Palestinian Terrorist Again Using Children as Shields.

[fuzzylogix]

Really, can't you Jew haters come up with real info and pictures? The kid is sitting on a Jeep, no rope at all. Second a scratch on a faceless arm, hello that looks like me after picking Black Berries. Bloody hell you fellas make my skin crawl with your hatred of the US and the Jews. Burning any crosses tonight?

Sigh, Sassy. What the hell has happened to you?

Stay in the kitchen and cook pancakes.

 

[CDNBear]

If I understand correctly, posting links to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch that the IDF has in the past been proven to make false accusations of human sheilds was not enough to make some people question a recent fuzzy youtube video.

Links to an Israeli court decision, the UN, the BBC, Amnesty International, Human rights watch was not enough to connvince some people that Israel uses innocent civilians including children as human shields.

Somebody should give their head a shake.

You are so right, what was I thinking??

The IDF should have done what the Hezbollah does. Just set up rocket launchers in the middle of residencial areas, so when the IDF attacks them, the IDF is baaaaaad.

To the IDF, hey, if the ass heads wanna play war that way, tie as many kids and women to the fronts of your vehicles as you want, hell use them as sand bags. You know full well, you would not get any better treatment from the likes of them, GO ISRAEL.

 

[gopher]

Lots of continued accusations but still no proof from HRW that any of the IDF's claims have any validity whatsoever.

Ho-hum....

 

[CDNBear]

Lots of continued accusations but still no proof from HRW that any of the IDF's claims have any validity whatsoever.

Ho-hum....

The hezbollah did not set up in highly residencial areas?

Please provide proof, I have news reports to back my claim up.

 

[gopher]

Let's stick to the topic. Let's see your evidence from HRW.

 

[CDNBear]

Let's stick to the topic. Let's see your evidence from HRW.

HRW? please elaborate.

forget it Human rights watch, ya like they're a shining example of intellegence.

 

[gopher]

This has been discussed before and I marvel that you missed it.

HRW is the international agency charged with investigating all such charges as alleged in this topic. Therefore, it is the definitive source for all charges/findings on the issue. No other authority can supercede its findings at all.

And so, unless you have evidence from HRW to prove the charge, it becomes baseless.

So where's your proof from HRW?

 

[gopher]

Gotta run a few errands. Be back this afternoon. That should give you plenty of time to find evdience from HRW to "prove" your case as shown in this topic's heading.

 

[CDNBear]

This has been discussed before and I marvel that you missed it.

HRW is the international agency charged with investigating all such charges as alleged in this topic. Therefore, it is the definitive source for all charges/findings on the issue. No other authority can supercede its findings at all.

And so, unless you have evidence from HRW to prove the charge, it becomes baseless.

So where's your proof from HRW?

Here;s one, right from your HRW's sight.

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/10/05/lebano14336.htm

Here's a quote gopher, so stifle the smug attitude please.

"Because of Hezbollah’s secrecy, little is known about the conduct of its forces inside Lebanon and whether its own actions put Lebanese civilians at risk. Human Rights Watch’s research found that on a number of occasions Hezbollah unjustifiably endangered Lebanese civilians by storing weapons in civilian homes, firing rockets from populated areas, and allowing its fighters to operate from civilian homes. Hezbollah also used children as active combatants, another violation of the law. "

Calling me names and such, just winds me up, being smug and indignant, just makes me wanna prove people wrong.

Don't poke the Bear.

 

[earth_as_one]

You are so right, what was I thinking??

The IDF should have done what the Hezbollah does. Just set up rocket launchers in the middle of residencial areas, so when the IDF attacks them, the IDF is baaaaaad.

To the IDF, hey, if the ass heads wanna play war that way, tie as many kids and women to the fronts of your vehicles as you want, hell use them as sand bags. You know full well, you would not get any better treatment from the likes of them, GO ISRAEL.

What gopher said...

In the 1870's when Zionism began to accelerate,

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

Palestine was no more Jewish than New York City or Argentina. About 2% of the population. Palestinians (Muslims, Christians, Jews...) lived relatively peacefully with legally recognized property rights under the domain of the Ottoman empire. Many people could trace their ancestry back to the earliest known inhabitants of the land.

Events in Europe during the 1930's and 40's accelerated European Jewish immigration to Palestine. At first the residents welcomed the immigrants, but as time went by, the immigrants increased in number, became more hostile and desperate. When the UN "partitioned" Palestine in 1948, they awarded control the "larger", more arable "half" to the Jewish colonialists. Israel planted their flag and declared by the right of a UN grant, they now held dominion over all the land and its inhabitants. Sound familar?

