BS: Caliphate

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Greg F.
Date: 16 Sep 14 - 06:21 PM

But you still have no answer or facts to refute 'em have ya, Boo ?

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: bobad
Date: 16 Sep 14 - 05:26 PM

Just as I thought.

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Greg F.
Date: 16 Sep 14 - 05:21 PM

Hey, Boo, review all of the atrocities Israel has perpetrated upon the Palestinians in Gaza & then get back to me, OK?

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: bobad
Date: 16 Sep 14 - 04:22 PM

Why did Hamas fire those rockets and mortars into Israel, Greg?

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Greg F.
Date: 16 Sep 14 - 02:09 PM

f Hamas hadn't fired hundreds of rockets and mortars into Israel there wouldn't have been one Palestinian killed

Please, Boo- that's simply one more excuse for Israeli imperialism. "But Johnny hit me first". How many Israelis were killed bu Hamas rockets, by the way?

My view? Get a life, FKWT.

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Mrrzy
Date: 16 Sep 14 - 01:20 PM

A small gesture, but I am not going to call ISIS or ISL or whatever the islamic anything. They shall not be linked in my terminology to the thing they claim to represent but which repudiates them.

And repudiate is a great word. I used to think it was redupiate and you did it to punish duplicity. Made sense to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 16 Sep 14 - 11:38 AM

Do you inhabit a universe where all Gazans love Hamas Greg?
What about those Gazan men and women who were hooded and shot in the crowded streets after Friday prayers?
And what about the Caliphate Greg?
It actually is the subject of this thread and the subject of an unprecedented international effort against it.
Any views?

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: bobad
Date: 16 Sep 14 - 11:33 AM

If Hamas hadn't fired hundreds of rockets and mortars into Israel there wouldn't have been one Palestinian killed. Why did Hamas fire those rockets and mortars into Israel?

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Greg F.
Date: 16 Sep 14 - 11:13 AM

The Palestinians living in Gaza, who are victims of the Islamist group Hamas,

Yeah, right. So Israeli armed forces didn't kill anyone in Gaza.

Which parallel universe do you inhabit,Boo?

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 16 Sep 14 - 10:10 AM

Greg, some Palestinians are obviously a threat to Israel (suicide bombs, murders, tunnels, missiles, etc.) but I dispute that Israel is a threat to any Palestinians except in defence against all that.

Islamism really is a threat to the whole region and the whole world.
It should get more attention from Mudcat and UN, and Israel should get less.

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: bobad
Date: 16 Sep 14 - 09:29 AM

"Unless, of course, you just happen to be Palestinian."

The Palestinians living in Gaza, who are victims of the Islamist group Hamas, would beg to differ.

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Greg F.
Date: 16 Sep 14 - 09:19 AM

the real threat is Islamism not Israel.

Unless, of course, you just happen to be Palestinian.

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Greg F.
Date: 16 Sep 14 - 09:15 AM

Why Jews Are Worried...

And, of course, this has nothing whatsoever to do with the atrocities committed by Israel, right?

And here we go, once again, conflating opposition to the activities of the right-wing zionist Government of Israel with anti-semitism.

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 16 Sep 14 - 04:46 AM

The UN General Assembly and committees plus Jim, Steve and Greg always and only attack Israel.

Those who have to make real decisions in the real world understand that the real threat is Islamism not Israel.

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Teribus
Date: 16 Sep 14 - 03:07 AM

The main Sunni Arab tribes in Iraq are now backing Iraq's new Unity Government, a new coalition has been formed with the objective of taking on IS and the US has widened the scope of what are viewed as being legitimate targets for air strikes. There are sufficient Iraqi and Kurdish "Boots-on-the-ground" and offers of additional troops by fellow Arab coalition states have been declined.

Sit back and watch what happens.

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 Sep 14 - 05:37 PM

Ah, thanks, robomatic. Got your point now.

