This is a sad and sorry sideroad in the stream of human history.
It is not simply the poor "displaced" Pals exacting an eye for an eye, it is those who have commandeered planes to destroy whole buildings and the concentric rings of countless lives.
It is a people bastardizing their own religion.
It is the "Martyr" who will infect himself with an uncrontrollabe diesese and rain death on your world.
suicide has been used a weapon from time immemorial.
The Jews in Masada used suicide as an inspiration to their fellow jews - and it is admired today solely for that reason. If the jews in Masad had not killed their wives and children and then themselves, but fought like soldiers, the incident will be hardly known today.
That suicide brings glory is also a Jewish belief. I have visited Masada - and the guide I remember said it was the 2nd most popular destination for Jews.
It was Yigal Amir, a conservative religious student who killed Rabin and justified it because of his belief that was good for Israel. Last I heard there was a fan club for Yigal in Israel
At the spot where Rabin was slain, graffiti exhorts passersby to "remember always." But elsewhere, another message reads, "He redeemed us," a slogan that is a play on words of the name Yigal.
More Israelis are admitting that Amir's ideas didn't die with his victim, while Rabin's political legacy has been relegated to the sidelines under a new conservative government.
Violence as a weapon is also part of the Jewish psyche.
The following is a statement made in the House of Commons by then British Prime Minister Clement Attlee:
“On July 22, 1946, one of the most dastardly and cowardly crimes in recorded history took place. We refer to the blowing up of King David Hotel in Jerusalem.
Ninety-two persons lost their lives in that stealthy attack, and 45 were injured, among whom there were many high officials, junior officers and office personnel, both men and women. The King David Hotel was used as an office housing the Secretariat of Palestine Government and British Army Headquarters. The attack was made on 22 July at about 12 o’clock noon when officers are usually in full swing. The attackers, disguised as milkmen, carried the explosives in milk containers, placed them in the basement of the hotel and ran away."(Enc.of,P.,p.267-8)
Guess who was the admitted mastermind - Menachem Begin the Nobel Peace prize winner.
All the above mentioned massacres are particularly pale compared to the carnage at Sabra and Shatila Palestinian Camps in Beirut, Lebanon in 1982, during the Israeli invasionof Lebanon.
The mass murder of 2,750 men,women,and children(according to a body count taken by the International Red Cross on September 23, 1982), whose only “crime” was to be homeless exiles from their native land, by Phalangist puppets of the Israelis.
The principal war criminal bearing legal responsibilty for the massacre was the then Israeli Minister of Defence, General Ariel Sharon - Adolf Sharon.
Israel has equally bloody hands. It deserves what it gets.
Israel has a right to exist - within its pre-1967 borders.
Last I heard there was a fan club for Yigal in Israel
Yes, and I'm sure there's Hitler fan clubs, Saddam fan clubs, Charles Manson fan clubs......... There's no shortage of fools in this world willing to follow other fools.
All the above mentioned massacres are particularly pale compared to the carnage at Sabra and Shatila Palestinian Camps in Beirut, Lebanon in 1982, during the Israeli invasionof Lebanon.
Wasn't that partially in response to: The assasination attempt of an Israeli diplomat on behalf of Abu Nidal and more importantly, the buildup of a PLO army in Lebanon, during a cease fire, who would use the refugee camps as safe haven?
Oh, and yes, the Jews did in fact use terrorism as a weapon against the British. Is this justification in your mind for current day terrorism?
I, too, thought your most recent post was nicely done.
However, something very basic was overlooked. Let's go to our own beginnings to see what that is:
The American Revolution was fought over the compelling yet rather genteel issue of "taxation without representation". At no time did the Colonists experience a systematic, thoroughgoing, brutal authoritarianism such as Palestinians have endured since 1967, and 1948 by broader extension.
The British never left the entire Colonial population justifiably fearful of sudden, arbitrary arrest and questioning replete with torture. Deportation of "undesirables" wasn't their common, repressive tool. They never diverted water for their sole purposes, thereby devastating our crucial agricultural capacity. They didn't bulldoze our homes, grazing lands, orchards, etc., to build a nework of proliferating settlements for themselves. Very importantly, they had no philosophy rooted in religious/ethnic superiority that was used as preposterous "justification" for a litany of wholesale abuses over decades, ultimately culminating with the expulsion of the supposedly inferior and inantely wicked "others" from their homeland. (Wow... As I wrote that, I realized how closely it defines what we did to our "Indians".)
All of these things have going on for 30 to 50 years, depending on which point of initiating injustice one wishes to count from.
You seem to confuse the recent Israeli incursions by large military forces with the Occupation, which preceeded them by long, harsh, unbearable years. The incursions are just the latest, most comprehensively repressive aspect of a general repression that's now become historic in its longevity.
So, if the Palestinians miraculously stopped suicide bombing today, and the high-profile Israeli military presence then faded...the underlying Occupation would still be there, with all of its mass injustices, policed by the regular Israeli armed component that's always been there.
But the Palestinian liberation issue would then also disappear from all but the world's Islamic and leftwing media. Americans, especially, would forget about it.
One could ask why the Palestinians don't employ symbolic suicide in protest, involving only their personal deaths. Buddhist monks did it in Vietnam, to protest U.S. policy, as did a young American hero, Norman Morrison. But with the Israelis controlling information outflow so completely, would we ever even learn about such sacrifices for freedom?
Israel will soon have a pivotal election, with clear choices between a continued and even worsening hardline toward the Palestinians -- or moderation providing openings for peace.
What if, out of a stubborn refusal to recognize the veracity and justness of the essential Palestinian claim, they vote to stay tough, perhaps get tougher still? I think some Americans, maybe enough to tip our election outcome, voted from the same psychological reaction. They reacted to perhaps a subliminal suspicion that the U.S. is no longer right in a world that does have basis for hating us...by voting conservatively and thereby clinging more tightly to comforting myths.
