mar 27, 2009, 07:11
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i'll defend it, because the words of a couple of soldiers who have an axe to grind don't mean a hill of beans to me.
i personally know several veterans of the IDF. two of them are my brothers. one of those brothers is very much against the policies of Israel in regards to the Palestinian situation, but he'll tell you himself there was never any targeting of civilians by the Israeli army.
I'll take his word over guys i don't know, guys who likely have an agenda.
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| | | 47 | Mith
Dude
ID: 01629107
Fri, Mar 27, 2009, 07:34
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Still refuses to discuss the settlements.
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| | | 48 | Boxman
ID: 3821468
Fri, Mar 27, 2009, 08:59
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I'll take his word over guys i don't know, guys who likely have an agenda.
Do you believe President Obama has an agenda about anything?
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| | | 49 | tree on the treo
ID: 55220277
Fri, Mar 27, 2009, 09:26
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mith...back when israel was forcibly removing settlers from gaza, I was very much for it. I felt it would help bring peace to the region. I saw it as a great gesture from israel.
the palestinians responded not with olive branches, but with more bombs, guns, and kidnappings.
israel took steps from a diplomatic perspective.
what similar steps have the palestinians taken?
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| | | 50 | Mith
Dude
ID: 01629107
Fri, Mar 27, 2009, 09:58
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what similar steps have the palestinians taken?
You know, when I take issue with atrocities committed by Palestinians and some idiot who refuses to condemn them says, "what about the terrible things Israel has done", my response is that those things, true or not, don't change the atrocity committed by Palestinians, who deserve condemnation for the act regardless of the history.
What you're doing is exactly the same thing. That Palestinians have and continue to commit horrible acts upon Israelis does not mean that you should not condemn Israel when she is the one committing the atrocity upon innocents.
Actually, what you're doing is worse, since you not only refuse to speak out against Israel's atrocities when they occur, but you respond to news of such events with the sickening propaganda that good old Benji is actually "reaching out" as a "partner for peace" with the Palestinians.
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| | | 51 | tree on the treo
ID: 55220277
Fri, Mar 27, 2009, 10:13
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nice non-answer mith. I answered your challenge, you avoided mine.
its a perfectl legitimate point I make. how many concessions must israel make to achieve peace, without similar gestures from the palestinians?
it takes two to tango, and the palestinians have time and time again shown an unwillingness to show up at the dance.
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| | | 52 | Boxman
ID: 3821468
Fri, Mar 27, 2009, 10:17
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it takes two to tango, and the palestinians have time and time again shown an unwillingness to show up at the dance.
Then a great idea would be to start shelling refugee camps and targeting civilians eh?
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| | | 53 | bibA
Leader
ID: 261028117
Fri, Mar 27, 2009, 10:54
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the words of a couple of soldiers who have an axe to grind don't mean a hill of beans to me
The arguement you use, to dismiss the words of Israeli soldiers (actually more than a couple) so cavalierly can only remind one of none other than Baldwin. Think back to arguements he used to refute anyone who had been insiders in the Bush administration who then questioned him, maybe like Scott McClellan?
You two can sound so similar.
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| | | 54 | tree on the treo
ID: 55220277
Fri, Mar 27, 2009, 10:58
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box...all you're doing in this thread at this point is trolling. contribute, or get out..
biba...youre missing my point. all I'm saying is that I'm going to take the words of two soldiers I do know - one of whom thinks israel's policies stink - over the words of two soliders I don't know..
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| | | 55 | Boxman
ID: 3821468
Fri, Mar 27, 2009, 10:59
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box...all you're doing in this thread at this point is trolling. contribute, or get out..
Really? REALLY? OMG!!
Is that because I'm not towing the line on Israel?
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| | | 56 | Mith
ID: 2894309
Fri, Mar 27, 2009, 11:09
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nice non-answer mith. I answered your challenge, you avoided mine.
Point proven.
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| | | 58 | Baldwin
ID: 122332717
Wed, Apr 01, 2009, 06:16
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When they send the last true believing Catholic to the camps, you'll be leading the mob with pitchforks, PD.
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| | | 59 | Perm Dude
ID: 4831617
Wed, Apr 01, 2009, 09:21
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I think you've got your own problems to worry about, Baldwin. Which master are you praying to today?
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| | | 60 | Baldwin
ID: 122332717
Wed, Apr 01, 2009, 09:49
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Really?
3 Do not put YOUR trust in nobles,
Nor in the son of earthling man, to whom no salvation belongs.
You think that applies to me and not you? Which earthling man am I putting my trust in?
Where this delusion comes from that I trust anyone of them is beyond me. I didn't give it to you.
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| | | 61 | Perm Dude
ID: 4831617
Wed, Apr 01, 2009, 09:53
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Hey, my religion isn't the one which strongly discourages participation in the political process. You might (or might not) agree with my politics, but posting strong political opinions on these boards isn't pushing the boundaries of what I should be doing in relationship with my church.
I should cut and paste your #60 for the next time you make another gushing post about Ann Coulter.
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| | | 62 | Boxman
ID: 3821468
Wed, Apr 01, 2009, 10:04
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Hey, my religion isn't the one which strongly discourages participation in the political process.
Tell Pelosi or Biden that. "I'm a Catholic, but...."
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| | | 63 | Baldwin
ID: 122332717
Wed, Apr 01, 2009, 10:05
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Trusting Ann Coulter to see the holes in liberal arguments is not the same as trusting in anyone else to solve mankind's problems. There is only one solution and he isn't in any political party.
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| | | 64 | Baldwin
ID: 122332717
Wed, Apr 01, 2009, 10:14
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But you do have a point. What am I doing commenting on which of these turds will reach the rock bottom first? And why do I care if I someday recover I-told-you-so's from a bunch of guys who won't even get it when they are knee deep in it?
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| | | 65 | Baldwin
ID: 122332717
Wed, Apr 01, 2009, 10:16
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And how would you pass them to me if the scales ever did drop from your eyes?
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| | | 66 | Mith
ID: 2894309
Mon, Apr 20, 2009, 11:02
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Walkout at UN conference after Iran president calls Israel 'racist' British delegates joined a dramatic diplomatic walkout today when President Ahmadinejad of Iran told a major UN conference against racism that the state of Israel had been founded "on the pretext of Jewish suffering" during the Second World War.
Around 20 delegates, including envoys from the UK, France, Canada and Finland stood up and left the room at what was considered an anti-Semitic remark by the Iranian leader, who has repeatedly called for Israel to be wiped off the map.
Nine Western countries including Israel and the United States had already decided to boycott the conference entirely because its draft declaration endorsed the conclusions of an anti-racism conference in South Africa eight years ago in which Islamic nations pushed through a text equating Zionism with racism.
Even before the walkout, Mr Ahmadinejad's speech had been interrupted by three protesters dressed as clowns who where quickly bundled from the vast conference room at the Palais des Nations by guards.
Later, other protesters shouted down from the balcony as the Iranian president carried on his address.
The Obama administration announced at the weekend that it would boycott the meeting because its draft declaration makes reference to the text agreed in 2001 at the UN's first anti-racism conference in Durban, South Africa. That document was agreed after the United States and Israel walked out over attempts to liken Zionism - the movement to establish a Jewish state in the Holy Land - to racism.
Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Poland joined the boycott.
The UN chief said that he regretted the absence of the United States and the other boycotting member states.
"There comes a time to reaffirm our faith in fundamental human rights and the dignity and worth of us all," Mr Ban said.
The major sticking points in the draft final declaration prepared for the current meeting concern its implied criticism of Israel and an attempt by Muslim governments to remove all criticism of Islam, Sharia law, the Prophet Muhammad and other tenets of their faith.
The American decision to boycott the meeting has been given extra weight by the fact that it was taken by the country's first black president.
Speaking in Trinidad yesterday after attending the Summit of the Americas, Mr Obama said that he would love to be "involved in a useful conference that addressed continuing issues of racism and discrimination around the globe" but wanted to avoid a reprise of the Durban conference during which "folks expressed antagonism toward Israel in ways that were oftentimes completely hypocritical and counterproductive".
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| | | 68 | Perm Dude
ID: 154552311
Mon, May 25, 2009, 22:07
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As a father, these images still affect me very deeply.
I know it is anecdotal and all. But war always kills innocents. It is worth remembering, even on this memorial day.
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| | | 69 | Mith
Dude
ID: 01629107
Tue, May 26, 2009, 05:58
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If Netanyahu won't stop the growth of the settlements then I think it's time to begin withholding aid to Israel.
This has been a one-way relationship for too long.
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| | | 70 | tree, on the treo
ID: 55220277
Tue, May 26, 2009, 08:35
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and if obama makes that move, he'll definitely be a one-term president.
we give aid to plenty of nations who do far worse than preventing "the growth of the settlements".
I look forward to yours posts on those nations.
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| | | 71 | Razor
ID: 371502414
Tue, May 26, 2009, 09:10
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Israel receives more aid from us than any nation on Earth that we aren't currently occupying. We can hold them to whatever standard we want to. And my guess is that Obama won't be a one-term President because he withholds aid to Israel because he won't have to. Israel will comply. MITH's point is that no one has been asking them to lately. And it would be incredibly sad and telling of the Jewish-American population's priorities if asking Israel to abide by previous agreements would jeopardize their support in Obama.
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| | | 72 | Mith
ID: 2894309
Tue, May 26, 2009, 09:24
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Israel will comply.
With Bibi running things, I wouldn't be so sure. But it doesn't matter. The aid sent to Israel cannot be unconditional. The settlements are an impediment to the peace process, which makes them a danger to American national security.
America holds the purse strings - that means America writes the rules.
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| | | 74 | Mith
ID: 2894309
Tue, May 26, 2009, 09:41
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we give aid to plenty of nations who do far worse than
We supply necessities such as foodstuffs and medical supplies to other nations. We supply military aid to Israel that is crucial to their survival.
The only other nation I know of which receives major military aid from the US and engages in human rights atrocites and other questionale practices is Pakistan. And yes, Tree, I have been very critical of the lack of returns the US has received from that expenditure.
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| | | 75 | Tree
ID: 41371322
Tue, May 26, 2009, 09:53
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i agree with MITH that netanyahu does not make anything a sure thing.
but if Obama starts putting restrictions on Israel, he'll lose a good chunk of the Jewish vote, and won't be able to get it back.
We supply necessities such as foodstuffs and medical supplies to other nations. We supply military aid to Israel that is crucial to their survival.
exactly. in all cases, they are necessities. some nations need food, some need medicine, and some need military aid. as you said, all are needed for differing reasons in different reasons for human survival.
if you want to give the middle east up to the Irans and Saudi Arabias of the world, and see Jews slaughtered by the thousands, then by all means, suffocate Israel.
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| | | 76 | Mith
ID: 2894309
Tue, May 26, 2009, 10:06
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if you want to give the middle east up to the Irans and Saudi Arabias of the world, and see Jews slaughtered by the thousands, then by all means, suffocate Israel.
That's exactly the type of thuggish attitude the US needs to push back against. Honestly, if human rights atrocities are going to be committed anyway, why should I care whether the victims are Jews or Arabs? Currently, Israel does more to destabalize the region than any nation except for Iran. That has to stop.
Countries receiving humanitarian aid (like Uganda, for example) do not pose a threat to American national security.
Time for Israel to show it's worthy of the aid America sends them. I wonder if Obama has considered floating the promise of the destruction of the settlements as a bargaining chip to Iran.
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| | | 77 | Razor
ID: 371502414
Tue, May 26, 2009, 10:17
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if you want to give the middle east up to the Irans and Saudi Arabias of the world, and see Jews slaughtered by the thousands, then by all means, suffocate Israel.
If you call not allowing settlements to be built in places where they are not supposed to be "suffocating," then ya, I don't care if Israel is suffocated. The choice is Israel's, not Obama's. You just don't want Obama to have to give them that choice.
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| | | 78 | Tree
ID: 41371322
Tue, May 26, 2009, 10:19
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Honestly, if human rights atrocities are going to be committed anyway, why should I care whether the victims are Jews or Arabs? Currently, Israel does more to destabalize the region than any nation except for Iran. That has to stop.
um. no.
the Arab nations that encourage the Palestinians to use bombs and bullets instead of encouraging them, to lay down their arms and say "yes, Israel, you have a right to exist. And so do we, so let's just sit down and talk about it," are the ones destabilizing the region.
it really is that simple. all israel has asked for is recognition. if someone can't even recognize your right to exist, what is the point?
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| | | 79 | Mith
ID: 2894309
Tue, May 26, 2009, 10:31
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I'm less and less interested in the demands of a nation that refuses to hold itself to the standards of those very demands. After all, if the Israeli government supports the expansion of the settlements, then they obviously aren't concerned with the Palestinians' right to exist.
Tree, you are opposed to anything other than Israel being provided with all of the tools necessary to conquer the entire middle east and no resposibilities attatched to that gift, whatsoever. Further, you are not capable of recognizing Israel's human rights atrocities without being pushed into doing so, and even then, will never criticize them.
On any matter regarding the state of Israel, I afford you less credibility than I do Baldwin on the topic of Terri Schaivo. You're completely driven by your emotional attatchment to Israel and whenever the topic comes up, all reason and logic drain right out of your ears.
Obama should demand that Israel destroy the West Bank settlements and forego any further American aid until they have done so. They've gotten away with too much for too long.
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| | | 80 | Tree
ID: 41371322
Tue, May 26, 2009, 11:04
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After all, if the Israeli government supports the expansion of the settlements, then they obviously aren't concerned with the Palestinians' right to exist.
um, no.
Israel tried to remove the settlements. they physically removed settlers. it was an issue that nearly split the nation in half. my own brother would have likely gone to prison if his commanding officer didn't have a soft spot in his heart for the soldiers who refused to remove the settlers.
israel TRIED that. remember. it didn't work. it didn't bring the Palestinians any closer to the table, it didn't get them to recognize israel, and it didn't get them to lay down their arms.
sadly, the only thing that has worked, is that wall that was built. it's a terrible thing to be forced to do that, but it's shown that a physical barrier may be the only way to prevent things.
i'm a dove when it comes to this stuff, but israel has the right to defend herself, and when they have done things like remove settlers and dismantle settlements, only to see it not do a damned bit of good, what's the point there?
the palestinians DO NOT WANT TO CO-EXIST WITH ISRAEL. THEY WANT TO EXIST INSTEAD OF ISRAEL.
you are opposed to anything other than Israel being provided with all of the tools necessary to conquer the entire middle east
what a bunch of bull$hit. you sound like Baldwin with such a wild claim.
count the wars my friend. how many times has israel been attacked, as others tried to conquer her.
and how many times has israel tried to conquer other nations in an aggressive war for that purpose? please let me know. heck, let me know when they've even said "
i'll let you do the research on the former. but i'll spare you the research on the latter one, and let you know the number is zero.
You're completely driven by your emotional attatchment to Israel and whenever the topic comes up, all reason and logic drain right out of your ears.
again, that's just absurd, and shows me how blind you are to the issue of israel.
i was in favor of the settlements being dismantled, and the settlers being removed. i would do anything to bring peace to the region short of destabilizing israel's right to exist.
you keep talking israel must do this, israel msut do that, israel must do this, israel must do that.
so, tell me. WHAT ARE THE PALESTINIANS DOING TO FURTHER THE PEACE PROCESS - i mean, short of electing Hamas to leadership and sneaking in missiles via underground tunnels.
Obama should demand that Israel destroy the West Bank settlements and forego any further American aid until they have done so. They've gotten away with too much for too long.
again, Israel tried that, but i hold further comment on it, until you respond. additionally, why shouldn't Obama withhold aid to any Arab country until they work with the Palestinians to make peace with israel, as they are to blame as well,
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| | | 81 | Mith
ID: 2894309
Tue, May 26, 2009, 11:21
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israel TRIED that. remember.
What I remember is that in 2005 they evauated Gaza (all of 8,000 settlers) and EXACTLY FOUR settlements in the West Bank. Despite this, the number of Israelis living in the West Bank grew from 234,000 in 2004 to 282,000 in 2006. Some TRY.
but israel has the right to defend herself
Blah blah blah Terri Shaivo. The settlements are human rights atrocities that don't "defend" Israel from anything.
what a bunch of bull$hit. you sound like Baldwin with such a wild claim.
count the wars my friend. how many times has israel been attacked, as others tried to conquer her.
Read that again. You're so deluded you don't even realize that you proved my point right there.
so, tell me. WHAT ARE THE PALESTINIANS DOING TO FURTHER THE PEACE PROCESS - i mean, short of electing Hamas to leadership and sneaking in missiles via underground tunnels.
Non-sequitor. I've answered this question a hundred times over the years. If anyone other than tree would like a response to that, then I'm happy to oblige. Otherwise, my answer to Tree is: Terri Schaivo.
again, Israel tried that
No, Israel did not "try that". They put on a little show that did nothing more than temporarily slow the overall expansion of settlements.
Take away their military aid and there won't be any of this TRY bullsh!t. They will simply do it and that'll be the end of it. It's time someone gives that overgrown child the spanking it deserves.
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| | | 82 | Tree
ID: 41371322
Tue, May 26, 2009, 11:35
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you were Baldwin-esque in your response avoidance. makes further discussion on these points impossible.
but i will say this - thank you for proving my point:
What I remember is that in 2005 they evauated Gaza (all of 8,000 settlers) and EXACTLY FOUR settlements in the West Bank. Despite this, the number of Israelis living in the West Bank grew from 234,000 in 2004 to 282,000 in 2006. Some TRY.
the Gaza Strip was completely evacuated. residents left or removed, buildings were destroyed, and security personnel were all gone by Sept 12, 2005. you can look this up anywhere on the net.
here's a good NPR collection on the withdrawal...
why the hell should israel even bother trying with the West Bank, when all evacuation from Gaza netting them was dissent from its own civilians, and ZERO anything from the Palestinians.
so, tell me. WHAT ARE THE PALESTINIANS DOING TO FURTHER THE PEACE PROCESS - i mean, short of electing Hamas to leadership and sneaking in missiles via underground tunnels.
Non-sequitor. I've answered this question a hundred times over the years. If anyone other than tree would like a response to that, then I'm happy to oblige.
Baldwin, again. do explain how it's an non-sequitor. really - tell me how the Palestinians repeated refusal to even recognize israel, is unrelated to making peace. i'm curious - genuinely curious about that.
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| | | 83 | Mith
ID: 2894309
Tue, May 26, 2009, 11:58
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why the hell should israel even bother trying with the West Bank
Because that land isn't theirs for the taking. This is so simple its ridiculous. The Bush Administration (the most pro-Israel American presidential administration in history) has even condemned the settlements and any further expansion of them.
That you have to ask why Israel should cease it's policy of human rights offenses tells readers everything they need to know about the relevance of your opinion on this matter. It's time to put a stop to this mess.
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| | | 84 | Mith
ID: 2894309
Tue, May 26, 2009, 12:01
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Baldwin, again. do explain how it's an non-sequitor. really
If just one person other than tree thinks this deserves a response I'll be happy to oblige.
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| | | 86 | Mith
ID: 2894309
Tue, May 26, 2009, 12:13
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Tree's idea of "trying": | Jewish population | 1948 | 1966 | 1972 | 1983 | 1993 | 2004 | 2006 | | West Bank (excluding Jerusalem) | 480 (see Gush Etzion) | 0 | 1,182 | 22,800 | 111,600 | 234,487 | 282,400 | | Gaza Strip | 30 (see Kfar Darom) | 0 | 700 1 | 900 | 4,800 | 7,826 | 0 | | Golan Heights | 0 | 0 | 77 | 6,800 | 12,600 | 17,265 | 18,105 | | East Jerusalem | 2300 | 0 | 8,649 | 76,095 | 152,800 | 181,587 | 184,057 2 | | Total | 2,810 | 0 | 10,608 1 | 106,595 | 281,800 | 441,165 | 484,562 | | | | | | | | | |
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| | | 87 | Seattle Zen
ID: 24462610
Tue, May 26, 2009, 12:24
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Tree - you are out of your mind if you think that a hard line against Israel would cost Obama in 2012. Seriously, how many Jews do you think are in this country? I doubt it would cost him even one state, yeah, even Florida.
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| | | 88 | Mith
ID: 2894309
Tue, May 26, 2009, 12:31
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Careful Zen, next thing you know he'll be addressing you as Cosmo's Cod Piece.
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| | | 89 | Tree
ID: 41371322
Tue, May 26, 2009, 12:41
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Tree - you are out of your mind if you think that a hard line against Israel would cost Obama in 2012. Seriously, how many Jews do you think are in this country? I doubt it would cost him even one state, yeah, even Florida.
lots and lots and lots of Jews - many of whom have never voted anything other than Democrat - almost didn't vote for him because they are insecure about his policies towards Israel.
Florida's jewish population isn't even top 5, in terms of percentage. DC, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York all rank higher.
you're fooling yourself if you don't think the jewish vote matters.
That you have to ask why Israel should cease it's policy of human rights offenses tells readers everything they need to know about the relevance of your opinion on this matter.
again, no mention of the human rights offenses committed by the palestinians...of course. it's all israel's fault. she's never been attacked or vicitimized or nearly been destroyed. she hasn't been the conqueror, she's the one they have attempted to conquer.
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| | | 90 | Mith
ID: 2894309
Tue, May 26, 2009, 12:43
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it's all israel's fault. she's never been attacked or vicitimized or nearly been destroyed.
Does anyone buy Tree's red herring?
Just one person?
No one?
That's what I thought.
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| | | 91 | Seattle Zen
ID: 24462610
Tue, May 26, 2009, 13:20
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lots and lots and lots of Jews
Oh, that's helpful... but actually not true.
DC, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York all rank higher.
Of course. Out of curiosity, do you think that a swing in Jewish votes in any of these states or district would change the results? I mean, even with out knowing who is running in 2012 for the GOP, if every Jewish voter voted for him or her, do you think MA or MD or NJ or NY would go Red? Seriously? I used FLA as an example of a fairly close state with a decent percentage of Jews, and by decent I mean 3.7% of the population, which is a tiny fraction, but still one of the highest in the nation.
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| | | 92 | tree, on the treo
ID: 55220277
Tue, May 26, 2009, 13:21
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I'm still waiting for your explanation why the palestians need not do anything to further the peace process.
I expect to continue waiting. it takes two to make war, and it takes two to make peace.
what has the palestinian leadership done in attempt to make peace?
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| | | 93 | Mith
ID: 2894309
Tue, May 26, 2009, 13:33
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I've responded to that same red herring many times over the years, Tree. Multiple times right in this thread, even.
My answer is there, same as it was in each of the last 50 times you threw up this same roadblock in effort to avoid acknowledging Israel's atrocious human rights record.
It has long been US policy to threaten to withhold aid from countries that commit human rights atrocities. It's time that Israel is subject to the same rules as everyone else.
The sad fact of the matter is that Israel has no choice but to bow to the US' demands - or face eventual extinction. As Israel's usefullness to the US dwindles and it's government becomes increasingly antagonistic (thank you, Benji) and with so few voices with any influence in the Israeli sphere willing to speak in opposition, the question of whether to threaten to withold aid only gets easier.
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| | | 94 | Myboyjack
Dude
ID: 014826271
Tue, May 26, 2009, 13:49
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I'm still waiting for your explanation why the palestians need not do anything to further the peace process.
I agree, we should also withold military aid to Palestine. No more jets, tractors, tanks or semiconductors for either of them!
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| | | 95 | Mith
ID: 2894309
Tue, May 26, 2009, 13:50
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LOL
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| | | 96 | tree, on the treo
ID: 55220277
Tue, May 26, 2009, 14:45
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military aid to israel is humanitarian aid.
I mean, unless you're in favor of bomb strapped murders taking out as many israelis as possible.
again though mith, you're talking a baldwinesque stance..."i made my point earlier defending such and such. now you have to find it."
again. its all really simple. recognize israels right to exist, and she sit at the table with you...again...and help you get statehood....for the third time...which you'll turn down...again.
it hasn't even been a decade since the palestians turned down statehood, because they don't want to share.
show me where palestinian leadership has said unconditionally "we will co-exist with israel, side by side, state by state"...you can't show me, because it hasn't been said.
also, I do find the irony in you making statements concerning me defending israel in every manner, yet it was a criticism of israel made by me thay resurrected this thread in the first place.
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| | | 97 | Mith
ID: 2894309
Tue, May 26, 2009, 14:51
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Palestinian transgressions do not justify Israeli human rights offenses that make Israel no safer.
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| | | 98 | Perm Dude
ID: 154552311
Tue, May 26, 2009, 15:16
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military aid to israel is humanitarian aid
I'm not at all certain what this means. F-16s for Israel is "humanitarian aid?"
I'm sure that some aid is clearly humanitarian. But calling military hardware, weapons systems, ships tanks planes and military software "humanitarian" is practically Orwellian.
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| | | 99 | Tree
ID: 41371322
Tue, May 26, 2009, 15:55
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Palestinian transgressions do not justify Israeli human rights offenses that make Israel no safer.
israeli's been a helluva lot safer since that wall went up.
I'm not at all certain what this means. F-16s for Israel is "humanitarian aid?"
I'm sure that some aid is clearly humanitarian. But calling military hardware, weapons systems, ships tanks planes and military software "humanitarian" is practically Orwellian.
it's math, PD. Israel is surrounded by nations that have spent 60+ years trying to destroy her. if she can't defend herself, and israel collapses against nations that bring war to her, imagine the humanitarian crisis then. the carnage and destruction and death will be fairly significant.
israel is constantly forced to defend herself. NO nation should be in that position, yet some how, it's wrong for israel to be on defense, or offense.
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| | | 100 | Perm Dude
ID: 154552311
Tue, May 26, 2009, 15:57
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Sorry, tree, but that's a crock.
Military aid is military aid. I'm not saying whether it is justified or not. I'm saying you can't call it "humanitarian aid." Humanitarian aid has a particular and well-understood definition.
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| | | 101 | Mith
ID: 2894309
Tue, May 26, 2009, 15:57
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Bulldozing Palestinian familial homes and erecting luxury condos for Israelis is not "defense".
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| | | 102 | Tree
ID: 41371322
Tue, May 26, 2009, 16:52
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to me, it's not a crock. it's aid to prevent a deep and profound humanitarian crisis.
while i don't know exactly what you speak of MITH (and would be more than happy to read a link or two, not from some left wing equal of WND), they do that in the US too. it's called emminant domain.
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| | | 103 | Perm Dude
ID: 154552311
Tue, May 26, 2009, 16:59
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Might as well call North Korea's nuclear test "humanitarian aid."
The problem with your twisting of the definition is that it mocks actual humanitarian aid. And makes it seem that you simply don't want to defend the massive military spending the US taxpayers spend for security reasons.
My own position, FWIW, is that we shouldn't be spending a dime on Israel until they sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.
And I'd prefer to see some evidence that Israel is economically self-sustaining.
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| | | 104 | Seattle Zen
ID: 24462610
Tue, May 26, 2009, 17:43
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And I'd prefer to see some evidence that Israel is economically self-sustaining.
Seriously? I have not heard anything that suggests that Israel is being propped up by our aid. It helps, but economically Israel is doing fine. Are there doubts?
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| | | 105 | WiddleAvi
Sustainer
ID: 361032112
Tue, May 26, 2009, 18:05
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I am usually on Israel's side. But it does not matter how terrible the Palestinians are. It does not give Israel the right to do something wrong. There is no excuse to keep expanding the settlements. Just like the terrorists beheading and targeting civilians does not give us the right to torture anyone.
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| | | 106 | Perm Dude
ID: 154552311
Tue, May 26, 2009, 18:17
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Are there doubts?
We only ended economic aid to Israel in 2007. Our current aid to Israel comprise about 5% of their budget (which, taking after the US, is running a
pretty good deficit).
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| | | 107 | Mith
Dude
ID: 01629107
Wed, May 27, 2009, 00:05
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PD
Too tired to look up links I found earlier but the stats from (i believe) the US census bureau listed seperately 'military aid ' and 'economic aid' to Israel. In 2006 (the last year on record at that link) 'Military aid' was 7 or 8 times 'economic aid'.
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| | | 108 | Perm Dude
ID: 154552311
Wed, May 27, 2009, 00:16
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Right. But the US ended separate economic aid to Israel (concurrently, they upped military aid by 25%)
Back in the dark ages (1997) military aid wasn't so much more than economic aid (which includes traditional direct humanitarian aid):
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| | | 109 | Boldwin
ID: 133532810
Wed, May 27, 2009, 14:42
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I wonder how that will change when Iran nukes it.
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| | | 110 | Boldwin
ID: 133532810
Wed, May 27, 2009, 14:43
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Or when China pulls the plug on our credit.
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| | | 111 | Mith
ID: 2894309
Thu, May 28, 2009, 12:44
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Israel defied a surprisingly blunt U.S. demand that it freeze all building in West Bank Jewish settlements, saying Thursday it will press ahead with construction. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday that President Barack Obama wants Israel to halt to all settlement construction _ including "natural growth." She was referring to Israel's insistence that new construction is necessary to accommodate the expansion of families already living in existing settlements.
While Israel could flout U.S. opposition, it is wary of picking a fight with its closest and most important ally.
Israeli officials proposed a compromise earlier this week. In exchange for removing some 22 outposts, they would ask the U.S. to permit new construction in existing settlements. Clinton's remarks followed that proposal.
But even the limited step of removing outposts faces stiff opposition from the Israeli right. Settler news site Arutz Sheva reported Thursday that leading rabbis linked to the settlement movement had issued a call to soldiers to disobey orders to demolish the outposts.
"The holy Torah (scripture) prohibits taking part in any act of uprooting Jews from any part of our sacred land," the site quoted the rabbis' statement as saying.
The new Israeli and the U.S. leaders have strikingly different approaches to Israeli-Palestinian relations. Netanyahu refuses to endorse Palestinian independence, a notion supported by Obama, his predecessor and the previous Israeli government.
Clinton said Obama told Netanyahu last week when the two met at the White House that the U.S. sees stopping settlements as key to a peace deal that would see a Palestinian state created alongside Israel.
"He wants to see a stop to settlements _ not some settlements, not outposts, not 'natural growth' exceptions," Clinton said. "We think it is in the best interests (of the peace process) that settlement expansion cease. That is our position. That is what we have communicated very clearly. ... And we intend to press that point." Frankly, Israel should have no choice in the matter of whether they should be allowed to continue to use weapons supplied to them by the US to forcibly evict innocent Palestinians from their familial homes and rightful land.
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| | | 112 | Tree
ID: 41371322
Thu, May 28, 2009, 14:21
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no doubt, much as i believe the palestinian leadership stands in the way of peace, the hard right israeli politicos also stand in the way of peace.
sadly, when the palestinians elected Hamas to lead them, it only seemed inevitable that the israeli leadership would swing more and more right.
if Fatah has more sway, then we might be able to save this yet. but i'll continue to maintain it takes two sides to make peace, and if Hamas doesnt want peace, israel can't make peace, even if she gave up the settlements and laid down all her arms.
does anyone here believe that would honestly make a difference?
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| | | 113 | Razor
ID: 371502414
Thu, May 28, 2009, 14:31
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Your argument is tiresome. It doesn't matter what would happen in hypothetical scenario. It doesn't matter what the Palestinians want. The US has told Israel to stop building settlements, and that's exactly what Israel needs to do or they jeopardize the billions of dollars in aid we give them.
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| | | 114 | Mith
ID: 2894309
Thu, May 28, 2009, 14:51
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does anyone here believe that would honestly make a difference
What makes a huge difference is whether Israel wants to keep the moral high ground or slip toward even standing with the Palestinians. It's easy to support one side when you're confident that they deserve your support. But when they are the aggressors, the sympathy rightfully dries up.
I'm thankful to have a President who's Israel position is more nuanced and thoughtful than the blind support they received from Bush. The support Israel receives from the US comes at a great sacrifice to America's standing in the world. It's time that Israel is made to respect that sacrifice or learn to do without.
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| | | 115 | Tree
ID: 41371322
Thu, May 28, 2009, 15:08
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What makes a huge difference is whether Israel wants to keep the moral high ground or slip toward even standing with the Palestinians.
i don't disagree with you on this topic. i'm not suggesting that Israel say "f*ck it" and just drive the Palestinians completely out. trust me - i want peace. my brother lives there, my parents are there now and my dad goes a couple of times a year.
when he was in the army, every time there was news that a soldier was killed or kidnapped, we waitied to hear that he was ok. it sucks.
and while i don't believe the US will actually ever withhold aid, i also agree Israel needs to heed caution and be very careful about where, and how, they tread, in regards to US policy.
It doesn't matter what would happen in hypothetical scenario.
is not the whole peace process based on hypothetical scenarios?
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| | | 117 | boikin
ID: 532592112
Mon, Jun 08, 2009, 09:51
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This question is for Tree, because he is resident expert on Israel, but ill take any answers. I just saw something talking about a one-state solution and that there is growing support for this idea in the west bank and i guess Gaza as well. How do the Israelies feel about this idea? Is this better or worse than a current situation or two state plan. I assume that one state would just mean incorporating the west bank and gaza into israel and making all residents citizens?
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| | | 118 | Tree
ID: 41371322
Mon, Jun 08, 2009, 10:31
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i'm not sure how the one state plan would work in regards to israel. my gut feeling is that israel would NEVER go for it, because there would be a Palestinian majority in no time.
never mind the fact that i sure as $hit don't want my neighbor to be a guy who's brother blew up my parents, or who for generations has been conditioned to hate me.
i also think the economic disparities are too great between jew and palestinian, and even israeli arab and palestinian, and you would end up with a severely ghetto-ized situation, and i think that would actually make matters worse on a lot of different fronts.
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| | | 119 | boikin
ID: 532592112
Mon, Jun 08, 2009, 11:22
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another question, you may not know the answer to this but is there much imigration (or desire) to Isreal by non-jewish people? I don't know like are there desires for people living in the west bank or lebannon to want to move to israel for financial or security reasons? It just seems to me living is Israel has got to better than living next door to it.
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| | | 120 | Perm Dude
ID: 154552311
Thu, Jul 16, 2009, 15:08
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Abe Foxman believes Obama's problem is that he's actually trying to solve the problem.:
Still, I continue to sense that the administration is putting too much weight on solving the conflict. We all want to see progress and I have no problem with the administration view that the US must be much more engaged to achieve progress. But I am concerned when expectations rise dramatically, as when the president says that he expects the problem to be resolved in two years.
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| | | 121 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Sat, Oct 31, 2009, 13:26
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Palestinian student deported from West Bank to Gaza
i think the Israelis got it wrong here.
granted, there may be more to the story we're seeing on the surface, but for the moment, this is the kind of thing that Israel should not be doing.
this is a young woman who is simply going to college and getting an education in an attempt to better things for her, and her family.
yes, there are those who might say "well, she's just going to use that knowledge to be involved with a terrorist organization."
perhaps. perhaps not. no way of knowing, but to punish her in this way is wrong.
Hopefully, Israel will reverse herself, and correct this.
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| | | 122 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Sat, Oct 31, 2009, 13:48
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Retracting my second (non-itallics) sentence in post 40.
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| | | 123 | Seattle Zen
Leader
ID: 055343019
Sat, Oct 31, 2009, 14:16
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Ah, look at you two playing nice!
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| | | 124 | Perm Dude
ID: 154552311
Tue, Nov 17, 2009, 20:37
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Build baby build!
With many conservatives (particularly neocons) equating any deviation from Israeli policy on the part of the US with enabling terrorism, there should be no wonder that Israel feels it can do anything while the US pays the bills.
God forbid that anyone in the Administration even mentions that Israel has nukes.
Cut em off, I say.
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| | | 125 | Razor
ID: 57854118
Wed, Nov 18, 2009, 09:29
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We should just raze the settlements under construction. Is Israel interested in trying to do its part or no?
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| | | 127 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Tue, Dec 22, 2009, 15:32
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Given the source I'm taking a grain of salt right now, but: Israel admits to organ thefts
Anyone know if this is corroborated anywhere?
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| | | 129 | Boldwin
ID: 111562213
Thu, Feb 25, 2010, 03:15
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If only along with that investigation, China's thriving murder for organs trade could be stopped. Hair-raising stuff there, PD. Literally.
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| | | 131 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Thu, Mar 11, 2010, 15:29
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man...between this and the tiff with the Turish Ambassador, Israel would have to try really hard to screw up foreign relations even more. it's as if GW Bush is running that country right now. ugh.
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| | | 132 | Razor
ID: 57854118
Thu, Mar 11, 2010, 15:30
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Re: 125 - I agree.
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| | | 133 | Mith
ID: 58136177
Thu, Mar 11, 2010, 15:42
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I'll stand by #114.
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| | | 134 | Mith
ID: 58136177
Thu, Mar 11, 2010, 15:47
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And post 37.
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| | | 135 | J-Bar
ID: 372481117
Thu, Mar 11, 2010, 18:57
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I think that the lack of trust in the current administration's support has led Israel to make decisions that they feel are best for them. The power to persuade is severely inhibited without trust.
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| | | 136 | Razor
ID: 571022618
Thu, Mar 11, 2010, 19:13
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Do you have any support for that contention?
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| | | 137 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Thu, Mar 11, 2010, 19:22
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So Israel has made its most recent series of bad decisions because it can't trust Barack Obama?
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| | | 138 | J-Bar
ID: 372481117
Thu, Mar 11, 2010, 19:54
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No Razor it is just my opinion. PD you view them as bad decisions but that does not necessarily make them so. Apparently this is years away and we are talking about it. When is Obama's trip to Israel scheduled?
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| | | 139 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Thu, Mar 11, 2010, 19:57
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The point isn't when they are being built. The point is that they are being built at all. And that the announcement was timed to embarrass the US.
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| | | 140 | Razor
ID: 571022618
Thu, Mar 11, 2010, 20:10
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Why do you have that opinion? Something must have led you to believe that.
If you read through this thread for about 20 posts, you'd see that Israel's recent actions are not terribly different than their actions under the Bush administration.
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| | | 141 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Thu, Mar 11, 2010, 20:23
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PD you view them as bad decisions but that does not necessarily make them so.
at this point, they're looking like bad decisions. from the Palestinian student to the Turkish ambassador to the timing of the announcement on building more settlements - they all look like bad decisions.
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| | | 142 | J-Bar
ID: 372481117
Thu, Mar 11, 2010, 23:24
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If there is an Israeli population and it is a growing population then why is it wrong to increase the housing availability?
Razor, I did some reading and it does look like minimal building has continued to accommodate the growth in the Jewish population. I believe that the timing was of the announcement was not by accident.
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| | | 143 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Thu, Mar 11, 2010, 23:32
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It is wrong to build settlements into areas they are, or have already been, negotiated to the Palestinian Authority.
When you agree to cede land to someone else, building onto that land is a bad idea. Even if it shows how tough you are.
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| | | 144 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Thu, Mar 11, 2010, 23:33
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We really just need to cut off all government aid to Israel. Screw them.
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| | | 145 | J-Bar
ID: 372481117
Thu, Mar 11, 2010, 23:36
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Yeah that's it. I think we need to go to the U.N. and propose sanctions that will not be enforced. We shouldn't treat Israel any worse than we do Iran.
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| | | 146 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Thu, Mar 11, 2010, 23:42
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Man, you really need to read up on this issue more, J-Bar. The United States gives over $2.5 billion/year in direct aid. Not through the UN. Direct from Washington.
About $6.8 million/day.
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| | | 147 | tree on the treo
ID: 287212811
Thu, Mar 11, 2010, 23:48
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pd - that's not really a sensible solution. for all these recent bad decisions, israel is still the most stable nation in the region...
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| | | 148 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Thu, Mar 11, 2010, 23:50
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Will Israel fall if we cut off their aid? Of is continuing to tell them we have their back while they intentionally embarrass the US in the longer interest of peace?
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| | | 149 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Fri, Mar 12, 2010, 01:37
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i think before cutting them off, they need the sternest of stern warnings, that they can't antagonize the US like this. and if they do, they'll be treated like other nations that do that.
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| | | 150 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Fri, Mar 12, 2010, 08:46
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as a follow up, what's happening in Israel is a good example of what happens when a relatively small, but loud and influential religious segment is allowed to control the government.
While i do hold firm that the Palestinians need to bend over backwards and do even more than Israel does in the peace effort, Israel taking steps AWAY from the table obviously does does not help.
the policy of this level of building is flawed at this point in time - which has been marked by a relatively lull in in violance - and the timing of the announcement is atrocious.
Israel has always seemed to lack behind the Palestinians in the PR game - but now she is just making stupid moves that aren't even PR related.
The below paragraph, from this article, puts the peace process problems in a nutshell...
To get a sense of the hopelessness of the situation it's instructive to consider that Biden was trying to ensure the "proximity talks" are not about any future Palestinian state. Proximity talks is a passive name for a desperate concept.
After a year of being strong-armed by Washington, Israelis and Palestinians refuse to meet face to face but may agree to have special envoy George Mitchell talk to an Israeli minister in Jerusalem, then drive 20 minutes to Ramallah and tell a Palestinian counterpart what the Israeli said.
He would then get back into his bullet-proof car, drive to Jerusalem and tell the Israeli what the Palestinian said.
The man who helped resolve the Northern Ireland conflict would be reduced to a human pigeon if these "talks" ever begin.
it's an awful situation. it saddens me that the religious right has convinced Israel that the key to her survival is build build build.
Yes, sitting down with terrorists - especially those who really don't want to sit down with you either - and at least in part giving them what they want - is not an easy thing. And I'm not even sure what Israel should give up - if anything - at this point.
But what Israel should not be doing is taking steps to make peace discussions even harder, nor should she be pushing her biggest and most important ally into a corner where the US is faced with having to make some awful and horrendous decisions that could have disasterous effects on world peace for generations to come.
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| | | 151 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Sat, Mar 13, 2010, 17:32
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Netanyahu contacts Merkel, Berlusconi about settlement plans
The Israeli prime minister told Merkel and Berlusconi that his government has "taken adequate measures so that such a regrettable incident does not occur again," the source added.
The announcement triggered the ire of the international community, Palestinians and Arab countries, with a rare condemnation of Israel by the United States.
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| | | 153 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Sat, Mar 13, 2010, 20:33
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i do hope it's something that both countries can put behind them, and hopefully a lesson will be learned by Israel. i feel like they are playing with fire, and seeing just how far they can push the US.
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| | | 155 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Wed, Mar 17, 2010, 10:29
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Gen Petraeus with some commonsense: "The conflict foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel", The Israeli-Palestinian conflict makes it harder for the US to affect peace among Arab nations elsewhere.
The pro-Israel lobby's solution is to tell the US to shut up and support whatever Israel wants to do. Clearly, a US made to look less like Israel's peace partner and more like Israel's enabler makes is harder to sue for peace in countries which generate terrorists.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but Israel's insistence on putting new settlements into areas under negotiation puts American soldier lives at risk.
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| | |
| | | 157 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Mon, May 31, 2010, 09:55
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Someone please explain to me why we enable this.
Someone please explain to me why some folks are so quick to jump to conclusions.
early reports are indicating that the Israeli soldiers were attacked with a variety of weapons when they boarded the ships, and were also met with gunfire from weapons taken from attacked soldiers.
now, that may or not be true. if the soldiers attacked unprovoked, then Israel has a tremendous problem on her hands, and one large enough that it could make even the country's most ardent supporters question their motives.
but if these soldiers were attacked - while preventing these boats from violating a ban that has been in place for years - then are they not allowed to defend themselves?
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| | | 158 | bibA
ID: 4845319
Mon, May 31, 2010, 10:06
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To some it would seem that Israel simply does not know what the word overreact means. Time after time they seem to use such unnecessary force.
In this instance, we will be left with the eternal two sides of an argument which will have vastly differing tales to tell.
I already heard an Israeli diplomat state that the violence was a result of confronting rioters. Were they rioting on all 6 boats prior to being boarded by commandos?
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| | | 159 | Mith
ID: 482583111
Mon, May 31, 2010, 10:32
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some folks are so quick to jump to conclusions
That would be you, tree, jumping to whatever conclusions you've made about what I think.
I couldn't care less about your pathetic Israeli-apologist excuses. Frankly, even if every disputed detail turns out to be the way Israel explains it, they're still way off base.
6 boats, hundreds of civilian passengers on a humanitarian mission - and exactly two pistols among them.
Israel sent warships and helicopters to meet the floatilla. Even if they fired on the Israelis the moment they were in range, are you telling me the Israeli military can't tell the difference between 2 handguns among 600 people and a credible threat? Given both sides' reports, I can't imagine a way for that situation to have gone down for it to be necessary to kill at least 10 people.
They were civilians. They didn't even wait until they were in sraeli water.
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| | | 160 | Mith
ID: 482583111
Mon, May 31, 2010, 10:56
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IDF released video of the incident
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| | | 161 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Mon, May 31, 2010, 11:12
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That would be you, tree, jumping to whatever conclusions you've made about what I think.
so, tell me. when you say "why do we enable this?", what do you mean? enable people to drive boats? to carry guns? to attack civilians? to defend its borders?
Israel sent warships and helicopters to meet the floatilla. Even if they fired on the Israelis the moment they were in range, are you telling me the Israeli military can't tell the difference between 2 handguns among 600 people and a credible threat?
actually, it was considerably less than 600 people since early reports are that the incident took place on ONE boat.
They were civilians.
if the Israeli soldiers are fired upon, they shouldn't fire back? the minute the "civilians" start shooting, they lose the right to claim "we're innocent civilians," because as far as i'm concerned, guns have one purpose - to kill.
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| | | 162 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Mon, May 31, 2010, 11:13
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I couldn't care less about your pathetic Israeli-apologist excuses.
and of course you couldn't care less, because you couldn't even care to read, since i was very clear in saying we should wait to see how this plays out.
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| | | 163 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Mon, May 31, 2010, 11:47
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Plays out? The latest in a series of Israeli belligerence? The way this "plays out" for Israel is the extermination of those currently living in the West Bank.
A good take, IMO.
Meanwhile, J Street has it's priorities in order: A credible, independent commission appointed by the Israeli government should provide the world with a full and complete report into the causes and circumstances surrounding the day's events and establish responsibility for the violence and bloodshed.
Of course. We must work the media now.
Meanwhile, the Israeli PM, who was crowing just a few days ago about not giving an inch to Obama, cancels his visit to the White House. Pretty convenient, I think.
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| | | 164 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Mon, May 31, 2010, 12:28
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Plays out?
yea - right now, there is more than one story, including the one where the soldiers were attacked immediately upon boarding.
A credible, independent commission appointed by the Israeli government should provide the world with a full and complete report into the causes and circumstances surrounding the day's events and establish responsibility for the violence and bloodshed.
i have no issues with this whatsoever.
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| | | 165 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Mon, May 31, 2010, 13:06
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Yes, they were attacked by two pistols and, some clubs and knives. After their commandos stormed the boats in international waters. Lets concede, for a moment, that the flotilla members defended themselves. This shows what, exactly? How does this "play out" any differently?
I have no issues with this whatsoever.
Of course you don't. There's nothing like a government appointing a commission to investigate itself to say "independent" and "credible" to me.
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| | | 166 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Mon, May 31, 2010, 13:09
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when you say "why do we enable this?", what do you mean?
The oppression of a people at the hands of a first world military power. Those civilians were needlessly killed in enforcment of a blockade of all humanitarian aid to Gaza.
actually, it was considerably less than 600 people since early reports are that the incident took place on ONE boat.
600 was a guess that I'll stick with, as it has been reported that there were 700 people in total, with the majority of them on the boat that was attacked.
Moreover, the actual ratio of people to firearms turns out to have been (literally) infinitely higher than that, as I read at the Jerusalem Post that the two recovered handguns were actually wrested from Israeli soldiers who had rappelled down to the boat on ropes anchored to a helicopter.
Obviously, the Israelis couldn't have been fired upon before attacking the boat if the only guns the civilians had were taken from the soldiers who came on board.
Pathetitc.
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| | | 167 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Mon, May 31, 2010, 14:17
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I have no issues with this whatsoever.
Of course you don't. There's nothing like a government appointing a commission to investigate itself to say "independent" and "credible" to me.
fair enough. i made a mistake and didn't read your words carefully enough and i'll take responsibility for that.
what i was ATTEMPTING to agree with - what i have no problem with - is the following, based on your words:
A credible, independent commission appointed by the Israeli government should provide the world with a full and complete report into the causes and circumstances surrounding the day's events and establish responsibility for the violence and bloodshed.
so, my apologies on that. but i have absolutely no problem with an independent commission not related to the Israeli government (nor the UN) to look into this.
Those civilians were needlessly killed in enforcment of a blockade of all humanitarian aid to Gaza.
are you arguing the blockade, or the fact these folks violated it. if there was some sort of blockade on our shores, and group of "north korean humanitarians" attempted to go through the blockade, would you fault the US military for stopping it?
Obviously, the Israelis couldn't have been fired upon before attacking the boat if the only guns the civilians had were taken from the soldiers who came on board.
and therein doth the problem lie. you judge before you even know the story - "attacking the boat"? as far as we know, they didn't attack - and in fact, the reports are coming that as soon as they boarded, they were attacked by those on the boat.
this reminds me of Rachel Corrie - people were so quick to judge israel, and were so quick to say the bulldozer driver intentionally tried to hit her.
and then video footage and other information came out to the point that even a magazine on the far left such as Mother Jones acknowledged that the driver of the bulldozer may actually have not even known she was there.
all i am saying is to not be so quick to judge, and yet you want to stand there, thousands of miles away, believing one side and one side only because that is the side you support - and be judge, jury, and executioner.
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| | | 168 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Mon, May 31, 2010, 14:53
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if there was some sort of blockade on our shores, and group of "north korean humanitarians" attempted to go through the blockade, would you fault the US military for stopping it?
I would never support any American blockade of humanitarian aid much less any attempt to militarily enforce it, much less one that leads to multiple civbilian deaths.
"attacking the boat"? as far as we know, they didn't attack
I'm aware that a lifetime of compromising your ethics and integrity in defense of Israel's aggressive and oppressive tactics has twisted up on the matter but commandos rappelling down a rope from a helicopter onto the deck of a private boat surrounded by military ships in internatinal waters *is* an attack.
As usual, tree, you're the one resorting to unfounded "judgements" to make your case.
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| | | 169 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Mon, May 31, 2010, 15:03
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this reminds me of Rachel Corrie
I don't doubt this. But you sound like Baldwin when it comes to defending an overzealous right-wing government acting like goons.
I'm willing to concede everything that the Israeli government says to be true, because it still shows an out-of-control, attack-first mentality.
And it does this because it knows its friends (principally, American Jews) will enable them by excusing virtually everything and anything they do.
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| | | 170 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Mon, May 31, 2010, 15:07
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I'm willing to concede everything that the Israeli government says to be true
Well...
YNet:The forces hurled stun grenades, yet the rioters on the top deck, whose number swelled up to 30 by that time, kept on beating up about 30 commandos who kept gliding their way one by one from the helicopter. At one point, the attackers nabbed one commando, wrested away his handgun, and threw him down from the top deck to the lower deck, 30 feet below. The soldier sustained a serious head wound and lost his consciousness. Only after this injury did Flotilla 13 troops ask for permission to use live fire.
The commander approved it: You can go ahead and fire. The soldiers pulled out their handguns and started shooting at the rioters’ legs, a move that ultimately neutralized them. Meanwhile, the rioters started to fire back at the commandos. ...
It appears that the error in planning the operation was the estimate that passengers were indeed political activists and members of humanitarian groups who seek a political provocation, but would not resort to brutal violence. The soldiers thought they will encounter Bilin-style violence; instead, they got Bangkok. The forces that disembarked from the helicopters were few; just dozens of troops – not enough to contend with the large group awaiting them. Sullivan: So 30 activists managed to beat up 30 armed commandos! Here's also a lovely linguistic touch: "rioters." Rioters? These were people on their own boat in international waters, resisting a military attack. That makes them rioters? In that word alone, you get a glimpse into the Israeli mindset.
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| | | 171 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Mon, May 31, 2010, 15:11
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And look what the official government response says: we decided to board them in international waters with commandos. And when the method we chose to board them didn't work, we shot at them.
Nothing the first version says (except the shading of how they are referring to the actors) is factually untrue. And it still makes them look bad.
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| | | 172 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Mon, May 31, 2010, 15:12
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And by the way, tree, Turkey, the unofficial sponsor of the humanitarian mission, is an ally of Israel. Offering an hypothetical in comparison about an American blockade confronting "north korean humanitarians", is yet another example of the dishonest lengths you will go in attempt to cover Israel's atrocious behavior and disregard for human life. You're far more invested in defending that regime than you are in honesty.
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| | | 173 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Mon, May 31, 2010, 15:44
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again - you choose to rush to judgment. i'm preferring to read reports and see how things continue to play out.
i've read several reports that say the Israelis boarded the ships, and were attacked with pipes, thrown from higher decks to lower decks, and so on.
should the soldiers have allowed their fellow troops to be potentially beaten to death? what on earth should they have done?
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| | | 174 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Mon, May 31, 2010, 15:46
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I'm aware that a lifetime of compromising your ethics and integrity in defense of Israel's aggressive and oppressive
and i'm aware that a lifetime have having the wool pulled over your eyes by a bunch of terrorists makes you completely ignorant to a lot of facts - it's like you forget that israel spent decades having its civilians murdered by palestinian terrorists - and it didn't matter if it was in israel or germany or uganda or wherever, it seemed to happen regularly - and forced israel to take drastic measures.
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| | | 175 | nerveclinic
ID: 105222
Mon, May 31, 2010, 16:16
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if there was some sort of blockade on our shores, and group of "north korean humanitarians" attempted to go through the
blockade, would you fault the US military for stopping it?
That's a desperate analogy that makes no sense.
Logic 101.
blockade on our shores
Country A (USA) is Blockaded?
Group of Humanitarians group B attempts to bring aid to country A (USA)
And the military from country A blocks group B from bringing humanitarian aid to country A?
Huh?
But that is not analogous.
Country A, Israel, is blocking humanitarian supplies from country B Palestine (And has been for years) so your analogy is
pointless.
What does people from many countries, many allies of the USA, bringing humanitarian aid to the Palestinians have any
relationship to North Korea? Your desperate. You've been an apologist for these thugs for so long and the emperor has no clothes.
Most of the world now recognizes that Israel = Mafia
They attacked these boats in international waters which is a crime by the way.
If the Israeli Army was attacked o these boats, the people on the boat had every right to do so. The Israeli military was
trespassing on their ship in international waters which is a serious crime. The people had a right to defend themselves from these thugs.
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| | | 176 | nerveclinic
ID: 105222
Mon, May 31, 2010, 16:29
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it's like you forget that israel spent decades having its civilians murdered by palestinian terrorists
How could we forget, you have to keep bringing up the past to try to justify the terrorism Israel is committing.
Of course that was years ago, now we just have Israelis killing civilians, and keeping medicine and food away from a civilian population.
BBC interviewed Israeli soldiers after the last incursion into Gaza who claimed they were intentionally killing civilians, and not just
because Hamas was hiding behind them. This was on BBC not Al Jazera.
They've been a terrorist nation for a long time, it's just become more obvious now.
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| | | 177 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Mon, May 31, 2010, 16:30
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what on earth should they have done?
They should not have boarded the boats. Simple enough?
Here's an analogy for you: Police storm a house without warning, a man in the house shoots one of the police. The police them start opening fire throughout the house to subdue everyone.
After all, what should the police have done?
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| | | 178 | nerveclinic
ID: 105222
Mon, May 31, 2010, 16:38
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The people on the boats didn't even have guns.
1) Israeli army illegally boards boat in International waters.
2) Any guns used against the Illegally trespassing Israeli army were their own guns according to Israeli government statements
So they illegally and aggressively board a boat in international waters, with guns, and claim they were shot by their own guns, and we are supposed to be
sympathetic?
If a pirate boards a boat in international waters, with weapons, and are killed with their own weapon during the illegal seizure would we be concerned.
Yet in the end it's 9 dead members of the flotilla, and no dead Israelis, how surprised are we at that?
Israel = Mafia
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| | | 180 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Mon, May 31, 2010, 17:01
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SulllivanA simple point. The violence by the activists is pretty abhorrent. These are not followers of Gandhi or MLK Jr. But the violence is not fatal to anyone and it is in response to a dawn commando raid by armed soldiers. They are engaging in self-defense. More to the point: theya r civilians confronting one of the best militaries in the world. They killed no soldiers; their weapons were improvised; the death toll in the fight is now deemed to be up to 19 - all civilians.
