Not that Obama wouldnt or hasnt said the same things as Iggy.
But that is hopeful. The designation of terrorist organization is by no means just a labelling. It hamstrings an incredible range of activities and relationships that could otherwise be carried on.
Complete isolation of Hamas also emboldens Israel even more. So while the US at least acknowledging Hamas is far from sufficient, this 'less bad' is still another crack in the wall. No crack brings a wall down, but....
KenS: Its off-topic and I don't want to detract from your otherwise excellent post but...
The problem with "think of rockets in Oshawa" is what it plays into.
Oshawa is not the jailer, keeper and provoker of a many generations
running urban prison.
Oshawa ain't an English name eh? Just cause the genocide was pretty much complete before rockets came on the scene doesn't mean the Canadian government hasn't been"the jailer, keeper and provoker" of many generations; Ontario even sees new colonial efforts today (Caledonia?). Maybe we could use some rockets to wake us up to the reality of our crimes... we seem to have an easy time forgeting that we're every bit as culpable in imperialism as the Israeli's.
Anyway, sorry for getting off-topic, please resume the excellent conversation!
CBC Newsworld's Nahlah Ayed (sp?) is reporting at this moment that Israeli forces asked 100 Palestinians to get into a building for their safety, then began shelling it, with 30 dead.
How anyone can have any sympathy for Israel is beyond me. These are the works of murderers and thugs.
ETA: Link
excerpt:
There were also reports Friday that Israeli military had asked more than 100 Palestinians civilians to enter a building inside Gaza City before proceeding to shell it. More than 30 people were reportedly killed.
"The UN has condemned the attack, saying that it was one of the gravest incidents since the campaign started back on Dec. 27," Ayed said.
We can make an anlogy of this: North American colonialism and the Zionist project that became and is Israel.
Israel in the former Palestine is like the North American settler state prior to the Twentieth Century.... where as the settlers press westward the First Nations people are attacked, murdered, and pushed off their lands... but are still numerous enough that they inevitably fight back and while its a losing battle, they do inflict death and destruction back.
"What about the rockets?" is like asking "What about the massacre of Custer and his troops?"
Once again looking beyond and in addition to the moral dimension:
Before the end of the 19th century the First Nations of North America were completely routed politically and militarily. Up to this point there is a reasonably close historical parallel with Israel and Palestinians in the second half of the Twentieth Century.
But there the practicalities of the similarity end.
The North American settler state was fuelled by massive and completetly overwhelming immigration from Europe. It was capitalism and imperialism, plus numbingly overwhelming numbers of settlers.
Israel does not and never will have the overwhelming numbers. Given that the borders of the former Palestine are too small for both the continued unfloding of the Zionist project, and the Palestinians staying as well.... the parallel to the North American theft of the First Nations would have seen the pushing out of Palestinians entirely.
There are always significant political groupings in Israel who have openly advocated this, more still who use code words and 'facts on the ground' to bring it about.... and even 'liberal' Israelis who virtually all buy into this with the ideology that there aren't really any Palestinians at all. They are all just "Arabs". [There are no Palestinian citizens of the state of Israel. They are 'Israeli Arabs'.]
Hand wringing 'liberals' may not like the idea of pushing out all Palestinians, but they were and are accomplices to their own softening up for that by buying into the ideology that there are not really any Palestinians. They won't say it but it does ease their conscience that the Palestinians 'could' be absorbed elsewhere, that the Arab states don't take them to keep them as pawns for their own agenda and all that other ideological and racist claptrap that so thoroughly pervades and corrupts Israeli civil society.
But I digress some. Back to the parallels with the North American settler state project. There were also liberals here who didn't fully approve of what was happening to First Nations peoples and some even tried to ameliorate the oppression. But from bloodthirsty racists to liberals it was a process of thoroughly marginalizing the First Nations peoples.
Israel/Palestine is a much smaller place. The equivalent to pushing First Nations peoples to small reservations on shitty land was to push Palestinians out of their homeland period.
There's no question Israel has always had the mindset to do this. But they don't have the overwhelming numbers and never will have them. They can freely intimidate the neighbouring Arab states, but not dominate them. And while First Nations peoples were completely alone, the Arab states around Israel have always been able to get allies that keep Israel from doing to them what it does to Palestinians.
So Israel is caught in a power stalemate. It is stuck at the stage the North American settler states were at before they completely swamped all the First Nations peoples.
Just cause the genocide was pretty much complete before rockets came on
the scene doesn't mean the Canadian government hasn't been"the jailer,
keeper and provoker" of many generations;
Exactly right. That's why the only moral and decent position for the government of Canada to take would be to condemn the atrocities of the Israeli terrorists, kick out the Israeli ambassador, and start shipping food, medicine, and weapons to the Palestinians. But Canada's position is unquestionably pro-[url=http://www.jkcook.net/Articles2/0314.htm][b]shoah.[/b][/url]
Since all we get from our government and its "opposition" is unabashed loyalty to Israel, and unflinching support for genocide, we can conclude that they don't find what we do to Canada's indiginous population to be problematic in the least. In fact, our government won't hesitate to follow Israel's example in an instant, as they demonstrated at Oka and Ipperwash.
