Full Version: Hamas and the new Palestine
You all do realize that Hamas won over Fatah whos founder was Yasser Arafat, right? I mean, the name Hamas did not just throw everyone into a tailspin and didnt understand the Fatah was Yasser Arafats party? The guy everyone hated previously. Just to be clear on that.
Its very possible, at least there is enough precedent, that we can and will negotiate with Hamas, like so many other terrorist politicos we have had no problem in using or supporting in the past-such as- Osama bin Laden, the Haus of Saud, Saddam Hussein, Kaddafi, the Shah of Iran, Sinn Fein, the Basques, Pinochet, Noriega, our own Contras and so many other various unsavory, useful yet distasteful people, many associated with Vietnam and Korea. We are not in any way living on a pedestal when it comes to making deals with the bad guys before, when it suits our needs. So I imagine we can manage it without some crap about not negotiating with terrorists. Im sure lines of communication are open on the backside, despite public bluster on both sides.
If Hamas and Israels new ruler aknowledge that each one has a right to exist, then something good might eventually come from the deaths of the hardline rulers and politicians that always made life for these people on both sides a constant struggle and reason to hate by belligerance.
I only HOPE a new day has risen. If not, let them finally exterminate each other, because perhaps as the BIBLE says, they will fight until the end of the world, upon which all will be saved:
Zech 12:2-3 Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about... And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces.
Zech 14:2 I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem to fight against it; the city will be captured, the houses ransacked, and the women raped.
Zech 14:3-4 Then the LORD will go out and fight against those nations, as he fights in the day of battle. On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west, forming a great valley, with half of the mountain moving north and half moving south.
Zech 12:9-10 On that day I will set out to destroy all the nations that attack Jerusalem. And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.
Joel 1:1-2 In those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, I will gather all nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. There I will enter into judgment against them concerning my inheritance, my people Israel, for they scattered my people among the nations and divided up my land.
No worries. In a day of intelligent design all is as it should be.
Its very possible, at least there is enough precedent, that we can and will negotiate with Hamas, like so many other terrorist politicos we have had no problem in using or supporting in the past-such as- Osama bin Laden, the Haus of Saud, Saddam Hussein, Kaddafi, the Shah of Iran, Sinn Fein, the Basques, Pinochet, Noriega, our own Contras and so many other various unsavory, useful yet distasteful people, many associated with Vietnam and Korea. We are not in any way living on a pedestal when it comes to making deals with the bad guys before, when it suits our needs. So I imagine we can manage it without some crap about not negotiating with terrorists. Im sure lines of communication are open on the backside, despite public bluster on both sides.
If Hamas and Israels new ruler aknowledge that each one has a right to exist, then something good might eventually come from the deaths of the hardline rulers and politicians that always made life for these people on both sides a constant struggle and reason to hate by belligerance.
I only HOPE a new day has risen. If not, let them finally exterminate each other, because perhaps as the BIBLE says, they will fight until the end of the world, upon which all will be saved:
Zech 12:2-3 Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about... And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces.
Zech 14:2 I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem to fight against it; the city will be captured, the houses ransacked, and the women raped.
Zech 14:3-4 Then the LORD will go out and fight against those nations, as he fights in the day of battle. On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west, forming a great valley, with half of the mountain moving north and half moving south.
Zech 12:9-10 On that day I will set out to destroy all the nations that attack Jerusalem. And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.
Joel 1:1-2 In those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, I will gather all nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. There I will enter into judgment against them concerning my inheritance, my people Israel, for they scattered my people among the nations and divided up my land.
No worries. In a day of intelligent design all is as it should be.
QUOTE(may14 @ Feb 10 2006, 02:53 AM)
QUOTE(Artemise @ Feb 10 2006, 05:15 AM)
Two things just to respond to Bucket and May, quickly.
I have not said one single nasty thing about the Holocaust, in fact I never mentioned it. I did say that two persecuted peoples do not appear to have any problem using similar and opressive tactics on each other, and are very short on understanding each others plight.
May: I responded to an outright accusation that Westerners desired the extinction of Israelis and Arabs by setting them up to kill each other off. If you think that kind of thing ( which I had never thought of), then you ask to be challenged in kind. And I said, if that were true, than its been proven a correct and perhaps a valid assumption. You degrade the fact the the Western world set up a homeland for Jews, (and have nothing but trouble with it since). Quite a sacrifice for a people that you accuse of wanting mutual extermination. You see, if you throw out a big fish, someone is going to catch it. I just AKNOWLEDGE that you might be right and its working. Your theory, not mine.
THE WALL. It is a wall not a fence, its a big long WALL, continuously in expansion, the rest of it is a fence. It is separating villages from each other, forcing people to go miles out of their way in order to work ( or jump it, often), to see their families and it cutting out some of the best land for Israel.
I give you this link of two pages of gallery photos of it:
http://www.pbase.com/yalop/essay
It just shows how little informed we are about the real goings on, when several people debating here dont even know this WALL exists. And the thing about a WALL, its much more permanent than a fence, it says much more than a Fence.
I have not said one single nasty thing about the Holocaust, in fact I never mentioned it. I did say that two persecuted peoples do not appear to have any problem using similar and opressive tactics on each other, and are very short on understanding each others plight.
May: I responded to an outright accusation that Westerners desired the extinction of Israelis and Arabs by setting them up to kill each other off. If you think that kind of thing ( which I had never thought of), then you ask to be challenged in kind. And I said, if that were true, than its been proven a correct and perhaps a valid assumption. You degrade the fact the the Western world set up a homeland for Jews, (and have nothing but trouble with it since). Quite a sacrifice for a people that you accuse of wanting mutual extermination. You see, if you throw out a big fish, someone is going to catch it. I just AKNOWLEDGE that you might be right and its working. Your theory, not mine.
THE WALL. It is a wall not a fence, its a big long WALL, continuously in expansion, the rest of it is a fence. It is separating villages from each other, forcing people to go miles out of their way in order to work ( or jump it, often), to see their families and it cutting out some of the best land for Israel.
I give you this link of two pages of gallery photos of it:
http://www.pbase.com/yalop/essay
It just shows how little informed we are about the real goings on, when several people debating here dont even know this WALL exists. And the thing about a WALL, its much more permanent than a fence, it says much more than a Fence.
My theory is that it was in the interest of the world to find some place where the Jews could go, and that they did not care what would happen to them there. Period. I also think that they did not care much about the Arabs just then- because they did not seem as powerful as they do today.
And about this terrible WALL- I wrote that I could not care less how you chose to call it. Is it more permanent then a fence? If it is, I devoutly hope that what we have is a wall. More permanent sounds safer. I live in Israel so I happen to be quite attached to this WALL. It might have saved my lives, or the lives of my loved ones. And yes, I care more about that than about Palestinian comfort, if this WALL really inconveniences them.
I believe that the real problem of all those who object to the WALL, or to everything else Israel does in order to defense itself, is that they can not understand why Israelis refuse "to go gently into the night."
We happen to love daylight. Should we apologize for that?
This doesn't make sense as their were thousands of Jews migrating to the area prior to them "shipping them off to be done with them." It seems like "they" decided the Jews probably wanted the land where they were all migrating to. So you're complaining that they officially gave you land that Jews were moving to anyways? And this was just so we could forget about them? If we really just wanted to forget about them, it's amazing that we remember to cut them a check for billions every year.
as directed, i'm not going to get into a religious discussion on this. Because that to me is not the issue.
First of all, the Palestinian's are not 'my freedom fighting friends'. I don't know a single Palestinian. I am neutral. the point i have made all the way down the line is not that Palestinians are innocent (although, as Artemise points out, many if not most are innocent victims) but that Israel is EQUALLY GUILTY. Every time this point is made, Israel supports throw back 'well look at all the stuff that Palestinian's have done' or 'they have no right to live here' or something along those lines. The truth is, there is no defence against the facts that Israel is equally guilty, and to my mind, equally extreme. It seems to me that, with shades of grey, there are three sections to the two countries - those Israelis that want to destroy the Palestinians, those Palestinians who want to destory Israel, and the vast majority in the middle who are innocent victims of both the other two, who would be perfectly happy if the two extremist elements were abducted by aliens to leave them in peace.
...anyway...
You cannot negotiate easily, if at all, with an extremist element. But the joke is that the Israeli leaders seem to have promoted themselves as mainstream or balanced when their behaviour, words and statements of intent show clearly otherwise.
If they wanted to negotiate, they could have taken the opportunity with a newly elected party. They could have forced the onus onto Hamas, with the pressure of the world to bear, by offering an olive branch, but they CHOSE not to. Hamas hadn't actually done anything, before Israel had stated they wouldn't deal with them.
And that was the point, that all the way down the line Israel has been equally guilty of atrocities, of happily killing innocents of all genders and ages, just as the Palestinians have been. But as in most things, you cannot negotiate or discuss an issue with someone who's opinion is so extreme that they can't even accept that the group they defend is anything but innocent.
...recall our two friends who took a wrong turn while driving on the West Bank and found themselves in the midst of a Palestinian funeral procession. Some Fatah men from the PA "rescued" the men from the angry mob, and then took them to a nearby PA police station. However, the angry mob wasn't finished being angry and so they proceeded to the PA police station, "forced" their way inside, and lynched [as the Israelis and some others describe it] the two men. As Deborah Sontag of the NY Times not long thereafter reported, during the celebratory victory march, the angry mob was chanting, here is where we gouged his eyes, here is where we set him on fire... The Israelis responded with their first use of helicopter gunships and the PA police station in question was reduced to rubble. And here is the photo, a famous or infamous one at that [depending on one's viewpoint], depicting your "freedom fighting" friend joyously raising his bloody hands in a triumphant ecstasy God forbid that the Jewish settlers, who had to be forcably removed and held back from illegal settlments, who attacked their own military and police - who also smashed police stations, houses, cars - were anything remotely similar... i mean, the Israelis wouldn't do that...
You mention the 'great wall of china' and compare the Palestinians to the Mongols, who generally wreaked havoc and destruction across their region. Not really that pertinent a parallel really, since the Palestinians weren't exactly the scourge of the area, were they! And you'd think, from such a well educated and civilised group as the Jews, that they'd be beyond such primative measures. But i guess, that worked wonders in Berlin...
In reality, it wouldn't matter if Hamas and the New Palestine continued a spotless behaviour. Israel wouldn't deal with them, because some people will always make it about race and religion, not politics, which is all that it should be concerned with.
I don't doubt that some Israeli groups have attempted to do good for the region. the water plant you spoke of sounds good, but don't claim that it was for the sole benefit of the Palestinians. I mean, this comes when we know that Israel was happy to limit water supplies to them to levels against Human Rights. But then, as all these discussions, notably with yourself and Loreng, have proved, you don't really consider Palestinians 'human'. They are savages, barbarians... just like the Settlers in America decried the Natives, and just as the Normans decried the Saxons. Its easier to kill savages isn't it. they're not really human...
First of all, the Palestinian's are not 'my freedom fighting friends'. I don't know a single Palestinian. I am neutral. the point i have made all the way down the line is not that Palestinians are innocent (although, as Artemise points out, many if not most are innocent victims) but that Israel is EQUALLY GUILTY. Every time this point is made, Israel supports throw back 'well look at all the stuff that Palestinian's have done' or 'they have no right to live here' or something along those lines. The truth is, there is no defence against the facts that Israel is equally guilty, and to my mind, equally extreme. It seems to me that, with shades of grey, there are three sections to the two countries - those Israelis that want to destroy the Palestinians, those Palestinians who want to destory Israel, and the vast majority in the middle who are innocent victims of both the other two, who would be perfectly happy if the two extremist elements were abducted by aliens to leave them in peace.
