Why the Palestinians fight

[wil]

Originally Posted by bananabrain

there are, in short, two sides to every story and i don't see the baghdadi community (to which i myself belong) queuing up to demand compensation and a return to iraq - so you'll understand why the ideological refugee-ism of the palestinians sometimes rings a little hollow with me, despite the undeniable, terrible and unjustifiable injustices that have been inflicted on them by israel among others, so don't think i am insensitive to this or dismiss it in any way, shape or form.

Namaste BB,

From the time US took down Bagdad, I remember exactly that being discussed. A quick search leads me to...

Point of no return: Iraqi Jews to demand compensation 'swap'

<Newsbull> Iraqi-Jewish expats to seek compensation for lost assets - Haaretz

War Without End :: View topic - Israel wants Iraq to pay compensation

Iraqi Jews who left Baghdad during the 1960's and 1970's

A friend of mine was born in India, 90% of those who meet him think him Indian. His family fled Iran prior to the Shah, when Jews were being kicked out of the country. A huge number of his community fled, and formed a community in India, many have since emigrated to states or UK, and with the current sabre rattling, they are discussing the possibility that they will either return or seek compensation should a new gov't be formed.

[bananabrain]

Originally Posted by muslimwoman

I would have thought the arab press would run the story of the Palestinian tv programme with Israel no longer on the map, if only to whip up yet more support & hatred. (clearly I am in cynical mode today).

you'd probably see it on something like al-manar (hizbollah tv) or on that hamas-run channel that has a guy dressed up as mickey mouse who teaches kids to be suicide bombers. this was more about trying to convince the floating voters of fatah that they haven't gone soft - and while people play to the gallery like that they continue to perpetuate fantasies which encourage unrealistic positions and prevent compromise. it's a completely counterproductive strategy because it actually restricts their future options.

I wasn't really thinking of the right of return but more about the arabs that still live in Israel and whether they would be ejected from Israel if it was recognised as a Jewish state. The fact that there are now Jewish only roads leads to me to believe that may be the case.

i think you're getting a couple of things mixed up. firstly, israel has been calling itself a jewish state since 1948, but the fact that it is a jewish state is *not* synonymous with not letting other people live there - it's also multicultural and democratic. remember, non-jews can become citizens through the normal naturalisation channels, just like they can in other countries. spain is a "christian kingdom", but non-christians live there with equal rights. unfortunately, it is the so-called "islamic republics" that don't seem to be able to cope with the idea of multiculturalism. remember, arabic is a state language in israel, it is on official documents and road signs and israeli arabs are, at least in theory (unfortunately israelis are just as prejudiced as everyone else in the world), supposed to be equal citizens with equal rights; certainly universities and the job market are mixed. so is the national football team. and the druze, bedouins and circassians even serve in the army. nobody apart from the most right-wing nutters is suggesting that israeli arabs who pay taxes, vote and consider themselves loyal israeli citizens should be oppressed. secondly, the "jewish-only roads" are not in israel proper, but in the west bank only and they are there for security reasons and so jews don't have to go through checkpoints. i don't *agree* with this, of course, it is an immoral consequence of an increasingly unrealistic occupation; this is precisely why i advocate mixed neighbourhoods like they have in the galilee, not jewish settlements and arab villages like in the west bank. it's also why i continually point out that in a future state of palestine in the west bank, THERE MUST BE JEWISH CITIZENS - it is not feasible to expect israel to have equal arab citizens and voters but to consider it acceptable for palestine to be judenrein - if the palestinian state is not a multicultural democracy then not only the jews but the christians and other minorities will end up like they are elsewhere in the middle east - look at the iraqi christians or the zoroastrians in iran. unfortunately people on both sides don't want there to be any contact between jews and arabs.

wil:

you'll note that the links you give are hardly mainstream media and, moreover, they discuss compensation suits made by groups of iraqi-jewish refugees rather than the raising of the issue of jewish refugees from arab lands as a factor in the peace process by the israeli government or anyone else. that is what i'm talking about. the last link is one i'm actually personally familiar with, the guy they talk about in there who visited iraq recently is a friend, we used to live very near each other. he still does a lot of business in the middle east, as a native arabic speaker. incidentally, my own mother was born in india, though her grandparents were born in iraq.

b'shalom

bananabrain

[Muslimwoman]

Hi BB

I get what you are saying and I agree Palestine should also be a mixed state if there ever is a state of Palestine but what I am trying to understand is why this has become an issue now. It seems to be yet another obsticle in the way of seeking real peace, as though both sides have said 'what will the other never agree to - ok that is what we should demand'. Why can't it just be the State of Israel? How many people have died now on both sides just to get Israel recognised as a state, so why not accept that rather than moving the goalposts or has Israel always insisted it is recognised as a Jewish state?

