blogwatch
15 Jan 2009
Who's Hating On Hamas?
Photo by Rusty Stewart
Whose authorised history of Hamas do you want? Blogwatch takes a deep breath and jumps into the fray
At the start of the current invasion of Gaza, technooccult caught Condoleezza Rice out on this claim "Rice sharply criticized Hamas, which she said has held the Gaza Strip hostage since illegally seizing power there in 2007". Actually, it was 2006 and the elections were widely recognised as fair and democratic.
Virginia Trioli made a similar clanger the other day on ABC Radio when she said: "No-one's been able to properly scrutinise that election result ... which was roundly described as corrupt." As Alex Mitchell pointed out in Crikey, Hamas in fact won the 2007 election to lead Palestine in what an EU monitoring mission described as "elections [which] saw impressive voter participation in an open and fairly contested electoral process that was efficiently administered by a professional and independent Palestinian Central Elections Commission."
If Secretaries of State and ABC journalists don't know what's going on, we thought we'd try the blogosphere. With a tip of our hat to Rice and Trioli, Blogwatch takes a look at the history of Hamas and the current conflict in Gaza.
So how did a militant Islamist party come to winning a free election? And why does Israel care?
Hamas was founded in Palestine in 1987 as the local political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, the transnational Sunni movement which is also the world's oldest and largest Islamic group. It was established on a platform of Palestinian nationalism and Islamism following the first intifada, Palestine's uprising against Israeli control of the West Bank and Gaza. Led by Sheik Ahmed Yassin, Hamas, while moving away from the Muslim Brotherhood's ethos of non-violence, also played an important civic role in the Palestinian state.
As Stephen Zunes writes on Alternet, "Hamas began to emerge through the establishment of schools, health care clinics, social service organisations and other entities that stressed an ultraconservative interpretation of Islam, which up to that point had not been very common among the Palestinian population."
WINston smITh at Lost Continents believes that through its provision of welfare, "Sheik Yassin and the future leaders of Hamas acquired a reputation for 'clean' governance and good administrative practices, which would greatly aid them — especially in comparison to the PLO, which was widely perceived as corrupt."
Hamas emerged as a player in the Palestinian political scene when the PLO, led by Yasser Arafat, was the very public face of the Palestinian resistance movement. Israel had embarked on an invasion of Lebanon to try to remove Arafat, but the Palestinian resistance remained for all intents and purposes united under his leadership. The PLO was secularist and leftist and, according to Paleo at the Daily Kos, Israel saw the potential to split the Palestinian movement by supporting Islamic groups like Hamas.
Middle East analyst Tony Cordesman agrees that Israel "aided Hamas directly — the Israelis wanted to use it as a counterbalance to the PLO".
Zunes elaborates: "While supporters of the secular PLO were denied their own media or right to hold political gatherings, the Israeli occupation authorities allowed radical Islamic groups to hold rallies, publish uncensored newspapers and even have their own radio station. For example, in the occupied Palestinian city of Gaza in 1981, Israeli soldiers — who had shown no hesitation in brutally suppressing peaceful pro-PLO demonstrations — stood by when a group of Islamic extremists attacked and burned a PLO-affiliated health clinic in Gaza for offering family-planning services for women."
Both Hamas and Israel dispute this chain of events. What is known for sure is that in the 1980s militant Islam usurped the leftist leadership of Middle Eastern radical politics. The Islamic Revolution had humiliated National Socialist Saddam Hussein and the United States; in Lebanon, Hezbollah was emerging to become the most active group fighting the Israeli invasion force; and in the mountains of Afghanistan, the mujahideen (including Osama Bin Laden) were turning back the Soviet Union. Militant Islam was succeeding where leftism failed, and Hamas was ready to join the fray.
Whereas initially Hamas had avoided a close relationship with Iran, "by 1990 when the first Intifada began, Hamas began to see Iran as an ally," writes American Thinker.
"Hamas recognised Iran as the emerging power of the region and by 1992 sent an official delegation to Tehran to meet with Ayatollah Ali Khameinei. Pledging military and financial support, Iran received Hamas [...] Hamas responded in kind, announcing that Hamas and Iran shared an 'identical view in the strategic outlook toward the Palestinian cause in its Islamic dimension'."
The first Hamas suicide bombing took place in April 1993, five months before Arafat sealed the Oslo accords. He returned to Palestine as uncontested leader with a mandate to prevent the flourishing of Hamas. Indeed, as the Council on Foreign Relations registers, "Part of the conditions Israel imposed on Arafat were that the PLO would be responsible for keeping terrorist elements in Palestine under control — which suited Arafat fine — and he went on to set up special courts to try members of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and others."
Oslo, however, was a disaster for Arafat, compromising the PLO instead of entrenching it. The heroes of the Palestinian people became lethargic with Israeli and American money, attending too many press conferences and (in the eyes of many Palestinians) giving up too many inches to Israel for too few in return. Hamas seemed more and more credible to Palestinians compared to the PLO officials in ill-fitting foreign suits trailed by preposterous entourages.
The 2001 intifada and Israel's 2002 assaults contributed to the surge in Hamas's popularity. Although the attacks on Jenin and the siege of Ramallah would become the defining moments of the conflict in these years, Hamas gained its credibility not simply in the fighting, but afterwards. With the Palestinian Authority's infrastructure destroyed, "prospects for peace and statehood [were] even more remote [...] Israeli closures and blockades sank the Palestinian economy into a serious depression" says Zunes. Suddenly the community centres, schools and clinics that Hamas had established became vital. The power of Hamas was demonstrated when the Israeli government decided to assassinate its leader Sheik Yassin in 2004, the same year Arafat died.
In 1993, "Hamas had the support of only 15 per cent of the Palestinian community" according to Zunes; by 2006 they would receive 44 per cent of the vote to defeat Fatah in elections.
And since the election, Israel has blockaded Gaza. Eric Margolis, writing in the HuffPo, doesn't mince his words:
"Horrified that its stooges in the corrupt, US and Israeli-backed PLO/Fatah led by Mahmoud Abbas were routed, Israel and the US imposed a punishing blockade on Gaza aimed at starving its people into rejecting Hamas and accepting the puppet Fatah."
A six month ceasefire agreement was finally signed between Hamas and Israel on 19 June 2008. The ceasefire fell apart in November.
Now, a couple of months later and in the middle of Israel's attempt to severely weaken Hamas, reports from within Gaza are emerging on the blogosphere and they have little to say about the politics of the organisation. From both sides, allegations of partial reporting threaten to drown out the commentary entirely.
Antoun Issa at Lebanese Chess published excerpts from the diary of a young woman living in Gaza. This is what she has to say:
"And so after Israel launched its military offensive against Gaza five days ago, claiming that offensive was a retaliation against Hamas firing rockets into Israel following the cessation of the period of calm, to many, the Israeli attacks were justified. Never mind that Israel failed to at least ease the siege that has been slowly killing us over the past year (to be more precise over the last three years.) Never mind that Israel continued its incursions into the strip and its murder of innocent civilians throughout the truce. Never mind that compared to Israeli gunships, war planes, tanks and other weaponry, Hamas rockets seem like toys. Never mind that our children are robbed of anything that resembles a normal life and future. And yet we are continuously accused of being on equal terms with one of the strongest military forces in the world."
