Lesson learned: First you find a ghetto ...

POSTED BY: rue
UPDATED: Friday, January 9, 2009 21:33
VIEWED: 4773
PAGE 1 of 1

RUE

Tuesday, January 6, 2009 4:32 PM

Warsaw

Israel

Gaza

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Silence is consent.

RIVERLOVE

Tuesday, January 6, 2009 5:02 PM

Too bad the Jews who rose up to fight the Nazis during the Ghetto Uprising didn't have Iran to supply them with missiles, rockets, machine guns, RPGs, IEDs, ammunition and cash. Might have made their brave and historic effort a bit more successful.

RUE

Tuesday, January 6, 2009 5:24 PM

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/world/middleeast/07mideast.html?hp

Israeli Strike Reportedly Hits Refugees at School in Gaza

Israel’s military ... shells had hit a United Nations school where Palestinians were sheltering, killing scores.

The Israeli media said the death toll was at least 30, and even as high as 40, although this could not be immediately confirmed. .. Reuters reported that two tank shells exploded outside the school, spraying shrapnel inside and outside the building where hundreds of Palestinians had sought refuge from the fighting. It cited medical sources at two hospitals, who said the dead were either people taking shelter in the school or local residents.

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Silence is consent.

RUE

Tuesday, January 6, 2009 5:32 PM

bump

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Silence is consent.

RUE

Tuesday, January 6, 2009 5:34 PM

bump

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Silence is consent.

RUE

Tuesday, January 6, 2009 5:44 PM

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/world/middleeast/07mideast.html?hp

Israeli Strike Reportedly Hits Refugees at School in Gaza

Israel’s military ... shells had hit a United Nations school where Palestinians were sheltering, killing scores.

The Israeli media said the death toll was at least 30, and even as high as 40, although this could not be immediately confirmed. .. Reuters reported that two tank shells exploded outside the school, spraying shrapnel inside and outside the building where hundreds of Palestinians had sought refuge from the fighting. It cited medical sources at two hospitals, who said the dead were either people taking shelter in the school or local residents.

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Silence is consent.

DREAMTROVE

Tuesday, January 6, 2009 6:04 PM

Quote:
RIVERLOVE
Too bad the Jews who rose up to fight the Nazis during the Ghetto Uprising didn't have Iran to supply them with missiles, rockets, machine guns, RPGs, IEDs, ammunition and cash. Might have made their brave and historic effort a bit more successful.

Quite right. And this is what our second amendment is intended for. Of coure, Iran was busy being invaded by both Russia and Britain, which is why it had to ask Germany for help (Germans asked them to change the name officially to Iran, for Aryan, from Persia. The name change lasted through the war, afterwords it was declared that both names were acceptable.)

The assistance should logically have come from those who were nearby: The Soviets, who were busy exterminating jews and ukrainians and polls themselves or places with jewish populations that were sympathetic, Britain or the US.

Of course FDR and Churchill were busy letting the kill off commence. Anyone who has played RISK knows that this is a workable military strategy. They were both very well aware that 6 million jews and 5 million christians, and a million pagans were being exterminated in camps, they just didn't care. Nor did they care about the depopulation of villages. What they cared about, was the mutual slaughtering of soldiers and exhausting of defensive weaponry, both of which they were in favor of.

Lots of jews elsewhere had cash. I think it was one of the reasons for killing them. Nazi gold. Now, of course, all that gold belongs to the Gnomes of Zurich, who still won't let their accounts be examined because they know full well that this is where the money is.

But Gaza's friends cannot supply them with enough to stop this slaughter. I think that they would do better to smuggle people out of Gaza. The problem is that no one wants Palestinians, just like in 1938, no one wanted jews.

KWICKO

Tuesday, January 6, 2009 6:06 PM

Sooooo... Would that mean that Israel isn't able to keep its people in check and keep them from raining destruction upon innocent civilians and targeting innocent civilians?

Is this a justification for invading, taking over, and occupying Israel?

I'm just trying to clarify, because when it was a few Palestinians doing this type of thing, it was plenty justification enough to Israel to invade and occupy. Finn even stated categorically that Hamas needn't have anything to do with the rocket attacks; if they couldn't keep their people and their rockets under control, they should be invaded and taken over.

So when do we begin the invasion of Israel?

Mike

"It is complete now; the hands of time are neatly tied."

KWICKO

Tuesday, January 6, 2009 6:13 PM

Quote:

But Gaza's friends cannot supply them with enough to stop this slaughter. I think that they would do better to smuggle people out of Gaza. The problem is that no one wants Palestinians, just like in 1938, no one wanted jews.

That seems to be the consensus - no one will take them. Hell, if it were within my power, I'd give them a giant chunk of West Texas, along the Rio Grande in the Big Bend area.

Mike

"It is complete now; the hands of time are neatly tied."

RIVERLOVE

Tuesday, January 6, 2009 6:30 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Quote:
RIVERLOVE
Too bad the Jews who rose up to fight the Nazis during the Ghetto Uprising didn't have Iran to supply them with missiles, rockets, machine guns, RPGs, IEDs, ammunition and cash. Might have made their brave and historic effort a bit more successful.

Quite right. And this is what our second amendment is intended for. Of coure, Iran was busy being invaded by both Russia and Britain, which is why it had to ask Germany for help (Germans asked them to change the name officially to Iran, for Aryan, from Persia. The name change lasted through the war, afterwords it was declared that both names were acceptable.)

The assistance should logically have come from those who were nearby: The Soviets, who were busy exterminating jews and ukrainians and polls themselves or places with jewish populations that were sympathetic, Britain or the US.

Of course FDR and Churchill were busy letting the kill off commence. Anyone who has played RISK knows that this is a workable military strategy. They were both very well aware that 6 million jews and 5 million christians, and a million pagans were being exterminated in camps, they just didn't care. Nor did they care about the depopulation of villages. What they cared about, was the mutual slaughtering of soldiers and exhausting of defensive weaponry, both of which they were in favor of.

Lots of jews elsewhere had cash. I think it was one of the reasons for killing them. Nazi gold. Now, of course, all that gold belongs to the Gnomes of Zurich, who still won't let their accounts be examined because they know full well that this is where the money is.

But Gaza's friends cannot supply them with enough to stop this slaughter. I think that they would do better to smuggle people out of Gaza. The problem is that no one wants Palestinians, just like in 1938, no one wanted jews.

Good post, but some factual errors :

Getting the Jew's gold and cash was just a nice by-product for the Nazis. They would have carried out the same Holocaust without the diamonds and gold.

Russia in WWII didn't exterminate Jews. Initially, after Germany and Russia signed their Non-Agression Pact, Russia was taking Poles out of Eastern Poland and carting them off to Russia, where they worked as slave labor building the Trans Siberian Railroad. Germany took the Poles out of Western Poland and sent them to Extermination Camps and Concentration Camps. When Germany betrayed the Pact, they invaded Russia along the entire front, Leningrad and Stalingrad to the North, and Ukraine and Kiev to the South. The Russian Army simply retreated and left thousands of square miles vulnerable to the advancing German Army.
Right behind the German Army was the SS Einsatzgruppe, who were the mobile death squads. They rounded up all the Jews and slaughtered them, mostly in mass shootings into open pits and ravines, like Babi Yar.

DREAMTROVE

Tuesday, January 6, 2009 11:47 PM

Quote:
That seems to be the consensus - no one will take them. Hell, if it were within my power, I'd give them a giant chunk of West Texas, along the Rio Grande in the Big Bend area.

Mike, oh how I wish there was a consensus.

You're absolutely right. I'd give them crawford :)
But this is the very reason I'm here posting, and my jewish relatives are not.

My father's family was in banking and brewing, and there were a lot of marriages. Directly, his family were nobles, they dated back to the region from the very early gothic pre-christian era. Because of the circles they were in, there were a fair number of intermarriages with jews, and so a lot of jews in the extended family. All of them were moneyed, but when the Nazis came, they took them all.

Curiously, it wasn't judaism or money that sparked the attack, it came in 1934, and some were killed then, others held prisoner, and later moved to camps.

