BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests...
From: Stu
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 10:36 AM

"Should I be living next to you and throwing bombs over the fence, trying to hit your family, and the police refused to stop me, what the hell would YOU do?????"

At some point everyone is going to have to sit down and talk about this. Now might be a good time.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests...
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 10:41 AM

And it would have been a good time before Hamas declared the ceasefire over, and increased its missle attacks. And it was a good time during the three days that Israel tried to negotiate, asking that the missiles be stopped- yet Hamas chose not to talk. Let them suffer for it: Maybe they will be willing to stop targetting Israeli citizens after they lose the means to control the population.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests...
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 10:53 AM

"And it was OK when it was just Jews being targeted with antio-personneal rockets... Nobody had a word of protest then.

same old, tired logic...and not even accurate this time. You MUST get past that eternal " no one complains when YOUR side does XXX"

No one (well, not me anyway) is defending Hamas and their stupid provocations, but Israel's responses are BIGGER and make more headlines...and kill more people - including innocent civilians. Of course they get more press than poorly aimed rockets that miss more often than not!

Logic suffers when you have ONE premise and interpret everything that happens according to it.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests...
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 10:57 AM

In WWII the Germans ran into much resistance in occupied lands, as is well known, and the resistance fighters did their level best to kill Germans and destroy certain infrastructure that was useful to the Germans. They launched what the Germans saw as "terror" attacks. The Germans often retaliated by killing 100 of the local people for every dead German. They had the firepower and the means to easily do that. They reasoned that this would dissuade the resistance fighters and the general populace from further attacks upon Germans. That turned out to be dead wrong. It simply provoked further violent attacks upon Germans. Apparently the bitterness and anger caused by the German reprisals made the resistance quite willing to face those disproportionate losses of 100 to 1 in order to continue hurting the Germans.

The Israelis have just killed about 300 people over an attack by Hamas which killed, what was it? 2 people?

That's a similar method to the German method of massive overkill, and I predict it will yield a similar result. Massive retaliation by Israel makes Israelis feel good, but it does nothing to end the conflict, it only guarantees further primitive pinprick terror attacks by their poorly armed Muslim opponents.

As for the Muslim fighters, their guerilla tactics do nothing to end the conflict either...they only guarantee further high tech massive overkill terror attacks by Israel, and much more suffering and waste on both sides.

So they are both engaging in stupid, pointless, tit for tat violence which will solve nothing. I see no reason why either of them should be proud and beat his chest over his latest act of violence. I see no reason why anyone here should support either one of them for doing so.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests...
From: Stu
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 10:58 AM

"yet Hamas chose not to talk. Let them suffer for it"

Well, it takes mighty big balls to sit down with a sworn enemy and thrash out at settlement by negotiation, and if no-one has the balls then they will continue in their cycle of violence until someone with a degree of integrity comes to take hold.

This is all due to religion. The 'Holy Land' has been abandoned by whatever God these people profess to worship and everyone is now neck-deep in in the gore of innocents. But then some like it that way.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests...
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 11:04 AM

Still waiting on the UN to enforce the Lebenon ceasefire terms on Hezboallh... Israel compled quite a while ago- WHERE ARE THE KIDNAPPED ISRAELIS????

And you want Israel to let Hamas continue to attack the civilian population?????

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests...
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 11:16 AM

***Hamas*** is not the entirety of the population of Gaza.

And YOU want to let Israel bomb everything in the area in hopes they 'might' get a few Hamas militants? (those 'surgical' strikes are misnamed...surgeons do not use an axe when a scalpel is needed.)

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests...
From: beardedbruce
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 11:26 AM

"***Hamas*** is not the entirety of the population of Gaza."

No, it is the ELECTED GOVERNMENT of Gaza, elected by that population.




"And YOU want to let Israel bomb everything in the area in hopes they 'might' get a few Hamas militants? (those 'surgical' strikes are misnamed...surgeons do not use an axe when a scalpel is needed.) "


You have not been looking at the attacks, have you? Supply tunnels, specific buildings, etc. IF Israel was bombing everything in the area, there woyuld be tens of thousands dead. These ARE surgical strikes, unlike the area bombardments by Hamas antipersonnel (filled with ball bearings to inflict maximum harm on unprotected targets) rockets on the civilian population of Israel that everyone was silent about.

And the rate of TOTAL casualties in tiny, compared to the ACCEPTED number of Georgians killed by Russians in the near past. THAT was ok to many of those here who protest the Israeli action, but have been silent about the Hamas attacks on civilians.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests...
From: CarolC
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 11:53 AM

I agree that Israel's attack on Gaza is related to Obama being about to take office. But I also think that it has as much to do with the Kadima party wanting to get re-elected in the upcoming Israeli elections as it does with Obama.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests...
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 12:23 PM

"...the rate of TOTAL casualties in tiny, compared to the ACCEPTED number of Georgians killed by Russians in the near past. THAT was ok to many of those here who protest the Israeli action, but have been silent about the Hamas attacks on civilians."


same logic....comparing YOUR Ox to Oxen being gored, or which you speculate 'might' have been gored at other times & places and under other circumstances.