If the Israeli people don't act wisely by endorsing movement toward reason, what reason will the Palestinians then have for anything but intensification of their Intifada, employing even greater militancy and terror?
Won't those Islamist extremists who say "Israel must be driven into the sea" be greatly, persuasively strengthened?
The Israeli people now have the ball in their court, and never has the responsibility associated with that sport metaphor been as huge, and fraught with momentous implications.
To continue the sports metaphor, I think the ball's still in the air in Israel and the occupied territories.
I'll take your word for it on the likelihood of Likud holding on to power. That would make sense to me, if I were an Israeli and had to walk the streets of my cities. If my sympathy for the Palistinians has eroded from this great distance, I don't know what I'd feel for them if I had to live in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv.
Contrary to what you might think, I don't think the Palistinians have world sympathy on their side. And I think they should face the likelihood that it has probably eroded. Muslim nations use the Palistinians as a political pawn to strike out at Isreal and the United States, and that's probably the extent of their interest.
"But the Palestinian liberation issue would then also disappear from all but the world's Islamic and leftwing media. Americans, especially, would forget about it."
I don't think so. The Palistinian leadership needs to come to an understanding. The United States is the best hope they have. Washington can moderate the closest thing they can get to a permanent state and a lasting peace.
But they have to want it. But I don't think Arafat wants it. I don't think he would know what to do, if he were handed the task of nation-building and expected to produce results. He knows warring.
If the Palistinains continue down the current path, you have every reason to believe they will be crushed and driven off their lands into the hands of hostile neighbors.
"Won't those Islamist extremists who say "Israel must be driven into the sea" be greatly, persuasively strengthened? "
"suicide has been used a weapon from time immemorial."
When the other side runs out of convincing points this is what you end up with -- someone reaching back to antiquity to somehow balance the scales.
"The Jews in Masada used suicide as an inspiration to their fellow jews - and it is admired today solely for that reason. If the jews in Masad had not killed their wives and children and then themselves, but fought like soldiers, the incident will be hardly known today. "
From what I recall, there's a lot of conjecture about what actually went on at Masada. I've heard the story doesn't have universal acceptacnce among the Jews.
But the whole comparison is neither here nor there and about as relevant to today as the bombing of the King David Hotel. If anyone were seeking retribution for the King David Hotel it woould be the British. And that isn't happening. If it were, they wouldn't be strapping bombs onto guys named Simon or Iain and sending them into crowds of Israeli civilians. They'd rightly think such an act was barbarian.
The point being made and which the proponents of Israel selectively prefer to ignore, is that the Jews are in condemnation of the very same tactics and methodologies that they themselves exercised when they wanted to form the State of Israel.
The Jewish people resorted to bombing civilians, embarking on suicide missions that sacrificed Jewish and other lives, used violence as a bartering tool and blackmailed the UN into granting its existence. When the Palestinians use the very same methods, the Jews act aggrieved.
The loss of Jewish life in the Kenyan bombing is collateral damage in the ongoing war between the Jewish and Palestinian peoples. Violence such as this will spawn violence and the cycle will be perpetuated.
The line that has been crossed – or perhaps drawn – is the firing of missiles against civilian aircraft. Akin to flying planes into tall buildings. Another threat to human kind.
The obduracy of the State of Israel results in more and more extremism being unleashed on an innocent Globe. What is the ultimate price that the rest of the world will have to pay to preserve the Jewish State??
No Arab state had made peace with Israel, and in 1967, events conspired to bring war between Israel on the one hand, and Egypt, Syria, and Jordan on the other. The Israelis attacked Egypt first, on June 5, 1967, but most historians agree the pre-emptive Israeli strike was defensive in nature. Nevertheless, in the first day, Israel nearly destroyed Egypt's air force, and struck deep into the Sinai Peninsula, Egyptian territory. After six days of war, Israel had seized all of the Sinai and Gaza from Egypt, the West Bank and all of Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria. All of these newly occupied territories would become the object of subsequent wars and the peace process, especially the West Bank and Gaza, where 1.5 million Palestinians live under Israeli control.
"In June 1967, we again had a choice. The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him. This was a war of self-defense in the noblest sense of the term. The Government of National Unity then established decided unanimously: we will take the initiative and attack the enemy, drive him back, and thus assure the security of Israel and the future of the nation."
--Menachem Begin, Aug. 8, 1982, Israeli National Defense College
If the extremists stop their insane bombings, the IDF will stand down.
If the Israelis return to pre 67 borders and stop settlements, the PLA will stop the bombings.
I see no difference in the insanity of the Jews or the Palestinians.
As a people who have been subjected to horrendous excesses of barbarity, I would consider that the Jews would not want to perpetuate what was meted out to them to others.
If the Israelis return to pre 67 borders and stop settlements, the PLA will stop the bombings.
Sorry, but the bombings have to stop first. Then they can talk specifics. Every attempt on the part of the Jews has been met with another bombing. Would you give in if you were Israel?
Israeli leaders may think they cannot step back from the intensity, because the people they are fighting only recognize strength in the ability to exert force.
"There will be peace when the Palistinians learn to love their children more than they hate Israel."
What happend with the muslims and chiristians of Indian state Gujrate also give right to those oppressed people for suicide attack against indian stablishment and government which is being ruled by fanantic hindus and these fanatic hindus are supporting Hindu terrorists in gujrate, indian punjab, bengal, Ayudhia e.t.c these Hindus are killing those innocent muslims and chiristians like animals they even don't bother to convert the innocent children, infants and even unborn babies into human roast!
The pattern of violence does not indicate “spontaneous” action. There was pre-planning, organization, and precision in the targeting.
There is compelling evidence of sexual violence against women. These crimes against women have been grossly underreported and the exact extent of these crimes – in rural and urban areas - demands further investigation. Among the women surviving in relief camps, are many who have suffered the most bestial forms of sexual violence – including rape, gang rape, mass rape, stripping, insertion of objects into their body, stripping, molestations. A majority of rape victims have been burnt alive.