QUOTE(KivrotHaTaavah @ Feb 10 2006, 01:30 AM)
...inflicted ourselves on Iraq? Sorry, but may I ask that you please speak with the Kurds, more than 90% of whom were and are in favor of our intervention in Iraq.
i'm not going to get into the Iraq issue here. But if you seriously think that we didn't inflict outselves on Iraq then i wonder what you've been watching. For sure, Saddam needed to go - he was a mass murder - but we've inflicted ourselves in other ways since then... ...anyway...
You cannot negotiate easily, if at all, with an extremist element. But the joke is that the Israeli leaders seem to have promoted themselves as mainstream or balanced when their behaviour, words and statements of intent show clearly otherwise.
If they wanted to negotiate, they could have taken the opportunity with a newly elected party. They could have forced the onus onto Hamas, with the pressure of the world to bear, by offering an olive branch, but they CHOSE not to. Hamas hadn't actually done anything, before Israel had stated they wouldn't deal with them.
And that was the point, that all the way down the line Israel has been equally guilty of atrocities, of happily killing innocents of all genders and ages, just as the Palestinians have been. But as in most things, you cannot negotiate or discuss an issue with someone who's opinion is so extreme that they can't even accept that the group they defend is anything but innocent.
QUOTE(KivrotHaTaavah @ Feb 10 2006, 01:30 AM)
...recall our two friends who took a wrong turn while driving on the West Bank and found themselves in the midst of a Palestinian funeral procession. Some Fatah men from the PA "rescued" the men from the angry mob, and then took them to a nearby PA police station. However, the angry mob wasn't finished being angry and so they proceeded to the PA police station, "forced" their way inside, and lynched [as the Israelis and some others describe it] the two men. As Deborah Sontag of the NY Times not long thereafter reported, during the celebratory victory march, the angry mob was chanting, here is where we gouged his eyes, here is where we set him on fire... The Israelis responded with their first use of helicopter gunships and the PA police station in question was reduced to rubble. And here is the photo, a famous or infamous one at that [depending on one's viewpoint], depicting your "freedom fighting" friend joyously raising his bloody hands in a triumphant ecstasy
QUOTE(KivrotHaTaavah)
were your "freedom fighting" friends not hiding among the "innocent."
By placing 'derogatory speechmarks' around 'innocent', you assert that all Palestinians are guilty. That kind of attitude is not exactly encouraging to a discussion is it. In fact, i find it disrespectful to the innocents who died. Does it make up for innocent deaths by suicide bombs, or is it just an exact equal to it?You mention the 'great wall of china' and compare the Palestinians to the Mongols, who generally wreaked havoc and destruction across their region. Not really that pertinent a parallel really, since the Palestinians weren't exactly the scourge of the area, were they! And you'd think, from such a well educated and civilised group as the Jews, that they'd be beyond such primative measures. But i guess, that worked wonders in Berlin...
In reality, it wouldn't matter if Hamas and the New Palestine continued a spotless behaviour. Israel wouldn't deal with them, because some people will always make it about race and religion, not politics, which is all that it should be concerned with.
I don't doubt that some Israeli groups have attempted to do good for the region. the water plant you spoke of sounds good, but don't claim that it was for the sole benefit of the Palestinians. I mean, this comes when we know that Israel was happy to limit water supplies to them to levels against Human Rights. But then, as all these discussions, notably with yourself and Loreng, have proved, you don't really consider Palestinians 'human'. They are savages, barbarians... just like the Settlers in America decried the Natives, and just as the Normans decried the Saxons. Its easier to kill savages isn't it. they're not really human...
Well, in their infinite wisdom, the administration has refused to engage Hamas.
Another foreign policy victory!
They're going to Moscow.
Another foreign policy victory!
They're going to Moscow.
QUOTE
although, as Artemise points out, many if not most are innocent victims)
I never said anything of the kind. Dont put words in my mouth. I have enough knowledge and have said in past posts that Palestinians have blown to their detriment good deals with Israel and I do not in any way support violent tactics, by either side at this point. I am simply exhausted with both and do not care if they exterminate each other as long as we dont have to continue to pay for it, may the best win, as that is what they both desire. I can pick up this fight 50 years from now and it will be the same. God had ordained it by jewish belief, so go for it. May the best civilization win!
I suspect that when they both get sick of the death, they will come to something.
Noone else had brought forth anything other than blame.
QUOTE(Rev_DelFuego @ Feb 10 2006, 03:23 AM)
I could easily dispute how some of the graph are biased.
Then please do so. If you know these details as well as you claim, it should be a trivial task.
The results are baised to a point - in favor of the Palestinians. Knowing people like you wouldn't believe facts no matter how they were presented to you, they gave any questionable benefit of the doubt to the Pals. In other words, if there were any question as to who was at fault for a casualty, Israel took the blame. Every single time.
Again Rev_DelFuego, please challenge my source with facts instead of empty rhetotic. God knows we've had enough of that. Read the report in it's entirety. Don't just read the summary. Regardless of who wrote the report, the numbers do not change. And again, the benefit of the doubt was given to the Pals in every single instance.
As far as children getting killed, that is true. But as proven, Israel does not target non-combatants. Unfortunatly, mistakes do happen in terms of collateral damage and tragically, the rage of Israeli soldiers reacting to the devastation of a wedding or pizzeria attack where dozens of women and children were targeted become a crappy statistic. But those incidents are almost statisitically non-existent when compared to the Pals being bred to kill any Jew no matter what age or gender. The Pals justify killing children because they could later breed more Jews. My belief is that this new government will do nothing to change that. This is the best opportunity they have to quit breeding this hatred and the only way this conflict will be resolved.
If you want to prove me wrong, do it. I'm challenging you now to do that. Don't say it - prove it. Prove the numbers I provided are skewed.
QUOTE(Artemise)
I have not said one single nasty thing about the Holocaust, in fact I never mentioned it. I did say that two persecuted peoples do not appear to have any problem using similar and opressive tactics on each other, and are very short on understanding each others plight.
Well the one comment you will own up to is nasty and is about the Holocaust. You are equating the Israeli treatment of Palestinians to the Nazi treatment of Jews, that is not only hateful but untrue and I personally feel comments such as these equate to a denial of the Holocaust. If you really recognize and empathized with what the Holocaust was and what was done, you would not so easily throw it around at every situation or political disagreement you had.
But you said more,
QUOTE(Artemise)
Well May, it looks like you have hit the nail on the head as to the final truth, and the final solution,
Final Solution? You going to tell me and all the rest of us that you did not purposefully use that term to again evoke a correlation to the Holocaust?
and there was more.....
QUOTE(Artemise)
Should we round up and gas all Palestinians? or put them in refugee camps somewhere?
Again why this imagery? You going to say this was again not meant to relate the Israeli actions to that of the Nazi's in the Holocaust?
QUOTE
You are equating the Israeli treatment of Palestinians to the Nazi treatment of Jews, that is not only hateful but untrue and I personally feel comments such as these equate to a denial of the Holocaust
Equating two things do not make a denial. Why do you trivialize things like this? Keep things in perspective. Nazis, on land not their own, shot jews in the head. Israelis, on land not their own, have shot Palestinians in the head. The Nazis killed women and children. The Israelis have killed women and children. Please don't tell me that their women and children aren't worth the same as our women and children.
An Israeli soldier shoots a 13 year old girl, she falls, he runs up and empties his clip (30 rounds) into her body. His subordinates reported it, the investigation releases the murderer from harm and prosecution. Kind of Holocaustish isn't it?
QUOTE(TruthMarch @ Feb 10 2006, 11:44 AM)
QUOTE
You are equating the Israeli treatment of Palestinians to the Nazi treatment of Jews, that is not only hateful but untrue and I personally feel comments such as these equate to a denial of the Holocaust
Equating two things do not make a denial. Why do you trivialize things like this? Keep things in perspective. Nazis, on land not their own, shot jews in the head. Israelis, on land not their own, have shot Palestinians in the head. The Nazis killed women and children. The Israelis have killed women and children. Please don't tell me that their women and children aren't worth the same as our women and children.
An Israeli soldier shoots a 13 year old girl, she falls, he runs up and empties his clip (30 rounds) into her body. His subordinates reported it, the investigation releases the murderer from harm and prosecution. Kind of Holocaustish isn't it?
Wait one darn second there. It was proven in court that the above event did not occur. The soldiers that made the claim disliked the Arab-Israeli officer in question and recanted their statements under oath. The officer did not commit the act and yet here is yet another example of prejudice and racism in action. Anything remotely like the Holocaust, only to those that don't know what the term means.
Point number two who said that they don't own the land. It is disputed so that too is bogus.
Point three just because some people do get shot in the head, it has been known to happen that some bullets do hit the head. In fact most snipers aim for the head.
In combat people die, that is a fact. The US has killed tens of thousands of women and children in Afghanistan and Iraq. But do you compare the US Armed Forces to the Nazis? The comparision is truly disgusting and bigoted.
QUOTE(Artemise @ Feb 10 2006, 02:44 PM)
QUOTE
although, as Artemise points out, many if not most are innocent victims)
I never said anything of the kind. Dont put words in my mouth. I have enough knowledge and have said in past posts that Palestinians have blown to their detriment good deals with Israel and I do not in any way support violent tactics, by either side at this point.
You kind of did, actually, when you were saying how innocent victims had been killed, but I can't seem to find where it was in the discussion to quote it. Anyway, the point was that most victims are innocents on BOTH sides.
It wasn't a pro-palestinian comment. Apparently, anything that isn't against them MUST be for them... ah why bother clarifying what i've already said clearly more than once. You've already repeatedly asserted that you don't really care who lives and dies there - that you'd be happy for them to all kill each other - so why carry on discussing the issue?
All these calmly written but tasteless comments and allusions to genocide don't really seem to add an awful lot to do with any of the topics at hand.
What can be done to engage the parties? Have everyone put down their weapons, let go of their stolen fruit (or land), step out of disputed land, and agree that fighting is not the way to bring about success and harmony. And for that to happen, the mediator ALSO needs to demonstrate that military might is not the way to go, otherwise why, except fear, should the two warring parties do the same?
Yes, Hamas can be engaged, but starting the opportunity with 'i'm not talking to them' is not going to make any headway in improving relations.
QUOTE(TruthMarch @ Feb 10 2006, 11:44 AM)
Equating two things do not make a denial. Why do you trivialize things like this? Keep things in perspective. Nazis, on land not their own, shot jews in the head. Israelis, on land not their own, have shot Palestinians in the head. The Nazis killed women and children. The Israelis have killed women and children. Please don't tell me that their women and children aren't worth the same as our women and children.
An Israeli soldier shoots a 13 year old girl, she falls, he runs up and empties his clip (30 rounds) into her body. His subordinates reported it, the investigation releases the murderer from harm and prosecution. Kind of Holocaustish isn't it?
An Israeli soldier shoots a 13 year old girl, she falls, he runs up and empties his clip (30 rounds) into her body. His subordinates reported it, the investigation releases the murderer from harm and prosecution. Kind of Holocaustish isn't it?
Nazis started shooting Jews in the head on land they do own, so this point is largely irrelevant. Is executing Jews in Germany any better than executing Jews in Poland? Besides, who is to say that Jews don't own the land?
Secondly, as it has been pointed out, Palestinian women and children that died in the conflict are a "collateral damage", and as much as I hate this term myself, and as much as I critisized the US military for inflicting collateral damage in Iraq, nobody accuses the US military for purposeful mass-murdering of Iraqi civilians execution-style. Similarly, with very few exceptions, ALL women and children that died in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were "collateral damage", as Dayton Rocker's statistics prove.