But answer to your question is:- no, I do not mean like that at all. Unfortunate social trends containing violence & threats, condemned & suppressed by the authorities, do not seem to me the same thing at all as petty abuses carried out by the competent authorities, to keep certain demographics "in their place" & remind them who is boss; which seems to me a fair summary of what those obstructive Israeli checkpoint operators are up to. I didn't work so hard all my youthful days to watch from afar such nasty goings-on as that.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: robomatic
Date: 15 Sep 14 - 05:10 PM

In answer to a question above (MGM Lion) a severely truncated NY Times article:

Why Jews Are Worried
Deborah E. Lipstadt on the Rising Anti-Semitism in Europe

ATLANTA — AN old Jewish joke goes like this: "What's the definition of a Jewish telegram? 'Start worrying. Details to follow.' "
I am often asked by fellow Jews about contemporary manifestations of anti-Semitism, particularly in Europe. "Is this just like 1939? Are we on the cusp of another Holocaust?" Until now, my answer has been an unequivocal "no." I have criticized community leaders who, either out of genuine concern or to advance their own purposes, use Holocaust analogies to describe contemporary conditions. These claims are ahistorical. They overstate what is going on now and completely understate the situation in 1939.
The differences between then and now are legion. When there is an outbreak of anti-Semitism today, officials condemn it. This is light-years away from the 1930s and 1940s, when governments were not only silent but complicit. Memory also distinguishes the present from previous events. Now, in contrast to the 1930s, we know matters can escalate. Jews today are resolute in their determination: "Never again."
And despite all this I wonder if I am too sanguine. Last month, pro-Gaza protesters on Kurfürstendamm, the legendary avenue in Berlin, chanted, "Jews, Jews, cowardly swine." Demonstrators in Dortmund and Frankfurt chanted, "Hamas, Hamas; Jews to the gas!" And a pro-Hamas marcher in Berlin broke away from the crowd and assaulted an older man who was quietly standing on a corner holding an Israeli flag.
On the eve of Bastille Day, a group of Parisian Jews were trapped in a synagogue by pro-Palestinian rioters and had to be rescued by the police. A few weeks ago signs were posted in Rome urging a boycott of 50 Jewish-owned businesses. In central London last week, anti-Israel protesters targeted a Sainsbury's grocery, and the manager reflexively pulled kosher products off the shelves. (The supermarket chain later apologized.)
......
The article ends with:
......
The telegram has arrived. Jews are worrying. It is time for those who value a free, democratic, open, multicultural and enlightened society to do so, too. This is not another Holocaust, but it's bad enough.

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Sep 14 - 10:02 AM

1200!

And a BBC link if you need it,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29201765

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Sep 14 - 10:00 AM

Sorry about the Independent link greg.
Use this,
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/islamic-state-government-must-heed-lessons-from-previous-iraq-war-says-ken-clarke-9724858.html

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Sep 14 - 09:57 AM

You think you know better?
And you call me rude names!

BBC today Greg.
"Opening the summit, French president Francois Hollande said IS "threatens the whole of the Middle East and the rest of the world", adding: "Every country is involved and we have to do everything to stop the indoctrination of our young, break the jihadi networks and remove the group's funding."

"About 30 countries are gathered for the talks which are aimed at coordinating a strategy against IS militants who have taken control of parts of Northern Iraq and Syria."

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Greg F.
Date: 15 Sep 14 - 09:54 AM

PS: your link don't work.

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Greg F.
Date: 15 Sep 14 - 09:52 AM

So who's John Woodock when he's home, FKWT, and why is his opinion superior to anyone else's?

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Sep 14 - 08:27 AM

Greg, Independent today.

"John Woodock, a Labour member of the Commons Defence Committee, described the "twisted" ideology of Isis as the greatest threat to global and British values since Nazi Germany. Joining Conservative MPs in calling for Britain to lead the fight against extremism in the Middle East, he said: "Just like the rise of the Nazis, we will all ultimately be held to account for what we did or did not do in confronting the threat when we had the chance." "
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/islamic-state-government-must-heed-lessons-from-previous-iraq-war-says-ken-clarke-

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 Sep 14 - 12:30 AM

Afraid cannot make heads or tails of what point robomatic is making.

Clarification?

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Greg F.
Date: 14 Sep 14 - 09:54 PM

Why do you people never want to talk about the real threat to the region and to the world?

Oh but we DO, FKWT - and many times the real threat is gullible idiots like yourself.

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Greg F.
Date: 14 Sep 14 - 09:51 PM

You mean like Jews in Europe these days?

No. Don't be sophomoric.

Or are you alluding to criticism of Israeli government policy?