Correstion to the analogyl I was drawing.
The borders of the former Palestine are under the right conditions of peace big enough for both the Israeli settlers and the Palestinians. And it is the international communiy's role and resonsibility to provide the material means for this when peace breaks out.
My analogy was between North American settler state history and the dynamic that exists in theold Palestine.
What I should have said is that the space within the old borders of Palestine is far smaller than North America and therefore far too small for both the Zionist project to take what it likes, and have the dispossessed Palestinians far enough away- as was done to the First Nations people- that they cannot disturb the comfy life of the settlers.
As pointed out, getting the dispossessed Palestinians far enough away to protect the settlers would have required pushing them out of Palestine entirely. Since this has never been a realistic possibility Israel gets a power stalemate- ever chasing their delusion of enough bludgeoning and wall building to keep the Palestinians from striking back against their dispossession.
Exactly right. That's why the only moral and decent position for the
government of Canada to take would be to condemn the atrocities of the
Israeli terrorists, kick out the Israeli ambassador, and start shipping
food, medicine, and weapons to the Palestinians. But Canada's position
is unquestionably pro-shoah.
Since all we get from our government and its "opposition" is unabashed
loyalty to Israel, and unflinching support for genocide, we can
conclude that they don't find what we do to Canada's indiginous
population to be problematic in the least. In fact, our government
won't hesitate to follow Israel's example in an instant, as they
demonstrated at Oka and Ipperwash.
Precisely, they are being consistant; through from its discovery and conquest by Europeans to today the state of Canada was built on imperialism and oppression and supports imperialism and oppression. Only logical that such a state would support the Israeli state 100%; and you're right that their position on this shows they haven't changed, and despite issuing an "apology" they would have preferred a final solution to our indigenous population, as Israel is seeking.
It also speaks to the futility of expecting better from our government; that denies the reality that Canada is still every bit an imperialist nation. If we want our state to support the Palestinians we should concentrate on bringing it down, nothing else will do. Which of course is not to say we aren't working on it here 
KenS: You are right that the Palestinians have more hope than the indigenous peoples of Canada did, for the reason you mentioned and more.
This is one place where the so called "balanced view", one where random pot-shots with rockets are pared off against guided missiles and 500 lb bombs, as if the two can be comparied as similar, is being exposed for what it is: Bunko.
Certainly it had some interesting information in it, and was well worded. But the intent came through when Wilf appealed directly to "picture rockets in Oshawa", a direct attempt to elicit our personal sympathies, through comparison to our daily lives.
Imagine if it was "us", he asks, feeding nicely into the standard Rosie Diamano schtick, which asserts that "no country would stand by and let this happen to them": Picture Oshawa under barrage, he says.
Of course, the concept of "barrage" may have been elicited simply because Wilf knows nothing about such things, but he is smarter than that, and you know it. Free of rhetorical flourishes it was not. Barrage is an extreme exageration and heavily loaded.
What do we know about Wilf's intentions here? Nothing really. What we do know is that after more than a week of attrocity Wilf's first post on the subject is one focussed entirely on the trials and tribulations cause by the "barrage" of toy rockets.
That is what we know.
About the rockets. Know this: most are created in the back yards of by Palestinian amateurs. The few military grade rockets they have launched are basically a generation removed from the ordinance used in WW II during the siege of Stalingrad.
You refer to the rockets as "toys"> Did you not, in a previous post, say it would be advisable for the Israeli government to evacuate residents of the area from the range of those same "toys"?
Even toys can be dangerous, thats what the warnings are for.
Palestine: enter at your own risk
By comparison to the arsenal employed by Israel against civilians, they are toys. Amnesty International is reporting that Israel "evacuated" civilians into a "safe house" they then shelled. Your work of spinning this brutal and murderous attack on civilians is cut out for you, Joel.
What Obama has planned for Palestinians: More of the same except maybe worse ...
http://www.truthout.org/010909E
If this translation of the Arabic is correct (and I know MEMRI comes under much suspicion here), Fathi Hammad's Feb. 29, 2008 statement is, at the very least, eyebrow-raising.
Edited to add: YouTube link's not working, but video can be seen at www.youtube.com by typing in "Hamas" and "human shield confession."
The quote was brought up at Thursday night's Israel rally in Montreal. Here is what was alleged to have been said by the Hamas MP:
The enemies of Allah] do not know that the Palestinian people has
developed its [methods] of death and death-seeking. For the Palestinian
people, death has become an industry, at which women excel, and so do
all the people living on this land. The elderly excel at this, and so
do the mujahideen and the children. This is why they have formed human
shields of the women, the children, the elderly, and the mujahideen, in
order to challenge the Zionist bombing machine. It is as if they were
saying to the Zionist enemy: "We desire death like you desire life."
