What Israel did was indefensible but it is also naive to suggest that their paranoia isn't at least partially justified. Statements like,
'Anti-semites are threatening our country,
are, essentially, true. Look at the flow of ex-Nazis (for instance Gehlen, Skorzeny, and Schacht) into the security forces of the Arab nations following WWII; these were stopping off points in the ODESSA network. (And let's not start on the Grand Mufti Amin al-Husseini, Yasser Arafat's uncle, who thought Eichmann was too easy on Jews). The tentacles spread quite far into the region.
And then there's the continuing popularity of TV shows, school lessons and so on about The Protocols of the Elders of Zion - which, was, of course, a bad forgery which 'proved' a Jewish global conspiracy. Hitler referred to it in Mein Kampf and Hamas refer to it in the 'Covenant' (Article 32, fact fans).
It is almost impossible to seperate anti-Zionism from anti-Semitism in the middle east; it is, at best, a very tangled web.
So, yeah, Israel is acting like a paranoid psycho but then, just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean They're not out to get you....
JulianA - Memberwe have nothing but sympathy for those who lost their lives to the unspeakable Nazi purge, but we cannot find sympathy with the extremists who appear to inhabit Israel.
It should never be forgotten that some of the vociferous critics of Israel and it's treatment of the Palestinian people, are Jewish - many in fact survivors of the Holocaust.
Indeed 85-year-old Hedy Epstein who is Holocaust survivor, lost both her mother and father, and all her family bar two, at the Auschwitz Nazi death camp, and is an outspoken supporter of the Palestinian people, was due to be on board one of the ships on the aid flotilla.
Thankfully, the Free Gaza Movement's office in Cyprus claims she changed her plans at the last minute and was not on board any vessel.
[url= http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/world/breakingnews/elderly-holocaust-survivor-did-not-join-gaza-flotilla-is-safe-in-cyprus-95253484.html ]Elderly Holocaust survivor did not join Gaza flotilla, is safe in Cyprus[/url]
"since the Israelis are allowed to set out the conditions for search and passage of the goods involved, as long as they get to the destination."
Which they would not <bangs head> Sorry for not making that clearer but I thought it too obvious to need to be stated. A large part of the cargo is material which Israel would not allow to be delivered to Gaza, despite it being neccesary aid by any reasonable standards. Cement, concrete, to name the 2 most important ones- but Israel's policy has consistently been to block other aid, as we've covered further up the page at least twice. mattresses, shoes, lightbulbs, clothes, even food, all have been seized in the past on occasion.
You can't with any credibility claim that the aid organisations could depend on Israel handling the cargo with any integrity, or on the materials actually getting to where they're needed. There's no prospect of Israel getting the benefit of the doubt here.
It should never be forgotten that some of the vociferous critics of Israel and it's treatment of the Palestinian people, are Jewish - many in fact survivors of the Holocaust.
That's why I made a distinction between Jews and Israelis.
Paul Freidman's post is most encouraging - fair play and good luck to you. Sorry your government sends out such bad vibes. Totally agree on the Tony Blair / Iraq comment! We weren't in favour of the war either, but Bliar didn'r listen...
LOL @ Israel still using ancient technique to board the ship.
Boarding technique needs reviewing as they are shite ... LOL! Not even near to Steven Segal Hollywood style landing. Israel you need to learn from Hollywood as that sort of landing is embarrassing. At least the "commando" should go in all gun blazing with rubber bullet if they considered those people as not hostile, I mean all rubber bullet blazing from helicopter. More explosive etc. Poor show.
I mean c'mon even the Somali pirates can do better than that without being beaten up and still enjoy their fruit of the labour by demanding heavy ransom.
They should learn from North Korea in defending territorial water after all there is something call submarine with torpedos ...
WTF are those "humanitarian flotilla" doing? Start a war? Bet that is the objective.
Why don't they help the Burmese, the Tibetans or even the starving North Korean?
😈
wtf?!
i go away for a nice weekend's biking with my friends, and i come back to this?
the way israel is behaving is starting to make iran and ahmadinejad look reasonable.
Chewie: it seems that most of the dead* civilians were from Turkey, which is a predominantly Muslim country, and i can understand the connection that they may have felt with Palestine, and turkey isn't far from Palestine by sea.
(* trying hard not to use the emotive word: murdered)
"The first victims of the Nazis were the Jews; The second victims of the Nazis were the Palestinians"
Look into my eyes, look into my eyes ... use the torpedos fools!
ahwiles: "Chewie: it seems that most of the dead* civilians were from Turkey, which is a predominantly Muslim country, and i can understand the connection that they may have felt with Palestine."(* trying hard not to use the emotive word: murdered)
eerrmmm ... what's that got to do with torpedos? You know torpedos do not discriminate if use and everyone is treated fairly.
-------------------------------
FFS! So the Israeli should welcome all with open arms?