Hamas rockets come in for a serve at American/Palestinian KABOBfest, who reckon there's a reason Israelis emphasise the number of rockets launched (around 4200) rather than the number of civilisans killed (four, since hostilities recommenced): the rockets are crap. Can't even crack the pavement, apparently.
The misperception of Hamas as a crack military force is dismissed by Adham Khalil at Electronic Intifada:
"It is not true to say this is a war between Hamas and Israel. I am an eyewitness in Gaza and though you may think that Gaza is a country and Hamas is a great and powerful army, these are lies. The Palestinian factions do not own tanks, warplanes, or warships. They have homemade rockets, simple weapons. They cannot do anything against Israel's great and powerful army."
Again at KABOBfest, Mohammad is keeping a record of phone conversations with his family in Gaza:
"I asked to talk to my uncle but [my aunt] told me he had gone downstairs. The smoke was clearing out, but the explosions were very close by now. She didn't have to say so; I could hear them. She said she wasn't panicking anymore. When the bombs and missiles had been falling in the last couple of weeks, their sound and the carnage they wrought had driven her to hysterics. But now that they were so close, she saw that panicking wouldn't help. We probably will die, she told me. We might as well accept it."
Laila El-Haddad, aka A Mother From Gaza, writing from the US also delivers news from a distance: "The fear is salient; it is suffocating; it is in the air, friends say, and no one knows what's coming next, and there is no where to turn to except up in the Heavens above."
El-Haddad reports on the tactics being used to subdue Palestinian resistance that might be more familiar to those living in peaceful cities: "We've heard about the flyers the Israeli army is littering Gaza with — telling people Hamas is to blame for their woes, not their f-16s and cluster bombs. Now, they have taken to robo-calling the citizens of Gaza ala Hillary Clinton, at all times of the night and day."
It runs both ways, as the Guardian reports that Hamas is sending threatening text messages to Israeli mobile phones, a strategy described in more detail over at Sabbahblog.
For their part, the Israeli Defense Forces are blogging updates which emphasise Hamas as an armed organisation.
As bombs continue to fall on Gaza, the web isn't only delivering eyewitness accounts, it's hosting 140-character press conferences. The pick of Gaurav Mishra's review of Web 2.0 propaganda must be the link to the New York Israeli Consulate's Twitter activity: direct your questions to @israelconsulate. Asked under what conditions Israel would consider a ceasefire, the answer is snappy: "CF must ensure no more rockets on IL+ no arms smuggling. btw crossings for Human Aid r open and trucks are entering." Although there's no authorised tweeting from Hamas, you'll find more at @gazanews and Al Jazeera Gaza (@ajgaza)
And finally, as protestors gather all over the world to register their position on the invasion — out there on Second Life, the avatars are also on the march.
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http://muslimmatters.org/2009/01/13/palestinian-boy-used-as-human-shield…
"the rockets are crap. Can’t even crack the pavement, apparently."
Are you guys serious? A million Israelis have, for years, been living in constant fear of being killed or maimed on the way to school or work, because of these "crap" rockets.
I am struggling to understand why the Hamas apologists imagine Israel is doing this operation. Hamas has a stated goal: to destroy Israel, and to kill as many Jews in the process. Read the Hamas covenant. Israel is responding to jihadi aggression.
What more evidence do you need? Israel withdrew in 2005. Gaza has been judenrein since then. The blockade was only instituted in mid-2007, when the Hamas putsch succeeded. What was Israel supposed to do to stop the rockets in the two years between 2005 and 2007, when there was no occupation and no blockade? What other Israeli "aggression" was responsible for the rocket fire in that time?
Again, what more evidence do you need?
But then, what possible conclusion could you possibly expect to come to, when the blogs you read are epitomised by "Electronic Intifada"?
Alpha, pleeeeeeeeeeese.
No occupation? Hmmmmmm just how do you think Israel managed to continue building illegal settlements on Palestinian land if it did not occupy? That is how it is done? Occupation is when someone with more power prevents someone with less power from living in freedom on their own land.
You realise every time you post this position you just re-inforce the fact that you clearly believe the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto were terrorists for resisting the German occupiers and used their women and children as human shields; ditto for the Russians in Stalingrad.
Sorry, if you take a position then it has to be applied in principle to all other situations of occupation and colonisation.
The only difference between the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto and the Palestinians in the Gaza Ghetto is that today the world has a better idea of what is being done and Israel will be stopped before it can inflict genocide to the level the Nazis did. For that we are all grateful.
Every Second There is a Bomb
A Report from inside Jabalya Refugee Camp, Gaza
by Adham Khalil
Dated: January 13, 2009
It is very horrible here. Today was the worst. There were lots of F-16s above us and white phosphorous falling from the sky.
I didn’t sleep last night. The sound of shelling in the north and east kept us all awake.
Most of the time we don’t have any electricity in my house. So when the power comes for an hour or two the whole family is busy. We charge our mobiles, pump water, bake bread. But I have seen so many horrible things on TV that sometimes I wish we could stay without power.
So far, my own family is okay but I feel shy to speak about my family. I don’t think like that. Everyone in Gaza is my family. We are suffering collectively as we are being punished and forgotten collectively, and we are dying.
It is very dangerous here and everywhere in Gaza. By 5 PM the streets are empty. Not even one person goes out of their homes in my area. But even in our homes, we are not safe. I swear sometimes I can smell death around us.
It is not true to say this is a war between Hamas and Israel. I am an eyewitness in Gaza and though you may think that Gaza is a country and Hamas is a great and powerful army, these are lies. The Palestinian factions do not own tanks, warplanes, or warships. They have homemade rockets, simple weapons. They cannot do anything against Israel’s great and powerful army.
We are living under complete siege with daily killings and our houses destroyed. Hamas and other Palestinian factions are trying to defend Palestinians from the continuing massacres, invasions, and airstrikes. The Israeli occupation and actions in Gaza are terrorist actions, as are many of their actions and policies dating back to their ethnic cleansing campaign in 1948.
But I think this, right now, is the worst catastrophe I will see in my life.
I don’t have any guns or weapons. I struggle by simply telling the truth. Many people have asked me if there is a way to send money or food. But what we really need is our freedom and an end to the fire.
Don’t keep silent about the Israeli massacres and Holocaust against Palestinians. The demand for an end to this siege must be louder than the bombs that rain down upon us.
To help MECA send more medical aid to Gaza for thousands of sick and injured people living under siege, visit www.mecaforpeace.org .
Things One Sees From The Hague
By Gideon Levy
January 15, 2009 "Haaretz" - – -When the cannons eventually fall silent, the time for questions and investigations will be upon us. The mushroom clouds of smoke and dust will dissipate in the pitch-black sky; the fervor, desensitization and en masse jump on the bandwagon will be forever forgotten and perhaps we will view a clear picture of Gaza in all its grimness. Then we will see the scope of the killing and destruction, the crammed cemeteries and overflowing hospitals, the thousands of wounded and physically disabled, the destroyed houses that remain after this war.