It staggers me to read defenses of what the Israelis have done. They attacked a civilian flotilla in international waters breaking no law. When they met fierce if asymmetric resistance, they opened fire. And we are now being asked to regard the Israelis as the victims.
Seriously.
This is like a mini-Gaza all over again. The Israelis don't seem to grasp that Western militaries don't get to murder large numbers of civilians because they don't like them, or because they could, on a far tinier scale, hurt Israelis. And you sure don't have a right to kill them because they resist having their ship commandeered, in international waters. The Israelis seem to be making decisions as if they can get away with anything. It's time the US reminded them in ways they cannot mistake that they cannot.
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| | | 181 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Mon, May 31, 2010, 17:05
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How could we forget, you have to keep bringing up the past ...
you're damned straight - my people have a saying "never again". we were murdered for being jewish, and we've been murdered for being jewish for CENTURIES.
we should forget thousands of years because it's inconvenient to the story you want to re-write?
They should not have boarded the boats. Simple enough?
they boarded SIX boats. five, without incident. what was different about this one? so far, it looks like those on the boats attacked those who were boarding.
Here's an analogy for you: Police storm a house without warning, a man in the house shoots one of the police. The police them start opening fire throughout the house to subdue everyone.
After all, what should the police have done?
not a good analogy.
Israel had warned these ships to not breach the blockade.
additionally, there is a world of difference between a ship, and a house. based on the chaos we see in the video, it was just that, chaos.
it also doesn't help the cause of those on the boat that they had weapons on board.
i'd be curious as to whether any weapons were found on the other 5 boats. sure seems to me that the people on this boat had zero desire for peaceful resistance - if they had, they would have passively dropped to the floor the minute the israelis landed on their boat, instead of trying to kill them.
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| | | 182 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Mon, May 31, 2010, 17:45
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GreenwaldThe one silver lining from these incidents is that the real face of Israel becomes increasingly revealed and undeniable. Not even the most intense propaganda systems can prettify a lethal military attack on ships carrying civilians and humanitarian aid to people living in some of the most wretched and tragic conditions anywhere in the world. It is crystal clear to anyone who looks what Israel has become, and the only question left is how will the rest of the world -- beginning with their American patrons -- will react.
As Americans suffer extreme cuts in education for their own children and a further deterioration in basic economic security (including Social Security), will they continue to acquiesce to the transfer of billions of dollars every year to the Israelis, who -- unlike Americans -- enjoy full, universal health care coverage? How is the revulsion justifiably provoked by this latest Israeli crime going to impact American efforts in the Muslim world (as but one of many examples to come, Al Jazeera reports that "Moqtada al-Sadr has called for a large anti-Israel rally across from the Green Zone in Baghdad")? How much longer will Americans be willing to pay the extreme prices for its endlessly entangled "alliance" with its prime Middle Eastern client state, whose capacity for criminal and inhumane acts appears limitless?
* * * * *
On a day when the meaning of "heroism" is often discussed, the people on these ships who tried to deliver aid to Gazans, knowing that they could easily find themselves in a confrontation with the Israeli Navy but doing it anyway in order to bring attention to the extraordinary injustice and cruelty of the blockade, are pure, unadulterated heroes.
UPDATE: Regarding the blockade of Gaza itself -- about which "Dov Weisglass, an adviser to Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister [said when it was first imposed]: 'The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger'" -- this post documents just some of the effects, with ample links to U.N. reports, including:
* since the intensification of the siege in June 2007, "the formal economy in Gaza has collapsed" (More than 80 UN and aid agencies [.pdf])
* "61% of people in the Gaza Strip are … food insecure," of which "65% are children under 18 years" (UN FAO)
* since June 2007, "the number of Palestine refugees unable to access food and lacking the means to purchase even the most basic items, such as soap, school stationery and safe drinking water, has tripled" (UNRWA)
* "in February 2009, the level of anemia in babies (9-12 months) was as high as 65.5%" (UN FAO)
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| | | 183 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Mon, May 31, 2010, 17:58
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On the blockade
It's an awful lot easier to read if you keep telling yourself that these people are just "a bunch of terrorists."
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| | | 184 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Mon, May 31, 2010, 18:03
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well, what are we discussing? the blockade, or people attacking israeli soldiers?
if you'd like to have a conversation about the blockade, i'd be willing to have that conversation.
and yea, they elected a bunch of terrorists as their leaders - if we elected Tim McVeigh and Eric Rudolph as our president and vice-president, that might make us look like we'd elected a bunch of terrorists to lead us.
but. again, if you want to have a conversation about the blockade, do let me know, and we can have one.
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| | | 185 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Mon, May 31, 2010, 18:07
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Jeffrey Goldberg On the Disappearance of Jewish Wisdom, Far Out at Sea
May 31 2010, 11:53 AM ET
I had breakfast this very unhappy morning in Jerusalem with Daniel Gordis, the author of many wise books, including one I just began reading, "Saving Israel: How the Jewish People Can Win a War That May Never End." Gordis opens the first chapter with a quote from the Babylonian Talmud: "Who is wise? The one who can foresee consequences."
There is a word in Yiddish, seichel, which means wisdom, but it also means more than that: It connotes ingenuity, creativity, subtlety, nuance. Jews have always needed seichel to survive in this world; a person in possession of a Yiddishe kop, a "Jewish head," is someone who has seichel, someone who looks for a clever way out of problems, someone who understands that the most direct way -- blunt force, for instance -- often represents the least elegant solution, a person who can foresee consequences of his actions.
I don't know yet exactly what happened at sea when a group of Israeli commandos boarded a ship packed with not-exactly-Gandhi-like anti-Israel protesters. I learned from the Second Intifada (specifically, the story of the non-massacre at Jenin) not to rush to judgment without a full set of facts (yes, I know what you are thinking: So why have a blog?). I'm trying to figure out this story for myself. But I will say this: What I know already makes me worried for the future of Israel, a worry I feel in a deeper way than I think I have ever felt before. The Jewish people have survived this long in part because of the vision of their leaders, men and women who were able to intuit what was possible and what was impossible. Where is this vision today? Israel may face, in the coming year, a threat to its existence the likes of which it has not experienced before: A theologically-motivated regional superpower with a nuclear arsenal. It faces another existential threat as well, from forces arguing that Israel's morally disastrous settlement policy fatally undermines the very idea of a Jewish state. Is Israel ready to deploy seichel in these battles, rather than mere force? Fat chance.
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| | | 186 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Mon, May 31, 2010, 18:12
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Isael had warned these ships to not breach the blockade.
And if those ships had done so, you'd actually have a case. As it is, you've got nothing. They attacked ships in international waters who had broken no law.
Now you are arguing that those people somehow are to blame because they had weapons. Sad. Really sad. Israel has become a bully.
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| | | 187 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Mon, May 31, 2010, 18:16
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Tree while it may be easier for you to compartmentalize the oppressive history of of the Israeli regime by seperating it's abuses and assaults so as not to have to deal with the greater picture all at once, it's obvious to everyone who's brain isn't deluded with desperation for finding a way to reconcile murder with something resembling morality, the blockade has everything to do with the attack on the floatilla. The blockade is the reason the floatilla set sail, and the blockade is the reason Israel decided to attack the floatila.
You're so twisted up trying to defend this atrocity, you don't even realize that while you insist on the one hand that you can't have this discussion without first considering thousands of years of history, from the other side of your mouth you're now demanding that the attack on the humanitarian mission is an altogether a different subject from the blockade it sought to breach.
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| | | 188 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Mon, May 31, 2010, 18:37
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you don't even realize that while you insist on the one hand that you can't have this discussion without first considering thousands of years of history, from the other side of your mouth you're now demanding that the attack on the humanitarian mission is an altogether a different subject from the blockade it sought to breach.
i'm not demanding it all. i realize they are interwined. but while the blockade may not be ideal, it does exist, and breaching it present a problem for Israel - if they allow such a breach, then what?
and now, while the pundits talk, more information and video filters in - including two videos where those on the boat lay in wait for the soldiers, and attacked them as soon as they landed on the boat:
and
these are BRUTAL BRUTAL attacks. it's being reported that the soldiers expected minor responses from the protesters, so the first ones landing were equipped only with anti-riot paintball guns. so, the protesters weren't even met with full scale weaponry initialy.
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| | | 189 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Mon, May 31, 2010, 18:37
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even more damning than the video is a first-hand account of what happened from reporter Ron Ben-Yishai.
it should be noted that Ben-Yishai is no "ordinary" reporter. he's won multiple awards, including a life-time achievement award. He is a former soldier. he was also the reporter who informed Ariel Sharon of the Sabra and Shatila massacre and was the first to enter the scene.
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| | | 192 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Mon, May 31, 2010, 18:44
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Post 184: well, what are we discussing? the blockade, or people attacking israeli soldiers?
Post 188: i realize they are interwined.
and now, while the pundits talk, more information and video filters in
Actually I already posted the first video in #160, like 8 hours ago.
"Brutal" is subjective, but if you insist, attacks resulting in a couple of injuries are far less brutal than attacks resulting in up to 19 deaths, you know? Of course on the brutality scale, all that brutality brutally pales in brutal comparison to the brutal impact of the brutal blockade.
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| | | 193 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Mon, May 31, 2010, 18:47
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Actually I already posted the first video in #160, like 8 hours ago.
nope. these are different videos.
"Brutal" is subjective, but if you insist, attacks resulting in a couple of injuries are far less brutal than attacks resulting in up to 19 deaths, you know? Of course on the brutality scale, all that brutality brutally pales in brutal comparison to the brutal impact of the brutal blockade.
and all that compares to the centuries of murder jews have suffered at the hands of others - including Palestinian terrorists over the last 60+ years.
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| | | 194 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Mon, May 31, 2010, 18:50
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Isael had warned these ships to not breach the blockade.
And if those ships had done so, you'd actually have a case. As it is, you've got nothing. They attacked ships in international waters who had broken no law.
which, they are allowed to do.
San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea
...according to the San Remo Manual that governs international humanitarian law, it is permissible under rule 67(a) to attack neutral vessels on the high seas when the vessels "are believed on reasonable grounds to be carrying contraband or breaching a blockade, and after prior warning they intentionally and clearly refuse to stop, or intentionally and clearly resist visit, search or capture."
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| | | 195 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Mon, May 31, 2010, 18:51
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You call the footage, "damning." What is it you think they prove that hasn't already been established in this discussion?
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| | | 196 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Mon, May 31, 2010, 18:59
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What is it you think they prove that hasn't already been established in this discussion?
that there was more to this than initially met the eye? that these people were interested in provoking an armed confrontation? that they were HARDLY non-violent, and in fact were the aggressors that escalated the incident into violence? that they were warned ahead of time that they were violating the embargo?
MLK would have laid down and been arrested. Gandhi would have done the same. these protesters were hardly non-violent - they were ready to start some violence from the word go.
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| | | 197 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Mon, May 31, 2010, 19:06
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it should be noted...
Israel's policy is to allow all humanitarian goods to enter Gaza, said Netanyahu, who canceled his trip to Washington to return to Israel to manage the crisis.
Gaza has become a base for Hamas terrorists, backed by Iran, who have fired "thousands of rockets" into Israel, Netanyahu said.
"What we want to prevent coming into Gaza are rockets, missiles, explosives and war material that could be used to attack our civilians," he said. "This is an ongoing policy, and it was the one that guided our action" against the six ships that made up the flotilla.
People aboard five of the six ships agreed to let Israeli soldiers search through their goods for possible weapons, Netanyahu said.
but then there was the sixth ship...why didn't they act as their brethren on the other ships did? if they had, their non-violent way of doing things would have remained non-violent. instead, they sought out violence.
"It should be emphasized that both the State of Israel and the IDF made repeated calls to the flotilla, telling them that all goods and humanitarian aid could be transferred according to the secure and approved methods in place today, as is done on a near daily basis," the Israel Defense Forces said in a written statement.
"Unfortunately, this was not the case. IDF naval forces were met with premeditated violence, evident by the activists' use of clubs, metal rods and knives, as well as the firing of two weapons stolen from the soldiers, causing for defensive action on behalf of the forces who felt their lives were endangered."
for whatever reason, those on the 6th boat had different intentions than the other protesters, and it seems that intention was to cause violence and do harm.
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| | | 198 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Mon, May 31, 2010, 19:10
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The two reasons why using the Remo manual is desperation defined:
-the rule is intended to apply to acts that occur during war
-even is Israel is calling this all a "war" (as they seem to be, section 102 of that document:
102 The declaration or establishment of a blockade is prohibited if:
(a) it has the sole purpose of starving the civilian population or denying it other objects essential for its survival;or
(b) the damage to the civilian population is, or may be expected to be, excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated from the blockade.
Don't tell me you're going to selectively apply San Remo as well.
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| | | 199 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Mon, May 31, 2010, 19:49
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What is it you think they prove that hasn't already been established in this discussion?
Tree: that there was more to this than initially met the eye?
Nope, that was already pretty well established though all the nonsense about jumping to conclusions.
that these people were interested in provoking an armed confrontation?
Nope, first sentence of post 180.
that they were HARDLY non-violent
Nope, we saw that in post 160.
and in fact were the aggressors that escalated the incident into violence?
Wrong again, attempting to forcefully commandeer a boat is, in in and of itself, an act of violent aggression.
but then there was the sixth ship...why didn't they act as their brethren on the other ships did? if they had, their non-violent way of doing things would have remained non-violent. instead, they sought out violence.
Actually they escalated an act of aggression against a far superior enemy.
But if you're already too twisted and warped to understand that commandeering a boat against the will of crew and passangers is an act of aggression, you're way too far gone to bother with any further. You might as well go out and join the narcotics division in some police department in Missouri. Same difference, except Israel kills a lot more people.
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| | | 200 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Mon, May 31, 2010, 20:04
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102 The declaration or establishment of a blockade is prohibited if:
(a) it has the sole purpose of starving the civilian population or denying it other objects essential for its survival;or
(b) the damage to the civilian population is, or may be expected to be, excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated from the blockade.
israel isn't preventing things from going into Gaza - other than weaponry. they stopped those ships for a reason.
i notice no one is answering the bigger questions - why did just one of the ships choose to get violent, and what of the video footage? does it mean nothing?
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| | | 201 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Mon, May 31, 2010, 20:44
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israel isn't preventing things from going into Gaza - other than weaponry.
This is a lie. See post 183.
Tree's big questions:
why did just one of the ships choose to get violent
600 of the 700 people involved were on the one ship. I suspect that the other ships, which likely contained most of the aid, were occupied by paid crew who were not necessarily there for political reasons, or at least not as invested.
It's also possible that the boat carrying most of the people was simply the first one boarded, and that after the violence that took place there, the other's complied out of fear.
and what of the video footage? does it mean nothing?
I'll assume you typed that before reading #199.
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| | | 202 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Mon, May 31, 2010, 20:58
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i notice no one is answering the bigger questions. why did just one of the ships choose to get violent, and what of the video footage? does it mean nothing?
Virtually all my posts on this issue point to the fact that the people on the boat were protecting themselves in international waters. I have no idea what the other ships were doing. If they chose to bend over while armed commandos took them over that, I suppose, is there choice. It doesn't mean there is some kind of conspiracy in which the lead boat chose to fight back.
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| | | 203 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Mon, May 31, 2010, 21:20
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Virtually all my posts on this issue point to the fact that the people on the boat were protecting themselves in international waters.
and they claim they were peaceful protesters. they clearly wanted an armed confrontation, and they got one.
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| | | 204 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Mon, May 31, 2010, 21:24
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U.S. wants ‘full and credible’ Israeli inquiry into flotilla clash
Upon boarding the largest ship, the Marmara, run by IHH, a Turkish humanitarian relief fund with a radical Islamic anti-Western orientation, the naval forces were attacked with metal clubs and knives, as well as live fire, according to the Israeli army.
Officials with groups backing the flotilla denied such attacks, although the army released video evidence.
this is also telling - that the Hamas backed group who organized the flotilla denies there were attacks by the "protesters", despite video evidence that tells otherwise.
something is definitely fishy on the part of the protesters, and as i've been saying all along, it bears further examination.
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| | | 205 | DWetzel
ID: 33337117
Mon, May 31, 2010, 22:19
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203 is just silly. Who boarded who, instead?
Tree, if this were any other country on Earth (including the one we live in) doing this, you'd be calling for heads to roll.
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| | | 206 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Mon, May 31, 2010, 22:37
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#205: Exactly. Blaming those who were boarded seems like a GOP tactic. What's next: Japanese whaling vessels are now free to spear Greenpeace boat operators?
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| | | 207 | bibA
ID: 274453121
Mon, May 31, 2010, 22:46
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Tree, you keep showing and referring to videos which show people on board using clubs etc. These videos do look somewhat violent. But think perspective here. What would your reaction be to videos which show the victims being shot. We haven't heard yet how many were actually shot, but it is not as if this was some kind of fire fight where two sides were exchanging gunfire, it probably was just the one side.
Speaking of video showing actual shooting, if it exists, and it probably does, it is undoubtedly now in Israeli hands. What are the odds that THESE videos will be released to the world media?
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| | | 208 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 00:11
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What would your reaction be to videos which show the victims being shot.
the attacks on the soldiers happened before anyone was shot.
where two sides were exchanging gunfire, it probably was just the one side.
well, since it's already been established that the protesters were the ones firing guns (albeit guns from the soldiers), we know which side was doing the shooting.
203 is just silly. Who boarded who, instead?
Tree, if this were any other country on Earth (including the one we live in) doing this, you'd be calling for heads to roll.
not at all. this was a group that refused to recognize a blockade and embargo, ignored warnings from the Israeli Navy to stop, and then took it upon themselves to attack the soldiers instead of peacefully allow them to search, like the protesters on the other five boats did.
in my mind, the people on this boat either wanted armed confrontation, or they had something to hide.
a good write up on what Israel has to deal with...
If Israel truly had wanted to “massacre” the Hamas sympathizers and fellow travellers aboard a six-ship Gaza-bound flotilla, the operation would not have been complicated. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) would have used the trusty North Korean solution: Torpedo the ships and watch them sink to the bottom of the sea.
Even Israel arguably would have been within its rights to seize and destroy a ship being sent toward Gazan waters in defiance of an embargo, especially after giving abundant warnings to the leaders of the largely Turkish-based Free Gaza Movement, which had sent the flotilla, that they would not be permitted to sail to Hamas-controlled territory.
But that’s not how Israel operates. Instead, it sent commandos to seize control of the ships and bring them safely to Israeli waters. Israeli officials had even prepared air-conditioned accommodations for the activists, and had made arrangements to deliver legitimate aid supplies to Gaza.
the first point is a doozy. North Korea torpedoes and sinks a ship, and i don't know that one word was said on these boards.
but israel tries to enforce its blockade and defends itself when its met armed resistance, and people spend all day angrily condemning her, not even bothering to wait for all the information to come in.
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| | | 209 | Boldwin
ID: 564353010
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 00:48
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North Korea torpedoes and sinks a ship, and i don't know that one word was said on these boards.
Great point. I actually know a guy on the team investigating that. At least on a 'we play the same internet game' way.
There are just some fundamentally disproportionate ways the media covers things and this is one of them.
Now Tree knows how I feel when the media fans every spark potentially damaging to conservatism into a never ending firestorm while looking the other way at liberal scandals.
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| | | 210 | nerveclinic
Leader
ID: 05047110
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 06:34
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North Korea torpedoes and sinks a ship, and I don't know that one word was said on these boards.
There's a number of reason for that.
1) At first no one said it was North Korea, they didn't make this claim until a couple weeks later. By then the situation was not raw.
2) If North Korea did it, it was a military ship near their border.
3) North Korea still insists they didn't do it.
4) They have requested to see the evidence but so far that has been refused and only South Korea and the USA has seen the evidence. After the weapons of mass destruction fiasco, I think the world wants a bit more evidence.
5) Incidents between the North and South have been ongoing for decades. Sinking a military ship would be a clear escalation but there's been live fire from both sides over the years including recently.
6) It wasn't a ship carrying humanitarian aid.
7) No video footage.
Really very different circumstances and understandable given the reason listed above why it would not generate the same interest.
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| | | 211 | Mith
ID: 482583111
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 08:16
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The point about NK is a fair one. I agree with some of Nerve's responses but the primary reason I hadn't brought up the issue is that there is no one here who is interested in defending NK. There's no point of contention, which means there isn't much to discuss, until Boldwin gets around to blaming liberals for whatever his imagination and Joseph Farrah can dream up regarding the issue.
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| | | 212 | Mith
ID: 482583111
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 08:19
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And of course... NK isn't using American taxpayer money when it attacks ships.
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| | | 213 | WiddleAvi
ID: 352232517
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 08:55
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I don't agree with Israel boarding the ship to begin with but can we agree that if it were you or I on the boat we would not have been standing over the soldiers beathing them with poles.
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| | | 214 | Khahan
ID: 373143013
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 09:30
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but can we agree that if it were you or I on the boat we would not have been standing over the soldiers beathing them with poles.
Uhhh, no I don't think we can agree on that. I'm either hiding trying to go unnoticed or defending myself. I'm not standing around idly to be shot by a 'non-lethal paintball type gun.'
Lets take all the emotion, politics, desire for one side or the other to be right/wrong out of this and look at the facts:
1. There is a trade embargo and blockade in place
2. The boat being boarded was in international waters but had made it clear its intention was break the barricade
3. The country maintaining the barricade sent military into international waters before the boat was at the barricade
4. That military vessel boarded these ships which were bound for the barricade in a military action.
5. The people on the ship defended themselves in international waters against a military attack
Sorry Tree, while I understand Israel wanting to make a point and take action they were simply wrong here. They had no business going out into international waters for this particular military action. If they had waited until the ship was in the barricade its a different story.
As for the claims of attacking soldiers from all accounts they were defending themselves. They are allowed to do that.
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| | | 215 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 09:36
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As for the claims of attacking soldiers from all accounts they were defending themselves. They are allowed to do that.
i disagree, especially based on the actions of those on the other ships.
Israel wanted to simply inspect to make sure there were no weapons being smuggled aboard - a large problem in that area, and the reason for the blockade in the first place.
the other 5 ships had no problem. the people on THIS ship chose to attack instead, hardly the actions of peaceful protesters.
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| | | 216 | DWetzel
ID: 278201415
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 10:18
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So we're into the pre-crimes division now? Preemptive military strikes against people that we're pretty sure are bad even though they have done nothing illegal yet?
You were completely in support of that about eight years ago, weren't you?
Just because five others didn't choose to exercise their legal right to defend themselves against borders doesn't mean the sixth one is wrong. If you get your home invaded, and you have a gun but decide not to fire at the home invaders, does that make them right to invade your home?
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| | | 217 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 10:32
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So we're into the pre-crimes division now? Preemptive military strikes against people that we're pretty sure are bad even though they have done nothing illegal yet?
ok, get your facts straight. not only wasn't this a military strike, but this wasn't the first time the Israelis had boarded ships from the Free Gaza Movement. They had boarded the ships in each of the last two flotillas.
this was, however, the first time that those on the ship attacked the soldiers.
it was the protesters who chose to escalate the situation. there's a fairly solid timeline from the CBC here...
(the timeline also brings up Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier kidnapped in 2006 and held in Gaza ever since. When will HE be returned to his family? where is the outcry over his kidnapping and captivity?)
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| | | 218 | Mith
ID: 482583111
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 10:35
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especially based on the actions of those on the other ships
This vacuous argument you've settled yourself behind the skirt of doesn't fool anyone.
Th emost likely reasons for why the other ships didn't defend themselves are listed in #201. Their compliance to being commandeered does not reflect in any way on the actions of those who did. There are a million documented conflicts in which some - but not all - of a group tried to defend themselves against their aggressor.
Those who chose to comply do not incriminate those who choose to defend themselves.
If exactly the same thing happened anyplace else in the world where a peole aer oppressed by their own government - humanitarians killed on their way to Sudan, North Korea, whatever, there would be no argument.
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| | | 219 | DWetzel
ID: 278201415
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 10:43
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"ok, get your facts straight. not only wasn't this a military strike"
Um, was it something done by the Israeli military? (Answer = yes)
Was it done legally? (Hint: answer = no).
End of discussion. I'm right, you're wrong.
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| | | 220 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 10:44
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Apparently Israel is now allowed to send commandos onto ships because they have been victims themselves in the past, MITH. Didn't you hear?
And so it goes on.
Israel got punked.
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| | | 221 | barilko6
ID: 5454619
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 10:46
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That is my question, and to be honest I haven't been following this as closely as you all have.
The question I have is: Did Israel have a legal right to board these ships that were in international waters. (I honestly don't know the answer, and would love a simple yes/no reply)
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| | | 222 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 10:48
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This vacuous argument you've settled yourself behind the skirt of doesn't fool anyone. The most likely reasons for why the other ships didn't defend themselves are listed in #201.
it's not a vacuous argument when even prior to this encounter, Israeli soldiers were allowed to peacefully land on the ship - the soldiers had no reason to believe that things would go any differently this time.
and more about the flotilla as the propaganda is filtered out....
Flotilla fiasco aboard the Mavi Marmara
Peace activists acted more like provocateurs
Was it a peace convoy or a propaganda stunt gone horribly wrong? Footage released from the activists themselves on the civilian supply vessel Mavi Marmara points to the latter. It shows one of their own with what appears to be a handgun. Another segment, again shot by the activists, shows an Israeli commando being beaten with a metal rod without firing back.
i mean, for God's sake, the footage provided by the people on the boat shows their own people with guns and on the offensive.
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| | | 223 | Mith
ID: 482583111
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 10:49
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it was the protesters who chose to escalate the situation.
Ever notice how Israel apologists will always choose curiously convenient starting points for when a conflict escalated?
You see it didn't escalate until after the Israeli commandos were rappelling down ropes from helicopters!
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| | | 224 | Mith
ID: 482583111
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 10:52
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prior to this encounter, Israeli soldiers were allowed to peacefully land on the ship
LOL.
They've allowed us to commandeer their boats before, so obviously we have their permission!
Hey he didn't fuss the first 3 times I took his wallet, so it was he who escalated the situation when he resisted the 4th time!
Just imagine what you could get away with...
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| | | 225 | Mith
ID: 482583111
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 10:56
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and more about the flotilla as the propaganda is filtered out....
See post 179.
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| | | 226 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 10:56
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They've allowed us to commandeer their boats before, so obviously we have their permission!
not at all. israel allowed the ships to port, and under the supervision offloaded the cargo and delivered it to Gaza.
keep making up "facts" without reading the whole story. your angry outbursts from the beginning of this discussion indicated you have no desire to actually even look at the situation, to accept the terrorist ties of the organizing group, to view the possibility that they attacked the soldiers, to view the possibility that they were hoping for an armed encounter, and so on.
Ever notice how Israel apologists will always choose curiously convenient starting points for when a conflict escalated?
You see it didn't escalate until after the Israeli commandos were rappelling down ropes from helicopters!
which they had done before, with no incident. truly non-violent protesters would not have responded with violence.
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| | |
| | | 228 | Mith
ID: 482583111
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 11:05
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and under the supervision offloaded the cargo and delivered it to Gaza
Wrong. They delivered whatever cago they chose to approve to Gaza.
keep making up "facts" without reading the whole story.
Now you're calling me a liar? What fabrication have I brought to the discussion?
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| | | 229 | Mith
ID: 482583111
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 11:10
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Activists send new boat to challenge Gaza blockade
Heroes.
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| | | 230 | bibA
ID: 21510110
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 11:11
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The activists — among them members of the European Parliament, a Jewish Holocaust survivor and Swedish author — were detained incommunicado, ensuring no contradiction of Israel's version of Monday's events. Somehow I bet Tree justifies this.
It has been reported that the commandos who boarded first had been ordered to treat the raid as a "police action" and use only paintball rifles to control the crowds. Then we are told that guns were wrested from the soldiers, and were used to fire at soldiers by protesters. Maybe the reason no commandos were killed was because the weapons were paintball guns? But this begs the question, wasn't the response a bit disproportionate?
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| | | 231 | Mith
ID: 482583111
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 11:22
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No the commandos had handguns but were told to use them only if necessary.
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| | | 232 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 11:25
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So these flotilla members wanted confrontation, so this justifies a botches military operation by Israel? Nice. I would have thought, having lived in NYC, that activists of all sorts seek out confrontation. How the authorities respond to it is what is the measure of the thing. In this case, Israel knew what was coming beforehand and yet still acted as they did.
Meanwhile, in Gaza: "Ha ha! You've got no food!"
Conflict doesn't build character. It reveals it. And lately Israel's character has been rotten.
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| | | 233 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 11:38
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The activists — among them members of the European Parliament, a Jewish Holocaust survivor and Swedish author — were detained incommunicado, ensuring no contradiction of Israel's version of Monday's events. Somehow I bet Tree justifies this.
not true - while some of those you mention above were scheduled to be on the flotilla, they made the decision not to go, perhaps fearing that their fellow "peace activists" would be anything but peaceful.
re: 232 - a disgusting picture - while we don't know what those involved are shouting - there's no place for that behaviour. and i won't deny - many far right jews aren't a lot different that far right muslims or far right christians or really, any radical element.
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| | | 234 | Mith
ID: 482583111
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 11:39
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truly non-violent protesters would not have responded with violence
This is one of the reasons tree isn't capable of having an honest conversation. Who is claiming the activists were non-violent protestors?
In #160 I posted Israeli video that clearly showed the activists fighting the commandos.
In #180 I pasted an Andrew Sullivan excerpt in which he says; "The violence by the activists is pretty abhorrent. These are not followers of Gandhi or MLK Jr."
In #185 Jeffrey Goldberg; "a ship packed with not-exactly-Gandhi-like anti-Israel.
Who does he think he's fooling?
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| | | 235 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 11:42
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This is one of the reasons tree isn't capable of having an honest conversation. Who is claiming the activists were non-violent protestors?
the members of the flotilla and the Hamas-backed organization behind it. i mean, some of the first words coming from Free Gaza were The Israeli soldiers dropped onto the deck and “opened fire on sleeping civilians at four in the morning,” said Greta Berlin, a leader of the pro-Palestinian Free Gaza Movement, speaking by phone from Cyprus on Monday, and very clearly, there was no opening of firing on sleeping civilians. there were lies from the very beginning.
it should be noted that while i favor the blockade because Israel needs to do something to stem the flow of guns and other weapons into Gaza, i would prefer it be administered by someone else, because i would take the burden off the Israelis.
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| | | 236 | Mith
ID: 482583111
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 11:52
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?
Another red herring.
There is no one in this discussion taking the Free Gaza account at face value. In point of fact this discussion only once or twice touched on th epossibility that the Israeli account of events shouldn't necessarily be taken as fact.
i would prefer it be administered by someone else, because i would take the burden off the Israelis.
These people had their homes destroyed by the Israeli army and they aren't allowed to have concrete to fix their homes. By the time Israel does allow some of the food to get to Gaza, much of it has spoiled. They aren't allowed gasoline, their water is poisoned with sewage.
Who the F would be willing to administer another country's inhumane and oppressive policies to "relieve her of the burden"? Kim Jong Il?
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| | | 237 | bibA
ID: 21510110
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 12:03
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The activists — among them members of the European Parliament, a Jewish Holocaust survivor and Swedish author — were detained incommunicado, ensuring no contradiction of Israel's version of Monday's events. Somehow I bet Tree justifies this.
not true - while some of those you mention above were scheduled to be on the flotilla, they made the decision not to go
What is "not true"? That they are being held incommunicado? Or that the flotilla did not have anyone besides Hamas-backed violent protesters taking part?
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| | | 238 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 12:23
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What is "not true"? - the more prominent members you specific, were not on board.
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| | | 239 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 12:25
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Great write up, and a lot of what i just said...
What Israel needs is a way forward. Insisting on a continued blockade of humanitarian supplies is unsustainable. Instead, it should work with the international community to find a way to allow those supplies to reach Gaza without completely abandoning its efforts to isolate Hamas, perhaps by seeking the assistance of the United Nations or some other international body to organize the effort. No matter how justified Israelis may believe their actions to be, they have handed their opponents a massive public relations victory, and continuing the blockade in its present form is only going to make matters worse.
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| | | 240 | Mith
ID: 482583111
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 12:56
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No, that's the opposite of what you said.
The writer in that excerpt wants to end the blockade.
You just wrote 4 posts earlier that you favor it.
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| | | 241 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 13:08
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it should be noted that while i favor the blockade because Israel needs to do something to stem the flow of guns and other weapons into Gaza, i would prefer it be administered by someone else, because i would take the burden off the Israelis.
is what i said.
nstead, it should work with the international community to find a way to allow those supplies to reach Gaza without completely abandoning its efforts to isolate Hamas, perhaps by seeking the assistance of the United Nations or some other international body to organize the effort. No matter how justified Israelis may believe their actions to be, they have handed their opponents a massive public relations victory, and continuing the blockade in its present form is only going to make matters worse.
is what the writer said.
the writer didn't say the blockade should end, but rather, its present form doesnt work, which is what i also said.
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| | | 242 | Mith
ID: 482583111
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 13:13
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Tree:
i favor the blockade
Obviously, just because you offer your resons for why you favor it - and include the fact that you'd like someone else to conduct Israel's dirty work for her (laugh!) does not change the context of those 4 words.
Andy Green:
Insisting on a continued blockade of humanitarian supplies is unsustainable.
Did you thihnk no one would notice that you omitted taht ferom your excerpt in 241?
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| | | 243 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 13:18
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you're taking words out of context. completely.
i posted my entire thought - you removed the key points.
i posted the key thoughts of columnist - including his point that the blockade cannot continue as is - which is what i said.
but whatever - think what you want, pull out what you want, and continue to be ill-informed.
what i said is coming true - as more information is coming out, people are starting to see that there was more to this than israeli soldiers attacking ordinary civilians.
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| | | 244 | Mith
ID: 482583111
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 13:22
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Wow you're an idiot.
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| | | 247 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 13:36
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Israel: Next time we'll use more force.
not a good thing. but neither is continuing to provoke.
every level of escalation - from either side - is a bad one.
meanwhile, you call those who choose to escalate "heroes".
hopefully, Israel will find a way to confront these ships without loss of life or violence.
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| | |
| | | 249 | Khahan
ID: 373143013
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 13:46
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#244 - Mith, I think you owe tree an apology for that post. Goes directly against Civility & Respect policy.
That being said, I think both sides of this argument need to spend more time discussing the topic and less time with personal attacks. Its tough to take most of these posts seriously when they are laced with comments like:
"But if you're already too twisted and warped"
"I'm right, you're wrong."
"isn't capable of having an honest conversation"
'keep making up "facts"'
"your angry outbursts "
Quite frankly, these personal attacks are 100% not necessary to anybody's point. They are the essence of the problems this board has been having over the past months and the essence of a whole thread dedicated to saving the political boards from extinction. Each comment is a personal attack and no matter the point made after they call the credibility of the poster into question. And when a poster's credibility is in question the validity of the comment is also in question.
I understand this can be a very emotionally charged debate. But pouring ones negative emotions out on your opponents as a way to make your statement (and as a proof against the other side in some cases) is very weak debate and very poor form. Can people try to proof-read before they post and edit these comments out before finalizing what they put out there for the masses to read.
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| | | 251 | nerveclinic
Leader
ID: 05047110
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 13:47
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israel isn't preventing things from going into Gaza - other than weaponry. they stopped those ships for a reason.
OMG I had no idea you were so uninformed. They are stopping virtually everything and they aren't denying it. You need to read up a little more before you get in a debate you clearly are not prepared for.
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| | | 252 | nerveclinic
Leader
ID: 05047110
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 13:50
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Good job by the heroes who lost their lives. The blockade is effectively over, at least for now, Eygpt has opened it's border.
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| | | 253 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 13:51
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A New Yorker piece from last November.
Money quote about the blockade:
Israeli authorities maintain a list of about three dozen items that they permit into Gaza, but the list is closely kept and subject to change. Almost no construction materials—such as cement, glass, steel, or plastic pipe—have been allowed in, on the ground that such items could be used for building rockets or bunkers. While Hamas rocket builders and bomb-makers can smuggle everything they need through the secret tunnels, international aid organizations have to account for every brick or sack of flour. Operation Cast Lead—a three-week-long Israeli attack on Gaza, which began in December, 2008—has left Gaza in ruins. “Half a year after the conflict, we don’t have a single bag of cement and not a pane of glass,” John Ging, the director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees, told me in July. (Later that month, Israeli authorities announced that they would allow the U.N.R.W.A. a limited amount of steel and cement. Ging says that that has yet to happen.) Humanitarian supplies that suddenly have been struck from Israel’s list of approved items pile up in large storage warehouses outside the Kerem Shalom crossing, and international aid worth billions of dollars awaits delivery. “For the last two school years, Israeli officials have withheld paper for textbooks because, hypothetically, the paper might be hijacked by Hamas to print seditious materials,” Ging complained. (Paper was finally delivered this fall.) When John Kerry, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, visited Gaza in February of this year, he asked why pasta wasn’t allowed in. Soon, macaroni was passing through the checkpoints, but jam was taken off the list. According to Haaretz, the I.D.F. has calculated that a hundred and six truckloads of humanitarian relief are needed every day to sustain life for a million and a half people. But the number of trucks coming into Gaza has fallen as low as thirty-seven. Israeli government officials have told international aid officials that the aim is “no prosperity, no development, no humanitarian crisis.”
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| | | 254 | Mith
ID: 482583111
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 13:53
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I'll stand by every word I've written. Unlike tree, I've neither contradicted myself nor used harsh language that wasn't responding in kind. OK, until #144.
That said, moderators are free to remove any posts they feel should go, including mine. And I'll note that I don't disagree with anything Khahan wrote.
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| | | 255 | boikin
ID: 532592112
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 14:02
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I will admit I don't know much about what is going on here but it seems to me that if this situation was in any other place in the world, we would be hearing from celebrities telling us to save Gaza and demands for UN sanctions against Israel. I am not sure if this means that this is a special situation or if that all the other times I hear about the others places troubles I just disregard the pleas?
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| | | 256 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 14:06
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Stop the hypocrisy about Israel
Turkey is protesting vigorously. But, question: Turkey is a NATO ally, an applicant to the European Union. What is it doing allowing its nationals to smuggle cement that could build bunkers? Especially when those nationals belong to a group, the Turkish IHH (Insani Yardim Vakfi) that Israel has designated a terrorist organization?
The flotilla departed from Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus. Turkey's occupation of half of Cyprus is deemed illegal by the European Union and the United Nations. If the government of Turkey feels so strongly about ending disputed occupations, why does it not start with the disputed occupation it is operating itself?
----------------
The flotilla followed a breathtaking Friday at the United Nations. The 189 signatories of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty agreed on a final list of resolutions for a safer world. The nuclear threat from Iran? Unmentioned. Instead, the NPT resolution targeted -- what a surprise -- Israel.
---------------
Former Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk, who is close to Obama administration thinking, outlined in the New York Times Monday the contours of just such a deal:
"The administration needs to work on a package deal in which Hamas commits to preventing attacks from, and all smuggling into, Gaza. In return, Israel would drop the blockade and allow trade in and out."
---------------------
i see people condemning israel. i mentioned NK and the lack of condemnation. let's look at Turkey hypocrisy here.
let's look at Hamas' hypocrisy as well.
it's a two way street, and when all the condemnation is on one side when there is obvious guilt on the other as well, nothing is going to get accomplished.
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| | | 257 | Khahan
ID: 373143013
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 14:06
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as more information is coming out, people are starting to see that there was more to this than israeli soldiers attacking ordinary civilians.
Tree, I never thought for one moment that this was an attack on 'ordinary citizens.' That still doesn't justify Israel doing what they did
But if you go back to post 214 and look at point #2, you'll see its clear that the purpose was to break a barricade. That in and of itself should be considered a hostile act.
How could Israel have handled this differently? Easy enough to wait until the ship is in the barricaded and protected waters.
If you see a guy on the sidewalk in front of your house with a crowbar, you can't have him arrested for breaking and entering. But if you see him on the front porch with the crowbar trying to jimmie the door open....
There's a big difference in how Israel could have handled this and how they did handle this.
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| | | 258 | Pancho Villa
ID: 29118157
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 14:11
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Looks like Al Jazeera had a reporter on board claiming the Israelis continued firing after a white flag was hoisted. No way of knowing if it was, indeed, the Israelis or the activists doing the firing.
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| | | 259 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 14:32
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Tree, I never thought for one moment that this was an attack on 'ordinary citizens.' That still doesn't justify Israel doing what they did
But if you go back to post 214 and look at point #2, you'll see its clear that the purpose was to break a barricade. That in and of itself should be considered a hostile act.
How could Israel have handled this differently? Easy enough to wait until the ship is in the barricaded and protected waters.
very clearly, unlike all the other boats from this organization, the people on this boat wanted conflict.
one of my brothers - who is very pro-Palestinian in this issue - believes that the majority of protesters were peaceful, and were perhaps unaware that there were some on the boat who wanted confrontation and were willing to be violent to provoke it.
your point about waiting until the boats crossed into their waters is valid. but pose the question to MITH and PD - would they feel differently about what happened if it happened in Israeli waters?
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| | | 260 | DWetzel at work
ID: 28523114
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 15:23
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Tree, you keep saying "well, the people on that boat fought back", as if that justifies anything. IT DOESN'T.
If the police decide to raid every home on my block without a warrant, and in the ninth house they find someone sleeping who wakes up and pulls an unregistered gun on them, and a cop and the homeowner get shot, does that make the police "right" in what they did? Does it make the other invasions okay, because those people happened not to fight back?
Please, stop with this. You wouldn't be trying to justify this crap if it were any other country in the world doing this.
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| | | 261 | Khahan
ID: 373143013
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 15:32
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Tree, I have to agree with dwetzel here. The fact that some people on one boat decided to fight back does not make them wrong for doing so.
Especially in light of the fact that this happened in international waters, the people on every ship had every right to fight back. And they should not be condemned for exercising that right.
Even if it happened in Israeli waters, it should not surprise anybody to have some people fight back.
As to why this 1 boat fought back and others didn't, its my understanding the other boats were smaller and not as well manned. Perhaps the other boats were effectively overwhelmed and this boat, due to superior numbers was not so easily cowed. That is a simple and realistic scenario.
Again, I'm not defending them as being right to even be there. I acknowledge fully their intent was to break a blockade that existed in Israeli waters. But being in international waters they were in a place where Israel held no jurisdiction. They were boarded by a military which is aggressive towards them and their cause. What would you do?
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| | | 262 | Seattle Zen
ID: 1410391215
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 15:50
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Congratulations, Israel, your boneheaded, murderous response jarred Egypt into action as they have reopened the Rafah crossing into the Gaza Strip.
Good luck getting the Egyptians to stop weapons from flooding in.
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| | | 263 | Boldwin
ID: 564353010
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 16:04
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The fact that some people on one boat decided to fight back
Oh puhleeze. These people were deliberately inviting martydom. They were hoping for this Isreali reaction and were perfectly happy and resigned to have a lottery ticket to martyrdom. They didn't sponteniously 'decide to fight back'. That was the plan all along. It's just like the 'infantada' where they knew all along they would create some child martyrs and were hoping to. The whole point of the exercise was to do so.
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| | | 264 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 16:06
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Did someone mention "spontaneous?"
Yes, they baited Israel, and Israel (in its stupid arrogance) went along with it and did something dumb, public, and revealing.
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| | | 265 | Boldwin
ID: 564353010
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 16:10
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What is dumb is just swallowing the narrative of protesters just because it's chic among the 'done all that I could to see the evil in the good' crowd.
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| | | 266 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 16:37
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swallowing the narrative of protesters
Come on.
Tree,
Normally you're on the side of people arguing against a black and white approach to assessing contentious subjects. But when it comes to matters regarding Israel, that principle seems to evaporate. By that I mean that you seem to think you can prove that Israel's actions (in whichever specific incident we happen to be talking about) are justified because you can show that some or most of the people on the other side of the conflict had questionable (or worse) intentions, themselves.
In any other discussion, you understand it doesn't work that way.
The result of Israel's actions, as SZ points out, is that the blockade she just killed at least 9 people to defend, and on top of at least 9 lives, has further shredded her already near-absent credibility with the world community.
Doesn't it seem like every one of these things pretty much ends up this way?
Further, she has forced the US into a nightmare position as well.
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| | | 267 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 16:58
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Normally you're on the side of people arguing against a black and white approach to assessing contentious subjects.
actually, i was pretty adamant from the beginning in seeing how it played out.
Doesn't it seem like every one of these things pretty much ends up this way?
no doubt. in one of the links, there's an israeli official who says something like "our priorities here were to continue the blockade, and not tarnish our image. it didn't work out so well."
but my position hasn't changed. a non-violent response from those on the board, and this would have gone down differently - they wanted the violence, because they knew it would shine a light poorly on israel.
it's how the palestinians have operated for generation - heck, the fact they fire missiles from Gaza into Israel proper (the reason for the blockade in the first place), seems lost on people.
how much does israel have to give? they removed the settlers a few years back, and it did nothing to advance peace.
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| | | 268 | Boldwin
ID: 564353010
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 17:00
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Boldwin and Tree more or less in agreement about enforcing borders. How can you not appreciate that? Lol!
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| | | 269 | nerveclinic
Leader
ID: 05047110
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 17:01
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Baldwin What is dumb is just swallowing the narrative of protesters just because it's chic among the 'done all that I could to see the evil in the good' crowd.
Can you please decipher this? English please, I don't speak 7th day Adventist Pentecostal, Mormomon double speak.
Personally I just think it's dumb to swallow, never been into that.
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| | | 270 | Khahan
ID: 13126822
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 17:02
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but my position hasn't changed. a non-violent response from those on the board, and this would have gone down differently
You are skipping ahead. Simply not boarding the ship and the incident never has the chance to take place.
You want a non-violent response to a military action. Why? Why is the onus on the people onboard the ship to do nothing and not on the Israeli military to do nothing?
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| | | 271 | nerveclinic
Leader
ID: 05047110
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 17:07
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Zen Congratulations, Israel, your boneheaded, murderous response
and yours Zen Master?
Cano batting .363, 11 Hrs 40 RBI's 37 Runs in 200 AB's?
Care to concede at some point so we can stop the torment your feeling?
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| | | 272 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 17:09
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Good points, Khahan. Tree's point seems to be "if only those on the ship didn't do what they told everyone they would do."
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| | | 273 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 17:23
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but my position hasn't changed. a non-violent response from those on the board, and this would have gone down differently - they wanted the violence, because they knew it would shine a light poorly on israel.
That certainly might be the case, much of the evidence so far supports it. But that's not a very "wait and see how it plays out approach at all. Has it occurred to you to wonder why the IDF didn't release any video from before the commandos attempted to commandeer the ship?
Further, no one disputes that if the passangers all complied and allowed the boat to be boarded, no one would have been hurt. And no one here disputes that their objective was to shine a light on (what most people agree is) an ongoing atrocity that does not seem to get it's deserved attention from the international media.
That's the way civil disobedience works. You provoke the oppressor into exposing himself for what he is. I don't know if it played out exactly as they planned, but in any case it worked.
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| | | 274 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 17:27
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Simply not boarding the ship and the incident never has the chance to take place.
so should Israel have allowed the blockade to be broken?
That's the way civil disobedience works.
no, that's NOT how it works. civil disobedience is non-violent. and that's my sticking point. these people were violent, wanted violence, and created it.
had they remained non-violent, i'd be more in line with what you're saying, but the point is, they were violent.
and that means, by definition, it wasn't civil disobedience.
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| | | 275 | Khahan
ID: 13126822
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 17:31
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so should Israel have allowed the blockade to be broken?
No. As I stated before they should have waited until the boat was in their waters. At that point, the aggressors are on the boat. They have broken (or begun to break) an established barricade in an area where Israel has jurisdiction.
Unfortunately when it comes to analyzing this attack we cannot rely on 'what ifs.' We have judge it and praise/condemn it on 'what dids.' And what did happen was a military operation that illegally boarded a ship out of its jurisdiction. Those on board the ship responded accordingly given those circumstances.
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| | | 276 | Seattle Zen
ID: 1410391215
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 17:35
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He's no Kelly Johnson, I tell ya.
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| | | 277 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 17:55
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Paintballs to pistols, Israel admits ship blunders
Israel's police quarantine of activists from the Mavi Marmara prevented airing of dissenting testimony. The navy also jammed communications while storming the converted cruise ship.
That did not stop passengers broadcasting a globally viewed video clip that, ironically, helped Israel's case by showing a clutch of activists clubbing and stabbing two marines.
--------
Jason Alderwick, a maritime warfare expert at London's International Institute for Strategic Studies, faulted the marines for not commandeering the vessel more efficiently.
"Success begins with planning and with decent intelligence, and they have boarded such ships before," he said. "This time they didn't go in hard enough, fast enough and in sufficient numbers to establish overwhelming control."
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| | | 278 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 18:10
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civil disobedience is non-violent... and that means, by definition, it wasn't civil disobedience.
Tree, non-violence is just one approach to civil disobedience, not the definition.
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| | | 279 | Boldwin
ID: 564353010
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 18:15
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Can you please decipher this? - Nerve
Jackson Brown explaining the mental process liberals use to deliberately get everything backwards.
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| | | 280 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 18:21
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non-violence is just one approach to civil disobedience, not the definition
wikipedia, dictionary.com, and thefreedictionary.com are all very specific in their definitions that civil disobedience is non-violent.
Merriam-Webster is less specific, but still defines Civil Disobedience as the "refusal to obey governmental demands or commands especially as a nonviolent and usually collective means of forcing concessions from the government"
Shelley was specific about non-violence in his essay on civil disobedience, Thoreau in his, and Gandhi in his.
if you're violent, you're defeating the entire principle behind civil disobedience.
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| | | 281 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 18:22
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the 'done all that I could to see the evil in the good' crowd.
LOL! That's what you're talking about when you refer to Jackson Browne around here?
Dude, you don't even have the lyrics straight.
It's:
to see the evil and the good without hiding
Can we erase Jackson Brown from your chalkboard now?
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| | | 282 | Boldwin
ID: 564353010
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 18:28
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Be that as it may, liberalism is all about self-loathing. How they manage it and why remains one of my preoccupations.
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| | | 283 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 18:33
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Of course it is.
What that has to do with Israel remains to be seen. Maybe this is one of your "the evidence is so self-evident it doesn't actually exist in fixed form" kind of things.
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| | | 284 | Boldwin
ID: 564353010
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 18:37
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Liberals see Isreal defending their borders from religious fanatics who have vowed to commit genocide against them all...as apartheid. Blaming the Isrealis, not the genocidal maniacs. Still trying to figure liberals out.
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| | | 285 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 18:42
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Tree
You're confusing civil disobedience with passive resistance, a form of civil disobedience.
wikipedia, dictionary.com, and thefreedictionary.com are all very specific in their definitions that civil disobedience is non-violent.
This is one of the reasons it's hard to comply with the civility rules when arguing with you tree:
Wiki: In seeking an active form of civil disobedience, one may choose to deliberately break certain laws, such as by forming a peaceful blockade or occupying a facility illegally, though sometimes violence has been known to occur. I don't know of anyone whould wouldn't qualify the efforts of Malcolm X and PETA, for example, as something seperate from civil disobedience.
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| | | 286 | DWetzel
ID: 33337117
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 18:55
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Maybe it would be good to GTFO with this liberalism bashing in a thread in which it's completely out of place and insulting.
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| | | 287 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 18:56
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It appears that it is a matter of some contention:Non-violence, publicity and a willingness to accept punishment are often regarded as marks of disobedients' fidelity to the legal system in which they carry out their protest. Those who deny that these features are definitive of civil disobedience endorse a more inclusive conception according to which civil disobedience involves a conscientious and communicative breach of law designed to demonstrate condemnation of a law or policy and to contribute to a change in that law or policy. Such a conception allows that civil disobedience can be violent, partially covert, and revolutionary. This conception also accommodates vagaries in the practice and justifiability of civil disobedience for different political contexts: it grants that the appropriate model of how civil disobedience works in a context such as apartheid South Africa may differ from the model that applies to a well-ordered, liberal, just democracy.
Two final factors concerning a disobedient's choice of action are non-violence and directness. Many theorists regard non-violence as necessary to the justifiability of civil disobedience. But, as noted earlier, there can be good reasons to prefer strategic use of violence in civil disobedience to the harm and injustice of the law. Sometimes the wrong that a dissenter perceives may be so iniquitous that it is right to use violence to root it out. Such violence may be necessary to preserve or to re-establish the rights and civil liberties that coercive practices seek to suspend (Raz, 1979).
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| | | 288 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 19:17
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This discussion has centered heavily around the Israeli version of events.
Now reports from passangers start to come in"The operation started immediately with firing. First it was warning shots, but when the Mavi Marmara wouldn't stop these warnings turned into an attack," she said.
They asked me only a few questions. But they took everything – cameras, laptops, cellphones, personal belongings including our clothes," she said.
"The attack on the Mavi Marmara came in an instant: they attacked it with 12 or 13 attack boats and also with commandos from helicopters. We heard the gunshots over our portable radio handsets, which we used to communicate with the Mavi Marmara, because our ship communication system was disrupted. There were three or four helicopters also used in the attack. We were told by Mavi Marmara their crew and civilians were being shot at and windows and doors were being broken by Israelis."
Dimitris Gielalis, who had been aboard the Sfendoni [a different boat from the one we've been focused on -mith], told reporters: "Suddenly from everywhere we saw inflatables coming at us, and within seconds fully equipped commandos came up on the boat. They came up and used plastic bullets, we had beatings, we had electric shocks, any method we can think of, they used."
They confiscated everything, mobile phones, laptops, cameras and personal effects. They only allowed us to keep our papers." If they have nothing to hide, why would Israel want to confiscate devices capable of recording video of the seige?
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| | | 289 | DWetzel
ID: 33337117
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 19:21
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I think the word you're looking for in that last sentence is "steal". Or possibly "pillage".
"Confiscate" lends it too much of an air of legitimacy.
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| | | 290 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 19:34
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I'll go with confiscate.
More "Personally I saw two and a half wooden batons that were used ... There was really nothing else. We never saw any knives," Norman Paech, a 72-year-old former member of parliament told reporters in Berlin.
"The Israeli government justifies the raid because they were attacked. This is absolutely not the case," said Paech, wrapped in a blue blanket and visibly shaken by the bloody outcome to the mission
"This was not an act of self-defence."
A German doctor on the ship, Matthias Jochheim, who had bloodstains on his trousers from people he treated, said he had personally seen four dead people and expected the total death toll to be 15.
The Israeli military says nine passengers were killed in the fight.
Paech, a former MP from the far-left Die Linke party, said he took photographic evidence but that his camera had been confiscated.
He denied Israel's suggestion that passengers had been lying in ambush.
"We had not prepared in any way to fight. We didn't even consider it," he added. "No violence, no resistance -- because we knew very well that we would have absolutely no chance against soldiers like this.
"This was an attack in international waters on a peaceful mission... This was a clear act of piracy," he added.
The former MP's comments were backed up by two others on board the convoy, MPs Inge Hoeger, 59, and Annette Groth, 56.
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| | | 291 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 19:37
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Sydney Morning Herald chief correspondent Paul McGeough and photographer Kate Geraghty were onboard the vessel, MV Samoud, which was part of a freedom flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza when it was attacked by Israeli commandos.
Speaking at a press conference this afternoon, Sydney Morning Herald editor Peter Fray said that both journalist and photographer were safe but are now being held in Beersheva.
Fray said that they have had no communication with the journalists since 11.53am AEST yesterday but have been assured by Israeli authorities that they are being treated well.
Fray said that as he understands after the boat was intercepted the pair were taken to the Israeli port of Ashdod overnight Australian time where they declined to be deported immediately.
“The Sydney Morning Herald stands for the highest quality journalism… Part of our role is to bear witness,” said Fray.
“Paul, an acknowledged authority on the Middle East, and Kate, one of the country’s finest news photographers, were there as witnesses, to bring the story of the flotilla to Australia and to the rest of the world.
“They had every right to do so. We ask that Israel respect their right to do their jobs.
“We also ask for the return of our equipment and footage of the Israeli intervention.”