All Israel's neighbors who were never consulted when the UN created Israel, declared war on Israel. After Israel won that war, it turned its military force inward and cleansed itself of non-Jews. Yes a few, as a very small number were able to remain, as a result of luck, intervention by Jewish Palestinians..., but the overall effect was that most non-Jews were cleansed off their land.

Today, no country wants these people and Israel treats most non-Jewish people under their control worse than caged animals. The West Bank and Gaza are controlled by Israel.

These maps tell their story:
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/history/maps.html

Most of us are told our opinions by the talking heads who blatantly lie to us on the news. Why not go to the source and make up your own mind?

The UN Assistant Secretary for Humanitarian Affairs and Coordinator of Emergency Aid

Go to Original
The Human Catastrophe of Gaza Is a Time Bomb
By Jan Egeland and Jan Eliasson
Le Figaro
Thursday 28 September 2006
...Gaza constitutes a time bomb. Some 1.4 million people, mostly children, are piled up in one of the most densely populated regions of the world, with no freedom of movement, no place to run, and no space to hide. Virtually without external access since June, Gaza is experiencing a rise in poverty, unemployment, penury, and despair. Sadly, that which Gaza most needs today is precisely what it lacks the most: hope.

...Since the Israeli operation "Summer Rain" began end-June in response to the kidnapping of an Israeli Defense Forces soldier, one Israeli soldier has been killed. During the same period, 235 Palestinians have been killed, including 46 children. Every loss of human life must be deplored. But there is no doubt that the response, measured in terms of civilian victims, is disproportionate. For the Palestinians, as for the Israelis, the consequences of the confrontations of the summer are devastating, just as they are pernicious to the perspectives for peace in this troubled region.
Access by air, sea, and land has been virtually cut off for Gaza. The movements of goods and peoples have practically ceased. Supplies of electricity and water, interrupted by Israeli Defense Forces attacks on electric power stations, is irregular and insignificant. Civilian infrastructures have been affected. Gaza today remains dependent on outside sources for its food and commercial supplies. Hygienic conditions are deteriorating, while access to potable water is inadequate. With a Palestinian economy in continuous freefall, we must expect a more severe deterioration in sanitary conditions.
Imagine: You are a mother or a father in Gaza, living in a space inferior to a quarter of that of greater London (1,620 sq. km) with a population the size of Leeds (1.49 million inhabitants). You cannot leave this territory, nor import nor export products. Your children live in continuous fear of violence. Shortages of essential goods, including water, increase the propagation of contagious illnesses and reinforce the problems of daily life. Every day, as many as 185 artillery shells strike your territory. Every night, you witness blind rocket attacks on Israel by militant groups. You know that when the reprisals come, you and your family will not be spared their effects.
...On the economic front, we ask Israel to free up the roughly 500 million dollars of income from taxes and duties that it retains.
These funds are indispensable to respond in all urgency to humanitarian and economic needs...


-------- Jan Egeland is the UN Assistant Secretary for Humanitarian Affairs and Coordinator of Emergency Aid. Jan Eliasson is Sweden's Foreign Affairs Minister and former (1992-1994) UN Assistant Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs.

Here is the history the news doesn't tell us:

Stateless Palestinians

(from "Forced Migration Review" Issue 26)
by Abbas Shiblak
Palestinians are the largest stateless community in the world. Statelessness has dominated and shaped the lives of four generations of Palestinian refugees since their exodus in 1948.

...Today more than half of the eight million or so Palestinians are considered to be de jure stateless persons. These fall broadly into three categories:
- holders of the 'Refugee Travel Document' (RTD) issued by Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq and some other Arab countries
- holders of nationalities of convenience – mainly temporary Jordanian passports
- holders of the Palestinian passport issued by the Palestinian Authority (PA) which is considered as a travel document pending formation of a fully- fledged Palestinian state.

