Call for a Peaceful End to Zionism

[L Gilbert]

lol Cute.
Oh, you mean the bit about stubbing toes. Was confused between the post he was quoting and his own post. That's why I only post parts of quotes.

 

[Zzarchov]

The whole post needs to be read as fiction, as that is the tone the whole thing. How unless the stuff in red is actually true, then the occupied territories are nothing like the holocaust

 

[gopher]

So it's unpatriotic. Better a wise chicken than a dead moron. One can always regroup and come back later. Staying there and watching your kids, neighbors and seniors die in restaurants and markets at the hands of suicide bombers, rockets, etc. can't be healthy. Perhaps you would prefer to watch that sort of thing perhaps die while you're stuffing your face with a big mac, not me. After all, there are more peaceful places available.

:smilebox:

 

[earth_as_one]

Israel's new Muslim cabinet minister has no portfolio, no authority and isn't involved in decision making. Sounds like a token appointment to me.

There is a HUGE difference between being forced to carry ID (which many nations do, although I disapprove), and being forced to wear a highly visible indication of your "sub-humaness" That is blatantly obvious. Not even CLOSE to the same thing.

Its not the ID cards themselves, but that they are used just like the star of David to classify people and treat people according to race/religion.

How would you describe this treatment:

Take me home through the roadblocks

Jumana Odeh
International Herald Tribune
January 27, 2005

Driving to medical school, as I do on two days of every week, passing through several checkpoints, arguing with the soldiers, I felt compelled, for the sake of the future, to try to understand them. I could detect their fear as much as their aggressiveness, their frustration as much as mine, and most of all their young age - the age of my students and my daughter.

Was their behavior at the checkpoints, individually or collectively, normal and healthy behavior? Certainly not. There were times when I could sense humanity, could even glimpse their promise. But at most times they were only a gun in my face, followed by a uniform.

Each day, before I leave home to travel from one place to another inside my own country, I pack my bag with a new book, a bottle of iced water, a thermos of coffee, two cellular phones (one for use in the West Bank and Gaza Strip; one for use in Jerusalem and Israel) and my personal music player. Perhaps this bag works as a defense mechanism, but it helps with each day.

Finally, I arrive at the medical school. The class that I tackle, not teach, is "Medical Ethics" (I believe medical ethics is not taught, but explored and discussed).

I have been giving this course for four years, and each year it becomes more interesting. Classroom discussions are inevitably hot as we explore the relationship between doctors and patients, religion and the body, sex and spirit, confidentiality and more.

The most charged question is always: "If you found a wounded Israeli solider, what would you do?" Responses vary from the most negative to the most positive. An ironic reply has become more and more common: "You think an Israeli soldier, even a wounded one, would accept my treatment?" "Don't they see themselves as too superior to accept our help?"

The minute I ask a student, any student, about his or her day, a story of roadblocks, checkpoints and systematic harassment and humiliation will inevitably pour out. All this just in order to go from home to university and back again.

Today one student, a young woman, described an ugly scene. It was raining heavily, and, along with many others, she was waiting in line at a checkpoint. Above their heads, there was a light awning, offering some protection from the weather. Suddenly, one of the soldiers - young and female, like my student - ordered everyone to form another line away from the awning. My student said the soldier watched as people in the line became wet and angry. She seemed happy.

The students asked me: "Dr. Jumana, how can you explain this behavior? Is it normal?" "Of course not," I responded. "But despite this you must find ways to give yourselves strength. I know it's extremely difficult, but it is healthier to think positively than to give up."

But I encounter such events myself every day. It makes me question myself. What can, what should I be telling my students? How can I effectively respond to their feelings of anger and victimization, and the resulting hatred and calls for revenge? I wonder what an Israeli leader in my situation would do. The best - and only - answers I know are faith and love. Faith that the future can, and will be, different. Love so as not to give into hatred and despair.

Driving home again after the end of class, equipped with my book and thermos of coffee, I have my headphones on. John Denver is singing, "Country roads, take me home / To the place I belong." If you were to ask me how many hours of my life have I lost waiting at checkpoints, I would tell you how many books I have read.

At the last checkpoint , I recognize the soldier. He was at the checkpoint when I left home in the morning. His face has no expression. Suddenly, seeing the headphones on my head, he begins to laugh. He asks me - in Hebrew, of course: "Don't you have money to buy a radio?" I reply: "What is it? Are you finally able to talk to me, and to laugh, because you are secure in your superiority over me? This morning, you had only a gun. Now, you have a gun and the belief that I am poor." How old are you?"

"Twenty." "The same age as my oldest daughter. The same age as many of my students."

I continue: "We have more money than you think. But we have something that it seems you have already lost. Our humanity." The soldier is silent. But I never give up. "Take me home, country road." I'm almost there, for today.

(Jumana Odeh, a pediatrician, is director of the Palestinian Happy Child Center in Ramallah.)

Are Palestinians humans?

