After reading the stuff posted here about the war in Gaza, with the
near-unanimous opinion that the Palestinians are getting what they
deserve, I've got to say something to counteract this entirely *wrong* view.

I'll refrain from calling those who post these opinions names. They can
be forgiven because they are--we all are--victims of propaganda, of
Israeli propaganda which is, for the most part, not challenged by our
(writing from the U.S. here) miserable excuse for a "free press".
(Things are a little different in, say, the UK: read the Guardian or the
Telegraph for a much more diverse spectrum of views on this situation.)

The fact is that in this situation, as in so many others, the Israelis
are behaving somewhat like Nazis. I hasten to add that, as a Jew, I do
not in any way equate the Israelis with those aforementioned vermin. But
the parallels in their behavior are disturbing.

What's being left out of any discussion of this situation is the extent
of the oppression of the entire Palestinian population that is the
driving force behind all of their violent actions (suicide bombings,
rocket launchings). Even before this latest invasion, Gaza has been a
gigantic prison for more than a million people. The Israelis, so far
from having left the place as is widely stated, control every aspect of
life in this miserable place. Nothing gets in or out without their
approval. If you want to go out to visit someone, to buy something, for
whatever reason, you have to negotiate an Israeli checkpoint. Which
means you may or may not get in or out, and if you do, you may have to
wait hours. Or days.

I'll get to those Hamas rockets in a second. But to understand what's
happening there, put yourself in that situation. Imagine you live here,
let's say somewhere in Texas, and that your area is under occupation,
let's say by Unitarians. (Your population is predominantly Christian.)
Your region is surrounded on 3 sides by a fortress wall with guarded
checkpoints; the 4th side is the sea. If you want to get in or out, you
have to wait at a checkpoint where a Unitarian guard may or may not let
you through; they will shower you with abuse, though, steal stuff from
you, maybe even shoot you. You wouldn't get through even if your child
was in critical need of medical attention which they could only get on
the other side; sometimes they would die there.

Unitarians will periodically demolish homes (occupied or vacant) in your
territory (and this is during the time of a cease-fire). They'll uproot
your olive orchards, kill your livestock. Every day you'll see them
traveling on Unitarian-only roads, past their settlements which are
watered with *your* water, living a life of relative affluence against
your grinding poverty.

I could go on, but you should get the picture. Don't take my word for
it: here's a letter I got, written by a 26-year-old Israeli soldier,
about his experiences in the Occupied Territories:

On some days, of course, we enforced a full "closure", meaning that
no Palestinians could pass at all. It didn't matter if you were a
teacher or a student trying to get to the school right on the other
side of the checkpoint. Nobody got through.

Every day at lunch, we closed the checkpoint down until we were done.
Queues would form, but we would pay them no mind. If a Palestinian
got impatient and started approaching, we knew what to do: One of us
would get up and point a rifle at him. He would quickly turn back.
If not, we would make sure that he spent many good hours waiting at
the checkpoint.

Of course, if a settler came by the checkpoint--during lunch or at
any other time--he'd just smile at us, wave hello, and walk by.

These were the day-in, day-out realities of my time in the IDF. And
there were, of course, examples of more extreme behavior. Like the day
my unit set up a surprise checkpoint at the outskirts of a Palestinian
village. A local farmer trying to pass through the area had raised a bit
of a fuss. He wanted to transport some chickens, but a soldier refused
him. Our commander decided to show the Palestinian who was boss. He
lifted his rifle, aimed, and shot one of the chickens. End of argument.

Sure, a dead chicken might seem like small potatoes, but multiply that
small humiliation by a thousand and you begin to see how nobody--no
human being--who lives under such conditions *constantly* would put up
with it for long.

So what about those Hamas rockets?

It's true that Hamas has launched, and continues to launch, rockets into
Israel. But to listen to the U.S. media, you would think that this is
simply being done because they're evil, with no provocation. I refer you
to the above for why they're doing it.

This is not to say that Israel doesn't have a right to defend itself: it
does. But this situation is so disproportionate that it staggers the
mind. Take those Palestinian rockets: how many have they killed? Turns
out that over the last 8 years, about 20 Israelis have been killed by
them. 20. How many has Israel killed in this latest carnage? The toll
stands at about 900 today; almost a third of them (275) children.

And those rockets? Anyone know how pathetically, almost comically
inaccurate and crude those Qassam rockets are? They're homemade, for
chrissakes. No accuracy at all. More likely to land in an empty field
than anywhere else. While some of the rockets are better ones smuggled
in from outside, the majority are these grenades-in-tin-cans.

Sorry, Israel is the aggressor here, the one with the upper hand
militarily. (Even so, it's likely they'll lose this war, just as they
lost the 2006 Lebanon war, although not until much death and destruction.)

So where will Obama come down on this? My guess is that he'll simply
continue the decades-old policy of nearly unconditional support for
Israel, no matter what.

Let me close with a caustic look at this situation from an Israeli peace
activist, Uri Avnery (http://counterpunch.org/avnery01122009.html for
full article):

Nearly seventy ago, in the course of World War II, a heinous crime
was committed in the city of Leningrad. For more than a thousand
days, a gang of extremists called “the Red Army” held the millions of
the town’s inhabitants hostage and provoked retaliation from the
German Wehrmacht from inside the population centers. The Germans had
no alternative but to bomb and shell the population and to impose a
total blockade, which caused the death of hundreds of thousands.

Some time before that, a similar crime was committed in England. The
Churchill gang hid among the population of London, misusing the millions
of citizens as a human shield. The Germans were compelled to send their
Luftwaffe and reluctantly reduce the city to ruins. They called it the
Blitz.

This is the description that would now appear in the history books –
if the Germans had won the war.

Absurd? No more than the daily descriptions in our media, which are
being repeated ad nauseam: the Hamas terrorists use the inhabitants of
Gaza as “hostages” and exploit the women and children as “human
shields”, they leave us no alternative but to carry out massive
bombardments, in which, to our deep sorrow, thousands of women, children
and unarmed men are killed and injured.


--
In order to embark on a new course, the only one that will
solve the problem: negotiations and peace with the Palestinians,
the Lebanese, the Syrians. And: with Hamas and Hizbullah.

Because it's only with enemies that one makes peace.

- Uri Avnery, Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom.
(http://counterpunch.org/avnery08032006.html)

David Nebenzahl wrote:
After reading the stuff posted here about the war in Gaza, with the
near-unanimous opinion that the Palestinians are getting what they
deserve, I've got to say something to counteract this entirely
*wrong* view.
I'll refrain from calling those who post these opinions names. They
can be forgiven because they are--we all are--victims of propaganda, of
Israeli propaganda which is, for the most part, not challenged by our
(writing from the U.S. here) miserable excuse for a "free press".
(Things are a little different in, say, the UK: read the Guardian or
the Telegraph for a much more diverse spectrum of views on this
situation.)
The fact is that in this situation, as in so many others, the Israelis
are behaving somewhat like Nazis. I hasten to add that, as a Jew, I do
not in any way equate the Israelis with those aforementioned vermin.
But the parallels in their behavior are disturbing.

What's being left out of any discussion of this situation is the
extent of the oppression of the entire Palestinian population that is the
driving force behind all of their violent actions (suicide bombings,
rocket launchings). Even before this latest invasion, Gaza has been a
gigantic prison for more than a million people. The Israelis, so far
from having left the place as is widely stated, control every aspect
of life in this miserable place. Nothing gets in or out without their
approval. If you want to go out to visit someone, to buy something,
for whatever reason, you have to negotiate an Israeli checkpoint.
Which means you may or may not get in or out, and if you do, you may have
to
wait hours. Or days.