...Israeli policy has been, and still is, is to reduce the number of Palestinian Arabs while increasing the number of Jewish immigrants, who, it must be remembered, were the minority, even in the areas originally demarcated for the Jewish State under the Partition Plan. To ensure Judaisation, Israel issued three laws within four years of its foundation: the Absentees' Property Law, the Law of Return and the Israel Citizenship Law. These nullified the rights of the displaced non-Jewish population to return to their homes while endorsing the right of any Jew – regardless of place of origin – to unrestricted immigration and automatic citizenship.
Similar policies were pursued following occupation of the West Bank in 1967. In defiance of international law, Israel considers all Palestinians inhabitants of the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT) as non-citizens and foreign residents. The 250,000 Palestinians who happened to be outside the OPT when they were occupied were not allowed to return. Israeli military rule (the ironically-named Civil Administration) issued a series of orders withdrawing IDs from thousands of Palestinians as a result of the expiry of exit visas they were required to obtain each time they travelled abroad. Israel's illegal annexation of East Jerusalem in 1967 and the Golan Heights in 1981 led to the application of Israeli civil legislation in these occupied territories. Their residents found themselves declared to be permanent residents – but not citizens – of Israel. The Israeli Ministry of the Interior has complete discretion over approval of citizenship applications. Israel has employed a 1974 regulation as a 'legal' instrument to deprive many Jerusalemite Arabs of their IDs and residency rights if they are absent from the city for more than seven years, have acquired other citizenship or been granted permanent residency rights elsewhere. This can only be described as administrative 'ethnic cleansing'.

...The legal status, residency and civil rights of Palestinian communities in the Arab World are increasingly uncertain, particularly in Lebanon and Egypt where they are denied rights to secure residency, employment, property, communal interaction and family unification.

...The right to nationality is a fundamental human right. Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 declares that "everyone has the right to a nationality." It is the right from which other rights and entitlements can flow – to education, medical care, work, property ownership, travel, state protection – in short, to full participation in a world composed of nation states.
Changing the status of people to non-citizens or threatening the security of their residency status with little or no consideration of the rule of law generates insecurity and has a devastatomg long-term social and psychological impact. Stateless communities are the first to pay the price for political instability and insecurity in the countries where they find themselves. Without access to education or employment, stateless communities are exposed to political manipulation, exploitation and poverty. The effect on host societies, the region and the world cannot be ignored. Impoverished and marginalised refugee communities – notably the Palestinians – constitute the major destabilising factor in the Middle East.

...The legitimacy of the decision taken in 1951 to exclude Palestinians from the international protection regime on the basis that they were already being assisted by UNRWA is being increasingly challenged by scholars, jurists and advocacy groups. There is wider awareness of the need to make the international refugee regime relevant for Palestinian refugees and to formally acknowledgethe impacts of statelessness. (3)
Takkenberg notes that being a refugee, stateless, dispossessed, lacking the passport of a state, not having even the theoretical option of returning to one's country – in other words, not having even the right to have rights – "has been at the very heart of the Palestinian refugee problem." He argues that the element of statelessness has been more significant than the refugee aspect in detrimentally affecting the position of the Palestinian people. (4) Unlike other aliens, stateless Palestinians are not admissible in any other country. If expelled from a country they are at risk of finding themselves in 'perpetual orbit' as stateless individuals....

Abbas Shiblak, a Research Associate at the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford, was one of the founders of the SHAML Diaspora and Refugee Centre, Ramallah www.shaml. org Email: ashiblak@tiscali.co.uk
Notes:
(1.) www.badil.org/Documents/Protection/LAS/Casablanca-Protocol.htm
(2.) www.fmreview.org/FMRpdfs/FMR20/FMR2013.pdf
(3.) www.badil.org/Publications/Briefs/Brief-No-01.htm
(4.)Takkenberg. L (1998 ), The Status of Palestinian Refugees in International Law, New York, Clarendon Press (5.) www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/publ/opendoc.pdf?tbl =RSDLEGAL&id=3da192be4&page=publ

In what is today Canada, the European colonialists were unfair toward the indigenous people. But we never relocated our first nation people to walled in compounds, topped with razor wire and machine gun towers, nor do we currently starve and bomb them. But in both cases colonial powers use force to take land. In Canada that is our historical record. In Palestine, that's today's reality.

All the IDF does when they are ready to carve another slice out of Palestine is lob a few tak shells though the resident's windows and declare it abanonned. By Law, abandonned property becomes state property and eligible for resettlement. The state then razes the property and erects housing for Jews. That's been going on since Israel was created.

I'm surprised CNDBear, you side with the colonial power in this case?

 

[earth_as_one]

Additional links:

Remembering Land Day

The Har Homa settlement project sparked Palestinian land protests

Land Day is the day when Israeli Arabs hold demonstrations to mark the loss of their land to Israel in 1948...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1250290.stm

A Palestinian Perspective:

...Consecutive Israeli governments have stolen refugee properties and homes, destroyed our villages and confiscated our lands by means of discriminatory, ethnic legislation and by denying our right of return to our homeland, which is based on UN resolution 194/III (11-12-194
“[The General Assembly] Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes, and live at peace with their neighbors, should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date. And that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the governments or authorities responsible.