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: robomatic
Date: 14 Sep 14 - 07:05 PM

It really isn't relevant, or in any way comparable, to bona fide Arab citizens of Israel going about their lawful occasions being harrassed and inconvenienced for the sake of it.

You mean like Jews in Europe these days?

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 14 Sep 14 - 01:45 PM

Not to any extent that I ever heard of, Keith. There are always a few who will let temporary authority go to their heads. But certainly nothing like on the scale I am on about!

Of course some of Germans living here, or happening to be here at the outbreak of war, would be interned as "enemy aliens", after appearing before risk-assessing boards &c. So were British subjects of dubious loyalty in their political records, like the Mosleys &c. That would be fully in accord with Geneva Convention, &c. I believe they lived quite comfortably in camps set up for the purpose on the Isle of Man. But seriously, you couldn't have enemy nationals of ex members of the British Union of Fascists living at large within the community, could you? Both the community and they themselves would have felt threatened, uncomfortable, anomalous.

see

http://www.airfieldinformationexchange.org/community/showthread.php?6891-WWII-Internment-Camps-in-the-Isle-of-Man

where some amazing facts can be found about internees buying local properties &c.

It really isn't relevant, or in any way comparable, to bona fide Arab citizens of Israel going about their lawful occasions being harrassed and inconvenienced for the sake of it.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Greg F.
Date: 14 Sep 14 - 01:09 PM

let it go to their heads.

Hmmm... like certain people allow their faith in their own erudition and infallibility to go to their heads.

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 14 Sep 14 - 01:04 PM

I am not arguing Michael, and I was not meaning you re. ignoring the threat posed by Islamism while attacking Israel.
I was born in 1950, but I know that German people were forcibly interned and that some of those given power over others,like Home Guard on check points, let it go to their heads.
Did that never happen?

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: bobad
Date: 14 Sep 14 - 12:11 PM

MGM, not saying that it's right or wrong but perhaps it's incidents like this CLICK that create the conditions where psychological warfare is employed as a tool to maintain some degree of stasis in a society where simply taking a wrong turn can get you and your family killed.

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 14 Sep 14 - 10:48 AM

No I'm not, Keith. I recognise the threat[s]. But I feel that this vindictive picking on Arabs by petty officialdom can only exacerbate an unfortunate situation, & is going to prove counter-productive in terms of international image and support, and any hopes of eventually reaching any sort of settlement. And I repeat that your comparisons with the sort of necessary and reasonable regulations which any administration has to introduce in times of national emergency, as eg the nuisance I found it in 1940 having to carry my bloody gas-mask everywhere, and always have my identity card, and the fiddling piddling biznis of ration books & coupons, will not hold against the sort of wilful spitefulness I have instanced, like people kept hanging about for days at checkpoints just because the jacks-in-office can, and know they won't be held accountable -- which I note you have not contradicted.

You haven't answered my question -- did you experience it all in the 1940s? Because, if not, I think you ill-advised to argue with one who did.

Best regards

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 14 Sep 14 - 10:11 AM

No Greg.
Gaza chooses to be at war with Israel and could stop it anytime.

Enough about Israel.
This thread is about the evil Caliphate.
They just beheaded an aid worker simply because of his nationality.
Why do you people never want to talk about the real threat to the region and to the world?

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: bobad
Date: 14 Sep 14 - 09:53 AM

Jordanian-Palestinian Politician: There Is No ISIS Ideology – It's Islam

YouTube

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Greg F.
Date: 14 Sep 14 - 09:45 AM

constant threat of mass murder, a threat that all too often has become horrific reality.

Like the Palestinians in Gaza have to put up with, ya mean?

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 14 Sep 14 - 09:38 AM

The difference in Britain Greg was that the threat was very real and our survival was indeed a close run thing both times.

Michael, I think you are judging too hard a small nation at constant threat of mass murder, a threat that all too often has become horrific reality.

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Greg F.
Date: 14 Sep 14 - 08:18 AM

In 1914 and 1940, yes I would put up with it, and people here did.

Yup, FKWT, and in the U.S. folks "put up with" the Palmer Raids, the "Red Scare", the Dies Committee, etc. because of hysteria and an imagined threat.