Anyway...at THIS moment there are large protests at the Israeli embassies in Athens & London, and the UN Secretary-General is getting involved.

And...the White House (Bush?) has demanded (CNN's words) that Hamas stop firing rockets into Israel.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests...
From: artbrooks
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 12:25 PM

This from the AP:
Most of those killed since Saturday were members of Hamas security forces, though the precise numbers remain unclear. A Hamas police spokesman, Ehab Ghussen, said 180 members of the Hamas security forces were among the dead, and the U.N. agency in charge of Palestinian refugees said at least 51 of the dead were civilians.

Israel has said that it is targeting Hamas and its facilities, and it should be said that "security forces" and "police" aren't the same thing. It is ironic that one of the two Israeli civilians killed by rockets fired into Israel was an Arab.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests...
From: C. Ham
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 12:36 PM

Abbas: Hamas could have prevented attack
December 28, 2008

(JTA) -- Hamas could have prevented Israel's attack on the Gaza Strip, Mahmoud Abbas said Sunday.

The Palestinian Authority president also called on Hamas to renew its cease-fire with Israel.

"We spoke to them and told them, 'Please, we ask you not to end the cease-fire. Let it continue,'" Abbas said during a news conference with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit. "We want to protect the Gaza Strip. We don't want it to be destroyed."

Abbas also called the continuing rocket attacks on Israel "acts of foolishness."

Israel's assault on Hamas targets began Saturday afternoon. More than 280 Palestinians have been killed in the operation so far.

Palestinian Authority officials in Ramallah said Saturday that Abbas' Fatah Party, which rules the West Bank, was prepared to assume control of Gaza if Israel topples the Hamas regime there.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests...
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 12:46 PM

"Security forces" include people who aren't police, some of whom are not civilians. But the evidence seems to be that most of those dead security forces members are in fact civilian police.

True enough the government in Gaza was elected by popular vote. So was the government in Israel. In neither case does that mean that targetting civilians, Palestinian or Israeli is anything other than terrorism.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests...
From: artbrooks
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 12:56 PM

Most police officers that I know would be insulted if they were called "civilians", but I'd be interested in knowing the source of your statistics, McGrath.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests...
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 01:09 PM

Police are civilians, in the sense that they are not members of the military forces. They are not civilians in the sense of ordinary people who are not in uniform or are not serving in either the military or the civil forces.

So whether you are insulted or not by the term "civilian" being used for the police depends entirely on what context you take it in.

People who are determined to be insulted will always assume the context that suits their desire, won't they?

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests...
From: number 6
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 01:28 PM

In some countries the police are actually a paramilitary force ... in conflict in many ways with their own community.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests...
From: C. Ham
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 01:33 PM

You can't use the term "civilian" to describe Hamas "police." Hamas police are not there to enforce the law as in a Western democracy. They are there to terrorize Palestinians who do not subscribe to Hamas' Islamic fundamentalism and to fire rockets into Israel.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests...
From: bobad
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 01:37 PM

As members of a para-military terrorist organization they are legitimate targets.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests...
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 01:51 PM

So would that go for Israeli police, and object to attacks on them being called "terrorism"?

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests...
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 01:56 PM

Oh, the Hamas police may indeed be legitimate targets, once one decides to start shooting. Likewise, all Israeli governmental personnel at all levels right down to traffic cop would be legitimate targets for someone who decided to attack Israel...from that someone's point of view only, I mean.

USAAF pilots in WWII were given clear instructions in 1943-45 to strafe and attack ANY civilian target that would constitute part of the German economy/infrastructure. That amounted to every civilian, every farm animal, every vehicle, everything period. An American flying ace, upon being given those instructions, remarked to one of the other pilots, "I hope to God we win this war, because we're in a whole load of trouble if we don't." And they would have been. They were committing war crimes.

War is the complete cessation of what we think of as normal morality, and it is the sanction of mass murder. Whoever does it, that's what it is. To pretend otherwise is the business of propaganda ministers and politicians generally, but the ordinary people in the bombsights are not fooled.

If the Muslim fighters had anything like the firepower that the Israeli armed forces do, then of course they would use it similarly on Israel, and you'd have many thousands of dead Israelis, not just a handful.

What I am not impressed by is the continual attempt by proponents of one side or the other to convince the world that they are morally better than the people they are fighting. They're not.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 02:21 PM

War does indeed tend to be "the complete cessation of what we think of as normal morality, and it is the sanction of mass murder" - but that should never be accepted as right, and there is value in the concept of war crime, underpinned by theoretically binding international law.

