Palestine (continuation)

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 01:00 PM

That right- YOU don't think that Jews have any rights even in towns they have lived in for several hundred years, after founding them in unoccupied areas where no-one else lkived.


I Think your comments are full of lies, and do NOT address the points I have asked, again.



"I seem to remember your saying that the Palestinians have no right to occupy the land they are now living on - can you tell us what you feel should happen to they? "

I seem to recall that YOU have never given the Jews any right to even live- killing Jews is just self-defense, from your comments.

Moslim Palestinians have the right to go live in the 77% of the Mandate Palestine that Great Britain gave them in the 1920's.

YOU seem to think that if Jews are driven out of an Arab land, THEY have no right to any land- so WHY do you give Moslim Palestinians rights that you deny to Jewish or Christian Palestinians?

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 12:25 PM

A little more time now:
"There HAS been ethnic cleansing BY THE ARAB MOSLIMS from 1948 to 1967"
No there hasn't - there has been a dispute over land in which no side has come out with clean hands. Since then, the Israelis have been pretty widely recognised as the aggressors and the human rights abusers, which is what concerns most of us here.
Many of the victims were not even born in 1967 - let alone 1948.
They have up to the present day been aiming that aggression at civilians - massacres of refugees (among others), chemical warfare, starvation of an already impoverished people, ghettoisation, seziure of land, the wholesale eviction of entire communities, the killing of aid workers (with tax theft
I seem to remember your saying that the Palestinians have no right to occupy the land they are now living on - can you tell us what you feel should happen to they?
The rest of your questions have been long answered - (eye-for-an-eye - remember) - maybe you have the same type of dislexia that Keith has been suffering from for so long.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 11:55 AM

"I take it you have nothing worthwhile to even say, from your reply. "
It appears not Brucie
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 10:10 AM

Still waiting on your reply to my posts....


..................................................................
Date: 18 Nov 11 - 09:30 AM

Jim,

The facts show that

1. There HAS been ethnic cleansing BY THE ARAB MOSLIMS from 1948 to 1967
1. The Fact of Israeli ethnic cleansing is not yet determined one way or the other. Looking at the Arab population of Israel vs the Jewish population of Arab nations, you are hard pressed to justify the claim, but feel free to try.If you have factual statements to make, rather than lying rants by known bigots, feel free to present them.

MY questions were NOT "an eye for an eye". I was asking if you thought it better for Israel to

1. Continue to treat the Palestinians the way they are presently
2. OR Treat the Palestinians the way the Arab Moslims have treated the Jews,
3. OR Treat the Palestinians the way the Other Arab Moslim States have treated the Palestinians.


I understand you may not want to consider answering a question, when you can rant about the person who disagrees with you, but I would like to know which YOU think is the best course of action for the Palestinians to hope for.

..............................................................
From: beardedbruce
Date: 18 Nov 11 - 11:13 AM

Jim,

As usual, you fail to address the question, and make claims without any factual basis.

I take it you have nothing worthwhile to even say, from your reply.

...................................................................

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 09:48 AM

Still denying they happened and still refusing to respond to your Bedouin claim?
There have been at least two enquiries - one by the perpetrators of the massacre - the Israelis, and one led by Sean McBride
The Israeli verdict on itself -
"The Israeli government established the Kahan Commission to investigate, and in early 1983 it found that Israeli military personnel were aware that a massacre was in progress without taking serious steps to stop it. It therefore regarded Israel as having indirect responsibility."
damning enough - if prejudiced in its own favour - Begin would have been tried for his part in it if he hadn't been appointed prime minister.
And the Bedouins - I take it that your defence is that the reports (including The Irish Times and The Economist) fall under your description of lefty journals - thanks - that'll do nicely thank you.
Dictionary definition of holocaust "any widespread horrific destruction of human life" - definition of holocaust denier - one who denies the above.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: GUEST,keith A
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 09:02 AM

From your cut/paste.
"To this day, there has been only one official enquiry, that of the Israeli Commission"

So you lied about "official enquiries" and "independent enquiries" that you said existed and blamed Israel.
Can we have an apology for those lies Jim?

Your piece was written a quarter of a century later.
The eye witnesses that could not be found at the time are now queing in droves.
The same ones that witnessed the Jenin massacre?
The ones that saw Jews throwing bodies off the Marmara?

I am not impressed by another lefty jornalist swallowing it all uncritically.
He says,"in what remains of the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, " but forgets to mention that they were destroyed in a much worse massacre, more recently, by Muslim militias

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 08:56 AM

Can we establish exactly what you are claiming - that all the reports of the Bedouins being forcibly moved onto disease-ridden sites, and the protest they are mounting for having been moved - are all made up lies by a hostile press, or, in your book, such treatment is acceptible to already impoverished men women and children.
Either one will do nicely, thank you
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 08:29 AM

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 07:48 AM

Thoughts on Bedouin.
From Wiki.
"Ismail Khaldi is the first Bedouin deputy consul of the State of Israel and the highest ranking Muslim in the Israeli foreign service.[85] Khaldi is a strong advocate of Israel. While acknowledging that the state of Israeli Bedouin minority is not ideal, he said

I am a proud Israeli - along with many other non-Jewish Israelis such as Druze, Bahai, Bedouin, Christians and Muslims, who live in one of the most culturally diversified societies and the only true democracy in the Middle East. Like America, Israeli society is far from perfect, but let us deals honestly. By any yardstick you choose -- educational opportunity, economic development, women and gay's rights, freedom of speech and assembly, legislative representation -- Israel's minorities fare far better than any other country in the Middle East"

I also read that, every year, between 5 and 10% of all Bedouin males reaching the required age VOLUNTEER for the army of Israel.