If this translation of the Arabic is correct (and I know MEMRI comes under much suspicion here), Fathi Hammad's Feb. 29, 2008 statement is, at the very least, eyebrow-raising.
And yet we have Amnesty International without any requirement for an organization know for lying and misrepresentations to tell us Israel has, in fact, been using Palestinians for human shields. And we have a Palestianian who lived to tell the tale.
My non-partisan organization with a long track record of impartiality trumps your group of liars attempting to justify mass murder.
ETA: The nonsense you allege comes from Memri is as racist as anything else I've seen here.
The statement by Fathi Hammad sounds crazy. But it is irrelevant. The Palestinian authority has recognized the 67 border. Actually, the PLO did it before. Hamas voted for it the last time. Hamas has also called for a 30 year truce. That's the actual political record. Hamas did not break the cease fire. Israel did, Hamas responded. The link above to Finkelstein's comments gives us the documented record on this.
But again, these statements by Hamas are irrelevant to Israel enslaving Palestine. Hamas is recent. The occupaiton is 40 years old. The issue isn't Hamas. It's the occupaiton of the West Bank and the military blockade of Gaza. Both are illegal since these two territories form the internatinoally recognized border and internaional legal border of another country called Palestine that has 4 million inhabitants who are under the subjugation of a foreign power: Israel. This is the one and only issue. Who cares what Hamas says. Let's look at what Israel does. Israel dominates Palestine. Palestine does not dominate Israel. Israel keeps the Palestinians under military subjgation. The Israelis aren't under Palestinian militay subjugation. All this has been so for 40 years.
Hamas is the problem of the Palestinians if they chose it as a government. No one else's.
Because in the real world, if Palestine were to become free and attack Israel it would be obliterated not only by Israel but by the US and Europe and probably the Arab League. Can you imagine a third world basket case with massive social and economic problems attacking a nuclear power. It's the equivalent of Cuba attacking the US. It's a joke. The whole idea is silly, it laughable, it is in fact an absurdity. Palestinians can hardly retaliate during 40 years of military enslavement.
There is no other issue to this whole problem other than the very simple, the very clear, the very unambiguous, the very uncomplicated, the very uncontraversial matter of Israel militarily subjugating Palestine and its 4 million inhabitants for 40 years. The only issue here is for Israel to free Palestine from this enslavement. That's it. I don't see how crazy statements of Fathi Hammad are relevant to that?
[url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/09/israel-rejected-hamas-cea_n_156... Post[/i][/b][/url]:
WASHINGTON, Jan 9 (IPS) - Contrary to Israel's argument that it was
forced to launch its air and ground offensive against Gaza in order to
stop the firing of rockets into its territory, Hamas proposed in
mid-December to return to the original Hamas-Israel ceasefire
arrangement, according to a U.S.-based source who has been briefed on
the proposal.The proposal to renew the ceasefire was presented by a high-level
Hamas delegation to Egyptian Minister of Intelligence Omar Suleiman at
a meeting in Cairo Dec. 14. The delegation, said to have included
Moussa Abu Marzouk, the second-ranking official in the Hamas political
bureau in Damascus, told Suleiman that Hamas was prepared to stop all
rocket attacks against Israel if the Israelis would open up the Gaza
border crossings and pledge not to launch attacks in Gaza.The Hamas officials insisted that Israel not be allowed to close or
reduce commercial traffic through border crossings for political
purposes, as it had done during the six-month lull, according to the
source. They asked Suleiman, who had served as mediator between Israel
and Hamas in negotiating the original six-month Gaza ceasefire last
spring, to "put pressure" on Israel to take that the ceasefire proposal
seriously.Suleiman said he could not pressure Israel but could only make the
suggestion to Israeli officials. It could not be learned, however,
whether Israel explicitly rejected the Hamas proposal or simply refused
to respond to Egypt.
This is one place where the so called "balanced view", one where random pot-shots with rockets are pared off against guided missiles and 500 lb bombs, as if the two can be comparied as similar, is being exposed for what it is: Bunko.
Certainly it had some interesting information in it, and was well worded. But the intent came through when Wilf appealed directly to "picture rockets in Oshawa", a direct attempt to elicit our personal sympathies, through comparison to our daily lives.
Imagine if it was "us", he asks, feeding nicely into the standard Rosie Diamano schtick, which asserts that "no country would stand by and let this happen to them": Picture Oshawa under barrage, he says.
Of course, the concept of "barrage" may have been elicited simply because Wilf knows nothing about such things, but he is smarter than that, and you know it. Free of rhetorical flourishes it was not. Barrage is an extreme exageration and heavily loaded.