Salaam

[bob x]

"what I am trying to understand is why this has become an issue now"
Because the majority of Palestinians just chose as their leadership a group who doesn't accept that the Jews are going to stay there. It will not be enough for the Arabs to say "we recognize that there will be a separate nation-state within those borders" and still secretly mean "but we will expel all the Jews from those borders".

[Tao_Equus]

I was told i had gone a step too far in calling the ghettoisation of Gaza an act of inhumanity akin to what the Nazi's perpetrated on the Jews of Europe. But now Israel's leadership come right out with it for themselves. Calling for a holocaust on the people of Gaza.

" Matan Vilnai said Palestinians risked a "shoah", the Hebrew word for a big disaster - and for the Nazi Holocaust. " BBC NEWS

BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Israel warns of invasion of Gaza

[Tao_Equus]

And so the offensive starts. Israeli's should be shamed, all other nations should be imposing the severest of sanctions. This is simply unacceptable.

BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Dozens die in Israel-Gaza clashes

[bananabrain]

tao,

it seems there may be more to this than meets the eye immediately:

Media Blog on National Review Online

*nevertheless*, i am not defending the remark - this guy is a fecking *idiot*. what a catastrophic remark that will prove to be. i knew israeli politicians were stupid but this really takes the cake. i’m completely furious with this fool. with any luck he will be forced to resign by the outcry i anticipate from around the world.

i don't think israel's strategy and tactics are working. i think they're counterproductive, macho and hamhanded and, clearly, they are contributing to anti-israel feeling around the world.

what i don't understand is what exactly continuing the rocket attacks achieves, other than to make the israelis more determined not to back down. there have been 400 rockets this year *alone* and it's only march.

i guess what i'd genuinely like to know is what exactly do people like yourself think the israelis should be doing? how do you deal with people who don't mind using their own women and children as human shields and are not interested in negotiating? if this was the UK, the equivalent would be a welsh group firing rockets into bristol, day after day after day - it doesn't prevent retaliation, it doesn't do *anything* else, doesn't harm military capacity - what is the *point*? when they disengaged, hamas just used the extra space to move the rockets up to the border and hit further into israel.
the israelis have tried ceasefires, they've tried ramping it up, they've tried dialling it down - what are they supposed to do? they're not about to give up and emigrate, which is what hamas actually want.

b'shalom

bananabrain

[Tao_Equus]

BB,

I am afraid I dont quite share your appraisal of what the rockets actually mean, both in terms of strategy and the damage/loss of life they cause. The Palestinians of Gaza are those under siege, not Israelis or Israel. Palestine too has attempted a negotiated peace but in return has seen land grabs, destruction of Palestinian homes and infrastructure, including 1000s of acres of slow to mature orchards. Palestine is a minnow hitting back at a giant in the only way it can. They have killed 13 in 5 years, the average weekly death toll Israel takes using sophisticated American supplied helicopter gunships, and even land or sea based artillery. Angry Palestinians will not lay down and beg for crumbs at the foot of the table, which is what Israel and America has been demanding. They deserve their land back and restitution for the damage caused to vital infrastructure. If Israel was able to take that to the negotiating table then I'm confident Hamas would insure any militant cells that continued firing rockets would soon be dealt with. But as I have always said, its suits America to have an ally armed to the teeth in that region. So even if they go and wipe out Gaza it wont stop. They will just turn their attention to Lebanon or Syria instead.