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
    ...Benjamin Franklin

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 14 Sep 14 - 05:18 AM

I was there in 1940, Keith. Were you?

Yes; there were petty regulations in the national defensive interest. My father was an air raid warden [just like Mr Hodges] who would knock on people's doors to tell them they were showing a light and insisting they switch it off or adjust their blackout. But he didn't have the power to prevent their leaving the house for three days, if he felt like it. You are really not comparing like with like. These regulations did not involve wilful abrogation of basic rights, or the kind of sadistic assertion of authority for the sole purpose of causing maximum inconvenience which Israel's checkpoints operate. I don't think you remember it. I do: I was in London right thru the blitz, and having to have lessons is air raid shelters was, I assure you, not the same sort of experience you are trying to compare it with. I am getting incoherent again. All becoz of what stinking Israel has turned into has done to my life & aspirations! You try living with it.

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 14 Sep 14 - 04:39 AM

Michael,
Don't tell me you, yourself, would put up with any such obstrucionism from any officious official (even if you came across an instance of it — the particular sort of abuses I rubricate just wouldn't happen here,

In 1914 and 1940, yes I would put up with it, and people here did.
Also the rounding up of mostly harmless German families and incarcerating them in remote camps.

People accepted it because our very national survival was threatened, and it was understood that as soon as the threat was removed we would become a tolerant welcoming country again.

Israel has had to live under threat all its years. That inevitably forces them to be more authoritarian than they would like to be while the threat persists.

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Greg F.
Date: 13 Sep 14 - 06:36 PM

Greg, this thread is about the Caliphate, if you want to discuss Bruce start your own thread.

Boo, absolutely the LAST thing I want to discuss is BullShot himself.
That's been dealt with elsewhere, and I tyhink we've all got his number sevaral times over.

I was just wondering about his absence. Not complaining, mind you - its a refreshing change.

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Sep 14 - 05:39 PM

You are not allowing for the fact that, whatever inefficiencies or pettinesses might occur "everywhere", the sort I am complaining of here are those that occur only when a particular "victim" demographic has been identified by convention who can be thus treated with impunity. Are you happy that Israel should contain such a demographic? Because I am not. It's not a factor of the sort of society I thought I was devoting all those youthful energies to creating, back in my Zionist 1940s youth. My sister organised the Federation of Zionist Youth branch in our part of N London; the organisation used to meet every week in our house. This wasn't what we were striving for, believe me...

Oh, bugger it, you are making me emotional again. I really can't maintain this line of argument. It is just too intolerably painful and distressing to me

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Sep 14 - 05:29 PM

There would be redress for such abuses of power in any worthwhile society, Keith: channels available for complaint. Don't tell me you, yourself, would put up with any such obstrucionism from any officious official (even if you came across an instance of it — the particular sort of abuses I rubricate just wouldn't happen here, for all your "everywhere" — tell me, please, where "everywhere" else they happen in the manner , and to the extent, that I relate). But what channels of complaint do you imagine would be open to as Palestinian Arab who had been spitefully delayed for days at a checkpoint, over some imagined or invented lacuna in his papers or whatever? I fear I think you are being naif and obstructive in your argument here.

And don't forget that I am on your side, dammit -- or wish I could be...

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: bobad
Date: 13 Sep 14 - 05:19 PM

Greg, this thread is about the Caliphate, if you want to discuss Bruce start your own thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 13 Sep 14 - 05:17 PM

I so enjoy your stories Musket.
Michael, officious petty officials abuse their power everywhere, not just in Israel.

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Greg F.
Date: 13 Sep 14 - 04:25 PM

Where the hell is BullShotBruce? Is he still sulking? Or holding hs breath 'till he turns blue?

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Musket
Date: 13 Sep 14 - 12:59 PM

You know, in 1984, I had views on roadblocks. Views that don't come from sitting in a wingback chair pontificating on experiences of others. Arabs in Israel have to live with it all the time, and for us in North Notts / South Yorkshire a few months till the local police stopped their bussed in mates from doing it was bad enough.

Come to think of it, in Israel our agent's best salesman was desk bound because as an Arab, he suffered from harassment by police etc when going about his lawful business.   (On their Sabbath, everybody is harassed in some areas, so a bit less of the "aren't they multicultural and normal" shit, because they certainly are not. Not even to rational people of Jewish ancestry."