The issue was the war. My great grandparents were convinced that Germany would lose a second world war. The Nazis maintained that it was poor choices and organization of the Kaiser and his aristocrats, and that ordered execution of the Von Schlieffen plan would win the war.

Since my father's side worked in the German govt. they made their case convincingly, and were joined by likeminded people, who thought that the numerical logistics just wouldn't allow a victory. The USSR made it technically impossible to win. They were marginalized as being aristocratic, slavic sympathizers, and later as jewish sympathizers. Ultimately, they were all killed.

My father and his mother being not jewish were allowed to come here, but the US had a quota on jews, as did many places. A lot of his non-jewish relatives stayed to fight off Hitler, and were major financial backers who helped defeat him in the 1933 election, that ironically, today, many people think he actually won. He did not, he lost resoundingly to Hindenberg.

RIVERLOVE

Quote:
Good post, but some factual errors:

Possibly, but if I nitpick, it will be because I'm very sure. Even the most educated of texts can be wrong, see my earlier post where I said on apocrypha, if Webster disagrees with me, they're still wrong. I know the word, as do a lot of others.

In this case, I have a close friend who is a well known holocaust historian, and was head of history for the european union. As an amateur historian myself, I'm always pleased that he takes me seriously, and actually thinks I'm quite good, and made me his assistant. But I defer to him in these matters, certainly over most of recorded history, which usually has the flaw not only that it was written by the winners (the russians did win this war, we only defeated Japan) but also that history is often written by people who are non-objective and have ulterior motives. I seldom post speculations, but I'm still occasionally wrong, but suffice it to say, I'm as sure as I can be about this, and I have it on extremely good authority. That said:

Quote:
Getting the Jew's gold and cash was just a nice by-product for the Nazis. They would have carried out the same Holocaust without the diamonds and gold.

Maybe. They slaughtered my family jewish and non, and they most certainly took all the wealth. If they had an ulterior motive, it was political, not religious. The decision to kill the jews hadn't come yet.

The original plan was to remove the jews to Israel. This got interrupted by more greed, this time, part govt., part corporate, coming not only from Germany, but also the UK, US and Switzerland. The model was then copied against non jews by the puppets in Hrvatska, but also by other axis powers, and the corporations, including european and american ones, to include non-jews or blur the definition of jew, because they were running out of workers.

Slave labor is actual a more intense evil than racism itself. The racism compelled them to remove the jews, who the Nazis blamed for the German loss in WWI (This is because jewish bankers loaned money to other european powers, after lo

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Wednesday, January 7, 2009 12:04 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
Sooooo... Would that mean that Israel isn't able to keep its people in check and keep them from raining destruction upon innocent civilians and targeting innocent civilians?

I think you will find that Israel, not only did the shelling, but admitted responsibility for it. Perhaps if Hamas were as honest, some sort of accord could be reached with them. However, Hamas is not, leaving only the military option.

Although Israeli officials have said that they were targeting mortar fire from within the school. Mortar fire that was likely coming from some of those “extremists” that you and rue, and evidently Hamas also, would like to ignore.

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
So when do we begin the invasion of Israel?

Talk to Hamas. They’d love to have you.

Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

RUE

Wednesday, January 7, 2009 12:54 AM

Finn, I am really, really tired of your stupid strawman arguments.

No one has said Hamas never did anything wrong, least of all me. I invite you to find the quote, if you don't believe me. I thought I made it VERY clear in MANY posts I wasn't trying to go back to the dawn of time to assign the ultimate cause.

I restricted my comments to THIS truce, THIS breach, THIS conflict. In THIS instance Israel clearly broke the truce. Their self-defense claim is clearly not true.

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Is THAT short enough for you to read all the way through ?

Is THAT simple enough for you to comprehend ?

KWICKO

Wednesday, January 7, 2009 4:49 AM

Quote:
Talk to Hamas. They’d love to have you.

They probably would love to have me, but that's not my battle to fight. I have my own cause worth laying down my life for, and Hamas doesn't share it, nor does Israel.

Mike

"It is complete now; the hands of time are neatly tied."

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Wednesday, January 7, 2009 4:52 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Finn, I am really, really tired of your stupid strawman arguments.

There is no strawman. You spent much of the last thread arguing that rockets fired into Israel by supposed nameless “extremists” were unimportant, because according to you they were unaffiliated with Hamas. That was your argument. There is no strawman. Granted it was a dumb argument, but you made the point.

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
No one has said Hamas never did anything wrong, least of all me. I invite you to find the quote, if you don't believe me. I thought I made it VERY clear in MANY posts I wasn't trying to go back to the dawn of time to assign the ultimate cause.

I restricted my comments to THIS truce, THIS breach, THIS conflict. In THIS instance Israel clearly broke the truce. Their self-defense claim is clearly not true.

Of course, it’s always THIS conflict where Hamas never does anything wrong. The only reason Israel “clearly” broke the truce is the way you interpret the timeline. Clearly if I start the timeline right after Hamas commits an egregious act of aggression and right before Israel retaliates, then I can accuse Israel of starting it.

The six-month truce between Hamas and Israel began in 24 June 2008, during which Hamas was required to end rocket attacks against Israel. On the SAME damn day as the truce munitions were fired into Israel from Gaza (constituting the FIRST BREACH of the truce). Two days later more munitions were fired at Israel from Gaza. The next day, and the next day, and two days later. Then on 2 July, 3 July, 7,8,10,12, 13,15, 25, 29,31 July. Then in August 19 Munitions were fired into Israel. In September, 5 munitions. In October, only one. Then in November on the 6, 12, 21, 22, 24, 26 a large number munitions were fired. More munitions were fired on 3 December and 6 December and 12 and 16, 17, 18, and the 19th. Then on 19 December 2008 Hamas spokesperson declared an end to the truce because according them Israel did not lift the blockade on Gaza. Boy is that joke. So according to you “Israel clearly broke the truce,” when on the 27 December after 6 months of continuous barrage they finally retaliated.

Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

RUE

Wednesday, January 7, 2009 6:32 PM

Stupid, stupid Finn

"The only reason Israel “clearly” broke the truce is the way you interpret the timeline."

The timeline that started at the start of the truce ? There is no way to misinterpret that. Israel broke the truce.

"On the SAME damn day as the truce munitions were fired into Israel from Gaza (constituting the FIRST BREACH of the truce). Two days later more munitions were fired at Israel from Gaza. The next day, and the next day, and two days later. Then on 2 July, 3 July, 7,8,10,12, 13,15, 25, 29,31 July. Then in August 19 Munitions were fired into Israel. In September, 5 munitions. In October, only one. Then in November on the 6, 12, 21, 22, 24, 26 a large number munitions were fired."

But they were not fired by Hamas. Even Israel knew that and didn't respond militarily.

In THIS intance, ISRAEL BROKE THE TRUCE.

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Silence is consent.

HERO

Wednesday, January 7, 2009 7:47 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
In THIS intance, ISRAEL BROKE THE TRUCE.

Exactly. A ceasefire is when Isreal stops firing. Firing at Isreal is still ok.

H

RUE

Wednesday, January 7, 2009 8:12 PM

Hamas signed the cease-fire and didn't fire on Israel.

Nuff said.

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Silence is consent.

SIGNYM

Wednesday, January 7, 2009 8:17 PM

Oh, for heaven's sake Rue!

Israel= good guys

Their minds are made up. Don't confuse 'em with the facts!

Sheesh!!!!!!

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Let's party like its 1929.

GEEZER

Wednesday, January 7, 2009 11:21 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
But they were not fired by Hamas. Even Israel knew that and didn't respond militarily.

In THIS intance, ISRAEL BROKE THE TRUCE.

One of the terms of the truce was that "Hamas guarantees that all Palestinian factions abide by the prohibition on the use of violence against Israel."

http://middleeast.about.com/od/israelandpalestine/a/me080618a.htm

So Hamas, as the elected government, was responsible for preventing all factions, not just Hamas fighters, from firing rockets. Finn's chronology of rockets fired after the date of the truce shows that they did not, or could not, do so. Technically, this would have given Israel a free shot any time over the last six months, as Hamas was not living up to the conditions of the treaty and Israel was being attacked.