Tao

[bananabrain]

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

The Palestinians of Gaza are those under siege, not Israelis or Israel.

look, tao, i know you've kind of made up your mind, but the inhabitants of sderot would disagree with you - they've had 400 rockets aimed at them already this year; in fact, if you don't consider over 7000 rockets fired to constitute being under siege, what exactly do you consider it to be? and what about the million homes evacuated in northern israel during the 2006 bombardment from hezbollah? was that a "siege", or just a tickling competition?

Palestine too has attempted a negotiated peace but in return has seen land grabs, destruction of Palestinian homes and infrastructure

excuse me, but you're speaking as if there's just one palestine here - of course fatah has been trying to some extent to negotiate (albeit as half-heartedly as the olmert government) but i'm not talking about them; i'm talking about hamas. there are for all intents and purposes two palestinian entities now, one of which is not interested in doing anything but fighting. israel is not destroying palestinian homes and infrastructure in the west bank - it's trying to draw a final border, not that it isn't cheating as well, but neither side is really acting 100% in good faith; however, hamas is another story.

They have killed 13 in 5 years, the average weekly death toll Israel takes using sophisticated American supplied helicopter gunships, and even land or sea based artillery.

look, as a friend of mine said the other day, if the criterion of rightness you work on is number of civilian deaths suffered, the palestinians "win" hands down. if the criterion of rightness is number of civilans intentionally killed, then israel "wins". of course, neither side *actually* wins. the thing is, i'm interested in a *solution*. what are you trying to do other than make rhetorical condemnations?

They deserve their land back and restitution for the damage caused to vital infrastructure. If Israel was able to take that to the negotiating table then I'm confident Hamas would insure any militant cells that continued firing rockets would soon be dealt with. But as I have always said, its suits America to have an ally armed to the teeth in that region. So even if they go and wipe out Gaza it wont stop. They will just turn their attention to Lebanon or Syria instead.

you can drive a coach and horses through the holes in this argument. ok:

1. the palestinians "deserve their land back" - which land do you mean? hamas mean *everything*, that includes tel aviv. what do you mean?

2. you're "confident" that hamas would ensure that any militant cells wold soon be dealt with? well, so far, they've not done anything to make the israelis be confident, have they? shouldn't they be doing something to deserve this level of trust? after all, the israelis disengaged from gaza and they had an opportunity to try and build their islamic state - and what exactly did they do about it?

3. So even if they go and wipe out Gaza it won't stop. They will just turn their attention to Lebanon or Syria instead.

really, like they did in 2006? despite the punishment they meted out, lebanon was damaged far less than it could have been had the israelis really hit it with all their might. all you're saying here is that the israelis could do a lot more harm than they have so far - i think we ought to point out here that hamas have done far less harm than they have tried to do largely for the reason that they are being prevented from doing so.

in short, your argument, as usual, whitewashes your favourite side whilst heaping all the blame on the people you love to hate. i'm trying to at least be fair. this is what fecks me off about your sort of people; you're all about the condemnation whilst doing absolutely sod-all to help the people you claim to care about.

b'shalom

bananabrain

[Tao_Equus]

BB,

I am biased!! I think not. In fact I think I make my case with about as much neutrality as I can muster. Rather I am outraged that Israel continues to be allowed to get away with what it has been doing. A country that has defied more UN resolutions than just about all other countries combined has already demonstrated it thinks itself above the law. Israel does not behave as a sovereign state with respect to international law but like some rogue nation that if it did not have the US backing it would have been dealt with far more severely.

I am going to try and avoid being dragged into a slagging match with you, a restraint as I rather enjoy the odd one of those, because I do feel this is far too important an issue to have clouded in personal vitriol. But I will say that if you think for one moment that I have no respect or compassion for people living in Israel then you are grossly mistaken. However, to create an analogy, if you are a paramedic arriving at the scene of an accident do you treat the guy with superficial cuts or do your treat the one with his leg blown off and an artery spewing blood ?

....if you don't consider over 7000 rockets fired to constitute being under siege, what exactly do you consider it to be?

This works out as there being 1 Israeli killed for every 538 rockets fired. Is it me or does such a statistic seem like a crock? We know the death toll is accurate but can we really believe that only 1 in 538 gets a kill? Or can we say with confidence that Israel is over egging the pudding in regard to playing the international sympathy game? Again if the US and its puppets were not backing Israel I doubt very much if we would allow Israel to get away with peddling such crap.

