BS: Israel Moves in.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Sawzaw
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 11:18 PM

Hamas MP Fathi Hammad Jan 12, 2009:

We Used Women and Children as Human Shields

Watch Video

Fathi Hammad: "[The enemies of Allah] do not know that the Palestinian people has developed its [methods] of death and death-seeking.

For the Palestinian people, death has become an industry, at which women excel, and so do all the people living on this land.

The elderly excel at this, and so do the mujahideen and the children.

This is why they have formed human shields of the women, the children, the elderly, and the mujahideen, in order to challenge the Zionist bombing machine.

It is as if they were saying to the Zionist enemy: "We desire death like you desire life."

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 11:38 PM

I have no problem with the two state solution myself, as long as it uses the internationally recognized borders, and isn't just bantustans masquerading as a "state". But the majority of Israelis don't want the two state solution...

http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/view/32819/israelis_clearly_oppose_two_state_solution/

"A majority of Israli adults oppose the formation of a Palestinian state neighbouring their own country, according to a poll by Maagar Mochot released by Channel 2. 51 per cent of respondents are against the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria, while 32 per cent support it."


So in the absence of the two state solution, the only other options are to fully annex the West Bank and Gaza and make the residents of those places Israeli citizens, or to get rid of the Palestinians living in those places. If Israel doesn't adopt one of the first two choices pretty soon, we will know that it has chosen the third option.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 17 Feb 09 - 11:58 PM

Israel not only controls its own border crossings, it also controls the border between Gaza and Egypt, Gaza's coastline and air space, and the West Bank's border with Jordan and the West Bank's air space. However, I was just responding to someone else's implication that Israel does not control the border crossings into Gaza.

If people are going to challenge things I say in response to other people, they ought to also read what I was responding to so they'll know why I'm saying it.

Hamas has said that if the Palestinians decide in a referendum that they will accept a state in the internationally recognized borders (that would be the Green Line), they will not try to stop it. They have said this many times.

http://www.counterpunch.org/loewenstein06122006.html

II. Hamas accepts a two-state solution. When asked by Newsweek-Washington Post correspondent Lally Weymouth on 26 February 2006 what agreements Hamas was prepared to honor, the new Hamas Prime Minister, Ismail Haniyeh answered, "the ones that will guarantee the establishment of a Palestinian State with Jerusalem as its capital with 1967 borders." Weymouth went on, "Will you recognize Israel?" to which Haniyeh responded, "If Israel declares that it will give the Palestinian people a state and give them back all their rights then we are ready to recognize them." (5) This view encapsulates the Hamas demand for reciprocity.

In an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer four days after the PLC elections, the new Hamas Foreign Minister, Mahmoud Zahar (considered the party's hard-liner) remarked, "We can accept to establish our independent state on the area occupied [in] 1967." Like Haniyeh and other Hamas members, Zahar insists that once such a state is established a long-term truce "lasting as long as 10, 20 or 100 years" will ensue ending the state of armed conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. (6)

Hamas government spokesman Ghazi Hamad commented to reporters on 10 May 2006, "Yes, we accept an independent state in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East War. This attitude is not new and it is declared in the government's platform." (7)

In an effort to clarify the Hamas position on Abbas' call for a referendum, Hamas parliamentary speaker Aziz Duweik explained that it had nothing to do with a lack of support for the two-state settlement. "Everybody in Hamas says ëYes' to the two-state solution," he said. "The problem comes from the fact that the Israelis so far [have not said they] accept the 1967 bordersÖbetween the two states."(8)

Other leaders are just as explicit. "Hamas is clear in terms of the historical solution and an interim solution. We are ready for both: the borders of 1967, a state, elections, and agreement after 10-15 years of building trust," commented Usama Hamdan, the Hamas Chief Representative in Lebanon. (9) Notable here is that his remarks were made in 2003 well before the Hamas victory of January 2006. Indeed, it should be pointed out that most of the on-the-record comments to this effect were made prior to these elections.

