mama - "SHARON, the Butcher of Shabra and Shatilla"

I don't want to be the one who defend Ariel Sharon, since I don't agree with his political way, yet one should remain loyal to the facts.

The Sabra and Shatilla massacre was NOT done by Israeli forces NOR by Sharon. It was done by a Christian militia under the command of Elie Hobeika (1982), in retaliation to the Damour massacre (Where Palestinian forces under Arafat killed more than 1000 Christians civilians in 1976)

Sharon's was investigated by an Israeli committee, and removed from his office as Defense minister - since he failed to anticipate that the Christians will do the massacre.

B.T.W Elie Hobeika was never punished. He served in the Lebanese Parliament for the next 20 years.

So you see how it works?

Syria can kill 10,000 Muslims in Hama 1982 - Nobody care.
Jordan can massacre 10,000 Palestinians (1970) - Nobody care.
Palestinians can massacre 1000+ Christians (1976) - Arafat will get Novel Price for peace.

But when a Christian militia will massacre 1000 Palestinians - Suddenly all the hypocrite, the so called self proclaimed defenders of human rights, will wake up and say. Hey, that is wrong, Let's lynch the Jew who stood 4 miles away - He is the "Butcher".

mama - The Jews did lousy job in "Extermination"
With 200+ Nuks, 3000+ heavy battle tanks, 600 war jets, 100 Helicopter Gunship. One of the best armies in the middle east - Yet they really suck in extermination. In the past 7 years of conflicts, ~5000 Palestinians (about half of them armed militant) and 1200 Israelies die. 5000 Palestinians is about 0.1% of the Palestinias population in the occupied territoris.

http://www.btselem.org/English/Statistics/Casualties.asp

Since Israel "brutal" occupation, the baby morthality rate in Gaza has dropped from 30% to 2%. So you can safely say that about 1/3 of the Palestinians in Gaza under 40 years old - own their live to the Evil Jews who were doing such a poor job in "extermination".

One should wonder - Can it be that maybe the Jews are not trying to exterminate the Palestinians after all???

Also - A coin has more than one side.
Did the Arabs agree to the right of return of the Jewish refugees who were expelled from Arab land back to their homes in the Arab countries?

UN
I once calculated that the UN gives 3000 times more attention to Israel's victims than to the average victim on this planet. This is not a statistical error. There is a system behind it, and why so many resolutions are passed against the Jewish state while virtually deglutinating all other conflicts.

The UN is motivated by politics. It's main functions in the last 40 years has been to give a stage to all kind of dictators to bash at the only Democracy in the middle east.

If the UN would have treated all humans as equal - there would be 500 resolutions against Sudan, 100 resolutions against China and the USA, 10 resolutions against Russia and Iran for every resolution against Israel.

The UN must to be reformed, otherwise it will lose all credibility.

If you are interested to see how the UN works, try here...
http://www.unwatch.org/

"Israel" was created to get Jews out of Europe after the holocaust. Its amazing how these victims are brutally exterminating the people whose lands they occupy!The extermination started in 1948........read about the Deir Yassin Massacre. Zionists will not agree to the right of return of Palestinians who survived the butchery and snow live in rfugee camps...more than 60 years now.This is demamded by Hamas, but Hamas is still willing to have peace talks. Zionists will never give the occupied territories.And US is complicit in all atrocities committed against Palesinians,with European Union . As SHARON, the Butcher of Shabra and Shatilla (is he still alive without his brain)said WE control the US.
The few unstrtegic settlements they
vacated,leaving a scorched earth behind were already replaced by newer settlements, The western media had circus exposing tis to the world, but nary a whisper about the brand new setlements for these illegal settlements.
As for "ethnic cleansing" of Jews out of other counries, they were luredwith lucrative benefits to increase the population of "Israel". The rather large Jewish community in Iran refuses to move to Israel. Why?
Please also read the 80+ Un resolutions against Israel whic are b
latantly ignored and others that are vetoed by US.

evanj - "The state of Israel was born on ethnic cleansing."

You have selective Historical filters.

Ethnic cleansing was done on both sides.
About 700,000 Palestinians were forced out of Israel, and about 900,000 Jews were forced out of Arab countries, the West Bank and Gaza.

Learn what happened in the Jewish quarter in Jerusalem, 1948. Gush Etzion, Kfar Darom, Yad Mordechai, Beit Haarava (1948), Hebron and Gaza (1929)

Also learn about the Jewish exodus out of Arab countries.

You see, the creation of Israel was a process similar to the creation of modern Greece and Turkey, or the creation of India and Pakistan. You can't have full picture if you omit the suffering of one side, and focus only on the other.

In addition, had the Palestinians accepted the Wietzman -Fisal agreement (1919) Peel Comity proposal (1937) or the UN resolution 181 (1947) - There would have been No ethnic cleansing.

War Death and Ethnic cleansing happened because the Palestinian leadership never accepted any compromise. (Untill 1993, as part of the Oslo accord)

evanj - The facts are never as simple and straight forward as you may think they are.

Not that I have any hopes that you will believe me. (This is why I said: Go and learn).

I'll try to write a few words anyhow...

1. In most cases the Zionist legally immigrated to Palestine, as legal new immigrant. (At least until the British tried to stop Jewish refugees escaping from Nazi occupied Europe)

2. Until the violent started in 1947 (By the Arabs who rejected UN partition plan), all the land owned by Jews in Palestine was legally purchased from their Arab owners, or was land which was belong to Jews for centuries (Such as titles in: Hebron, the Jewish quarter in Jerusalem, Zphat, Gaza, Jafa etc...)

3. The Zionist are Jews. Jews by large are descended to the Jews who were expelled from Judea by the Romans in 135AD.

So you see my friend, History is more complex than your narrow point of view.

Who are the true indigenous people? People who were expelled, and come back years later, or the people who lived in the land when that return took place?

There is not a straight forward answer to that question.

Hey Vets
after your next fix from jewishvirtuallibrary you should try this:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n16/sieg01_.html
And that's from someone with impeccable credentials.

Vets
The facts.
Zionists occupied a land that wasn't theirs. There were people living on that land. People of the wrong race.
The state of Israel was born on ethnic cleansing, and it has been sustained on ethnic cleansing.
Why the continuing settlement expansion and appropriation of Palestinian property?
A country run by gangsters and spivs.
I know a thing or two about education and universities, as I have spent my entire life in them.
Logic and evidence are the two products of a long education.
The pro-Israel crowd, of which you are an exemplar, has trashed both principles in the interests of a misplaced tribalism.

mama - Hamas has a military wing called Az Adin al Qassam.
It is responsible for hundreds of terrorist attacks, suicide bombing, rocket launched on civilian targets, (all are considered by Amnesty International, and other human right organizations - Crime against humanity)

The Hamas never offered peace talk with Israel. The most moderate offer that was given looked something like that:
- Withdraw from all the Occupied territories,
- Allow free immigration of Palestinians to Israel
Then we will agree for a long term cease fire - before we will renew out war of annihilation against you.

I suggest you will google "Hamas Charter". One of the raciest document that exist. Here is one line that show how the talks with them will look like:

"There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors."

evanj - You are confused with your "facts".
I can't teach you history in a few lines on this forum, for that we have Universities, library and Internet.

If the subject interest you - Here are a couple of links that can help you start your education:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine

Hamas is not a militant org. They are trying to free their homeland from a brutal occupation. They have offered peace negotiations to israel,ceasefires on numerous occasions. but the zionizt occupiers refuse to negotiate because they do not want peace or end occupation. ethnic cleanising of palestinians annd genocide of palestinians is their goal. this will happen with US help, its just a matter of time. The real militants are those who use gunships, bombs,bulldozers to kill children,women and target the men who can resist the zionists.

VEts
you still don't get it.
Your casino metaphor is ridiculous. Hence my use of the only analogy which your blinkered brain can log into.
The invading Zionists attacked the Palestinians. The minority Jewish population of Palestine, only some of which joined the marauders, were part of a viable multi-ethnic population.
The state of Israel has no legitimacy. period. Israel can hardly base its legitimacy on a UN deliberation (as to do so would be to acknowledge its present footprint and its abrogation of Palestinian human rights as both illegitimate, so why should you? Because you are a faithful replicator of whatever incoherent mush the pro-Israel propaganda comes up with. It's time to rejoin the human race.

evanj - Wikipedia has some problems, especially after hearing the stories of how commercial companies and even the CIA have manipulated some of the article. Still - Wikipedia belong to the masses. Any blunt lie will eventually be detected and be removed.

I still trust Wikipedia for its mechanism more than I trust any other media controlled by a single company or a single person.

You descredit the 1922 Palestine Map I posted because of the source. You deduct that any address that contains the word JEW as part of the URL must not be trusted.
So here are another 19,900 other sources - all shows identical map.

http://images.google.ca/images?hl=en&q=1922%20Palestine&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&um=1&sa=N&tab=li

Have you even read what you post? Do you truly believe that the Jews of Eastern Europe knowingly started a war ageist Nazi Germany? (In a similar way that the Arab league attacked the Jews of Palestine?)

Spare me.