Let's be real here - if the goal of Israelis was to exterminate Palestinians like the goal of Nazis was to exterminate Jews, it would have been done long ago. Comparing the Holocaust and Israeli-Palestinian conflict is intellectually dishonest.
As for the incident you refer to, even if it did occur - how fair is to compare a single case with a official governmental policy of Germany?
QUOTE
The US has killed tens of thousands of women and children in Afghanistan and Iraq. But do you compare the US Armed Forces to the Nazis? The comparision is truly disgusting and bigoted.
Ok by that argument you are stating that there is a number threshold which would make you think maybe the US armed forces are a bit like the Nazi's. What is that number? And such a bland detatched comment you make, admitting the high number of innocent dead, dead due to US actions. So non-chalant and uncaring. That's my interpretation of it. Your defence seems to be that any number less than the Nazi's makes it unworthy of opposition. I'm sorry, but I don't subscribe to that form of philosophy. Actions and not numbers is what makes a fact a fact. The US killing innocent civilians is no different than the Nazi's killing of civilians. Or is it only evil to kill if you're German but not American? That double standard is exactly precisely the attitude which allows Vietnams to occur, Iraqs to occur. Yeah those 'raghead' and 'gooks' are treated as equals, humanity-wise, right? Right.
Why do people change and morph their beliefs to suit any given situation? Here you have Bush telling Americans that his illegal spying is legal, then others saying his cutting the levees upgrade funding wasn't a cause in the catastrophe! In the end, an American killing a civilian is the same and no different from the nazis killing a civilian. Someone saying otherwise doesn't make it any different.
QUOTE(TruthMarch @ Feb 10 2006, 04:56 PM)
QUOTE
The US has killed tens of thousands of women and children in Afghanistan and Iraq. But do you compare the US Armed Forces to the Nazis? The comparision is truly disgusting and bigoted.
Ok by that argument you are stating that there is a number threshold which would make you think maybe the US armed forces are a bit like the Nazi's. What is that number? And such a bland detatched comment you make, admitting the high number of innocent dead, dead due to US actions. So non-chalant and uncaring. That's my interpretation of it. Your defence seems to be that any number less than the Nazi's makes it unworthy of opposition. I'm sorry, but I don't subscribe to that form of philosophy. Actions and not numbers is what makes a fact a fact. The US killing innocent civilians is no different than the Nazi's killing of civilians.
...
In the end, an American killing a civilian is the same and no different from the nazis killing a civilian. Someone saying otherwise doesn't make it any different
The following countries/political organizations have, since 1939, "killed innocent civilians."
United States
United Kingdom
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics / Russia
France (4th Republic) / Vichy France / France (5th Republic)
Germany
Italy
Belgium
Holland
Australia
Canada
New Zealand
South Africa
Spain
Greece
Turkey
Bosnia
Serbia
Finland
Poland
Romania
Bulgaria
Czechslovakia
Hungary
Japan
China (Red and Nationalist both)
Korea (Both)
Vietnam (Both)
India
Pakistan
Peru
Bolivia
Ecuador
Israel
Egypt
Syria
Jordan
Pakistan
Cambodia
Iraq
Iran
Phillipines
Myanmar
Sri Lanka
Palestinian Authority
Hamas
The above list doesn't even delve into the mass murder that has plagued Africa. Of all the countries involved in wars of the last 7 decades, I can only think of three nations that likely have no "blood of innocent civilians" on their hands. Argentina (mighty few civilians on the Falklands/Malvinas), Norway and Denmark. So, rather than saying "we are all Americans (9/11)" or "we are all Danes (Cartoons)" or the like, I suppose you think we should be saying "we are all Nazis."
unless, of course, its only evil when Americans or Germans do it...
Genesisblade:
"If they wanted to negotiate, they could have taken the opportunity with a newly elected party. They could have forced the onus onto Hamas, with the pressure of the world to bear, by offering an olive branch, but they CHOSE not to. Hamas hadn't actually done anything, before Israel had stated they wouldn't deal with them."
Why should they have to "force the onus" onto Hamas? Please review the list of murdered Americans that I posted prior and then determine which of those persons were murdered by Hamas. You can start with those murdered at the Hebrew University, specifically, Marla Bennett, Benjamin Blutstein, Janis Ruth Coulter, David Gritz, and Dina Carter. For your next lead, mosey on over to USATODAY, and read this piece on "Main Events In Hamas' History":
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-03...-timeline_x.htm
But for a preview:
"June 1, 2001: Hamas suicide bomber blows up outside Tel Aviv disco, killing 21
August 9, 2001: Hamas suicide bomber blows up Jerusalem restaurant..."
Sorry, but you don't get to murder and terrorize for decades, then win an election, and then get to claim that the "onus" is on some others to extend the proverbial olive branch.
"In reality, it wouldn't matter if Hamas and the New Palestine continued a spotless behaviour. Israel wouldn't deal with them, because some people will always make it about race and religion, not politics, which is all that it should be concerned with."
Continue a spotless behavior? There is nothing for Hamas to continue but murder and terror. Now, if they renounce the same, then there'd be reason to talk.
And your moral equivalence is, well, I had better not say...but there is no "equivalence" in taking out a Hamas leader with an air-to-ground missile, with some "collateral damage" included, on the one hand, and wiring yourself to self-detonate and doing so in a restaurant filled with no one who is part of the Israeli power structure, on the other. The same applies to your comment re Iraq. Fine, US military action has resulted in the deaths of more than a few children [the few would otherwise be tragic enough]. But we don't wait until the other side is handing out candy and pencils to children before we attack them. And we don't take somebody else's child by the hand and then walk toward an American patrol, thinking that since we've got the kid by the hand that the Americans will let us approach, and that because we know that the Americans think us human enough to believe that we would never do such a despicable thing to a child. But that's our enemy in Iraq. And that's our enemy in Hamas, Islamic Jihad, etc. As the late Chaim Herzog told the UN Security Council rather shortly after the IDF's raid on the Entebbe Airport outside Kampala, Uganda, these people you claim are our equals recognize no authority, know no borders, respect no sovereignty, ignore all basic human decencies, and place no limit on human bestiality.
And for more on the no moral equivalence, your Palestinian Arab friends even reenact the Sbarro's pizza joint homicide-suicide bombing:
http://www.adl.org/israel/israel_sbarro.asp
http://www.kerenmalki.org/Press/A_Mothers_Protest.htm
And as concerns walls, maybe you might try this one, since you objected to my Mongol horde comparison:
http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/images/photos/belfa.../peaceline1.jpg
http://www.globalexchange.org/images/peacewall.jpg
And speaking of children and bombers, your friends from Hamas:
http://aetherometry.com/images/AS1-06/hama...ild_bombers.jpg
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~nahm0002/child/child-of-hamas.jpg
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~nahm0002/child/pal-child-abuse-14.jpg
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~nahm0002/child/pal-child-abuse-15.jpg
And for more:
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~nahm0002/child/baby-suicide.jpg
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~nahm0002/child/baby-gunman-01.jpg
And for proof that this is not some new phenomenon born of desperation, given that the Six Day War occurred in 1967, so from LIFE, 1970:
http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog...=0&autoShow=off
And here is why I find the whole thing truly detestable [ http://www.internationalwallofprayer.org/A...ian-Murder.html ]:
"One of the two new Hamas co-leaders, Khaled Mashal, called two years ago for the training of child suicide bombers - and the program seems to be well underway...
Yesterday afternoon, at the Hawara checkpoint near Shechem (Nablus) - in the area of Yitzhar and other Jewish communities - soldiers saw a boy approaching the checkpoint. Their suspicions aroused by the way he walked and carried himself, they immediately called out to him to stop and not to come near the soldiers. They told him to lift his shirt; he did so, revealing a gray vest packed with explosives. He held the switch in his hand, and could have detonated it at any given second. He appeared scared, and for 40 tense minutes the
soldiers, with the aid of a robot and scissors, guided him in removing the vest.
Asked afterwards why he agreed to kill himself, he gave several explanations: "People don't like me," he said, adding that his schoolmates laughed at him for being short, that the Tanzim promised him 100 shekels for his
mother and 72 virgins in Paradise. He said that his teacher taught him that waiting for him in Paradise were rivers of honey and wine and 72 virgins, and that "if I do good acts, I will sit there and enjoy," Those "good acts" include, apparently, murdering Israelis."
And for more on Master Abdo, please see:
http://students4democracy.org/sfd/forum/fo...p?TID=2104&PN=6
So, using a "slow" and bullied Hussam Abdo.....how much more craven, despicable, and simply downright evil could one ever hope to be? And you are looking for some moral equivalence to that? As if there could ever be such....And if you haven't figured it out yet, much of the outrage is only and simply because some of us care about Hussam Abdo. You know what he told the IDF soldiers at the scene? I don't want to die...
To once again borrow from the late Chaim Herzog, the same speech as a matter of fact, the tragic scene that Master Abdo's circumstance evokes in one's mind is devastating, as these terrorist miscreants were there prepared to use a "slow" boy, bullied by his peers, with his head filled with dreams of a life better than being bullied and some help for his mom...
And so, while I rather readily admit that I believe that those in power in Hamas are barbarians who ought to be taken out back and shot at the earliest available opportunity, I can also readily admit that I worry about Master Abdo and some others as well...
But if Master Abdo's story is not enough, how about "Hamas Website: High-Tech Hate For Kids":
http://www.teachkidspeace.org/doc1011.php
"(2) Issue No. 38 of Al-Fateh, Hamas' online children's magazine, displayed a picture of a female suicide bomber next to a photograph of her decapitated head lying on the road. The caption praises the act and notes that she is now in paradise, a shaheeda like her male comrades. She killed two Israelis and wounded 17 in September 2004, at Jerusalem's French Hill junction.
***
▪ Salah Shehada, who was one of the leaders of the Hamas in Gaza, stated in an interview (on the website Islam On-line, 26 May 2002), that children should be properly trained before they are sent on a mission and that they should be recruited into a special unit of the military arm of the Hamas in order to instill in them the culture of military jihad and to teach them to distinguish between good and evil.
▪ Dr. Padhl Abu Hin, a psychology lecturer, was interviewed on this subject for a television movie entitled "Child Patriots and a Martyrs' Death." He noted that the Palestinian child understands that, by means of the shahada (a martyrs' death for the sake of Allah), through the perpetration of attacks, he/she can win honor and appreciation, without life being ended. [The concept of] Shahada, according to him, encourages children to take an active part in the conflict against Israel (Palestinian TV, 27 June 2002)."
And please note that Dr. Hin's report proves our friends at Tzemach right re the act being one of religious devotion and also re the unfounded polarity in the claim of us loving life and them loving death.
And since some have made this, well, there are simply no words in the English language that I can use to describe the comparison made, so let me just say that even Hitler didn't use the youth of Germany until all was very nearly irretrievably lost. So if we wish to make comparison to Hitler and the Nazis, let me simply say that our Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigades friends have Hitler beat hands down when it comes to the use of children as weapons. In contrast, the IDF gave Hussam a jacket of theirs to keep him both decent and warm, and a doctor later let Hussam use his cellular phone so that he might call his mother.
Israeli leaders as mainstream? You mean, like the late Golda Meir, who told the late Anwar Sadat just prior to the commencement of peace talks: We can forgive you for killing our sons. But we will never forgive you for making us kill yours.
Sorry, but there is zero moral equivalence here. And I would quite frankly submit that it is your position of the morally equivalent that is the extreme position. None of which is to say that the Israeli position with respect to the Palestinian Arabs and the land in question is entirely correct or right [in the moral sense] in all respects. I have never otherwise said that it was.