Additional Hamas spokespersons who have made explicit reference to acceptance of an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 lands include Sheikh Ahmad Haj Ali, a Muslim Brotherhood leader and Hamas legislative candidate currently imprisoned in Israel (interviewed in July 2005); Muhammad Ghazal, Hamas spokesperson also currently in an Israeli jail (Sept. 2005); Hasan Yousef, West Bank political leader (August 2005); and the Hamas Electoral Manifesto Article 5:1 which calls for "adherence to the goal of defeating the [1967] occupation and establishing an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital." (10)

In 1989, Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmad Yassin (assassinated by Israel in March 2004) stated, "I do not want to destroy IsraelÖ. We want to negotiate with Israel so the Palestinian people inside and outside Palestine can live in Palestine. Then the problem will cease to exist." (11)

The hard-line Hamas leader, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, assassinated by Israel in April 2004 commented in 2002 that, "[T]he Intifada is about forcing Israel's withdrawal to the 1967 borders." This "doesn't mean the Arab-Israeli conflict will be over," but rather that the armed resistance to Israel would end." (12)

In a 2004 report published by the highly regarded International Crisis Group, "During the 1987-1993 uprising, Hamas leaders proposed various formulas for Israeli withdrawal to the June 4th 1967 borders, to be reciprocated with a decades'-long truce (hudna)." That same report notes that, "In a March 1988 meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, and then with Defense Minister Rabin in June 1989, Hamas leader (now FM) Mahmud Zahar explicitly proposed an Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 boundaries, to be followed by a negotiated permanent settlement." The offer was refused. (13)

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 12:44 AM

I see by your dual posting of this article, that you and Hamas are living in the past. The 1967 train has left the station. Those borders were the 1949 ending borders which could have been the Palestinian state, as we've discusssed many times. Any border solution will be very close, but it will not be congruent to 1949/67, because Israel will not give up Jerusalem, certainly not in whole.

And some people has a name. And he did not challenge things you said as a response to someone else, but as an example of the things you and others have been spouting for years. Oh, that people was me!

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Sawzaw
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 12:59 AM

Palestians start them young

Very young

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Sawzaw
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 01:07 AM

http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/view/32819/israelis_clearly_oppose_two_state_solution/


What percentage of the Palestinians oppose a two state solution?

http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/view/31970

The majority of people in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are against the creation of a Palestinian state neighbouring Israel, according to a poll by An-Najah National University. 54.3 per cent of respondents oppose the so-called two-state solution

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: GUEST,Peace
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 01:14 AM

LOOK at the recent election results. The Israelis started out much more liberal (as in left-leaning). They have been driven to the right over the years. It will take more than empty promises from Hamas and Hexbollah and whatever organization pops up tomorrow. Face facts: Israel is NOT going away. Histrionics do not mean shit. Not now and not ever again.

Bobert, as to you expecting more from John: FAWK! I expected more from you. You have yet to see that Israel's neighbours have created this situation. You see Israel attacking anyone who is not attacking them first? This is SSDD--pissin' into the wind. IFOR and crew are old and tired Marxists. Didn't work before and it ain't working now.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Sawzaw
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 01:33 AM

Camp David 2000

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered:

    * Israeli redeployment from 95% of the West Bank and 100% of the Gaza Strip
    * The creation of a Palestinian state in the areas of Israeli withdrawal
    * The removal of isolated settlements and transfer of the land to Palestinian control
    * Other Israeli land exchanged for West Bank settlements remaining under Israeli control
    * Palestinian control over East Jerusalem, including most of the Old City
    * "Religious Sovereignty" over the Temple Mount, replacing Israeli sovereignty in effect since 1967

In return Arafat had to declare the "end of conflict" and agree that no further claims on Israel could be made in the future. Despite the considerable concessions by Israel, Arafat chose not to negotiate, not to make a counter-offer but to just walk out.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 02:27 AM

No, that people wasn't the person who thinks it was him. I am not allowed to mention people by name, so I can't say who it was. But it wasn't the one who is claiming it was him. It was someone else.

However, the issue of the borders is a negotiating point. But the fact that Hamas has said numerous times that it is willing to accept the existance of Israel at all (even if it's within the Green Line) proves that those who say Hamas aren't willing to accept the state of Israel at all are not telling the truth.

Israel hasn't moved to the right. All of the major political parties in Israel have always had essentially the same agenda with regard to Israel's borders and the Palestinians. That agenda is and has always been to remove them in order to solve their "demographic problem", and for Israel's lebensraum, or to "acquire our space" as Moshe Dayan put it.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 02:32 AM

Wow, these hasbara people never give up with the lies.

