BS: Israel Moves in.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: C. Ham
Date: 04 Feb 09 - 09:26 AM

If Likud is elected this time around, we will know that the majority of Israelis also oppose a two state solution.

That is absolutely not true. Opinion polls in Israel consistently show that 70-80% of Israelis support a two state solution and the territorial compromise that will be needed to accomplish that.

There are 36 political parties running in this Israeli elections and the 120 seats in the Israeli Knesset are aportioned according to each party's vote totals. That is to say, a party that gets 10% of the vote will get 10% of the seats.

The latest polls show Likud as the leading party projected to win between 28 and 34 of the 120 seats.

That means Likud is drawing 23-28% of the vote.

Even CarolC should know that 23-28% of VOTERS does not constitute a majority of ISRAELIS.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: C. Ham
Date: 04 Feb 09 - 09:10 AM

U.N. backs off claim Israel struck Gaza school

    JERUSALEM (JTA) -- The United Nations has backed off a claim that Israel struck one of its schools in Gaza.

The Jan. 6 incident, in which 43 Palestinians were killed, has been a major point of contention between Israel and the United Nations over the Gaza military operation.

The U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Jerusalem, Maxwell Gaylord, said Monday that the Israeli mortar shells landed in the street near the United Nations Relief and Works Agency school in Gaza and not inside the school, which was sheltering Palestinian refugees, Ha'aretz reported.

In the hours following the strike and ever since, the United Nations, the media and Palestinians in Gaza have accused Israel of striking the school. Israeli army officials have said previously that the two mortar shells could not have done the damage and caused the deaths that occurred near the school. Officials also have maintained that they did not target the school but fired in the direction of Hamas gunfire.

A teacher inside the school compound at the time of the airstrike told Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper last week that no one was killed inside the compound in the wake of the attack.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: beardedbruce
Date: 04 Feb 09 - 08:20 AM

Gaza: UN says Hamas seized food aid and blankets
AP - Wednesday, February 04, 2009 7:38:19 AM
By DIAA HADID

AP Hamas police in Gaza seized thousands of blankets and food parcels meant for needy residents, a U.N. spokesman said Wednesday, threatening to fracture relations between the international agency that cares for most of Gaza's residents and the territory's militant rulers.

Hamas policemen forcibly broke into an aid warehouse in Gaza City on Tuesday evening and confiscated 3,500 blankets and over 4,000 food parcels, said Christopher Gunness, a spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

Gunness said the incident was "absolutely unacceptable."

He said police confiscated aid meant for 500 families after U.N. officials refused to voluntarily hand it over to the Hamas-run Ministry of Social Affairs. Similar U.N. aid packages had already been distributed to 70,000 residents over the past two weeks.

Ahmad Kurd, the Hamas Minister of Social Affairs, did not deny the seizure of the aid Wednesday. He charged the U.N. was giving the aid to local groups with ties to Hamas opponents.

"UNRWA did not do what it said it would do, and began distributing its aid to groups that tie their activities to political activism," Kurd said.

Israeli officials have charged in the past that the militant group routinely confiscates aid meant for needy Gazans, but Gunness said this was the first time Hamas had seized its goods since taking control of the territory in 2007.

The U.N. agency provides food, education and health care services to more than half of Gaza's 1.4 million residents.

Hamas is under pressure to provide aid to Gazans, who are facing more hardship than ever since Israel's devastating three-week military offensive, which ended Jan. 18. The operation, aimed at halting rocket fire from the territory, killed hundreds of civilians and left thousands destitute after their homes were damaged or destroyed.

Tensions between Hamas and the U.N. could make it difficult for the international agency to continue providing desperately needed services.

Some international donors had expressed concern that funds meant to rebuild Gaza could fall into Hamas' hands, and the U.N. had been trying to assuage those concerns.

The United Nations is expected to take a leading role in rebuilding Gaza, because Israel and the international community will not deal with Hamas.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: beardedbruce
Date: 04 Feb 09 - 07:43 AM

An interesting viewpoint that I think has merit...


Tackling a Fallacy in Gaza

By Michael Gerson
Friday, January 30, 2009; Page A19

Israel's recent operations in Gaza began in an atmosphere of criticism, including the widespread prediction that the use of force wouldn't "solve anything." Since, in this view, a negotiated peace is the only eventual answer to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it is a mistake for Israel to engage its enemies in an endless cycle of violence. Hamas in particular would only be strengthened.

This augury of futility was wrong. Israeli forces, responding to an intolerable provocation, inflicted lopsided casualties on Hamas, which displayed a discrediting combination of cowardice and brutality. Hamas fighters used civilians as shields instead of shielding civilians -- and some Palestinians seemed to resent it. Hamas leaders hid in the basements of hospitals while ordering public executions for Palestinian rivals, acting more like members of a criminal gang than a nationalist movement. Allies such as Iran, Syria and Hezbollah provided little practical help to Hamas, probably calculating that its rocket campaign against Israel was suicidal or at least foolishly premature. The international boycott against Hamas is holding. And the scale of missile attacks on Israeli citizens has been dramatically reduced.

