BS: Who Are the Terrorists? Part II

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are the Terrorists? Part II
From: Troll
Date: 02 May 02 - 12:55 AM

And you think that THATis an accusation of Anti-Semitism? Sheeesh!!
Welcome to the world of the True Believer.
You need to check the "Baraks Generous Offer" clicky. It simply goes to a map with no document.
The Camp David link seems to leave the "generous offer" idea up in the air. It would seem that there is plenty of blame to go around since no one trusted the other enough to look at things at face value. The finale seems to be that Barak didn't make an offer and Arafat turned it down and vice versa, and that Clinton didn't acquit himself too well either.
Harkening back to the statement that there will be no peace until the Palestinians love their children more that they hate the Jews, This is sick.
You ask,"Israel agreed to the Oslo agreement, and it was Israel who reneged on it. Why won't Israel live up to it's agreements?"
I don't know. Do you?

troll

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are the Terrorists? Part II
From: CarolC
Date: 02 May 02 - 04:58 AM

This is what I found in your link. I'm not sure what it has to do with how the Palestinians feel about their children...

Apr. 30, 2002

Two Israeli Jews arrested for planning anti-Arab attack
By Etgar Lefkovits

Jerusalem police have arrested two Israeli Jews on suspicion that they were planning to attack Arabs in east Jerusalem.

The two suspects, who were apprehended late Sunday night, were remanded yesterday afternoon in the Jerusalem District Court during a closed door session.

The court accepted the position of the Shin Bet, Israel's security services, preventing the two suspects from meeting with a lawyer for the time being.

No further information may be published at present regarding the case, pending court order.

This looks more like Jews hating Arabs to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are the Terrorists? Part II
From: CarolC
Date: 02 May 02 - 05:27 AM

And you think that THATis an accusation of Anti-Semitism? Sheeesh!!

Two or three other people seemed to think so too.

You need to check the "Baraks Generous Offer" clicky. It simply goes to a map with no document.

It goes to a map with some text. And what's contained in the text is consistent with what I've seen presented elsewhere. If I can find the other stuff I saw on it, I'll post it.

The Camp David link seems to leave the "generous offer" idea up in the air. It would seem that there is plenty of blame to go around since no one trusted the other enough to look at things at face value. The finale seems to be that Barak didn't make an offer and Arafat turned it down and vice versa, and that Clinton didn't acquit himself too well either.

And that was my point. No one person or nation was responsible for the failure of the Camp David accords. Not even Arafat. It was what an ex-marine aquaintance of mine would call a "cluster-f*ck".

You ask,"Israel agreed to the Oslo agreement, and it was Israel who reneged on it. Why won't Israel live up to it's agreements?" I don't know. Do you?

The Gush-Shalom site has some perspectives on this.

Here's one of them

And here's the Gush-Shalom site.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are the Terrorists? Part II
From: CarolC
Date: 02 May 02 - 05:30 AM

I messed up the link. If you click the words Gush-Shalom separately from "and here's the", you'll get to the second link I was trying to post.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are the Terrorists? Part II
From: CarolC
Date: 02 May 02 - 05:34 AM

Here's another perspective on your question from the Gush-Shalom site...

Sharon's the right man for the job

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are the Terrorists? Part II
From: CarolC
Date: 02 May 02 - 05:44 AM

The contents of that last link are entirely consistent with what my ex-marine aquaintance told me about how the Israeli military operates. He worked with the Israeli military and police forces as a consultant during the Gulf War.

As I mentioned in another post somewhere, my aquaintance admired these methods (I believe he's the reincarnation of General Patton). But you should note that they do involve specifically targeting civilians, which is what all the hubub is all about with Janine and elsewhere anyway. Specifically targeting civilians is a war crime.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are the Terrorists? Part II
From: CarolC
Date: 02 May 02 - 11:52 AM

Here's some more on Barak's generous offer and the Camp David and Taba talks...

