my neighbour is throwing stuff over my fence?

Blair worth 30 million dollars, not 100 million pounds[/url]

sorry, live with someone who spurts spurious facts out, have gotten into the habit of fact checking things…

😳

I’m increasingly of the belief that the Israeli forces on the ground and the Hamas fighters are out of the control of their political leaders. Hamas fighters are so crazed by religious fervour and hatred that they couldn’t stop their members from launching 20 rockets into Israel before the truce had ended and most of the Israeli soldiers are so gung-ho or stoned that they don’t obey whatever orders are passed down to them.

Moderate Palestinians and and Israelis are afraid to object to what’s happening for fear of being attacked by the zealots.

blair is worth some where around £100millon, is paid £250.00 to stand up and give a little speech. he is to busy making money.

£250 a speech, he’s done a few then to make a £100m. 😆

john snow

Hamas fighters are so crazed by religious fervour and hatred

An interesting proposition but have you got any evidence to back it up ?

There is some evidence to suggest the contrary, ie, rather than being crazed by religious fervour and hatred Hamas are actually rather pragmatic and prepared to enter into negotiations. Which presumably is partly the reason why they were encouraged to participate in the EU funded elections of 2006, and which they won in Gaza with a comfortable majority. It’s unlikely that politicians crazed by religious fervour would have won the election.

They are also prepared to comply with ceasefires and use their authority to enforce it on others. They are however fully entitled to defend themselves under international law when attacked by Israel and the subject of illegal Israeli measures.

Hamas fires rockets for first time since 2012, Israeli officials say[/url]

They do of course hate the Israeli state, (or the “Zionist entity” as they like to call it, and they almost never use the term Jewish preferring to focus on the fact that it’s the Zionists which they consider their enemies not Jews). So I guess that’s true.

But you don’t have to be crazed by religion to hate the Zionist state, in fact many atheists do. And I suspect the only thing that me and Hamas can totally agree on is a deep dislike of Israel.

They are however fully entitled to defend themselves under international law when attacked by Israel and the subject of illegal Israeli measures.

We’ve already done this, but they’re not entitled to defend themselves by firing rockets indiscriminately at civilian areas (even if, as you’re so determined to insist, Israel were doing he same)

Deliberate targeting of civilians is, by definition, illegal – even the Pals accept this

Glad you accept the Israeli IDF are acting illegaly ninfan.

THIS IS SO INCREDIBLY **** UP. I can’t believe that this is actually happening, and nobody is doing anything about it. What happened to the goverment that we trust to rule us? How can we simply trust them anymore. Why are we just sitting by an allowing this all to happen? I don’t know. It’s not about sides here, but about humanity. And that is NOT humane. I want to do something. But what? What can we actually do? God I feel so **** powerless.

I’ve tweeted (wow – like that will make a difference 🙄 ) all my local MP’s (a few times now) to ask what they are doing with the political power at their disposal to bring pressure to bear on their party leaders to take a stance but i’ve not heard back from any of them, so the next time they come knocking on my door they’ll be getting told exactly what they can do with their vote, only one independent bothered to reply with an obviously standard response.

You’re quite right it’s not humane, and yeah – we are pretty powerless 🙁 , you only have to view some of the reports that have been leaked online to see the distress and frustration that the reporters have for the situation in Gaza – these are people that have reported from conflicts across the world yet many are now taking a stance albeit in a backhanded way as otherwise it may taint the impartiality of the public broadcasts and that will open up another debate.

Start with your elected MP – find out their stance, if you don’t get a satisfactory respond then go above him or to another local MP, keep asking them “what are you doing to bring pressure on your party leader to take a stance on this issue?”.

It probably won’t make the slightest difference, but it makes you feel better for a few minutes.

I was going to post a link to a twitter account that a friend has recently tweeted me of an aid worker who is currently active out there – but i decided against it as some of the tweets/photos would inevitably get posted up on here and from past modding i imagine this thread would get shut rather quick, #gaza and i’m sure you’ll find them.

Sigh……..in the meantime (like i have for decades) continue to shun Israeli produce whether that be supermarket produce/clothing (funkier on chain reaction for example) or whatever and whenever i get the chance i mention why i’m shunning it unless it has a statement as to it’s policy, quite a few companies now recognise the need to distance themselves from the Zionist regime.

I met enough IDF solders on leave in India/Goa to form a pretty solid opinion of them, they have no respect for any culture nor race apart from themselves.

