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This merited a mention simply because of the extremely serious consequences it will have and the utter waste of lives it will cause (and for no real benefit). As I said before I have no sympathy or concern for the man, but the shift in tactics by the IDF cannot be ignored or its gravity overstated. Had a Palestinian terrorist killed Ariel Sharon I would have started a similar thread to the same tune, though like Jacqs has expressed in this case I would be overwhelmed with joy to see the scumbag gone.
And what does it say about Israel and its regard for human rights, the rule of law and its desire for peace?
The only reason relations with the Arab world will deteriorate is because it is crystal clear that Ariel Sharon isn't interested in peace. Not until he has secured his objective anyway, which is getting the Palestinians to renounce to all the land Israel has stolen since 1967 and sign a peace accord with the situation as it stands.
Sharon will be the beneficiary in the long term from any atrocities that Hamas might do in retaliation. He will use them as a justification for his Apartheid Wall and the right to exist of dozens of illegal settlements, Israeli-controlled roads and checkpoints that have fragmented the reminder of Palestine into a million isolated slums.
That is why the Arab world will react with fury. Not because they're sorry for a terrorist like Yassin, but because they can see the cynical and twisted agenda behind the killing and it goes to show how Sharon is not committed to peace and is every ounce as bad and damaging to the peace process as the "terrorists" he assassinates.
So true
It's easy to say the Palestinians should stop killing first but as the situation stands all they would 'gain' is the Israelis stop shooting them and ending the illegal occupation.
Perhaps if the Israeli government offered to return to 1967 borders & to dismantle every last illegal settlement (as per 17 trillion UN resolutions and common decency), and to take down the Apartheid Wall in return for the Palestinians ending their campaign, you would see immediate results.
The ball is in Israel's court. It always has, and the Israeli government knows very well what to do to put an end to all of this.
Yes, that's why you still hear about on-going problems. That's why they just haven't bombed the sense out of the westbank and gaza and left it at that. Get a grip.
And please tell me when the Palestinians where willing to do talking that lead somewhere?
1st, you know very well that the land has never belonged to the Palestinians. And I don't see Egypt, Syria or Jordan reclaiming the land. Basically it's got nothing to do with the palestinians. You know it.
2ndly, say the Palestinians stopped their actions no one would even hesitate in condemning Israel and stopping all financial and supportive ties with the country.
So far it's the Palestinians who have to show good-will in order to gain their wants. They and the rest of the world very well knows that Israel will not be bullied into giving them something which doesn't belong to the Palestininans in the first place.
why would people do thi? ignore my ignorance of the subject I need to learn!
In the first place it belonged to the dinosaurs. In this modern age though; there were borders drawn sometime after world war two and Israel were the aggresor; they invaded palestine and siezed their land. I don't know why; I'm not the expert. And I think both sides have to make concessions because neither side wants to go the whole way otherwise they feel they're losing everything while the other side gets away scott free.
An armstice should be called first between the terrorist groups and the IDF. Stop the shooting. Then talking can begin. Whether or not this will happen remains to be seen; Israel are so superior that Palestine has very little leverage.
ShyBoy - The Palestinians never owned any land. They lived there. But what we know as Israel, first belonged to the Ottoman Empire, then got handed over to the British, who then gave the mandate to the UN.
When talking about pre-67 borders it's land which belonged to Egypt, Syria and Jordan. If Israel should give land back, it's to those, and not the Palestinian people as they never owned it.
But as it is now, these countries have never been eager to get the land back.
And Palestinians have got nothing to do with it, as they've never been able to claim the land as their in the first place.
Currently the terrorism is a very understandable reason to why Israel won't negotiate with the Palestinians. Other countries do to some extent or other accept this.
Now, if Israel had no reason to decline palestinians land then surely the rest of the world would act upon it.
As said before, Israel didn't invade palestinian land.
When the UN got the mandate over Palestine, they divided it in two meaning to make two states. One palestine and one Israel. The Palestinians wanted all or nothing, got nothing, and on the day of creation Israel was attacked by it's neighbours.
So who are the agressors?
As I see it, Israel has the means and the support behind them. Cause no matter how you twst or turn it, whatever Israel has done it has never been their line to attack civilians, and have always apologised for innocent lives lost, while the palestinians have danced in teh streets in joy when big attacks have taken place.
and in revenge, some housewife or clubber on a night out or a school kid will be probably be killed as they ride a bus...
and in revenge, some kid playing football and other passerbys will probably be killed by missiles fired into a street...
and in revenge, a scared group of teenage soldiers will probably be killed at a checkpoint...
and in revenge, a family will probably watch their house being bulldozed and next doors teenage militant shot...