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| | |
| | | 293 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 19:52
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The Israeli version of events begins to break down...
The captain of the Israeli elite marines: "I was the second to be lowered in by rope," said Captain R. "My comrade who had already been dropped in was surrounded by a bunch of people. It started off as a one-on-one fight, but then more and more people started jumping us. I had to fight against quite a few terrorists who were armed with knives and batons." A melee that starts as a one-on-one fight is a starkly different from the calculated "ambush" Israel has been describing since yesterday.
Sullivan: The second thing I note is that the captain describes the passengers as "terrorists."
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| | | 294 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 22:01
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Liberals see Isreal defending their borders from religious fanatics who have vowed to commit genocide against them all...as apartheid. Blaming the Isrealis, not the genocidal maniacs.
no. they. don't.
stop generalizing. it's annoying as $hit.
and obviously wrong.
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| | | 295 | Boldwin
ID: 564353010
Tue, Jun 01, 2010, 23:15
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This would be a teachable moment if you were, Tree.
The same totalitarians who arbitrarily make one group a most favored minority worthy of class unfair advantage can just as easily turn the tables on you and arbitrarily disfavor you as a class and you will be helpless to reason with your tormentors.
More safety in principled stand for the rights of all individuals than in a philosophy that only doles benefits and rights out to classes.
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| | | 296 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 00:19
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if it's a teachable moment to anyone, it's a teachable moment to you. a chance for you to say "oh, hey, people don't fit into nice, convenient little envelopes, and people who think alike in some issues can believe differently in others."
no one has turned against me. people i tend to agree with on most issues, i disagree with on this one. at the end of the day, i'll still have a beer with most of them...
you are such a sheep, that you can't even see that.
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| | | 297 | nerveclinic
Leader
ID: 05047110
Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 07:42
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Baldwin Liberals see Isreal defending their borders from religious fanatics who have vowed to commit genocide against them all...as apartheid. Blaming the Isrealis, not the genocidal maniacs. Still trying to figure liberals out.
That's because you have a completely fanatical one sided view of what is going on and what people in the region want. You have blinders on to reality. You just want all the facts to fit into your far right world view whether they are accurate or not.
The Arab peace plan, which has been endorsed by the USA does not have any provision for committing genocide against Israel. Nor can any country realistically attempt it or the would be wiped off the planet by the USA.
You just want to be comfortable with your hysterical world view.
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| | | 298 | Boldwin
ID: 564353010
Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 09:58
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They have been completely up front about planning on driving the Isrealis into the sea. The evidence is superabundant.
Protesters to David Horowitz won't even back down from it when confronted in front of American student bodies. It's in their book.
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| | | 299 | Boldwin
ID: 564353010
Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 10:00
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In fact the Palestinians were offered their own state if they would just agree to allow Isrealis to breathe and turned the deal down.
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| | | 300 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 10:19
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In 1948. Yes, you are right. Keep using that as a reason to ghettoize 1.5 million people.
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| | | 301 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 11:30
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PD - also in 2000. Arafat turned that one down as well.
at this point, i firmly believe if Hamas were to lay down their arms and agree to ZERO tolerance of weapons being fired into or brought into Israel, and Israel in returns allows for open communication and open "border" crossing, we'd see a helluva lot less problems.
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| | | 302 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 11:46
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Arafat missed the best opportunity in decades in 2000, I think. It wasn't a perfect deal (and certainly not what he asked for). There were some huge sticking points besides the land (most notably, the Palestinian demand of the right of return, and the nature of Jerusalem). But it was a damn good deal.
It was, in the end, why many people abandoned his party.
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| | | 303 | Mith
ID: 482583111
Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 12:22
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Hamas were to lay down their arms and agree to ZERO tolerance of weapons being fired into or brought into Israel
You're asking a thug to respect civility.
The only way to stop the attacks from the Palestinians is to get the Palestinias to stop attacking (duh). And raining down military hellfire as a solid track record of failure.
Clearly, Israel isn't going to get them to stop attacking that way. The other option is to try to get enough of the Palestinians to turn away from violence; to meet the anti-Israeli propaganda they are brought up on wih real-life contradictions. If Israel makes their lives better, some of them will realize it. And then more will, and more.
If Israel really wants peace and also wants to make a case that it is better than the thugs, it must take the lead in moving toward peace and it must do so with determined conviction that understand you can't fix this issue in a day or a year. It can only happen over a genration.
Four steps are required if there is to be any real progress.
They must start by ending the blockade of humanitarian supplies.
They must stop lying to the world about their oppression of the Palestinian people.
They must take pains to respond to Palestinian attacks more proportionately.
They must end the practice of evicting East Jerusalem Palestinians from their homes.
While I think the first two points are possible achievements in the near future and the third is an area where some progress can be made (perhaps with foreign help?) the fourth is a notion that the current Prime Minister resolutely rejects out of hand.
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| | | 304 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 12:54
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Arafat missed the best opportunity in decades in 2000, I think. It wasn't a perfect deal (and certainly not what he asked for). There were some huge sticking points besides the land (most notably, the Palestinian demand of the right of return, and the nature of Jerusalem). But it was a damn good deal.
It was, in the end, why many people abandoned his party.
no doubt. it's what eventually led to Hamas being elected.
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| | | 305 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 13:00
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Ironic, isn't it? Israel is blockading because it doesn't trust Hamas (who won, by all accounts, in a fair election that Israel demanded). Politically the blockade hardens support for Hamas, who isn't really hurting because of it and doesn't actually have to deliver on any political promises as a result.
Meanwhile, the Palestinians in the area are suffering on all levels.
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| | | 306 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 13:05
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They must start by ending the blockade of humanitarian supplies.
They must stop lying to the world about their oppression of the Palestinian people.
They must take pains to respond to Palestinian attacks more proportionately.
They must end the practice of evicting East Jerusalem Palestinians from their home
and that's the problem. it's all about what Israel must do.
sorry - after decades of Palestinians murdering Israeli civilians, you can't expect any Israeli government to do the things you're asking, without concessions from the Palestinians.
and if any government did, they wouldn't be the lead party for long.
If Israel makes their lives better, some of them will realize it. And then more will, and more.
thanks for that.
Israel has made life better for plenty of Palestinian-Israelis. They vote in elections, they form political parties (and get elected), serve in the Prime Ministers cabinet, and one is a Supreme Court Justice.
There are high-ranking Palestinian-Israelis in the IDF, and the HEAD of the Jewish National Fund in Israel is Arab.
and if most of those I just mentioned were to go into Gaza and talk about how great life is as an Israeli citizen, Hamas would have them killed, as they have with many others who they felt "conspired" with the Israelis, whether it was truthful or not.
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| | | 307 | Mith
ID: 482583111
Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 14:00
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it's all about what Israel must do.
Well the start of it is, yes. It has to be. The thugs on other side aren't going to change. The only way to change them is to deter the support for the thugs from the Palestinian people. And they aren't going to be deterred until they are convinced to do so. And for some strange reason, starving their families and killing their children hsn't done the trick. A real stumper, I know.
It may not sound fair, but it sounds a lot better to me than leveling a whole city block to take out 3 to 5 people.
Israel has made life better for plenty of Palestinian-Israelis.
You're stuck on point #2. Plenty is relative. Making life better for 2% while keeping your boot on the necks of the other 98% isn't so stellar a record as you seem to think.
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| | | 308 | Mith
ID: 482583111
Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 14:17
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Israel has made life better for plenty of Palestinian-Israelis.
I gotta say, tihs is a real knee-slapper. Made life better for them compared to what? When they had their own country prior to the 20th century zionist movement?
It reminds me of Pat Buchanan insisting that African Americans should be thankful to the western world for bringing their ancestors across the ocean.
They are oppressed tree. Someone has to put in the work to break the cycle, and it's a long hard job. If either side is capable of putting the right conditios in place, it's Israel. If they aren't willing to accept that, it's their foolhardy end. Sooner or later, as we become less dependent on Middle Eastern oil and the rate of return on America's support for Israel plummets, it will dry up. And unless Israel figures this out by then or somethng else changes, I think she's a goner.
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| | | 309 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 14:20
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Incredibly paternalistic. Sounds like the slave owner talking.
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| | | 310 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 14:44
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not paternalistic - rather, it was a direct response to MITH's assertion that if Israel makes their lives better, some of them will realize it. And then more will, and more then that will eventually work.
it was stating that Israel HAS done that, and the response has been more bloodshed on the part of the Palestinians, toward their Palestinian brothers, toward Israeli Jews, and whomever else disagreed with them.
Israel *has* made life good for some - the others did not follow.
but, since MITH made some weird comparison to what Buchanan said about African-Americans, i'll go there.
The Palestinians need an MLK. They need a Rosa Parks. They need a group who will sit sit at a Woolworth's lunch counter.
they need non-violent resistance. they have NEVER had that. it keeps being about "what can israel do for the Palestinians?"
well what about what the Palestinians can do for themselves - when it comes to peaceful resistance, they've never even tried.
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| | | 311 | Boldwin
ID: 564353010
Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 14:54
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That's not really true. Plenty of Palestinians have actually helped the Isrealis in secret. There have been Rosa Parks but they are killed unless they emigrate fast. It's naivete to think otherwise.
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| | | 312 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 15:06
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That's not really true. Plenty of Palestinians have actually helped the Isrealis in secret. There have been Rosa Parks but they are killed unless they emigrate fast.
i previously stated that many Palestinians who are perceived to have helped the Israelis are killed by other Palestinians.
i fail to see how that compares to Rosa Parks.
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| | | 313 | WiddleAvi
ID: 352232517
Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 15:41
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MITH & PD - Do you not remember all the suicide bombings coming from the west bank and gaza back in the 80's and 90's ?? That is the reason that all the checkpoints and blockades have been put in place.
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| | | 314 | boikin
ID: 532592112
Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 15:50
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That is the reason that all the checkpoints and blockades have been put in place.
I guess that takes care of any illegal immigration problems and I am guessing they have no problem asking papers from suspected west bankians or Gazains?
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| | | 315 | Myboyjack
ID: 447112610
Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 15:51
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Widfleavi- don't you know that every action Israel takes can
only be viewed in a vacumn?
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| | | 316 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 15:55
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widdle: I can't speak for MITH, but I'm talking specifically about the blockade that was put into place after the 2003 Gaza bombings.
I fail to see why withholding cloth, toys, and wheelchairs from Gaza will result in fewer suicide bombers. But I'm willing to be enlightened.
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| | | 317 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 16:08
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it was stating that Israel HAS done that,
Again, we're stuck on point 2. Stop starving people and stop denying them medicine and allow them to rebuild their homes in Gaza and stop evicting them in East Jerusalem. Allowing the tiny percentage of Palestinians who are permitted to live in Israel to vote for Palistinian representatives in the Knesset is not making improving the lives of the huge abjectly oppressed majority.
Israel *has* made life good for some - the others did not follow.
Another falsehood. The truth is that Israel would never allow the majority of Palestinians - even if they swore off and ceased all hostilities - to move back into Israel and take an active role in society. You pointing to a highly limited token gesture that is extended to a rare and lucky or priveledged few, and which the overwhelming majority have no hope of access to.
The first problem with waiting around for the emergence of a civilizing leader from within in Palestinian society is that the powere structure in place is committed to squashing any such entity. Indeed, MLK and Rosa Parks wouldn't have stood a chance if African American culture was anything like Palistinian culture. So it's frankly naive and unrealistic.
The second problem is that the Israeli government is the entity in control of the situation, and they're supposed to be the good guys. By nature, that puts the onus on them. They're the ones with the powere to do something about it. The peaceful among the Palistinians certainly are not.
But that self-damning, short-sighted attitude is exactly the problem with Israel that will likely be their eventual undoing. They aren't interested in putting in the long term work, because of the absurdly simplistic notion that they shouldn't have to because they are the good guys.
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| | | 318 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 16:35
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Again, we're stuck on point 2. Stop starving people and stop denying them medicine and allow them to rebuild their homes in Gaza and stop evicting them in East Jerusalem.
again, you're stuck on point zero. STOP SENDING ROCKETS AND SUICIDE BOMBERS INTO ISRAEL, AND STOP KIDNAPPING SOLDIERS.
hell, i would bet that if the Palestinians were to return Gilad shalit home, the Israelis would be willing to have some negotiations.
how about that for a starting point for the Palestinians - if they can't even make the concession to return home someone they kidnapped while he was still teenager, how can you or Israel or anyone expect them to EVER make ANY concessions??
for pete's sake, they won't even let the Red Cross in to visit the kid.
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| | | 319 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 16:51
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every action Israel takes can only be viewed in a vacumn?
Myboyjack you can please spare me your baseless sideswipe. Join the discussion or don't. I don't appreciate being accused of naivete or bias from someone who can't even be bothered to lay out his own position on the matter.
STOP SENDING ROCKETS AND SUICIDE BOMBERS INTO ISRAEL
Neither I nor any ideology I represent or defend is launching rockets or suicide attacks. In fact, I've given up on any chance of peace coming from that side. The only chance peace has, in my opinion, is if it starts with the side that is in control. But I guess peace isn't as important to you as the argument over who is right and who is wrong.
It's very simple; Israel's choices are between putting in the hard work and the status quo, the most naive position is to think you can sit around and wait for change to come from within Palestinian society.
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| | | 320 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 17:21
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But I guess peace isn't as important to you as the argument over who is right and who is wrong.
peace is extremely important to me. but if one side doesn't want it, you can't have it. peace is a two-way street.
to put the entire onus on one side is no more realistic than expecting Hamas to lay down their arms.
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| | | 321 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 17:32
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Clearly I have a higher opinion of Israeli society's sense of morality than you do, tree. I think a determined attempt with the necessary resolve from their side is at least slightly more likely than Hamas laying down their arms. Sad that you don't.
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| | | 322 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 17:45
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MITH - stop Baldwining me and putting words into my mouth and pretending i said things i didn't.
and what you're asking Israel to do doesn't related to their morality.
rather, what you're asking is for Israel to risk EVERYTHING - the survival of its citizens and the continued existence as a sovereign nation - in an attempt to make peace with those who don't want peace.
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| | | 323 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 17:54
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I fail to see how any or all of teh steps I laid out risks the continued existence as a sovereign nation any more than continuing a policy of oppression that will eventually lead to sufficiently ostracizing Israel from the world community to the point where The US will be forced to withdraw her support (if the easing of dependance on mideast oil doesn't do it first).
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| | | 324 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 18:01
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And given your own stated opinions, I don't see how #321 is in any way twisted, either.
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| | | 325 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 18:04
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what you're asking Israel to do doesn't related to their morality
Another knee-slapper. Anyone else think the 4 issues in #303 are seperate from anything having to do with morality?
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| | | 326 | Myboyjack
ID: 447112610
Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 18:36
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MITH- I think I'll join in discussions when and how I choose
whether you " appreciate" it or not.
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| | | 327 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 18:42
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If baseless and pointless drive-bys are your style these days, so be it. I recall when your contributions used to be useful.
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| | | 328 | Myboyjack
ID: 447112610
Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 18:49
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so be it
so I have your blessing. That's a relief.
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| | | 329 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 19:10
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I fail to see how any or all of teh steps I laid out
well, for starters, you're calling for the end to a blockade of humanitarian supplies.
that blockade doesn't exist. israel filters those supplies to Gaza, removing weapons and other items that can be used to attack Israel.
then again, you find it acceptable that a peaceful non-violent protesters used clubs, knives, guns, and stun grenades on israeli soldiers, as if there is nothing wrong with that.
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| | | 330 | DWetzel
ID: 33337117
Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 19:15
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And you find it okay for Israeli military armed with a hell of a lot more than that to illegally board six boats in international waters, as if there's nothing wrong with that.
Until someone decides that flouting international laws isn't okay no matter if it's "their side" that does it, it doesn't seem possible to have a rational discussion about the matter.
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| | | 331 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 19:47
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#328 - Whatever gets you through the day. I certainly don't see any point in asking twice. I have no idea why you think that type of post is a good way to represent yourself.
#329 - that blockade doesn't exist.
Back to the falsehoods.
israel filters those supplies to Gaza, removing weapons and other items that can be used to attack Israel.
How can childrens' shoes be used to attack Israel?
you find it acceptable that a peaceful non-violent protesters used clubs, knives, guns, and stun grenades on israeli soldiers, as if there is nothing wrong with that.
Stepping up from blatant falsehoods to bald-faced lies I see. I don't think it's necessary for me to defend myself from those lies, which clearly contradict much of what I've written in this thread. Again, who do you think you're fooling?
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| | | 332 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 19:48
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Until someone decides that flouting international laws
naval and military experts have disagreed whether or not there was a violation of international law. some have agreed that israel was provided with enough just cause. others, did not.
but let's put this into perspective - if the police illegally kick in your door, are you going to attack them, or drop to the ground when they order you to?
i know that i'm hitting the ground, because i'd like to not get shot.
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| | | 333 | DWetzel
ID: 33337117
Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 22:16
|
"if the police illegally kick in your door, are you going to attack them, or drop to the ground when they order you to?"
Me? I'm probably hitting the ground too.
Which, of course (since you are STILL missing the point) doesn't justify the police kicking in my door.
Seriously, what part of that do you not understand?
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| | | 334 | bibA
ID: 7529222
Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 23:30
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Being in favor of justifying police having the right to illegally kick in doors and force citizens to submit is not too far removed from favoring a police state.
Should that actually be the case in Gaza and the West Bank? Or in Israel?
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| | | 335 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 23:37
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i'm not justifying police kicking in the door. but i am saying that people with a lick of sense react one way.
the others fight back.
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| | | 336 | biliruben
ID: 16105237
Wed, Jun 02, 2010, 23:41
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If the fight is just and I'm not a coward, then I fight back.
That is how our country was born.
Not passing judgment, just saying your argument blows.
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| | | 337 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Thu, Jun 03, 2010, 09:30
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Ironically, the next ship to try to run the blockade: The MV Rachel Corrie
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| | | 338 | boikin
ID: 532592112
Thu, Jun 03, 2010, 09:50
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I am not sure if this has been pointed out anywhere earlier in the thread but why did Israel just not wait till the boats came ashore I board them?
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| | | 339 | Mith
ID: 482583111
Thu, Jun 03, 2010, 10:10
|
HuffPo Israel on Thursday rejected calls from the United Nations and others for an international investigation of its deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla but left the door open to foreign involvement.
Also on Thursday, the U.S. State Department said that Obama administration officials had warned Israel to use caution and restraint when dealing with the activists as their ships were heading toward Gaza.
"We communicated with Israel through multiple channels many times regarding the flotilla," P.J. Crowley, a State Department spokesman, said in a statement to the Washington Post. "We emphasized caution and restraint given the anticipated presence of civilians, including American citizens."
Officials have insisted Israel's military already is investigating the raid and the country is capable of conducting a credible review.
"It is our standard practice after military operations, especially operations in which there have been fatalities, to conduct a prompt, professional, transparent and objective investigation in accordance with the highest international standards," government spokesman Mark Regev said.
Another official in the prime minister's office said there would be no separate international investigation. He spoke on condition of anonymity pending an official decision.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday labeled the criticism "hypocrisy" as he rejected calls to lift the blockade, insisting the ban prevents missile attacks on Israel. Still waiting for tree to explain how childrens' shoes are used by Hamas to kill Israelis.
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| | | 340 | Khahan
ID: 373143013
Thu, Jun 03, 2010, 10:11
|
i'm not justifying police kicking in the door. but i am saying that people with a lick of sense react one way.
the others fight back.
Pretty much a blanket generalization, Tree. Unfortunately you have to take situational circumstances into account. When the police kick in your door, they are often outnumbering you by a good bit or have a lethal at hand pointing at you.
In this case the people on board the boat greatly outnumbered the Israeli military. There is strength in numbers. Perhaps these people felt empowered by their greater numbers to fight back rather than roll over and take it from an illegal invasion.
And you keep arguing that these 'peaceful protestors' are obviously not peaceful because they used these weapons against the Israeli's. Nobody ever said they were conscientious objectors. Nobody ever said they were Ghandi or Mother Theresa. They were there for a peaceful protest (and to be honest I've seen no evidence they really intended anything else once they got to where they were going so in that I'll give them the benefit of the doubt) and en route they were attacked by a military force which they outnumbered. So they defended themselves. I don't know about you, but I make a distinction between a violent attack and self defense. I wouldn't even categorize the Israeli military as a 'violent attack,' but its an attack the nonetheless and any person has the right to defend him/herself if they so choose against an attack.
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| | | 341 | Mith
ID: 482583111
Thu, Jun 03, 2010, 10:28
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Khahan 340
Its an irrelevant point of contention which tree clings to in order to divert from the harder questions he desperately wants to avoid, such as the humanitarian impact of the blockade, the morally absent policy of East Jerusalem evictions and how vastly disproportionate Israel's reactions always are.
I think we all pretty much agree that the activists (whether they planned it from the beginning or a handful decided during the trip to prepare a defence for the inevitable boarding) pushed Israel to use more forceful means than they planned.
What tree can't wrap his head around is the notion that it isn't a black and white issue - that just because some of teh activists reacted aggressively, does not absolve Israel. The blockade and it's politics wrt Gaza are inhumane and oppressive. They boarded the boat in international water. And I for one am not willing to so blindly accept Israel's version of events as hard truth.
As far as I know, just about every activist who has spoken claims that Israeli ships fired on the boats first and came aboard shooting pellets and tossing stun grenades. There are multiple reports that they fired (bullets or paint pellets I don't know) into a group of sleeping activists on the boat.
Of course I don't accept any of thi sas fact any more tan I do th eIsraeli version, but I do find it odd that the IDF confiscated every piece of recording eqiupment (cameras, phones, computers, etc.) held by the activists, which sounds like a pretty clear indicator to me that they have something to hide. Further, the second person to rappel onto the boat has stated that the commando ahead of him was met initially by one person, contradicting the official Israeli claim that a mob was waiting for them and attacked as they rappelled down.
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| | | 342 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Thu, Jun 03, 2010, 11:26
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Still waiting for tree to explain how childrens' shoes are used by Hamas to kill Israelis.
i must have missed the link where you provided that information. please provide again?
in the mean time, i'm still waiting to you or anyone else explain how you're completely silent about the Palestinian kidnapping of teenager Gilad Shalit and how his captivity doesn't seem important to you.
Israel on Thursday rejected calls from the United Nations and others for an international investigation of its deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla but left the door open to foreign involvement.
disappointed they won't allow an uninvolved third-part review of what happens. glad they are open to foreign involvement.
Its an irrelevant point of contention which tree clings to in order to divert from the harder questions he desperately wants to avoid, such as the humanitarian impact of the blockade, the morally absent policy of East Jerusalem evictions and how vastly disproportionate Israel's reactions always are.
for years, Israel didn't respond. now they are. you continually ignore the history of Palestinian violent other than saying "well, they're a bunch of thugs, so i don't expect them to extend an olive branch in any way."
Ironically, the next ship to try to run the blockade: The MV Rachel Corrie
i still don't believe you toss gasoline on a burning fire, but common sense rarely prevails ON EITHER SIDE in situations like this.
personally, i'd like to see the Israelis board the boat when its in Israeli waters, and then take appropriate actions.
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| | | 343 | Mith
ID: 482583111
Thu, Jun 03, 2010, 11:49
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Israel's baffling blockade of Gaza
I was mistaken, shoes are not contraband. They were included in a list of black market items that Palestinians typically cannot afford.
Israel actually refuses to disclose it's standards for what is prohibited. This site claims to have amassed a partial list which includes many basic (and bizarrely random) food items, anything that can be used to build shelter, sewage or irrigation, and plent of other inoccuous things like paper, notebooks, newspapers, musical istruments, planters, fishing rods and nets, fabric and tractor parts.
The page also notes that shoes have been permitted in.
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| | | 344 | Boldwin
ID: 564353010
Thu, Jun 03, 2010, 12:09
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Netanyahu completely shreds every argument raised by MITH.
And by the way, there is no shortage of humanitian supplies in Gaza. And the USA, just as Isreal would do, reserves the right to interdict terrorists' weapon shipments anywhere on the world's oceans and has done so many times in the past.
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| | | 345 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Thu, Jun 03, 2010, 12:39
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Hard to believe you could fit so many untruths into one post.
Even the Israeli's aren't claiming the flotilla contained "terrorists' weapon shipments," despite the statement given by the PM.
there is no shortage of humanitian supplies in Gaza.
The beauty of the internet is that this is something you can look up from more than one source. But I don't suppose you'd be interested in what you don't already believe to be the truth? Didn't think so.
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| | |
| | | 347 | Boldwin
ID: 564353010
Fri, Jun 04, 2010, 02:45
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PD
Even the Israeli's aren't claiming the flotilla contained "terrorists' weapon shipments," despite the statement given by the PM
They aren't stating what they just stated?
Yeah, it's exactly like Kennedy preventing nuke shipments to Cuba, only in this case it's qassam rockets just over the border.
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| | | 348 | boikin
ID: 532592112
Fri, Jun 04, 2010, 11:11
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it's exactly like Kennedy preventing nuke shipments to Cuba
I think that might have almost let to a world war.
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| | | 349 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Fri, Jun 04, 2010, 13:01
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the lack of response on 346 is telling.
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| | | 350 | DWetzel
ID: 33337117
Fri, Jun 04, 2010, 13:28
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No, it's not. You haven't responded to half the counterpoints in this thread given a lot more time, so don't pull that stuff.
Here's a response though, if it will satisfy you:
Obviously, it's counterproductive to the people in Gaza for Hamas to do that. It would be better if they would take the aid and protest the illegal actions by other means.
Politically, I'm sure it makes some sense to them, since their only alternatives in their people's eyes are to take whatever Israel decides to give them that day (making them utterly dependent on Israel), or to throw up their hands and say "no, you're doing illegal stuff" and hope they get some street cred with the international community. Which, coincidentally, is the same options you would have given the protesters--capitulate to whatever Israel does, legal or not, or be demonized as criminal scum if they try to fight back.
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| | | 351 | Boldwin
ID: 564353010
Fri, Jun 04, 2010, 17:27
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#348
It's a closer analogy than that. What was so unacceptable was how much damage Russia could do before countermeasures could be mounted, due to the proximity. Exactly why Isreal cannot allow unfettered shipments of qassams to be stationed several miles from main Isreali cities.
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| | |
| | | 353 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Sat, Jun 05, 2010, 17:15
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this is how you present yourself as a non-violent protester...
“We have seen today the difference between a ship of peace activists with whom we don’t agree but respect their right to a different opinion, and a flotilla of hate that was organized by violent extremists,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a text message from his office. Israel won’t “allow Gaza to become an Iranian port,” he said.
The Israeli government is now considering easing restrictions on the flow of aid into Gaza, Israel’s Channel Two television has reported.
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| | | 354 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Sat, Jun 05, 2010, 21:14
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Been really busy lately so I haven't had a lot of time to keep up. Just saw this:
Under Scrutiny, IDF Retracts Claims About Flotilla’s Al Qaeda LinksOn June 2, the IDF blasted out a press release to reporters and bloggers with the shocking headline: “Attackers of the IDF soldiers found to be Al Qaeda mercenaries.” The only supporting evidence offered in the release was a claim that the passengers “were equipped with bullet proof vests, night vision goggles, and weapons.”
We both received the same reply from Army spokespeople: “We don’t have any evidence. The press release was based on information from the [Israeli] National Security Council.” (The Israeli National Security Council is Netanyahu’s kitchen cabinet of advisors).
Today, the Israeli Army’s press office changed the headline of its press release (see below), basically retracting its claim about the flotilla’s Al Qaeda links. The new headline reads: “Attackers of the IDF Soldiers Found Without Identification Papers” (the top of the browser screen still contains the original headline about Al Qaeda). Anyone see anything about the confiscated recording equipment?
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| | | 355 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Sat, Jun 05, 2010, 21:49
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Tree
#349 is silly. What, exactly, do you think it is telling you?
That Hamas is a thug organization which cannot be trusted to ever act on the side of morality is a given. You admit yourself that you shouldn't be "bewildered." Since the rest of this forum isn't nearly as subject to having it's judgements on Israel-related issues compromised by it's our emotions as you are, I think a lot of us saw your linked text and figured that's par for the course.
You're taking exactly the same tract as Boldwing did in every Iraq War debate in which he would accuse the left side of the forum of condoning Sadam every time he posted about another atrocity and the rest of us (including you, Tree) shrugged.
It's also didn't get a response because there is no point of contention on the matter of Hamas' thuggery. Whether Saddam was a good man was never the central point in discussions about Iraq, except for those times when B and Jag and Boxman and some others propped up that straw man and waste of time. We all knew he was a tyrant and I doubt anyone here failed to take that fact into consideration as they weighed in on their opinion of war.
Hamas is no different. You shoudln't expect an outpouring of outrage over every last Hamas atrocity any more that you yourself offered in response to B's rape room and torture stories about Saddam.
All the lack of response on 346 should tell you is that everyone here already know what Hamas is capable of. Again, that's what they call "a given." In a substantive debate you can pick a starting point that is well past all the stuff that is plainly obvious to everyone.
In contrast, the way Israel conducts itself is a point of contention, and therefore worth some time exploring. But I think I can pretty safely assure you that every person here goes into forming their opinions about the way Israel coducts itself already familiar with the the extent of Hamas' thuggery. No one is giving them a pass.
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| | | 356 | DWetzel
ID: 33337117
Sat, Jun 05, 2010, 23:36
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Well said.
Cliff notes for people as lazy as me: it's very possible for both sides to be wrong.
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| | | 357 | Boldwin
ID: 425161
Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 02:03
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Oh, I think Rachel Corrie and every weepy useful idiot westerner who'd even consider wearing a Keffiyeh is altogether giving them too much slack.
Why would you let some neo-nazi palestinian thugs even slightly off the hook just because their thuggery is a given? Just keep holding their feet to the fire over it.
'Never again' was a perfectly good sentiment and goal, and I don't understand why anyone is willing to give antisemitism the slightest wiggle-room to lift it's ugly head.
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| | | 358 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 04:18
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Why would you let some neo-nazi palestinian thugs even slightly off the hook just because their thuggery is a given?
and that is one of my biggest points - because we know they're going to behave poorly, we should give them a pass, and force the other side to make all concessions.
if that's not capitulating to their terrorism and basically letting them know "hey, the way you do things works, keep it up," i don't know what is.
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| | | 359 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 07:24
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Why would you let some neo-nazi palestinian thugs even slightly off the hook just because their thuggery is a given?
Because it isn't working?
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| | | 360 | Mith
ID: 482583111
Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 09:38
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let some neo-nazi palestinian thugs even slightly off the hook
What is this "hook"?
we should give them a pass, and force the other side to make all concessions
Peace cannot happen unless concessions are made by someone. Hamas won't follow through on concessions. The way I see it, you're the one letting Hamas "off the hook" by clinging to the belief that they can ever be trusted as a partner in peace. You're just setting up Israel and the world for yet another disappointment by waiting to hand Hamas their next opportunity to break another promise.
So we're left with very simple logic. If you can't have peace without concessions from someone and you know that Hamas won't concede anything, you're left with two options: take reliance on Hamas out of the equation and depend on Israel to do the heavy lifting - or simply abandon hope for peace and accept the idea that the status quo is as it will always be, until the US finally gets fed up enough to cut the cord.
The bright side is that putting the onus on Israel does in fact punish Hamas, because eventually people will begin to see where their bread is buttered. Eroding that support system will take time and patience, but it's better than playing the same game over and over again until it is Israel's support system that erodes.
If Israel would have taken this type of leadership role 20 years ago, I believe terrorists would be sufficiently isolated within Palestinian society today and the conflict would be mostly over.
A generation is too long to wait? How many generations have past since this has been going on? We've seen thoroughly proven what won't work. Time to accept the hard fact about Hamas that you insist on ignoring.
Time for you to stop giving them a pass.
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| | | 361 | Boldwin
ID: 425161
Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 10:17
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If you can't have peace without concessions from someone and you know that Hamas won't concede anything, you're left with two options: take reliance on Hamas out of the equation and depend on Israel to do the heavy lifting - or simply abandon hope for peace
1) So you are essentially saying the only answer is for Isreal to back into the sea, just so you can feel like a self-righteous peacemaker.
2) When one side views it as a religious nonnegotiable imperative to wipe jews off the face of the earth, then either that religious view must change, one of those peoples must disappear, or there will never be peace.
3) They don't care about your theological guidance. Your dreaming won't make it so.
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| | | 362 | Mith
ID: 482583111
Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 11:03
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1) you are essentially saying the only answer is for Isreal to back into the sea
Not worthy of a response.
2) On this we agree. If Israel commits to improving Palestnians's lives, over time their views will change.
3) Cultures change when prompted to do so. You have to give the people a reason to see it another way. It's not hard to see how the Palistinian mindset works. Keep killing their sons and kicking them out of their homes and continue to be amazed at why they support Hamas.
They've been trying it your way for decades and it's nothing but an abject failure.
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| | | 363 | Mith
ID: 482583111
Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 11:10
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Does the Baldwin/Tree crowd know of a good reason for why Israel confiscated all recording equipment - other than to suppress facts which do not fit their official version of events?
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| | | 364 | Boldwin
ID: 425161
Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 13:02
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Because it can be edited and used for propaganda.
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| | | 365 | Boldwin
ID: 425161
Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 13:04
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I hardly think the MSM would have focused on the 'love boat' passengers telling the soldiers to go back to Auchwitz.
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| | | 366 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 14:36
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Does the Baldwin/Tree crowd
you sound like Baldwin here when he blankets liberals under one umbrella.
Does the Baldwin/Tree crowd know of a good reason for why Israel confiscated all recording equipment - other than to suppress facts which do not fit their official version of events?
why would it matter to you? you felt that the violence shown on the video wasn't terribly important.
the fact that another ship was stopped peacefully yesterday with full cooperation with the crew says a lot about the one ship that chose violence and bloodshed.
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| | | 367 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 17:07
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And you seem to put a lot of stock into what that crew's "choice" as justification for Israel's unilateral actions.
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| | | 368 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 17:36
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like Baldwin here when he blankets liberals
? The Baldwin/Tree crowd is an awfully small blanket.
why would it matter to you?
Because I want to know what happened and I don't share your unyielding faith in Israel's or anyone else's honesty on the matter. If one side deems it necessary to hide video documentation of a specific event, then I have no choice but to question their integrity.
Israel took their own video of the entire event from multiple night-visiosn-enabled cameras. Why haven't they released video (from their own cameras or from what they confiscated) that exonerates them of the charge that the commandos rappeled down the ropes shooting at the passangers before they were attacked? Why won't they release video that exonerates them of the charge that they fired on the ships prior to boarding them?
The official Israeli version of events has already been compromised by the second commando to rappel onto the deck.
Through this discussion I've been far more accepting of the Israeli version than you would ever consider the opposing story.
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| | | 369 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 18:34
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A group of top Israel Navy reserves officers on Sunday publicly called on Israel to allow an external probe into its commando raid of a Gaza-bound humanitarian aid flotilla last weekIn a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, the Navy officers denounced the commando raid as having "ended in tragedy both at the military and diplomatic levels."
"We disagree with the widespread claims that this was the result of an intelligence rift," said the officers. "In addition, we do not accept claims that this was a 'public relations failure' and we think that the plan was doomed to failure from the beginning."
"First and foremost, we protest the fact that responsibility for the tragic results was immediately thrust onto the organizers of the flotilla," wrote the officers. "This demonstrates contempt for the responsibility that belongs principally to the hierarchy of commanders and those who approved the mission. This shows contempt for the values of professionalism, the purity of weapons and for human lives."
The Navy officers' letter came as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was convening his top ministers to deliberate a United Nations proposal to create a joint international committee alongside Turkey and the United States to investigate the circumstances of the deadly raid.
The cabinet was also to discuss the creation of an internal committee to look into the incident. Netanyahu earlier Sunday rejected the idea of an international panel, and reiterated that Israel had the right to conduct its own investigation.
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| | | 370 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 19:18
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Glenn Greenwald It was clear from the moment news of the flotilla attack emerged that Israel was taking extreme steps to suppress all evidence about what happened other than its own official version.
And worst of all, the IDF -- while still refusing to disclose the full, unedited, raw footage of the incident -- quickly released an extremely edited video of their commandos landing on the ship, which failed even to address, let alone refute, the claim of the passengers: that the Israelis were shooting at the ship before the commandos were on board.
This campaign of suppression and propaganda worked to shape American media coverage (as state propaganda campaigns virtually always work on the gullible, authority-revering American media). The edited IDF video was shown over and over on American television without question or challenge. Israeli officials and Israel-devoted commentators appeared all over television -- almost always unaccompanied by any Turkish, Palestinian or Muslim critics of the raid -- to spout the Israeli version without opposition. Israel-centric pundits in America claimed, based on the edited IDF video, that anyone was lying who even reported on the statements of the passengers that Israeli fired first. In sum, that the Israelis used force only after the passengers attacked the commandos became Unquestioned Truth in American discourse.
But now that the passengers and journalists have been released from Israeli detention and are speaking out, a much different story is emerging.
Nobody's claims are entitled to an automatic assumption of truth, including these passengers. But as Mackey argues, all of this compellingly underscores the need for an independent -- not an Israeli-led -- investigation. Mackey quotes Israeli journalist and blogger Noam Sheifaz:Israel has confiscated some of the most important material for the investigation, namely the films, audio and photos taken by the passengers [and] journalists on board and the Mavi Marmara’s security cameras. Since yesterday, Israel has been editing these films and using them for its own PR campaign. In other words, Israel has already confiscated most of the evidence, held it from the world and tampered with it. No court in the world would [trust] it to be the one examining it.
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| | | 371 | Boldwin
ID: 425161
Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 20:05
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Because there are so many neutral unbiased international bodies these days who aren't anti semitic.
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| | | 372 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 20:23
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So why not release unedited video to the public addressing the specific accusations?
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| | | 373 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 20:27
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Its a real head-scratcher, I know.
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| | | 374 | Boldwin
ID: 44537621
Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 22:37
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Just for some perspective, let's remember that interdiction at sea goes on all the time. It's not something unusual.
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| | | 375 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 22:56
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Still working out the finer points on a response to #372?
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| | | 376 | Boldwin
ID: 44537621
Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 23:01
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Life in Gaza.
So why not release unedited video - MITH
Do the math between #364 and #365.
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| | | 377 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 23:24
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Deliberately obtuse response.
IDF has been perfectly happy to relsease video that supports it's versiuon of events, with no fear that it will be edited to be used as pro-opposition propaganda. All I'm asking is that they do a little more of what they've already done. Why can't they release video of the first guy rappeing down the rop not firing his weapon? Why can't they release video of that first guy being attacked by a mob waiting to ambush him?
I really don't think I'm the only one smart enough to have fgured out that if Israel's version of events if the honest one (whihever Israeli version of events you want to go with) it should be very easy for them to prove it, at least to any objective observer.
Or if you really can't wrap your head around that idea, then lets rephrase: why was it necessary for them to omit the beginning of the conflict from all the videos they did release?
If the question is who initiated the violence, and there are very likely multiple videos of that initiation of violence which are all in the possession of one side, doesn't it seem really fishy to you that they will only release video of events that occurred after the fighting started - and claim that it sufficiently clears them?
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| | | 378 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 23:32
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Maybe NFL refs should only review instant replay video from the moment after the play occurred.
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| | | 379 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 23:35
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We could have undercover cops switch on their hidden microphones/recorders after the incriminating verbal exchange occurs. Why would anyone question that evidence?
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| | | 380 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 23:40
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I hear there's these new surveilance cameras that automatically switch on a few minutes after anyone exits the property. That sure would make me feel more secure.
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| | | 381 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Mon, Jun 07, 2010, 00:17
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i hear there are people that think "well hey, terrorists are going to be terrorists, so we shouldn't even bother to get them to negotiate. instead, the people who have been their victims for generations should continue to give and give and give. we'll just let the terrorists carry on business as usual. Killing, kidnapping jewish teenagers, whatever."
i still don't hear you speaking up for Gilad Shalit - instead, you're basically sentencing him to more years of captivity, because hey, why should the Palestinians give up anything, because we know they won't.
or perhaps we can trust an international group of critics who believe the Holocaust pales in comparison to Gaza.
while i personally believe Israel should allow an independent investigation, between no one internationally giving a damn about Gilad Shalit or people who think the Holocaust was a minor thing, it's easy to see why Israel doesn't trust a lot of people...
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| | | 382 | nerveclinic
ID: 105222
Mon, Jun 07, 2010, 02:51
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Baldwin Because there are so many neutral unbiased
international bodies these days who aren't anti semitic.
That's just so tired and sad Baldwin. Anyone who is against the
terrorist action used by Israel must be anti Semitic. They must
hate Jews simply because they are Jew?. Not because the Jews
are using terrorism?
What is the point of even discussing anything about this if you
shut down every argument simply by labeling any group who
opposes this terrorist state as anti Semitic. It a typical right wing
device to shut down debate when they are so obviously
supporting butchers.
It's like in the 80's when it was fine to give money to
governments who had death squads, who killed political
opponents, by simply explaining they are fighting communism.
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| | | 383 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Mon, Jun 07, 2010, 08:26
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What is the point of even discussing anything about this if you
shut down every argument simply by labeling any group who
opposes this terrorist state as anti Semitic. It a typical right wing
device to shut down debate when they are so obviously
supporting butchers.
you're kidding right?
it should be the other way around - what is the point of discussing this with people who say "well, yea, we don't expect Hamas to come around and be reasonable, so Israel's got to do it all..."
meanwhile, the rockets that fall into Israel from Gaza fall on deaf ears to the entire world.
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| | | 384 | Boldwin
ID: 44537621
Mon, Jun 07, 2010, 09:06
|
It a typical right wing
device to shut down debate when they are so obviously
supporting butchers. - Nerve
Which one of us is supporting people who proudly encourage walking into markets and blowing up civilians? No provocation necessary, just because there are Isrealis or Americans there?
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| | | 385 | Boldwin
ID: 44537621
Mon, Jun 07, 2010, 09:09
|
For that matter which of us is supporting people who encourage their own people to blow themselves up?
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| | | 386 | Mith
ID: 482583111
Mon, Jun 07, 2010, 09:40
|
The greatest weapon Hamas has is not their rockets or their suicide bombs. Their rockets rarely kill anyone and is Hamas is still sending suicide bombers the current Israeli border policies seem to effectively keep them out.
By far their most powerful weapon employed against Israel is their propaganda machine. It produces global sympathy, a stream of funds, munitions, and fresh Palistinian bodies, eager to be sacrificed in the name of the cause.
And Israel's oppression of those people is the never-ending ammunition supply for that weapon.
At least one side has to act like a partner in peace. I'm the only one proposing a solution, albeit a very difficult one. Boldwin and Tree only support the status quo (even as they bitch and whine about it) which I think we all know is unsustainable for Israel over the long haul.
Tree's position is completely stuck on a base emotion that any difficulty in the peace process must be shared by the more culpable, as if putting in the hard work to create peace is some kind of punishment that the more guilty party must take part in.
Fortunately, Ghandi and MLK were not so naive and understood that life simply isn't fair and that sometimes you have to work a lot harder than your adversaries to make them into partners. Funny how he and B criticize flotilla passangers for not being more like those men but see no reason, whatsoever for Israel to follow in their steps.
Sorry guys, oppressive and military tactics is not a path to peace. You'd think you guys woudl have figured this out by now. Neither is sitting around waiting for Hamas to share in the heavy lifting.
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| | | 387 | Mith
ID: 482583111
Mon, Jun 07, 2010, 09:44
|
Anyone think Israel will get around to releasing the video?
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| | | 388 | Mith
ID: 482583111
Mon, Jun 07, 2010, 09:50
|
You know, video from the initial moments in their encounter with the flotilla which should be able to end the dispute over which side initiated the violence that occurred on board.
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| | |
| | | 390 | Boldwin
ID: 44537621
Mon, Jun 07, 2010, 10:56
|
Translation: add lots of nails...makes the sub sandwich shop blow up real good.
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| | | 391 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Mon, Jun 07, 2010, 11:27
|
By far their most powerful weapon employed against Israel is their propaganda machine.
i do not disagree with this. I've always said the Palestinians had better PR people.
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| | |
| | | 393 | DWetzel
ID: 278201415
Mon, Jun 07, 2010, 12:29
|
Asked and answered, and for your last two sentences, see post 389.
Pointing out, "hey, the other guys are idiots too" does not absolve one of one's own stupidity.
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| | | 394 | Boldwin
ID: 44537621
Mon, Jun 07, 2010, 13:14
|
By far their most powerful weapon employed against Israel is their propaganda machine.
Actually the biggest factor is related to that.
All the anti-semites claim the Jews have an unfair advantage and that they control the media. Quite the opposite, the universe's worst anti-semite, satan controls the media and the spirit of the air and the spirit of the age. This will not end well for the Jews because almighty God no longer has their back. It is very sad for them.
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| | | 395 | Razor
ID: 57854118
Mon, Jun 07, 2010, 13:55
|
Satan controls Ann Coulter? That explains a lot.
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| | | 396 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Mon, Jun 07, 2010, 14:23
|
Asked and answered, and for your last two sentences, see post 389.
no, it's not answered. The world is hyper-critical of Israel, yet when Hamas does the same thing - perhaps worse, then the world sighs and says collectively "oh, those silly terrorists. they're at it again."
sorry, that's bull$hit.
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| | | 397 | DWetzel
ID: 278201415
Mon, Jun 07, 2010, 14:32
|
It's also, as you so eloquently put it, bull$hit, that you continually use the same excuse, without acknowledging that Israel has likely screwed up a lot themselves.
Here, I'll say it, just for the record. Hamas is bad. Blowing people up is bad. They have a lot of culpability in this situation too. I get it.
Now, will you admit that Israel has screwed up a bunch too, or are you going to continue to keep your head firmly placed up your, um, a$$?
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| | | 398 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Mon, Jun 07, 2010, 15:48
|
without acknowledging that Israel has likely screwed up a lot themselves.
you're confusing me with Baldwin. i've said more than once - on this topic as well as others - that things could be done differently by Israel.
on this matter, i've said that israel should allow an independent review of what happened. i've said that israel would be better served allowing an international body to inspect ships who try to steer through the blockade. and so on.
my argument isn't that israel has made mistakes - rather, people are laying the entire blame on israel, and putting the entire onus to fix middle east peace, on israel.
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| | | 399 | DWetzel
ID: 278201415
Mon, Jun 07, 2010, 16:00
|
In this particular instance, it's very easy to confuse you with Boldwin. And I realize what a horrifying cheap shot that sounds like, and I'm not saying it lightly.
I think you're interpreting discussion of this incident, which I think is roughly 99.8% Israel's fault (and would have been about 0.2% had they done things legally and/or with less force), with discussion of the larger picture.
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| | | 400 | bibA
ID: 5250715
Mon, Jun 07, 2010, 16:01
|
people are laying the entire blame on israel
Maybe some "people" do this, somewhere. But, the people on this site don't do that. So maybe you don't need to be so defensive, at least here.
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| | | 401 | Boldwin
ID: 24528715
Mon, Jun 07, 2010, 16:34
|
This thread is sooooo messed up in the liberal way.
They just have this idea that the solution to any problem is to have the people least likely to be guilty stand around and confess their PC sins and marinate in self-loathing. Based on the dubious but plausible idea that those are the people most likely to actually do something about the problem.
It however is not conceivable that Isreal can rewrite the Koran to include a future where Jews live happily ever after.
No matter how sincerely they might wring their hands and navel-gaze, it aint gonna happen.
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| | | 402 | DWetzel
ID: 278201415
Mon, Jun 07, 2010, 16:36
|
You're full of it as usual, but I know that's not going to stop you.
The Middle East is a perfect example of what happens when you let competing religious nutjobs like you have at each other.
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| | | 403 | Boldwin
ID: 24528715
Mon, Jun 07, 2010, 16:58
|
The problem isn't with worship, it's with the set of instructions.
Let's boil down the various religions involved to essentials.The muslims have an instruction set that explicitly says:
1) Convert the christians by the sword and kill everyone else off. Everyone else is in their view either an irredeemable idolator or a Jew who are to be killed off in the end-times.
2) Take over the world by force.
The Christians have an instruction set that says:
1) Wait for God's Kingdom.
2) Convince enuff people by peaceful evangelizing to provide citizens for that Kingdom.
3) and the instruction that is rarely followed, 'put away your sword, he who lives by the sword will die by the sword'.
The Jews have an instruction set that says:
1) Stay separate from the world, as God will use your bloodline to save the world. Notice there is only one set of instructions that says go cut everyone's head off who doesn't agree with you and conquer the world by force.
So don't go telling me everyone who believes, shares the guilt of al queda and Arafat and Ahmadinejad. Anyone who believes that is a nutjob extremist who poses a threat to his fellow man.
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| | | 404 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Mon, Jun 07, 2010, 17:00
|
We've covered your twisting of Muslim theology before, but the teaching hasn't stuck, it seems.
Your problem is that you try to apply your misunderstandings to real-world situations, which make them infinitely worse than they would be if you followed your own religion's teachings and kept yourself quiet in matters of politics.
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| | | 405 | DWetzel
ID: 278201415
Mon, Jun 07, 2010, 17:01
|
Well, by sailing out into international waters and commando-raiding ships, they're sure following the dictum you've described to the last detail!
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| | | 406 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Mon, Jun 07, 2010, 17:17
|
ok. after post 403, i'm out of this discussion. y'all have fun.
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| | | 407 | Boldwin
ID: 24528715
Mon, Jun 07, 2010, 17:43
|
#405
They are actually just saying 'leave us alone'. 'Stop rocketing us'.
Is anyone actually suggesting they are trying to take over the world, 'today Gaza shipping, tommorrow the world'?
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| | | 408 | Boldwin
ID: 24528715
Mon, Jun 07, 2010, 17:44
|
#404
I've shown you chapter and verse. Your problem is you won't take the Koran at it's word.
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| | | 409 | Boldwin
ID: 24528715
Mon, Jun 07, 2010, 17:47
|
Oh, and come back here, Tree. You have been strangely silent about your own branch of belief. Is Dwetz correct that that 'they're all dangerous' in your view? If not in your case, why not?
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| | | 410 | DWetzel
ID: 278201415
Mon, Jun 07, 2010, 17:53
|
First of all, please don't attribute quotes (by using quote marks) for words I didn't actually say. Minor nitpick in this case, since the sentiment is about right, but you'd be a lot less dishonest if you left those out.
If one set of religious nutjobs think they have an inalienable right to do whatever they want to to another set of religious nutjobs, then hell yes it's dangerous. That includes minor details like blowing up their homes and then refusing to allow materials to rebuild those homes. Lest I be accused of being some anti-Semitic Muslim sympathizer, I'll note that it also includes launching rockets into cities and trying to kill people.
Honestly, I wish we could put a dome over the whole thing, insulate the rest of the world from the two-way holy war, and be done with it. Unfortunately, we don't yet have the technology for the Springfield Containment Dome.
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| | | 411 | Boldwin
ID: 24528715
Mon, Jun 07, 2010, 20:10
|
Those aren't quotation marks. They are just my idiosyncratic way of breaking out special phrases from the sentence without being so visually heavy as an actual "quotation mark". I've been doing it a long time, for things like movie titles to make them stand out. Not legal but then I don't respect the punctuation police.
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| | | 412 | Boldwin
ID: 24528715
Mon, Jun 07, 2010, 20:12
|
I am using them in the fashion of 'scare quotes'.If scare quotes are enclosing a word or phrase that does not represent a quotation from another source they may simply serve to alert the reader that the word or phrase is used in an unusual, special, or non-standard way or should be understood to include caveats to the conventional meaning. Because I'm not all that conventional.
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| | | 413 | DWetzel
ID: 33337117
Mon, Jun 07, 2010, 20:24
|
Uh... huh.
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| | | 414 | Boldwin
ID: 24528715
Mon, Jun 07, 2010, 20:33
|
See how much you are learning? scare quotes
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| | | 415 | DWetzel
ID: 33337117
Mon, Jun 07, 2010, 20:43
|
And here I just assumed you were too lazy to hit the shift button.
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| | | 419 | Khahan
ID: 373143013
Tue, Jun 08, 2010, 09:14
|
while the last few posts have been very entertaining, its getting rather personal again and we're way off topic. Enjoy the rest of the thread. Maybe if it gets back on track I'll rejoin.
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| | |
| | | 421 | Boldwin
ID: 24528715
Wed, Jun 09, 2010, 11:24
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| | | 422 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Sat, Jun 12, 2010, 01:59
|
Flotilla video that managed to get smuggled past Israeli security.
Skip to about 35:40 to watch the initial confrontation (that was captured by this camera, at least) between Israeli commandos and the flotilla. In a clearly unedited shot (there were no cuts for a long time before the first boat pulled up) you will see and hear paint balls being fored onto the deck before you see any aggressive acts committed by the flotilla passangers or crew.
This isn't conclusive that the Israelis started the violence, of course, but it's yet another piece in the growing pile of evidence that you can't put any faith in the official Israeli version of events.
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| | |
| | | 424 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Sat, Jun 12, 2010, 13:33
|
For the record - the video linked in post 422, produced by activist Iara Lee was released yesterday - NYT had it 24 hours prior to this post.
As of this writing neither haaretz.com nor jerusalempost.com have reported anything about it.
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| | | 425 | nerveclinic
Leader
ID: 05047110
Sat, Jun 12, 2010, 18:53
|
Now we see who the real terrorists are. Mafia nation. Butchers.
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| | | 426 | Boldwin
ID: 185231318
Sun, Jun 13, 2010, 19:31
|
You have really gone native, Nerve.
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| | | 427 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Sun, Jun 13, 2010, 19:40
|
Well thank goodness someone posted something worthy of comment since #421.
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| | | 428 | Boldwin
ID: 185231318
Sun, Jun 13, 2010, 19:45
|
*Note to Nerve: Those suicide belts are not all they are cracked up to be.
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| | |
| | | 432 | Myboyjack
Dude
ID: 014826271
Sun, Jun 13, 2010, 21:28
|
MITH what is it that you find so terribly illuminating about this video? The paint balls? The sling shots? The sharpened sticks?
What in the video is counter to the Israeli narrative?
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| | | 433 | WiddleAvi
ID: 352232517
Sun, Jun 13, 2010, 21:41
|
MITH - In the begining of the video the people of the boat say that it is a peaceful mission and if Israel stops them they will surrender peacefully. Yet when Israel starts pulling it's boats up to the side we see people on the boat deck brandishing sticks etc. What happened to peaceful surrender ?
Yes, I know it happened it international waters. I don't know what the law is but I hear conflicting sides on if Israel had a right to stop them in international water. But do you think it would have been any different if Israel had waited until they were out of international waters ?
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| | | 434 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Sun, Jun 13, 2010, 21:45
|
Are you seriously of the opinion that Israeli commandos firing paintballs onto the deck prior to the arrival of any helicopters is not any notable challenge to the Israeli position that hostility were initiated by the flotilla?
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| | | 435 | Myboyjack
Dude
ID: 014826271
Sun, Jun 13, 2010, 21:46
|
Paintballs.
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| | | 436 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Sun, Jun 13, 2010, 21:48
|
Widdle - you'll have to show me where I went and absolved the flotilla passangers of any responsibility here. At least some of their accounts have been proven untrue.
That said, there is no one "brandishing sticks" on the deck as the Israeli boat pulled up and started firing on them.
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| | | 437 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Sun, Jun 13, 2010, 21:55
|
#435
1. Paintball guns are no less formidable a weapon than what most of the passangers had, and I have no doubt that some of those passangers were not aware that the ammunition fired at them was non-lethal. Unless those people were acting, some of them saw what I believe was red paint splattered on the walls and thought it was blood.
2. Set the video to 36:10 and tell me you're sure that isn't a stun grenade lobbed up onto that deck.
In every Israeli and pro-Israeli version I've heard, the story starts with commandos rappeling down onto the deck and being met by a berserking mob.
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| | | 438 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Sun, Jun 13, 2010, 21:57
|
And the flotilla passangers were called liars when they said they were fired upon before the commandos even landed on the decks.
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| | | 439 | DWetzel
ID: 33337117
Sun, Jun 13, 2010, 21:58
|
Yeah, paintballs.
I assume that it's perfectly OK to fire paintballs at people without repercussions in your jurisdiction, right MBJ? Because they're perfectly innocent and nobody should ever be threatened by them?
Oh wait, that's not true, is it?