In a similar sort of situation do you think North Korean should welcome everyone with open arms? Who are going to make them? Also why not tell China to hand off Tibet? Who are going to tell them? Burma? Who are going to tell them?
Yes, I guess so ... bloody racial discrimination. Racists!
Is it because they are all from the far east so nobody cares?
😈
There were at least 3 UK nationals on the boat that was attacked.
Obi_Twa:"There were at least 3 UK nationals on the boat that was attacked."
Everyone is treated equally! It's equal opportunity. No racial discrimination.
😈
have to say, I think mr Tim Minchin has the right idea...
Only two solutions peace love and tolerance in the hearts of the people who live there BOTH sides.
There respective God decides which one got the lAnd and smite the other into the sea with rightous fury.
I am not holding my breath for either anytime soon.
That's why I made a distinction between Jews and Israelis.
Not enough imo. Not all Israelis are Zionists - Orthodox Jews being the obvious example.
The distinction should be between Jews and Zionists.
The German Nazi party exterminated 2.8 million Jews. Just incase anyone has forgotten, Stalin exterminated an estimated 26million people (yes, 3m vs 26m). And, I think some figure much greater was estimated before and during the cultural revolution in China. What Nazi Germans carried out was terrible, of course, but the largest scale, mass exterminations have all but been forgotten. Why?
And does anyone know how many of those 26 million were Russian Orthodox Christians? And do we have a rememberance/Holocaust day for them?
Food for thought, people?
Where do you get your figures from B.A.Nana .........David Irving the renowned neo-Nazi historian ? Whilst the figures for Stalin's Purges and the Cultural Revolution are somewhat contentious and open to some debate, practically no one disputes the figure of 6 million for Jews exterminated by the Nazis.
But what is your point anyway ? ...........it seems to have gone right over my head. Are you saying that the Israelis didn't kill enough people yesterday ?
Everybody's stopped now i'm back
William Shirer
Sorry, I was just trying to send another Ostrich spinning out of the burning car.
It may not be directly relevent to the OP, but I'm just asking why we know or care little about these mass exterminations done on a gargantuan scale around WW2 and yet, we are only ever reminded relentlessly about the jewish Holocaust, terrible as it was.
It's a question I've always pondered on since a teenager.
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The distinction should be between Jews and Zionists.
I stand corrected.
Nice choice Ernie, now what was i saying about the pan-Arab Nazi legacy? And where did I last see the zionist-octopus? Somewhere in central Europe? 1930s was it?
[img] 
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The Israelis acted terribly but their old enemies are seldom far away...
Ernie - seriously not cool.
Some facts for the undecided. Might help you make up your mind on how fair the situation is.
[url= http://www.ifamericansknew.org/ ]http://www.ifamericansknew.org/[/url]
A little taster:
Gaza War 2008 - 2009
Palestinian total deaths: 1385 (762 civilians including 107 women and 318 children)
Israeli total deaths: 13 (3 civilians)
I used to have a great deal of sympathy for the Jews,based on the treatment of their religion since the middle ages.Even the likes of Martin Luther (German not American)suggested burning down their houses.However how can the children of Holocaust survivors (the originals are getting thin on the ground)justify the treatment of people in their sphere of influence?
Cram many more people into an area than it was designed for..check.
Give them 25% of the basics necessary to survive...check.
Convince your own people they are the bogeyman...check.
Humiliate and persecute any who try to move between the areas...check.
Warsaw...Gaza...No difference.Must look really familiar to any European Jew in their 70's.
And you could add the economic blockade which includes any form of cancer medicine...
I make no difference or allowances over Israel or the carpetbaggers who populate it to Paul F above,what did you do during your national service?...If you live there and condone your government,you are complicit.It was Israel who radicalised the Palestinians enough to vote for Hamas? [b]Still[/b],They bang on about the right they have to protect the land they have stolen,and refuse to accept the problems they have created.
Our foreign policy in the ME has been a disaster since the times of the Empire.Israel are starting to make us make us look benign.
duckman they are referred to as 'Hawks' in their government.
I can think of many other terms to describe them but 'Hawks' is definitely not one of them.
Jings,I have just read that again,that is a proper rant for me.I had just finished reading a blog on conditions in Gaza city.Wanders off to the soft play area...
I think they just need a good [url=
anthem[/url].
Sorry if it's been done but I wasn't going to check all five pages.
When u go to Tesco, just don't buy anything with country of origin marked Israel or West Bank.
Damn have you seen the response on BBC website regarding this situation, never seen so much.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/haveyoursay/2010/05/was_israel_right_to_board_the.html
When u go to Tesco, just don't buy anything with country of origin marked Israel or West Bank.
'When you go to Tesco'.
No thanks.
And where did I last see the zionist-octopus? Somewhere in central Europe? 1930s was it?
Yes, well done.......that is [i]precisely[/i] the connection.......give yourself a gold star.