[SIZE=+2]Roadblock Concerto at Gunpoint [/SIZE]

[SIZE=+2]"The Pianist" of Palestine[/SIZE]

[SIZE=+2]By OMAR BARGHOUTI[/SIZE]
[SIZE=+3]W[/SIZE]hen I watched Oscar-winning film The Pianist I had three distinct, uneasy reactions. I was not particularly impressed by the film, from a purely artistic angle; I was horrified by the film's depiction of the dehumanization of Polish Jews and the impunity of the German occupiers; and I could not help but compare the Warsaw ghetto wall with Israel's much more ominous wall caging 3.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza in fragmented, sprawling prisons.
In the film, when German soldiers forced Jewish musicians to play for them at a checkpoint, I thought to myself: "that's one thing Israeli soldiers have not yet done to Palestinians." I spoke too soon, it seems. Israel's leading newspaper Ha'aretz reported last week that an Israeli human rights organization monitoring a daunting military roadblock near Nablus was able to videotape Israeli soldiers forcing a Palestinian violinist to play for them. The same organization confirmed that similar abuse had taken place months ago at another checkpoint near Jerusalem....

http://www.counterpunch.org/barghouti11292004.html

This is not an isolated case. Palestinians face constant humiliation and dehumanizing treatment:
http://www.ipc.gov.ps/ipc_e/ipc_e-1/eye-e/ipc-eye-29.html

But Israel's subhuman treatment of Palestinians gets much worse than humiliation.

Its a documented fact that the IDF has used Palestinian civilians including children as human shields:

20 July 2006: Israeli Soldiers use civilians as Human Shields in Beit Hanun

B'Tselem's initial investigation indicates that, during an incursion by Israeli forces into Beit Hanun, in the northern Gaza Strip, on 17 July 2006, soldiers seized control of two buildings in the town and used residents as human shield.

After seizing control of the buildings, the soldiers held six residents, two of them minors, on the staircases of the two buildings, at the entrance to rooms in which the soldiers positioned themselves, for some twelve hours. During this time, there were intense exchanges of gunfire between the soldiers and armed Palestinians. The soldiers also demanded that one of the occupants walk in front of them during a search of all the apartments in one of the buildings, after which they released her.

International humanitarian law forbids using civilians as human shields by placing them next to soldiers or next to military facilities, with the intention of gaining immunity from attack, or by forcing the civilians to carry out dangerous military assignments....

http://www.btselem.org/english/Human_Shields/20060720_Human_Shields_in_Beit_Hanun.asp

Does the IDF consider their "shields" to be human or subhuman?

Also lets not forget the IDF's indiscriminate killing of Palestinian civilians.

Haaretz

...In recent months, almost no day has gone by without Palestinians being killed in Gaza. Instead of asking why, we get a prime minister who boasts to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee about "300 terrorists" dead within four months, as if killing in itself were an enormous achievement. This is the lesson from Ehud Olmert, and it is immeasurably more grievous than all his alleged corruption affairs.

No one asked who these fatalities were, whether they all deserved to die, and what benefit Israel derives from this wholesale killing. Beyond the terrifying number of civilians killed, including dozens of women and children, we should also ask whether every armed person in Gaza - and there are tens of thousands of them - deserves the death penalty, without a trial. The day the IDF began the targeted assassinations, our sensitivity to human life was doomed to be erased.

The IDF has been operating in the town of Beit Hanun for several days now. Operation Autumn Clouds is ostensibly intended to target Qassam launchers, but meanwhile it has only brought more Qassams on Sderot - besides the killing, destruction and terror it sows in the heart of the 30,000-resident town. I was at the Beit Hanun home of the Abu Ouda family twice recently. The first time was when a shell destroyed the family's home. The second time was when soldiers killed the father, his son and his daughter, who were innocent of any crime. And this was before Operation Autumn Clouds.

And how is the Israeli press covering Autumn Clouds? In Maariv on Thursday, you needed a magnifying glass to find an offhand reference to the killing of 10 Palestinians in one day; it was the same for Yedioth Ahronoth. The two newspapers with the country's largest circulation demonstrate a disgusting level of dehumanization. The statement by Yedioth Ahronoth's military commentator, Alex Fishman, that one of the operation's goals is drilling the troops for the "big operation," does not stir any protest.

That the IDF is embarking on a "training operation" in a dense population center, sowing death and destruction - does this not show a frightening contempt for human life?....

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=783711

I think it shows contempt for human life. So does this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1643573,00.html
Isn't this soldier at least guilty of littering?

Amnesty International has published many articles detailing Israel's casual disregard for human life. For example:

Israel/Occupied Territories: Israel shows reckless disregard for human life

By killing eight Palestinians in Nablus, Israel showed once again an utter disregard for human life in the Occupied Territories, Amnesty International said today.

The Israeli Air Force killed yesterday eight people, including two children and two journalists, and wounded 15 others, including a human rights defender, as they shot two missiles from an Apache helicopter against the Nablus-based Palestinian Centre for Information, run by a Hamas leader, Jamal Mansur.

Amnesty International reiterated its long-standing calls to Israel to end its policy of liquidations and other arbitrary killings and urged the international community to send international observers with a human rights remit to the area.