Ironically, Israel's admission to the United Nations was conditioned by Israel's adherence to the above-mentioned resolution. Until now, and irrespective of all consecutive UN resolutions addressing this issue, Israel has refused to abide by UN Resolution 194...

...One of these unjust laws is the 1950 Absentees' Properties Law that defined internally displaced Palestinians as "Present Absentees". According to Atty Tawfiq Jabareen, this law was used after 1948 to transfer Palestinian properties to Jewish hands via an illegal guardian (the Custodian of Absentee Properties) who transferred them to the Israeli Development Authority.

One of the administrative steps taken by Israeli governments was the destruction of the villages of origin, in order to uproot the displaced and to build settlements for Jewish immigrants. The inhabitants of Iqrit and Kufr Bir’am were evacuated in this context. Following a 1951 Supreme Court decision confirming their right to return to their villages, Iqrit and Bir'am were completely destroyed....

we wish to re-affirm the following:

We the some 250,000 internally displaced, part of the Palestinian Arab minority, citizens of this state, did not fall from the sky. We are not immigrants, but natives in our land. The Israeli government is not allowed - on ethical, moral, legal, and political grounds - to keep us displaced in our homeland, far from our towns and villages of origin. International law and principles protect our natural right of return.

We warn the Israeli government not to neglect our issue and demand that our file be opened. We demand the cancellation of the Absentees' Property Law which defines us as "Present Absentees", as well as the cancellation of all other laws providing for ethnic discrimination, and to return the displaced to their homes.

The National Committee demands to maintain the holy sites in all destroyed villages and to protect our historic sites.

...We call upon all political institutions, national parties, and our people to stand on our side.

As part of the entire Arab-Palestinian people, we wish to declare:

The refugee issue is the heart of the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The Palestinian refugees' right to return to their homeland and homes is a sacred right whose implementation must be based on UN Resolution 194.

We warn of the consequences of conspiracies against Palestinian refugee rights, whether conducted openly or behind closed doors. We state with a loud voice that there will be no just solution without a solution of issue of the refugees and the internally displaced."...

The National Committee for the Rights of the Internally Displaced in Israel
February 2000

http://www.badil.org/Documents/Other/Refugees/2000/1-00.htm

 

[CDNBear]

I understand exactly what you are saying. If I hadn't seen first hand the atrocities committed against soldiers of the IDf in my life, I may feel differently. My warrior blood does dictate my emotions, and I wear my emotions on my sleave, much to my own detriment at times.

I may be wrong, but the disputed land we speak of was originally Jewish land, no?

If it was, and they were granted the return of it by the powers of the day. Then they have the right to govern it at will.

We are not discussing an Imperial Army here. Spanning the globe in search of wealth to bolster the home fires. We are talking about a displaced people, for whom, centuries of excile and abuse, had become a way of life.

That does not condone the use of human shields and war crimes, but I am now and always be, a firm believer in using the tactics of my enemies, if that is all they will understand.

Comparing the Israeli actions to the actions of the Imperial Nations that concquered some of my ancestors, 100's of years ago, doesn't wash with me. The Israelis are not trying to expand their access to natural resources or "gold", they are securing "their" homeland.

 

[MikeyDB]

Earth-as-one…..

Read any Arthur Koestler lately?

I think you’d find Koestler’s “The Thirteenth Tribe” interesting, and you might find Norman Finkelstein’s “The Holocaust Industry” provocative as well….

The vast majority of White Anglo-Saxon Protestants alive today including some choosing to participate here at ‘Canadian Content’ have endured/enjoyed or at least been unwittingly vulnerable to a dynamic heretofore unseen throughout the entire temporal spectrum of human existence.

Never before has there been an instrument of education, a purveyor of goods, or a symbolic “conscience” like television which has wrought its effects to sculpt perception and facilitate dubious agendas on such a large percentage of the earths inhabitants. So enthusiastically embraced and welcomed into the sanctuaries of private homes, where, as a free “choice” those prosperous enough to participate purchase goods and form opinions not on the basis of first hand experience but through ‘sound-bytes’ engineered to take advantage of an assumed (and encouraged) thirty-second attention span.

“Truth” spun, re-shaped and reduced sufficiently so as to not require cogitation of any duration and packaged for enthusiastic consumption, this information “swallowed” is the foundation upon which this generation builds its “awareness” of what’s going on in the world.