Vets
Quite right. you're on the ball. You should have gone to jewishvirtuallibrary for your propaganda fix immediately nstead of stuffing around with Wickedpeedia.
But so what? There was no place at all for a Jewish state in Palestine because there were people living there. This is something the early Zionist ringmasters kept going in and out of focus over. There is nothing there, nobody of importance (including Armenians, who seem to be in the news lately). Next take, well they are there of course but they will have to be displaced, but after all they are of no consequence, because they are not of the book.
As the then Saudi Prince Faisal said to the Americans (FDR's entourage in particular) who asked the Saudis - 'what do you think about a Jewish state in Palestine?'. To which Faisal replied (in so many words but to the point) - ' well, we have enormous sympathy for the Jews, but it's nothing to do with us. We didn't cause the Holocaust, and Palestine is occupied. Why don't you carve out part of Europe to give to them?' Precisely.
Vets doesn't seem to get it, but his mantra about the UN partition is irrelevant. The Zionist terrorists cared nought about niceties (King David Hotel?). War was inevitable.
As for Vets''casino' analogy. Apply it to the Jewish communities in Germany and Eastern Europe. You bet on integration but you lost. Sorry. Luck of the dice and all that. End of story. Hello? Is this an ethical principle?
Back to the point. The Zionists invaded a populated territory and displaced through terror its occupants. End of story.
They're still doing it. This minute. How do you explain, Vets, the ongoing expropration of property in the West Bank, and the ongoing settlement process of the placement of spivs and zealots (Hebron as Exhibit A) on stolen property?
This is the West's number one moral problem. Because we fund this barbarism. And you, Vets, are a no nothing brain washed zombie who is repeating his catechisms for approval of the elders. Like a rat in a Skinnerian cage. Pathetic.

@MtnGoat

Well I'm glad you have chosen to give a deeper answer to the issues I have raised, but I still think you have to acknowledge that Hamas is in no position to overrun Palestine or the Middle East the way Hitler was Germany and Europe- that's the essence of my own and others' problem from the standpoint of economic history and political geography with those who make that comparison between Hamas and the Nazi Party.

The other is that a terrorist, political activist, or voter's self-identification with parties and ideas does not ultimately condemn the political party or the idea the person is subscribing to, voting for, or acting in the name of. Just because members of Hamas have committed terrorist acts does not delegitimize the entire Gaza electorate or even the entire Hamas political party anymore than catching political activists in this country taking down yard signs, slashing tires, or caging votes delegitimizes the entire political party. We have to distinguish between a Nazi dictatorship and a Hamas that was willing to work with its principal rival Fatah in grand coalition after being elected. (How did Hitler work with the Democratic Socialist Party of Germany after his election?)

I respect your opposition to Hamas, but I don't believe that opposition should necessarily, as a matter of form, collectively punish the Palestinian people and result in the fractioning of the Hamas-Fatah coalition, and the fracturing of Palestine into two armed camps in Gaza and the West Bank. The United States should not oppose the economic development and integration of Palestine because we disagree with the direction of political development and integration in Palestine.

The United States' historically dogmatic support for virtually every Israeli policy towards the Palestinians, and the United States' legitimation of the inequality of economic development between Israel and Palestine has led to radicalism and terrorism directed towards Israel just as much, if not more so, than Hamas' political organizing. Thus, by refusing to work with the Palestinian people's choices, I argue, we do a greater diservice to the virtues of democratic revolution and reform within Palestine than anything else. If political parties in Palestine have no prospect of gaining power in democratic elections or a chair at the negotiation table with the United States and Israel why should they engage in democratic elections in the first place? By setting preconditions to not work with Hamas we delegitimize democracy, and actually encourage Hamas to revert to terrorism and physical violence towards their political opponents. I believe the economic and political isolation of Gaza will only further erode the Palestinian people's image of the United States and Israel, and any remaining confidence in the 'peace process', especially among those of the electorate who voted for Hamas.

That is not to say that to your choice to oppose and call Hamas a terrorist organization is per se unfair. No Israeli deserves to live in fear. (Neither does any Palestinian). But to categorically declare that those Palestinians who voted for them are 'terrorists' or 'support terrorism' I think extremely distorts the relationship of the electorate's self-identification with Hamas. For example, those who voted for Clinton did not necessarily vote to lose their job to 'NAFTA' and various other 'free trade' agreements. Similarly, alot of Palestinians were also fed up with perceptions of corruption in Fatah's administration and delivery of social services, not necessarily because they advocated 'terrorism'. However, collective punishment will lead to more collective identifications. That's the essence of the way a prison system works.

I believe Israel, the United States, or the EU's choice to not work with an elected majority like Hamas because of planks in their party platform is the surface of a much deeper and sinister desire on the part of all three to deny Palestinians statehood and equal rights in an Israel/Palestine. Call me a cynic. But I don't believe opposition to Hamas in the State Department is genuinely tied to the 'terrorist threat' of a democratically elected political party as much as it is to the maintentance of a geopolitical 'prison system'.

If Israel was really against terrorism why did it return Al Aqsa fighters, (designated by Israel, the United States, and the EU as a terrorist group), to Fatah?

"Mr. Abbas has been ruling by decree since the Hamas takeover of Gaza. The Hamas-dominated Palestinian parliament has been paralyzed for months, with about half the Hamas legislators detained in Israeli jails. Palestinian officials in
the West Bank said over the weekend that they had received a new list of 110 fugitives to be offered amnesty by Israel. A month ago, Israel and the Palestinians agreed on the names of 178 militants to be taken off Israel's wanted list, all members of the Fatah-affiliated Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades militia."

'Palestinian Leader Fires Dozens of Hamas Civil Servants'
By Isabel Kershner
August 19, 2007
The New York Times

"If there was slavery, than by definition there was not popular democracy using minimal 19th century international socialist, which I subscribe to, definitions. Slavery was never 'popular' or 'voted for' democratically in a generalized sense in the United States given how many people were denied the right to vote on the basis of class, race, gender throughout the 19th century."

Nevertheless, slavery was popularly supported and never banished with a national initiative, because half of the country would not go along with it even in the later years. A modern understanding of innate human rights makes no difference in the examination of thinking of the times and the backing for human slavery.

I appreciate your mind for details regardless and your thinking is at least precise and to the point. The basis for my simplified comparison is the idea that popular support for something indicates the something's innate justice..which is simply false. Slavery was wrong no matter how many supported it, and your correct analysis of the disenfranchisement of the slaves invalidating any consideration of the voting shows that in essence, you agree with this. After all, you are pointing out that the slaves were humans with rights no matter what the popular feeling or how many others disagreed, and that this is why a simple comparison is flawed.

With this in mind, I will maintain that popular election of a terrorist organization to a controlling majority simply does not validate their ideas or methodologies. The Pals voted and got the govt they wanted, great. This does not bind us or anyone else to supporting a terrorist govt simply because it is popular in a vote. Terrorism as a method is wrong no matter who or how many support it, and providing them aid and support would merely buttress their use of terror.

"The real question is, what do you have against democracy in Palestine? Hamas didn't win all the seats."

I have nothing against democracy per se. I have everything against who they elected, just as many have everything against Bush, regardless of his election. Even if there was no question concerning his election, people would still oppose him, validly for them, on the basis that regardless of his popularity, that they feel he is bad or uses poor methods. This is the exact same mechanism by which I reject Hamas, elected or not.

evanj - "If the UN partition plan is so sacred to the Israeli state, why isn't Israel sitting on 55% of mandate Palestine rather than about 85%?"

1. Israel sits on less than 20% of historical Palestine, not 85%. (Until 1922 Jordan, which at the time was called TransJordan, was part of Palestine)

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/pal1922map.html

2. Show me one Casino that give the money back to a person who knowingly went in, place a bet, and lost. Then we'll talk.

UN partition plan of 1947 was rejected by the Arab league and the Palestinian leadership. They have knowingly chose war as the preferable alternative. (A war that had the goal clean Palestine of all its Jews) - They rejected the plan, rolled the dice, and lost.

In any dispute - if one side know that he can reject an offer, go to war, and in the worse case scenarion when he lose - he could just get what he previously rejected - Then you will see a lot more fightings.

Vets
You really are a drongo. Ben-Gurion, two-faced gangster that he was, used the UN Partition plan as a staging post for the end point of lebensraum.
If the UN partition plan is so sacred to the Israeli state, why isn't Israel sitting on 55% of mandate Palestine rather than about 85%, and still moving to appropriate as much as the rest while crowding the Palestinians into a handful of deathtraps?
Israel is intent on not making peace, regardless of what grouping has titular 'leadership' over the Palestinian people.
Israel is a criminal enterprise, and ning-nongs like you are its life support system. You have Palestinian blood on your hands.

"They are victims of brainwash, hatred, and racist ideology. That is what brought them to their current miserable position."
Blame the slaves for their slavery. Blame the victims for their victimhood. If only the natives could 'see the light'....

It shows your true colors when you make the 'white man's burden' argument. Statements like that make it clear enough what kind of people would have voted for slavery in the 19th century.

dougnwagner - I feel sorry for the people of Gaza. I truly am. (At lease for the 99.9% of them who are not invloved in terror.

But I do not see them as victims of Israel. They are victims of brainwash, hatred, and racist ideology. That is what brought them to their current miserable position.

I'm sure that Hong-Kong and Singapor would have neen in the same boat had they fired rockers and launch suiside bombers against Malysia or China.

@ Mtn Goat

If there was slavery, than by definition there was not popular democracy using minimal 19th century international socialist, which I subscribe to, definitions. Slavery was never 'popular' or 'voted for' democratically in a generalized sense in the United States given how many people were denied the right to vote on the basis of class, race, gender throughout the 19th century. Howard Zinn's insights into Bacon's Rebellion may be insightful for you on the historical intersections of class, race, and gender in prerevolutionary America among numerous other examples. The world is complex, your comparisons are simple.

The real question is, what do you have against democracy in Palestine? Hamas didn't win all the seats.

Intellectual dishonesty in comparing an independent industrialized Germany or an independent 19th century America to a dilapitated illegally occupied Palestine is an easy way to deny the political and economic realities of life under occupation and to justify the apartheid division of Palestine into Gaza and the West Bank.

@ vets

I guess you can't tell the difference between living in Gaza and having an internet connection. You really want to compare indusrialized Nazi Germany in the 1930s to Gaza running on candles in 2007? You people who are isolationists are insane. Turning your back on a problem in the age of internetted world doesn't make it go away. What makes you so sure the government of Israel wants to treat Palestinians as equals? The last 60 years? :)

There can be no lasting peace while Hamas is the official government. With a charter that calls for the extermination of Isreal, one that has been upheld by various government officials ( with the proviso " we can agree to a ten year truce before we kill you") there is no room for compromise.
The only compromise possible for Israel while Hamas is in power is "You
agree to die, we agree to kill you". People need to work on Hamas to amend this charter.