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 07:46 AM

From the (no doubt highly biased) Le Monde Diplomatique
Jiim Carroll

TWENTY YEARS AFTER THE MASSACRES AT SABRA AND SHATILA
The past is always present
The massacres in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon in 1982, when hundreds of civilians were butchered by rightwing militia, remain crucial events in the history of the Palestinian people.
by Pierre Péan
TWENTY years have passed, but re-read the accounts (1) or speak to survivors in what remains of the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, and the words still drip red. Time has not washed away the blood. All through my investigation I was horrified as I listened to story after story about children with their throats slit, or pregnant women with their bellies slashed open, or heads and limbs hacked off. I felt physically sick.
I did not approach what remains of the Sabra and Shatila camps through the main entrance but via a dirty district on the periphery, home to new, mostly Asian, arrivals. I entered the main street that once linked Gaza hospital, which no longer exists, to the main entrance near the Kuwaiti embassy. The embassy stands out, incongruously luxurious, as is the nearby sports centre where Palestinian and Lebanese adults who escaped the massacre were questioned.
People now made their way to the camp between shops and stalls selling fruit, CDs, new and second-hand goods, cars, scooters.
How do you select between direct and indirect witnesses to the massacres? Their voices subdued, they brought alive the scenes of September 1982.
Um Shawki, 52, lost 17 members of her family, including a 12-year-old son and her husband. She lived in the Bir Hassan district near the Kuwaiti embassy. After 1982, she moved with her 12 surviving children to the main street in Shatila and lives on the fourth floor of a poorly constructed building. Her apartment is clean; artificial flowers complement its soft furnishings and pictures are stuck or nailed to the walls, of Al Quds (Jerusalem) and the Hamas flag. She does not belong to Hamas: "I don't belong to any organisation. I would only join when I was sure of the outcome." And her children? "I don't want them to sacrifice themselves for anything, but on the day I am certain of getting my revenge, I'll encourage them and be at their side."
Day and night she revisits the memories of the corpses, the mutilated bodies, the husband and son she never saw again, and whose fate she never knew. The colours of her room do not brighten her sombre dress and eyes. She is unsmiling. She becomes angry, though she does not raise her voice, as she relives her family's second tragedy, the first being their departure in 1948 from Tarisha, a village near Haifa. "Someone knocked at the door and said: 'We are Lebanese, we have come to search for weapons'. My husband opened the door. He was not worried because he didn't belong to any fighting group. He worked at the golf club, near the airport."
She spoke of three Israeli soldiers and a soldier from the Lebanese Forces, the rightwing Christian militia. They entered the house, took her daughter's bracelets, tore out her own earrings - one of her earlobes is still torn - and beat them.
She is sure those soldiers came from Israel.
"They didn't wear the same uniforms as the Lebanese Forces and didn't speak Arabic. I don't know whether they were speaking Hebrew, but I am sure they were Israelis."
That is not impossible. The Bir Hassan district, outside the camp perimeter, was occupied by the Israeli army. Like other Palestinian families, Um Shawki's family was taken inside the camps. "We were put in a lorry that took us to the entrance to the Shatila camp. The soldiers separated the men from the women and children. The Lebanese took the papers from three cousins and then shot them before our eyes. My husband, my son and other cousins were taken away by the Israelis." The women and children went on foot to the sports centre. By the roadside, women were crying and weeping, claiming that all the men had been killed. During the evening, in the chaos, Um Shawki and her children fled to the Al Helou barracks district.
At first light, she left her children in a school and went to find out what had happened to her husband and son. She was not able to speak to any of the Israeli officers present. She heard orders being given in Arabic for the men to have their identity cards stamped.
She saw an Israeli lorry full of adults and youngsters. A woman in tears, who had lost her whole family, showed her where the corpses had been dumped. The two women went to the Orsal district and climbed over Lebanese, Palestinian and Syrian dead. Um Shawki says that she saw hundreds of the dead. Most of the victims were in the Orsal district.
"They were unrecognisable, their faces deformed and swollen. I saw 28 corpses of members of the same Lebanese family, including two disembowelled women. I tried to spot the clothing of my son and husband. I searched all day and went back the next day. I didn't recognise the body of anyone from Bir Hassan." Um Shawki saw Lebanese soldiers dig ditches to bury the dead. She never found her husband and son.
She finds it even harder to talk about her daughter, who was raped. "I think about that day and night. I have brought up my children alone. I had to beg. I shall never forget. I want revenge for that. My heart is as black as my dress. I shall tell my children and my children's children what I saw."
'The end of the target zone'
I walked through a maze of little alleys, with electric flex hanging everywhere and water running on the ground. Finally I came to a building with three or four offices. In one, at the back, Siham Balkis, president of the returnees' association, was sitting straight behind a small desk. Also seated in the office were a Palestinian official and two other survivors. Balkis is about 40. She is a committed and determined militant. Her family came from Kabe, near Acre, in Israel.
She said, evenly: "The massacre began on Thursday evening at about 5.30pm. We could not believe it. We stayed inside the house until Saturday morning and were not aware of much except that on Thursday and Friday a small group of Palestinians and Lebanese had tried to defend themselves, but they were too few in number and did not have enough ammunition. During the night, we saw rocket fire light up the sky and heard shots. We thought it was the Israelis after the fighters and in search of arms. On Saturday morning, when it was calm again, we went out on the balcony and saw a group of Lebanese Forces accompanied by an Israeli officer. The Lebanese told us to come out. As we did, they shouted insults at us. The Israeli had a walkie-talkie. One of the Lebanese took it from him and said: 'We have reached the end of the target zone'."
Siham is sure he was an Israeli because he was wearing a badge with Hebrew writing and did not look like an Arab. He spoke French with the Lebanese.
Along with others, Siham was taken to Gaza hospital. The soldiers escorting them gathered together the foreign doctors and the people who had taken shelter around the hospital.
"They killed about a dozen fighters. Among the doctors and nurses, they spotted a young Palestinian who had put on a white coat, and they killed him. When everyone had been assembled -hundreds of people - we set out towards the Kuwaiti embassy. The streets were littered with corpses. Young women with their wrists tied together. Houses destroyed. Tanks, probably Israeli. The remains of a baby crushed in the tracks of one of them. Before we reached the sports centre, the men were separated. Soldiers told the young men to crawl. Those who crawled well were considered to be fighters and killed by the Lebanese Forces. They kicked the others.
"I saw Saad Haddad (2) with others in front of the Kuwaiti embassy. Then, when we got to the sports centre, lots of Israeli soldiers. An Israeli colonel said the women and children could go home. Later I saw my brother climb into a jeep, while others were put on lorries. I ran towards him, but to no avail. I heard an officer say in Arabic: 'We are going to hand you over to the Lebanese Forces. They'll be better at making you talk'."
All the witnesses tell more or less the same story. Kemla Mhanna, a Lebanese woman who runs a grocery in the Orsal district said: "All those in our district who stayed were killed. Most of them were Lebanese. When I came back, I saw a pile of corpses. Next to my house, a Palestinian was hanging from a meat hook, split in two like a sheep's carcass. I saw that a first layer of bodies had been thrown into a big ditch, then a layer of sand, then another layer of bodies. I also saw another Lebanese man from Orsal district, Hamad Shamas, one of the few survivors of the massacre there. He was in a shelter when two Israelis came along in a jeep with seven or eight soldiers.