The “digital approach” embraced so enthusiastically by postmodern society permits of a two dimensional climate and hence extremely superficial approach, wherein issues can be efficiently reduced to black and white, them or us. A polar division planted and fertilized to choose product “A” over product “B”.

Less popular in these times (for a number of reasons) is the depth of understanding if not just an appreciation for plain “fact” that resides in diligent interrogation and critical thinking/comparison available through reading and study.

This bifurcation of awareness inexorably leads to the finesse of statements like: “If you’re not with us (against terrorism…) then you’re one of them…”

Absolutes like Palestinians or Jews are ……insert adjective of your choice here….

I’m pointing this out to you only to save you the energy of trying to convince the already convinced (black and white conclusions don’t require a great deal of thought…) that there are issues and perspectives that need to be critically examined and evaluated before a conclusion is reached. Very few people today want anything more complicated than Homer Simpson or Hockey Night in Canada….

They’ve been conditioned to turn their cars into the Tim Horton’s temporal parking lot and have absolute faith in Geraldo Rivera and western media to deliver to them the moment by moment “truth” of what’s happening in the world and can’t afford the time or energy to look beyond it….

 

[CDNBear]

Earth-as-one…..

Read any Arthur Koestler lately?

I think you’d find Koestler’s “The Thirteenth Tribe” interesting, and you might find Norman Finkelstein’s “The Holocaust Industry” provocative as well….

The vast majority of White Anglo-Saxon Protestants alive today including some choosing to participate here at ‘Canadian Content’ have endured/enjoyed or at least been unwittingly vulnerable to a dynamic heretofore unseen throughout the entire temporal spectrum of human existence.

Never before has there been an instrument of education, a purveyor of goods, or a symbolic “conscience” like television which has wrought its effects to sculpt perception and facilitate dubious agendas on such a large percentage of the earths inhabitants. So enthusiastically embraced and welcomed into the sanctuaries of private homes, where, as a free “choice” those prosperous enough to participate purchase goods and form opinions not on the basis of first hand experience but through ‘sound-bytes’ engineered to take advantage of an assumed (and encouraged) thirty-second attention span.

“Truth” spun, re-shaped and reduced sufficiently so as to not require cogitation of any duration and packaged for enthusiastic consumption, this information “swallowed” is the foundation upon which this generation builds its “awareness” of what’s going on in the world.

The “digital approach” embraced so enthusiastically by postmodern society permits of a two dimensional climate and hence extremely superficial approach, wherein issues can be efficiently reduced to black and white, them or us. A polar division planted and fertilized to choose product “A” over product “B”.

Less popular in these times (for a number of reasons) is the depth of understanding if not just an appreciation for plain “fact” that resides in diligent interrogation and critical thinking/comparison available through reading and study.

This bifurcation of awareness inexorably leads to the finesse of statements like: “If you’re not with us (against terrorism…) then you’re one of them…”

Absolutes like Palestinians or Jews are ……insert adjective of your choice here….

I’m pointing this out to you only to save you the energy of trying to convince the already convinced (black and white conclusions don’t require a great deal of thought…) that there are issues and perspectives that need to be critically examined and evaluated before a conclusion is reached. Very few people today want anything more complicated than Homer Simpson or Hockey Night in Canada….

They’ve been conditioned to turn their cars into the Tim Horton’s temporal parking lot and have absolute faith in Geraldo Rivera and western media to deliver to them the moment by moment “truth” of what’s happening in the world and can’t afford the time or energy to look beyond it….

Ok, thanx for the scathing shot, at those that have not been to your school of thought. Some of us were educated in the mud and blood of theoretical and/or physical combat.

So our views may be jaded, to say the least, that's not to say, that we will shut ourselves out to the truth, but when th etruth is served on a platter of smug indignance, it hard to swallow, no matter what side of the fence one sits on.

My views are just that my views, I don't look down on those that have a differing point of view, I look down on those that have an un-educated view based solely on conjecture. If I'm unsure I'll ask. Then of course, in some cases, the reply is veiled in sarcasm and smug petulance.

I and most people have come to the conclusion, TV is not the medium of truth, it's cracked up to be. So we or some will fall back on life experiences to formulate thoughts, that are distinctively our own.

Offer up a rebuttle, fact and point. But to try and insinuate that the masses are deaded by the tube, is not as constructive and intellegent as you think you are.