The article cited above makes it clear that both sides expected the truce to be short-lived at best. As I noted before, either side could have broken the treaty at any time to keep the pot boiling. You assert(without displaying proof) that it was Israel. I contend (based on the info above) that it could have just as easily been Hamas, but I don't think it really matters. The politicos on both sides are kept in power by the fears of their people, and they don't mind getting a few killed to maintain the fear. There ain't no good or bad guys. There ain't no right or wrong sides. Both are bad and both are wrong. Hamas headquarters in in Syria, so they aren't worried about getting hurt, and the Israeli government ain't going near the fighting.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Thursday, January 8, 2009 3:01 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Oh, for heaven's sake Rue!

Israel= good guys

Their minds are made up. Don't confuse 'em with the facts!

Sheesh!!!!!!

Actually, Signym, if you read rue’s post, you will see quite clearly that Hamas is blameless. According to rue, they are completely unaccountable for what takes place within their borders. That would make them the good guys; after all they evidently can do no wrong – so long as they don’t admit it.

Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

KWICKO

Thursday, January 8, 2009 3:25 AM

Quote:
Actually, Signym, if you read rue’s post, you will see quite clearly that Hamas is blameless. According to rue, they are completely unaccountable for what takes place within their borders. That would make them the good guys; after all they evidently can do no wrong – so long as they don’t admit it.

Hamas is the Bush administration?!

Mike

"It is complete now; the hands of time are neatly tied."

DREAMTROVE

Thursday, January 8, 2009 4:18 AM

Quote:
Hamas is the Bush administration?!

Mike, you've hit it!

Think:
Both have condemned Ohlmert for this attack
Both favor a truce
Both are closely allied to the Saudi Royal family
Both have heavy backing from religious fundamentalists
Both are not capable of making allies or rational military decisions.

If Israel only knew this, they would shower Gaza with pretzels!

KWICKO

Thursday, January 8, 2009 4:54 AM

Quote:
If Israel only knew this, they would shower Gaza with pretzels!

If only...

Mike

"It is complete now; the hands of time are neatly tied."

RUE

Thursday, January 8, 2009 7:21 PM

Stupid, stupid Finn

"Actually, Signym, if you read rue’s post, you will see quite clearly that Hamas is blameless. According to rue, they are completely unaccountable for what takes place within their borders. That would make them the good guys; after all they evidently can do no wrong – so long as they don’t admit it."

Still haven't learned to read yet ? Or is the problem more deeply embedded between the ears. Or maybe, perhaps, you're one of those soul-less people, like Geezer, who make a point of foisting off dinsinformation at every turn, and lying about what other people post, without pause.

Which is it ?

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Silence is consent.

SIGNYM

Thursday, January 8, 2009 7:50 PM

Does he have to choose? Maybe it's "All of the above"!

In any case... No, Finn I didn't get that from Rue's post.

But what are YOU saying?

That Hamas has control of everything within its borders?

You'd have to post some credible evidence that Hamas broke the cease-fire to justify it being specifically targeted by Israel. Otherwise, Israel's attack on Hamas makes just as much sense as us attacking Iraq for 9-11.

Oh, wait. I forgot. Even THAT mkes sense to you!

In that case... nevermind. Logic was never your strong suit anyway.

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Let's party like its 1929.

SIGNYM

Thursday, January 8, 2009 8:24 PM

BTW- Please don't come crying to me about how I mis-stated your position, since you do that all the time.

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Let's party like its 1929.

GEEZER

Thursday, January 8, 2009 9:56 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
But what are YOU saying?

That Hamas has control of everything within its borders?

You'd have to post some credible evidence that Hamas broke the cease-fire to justify it being specifically targeted by Israel. Otherwise, Israel's attack on Hamas makes just as much sense as us attacking Iraq for 9-11.

As noted above, Hamas guaranteed, as part of the June treaty, to prevent any Palestinian factions from attacking Israel. Doesn't matter whether Hamas itself broke the cease-fire. As soon as rockets were fired at Israel, Hamas was in breach of the treaty. Even if they don't have control of everything within their borders, they represented in the treaty negotiations that they did, and could prevent attacks. Maybe they should have been more honest in assessing their control over the other factions.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

SIGNYM

Thursday, January 8, 2009 11:14 PM

GEEZER SAID

Quote:
As soon as rockets were fired at Israel, Hamas was in breach of the treaty.

But

Quote:
On June 19, 2008, Israel and Hamas began observing an Egyptian-mediated ceasefire, which was intended to last six months with an option to extend.

As far as I can tell, the cease-fire expired Dec 19 or thereabouts. In any case, Hamas rockets were not the first cross-border incursion. That was by Israel.

Quote:
Consumed by coverage of the Nov. 4 presidential election, U.S. mainstream media ignored a key Israeli military attack on a Hamas target that some Palestinians claim marked the effective end of the ceasefire between the two sides and set the stage for the current round of bloodletting.

While the major U.S. news wire Associated Press (AP) reported that the attack, in which six members of Hamas's military wing were killed by Israeli ground forces, threatened the ceasefire, its report was carried by only a handful of small newspapers around the country. The Nov 4 raid -- and the escalation that followed -- also went unreported by the major U.S. network and cable television new programmes, according to a search of the Nexis database for all English-language news coverage between Nov. 4 and 7. But the military action, which was followed up by an aerial attack that killed at least one other Palestinian, appears to have dealt a fatal blow to the Egyptian-mediated ceasefire that had taken effect Jun. 19 and largely held for some four and a half months.

http://ipsnews.net/wap/news.asp?idnews=45330

Geezer, disinformationalist extraordinaire.

---------------------------------
Let's party like its 1929.

SIGNYM

Thursday, January 8, 2009 11:34 PM

Children Found Starving
Rescue teams made several attempts to rescue the wounded and retrieve bodies in several areas of Gaza city but were refused entry by Israel Defence Forces (IDF) soldiers.

Quote:
By Mel Frykberg

RAMALLAH, Jan 8 (IPS) - An international chorus of condemnation has blasted Israel over its human rights abuses in Gaza. Operation Cast Lead, into its 12th day, has now claimed the lives of over 700 Palestinians.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) demanded safe access Thursday for ICRC officials and Palestinian Red Crescent (PRC) ambulances to evacuate the wounded. It accused Israel of deliberately delaying ambulances. Rescue teams made several attempts to rescue the wounded and retrieve bodies in several areas of Gaza city but were refused entry by Israel Defence Forces (IDF) soldiers.

On Wednesday, however, after a week's intensive negotiations with Israeli officials, ICRC officials and PRC ambulance teams managed to reach some of the survivors in Gaza's Zeitoun neighbourhood. The ICRC reported finding four starving toddlers next to the bodies of their dead mothers in one of the houses. The children were apparently too weak to stand. One man was found barely alive. Twelve bodies were found laid out on mattresses in the same house. Fifteen survivors were rescued from another house by the ICRC. Three bodies were found in an adjacent house. The rescue teams kept looking for survivors despite orders by Israeli soldiers that they leave.

"This is shocking," Pierre Wettach, the ICRC's head of delegation for Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories told IPS. "The Israeli military must have been aware of the situation, but did not assist the wounded. Neither did they make it possible for us or the PRC to assist the wounded."

Amnesty International accused the IDF and Palestinian gunmen Wednesday of using Palestinian civilians as human shields.

"Our sources in Gaza report that Israeli soldiers have entered and taken up positions in a number of Palestinian homes, forcing families to stay in a ground-floor room while they use the rest of their house as a military base and sniper position," said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa programme director.

"This clearly increases the risk to the Palestinian families concerned, and means they are effectively being used as human shields," he said. While Palestinian gunmen have also used civilian homes as bases to attack Israeli forces, the IDF has adopted this tactic for many years. It is standard IDF policy throughout the occupied West Bank to use Palestinian homes as bases, while confining families to single bedrooms. Israeli soldiers have been filmed forcing Palestinian youngsters to walk in front of army jeeps or to enter a home they fear is booby-trapped or has gunmen inside, before the soldiers follow afterwards.

