Some joyous tidings from Israel

[Husar]

Revenge is a beautiful concept, personally I'm getting pretty tired with both sides and would just build a wall around the whole region and have them sort it out themselves. Yes, just wall Israel in as well, it's not like they're a beacon of understanding, neither are many Palestinians. You could then let the people out in pairs, that means an israeli and a palestinian holding hands can get out, everybody else stays inside. :eyebrows:

[LittleGrizzly]

Revenge is a beautiful concept, personally I'm getting pretty tired with both sides and would just build a wall around the whole region and have them sort it out themselves. Yes, just wall Israel in as well, it's not like they're a beacon of understanding, neither are many Palestinians. You could then let the people out in pairs, that means an israeli and a palestinian holding hands can get out, everybody else stays inside.

Thats genius!

[Watchman]

Oh, you can complain and be disgusted, it just won't do you any good.And averting my gaze would ?


There has not been a world war since the nuclear weapons have been invented and employed in the arsenals of the world's superpowers.And the number of those before that is exact two (well, there are a few that can be claimed to have made a good effort too, but..). For something like, oh, six-eight thousand years of organised civilisation.

The main thing is really that the two World Wars just taught everyone that Thou Shalt Not Fight Another First-Tier State because it's mainly a fine way to get both ruined and some opportunistic jerk sitting on the sidelines usurp primacy. Plus it's unbelievably costly and only wins you grief. Most actually got the lesson already from the First, the Nazis just were too delusional to believe it...

Also, why's it world wars now ? The last time it was just "wars"...
I must say this habit of yours of tacking on conditionals ad hoc and recursively isn't really helping your argument.


You're are focusing on who said it, instead of what is being said. It could be Napoleon III, Hitler, the guy down the street or a bum living under a bridge. Doesn't matter.I'd say it matters quite a bit if the guy you quoted (and who presumably coined the phrase) more or less spent his career disproving the claim...

Would you, perhaps, instead like to try to Prove It(tm) ?

[rvg]

And averting my gaze would ?
It would mean little either way.



And the number of those before that is exact two (well, there are a few that can be claimed to have made a good effort too, but..). For something like, oh, six-eight thousand years of organised civilisation.

The main thing is really that the two World Wars just taught everyone that Thou Shalt Not Fight Another First-Tier State because it's mainly a fine way to get both ruined and some opportunistic jerk sitting on the sidelines usurp primacy. Plus it's unbelievably costly and only wins you grief. Most actually got the lesson already from the First, the Nazis just were too delusional to believe it...

Also, why's it world wars now ? The last time it was just "wars"...
I must say this habit of yours of tacking on conditionals ad hoc and recursively isn't really helping your argument.

Two wars in rapid succession. God knows how many wars have been prevented since then by the nuclear deterrant.
Wars between superpowers are doomed to become world wars. Nazis lost because they bit off more than they could chew and didn't have nukes to level the playing field.




I'd say it matters quite a bit if the guy you quoted (and who presumably coined the phrase) more or less spent his career disproving the claim...


You know what, forget Napoleon II. I heard a guy down the street say that world consisting of empires would be far more stable than the one we live in today. I think he's right.



Would you, perhaps, instead like to try to Prove It(tm) ?


Sure. When time comes, vote for Emperor RVG I as your supreme ruler. Life will get better, I guarantee it.

[Watchman]

It would mean little either way.Ever heard the one that went "and when they came for me, there was no one left to speak up for me"...?

Yeah, apathy's such a sensible and responsible reaction to bad stuff happening.


Two wars in rapid succession. God knows how many wars have been prevented since then by the nuclear deterrant.Maybe one. The list of ones that weren't prevented is sodding long, as the two blocks then just duked it out by proxies...


Wars between superpowers are doomed to become world wars.Only those between global superpowers, mind you...


Nazis lost because they bit off more than they could chew and didn't have nukes to level the playing field.True enough, although the relevance eludes me.


You know what, forget Napoleon II. I heard a guy down the street say that world consisting of empires would be far more stable than the one we live in today.And wtf does he know about it ?


I think he's right.Why ?
(I get the feeling this isn't the first time I'm asking this...)


Sure. When time comes, vote for Emperor RVG I as your supreme ruler. Life will get better, I guarantee it.The only Emperor I know of that actually was elected to the office were the Holy Roman Emperors, and that office's been defunct for centuries now.

Anyway, I was actually asking you to give convincing arguments for it...

[rvg]

Ever heard the one that went "and when they came for me, there was no one left to speak up for me"...?

Yeah, apathy's such a sensible and responsible reaction to bad stuff happening.

Maybe one. The list of ones that weren't prevented is sodding long, as the two blocks then just duked it out by proxies...

Only those between global superpowers, mind you...

True enough, although the relevance eludes me.

And wtf does he know about it ?

Why ?
(I get the feeling this isn't the first time I'm asking this...)

The only Emperor I know of that actually was elected to the office were the Holy Roman Emperors, and that office's been defunct for centuries now.

Anyway, I was actually asking you to give convincing arguments for it...

I already gave you the explanations, but here's the recap:

World(Empires + Massive Nuclear Arsenals) == Peace

because...

War between nuke-armed Empires == MAD == nobody wins == no incentive to start one.

[LittleGrizzly]

no incentive to start one.

We got fairly close during the cold war, and if the leaders of us and ussr can get that close then imagine some nut who thinks he's going to heaven anyway (who needs to worry about earth)

It only takes an arrogant leader who thinks a nuclear war is winnable or a fundamentalist who isn't worried about self destruction....

[Watchman]

I already gave you the explanations, but here's the recap:

World(Empires + Massive Nuclear Arsenals) == Peace

because...

War between nuke-armed Empires == MAD == nobody wins == no incentive to start one.And I gave you the counter-argument that for fifty years the world had rival empires with nukes, which indeed did not fight... each other. Everyone else was fair game, and for that matter didn't have any compunctions about having wars between themselves either.

Verdict: fail. Unless you propose everyone gets nukes or something. Which also fails, but for different reasons.

[Watchman]

And since which part of the discussion did "empire" become synonymous with "empire... WITH NUKES!" anyway ? Because it wasn't in the beginning.

[rvg]

And I gave you the counter-argument that for fifty years the world had rival empires with nukes, which indeed did not fight... each other. Everyone else was fair game, and for that matter didn't have any compunctions about having wars between themselves either.

Verdict: fail. Unless you propose everyone gets nukes or something. Which also fails, but for different reasons.

Well of course it fails because the world is *NOT* a collection of half a dozen empires. If it ever *becomes* that, there will be peace. EVERYWHERE.

[Watchman]

And how exactly would you propose the world get divvied up between a handful of superpowers with nukes without them fatally stepping on each others' toes in the process ? And even if it somehow happened, what's to say one or more wouldn't get nutso enough to start a war anyway at some point (presumably in the hope that "they won't escalate to nuclear over something this small...") ?

I hope you realize you might as well say we'll have world peace after the grey men from Arcturus land and teach us cosmic wisdom...

[rvg]

no incentive to start one.

We got fairly close during the cold war, and if the leaders of us and ussr can get that close then imagine some nut who thinks he's going to heaven anyway (who needs to worry about earth)

It only takes an arrogant leader who thinks a nuclear war is winnable or a fundamentalist who isn't worried about self destruction....

Actually, it wasn't quite as close as one might think... During the Caribbean crisis at the height of the war rhetoric, young Fidel Castro calld Khruschev and told him that if Cuba has to be sacrificed in the name of communism and revolution, then so be it! Khruschev mumbled something about Castro being out of his :daisy: mind and hung up on him...

[rvg]

And how exactly would you propose the world get divvied up between a handful of superpowers with nukes without them fatally stepping on each others' toes in the process ? And even if it somehow happened, what's to say one or more wouldn't get nutso enough to start a war anyway at some point (presumably in the hope that "they won't escalate to nuclear over something this small...") ?

I hope you realize you might as well say we'll have world peace after the grey men from Arcturus land and teach us cosmic wisdom...

How? Doesn't matter. Hold a vote, draw lots, fight conventional wars, it makes no difference. As long as in the end the empires are roughly of the same capacity to feed their people and nobody ends up holding all the resources. If all empires mutually and equally hate each other's guts, that's an extra bonus, since that would likely eliminate possible alliances.

[rvg]

And since which part of the discussion did "empire" become synonymous with "empire... WITH NUKES!" anyway ? Because it wasn't in the beginning.

because we live in 2008. And this day and age every empire has them.

[Watchman]

So, how many "empires" do we have around ? One ? Zero ?

Lots more states with nukes tho'.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

So, how many "empires" do we have around ? One ? Zero ?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire#1945_to_present

:shrug:

[Watchman]

Thanks, so two (three if Japan counts, as it *does* have a bona fide Emperor...) to zero depending massively on definitions. And decidedly more of Patently Not Empires that have nukes.

You know, I'm pretty close to just writing rvg's theory off as "incoherent" now.

[LittleGrizzly]

young Fidel Castro calld Khruschev and told him that if Cuba has to be sacrificed in the name of communism and revolution, then so be it! Khruschev mumbled something about Castro being out of his :daisy: mind and hung up on him...

so a young fidel castro was up for it, why is it unlkely for a young fidel castro type personality to take over a nuke wielding empire ? because if that happens he is obviously unafraid of mad so mad theory does not apply

and then we have countries like pakistan as modern day examples where nukes could make thier way into the hands of someone who doesn't subscribe to mad (or doesn't care)

I now what you're getting at i think there would be a lot less smaller wars but there would be a bigger risk of a huge one that even nukes won't stop

[Hooahguy]

Doesn't matter. The list of casualties is currently under 10 people, but even if it were zero, it would not matter.
maybe in the month, 10. but overall, waaaaaay more than that.

[rvg]

young Fidel Castro calld Khruschev and told him that if Cuba has to be sacrificed in the name of communism and revolution, then so be it! Khruschev mumbled something about Castro being out of his f*ing mind and hung up on him...

so a young fidel castro was up for it, why is it unlkely for a young fidel castro type personality to take over a nuke wielding empire ? because if that happens he is obviously unafraid of mad so mad theory does not apply

and then we have countries like pakistan as modern day examples where nukes could make thier way into the hands of someone who doesn't subscribe to mad (or doesn't care)

I now what you're getting at i think there would be a lot less smaller wars but there would be a bigger risk of a huge one that even nukes won't stop

Castro only had Cuba to lose, which is why he didnt mind. Khruschev had far more to lose, which is why to him the war was unthinkable.

[Jolt]

If we start taking the route of historical claims, the Jews still win out since before Israel, British madate, Ottoman Empire, The Mamluks, The Crusaders, The Romans, The Macedonians, The Persians, The Chaldeans and The Assyrians, that land belonged to the Jews. Well, there were Canaanites before that, but they are all dead and cannot claim that land.

Ooh! I know! What about Bulgars, Magyars (e.g. Hungarians), Polish, and basically every other Slavic and non-Slavic people inhabitting Eastern Europe start declaring that they want their homelands in Russia? Using that argument, they were there before the Russians. Doesn't matter if they left it, right? What about Native Americans? They were there before the United States of America, and since they still exist, and on the grounds of the reason you just gave, they have the historical claim and legitimacy to take large swaths of the United States and their own lands, on basis that they were there before the "Americans".

[rvg]

Ooh! I know! What about Bulgars, Magyars (e.g. Hungarians), Polish, and basically every other Slavic and non-Slavic people inhabitting Eastern Europe start declaring that they want their homelands in Russia? Using that argument, they were there before the Russians. Doesn't matter if they left it, right? What about Native Americans? They were there before the United States of America, and since they still exist, and on the grounds of the reason you just gave, they have the historical claim and legitimacy to take large swaths of the United States and their own lands, on basis that they were there before the "Americans".

Exactly.

[LittleGrizzly]

Castro only had Cuba to lose, which is why he didnt mind. Khruschev had far more to lose, which is why to him the war was unthinkable.

Well Castro also seemed quite ready to die for a cause, what if kruschev had been a young and aggresively minded like fidel, if your going to die the size of your empire seems unimportant, or simply because fidel thought the war was winnable, and some people did....

Im not saying it's likely but you cannot rule it out as a possibility....

[Jolt]

Exactly.

That is the problem. The claims that have been used to legitimize Israel would lead to the creation of a myriad other countries, and since the myriad countries will not be created since the very same governments who accept the reasons for the creation of Israel refuse for others to use those same reasons to create new nations on their own territory, one can only argue that the creation of Israel is an exception, and using the concept of jurisprudence, therefore illegal and illegitimate.

[rvg]

That is the problem. The claims that have been used to legitimize Israel would lead to the creation of a myriad other countries, and since the myriad countries will not be created since the very same governments who accept the reasons for the creation of Israel refuse for others to use those same reasons to create new nations on their own territory, one can only argue that the creation of Israel is an exception, and using the concept of jurisprudence, therefore illegal and illegitimate.

No, the problem is that historical claims in general are absurd and irrelevant. As such, the Palestinian claim of owning that land is as worthless as the possible Hungarian claim of the Urals or the Jewish claim. It doesn't matter who was there first or who has lived there for centuries. The only thing that matters is who owns it now. Such is the nature of land grabs throughout the history.

[rvg]

Castro only had Cuba to lose, which is why he didnt mind. Khruschev had far more to lose, which is why to him the war was unthinkable.

Well Castro also seemed quite ready to die for a cause, what if kruschev had been a young and aggresively minded like fidel, if your going to die the size of your empire seems unimportant, or simply because fidel thought the war was winnable, and some people did....

Im not saying it's likely but you cannot rule it out as a possibility....

Rule it out completely? Probably not. Still, if instead of having 200 people capable of doing something fundamentally stupid you instead get 6 people, it's an overall improvement.

[Husar]

I bknow the Israelis vs Palestinians conflict is pretty boring and noone wants to talk about it anymore but since the topic mentions it maybe it is okay if I throw in this link to The Big Picture (http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/12/israel_and_gaza.html).

Some may have noticed that I like that site and that is because I personally feel it is rather unbiased, maybe not completely but it usually shows pictures from both sides of a conflict (or just nice pictures of out planet but that isn't relevant here) and if I'm not completely lost in translation the descriptions make no real judgements.
Which kind of fits with my thoughts that both sides have murderers.

Oh and I had been wondering for a while what homemade rockets look like and how exactly they fire them over the border, now I know. :dizzy2:

[Hooahguy]

Imagine how offensive Israel's actions are to the people who gave their lives so your ancestors were able to survive to have descendants.

With closed borders, restriction in water electricity etc the palestinian areas are concentration camps. There is no escape from Gaza.

A few days ago a ship carrying aid, doctors and journalists was rammed by the Israeli navy in international waters just because it was heading for Gaza. Israel makes a point about maximizing the suffering of civilians.

The current state of Gaza does draw Holocaust parallels. Denying it is happening draws its own parallels too.

ignore the fact that it was an unmarked vessel, when only red cross and the like vessels are allowed in. ignore the fact that the ship refused to make radio contact with the israeli navy, ignore the fact that israel cant afford to assume things. for all they know, the vessel had weapons in it.
my former congresswoman, Cynthia McKinney (who is rumored to be an anti-semite after some controversial comments about jews in an election to the state legislature, and has some issues with the capitol hill police) was on that boat. im glad they rammed it.

about drawing parallels to gaza with the holocaust:

im sorry, you really cant. the holocaust was a genocide. whats happening in gaza isnt a genocide- to say that it is one is just wrong. we arent rounding up palestinians and shooting them. there is no ethnic cleansing. to say there is, then i suggest you actually go to israel, tour the land, ask a few israeli-palestinians about the "genocide" there, then come back talk. ive done that already.
i suggest you take an in-depth course on the Holocaust. then maybe you will change your view.

[Hooahguy]

Israel is an apartheid state founded on ethnic cleansing.

wrong. how can it be apartheid if there are 3 arab political parties, all of which hold seats in the Knesset? Israel is the only democracy in that area. that automatically, by the definition of apartheid, makes it not an apartheid state.
im going to post a lengthy reply as to why your claim, especially the ethnic cleansing one is false.

[Tribesman]

ignore the fact that it was an unmarked vessel, when only red cross and the like vessels are allowed in.
:laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:
So to add to your lack of knowledge of Israel you add a lack of knowledge of Maritime law:dizzy2:

[Hooahguy]

im only un-knowledgeable about israel in your opinion. now stop the personal attacks.
according to you- everyone who disagrees with you is at a lower level, you belittle them. that is disgusting.

according to the israeli embassy spokesman, Jonathan Peled-
“We receive all aid and let it enter Gaza properly so that we can make sure that it’s only humanitarian aid and they’re not smuggling people and weapons and explosives into Gaza.”
now had it complied to make contact with the Israeli navy, then things would have been different.

[Idaho]

wrong. how can it be apartheid if there are 3 arab political parties, all of which hold seats in the Knesset? Israel is the only democracy in that area. that automatically, by the definition of apartheid, makes it not an apartheid state.
im going to post a lengthy reply as to why your claim, especially the ethnic cleansing one is false.

How come Arabs can't buy property in certain areas? How come they are prejudiced against in daily life? And how come deporting them from Israel is regularly suggested in the Knesset?

So how come the Palestinians can't vote in Israeli elections? And how come Pal land owners had their property conviscated and were denied the right to return after 1948?

[Kralizec]

wrong. how can it be apartheid if there are 3 arab political parties, all of which hold seats in the Knesset? Israel is the only democracy in that area. that automatically, by the definition of apartheid, makes it not an apartheid state.
im going to post a lengthy reply as to why your claim, especially the ethnic cleansing one is false.

Wether the explusion of 1948 was premeditated by the Israeli leaders of the time, I can't say- but to say that they left completely of their own accord and voluntarily refused citizenship is bogus.

The Palestinians on the occupied west bank have no political rights while yet many of them are completely dependent on work in Israel proper or near the illegal settlements. Many Israeli small business exploit this, while the authorities only fight it by targetting those who cross the borders in order to work for a living. The Arab citizens in Israel are a token minority, and they're only tolerated on the condition that they'll never be a majority of the citizens- as soon as their numbers have grown substantially, expect the reactionary parties in the Knesset to become more popular.

[Fragony]

Damnit Husar you could have warned me that that link contains dead cats and dogs.

I like cats and dogs.

[rasoforos]

we arent rounding up palestinians and shooting them.

So Gaza isnt one one of the most densely populated areas in the world and Palestinians can freely walk in and out of it and into Israel whenever they want...

there is no ethnic cleansing.

No. Israel carpetbombs criminal elements in its non-Palestinian territories as well I suppose.

to say there is, then i suggest you actually go to israel, tour the land, ask a few israeli-palestinians about the "genocide" there, then come back talk.

I wouldn't want to give money to a regime that does things I do not approve. From a historical perspective I would love to when there is peace and a fair solution.

(i.e the Sumerians gain control because they were there first or something :elephant:)

i suggest you take an in-depth course on the Holocaust. then maybe you will change your view.

Do u really think that if I know more about the techniques the Nazis used to murder Jewish people I will gain an appreciation for the techniques Israel used to murder Palestinians? (Or the techniques Palestinians use to kill Israelis?).

Its murder of innocent people, people who have no possibility of escape and are considered second class citizens, people who due to their religious background are uniformly considered dangerous to the state.

My point is that from a people that suffered so much, such brutal actions bring only shame. I dont give a rat's :daisy: whether (and I don't think) they are the same. But they are both atrocities and both have deniers (and that parallel I will draw, I don't want or need to draw more because that is not my point). And I condemn both.

[Hooahguy]

I wouldn't want to give money to a regime that does things I do not approve. From a historical perspective I would love to when there is peace and a fair solution.
then how can you be a fair judge on the situation? the way i see it, you are only hearing this from the media, who isnt always bias-free on either side. the best way to asses a situation is if you go there. why do you think so many people looking for a resolution to conflicts actually go to the place on conflict? sitting at a comfy desk at a computer doesnt cut it.


Do u really think that if I know more about the techniques the Nazis used to murder Jewish people I will gain an appreciation for the techniques Israel used to murder Palestinians? (Or the techniques Palestinians use to kill Israelis?).

no, but it will make you realize that how the holocaust cant compare to the treatment of palestinians.

[Hooahguy]

How come Arabs can't buy property in certain areas?
hard to buy land from the government.... in any country. :laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:


How come they are prejudiced against in daily life?
cant really help you there. the government has no control over peoples thoughts.... i bet down in the south in the US there are racist people agaisnt blacks.


And how come deporting them from Israel is regularly suggested in the Knesset?
israels political system has many small, fringe groups, both to the far left and the far right. both kind of parties have seats in the knesset. of course you are going to get that demand. you also get the demand from the far left to withdraw to the 1948 borders. neither of which will happen.


So how come the Palestinians can't vote in Israeli elections?
:laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:
because they arent citizens. israeli Palestinians can vote. the Palestinians in gaza and such cant, becasue they arent israeli.


And how come Pal land owners had their property conviscated and were denied the right to return after 1948?
um..... if you had done the research, israel offered to let 100,000 arabs back to their peoperty after the 1948 war. the arabs refused. :help:
ill post more when i have the time on this matter.

[Hooahguy]

Wether the explusion of 1948 was premeditated by the Israeli leaders of the time, I can't say- but to say that they left completely of their own accord and voluntarily refused citizenship is bogus.

The Palestinians on the occupied west bank have no political rights while yet many of them are completely dependent on work in Israel proper or near the illegal settlements. Many Israeli small business exploit this, while the authorities only fight it by targetting those who cross the borders in order to work for a living. The Arab citizens in Israel are a token minority, and they're only tolerated on the condition that they'll never be a majority of the citizens- as soon as their numbers have grown substantially, expect the reactionary parties in the Knesset to become more popular.
it wasnt entirely an expulsion. the Arab High Council (i think that was the correct, i forget) in 1948 before israel was created, ordered palestinians to get out, since the invading armies were about to come in. so they left, expecting to return after the victorious arab armies defeated israel. but the arabs lost, so the palestinians never returned. we offered to let back in 100,000 arabs, back to their homes, but the AHC refused the offer.

about the palestinians going over to work and still cant vote-
its like with illigal immigrants here in the US. they come here to work and cant vote- b/c they arent citizens. its sad that buisness owners take advantage, but then again, i think they got thier revenge with last summers bulldozer attacks.

[Tribesman]

now stop the personal attacks.

Personal attacks ?

im only un-knowledgeable about israel in your opinion.
in my opinion eh ?
OK lets take a measure of that .
Jerusalem is a pretty core subject when it comes to topics on Palestine , its status has been a real big issue since the creation of the state was first proposed .
Yet you managed to claim not only that it is Israeli but that it is the capital and is recognised as such by everyone apart from a few arabs .
That really suggests very strongly that you are very very unknowledgeable about Israel :yes:
And as for the lack of knowledge of maritime law , well thats easy , the incident was 90 miles off the coast and well out of Israels jurisdiction , Israels actions were so illegal that several countries have issued formal protests to the Knesset from their embassies in Tel-Aviv .

[KarlXII]

according to the israeli embassy spokesman, Jonathan Peled-
“We receive all aid and let it enter Gaza properly so that we can make sure that it’s only humanitarian aid and they’re not smuggling people and weapons and explosives into Gaza.”
now had it complied to make contact with the Israeli navy, then things would have been different.

Good enough for me, Hail Israel!

[rasoforos]

then how can you be a fair judge on the situation? the way i see it, you are only hearing this from the media, who isnt always bias-free on either side. the best way to asses a situation is if you go there. why do you think so many people looking for a resolution to conflicts actually go to the place on conflict? sitting at a comfy desk at a computer doesnt cut it.




Are you suggesting that unless one goes there they cannot have an opinion? This is not something I can comply with because...

...I haven't been to planet Venus either but I trust it is a infernal hellhole.

Sure it is good to have a first hand look but we are entitled to our opinions regardless thank you very much. You are probably not in Gaza at the moment either :)

[Jolt]

No, the problem is that historical claims in general are absurd and irrelevant.

See how you are right? Problem is that by the time Israel was supposed to be formed, there was already a thing called International Law. And that law repeats what you have just said, then how come Israel was still created?

Bottom-line: If Israel hadn't been created, these wars wouldn't exist and these people wouldn't have been killed.

[KarlXII]

Are you suggesting that unless one goes there they cannot have an opinion? This is not something I can comply with because...

...I haven't been to planet Venus either but I trust it is a infernal hellhole.

Sure it is good to have a first hand look but we are entitled to our opinions regardless thank you very much. You are probably not in Gaza at the moment either :)

You don't get it, rasoforos, unless you've been there, you don't have a right to an opinion. All Hail Israel!

