Israel Vs. Palestine: Evil Scorecard
POSTED BY: pizmobeach
UPDATED: Tuesday, July 1, 2025 19:27
VIEWED: 9289
PAGE 2 of 8
*Lovely* - they both suck. AP article:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ioi_0jtO9RjMwPNRoXNC
ndRPRq3gD95K50I80
"In Israel's first official response to the U.N. resolution, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office said more Hamas rockets fired Friday "only prove that the U.N.'s decision is not practical and will not be kept in practice by the Palestinian murder organizations."
Hamas also dismissed the resolution, and spokesmen expressed annoyance they were not consulted.
"Nobody consulted Hamas or talked to Hamas. Nobody put Hamas in the picture and yet Hamas is required to accept it. This is unacceptable," Mohammed Nazzal, a senior Hamas official based in Syria, told Al-Arabiya television.
Hamas has said it won't accept any cease-fire deal that does not include the full opening of Gaza's border crossings. The U.N. resolution emphasized the need to open all crossings, which Israel and Egypt have kept sealed since Hamas militants forcibly seized control of the territory 18 months ago."
Some dude sitting at his desk in Syria says "no deal - my people can continue to hold out." How brave.
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Pizmo,
Here is another piece, I posted it on another thread but it is spot on enough I think its worth another mention here...
http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/war_on_gaza/2009/01/200914102257130
539.html
FOCUS: OPINION
Israel's fait accompli in Gaza
By Eric S. Margolis
There are two completely different versions of what is currently happening in Gaza.
In the Israeli and North American press version, Hamas - 'Islamic terrorists' backed by Iran - have in an unprovoked attack fired deadly rockets on innocent Israel with the intent of destroying the Jewish state.
North American politicians and the media say Israel "has the right to defend itself".
True enough. No Israeli government can tolerate rockets hitting its towns, even though the casualty totals have been less than the car crash fatalities registered during a single holiday weekend on Israel's roads.
The firing of the feeble, home-made al-Qassam rockets by Palestinians is both useless and counter-productive.
It damages their image as an oppressed people and gives right-wing Israeli extremists a perfect reason to launch more attacks on the Arabs and refuse to discuss peace.
Israel's supporters insist it has the absolute right to drop hundreds of tonnes of bombs on 'Hamas targets' inside the 360sq km Gaza Strip to 'take out the terrorists'.
Civilians suffer, says Israel, because the cowardly Hamas hide among them.
Actually, it is more like shooting fish in a barrel.
Omitting facts
As usual, this cartoon-like version of events omits a great deal of nuance and background.
Seventy per cent of Palestinian children suffer from psychological trauma [GALLO/GETTY]
While firing rockets at civilians is a crime so, too, is the Israeli blockade of Gaza, which is an egregious violation of international law and the Geneva Conventions.
According to the UN, most of Gaza's 1.5 million Palestinian refugees subsist near the edge of hunger. Seventy per cent of Palestinian children in Gaza suffer from severe malnutrition and psychological trauma.
Medical facilities are critically short of doctors, personnel, equipment, and drugs. Gaza has quite literally become a human garbage dump for all the Arabs that Israel does not want.
Gaza is one of the world's most-densely populated places, a vast outdoor prison camp filled with desperate people. In the past, they threw stones at their Israeli occupiers; now they launch home-made rockets.
Call it a prison riot, writ large.
Eyeing the elections
When the so-called truce between Tel Aviv and Hamas expired on December 19, Israeli politicians were in the throes of preparing for the February 10 national elections.
Israeli politics are playing a key role in this crisis.
Ehud Barak, the defence minister and leader of the Labour party, and Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister and leader of the Kadima party, are trying to prove themselves tougher than Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-line Likud party - and one another.
Israel's elections are only six weeks away, and Likud was leading until the air raids on Gaza began. Kadima and Labour are now up in the polls.