I think it would be far MORE appropriate to give you a dismissive "sticks", considering the likely body armor that Israeli commandos are wearing relative to the passengers.
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| | | 440 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Sun, Jun 13, 2010, 22:00
|
Lemme pull up next to MBJ on the highway and fire a few dozen paintballs at him and his family and then see if for any reason he chooses some reaction other than pulling over and graciously handing me the keys to his car.
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| | | 441 | WiddleAvi
ID: 352232517
Sun, Jun 13, 2010, 22:02
|
At 36:22 in the video only 10-20 seconds after the Israeli boat pulls up what looks like and sounds like a flash grenade goes off in the Israelli boat. While we don't see it it sounds like another one was set off about 10 seconds before that. Even if you say Israel was already shooting paintballs, someone was standing on the deck ready with a flash grenade. Were they not planning a peacfull surrender ? At 37:05 in the video we see them throwing stuff from the deck at the Israelli boat ? Peacefull surrender ? At 37:32 we see the first person with a stick on the deck and it's more than one person. Peacefull surrender ?
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| | | 442 | Myboyjack
Dude
ID: 014826271
Sun, Jun 13, 2010, 22:04
|
I hear paasengers laughing about the paint ball guns. Saying they were "fired upon" and then attempted to kill the commandos is very different than saying they were fired upon with paint ball guns.....
The presence of the paint ball guns only serve to make the Israeli narraative more compelling to me. Why do you think they used paint ball guns if their intent was violence. Will the terrorists agree to use paint balls instead of bombs?
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| | | 443 | DWetzel
ID: 33337117
Sun, Jun 13, 2010, 22:04
|
Rodney King tried to peacefully surrender too. Maybe they saw the tapes.
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| | | 444 | WiddleAvi
ID: 352232517
Sun, Jun 13, 2010, 22:04
|
MITH - re:440 They knew Israel was going to try and stop them and they said they will surrender peacefully. This is not just pulling up to someone out of the blue
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| | | 445 | WiddleAvi
ID: 352232517
Sun, Jun 13, 2010, 22:06
|
DWetzel & MITH - Had this happened is Israelli waters did Israel have the right to try and board the ship ? Yes or No.
Do you think they passengers would have reacted differently had this happened in Israelli waters ?
Just give me an honest yes or no answer. Just want to know how you feel.
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| | | 446 | Myboyjack
Dude
ID: 014826271
Sun, Jun 13, 2010, 22:10
|
I suspect different passengers had different intentions regarding surender. It is clear to me that at least some of the passenger anticipated and welcomed a violent conflict with the Israelis.
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| | | 447 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Sun, Jun 13, 2010, 22:15
|
Widdle
You hear the first paintball shots fired at 36:02. The first flash (and accompanying sound) occurs at exactly 36:13. That's the one I refer to in #437. You can clearly see the flash occur on the deck and in fact the camera operator even flinches as it goes off on the other side of the deck. That's the first time you hear that noise.
You're right that we hear the same noise and a similar flash occur on the Iraeli boat 10 seconds later. It appears that is likely the first hostile act committed by the flotilla passangers that we can see on the video.
However, the passangers in that portion of the video honestly don't look very prepared for a violent raid. None of them are armed (like the guys with slingshots later in the video) as far as we can see at that point. So I wonder if (since it seems at least likely that the Israelis tossed the first grenade) that grenade wasn't originally tossed by the Israelis and either bounced back off the hull or was successfully tossed back at them by a passanger.
I don't know exactly what a stun grenade is, frankly, and I don't know whether the detonate on first impact or what.
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| | | 448 | WiddleAvi
ID: 352232517
Sun, Jun 13, 2010, 22:22
|
I think MBJ hit the nail on the head in 446
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| | | 449 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Sun, Jun 13, 2010, 22:26
|
I think that was tree's point over the course of many of his posts as well. Of course, he felt that was a good excuse for what happened to them as well.
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| | | 450 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Sun, Jun 13, 2010, 22:28
|
Had this happened is Israelli waters did Israel have the right to try and board the ship ?
It would certainly make the case for Israel's side of the conflict much stronger.
Since this broke I've read several opinions that the IDF should have simply waited until the boat entered Israeli waters and then disabled it so that it could be safely towed. I don't know if that's realistic but it sounds plausable enough to me. And if it is, I fail to see the need for a hostile boarding in the middle of the sea.
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| | | 451 | WiddleAvi
ID: 352232517
Sun, Jun 13, 2010, 22:29
|
If someone start driving a car with a big sign that says I will be breaking into PD's house tomorrow night do we really need to wait until he breaks in or can the police stop him once he reaches your block ?
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| | | 452 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Sun, Jun 13, 2010, 22:32
|
446 seems likely enough to me as well. Iara Lee's video doesn't in any way prove or disprove that.
But that doesn't make it insignificant or unworthy of at least the same coverage received by the various Israel-released videos.
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| | | 453 | WiddleAvi
ID: 352232517
Sun, Jun 13, 2010, 22:34
|
My guess why it has not gotten any coverage is because the video does not seem to show any conclusive evidence to support either side.
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| | | 454 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Sun, Jun 13, 2010, 22:36
|
451
Doesn't give you the right to shoot up his car with paintballs on the highway.
And I think the sign actually said, "I will be trespassing across your lawn to help the crippled neighbor you left for dead off the floor."
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| | | 455 | WiddleAvi
ID: 352232517
Sun, Jun 13, 2010, 22:39
|
re: 454 - I think your nitpicking there. Whether their intentions were good or not is irrelevent. There was a blockade on Gaza for a very good reason.
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| | | 456 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Sun, Jun 13, 2010, 22:44
|
453
What are you talking about? It supports both sides' accounts of violence from the opposition. It clearly shows Israelis fireing on them prior to rappeling onto the deck, clearly shows passangers (albeit with comic futility) firing slingshots at the helicopter. It offers great insight into what the passangers were doing and how they were behaving on the trip prior to the boarding.
In a major story with such different competing accounts of what took place - and the type of people involved - where almost all of the very likely abundant video evidence has been willfully and thoroughly suppressed with the exception of only carefully screened (and edited!) releases, the emergence of this video is the single biggest development in this major international story since it broke.
It's absurd that you or anyone would so readily dismiss it as insignificant.
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| | | 457 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Sun, Jun 13, 2010, 22:45
|
There was a blockade on Gaza for a very good reason.
Well, I'd say there is a good case for a blockade on Gaza. But I cannot possibly defend that blockade.
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| | | 458 | WiddleAvi
ID: 352232517
Sun, Jun 13, 2010, 22:46
|
when you get a chance can you answer 445 ? Just give an honest answer.
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| | | 459 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Sun, Jun 13, 2010, 22:53
|
See #450.
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| | | 460 | WiddleAvi
ID: 352232517
Sun, Jun 13, 2010, 22:57
|
What about the second question. DO you think the passengers would have reacted any differently ?
To be honest I am very torn on this story. Issue #1 is what is the law for international water for something like this. Issue #2 would there have been a different end had this occured in Israelli waters. I think Israel screwed up by trying to board the ship in international waters (again not sure what the law is) but I really don't think anything would have been different had they waited.
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| | | 461 | DWetzel
ID: 33337117
Sun, Jun 13, 2010, 22:58
|
445:
a) They'd have a hell of a lot stronger case, yes. It probably still wouldn't justify coming on (paint)ball guns a-blazing, given the range of options available, but they'd be much more justified in stopping the ship.
b) Probably not. People tend to react in all sorts of different ways when they're being shot at.
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| | | 462 | DWetzel
ID: 33337117
Sun, Jun 13, 2010, 23:00
|
I'd also say "have the right to" and "ought to" are two different questions with, possibly, different answers.
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| | | 463 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Sun, Jun 13, 2010, 23:03
|
DO you think the passengers would have reacted any differently ?
All things being the same except for moving the location to within Israeli waters, I think it most likely that the passangers' reaction would have been the same as well.
Though I'm not sure why that's a significant question to ask me, since I haevn't condoned their violence anyplace in this thread.
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| | | 464 | DWetzel
ID: 33337117
Sun, Jun 13, 2010, 23:58
|
To attempt to re-clarify 461 and 462:
They'd be a lot more justified under the terms of their blockade in stopping the boat if it wasn't in international waters.
In my opinion, while some form of blockade is clearly needed, the one that's currently in place is equally clearly overdone and seems designed to cause harm to the Palestinian and Gazan people rather than protect Israel, so on those grounds I couldn't fully justify the blockade as it was carried out even if it were in Israeli waters--especially given that they knew in advance exactly the nature of the ship in question.
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| | | 465 | WiddleAvi
ID: 352232517
Mon, Jun 14, 2010, 08:18
|
especially given that they knew in advance exactly the nature of the ship in question.
You do realize that previously there were other ships with the same mission that WERE hiding weapons ?
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| | | 466 | DWetzel
ID: 278201415
Mon, Jun 14, 2010, 09:56
|
Sure. Which would be a good reason to board the ship (in accordance with the rules of the blockade) and conduct a search for said weapons.
It doesn't mean they get to come in shooting first, shooting second, and maybe after a few people are bleeding out on the deck stop to ask a question or two.
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| | | 467 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Mon, Jun 14, 2010, 10:36
|
It doesn't mean they get to come in shooting first, shooting second, and maybe after a few people are bleeding out on the deck stop to ask a question or two.
they didn't come in shooting first.
when the ships first left port, announcing their intention, Israel let them know they'd stop the ships and board them.
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| | | 468 | DWetzel
ID: 278201415
Mon, Jun 14, 2010, 11:13
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I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. But the facts are that they pretty clearly came on board shooting.
Next time you get stopped for a traffic violation, I'm sure you'd be perfectly OK with a taser shot to the face before being asked for your license and registration.
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| | | 469 | nerveclinic
Leader
ID: 05047110
Tue, Jun 15, 2010, 17:52
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when the ships first left port, announcing their intention, Israel let them know they'd stop the ships and board them.
And yet Israel won't release the undoctered film footage that would prove the are telling the truth?
Why?
Because they are terrorists, they don't want us to see what is on the film.
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| | | 470 | nerveclinic
Leader
ID: 05047110
Tue, Jun 15, 2010, 18:16
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You have really gone native, Nerve.
Is that what you think Baldwin, let's just argue the facts.
I am not native, I get all my info from the BBC. I don't read the local rags, I don't talk with ANY locals, I don't discuss this issue with anyone here. I read the same press you do on the internet and I listen to the BBC.
I heard the interviews with Israeli soldiers on the BBC during the last invasion of Gaza saying they were intentionally killing civilians and not only when Hamas was hiding behind them.
Save the "native" comments and argue the facts. You love Israel because you are a right wing Christian. That is not an attack, that is a fact.
You are proud to be a right wing Christian right? Instead of car bombs you use propaganda and the USA/ British/ Israel military.
You think the world Trade center was blown up by the CIA yet that is our reason for being in Afghanistan. You must feel very confused at times?
I have seen since moving here how many lies there are about Muslims, including your uninformed warnings about not moving here because I might get killed by a terrorist. Never mind no westerner has ever been killed by a terrorist here, unlike New York.
The games changed. It's the Israelis who are terrorists now, and most of the world recognizes it, not just the Muslim world.
The Jerry Falwells will always love Israel because they have to, to bring about Armageddon, the destruction of the planet they want so badly, so they can pick through the rubble for the second coming.
Of course you love Israels fascism, it's bring things closer to the end for you.
This is what you are hoping for right?
Gone native?, hardly, I wouldn't go native for a thousand virgins but if it helps you deflect the truth then do what you have to because the facts no longer work in your favor.
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| | | 471 | nerveclinic
Leader
ID: 05047110
Tue, Jun 15, 2010, 18:28
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Baldwin just look at how absurd this series of facts are when lined up.
You are a right wing Christian who believes the goal of the US government is to destroy the Christian church to bring about secular humanism.
You believe the twin towers were actually blown up by the CIA (They helped bring it about)
We invaded Afghanistan because of 9/11.
You support the war in Afghanistan, killing Muslims there, even though you believe it was actually the USA government who was responsible for 9/11.
You being the model Christian, we should all assume that this is WWJD? What would Jesus do?
Can you see the warped morality, ethics and logic in this belief system?
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| | | 472 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Tue, Jun 15, 2010, 20:08
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Because they are terrorists, they don't want us to see what is on the film.
whatever. it's impossible to have a conversation with someone who believes such nonsense.
a belief such as that is no less whacko than a lot of the right wing mumbo jumbo Baldwin posts.
Israel could use better judgment sometimes. They certainly could use better PR.
but to call them terrorists in the face of the real terrorists they're fighting is ludicrous.
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| | | 473 | Boldwin
ID: 135311520
Tue, Jun 15, 2010, 21:38
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WWJD? - Nerve
Jesus would do exactly what his father has done.
Instructing his followers to eschew violence, while using the vast majority, who are not his followers, to defend them and to some extent restrain evil.
Thus I do not go to war, but it does not go uncelebrated when the worst of mankind, the Hitlers, Idi Amin's, etc. have their reigns of terror cut short.
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| | | 474 | Boldwin
ID: 135311520
Tue, Jun 15, 2010, 22:44
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Nerve
Now to speak very very precisely about the finer points you are trying to make.
In general, They are all beasts. All the nations are beasts under Satan's control. He pushes, he pulls, he uses action and reaction. He's on both sides of every staged event.
Specifically, I have stated that elements within this government allowed 9/11. I did not say they did it, altho I don't categorically rule the possibility out. Not the whole government conspiring to allow 9/11, just enuff to get the job done, because their mystery religion has uses for crisis.
That in no way emeliorates the very real role muslim salafists play in very real terrorism around the world including 9/11.
As far as supporting these wars, I'm not. I am explaining them for what they are and picking apart commonly held untruths.
There are some unavoidable geo-political and religious realities that are dragging the nations inexorably every step of the way. Pollyanna wishful liberal thinking just doesn't fly with me. For example pretending salafists can be placated if Obama just bows deeply enuff. I'm gonna call you out on these self-deceiving misconceptions. It doesn't mean I am asking you to sign up for the marines, to see things for what they are.
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| | | 475 | nerveclinic
ID: 390561510
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 00:23
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Your belief that non Muslim agents planted bombs inside the buildings to make them collapse is "letting them do it".
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| | | 476 | biliruben
ID: 16105237
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 00:25
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I'm really not clear who is suffering under the greater delusion.
At least Baldwin has his supreme faith in fiction as an excuse.
What's tree's excuse?
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| | | 477 | Boldwin
ID: 135311520
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 04:53
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#475 is not something I believe. It is a working hypothesis I'm looking into. That is all.
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| | | 478 | Boldwin
ID: 135311520
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 04:56
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For the record, Nerve, that building's design and lack of fireproofing wraps above a certain level makes the pancaking scenario entirely plausible to me. If there weren't a few clues that they were making sure this attempt wasn't as incomplete as the first attempt they allowed, I wouldn't even be looking any deeper at it.
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| | | 479 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 08:23
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tell me what my delusion is Bili.
I'm not deluded - i acknowledge Israel has made mistakes.
the delusion is on the part of the people who hold the Palestinians up as some sort of heroes after Markaz HaRav (where a Palestinian gunman killed 7 teenagers studying in their Yeshiva), Dimona, the two bulldozer attacks of 2008, the Tel Aviv bus station attack of 2006, the various kidnappings and murders including Gilad Shalit who is still held hostage AND NO ONE ON THIS BOARD HAS DARED TO RESPOND TO YET, Munich, the multiple bombings over the years that have killed 3 or 4 at a time and injured dozens, Sbarro, and so on.
no one here, save for MITH (who throws his arms up and says "well, i don't expect the Palestinians to do anything, so it's all on the israelis), seems to acknowledge or care that there are attacks from the Palestinians into Israel.
rather, Israel should sit idly by, and let her citizens be murdered because it's what the world demands?
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| | | 480 | Mith
ID: 37540118
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 09:38
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When the alternative is the continued oppression and slaughter of a brainwashed people, yep, I'll go with easing the boot off their throat every time. I'm funny that way.
What a terrible burden it is to ask of Israel to follow a policy that might lead her from 1 Israeli death per 100 Palestinians to maybe 3 Israeli deaths per 100 Palestinians...
Of course no alternative that doesn't naively depend on a drastic cultureal shift of the brainwashed Palestinian people has been offered.
I'm sure MLK was met with the resistance of people like Tree who insisted that since it was their people who had been wronged by the opposition in their strife that they should not be expected to carry the load toward better relations. He was criticized from within his community for his insistance that black Americans should not fight back and let their people be lynched.
What would black America look like today if not for the peaceful courage of the victims of that conflict?
Pity that modern Israel so lacks anything resembling that courage. And that tree lacks the sense to understand it's value. He criticized the flotilla passangers for not being like MLK. Look in the mirror, home boy.
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| | | 481 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 09:52
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What a terrible burden it is to ask of Israel to follow a policy that might lead her from 1 Israeli death per 100 Palestinians to maybe 3 Israeli deaths per 100 Palestinians...
Of course no alternative that doesn't naively depend on a drastic cultureal shift of the brainwashed Palestinian people has been offered.
there might not be an alternative offered, because there might not be one. from childhood, in their homes and schools, palestinians are taught to hate and kill israelis and jews.
how do you fix that? can you? is it even possible? do you let them kill your people, because to them, it's what they believe they are supposed to do?
I'm sure MLK was met with the resistance of people like Tree who insisted that since it was their people who had been wronged by the opposition in their strife that they should not be expected to carry the load toward better relations. He was criticized from within his community for his insistance that black Americans should not fight back and let their people be lynched.
What would black America look like today if not for the peaceful courage of the victims of that conflict?
MLK is probably rolling over in his grave with that comparison.
did african-americans ever launch missiles into white america? did they strap bombs to their chests and kill scores? did they kidnap white teenagers and hold them indefinitely?
but, you do have a point - if the Palestinians even tried remotely to act as MLK did, then i'd have ZERO problem being extremely critical of Israel.
but they're not even trying.
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| | | 483 | Mith
ID: 37540118
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 10:02
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If I'm calling on the Israelis to act like MLK - why would you compare the activities of palestinian militants to black Americans during the civil rights era?
You are so twisted up in the backwards logic it takes to defend the slaughter and oppression of a people that you can't even think straight.
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| | | 484 | DWetzel
ID: 278201415
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 10:03
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"no one here, save for MITH (who throws his arms up and says "well, i don't expect the Palestinians to do anything, so it's all on the israelis), seems to acknowledge or care that there are attacks from the Palestinians into Israel."
Tree, this is bullshit and you know it and I'd really appreciate if you'd cut it out with this ridiculous straw man because it makes it impossible to attempt to have an intelligent conversation with you about the issue.
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| | | 485 | Mith
ID: 37540118
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 10:09
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It's the same skirt he always runs to and hides behind.
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| | | 486 | Boldwin
ID: 135311520
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 10:13
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Honestly MITH, I have no idea how you can feel and think the way you do. I am now convinced that if we time shifted you back to 1939 you'd be advising the residents of the Warsaw Ghetto to just be more accommodating to the gestapo since we can't expect any better behavior from the gestapo, let's just put the burden on the civilized non-genocidal party.
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| | | 487 | Mith
ID: 37540118
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 10:24
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Of course you are. You have proven yourself many times over a decade happy to convince yourself of whatever absurdities necessary to support your agenda.
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| | | 488 | Mith
ID: 37540118
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 10:25
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...even when that agenda is the abject oppression of an entire people.
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| | | 489 | Mith
ID: 37540118
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 10:39
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How offensive it is for me to come to the conclusion that after 60 years of fighting (actually it's much longer than that, but you'll note that ardent Israel supporters don't ever want to talk about pre-Holocaust Zionism as they cite events from years and decades past and accuse me viewing the modern conflict from within a vacuum) that has accomplished nothing but a masive and lopsided pile of corpses, it is time for the side which appears and claims to be more committed to finding peace to embrace a resistance based more on respect for all human life, dignity and respect.
What would MLK have said if he were told, "you'd be advising the residents of the Warsaw Ghetto to just be more accommodating to the gestapo..."?
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| | | 490 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 10:56
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If I'm calling on the Israelis to act like MLK - why would you compare the activities of palestinian militants to black Americans during the civil rights era?
looked to me like you were calling on the Palestinians to act like MLK here. After all, aren't they the "oppressed" ones?
Israel need to handle things with more kid gloves, no doubt. but it's not one or two citizens being injured here. her citizens are being murdered and kidnapped, and the world doesn't say a damned thing about it.
Tree, this is bullshit and you know it and I'd really appreciate if you'd cut it out with this ridiculous straw man because it makes it impossible to attempt to have an intelligent conversation with you about the issue.
so, address my points. address Gilad Shalit and the many other things.
You are so twisted up in the backwards logic it takes to defend the slaughter and oppression of a people that you can't even think straight.
and THAT is the problem. you are defending the slaughter of Israelis, but imploring they don't defend their nation against the people that seek to destroy them.
...claims to be more committed to finding peace to embrace a resistance based more on respect for all human life, dignity and respect.
how can have respect if it's not mutual. ALL children who go to Palestinian schools are taught to hate and kill. How can you make peace with that?!?!
offer a suggestion that isn't simply "Israel should stop defending itself," because that's not realistic.
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| | | 491 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 11:05
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MITH isn't defending the slaughter of Israelis and never has.
He's defending the right of the Palestinians not to be systematically oppressed because in a democratic election (held at Israel's insistence) they elected Hamas to represent them,
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| | | 492 | DWetzel
ID: 278201415
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 11:05
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"Tree, this is bullshit and you know it and I'd really appreciate if you'd cut it out with this ridiculous straw man because it makes it impossible to attempt to have an intelligent conversation with you about the issue.
so, address my points. address Gilad Shalit and the many other things."
Um, they're bad? They shouldn't happen? The Palestinians need to do a lot better too?
There's only so many hours in the day to discuss stuff. Just because I don't post about every single thing that happens in the world doesn't mean I'm not allowed to have an opinion about the other ones. That's a stupid standard for which you would never hold yourself. GTFO with this garbage.
Let's try it the other way: Did you come running on here to post about the Israeli agents with fake British passports? Why do you not speak out about that? What gives you the right to speak about anything when you didn't come running to Rotoguru to speak out about that???!!!?!!?!?!!?
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| | | 493 | DWetzel
ID: 278201415
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 11:10
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"and THAT is the problem. you are defending the slaughter of Israelis, but imploring they don't defend their nation against the people that seek to destroy them. "
This is also a blatant lie and you know it. Stop for three seconds and actually READ what other people post instead of just making up whatever you want, and this will go much more smoothly.
We disagree strongly with the lengths Israel is going to "defend" themselves, because we believe that a lot of what Israel does goes well beyond "defending itself" and is, instead, "deliberate oppression".
Question, seriously, answer this: should Israel be allowed to go in and kill everyone in Gaza in order to defend itself?
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| | | 494 | Mith
ID: 37540118
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 11:24
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looked to me like you were calling on the Palestinians to act like MLK here. After all, aren't they the "oppressed" ones?
I wasn't aware I was pushing the limits of your nuance-comprehension with that.
her citizens are being murdered and kidnapped, and the world doesn't say a damned thing about it.
This is true. Of course it's also already well-established at this forum and in this discussion and it doesn't impact or change any of my opinions which are the current topic in debate so perhaps you can step out from behind that skirt and stay on topic? When the issue is about international attention and media coverage of events, I'm there with you.
I don't believe that allowing Palestinians basic food items and simple construction materials (even if it means Hamas can build fortified bunkers), streesing honesty in their propaganda, taking pains to respond to Palestinian attacks more proportionately and ending the practice of evicting Palestinians from East Jerusalem will lead to the slaughter of Israelis.
Between you and I, there's only one person who stands in defense of an ongoing slaughter of a people. And it isn't me.
...but imploring they don't defend their nation against the people that seek to destroy them.
Amazing how many times I have to ask you this in one discussion; who do you think you're fooling with that?
how can have respect if it's not mutual... How can you make peace with that?!?!
You think MLK wasn't asked that same thing? How do you think he responded?
offer a suggestion that isn't simply "Israel should stop defending itself," because that's not realistic.
The pathetic and desperate dishonesty in questions like this is why you are so far beneath me and 99% of everyone who has ever posted in this forum, and why every time I address you, it's charity.
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| | | 495 | Khahan
ID: 373143013
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 11:33
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Here's the harsh truth that people just dont' want to believe or discuss. Somebody not too many posts up mentioned about changing somethign thats been in place for 60 years. A 60 yr old conflict compared to the Israel/Palestine conflict is an infant. This conflict is thousands of years old. It predates any current politically named states or boundaries.
Its NOT going to go away until one side or the other no longer exists. Thats my gut instinct at least. No negotiating, no treaty, no compromise is going to resolve this conflict unless a grassroots campaign is started now to teach the Israelis and Palestinians to like each other and live together. And at that, it may be another 100+ years until the current generation of self-taught and parent-taught hate mongers on both sides have died out.
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| | | 496 | Mith
ID: 37540118
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 11:37
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I think 495 is a reasonable opinion (tho I disagree) but I don't believe it's one that can be apropriately acted upon with any sense of morality.
I'm also not too sure about it predating any current "politically named states" but that isn't the greater point.
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| | | 497 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 11:39
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Question, seriously, answer this: should Israel be allowed to go in and kill everyone in Gaza in order to defend itself?
no, and they don't do that.
The pathetic and desperate dishonesty in questions like this is why you are so far beneath me and 99% of everyone who has ever posted in this forum, and why every time I address you, it's charity.
that is absolutely what you have implored. you've said you don't expect the Palestinians to do much of anything toward a peace process, so Israel should take giant leaps while the Palestinians do nothing.
there's nothing desperate nor dishonest about that. it is what you have said.
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| | | 498 | Mith
ID: 37540118
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 11:48
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it is what you have said.
The fact that you consider a "proportionate response to Palestinian attacks" to be the same thing as "Israel not defending themselves" is everything that is needed to know about your perspective of this conlict.
yes, pathetic.
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| | | 499 | Mith
ID: 37540118
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 11:56
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"giant leaps" according to tree:
allowing Palestinians basic food items and simple construction materials
respond to Palestinian attacks more proportionately
stop evicting Palestinians from their homes
honesty in Israeli propaganda about it's dealings with Palestinians
What terrible things to expect!
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| | | 500 | DWetzel
ID: 278201415
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 12:08
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"Question, seriously, answer this: should Israel be allowed to go in and kill everyone in Gaza in order to defend itself?
no, and they don't do that. "
Good (and expected). So we agree that Israel doesn't have a unilateral right to do anything they want to do "defend themselves".
Now, do you think they should be able to deny the peaceful Palestinians/Gazans (and yes, there are plenty; even if they "hate Israel") the right to basic human living conditions?
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| | |
| | | 502 | Boldwin
ID: 135311520
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 15:07
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The pathetic and desperate dishonesty in questions like this is why you are so far beneath me and 99% of everyone who has ever posted in this forum, and why every time I address you, it's charity. - So says MITH the one time it isn't true.
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| | | 503 | Boldwin
ID: 135311520
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 15:10
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Now, do you think they should be able to deny the peaceful Palestinians/Gazans (and yes, there are plenty; even if they "hate Israel") the right to basic human living conditions?
This is nonsense. The world is showering the Palestinians with aid. So much so that they are at least in the middle of the pack in terms of yearly income among muslim peoples around the earth.
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| | |
| | | 505 | Boldwin
ID: 135311520
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 15:19
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And at that, it may be another 100+ years until the current generation of self-taught and parent-taught hate mongers on both sides have died out. Khahan
Even when Americans try and be balanced and even handed they aren't. There is no moral equivalency here. And bending over backwards to claim it is so is self-deception in the name of fairness. Isrealis have palestinians fully integrated into their society and they don't need to apologize for racism or hatred. Meanwhile the palestinians official stated policy [not in every venue, but officially stated when they think you aren't looking, [and you aren't]] is the driving of every Isreali into the sea.
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| | | 506 | Boldwin
ID: 135311520
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 15:22
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A) The average muslim is living below any poverty line you or I would recognize. Yes Palestinians are in the top half of that list.
B) Take a guess how much aid the world sends the Palestinians every year. Let's just see how good your preconceptions are.
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| | | 507 | Boldwin
ID: 135311520
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 15:36
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International aid to Palestinians
They are basically being given @$2K yearly per capita on top of whatever they earn themselves.
Which get's turned around to finance terror.
Your charity at work.
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| | | 508 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 15:40
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allowing Palestinians basic food items and simple construction materials
respond to Palestinian attacks more proportionately
stop evicting Palestinians from their homes
honesty in Israeli propaganda about it's dealings with Palestinians
no problem with basic food items. and i never said i had a problem with that, but since you're Baldwinian in your attitude toward this issue, it's no surprise you'd put words in my mouth.
allowing them materials to build more bunkers? how on earth does allowing them to re-fortify make a lick of sense?
define a proportionate response to a Palestinian attack? are you proposing an eye for an eye? maybe israel should start kidnapping Palestinian teenagers and holding them hostage for years?
stop evicting Palestinians from their homes? as soon as they stop harboring terrorists, sure.
"honesty in propaganda"? when the foe is a dishonest murderer? really? come on now.
you don't want parity, you don't want fairness. you want total capitulation on the part of the israelis.
When you have 70% living below the poverty line and 40% unemployment they are not getting showered with aid.
while i'm not going to sit here and say most people in Gaza don't live in squalor, i will point out two things:
1. poverty line and "getting showered with aid" are simply not relative. Haiti gets showered with aid, and it's poverty level is over 80%.
2. one of the problems is that there is money in Gaza - but most of that wealth is controlled by those with power, and there is ZERO distribution of that wealth, because it doesn't benefit Hamas to do so.
remember - this is a government that would rather starve its own people to make a point, than to make sure they get fed.
again, this is not to say there isn't extreme poverty in Gaza, because there is. But if their own ELECTED government won't take care of them, why should the nation they constantly try to destroy?
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| | | 509 | Mith
ID: 37540118
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 15:40
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For starters, that graph is pre-blockade.
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| | | 510 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 15:42
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remember - this is a government that would rather starve its own people to make a point, than to make sure they get fed.
This is irony, yes? Hamas isn't controlling the blockage, Israel is.
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| | | 511 | Mith
ID: 37540118
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 15:44
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Boldwin
So says MITH the one time it isn't true.
By all means, explain how #499 is the same as calling upon Israel to stop defending itself.
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| | | 512 | Seattle Zen
ID: 1410391215
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 15:57
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Right now, Israel's strategy is a holding pattern. They have the economic might as well as the military power to keep their enemies at bay, so they do not feel any need to negotiate a peace that requires them to concede anything more than crumbs that they could live without.
I'll tell you that this plan may work for the next 40 or so years, but I don't see Israel celebrating a 125 year anniversary without a peace plan in place in this decade. Eventually, the Arab world surrounding Israel will not only be flush with economic power, but Chinese weapons and nukes. But most importantly, there will be no way Israel could compete with the enormous population outside its walls. It's funny, but fifty years from now those walls that Israel is building to keep people out could be used to keep them in. A decent navy and air force could completely cut Israel off from the rest of the world. Amass the Israeli army to break through the barricades... nuke the lot of them.
In short, you have the upper hand now, but your little brother will soon be a whole lot bigger than you... you might want to start treating him better.
And fifty years from now, the US's love affair with Israel will be long over.
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| | | 513 | Mith
ID: 37540118
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 15:58
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no problem with basic food items... Baldwinian in your attitude
When you defend the blockade, you defend the prohibition of basic food items. There's no Baldwinism at work here.
how on earth does allowing them to re-fortify make a lick of sense?
Because you destroy far, far more civilian lives than you protect with this practice. The word is "proportion".
define a proportionate response to a Palestinian attack?
The have to make highly fortified but surgical raids into Gaza to sufficient and accurate evidence to support the raid. It puts more soldiers at risk and they'll probably see more injuries an deven a few mor casualties as a result, but you wont have a half-dozen or more civilians wiped out and scores more left homeless every time.
The link in 501 looks like a great way to deal with groups trying to break the blockade. Not exactly cutting-edge technology, there.
as soon as they stop harboring terrorists, sure.
If you're under the false impression that only those harboring terrorists are evicted you are even more sadly misinformed than you've already exposed yourself in this discussion. They're demolishing square blocks at a time.
"honesty in propaganda"? when the foe is a dishonest murderer? really? come on now.
WWMLKD?
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| | | 514 | Boldwin
ID: 135311520
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 16:11
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Answer: MITH#480
Of course no alternative that doesn't naively depend on a drastic cultureal shift of the brainwashed Palestinian people has been offered.
There is no solution that does not include
1) Palestinians loving their children enuff not to send them out with rocks against armed men, or out wearing suicide belts.
2) Palestinians willing to renounce genocide as a non-negotiable demand.
It's a Mexican standoff until those conditions are met. No amount of concessions which by definition result in less Isreali safety can succeed without those preconditions.
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| | | 515 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 16:46
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This is irony, yes? Hamas isn't controlling the blockage, Israel is.
PD - Hamas refused to allow into Gaza the stuff that was offloaded from the flotilla that set this whole thing off.
It puts more soldiers at risk and they'll probably see more injuries an deven a few mor casualties as a result...
exactly. why should israel put even MORE of its people at risk to appease terrorists. and don't think it's been overlooked that you ignored the kidnapping of teenagers for the umpteenth time.
Right now, Israel's strategy is a holding pattern.
actually, no. Israel expected to ease Gaza blockade
Under the new guidelines, items such as cement and steel will be allowed in to an undetermined extent in coordination with the United Nations, but won't be freely available to private citizens, the officials said. Restrictions on things like school supplies, books, computers and toys are expected to be lifted.
this sounds like a good compromise, especially considering how the UN condemns Israel as often i drink a glass of water (and i drink almost two gallons a day)...
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| | | 516 | Mith
ID: 37540118
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 16:46
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We can agree that those "preconditions" won't happen with the mindset of the Palestinian people as it currently is, yes?
So we agree that it is the Palestinian mindset which must change, yes?
So your options are:
1. Continue to wait around hoping for that change to occur despite the fact that we've already given it decades, while Israel continues to kill scores of Palestinians (and make hundreds more homeless) for every Israeli death resulting in a Palestinian terror attack.
2. Attempt to sow seeds which might over time develop into a changed mindset.
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| | | 517 | Seattle Zen
ID: 1410391215
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 16:50
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Actually, yes. I'm not talking about the blockade, I'm talking about EVERYTHING. Israel thinks that it can refuse to discuss ANYTHING with the Palestinians. The holding pattern is - "we are better than you and don't feel the need to budge, except when we want to make things harder."
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| | | 518 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 16:54
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Hamas refused to allow into Gaza the stuff that was offloaded from the flotilla that set this whole thing off
Is this a rebuttal to "Israel controls the blockade"?
Your willingness to continue to blame the Palestinians as bringing this upon themselves solely, while explaining away virtually everything Israel does, calls into question your ability to call yourself a liberal.
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| | | 519 | Mith
ID: 37540118
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 17:00
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why should israel put even MORE of its people at risk to appease terrorists.
1. Because as long as the measures employed minimize Israeli deaths at the expense of exponentially more Palestinian lives, putting more of it's people at risk is exactly what Israel accomplishes by perpetuating the cycle death.
don't think it's been overlooked that you ignored the kidnapping of teenagers
I haven't overlooked it. It's simply a fact that holds no bearing on the current discussion. No one questions that there are continued Palestinian atrocities. Yes, it's terrible. They've done far worse, frankly, as have the Israelis. We all agree Hamas is awful. Okay?
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| | | 520 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 17:21
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So your options are:
1. Continue to wait around hoping for that change to occur despite the fact that we've already given it decades, while Israel continues to kill scores of Palestinians (and make hundreds more homeless) for every Israeli death resulting in a Palestinian terror attack.
2. Attempt to sow seeds which might over time develop into a changed mindset.
here's a third option - the rest of the world opens their eyes, and realizes that Hamas are a bunch of murdering terrorists that would rather starve their own people than work toward peace, and the rest of the world takes steps to help Israel make changes.
but the rest of the world wants the easy way out, and it's the blame the israelis.
Israel thinks that it can refuse to discuss ANYTHING with the Palestinians.
come on SZ - over the last 20 years, Israel has tried to hold countless discussions with the Palestinians.
The Palestinians were offered statehood, and turned it down.
The Israelis forcibly removed its own settlers, and the Palestinians refused to lay down their arms.
The Israelis gave the Palestinians free elections, and they elected terrorists.
Israel has tried - and they get burned at every turn.
Is this a rebuttal to "Israel controls the blockade"?
no. it's an example how impossible of a task it is when people say "come on Israel, give it a shot! work with the Palestinians!"
how on earth can israel be expected to take care of these people when their own elected government would rather starve them than take care of them?
I haven't overlooked it. It's simply a fact that holds no bearing on the current discussion. No one questions that there are continued Palestinian atrocities. Yes, it's terrible. They've done far worse, frankly, as have the Israelis. We all agree Hamas is awful. Okay?
EVERYTHING weighs on the current discussion. dismissing Palestinian atrocities - or israeli atrocities for that matter - makes it easy. it doesn't work that way.
it's a tough road. and one that the rest of the world has said "hey israel, tough crap. go at it alone."
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| | | 521 | DWetzel
ID: 278201415
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 17:22
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" and i never said i had a problem with that, but since you're Baldwinian in your attitude toward this issue, it's no surprise you'd put words in my mouth."
Wow, Tree, this is like the most ironic thing you have ever said in the history of everything ever.
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| | | 522 | DWetzel
ID: 278201415
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 17:26
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I take it back:
""honesty in propaganda"? when the foe is a dishonest murderer? really? come on now.
you don't want parity, you don't want fairness. you want total capitulation on the part of the israelis."
HOW MANY TIMES DO WE HAVE TO TELL YOU THIS ISN'T WHAT WE BELIEVE, FOR CHRISSAKES? It's completely impossible to have a rational discussion about this when you feel like you can just continually make stuff up.
Can you please at least stop flat-out lying?
Would it be okay if we said "Tree is in favor of torturing and murdering all the Palestinians"? Would that be a fair way to have this argument? If you think the answer is no, then please stop doing this yourself. This is like the third time today. Just stop. Is that too much to ask?
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| | | 523 | DWetzel
ID: 278201415
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 17:28
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"it's a tough road. and one that the rest of the world has said "hey israel, tough crap. go at it alone.""
The day that we stop sending billions of dollars in military aid to Israel, you can bring this one back out. Until then, um, yet another lie.
Congratulations, you've probably made the least competent post in the history of the message boards.
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| | | 524 | boikin
ID: 532592112
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 17:51
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International aid to Palestinians
They are basically being given @$2K yearly per capita on top of whatever they earn themselves.
the link never says how much aid was actually received by Palestinians in total. All it talks about is how much money was pledged and it would appear that per capita the Israel's get more money than the Palestinians neither is close to $2K, from your own link:
^ Palestine Human Development Report (2004), 113. According to certain analyses, Palestinians are the largest per capita recipients of international development assistance in the world (Lasensky [2004], 211, Lasensky-Grace [2006]). Hever (2005), 13, 16, and (2006), 5, 10 refutes this assessment, arguing that Israel is the biggest recipient of total foreign aid in the world. Turner (2006), 747, underscores that the US provides Israel with annual bilateral funds of US$654 per person, which is more than double what the Palestinians receive in multilateral aid. According to Le More (2005), 982, "the United States has also provided [the PNA with] considerable funds, even if they are negligible compared to what it allocates bilaterally to Israel — which alone far exceeds the level of combined international assistance to the Palestinians."
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| | | 525 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 18:24
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you don't want parity, you don't want fairness. you want total capitulation on the part of the israelis."
HOW MANY TIMES DO WE HAVE TO TELL YOU THIS ISN'T WHAT WE BELIEVE, FOR CHRISSAKES? It's completely impossible to have a rational discussion about this when you feel like you can just continually make stuff up.
no, sorry. when the attitude is "the palestinians can't be counted on, so Israel has to try even harder," there's nothing being made up.
so, DWetz, i'll call you out.
offer a solution. tell me how the Israelis and Palestinians make peace. instead of being an ass hat and calling posts and competencies into question, offer a solution.
there's your open table. set it.
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| | | 526 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 18:32
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-lift the blockade (or, make it a real blockade)
-stop building illegal settlements
-stop blaming (and punishing) the people for the sins of the leaders.
The last one goes both ways.
As it is, Israel has no end game.
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| | | 527 | Boldwin
ID: 135311520
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 18:46
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Turner (2006), 747, underscores that the US provides Israel with annual bilateral funds of US$654 per person, which is more than double what the Palestinians receive in multilateral aid. According to Le More (2005), 982, "the United States has also provided [the PNA with] considerable funds, even if they are negligible compared to what it allocates bilaterally to Israel — which alone far exceeds the level of combined international assistance to the Palestinians."
#524
The last ten years has seen an ever escalating bidding war between the western nations as if giving enuff would somehow fuel peace. Quite the opposite. There were also a lotta calculations trying to position the 'right' party into political power in the territories, again using money as the stick and carrot. I read the figure somewhere in the last 3 links I looked at, and it was nearly 2K. Far more than the stated 600 per capita to Isreal.
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| | | 528 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 18:54
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a third option... the rest of the world takes steps to help Israel make changes.
Hey I'm certainly open to other options. Please elaborate... what are some examples of steps the world could take to "help Israel make changes" to the Palestinian mindset?
My initial reaction is that I can't think of a single thing the world could do to help Israel solve it's problem, but I'm open to suggestions.
My second reaction is to think about what a failure the American civil rights movement of the 20th century if MLK had instead taken the position that it isn't fair for the victims in the conflict to do all the heavy lifting and that "the rest of the world" should work to change the mindset of the lynching, segregationist South.
But I'm all ears.
dismissing Palestinian atrocities - or israeli atrocities for that matter - makes it easy. it doesn't work that way.
In suggesting that Israel (only partially, really) emulate MLK, I don't dismiss or excuse any Palestinian atrocities any more than MLK dismissed or excused the lynchings and other atrocities committed by segregationists upon black Americans.
You, on the other hand, Tree, by supoprting a blockade that prohibits basic needs from Palestinian society, by denying that innocents are evicted from their homes in East Jerusalem, by refusing to acknowledge the disproportionate response to Palestinian attacks and by tacitly supporting the notion that Israeli lives are more valuable than Palestinian ones, are fully guilty of the very thing you wrongly accuse me of.
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| | | 529 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 18:55
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Really when it comes down to it; Tree = Hamas.
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| | | 530 | DWetzel
ID: 33337117
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 19:10
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Tree, I'm not going to bother, because after I waste my time making a long reasoned post, you're probably going to say "oh, you just hate Israel because you don't agree with me 100%" anyway. I say this based on the evidence that a number of shorter posts along those lines by me and others have been completely ignored by you.
Also, thanks for calling me an ass hat. Very mature. Would you be so kind as to delete it? (I'm giving you the courtesy of showing that you can be mature about it.)
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| | | 531 | DWetzel
ID: 33337117
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 19:21
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You know what, sure, I'll try a short post anyway.
1. Hamas, or whoever the Palestinian terrorist du jour are, needs to stop bombing the crap out of Israel. Terrorism is bad.
2. Israel needs to stop bombing the crap out of Palestinian and Gazan civilian areas. I actually don't have a big problem with the selective taking out of actual terrorists, but if you decide its okay to take out fifteen civilians to get one genuinely bad guy, you're doing it wrong, especially when you have a massive military and technological advantage.
3. Israel needs to stop, RIGHT NOW, and forever, blockading anything other than actual weapons and ammunition. If there needs to be UN supervision of other items which could be used for both genuine purposes and for military ends, fine. When you start banning wacky military stuff like instant coffee and cilantro, you've gone way over the edge. Gaza also has absolutely no ability to create its own economy under the existing blockade.
4. Stop building any new settlements outside existing Israeli territories. Period. End of discussion. Last I checked, if France started deciding to kick people out of the Belgian border and build their own cities there, that'd be considered an act of war. For Israel, it's standard operating procedure. (I'm less convinced about what exactly needs to be done with existing settlements--that's a messy subject regardless. The "fair" thing to do would be to pull back out of them, but I know there are any number of problems associated with that.)
There's far more to it, but those are the first few points that come immediately to mind.
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| | | 532 | Boldwin
ID: 135311520
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 20:35
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I don't have any problem asking Isreal to allow in all the food they want to ship. Hamas doesn't need any more rebar and concrete mix however.
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| | | 533 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 20:58
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Why do you think Israel has a problem with certain kinds of food? How does prohibiting cinnamon - but not other spices - for example, protect Israel?
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| | | 534 | DWetzel
ID: 33337117
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 21:26
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If you don't want to let them rebuild their homes, don't blow up the ones they had. Seems like a reasonable request.
(I'll take it back if you can demonstrate that terrorists lived in every one of those houses.)
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| | | 535 | Boldwin
ID: 135311520
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 21:51
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Oh I am sure those resourceful refugees will find a way to build houses without rebar. Bunkers...not so much.
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| | | 536 | DWetzel
ID: 33337117
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 21:59
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Let's give them mud huts! Or caves! That will prove our fairness and generosity!
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| | | 537 | DWetzel
ID: 33337117
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 21:59
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Er, wait... never mind. Mud might be used for military purposes.
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| | | 538 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 22:22
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Really when it comes down to it; Tree = Hamas.
and you're an a$$hole, when it comes down to it.
and if a mod has a problem with that sentiment, quite frankly, being called an a$$hole is a whole lot nicer than being called Hamas.
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| | | 539 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 22:24
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re: 531 - i have no issues with anything you said there. i'm in 100 percent agreement.
in fact, there's nothing there i haven't already said.
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| | | 540 | DWetzel
ID: 33337117
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 22:24
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Tree, chill. You're getting personal when there's no reason to get personal. Twice so far today.
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| | | 541 | DWetzel
ID: 33337117
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 22:26
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OK, great. So would you please stop saying "you people want Israel to totally capitulate" and stuff like that, now that you know it isn't true?
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| | | 542 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 22:31
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You're getting personal when there's no reason to get personal.
post 529 is extremely personal.
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| | | 543 | DWetzel
ID: 33337117
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 22:35
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Well, at a minimum, you got personal with me when I don't think it was warranted.
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| | | 544 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Wed, Jun 16, 2010, 23:51
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Advocating the perpetuation of the status quo and thereby maintaining the sentiment that won them an election is exactly what Hamas wants. They love people who think like Tree.
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| | | 545 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Thu, Jun 17, 2010, 00:19
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Advocating the perpetuation of the status quo which is not at all what i am suggesting. rather, i suggested that the rest of the world opens their eyes, and realizes that Hamas are a bunch of murdering terrorists that would rather starve their own people than work toward peace, and the rest of the world takes steps to help Israel make changes.
in parcel with that is the other Arab nations manning up and helping accept responsibility for the Palestinians, and helping their brethren lead better lives by offering them real educations, an opportunity, etc etc.
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| | | 546 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Thu, Jun 17, 2010, 00:27
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Why is that the responsibility of other "Arab nations"?
Hamas I'm certain loves that one too.
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| | | 547 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Thu, Jun 17, 2010, 00:43
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perpetuation of the status quo... is not at all what i am suggesting
1. You've explicitly stated that you support the blockade (except that you think someone else should run it because you don't like Israel doing her own dirty work).
2. You support the evictions of Palestinians from their homes. "as soon as they stop harboring terrorists, sure" was your response to the notion that they shoudl stop.
3. You dismiss the call for a proportionate response to Israeli attacks as the same thing as "Israel not defending themselves". Though you did later contradict yourself by agreeing with DWetz' statement that Israel needs to stop bombing the crap out of Palestinian and Gazan civilian areas.
That's 2 and a half out of three possible points for Israel maintaining the status quo.
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| | | 548 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Thu, Jun 17, 2010, 00:47
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Actually you contradicted most of your established positions in this thread with your post 539.
Along with being uninformed on certain matters, you don't even seem to be able to hold down a consistant position on anything, except that you can be counted on lash out at anyone you perceive as speaking disrespectfully of Israel, regardless of the actual substance of what they say.
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| | | 549 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Thu, Jun 17, 2010, 01:52
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Though you did later contradict yourself by agreeing with DWetz' statement that Israel needs to stop bombing the crap out of Palestinian and Gazan civilian areas.
and that is your whole f*cking problem. you have a hard-on for taking things out of context, and you like to believe things exist in a vacuum, as evidenced by you taking his point #2, without #1.
they go hand-in-hand.
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| | | 550 | Boldwin
ID: 135311520
Thu, Jun 17, 2010, 04:28
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Fear of food in the wrong hands would seem to be a holdover from the era of British rule.
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| | | 551 | Mith
ID: 37540118
Thu, Jun 17, 2010, 11:46
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...for taking things out of context
You'll have to show me how I've taken any of the things listed in 547 out of context. I was appalled and took you to task on each, and in each case you defended the position. Never once did you say I've got you all wrong and explain where you differ.
But then you went and contradicted 2/3 of what you'd previously said.
You know, I can't be accused of taking something out of context if you go and strip it of any discernable context on your own.
And frankly, I don't think anyone here knows whether you support the blockade, evicting Palestinians from East Jerusalem or the disproportionate Israeli reactions to Palestinian attacks in general. I do know that whenever I or someone takes issue with those things here, your reaction is always a hamfisted outright rejection of any criticism of Israel.
you like to believe things exist in a vacuum, as evidenced by you taking his point #2, without #1.
For the record that's not what 'exist in a vacuum' means. That might be true of someone who completely dismisses all Palestinian atrocities and only finds fault with Israel's activities.
As you clearly know (since you have managed to articulate it on your own) my position does not fail to acknowledge Palestinian atrocities. In fact it's completely driven by them. It finds that:
1. Palestinian atrocities are not acceptable
2. the Israeli government is beholden to her citizens to find a way to stop the attacks
3. there is simply no way to do so aside from genocide or the long term process of sowing seeds of tolerance in that culture
4. the latter option preferable
5. the Palestinians cannot be counted on as partners in peace in the beginning stages of the process.
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| | | 552 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Thu, Jun 17, 2010, 14:26
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Israel loosens chokehold on Gaza
The order to allow in all foods and some desperately needed construction materials brought calls for Israel to go much further and did little to quell the global outcry over the deadly flotilla raid that tried to bust the embargo...
...In one of the major changes approved Thursday, Israel will allow in more construction materials to repair the war damage, provided they are used for civilian projects carried out under international supervision, government and military officials said.
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| | | 553 | DWetzel
ID: 278201415
Thu, Jun 17, 2010, 14:38
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A welcome change.
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| | | 554 | Mith
ID: 37540118
Thu, Jun 17, 2010, 16:02
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Now people who had been forced into homelessness by Israel for months or years will have building materials available to them if they can find a way to afford it or are lucky enough to receive charity.
About time and a good start. But it'll take a lot more time and effort for this to be the beginning of anything. Don't expect the prisoner you've been starving in your dungeon to forgive and forget because you let him have a sandwich after two weeks of the world screaming at you about it.
Whatever you think of their methods, it's undenyable that the Gaza Freedom Flotilla was an incredible success. It's a shame that it took putting themselves in the way of deadly force, but hopefully a lot of suffering will be relieved as a result of their efforts.
Whatever public face they put on it, you can be sure that Hamas hates this news.
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| | |
| | | 556 | Mith
ID: 37540118
Sat, Jun 19, 2010, 11:02
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What we've also seen before is that you can't just readily trust the context of propaganda released by the Israeli govenment.
That said, either way, the Arabic language portion of that video doesn't doesn't seem unlikely to me, but doesn't it change anything we already know about the flotilla passangers.
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| | | 557 | DWetzel
ID: 33337117
Sat, Jun 19, 2010, 12:26
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Hey, they didn't need a rowboat to get ON, why should they get a free one to get off?
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| | | 558 | DWetzel
ID: 33337117
Sat, Jun 19, 2010, 12:28
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In fact, I think the dead passengers would have welcomed the opportunity to swim for it, if those were the only two options.
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| | | 559 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Sat, Jun 19, 2010, 13:19
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What we've also seen before is that you can't just readily trust the context of propaganda released by the Israeli govenment.
nor the opposition.
somewhere in the middle, lies the true story, but taking the oppositions word as Gospel - based on their history - is foolhardy.
that being said, the flotilla happened. people died, and it's tragic. israel's image took a hit again, and that sucks.
at this point, going back and forth on who was right and who was wrong isn't going to change a thing.
the blockade has been lifted for a majority of important items, and perhaps this can be the start of something tangible between all sides.
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| | | 560 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Sat, Jun 19, 2010, 14:42
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What we take is that the information coming from the opposition fills in the holes deliberately made by the Israelis.
I do take, as Gospel, the fact that the Israelis are spinning this as fast as they can and that they are withholding information they believe is harmful to their political aims.
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| | | 561 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Sat, Jun 19, 2010, 18:02
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taking the oppositions word as Gospel
For the record, is there anyone here who has done this?
For the first few days or possibly a week after the flotilla raid, all we had to go on was the Israeli side of the story, and for the most part conflicting passanger accounts were either dismissed or considered with suspiscion, even by those of us who criticized Israel's reaction.
going back and forth on who was right and who was wrong
That's projection. One side of this debate acknowledged fault on both sides. The pro Israeli side here did not, until Tree finally caved on a couple of issues.
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| | | 562 | DWetzel
ID: 33337117
Sat, Jun 19, 2010, 18:18
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"going back and forth on who was right and who was wrong"
For the record, this reminded me waaaay too much of the Monty Python scene.
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| | |
| | | 564 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Mon, Jun 21, 2010, 14:41
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and the rockets from gaza still rain down daily into israel.
i realize you want instant change. me too.
reality, unfortunately, doesn't work that way.
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| | | 565 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Mon, Jun 21, 2010, 14:59
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and the rockets from gaza still rain down daily into israel
Actually, it is about 4-5 times a month, but it is on-going. Worth noting is that the numbers (and effectiveness) of the attacks have dropped off sharply since the beginning of April when both the Islamic Jihad and Hamas publicly stated that they would stop their own attacks and work toward reducing attacks by others.
Of course, their demonstratively effective work at reducing rocket attacks get no play among the Israeli tribalists, who insist that they are under daily rocket attacks...
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| | | 566 | Mith
ID: 37540118
Mon, Jun 21, 2010, 15:16
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and the rockets from gaza still rain down daily into israel.
Why is that an apropriate response? Surely, you aren't attempting to make a case that these rockets which rarely hurt anyone justify evicting 22 families (who to my knowledge aren't firing any rockets) in favor of a community/cultural/retail center to service the 70 Jewish families living in a neighborhood where the other 50,000 people are Palestinians?
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| | | 567 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Mon, Jun 21, 2010, 15:37
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Why is that an apropriate response? Surely, you aren't attempting to make a case that these rockets which rarely hurt anyone justify evicting 22 families
and this is an appropriate response? that the rockets "rarely hurt anyone" makes it ok?
it probably matters little to you that in 2009 there were 300 firebomb attacks and 22,000 stoning attacks on Israeli roads by palestinian terrorists, designed to kill and maim, such as this one that injured a father and his 9-month old son or this one that put a woman in a coma...
you're not interested in what goes on on both sides, you just want to be one-sided about this.
i still don't believe you're interested in a solution - you'd rather condemn the Jews for anything they do.
your snide post 554 is evident of this as well. Israel does something good, and instead of an even handed response like the one immediately preceding yours, you just want to fan the flames.
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| | | 568 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Mon, Jun 21, 2010, 15:56
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Cherry picking the time, again, when you felt most aggrieved?
So far in in 2010 rockets have been launched on 38 separate days (some days had multiple launches). About a quarter to a third of the launches fail to leave the Gaza Strip. There has been one non-Palestinian death in 2010 (a non-Israeli), and no Israeli injuries have been reported due to any 2010 rocket launches. On the other hand, nearly two dozen Palestinians have lost their lives either through their own rocket launches or Israeli air strikes in response to rocket launches.
Rocket launches are horrible things, and living under the threat of one is a very difficult way to live. Which is why there is no need to overstate the case.
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| | | 569 | Mith
ID: 37540118
Mon, Jun 21, 2010, 16:02
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this is an appropriate response? that the rockets "rarely hurt anyone" makes it ok?