[KarlXII]

then how can you be a fair judge on the situation? the way i see it, you are only hearing this from the media, who isnt always bias-free on either side.

That's funny coming from you.


the best way to asses a situation is if you go there.

Ok, and?


why do you think so many people looking for a resolution to conflicts actually go to the place on conflict?

So they can speak directly to the belligerents in question.


sitting at a comfy desk at a computer doesnt cut it.

You're as much guilty of this as anyone else here. Just because you've been to the country doesn't mean you're the all knowing expert of it's affairs and policies.

If a university professor who studies extensively in Israeli-Arab relations does not have the chance to go to the country, is he not entitled to his opinion?

[Jolt]

If a university professor who studies extensively in Israeli-Arab relations does not have the chance to go to the country, is he not entitled to his opinion?

How preposterous! Of course not! And neither is anyone entitled to talk about space or the Moon or Mars as they have never been there!

[rory_20_uk]

A friend of mine confidently gave her assessment of Saudi Arabia as a very nice country to live in and work in, based on the fact she had lived over there... for 2 years, aged 2 to 4.

How is setting foot in an area, taking a few snaps and then disappearing supposed to give you knowledge of the whole situation? How long does someone have to be in an area to have sufficient knowledge, who do they have to talk to, how many, what do they have to see?

Personally I think that the cursory information that one gets from a visit is counter productive as they get a very biased view on the situation.

~:smoking:

[Lord Winter]

Brilliant, Isreal makes another martyr. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7807124.stm) Not to mention that his status as a military target is shaky at best. Is is me, or is Israel's kill all the leaders stragtegy going to backfire?

[Watchman]

Have they tried a single strategy that hasn't backfired, anyway ? I mean, back in the day they used to support Hamas to undermine the PLO...

[Strike For The South]

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/pictures/PalestinianChildAbuse/


Remember kids, hate is counter productive

[rasoforos]

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/pictures/PalestinianChildAbuse/


Remember kids, hate is counter productive

Indeed? Being one sided though is also rather questionable

http://www.childsoldiersglobalreport.org/content/israel


Notable quotes:

Israeli settlers

Israeli children living in settlements were frequently involved in violent confrontations with Palestinian neighbours and, on occasion, international observers. In Hebron, observers reported the systematic use of youngsters under 12 to carry out acts of violence and vandalism against Palestinians and their property.44 Israel’s police commander in the Hebron region said, “We have a major problem here. They [the settlers] understand our weak point – and they use children under the age of criminal responsibility, under the age of twelve. They do this intentionally. They [the children] are the tactical wing, even the strategic wing, of the adults.”45 The Israeli NGO Yesh Din found that of 150 cases of complaints of settler violence opened in 2005 and closed by November that year, 50 involved children under the age of criminal responsibility, all from the Hebron area.46 One adult victim from the Tel Rumeida area of Hebron reported that “settler children attack us, with the parents encouraging them and standing next to them”.47 A number of videos of child settler violence were posted on the Internet in 2006–7.48 Attacks by groups of older Israeli children against Palestinians in the area were reported on a relatively frequent basis.49

In 2007 three incidents were documented where Palestinian children were used as human shields by the IDF in and around Nablus, two years after an Israeli Supreme Court ruling banned this practice.24 In one case, an 11-year-old girl was sent into a derelict building ahead of IDF soldiers investigating the source of shooting.25 In another case, a 15-year-old boy was told to walk ahead of soldiers searching his family home, the soldiers firing five or six shots.26


And of course you can find such images everywhere:

https://img383.imageshack.us/img383/746/israel2qx9.th.jpg (https://img383.imageshack.us/my.php?image=israel2qx9.jpg)

https://img76.imageshack.us/img76/5665/israel1ih7.jpg

Arent they cute?

[Furunculus]

" Originally Posted by Idaho View Post
Israel is an apartheid state founded on ethnic cleansing."

Israel is the only middle-east country currently considered a democracy in 2008 by the economist:
http://a330.g.akamai.net/7/330/25828/20081021185552/graphics.eiu.com/PDF/Democracy%20Index%202008.pdf

[Husar]

Meh, how can a country that banned prostitution and has huge taxes on beer end up with a full score in civil liberties?

[Tribesman]

Israel is the only middle-east country currently considered a democracy in 2008 by the economist:

Interesting .
So in the part of list dealing with "flawed democracies" Israel gets the lowest score for civil liberties .
Also interesting to note that the occupied territories fell from the list of "flawed democracies" due to where the losing party sponsored by Israel failed in its attempt at launching a coup to overturn the democratic vote .

[Furunculus]

Interesting indeed.

The only middle-eastern country to rank as a democracy, flawed or otherwise, and with a score not far off that of a full democracy.

And ranked 38th in the world, even well ahead of places such as turkey (87th), lebanon (89th), and many european countries.

Interesting indeed........................................

[Kralizec]

Israel may be a modern democracy in the sense that it garantues civil and political rights for its own citizens, yet for the past few decades it has excersised de facto control over territories that don't belong to it and stopped its inhabitants from forming their own state. Being a nominal democracy doesn't mean that everything the political leadership churns out is morally right.

[FactionHeir]

So what kind of democracy restricts religious worship to those over 50s like Israel has done today for Muslims only? Or attempt to prevent demonstrations against their state terror by Palestinians?

In any case, being a democracy doesn't give you a blank check to beat down anyone else, especially since Palestinians democratically elected their government too.

[Furunculus]

heh, i'm just trying to bring a little reality into Idaho's overblown rhetoric. ;)

[Tribesman]

with a score not far off that of a full democracy.

Yes a score that is very badly let down by its civil liberties .
Actually that score should be much lower than presented , the question of the judiciary in particular .
There should be a new category of response ....
"Does the judiciary frequently and consistantly deliver verdicts against the government which the government completely ignores because the laws of their own country mean absolutely nothing to them ?"

That should drop their civil liberties score to around that of Sudan .:2thumbsup:

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

So what kind of democracy restricts religious worship to those over 50s like Israel has done today for Muslims only? Or attempt to prevent demonstrations against their state terror by Palestinians?

In any case, being a democracy doesn't give you a blank check to beat down anyone else, especially since Palestinians democratically elected their government too.


But the Israelis are surrounded by nations that don't like them, and would be much happy if Israel was destroyed.

I,myself, am rooting for Israel. As much as I hate non-combatans dying in war, War is hell. Get over it people. Plus, These Moslem nations are always causing problems, so I frankly can't be concerned if my Jewish friends wipe them off the map. I be much pleased. Now I know there are some good Muslim people, not all are Radicals, but still. I call it like I see it.

[naut]

I believe a non-biased, fact based history lesson is required for some of the posters here. Rather, than the flawed perspective that they have had forced upon them by their parents. It's also something both sides in the conflict could use, as having met young people from both Israel and places like Syria, Lebanon and Palestine they have all been force fed ethnic hate and garbage regarding the other side since pretty much the day they entered into the world.

[Furunculus]

Yes a score that is very badly let down by its civil liberties .
Actually that score should be much lower than presented , the question of the judiciary in particular .
There should be a new category of response ....
"Does the judiciary frequently and consistantly deliver verdicts against the government which the government completely ignores because the laws of their own country mean absolutely nothing to them ?"

That should drop their civil liberties score to around that of Sudan .:2thumbsup:

Interesting that you think you can provide a better analysis than the Economist, interesting.........................

[Tribesman]

Interesting that you think you can provide a better analysis than the Economist, interesting
Well there is no point measuring the extent that a judiciary is able to give a verdict against the government when the government completely ignores its own laws .
Oh sorry it doesn't completely ignore its own laws , it only does it based on peoples religion .
Hey thats discrimination isn't it , the sort of nasty discrimination other countries have had ...like that apartheid discrimination in South Africa .
:oops:Oh dear perhaps you had better go back to trying to balance Idahos rhetoric as you have missed out a hell of a lot of reality with your attempt .

[KarlXII]

so I frankly can't be concerned if my Jewish friends wipe them off the map. I be much pleased.

You should run for President of Iran.

[Dutch_guy]

I believe a non-biased, fact based history lesson is required for some of the posters here. Rather, than the flawed perspective that they have had forced upon them by their parents.

That would be fantastic, but getting rid of all the bias would make the backroom a lot less interesting.

:balloon2:

[Husar]

Interesting that you think you can provide a better analysis than the Economist, interesting.........................

Pff, I even pointed out a flaw in their chart before him...

[Watchman]

But the Israelis are surrounded by nations that don't like them, and would be much happy if Israel was destroyed.And they've noticeably stopped trying to do a damn thing about it since 1973. The only real exception is Syria (which still has a dispute going on over the Golan Heights), but even that has at most amounted to the occasional brief skirmish (in which the Syrians invariably came off worse) and causing trouble by proxy (reads mainly as Hezbollah).

So yeah.


Now I know there are some good Muslim people, not all are Radicals, but still. I call it like I see it."I'm no racist, but Goddamn if some ****** sits on the same bench with me," huh ?
:dizzy2:
Lo, the Well-Informed And Level-Headed Man has spoken.

[tibilicus]

. Now I know there are some good Muslim people, not all are Radicals, but still. I call it like I see it.

A small minority of Muslims are radicals and even then radical Muslims are situated in certain country's and then most of the time they aren't a majority.

The media likes to show it otherwise though and so does the US government. The war on terror is nothing more than a sham to extract resources and try and get a sphere of influence in a region which the US has non. If any one tells you otherwise they are wrong. Waging a war on an ideology never works..

[Seamus Fermanagh]

...The media likes to show it otherwise though and so does the US government. The war on terror is nothing more than a sham to extract resources and try and get a sphere of influence in a region which the US has non. If any one tells you otherwise they are wrong. Waging a war on an ideology never works.

The WoT is not a sham (whatever you think of its efficacy) and the USA's primary goal is not to "extract resources." We're simply not that machiavellian nor are we interested enough in "empire." Think us naive and/or stupid for it if you wish, but "making the world a better, safer place" really is the objective.

There are those in the USA who think we should be more aggressive in our own interests, who think that we should simply glaze over the most troublesome spots in the ME and take what we want/need for our own interests, but they are very few and the rest of us treat them as you would your increasingly senile grandfather.


Also, waging a war on an ideology can be very much successful, though I would concur with your implied point that military weapons and violence are not the most successful tools for it. Witness Western Europe's ongoing ideological campaigns to marginalize and discard religion and nationalism -- both showing a goodly degree of success (though the timeframe for this shift has been very long).

[Incongruous]

The WoT is a sham, its primary purpose is to secure oil for the US & Co. Democracy and the fight against terrorists are in the back seats, one need only look at the current state of Afghanistan and the US's true reasons for invading.

Iraq we all know was a sham.

The supposed "defence" of Israel is also a sham, Israel has created a humanitarian crisis in Gaza of massive proportions, I am pleased to see that the US is isolated in its full fledged support of this absurd nation.
As I have said before, Israel must get smart now or suffer far greater hardships in the future.

Oh and the bumbling giant self-portrait so many Americans like to use is also bollocks, one need only look at the dirty deals you guys had in central Asia to figure that one out, just becuase you are often incompetent at it does not equal bumbling.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

The WoT is a sham, its primary purpose is to secure oil for the US & Co. Democracy and the fight against terrorists are in the back seats, one need only look at the current state of Afghanistan and the US's true reasons for invading.

Is there even a decent oil supply in Afghanistan?

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

A small minority of Muslims are radicals and even then radical Muslims are situated in certain country's and then most of the time they aren't a majority.

How do you define radical?
Is genital mutilation radical to you?
Is teaching children to hate the West and America radical? (Evidently not, since we already practically teach our children to here, come to think of it)
Is the oppression of women radical to you?
Is the murder of apostates radical to you?
Is the publicly condoned murder of homosexuals radical to you?
Is violence towards critics of Islam radical to you?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then perhaps you may want to change the part about a "small" minority. Yes, I'm sure it is still a minority.

I personally couldn't care less what someone's religion is or isn't. To quote Marvin the Robot, I ask only for information.

[Watchman]

Is there even a decent oil supply in Afghanistan?*cough* Pipelines. Wasn't some American firm having talks regarding one with the Taliban once before the latter called it quits ?


Is genital mutilation radical to you?Er - you do know it's a local folk tradition in certain parts of Africa that has zilch to do with the practicioners' confessional affiliations, right ? The local Christians and whatnots there practice it too AFAIK...

[rasoforos]

I think talking about the USA is a bit off topic...

This isnt about the WoT...

[Lorenzo_H]

List of Hamas suicide attacks. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Hamas_suicide_attacks)

Another reason to not support Hamas.

[Tribesman]

Another reason to not support Hamas.

:laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:
Click on the link at the bottom of your link and see America and Israels favourite "moderates" list of suicide attacks .
Funny isn't it , Hamas who cannot be supported because they are crazy stopped the suicide attacks in 2005 while Fatah who lost an election but tried to sieze power can be supported and armed even though in 2008 they still did the suicide thing .

[Hax]

EDIT: Removed hotlinked picture. Please note, forum rules forbid the posting of pictures of dead bodies. BG

Need I say more?

How on earth do you want to justify the murder of a child?

[rory_20_uk]

Let me get this straight:

Airstrikes OK
Artillery OK
Rockets TERRORIST!
Suicide bombs - eeeeevil!!!

:inquisitive:

It's as though if you want to indiscriminately kill people there are things one just doesn't do... unsurprisingly the "allowed" methods are high tech and are not available to Hamas. Perhaps if we gave them some howitzers and shells suddenly it'd be a proper fight.

Why is killing a child worse than killing an adult? Most adults just want to live a relatively quiet life, raise kids etc etc. Killing a mother or father will shatter just as many lives.

~:smoking:

[InsaneApache]

It seems to me that if you don't want your own women and kids killed then stop firing rockets at Israeli schools and day care centres. Simple really.

[rory_20_uk]

But it's not your own is it? It's people nearby, who if they didn't see you fire the rockets won't be ready for the artillery shells coming back.

The people responsible for the strikes on both sides are mostly shielded from the responses.

~:smoking:

[Husar]

Why is killing a child worse than killing an adult? Most adults just want to live a relatively quiet life, raise kids etc etc. Killing a mother or father will shatter just as many lives.

I agree with that. And the rest of the post but I accidentally deleted that. :sweatdrop:

[Tribesman]

It seems to me that if you don't want your own women and kids killed then stop firing rockets at Palestinian schools and day care centres. Simple really.

Works both ways don't it .

[InsaneApache]

Works both ways don't it

Who started it then? Doh! The evil Israelis of course, going over to Palestine, taking all the jobs and women.

Anyway I would have thought that left leaning members would be overjoyed at the results of unregulated mass immigration.

:laugh4:

[Guildenstern]

I'm more concerned over whether Israel's response will (a) stop Hamas from firing these rockets, and/or (b) further Israel's long-term security.

The results of previous Israeli military strikes into Palestinian territory suggest that (a) is generally not true, at least outside the very short term. Israeli politics suggests that no one has any clue whether anything Israel is doing will achieve or harm (b).

I think Israel should consider why international opinion seems to be swinging against it, and take steps to counter that swing, in addition to or instead of military actions like this.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Er - you do know it's a local folk tradition in certain parts of Africa that has zilch to do with the practicioners' confessional affiliations, right ? The local Christians and whatnots there practice it too AFAIK...

Yes, I do know that, I do not think it is practiced by the majority of Muslims, and is indeed condemned by many Arabian Islamic scholars. I do think it is interesting that that is the only one you decided to debate. ~;)

[Fragony]

I'm more concerned over whether Israel's response will (a) stop Hamas from firing these rockets, and/or (b) further Israel's long-term security.

The results of previous Israeli military strikes into Palestinian territory suggest that (a) is generally not true, at least outside the very short term. Israeli politics suggests that no one has any clue whether anything Israel is doing will achieve or harm (b).

I think Israel should consider why international opinion seems to be swinging against it, and take steps to counter that swing, in addition to or instead of military actions like this.

Assuming this is really about land but it isn't, this is a religious conflict. Never will never stop they are too allah-crazed, as we have seen. They already had peace but they can't control theirselves the need to kill is too strong and the need to kill will always be too strong. Just because the media is turning on them doesn't mean people are, our quality media are predictably enough united in prayer channeling their negative energy towards Israel and the lefties are predictably enough mentally blocking the thousands of rockets that fell on Israel (I don't think their brain is able to deal with such facts, you can tell them about it but they will point out that you can't handle the truth) and calling for a third intifada but it really pays to read the comments below the articles.

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/Fragony/childofhamas.jpg

[Idaho]

It seems to me that if you don't want your own women and kids killed then stop firing rockets at Israeli schools and day care centres. Simple really.

2 points to make here:

Firstly there was a ceasefire which stopped when one side launched a bombing raid killing 6 people on the 3rd November. I wonder which side launched that raid?

Secondly how many are innocents are killed in total by each side in these raids - and what justification is there for collective punishment?

[Tribesman]

Just because the media is turning on them doesn't mean people are, our quality media are predictably enough united in prayer channeling their negative energy towards Israel and the lefties are predictably enough mentally blocking the thousands of rockets that fell on Israel (I don't think their brain is able to deal with such facts, you can tell them about it but they will point out that you can't handle the truth)
:laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:
Can't handle the truth .:laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:
Frag you wouldn't know the truth if it announced itself in 10 foot high neon letters with a trumpet fanfare and firework display while it bit you on the nose .
The truth Frag is that Israel has tried this before , it doesn't work . They tried it again in Lebanon where they launched thousands of rockets thousands of bombs and thousands of shells , it achieved nothing apart from making Israel look stupid and weak while cementing Hezballahs grip on the territory .

[Fragony]

The truth Frag is that Israel has tried this before, it doesn't work.

If there is anything that hasn't worked over the year's it are peace treaties. It isn't a matter of tying to be loved for the Israeli's it's a matter of not being killed by hatebeards. The hatebeards are pretty clear on what there goal is, thought experiment; shave their beards, shave their heads, give them a BNP logo.

[Tribesman]

If there is anything that hasn't worked over the year's it are peace treaties.
:laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:
You couldn't be more wrong if you tried .

[naut]

:laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:

Frag you are too much. ~:flirt:

"If you don't understand colonialism, ethnic cleansing and the war for freedom, you can't understand Palestine." - Ilan Pappe

What you fail to understand is just how ingrained the hatred is in the minds of both sides. And that the violence is not the most pressing issue. The most pressing issue is that both sides fail to gain a wider perspective and/or question why the current situation stands as it does. They are happy to believe what has been told to them by their parents or political leaders. No matter where you hear something, or read something, it is going to be biased. Yet, it is your responsibility to understand and acknowledge that there will be bias, as with any source of information and therefore it is up to you to question it's reliability. This unfortunately does not happen, thus we are left with a perpetually open-ended conflict

The posts hooahguy made show this perfectly. He has obviously been given his views on the subject by his parents, and his parents would almost certainly be the same. Force fed opinion from an early age, without doing his own research and investigation to reach his own conclusions. Either that or he has undertaken a very one sided research effort.

Both Israel and the Arab states are to blame. BOTH of them. They both engage in unspeakable violence and blood-shed. Both have caused untold suffering on the other side, as well as caused suffering among their own people. Whether it's Israeli soldiers going into refugee camps and murdering innocents or bombing civilian centres with F16 bombers. Or whether it's Hezbolah firing mortars from Lebanon into Israeli settlements or suicide bombers blowing up buses. It doesn't matter. Violence against innocents, whomever they may be, is never justified. Especially not when the violence being carried out is thinly veiled collective punishment.

I implore everyone to read any of the works of Avi Schlaim, especially The Iron Wall, Ilan Pappe, Edward Said, Walid Khalidi, Richard A. Falk, Ella Shohat, Nur-eldeen Masalha, John Pilger, Benny Morris, Efraim Karsh, Shabtai Teveth, Norman Finkelstein, Daniel Pipes, Amir Taheri, Anita Shapira. (As a side note, reading the early work of Benny Morris and then comparing his viewpoint to where he stands now really shows how fickle human perspective is and how easy it is for people to be swayed from progressiveness to unadulterated bias.)

Disclaimer: For those of you that can't be bothered to find where my bias lies, I stand slightly pro-Palestinian.

[Watchman]

Yes, I do know that, I do not think it is practiced by the majority of Muslims, and is indeed condemned by many Arabian Islamic scholars. I do think it is interesting that that is the only one you decided to debate. ~;)Well, it seemed there wasn't that much grounds for it given that Europeans were doing the rest of the list not all that long ago... until they eventually tired of murdering each other (and the occasional outsider) over confessional issues. (Northern Ireland being a conditional anomaly.) "All but the most fanatical had begun to realize grapeshot might not actually be a good theological argument", as it were.

You know, Enlightenment and all that junk. Sidelining religion etc., the fun stuff some colonial cranks keep claiming will be the downfall of our civilisation and so on. :wink3:

I figured that was obvious and universal knowledge, and hence needed no reiterating... :tongue2:
(Also, I had to leave for work.)

The Muslims just haven't yet gone through the same process. My personal bet is that the current wave of hardcore revivalism - limited to fringe diehards - is a clear sign that said process of secularisation is at work, as such extremist reactionarism was much in evidence at the early stages of the European equivalent.
Sure hope the poor buggers don't need to have to go through similar drawn-out spates of religiously inspired organised mass violence though...

[naut]

Israel is the only middle-east country currently considered a democracy in 2008 by the economist:
http://a330.g.akamai.net/7/330/25828/20081021185552/graphics.eiu.com/PDF/Democracy%20Index%202008.pdf
Any state that perpetrates occupation cannot be called a democratic state - Ilan Pappe.

[Banquo's Ghost]

It's being reported that Israeli ground forces have invaded Gaza (http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0103/gaza.html) in the last hour.

[Megas Methuselah]

Oh, God no... This just keeps getting better, doesn't it? :no:

[Husar]

Any state that perpetrates occupation cannot be called a democratic state - Ilan Pappe.

Any state that perpetrates occupation after it's people voted for it in a referendum can be called a democratic state. - N. M. Vonken

[seireikhaan]

Any state that perpetrates occupation after it's people voted for it in a referendum can be called a democratic state. - N. M. Vonken
:laugh4:

[tibilicus]

let's hope Israel doesn't get hit by to many IED's on its way in.

Sigh, all this for political reasons. I hate democracy...

[Fragony]

The Muslims just haven't yet gone through the same process.


I can think of better pets, why not take a cat

[Lord Winter]

let's hope Israel doesn't get hit by to many IED's on its way in.


On the other hand if Isreal gets bloodied a bit they may think twice next time.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

On the other hand if Isreal gets bloodied a bit they may think twice next time.

The whole reason they're in there is to make some terrorists think twice.

[Hooahguy]

The posts hooahguy made show this perfectly. He has obviously been given his views on the subject by his parents, and his parents would almost certainly be the same. Force fed opinion from an early age, without doing his own research and investigation to reach his own conclusions. Either that or he has undertaken a very one sided research effort.
so you have visited my family and know what they tell me? :laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:
funny. they tell me nothing. i form my own views. in fact i have done research. its just that what ihave found not to your liking, you write it off as propaganda.
very disgusting.


Whether it's Israeli soldiers going into refugee camps and murdering innocents
do you have proof of this? :inquisitive:

[Lord Winter]

The whole reason they're in there is to make some terrorists think twice.

Well there's still attacks going on so they need to rethink there approach a little. All there doing is handing Hamas Propaganda material.

[Hooahguy]

So what kind of democracy restricts religious worship to those over 50s like Israel has done today for Muslims only? Or attempt to prevent demonstrations against their state terror by Palestinians?

In any case, being a democracy doesn't give you a blank check to beat down anyone else, especially since Palestinians democratically elected their government too.
um, excuse me? muslims have FULL religious rights. they can worship as they please. they are not prevented from doing so- only when religion turns to violence it is prevented.

[Jolt]

Two things will happen (Don't call me a prophet plz): Israel will take significant casualties, as Hamas has been preparing for and has provoked this invasion since the last Lebanon-Israeli War.
Hezbollah will most probably attack North of Israel, as they too have strengthened and dug in deeply, and want to inflict another defeat to the Israeli forces.

[Tribesman]

On the other hand if Isreal gets bloodied a bit they may think twice next time.
Unfortunately not , they got their arses handed to them in Lebanon and achieved nothing , the whole reason they pulled out of Gaza was because they couldn't afford it , but now they are going back in just to look "decisive" before next months elections .