"This hasn't solved the problem," retired Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland, a former Israeli national security adviser, told me. "But it has introduced a completely different cost calculation for Hamas." The launching of Hamas rockets against civilians now has a predictable price -- the essence of deterrence. The smuggling of weapons to Gaza through Egypt remains a challenge. But Hamas leaders are currently occupied, Eiland argues, "not just rebuilding buildings, but rebuilding their political standing and legitimacy." And this makes Hamas more likely to keep a cease-fire.

While Israel's military operations didn't accomplish everything, they also didn't accomplish nothing. But the "force doesn't solve anything" argument runs so deep for some that real-world outcomes matter little. Military action by Israel is always counterproductive, because Israel must eventually negotiate with its most bitter enemies. The sooner the better.

Call it the Fallacy of the Eventual Answer. It is true that the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is two states living side by side in peace. But it is false to say that the fight against terrorists and the security of Israel have no part in achieving that goal.

Peace negotiations generally have preconditions, including the security of both parties. If Israelis are convinced that the "peace process" really means impunity for terrorists who attack them, Israel will want no part of that process. If Hamas leaders remain confident in their impunity -- convinced that their most effective strategy is to kill Israeli citizens while hiding behind their own -- they will not be in the proper mood for meaningful negotiations, either. Recent military operations have addressed some of Israel's justified fears and, perhaps, tamed some of Hamas's murderous arrogance.

According to Daniel Schueftan, a senior research fellow at the University of Haifa, Israel faces a "strategic challenge -- a civilian population that lives a few miles from terrorists -- for which we don't have a strategic solution. But we have found some operational answers. In Defensive Shield [the building of Israel's security wall], we brought down suicide bombings by 95 percent, exclusively with coercive force, not politics."

"It is a fairy tale," he says, "to say there are no answers through coercive force. The only things in life that have solutions are crossword puzzles. We have not solutions, but answers -- operational answers that reduce terror to a tolerable level. It is what we do with crime. It is what we do with terrorism."

Would peace negotiations be even a remote possibility if Israel were still besieged by suicide bombers, leaving bloodstains and bitterness at Israeli cafes? So the ugly but effective security wall actually served a purpose in peace negotiations. The same can be said of the establishment of deterrence through the Gaza offensive.

It is amazing that this argument remains an argument, especially after America's experience with the surge in Iraq. For years, military and diplomatic experts have argued that the ultimate solution is Iraqi political reconciliation rather than military force. Which was true, eventually. But the achievement of security through force, it turns out, was a precondition for the process of reconciliation to move forward. The Fallacy of the Eventual Answer actually delayed the peace.

We can try to imagine a world of diplomats without soldiers, but it would be no more peaceful than a society of therapists without policemen. Coercion is not the ultimate source of peace -- but peace is sometimes unachievable without it.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Barry Finn
Date: 04 Feb 09 - 02:57 AM

Israel wasn't looking to toss the Egyptians & the Jordains off their land & move in, were they?

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 03 Feb 09 - 07:50 PM

"There will be peace when Palestine leadership wants peace. When Jordan wanted peace, it got it; when Egypt wanted peace it got it."

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Barry Finn
Date: 03 Feb 09 - 07:28 PM

"There will be peace when Palestine leadership wants peace. When Jordan wanted peace, it got it; when Egypt wanted peace it got it."

Wrong!!!!

There will be peace when Israel decieds to take it's foot off the neck of Palestinians & puts their heads inside a yoke, when they have been beaten so badly that they'll come to except slavery over extermination, when Israeli will bury them in their own ground & then build their house over their graves, until then Israel will except nothing less, unless it the Palestinians retreating to the tunnels & staying there.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 03 Feb 09 - 06:53 PM

There will be peace when Palestine leadership wants peace. When Jordan wanted peace, it got it; when Egypt wanted peace it got it.

Whether or not Lieberman will be a major player may depend in part on what Palestinians decide what the want. Palestine makes a lot of demands, but doesn't offer much in return--a prisoner here, a few Jewish dead there. In times of war, hardliners are more apt to be elected.

They do offer Jews the possibility of living in an Islamic dominated country. That's an offer to good to pass up! Christians had that deal in Lebanon until the 1970s; it worked rather well until the incursion of Palestinians, a state within a state, into that former oasis of the Mediterranean.

Lastly, when children are no longer used as direct or indirect shields there will be no more child killing.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: GUEST,Hugo
Date: 03 Feb 09 - 06:01 PM

My point is quite simple ...the emergence of Lieberman as a major player in Israel goes some way to showing how the mainstream politics of Israel have moved to the far right in recent years.

This is the man who is out to "get" the Israeli arab parties in the Knesset and the man is likely to emerge as a more central figure in Israeli politics after the election.

However,he will have to go a long way to beat the war crimes committed by the present group of child killers .

The news emerged today that Israel used a type of shell called a "fleshette" in densely packed Gaza.

I am no expert on these things but the shell is fired by a tank and consists of thousands of 4 cm sharp darts which maim and kill when the shell strikes its targets...apparently the darts scatter at speed over a large radius and one can only imagine the damage done in a street ,market or open space. They sound like a sophisticated nail bomb designed to kill and maim...and that is precisely what they did to young kids and women.