Of course it doesn't. I haven't made or attempted that case. I'd ask if you care to respond to my actual question but I remembered you already did back in #508. Clearly you feel that justice means evicting innocent families from their homes because someone else's rocket landed in someone's backyard.
it probably matters little to you that
Sure those things matter. The same approach I take to any conflict is to put the aggression and the casualties of the two sides in perspective. From my perspective, the Palestinians are generally the initial aggressors, and this tragically results in Israeli injuries and occassionaly, casualties. And the Israelis tend to respond to those typically unorganized acts of aggression with heartless and brutal modern tactics, ranging from gunships sent in to destroy a whole city block to take out just 2 or 3 human targets to a blockade of basic needs and everyday items, many of them prohibited apparently for no reason other than a grotequely gratuitous display of authoritarian power.
I'm suggesting exactly what I believe MLK would suggest to Israel, because I believe there is a greater chance than some Israeli leader could so come to his senses than anyone who could hold down authority of the Palestinians.
Israel does something good...
Don't make me laugh. That's like calling a Lynndie England a humanitarian for finally taking the leash off that prisoner.
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| | | 570 | bibA
ID: 435202115
Mon, Jun 21, 2010, 16:21
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508 - stop evicting Palestinians from their homes? as soon as they stop harboring terrorists, sure.
Apparently the 22 homes being razed were occupied by people who were harboring terrorists? Hadn't heard that, but if this is so, getting their houses razed seems like an appropriate and fair response.
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| | | 571 | Mith
ID: 37540118
Mon, Jun 21, 2010, 16:48
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Doesn't sound like a response to harboring terrorists to me:The plan calls for the construction of shops, restaurants, art galleries and a large community center on the site where some say the biblical King David wrote his psalms. The 22 displaced families would be allowed to build homes elsewhere in the neighborhood, though it's not clear who would pay for them.
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| | | 572 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Mon, Jun 21, 2010, 17:10
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Cherry picking the time, again, when you felt most aggrieved?
actually, that's EXACTLY my point.
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| | | 573 | DWetzel
ID: 278201415
Mon, Jun 21, 2010, 17:14
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Tree, there's absolutely no justifying this. The fact that you're even trying is absolutely disgusting. Just admit that "blowing up random Palestinian citizens homes, assuming they are not involved in terrorist activities, is wrong". And, though it'll be done by bulldozer instead of bomb, blowing them up is exactly what is being done here.
OK, technically, there's justifying this under some bizarro eminent domain way of thinking, but unless they've demonstrated clearly that this is the only way to build it, AND that the people living there are being legitimately fairly compensated, this is just blatant BS.
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| | | 574 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Mon, Jun 21, 2010, 17:37
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OK, technically, there's justifying this under some bizarro eminent domain way of thinking, but unless they've demonstrated clearly that this is the only way to build it, AND that the people living there are being legitimately fairly compensated, this is just blatant BS.
fair enough.
the people being forced to move weren't displaced without discussion, and they are being allowed to re-build in the same neighborhood (although, in all honesty, who is paying for that - the residents or the government - hasn't been made clear).
in fact, part of the reason this was delayed from its initial March date is because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat to delay the the plan so authorities could consult with the Palestinians who would lose their homes.
and there is no bizarro eminent domain here - these are illegally built homes.
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| | | 575 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Mon, Jun 21, 2010, 18:49
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these are illegally built homes.
That would be a fair defense of the program if Palestinians were given a fair opportunity at building permits.
Also, as I recall you've been much more sympathetic to residents of illegal housing in similar situations - even when they were only renters - when it didn't occur within the Israel/Palestinian conflict.
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| | | 576 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Tue, Jun 22, 2010, 00:41
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Also, as I recall you've been much more sympathetic to residents of illegal housing in similar situations - even when they were only renters -
1. i am sympathetic. fortunately they're being giving a chance to rebuild.
when it didn't occur within the Israel/Palestinian conflict.
you don't think that changes things a bit?
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| | | 577 | Mattinglyinthehall
ID: 37838313
Tue, Jun 22, 2010, 01:04
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fortunately they're being giving a chance to rebuild.
That remains to be seen. If these are people with little means, telling them to just rebuild someplace else is hardly giving them a chance.
you don't think that changes things a bit?
It's used by both sides as an excuse to do terrible things to the opposition. No, in the case of evicting innocents, I don't think it changes a thing. It doesn't under any circumstance give Hamas a license to kidnap or commit acts of terror and it doesn't give Israel a license to evict peopel from their homes.
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| | | 579 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Thu, Jul 15, 2010, 15:40
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Instead of waiting for US Jews to come around that Israeli is on a neo-con crash course, we can just let Israel do it for us.
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| | | 580 | Tree
ID: 248472317
Thu, Jul 15, 2010, 16:33
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it's not exactly neo-con. rather, it's ancient-con.
a sad state of affairs. if i marry a non-Jew, and she converts, it wouldn't be an orthodox conversion, because it's an obnoxious set of rules.
similarly, my two youngest cousins, who were adopted but converted at birth and have been jewish their entire lives, would not be able to go to Israel, as it was done by a Conservative rabbi.
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| | | 581 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Thu, Jul 15, 2010, 17:04
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Much of what goes on in Israel depends on the patience of Reform and other Jews who pay the bills staying in bed with Conservatives who make the rules.
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| | | 582 | bibA
ID: 48627713
Mon, Aug 02, 2010, 13:06
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Not too sure this policy would qualify as humane or pro-family, nor would it be one that many would be backing if it were something being done in the US. Israel to deport hundreds of migrant workers' children Not sure if you need to sign up, so here are some excerpts: Israel moved Sunday to deport the offspring of hundreds of migrant workers, mostly small children who were born in Israel, speak Hebrew and have never seen their parents' native countries. Netanyahu said the new policy was intended to stem a flood of illegal immigrants, whose children receive state-funded education and healthcare benefits, and to defend Israel's Jewish identity. The new policy is aimed at children of foreign workers who arrived legally and then started families. "We're talking about children here," said Rotem Ilan, chairwoman of Israeli Children, an advocacy group for migrant workers' families. "They are the children of people who came to Israel legally to work. We brought these people here to plow our fields, build our houses and take care of our grandparents. And with people come families."
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| | | 583 | The Left Behind
ID: 66232012
Mon, Aug 02, 2010, 13:13
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This is another thing that gets us into trouble. Like the United States or anybody is going to solve a billion year old holy war. Step aside and let one side finish the other off. Otherwise its all window dressing to look like we care. I'd argue that we make things worse by preventing solutions with our meddling.
Then Israel is talking about bombing Iran. Like angering a burgeoning sect of Iranian society that might actually be sane is the thing to do. If Israel bombs Iran I say we wash our hands of them. Now they got a problem with Ahmadinejad but I think that guy has big problems in his own backyard with the Green Revolution. However we can help those guys we should.
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| | | 584 | bibA
ID: 48627713
Mon, Aug 02, 2010, 14:47
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I'd argue that we make things worse by preventing solutions with our meddling. .....the Green Revolution. However we can help those guys we should. That would be a pretty good trick. Help a faction in Iran however we can, but not meddle in their affairs.
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| | | 585 | Tree, not at home
ID: 3910441615
Wed, Nov 24, 2010, 11:09
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as my brother Ari - who of the five of us is far and away the most anti-Israel - said It might be interesting to learn that Israel is the only Mid East Country to embrace Darfur's Refugees, or the only one with equal rights for Homosexuals. Israel negotiates with terrorists, the US and Britain do not...
he was introducing one of many articles written about the recent words of Gabriel Latner, a 19-year-old, second-year law student from Toronto, who advanced an argument in support of the motion that “Israel is a rogue state”...
the only link i've found so far that contained his entire argument in the debate is on Facebook.
a good summary is from Jewlicious, one of my favorite sites...
Mr. Latner took the proposition for which he was arguing and proved, without a shadow of a doubt, that Israel is indeed a “rogue” state. He showed that it is a rogue state because it is a Jewish state in a world which has no other Jewish states, that it permits refugees from Sudan to enter while other states turn a blind eye, it speaks to and attempts to make peace with terrorists, its record on civil liberties stands strong in contrast with the region in which it exists and it has the courage to send official representatives to debate ridiculous motions like, say, its very legitimacy.
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| | | 586 | Mith
ID: 4982142
Wed, Nov 24, 2010, 11:31
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This is to argue that efforts in favor of human rights and peace absolves them from of all of their notably less agreeable policies and actions that the world regularly takes exception to?
If not, then what is your point?
And for the record, the US negotiates with terrorists, too. Sometimes on behalf of Israel.
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| | | 587 | Tree, not at home
ID: 3910441615
Wed, Nov 24, 2010, 12:27
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This is to argue that efforts in favor of human rights and peace absolves them from of all of their notably less agreeable policies and actions that the world regularly takes exception to?
no. it argues that Israel does more good than bad. no nation is perfect. yet, no one discusses the good israel does.
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| | | 588 | Mith
ID: 4982142
Wed, Nov 24, 2010, 12:30
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That's funny it seems to dominate just about every discussion about Israel I have. Usually at the behest of people who refuse to ever discuss things like settlement expansion.
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| | | 589 | Mith
ID: 4982142
Wed, Nov 24, 2010, 12:33
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Well, except for the ones who support the settlements.
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| | | 590 | Boldwin
ID: 2910142317
Wed, Nov 24, 2010, 17:19
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I take exception to people telling other nations where they can build on their own land.
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| | | 591 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Wed, Nov 24, 2010, 17:25
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It isn't that simple and you know it. Israel knows that as well, but got tired of carrying the peace process load pretty much by themselves.
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| | | 592 | Tree
ID: 2010312116
Wed, Nov 24, 2010, 18:37
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Israel knows that as well, but got tired of carrying the peace process load pretty much by themselves.
THIS.
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| | | 593 | Mith
ID: 4982142
Wed, Nov 24, 2010, 18:49
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I take exception to people telling other nations where they can build on their own land.
This is not unreasonable. Nor is it unreasonable to decide said nation no longer deserves, much less appreciates the billions handed to them annually for, as far as I can tell, absolutrely nothing in return.
And for the record, Boldwn, I'm pretty skeptical that through all the issues you've taken with other country's human rights practices, religious regulations, economic systems, education systems, healthcare systems and more, that you have for all this time regarded eminant domain and any other taking of land or property away from longtime owners and residents - including for teh purpose of handing it over to the preferred culture/religion - is simply off-limits from your criticism.
Is my recollection of your lamentation of Chistians forced from their homes in Iraq inaccurate?
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| | | 594 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Wed, Nov 24, 2010, 18:55
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Just to make it clear(er): Israel's newest settlements are typically built upon the land upon which Palestinians were forced out of. The timeline:
-Palestinians living in an area
-Israel decides it wants to build a "settlement" there and forces the Palestinians out, typically through bulldozing properties
-New settlements built and populated by brave settlers
-Israeli neo-con talking point gets sent out: "We're just building on our land!"
I have a complete empathy for Israel in the peace process, feeling that, for decades, they were the only ones entering the process in good faith. But the settlements, for the most part, are just "fick you's" that spring from their own frustrations.
Given their clear hatred of Obama (stoked, in part, by visiting GOP leaders) there is little chance at movement over the next six years or so.
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| | | 596 | Khahan
ID: 373143013
Fri, Nov 26, 2010, 11:15
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583 - I have said much the same and have to agree: this is not a problem we are going to solve. Its never going be resolved as long as both sides want the same things.
Let them fight it out.
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| | | 597 | Mith
ID: 4010542612
Fri, Nov 26, 2010, 14:00
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It's not that simple, since we're the ones supplying Israel with the war machines and a massive assist to their military/police state budget. As long as that's the case, we are an involved party.
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| | | 598 | Khahan
ID: 373143013
Fri, Nov 26, 2010, 14:06
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I didn't say 'step out and pretend its not happening.'
But peace talks? Negotiations? Compromises? I just don't feel this is a situation where those are realistic options.
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| | |
| | | 600 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Wed, Feb 16, 2011, 11:39
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More wikileaks information about Israel's policy toward Gaza.
Despite acknowledging that Hamas was actively working to maintain the ceasefire (and that none of the rocket launches were from Hamas), Israel decided to take them out anyway.
Nice. I think they call this "bargaining in bad faith."
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| | | 603 | Tree
ID: 320371412
Wed, May 11, 2011, 08:22
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and this is why peace just doesn't seem real...
Hamas would be willing to accept a Palestinian state within 1967 borders, a leader of the militant group, Mahmoud Zahar, told the Palestinian news agency Ma'an on Wednesday, adding, however, that Hamas would never recognize Israel since such a move would counter the group's aim to "liberate" all of Palestine.
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| | |
| | | 605 | Boldwin
ID: 64132020
Fri, May 20, 2011, 21:15
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Netanyahu Urges U.S. Return to 1845 Borders
Israeli PM calls for “just solution” to end the conflict.
Aboard Air Force Aleph (Reuters) – Speaking to reporters accompanying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his long flight to the United States tonight, Netanyahu spoke of the injustice and hardship Mexicans have endured since American forces annexed Texas in 1845. “Tens of thousands of ordinary Mexicans were driven out of their homes – the only homes they had known for centuries – and forced to live in poverty and squalor south of the border imposed by American aggression,” Netanyahu said. “The Israeli and Mexican people agree on this: This festering wound will never heal until America takes bold steps to return to the internationally accepted lines of 1845. Clearly the settlement activity that’s taken place in occupied Mexico since then is illegal. When I meet the President tomorrow I will tell him to halt all building activity in Texas immediately. Two lands for two peoples, yes, but not on land taken by force from Mexico,” the Prime Minister said.
Asked if his hard-line stance could hurt the U.S.-Israel relationship, Netanyahu reiterated Israel’s commitment to America’s security and the unshakeable friendship shared by the two countries, then added, “But who was it who said, part of friendship is being able to tell your friend the truth. The ball is now in Obama’s court.” - Dan Friedman May 20th 2011/Breitbart How you think that both publicly issuing demands before discussions even begin, and then making the demands of Israel's enemies isn't a monumental slap in the face, PD.
Rush liked Netanyahu's refusal to take the insult lying down so much he wants him to run for president. Bibi actually did attend Philly highschool, graduated MIT and Harvard so he probably qualifies as natural born citizen thanks to the new lowered standards.
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| | | 606 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Fri, May 20, 2011, 23:46
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The 1967 borders have been part of negotiations literally every time they sit down. And they have been the negotiation position of the United States through both Republican and Democratic presidents for three decades.
This manufactured outrage over Israel, every time the US doesn't bend over, is simply stupid.
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| | | 607 | Boldwin
ID: 28428213
Sat, May 21, 2011, 04:29
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Why does the left believe in manufactured outrage?
I promise you if I sound angry I am.
Disgusted at Obama's *sarc*statecraft*/sarc*, trust me I am.
I don't think he's muslim or naive. These aren't just the actions of a neophyte foolishly offering unforced errors to 'bargaining partners' who will never drop their demand that Israel die screaming no matter what they are offered.
These are rather the actions of an Israel hating antisemite who takes keen delight in accutely insulting America's friends around the world and disgracing America before it's enemies.
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| | | 608 | sarge33rd
ID: 372291615
Sat, May 21, 2011, 05:01
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How exactly, is using the same starting point as we have for the past 30 or so years; seen by the anti-Obama loonies as his being naive????????????
I cant help but wonder when this anti-Obama crowd will get honest and admit; the very fact that he draws breath, is what pisses them off.
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| | | 609 | Boldwin
ID: 35462217
Sun, May 22, 2011, 18:07
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Beyond the obvious point that among friends who meet, one does not rush up beforehand and announce the conclusion that he will force on the other before the fact...
...here are the bones of contention for Netanyahu.
Don't force Israel to concede bargaining points before negotiations begin.
Don't raise Palestinian hopes that they will be able to flood Israel and turn it into a majority palestinian electorate thru their goal 'right of return'. Israel is NEVER going to agree to that.
Don't tell a terrorist organization they can negotiate before accepting Israel's right to exist. What would be the point of bargaining with someone who would close any negotiation with the words implicit, explicit or for internal consumption only, thanks for the concessions, but of course we will annihilate you anyway.
That is a breathtaking threesome to cram down someone's throat who is facing genuine ceaseless credible terrorist threats of genocide.
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| | | 610 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Sun, May 22, 2011, 20:29
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Yeah, Israel is such a good friend, they don't want to be rushed into peace using a talking point they themselves have used for decades.
I don't believe Israel is as much of a "friend" as you would have us believe.
You're being tooled.
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| | |
| | | 612 | Tree
ID: 320371412
Mon, May 23, 2011, 10:36
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there's nothing new from what Obama has stated. this has been Washington's position for decades. while i am obviously very much pro-Israel, i'd love nothing more than peace.
i see no problem with land swaps, but i wouldn't want to see Israel give up any part of Jerusalem - to me, that is so much more important than Gaza or the West Bank.
among all things that people seem to be overlooking that were part of Obama's speech:
the part about Israel needing to feel confident about its borders before any Palestinian state can exist...
the part about any future Palestinian state must be non-militarized...
the part about questioning the Palestinian relationship with Hamas and the need for them to move away from Hamas and similar groups...
here's quick summary on some of the Palestinian concerns...
the link above addresses parts of Baldwin's 609 - which kind of shows that many of those with the "omg, this is terrible" mentality didn't read or listen to the entire speech.
Most difficult for Palestinians is Obama's call to recognize Israel as the Jewish homeland, essentially requiring the Palestinians to accept that most refugees will be denied the "right of return" to what is now Israel.
Obama hardly threw Israel under the bus. he merely stated out loud what many had said privately for decades. and good for him for doing so.
this is going to be challenging for both sides - Israel will need to give up some settlements, while the Palestinians will need to give up their arms. Israel will have to trust the Palestinians, and the Palestinians will have to accept Israel as a state.
it's much more complex that than, but those two things are among the most crucial, the most challenging, and probably what will, unfortunately, keep peace from happening.
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| | | 614 | Perm Dude
ID: 5510572522
Mon, May 23, 2011, 15:10
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Where's Razor's comment? I was gonna give it a thumb's up!
Meanwhile, apparently the Israeli Prime Minister of November was also an enemy of Israel.
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| | | 615 | Guru
ID: 330592710
Mon, May 23, 2011, 15:13
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[613] Mea culpa. I couldn't tell who it was directed at, and whether it was tongue in cheek or not.
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| | | 616 | Mith
ID: 5631099
Tue, Jun 07, 2011, 23:45
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NYT: Settlers suspected of damaging and deface a mosque in the West Bank
Just posting this as a reminder to the ardently pro-Israel that the issue isn't as one-sided as they often insist.
Standard disclaimer to those who whine until they get it in explicit terms: people on the Palestinian side do bad things too.
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| | | 617 | Perm Dude
ID: 3210201915
Wed, Nov 30, 2011, 17:16
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Israeli Government Tells Jews not to marry American Jews
That whole multi-cultural culture is a bit too much.
Jeffrey Goldberg is taking this as something which would shock American conservatives -- a distinctly anti-American shot across the bow. I take a different view: American conservatives don't think very much of marrying American Jews either, so this won't make the splash with conservatives that Jews here might otherwise expect.
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| | | 618 | Tree
ID: 41512710
Wed, Nov 30, 2011, 17:22
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man. that's rough. ugh.
i wonder how they feel about my brother, who moved to Israel 10 years ago from New Jersey when he was 17, and intends to live there his entire life, get married, and raise a family.
i wonder how they feel about this fact that his engagement to an Israeli woman just ended because after a year of dating and 4 months of being engaged, she decided she was no longer "sure" she wanted to get married.
jingoism of any kind is bad. ugh.
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| | |
| | | 620 | Tree
ID: 41512710
Thu, Jan 05, 2012, 02:36
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PD - considering my dad and step-mom are orthodox, as is my youngest brother (and he lives in Israel), the whole Bet Shemesh thing is being closely followed in my family.
quite frankly, the whole thing is disgusting. when your religious "beliefs" make you believe it acceptable to spit on a child, you've gone overboard.
the fact of the matter is that most Israelis, unquestionably, have huge issues with Bet Shemesh, and i can't imagine the government ignoring it for too much longer.
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| | |
| | | 622 | Boldwin
ID: 49030519
Sat, Feb 11, 2012, 22:47
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In order to attack Iran, the article says, Israel needs the approval and assistance of America, and under the ...current passive climate... in the United States, the opportunity must not be lost to wipe out Israel before it attacks Iran.
Forghani claims that Israel could be destroyed in less than nine minutes and that Khamenei, as utmost authority, the Velayete Faghih (Islamic Jurist), also believes that Israel and America not only must be defeated but annihilated.
The radicals ruling Iran today not only posses over 1,000 ballistic missiles but are on the verge of ICBM delivery and have sufficient enriched uranium for six nuclear bombs even as they continue to highly enrich uranium despite four sets of U.N. sanctions. The article, written by Alireza Forghani, an analyst and a strategy specialist in Khamenei’s camp, now is being run on most state-owned sites, including the Revolutionary Guards’ Fars News Agency, showing that the regime endorses this doctrine.
Previously I have quoted Iran's leaders stating that Iran was expendable in the larger pursuits of Islam's world-wide goals.
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| | | 626 | nerveclinic
ID: 569232410
Sun, Dec 02, 2012, 13:35
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Statehood declared for Palestine by the UN.
How many years too late?
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| | | 627 | Mith
ID: 18451815
Sun, Dec 02, 2012, 13:40
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There was this two weeks agoIsraeli Cabinet ministers decided Monday to hold on to about $100 million in taxes owed to the Palestinians, an official said, despite warnings from Israel’s Defense Ministry that the measure could threaten the stability of the Palestinian government in the West Bank.
Israel stopped transfer of tax funds as punishment for the Palestinian’s successful bid for admission to UNESCO, the United Nations’ cultural agency, which was part of a larger effort to gain admission as a state in the world body.
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| | | 628 | Perm Dude
ID: 201027169
Sun, Dec 02, 2012, 13:45
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Spoiled children, who have been coasting because Daddy always has their back. Cut them off.
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| | |
| | | 633 | Tree
ID: 438482411
Mon, Jul 14, 2014, 18:58
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FWIW, this is a two-way street. every day hamas missiles are raining down in israel.
at one point, i really did believe in peace. not with Hamas in the position their in...
if you've got an iphone, download the Red Alert : Israel app - it will give you a true sense of what the Israelis are facing every day.
more on the app here (there are actually numerous articles about it today).
Hamas attacks Israel, and Israel is criticized for defending itself. It makes no sense.
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| | | 634 | Perm Dude
ID: 586411123
Mon, Jul 14, 2014, 22:55
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What Israel is going through is tough. But we're not comparing scars here. Netanyahu lied, and let loose violence onto the Palestinians which has resulted in the most recent rocket attacks against Israel.
I see you've deliberately failed to address that point.
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| | | 635 | Tree
ID: 438482411
Tue, Jul 15, 2014, 08:42
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honestly, us being up in arms over a politician lying (no offense Fred) is kind of over wrought.
honestly, the bigger picture here is that Hamas is bad for everyone, and if they can be destroyed, so be it.
they kill israelis. they kill palestinians. they just turned down an egyptian-brokered cease fire.
if Mexico were sending missiles into Austin, Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio hundreds of times a day, we'd do what needed to be done to end it.
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| | | 636 | Mith
ID: 3692387
Tue, Jul 15, 2014, 10:31
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if Mexico were sending missiles into Austin, Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio hundreds of times a day, we'd do what needed to be done to end it.
I sure hope one day Israel figures out a way to stop the rockets. Because all their current strategy does is ensure that more rockets will fall in the future. I have no reason to believe their government has any interest lasting peace.
Israel kills Palestinians and Israelis too. An awful lot more than Hamas does, in fact.
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| | | 637 | Mith
ID: 3692387
Tue, Jul 15, 2014, 10:40
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Hamas obviously has no interest in lasting peace. And I've not seen any good reason to believe Israel feels any differently.
Long past time to cut that cord and let the Israelis figure it out for themselves. They are an anchor around our neck and they are simply not worth the global credibility we sacrifice in support of them.
Maybe if we take away their war toys and even out the playing field they'll figure out how to play nice with their neighbors. They are not our allies.
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| | | 638 | Khahan
ID: 11631514
Tue, Jul 15, 2014, 15:03
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Like I've said years ago in this thread and the 'peace in the middle east' thread - peace is not achievable between these 2 people. We all need to step out and deal with the winners when one side is left standing.
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| | | 639 | Tree
ID: 438482411
Thu, Jul 17, 2014, 08:46
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I sure hope one day Israel figures out a way to stop the rockets.
i am not sure if this serious or sarcasm, because the Iron Dome does stop most of the rockets. but it would be ideal if they could prevent them from actually being launched, in a way that wouldn't kill most people.
there is no question that Hamas does not want peace. Israel, i firmly believe does. Bibi, and some other leadership, maybe not so much.
the Palestinian people want peace. the israeli people want peace. but Hamas is a roadblock. as is , apparently, current Israeli leadership.
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| | | 640 | Frick
ID: 17640169
Thu, Jul 17, 2014, 11:38
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Iron Dome stops the rockets from hitting their targets, not from being launched, which was how I read the comment.
And Israeli people might want peace, but they also seem to want to take over land already owned by others. The land might be within Israel's borders, that doesn't mean that they can just remove people from their homes.
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| | | 641 | Tree
ID: 438482411
Thu, Jul 17, 2014, 19:10
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The land might be within Israel's borders, that doesn't mean that they can just remove people from their homes.
there was a point in time, less than ten years ago, when Israel removed her own people from their homes.
21 Israeli Settlements (all of them), plus the military, were removed from Gaza (as were four settlements from the West Bank).
Israeli citizens who refused to evacuate, were evicted by the Israeli Army (My brother Dov) was an active duty soldier at the time, and was damned lucky he wasn't court martialed, as he refused to remove settlers).
the Bedouins of Dahaniya who resided on the Israel-Gaza border, were also removed, but they were removed at their own request, since they are viewed as traitors in Gaza, and likely would have been killed by the Palestinians.
after nearly 40 years of their being Israeli settlers in Gaza, there were none. over 2,500 homes were razed.
after agreeing to leave synagogues standing, the Palestinians changed their minds almost immediately, and destroyed them.
five years later, 70 percent of the evacuees were still living in government-provided mobile homes. the unemployment rate was a whopping 18 percent for those evacuated.
this was a high price for Israel to pay, but it was worth it if lasting peace came out of it.
it didn't. a year later, Hamas was elected to run the government, and soon began launching rockets into Israel.
i was completely, 100 percent of swapping land for peace. my brother didn't understand, but i believed.
i was wrong, and he was right.
Hamas and the Palestinian leadership don't want peace. they don't want to share the land, and they don't want to be good neighbors.
the only terms of having their own state are that every Israeli - Jew, Arab, or other - is killed, and that Israel ceases to be.
i no longer believe there will be peace in that region in my lifetime, and possibly ever.
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| | | 642 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Sun, Jul 20, 2014, 09:04
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They perpetually provoke a neighbor they know is unstable.
All signs point to the likelihood that Netanyahu deliberately withheld knowledge that the kidnapped boys were almost certainly dead, choosing instead to politically capitalize on the situation, which drew out the building anger and led to the murder of a Palestinian boy.
They provoke them (blockade of basic necessities into Gaza and ever-growing settlements in the West Bank, displacing families from their generational homes) despite the danger they know these policies put their own citizens in.
That's what you call being a good neighbor? I'm supposed to be impressed that they forcibly removed the settlers in the lesser Palestinian territory 10 years ago while the government continues to sanction and even subsidize(!) new and expanding settlements in the West Bank, where the majority of settlements has always been? What agree calls a high price to pay seemed to other like a rather tiny and long overdue concession after 40 years of thievery.
And how is that provocation morally superior to Hamas launching attacks from civilian locations?
They get away with because they know their superior military (and Hamas' inferior military) will minimize the damage and casualties. Indeed, for every Israeli death in the current conflict, 100 Palestinians have paid with their lives. So there is no military deterrent from these policies.
And they clearly don't give a whit about international PR (particularly since they know the US will continue to fund their military for absolutely nothing in return no matter what atrocities they commit). So there is no diplomatic deterrent from their peace-precluding policies, either.
At this point I think I'd vote for Ayn Rand if it meant cutting off all military aid to Israel and sending them a bill for all the blood and treasure we've sacrificed on their behalf over the years.
They've exploited our friendship for far too long. That government is not an ally of the United States.
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| | | 643 | Tree
ID: 48659111
Mon, Jul 21, 2014, 12:02
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Either you're choosing to ignore reality and history, or don't know it.
Maybe this will help.
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| | | 644 | nerveclinic
ID: 8832812
Mon, Jul 21, 2014, 14:00
|
FWIW, this is a two-way street. every day hamas missiles are raining down in israel.
Why is that Tree?
Israel has occupied Palestine for 50 years. Israel is blockading their borders. Israel is making the Palestinian peoples lives a living hell. Blockading a territory is an act of war. Occupying a country for 50 years is an outrage.
There is a moral justification to fight back against that kind of oppression and fascism. The missiles are a result of Israel's acts of war against the Palestinian people. Keeping a boot on the back of their neck for decades.
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| | | 645 | Tree
ID: 438482411
Mon, Jul 21, 2014, 14:49
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you didn't even read the linked article in 643.
do some research on what happened after Israel not only withdrew from Gaza, but aided the Palestinians with their infrastructure to further move along the two-state idea.
and follow that up with how the Palestinians responded.
they aren't interested in peace, or two states. Hamas wants Israel gone, and wants Israelis - Jew, Arab, Christian, whomever - dead.
there is ZERO "moral justification" for targeting civilians. if you find that morally acceptable, then, quite frankly, your morals are fukced.
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| | | 646 | nerveclinic
ID: 8832812
Mon, Jul 21, 2014, 16:09
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I didn't even read your post let alone the link. I just saw the first line about the missiles. As I've explained before, I can't read either your posts or Baldwins anymore. Too much bad energy.
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| | | 647 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Mon, Jul 21, 2014, 19:06
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When you cannot address specific points and must resort to a fact-cherrypicked propaganda piece from Charles Krauthammer, it is the same thing as a concession.
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| | | 648 | nerveclinic
ID: 8832812
Wed, Jul 23, 2014, 16:03
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"there is ZERO "moral justification" for targeting civilians."
Are you talking about Israel targeting civilians?
How many Palestinian civilians are dead the last 16 days?
How many Israeli civilians?
Please do not use language like Fukced. Just switching two letters does not make it acceptable.
I refer you to the post by Guru, maybe you read it? "the future of this forum" link
But this is the uncontrolled anger we expect from someone defending a fascist, apartheid state that is presently butchering 100's of civilians.
Bad Energy.
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| | | 649 | Gator
ID: 13521231
Wed, Jul 23, 2014, 23:09
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The people here that feel Israel is handling the problem incorrectly, how would you deal with the situation?
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| | | 650 | Tree
ID: 438482411
Thu, Jul 24, 2014, 00:02
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How many Palestinian civilians are dead the last 16 days?
when Hamas places missiles and weapons in schools, mosques, hospitals, and other heavily civilian populated areas, that is going to happen.
it's awful, but what's Israel to do?
i mean, jeez, the UNRWA - a division of the UN which isn't exactly friendly to Israel - is condemning Hamas for placing rockets inside their schools.
and then you harp on the choice of my language? laughable. people are dying, and you're concerned about four-letter words and your sensitive ears?
Hamas is a terrorist organization. they are also the elected government of the people of Gaza.
and today, their leader said he wouldn't agree to a humanitarian truce until there was a full israeli withdrawal.
they are monsters. and yet you support them.
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| | | 651 | Bean
ID: 5292191
Thu, Jul 24, 2014, 12:14
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<649> Kill em all, let the two gods sort em out. Question is, should they do it by a soul free agency or use a draft to pick souls.
Question of the day, would a christian god draft a muslim soul or would he not want to deal with all of the media hoop-lah surrounding it?
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| | | 652 | nerveclinic
ID: 8832812
Fri, Jul 25, 2014, 07:55
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Gator The people here that feel Israel is handling the problem incorrectly, how would you deal with the situation?
How much time do you have?
Right now it's going to be hard to deal with anything given the 700 plus human lives Israel has taken the last 20 days, most civilians, including bombing a UN school filled with refugees.
The reason Hamas has been firing the missiles is because
1) Israel has been blockading Palestine borders (Before the missiles)
2) The have Occupied Palestinians for Decades.
3) Their treatment By Israel in a similar manner that South Africans whites treated blacks during Apartheid. Here is an explanation from Wikipedia..
Critics of Israeli policy say that "a system of control" in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including Jewish-only settlements, the ID system, separate roads for Israeli and Palestinian citizens, military checkpoints, discriminatory marriage law, the West Bank barrier, use of Palestinians as cheap labour, Palestinian West Bank enclaves, inequities in infrastructure, legal rights, and access to land and resources between Palestinians and Israeli residents in the Israeli-occupied territories resembles some aspects of the South African apartheid regime, and that elements of Israel's occupation constitute forms of colonialism and of apartheid, which are contrary to international law.[4] Some commentators extend the analogy, or accusation, to include Arab citizens of Israel, describing their citizenship status as second-class.[12]
Here is the link which also explains the opposing view.
link
So what does Israel need to do?
They need to make a serious offer for peace. By giving a lot in return for their guaranteed safety and peaceful life.
They need to stop the blockade which is in and of itself an ongoing act of war. Stop building new homelands on Palestine's land and end the occupation.
They need to stop human rights abuses which Tree will try to blame on Hamas having weapons in civilian areas. (I guess they should just put them out in an open field where Israel can come and easily bomb them?)
There are large numbers of Israelis who disagree with Tree and are tired of their governments behavior. Tree would be right of center if he lived in Israel. He reads from a scripted playbook that makes excuses for everything Israel does and justifies the fascism and terrorism they are inflicting on a small neighbor.
So Gator, they need to stop the blockade, and end the occupation, let the Palestinians live as a free people, they have suffered enough.
Finally the USA needs to release the money they are blocking to pay for salaries of workers in Palestine ($400 million donated by Qatar)
That should solve all the problems, but they don't want it. Now Tree will tell you that all the Palestinians want is to kill every Jew on the planet so that means let's keep enslaving and killing them.
Tree will tell you that Hamas is shooting indiscriminately missiles into Israel without regard to where they will land, but that is all they have. They don't have the USA donating 3.1 Billion a year to their military as the USA does to Israel, buying them the best tanks and war planes money can buy. They don't have "Palestinian" lobby in America, the Jewish lobby in America that Israel has, is a lobby on scale with some of the biggest in the USA. That's what Palestine is up against. They are fighting back with the only thing they have and even so the missiles have been almost completely ineffective.
I am not going to go back and forth on this. It's a futile a debate as abortion is to opposing sides and I frankly don't care enough to waste my time debating any politics these days and dealing with the negative energy.
But honestly, Tree just reads all the right wing talking points, ignores the atrocities, the human rights abuses and he excuses Israel's behavior with the same repeated catch phrases and takes no responsibility for their actions. I say this as someone who has always criticized my own countries military excursions.
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| | | 653 | Mith
ID: 3692387
Fri, Jul 25, 2014, 11:45
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Gator 649
See post 480 and the discussion that followed.
Bean 651
For the record, they are the same god.
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| | | 654 | Gator
ID: 13521231
Fri, Jul 25, 2014, 20:50
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The internet is great. After reading some of the posts I talked to an Israeli friend. One thing I do have to agree with is the embargo if performed the way he states. He says the embargo simply checks for weapons. I can understand this, if missiles were being showered down on me I want to check for weapons also.
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| | | 655 | Mith
ID: 3692387
Sat, Jul 26, 2014, 11:01
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That's BS. The news organization I work for cannot even get video transmission equipment shipped to their Gaza bureau.
They are denied building materials like the concrete and rebar necessary to rebuild homes and buildings destroyed by he bombings.
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| | | 656 | Mith
ID: 3692387
Sat, Jul 26, 2014, 11:08
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According to the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, "the entry of building materials was suspended after the uncovering of a terrorist tunnel on October 7."
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| | |
| | | 658 | Mith
ID: 3692387
Sat, Jul 26, 2014, 12:11
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Well that ton and also the overwhelming majority of the concrete shipped in that would be used to rebuild the indiscriminately destroyed homes of civilians.
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| | | 659 | WiddleAvi
ID: 506382610
Sat, Jul 26, 2014, 12:34
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I am sure you have a source for that 'overwhelming majority'. That sounds like a smart idea. The enemy is using concrete (It would not be a stretch to say that they are using LARGE amounts) to build tunnels to attack so lets just keep giving them concrete. If they really wanted to protect their citizens why not use ALL the concrete to rebuild ? Maybe even build some bomb shelters for your citizens. Use the concrete to build buildings and infrastructure. What a novel idea of a way to give ppl jobs and create better standard of living. Problem is that improving the economy would be bad PR because then the world won't feel so bad.
I am all for peace, a 2 state solution. But there will never be peace or a 2 state solution with Hamas.
I think this article is just about spot on how I feel
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| | | 660 | Mith
ID: 3692387
Sat, Jul 26, 2014, 12:55
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I am sure you have a source for that 'overwhelming majority'.
Does the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs qualify? If so you could just click the link I already provided...
In 2012, as part of the understandings following Operation Pillar of Defense, the civil policy was further extended: despite the security risks, Israel increased the quota of building materials and approved the entry 20 trucks of building materials daily for the Gaza Strip's private sector via the Kerem Shalom border crossing. This number was increased to 350 trucks per week (about 70 trucks of building materials per day) in September 2013 – out of understanding of the importance of building and development in the Gaza Strip. The entry of building materials was suspended after the uncovering of a terrorist tunnel on October 7.
Yes, they were clearly building a lot more than those tunnels.
Honestly if they never rebuilt a Gaza City structure destroyed by Israeli bombs almost the whole place would be nothing but rubble by now.
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| | | 661 | Tree
ID: 438482411
Sun, Jul 27, 2014, 09:39
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Right now it's going to be hard to deal with anything given the 700 plus human lives Israel has taken the last 20 days, most civilians, including bombing a UN school filled with refugees.
if Hamas doesn't hide rockets/weapons/soldiers among the civilians, the death toll is lower.
look toward the animals at Hamas. if i pull a gun on you, and you pull your daughter in front of you to save yourself, you are to blame.
Hamas is the enemy of peace here, not Israel.
when even other arab nations, when even the Palestinian leadership of the West Bank distance themselves from Hamas, there is a singular problem.
Hamas.
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| | | 662 | Bean
ID: 5292191
Sun, Jul 27, 2014, 10:50
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Anybody got a good link to when/how the State of Israel was created?
I think there are parallels that can be drawn to the origins of the USA?
Google the 1622 Indian Massacre for example.
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| | | 663 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Sun, Jul 27, 2014, 11:10
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Did Israel stop kicking West Bank residents out I their homes to build new Jewish settlements?
No, you say?
Then Israel and Hamas are both enemies of peace.
Tree proves to us that it's all on Hamas by noting that Arab nations are distancing themselves from Hamas.
I guess if western nations ever get around to distancing themselves from Israel, he might have to rethink his point.
You know, if that day ever comes.
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| | | 664 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Sun, Jul 27, 2014, 11:28
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Hamas is the enemy of peace here, not Israel.
Press TV 7/27/14 According to reports published by Israeli media, young extremist settlers severely beat and wounded the two Palestinians, identified as Amir Shawiki and Ahmed Kasuani, in Neve Ya'akov neighborhood of East al-Quds (Jerusalem) as they were heading home.
The two Palestinians, who suffered injuries in the head and other parts of their body, were rushed to al-Muqased Hospital in the village of A-Tor to receive medical treatment.
On July 20, a group of Israeli settlers broke into a Palestinian house in the city of al-Khalil (Hebron), injuring five people. The assailants forcefully entered the building as Israeli soldiers nearby watched the incident and did not intervene. The extremist settlers threw stones inside the house and attacked the Palestinian family inside. A 12-year-old boy was hit by a stone and knocked unconscious. Four more people aged 15 to 55 also suffered injuries.
The injured had to be carried through a checkpoint as Palestinian ambulances were not allowed to enter the area. Israeli soldiers did not make any arrests and the attackers simply walked away.
According to the UN, there were nearly 400 incidents of settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank in 2013.
More than half a million Israelis live in over 120 illegal settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank. There ain't no good guy in this fight, Tree. Just two horrible monsters in charge on either side and a huge number of victims, a vastly disproportionate number of them among the Palestinians.
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| | | 665 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Sun, Jul 27, 2014, 11:43
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WiddleAvi
I am all for peace, a 2 state solution. But there will never be peace or a 2 state solution with Hamas.
Keep holding out for a Palestinian leadership that will tolerate the settlement policy. As if any people anyplace on the planet would tolerate such an absurd atrocity. And keep claiming that you are "all for peace" from the other side I your mouth.
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| | | 666 | Tree
ID: 438482411
Sun, Jul 27, 2014, 15:33
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Keep holding out for a Palestinian leadership that will tolerate the settlement policy. As if any people anyplace on the planet would tolerate such an absurd atrocity.
um. a two state solution would eliminate that. that's the whole point.
If the Palestinians got their own state, settling Israelis there would defeat the purpose. having two states would eliminate Israeli settlement in the new Palestinian state.
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| | | 667 | Mith
ID: 446362714
Sun, Jul 27, 2014, 15:36
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um. a two state solution would eliminate that. that's the whole point.
It is?!?
Then whats stopping them from putting it into effect in the West Bank?
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| | | 668 | sarge33rd
ID: 390471112
Sun, Jul 27, 2014, 15:46
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I notice in various discussions, much ado about the Israeli 'blockade' of Gaza. Nobody ever bothers however, to mention the Egyptian blockade. Why is that?
If a political faction within the US, swore to destroy the US, would you show them the same leniency you show HAMAS re Israel?
HAMAS is a recognized international terror group. I show them no sympathy at all. None. Unfortunately for Israel, she is currently led by a warmongering fool. Until leadership of the 2 entities changes, this is inevitable.
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| | | 669 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Sun, Jul 27, 2014, 15:57
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Please point out what "leniency" I have shown Hamas, as I call them "horrible monsters".
And I'd like my question about the West Bank (which is not run by Hamas) answered.
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| | | 670 | sarge33rd
ID: 390471112
Sun, Jul 27, 2014, 16:10
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People speak of "Israeli occupied West Bank" etc.
Seems to me, Israel gained those grounds after being unceremoniously assaulted by a neighboring power or two or three. The old USSR gained Poland and E Germany, after being attacked. I dont recall those lands being referred to as "occupied". The US gained CA, AZ, NM and more from the war with Mexico. I dont see CA referred to as "occupied".
So why is the West Bank referred to as "occupied"? It's Israeli now. You attack another nation in an effort to eliminate it, you run the risk of losing. Over simplified? Perhaps. But no less honest for it.
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| | | 671 | Tree
ID: 438482411
Sun, Jul 27, 2014, 16:30
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this about sums it up...
The Islamist Hamas movement fired more rockets at Israel Sunday, despite claims it had accepted a UN request for a 24-hour extension of a humanitarian truce in war-torn Gaza.
how do you make peace with a people who don't want peace, a people who have sworn to wipe you out.
there is no peace with Hamas, and they want to destroy Israel, leaving Israel with few choices, and none of them good for the Palestinian people who elected Hamas.
as for the "occupied" territories - Israel has been attacked often through out her existence. as Sarge pointed out, both Gaza and the West Bank were lands taken as Israel defended herself.
belatedly, she gave Gaza back. after the response she received for doing so, why on earth would a similar risk be taken with the West Bank?
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| | | 672 | Mith
ID: 446362714
Sun, Jul 27, 2014, 16:50
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why on earth would a similar risk be taken with the West Bank?
Because The West Bank is not run by Hamas.
Because there have been practically no hostilities out of that place perpetrated on Israel proper in years.
If that isn't enough to give them their own state (or even enough to stop kicking innocent families to the street to build luxury condos for Israelis who can't afford to live in Israel proper) then how can there ever be a two state solution?
I was always told by Israel apologists like Tree that all the Palestinians have to do is bring peace in order to have their own state.
One territory has effectively achieved that. And yet the occupation of that territory remains.
Every one of your "this about sums it up" posts is a 1-sided slice of ignorance that pretends this is a black and white situation.
The Israeli government has no more interest in achieving peace that Hamas does, because peace requires that they end the settlement policy and that means losing the political support of the Zionist fanatics.
Hamas and the Israeli government are just two sides of the same turd.
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| | | 673 | Mith
ID: 446362714
Sun, Jul 27, 2014, 17:01
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I mean, Tree says we need a Two state solution to stop the settlements. But then says a two state solution would be a foolish mistake.
Tree doesn't want peace any more than Hamas does.
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| | | 674 | Bean
ID: 5292191
Sun, Jul 27, 2014, 17:13
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In ancient times, this would be solved by marrying off a son of one nation with a daughter of the other. Today, we just buy a ticket and watch the barbarians slaughter one another in the arena on live TV. And everyone is an arm chair QB, and self-professed expert analyst.
These guys just need to slug it out til there is no fight left in them, however long it takes. Meanwhile its none of our business unless they start using airborne WMDs that affect our health or someone succeeds in convincing the US government that we have some obligation.
You got family there? Advise them to immigrate to somewhere else safer unless they are vested. But please dont ask my family to make sacrifices for you, cause you dont know how to make peace.
And please dont bring the fight to our soil, we've had too much of that already. My family got dragged into that Hatfield McCoy thing, we dont need anymore of some hot-head's BS.
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| | | 675 | Mith
ID: 446362714
Sun, Jul 27, 2014, 17:22
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These guys just need to slug it out til there is no fight left in them, however long it takes. Meanwhile its none of our business...
And please dont bring the fight to our soil, we've had too much of that already.
Bravo! But as long as we continue to fund Israel's war machine, we make it our business. I'm all for extracting ourselves from that arrangement. In fact it's long past time.
Though as long as the West Bank remains peaceful toward it's neighbors, I don't see any problem with rewarding them for their efforts with new trade agreements.
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| | | 676 | Gator
ID: 13521231
Sun, Jul 27, 2014, 17:37
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If Hamas had Israel's power, Israel would be a parking lot. You may not like how Israel is handling the situation but I have no doubt they want peace. Jihad matters, it is ingrained into much of Islamic youth. It is against their zealous religion to have peace with Israel. Jihad has no comparison in the Christian or Hebrew worlds, not since the crusades. If there were a Jihad, so to speak, in the Hebrew world, Islam would be marginalized in the Middle East.
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| | | 677 | Mith
ID: 446362714
Sun, Jul 27, 2014, 17:43
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I have no doubt they want peace.
Hahaha!
What in the world gives you that idea, much less leaves you with "no doubt"?
They kick people out of their homes and into the street to raze their houses and build condos for Israeli settlers.
How can you continue a policy like that and claim to want peace?
How come no one who supports Israel (or believes she "wants peace") will touch that question with a 10 foot pole?
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| | | 678 | holt
ID: 38338181
Sun, Jul 27, 2014, 18:03
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http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/front-page/how-the-academic-left-came-to-hate-israel/2012/04/18/
Just posting an article I found one day after being iritated by some of Roger Waters' antics (I'm a ridiculously huge Pink Floyd fan but the ego-maniacal bass player needs to play bass a little more and preach to his fans a little less). Anyway, I was curious as to why so many on the far left have moved to a strong anti-Israel (to put it politely) position over recent years. The article I posted above is just one of the links I checked.
"The obsessive reverence for multiculturalism on the part of universities has also meant that liberal faculty members have come to embrace attitudes that give equal value to very different cultures and nations, a factor that has led – as it did before when the Left embraced the ideology and overlooked the barbaric excesses of Communism – to a dangerous acceptance of radical Islam as equal to and compatible with the culture, values, and ethics of Western democracies."
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| | | 679 | WiddleAvi
ID: 506382610
Sun, Jul 27, 2014, 19:22
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MITH re 665 - And keep claiming that you are "all for peace" from the other side I your mouth.
Please don't put words in my mouth. I completely disagree with what Israel is doing in the west bank. I would like to see a 2 state solution. I don't see a solution right now. I think what Israel is doing in the west bank is terrible. I also don't see peace happening because lets just say that Israel stops what it is doing in the west bank and works out a 2 state solution with the Palestinian authority. We both know that Hamas will continue firing rockets because they refuse to recognize Israel. Can Israel agree to a 2 state solution that does not guarantee it's safety ?
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| | | 680 | Mith
ID: 446362714
Sun, Jul 27, 2014, 19:52
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I don't believe I've put words in your mouth. I have no idea why anyone finds the rockets fired from Gaza to be any worse than the settlement policy.
I'm sorry but I don't understand why a two state solution with the West Bank must necessarily have anything to do with Hamas or Gaza.
When the Gaza settlements were cleared, it was basically given it's (short-lived) autonomy. Why can't that happen in the other, less violent territory?
Hamas runs Gaza, not the West Bank. They will continue to fire rockets into Israel proper regardless of what is happening in the West Bank.
Cease the atrocities in the West Bank and set a timetable for ending the occupation to show Gaza residents what peace can achieve. It won't happen overnight. In fact it could take a generation but if the West Bank prospers even a little, over time Gaza residents will grow to resent Hamas' continued hostilities. What does Israel have to lose - except for political support from the hardline Zionist class?
Does anyone have a better idea for achieving long term peace? Because the long standing Israeli policy of devastatingly disproportionate retaliations is one policy that has been absolutely proven to not deliver peace.
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| | | 681 | WiddleAvi
ID: 506382610
Sun, Jul 27, 2014, 20:08
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I don't believe I've put words in your mouth. I have no idea why anyone finds the rockets fired from Gaza to be any worse than the settlement policy.
Really ? Telling me I am talking out of both sides of my mouth is exactly that. Show me where I agree with the settlements in the west bank and you have a point.
I am not going to sit here and argue which is worse because it's a pointless argument. Both are wrong.
I agree with you. Israel should work with the government in the West Bank and figure something out. Just not sure how you create a Palestinian state now when part of that state is supposed to include Gaza,
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| | | 682 | Pancho Villa
ID: 2131916
Sun, Jul 27, 2014, 20:10
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Israel is at war. When neighboring countries lob rockets into your land, it's an act of war, regardless of the conditions that brought about the conflict.
A country at war is going to use their resources to win that war, regardless of the human tragedy involved. This is true with the US in Hiroshima/Nagasaki, Dresden, Vietnam, Shock and Awe.
Hamas can either surrender or be obliterated along with their citizenry. Maybe they've checked recent history and have seen Japan and Germany rise from the ashes of defeat to become global economic powerhouses.
Regardless, as long as Hamas continues state-sponsored attacks on Israel, it's hypocritical and counter-intuitive to condemn Israel for reacting with their current level of aggression.
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| | | 683 | Gator
ID: 13521231
Sun, Jul 27, 2014, 20:38
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Brilliant article, Holt.
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| | | 684 | Mith
ID: 446362714
Sun, Jul 27, 2014, 20:43
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WiddleAvi
Telling me I am talking out of both sides of my mouth is exactly that.
You want a two state solution - in order to end the settlements, yes? But you know that Hamas will remain in power as long as the settlement atrocities continue.
I've said for years that unless Israel is willing to truly "obliterate" Gaza (and deal with the repercussions from her neighbors, which would likely lead to the same result across the region) the status quo will remain. I've yet to come across information or an argument to convince me otherwise.
I am not going to sit here and argue which is worse because it's a pointless argument.
I didn't ask or argue which was worse. We agree they are both terrible. Other Israel apologists (Tree, Sarge, Gator) here seem to disagree with us.
And maybe I'm missing something but why must it include Gaza? In what way is that "supposed to" be so?
Pancho Villa
Honest question - can you be at war with a territory you occupy? If so, why are the rockets from Gaza acts of war but not the settlement policy?
And I'm really not sure what difference it makes whether either necessarily qualifies as an act of war. Both Hamas and the Israeli government are actively perpetuating the hostilities.
Hamas and the Gaza citizens will not be obliterated by Israel under the current conditions of the conflict. Even the current Israeli government is not that foolish.
Israel's options seem clear enough:
1. Change nothing and continue to spin the wheels of cyclical violence.
2. Obliteration of Gaza, and then most of the rest of the region, including Israel proper and possibly much more of the developed world.
3. Reach out to the far less violent of the two Palestinian neighbors and nurture a partnership. This of course means the end of the settlement policy.
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| | | 685 | Gator
ID: 13521231
Sun, Jul 27, 2014, 21:00
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Mith, when you formed your opinion on this did you take into account the religious zealotry of the Palestinians and Hamas?
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| | | 686 | Perm Dude
ID: 586411123
Sun, Jul 27, 2014, 21:23
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Both sides have religious zealotry. That's a wash.
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| | | 687 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Sun, Jul 27, 2014, 21:29
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Gator
What does Hamas have to do with trying to work with the West Bank? Religious zealotry is what is perpetuating the violence on both sides. Why do you think the Israeli settlers seize their land and plant bombs in Palestinian schools?
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| | | 688 | holt
ID: 38338181
Sun, Jul 27, 2014, 21:38
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Gator - I just thought it was an interesting perspective. I've always wondered why most of the anti-Israel sentiment in the U.S. comes from the left when over 90% of American Jews vote Democrat. I've always lived in Oklahoma, Iowa, and Kansas so most of what I know about Jewish people comes from Monty Python, the Coen Brothers, Woody Allen, Northern Exposure, the Bible, etc.
Complete tangent warning. I've only ever personally known two people who were Jewish (they were brothers). I wouldn't have known had they not told me. One day I was talking to one of them and used the term "Jewing me down". He pointed it out and I apologized, then I tried to explain to him that I didn't previously associate the term "Jew down" with Jewish people. Probably because I had never met a Jewish person. To me it was just a term that was interchangeable with "haggle". I also remember debating with him that "Jew down" wasn't racist because Judaism was a religion and not a race. As far as I was concerned he was just another white dude. This was a long time ago, pre-internet age. Anyway, no point to any of that. Just sharing an anecdote.
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| | | 689 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Sun, Jul 27, 2014, 22:00
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For the record, I don't subscribe to anything like the ideology attributed to American liberals in Holts article. I've read similar perspectives before and know some people feel that way but as far as I know flat out rejecting the legitimacy of Israel is a rather extreme position that is not shared by most American liberals, contrary to the what the article implies.
Further, the article made no mention of the settlement policy (except to note that American liberals call the Israelis 'settlers') which is as great an impedement to peace as any factor in this conflict. To write up a summation of the liberal position without even mentioning the settlement policy is a joke.
So to say the least, I was not as impressed by the piece as much as Gator.
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| | | 690 | Gator
ID: 13521231
Sun, Jul 27, 2014, 22:37
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The flaw in your thinking is that Islam and Christianity are equal. The bible does have an eye for an eye, but compare that with these quotes from the Quran...
3:151
We will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve, because they set up with Allah that for which He has sent down no authority, and their abode is the fire, and evil is the abode of the unjust.
8:60
And prepare against them what force you can and horses tied at the frontier, to terrorize thereby the enemy of Allah...
8:12
I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them.
47:4, Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers (in fight), smite at their necks; At length, when ye have thoroughly subdued them, bind a bond firmly (on them): thereafter (is the time for) either generosity or ransom: Until the war lays down its burdens.
2:191, And slay them wherever ye catch them
2:193, And fight them on until there is no more Tumult or oppression
2:216, Fighting is prescribed for you, and ye dislike it. But it is possible that ye dislike a thing which is good for you
There are many more but you get the gist.
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| | | 691 | Gator
ID: 13521231
Sun, Jul 27, 2014, 22:43
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To say these 2 religions are on par with each other is an insult to Christians, Hebrews, facts, and commonsense.
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| | | 692 | biliruben
ID: 41431323
Sun, Jul 27, 2014, 23:13
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Senator, I spend much time with facts and commonsense. I know much about facts and commonsense. Facts and commonsense are friends of mine. Senator, you have never even had a casual acquaintance with facts and commonsense.
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| | | 693 | Perm Dude
ID: 586411123
Sun, Jul 27, 2014, 23:36
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Cutting and pasting without knowledge or context just makes you look rather thoughtless, Gator. You think there aren't Bible verses which will make Christians look barbaric?
If that's all you've got, then stop. You've reached the end.
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| | | 694 | Gator
ID: 13521231
Sun, Jul 27, 2014, 23:47
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I don't study the Quran, so of course I have to cut and paste. Good way of dodging the post. Post Bible verses on par with it. I have never seen terrorism preached in my all so many years. I am not a religious person but even Stevie Wonder could see the difference. To say every religion and philosophy are the same is intellectual laziness.