The whole reason they're in there is to make some terrorists
A very accurate statement there Mars :2thumbsup:
I take it the two extra words were a typo ?


i form my own views.
Yes I had noticed

in fact i have done research
:laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:

its just that what ihave found not to your liking, you write it off as propaganda.

Damn , and there was me thinking that what you have "found" with your "research" is mainly bollox .

do you have proof of this?
:dizzy2:
Do some bloody research .

[Hax]

um, excuse me? muslims have FULL religious rights. they can worship as they please. they are not prevented from doing so- only when religion turns to violence it is prevented.

As far as I can tell, hooahguy is right in this aspect. I can find very little about oppression concerning Muslims in Israel, though it might have changed over the last ten (?) years.

[KarlXII]

Hail Israel!

[Hooahguy]

Damn , and there was me thinking that what you have "found" with your "research" is mainly bollox .

:dizzy2:
Do some bloody research .

indeed. i have. you see, my research doesn't conform with your views, so naturally you write it off as 'bollox". and i think that your "research" is also bollox. see how simple it ius to turn the tables? :smash:

i find no real proof of an israeli government approved mission by the IDF of going into refugee camps and shooting civilians. if you have i will look at it and if need be i will concede. unlike you i am willing to concede when i am proven wrong.

[Lord Winter]

Unfortunately not , they got their arses handed to them in Lebanon and achieved nothing , the whole reason they pulled out of Gaza was because they couldn't afford it , but now they are going back in just to look "decisive" before next months elections .

They lost 121 men in lebonon, which isn't a ton when you look at the big picture. If they carry this out again and lose even more and still see the violence going on, then they may start inching away from that big red button. I'm not saying it would cause world peace but it would at least keep the Isrealis from bombing the :daisy: out of Gaza every time a mortar is fired.

[Hooahguy]

Are you suggesting that unless one goes there they cannot have an opinion? This is not something I can comply with because...

...I haven't been to planet Venus either but I trust it is a infernal hellhole.

Sure it is good to have a first hand look but we are entitled to our opinions regardless thank you very much. You are probably not in Gaza at the moment either :)

no, you misunderstand me.
i did not say that you couldnt have opinion.s i dint not say that at all. i said the way to have the FAIREST opionion is to go to the place of conflict.
let me give you an example:
a few years ago Amnesty International condemned Israel for destroying the house of a known terrorist leader. afterwards, they went to the site, got the real story, and found out that no one was in the house and israel found valuable info in the house regarding future suicide plots and was able to foil them.
see?

[Hooahguy]

As far as I can tell, hooahguy is right in this aspect. I can find very little about oppression concerning Muslims in Israel, though it might have changed over the last ten (?) years.

actually it changed none. muslims still have full right to worship.

[Hax]

a few years ago Amnesty International condemned Israel for destroying the house of a known terrorist leader. afterwards, they went to the site, got the real story, and found out that no one was in the house and israel found valuable info in the house regarding future suicide plots and was able to foil them.
see?

hooahguy, can you back that up with any links or something of the like? It's really easy to say that they did this and that.

[Hooahguy]

hooahguy, can you back that up with any links or something of the like? It's really easy to say that they did this and that.
hold. ill quote from a book that ill get from my library downstairs....

EDIT: A Time for Truth, Page 103-104.
sorry no link.

when i have time ill get the exact quote.

[KarlXII]

hold. ill quote from a book that ill get from my library downstairs....

This guy does his own research, fellas.

[KarlXII]

Are you referring to Sheik Ahmed Yassin? (http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE15/029/2004/en/dom-MDE150292004en.html)

[Hooahguy]

:laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:
You couldn't be more wrong if you tried .
hm. so i guess that means that the palestinians are not responsible for the breaking of numerous treaties?

in may of 2001, Sharon ordered a ceasefire for all israeli troops agaisnt palestinian terrorists. you wanna know how it was met? with a huge increase of palestinian violence!

so much for all of the palestinians wanting peace.... :help:

[KarlXII]

i did not say that you couldnt have opinion.s i dint not say that at all. i said the way to have the FAIREST opionion is to go to the place of conflict.

I don't think so. Go to Israel and you will more than likely recieve a very pro-Israeli stance. Go to the Gaza strip and you will recieve a very pro-Palestinian stance. The only way I see is United Nations going in to investigate (They tried that, but Israel turned him down :inquisitive:)

[Hooahguy]

I don't think so. Go to Israel and you will more than likely recieve a very pro-Israeli stance. Go to the Gaza strip and you will recieve a very pro-Palestinian stance. The only way I see is United Nations going in to investigate (They tried that, but Israel turned him down :inquisitive:)
the UN? haha! do i have stories for you....
the UN is a decidedly anti-israel institution. israel knows that. the only thing that will result from yet another visit is another resolution agaisnt israel.
why should they make things harder for themselves?

another thing i found out this weekend studying maps of israeli jurisdiction in the west bank was that the refugee camps there are under PA control! israel has no jurisdiction as an occupier over them.
only one of them, called Shuafat.

also, the UNRWA, which helps the palestinians, is given $11 million by israel. currently, UNRWA gets only 6% of its budget from arabs states. the majority from israel.
essentially, israel is doing more than any other arab state for the palestinians.

[Hax]

I concur with SwedishFish. I don't think you can have a purely neutral view on this, as we are all biased.


hm. so i guess that means that the palestinians are not responsible for the breaking of numerous treaties?

Here, your view is flawed. You suggest that all the Palestinians are responsible for the breaking of the treaties, while in fact this could (!) be blamed on the fundamentalist Muslims. Saying that "the Palestinians" are responsible for breaking the treaties is as saying that "the Jews" are hungry for more land.



the UN is a decidedly anti-israel institution.

Look here. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_Nations_resolutions_concerning_Israel#United_Nations_General_Assembly_resolutions) I don't think that the UN is anti-Israel necessarily, but for the peace in Palestina and Israel.


in may of 2001, Sharon ordered a ceasefire for all israeli troops agaisnt palestinian terrorists. you wanna know how it was met? with a huge increase of palestinian violence!

Is this (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/may/23/israel5) what you mean?

[Tribesman]

As far as I can tell, hooahguy is right in this aspect. I can find very little about oppression concerning Muslims in Israel, though it might have changed over the last ten (?) years.
Well lets see


Institutional, legal, and societal discrimination against Israeli Arabs, non-Orthodox Jews, and other religious groups continued.
Now of course the people that wrote that could be making it up ...could you address you complaints to the US State Dept if you wish to dispute what they wrote .
But hey if you want to go past the summary in the State depts human rights reports they have another bloody big one just on religious freedom

[KarlXII]

the UN? haha! do i have stories for you....
the UN is a decidedly anti-israel institution. israel knows that. the only thing that will result from yet another visit is another resolution agaisnt israel.
why should they make things harder for themselves?

Obviously Israel is doing something wrong if the U.N. is "against" them.

Oh Hail Poor Israel! Everyone is against us!

[KarlXII]

also, the UNRWA, which helps the palestinians, is given $11 million by israel. currently, UNRWA gets only 6% of its budget from arabs states. the majority from israel.
essentially, israel is doing more than any other arab state for the palestinians.

It's also doing more to destroy it......

[Hax]

essentially, israel is doing more than any other arab state for the palestinians.

Including bombing them?


also, the UNRWA, which helps the palestinians, is given $11 million by israel. currently, UNRWA gets only 6% of its budget from arabs states. the majority from israel.

Do you have any graphs or statistics to prove this? I can only find a 5 million euro contribution by the EU, and $135,000 by the Tarek Ahmad Al-Juffali Foundation, and this on the UNRWA's site:


The Agency’s largest donors in 2007 were the United States, the European Commission, Sweden, Norway and the United Kingdom. As of 31 May 2008, the Agency's largest contributors for 2008 are the United States, the European Commission, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Norway and the Netherlands.

Israel is not even mentioned at all.
@Tribesman: I've looked up what you said, and I've found this (on the Jewish library, no less!):


The Government discriminates against non-Jews, the vast majority of which are Arabs, in the areas of employment, education, and housing. The Orr Legal Commission of Inquiry, established to investigate the 2000 police killing of 12 Israeli-Arab demonstrators, issued a final report in September 2003 noting historical, societal, and governmental discrimination against Arab citizens. In June the Government approved an interministerial committee's proposals, which included the creation of a government body to promote the Arab sector and a volunteer national civilian service program for Arab youth. These proposals were approved in attempt to address some of the Orr Commission's recommendations; however, Israeli-Arab advocacy organizations continued to criticize the Government for its failure after 4 years to indict any of the policemen involved in the 2000 events and its continued neglect of other issues of importance to the Israeli-Arab community, such as the just distribution of resources.

In civic areas in which religion is a determining criterion, such as the religious courts and centers of education, non-Orthodox Jewish institutions routinely receive less state support than their Orthodox Jewish counterparts. Additionally, National Religious (i.e., modern Orthodox, one of the country's official Jewish school systems) and Christian parochial schools complain that they receive less funding than public secular schools despite the fact that they voluntarily abide by all national curricular standards. During the period covered by this report, the two groups together took their case for equal funding to the High Court. At the end of this period, there was no decision on the case.

Government funding to the different religious sectors is disproportionate to the sectors' sizes. Non-Orthodox streams of Judaism and the non-Jewish sectors receive proportionally less funding than the Orthodox Jewish sector. According to IRAC, the equivalent of less than 1 percent of public funding for Jewish cultural activities is provided to non-Orthodox or secular organizations, and over 99 percent of the funding goes to Orthodox Jewish organizations. IRAC reports that government funding has not gone into the construction of any non-Orthodox synagogues. In 2003 the Supreme Court ruled that state funds could be used for the construction of a reform synagogue in the city of Modi'in and referred the petition to the Modi'in municipality for action. IRAC reports that the city already has several Orthodox synagogues, but none that is conservative or reform.

Government resources available to non-Orthodox Jewish and Arab public schools are proportionately less than those available to Orthodox Jewish public schools. According IRAC, about 96 percent of state funds for religious education were allocated to Orthodox or ultra-Orthodox Jewish schools. Children attending public non-Orthodox Jewish schools do not receive instruction on Judaism, and the budget for teaching Islam or Christianity in the Arab public school system is disproportionately smaller. Quality private religious schools for Israeli Arabs exist; however, parents often must pay tuition for their children to attend such schools due to inadequate government funding. Jewish private religious schools receive significant government funding in addition to philanthropic contributions from within the country and abroad, which effectively lowers the schools' tuition costs. Non-Jewish Israelis are underrepresented in the student bodies and faculties of most universities and in the higher level professional and business ranks.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

A very accurate statement there Mars :2thumbsup:
I take it the two extra words were a typo ?


I offered no opinion on whether or not it would work, I simply stated their objectives.

[KarlXII]

Israel indeed does a lot (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/suffolk/4524962.stm) for the UNWRA.

[Tribesman]

the UN is a decidedly anti-israel institution. israel knows that.
Anti Israeli ?
Lets see .
They are against the annexation of territory through conquest because its against international law .
They are against transfering a civilian population to militarily occupied territory because its against international law .
They are against the expulsion of civilians , the demolition of their homes and the siezure of their property, because its against international law .
Well this list could go on for ages

See a pattern there Hooah ?
The UN is decidedly against Israel when it breaks international law
That is part of the charter of the UN
The second part of the Charter says that members have to follow the law , Israel is a member but doesn't follow the membership rules .
So simple isn't it .
If Israel didn't constantly violate the rules of the UN the UN wouldn't constantly say Israel is breaking the rules .
So it isn't a case of the UN being anti Israel , its a case of Israel acting like a stupid idiot and getting what it deserves .


also, the UNRWA, which helps the palestinians, is given $11 million by israel. currently, UNRWA gets only 6% of its budget from arabs states. the majority from israel.
essentially, israel is doing more than any other arab state for the palestinians.
:laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:
Where the hell do you get this rubbish from ?
It certainly isn't from the UNRWA financial accounts , lets see the 4th biggest contributer for the emergency program over the past 7 years is the UAE red crescent , the biggest contributing country is of course the USA which gave 108 million in 05 and 137 million in 06 .
I think what Hooah means is that israel after illegally holding on to the PAs tax income gave a very small portion of the Palestinians governments money to charity because it wouldn't give it to its owners .:dizzy2:


Israel is not even mentioned at all.

True you can go back through the financial archives , nothing at all from Hooahs generous Israel

[Furunculus]

Malcom Rifkind on the Gaza attacks:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/4092665/Hamas-blocks-the-birth-of-a-Palestinian-state.html

[Tribesman]

Hey Furunculus Rifkinds headline needs changing .....

Expanding illegal settlements block the birth of a Palestinian state

As for balance he cannot talk about Israel creating conditions on the ground without talking about Israel creating conditions on the ground .

[KukriKhan]

... Israel has tried this before , it doesn't work . They tried it again in Lebanon where they launched thousands of rockets thousands of bombs and thousands of shells , it achieved nothing apart from making Israel look stupid and weak while cementing Hezballahs grip on the territory .

The Second Israel v Lebanon War ended September 2006. How many rockets have been fired from Lebanon into Israel since then?

[LeftEyeNine]

This is the introductory section of an Iran-oriented master plan.

George W. Bush, in his weekly radio message said that "they have contributed 85$ to UN this week". Israel stresses that they have amassed at Lebanon border which is a clear implication of a preparation against Hizbollah, hence Iran. Also Mr. Bush had spoken of the "monitoring of smuggling activities" before Israel's ground operation took place.

I'll be so happy to end up as speculating bullflowers once they don't find ammunition passed within Iran's promised aid all of a sudden (!) or some Hizbollah (not Hamas) suicide bomber does not blow up a bus in Tel-Aviv in the following days (!).

Let's hope that USA does not feed on war again.

Let me end up as a conspi-wit smartass who was utterly wrong at imagining these to be happening.

I really do.

[Hooahguy]

@Tribesman: I've looked up what you said, and I've found this (on the Jewish library, no less!):

um, link?

[Tribesman]

The Second Israel v Lebanon War ended September 2006. How many rockets have been fired from Lebanon into Israel since then?

What were the objectives of the war Kukri ?
Leaving aside that the Israeli government commision said that Israel had failed in its objectives what were those objectives .
Get back the soldiers , yes they got their bodies in exchange for prisoners , the soldiers were kidnapped to exchange for prisoners , that looks like a Hezballah win doesn't it .
To destroy the military capabilities of Hezballah , yeah right , they completely underestimated the capabilities and not only did the attack fail but it strengthened them and increased their support , while Israel was pleading that it was running out of bombs the terrorists were increasing their number of rocket launches .
To create a wedge between the government and people of Lebanon and Hezballah . wow what sort of idiot thought that bombing the hell out of the people would make them blame the terrorists more thaan they blamed Israel:dizzy2: And only in August did the western backed anti hezballah government do a complete about turn and say that hezballah not only didn't have to disarm it has the right to attack Israel .
Oh and of course , reach the river to control the land so Israel would be safe from rockets ...the reached the river in the end , but couldn't clear or secure the area to the south so the rockets continued .
So if you look at Israels objectives , look at Hezballahs objectives , realise that Israel failed on all counts and Hezballah got what they wanted then it clearly is a defeat for Israel without even considering that it was also a complete PR disaster for them .


How many rockets have been fired from Lebanon into Israel since then?
The last reported one was January
But oh dear the IDF are getting grief from the UN for shooting at UN bomb disposal teams...naughty Israel


um, link?
Wow for someone who claims to do his own research you do appear to be very stuck .
Use your keyboard to find the US State Dept. and the Jewish Virtual Library:idea2:
Then if you get the hang of that research stuff you could expand into the multitude of Israeli based and non-Israeli based human rights groups and get lots and lots of intresting information .
Though of course you might not want to as you will learn something that shatters your illusions :yes:

[Fragony]

Just have to share this, 'peace' demonstration where the socialist party is naturally present with Harry van Bommel who is a member of the parlement, there haven't changed that much since the thirties. What you hear; "Hamas Hamas all jews on the gas"

socialists :juggle2:

http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=PLlHPPO25nM&feature=channel_page

[Hooahguy]

Wow for someone who claims to do his own research you do appear to be very stuck .
Use your keyboard to find the US State Dept. and the Jewish Virtual Library:idea2:
Then if you get the hang of that research stuff you could expand into the multitude of Israeli based and non-Israeli based human rights groups and get lots and lots of intresting information .
Though of course you might not want to as you will learn something that shatters your illusions :yes:

yeah, i found it:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Society_&_Culture/freedom.html

since you are so into this human rights stuff, you got info on human rights violations by arabs? interesting what you will come up with. :sweatdrop:

[Furunculus]

Quote = Kukri: "How many rockets have been fired from Lebanon into Israel since then? "



The last reported one was January
But oh dear the IDF are getting grief from the UN for shooting at UN bomb disposal teams...naughty Israel


I like how you add the irrelevant second comment to cover the fact that you admit lebanon has been the source of only one rocket in the previous 12 months out of a total of 5000 plus rockets in the last couple of years.

Nice, I like how you do that.

[KukriKhan]

How many rockets have been fired from Lebanon into Israel since then?


The last reported one was January

Then my sources were wrong, and I stand corrected.* :bow: The answer I sought was "None".

Which then leads me to believe (were it true) that Israel is trying a Leb v Is 2 redux: soften by air, roll the tanks, deploy the infantry; quickly take out as much enemy military capability as possible; await a UN-brokered cease-fire, withdraw, and hey presto! No more rocket attacks.

They've got about 2 weeks time to carry out that plan, before the new guy moves into the White House, after which they might (might) get into trouble, starting off on the wrong foot with the new POTUS.

But, if "none" is wrong, that sorta blows my theory of Israel's intent out of the water.





*I used newspaper reports I found, not UNIFIL reports. I should've gone there.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

But, if "none" is wrong, that sorta blows my theory of Israel's intent out of the water.


Not really. :bow:



I like how you add the irrelevant second comment to cover the fact that you admit lebanon has been the source of only one rocket in the previous 12 months out of a total of 5000 plus rockets in the last couple of years.

Nice, I like how you do that.

[tibilicus]

Is no one else concerned that Israel are refusing to let international journalists in to Gaza?

God knows what atrocities the Israelis might try and commit. As far as I'm aware their army is made up of mostly young people who will be seeking personnel vendettas against the Muslim population.

[Tribesman]

I like how you add the irrelevant second comment to cover the fact that you admit lebanon has been the source of only one rocket in the previous 12 months out of a total of 5000 plus rockets in the last couple of years.

Who said it was only one rocket ?
BTW them 5000 rockets you talk of , were nearly all of those fired during the short war :laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:
Tell you what Furunculus , if you think you have a point go back through all the situation reports and see exactly how many rockets were fired in the years preceeding the war .
When you come back I expect you to fully understand he irrelevance of your comment .


Then my sources were wrong, and I stand corrected.* The answer I sought was "None".

If you want a source for ceasefire violations then the best source is the ceasefire monitors .
Which is an interesting source as one objective of the war from the Israeli perspective was to get rid of hezballahs missiles , yet the Israelis are now claiming to the UN that the terrorists now have over 30,000 new rockets

[rasoforos]

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/01/200913202712466579.html


Its good to know that not all Israelis share such militaristic attitudes.

[Lord Winter]

Is no one else concerned that Israel are refusing to let international journalists in to Gaza?

God knows what atrocities the Israelis might try and commit. As far as I'm aware their army is made up of mostly young people who will be seeking personnel vendettas against the Muslim population.

That's not bias. I'm sure Isreal started this war just so they could knock down the population of Gaza and throw in a few ethnic cleansing photo opps for fun.

Its a war bad things happen by definition. Limiting the media does not mean that the evil Jews trying to get away with massacring 10,000 Palestinians. It's the same thing all governments try to do, control there PR and try to keep the world option from turning against them.

[Hooahguy]

ignore

[rory_20_uk]

Thanks for "enlightening" us with that. Do remember to post any Nigerians with offers of wealth if we send our bank details, won't you?

~:smoking:

[Lorenzo_H]

:laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:
Click on the link at the bottom of your link and see America and Israels favourite "moderates" list of suicide attacks .
Funny isn't it , Hamas who cannot be supported because they are crazy stopped the suicide attacks in 2005 while Fatah who lost an election but tried to sieze power can be supported and armed even though in 2008 they still did the suicide thing .
I did not understand, do you think the sources aren't valid?

[Hooahguy]

Thanks for "enlightening" us with that. Do remember to post any Nigerians with offers of wealth if we send our bank details, won't you?

~:smoking:
it was a joke

[Hax]

That was noticed, however misplaced.

[Hooahguy]

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/01/200913202712466579.html


Its good to know that not all Israelis share such militaristic attitudes.
HAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAA!
i cannot belive you are actually using Al-Jezeera, a well-known anti-semetic and anti-zionist media outlet!
now we know what you like to read, dont we?
thats a laugh!

here, how about this:
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24867888-663,00.html

[Hooahguy]

That was noticed, however misplaced.
why? isnt this thread about the conflict there? if not, i guess the last dozen pages are OT.

[Hax]

It's not on whether it's OT, it's just not really funny.


i cannot belive you are actually using Al-Jezeera, a well-known anti-semetic and anti-zionist media outlet!

Says the guy who quoted Christians for Israel.

Actually, it doesn't really matter anymore if it's biased, Israel's right anyway.

ALL HAIL ISRAEL!

[Hooahguy]

It's not on whether it's OT, it's just not really funny.
well, i thought it was.

[Guildenstern]

Is no one else concerned that Israel are refusing to let international journalists in to Gaza?

God knows what atrocities the Israelis might try and commit. As far as I'm aware their army is made up of mostly young people who will be seeking personnel vendettas against the Muslim population.
An Israeli patrol boat severely rammed a boat carrying medical volunteers and supplies to Gaza on December 30. But this time, a reporter, Karl Penhaul from CNN, was actually on the boat and gave his report about the events that happened (http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/12/30/gaza.aid.boat/index.html).

No wonder Israel is continuing their refusal to allow foreign journalists into Gaza.

[Lord Winter]

HAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAA!
i cannot belive you are actually using Al-Jezeera, a well-known anti-semetic and anti-zionist media outlet!
now we know what you like to read, dont we?
thats a laugh!

here, how about this:
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24867888-663,00.html

So your saying there's been no protests? :inquisitive:

[Hooahguy]

So your saying there's been no protests? :inquisitive:
nah, im sure there was. but the fact that he used Al-jezeera....
i mean, of all sources....

[KarlXII]

well, i thought it was.

I'm shocked and surprised you find jokes about Palestinians funny. :idea2:

The Israeli- Uses pesticide on the entire local fly population, killing both the fly in his coffee and innocent flies, gets the other flies worked up, and the Israeli claims the U.N. is against them.

No matter, Hail Israel! (http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/01/04/israel.gaza/index.html)

Additionally, Palestinian health ministry officials state at least 17 people were killed and 130 injured when Israeli shells fell near a school and the main market in Gaza City. A tank shell fired in northern Gaza killed 12 people, apparently including civilians. An Israeli missile hit a house in the Shuja'iya neighborhood, killing a mother and her four children.

[KarlXII]

nah, im sure there was. but the fact that he used Al-jezeera....
i mean, of all sources....

Says the guy who quoted Christains for Israel.

[Lord Winter]

Dosen't make it any less true, just more worthy of scrutinity.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3646597,00.html

[KarlXII]

Anti-semetic UN propoganda

I thought you would know better :shame:

[Hooahguy]

I'm shocked and surprised you find jokes about Palestinians funny. :idea2:

The Israeli- Uses pesticide on the entire local fly population, killing both the fly in his coffee and innocent flies, gets the other flies worked up, and the Israeli claims the U.N. is against them.

No matter, Hail Israel! (http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/01/04/israel.gaza/index.html)

Additionally, Palestinian health ministry officials state at least 17 people were killed and 130 injured when Israeli shells fell near a school and the main market in Gaza City. A tank shell fired in northern Gaza killed 12 people, apparently including civilians. An Israeli missile hit a house in the Shuja'iya neighborhood, killing a mother and her four children.
well of course you dont find it funny.

because so many people age getting ofended, ill take it off....

[KarlXII]

well of course you dont find it funny.

because so many people age getting ofended, ill take it off....

I don't find it funny because it wasn't funny. Not because it was a Palestinian, it was not funny at all.

[Hooahguy]

Says the guy who quoted Christains for Israel.
oh, i am so sorry that it was the quickest site i could find the text of UNr2142....

[Hooahguy]

I don't find it funny because it wasn't funny. Not because it was a Palestinian, it was not funny at all.
then i guess you just have the sense of humor of a rock.

w/e.

