Nope. But if they employeed the tactics of the Nazis the world would whinge a bit, do **** all, and in a couple of years there’d be no more problems.

The Israelies are pussies.

I would side with the palestinians – Think they have had a rough deal for too long and fair play for not lying down and taking it like a mug.

If someone nicked your bike you’d wee in their shoes!!!

The battle is proper David and Goliath -Israel being back and supplied by the west and their superiour arms and weapons makes for it to be very one sided.

Israel has a right to defend itself… I find it hard to allow this right to extend to bombing illegally occupied countries whose external borders are controlled by Israel itself in direct violation of numerous UN treaties etc… this is also like the UK carpet bombing Eire because of the IRA.
The language used also irks me I see a country(territory) trying to defend itself from occupation …apparently I call these the Terrorist Hamas… I see a state occupying land, closing its borders, attacking a democratically elected government via bombing civilian areas with planes, tanks etc and I call this a legitimate attempt to defend themselves … Hamas extremists are retaliating where as Israel moderates are doing what then?

The only solution lies in the hearts and minds of those involved in the conflict but I find it easy to see which side is doing the opressing and which side is resisting this.

ANTI – semitism … do some research both sides are semitic people/races/languages etc

Ignore this – trying to post on a different thread!!! Doh!! and ended up adding this when I shouldn’t have!!!

big_n_daft –

up for reasoned debate then? or just trolling?

Yeah I’m up for a reasoned debate. But I can’t be bothered with all this bollox about taking land from the Palestinian people being a “highly complex” thing.

Funny how people can use the, “it’s highly complex” argument when they’ve run out of things to say.

It’s all very very simple.

Ashkenazim Jews do not have the right to take land from Palestinians.

The claim that it was promised to them by God several thousand years ago is nonsense. Besides, if you go down that road the Palestinians are considerably more Semitic than the Ashkenazim Jews.

Israel has no right to attempt to starve the Palestinians by imposing a blockade on them. It does have an obligation to remove it.

Israel has no right to move civilians into the occupied territories. It does have an obligation to withdraw from the occupied territories.

I could go on, but perhaps it would be easier if the Zionist apologists could just point out which bits are “too complex” for them to understand.

In the meantime I strongly recommend this piece by Seumas Milne. And no, Seumas Milne is not a fanatical Islamic jihadist. He is associate editor of the very liberal and rather pro-Israel Guardian newspaper. His father is a former BBC Director General and he is public school/Oxford educated – he wasn’t educated in a Pakistani madrasa.

It’s all rather simple to understand :

Israel’s onslaught on Gaza is a crime that cannot succeed

Written by Seumas Milne

Tuesday, 30 December 2008

Israel’s decision to launch its devastating attack on Gaza on a Saturday was a “stroke of brilliance”, the country’s biggest selling paper Yediot Aharonot crowed: “the element of surprise increased the number of people who were killed”. The daily Ma’ariv agreed: “We left them in shock and awe”.

Of the ferocity of the assault on one of the most overcrowded and destitute corners of the earth, there is at least no question. In the bloodiest onslaught on blockaded Gaza since it was captured and occupied by Israel 41 years ago, at least 310 people were killed and more than a thousand reported injured in the first 48 hours alone.

As well as scores of ordinary police officers incinerated in a passing-out parade, at least 56 civilians were said by the UN to have died as Israel used American-supplied F-16s and Apache helicopters to attack a string of civilian targets it linked to Hamas, including a mosque, private homes and the Islamic university. Hamas military and political facilities were mostly deserted, while police stations in residential areas were teeming as they were pulverised.

As Israeli journalist Amos Harel wrote in Ha’aretz at the weekend, “little or no weight was apparently devoted to the question of harming innocent civilians”, as in US operations in Iraq. Among those killed in the first wave of strikes were eight teenage students waiting for a bus and four girls from the same family in Jabaliya, aged one to 12 years old.

Anyone who doubts the impact of these atrocities among Arabs and Muslims worldwide should switch on the satellite television stations that are watched avidly across the Middle East and which – unlike their western counterparts – do not habitually sanitise the barbarity meted out in the name of multiple wars on terror.

Then, having seen a child dying in her parent’s arms live on TV, consider what sort of western response there would have been to an attack on Israel, or the US or Britain for that matter, which left more than 300 dead in a couple of days.

You can be certain it would be met with the most sweeping condemnation, that the US president-elect would do a great deal more than “monitor” the situation and the British prime minister go much further than simply call for “restraint” on both sides.