Barak did not actually offer anything. He gave no final status offers. The land that he said he would consider possibly letting the Palestinians keep looked like this...

http://www.imemc.org/article/52185

And what little land the Palestinians would actually be allowed to use would be divided into tiny little bantustans that they would not be able to move freely from one to the other. He also did not offer to end the military occupation of Palestine. He did not offer to let the Palestinians have independence from Israeli control.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 02:34 AM

And by the way, Arafat wanted the negotiations to continue when Barack withdrew from them so he could focus on his campaign to stay in office.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: heatherblether
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 04:22 AM

Carole
is correct....time and time again it has been Israel that has scuppered any chance of a lasting and just solution in the disputed land.
The possibility of a two state solution is now practically nil because of the growing number of illegal zionist settlements on the occupied West Bank.
For some in Palestine it is driving the one man one vote solution to the fore.
Mmmm one man one vote?...it is the basis of democratic life in the West and could be overdue for a try out in the disputed lands of Israel and the occupied territories.
ifor

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Bobert
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 07:48 AM

See, John, that's where yoou have it wrong... You don't have to have lived thru a concentartion camp experience to have empathy for those who did...

Empathy is the first step toward peace... Until one side tries to understand what it is like to be the other side there will be no progress... Right now Isreal's actions say loud and clear, "Undertand us" but don't how the ability to reciprocate...

As lonf as is stands on this selfish, me-me position there will be no peace... Getting beyond selfish, me0me-ness is the cornerstone of diplomacy... Isreal, like the US, is stuck in 21st century with a 20th century mindset...

In the words of Dr. Phil, "How's it workin' for ya'???"

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 10:23 AM

Bobert, stop with the amateur psycho-shit. Stop quoting platitudes. Stop referencing a catch phrase from a TV star who seemingly can't live his life the way he tells others to live theirs. And don't tell me what a wonderful person you are, and how bad I am by inference. I am neither impressed nor intimidated by that type of posting.

When you have something substantive to add to the discussion, get back to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Sawzaw
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 11:46 AM

"Arafat wanted the negotiations to continue when Barack withdrew"

Ass backwards.

What was Arafat's counter offer?

Exactly what did Arafat have to say but no?

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Sawzaw
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 11:49 AM

Just say no to warmongers!!!

NO

Just say no to dope!!!

NO

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Sawzaw
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 11:56 AM

"Someone painting every Muslim with that same general brush again. I do wish this kind of painting would confine itself to the trash bin where it belongs.

Bary"

You are hereby invited to present anything you want to the contrary and I will not condemn it to the trash bin.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: heatherblether
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 12:03 PM

THIS IS ZIONISM!
The website ...Lenins tomb...is currently showing a video of armed Israeli troops attacking Palestinian men and women and young international observers in the illegally occupied territories.It is absolutely disgusting .
ifor

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Sawzaw
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 12:24 PM

"Don't judege a man until you have walked in his shoes..."


"Bill Gates... He's no hero... He is a thug"

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: beardedbruce
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 12:59 PM

"the internationally recognized borders"

The LAST SET OF INTERNATIONALLY RECOGNIZED BORDERS was the 1923 set of Palestine, the Jewish homeland, and TransJordan, the Moslim homeland. NO BORDERS after that point have ever been accepted by the Arab nations.

http://www.unitedjerusalem.com/Graphics/Maps/PartitionforTransJordan.asp

So when do the "Palestinians" leave the West Bank and Gaza???

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Sawzaw
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 01:06 PM

"From the National Lawyers Guild "about" page. They've been very successful in the past in advocating for social justice on many levels. And as I said, there are many other humanitarian organizations who are seeing and reporting the same kinds of things as this organization, so it's not their word against that of everyone else."

Does their about page mention anything about them being communists?

According to Chip Berlet, a paralegal member of the NLG:

    In the 1950s the National Lawyers Guild refused to purge its members who were members of the Communist Party. Today there are Guild members who are cadres in a variety of communist groups along with a majority of unaffiliated members. As a paralegal investigator, I joined the Guild in the 1970s. I found an example of an organization that tried hard to incorporate the participation of cadres within a democratic structure. The cacophony at some meetings makes Star Wars seem like a minimalist film. I have chaired committee meetings with debates featuring cadres from Leninist, Trotskyist, Stalinist, and Maoist groups, along with Marxists, anarchists, libertarians, and progressive independents—interacting with a preponderance of reluctant Democrats.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Sawzaw
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 01:26 PM

Lynn Stewart, convicted lawyer for NLG

"The Pentagon was a better target. The people in the towers never knew what hit them. They had no idea that they could ever be a target for somebody's wrath, just by virtue of being American.

They took it personally. And actually, it wasn't a personal thing. As for civilian deaths in general, I'm pretty inured to the notion that in a war or in an armed struggle, people die.

They're in the wrong place, they're in a nightclub in Israel, they're at a stock market in London, they're in the Algerian outback -- whatever it is, people die."

She mentions Hiroshima and Dresden. "So I have a lot of trouble figuring out why that is wrong, especially when people are sort of placed in a position of having no other way."