 

[Colpy]

Well, Mikey DB, I'll say one thing for ya......you sure can whip up a fancy bowl o' spicy bull****!

I'm soooooo glad that you intellectually superior lefty folk have come down from your ivory towers to lead the great unwashed to shores of true knowledge, the path to which only you have been blessed with by that Higher Power, Arrogance.

You really don't like democracy, do you?

Now for a little education for you.

The fact is, some of us see in the west a culture, a system, a philosophy that has made the entire population of the western world rich and free. Some of us actually believe (we were told by Homer Simpson, you know) that that political structure where we are fortunate enough to live is superior to those led by murderous tyrants, terrorists, aggressive and insane clergy, genocidal lunatics, and individuals so corrupt they steal a major portion of the peoples' wealth.

In these cases we are, as individuals, apt to support those nations and governments that best reflect our own. Why? BECAUSE THEY ARE SUPERIOR!

That is not to say they are perfect, in fact, I think the western democracies have taken some giant UNNECESSARY steps backwards since 9-11. It is true that our governments have used 9-11, purposely or not, as an excuse for a giant domestic power grab. Hopefully we will be able to reverse that, but I have my doubts.

What YOU need to do is a little comparitive examination of the enemies of the west......you'll find it may not be black and white, but it sure is VERY distinct shades of gray..........

North Korea, Iran, Syria, the Palestinian Authority, China, the Sudan and on and on are so very dark gray............and if you were your dissident self in any of those places, your life would be very miserable, and probably very short.

Yeah, I don't suffer from self-loathing.

 

[CDNBear]

Well, Mikey DB, I'll say one thing for ya......you sure can whip up a fancy bowl o' spicy bull****!

I'm soooooo glad that you intellectually superior lefty folk have come down from your ivory towers to lead the great unwashed to shores of true knowledge, the path to which only you have been blessed with by that Higher Power, Arrogance.

You really don't like democracy, do you?

Now for a little education for you.

The fact is, some of us see in the west a culture, a system, a philosophy that has made the entire population of the western world rich and free. Some of us actually believe (we were told by Homer Simpson, you know) that that political structure where we are fortunate enough to live is superior to those led by murderous tyrants, terrorists, aggressive and insane clergy, genocidal lunatics, and individuals so corrupt they steal a major portion of the peoples' wealth.

In these cases we are, as individuals, apt to support those nations and governments that best reflect our own. Why? BECAUSE THEY ARE SUPERIOR!

That is not to say they are perfect, in fact, I think the western democracies have taken some giant UNNECESSARY steps backwards since 9-11. It is true that our governments have used 9-11, purposely or not, as an excuse for a giant domestic power grab. Hopefully we will be able to reverse that, but I have my doubts.

What YOU need to do is a little comparitive examination of the enemies of the west......you'll find it may not be black and white, but it sure is VERY distinct shades of gray..........

North Korea, Iran, Syria, the Palestinian Authority, China, the Sudan and on and on are so very dark gray............and if you were your dissident self in any of those places, your life would be very miserable, and probably very short.

Yeah, I don't suffer from self-loathing.

Here here, lmao, very well said.

 

[CDNBear]

Hey Colpy, have you noticed how the proof they squawked for, was ignored?

 

[earth_as_one]

I understand exactly what you are saying. If I hadn't seen first hand the atrocities committed against soldiers of the IDf in my life, I may feel differently. My warrior blood does dictate my emotions, and I wear my emotions on my sleave, much to my own detriment at times.

I may be wrong, but the disputed land we speak of was originally Jewish land, no?

If it was, and they were granted the return of it by the powers of the day. Then they have the right to govern it at will.

We are not discussing an Imperial Army here. Spanning the globe in search of wealth to bolster the home fires. We are talking about a displaced people, for whom, centuries of excile and abuse, had become a way of life.

That does not condone the use of human shields and war crimes, but I am now and always be, a firm believer in using the tactics of my enemies, if that is all they will understand.

Comparing the Israeli actions to the actions of the Imperial Nations that concquered some of my ancestors, 100's of years ago, doesn't wash with me. The Israelis are not trying to expand their access to natural resources or "gold", they are securing "their" homeland.

If all you have seen is the atrocitieis committed against IDF soldiers than you know less than half the story. Consider the links I've posted above and kept an open mind.

Who has a more legitimate claim to property?

A Palestinian actually living on the land with legal records of ownership and access to the land going back hundreds of generations to the present, or a Jewish immigrant who recently immigrated to Palestine from Europe and claims their ancestors lived on that land 2000 years ago?