I'll get to those Hamas rockets in a second. But to understand what's
happening there, put yourself in that situation. Imagine you live
here, let's say somewhere in Texas, and that your area is under
occupation, let's say by Unitarians. (Your population is predominantly
Christian.)
Your region is surrounded on 3 sides by a fortress wall with guarded
checkpoints; the 4th side is the sea. If you want to get in or out,
you have to wait at a checkpoint where a Unitarian guard may or may
not let you through; they will shower you with abuse, though, steal stuff
from
you, maybe even shoot you. You wouldn't get through even if your child
was in critical need of medical attention which they could only get on
the other side; sometimes they would die there.

Unitarians will periodically demolish homes (occupied or vacant) in
your territory (and this is during the time of a cease-fire). They'll
uproot your olive orchards, kill your livestock. Every day you'll see
them traveling on Unitarian-only roads, past their settlements which
are watered with *your* water, living a life of relative affluence against
your grinding poverty.

I could go on, but you should get the picture. Don't take my word for
it: here's a letter I got, written by a 26-year-old Israeli soldier,
about his experiences in the Occupied Territories:

On some days, of course, we enforced a full "closure", meaning that
no Palestinians could pass at all. It didn't matter if you were a
teacher or a student trying to get to the school right on the other
side of the checkpoint. Nobody got through.

Every day at lunch, we closed the checkpoint down until we were
done. Queues would form, but we would pay them no mind. If a
Palestinian got impatient and started approaching, we knew what to
do: One of us would get up and point a rifle at him. He would
quickly turn back. If not, we would make sure that he spent many
good hours waiting at the checkpoint.

Of course, if a settler came by the checkpoint--during lunch or at
any other time--he'd just smile at us, wave hello, and walk by.

These were the day-in, day-out realities of my time in the IDF. And
there were, of course, examples of more extreme behavior. Like the
day my unit set up a surprise checkpoint at the outskirts of a
Palestinian village. A local farmer trying to pass through the area
had raised a bit of a fuss. He wanted to transport some chickens,
but a soldier refused him. Our commander decided to show the
Palestinian who was boss. He lifted his rifle, aimed, and shot one
of the chickens. End of argument.
Sure, a dead chicken might seem like small potatoes, but multiply that
small humiliation by a thousand and you begin to see how nobody--no
human being--who lives under such conditions *constantly* would put up
with it for long.

So what about those Hamas rockets?

It's true that Hamas has launched, and continues to launch, rockets
into Israel. But to listen to the U.S. media, you would think that
this is simply being done because they're evil, with no provocation.
I refer you to the above for why they're doing it.

This is not to say that Israel doesn't have a right to defend itself:
it does. But this situation is so disproportionate that it staggers
the mind. Take those Palestinian rockets: how many have they killed? Turns
out that over the last 8 years, about 20 Israelis have been killed by
them. 20. How many has Israel killed in this latest carnage? The toll
stands at about 900 today; almost a third of them (275) children.

And those rockets? Anyone know how pathetically, almost comically
inaccurate and crude those Qassam rockets are? They're homemade, for
chrissakes. No accuracy at all. More likely to land in an empty field
than anywhere else. While some of the rockets are better ones smuggled
in from outside, the majority are these grenades-in-tin-cans.

Sorry, Israel is the aggressor here, the one with the upper hand
militarily. (Even so, it's likely they'll lose this war, just as they
lost the 2006 Lebanon war, although not until much death and
destruction.)
So where will Obama come down on this? My guess is that he'll simply
continue the decades-old policy of nearly unconditional support for
Israel, no matter what.

Let me close with a caustic look at this situation from an Israeli
peace activist, Uri Avnery
(http://counterpunch.org/avnery01122009.html for full article):

Nearly seventy ago, in the course of World War II, a heinous crime
was committed in the city of Leningrad. For more than a thousand
days, a gang of extremists called “the Red Army” held the millions
of the town’s inhabitants hostage and provoked retaliation from the
German Wehrmacht from inside the population centers. The Germans had
no alternative but to bomb and shell the population and to impose a
total blockade, which caused the death of hundreds of thousands.

Some time before that, a similar crime was committed in England. The
Churchill gang hid among the population of London, misusing the
millions of citizens as a human shield. The Germans were compelled
to send their Luftwaffe and reluctantly reduce the city to ruins.
They called it the Blitz.

This is the description that would now appear in the history books –
if the Germans had won the war.

Absurd? No more than the daily descriptions in our media, which are
being repeated ad nauseam: the Hamas terrorists use the inhabitants
of Gaza as “hostages” and exploit the women and children as “human
shields”, they leave us no alternative but to carry out massive
bombardments, in which, to our deep sorrow, thousands of women,
children and unarmed men are killed and injured.

You make a fascinating, but flawed, point. You blame Israel for the woes of
the Palestinians mainly because Israel does not allow free transit between
Gaza and Israel. Hamas would disagree with you, however. The main problem,
according to Hamas, is the continued occupation of Palestinian lands. "What
occupation," you may ask? Didn't Israel completely pull out of Gaza a couple
of years ago?

When Hamas speaks of "occupation," they mean Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifi,
Askelon, and all the other places "occupied" by the Jew.

Anyway, as I said, your observation is flawed for two reasons:

* It's Israel's border and they can control it any way they see fit. Similar
to your example of Texas, the U.S. tries to not allow Mexicans to enter
unchecked. For a LONG time, Gaza residents - with proper documentation -
could travel to Israel to work or shop, but this situation had to be
curtailed when it was abused.

* Gaza has a nine-mile border with Egypt and Egypt has virtually the same
restrictions as Israel on the movement of Gaza residents.

Egypt doesn't want the Palestinians. Neither does Jordan. For sixty years,
in fact, no Arab or Muslim country has welcomed or even accepted Palestinian
refugees. Nobody wants the Palestinians. Nobody needs the Palestinians.
Nobody even likes the Palestinians! Don't put all the blame on Israel.

In article ,
"HeyBub" wrote:

* Gaza has a nine-mile border with Egypt and Egypt has virtually the same
restrictions as Israel on the movement of Gaza residents.
Thus the Palestinians getting rowdy with the Egyptians a couple of
months ago. If the Palestinians could get along with ANYBODY, I might be
more sanguine.


Egypt doesn't want the Palestinians. Neither does Jordan. For sixty years,
in fact, no Arab or Muslim country has welcomed or even accepted Palestinian
refugees. Nobody wants the Palestinians. Nobody needs the Palestinians.
Nobody even likes the Palestinians! Don't put all the blame on Israel.

I would submit that many governments in the Middle East need
Palestinians as whipping boys and to give their own people Israel to
hate to keep them from turning on said governments. The arab countries
in the ME could have resolved this 40 years or more ago if it wasn't in
their interests to keep the hornet's nest stirred up.

On Jan 12, 2:55*pm, Kurt Ullman wrote:
....
... The arab countries
in the ME could have resolved this 40 years or more ago ...

Not unless they somehow can also erase 2000 years of history.

--

"dpb" wrote in message
...
On Jan 12, 2:55 pm, Kurt Ullman wrote:
....
... The arab countries
in the ME could have resolved this 40 years or more ago ...

Not unless they somehow can also erase 2000 years of history.