But that is in fact all they did do, though the British government has since joined the call for a ceasefire. There has, of course, been no western denunciation of the Israeli slaughter – such aerial destruction is, after all, routinely called in by the US and Britain in occupied Iraq and Afghanistan.

Instead, Hamas and the Palestinians of Gaza are held responsible for what has been visited upon them. How could any government not respond with overwhelming force to the constant firing of rockets into its territory, the Israelis demand, echoed by western governments and media.

But that is to turn reality on its head. Like the West Bank, the Gaza Strip has been – and continues to be – illegally occupied by Israel since 1967. Despite the withdrawal of troops and settlements three years ago, Israel maintains complete control of the territory by sea, air and land. And since Hamas won the Palestinian elections in 2006, Israel has punished its 1.5 million people with an inhuman blockade of essential supplies, backed by the US and the European Union.

Like any occupied people, the Palestinians have the right to resist, whether they choose to exercise it or not. But there is no right of defence for an illegal occupation – there is an obligation to withdraw comprehensively. During the last seven years, 14 Israelis have been killed by mostly homemade rockets fired from the Gaza Strip, while more than 5,000 Palestinians were killed by Israel with some of the most advanced US-supplied armaments in the world. And while no rockets are fired from the West Bank, 45 Palestinians have died there at Israel’s hands this year alone. The issue is of course not just the vast disparity in weapons and power, but that one side is the occupier, the other the occupied.

Hamas is likewise blamed for last month’s breakdown of the six-month tahdi’a, or lull. But, in a weary reprise of past ceasefires, it was in fact sunk by Israel’s assassination of six Hamas fighters in Gaza on 5 November and its refusal to lift its siege of the embattled territory as expected under an Egyptian-brokered deal. The truth is that Israel and its western sponsors have set their face against an accommodation with the Palestinians’ democratic choice and have instead thrown their political weight, cash and arms behind a sustained attempt to overthrow it.

The complete failure of that approach has brought us to this week’s horrific pass. Israeli leaders believe they can bomb Hamas into submission with a “decisive blow” that will establish a “new security environment” – and boost their electoral fortunes in the process before Barack Obama comes to office.

But as with Israel’s disastrous assault on Lebanon two years ago – or its earlier siege of Yasser Arafat’s PLO in Beirut in 1982 – it is a strategy that cannot succeed. Even more than Hezbollah, Hamas’s appeal among Palestinians and beyond doesn’t derive from its puny infrastructure, or even its Islamist ideology, but its spirit of resistance to decades of injustice. So long as it remains standing in the face of this onslaught, its influence will only be strengthened. And if it is not with rockets, its retaliation is bound to take other forms, as Hamas’s leader Khalid Mish’al made clear at the weekend.

Meanwhile, the US and Israeli-backed Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas has been further diminished by being seen as having colluded in the Israeli assault on his own people – as has the already rock-bottom credibility of the Egyptian regime. What is now taking place in the Palestinian territories is a futile crime in which the US and its allies are deeply complicit – and unless Obama is prepared to change course, it is likely to have bitter consequences that will touch us all.

If Hamas are a democratically elected government as several posters have said on here, why does their political leader live in exile whilst the unelected military leaders of Hamas control Gaza?

Perhaps a different perspective.

Just imagine if the Germans had succeeded in landing in Southern England in WW2, and then managed to hold most of the southern counties. Their claim being that it was Saxon country anyway.

Now, let’s imagine attempts by British “terrorists” in the rest of the country to reclaim this land and push the Germans into the sea.

Would we be justified in doing this or not?

If Hamas are a democratically elected government as several posters have said on here, why does their political leader live in exile whilst the unelected military leaders of Hamas control Gaza?

.

Because Israel assassinates Palestinian politicians.

If I launch rockets from my flat onto your neighbourhood, will you tolerate it? Will you be talking about rights of minority? Or will you bomb the hell out of me with the biggest bomb/rocket you have?

If my memory serves me correctly, the Jews lived there some 2000+ years ago, something I read in the Bible. Palestinians lived there too, but saying that Jerusalem is a holy Islamic-only place so the Jews need to be killed is a bit rich. And that’s what Hamas seems to be saying. Why rich? Has anybody bothered to check the origins of Islam as a religion?