And that is [i]precisely[/i] why some of the Zionist State's most vehement critics are Holocaust survivors.
Israel is a racist fascist state, and it uses the tactics of ethnic cleansing, military conquest, occupation, and expansionism.
It also uses the Nazi-style tacit, in violation of the Geneva Convention, of collective punishment of civilians in retaliation for any resistance to occupation.
And again in classic Nazi-style, and also in violation of the Geneva Convention, Israel moves its own civilian population onto occupied territories. Israel uses its civilians as instruments of conquest.
The attempt to break the Palestinian people into submission by creating a blockade and causing a humanitarian crises, has far more in common with the behaviour of a fascist pariah state, than the international norms which we would be right to expect. The Gaza Strip is in effect, an giant concentration camp.
And I for one, will not excuse, or shy away from denouncing, the Zionists ........ simply because of what the German Nazis did to the Jewish people.
A little while back there was another racist pariah state - in the form of the Apartheid Regime. The people who made up the backbone of that regime were the Boers, and they too were a people who had experienced persecution, slaughter, and concentration camps. But never at any time did I think it in some way, excused the racist and brutal behaviour of the Apartheid State. The Zionists are not special.
Israel is a racist fascist state
Don't know where you get your political definitions from (the Socialist Worker street seller's manual perhaps?)but I'd have thought a parliamentary democracy is quite some way off being a fascist state.
I'd have thought a parliamentary democracy is quite some way off being a fascist state.
Doesn't act like many other parliamentary democracies I've seen (this side of WW2 anyway)
Don't know where you get your political definitions from (the Socialist Worker street seller's manual perhaps?)
The Turkish Prime Minister has described Israel's recent actions as "State terrorism". Do you think he also gets his political definitions from the Socialist Worker street seller's manual ?
But anyway, let's try again............here is the definition repeated again :
[i]"it uses the tactics of ethnic cleansing, military conquest, occupation, and expansionism[/i] "
Norton, you do know that the Nazi party was democratically elected? that Apartheid era South Africa was a democracy?
Democracy and extremism are not mutually exclusive.
The Turkish Prime Minister has described Israel's recent actions as "State terrorism".
Israel being described as state terrorists by [u]Turkey [/u]- words fail me...
words fail me
Ah well, never mind.................give it a while - you might think of something 💡
Norton, you do know that the Nazi party was democratically elected?
Yes I did know that (well through a plebiscite which is not quite the same thing as parliamentary democracy) However, I didn't think you could vote out the Nazi government every 5 years in free and fair elctions with universal adult suffrage (unless of course you are reading the Nick Griffin guide to 20th century history, which given your views on Israel I guess you may be doing)
give it a while - you might think of something
How about Armenia?
Ernie, Israel is a heinous state but to compare it to the Nazis is massively politically naive when one pauses to consider the legacy of actual, real Nazis in fomenting anti-Semitism in Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Iran etc. This has been a huge contributing factor in creating the poisonous atmosphere in which Israel exists and in which anti-semitic propaganda still circulates. Whilst there are a good many opponents of Israel who are not anti-Semitic, there are huge numbers who are and who use the sophistry of claiming to be anti-Zionist when really they are straightforward neo-Nazis hiding behind the bourgeois respectibility of being "anti-Israel".
As I said, this doesn't make any excuses for the reprehensible state violence of Israel, instead I'm suggesting that the enemy of your enemy is actually, sometimes, also your enemy.
OK just to check..Who on here is suggesting that the isreali's are treating the palestinians fairly ( & yes i do consider it fair for the palistinians to bomb an agressive country who is occupying their country)
How about Armenia?
How about it ?
No country which in history has been responsible for slaughtering people has the right to use the term state terrorism ? Is that it ? Do you extend that rule to the US and Britain ?
I'm disappointed, I thought you were going to tell me that the Turkish Prime Minister used to sell the Socialist Worker.
A word on the legal position, which is very plain. To attack a foreign flagged vessel in international waters is illegal. It is not piracy, as the Israeli vessels carried a military commission. It is rather an act of illegal warfare.
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/05/the_legal_posit.html#comments
But I'm sure Zulu-Eleven knows better eh.
outside neutral waters - ie, in international waters!
Aren't neutral waters international waters, or am I missing something?
Ernie, Israel is a heinous state but ........blah blah blah
It uses nazi-style tactics, simple as ..... [i]ethnic cleansing, military conquest, occupation, and expansionism. [/i]
Don't like me using the term "racist fascist state" ? OK, how about "racist state which uses nazi-style tactics" ?
I'd be alright with that.
.
there are huge numbers who are and who use the sophistry of claiming to be anti-Zionist when really they are straightforward neo-Nazis hiding behind the bourgeois respectibility of being "anti-Israel".
Complete nonsense. The whole world has condemned Israel's appalling behaviour, have a look :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_reactions_to_the_Gaza_flotilla_clash
I never hear any anti-Jewish sentiments.