But back to the morally not equivalent, please read up on the two Israeli soldiers in question. The Israelis in Gaza did attack their own army and police, but they didn't lynch them, they didn't throw one of the bodies out of the second floor window, they didn't display their bloody hands in a euphoric triumphant ecstasy, they didn't drag the body through the street, they didn't gouge out the eyes, they didn't light the body on fire, and they didn't hold a "replay" march,...So to compare the two circumstances or events is quite simply absurd [and I'm being generous here]. And by the way, I'd do some research on the Gaza settlements if I were you, since some of the closed/removed settlements were not and never were illegal [and that explains some, but not all of the anger and other conduct that you witnessed].
I otherwise put "innocents" in " " because I simply cannot say whether they were in fact innocent. How do I know? How do I know that they weren't helping the terrorists in question? If they were, then they were not innocents. But since I don't know whether they were in fact giving aid and comfort to those who would wire Hussam to detonate, I put "innocents" in " ". And, no, it wasn't and isn't designed to get equal. As I said, it's one thing to take out a Hamas leader by way of a missile strike, with some others in the vicinity also likely being killed or injured, but you do so because you know that the Hamas leader never sleeps in the same bed twice and so it's a matter of now or who knows when, if ever, you take him out....but it's a whole other matter to walk into a Sbarro's pizza joint and self-detonate, or into that disco, or into that restaurant during Passover Sedar, or on the No. 9 bus.
And re the non-human, sorry, but it isn't my religion made perfect that calls some other humans "apes" and "swine." And then there's Fawaz Damra, imam of the largest mosque in Ohio [in Cleveland], who had this to say on a fundraising video for Islamic Jihad:
"...[Muslims should be] directing all rifles at the first and last enemy of the Islamic nation, and that is the sons of monkeys and pigs, the Jews..."
I suppose that the Jewish response would be that it is better to be the sons of monkeys and pigs than it is to be the cowards and dogs who send the Hussam Abdos of the world out to detonate themselves. And by dogs [and any Muslim who knows her/his hadith will understand exactly what I mean], I mean to say, black dogs [so, Hamas cowards and black dogs].
In any event, until Hamas works some rather substantial amendments to, first, its thought processes, and then, second, to its charter, there is simply no point in trying to engage those people. Assuming that some would otherwise be so foolish as to do so, I will further assume that any deal reached with those Hamas black dogs will work as much long term good as did Neville's getting off that aeroplane and reporting that we have peace in our time...
"If they wanted to negotiate, they could have taken the opportunity with a newly elected party. They could have forced the onus onto Hamas, with the pressure of the world to bear, by offering an olive branch, but they CHOSE not to. Hamas hadn't actually done anything, before Israel had stated they wouldn't deal with them."
Why should they have to "force the onus" onto Hamas? Please review the list of murdered Americans that I posted prior and then determine which of those persons were murdered by Hamas. You can start with those murdered at the Hebrew University, specifically, Marla Bennett, Benjamin Blutstein, Janis Ruth Coulter, David Gritz, and Dina Carter. For your next lead, mosey on over to USATODAY, and read this piece on "Main Events In Hamas' History":
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-03...-timeline_x.htm
But for a preview:
"June 1, 2001: Hamas suicide bomber blows up outside Tel Aviv disco, killing 21
August 9, 2001: Hamas suicide bomber blows up Jerusalem restaurant..."
Sorry, but you don't get to murder and terrorize for decades, then win an election, and then get to claim that the "onus" is on some others to extend the proverbial olive branch.
"In reality, it wouldn't matter if Hamas and the New Palestine continued a spotless behaviour. Israel wouldn't deal with them, because some people will always make it about race and religion, not politics, which is all that it should be concerned with."
Continue a spotless behavior? There is nothing for Hamas to continue but murder and terror. Now, if they renounce the same, then there'd be reason to talk.
And your moral equivalence is, well, I had better not say...but there is no "equivalence" in taking out a Hamas leader with an air-to-ground missile, with some "collateral damage" included, on the one hand, and wiring yourself to self-detonate and doing so in a restaurant filled with no one who is part of the Israeli power structure, on the other. The same applies to your comment re Iraq. Fine, US military action has resulted in the deaths of more than a few children [the few would otherwise be tragic enough]. But we don't wait until the other side is handing out candy and pencils to children before we attack them. And we don't take somebody else's child by the hand and then walk toward an American patrol, thinking that since we've got the kid by the hand that the Americans will let us approach, and that because we know that the Americans think us human enough to believe that we would never do such a despicable thing to a child. But that's our enemy in Iraq. And that's our enemy in Hamas, Islamic Jihad, etc. As the late Chaim Herzog told the UN Security Council rather shortly after the IDF's raid on the Entebbe Airport outside Kampala, Uganda, these people you claim are our equals recognize no authority, know no borders, respect no sovereignty, ignore all basic human decencies, and place no limit on human bestiality.
And for more on the no moral equivalence, your Palestinian Arab friends even reenact the Sbarro's pizza joint homicide-suicide bombing:
http://www.adl.org/israel/israel_sbarro.asp
http://www.kerenmalki.org/Press/A_Mothers_Protest.htm
And as concerns walls, maybe you might try this one, since you objected to my Mongol horde comparison:
http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/images/photos/belfa.../peaceline1.jpg
http://www.globalexchange.org/images/peacewall.jpg
And speaking of children and bombers, your friends from Hamas:
http://aetherometry.com/images/AS1-06/hama...ild_bombers.jpg
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~nahm0002/child/child-of-hamas.jpg
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~nahm0002/child/pal-child-abuse-14.jpg
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~nahm0002/child/pal-child-abuse-15.jpg
And for more:
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~nahm0002/child/baby-suicide.jpg
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~nahm0002/child/baby-gunman-01.jpg
And for proof that this is not some new phenomenon born of desperation, given that the Six Day War occurred in 1967, so from LIFE, 1970:
http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog...=0&autoShow=off
And here is why I find the whole thing truly detestable [ http://www.internationalwallofprayer.org/A...ian-Murder.html ]:
"One of the two new Hamas co-leaders, Khaled Mashal, called two years ago for the training of child suicide bombers - and the program seems to be well underway...
Yesterday afternoon, at the Hawara checkpoint near Shechem (Nablus) - in the area of Yitzhar and other Jewish communities - soldiers saw a boy approaching the checkpoint. Their suspicions aroused by the way he walked and carried himself, they immediately called out to him to stop and not to come near the soldiers. They told him to lift his shirt; he did so, revealing a gray vest packed with explosives. He held the switch in his hand, and could have detonated it at any given second. He appeared scared, and for 40 tense minutes the
soldiers, with the aid of a robot and scissors, guided him in removing the vest.
Asked afterwards why he agreed to kill himself, he gave several explanations: "People don't like me," he said, adding that his schoolmates laughed at him for being short, that the Tanzim promised him 100 shekels for his
mother and 72 virgins in Paradise. He said that his teacher taught him that waiting for him in Paradise were rivers of honey and wine and 72 virgins, and that "if I do good acts, I will sit there and enjoy," Those "good acts" include, apparently, murdering Israelis."
And for more on Master Abdo, please see:
http://students4democracy.org/sfd/forum/fo...p?TID=2104&PN=6
So, using a "slow" and bullied Hussam Abdo.....how much more craven, despicable, and simply downright evil could one ever hope to be? And you are looking for some moral equivalence to that? As if there could ever be such....And if you haven't figured it out yet, much of the outrage is only and simply because some of us care about Hussam Abdo. You know what he told the IDF soldiers at the scene? I don't want to die...
To once again borrow from the late Chaim Herzog, the same speech as a matter of fact, the tragic scene that Master Abdo's circumstance evokes in one's mind is devastating, as these terrorist miscreants were there prepared to use a "slow" boy, bullied by his peers, with his head filled with dreams of a life better than being bullied and some help for his mom...
And so, while I rather readily admit that I believe that those in power in Hamas are barbarians who ought to be taken out back and shot at the earliest available opportunity, I can also readily admit that I worry about Master Abdo and some others as well...
But if Master Abdo's story is not enough, how about "Hamas Website: High-Tech Hate For Kids":
http://www.teachkidspeace.org/doc1011.php
"(2) Issue No. 38 of Al-Fateh, Hamas' online children's magazine, displayed a picture of a female suicide bomber next to a photograph of her decapitated head lying on the road. The caption praises the act and notes that she is now in paradise, a shaheeda like her male comrades. She killed two Israelis and wounded 17 in September 2004, at Jerusalem's French Hill junction.
***
▪ Salah Shehada, who was one of the leaders of the Hamas in Gaza, stated in an interview (on the website Islam On-line, 26 May 2002), that children should be properly trained before they are sent on a mission and that they should be recruited into a special unit of the military arm of the Hamas in order to instill in them the culture of military jihad and to teach them to distinguish between good and evil.
▪ Dr. Padhl Abu Hin, a psychology lecturer, was interviewed on this subject for a television movie entitled "Child Patriots and a Martyrs' Death." He noted that the Palestinian child understands that, by means of the shahada (a martyrs' death for the sake of Allah), through the perpetration of attacks, he/she can win honor and appreciation, without life being ended. [The concept of] Shahada, according to him, encourages children to take an active part in the conflict against Israel (Palestinian TV, 27 June 2002)."
And please note that Dr. Hin's report proves our friends at Tzemach right re the act being one of religious devotion and also re the unfounded polarity in the claim of us loving life and them loving death.
And since some have made this, well, there are simply no words in the English language that I can use to describe the comparison made, so let me just say that even Hitler didn't use the youth of Germany until all was very nearly irretrievably lost. So if we wish to make comparison to Hitler and the Nazis, let me simply say that our Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigades friends have Hitler beat hands down when it comes to the use of children as weapons. In contrast, the IDF gave Hussam a jacket of theirs to keep him both decent and warm, and a doctor later let Hussam use his cellular phone so that he might call his mother.
Israeli leaders as mainstream? You mean, like the late Golda Meir, who told the late Anwar Sadat just prior to the commencement of peace talks: We can forgive you for killing our sons. But we will never forgive you for making us kill yours.
Sorry, but there is zero moral equivalence here. And I would quite frankly submit that it is your position of the morally equivalent that is the extreme position. None of which is to say that the Israeli position with respect to the Palestinian Arabs and the land in question is entirely correct or right [in the moral sense] in all respects. I have never otherwise said that it was.
But back to the morally not equivalent, please read up on the two Israeli soldiers in question. The Israelis in Gaza did attack their own army and police, but they didn't lynch them, they didn't throw one of the bodies out of the second floor window, they didn't display their bloody hands in a euphoric triumphant ecstasy, they didn't drag the body through the street, they didn't gouge out the eyes, they didn't light the body on fire, and they didn't hold a "replay" march,...So to compare the two circumstances or events is quite simply absurd [and I'm being generous here]. And by the way, I'd do some research on the Gaza settlements if I were you, since some of the closed/removed settlements were not and never were illegal [and that explains some, but not all of the anger and other conduct that you witnessed].
I otherwise put "innocents" in " " because I simply cannot say whether they were in fact innocent. How do I know? How do I know that they weren't helping the terrorists in question? If they were, then they were not innocents. But since I don't know whether they were in fact giving aid and comfort to those who would wire Hussam to detonate, I put "innocents" in " ". And, no, it wasn't and isn't designed to get equal. As I said, it's one thing to take out a Hamas leader by way of a missile strike, with some others in the vicinity also likely being killed or injured, but you do so because you know that the Hamas leader never sleeps in the same bed twice and so it's a matter of now or who knows when, if ever, you take him out....but it's a whole other matter to walk into a Sbarro's pizza joint and self-detonate, or into that disco, or into that restaurant during Passover Sedar, or on the No. 9 bus.