The heavy attacks on Gaza are also designed to intimidate Israel's Arab neighbours, and make up for Israel's humiliating 2006 defeat in Lebanon, which still haunts the country's politicians and generals.
A fait accompli
When the air raids on Gaza began, Barak said: "We have totally changed the rules of the game."
He was right. By blitzing Hamas-run Gaza, Barak presented the incoming US administration with a fait accompli, and neatly checkmated the newest player in the Middle East Great Game - Barack Obama, the US president-elect - before he could even take a seat at the table.
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The Israeli offensive into Gaza now looks likely to short-circuit any plans Obama might have had to press Israel into withdrawing to its pre-1967 borders and sharing Jerusale
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Quote:
Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:
I think Fatah under Arafat tried to use PR more effectively than Hamas, but one there is a lack of resources and two.... to be honest who can change the mindset of Americans when competing against the propaganda machine of the US government anyway ? As we see on this site, there are those open to other opinions and those who would go to their deaths denying the facts of any arguement they are on the other side of.
Thx Gino - I'm not in full agreement with all of this but it is good to see another view. Discounting the rocket attacks because they are cheap rockets for instance - that speaks as much to Hamas' feeble and reckless methods as anything else. If someone breaks into your house but doesn't steal anything, you are still going to feel the outrage.
"As we see on this site, there are those open to other opinions and those who would go to their deaths denying the facts of any arguement they are on the other side of."
I'm disillusioned too by the responses on another thread. Otherwise intelligent people acting like children or demanding more violence or just rabid denial.
And I remain hopeful that Obama will do more than rubber stamp the past administration's positions.
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Quote:
Originally posted by pizmobeach:Quote:
Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:
I think Fatah under Arafat tried to use PR more effectively than Hamas, but one there is a lack of resources and two.... to be honest who can change the mindset of Americans when competing against the propaganda machine of the US government anyway ? As we see on this site, there are those open to other opinions and those who would go to their deaths denying the facts of any arguement they are on the other side of.
Thx Gino - I'm not in full agreement with all of this but it is good to see another view. Discounting the rocket attacks because they are cheap rockets for instance - that speaks as much to Hamas' feeble and reckless methods as anything else. If someone breaks into your house but doesn't steal anything, you are still going to feel the outrage.
"As we see on this site, there are those open to other opinions and those who would go to their deaths denying the facts of any arguement they are on the other side of."
I'm disillusioned too by the responses on another thread. Otherwise intelligent people acting like children or demanding more violence or just rabid denial.
And I remain hopeful that Obama will do more than rubber stamp the past administration's positions.
What action do you think we might have seen without the rocket attacks ?
That I think is the real problem, what other course is open... The UN ? The ICC
unless your Iraq or Serbia most nations thumb their nose at these organizations and with good reason... They do not act fairly or justly.
As for Obama... he sold his soul on this issue already
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/rosnerBlog.jhtml?itemNo=832667&cont
rassID=25&subContrassID=0&sbSubContrassID=1&listSrc=Y&art=1
unless he was lying, and its hard to hope for that considering all the other unpopular things it is likely he will be facing with the economy.
At best maybe isolationism could be hoped for. When the US is broke enough, the lack of military aid being sent may stabilize the situation, but I doubt it.
Lets party like its 1939
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Quote:
Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:
What action do you think we might have seen without the rocket attacks ?
That I think is the real problem, what other course is open... The UN ? The ICC
unless your Iraq or Serbia most nations thumb their nose at these organizations and with good reason... They do not act fairly or justly.
As for Obama... he sold his soul on this issue already
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/rosnerBlog.jhtml?itemNo=832667&cont
rassID=25&subContrassID=0&sbSubContrassID=1&listSrc=Y&art=1
unless he was lying, and its hard to hope for that considering all the other unpopular things it is likely he will be facing with the economy.
At best maybe isolationism could be hoped for. When the US is broke enough, the lack of military aid being sent may stabilize the situation, but I doubt it.
What other action? ANY other than more rockets that have little hope other than to annoy.