"The Israeli authorities must have known and totally disregarded the fact that the media centre targeted was likely to be frequented by journalists and others," said Amnesty International. "In these state assassinations the Israeli authorities offer no proof of guilt, no right to defence. Extrajudicial executions are absolutely prohibited by international law."...

...The two Hamas leaders targeted, Jamal Mansur and Jamal Salim, had both been held in administrative detention by Israel. Jamal Mansur's case had been taken up again by Amnesty International when he spent more than three years in detention without charge or trial under the Palestinian Authority between 1997 and 2000. A leader of the political wing of Hamas, he was a journalist and publicist.

Ahmad Abu Shallal, a human rights defender, critically injured and now in intensive care, works for the International Solidarity organization, based in Washington. He works for political detainees, both in Israel and in the areas administered by the Palestinian Authority. He was reportedly visiting the office of the Palestinian Centre for Information in order to collect material for a report he was writing for the London-based journal The Return Review (al->Awdeh).

Muhammad Beshawi and 'Uthman Qatanan were both journalists apparently interviewing Jamal Mansur at the time of the attack.

Two children, Ashraf Khader, aged six, and Bilal Khader, aged 11, were killed as they played outside, while their mother visited a clinic in the same building....
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=783711

How about bombing an apartment building knowing its full of innocent civilians? Does that sound like a casual disregard for human life?

...Israeli government and military officials have repeatedly stated that all care is taken not to cause harm to other Palestinians when they carry out such assassinations. The facts, however, indicate otherwise. Scores of men, women and children bystanders have been killed and hundreds have been injured in the course of assassinations or attempted assassinations of Palestinians by the Israeli army.

On 24 June 2003 Israeli Air Force Commander Major General Dan Halutz said on Israeli army radio that in the assassination of Salah Shehadeh "we fired knowing his wife would be near him". On the night of 22 July 2002 the Israeli army dropped a one-ton bomb from an F16 fighter jet on a densely populated neighbourhood of Gaza City, killing Hamas activist Salah Shehadeh, the target of the attack, and 16 civilians, nine of them children. His wife and daughter were among the victims. Some 70 others were injured in the attack and six nearby houses were also destroyed. Amnesty International delegates visited the site of the attack and interviewed neighbours shortly after the attack. The following day Prime Minister Ariel Sharon publicly referred to the attack as "one of the most successful operations"...

http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engmde150562003

Does knowingly killing dozens of innocent people sound to you like a casual disregard for human life? It does to me.

So how many examples of dehumanizing treatment of Palestinians does it take to prove Israel treats the master race better than inferior races and Palestinians?

Not the same thing again. When you show me a poster placed by the Israeli government showing an Arab dripping jewish blood from his fangs, then I'll be convinced.

Propaganda has become far more sophisticated since the days Nazi anti-semitic cartoons. I would be surprised to find Israel resorting to such primitive tactics. Its a fact that most of what we know about Israel and Palestine is filtered through pro-Israeli propaganda. This is the way propaganda works today.

Propaganda and war

By Edward Said

Never have the media been so influential in determining the course of war as during the Al-Aqsa Intifada, which, as far as the Western media are concerned, has essentially become a battle over images and ideas. Israel has already poured hundreds of millions of dollars into what in Hebrew is called hasbara, or information for the outside world (hence, propaganda). This has included an entire range of efforts: lunches and free trips for influential journalists; seminars for Jewish university students who over a week in a secluded country estate can be primed to "defend" Israel on the campus; bombarding congressmen and -women with invitations and visits; pamphlets and, most important, money for election campaigns; directing (or, as the case requires, harassing) photographers and writers of the current Intifada into producing certain images and not others; lecture and concert tours by prominent Israelis; training commentators to make frequent references to the Holocaust and Israel's predicament today; many advertisements in the newspapers attacking Arabs and praising Israel; and on and on. Because so many powerful people in the media and publishing business are strong supporters of Israel, the task is made vastly easier.
Although these are only a few of the devices used to pursue the aims of every modern government, whether democratic or not, since the 1930s and '40s -- to produce consent and approval on the part of the consumer of news -- no country and no lobby more than Israel's has used them in the US so effectively and for so long...

http://www.zmag.org/meastwatch/propwar.htm

As a result most people influenced by Israeli propaganda have come to see Palestinians as terrorists. Try playing a word association game with someone and throw the word "Palestinian" in. I'll bet 8 times out of 10, the first word most people think of is something related to terrorism and suicide bombing. That carefully crafted demonized image of Palestinians by Israel's propaganda machine is about as accurate as Nazi propaganda images of Jews.


If you want to see Israeli propaganda laid bare, no one does it better that British MP George Galloway.

Jimmy Carter Speaks Truth to Propaganda
by Paul Craig Roberts


Jimmy Carter, probably the most decent man to occupy the White House, received a lot of grief during his term in office, most of it undeserved. His latest book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid has brought him even more grief, none of it deserved....

The reason that Israel has been able to appropriate Palestine unto itself with American aid and support is that Israel controls the explanation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At least 90% of Americans, if they know anything at all of the issue, know only the Israeli propaganda line. Israel has been able to control the explanation, because the powerful Israel Lobby brands every critic of Israeli policy as an anti-Semite who favors a second holocaust of the Jews....

http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=10304

No. The use of new weapons against an enemy is not the same as conducting genetic and other experiments on prisoners. Get real.