And re the non-human, sorry, but it isn't my religion made perfect that calls some other humans "apes" and "swine." And then there's Fawaz Damra, imam of the largest mosque in Ohio [in Cleveland], who had this to say on a fundraising video for Islamic Jihad:
"...[Muslims should be] directing all rifles at the first and last enemy of the Islamic nation, and that is the sons of monkeys and pigs, the Jews..."
I suppose that the Jewish response would be that it is better to be the sons of monkeys and pigs than it is to be the cowards and dogs who send the Hussam Abdos of the world out to detonate themselves. And by dogs [and any Muslim who knows her/his hadith will understand exactly what I mean], I mean to say, black dogs [so, Hamas cowards and black dogs].
In any event, until Hamas works some rather substantial amendments to, first, its thought processes, and then, second, to its charter, there is simply no point in trying to engage those people. Assuming that some would otherwise be so foolish as to do so, I will further assume that any deal reached with those Hamas black dogs will work as much long term good as did Neville's getting off that aeroplane and reporting that we have peace in our time...
QUOTE(psyclist @ Feb 10 2006, 02:31 PM)
QUOTE(may14 @ Feb 10 2006, 02:53 AM)
QUOTE(Artemise @ Feb 10 2006, 05:15 AM)
Two things just to respond to Bucket and May, quickly.
I have not said one single nasty thing about the Holocaust, in fact I never mentioned it. I did say that two persecuted peoples do not appear to have any problem using similar and opressive tactics on each other, and are very short on understanding each others plight.
May: I responded to an outright accusation that Westerners desired the extinction of Israelis and Arabs by setting them up to kill each other off. If you think that kind of thing ( which I had never thought of), then you ask to be challenged in kind. And I said, if that were true, than its been proven a correct and perhaps a valid assumption. You degrade the fact the the Western world set up a homeland for Jews, (and have nothing but trouble with it since). Quite a sacrifice for a people that you accuse of wanting mutual extermination. You see, if you throw out a big fish, someone is going to catch it. I just AKNOWLEDGE that you might be right and its working. Your theory, not mine.
THE WALL. It is a wall not a fence, its a big long WALL, continuously in expansion, the rest of it is a fence. It is separating villages from each other, forcing people to go miles out of their way in order to work ( or jump it, often), to see their families and it cutting out some of the best land for Israel.
I give you this link of two pages of gallery photos of it:
http://www.pbase.com/yalop/essay
It just shows how little informed we are about the real goings on, when several people debating here dont even know this WALL exists. And the thing about a WALL, its much more permanent than a fence, it says much more than a Fence.
I have not said one single nasty thing about the Holocaust, in fact I never mentioned it. I did say that two persecuted peoples do not appear to have any problem using similar and opressive tactics on each other, and are very short on understanding each others plight.
May: I responded to an outright accusation that Westerners desired the extinction of Israelis and Arabs by setting them up to kill each other off. If you think that kind of thing ( which I had never thought of), then you ask to be challenged in kind. And I said, if that were true, than its been proven a correct and perhaps a valid assumption. You degrade the fact the the Western world set up a homeland for Jews, (and have nothing but trouble with it since). Quite a sacrifice for a people that you accuse of wanting mutual extermination. You see, if you throw out a big fish, someone is going to catch it. I just AKNOWLEDGE that you might be right and its working. Your theory, not mine.
THE WALL. It is a wall not a fence, its a big long WALL, continuously in expansion, the rest of it is a fence. It is separating villages from each other, forcing people to go miles out of their way in order to work ( or jump it, often), to see their families and it cutting out some of the best land for Israel.
I give you this link of two pages of gallery photos of it:
http://www.pbase.com/yalop/essay
It just shows how little informed we are about the real goings on, when several people debating here dont even know this WALL exists. And the thing about a WALL, its much more permanent than a fence, it says much more than a Fence.
My theory is that it was in the interest of the world to find some place where the Jews could go, and that they did not care what would happen to them there. Period. I also think that they did not care much about the Arabs just then- because they did not seem as powerful as they do today.
And about this terrible WALL- I wrote that I could not care less how you chose to call it. Is it more permanent then a fence? If it is, I devoutly hope that what we have is a wall. More permanent sounds safer. I live in Israel so I happen to be quite attached to this WALL. It might have saved my lives, or the lives of my loved ones. And yes, I care more about that than about Palestinian comfort, if this WALL really inconveniences them.
I believe that the real problem of all those who object to the WALL, or to everything else Israel does in order to defense itself, is that they can not understand why Israelis refuse "to go gently into the night."
We happen to love daylight. Should we apologize for that?
This doesn't make sense as their were thousands of Jews migrating to the area prior to them "shipping them off to be done with them." It seems like "they" decided the Jews probably wanted the land where they were all migrating to. So you're complaining that they officially gave you land that Jews were moving to anyways? And this was just so we could forget about them? If we really just wanted to forget about them, it's amazing that we remember to cut them a check for billions every year.
If you had read all my posts you would have known that I only pointed out that most Jews did not feel a particular urge to come to Israel (then Palestine) before the Holocaust, and that after it, establishing a Jewish state looked like a sensible idea almost to everyone- but most of the world never meant to have anything to do with Israel. Initially, even the US did not sell weapons To Israel, and only France agreed to do that. At some point the US realized that it had an interest in the survival of Israel. But don’t forget that before the six day war, when the world was pretty sure that Israel was about to be extinguished, no country offered any help.
And about "cutting a check" to Israel, you have got to ask your leaders why they do that. I am quite certain it is not done out of bottomless affection for the people of Israel.
Anyway if I ever come by some of the money given to Israel so generously, I promise to use it to build a small security WALL of my own, and dedicate it to the world in general and the US in particular, who love us so selflessly.
QUOTE(psyclist @ Feb 10 2006, 08:31 AM)
QUOTE
My theory is that it was in the interest of the world to find some place where the Jews could go, and that they did not care what would happen to them there. Period. I also think that they did not care much about the Arabs just then- because they did not seem as powerful as they do today.
And about this terrible WALL- I wrote that I could not care less how you chose to call it. Is it more permanent then a fence? If it is, I devoutly hope that what we have is a wall. More permanent sounds safer. I live in Israel so I happen to be quite attached to this WALL. It might have saved my lives, or the lives of my loved ones. And yes, I care more about that than about Palestinian comfort, if this WALL really inconveniences them.
I believe that the real problem of all those who object to the WALL, or to everything else Israel does in order to defense itself, is that they can not understand why Israelis refuse "to go gently into the night."
We happen to love daylight. Should we apologize for that?
This doesn't make sense as their were thousands of Jews migrating to the area prior to them "shipping them off to be done with them." It seems like "they" decided the Jews probably wanted the land where they were all migrating to. So you're complaining that they officially gave you land that Jews were moving to anyways?
It makes perfect sense considering a significant portion of that immigration influx happened after Hitler came to power (or after the proverbial handwriting was on the wall...around the early 1930s). The prudent immigrated to Palestine, as they couldn't immigrate just anywhere, and certainly not to the US due to our immigration quotas (which had kept most European Jews out since the 1920s). Where were they to go?
Can the U.S., whether on it's own or as a part of the international community, engage Hamas in maintaining a level of peace in the region with successful results?
If Hamas renounces its goal to destroy Israel, yes, we should engage them. As they have not done so no...the way things stand there is no possibility of peace or "successful results".
What must each side do to be successful?
See above.
Maybe I don't understand what May14th is saying then.
Sounds to me like May believes that the world just dumped the Jews in some land and didn't care where it was or what happened to them.
I don't agree and I did read all your posts May. Jews did feel a particular urge to come to Israel (then Palestine) before the Holocaust. As I said before, Jews were already migrating to Palestine prior to the Holocaust and had intentions of creating a homeland there. This was one of the main goals of the Zionist movement and began with the "first aliya," the first group of immigrants who moved to Palestine with the intention of turning the land into a national homeland for Jews. Obviously migration increased during the Holocaust but it's not like it wasn't going on prior to that. Plans for a homeland in Palestine are much older than WWII. For May to say that the rest of the world picked a place to just dump the Jews and then forget about them doesn't make sense. They gave them land that they were migrating to and had an attachment to.
QUOTE
My theory is that it was in the interest of the world to find some place where the Jews could go, and that they did not care what would happen to them there.
Sounds to me like May believes that the world just dumped the Jews in some land and didn't care where it was or what happened to them.
I don't agree and I did read all your posts May. Jews did feel a particular urge to come to Israel (then Palestine) before the Holocaust. As I said before, Jews were already migrating to Palestine prior to the Holocaust and had intentions of creating a homeland there. This was one of the main goals of the Zionist movement and began with the "first aliya," the first group of immigrants who moved to Palestine with the intention of turning the land into a national homeland for Jews. Obviously migration increased during the Holocaust but it's not like it wasn't going on prior to that. Plans for a homeland in Palestine are much older than WWII. For May to say that the rest of the world picked a place to just dump the Jews and then forget about them doesn't make sense. They gave them land that they were migrating to and had an attachment to.
QUOTE(psyclist @ Feb 12 2006, 10:53 PM)
Maybe I don't understand what May14th is saying then.
Sounds to me like May believes that the world just dumped the Jews in some land and didn't care where it was or what happened to them.
I don't agree and I did read all your posts May. Jews did feel a particular urge to come to Israel (then Palestine) before the Holocaust. As I said before, Jews were already migrating to Palestine prior to the Holocaust and had intentions of creating a homeland there. This was one of the main goals of the Zionist movement and began with the "first aliya," the first group of immigrants who moved to Palestine with the intention of turning the land into a national homeland for Jews. Obviously migration increased during the Holocaust but it's not like it wasn't going on prior to that. Plans for a homeland in Palestine are much older than WWII. For May to say that the rest of the world picked a place to just dump the Jews and then forget about them doesn't make sense. They gave them land that they were migrating to and had an attachment to.
QUOTE
My theory is that it was in the interest of the world to find some place where the Jews could go, and that they did not care what would happen to them there.
Sounds to me like May believes that the world just dumped the Jews in some land and didn't care where it was or what happened to them.
I don't agree and I did read all your posts May. Jews did feel a particular urge to come to Israel (then Palestine) before the Holocaust. As I said before, Jews were already migrating to Palestine prior to the Holocaust and had intentions of creating a homeland there. This was one of the main goals of the Zionist movement and began with the "first aliya," the first group of immigrants who moved to Palestine with the intention of turning the land into a national homeland for Jews. Obviously migration increased during the Holocaust but it's not like it wasn't going on prior to that. Plans for a homeland in Palestine are much older than WWII. For May to say that the rest of the world picked a place to just dump the Jews and then forget about them doesn't make sense. They gave them land that they were migrating to and had an attachment to.
Of course some Jews were coming to Palestine before the holocaust, but the majority of Jews were perfectly happy where they were- till they were perfectly happy to flee Europe –or the Muslim countries which threw them out unceremoniously after the establishment of Israel. You must understand that most Jews did not come to Israel because they were Zionist- but because they had no other choice. Jews were always attached to the holy land out of religious reasons, but their religion did not demand that they should have a state there. Their survival instincts, however, did.
QUOTE(psyclist @ Feb 12 2006, 04:53 PM)
Maybe I don't understand what May14th is saying then.
QUOTE
My theory is that it was in the interest of the world to find some place where the Jews could go, and that they did not care what would happen to them there.
Sounds to me like May believes that the world just dumped the Jews in some land and didn't care where it was or what happened to them.