I guess when slavery was democratically popular, that meant it was OK!

dougnwagner - I'm against racism, that is why I don't like the Hamas.

The Nazi Party was also democratically elected in 1933. Are you saying that this was enough to describe them as non resists?

Also - Are you sure that the Hamas even wants to talk with Israel? I assume you never read the Hamas charter.

evanj - "...But of course the Zionist jihadis rejected it (UN partition plan) as well - a Jewish state without Jerusalem? ...You disgust me."

I can see why I disgust you. I don't fall in line with your hate dogma. I even dare to speak the truth.

If you don't like Wikipedia - pick other researches. That is, if you care for the truth, even if it is not for your liking.

You might learn that the Jewish Yishuv, and the Zionist leadership (Such as Ben-Gurion) embrace UN partition plan, and did not rejected it as in your dogmatic lies.

Imagine if Israel, the EU, and the United States had simply worked with the democratically elected political majority, (Hamas), instead of 'strategically supporting' the political minority, (Fatah). Israel will never have peace until it stops undermining the Palestinian people's choice. To undermine the Palestinian people's choice does not promote democracy and the virtues of democratic reforms, it undermines those goals and reforms, and makes Israel, the EU, and America, hypocritical.

Palestinian Parliamentary Election 2006 Results and Analysis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_legislative_election, _2006

http://electronicintifada.net/bytopic/416.shtml

I hope you join with me in not buying into the racism which undoubtedly clouds judgment on the important issue of peace in Israel/Palestine.

www.araborganizing.org/solidarity

"MtnGoat - you're a disgrace. Lobotomised cretin. I'm sick of reading shit from no-nothings like you who reproduce the party line for reasons of tribal allegiance. A population expropriated, killed off, subjugated for three generations, and you blame iton the victims. grotesque. Without the support of gauleiters like you the criminal state of Israel would have been dismantled years ago"

I 'blame' the victims for what they provably own responsibility for, their choice of purposeful actions. They are not robots with Pavlovian conditioning 'forcing' them to respond as they do. I treat them with more respect than you do, since you seem unable to credit them as functioning humans with active minds and the ability to make choices.

I do not blame them for what is beyond their control. Their use as pawns in a millenia long wider conflict between Islam and Jews, for example.

I do 'blame' them for what is within their control. Their *choice* of responses, which they own responsibility for making.

If you are unable to see the difference and include objective reality when making your judgements, you are getting inherently flawed results...which benefits NO ONE. Not you, not the Pals, not the Israelis, no one.

If you're sick of reading what you think is 'shit', then it's within your power to simply not read it. Or is that something you have no control over? Given your methodology, or lack of it, doing so will probably not have much impact on your conclusions, after all they're provably free of pesky details that you don't like anyway.

"Please read what I wrote. I said that the Israelis are guilt deliberately killing non-combatants."

I'm sure some do. But this is not policy, and prosecution is supposed to follow for those who do. Isolated incidents are not evidence of policy, they are examples of criminal action. Like it or not, official policy for Israel forbids this, and like it or not Pals prosecute no one for these acts. The fact is that there is a difference between the two.

"For example , when Doctors Without Borders did an autopsy on the Palestinians killed right after Sharon visited the Temple Mount, It found that a disproportionate number of wounds to the head. It determined that since soldiers aim for the body, the victims were deliberately killed, not killed in self-defense."

In my opinion this line of thinking is highly questionable. Body shots are always aimed with the intention of immediate kill in the center of mass where vital organs and the spinal cord are. Wether you kill someone by blowing a hole through heart, lungs, and spine or with a shot to the brain, the intent is specifically to kill. Here you are trying to claim shots intended to kill can be separated by how they kill when the intent in both cases is to kill.

"Numerous human rights groups have come to the same conclusion. Am I to believe human rights groups, or a poster who can't even get is facts straight on Israel. (see below)"

I'd believe the one whose claims are internally consistent with the point they are making. When you have some human rights groups determining that shots intended to kill are killing the "wrong" way, I'll make the case that you are listening to the wrong source.

"I find it really ridiculous that you would say sticks and stones are weapons."

I find it ridiculous to claim that weapons aren't weapons, and that attacks with weapons are 'peaceful' protest. When did armed protest count as 'peaceful'? Am I supposed to accept that the Israeli man the Pals killed by crushing his head with a rock some years back, was merely the result of peaceful, unarmed action?

It sounds like you know nothing about what peaceful actually means, here you are defending assualt with weapons as 'peaceful'.

"During the first intifadah, children-yes, children–would conront tanks with sticks and stones. Thee was certainly no danger."

Did your sources show you the men in their midst with firearms, grenades, and firebombs, using the peaceful, armed children as cover? I doubt it. That part never seems to make it into these discussions.

"You know of no resolutions that Israel has violated? That shows you know nothing about the sitituation. I mean, really! "

I said no such thing. You would be well served to keep straight who you address comments to. Your judgements of my statements are now shown to be at least partly based on comments others have made. You are thus provably judging my comments on a flawed basis.

"MtnGoat it sounds to me you are endorsing collective punishment"

What does that *mean*, exactly? Seems to me much of governance consists precisely of what can be considered 'collective' punishment. Do you endorse affirmative action plans? That's collective punishment too.

Using the Bible to justify War and a right to land is OK if War is what you want.
Samson was the first virtual suicide bomber who brought down the building on his enemies so this is an old tradition.
If God is the one who grants Israel title and boundaries, than ask God to confirm that now and make the boundaries clear so that there is no reason for more war and doubt.
Until the Boundaries Of Israel are confirmed by God now, this is just an excuse for endless War.

We will argue like children about this forever and until the UN gets all countries to make it a crime for the War Profiteers to be involved in the decisions of war and peace, there will be no remedy...Why? Because we live in a War Economy.

It is time to outlaw war before any progress can possibly be made for real peace and security or hope for the future.

Love, Jim

In the 1980s, Israel 's "new historians" challenged a Zionist narrative that had been publicly unquestioned in Israel and the United States . Among these historians, Israel could never again be viewed as an underdog David challenged by an Arab Goliath. Since then, the debate has been about whether this biblical metaphor should be turned on its head. Three recent books have made it uncontroversial to assert that the post-World War I Zionist movement, sponsored by Britain and the U.S. , should no more be seen as the underdog than we now see British colonialists in relation to Native Americans. In turn, Palestinians can no more be sensibly called anti-Semitic than indigenous Americans can be called "anti-European."

These three books evoke the Zionist-Palestinian conflict with metaphors of confinement, separation, and exclusion: the "iron cage," the "iron wall," and the "glass wall." In The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood, Palestinian-American Professor Rashid Khalidi documents British support for a Jewish national migration movement in Palestine since World War I, and concurrent opposition to an indigenous Palestinian national movement, most violently during the revolt of 1936-39. The League of Nations Mandate for Palestine , by which the British ruled from 1923-1948, endorsed a "national home" for the Jewish people while never citing the Palestinians by name. Thus, "the (90%) Arab majority was effectively ignored as a national and political entity."

The brutal suppression of the Palestinian revolt effectively decimated Palestinian leadership and resistance thereafter. In contrast, after World War II Zionist terrorism caused Britain to give up its Mandate, and to acquiesce in the Zionist ethnic cleansing of Palestinian villages that began during the Mandate's final months while British forces remained. It has been claimed that in the wake of Holocaust, Zionists had to confront both a British Goliath and an Arab Goliath. It is clear that an increasingly well-armed and bold Zionist movement provoked a weakened British Goliath into abandonment, gained American and Soviet support, faced timid, compromised, and militarily inferior Arab regimes, and subsequently overwhelmed a virtually defenseless Palestinian society with profound internal problems, violently "transferring" over 700,000 Palestinians with relatively little provocation or resistance.

In The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Israeli historian Ilan Pappé has documented—house by house, village by village, city by city—the violent and sadistic expulsion of the Palestinians from the end of 1947 into 1949. It has long been established that the Palestinians fled not in response to "Arab broadcasts," but to physical intimidation, including unprovoked massacres. Based on Pappé's meticulous research, it is now clear that this ethnic cleansing was premeditated, thorough, not retaliatory, and half completed before the feeble and ineffectual intervention of Arab armies in May of 1948. "If there was a turning point in April (1948), it was the shift from sporadic attacks and counter-attacks on the Palestinian civilian population toward the systematic mega-operation of ethnic cleansing that now followed." This ethnic cleansing was based on a belief among Israeli leaders that an "iron wall" was required to separate an overwhelming Jewish majority from the Palestinians, who were understood then as now to pose not a military but demographic threat to a Jewish state.

This demographic threat is addressed by Jonathan Cook, a British journalist based in the Arab Israeli city of Nazareth , in Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State. The 150,000 Palestinians who remained in Israel after 1948 are now over 1 million, over 20% of the population, a percentage that increases due to their high birthrate. This presents a problem for a Jewish state that has used a harsh but "legal" discriminatory "glass wall" between its Arab and Jewish citizens that is "needed to cloak the contradictions inherent in the concept of Israel as a 'Jewish and democratic' state." These contradictions have been exposed by Israeli attacks on unarmed Palestinian civilians during the outbreak of the intifada in 2000, by increasing suspicion of the loyalty of historically quiescent Arab Israelis who demand social equality, and by increasing calls for expulsion by popular right-wing politicians. All of this has resulted in plans to re-draw borders in order to transfer as many as a quarter of Israel's Palestinian citizens to a future Palestinian state, an outcome in no way supported by those affected.

Metaphors of separation, confinement, and exclusion are made literally concrete by the wall that Israel has built mostly inside the occupied West Bank . While largely invisible to Israelis, in areas where visible it has been, according to Cook, "painted with murals on the Israeli side, reimagining the view that was now missing while making sure that it was empty of the Palestinian villages that could be seen before its construction." Pappé adds that also eliminated are "the people who live in them." The rights of those people—and of all Palestinians—have been made invisible not only by Zionist aspirations for a Jewish state on land that had to be taken by diplomatic chicanery and brute force, but by British and American policies that have exploited those aspirations for their own imperial ambitions.