IS THERE A LIMIT TO THE STUPIDITY OF THE HUMAN RACE?
BA.
Oh, wait, they have tried to do that, haven't they..?
And perhaps again it wouldn't.
You know what Hamas stand for, don't you? They don't want a return to 1967, the don't just want the West Bank, Gaza etc. They want the end of Israel.
So, bearing in mind that organisations like Hamas will continue to fight, even if Israel capitulates to many Palestinian demands, how can the ball be in their court. Surely their neighbours, and the terrorist sponsors have a much bigger role to play than Israel ever could.
Israel is a nation surrounded by enemies. Many of whom have a stated aim to rid "their" land of the "Jews". So what can they do? Two choices, roll over and die, or stand and fight for their country...
...and some of us recognise that you cannot change the past.
Some of us recognise that if you want something which someone else has then bleating about what they have done in the past really won't get you anywhere.
Some of us recognise that you cannot bully someone who is more powerful than you are.
Some of us recognise that world opinion will only ever be in full support of the Palestinian cause once they renounce terrorism, and the likes of Yassin have no place in that.
Some of us recognise that mos nations of the world will not ally themselves publically with terrorist. If the Palestinians want land, they are going completely the wrong way about it.
Or are you suggesting that a land belongs to those who take it, no matter how recently, by whatever means available?
The reason why Egypt, Syria and Jordan don't reclaim the land is because they want it for the Palestinians (as they have expressed rather clearly). If only because the 1.5 million Palestinians currently living as refugees there are a burden and nobody can't wait to see them back in their country.
No country bar one. As you know very well.
And for as long as Israel continues to receive the financial bankrolling of the US, it couldn't give as flying toss about the law, condemnation, UN resolutions or anything anyone could say.
It has never been the intention of Likud and any other zionists to return to 1967 borders. Some within Sharon's government are well known for their desires to push every Palestinian out of the land and to create a 'Greater Israel' comprising the whole of Palestine. Sharon himself doesn't have any intention to returning to 1967 borders either, though in his endless generosity he's prepared to give away the fragmented leftovers the Palestinians have today- but not a square inch more.
And so it will continue unless Likud and the religious fundamentalists are voted out of the government, or the world including the US employ all means necessary to make Israel comply.
Oh Jesus fucking Christ almighty :rolleyes:
What hope there is for peace if some in Israel might actually think the above?
They're not going to change their chatter for the time being unfortunately, as this is all seen as a game of power play. But like Labour and Clause 4, these are things that are left there for propaganda reasons.
Even if Hamas didn't drop its propaganda claims in return for a return to 1967 borders, the rest of the Palestinians would take care of it fairly quickly.
See above.
No one in their most deluded mind could possibly believe any Arab state whatsoever in the whole world (specially now that Saddam is gone) would still have any intentions of "driving the Jews into the sea" and all that nonsense. However this is pathetically used by Israel- a country, let's remember, capable of destroying all those countries at the time of a button several times over thanks to its illegal arsenal of WMDs- to justify grabbing all the land it can.
Last year there was a peace proposal from all the Arab states in which they would formally recognise the state of Israel and push with all their efforts for a peace process in exchange for a return to 1967 borders and the devolution of the Golan Heights and any other additional land Israel has stolen.
Needless to say Israel ignored the offer and didn't even make an effort to negotiate.
I wonder why that happened...
Fact is that no ISRAELI owns land in the state of Israel, it is owned by the government and leased to people. The Palestinians did indeed very much own the land that they inhabited and even today Palestinians who remain in the occupied territories own the land that they inhabit.
What you proffer is merely a continuation of the "Land without a people for a people without a land" lie that originated the mess we have today and gave successive generations the smokescreen behind which to continue pursuing the steady assimilation of stolen land from its rightful owners.
Does this mean we should roll back history and eradicate the State of Israel? NO. As MoK points out we can't reverse history.
What MoK fails to appreciate in his typical surgical rather contextual assessment of what I put forward to dispel your typical revisionist claims, is that although we cannot reverse history, we can and must be genuine in the historic roots of the problem and cite the Israeli leadership for the systematic agenda of terrorism with which it and its forebears drove the legitimate and rightful inhabitants into exile (or their graves).