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_OGhj43GAE



--

Kurt Ullman wrote in
:

In article ,
"HeyBub" wrote:

* Gaza has a nine-mile border with Egypt and Egypt has virtually the
same restrictions as Israel on the movement of Gaza residents.
Thus the Palestinians getting rowdy with the Egyptians a couple of
months ago. If the Palestinians could get along with ANYBODY, I might
be more sanguine.


Egypt doesn't want the Palestinians. Neither does Jordan. For sixty
years, in fact, no Arab or Muslim country has welcomed or even
accepted Palestinian refugees. Nobody wants the Palestinians. Nobody
needs the Palestinians. Nobody even likes the Palestinians! Don't put
all the blame on Israel.

I would submit that many governments in the Middle East need
Palestinians as whipping boys and to give their own people Israel to
hate to keep them from turning on said governments. The arab countries
in the ME could have resolved this 40 years or more ago if it wasn't
in their interests to keep the hornet's nest stirred up.


Egypt is concerned that the Hamas "political style" may infect their
country,one reason for a "blockade" of Gaza. Egypt probably remembers how
the Palestinians tried to take over Jordan and had to be expelled;Black
September is how the Palestinians recall it.Then there's what the
Palestinians did to Lebanon.

Also,Egypt has a PEACE TREATY with Israel,and allowing arms to flow thru
Egypt to be used against Israel is not be a peaceful act.

But a basic undeniable fact is that Hamas is not interested in building a
Palestinian nation,they are interested in the destruction of Israel and
driving the Jews into the sea. The latter is a part of Hamas charter.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
kua.net

In article m,
David Nebenzahl wrote:

I'll refrain from calling those who post these opinions names. They can
be forgiven because they are--we all are--victims of propaganda, of
Israeli propaganda which is, for the most part, not challenged by our
(writing from the U.S. here) miserable excuse for a "free press".
(Things are a little different in, say, the UK: read the Guardian or the
Telegraph for a much more diverse spectrum of views on this situation.)


God. You could be just a LITTLE more condescending in your view of
those who disagree with you. I especially don't need to be forgiven by
the likes of you.


The fact is that in this situation, as in so many others, the Israelis
are behaving somewhat like Nazis. I hasten to add that, as a Jew, I do
not in any way equate the Israelis with those aforementioned vermin. But
the parallels in their behavior are disturbing.
Yet you do exactly that, but without the balls to admit it.

On Jan 12, 1:44*pm, David Nebenzahl wrote:
After reading the stuff posted here about the war in Gaza, with the
near-unanimous opinion that the Palestinians are getting what they
deserve, I've got to say something to counteract this entirely *wrong* view.

I'll refrain from calling those who post these opinions names. They can
be forgiven because they are--we all are--victims of propaganda, of
Israeli propaganda which is, for the most part, not challenged by our
(writing from the U.S. here) miserable excuse for a "free press".
(Things are a little different in, say, the UK: read the Guardian or the
Telegraph for a much more diverse spectrum of views on this situation.)

The fact is that in this situation, as in so many others, the Israelis
are behaving somewhat like Nazis. I hasten to add that, as a Jew, I do
not in any way equate the Israelis with those aforementioned vermin. But
the parallels in their behavior are disturbing.

What's being left out of any discussion of this situation is the extent
of the oppression of the entire Palestinian population that is the
driving force behind all of their violent actions (suicide bombings,
rocket launchings). Even before this latest invasion, Gaza has been a
gigantic prison for more than a million people. The Israelis, so far
from having left the place as is widely stated, control every aspect of
life in this miserable place. Nothing gets in or out without their
approval. If you want to go out to visit someone, to buy something, for
whatever reason, you have to negotiate an Israeli checkpoint. Which
means you may or may not get in or out, and if you do, you may have to
wait hours. Or days.

I'll get to those Hamas rockets in a second. But to understand what's
happening there, put yourself in that situation. Imagine you live here,
let's say somewhere in Texas, and that your area is under occupation,
let's say by Unitarians. (Your population is predominantly Christian.)
Your region is surrounded on 3 sides by a fortress wall with guarded
checkpoints; the 4th side is the sea. If you want to get in or out, you
have to wait at a checkpoint where a Unitarian guard may or may not let
you through; they will shower you with abuse, though, steal stuff from
you, maybe even shoot you. You wouldn't get through even if your child
was in critical need of medical attention which they could only get on
the other side; sometimes they would die there.

Unitarians will periodically demolish homes (occupied or vacant) in your
territory (and this is during the time of a cease-fire). They'll uproot
your olive orchards, kill your livestock. Every day you'll see them
traveling on Unitarian-only roads, past their settlements which are
watered with *your* water, living a life of relative affluence against
your grinding poverty.

I could go on, but you should get the picture. Don't take my word for
it: here's a letter I got, written by a 26-year-old Israeli soldier,
about his experiences in the Occupied Territories:

* *On some days, of course, we enforced a full "closure", meaning that
* *no Palestinians could pass at all. It didn't matter if you were a
* *teacher or a student trying to get to the school right on the other
* *side of the checkpoint. Nobody got through.

* *Every day at lunch, we closed the checkpoint down until we were done.
* *Queues would form, but we would pay them no mind. If a Palestinian
* *got impatient and started approaching, we knew what to do: One of us
* *would get up and point a rifle at him. He would quickly turn back.
* *If not, we would make sure that he spent many good hours waiting at
* *the checkpoint.

* *Of course, if a settler came by the checkpoint--during lunch or at
* *any other time--he'd just smile at us, wave hello, and walk by.

* *These were the day-in, day-out realities of my time in the IDF. And
* *there were, of course, examples of more extreme behavior. Like the day
* *my unit set up a surprise checkpoint at the outskirts of a Palestinian
* *village. A local farmer trying to pass through the area had raised a bit
* *of a fuss. He wanted to transport some chickens, but a soldier refused
* *him. Our commander decided to show the Palestinian who was boss. He
* *lifted his rifle, aimed, and shot one of the chickens. End of argument.

Sure, a dead chicken might seem like small potatoes, but multiply that
small humiliation by a thousand and you begin to see how nobody--no
human being--who lives under such conditions *constantly* would put up
with it for long.

So what about those Hamas rockets?

It's true that Hamas has launched, and continues to launch, rockets into
Israel. But to listen to the U.S. media, you would think that this is
simply being done because they're evil, with no provocation. I refer you
to the above for why they're doing it.

This is not to say that Israel doesn't have a right to defend itself: it
does. But this situation is so disproportionate that it staggers the
mind. Take those Palestinian rockets: how many have they killed? Turns
out that over the last 8 years, about 20 Israelis have been killed by
them. 20. How many has Israel killed in this latest carnage? The toll
stands at about 900 today; almost a third of them (275) children.

And those rockets? Anyone know how pathetically, almost comically
inaccurate and crude those Qassam rockets are? They're homemade, for
chrissakes. No accuracy at all. More likely to land in an empty field
than anywhere else. While some of the rockets are better ones smuggled
in from outside, the majority are these grenades-in-tin-cans.

Sorry, Israel is the aggressor here, the one with the upper hand
militarily. (Even so, it's likely they'll lose this war, just as they
lost the 2006 Lebanon war, although not until much death and destruction.)

So where will Obama come down on this? My guess is that he'll simply
continue the decades-old policy of nearly unconditional support for
Israel, no matter what.