Does anyone actually believe that Hamas might be replaced by Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood? Just more brutal repression in the name of another nuthead pie-in-the-sky neocon idea. Thank you and bless you, Chris Hedges!

Thanks Duramater

Here's some other Rabbis and someone most people view as a pretty smart man(Einstein), that got absorbed by history as well.

http://www.physics.harvard.edu/~wilson/NYTimes1948.html

Letters to The Times New York Times December 4, 1948

New Palestine Party Visit of Menachem Begin and Aims of Political
Movement Discussed

TO THE EDITORS OF THE NEW YORK TIMES:

Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our times is the
emergence in the newly created state of Israel of the "Freedom Party"
(Tnuat Haherut), a political party closely akin in its organization,
methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist
parties. It was formed out of the membership and following of the
former Irgun Zvai Leumi, a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist
organization in Palestine.

The current visit of Menachem Begin, leader of this party, to the United
States is obviously calculated to give the impression of American
support for his party in the coming Israeli elections, and to cement
political ties with conservative Zionist elements in the United States.
Several Americans of national repute have lent their names to welcome
his visit. It is inconceivable that those who oppose fascism throughout
the world, if correctly informed as to Mr. Begin's political record and
perspectives, could add their names and support to the movement he
represents.

Before irreparable damage is done by way of financial contributions,
public manifestations in Begin's behalf, and the creation in Palestine
of the impression that a large segment of America supports Fascist
elements in Israel, the American public must be informed as to the
record and objectives of Mr. Begin and his movement.

The public avowals of Begin's party are no guide whatever to its actual
character. Today they speak of freedom, democracy and anti-imperialism,
whereas until recently they openly preached the doctrine of the Fascist
state. It is in its actions that the terrorist party betrays its real
character; from its past actions we can judge what it may be expected to
do in the future.

Attack on Arab Village

A shocking example was their behavior in the Arab village of Deir
Yassin. This village, off the main roads and surrounded by Jewish
lands, had taken no part in the war, and had even fought off Arab bands
who wanted to use the village as their base. On April 9 (THE NEW YORK
TIMES), terrorist bands attacked this peaceful village, which was not a
military objective in the fighting, killed most of its inhabitants—240
men, women, and children—and kept a few of them alive to parade as
captives through the streets of Jerusalem. Most of the Jewish community
was horrified at the deed, and the Jewish Agency sent a telegram of
apology to King Abdullah of Trans-Jordan. But the terrorists, far from
being ashamed of their act, were proud of this massacre, publicized it
widely, and invited all the foreign correspondents present in the
country to view the heaped corpses and the general havoc at Deir Yassin.

The Deir Yassin incident exemplifies the character and actions of the
Freedom Party.

Within the Jewish community they have preached an admixture of
ultranationalism, religious mysticism, and racial superiority. Like
other Fascist parties they have been used to break strikes, and have
themselves pressed for the destruction of free trade unions. In their
stead they have proposed corporate unions on the Italian Fascist model.

During the last years of sporadic anti-British violence, the IZL and
Stern groups inaugurated a reign of terror in the Palestine Jewish
community. Teachers were beaten up for speaking against them, adults
were shot for not letting their children join them. By gangster
methods, beatings, window-smashing, and wide-spread robberies, the
terrorists intimidated the population and exacted a heavy tribute.

The people of the Freedom Party have had no part in the constructive
achievements in Palestine. They have reclaimed no land, built no
settlements, and only detracted from the Jewish defense activity. Their
much-publicized immigration endeavors were minute, and devoted mainly to
bringing in Fascist compatriots.

Discrepancies Seen

The discrepancies between the bold claims now being made by Begin and
his party, and their record of past performance in Palestine bear the
imprint of no ordinary political party. This is the unmistakable stamp
of a Fascist party for whom terrorism (against Jews, Arabs, and British
alike), and misrepresentation are means, and a "Leader State" is the
goal.

In the light of the foregoing considerations, it is imperative that the
truth about Mr. Begin and his movement be made known in this country. It
is all the more tragic that the top leadership of American Zionism has
refused to campaign against Begin's efforts, or even to expose to its
own constituents the dangers to Israel from support to Begin.

The undersigned therefore take this means of publicly presenting a few
salient facts concerning Begin and his party; and of urging all
concerned not to support this latest manifestation of fascism.

ISIDORE ABRAMOWITZ, HANNAH ARENDT, ABRAHAM BRICK, RABBI JESSURUN
CARDOZO, ALBERT EINSTEIN, HERMAN EISEN, M.D., HAYIM FINEMAN, M. GALLEN,
M.D., H.H. HARRIS, ZELIG S. HARRIS, SIDNEY HOOK, FRED KARUSH, BRURIA
KAUFMAN, IRMA L. LINDHEIM, NACHMAN MAISEL, SEYMOUR MELMAN, MYER D.
MENDELSON, M.D., HARRY M. OSLINSKY, SAMUEL PITLICK, FRITZ ROHRLICH,
LOUIS P. ROCKER, RUTH SAGIS, ITZHAK SANKOWSKY, I.J. SHOENBERG, SAMUEL
SHUMAN, M. SINGER, IRMA WOLFE, STEFAN WOLFE.

How's that for chicken or egg?

It is such a pleasure to read you all even the insults which are creative as long as you don't take them personnally.
What do you do? In the last run ,people have to learn to live together. The past cannot be erased (just as David ben Gurion and Yitzak Rabin bombed a Hotel in 1948 ,were "terrorists" who went on to become President and a Prime Minister of Israel, Yasser Arafat made the Palestinian's anger and hopelessness into a far wider range of terror with plane hijackings etc.killed athletes ,worldwide , and became the Palestinian Dictator).The use of violence and it's glorification have led to the Israeli Army and to Fatah and now Hamas.All these have come about because of fear.
Aided and abetted by the Cold War and Usa desire for hegemony to keep the area unstable to lower the price of oil especially since the threat of OPEC in 1974 which destabilised the West's economy for the past 30 years.
Fear breeds anger which overflows and then the desire for genocide.
God weeps to see his children destroy themselves in anger.

Elias Chacour ,a Palestinian Christian, wrote a beautiful book "Blood Brothers".
It has a road for peace , like Gandhi's Road from hell (see the movie).
But who listens to the message of peace.??

Israel was part of Palesine until they claimed independence in 1948. The Arab states attacked them immediately - and lost. The cease fire was established in 1949.
The established borders have Egypt controlling the Gaza Strip and Jordan controls the West Bank.
It is a fight about land and the fault lies with BOTH Israel and Lebanon failing to accept the boundries that THEY THEMSELVES established in 1949. It is also a failure of Jordan and Egypt to properly secure their established areas and siding with Lebanon on nearly every boundry dispute. Both Israel and Lebanon have committed atrocities. Both kill civilians and destroy non-military targets.
It's a Hatfield - McCoy affair.
It will not end as long as people are choosing sides. When 2 children are arguing and they are both wrong, what do you do?

The Mexicans sneak into the US by the millions to escape their poverty and the palestinians just sit on their asses and plan the destruction of Israel. To hell with them!

Vets
another lobotomised cretin.
Wikipedia as the authoritative source, precisely at the time that Wiki has been shown to be a distorted vehicle of propaganda!
The UN partition plan was a joke, a con of the Western powers plus the SOviet Union, utterly contemptuous of the majority non-Jewish Palestinian population. But of course the Zionist jihadis rejected it as well - a Jewish state without Jerusalem? You have to be joking. And given that Israel has been contemptuous of every condemnatory resolution towards Israeli criminality since then, of what import is it for a suburban gauleiter such as yourself to fall back on UN authority?
As for Camp DAvid, there was no offer at Camp David. Tanya Reinhart's Israel/Palestine has the short version of the con at Camp David for people such as yourself who have a short attention span.
The Palestinians are the new Jews. Period. You disgust me.

MtnGoat, you said:

"phthenry, killing non combatants is not terrorism. *intentionally* targeting them as the intended targets, is."

Please explain this to me then, in words of as few syllables as possible, because, as a Sephardic converso descendant and also the descendant of a Polish Rabbinical family, it is entirely possible that I may be a little thick, and unable to understand how this group of soldiers were defending themselves against a fanatical Palestinian suicide bomber:

Quote
The boy Khalil Sha'er
Was waiting for a bus
Near Tekoa,
When he was seized
And beaten to death
By five soldiers.

Almost every day
In the West Bank and Gaza
The army kills
Children, women
And other unarmed people.
A matter of routine.

While Olmert babbles
About peace,
The occupation is getting
More and more
Deadly, destructive
And rapacious.

03-5221732.
Help us pay for
Our activities and ads
By sending checks to
Gush Shalom, P.O.Box 3322
Tel-Aviv 61033.
www.gush-shalom.org
info@gush-shalom.org

Ad published in Haaretz
August 17, 2007
Closequote

Ya, fedayi filistani! How could I have imagined anything else? That a group of five armed soldiers should set upon an unarmed schoolboy for any other reason than that they were terrified that he would produce a bomb from - somewhere? never fight a magician; you don't know what he might do to you if you lose - and blow them all up?

As far as Arabs never choosing non-violence:

"The Israeli Ministry of Interior based its deportation order on the charges that Raphael Bender was participating in "a violent demonstration", and that she was arrested and ordered expelled from Israel one year ago. However, videotapes of the December 14 protest in Bil'in show that the Israeli army was the only party that used violence.[...]"
http://www.shalomctr.org/node/760

How much do you actually know about this situation? As opposed to what you've been sucked into believing?

I used to swallow everything that I was fed, but then came the 1982 war on Lebanon, and Sabra and Shatila, then I read the Palestinian accounts of anNaqba, 1948. My distant relatives did not look so good then.