What do we know about Wilf's intentions here? Nothing really. What we do know is that after more than a week of attrocity Wilf's first post on the subject is one focussed entirely on the trials and tribulations cause by the "barrage" of toy rockets.
That is what we know.
About the rockets. Know this: most are created in the back yards of by Palestinian amateurs. The few military grade rockets they have launched are basically a generation removed from the ordinance used in WW II during the siege of Stalingrad.
You refer to the rockets as "toys"> Did you not, in a previous post, say it would be advisable for the Israeli government to evacuate residents of the area from the range of those same "toys"?
I said that if they were really concerned about the "barrage" of toy rockets they would remove the population, as any responsible government would.
Sderot, is a relatively small community, after all. They have not. So we should conclude that the Israeli government thinks the threat of the barrage is negligible, and they concur with my analysis that they are toys, either that or Israel is using the citizens of Sderot as pawns, leaving them in harms way for political propaganda purposes.
Wilf stated his opinion all too clearly when he made his not-so-enigmatic reference to 1935.
Not sure what you mean. I pulled that date out of thin air. I could just as well have said 1882, and probably should have.
I decided to learn a little Israel geography, starting with Google Earth.
The little Negev town of Sderot was the largest. (The Negev was given to Israel in the UN partition, not captured from the Arabs.) Sderot was founded in 1951. Most of its first residents were Kurdish and Persian refugees who lived in tents and shacks before building permanent structures almost four years later in 1954.
Gee, how did that happen?
Welcome To Najd
District of Gaza
نجد
Ethnically cleansed 22,098 days ago
Interesting site, thanks.
What it tells me, that I hadn't previously seen in my quick tour of the region's geography, is that there was an outlying Arab settlement in the Negev, named Huj, with a population of 940, about 2 miles east-south-east of Sderot. The "Palestine remembered" site says the "Jewish colony" of "Dorot" is on the "town's lands" but does not show Dorot on a map. Wikipedia says Dorot is a village near Sderot established in 1941 by immigrants from Germany. On the other hand, Najd looks like it was within the lands allocated to the Arab (Palestinian) state by the UN partition. Sderot is about 3 miles due south of Najd, which seems to put it in the Negev sector of the Jewish state, east of the Gaza strip. The page for Najd claims that the "Jewish colony" of "Or ha-Ner" half a mile north of Najd is on the "town's lands," and also claims that Sderot is on Najd's lands although Sderot is closer to Huj. It says the children in Najd went to school in Simsim, about a mile north of Or ha-Ner.
Whether Sderot is within the lands allocated to the Jewish state by the UN partition may not matter to anyone much. The "Palestine remembered" site has an interesting collection of maps of Israeli military operations in different time frames. Although the site says Huj was occupied May 31, 1948, and Najd May 13, 1948, those maps show no Israeli military operations in that region at those times. None of them show the exact boundary of the partition in this region.
None of which may prove anything of current interest. As I said at the outset, since others are more entitled to debate the merits of the case for each side than I am, I was just trying to shed a little light on the geography.
The statement by Fathi Hammad sounds crazy. But it is irrelevant. The Palestinian authority has recognized the 67 border. Actually, the PLO did it before. Hamas voted for it the last time. Hamas has also called for a 30 year truce. That's the actual political record. Hamas did not break the cease fire. Israel did, Hamas responded. The link above to Finkelstein's comments gives us the documented record on this.
But again, these statements by Hamas are irrelevant to Israel enslaving Palestine. Hamas is recent. The occupaiton is 40 years old. The issue isn't Hamas. It's the occupaiton of the West Bank and the military blockade of Gaza. Both are illegal since these two territories form the internatinoally recognized border and internaional legal border of another country called Palestine that has 4 million inhabitants who are under the subjugation of a foreign power: Israel. This is the one and only issue. Who cares what Hamas says. Let's look at what Israel does. Israel dominates Palestine. Palestine does not dominate Israel. Israel keeps the Palestinians under military subjgation. The Israelis aren't under Palestinian militay subjugation. All this has been so for 40 years.
Hamas is the problem of the Palestinians if they chose it as a government. No one else's.
Because in the real world, if Palestine were to become free and attack Israel it would be obliterated not only by Israel but by the US and Europe and probably the Arab League. Can you imagine a third world basket case with massive social and economic problems attacking a nuclear power. It's the equivalent of Cuba attacking the US. It's a joke. The whole idea is silly, it laughable, it is in fact an absurdity. Palestinians can hardly retaliate during 40 years of military enslavement.
There is no other issue to this whole problem other than the very simple, the very clear, the very unambiguous, the very uncomplicated, the very uncontraversial matter of Israel militarily subjugating Palestine and its 4 million inhabitants for 40 years. The only issue here is for Israel to free Palestine from this enslavement. That's it. I don't see how crazy statements of Fathi Hammad are relevant to that?
On the other hand, the second post in this thread contains an excerpt from an article about the Top Five Lies regarding Gaza. The "human shield" issue is one of them. Hammad's statement, if true, contradicts that contention.