The questions that will beg to be asked, as cautiously as possible, are who is guilty and who is responsible. The world’s exaggerated willingness to forgive Israel is liable to crack this time. The pilots and gunners, the tank crewmen and infantry soldiers, the generals and thousands who embarked on this war with their fair share of zeal will learn the extent of the evil and indiscriminate nature of their military strikes. They perhaps will not pay any price. They went to battle, but others sent them.
The public, moral and judicial test will be applied to the three Israeli statesmen who sent the Israel Defense Forces to war against a helpless population, one that did not even have a place to take refuge, in maybe the only war in history against a strip of land enclosed by a fence. Ehud Olmert, Ehud Barak and Tzipi Livni will stand at the forefront of the guilty. Two of them are candidates for prime minister, the third is a candidate for criminal indictment.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21762.htm
What You Need To Know About Israel’s "Colonies"
Video
Anna Baltzer, a young Jewish American, went to the West Bank to discover the realities of daily life for Palestinians under the occupation. What she found would change her outlook on the conflict forever. She wrote this book to give voice to the stories of the people who welcomed her with open arms as their lives crumbled around them. For five months, Baltzer lived and worked with farmers, Palestinian and Israeli activists, and the families of political prisoners, traveling with them across endless checkpoints and roadblocks to reach hospitals, universities, and olive groves.
Baltzer witnessed firsthand the environmental devastation brought on by expanding settlements and outposts and the destruction wrought by Israels Security Fence, which separates many families from each other, their communities, their land, and basic human services. What emerges from Baltzers journal is not a sensationalist tale of suicide bombers and conspiracies, but a compelling and inspiring description of the trials of daily life under the occupation. Anna Baltzer is a Jewish American graduate of Columbia University, Fulbright scholar, and two-time volunteer with the International Womens Peace Service in the West Bank, where she documented human rights abuses and supported the nonviolent resistance movement to the occupation.
Extracts of Witness in Palestine: A Jewish American Woman in the Occupied Territories, written by Anna Baltzer.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21761.htm
Given the behaviour of the Israelis since the formation of Israel I have taken to wondering whether the European leaders did not allow the colonisation of Israel by these criminals out of fear of what Europe, rather then Palestine, might have looked like if those people had not emigrated.
Shockdoc, that is racist. Israelis and Jews have become what they are for a variety of reasons, the major one being that the world in general and the US in particular has allowed them to become this.
Jews lived and live peacefully throughout the world and contribute to the societies in which they live in the same way that everyone else does. Israel is an anachronism… a colonial ‘adventure’ sourced in religious dysfunction and social paranoia.
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. If the US had not armed Israel to the teeth it would not be the regional aggressor that it is and would not have become a rogue state. If the US did not support Israel as it does none of this would be happening.
Israelis are as good and as bad as everyone else. Where they suffer is that their religion and society has become increasingly paranoid and dysfunctional, not less, and they hear only propaganda and so remain in ignorance about the truth of what was done to the Palestinians and what they still do to the Palestinians.
As a democracy however and with freedoms that others do not have, they do not have the excuse that say the Chinese have for the human rights abuses and war crimes carried out by their government as an occupier and coloniser.
Condemn the act not the individuals. Israelis need our help… it is their future which is at risk more than that of the Palestinians. The Palestinians have both right and time on their side. Israel has neither. And of course, at some subconscious level they probably know that which makes them even more paranoid and psychologically dysfunctional.
rosros, there is nothing racist about shockdoc’s comment at all. Racism requires animus which is not evident purely from the statement he made, unless you include a set of presumptions or prejudgements, which you clearly have done. Don’t be presumptuous or prejudicial or you will be guilty of the very transgression you accuse shockdoc of.
If you have allowed yourself to be talked into a state of self censorship in both your thoughts and the use of language used to express those thoughts, fine, imprison yourself, but the rest of us feel the urge to express our thoughts freely and in any language we deem fit without the impediment of "politically correct" self censorship, fear of pressure from the "politically correct" nor the attempted censsorshop of self appointed thought police.
Who cares what anybody else thinks? I am going to express myself in any way I want, and if you feel offended, don’t read it.
Shockdoc: "Given the behaviour of the Israelis since the formation of Israel I have taken to wondering whether the European leaders did not allow the colonisation of Israel by these criminals out of fear of what Europe, rather then Palestine, might have looked like if those people had not emigrated."
Oh my goodness. "Those people."
Does it feel good being an antisemite?
rosross is right to recognise the antisemitism of Shockdoc’s remarks. And despite how appalling I find many of rosross’ views and comments - many of them in fact bordering on de facto antisemitism themselves - I give due respect to him for recognising that there is a line which can be crossed.
Criticism of Israel is not antisemitic in and of itself. But I can identify two strands of comment which are antisemitic:
- outright antisemitism like Shockdoc’s comment, which make judgments based on the Jewishness of the subject of the comment.
- criticisms of Israel that would not be applied to any other country in a similar situation. These include claims of genocide, for instance, which are not made against the Russians in Chechnya when they carry out far more brutal and less discerning operations than the Israelis do there.
Thomas Friedman put it best, perhaps: "Criticizing Israel is not anti-Semitic, and saying so is vile. But singling out Israel for opprobrium and international sanction — out of all proportion to any other party in the Middle East — is anti-Semitic, and not saying so is dishonest." Thomas Friedman, New York Times
Alpha, Thomas Friedman also wrote a book called "The World is Flat" which might also explain that stupid quote you refer to.
Your question - "Does it feel good being an antisemite?" being a Zionist supporter of racist apartheid Israel you are much better qualified to answer that question.
Those two Yobbos who were thrown out of Venezuela and Bolivia recently certainly know what it feels like to represent your racist slicks in Tel Aviv.
Seems the usual lies to gloss over things like "genocide" "infanticide" "illegal occupation" "white phosphorous" etc did not work so well in South America did it alpha? Don’t you hate it when you get caught out in your own lies like that?
I suppose those "By Deceipt we shall do War" mossad thugs will have to re-educate them and teach them better techniques to lie and deceive when they get back to their squatter camps in occupied Palestine, what do you think alpha?
I think you’re also an antisemite, Rockjaw, just like Shockdoc.
Coming from a genocidal racist that really is amusing.
If this article had been called, "Who’s hating on Al Qaeda"… nobody would have cared. Who DOESN’T hate Al Qaeda.
I can’t think of too many people who have much more sympathy for Hamas. No matter how much they try to hide behind the "Palestinian cause", Hamas remains a radical Islamist jihadi organisation.
No number of silly claims of "genocide" can make ordinary people favour Hamas in this conflict.
Watch the way Hamas behaves - killing and persecuting their own people:
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=8eUSl3x2M48
Watch Palestinian TV in which Palestinian children are taught to hate Jews and love suicide bombing and death:
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=YIBNRVgq59Y
Watch Hamas explain why Jews are the enemies of Allah:
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=2H8HFb-YG00
These are three of thousands of hours of footage available readily online. This footage in on Palestinian TV every single day. And Hamas’ behaviour towards its own people is on the streets of Gaza every day.
You defend Hamas, you are defending this behaviour. Simple as that.
and here is alpha again, the Lion of Judah, whose enemies fall before him like chaff.
alpha, get your buddies to move out of the Palestinian homes and back to the Israel which you lot were given.
your complaint of "one-sided rantings" is unsound. There is no balance when we speak of the rights of criminals vs the rights of their victims - you will find the increasing majority of the world is showing a bias firmly in favour of the victims of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and a growing revulsion for what the world has clearly called and defined criminal actions by Israel.