The world, the UN - may feel saturated with the needs of the oppressed, and as much as the members may take an oath to be World Ambassadors, they are still people like you and me.
Hard to be objective all the time and groups with their public agenda... I'm not surprised when larger nations side with Israel (if not their methods) in this case.
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Quote:
Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:
As for Obama... he sold his soul on this issue already
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/rosnerBlog.jhtml?itemNo=832667&cont
rassID=25&subContrassID=0&sbSubContrassID=1&listSrc=Y&art=1
unless he was lying, and its hard to hope for that considering all the other unpopular things it is likely he will be facing with the economy.
Recent events are not playing as favorably in the US for Israel as some in Europe may believe (want to believe?). And he is a shown himself to be someone who wants everyone to be happy and get along. I'd wait until after he takes the oath and gets daily briefings. Of course, that may just make him a bigger supporter, who knows.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
[sarcasm] NO NO NO! You've got it all wrong!!! Israelis are the GOOD GUYS!!!!! [/sarcasm]
The Isrealis and the Palistinians are the good guys. Hamas and the other Islamic terrorists are the bad guys.
For example. Hamas kills innocent Isrealis (with rockets and such). Isreal comes to kill Hamas. Hamas could assemble in the desert to get killed. Instead Hamas chooses to hide in schools, homes, Mosques, and hospitals forcing Isreal to kill them in those locations because Hamas wants the innocent to die with them. Hamas wants the innocent to die, otherwise they would not endanger them. Isreali soldiers only want Hamas to die, which is why they go out of their way to avoid killing the innocent (after all it would be easier to just carpet bomb the whole place, Isreal chooses not to do that...because they care more for the Palestinian people then Hamas does). If Hamas was in the desert (we could give them shovels and such to dig their graves...official UN Peace Shovels) then not a single innocent Palistinian would die (unless they happened to be wandering in the desert that day...maybe the UN could post a sign or something).
We've seen this evil before. In Iraq, for example, a terrorist/insurgent is in a car with his wife and children when it gets hit by a missile fired by a Predator. Its his fault, not the Predator operator or the US. He should have exited his vehicle, walked several hundred meters away and waited patiently to meet Allah. Instead he chose to endanger his family by engaging in a risky lifestyle and not protecting his family from the consequences (kinda like a drunk driver).
Here is my peace plan. Everybody stops shooting. Hamas assembles at a designated location in the desert say...next Thursday. They can bring their guns. At noon they start shooting...does not matter what direction. At five minutes after noon Isreal gets to start shooting. If Isreal kills just Hamas, fine, we declare Isreal the winner and peace restored. If Isreal bombs Hamas AND the Hamas-free cities, then we declare Isreal the loser and peace restored. Then we can talk about big empty spaces in Lebanon...
H
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Hero is right. And furthermore, the side that always breaks the peace 1st is Hamas.
Imagine if you lived in Montana in a world where Canada felt it had a right to your land. Unable to invade and take it by force they resort to launching rockets that can fall anytime anywhere in an effort to make you live in terror. You'd want the US military to eliminate that threat.
Again and again it's Hamas that fires 1st. If a peace settlement is brokered in 2009, which will happen eventually, by 2010 Hamas will have broken it again. This is their way.
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They have a way? That better than a plan?
Mike
"It is complete now; the hands of time are neatly tied."
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Quote:
Originally posted by Hero:
Here is my peace plan. Everybody stops shooting. Hamas assembles at a designated location in the desert say...next Thursday. They can bring their guns. At noon they start shooting...does not matter what direction. At five minutes after noon Isreal gets to start shooting. If Isreal kills just Hamas, fine, we declare Isreal the winner and peace restored. If Isreal bombs Hamas AND the Hamas-free cities, then we declare Isreal the loser and peace restored. Then we can talk about big empty spaces in Lebanon...
H
Interesting... I think you are on to something. A violent peace plan should certainly appeal to both sides.
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