Amnesty International also slammed Israel's decision to establish a daily ceasefire of only three hours, saying it was insufficient to tackle the unfolding humanitarian crisis.

"A truce that lasts for a few hours a day is simply insufficient. It's too short to address the urgent and massive needs of the civilians who are caught in the hostilities and suffering heavy casualties," said Curt Goering, Amnesty's senior deputy executive director for the U.S. "Israel has severely blockaded aid for nearly all of 2008. The Israeli military can't let aid in for three hours and pretend that is sufficient. Nor would a daily brief 'recess' guarantee the safety of humanitarian workers," Goering noted. Meanwhile, the UN has demanded that Israel provide evidence for its claims that Palestinian gunmen fired on Israeli forces from a UN school compound in northern Gaza before an Israeli artillery attack that killed more than 40 Palestinian civilians there. The UN has categorically denied that any armed men were in the school at the time.

"We have nothing to hide," UN Relief and Welfare Agency (UNRWA) spokesman Chris Gunness told CNN Wednesday. "Bring it on. We wa

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GEEZER

Thursday, January 8, 2009 11:34 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
On June 19, 2008, Israel and Hamas began observing an Egyptian-mediated ceasefire, which was intended to last six months with an option to extend.

True.

As cited above, one of the terms of the ceasefire was that Hamas would prevent all Palestinian factions in Gaza from attacking Israel.

Just to be clear, let's repeat:

One of the terms of the ceasefire was that Hamas would prevent all Palestinian factions in Gaza from attacking Israel.

Now, did Hamas prevent all Palestinian factions in Gaza from attacking Israel?

Finn's chronology, in an earlier post, of rocket attacks from Gaza on Israel makes it pretty apparent that Hamas did not, in fact, prevent all Palestinian factions in Gaza from attacking Israel.

Therefore, Hamas violated the terms of the ceasefire.

If you don't consider failure to meet the conditions of the ceasefire a violation, please provide a reasonable explaination of your position.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

SIGNYM

Friday, January 9, 2009 12:06 AM

Quote:
Finn's chronology, in an earlier post, of rocket attacks from Gaza on Israel makes it pretty apparent that Hamas did not, in fact, prevent all Palestinian factions in Gaza from attacking Israel.

Which conveniently left out Israel's violations.

Quote:
Therefore, Hamas violated the terms of the ceasefire.

As did Israel.

Now, we can get into in kindergarten-style argument of "HE started it!".

But the fact is that Israel has kept the people of Gaza bottled up in all directions, without jobs, medicine, trade, access to their farmland. The barrier completely encircles Gaza (even on the Egyptian side). Almost half of the people in Gaza are unemployed. Even before the Israeli invasion they were short of food, fuel, parts, water and utilities (which Israel turns on and off at whim). Its so like the Warsaw ghetto I'm surprised you don't see the parallel.

According to Avi Shlaim

Quote:
Whatever the numbers, killing civilians is wrong. ... but Israel's entire record is one of unbridled and unremitting brutality towards the inhabitants of Gaza. Israel also maintained the blockade of Gaza after the ceasefire came into force which, in the view of the Hamas leaders, amounted to a violation of the agreement. During the ceasefire, Israel prevented any exports from leaving the strip in clear violation of a 2005 accord, leading to a sharp drop in employment opportunities. Officially, 49.1% of the population is unemployed. At the same time, Israel restricted drastically the number of trucks carrying food, fuel, cooking-gas canisters, spare parts for water and sanitation plants, and medical supplies to Gaza. It is difficult to see how starving and freezing the civilians of Gaza could protect the people on the Israeli side of the border. But even if it did, it would still be immoral, a form of collective punishment that is strictly forbidden by international humanitarian law.

The brutality of Israel's soldiers is fully matched by the mendacity of its spokesmen. Eight months before launching the current war on Gaza, Israel established a National Information Directorate. The core messages of this directorate to the media are that Hamas broke the ceasefire agreements; that Israel's objective is the defence of its population; and that Israel's forces are taking the utmost care not to hurt innocent civilians. Israel's spin doctors have been remarkably successful in getting this message across. But, in essence, their propaganda is a pack of lies.

www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine

Israel dominates Gaza, economically and militarily. Because of that, Israel must solve the problem because they are the major cause. It's only your one-sidedness (and Finn's) that keeps you from seeing that.

---------------------------------
Let's party like its 1929.

DREAMTROVE

Friday, January 9, 2009 12:12 AM

Quote:

Now, we can get into in kindergarten-style argument of "HE started it!".

Oh, I'm sorry, I thought that's what this debate was about :)

SIGNYM

Friday, January 9, 2009 12:14 AM

What I see is a 200-lb bully attacking a baby because "HE started it".

---------------------------------
Let's party like its 1929.

SIGNYM

Friday, January 9, 2009 12:23 AM

And everyone siding with the bully. (OH, poor bully! He might get hurt! Here, let me give you a Taser so you can defend yourself!)

---------------------------------
Let's party like its 1929.

BIGDAMNNOBODY

Friday, January 9, 2009 1:44 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
And everyone siding with the bully.

Dis-information.

SIGNYM

Friday, January 9, 2009 1:50 AM

Quote:
And everyone siding with the bully.- Signy

Dis-information.-BDN

You're right.

Not everybody.

Not me, for instance.

---------------------------------
Let's party like its 1929.

GEEZER

Friday, January 9, 2009 2:08 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Which conveniently left out Israel's violations.

The first Hamas violation of the ceasefire agreement (per Finn's chronology, which no one has disputed) would have been on June 24, 2008 when they failed to prevent Palestinian attacks on Israel from Gaza. To quote Finn's post, "Two days later(after June 24) more munitions were fired at Israel from Gaza. The next day, and the next day, and two days later. Then on 2 July, 3 July, 7,8,10,12, 13,15, 25, 29,31 July. Then in August 19 Munitions were fired into Israel. In September, 5 munitions. In October, only one. Then in November on the 6, 12, 21, 22, 24, 26 a large number munitions were fired. More munitions were fired on 3 December and 6 December and 12 and 16, 17, 18, and the 19th."

After June 24, 2008, any attack on Israel from Gaza, regardless of who initiated it, was a violation of the Hamas agreement to prevent attacks from Gaza on Israel.

Once again, you seem to think this is good guys versus bad guys. Wrong. Both Hamas(the Gaza government) and the Israeli goverment are the bad guys. The Israeli government has to do the incursions into Palestinian areas to give the impression they're protecting Israel from terrorism and to get money from the world Jewish community. Hamas has to provoke Israeli incursions, dispatch suicide bombers, and provide martyrs to get money from the world Islamic community.

Honestly, I'm not trying to defend Israel in this situation. I'm just trying to make you understand that Hamas is not Robin Hood.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

RUE

Friday, January 9, 2009 2:35 AM

Finn, Geezer

Finn:
"The six-month truce between Hamas and Israel began in 24 June 2008 ..."
No, it began June 19, 2008.

Finn:
"On the SAME damn day as the truce munitions were fired into Israel from Gaza (constituting the FIRST BREACH of the truce)." Then that would have been 6 days AFTER the start of the truce.

Another term of the agreement not mentioned in Geezer's post:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7462554.stm

Under the terms of the new agreement, Israel will ease restrictions on the trade of certain goods between Gaza and Israel on Friday morning, and open up the crossings for all commercial goods next week. (Other news sources stated "within 24 hours".)

Did they ? All indications I found in the news are that Israel never met that agreement, either initially or with the expanded easing of the blockade later.

Now, as I recall, Hamas was pretty pissed about that since people were getting malnourished and going without medical care, clean water, food, or electricity.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

KWICKO

Friday, January 9, 2009 2:38 AM

Quote:

Once again, you seem to think this is good guys versus bad guys. Wrong. Both Hamas(the Gaza government) and the Israeli goverment are the bad guys. The Israeli government has to do the incursions into Palestinian areas to give the impression they're protecting Israel from terrorism and to get money from the world Jewish community. Hamas has to provoke Israeli incursions, dispatch suicide bombers, and provide martyrs to get money from the world Islamic community.