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| | | 695 | Gator
ID: 13521231
Sun, Jul 27, 2014, 23:50
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Bili-me and commonsense are buds. You gonna post on this subject?
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| | | 696 | biliruben
ID: 41431323
Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 00:00
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Me thinks you are better buds with Dan Quayle.
Nope. When people start quoting scripture, I tune out. There is no debating people who quote scripture. They are clearly way too strong on "facts" and "commonsense".
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| | | 697 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 00:18
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Sorry Gator but you are 10 - 15 years late to this forum. Back in the day I would have been happy to accommodate your request for similar Bible passages but these days I'm with Bili.
If you're that curious take a look at Exodos and Leviticus for starters. There's all kinds of twisted and violent stuff in there.
Consider that during the Middle Ages the bible inspired such terrible things as the Spanish Inquisition and the Cadaver Synod in the name of Christianity.
And frankly now that this conversation has taken a turn toward outright anti-Islamic bigotry I'm reminded of why I left in the first place. I personally know way too many good Muslims to entertain you any further.
I'll check back to see if any more of the Israel apologists manages summon up the balls to discuss the settlements. Otherwise I've been far more generous with you and Tree and Sarge than you deserve.
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| | | 698 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 00:28
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I mean what is one to assume? I talk at some length about the settlements and Gator's response to me is that my problem is that I give too much credit to Islam.
Is the implication that it's OK for Jews to kick Muslims out of their homes and seize their property because Judiasim is better than Islam?
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| | | 699 | Gator
ID: 13521231
Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 01:08
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I am taking a secular approach to this. You cannot intelligently talk about this subject without taking in consideration the fundamentalists. Which is Hamas. I have studied, to a small degree, the Muslim quick ascension to power in 7 century. Muslims dedicated themselves to the “five pillars” of their religion, the thirds being Zakat, which is giving alms is to the poor and donating at least one- fortieth of their income. This made Islam very appealing to the poor and may have helped with the rise of Islam. During this time Muslims were tolerant of other religions, in fact the Jews had a period some scholars call the Golden Age of Jewish culture. I am also aware of "let not hatred of a people allow you not to act equitably." I have also played many a game of chess with a Muslim Iranian student. But none of that has anything to do with Hamas.
Israel evacuated the Sinai settlements following the 1979 Israel-Egypt peace agreement and from the Gaza Strip in 2005. Israel dismantled 18 settlements in the Sinai Peninsula in 1982, and all 21 in the Gaza Strip and 4 in the West Bank in 2005. It does not matter what Israeli does, the fundamentalists will only be satisfied with Israel gone. I can understand the difference between Muslim fundamentalists and more progressive Muslims, you are the one that cannot see the difference.
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| | | 701 | Tree
ID: 438482411
Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 08:15
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MITH - I don't believe I've put words in your mouth.
interesting that two people now point out you've done this.
PV - Regardless, as long as Hamas continues state-sponsored attacks on Israel, it's hypocritical and counter-intuitive to condemn Israel for reacting with their current level of aggression.
that pretty much sums it up.
MITH - What does Hamas have to do with trying to work with the West Bank?
once again, Hamas was elected after Israel pulled out of the West Bank. they have been in a battle for power with Fatah ever since, one that has had its share of bloodshed.
i ask you - why should we, as long as Hamas exists, believe that what happened in Gaza won't happen again in the West Bank?
does Israel roll the dice again, after being burned the first time?
simple questions, yet, presumably, complex answers. i'd like to hear yours. (honestly - personal attacks aside, i am curious)
(and as for the whole bible verse business, i'm in agreement. can't really have a sensible discussion with those who quote the bible. i liken it to the Gish Gallop style of debate.
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| | | 702 | Bean
ID: 5292191
Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 10:10
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Ask not what we can do for Israel. Ask what Israel can do for us.
This absurd one-way alliance has brought us nothing but hate from the rest of the middle east. The establishment of Israel as a state was nothing less than an US/USSR sanctioned invasion. I can only say this to Israelis. You want to conquer a people, do it alone. We've been down that road before, it aint pretty.
It's time for us to distance ourselves from all of this nonsense and get back to important stuff like OUR NATIONAL economy.
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| | | 703 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 10:53
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Tree and Gator still refuse to acknowledge Israel's culpability in the conflict due to the settlements.
And he now says I've put words in his mouth, that he never said a two state solution would be a horrible mistake.
But as I repeatedly said that that an end to the settlement policy was a necessary step toward peace, Tree added:
"um. a two state solution would eliminate that. that's the whole point."
I replied: It is?!?
Then whats stopping them from putting it into effect in the West Bank?
Tree: why on earth would a similar risk be taken with the West Bank?
Whatever. Tree has no interest in an objective discussion. He posts a Krauthammer article that claims there isn't even a blockade on Gaza as an accurate summation of the situation.
Gator accuses of not understanding the difference between radicals and moderate Muslims. This is just as amusing, as I have repeatedly called Hamas monsters and enemies of peace and noted that nothing Israel does will stop them from firing rockets into Israel proper. It appears that it is actually Gator who refuses to believe (or at least care) that the vast majority of Palistenians do not want war with Israel and would much prefer to raise their families in peace. He offers no acknowledgement of the fact that no terrorism has come out of the West Bank in years and that in fact West Bank Muslims are far more often subject to attacks from Jewish settlers than the other way around.
You guys root for Israel because of your emotional attachments. And in Tree's case, also his indoctrination which prevents him from almost ever criticizing Israel no matter what crazy stuff she does.
Maybe you'd be thrilled to learn that your family is gaetting kicked out of their homes to bulldoze the land and put up condos for your cultural adversaries. Maybe you wouldn't fight back, just shrug your shoulders and hope the next place they find doesn't end up the same way. And when the family members who do get to stay get attacked on the street and have their children kidnapped and find bombs planted in their schools, while the authorities look the other way, maybe you'd keep your mouth shut and try not to be too much of a bother.
But I'm pretty sure that if West Bank residents decided to drag a Tel Aviv family kicking and screaming out of their homes to build their own place on the land, it would somehow be a much different kind I thing in your eyes.
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| | | 705 | Bean
ID: 5292191
Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 11:03
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Research the Indian Massacre of 1622 and Bacon's Rebellion. Follow that up with Custer's last stand, march of tears etc. All of this stuff is familiar to the American people, be they indigenous or invading conquerors. Four centuries later and we still cant figure out what to do about our casinos or football team names.
Conquest takes time. Israel, please let them keep some beach front property and open casinos on the reservation.
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| | | 706 | Bean
ID: 5292191
Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 11:06
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And please dont commit any genocide
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| | | 707 | Gator
ID: 13521231
Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 14:25
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I have not read all the posts, if that is your opinion of Hamas then we agree and agreeing with me is a sign of great intelligence.
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| | | 708 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 14:38
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Then why don't you do yourself and everyone else a favor and refrain from telling the forum what I think without having even read the posts in which I explain what I think?
That practice sounds like another pretty good sign of intelligence, don't you think?
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| | | 709 | sarge33rd
ID: 390471112
Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 21:19
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food for thought, from Sam Harris
The question I’ve now received in many forms goes something like this: Why is it that you never criticize Israel? Why is it that you never criticize Judaism? Why is it that you always take the side of the Israelis over that of the Palestinians?
Now, this is an incredibly boring and depressing question for a variety of reasons. The first, is that I have criticized both Israel and Judaism. What seems to have upset many people is that I’ve kept some sense of proportion. There are something like 15 million Jews on earth at this moment; there are a hundred times as many Muslims. I’ve debated rabbis who, when I have assumed that they believe in a God that can hear our prayers, they stop me mid-sentence and say, “Why would you think that I believe in a God who can hear prayers?” So there are rabbis—conservative rabbis—who believe in a God so elastic as to exclude every concrete claim about Him—and therefore, nearly every concrete demand upon human behavior. And there are millions of Jews, literally millions among the few million who exist, for whom Judaism is very important, and yet they are atheists. They don’t believe in God at all. This is actually a position you can hold in Judaism, but it’s a total non sequitur in Islam or Christianity.
So, when we’re talking about the consequences of irrational beliefs based on scripture, the Jews are the least of the least offenders. But I have said many critical things about Judaism. Let me remind you that parts of Hebrew Bible—books like Leviticus and Exodus and Deuteronomy—are the most repellent, the most sickeningly unethical documents to be found in any religion. They’re worse than the Koran. They’re worse than any part of the New Testament. But the truth is, most Jews recognize this and don’t take these texts seriously. It’s simply a fact that most Jews and most Israelis are not guided by scripture—and that’s a very good thing.
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| | | 710 | Tree
ID: 438482411
Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 22:11
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no point in attempting to have a sensible conversation with MITH. if i used his tactics, i'd accuse him of worshipping Hamas, even though he has said he abhors them.
the fact that you've chosen to insult every person here who thinks differently than you, that you put words into our mouths, speaks volumes of your tactics in this discussion MITH.
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| | | 711 | Bean
ID: 5292191
Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 22:12
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He concludes "The truth is, we are all living in Israel. It’s just that some of us haven’t realized it yet."
No I don't
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| | | 712 | Tree
ID: 438482411
Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 22:25
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i think you missed the point Bean - his point is that those of us who prefer to live secular lives will forever be confronted by people who want to make it to their version heaven, and will make everyone else miserable in their effort to get there. it doesn't matter whether you're in Israel, South Africa, the United States, or anywhere on this planet.
we've seen it on these very boards.
the essay is very good. when i read it earlier today, it struck chords with me, especially when Harris compared the morality of Hamas and Israel, what they would do if they could do anything they wanted to the other, and the "moral difference between using human shields and being deterred by them."
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| | | 713 | sarge33rd
ID: 390471112
Mon, Jul 28, 2014, 22:31
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I've never seen anyone convincingly argue against the contention; "If HAMAS had Israel's military might, Israel would no longer exist".
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| | | 714 | Bean
ID: 5292191
Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 01:47
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Tree,
To me its simple...its none of our business, despite the efforts of both sides to draw us into it. For me, it all comes down to this.
There is only so much land for all of us to live on. When we all want the same piece, or we have no self control when procreating or expending resources, we will eventually fight over it. Some of us will try to dominate those around us to get what we want. Others tolerate the greedy bullies, then explode when they cant take it anymore.
Often times its the exploder that looks like the bad guy, when it was the greedy bullying control freak that caused the problem in the first place. So, if you are already the guy who has it all, and you can't be satiated, you will be the father of your society's destruction. Revolution often ends more than just the iron grip of the previous administration. It's civilization's ultimate parity system.
So, have at it Israel, just dont ask my family to assist you in exploiting your neighbor, offering nothing in return for our sacrifice. If you've done something to make them mad, it's on you, it's not on us.
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| | | 715 | Mith
ID: 14102186
Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 07:17
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Tree
if i used his tactics, i'd accuse him of worshipping Hamas, even though he has said he abhors them.
If you'd used my "tactics", you'd be willing to address Israel's culpability in the conflict with regard to the settlements. But you lack the backbone to address the topic.
Further, Tree, if you used my "tactics" you would be responding to all or at least most of the points I've made, and you would certainly at least address the settlement issue that you continue to hide from.
Until you address the settlements and Israel's culpability through them, your posts here are comedy.
Sarge
I've never seen anyone convincingly argue against the contention; "If HAMAS had Israel's military might, Israel would no longer exist".
I agree. Obviously Hamas is not going to change. I don't think anyone here disagrees with that. So, I'm not sure why you and others continue to belabor the point that they are more bent on destroying the other side than the Israeli government. We all know already.
So logic dictates that the only path to peace will have to be a detour around the idea of getting Hamas to change.
That leaves two options: WW3 or a generational appeal to the hearts and minds of Palestinian civilians. They are the only ones who will be able to neutralize Hamas (without destroying the entire region and beyond).
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| | | 716 | Tree
ID: 438482411
Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 08:31
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So, have at it Israel, just dont ask my family to assist you in exploiting your neighbor, offering nothing in return for our sacrifice.
and this is the part you have wrong.
1. Israel isn't exploiting her neighbor. she's fighting for her survival against Hamas, an enemy who's charter specifically calls for the destruction of Israel, and who even attacks Israel during humanitarian cease fires that were designed to help Hamas.
2.To think that the US doesn't get anything from Israel is to not be aware of what's going on.
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| | | 717 | Mith
ID: 14102186
Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 08:36
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The comedy act continues...
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| | | 718 | Tree
ID: 438482411
Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 08:37
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Until you address the settlements and Israel's culpability through them, your posts here are comedy.
they've been addressed.
Israel pulled her settlers from Gaza nearly a decade ago, and help to begin with some infrastructure for the Palestinians.
the Palestinians responded by destroying said infrastructure, and elected Hamas to lead them.
Israel tried this - the only one here failing to address this is YOU. you fail to address that Israel did the right thing - something i believe in, something i believed would bring peace - and instead were met with bloodshed.
If the United States annexed Texas to Mexico, and New York to Canada, and then had those respective countries turn those states into launching pads for missiles to attack other parts of the United States, and those those countries turned around and asked for California and Michigan, do you think the US would do it so quickly, without assurances that history wouldn't repeat itself.
israel can't afford to make this mistake twice. you *appear* to believe that "meh, Hamas isn't in charge of the West Bank. things will be different. don't worry!"
israel has to worry. her very existence is at stake.
to be VERY clear, since you like to assume and put words into people's mouths, do i believe a two-state solution is the way to go?
absolutely.
do i believe that can happen with Hamas existing?
not in the least. the previous attempt failed, due in large part to Hamas.
if there is peace, there is no Hamas. as long as there is Hamas, there can be no peace.
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| | | 720 | Mith
ID: 14102186
Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 09:11
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the Palestinians responded by destroying said infrastructure, and elected Hamas to lead them.
Israel tried this - the only one here failing to address this is YOU...
you *appear* to believe that "meh, Hamas isn't in charge of the West Bank. things will be different. don't worry!"
I obviously didn't fail to address it since you went on to comment on (and truncate) my reply to that point.
As I've already noted, repeatedly, there have been practically no hostilities out of that place perpetrated on Israel proper in years.
According to Wiki, in 2004 there were 848 mortar shells and 377 Qassam rockets were fired at Israel from Gaza.
In 2005 there were 848 mortar shells and 377 Qassam rockets were fired at Israel from Gaza, including in the weeks and months leading to the pullout.
So Gaza was still actively hostile to Israel when the evacuation started.
But in the West Bank, where Hamas does not have the same kind of presence, there have been not been any attacks on Israel proper in years, from Hamas or the PA. And among the citizenry, it is actually the settler class that is much more aggressive and violent than the Palestinians. This is easily shown.
How can you discount that difference? They are two separate populations.
So the answer to your question of why they would take what you mischaracterize as "the same risk" here is a huge difference between Gaza and the West Bank in terms of hostilities.
But lets even take a step back from that. Forget about a two state solution for now and just talk about new settlements.
Why can't the Israeli government at least stop the building of new settlements in the West Bank? Even if you feel the existing neighborhoods of luxury condos are somehow essential to Israel's continued existence, why do they have to keep evicting more families?
Are you of the opinion that this policy is not an impediment to peace?
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| | | 721 | Bean
ID: 5292191
Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 10:35
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<716> To not acknowledge how someone might interpret the events of 1948 as a hostile invasion is arrogance. To not see that the events that succeeded the establishment of Israel were inevitable, is to not be aware of what's going on.
To assume our corrupt politicians are going to be able to help Israel forever, against the will of "We the People", presumes an awful lot.
Americans are tired of fighting, and we are tired of others fighting too. What I find perpetually taxing is that as people immigrate to this country they don't leave their homeland behind. Other Americans dont want to deal with your issues. Get over it, you are an American now! Think about what's best for America, and not what's best for Israel.
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| | | 722 | Pancho Villa
ID: 2131916
Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 10:39
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It doesn't appear to me that the West Bank issue is the motivation for Hamas' attacks on Israel, or even plays very highly.
Even though the division between Hamas and Fatah is somewhat reconciled, they probably should be looked at as two separate entities, since, as MITH has pointed out, attacks on Israel from the West Bank aren't Fatah-sponsored and are negligible compared to Hamas.
There's no doubt that Israel's West Bank policy is an impediment to peace, but it's hard to believe Hamas would accept a passive Israeli settlement policy in the West Bank as the silver bullet for a lasting peace.
Hamas' main demand, as of last Thursday, is an end to the Israeli blockade.
Rockets seem to be no problem for Hamas to secure anyway, but why would Israel want to make it easier for these weapons to enter Gaza? It would be easier(for me, at least) to be more sympathetic to the plight of Gaza if Hamas main demand was a halt to Israeli expansion(or even dismantling)West Bank settlements. But I get the feeling that's a low priority within the Hamas agenda.
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| | | 723 | Mith
ID: 14102186
Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 10:50
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it's hard to believe Hamas would accept a passive Israeli settlement policy in the West Bank as the silver bullet for a lasting peace.
I agree. I don't believe anyone here has made a case to the contrary.
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| | | 724 | Bean
ID: 5292191
Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 11:02
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The only way to a lasting peace is to make a homogenous people. Either one side kills the other side off, or they start inter-marrying and the differences disappear.
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| | | 725 | Mith
ID: 14102186
Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 11:29
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I don't think I agree, Bean. We've seen wars stretch decades and much longer eventually settled.
Sure this is a special case but a generation can develop a new attitude on it's own. If you can convince a people that there is a better way than constant fighting then eventually they will begin to reject the fighters among them.
But it takes time. A system of progressive rewards for peace out of the West Bank might go a long way over the long term, especially if Gaza residents watch life improve for people in the West Bank over that time.
Alas, last month the Israeli government approved the construction of 1,500 new settlement homes in the West Bank.
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| | | 726 | Bean
ID: 5292191
Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 11:54
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We've seen wars stretch decades and much longer eventually settled.
Got a real world example example Mith?
Maybe the long march of India/Pakistan eh?
Yugoslavia maybe?
Surely there must be some example of a "lasting peace" where people didnt integrate or annihilate. I just cant think of it.
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| | | 727 | biliruben
ID: 81382416
Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 12:04
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Northern Ireland comes to mind.
Berlin Wall and Eastern Europe/Germany.
Israel and Egypt worked pretty well.
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| | | 728 | Bean
ID: 5292191
Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 12:13
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Define lasting
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| | | 729 | Mith
ID: 14102186
Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 12:14
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Sure. Off the cuff:
North and South Vietnamese after 2 decades of war.
Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland after 3 decades of fighting.
France and England in the Hundred Years War.
Pro-government factions and leftist rebels in the Guatemalan Civil War, which spanned 4 decades.
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| | | 730 | Bean
ID: 5292191
Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 12:16
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What's the difference between peace and a cease fire?
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| | | 731 | Mith
ID: 14102186
Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 12:19
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I don't think I understand the question.
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| | | 732 | Bean
ID: 5292191
Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 12:40
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I presented two words that are related but different, I asked you what is the difference between them.
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| | | 733 | Mith
ID: 14102186
Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 12:46
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I guess I mean that I don't understand the relevance of the question.
But an example of a lasting cease fire is North and South Korea. I think most of the world would be thrilled with either outcome between Israelis and Palestinians.
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| | | 734 | Bean
ID: 5292191
Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 12:51
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<729> Aren't we receiving refugees from Guatemala?
I would say that the jury is still out on Ireland and Vietnam. In both cases the birth of war was due to the illegitimate fatherhood of English and French imperialism.
As to the 100 years war, once France chased England off the continent (annhialation) while England was dealing with its Civil War (War of the Roses), there was little English will left to reclaim the throne of France. In any case, it was integration under the hat of the Holy Roman Empire that kept what little semblance of peace there was in medieval times. Today, it's the channel that keeps the French and English from tearing out one another's throats, not the existence of NATO or the EU.
So, either integration or annhialation for lasting peace. You can, at best, get a cease fire with a police state or isolation. There is no separate but equal, but you already knew that.
Sometimes a cease fire can last generations, but the resentment will linger and borders are temporary.
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| | | 735 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 13:24
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I'm not sure why you think the jury is still out on Vietnam and Ireland. And clearly Eastern Europe was neither integrated nor annihilated.
I agree some examples were stronger than others but in any case, yes of course there are historical examples of warring neighbors who stopped trying to kill each other without annihilation or "integration".
Croats and Serbs. Hutus and Tutsis.
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| | | 736 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 13:31
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Iraq and Iran would be another fair example if that pond hadn't been muddied by the American War in Iraq.
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| | | 737 | Bean
ID: 5292191
Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 13:40
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<735> I was unaware that the Ukraine was no longer considered part of the "peaceful" Eastern Europe. I was equally unaware that the US police presence in all of Europe, Korea and Japan was no longer necessary to maintain the peace. Perhaps we should bring our soldiers, sailors and airmen back home immediately.
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| | | 738 | Mith
ID: 371172617
Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 14:18
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If your standard or lasting peace is that a country will never engage in hostilities against any of it's neighbors again, I'm happily willing to settle for a bar set much lower than that.
And do you really think the only thing preventing a resurgence of Japanese and German imperialism are American military bases there keeping an eye on them?
Yes sometimes peace needs foreign help to be maintained. Sometimes it doesn't. I think we'd all be thrilled with such a successful arrangement in Israel.
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| | | 739 | Bean
ID: 5292191
Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 14:34
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What I believe is that we should leave the countries that we have been protecting at our expense to defend themselves. If they want us to stay, then we should tax them for our protection, because everytime we engage in some crusade for the greater good, they cower behind us. They are not allies, they are protectorates.
What I believe is when the national discourse begins talking about the concerns of a foreign land, it distracts us from our own concerns. Worse yet, those who are vocal can dominate the national agenda and before you know it our sympathy becomes our national policy.
What I believe is that World War II was a long time ago and if World War III starts then we can re-engage, but for now lets get the hell out of world politics and let those idiots just kill one another.
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| | | 740 | Gator
ID: 13521231
Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 15:24
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Baldwin and Tree seem to have a cease fire that is working and they have been going at it for 15 years.
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| | | 741 | Bean
ID: 5292191
Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 15:45
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Oh, and one more thing while I have your attention.
I believe US citizenship should only be extended to those who have served in the US Military. Do not bring us your weak lazy uneducated useless wretches. Bring us your healthy strong intelligent self-sacrificing individuals, you keep the rest of those losers.
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| | | 742 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 17:41
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I wouldn't be alive today if that were the standard. I'm descended from a few butchers, a mechanic, a seamstress, a laundry maid and a hotel porter who came over from Europe.
Nor would just about every American who ever descended from a female immigrant prior to women being allowed in the military.
Tough standard. I highly doubt we'd have enjoyed the many various kinds of success we did in the 20th century under that model.
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| | | 743 | Boldwin
ID: 86222917
Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 18:31
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#735 & #740
Croats and Serbs. Hutus and Tutsis. Tree and Boldwin.
These are examples of successful resolutions?
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| | | 744 | Gator
ID: 13521231
Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 19:38
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I believe genocide was attempted with the first 2.
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| | | 745 | Boldwin
ID: 86222917
Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 20:06
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And Tree is just biding his time.
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| | | 746 | sarge33rd
ID: 390471112
Tue, Jul 29, 2014, 21:39
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dayum...I feel slighted B.
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| | | 747 | Bean
ID: 5292191
Wed, Jul 30, 2014, 01:49
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<742> Well at least they had the manners to wait in line (I assume). Anybody not speak AMERICAN? F**k those Torries, get em off my TV!!!
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| | | 748 | Bean
ID: 5292191
Wed, Jul 30, 2014, 01:56
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<742> I highly doubt we'd have enjoyed the many various kinds of success we did in the 20th century under that model.
Yeah I agree, I highly doubt you would have. Perhaps you should have not.
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| | | 749 | Mith
ID: 3692387
Wed, Jul 30, 2014, 09:06
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Anybody not speak AMERICAN?
Six of my great-grandparents came over from Italy. At least 3 (and maybe all of them) were unable to speak English when they arrived.
I don't know about the others but my last surviving great grandparent (my mom's maternal grandmother) never learned to speak passable English.
My paternal grandmother, American-born to Italian immigrants, didn't speak English until she began attending school at maybe age 7.
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| | | 750 | Mith
ID: 3692387
Wed, Jul 30, 2014, 09:11
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See posts 80 and 82 in the Ann Coulter Thread for more on the scourge that the descendants of my mom's maternal grandmother has wrought upon our land.
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| | | 751 | Bean
ID: 5292191
Wed, Jul 30, 2014, 10:48
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<750> Nearly every US citizen has an ancestor who was a GUEST in this country at some time. Nobody can turn back the clock, we cant retroactively put laws in place that kick out the bad apples, and there is no easy way to determine who is who, or where they'd go anyway. Despite the contribution that all Americans have made to this country, it comes down to who should we let in and who should we not let in NOW.
Only two reasons for someone to not learn our language while applying for US citizenship. They aren't smart enough, they aren't motivated enough...neither condition is a glowing recommendation for being awarded this precious thing. If learning the language is out of reach for them for some unnamed reason, then so is US citizenship, sucks to be them.
That you have grandparents that have served in the military is something to be proud of. We all thank them for their service. We need more like them.
To be clear on what I said, I believe that requiring a term in the US military for immigrants is good for America. I'm not saying it should be mandatory for a green card, nor did I say that you wouldn't have to stand in line for the opportunity. You want to work here, and we have spare jobs, fine...its a business arrangement. You want to be part of our American family, show us your commitment, take an oath to defend us, commit to one term in the military to take effect immediately and then take up arms in defense of this country. Complete the term honorably and you win citizenship for you, your spouse and your descendants. Seems like a pretty good deal for everyone.
Now, did I say, anyone who is already an immigrant US citizen and has not been in the military should have their citizenship revoked? Did I say, that if you are a natural born US citizen you should be required to join the military? No & No.
Did I, in effect, say that we should have had this law a century ago? Yes, I did, but as I also said, we cant turn back the clock. Am I delusional enough to think that its gonna be law cause I said it was a good idea? Of course not. It's just a good idea.
Would you like to discuss the downside of it?
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| | | 752 | Gator
ID: 13521231
Wed, Jul 30, 2014, 10:49
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I am part Indian and I believe you should all go back to your countries of origin and leave me your stuff.
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| | | 754 | Mith
ID: 3692387
Wed, Jul 30, 2014, 11:02
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Bean
If learning the language is out of reach for them for some unnamed reason, then so is US citizenship, sucks to be them.
Well you sure seemed awfully smart for a while. :)
More seriously, I'm awfully glad the Founding Fathers and the leadership of the proceeding 238 years did not feel the same way.
The masses of immigrants automatically became masses of laborers, who became masses of goods producers, which helped make the USA the most dominant manufacturing force of the 20th century, which has an awful lot to do with why we were able to decisively win WW2.
I'm not interested in continuing this off-topic tangent further here. We have an ongoing immigration discussion in another thread.
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| | | 755 | Bean
ID: 5292191
Wed, Jul 30, 2014, 11:28
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<752> Yeah me too Gator
<754> Actually the founding fathers did see it that way.
If you took an oath of allegiance, and joined the military, your family got a land grant and a pension. If you didn't, you'd better find some woods to go live in, away from the fight, "cause if you aren't with us, you're agin us".
I have a German ancestor that was just off the boat who joined the Revolution in 1776. He didn't speak English, but could read and write. He learned English in the service of his (new) country. If you think there wasn't a language prejudice back in the day, you'd be very mistaken.
The Revolutionary Army had all kinds of enrollment issues that haven't gone away. For example, the Puritans were the first consciencious objectors. Many were convinced to leave their beliefs behind for the Revolution.
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| | | 756 | Mith
ID: 3692387
Wed, Jul 30, 2014, 12:03
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If you didn't, you'd better find some woods to go live in, away from the fight, "cause if you aren't with us, you're agin us".
Do you have a source for this information? For the first couple of decades after our founding we did not even have a military, just citizen organized militias.
That's the primary reason for the 2nd Amendment.
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| | | 757 | Mith
ID: 3692387
Wed, Jul 30, 2014, 12:16
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List of US Immigration Laws
I'm pretty sure you are quite mistaken on the Founding Fathers' intentions here.
If we're going to continue this tangent, we should move it to an appropriate thread.
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| | | 758 | Bean
ID: 5292191
Wed, Jul 30, 2014, 12:25
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Of course I have a source...read rule V and VI.
Source
And if that's not good enough, I believe you'll find another source inside the barrel of my Kentucky long-rifle.
Or are you looking for some city slicker citing of my authoritative source with a footnote or something? You can find that footnote inside by boot.
hehe
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| | | 759 | sarge33rd
ID: 390471112
Wed, Jul 30, 2014, 15:11
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Why HAMAS is guilty...
Nine years ago, Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip. A constructive nationalist movement could have built a viable Palestinian state on Gaza’s beautiful seacoast. The world was ready to shower Palestinian pioneers with billions in aid (and did, even as Palestinian extremists chose to develop crude weapons, not their coastline).
American Jewish philanthropists alone donated $14 million to purchase Israel’s Gazan greenhouses to share with the Palestinians. The agricultural techniques Israelis developed — often working with Palestinians — cultivating Gaza’s natural assets could have made Gaza the Palestinian Riviera. Had this experiment in Gaza nation-building succeeded, it could have encouraged a peaceful transition toward an independent West Bank state.
Instead, claiming that not one inch of Palestinian land is free until all of it is freed, which means destroying Israel within pre-1948 borders, blinded by the totalitarian, anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist Islamist ideology articulated in Hamas’s charter and celebrated in mainstream Palestinian political culture and street culture, Palestinian extremists trashed the greenhouses within hours of receiving them. By 2007 Gaza had degenerated into Hamasistan, an Islamist thugocracy.
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| | | 760 | Seattle Zen
ID: 576301411
Wed, Jul 30, 2014, 18:24
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When I think about the tunnels and Gaza, it makes me think about the movie The Great Escape. In that movie, all the tension and drama revolves around the prisoners' building a series of tunnels to escape the prison camp, for all they have to do is to flee the prison and get out of the battle zone to freedom.
In Gaza, the tunnels are built to enter Gaza, to bring food, goods, etc... for there is nowhere to escape. The prison is their home.
Not every Jewish intellect supports this bloody campaign. Warning! This is a link to a liberal website, some of you might get dizzy.
Henry Siegman, Leading Voice of U.S. Jewry, on Gaza: "A Slaughter of Innocents"
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| | | 761 | WiddleAvi
ID: 506382610
Wed, Jul 30, 2014, 18:42
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Seattle - If the tunnels were just to Egypt then I would agree. The tunnels into Israel are for no other reason except to cause terror.
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| | | 762 | Tree
ID: 438482411
Wed, Jul 30, 2014, 19:01
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In Gaza, the tunnels are built to enter Gaza, to bring food, goods, etc... for there is nowhere to escape.
you honestly believe this?
we've seen the weapons in the tunnels. we've seen the the tunnels used to kidnap and kill, soldiers and civilians alike.
how can you not see the awful ways these tunnels are used?
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| | | 763 | Mith
ID: 371172617
Wed, Jul 30, 2014, 20:50
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I imagine most of the things Zen says are true but the evidence that they are used for various hostile activities as well seems abundant.
That said:
Israeli officer: I was right to shoot 13-year-old child An Israeli army officer who repeatedly shot a 13-year-old Palestinian girl in Gaza dismissed a warning from another soldier that she was a child by saying he would have killed her even if she was three years old.
The officer, identified by the army only as Captain R, was charged this week with illegal use of his weapon, conduct unbecoming an officer and other relatively minor infractions after emptying all 10 bullets from his gun's magazine into Iman al-Hams when she walked into a "security area" on the edge of Rafah refugee camp last month.
A tape recording of radio exchanges between soldiers involved in the incident, played on Israeli television, contradicts the army's account of the events and appears to show that the captain shot the girl in cold blood.
The official account claimed that Iman was shot as she walked towards an army post with her schoolbag because soldiers feared she was carrying a bomb.
But the tape recording of the radio conversation between soldiers at the scene reveals that, from the beginning, she was identified as a child and at no point was a bomb spoken about nor was she described as a threat. Iman was also at least 100 yards from any soldier.
Instead, the tape shows that the soldiers swiftly identified her as a "girl of about 10" who was "scared to death".
The tape also reveals that the soldiers said Iman was headed eastwards, away from the army post and back into the refugee camp, when she was shot.
The tape recording is of a three-way conversation between the army watchtower, the army post's operations room and the captain, who was a company commander.
The soldier in the watchtower radioed his colleagues after he saw Iman: "It's a little girl. She's running defensively eastward."
Operations room: "Are we talking about a girl under the age of 10?"
Watchtower: "A girl of about 10, she's behind the embankment, scared to death."
A few minutes later, Iman is shot in the leg from one of the army posts.
The watchtower: "I think that one of the positions took her out."
The company commander then moves in as Iman lies wounded and helpless.
Captain R: "I and another soldier ... are going in a little nearer, forward, to confirm the kill ... Receive a situation report. We fired and killed her ... I also confirmed the kill. Over."
Witnesses described how the captain shot Iman twice in the head, walked away, turned back and fired a stream of bullets into her body. Doctors at Rafah's hospital said she had been shot at least 17 times.
The army's original account of the killing said that the soldiers only identified Iman as a child after she was first shot. But the tape shows that they were aware just how young the small, slight girl was before any shots were fired.
The case came to light after soldiers under the command of Captain R went to an Israeli newspaper to accuse the army of covering up the circumstances of the killing.
A subsequent investigation by the officer responsible for the Gaza strip, Major General Dan Harel, concluded that the captain had "not acted unethically".
However, the military police launched an investigation, which resulted in charges against the unit commander.
Iman's parents have accused the army of whitewashing the affair by filing minor charges against Captain R. They want him prosecuted for murder.
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| | | 764 | Mith
ID: 371172617
Wed, Jul 30, 2014, 20:59
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It's not so much that the guy killed an innocent 10 year old girl. One of the terrible things about war is that no matter ho high the humanitarian standards (not that Israel is any example of that) some soldiers or officers always go rogue and do some terrible things.
But for the military to so protect someone who commits such an open and egregious atrocity shows a cruelty and disregard for human life that cannot be excused.
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| | | 765 | Tree
ID: 438482411
Wed, Jul 30, 2014, 23:02
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But for the military to so protect someone...
this goes on in every country on this planet.
what's important here is that the singular soldier who did this was charged with a crime.
meanwhile, when Hamas kills a teenager, all of Gaza celebrates.
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| | | 766 | sarge33rd
ID: 390471112
Thu, Jul 31, 2014, 00:44
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The Cpt needs be charged with CAPITAL crime. My Lai comes to mind.
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| | | 768 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Thu, Jul 31, 2014, 04:36
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It's yet one more thing that Hamas and the Israeli leadership have in common.
what's important here is that the singular soldier who did this was charged with a crime.
Wow what a load. Go back to the Iraq War discussions and you will see a far different standard from Tree when it comes to American troops who committed war atrocities. That version of Tree would be outraged by so pathetic a face saving effort as a murderer receiving a minor slap on the wrist only after the incident became semi-public.
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| | | 769 | Mith
ID: 231150292
Thu, Jul 31, 2014, 06:00
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Zionism and Israel’s War with Hamas in GazaI am a Zionist because the story of my forebears convinces me that Jews needed the homeland voted into existence by United Nations Resolution 181 of 1947, calling for the establishment of two states — one Jewish, one Arab — in Mandate Palestine. I am a Zionist who believes in the words of Israel’s founding charter of 1948 declaring that the nascent state would be based “on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel.”
What I cannot accept, however, is the perversion of Zionism that has seen the inexorable growth of a Messianic Israeli nationalism claiming all the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River; that has, for almost a half-century now, produced the systematic oppression of another people in the West Bank; that has led to the steady expansion of Israeli settlements on the very West Bank land of any Palestinian state; that isolates moderate Palestinians like Salam Fayyad in the name of divide-and-rule; that pursues policies that will make it impossible to remain a Jewish and democratic state; that seeks tactical advantage rather than the strategic breakthrough of a two-state peace; that blockades Gaza with 1.8 million people locked in its prison and is then surprised by the periodic eruptions of the inmates; and that responds disproportionately to attack in a way that kills hundreds of children.
This, as a Zionist, I cannot accept. Jews, above all people, know what oppression is. Children over millennia were the transmission belt of Jewish survival, the object of what the Israeli novelist Amos Oz and his daughter Fania Oz-Salzberger have called “the intergenerational quizzing that ensures the passing of the torch.” No argument, no Palestinian outrage or subterfuge, can gloss over what Jewish failure the killing of children in such numbers represents.
The Israeli case for the bombardment of Gaza could be foolproof. If Benjamin Netanyahu had made a good-faith effort to find common cause with Palestinian moderates for peace and been rebuffed, it would be. He has not. Hamas is vile. I would happily see it destroyed. But Hamas is also the product of a situation that Israel has reinforced rather than sought to resolve.
This corrosive Israeli exercise in the control of another people, breeding the contempt of the powerful for the oppressed, is a betrayal of the Zionism in which I still believe.
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| | | 770 | Mith
ID: 231150292
Thu, Jul 31, 2014, 07:37
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Israeli strikes hit a crowded shopping area in Gaza City Wednesday, hours after tank shells tore through the walls of a U.N. school crowded with war refugees.
The attack on the U.N. school in the Jebaliya refugee camp was the second deadly strike on a U.N. compound in a week. Tank shells slammed into the compound before dawn, said Adnan Abu Hasna, a spokesman for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, which is sheltering more than 200,000 people displaced by the fighting at dozens of U.N. schools across Gaza.
Gaza health ministry official Ashraf al-Kidra said at least 17 people were killed and about 90 wounded in the school strike.
The Israeli military said it fired back after its soldiers were targeted by mortar rounds launched from the vicinity of the school.
"Nothing is more shameful than attacking sleeping children," Ban said on his arrival in San Jose, Costa Rica. He added that "all available evidence points to Israeli artillery as the cause" and noted that Israeli military authorities had received the coordinates of the school from the United Nations 17 times, including on Tuesday night.
The White House also condemned the deadly shelling. Spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan also said the U.S. is "extremely concerned" that thousands of Palestinians aren't safe in U.N.-designated shelters, despite being told by Israel's military to leave their homes. Israel has been warning civilians by phone and leaflet to leave dangerous areas ahead of strikes on militant targets. I wonder if the sleeping refugees were given the courtesy of having warning leaflets dropped over them while they were sleeping.
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| | | 771 | Tree
ID: 438482411
Thu, Jul 31, 2014, 08:22
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Wow what a load. Go back to the Iraq War discussions and you will see a far different standard from Tree when it comes to American troops who committed war atrocities. That version of Tree would be outraged
he was criminally charged for his actions. the proper course of action was taken. the actions he is accused of are indeed outrageous, and i never said otherwise, SO ONCE AGAIN, STOP PUTTING WORDS IN MY MOUTH.
...various hostile activities as well seems abundant.
when the Daily Maariv - a centrist to left leaning newspaper in Israel that is critical of Netanyahu - reports that these tunnels were going to be used in a few weeks for a Rosh Hashanah Terror Attack that would be on par with the Yom Kippur War attacks, it's worth standing up and noticing.
if that plot turns out to be true, Israel's actions to destroy those tunnels are completely justified.
here's to hoping that once those tunnels are completely destroyed, Israel backs off, having accomplished her necessary task.
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| | | 772 | Mith
ID: 231150292
Thu, Jul 31, 2014, 08:32
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he was criminally charged for his actions. the proper course of action was taken.
When a murderer is charged with illegal use of a weapon, he has neither been legally charged "for his actions" nor "was the proper course of action taken".
SO ONCE AGAIN, STOP PUTTING WORDS IN MY MOUTH.
What words did I attribute to you that you claim to have not said? I'm beginning to think you misunderstand the meaning of that phrase.
if that plot turns out to be true, Israel's actions to destroy those tunnels are completely justified.
No argument. Destroy the tunnels.
Shockingly, there was no tunnel under the UN school that was being used as a refugee camp (where Palestinians who heeded Israel's warning to evacuate were staying) which Israel bombed.
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| | | 773 | Mith
ID: 231150292
Thu, Jul 31, 2014, 08:33
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here's to hoping that once those tunnels are completely destroyed, Israel backs off
Of course we all know that if they don't, you will have the usual stock of retread excuses at the ready.
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| | | 774 | Mith
ID: 231150292
Thu, Jul 31, 2014, 12:03
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The plight of the Khudair family
Mohammed Abu Khudair was the Palestinian teenager who was kidnapped, beaten and burned alive on July 2nd by Israeli extremists in retaliation for the three Israeli boys who were killed by Palestinian extremists.
The next day, Mohammed's cousin, Tariq Abu Khdeir, an American teenager visiting family in East Jerusalem, was present at a demonstration outside Mohammed's home protesting the murder. The protest turned violent as some demonstrators threw rocks at Israeli police.
Tariq did have a slingshot in his possession, and Israeli police say he attacked police officers and resisted arrest. His family and other people present deny this.
True or not, Tariq received a unconscionable beating at the hands of Israeli. The assault continued on the skinny 15 year old even though he was shackled and immobile and probably unconscious. Eventually he was dragged off by his assailants to a hospital where he was placed under police guard. The beating was caught on tape.
He was held there several days and then faced a judge who put him under house arrest while an investigation of his actions at the protest took place. He remained under house arrest for nine days until he was released without charge and returned home to Tampa.
Since the beating became international news, numerous members of the Khudair home in East Jerusalem have been arrested by Israeli police.
None of the three Israeli officers who severely beat Tariq have been charged. One has been suspended.
The video is embedded at the bottom of the second link above.
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| | | 775 | sarge33d
ID: 34741110
Fri, Aug 01, 2014, 11:42
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fascinating read
The Islamist goal is not to impose Islam on non-Muslim countries. It is to expel non-Muslim influence from Muslim lands. But, rather than analyzing the Islamist challenge in its own terms, the United States has analogized the struggle to past contests for global supremacy, like World War II and the Cold War. It has compounded this error by responding to the challenge of Islamist terrorism with a series of military and paramilitary campaigns that are unlinked to any political strategy. Lacking such a strategy, America has sought no ideological allies in the Muslim world. Not surprisingly, the results of this misconceived approach have been counterproductive. There is little, if any, prospect that it will yield anything but increasingly costly failure in future.
bingo!
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| | | 776 | Tree
ID: 438482411
Fri, Aug 01, 2014, 14:31
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Since the beating became international news, numerous members of the Khudair home in East Jerusalem have been arrested by Israeli police.
None of the three Israeli officers who severely beat Tariq have been charged. One has been suspended.
this sort of thing happens in America every day. not excusing it, but you're singling this out.
Hamas violates YET ANOTHER ceasefire, and still, Israel is in the wrong.
this is what baffles me - you point out these exception the rule examples that aren't out of place in other nations - yet when Hamas commits violation after violation, atrocity, after atrocity, you seem to want to nail the Israelis, not Hamas.
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| | | 777 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Fri, Aug 01, 2014, 14:33
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Interesting, though I've read numerous contradicting characterizations of the Islamist "goal" from different writers.
I suspect the goal varies considerably from Islamist to Islamist.
I'm also not sure that I agree that there is no political strategy behind the recent military campaigns in The Muslim world. Clearly the strategy of this administration is different from the previous and of course both are/were works in progress.
There aren't many potential ideological allies in the Middle East. Turkey and UAE seem like good fits. After that... Jordan and Qatar might qualify. Not much else, right?
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| | |
| | | 779 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Sat, Aug 02, 2014, 04:36
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Great find Sarge.
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| | | 780 | Mith
ID: 14102186
Sat, Aug 02, 2014, 11:46
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Haaretz If you’ve been anywhere near the American Jewish community over the past few weeks, you’ve heard the following morality tale: Israel left the Gaza Strip in 2005, hoping the newly independent country would become the Singapore of the Middle East. Instead, Hamas seized power, ransacked greenhouses, threw its opponents off rooftops and began launching thousands of rockets at Israel.
American Jewish leaders use this narrative to justify their skepticism of a Palestinian state in the West Bank. But in crucial ways, it’s wrong. And without understanding why it’s wrong, you can’t understand why this war is wrong too.
As the Israeli human rights group Gisha has detailed, even before the election of Hamas, Israel controlled whether Gazans could enter or exit the Strip (In conjunction with Egypt, which controlled the Rafah checkpoint in Gaza's south). Israel controlled the population registry through which Gazans were issued identification cards. Upon evacuating its settlers and soldiers from Gaza, Israel even created a security perimeter inside the Strip from which Gazans were barred from entry. (Unfortunately for Gazans, this perimeter included some of the Strip’s best farmland).
“Pro-Israel” commentators claim Israel had legitimate security reasons for all this. But that concedes the point. A necessary occupation is still an occupation. That’s why it’s silly to analogize Hamas’ rockets—repugnant as they are—to Mexico or Canada attacking the United States. The United States is not occupying Mexico or Canada. Israel — according to the United States government — has been occupying Gaza without interruption since 1967.
To grasp the perversity of using Gaza as an explanation for why Israel can’t risk a Palestinian state, it helps to realize that Sharon withdrew Gaza’s settlers in large measure because he didn’t want a Palestinian state.
Sharon saw several advantages to withdrawing settlers from Gaza. First, it would save money, since in Gaza Israel was deploying a disproportionately high number of soldiers to protect a relatively small number of settlers. Second, by (supposedly) ridding Israel of its responsibility for millions of Palestinians, the withdrawal would leave Israel and the West Bank with a larger Jewish majority. Third, the withdrawal would prevent the administration of George W. Bush from embracing the Saudi or Geneva plans, and pushing hard—as Bill Clinton had done—for a Palestinian state. Sharon’s chief of staff, Dov Weisglass, put it bluntly: “The significance of the disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process. And when you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda. And all this with authority and permission. All with a presidential blessing and the ratification of both houses of Congress.”
It’s no surprise, therefore, that the Gaza withdrawal did not meet minimal Palestinian demands. Not even the most moderate Palestinian leader would have accepted a long-term arrangement in which Israel withdrew its settlers from Gaza while maintaining control of the Strip’s borders and deepening Israeli control of the West Bank. (Even in the 2005, the year Sharon withdrew from Gaza, the overall settler population rose, in part because some Gazan settlers relocated to the West Bank).
Hamas didn’t seize power. It won an election. In January 2006, four months after the last settlers left, Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem chose representatives to the Palestinian Authority’s parliament. (The previous year, they had separately elected Abbas to be the Palestinian Authority’s President). Hamas won a plurality of the vote - forty-five percent - but because of the PA’s voting system, and Fatah’s idiotic decision to run more than one candidate in several districts, Hamas garnered 58 percent of the seats in parliament.
So why did Hamas win? Because, according to Shikaki, only fifteen percent of voters called the peace process their most important issue. A full two-thirds cited either corruption or law and order. It’s vital to remember that 2006 was the first Palestinian election in more than ten years. During the previous decade, Palestinians had grown increasingly frustrated by Fatah’s unaccountable, lawless and incompetent rule. According to exit polls, 85 percent of voters called Fatah corrupt. Hamas, by contrast, because it had never wielded power and because its charitable arm effectively delivered social services, enjoyed a reputation for competence and honesty.
Hamas won, in other words, for the same reason voters all across the world boot out parties that have grown unresponsive and self-interested after years in power. That’s not just Shikaki’s judgment. It’s also Bill Clinton’s. As Clinton explained in 2009, “a lot of Palestinians were upset that they [Fatah] were not delivering the services. They didn’t think it [Fatah] was an entirely honest operation and a lot of people were going to vote for Hamas not because they wanted terrorist tactics…but because they thought they might get better service, better government…They [also] won because Fatah carelessly and foolishly ran both its slates in too many parliamentary seats.”
Bush administration—suddenly less enamored of Middle Eastern democracy--pressured Abbas to dissolve the Palestinian parliament and rule by emergency decree. Israel, which also wanted Abbas to defy the election results, withheld the tax and customs revenue it had collected on the Palestinian Authority’s behalf. Knowing Hamas would resist Abbas’ efforts to annul the election, especially in Gaza, where it was strong on the ground, the Bushies also began urging Abbas’ former national security advisor, a Gazan named Mohammed Dahlan, to seize power in the Strip by force. As David Rose later detailed in an extraordinary article in Vanity Fair, Condoleezza Rice pushed Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to buy weapons for Dahlan, and for Israel to allow them to enter Gaza. As General Mark Dayton, US security coordinator for the Palestinians, told Dahlan in November 2006, “We also need you to build up your forces in order to take on Hamas.”
Unfortunately for the Bush administration, Dahlan’s forces were weaker than they looked. And when the battle for Gaza began, Hamas won it easily, and brutally. In response, Abbas declared emergency rule in the West Bank.
Israel responded to Hamas’ election victory by further restricting access in and out of Gaza. As it happens, these restrictions played a key role in explaining why Gaza’s greenhouses did not help it become Singapore. American Jewish leaders usually tell the story this way: When the settlers left, Israel handed over their greenhouses to the Palestinians, hoping they would use them to create jobs. Instead, Palestinians tore them down in an anti-Jewish rage.
But one person who does not endorse that narrative is the prime mover behind the greenhouse deal, Australian-Jewish businessman James Wolfensohn, who served as the Quartet’s Special Envoy for Gaza Disengagement. In his memoir, Wolfensohn notes that “some damage was done to the greenhouses [as the result of post-disengagement looting] but they came through essentially intact” and were subsequently guarded by Palestinian Authority police. What really doomed the greenhouse initiative, Wolfensohn argues, were Israeli restrictions on Gazan exports. “In early December [2005], he writes, “the much-awaited first harvest of quality cash crops—strawberries, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet peppers and flowers—began. These crops were intended for export via Israel for Europe. But their success relied upon the Karni crossing [between Gaza and Israel], which, beginning in mid-January 2006, was closed more than not.
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| | | 781 | Tree
ID: 438482411
Sat, Aug 02, 2014, 14:17
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To grasp the perversity of using Gaza as an explanation for why Israel can’t risk a Palestinian state, it helps to realize that Sharon withdrew Gaza’s settlers in large measure because he didn’t want a Palestinian state.
i think this sums it up in a misleading fashion. Gaza isn't the explanation, Hamas is.
if Hamas is eliminated, i think "risking" a Palestinian state becomes a risk worth taking again.
Hamas didn’t seize power. It won an election.
baffling. i am sure this is common knowledge, and not in question.
it doesn't change the fact that Hamas is a terrorist organization who's goal it is is to kill all Jews, Americans, and Israelis.
i had personally hoped a legitimate elected victory for Hamas would tone them down. instead, it emboldened them, and they need to be wiped from the earth.
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| | | 782 | bibA
ID: 204511510
Sat, Aug 02, 2014, 15:24
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Tree, would you do some math for us? There are about 1.8 million people living in Gaza. A majority of their voters apparently are either Hamas, or their supporters. So far, only about 1400 people have been wiped from the earth. If your goal was to be fulfilled, what would you estimate to be the final death count?
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| | | 783 | sarge33rd
ID: 12739213
Sat, Aug 02, 2014, 16:30
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Over 700 civilians were killed last weekend in Syria, yet the entire world is on Israels back over 1000 in some weeks time, and that as Israel was being attacked. *smdh* If it is the blockade you want lifted, get Egypt to lift theirs. HAMAS isnt lobbing mortar rounds into Egypt.
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| | | 784 | Mith
ID: 371172617
Sat, Aug 02, 2014, 16:51
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Tree
Gaza isn't the explanation, Hamas is.
I think it's a paraphrase. In any case the greater point is that the Israeli government was not quite an honest broker in the effort to establish a two state solution.
i am sure [that Hamas was elected Gaza] is common knowledge
Actually I've heard it argued that Hamas seized power fairly often, though I'm not sure it's a myth worth addressing in that piece.
bibA
A majority of their voters apparently are either Hamas, or their supporters.
This is not true. Hamas got less than half the vote. They won because Fatah was rife with corruption and had become a very unpopular among the civilians. Further, Fatah had run numerous candidates in several races, splitting their support.
Most of the support Hamas does receive from the citizens is not for operating as a terrorist organization and militia. Don't mistake this as an argument to favor them but Hamas does a bit of humanitarian work in Gaza, even if it is a lot less than they could accomplish if they didn't devote so much of their resources to violent activities.
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| | | 785 | Mith
ID: 371172617
Sat, Aug 02, 2014, 17:10
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The point about Hamas' popularity is important because the truth invalidates the argument that the West Bank does not deserve autonomy because of the concern that they will elect Hamas to run the place.
The real reason is that the hardline Zionist movement is a powerful block in Israeli politics and (just like Palestinian hardliners) they claim the right to all of the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan.
In the US we hear very little about the terrorism and acts of violence that Israeli settlers commit in the West Bank.
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| | | 786 | Mith
ID: 371172617
Sun, Aug 03, 2014, 09:01
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More on hat happened to the settlement greenhouses (click through for links):As the date of the withdrawal approached with no deal in sight, however, the settlers began to destroy the greenhouses. The New York Times reported:About half the greenhouses in the Israeli settlements in Gaza have already been dismantled by their owners, who have given up waiting to see if the government was going to come up with extra payment as an inducement to leave them behind, say senior officials working on the coordination of this summer's Israeli pullout from Gaza.(...)
Of the roughly 1,000 acres of agricultural land that were under greenhouses in the 21 Israeli settlements in Gaza, only 500 acres remain - creating significant doubts that the greenhouses could be handed over to the Palestinians as "a living business," the goal cited by the Israeli coordinator of the pullout, Eival Giladi. Finally, a last-minute effort by American Jewish philantropists raised $14 million and the remainder of the greenhouses was bought and turned over to the Palestinians.
However, since there had been no coordination with the Palestinians, there was no security plan to protect the greenhouses from looters. AP reported:Palestinians looted dozens of greenhouses on Tuesday, walking off with irrigation hoses, water pumps and plastic sheeting in a blow to fledgling efforts to reconstruct the Gaza Strip.(...)
Palestinian police stood by helplessly Tuesday as looters carted off materials from greenhouses in several settlements, and commanders complained they did not have enough manpower to protect the prized assets. In some instances, there was no security and in others, police even joined the looters, witnesses said.
“We need at least another 70 soldiers. This is just a joke,” said Taysir Haddad, one of 22 security guards assigned to Neve Dekalim, formerly the largest Jewish settlement in Gaza. “We’ve tried to stop as many people as we can, but they’re like locusts.” As can be seen, the theft was carried out by individuals, and in no way was it encouraged by the Palestinian Authority. Quite on the contrary, there was a conscious PA effort to prevent the lootings, which was however hindered by lack of resources.
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| | | 787 | Mith
ID: 371172617
Sun, Aug 03, 2014, 09:21
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NYT Op Ed 7.20.06 Roger CohenTo reacquaint myself with this reality, I contacted James Wolfensohn, the former World Bank president who, in April of 2005, was appointed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as Special Envoy for Gaza Disengagement.
It was critical, Rice said at the time, to "seize the moment" of Israeli withdrawal from Gaza because "we have an opportunity right now to help Israelis and Palestinians build trust with one another and achieve the peace and security they both desire."
Fine words that proved as consequential as yesterday's newspapers. Wolfensohn, a seasoned negotiator, tried. He tried to the point of raising almost $15 million - including $10 million from a single American donor - to acquire greenhouses Israeli settlers were abandoning in the summer of 2005.
"We even gave them the greenhouses!" is now a refrain from the Israeli government in arguing that the "test case" of Gaza has failed, leading not to the democratic embryo of a Palestinian state but to a nest of Hamas-led terror.
The refrain overlooks Wolfensohn's role and the cash paid. More important, it overlooks the fact that the greenhouses looked set to become a profitable Gaza industry before Israel shut the border and the produce rotted.
"Once it was clear the business was viable, threats stopped and the community took tremendous pride in growing flowers, fruits and vegetables for export to Israel," Wolfensohn told me.
"The absolute tragedy was that within months of the commencement of that activity, issues of security at the border, some proven, some not, led to the border being sealed and everything getting wasted," he added.
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| | | 788 | sarge33rd
ID: 390471112
Sun, Aug 03, 2014, 11:55
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that can happen, when you elect a terrorist group to head your government, and that terrorists group is sworn to the destruction of those who left the businesses behind.
Your own link makes it clear, the Palestinians themselves destroyed the stores, they elected Hamas. IOW, they made their bed, and now they dont like the results. Probably should have thought through a little better, the probable outcome of electing a gang of murderers to govern.