....and what about the million homes evacuated in northern israel during the 2006 bombardment from hezbollah? was that a "siege", or just a tickling competition?

Well again we have statistical discrepancies, The Guardian reported it as 10's of 1000s 'advised' to use air raid shelters. And this came about following two Israeli incursions, (again against International law), by the Israeli Air force to hit targets in Lebanon that were 'believed' to be housing Hizbullah leaders. Hizbullah used a rocket attack as a decoy while it attacked an armoured patrol and killed several soldiers and took 2 hostage. This is what outraged the Israeli's and led them to an unwarranted and barbaric assault on the people and infrastructure of Lebanon. Over 1000 Lebanese civilians died, many from Israeli cluster bombs dropped into civilian suburbs of Beirut. This is the response meted out by the fascist Israeli state for Hizbullah carrying out the kind of operation the Israeli's carry out every few hours. Israel holds some 30,000 hostages against international law, subject to military tribunals and not open court...so tell me BB...where the hell is there balance?

.....israel is not destroying palestinian homes and infrastructure in the west bank - it's trying to draw a final border, not that it isn't cheating as well.....

Final border... surely you mean "Final Solution"!!! I will let this Utube video from an American girl who died under an Israeli bulldozer tell it like it is. And you can tell me, do you think she showed a political bias?
YouTube - Israeli bulldozer driver murders American peace activist

look, as a friend of mine said the other day, if the criterion of rightness you work on is number of civilian deaths suffered, the palestinians "win" hands down. if the criterion of rightness is number of civilans intentionally killed, then israel "wins". of course, neither side *actually* wins. the thing is, i'm interested in a *solution*. what are you trying to do other than make rhetorical condemnations?

And I thought a modern Jewish proverb was "Lest we forget" ! Again its "solution". I dont want to see an Israeli/American final solution... I want to see Justice! I want to see basic human rights respected. And what a chronically blind and arrogant disregard of the facts your friend displays. Every single Palestinian death at Israeli hands is intentional. It is Israeli policy to have absolutely no regard for the basic conventions of war and even less respect for the right to life of ANY Palestinian. Your friends statement displays perhaps one of the worst cases of naivety on this matter that I have seen posted here.

which land do you mean?

Any and all land settled by the 3 million immigrants that have been settled on Palestinian land since 1968.

in short, your argument, as usual, whitewashes your favourite side whilst heaping all the blame on the people you love to hate. i'm trying to at least be fair. this is what fecks me off about your sort of people; you're all about the condemnation whilst doing absolutely sod-all to help the people you claim to care about.

Sorry but you cannot whitewash so much spilled Palestinian blood. So many atrocities. It is you, Israel, America and many others if only in a collusion of silence who are attempting a whitewash. Not me. I do not hate Israeli people. I can appreciate they have a siege mentality being surrounded by people that hate them and so most of them are unable to fully appreciate the fact of what they have become. And there is a minority that are as horrified by what there government does in their name as I am. But as I said above I aint dealing with the guys with superficial cuts, not when someone else is bleeding to death.
As for what I do you have no idea. But I will remind you of one tiny thing I do, I do not let you get away with trying to divert the truth away from who is really suffering here. Gaza is a concentration camp. There is now no other way to describe it. Vilnai has called for the "Final Solution". Israel has become the monster it forever cites for the justification of its own fascism.

Tao

[bananabrain]

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

I am biased!! I think not. In fact I think I make my case with about as much neutrality as I can muster. Rather I am outraged that Israel continues to be allowed to get away with what it has been doing.

this is the very *definition* of bias. you have mustered no neutrality at all that i can see. i don't know why i bother discussing this sort of thing with you when you are clearly determined to be as one-sided as you can possibly manage.