So be consoled, widows and orphans of 9/11, like the Mafia hit men say, "it is not personal"


Here is a guy that never knew what hit him

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Sawzaw
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 03:02 PM

I recently had the opportunity to visit the Erez crossing where the first site that greeted me was a brand new medical center, which had been opened at the start of the unilateral ceasefire between Hamas and Israel in mid-January. Israel's Magen David Adom ambulance service, in cooperation with the Israeli Department of Health, opened the center to treat wounded Gazans, with the Israeli government investing millions of dollars into its construction.

The new Israeli medical center can handle 30 patients per hour and is staffed by paramedics and doctors who specialize in emergency medicine, pediatrics, trauma, gynecology, orthopedics, and other fields. It is equipped with state of the art laboratories, X-ray machines, and a pharmacy.

"The only problem," said Shlomo Tzaban, a manager at the Erez Crossing, "is that the medical center stands empty. No one is using it because Hamas discourages Palestinians from seeking treatment at Israeli hospitals."

Before entering Erez, Palestinians must first pass through a checkpoint on the Gaza side. Hamas controls that point on the Gaza end and therefore has complete authority on Palestinians seeking to enter Israel. Subsequently, there has been a dramatic decrease in the number of Palestinians seeking medical treatment in Israel - down to 80-90% - says Tzaban.

"Everyone in Gaza lives under Hamas control," explains Tzaban. "Hamas uses terror and fear to rule the Palestinian people." Tzaban uses the judicial system in Gaza as an example.

On December 26 2008, the Hamas parliament sanctioned that Palestinian courts were to condemn offenders according to violent punitive measures under Islamic Sharia laws. Hamas punishments for Palestinian offenders include whipping, severing hands (for stealing,) crucifixion and hanging.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Sawzaw
Date: 18 Feb 09 - 03:31 PM

Protester

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Sawzaw
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 12:16 AM

Gaza violence spirals as Hamas takes control

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Peace
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 12:34 AM

T"he website ...Lenins tomb...is currently showing a video of armed Israeli troops attacking Palestinian men and women and young international observers in the illegally occupied territories.It is absolutely disgusting .
ifor"

Looks like stuff that wuld have been put there to push a book by a crap writer. Nice try, ifor.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: heatherblether
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 03:33 AM

To Peace
I certainly don't expect the apologists for mass murder in Gaza to be convinced by a homemade video showing a short incident in the occupation of the West Bank.

However, there will be many across the world who will see the video and others like it and will be disgusted by what they see.

I should have added that some of the young observers in the video are Israelis who are appalled by the violent and illegal policies of the Israeli state.
Ifor

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Barry Finn
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 04:06 AM

Here's one for your trash bin Saw'z

James Baldwin, in a letter to his nephew wrote;

"This innocent country set you down in a ghetto in which, in fact, it intended that you should perish. Let me spell out precisely what I mean by that, for the heart of the matter is here, and the root of my dispute with my country. You were born where you were born, and faced the future that you faced because you were _____ and for no other reason. The limits of your ambition were, thus, expected to be set forever. You were born into a society which spelled out with brutal clarity, and in as many ways as possible, that you were a worthless human being. You were not expected to aspire to excellence: you were expected to make peace with mediocrity. Wherever you have turned, James, in your short time on this earth, you have been told where you could go and what you could do (and how you could do it) and where you could do it and whom you could marry."

He later goes on to say;

"I said that it was intended that you should perish in the ghetto, perish by never being allowed to go behind the white man's definitions, by never being allowed to spell your proper name. You have, and many of us have, defeated this intention; and, by a terrible law, a terrible paradox, those innocents who believed that your imprisonment made them safe are losing their grasp of reality."

Instead of James Baldwin speaking of a Black person growing up in America he could very well had written the same letter to a Palestinian growing up in the Ghetto of Gaza under the yoke of Israel
& "that the country is celebrating one hundred years of freedom one hundred years too soon."

Like Warsaw, Gaza is a Ghetto, make no mistake about it but in this ghetto of Gaza the neighborhood is a far more dangerous place to survive in. It is not a gas to live & die there!

If you'd like to read the whole letter, it is here MY DUNGEON SHOOK : LETTER TO MY NEPHEW ON THE ONE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE EMANICIPATION

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Teribus
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 11:10 AM

"Instead of James Baldwin speaking of a Black person growing up in America he could very well had written the same letter to a Palestinian growing up in the Ghetto of Gaza under the yoke of Israel" - Barry Finn

"The Ghetto of Gaza" was created by the Egyptians and perpetuated by the Palestinian Authority and enforced by Hamas. The only yoke that the people of Gaza suffer under Barry is that of Hamas.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: beardedbruce
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 12:40 PM

"Like Warsaw, Gaza is a Ghetto, make no mistake about it but in this ghetto of Gaza the neighborhood is a far more dangerous place to survive in."