Honestly, I'm not trying to defend Israel in this situation. I'm just trying to make you understand that Hamas is not Robin Hood.

Once again, to my shock and consternation, I find myself in complete agreement with Geezer. It's not bad guys versus good guys - more like bad guys versus bad guys.

Mike

"It is complete now; the hands of time are neatly tied."

RUE

Friday, January 9, 2009 2:49 AM

I suppose you would have thought the Jews were out of line for their armed resistance in Warsaw.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

RUE

Friday, January 9, 2009 3:08 AM

So anyway -

We have Israel blockading Gaza and preventing not only the export of goods (leading to 60% unemployment) but also the importing of food, fuel, and medical supplies, as well as the shipment of humanitarian aid.

Sounds like the Warsaw ghetto to me.

Geezer, Finn, Mike ... any excuse to offer for Israel's clearly illegal collective punishment ?

Then Hamas (the legitimately and democratically elected government) - and other organizations - lob (dead weight) rockets into Israel to gain negotiating leverage - to get out of Israel's stranglehold. (For the record, fatalities are few and damage is slight.) Israel responds with massive airstrikes killing hundreds, and Hamas and others respond with still more rockets.

Egypt brokers a cease-fire which takes place 06:00 June 19, 2008. Israel immediately fails to abide by the terms of the agreement, and ease the blockade.

Geezer, Finn, Mike ... any comments explaining why Hamas is the bad guy in this ?

Hamas itself still honors the cease-fire, though select groups, after nearly a week of Israel being in breech, do not. (It would be interesting to see who exactly signed on to the agreement. There were reports of 12 factions that signed it as well as Hamas, but no listing.)

So, here we have Gaza blockaded, STILL effectively encircled by troops, with no one and nothing allowed in, or out.

Geezer, Finn, Mike ... are you starting to see the parallel with Warsaw now ?

WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE GAZA DO ?

***************************************************************

Think about it.

GEEZER

Friday, January 9, 2009 3:32 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Geezer, Finn, Mike ... any comments explaining why Hamas is the bad guy in this ?

Again and again and again, both Hamas and the Israeli government are the bad guys. They both live off the conflict. They both get big bucks from their supporters as long as they provide martyrs.

The Palestinian and Israeli people who aren't actively trying to kill each other are the victims.

Why don't you understand this?

Hamas is not Robin Hood. The Israeli government is not Lincoln. Figure it out.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Friday, January 9, 2009 3:40 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Does he have to choose? Maybe it's "All of the above"!

In any case... No, Finn I didn't get that from Rue's post.

You could have. So you’ve officially included yourself as one of the Hamas apologists?

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
But what are YOU saying?

That Hamas has control of everything within its borders?

I expect Hamas to control factions that are waging war with neighboring states, yes. As does everyone else that’s not Hamas. Are you saying that if a faction in the US started bombing Canada, that the Bush administration would be right in doing nothing about it? And Canada would be wrong for responding? You think the whole thing should simply be ignored as if bombs dropped unanimously don’t cause any damage?

What if a faction in Mexico started bombing your house? You would be okay with that and okay with no one doing anything about it, as long as it wasn't the actual government?

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
You'd have to post some credible evidence that Hamas broke the cease-fire to justify it being specifically targeted by Israel.

That evidence has already been posted. As I’ve stated and Geezer as confirmed, Hamas was REQUIRED under the terms of the ceasefire to end the bombing of Israel regardless of who was doing the bombing. On 24 June 2008, Hamas was in breach of the ceasefire, as a matter of FACT.

Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

RUE

Friday, January 9, 2009 3:42 AM

Israel illegally blockaded Gaza. Hamas, as the legitimately and democratically elected government of Gaza (why do you dislike democracy so much, Geezer ?) has the duty and responsibility to defend its citizens.

What would you have it do ?

***************************************************************

Waiting for you to evade the question again.

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Friday, January 9, 2009 3:53 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
So anyway -

We have Israel blockading Gaza and preventing not only the export of goods (leading to 60% unemployment) but also the importing of food, fuel, and medical supplies, as well as the shipment of humanitarian aid.

Unemployment would be high in Gaza regardless of whether it was being blockaded or not, because Hamas is a thuglord government with no interest in the well being of the Palestinian People. And of course, the problem is that Israel doesn’t want shipment of weapons to be sent into Gaza. When Hamas ends the continuous bombing of Israel as was required under the previous ceasefire, then we can chastise Israel for blockading the port. But Hamas was in breach of the ceasefire within days, evidently, of the truce being signed. It doesn’t look as if there was even time for Israel to end the blockade.

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Then Hamas (the legitimately and democratically elected government) - and other organizations - lob (dead weight) rockets into Israel to gain negotiating leverage - to get out of Israel's stranglehold. (For the record, fatalities are few and damage is slight.) Israel responds with massive airstrikes killing hundreds, and Hamas and others respond with still more rockets.

How is Hamas the legitimate government? Hamas was elected to the Palestinian Parliament – it was NOT elected to be totalitarian ruler of the Gaza Strip. Hamas declared itself the sole and unquestionable ruler of the Palestinian territories in 2006, sparking a civil war between Hamas and Fatah. After the civil war, Fatah and the Palestinian Parliament was in control of the West Bank, and Hamas was in control of the Gaza Strip, which continues to wage a war it can’t win using the desperate Palestinian people as fodder.

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Geezer, Finn, Mike ... any comments explaining why Hamas is the bad guy in this ?

Hamas has failed to abide by the ceasefire from the beginning. Hamas is a totalitarian thuglord government (not even other arab states support Hamas and both the US and Europe have delcared it a terrorist faction), which uses the Palestinians in Gaza as human shields in a zealous campaign to fulfill their murderous goal of killing Jews.

Hamas’ mission statement is to wage zealous war with no exception on Israel. According to their own covenant, they claim:

Quote:
There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors. Palestine (meaning Israel) is an Islamic land.
--The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas)

Now what does Hamas mean by “jihad?” They spell that out too:

Quote:
...[T]he Islamic Resistance Movement [HAMAS] aspires to realize the promise of Allah, no matter how long it takes. The Prophet, Allah's prayer and peace be upon him, says: "The hour of judgment shall not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them, so that the Jews hide behind trees and stones, and each tree and stone will say: 'Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him,' except for the Gharqad tree, for it is the tree of the Jews."
--The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas)

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Geezer, Finn, Mike ... are you starting to see the parallel with Warsaw now ?

So on one hand, you want to compare the Jews in Israel to Nazis who should sit their like good little Jews and get continuously bombed, and then on the other, you want to compare the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto to totalitarian terrorists? Are you starting to see why your apologist attitude toward Hamas could be seen as anti-Semitism?

Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cice

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Friday, January 9, 2009 4:09 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Finn, Geezer

Finn:
"The six-month truce between Hamas and Israel began in 24 June 2008 ..."
No, it began June 19, 2008.

Finn:
"On the SAME damn day as the truce munitions were fired into Israel from Gaza (constituting the FIRST BREACH of the truce)." Then that would have been 6 days AFTER the start of the truce.

Another term of the agreement not mentioned in Geezer's post:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7462554.stm

Under the terms of the new agreement, Israel will ease restrictions on the trade of certain goods between Gaza and Israel on Friday morning, and open up the crossings for all commercial goods next week. (Other news sources stated "within 24 hours".)

Did they ? All indications I found in the news are that Israel never met that agreement, either initially or with the expanded easing of the blockade later.

The truce said that Israel would EASE restrictions, not eliminate them immediately. And it would be NEXT WEEK before they would open up commercial goods. Perhaps I got the actual date of the truce wrong, but it was still within 5 days, not even a week that Hamas violated the truce. Israel never had time to remove the blockade.

Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

GEEZER

Friday, January 9, 2009 4:38 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Israel illegally blockaded Gaza.

Proof?

Quote:
Hamas, as the legitimately and democratically elected government of Gaza (why do you dislike democracy so much, Geezer ?) has the duty and responsibility to defend its citizens.

Shooting rocket at Israeli towns is gonna end the blockade?