However, to create an analogy, if you are a paramedic arriving at the scene of an accident do you treat the guy with superficial cuts or do your treat the one with his leg blown off and an artery spewing blood ?

to continue your analogy in terms you might recognise, the guy with superficial cuts had a shotgun. the other one had a penknife. the guy with the shotgun told the penknife guy to leave him alone. the penknife guy says: "do your worst, bring it on!" and attacks him again and again and again and again and again, intending to stab him in the neck, in the eye, in the throat, in the groin, until the guy with the shotgun, who first tried to fend him off, then to hit him with it, provoked beyond endurance and fearing for his own life if he does not respond, takes drastic action to stop the threat to him. of course, you are free to take the perspective of the paramedic, but you're certainly not seeing the big picture. of course you can respond that perhaps the shotgun guy was trying to steal the penknife guy's car, or something like that, but my point is that your perspective is utterly slanted. you're not interested in anything but the amount of blood spilled. in that you are displaying exactly the attitude i would expect from someone who gets his information from the media and has no stake in the proceedings.

This works out as there being 1 Israeli killed for every 538 rockets fired. Is it me or does such a statistic seem like a crock? We know the death toll is accurate but can we really believe that only 1 in 538 gets a kill?

so now the israelis are lying about the number of rockets? i hardly think they could fake it. this is more evidence of your bias - your unwillingness to believe anything but the very worst of the israelis.

he fact is these rockets (apart from the ones delivered by the iranians) are not effective. however, firing them indiscriminately at residential areas will certainly have the effect of continued intimidation whilst failing to prevent retaliation, especially if, as in the case of sderot and ashkelon, civilian life is being disrupted.

Or can we say with confidence that Israel is over egging the pudding in regard to playing the international sympathy game?

yet again you show your ignorance with how the israelis see the outside world. look up my comments on the "oom schmoom" mentality. the israelis aren't terribly concerned with international sympathy - they already think the whole world's against them and that they'll never get a fair hearing and your comments do your bit to add to that.

Well again we have statistical discrepancies, The Guardian reported it as 10's of 1000s 'advised' to use air raid shelters.

oh, well if the *guardian* says it, it must be right. how about:

"over 300,000 fled their homes (Israel MFA, 23 August 2006; Brookings, 15 August 2006, p.2)"
"In addition, up to one million either stayed in bomb shelters, hid at home or alternated between the two (Brookings, 15 August 2006)."

IDMC : Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre | Countries | Israel | Multiple patterns of internal displacement affect several ethnic and religious groups

but no, *obviously* the israelis are lying. you sound like the sort of people who bleat about "western propaganda" when they hear about human rights abuses under the taleban.

This is the response meted out by the fascist Israeli state for Hizbullah carrying out the kind of operation the Israeli's carry out every few hours.

ah, the "fascist israeli state", yes, really, not even a bit of bias there, that "fascist state" which has multi-party democracy, multi-ethnic political representation, a free press and all the other things they don't have elsewhere in the middle east. gosh, tao, i'm impressed with all the neutrality you're mustering there.

Final border... surely you mean "Final Solution"!!!

nice rhetorical flourish there, why don't you just start using the word "zionazi", that'll really add the polish to your neutrality.

And you can tell me, do you think [rachel corrie] showed a political bias?

yes, i do. nonetheless, i regret her death, as i do of anyone undeserving of it. however, she didn't exactly act in a sensible or safe way and, in a way, it's hardly surprising
, even without malice aforethought.

Again its "solution". I dont want to see an Israeli/American final solution... I want to see Justice! I want to see basic human rights respected.

like the basic human rights of the israelis not to be bombed, blown up, rocketed, stabbed and so on? tell me, are your cuddly hamasniks interested in human rights, or are they more interested in teaching children to hate jews using ripped-off cuddly disney characters?

Every single Palestinian death at Israeli hands is intentional.

you're really showing your true colours here, tao - you don't want a "solution"? you just want to see the "baddies" punished and you want to see the americans get what's coming to them. no wonder the palestinians have got nowhere if you're the sort of friend that they have; no, you'd rather see them held up as a bloodstained museum exhibit to the crimes of israel and america, rather than as real, living, warm, passionate human beings. you have no concept of the people you are defending or attacking - this is an abstract conflict for you of good and evil. i am talking about human beings here, i'm talking about making things work, i'm talking about moving forward from this tragic situation. people like you do nothing to help and everything to keep it as it is. you are a grandstanding, flag-waving, ignorant bigot - and you're letting your prejudices blind you to the real situation of the parties who are actually living with this every day.