Does that mean that if I can find an example of a historical injustice involving any of my ancestors for the last 2000 years, I have the right to kick the current inhabitants off that land?

I don't think so.

But if you think you know what's going on here then consider this interview of Israeli historian Benny Morris and tell me if you agree with him:

...

Benny Morris, in the month ahead the new version of your book on the birth of the Palestinian refugee problem is due to be published. Who will be less pleased with the book - the Israelis or the Palestinians?

"The revised book is a double-edged sword. It is based on many documents that were not available to me when I wrote the original book, most of them from the Israel Defense Forces Archives. What the new material shows is that there were far more Israeli acts of massacre than I had previously thought. To my surprise, there were also many cases of rape. In the months of April-May 1948, units of the Haganah [the pre-state defense force that was the precursor of the IDF] were given operational orders that stated explicitly that they were to uproot the villagers, expel them and destroy the villages themselves.

"At the same time, it turns out that there was a series of orders issued by the Arab Higher Committee and by the Palestinian intermediate levels to remove children, women and the elderly from the villages. So that on the one hand, the book reinforces the accusation against the Zionist side, but on the other hand it also proves that many of those who left the villages did so with the encouragement of the Palestinian leadership itself."

According to your new findings, how many cases of Israeli rape were there in 1948?

"About a dozen. In Acre four soldiers raped a girl and murdered her and her father. In Jaffa, soldiers of the Kiryati Brigade raped one girl and tried to rape several more. At Hunin, which is in the Galilee, two girls were raped and then murdered. There were one or two cases of rape at Tantura, south of Haifa. There was one case of rape at Qula, in the center of the country. At the village of Abu Shusha, near Kibbutz Gezer [in the Ramle area] there were four female prisoners, one of whom was raped a number of times. And there were other cases. Usually more than one soldier was involved. Usually there were one or two Palestinian girls. In a large proportion of the cases the event ended with murder. Because neither the victims nor the rapists liked to report these events, we have to assume that the dozen cases of rape that were reported, which I found, are not the whole story. They are just the tip of the iceberg."

According to your findings, how many acts of Israeli massacre were perpetrated in 1948?

"Twenty-four. In some cases four or five people were executed, in others the numbers were 70, 80, 100. There was also a great deal of arbitrary killing. Two old men are spotted walking in a field - they are shot. A woman is found in an abandoned village - she is shot. There are cases such as the village of Dawayima [in the Hebron region], in which a column entered the village with all guns blazing and killed anything that moved.

"The worst cases were Saliha (70-80 killed), Deir Yassin (100-110), Lod (250), Dawayima (hundreds) and perhaps Abu Shusha (70). There is no unequivocal proof of a large-scale massacre at Tantura, but war crimes were perpetrated there. At Jaffa there was a massacre about which nothing had been known until now. The same at Arab al Muwassi, in the north. About half of the acts of massacre were part of Operation Hiram [in the north, in October 1948]: at Safsaf, Saliha, Jish, Eilaboun, Arab al Muwasi, Deir al Asad, Majdal Krum, Sasa. In Operation Hiram there was a unusually high concentration of executions of people against a wall or next to a well in an orderly fashion.

"That can't be chance. It's a pattern. Apparently, various officers who took part in the operation understood that the expulsion order they received permitted them to do these deeds in order to encourage the population to take to the roads. The fact is that no one was punished for these acts of murder. Ben-Gurion silenced the matter. He covered up for the officers who did the massacres."

What you are telling me here, as though by the way, is that in Operation Hiram there was a comprehensive and explicit expulsion order. Is that right?

"Yes. One of the revelations in the book is that on October 31, 1948, the commander of the Northern Front, Moshe Carmel, issued an order in writing to his units to expedite the removal of the Arab population. Carmel took this action immediately after a visit by Ben-Gurion to the Northern Command in Nazareth. There is no doubt in my mind that this order originated with Ben-Gurion. Just as the expulsion order for the city of Lod, which was signed by Yitzhak Rabin, was issued immediately after Ben-Gurion visited the headquarters of Operation Dani [July 1948]."

Are you saying that Ben-Gurion was personally responsible for a deliberate and systematic policy of mass expulsion?

"From April 1948, Ben-Gurion is projecting a message of transfer. There is no explicit order of his in writing, there is no orderly comprehensive policy, but there is an atmosphere of [population] transfer. The transfer idea is in the air. The entire leadership understands that this is the idea. The officer corps understands what is required of them. Under Ben-Gurion, a consensus of transfer is created."