Muhammad (c. 570 ñ June 8, 632) was an Arab religious, political, and military leader who founded the religion of Islam as a historical phenomenon. Muslims view him not as the creator of a new religion, but as the restorer of the original, uncorrupted monotheistic faith of Adam, Abraham and others. In Muslim tradition, Muhammad is viewed as the last and the greatest in a series of prophets ó as the man closest to perfection, the possessor of all virtues.[35] For the last 23 years of his life, beginning at age 40, Muhammad reported receiving revelations from God. The content of these revelations, known as the Qur’an, was memorized and recorded by his companions.[36]
So maybe, instead of bombing Israel, who won’t give in ever, Hamas should re-read Qur’an and go back to peaceful co-existance, like they did it when Jerusalem collapsed undertheir siege.
I don’t condone anybody there, but given Israel have nukes I’d think at least twice before attacking them.

“Because Israel assassinates Palestinian politicians.“

ernie_lynch, you were doing well until you gave that answer!

Unlike (it would appear) you, I have no allegiances and no real understanding of the situation (although I have travelled and lived in the Middle East) but Israel have their agenda, Iran has its agenda, the USA has its agenda, the UK has its agenda, Russia has its agenda and there are deep-seated business and poltical agendas behind all parties and we only get to see and hear what those with their own agendas want us to see and hear. We can form our own opinions based only on what we choose to see and hear.

Hairychested, not all Palestinians are Muslims. Many are in fact Christians, although the overwhelming majority have now been ethnically cleansed by Israel from Palestine.

And of course not forgetting, many Jews have a right to call themselves Palestinian.

This right does not however, extend to Ashkenazim Jews such as Lady Shirley Porter. Lady Shirley Porter who is probably the most corrupt British politician of modern times and yet, one of Israel’s most respected citizens, has no right to Palestinian land.

Isreals response is disproportionate and there unwillingness to or tardy response in letting the injured leave to go to hospitals in neighbouring countries is unexceptable.

All countries should lobby the States to be more heavy handed as they are the only country that Israel listens to and gives two sh*ts about.

psling, are you actually challenging the statement that Israel assassinates Palestinian politicians ? ! ! !

And yes, you are completely right – I give unequivocal support to the Palestinian people. In the same way which I gave unequivocal support to non-whites in their struggle against Apartheid. Or Jews against attacks by neo-Nazis.

I don’t sit on the fence in face of injustices claiming that there are “two sides to every coin”.

Isreals response is disproportionate

No it’s not. The Palestinians have used the means they have available to murder as many Israelies as possible. The Israelies have responded in the same fashion.

If you smacked a big lad would you go running to mummy because he smacks back harder than you?

I wouldn’t trust ANYONE who supports either side in the Israeli / Palestinian clusterf*ck.

i’m sure if isreal didn’t recieve 8billion us dollars per year, only to be spent on “defence” the situation would be rather different.

the “problem” between the jews and muslims did not exsist before 1948. up untill then anti-semitism was a christrian/western idealology.

besides. religion is bullcrap.

read a book once about three bears and a little girl who ate all their porridge. must be true, it was in a book afterall….

If you smacked a big lad would you go running to mummy because he smacks back harder than you?

If a big lad came into my house and sat in my armchair and watched my TV, and I tried to push him out, I’d be slightly aggrieved if he got his whole gang from across the Atlantic to come and help him kick the crap out of me.

Guys lets all calm down. Arguing here won’t solve anything. What we should be doing is putting our collective faith in our Middle-East “Peace” Envoy, whom I notice has been rarely off the TV condemning the attocities and pledging to meet all sides and mediate a peaceful solution. If we can just wait until he’s finished his latest lecture tour / business meeting I’m sure that all will be well by Tuesday.

“If you smacked a big lad would you go running to mummy because he smacks back harder than you?”

How about if you were just near the original offender* and the big lad cordoned off the area and proceeded to retaliated by lashing out again and again at anyone in the general area, while not allowing anyone to leave? That’s stretching the analogy a bit but it’s better than yours.

*not that that’s necessarily the Palestinians.

Coyote, it’s not just his engagements which the world’s highest paid public speaker has to consider, it’s also the security implications.

As was reported in the Telegraph the other day, ”he has not made a trip into Gaza and postponing a visit to see a new sewage treatment works in northern Gaza last July for security reasons”

Launching a war from thousands of miles away is one thing, but being stuck in the middle of one is something completely different.

What we should be doing is putting our collective faith in our Middle-East “Peace” Envoy

Now I really feel depressed.

So a peace envoy who can’t go into areas of conflict for “security reasons” is a bit of a waste of time then.

Good point. What has that smug tw@ actually done as “Peace” envoy? Well, apart from starting an ickle war or two…..

So a peace envoy who can’t go into areas of conflict for “security reasons” is a bit of a waste of time then

Blair is a waste of time (and space) under any circumstances.