Livni and the rest of that wargang have to be held to account for their murderous acts...because it wasn't war it was barbarous crime against a civilian population which had nowhere to run to.
Hugo

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 03 Feb 09 - 02:54 PM

GuestHugo--

In the United States (I don't know where you're from, so you may not know this), Robert Byrd is the longest serving US Senator--55 years or more. Sen. Byrd was a high ranking official--Grand Cyclops--in the Ku Klux Klan, a group that regularly harassed and lynched Negroes...which is not the 'N' word they used. The KKK, and similar groups, still harass Blacks, less often lynching (or otherwise killing them). Some feel he has been a pretty good senator, but I disagree.

So your point about Avigdor (not Avitel) Lieberman is precisely what? It appears he was a member of Kach when he first moved to Israel, but it does not appear that he had any special status in the group.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: GUEST,Hugo
Date: 03 Feb 09 - 02:26 PM

I have just read that one of Israel's leading right wing politicians...Avital Lieberman was a signed up member of the Kahane party...regarded even by aggressive zionists as a dangerous and basically mad outfit of gun crazed paramilitaries.
Lieberman's group believe they will do well in the elections.
Hugo

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 03 Feb 09 - 01:29 PM

I should rephrase this part...

"The above link contains a day by day account (with pictures) of the Jewish taking of Jaffa by force, and it gives accounts of Palestinians fleeing (and being driven into the sea), during the more than four months before Israel even declared its independence."

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 03 Feb 09 - 01:18 PM

The version of history that is being colored is the one that paints the situation as if Israel is being asked to give up something that was its in the first place and that it is being asked to absorb people who were not there in the first place.

Right now, what I am saying, is not that Israel should be asked to take in anyone who is not there now. Even though someone keeps trying to frame the situation in those terms, that is a very dishonest way to frame it. What I am calling on Israel to do is to stop ethnically cleansing people from where they are now. And it's not my coloration of the situation to say that this is what they are doing and have intended to do all along. The leaders of Israel have made it clear that this was their plan since before Israel was even a state.

It is not in the least bit legal for Israel to expand its borders for any reason whatever. It is a violation of international law, to which Israel is a signatory, for it to expand its borders. It is illegal for it to take land by force. It is illegal for it to wage a military occupation of lands outside the pre-1967 borders. It is illegal for it to transfer its own population into areas that it occupies. So yes, it is most definitely a crime for Israel to expand its borders. And no matter how many times people repeat the lie that the Palestinians left voluntarily, that will not make it true.

Those people in Gaza: where do they come from, and why are they so mad?

The above link contains a day by day account (with pictures) of the Jewish taking of Jaffa by force, and it gives accounts of Palestinians fleeing (and being driven into the sea), more than four months before Israel even declared its independence.

The old lies are just that - lies. There is too much historical evidence available for people to be able to get away with repeating the standard Israeli propaganda lies any more, and the more people persist in trying to mislead the world by telling them, the more they convince the world that nothing Israel says on any subject should be believed.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: beardedbruce
Date: 03 Feb 09 - 12:41 PM

Israeli airstrikes respond to medium-range rocket

Aron Heller, Associated Press Writer – 31 mins ago AP –


AP JERUSALEM – A medium-range rocket from Gaza exploded in the Israeli city of Ashkelon on Tuesday, and witnesses said Israeli warplanes responded before nighftall with airstrikes on the tunnels used by the territory's militant Hamas rulers to smuggle in weapons and supplies.

The latest fighting came as Hamas delegates met in Cairo for talks with Egyptian officials trying to mediate a long-term truce with Israel.

The Grad rocket from Gaza was the first of its kind to be fired at the city of 122,000 since informal cease-fires were declared separately by Israel and Hamas two weeks ago at the end of Israel's bruising three-week-long offensive. The rocket exploded in an open space in the middle of the city and no one was injured, police said.

The Grad is distinctive from the home-made projectiles more commonly used by Hamas and smaller militant groups, as it is manufactured abroad, has greater reach and carries a more powerful payload.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak pledged that if Hamas held its fire Israel would do likewise, while violence would be met by violence.

"If there is quiet then there will be quiet," he told reporters during a tour of northern Israel's border with Lebanon. "If it is necessary to deal another, even stronger, blow then at the right time and in the right way an additional and stronger blow will be dealt."

Residents near the Gaza-Egypt border said they received telephone messages from the Israeli military ahead of the airstrikes warning them to leave their homes ahead the airstrike. Such warnings are becoming routine.

The recorded messages, in Arabic, said people who work in tunnels, live near them or are "giving logistical help to terrorists" should evacuate the area immediately, residents said.

Israel launched its Gaza offensive on Dec. 27 to halt near-daily rocket fire from Gaza at Israel targets. Sporadic rocket and mortar fire from Gaza has continued, however, prompting tough warnings of reprisal from Israeli leaders.