Barry,

I think you need to look at the history of the Warsaw Ghetto. In spite of your fraudulant claims, Israel has not lined up troops and marched across Gaza, killing every living thing.

Youyr comparison is like saying the arrest of a person for drunk driving is equivilent to the Pol Pot Cambodian genocide.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Peace
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 01:48 PM

ifor: Until such time as you and your friends declare that there are two wrong sides in this, I have little to say to you. But I owe Seymour an apology. I said that Seymour was a second-rate propaganda writer (his writing is pretty damned good). I have reconsidered: he is a first-rate propaganda writer.

Explain Entebbe. Explain the Achille Lauro. Explain TWA flight 837. Explain why you and your organization give tacit support to that kinda shit. And today you give support to the same kinda shit when you give Hamas (and similar organizations) your encouraging words. If it was simply a matter of bigotry I would let it go. But it seems to be hatred on the part of you and your organization.

Your crew overlooks those examples. Just a bunch of the boys getting together on Saturday night.

It would take little to brain wash you guys and gals. IMO, a light rinse would do.

Now, in short but heart-felt words, fuck you.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Barry Finn
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 02:50 PM

BB
"I think you need to look at the history of the Warsaw Ghetto. In spite of your fraudulant claims, Israel has not lined up troops and marched across Gaza, killing every living thing"

About 1300 just a couple of weeks ago!

Gaza voted in Hamas, not Israel.


Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Peace
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 02:51 PM

Rockets. Remember the rockets?

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 03:22 PM

Being aimed ( mostly) at Jews, they don't matter.




0.04% vs 100% Barry.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 03:27 PM

When the Palestinians accept the last set of internationally accepted borders (1923), and move out of the West Bank into Jordan ( the Arab Moslim Homeland), there will be peace in the region.

Any violence until then is due entirely to the refusal of the Palestinian Moslims to abide by those borders.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Sawzaw
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 11:06 PM

Hamas honeymoon ends with torture

The Guardian 26 Aug 2007

With both legs badly bruised from a vicious beating, Shaher Abu Oda can only move around with a painful shuffle. In the town of Beit Hanoun, on Palestine's Gaza strip, however, he is just one of many young men bearing limps, plaster casts, and stitches - the black and blue aftermath of an unprecedented crackdown on dissent by the strip's new rulers, the Islamist group Hamas.

Its officials snatched Mr Abu Oda off the streets two weeks ago as he was trying to find his younger brother Miqbil, himself badly beaten after club-wielding Hamas policemen broke up a wedding party. The revellers' crime had been to sing a few songs associated with the Fatah party, the rival Palestinian faction which Hamas ousted from the Gaza Strip two months ago. "They threw me in a room," said Mr Abu Oda. "From 11.30 to 3.30 in the morning, they came in every 15 minutes and beat me with sticks, fists, kicks, and a black leather crop."

As many as 50 people are thought to have been arrested in Gaza's Beit Hanoun district around the night of the wedding, and similar sweeps have taken place elsewhere in Gaza since then. The detentions and beatings appear to mark the end of a relative honeymoon period for Hamas, which seized control of Gaza after five days of battle in June.

The early days of the group's reign saw aggressive crackdowns on drug dealers, theft, and violent clans, as well as the freeing of BBC journalist Alan Johnston from the clutches of a criminal faction aligned to al-Qaeda. Such moves led to calls for Britain and Europe to open formal dialogue with Hamas, despite its commitment to the destruction of the state of Israel.

Now though, human rights groups and ordinary Gazans say Hamas is committing exactly the same crimes as its Fatah predecessors, whose corruption and brutality were one of the main reasons why support for Hamas grew. "We are receiving reports of political detentions every day," said Mahmoud Abu Rahma, of the Gaza City-based Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights. "Hamas is conducting wide sweeps and interrogations to collect information. The interrogations include harsh treatment, and in many cases, torture and beatings."

At a protest in Gaza City on Friday, Hamas gunmen broke up a demonstration by Fatah loyalists by firing on the crowd and smashing journalists' cameras. Similar treatment is often meted out in the opposite direction in the Fatah-controlled West Bank, where dozens, if not hundreds, of Hamas activists have been jailed - but since Hamas has long portrayed itself to the Palestinians as an upright alternative to decades of corrupt Fatah rule, such behaviour rankles all the more.