The day Barak's bubble burst

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are the Terrorists? Part II
From: GUEST,Wolfgang
Date: 02 May 02 - 12:27 PM

"Even if you are at war with a city… you must not destroy its trees." (Deut 20: 19-20)

This citation from the 'Jews for Peace in Palestine and Israel' website makes me grin. That's a perfect example for selective citation. The context is this:

Deut 20: 13-18
20:13 And when the LORD thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword:
20:14 But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the LORD thy God hath given thee.
20:15 Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations.
20:16 But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth:
20:17 But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee:
20:18 That they teach you not to do after all their abominations, which they have done unto their gods; so should ye sin against the LORD your God.

And then comes the advice not to cut down the trees that may be useful for the attacker by supplying food but only the others for the bulwarks.

If this citation is any indication for their care I wouldn't trust their numbers too much.

I'd love to find in this conflict a website as useful and unbiased as CAIN is for the Northern Ireland conflict. The above website is not even internally consistent.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are the Terrorists? Part II
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 May 02 - 01:46 PM

This thread is way too long, and it's settled down into a style of discussion that doesn't do much good. I think that it might be better to follow the approach attempted in the PEACE in the Middle East thread.

So I feel uneasy at posting to this and refreshing it again in the process.

HOWEVER there was a post by Troll that I felt uneasy with, about the shooting of 12 year old Mohammed al-Durrah (he did have a name):

"There was an article in one of the news mags and also on line showing an after-the-fact mock-up of the positions of the child and his father, the IDF and whoever else was shooting. The fields of fire and the angles were wrong for the child to have been killed by the IDF. I also read - but can't recall where because it's been a while- that a ballistic test on the bullet that killed the child was from an AK47, a weapon that is not used by the IDF. Since I cannot provide documentation, I don't expect you to believe it but..."

It'd be great to believe that things that look liked atrocities were something else. But it needs more than rumours. After all, if you look around you can find websites and book that deny that the Holocaust took place. And saying there wasn't any moon landing.

Here is a report from the Guardian on the killing of little Mohammed in his father's arms. And from the same website, here is what Suzanne Goldenberg had to write about it.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are the Terrorists? Part II
From: Troll
Date: 02 May 02 - 02:44 PM

Kevin, I Think that it was in Time magazine but I'm not sure. That is why I added the disclaimer. I hoped that someone else would remember the article too.
Looking at the pictures and at the drawing, I find it hard to understand how Mohammed could have been shot in the stomach, huddled against the wall as he was behind a concrete barrel that appears to be 2 1/2 to 3 feet in diameter. I'm sure that better minds than mine have studied this but it still puzzles me.
BTW, I couldn't remember Mohammad al-Durrahs' name. That's why I didn't give it.
"And you think that THAT is an accusation of Anti-Semitism? Sheeesh!!

Two or three other people seemed to think so too."
I'll have to take your word for it, Carol, I guess because they sure didn't post their sentiments on THIS thread.
The thread from Gush Shalom was most interesting but if Sharons vision IS of an Israel "from the river to the sea" then he's a piker. Menachem Begin envisioned it the same way only HIS river was the Euphrates rather than the Jordan. The part about them carrying signs of support through Palestinian neighborhoods with no signs of hostility was good. They obviously feel that, like them, the Palestinians want only peace and recognize them as allies.
Of course, they could be wrong. The Palestinians could see them as useful dupes, to be used and discarded when their effectiveness is gone.
Just a thought. Sometimes we see things as we wish they were instead of as they are. I hope that this is not the case here because I think the people of Gush Shalom are quite sincere in their belief that theirs is the way.
This article may shed some light on just why Sharon refused to accept the Un inspection team.
click here

troll

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are the Terrorists? Part II
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 May 02 - 03:46 PM

From the drawings I saw in the press it didn't seem in any way unlikely that the bullets that killed Mohammed and the ambulance driver trying to get to him and his wounded father could have come from Israeli soldiers.

I had a hunt around, looking for that Time article - I put Mohammed al-Durrah in a search engine together with Time Magazine, but it didn't cme up.(That doesn't mean I'm denying its existence or anything, for what it's worth.)

Still that combination came up with some interesting stuff, including this article by an American journalist called Eduardo Cohen.

Worth reading. Here is a quote: "Because of the major role that the United States plays in life and death issues in the Middle East, American editors and reporters have a special responsibility to constantly examine the fairness of their reporting and how critically they examine information they present to the American people. And they need to examine the possibility of their own racism and begin treating Palestinians and other Arabs as equal citizens whose lives carry just as much value as Jewish Israeli lives."