I don't agree and I did read all your posts May. Jews did feel a particular urge to come to Israel (then Palestine) before the Holocaust. As I said before, Jews were already migrating to Palestine prior to the Holocaust and had intentions of creating a homeland there. This was one of the main goals of the Zionist movement and began with the "first aliya," the first group of immigrants who moved to Palestine with the intention of turning the land into a national homeland for Jews. Obviously migration increased during the Holocaust but it's not like it wasn't going on prior to that. Plans for a homeland in Palestine are much older than WWII. For May to say that the rest of the world picked a place to just dump the Jews and then forget about them doesn't make sense. They gave them land that they were migrating to and had an attachment to.
I think what May14 is getting at is that UN officially voted to end the Mandate that the League of Nations lacked the guts to do. And basically washed it hands of the situation. They (the members of the General Assembly) fully expected the combined Arab states to crush the infant State of Israel, as the claimed was their intent.
Most of the world imposed a total weapons embargo on Israel, including the US. A very few nations did agree to sell Israel arms, just enough to stay alive. but alive was enough.
While the five Arab nations invaded with the announced goal of destroying Israel the UN did nothing. Not a single resolution, not a single country ended their arms embargo, nil. That says a lot to me, the first and most important they wanted to be able to say, "see we gave them their own country and they could not defend it." History doesn't seem to work that way though. So I agree with May that yes Europe wanted to be free of the Jews and their own guilt of having abandoned them to the Nazis as well.
QUOTE(KivrotHaTaavah @ Feb 11 2006, 02:54 AM)
Why should they have to "force the onus" onto Hamas? Please review the list of murdered Americans that I posted prior and then determine which of those persons were murdered by Hamas.
To what end? what would that serve except to completely redirect the discussion at hand?
Why should they force the onus? they weren't obliged to, there was no 'should' about about. But if they wanted peace that they claim on the one hand to want, then they COULD have taken the opportunity and put the ball in Hamas' court. As it was, the Israeli government were equally unwilling to remove the 'military option' card from their deck. They weren't even willing to put it up for discussion. My point again is that BOTH parties need to be openly willing to discard that card as an option. Israel chose not to. Palestine feels like the little guy being picked on, so why would it give up its option when no-one demands equal step down from Israel. I sure as hell wouldn't. And neither would you. If you were in a face off with another gun toter, you wouldn't put yours down until they did the same, or at the same time. If you think you would behave differently, you're kidding yourself. No-one was saying Israel should back down by itself. they BOTH need to back down, because they are BOTH in the wrong.
I won't say it again: neither Hamas, nor the Palestinian Arabs are my friends. I politely request that you don't assert that again.
QUOTE(KivrotHaTaavah @ Feb 11 2006, 02:54 AM)
And your moral equivalence is, well, I had better not say...but there is no "equivalence" in taking out a Hamas leader with an air-to-ground missile, with some "collateral damage" included, on the one hand, and wiring yourself to self-detonate and doing so in a restaurant filled with no one who is part of the Israeli power structure, on the other...
...The same applies to your comment re Iraq. Fine, US military action has resulted in the deaths of more than a few children [the few would otherwise be tragic enough]. But we don't wait until the other side is handing out candy and pencils to children before we attack them. And we don't take somebody else's child by the hand and then walk toward an American patrol, thinking that since we've got the kid by the hand that the Americans will let us approach, and that because we know that the Americans think us human enough to believe that we would never do such a despicable thing to a child. But that's our enemy in Iraq. And that's our enemy in Hamas, Islamic Jihad, etc. As the late Chaim Herzog told the UN Security Council rather shortly after the IDF's raid on the Entebbe Airport outside Kampala, Uganda, these people you claim are our equals recognize no authority, know no borders, respect no sovereignty, ignore all basic human decencies, and place no limit on human bestiality.
...The same applies to your comment re Iraq. Fine, US military action has resulted in the deaths of more than a few children [the few would otherwise be tragic enough]. But we don't wait until the other side is handing out candy and pencils to children before we attack them. And we don't take somebody else's child by the hand and then walk toward an American patrol, thinking that since we've got the kid by the hand that the Americans will let us approach, and that because we know that the Americans think us human enough to believe that we would never do such a despicable thing to a child. But that's our enemy in Iraq. And that's our enemy in Hamas, Islamic Jihad, etc. As the late Chaim Herzog told the UN Security Council rather shortly after the IDF's raid on the Entebbe Airport outside Kampala, Uganda, these people you claim are our equals recognize no authority, know no borders, respect no sovereignty, ignore all basic human decencies, and place no limit on human bestiality.
Collateral damage is just a proper sounding term for a laziness. Collateral damage is innocent civilians, including women, children and the elderly. You accuse through your analagies Palestinians to be uncivilised, yet Israel gives an eye for an eye and a child for a child. Are they any better, or are they equally culpable? If you can't beat them, join them, right? One is murder and the other is just collateral damage (regardless of whether the supposed target is actually there, or whether it just turns out to be a house full of innocents...).
It seems to me that the US military has a history of not being too concerned with collateral damage. As long as the bad guy dies (or at least, as long as he was there) it doesn't matter how many other innocents die in the process. It doesn't matter how many other countries you list up as guilty of this. It is still WRONG. it is still NOT ACCEPTABLE. Collateral damage is a political excuse for killing innocents, no matter who does it. and don't give me the 'its just part of war', with snipers and laser guided weaponry. If you can't do it cleanly, don't effing do it.
QUOTE(KivrotHaTaavah @ Feb 11 2006, 02:54 AM)
"One of the two new Hamas co-leaders, Khaled Mashal, called two years ago for the training of child suicide bombers - and the program seems to be well underway...
yes, and i've always been a staunch supporter of this. NOT. So, yes, Hamas 'freedom fighters' have been guilty. Shock. Who would have thought. Well, i guess that's just the excuse needed to respond through illegal actions then. Carte Blanche for Israel to do what it pleases...
You're trying to prove something we already know. What you still deny, however, is that Israel is in anyway guilty of crimes that equate. Why? i can only imagine that you are too blinded by hate to see it, because the truth is pretty damn clear on their crimes.
QUOTE(KivrotHaTaavah @ Feb 11 2006, 02:54 AM)
And so, while I rather readily admit that I believe that those in power in Hamas are barbarians who ought to be taken out back and shot at the earliest available opportunity, I can also readily admit that I worry about Master Abdo and some others as well...
problem is, although this it is probably preferable that they be removed, i would say the same about many in power in Israel too... because they have long been a hinderance to the peace process. But would you consider that? probably not, since they're Jews not 'just Arabs'.QUOTE(KivrotHaTaavah @ Feb 11 2006, 02:54 AM)
Israeli leaders as mainstream? You mean, like the late Golda Meir, who told the late Anwar Sadat just prior to the commencement of peace talks: We can forgive you for killing our sons. But we will never forgive you for making us kill yours.
oh yes, the tribes of Israel - known for their preference for peace. ALways the hard-done-by, innocent victims. Well, it looks good as a political soundbyte.QUOTE(KivrotHaTaavah @ Feb 11 2006, 02:54 AM)
"Sorry, but there is zero moral equivalence here. And I would quite frankly submit that it is your position of the morally equivalent that is the extreme position.
Well, that's different. It's extreme to equate one murder with another in levels of morality. Blowing up 20 innocents in a suicide bomb is much worse than just shooting them with guns or tank shells. Yeah, i can really see your point.QUOTE(KivrotHaTaavah @ Feb 11 2006, 02:54 AM)
But back to the morally not equivalent, please read up on the two Israeli soldiers in question. The Israelis in Gaza did attack their own army and police, but they didn't lynch them, they didn't throw one of the bodies out of the second floor window, they didn't display their bloody hands in a euphoric triumphant ecstasy, they didn't drag the body through the street, they didn't gouge out the eyes, they didn't light the body on fire, and they didn't hold a "replay" march,...So to compare the two circumstances or events is quite simply absurd [and I'm being generous here].
well, don't ever be anything less than generous, please! So, one is worse than the other. Doesn't really diminish how wrong the less bad one is though... it's still little more than bestial behaviour - not to be expected of a civilised people.QUOTE(KivrotHaTaavah @ Feb 11 2006, 02:54 AM)
In any event, until Hamas works some rather substantial amendments to, first, its thought processes, and then, second, to its charter, there is simply no point in trying to engage those people. Assuming that some would otherwise be so foolish as to do so, I will further assume that any deal reached with those Hamas black dogs will work as much long term good as did Neville's getting off that aeroplane and reporting that we have peace in our time...
this is very true. But what good is a mandate or statement when it is not held to? As an equal part in the nightmare, on behalf of their own people, Israel should also issue a statement to the effect that they will put aside their own weapons, if Hamas ensures it will do the same. What good is one person doing it, if the other won't? Both sides feel like they are the victims and so both have the victim mentality. Thus, both need to be treated equally, and have equal expectations of them. No longer is this a terrorist organisation vs a country, but two elected leaderships. Israel demands Hamas recognise Israel, but at the same time Israel won't recognise Hamas as the elected representatives of Palestine. This cannot abide for progress to be made, and position must be yielded on both sides.
QUOTE(loreng)
I think what May14 is getting at is that UN officially voted to end the Mandate that the League of Nations lacked the guts to do. And basically washed it hands of the situation. They (the members of the General Assembly) fully expected the combined Arab states to crush the infant State of Israel, as the claimed was their intent.
Most of the world imposed a total weapons embargo on Israel, including the US. A very few nations did agree to sell Israel arms, just enough to stay alive. but alive was enough.
While the five Arab nations invaded with the announced goal of destroying Israel the UN did nothing. Not a single resolution, not a single country ended their arms embargo, nil. That says a lot to me, the first and most important they wanted to be able to say, "see we gave them their own country and they could not defend it." History doesn't seem to work that way though. So I agree with May that yes Europe wanted to be free of the Jews and their own guilt of having abandoned them to the Nazis as well.
Most of the world imposed a total weapons embargo on Israel, including the US. A very few nations did agree to sell Israel arms, just enough to stay alive. but alive was enough.
While the five Arab nations invaded with the announced goal of destroying Israel the UN did nothing. Not a single resolution, not a single country ended their arms embargo, nil. That says a lot to me, the first and most important they wanted to be able to say, "see we gave them their own country and they could not defend it." History doesn't seem to work that way though. So I agree with May that yes Europe wanted to be free of the Jews and their own guilt of having abandoned them to the Nazis as well.
First off, this sounds like a persecution complex, especially the last sentence. I would be interested to see what evidence there is that international community just wanted the Jews gone... a new country was formed - something the Jews had long wanted - and that signifies that Europe wanted rid? doesn't equate to me. It also sounds like you're suggesting Europe was happy enough for the Nazis to wipe out the Jews, which is definitely a persecution complex based on little. However, this is no surprise. It think it is more likely that the international community wanted little more to do with another war that wasn't actually to do with them, or didn't know how to handle the problem. Lets face it, they don't know how to handle it now...
but the suggestion that it was a set up for the Jews is laughable, where it isn't offensive.
QUOTE(Genesisblade @ Feb 13 2006, 02:59 PM)
QUOTE(KivrotHaTaavah @ Feb 11 2006, 02:54 AM)
Why should they have to "force the onus" onto Hamas? Please review the list of murdered Americans that I posted prior and then determine which of those persons were murdered by Hamas.
To what end? what would that serve except to completely redirect the discussion at hand?
Why should they force the onus? they weren't obliged to, there was no 'should' about about. But if they wanted peace that they claim on the one hand to want, then they COULD have taken the opportunity and put the ball in Hamas' court. As it was, the Israeli government were equally unwilling to remove the 'military option' card from their deck. They weren't even willing to put it up for discussion. My point again is that BOTH parties need to be openly willing to discard that card as an option. Israel chose not to. Palestine feels like the little guy being picked on, so why would it give up its option when no-one demands equal step down from Israel. I sure as hell wouldn't. And neither would you. If you were in a face off with another gun toter, you wouldn't put yours down until they did the same, or at the same time. If you think you would behave differently, you're kidding yourself. No-one was saying Israel should back down by itself. they BOTH need to back down, because they are BOTH in the wrong.