Here are some of the reasons and warnings issued to Israel in voices which are growing louder.
Firstly, Israel is a criminal settler state which illegally occupies somebody else’s country, which they are attempting to erase from the face of the earth, to wipe off the map, whose people they have scattered to refugee camps across the Arab world, whose people it has regularly massacred for the entire duration of everybody’s natural life.
Israel is a country which was born itself by terror, the terror gangs of the Irgun Zeva’i Le’umi, of the Stern gang which murdered British soldiers, which hanged them in the Orange groves and which slit their throats, which assassinated United Nations Officers and envoys, which blew up the King David Hotel killing nearly 100 British, Australian and New Zealand civil servants.
There is no balance, alpha, there is but a growing demand for justice and a return to civilised rule in that territory.
Most people are not in favour of a two state solution because they do not believe in "Jewish states" or "Islamic states" or "black states" or "white states" or "Apartheid states" - most of us favour "democratic states".
Israel is a small state, and from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Israel/Palestine should be one democratic state where all the Jews and all the "other" indigenous peoples should participate as equal citizens in a political environment of their own choosing, each with one single vote of equal and unbiased value (there, I have used the term which you claim "we" are incapable of).
If the Zionists, (like yourself), will not accept that, then there will have to be a partition.
The minimum conditions of such a partition were set out under agreement at the Oslo accord and they have been reneged on by Israel and rejected only at the continued violence and aggression within the region which will continue and will even increase until they are accepted or until a single state evolves.
Here is a general summary of those acceptable "two state solution" terms, in case you were not aware of them before:-
1- The Palestinian state MUST be a contiguous state joining up the West Bank and Gaza
2- The Palestinian state must have an Arab border all around it, not an Israeli one
3- The Palestinian lands must be shorn of all illegal Zionist settlements except where those settlements were legitimately PURCHASED (and not stolen) from their original owners.
4- The Palestinian lands must be shorn of ALL Israeli military facilities and camps with an international military guarantee that there will be no military excursions by IDF cadres in the Palestinian state.
5- East Jerusalem must be it’s capital with the Dome of the Rock - not some suburb that you’re going to magically call "Jerusalem" - the Palestinian flag must fly from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and from the roof of the AlAqsa Mosque.
6- All the Palestinian refugees must have their right to return to their homes and their lands from which they were driven by military force and terror - by the terrorist gangs of The Stern Gang and the Irgun and other Zionist terrorists. The Palestinians must have their homes and their lands back.
Take your pick, alpha, one state or two states, and if the two state solution is not based on the above minimum core terms there will be no peace in Israel/Palestine and the Israeli population, already under pressure and emigrating in increasing numbers, will eventually be forced to accept less favourable terms as was the fate of the recalcitrant white apartheid supporters of apartheid South Africa.
Now, you can attack Gazans again and again, and on each occassion the world’s anger will increase exponentially until, eventually, you will find yourselves a hapless people with nothing left with which to bargain and I don’t care if the time period is one decade or many decades, but the eventual consequence of continued recalcitrance will be the liability of Israel and the asset of your enemies.
George Vickers
‘If you defend Hamas you defend this behaviour’. Quite right, but I don’t defend Hamas, I write here in defence of the dead and injured Palestinian children that are no more part of Hamas than Israeli children are part of Israel’s army.
alphacrucis, by your own logic if you defend Israel you defend the violence they are currently doing to the civilian population, period. Let that be on your concience, if such a thing exists outside your unshakable belief in the state of Israel.
Your inability to empathise with the Paestinians leads me to beleive that you too consider yourself a ‘soldier’ for Israel in that you could never admit to wrongdoing on the part of the state you love and serve.
In that context you don’t really have much to contribute to a discussion. Indeed you are like the proverbial brick wall. I look forward to your likely silence on this site when the conflict has subsided and the world roundly condemns Israel’s actions.
Finally, two questions, since that may open up dialouge previously missing from your dogmatic renderings; if Hamas is an existential threat to Israel, what sort of threat is posed by the removal of US support for the nation? How much will the world endure from Israel before that support is withdrawn?
Even though some of my best friends believe they are Palestinian - I am rather forced, I daresay, to point out that Europe would have gladly resettled all of those people in Europe.
(But given their behavior since the proud nation of Israel displaced them, I have taken to wondering whether the European leaders did not allow the resettlement by these odious and largely criminal Palestinians, out of fear of what Europe, rather than Palestine, might have looked like if those people had so moved.)
I am rather forced too, I daresay - as well, to point out that Arab nations have never seriously considered resettling all of those people in those other peoples’ Arab nations - about the middle east and even afar – Indonesia could have used those people to repopulate Burkino Fasa.
[checks atlas – no! Iran Jaya
(…or is that Khomeini’s Iran¿¿)
This Iran, That Iran…
“Who is to know¿ “
“Do those people even know¿¿”]
(I have progressively taken to wondering too, whether the Arab leaders did not allow the resettlement by these odious and largely criminal Palestinians out of a prior knowledge and understanding of what those people are - odious, (or is that odorous¿) and largely criminal.
They feared what Arabia, rather then Palestine, might have looked like if those people had so moved.)
I am rather forced too, by my many wonderings (which have so taken me), I daresay – to add that the Muslim nations have never seriously considered affording all of those people a right of Automatic Palestinian Non-return based on those peoples stated ethno-religious gravitas of those peoples hearts who are so made so as to incline to the truth, to gather about those other peoples temples, mosques and minarets close and even afar – this great gesture of giving; a blessed zakat no less, of the faithful nations!
Lands such as Djibouti, Eritrea or even Chad could have purified their nations and saved the Palestinian faithful the humiliation of begging. Furthermore the powers of the high heavens are wise and true. [Otherwise they, the powers of the high heavens, the noble faqihers, could fiqhure out some other way…]
(They too feared what the gathering about those other peoples temples, mosques and minarets might have looked like if those criminal an odiferous people had so gathered.)
––––––––––––––––––––––—
Dear Rosross
Though I do not have or do not share your perspective – you nonetheless earn some many esteem points in your Shockdoc put down!
[Passes some many esteem points across the ether…]
––––––––––––––—
But … your suggestion
“Palestinian flag must fly from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and from the roof of the AlAqsa Mosque.”
Huhh?
Oy vey…
Are you making this up as you go along, again?
Do you even realize what you are saying ?
Go buy a map … already!
That suggestions fails not only because the Western Kotel is slap bang in the middle of your plan, but besides that - does not the Holy Vatican deserve to fly their flag across the church of the Holy Sepulchre, (…or say, the Mormons).
Furthermore the suggestion does not allow for free-airspace above greater Jerusalem to the Agnostics, The Ecumenical Chi-Gnostics and the Atheists – a righteously earned free-airspace. (For they have continuously - over the last three millennia have had a considered absolutely nothing to do with Jerusalem – and it is thus their fulfilled non-divine right to continue doing so …)
Puhleese … go get a real plan. dunno4sure¿
Dr Dog, I have great sympathy for the innocent Palestinian victims of this conflict. I simply am more discerning than you in my allotment of blame. Their deaths are almost entirely on the head of Hamas and their jihadi colleagues and Shia extremist sponsors in Iran.