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are the Terrorists? Part II
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 May 02 - 08:51 PM

Here's the Time Magazine archive search site - I put "Mohammed al-Durrah" in the archive search with as many different spellings as I could imagine, and nothing turned up.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are the Terrorists? Part II
From: Troll
Date: 02 May 02 - 09:52 PM

Kevin, thanks for checking. I've tried to find the place, site or whatever where I saw that and I have had no luck either. I'll keep looking but it will probably be stale by the time I find it. I'll PM you when, and if, I do find it.
The article by Eduardo Cohen was interesting. Now if we could get a similar article from the Arab world detailing their excesses, we might be able to cut through the fog and make some progress.

troll

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are the Terrorists? Part II
From: CarolC
Date: 03 May 02 - 12:10 AM

Wolfgang, if you are using one bible passage that they used, not even as evidence of anything, as an indication of whether or not their numbers are correct, I think it is you who is showning bias. Did you not even check to see where they got their numbers from?

And it would be nice if you used the same sort of critical eye when you read the propaganda coming out of the pro-Sharon camp. Their inconsistencies are just as glaring. More so, in my opinion.

You live in a country that has culpability for what happened to the Jews in WWII. How you choose to live with that culpability is up to you. However, I live in a country that has culpability for whatever happens to the Palestinians. I choose to make sure that I don't help my country in its gravest errors. If history shows that the things the people in any of the links I've provided is true, you will have to live with the fact that you didn't do anything at all to try to prevent or stop it. And you might even have to live with the possibility that you helped them do it with your silence and unwillingness to believe it could happen. Isn't that what the people in your country did when terrible things were happening to the Jews?

Cast your mind back just a little. How did the Nazis manage to get people to be willing to let those atrocities happen? The way they did it was to dehumanize and demonize the Jews. Take a look at the language people are using about the Palestinians. These kinds of things could just as easily have been said about Jews in Nazi Germany. Denying someone's humanity is the thing that makes it possible to kill and commit other terrible things without feeling guilt. And scapegoating and making the victims responsible for the crimes being committed against them is also a method used by the Nazis. I would suggest, as you read and listen and watch, that you be on the lookout for any words or practices that would serve the purpose of dehumanizing and demonizing the Palestinians. That should give you a better idea of what's going on.

This is the quote from that site that I prefer to focus on...

Let us not be the ones to say, "We saw and we did nothing"

Would that more people in your country had done the same during WWII.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are the Terrorists? Part II
From: Wolfgang
Date: 03 May 02 - 07:23 AM

it would be nice if you used the same sort of critical eye when you read the propaganda coming out of the pro-Sharon camp

Carol, click here and you'll see that the implication of your offensive statement is factually wrong.

I hate one-sided propaganda and I see too much of it cited or linked to in these threads. I have neither time nor (in some cases) the ability to check all of the background of the sources. So I have to rely on other means to make up my mind how much I trust a source.

(1) I look at how selective they are, (2) whether easily checkable details are correct and (3) whether their information is internally consistent. The site I have singled out for critique in my last post has failed on all three counts. The information is completely one-sided (that's a bias from me, I am more prone to trust sites that do not only paint black or paint white), an easily checkable statement of fact (the Bible citation) turns out to be a gross falsification, and their numbers lack internal consistency (easy to spot, I'll leave that as an exercise for the readers).

That's why I don't trust the rest of their information too much. I could be wrong, but they have failed to convince me by their way of presentation that I should take them serious.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are the Terrorists? Part II
From: CarolC
Date: 03 May 02 - 07:43 AM

I stand corrected Wolfgang, and I apologise. Prior to seeing that post in your link, I have only seen posts from you that support one side of the issue, and that challenge only the other side.

I would suggest that you not dismiss the numbers in the Jews for Peace in Palestine and Israel site too quickly, though. I have seen the same numbers in several different places. And the sources for the numbers are credible ones. They list the sources in the site.