Let me close with a caustic look at this situation from an Israeli peace
activist, Uri Avnery (http://counterpunch.org/avnery01122009.htmlfor
full article):

* *Nearly seventy ago, in the course of World War II, a heinous crime
* *was committed in the city of Leningrad. For more than a thousand
* *days, a gang of extremists called “the Red Army” held the millions of
* *the town’s inhabitants hostage and provoked retaliation from the
* *German Wehrmacht from inside the population centers. The Germans had
* *no alternative but to bomb and shell the population and to impose a
* *total blockade, which caused the death of hundreds of thousands.

* *Some time before that, a similar crime was committed in England. The
* *Churchill gang hid among the population of London, misusing the millions
* *of citizens as a human shield. The Germans were compelled to send their
* *Luftwaffe and reluctantly reduce the city to ruins. They called it the
* *Blitz.

* *This is the description that would now appear in the history books –
* *if the Germans had won the war.

* *Absurd? No more than the daily descriptions in our media, which are
* *being repeated ad nauseam: the Hamas terrorists use the inhabitants of
* *Gaza as “hostages” and exploit the women and children as “human
* *shields”, they leave us no alternative but to carry out massive
* *bombardments, in which, to our deep sorrow, thousands of women, children
* *and unarmed men are killed and injured.

--
In order to embark on a new course, the only one that will
solve the problem: negotiations and peace with the Palestinians,
the Lebanese, the Syrians. And: with Hamas and Hizbullah.

Because it's only with enemies that one makes peace.

- Uri Avnery, Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom.
(http://counterpunch.org/avnery08032006.html)

I understand this. Israel is pushing Palestinians to the wall. When
someone gets cornered, that person will fight back with everything he
can get his hand on.

US media doesn't seem to have learnt anything from the lesson of the
so called Iraq WMD program. It is still acting like a government
mouth piece. So much for free press...

Honestly I have really no idea what is the final goal of what Israel
is doing in West Bank and Gaza. If the goal is to make Palestinians
as uncomfortable as possible in order to force them away and to grab
their lands, Palestinians have no where else to go, and other Arab
countries are not going to accept the Palestinians. If the goal is to
grab West Bank to create a defensible depth (West Bank is right in the
middle of Israel), Israel is not saying which part of the land Israel
is willing to give up to exchange for West Bank. If the goal is to
find a way to live peacefully with Palestinians, what Israel doing is
the complete opposite.

Currently Israel is totally depending on US supports, their own secret
stocks of nuclear weapons, and the fact that surrounding Arab
countries are US clients and are not democratic. But none of these
are safe bet. The long term trend is that US power will not like what
it used to be. Countries left and right are doing nuclear program or
setting up nuclear lab for "peaceful" purpose. Weak Arab client
states may become democratic and need to respond to population call
for "action".

My advice to Israel is to "live and let live", and make a good peace
deal when US power is still strong and the relative strength of Israel
is still good.

Jay Chan

Jay Chan wrote:

I understand this. Israel is pushing Palestinians to the wall. When
someone gets cornered, that person will fight back with everything he
can get his hand on.

US media doesn't seem to have learnt anything from the lesson of the
so called Iraq WMD program. It is still acting like a government
mouth piece. So much for free press...

Honestly I have really no idea what is the final goal of what Israel
is doing in West Bank and Gaza. If the goal is to make Palestinians
as uncomfortable as possible in order to force them away and to grab
their lands, Palestinians have no where else to go, and other Arab
countries are not going to accept the Palestinians.

Israel once occupied the West Bank and Gaza (and Sinai). All have been given
up - Sinai to the Egyptians and the West Bank and Gaza to the Palestinians
(except for less than 1% of the West Bank still under negotiation).

There are NO Israeli settlements in Gaza.

When Hamas refers to the "Zionist occupation" it means the Jewish state in
the Middle East. To Hamas, Israel is unlawfully occupying Tel Aviv,
Jerusalem, Haifi, Askelon, and everything in between.


If the goal is to
grab West Bank to create a defensible depth (West Bank is right in the
middle of Israel), Israel is not saying which part of the land Israel
is willing to give up to exchange for West Bank. If the goal is to
find a way to live peacefully with Palestinians, what Israel doing is
the complete opposite.

Currently Israel is totally depending on US supports, their own secret
stocks of nuclear weapons, and the fact that surrounding Arab
countries are US clients and are not democratic. But none of these
are safe bet. The long term trend is that US power will not like what
it used to be. Countries left and right are doing nuclear program or
setting up nuclear lab for "peaceful" purpose. Weak Arab client
states may become democratic and need to respond to population call
for "action".

My advice to Israel is to "live and let live", and make a good peace
deal when US power is still strong and the relative strength of Israel
is still good.


Good advice. If Hamas stopped terrorist activities today against Israel,
there would be peace. If Israel stopped defending itself today, it would
soon cease to exist.

"HeyBub" wrote in message
m...
Jay Chan wrote:

I understand this. Israel is pushing Palestinians to the wall. When
someone gets cornered, that person will fight back with everything he
can get his hand on.

US media doesn't seem to have learnt anything from the lesson of the
so called Iraq WMD program. It is still acting like a government
mouth piece. So much for free press...

Honestly I have really no idea what is the final goal of what Israel
is doing in West Bank and Gaza. If the goal is to make Palestinians
as uncomfortable as possible in order to force them away and to grab
their lands, Palestinians have no where else to go, and other Arab
countries are not going to accept the Palestinians.

Israel once occupied the West Bank and Gaza (and Sinai). All have been
given up - Sinai to the Egyptians and the West Bank and Gaza to the
Palestinians (except for less than 1% of the West Bank still under
negotiation).

There are NO Israeli settlements in Gaza.

When Hamas refers to the "Zionist occupation" it means the Jewish state in
the Middle East. To Hamas, Israel is unlawfully occupying Tel Aviv,
Jerusalem, Haifi, Askelon, and everything in between.


If the goal is to
grab West Bank to create a defensible depth (West Bank is right in the
middle of Israel), Israel is not saying which part of the land Israel
is willing to give up to exchange for West Bank. If the goal is to
find a way to live peacefully with Palestinians, what Israel doing is
the complete opposite.

Currently Israel is totally depending on US supports, their own secret
stocks of nuclear weapons, and the fact that surrounding Arab
countries are US clients and are not democratic. But none of these
are safe bet. The long term trend is that US power will not like what
it used to be. Countries left and right are doing nuclear program or
setting up nuclear lab for "peaceful" purpose. Weak Arab client
states may become democratic and need to respond to population call
for "action".

My advice to Israel is to "live and let live", and make a good peace
deal when US power is still strong and the relative strength of Israel
is still good.


Good advice. If Hamas stopped terrorist activities today against Israel,
there would be peace. If Israel stopped defending itself today, it would
soon cease to exist.



I agree entirely. Israel has had over 6000 missiles fired into its cities
and towns by Hamas. It eventually chose to retaliate and attempt to stop
these attacks. Israel returned land it had captured back to the Arabs in
exchange for a promise of peace. Instead it was fired upon 6320 times with
Hamas missiles.

Hamas very deliberately places itself in the midst of civilians and uses
mosques, hospitals, and schools as places to launch their missiles.

What kind of human beings are these people who strap bombs to their bodies
and blow themselves up? Within Pakistan they are murdering each other and
fighting tribal and sectarian battles which have nothing to do with Israel
because they would rather blame others for their problems than take
ownership themselves.....

On Jan 12, 12:44*pm, David Nebenzahl wrote:
After reading the stuff posted here about the war in Gaza, with the
near-unanimous opinion that the Palestinians are getting what they
deserve, I've got to say something to counteract this entirely *wrong* view.