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| | | 789 | Tree
ID: 438482411
Sun, Aug 03, 2014, 11:59
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Hamas is the impediment to peace, not Israel. Has Israel been an impediment? yes. does it shoot itself in the foot sometimes? yes.
But Hamas' stated mission is no peace, and death to ALL Jews, Americans, and Israelis.
As long as Hamas exists, there will be no peace.
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| | | 790 | sarge33rd
ID: 390471112
Sun, Aug 03, 2014, 12:00
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How Hamas Wields Gaza’s Casualties as Propaganda
Analyses of the casualties listed in the daily reports published by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, a Gaza-based organization operating under Hamas rule, indicate that young males ages 17 to 30 make up a large portion of the fatalities, and a particularly noticeable spike occurs between males ages 21 to 27, a pattern consistent with the age distribution typically found among combatants and military conscripts. Palestinian sources attempt to conceal this discrepancy with their public message by labeling most of these young men as civilians. Only a minority is identified as members of armed groups. As a result, the PCHR calculates civilian fatalities at 82% as of July 26. PCHR provides the most detailed casualty reports of the various Palestinian agencies from Gaza that provide figures to the media and to international organizations like the UN. Its figures closely match those of the Hamas-run Gazan Health Ministry and other groups.
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| | | 791 | sarge33rd
ID: 390471112
Sun, Aug 03, 2014, 12:14
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Arab Leaders, Viewing Hamas as Worse Than Israel, Stay Silent
CAIRO — Battling Palestinian militants in Gaza two years ago, Israel found itself pressed from all sides by unfriendly Arab neighbors to end the fighting.
Not this time.
After the military ouster of the Islamist government in Cairo last year, Egypt has led a new coalition of Arab states — including Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — that has effectively lined up with Israel in its fight against Hamas, the Islamist movement that controls the Gaza Strip. That, in turn, may have contributed to the failure of the antagonists to reach a negotiated cease-fire even after more than three weeks of bloodshed.
“The Arab states’ loathing and fear of political Islam is so strong that it outweighs their allergy to Benjamin Netanyahu,” the prime minister of Israel, said Aaron David Miller, a scholar at the Wilson Center in Washington and a former Middle East negotiator under several presidents.
“I have never seen a situation like it, where you have so many Arab states acquiescing in the death and destruction in Gaza and the pummeling of Hamas,” he said. “The silence is deafening.”
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| | | 792 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Sun, Aug 03, 2014, 12:15
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young males ages 17 to 30 make up a large portion of the fatalities, and a particularly noticeable spike occurs between males ages 21 to 27, a pattern consistent with the age distribution typically found among combatants and military conscripts. Palestinian sources attempt to conceal this discrepancy with their public message by labeling most of these young men as civilians.
Oh my goodness what a load. They're the right age to be combatants, therefore they must be combatants!
People in that age group make up a significant portion of the fatalities for the same reason that children make up a significant portion: because over 70% of the people who live in Gaza are under 30.
If the pro Israel side is so sure that their actions are justified, then why must they keep inventing these BS arguments about trashing greenhouses and phony correlations to blame dead civilians for getting killed?
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| | | 793 | sarge33rd
ID: 390471112
Sun, Aug 03, 2014, 12:21
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Wrong Mith. Children under the age of 10, make up approx twice the % of the population as they do of casualties. An honest appraisal of the casualties, shows that combat aged persons make up a significantly higher proportion of casualties, then they do the population, while youth and aged, make up a lower &, by a substantial margin.
The idea that Israel is indiscriminate in its attacks, is undermined by the facts,
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| | | 794 | sarge33rd
ID: 390471112
Sun, Aug 03, 2014, 12:57
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Gaza age pyramid vs casualty age pyramid
Maybe 1/5th of the way down the page, is the graphic and yes, this link comes form the Times of Israel, but the UN report I saw a day or two after this, matched the nrs almost identically.
Under age 10 is approx 14% of the casualties yet nearly 30% of the population.
Age 20 to 34 is roughly 22% of the population, yet nearly 48% of the casualties.
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| | | 796 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Sun, Aug 03, 2014, 14:52
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Here's what the Times of Israel says:The analysis of the civilian deaths, based on data collected by the Palestinian International Middle East Media Center, says that 79.7 percent of the dead are male, and 53.8% are men aged 16-35.
The death toll is heavily tilted toward fighting-age men. Children aged 5-9 make up 14.3% of the population, but 5.2% of the casualties, while young adults aged 20-24 make up 8.9% of the population but 24.2% of the casualties, with women making up only 9.5% of the latter group’s casualties, according to the report. The piece make no indication that militants are seperated from civilians in the figures.
I've repeatedly seen reports that about 80% of the Gaza casualties are civilians. If, as you say, the majority of militants are young males and and parts equaling a total of 20 percentage points are subtracted from the applicable age groups, the numbers fall much closer to in line.
Further, there are several factors likely at play making the place more dangerous for young adult males than adult women. Obviously, they are far more likely to be mistaken for militants. And they are also probably less likely to be among the privileged few to wait out hostilities in a fortifies location, since most are probably owned/controlled by wealthy and powerful and the very few remaining are probably mostly reserved for women, children and the elderly.
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| | | 797 | sarge33rd
ID: 390471112
Sun, Aug 03, 2014, 15:00
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I'm not disputing that many deaths, perhaps even most, are civilians. That is GOING to be the case, when Haas launches attacks from schools, from hospitals and from clinics.
NONE of which changes the root of the cause...HAMAS, an international terrorist group, hiding behind civilians.
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| | | 798 | WiddleAvi
ID: 506382610
Sun, Aug 03, 2014, 15:09
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I can't find a link at the moment but Israel reports that about 800 Militants have been killed which would put the number at approx 50%
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| | | 799 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Sun, Aug 03, 2014, 15:26
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root of the cause
Palestinians and Israelis have been killing each others' innocents since before Hamas was around.
-----------
A 50% figure sounds like an assumption that every male killed between 16 and 25 is not a civilian.
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| | | 800 | biliruben
ID: 28420307
Mon, Aug 04, 2014, 07:56
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If you landed on earth from another planet this week, knowing nothing other than the most common use of the word “terrorism,” which side do you think would most frequently be referred to as “terrorists”? - Glenn Greenwald
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| | | 801 | sarge33rd
ID: 390471112
Mon, Aug 04, 2014, 10:59
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Mr Greenwalds question, ignores the harsh realities of the region.
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| | | 802 | biliruben
ID: 105572020
Mon, Aug 04, 2014, 13:04
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Uh, yeah. That was his intention: make you step away and attempt to look at the situation with fresh, objective eyes.
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| | | 803 | WiddleAvi
ID: 506382610
Mon, Aug 04, 2014, 13:09
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Bili - the only thing that is missing is that it's not for lack of intent. Hamas is trying to kill as many people (civilians) as possible.
How many Iraqi/Afghani civilians died vs how many American civilians ? If Al Qaida could they would kill many more American civilians.
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| | | 804 | sarge33rd
ID: 48725412
Mon, Aug 04, 2014, 13:25
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so, we should all basically decide "stupid Israel. Building bomb shelters and anti-missile defense systems to protect your civilians, instead of letting them die for PR purposes"?
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| | | 805 | biliruben
ID: 561162511
Mon, Aug 04, 2014, 13:34
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That would be a pretty stupid decision.
But perhaps we should rethink giving Israel munitions with which they kill babies. Perhaps.
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| | | 806 | sarge33rd
ID: 48725412
Mon, Aug 04, 2014, 13:35
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yep. Lets all blame Israel for defending itself against HAMAS initiated attacks.
Just exactly what would you have Israel do?
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| | | 807 | biliruben
ID: 105572020
Mon, Aug 04, 2014, 14:09
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Sounds like you are cool with Israel blowing up 100s of inmocent women and children. Hard to debate with someone who has such a vastly different value for human life.
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| | | 808 | sarge33rd
ID: 48725412
Mon, Aug 04, 2014, 14:17
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No. I am not "cool" with it. I am however, "cool" with any nation under attack, having the right to defend itself. You obviously, feel that Israel needs to just throw her legs in the air and tell HAMAS to come fvck her.
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| | | 809 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Mon, Aug 04, 2014, 14:35
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Hamas is a lost cause. I'd be all for eradicating them if it didn't mean wiping the number of civilians it would take. Israel knows this, and so continues their long standing policy of slapping them around to the tune of thousands of dead Palestinian civilians to set back Hamas for a few years until they can rebuild for the next conflict, with thousands of eager new recruits courtesy of what Israel calls collateral damage.
Both sides know that their actions will do nothing to end this cycle. They both know it will continue on until some significant factor changes. So as long as neither are willing to change their policy toward each other, both are responsible. At this point I don't see why who shoots first each time even matters. Both are perpetually stuffing the powder keg knowing that there are enough rogue extremists on both sides to set off the right kind of spark.
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| | | 810 | biliruben
ID: 561162511
Mon, Aug 04, 2014, 14:52
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Of course Israel can and should defend itself. But there is a right way and a wrong way to do that. When the majority of deaths are non-combatants, that's a pretty good clue that you are going about it the wrong way. I don't feel particularly comfortable with those bombs blowing up babies essentially stamped with "Made in America".
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| | | 811 | sarge33rd
ID: 48725412
Mon, Aug 04, 2014, 15:37
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given that the % of casualties (and the raw nr) which actually fit the definition of babies is exceedingly low, I have to question the validity of your assertion. Under age 4 is nearly 17% of the population, yet closer to 6% of the casualty count. Yes, dead infants is horrible. Hell dead anyone is bad enough. But I have to go back to...the Palestinians brought this on themselves, with their election of HAMAS.
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| | | 812 | biliruben
ID: 561162511
Mon, Aug 04, 2014, 16:09
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So you think Dubya getting duly elected and invading Iraq gave Iraqs carte-blanche to blow up your grand- kids?
Despicable behavior by leadership does not provide a reasonable justification to commit attrocities on that leader's civilian population, no matter how hard to twist the logic.
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| | | 813 | sarge33rd
ID: 48725412
Mon, Aug 04, 2014, 16:33
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if Iran had had the capability to strike the continental US, yes, they woould have been within their rights to hit military targets. The problem n GAZA and with HAMAS, is that HAMAS uses civilian institutions for military purposes. Yes, an attacked nation has the right to self defense. No, they dont need to clear it with you or me first.
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| | | 814 | biliruben
ID: 105572020
Mon, Aug 04, 2014, 16:38
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They do if my taxes are arming them, and they want that support to continue.
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| | | 815 | sarge33rd
ID: 48725412
Mon, Aug 04, 2014, 16:41
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take conventional weapon support away from Israel, and what option are you leaving them with? Might that outcome, not be even worse in terms of what you are trying to prevent? (What would the casualty count be, with a full scale ground incursion by Israel? Palestinians are packed into GAZA at approx 13,000 per sq mile. LA is only 8,000 per sq mile)
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| | | 816 | holt
ID: 38338181
Mon, Aug 04, 2014, 16:59
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Israel would never harm a fly if they weren't constantly provoked. They'd be about as anonymous as New Zealand. How is their retaliation against Hamas different from our retaliation against Japan? Japan initiated war, refused to surrender, and we decided we were tired of our soldiers dying. A lot civilians ended up paying the price for Japan's aggression. Israel has never done anything remotely similar to what we did to Japan.
The trend toward widespread anti-Israel propaganda just makes me really uncomfortable. The logic is so weak that I have to think that it is rooted in antisemitism (or a mix of antisemites and others who simply have lost the stomach to continue resisting Islamic aggression and terrorism).
It's like people have forgotten why the U.N. created a Jewish state in the first place. 6,000,000 of the 9,000,000 Jews who lived in Europe were exterminated during the Holocaust. If we hadn't joined the fray when we did it would have been much higher than 67% extermination. Now we have ass-clowns like Roger Waters (Pink Floyd) comparing Israel's current actions to what the Nazis did to the Jews during the Holocaust. It's infuriating. Israel has not any period of peace since its creation in 1948. The attacks were almost instant. Now we have Hamas which almost solely exists to do away with Israel and Israel is just supposed to learn to play nice with them? Rockets fired into Israel require a response, pure and simple. If someone has a solution that creates peace and doesn't involve bloodshed, please share.
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| | | 817 | bibA
ID: 204511510
Mon, Aug 04, 2014, 17:06
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sarge - self defense is one thing, but isn't the lack of proportion here close to being horrible? Don't you agree that the more Gaza is bombed, the stronger resistance among the every day Palestinians becomes? Israel cannot bomb Hamas into non-existence, and if most of Hamas were actually eliminated, there would be others ready to take their place.
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| | | 818 | sarge33rd
ID: 48725412
Mon, Aug 04, 2014, 17:17
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Lack of proportion? Israel is counter attacking one of the most densely populated areas on the planet, and is catching hell. Yet in Syria, in 2 days, they kill the same nr of civilians as in a month in Gaza, and the world remains silent. Why? Because it isnt Jews doing the killing?
Seriously...why are we silent re Syria and up in arms re Gaza?
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| | | 819 | biliruben
ID: 561162511
Mon, Aug 04, 2014, 17:18
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You don't have trouble with the justification for Nagasaki and Hiroshima?
If we knew what we know now about radiation, do you think we would do the same thing?
Any and every human is capable of atrocities. We have committed our fair share, and I'm not proud of them, regardless of the justifications we learned in elementary school.
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| | | 820 | WiddleAvi
ID: 506382610
Mon, Aug 04, 2014, 17:30
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Bili - How many civilians were killed in Afghanistan ? Numbers I read were about 20,000. Yet the terrorists killed 3,000 in the world trade center. Where is the proportion ?
How about WW2 ? How many civilians were killed in Germany by the allied forces ??
It seems like Israel is being held to a different standard than the rest of the world.
Where are the rallies against ISIS in Iraq ? Where are the rallies against Boko Harem ? Where are the rallies against Syria ? Last I read were 250,000 civilians killed in Syria. Where is the BDS boycotting goods from those countries ?
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| | | 821 | biliruben
ID: 41431323
Mon, Aug 04, 2014, 19:22
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I guess I'm out of the loop. I haven't seen any protests.
I think, rather than anti-semitism, I think it's probably the David vs. Goliath thing. Israel is so much more powerful than the Palestinians, that is just seems pretty unfair.
There has been a fair amount of press about Syria and chemical weapons, and I'd probably be equally likely to protest against Assad as Israel, though I don't think I'm very likely to do either.
The fact that we are arming Israel and the vast power imbalance makes it seem like this is a more egregious situation, and something we are more capable of doing something about - stop arming Israel if they behave badly.
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| | | 822 | Tree
ID: 438482411
Mon, Aug 04, 2014, 20:29
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Uh, yeah. That was his intention: make you step away and attempt to look at the situation with fresh, objective eyes.
those fresh objective eyes should have been asking "which sides takes great effort to protect its citizens, and which side doesn't?"
that's the issue here. it isn't about one side hitting the other side harder than the other - it's about one side protecting its citizens, and another not.
I think, rather than anti-semitism, I think it's probably the David vs. Goliath thing. Israel is so much more powerful than the Palestinians, that is just seems pretty unfair.
bull$hit.
how many thousands of people were killed in Syria last month, without protests?
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| | | 823 | holt
ID: 38338181
Mon, Aug 04, 2014, 20:30
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This is why I sense that classic antisemitism is at the root here. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were relatively weak compared to the previous firebombing campaigns that killed over a million Japanese and destroyed several million homes. Now we have charts like the one above designed to explain to us how evil Israel is because 800 Palestinians were killed in retaliatory strikes. We have Americans calling for an end to our support for Israel.
Israel could never dream of inflicting the kind of wartime damage that most of the countries that now sit in judgement of them have previously inflicted.
I also want to post a few words from a letter that Roger Waters wrote to Neil Young while encouraging him not to do a show in Tel Aviv:
"It is time for "Rock Against Racism" to show some of it's muscle by refusing to lend our names to the whitewashing of the illegal colonization of Palestinian land and the systematic oppression of its indigenous people. Unfortunately the opposition lobby has a lot of muscle too. They spend millions on their "Hasbara"(If like me you have no Hebrew)”Explaining” or to you and me "Propaganda". The propaganda machine is well oiled and ruthless."
And another R Waters quote (http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/06/an-interview-with-pink-floyds-roger-waters/):
"I have nearly finished Max Blumenthal’s book “Goliath: Life and Loathing in greater Israel”. It’s a chilling read. It’s extremely well written in my view. He is a very good journalist and takes great pains to make sure that what he writes is correct. He also gives a voice to the other side. The voice, for instance, of the right wing rabbinate, which is so bizarre and hard to hear that you can hardly believe that it’s real. They believe some very weird stuff you know, they believe that everybody that is not a Jew is only on earth to serve them and they believe that the Indigenous people of the region that they kicked off the land in 1948 and have continued to kick off the land ever since are sub-human. The parallels with what went on in the 30’s in Germany are so crushingly obvious that it doesn’t surprise me that the movement that both you and I are involved in is growing every day."
"RW: Well, where I live, in the USA, I think, A: they are frightened and B: I think the propaganda machine that starts in Israeli schools and that continues through all the Netanyahu’s bluster is poured all over the United States, not just Fox but also CNN and in fact in all the mainstream media. It’s like a huge bucket of crap that they are pouring into the mouth of a gullible public in my view, when they say “we are afraid of Iran, it is going to get nuclear weapons…”. It’s a diversionary tactic. The lie that they have told for the last 20 years is “Oh, we want to make peace”, you know and they talk about Clinton and Arafat and Barak being in Camp David and that they came very close to agreeing, and the story that they sold was “Oh Arafat f*cked it all up”. Well, no, he did not. This is not the story. The fact of the matter is no Israeli government has been serious about creating a Palestinian state since 1948. They’ve always had the Ben Gurion agenda of kicking all the Arabs out of the country and becoming greater Israel. They tell a lie as part of their propaganda machinery whilst doing the other thing but they have been doing it so obviously in the last 10 years "
I find it alarming that someone of Waters' stature can make statements like these and get so much support and praise throughout the world. I encourage people to go to his Facebook page some time and just take a look at all the posts there.
https://www.facebook.com/rogerwaters
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| | | 824 | biliruben
ID: 41431323
Mon, Aug 04, 2014, 22:19
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There are certainly plenty of antisemites in the world, just as there are people who hate just about anyone who isn't like them.
All I can speak for is myself. I think Israel is behaving shabbily, and not trying very hard to avoid killing innocents. And by continuing to support them, we condone their bad behavior.
Sure, you can come up with all sorts of other situations where governments are acting badly, including Hamas themselves. But it isn't our bombs and missiles killing the innocents, except in the case of Israel.
I personally don't want the US to be associated with these atrocities.
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| | | 825 | biliruben
ID: 41431323
Mon, Aug 04, 2014, 22:21
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"how many thousands of people were killed in Syria last month, without protests?"
What would you be protesting? Arming Assad? There is no equivalence, no matter how hard you try to jam a round peg in a square hole.
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| | | 826 | Tree
ID: 438482411
Mon, Aug 04, 2014, 23:39
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I think Israel is behaving shabbily, and not trying very hard to avoid killing innocents.
this is when i know you're not serious.
you do realize that if Israel wanted to kill innocents, they could kill every single one of them tomorrow?
Israel tries REALLY hard not to kill innocents - leaflets, emails, text messages, and so forth.
and then this happened. IDF Captures Hamas Combat Manual Explaining Benefits of Human Shields
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| | | 827 | Perm Dude
ID: 586411123
Mon, Aug 04, 2014, 23:46
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The problem with those who defend Israel's actions in this war is that they are comparing themselves favorably...with Hamas.
They completely miss the point that being better than Hamas is not the standard that a moral people shoot for.
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| | | 828 | biliruben
ID: 41431323
Mon, Aug 04, 2014, 23:52
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Over course I realize that.
When some drunk careens through a crowd in his Delta 88 (admittedly, he DID honk his horn), we don't give him a prize because he didn't simultaneously start unloading his AR-55.
And we certainly don't buy him a Hummer.
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| | | 829 | sarge33rd
ID: 390471112
Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 01:27
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The problem with those who defend Israel's actions in this war is that they are comparing themselves favorably...with Hamas.
They completely miss the point that being better than Hamas is not the standard that a moral people shoot for.
No PD, sorry, but that is incorrect. People defending Israel, are ONLY stating, that (A) HAMAS attacked Israel and (B) Israel has every right to defend itself.
We then go on, to recognize the simple physical realities involved. It is unfortunate, sad, horrible, that innocent children will die in this or any other conflict. That reality however, does not negate Israel's right to defend its very existence and it;s people. That Israel invested in civilian defenses, speaks well of them and most certainly should not be used as ammunition AGAINST them. That HAMAS did NOT make such an investment and STILL persists in initiating armed conflict, should result in condemnation of HAMAS, not Israel. That HAMAS hides behind its civilian population, should result in condemnation of HAMAS, not Israel.
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| | | 830 | Mith
ID: 14102186
Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 06:41
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No PD, sorry, but that is incorrect. People defending Israel, are ONLY stating, that (A) HAMAS attacked Israel and (B) Israel has every right to defend itself.
That's no less ignorant of the "harsh realities of the region" than the Greenwald quote. In fact it's exactly the same in that both are cherrypicking which harsh realities to focus on while leaving out an awful lot of relevant history and current events.
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| | | 831 | Mith
ID: 14102186
Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 06:58
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The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were relatively weak compared to the previous firebombing campaigns that killed over a million Japanese and destroyed several million homes. Now we have charts like the one above designed to explain to us how evil Israel is because 800 Palestinians were killed in retaliatory strikes. We have Americans calling for an end to our support for Israel.
I'm sorry but this is very silly. You're comparing how the Allies dealt with a highly aggressive and expansionist military superpower in a war that resulted in 45,000,000 civilian deaths with how a modern major military power deals with an insurgent resistance possessing extremely limited resources and relatively ineffective weapons.
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| | | 832 | Mith
ID: 14102186
Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 08:11
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That said, if you insist on the comparision...
WW2 cost Japan a total of 500,000 civilian lives due to military activity and crimes against humanity.
The Japanese population at the time was 71,380,000. So 8 years of fighting in WW2 cost Japan 0.7% of her population to civilian deaths.
The population in Gaza is 1,800,000 and they have suffered 1,176 civilian casualties according to the UN.
So in comparison to Japan in WW2, Gaza has lost 0.65% of it's population in under 1 month since Israel launched Operation Protective Edge.
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| | | 833 | Tree
ID: 438482411
Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 08:52
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The problem with those who defend Israel's actions in this war is that they are comparing themselves favorably...with Hamas.
actually, that was Bili, who isn't defending Israel's actions.
Israel is at war, with a group of people who have sworn to kill all Jews, all Israelis, and all Americans.
Israel is at war with a group of people who hide their soldiers, their weapons, their military leadership among civilians (and who's political leadership rests comfortably in Qatar, while their civilians live in squalor).
Israel is at war. a war that has the entire nation at stake, and, it can be argued, the whole of the Jewish people at stake.
when you are pro-Palestinian, when you cheer on the people who elected these monsters, you are encouraging Hamas, and further fueling their warped belief they are doing the right thing by murdering Jews.
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| | | 834 | Mith
ID: 14102186
Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 08:57
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a war that has the entire nation at stake, and, it can be argued, the whole of the Jewish people at stake.
Laugh.
when you are pro-Palestinian, when you cheer on the people who elected these monsters, you are encouraging Hamas, and further fueling their warped belief they are doing the right thing by murdering Jews.
Who's cheering?
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| | | 835 | sarge33rd
ID: 50715512
Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 13:15
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Liberal and opposing Israel? Welcome to the extreme rightwing and support of religious zealotry.
Imagine a politician ascending to the governorship of a small southern state. Having campaigned on a platform of extreme patriotic fervor and religious zeal—in his stump speech, he thundered that by the grace of God, America will last as long as there exist Heaven and Earth—the governor wasted no time translating his beliefs into law. Because the governor believed that homosexuals were “a minority of perverts and the mentally and morally sick,” he outlawed them, instructing his police officers to seek, capture, beat up, and imprison every gay individual in the state. Similarly, women were deemed better off tending to their families than wasting their time with such corrupting pursuits as jobs. A special educational program was devised and approved to teach young girls the fundamentals. These future wives and mothers, read the governor’s statement, “must be fully capable of being aware and of grasping the ways to manage their households. Economy and avoiding waste in household expenditures are prerequisites to our ability to pursue our cause in the difficult circumstances surrounding us.” The men of the state reveled in this new way of life, asserting themselves as lords of their manors; before too long, nearly half of them took to regularly battering their wives.
How many of those who define themselves as liberals would support the governor? Very few, if any. More likely, our hypothetical politician would have galvanized the left into action: The cleverly worded emails from progressive organizations, the fiery segments on The Daily Show, the pledges from celebrities to stop the menace—all would have been upon us before too long. And yet when the same politician appears halfway across the world, sporting a beard and proceeding far beyond the relatively tame scenario described above—sacrificing his own nation’s children and eager to murder innocent civilians across the border—all clarity seems to dissipate. All the homicidal zealot has to do is mumble something about justice and disproportionality and self-determination, and he’s transformed into a respectable, not to say sympathetic, figure.
Which boggles the mind. Never mind that Hamas’ charter specifically states that its goal is the utter destruction of Israel—“Israel,” it reads, “by virtue of its being Jewish and of having a Jewish population, defies Islam and the Muslims”—and never mind that fundamentalist Islamic organizations like it have sprouted from different terrains and under different historical and political circumstances: For Hamas’ liberal apologists, it’s all still about the Israeli occupation. Israel withdrew nearly a decade ago? Please, that’s too confusing—as long as any conflict involving Israel anywhere is unresolved, any and all violence against Israelis, liberals now seem to believe, is justified.
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| | | 836 | biliruben
ID: 105572020
Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 13:25
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You confuse disapproval of Israel's tactics with support for Hamas. Instead attacking strawmen, and positions no one here as voiced, why don't you read what we are actually saying?
Name calling is more fun and easier on the brain, I know. But it makes you look simple.
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| | | 837 | sarge33rd
ID: 50715512
Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 13:35
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on the contrary bili, as the article states, one of the things war does, is force you to choose sides. You can either support Israels right to self defense, or you can support HAMAS in opposing Israel.
This paragraph from the article, is in point of fact, spot on:
Enthusiasts of nuance may argue that criticizing Israel isn’t the same as supporting Hamas. That is nominally true. It’s also largely irrelevant. Let’s indulge in one more thought exercise and assume for one moment that Israel accepted all the liberal critiques of its behaviors and acted accordingly. The force it was using was disproportionate? It withdrew most of its soldiers, curbed its artillery, and pulled back the deeply unfair advantage of the Iron Dome missile defense system. Gaza is an open-air prison, the responsibility for which lies solely with Israel and not with Gaza’s other neighbor, Egypt? Israel removed its naval and aerial blockade and opened wide its borders. You don’t have to be a three-star General to realize the outcome of such moves. Which leads us back to a terrible observation: wars are so ghastly in part because they crush so much of the ambiguity and nuance that permeates everyday life in times of peace. They’re so awful because often they force us to make stark choices that are scary and absolute, and annihilate so much of the space that exists in between polar opposites. War requires us to choose.
You may not LIKE what your opposition to Israel means, but that doesnt change the meaning of it.
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| | | 838 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 14:09
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one of the things war does, is force you to choose sides
Haha! Sorry Sarge, I rejected that when GWB said it and it isn't any more convincing when it comes from your keyboard.
I reject both Hamas' and Israel's policies. Both are scum. If Israel wants my support they have a long way to go in the human rights department before I'll consider it. Hamas has no concept of human rights, except for how to use them as a PR wedge.
I want no part of that conflict except that since I am an American, I am in some small part responsible for the massacre that took place in Gaza over the past month, since both parties there are complicit in the never-ending cycle of violence.
So my concerns are with the dead innocents on either side, all 1100 (or whatever the number is) in Gaza, and all 3 in Israel.
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| | | 839 | sarge33rd
ID: 50715512
Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 14:13
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Then please do answer the central question;
What specifically, would you have Israel do?
Why do you condemn Israels blockade of Gaza, and remain silent re Egypts blockade?
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| | |
| | | 841 | Mith
ID: 371172617
Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 14:46
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A much higher percentage of the casualties would have to be men for that IDF figure to be plausible.
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| | | 842 | sarge33rd
ID: 50715512
Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 14:48
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Why? Do you think in Somalia, only men drew arms against our soldiers? Do you think in WWII, only men were members of partisan campaigns?
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| | | 843 | Mith
ID: 371172617
Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 15:00
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Sarge
What specifically, would you have Israel do?
Why do you condemn Israels blockade of Gaza, and remain silent re Egypts blockade?
If you're talking to me, I've already answered your first central question more than once.
Regarding you second central question, Egypt's blockade is much more crucial to Israel's safety because it keeps out far more arms, since smugglers from Iran and Syria aren't able to get them in through Israel.
But more importantly, Egypt does not control Gaza, Israel does. The people there were displaced by Israel, not by Egypt. The rockets that have been launched into Israel over the past month are (and correct me if I'm wrong here) almost certainly courtesy of Egypt's easing of the blockade after the Mubarak ouster.
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| | | 844 | sarge33rd
ID: 50715512
Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 15:05
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I've gone back a week MITH, and do not see where you answered the question.
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| | | 845 | Mith
ID: 371172617
Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 15:07
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#842
I don't know what Somalia and WW2 have to do with it. I simply have no reason to believe that Palestinian women are taking up arms in the kind of numbers that the IDF figure requires.
Particularly since just a couple of days ago Israeli supporters were busy trying to convince me that the high percentage of young men among the casualties was evidence that far more of the dead are militants than reported.
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| | | 846 | sarge33rd
ID: 50715512
Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 15:10
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No, the figures contra-indicate, that Israel is engaged in indiscriminate bombing. THAT, is what I was trying to demonstrate.
I am seeing with this issue, the same as I saw with the Zimmerman issue...liberals arguing from a position of emotion and not facts. Most disappointing.
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| | | 847 | WiddleAvi
ID: 506382610
Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 15:18
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Number of killed
Total killed - 1938
Children - 460
Woman - 246
It would make sense that approx an equal number of innocent men died as woman. So that number comes to about 1,000. That would leave about 900+ that are militants
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| | | 848 | Perm Dude
ID: 586411123
Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 15:37
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According to that link, 84% of that total are civilians.
Now, I don't know if those numbers are accurate or not. But you have excised the part of their data which says the opposite of that you say their data says.
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| | | 849 | Mith
ID: 371172617
Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 15:39
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What specifically, would you have Israel do?
1. Agree to cease all unnecessarily destructive/deadly military tactics. They bombed a UN refugee center, a building housing various western media outfits and a bunch of little kids playing on a mostly vacant beach for crying out loud. They covered for the officer who executed a little girl who was running away from them. They aren't trying as hard as you'd have me believe. They can do better than that.
2. End the policy of building new settlements in the West Bank and dismantle any settlements approved since 2006. Establish an achievable, short-term path to statehood in the West Bank.
3. Establish agreed-upon peace thresholds in Gaza. As they are met, incrementally ease the blockade.
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| | | 850 | sarge33rd
ID: 50715512
Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 15:44
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cease all destructive/deadly military tactics.
not to be facetious, but is there any other kind?
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| | | 851 | Mith
ID: 371172617
Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 16:07
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Of course you are being facetious. You deliberately left out a key word to change the meaning of what I said.
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| | | 852 | biliruben
ID: 561162511
Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 16:08
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Your not being facetious, you are being dishonest.
Restore the manipulated text, then work harder to maintain your credibility. It's much easier to lose than regain.
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| | | 853 | sarge33rd
ID: 50715512
Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 16:15
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I left out "unnecessarily", because who defines that, you, or the IDF?
From I have seen, if its you...then Israel just needs hang up its arms entirely. If its the IDF, they would probably say they dont engage in unnecessary destruction or death.
The word was omitted, because it is ambiguous and virtually undefinable in this application.
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| | | 854 | biliruben
ID: 561162511
Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 16:18
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From I have seen, if its you...then Israel just needs hang up its arms entirely.
What have you seen?
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| | | 855 | sarge33rd
ID: 50715512
Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 16:20
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the tenor of the posts bili. really?
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| | | 856 | Mith
ID: 371172617
Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 16:20
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A 55 second warning before leveling a building with 500 people living in it is a good example of unnecessarily destructive, for starters.
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| | | 857 | Mith
ID: 371172617
Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 16:22
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if its you...then Israel just needs hang up its arms entirely.
Really this is so foolish it isn't worthy of response.
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| | | 858 | sarge33rd
ID: 50715512
Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 16:24
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thats 55 seconds more warning than HAMAS gives Israel. See, we differ entirely on what the military can do, let alone what it should do.
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| | | 859 | WiddleAvi
ID: 506382610
Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 16:36
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PD - Yes. I left off the number of civilians because thats the number the Palestinians are claiming. But it does not seem to mesh. It makes more sense based on the number of children and women dead that they are claiming waaay more civilian deaths than make sense. 246 Woman and 460 Children. Thats leaves about 1200+ Men. They claim that about 900 of those men are innocent civilians. Why would there be SOOO many more civilian men killed than woman and children ? It would make waay more sense that about 250 civilian men died, matching the number of civilian women.
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| | | 860 | biliruben
ID: 561162511
Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 17:02
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I would give the Israeli soldiers more credit than that. I would guess the would deferentially target men over women and kids, as they are generally more likely to be combatants.
Of course, they have probably created a whole new generation of combatants over the last month. Any kid who lost a brother, a sister, a mother, a cousin...
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| | | 861 | Mith
ID: 371172617
Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 17:18
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Sarge
55 seconds more warning than HAMAS gives Israel.
I will deer to Perm Dude:
The problem with those who defend Israel's actions in this war is that they are comparing themselves favorably...with Hamas.
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| | | 862 | sarge33rd
ID: 50715512
Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 17:25
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Yeah, lets tell HAMAS, next week thurs at noon,m, we will land explosive at the following locations....
lets see how well that works to deter attacks upon you.
It is war. Sh*t happens in war. You dont want sh*t happening in your neighborhood, let me suggest you not start a war. HAMAS failed to follow that simple theorem, now they have to pay the price for THEIR choices.
One side actively seeks the total annihilation of the other.
That other side, does not actively seek the total destruction of the first.
Why are you not backing that second side? *smdh*
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| | | 863 | Mith
ID: 371172617
Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 18:02
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Sarge
You asked me what I would have Israel do. Part 1 is to 86 the overkill.
They make a risk/loss assessment to weigh the military costs of various combinations of "humanitarian" actions they can take in attempt to protect civilians. I'm saying they should move the bar a bit in favor of protecting more civilians. There are surely options, from the size munitions they use, accuracy of systems to tactics to advance warning.
And frankly, I refuse to accept the possibility that there is any individual target in this conflict so valuable that he is worth destroying a city block or a packed hospital to kill.
In a month of heavy bombing, Hamas killed 3 Israeli civilians. They were targeting civilians and three in a month was the best they could do.
If protecting 300 more Hamas civilians translates somehow into 10X more dead Israeli civilians than occurred, the answer is a no brainer. Innocent Israeli lives are worth no more than innocent Palestinian lives.
And if combined with other genuine outreaches structured as incremental rewards in the form of freedom in exchange for peace, perhaps the next generation of Palestinians will at least have a chance to reject from the inside their cycle of hell.
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| | | 864 | Mith
ID: 371172617
Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 18:20
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You dont want sh*t happening in your neighborhood, let me suggest you not start a war. HAMAS failed to follow that simple theorem, now they have to pay the price for THEIR choices.
You see Sarge you have it backward. The ones who don't want sh*t are the civilians, not Hamas. The civilians didn't start a war. Hamas wants as much sh*t as they can get. And Israel is happy to serve it up in most generous portions every single time.
Great little arrangement they have there.
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| | | 865 | Tree
ID: 438482411
Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 19:54
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a war that has the entire nation at stake, and, it can be argued, the whole of the Jewish people at stake.
Laugh.
seriously? i'm sorry if you don't think the existence of Israel is perpetually at risk, but it is. she has been attacked numerous times since her creation, and has almost lost more than once. it's possible, but i'm glad you see humor in not just a nation being wiped out, but an entire people. kudos to you.
there are people who laugh at the Holocaust. you laughing at Israel being wiped out, honestly, is on par with that.
when you are pro-Palestinian, when you cheer on the people who elected these monsters, you are encouraging Hamas, and further fueling their warped belief they are doing the right thing by murdering Jews.
Who's cheering?
all these rallies with people waving Palestinian flags? that's cheering.
Part 1 is to 86 the overkill.
they are doing this, and have been doing this the entire time. do you not believe that if Israel wanted Gaza to be a parking lot tomorrow, they could do it?
they have shown incredible restraint.
just because you refuse to accept that Hamas uses human shields, hides weapons in schools, in mosques, in apartment buildings, in homes, doesn't mean Israel is committing overkill.
Israel is doing its best to target where Hamas hides its weapons. that happens to be in civilian footholds, not military strongholds.
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| | | 866 | Mith
ID: 371172617
Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 20:14
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I don't see anyone cheering here. I can't think of a single thing to cheer about in this conflict.
Hamas' use of human shields and other atrocities only strengthen my position. There is no reasoning with them. Israel's refusal to turn Gaza into a parking lot is not restraint. It is self-preservation because the result in a couple hours would be Israel suffering the same fate. That's just more foolishness.
The majority of the world disagrees with you on the overkill thing.
It is you who can not face the culpability of a people that continues to rip innocent human beings from their homes and take their land while they claim to be the morally superior side.
1500 more approved and subsidized by the Israeli government just this spring. Why?
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| | |
| | | 868 | Tree
ID: 438482411
Wed, Aug 06, 2014, 08:25
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Hamas' use of human shields and other atrocities only strengthen my position. There is no reasoning with them.
so if someone had your wife and child held at gunpoint, screaming that their goal was to kill them, you, and the rest of your family, you'd walk away, since "there is no reasoning with them"?
The majority of the world disagrees with you on the overkill thing.
the majority of the world also refused to acknowledge the Holocaust was going on. what's your point?
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| | | 869 | bibA
ID: 204511510
Wed, Aug 06, 2014, 10:05
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if someone had your wife and child held at gunpoint, screaming that their goal was to kill them, you, and the rest of your family, you'd walk away, since "there is no reasoning with them"?
Mith says Israel should just walk away? I must have missed that post.
If YOUR wife and child were being used as a shield, would you begin shooting, and if one of the innocents were killed along with the guy holding them, your attitude would be "he forced me to begin shooting, I had no choice"?
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| | |
| | | 871 | WiddleAvi
ID: 4171269
Wed, Aug 06, 2014, 10:31
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What's funny is there is so much back and forth here but not really any arguing.
To sum up. Everyone agrees that Hamas is bad and should be destroyed.
Tree and Sarge are discussing the current conflict and Bili and mith are discussing what should be done in the future to prevent this.
I agree with mith that the settlements should be stopped and all recent ones dismantled. Work towards creating a Palestinian state in west bank now and Gaza later.
My question to Tree and Sarge - what should be done going forward? How do we prevent this endless cycle.
My question to mith and bili - what should Israel have done to stop the rockets while at the same time maintaining the security of its borders that it needs ? And is the issue the amount of civilian deaths or that Israel should not have been fighting to begin with in Gaza?
I would say based on the number of deaths reported in the link I posted above it would seem more likely that the number of civilian deaths match more with Israel's reports than the Palestinians. Is there a way to fight an enemy like Hamas without high civilian casualties? Look at the amount of civilian casualties in Afghanistan or WW2.
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| | | 872 | sarge33rd
ID: 390471112
Wed, Aug 06, 2014, 11:19
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Valid points and questions Widdle;
HAMAS has the stated intention, of obliterating Israel. Because of that, I do not see ANY "going forward" with any kind of peace beyond the occasional temporary cease-fire, unless/until the Palestinian people cast off the HAMAS governance and elect one that WANTS peace.
As for what to do? If I had that answer and it were concrete? I'd be a very, very wealthy man, by lunchtime today.
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| | | 873 | Mith
ID: 3692387
Wed, Aug 06, 2014, 11:54
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Tree
the majority of the world also refused to acknowledge the Holocaust was going on. what's your point?
I don't care what the majority of the world didn't acknowledge 75 years ago. The same world saw their folly a few years later and took the unprecedented (and tragic) step handing over a contested land to them, where Jews and Arabs had already been involved in an increasingly bloody conflict for decades.
I've made numerous general suggestions for how Israel could use less destructive means. You didn't respond to a single one of them (not to mention the atrocity of the policy of settlement expansion, which you are obviously much too cowardly to acknowledge). Instead I get these ridiculous and wholly non-analogous hypotheticals. Israel is not anyone's wife and at gunpoint, unless you left out the part where the rest of my large family has 50 bazookas trained on the gunman and his family.
WiddleAvi
If you think I support American military atrocities like the one you posted in 870, you are very mistaken. I was a consistent critic of American military tactics at this forum through the previous decade.
Also: Bili and mith are discussing what should be done in the future to prevent this.
For the record my post 849 is not a plan for the future. It should be implemented immediately.
what should Israel have done to stop the rockets while at the same time maintaining the security of its borders that it needs ?
I won't ask this of Tree because in his mind Israel has only shown "incredible restraint" for not turning Gaza into a "parking lot" but WiddleAvi, are you under the impression that Israel spared Gaza any kind of devastation that would have been OK to use by their own ethical standards? Put another way, do you think they could have waged a more successful campaign if only they'd used tactics that would have led to another thousand dead Palestinians?
To answer your question, there is nothing that can be done to eliminate the possibility of an attack, whether we're talking about Tel Aviv or Kabul or New York City. If a group is so dedicated to the endeavor of hurting people that it prioritizes ahead of their own lives and lives of their family and neighbors, there is nothing that can be done to prevent it, unless you just kill everyone.
So Israel has already done the next best thing. They have heavily invested in missile defense and a network of bomb shelters and a warning system that has almost nullify the deadly impact of Hamas' most dangerous weapons on the Israeli citizenry. The 3,000 (I believe) rockets the IDF says have been fired from Gaza have led to all of 3 civilian deaths.
Considering this, I have no idea why anyone thinks it's necessary to take out a hospital filled with injured refugees to get to a single target. I understand there is structural damage that results from rockets and mortars and that perhaps being more careful to limit Palestinian "collateral damage" might increase the structural damage inside Israel proper. But that seems like a worthwhile price to pay.
And is the issue the amount of civilian deaths or that Israel should not have been fighting to begin with in Gaza?
I've not argued that Israel should not respond to rocket attacks. They cannot let militants in Gaza shoot at them with impunity, even if their weapons are relative spitballs compared with the hell fire that Israel has proven willing to rain down. I just know that major investments in protective measures have paid huge dividends in Israel's ability to protect itself from the worst that Hamas has to throw at them, and that (contrary to such hyperbole that Israel's conflict with Gaza is a fight for her very survival and in fact the survival of all Jews) the toll of death and injury to the Israeli citizenry would not increase significantly by employing less destructive means in response to rocket attacks.
Sarge
I do not see ANY "going forward" with any kind of peace beyond the occasional temporary cease-fire, unless/until the Palestinian people cast off the HAMAS governance and elect one that WANTS peace.
The West Bank has done that already, despite the constant violence they face at the hands of extremist settlers. They elect separate leaders from Gaza.
For heaven's sake Fatah even fought an under-manned and under-armed war against Hamas at the behest of the US and Israel - and they were massacred for their trouble.
Why do you believe these people still deserve continued oppression?
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| | | 874 | sarge33rd
ID: 390471112
Wed, Aug 06, 2014, 12:02
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why should Israel surrender the W Bank or Gaza for that matter? National borders have LONG been altered due to war. Israel didnt start the wars that led to her taking the W Bank or Gaza. Why should she give up that land, unless the US should also return TX, N, AZ, CA to Mexico.
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| | | 876 | Mith
ID: 3692387
Wed, Aug 06, 2014, 12:17
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Sarge
why should Israel surrender the W Bank or Gaza for that matter?
Who has said they should "surrender" the West Bank or Gaza?
National borders have LONG been altered due to war.
I have no idea what you mean by this. It sounds like you don't know what you're talking about. The West Bank was never annexed by Israel. And at no point in this discussion have I called for Israel to evacuate any long standing settlements in the West Bank.
You asked me what I would have done and I answered you. Is it that you didn't read what I wrote or are you deliberately attributing to me things I have never said?
I asked you why you believe West Bank Palestinians should continue to be oppressed. Are you capable of answering the question or not?
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| | | 877 | sarge33rd
ID: 390471112
Wed, Aug 06, 2014, 12:31
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When did you quit beating your wife? THAT, is the very nature of your question.
In June 1967, the West Bank and East Jerusalem were captured by Israel as a result of the Six-Day War.
wiki, though I am surprised it was necessary
Israel captured the W Bank, as a result of military actions initiated against her. She holds the W Bank, by right of conquest. Had Israel lost the 6 Day War, would you be calling for Egypt, Syria, Jordan etc, to give the land back to the Jewish?
When one nation attacks another one, the attacker runs the risks of defeat. There has always been a cost for that. Germany in WWII, lost roughly half of her land. After WWI, Germany found herself severely restricted militarily. (Restrictions which were obviously not adhered to)
What Israel has is Israels by right. There have over the years, been multiple opportunities for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Unfortunately for the Palestinians, they as a whole, never really pursued those opportunities. Now having made their beds of broken glass and scrap metal, they whine about how uncomfortable it is, and far too many are far too eager to appease them at anothers expense.
I dont necessarily want to see anyone oppressed. But when your own actions cause your so called oppression, then its your own damn fault and it is your own damn behavior which needs to change.
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| | | 878 | Perm Dude
ID: 586411123
Wed, Aug 06, 2014, 12:41
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"By right of conquest" !!
So, there you go. 45 years ago Israel won by "right of conquest." Nothing else matters--not subsequent agreements. Not promises. Not morality or ethical behavior. Screw 'em.
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| | | 879 | Mith
ID: 3692387
Wed, Aug 06, 2014, 12:42
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She holds the W Bank, by right of conquest.
You understand less than you think. From your own link:Through the Jerusalem Law, Israel extended its administrative control over East Jerusalem. This has often been interpreted as tantamount to an official annexation, though Ian Lustick, in reviewing the legal status of Israeli measures, has argued that no such annexation ever took place. The Palestinian residents have legal permanent residency status.[64][65] Rejecting the Jerusalem Law, the UN Security Council passed UN Security Council Resolution 478, declaring that the law was "null and void". Although permanent residents are permitted, if they wish, to receive Israeli citizenship if they meet certain conditions including swearing allegiance to the State and renouncing any other citizenship, most Palestinians did not apply for Israeli citizenship for political reasons.[66] There are various possible reasons as to why the West Bank had not been annexed[67] to Israel after its capture in 1967. The government of Israel has not formally confirmed an official reason; however, historians and analysts have established a variety of such, most of them demographic. Among those most commonly cited have been:
Reluctance to award its citizenship to an overwhelming number of a potentially hostile population whose allies were sworn to the destruction of Israel.[68][69]
To ultimately exchange land for peace with neighbouring states[68][69]
Fear that the population of ethnic Arabs, including Israeli citizens of Palestinian ethnicity, would outnumber the Jewish Israelis west of the Jordan River.[67][68]
The disputed legality of annexation under the Fourth Geneva Convention[70] By Israel's specific and deliberate design, it is not a "national border".
When did you quit beating your wife? THAT, is the very nature of your question.
If you understand that quip, you intend to say that West Bank Palestinians are not oppressed. Is this this your opinion?
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| | | 880 | sarge33rd
ID: 390471112
Wed, Aug 06, 2014, 12:45
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re 878....for the past 45 years, the Israeli people have lived under threat of almost daily terror. It is my contention, that the world surrounding Israel, defines the current reality. They tried and tried and tried and tried and tried to crush Israel. Hit me in the mouth every morning on my way to school, and dont be surprised if one of those trips, I pull a weapon and put an end to it all, once and for all. That is where I see Israel and frankly, if she chose to turn the whole damn region into one giant sheet of glass, I wouldnt like it, but I could hardly blame her.
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| | | 881 | sarge33rd
ID: 390471112
Wed, Aug 06, 2014, 13:45
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Bill Maher
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| | | 882 | Mith
ID: 371172617
Wed, Aug 06, 2014, 14:46
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I'll take that as a yes, that you believe West Bank Palestinians are not oppressed.
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| | | 883 | sarge33rd
ID: 390471112
Wed, Aug 06, 2014, 16:51
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Israel OKs truce extension, HAMAS says no
So, when HAMAS fires upon Israel again in a few hours, what do you expect Israel to do? Not what do you think they will do, what do YOU expect them to do?
How many times, how often, does HAMAS have to show its colors, before you say, "OK Palestinians. You elected them. You want things to change? Its on you to change them."
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| | | 884 | Mith
ID: 371172617
Wed, Aug 06, 2014, 17:36
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Not what do you think they will do, what do YOU expect them to do?
Those mean the same thing. If you mean to ask me what I would have Israel do when the rockets start falling again, the answer hasn't changed since the last several times I've explained what I would have Israel do.
how often, does HAMAS have to show its colors, before you say "... You want things to change? Its on you to change them."
That's actually what I've been saying all along. Israel can't destroy them and her current tactics, only effective at knocking them back temporarily, ensure that Hamas or something just like it will continue be a major actor in the area with each new generation because they will be raised knowing the fear of Israeli death from above explained in the form of Hamas propaganda.
That's why I harp on Israel, they are the only actor that both claims to want a 2 state solution and also in possession of the ability to break the cycle.
Hamas and linked and unaffiliated militias in Gaza have no interest in stopping the cycle. They enjoy big fish status in a free-for-all setting where they prompt and exploit chaos at the expense of the people they claim to protect.
And the Palestinian citizens in Gaza won't do it on their own anytime soon. They are brainwashed and have lived in terrible conditions far too long to collectively drop the hate and also summon the courage to stand up to Hamas, at least under the current circumstances.
What the Israelis can do is change the circumstances. If Palestinians in Gaza see undeniable progress born of mostly peaceful coexistence with Israel in the West Bank, the next generation will see a reality that does not match Hamas' propaganda. Prove to Gaza that Israel will follow through on her stated wish for a 2 state solution.
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| | | 885 | WiddleAvi
ID: 4171269
Wed, Aug 06, 2014, 17:36
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That's an old article sarge
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| | | 886 | Mith
ID: 371172617
Wed, Aug 06, 2014, 17:39
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Show the Gazans that there is no path to statehood, no path out from under apartheid status in their own land even if they deliver peace, then there will never be peace.
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| | | 887 | sarge33rd
ID: 390471112
Wed, Aug 06, 2014, 17:42
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my bad...I wanted a non-Israeli report for todays declination by HAMAS, saw CNN and didnt verify the date.
link
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| | | 888 | WiddleAvi
ID: 4750617
Wed, Aug 06, 2014, 18:50
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MITH - re:873 - I think for the most part Israel does the best it can to eliminate civilian casualties. I think there is some things they could have been better at but there is no way to avoid civilian casualties when fighting an enemy like Hamas. I also think that the number of civilian death are grossly over exaggerated (Not that it makes it any better).
Lets say a 2 state solution is worked out. The Palestinians have their own state, own economy, own police etc. and they are unable to fully stop factions from shooting rockets. Does Israel need to just accept it ? It can fight back the way it did in Gaza but without a full scale invasion there would be no way to top it completely. What is Israel to do ? What would America do if ppl from Canada were shooting rockets and the Canadian government was unable to stop it ? Even with Iron dome there are some that get past it. Even with Iron Dome ppl had to run to bomb shelters constantly just in case. Is that acceptable ?
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| | | 889 | Tree
ID: 438482411
Wed, Aug 06, 2014, 19:11
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My question to Tree and Sarge - what should be done going forward? How do we prevent this endless cycle.
there are remarks from Israeli Prime Ministers, past and present, that speak to this.
"The truth is that if Israel were to put down its arms there would be no more Israel. If the Arabs were to put down their arms there would be no more war." - Benjamin Netanyahu
"Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us." - Golda Meir
"We, the soldiers who have returned from battles stained with blood; we who have seen our relatives and friends killed before our eyes; we who have attended their funerals and cannot look in the eyes of their parents; we who have come from a land where parents bury their children; we who have fought against you, the Palestinians-we say to you today, in a loud and a clear voice: enough of blood and tears. Enough." - Yitzhak Rabin
"Not only [are] our states . . . making peace with each other,. . . you and I, your Majesty, are making peace here, our own peace, the peace of soldiers and the peace of friends." - Rabin, again, to Jordan's King Hussein.
1. The Palestinians must lay down their weapons. Anyone who honestly thinks that if they did so, and Israel would go in there guns-a-blazing and mow them down, is foolish.
2. This speaks the truth. stop teaching your children to hate. period. love will conquer all - hate eats you alive.
3. enough is enough. stop killing our people. period.
4. The Palestinians need leadership that is not only not afraid of peace, but also isn't interesting in the continuing profit of war. Palestinian leaders get fabulously wealthy on war, while their people die in the streets.
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| | | 890 | Tree
ID: 438482411
Wed, Aug 06, 2014, 19:14
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You didn't respond to a single one of them
i stopped responding when you started putting words in my mouth. it doesn't matter what i say, you're going to spin it how you see fit, then take that spin and change my words into your own.
i've long been in favor of a two-state solution, but nothing can happen until the Palestinians lay down their arms, and until Hamas isn't in charge of Gaza anymore.
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| | | 891 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Wed, Aug 06, 2014, 19:19
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Hostilities of one kind or another are sure to continue. The barriers and guarded crossings will have to remain for some time. It's not like the Mexico-US border, Israel has proved it's pretty much fully securable.
Perhaps one of the incremental conditions of the achievable path to statehood could be a Palestinian police force that works with Israeli police to to root out violent extremists on both sides. Another will have to be international approval of textbooks.
A free West Bank will still be a patchwork of Israeli and Palestinian territory. There will be local skirmishes. The claim to the while area is too set in the extremist ideology on both sides. But there are still local skirmishes in Northern Ireland. It isn't a necessary impedement to greater peace if the governments remain committed.
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| | | 892 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Wed, Aug 06, 2014, 19:20
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891 responds to 888.
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| | | 893 | Perm Dude
ID: 586411123
Wed, Aug 06, 2014, 19:49
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Widdle: Good post. This is really a key:
"Lets say a 2 state solution is worked out. The Palestinians have their own state, own economy, own police etc. and they are unable to fully stop factions from shooting rockets. Does Israel need to just accept it ?"
No, they don't have to accept it. Absolutely not. This is why Obama was right to push for the funding of the Iron Dome. And why we keep our interest and attention strong there. And the US (like it or not) would be right there beside Israel, should another separate state be lobbying rockets into Israel.
But having a two-state solution will make it far, far easier for Palestinians to push the wackos to the side, mostly because (unlike the Muslim petro-countries) the Palestinians people know and value the things that come from having their own free country.
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| | | 894 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Wed, Aug 06, 2014, 20:33
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I agree with 803. In WiddleAvi's scenario, if the Palestinian leadership can't contain or accept Israeli assistance to stop a militia that is firing rockets into Israel, then the situation has again devolved into war. In that case I'd hope that Israel does a better job of minimizing civilian casualties than they have during the current conflict.
But it's a difficult two way street there. There are youth Palestinian rock throwers who are mostly active in one settlement but there are also much more brazen Israeli groups, particularly the "Hilltop Youth" and similar outfits who torch and otherwise damage and vandalize mosques and Palestinian property and also some Israeli government property. This has been going for a decade and not a single settler has been prosecuted for damaging anything other than Israeli property. Assaults are also not uncommon and Israeli police are known to look away. As I understand it they are only assigned to protect the Israelis living there and Palestinians are under IDF control.
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| | | 896 | Khahan
ID: 53744810
Fri, Aug 08, 2014, 11:44
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And hamas honors the cease fire this time...the 3 day cease fire. And the moment it expires they begin shelling again.
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| | | 897 | Mith
ID: 3692387
Fri, Aug 08, 2014, 12:15
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Par for the course with Hamas.
It's not surprising when you understand the mindset. They regard the blockade as an act of war. At least that's the line. I don't condone their actions, they are far less defensible that Israel's, of course.
As of early this morning, the reports were that Hamas launched 30 rockets and that most of them landed in open fields. The ones that were headed for more populated ares were destroyed by the Iron Dome. I think I read that two people suffered injuries.