More than a dozen rockets and mortar shells slammed into Israel on Sunday. The following day Israel fired a missile at a car in the town of Rafah, killing a Palestinian militant, and bombed the nearby Gaza-Egypt border, seeking to destroy tunnels that Hamas uses to smuggle in weapons and supplies.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni pledged to keep hitting Hamas as long rockets continue to be fired at Israel, and she ruled out negotiations with Hamas.

"Terror must be fought with force and lots of force. Therefore we will strike Hamas," she said at a security conference Monday. "If by ending the operation we have yet to achieve deterrence, we will continue until they get the message."

Continued violence could work against Livni's government in the Feb. 10 general election and bolster hard-line opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who is seen as the front-runner.

Ashkelon was hit by nearly 100 rockets during the Gaza fighting. Following Tuesday's rocket attack, a local parents' union called for classes to be called off. But city officials announced that school would be open as usual.

Netanyahu later visited the site and pledged to force regime change in Gaza if he is elected.

"A government led by me will topple the Hamas government in Gaza and bring peace and security to the south (of Israel)," his office quoted him as saying.

At negotiations in Cairo, Hamas' top demand is opening of Gaza's borders with Israel and Egypt. The crossings have remained sealed to all but a trickle of supplies since Hamas seized control of Gaza in June 2007 from its rivals in another Palestinian group.

The Hamas delegation, which includes officials from its exiled leadership in Syria, also was to be briefed by the Egyptians about their separate meetings with the Israelis. Hamas and Israel do not negotiate directly.

Israel does not want any deal that gives Hamas a role in controlling Gaza border crossings out of concern that that would permit continued weapons smuggling.

Israelis feared the threat of a two-front war with Lebanon's Hezbollah militia, which held its fire during the onslaught in Gaza. But the Israeli government believes Hezbollah is planning an attack against Israel, or Israelis abroad, to mark the Feb. 12 anniversary of the killing of a senior Hezbollah commander in a car bombing the militia blames on Israel.

The Israeli National Security Agency is warning all Israelis traveling abroad to be extra vigilant for fear of murder or kidnap attempts by Hezbollah agents.

Barak said Lebanon's government, which includes Hezbollah, could also face retaliation if Israel is attacked.

"Hezbollah is not just a terror organization running around the hills but also sits at the Cabinet table in Beirut," Barak said. "Therefore the Lebanese government bears overall responsibility and any attempt to attack Israel will be met with a response."

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 03 Feb 09 - 11:34 AM

Guest Hugo - I see you ignored my first two graphs as if I wrote about Shalit in a vacuum, but I expect responses like that.

As to how this unfortunate war can be ended?

Well, for starters, Hamas,, Hezbullah and Fatah can negotiate in good faith as did Egypt and Jordan, and implement any agreement decided. Israel thought Yassir Arafat was negotiating in good faith during the Oslo Accords and again during the 2000 Camp David brokered, by Bill Clinton.

But Arafat reneged on both! Another, Intifada began, perhaps with the secret blessing of Arafat.

Have you, GuestHugo, ever wondered what a wonderful country a Palestinian state might might be by now, where refugees become citizens, and where, perhaps in economic union with Israel, cities and towns flourish. Children go safely to school. Businesses prosper and jobs are available both in Palestine and in Israel.

Palestine reaps the whirlwind for Arafat's perfidy, moral weakness and greed as Palestinian leader--16 years of wars and killings. I despise his memory for what he did to Palestine, and to Israel as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: soulkat9
Date: 03 Feb 09 - 11:17 AM

World Peace

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: robomatic
Date: 03 Feb 09 - 11:08 AM

If Israel is trying to commit Genocide on Palestinians, then it should be using the same technique on the polar bears. They would triple their population in a few years.

Hamas is in a state of war with Israel, does not go by any standards of warfare such as Geneva, and does not hesitate to kill their own people without benefit of a trial if they are considered a threat in any way. They have killed far more Palestinians than the Israelis, including suspected informers and sympathizers, violaters of the Hamas interpretation of Islamic law, members of Fatah, and, of course, civilians who they use as shields and cover.

Carol, your version of the history of Israel and Israeli borders is severely colored everytime you give it because you include motivations you ascribe to Israel as opposed to just staying with facts. The war of Israeli Independence was fought against Arab States which were well armed and staffed, and the Palestinians for the most part fled in obedience to broadcasts by the Mufti who wanted them safely out of the way while the Jews were dealt with. This much is fact. What isn't fact is your argument that in '48 the Jewish side was motivated by desire for more land. I think it is more likely they were motivated by survival.

That having been said, it is no crime for Israel to seek borders that insure her survival. Having absorbed a large population of displaced Jews, it is reasonable to expect Arab countries to absorb a similarly displaced ex-Palestinian population.

The one-sided viewpoint that Israel must absorb the Palestinians as well is a major obstacle to Peace. Israel is expected to retreat to former borders which were themselves determined by conflict, AS WELL AS accept in incoming population which will end its existence as a Jewish State.

If Israel is expected to accede to multiple demands, any one of which can lead to her destruction, why be surprised when she accedes to NONE of these demands?