Here is UN resolution 181 partition plan which was rejected by the Palestinians in 1947.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1947_UN_Partition_Plan

Here is what the Palestinians leadership rejected in 2000.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Camp_David_Summit

evanj - learn a little History before you put all the blame on Israel.

evanj - "A population expropriated, killed off, subjugated for three generations, and you blame iton the victims."

Victims you say? It would be nice if your dimonization comments had some touch with reality.

The Palestinians suffer, I agree. They are the losing side of the Israeli Palestinian conflict no doubt. However they are far from being the victims. They had plenty of opportunities to have a peaceful Palestinian state, without violence or any type of ethnic cleansing. Each time they have rejected the peaceful proposal on the table, and went to war.

Throwout the last 100 years, the main goal of the Palestinian leadership was not to create a peaceful Palestinian state, but to resist the idea of an independent Jewish state.

Here is an example of a Multi-National state they rejected in 1919
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faisal-Weizmann_Agreement

Here is a Palestinian state along a tiny Jewish state solution they have rejected in 1937
http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate_peel.php

evanj, like MtnGoat, I also support Israel right to exist (A long side a Palestinian state) against those who seek to destroy it. Make love, not war. Learn to live and let live. Don't hate.

phthenry, about the UN, I once calculated that within the corridors of the UN, the victims of Israel are getting 3000 times more attention than average victim on this planet. This is not random statistical error. There is something wrong with the way the UN is settings it's priorities. All human beings should be equals. The sad truth is that the main function the UN turned out to be is a stage for dictators to bash at the only Democracy in the middle east.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMEw0lZ3k_Y&mode=related&search=

MtnGoat - you're a disgrace. Lobotomised cretin. I'm sick of reading shit from no-nothings like you who reproduce the party line for reasons of tribal allegiance. A population expropriated, killed off, subjugated for three generations, and you blame iton the victims. grotesque. Without the support of gauleiters like you the criminal state of Israel would have been dismantled years ago.

Israel, within the pre 1967 borders is an accomplished fact. All 6 million people are not going to get into boats and leave. That is like expecting the Poles that live past the Oder river to pack up and give the land back to the Germans. It is not going to happen, and no amount of talk will change this fact. The arab armies have failed in every attempt to make this happen militarily. The question then becomes the status of the territory conquered by Israel in the war of 1967. Israel has complicated any transfer to the Palestinians by the ill-advised building of settlements- making necessary (to them)the maintaining of checkpoints,ect. The Palestinians have complicated any transfer by maintaining that ALL of the land "from the river to the sea" is theirs and electing a government (Hamas) with the stated goal of their charter the destruction of Israel- thereby giving Israel the choice of ignoring them or commiting collective suicide. Meanwhile, both sides jockey for favor from world opinion. It seems to me that a viable Palestinian state can't be formed with intervening settlements in the way, and a recognized state (Israel) cannot negotiate with a government whose sole reason to exist is the destruction of the state that it is supposed to negotiate in good faith with.

All the while, the Arab (including the wealthy gulf states) countries continue to use the palestinians as pawns, keeping them jammed into camps,denying them citizenship, and letting the U.S. and Europe provide the vast majority of the funding to keep these people alive.

mntGoat

Please read what I wrote. I said that the Israelis are guilt deliberately killing non-combatants. For example , when Doctors Without Borders did an autopsy on the Palestinians killed right after Sharon visited the Temple Mount, It found that a disproportionate number of wounds to the head. It determined that since soldiers aim for the body, the victims were deliberately killed, not killed in self-defense.

Numerous human rights groups have come to the same conclusion. Am I to believe human rights groups, or a poster who can't even get is facts straight on Israel. (see below)

I find it really ridiculous that you would say sticks and stones are weapons. It sounds like you nothing about the conflict and are just saying anything to back up what you believe rather than actually examining facts. During the first intifadah, children-yes, children--would conront tanks with sticks and stones. Thee was certainly no danger. It was a ritual they would perform as a protest against the illegal occupation of Isarel of their lands. Israel would respond with live bullets. It was shown around the world and Israel was shamed into finally negotiating, though it did so in bad faith.

You know of no resolutions that Israel has violated? That shows you know nothing about the sitituation. I mean, really!

http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2002/0210unres.html

Here is a list. Note especially resolution 252:

Determines that the policy and practices of Israel in establishing settlements in the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since 1967 have no legal validity and constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East;

2. Strongly deplores the failure of Israel to abide by Security Council resolutions 237 (1967) of 14 June 1967, 252 (1968) of 21 May 1968 and 298 (1971) of 25 September 1971 and the consensus statement by the President of the Security Council on 11 November 1976 2/ and General Assembly resolutions 2253 (ES-V) and 2254 (ES-V) of 4 and 14 July 1967, 32/5 of 28 October 1977 and 33/113 of 18 December 1978;

http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/c25aba03f1e079db85256cf40073bfe6/ba123cded3ea84a5852560e50077c2dc!OpenDocument

Let's just start blaming Iraqis for the violence in their country; makes about as much sense as the drivel here....

How is it that any Jewish person in the whole world has the right to "return" to Israel, but Israel will never let Palestinians that were thrown out of their homes come back?

Apologists cry that Palestine will not recognize Israel. If by my very existence you were paralyzed from the waist down, wouldn't you want me dead, too?

For a religious country, they seem to love violence and savagery, which is the only thing they ever offer to the Palestinians.

People always say Israel has a right to exist. Is that a right that every country enjoys? If not, on what is that right based? If not, then shouldn't having special rights mean making special sacrifices, like accepting a little less land than you think the Invisible Cloud Being promised you? Why won't Israel be reasonable? When will it decide to end all the suffering? How deluded does someone have to be to think Palestine controls its own destiny? Anyone who thinks so has another agenda to sell....

Baltocaveman,

Nice rant. God do you have a racist view of history. In your view, settlements benefit mostly the Palestinians and are mostly benign. That of course is arrant nonsense, as you should know. I have read many human rights reports, as well as descriptions, and know that just about every settlement is filled with fanatical Jews who thinks God gave them the land. For example, I remember watching a slide presentation by a Presbyterian minister who had been to the West Bank and showed how fantical settlers destroyed a native Arab's house. He rebuilt it, and they destroyed it again. Eventually the Arabs had to abandon it.

This case is by no means atypical if you read human rights reports.

Your version of history is false, and you simply repeat falsehoods in your post. No, the Jews did not buy the land from the Arabs. I have heard this again and again. It is false.

The Jews only owned about 5% of the land when the UN partitioned Israel. That is a fact which you can look up.

http://tmh.floonet.net/articles/halbrook.html

Further, the idea that the Israel and the occupied territories were barren until the "Jews made the desert bloom" is racist history. Demographers in Israel have refuted that myth. Believe it or not, Arabs cultivated the land. Your statement that "Jews have continuously lived in the area known as Palestine for millenniums" is really silly. Yes, they have, but they only represented about 5 percent of the population when the Zionists decided to colonize this area at the turn of the century. Your statement is meant to disguise this uncomfortable fact.

Regarding the partitioning of Israel in 1947, you should read the UN history itself. It notes that two ad hoc committees determined that the UN had no right to draw the partition. Further, as I pointed out, the partition alloted land to people who did not own it. Yes, the Palestinians were given the worst of the land, at least if I am to believe everything I have read on the subject, such as Shamir's *The Iron Wall,* and the UN history, which draws on countless historians. Last, resolution 181 was a general council resolution, and not legally binding.

The PLO, or Palestinian Liberation Organization, was formed in 1964 (or there about). That is where I get the idea that the Palestinians started revolting against their status before Israel owned the land. If you knew your history, then you wouldn't ask such a dumb question such as whether or not they used suicide bombers. As I pointed out before, the first suicide bombers did not appear until the 90's sometime. How could you not know this?

I never claimed that suicide bombers inside Israel (or anywhere) amounted to a legitimate form of resistance. But when you say you don't know where I get my idea that all other nations agree that problem lies mostly with Israel, you only need to look at the UN. For example, in 2001, there was a resolution passed stating that Israel was guilty of "deliberate murder" and "torture." 141 nations (or around there) supported this conclusion. Only Israel and the US disagreed. There were about 10 to 15 resolutions passed that year condemning Israel with similar margins.

As we speak, Israel continues to move settlers into the occupied territories. There is no way you can state that Israel wants peace while it continues to steal lands. Nor can you say that Israel wants peace when it continues its brutal tactics.

Or rather, we can say Israel wants peace, but on its unjust terms, the way the US wanted peace with the Native Americans, as long as they abandoned their own land.

The irony about Israel is the utter hell it has created for itself as a result of taking and occupying another's land. It will never know peace. It will never be respected by countries outside its control. It will always have to train its sons and daughters to kill. It will always have to live in fear of destruction. What a choice. Oppression takes a heavy toll on the soul of the oppressed and oppressor alike.

Yep, just like Sarajevo and we are paying the Serbs (Israel - our 51st state that gets more money than any continental state) to keep up the good work.

Don't want to jeopardize money coming from AIPAC.

In this one Congress is a ready willing and able lovey dovey partner with the executive branch. They'd send our military if we had any more to send.

What happemned to "REMEMBER THE USS LIBERTY" ?

Chris is dead on !!!!!!

"You make it sound like Palestinians commit terroristic acts for pure fun. I have heard this b.s so many times "only if these wretched Palestinians would stop resisting (read surrender) Israel would take the foot off their collective necks"."

It seems to me you are having difficulty with responding to my comments instead of someone elses. I said nowhere to stop resisting. I simply said to choose non violent means. Everything else you added from some script in your own head.

It must be incredibly difficult to apply accurate judgement to the ideas of others when you cannot get past what you paste in for them. I'd give a shot to judging instead, what it is they are actually saying. I suggest you make one heck of a lot of mistakes this way, and if discussion never seems to get beyond the same circles with you, it may be due to this inherently flawed process.