There are no words to describe the images coming out of Gaza.

as otherwise it may taint the impartiality of the public broadcasts

Jon Snow has been criticised on this very point… as if his emotional response to the mounting numbers of children killed & injured somehow compromised his integrity as a journalist. 🙄

Where does the US find its money? Debt ceiling issues yet magically they are sending 1/4billion in aid for the iron dome project for 2015.

I guess private US defence firms get this money ..from squeezed US voters.

Hora – the US wrote the book on channelling public money into the hands of rapacious corporations. The military industrial complex being a huge beneficiary.

Thats what all the ‘War on Terror’ crap was about. Ratchet up the paranoia to justify ploughing billions upon billions into sometimes bonkers projects.

Ironically, the only time that the Americans managed to drag the Israeli’s to the negotiating table (which led to the Oslo accords) was by threatening to cut this huge military lifeline. They could do that again tomorrow if they wanted too. But theres just no will in Washington to do this. They’re happy to keep supplying the arms for them to keep butchering Palestinians.

Looks like your neighbour managed to knock out the power to your house now too – dont bother trying to put the kettle on any time soon…..

I have seen a comment state: “I expect the power station was only used to power Hamas building and the tunnels which is why it was hit” – Are people really this stupid?

This forum seems to see things in a ‘fairly’ truthful manner (Though I think it is a little more anti Israel perhaps?) – have you seen the comments on the sky news site?

They have already picked up the ‘tunnels of terror’ and ‘we are stopping them from killing our children’ rhetoric and are rambling on about Israel being justified in ridding the world of terrorism….

Becoming a real nasty mess this one, then again the whole world is turning to crap again isn’t it really!

i’ve not commented for a few days on account of celebrating Eid…unlike those in Palestine and Gaza in particular who dont really have much to celebrate at the moment…

but looking at some of the comments i’m disappointed to see the thread has been pulled off topic by dragging the ANC’s and Mandela’s struggle against apartheid being dragged through the mud…the whataboutery kings have managed their objective in justifying Israel’s actions by trying to compare it to all else in the world…

What is happening in Iraq and Syria is highly relevant to Gaza and the responce we see here and elsewhere.

how is it relevant? please enlighten us…
the way i see it is this…what is happening in Syria/Iraq/Afghanistan is different in that they are civil wars where one group of indigenous people conflict with another group of indigenous people
Israel/Palestine is not the same….it is the result of an invading force illegally occupying another’s lands and subjecting them to brutal imprisonment and attack.

if you want to look at it from the only way i would ever agree with you Jambalaya is that Syria/Iraq/Afghanistan?Israel/Palestine have one thing in common…the root cause is the West.

the West created Assad and helped arm him to the teeth and allowed him to carry out his brutal dictatorship on his people…even now when they had a chance to step in to do something their response was pitiful…they have no reason to step in as there is no economic incentive for them in Syria i.e. no natural resources to plunder.

with Iraq the West again created Saddam and helped arm him to fight against the Iranians…while he was doing this he was busy brutalising his own people…but again the west was happy to allow him to do this as he still served a purpose…once that purpose had been fulfilled they moved in on him and his country’s resources under the misconception that he had WMD’s (which have still not been proven to exist)…in doing so they have turned Iraq into a lawless state which has now been overrun by fundamentalist nutjob psychos such as ISIS.

with Afghanistan the West allowed the Taliban and the Mujahideen to flourish…they trained them and armed them during the conflict with Russia and once that was over encouraged them to take control of the country…they then sat idly and watched the brutal treatment the Afghan people suffered…they also trained Osama and allowed him to flourish in this environment…and again when they moved in what happened?
they didnt find him but managed to destroy the country in the process…turning it into a lawless state ripe for the pickings of extremist nutjobs…this is after they had plundered the natural resources first

with Israel the West took land off the Palestinians and gave it to the Israelis then sat back and allowed them to steal the rest of the Palestinian land. when the Palestinians resist this in the only way they know how they are met with brutal disproportionate treatment and again the west watches and does nothing

while you may argue that at the end of the day that the people responsible for the killing are the the ones who actually do the killing…the burden of responsibility for creating the situation in the first place falls on the West.