[KarlXII]

oh, i am so sorry that it was the quickest site i could find the text of UNr2142....

Al-Jazeera may have been the quickest site he found information on. I know when I looked up information on the Gaza conflict I was given Al-Jazeera articles.

Hail Israel!

[KarlXII]

then i guess you just have the sense of humor of a rock.

w/e.

Just because it's sarcasm doesn't mean it's a free pass for an attack.

Hail Israel!

[Fragony]

Hail Israel!

uh-huh

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/Fragony/NaziIslam3.jpg

[KarlXII]

uh-huh

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/Fragony/NaziIslam3.jpg

I don't get it.

I've never been in the defence of Hamas, never claimed Islamic terrorists don't do this, and never tried justifying terrorism.

What's your point?

(FYI, I didn't know Palestinians knew the Roman salute :laugh4:)

(FYI, FYI, there is a difference between Heil and Hail)

[Fragony]

I don't get it.

I've never been in the defence of Hamas, never claimed Islamic terrorists don't do this, and never tried justifying terrorism.


But of course you don't. A good nose needs only half a fart.

edit, roman salute is left arm FYI

[KarlXII]

edit, roman salute is left arm FYI

Then they can put this under "Things we've failed at doing" alongside "Killing the Great Satan".

[Fragony]

Then they can put this under "Things we've failed at doing" alongside "Killing the Great Satan".

Sure. Now I fully understand that linking Israel to the nazi's is incredibly clever in a clever kind of way of, quite snappy, and most of all of course ironic. And of course you just want to invoke debate, that is what educated people do, invoke debate, and for that you need a little bit of controversity, I get it.

[Tribesman]

I did not understand, do you think the sources aren't valid?
If what you posted is as you say a reason not to support Hamas then by definition as Fatah were still doing it last year it is a reason not to support Fatah , yet Israel and the US decided to support and arm Fatah .
There is a pattern isn't there, while Fatah were getting elected they were the nasty people that couldn't be dealt with and must be got rid of , now Hamas is elected they are the nasty people that cannot be dealt with and must be got rid of .



oh, i am so sorry that it was the quickest site i could find the text of UNr2142....
Ever thought of trying the UN site ?
Oh of course , that would be a case of .....

HAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAA!
i cannot belive you are actually using Al-UN, a well-known anti-semetic and anti-zionist media outlet!

[KarlXII]

Sure. Now I fully understand that linking Israel to the nazi's is incredibly clever in a clever kind of way of, quite snappy, and most of all of course ironic. And of course you just want to invoke debate, that is what educated people do, invoke debate, and for that you need a little bit of controversity, I get it.

Accusing others of linking Israel with Nazism isn't what educate people do. I am merely commenting on a certain members blind devotion to Israel, you're the one who brought up Nazism, not I. If I wanted to compare Israel with Nazism I would have said "Heil, Israel!" or "Heilsrael!". However, I did not, and have made no attempt to link the nation with the racist, authoritan ideology. Therefore, your comment is invalid. Bring it up with someone who actually does compare the two. Good day.

[Furunculus]

Who said it was only one rocket ?

BTW them 5000 rockets you talk of , were nearly all of those fired during the short war :laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:



How many was it? 10............ out of more than 8000 rockets?

were they indeed?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Number_of_Morter_and_Rocket_Attacks_2001_to_Late_2008V4.jpg

[Fragony]

Accusing others of linking Israel with Nazism isn't what educate people do. I am merely commenting on a certain members blind devotion to Israel, you're the one who brought up Nazism, not I.

But of course you didn't, hail is nothing like heil, not even in the slightest. That wasn't what you really meant to say at all, being the playfull character that you are.

[KarlXII]

But of course you didn't, hail is nothing like heil, not even in the slightest. That wasn't what you really meant to say at all, being the playfull character that you are.

I'm glad we're in agreement.

(Shouldn't we have a Godwin on "Accusations of people saying Israel=Nazism" or "If you don't support Israel, you'r an antisemite"?)

[Fragony]

I'm glad we're in agreement.

(Shouldn't we have a Godwin on "Accusations of people saying Israel=Nazism" or "If you don't support Israel, you'r an antisemite"?)

The Israeli- Uses pesticide on the entire local fly population

Now where did that come from, of course that isn't a reference to the holocaust how silly of me.

[Tribesman]

How many was it? 10............ out of more than 8000 rockets?

Are your maths not up to much ?:laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:

were they indeed?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nu...ate_2008V4.jpg
Hey your geography is even worse than your maths:laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:

[KarlXII]

The Israeli- Uses pesticide on the entire local fly population

Now where did that come from, of course that isn't a reference to the holocaust how silly of me.

If you were to have read above, it was a response to Hooahguy's hilarious joke. Unfortunately, he edited it because not everyone agrees he's a comic genius. Don't worry though, I won't hold it against you. In fact, I will make sure I clear every response with you to make sure I am not promoting Israel=Nazism, after all, you know the meaning of my posts better than I do!

[Fragony]

If you were to have read above, it was a response to Hooahguy's hilarious joke.

But of course it was, that irony thingie that works so well with caps.

[KarlXII]

But of course it was, that irony thingie that works so well with caps.

Ha! I guess you didn't see it.

[Fragony]

Ha! I guess you didn't see it.

kthxbye

[KarlXII]

kthxbye

Glad we settled this.

[Hooahguy]

Says the guy who quoted Christains for Israel.
actually i never quoted them. i was looking around for the text of UNr242 and that came up. as much as i remember, that christians for israel site had the text of UNr242, which i was looking for. not an article on it or whatnot- just the text.
now if he had used Al-Jezerra for a map of israel or sites of refugee camps, then thatll be no problem. but the fact that it was an article.....
anyhow, no point arguing over this petty matter.

[Hooahguy]

Dr. David Blumenthal, who is a professor at Emory University, sent me this article he wrote back in 2006 (I think):

beware, its very long, but very thoughtful:
“BEWARE OF YOUR BELIEFS”

When I first sat down to write this, Yasir Arafat lay sick, probably dead, in a hospital in Paris. Since then, he has been replaced by the only democratically elected leader in the Arab world, Abu Mazen, and hopes have soared that peace may be around the corner. As we approach the final deadline for this book, however, the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and parts of the West Bank is imminent, together with its immediate danger of attacks by Palestinian groups and its long-range danger of Gaza developing as a base for al-Qaeda attacks on Europe, Arab countries, and Israel. No one actually knows what will happen next; the best guess for the future depends on how one reads the past. In the interest of self-disclosure, I begin with the following:
I am a Jew and have been a conscious Zionist for as long as I can remember. I recall the vote in the United Nations to establish the Jewish state and the switch in religious school to the Israeli pronunciation of Hebrew when the state was proclaimed. I was an active member of a Zionist youth movement and my first trip to Israel was very much a Zionist pilgrimage.
I am also a religious Jew who takes seriously the presence of God and the truth of God’s promises to the Jewish people of seed, land, and blessing. I, therefore, justify the Jewish claim to a homeland in Israel on secular-historical, as well as religious-spiritual, grounds.
I am also an experienced rabbi and professor of Jewish Studies, one who has taught Jewish civilization for some time and has been active in Jewish and Israeli causes, locally and nationally. I was also one of the organizers of the first trialogue group of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scholars and was a consultant to the Presbyterian church on its documents concerning the Jews and Israel. I initiated courses and research on the shoah at my university, have been a member of various committees of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, of the Wroxton Seminar, have written two books on the shoah, have edited the memoirs of a survivor and two volumes of essays on the shoah.
On the subject of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I was among the early speakers for Palestinian rights and have consistently supported the efforts of Israeli and Palestinian peace organizations. I remember vividly visiting a fellow student in an Israeli Arab village in 1959. It was then under curfew and, being dark-skinned, I saw their humiliation. I remember, too, sitting with them as they listed excitedly to Nasser preach about pushing the Jews into the sea. I recall being asked to address a large synagogue gathering together with a Palestinian in the early 1980s. I took a firm stand in favor of a Palestinian state alongside the state of Israel, much to the admitted astonishment of the Palestinian speaker. At about the same time, I was quietly dropped from the list of speakers to the young leadership group of the Atlanta Jewish Federation because of my espousal of Palestinian sovereignty and not just autonomy. I joined Oz ve-Shalom, the religious peace group, a long time ago and hosted speakers from that and related groups at my university over the years, though I have also encouraged speakers from the Israeli right as part of the educational thrust of my work. During the course of my consultations with the Presbyterian church, I visited Palestinians in Israel and in the West Bank, as well as Christians in Egypt.
Over the years, however, my position has changed because I found that my Palestinian and Muslim interlocutors embodied three characteristics that I found counterproductive. First, they totally politicized all discussions. All my attempts to discuss theology, peace, and a justice that would include Jews and the state of Israel as well as Palestinians and a Palestinian state were completely rejected. My “partners” wanted only to present the Palestinian side, not to dialogue. Second, my Palestinian and Muslim interlocutors refused to acknowledge any co-responsibility for the situation. They candidly approved of terrorism, even that directed at innocent Israeli civilians. Occasionally, over the years, I would find individual Palestinians and Muslims who would realize the futility of terrorism, but not its inherent evil. But, even for such rare individuals, the open expression of such opinions was regarded as national treason and they simply would not make such statements in public. Third, even though there were uneven attempts at political and religious dialogue with an elite, Palestinians and Muslims in general – ordinary people engaged in conversation as well as the Palestinian and Arab media – have openly manifested a relentless wish to destroy the Jewish state and to drive out the Jews who have chosen to settle there.
It has made no difference whether I have engaged in dialogue in the United States, Europe, or Israel. Nor have the auspices been a factor: Presbyterian, leftist, rightist, religious, secular, political, interfaith. Nothing has helped. While it is true that Jewish and Israeli interlocutors are also varied in their opinions and even in their prejudices, I have increasingly found Palestinians and Muslims to be very difficult dialogue partners. They, frankly, do not share a concern for Jewish existence. Nor do they share a sense of the inherent right of the Jewish people to exist in its homeland, granted that there must be some dignified, mutual accommodation that would make this possible. Perhaps in some ideal religious or ideological sense, they shouldn’t need to think such thoughts. But, in the concrete situation in which we all find ourselves, I have found that refusal to want to deal with us to be irresponsible, and I have found their hostility to us to be relentless. Further, in the context of post-shoah Jewish life, I have increasingly realized that I cannot dismiss that hostility as simply a negotiating position, or merely a cultural custom or a verbal convention. I must, rather, deal with it as forthrightly as I can.
In spite of my commitments and experiences, I recognize that I am not an expert on the Middle East, nor on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I do consider myself, however, an educated layperson with commitments who is not afraid to confront realities wherever they lie. It is with that background and in that spirit that I address the problem of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the context of post-shoah experience.

Twenty years ago, I published “The Seven Commandments for Jewish Survival in a Post-Holocaust World.” It is worthwhile to list them yet again: “Be a little paranoid; Get organized and stay organized; Educate; Support the institutions of freedom; Reproduce; Confront your opposition; and Be prepared.” Pieces of advice -- keep a good amount of cash and a valid passport at home, belong to a political lobby as part of your responsibility as a citizen, always vote, support peace movements, and be prepared to use political violence if necessary -- were all proposed. In looking back, I still think the article contains many valid points. I would, however, now add: “Beware of your beliefs.” We live life based on certain convictions about human nature and society, and the most difficult part of cross-cultural communication is the beliefs each party brings to the table.
The shoah took place, in part, because of the beliefs of those involved: that the world would not care about the Jews since it didn’t care about the Armenians; that the Germans were too civilized to be carrying out a plan of actual extermination; that the allies would act out of humanitarian motives and bomb non-essential targets such as the camps; that ordinary people would not act to murder innocent others; that governments would admit people who were obviously refugees; and so on. One of the important “lessons” of the shoah is that we must beware of our beliefs; that we must aggressively question what we believe and what others believe; and, further that, as Jews, we must do this with an eye to the problem of Jewish survival. Had the Jews of the shoah period been more realistic concerning their beliefs about human nature and society, perhaps many more would have been saved.
In this vein, I would like to present six beliefs of the western world – and that means, our world – about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that are dangerous to Jewish survival. We need to examine these carefully because we cannot afford to be wrong yet again about the world in which we live. It is our watch, our time for responsibility.

First: The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at the heart of the problems in the Middle East. This belief is very widely held in the Arab world; to wit, that the state of Israel was imposed on the Arab world by the Christian nations of Europe and America as guilt for the shoah -- as more than one Arab has said, “If the Christians persecuted and killed the Jews, why should we have to pay by having them in our land?” – and this injustice must be rectified. Hence, the proposition that, if only the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could be resolved, then there would be peace in the Middle East.
This belief seems to me to be very naive. As Haim Harari and many others have pointed out, the following serious events in the Middle East were not the result of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: the Iran-Iraq war in which casualties reached millions; the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan; the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait; the destruction of the city of Hamma by the Syrians; the occupation of Lebanon by Syria; the al-Qaeda attacks against Saudi Arabia and Egypt; the attack on the Twin Towers; the attack on the Spanish railroads and on the London underground; both American invasions of Iraq; the Algerian revolution; etc. None of these events was the product of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They were the result of the struggle for power, oil, and influence, as well as many other factors. Yet, the belief that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at the heart of the world’s problem in the Middle East persists -- and not only in the Arabic media and public statements but also in the European press and statements of its leaders where the popularity of this belief has led to many anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, and anti-Jewish violent incidents.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one part of the Middle East dilemma. However, there is no oil to dispute, the land is not particularly arable, and there are no resources or industry to covet. In short, Israel / Palestine is not geopolitically significant. No one’s national interest, except that of the Palestinians and the Israelis, is at stake. The belief in the centrality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must be resisted.
Second: Poverty is at the root of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and indeed of the Middle East crisis; further, poverty justifies the use of terrorism. This belief is widely heard in leftist circles all over the globe. It is an outgrowth of Marxist analysis that understands all conflict to be class conflict and further teaches that class conflict can only be resolved by violent means. Some western intellectuals are particularly taken with this argument, partly because it expresses their sense of guilt for the blessings they have. There are even some who “justify” terrorism as an expression of resentment at poverty.
This belief, too, seems to me to be very naive. As Haim Harari has pointed out, there is much, much greater poverty in Africa where people are really starving (as in the Sudan) and yet there is no terrorism there. There is greater poverty in India and yet there is no terrorism there. Poverty is, indeed, an issue in the Middle East and also in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on both sides but it is not the central issue, and solving poverty would not resolve the tensions in either the local conflict or in the region. The belief that this is so must be resisted.
Third: Reason and law are basic to all human societies and, hence, diplomatic activity to bring about the rule of reason and law is appropriate. This belief is perhaps the most widely held principle in the western world, especially in the United States. We, Americans, really believe that people are reasonable and that law is the proper ultimate place for the resolution of disputes. We believe that humans of diverse origins and aspirations can, with reason and good will, resolve their conflicts and live together peacefully in a just society.
Unfortunately, this belief, too, seems to me to be very naive. The world is not a place where there is liberty and justice for all. It is not a place of cooperation and good will, where the rule of law is the ultimate judge. The world of terrorism is a world where the means justify the ends. It is a world that glorifies murderers, calling them martyrs and building museums to their memory. Whether the terrorists are Palestinian or Cambodian, the world of terror is not a world where reason and law prevail. Regimes that support terror are not entities to whom one can appeal on the basis of law and reason. Until now, the Palestinian leadership has endorsed a life of terror. It would be very irresponsible to history, especially to Jewish history, not to recognize that our western belief in reason and law is only that – a belief, and one not shared by many Palestinians.
Further, the world of Jew hatred – and let us not sanitize it by calling it antisemitism – is also a world in which reason and law do not apply. All racial hatreds defy law and reason. The widespread teaching of Jew hatred in Palestinian textbooks, political statements, media, mosques, books, and so on is testimony to a world that must be faced, not denied. Yasir Arafat was a holocaust denier. Abu Mazen, his successor, wrote a book on holocaust denial. The Egyptian media release films based on Jew-hatred. The recently released Pew Global Attitudes Project report entitled, “Islamic Extremism: Common Concern for Muslim and Western Publics,” reports “unfavorable” view of Jews at the following percentages in the countries surveyed: 60%, 74%, 76%, 99%, 100%, and 88%. One might also add the well-documented reports of Palestinians standing on the rooftops celebrating the falling of Scud missiles on Israeli towns during the first Iraq war; or the cruelty with which an Israeli soldier was publicly executed in a Palestinian town that was recorded by European television. No amount of denial of Jew hatred in the Arab world will erase these facts; better the Realpolitik that acknowledges them.
The United Nations has surely not been the embodiment of the ideals of reason and law. The “Zionism is racism” vote, the Durban conference, and a host of other votes and policies pursued by the UN are proof of this. Being blind to this is a repetition of the blindness of the shoah generations.

Fourth: Most Palestinians want a state that will exist side by side with the Israeli state. This belief, reinforced by occasional statements by the Palestinian leadership, including Abu Mazen, is widely believed in Israel and the west. Indeed, the “two state solution” would seem to be the reasonable, and the only, solution.
This belief, too, seems to me to be very naive. There are certainly some Palestinians, including Abu Mazen, who want a Palestinian state even if that means recognizing a Jewish state alongside it, for there cannot be a Palestinian state without a Jewish state. However, it must also be remembered that the official Palestinian representatives have rejected every offer to create a Palestinian state over the past half century precisely because that would also create a recognized Jewish state.
The reason for this is that, in Islamic thought, land once conquered by Islam always remains Islamic; it can never be ceded to a non-Islamic entity. The classic instance of this is the crusader conquest of the holy land. From an Arab point of view, the crusaders were invaders who ruled the land temporarily and were, justifiably, expelled by force. The man who did that is probably the only man in Islamic history generally known to westerners: Saladin. Every Arab leader aspires to be the Saladin of today who will expel the foreigners, the Jews, from the Islamic land of Palestine. The converse is also true: No Palestinian leader can recognize the moral right of the Jews to a homeland anywhere in Palestine from the Jordan to the Mediterranean without being a traitor to Arab history.
For this reason and others, there has been no real Palestinian peace movement, no popular political base for making peace with Israel though there have been a few members of the elite, including Abu Mazen, who have thought it useful. Rather, advocates of peace with Israel have been intimidated, persecuted, and even killed. This, in turn, has led to a sympathy for the silence of such persons and has led to a double standard which demands western civic courage from Israelis but not from Palestinians.
Finally, Palestinian belief in the “demographic time bomb” – that the population growth of the Palestinians will give them a majority of the population by 2010 or 2020 – means that many Palestinians do not need, or want, a Palestinian state. All they need to do is wait and then demand a majority vote. The purpose of this strategy is to erase the Jewish presence in the holy land, to do away with the Jewish state. Certainly, one must give peace a chance now that Arafat is dead but we must also remember that the belief that most Palestinians want the two-state solution is just that -- a belief.
Fifth: Islam is a religion of tolerance with occasional aberrations of fanaticism. The west wants very much to believe this and so it has become a fundamental belief of western culture -- that Islam must be, like all religions, basically humanistic. Westerners point to the scientific achievements of the early Islamic period and to the tolerance often found in Muslims who are in the Muslim diaspora, while Jews point to the “golden age” of the medieval Islamic-Jewish symbiosis as evidence for the “true” Islam.
This belief, too however, seems to me to be very naive. At all periods of Islamic history, the phenomenon of dhimmitude existed; that is, Jews and Christians were awarded protected status but, as minorities, they were subject to special taxes and regular humiliation. This is not tolerance, and its actual practice was worse than its theory. Further, Kraemer has shown that, even at its intellectual height, Islam sought to persecute its own philosophers who were often accused of heresy, punished, and sometimes executed for their teachings. The principle that land once conquered by Islam must always remain Islamic is indicative too.
The reasons for this intolerance are many and complicated. The simplest is a very long tradition of the lack of self-criticism. As Lazarus-Yafeh has shown, even the biblical stories retold in the Qoran are distorted to eliminate the prophetic critique of society that is so crucial to biblical religion. This lack of self-criticism generates the widely observed phenomenon that Arabs never blame themselves for anything that happens to them; it is always the Zionists, the Americans, the other who is to blame. This lack of civic courage in Arab society is clearly seen in the following: On 3/11/05, the Muslim Council of Spain condemned Bin Laden as an apostate. In July 2005, “The Reality of Islam and Its Role in the Contemporary Society” conference of 170 Muslim scholars from 40 countries, issued the following final communiqué reversing the decision of the Spanish Muslim Council: “It is not possible to declare as apostates any group of Muslims who believes in Allah, the Mighty and Sublime, and in His Messenger (may Peace and Blessing be upon him) and the pillars of the faith, and respects the pillars of Islam and does not deny any necessary article of religion.”
The lack of self-criticism in Islamic society, including Palestinian society, stems also from the irreducible patriarchy of Islamic society. Disempowered economically and politically, Arab men are left with only one source of personal power: power over women – a power that is so absolute that, in most Arab societies including Palestinian society, men are permitted to kill women in their family who defy the sexual taboos of the society. Such “honor killings” (note the term) are not considered crimes. Such a deeply patriarchal society must do two things: It must honor the whole patriarchal hierarchy, suppressing all resistance voluntarily or by force, and it must avoid liberty and freedom for all at all costs. It is a delusional belief on our part that Arab Islamic society is tolerant or is going to be so any time in the foreseeable future, and this assumption must be resisted.
Sixth, Dennis Ross, the United States representative in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process from Oslo to the second intifada, offers a well-informed analysis in his recent book. Ross maintains that the primary obstacle to peace was Arafat himself. Insofar as this is correct and that obstacle is removed, peace should follow in a reasonable period of time. Ross, however, points to other factors that prevent peace, primary among them being the lack of legitimacy for Arab rulers. This, according to Ross, accounts for the lack of criticism of Arafat by other Arab leaders and for Arafat’s inability to “take historic decisions.” It also is the basis for the inability of almost all Palestinians and the Arab world to recognize “the moral legitimacy” of the state of Israel, whose existence is only seen as an unwanted necessity.
As a result of this “lack of legitimacy” and the consequent inability to “recognize the moral legitimacy” of the state of Israel, there has been no “transformation” of the Palestinian and Arab world, no change in the underlying attitudes of the Palestinian and Arab world toward Israel and Jews. The basic Palestinian narrative of victimage and entitlement remains. It is taught in the schools, the media, youth camps, the mosques, in public statements by leaders, and elsewhere. Violence is enshrined instead of being denounced. There is no “conditioning” of the Palestinian and Arab public to peace.
Ross puts some of the blame on the Israelis but, because it is a democratic society and hence its government has “legitimacy,” a majority of Israelis do question their own myths of victimage and entitlement, hold their leaders responsible, vote them out of office if needed, and are ready to take historic decisions. Ross also faults the United States, and himself as an integral part of the peace process, for not enforcing accountability.
Ross’ detailed and learned analysis is naive because of its belief – that a government is “legitimate” only when it derives from the participation of the governed. As one brought up in America, I agree that government should be “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” Indeed, I firmly believe that the blessings of technology, prosperity, freedom, liberty, and the protection of human rights all derive from the democratic process. I, unlike many, think it is laudable that our government wants to export freedom and democracy to others. But it is an idea that only works in some contexts and not in others. Government in Islamic society has never derived its “legitimacy” from the people. One must give Ross the chance to be right about legitimacy but, at the same time, one must beware that his belief is only that – a belief.

We, Jews, want peace. We want the acceptance of our moral legitimacy by Arabs, Palestinians, and the west. So many centuries of persecution, culminating in the extermination of the shoah; so many years of fighting for our survival, have formed our psyches. But our yearning cannot be allowed to blind us as it did during the shoah. We must resist our own yearnings and question the beliefs that are generated by those longings while, at the same time, maintaining an intelligent and critical view of the workings and policies of all governments and political entities involved. We must resist the six beliefs listed above, each of which seems to me to be very naïve. Allowing our policy to be guided by them endangers Jewish existence, a danger that Jews cannot risk in the post-shoah period.