"Fatah arrested and tortured people too," said a senior official from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, an independent political faction. "But during Fatah's rule we could give our opinions, and say anything we wanted about the Fatah leadership. Today people are afraid of saying anything about Hamas."

At least two detainees have died in Hamas custody since July 11. In the most recent case, Waleed Abu Dalfa, 45, was arrested on suspicion of collaborating with Israel. Thirty masked militants from Hamas' armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, arrested him and his two brothers in the night. Seven days later his dead body was dumped at a Gaza City hospital. The doctor on duty reported "bruises on the hands and the legs, haematomas in the legs and signs of stranglehold on the neck."

While the Hamas crackdown has focused on its long-standing nemesis Fatah, other factions have not escaped their wrath. On August 13, Hamas broke up a peaceful protest rally that included a number of different Palestinian political groups, beating protesters with sticks and confiscating cameras from journalists. Newspapers have been banned, critical television talk shows have been pulled from the air, and a new Hamas decree prohibits demonstrations and even outdoor weddings without approval.

Even Islamic Jihad, a fellow militant group traditionally close to Hamas, has begun to turn against Gaza's new rulers. Hamas attacked an Islamic Jihad wedding on August 1, killing three people, and wounding at least eight. In an unusual public rebuke, Islamic Jihad issued a statement calling on Hamas to stop political arrests, release political prisoners, and to stop curtailing freedom of speech.

Hamas founder Mahmoud Zahar is untroubled by the rumblings of dissent: "Life is much better in Gaza than before," he said, insisting that the justice system, police, and internal security forces were undergoing total overhauls. "I don't deny there are some violations but this is not a policy. It's personal excesses … sometimes they resort to violence when they shouldn't, but it is not a policy."

He also accused Fatah activists of fomenting discord, but warned: "But we are watching their every move."

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Sawzaw
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 11:25 PM

Hamas spokesman, Tahar Al-Nunu said on 31 October that no journalist can continue working without obtaining a new press card from the information ministry. Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip on 14 June 2007, six months after its legislative election victory. Since then the Islamist party has regularly obstructed the work of some journalists. Media viewed as close to Fatah have suffered attacks. Arrests and closures of media have become the daily lot of journalists not aligned with Hamas.

“Since dissolving the journalists’ union last month, Hamas is now trying to impose official measures which could lead to serious restrictions,â€쳌 Reporters Without Borders said. “A press card is above all a tool which should facilitate media work and the coverage of official events. The Hamas decision however appears to have been prompted by political considerationsâ€쳌.

Since June 2007, the press freedom organisation has recorded at least nine assaults and 21 arrests of journalists by members of Hamas armed wing, the Executive Force.

The Hamas announcement of a ban on journalists working who are not accredited by the information ministry, under the control of the Islamist party, prompted a wave of protest within media and professional organisations on the Gaza Strip. Many of them refused to comply with the order and only Hamas-affiliated media have accepted it.

Hamas police on 6 November searched the home of Hisham Saqalah, of the online newsletter al-Rassed al-I’lami seizing his computer, his archives, mobile phone and scores of CDs. The journalist had been warned that a complaint had been made against him but not the identity of the plaintiff or their motives.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Sawzaw
Date: 19 Feb 09 - 11:50 PM