CBC Newsworld's Nahlah Ayed (sp?) is reporting at this moment that Israeli forces asked 100 Palestinians to get into a building for their safety, then began shelling it, with 30 dead.
ETA: Link
excerpt:
There were also reports Friday that Israeli military had asked more than 100 Palestinians civilians to enter a building inside Gaza City before proceeding to shell it. More than 30 people were reportedly killed.
Bah, this is just more histrionic Israel-bashing. After all, such tactics worked so well at Lidice and Oradour-sur-Glane; why wouldn't the Zionists want to put them into practice?
If this translation of the Arabic is correct (and I know MEMRI comes under much suspicion here)...
Silly us, we don't trust a MOSSAD site.
Interesting, in a sickening way, to read a 'dispassionate' account of the progress of Israel's premeditated, unprovoked genocide:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1231424896038&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Jan 9, 2009 0:23 | Updated Jan 9, 2009 0:51
Analysis: Time running out for an escalation Israel's leaders don't really want
By DAVID HOROVITZ
David Horowitz? You may as well read Julius Streicher.
On the other hand, the second post in this thread contains an excerpt from an article about the Top Five Lies regarding Gaza. The "human shield" issue is one of them. Hammad's statement, if true, contradicts that contention.
[/quote]
A long time ago, I learned that MEMRI's translation are often very flawed, using the vagueries of translation to impute meanings that very well might not be there. This has been shown time and time again. For one thing context is important. Hamad might very well be talking about the immediate families of Hamas officials who have been killed through recent assassination through bombs. It may very well be that their familise "chose" to stay with them even though they knew that they were being directly targetted.
This is not so unusual at all, and in the context of Stephen Speilberg film, a woman staying with her husband, even when under direct threat, would be cast in the most romantic tones, as an act of devotion and love.
Furthermore, Hamad, may speak for Hamas. He does not speak for all Palestinians. It is absolutely clear that Israel has killed numerous people with no relationship to Hamas whatsoever. Those huddling in the UN schoolyard before being blown up by artillery, were refugees fleeing from the combat, not civilians throwing themselves in the way of bullets.
Joel, you are coming very close to articulating racists hate speech, here. Not all Palestinians are Hamas adherents whose lives you can justify extinguishing because some Hamas guy may have "boasted" that all Palestinian people are 100% behind his movement, and galantly sacrificing themselves for the cause.
That stands regardless if MEMRI's "translation" and "contextualization" can be trusted.
Israel Using White Phosphorous
Photographic evidence has emerged that proves that Israel has been
using controversial white phosphorus shells during its offensive in
Gaza, despite official denials by the Israel Defence Forces.There
is also evidence that the rounds have injured Palestinian civilians,
causing severe burns. The use of white phosphorus against civilians is
prohibited under international law.The Times has identified
stockpiles of white phosphorus (WP) shells from high-resolution images
taken of Israel Defence Forces (IDF) artillery units on the
Israeli-Gaza border this week. The pale blue 155mm rounds are clearly
marked with the designation M825A1, an American-made WP munition. The
shell is an improved version with a more limited dispersion of the
phosphorus, which ignites on contact with oxygen, and is being used by
the Israeli gunners to create a smoke screen on the ground.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5470047.ece
The "human shield" issue is one of them. Hammad's statement, if true, contradicts that contention.
The statement you posted is racist claptrap. What are we to assume from it? That Israeli is doing Palestinians a favour by massacaring them? That Palestinians are different that the rest of us in that they don't value their lives as we do? What is the point? I would hesitate to guess that you know it to be racist and that is why you qualify it with "if true". If you don't know it is true, why repeat it? Aren't you just perpetuating the type of stereotypes that have been used for centuries to demonize and oppress the other? If not, what is your point?
From above link:
"Confronted with the latest evidence, an IDF spokeswoman insisted that the M825A1 shell was not a WP type. “This is what we call a quiet shell - it is empty, it has no explosives and no white phosphorus. There is nothing inside it,” she said.
“We shoot it to mark the target before we launch a real shell. We launch two or three of the quiet shells which are empty so that the real shells will be accurate. It's not for killing people,” she said.
Asked what shell was being used to create the smokescreen effect seen so clearly on television images, she said: “We're using what other armies use and we're not using any weapons that are banned under international law.”"
Those IDF spokeswomen are pretty good at lying aren't they? Think they've had some practice?
Joel_Goldenberg: On the other hand, the second post in this thread contains an excerpt from an article about the Top Five Lies regarding Gaza. The "human shield" issue is one of them. Hammad's statement, if true, contradicts that contention.
Let's pretend that were true. Let us pretend that Hamas fires weapons and uses its people as Human Shield. Let's pretend that all Palestinians 100% support Hamas. Let's pretend that Palestinians are ready to be used as Human Shields. Let's pretend all of that.