I'll refrain from calling those who post these opinions names. They can
be forgiven because they are--we all are--victims of propaganda, of
Israeli propaganda which is, for the most part, not challenged by our
(writing from the U.S. here) miserable excuse for a "free press".
(Things are a little different in, say, the UK: read the Guardian or the
Telegraph for a much more diverse spectrum of views on this situation.)

The fact is that in this situation, as in so many others, the Israelis
are behaving somewhat like Nazis. I hasten to add that, as a Jew, I do
not in any way equate the Israelis with those aforementioned vermin. But
the parallels in their behavior are disturbing.

What's being left out of any discussion of this situation is the extent
of the oppression of the entire Palestinian population that is the
driving force behind all of their violent actions (suicide bombings,
rocket launchings). Even before this latest invasion, Gaza has been a
gigantic prison for more than a million people. The Israelis, so far
from having left the place as is widely stated, control every aspect of
life in this miserable place. Nothing gets in or out without their
approval. If you want to go out to visit someone, to buy something, for
whatever reason, you have to negotiate an Israeli checkpoint. Which
means you may or may not get in or out, and if you do, you may have to
wait hours. Or days.

I'll get to those Hamas rockets in a second. But to understand what's
happening there, put yourself in that situation. Imagine you live here,
let's say somewhere in Texas, and that your area is under occupation,
let's say by Unitarians. (Your population is predominantly Christian.)
Your region is surrounded on 3 sides by a fortress wall with guarded
checkpoints; the 4th side is the sea. If you want to get in or out, you
have to wait at a checkpoint where a Unitarian guard may or may not let
you through; they will shower you with abuse, though, steal stuff from
you, maybe even shoot you. You wouldn't get through even if your child
was in critical need of medical attention which they could only get on
the other side; sometimes they would die there.

Unitarians will periodically demolish homes (occupied or vacant) in your
territory (and this is during the time of a cease-fire). They'll uproot
your olive orchards, kill your livestock. Every day you'll see them
traveling on Unitarian-only roads, past their settlements which are
watered with *your* water, living a life of relative affluence against
your grinding poverty.

I could go on, but you should get the picture. Don't take my word for
it: here's a letter I got, written by a 26-year-old Israeli soldier,
about his experiences in the Occupied Territories:

* *On some days, of course, we enforced a full "closure", meaning that
* *no Palestinians could pass at all. It didn't matter if you were a
* *teacher or a student trying to get to the school right on the other
* *side of the checkpoint. Nobody got through.

* *Every day at lunch, we closed the checkpoint down until we were done.
* *Queues would form, but we would pay them no mind. If a Palestinian
* *got impatient and started approaching, we knew what to do: One of us
* *would get up and point a rifle at him. He would quickly turn back.
* *If not, we would make sure that he spent many good hours waiting at
* *the checkpoint.

* *Of course, if a settler came by the checkpoint--during lunch or at
* *any other time--he'd just smile at us, wave hello, and walk by.

* *These were the day-in, day-out realities of my time in the IDF. And
* *there were, of course, examples of more extreme behavior. Like the day
* *my unit set up a surprise checkpoint at the outskirts of a Palestinian
* *village. A local farmer trying to pass through the area had raised a bit
* *of a fuss. He wanted to transport some chickens, but a soldier refused
* *him. Our commander decided to show the Palestinian who was boss. He
* *lifted his rifle, aimed, and shot one of the chickens. End of argument.

Sure, a dead chicken might seem like small potatoes, but multiply that
small humiliation by a thousand and you begin to see how nobody--no
human being--who lives under such conditions *constantly* would put up
with it for long.

So what about those Hamas rockets?

It's true that Hamas has launched, and continues to launch, rockets into
Israel. But to listen to the U.S. media, you would think that this is
simply being done because they're evil, with no provocation. I refer you
to the above for why they're doing it.

This is not to say that Israel doesn't have a right to defend itself: it
does. But this situation is so disproportionate that it staggers the
mind. Take those Palestinian rockets: how many have they killed? Turns
out that over the last 8 years, about 20 Israelis have been killed by
them. 20. How many has Israel killed in this latest carnage? The toll
stands at about 900 today; almost a third of them (275) children.

And those rockets? Anyone know how pathetically, almost comically
inaccurate and crude those Qassam rockets are? They're homemade, for
chrissakes. No accuracy at all. More likely to land in an empty field
than anywhere else. While some of the rockets are better ones smuggled
in from outside, the majority are these grenades-in-tin-cans.

Sorry, Israel is the aggressor here, the one with the upper hand
militarily. (Even so, it's likely they'll lose this war, just as they
lost the 2006 Lebanon war, although not until much death and destruction.)

So where will Obama come down on this? My guess is that he'll simply
continue the decades-old policy of nearly unconditional support for
Israel, no matter what.

Let me close with a caustic look at this situation from an Israeli peace
activist, Uri Avnery (http://counterpunch.org/avnery01122009.htmlfor
full article):

* *Nearly seventy ago, in the course of World War II, a heinous crime
* *was committed in the city of Leningrad. For more than a thousand
* *days, a gang of extremists called “the Red Army” held the millions of
* *the town’s inhabitants hostage and provoked retaliation from the
* *German Wehrmacht from inside the population centers. The Germans had
* *no alternative but to bomb and shell the population and to impose a
* *total blockade, which caused the death of hundreds of thousands.

* *Some time before that, a similar crime was committed in England. The
* *Churchill gang hid among the population of London, misusing the millions
* *of citizens as a human shield. The Germans were compelled to send their
* *Luftwaffe and reluctantly reduce the city to ruins. They called it the
* *Blitz.

* *This is the description that would now appear in the history books –
* *if the Germans had won the war.

* *Absurd? No more than the daily descriptions in our media, which are
* *being repeated ad nauseam: the Hamas terrorists use the inhabitants of
* *Gaza as “hostages” and exploit the women and children as “human
* *shields”, they leave us no alternative but to carry out massive
* *bombardments, in which, to our deep sorrow, thousands of women, children
* *and unarmed men are killed and injured.

--
In order to embark on a new course, the only one that will
solve the problem: negotiations and peace with the Palestinians,
the Lebanese, the Syrians. And: with Hamas and Hizbullah.

Because it's only with enemies that one makes peace.

- Uri Avnery, Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom.
(http://counterpunch.org/avnery08032006.html)

What about arabs open declaration they want israel gone, or is that
just Iran, They want the land back and that is it. They wont get it
back so there wont ever be peace unitl a few nukes are launched to
settle it once and for all. What they want they cant get or take,
Israel has been there to long and wont give in, Iran is making Nukes,
in a few years the whole area will be ashes, and for what. It will
end, nobody will get anything.

"ransley" wrote in message
...
On Jan 12, 12:44 pm, David Nebenzahl wrote:
After reading the stuff posted here about the war in Gaza, with the
near-unanimous opinion that the Palestinians are getting what they
deserve, I've got to say something to counteract this entirely *wrong*
view.


SNIP
kes peace.

- Uri Avnery, Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom.
(http://counterpunch.org/avnery08032006.html)

"What about arabs open declaration they want israel gone, or is that
just Iran, They want the land back and that is it. They wont get it
back so there wont ever be peace unitl a few nukes are launched to
settle it once and for all. What they want they cant get or take,
Israel has been there to long and wont give in, Iran is making Nukes,
in a few years the whole area will be ashes, and for what. It will
end, nobody will get anything."