"It is the occupation chicken that laid the terror egg."

No it's not. Pals are not robots and automatons with only programmed responses without choice and responsibility for those choices. They are not subhuman children, they are people with minds, choices, and responsibility for those choices.

The chicken that laid the terror egg is the *choice* to use terror as a method, and the acceptance of it as valid. That is the cause of terror. There are oppressed and occupied people all over the world and have been for a long, long time. Only a few of them choose targeting non combatants as fully intentional primary targets.

IF the Pals were not responsible for their choices and or terror was not a choice, ALL peoples in this situation would choose terror. They do not, because it is a choice, a choice based in the idea that it is acceptable.

Therefore in spite of the situation they are in, they hold sole responsibility for choosing it.

"It would be insane not to resist in their situation…up to and including asymmetry warfare….you know what i mean."

Since when did asymmetrical warfare inherently mean targeting busses full of schoolchildren or weddings at a retirement home? You certainly have an odd view of what assymetry is. Most of the time it is viewed like the French resistance, few against many, picking select military targets.

the way you justify it, slaughtering innocents with nail bombs with full intent is somehow acceptable or understandable, when it is neither. Doing so is a choice, and treating it as understandable is why they do it...because they know you'll take it as something they 'have' to do, when it is no such thing.

phthenry "Israel has killed 3 times as many Palestinians as the other way around. ...Who is actually guilty of not wanting peace?"

In World war II - the USA has killed 20 times more Japaneses as the other way around.

The reason more Palestinians are killed are a result of Israeli military superiority in the conflict.
It is wrong to judge one's willingness toward peace based only on body count.

The questions you have to ask yourself is who is the aggressor. Who is unwilling to compromise. I can understand why it is difficult for you to gasp that the underdog can actually be the uncompromising aggressor.

""Continuing to fight a well equipped army with weapons that results in such results is a good reason to quit choosing violent resistance."

This is the statement of a coward."

Well reasoned point. Can you come up with any reasons other than personal attacks to rebut my point?

If there is anyone like you on the Palestinian side, it is clear why they are reticent to choose non violence. They see it as you do, ignoring what it actually takes to face tanks and rockets empty handed and in peace.

What is the source of this astonishing cruelty?

"That is the view of every country in the world outside the US and Israel."

Reality is not dependent on consensus, but the facts. All those other nations are wrong, just like when most countries practiced slavery, and they were all wrong for doing so.

midblu - "Wrong. That was not Israel. That was Palestinian land that all of the bombs went off in"

What you say is that Israel has no right to exist at ANY BORDER, Not even Tel Aviv, Haifa, Natania, Afula or Jerusalem. According to you- all of Israel is an occupied land.

As long as people will hold uncompromising, one sided opinion like you, the conflict will never end. There are other historical truth you know...
May I ask which country you are from? And why is your country less occupation than Israel?

midblu - "Israel has ignored 40 binding U.N resolutions since 1968"

As far as I know, there is not even one single UN binding resolution that Israel ignored.
You are probably referring to General Assembly resolutions, that according to UN charter are not binding. (Unlike security consul resolutions which are).

midblu - "I hope Hamas starts resisting Israeli occupation over in the West Bank as well"

When you say "resisting", I assume you mean firing rockets at civilian cities and towns, sent suicide bombers against schools buses, restaurants, night clubs full with teens etc. Which according to Amnesty International are crime against humanity. Am I correct that these are your desires?

phthenry:
You know, if I was a knee-jerk supporter of the State I would be less tolerant of your views. As far as extremists, I don't care for any extremists, which is why I choose only this forum to read and comment on. The Kach Party headed by Rabbi Meir Kahane, was repulsive to me in the 70's as are those who continue his philosophy today. Those refugees on the West Bank and in Gaza who show that they are not also extremists have the right to stay, raise families and earn a living, but not if they want to destroy someone else to do it. So, no, I do not favor a blanket transfer of Palestinians, which reeks of Hitler's Judenrein in Europe.

As to my belief in God given lands, hell, the Crusaders in the 15th century went to liberate the Holy Land from the infidels, killing Muslim, Arab Christians and Jews on the way, were they right? My God does not want people to murder people. Notice I said murder, for that is the literal translation of the Commandment. My God doesn't say which person shouldn't murder another person, all murder is bad. Were the illegal settlements in the territories right? Not when a group of extremists (on either side) was in charge. When a settlement grew into a town that commenced trade and freedom of movement, that I would suggest is not the same as those of the extremist fringe. Can we agree to that? Take Qalqilya, my spelling is bad. Before the second intifada, probably the first, this West Bank city had a mall, shopping areas, and both Israelis and Arabs shopped and worked there. Because of its geography, [it is less than 2 miles from the city of Kfar Saba in Israel], it was taken into the control of Palestinian terrorists to launch attacks into Israel, and is now a ghost town, behind a wall. Which came first, the terrorists or the wall? Which destroyed the markets at Qalqilya, the Israelis and Arabs who shopped and worked there or the extremists who used it to launch attacks into Israel? This is not an isolated example, there are more.

When you speak of settlers, you need to clarify who and where you are talking about. My post did not equate settlements with defense, it is you who are saying this. Your statement about "killing non-combatants" is specious. You need to tell the families of the people killed in cafes and on buses in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, hotels in Netanya that Israelis are targeted "non-combatants". Did Israel train and send deluded desperate people into Arab lands to kill and maim with the promise of 40 virgins in the afterlife? Non-combatants? Like in Nam, and in Iraq, how can you tell? A previous poster said that suicide bombings only took place in the occupied territories. I would suggest Goggle Earth to locate Tel Aviv, it is NOT in the occupied territories.

And does suicide bombing inside the State of Israel also constitute "defending yourself"? Since when does going to another location, outside of your home and blowing up innocent people at a cafe constitute defending your home. You want to defend your home, stay there and if attacked, defend it. But, if you provoke the attack on your home, then you will suffer the consequences, but it will be in your home. That is defense. Suicide bombing in another place is not defense, it is offensive and terroristic, not to mention counter productive to the greater good.

As to "false version" of history. The Arab League attacked Israel after the State of Israel was declared, under the ruling of the United Nations, of which the Arab League states were members. The State of Israel was not "taken" from anyone, it was established by international law. As to your claim about the "best land". I would suggest you consult Middle Eastern geography texts and maps. Most of the land that were sold to early Zionist settlers, yes, sold, not taken, by absentee Arab and Turkish landlords, was swampy and inhospitable. It was land that those who had lived on it for generations had done nothing with it. I suggest looking at Google Earth even today. Look at the lands that are cultivated and growing and producing between the Jordan and the sea, See who lives there, then look at the lands that are barren and desert and useless, who lives there? If you want to know what the whole region looked like in the late 19th and early twentieth century, it looked like the barren land of today.

And, yes, money was raised and the land was bought, it was not stolen, it was not appropriated. It was not like our country, where good, white Europeans stole, killed, murdered, lied and cheated the natives out of it. So, let's not get too high and mighty as Americans, here. Jesus said: "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." As to torture, America lost the right to that platform in Iraq.

You say that in 1964 the Palestinians started to resist their statelessness. To whom? To Jordan? To Saudi Arabia? Who was their representatives in this? Did they use diplomacy? Did they send suicide bombers into Amman? Where is the documentation of this fact, no really, I want to know, because of the Arab refugees were resisting, it had to be mentioned somewhere and documented. Say, if they were resisting, why didn't they attack Israel in 1964, because your thesis is that Israel is solely to blame for their problems and their current situation, their reactions and therefore the justification for using terrorist tactics to kill "non-combatants." I'd be interested in hearing about this 1964 "mini-intifada".

Since I imagine you have never been to Israel, your assertion about paradise is dismissed out of hand. You do not know. You only know what you have read. Was it total paradise? No, but it was better than it has been since the Yom Kippur War. And, hey, why was there an intifada anyway? Why did Arab leaders force decent hard working Arab citizens to close up their shops and cease to be able to earn a living? The Israelis never cut off a shopkeepers in Bethlehem's ability to sell things and earn money to feed his family. Could it be that by forcing an intifada on hard working people, you could re-direct their anger, propagandize to them, use the Big Lie technique, segregate their information stream, give them less hope in a better life, control them through deprivation and produce an extremist force to do what your legitimate forces could not? [Remember the stated, and never renounced aim of the PLO, and several legitimate Arab states is to never recognize and in fact to wipe Israel off the face of the map] Gee, interesting theory. And, gee, if the subjugated people, the Arab Refugees or Palestinians, found out that peace makes for economic gain, then maybe these people will find out that the perpetual war against someone is not worth it, maybe they were being lied to, and that by working hard, providing for your family and gaining respect for yourself, and living in peace with the people across the street is a good thing, you may actually learn to oppose dictatorial and irrational leaders. If you have enough money to feed your family, get a decent house, if your community can build schools and hospitals, get dependable electricity. you may find out that you've been lied to, that the bogeyman is not the bogeyman after all.

As to indigenous populations and taking their lands, we've already covered that, only to say that Jews have continuously lived in the area known as Palestine for millenniums under various rulers from the Romans to the Turks, they are also indigenous.

And the last point. I have not had the chance to ask every country in the world if that is their point of view, nor have I had the time over the past few hours to research it. Please let me know how you came to that conclusion.

In closing before I go to sleep, I want to add that I will not agree with what you have said, totally, but will agree that you have the right to say it. That CommonDreams, which to me means peace, allows us this forum, I will respect you for the person you are. Thank you for your comments, and I am glad that in this forum, at least, we still can converse with civility even when we disagree.

MtnGoat says "Sad and unneccessary. Should the Pals decide to revoke their support for terror and pursue peaceful protest while cracking down on the minority of terrorists which are in their midst, Israel would have no reason to do it for them."