Ben-Gurion was a "transferist"?

"Of course. Ben-Gurion was a transferist. He understood that there could be no Jewish state with a large and hostile Arab minority in its midst. There would be no such state. It would not be able to exist."

I don't hear you condemning him.

"Ben-Gurion was right. If he had not done what he did, a state would not have come into being. That has to be clear. It is impossible to evade it. Without the uprooting of the Palestinians, a Jewish state would not have arisen here."

When ethnic cleansing is justified

Benny Morris, for decades you have been researching the dark side of Zionism. You are an expert on the atrocities of 1948. In the end, do you in effect justify all this? Are you an advocate of the transfer of 1948?

"There is no justification for acts of rape. There is no justification for acts of massacre. Those are war crimes. But in certain conditions, expulsion is not a war crime. I don't think that the expulsions of 1948 were war crimes. You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs. You have to dirty your hands."

We are talking about the killing of thousands of people, the destruction of an entire society.

"A society that aims to kill you forces you to destroy it. When the choice is between destroying or being destroyed, it's better to destroy."

There is something chilling about the quiet way in which you say that.

"If you expected me to burst into tears, I'm sorry to disappoint you. I will not do that."

http://www.deiryassin.org/bennymorris.html

Do you agree with Israeli historian Benny Morris that these atrocities were necessary?

If all you know are the atrocities committed by one side, then how objective is your viewpoint?

This website shows images of Israeli atrocities:
WARNING GRAPHIC IMAGES OF ISRAELI WAR CRIMES
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20060721&articleId=2787

 

[fuzzylogix]

Well, Mikey DB, I'll say one thing for ya......you sure can whip up a fancy bowl o' spicy bull****!

I'm soooooo glad that you intellectually superior lefty folk have come down from your ivory towers to lead the great unwashed to shores of true knowledge, the path to which only you have been blessed with by that Higher Power, Arrogance.

You really don't like democracy, do you?

Now for a little education for you.

The fact is, some of us see in the west a culture, a system, a philosophy that has made the entire population of the western world rich and free. Some of us actually believe (we were told by Homer Simpson, you know) that that political structure where we are fortunate enough to live is superior to those led by murderous tyrants, terrorists, aggressive and insane clergy, genocidal lunatics, and individuals so corrupt they steal a major portion of the peoples' wealth.

In these cases we are, as individuals, apt to support those nations and governments that best reflect our own. Why? BECAUSE THEY ARE SUPERIOR!

That is not to say they are perfect, in fact, I think the western democracies have taken some giant UNNECESSARY steps backwards since 9-11. It is true that our governments have used 9-11, purposely or not, as an excuse for a giant domestic power grab. Hopefully we will be able to reverse that, but I have my doubts.

What YOU need to do is a little comparitive examination of the enemies of the west......you'll find it may not be black and white, but it sure is VERY distinct shades of gray..........

North Korea, Iran, Syria, the Palestinian Authority, China, the Sudan and on and on are so very dark gray............and if you were your dissident self in any of those places, your life would be very miserable, and probably very short.

Yeah, I don't suffer from self-loathing.

Holy mother of whichever G you believe in!

It is just your sort of bloody reasoning that led to the colonization and subsequent destruction of so called primitive cultures around the world.

The idea that the Western societies were SUPERIOR to the blacks and Indians in Africa and India, etc. The whole development of apartheid was based on the idea that whites were inherently superior to blacks and therefore whites had the right......NAY EVEN the RESPONSIBILITY to subdue them.

Well, we can certainly see where your racist tendencies lie.

 

[CDNBear]

Earth said,,,

Does that mean that if I can find an example of a historical injustice involving any of my ancestors for the last 2000 years, I have the right to kick the current inhabitants off that land?

If the UN mandates it, then yes.

Like I've stated, my views are jaded, my aligences drawn in concrete and blood. Like I said before, I understand your point of view, you will not understand mine, you haven't been in my shoes, nor have you bore the burden of your Nation or brothers in arms.

Not everything Israel has done, has been done with out malice or the thoughts of righteous retrobution. I agree, but to negate the actions of the Lebonese, Palistinian, Syrian, Irannian, Iraqi, Egyptians and others, is ridiculous.

Don't forget, Judaism, is based on the Old Testamant. They believe in an eye for an eye. So do the Muslims surrounding them. Stop watching with the New Testament on your lap, not everything has to be touchy feely and love and roses. Sometimes people only understand what comes out of the barrel of a weapon.