"I am positive the soldiers were Israelis because they wore Israeli uniforms and did not speak Arabic properly. The soldiers told us to get out of the shelter and abused us. They told me to put down the child I was carrying and stand in line with the others. One who spoke good Arabic searched everyone and took one man's money; then they shot at us. I was only wounded in the head and thigh, under a pile of bodies. There were 23 dead. I stayed in a shelter all night. At dawn, the smell of death was all around."
The same story
There is nothing new in these accounts. They are like those that Leila Shahid, the Palestinian representative to France and one of the first to enter the camps after the massacres, collected alone, or with Jean Genet. Within memory, they also tally with the accounts of the English, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, German, Irish and American members of the medical team at Gaza hospital, and those recorded by many journalists.
Elias Khoury, a Lebanese writer and dramatist (3), argues passionately that it is impossible for the Palestinian people to turn the past, and the Sabra and Shatila massacres, into a memory. "The normal process of memory does not work with the Palestinians because the massacres continue: Deir Yassine, Qibya (4), Sabra and Shatila and now Jenin. They cannot look to the past because the past is still the present. Since 1948 they have been caught in a cycle of hell. The Palestinians are the victims of the Israeli government's policy of orchestrated Shoah. Ethical standards stop at Israel's frontiers. In those circumstances, the idea of the tragedy of Sabra and Shatila becomes marginalised."
So marginalised that, in Lebanon, the issue is taboo. First to be accused was Elie Hobeika (5), who had been a government minister. "The criminals seized power after the war," said Khoury. "The Palestinians have become the scapegoats for the war in Lebanon and are subject here to laws no better than the Vichy government applied to the Jews."
Even the numbers of dead and disappeared remain vague. Estimates range from 500 to 5,000. Bayan Hout has been trying to fill the gap for 20 years. She is Lebanese, born in Jerusalem where she lived until she was nine; she is a historian and lecturer at the University of Beirut. She has closely questioned the families of the victims and the disappeared, analysed hundreds of questionnaires, crosschecked lists of humanitarian organisations and the Red Cross, and tried to locate all the cemeteries. She is now sure of her figures: 906 dead of 12 nationalities, half of them Palestinians, and 484 disappeared, 100 of them abducted. That makes 1,490 identified victims.
The massacres and disappearances were part of the war the Israeli government launched on 6 June 1982 to neutralise the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). The invasion of Lebanon left more than 12,000 civilians dead, 30,000 wounded and 200,000 homeless.
In mid-June the Israelis began the siege of Beirut and surrounded 15,000 PLO fighters and their Lebanese and Syrian allies. In July US President Ronald Reagan sent Philip Habib, assisted by Morris Draper, to defuse the situation which threatened to ignite the Middle East and damage US interests. It became apparent that the way to resolve the crisis was to get the Palestinian fighters and Yasser Arafat to leave Beirut. Arafat was persuaded that there was no other solution.
The discussions were complicated because the Israelis and Americans did not want to hold direct talks with the Palestinians (6): Elias Sarkis, Lebanon's Christian president, and his Sunni prime minister, Shafiq Wazzan, were to act as intermediaries. The Israelis were set on brutal military oppression and on obtaining the total and ignominious surrender of Arafat. Arafat made further concessions and tried to obtain guarantees of safety for Palestinian families remaining in Lebanon. He feared violence from Israeli soldiers and their Phalangist allies. As far as Arafat was concerned, the guarantees had to be given by the Americans and the international community.
Habib finally obtained an assurance from the Israeli prime minister that his soldiers would not enter West Beirut or attack the Palestinians in the camps; an assurance from Lebanon's future prime minister, Bashir Gemayel, that the Phalangists would not move; and an assurance from the Pentagon that US Marines would be the ultimate guarantors of those commitments. On the strength of those promises, Habib gave a written undertaking on civilian safety. Two letters were addressed to the Lebanese prime minister. The US undertaking was contained in the fourth clause of the agreement on the PLO's departure, published by the US, the day before the first Palestinian fighters left (7).
But Arafat was increasingly worried about the fate of the Palestinian civilians. Habib (8) again approached Gemayel, who renewed his promise. He stressed the role of the multinational force of 800 French, 500 Italians and 800 Americans. The first (French) contingent arrived to supervise the evacuation and collection of weapons. The force was to remain for about 30 days, prevent any untoward action and protect Palestinian families. Finally Arafat agreed to leave Beirut.
No one kept their word
But no one kept their word. Starting with the US. Defence Secretary Casper Weinberger, who ordered the Marines to leave Lebanon even as the Christian militiamen were taking up positions in the Bir Hassan district around the Sabra and Shatila camps. The American departure triggered the departure of the French and Italians. On 10 September the last soldier left Beirut, but the Habib plan had been based on evacuation between 21 and 26 September. When Bashir Gemayel, now Lebanese president, brought to power by the Israelis, was assassinated, Ariel Sharon used this as a pretext to invade West Beirut, surround the Sabra and Shatila camps and encourage the Lebanese militia to a cleansing operation.
To this day, there has been only one official enquiry, that of the Israeli Commission chaired by Yitzhak Kahan, president of the Supreme Court, published in 1983. It points the finger at the Phalangists and, to a lesser degree, Ariel Sharon. The report first speaks of a grave mistake by Sharon, who failed to exercise supervision and prevent the massacres. It describes it as "puzzling" that Sharon did not in any way make Menachem Begin "privy to the decision to have the Phalangists enter the camps". It concludes that "responsibility has to be imputed to him for not ordering appropriate measures for preventing or remedying the danger of massacres". Sharon, it said, bore "personal responsibility" and must draw the personal conclusions.
Israeli newspapers have published a number of articles confirming and reinforcing those conclusions, in particular in 1994. Relying on official documents, Amir Oren wrote in Davar in July 1994 that the massacres were part of a plan decided upon between Sharon and Gemayel. They used the Israeli secret services, headed by Abraham Shalom, who was ordered to exterminate all terrorists. The Lebanese militiamen were simply agents in the chain of command that led, via the secret services, to the Israeli authorities.
The BBC's Panorama programme, "The Accused", broadcast in June 2001, further illuminated the events, particularly the evidence of Morris Draper, Habib's assistant, which is hardly open to challenge. Reminded of Sharon's claims that he could not predict what was to happen in the camps, Draper commented "compete and utter nonsense". He told of a meeting at the defence ministry in Tel Aviv with Sharon and Arnos Yaron, his chief of staff, on the day when the Israelis had already entered West Beirut, despite their undertaking. Yaron justified that decision, citing the desire to prevent the Phalangists from turning on the Palestinians after the assassination of Gemayel.
Draper said: "The whole group of maybe 20 of us altogether fell silent. It was a dramatic moment." He explained that the US had rejected the Israeli proposal to deploy the Phalangists in West Beirut "because we knew it would be a massacre". He added: "There is no doubt whatsoever that Ariel Sharon was responsible. Well, more Israelis have to share in that responsibility."
The former diplomat was not questioned about US responsibility or that of France and Italy, both of which withdrew troops once the Marines left.
The families of the victims and the disappeared are entitled to the truth, to allow them to complete mourning. And the whole world is entitled to know who organised and perpetrated these acts, and how, and why.