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Sep 14 - 12:13 PM

I'm not objecting to the checkpoints & roadblocks in themselves, Keith. They probably serve an essential purpose, and are among the things which some dissident elements have brought on themselves [and everyone else] by persistent unnecessary intransigence. But it's the well-authenticated stories of sadistic jumped-up lower-rank Israeli jacks-in-office keeping harmless and perfectly co-operative ordinary Palestinians hanging about for three days for clearance thru checkpoints, "just becoz they can", so that they might miss the family celebration they are on their way to or whatever, that stick right in my craw and fill me with despair as to the actual real outcome of all the dreams of my long-ago youth. Apart from the real aggression and oppression, there seems to be so much pettiness -- which is why I was so upset about those uprooted olive groves that symbolically as well as literally represented people's livings, which Jim can never get the point of what he seems to regard as my both excessive and "lip-serving" grief over. Can hardly go on posting for moist eyes -- and that's not just a form of words...

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 13 Sep 14 - 10:20 AM

Jim, burned children is an obscenity.
Michael, we had been comparing human rights in Israel and elsewhere.
West Bank is not in Israel and things are different there.

The roadblocks may be "unnecessarily restrictive" but that is arguable.
Do you doubt that lives would be lost if they were removed altogether?

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Sep 14 - 05:38 AM

I was going to stay out of this: esp as Israel, as I said before, is only marginally relevant to this thread, & seems to me to have been dragged in doctrinairely by some with motives which I find -- let's say, somewhat amibivalent ["They think they're not but they are!"].

But I must point out to Keith that the West Bank is not any sort of separate enclave, and what is going on there is part of a distressing gestalt of unnecessarily restrictive roadblocks, destruction of livelihoods & property, aggressive expansion; which as is known has driven me into the camp of Levy & those "count-us-out" reservists in Jim's last paste. Israel is still where I wish my traditional & longstanding loyalties could remain; but the goings-on of it these days militate strongly against this. The faults are not all on one side. Israeli reactions are historically based, going right back to Arab neighbour reactions in 1948, 1967, et al; and understandable therefore up to a point -- but that 'point' has been far surpassed IMO. Wish I could accept their present actions & attitudes with as much defensive insouciance as Bobad & Keith & Teribus.

But alas I cannot. The place remains, as I never tire of saying, one of the major griefs and disappointments of my long life.

Where is it all going to end? Don't expect I shall live to find out. But my hopes are not sanguine.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Caliphate
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Sep 14 - 05:14 AM

Still no comment on children burned to jelly and all the other thinks you have refused to answer on the grounds thet "it might incriminate Israel"
A bit more about Israeli "Antisemites" for you to ignore.
Jim Carroll

IRISH TIMES Sat 13th Sept
ISRAELI RESERVES REFUSE TO SPY ON PALESTINIANS
Dozens of reserve soldiers from Israel's top electronic surveillance unit say they will no longer spy on Palestinians living under occupation, in an unprecedented rebuke to prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu's security policies.
A protest letter signed by 43 veterans of Unit 8200, sent to Mr Netanyahu and armed forces chiefs and excerpted by Israel's biggest-selling news-paper yesterday, was dismissed by the military as a publicity stunt by a small fringe.
Criticising eavesdropping on Palestinians and the role such espionage plays in set¬ting, up air strikes that have of¬ten inflicted civilian casualties, the move opened a window on clandestine practices.
It also tapped into wider international debate over the ethics of state surveillance following last year's media leaks by Edward Snowden, a former contractor with the National Security Agency (NSA), the US counterpart to Unit 8200.
"We refuse to take part in actions against Palestinians and refuse to continue serving as a tool for deepening military rule in the occupied (Palestinian) territories," Yedioth Ah-ronoth daily quoted the letter as saying.
"Intelligence allows ongoing control over millions of people, thorough and intrusive monitoring and invasion into most aspects of life. All of this does not allow for normal living, fuels more violence and puts off any end to the conflict."
No signatories' names.were published but several were interviewed anonymously by Yedioth and by Israel's Army Radio. They complained about what they described as the abusive gathering of Palestinians' private information such as sexual preferences or health problems "that might be used to extort people into becoming informants".