Boom Boom: "...no major political party will want to risk alienating this handful"
Well, this prophecy just bit the dust. Monique Richard of the Parti québécois gave a rousing address/condemnation of Israel a few hours ago in downtown Montreal, before a crowd of 15,000 marchers.
Surprisingly, Radio-Canada didn't mention our demo in its 5 o'clock radio news bulletin, preferring to cover a 2-000 strong demo in Toronto...
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.
Why would you claim that the 1973 war was a defeat? Maybe the Arab World, which had been humiliated by the lopsided defeat of the Egyptian-Syrian-Jordanian alliance during the Six-Day War, felt psychologically vindicated by its string of victories early in the conflict. But this vindication paved the way for the peace process that followed, as well as liberalizations such as Egypt's infitah policy. The Camp David Accords, which came soon after, led to normalized relations between Egypt and Israel—the first time any Arab country had recognized the Israeli state. Egypt, which had already been drifting away from the Soviet Union, then left the Soviet sphere of influence entirely. Seems like an Israeli victory to me. Just getting an Arab country to acknowledge Israel's right to exist was a major development in the1970's. Not quite what the Syrians and Egyptians would have hoped for when they started the war, no?
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.
Thank you for filling in for me there, Cueball. I don't have the stomach to respond to that apologist. Since 1967, it has all been downhill for Israel - and for the U.S., for that matter. That doesn't make them less murderous or dangerous - quite the contrary. But it does make it pathetic when the MSM and a few creeps here sit back and predict how Israel is going to inflict some crushing defeat on the Palestinian people. Wishful thinking.
Israel has a right to defend itself. Iggy and Layton said so. Must be true.
Maybe Israel does. That doesn't translate into a right to engage in genocide.
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
If you don't agree with that moronic position, then why are you arguing it? Are you the self-appointed representative at babble of all the morally-bankrupt apologists for Israeli aggression and terrorism? Why should anyone bother answering your pathetic arguments if you aren't even going to admit ownership of them?
Do you perhaps think that we need to be told that there are stupid and dishonest people out there who don't support the Palestinian cause and use illogical arguments to attack them? Thanks, but we knew that already.
If you don't agree with that moronic position, then why are you arguing it?
Well, you know, like, uh, he's rendering a public service of sorts. In his first post, he denounced all the "bullies" on babble. So now, he of course agrees with the "correct line", but he has these, err, friends who are all confused, and they too of course must be, like, scared of the bullies here, so he's bringing their arguments here to pick up some really really sharp counter-arguments so he can go and proselytize for the ultra-correct totalitarian party line of babble!
I think you owe him a big "thank you", personally, for spreading [s]God's[/s] our word.
martin, were there really 15,000 at our demo? I'm short, so I couldn't really get an accurate estimate.
For those who don't see the Globe and Mail: interesting story this morning about Beersheva, which other babblers may wish to shed light on:
The eight-storey building, with two apartments per floor, has slightly more Jewish families than Arab, but no one has counted them, both families say, surprised even to be asked about it.The 1947 United Nations partition plan placed it on the map of a prospective Arab state; Egypt quickly occupied it and used it as a military headquarters when war broke out in 1948. A year later, however, Israeli forces had driven Egypt back, and Beersheva has been Israeli ever since. Its population has a Jewish majority now, but relations between the races have always been good.
Lawrence Tarabin, 43, is a Muslim Arab. “Jews and Arabs have very good relationships here in Beersheva,” Mr. Tarabin says proudly.
These days, those relationships might be tested by the hail of rockets that reach the city from Gaza almost every day.
Not so, says Mr. Tarabin, an officer in Israel's border police service. “Rockets don't distinguish between Arab and Jew.”
“In fact,” he says, “those rockets are from Iran, and Iran has always hated both our peoples.”
Certainly the 185,000 people of Beersheva hate the rockets. On this Friday, usually the busiest shopping day of the week, the streets are quiet, the shopping mall almost deserted.
“Everyone's terrified,” says Siham Tarabin, 33, Mr. Tarabin's wife. “This is the first time Beersheva has ever been hit by rockets.” Ms. Tarabin, who works in a large hardware store, says she's lost her appetite since the rockets first reached them. (One landed less than a kilometre away.) She gets through a pack of Parliament cigarettes twice as fast as she used to.