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLIdx...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTu-A...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTu-A...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_OGhj43GAE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00B3o...eature=related

http://www.masada2000.org/

On Jan 12, 12:44*pm, David Nebenzahl wrote:
After reading the stuff posted here about the war in Gaza, with the
near-unanimous opinion that the Palestinians are getting what they
deserve, I've got to say something to counteract this entirely *wrong* view.

I'll refrain from calling those who post these opinions names. They can
be forgiven because they are--we all are--victims of propaganda, of
Israeli propaganda which is, for the most part, not challenged by our
(writing from the U.S. here) miserable excuse for a "free press".
(Things are a little different in, say, the UK: read the Guardian or the
Telegraph for a much more diverse spectrum of views on this situation.)

The fact is that in this situation, as in so many others, the Israelis
are behaving somewhat like Nazis. I hasten to add that, as a Jew, I do
not in any way equate the Israelis with those aforementioned vermin. But
the parallels in their behavior are disturbing.

What's being left out of any discussion of this situation is the extent
of the oppression of the entire Palestinian population that is the
driving force behind all of their violent actions (suicide bombings,
rocket launchings). Even before this latest invasion, Gaza has been a
gigantic prison for more than a million people. The Israelis, so far
from having left the place as is widely stated, control every aspect of
life in this miserable place. Nothing gets in or out without their
approval. If you want to go out to visit someone, to buy something, for
whatever reason, you have to negotiate an Israeli checkpoint. Which
means you may or may not get in or out, and if you do, you may have to
wait hours. Or days.

I'll get to those Hamas rockets in a second. But to understand what's
happening there, put yourself in that situation. Imagine you live here,
let's say somewhere in Texas, and that your area is under occupation,
let's say by Unitarians. (Your population is predominantly Christian.)
Your region is surrounded on 3 sides by a fortress wall with guarded
checkpoints; the 4th side is the sea. If you want to get in or out, you
have to wait at a checkpoint where a Unitarian guard may or may not let
you through; they will shower you with abuse, though, steal stuff from
you, maybe even shoot you. You wouldn't get through even if your child
was in critical need of medical attention which they could only get on
the other side; sometimes they would die there.

Unitarians will periodically demolish homes (occupied or vacant) in your
territory (and this is during the time of a cease-fire). They'll uproot
your olive orchards, kill your livestock. Every day you'll see them
traveling on Unitarian-only roads, past their settlements which are
watered with *your* water, living a life of relative affluence against
your grinding poverty.

I could go on, but you should get the picture. Don't take my word for
it: here's a letter I got, written by a 26-year-old Israeli soldier,
about his experiences in the Occupied Territories:

* *On some days, of course, we enforced a full "closure", meaning that
* *no Palestinians could pass at all. It didn't matter if you were a
* *teacher or a student trying to get to the school right on the other
* *side of the checkpoint. Nobody got through.

* *Every day at lunch, we closed the checkpoint down until we were done.
* *Queues would form, but we would pay them no mind. If a Palestinian
* *got impatient and started approaching, we knew what to do: One of us
* *would get up and point a rifle at him. He would quickly turn back.
* *If not, we would make sure that he spent many good hours waiting at
* *the checkpoint.

* *Of course, if a settler came by the checkpoint--during lunch or at
* *any other time--he'd just smile at us, wave hello, and walk by.

* *These were the day-in, day-out realities of my time in the IDF. And
* *there were, of course, examples of more extreme behavior. Like the day
* *my unit set up a surprise checkpoint at the outskirts of a Palestinian
* *village. A local farmer trying to pass through the area had raised a bit
* *of a fuss. He wanted to transport some chickens, but a soldier refused
* *him. Our commander decided to show the Palestinian who was boss. He
* *lifted his rifle, aimed, and shot one of the chickens. End of argument.

Sure, a dead chicken might seem like small potatoes, but multiply that
small humiliation by a thousand and you begin to see how nobody--no
human being--who lives under such conditions *constantly* would put up
with it for long.

So what about those Hamas rockets?

It's true that Hamas has launched, and continues to launch, rockets into
Israel. But to listen to the U.S. media, you would think that this is
simply being done because they're evil, with no provocation. I refer you
to the above for why they're doing it.

This is not to say that Israel doesn't have a right to defend itself: it
does. But this situation is so disproportionate that it staggers the
mind. Take those Palestinian rockets: how many have they killed? Turns
out that over the last 8 years, about 20 Israelis have been killed by
them. 20. How many has Israel killed in this latest carnage? The toll
stands at about 900 today; almost a third of them (275) children.

And those rockets? Anyone know how pathetically, almost comically
inaccurate and crude those Qassam rockets are? They're homemade, for
chrissakes. No accuracy at all. More likely to land in an empty field
than anywhere else. While some of the rockets are better ones smuggled
in from outside, the majority are these grenades-in-tin-cans.

Sorry, Israel is the aggressor here, the one with the upper hand
militarily. (Even so, it's likely they'll lose this war, just as they
lost the 2006 Lebanon war, although not until much death and destruction.)

So where will Obama come down on this? My guess is that he'll simply
continue the decades-old policy of nearly unconditional support for
Israel, no matter what.

Let me close with a caustic look at this situation from an Israeli peace
activist, Uri Avnery (http://counterpunch.org/avnery01122009.htmlfor
full article):

* *Nearly seventy ago, in the course of World War II, a heinous crime
* *was committed in the city of Leningrad. For more than a thousand
* *days, a gang of extremists called “the Red Army” held the millions of
* *the town’s inhabitants hostage and provoked retaliation from the
* *German Wehrmacht from inside the population centers. The Germans had
* *no alternative but to bomb and shell the population and to impose a
* *total blockade, which caused the death of hundreds of thousands.

* *Some time before that, a similar crime was committed in England. The
* *Churchill gang hid among the population of London, misusing the millions
* *of citizens as a human shield. The Germans were compelled to send their
* *Luftwaffe and reluctantly reduce the city to ruins. They called it the
* *Blitz.

* *This is the description that would now appear in the history books –
* *if the Germans had won the war.

* *Absurd? No more than the daily descriptions in our media, which are
* *being repeated ad nauseam: the Hamas terrorists use the inhabitants of
* *Gaza as “hostages” and exploit the women and children as “human
* *shields”, they leave us no alternative but to carry out massive
* *bombardments, in which, to our deep sorrow, thousands of women, children
* *and unarmed men are killed and injured.

--
In order to embark on a new course, the only one that will
solve the problem: negotiations and peace with the Palestinians,
the Lebanese, the Syrians. And: with Hamas and Hizbullah.

Because it's only with enemies that one makes peace.

- Uri Avnery, Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom.
(http://counterpunch.org/avnery08032006.html)

Whats really happening in Gaza?

Self defense.

LOSERS ARE LOSING AND WINNERS ARE WINNING. THE LAW OF THE JUNGLE.
OR THEY COULD MAKE UP AND LIVE IN PEACE BUT LOSERS SELDOM PICK THE RIGHT
PATH. THAT'S HOW THEY BECOME LOSERS.

The facts are clear and fully verifiable, if one seeks them outside the
US mass media:

1.) At the start of 1948, 90% of Palestinian land belonged to the
Palestinians.

2.) The zionists, having trained and armed the hagana, etc for many
years, perpetrated mass murder and ethnic cleansing on the
Palestinian land owners, initiating the Palestinian diaspora.

3.) From about 1949-1958, the Palestinians did nothing save try to
exist where ever they could.