There is evidence of State and Police complicity in perpetuating crimes against women. No effort was made to protect women. No Mahila Police was deployed. State and Police complicity in these crimes is continuing, as women survivors continue to be denied the right to file FIRs. There is no existing institutional mechanism in Gujarat through which women can seek justice.
The impact on women has been physical, economic and psychological. On all three fronts there is no evidence of State efforts to help them.
The state of the relief camps, as mothers struggle to keep their children alive in the most appalling physical conditions, is indicative of the continued abdication of the State’s responsibilities.
Rural women have been affected by communal violence on this scale for the first time. There is a need for further investigation into the role played by particular castes/communities in rural Gujarat in unleashing violence.
There is evidence that the current carnage was preceded by an escalation of tension and build-up by the VHP and the Bajrang Dal.
There is an alarming trend towards ghettoisation of the Muslim community in rural areas for the first time.
Sections of the Gujarati vernacular press played a dangerous and criminal role in promoting the violence, particularly in provoking sexual violence against women.
VILLAGE ERAL, KALOL TALUKA , PANCHMAHALS DISTRICT. MARCH 3, 2002[5]
My father-in-law, a retired schoolteacher, refused to leave the village with the other Muslim families who fled to Kalol on February 28th. He believed no one would harm us. From the 28th about 13 members of my family sought refuge in various people’s houses and the fields. On Sunday afternoon (March 3rd) the hut we were hiding in was attacked. We ran in different directions and hid in the field. But the mob found some of us and started attacking. I could hear various members of my family shouting for mercy as they were attacked. I recognized two people from my village - Gano Baria and Sunil - pulling away my daughter Shabana. She screamed, telling the men to get off her and leave her alone. The screams and cries of Ruqaiya, Suhana, Shabana, begging for their izzat could clearly be heard. My mind was seething with fear and fury. I could do nothing to help my daughter from being assaulted sexually and tortured to death. My daughter was like a flower, still to experience life. Why did they have to do this to her? What kind of men are these? The monsters tore my beloved daughter to pieces. After a while, the mob was saying “cut them to pieces, leave no evidence.” I saw fires being lit. After some time the mob started leaving. And it became quiet.
Naradar! you should die on shame its all happend in your bajrangi Land
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
For protecting them (English troops), by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
How brutal were the British in the colonies? You really can't know based on what Jefferson and those who helped draft the Declaration wrote. It's a question that should be explored. It seems odd to me that the references to brutality are further down the list there.
Wouldn't that be worst oppression of the list? It seems Jefferson was more concerned with the entanglements of too much bureaucracy. Probably standing in the way of his accumulation of wealth.
Doesn't that lend credance to the notion that ours was a middle class revolution. A revolution of the comfortable? On the same token, I imagine these men took considerable risk in drafting the Declaration.
"Because of the strong bands of law, loyalty, faith and blood uniting the two peoples, many Americans were surprised that a war against the British had occurred. Most Americans believed themselves to be as English as their kin in the mother country, differing from them only in living in another part of the empire. Even on the eve of declaring independence most Americans would have been happy with what is today called "dominion status," which would have meant owing allegiance to the British monarch but otherwise enjoying political autonomy. "
Doesn't that lend credance to the notion that ours was a middle class revolution. A revolution of the comfortable? On the same token, I imagine these men took considerable risk in drafting the Declaration.
They took huge risks. They risked their lives and their families livelihoods. Most of the drafters were well off or in posistions of influence. It was the middle or upper class that started it but eventually all classes followed because they saw the possiblity and a way to end the tyranny. There were some and many in the upper or middle classes that didn't want to uspet the apple cart. They had thiers so why mess with it ? So the ones that did even stand out more to me becuase they were still willing to risk their fortunes but their lives as well to make a better life.
Which brings us back to Dennis' point. The thing is that at the time England was the MOST powerful country in the world. But what he forgets is that our goal was not achieved by targeting civilians even though we had little power and were outgunned mightily we still acted with some humanity. So while both had grievances different methods were used. One is defensible and one is not (well to some)
In “Gaza Strip”, a handheld video camera tracks the daily lives of a 13- year old boy and his chums who are growing up under the impoverished and humiliating conditions inside this twenty-eight by four-mile fenced-in ghetto where more than a million Palestinians have been forced to live under Israeli occupation since 1967. The boys sell newspapers in order to support their out-of-work families. Sometimes they go to take part in the dangerous game of throwing rocks at the Israeli soldiers who are guarding the prosperous Zionist settlements visible in the distance. (The Zionist settlements number only a few thousand invididuals but take up one-third of the Gaza Strip's already limited supply of land.) The boys are amazingly resiliant, but there is no other future in sight than further impoverishment and humiliation. If anyone doesn’t comprehend the tragic circumstances that could lead young Palestinians to choose to become suicide bombers, then they should watch this film. And who is responsible for the plight of the Palestinians? Without the billions of dollars in U.S. aid – and they are currently asking for billions more in the name of "fighting terrorism” -- the Israelis could never do it. It makes me exceedingly angry that I am helping to pay for these crimes against humanity with some of my hard-earned tax dollars.
.....Secretary Rumsfeld scoffed that German Prime Minister Schröder reminded him of "a Hitler" in his fiery rhetoric at mass rallies.
Rumsfeld's chief aide, Paul Wolfowitz, earlier had purportedly complained that Schröder was "another Caesar" who was trying to recreate German imperialism. Wolfowitz concluded that the Germans as a people were showing an "intolerant, spiteful style.".....
.....The administration also announced that it would veto any U.N. resolution that allowed the French to retaliate against Libya for the Bastille Day destruction of the Louvre that cost the lives of 3,000 French citizens and destroyed an icon of French power and culture. President Bush reiterated that the United States would not take part in any "preemptory" action against the people of Libya as part of allotting "collective" guilt for the Louvre massacre.