One of the ironies is that you rail on about Israeli "propaganda" but are simultaneously willing to buy Hamas propaganda and then parrot it on these forums - for instance, their cynical use of child soldiers, and then their self-righteous outrage when the IDF returns fire when shot at by those children. It’s morally indefensible. A Hamas war crime that nobody even mentions, let alone condemns.
Where was your moral outrage when a million Israelis, most of them civilians, were under rocket fire for the past 3 to 8 years in southern Israel? Where was your comprehensive, unequivocal condemnation of the jihadi genocide policy, or of their policy of targetting civilians through indiscriminate rocket fire and suicide bombings?
The hypocritical silence is deafening. By condemning Israel instead of Hamas for this conflict, you are defending Hamas, and I think it’s disgraceful.
Moreover, I’ve heard nobody advance a reasoned critique of my calling your fallacious bullshit for what it is. All I hear is more pro-jihadi hyperbole, more selective criticism of Israel while giving Hamas a free pass.
Watch some videos. Go and learn about Hamas and what it has done. And then you may see the astounding ignorant arrogance in your self-righteous lecturing about Israel’s actions.
We would like to think this conflict is based on differing ideologies . But the current conflict is not over a miniscule coastal strip of land , but a huge 4 billion dollar natural gas field. Israel is employing a tactic used in any resource conflict , the dead can not claim ownership , they expediate this process by killing the women and children first.
Australia/Indonesia in East Timor , Russia and those pesky independant states that its pipelines have to cross etc etc.
There are no noble ideologies that justify killing , killing is plainly indicative of failure .
Judaism , Catholicism, Islam all failed because they have never led their adherents as a mass to a knowledge of peace.
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Rockjaw’s (george vickers’) suggestion….[so sorry]
alpha,
I did not use the term anti-semitic I used the term racist. Arabs are semites and anti-semitic is not used in its proper context. It has come to mean a hatred of Jews per se: I was referring to the racism expressed toward Israelis. Condemning an entire people for the actions of some, even many, is racism. But it is a moot point.
The Israeli Death Forces are in fine form again. Today they use white phosphorus bombs on a UN food station and bomb a hospital. The tragic and astonishing thing is that people can still seek to justify these war crimes. The heartening thing is that more and more people know about these war crimes and Israel is even more clearly seen for what it is … a rogue state using terrorism against a defenceless people it occupies and colonises.
Are the Israelis simply stupid or are they incompetent? Probably the latter. That is what arrogance and ignorance brings.
I don’t know if others have been experiencing the same thing but I have found friends and acquaintances who never before took much interest in issues, expressing great anger at what Israel is doing. Then again, the best thing Israel ever did was keep the press out because the press are seriously p….ssed off with Israel because of this and so they are using whatever material they can get … provided by the people in Gaza and transmitted through the Arab press. If international media had been covering this we would not have seen so many bloodied children on television at night … even the commercial channels.
Published on Thursday, January 15, 2009 by the Times Online/UK
UN Headquarters in Gaza Hit by Israeli ‘White Phosphorus’ Shells
by Sheera Frenkel and Philippe Naughton
JERUSALEM - The main UN compound in Gaza was left in flames today after being struck by Israeli artillery fire, and a spokesman said that the building had been hit by shells containing the incendiary agent white phosphorus.
Israelis Shell Hospitals and UN HQ
By Al Jazeera
January 15, 2009 "Al Jazeera" — -Three hospitals and a UN compound have been bombed by Israel as troops continue to advance into the densely-populated Gaza City.
Around 500 people were sheltering in the Al-Quds hospital in the city’s southwestern Tal Al-Hawa district when it was bombed by Israeli jets and set ablaze on Thursday morning.
Hospital officials said the fire was sparked by a "phosphorus shell".
"We have been able to control the fire in the hospital but not in the administrative building," one hospital official said.
"We hope that the flames don’t spread again to the wings of the hospital."
Two hospitals east of Gaza City were also hit by Israeli shells as Gazans fled tanks advancing into the city.
It was no immediately clear if any casualties following the raids.
UN fire ‘still raging’
The Israelis also bombed a UN compound in Gaza City, setting fire to warehouses of badly-needed food and medical aid and prompting international outrage.
Around 700 Palestinians were sheltering in the UN complex at the time of the strikes which left two civilians and three staff members injured.
Adnan Abu Hasna, a spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa), said fires were still raging hours after the attack and "tens of millions of dollars worth of aid" had been destroyed.
John Ging, the director of Unrwa operations in the Strip, also accused the Israelis of using phosphorus shells.
"They are phosphorus fires so they are extremely difficult to put out because, if you put water on, it will just generate toxic fumes and do nothing to stop the burning," he said
Gaza Witness Reports
The following the on-scene first-person witness reports by Vittorio Arrigoni and Ewa Jasiewicz, are absolutely riveting! Their work is primarily available on the Free Gaza Website. But they’ve also been published in the Palestine Chronicle, ICH, Counterpunch, The Guardian, and a number of other places.
Al Naakba 2009
By Vittorio Arrigoni;
January 15, 2009 "FreeGaza.org, " – They parade in fear, their eyes looking upwards, surrendering to the sky showering terror and death upon them, fearing the earth that keeps shaking under every step they take, opening craters where there were houses, schools, universities, markets, hospitals, and burying their lives within them forever. I’ve seen caravans of desperate Palestinians evacuate Jabalia, Beit Hanoun and all the refugee camps in Gaza, crowding the United Nations’ schools like earthquake survivors, like victims of a tsunami which is eating into the Gaza Strip day by day, along with its civilian population, without pity or compliance with human rights and the Geneva Conventions. Most of all, without a single Western government stirring a finger to stop this massacre, or sending medical staff out here, or stopping the genocide that Israel is smearing its hands with in these hours.
The indiscriminate attacks against the hospitals and medical staff continue. Yesterday, after having left the Al Auda hospital in Jabalia, I received a call from Alberto, a Spanish colleague at the ISM – a bomb had been dropped there and Abu Mohammed, a nurse, had been seriously injured to his head. Just moments before, in front of a café, I’d been listening to his stories of the heroic deeds of Communist Abu Mohammed’s heroes, the leaders of the Popular Front: George Habbash, Abu Ali Mustafa, Ahmad Al Sadat. His eyes lit up when he heard that the first notions of what Palestine and its immense tragedy were, had been passed onto me by my parents, both Communists through and through. By my mother, a "raissa", or Mayor of a town in Northern Italy. He asked me who had been the truly revolutionary leaders of the Italian left from the past, and I said Antonio Gramsci. For those of today I took my time, telling him I’d have replied to that question today. But Abu Mohammed now lies in a coma, in the same hospital where he works. He spared himself my disappointing reply.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21768.htm
What was that about anti-semitism?