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: GUEST,Hugo
Date: 03 Feb 09 - 10:59 AM

To John
Unfortunately for Shalit your sentiments are the sentiments of the ruling group in Israel...and that could well mean a long period of confinement for Cplr Shalit .
You call the Palestinians actions "acts of war and terror" but I want to know how are the Palestinians supposed to defend the theft of their land,the demolishment of their homes by those giant bulldozers,the shooting of their young people with rubber bullets, the economic blockade of starving Gaza the numerous daily racist humiliations that go to make up this never ending illegal occupation by a military force?
Is there any" legal" form of Palestinian resistance to this continued illegality by this violent state?

Hugo

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 03 Feb 09 - 10:29 AM

Over the years there have been plenty of prisoner exchanges between Israel and Palestine. Usually it is on the order of 200-300 Palestinians for a couple of Israelis. Several times it has been live Palestinians for a couple of Israeli corpses (so they could receive proper Jewish burial rites).

One wonders how many of the thousands of Palestinians released have returned to the planning, leading, fighting or otherwise supporting Palestinian acts of war and terror. We know what the corpses have done, 100%!

When Israel finds the time right, prisoners will be exchanged once again.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: GUEST,ifor
Date: 03 Feb 09 - 06:20 AM

The Palestinians consider Shalit to be a prisoner of war..and I think they are right to do so.

He could have been released ages ago but Israel would not release its prisoners in exchange.

By my rough and ready reckoning there are thousands of palestinians languishing in Israeli jails.They are being held illegally by an occupying power which refuses to obey UN resolutions to leave the occupied territories.

Israel has also held women and children in its prisons and the jail ,I think called Kiam, controlled by its proxies under Israeli supervision in south Lebanon was a by word for cruelty and torture.

Human Rights groups have had plenty to say about Israeli torture,mistreatment or neglect of Palestinians prisoners.
I am not even sure if the Red Cross has access to Israeli prisons.

It must be hell for Shalit in his jail and I want to see him released. I also want those nameless Palestinians held in Israeli jails to walk free at the same time.

The problem is the state of Israel has become a killing machine and is in the contol of extremists who believe they can bludgeon the palestinians into abject surrender....the release of a single Israeli prisoner is not a priority for Livni and those other blood soaked murderers.
ifor

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Teribus
Date: 03 Feb 09 - 01:51 AM

Hamas War Crime:

Treatment of Prisoners - Gilat Shalit

"That man has suffered enough! The Palestinians say they will release him after the illegal blockade is lifted and Palestinian prisoners are released simultaneously." Guest ifor.

It is illegal to take hostages and demand your enemy comply with demands in exchange for that prisoners well being or release.

Other illegal actions relating to his imprisonment are that he has no direct contact with his family or with the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Nobody knows whether he is alive or dead - last word was that he meant less than a cat to his captors - case of mind over matter eh CarolC, Guest ifor, they don't mind because he doesn't matter.

This of course will most likely turn out with the return not of Gilat Shalit but with the return of the body of Gilat Shalit.

If there is one law for the goose it should be the same law for the gander. Perhaps Israel should treat their Hamas prisoners in the same manner.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 10:40 PM

I forgot to include the link with my 02 Feb 09 - 07:21 PM post...

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10007043

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 10:35 PM

I bolded what was written. I did not change anything.


The blockade targets civilians. When the basic necessities for life such as food, water, shelter, and medical care are withheld from a civilian population, there is no making excuses about accuracy. In such a case the civilians are being targeted. That would fall under this category...

[G]enocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 08:47 PM

Gee whiz, golly, I was just funning with you in my response to Bobad. I guess you didn't see the humor. It's okay.

Regarding your recent posting of definitions of Genocide" Are the Bold clauses/sentences your emphasis within the defintions? Are they found that way in a secondary source that you used? Or are they actually written that way in the original documents?

What ever the case, I obviously do not believe those portions emphasized reflect what Israel is doing in Gaza. What I believe is going on, and what some others here also agree, is that Israel is acting directly on provocations, and trying to be as accurate as possible in the targets they attack. Do they sometimes hit the wrong target? Unfortunately they probably do, sometimes. That is certainly not genocide in any of the definitions you posted.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 08:09 PM

...that small area does qualify to be on David Letterman's Top Ten...
should read: DOES NOT

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 07:48 PM

CarolC the Orwellian mealy mouth said so. Some people can dish it out...


On another note...

Hasbara online

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 07:27 PM

Bobad, I'm a slow learner (CarolC told me so) so let me see if I understand your last post.

Are you telling us at Mudcat, that despite the propagandist reporting re the Gaza Strip, that small area does qualify to be on David Letterman's Top Ten List of most densely populated areas (per square kilometer)? Did you also cite sources so that others can check them? Did you even revise downward the figure for Tel Aviv so that it wouldn't seem like you were exaggerating?

You know, I think even this slow learner learned something today.

Great bit of research, Bobad.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 07:22 PM

Oh, ok. I stand corrected then.

What Israel is doing to the Palestnians is genocide.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 07:21 PM

More on the definition of the word, genocide...

        
"It is a very specific term, referring to violent crimes committed against groups with the intent to destroy the existence of the group. Human rights, as laid out in the U.S. Bill of Rights or the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, concern the rights of individuals.