RESPONSE TO CRITICAL COMMENTS

My dialogue partners have focused their comments around two points. The first is my view that Islamic fanaticism is not aberrational but inherent in the nature of Islam. They maintain that this is a “specious essentialist claim” about Islam -- “But is there one Islam, or one Arab perspective, with the fixed characteristics you attribute to it?” -- and that, in so characterizing Islam, I am myself not being sufficiently critical.
I could not disagree more with my dialogue partners. Every religion, indeed every culture, does have a set of “essential” claims. Authorities within the religion may differ on the exact meaning of these claims but it is precisely those claims that define the religion, that give it its identity. To point to those claims is, indeed, to do honest scholarship. It is to focus the attention of the reader on doctrines or practices that are definitive of the religion or culture under study. Thus, it is hard to talk about Christianity without some interpretation of Christ, or of Judaism without some interpretation of Torah, or of Islam without some appreciation of the centrality of the Qoran. Further, the “essential” identity of these traditions is not limited to the three parameters I have listed. One could add: crucifixion, resurrection, and salvation to the definition of Christianity; or halakha, teshuva, and peoplehood to the definition of Judaism; or, shari’a, Mohammed, and worship to that of Islam. To do this is not to distort in a “specious essentialist” way the religion or culture under study; it is to attempt a series of parameters that define it, that enable a discussion of it. While one must be aware of the differences of opinions within each tradition, that does not deny that each really requires an ”essentialist claim” to describe it.
There are two kinds of essentialist claims: the intellectual and the sociological. The intellectual essentialist claim would have to argue that certain ideas are “essential” to the proper definition of the religion or culture under study, given a certain variation in interpretation. The sociological essentialist claim would have to argue that, independent of the formal teaching of the duly constituted authorities, the actual populace believes and practices certain claims. It is surely the case that the intellectual and the sociological claims overlap in some areas and differ in others in all cultures and religions.
In Islam, it is the case, intellectually, that territory that was once under Islamic rule always remains Islamic even if it is temporarily in the hands of others called “infidels.” This is classic Islamic doctrine and it is still taught as such. Furthermore, and perhaps more important, this idea is the center of all popular Islamic claims to territory that was once Islamic, beginning with the claim to the Holy Land that was once redeemed from the Christian crusader infidels and now needs to be redeemed from the Jewish infidels who occupy that land. This essential claim also includes the liberation of Iraq, where this idea has particular force, from the American “occupation,” as well as the reconquest of the Balkans and Spain. While talk of reconquering Spain and the Balkans is not taken seriously by the west, it is taken very seriously by Muslims even if it is not on the top of their current political-military agendum. Talk of reconquering the Holy Land (and Iraq), therefore should, indeed, be taken seriously. Reconquering Islamic territory is precisely an essentialist claim of Islamic religion as well as of popular Islamic culture. It is even a part of nationalist secular Arab culture where calls for the reconquest of the whole of Palestine are common in the media, including websites, the press, textbooks, etc. as I have indicated.
Scholars should not shrink from pointing to the reconquest of the whole of Palestine as a central element in popular and intellectual Islam because of their own politically correct, prior beliefs about the good will and tolerance of Islamic religion and Islamic peoples. To do so is false scholarship and, in the post-shoah world, dangerous.
The second critique of my position points out that, given the lack of an actual Palestinian peace movement and given the lack of a possible Palestinian peace movement due to the deep popular and intellectual roots of Palestinian nationalism in Islam, how can I believe at all in peace between Israelis and Palestinians? “How, then, is it logically possible for Palestinians to serve as a partner for peace?” And again: “How would your own beliefs allow for any possibility of peace in the region?”
Given my early history, I have, reluctantly, come to the conclusion that almost all Palestinians are not partners for a real peace, at least not in the sense in which “peace” is used in the west. We, in the occident, usually use the word “peace” to refer to a state of ceased hostilities followed by a state of developed commercial, political, social, and other inter-people and inter-governmental ties. That, as I see it, will never happen in Israel / Palestine. There will never be a cessation of hostilities, not to speak of the development of constructive inter-state and inter-people ties. I think this for all the reasons I have outlined in my essay.
The best I would hope for is two separate states, with clearly defined and policed borders, and a relatively low death toll on both sides. There will be some commerce and labor exchanges but they will not be central to either economy and will largely be developed in spite of the existence of the two states. There will also be some people who will cross the cultural and political borders and genuinely interact with one another but they will be, as they have been, very few in number with no appeal to the masses, particularly the Palestinian masses who subscribe to the exclusivist teachings of intellectual and popular Islam.
Still, as the Bible itself records, forty years of reduced hostilities is an accomplishment, a goal to be striven for. I, for one, and I think many other Jews and Israelis, would be content with such a “peace” which is really a smoldering armistice, one that requires continued alertness and, unfortunately, the continued sacrifice of innocent lives on both sides. I think, too, that “peace” as I have outlined it might be a realistic short-term possibility at this time because of the peculiar historical juncture of the American insistence on democratizing the Middle East. This effort has a tendency to bring those who are ready for compromise to the surface, though it is not at all certain that they will survive long enough to seize the reins of power and make any significant changes in Palestinian society. Meanwhile, Israeli and Palestinian realists would do well to seize the moment and work diligently toward whatever “peace” is possible while post-shoah western scholars would do well to disabuse themselves of the beliefs I listed in my essay which, not only do not further the cause of peace, but actually inhibit it through an overly optimistic view of the possibilities that lie before us.

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David R. Blumenthal, Facing the Abusing God: A Theology of Protest (Louisville, KY: Westminster / John Knox, 1993); David R. Blumenthal, The Banality of Good and Evil (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1999); Alex Gross, Yankele: A Holocaust Survivor’s Bittersweet Memoir (Lanham, MA: University Press of America, 2001); and David R. Blumenthal, ed., Emory Studies on the Holocaust, 2 vols. (Atlanta: Emory University, 1985, 1988).
During this period, I conceived on an exemplary textbook in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim trialogue. I have never succeeded in finding a Muslim, Palestinian or otherwise, who would write the section on Islam. Every Muslim I have met has been afraid of any kind of “cooperation” – i.e., collaboration – with me.
I once interviewed a well-educated Muslim from the United Arab Emirates for the MA in Jewish Studies at Emory whose interest was in modern Hebrew literature. He plainly told me that only literature written by Jews from Islamic lands was legitimate; the rest of modern Hebrew literature had too much “Yiddishkeit” (his word, not mine) and, hence, was simply not properly Hebrew literature.
For more on this, see my Response in Part Two, below.
"In the Shadow of the Holocaust," Jewish Spectator 1981 (Winter), pp. 11-14; reprinted in expanded form as, "Memory and Meaning in the Shadow of the Holocaust," in David R. Blumenthal, ed., Emory Studies on the Holocaust (1985), pp. 114-22; available on my website www.js.emory.edu/BLUMENTHAL.
Haim Harari, “A View from the Eye of the Storm,” in a speech given in April 2004 and widely distributed on the internet: http://www.freeman.org/m_online/jul04/harari.htm.
The very prestigious Palestinian public opinion survey, PSR – Survey Research Unit, in its Public Opinion Poll # 13 from September 23-26, 2004, indicates that, while 83% of all Palestinians want “mutual cessation of violence,” fully 77% supported the then-recent Beer Sheva bombing attack; that fully 48% “viewed armed attacks against Israelis as effective”; and that there was “wide spread support for: firing of rockets into Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip, firing of rockets from Beit Hanoun into Israel, and the ‘liquidation’ of Palestinians accused of being Israeli spies.” See the PSR website: http://www.pcpsr.org/index.html.
On Palestinian and Arab textbooks, see http://www.edume.org/reports/. See also the article by Margaret Brearley, below. Friends report to me that there has been some effort to eliminate some stereotypes in Palestinian textbooks but even these attempts do not tell the story of Zionism as a legitimate Jewish nationalist movement.
On Palestinian media, see http://www.pmwatch.org/pmw/index.asp. See also the article by Margaret Brearley, below.
On holocaust denial, see Deborah Lipstadt, History on Trial (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2005), pp. 299-300. See also Meir Litvak and Esther Webman, “The Representation of the Holocaust in the Arab World,” The Journal of Israeli History, 23:1 (Spring 2004) pp. 100-15.
The countries surveyed were, in order of the percentages: Turkey, Pakistan, Indonesia, Lebanon, Jordan, and Morocco, leaving Lebanon and Jordan (with its very high number of Palestinians) with the highest percentages. See the Pew website: http://pewglobal.org/.
See Anne Bayefsky, “On the Record: One Small Step,” Monday, June 21, 2004, a speech copyrighted by Dow Jones and Company, widely circulated on the internet: http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110005245.
This principle is known as dar al-Islam and has, as its counterpart, dar al-harb, the domain of the sword. A Google search of the web for “dar al-harb” yielded 46,800 hits, among them Ahmed Khalil, “Dar Al-Islam and Dar Al-Harb: Its Definition and Significance” as follows: ”Dar al-Harb (Domain of War) refers to the territory under the hegemony of unbelievers, which is on terms of active or potential belligerency with the Domain of Islam, and presumably hostile to the Muslims living in its domain” (http://www.bismikaallahuma.org/History/dar_islam-harb.htm). I call the attention of the reader to the expanded definition of dar al-harb which includes all land that is under non-Islamic control that contains a Muslim population. I further note that, in the pronouncements on the underground bombings in London (July 2005), the term dar al-harb was explicitly used as an Islamic term justifying such bombings as part of the larger mission of Islam to the world. See also the article by Margaret Brearley, below.
For example: There is no prima facie reason why Palestinians should recognize the Jewish claim to the holy land at all. Also, there is a violently anti-western, anti-imperialist ideology in the Arab world and Israel is seen as an integral part of the imperialist, western world. And so on.
See the PSR survey cited above on approval ratings for killing of “collaborators.” I am not aware of statistics on intimidation of opponents but it is widely reported.
See Bat Ye’or, Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide (Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2002). See also http://www.dhimmi.org and http://www.dhimmitude.org.
Joel Kraemer, “The Islamic Context of Medieval Jewish Philosophy,” in Daniel Frank and Oliver Leaman, eds., Cambridge Companion to Medieval Jewish Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 38-68.
Hava Lazarus-Yafeh, “Self-Dialogue Partners in Jewish and Islamic Traditions,” in Benjamin Hary et al., eds., Judaism and Islam: Boundaries, Communication, and Interaction (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2000), pp. 303-20.
See, for instance: http://groups.msn.com/MiddleEastAbrahamicForum/debates.msnw?action=get_message&mview=0&ID_Message=67084&LastModified=4675500932346677344.
Reported by J. Pearl, “Islam Struggles to Stake Out its Position,” International Herald Tribune, 7/20/05, p. 8.
For a sharp view of Arabic patriarchalism, see Hisham Sharabi, Neopatriarchy: A Theory of Distorted Change in Arab Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988).
See, for example, the statement of Ibn Warraq of the Institute for the Secularisation of Islamic Society: “We are confronted with Islamic terrorists and must take seriously the Islamic component. Westerners in general, and Americans in particular, do not understand the passionate, religious, and anti-western convictions of Islamic terrorists” (italics original). See the website: http://www.secularislam.org/. See also, Robert Spencer, The Myth of Islamic Tolerance: How Islamic Law Treats Non-Muslims (New York: Prometheus Press, 2005).
Dennis Ross, The Missing Peace (New York: Farrar, Straus, 2004). For a counter-view, see C. Swisher, The Truth About Camp David (New York: Nation Books, 2004) and R. Malley and H. Agha, New York Review of Books, 8/9/01, 6/13/02, 6/27/02.
Ibid., pp. 13, 757.
Ibid., pp. 762-63.
Ibid., pp. 42, 770-73, 766, 769.
Ibid., p. 770.
See above, note 13.
See the quotation from Ibn Warraq, above, note 22.
See above, notes 8 and 9.

[KarlXII]

actually i never quoted them. i was looking around for the text of UNr242 and that came up. as much as i remember, that christians for israel site had the text of UNr242, which i was looking for. not an article on it or whatnot- just the text.
now if he had used Al-Jezerra for a map of israel or sites of refugee camps, then thatll be no problem. but the fact that it was an article.....
anyhow, no point arguing over this petty matter.

Well, the problem I have is I just google searched Resolution 242 and the first two sites I came up with were Wikipedia and the official U.N. website. I just don't think it's possible you could miss the Wikipedia article and the official U.N. site and be given Christains For Israel.

[Hooahguy]

Well, the problem I have is I just google searched Resolution 242 and the first two sites I came up with were Wikipedia and the official U.N. website. I just don't think it's possible you could miss the Wikipedia article and the official U.N. site and be given Christains For Israel.
i actually think i may have spelled "resolution" wrong when i typed it in. maybe.
and yes, if it wasnt for this amazing built in spell checker that firefox has id be doomed....
:laugh4:

[KarlXII]

Dr. David Blumenthal, who is a professor at Emory University, sent me this article he wrote back in 2006 (I think):

beware, its very long, but very thoughtful:
“BEWARE OF YOUR BELIEFS”

When I first sat down to write this, Yasir Arafat lay sick, probably dead, in a hospital in Paris. Since then, he has been replaced by the only democratically elected leader in the Arab world, Abu Mazen, and hopes have soared that peace may be around the corner. As we approach the final deadline for this book, however, the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and parts of the West Bank is imminent, together with its immediate danger of attacks by Palestinian groups and its long-range danger of Gaza developing as a base for al-Qaeda attacks on Europe, Arab countries, and Israel. No one actually knows what will happen next; the best guess for the future depends on how one reads the past. In the interest of self-disclosure, I begin with the following:
I am a Jew and have been a conscious Zionist for as long as I can remember. I recall the vote in the United Nations to establish the Jewish state and the switch in religious school to the Israeli pronunciation of Hebrew when the state was proclaimed. I was an active member of a Zionist youth movement and my first trip to Israel was very much a Zionist pilgrimage.
I am also a religious Jew who takes seriously the presence of God and the truth of God’s promises to the Jewish people of seed, land, and blessing. I, therefore, justify the Jewish claim to a homeland in Israel on secular-historical, as well as religious-spiritual, grounds.
I am also an experienced rabbi and professor of Jewish Studies, one who has taught Jewish civilization for some time and has been active in Jewish and Israeli causes, locally and nationally. I was also one of the organizers of the first trialogue group of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scholars and was a consultant to the Presbyterian church on its documents concerning the Jews and Israel. I initiated courses and research on the shoah at my university, have been a member of various committees of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, of the Wroxton Seminar, have written two books on the shoah, have edited the memoirs of a survivor and two volumes of essays on the shoah.
On the subject of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I was among the early speakers for Palestinian rights and have consistently supported the efforts of Israeli and Palestinian peace organizations. I remember vividly visiting a fellow student in an Israeli Arab village in 1959. It was then under curfew and, being dark-skinned, I saw their humiliation. I remember, too, sitting with them as they listed excitedly to Nasser preach about pushing the Jews into the sea. I recall being asked to address a large synagogue gathering together with a Palestinian in the early 1980s. I took a firm stand in favor of a Palestinian state alongside the state of Israel, much to the admitted astonishment of the Palestinian speaker. At about the same time, I was quietly dropped from the list of speakers to the young leadership group of the Atlanta Jewish Federation because of my espousal of Palestinian sovereignty and not just autonomy. I joined Oz ve-Shalom, the religious peace group, a long time ago and hosted speakers from that and related groups at my university over the years, though I have also encouraged speakers from the Israeli right as part of the educational thrust of my work. During the course of my consultations with the Presbyterian church, I visited Palestinians in Israel and in the West Bank, as well as Christians in Egypt.
Over the years, however, my position has changed because I found that my Palestinian and Muslim interlocutors embodied three characteristics that I found counterproductive. First, they totally politicized all discussions. All my attempts to discuss theology, peace, and a justice that would include Jews and the state of Israel as well as Palestinians and a Palestinian state were completely rejected. My “partners” wanted only to present the Palestinian side, not to dialogue. Second, my Palestinian and Muslim interlocutors refused to acknowledge any co-responsibility for the situation. They candidly approved of terrorism, even that directed at innocent Israeli civilians. Occasionally, over the years, I would find individual Palestinians and Muslims who would realize the futility of terrorism, but not its inherent evil. But, even for such rare individuals, the open expression of such opinions was regarded as national treason and they simply would not make such statements in public. Third, even though there were uneven attempts at political and religious dialogue with an elite, Palestinians and Muslims in general – ordinary people engaged in conversation as well as the Palestinian and Arab media – have openly manifested a relentless wish to destroy the Jewish state and to drive out the Jews who have chosen to settle there.
It has made no difference whether I have engaged in dialogue in the United States, Europe, or Israel. Nor have the auspices been a factor: Presbyterian, leftist, rightist, religious, secular, political, interfaith. Nothing has helped. While it is true that Jewish and Israeli interlocutors are also varied in their opinions and even in their prejudices, I have increasingly found Palestinians and Muslims to be very difficult dialogue partners. They, frankly, do not share a concern for Jewish existence. Nor do they share a sense of the inherent right of the Jewish people to exist in its homeland, granted that there must be some dignified, mutual accommodation that would make this possible. Perhaps in some ideal religious or ideological sense, they shouldn’t need to think such thoughts. But, in the concrete situation in which we all find ourselves, I have found that refusal to want to deal with us to be irresponsible, and I have found their hostility to us to be relentless. Further, in the context of post-shoah Jewish life, I have increasingly realized that I cannot dismiss that hostility as simply a negotiating position, or merely a cultural custom or a verbal convention. I must, rather, deal with it as forthrightly as I can.
In spite of my commitments and experiences, I recognize that I am not an expert on the Middle East, nor on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I do consider myself, however, an educated layperson with commitments who is not afraid to confront realities wherever they lie. It is with that background and in that spirit that I address the problem of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the context of post-shoah experience.

Twenty years ago, I published “The Seven Commandments for Jewish Survival in a Post-Holocaust World.” It is worthwhile to list them yet again: “Be a little paranoid; Get organized and stay organized; Educate; Support the institutions of freedom; Reproduce; Confront your opposition; and Be prepared.” Pieces of advice -- keep a good amount of cash and a valid passport at home, belong to a political lobby as part of your responsibility as a citizen, always vote, support peace movements, and be prepared to use political violence if necessary -- were all proposed. In looking back, I still think the article contains many valid points. I would, however, now add: “Beware of your beliefs.” We live life based on certain convictions about human nature and society, and the most difficult part of cross-cultural communication is the beliefs each party brings to the table.
The shoah took place, in part, because of the beliefs of those involved: that the world would not care about the Jews since it didn’t care about the Armenians; that the Germans were too civilized to be carrying out a plan of actual extermination; that the allies would act out of humanitarian motives and bomb non-essential targets such as the camps; that ordinary people would not act to murder innocent others; that governments would admit people who were obviously refugees; and so on. One of the important “lessons” of the shoah is that we must beware of our beliefs; that we must aggressively question what we believe and what others believe; and, further that, as Jews, we must do this with an eye to the problem of Jewish survival. Had the Jews of the shoah period been more realistic concerning their beliefs about human nature and society, perhaps many more would have been saved.
In this vein, I would like to present six beliefs of the western world – and that means, our world – about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that are dangerous to Jewish survival. We need to examine these carefully because we cannot afford to be wrong yet again about the world in which we live. It is our watch, our time for responsibility.

First: The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at the heart of the problems in the Middle East. This belief is very widely held in the Arab world; to wit, that the state of Israel was imposed on the Arab world by the Christian nations of Europe and America as guilt for the shoah -- as more than one Arab has said, “If the Christians persecuted and killed the Jews, why should we have to pay by having them in our land?” – and this injustice must be rectified. Hence, the proposition that, if only the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could be resolved, then there would be peace in the Middle East.
This belief seems to me to be very naive. As Haim Harari and many others have pointed out, the following serious events in the Middle East were not the result of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: the Iran-Iraq war in which casualties reached millions; the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan; the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait; the destruction of the city of Hamma by the Syrians; the occupation of Lebanon by Syria; the al-Qaeda attacks against Saudi Arabia and Egypt; the attack on the Twin Towers; the attack on the Spanish railroads and on the London underground; both American invasions of Iraq; the Algerian revolution; etc. None of these events was the product of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They were the result of the struggle for power, oil, and influence, as well as many other factors. Yet, the belief that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at the heart of the world’s problem in the Middle East persists -- and not only in the Arabic media and public statements but also in the European press and statements of its leaders where the popularity of this belief has led to many anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, and anti-Jewish violent incidents.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one part of the Middle East dilemma. However, there is no oil to dispute, the land is not particularly arable, and there are no resources or industry to covet. In short, Israel / Palestine is not geopolitically significant. No one’s national interest, except that of the Palestinians and the Israelis, is at stake. The belief in the centrality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must be resisted.
Second: Poverty is at the root of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and indeed of the Middle East crisis; further, poverty justifies the use of terrorism. This belief is widely heard in leftist circles all over the globe. It is an outgrowth of Marxist analysis that understands all conflict to be class conflict and further teaches that class conflict can only be resolved by violent means. Some western intellectuals are particularly taken with this argument, partly because it expresses their sense of guilt for the blessings they have. There are even some who “justify” terrorism as an expression of resentment at poverty.
This belief, too, seems to me to be very naive. As Haim Harari has pointed out, there is much, much greater poverty in Africa where people are really starving (as in the Sudan) and yet there is no terrorism there. There is greater poverty in India and yet there is no terrorism there. Poverty is, indeed, an issue in the Middle East and also in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on both sides but it is not the central issue, and solving poverty would not resolve the tensions in either the local conflict or in the region. The belief that this is so must be resisted.
Third: Reason and law are basic to all human societies and, hence, diplomatic activity to bring about the rule of reason and law is appropriate. This belief is perhaps the most widely held principle in the western world, especially in the United States. We, Americans, really believe that people are reasonable and that law is the proper ultimate place for the resolution of disputes. We believe that humans of diverse origins and aspirations can, with reason and good will, resolve their conflicts and live together peacefully in a just society.
Unfortunately, this belief, too, seems to me to be very naive. The world is not a place where there is liberty and justice for all. It is not a place of cooperation and good will, where the rule of law is the ultimate judge. The world of terrorism is a world where the means justify the ends. It is a world that glorifies murderers, calling them martyrs and building museums to their memory. Whether the terrorists are Palestinian or Cambodian, the world of terror is not a world where reason and law prevail. Regimes that support terror are not entities to whom one can appeal on the basis of law and reason. Until now, the Palestinian leadership has endorsed a life of terror. It would be very irresponsible to history, especially to Jewish history, not to recognize that our western belief in reason and law is only that – a belief, and one not shared by many Palestinians.
Further, the world of Jew hatred – and let us not sanitize it by calling it antisemitism – is also a world in which reason and law do not apply. All racial hatreds defy law and reason. The widespread teaching of Jew hatred in Palestinian textbooks, political statements, media, mosques, books, and so on is testimony to a world that must be faced, not denied. Yasir Arafat was a holocaust denier. Abu Mazen, his successor, wrote a book on holocaust denial. The Egyptian media release films based on Jew-hatred. The recently released Pew Global Attitudes Project report entitled, “Islamic Extremism: Common Concern for Muslim and Western Publics,” reports “unfavorable” view of Jews at the following percentages in the countries surveyed: 60%, 74%, 76%, 99%, 100%, and 88%. One might also add the well-documented reports of Palestinians standing on the rooftops celebrating the falling of Scud missiles on Israeli towns during the first Iraq war; or the cruelty with which an Israeli soldier was publicly executed in a Palestinian town that was recorded by European television. No amount of denial of Jew hatred in the Arab world will erase these facts; better the Realpolitik that acknowledges them.
The United Nations has surely not been the embodiment of the ideals of reason and law. The “Zionism is racism” vote, the Durban conference, and a host of other votes and policies pursued by the UN are proof of this. Being blind to this is a repetition of the blindness of the shoah generations.