You make it sound like Palestinians commit terroristic acts for pure fun. I have heard this b.s so many times "only if these wretched Palestinians would stop resisting (read surrender) Israel would take the foot off their collective necks". It is the occupation chicken that laid the terror egg. It would be insane not to resist in their situation...up to and including asymmetry warfare....you know what i mean.

As stated by mtngoat:

"Continuing to fight a well equipped army with weapons that results in such results is a good reason to quit choosing violent resistance."

This is the statement of a coward.

BaltoCaveMan

I see you are intent on repeating a lot of Israel propaganda. Yes, peace cannot exist if one side wants to destroy the other. Then you are against some of the extremist members in the Israel government who call for "transfer" of the Palestinians? And you are against the settlers who think God gave them all the land and terrorize Palestinians (have you ever seen any of those videos) and make their life hell.

I notice you keep repeating how Israel has a right to defend itself. But like other Israeli apologists, you don't mention how moving settlers into someone else's land constitutes defending yourself. Nor how "deliberately killing" non combatants means defending yourself. Or torturing Palestinians.

You also gave a false version of history. The Arab states attacked what was going to be Israel because the UN had given people who only owned 5 percent of the land--contrary to the UN charter itself--55 percent of the best land. In other words, the Arabs were being robbed of their land by an outside entity. You would have fought, too. If fact, if you think it is okay for Israel to defend itself, then why wasn't it okay for the Palestinians to do the same.

It is true that the Arab states use the Palestinians as pawns. But The Palestinians started resisting their statelessness in 1964, before Israel had control of the territories.

And no, Israel did not make the occupied territories into some kind of paradise.

Israel is an illegal occupying force that commits brutality against the indigenous population and continues to steal their lands.

That is the view of every country in the world outside the US and Israel.

phthenry, killing non combatants is not terrorism. *intentionally* targeting them as the intended targets, is.

Considering violence (sticks and stones) to be non violence is part of the problem. Sticks and stones kill too. The Israelis torn apart by bare hands after being taken from the Palestinian police a few years back wasn't non violence either. Non violence is just that...non violence.

I'm not making anything up. I've already stated that yes, Israel has done it too, and it is considered criminal and prosecuted..not perfectly, but prosecution is ever perfect, and the difference between prosecuting some but not all, and not perfectly, and celebrating such acts and committing them at will with full intent...is obvious.

As MtnGoat is singularly pointing out is some of the truths that have, in the last 40 years become mired lies.

Let's examine what happened in just one incident in Gaza after Israel pulled out. One of the Israeli settlements had built a lucrative argi-business, producing food and flowers for export, and employing Gazans. One of the centerpieces of this enterprise, built by Israelis, was a massive greenhouse. Knowing the pull out was coming and that the Israelis would destroy the greenhouse, a group, led by American Jews, bought the greenhouse and turned it over to the Palestinian Authority, so that there could be products produced and people employed at work they had done for years. Within days the greenhouses were destroyed and the Gazans employed there, unemployed. Why?

Let's examine this: In 1947 after the State of Israel was proclaimed and recognized with the indefensible borders (at one point the whole country was six miles wide), the Arab League chose to bring to bear it's armed forces with the express purpose of destroying it. These nations told those living on the West Bank, and in greater Israel to flee to them and as soon as Israel was wiped off the map, they, the Arabs (now refugees), could come back to Tel Aviv to take over the spoils of the state after it was destroyed and the Israelis pushed into the sea. So what happened, they left, they ran, Israel did not force them out. And of course when they abandoned their property and farms and their Arab brethren did not deliver as promised, they lost everything. And worse than that, the propaganda kept coming. They were told even after the armistice (not a peace agreement), to wait, it would still happen. They are still being told it, it is the raison d'etre of the terrorism that is fomented.

I would be rightfully pissed off too if I was told to leave my nice home a place I was living "only temporarily" just to find out that temporarily meant only to end up a refugee in a squalid camp in a territory controlled by Jordan or Egypt. When the State of Israel got an armistice, which, by the way did not get them an extra stick of land (see West Bank paragraphs above), nor access to the Old City of Jerusalem, these unfortunate people were forgotten by the very people who urged them to run.

Another truth: before the 1967 Six Day War, there existed on those two scraps of land a pathetic people who were never referred to as Palestinians. They were called Arab Refugees. These stateless people were not allowed to go and join their Arab brethren even in Arab countries, and as such they were used as pawns in a geopolitical fight. No one in the Arab League did anything for them, for 30 years. They were under the care of the United Nations as refugees. Why? They were housed in camps on what is known as the West Bank, in squalor and poverty under the jurisdiction of Jordan on the West Bank and Egypt in Gaza.

Has anyone in this thread seen what these camps looked like? I did, I have photos I took in 1970. It is no wonder that the "resistance" movement was fomented there. These were horrible places. Where was the world then? Where were the cries of "Justice for the Palestinians!" then? The Arab states did not want them. Jordan closed their borders to them, as did other Arab states. These refugees were treated like dirt in Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Lebanon. Why?

After the Six Day War, the West Bank, Gaza, Jerusalem the Golan Heights were opened to trade, commerce, growth and a lot of tourism. The squalid camps of the West Bank were being replaced by roads, electricity, schools, housing, hospitals, markets and Arabs, Israelis, Muslims and Jews enjoyed an economic revival. Jerusalem was a city anyone could wander in, in any of its four quarters day or night and enjoy hospitality in cafes, shopping in the shuks. I participated in a three day sporting event, a march around Jerusalem through the hills and valleys, and saw the "Palestinians", we called them Arabs, in there palatial homes surrounded by families and wealth. I was cordially invited, and accepted, invitations to sit and have tea. These are the Palestinians most people don't know about, the majority with wealth to whom the term "victimized Palestinian" does not apply.

Lastly, MtnGoat is right. Had the State of Israel wanted to destroy this pathetic people, these unfortunate pawns of the PLO, Hamas, etc, it could have done it. But it didn't and hasn't. Why? When under the rules of war it could have annexed and administrated the West Bank and Gaza, as well as the entire Sinai Peninsula, with it's strategic location and oil reserves, why did it not?

Is Israel to blame for defending itself? Just as any country would be. Has any other country been under attack since the day it was brought into existence? No. If your neighbors, the one's living next to you and across the street from you had aimed their weapons at your house and wanted to take it away by killing and destroying you, would you fight to keep it?

Can there be a way for this to end: YES. What is past is past, noting can change the past. What is today is now and what can be is tomorrow. The lessons from the period between the Six Day War and The Yom Kippur War shows that it is possible for all the people in the area from the Jordan River to the Sea to live together, thrive economically and benefit from mutual trade and contact. But, this cannot happen if one party is still bent on totally destroying the other, and putting it out of existence.

MtnGoat,
Israel has not prosecuted any of the criminals except as show trial that is basically a slap in the hand. Israel, in fact voted in that fat bastard of a war criminal, Sharon as a PM. What does that say about Israel?

Israel, as much as you would like to believe, is not a democracy. It is an apartheid regime with a class system. They never were a democracy. They steal lands in broad daylight with YOUR taxpayer dollars.

Israel kills with weapons supplied by YOU. Palestinians fight with whatever they have. You blame Hamas for not recognizing Israel? Well tel me where does Israel recognize Palestine? This is not about religion, it is about land. Sorry, Israel is a rogue regime in the guise of a democracy. And sheeps like you believe their myths. How much does AIPAC pay you to post drivels?

MntGoat,

Stop making things up. Human rights groups have found that Israel regularly kills non-combatants. That is terrorism, is it not? You are aware of Hedges report of how Israel taunted Palestinian children and shot them?

Human rights groups have pointed out how those guilty of deliberately killing Palestinians are almost never brought to justice by Israel.

If you are going to condemn people for violence, please start with the Israelis, who perpretate most of it. You haven't condemned Israel for using bullets against Palestinians in the first intifidah. Most of the stock and stick throwers were children resisint illegal occupation.

I assume you are for human rights and not just an apologist for Israel violence and expansion?

When the Palestinians tried a peaceful means of resistance, sticks and stones against tanks, they were met with violence. Also, Israel has deported some major leaders who have advocated peaceful resistance. Israel has no interest in a peaceful solution.

I feel a bit uncomfortable with some posters saying Israel wants to commit genocide against the Palestinians. I think Israel wants to push them off their land, and many Israeli leaders have stated this for over 50 years. Pushing people off their land is called ethnic cleansing.

But genocide is too strong a term, and just gives fodder to the enemies of Palestinian rights, who will accuse you of hate speech.

Also, one poster stated that none of the suicide bombers attacked inside of Israel proper. I am nearly positive that statement is false. The suicide bombers have attacked what is considered Israel inside the pre-1967 borders.

The most difficult illusion to overcome is that imposed by religions as they have divided people into virtual teams. The economics, access to land and water, of course factor in... but I wish we'd see true spiritual leaders inspire all to join hands and transcend age-old ism divisions that together, genius might inspire new solutions to the pending and serious challenges mankind is soon to face.

phthenry, 'blaming' people for their choice to engage in violence is entirely appropriate. Humans own the responsibility for their intentional choices. They can choose non violence, or they can choose violence. Whatever their reasoning, good reasons or not, that choice IS a choice and as such they own responsibility for making it.

Unlike Palestine, Israeli's guilty of intentionally killing non combatants as primary targets are prosecuted as criminals. Across the wall, such acts are celebrated and those commiting them are treated as heros.

Israel kills more because it has better weapons and technology. Continuing to fight a well equipped army with weapons that results in such results is a good reason to quit choosing violent resistance.

Additionally, something you in return failed to mention is the demographics of the dead from the actions of each side which shows exactly who is targeting who. By far the majority of those killed by Israelis are combatants or those near them, while the majority of those killed by palestinian militants is women and non combatants, which is consistent with intentionally choosing to kill whoever and whereever you can, instead of targeting military targets.

The palestinians are in a bad situation there is no doubt. They are used as pawns by other nations who want leverage against Israel, and due to the militants in their population face Israeli actions covering their entire territory. Even attempting to interdict their militants sparks civil war.