I won't say it again: neither Hamas, nor the Palestinian Arabs are my friends. I politely request that you don't assert that again.
QUOTE(KivrotHaTaavah @ Feb 11 2006, 02:54 AM)
And your moral equivalence is, well, I had better not say...but there is no "equivalence" in taking out a Hamas leader with an air-to-ground missile, with some "collateral damage" included, on the one hand, and wiring yourself to self-detonate and doing so in a restaurant filled with no one who is part of the Israeli power structure, on the other...
...The same applies to your comment re Iraq. Fine, US military action has resulted in the deaths of more than a few children [the few would otherwise be tragic enough]. But we don't wait until the other side is handing out candy and pencils to children before we attack them. And we don't take somebody else's child by the hand and then walk toward an American patrol, thinking that since we've got the kid by the hand that the Americans will let us approach, and that because we know that the Americans think us human enough to believe that we would never do such a despicable thing to a child. But that's our enemy in Iraq. And that's our enemy in Hamas, Islamic Jihad, etc. As the late Chaim Herzog told the UN Security Council rather shortly after the IDF's raid on the Entebbe Airport outside Kampala, Uganda, these people you claim are our equals recognize no authority, know no borders, respect no sovereignty, ignore all basic human decencies, and place no limit on human bestiality.
...The same applies to your comment re Iraq. Fine, US military action has resulted in the deaths of more than a few children [the few would otherwise be tragic enough]. But we don't wait until the other side is handing out candy and pencils to children before we attack them. And we don't take somebody else's child by the hand and then walk toward an American patrol, thinking that since we've got the kid by the hand that the Americans will let us approach, and that because we know that the Americans think us human enough to believe that we would never do such a despicable thing to a child. But that's our enemy in Iraq. And that's our enemy in Hamas, Islamic Jihad, etc. As the late Chaim Herzog told the UN Security Council rather shortly after the IDF's raid on the Entebbe Airport outside Kampala, Uganda, these people you claim are our equals recognize no authority, know no borders, respect no sovereignty, ignore all basic human decencies, and place no limit on human bestiality.
Collateral damage is just a proper sounding term for a laziness. Collateral damage is innocent civilians, including women, children and the elderly. You accuse through your analagies Palestinians to be uncivilised, yet Israel gives an eye for an eye and a child for a child. Are they any better, or are they equally culpable? If you can't beat them, join them, right? One is murder and the other is just collateral damage (regardless of whether the supposed target is actually there, or whether it just turns out to be a house full of innocents...).
It seems to me that the US military has a history of not being too concerned with collateral damage. As long as the bad guy dies (or at least, as long as he was there) it doesn't matter how many other innocents die in the process. It doesn't matter how many other countries you list up as guilty of this. It is still WRONG. it is still NOT ACCEPTABLE. Collateral damage is a political excuse for killing innocents, no matter who does it. and don't give me the 'its just part of war', with snipers and laser guided weaponry. If you can't do it cleanly, don't effing do it.
QUOTE(KivrotHaTaavah @ Feb 11 2006, 02:54 AM)
"One of the two new Hamas co-leaders, Khaled Mashal, called two years ago for the training of child suicide bombers - and the program seems to be well underway...
yes, and i've always been a staunch supporter of this. NOT. So, yes, Hamas 'freedom fighters' have been guilty. Shock. Who would have thought. Well, i guess that's just the excuse needed to respond through illegal actions then. Carte Blanche for Israel to do what it pleases...
You're trying to prove something we already know. What you still deny, however, is that Israel is in anyway guilty of crimes that equate. Why? i can only imagine that you are too blinded by hate to see it, because the truth is pretty damn clear on their crimes.
QUOTE(KivrotHaTaavah @ Feb 11 2006, 02:54 AM)
And so, while I rather readily admit that I believe that those in power in Hamas are barbarians who ought to be taken out back and shot at the earliest available opportunity, I can also readily admit that I worry about Master Abdo and some others as well...
problem is, although this it is probably preferable that they be removed, i would say the same about many in power in Israel too... because they have long been a hinderance to the peace process. But would you consider that? probably not, since they're Jews not 'just Arabs'.QUOTE(KivrotHaTaavah @ Feb 11 2006, 02:54 AM)
Israeli leaders as mainstream? You mean, like the late Golda Meir, who told the late Anwar Sadat just prior to the commencement of peace talks: We can forgive you for killing our sons. But we will never forgive you for making us kill yours.
oh yes, the tribes of Israel - known for their preference for peace. ALways the hard-done-by, innocent victims. Well, it looks good as a political soundbyte.QUOTE(KivrotHaTaavah @ Feb 11 2006, 02:54 AM)
"Sorry, but there is zero moral equivalence here. And I would quite frankly submit that it is your position of the morally equivalent that is the extreme position.
Well, that's different. It's extreme to equate one murder with another in levels of morality. Blowing up 20 innocents in a suicide bomb is much worse than just shooting them with guns or tank shells. Yeah, i can really see your point.QUOTE(KivrotHaTaavah @ Feb 11 2006, 02:54 AM)
But back to the morally not equivalent, please read up on the two Israeli soldiers in question. The Israelis in Gaza did attack their own army and police, but they didn't lynch them, they didn't throw one of the bodies out of the second floor window, they didn't display their bloody hands in a euphoric triumphant ecstasy, they didn't drag the body through the street, they didn't gouge out the eyes, they didn't light the body on fire, and they didn't hold a "replay" march,...So to compare the two circumstances or events is quite simply absurd [and I'm being generous here].
well, don't ever be anything less than generous, please! So, one is worse than the other. Doesn't really diminish how wrong the less bad one is though... it's still little more than bestial behaviour - not to be expected of a civilised people.QUOTE(KivrotHaTaavah @ Feb 11 2006, 02:54 AM)
In any event, until Hamas works some rather substantial amendments to, first, its thought processes, and then, second, to its charter, there is simply no point in trying to engage those people. Assuming that some would otherwise be so foolish as to do so, I will further assume that any deal reached with those Hamas black dogs will work as much long term good as did Neville's getting off that aeroplane and reporting that we have peace in our time...
this is very true. But what good is a mandate or statement when it is not held to? As an equal part in the nightmare, on behalf of their own people, Israel should also issue a statement to the effect that they will put aside their own weapons, if Hamas ensures it will do the same. What good is one person doing it, if the other won't? Both sides feel like they are the victims and so both have the victim mentality. Thus, both need to be treated equally, and have equal expectations of them. No longer is this a terrorist organisation vs a country, but two elected leaderships. Israel demands Hamas recognise Israel, but at the same time Israel won't recognise Hamas as the elected representatives of Palestine. This cannot abide for progress to be made, and position must be yielded on both sides.
QUOTE(loreng)
I think what May14 is getting at is that UN officially voted to end the Mandate that the League of Nations lacked the guts to do. And basically washed it hands of the situation. They (the members of the General Assembly) fully expected the combined Arab states to crush the infant State of Israel, as the claimed was their intent.
Most of the world imposed a total weapons embargo on Israel, including the US. A very few nations did agree to sell Israel arms, just enough to stay alive. but alive was enough.
While the five Arab nations invaded with the announced goal of destroying Israel the UN did nothing. Not a single resolution, not a single country ended their arms embargo, nil. That says a lot to me, the first and most important they wanted to be able to say, "see we gave them their own country and they could not defend it." History doesn't seem to work that way though. So I agree with May that yes Europe wanted to be free of the Jews and their own guilt of having abandoned them to the Nazis as well.
Most of the world imposed a total weapons embargo on Israel, including the US. A very few nations did agree to sell Israel arms, just enough to stay alive. but alive was enough.
While the five Arab nations invaded with the announced goal of destroying Israel the UN did nothing. Not a single resolution, not a single country ended their arms embargo, nil. That says a lot to me, the first and most important they wanted to be able to say, "see we gave them their own country and they could not defend it." History doesn't seem to work that way though. So I agree with May that yes Europe wanted to be free of the Jews and their own guilt of having abandoned them to the Nazis as well.
First off, this sounds like a persecution complex, especially the last sentence. I would be interested to see what evidence there is that international community just wanted the Jews gone... a new country was formed - something the Jews had long wanted - and that signifies that Europe wanted rid? doesn't equate to me. It also sounds like you're suggesting Europe was happy enough for the Nazis to wipe out the Jews, which is definitely a persecution complex based on little. However, this is no surprise. It think it is more likely that the international community wanted little more to do with another war that wasn't actually to do with them, or didn't know how to handle the problem. Lets face it, they don't know how to handle it now...
but the suggestion that it was a set up for the Jews is laughable, where it isn't offensive.
If you insist on saying that Israel's acts equate the barbarous terror attacks of the Palestinians- then it shows you never asked yourself what this whole conflict is about. It is about Israel refusing to stop existing. We are willing to compromise, as the disengagement plan showed, but we are not willing to extinct. And Hamas demands publicly that Israel will be wiped off the map. When you have to fight such an enemy you are not going to do it by being nice. (You can try it. I am curios to see how long you will survive). The IRA was a terror organization; but it never demanded that Britain would stop existing. Everyone who blames Israel for what it does have to put themselves in Israel's place- would they be as tolerant of terror as they want Israel to be? If the answer is yes…I sincerely hope they will never have to struggle against terror. they will simply not last long.
I agree with you about one thing, however: this saying of Golda Meir is horribly kitschy. I am just as Israeli as she was, and I forgive freely every nation for making us kill their sons. It was unpleasant, but necessary. For killing our sons, however, I will never, ever forgive them.
QUOTE
Anyway if I ever come by some of the money given to Israel so generously, I promise to use it to build a small security WALL of my own, and dedicate it to the world in general and the US in particular, who love us so selflessly.
Well, allow me to say that if we ever would see any of the money we have spent on this 'dumping' of jews into a Holyland of their own, and so allegedly wanted them to fend for themselves and exterminate arabs as a perk, we might have a more peaceful life in the US, and a bit more money for healthcare and a declining infrastructure as well. But NO, we have to spend our entire lives defending this THING we created, allegedly to destroy itself!?
Do you understand that your commentary is inflamitory? And mine in retaliation? Do you wonder why some of us are sick to death of the entire mess?
As if we have not had enough problems trying to deal effectively with this situation, you accuse people, who would basically defend Israel to their dying day ( not me) of not doing the right thing in giving Israel a homeland, of not caring, of after spending billions of dollars there, after decades of work there, after lost lives, of not giving a crap about Israelis? I can get that you can down on me, but hey, the US HAS supported Israel, to our own detriment and people here have sacrificed much time, funds and effort for nothing so far.
You definately solidify my belief that we should just bow out and let the chips fall as they may, because obviously nothing done by the US is being appreciated.
QUOTE(Genesisblade @ Feb 13 2006, 08:59 AM)
Collateral damage is just a proper sounding term for a laziness. Collateral damage is innocent civilians, including women, children and the elderly. You accuse through your analagies Palestinians to be uncivilised, yet Israel gives an eye for an eye and a child for a child. Are they any better, or are they equally culpable? If you can't beat them, join them, right? One is murder and the other is just collateral damage (regardless of whether the supposed target is actually there, or whether it just turns out to be a house full of innocents...).