That set the stage. The zionists have always controlled near all
the involved resources.

If you could randomly select and interview 100 Americans, 90+ would
probably indicate that Palestinians are heavily armed and very violent.
That is the work of the zionist propaganda. The average Palestinian
would do well to acquire a pop-gun.

The Hamas rockets are merely symbolic. The Palestinians tried passive
resistance in 3.). It obviously didn't work. Hamas resists because
"Israel" lacks 90% of legal (if there was any law) title to the
land (and 100% of moral title).

Since 1967, the zionists have placed (and rewarded) zionist settlers
in proximity to the Palestinians, knowing that their armed status
and preferred treatment would cause trouble. In that fashion they
can always claim that the Palestinians are aggressors.

The little towns, etc in range of the Hamas rockets don't need to
be there save for the reason in the previous paragraph. Hamas has
never presented a real threat to "Israel", and never will.

It's basic human natu if one side has all the resources (weapons),
they take what they want. All they have to do is drown the world
with propaganda indicating that they are doing otherwise ("defending
Israel").

I have nothing against jewish folks. David N. is a good example: he
speaks well and honestly.

Zionism is another matter. I don't see it as definitely Jewish in
basic nature. I've come to see it as a form of death.

Have you ever seen an AH-64 Apache helicopter gunship? Equipped with
fully automatic cannon, Hellfire missiles, etc etc? A very sophisticated
WMD, about $1 million per unit (virtually free to "Israel"), designed
to do nothing whatsoever except destroy human life.

The zionists are in the 3rd week of ravishing Gaza. Perhaps 1000
Palestinians slaughtered. Several hundred women. Perhaps a 100
children.

"They Are Using Incredibly Sophisticated US WMD's To Shoot (Human) Fish In A Barrel!"

No civilized people would do this.

I


On Mon, 12 Jan 2009 10:44:22 -0800, David Nebenzahl wrote:

After reading the stuff posted here about the war in Gaza, with the
near-unanimous opinion that the Palestinians are getting what they
deserve, I've got to say something to counteract this entirely *wrong* view.

I'll refrain from calling those who post these opinions names. They can
be forgiven because they are--we all are--victims of propaganda, of
Israeli propaganda which is, for the most part, not challenged by our
(writing from the U.S. here) miserable excuse for a "free press".
(Things are a little different in, say, the UK: read the Guardian or the
Telegraph for a much more diverse spectrum of views on this situation.)

The fact is that in this situation, as in so many others, the Israelis
are behaving somewhat like Nazis. I hasten to add that, as a Jew, I do
not in any way equate the Israelis with those aforementioned vermin. But
the parallels in their behavior are disturbing.

What's being left out of any discussion of this situation is the extent
of the oppression of the entire Palestinian population that is the
driving force behind all of their violent actions (suicide bombings,
rocket launchings). Even before this latest invasion, Gaza has been a
gigantic prison for more than a million people. The Israelis, so far
from having left the place as is widely stated, control every aspect of
life in this miserable place. Nothing gets in or out without their
approval. If you want to go out to visit someone, to buy something, for
whatever reason, you have to negotiate an Israeli checkpoint. Which
means you may or may not get in or out, and if you do, you may have to
wait hours. Or days.

I'll get to those Hamas rockets in a second. But to understand what's
happening there, put yourself in that situation. Imagine you live here,
let's say somewhere in Texas, and that your area is under occupation,
let's say by Unitarians. (Your population is predominantly Christian.)
Your region is surrounded on 3 sides by a fortress wall with guarded
checkpoints; the 4th side is the sea. If you want to get in or out, you
have to wait at a checkpoint where a Unitarian guard may or may not let
you through; they will shower you with abuse, though, steal stuff from
you, maybe even shoot you. You wouldn't get through even if your child
was in critical need of medical attention which they could only get on
the other side; sometimes they would die there.

Unitarians will periodically demolish homes (occupied or vacant) in your
territory (and this is during the time of a cease-fire). They'll uproot
your olive orchards, kill your livestock. Every day you'll see them
traveling on Unitarian-only roads, past their settlements which are
watered with *your* water, living a life of relative affluence against
your grinding poverty.

I could go on, but you should get the picture. Don't take my word for
it: here's a letter I got, written by a 26-year-old Israeli soldier,
about his experiences in the Occupied Territories:

On some days, of course, we enforced a full "closure", meaning that
no Palestinians could pass at all. It didn't matter if you were a
teacher or a student trying to get to the school right on the other
side of the checkpoint. Nobody got through.

Every day at lunch, we closed the checkpoint down until we were done.
Queues would form, but we would pay them no mind. If a Palestinian
got impatient and started approaching, we knew what to do: One of us
would get up and point a rifle at him. He would quickly turn back.
If not, we would make sure that he spent many good hours waiting at
the checkpoint.

Of course, if a settler came by the checkpoint--during lunch or at
any other time--he'd just smile at us, wave hello, and walk by.

These were the day-in, day-out realities of my time in the IDF. And
there were, of course, examples of more extreme behavior. Like the day
my unit set up a surprise checkpoint at the outskirts of a Palestinian
village. A local farmer trying to pass through the area had raised a bit
of a fuss. He wanted to transport some chickens, but a soldier refused
him. Our commander decided to show the Palestinian who was boss. He
lifted his rifle, aimed, and shot one of the chickens. End of argument.

Sure, a dead chicken might seem like small potatoes, but multiply that
small humiliation by a thousand and you begin to see how nobody--no
human being--who lives under such conditions *constantly* would put up
with it for long.

So what about those Hamas rockets?

It's true that Hamas has launched, and continues to launch, rockets into
Israel. But to listen to the U.S. media, you would think that this is
simply being done because they're evil, with no provocation. I refer you
to the above for why they're doing it.

This is not to say that Israel doesn't have a right to defend itself: it
does. But this situation is so disproportionate that it staggers the
mind. Take those Palestinian rockets: how many have they killed? Turns
out that over the last 8 years, about 20 Israelis have been killed by
them. 20. How many has Israel killed in this latest carnage? The toll
stands at about 900 today; almost a third of them (275) children.

And those rockets? Anyone know how pathetically, almost comically
inaccurate and crude those Qassam rockets are? They're homemade, for
chrissakes. No accuracy at all. More likely to land in an empty field
than anywhere else. While some of the rockets are better ones smuggled
in from outside, the majority are these grenades-in-tin-cans.

Sorry, Israel is the aggressor here, the one with the upper hand
militarily. (Even so, it's likely they'll lose this war, just as they
lost the 2006 Lebanon war, although not until much death and destruction.)

So where will Obama come down on this? My guess is that he'll simply
continue the decades-old policy of nearly unconditional support for
Israel, no matter what.

Let me close with a caustic look at this situation from an Israeli peace
activist, Uri Avnery (http://counterpunch.org/avnery01122009.html for
full article):

Nearly seventy ago, in the course of World War II, a heinous crime
was committed in the city of Leningrad. For more than a thousand
days, a gang of extremists called “the Red Army” held the millions of
the town’s inhabitants hostage and provoked retaliation from the
German Wehrmacht from inside the population centers. The Germans had
no alternative but to bomb and shell the population and to impose a
total blockade, which caused the death of hundreds of thousands.

Some time before that, a similar crime was committed in England. The
Churchill gang hid among the population of London, misusing the millions
of citizens as a human shield. The Germans were compelled to send their
Luftwaffe and reluctantly reduce the city to ruins. They called it the
Blitz.