Believing the myth as you do (to justify your refusal to examine the real history of the matter)is tantamount to saying, for example to MoK and all others here...
Let us imagine you are peacefully coexisting with a small minority population of [pick ethnic group] when suddenly, due to some massive act of ethnic cleansing elsewhere in the world, flows of immigrants begin landing on British shores and organise themselves into militant squads to drive rightful landowners off their land or shooting them. The international community does nothing about it and in fact it is determined that a new homeland is indeed a good thing to assuage international feelings of guilt over having allowed the genocides in the first place.
Years go by and those who see their homes under threat have been successfully ignored long enough so that the presence of this growing number of immigrants has become the convenient status quo in both educational texts as well as the press. A little revisionism to pretend there never was a people takes care of any questions that the vast majority might raise on the subject (since so few will bother to take time to scour the historic records) and the remainder of those who do practice some vigilance in holding the new state accountable are dealt with by instituting a blanket ban on criticism of this historic misadventure under the pre-text of "anti-[insert ethnic group]" (when in fact the founders of the modern state are not in fact of the racial group for which they claim insult).
So now we come to the present day and all those who have now for generations lived in exile (or refugee camps) and clamoured for justice and restitution of their rightful property are told (along lines intimated by MoK's own words) "You never had any cause to fight back, the land wasnt yours (though it legally was) and your fighting only makes matters worse. Just accept what we did to you and shut up and then we'll give you a little something for trouble."
For a people once hounded and oppressed and hunted down, the shame of what they themselves are perpetrating in like manner against another people in order to further expand the nation's "liebensraum" regardless of its illegality and immorality is palpable.
Sorry MoK, but you cannot and will not ever gain a true picture of the situation so long as those with rightful grievance and a long running record of victimisation by a systematic intention to create and maintain a racially (though race is a misnomer conveniently and routinely applied to justify this very agenda) unitary state are treated as terrorists for revisiting the very acts perpetrated against them and their civilians upon those who so oppress and brutalise them.
Demand Israel be held to account for the true historic context of this conflict and that the idea of a purely Jewish state be abandoned with full right of return for rightful arab landowners to coexist peacefully side by side with Jewish peoples in ALL the land
(thus ending the hardline zionist aspirations) and admit that there never was a "rightful" reclamation of land involved in the waves of emigrations - that began at the turn of the 20th century up to the present - but that it was a disingenuous bequeathal of international diplomacy which abrogated the rights of those already present in large numbers in the land (including Christians) and indeed much that fuels ongoing conflict will be resolved peacefully.
Instead it continues thanks to media supported revisionistic lies and misapplied culpability.
MoK, I suggest you examine carfully and fully the documentation provided previously and also consider this in response to to Jacqs allusion to the commonly held myth re: land ownership...
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/7891/Palumbo_chptr1.html
http://www.badil.org/Campaign/ExpertForum/Geneva/10-U-Halabi.htm
http://members.fortunecity.com/911/palestine/facts.htm
Therefore, in true Steve Redmond style, if anyone sees me near a Israel/Palestine thread again they have my permission to shoot me...
Positions have nothing to do with this, true historic accounting does and that is a matter for simple intellectual honesty, not emotion or ideology.
I said that too (minus the shooting part, I don't need to enhance my chances of that even further)...
Either way Clandestine, how the fuck do you want anyone to take you seriously when you do the exact same thing as you accuse me of?
You're so far out it's unbelievable. At least with the likes of Aladdin I can at least get a sense of where they're coming from (yet, i don't agree), but with you it's like something out of this world. Total psycho.
+ I have some proposals for a change in your signature.
It would take a lot of effort to indict Sharon for Sabra and Chatila, so..?
If an Israeli special forces team have of abducted Yassin I think it would have been better because they could have taken him through the whole law process which gives people confidence that Israel are fair and not judge, jury and executioner. It's not in doubt he was a bad man, and didn't want to negotiate, but he was still a Palestinian killed by Israelis - this is what I'm afraid too many Palestinians will see.
In point of fact, I and others (whom zionists love to brand as "self haters" (bogus and ridiculous claim indeed) are not way out, but spot on. So long as you and the media led unquestioning majority hold to a false history, it is certain that no reconciliation will ever come to pass nor a lasting solution found.
