Pro-Palestine vandals deface Army, NATO sites Online vandals protesting Israel's military action in Gaza have defaced thousands of websites, including high-profile sites belonging to the US Army, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and a Washington-based group that oversees homeland security. The attacks on Thursday left several of them inoperable some 24 hours later …
Fair enough, since Israel's legion of PR apologists have been defacing the national press with their own version of why school=military target and Palestinian=terrorist.
If we're forced to listen to bollocks, we may as well be even-handed in the bollocks we listen to.
Skull and crossbones, because Colonel Kilgore did "death from above" too.
Arabs have been fighting each other for over 5,000 years. It is their way of life. To them, it's normal ... which is to be expected for a group of people who were principally nomadic and competing for scarce resources in a desert environment until somewhere around the 1950s. They need to wake up and smell the modern world.
The Israelis/Jews have made a living of being persecuted for roughly the same time period, and seem to think that that gives them TheAlmighty's[tm] A-OK to kill innocent civilians in the name of God. (Isn't that a basic definition of what "terrorism" is?) They also need to wake up and smell the modern world.
But neither group is likely to wake up. Walling off the entire middle east until they kill each other off would get my vote. It'll save money for the rest of us in the long run.
People tampering with websites belonging to the U.S. Army or NATO, of course, are open to serious criminal charges.
It is regrettable that ordinary people in Gaza are getting hurt. However, neither Europe nor the U.S. have offered to invade Gaza with a larger force, that could proceed more carefully, for the purpose of destroying Hamas and ending the rocket attacks on Israel once and for all, without disrupting the lives of the ordinary people of Gaza as much.
Such attacks, like the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, are not the sort of things that will be tolerated by people in a position to do anything about it.
And Israel is in a position to defend itself. It is tragic that ordinary people are now suffering for the stupidity of Hamas. And, of course, it is also unfortunate that some of them will be embittered enough to try to do foolish things in the future, which have absolutely no hope of achieving any positive result for the Palestinian people.
Sure a school can be a military target. It fits Hamas MO completely to hide troops, guns and ammo in hospitals, schools etc. Israel's response may seem disproportionate, but how would you try to disarm a remote hostile location filled with fanatics while trying to protect your own people?
Stop doing the liberal medias job of being a Hamas apologist. Both the media and Hamas forgot the saying " if you live in glass houses don't throw stones"
...to look at a website, then deface it repeatedly a few others later. Then blame the UN for not pulling down the website earlier. Then saying that there were actually bots among those surfers, so the defacement was entirely justified. Then retreating to moral high ground because, as defacers, they previously had suffered at the hand of Microsoft.
Who knows for sure and beyond reasonable doubt that the hackers all belong to one organisation? Possibilities?
+ Israeli sympathizers did it themselves
+ other parties doing it under cloak of Palestinians getting the blame
+ some people having a lark
+ ...
?
Until knowledge is beyond reasonable doubt it might be better not to speculate too far?
Oh look another "hamas only kill civilians as they are poor oppressed souls" viewpoint from some middle class bleeding heart moron.
Hamas ARE a terrorist group, and a bunch of COWARDS who attack civilians and schools, hospitals, cafes etc in Israel and still call themselves "freedom fighters"
Frankly the palestinians deserve everything they get for supporting Hamas and their fellow scum sucking terrorist cohorts.
Like the "devout muslim" women who when stopped at israeli checkpoints are carrying nail bombs and other explosive devices under their burkas. What happens if the bomb doesnt go off? they scream, shout and still try to harm the border guards and then get put in an Israeli jail, still parping on about wanting to kill more "jews" and "western scum" and wonder why israel keeps them locked up?
Frankly there are too many traitors in this country ready to support any non western nation even when they commit terrorist acts, sometimes verging on high treason and thats just the white granuiad reading natives. Frankly if anyone has that viewpoint, please sod off to saudi arabia, Iran or some other middle eastern nation (oh yeah...they still execute people and dont give a monkeys about human rights so thats an unpalatable thought for the hand wringers)
And no before the hand wringers get started I dont read the heil or the torygraph, their extreme right viewpoints sicken me with stuff like "men are paedos lock em up" "sickness leave needs to be abolished to deter malingering" and other crap like that.
Israel at least has the cajones to deal with terrorists the only way it can...force, especially since hamas isnt interested in peace..that bunch of mother fuckers only want war and their "people" to suffer.
@AC: "It is tragic that ordinary people are now suffering for the stupidity of Hamas. And, of course, it is also unfortunate that some of them will be embittered enough to try to do foolish things in the future, which have absolutely no hope of achieving any positive result for the Palestinian people."