Promising Freedom, Hamas Pressures Journalists

New York Times Sept. 4, 2007

GAZA CITY, â€" During the first Fatah protest rally at Friday Prayer here late last month, a number of Palestinian journalists trying to cover the event were beaten by the Hamas police force. Some journalists were arrested and their cameras seized, prompting complaints from the Gaza branch of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate.
    The next night, at about 10 p.m., Hamas police officers entered Sakher Abu El Oun’s courtyard, preparing to arrest him. Mr. Abu El Oun, a reporter for Agence France-Presse and head of the union here, telephoned a colleague.
    "I called one journalist who sent out an SMS," he said, referring to a text message, "and within minutes, about 70 journalists and some human rights activists came to my house and prevented them from taking me away. My kids were crying. It was a very ugly picture."
    The police told him, he said, "that they had instructions to arrest me, I had refused, and I would be responsible" for any consequences.Hamas seems confused about how to quash Fatah protests and simultaneously deal with the news media. Trying to nurture a reputation for honesty and legal behavior since they conquered Gaza in bloody fighting in June, Hamas’s leaders promise journalists freedom of action while the police intimidate them.
    One result is a kind of self-censorship, local journalists say, that goes beyond what they traditionally practiced under Fatah, which also tried to pressure, manipulate or own the Palestinian press.
    Mr. Abu El Oun, 42, is a good case in point. The immediate crisis for him ended when a Hamas government spokesman, Taher el-Nounou, a former journalist, arrived at his house with a message from the former Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniya, telling the police to leave.
    Later, speaking for the union, Mr. Abu El Oun talked about the broader problems journalists were facing. "We are asking for the freedom to cover the protests," he said. "They can prevent the demonstrations, but not the right of journalists to cover them. We are under self-censorship because we don’t know what is allowed, what isn’t. There is no clear policy. All the journalists are worried, scared."
    He has since been asked by his employer not to speak to journalists.One Hamas leader, Mahmoud Zahar, called Mr. Abu El Oun "one bad guy" in an interview and accused him of "presenting himself as a Fatah leader," in part because of his role in what was a Fatah-dominated union. But in 2001, Mr. Abu El Oun was badly beaten with an iron bar by members of the Fatah-dominated Preventive Security Force and nearly died. He underwent significant reconstructive surgery but returned to work.
    Palestinian journalists describe a confusing situation, in which Hamas, as a fundamentally religious organization new to politics and used to obedience, is putting undue pressure on the news media, especially with regard to the use of television images and photographs. Hamas is in a fierce political struggle with Fatah, and both factions are using the media at their command â€" the official Palestinian television and radio by Fatah, which also has its own outlets and newspapers, and Hamas’s newspapers, radio and sophisticated television channel, Al Aksa, which is modeled on Al Minar, which is run by Hezbollah.
    Each accuses the other of being infidels and in the service of outsiders â€" Fatah says Hamas serves Iran; Hamas says Fatah serves Israel and America. In addition to children’s shows urging war against Israel and the Israeli occupation, praising martyrdom and attacking Jews, Hamas television runs a news scroll underneath devoted entirely to Hamas-flavored news. The official Palestinian Authority television, hard to see now in Gaza, is only a little more balanced.
    Fatah in the West Bank has closed Hamas-affiliated media outlets and charities and prevented Hamas-supported newspapers from circulating or Hamas television from broadcasting. Equipment has been confiscated or destroyed, and six Hamas journalists have been arrested, Mr. Nounou said, and 12 more beaten. But here in Gaza, Hamas has done the same to Fatah and the Palestinian Authority-controlled media. At least eight outlets were closed, including three newspapers, and many Fatah journalists have fled.
    Ahmad Odeh, of Maan news agency, said: "This government came into power by a coup, and in Ramallah, there is an emergency government that rules by decree. There’s no democracy on either side. What do you expect?"
    Local reporters, including those working for international news agencies, have been pressured, as they used to be pressured under Fatah, but now with a degree more menace. Yet Hamas leaders say they are committed to freedom of speech, while demanding that journalists report "objectively."
    After the first Fatah rally, Mr. Nounou, the government spokesman, said in an interview that the police were ordered to leave journalists alone unless they engaged in the protest themselves. A few days later, Hamas said it would no longer work with the Palestinian journalists union that Mr. Abu El Oun leads because it was supposedly pro-Fatah, dissolved it and threatened to prosecute its leaders.
    Similarly, Hamas at first said the prayer protests were fine if peaceful, but then decided to ban them, causing further clashes. As some protesters were beaten, some more journalists were beaten and arrested, too, before being released. One policeman told reporters, according to The Associated Press, "If a single shot is on TV, you know what will happen," then drew a finger across his throat.
    Mr. Zahar said, "There have been mistakes, but they are decreasing." Mr. Nounou has been an important mediator between police and journalists and has usually secured their release. "We follow every complaint," he said. "We respect freedom of expression and even allow Fatah here to hold press conferences and demonstrations, which Hamas cannot in the West Bank."
    Under Fatah, "the rules were essentially clear," said another local journalist working for a different news agency. "Don’t attack Yasir Arafat or Muhammad Dahlan or Rashid Abu Shbak," all prominent Fatah figures, "and don’t touch the issue of corruption. That was basically all. Now, of course, it’s Abbas and a few other figures."
    But Hamas, he said, "isn’t used to criticism and doesn’t like it." While Fatah is essentially a broad, secular movement and disorganized, "Hamas is less accepting of advice or criticism, and it’s less experienced and open to the world."
    Since June, he said, Gaza is under a kind of military rule, and everyone is wary.
"People aren’t sure what the boundaries are, and Hamas tries to reassure them, but people feel a little afraid," he said. "Self-censorship is more devastating than censorship laws. And the self-censorship, especially for journalists, is more depressing and complicated than before."