“psling, are you actually challenging the statement that Israel assassinates Palestinian politicians ? ! ! !“

No, but in this particular instance I don’t believe he is in exile because of fear of assasination by Israel (which I am sure you are probably aware of). I was merely suggesting that you were being a bit disingenuous with your answer ;~)

I do respect your views on the subject though, you appear to be well informed and I would not begrudge anyone having a strong viewpoint (either way). The saddest thing is that the Palestinians and the Israelis cannot put down their weapons and resolve their differing viewpoints.

Some of the most acrimonious court cases in this country are boundary disputes so how on earth ‘ownership’ of land which both parties claim to be theirs in the strong belief that they are right can be resolved at the level of the Palestine / Israel dispute I just don’t know. Despite various treaties in recent history, who can honestly say whose claim is right; the only way forward is for both parties to agree a new treaty and abide by it. This hasn’t happened yet so don’t hold your breath…

Whose land is it? Not who is the oppressed and who is the oppresser but whose land is it really?

i’m rooting for the Hittites, they were there first.

psling – Whose land is it? Not who is the oppressed and who is the oppresser but whose land is it really?

er, I think that’s actually easy to prove. Just get a 20th century atlas published before the Palestinians made (or had made for them) the mistake of allowing unrestricted immigration.

According to some on this thread I would be a “foreign zionist” invading Palestine. From my point of view I came from Britain to live in a sovereign state with a right to decide who is allowed to immigrate. As an Israeli I can say that according to my knowlege of other Israelis, the answer is no, the Israelis are not the new Nazis. I find that Israelis are no better or worse than any other collection of human beings. I count amongst my friends both Christian & Moslem Arabs, who are also no better or worse than anybody else.

Regarding the current war taking place in Gaza;
Israel ceased to occupy the Gaza strip, pulling out all armed forces and settlers.
Hamas won democratic elections in Gaza, possibly due to widespraed corruption in the Fatah party leadership.
Hamas has since destroyed Fatah in Gaza by killing, expelling, and generally harrassing its supporters, meaning that it can no longer be considered a democratically elected government.
For a sustained period Hamas has conducted and sanctioned random rocket attacks against the south of Israel, sometimes resulting in the death and injury of Jewish & Arab Israelis, and making normal life impossible.
Israel’s response to such attacks is to close border crossings.
Hamas complains about such sanctions whilst continuing to launch rockets and mortars against civilians.
The period leading up to the ceasefire over the summer was particularly unbearable with 80 or more rockets and mortars being launched each day.
Hamas has used the months of the cease-fire to develop it’s weaponry, choosing not to renew the cease-fire.
Israel has launched a war on Hamas, as it seems nothing else will stop the attacks. Israel has so far avoided this in the knowlege that any such action will inevitably result in the death and suffering of large numbers of innocent Palestinians, with all of the negative human and political effects associated.
Hamas could have chosen not to attack civilians, and to try to improve the lot of the population for which they are responsible, they chose to conduct a fanatical policy with total disregard for the welfare of their people.
Israel is entitled to defend itself against the illegal aggression of Hamas, they are not interested in negotiation or peace, meaning that deadly force is necessary in the attempt to stop them.
I can’t help thinking that the Palestinians would have had their state a long time ago if they had only chosen peaceful protest as a means of acheiving their legitimate aims.

Wharg Rider

Having started this thread and coming from a land of religous in-fighting as usual there’s faults on both sides. The ‘trap’ that Israel has fallen into is responding with considerably more force than Hamas is using which equals a huge worldwide media own goal. Sure defend yourselfs but the issue I saw many times at home was self defence dispraportionate to the actions of a few hardened terrorists is always counter productive.

What’s the answer? The answer is the difficult path of turning the other cheek and constant pressure on Hamas and Fatah through the UN. As with my country if peaceful means had been used I am convinced we would have been united long ago rather than leaving it to the men of violence. However shooting the shit out of any population creates martyrs, and destroys any political middle ground leaving any democratic (or pseudo democratic) process open to extremists.

There are good people on every side, your right. But this will marginalise any good.

If Israel was to fully fund and create wealth in Gaza the poverty we witness in the west would disappear along with the terrorism poverty spawns – FACT.

The ‘trap’ that Israel has fallen into is responding with considerably more force than Hamas is using which equals a huge worldwide media own goal.

It’s not a popularity contest. Why would they give a monkeys?

Nuke the lot of them.

Israel has so far avoided this in the knowlege that any such action will inevitably result in the death and suffering of large numbers of innocent Palestinians, with all of the negative human and political effects associated.