I was a young child, playing with other children in a large urban park, surrounded by the buildings of a big city.
Like New York's Central Park.
Except this wasn't in the United States.
As we played, chevron flights of aircraft suddenly appeared very high in the sky.
We watched as they sparkled in the sun.
Then, in the city beyond the park, and beginning on the park's far edge, countless explosions started moving toward us.
"It's the Americans!" one of my little friends yelled.
We all scurried in horror, trying to find safety.
The explosions drew nearer as the planes passed.
Finally, just before we would have been blown away, one other boy and I came upon a narrow metal culvert beneath a path. We managed to just squeeze inside.
The earth shook. Dust and smoke entered the culvert.
But we survived, unscathed.
We crawled back out.
All of our playmates -- or what remained of their torn, burnt bodies -- were dead.
No nation on earth poses a greater threat to world peace and stability than U.S. imperialism. No other nation deploys more weapons of mass destruction than the U.S.; none sells more arms; none has demonstrated a greater willingness to use them than we have, as evidenced by our extensive history of backing and training right wing coups and terrorist organizations around the world. These include, not coincidentally, Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden’s Al Quaeda terrorist network. There are consequences to every thing we do. We cannot interfere in the affairs of other people without feeling the effects somewhere along the line. We reap what we sow; when we bomb and subject other people to lives of misery, squalor, and unimaginable terror and death, we will eventually feel the effects in our own lives. Life is a great circle. What goes around comes around. And that brings us full circle to the events of September 11, 2001 and their aftermath...
Hindoo extremism, Islamic extremism, Israeli or Palestinian - perepetuated by wretched self anointed pundits of perversity. --- Naradar Bajrangi
There is no comparision of Hindu extremism, its unique and most barbaric of its kind, we have seen the glimps of Hindu brutality and evilness in Indian state gujrate
As Samuel P. Huntington predicted, the Clash of Civilizations has commenced. Islam and Christianity are the first to butt heads --- Naradar Bajrangi
There will be no Clash of Civilizations b'coz west know very well that they will loose definitely as they have lost their crusade in the past.
We Hindus will wait for the winner - I predict it will be the Christians - and then take him on. --- Naradar Bajrangi
Never compare a filthy, baseless and senseless religion Hinduism with the greate religions like Islam and chiristianity. your own bajrangi morons claim in your land of AIDS that Hinduism is not a religion but a culture (A culture of cowardness, brutality and hatred)
Secretary Rumsfeld scoffed that German Prime Minister Schröder reminded him of "a Hitler" in his fiery rhetoric at mass rallies. --- apple
Rumsfeld must have seen a mirror! He himslef reminded the whole world 'a Hitler' during his speaches justifying the murder of thousands innocent Afghan civilians as a 'mistake'! and being very proud of droping food packets and bombs simultaniously on Afhan people, its realy a slape on the face of humanity and insult of human dignity, he has exposed the ugly face of U.S. imperialism.
During the weekly session of the Israeli cabinet, Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein instructed Sharon to use targeted killings of suspected Palestinian terrorists only as a last resort.
The ruling followed reports that Sharon had ordered an increase in the practice as part of efforts to stop Palestinian violence.
and Adolf Sharon's response
An 11-year-old Palestinian boy was killed today by Israeli gunfire during a demonstration in the West Bank
The Palestinian child, the second killed by Israeli soldiers in as many days, was shot when a group of schoolchildren pelted troops with rocks and bottles in the West Bank town of Tulkarm
I suppose a Rabbi can be found who will exculpate the israelis of all blame.
The same logic and motivation used by so dumb insane when he gassed kurdish children. A threat of sovereignty allows all forms of retaliation.
At least 15 people were killed and about 40 were wounded today in a suicide bombing on board a bus in Haifa in northern Israel, the police said.
The israeli people reelected Adolf Sharon. The desperation index for the Palestinians has increased a millionfold. The reprisal starts all over in the war. The reprisal to the reprisal will be headlines soon. And then the reprisal to the reprisal ......
Wonder if these suicide bombers will get the ususal reward from so dumb insane. We are going to evict him soon - one of the two reasons little boy bush wants this war is to ensure the suicide bombers do not get their motivating reward.
A woman was walking down the street in Israel pushing her baby in a stroller when the bus exploded, she reached in to her dipper bag and grabbed two bottles of juice and ran in to the bus to try to put out the fire with the juice. That tells me a lot about the character of the people that have to live with that kind of terror every day.
Are you for real Naradar ?
This is a sad and sorry sideroad in the stream of human history.
It is not simply the poor "displaced" Pals exacting an eye for an eye, it is those who have commandeered planes to destroy whole buildings and the concentric rings of countless lives.
It is a people bastardizing their own religion.
It is the "Martyr" who will infect himself with an uncrontrollabe diesese and rain death on your world.
It is unacceptable.
suicide has been used a weapon from time immemorial.
The Jews in Masada used suicide as an inspiration to their fellow jews - and it is admired today solely for that reason. If the jews in Masad had not killed their wives and children and then themselves, but fought like soldiers, the incident will be hardly known today.
That suicide brings glory is also a Jewish belief. I have visited Masada - and the guide I remember said it was the 2nd most popular destination for Jews.
It was Yigal Amir, a conservative religious student who killed Rabin and justified it because of his belief that was good for Israel. Last I heard there was a fan club for Yigal in Israel
At the spot where Rabin was slain, graffiti exhorts passersby to "remember always." But elsewhere, another message reads, "He redeemed us," a slogan that is a play on words of the name Yigal.
More Israelis are admitting that Amir's ideas didn't die with his victim, while Rabin's political legacy has been relegated to the sidelines under a new conservative government.
Violence as a weapon is also part of the Jewish psyche.