The following facts don't change:
1- What Israel is doing in Gaza is flat out textbook war crime.
2-Israel occupies and subjugates Palestine.
3-Palestinians live under Israeli military enslavement.
4-Palestine can never ever ever take-over or occupy Israel. It is an impossibility because it would be smashed in a second by Israel (a nuclear power) all Western powers and probably the Arab league (for disturbing the peace) as well. People aren't stupid they undestand realpolitik.
5-Palestinians and all Arab and all Muslim countries have defacto recognized Israel within its 1967 borders. You see UN res 242 in essence when put into execution provides two states: Israel and Palestine along the 1967 border.
6- The whole world agrees with number 5.
7- Israel does not recognize Palestine. Only US backs it up. Occasionally some tiny islands in the south pacific also. Australia did as well. There have been little exceptions like that.
I repeat, again and again. There is a Master: Israel. There is a Slave: Palestine. There is a solution. The Master must let the Slave go free. All this about rockets and suicide bombers etc. is the Slave fighting back commiting its own crimes yes, but its back is to the wall. A nation is dying. What would one expect in such a situation to occur.
So, even if the top assessment were 100% accurate. It is 100% irrelevant to the situation since points 1 to 7 remain unchanged.
What's really disturbing about that video is that it portrays what passes for analysis, and insight on a major US news network. It leaves me very pessimistic.
Israel's current assault on the Gaza Strip cannot be justified by
self-defense. Rather, it involves serious violations of international
law, including war crimes. Senior Israeli political and military
leaders may bear personal liability for their offenses, and they could
be prosecuted by an international tribunal, or by nations practicing
universal jurisdiction over grave international crimes. Hamas fighters
have also violated the laws of warfare, but their misdeeds do not
justify Israel's acts.
The Israeli army insisted militants fired at Israeli troops from within
the compound – claims rejected by UN officials. Shortly after the
attack, the military emailed journalists a link to a video that
purported to show assailants firing from a school, but that footage was
dated October 2007.
ETA: I understand the Israelis are "investigating" the school shelling. :rolleyes:
Hm, how do you embed video in the new babble?
Here's the link in any case: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KntmpoRXFX4
"Israel's current assault on the Gaza Strip cannot be justified by self-defense. Rather, it involves serious violations of international law, including war crimes. Senior Israeli political and military leaders may bear personal liability for their offenses, and they could be prosecuted by an international tribunal, or by nations practicing universal jurisdiction over grave international crimes. Hamas fighters have also violated the laws of warfare, but their misdeeds do not justify Israel's acts."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123154826952369919.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
End Game?
Israel warns Gazans to brace for escalation of offensive
Reuters
January 10, 2009 at 10:41 AM EST
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Israeli tanks advanced on Gaza and Hamas militants fired rockets at Israel on Saturday, as both sides ignored international calls to stop the conflict and Israel warned it would escalate its assault.
An Israeli tank shell killed eight Palestinians in Jabalya, a refugee camp in the north of the Gaza Strip, and an air strike killed a woman in nearby Beit Lahiya, Palestinian medics said.
All of those killed in Jabalya were believed to be men from the same family. The Israeli army denied carrying out any attacks in the area.
The deaths, including those of several Palestinian gunmen, raised the Palestinian toll to at least 821, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza. Thirteen Israelis have been killed: 10 soldiers and three civilians hit in rocket fire.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090110.wisrael0110/BNStory/International/home
End Game?
Despite OO's wishful thinking, the last time the Palestinians lost a war was in 1967. Since then, Israel has been becoming increasingly desperate - and savage - not wanting to realize that its "end game" is near. After decades of brutality and invasion, it and its proxy "Christian" army were chased out of South Lebanon. The 2006 raids and invasion ended in humiliating defeat.
Although it will leave many corpses and maimed in its path, many destroyed and grieving families and communities, Israel will never win. The Palestinian people have amply shown that their spirit to survive and overcome cannot be broken by armed terror. They will emerge victorious. They will achieve their rights.
the last time the Palestinians lost a war was in 1967.
That's the one that mattered though, and aren't you forgetting about 1973?
Since then, Israel has been becoming increasingly desperate - and savage -
Unlike the Palestinians sending suicide bombers into pizzarias and schools, no?
[url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7821928.stm][color=red][b]50,000 marching today in London against Israel[/b][/color][/url]
The march has been organised by groups including Stop the War Coalition, the
British Muslim Initiative and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. ...Former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone said in a statement: "The British
government and European Union have the economic leverage to stop this carnage."They must take decisive action to force Israel to end the slaughter."
Cheek by jowl with these foreign intruders, the majority of the local population lived in abject poverty and unimaginable misery. Eighty per cent of them still subsist on less than $2 a day. The living conditions in the strip remain an affront to civilised values, a powerful precipitant to resistance and a fertile breeding ground for political extremism.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine
"Ronnie Kasrils, a prominent South African politician, said that the
architecture of segregation that he saw in the West Bank and Gaza was
"infinitely worse than apartheid." That was in 2007, before Israel
began its full-scale war against the open-air prison that is Gaza."