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 07:35 AM

So you accept that the Bedouins are being treated like shit?
Just in case you missed it

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2011/0921/1224304482182.html
http://www.economist.com/node/21536645
http://oneworldgroup.org/2011/11/22/israel-urged-to-halt-bedouin-displacement/
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/israel-cancels-plans-for-new-bedouin-neighborhood-1.394120

Looking forward to your thoughts!!!
Jim Carroll
PS Sorry - Dublin trip off!!

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 05:45 AM

the Israelis have been found to have played a full part in making it happen - accomplices before, during and after the fact.
It could not have haopened without their full co-operation.

That is disputed, and you have only produced evidence AGAINST that Jim.
Don't make yourself late for your Dublin trip.

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 04:59 AM

Incidentally
Jenin was never "a main plank of my argument" - I put it up onnce and having my mistake pointed out, I never referred to it again (unlike you, I read what othrs say and accept my mistakes) - there are many more Israeli massacres which have been produced and which you have chosen to ignore.
Sabra and Shatila stand as evidence of your refusal to to accept any wrongdoing on the part of Israel - the Israelis have been found to have played a full part in making it happen - accomplices before, during and after the fact.
It could not have haopened without their full co-operation.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 04:48 AM

"The treatment of the Bedouin, that is actually rather good."
As I said - have a nice day
Jim Carroll