No, laziness is refusing to review the data showing your entire argument is factually inaccurate. You can huff and puff and try to make your point reality, but it's flat out wrong. Indisputable evidence exists that shows your entire "eye for an eye" statement is a fabrication. Again, please show evidence that this statement is true. I've shown it is not even close and I can't get even one of you Pal lovers to show even a shred of evidence of your claims.
So, I'm calling you and your supporters out. Show evidence of how this "eye for an eye" premise exists. Show evidence that the detailed study I've provided to support my argument is wrong. Please, show one item in that entire study that is factually inaccurate.
QUOTE(may14 @ Feb 13 2006, 03:03 PM)
If you insist on saying that Israel's acts equate the barbarous terror attacks of the Palestinians- then it shows you never asked yourself what this whole conflict is about. It is about Israel refusing to stop existing. We are willing to compromise, as the disengagement plan showed, but we are not willing to extinct. And Hamas demands publicly that Israel will be wiped off the map. When you have to fight such an enemy you are not going to do it by being nice. (You can try it. I am curios to see how long you will survive). The IRA was a terror organization; but it never demanded that Britain would stop existing. Everyone who blames Israel for what it does have to put themselves in Israel's place- would they be as tolerant of terror as they want Israel to be? If the answer is yes…I sincerely hope they will never have to struggle against terror. they will simply not last long.
I agree with you about one thing, however: this saying of Golda Meir is horribly kitschy. I am just as Israeli as she was, and I forgive freely every nation for making us kill their sons. It was unpleasant, but necessary. For killing our sons, however, I will never, ever forgive them.
I agree with you about one thing, however: this saying of Golda Meir is horribly kitschy. I am just as Israeli as she was, and I forgive freely every nation for making us kill their sons. It was unpleasant, but necessary. For killing our sons, however, I will never, ever forgive them.
Well, you blew my mind. Apparently, in your perspective, one murder IS better than another. I suspect you equate the Israeli murders with 'self-preservation' but i'm afraid i simply don't agree at all. There comes a point when it stops being so, and the beligerent attitude towards peace talks, not just recently, doesn't really support your 'little angels' belief regarding the Israeli governments's behaviour. The similarities with the IRA are very limited really. The IRA had little to do with 'freedom fighting', even from their own perspective.
Israel has demonstrably been equally unwilling to put away its guns to broker peace. I am, as i say, blown away that you can't see this, and think that murder and breach of human rights is perfectly ok, but as someone emotionally involved in the issues it is hard to the upmost to retain a neutral perspective.
QUOTE(dayton rocker)
No, laziness is refusing to review the data showing your entire argument is factually inaccurate. You can huff and puff and try to make your point reality, but it's flat out wrong. Indisputable evidence exists that shows your entire "eye for an eye" statement is a fabrication. Again, please show evidence that this statement is true. I've shown it is not even close and I can't get even one of you Pal lovers to show even a shred of evidence of your claims.
So, I'm calling you and your supporters out. Show evidence of how this "eye for an eye" premise exists. Show evidence that the detailed study I've provided to support my argument is wrong. Please, show one item in that entire study that is factually inaccurate.
So, I'm calling you and your supporters out. Show evidence of how this "eye for an eye" premise exists. Show evidence that the detailed study I've provided to support my argument is wrong. Please, show one item in that entire study that is factually inaccurate.
factually inaccurate eh? You've not shown my 'entire "eye for an eye" statement is a fabrication'. You want me to carry out a detailed study of Israel retaliation for bombings? Do a search on the subject on google, with the "BBC". Its pretty much all there... we have quotes from Israeli ministers talking of taking revenge. Isn't that 'eye for an eye'? Here is but one article on the subject, not from the BBC an eye for an eye mentality. You have simply said, using assorted evidence, that one type of killing of innocents is, in your mind, ok, whereas another type is, in your mind, not. I seem to vividly recall, although i cannot locate the specific news article where it was quoted, that a member of either the Israeli government or military said that they would take revenge on Palestine for every action and more. An eye for an eye. A hit for a hit. A bombing for a bombing.
I know that, clearly, your 'Pal lovers' jibe is done to rile, since i politely asked for that baseless and offensive statement not to be used again, but all its repeated use suggests is that you have decended into name calling. I'm sure you would be threatening to beat my head in if this was face to face.
I will break my earlier statement and say again that I am neither Arab nor have any Palestinian friends. My position is neutral. According to the typical view from the Muslim world of those of my origin i would be if anything ANTI Arab. Still, whatever you think. Since i'm not supporting the Jews, i simply MUST be an Arab lover. You probably think i'm pro-terrorism too, since that's the thrust and bile of your statement.
What has become amusing in this debate is how the majority of Israelis here seem to be asserting that they are completely innocent. No party in a war is completely innocent, unless they only act in self-defence and only kill those who have attacked them. You defend one party's murder of innocents and condemn another's. As long as you consider only one party's killing of innocents to be wrong, then there really can be no reconciliation. But then, that's not what you really want is it...
This is a 'disagreement' over land, and it can only be resolved through political discussion. And clearly, if the Israeli population on this discussion are anything to go by, race and religion and age-old grudges (oh wait, only Palestinians are brought up to hate their opponents) will not be put aside to enable discussions for peace. If any group could control the militants in Palestine it would be Hamas, as it was in Sinn Fein for the IRA. Alas, Israel is equally not interested in peace, at least as demonstrated by the posturing of recent weeks that surely needs no evidencing...
QUOTE(Genesisblade @ Feb 13 2006, 08:59 AM)
QUOTE(loreng)
I think what May14 is getting at is that UN officially voted to end the Mandate that the League of Nations lacked the guts to do. And basically washed it hands of the situation. They (the members of the General Assembly) fully expected the combined Arab states to crush the infant State of Israel, as the claimed was their intent.
Most of the world imposed a total weapons embargo on Israel, including the US. A very few nations did agree to sell Israel arms, just enough to stay alive. but alive was enough.
While the five Arab nations invaded with the announced goal of destroying Israel the UN did nothing. Not a single resolution, not a single country ended their arms embargo, nil. That says a lot to me, the first and most important they wanted to be able to say, "see we gave them their own country and they could not defend it." History doesn't seem to work that way though. So I agree with May that yes Europe wanted to be free of the Jews and their own guilt of having abandoned them to the Nazis as well.
Most of the world imposed a total weapons embargo on Israel, including the US. A very few nations did agree to sell Israel arms, just enough to stay alive. but alive was enough.
While the five Arab nations invaded with the announced goal of destroying Israel the UN did nothing. Not a single resolution, not a single country ended their arms embargo, nil. That says a lot to me, the first and most important they wanted to be able to say, "see we gave them their own country and they could not defend it." History doesn't seem to work that way though. So I agree with May that yes Europe wanted to be free of the Jews and their own guilt of having abandoned them to the Nazis as well.
First off, this sounds like a persecution complex, especially the last sentence. I would be interested to see what evidence there is that international community just wanted the Jews gone... a new country was formed - something the Jews had long wanted - and that signifies that Europe wanted rid? doesn't equate to me. It also sounds like you're suggesting Europe was happy enough for the Nazis to wipe out the Jews, which is definitely a persecution complex based on little. However, this is no surprise. It think it is more likely that the international community wanted little more to do with another war that wasn't actually to do with them, or didn't know how to handle the problem. Lets face it, they don't know how to handle it now...
but the suggestion that it was a set up for the Jews is laughable, where it isn't offensive.
Persecution complex? I see those 6 million reasons just didn't happen? We have more than a few reasons to see that we need our own homeland and that the majority of the world is not exactly non-partisan in this manner. Like about 1,500 years of history. Why don't you prove us wrong for once?
As for Europe wanting us gone, well most of the European countries actively aided Germany, especially the Dutch, French and Eastern Europe. Over one million homes were taken from Jewish families, hundreds of thousands of businesses, literally billions of dollars of assets. All which would never have to be returned if the rest of the Jews were no longer around to claim them. Then the embargoed Israel from receiving any weapons, all the while arming their neighbors with advanced weaponry, and in the case of the British actually supplying their officers to lead their troops. Paranoid, I guess but it's only paranoia if they aren't trying to kill you.
As for being offensive, well since you like to compare Israel's acts of self-defense with terror and Nazis, I would say if you can't handle the heat get out of the kitchen. Your current comparison are just as offensive.
As for one murder being better than another. I do feel that killing somebody that is trying to kill my friends and family is better than seeing another innocent person dying, and if you have a problem with that, I suggest you consult your local laws, they happen to say the same thing. There is a difference and if you can't see then you are blind.
QUOTE(Genesisblade @ Feb 13 2006, 12:35 PM)
Well, you blew my mind. Apparently, in your perspective, one murder IS better than another. I suspect you equate the Israeli murders with 'self-preservation' but i'm afraid i simply don't agree at all. There comes a point when it stops being so, and the beligerent attitude towards peace talks, not just recently, doesn't really support your 'little angels' belief regarding the Israeli governments's behaviour. The similarities with the IRA are very limited really. The IRA had little to do with 'freedom fighting', even from their own perspective.
Well of course one murder is better than another. That's how any criminal system works: certain murders are classified as first-degree, some as second degree; some are classified as manslaughters, and some as self-defense. You can get the needle for first-degree, and you can walk for a self-defense. I don't see what is so mind-blowing about that concept.
QUOTE(Genesisblade @ Feb 13 2006, 12:35 PM)
Israel has demonstrably been equally unwilling to put away its guns to broker peace.
I don't see it that way at all. Israel put away its guns many times, only to be suicide bombed yet again. By the way, I'd like to see a chart somewhere where it would show the number of suicide bombings plotted against deaths - both natural and not - of prominent Palestinian "leaders" such as Arafat, al-Rantissi, and others. Is it just me, or anybody else noticed how fewer suicide bombings there are in Israel ever since Arafat passed away? Must be coincedence....
QUOTE(Lorenq @ Feb 13 2006, 12:35 PM)
As for Europe wanting us gone, well most of the European countries actively aided Germany, especially the Dutch, French and Eastern Europe.
With some notable exceptions, such as Denmark, or Bulgaria.
QUOTE(English Horn @ Feb 13 2006, 06:59 PM)
QUOTE(Genesisblade @ Feb 13 2006, 12:35 PM)
Well, you blew my mind. Apparently, in your perspective, one murder IS better than another. I suspect you equate the Israeli murders with 'self-preservation' but i'm afraid i simply don't agree at all. There comes a point when it stops being so, and the beligerent attitude towards peace talks, not just recently, doesn't really support your 'little angels' belief regarding the Israeli governments's behaviour. The similarities with the IRA are very limited really. The IRA had little to do with 'freedom fighting', even from their own perspective.
Well of course one murder is better than another. That's how any criminal system works: certain murders are classified as first-degree, some as second degree; some are classified as manslaughters, and some as self-defense. You can get the needle for first-degree, and you can walk for a self-defense. I don't see what is so mind-blowing about that concept.
QUOTE(Genesisblade @ Feb 13 2006, 12:35 PM)
Israel has demonstrably been equally unwilling to put away its guns to broker peace.
I don't see it that way at all. Israel put away its guns many times, only to be suicide bombed yet again. By the way, I'd like to see a chart somewhere where it would show the number of suicide bombings plotted against deaths - both natural and not - of prominent Palestinian "leaders" such as Arafat, al-Rantissi, and others. Is it just me, or anybody else noticed how fewer suicide bombings there are in Israel ever since Arafat passed away? Must be coincedence....
QUOTE(Lorenq @ Feb 13 2006, 12:35 PM)
As for Europe wanting us gone, well most of the European countries actively aided Germany, especially the Dutch, French and Eastern Europe.
With some notable exceptions, such as Denmark, or Bulgaria.
Glad to see that some people understand that there is nothing wrong in thinking that if either you or your enemy are going to die, it had better not be you.
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