... from
http://www.alternet.org/audits/118332/want_to_end_the_violence_in_gaza_b...
I cannot witness current events in the Gaza strip without being reminded
of a statement made by one of the 5 Israeli's who were found
celebrating & high-fiving in New Jersey - on 9-11, as they watched
the events of 9-11 unfold.
"We are not your problem. The Palestinians are your problem."
It looks like Israel has made the decision to take care of their
"Palestinian problem", once and for all, while they have a compliant
American president in office.
So, Israel decimates the Gaza strip. And completely loses the 'war for hearts & minds.'
Not wise.
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This Israel-as-real-loser just-deserts-in-the-end discourse is just too convenient. Israel seems to have rebounded nicely in international favour, even after its carnage of Lebanon civilians (and the occasional Canadian UN observer) a few years back.
I was talking to a friend last night about this conflict and we were dicussing why is it that so many decent, mostly non - political people are not outright condemning what Israel is doing and we came to the conclusion that most people don't understand the occupation - what it is, How it works, ect
But more than that and I'm sure many here will say it is racism or biased news but at least the immpression among many is that Israel tries to kill specific targets( those who are fighting(i don't know if soldiers is the right word - I can't stand to use the word terrorists) while Hamas is trying purposely to just kill anyone with it's rockets or specificly soft targets(women and children) with past suicide attacks - this give Israel the moral edge to some.
Really? So by starving Gaza for the past 18 months they weren't targeting civilians? When Amnesty Internatioal, the UN, and the IRC all say Israel is committing war crimes, well, that doesn't count as much as the Israeli and western media Big Lies about Hamas.
I guess you and your friend represent the success of the Big Lie.
I
think that progressive people tend to think the worst; they stress
Israel's invulnerability, and there is even a theory that Israel will
attack Lebanon next week, I think that is all nonsense, the situation
Is more interesting than that, I think this latest attack (on Gaza) was
not so much out of desperation--that would be an exaggeration. But
there is an election coming up and they (Tzipi Livni's Kadima Party and
its allies) thought that an attack would boost their popularity. This
is what every Israeli government does: You want to win an election then
go ahead and bomb a Palestinian child and you may get a vote.
Why Canada backs Israel over Gaza
excerpt:
For many Canadian Jews, however, Israel is literally a matter of life and death. As long as enough hold this view, Israel's welfare will be a defining issue in a handful of ridings. And as long as Canada's Parliament remains hung, no major political party will want to risk alienating this handful.
FM
you misunderstand my pov - I wasn't saying this was my opinion nor my friends - we were trying to understand - what seems to be a pretty large segment of the canadian population
Sorry. I think the answer to that question can be found in the fact that most Canadians still get their news from television and we have been well indocrinated not to see beneath the carfully crafted surface of spin.
the last time the Palestinians lost a war was in 1967.That's the one that mattered though, and aren't you forgetting about 1973?
They lost that too. They were driven back from the Suez Canal, and came within inches of losing Golan Heights. This is the war in which Israel was forced to negotiate the return of the Sinai to Egypt.
It was not a crushing military defeat, but it was a defeat nonetheless.
I hear what you're saying people are not getting the true facts, but that doesn't seem to fully explain it in my mind. I mean the last week as been a pretty graphic illustration
...the immpression among many is that Israel tries to kill specific targets... while Hamas is trying purposely to just kill anyone with it's rockets... - this give Israel the moral edge to some.
Assuming this isn't [b]your[/b] position, it should be pretty easy to point out that this is rubbish.
Since when is it less "immoral" to target specific targets rather than to fire randomly? Is it more moral to shoot a rifle aimed directly at someone's head than it is to shoot the rifle into the air?
Besides, if you are weighing who has the "moral edge" you have to consider also the disproportionate amount of firepower and the [b]actual[/b] casualty figures (civilian or otherwise). On this basis, the moral high ground is definitely with the Palestinians.
If the Palestinians actually aimed their homemade toy rockets at specific targets, do you think this would improve their "moral" position? Because it would undoubtedly result in far more than the handful of Israeli casualties that have occurred.
Tarkovsky (re: Canadian public opinion):
I think the reason lies in 4 inter-related and simple aspects:
(A) Institutional power
US institutional power supports Israel since their interests converge. The Canadian establishment is subordinate to US power and as such, institutional power within this country, media, commentators, the parameters of debate, influences public opinion.