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 21 Feb 09 - 02:00 AM

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/cur_sit/ips.html

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Bobert
Date: 21 Feb 09 - 08:12 AM

John on Sunset Coast- 18 Feb.09, 10:23

Who appointed you see're of all truth???

I might be an amatuer in yer little narrow minded view but I called the consequences in Iraq some 7 years ago...

And my observations on the Isreali/Palestrianian conflict is not at all out of mainstream thinking of peace advocates...

Just not the thinking that perpetuates the conflict...

You post is representative of that thinking... It is very George Bushish... Very dogmatic and very self centered...

You are a very angry person...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 21 Feb 09 - 10:30 AM

Bobert -- having a stream of consciousness moment are we?

I might be an amatuer in yer little narrow minded view but I called the consequences in Iraq some 7 years ago...   OFF POINT

And my observations on the Isreali/Palestrianian conflict is not at all out of mainstream thinking of peace advocates... NOT SOMETHING TO BE BRAGGED ABOUT IN THIS INSTANCE

Just not the thinking that perpetuates the conflict... JUST THE THINKING THAT ELIMINATES ISRAEL AS A NATION

You are a very angry person...PERHAPS, WHEN I READ SOME OF THE BULLSHIT HERE

Have a nice day.

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Bobert
Date: 21 Feb 09 - 11:29 AM

I must be havin' a better one than you, John, cause my blood pressure is a steady 110/70 and SCREAMING doesn't really appeal to me as a way to communicate...

Way too much SCREAMING going on in the Middle East and in the words of Doctor Phil, "How;s that workin' for ya'???"

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 21 Feb 09 - 01:45 PM

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=56368&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 21 Feb 09 - 02:03 PM

I wasn't screaming...I was just differentiating my post from yours.

I do know that all caps is a screaming convention...but I don't do hotmail with italics or color or that sort of thing, but you interpret anyway you want to.

Keep on quoting charlatans...that really impresses me!!!! But I've told you that already.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Barry Finn
Date: 21 Feb 09 - 11:17 PM

Why in the world would you think that Carole's quoting charlatans John??? When so many of near 1300 dead were an awfully high percentage of children. Some one killed the children & the next thing I can hear you say it was done at the hands of the people of Gaza & that they themselves were responsible for the deaths of their own children.
When children, women & innocents of any other community get killed in these high numbers by a military force there's usually blood to be paid but here in the shadow of Israel it's somehow the victum whose at fault. Yes the people of Palestine are the victums, they may be wearing suductive clothing which has the blind thinking it's ok if they get raped & murdered, that they had asked for it & had it coming but there is not excuse for murder, even if they were asking for it, as the Israeli's would have the world believe, when it is Israel that's the wolve hidden in the skin of sheep. Thery are no better than dogs.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 21 Feb 09 - 11:49 PM

I think the charlatan being referred to in this case is probably Dr. Phil.

(Thanks, though :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Barry Finn
Date: 22 Feb 09 - 03:32 AM

You're right Carole, thanks for redirecting me. I thought it was John quoting his usual Rush job

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Peace
Date: 22 Feb 09 - 05:40 PM

"Al-Qaeda founder launches fierce attack on Osama bin Laden
One of al-Qaeda's founding leaders, Dr Fadl, has begun an ideological revolt against Osama bin Laden, blaming him for "every drop" of blood spilt in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Sayyid Imam al-Sharif: The terrorist attacks on September 11 were both immoral and counterproductive, he writes
Sayyid Imam al-Sharif, who goes by the nom de guerre Dr Fadl, helped bin Laden create al-Qaeda and then led an Islamist insurgency in Egypt in the 1990s.

But in a book written from inside an Egyptian prison, he has launched a frontal attack on al-Qaeda's ideology and the personal failings of bin Laden and particularly his Egyptian deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Twenty years ago, Dr Fadl became al-Qaeda's intellectual figurehead with a crucial book setting out the rationale for global jihad against the West.

Today, however, he believes the murder of innocent people is both contrary to Islam and a strategic error. "Every drop of blood that was shed or is being shed in Afghanistan and Iraq is the responsibility of bin Laden and Zawahiri and their followers," writes Dr Fadl."

Maybe the assholes in Hamas and Hezbollah could learn from this.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Peace
Date: 22 Feb 09 - 05:40 PM

PS That ain't the whole article. I coulddn't make a link to it.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Bobert
Date: 22 Feb 09 - 05:52 PM

What the hey...

..1200...