In 1944, a Polish-Jewish lawyer named Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959) sought to describe Nazi policies of systematic murder, including the destruction of the European Jews. He formed the word "genocide" by combining geno-, from the Greek word for race or tribe, with -cide, from the Latin word for killing. In proposing this new term, Lemkin had in mind "a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves." The next year, the International Military Tribunal held at Nuremberg, Germany, charged top Nazis with "crimes against humanity." The word "genocide" was included in the indictment, but as a descriptive, not legal, term.
        

On December 9, 1948, in the shadow of the Holocaust and in no small part due to the tireless efforts of Lemkin himself, the United Nations approved the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This convention establishes "genocide" as an international crime, which signatory nations "undertake to prevent and punish." It defines genocide as:

[G]enocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 07:14 PM

"Was it while the killing was ongoing? Or was it only after the last Jew was killed by Hitler that what he was doing could be described as genocidal?"

It WAS genocide when he killed the first Jew (and others by the way) after planning a systematic extermination. During the time he was exterminating Jews, it WAS genocide. And when the killing of Jews was ended, it Was Still genocide. Even if there might have been a day, perhaps Weinachten, during that period when not a single person was exterminated, it was still genocide. Nice try using the word 'genocidal' to try to obfuscate your point....but no cigar.

"Slow learners": is that some sort of ad hominum attack that you criticize others for?

And I still don't know what you mean by an 'accomplished genocide'. I'm beginning to think you don't either.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: bobad
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 07:03 PM

"Gaza is a surrounded strip of land.I believe it is about 40 miles long and a couple of miles wide. It is the most densely packed place in the world." ifor

Let us now dispel famous myths.

"here's a useful corrective here to the lie that Gaza is the most crowded place on Earth:

    The UK politician George Galloway wrote in The Glasgow Record last month that the Gaza Strip is "the most densely populated piece of earth on the planet." Galloway wrote that 1.5 million Palestinians live there.

    Daoud Kuttab, a Palestinian journalist currently teaching at Princeton, wrote March 26 that Gaza is "one of the most densely populated places on earth, with 3,823 people per square kilometre." Kuttab's figure is in line with recent Gaza population estimates of 1.4 million.

    If Galloway's estimate of 1.5 million Gaza population is correct, this is almost 4,200 people per square kilometer. The Central Intelligence Agency projects that the Gaza population will reach 1,537,269 in July. This would bring the density to 4,270 people per square kilometer.

But this isn't even as crowded as Tel Aviv. Gaza had plenty of problems. But they are nothing - nothing - to do with population density:


    Both Singapore and Hong Kong have more than 6,000 people per square kilometer. Tel Aviv has more than 7,000 people per square kilometer. If you count the suburbs of Tel Aviv, the metropolitan area with its population of 2.3 million has a density of more than 5,000 people per square kilometer, which is considerably more crowded than the Gaza Strip as reckoned by Galloway or Kuttab or the CIA.

    Selected estimates of population density:

    Mumbai
    27,209 people/sq km
    http://www.mcgm.gov.in/

    Kolkata
    24,000 people/sq km
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolkata

    Tel Aviv
    7,445 people/sq km
    (385,000 people, 51.8 sq km)

    Hong Kong
    6,352 people/sq km
    http://www.gov.hk/en/about/abouthk/factsheets/docs/population.pdf

    Singapore
    6,252 people/sq km
    http://www.singstat.gov.sg/stats/keyind.html

    London
    5,100 people/sq km

    Tel Aviv metro area including suburbs
    5,050 people/sq km
    (2.3 million people, 453 sq km)

    Moscow
    4,900 people/sq km

    Tokyo/Yokahama
    4,750 people/sq km

    Warsaw
    4,300 people/sq km

    Gaza Strip per CIA projection
    4,270 people/sq km
    (1,537,269 population July 2008, 360 sq km)

    Gaza Strip per George Galloway
    4,167 people/sq km
    (1.5 million people, 360 sq km)

    Gaza Strip per Daoud Kuttab
    3,822 people/sq km

    The numbers for London, Tel Aviv metro area, Moscow, Tokyo/Yokohama and Warsaw are from the City Mayors site."
    http://www.citymayors.com/statistics/largest-cities-density-125.html

http://www.spectator.co.uk/stephenpollard/631851/gaza-is-not-too-crowded.thtml

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 06:41 PM

That would explain all the rhetoric about "Iranian backed Hamas" that Israel and the US media were using as their drumbeat for the last several weeks.

Israel has to work fast to destroy Iran soon because Iran's going to be having elections this summer and it doesn't look to good for Ahmadinejad to get reelected. Without Ahmadinejad as their boogey man, it will be a lot more difficult for them to make a case for bombing the shit out of Iran, especially with Obama in office.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 06:35 PM

Yes, anybody can if they are signatories to the court. The question is, is there any signatory to the court who will bring charges against Hamas? Maybe. Then again, maybe not.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Nickhere
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 06:31 PM

Is This What It's All Been About?

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 06:30 PM

I'll try to simplify it for the slow learners.