The following is a statement made in the House of Commons by then British Prime Minister Clement Attlee:
“On July 22, 1946, one of the most dastardly and cowardly crimes in recorded history took place. We refer to the blowing up of King David Hotel in Jerusalem.
Ninety-two persons lost their lives in that stealthy attack, and 45 were injured, among whom there were many high officials, junior officers and office personnel, both men and women. The King David Hotel was used as an office housing the Secretariat of Palestine Government and British Army Headquarters. The attack was made on 22 July at about 12 o’clock noon when officers are usually in full swing. The attackers, disguised as milkmen, carried the explosives in milk containers, placed them in the basement of the hotel and ran away."(Enc.of,P.,p.267-8)
Guess who was the admitted mastermind - Menachem Begin the Nobel Peace prize winner.
All the above mentioned massacres are particularly pale compared to the carnage at Sabra and Shatila Palestinian Camps in Beirut, Lebanon in 1982, during the Israeli invasionof Lebanon.
The mass murder of 2,750 men,women,and children(according to a body count taken by the International Red Cross on September 23, 1982), whose only “crime” was to be homeless exiles from their native land, by Phalangist puppets of the Israelis.
The principal war criminal bearing legal responsibilty for the massacre was the then Israeli Minister of Defence, General Ariel Sharon - Adolf Sharon.
Israel has equally bloody hands. It deserves what it gets.
Israel has a right to exist - within its pre-1967 borders.
Last I heard there was a fan club for Yigal in Israel
Yes, and I'm sure there's Hitler fan clubs, Saddam fan clubs, Charles Manson fan clubs......... There's no shortage of fools in this world willing to follow other fools.
All the above mentioned massacres are particularly pale compared to the carnage at Sabra and Shatila Palestinian Camps in Beirut, Lebanon in 1982, during the Israeli invasionof Lebanon.
Wasn't that partially in response to: The assasination attempt of an Israeli diplomat on behalf of Abu Nidal and more importantly, the buildup of a PLO army in Lebanon, during a cease fire, who would use the refugee camps as safe haven?
Oh, and yes, the Jews did in fact use terrorism as a weapon against the British. Is this justification in your mind for current day terrorism?
Rick:
Happy Thanksgiving.
I, too, thought your most recent post was nicely done.
However, something very basic was overlooked. Let's go to our own beginnings to see what that is:
The American Revolution was fought over the compelling yet rather genteel issue of "taxation without representation". At no time did the Colonists experience a systematic, thoroughgoing, brutal authoritarianism such as Palestinians have endured since 1967, and 1948 by broader extension.
The British never left the entire Colonial population justifiably fearful of sudden, arbitrary arrest and questioning replete with torture. Deportation of "undesirables" wasn't their common, repressive tool. They never diverted water for their sole purposes, thereby devastating our crucial agricultural capacity. They didn't bulldoze our homes, grazing lands, orchards, etc., to build a nework of proliferating settlements for themselves. Very importantly, they had no philosophy rooted in religious/ethnic superiority that was used as preposterous "justification" for a litany of wholesale abuses over decades, ultimately culminating with the expulsion of the supposedly inferior and inantely wicked "others" from their homeland. (Wow... As I wrote that, I realized how closely it defines what we did to our "Indians".)
All of these things have going on for 30 to 50 years, depending on which point of initiating injustice one wishes to count from.
You seem to confuse the recent Israeli incursions by large military forces with the Occupation, which preceeded them by long, harsh, unbearable years. The incursions are just the latest, most comprehensively repressive aspect of a general repression that's now become historic in its longevity.
So, if the Palestinians miraculously stopped suicide bombing today, and the high-profile Israeli military presence then faded...the underlying Occupation would still be there, with all of its mass injustices, policed by the regular Israeli armed component that's always been there.
But the Palestinian liberation issue would then also disappear from all but the world's
Islamic and leftwing media. Americans, especially, would forget about it.
One could ask why the Palestinians don't employ symbolic suicide in protest, involving only their personal deaths. Buddhist monks did it in Vietnam, to protest U.S. policy, as did a young American hero, Norman Morrison. But with the Israelis controlling information outflow so completely, would we ever even learn about such sacrifices for freedom?
Israel will soon have a pivotal election, with clear choices between a continued and even worsening hardline toward the Palestinians -- or moderation providing openings for peace.
What if, out of a stubborn refusal to recognize the veracity and justness of the essential Palestinian claim, they vote to stay tough, perhaps get tougher still? I think some Americans, maybe enough to tip our election outcome, voted from the same psychological reaction. They reacted to perhaps a subliminal suspicion that the U.S. is no longer right in a world that does have basis for hating us...by voting conservatively and thereby clinging more tightly to comforting myths.
If the Israeli people don't act wisely by endorsing movement toward reason, what reason will the Palestinians then have for anything but intensification of their Intifada, employing even greater militancy and terror?
Won't those Islamist extremists who say "Israel must be driven into the sea" be greatly, persuasively strengthened?
The Israeli people now have the ball in their court, and never has the responsibility associated with that sport metaphor been as huge, and fraught with momentous implications.
Tragically, current polls show Likud will win.
Dennis:
To continue the sports metaphor, I think the ball's still in the air in Israel and the occupied territories.
I'll take your word for it on the likelihood of Likud holding on to power. That would make sense to me, if I were an Israeli and had to walk the streets of my cities. If my sympathy for the Palistinians has eroded from this great distance, I don't know what I'd feel for them if I had to live in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv.
Contrary to what you might think, I don't think the Palistinians have world sympathy on their side. And I think they should face the likelihood that it has probably eroded. Muslim nations use the Palistinians as a political pawn to strike out at Isreal and the United States, and that's probably the extent of their interest.
"But the Palestinian liberation issue would then also disappear from all but the world's Islamic and leftwing media. Americans, especially, would forget about it."
I don't think so. The Palistinian leadership needs to come to an understanding. The United States is the best hope they have. Washington can moderate the closest thing they can get to a permanent state and a lasting peace.