I agree, but I think you are failing to notice that whatever the kill counts or "rockets launched today" metrics look like in Tel Aviv, Israel's already dodgy reputation in the rest of the world's opinion is going down the toilet. (And let's face it, for all the talk about a sustainable ceasefire, Israel will be prone to violent attacks so long as they carry on with the post '67 tactics of trying to get a military solution. Think of it as a karma deficit... it may take a long time for the governments of the US and other trading partners to withdraw aid and support, let alone sanctions, but that day gets closer with every bomb dropped.
The Red Cross are working under fire in Gaza, despite several workers (including ambulance drivers) being killed; there are lots of places to support such work:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=medical+aid+gaza+donate&btnG=Search&meta=
Some eye-witness accounts of the Red Cross work here: http://talestotell.wordpress.com/
http://talestotell.wordpress.com/
"Israel's response may seem disproportionate, but how would you try to disarm a remote hostile location filled with fanatics while trying to protect your own people?"
"Seem" disproportionate? It IS disproportionate. Israel has had 13 fatalities, which includes friendly fire and 3 civilians - the Palestinians have had 820, including children and innocent civilians; they were targeted in schools, UN buildings, etc. Israel even rounded people up, moved them into a building and shelled it. No-one is saying that Hamas is right to be firing rockets into Israel - certainly not I - but it is Israel that is committing war crimes here. Which side has the tanks, naval vessels, helicopter gunships and artillery? Which side is it that clusterbombed Lebanon on withdrawal to create an effective minefield? Which side is it that blocks food and fuel to push people to the brink of despair? Which side is it that has support from the US? Which continue is it that was given nuclear weapons by the western world? Yup, Israel.
Unfortunately Obama has been very quiet on this issue. It's hard to believe he stands for change if he's content for this continue, all the while the US pours billions of dollars a year into Israeli aid. Perhaps Israel wouldn't be so quick to massacre Palestinians without the $2.5bn a year that the US provides. Instead the US and UK continue to veto UN motions critical of Israel, paralysing it from taking action.
I don't know how anyone can, in good faith, defend the actions of Israel. And yes, I have spoken to Israeli people that are also opposed to their actions - in fact I spoke to Gilad Atzmon on the subject, someone who actually served in the Israeli military. Israel commits huge land grabs, constantly expanding their borders and creating demilitarized zones around them, which they repeat and rinse. The Palestinians have little left and clearly what they do have they are willing to fight for. I just wish the western world would cut its ties to Israel and leave it to stand alone. I mean afterall, it's fine to leave Zimbabwe and the Sudan alone. Isn't it time we stopped meddling in the Middle East?*
*Minus humanitarian aid, which should of course continue.
If you look at the main media you would have a fair chance of being unaware that Hamas were firing rockets in the first place.
Hamas are supposet to be governing the area, they are conducting the same strategies as they did before, including keeping weapons in civilian areas.
The whole place is an untidy mess. Full of he did they did and maybe ifs. First thing I'd like to see is that the neighbouring Arab states start treating the Palestinians humanely, and the next thing is to accept that Israel is there and, on a short term, vowing to drive them into the sea is not productive.
Jake: you haven't clue what you are talking about.
Anonymous Coward: a school full of non-combatants being used by fighters for a shield is not a legitimate target. The rights of the human shields trump those of the soldiers. During Iraq war 1, Saddam used western human shields and the attacking forces did not just blow away the western human shields. Why is it OK to blow away Palestinian human shields?
anybody who backs up israel or doesn't recognise palestine is either thick as shit or has a severe selective memory, israel is an occupation and always has been, fuck what the "world powers" want you to think just because you happen to live in one their soon to be police states
there's no such thing as the promised land
Over the Holy days the BBC was letting their PR get away with murder literally. I'd have thought they might have trained some of their interviewers since Yugoslavia. But no. Same bluster and question avoidance.
As if whoever whispers in the shells of the shills is Jewish and has been given the red light.
"Jake: you haven't clue what you are talking about."
Very expressive, E, but with a singular lack of content Please, enlighten us with your great wisdom.
@ people taking sides:
There is no correct side. Both are in the wrong. It's been that way in that neck of the woods for a LONG time, and it's not going to change any time soon. That's what happens when uncivilized behavior becomes a way of life. Look at the inner-cities here in the US. Or Chicago politics.
Why on earth do you think it matters why Israel was created? It was created in 1948. Anyone who can remember the creation of Israel is in their 70s. That doesn't matter now. It's too late. If it was to happen now then I would strongly oppose it. Just as I would strongly oppose the oppression of India by our Empire or the persecution of native Americans, or the extermination of civilisations in South America. But we can't go back and fix it. Just because the creation of Israel may have been wrong does not mean that the great grandchildren of the original settlers should be murdered.