Fourth: Most Palestinians want a state that will exist side by side with the Israeli state. This belief, reinforced by occasional statements by the Palestinian leadership, including Abu Mazen, is widely believed in Israel and the west. Indeed, the “two state solution” would seem to be the reasonable, and the only, solution.
This belief, too, seems to me to be very naive. There are certainly some Palestinians, including Abu Mazen, who want a Palestinian state even if that means recognizing a Jewish state alongside it, for there cannot be a Palestinian state without a Jewish state. However, it must also be remembered that the official Palestinian representatives have rejected every offer to create a Palestinian state over the past half century precisely because that would also create a recognized Jewish state.
The reason for this is that, in Islamic thought, land once conquered by Islam always remains Islamic; it can never be ceded to a non-Islamic entity. The classic instance of this is the crusader conquest of the holy land. From an Arab point of view, the crusaders were invaders who ruled the land temporarily and were, justifiably, expelled by force. The man who did that is probably the only man in Islamic history generally known to westerners: Saladin. Every Arab leader aspires to be the Saladin of today who will expel the foreigners, the Jews, from the Islamic land of Palestine. The converse is also true: No Palestinian leader can recognize the moral right of the Jews to a homeland anywhere in Palestine from the Jordan to the Mediterranean without being a traitor to Arab history.
For this reason and others, there has been no real Palestinian peace movement, no popular political base for making peace with Israel though there have been a few members of the elite, including Abu Mazen, who have thought it useful. Rather, advocates of peace with Israel have been intimidated, persecuted, and even killed. This, in turn, has led to a sympathy for the silence of such persons and has led to a double standard which demands western civic courage from Israelis but not from Palestinians.
Finally, Palestinian belief in the “demographic time bomb” – that the population growth of the Palestinians will give them a majority of the population by 2010 or 2020 – means that many Palestinians do not need, or want, a Palestinian state. All they need to do is wait and then demand a majority vote. The purpose of this strategy is to erase the Jewish presence in the holy land, to do away with the Jewish state. Certainly, one must give peace a chance now that Arafat is dead but we must also remember that the belief that most Palestinians want the two-state solution is just that -- a belief.
Fifth: Islam is a religion of tolerance with occasional aberrations of fanaticism. The west wants very much to believe this and so it has become a fundamental belief of western culture -- that Islam must be, like all religions, basically humanistic. Westerners point to the scientific achievements of the early Islamic period and to the tolerance often found in Muslims who are in the Muslim diaspora, while Jews point to the “golden age” of the medieval Islamic-Jewish symbiosis as evidence for the “true” Islam.
This belief, too however, seems to me to be very naive. At all periods of Islamic history, the phenomenon of dhimmitude existed; that is, Jews and Christians were awarded protected status but, as minorities, they were subject to special taxes and regular humiliation. This is not tolerance, and its actual practice was worse than its theory. Further, Kraemer has shown that, even at its intellectual height, Islam sought to persecute its own philosophers who were often accused of heresy, punished, and sometimes executed for their teachings. The principle that land once conquered by Islam must always remain Islamic is indicative too.
The reasons for this intolerance are many and complicated. The simplest is a very long tradition of the lack of self-criticism. As Lazarus-Yafeh has shown, even the biblical stories retold in the Qoran are distorted to eliminate the prophetic critique of society that is so crucial to biblical religion. This lack of self-criticism generates the widely observed phenomenon that Arabs never blame themselves for anything that happens to them; it is always the Zionists, the Americans, the other who is to blame. This lack of civic courage in Arab society is clearly seen in the following: On 3/11/05, the Muslim Council of Spain condemned Bin Laden as an apostate. In July 2005, “The Reality of Islam and Its Role in the Contemporary Society” conference of 170 Muslim scholars from 40 countries, issued the following final communiqué reversing the decision of the Spanish Muslim Council: “It is not possible to declare as apostates any group of Muslims who believes in Allah, the Mighty and Sublime, and in His Messenger (may Peace and Blessing be upon him) and the pillars of the faith, and respects the pillars of Islam and does not deny any necessary article of religion.”
The lack of self-criticism in Islamic society, including Palestinian society, stems also from the irreducible patriarchy of Islamic society. Disempowered economically and politically, Arab men are left with only one source of personal power: power over women – a power that is so absolute that, in most Arab societies including Palestinian society, men are permitted to kill women in their family who defy the sexual taboos of the society. Such “honor killings” (note the term) are not considered crimes. Such a deeply patriarchal society must do two things: It must honor the whole patriarchal hierarchy, suppressing all resistance voluntarily or by force, and it must avoid liberty and freedom for all at all costs. It is a delusional belief on our part that Arab Islamic society is tolerant or is going to be so any time in the foreseeable future, and this assumption must be resisted.
Sixth, Dennis Ross, the United States representative in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process from Oslo to the second intifada, offers a well-informed analysis in his recent book. Ross maintains that the primary obstacle to peace was Arafat himself. Insofar as this is correct and that obstacle is removed, peace should follow in a reasonable period of time. Ross, however, points to other factors that prevent peace, primary among them being the lack of legitimacy for Arab rulers. This, according to Ross, accounts for the lack of criticism of Arafat by other Arab leaders and for Arafat’s inability to “take historic decisions.” It also is the basis for the inability of almost all Palestinians and the Arab world to recognize “the moral legitimacy” of the state of Israel, whose existence is only seen as an unwanted necessity.
As a result of this “lack of legitimacy” and the consequent inability to “recognize the moral legitimacy” of the state of Israel, there has been no “transformation” of the Palestinian and Arab world, no change in the underlying attitudes of the Palestinian and Arab world toward Israel and Jews. The basic Palestinian narrative of victimage and entitlement remains. It is taught in the schools, the media, youth camps, the mosques, in public statements by leaders, and elsewhere. Violence is enshrined instead of being denounced. There is no “conditioning” of the Palestinian and Arab public to peace.
Ross puts some of the blame on the Israelis but, because it is a democratic society and hence its government has “legitimacy,” a majority of Israelis do question their own myths of victimage and entitlement, hold their leaders responsible, vote them out of office if needed, and are ready to take historic decisions. Ross also faults the United States, and himself as an integral part of the peace process, for not enforcing accountability.
Ross’ detailed and learned analysis is naive because of its belief – that a government is “legitimate” only when it derives from the participation of the governed. As one brought up in America, I agree that government should be “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” Indeed, I firmly believe that the blessings of technology, prosperity, freedom, liberty, and the protection of human rights all derive from the democratic process. I, unlike many, think it is laudable that our government wants to export freedom and democracy to others. But it is an idea that only works in some contexts and not in others. Government in Islamic society has never derived its “legitimacy” from the people. One must give Ross the chance to be right about legitimacy but, at the same time, one must beware that his belief is only that – a belief.

We, Jews, want peace. We want the acceptance of our moral legitimacy by Arabs, Palestinians, and the west. So many centuries of persecution, culminating in the extermination of the shoah; so many years of fighting for our survival, have formed our psyches. But our yearning cannot be allowed to blind us as it did during the shoah. We must resist our own yearnings and question the beliefs that are generated by those longings while, at the same time, maintaining an intelligent and critical view of the workings and policies of all governments and political entities involved. We must resist the six beliefs listed above, each of which seems to me to be very naïve. Allowing our policy to be guided by them endangers Jewish existence, a danger that Jews cannot risk in the post-shoah period.

RESPONSE TO CRITICAL COMMENTS

My dialogue partners have focused their comments around two points. The first is my view that Islamic fanaticism is not aberrational but inherent in the nature of Islam. They maintain that this is a “specious essentialist claim” about Islam -- “But is there one Islam, or one Arab perspective, with the fixed characteristics you attribute to it?” -- and that, in so characterizing Islam, I am myself not being sufficiently critical.
I could not disagree more with my dialogue partners. Every religion, indeed every culture, does have a set of “essential” claims. Authorities within the religion may differ on the exact meaning of these claims but it is precisely those claims that define the religion, that give it its identity. To point to those claims is, indeed, to do honest scholarship. It is to focus the attention of the reader on doctrines or practices that are definitive of the religion or culture under study. Thus, it is hard to talk about Christianity without some interpretation of Christ, or of Judaism without some interpretation of Torah, or of Islam without some appreciation of the centrality of the Qoran. Further, the “essential” identity of these traditions is not limited to the three parameters I have listed. One could add: crucifixion, resurrection, and salvation to the definition of Christianity; or halakha, teshuva, and peoplehood to the definition of Judaism; or, shari’a, Mohammed, and worship to that of Islam. To do this is not to distort in a “specious essentialist” way the religion or culture under study; it is to attempt a series of parameters that define it, that enable a discussion of it. While one must be aware of the differences of opinions within each tradition, that does not deny that each really requires an ”essentialist claim” to describe it.
There are two kinds of essentialist claims: the intellectual and the sociological. The intellectual essentialist claim would have to argue that certain ideas are “essential” to the proper definition of the religion or culture under study, given a certain variation in interpretation. The sociological essentialist claim would have to argue that, independent of the formal teaching of the duly constituted authorities, the actual populace believes and practices certain claims. It is surely the case that the intellectual and the sociological claims overlap in some areas and differ in others in all cultures and religions.
In Islam, it is the case, intellectually, that territory that was once under Islamic rule always remains Islamic even if it is temporarily in the hands of others called “infidels.” This is classic Islamic doctrine and it is still taught as such. Furthermore, and perhaps more important, this idea is the center of all popular Islamic claims to territory that was once Islamic, beginning with the claim to the Holy Land that was once redeemed from the Christian crusader infidels and now needs to be redeemed from the Jewish infidels who occupy that land. This essential claim also includes the liberation of Iraq, where this idea has particular force, from the American “occupation,” as well as the reconquest of the Balkans and Spain. While talk of reconquering Spain and the Balkans is not taken seriously by the west, it is taken very seriously by Muslims even if it is not on the top of their current political-military agendum. Talk of reconquering the Holy Land (and Iraq), therefore should, indeed, be taken seriously. Reconquering Islamic territory is precisely an essentialist claim of Islamic religion as well as of popular Islamic culture. It is even a part of nationalist secular Arab culture where calls for the reconquest of the whole of Palestine are common in the media, including websites, the press, textbooks, etc. as I have indicated.
Scholars should not shrink from pointing to the reconquest of the whole of Palestine as a central element in popular and intellectual Islam because of their own politically correct, prior beliefs about the good will and tolerance of Islamic religion and Islamic peoples. To do so is false scholarship and, in the post-shoah world, dangerous.
The second critique of my position points out that, given the lack of an actual Palestinian peace movement and given the lack of a possible Palestinian peace movement due to the deep popular and intellectual roots of Palestinian nationalism in Islam, how can I believe at all in peace between Israelis and Palestinians? “How, then, is it logically possible for Palestinians to serve as a partner for peace?” And again: “How would your own beliefs allow for any possibility of peace in the region?”
Given my early history, I have, reluctantly, come to the conclusion that almost all Palestinians are not partners for a real peace, at least not in the sense in which “peace” is used in the west. We, in the occident, usually use the word “peace” to refer to a state of ceased hostilities followed by a state of developed commercial, political, social, and other inter-people and inter-governmental ties. That, as I see it, will never happen in Israel / Palestine. There will never be a cessation of hostilities, not to speak of the development of constructive inter-state and inter-people ties. I think this for all the reasons I have outlined in my essay.
The best I would hope for is two separate states, with clearly defined and policed borders, and a relatively low death toll on both sides. There will be some commerce and labor exchanges but they will not be central to either economy and will largely be developed in spite of the existence of the two states. There will also be some people who will cross the cultural and political borders and genuinely interact with one another but they will be, as they have been, very few in number with no appeal to the masses, particularly the Palestinian masses who subscribe to the exclusivist teachings of intellectual and popular Islam.
Still, as the Bible itself records, forty years of reduced hostilities is an accomplishment, a goal to be striven for. I, for one, and I think many other Jews and Israelis, would be content with such a “peace” which is really a smoldering armistice, one that requires continued alertness and, unfortunately, the continued sacrifice of innocent lives on both sides. I think, too, that “peace” as I have outlined it might be a realistic short-term possibility at this time because of the peculiar historical juncture of the American insistence on democratizing the Middle East. This effort has a tendency to bring those who are ready for compromise to the surface, though it is not at all certain that they will survive long enough to seize the reins of power and make any significant changes in Palestinian society. Meanwhile, Israeli and Palestinian realists would do well to seize the moment and work diligently toward whatever “peace” is possible while post-shoah western scholars would do well to disabuse themselves of the beliefs I listed in my essay which, not only do not further the cause of peace, but actually inhibit it through an overly optimistic view of the possibilities that lie before us.

------------------
David R. Blumenthal, Facing the Abusing God: A Theology of Protest (Louisville, KY: Westminster / John Knox, 1993); David R. Blumenthal, The Banality of Good and Evil (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1999); Alex Gross, Yankele: A Holocaust Survivor’s Bittersweet Memoir (Lanham, MA: University Press of America, 2001); and David R. Blumenthal, ed., Emory Studies on the Holocaust, 2 vols. (Atlanta: Emory University, 1985, 1988).
During this period, I conceived on an exemplary textbook in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim trialogue. I have never succeeded in finding a Muslim, Palestinian or otherwise, who would write the section on Islam. Every Muslim I have met has been afraid of any kind of “cooperation” – i.e., collaboration – with me.
I once interviewed a well-educated Muslim from the United Arab Emirates for the MA in Jewish Studies at Emory whose interest was in modern Hebrew literature. He plainly told me that only literature written by Jews from Islamic lands was legitimate; the rest of modern Hebrew literature had too much “Yiddishkeit” (his word, not mine) and, hence, was simply not properly Hebrew literature.
For more on this, see my Response in Part Two, below.
"In the Shadow of the Holocaust," Jewish Spectator 1981 (Winter), pp. 11-14; reprinted in expanded form as, "Memory and Meaning in the Shadow of the Holocaust," in David R. Blumenthal, ed., Emory Studies on the Holocaust (1985), pp. 114-22; available on my website www.js.emory.edu/BLUMENTHAL.
Haim Harari, “A View from the Eye of the Storm,” in a speech given in April 2004 and widely distributed on the internet: http://www.freeman.org/m_online/jul04/harari.htm.
The very prestigious Palestinian public opinion survey, PSR – Survey Research Unit, in its Public Opinion Poll # 13 from September 23-26, 2004, indicates that, while 83% of all Palestinians want “mutual cessation of violence,” fully 77% supported the then-recent Beer Sheva bombing attack; that fully 48% “viewed armed attacks against Israelis as effective”; and that there was “wide spread support for: firing of rockets into Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip, firing of rockets from Beit Hanoun into Israel, and the ‘liquidation’ of Palestinians accused of being Israeli spies.” See the PSR website: http://www.pcpsr.org/index.html.
On Palestinian and Arab textbooks, see http://www.edume.org/reports/. See also the article by Margaret Brearley, below. Friends report to me that there has been some effort to eliminate some stereotypes in Palestinian textbooks but even these attempts do not tell the story of Zionism as a legitimate Jewish nationalist movement.
On Palestinian media, see http://www.pmwatch.org/pmw/index.asp. See also the article by Margaret Brearley, below.
On holocaust denial, see Deborah Lipstadt, History on Trial (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2005), pp. 299-300. See also Meir Litvak and Esther Webman, “The Representation of the Holocaust in the Arab World,” The Journal of Israeli History, 23:1 (Spring 2004) pp. 100-15.
The countries surveyed were, in order of the percentages: Turkey, Pakistan, Indonesia, Lebanon, Jordan, and Morocco, leaving Lebanon and Jordan (with its very high number of Palestinians) with the highest percentages. See the Pew website: http://pewglobal.org/.
See Anne Bayefsky, “On the Record: One Small Step,” Monday, June 21, 2004, a speech copyrighted by Dow Jones and Company, widely circulated on the internet: http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110005245.
This principle is known as dar al-Islam and has, as its counterpart, dar al-harb, the domain of the sword. A Google search of the web for “dar al-harb” yielded 46,800 hits, among them Ahmed Khalil, “Dar Al-Islam and Dar Al-Harb: Its Definition and Significance” as follows: ”Dar al-Harb (Domain of War) refers to the territory under the hegemony of unbelievers, which is on terms of active or potential belligerency with the Domain of Islam, and presumably hostile to the Muslims living in its domain” (http://www.bismikaallahuma.org/History/dar_islam-harb.htm). I call the attention of the reader to the expanded definition of dar al-harb which includes all land that is under non-Islamic control that contains a Muslim population. I further note that, in the pronouncements on the underground bombings in London (July 2005), the term dar al-harb was explicitly used as an Islamic term justifying such bombings as part of the larger mission of Islam to the world. See also the article by Margaret Brearley, below.
For example: There is no prima facie reason why Palestinians should recognize the Jewish claim to the holy land at all. Also, there is a violently anti-western, anti-imperialist ideology in the Arab world and Israel is seen as an integral part of the imperialist, western world. And so on.
See the PSR survey cited above on approval ratings for killing of “collaborators.” I am not aware of statistics on intimidation of opponents but it is widely reported.
See Bat Ye’or, Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide (Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2002). See also http://www.dhimmi.org and http://www.dhimmitude.org.
Joel Kraemer, “The Islamic Context of Medieval Jewish Philosophy,” in Daniel Frank and Oliver Leaman, eds., Cambridge Companion to Medieval Jewish Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 38-68.
Hava Lazarus-Yafeh, “Self-Dialogue Partners in Jewish and Islamic Traditions,” in Benjamin Hary et al., eds., Judaism and Islam: Boundaries, Communication, and Interaction (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2000), pp. 303-20.
See, for instance: http://groups.msn.com/MiddleEastAbrahamicForum/debates.msnw?action=get_message&mview=0&ID_Message=67084&LastModified=4675500932346677344.
Reported by J. Pearl, “Islam Struggles to Stake Out its Position,” International Herald Tribune, 7/20/05, p. 8.
For a sharp view of Arabic patriarchalism, see Hisham Sharabi, Neopatriarchy: A Theory of Distorted Change in Arab Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988).
See, for example, the statement of Ibn Warraq of the Institute for the Secularisation of Islamic Society: “We are confronted with Islamic terrorists and must take seriously the Islamic component. Westerners in general, and Americans in particular, do not understand the passionate, religious, and anti-western convictions of Islamic terrorists” (italics original). See the website: http://www.secularislam.org/. See also, Robert Spencer, The Myth of Islamic Tolerance: How Islamic Law Treats Non-Muslims (New York: Prometheus Press, 2005).
Dennis Ross, The Missing Peace (New York: Farrar, Straus, 2004). For a counter-view, see C. Swisher, The Truth About Camp David (New York: Nation Books, 2004) and R. Malley and H. Agha, New York Review of Books, 8/9/01, 6/13/02, 6/27/02.
Ibid., pp. 13, 757.
Ibid., pp. 762-63.
Ibid., pp. 42, 770-73, 766, 769.
Ibid., p. 770.
See above, note 13.
See the quotation from Ibn Warraq, above, note 22.
See above, notes 8 and 9.

I am not surprised your average Palestinian or Arab wishes the destruction of Israel, given their situation. Poverty may not be the root of the problem, but it does not help. Palestinians had to blow a hole in the Egyptian border just for food and supplies.

[Hooahguy]

ignore

[seireikhaan]

hooahguy- A few critiques of the articles you posted, mainly pertaining to the points he addresses(additionally, thanks for putting it in spoilers, cuts down on page length and scrolling :bow:):

Firstly- he argues quite well, until he gets to the point of national interests- you cannot tell me that the US and UK in particular do not have interest in Israel maintaining a strong presence in the middle east. As such, the US and UK's political opponents, mainly Iran, also have a vested interest in the opposite effect.

Second- He states poverty hasn't caused terrorism in Africa. Uh... wow. No terrorism? How's genocide sound? Further, how exactly do most states in Africa fit into the mold of a functioning state? :inquisitive: As well, India has a strong, centralized, fairly modern government as well as very modern cities, something which Palestine has historically lacked. Even more, India has a vested interest in maintaining cohesiveness, something which terrorism destabilized, as well as trade with the West, something which Palestine hasn't even ever had much of to begin with. I also resent the insinuation that those who believe poverty is a cause of terrorism are just masking guilt for their own wealth.

Third- I'm not going to deny that humans can be pretty savage creatures. Absolutely they can. And he's absolutely right that there's far too many people in power in the middle east/Egypt who deny the holocaust. However, this does not, in my view, justify Israelis to do whatever they "feel" best enables their own "survival". The state of Israel is not militarily threatened in the least in its current state- heck, look at the 6 days war.

Fourth- I frankly do not know any Palestinians, and hence don't feel all that comfortable projecting any sort of major disagreement with the premise. However, when he delves into the issue of population and the loss of a Jewish majority, I have this to say. And? Is there a law to state that Jews MUST live in Israel? Yes, I do realize the whole "Y-weh promised us this land" issue, but is there a genuine consensus that a Jewish person MUST live in the "holy land" if its at all possible?

Fifth- The Muslim council of Spain condemned Bin Laden. Clearly, this shows that all Muslims are intolerant. ~:rolleyes: Sorry for the rolling eyes, but the professor contradicts his own statement with his own evidence. I also disagree with the premise that the power of Islamic patriarchy is "irreducible". Granted, it is very much entrenched. However, Patriarchy has been just as entrenched in Jewish history, in Western history, Japanese history, and Chinese history(though certainly this one has not progressed nearly as much as the others). My point is not to criticize the others to justify the Islamic patriarchy. My point is that there is little that is "irreducible". There is social progress to be made, but to say it cannot be made is incorrect, in my view. Further, should there be a "miracle" of sorts, depending on one's view of the war, Iraq could itself serve as an example to other Arabic Islamic states of how to treat minorities should they succeed in creating a functioning Democratic state.

Sixth- I'm confused as to what his argument is here. He does not outline what a supposedly "legitimate" Islamic state would even be- he only states that there aren't any. Further, he doesn't outline how exactly Israel holds "moral legitimacy". What exactly is that supposed to be? Is because the land was "promised" to them? If so, why on earth should a person who does not believe in that promise believe in said "moral superiority"?


And I have one last query- if the doctrine of "once Islamic, always Islamic" is so ingrained and important to the basic tenants of Islam, then why is Spain not under a siege of terror attacks? Especially given the incredibly harsh tactics imposed on Muslims(as well as Jews) during the reconquista?

[Furunculus]

Are your maths not up to much ?:laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:

Hey your geography is even worse than your maths:laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:

Why, i haven't stated a number, i have asked a question; that being how many rockets COULD have been fired in the one attack last january. the obvious inference from myself being that it would be very very few when considered against the total number fired against israel in the last few years.

Why is my geography bad, it's hard to tell because your skill at linking is even worse, but i'm going out on a limb to guess that it is because i am using gaza figures when discussing the number of attacks from Lebanon........ so what?

[Fragony]

Typical.

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/32351_Fake_Anti-Israel_Video_Posted_at_Liveleak%20http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/7n4re/graphic_video_of_israel_defense_forces_attack_on/

I strongly advice you not to follow the link to the lifeleak-video because it's quite gruesome.

edit, lol, the socialist party naturally put it on their blog, when it turned out it was a fake it was still Israel's fault because they don't allow journalists.

How little has socialism changed since the thirties.

[rory_20_uk]

Phosphorous? Nice... (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5447590.ece)

Not, I hasten to add, it is being used against the populace. No - it is being fired to screen troops where the populace happens to be, which is completely different. And hence not a war crime.

In fact, Israel isn't saying it is phosphorous... but they're also not saying what it is.

One of the most densely populated placed on the planet where the people can't even leave if they wanted to are having canisters of munitions fired at or near them (I doubt where the Palestinians are matters that much) that on contact with the skin causes chemical burns that will descend to the bone.

~:smoking:

[Hooahguy]

hooahguy- A few critiques of the articles you posted, mainly pertaining to the points he addresses(additionally, thanks for putting it in spoilers, cuts down on page length and scrolling :bow:):

Firstly- he argues quite well, until he gets to the point of national interests- you cannot tell me that the US and UK in particular do not have interest in Israel maintaining a strong presence in the middle east. As such, the US and UK's political opponents, mainly Iran, also have a vested interest in the opposite effect.

Second- He states poverty hasn't caused terrorism in Africa. Uh... wow. No terrorism? How's genocide sound? Further, how exactly do most states in Africa fit into the mold of a functioning state? :inquisitive: As well, India has a strong, centralized, fairly modern government as well as very modern cities, something which Palestine has historically lacked. Even more, India has a vested interest in maintaining cohesiveness, something which terrorism destabilized, as well as trade with the West, something which Palestine hasn't even ever had much of to begin with. I also resent the insinuation that those who believe poverty is a cause of terrorism are just masking guilt for their own wealth.

Third- I'm not going to deny that humans can be pretty savage creatures. Absolutely they can. And he's absolutely right that there's far too many people in power in the middle east/Egypt who deny the holocaust. However, this does not, in my view, justify Israelis to do whatever they "feel" best enables their own "survival". The state of Israel is not militarily threatened in the least in its current state- heck, look at the 6 days war.

Fourth- I frankly do not know any Palestinians, and hence don't feel all that comfortable projecting any sort of major disagreement with the premise. However, when he delves into the issue of population and the loss of a Jewish majority, I have this to say. And? Is there a law to state that Jews MUST live in Israel? Yes, I do realize the whole "Y-weh promised us this land" issue, but is there a genuine consensus that a Jewish person MUST live in the "holy land" if its at all possible?