But they have to want it. But I don't think Arafat wants it. I don't think he would know what to do, if he were handed the task of nation-building and expected to produce results. He knows warring.
If the Palistinains continue down the current path, you have every reason to believe they will be crushed and driven off their lands into the hands of hostile neighbors.
"Won't those Islamist extremists who say "Israel must be driven into the sea" be greatly, persuasively strengthened? "
I think they're the ones who hold the power now.
"suicide has been used a weapon from time immemorial."
When the other side runs out of convincing points this is what you end up with -- someone reaching back to antiquity to somehow balance the scales.
"The Jews in Masada used suicide as an inspiration to their fellow jews - and it is admired today solely for that reason. If the jews in Masad had not killed their wives and children and then themselves, but fought like soldiers, the incident will be hardly known today. "
From what I recall, there's a lot of conjecture about what actually went on at Masada. I've heard the story doesn't have universal acceptacnce among the Jews.
But the whole comparison is neither here nor there and about as relevant to today as the bombing of the King David Hotel. If anyone were seeking retribution for the King David Hotel it woould be the British. And that isn't happening. If it were, they wouldn't be strapping bombs onto guys named Simon or Iain and sending them into crowds of Israeli civilians. They'd rightly think such an act was barbarian.
The point being made and which the proponents of Israel selectively prefer to ignore, is that the Jews are in condemnation of the very same tactics and methodologies that they themselves exercised when they wanted to form the State of Israel.
The Jewish people resorted to bombing civilians, embarking on suicide missions that sacrificed Jewish and other lives, used violence as a bartering tool and blackmailed the UN into granting its existence. When the Palestinians use the very same methods, the Jews act aggrieved.
The loss of Jewish life in the Kenyan bombing is collateral damage in the ongoing war between the Jewish and Palestinian peoples. Violence such as this will spawn violence and the cycle will be perpetuated.
The line that has been crossed – or perhaps drawn – is the firing of missiles against civilian aircraft. Akin to flying planes into tall buildings. Another threat to human kind.
The obduracy of the State of Israel results in more and more extremism being unleashed on an innocent Globe. What is the ultimate price that the rest of the world will have to pay to preserve the Jewish State??
Surely a compromise is needed.
Didn't Israel strike first in '67?
Yes.
No Arab state had made peace with Israel, and in 1967, events conspired to bring war between Israel on the one hand, and Egypt, Syria, and Jordan on the other. The Israelis attacked Egypt first, on June 5, 1967, but most historians agree the pre-emptive Israeli strike was defensive in nature. Nevertheless, in the first day, Israel nearly destroyed Egypt's air force, and struck deep into the Sinai Peninsula, Egyptian territory. After six days of war, Israel had seized all of the Sinai and Gaza from Egypt, the West Bank and all of Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria. All of these newly occupied territories would become the object of subsequent wars and the peace process, especially the West Bank and Gaza, where 1.5 million Palestinians live under Israeli control.
--National Public Radio, The 1967 Six Day War
http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/0794/9407073.htm
"In June 1967, we again had a choice. The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him. This was a war of self-defense in the noblest sense of the term. The Government of National Unity then established decided unanimously: we will take the initiative and attack the enemy, drive him back, and thus assure the security of Israel and the future of the nation."
--Menachem Begin, Aug. 8, 1982, Israeli National Defense College
Aggression never assures the "security" and "future" of any nation.
Are you listening, Dubya?
"Aggression never assures the "security" and "future" of any nation."
Does anything?
'Bill - Fold' 12/1/02 4:37am- stop by your library this afternoon and pick up this book
Michael Oren "Six Days of War"
You will find you are correct in a literal sense but the machinations that went on are convoluted and devious.
By the way, little boy bush read this book ( perhaps his woman read it to him) as justification for pre-emptive strikes.
The 67 reaction by Israel was justified.
What Adolf Sharon and nut n yahoo and the right wing elders of Zion are carrying out today is unacceptable.
The suicide bombings, targeting of Israelis outside their borders are the result of Israeli extremism.
Only they can stop it - or escalate it to the next level of (self) destruction.
"The suicide bombings, targeting of Israelis outside their borders are the result of Israeli extremism. "
Islamist extremists carry out the deeds. And they sow the seeds of their own people's destruction.
I think they have choice and free will. They stop, the IDF will stand down.
I agree with Rick. If the extremists stop their insane bombings, the IDF will stand down.
I saw a poll on the news the other night where 56% of Palestinians thought there should be a cease fire. 70%+ thought Arafat should step down.
I think the average Palestinian is just as tired of this as the average Israeli.
and one can argue to this
If the extremists stop their insane bombings, the IDF will stand down.
If the Israelis return to pre 67 borders and stop settlements, the PLA will stop the bombings.
I see no difference in the insanity of the Jews or the Palestinians.
As a people who have been subjected to horrendous excesses of barbarity, I would consider that the Jews would not want to perpetuate what was meted out to them to others.
If the Israelis return to pre 67 borders and stop settlements, the PLA will stop the bombings.
Sorry, but the bombings have to stop first. Then they can talk specifics. Every attempt on the part of the Jews has been met with another bombing. Would you give in if you were Israel?
Israeli leaders may think they cannot step back from the intensity, because the people they are fighting only recognize strength in the ability to exert force.
"There will be peace when the Palistinians learn to love their children more than they hate Israel."
Golda Meier
What happend with the muslims and chiristians of Indian state Gujrate also give right to those oppressed people for suicide attack against indian stablishment and government which is being ruled by fanantic hindus and these fanatic hindus are supporting Hindu terrorists in gujrate, indian punjab, bengal, Ayudhia e.t.c these Hindus are killing those innocent muslims and chiristians like animals they even don't bother to convert the innocent children, infants and even unborn babies into human roast!