But the fact remains that unless they do so Israel will do it for them. All the more reason to use peaceful means of resistance and show that they will only use the peace they seek to gain the outcome they seek. Instead, you treat them as unthinking robots who do not own responsibility for their choice of responses, by intimating that somehow they are not responsible for the choices they make.

I consider the Palestinian's only mistake to be the selection of civilian targets, but how many of these were false flag? We will never know. Regardless, if a foreign country invaded the U.S. and occupied it, increasingly, in an attempt at genocide, I could easily be persuaded to see the civilians as just as much a part of the problem as the military, and I might hit them.
Regardless of their tactical decisions, the Palestinians have the legal and moral right to repel and vanquish the invaders and occupiers of their land. I hope the entire Middle East comes to the aid of the Palestinians and pushes Israel back to pre-1967, U.N.-approved boundaries.

well DAYUMN....them nasty PAL's musta been trained in the School of America's at Fort Bennings...seems thats what they teach there...terrorism on a grand scale...Oh heck...thats our foreign policy...and their terrorism...DE Mock Racism is a wonderful tool...Blessed are the blind because they cannot see...

MtnGoat

Blaming the Palestinians for the violence is like blaming the natives of America for the violence. Israel continues to occupy the West Bank, and in essence, with its fence, Gaza as well.

Israel has never ceased moving settlers into the occupied territory. You did not mention this, and that this is a violation of international law.

Nor did you mention that every human rights group that has looked at the area, including human rights watch, the UN human rights commission, Amnesty International, Doctors without Borders, B'Tsleem, and others, have found Israel guilty of "deliberate killing" and "torture." Deliberate killing means killing not carried out in war, but that which is deliberate and avoidable.

In the first Intifadah, carried out around 1988, the Palestinians used sticks and stones against the Israelis. How did the Israelis respond? With bullets! There was not a recorded incident of a suicide bomber until the mid 1990s, I believe.

Israel has killed 3 times as many Palestinians as the other way around.

So Israel is (1) guilty of stealing land according to international law (2) deliberate killing and torture and (3) has killed 3 times as many Palestinians as the other way around.

Who is actually guilty of not wanting peace?

Why should they return to approved boundaries taken during war when all it results in is forward positions for attacks upon them?

I'm uncertain that the right to use force against occupiers includes the right to bomb weddings, shoot kids strapped into car seats in the face at point blank range, or nail bomb teenagers at pizza joints.

Most accept military actions against military members and targets are part of war, but categorically reject the fully intentional selection of non combatants as primary targets simply to kill where it's possible to kill, instead of engaging actual combatants.

I'm not sure what is 'right wing' or 'deluded' about rejecting intentional attacks on non combatants, but if this is right wing, I'm certainly glad not to be left wing or have your incredible supposed clarity, which apparently via your example and comments finds it 'right wing' to oppose such actions.

The Pals should reject violence and begin peaceful methods of resistance while cracking down on the violent among themselves. This will prevent the Israelis from having a justifiable reason for incursions into Gaza or anywhere else Palestinians live.

Vets, you state, "In the past, many of the Palestinians who were allowed to enter Israel, used that privilege to explode as suicide bombers.
Wrong. That was not Israel. That was Palestinian land that all of the bombs went off in. Not a single bomb has been exploded in the INTERNATIONALLY AGREED-UPON area that is Israel.
International law states that an occupied people HAS THE RIGHT to use arms against the occupier. You and mtn goat are right wing, deluded fools. You should read Jimmy Carter's book: Peace Not Apartheid.
Hamas is an elected, legitimate ruling party. They were elected because the Palestinian people need to forcefully evict their occupiers.
Israel has ignored 40 binding U.N resolutions since 1968. It refuses to return to pre-1967 U.N. approved boundaries or even participate in serious peace talks. It seeks to take what little the Palestianian people have. Led by Hamas, they will not let that happen.
I certainly hope Hamas starts resisting Israeli occupation over in the West Bank as well.

Yes, a lot are. This is what war results in. Sad and unneccessary. Should the Pals decide to revoke their support for terror and pursue peaceful protest while cracking down on the minority of terrorists which are in their midst, Israel would have no reason to do it for them. Problem of course is, once the Pals started cracking down on their own terrorists..then the Pals doing so become domestic targets for slaughter, as we saw in the last few months with the fight over controlling gaza.

MtnGoat alot of them already are!

Israel doesn't want the Palestinians all dead. Or if it does, it wouldn't SAY that in any case. Israel DOES, however, want all of their land - and wants them off of it. The land it takes day by day - as for the Palestinians, Israel is willing to wait. But unless it changes its policies, someday the Palestinians will all be gone. And the Palestinians know this. So they fight assymetrically. People will fight for their land and their homes. They will fight if their children are killed riding bicycles or just looking out of a window. They will fight if 'settlers' attack them on the street and harrass them in their homes. The settlers believe that all of Palestine and more, is theirs because god gave it to them, according to their holy book. The Palestinians know the Israelis believe this - they have the evidence all around them. So they will fight. And they will lose, because Israel is rich and strong.............and can wait.

If the Israelis actually wanted the Pals dead, they'd already be long gone.

The Israelis may be oppressing the Palestinians, but if they are practicing genocide-they suck at it. 3 main nazi death camps 1,900,000 killed - 126 survivors - Palestinian refugees 1948 800,000. Now 4million plus.

look folks. Stop attacking Israel from Gaza, repudiate Hamas and boot them out, and you'll see the embargo on access, goods, and cash, lifted. There is zero reason Israel, the US, or anyone else should give any aid to those in Gaza since they allow Gaza to be used as a staging area for attacks.

If the Palestinians do not want outside force or embargoes used against them, they'll have to step up and stop the attacks launched from their territory themselves. Otherwise, someone else will do it for them. If they don't like that, then they need to do it themselves.

So far, what Gaza's territory has provided is an eloquent example of why not to give a single scrap back to the Palestinians. They'll destroy all the infrastructure, and merely use it as a forward base for attacks.

Israel should have considered it 100%, permanent Israel after taking it in the war. Instead, they attempted to trade land for peace with Palestinian jew slaughterers, and the inevitable result is...more dead jews, no peace, and encouragement for the Palestinians who support terrorism against Israel.

Which genocide is more compassionate, 60 years of torment and death or a few minutes with an insecticide? My heart aches so much for the victims that I have trouble seperating the actors in this atrocity.

ducks for peace?

Sorry I meant to write Quakers!

"The Israeli right wing dreams of a broken and compliant Palestinian population living on impoverished reservations surrounded by the Israeli military."

Why not just give 'em some blankets coated in small pox? Worked once before...

Actually, most of the mainstream christian groups are participating in a divestiture campaign when it comes to israel. (methodists, presbyterian, Lutheran.}

Yup TheLorax these fundamentalist Christians don't feel bad they are killing the original Christian people of Palestine. However, there are good Christian groups like the Quackers fighting Palestinian oppresion and promoting peace.

Vets all sorts on nonsense gets justified in the name of Security. What Israel is doing to the Palestinians makes them less secure in the long run.

MtnGoat it sounds to me you are endorsing collective punishment.

sick

Just today on CNN there's an article about the Jewish-Christian Holyland Alliance.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/08/17/jews.christians/index.html
Apparantly the right-wing crazies don't want to miss out on the bloodshed and horror. They're rallying to their Israeli 'friends' against the 'evil' Palestinians.
Everybody jump on the Holy War bandwagon! Pick your sides Muslims to the left - Christians to the right. Alright on the count of three we'll all start shooting...1, 2,....

Israel's goal is to exterminate the Palestinians.

First of all I want to make clear that I feel sorry for the poor ordinary residence of Gaza. They must be going through hell... However, there are some inaccuracy in this article that must be set right:

Article: "...the anarchy will perhaps be used to justify a reoccupation by the Israeli military"

- I hardly think this is the case. there is very little support to such a move in the Israeli public. It's like suggesting now that the USA should reoccupy Vietnam.

Article: "...They cannot enter Israel for work"

- The article should not blame Israel for that fact. The first priority of the Israeli government is to protect the lives of Israeli citizens. In the past, many of the Palestinians who were allowed to enter Israel, used that privilege to explode as suicide bombers. I remember that they even used a woman who was sent for a cancer treatment in an Israeli Hospital for that same purpose.

Article: "...looming humanitarian crisis, manufactured and orchestrated by the Israeli government, in violation of international law, is a brutal form of collective punishment."

- What international law is broken? The Hamas government who rule Gaza is officially in a state of war with Israel. With an official policy of trying to destroy Israel. I fail to see why reducing gas and electricity sale to someone who try to destroy you is a violation of international law.

Was the USA violating international law when in World War II they stopped selling oil to Germany and Japan?

At least the US sham of "brnging democracy to the Middle East" has finally been exposed as the thin cover for US hedgmony and dictatorship that it has been all along, both in Palistine and Iraq.

the Bush Riech does not even support democracy at home, let alone anywhere else.

"Israel and the United States will strangle Gaza by cutting off all money and goods, including fuel and most food, to reduce one of the most densely populated places on the planet to an impoverished ghetto"

Well, it worked in Warsaw, where the Jews learned this tactic from the master of this game..Hitler....I wonder... will Haliburton get the no-bid contract to construct the inevitable gas-chambers?

Thats the way these people work. Ok, we'll pull out, but we're going to make sure they can't live after doing so. We'll probably see the same thing in Iraq once we pull out of there. The inevitable civil war that will come, most likely developing a leader our government will find reason to label as a threat. Then imposing sanctions on the country again. And back to starving the citizens to death again. Got to kill them off somehow right. I just wonder if the UN will allow us to instate and control the next no fly zone there again. Then our government can use bombs when the violence reaches a certain degree. Most likely fewer reporters in the country by this time from fear of the violence. So it will be easy enough to claim virtually at will the degree of violence and bombing was warranted.

And they ask the asinine question...why do they hate us?