I disagree. Researching new categories of weapons by using them on people is a form of human experimentation. So is researching new torture techniques on Palestinian prisoners, which I referenced and you conveniently ignored.

The link again:

[quote]...All governmental authorities were complicit in approving torture, in developing new methods, and in supervising them...

http://www.unitedagainsttorture.org/etemplate.php?id=59

Developing new methods of torture sounds like human experimentation to me. How would you describe this kind of research?


But if you want a close parallel to Nazi Germany, how about Israel's use of doctors to determine an appropriate torture regime for Palestinian prisoners.

...The use of these torture methods was accompanied by a system of medical checks, presumably to try to ensure that detainees did not die or develop serious health problems in custody. In May 1993 a "medical fitness form" to be used in interrogation centres was made public by the Davar newspaper. The form required doctors to certify whether a detainee could withstand methods of interrogation including solitary confinement, tying up, hooding and prolonged standing...

http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGACT400012003?open&of=ENG-ZAF

Effectively, Israeli doctors authorize torture. I can just imagine Israel's torture doctors walking though Israel's torture chambers appoving this prisoner for shackling, that prisoner for near drowing and this prisoner for more freezer time...


I see this as inhumane treatment. What do you think about using doctors to select torture regimes. Is that how you treat humans or subhumans?

Jews have a right of return to Israel guarenteed by law, even if they and their ancestors have never been to Israel. Non-Jews cannot immigrate to Israel, but they are free to leave. Some communities and properties are for Jews only. Non-Jews can only live in certain areas.

Israeli Discrimination Against Non-Jews Is Carefully Codified in State of Israel's Laws

By Dr. Israel Shahak

The legal system of the State of Israel can be described as a weird mixture of advanced democracy and retrogressive discrimination, combined with clumsy attempts to hide the discriminatory reality...​

http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/0198/9801088.html

Regarding Palestinian education, I will repost what you conveniently ignored. Israel regularly opens and closes Palestinian schools and universities. At one point the Palestinian education system was closed for five years. The IDF and Jewish settlers have harassed and even killed Palestinian students on the way to school and while sitting at their desks in their classrooms:

Advanced Search

var link = "/news/article420";<A href="http://right2edu.birzeit.edu/news/article420">The Isolation of Palestinian Education
The systematic obstruction of Palestinian education not only violates the human rights of the individuals involved, but is also an attack on the development of Palestinian society as a whole. Palestinian Universities contribute to future Palestinian generations by teaching some 120,000 students and employing around 10,000 academics and staff every year. They also produce local knowledge which is a most valuable resource for the cultural and economic development of a society and nation. It is essential therefore, for foreign governments to call on Israel to cease the isolation of Palestinian educational institutions and to at least demand reciprocal treatment for their citizens who wish to visit and study in Palestine.

var link = "/news/article99";<A href="http://right2edu.birzeit.edu/news/article99">Everyone has the Right to Education
document.write('');[URL="http://right2edu.birzeit.edu/news/article99"] document.write(''); [/URL]The right to education is a fundamental human right and basic to human freedom. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights underlines the fact that "Education is both a human right in itself and an indispensable means of realizing other human rights". Israel's systematic obstruction of education in the West Bank and Gaza Strip not only violates the human rights of individuals, it is an attack on the development of Palestinian society as a whole.

var link = "/news/article106";<A href="http://right2edu.birzeit.edu/news/catindex31">Students in Detention
document.write('');[URL="http://right2edu.birzeit.edu/news/article106"] document.write(''); [/URL]Students are arrested on their way to and from university at military checkpoints, while others are arrested during army raids on student homes and dormitories. These students are taken to a detention center and interrogated, often involving some form of abuse or torture such as beatings, sleep and food depravation and being tied in painful positions for long periods.

var link = "/news/article105";<A href="http://right2edu.birzeit.edu/news/catindex30">Closure of Educational Institutions
document.write('');[URL="http://right2edu.birzeit.edu/news/article105"] document.write(''); [/URL]During the First Intifada, between 1987-1992, Palestinian education was effectively made illegal by the Israeli occupation and all Palestinian universities, schools and even kindergartens were closed down by military order for nearly five years. Since September 2000, tens of schools have been closed by the Israeli Army and turned into military barracks, while hundreds more have been forced to close periodically due to prolonged curfew and obstructed access. Hebron University and the Palestine Polytechnic University were closed down by military order for 8 months in 2003, denying over 6000 students their right to education.

var link = "/news/article104";<A href="http://right2edu.birzeit.edu/news/catindex29">The Wall's Impact on Education
document.write('');[URL="http://right2edu.birzeit.edu/news/article104"] document.write(''); [/URL]The construction of the Wall through Palestinian cities and villages in the West Bank is having a devastating impact on Palestinians' access to services, including education. The Wall isolates and divides Palestinian population centers, cutting students off from their schools and universities and literally bulldozing through educational institutions in its path.