so while you are happy to point out that there are currently Muslims killing Muslims in other parts of the world…there have been over the course of history scores of Christians and other religious groups that have killed other Christians and other religious groups in equal numbers if not greater…
but i try not to see it that way…religion aside…they are still humans killing other humans for various reasons…and it is wrong

but dragging those conflicts and issues will do nothing to hide the fact that what Israel is doing to the Palestinians

i have openly condemned, and will continue to do so, the crimes carried out on the people of Syria/Iraq/Afghanistan at the hands of the various Muslim groups there…if there was a discussion topic created on STW i would equally be happy to air those condemnations here too
but this thread, as was the other, about Israel and its actions in Palestine and Gaza…and yet again you and all the other Israeli apologists refuse to condemn the actions of Israel

this may be a few years old but he hits the nail on the head…

An interesting article from a rather anti-Israeli American Jew.

Make no mistake, Israel is targeting citizens in Gaza[/url]

Managed to precision hit another UN school this morning.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-28628682

I don’t think anyone believes the Israeli propaganda about “precision” strikes any more. The plain truth is that they are using inaccurate weapons in an inappropriate context, and they don’t give a shit how many Untermenschen they kill in the process.

i sense a recurring theme here…
3 Israeli boys go missing and then found dead…Israel blames Hamas and starts its attack on Gaza even though they went missing/found dead in the West Bank…it later turns out that Hamas wasn’t involved in the death of the 3 boys
Israel and Hamas agree to a ceasefire only for it to be broken a few hours after…the Israelis accuse Hamas of breaking the ceasefire when they kidnapped an IDF soldier…Israel in retaliation bombs Rafah, killing 40 civilians including another UN school…it later turns out that the soldier had died in combat…so Hamas hadn’t kidnapped him after all

still it gives the IDF enough justification to blow up some more women and children…this time as they queued up to buy sweets

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/03/israel-air-strike-un-school-gaza-rafah

Its genocide. Pure and simple. They don’t care what flimsy context they hide behind, as long as they have some contrived ‘justification’ to carry on indiscriminately murdering Palastinians on an industrial scale

.the Israelis accuse Hamas of breaking the ceasefire when they kidnapped an IDF soldier

“kidnapped” is the language of the BBC and Israeli government. The Israelis claim that this one-sided turkey shoot is a “war”, in a war you take enemy soldiers as prisoners.

Which makes the US president’s previous demand that the POW be unconditionally released immediately nonsensical.

Israel likes to claim that it is fighting a war but in an act of breathtaking hypocrisy it simultaneously likes to claim that the enemy in this war isn’t fighting a war.

Interestingly when Israel “arrested” hundreds of Palestinians in the West Bank last month it wasn’t described as kidnapping.

It seems that there are two sets of vocabulary to describe the same actions depending on which side has carried out the actions.

Technically: shooting fish in a barrel is now actually a ‘war’ between you and the fish

Technically: shooting fish in a barrel is now actually a ‘war’ between you and the fish

ernie_lynch – Member
Interestingly when Israel “arrested” hundreds of Palestinians in the West Bank last month it wasn’t described as kidnapping.

Arrested? Don’t be silly, it’s ‘administrative detention’.

Technically: shooting fish in a barrel is now actually a ‘war’ between you and the fish

Yep, which presumably means that if the fish manage to get hold of someone who falls into the barrel it’s called taking prisoners, not kidnapping.

Arrested? Don’t be silly, it’s ‘administrative detention’

Yep. The Israelis aren’t classing the people they’ve arrested/detained/captured/kidnapped as POWs. They’re terrorists (just like our/the US’s ‘enemy combatants’) and so not subject to the usual protections under the rules of war.

“kidnapped” is the language of the BBC and Israeli government. The Israelis claim that this one-sided turkey shoot is a “war”, in a war you take enemy soldiers as prisoners.

sorry i should have put the term kidnapped in inverted commas as you’re quite right Ernie…the term is the language if the BBC/Israeli govt…the terms “capture”/”taken prisoner” or even “apprehended” simply does not have the same desired effect as “kidnapped” from a propaganda point of view…

UNRWA are running an urgent appeal, as the situation on the ground is desperate.

http://www.unrwa.org/how-you-can-help

Not sure if this has been posted elsewhere on STW but this dude nails it.

he does nail it…many have said the same before him but sadly it falls on deaf ears as those who can, wont do anything to intervene.

my neighbour is throwing stuff over my fence?

over you go

Ok so there has been 72 hrs of quiet, why start lobbing the fireworks at the bullies again, one step forward two steps back.