It is Israeli policy to have absolutely no regard for the basic conventions of war and even less respect for the right to life of ANY Palestinian.

Israel Defense Forces - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

whatever. i don't think you've ever met an israeli in your life, much less known people who serve in the army. i wonder if you even know any palestinians, like normal ones, not professional grievance holders?

Any and all land settled by the 3 million immigrants that have been settled on Palestinian land since 1968.

three million?? that's nearly 2/3 of israel's population! if you're talking about over the "green line" (i.e. the west bank) that can't actually be correct; not even a million israelis live in the west bank. i think you're being bamboozled by the phrase "palestinian land" - you see, according to the sort of people you're probably getting your stats from, even tel aviv is "palestinian land". according to hamas, every israeli is a "settler" or an "immigrant". and are you suggesting that the future palestinian state should be judenrein, then?

But I will remind you of one tiny thing I do, I do not let you get away with trying to divert the truth away from who is really suffering here. Gaza is a concentration camp.

i'm not diverting the truth, nor am i denying palestinian suffering. but where are the *medical experiments*, here, tao? where are the *ovens*? where are the *gas chambers*? where is the *extermination policy"? you clearly have absolutely no conception of what the "final solution" concentration camps actually were. this is typical of your sort of mealy-mouthed equivocation. this cheap moral equivalence you toss about as if the *verified premeditated murder* of 6,000,000 people was something the israelis are contemplating, let alone carrying out. this sort of statement disgusts me and reveals your total lack of proportion and complete ignorance of history, the "shoah" and the reality of the israeli/palestinian conflict. however, any twisting of the arguments will serve your shallow, cheap little goal to paint the israelis as nazis. truly, both sides are better off without your kind of "friends" and "help" - and the same goes for those stupid evangelical so-called "christian zionists".

b'shalom

bananabrain

[Tao_Equus]

Hi BB and thank you for such a typical response.

Nice to see you attack the individual to try and lend weight and divert from the fact of the deliberate and systematic Israeli oppression of Palestinians. And Lebanese for that matter.

As for my use of Nazi terminology I would say that I am a bit foolish to do that. Red rag to a bull and all that. And of course I recognise that the scale of Israeli hate for Palestinians has not yet reached the hideous proportions in action of the concentration camps. None the less despite your protestation to the counter and your feeble effort to appear sympathetic you continually give away your own bias. I can understand this, the question of Israel is one close to the heart of all Jews. And, in my experience, one that few can truly reach an emotional detachment that allows them to see why people like me are so outraged. But if a senior defence ministry official can make reference to instituting a holocaust in Gaza, followed immediately by extreme violence from their army, we can rest assured that Israel is discussing this at the very highest level.

So when someone has the bottle to go and try and help in a peace effort she is biased, stupid and deserves to die! Well if that does not clarify your opinion then nothing can.

Apart from a short time on a kibbutz, a 1500 mile roadtrip in a Morgan and almost a year in London spent sharing a flat with Jewish people I have absolutely no experience of them. And the 3 families of well educated, western looking, socially active Lebanese that I know well and that had their homes in Beirut destroyed by the Israelis are biased too. And the Palestinian community living in Athens and regionally in Greece, of which several became good friends have their bias too, and must be ignored. But I must admit no Jew has ever tried to rob me, a Palestinian did. So as you can tell my bias is well established! And you are absolutely justified to try and insult my integrity in your effort to silence me!

As I said above in a previous post I think this has nothing to do with protecting the state of Israel. This is American regional strategic policy that does not give a flying #### for either the lives of the average Palestinian or Israeli. I do not think that the Israeli defence ministry puts out propagandised statistics and reports.....I know it does. As for democracy, well if you believe that democracy is important, shout for Israel to negotiate with the democratically elected government of Palestine. Hamas. The rockets are an irritation to Israel, not a threat. The multi-billion $ American attack force is a continued threat to justice and peace.