var link = "/news/article103";<A href="http://right2edu.birzeit.edu/news/catindex32">Incursions and Attacks
document.write('');[URL="http://right2edu.birzeit.edu/news/article103"] document.write(''); [/URL]Hundreds of schools, kindergartens and eight Palestinian universities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have been shelled, shot at and invaded by Israeli occupation forces since September 2000. Students and teachers are regularly stopped and harassed by soldiers at gunpoint on their way to school and university, and many children have been injured or killed on the way to school and even while sitting at their desks. Classrooms and offices, including those of the Palestinian Ministry of Education, have been raided and ransacked, while a teacher training college in the Gaza Strip was completely demolished in March 2004.

var link = "/news/article96";<A href="http://right2edu.birzeit.edu/news/catindex20">Birzeit-Surda Roadblock
document.write('');[URL="http://right2edu.birzeit.edu/news/article96"] document.write(''); [/URL]The military closure of the Ramallah-Birzeit road by 'Surda Roadblock' between March 2001 to December 2003 effectively put Birzeit University under seige for nearly 3 years. The road is now open again but remains subject to frequent 'flying checkpoints' when soldiers and Army jeeps block the road to the University, preventing access to students and teachers trying to reach their classes. Surda Roadblock is one of over 700 checkpoints and roadblocks throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip and a clear example of the strangulation of normal life by Israel's illegal policies of collective punishment.
http://right2edu.birzeit.edu/news/catindex28

[/quote]


Summary:

Israel classifies people based on their race/religion.

Israel has special rights for Jews and fewer rights for inferior races and subhumans.


Only Jews can immigrate to Israel. Non-Jews aren't welcome to live in Israel, but the subhumans that Israel still hasn't been able to ethnically cleanse from their Jewish state are free to leave.

Israel has special communities for Jews. Where non-Jews can live is restricted.

In areas controlled by Israel, Jews can legally torture and kill non-Jews.

Correction: The Israeli government can torture and kill undesirables.

Israel has an ongoing and massive propaganda campaign to defend its atrocities as well as dehumanize and demonize Palestinians.

You should read Jimmy Carter's best selling book, "Peace, not Apartheid".
http://www.amazon.com/Palestine-Peace-Apartheid-Jimmy-Carter/dp/0743285026/antiwarbookstore/

 

[Colpy]

Earth as One, I have to drop this subject. Arguing this with you is a complete waste of time, and I find your comparison of the Israelis to the Nazis frustrating, and increasingly offensive.

I tell you the Nazis prevented the Jews from getting an education, or teaching, you argue the Israelis do the same thing, and then quote an Arab teacher from a MEDICAL SCHOOL in Ramallah.....HUH?! And the worst atrocity in the article is some bitch of an Israeli soldier making the Palestinians stand in a light rain.......the Nazis made the Jews stand under fake shower heads and rained Zyklon B on them

You have the gall to include a comparison of the wall around the Warsaw Ghetto Israel's defensive wall. First of all, the Israeli wall surrounds ISRAEL, not the occupied territories.........second of all the Nazis KILLED everybody in the Warsaw Ghetto.........

So, if you make this comparison from simple ignorance, I suggest you read an account or two of the holocaust, preferably written by a survivor.

This is simply too offensive to stand.........

 

[Zzarchov]

****International humanitarian law forbids using civilians as human shields by placing them next to soldiers or next to military facilities, with the intention of gaining immunity from attack, or by forcing the civilians to carry out dangerous military assignments....***

Correct me if Im wrong, where are all the Palestinian militants stationed? Are they out in open checkpoints?

Oh wait! silly me, they are hiding among civilians causing strife, death and decay!

What do the rules of war say? Now I remember, you are only bound by the rules when your opponent is. So Israel is well within its rights if it wanted to to staple palestinian babies to the sides of its tanks.

But it doesn't, because for all you rant and rave, its nothing like the Nazi warmachine.


Israel has special rights for Jews and fewer rights for inferior races and subhumans

The very fact that you said "Fewer rights" mean they still have rights. Ironically enough, more rights then they would have if they were still part of Jordan or Syria.

The difference being in Nazi germany you could take a Jewish Baby out onto the streat and kill it with a sledgehammer for all to see, Do that in Israel to a palestinian baby and they will still send you to jail as a murderous monster.

I don't doubt there is a seperate class between Israeli Citizen and non-Citizen, its the same in Canada. Its far better than other countries where there is also one master race/religion and other inferior ones.

Ever tried to be Jewish in Saudi Arabia?

 

[earth_as_one]

Z, at least you are honest. In your opinion do Palestinians deserve the same rights as the rest of us?

Earth as One, I have to drop this subject. Arguing this with you is a complete waste of time, and I find your comparison of the Israelis to the Nazis frustrating, and increasingly offensive.