Nor is it solely a matter of "victor's justice" - some Croatians as well as Serbs, and Bosnians of all varieties, have found themselves facing trial for their part in the butchery of a few years back.

At least it is now possible to force even high-up participants in activities that fall into that category to be careful where they go travel outside their own safe-haven in their own countries, whether that is Israel, the USA, the UK, or Russia.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: akenaton
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 04:02 PM

You only got one thing wrong Hawk Israel killed over 300 Hamas accidentally killed two of their own children.

Something must be done about the actions being taken by Israel they are the terrorists right back to 1946 when they stole Palestinian land up to 100 times more than they had been granted by the British.
I have written before of my conversations with a British army officer who was involved in the hand over of Palestinian land.
To day he hasn't a good word to say about Israel and how it has terrorised the Palestine with the full support of America.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: akenaton
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 06:03 PM

Israel supported by America have vowed to sweep Hamas from Gaza(regime change)

Where is Mr Obama?

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: bobad
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 06:38 PM

"Israel supported by America have vowed to sweep Hamas from Gaza"

A necessary step to a permanent peace agreement.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: Bobert
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 06:44 PM

Wow... Here we are some 10 hours and 50 posts later and we're still pointing fingers???

Son't reckon anyone took the time to Googlr "Saudi Proposal"...

(Well, Boberdz... The "Saudi Proposal" was a framework for peace... War is much more interesting...)

Not if it your house that just got bombed...

Nevemind... Now back to ***the action***...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: akenaton
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 06:44 PM

You mean the powerful slaughter the weak....then there is peace?

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 06:52 PM

Bertolt Brecht's ironic comment on East German politics to the Israel/Gaza situation, "If the Hamas government still has the confidence of the people, it is necessary to elect a new people."

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: akenaton
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 06:53 PM

Sorry Bob....cross posted to bobad.
Its a bit late to talk of peace proposals....This is serious and criminal...does the US not have a news media?

Why the silence while the rest of the world condemns Israel and America?

This amounts to a coup against a democratically elected government ....that the West doesn't like!
Even the UK govt has called for an Israeli cease fire.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: akenaton
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 06:56 PM

The borders are sealed, its like shooting fish in a barrel.

Latest score 400 dead 1400 injured

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: GUEST,Bill D
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 07:13 PM

"...does the US not have a news media?"

It's been on CNN all day long...including protests and opinions. Do you expect only ONE opinion on such a divisive topic?

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: akenaton
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 07:27 PM

I have heard no one from the US address the issue of "regime change"!

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: bobad
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 07:34 PM

"You mean the powerful slaughter the weak....then there is peace?"

Excise the cancer so that the organism can survive and flourish......then there is peace.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: heric
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 07:34 PM

>Why the silence while the rest of the world condemns Israel and America?<

I believe Abbas described the Hamas rockets as "irresponsible."

>The Israelis have just killed about 300 people over an attack by Hamas which killed, what was it? 2 people?<

I don't follow the logic of "proportionate" response.

If you are going to use the machinery of government to kill people, the goals should be defined. That's elementary. The minimum goal is clearly defined: To stop Hamas-inspired violence against Israeli citizens in the near term. If that is the goal (or even if much larger and more nefarious motives are to be believed), then why would you revert to killing just two people or two hundred people if hostiles killed two of yours? Such numbers do not logically relate to any rational goal, legitimate or nefarious. That would be savage retribution and nothing more, with no "goal" of any kind.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: Bobert
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 07:46 PM

The problem, Ake, ol buddy, is that the criminalism has gone on for pushing 60 years now...

I don't understand why after WW II that the world felt the the Plaestianians shopuld py for the acts of Adolph Hitler and the Nazis but that, in essence, is what the world decided and now we have 3rd generation Palestianians living under occupation/colonialism...

But, Ake, you have to admit that one day a solution will be found and that solution lies within a plan that Saudi Arabia put forth prior to then illegal invasion on Iraq by the US and the UK...

All wars end and this one will, too... The problem is that well before they end there are alot of folks who see the way that things will be worked out...

The Saudi Proposal is the only framework that provided all parties something of what they wanted...

Isreal gets saecurity and normalized raletion with her neighbors... The Arab states get stability in the region and the peace that comes that Isreal will not attrack them... The Palestians get their own state...

Yeah, of course, the major component is that a new Paletianian state is going to need a lot of financial help for maybe as long as a decade... But given the history here on the last 60 years, that is not too much to ask...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 07:48 PM

"I have heard no one from the US address the issue of "regime change"!"

regime change for whom?
The US has had a fairly consistent policy of basic 'support' for Israel on most things, but has tried to encourage more 'moderate' responses to provocation.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 07:54 PM

And of course the rseult will be ... er ... pain - mare hatred - blind fury - blood running red - families destroyed forever - children losing their fathers - wives losing their husbands - mothers losing their children ...