The retaliation:
This was just one of the blasts from just one of the airstrikes. A 10 year old Palestinian boy was killed and six other injured reported.
Question for those who support Israel's methods of self defense:
If the objective is not to cause indiscriminate damage, why do the blasts have to be so large and powerful?
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| | | 898 | Khahan
ID: 53744810
Fri, Aug 08, 2014, 12:23
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Its my belief that just because Israel is more effective at this type of war doesn't change their duty to themselves to protect themselves.
Honestly at what point does Hamas look and say, "We're out gunned, out manned and out-supplied. Maybe WE should change and stop being the aggressors."
Hamas started it. If they can't handle the results they shouldn't have started it today.
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| | | 899 | sarge33rd
ID: 4725811
Fri, Aug 08, 2014, 12:25
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Hamas started it. If they can't handle the results they shouldn't have started it today.
Exactly!
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| | | 900 | Mith
ID: 3692387
Fri, Aug 08, 2014, 12:45
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just because Israel is more effective at this type of war doesn't change their duty to themselves to protect themselves
Agreed.
Honestly at what point does Hamas look and say, "We're out gunned, out manned and out-supplied. Maybe WE should change and stop being the aggressors."Honestly at what point does Hamas look and say, "We're out gunned, out manned and out-supplied. Maybe WE should change and stop being the aggressors."
Of course this is true.
If they can't handle the results they shouldn't have started it today.
Agree here as well.
All valid arguments. But none of them answer my question, which I think remains just as valid as it was before post 898.
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| | | 901 | Mith
ID: 3692387
Fri, Aug 08, 2014, 13:02
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Some more examples:
I'll ask again; fully acknowledging Israel's right and responsibility to respond to attacks, why is it necessary to them to use this much firepower over such densely populated areas?
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| | | 902 | Khahan
ID: 53744810
Fri, Aug 08, 2014, 13:02
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If the objective is not to cause indiscriminate damage,
Not causing indiscriminate damage is not Israel's goal I don't think. Or its a lower priority goal.
I'd be willing to bet if you got an honest answer from Netyanhu about the indiscriminate damage being caused it would be, "who cares?"
Any other answer is just showmanship for the media.
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| | | 903 | sarge33rd
ID: 4725811
Fri, Aug 08, 2014, 13:26
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The objective, if I might presume to speak for Israel, is to bust Hamas in the mouth so damn hard, it is no longer worth it for them to continue.
At least, that would be my assumption for almost any nations launching of retaliatory strikes. You step on my toes, I break your leg. Theory being, next time, you wont step on my toes since you wont much like the result.
I'm sorry people are going to die. I'm sorry some of those people are civilians. I'm sorry some of them are children and some of them are old folks. I'm sorry military people are going to die. But the Palestinians ELECTED HAMAS. They brought this upon themselves. I won't hold Israel guilty, for "whaling" on those who seek her total and complete annihilation and in the course of that objective, launch repeated attacks.
Yes, HAMAS considers the blockade an act of war. Big deal. HAMAS is a terrorist group with the specific and sworn objective of obliterating Israel. I really dont much care WHAT HAMAS considers the blockade. The blockade, is in response to HAMAS building tunnels thru which they can attack Israel. Those tunnels, ARE an act of war.
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| | | 904 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Fri, Aug 08, 2014, 13:30
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I get accused of "putting words" in the "mouths" of others a lot around here; so just to be clear khahan, it sounds like you're saying that it isn't essential to Israel's protection for them to use munitions that large and destructive in her airstrikes. Is that accurate?
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| | | 905 | sarge33rd
ID: 4725811
Fri, Aug 08, 2014, 13:58
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If HAMAS continues to attack her, then obviously Israel hasnt used ENOUGH bombs yet herself.
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| | | 906 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Fri, Aug 08, 2014, 14:14
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to bust Hamas in the mouth so damn hard, it is no longer worth it for them to continue.
At least, that would be my assumption for almost any nations launching of retaliatory strikes.
Maybe I'm wrong but I'm under the impression that most western nations usually uphold Geneva Convention regulations regarding air strikes and bombings over civilian areas. I recall the US breaking Geneva Convention rules in air strikes during Iraq and probably. Afghanistan. You probably recall that I was highly critical at times of American military tactics in those days.
You step on my toes, I break your leg. Theory being, next time, you wont step on my toes since you wont much like the result.
Ethics aside, this sounds like an effective tactic, generally speaking. But what if, as we know the reality to be in Gaza, that a disproportionate response plays directly into the enemy's hands?
I also noticed that no part of your reasoning included anything about such destructive munitions being the minimum necessary required to take out targets.
So from a strictly tactical standpoint (still keeping ethics aside) considering that you didn't think minimum necessary effectiveness was worth mention as a reason for the heavy bombs and since we know the "leg for a toe" is counter-productive to the goal of making it "no longer worth it for [Hamas] to continue", do you think it's reasonable to conclude that with such a devastatingly disproportionate responses, Israel is acting against her own interests?
Yes, HAMAS considers the blockade an act of war. Big deal. HAMAS is a terrorist group with the specific and sworn objective of obliterating Israel. I really dont much care WHAT HAMAS considers the blockade.
For the record I didn't intend (and don't think I indicated) sympathy for their wartime mindset. But I do think it is important to understand your enemy and his motivations and arguments.
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| | | 907 | Khahan
ID: 53744810
Fri, Aug 08, 2014, 14:21
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Not quite MITH. I just don't think Israel really gives 2 craps about Hamas or Palestine. Whether its essential or not I don't think I really gave that any thought.
What is essential is going to vary from person to person and also will vary depending on goals. You can't determine if what Israel is doing is essential or not unless you understand why they are doing it.
We don't really know what Israel's end game is. Is it to make Hamas be a good neighbor? Make Hamas go away and have the PA back? Or is it to actually destroy Palestine and get rid of the 2-state system and have that whole region be part of Israel?
I would tend to think Israel wants to eliminate Hamas and is willing to work with whoever steps in next in Palestine. To that end, yes I think how Israel is responding is essential.
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| | | 908 | Khahan
ID: 53744810
Fri, Aug 08, 2014, 14:39
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But what if, as we know the reality to be in Gaza, that a disproportionate response plays directly into the enemy's hands?
I also noticed that no part of your reasoning included anything about such destructive munitions being the minimum necessary required to take out targets
Do you think Hamas would respond to what reasonable people consider the minimum force in the same way? I don't. I certainly think its an interesting question and good subject to discuss. But it seems the questions you are asking are only considering Israel in this case. I think you have to consider Israel's opponent. In this case the opponent is a radical group hellbent on religious domination and total and utter control and annihilation. A few big blasts aren't going to scare them away.
Imagine if some of the drug cartels in Mexico started firing shells across the border into Texas. If we went with some decent sized blasts and pounded their compounds for 2-3 days I don't think those cartels would even send runners across the border for a few weeks much less consider another physical strike. Hamas on the other hand is just simply crazy. Israel has to respond in a way that appropriate both to the situation and the party responsible for the situation.
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| | | 909 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Fri, Aug 08, 2014, 14:50
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Khahan
I would tend to think Israel wants to eliminate Hamas and is willing to work with whoever steps in next in Palestine. To that end, yes I think how Israel is responding is essential.
Curious. It appears to me that every time one of these skirmishes flares up and Israel responds with typically disproportionate force, Palestinian support for Hamas peaks, which I would think is the opposite of essential to the goal of eliminating Hamas. As far as I can tell, as long as there are 10s of thousands of newly fatherless Palestinians every few years, Hamas will maintain a huge and loyal recruitment pool. Maybe there's a part of the equation I'm missing.
While it's probably counter productive in most cases, it seems that when people feel hopelessly threatened, they favor the most warlike leadership possible. American neocons obviously know this very well and effectively employed the idea when we responded to 9/11 by conquering a country which had nothing to do with the terrorist attack with overwhelming support from both houses in congress.
Do you think Hamas would respond to what reasonable people consider the minimum force in the same way?
Of course not. Hamas has stated outright that they target civilians.
it seems the questions you are asking are only considering Israel in this case.
I don't believe that's true. You can't ignore the kind of enemy that Hamas is. I think Israel's tactics (ethics aside) might work much better against an opponent without Hamas' dedication to the cause and without Hamas' propaganda machine, which successfully portrays them as heroes to many Palestinians in Gaza and as victims to much of the western world.
Still keeping ethics aside, I feel like Israel is busy doing their very best to decisively win the battle against the rockets and is not even fighting the much more important propaganda war against Hamas.
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| | | 910 | Khahan
ID: 53744810
Fri, Aug 08, 2014, 14:59
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Still keeping ethics aside, I feel like Israel is busy doing their very best to decisively win the battle against the rockets and is not even fighting the much more important propaganda war against Hamas.
This I agree with. Israel isn't worried about the propaganda war at all.
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| | | 911 | Mith
ID: 371172617
Fri, Aug 08, 2014, 15:27
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It's what I'm getting at when I suggest that the excessive destruction is counter-productive to Israel's greater goals. It strengthens Hamas both in Gaza and internationally.
Something else I wanted to add:
I would tend to think Israel wants to eliminate Hamas
I'm not sure about the viability of this concept. Hamas or something just like it or maybe something much worse will always be a part of Palestinian society for as long as the Palestinian people are so harshly oppressed.
It may not remain a part of the elected government but in any densely populated place that lacks such societal and physical infrastructure basics as Gaza, organized thugs will always be a significant part of the power structure.
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| | | 912 | Mith
ID: 371172617
Fri, Aug 08, 2014, 15:34
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And so I'm clear that's not a defense of Hamas or their status in Palestinian society. It's just a harsh reality that Israeli policy in Gaza seems to ignore, if the ultimate goal is eventual peace.
Both sides have proven over a very long time that neither will simply get tired of fighting. Trying a different approach seems more logical than continuing the current, long standing one, which seems to be well established as a proven failure in the greater goal of eventual long term peace.
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| | | 913 | Mith
ID: 371172617
Fri, Aug 08, 2014, 15:46
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Do you think Hamas would respond to what reasonable people consider the minimum force in the same way?
I just realized I misunderstood this question. I thought you were asking if Hamas would respond with (not "to") minimal force.
If Israel eased up in their responses with smaller, more precise munitions and greater care especially in civilian areas, I have no reason to think Hamas (and other outfits) would change their tactics at all.
The only benefit I see for Israel using less excessive means is that they will kill fewer innocent people.
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| | | 914 | Pancho Villa
ID: 2131916
Fri, Aug 08, 2014, 16:33
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Israel isn't worried about the propaganda war at all
If that were the case, Netanyahu wouldn't be doing interviews with Sean Hannity, as well as appearing almost daily in the media in one form or another.
There's no 10 run rule in war, unless the loser unconditionally surrenders. Hamas demanding an end to the blockade, then immediately sending rockets over Israel at the expiration of the 72 hour cease fire, is about the best PR Israel could have hoped for. Hamas knows it's in no position to bargain, so it appears to the rest of the world that martyrdom is their primary goal, at the expense of their civilian population.
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| | | 915 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Fri, Aug 08, 2014, 16:41
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the best PR Israel could have hoped for.
In the short term, sure.
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| | | 916 | Tree
ID: 438482411
Fri, Aug 08, 2014, 19:26
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As of early this morning, the reports were that Hamas launched 30 rockets and that most of them landed in open fields. The ones that were headed for more populated ares were destroyed by the Iron Dome.
If the objective is not to cause indiscriminate damage, why do the blasts have to be so large and powerful?
Hamas fired rockets at them. they landed in fields or were destroyed by the Iron Dome.
so israel should just aim for empty fields? what does that accomplish.
as you clearly pointed out, Israel is being attacked. Hamas is the aggressor. Israel is responding. they are blamed for having better aim?
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| | | 917 | Tree
ID: 438482411
Fri, Aug 08, 2014, 19:29
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I'll ask again; fully acknowledging Israel's right and responsibility to respond to attacks, why is it necessary to them to use this much firepower over such densely populated areas?
yes.
shooting into each other's empty fields won't stop anything.
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| | | 918 | WiddleAvi
ID: 4750617
Fri, Aug 08, 2014, 22:37
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Maybe we just need to nuke the middle east. After watching this video I think it needs to be seriously considered.
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| | | 919 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Sat, Aug 09, 2014, 05:07
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so israel should just aim for empty fields? what does that accomplish.
For someone with a complex about other peoples' "words in his mouth," that was pretty trollish.
I've offered numerous suggestions for how Israel could be less destructive. None of them was to aim for open fields. Or anything resembling that. In particular, I've repeatedly suggested they simply refrain from using very large munitions in such densely populated areas.
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| | | 920 | Mith
ID: 14102186
Sat, Aug 09, 2014, 05:54
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#918
That's 400 million people. You really think genocide should be on the table?
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| | | 921 | Mith
ID: 371172617
Sat, Aug 09, 2014, 15:11
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I'll try a different way. Since most of the people who disagree with me on the ethics of the deadly force Israel uses are very fond of making their arguments in the form of hypotheticals, let's flip it around.
Let's say in some future skirmish, Israel bombs Gaza first. That's not to say I think it's likely, but neither are rockets fired from Tijuana so humor me. Lets say some completely unrelated group tortured and killed a bunch of Israeli kids and Hamas wound up getting blamed.
And rather than the weak Qassam rockets that Hamas usually shoots, they launch a new stock of munitions much closer to the accuracy and destruction of Israel's arsenal. And since they're really on the defensive this time, they aim at military targets, but the explosions so much greater, they wind up killing a thousand civilians along with the weapons, equipment and 1000 or so military casualties.
Now, they could have armed those more accurate rockets with much smaller munitions and hit and incapacitate the same targets pretty much as easily, but cause a lot less collateral damage. But they went with the big stuff for the same reasons given in posts 902 and 903.
Would you say it is wrong to criticize Hamas for using unnecessarily destructive force?
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| | | 922 | Tree
ID: 438482411
Sat, Aug 09, 2014, 15:40
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Would you say it is wrong to criticize Hamas for using unnecessarily destructive force?
Hamas are internationally recognized terrorists. they should be criticized and condemned for any level of destruction, no matter how great or small.
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| | | 923 | Khahan
ID: 16341313
Sat, Aug 09, 2014, 16:18
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Problem with that MITH is that I dont see Hamas as 'being on the defensive' at this point. Even if Israel were to strike first. This overall conflict is not boiled down to singular events. In the overall conflict Hamas are the aggressors. They didn't "win" their election. They were documented for throwing their opponents from rooftops. throwing opponents from roofs.
They are an illegitimate government in my eyes and a terrorist organization who has vowed the annihilation of the Israeli state. So no, I do see no problems from an ethical standpoint of the size of rockets the Israeli's are using and no, I do not believe the Israeli's *could* be on the offensive in this conflict, even if they broke a cease fire.
I'm not saying I feel Israel is w/out culpability or the ability to be wrong. I was against their attack on the ship in the international waters the other year because I felt they acted too aggressively and too soon.
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| | | 924 | Perm Dude
ID: 431013412
Sat, Aug 09, 2014, 18:34
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The international election teams in place at the time believe the election to be clear and transparent.
Hamas may have dangerous intentions, but they won the election democratically.
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| | | 925 | Khahan
ID: 16341313
Sat, Aug 09, 2014, 20:27
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Its not the election itself moreso the intimidation and their actions leading up to the election.
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| | | 926 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Sat, Aug 09, 2014, 20:56
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Tree 922
Hamas are internationally recognized terrorists. they should be criticized and condemned for any level of destruction, no matter how great or small.
So the opinion seems to be that once an outfit establishes itself as a terrorist organization, that it should be condemned for any use of force, even if they happen to be defending friendly civilians from an unprovoked attack?
The founders of Israel were quite fond of tactics that we easily regard today as terrorism. How come the same standard didn't apply to Israel? Surely you don't reject the legitimacy of the 1920s - 1940s Zionists as the leaders of the Jewish state?
Also tree (since you're responding to me now) I recall that you have agreed previously that it's past time that Israel ease the blockade in Gaza, use less destructive force in its bombings and stop building new settlements in the West Bank.
What changed?
WiddleAvi 923
Problem with that MITH is that I dont see Hamas as 'being on the defensive' at this point. Even if Israel were to strike first.
...and no, I do not believe the Israeli's *could* be on the offensive in this conflict, even if they broke a cease fire.
...? I didn't suggest that those things are likely or even possible. I asked you to entertain a hypothetical. I was not unclear. I asked if Hamas should be criticized for doing a very specific thing, in a very specific hypothetical situation.
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| | | 927 | WiddleAvi
ID: 506382610
Sat, Aug 09, 2014, 23:19
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MITH - You meant to respond to Kahan, not me in your last post.
That's 400 million people. You really think genocide should be on the table?
Right now I don't know what the solution is. These people are crazy. Everyone is their enemy and I see no solution in sight. They kill everyone who is not the same sect of Islam as they are. This will cost untold lives and untold amounts of money. Right now my current idea (in Gaza and for fighting ISIS as well) is to take everyone and move them into temporary shelter and then bomb the place to smithereens and build it from scratch and then let the people move back. Anyone who didn't leave dies and the ones who did leave return without weapons. Probably not very realistic but in the long run probably cheaper than what this is going to cost in the long run.
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| | | 928 | Khahan
ID: 16341313
Sun, Aug 10, 2014, 00:25
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I didn't suggest that those things are likely or even possible. I asked you to entertain a hypothetical. I was not unclear. I asked if Hamas should be criticized for doing a very specific thing, in a very specific hypothetical situation.
I understood your hypothetical. But considering your suggestion outside of a vacuum brings all the points I raised meaning I'm not giving the answer you'd like to hear. But yes, Hamas should be criticized for the unnecessary force they are using now.
It was unnecessary for them to bomb Israel with any sized bomb when the ceasefire ended. They are the ones using unnecessary force and they should be condemned and criticized. It would have been unnecessary for them to aim a BB gun across the river and fire it. The whole situation is unnecessary except in the eyes of Hamas. So they bomb away. Which makes Israel's response necessary.
And I dont disagree with the 'size of the force' Israel is responding with. This is not Israel's doing. Its not Israel's fault the cowards of Hamas are hiding in hospitals and schools and among the general population. Its not Israel's fault a terrorist organization with no value to life is attacking them and using civilian human shields.
In my eyes Israel's response is both justified and necessary. Hamas' actions are neither justified nor necessary and yes, they should be criticized for their unnecessary force. At a basic level you and I seem to agree that Israel has the right to defend itself. But at a basic level we disagree about how they should be able to defend themselves. No hypothetical is going to change that.
I also understand your point about the reaction of the civilian population of Palestine to Israel's use of increased force. My belief is simply, "too bad for those who blindly follow Hamas."
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| | | 929 | Tree
ID: 438482411
Sun, Aug 10, 2014, 12:20
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So the opinion seems to be that once an outfit establishes itself as a terrorist organization, that it should be condemned for any use of force, even if they happen to be defending friendly civilians from an unprovoked attack?
when it comes to Hamas, there is nothing that is an unprovoked attack.
The founders of Israel were quite fond of tactics that we easily regard today as terrorism.
we'll discuss this in 70 years or so, if Hamas is even still around. then it *might* be apples to apples.
stop building new settlements in the West Bank.
i agree with this. but i don't think they should start dismantling anything until Hamas is gone from Gaza.
Hamas is a destructive force in the peace process, and i firmly believe that if they are gone, we will have a better opportunity.
(out of curiousity, when they were elected in 2005, exactly how long was that term for? isn't it time for new elections by now?)
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| | | 930 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Sun, Aug 10, 2014, 13:20
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There are supposed to be elections in 2014 but I don't know how likely anyone considers the prospect.
Maybe a week ago I posted an informative link about Hamas' power structure. One primary leader in exile in Doha, another in exile in Cairo. They are apparently at odds with each other and both are largely resented by (I presume differing factions within) the Hamas leadership in Gaza.
Further complicating things are the various militias (Islamic Jihad being the largest, I think) associated with Hamas which will act on their own when they believe appropriate and yet other completely unaffiliated groups which share Hamas hatred for Israel but have no regard for their authority.
This is certainly no defense of their actions but it severely complicates the hope that they will ever collectively lay down arms.
i agree with [stopping the building of new settlements in the West Bank].
Good to hear - and thank you for straightening that out. Tho you've been very coy on that.
but i don't think they should start dismantling anything until Hamas is gone from Gaza.
Maybe it's me but I just cannot wrap my head around the idea of the need to continue to punish a people who have largely chosen peace for the actions of the leadership of another group of people. Aren't you afraid that refusing any concessions for several years of relative peace will eventually frustrate them enough to give up on peace as a means to freedom? You are basically saying that freedom is not in their control, holding them hostage to a leadership in another area that they have already rejected.
I also mentioned that you previously supported less destructive means in Gaza and easing border restrictions.
Care to elaborate on my perceived changes on those positions as well?
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| | | 931 | Tree
ID: 48659111
Sun, Aug 10, 2014, 13:35
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When Hamas goes I'll support those latter two changes. Quite frankly, when someone has sworn to murder you and everyone you love, you do what you need to to ensure they don't.
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| | | 932 | Mith
ID: 3692387
Sun, Aug 10, 2014, 14:34
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I think you've made that more than clear but I'm asking what has changed your mind.
Interesting side note -
Yesterday at work I had to speak with the foreign minister of Hamas via skype. There was nothing interesting about anything that was said; I just had to test audio, video and stream quality for a live interview later in the day.
I speak with correspondents and guests in Gaza every day since the start of the conflict but I don't think I've ever had to speak with any public figure who is so reviled here as any high-ranking Hamas official.
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| | | 933 | Tree
ID: 438482411
Sun, Aug 10, 2014, 16:41
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I think you've made that more than clear but I'm asking what has changed your mind.
i am not sure what you're meaning then. i have long advocated peace in the middle east, and was completely in favor of the Gaza pullout a decade ago.
i just don't think it's possible.
Yesterday at work I had to speak with the foreign minister of Hamas
to me, it would have been numbing. Manson, Dahmer, and Bundy combined have less blood on their hands.
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| | | 934 | Mith
ID: 3692387
Sun, Aug 10, 2014, 16:57
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i am not sure what you're meaning then. i have long advocated peace in the middle east, and was completely in favor of the Gaza pullout a decade ago.
I didn't say anything about a Gaza pullout. The last 2 lines of 930. Which is a partial repeat of the question in the last two lines of 926 that are addressed to you.
I asked what changed your mind on those 3 issues. You cleared up the 3rd, explaining that you still support ceasing the development of new settlements in the West Bank.
But I'm curious what has changed since you were in favor of easing (not ending!) border restrictions and destructive force used in Gaza strike - two things that I'm pretty sure you oppose today.
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| | | 935 | Tree
ID: 438482411
Sun, Aug 10, 2014, 17:03
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But I'm curious what has changed since you were in favor of easing (not ending!) border restrictions and destructive force used in Gaza strike
i suppose it's giving up hope that Hamas could be a partner for peace, and a complete disgust for their actions.
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| | | 937 | Mith
ID: 3692387
Sun, Aug 10, 2014, 17:49
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I guess I figured there must have been a specific event or some impetus that changed your mind.
Also
Today I watched the interview the the Hamas FM did later in the day yesterday. Mostly the typical stuff you hear from a Hamas official but one thing he said struck me. He claimed that there was a 22 year period in which Gaza was peaceful which failed to deliver any concessions from Israel.
I haven't looked into this yet and hopefully will have time later. Does anyone have any idea about the period in time he might be referring to? Presumably the period of time between the 1967 War and the First Intifada?
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| | | 940 | WiddleAvi
ID: 506382610
Sun, Aug 10, 2014, 21:33
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Khahan - re:936 - Thats exactly what I said a couple of times in this thread. The number of civilian deaths just don't make sense from a numbers stand point. The Palestinians are claiming something around 80-85% when in reality it makes much more sense at 50%.
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| | | 941 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Sun, Aug 10, 2014, 23:09
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Admittedly I don't know what to think on the percentage of casualties that are civilian.
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| | | 942 | Tree
ID: 48659111
Sun, Aug 10, 2014, 23:33
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Post 937 forgets the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when Israel was almost destroyed by her Arab neighbors.
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| | | 943 | Khahan
ID: 16341313
Sun, Aug 10, 2014, 23:40
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Also, as the article I posted mentioned, some degree of the civilian casualties are actually hamas inflicted. I'm not going to say a few or many because we'll never know.
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| | | 944 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Mon, Aug 11, 2014, 00:23
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I don't claim to know one way or the other but Wiki doesn't mention the Palestinians among the players in the Yom Kippur War.
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| | | 946 | Bean
ID: 5292191
Tue, Aug 26, 2014, 13:31
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Permanent?
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| | | 947 | Khahan
ID: 10757269
Tue, Aug 26, 2014, 14:04
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Bean - just clicked the link. The article has been edited since I posted. The original article title and first paragraph stated a new permanent cease fire. Now it reads "open ended."
Ok, I give it 3 weeks before Hamas breaks it.
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| | | 948 | Bean
ID: 5292191
Tue, Aug 26, 2014, 14:24
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I'll take the under
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| | | 949 | Tree
ID: 48659111
Tue, Aug 26, 2014, 17:45
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With rockets still falling as the ceasefire ends, you'd do well betting on the under.
I'm sure Israel's to blame though. How they haven't turned Gaza into a parking lot is beyond me, but shows incredible restraint.
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| | | 950 | nerveclinic
ID: 8832812
Tue, Aug 26, 2014, 17:52
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Tree With rockets still falling as the ceasefire ends, you'd do well betting on the under.
With more then 2,000 thousand Palestinians slaughtered, and a UN refugee camp blown up by the Israelis, with multiple deaths, (and no "terrorist enclave using it as a shield" according to the UN) yes you should take the under.
And the over on more missiles.
The Israelis are the new Fascists.
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| | | 951 | nerveclinic
ID: 8832812
Tue, Aug 26, 2014, 18:13
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Tree Israel is being attacked. Hamas is the aggressor. Israel is responding. they are blamed for having better aim?
Not just better aim, they have high tech USA weapons for decades, 5 Billion a year.
Israel is the aggressor.
They are the occupier after more then 40 years.
They are blockading the border. Making it impossible to get vital medicines, and other essential goods into Palestine.
They are treating a race of people like sub humans, controlling them.
Israel has the boot on the back of the neck of Palestine.
Any man would fight against such fascism, such oppression, all of us here would.
Hamas is not randomly shooting missiles for no reason. It is the act of desperation of an occupied, oppressed, subjugated, enslaved people by a fascist regime.
All of us would fire missiles against such oppressors.
All of us, even Tree. Tree's views are right of center even in Israel.
The reason most Americans argue in favor of Israel is because of their belief in the propaganda they are fed, and the link between Judaism and Christianity, Israel, Bethlehem, Christ and the coming Apocalypse they believe in.
It's difficult to educate people hypnotized by magic.
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| | | 952 | WiddleAvi
ID: 506382610
Tue, Aug 26, 2014, 21:47
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This conflict is not that simple. Anyone who simplifies it and puts blame fully on one side is just ignorant. There is plenty of blame to go around on all sides.
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| | | 953 | Tree
ID: 438482411
Tue, Aug 26, 2014, 22:17
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my views are hardly right of center, even in Israel
you've very obviously not read what my views are.
on the other hand, you excuse the actions of Hamas, all their murders and kidnappings, and instead, blame Israel.
as Avi said, this is a multi-headed conflict.
no one side is exclusively to blame, but even some of the most ardent Israeli detractors on this board understand that Hamas are the thugs and the bad guys, and Israel's greatest flaw has been failing to "Be better" than Hamas.
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| | | 954 | Mith
ID: 14102186
Wed, Aug 27, 2014, 09:30
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How they haven't turned Gaza into a parking lot is beyond me, but shows incredible restraint.
This was a ridiculous comment the first time. It hasn't matured since.
Suggesting that opting against ethnic cleansing is "incredible restraint" is a literal appeasement of hypothetical ethnic cleansing. This is a disgusting statement.
It's also shockingly foolish in that simply killing everyone in Gaza would probably mean the end of Israel as well. Several nuclear powers in the region would certainly not let such an action go unpunished, even if they have largely soured on Hamas.
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| | | 955 | Mith
ID: 14102186
Wed, Aug 27, 2014, 09:33
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you've very obviously not read what my views are.
I have. And in Nerve's defense, your views have been anything but consistent.
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| | | 956 | Tree
ID: 438482411
Wed, Aug 27, 2014, 15:33
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Suggesting that opting against ethnic cleansing is "incredible restraint" is a literal appeasement of hypothetical ethnic cleansing. This is a disgusting statement.
turning Gaza into a parking lot isn't ethnic cleansing. turning gaza and the west bank into parking lots, then systematically hunting down and killing every last palestinian man, woman, and child, is.
i am not advocating Israel do either; simply, i'm surprised they haven't completely destroyed Gaza in an effort to completely destroy Hamas.
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| | | 957 | Mith
ID: 231150292
Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 07:52
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You're confusing ethnic cleansing with genocide. The former can occur within a localized society. For example the term is commonly used for events in Bosnia in the 1990s, in which Milosevic's army tried to eliminate Bosniaks in Srebrenica and Zepa and surrounding areas.
So whether you realize it of not, you are in fact crediting Israel with "incredible restraint" for not ethnically cleansing Gaza.
Which is basically setting the morality bar at the same level as Hamas.
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| | | 958 | Tree
ID: 438482411
Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 08:20
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So whether you realize it of not, you are in fact crediting Israel with "incredible restraint" for not ethnically cleansing Gaza.
far from it.
i am crediting them with incredible restraint for not eradicating a virus (Hamas) that has sworn to kill all Jews, Americans, and Israelis, and if they have to murder their fellow Palestinians in the process of their stated goal, they don't care.
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| | | 959 | Mith
ID: 231150292
Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 08:29
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Sure.
As long as you can somehow choose to remain ignorant of the fact that "turning Gaza into a parking lot" meas the death of everyone in the place, not just Hamas.
The term is ethnic cleansing. And you are just diddly-darn surprised that Israel has shown the incredible restraint it takes for them to not kill every man woman and child in Gaza.
Shockingly stupid.
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| | | 960 | sarge33rd
ID: 390471112
Fri, Aug 29, 2014, 01:19
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not sure MITH, your position isnt shockingly arrogant.
Israel has had to fight for its very existence almost from day 1. It hasnt let up it hasnt stopped and it has been made publicly known to be the goal of more than a few who surround her. Yeah, it is BECAUSE of restraint, that Israel hasnt made an example of someone, like we ourselves did in Japan.
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| | | 961 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Fri, Aug 29, 2014, 04:37
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Israel is not fighting for their existence. They have enemies that want them eradicated but even collectively, they don't possess the military strength to realize that goal.
They are swatting at flies, not fighting for their existence.
There are more formidable powers in the region, like Pakistan and possibly Iran, which could challenge Israel's existence. And they perhaps wouldn't mind her eradication. But they lack the motivation to attack her directly, which would mean dragging the US into a war with them.
So what Tree calls restraint (assuming he is correct and the morality of ethnic cleansing isn't something that should preclude the prospect on Israel's part) is actually simple self preservation.
It's a very foolish thing to set the bar so low that we are to praise them for not ethnically cleansing Gaza. To say so means you hold them to the same standard as Hamas. I think Israel does some really terrible things to the Palestinian people, but I don't think they are the kind of monster that would have to summon "incredible restraint" in order to not exterminate a society of 2 million people. At least I hope not.
They are not fighting for their lives. Not in some time now.
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| | | 962 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Fri, Aug 29, 2014, 04:44
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And for the record, if you think we bombed Japan "to make an example" of them, you should really revisit your WW2 history.
We did it to end the war early and save the number of allied lives it would have taken to see it through via conventional means. And Truman regretted it the next day when he realized the devastation he caused was far greater than he'd been told would occur.
And most importantly, we destroyed 2 cities in Japan after residents were given ample warning to flee.
Tree wants to turn all of Gaza "into a parking lot". A month warning wouldn't help those people because Israel has sealed off all exits out of Gaza.
We can do an awful lot better than not killing 2 million people as a standard for praiseworthy.
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| | | 963 | Khahan
ID: 5977299
Fri, Aug 29, 2014, 10:16
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MITH - you do understand that Hamas does more than threatens Israel. Any chance hamas they will murder Israeli citizens and believe they are doing their god's will by doing so. Any chance will they get they will lob any # of rockets at Israel hoping 1 gets thru the Iron Dome.
If they were left alone I believe they would simply amass forces and take over Israel the way ISIS did with Iraq. This isn't some school yard fight where some mean spirited first grader is trying to pick a fist fight with a 5th grader three times his size.
No matter the disparity between size of missiles and capability, both sides have the capability to kill the other.
So here is a question for you:
Why should Israel sit back and lessen their own capabilities of defense when they are dealing with somebody who wants to eradicate them and has the means to do so? Even if those means are not instantaneous like a nuke. They have the means by slower, more drawn out methods. So why should Israel do less than the most they are capable of to defend themselves and their citizens?
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| | | 964 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Fri, Aug 29, 2014, 14:29
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Khahan
If they were left alone I believe they would simply amass forces and take over Israel the way ISIS did with Iraq.
How exactly would these forces amass? Hamas doesn't have anything like the opportunity that Isis did. They were not regarded as a threat until they exposed the Iraqi army's incredibly weak morale. The Iraqi soldiers fled and left state of the art American weapons and equipment for Isis to commandeer. There is no comparable weakness with the IDF.
No matter the disparity between size of missiles and capability, both sides have the capability to kill the other.
If by "they" you mean Gaza and Israel proper, this is wholly untrue. Israel has the capability to "kill" Gaza. All of it.
Gaza has the ability to exhaust their entire supply of thousands of rockets and kill a few dozen Israelis.
The "question for you" portion of your post is bizarre.
Why should Israel sit back and lessen their own capabilities of defense when they are dealing with somebody who wants to eradicate them and has the means to do so?
I have never said that Israel should "lesson their own capabilities". I have no idea where you got that. And no, they do not have the means to eradicate Israel. Hamas threw everything they had at Israel this summer and the resulting casualties didn't even come close to keeping up with the birth rate. I would love to have this "slow method" of "eradication" explained to me.
I mean if they are so capable, why haven't they done it? All I've seen is Israel finding more and more effective ways of preventing casualties from Qassam rockets as the Jewish population has continually grown. Many Israelis even mock the rockets by making sculptures of Minorahs and other things from the unexploded portions of them.
So why should Israel do less than the most they are capable of to defend themselves and their citizens?
For the same reason that the US didn't turn The Sunni Triangle "into a parking lot" and build a bunh of American settlements on the newly cleared land. Because even in war (and this isn't really a war, it's an insurgent uprising in an occupied and oppressed territory) there needs to be morality.
Some people think stopping short of ethnic cleansing is the threshold of morality. If that's all it takes than Hamas has nothing to worry about on the morality front.
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| | | 965 | Khahan
ID: 237452913
Fri, Aug 29, 2014, 14:45
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I'll take your word that you don't think Israel should scale back their capabilities to defend themselves but I'll be honest - you are sending very mixed messages on this front. Maybe the prior discussion you started was just you playing devil's advocate and I'm reading too much into it?
As for the rest we may have to agree to disagree. I don't see how somebody can look at a side firing missiles and think that side doesn't have the capability to kill their foe. Gaza absolutely has the capability to kill people in Israel. They absolutely have the capability to destroy Israel as a nation. They may not have the most effective capabilities. They may not have the capabilities to do it quickly. But they have those capabilities. Just like a person with a knife has the capabilities to kill another person and so does a person with a gun.
A gun may be much more effective. You can use a gun from a distance. You can use a gun w/ little force. You can use a gun w/ little direct exposure to yourself. But that doesn't make a knife any less deadly.
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| | | 966 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Fri, Aug 29, 2014, 16:54
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As far as I'm aware my Israel-related opinions stated here have been very consistent for quite a few years.
If you mean their military capability, which is what I assume you're talking about, you'll have to offer a quote in which I've suggested that Israel scale back. I have noted (somewhere in this forum, maybe in the Pakistan discussion) that they are in violation of the UN anti proliferation treaty.
I've never suggested they reduce their nuclear arsenal, which obviously provides their most dangerous and powerful and effective defense capability.
Their second most effective tool is the Iron Dome, which I believe Israel should be praised for. So I wouldn't have them scale that back either.
If you're referring to the blockade, (which admittedly didn't occur to me) I fail to see how allowing food and medicine in and trade exports out compromises Israel's ability to defend itself.
What I believe Israel should do is modify their military policy to be more considerate of residents. I will never understand why necessary to take out the four closest buildings along with the one they know targets are in.
I've conceded that such a modification would likely result in a few more of their thousands of targets to slip through their fingers, which might result in a handful more Israeli casualties. The argument is that this sacrifice is worth the number of Palestinian noncombatants who would be saved, since it would be exponentially greater than the small number of likely additional Israeli casualties.
Look at the point from the other direction. As Tree is fond of pointing out, Israel is capable of even far greater damage than the hell she rained on the millions of people trapped in Gaza this summer. She could presumably have dropped far more bombs and taken out 4 or 5 times as many noncombatants, resulting in far fewer of her own citizens facing danger from Rocket fire.
But they stop short of dropping daisy cutters over downtown Gaza City because someone calculated that such overkill isn't worth the handful of Israeli lives such measures might save. Why is it so unreasonable for me to think that bar isn't quite high enough? I feel like some people here think I should be impressed that there is a bar at all.
And the argument that is immune from criticism because Hamas has no bar is negated by two counter points:
1. Hamas' severely limited military capabilities set the bar for them. The notion that the fight against Hamas is a fight for existence is a mindless victim-playing mantra that I'm shocked anyone at this forum could possibly convince themselves of (with one exception).
2. It is absolutely absurd to judge any nation's military compassion by comparing it to Hamas. Yes of course I hold Israel to a higher standard than Hamas. Israel is a first world society with a highly sophisticated military with world class equipment and systems and a functioning representative democratic government. It's the same reason I hold a cop to a higher standard than a murderer. And like the cop, part of my salary helps fund the execution of Israeli military policy, so I have a personal stake in what they do.
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| | | 967 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Fri, Aug 29, 2014, 17:11
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Also, I've asked you to explain how Hamas threatens Israel's existence. Yes they have trained fighters, guns and rockets and are willing to use them. Israel has the IDF, the Iron Dome, the blockade and billions of dollars per year in military aid - all of which they have also proven they are willing to use.
Again, please explain to me how this slow method of Israeli eradication works. Because the 'capability' to kill a few or even a lot of civilians seems like an awfully be chasm away from the capability to end the country's existence.
You've got a bridge that big you say? Well tell me about it.
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| | | 968 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Fri, Aug 29, 2014, 17:17
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I mean, if Israel were to cast off 95% of her military and defense systems, then I'd agree that a fight with Hamas would be a fight for her existence. But in the real world the notion is abject nonsense.
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| | | 969 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Fri, Aug 29, 2014, 17:39
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A few corrections for post 966:
...such a modification would likely result in a few more targets to slip through their fingers (out of the many thousands Israel says they destroyed) which might result in a handful more Israeli casualties.
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And the argument that Israel is immune from criticism because Hamas has no bar...
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...the 'capability' to kill a few or even a lot of civilians seems like an awfully big chasm away from the capability to end the country's existence.
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| | | 970 | Tree
ID: 357242918
Fri, Aug 29, 2014, 19:35
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They are not fighting for their lives. Not in some time now.
among the most ignorant things you have ever posted on these boards.
to think that Israeli lives aren't at risk on a daily basis is to almost disqualify you from talking sensibly about Israel and what is going on there.
Tree wants to turn all of Gaza "into a parking lot".
once again, you're putting words in people's mouths. at no point did i ever say i wanted such a thing, and it's childish, absurd, and completely dishonest to make such a statement.
ultimately, it sounds to me like you think Israel and Jews should give up, allow people to lie about the, and then die.
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| | | 971 | Khahan
ID: 16341313
Fri, Aug 29, 2014, 20:09
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967 and 968. Just because Israel has a gun doesn't make Hamas' knife any less deadly.
And just because that 1st grader named Hamas has foolishly attempted to attack that 6th grader named Israel doesn't put Israel at any less risk from Hamas' knife. Hamas is not without teeth.
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| | | 972 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Fri, Aug 29, 2014, 20:30
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I'm sorry but 971 doesn't make any sense at all to me. How does a knife exterminate a people.
Why do I have to keep asking, exactly how does this slow method of Isaeli eradication play out?
Can anyone explain this? Exactly how Israel is "fighting for her existence"? Not for a few lives, you guys keep saying her EXISTANCE is as stake? How? Is it a secret?
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| | | 973 | Tree
ID: 357242918
Fri, Aug 29, 2014, 20:33
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How does a knife exterminate a people.
this can't be a serious question.
Exactly how Israel is "fighting for her existence"? Not for a few lives, you guys keep saying her EXISTANCE is as stake?
this also can't be a serious question.
she's spent the last 65 years - her entire existence - surrounded by nations or people who have tried to eliminate and destroy her.
if they were to stop fighting for survival, well, then they wouldn't survive.
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| | | 974 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Fri, Aug 29, 2014, 20:51
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I'm talking about Hamas. Israel isn't fighting Egypt or Jordan or even Lebanon right now. She has spent the summer fighting Hamas in Gaza. Her tactics in Gaza are supposedly justified by this notion that she is fighting for her existence.
Don't get cute by taking me out of context. You know I'm not saying that no Israeli lives are at stake, Tree. You know exactly what I mean. So please, what threat does Hamas pose to her existence? If it's a stupid question then it should be very easy to answer.
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| | | 975 | Tree
ID: 357242918
Fri, Aug 29, 2014, 21:42
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if Hamas has the ability to kill one Israeli, they have the ability to kill many.
killing ONE is inexcusable. Israeli ignoring that killing, is equally as inexcusable.
Don't get cute by taking me out of context.
unlike you, i don't need to invent words by someone else to make my point. i only used your own words.
the fact that Israeli deaths apparently mean very little to you - so little, in fact, that Israel should just let them happen, does not mean that Israel's existence is not at stake.
perhaps if more people had stopped the Nazis early on, we wouldn't have lost more than ten million people.
this is why Hamas threatens Israel's existence.
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| | | 976 | Bean
ID: 5292191
Sat, Aug 30, 2014, 00:52
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Well, gents what is very important to remember for Israel is that her best and perhaps only ally of 70 years is tired of all the pushback we've received due to Israel's inability to make peace with its neighbors.
It would have been much smarter of us to give the Jews a new homeland in Montana back in 1948, than to try to carve them out a spot in the heart of the Muslim world.
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| | | 977 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Sat, Aug 30, 2014, 04:45
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Ain't that the truth.
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| | | 978 | Mith
ID: 231150292
Sat, Aug 30, 2014, 08:57
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Still waiting for an explanation for how the end of Israel will play out if Israel tries to kill fewer innocent people in her responses to ineffective rocket attacks.
Anyone? I mean, I have literally been begging.
No?
Tree
unlike you, i don't need to invent words by someone else to make my point. i only used your own words.
Yes tree, we all misquote each other from time to time. It's an honest mistake. You've done it plenty of times, too. You'll note that I don't use your misquotes/mischaracterizations as a skirt to hide behind rather than respond to honest questions.
And yes you used my words - in this case a single sloppily written sentence that is at odds with everything else I wrote on the topic.
So in case you really think I have to clear up, yes of course individual Israelis are in danger of attacks from Hamas. Not like the danger that inner city residents face in tough neighborhoods in Chicago or the danger that we accept every time we merge onto a highway, for example of course.
So lets try to act like adults, shall we? I'll try to do a better job of not misquoting you or misrepresenting you and you can do the same. And when one of us does slip up, the other can continue to act like an adult and simply correct the error, rather than whine about "words in my mouth" in avoidance of the contextual intent. Sound fair?
Anyway, I guess (that phrase means I'm explaining the way I understand what you wrote) you would regard America's "war on terror" as a fight for America's very existence, yes? It seems logical since the conditions you cite to support the claim for Israel (ability to kill one American, ability to kill many Americans, and the Nazis weren't stopped early enough - whatever that means its true regardless of the topic).
Anyway, I don't agree that America is fighting for her existence. And of course it has nothing to do with how I regard American deaths, from terrorism or gang violence or car accidents. I just know that when we are discussing real circumstances and not pointless hypotheticals about what would happen if we disbanded our military, that Islamist or other terrorism isn't any kind of threat to the existence of the USA. Our nation is much stronger than that. Just like Israel is much stronger than Hamas.
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| | | 979 | Tree
ID: 357242918
Sat, Aug 30, 2014, 12:18
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Still waiting for an explanation for how the end of Israel will play out if Israel tries to kill fewer innocent people in her responses to ineffective rocket attacks.
israel already tries to kill fewer innocents. that you don't accept this reality is your own problem.
the other can continue to act like an adult and simply correct the error
well, except in your case, it's so frequent, i don't see it as an error, but rather an intentional attempt at disinformation.
Anyway, I guess (that phrase means I'm explaining the way I understand what you wrote) you would regard America's "war on terror" as a fight for America's very existence, yes?
The United States has had less foreign attacks on her soil in 235 years than Israel has in 235 days. heck, possibly even 235 hours.
you can't compare the two.
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| | | 980 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Sat, Aug 30, 2014, 13:03
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israel already tries to kill fewer innocents. that you don't accept this reality is your own problem.
It's not that I don't accept this reality, in fact this is one of those examples of you misrepresenting me. So allow me to clear up by pointing you to post 966:
What I believe Israel should do is modify their military policy to be more considerate of residents.-
It's not that I deny that they make some effort to limit civilian casualties, it's that I simply think they aren't doing enough.
More from the same post:
But they stop short of dropping daisy cutters over downtown Gaza City because someone calculated that such overkill isn't worth the handful of Israeli lives such measures might save. Why is it so unreasonable for me to think that bar isn't quite high enough? I feel like some people here think I should be impressed that there is a bar at all.
I feel like I have made this case many times over this summer, but rather than accuse you of deliberately misrepresenting me and use that as an excuse to avoid difficult questions, I'll assume that I have set the record straight on that and move on to your next statement, and expecting you to not make the error again.
The United States has had less foreign attacks on her soil in 235 years than Israel has in 235 days. heck, possibly even 235 hours.
Ok, but that wasn't part of your reasoning when I asked. So the reasons are: 1. Hamas can kill an individual. 2. Hamas can kill many individuals. 3. Hitler wasn't stopped early enough (?) and 4. They have been frequently attacked.
I hope those aren't too different from your intention. That's how I read them.
Honestly, I still don't see how those factors equate to a threat against Israel's existence in today's real world. I am legitimately trying to get to the bottom of this notion. I've been ridiculed here for calling it nonsense and I've seen others (elsewhere) accused of antisemitism for the same opinion.
So please help someone who is asking for it and explain exactly how - in the conditions of the real world and not some hypothetical situation - Israel's existence might end at the hands of Hamas.
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| | | 981 | sarge33rd
ID: 390471112
Sun, Aug 31, 2014, 12:51
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We already have many, calling for the end of US support, many others in the UK calling for an end to their Israeli support, others in Germany, calling for an end to their support. That seems a pretty damn string start, to the long process of ending a nation through means other than outright conquest.
That Israel is losing the PR war, I dont think is in doubt at all. That this is in accordance with HAMAS intent, may be getting overlooked by a rather significant number of people.
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| | | 982 | Mith
ID: 21130811
Sun, Aug 31, 2014, 15:27
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Thank you Sarge!
And a very interesting point that I had not considered.
Sure it aligns with Hanas' intentions but how avoidable is it? After all, it is also interesting that refusing to 'raise the morality bar' with regard to their Palestinian policy might be the very thing that you say could potentially lead to Israel's extinction.
For the record I don't know that Israel receives much foreign aid from Europe but they are obviously crucial trading partners. And there is a notable boycott Israel movement that is still in the early stages but has at least enough support and momentum to have the Israeli press' attention.
Whether Israel can remain militarily dominant in the region through a long standing trade boycott is also an interesting question. I suspect they could, largely because American defense aid isn't going anywhere. No nationally electable American politician would rethink defense aid to Israel.
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| | | 984 | Mith
ID: 3692387
Thu, Sep 04, 2014, 10:57
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What the world thinks about Israel's latest land grab in the West Bank.
And let's get one thing clear, the current Israeli government, whatever they say out of the other sides of their mouths, will never allow the Palestinian people any kind of autonomy in the West Bank. Every time they have told them or their own people or the rest of the world that they want a two-state solution, they have lied through their teeth.
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| | | 985 | Khahan
ID: 3189179
Wed, Sep 17, 2014, 10:10
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3 weeks later Hamas reportedly breaks the cease fire.
Hmm, see post 947.
In all fairness though, Hamas is denying this shot fired. So far its only Israel claiming it happened. Could be nothing. Could be what Israel claims. Could be something in between.
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| | | 986 | Bean
ID: 5292191
Thu, Sep 18, 2014, 11:49
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So, I didnt do the math, did I win by taking the Under?
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| | | 987 | Khahan
ID: 398121813
Thu, Sep 18, 2014, 14:12
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It was technically 3 weeks and 1 day, so no win for Bean.
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| | | 990 | Tree
ID: 161036918
Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 10:37
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FWIW, i'm disappointed with the results of the recent election.
when things like "there will not be a Palestinian state on my watch" surges someone to victory, that's not a good thing.
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| | | 991 | Perm Dude
ID: 431013412
Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 16:32
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Agreed. He's a wartime PM who will invent one to fit his strengths if he has to.
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| | | 992 | Boldwin
ID: 49250121
Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 18:16
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Any other nation would be required to renounce their pledge to drive their neighbors into the sea in order to be recognized as a legitimate state.
Since PA leaders will never honestly agree to that...they cannot have recognition as a state. Had they been willing to agree to that, they could have been recognized as a state 70 years ago.
Of course it would be great if they could agree to be civilized, but these people are very explicitly determined to...Sahih Bukhari Hadith Volume 4, Book 52, Number 176: Narrated by 'Abdullah bin 'Umar: Allah's Apostle said, "You (i.e. Muslims) will fight with the Jews till some of them will hide behind stones. The stones will (betray them) saying, 'O 'Abdullah (i.e. slave of Allah)! There is a Jew hiding behind me; so kill him.'"
Sahih Bukhari Hadith Volume 4, Book 52, Number 177: Narrated by Abu Huraira: Allah's Apostle said, "The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. "O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him." .And you can hold hands and sing kumbaya till the cows come home and this is not going to change their minds. Not if every last Israeli and American grew a soul patch and turned bright red liberal.
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| | | 993 | Tree
ID: 161036918
Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 21:55
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yes. you hate Arabs. we get it.
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| | | 994 | Perm Dude
ID: 431013412
Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 22:38
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And he's "Christian."
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| | | 995 | sarge33rd
ID: 390471112
Fri, Mar 20, 2015, 10:36
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I too regret the results of the Israeli election. Just as I regret those of our most recent mid-terms. The warmongers are winning, and it is our sons and daughters who will ultimately lose.
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| | | 996 | Boldwin
ID: 15242023
Sat, Mar 21, 2015, 00:42
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What has hate got to do with it?
It is a simple rule of civilization.
You don't get recognized as a new state if you refuse to recognize your neighbor's right to exist.
I didn't make this rule.
How I feel about it has no bearing on it whatsoever.
The fact that you are happy to turn a blind eye and let them genocide the Jews out of existance because you are so golden-hearted, well intentioned and diversity loving doesn't matter either. Fortunately for Israel.
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| | | 997 | sarge33rd
ID: 390471112
Sat, Mar 21, 2015, 01:11
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With the re-election of an obvious warmonger, it will be much more difficult to defend Israels actions. When as a neighbor go deliberately into your yard and take a dump, its sort of difficult to call you out for getting pissed off about it. Thats sort of where Israel has put herself.
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| | | 998 | Boldwin
ID: 15242023
Sat, Mar 21, 2015, 01:56
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There isn't anything Israel or any of it's leaders have done which is as egregious as the palestinian's implacable unchangable demand that all Jews die.
AND any palestinian leader who ever honestly renounced violence against Israel would be assassinated within the week by his own people.
The 'peace process' between them is as pointless as any human activity ever conceived.
Can...not...work, will...not...work...ever. Not until kingdom come.
Anyone who believes otherwise is a fool. Or worse.
There is no such thing on the side of the palestinians. They are religiously required to kill the jews to bring in the 12th imam, establish the world-wide caliphate, etc.
Anyone here believe they can secularize the palestinians? We'd all love to hear your plan.
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| | | 999 | Boldwin
ID: 15242023
Sat, Mar 21, 2015, 01:59
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The biggest laugh is to suggest the hostilities originate from Israeli warmongering. What BS that is.
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| | | 1000 | Tree
ID: 161036918
Sat, Mar 21, 2015, 10:23
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they don't.
but Bibi isn't doing one damned thing by his rhetoric or actions.
honestly, if you're going to say "no Palestinian state under my watch," at least be man enough to stick to your guns and not backpeddle as soon as you have the votes.
Bibi is a great WARTIME leader. but he's a $hitty leader in a time of peace, so he'll do what he can to create a war to cover his a$$.
honestly, i have two schools of thought here - either make peace, or make war, but stop the bull$hit.
scorch the earth, or plant the earth. i'd prefer planting, but if it doesn't work, stop pissing around.
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| | | 1001 | Pancho Villa
ID: 2131916
Sat, Mar 21, 2015, 10:53
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the palestinian's implacable unchangable demand that all Jews die
There's one way to take yourself out of a conversation. When did you find time to poll every Palestinian?
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| | | 1002 | Tree
ID: 161036918
Sat, Mar 21, 2015, 10:57
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as a point of order for myself, i believe that Palestinian leadership doesn't want Israel or Jews around.
but i believe most Palestinians would do anything for peace between the two factions, Israel, and the Palestinians.
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| | | 1003 | Boldwin
ID: 15242023
Sat, Mar 21, 2015, 14:42
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Yeah, there may be a few. Not relevant. If they exist it is impossible that they will be a factor.
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| | | 1004 | sarge33rd
ID: 390471112
Sun, Mar 22, 2015, 02:14
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that Boldwin, is ominously similar to what Eisenhower said, of any politicians who sought to end unions, minimum wage and social security.
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| | | 1005 | Boldwin
ID: 2725228
Sun, Mar 22, 2015, 09:05
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Yeah, that's the thing about creeping socialism. Almost impossible to roll back.
If only I could have opted out of social security and invested that money in a simple index fund instead. I'd be a retired millionaire right now...sipping margaritas on some Caribbean beach instead of going Galt.
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| | | 1006 | biliruben
ID: 28420307
Sun, Mar 22, 2015, 09:26
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Have you actually done that math? Do you know what a guaranteed lifetime annuity costs? Do you know how much you personally have contributed to Social Security over your lifetime?
If you take care of yourself, it's a pretty good deal.
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| | | 1007 | Bean
ID: 14147911
Sun, Mar 22, 2015, 10:27
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<1005> Many of us could have done a better job with our social security tax (including the matching funds of our employers). However, there are many more people, who, given those funds, would squander them. One only has to look at the many people who have lost a small fortune with their investments during the many economic collapses to realize that not everyone is capable of proper investment strategies. Markets are zero sum games in a stagnant economy. For every winner there is a loser. An appeal to get all of the suckers into the game, so that they can be fleeced is not a smart formula for society to care for the elderly.
Most uninformed people, and most ARE uninformed, think that social security is designed to allow them to retire with no other source of income or a sizable nest egg. Informed people know that it is just a supplement, and save during their working years.
So many people have accessed their IRAs early and paid the taxes just to get their hands on their money. I have seen ignorant people cash in on their pensions during job changes too, its amazing how some people simply do not understand how to manage their wealth. Unfortunately too many of these future elderly Walmart greeters just dont get it. But at least they have social security to supplement their job at Walmart, and maybe entice their kids into taking them in.
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| | | 1008 | Boldwin
ID: 22230229
Sun, Mar 22, 2015, 11:00
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bili
Yeah, I've done the math on that.
There is ZERO in the trust fund.
Thanks to liberals the country is bankrupt.
There will be no viable government to cover those promises.
I know privatized plans work.
And SPDR's have averaged 10% annual growth thru my lifetime. SS is ridiculous by comparison.
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| | | 1009 | Bean
ID: 14147911
Sun, Mar 22, 2015, 11:09
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You might want to look at the drain that disability claims have made on the fund. In communities where population outpaces opportunities, sleezy lawyering is a growth industry.
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