I tell you the Nazis prevented the Jews from getting an education, or teaching, you argue the Israelis do the same thing, and then quote an Arab teacher from a MEDICAL SCHOOL in Ramallah.....HUH?! And the worst atrocity in the article is some bitch of an Israeli soldier making the Palestinians stand in a light rain.......the Nazis made the Jews stand under fake shower heads and rained Zyklon B on them

You have the gall to include a comparison of the wall around the Warsaw Ghetto Israel's defensive wall. First of all, the Israeli wall surrounds ISRAEL, not the occupied territories.........second of all the Nazis KILLED everybody in the Warsaw Ghetto.........

So, if you make this comparison from simple ignorance, I suggest you read an account or two of the holocaust, preferably written by a survivor.

This is simply too offensive to stand.........

I started out slowly because I was trying to show how slippery a slope it is to go from disrespect and arrogance to dehumanizing and humilation, to inhumane treatment and a casual disregard for human life.

You only read the first link which shows a typical Palestinian day. It describes how Palestinians and Israelis think about each other. Since you didn't read the rest of the post, you aren't qualified to comment on it.

For your convenience, I will summarize my previous post:

IDF soldiers consider Palestinians to be less than human.

IDF soldiers regularly humiliate and dehumanize Palestinians.

IDF soldiers consider innocent Palestinian life expendable and have a casual disregard for Palestinian life.

Israel's leaders also have a casual disregard for Palestinian life.

Israeli law classifies people by race/religion. Jewish Israelis have more rights than non-Jewish Israelis. Israeli courts don't recognize Palestinians as human beings. In one case, an IDF soldier walked up to an unarmed 12 year old schoolgirl, unloaded his clip into her head and the Israel court found the soldier not guilty of murdering a human being.

Z, I see no reason to believe that if this soldier had used a sledgehammer to kill this girl, he would have been found guilty of murder.
Reposted just for Z:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1643573,00.html

IDF soldiers and Jewish settlers can harass, humiliate, beat, torture and kill innocent Palestinian civilians with legal impunity.

Amnesty International has also criticized Israel's casual disregard for innocent Palestinian life.

Pro-Israel organizations control what we know about this conflict and therefore control our opinions.

Israel experiments on Palestinians to test new types of weapons and research new forms of torture. Israeli doctors approve Palestinian prisoner torture regimes.

Israel closed down the Palestinian school system for five years. It now opens and closes at the whim of the IDF as part of the IDF's collective punishment against Palestinians.

The IDF has killed Palestinian school children on the way to school, on school property and even in the classroom. The IDF can and does harass, humiliate, beat, torture and kill Palestinian students. The IDF can and does demolish and occupy Palestinian schools. Therefore the Palestinian school system is dysfuntional.

I never claimed that the Israeli government is exactly the same as the Nazis or that Palestinians are treated as bad as the Jews were during the holocaust.

What I said was "Palestinians have suffered the same kinds of humiliation, injustices and oppression suffered by Jews under Nazi occupied Europe".

Look at the list above. All the injustices and oppression suffered by Palestinians were also suffered by Jews in Nazi Europe.

I suppose I will never be able to convince you that Palestinian are human beings like the rest of us.

You should read Jimmy Carter's book "Peace not Apartheid".

http://www.amazon.com/Palestine-Peace-Apartheid-Jimmy-Carter/dp/0743285026/antiwarbookstore/

The holocaust is an extreme example of man's inhumanity to man. When that event happened, most of the world ignored what was going on. Everyone who did nothing or denies that this happened has blood on their hands.

Mans inhumanity to man continues today in Palestine. Your denial of Palestinian suffering, oppression and injustice puts you in the same category as people who deny the holocaust.

 

[Zzarchov]

Earth as one? where are you posts about the much more horrible abuses Islamic regimes impress upon their own people to say nothing of the native Jewish population? Where is your outrage at the abuse of Africans in Darfur by Arab nationalists? Where is all your outrage for everything not done by Jewish people?

I think Palestinians deserve the same rights as they would have in their own self-government.

Oddly enough, they have more rights now than when that was the case.

How did Jordan react to Palestinian Uprisings Again? Far more brutal than anything Israel has done.

So why the criticism of Israel?

To say the police need to focus on a what are comparatively small time burglars like Israel when Mass Murdering Child Molesters like Syria, Iran, Jordan, Yemen, Sudan and Saudi Arabia roam free is a bit daft, and comes off as horribley racist when the big difference is one is Jewish opressing Muslims, the others are Muslims oppressing everyone, including other muslims and quite often having blatant mass murder.

 

[earth_as_one]

Z, I've posted on strings regarding Darfur. Most people here share similar opinions. There is little debate and the string soon becomes dormant. Start a string and I'll add my two cents worth.

I've also posted about abuses in Somalia, India (which suffers more terrorist attacks than any other country - most people would have guessed Israel -why??), Sri Lanka, Nepal and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

But what sets the Israel/Palestine issue apart from the others is the level of manipulation by the media. Most of us know the Israeli viewpoint, but the Palestinian viewpoint seldom make the news.

For example, Israeli has been bombing and killing Palestinians daily for years and very seldom does this make the news. Imam al-Hams story above should have been headlines, but it never made our news.

Yet when Palestinians inflict pain on Israeli, every gory detail is plastered on the front page. The recent bakery bombing for example.