To call the suggestion that the Israeli government come clean for the first time since the founding of the state and open up Israeli society to both Muslim and Jew alike in true pluralistic (and actual "deomcratic") fashion with proper restitution from both sides for wrongs committed (whether financial, property-wise or simple contribution to the effort to build greater prosperity for all) "way out" only demonstrates how purely ideological you remain regardless of the historic truth.
The truth may insult your adopted ideological stance, but ideologies rooted in evil remain evil regardless of how pervasively they have come to be accepted by the unquestioning masses.
Call me whatever you like, it changes nothing with regard to the truth of what has been and continues to be systematically whitewashed or ignored altogether by a compliant corporate media.
have you ever seen the video when the israelis shot a 12 year old boy in the head, this boy was hiding behind a bin or something like that, HOW THE HELL CAN THEY JUSTIFY SHOOTING THAT BOY, APOLOGY OR NO APOLOGY.
Can you blame them for celebrating, we live in paradise compared to them, some can't go shopping or visit relatives anymore because there's a 20 ft tall wall blocking them from the outside world, what does that remind you off *cough* nazi ghettos *cough*, the sooner the Palestines get freedom the better, then there'll be no attacks.
That same boy that was caught in a crossfire with his dad? That same boy who was shot, said to been killed by Israelis and immedeately burried without any obduction proving so? That same boy who sat upon a wall, and after further inspections checking the wall, the bullethole didn't match weapons used by the IDF. That same boy, who we can conclude was killed by his own?
Or what about that article brought by The New York times that had a picture, and a caption explaining how a palestinian had been beaten to blood by an IDF soldier?
That picture has been used in campaigns by palestinians, and who is that man actually?
An American student been dragged out by a cab, beaten to blood by palestinians. The soldier in the backgrgound saved his life.
Then there's the Jenin "massacre", who severeal organisations who're never late to criticise Israel concluded wasn't a massacre.
Same area been filmed over and over again.
The palestinians can't shop?
Tell me why the fuck I need to fear, when going into a mall, swwimming pool, resort or whatever when I am in Israel? Seeing whole families walking around is quite common - yet I'd never dare to go into their areas.
Get a grip, and stop swallowing all what they feed you.
And this time I tactfully ask you to stop making nazi comparisons.
Except, of course, it was Steve Redgrave.
D 'oh
BANG! Gotcha!
On many occasions IDF officers have been caught lying and claiming the dead people in question were armed, or about to attack them, or shot by mistake by a stray bullet. We only get confirmed cases of this when the dead is one of our own (since all statements from Palestinian doctors and witnesses are automatically dismissed as not trustworthy :rolleyes: ), the last case being an English protester who was shot dead by Israeli soldiers. It turned out he wasn't shot from a great distance and hit on the back by a stray bullet, as the IDF claimed, but only a few metres away and on the forehead.
Similar killings- which can only be described as executions- are incredibly common and victims are sometimes killed in their beds or living rooms by IDF killing squads during their infamous 'incursions' in refugee camps. Needless to say when the IDF is questioned they hurry to say those who where summarily executed were "terrorists". Nothing further from the truth in most cases of course- not that being a "terrorist" should merit and instant death sentence without trial anyway. These type of things don't happen in democratic, civilised nations.
I could go on and on and on and on... The catalogue of atrocities, war crimes, targeting of civilians for retaliation purposes and murders by Israeli soldiers is for all to see. I'm not suggesting that things don't happen on the other side but the fact remains the Israeli government is and has been guilty of crimes against humanity and horrendous atrocities for the last 4 decades, and has been allowed to carry out the outrages unmolested and unchallenged while being allowed to call itself a 'free and vibrant democracy'.
The Israeli government and the head of the IDF should be rejected by the Israeli people and should see trial for their hideous crimes.
I truly hope that you will not deny this has been taking place, however unpleasant it might be for you.
But as a whole, it's much easier for me to accept their morals and way of operating, than Hamas'.
Thing that bothers me most on this board though, is that you summarise all the inconvinient stuff that Israel has done, yet at every opprotunity neglect to mention what the other side has done. And when you get reminded, you choose to ignore it.
Of course it's nothing compared to Clandestine who's a hypocrite in his own league and generally a lost cause.
I think people forget that the palestinian terror groups stated aims are to wipe out the jews and destroy the state of Israel. Not really the same as the IRAs demands for independence for Northern Ireland, different situation different methods used.
Whether its right or wrong you can understand the Israeli's way of thinking, they are/have been being threatened by all their neighbours and are facing a constant terrorist threat to their very existance. Passive resistance is probably not the first thing that springs to mind.