(B) The Shoah and Anti-Semitism
The Shoah has had a huge impact on all Western countries. It is part of our psychological makeup. Therefore, as a society we immediately identify with Jewish suffering under Eureopean anti-Semitism, progroms and finally genocide. And we should, it is a European story. By extension, we identify with Israel as the safe haven of the Jewish people so that never again will they be victims. In our psyche we have equated everything Jewish with victim and hence, we cannot see Israel as anything but a victim and by no means a criminal. Also any critical analysis of Israel then becomes an attack on the haven of the Jewish people and by extension on attack on the Jewish nation intself which means that the critic has somewhat anti-semitic feelings. Therefore, we have very little knowledge of how Israel was created. We do not believe for a minute, that European colonizers ethnically cleansed the indigenous population of what became Israel. We more easily accept the Land without a People for a People withhout a Land story even though, Israeli historians are all very honest about how Israel was creatted. (see right-winger Benny Morris, he uses the word ethnic cleansing, in fact he agrees with it. Morris says there is no way two naitons can live on the same land. One has to remove the other. The problem for him was that Israel did not complete the exercise and today it has this problem of 4 million Palestians in the territories and another 1 million + Palestinians in Israel itself. ( say Palestinian and not Arab, there are 1.375 million Arabs in Israel including the Palestinians, Bedouins and Druze.
(C) Western cultural prejudice
As North-Americans, we identify much more culturally with Israel that its neighbours. Israel has european style instiutions that we understand. Israelis are a western meditaranean country with parliamentary democracy and courts etc. and they are trying to live within a sea of fundamentalist, backward eastern dictatorships. So it has to do with our own deep subtle misconceptions and prejudice vis-a-vis middle eastern, Arabic and Muslim cultrure (see Orientalism by Edward Said). We should also include western Christian biases in this. Israel in the Christian religion belongs to the Jews not the Philistines (the David and Golliath paradigm). Its in our western psyche.
(D) Concealing the story
Due to A+B+C, the simple story of Israel occupying Palestine against international law and international consensus never gets told in simple, straightforward terms. The subject is always changes. Example: Hamas' charter, Arafat, what this or that person said, security, terrorism, Islamism, the Shoah, etc. etc. etc. All these other subjects are decoys which don't allow the simple, straightforward story that Israel militarily subordinates and ingores the border and sovereignty of another country Palestine and its 4 million inhabitants against unambigously clear international law that provides for unambigiously clear borders between the two states.
All these things have worked together to produce the bias in Canada.
Yet, the bias has been weakened and is becoming weaker everyday. More and more people are learning about this simple story and once its explained, there's really only one sensible position in favour of international law and freedom for Palestine. That's it, no one can really defend occupationa and subjugation. So the pro-occupation side is really panicking right now. In fact, polls in the US are quite telling about Jewish youth's opinion on this issue. There is only a small percentage of occupation supporters, the majority either don't care (because they don't identify with Israel, they see themselves as Americans) or are opposed. This is really panicking the pro-occupation side.
Given these changes in public opinion, there now ia a real opportunity for resolving this matter and freeing the Palestinians from military enslavement. I just came back from the Gaza Solidarity march in Montreal and it was bigger, louder and better organized than last week's.
The march should not be about Gaza only and it should not end when Israel stops bombing. It should continue and become a solidarity movement to liberate Palestine and its people in accordance with international law and consensus.
Why Canada backs Israel over Gaza
excerpt:
For many Canadian Jews, however, Israel is literally a matter of life and death. As long as enough hold this view, Israel's welfare will be a defining issue in a handful of ridings. And as long as Canada's Parliament remains hung, no major political party will want to risk alienating this handful.
That is utter bullshit, Boom Boom, whether it is your view or someone else's. "Canada" backs Israel for the same reason that Canada backs the U.S. in most foreign policy matters (e.g. Afghanistan). You can either look for a bunch of different explanations for related phenomena, or you can identify the common thread. To suggest that the explanation is wanting to make Jews happy is stupid at best - and anti-Semitic at worst.
The U.N. high commissioner for human rights Friday called for an investigation of possible Israeli war crimes in Gaza as local residents told more gruesome tales about Israeli troops neglecting wounded civilians and the killing of unarmed Palestinians.
http://www.truthout.org/011009B
Well martin it's more of a hypothesis - you'll notice i said - " ... the impression many have" not the reality
but to examine the morality of killing - it seems natural that casualities numbers should be more important than intent but I not sure most people see it that way.
group A is trying to specifically to kill a member of group B who they consider guilty of something they feel justified in doing that even if it leads to the death of group B innocents
group B fires a rocket randomly hoping to kill anyone in group A or plants a bomb with the specific purpose of killing innocents in group A
lastly group A states that they regret the loss of innocents by their hand , and group B considers the loss of innoocents by their hand a succesdful mission
this is based on their statements before and after such attacks
I think many do not see these as morally equivelant
If you feel this is not an accurate description please correct me, thansk
Tom that was exactly what I was looking for thanks for summing it so well, I really wish I had read that before I wrote my last post - it seems quite simplistic now by comparison
Thanks Tom
IMO, you nailed it there with "B"