"THE RUBBISH DUMP AND THE BEDOUIN'S VILLAGE 07-2010
Posted on May 30, 2011 by mirkozappacosta
150 families have been forcibly moved from Israeli territories to the other side of the separation wall in this arid valley of the West Bank, 15 km from Jerusalem. Concrete houses were built by the now settled nomads in previous years but Israeli authorities have demolished them declaring that only 'provisory material' could have been deployed to build 'temporary constructions'.
However international aid, from several countries across Europe, Norway, Italy, France and Germany, have financed the construction of a school made of mud and corrugated aluminum.
Radicalization of settlers
The small Bedouin community used to have good relations with the settlers but recently some incidents have showed the increasingly intolerance of rich settlers living on the top of the hill overlooking the village. A couple of months ago, apparently without a plausible reason, Israeli settlers set on fire old tires rolling them down the hill in the direction of the Bedouins constructions.
The women's Husband
The women's husband, to whom I talked to, was in prison from 4 years now. She is allowed to go and visit him once every fifteen days starting her periodic journey at four in the morning to get to the prison in time.
The family's income consist in 1.500 shekels approx 250 pounds per month having to feed two sons and three daughters.
The Rubbish effects:
Just about a kilometer away from the village a 150 m2 of smelly black lake, coming from a rubbish dump used mainly by west Jerusalem, Israeli settlements around and the Palestinian town of Abu Dis, emanate a disturbing smell which infests the Bedouins Village every time the wind blows on it.
Strange health problems are also reported probably derivative to the dump. According to a goatherd, the main source of income for the village, two to five goats have being ding every month since four or five months now. Sickness, respiratory problems and head hakes are common things for the people here and more dramatically three children have been found with cancer.
As we were talking to the representative of the Bedouins explaining their problems and frustrations, an old woman on her sixties came towards me looking at me as if she saw a dear person that didn't see from long time, she almost started crying for emotion, I was confused, later they explained me she went mad few years ago and she thought I was her brother in prison from years now."


Israili moves towards friendship and unity with the Palestinians (This mornings Times)

SECRETIVE HARDLINERS PREPARE BOYCOTT OF NON-JEWISH TRADERS
SHEERA FRENKEL JERUSALEM
The Chief Rabbi of Israel is to allow the import of an organic goose that tastes like pork. The office of Yona Metzger said that there is no Jewish injunction against eating goose, no matter what it tastes like, as long as it is slaughtered according to Jewish ritual. His spokesman said the Chief Rabbi wants the birds to be imported from Spain as soon as they reach the right weight for slaughter. Avi Blumenthal added that Mr Metzger would see that it passes "all the rabbinical kosher authorities to make sure it gets to Israel".   ,

For Mahmoud Darwan, a Palestinian baker, Jewish customers- are the bread and butter of his business. Situated in the middle of the Machane Yehuda market in Jerusalem, Mr Darwan's small stall does a busy trade in traditional Middle Eastern pitta alongside
Jewish holiday breads such as challah. "It was never an issue that I was Palestinian. My customers never seemed to notice as long as I said 'happy holiday' at the right time of year," he said. This week, however, someone started to notice. A group calling itself "Hebrew Labor" began patrolling the market in search of businesses that employed, or were owned by, non-Jews. Their goal is to create a listing of any businesses that have been "tainted" by Arabs and to help Jews "who wish to avoid" the businesses do so easily.
Mr Darwan says he first thought that the bearded, dishevelled man taking copious notes was a possible terrorist.
"I thought about calling the police. The way the guy was looking around and writing things down looked very suspicious, and he was giving people a bad feeling. Then he came up and asked what my name was," said Mr Darwan. The moment that he said Mahmoud, the man jotted something on his notepad and left.
"He said his name was David and soon there would be a 'purification'. I really have no idea what he's talking about. For as long as anyone can remember, this market has been a place where Arabs and Jews can work together, buy together, and eat together."
Other shopkeepers said the man told them that he was a representative of the Hebrew Labor group.
"He ... was very suspicious and would not leave a phone number or business card," said Boaz Maor, a Jewish vegetable stall owner. "He kept asking questions about the Palestinians that worked in the market I told him it was none of his business,"
The Anti-Defamation League said: "The singling out of businesses that employ Arab labour by extremist Jews is abhorrent and reminiscent of vigilantism. It is outrageous and repug¬nant. This so-called project is antithetical to Israel's democratic society, and contrary to the core values of the state of Israel, which foster the full economic and social integration of all its citizens."
The Hebrew Labor group could not be reached for comment, but an official from the northern West Bank settle¬ment of Yitzhar confirmed that the group originated there. Yitzhar openly promotes Jewish settlers forming armed vigilante groups.
"It is a few dozen people who have started this as their own initiative with their own funds. This is a project of righteous people," said the official. "They will publish their listing in the beginning of next year."

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 02:47 AM

The three planks of your argument against Israel are gone.

The massacre at Jenin that never happened.
You blame the confusion on Israel (of course) but NOT ON THE LIARS who made up the smears and slanders against Israel knowing that prejudiced people like you would swallow it all without question!

The treatment of the Bedouin, that is actually rather good.

Sabra/Shatila. The only evidence you provide actually supports Israel's version!

So you revert to posting about Pakistanis.
On this and previous thread, you are a ridiculous irrelevance Jim.

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 02:41 AM

Go away Keith - I couldn't possibly cope with the great mass of people you've managed to convert with your rational and well argued support of a terrorist state
Off to the (comparatively) fresh air of Dublin
Have a nice day
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 01:30 AM

Bedouin is concerned, it has been proposed by the Israelis that 30,000 of them be expelled from their present homes, without consultation, never mind their agreement - a fact you have yet to comment on

They are being moved between two places within the tiniest of countries.
They are being moved to replace their insanitary shacks with decent homes, with all services connected.
Their conditions are so good that Israeli Bedouin are the fastest growing population ON THIS PLANET!
How their brethren in Egypt must dream of changing places with them.