The Survivors Speak
http://www.ektaonline.org/cac/resources/reports/womensreport.htm
Fact-finding Report by a Women’s Panel, India
Main Findings:
VILLAGE ERAL, KALOL TALUKA , PANCHMAHALS DISTRICT. MARCH 3, 2002[5]
My father-in-law, a retired schoolteacher, refused to leave the village with the other Muslim families who fled to Kalol on February 28th. He believed no one would harm us. From the 28th about 13 members of my family sought refuge in various people’s houses and the fields. On Sunday afternoon (March 3rd) the hut we were hiding in was attacked. We ran in different directions and hid in the field. But the mob found some of us and started attacking. I could hear various members of my family shouting for mercy as they were attacked. I recognized two people from my village - Gano Baria and Sunil - pulling away my daughter Shabana. She screamed, telling the men to get off her and leave her alone. The screams and cries of Ruqaiya, Suhana, Shabana, begging for their izzat could clearly be heard. My mind was seething with fear and fury. I could do nothing to help my daughter from being assaulted sexually and tortured to death. My daughter was like a flower, still to experience life. Why did they have to do this to her? What kind of men are these? The monsters tore my beloved daughter to pieces. After a while, the mob was saying “cut them to pieces, leave no evidence.” I saw fires being lit. After some time the mob started leaving. And it became quiet.
Naradar! you should die on shame its all happend in your bajrangi Land
At no time did the Colonists experience a systematic, thoroughgoing, brutal authoritarianism...Dennis Rahkonen
From The Declaration of Independence
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
For protecting them (English troops), by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
How brutal were the British in the colonies? You really can't know based on what Jefferson and those who helped draft the Declaration wrote. It's a question that should be explored. It seems odd to me that the references to brutality are further down the list there.
Wouldn't that be worst oppression of the list? It seems Jefferson was more concerned with the entanglements of too much bureaucracy. Probably standing in the way of his accumulation of wealth.
Doesn't that lend credance to the notion that ours was a middle class revolution. A revolution of the comfortable? On the same token, I imagine these men took considerable risk in drafting the Declaration.
Here's a little link about British-American relations from the Library of Congress
"Because of the strong bands of law, loyalty, faith and blood uniting the two peoples, many Americans were surprised that a war against the British had occurred. Most Americans believed themselves to be as English as their kin in the mother country, differing from them only in living in another part of the empire. Even on the eve of declaring independence most Americans would have been happy with what is today called "dominion status," which would have meant owing allegiance to the British monarch but otherwise enjoying political autonomy. "
Rick,
They took huge risks. They risked their lives and their families livelihoods. Most of the drafters were well off or in posistions of influence. It was the middle or upper class that started it but eventually all classes followed because they saw the possiblity and a way to end the tyranny. There were some and many in the upper or middle classes that didn't want to uspet the apple cart. They had thiers so why mess with it ? So the ones that did even stand out more to me becuase they were still willing to risk their fortunes but their lives as well to make a better life.
Which brings us back to Dennis' point. The thing is that at the time England was the MOST powerful country in the world. But what he forgets is that our goal was not achieved by targeting civilians even though we had little power and were outgunned mightily we still acted with some humanity. So while both had grievances different methods were used. One is defensible and one is not (well to some)
Sid the Kid - Naeem Siddiqui 12/1/02 11:28pm
extremism always manifests itself in such barbarity - examples of which you pick and select.
Hindoo extremism, Islamic extremism, Israeli or Palestinian - perepetuated by wretched self anointed pundits of perversity.
Hindoo extremism currently is confined to the borders of India - Cain and Abel being reenacted as it has for thousands of years.
Islamic excesses however have been unleashed on humanity as a whole and all nations are under its duress.
As Samuel P. Huntington predicted, the Clash of Civilizations has commenced. Islam and Christianity are the first to butt heads.
We Hindus will wait for the winner - I predict it will be the Christians - and then take him on.
Why is it necessary for the relationship to be advesariel ?
chota peg - Ferrous Pegs 12/3/02 8:40am
has it ever been otherwhise? the cynic in me says it is intrinsic human behaviour.
http://www.littleredbutton.com/gaza/
In “Gaza Strip”, a handheld video camera tracks the daily lives of a 13- year old boy and his chums who are growing up under the impoverished and humiliating conditions inside this twenty-eight by four-mile fenced-in ghetto where more than a million Palestinians have been forced to live under Israeli occupation since 1967. The boys sell newspapers in order to support their out-of-work families. Sometimes they go to take part in the dangerous game of throwing rocks at the Israeli soldiers who are guarding the prosperous Zionist settlements visible in the distance. (The Zionist settlements number only a few thousand invididuals but take up one-third of the Gaza Strip's already limited supply of land.) The boys are amazingly resiliant, but there is no other future in sight than further impoverishment and humiliation. If anyone doesn’t comprehend the tragic circumstances that could lead young Palestinians to choose to become suicide bombers, then they should watch this film. And who is responsible for the plight of the Palestinians? Without the billions of dollars in U.S. aid – and they are currently asking for billions more in the name of "fighting terrorism” -- the Israelis could never do it. It makes me exceedingly angry that I am helping to pay for these crimes against humanity with some of my hard-earned tax dollars.
--Jay Moore
A great parody by Victor Davis Hanson
http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson120602.asp
.....Secretary Rumsfeld scoffed that German Prime Minister Schröder
reminded him of "a Hitler" in his fiery rhetoric at mass rallies.
Rumsfeld's chief aide, Paul Wolfowitz, earlier had
purportedly complained that Schröder was "another
Caesar" who was trying to recreate German
imperialism. Wolfowitz concluded that the Germans as
a people were showing an "intolerant, spiteful
style.".....
.....The administration also announced that it would veto any U.N.
resolution that allowed the French to retaliate against Libya for
the Bastille Day destruction of the Louvre that cost the lives of
3,000 French citizens and destroyed an icon of French power and
culture. President Bush reiterated that the United States would not
take part in any "preemptory" action against the people of Libya as
part of allotting "collective" guilt for the Louvre massacre.