Bomber kills 3 Israelis at Red Sea resort bakery

Military responds with border air strike as battles rage in Gaza despite truce deal

Jan 30, 2007 04:30 AM
Ariel Schalit
Associated Press

EILAT, Israel
Israeli aircraft bombed a tunnel near the Gaza-Israel border early today in response to the first suicide attack inside the country in nine months, the military said.

The air strike came a day after a Palestinian bomber killed three Israelis at a bakery in the Red Sea resort town of Eilat. The two radical groups that claimed to have sent the suicide bomber said they were trying to end weeks of Palestinian infighting by taking aim at Israel instead.

Israel has observed a truce with the Palestinians in Gaza since late November. But today's air strike signalled the Eilat bombing had put that ceasefire in danger.

The Israeli army said militants planned to use the tunnel near Gaza's Karni crossing for an attack on Israel. No casualties were reported in the air strike.
Yesterday's bombing in Eilat was praised by the Palestinians' governing Hamas movement as legitimate resistance – a position sure to hurt efforts to end a crippling economic boycott imposed by the international community.

It was the first suicide bombing in the town of 50,000 at Israel's southern tip near the Jordanian and Egyptian borders. Eilat is a popular getaway for Israelis because it has been insulated from Israeli-Palestinian violence by its distance from the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Shattered glass, body parts and blood-splattered pastries were strewn on the sidewalk outside the bakery. Two of the victims were the owners of the bakery. A relative identified the third victim as Yisrael Zalmalloa, an immigrant from Peru.

"It was awful – there was smoke, pieces of flesh all over the place," said Benny Mazgini, a 45-year-old witness.

Eilat resident Yossi Voltinski said he picked up the attacker, who was hitchhiking on the edge of town, shortly before the attack. But he grew suspicious because the man was dressed in heavy clothing on a warm day.
"He was wearing a coat closed tightly and was wearing a hat. He didn't speak Hebrew. He was very irritable," Voltinski said. "I then understood that without a doubt this was a hostile person.''...

http://www.thestar.com/News/article/176132

I think everyone here can agree this senseless act of violence merits coverage.

But what about these actions by Israel last week. Why don't any of them merit similar coverage?

Could any of these other actions also been put on the front pages of our news and described in graphic detail?

PCHR weekly report on Israeli violations in the occupied territories
Friday January 26, 2007
by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC

The Palestinian Center For Human Rights, in Gaza, published its weekly report on the Israeli violations in the occupied Palestinian territories for the period between January 18 and 24. Three Palestinians, including one child were killed, 19 including one child were injured and 54 residents including one child were taken prisoner.

Anata, Jerusalem- Palestinian school children holding photo’s of their classmate,10-uear-old Abeer al-Arameen, who was killed by the army on January 18 2007

During the reporting period, soldiers killed 3 Palestinians, including a child, in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Also, a child wounded by the army was pronounced clinically dead.

Troops attempted to exempt themselves from responsibility for the child's death, but eyewitnesses asserted that she was hit by a sound bomb fired by IOF when she was at school.

One Palestinian resident died of earlier wounds suffered in the Gaza Strip, and another Palestinian was shot and killed by an Israeli guard of a construction site inside Israel; the resident was a construction worker.

In the Gaza Strip, troops shot and killed a Palestinian civilian, wounded and arrested two others, when the three civilians attempted to infiltrate into Israel to search for jobs.

The PCHR reported that one Palestinian child was wounded in Burqa village, west of the northern West Bank city of Nablus, when soldiers fired at a number of children who threw stones at an army military vehicle invading their area.

Seven Palestinian civilians were also wounded when army used excessive force against a peaceful protest organized in Bil'in village, west of Ramallah, in protest to the construction of the Annexation Wall. Israeli and International peace activists also participate in the weekly Bil'in protest against the Wall.

The army carried 22 invasion into Palestinian areas in the occupied West Bank and took prisoner 54 residents, including one child.

Soldiers also transformed a commercial compound in Nablus into a military site during an incursion into the city on Thursday, 18 January 2007 and fired at Palestinians from inside it, the PCHR added.

The center also reported that the army continued to impose a full and strict siege over the occupied Palestinian territories.

Four Palestinian civilians, including three children were taken prisoner at various Israeli military checkpoints installed in the occupied West Bank.

The Gaza Strip remained under strict siege and has suffered shortages in fuels and basic goods.

The construction of the Annexation Wall in the West Bank have continued to impose restrictions on the movement of Palestinians on both sides of the Wall, and settlement construction and expansion increased.

Israeli settlers abducted and violently attacked a Palestinian child from Hizma village, near Jerusalem, the child was moved to a Palestinian hospital in Jerusalem suffering serious concussions and bruises after he fell unconscious while the settlers were torturing him.

Six Palestinian houses were demolished by the Israeli soldiers in Al Jeftlik village north of Jericho and Al Sawahra village, southeast of Jerusalem. Soldiers claimed that the houses were built without licenses. The army refuse to issue such licenses for construction that is needed to meet the natural population growth.

The Gaza Strip remained under strict siege, and the movement between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip remained restricted.