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Nov 11 - 03:42 PM

Please mind your own ******* business what I or anybody else on this forum choose to discuss;

You KEEP choosing to discuss this on EVERY thread!
Then you come out with a grovelling apology for doing it.
Then you do it AGAIN!
Over and over again.

It is not normal behaviour Jim.
No-one else does it.

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Nov 11 - 03:12 PM

"do you insist on debating it HERE AS WELL!"
Apropos of nothing you have raised the question of Pakistan with your incredible claim that they are not a race - my previously having done so was in relation to my accusing Mike of racism and his claim.....
You are not attempting to make rules for others while pleasing yourself whether you discuss 'forbidden' subjects yourself, are you? Please mind your own ******* business what I or anybody else on this forum choose to discuss; you have been warned before that you are not a adjudicator.
Jenin may have been based on misinformation - understandably so as, in the first instance Israel forbade any enquiry into the battle, so it was regarded by the press and media at the time as a massacre - go and look for yourself.
As far as the expulsion of the Bedouin is concerned, it has been proposed by the Israelis that 30,000 of them be expelled from their present homes, without consultation, never mind their agreement - a fact you have yet to comment on other than to claim that others abuse and persecute them, so why not the Israelis - part of your campaign for fairness, no doubt!
You have spent a great deal of time and effort supporting a terrorist state widely believed (and found to have done so by several independant enquiries) to have committed war crimes. Nobody else has done that, or certainly not to the extent you have.
You have continued to lie and contradict yourself in your PMs, still spinelessly blaming others for your racist remarks and still nowhere near to producing evidence for those claims that you "only said it because "experts" said it first".
You now appear to be "not waving but drowning" - please stop; you are becoming an embarrasment again.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Nov 11 - 12:08 PM

Lox, if the two are not comparable, why did you put them up for comparison?

Neither of my statements are racist because there is every reason to believe they are true.

Why Jim, now that I have got you to debate the Pakistani issue by pm, do you insist on debating it HERE AS WELL!

Because your arguments have all failed!
Your massacre at Jenin was shown never to have happened.
Your evidence against Israel, was actually evidence for Israel.
Your claims of Bedouin being expelled were false.

So you go for me instead.
As usual.

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Nov 11 - 10:22 AM

THis gets crazier and crazier
I seem to remember Keith trying to make out those opposed to his racist ideas as "racist" by claiming that the Catholic clergy could be considered "an ethnic group" - therfore all attacking them for child abuse could be considered racist.
Looney Tunes!!!!That's All Folks
Meanwhile - back in the real world:

From The Irish Times this morning

HARDLINE LIEBERMAN THREATENS TO PULL PARTY OUT OF ISRAELI GOVERNMENT

MARK WEISS
in Jerusalem

ISRAEL'S FOREIGN minister Avigdor Lieberman has threat¬ened to pull his party out of the government if Israel demolishes illegal West Bank outposts or transfers tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority,
Addressing Knesset members from his Yisrael Beiteinu party, the hardline foreign minister named two large West Bank outposts threatened with demolition. "Dismantling Migron and Givat Asaf would be grounds for dismantling the government." He also pre¬dicted that some members of prime minister Binyamin Netanya¬hu's ruling Likud party would also quit the coalition if the outposts were demolished.
Settlers have set up scores of outposts on West Bank hilltops, which, unlike the 120 veteran Jewish settlements, were not authorised by Israeli governments. The international community con¬siders all West Bank Jewish com¬munities illegal.
The Israeli high court has ordered Migron, north of Jerusalem, to be demolished by March 2012. "Migron is a community where children were born and later joined the army," Mr Lieberman said, "so how can it be con¬sidered illegal?" Yisrael Beiteinu, with 15 out of 120 Knesset mem¬bers, is the second largest member of Mr Netanyahu's governing coalition.
With the next general election still two years away Mr Netanyahu's coalition remains relatively stable, certainly by Israeli standards, but if Yisrael Beiteinu quit the government, early elections would be almost inevitable.
Mr Lieberman also warned that the transfer to the Palestinians of tax money collected on their behalf by Israel was another "red line" for his party. Israel held up the transfer of €73 million to the Palestinian Authority (PA) earlier this month after UN cultural organ¬isation Unesco accepted Palestine as a member state.
Mr Lieberman said Israel should keep the money in response to Palestinian actions.
"The PA is going to join a Hamas government... they've given a $5,000 grant to every one of the terrorists freed in the Shalit deal."

Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Lox
Date: 23 Nov 11 - 10:14 AM

You've tried three times to make your 'double standards paradox' work keith, without noting that the reason it didn't work work the first time wasn't down to how you have phrased it, but due instead to a flawed premise.

You have tried to equate 'Pakistani' with 'Zionist'.

And in the process you have made it clear that your line of reasoning depends on racist discrimination.

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Lox
Date: 23 Nov 11 - 10:05 AM

Zionism is not a culture - it is an ideology.

Zionism is the ideology that the existence of Israel is necessary so that Jews can have a homeland - this is based on the claim that Jews are a race (not just a religion) with a clear genetic line going right back to jerusalem etc

Right wing Zionism believes that Israel should expand as much as it deems necessary and drive out any gentiles that get in the way, and smite any that are a perceived threat.

In that regard, to be Israeli, or to accept the existence of Israel used to be synonymous with being Zionist.

However, many Israelis are now rejecting Zionism and realizing that in the real world, people have to learn to live together or end up in a permanent state of war.