What matters now is some kind of peaceful settlement, and I can't understand what Israel should have done other than march into Gaza when Hamas had been launching missiles at them for 3 years solid.
I'm hesistantly on Israel's side here, .but I'm not thick as shit, nor do I have a severe selective memory.Do I think Israel are good guys? Nope.
Every country in the world exists where it does, as it does because the people who used to live there were displaced. The people who were displaced in turn where only there because they displaced someone else.
In this particular situation it seems to me that all the parties involved are choosing to be unreasonable. Ultimately the only available options are violence or compromise. No one seems willing to compromise.
Everyones memory is selective sometimes, there haven't been 3 years of constant Hamas rockets for example. You forget the recent truce which lasted for 4 months before being broken by the IDF.
Gaza truce broken as Israeli raid kills six Hamas gunmen
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/05/israelandthepalestinians
That truce could have been extended if it had been observed along with the end of the blockade as agreed but with an upcoming election against even more hardline opposition the Israeli cabinet did this to boost their own political agenda.
The person throwing a rock reminds me of the pictures from Tiananmen Square or the Prague Spring -- people versus tanks. Very heroic (also very stupid).
I think there is a greater depth of feeling against Israel and its actions than the press likes to report. The Guardian did have a piece late last week about the extensive Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Israel) effort to recruit bloggers and comment writers to the cause and there's obviously the politicians (who always seem to be out of step with reality these days) but the feeling on the ground is very intense. The web site defacement is an expression of this. Its harmless -- nobody gets hurt and you just have to restore the files -- but its a way of expressing outrage in a world where thoughts and feelings are managed and protest is all but banned.
Israel - very expensive military hardware; sensors capable of locating the launch points of rockets to witih a few feet; missiles and bombs that hit within 20ft of their designated targets (and normally even closer than that); targetting the Hamas military leaders and carefully selecting targets based on the location of those leaders. Always aware that if they get too arsey the rest of the world will come down on them like the proverbial shitstorm from Hell.
Hamas - cheap, inexpensive rockets that get aimed in the direction of "the enemy" and fired with no target other than "Israel" (and Hamas have actually stated many times that they want to kill as many Israeli CIVILIANS as possible); "leaders" and "fighters" who put munitions and "soldiers" in areas with high civilian populations, and are more concerned with looking good on television than stopping the rockets and saving Palestinian lives. Supported by people the world over who cannot get past the idea that High-tech weapons and equipment = "Evil Empire" and looking like you've only got the clothes on your back = "downtrodden, oppressed minority".
If Hamas stopped firing the rockets into Israel then Israel would have no excuse to be in Palestinian territory.
@E, Sunday 11 Jan 00:36 GMT - the Coalition forces (they included Arabs but no Israelis, remember?) had more time to carefully select their targets, and Saddam's forces were mostly in areas devoid of civilian population. The areas with human shields were left until last since even the dumbest soldier realised that the game was up by then. The Israelis are under attack by an enemy whose stated aim is to wipe them from the face of the Earth, and since Hamas "civilian freedom fighters" are hiding amongst the real Palestinian civilians - the ones who just want to get on with their lives and aren't actively trying to kill Israelis - they are targetting the areas the attacks are coming from as well as any Hamas warlord, sorry /politician/ they can find.
I don't know where you live and I don't care, but how would you react if an ethnic group opposed to your own started firing indiscriminate weapons packed with high explosives into your cities - remember, it is only luck (or the hand of God?) that has kept Israeli casualties low - and the Hamas cowards hiding behind innocent men, women and children that has resulted in Palestinian casualties. Would you want your government to sit idly by and hope that nobody dies? Or would you expect your government to do all it could to stop the attacks?
A "freedom fighter" attacks the forces of an oppressive or attacking government, a "terrorist" attacks civilians with no attempt at targetting military or paramilitary targets.
If Israel were really intent on destroying Palestine, why did they not attack the minute Hamas became the de facto government of Palestine? Why are they using precision weaponry against limited targets if their aim is to wipe an entire nation off the map? Oh wait, that's Hamas' tactic...
Maybe it doesn't say to me what it does to other people. I look at that and think anyone standing in front of a tank in a war zone chucking things at it* is as dumb as a bag of hammers and angling for a Darwin Award.
The fact that both he and the photographer behind him appear to be in one piece shows a certain degree of restraint and care in their threat analysis by those in the tank in question.
*You want to do this right? Look at the famous Tiananmen Square footage. Stand in a non-threatening manner in front of the thing. Move only to obstruct it when it tries to drive round you. That way, if it does open fire, you can become a world-famous innocent victim rather than just another rock throwing dickhead biting off more than he can chew.
Try googling 'Pallywood' then ask yourself if you can beleive anything coming out of Gaza.