Fifth- The Muslim council of Spain condemned Bin Laden. Clearly, this shows that all Muslims are intolerant. ~:rolleyes: Sorry for the rolling eyes, but the professor contradicts his own statement with his own evidence. I also disagree with the premise that the power of Islamic patriarchy is "irreducible". Granted, it is very much entrenched. However, Patriarchy has been just as entrenched in Jewish history, in Western history, Japanese history, and Chinese history(though certainly this one has not progressed nearly as much as the others). My point is not to criticize the others to justify the Islamic patriarchy. My point is that there is little that is "irreducible". There is social progress to be made, but to say it cannot be made is incorrect, in my view. Further, should there be a "miracle" of sorts, depending on one's view of the war, Iraq could itself serve as an example to other Arabic Islamic states of how to treat minorities should they succeed in creating a functioning Democratic state.

Sixth- I'm confused as to what his argument is here. He does not outline what a supposedly "legitimate" Islamic state would even be- he only states that there aren't any. Further, he doesn't outline how exactly Israel holds "moral legitimacy". What exactly is that supposed to be? Is because the land was "promised" to them? If so, why on earth should a person who does not believe in that promise believe in said "moral superiority"?


And I have one last query- if the doctrine of "once Islamic, always Islamic" is so ingrained and important to the basic tenants of Islam, then why is Spain not under a siege of terror attacks? Especially given the incredibly harsh tactics imposed on Muslims(as well as Jews) during the reconquista?
thanks for the critique. i will email him and hopefully i will get an answer from him, then i will post it.

[Fragony]

Phosphorous? Nice... (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5447590.ece)

Not, I hasten to add, it is being used against the populace. No - it is being fired to screen troops where the populace happens to be, which is completely different. And hence not a war crime.

In fact, Israel isn't saying it is phosphorous... but they're also not saying what it is.

One of the most densely populated placed on the planet where the people can't even leave if they wanted to are having canisters of munitions fired at or near them (I doubt where the Palestinians are matters that much) that on contact with the skin causes chemical burns that will descend to the bone.

~:smoking:


Looks like flares to me

[rory_20_uk]

What are flares usually made from? Phosphorous. Rather large flares. Don't appear to stay in the sky as disperse in different areas of the city. World War 1 flares were better than that - as an explanation it doesn't stand scrutiny.

~:smoking:

[Hooahguy]

~:smoking:

you should cut out all that smoking. its bad for your health and the health of this thread.
lol

[Devastatin Dave]

Palestinians had to blow a hole in the Egyptian border just for food and supplies.

And more ammo...

[Fragony]

What are flares usually made from? Phosphorous. Rather large flares. Don't appear to stay in the sky as disperse in different areas of the city. World War 1 flares were better than that

That might be so these look much cooler

[Watchman]

As if the IDF didn't have a very lenghty history of what might politely be termed "intentional carelessness" when it comes to Arab civilian casualties... the cynical would also add description like "malign neglect".
Hard to term the rather unrestrained use of tanks, air strikes etc. in combat in residential areas anything more diplomatic, anyway, without going into out-and-out euphemisms and newspeak.

And that's for the period after they stopped playing at what were little short of flat out death squads (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_101)...

[Hooahguy]

Bloomberg talks about the situation and outsmarts the CNN interviewer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGgBjZTsPaw&eurl=http://blogs.jta.org/telegraph/article/2009/01/05/1002001/bloomberg-on-cnn)

[Hooahguy]

As if the IDF didn't have a very lenghty history of what might politely be termed "intentional carelessness" when it comes to Arab civilian casualties... the cynical would also add description like "malign neglect".
Hard to term the rather unrestrained use of tanks, air strikes etc. in combat in residential areas anything more diplomatic, anyway, without going into out-and-out euphemisms and newspeak.

And that's for the period after they stopped playing at what were little short of flat out death squads (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_101)...
now why dont we look at some palestinian atrocities and "special forces" like the Fedayeen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedayeen#Palestinians).

[Hax]

This Bloomberg, is he a five-year old?

I take it that most of the people involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are grown up humans. Can we please stop saying "But they started!"

What is this, kindergarten with bombs and guns?

[Hooahguy]

palestinian "legal advisor" gets owned..... (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSUSoPrICqQ)

[Hooahguy]

This Bloomberg, is he a five-year old?

I take it that most of the people involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are grown up humans. Can we please stop saying "But they started!"

What is this, kindergarten with bombs and guns?
hamas did start. saying they didnt is.... i dunno what to say.
remember that bloomberg isnt mainly talking to us educated folks about the situation. hes assuming, and assuming correctly, that most people dont know much.

[Ser Clegane]

I would appreciate if the posts in this thread remained constructive.

Repetitive "Hail Israel" posts/remarks add nothing to the discussion - unless you consider trolling to be a worthwhile contribution (which I do not do).

Thanks a lot

Ser Clegane

:bow:

[Hax]

hamas did start. saying they didnt is.... i dunno what to say.

Oh yes, very intelligent.

How do you ever expect to solve a problem if you just keep blaming others? Or perhaps Israel does not want to end this problem?

==========



I would appreciate if the posts in this thread remained constructive.

Repetitive "Hail Israel" posts/remarks add nothing to the discussion - unless you consider trolling to be a worthwhile contribution (which I do not do).

Thanks a lot

Ser Clegane

My apologies, Lord Clegane :bow:

[Hooahguy]

Oh yes, very intelligent.

How do you ever expect to solve a problem if you just keep blaming others? Or perhaps Israel does not want to end this problem?

i am sorry that i misread your post. as far as i could tell, you were assigning blame at israel for the situation in gaza.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

hooah:

That ends up being one of those endless chicken/egg discussions, friend. You say Hamas started this with rockets, they say the rockets were in response to X, you say X wasn't connected but a response to Y, they say Y was really a response to Q and so on.

Many outsiders respond with "a pox on both your houses" the moment they start hearing that endless loop start up.


Personally, any real "who started it" discussion probably has to go back to Joshua and the destruction of Jericho.

[tibilicus]

i am sorry that i misread your post. as far as i could tell, you were assigning blame at israel for the situation in gaza.



The fact is Israel IS responsible for the situation in Gaza. Months of economic sanctions and blockades have worn its populace down. Also if the mass immigration hadn't of happened in the first place maybe so many Palestinians wouldn't of been kicked into the most densely populated pieces of land and worlds biggest cesspool AKA Gaza. I'm not saying the Israeli people should have no land, just the fact is they have way to much land.

Of course you wouldn't understand though being on the other side of the border in your nice house surrounded by modern utilities. Or your access to modern hospital facilities as well as enough food for 3 meals a day not 3 meals a week if your lucky.

Your failure to see the other side of the coin is amazing, the little jokes you keep trying to post as well suggest you have a mainly derogatory attitude to the Palestinian people anyway hence your defiance that Israel can do no wrong.

In all due respect mate you need to see this from the other side as well. Don't get me wrong in no way do I support Hamas or their actions but the fact is this overly aggressive operation by the Israelis is bang out of order.

[Watchman]

now why dont we look at some palestinian atrocities and "special forces" like the Fedayeen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedayeen#Palestinians)....who were basically irregular militant gunmen, or "Tupac Armies" as I like to call all such after a sarcastic Swedish comic strip. Such are more or less the same everywhere, ie. more or less unpleasant and vicious.
Whereas the Unit 101 lot were regular troops of the state military.
See the difference ? Armies are expected to adhere to fun little things and laws that are designed to take the worst savagery and barbarism out of state-organised violence, and prone to considerable censure and bad-mouthing if they don't.

Also says something about Israeli policies I daresay.


Personally, any real "who started it" discussion probably has to go back to Joshua and the destruction of Jericho.More like the turn Zionism took around the end of the 19th century, I'd say. That was when Jews so inclined first began moving from Europe into what is now Israel, a developement initially taken well enough by both the local inhabitants and authorities...

Things started getting pretty sour when the whole "i can haz teh Promised Land" thing got popular among the immigrants, as that for obvious reasons didn't sit very well with the other inhabitants of said region. (Particularly since they sort of weren't welcome in the scheme.) All the more so after the Arabs weighed in something pretty serious during WW1 to kick the Ottomans out, and then had the Brits renege on their promises of autonomy and w/e afterwards...
Add some escalating militancy and outright fanaticism on both sides, and it's hardly a wonder things began getting ugly in short order.

[Tribesman]

In all due respect mate you need to see this from the other side as well.
Tibilicus you are wasting your time .

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

All the more so after the Arabs weighed in something pretty serious during WW1 to kick the Ottomans out, and then had the Brits renege on their promises of autonomy and w/e afterwards...

Well, the Arabs got this, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan) and the Israelis got this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel) out of the Mandate of Palestine. 89,342 square km to 20,770 (and that's the modern amount). ~;)

[Tribesman]

Well, the Arabs got this, and the Israelis got this out of the Mandate of Palestine. 89,342 square km to 20,770 (and that's the modern amount).
bloody hell its like having gawain back again .
So what part of the history of Palestine is it that you don't understand Mars ?
No hold on that might take too long , what part of the history of Paleastine do you have any understanding of ?:dizzy2:

[Seamus Fermanagh]

More like the turn Zionism took around the end of the 19th century, I'd say. That was when Jews so inclined first began moving from Europe into what is now Israel, a developement initially taken well enough by both the local inhabitants and authorities...

Things started getting pretty sour when the whole "i can haz teh Promised Land" thing got popular among the immigrants, as that for obvious reasons didn't sit very well with the other inhabitants of said region. (Particularly since they sort of weren't welcome in the scheme.) All the more so after the Arabs weighed in something pretty serious during WW1 to kick the Ottomans out, and then had the Brits renege on their promises of autonomy and w/e afterwards...
Add some escalating militancy and outright fanaticism on both sides, and it's hardly a wonder things began getting ugly in short order.

In its modern iteration you're dating it pretty well. I was only partially joking however. After roughly 400 years of semi-voluntary exile (started that way at least), Joshua led the Isrealites over the Jordan to "take back" the promised land from those selfish folk who'd decided that leaving it fallow for 4 centuries was silly.

In other words, trying to fix a "beginning of the problem" point for disputes over this stripe of land is somewhat difficult at best.

[Watchman]

Show me a plot of land in Eurasia (plus northern Africa) that hasn't been fought over quite a bit over the last, oh, three thousand years or so and I'll show you something that must be really worthelss indeed. But as of late for example Europeans and Americans have for the most part managed to refrain from murdering each other over prime real estate once - and not very long ago - contested ferociously indeed, so that's hardly the issue it it ?

There's no shortage of populations one way or another at least partially displaced from what used to be their homes, often quite recently and sometimes very long ago. (The longer the perspective you're examining, the harder it is to find a people that hasn't seized someone else's land at some point and probably after first having been pushed off their old haunts by someone else who was... you get the idea.) Most, however, aren't ATM killing rather a lot of civilians as "collateral damage" over the topic.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

bloody hell its like having gawain back again .
So what part of the history of Palestine is it that you don't understand Mars ?
No hold on that might take too long , what part of the history of Paleastine do you have any understanding of ?:dizzy2:

Did you notice the wink, Tribsey? :whip:

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Did you notice the wink, Tribsey? :whip:

He probably missed it whilst looking through the bottom of a pint glass. Slainte!

[Hooahguy]

The fact is Israel IS responsible for the situation in Gaza. Months of economic sanctions and blockades have worn its populace down. Also if the mass immigration hadn't of happened in the first place maybe so many Palestinians wouldn't of been kicked into the most densely populated pieces of land and worlds biggest cesspool AKA Gaza. I'm not saying the Israeli people should have no land, just the fact is they have way to much land.

Of course you wouldn't understand though being on the other side of the border in your nice house surrounded by modern utilities. Or your access to modern hospital facilities as well as enough food for 3 meals a day not 3 meals a week if your lucky.

Your failure to see the other side of the coin is amazing, the little jokes you keep trying to post as well suggest you have a mainly derogatory attitude to the Palestinian people anyway hence your defiance that Israel can do no wrong.

In all due respect mate you need to see this from the other side as well. Don't get me wrong in no way do I support Hamas or their actions but the fact is this overly aggressive operation by the Israelis is bang out of order.
thats funny. i think you need to see the other side as well....
:wall:

[Watchman]

Grossly disproportionate response that kills a lot of reasonably innocent civilians is a grossly disproportionate response that kills a lot of reasonably innocent civilians, regardless of who's doing it.

Also Israeli SOP since the beginning; for a while now employed chiefly on opponents that can best be described as "feeble if persistent".

People may perhaps be excused if they don't exactly sympathise with that.

[Hooahguy]

Grossly disproportionate response that kills a lot of reasonably innocent civilians is a grossly disproportionate response that kills a lot of reasonably innocent civilians, regardless of who's doing it.

Also Israeli SOP since the beginning; for a while now employed chiefly on opponents that can best be described as "feeble if persistent".

People may perhaps be excused if they don't exactly sympathise with that.
now we get into the argument on what do we think an apporpriate response to being constantly hit with missiles, such as in israels case. diplomacy didnt work- now what?

[Watchman]

The longstanding Israeli SOP of leveling a couple of residential blocks as an object lesson has thus far failed to meaningfully discourage further such pinpricks, from what I can tell.

Also, diplomacy might have more effect if they were willing to actually compromise from the territorial claims even Tel Aviv must full well know are entirely unrealistic (if only because the Palestinians aren't going to accept anything less than a reasonably viable state and have little to lose ATM), but sticks to because of the domestic extremist fringe being politically too powerful for those to be abandoned.

Or maybe they're just being unreasonable bastards and honestly don't care a whit as along as the situation stays stable - they're the ones doing the main part of the kicking, after all, and the Israeli position is viable enough if rather dependent on continued American political support. :shrug: I'm always willing to assume the worst of my fellow man, especially if he's in a position of power over somebody whose well-being is of little importance for him.

[tibilicus]

thats funny. i think you need to see the other side as well....
:wall:


Oh really?

Well unlike you I have seen both sides and hers how it adds up.

Israel: Receives Billions of $ a year from the USA mainly to act out it's interest in the region. Many Israelis enjoy a good standard of living with access to such modern resources like the internet (yourself for example) and can guarantee relative stability in their life.

Palestine in particular Gaza: Receives sanctions because it's democratically elected leadership are classed as terrorists all because of their stance on Israel. Hamas government isn't involved in terrorist attacks. Basically people lower down its pecking order are terrorists but the people trying to govern Gaza aren't.

As mentioned Gaza one of the most densely as well as poor regions on earth is crippled by economic sanctions. Many families go hungry, many people don't have access to medical resources. Unlike Israel where modern technology is common im guessing there is roughly 3 computers for the whole of Gaza city (exaggeration obviously).

Israel then tries to justify a war brought on by itself. Due to the fact Gaza's economy is non existent the only option left is for them to fight.

What do you think Israel has been planning all these months with it's blockades? Do you think it's a coincidence this is happening just as an election is coming up in your country? Also a coincidence that the attacks come as one of the most war hungry US administrations in history is about to end? Do you honestly think the Israeli government hasn't been planning this political stunt and attack for months all for personnel gain? These plans were drawn up way before the rockets started coming over the border.
If you can honestly answer no to all those questions then maybe you should pay more attention at your nice modern Israeli school because just to clarify again, most people in Gaza don't have to opportunity to learn and your wasting it.

Another pointer as well how many civilians have died in Israel? Four is it? And now Gaza, probably well over 500 now I can't find the official figures. Most of those by the way around 80% to 85% have been innocent civilians. Nice aiming Israel.

Israel's basic objective is to remove Hamas, so what? A government which gets along with Israel can be in place? In other words a government which will bend to Israel's will so they can further their influence in the region? It worked in Egypt and Saudi Arabia so why not knock another country of the list?

In other words don't even tell me to look at the other side of the picture, I have and this is what I see.

Your quite happy to make your little Hamas jokes arnt you whilst sitting behind your computer? You couldn't care less for the little child who's starving right now, who lives in a house with no running water who just lost his whole family to one of your military strikes on "terrorists".

And you know what? He's going to grow up to hate your country's guts. And when he's older he to is going to pick up a rifle and want to kill. Do I blame that child?

Not one bit. Full circle again.

This is the reality buddy. About time you bloody well accepted it.

[Incongruous]

Israel pulled out of Gaza?
Hmmm, I wonder what all those bloody watch towers were for then...

Oh yeah! That's right shooting Palestinians!

Hamas long ago renounced its wish to destroy Israel, an announcment considered too dangerous by the mainstream media and thus glosed over, as is their continued support of the Palestinian Christian community.

Israel is a farce and so is US support for it, they are invaders and nothing more, this is yet another step towards the ultimate goal. But one which will stumble.

[Hooahguy]

Hamas long ago renounced its wish to destroy Israel, an announcment considered too dangerous by the mainstream media and thus glosed over, as is their continued support of the Palestinian Christian community.

thats funny. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7808257.stm)
look under the section "stone throwing"

[Hooahguy]

The longstanding Israeli SOP of leveling a couple of residential blocks as an object lesson has thus far failed to meaningfully discourage further such pinpricks, from what I can tell.

Also, diplomacy might have more effect if they were willing to actually compromise from the territorial claims even Tel Aviv must full well know are entirely unrealistic (if only because the Palestinians aren't going to accept anything less than a reasonably viable state and have little to lose ATM), but sticks to because of the domestic extremist fringe being politically too powerful for those to be abandoned.

Or maybe they're just being unreasonable bastards and honestly don't care a whit as along as the situation stays stable - they're the ones doing the main part of the kicking, after all, and the Israeli position is viable enough if rather dependent on continued American political support. :shrug: I'm always willing to assume the worst of my fellow man, especially if he's in a position of power over somebody whose well-being is of little importance for him.
Camp Daid 2000 summit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_David_2000_Summit#Territory)

if im not mistaken, israel offered most of the west bank and all of gaza. arafat refused.

[Watchman]

IIRC (can't be arsed to go dig through the piles of political journals I've still lying on the floor after moving waiting for the purchase of a new bookshelf) you indeed are mistaken, or at least not entirely entirely informed of the details. From what I can recall out of hand, the major issue was that Israel was basically selling them short by de facto retaining territorial ownership of a major bunch of the bigger Israeli settlements dotting the West Bank - as well as the roads connecting them, and suchlike. And it just so happens that these are wont to occupy all strategically important terrain, the best farmland, and - a very important detail for agriculture in the region - water deposits.

Anyway, some of the sticking points are covered by the Reasons for impasse (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_David_2000_Summit#Reasons_for_impasse) part of the same article, and the article on Palestinian state (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_State#Current_proposals).

Do recall, calling off hostilities with Israel is pretty much the exact one thing the Palestinians can offer. Israel holds pretty much all the rest of the cards (and not a few in blatant breach of international law...), so obviously the Palestinians aren't going to trade off theirs for cheap.

[Hooahguy]

Israel: Receives Billions of $ a year from the USA mainly to act out it's interest in the region. Many Israelis enjoy a good standard of living with access to such modern resources like the internet (yourself for example) and can guarantee relative stability in their life.
hm. i heard a story on NPR that said that the Palestinians got the most foreign aid in 2008. what did they do with all this money that NPR claims they have? i really dont know, but i think its a good guess that they bought more weapons.
btw, im not denying that israel gets lots of money from the US, which is understandable, because do you really expect any US president to support the same people who celebrated when 9/11 happened?


Palestine in particular Gaza: Receives sanctions because it's democratically elected leadership are classed as terrorists all because of their stance on Israel. Hamas government isn't involved in terrorist attacks. Basically people lower down its pecking order are terrorists but the people trying to govern Gaza aren't.
you honestly believe this? :inquisitive:


Israel then tries to justify a war brought on by itself. Due to the fact Gaza's economy is non existent the only option left is for them to fight.
did you even read the article i read by Dr. David Blumenthal? i doubt you did. you will find it a few pages ago. in fact, here it is for your convenience (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showpost.php?p=2099411&postcount=432)


What do you think Israel has been planning all these months with it's blockades? Do you think it's a coincidence this is happening just as an election is coming up in your country? Also a coincidence that the attacks come as one of the most war hungry US administrations in history is about to end? Do you honestly think the Israeli government hasn't been planning this political stunt and attack for months all for personnel gain? These plans were drawn up way before the rockets started coming over the border.
"sic vis pacen, para bellum"
if you want peace, prepare for war.


Another pointer as well how many civilians have died in Israel? Four is it? And now Gaza, probably well over 500 now I can't find the official figures. Most of those by the way around 80% to 85% have been innocent civilians. Nice aiming Israel.
wrong. even hamas itself, as we said earlier in the thread, said that most of the casualties are military.
on the other hand, only civilians are being killed on the israeli side. israel isnt deliberately targeting civilians, no matter what hamas tells you. i thought with all your "looking on the other side" you would have found this, but i guess not.
:study:

btw its 5, not 4 israeli deaths.


Israel's basic objective is to remove Hamas, so what? A government which gets along with Israel can be in place? In other words a government which will bend to Israel's will so they can further their influence in the region? It worked in Egypt and Saudi Arabia so why not knock another country of the list?
you really think that both egypt and saudia arabia are puppets of israel? wow. :wall:
is it really too much for a country to not want missiles raining down on them?


In other words don't even tell me to look at the other side of the picture, I have and this is what I see.
no, clearly your anti-zionism clouds your judgement. here is a video about sderot, one of the most hit cities by hamas:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Im4KE3nkGA0&feature=channel_page


Your quite happy to make your little Hamas jokes arnt you whilst sitting behind your computer? You couldn't care less for the little child who's starving right now, who lives in a house with no running water who just lost his whole family to one of your military strikes on "terrorists".
whoa, whoa. hold on there, lets not get this thread get closed down by personal attacks, ok?
now, why dont you take your mind off the Palestinians and look at china, africa, and other places where real genocide and slaughter are taking place?


And you know what? He's going to grow up to hate your country's guts. And when he's older he to is going to pick up a rifle and want to kill. Do I blame that child?
its already happening (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTGbP55HGi8) i encourage you to watch the whole thing, as unbearable it may be to you.


This is the reality buddy. About time you bloody well accepted it.
i dont accept it. your hatred for the state of israel is astounding (and your denial of any Palestinian responsibility is also astounding) and i refuse to accept what you say as the truth, just as you refuse to accept what i say as the truth.

"freedom of speech is a double-edged sword"

[Watchman]

hm. i heard a story on NPR that said that the Palestinians got the most foreign aid in 2008. what did they do with all this money that NPR claims they have? i really dont know, but i think its a good guess that they bought more weapons.More like tried to maintain some semblance of normal life and society, I'd rather imagine. Do you have any idea just how economically unviable the Palestinian Territories are in their current state...?


btw, im not denying that israel gets lots of money from the US, which is understandable, because do you really expect any US president to support the same people who celebrated when 9/11 happened?Good job getting the causal relation backwards... why do you imagine they were only too gleeful about the US for a change getting some of the same crap they've been getting all too regularly for decades now ?


"sic vis pacen, para bellum"
if you want peace, prepare for war."No, I don't really see that. I find that the man who prepares for war usually also wants a war."


israel isnt deliberately targeting civilians, no matter what hamas tells you.Given the IDF's habitual use of heavy weaponry and high explosives in densely populated residential areas, the difference is somewhat academic methinks.

[LittleGrizzly]

Intresting question for those who support over the top retaliation....

Where would britian have got if they had tried this tactic with ireland over the IRA ?

It is no surprise that missles get fired into israel when you see the state the palestinians live in

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Another pointer as well how many civilians have died in Israel? Four is it? And now Gaza, probably well over 500 now I can't find the official figures. Most of those by the way around 80% to 85% have been innocent civilians. Nice aiming Israel.

Even Hamas wasn't claiming that 80-85% were innocent civilians, so I really don't think you're taking an unbiased view of the situation. Try again.

[Tribesman]

i really dont know
Wow hooah actually wrote something right .
Then again when you look at the whole passage

hm. i heard a story on NPR that said that the Palestinians got the most foreign aid in 2008. what did they do with all this money that NPR claims they have? i really dont know, but i think its a good guess that they bought more weapons.

You see that he really doesn't know and is talking bollox again:dizzy2:
As Isreals aid is counted in billions not millions and they really do spend it on weapons .
Its wierd isn't it , how someone can screw up on their claims about aid and then go and screw up again on their claims about aid .
Must be that strange sort of research eh .:laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:
But hey look on the bright side , at least Hooah is consistant........ consistantly wrong:thumbsdown:

[Ice]

But hey look on the bright side , at least Hooah is consistant........ consistantly wrong:thumbsdown:

You are fairly consistent yourself, Tribes.