Like the farmers, they can hardly be expected to get up and leave with nowhere to go.

So I put it to you Keith that Israeli culture, which has developed and matured since 1948, iis characterized by a plurality of ideologies, one of which is zionism.

Zionism is not itself a culture.

So unless you wish to state that Jewish Israeli culture is predisposed to discriminating against palestinians, in which case you would be expressing yet another racist point of view, then my answer to your question iis this:

Zionists are not a cultural group but a political group.

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Nov 11 - 09:56 AM

May I answer for you?

It can not be racist because you think it is true, and you are not racists.

I have no way of knowing if it is true or not.
As in the other case, I was persuaded by the knowledge and experience of others.
In the other case, those others were certainly not racists, were they?

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Nov 11 - 09:40 AM

"A new study on the religious-Zionist community in Israel has found growing ideological diversity as the community grows,"

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Nov 11 - 09:26 AM

You did mention a "Zionist upbringing" Lox.

Are you really denying the very existance of a Zionist community and a Zionist culture within Israel?

I do now believe that Zionists are culturally inclined to be unkind to their Arab neighbours, but only because of those testimonies, and acknowledging that only a minority succumb.

Is that racist?

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Lox
Date: 23 Nov 11 - 09:09 AM

No Keith,

The only mention of culture in my post was in a quote that i took from one of your posts.

I never said anything about culture.

I spoke about many Israeli Jews who rejected an ideology that they were brought up to believe.

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Lox
Date: 23 Nov 11 - 09:06 AM

Zionism is an ideology of land ownership.

Radical Zionism, the reason for constant expansion and settlement building, requires as its premise a view that palestinians have less right to live there than settlers.

That is a racist premise.

Radical Zionism is a problem that is destroying Israel and that is responsible for horrendous abuses against arabs in Gaza, Lebanon, the west bank etc

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Nov 11 - 09:05 AM

There is a Zionist community in Israel.
You referred to their "culture" Lox.

I do now believe that Zionists are culturally inclined to be unkind to their Arab neighbours, but only because of those testimonies, and acknowledging that only a minority succumb.

Is that racist?

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Lox
Date: 23 Nov 11 - 08:59 AM

s Jim says,

Zionism is not a race or a culture.

It is a political ideology - like Islamism - like socialism - like conservatism - like Nazism.


There is no such ideology as Pakistanism - so to project any characteristic onto pakistanis, let alone one so offensive as "they are culturally predisposed to rape" is to discriminate on grounds of race.


So yes - you are 100% racist.

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Lox
Date: 23 Nov 11 - 08:53 AM

"I do now believe that Zionists are culturally inclined to be unkind to their Arab neighbours, but only because of those testimonies, and acknowledging that only a minority succumb.

Is that racist?"


Keith,

You are clearly mad.

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Nov 11 - 08:49 AM

I have made no-one "a target for your racist abuse"

Either both statements are racist or, as I maintain, neither is.

Neither opinion was mine.
In both cases the opinion was presented by insiders of the culture.
In neither case had I any knowledge or experience to form such an opinion myself.

In both cases I was persuaded by their knowledge and experience.

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Nov 11 - 08:40 AM

WHAT????????????????????????
British Pakistani groups are a national/religious group (Pakistani-Muslim) In making them a target for your racist abuse you have identified yourself as the racist you are.
People here have not targetted Zionists for their beliefs, but for their behaviour towards the Palestinians in pursuit of their political/national aspirations - I can't speak for anybody else but I personally believe that allowing religion to have an influence - any religion, Christian, Jewish, Muslim..... whatever; but that is not really at issue here.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Nov 11 - 07:48 AM

British Pakistanis are not a race either.
They are a community, like the Zionist community.

Lox, I knew nothing of Zionist culture.
You tell me that "hundreds" have come out and said that aspects of their culture is "a type of brainwashing that encouraged them to let their views be informed by a feeling of loyalty over and above the facts of Israeli abuses."

I do now believe that Zionists are culturally inclined to be unkind to their Arab neighbours, but only because of those testimonies, and acknowledging that only a minority succumb.

Is that racist?

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Nov 11 - 07:01 AM

"would that make me racist?"
Point of information - Zionism is a religious objective created by a political group - not a race.
Are there no limits to your ignorance of the subject you have championed.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Nov 11 - 05:48 AM

Lox, if I was to believe those people who ascribe certain behaviour to aspects of Zionist culture, would that make me racist?
Or you?
Or Jim?

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Nov 11 - 03:42 AM

Pax Mike - life is too short
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Lox
Date: 22 Nov 11 - 07:10 PM

"It would also require some prominent members of the Jewish community to be quoted at length without contradiction in all the media, saying that aspects of the culture they were brought up in give rise to those statistics."

There are hundreds of articles and interviews with Israeli Jews who dexcribe their zionist upbringing as a type of brainwashing that encouraged them to let their views be informed by a feeling of loyalty over and above the facts of Israeli abuses.

This doesn't mean that Israelis are predisposed to violence (which according to your logic in the pakistani thread it would mean).

It means that of those who were brought up as zionists, many now speak out against that upbringing and view it as brainwashing.

But Keith has expert testimony from Lord Ahmed that Pakistanis are predisposed to raping underage girls and thats enough for him.

Jims point in that respect is very simple and more than adequately evidenced by the forgetful Keith.

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 22 Nov 11 - 05:07 PM

No ~ I have never endorsed that statement of Keith's but always said I regarded it as a step too far, not justified by the specific cases we were thinking of in N England (which, tho, have reared heads again: have you been watching The Times last couple of days. Depressing.)