I think the inclusion of that bible passage was really more for the poetic effect, in order to touch people's hearts, than it was to prove any sort of point.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are the Terrorists? Part II
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 May 02 - 08:24 AM

I'd have thought that the purpose of the quote about the trees is a way of pointing out that, in this respect, the Israeli forces have done something that even Deuteronomy didn't advocate. I'd assume that anyone familiar with the history/mythology of the conquest of the Holy Land would have been aware of the genocide described in this part of Deuteronomy. I'd also assume that the website is directed primarily at people who could be expected to be familiar with such things.

The quote is surely an expression of a kind of bitter humour, rather than a distortion. It reminds readers of that aspect of history, but without pushing it to the centre of the stage. Using the full quote in that context would merely have been inviting people to argue about what happened thousands of years ago rather than what is happening today. (And it's having that effect here.)

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are the Terrorists? Part II
From: CarolC
Date: 03 May 02 - 09:44 AM

Here are some sites that offer death statistics on both Israelis and Palestinians for different time periods and locations.

Death statistics 1

Death statistics 2

Death statistics 3

This is a piece on how the numbers get slanted in the US media Media watch

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are the Terrorists? Part II
From: GUEST,Stats-R-Us
Date: 03 May 02 - 10:08 AM

This thread is way too long, and it's settled down into a style of discussion that doesn't do much good. I think that it might be better to follow the approach attempted in the PEACE in the Middle East thread.

So I feel uneasy at posting to this and refreshing it again in the process.

Since making that statement yesterday, McGrath of Harlow has refreshed this thread three more times.

Of course, he holds no candle to CarolC who is personally responsible for 32 of the 118 previous posts to this thread, including several sets of up to six multiple posts in a row.

Troll, CarolC's debating opponent clocks in at a much more modest 10 posts.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are the Terrorists? Part II
From: CarolC
Date: 03 May 02 - 10:12 AM

YES!

thank you, thank you very much

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are the Terrorists? Part II
From: Little Hawk
Date: 03 May 02 - 12:00 PM

Look, people, before you wear yourselves out totally (not to mention wearing out the subject matter)...and before you ruin some formerly good friendships in the process...

Let me suggest to you that we could all unite on this terrorism issue by focusing on the worst terrorist of all...

My mother's miniature dachshund.

I quote from my own previous post on the "bigotry" thread:

"I try to love everyone, but my mother's dog makes it quite difficult. He is a seditious, treacherous, greedy, and arrogant little monster. He destroys property and steals food. He struts around like Mussolini. He sucks up to you when the food is in your hand, and then treats you with hostility and contempt the moment it's in his mouth. He pees on fur hats and other valuable personal items. He is vile, smelly, lascivious, and totally untrustworthy."

Further to this, my mother's dachshund is clearly neither a muslim nor a jew, but either an atheistic or an autotheistic gentile! "Autotheistic" meaning...he thinks he IS God.

This is a common threat that could serve to unite us all, so let's give it serious consideration.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are the Terrorists? Part II
From: CarolC
Date: 03 May 02 - 12:19 PM

Never trust a dachshund.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are the Terrorists? Part II
From: Troll
Date: 03 May 02 - 03:58 PM

AH HA!!!!Gottcha!
You are biased against animals with legs that are shorter than the "norm."
I notice that you said NOTHING about that most treacherous of "PETS", the Budgie.
NO!! You save your smug putdowns for the innocent Wiener Dog, the animated sausage that is the butt of so much so-called "humor".
Well, NOW the world knows you for what you really are; defamers of the oddly-shaped, the long, the lowly.
Anti-Dachshundists.
I sneer in your general direction.

troll

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are the Terrorists? Part II
From: Little Hawk
Date: 03 May 02 - 04:56 PM

LOL! A better response than I had anticipated, troll. There actually are 2 budgies here. Their primary sins are spilling seeds all over the place, and bombing indiscriminately whenever they are out of the cage, but they are still mere amateurs at spreading real terror.

My mother's dog Arnot (...pronounced Arr-no) is no amateur. He sneers in everyone's general direction, as he lifts his leg indiscreetly against another piece of furniture. (Arf! Arf!) (Shut up! You moronic little creature!) (Grrrrr... Arf! Arf!)

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Who Are the Terrorists? Part II
From: GUEST,leveller
Date: 03 May 02 - 07:04 PM

BS: Who Are the Terrorists? Part 111"