[Marshal Murat]

On Hamas demands...
Reading the Wikipedia article on Hamas, specifically the "The possibility of a ceasefire with Israel" one sees some Hamas leaders calling for 1949 lines, 1967 lines, and all kinds of different requirements for Israel. It's ridiculous to try and figure out what Hamas wants, because I don't know what they want, and I don't think they know what they want.

On Hamas being legitimate...
I'm sure Hamas was elected by a majority of Palestinians. Everyone can agree on that. What we're having a problem with is the actions being attributed to Hamas. Hamas, if not having supported these rocket attacks, have allowed them to occur. They are either the murderers or those who hand the murderer the gun. They are legitimate, but their actions render them illegitimate in the eyes of many. They may "speak" for Palestinians, or they may do the speaking for them and keep them in the dark. I don't know, and you don't either. So if my country wants to throw the glove down and call Hamas terrorists, that's fine by me. They called the ANC terrorists too, but now we're recognizing them as a legitimate government not because they bullied and bombed the hell out of Johannesburg and Pretoria, but because they won it through fair elections and didn't begin the aforementioned killing.


On aid to Palestine...
US provides (and has provided) Palestine with about $85 million annually (http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:TLvojyuFEHUJ:www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/crs/45198.pdf+Aid+to+Palestine&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us&client=firefox-a)

EU plans on resuming aid to Palestine (http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/18/news/union.php)

Clearly aid has been sent to Palestine in amounts that are sufficient to create a 'stable' society if they used the money responsibly. But who wants to turn off a money valve right? That isn't to say that the money being shipped into Palestine is specifically being used to fund Hamas, it does mean that the Palestinians are doing something with the money, and it isn't the newest hospital. Besides, who really reports Iranian aid?


On feeling bad for the Palestinians...
I feel bad for the Palestinians, for the Israelis, for everyone. This plain old sucks. Trying to get that point across by whining about "us rich spoiled kids who live in splendor and opulence" not understanding what it's like to live without healthcare and running water.
So what, do I have to live in a gulag to complain about them? Maybe I should be enslaved so I can appreciate anti-slavery? I don't have to experience those things to comment on them, so why should I retract my statement about Palestinians because I can type on a computer? I have my views and they are just as valid as yours. I'm sick and tired of this gross fallacy that I need to experience something or empathize with someone before I can comment on a subject.

Guns of Gaza (http://www.armchairgeneral.com/the-guns-of-gaza-israel-attacks-hamas-reacts.htm)

“Operation Lead” began with an artful deception effort. After Hamas refused to renew the truce that had been in effect and began launching unguided rockets against Israeli cities and towns again, the terrorists expected swift retaliation. In fact, Hamas welcomed the prospect, since its leaders knew the population of Gaza was wearying of their rule and the misery it fostered. The terrorists wanted a bloody exchange to rally Palestinians behind them again.

Islamists legitimize anti-Semitism (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5454204.ece)

Fighting intensified on the northern outskirts of Gaza City yesterday as a Hamas leader warned that the Islamists would kill Jewish children anywhere in the world in revenge for Israel’s devastating assault.

[LittleGrizzly]

On Hamas demands...

Hamas demands are unimportant, it is the crushing of palestinians will and spirit that causes terrorism not hamas, hamas is the result not the cause so hamas is basically unimportant in the discussion...

What is important is that the palestinians are given a fair deal, i perscribe to the 1967 lines myself, thats what will stop terrorism...

side noe it is surely a good sign that hamas members cannot agree on definitions themself, its show that democracy is alive and well when they have differing opinions on these matters. You could use any countries politicians disagreeing as an excuse otherwise...

On Hamas being legitimate...
I'm sure Hamas was elected by a majority of Palestinians. Everyone can agree on that. What we're having a problem with is the actions being attributed to Hamas. Hamas, if not having supported these rocket attacks, have allowed them to occur. They are either the murderers or those who hand the murderer the gun. They are legitimate, but their actions render them illegitimate in the eyes of many. They may "speak" for Palestinians, or they may do the speaking for them and keep them in the dark. I don't know, and you don't either. So if my country wants to throw the glove down and call Hamas terrorists, that's fine by me. They called the ANC terrorists too, but now we're recognizing them as a legitimate government not because they bullied and bombed the hell out of Johannesburg and Pretoria, but because they won it through fair elections and didn't begin the aforementioned killing.

Both countries (israel and palestine) have legitimitally elected murderers. I want my leaders to treat these terrorist goverments the same, neither deserve anything but aid if they really need it....

On aid to Palestine...

That being the paltry sum compared to that given to israel..

Clearly aid has been sent to Palestine in amounts that are sufficient to create a 'stable' society if they used the money responsibly.

If israel would allow them a viable state, then sure they could. but they don't so the point is moot...

But who wants to turn off a money valve right?

Clearly not the many palestinian millionaires, or all those luxury tents they have in the refugee camps..

Both sides have people who gain money from continuing the conflict, only the completely biased would think it is only true on one side

On feeling bad for the Palestinians...
I feel bad for the Palestinians, for the Israelis, for everyone. This plain old sucks.

Im not sure how bad i feel for both civilian populations, as one ranting israeli supporter said on radio earlier, they're bringing this on themselves by electing hamas, except its true for the israelis as well, bringing it on themselves..

I guess i feel sorry for the minoritys in both countries that want peace...

I'm sick and tired of this gross fallacy that I need to experience something or empathize with someone before I can comment on a subject.

Same here, this also applies for both sides, we can have opinions even though were rich haven't experienced terrorism and haven't had our race almost wiped out in some old peoples living memory

Operation Lead” began with an artful deception effort. After Hamas refused to renew the truce that had been in effect and began launching unguided rockets against Israeli cities and towns again, the terrorists expected swift retaliation. In fact, Hamas welcomed the prospect, since its leaders knew the population of Gaza was wearying of their rule and the misery it fostered. The terrorists wanted a bloody exchange to rally Palestinians behind them again.

This is possibly the worst reasoning for doing any military action!!!!

Why did you invade... well the enemy wanted us to... ?!

Sun Tzu would be spinning in his grave!

im not sure where you were going with that... israel should invade because hamas wanted it to ?

Fighting intensified on the northern outskirts of Gaza City yesterday as a Hamas leader warned that the Islamists would kill Jewish children anywhere in the world in revenge for Israel’s devastating assault.

Well thats a surprise.... and i suppose there where no racist black groups in response to thier treatment by whites for years....

or maybe it is common for a downtrodden people to dislike the powerful group that keeps it down... maybe it is a theme that commonly replays throughout history.... maybe it is to be expected that people will do this when they are treated badly by a group (be they whites, jews, arabs or those damn blue eyed people!)

[Incongruous]

On Hamas demands...
Reading the Wikipedia article on Hamas, specifically the "The possibility of a ceasefire with Israel" one sees some Hamas leaders calling for 1949 lines, 1967 lines, and all kinds of different requirements for Israel. It's ridiculous to try and figure out what Hamas wants, because I don't know what they want, and I don't think they know what they want.

On Hamas being legitimate...
I'm sure Hamas was elected by a majority of Palestinians. Everyone can agree on that. What we're having a problem with is the actions being attributed to Hamas. Hamas, if not having supported these rocket attacks, have allowed them to occur. They are either the murderers or those who hand the murderer the gun. They are legitimate, but their actions render them illegitimate in the eyes of many. They may "speak" for Palestinians, or they may do the speaking for them and keep them in the dark. I don't know, and you don't either. So if my country wants to throw the glove down and call Hamas terrorists, that's fine by me. They called the ANC terrorists too, but now we're recognizing them as a legitimate government not because they bullied and bombed the hell out of Johannesburg and Pretoria, but because they won it through fair elections and didn't begin the aforementioned killing.


On aid to Palestine...
US provides (and has provided) Palestine with about $85 million annually (http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:TLvojyuFEHUJ:www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/crs/45198.pdf+Aid+to+Palestine&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us&client=firefox-a)

EU plans on resuming aid to Palestine (http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/18/news/union.php)

Clearly aid has been sent to Palestine in amounts that are sufficient to create a 'stable' society if they used the money responsibly. But who wants to turn off a money valve right? That isn't to say that the money being shipped into Palestine is specifically being used to fund Hamas, it does mean that the Palestinians are doing something with the money, and it isn't the newest hospital. Besides, who really reports Iranian aid?


On feeling bad for the Palestinians...
I feel bad for the Palestinians, for the Israelis, for everyone. This plain old sucks. Trying to get that point across by whining about "us rich spoiled kids who live in splendor and opulence" not understanding what it's like to live without healthcare and running water.
So what, do I have to live in a gulag to complain about them? Maybe I should be enslaved so I can appreciate anti-slavery? I don't have to experience those things to comment on them, so why should I retract my statement about Palestinians because I can type on a computer? I have my views and they are just as valid as yours. I'm sick and tired of this gross fallacy that I need to experience something or empathize with someone before I can comment on a subject.

Guns of Gaza (http://www.armchairgeneral.com/the-guns-of-gaza-israel-attacks-hamas-reacts.htm)


Islamists legitimize anti-Semitism (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5454204.ece)

:laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:

Oh God! Used the money properly? Hamas is one of the best political formations ever to occur in Gaza, the people love them because they are not corrupt (as corrupt).

Western support for any opposition is once again a showcase for our general disdain for 3rd world democracy, the US will never be safe as long as it pisses people off by making a mockery out of their politics. You dare point the finger at the Gazans for being depserate enough (we are talking life and death everyday, I hear most Israelis have enough food and water) to vote in killers when the Israeli's went one worse with Sharon, taking the piss or what?

What this is, is a modern day colonial war, something none of us have witnessed before, the carving out of a nation from another already there. It sanctioning by the West is the best illustration that none of us really give a toss about human rights or any of that bollocks spewed out by that tosser in a wheel chair or any of the others since.

I mean really, that some Americans think their nation is nice, get with it, you support some of the most vile people in the world, Isreali politicians amongs them.

[Furunculus]

Intresting question for those who support over the top retaliation....

Where would britian have got if they had tried this tactic with ireland over the IRA ?

It is no surprise that missles get fired into israel when you see the state the palestinians live in

poor analogy.

Britain is not a tiny nation of ~6 million.
Britain is not a tiny space with zero strategic depth.
Britain was/is not surrounded by three hostile nations all of which are much bigger.
Britain is not a 60 year old nation with all the foreign hostility that entails.
Britain is not a 60 year old nation with all the instability that entails.
Britain has not fought three wars of survival in the last 60 years.
Britain is a Great Power with a great deal of diplomatic influence.
Britain is an island with a powerful navy that provides a level of security unimaginable to israel.

In short, we had a million options not currently available to israel.

[Furunculus]

:laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:

You dare point the finger at the Gazans for being depserate enough (we are talking life and death everyday, I hear most Israelis have enough food and water) to vote in killers when the Israeli's went one worse with Sharon, taking the piss or what?


don't pick up tribesmans bad habits, they are fairly repellent.

yes i dare, they are responsible for their actions and will suffer the consequences, in the same way that 911 victims are responsible for an interventionist Gov't which has made enemies around the world while it worked to create conditions that will ensure amercian hegemony.

there is always a price to be paid.

[Tribesman]

Oh dear more Israelis have been killed , by Israel .
Now I know mistakes happen but firing a tank shell at a battalion commander killing 3 and wounding 20 is a bit of a screw up isn't it , but on the bright side at least the IDF can claim they didn't target civilians when they blew up the building .


Clearly aid has been sent to Palestine in amounts that are sufficient to create a 'stable' society if they used the money responsibly.
It's rather hard to create a stable society when 80% of the population is reliant on food aid , its difficult to get a working economy or food aid to the population when the borders are closed .
According to Oxfam Gaza requires about 400 truck loads of food delivered per day , yet the crossing open at the moment can only transit about 100 trucks per day .
Its interesting that you note that the US gives about 85 million annually , can you tell me how many millions in Palestinian government income Israel has taken every month and kept because it won't give the Palestinians government money to the Palestinian government ?
Its rather hard to get a stable society when your borders are closed and your revenue is being stolen isn't it .

[LittleGrizzly]

poor analogy.

Britain is not a tiny nation of ~6 million.
Britain is not a tiny space with zero strategic depth.
Britain was/is not surrounded by three hostile nations all of which are much bigger.
Britain is not a 60 year old nation with all the foreign hostility that entails.
Britain is not a 60 year old nation with all the instability that entails.
Britain has not fought three wars of survival in the last 60 years.
Britain is a Great Power with a great deal of diplomatic influence.
Britain is an island with a powerful navy that provides a level of security unimaginable to israel.

In short, we had a million options not currently available to israel.

My point is there is a way of dealing with terrorism, there is a way which reduces tensions all round, and there is a way which hieghtens tensions all round.

Being that israel is in a worse position than britian shouldn't it try even harder than britian did with the ira to get peace, if there was no palestinian issue then israel would have relatively few problems

Surely all your points are even greater incentive for israel to act cooperatively and to reduce the terrorists support ?

though a few issues with some of your points

Britain was/is not surrounded by three hostile nations all of which are much bigger.

Israel may be surronded by bigger countries but militarily it is far more capable than those nations combined, so no real excuse there and egypt is no longer an enemy.

Britain is a Great Power with a great deal of diplomatic influence.

Well we didn't have the same level of support america gives israel in its battle against terrorism, werent the ira still collecting in usa not long before 9/11, the huge support of america more than makes up for this im sure

Britain is not a tiny space with zero strategic depth.
Britain is not a 60 year old nation with all the foreign hostility that entails.

When was the last war.... 67... surely that can't still be a good excuse for the israelis not to deal with terrorism properly, with egypt out of the picture any invasion is impratical inworkable and will never succeed, thus a crappy excuse of israel's behalf....

Britain has not fought three wars of survival in the last 60 years.

'48 '67 and..... ? the infadata (sp?) ? i would hardly call the last one a war for survival, and '67 that was 40 years ago... get with the times, israel is not going to be invaded by nieghbouring states, as much as it would like to keep peddling this line....

Britain is an island with a powerful navy that provides a level of security unimaginable to israel.

Well i see an invasion by a foriegn power of britian only slightly less likely than israel, in reality neither is going to happen anytime soon barring major political shifts..... in other words a crappy excuse...

Britain is not a tiny nation of ~6 million.

Im basically left with just this one, but anyway as i earlier said being a much smaller population you have far more incentive for peace, far more incentive to go down the britian ira route which has basically reduced terrorism to non existant rather than the isreali route which seems to have been creating more terrorists.

poor analogy.

I think it fits very well as a case of how to deal with terrorism, it is essentially people that keep terrorism going, the only way to defeat it is either hearts and minds, or kill them all. Kill them all isn't a viable option so hearts and minds is the only workable approach

yes i dare, they are responsible for their actions and will suffer the consequences, in the same way that 911 victims are responsible for an interventionist Gov't which has made enemies around the world while it worked to create conditions that will ensure amercian hegemony.

I can respect that, your approach is consistent.

Its something i wonder about myself somewhat, if a democratic society elects people which go and do bad things around the world, does this in a sense legitimise terrorist attacks against itself...

and i think in a sense it does

Just a little side note i would also like to make about hamas indiscriminate rocket firing

Doesn't anyone stop for a second and think that if hamas had all the expensive equipment the israelis had that they would love to go after israels leaders, police force and army the way israel went after thiers...

I have no doubt in my mind that the vast majority of hamas members (of the terrorist wing of the organisation) are happy to kill innocent civilians, byut don't you think they would be far happier if they had the latest technology and could get the leaders in the same way israel gets hamas leaders....

Another thing to go into would be israel saying look how much better we are than hamas because of these parts of thier extremist agenda... well back to the ira, back in the day (before we tried negoations and other weak kneed liberal policies) the ira said some pretty extreme things, the downtrodden under the boot of the mighty are going to be the extremists, the rich and powerful are never going to be the extremists, but anyway, you'll never guess what happened, when we actually started resolving the situation bit by bit thier extremist propaganda died away...

They even had the real ira split from the ira, and despite thier best efforts to stir up trouble britian resisted stayed the course and we now have a peaceful ireland, if only the israelis could look at the example set and see that thier going about it the wrong way completely

[Tribesman]

'48 '67 and..... ? the infadata (sp?) ?
You are missing the six day war .

[Furunculus]

yes i dare, they are responsible for their actions and will suffer the consequences, in the same way that 911 victims are responsible for an interventionist Gov't which has made enemies around the world while it worked to create conditions that will ensure amercian hegemony.

I can respect that, your approach is consistent.

Its something i wonder about myself somewhat, if a democratic society elects people which go and do bad things around the world, does this in a sense legitimise terrorist attacks against itself...

and i think in a sense it does

I do not support targeting civilians, but the only true innocents are those living under unrepresentative and repressive regimes. :)

[LittleGrizzly]

Ok now i am confused i thought '67 was the six day war ?

At least that is what wiki is telling me....

I do not support targeting civilians

I more mean it adds legitimacy to its actions, not that thier supportable or right...

[Furunculus]

You are missing the six day war .
Yom Kippur War of 73?

[Husar]

Well there's still attacks going on so they need to rethink there approach a little. All there doing is handing Hamas Propaganda material.

Well, you have to say though, that Hamas are trying their best to hand the Israelis propaganda material as well. Just yesterday they said on the radio that Hamas called for more attacks against Israel, it's not like anyone peaceful would find that a good idea, or is it?

[LittleGrizzly]

They are both escalating thier attacks which seems logical but incredibly stupid at the same time

Didn't know of this yom kippur war, my point still stands though, israel is under no serious threat from foriegn states...

Egypt won't attack, niether will jordan, syria might like to but are far too sensible to try an unwinnable war, saddam would have liked to lob a few bombs at them but even he's gone, thier biggest threat is Iran. Israel would kick irans :daisy:!

[tibilicus]

Sorry hoohguy or whatever your name is but I'm not even going to bother replying to your other post.

You say I'm an anti-Zionist because I don't support every Israeli action?

:daisy: I don't have a problem with Israel, my problem is though the bully mentality that Israel has in the middle east and it's defiance to only work with governments favourable to it, Palestine isn't one of them. Just look at Egypt and Saudi Arabia now. Pro Western governments so Israel leaves them be.

But when some one stands up to you you can't handle it so go in guns blazing, just looks like your trying to redeem yourself from 2006. You know why? Because your country got HUMILIATED
by Hezboulla. Yep that's right. You got your :daisy: handed to you buy some guys hiding in mountains with RPG's. They used clever tactics and staged a good guerilla war and you ultimately left that war humiliated. Don't lie and say otherwise. The only people who are convinced they won that war are Isralies themselves but hey, the majority( I'm talking government figures here) of those are conservative right wing morons who see themselves as above every one else in the middle east.

Israel hadn't even tried to get along with it's neighbours. The fact is that if the opportunity was given to Israel tomorow to take Gaza with no international repercussions they would take it with out a doubt. Fact.

You see the thing with most nations is (GB for example) is that we can see the way to work with terrorist organizations. The head of our army admitted the IRA couldn't be beaten on the ground so that's why negotiations happened, now look at Northern Ireland it's relativity stable.

You also are happy to go around playing the old "boo hoo I'm an Israeli you can't hate us your an anti-Zionist anti-semetic racist" card. The fact when I asked you before about the civilians being killed, and yes the majority are civilians the bbc says so you tried to deny it. And then there is your humour which I can see shows your underlying view you think your superior to Palestinians. I pity you being brought up to hate, much like all the other right wing Israelis.

:daisy:

Ah well I just hope Hamas kick your sorry behinds on the ground and embarrass your military again. Might teach your country not to be so imperialistic.

Just remember Israel HUMILIATED by Hezboulla. You got your soldiers back from that war didn't you? Shame they came back in coffins though. And you just don't learn these lessons..

[LittleGrizzly]

The socailist worker party (or something along those lines, i forget the name) has called for people to boycott israeli goods, im just wondering what the general views on a boycott are here in the forum ?

I am in full support!

I don't think we exactly have many israeli goods anyway, but i will try and convince my mum on the position tonight, the israelis may care nought for international outrage but him them in thier pockets and they will feel it.... remember every israeli product bought funds more bullets missles and solidiers for the occupation!

[Fragony]

Hamas demands are unimportant, it is the crushing of palestinians will and spirit that causes terrorism not hamas, hamas is the result not the cause so hamas is basically unimportant in the discussion...


https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/Fragony/ui-g.jpg

[tibilicus]

The socailist worker party (or something along those lines, i forget the name) has called for people to boycott israeli goods, im just wondering what the general views on a boycott are here in the forum ?

the occupation!


What Goods to Israel even produce?:inquisitive:

I can honestly say I cant recall seeing anything with made in Israel on..

[Andres]

Why do people always get so upset by this subject? And why do people feel like they have to pick sides in this conflict?

Both parties have committed attrocities and in a way, you could say they act like children who refuse to grow up.

Why don't they create a (con)federal state, with protection of minority rights and a veto for each group on important issues?

Yes, there will be alot of bickering in parliament, yes there will be alot of absurdity, but that only leads to citizens who are disgusted by politicians (people will always dislike politicans, just like they dislike crooked salesmen, lawyers, etc. :shrug:) and high taxes; nobody dies of it.

I really, really don't understand why this dispute hasn't been resolved yet.

For reasons beyond my comprehension, it seems to me both parties prefer this perpetual state of war (and the misery and tragedy inherent on it) over a peaceful society (with the occasional tensions, but without spilling blood).

I guess I'm the idiot, by expecting common sense from the people who are in power :shrug: :shame:

[Furunculus]

1. But when some one stands up to you you can't handle it so go in guns blazing, just looks like your trying to redeem yourself from 2006. You know why? Because your country got HUMILIATED
by Hezboulla. Yep that's right. You got your asses handed to you buy some guys hiding in mountains with RPG's. They used clever tactics and staged a good guerilla war and you ultimately left that war humiliated. Don't lie and say otherwise. The only people who are convinced they won that war are Isralies themselves but hey, the majority( I'm talking government figures here) of those are conservative right wing morons who see themselves as above every one else in the middle east.

2. The fact is that if the opportunity was given to Israel tomorow to take Gaza with no international repercussions they would take it with out a doubt. Fact.

3. The head of our army admitted the IRA couldn't be beaten on the ground so that's why negotiations happened, now look at Northern Ireland it's relativity stable.

4. You also are happy to go around playing the old "boo hoo I'm an Israeli you can't hate us your an anti-Zionist anti-semetic racist" card. The fact when I asked you before about the civilians being killed, and yes the majority are civilians the bbc says so you tried to deny it. And then there is your humour which I can see shows your underlying view you think your superior to Palestinians. I pity you being brought up to hate, much like all the other right wing Israelis.

5. You also seemed not to flinch when I mentioned the child who lost his family but hey, no biggie for you right in your nice little house? You probably get excited and happy when you see Palestinian children dying don't you? All because they're on your land. Which by the way isn't even your land.

6. Ah well I just hope Hamas kick your sorry behinds on the ground and embarrass your military again. Might teach your country not to be so imperialistic.

7. Just remember Israel HUMILIATED by Hezboulla. You got your soldiers back from that war didn't you? Shame they came back in coffins though. And you just don't learn these lessons..

1. I think you will find that the israeli military do not count it a victory and like any good learning army, of which there are very few, they will overcome the deficits revealed by lebanon.

2. Israel does not want Gaza, making it part of Israel would destroy the demographics of a jewish state.

3. You mean he admitted that there must be a political end to a conflict like NI, no kidding. so what?

4. The UN says that more than a quarter are civilians, not the majority. I quite liked Hooha's witty asides about militants 'expiring', does that make me a product of a hate-filled childhood too? :no:

5. I cried a little bit when i read about that child, there i feel better about myself because i am indeed superior to that nasty zionist oppressor Hoohaguy. :clown:

6. I would rather see an administration in gaza that is interested in peacefully co-existing with the sovereign nation state of israel.

7. We all make mistakes, I am confident the IDF will learn from them.

[LittleGrizzly]

Thats a good point frag, i forget that the palestinians don't really care for thier lack of food and water, they don't really care that they live in refugee camps and have little access to medical care, they don't care that they die at a far higher rate than israelis in this conflict

All the palestinians really care about is that everyone must praise allah!

Maybe your onto something with your clever cartoon... the only reason for any terrorism from muslims is because they simply cannot accept people of other religions, all the wars and conflicts and puppet goverments inflicted on them are cheap excuses!

ok thats my sarcasm fill for the day, on a serious note though.... even if all i sarcastically said was true, wouldn't it still be better to remove thier cheap excuses and expose them properly for what they are ?