I don't think you have been listening thruout with full attention, Jim. &, once again, I don't see where there is a Jewish gander with regard to this particular discussion. As you have taken opportunity to point out to Keith, I think the Israelis are not behaving in a fashion I can find in any way tolerable; but that has nothing to do with grooming young women in Leeds & Bradford & Derby, which for some reason you have intro'd into this argument & made the point at issue when it is an irrelevance to the topic of this thread. Why did you do that? ~ apart from the odd satisfaction you seem to take in making unsubstantiated accusations of racism against me; perhaps as a way to divert the criticisms I make of the provocative & unacceptably hyperbolical and tasteless terms you will drag into the discourse.

When you let different discourses overlap as part of an argument, it always leads to confusion and animosity, Jim. Why do it? I repeat that Pakistani minority youth activities in N English cities have nothing to do with the case.

~M~

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 22 Nov 11 - 04:19 PM

" am really not a racist, you know"
Love to believe that Mike - but can't work out why racist sterotyping is sauce for the Muslim Goose, but not for the Jewish gander - nor why you might give any credence to Keith's "All Pakistanis" statement (yet-once-more-revised version) by suggesting there might be some truth in it.
Ho hum indeed.
JIm Carroll

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 22 Nov 11 - 03:47 PM

Ho-hum, Jim. Have it your own way. I thought I withdrew it when you said, did we have to go on in this schoolyard name-calling fashion? ~~ an appeal which I now repeat. Why don't we just stop it, eh? I am really not a racist, you know _ out'n'out or common-or-garden. Don't expect you're really a whatever it was either. It's all part of what I am beginning to recognise as the Curse Of Mudcat ~ a lovely site when it just does what it sez on the tin, but peculiarly prone for some reason to induce an antagonistic abusive vituperative invectively contentious mindset which carries one away into saying more than one meant; & then: BOOM!

I just don't have the energy for all this much animus these days...

Pax ~ fanites ~ cruze ~ ·····

~M~

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 22 Nov 11 - 02:59 PM

No Mike, you didn't withdraw it - we mutually agreed not to mention it - it stands as as an accusation you made, and have since threatened to revive unless I mend my ways and accept that the behaviour of the Israelis in no way resembles that of the Nazis - in spite of the daily humiliation and persecution, the killing of civilians, the chemical warfare, the massacres of civilians, the wall, the ghettoisation, the eviction of Bedouins from their homes, the attempts to starve Palestinians into submission with a ban on essential goods....... and all the other things that didn't happen according to Keith.
You might be interested to learn that he no longer claims that he only believes all male Pakistanis have a cultural implant because experts told him it was the true, (now it's because Don that said it first) so if I were you I would get ready to adjust my own racist beliefs in order to keep up.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 22 Nov 11 - 02:12 PM

"Bluster away, "
The bluster comes from you Mike - '"Jew baiter" wasn't it?" Jim

.,,.

My accusation of bluster against Jim was based on a post TODAY which called me, in lovely red letters, an out & out racist [teehee, I can do it too].

He responds, oh so convincingly with the above counter-accusation ~ which dates {I have checked} from a post of SIX WEEKS AGO on the old BS:Palestine thread which this one superseded, which I have since explicitly withdrawn and admitted to have been a piece of unjust heat-of-momentarism.

So who is blustering NOW, do you think?

I rest my case.

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 22 Nov 11 - 01:21 PM

"Jim, you have not responded to my pms.
"
Yes I have - and you've responded to mine
Am happy to make them public if you want - was thinking about doing so anyway
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Nov 11 - 01:04 PM

Sorry, I have had a pm.

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Nov 11 - 01:02 PM

Jim, you have not responded to my pms.
Private pie throwing would not disguise your lack of arguments I suppose.
You continue to fill your posts with baseless abuse because you can not defend your position on Palestine, as on previous threads.
You have made yourself irrelevant and ridiculous.
Thanks Jim.

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 22 Nov 11 - 10:45 AM

As we have appeared to have driven everybody else off this thread - as we have in the past I don't think either of us can claim the high ground.
This is the last time this is going to happen.
You are the most reactionary racist fanatic it has ever been by bad fortune to argue with.
Your hatred of Muslims/Irish Catholics/Travellers.... and the effort you are prepared to put into the pursuit of that hatred has shown you to be such, yet again.
If you had done this anywhere other than an internet forum I have little doubt you would be infringing the law on incitement to race hatred.
I'm only sorry your crusade has drawn in others with a little more intelligence than you (thankfully not many)
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Nov 11 - 10:14 AM

(See PM for question irrelevant to thread.)

Not "expelled" then.
As the massacre at Jenin was not a massacre.
As the incriminating evidence for S/S massacres was not incriminating.

You expect to be taken seriously?

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 22 Nov 11 - 09:45 AM

http://mondoweiss.net/2011/09/israel-declares-war-on-bedouin-announces-plan-to-relocate-30000-people-from-their-homes.html
Re-locating 30,000 of them without consultation is an indication that the Israelis feel it permissable to shift and ethnic group where they choose if they deem it necessary.
Any chance of that link to your "cultural pervert implant" source yet?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Palestine (continuation)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Nov 11 - 05:13 AM

OK Jim.
the stated intention by the Israelis themselves to expel a whole ethnic group

I think you probably dreamt this.
You probably often dream of Jews doing unspeakable things, and awake shrieking.
You probably think that is quite normal.