Again and again and again and again, neither the Hamas government of Gaza nor the Israeli government are the good guys here. There are no good guys, There are only governments who want to stay in power and poor schmucks who get killed so those governments can do so.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

KWICKO

Friday, January 9, 2009 4:43 AM

Quote:

Geezer, Finn, Mike ... any excuse to offer for Israel's clearly illegal collective punishment ?

Then Hamas (the legitimately and democratically elected government) - and other organizations - lob (dead weight) rockets into Israel to gain negotiating leverage...

Only that, in this instance and others, Hamas and certain extremists are also pursuing a policy of collective punishment on Israel.

BOTH sides are firing on and killing innocents.

What would I have the Palestinians do? Well, I've suggested before that non-violent civil disobedience would be one method to try. Since that seems unlikely (why it's unlikely, I have no idea, but it certainly doesn't seem to have been given any thought so far), I'd have Hamas target LEGITIMATE targets in Israel: military and government targets.

Don't get me wrong - I GET that the Palestinians have a legitimate beef with Israel. But lobbing unguided rockets into civilian areas isn't a real good way to get the world behind your cause. Hell, lobbing GUIDED ones into Palestinian civilian areas hasn't really won Israel many friends lately, has it?

As I said, both sides are doing the wrong things; hence, bad guys versus bad guys.

I tend to root for the underdog (part of my love for Firefly is grounded in this, a feeling I suppose many of you share), so at this time, my sympathies are with the Palestinians. I truly hope they gain some ground and improve their lot in life. But I'm not likely to stand by and applaud them lobbing crude rockets into civilian areas, any more than I'd applaud Israel doing more of the same.

Mike

"It is complete now; the hands of time are neatly tied."

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Friday, January 9, 2009 5:24 AM

The worst thing that could ever have happened to the Palestinians is for Hamas to have become their government. That is the worst thing. Hamas is one of the most ruthless killing factions on the planet. They’re only interest as government of the Gaza Strip is to employ that resource in waging war on Israel. They will not stop. They target innocent Israelis, and the Palestinians mean nothing to them, but fodder, which they will use to absorb bullets for their own soldiers then employ their dead bodies as propaganda against Israel. Rooting for the underdog, meaning the Palestinians, does not have to mean rooting for Hamas. And if you want to sympathize with the Palestinians, then I can agree with that. Because they, particularly in the Gaza Strip, are caught between Hamas and Israel in Hamas’ zealous war. They live in abject poverty with nearly 50% unemployment and almost no standard of living. Until Hamas is destroyed and Fatah (and the Palestinian Parliament) is returned to power in Gaza, the Palestinians there have no hope.

Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

SIGNYM

Friday, January 9, 2009 5:56 AM

Quote:
Again and again and again, both Hamas and the Israeli government are the bad guys.

Again and again? Where did you say this the FIRST time? Perhaps I missed a previous post, but this sounds like newfound objectivity.

In any case, although both sides share the same tactics, Israel is bigger. MUCH bigger. Israel controls Gaza's borders and economy, not the other way around.

---------------------------------
Let's party like its 1929.

FREMDFIRMA

Friday, January 9, 2009 8:21 AM

Mikey, would you like to know why your earlier idea would not work ?

Firstoff, to shame an opponent requires that they and their supporters have a conscience - to date I've seen utterly no evidence that this is the case.

Second, the mainstream media has their heads buried right up the Izzies asses kissing away right along with most world leaders, notice how anything the IDF mouthpieces say is taken as gospel and yet anything the other side says is considered bullshit by anyone but Al-Jazeera ?

Third, coverage problems... see, even if they DID that, you can bet your ass by the time CNN got there, or was *allowed* to go there, those bodies would be sporting bomb vests with an AK-47 in hand, wouldn't they ?

Cause you know what *happens* to non-embedded journalists around there - hell, even WE fired on em ourselves in Iraq, with tanks, and didn't even try to hide it, much less bombing Al-Jazeera ourselves cause they weren't toeing the propaganda line close enough for our liking.

And fourth, who would care ? all the same people who already KNOW THIS, but support the damn Izzies anyway ?

Dude, the IDF would machinegun them to death, slap some AK's in their hands, strap some vests to the corpses and then play it up to the media AND use it as an "attack" and excuse to bomb the camps some more - remember these are the same assholes who initially tried to say Rachel Corrie attacked the bulldozer operator.

Playing nice isn't going to work, and rocketing or bombing the other sides joe average peons isn't gonna accomplish nothin but drawing down a massive asskicking on their own people, who aren't going to rise up against a government that has a habit of slaughtering wholesale, man woman and child without restraint, whenever given the flimsiest excuse to do so.

Back the in day, the Arab world had an answer to that exact same kind of bullshit at the hands of the Crusaders, and it was called the Hashshashin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashshashin

To hell with clipping joe peons, start ganking leaders in their safe little homes, and you can bet your ass they'll come to the negotiating table damned quickly.

-Frem
It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

SIGNYM

Friday, January 9, 2009 2:11 PM

Peeps in general will follow those who deliver the economic and liberty goods. The only way Israel can stop the madness is to support a prosperous Palestinian state. But they're doing the exact opposite: they pushed the original Palestinians onto a small worthless piece of land* from which it is impossible to make an agricultural living (the Palestinians' original occupation), encircled it with a wall, embargoed trade, fiddled with their utilities, blocked health care and IRC aid, and feel free to shoot/ invade/ bomb these fish in a barrel from time to time... Shit, man, if YOU were stuck in that hellhole created by somebody else, what would YOU do?

BTW- Gaza is so densely populated it is basically one giant city. I STILL can't help thinking of the Warsaw ghetto.

-----------------

Geezer, I am NOT trying to say that Hamas is Robin Hood. Both parties are at fault. BUT... and this is the big one- Israel has overwhelming superiority. When I see two kids fighting, I look to the BIG ONES to do the right thing because they have no excuse for cowardice.

---------------------------------
Let's party like its 1929.

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Friday, January 9, 2009 2:25 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Geezer, I am NOT trying to say that Hamas is Robin Hood. Both parties are at fault. BUT... and this is the big one- Israel has overwhelming superiority. When I see two kids fighting, I look to the BIG ONES to do the right thing because they have no excuse for cowardice.

No? But then you go to extreme efforts to argue that the last 50 years of the Arab-Israeli war as if there were no Arabs who ever held a hand in anger. As if there was no PLO and no Arafat and no Intafada and no Hezbollah and no Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Iraq and Iran repeatedly invading Israel. You’re interpretation of Israel’s conduct is tantamount to a history of World War II that ignores the existence of the Axis powers.

Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

SIGNYM

Friday, January 9, 2009 2:31 PM

I'm not interested in what people THINK they're doing, or their "reasons" or "motivations" or "rationalizations" or their "history". I look at what they DO, their actual effect on themselves and those around them.

---------------------------------
Let's party like its 1929.

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Friday, January 9, 2009 2:34 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
I'm not interested in what people THINK they're doing, or their "reasons" or "motivations" or "rationalizations" or their "history". I look at what they DO, their actual effect on themselves and those around them.

If they’re Israelis. If they’re Hamas you ignore what they’re doing outright.

Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

GEEZER

Friday, January 9, 2009 3:13 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Quote:
Again and again and again, both Hamas and the Israeli government are the bad guys.
Again and again? Where did you say this the FIRST time? Perhaps I missed a previous post, but this sounds like newfound objectivity.

Earlier in this thread.

"The politicos on both sides are kept in power by the fears of their people, and they don't mind getting a few killed to maintain the fear. There ain't no good or bad guys. There ain't no right or wrong sides. Both are bad and both are wrong. Hamas headquarters in in Syria, so they aren't worried about getting hurt, and the Israeli government ain't going near the fighting."

and

"Once again, you seem to think this is good guys versus bad guys. Wrong. Both Hamas(the Gaza government) and the Israeli goverment are the bad guys. The Israeli government has to do the incursions into Palestinian areas to give the impression they're protecting Israel from terrorism and to get money from the world Jewish community. Hamas has to provoke Israeli incursions, dispatch suicide bombers, and provide martyrs to get money from the world Islamic community.