This is the description that would now appear in the history books –
if the Germans had won the war.

Absurd? No more than the daily descriptions in our media, which are
being repeated ad nauseam: the Hamas terrorists use the inhabitants of
Gaza as “hostages” and exploit the women and children as “human
shields”, they leave us no alternative but to carry out massive
bombardments, in which, to our deep sorrow, thousands of women, children
and unarmed men are killed and injured.

"David Nebenzahl" wrote in message
s.com...

As yourself if it were your kid...

http://blogs.jta.org/telegraph/artic...oomberg-on-cnn

"Dimitrios Paskoudniakis" wrote in message
...

"David Nebenzahl" wrote in message
s.com...

As yourself if it were your kid...

http://blogs.jta.org/telegraph/artic...oomberg-on-cnn



This is why the fighting is going on and will continue till they denounce
their desire to kill all the Jews:

http://blogs.jta.org/telegraph/artic...oomberg-on-cnn

"Sanity" wrote in message
news

"Dimitrios Paskoudniakis" wrote in message
...

"David Nebenzahl" wrote in message
s.com...

As yourself if it were your kid...

http://blogs.jta.org/telegraph/artic...oomberg-on-cnn



This is why the fighting is going on and will continue till they denounce
their desire to kill all the Jews:

http://blogs.jta.org/telegraph/artic...oomberg-on-cnn


Why did you duplicate my post?

op is crazy.. everyone has a right to self defense..

----------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.minibite.com/america/malone.htm

wrote in message
...
op is crazy.. everyone has a right to self defense..



Any hamas lovers or sympathizers are in for a rude awakening if one of them
tries to hurt anyone in my family. I would bring every resource that I have,
be it weapons, family, friends, etal to destroy them. When you screw with
the bull, you get the horns.

On Sat, 17 Jan 2009 13:59:22 -0500, "Sanity"
wrote:


wrote in message
...
op is crazy.. everyone has a right to self defense..



Any hamas lovers or sympathizers are in for a rude awakening if one of them
tries to hurt anyone in my family. I would bring every resource that I have,
be it weapons, family, friends, etal to destroy them. When you screw with
the bull, you get the horns.


Howdy,

I would like to understand something more of your view...

You say that you would bring various resources to bear to
"destroy them" were any to hurt your family.

But could you define what you mean by "them?"

Do you mean, the attackers? Their families? People who live
in their neighborhood? Who would you hope to hold
accountable?

Sincere thanks,
--
Kenneth

If you email... Please remove the "SPAMLESS."

"Kenneth" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 17 Jan 2009 13:59:22 -0500, "Sanity"
wrote:


wrote in message
...
op is crazy.. everyone has a right to self defense..



Any hamas lovers or sympathizers are in for a rude awakening if one of
them
tries to hurt anyone in my family. I would bring every resource that I
have,
be it weapons, family, friends, etal to destroy them. When you screw with
the bull, you get the horns.


Howdy,

I would like to understand something more of your view...

You say that you would bring various resources to bear to
"destroy them" were any to hurt your family.

But could you define what you mean by "them?"

Do you mean, the attackers? Their families? People who live
in their neighborhood? Who would you hope to hold
accountable?

Sincere thanks,
--
Kenneth

If you email... Please remove the "SPAMLESS."


How do you destroy the attackers when they fight and hide among civilians?
You try and pick the attackers off but sometimes innocents get hurt.
The U.S. and the allies did this in world war 2. They bombed the hell out of
German cities. Why was it all right for them? The U.S. dropped to A-Bombs on
Japan to end a war. Why was it all right for them? What did we do in Iraq?
In war, people get hurt. It seems everyone in the world has a right to
defend themselves in any manner except for Israel.

On Sat, 17 Jan 2009 14:44:26 -0500, "Sanity"
wrote:


"Kenneth" wrote in message
.. .
On Sat, 17 Jan 2009 13:59:22 -0500, "Sanity"
wrote:


wrote in message
...
op is crazy.. everyone has a right to self defense..



Any hamas lovers or sympathizers are in for a rude awakening if one of
them
tries to hurt anyone in my family. I would bring every resource that I
have,
be it weapons, family, friends, etal to destroy them. When you screw with
the bull, you get the horns.


Howdy,

I would like to understand something more of your view...

You say that you would bring various resources to bear to
"destroy them" were any to hurt your family.

But could you define what you mean by "them?"

Do you mean, the attackers? Their families? People who live
in their neighborhood? Who would you hope to hold
accountable?

Sincere thanks,
--
Kenneth

If you email... Please remove the "SPAMLESS."


How do you destroy the attackers when they fight and hide among civilians?
You try and pick the attackers off but sometimes innocents get hurt.
The U.S. and the allies did this in world war 2. They bombed the hell out of
German cities. Why was it all right for them? The U.S. dropped to A-Bombs on
Japan to end a war. Why was it all right for them? What did we do in Iraq?
In war, people get hurt. It seems everyone in the world has a right to
defend themselves in any manner except for Israel.


Hi again,

Thanks for your interesting comments, but...

Would you care to answer the question I asked?

I would like to understand who it is you would hope to hold
accountable in the example you offered.

(I'll also add that the examples you offer of retaliation
that were "all right" are truly fascinating. Each of those
examples has become the source of very vigorous debate by
scholars, historians, clergy, and ethicists.)

All the best,
--
Kenneth

If you email... Please remove the "SPAMLESS."

On 1/17/2009 11:44 AM Sanity spake thus:

How do you destroy the attackers when they fight and hide among
civilians? You try and pick the attackers off but sometimes innocents
get hurt. The U.S. and the allies did this in world war 2. They
bombed the hell out of German cities. Why was it all right for them?
The U.S. dropped to A-Bombs on Japan to end a war. Why was it all
right for them? What did we do in Iraq? In war, people get hurt. It
seems everyone in the world has a right to defend themselves in any
manner except for Israel.

In my view, and in that of a hell of a lot of other folks, those things
were all outrages, crimes against humanity: the firebombings of Dresden
and Tokyo, and the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I'm no fan of the Nazis, but firebombing Dresden, a largely non-military
target, was an evil, criminal act.


--
In order to embark on a new course, the only one that will
solve the problem: negotiations and peace with the Palestinians,
the Lebanese, the Syrians. And: with Hamas and Hizbullah.

Because it's only with enemies that one makes peace.

- Uri Avnery, Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom.
(http://counterpunch.org/avnery08032006.html)

In article ,
"Sanity" wrote:

How do you destroy the attackers when they fight and hide among civilians?
You try and pick the attackers off but sometimes innocents get hurt.

Try a bounty on the actual attackers. Israel is probably spending more
than $1M for each actual fighter killed; how many poor people could
resist a $1M bounty?

Free men own guns - www(dot)geocities(dot)com/CapitolHill/5357/

"Sanity" wrote in
:


wrote in message
...
op is crazy.. everyone has a right to self defense..



Any hamas lovers or sympathizers are in for a rude awakening if one of
them tries to hurt anyone in my family. I would bring every resource
that I have, be it weapons, family, friends, etal to destroy them.
When you screw with the bull, you get the horns.



what we have in Gaza is repeated acts of war By Hamas and then ceasefire
when Hamas gets their ass kicked,then Hamas rearms and does it all over
again.

Until Hamas is DEFEATED;surrender or wiped out,there will be no peace;as
they don't want peace,they want Israel eliminated.

I'm amazed that this hasn't been learned yet.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
kua.net