Useful idiots in the liberal west cause untold harm. The UN in Gaza is reportedly completely infiltrated with Hamas people. To operate in Gaza they parrot the Hamas line.
Wake up you lot and become more critical of what you are told.
Just because someone thinks what the Israelis are doing is wrong does not make them sympathisers to Hamas you twat. Israel are destroying Gaza, a country which actually belonged to them that Israel was "given" after terrorist attrocities for many years after the war to get its own "State", we only put them there because no-one else wanted the Jews (inc us!). Go look at how big Israels is SUPPOSED to be pre-1967 and tell me they arent land grabbing while displacing millions of people.
Of course people like Hamas thrive in situations where people of their own country are suppressed, treated like 2nd class citizens, killed, made homeless, given no opportunities etc etc you think behaviour towards them like this does not create hatred?
I'm no Hamas sympathiser, all politicians are scumbags regardless of whether they bomb or not they are only interested in themselves they dont go out fighting.
And by the way, if you want hard facts, Israel has an upcoming election which I'm sure Kadima really would like to win. What price to win an election eh, bombing people who on the whole fight back with stones (a few home made rockets too of course).
So yeah, people are angry at Israel, they are supposed to be the "super power" in the region, hows about they start acting like one instead of starving people, bombing people, bombing schools, bombing UN buildings, bombing hospitals, killing civilians, evicting people from their homes and demolishing them and caging them in like animals? The only reason they are the "super power" is because of donations from their great sympathiser the US which also only looks for the Jewish vote.
Its disgraceful. Next you'll be telling us we were right to invade Iraq because they had weapons of mass destruction.
Grow up and open your eyes. Lets see how you'd feel as an Arab living under such hardship if it happened to us in the UK.
I'm confused. Generally everyone I know is hugely critical of religion and subscribes to the Dawkins view that religion is entirely divorced from reality. Why then the huge support for an occupying power whose claim to the land is based on religion?
I mean seriously, if I pored through religious texts looking for a reference to a "promised land" then adopted that religion and proceeded to assemble an army (this is all hypothetical, you understand) and displace said country's natives, probably killing a few, citing my religion as justification, would that be ok?
Probably not for me unfortunately, as I'm brown (that means "a terrorist").
Your statement:
"If Hamas stopped firing the rockets into Israel then Israel would have no excuse to be in Palestinian territory."
clearly indicates a complete ignorance on your part with regards to the politics of the region.
But it still comes as a surprise to read, even from someone who has little grasp of what is going on in the region that, that in the face of the death of more than 280 children in the past 16 days, all you decide to mention is the alleged falsificaiton of videos of people dying? That is the problem for you? Not the fact that they died but the allegations that they falsifieds video's showing it to happen? That just goes beyond ignorance and is simply contemptible.
I have to take back my comment that you are completely ignorant on the regions politics and apologise for it Anonymous Coward after reading your last two posts, the ones titled "@ Mike JVX" and the one titled "Promised Land?" because both where prety much spot on.
Never the less I still disagree with your statement that if Hamas stoped firing the rockets Israel would have no escuse. If a country wants to go to war but is not in a position to reveal the real reasons for the war they can simply fabricate them. This was superbly demonstrated by the US/UK with the weapons of mass destruction and Iraq.
But it still comes as a surprise to read, even from someone who has little grasp of what is going on in the region that, that in the face of the death of more than 280 children in the past 16 days, all you decide to mention is the alleged falsificaiton of videos of people dying? That is the problem for you? Not the fact that they died but the allegations that they falsifieds video's showing it to happen? That just goes beyond ignorance and is simply contemptible.
OK tick box for 'holier than thou' moral outrage but ask yourself if any of it's true? How do YOU know. Did you know any of the 280 personally? No? Have you any proof that 280 died? Could it have been 28 or 2800 or 28 million - how can you be sure? Could it have been zero? Then again which side uses their children as suicide bombers? Is it the IDF er nope!
So you are just repeating 'news' from the proven Hamas liars then. Pallywood wins again.
I'd prefer to withold my righteous moral anger until the facts come out. Is that OK by you or do you prefer to get your shoe in now and be proved a gullible sucker later?
Unless you happen to be posting from Gaza then Pantelis could you please explain how you have such superior local knowledge? Maybe in fact your the PR department of Hamas? I'd really like to know.
>Israel has had 13 fatalities, which includes friendly fire and 3 civilians - the Palestinians have had 820
If I whip a bears arse with a stick it's going to rip my head off.
It's inevitably disproportionate, after all, a truly proportionate response would be to fire the same number and size of rockets back into Gaza which would also be a war crime. War is about being disproportionate, if you only do the same as them then you're in a stalemate.