Honestly, I'm not trying to defend Israel in this situation. I'm just trying to make you understand that Hamas is not Robin Hood."

From the "Israel about to get its ass kicked" thread,

"I'm not trying to make this recent breach of the truce any one side's fault, since there's plenty of fault to go around."

and

"Either Hamas or the hawks in the Israeli government could have engineered the latest breach of the truce, since it's in both their perceived best interests to keep the pot boiling. If it wasn't for the innocent folk getting killed on both sides, I'd prefer that the world back off and let them grind each other to dust."

and

"You seem to be laboring under the misapprehension that I'm trying to defend or justify Israel's actions. Nothing cold be further from the truth. I figure they're screwing the pooch big time in relation to Gaza and the Palestinians in general, and have been doing so for quite some time. I just think that Hamas shares the blame for the current circumstances, since they (like the Israeli government) require an aggressive posture, backed by frequent armed conflict and a steady supply of martyrs, to stay in power. The folk of Gaza, when given a choice between the hardline Hamas and a more conciliatory Fatah, chose the hardliners, just as the folk of Israel chose a hardline government. Their mistake, in my opinion."

"Keep the Shiny side up"

SIGNYM

Friday, January 9, 2009 4:20 PM

Quote:
If they’re Israelis. If they’re Hamas you ignore what they’re doing outright.

Finn, do you have your head up your ass?

I'm not ingoring Hamas. If we go back in history, we'll find... and keep re-creating... enough bad blood on both sides to justify warfare to extinction. The problem is... Where do they go from here??? I dont' care about justifications. But IMHO the onus for SOLVING the problem, not perpetuatintg it, goes to the biggest power.

Do you know what one definition of insanity is?

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

---------------------------------
Let's party like its 1929.

SIGNYM

Friday, January 9, 2009 4:23 PM

GEEZER: I did't read the "Israel about to get its ass kicked" thread.

Apparently I missed many of your posts which lay blame on both sides.

Still, it's not a blame-game. And peeps (Zionists, Hamas) who turn it into one are only perpetuating the problem. And that goes for us, too. THAT discussion is misdirected.

---------------------------------
Let's party like its 1929.

PIRATENEWS

Friday, January 9, 2009 4:45 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Riverlove:
Too bad the Jews who rose up to fight the Nazis during the Ghetto Uprising didn't have Iran to supply them with missiles, rockets, machine guns, RPGs, IEDs, ammunition and cash. Might have made their brave and historic effort a bit more successful.

Israel founded Hamas to attack the PLO, and Israel controls Hamas to "justify" Israeli massacres. USA and UK also openly fund Hamas.

The Jews WERE the Nazis.

Jewish dictionaries define AshkeNazi as "Wandering Jew".

Bastard Adolf Hitler Schicklegruber was heir to the Jewish Rothschild bankster cartel that owns half the world's wealth, including the private "Federal" Reserve Bank that counterfeits all "US dollar bills" (FRN Debt Notes) and keeps all IRS income taxes, same for British pound sterling and taxes.

All top Nazis were Jewish, including Luftwaffe commander Herman Goering and Gestapo chief Reinhardt Heidrich in charge of the Final Solution.

This is according to Jewish historians in History Channel and CSPAN.

The Khazar AshekeNazi non-Semitic fake "Jews" (Hitler et al) mainly targeted the Semitic Separdic "real" Jews for the death camps. Khazar Jews in Israel today massacred 100,000 Sephardic Jewish chidren in radiation "experiements" in Israel, funded by Khazar Jews in USA (ethnic clensing of REAL Jews from Israel).

Hitler was a Zionist. Zionists want to kill Jews to "justify" stealing Palestine to recreate "Israel". Zionists in USA and UK blocked Jewish refugees in WW2, to raise the death count, to "justify" theft of "Israel".

Winston Churchill was Jewish. So was General President Eisenhower and mafiya brothel owner President Truman. They assassinated General Patton who wanted to rescue 50,000 US/UK POWs kidnapped by Jewish Communists in Russia. The 50,000 POWs are still in Russian gulags, or dead. President FDR was also accused of being Jewish.

Russian Commie Joseph "Stalin" had 3 Jewish wives and was allegedly part Jewish. Jews invented Communism in London England with Jew Karl Marx. Jews ran the Commie gulags in Russia that Holocausted over 50-million Russian citizens, as proven by gulag survivor and Nobel Prize winner Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (that book "Two Hundred Years Together" is still banned by the Jews in USA and Western Europe, and has never been translated into English). Jews at Wikipedia have locked that webpage, and ban a webpage for that book.
www.thecivicplatform.com/2007/11/17/alexander-solzhenitsyn-and-the-jew
s/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Solzhenitsyn

Quote:
UNCENSORED PARTIAL ENGLISH TRANSLATION

The Solzhenitsyn Reader: New and Essential Writings, 1947-2005
http://isteve.blogspot.com/2006/10/important-literary-historiographica
l.html

The only reason my uncle survived as a POW was a massive airlift of 10,000 POWs from his camp, as the Russians moved in to capture and enslave (not liberate) them. Now his daughter is on the Tennessee Supreme Court. If he had been murdered by the Jewish Communists, she would not have been born. The only reason she is on the Supreme Court is because she married a Jewish lawyer, and she refuses to read Jewish history (thus is doomed to repeat it). She and her daughters are banned from citizenship in Israel because they do not have Jewish mommies, and she would be arrested for a felony if she tried to give a Bible to a Jew in Israel.
www.geocities.com/snetterton_b17_pow_mia

Death to Israel, the arch enemy of USA.

Since USA refuses to attack Israel (or at least stop giving them out taxdollars and kick them out of USA), USA will die by Civil War in the next 10 years, according to Wall Street experts.

RIVERLOVE

Friday, January 9, 2009 5:26 PM

For such a magnificent Jew hater you sure don't know your Nazis very well. Reinhard Heidrich was killed by the Czech underground when they ambushed his car on a country road. His boss, Heinrich Himmler ordered the destruction of the town of Lidice as a reprisal, and all the people there were slaughtered. Adolf Eichmann was given the task of planning the Final Solution. Mass shootings and mobile extermination vehicles just weren't doing a good enough job for them.

BYTEMITE

Friday, January 9, 2009 5:40 PM

I'm no expert on the Isreal conflict. Nor am I one on WWII and able to make analogies on ghetto uprisings.

But these truces between Isreal and Hamas seem like a farce.

Everyone should have the right to defend themselves if they come under attack, but I don't think that's the point here, it's moved beyond that for both sides.

Isreal knows full well that no government can control every single discontented citizen (and there are definitely a lot). It's an unreasonable condition to even stipulate, makes any truce doomed eventually to fail if they always respond with violence when that condition inevitably can't be met. Seems almost like they want to fight, an aggressive stance to secure their own security by pushing out against the surrounding regions.

And Hamas... If an American citizen were to take action against a hostile nation we have a truce with, is blame limited to the citizen, or is the citizen acting in the interests of their government, and so the government is accountable? Would Hamas actually seek out and punish these citizens for breaking the truce, if it was indeed the citizens on their own? My impression is they wouldn't, because ideologically Hamas supports fighting with Isreal, wants to (I think), but can't justify their losses if there were outright warfare.

So all these truces between them do is set the stage for more fighting. And that's what seems like what both governments want. In the meantime, people are dying in the middle, Isreali and Palestinian. Children who never picked up a gun or rocket launcher or strapped bombs to themselves, and their families, just trying their best to survive.

RIVERLOVE

Friday, January 9, 2009 6:02 PM

Hamas IS the governemnt there. The moderate PA (formerly PLO) headed by Abbas has been rendered powerless by Hamas. That's sorta the problem. If it wasn't for the horrible civilian body count, the PA would thank Israel for liberating them from Hamas. Then there would be a real opportunity for a 2-state settlement and maybe peace.