In spite of Israeli reports that the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, ordered the army to ease restrictions on checkpoints in the occupied West Bank, soldiers continued to impose severe restrictions on the movement of Palestinian civilians.

The army declared on 16 January 2007 that they removed 44 sand roadblocks that had blocked the entrances of some Palestinian villages in the West Bank, but Israeli military sources asserted later that most of those barriers had been removed before the decisions were taken.

The construction of the Annexation Wall continued inside the West Bank, and on Thursday morning, 18 January 2007, soldiers declared that they would decrease the hours of opening of the gate at the entrance of Jayous village, northeast of Qalqilia, from 12 to 3 hours daily.

The so-called Civil Administration Office, that belongs to the Military Command in the occupied West Bank, requested residents of Barata’a village, southwest of Jenin, to obtain magnetic cards in addition to existing permits to be able to pass through the gate established on the Wall at the entrance of the village, the PCHR added.

http://www.imemc.org/article/46712

 

[Zzarchov]

Because Israel is a first world nation and for the most part, in fact more so than many parts of Europe, democratic.

Of course it will get more coverage.

Did you ever notice that the reverse is true on Arab and Persian news networks? that attacks on Israel are barely reported on but attacks on Palestinians always are?

People empathize with people like them more than people who are less like them.

People know all about Palestine, you are proof of it. And those who don't tend to know alot about Israel.

The reverse is also true (including for you) those who know alot about Palestine don't know alot about Israel.

 

[CDNBear]

Z, I've posted on strings regarding Darfur. Most people here share similar opinions. There is little debate and the string soon becomes dormant. Start a string and I'll add my two cents worth.

I've also posted about abuses in Somalia, India (which suffers more terrorist attacks than any other country - most people would have guessed Israel -why??), Sri Lanka, Nepal and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

But what sets the Israel/Palestine issue apart from the others is the level of manipulation by the media. Most of us know the Israeli viewpoint, but the Palestinian viewpoint seldom make the news.

For example, Israeli has been bombing and killing Palestinians daily for years and very seldom does this make the news. Imam al-Hams story above should have been headlines, but it never made our news.

Yet when Palestinians inflict pain on Israeli, every gory detail is plastered on the front page. The recent bakery bombing for example.



I think everyone here can agree this senseless act of violence merits coverage.

But what about these actions by Israel last week. Why don't any of them merit similar coverage?

Could any of these other actions also been put on the front pages of our news and described in graphic detail?

Nothing like ignoring the obvious...

Their attck was not in violation of the truce, it was in responce to the violation of the truce.

Get a grip on reality. Your bias views are quickly becoming bigotous.

 

[Doryman]

Zionism has already ended. It was a movement for Jews to establish a Jewish homeland. They have it. End of story. If the Palestinians want a better life, they had better stop spending their money on rockets and start spending it on medicine and infrastructure to make their territory a better place to live.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict will end when the Palestinians begin to love their children more than they hate the jews. A society that uses baby-bombs against their enemy is a sick society, and should not be appeased or sumitted to.

 

[earth_as_one]

Because Israel is a first world nation and for the most part, in fact more so than many parts of Europe, democratic.

Of course it will get more coverage.

Did you ever notice that the reverse is true on Arab and Persian news networks? that attacks on Israel are barely reported on but attacks on Palestinians always are?

People empathize with people like them more than people who are less like them.

People know all about Palestine, you are proof of it. And those who don't tend to know alot about Israel.

The reverse is also true (including for you) those who know alot about Palestine don't know alot about Israel.

Sure Arab/Muslim media sources are biased. Some aren't too bad, others are completely unreliable. Arab/Muslim media in general tend to play down Palestinian atrocities or put them in context (spin), just like our news spins Israeli atroctities. But our media nearly ignores Israeli atrocities.

For example: How did 10-year-old Abir Aramin die?

This story is getting coverage in Arab/Muslim media, but is being ignored here. Its in the Independant:

The tragic death of an activist's daughter
By Donald Macintyre in Anata, West Bank
20 January 2007

They lay on the school principal's table, the relics of 10-year-old Abir Aramin's last, fatal, journey: the black plastic shoulder bag containing the sixth-grade maths text book, cheerfully decorated with Sindy dolls, which she had taken for last-minute revision before her exam that morning; the bars of Cadbury's Dairy Milk and Biskrem she had bought in the little grocery shop across the street when it was over. Sawsan Halwe, head of Anata Girls' School, recalled how after what she said was a "big boom", Abir had been carried, bleeding and unconscious, into a classroom. She tried to describe Abir in normal times: "She was lovely. Her teachers liked her, she had good grades. She was a very active student."...


http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2169225.ece

Israeli version
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/816058.html

Palestinian version
http://wafa.ps/english/body.asp?id=9082
t by listening to both sides yo end up with a more clear picture. I have posted on Muslim/Arab websites. Most of them get CNN. Few of us get al Jazeera.

I recommend al Jazeera.

http://english.aljazeera.net/News

Its less biased than most American news. I'd rate them close to the BBC.

Anyone who listens to both sides can't help but empathize with both sides. I disagree with what both sides do to each other. Neither side can justify their atrocities.