In fact I doubt any war has ever been won by a side attempting to only match the level of violence of the other. It could be argued, for instance, that Vietnam was lost because the yanks wouldn't flatten residential areas and wipe out farmland. The strategic bombing of WW2 was hardly proportionate, and cities were happily shelled to pieces during the allied advance.
So you see the whole concept is stupid, once you're in a war you should be willing to destroy the enemy, if you don't have that will then you shouldn't be fighting at all.
That said, I doubt this is going to achieve anything for either side, it seems it's more of a display of force and will for the benefit of Iran and Syria than a serious attempt to stop Hamas who seem to be hugely more popular on the back of it with a whole new generation that despises Israel for killing and maiming their friends and family.
Because there never were. The post-war agreement would have created one but the Arabs didn't like it (they sit on most of what would be called Palestine if you use the definition of Palestine that makes the land now known as Israel Palestinian land) maybe because they don't want a Palestininan homeland in case it catches on and they lose large tracts of land. They also didn't like Jews getting a homeland either.
And I suspect the Palestinians didn't like Jews getting any land either.
So can anyone out there work out when there was a Palestine?
Or, if that can't be found, what size Palestine is and who is sitting on it (using a consistent definition, not just "the bit Jews are sitting on").
Ta.
"israel is an occupation and always has been,"
Nope. Wrong. Completely. Israel is actually land GIVEN BACK to the Israelytes according to the ORIGINAL Land Of Israel.
Go check if you don't believe. Israel is not occupying other nations land, it was given back to them when it was taken away. It was even promised in the bloody Hebrew Bible!!
Either way, they are both at fault. It pains me to hear of the suffering of the innocents yet again, but why oh why do Hamas still fire rockets into Israel????
There's a UN agreed boundary set before the 1967 war.
I agree that you do have a point, this arguing over land can't go on forever and the Palestinians would be in a much better place if they just dealt with it rather than trying to fight a hopeless battle.
Actually, there's an interesting morality question there, presumably there's a point where it's just wrong for a government to continue a fight against an overwhelmingly superior enemy to the detriment of it's people. I.e. Hamas should surrender as the best course of action for it's people, just as Japan surrendering at the end of WW2 fearing total destruction was probably the best course of action for it's people.
During WW2, in the opening years, the Jewish population of the major cities in Germany were rounded up and forced to live in 'controlled zones'. Often, these zones were surrounded by walls, wire and guns facing inwards. Power and Water was controlled from outside the zones by the Nazi forces, and conditions inside those zones, over-populated, under-resourced, were described as hellish by those lucky few who survived them and the camps that came along later....
...the isle of Man is about the same size as Gaza and has a population of around 80k. Gaza has a population of around 1.3 million. The area is surrounded by checkpoints, walls, wire, minefields and tanks. The power and water is controlled by those outside. Israel.
Yes, the same nation that suffered under the iron boot of national socialism now inflicts the same suffering on another people.
They have learnt nothing.
In the ghettos of WW2, the jews sometimes, bravely and foolishly, at the expense of their lives and the lives of those they loved, fought back until they were crushed by the superior resources of their enemy. They were freedom fighters.
Now, before anyone accuses me of being a biased, bleeding heart liberal (although, I am a liberal of the first order, I will add) lets consider Hamas...
Hamas use 'surplus' aid money to purchase make-shift weapons from sympathetic powers (allegedly Iran, maybe Syria etc.) and then throw these weapons indiscriminately in the direction of their 'oppressors' (as detailed above). When challenged with superior fire-power, they retreat to positions behind human shields and scream about a lack of justice to the rest of the world.
They've been doing the same thing for fifty years with no success.
They never learn.
The west continues to wring its hands, propose peace-plans, create 'road-maps', impose abitrary sanctions and sell weapons to whichever side will purchase them. For fifty years, these methods have not worked.
They never learn.
It's time we all stopped walking the same old paths and learnt something, I believe.
Quote: "So it could be that the bias is against Jews."
Calling out the Israeli government on the atrocities it commits is not a bias against Jews, although they spend billions of dollars in US lobbying efforts every year to try and convince you it is. It is not even that other old chestnut, "anti-Semitic".
It is what it is: whilst not condoning the actions of Hamas at all, the responses and actions of the Israeli government are intentionally provocative and are aimed purely at prolonging the situation in order to divert attention from both the injustices they inflict on the Palestinian population and the ever growing list of UN resolutions that they either a )ignore or b) pay off the US to veto.
1) I disagree with the reasons given for the Iraq war, but not for toppling saddam hussein (of course granuaid and "soshill wurker" readers like yourself would prefer Iraqis to still be under Saddams thumb..so much for your "human rights"
2) Both sides are in the wrong BUT there is a strong pro pallywood, pro terrorist, anti govt sentiment on almost all newspapers.