Read the rest...........
I had a terrible dream last night.
I was a young child, playing with other children in a large urban park, surrounded by the buildings of a big city.
Like New York's Central Park.
Except this wasn't in the United States.
As we played, chevron flights of aircraft suddenly appeared very high in the sky.
We watched as they sparkled in the sun.
Then, in the city beyond the park, and beginning on the park's far edge, countless explosions started moving toward us.
"It's the Americans!" one of my little friends yelled.
We all scurried in horror, trying to find safety.
The explosions drew nearer as the planes passed.
Finally, just before we would have been blown away, one other boy and I came upon a narrow metal culvert beneath a path. We managed to just squeeze inside.
The earth shook. Dust and smoke entered the culvert.
But we survived, unscathed.
We crawled back out.
All of our playmates -- or what remained of their torn, burnt bodies -- were dead.
My dream didn't tell me my nationality.
Maybe I was Vietnamese, Yugoslav, Iraqi.
Or a composite of all three, plus others.
But I awoke with a start, trembling.
Fortunately...it was just a dream.
http://liberalslant.com/read2.htm
No nation on earth poses a greater threat to world peace and stability than U.S. imperialism. No other nation deploys more weapons of mass destruction than the U.S.; none sells more arms; none has demonstrated a greater willingness to use them than we have, as evidenced by our extensive history of backing and training right wing coups and terrorist organizations around the world. These include, not coincidentally, Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden’s Al Quaeda terrorist network. There are consequences to every thing we do. We cannot interfere in the affairs of other people without feeling the effects somewhere along the line. We reap what we sow; when we bomb and subject other people to lives of misery, squalor, and unimaginable terror and death, we will eventually feel the effects in our own lives. Life is a great circle. What goes around comes around. And that brings us full circle to the events of September 11, 2001 and their aftermath...
Hindoo extremism, Islamic extremism, Israeli or Palestinian - perepetuated by wretched self anointed pundits of perversity. --- Naradar Bajrangi
There is no comparision of Hindu extremism, its unique and most barbaric of its kind, we have seen the glimps of Hindu brutality and evilness in Indian state gujrate
As Samuel P. Huntington predicted, the Clash of Civilizations has commenced. Islam and Christianity are the first to butt heads --- Naradar Bajrangi
There will be no Clash of Civilizations b'coz west know very well that they will loose definitely as they have lost their crusade in the past.
We Hindus will wait for the winner - I predict it will be the Christians - and then take him on. --- Naradar Bajrangi
Never compare a filthy, baseless and senseless religion Hinduism with the greate religions like Islam and chiristianity. your own bajrangi morons claim in your land of AIDS that Hinduism is not a religion but a culture (A culture of cowardness, brutality and hatred)
Secretary Rumsfeld scoffed that German Prime Minister Schröder reminded him of "a Hitler" in his fiery rhetoric at mass rallies. --- apple
Rumsfeld must have seen a mirror! He himslef reminded the whole world 'a Hitler' during his speaches justifying the murder of thousands innocent Afghan civilians as a 'mistake'! and being very proud of droping food packets and bombs simultaniously on Afhan people, its realy a slape on the face of humanity and insult of human dignity, he has exposed the ugly face of U.S. imperialism.
Why do you live here Dennis?
When are you going to leave, Torpedo? Tax Whiner!
Two Words: Costa Rica
I love ambushing you!
Ambush? Sounds like a misfire.
Ya know, you're right Rick. I should change my state of mind and learn to love taxes.
During the weekly session of the Israeli cabinet, Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein instructed Sharon to use targeted killings of suspected Palestinian terrorists only as a last resort.
The ruling followed reports that Sharon had ordered an increase in the practice as part of efforts to stop Palestinian violence.
and Adolf Sharon's response
An 11-year-old Palestinian boy was killed today by Israeli gunfire during a demonstration in the West Bank
The Palestinian child, the second killed by Israeli soldiers in as many days, was shot when a group of schoolchildren pelted troops with rocks and bottles in the West Bank town of Tulkarm
I suppose a Rabbi can be found who will exculpate the israelis of all blame.
The same logic and motivation used by so dumb insane when he gassed kurdish children. A threat of sovereignty allows all forms of retaliation.
Yet Naradar shows no outrage for the suicide bombers attacking civilians only....Amazing.
and the cycle commences again
At least 15 people were killed and about 40 were wounded today in a suicide bombing on board a bus in Haifa in northern Israel, the police said.
The israeli people reelected Adolf Sharon. The desperation index for the Palestinians has increased a millionfold. The reprisal starts all over in the war. The reprisal to the reprisal will be headlines soon. And then the reprisal to the reprisal ......
Wonder if these suicide bombers will get the ususal reward from so dumb insane. We are going to evict him soon - one of the two reasons little boy bush wants this war is to ensure the suicide bombers do not get their motivating reward.
In times of despiration, holding onto your humanity matters more than ever.
Leaders of Hamas and the Martyrs Brigade don't know that.
Amen, Rick.
Rick - (PFID:f4405cc)
3 months since anyone posted??? I guess because Rick said it all:
In times of despiration, holding onto your humanity matters more than ever.
Leaders of Hamas and the Martyrs Brigade don't know that.
Another 15 civilians killed today by a suicide bomber. Why don't they attack the Israeli Army the chickenshit bastards!
I can't believe the restraint Israel is showing. It's time to use their FULL military.
A woman was walking down the street in Israel pushing her baby in a stroller when the bus exploded, she reached in to her dipper bag and grabbed two bottles of juice and ran in to the bus to try to put out the fire with the juice. That tells me a lot about the character of the people that have to live with that kind of terror every day.
I can't believe the restraint Israel is showing. It's time to use their FULL military
I don't think Bush will let them.
Sharon is a military man. Arafat is a thug.
We ought to at least try to do it once. Ararat is a turd.