Sammy Suisse, 45, is an observant Jew.
Four Katyusha rockets hit Beersheva Friday; the sirens that announced their imminent arrival woke both families at about 5 a.m. No one was injured in the four separate attacks, but each time the siren wailed, the couples joined their children in the rocket-proof shelter with which each apartment is outfitted. The three young Suisse children and the three Tarabin kids have all slept in their family shelters every night since this conflict began two weeks ago.
Around town, they say, no one makes a big deal about the different groups. “I was on the bus earlier this week when the siren sounded,” says Ms. Suisse, a cashier at a big supermarket. “The bus pulled up and we all ran into the same shelter, Arab and Jew. It's always like that.”
All four parents said they hate seeing the killing that is shown taking place in Gaza. “When I see the dead children, I just want to hug my own children,” Ms. Suisse says.
“But we all think the government is doing the right thing,” Mr. Tarabin says.
The famous old-style Beersheva market reflects the joint heritage. The outdoor food stalls are manned by a mishmash of Jews and Arabs, all shouting out the great bargains and quality they have on offer.
This day, however, there are few people to take up the offers.
“No one's selling anything,” says a Jewish vendor named Yaish, interrupting his visit with his Arab neighbour. “We're just watching the fruit and vegetables.” It's been this way for almost two weeks, he says.
Where's the shelter he runs to when the sirens wail? “I stay here,” he says, indignantly. “All of us do. And we all have the same God,” he emphasizes. “We trust in him.”
Mr. Tarabin does. He's a Sufi, a branch of Islam that preaches non-violence. Yet he ended up a border policeman, a tough assignment in which he must deal with both Palestinian and Jewish confrontations.
“I'm a Muslim Arab, but also an Israeli,” he slowly explains. “I live in this state and I want to help protect it. A policeman fights crime and chaos. That's my job.”
Did they really estimate Toronto at 2000 people? I thought there were a lot more than that there. My son made his own sign before we went, and then got interviewed by a Canadian Press reporter! Edited to add: I read another report that said "almost 3000" which sounds more like it to me.
Martin: according to this article, the Montreal protest was estimated at 1000 people, and Toronto had 2000. I know the police always underestimate crowds, but that's a pretty big disparity between your estimate and the police estimate.
Oh, and there were about 8 JDL people protesting in Toronto, too. :D It was pretty funny walking by them to the gigantic pro-Palestinian crowd.
You neglected to link that beautiful story of Jewish/Arab love among the rockets, Wilf. I guess for Arabs in Israel life would be but a bowl of choclate covered cherries if not for those bastards imprisoned in Gaza who along wth their children, even though it makes Angels cry, must die so the beautiful relationship between Jews and Arabs in Israel may continue free of those terrible rockets that coause them to lose sleep. Thanks for that.
When the CTV camera rolled, I innocently ambled in front of the minuscule pro-Israel counter-demo with my "I didn't get circumsized for THIS!" sign...
I heard the 15,000 figure from two sources, one of them being a report to the crowd by the organizers at the final speakout, There were certainly many more than 1,000. The crowd streched at one point from Place des Arts to the Bay, overflowing on both sidewalks of Ste-Catherine St.
THE FAILURE to grasp the nature of Hamas has caused a failure to grasp the predictable results. Not only is Israel unable to win the war, Hamas cannot lose it.Even if the Israeli army were to succeed in killing every Hamas fighter to the last man, even then Hamas would win. The Hamas fighters would be seen as the paragons of the Arab nation, the heroes of the Palestinian people, models for emulation by every youngster in the Arab world. The West Bank would fall into the hands of Hamas like a ripe fruit, Fatah would drown in a sea of contempt, the Arab regimes would be threatened with collapse.
If the war ends with Hamas still standing, bloodied but unvanquished, in face of the mighty Israeli military machine, it will look like a fantastic victory, a victory of mind over matter.
What will be seared into the consciousness of the world will be the image of Israel as a blood-stained monster, ready at any moment to commit war crimes and not prepared to abide by any moral restraints. This will have severe consequences for our long-term future, our standing in the world, our chance of achieving peace and quiet.
In the end, this war is a crime against ourselves too, a crime against the State of Israel.
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1231625457/
HT to CMOT and the latest in his excellent series of threads.