3) At least Israel have the cajones to try and defend their nation, what did we do when the IRA etc were around...guff and bluster, despite the army admitting they knew where the vast majority of IRA members lived and could have terminated them except for lack of govt will.
4) As usual petty insults like "twat" etc, really shows the intellect of the hand wringers, bit like religious nuts, able to have a discussion till someone touches a nerve, then its throw an insult and try to paint the other side of the argument as "fascist"
5)The whole middle east is a western carve up, ever wonder why Iraq has so much sectarian violence? - thats what happens when you put 3 different major groups in the same nation, split from the rest of their lands by arbitrary boundaries drawn up years ago
6) There are times where force is needed, and times for diplomacy, shame that most govts are only willing to let out hot air, reality is that the military is something they dont have the stomach for, people get killed in wars who shouldn't, hell WW2 and WW1 had millions of civilians killed by both sides, then again the "nasty parts" are airbrushed out of the history books.
Sounds like respect (or whatever Red Georges party is called today- Terrorists united?) is the party for you, Islam good and innocent, West and Israel EVIL.
Sounds a bit like 1980's race education - "only white people are racist, we say such mean things which those poor coloured people wouldnt say as they are so polite" << lovely viewpoint that still gets parped out, both sides are capable of evil, but it seems no one wants to admit that Hamas are terrorist scum and would prefer to pretend that hamas never fired any rockets.
..assuming the same size of poulation, let's think what would happen if the IOM started firing homemade rockets into the the North of England and Wales. With an IOM Party intent on doing just that, the British forces would sweep across the island in days, probably reducing it to rubble. No one would bat an eyelid....
Not a chastising on you Steve, but you helped with my point. Thanks
You really didn't read a bloody thing, did you.
The post I was replying to was using the word "Hactivist" compared to "vandal" and positing that it was showing a bias to demonise Palestinians with "vandal".
FUCK ALL to do with "Calling out the Israeli government on the atrocities it commits" has it.
Get that fucking knee out of your eye.
And that size wasn't enough for the palestinians. It also "forgot" that there WAS NO PALESTINE. And the loss of land was the result of the protagonists in an invasive illegal war losing.
So please try again.
If that '48 accord is all you have, then there IS NO HISTORICAL PALESTINE.
Yet there are records of the Jews getting and having land that includes current day Israel.
Is cease fire. Say that a condition is that the arab world take responsibility of any further attacks and recompense Israel for the damage and the attacks.
If nothing is improved in a week, then it starts again.
May be political suicide, though, since how many people would vote for someone whom the opposition painted as "the man who let the Palestinians kill a score of innocent Israelis".
"You really didn't read a bloody thing, did you."
No, not really
` "The post I was replying to was using the word "Hactivist" compared to "vandal" and positing that it was showing a bias to demonise Palestinians with "vandal".
FUCK ALL to do with "Calling out the Israeli government on the atrocities it commits" has it.
Get that fucking knee out of your eye." '
Swearing, iN Caps LocK modE doesn't fortify your position. But it's all cool, I got a bite :*
/Paris because you deserve her!
"It is what it is: whilst not condoning the actions of Hamas at all, the responses and actions of the Israeli government are intentionally provocative and are aimed purely at prolonging the situation in order to divert attention from both the injustices they inflict on the Palestinian population and the ever growing list of UN resolutions that they either a )ignore or b) pay off the US to veto."
Actually, the US pays the Israelis. With MY tax dollars. I'm tired of supporting them. Don't get me wrong, I think the Hamas folks are cowardly pig shits, but I have never thought that my tax dollars should go toward suppressing them. Let Israel pay for it themselves, if it's all that important. If they can't afford it, then, oh, I don't know, maybe negotiate a real, realistic peace treaty, with all civilians granted land and resources that allow survival?
It'll never happen,at least not in the lifetime of anyone reading this.
From my perspective, both sides actually seem to enjoy the conflict. Fuck 'em.
I saw an excellent poster at the Gaza counterdemo on Sunday, which for me sums up the situation perfectly.
It depicted a HAMAS-hole, standing behind a baby in a pram pointing a gun at an IDF soldier - who was standing in FRONT of a baby in a pram; pointing his rifle back.
Beautifully succinct.
Some typical pig-ignorant antisemitism here as usual, from people who get their facts from the Jew-hating Socialist Workers party and Al Beeb - and who have a grasp on neither history nor present facts.
The Qassams stop. The IDF goes home - it really is as simple as that.
"Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us." Golda Meir
Oh here's the anti-semetic morons at it again.
You got Richard Cartledge and his "After decades of relentless propaganda in the 'kosher' zionist-owned mainstream media". Yup. Every news organization is owned with people with last names ending in "man" "stein" and "berg". Name one?