No. Israel has simply spent the last two years preparing for this. Never again did it want to experience the humiliation which received when it attacked Lebanon in 2006.

Israel always likes to maximise the amount of people it kills during it’s military actions.

The UN estimates that Israel dropped 4 million anti-personnel cluster bombs onto south Lebanon in the last three days of its 2006 July war, after a ceasefire had already been agreed.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7937

have israel still not admitted to having nukes? doesnt that make them a rogue nuclear state?

how the devil do they get away with so much?

Israel always likes to maximise the amount of people it kills in it’s military actions.

If I was organising a military action I’d do that too. It’s kind of the point.

Some of the most acrimonious court cases in this country are boundary disputes

Really ? Boundary disputes which are several thousand years old ? Going back before the reign of Boadicea ?

.

Gosh, yes, they must be very complicated to resolve 😯

Hamas has since destroyed Fatah in Gaza by killing, expelling, and generally harrassing its supporters, meaning that it can no longer be considered a democratically elected government.

Hamas and Fatah militants have long been at each other’s throats, in the struggle for power. The elections in Palestine were considered, by neutral observers, to be fair and just. Whilst the actions of certain members/groups within Hamas are deplorable, they are as ‘democratic’ as the Israeli government. Personally, I don’t believe that Hamas are the party to lead Palestine towards peace, but then, I have no say, as I am not eligible to vote there. And neither are you.

Israel is not without it’s share of fanatics:

“Zionist Rabbi Calls For Extermination Of Palestinian Males

A Jewish rabbi living in the West Bank has called on the Israeli government to use their troops to kill all Palestinian males more than 13 years old in a bid to end Palestinian presence on this earth.

Extremist rabbi Yousef Falay, who dwells at the Yitzhar settlement on illegally seized Palestinian land in the northern part of the West Bank, wrote an article in a Zionist magazine under the title “Ways of War”, in which he called for the killing of all Palestinian males refusing to flee their country, describing his idea as the practical way to ensure the non-existence of the Palestinian race.

“We have to make sure that no Palestinian individual remains under our occupation. If they (Palestinians) escape then it is good; but if anyone of them remains, then he should be exterminated”, the fanatic rabbi added in his article.”

I’m afraid that I can’t accept your views on this, as they seem to be contrary with what most of the rest of the World thinks. Your attempts to justify the genocidal actions of your government are, in my opinion, pathetic. and, you’ve conveniently omitted to mention your nation’s disgraceful track record in terms of breaches of Human Rights, the Geneva Convention, and the repeated calls by the global community to cease the wanton slaughter of innocent people.

Wharg said
“I can’t help thinking that the Palestinians would have had their state a long time ago if they had only chosen peaceful protest as a means of acheiving their legitimate aims. “

Yes there fault nothing to do with your countries (oops sorry the legitimate soverign state you choose to settle erm I mean live in ) action there just there fault.

I can’t help thinking that the Palestinians would have had their state a long time ago if they had only chosen peaceful protest as a means of acheiving their legitimate aims.

Of all your crock of self-justifying shit, this is probably the biggest turd. The Palestinians have been under attack from Day Zero, and no amount of concession and restraint on their part has led to anything, whether it be Camp David, Olso, or the recent ceasefire. All agreements have been cynically violated by an Israeli side with the sure knowledge that its abuses of power would be underwritten by a US administration bought and paid for by the Jewish/Fundy lobby.

My message to you, as an Israeli, is simply this: **** off. Come back when your fellow voters have earned the right to join the international community.

What I cant understand is the Israeli tactics didnt this sort of thing fail spectaculary in Lebanon a few years back when the Israeli army got its @rse kicked by Hezbollah.

Surely Ulster has shown that the only way to end a terrorist threat is to sit down and talk. For all that we threw at the IRA we never came close to wiping them out.

DrJ, please, let’s not descend into abuse. This has been a relatively civil discussion so far.

I can understand people’s anger over this, as I’m pretty wound up by it. And it’s pretty infuriating to read stuff like Whargrider’s post, when more innocent people are being killed by the Israeli military.

But Whargrider is entitled to their opinion, as we all are. Granted, there’s bugger all we can do, sitting behind our keyboards, but if we at least listen to each others views, and try to understand this mess better, then at least we might be able to get on a little bit better. Accept that we all have differing opinions.

After all, it is meant to be a bike forum, and a place for friendly chat and stuff. Anger and hatred aren’t going to
serve any of us.

And I know that many Israeli people do not share Whargrider’s views, and are opposed to their goevernment’s actions.