... young children - mutilated, destroyed ...

... if anything epitomizes the beauty of humanity it is the life of a child ...

... the thought of them afraid, cowering and ccold in disintegrating homes, and dying in agony after being struck by bullets or shrapnel ...

Politics is abstract. The reality of the situation is described above.

All parties have a responsibility to guarantee the first and most fundamental human right - the right to life.

Anyone who undertakes to use lethal force to achieve their goals is a murderer.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: Bobert
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 08:00 PM

Amen, lox...

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: Beer
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 08:21 PM

So who started this anyway? Who fired the first shot? I guess it really doesn't matter anymore. If someone could just say to Hamas stop firing your rockets. If they did. Would Israel halt their aggression? I believe they would. But this is all to simple so I have lost my understanding as to why it should or should not stop. There was talk at one time about a buffer zone being controlled by the U.N. forces. Is this out the window? I guess Hamas would just keep firing rockets over them.
Beer (adrien)

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: Bobert
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 08:39 PM

No, the aggression started 60 years ago, adrien, and it won't end until the power who brought about it's start become very engagged in stopping it... This isn't as much about things that we are seeing on out televisions as history... For the last 6 months a cease fire has been in place... Yeah, during this cease fire Hamas has been plotting but so have the Isrealis... What we are seein' of the Isreali military is the culmination of a year's worth of planning...

So to look at this newest chapter as anything but a continuation of a 60 year long conflict is to do dis-service to history and the future...

We need to change the pardigm here and looking at very recent history won't get us there...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: artbrooks
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 09:15 PM

The current period of aggression started well over 70 years ago, with Arab attacks on Jewish settlements in British-occupied Palestine. Some of these settlers were members of the various Zionist movements who had purchased land there, and others had "always been there". The myth that all of the Israelis...or their ancestors 3 generations ago...were transplanted European deathcamp survivors is just that. Another myth that effects perceptions of this conflict is that all of the Jews ever left - for example, there was a significant Jewish population in the Holy Land during the Crusades, and the European crusaders were perfectly content to slaughter them in addition to the Arab Moslems and Christians. The history of Israel, Palestine and the conflict there is far from a simple one.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: Beer
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 10:55 PM

Thank you Bobert and thank you Art for that. The picture is definitely not a clear one. As we use to say, "Some day, pray God, there will be peace in Ireland". Well as bleak as it may seem, maybe it will happen. However, I for see those tanks and ground troupes moving in.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: number 6
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 11:00 PM

in regards to Art's statement .. "The current period of aggression started well over 70 years ago, with Arab attacks on Jewish settlements in British-occupied Palestine."

... I believe Art you were referring to the 1929 riots. Regardless here is a link in case anyone is interested .... 1929 riots

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: heatherblether
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 11:16 PM

There will be a national demonstration in central London this coming saturday [3rd January] called to protest at the attack on the Palestinian people of Gaza and the blockade and starvation of its people.The protest has been called by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Protest starts at 2pm.
Ifor

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: number 6
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 11:23 PM

I would rather see demonstrations world wide where people would protest and call for an end to the madness and a calling for tolerance, understanding and humanity.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: Peace
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 11:29 PM

The Israelis have been being fired upon since 2002. Even during the cease-fire that lasted 6 months, Israel received rocket fire and didn't respond. I guess they have had enough. They dropped about 3 tons of ordnance on each of 30 military targets. The vast majority of people killed were from Hamas security forces.

It's funny that the world media and people posting here don't complain about the mid-East until Israel responds to rocket fire. Strange that, no? Almost like it's OK for Hamas to target Israel, but then Israel are big bullies when they respond. Y'all ever look at yourselves in that light?

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: number 6
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 11:39 PM

I agree Peace.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: CarolC
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 11:58 PM

The current conflict started before Arabs attacked any Jewish settlements. It started when European Jews started depriving Palestinians of their homes and their livelihoods.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: CarolC
Date: 30 Dec 08 - 12:03 AM

It's funny that some people here only complain when Hamas responds with rockets to Israel's total subjugation of the people of Gaza - total control of Gaza's borders, of Gazan's ability to come and go, total control of Gaza's coastline, creating the ultimate outdoor prison in Gaza and depriving Gazans of the basic necessities of life. It's almost like it's ok for Israel to completely destroy a people, but it's not ok for those people to resist being destroyed.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: MarkS
Date: 30 Dec 08 - 12:24 AM

A good starting point for a settlement might be if Hamas acknowledged that Israel has a right to exist.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting for protests... (Gaza)
From: GUEST,Peace
Date: 30 Dec 08 - 12:34 AM

Heard that from you before, Carol. It's still bull.