Then there is Robert Simpson who said "anybody who backs up israel or doesn't recognise palestine is either thick as shit or has a severe selective memory". I think Israel would recognize a Palestinian country. Problem is that Hamas will never recognize Israel [neither does Iran, Syria and a few others - yet Jordan and Egypt do].
Then you got Jake who said "The Israelis/Jews have made a living of being persecuted for roughly the same time period, and seem to think that that gives them TheAlmighty's[tm] A-OK to kill innocent civilians in the name of God." If you look at the islamic terrorist, it's they who are yelling "Praise Allah" before they chop off someone's head There is a difference between being a Jew and being an Israeli [tell an Arab Israeli that they are the same and he'll chop your head off.]
For Danny: The actual truce that theoretically lasted 6 months and expired in December didn't even last a month before Hamas rockets entered Israel.
The only reason why there are more Palestinians being killed that Israeli is because the cowards that Hamas are - they hide their rockers and machine guns in civilian neighbourhoods. They then set off their rockets and run like the true cowards they are out of the house with the family inside knowing that they will be killed and tell them nothing. An Israeli rocket hits the house and Hamas cries that Israeli is killing civilians. Later on Hamas will give survivors of the family $10,000 and say they were martyrs and then vow revenge.
Or maybe using "civilians" as shields. Or not even being in any uniform. Take a Hamas coward's gun away and he looks like any civilian.
Ever see the video where in a school they are training kids [not adults] how to kill, how to sneak up on someone and slash their throat?
Also remember that *NO* Arab country [outside of the usual anti-US countries like Iran and Syria] have backed Hamas. Egypt has closed it's borders with the Gaza. I wonder why is that? Hmmmm. So the only aid is coming through Israeli borders.
This is typical of the other Arab countries. When Israel was created in 1948, many Arabs left [but many stayed]. Those who left went to Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and elsewhere. To this day they can't be citizens of where they are - not even their children. They are living in camps not much better than Gaza [a few weeks ago]. why is that?
There is no way of actually knowing how many have died. Take a typical demonstration. The organizers always state way more than there was actually there. I heard of one demonstration where the organizers said 10,000 but the police [who generally are impartial and have experience in cowd counting] said 1,000. So is there current level [750?] actually right?
We call them Israelis or Jews, but seems to me they are little different from the other Arab nations in the area. It's a bit like that thing where British people don't like to be called Europeans.
Several facts to muddy the waters include Jewish Palestinians and Muslim Israelis. Both groups are minorities, but they exist. You could further cloud things up by including Christians that belong to both communities.
Thing is Hamas are essentially what Sin Fein were 20-30 years ago. They're supposedly a political party, but engage in terror. By the way terrorism has nothing to do with religion per se as one commenter seems to think, it's using violence to cause people to be terrified. Hence the name. It just seems the people who are best at it also tend to be religious extremists.
Are the Israelis committing terrorism or war crimes? Both. The mass slayings are war crimes, and the purpose behind most of their actions is to terrify the population of Gaza into submission.
Most of the civilian population of Israel just want the suicide bombings and the rockets fired into houses and shops to stop. They're also quite angry and don't see why they should be negotiating on a political level with the organisers of these things. Sort of like how we didn't see why we should deal politically with the IRA.
On the other hand the Palestinian population don't deserve many of the injustices they've been getting at the hands of the Israelis for the last 50 years or so. Watching Israeli children play in water parks while you queue up in the street with a small bucket for your weekly ration of water is the sort of thing we're talking about here. When Israel was created they were given the land that controlled the region's water, meaning the Palestinians have to rely on Israeli good will or they go without.
Gaza is a piece of land that helps the Israelis protect their control of the water. Giving it 'back' to the Palestinians was not something they were ever comfortable with. This is why Israelis were encouraged to settle there even though it wasn't part of Israel when the borders were drawn up.
It's not so easy to sit here in comfort and judge either side. There are dozens of other issues, including the fact that Israel has been constantly terrorised by neighbouring Arab states and the murder of their own children. Hamas have hidden weapons in schools, weapons used to blow up school buses and restaurants. Hamas have hidden themselves in UN compounds filled with civilians and then fired rockets from those compounds into Israel.
What I don't get is how the Israelis think they will continue to get the support of the west if they are so indiscriminate in their killing. They're acting like their enemy and I see little difference between the two now.
It is incorrect to kill human shields. It is that simple. I listened to IDF spokesman on CBC last Friday say (paraphrase) "the Hamas fighters were in the school hiding amongst the staff and students, so we hit the school." That barely merited comment.
I submit that human shields were not blown up in Iraq War I because they were very often western people, not Arabs, and so the coalition in that war respected that particular rule of war. If there had been IDF in the coalition in Iraq War I, *they* would not have blown up the (western) human shields either - that makes for bad relations with the USA and maybe loss of military backing.