Past tense:

Committed genocide


Present tense:

Committing genocide


What's the difference between these two things? When Hitler was systematically killing Jews, at what point was he committing genocide?   Was it while the killing was ongoing? Or was it only after the last Jew was killed by Hitler that what he was doing could be described as genocidal? Or was there some magic number beyond which his systematic and deliberate extermination of human beings became genocide, but not before?

Extra points for those who are capable of articulating an intelligent response without resorting to insulting language (a lot to ask for, I know).

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: GUEST,ifor
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 06:20 PM

er Lizzie,
Gaza is a surrounded strip of land.I believe it is about 40 miles long and a couple of miles wide. It is the most densely packed place in the world. It is surrounded by barbed wire and the sea.

Its borders are controlled by Israel which has total air dominance and a navy which is shameless and ruthless in pounding ,for example ,picnicers on the beach but civilian targets in general.Its only airport was destroyed a few years ago by the Israelis.

The Palestinians have a few thousand lightly armed fighters with rifles and mortars and not much else apart from those home made rockets which are like super fireworks and which mainly land on open spaces.

Are these fighters supposed to line up on some open field to be blown up?

I remember the Americans used to say that those pesky vietcong would not fight fair with their hit and run tactics ..and the americans lost in the end.

I dont think the Palestinians can beat the might of Israel backed by the USA and the UK on their own but it is also clear that Israel simply can't pulverise the Palestinians into submission.The Palestinians under the Israeli solution either die slowly ..or they die quickly.

The Israelis for all their superiority were also unable to free Shalit presumably because they were unwilling to venture on foot deep into the heart of Gaza...That man has suffered enough! The Palestinians say they will release him after the illegal blockade is lifted and Palestinian prisoners are released simultaneously. There surely is the basis for a ceasefire or truce but it is Israeli intransigence in the pursuit of victory which is the obstacle to progress.
ifor

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 05:54 PM

Just a reminder since I don't do HTML, the italicized words in your post were 'has been committed'.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Teribus
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 05:51 PM

Israel does not have to bring charges, anybody can.

The war crimes charges that can be laid at the door of Hamas are:

- Treatment of prisoners of war
- Deliberately endangering the civilian population by storing arms, munitions and explosives where civilians are used as human shields
- Mounting attacks from buldings containing civilians
- Deliberate indiscriminate targeting of civilian centres of population.

Very pleased to here the Israeli PM's warning of the intended use of "disproportionate" force in response to future rocket attacks from Gaza, I particularly liked the bit about "tit-for-tat" now being over - not before time.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 05:50 PM

At the point in which a deliberate strategy or policy is developed to eliminate a population through any means that involves killing, and that strategy or policy is put into practice, that is the point at which a genocide becomes "in progress". However, at that point it cannot be said that a genocide has been committed. Only that one is in the process of being committed." 02 Feb 09 - 10:11 AM from CarolC

That is just about the most Orwellian statement you've ever made, especially in light of your quoting a definition of genocide later in your post.

When one cuts through the verbage, the quotation marks and the italics, what you truly have said is, "When the strategy or policy [of purposefully and systematically killing a population] is put into practice, it IS genocide." (and yes, I know you did not actually write those words, so don't tell me I put words in your mouth.)

If that is what you believe is happening, say so! Straight out! Take the kudos from those who agree with you, and the heat from those who disagree with you.

And I still don't know what you mean by an 'accomplished genocide'. I thought by now you'd have made a definition up.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 03:15 PM

Israel has not signed on to the ICC, so it cannot try to bring any cases before that court. So my guess is that Hamas will not be tried in the ICC.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 03:05 PM

"...there is huge anger across the world and people want to see those who planned and executed the mass murders brought to justice."


Then ask Hamas to step forward and explain why they have deliberately had their people killed, by putting their weapons right deep amongst them, knowing that Israel would have to strike back and strike the place where those weapons were coming from.

You may get some interesting answers.

Or..

You may get.....absolutely nothing...

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

Carole makes a very good point in her above posting.

The Israeli military is an illegally occupying military force that has behaved with the utmost brutality in the occupied Gaza.

It has imposed a blockade on the city of around a million and a half people and alarming reports are filtering out of malnutrition and hunger and i am sure cholera and diptheria cannot be far behind.

Israel has waged an illegal chemical,biological and conventional war against the Gazans and God only knows what other weapons have been tested out on the flesh and blood of the children of that city.

In answer to Teribus above,the Palestinians have been resisting an occupying army and it is no crime to resist an invader.

Check out the casualty list: 14 Isaeli dead..11 of whom were soldiers...there were thousands of Palestinians maimed ,over a million terrorised and over a thousand killed.Apparently the number of actual Palestinian fighters killed in action was quite low.

Israel waged its war against civilians massacring them in their houses with bombs and tank shells,slaughtering them in UN schools,blasing their clinics and hospitals and shooting them in their dozens as they tried to flee under white flags.