Rough Pedagogy
Gaza Besieged, Gaza Mauled
By JULES RABIN
First, a story—a true one. On February 28, 1994, in a funeral eulogy for an American-born Israeli who had been beaten to death by a Palestinian mob a few days before, a certain Rabbi Perin declared, “A million Arabs are not worth one Jewish fingernail.” The world was shocked by the statement when it was reported in the New York Times, and the Israeli prime minister himself denounced it. The murdered Israeli was Baruch Goldstein, who, on February 25, 1994, had stepped into a mosque carrying an assault rifle and killed 29 Palestinian men and boys bowed in prayer before his gun jammed. He was then killed with iron bars by surviving worshipers.
Now in Gaza, a more modest version of the stunning ratio suggested by Rabbi Perin, the worth of the million and the worth of the one, is being enacted. The tally to this date in the mutual killing taking place in Gaza and the adjoining Israeli territory since the end of December is 979 Palestinian dead and 13 Israeli dead, a proportion of 75 to 1. Of the Palestinian dead, 292 were children and approximately 75 were women. In one Palestinian family, five sisters, ages 4 to 17, were killed; in another, two sisters, ages 5 and 12 were killed. A 2,000 pound bomb dropped on the home of a Hamas leader killed not only him but his four wives and 13 of his 17 children.
Of the total of 13 Israeli dead in the current phase of the decades-long conflict, three were civilians, killed by rockets fired from Gaza into Israeli territory beginning December 19, when a six-month cease-fire agreed to by Israel and the Hamas government of Gaza expired. To “teach Israel a lesson,” Hamas had summoned up the heaviest weaponry in its arsenal: an assortment of crude rockets with notoriously wild aim. To “teach Hamas a lesson” in turn, Israel launched day and night bombing attacks on all of Gaza, of less than pinpoint accuracy, starting two weeks ago, on December 27. In the first four days of the new lesson, those aerial attacks killed more than 400 Palestinians, of all sizes and all places in Gaza society, and made rubble a familiar sight throughout the city. Those 400 and more Palestinian deaths stood as first payment for the three Israelis who had been killed by Palestinian rockets.
http://www.counterpunch.org/rabin01152009.html
In a land of walls, checkpoints, land confiscation, and colonization—where Israeli military incursion occur on a daily basis, terrorizing an entire society, where Palestinians are randomly dragged away to add to the over 10,000 Palestinian men, women, and children sitting in Israeli jails, and where every response to Israeli aggression is labeled “terrorist” by those who control and employ such ahistorical and decontextualized language and calculate “proportionality” according to their own interests, the language of “proportionality” immediately dehumanizes, denying the value of human life. It too often becomes the language of violence and oppression.
At a time when so many are seeking to live in a world that is defined with a deeper, richer definition of peace, we should at least seek to be consistent with the moral and ethical formation of our language and our own actions.
Timothy Seidel works as Director for Peace and Justice Ministries with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) U.S. He worked as a Peace Development Worker with MCC in the Occupied Palestinian Territories from 2004-2007.
http://www.counterpunch.org/seidel01152009.html
Keep the word moving. Send these links around to everyone you know. Knowledge is power. It is the only thing which will save both palestinians and israelis.
rogeiro,
Shockdoc’s comment was racist. He was inferring that all of those who left Europe to colonise Palestine were responsible for what Israel has become. You cannot categorize an entire nation, religion, group or whatever because of the actions of some, even many. That is racism.
ironically of course it was the Jews who sought to categorize all Germans as Nazis and now they are somewhat hoist on their own petard. All Germans were not Nazis. Many, like the Israelis, did not want to know. Many chose not to know. Many supported the atrocities. Like Israel. Some, sadly a minority, stood up for justice and were villified for it.
Israelis are however, probably more responsible for what their State is doing in their name because they live under a freer democracy than the Germans did. To that end, all Israelis, even those who protest, are accountable for the actions of their State.
Just as all Americans and Australians bear responsibility for the war crimes and human rights abuses committed against the Iraqi people.
However, it would be racist to say that Australians or Americans as a group are warmongers and war criminals.
That is why you cannot categorize all Jews and all Israelis for the war crimes and human rights abuses committed by Israel.
Principles are important. We betray them at our peril. Judge the act and condemn the act not the individual.
It is a primitive and unenlightened response to demonise the other. I know it has always been done but that makes it even more important to not do it now. It doesn’t matter if the majority of Israelis and their supporters demonise Arabs in general and Palestinians in particular … do not let yourself fall down to their level, rather, hold to a position of principle so there is something more enlightened, more humane, more civilized, to which others can aspire.
Israelis are no better or worse than anyone else. They are simply, at this time in history, badly guided by their leaders, caught in a religious and social dysfunction and subject to constant and devious propaganda. As were the Germans and the Japanese for that matter. Maybe God does have a sense of humour. I always thought S/He did.
Who is Hamas anyway ??? It seems that some work for the United Nations "on the payroll" ! Maybe there are more of these jobs for some of the concerned who want to do this type of work http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,479940,00.html
Thank God for Malcom Fraser. In today"s Age.
Israel’s actions foster extremism
January 16, 2009
Talking to Hamas is the only way to achieve a lasting peace.
NEITHER Israel nor Hamas has paid attention to the United Nations Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire.
Israel claims it is fighting for and on behalf of the free world, that the destruction of Hamas will enable Fatah to reassert its dominance over the Palestinian territories so that peace negotiations can resume.
Israel’s public announcements claim that it is acting on a basis of principle that benefits all of us.
There is of course a contrary view. The death toll is estimated at more than 1000, a significant proportion of them children. This military action by Israel would have been condemned worldwide if it had been undertaken by any other country.
Dallas, FoxNews is the ‘gutter press’ equivalent of television media.
But, to put it in context. Hamas, apart from being the resistance of the occupied Palestinian people (think French Resistance) is a political party.
Would you be surprised if there were a variety of political groups represented in UN organisations? For instance, if, in Australia there were Greens, Labor, Liberals, Country Party? Of course not. So how is it surprising if Hamas (the democratically elected government of the country by the way) and other political groups had members working. Or don’t Palestinians have a right to work if they are members of a political party?
When I protested about the Iraq invasion the warmongers called me anti-American and un-Australian. I began to wear those tags with a sense of honour.
Now being called anti-semitic for protesting the violent invasion of Gaza is starting to lose the strength that that false accusation would normally make. The term is becoming meaningless when bandied about by people who support the killing of innocent women and children.
I want the Israeli people to live in peace as is the right of everyone but the action of their leaders will only make matters worse and bring the country into further disrepute.
Um, can I just say thanks to the NM team for Blogwatch - it’s a great initiative, it’s really well done, and I for one am finding a great range of new sources of information as a result. Cheers
aphlacrucis,
Of course I am sickened by the deaths of Israelis from rocket attacks, bombs or any manner of attack from Hamas. I don’t support either the goals or methods of Hamas.
You do, however, reveal by your response that I am right about your inability to acknowledge any wrongdoing on the part of Israel. You are the idealogue other posters on this site accuse you of being.
You also avoided completely my serious question. Representing those who take your view of the conflict, do you see potential withdrawal of support from the US as an existential threat to the nation of Israel? How far do you think Israel can go before that support is withdrwn or modified?
I have one more question, that goes to the heart of my critique of your posts. What would Israel have to do for you to withdraw your support? Is it impossible for the Israeli state to be wrong in your view?
RosRoss, Work Yes. But not be paid to deliver Terror at school.