I do not think Hamas is in any way a good actor in this mess. I suppose that Israel gets my goat more because Israel has the capacity to run a war of spies against Hamas and to also use police powers; it had that ability vis-a-vis Hizbollah in Lebanon too. Instead Israel has opted for missiles and bombs for the past seven or eight years. And... then it has the gall to call hits in crowded streets using Hellfire-type missiles 'surgical strikes'.
Very old testament, but in time the policy will it will bite back. If the Palestinians are pushed into open widespread revolt in Gaza & the West Bank they might sweep Israel away by simple force of numbers. I don't want to see Israel destroyed, I just think a different policy wrt Palestine is needed.
Look up the Brit counter-insurgency in Indonesia & Malaya circa 1950, or Northern Ireland for a better approach than missiles and bombs.
Maybe you could put GWB, Netanyahu and his long-beard friends, and the commanders of Hamas in a locked room together. When only one group is still standing, let them out. Then shoot them. Problem mostly solved.
WRT 'Arabs have been fighting each other for over 5,000 years. It is their way of life.' etc, etc, etc.
This is not exactly correct. The period 750 AD to about 1200 saw a fairly stable series of caliphates that dominated the Arab peninsula, North Africa, much of Spain, and into the India. It was by no means a warlike situation compared to, say, Europe in the same era. Significant advances in math, engineering and architecture were made by Arabs in that period. So, after about 1200 the centre of political power moved to Anatolia and Constantinople, but that did not turn the Arabs into nomads either.
Arabs were heavily involved in trade between the Mediterranean basin and India and overland to China, and were doing that for quite some time before the prophet. They were no more in general nomads than anyone else on the planet.
When Europeans developed boats that could travel across oceans reliably and started doing large scale naval trading the Arabs were eclipsed. That was about three hundred years ago, fine.
I say you don't know what you are talking about because well, you don't. You just spout the standard "ethnic-group-X has been fighting each other for 1000's of years" analysis favoured by people who don't read enough history. It is a form of blame the victim, at the very least denigrate the other.
Now, I would say of Europeans, and with considerable justification: they have been fighting each other for 1500 years, to them fighting is normal... it took WW2 to nearly destroy continental agriculture and economics to knock some sense into their heads. (BTW, all my ancestors come from Europe).
As for your comments about the Jews: well the persecution certainly happened, and for hundreds of years in Europe at least. If there are a lot of edgy people in Israel then one need only look at the history of Germany between 1933 and 1945 for a reason why. But... as far as it goes with Israel's behaviour in Lebanon and Gaza these past years ,two wrongs do not make a right.
Incorrect? How? Should bullets bend round them and so their deaths would then be incorrect?
What about "Total War" (I.e. all of WW2 basically, and almost all wars and major conflicts since then), they have always killed noncombatants. Sometimes by deliberate aim (the noncombatant deaths were intended as the primary result rather than the inevitable and unasked consequence).
"It depicted a HAMAS-hole, standing behind a baby in a pram pointing a gun at an IDF soldier - who was standing in FRONT of a baby in a pram; pointing his rifle back."
Very interesting story. Is it meant to suggest the IDF only acts to save people, especially the little bitty babies? The evidence suggests the IDF is happy to kill anyone who is not Israeli.
The poster could just as easily have been an IDF shooting through a pram to hit the Hamas guy, or you know, through a school. Or an IDF guy putting a cap in the crown of a kid throwing rocks. Or driving an earth-moving machine over unarmed foreign civil rights activists.Things like that have been documented. Well, maybe not the pram.
Or, WTH, fair coverage, a suicide bomb trainer indoctrinating a suicide bomb candidate. That's pretty twisted too.
Nope, Egypt gave that land to the Jews 300 years ago.
I notice that NOBODY has answered the question: Where did Palestine come from and where were its borders. All we have is the western creation (refused by the arab nations and the palestinians) of a land for palestine and israel.
Palestinians have never been given any land. They've always occupied someone else's. And the rights of palestinians in arab countries is no better than it is in Israeli land.
Oh, OK, *3000* years ago. Prove it you wanker!
Under what legal system does a gift of land from a pharoah to a bunch of co-religionists 3000 years ago stand up in court? How exactly did the pharoah get title to the land in order to give it to the Jews? Was the land 3000 years ago, somehow miraculously empty of people despite that the entire middle east has evidence of settled populations going back roughly 7000 years?
You will, I suppose, argue that something like the take over of North America from the Natives by Europeans is perfectly legitimate, because nobody ever gave the Natives the land?
In any case I was speaking of 1947 not 1000 BCE.
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