I know the zionists on mudcat won't agree but there is huge anger across the world and people want to see those who planned and executed the mass murders brought to justice.
ifor

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Teribus
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 01:16 PM

Does that also mean that accusations against Hamas of war crimes committed in Gaza will be investigated and possibly prosecuted in the ICC.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 12:45 PM

The International Criminal Court is right now looking into the possibility that it may have jurisdiction over Gaza because Israel has said that it has no authority over Gaza, and the Palestinians are petitioning it to hear their case. If so, accusations against Israel of war crimes committed in Gaza will be investigated and possibly prosecuted in the ICC.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: GUEST,ifor
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 12:34 PM

Adolf Eichmann was a war criminal brought eventually to justice in Israel.
War crimes were also committed in Gaza by Israeli soldiers who attacked civilians and women and children in particular killing hundreds and maiming thousands.
When will these war criminals be brought to justice?

This atrocity must not be filed away and forgotten.The Palestinians in Gaza, a city of refugees,must know that the killers of their children have their day in an international court of law.

I understand that Israeli battalion commanders have been told to wear face scarves to hide their identities when facing the tv cameras because some have been identified as possible war criminals and may face arrest in Europe in years to come.

Already one Israeli war planner faced a very rough reception in north London last week when dozens of protestors branded him a war criminal and tried to arrest him at a meeting.

We can't have one law for the Mugabes of this world and no law for the child killers who did their dirty work with tanks,jet bombers and sniper fire.
ifor

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 12:32 PM

http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2009/01/22/american-jews-oppose-israeli-policy-in-gaza/

http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2009/01/23/michael-ratner-on-gaza/

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 12:28 PM

People who are unable to understand a hypothetical probably shouldn't be posting here. Try to understand the difference between these two statements...

"But I don't think anyone would say that Hitler had committed genocide had he only succeeded in killing a few thousand Jews before being stopped."

"But I don't think anyone would say that Hitler had committed genocide because he had only succeeded in killing a few thousand Jews before being stopped."

The first is what I actually said. The second is what a very desperate person is pretending I said.

We don't know how many Gazan's Israel has killed today. There's no way for us to know at this time how many people died today because of Israel's blockade of Gaza, which, by the way, is not in any way defensive in nature. Allowing food and other essentials to enter Gaza does not protect Israelis from anything. It is offensive in nature and is designed to eliminate a civilian population. Which is genocide.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Teribus
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 11:33 AM

"But I don't think anyone would say that Hitler had committed genocide had he only succeeded in killing a few thousand Jews before being stopped." - CarolC

I would never have had you pegged as a holocaust denier Carol - 6,000,000+ cannot or could not in any way be passed off as "killing a few thousand Jews".

"The government of Israel, on the other hand, has been in the process of eliminating Palestinians as a people since before Israel became a state." - CarolC

Really CarolC?? When exactly?? If memory serves me correctly the only time the Jewish Settlers and latterly the Israelis ever fought their Arabs neighbours was immediately in response to an attack by those neighbours on them - the concept is known as self-defence.

By the bye CarolC how many Palstinians did the Israelis deliberately kill today??

Oh CarolC, Here are those population figures:

Late Ottoman Period 1851 to 1919:
- 1851 - total population 340,000 - 327,000 Arabs - 13,000 Jews
- 1919 - total population 565,000 - 500,000 Arabs - 65,000 Jews

British Mandate 1921 to 1948:
- 1922 - total population 816,000 - 723,000 Arabs - 93,000 Jews
- 1948 - total population 1,969,000 - 1,319,000 Arabs - 650,000 Jews

OK then CarolC a fierce degree of "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing" went on before Israel came into being. The Arab population has almost doubled.

Post Mandate to present:
- 1950 - total population 2,375,100 - 1,172,100 Arabs - 1,203,000 Jews
- 2005 - total population 10,414,800 - 5,139,100 Arabs - 5,275,700 Jews

In 1950 the percentage of Jews making up the total population was 50.65%

In 2005 the percentage of Jews making up the total population was 50.65%

Rather weird figures considering all that "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing".

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 10:13 AM

I love this one from today's Jews sans frontieres...

http://jewssansfrontieres.blogspot.com/2009/02/monthly-antisemitic-cartoon-rabbi-hier.html

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 10:11 AM

At the point in which a deliberate strategy or policy is developed to eliminate a population through any means that involves killing, and that strategy or policy is put into practice, that is the point at which a genocide becomes "in progress". However, at that point it cannot be said that a genocide has been committed. Only that one is in the process of being committed.

I don't know how many people need to be killed in order for it to be described as a genocide that has been committed. But I don't think anyone would say that Hitler had committed genocide had he only succeeded in killing a few thousand Jews before being stopped. Nevertheless, while he was killing them, it would have been accurate to say that he was in the process of committing genocide. Remember the definition of genocide...

Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group.

Hamas is not trying to eliminate the category of people known as Jews. They are trying to remove the military occupation from their country. The government of Israel, on the other hand, has been in the process of eliminating Palestinians as a people since before Israel became a state. They have been doing it both in terms of ethnically cleansing them, as well as through a deliberate denial of their existence and history. And now, since they are deliberately denying the people in Gaza the most basic fundamentals of the ability to sustain life, they are also in the process of eliminating the Palestinians as a people through deliberate killing. That is a genocidal act even though at this point relatively few people have so far been killed.