Dallas, get real. Who says they were there in a military sense? Israel, so you would beleive them when the UN disputes it utterly? Interesting.
I take it from this post that you clearly believe the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto were terrorists using their women and children as human shields because they resisted the German occupiers and fought back? Ditto for the Russians in stalingrad.
As a matter of principle if you support this sort of insane propaganda in regard to the Palestinians you have to support it for every instance.
It displays a particular kind of mental function to come to this conclusion and hardly one that is rational.
Dr Dog, I would be surprised if you get an answer to your questions. Questions are too real and they reveal the insanity of the other position. They can’t answer the question because it completely negates their position. Silence is of course the answer. The lack of a response means you are right and they cannot counter it, merely post more propaganda.
You do have to wonder though at the mindset of people who can believe that people living under occupation, pushed into a tiny concentration camp where everyone must live, are ‘terrorists’ using their families, with whom, shockingly, they live, as ‘human shields.’
utterly bizarre. Clearly we were on the wrong side in supporting the East Timorese. They were fighting against Indonesian occupation and horror of horrors, they used weapons against the occupiers weapons. How could we have got it so wrong. We supported the terrorists, those evil people who purposely killed their women and children because they insisted on living with them when all along, it was the Indonesian army with their guns and tanks and bombs who were the victims!
I think Rudd should issue a statement immediately vindicating the poor Chinese victims who are subject to Tibetan aggression and terrorism and the Indonesians who are still suffering at the hands of the Irian Jaya ‘terrorists’, who, at last count were still so morally reprehensible as to continue living with their families despite resisting occupiers.
How could we have got it all so wrong?
RosRoss, Are you being paid to comment on news reporting this foxnews article?
I don’t understand the question Dallas. Clarify.
Faux News.
The insanity of it all. Literally.
In international political circles, there is disbelief that Israel could imagine that this attack on Hamas, with its civilian casualties and physical destruction of Gaza, would “strengthen” the position of the Palestine Authority and of Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah Party. It is a death blow to them. Israel behaves as if it has completely lost touch with reality.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090115_whos_in_charge_obama_the_pe…
RosRoss, Are you being paid to comment on news reporting, like this foxnews article?http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,479940,00.html
GraemeF, well said. Fox news is a disgrace to journalism and that is saying something given the low standards around these days. NM excluded at the present time of course.
Another great day for the Israeli Death Forces: attacked aid workers, doctors, nurses and journalists. No doubt there were a few toddlers dispensed with as well.
Dallas,No, I am not paid to comment. I have an active interest in the media as a professional. It saddens me to see what Murdoch has done with what was once a respectable journalistic medium. Not Fox news of course, that began as trash and remains trash.
RosRoss, To each his poison, But what foxnews reports can’t be all that bad. Some truth must get through, maybe as satire. There is plenty of that in all the media, here and abroad. Depending on your sense and humor.
Foxnews does not present satire, Foxnews is satire. It is also theatre. The presenters and interviewers spend a lot of time yelling at each other, at their guests, pushing their own point of view instead of listening, trivialising issues, repeating positions and really, failing every standard by which professional journalism could be judged. Of course there is some truth mixed into the froth but that is not what news should be about. News should be about informing, appraising, assessing, balancing and presenting as broad a picture of the issue or circumstance as possible. FoxNews is an oxymoron. There is no news, merely a predatory and manipulative animal which cares about nothing but its own survival. Foxnews, like the gutter press, aims for the lowest common denominator … Moron News would be a better name. It is worth watching from time to time simply to be reminded of the rubbish which so many are fed, and believe, and how bad media can be.
Australian citizens are also unwitting victims of the Israeli regime because, in the interests of that regime, we are deprived a proper media service through either complete new blackouts (as we are witnessing at present) or we are fed bigotted one sided and unbalanced reporting.
New sources of news are beginning to fill in the gap, news services such as presstv ( http://www.presstv.ir ) are becoming popular alternatives for people who can no longer suffer to have their collective intelligence assaulted by outlets such as Fox, CNN BBC etc.
The rockets have not killed anyone in years. Are some of you people completely stupid.
"Representing those who take your view of the conflict, do you see potential withdrawal of support from the US as an existential threat to the nation of Israel? How far do you think Israel can go before that support is withdrwn or modified?"
No, I think US support for Israel is very secure. The US understands Israel’s position. It is not fazed by inflated civilian casualty figures from Hamas, and the American political class is quite aware that the current operation is entirely justified and that it has succeeded in pounding Hamas into submission to Israel’s expectations. Hamas deserves to be removed from power entirely.
"I have one more question, that goes to the heart of my critique of your posts. What would Israel have to do for you to withdraw your support? Is it impossible for the Israeli state to be wrong in your view?"
This is a silly question, because Israel’s intentions are generally noble. I know this because I have spent a great deal of time there and I am quite aware of the mindset of Israelis and their leadership. Israelis have no desire to kill Palestinians for fun or for reasons of ethnic hatred. I keep reminding you of the Hamas Covenant because if you want to understand why this conflict continues, all you have to know is the jihadi motivations behind the Palestinian Islamist leadership.
To answer your silly loaded hypothetical, if I was presented evidence that Israel had deliberately killed civilians - ever - I would be in the streets protesting. But Israel has never targeted civilians. Not once.
I find the Nazi comparisons ludicrous and offensive, by the way. If Israel is the modern day Nazi regime, where are the gas chambers? Where is the "final solution"? Don’t you think that Israel could genocide the Palestinians overnight if it wanted? Calling 1000 dead, mostly Hamas, "genocide" or "Nazi" behaviour is not just antisemitic, and not just offensive to the 6 million, it also drains the term "genocide" of any meaning.
Perhaps the Hamas apologists on this forum will take a history lesson and learn about Hitler’s Final Solution before making petty, outrageous comparisons.
DrDog, you see what you are up against? The mindset is beyond any rational or reasonable place. When people are locked into this sort of psychological dysfunction it is actually impossible for them to think any other way and anything which challenges the mindset is dismissed through not actually answering questions, but turning questions around.
To ‘think other’ is so frightening a prospect, because the Self has become so absorbed into the position, that anything can and will be done, anything can and will be denied, anything can and will be ignored to hold to the view that one has of one’s self.
In psychological terms it is a classic case of obsessive thinking where the belief has the person instead of the person having the belief.
People in this state, can be presented with clear and shocking evidence of the truth but simply cannot process it. In the same way that a severely emaciated anoxeria sufferer can look in the mirror and see someone who is ‘fat’, many Israelis and their supporters can look in the ‘mirror’ of Israel’s aggression and see a ‘victim.’ People like this cannot be convinced it would actually traumatise them beyond their ability to function mentally and emotionally.
This is why Germans who were taken through the Nazi concentration camps still could not comprehend what had been done. You could take many Israelis and their supporters through the Palestinian concentration camps and many, if not most, would not be able to process the information to see the truth of what they are.
In the same way, you can present facts, evidence, even photographs, but the mind is simply incapable of seeing them for what they are. We are what we think. That is a psychological maxim and we create our ‘reality’ by what we think more than by what is, by what we are told, or even by what we see.
As I have said before and as others are now saying, Israelis have lost touch with reality and are actually incapable of helping themselves. Anyone who presented to a psychiatrist with these sorts of symptoms would be committed.