Tao

[Paladin]

Here's something you won't find in the US news

Sanctions causing Gaza to implode, say rights groups | World news | The Guardian

[bananabrain]

tao,

i am not trying to "play the man not the ball". i'm suggesting that your prejudices are preventing you seeing more than one facet of a very complicated situation. i've made it abundantly clear that i don't agree with everything the israelis do; i've made it abundantly clear that i think they make mistakes, in policy, strategy and tactics are often clumsy, stupid or just plain arrogant and brutal. what i do not concede is that they are fascists, let alone nazis, or that they intend, let alone go out of their way, to harm innocent civilians and bystanders - in contradistinction to both hamas and hezbollah, who are intent on wholesale murder and are more than happy to see their own side become victims if it gives them a PR advantage. you seem blatantly unable to appreciate this and this i can only put down to bias and your lack of familiarity with israeli politics and society and its relationship with both judaism and the diaspora. why don't you start reading the israeli papers (they're mostly available in english) if you want to understand what the israelis say amongst themselves, what gets criticised in their society and what they are concerned by? i assure you that you are 100% mistaken about their intentions.

i also find it offensive that you are suggesting that my sympathy is less than genuine - why the hell do you think i am involved in interfaith dialogue? - but again, this is coming from someone whose response to my interjections, not too long ago, was to accuse me of being a spy for mossad! who sounds more reasonable and less paranoid, you or me? i do not lay claim to being detached or impartial; i have a stake in this, unlike yourself. i have both *direct* and indirect reason to want a FAIR and EQUITABLE solution to the I/P situation and have said so on countless occasions. that you still manage to accuse me of being some sort of closet ethnic cleanser is testament only to your ability to ignore the issues and engage in facile student-union whataboutery - as in the case of the rachel corrie tragedy, which i indicated was such, yet one in which she knowingly inserted herself into a dangerous situation. the gaza strip is not a gap-year project.

but no, i'm "insulting your integrity"? if you had any intellectual integrity on this issue you would be able to admit that hamas are continually contributing to and escalating the situation, rather than place all the blame on the israeli side of the scales. no reputable commentator on this issue talks in the way you do and i don't think it's unreasonable of me to point this out.

b'shalom

bananabrain

[Tao_Equus]

Originally Posted by bananabrain

if you had any intellectual integrity on this issue you would be able to admit that hamas are continually contributing to and escalating the situation, rather than place all the blame on the israeli side of the scales. no reputable commentator on this issue talks in the way you do and i don't think it's unreasonable of me to point this out.

b'shalom

bananabrain

From the link provided above by Paladin:


"The appeal follows a report by John Dugard, the UN special rapporteur on Palestinian human rights in the occupied territories, in which he described Palestinian terrorism as the "inevitable consequence" of Israeli occupation and laws that resemble apartheid. Palestinian terrorist acts are to be deplored but "must be understood as being a painful but inevitable consequence of colonialism, apartheid or occupation", wrote Dugard, whose report accused Israel of acts and policies consistent with all three. Israel dismissed his conclusions as one-sided and inflammatory."

So the guy charged with studying the situation for the UN says that Israel leaves the Palestinians no other option but to continue firing off rockets and attempting suicide missions. Does he too have no intellectual integrity, is he a disreputable commentator?

If you know anything about Mossad and their subsidiary trawlers, like the Anti Defamation League, and how they operate then you would know I'm not a paranoid but a realist. But if you want to take what was really intended as tongue in cheek seriously go ahead. After all its great in helping your effort to dismiss my views as student union style irrational rantings.

100's of more people a year in Israel will die from smoking cigarettes than will ever die from the rockets of Hamas. But Hamas has no choice but to carry on with this tactic because it is their only way to keep world attention on their plight. Its is a double edged sword tho, Israel milks all the international sympathy it can from them. But it is the only sword Hamas has left, what else can they do? Roll over and die?

I do not want to see ordinary Israelis suffer. But they dont suffer no electricity, sewage disposal, food and medicine shortages, closed schools, 50% unemployment, and a population living on less than $1 a day. They live on $70 a day, supermarkets full, running water, all the normal infrastructure of modern life. Militarily its a multi-billion dollar state of the art nuclear power v a few fireworks and rifles. When I see balance maybe then you will see a more sympathetic attitude from me but until then I will paint the truth as I and very many others see it.

Tao