PIRATENEWS

Friday, January 9, 2009 6:16 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Riverlove:
For such a magnificent Jew hater you sure don't know your Nazis very well. Reinhard Heidrich was killed by the Czech underground when they ambushed his car on a country road. His boss, Heinrich Himmler ordered the destruction of the town of Lidice as a reprisal, and all the people there were slaughtered. Adolf Eichmann was given the task of planning the Final Solution. Mass shootings and mobile extermination vehicles just weren't doing a good enough job for them.

Guess you never heard of History Channel.

Heidrich planned the Final Solution. Eichmann was also Jewish.

You are an anti-Semite.

I'm trying to save lives of millions of Semites who you want to Holocaust.

I'm also trying to save USA from the fake "Jews".

I look forward to "Jewish" Hate Crime thoughtcrime laws from Hussein Obama and his pet homo Israeli Jew Rahmbo. Those Hate Crime laws will allow your immediate arrest, and the arrest of all "Jews". This is a concept that criminals never comprehend when they hijack govt.

Amerikan taxdollars at work, borrowed from the Jewish "Federal" Reserve Bankstas

PIRATENEWS

Friday, January 9, 2009 6:19 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Riverlove:
Hamas IS the governemnt there. The moderate PA (formerly PLO) headed by Abbas has been rendered powerless by Hamas. That's sorta the problem. If it wasn't for the horrible civilian body count, the PA would thank Israel for liberating them from Hamas. Then there would be a real opportunity for a 2-state settlement and maybe peace.

THAT'S why Israel founded and ran Hamas.

Mission Accompliced.

Hamas created by Mossad
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/ZER403A.html

Israel attacked USS Liberty to blame Egypt to "justify" 1967 War
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=uss+liberty&hl=en&emb=0&aq=f#

Mexican border: Israeli citizen Chertoff is director of US Dept of Homeland Security

Israeli citizen Chertoff's name is "Son of the Devil" in Russian
Chertoff was born in Commie Czechoslovakia, his terrorist mommy founded Mossad

SIGNYM

Friday, January 9, 2009 6:23 PM

Huh.

Well, we more or less created the mujahideen 'cause we thought it was also a "smart strategy" so.... stranger things have happened.

---------------------------------
Let's party like its 1929.

PIRATENEWS

Friday, January 9, 2009 6:28 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Huh.

Well, we more or less created the mujahideen 'cause we thought it was also a "smart strategy" so.... stranger things have happened.

The NWO Plan is working perfectly.

Quote:

Obama's Jewish Polish advisor Zbigniew Brezinski founded AllCIAduh, hanging out with CIA/MI6 employee USAma Bin Laden in British Pakistan for President Jimmy Carter

"I would like to assure the world that I did not plan the recent attacks.”
—Usama bin Laden, CNN, "Bin Laden says he wasn't behind attacks," September 17, 2001
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/16/inv.binladen.denial/

"We've never made the case, or argued the case that somehow Osama bin Laden was directly involved in 9/11. That evidence has never been forthcoming."
—Dick Cheney, "Interview of the Vice President by Tony Snow", March 29, 2006
www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/03/20060329-2.html

"I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough. Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that's where it's really at. Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon.''
-Professor Bill Ayers, FBI/CIA employee and confessed bomber of NYPD HQ, US Capitol, NY Supreme Court, bombed and killed two female bombers in his house, busted CIA LSD mind-control agent Timothy Leary out of prison, confessed to 12 bombings but never prosecuted, author of Barack Hussien Obama Sotoro's authorized biography and grant recipient of Obama's Annenberg Foundation

Bill Ayers, Professor of Education, University of Illinois at Chicago

www.deliberatedumbingdown.com

Hussein Obama Soetoro's granny says Hussein was born in British Kenya, and his lawyers admitted that in federal court:
www.obamacrimes.com

"This sucker (Amerika) is going to go DOWN!"
-George W Bush, meeting with McCain and Obama for their $8.5-Tillion bankrobbery on Wall Street, The London Herald, 26 Sept 2008
http://piratenews-tv.blogspot.com/2008/10/jews-gone-wild-this-sucker-a
merika-is.html

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Friday, January 9, 2009 9:25 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
I'm not ingoring Hamas. If we go back in history, we'll find... and keep re-creating... enough bad blood on both sides to justify warfare to extinction. The problem is... Where do they go from here??? I dont' care about justifications. But IMHO the onus for SOLVING the problem, not perpetuatintg it, goes to the biggest power.

You’re not ignoring Hamas? Well let’s see, first you claimed that Hamas was blameless because as the (according to rue) legitimate government of the Gaza Strip they refused to prevent attacks against Israel, which repeatedly violated the ceasefire. Now that that argument has fallen apart, you’re claiming that Hamas is blameless because Israel is bigger. So okay, you got me there, Israel is bigger. I guess, you’re argument is that if a smaller country decides to wage continuous war on the larger country then it is the responsibility of the bigger country to solve the problem as it were. Fine, Israel is currently solving the problem.

And as it turns out, PirateNews is still crazier then you are. That’s worth something.

Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

DREAMTROVE

Friday, January 9, 2009 9:33 PM

Quote:
Reinhard Heidrich was killed by the Czech underground when they ambushed his car on a country road. His boss, Heinrich Himmler ordered the destruction of the town of Lidice as a reprisal, and all the people there were slaughtered. Adolf Eichmann was given the task of planning the Final Solution.

River

True. He had a little Dacha outside Prague which has a notorious history. Noblemen used to go their as a retreat, and some Baron ruled from there at some point. After the Nazis left, it became KGB headquarters, and now it's a seminary for the Southern Baptists. It's a nice place, I've stayed there. Somewhat unnerving, since it's the same building my great grandparents were tortured in. But I can see why the power always chooses places like this: Because they can.

I'm dubious of the final solution as it was portraying in our media. I think that there was probably a lot more work them to death than anything else. It's entirely possible that Heidrich had a part in it, since he was intensely evil and hated. Hence the incident you refer to. He was picked off on his way into Prague, on a road I've been on many times.

My guess is that, while it may be wrong, it's based on a a lot of research, much of it second hand, working with a holocaust historian and all, my guess is that it was worked out to shift the jewish relocation program which had been sold to the German people, into slave labor camps, was made at a fairly early stage in the game, but that it wasn't the original intention.

I suspect that much of what we here is fantasy, which existed at the time and still does: much of our history is based on fantastic stories that make great boogiemen, but that most Nazis were just run of the mill evil. It was more profitable to use the jews as slave labor than to ship them out. The deniers always site the lack of documentation to support the holocaust, but I think that's because they're looking in German govt. files, rather than in corporate records. The hate was there, sure, but it needed the greed.

Remember, the slave traders killed 11 million slaves, and who knows how many more in wars to capture them, and no one really has any idea how many native Americans were killed by European invasions. There certainly is a lot of fudging of figures by a lot of people on this topic, from both sides. The "polish jewish population explosion" of the 1920s is a theory that was proposed to explain how 3 million jews could be captures in a country that only had 1.2 million jews in it.

My own guess as to what went down? a few things:

1. There probably were more than 6 million jews killed, but a large number of them were wearing soviet uniforms. A number were wearing Nazi uniforms. It was an option available to a german jew willing to serve, or whatever they called a half-jew, they had some name for it, word slips my mind at the moment. The whole thing was absurd, since the European jews were by blood mostly and sometimes entirely european, due to in part, long term mixing, and in part, large conversions to judaism in I think it was the 12th century when the church banned money handling by christians.

Anyway, since it was often hard to tell who a jew was anyway, by the end, a lot of random poles were being picked up as jewish, because the camps needed labor, and the Germans had no objection to killing poles (the camp that the current pope volunteered for pre-dated the jewish extermination camps, it exterminated poles.) So, it was a tradition, so to speak.

It's hard to sort the whole thing out. In spite of the 600,000 list you definitely have at least 4 million dying in camps, at least two million of those being jewish, but the nazis were killed people all over eastern europe and russia, a lot of whom were jewish, and sure, there are plenty of examples of random nazis cleansing entire populations, or routing out 100,000 jews here or there, or presumed jews, and they were sure in the overall killing of 20 million people, and being involved in a conflict that killed 60 million, to kill more than 6 million jew