We cannot commit a whole country but we can force them to change. It happened with South Africa and will work with Israel. Boycotts are the answer because reason and truth will never do it.
alpha, you are a complete bore. Israel is committing a genocide, the reasons for the genocide may be a point for debate, but it is a genocide and it is being committed by Israel. That fact cannot be disputed by anyone.
Israel does not need "gas chambers" like the Nazis because Israel has white phospherous and missiles and other modern weapons which the Nazis, thankfully, did not have. Israel is using these modern weapons as a more efficient alternative to the gas chambers.
The Parliaments of UK, Scotland, Canada, South Africa and New Zealand have all heard opinions from their members, both Jewish and gentile, likening current Israeli mass murder to the Nazi Holocaust. When Australia and USA finally wake from their sleep the world will rapidly reach consensus. Soon afterwards the irressistible international pressure which destroyed Apartheid in South Africa will start against Israel.
Israel can no longer hide behind their massive propaganda machine, so you will soon be out of a job alpha.
Thanks for the wonderful demonstration of how Israel’s propaganda machine works, but you are beginning to labour the point a little now.
Rogerio, excellent post.
Rogerio, it is your gang of bullies here on this forum who are labouring the point.
You said "Israel is using these modern weapons as a more efficient alternative to the gas chambers." - this fascinates me. You obviousy have no understanding of the Holocaust, the Nazi methodology, the dehumanisation of the Jews, the concentration camp experience, and the sheer scale of the genocide.
Let’s look simply at the numbers - since you insist on focusing on efficiency. I find this gruesome and obscene but I will do it to prove your point ridiculous.
At Auschwitz (simply the biggest of many death camps), a conservative estimate would have 1000 Jews "processed" per day.
Now I’ll indulge your sick desires in order to "compare" Auschwitz to Gaza. Simply in terms of "efficiency".
The current estimate is that 1000 Palestinians have been killed in the last 3 weeks - most of them gunmen.
Let’s do the math. Let’s say - conservatively - that only 2/3 of the fatalities have been gunmen. That leaves around 300 civilian dead. (There are probably FAR fewer civilian deaths than this.) Over 3 weeks. That is 100 civilians per week. About 13 per day. Maximum.
As I said, this is a gruesome, awful calculation, but when you say that Israeli WPs are more efficient at killing than a gas chamber, you are being a goose.
By the way, I don’t think there have been many, if any, deaths from WP in the current operation.
I will add this: a genocide requires a few elements, including:
- a deliberateness in desiring to destroy a whole group
- a systematic attempt to do so
Neither of these are even remotely present in Gaza. The fact that you dare to claim that a terrorist-killing operation is "genocide" is disingenuous, offensive, obscene, and disgusting.
That you compare it to the Nazi Holocaust, of which you clearly know nothing, is ludicrous.
The only thing "disingenuous, offensive, obscene, and disgusting" is your obvious enthusiastic support for this genocide which the whole world is working 24/7 to stop.
Rogerio it is about time.
Your links are to stories showing British MP’s including the Jewish MP Gerald Kaufmann, calling the Israeli leadership ‘mass murders and war criminals.’
alpha you said:
I will add this: a genocide requires a few elements, including:
- a deliberateness in desiring to destroy a whole group
- a systematic attempt to do so
Try this on for size. By the
Geneva Convention Israel fits the bill completely:
Article II of the Genocide Convention defines the international crime of genocide in relevant part as follows:
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.
As documented by Israeli historian Ilan Pappe in his seminal book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestin (2006), Israel’s genocidal policy against the Palestinians has been unremitting, extending from before the very foundation of the State of Israel in 1948, and is ongoing and even intensifying against the 1.5 million Palestinians living in Gaza.
Zionism’s “final solution” to Israel’s much touted “demographic threat” allegedly posed by the very existence of the Palestinians has always been genocide.
Certainly, Israel and its predecessors-in-law-the Zionist agencies, forces, and terrorist gangs-have committed genocide against the Palestinian people that actually started on or about 1948 and has continued apace until today in violation of Genocide Convention Articles II(a), (b), and (c).
For at least the past six decades, the Israeli government and its predecessors-in-law - the Zionist agencies, forces, and terrorist gangs - have ruthlessly implemented a systematic and comprehensive military, political, and economic campaign with the intent to destroy in substantial part the national, ethnical, racial, and different religious (Jews versus Muslims and Christians) group constituting the Palestinian people.
This Zionist/Israeli campaign has consisted of killing members of the Palestinian people in violation of Genocide Convention Article II(a).
This Zionist/Israeli campaign has also caused serious bodily and mental harm to the Palestinian people in violation of Genocide Convention Article II(b).
This Zionist/Israeli campaign has also deliberately inflicted on the Palestinian people conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction in substantial part in violation of Article II(c) of the Genocide Convention.
If you want to read more, here’s the link:
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=82097§ionid=3510303
"Zionism’s “final solution” to Israel’s much touted “demographic threat” allegedly posed by the very existence of the Palestinians has always been genocide."
Oh please, spare us. This is ridiculous.
By the way, Israel hasn’t even declared an intention to destroy HAMAS, let alone all Palestinians! When the Genocide convention refers to "intent to destroy, in whole or in part", I think you’d be hard-pressed to prove that intent to take out Hamas’ rocket-firing capabilities constitutes genocide.
You people are sick, defending war crimes and covering up your antisemitism by blaming the victim.
alphacrisis, if Israel said the destruction of Hamas was their stated intention I would be relieved because nothing the Israeli regime has ever said has been the truth - you know - by deceipt we shall make war?
Israel will lie every step of the way, just like any other hardened group of criminals.
Israel does not state that the destruction of Hamas is their intention, so it must, ipso facto, be their stated intention. Their behaviour supports this theory.
Israel must seriously consider the one state solution I read about somewhere else in these pages. A single state of Palestine/Israel where the right of every citizen is guaranteed and the rights of one religious group will not supercede the rights of other groups.
Democracy in the middle east at last.
Rosross, But Isn’t It just your point of view which does not accept foxnews as deliberately balanced satire and therefore do you consider that you position maybe a comedy of errors.
Dallas, Fox News is about as useful a source for truth as the back of your morning cereal packet.
These are the "peaceful protesters" demonstrating for "Palestine":
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=kp-lwSe2llg
"Allahu Akbar!" they scream. And to the police: "Run, you cowards! I’m watching you, boy!"
Who wants to be associated with people of their ilk?
I heard most of those protesters were Israelis who felt outraged at the genocide being committed in their name. One can understand how they must feel.
Alpha, we agree on something.
Dallas, even if I did not have a professional interest in the media I have a brain… Foxnews is not news, it is moronic soundbytes and aggressive theatre.
alpha,
You can say anything you like and a protest remains peaceful. It is the use of physical violence which changes things. Then again, the Israeli police and Israelis themselves are prone to turn peaceful Palestinian protests into violent ones. The police and the settlers have the guns.
Perhaps methinks, alphacrusis is some sort of double agent trying to defame all Israeli supporters.
Surely nobody could be so blind to the facts and hold such onesided arguments in the face of the slaughter that is taking place in Gaza.