Israel opens dam to flood Palestinians out of their homes...

redrock

yosi wrote:

..... liberate all historic Palestine.:

Is that not the same kind of talk that Israel would have regarding their right to their historic homeland?

Strangely enough, in this week's Time there is an article regarding role Elad (organisation controlling archeologic digs in Jerusalem) has and tactics used in 'recovering' this historical homeland.

Byrnzie

yosi wrote:

That is not an answer to the question. You have simply attempted to change the topic. If you don't care about Hamas' tactics that directly endanger Palestinians then I have to ask whether you really care about the Palestinians at all or simply hate Israel.

Let me spell this out for you. Israel's rights are beside the point. Hamas knows that when they attack Israel, Israel will respond. By adopting the tactic of not wearing uniforms and fighting from within the civilian population, so that Israel cannot easily distinguish between combatants and civilians, Hamas is knowingly putting civilians directly in the line of fire. If you care at all about the lives of Palestinians how can this not enrage you?

Israel deliberately targets unarmed civilians. Therefore your lame attempt to justify the killing of Palestinian civilians by blaming Hamas is redundant.

Byrnzie

yosi wrote:

Look, we have our disagreements, but you seem like a good guy. I'm really shocked that you are throwing your hat in with Hamas here. These are really, really bad guys. I mean this is like radical-left-willful-blindness-in-the-face-of-Stalinism shit. Disagree with Israeli policy all you want. Don't cut Israel any slack. But seriously, in Hamas you're allying yourself (so to speak) with some of the worst people imaginable, or at the very least excusing their actions. I would really recommend that you find as much information as you can about these guys before so cavalierly giving them a free pass.

Sure, Hamas are the evil bogeymen. And before them it was the PLO that sent shivers down your spine.

http://articles.latimes.com/2006/mar/02 ... g-charity2

Hamas Victory Is Built on Social Work

By Kim Murphy
March 02, 2006

For a basic tooth filling and crown, the price difference is negligible: $17 at a regular clinic, $15 at Al Quds Clinic. The real distinction is in the extras.
“It’s safer to come to an Islamic place, where you can find a doctor who’s not only a good dentist, but a good Muslim,” said Najwa abu Mustafa, 24, who sat one recent afternoon in the sunny waiting room with several other women, shrouded in black veils but for the thin openings around their eyes. “You’re putting yourself in God’s hands.”
The small clinic on the edge of one of the Gaza Strip’s biggest refugee camps is one of hundreds of medical centers, food banks, summer camps and schools across the West Bank and Gaza operated by Islamic charities, many of them linked to the Islamic Resistance Movement, better known by its Arabic acronym Hamas.
The militant group’s recent victory in parliamentary elections is testimony in part to its long track record on the streets. Its services are often perceived as being of higher quality and less tainted by corruption than the cumbersome and often ineffective social network operated by the Palestinian Authority controlled until now by Fatah.
The work Hamas does at home is an often-overlooked key to the domestic popularity of an organization most known elsewhere for killing. The United States has declared Hamas a terrorist organization, and U.S. and Israeli counter-terrorism experts have cited numerous instances in which Al Qaeda and Hamas drew funding from international Islamic charities. Hamas also reportedly has used schools and hospitals in the West Bank and Gaza to store weapons and plan attacks.
Faced with U.S. and European measures aimed at preventing charity funds from being funneled into terrorism, Hamas has erased many of its traceable financial links to the humanitarian programs. But Hamas figures remain on the boards and in management of the programs, which analysts say have become an essential component of the group’s public support.
“Hamas has been very good at compartmentalizing their activities – where they have a soup kitchen, for example, they simply give soup, nothing more,” said Mouin Rabbani of the International Crisis Group, which studied Islamic social activism in the occupied territories. “But it all fits into a broader pattern of popular mobilization and becomes another way of seeking support for the organization.”
Over the last two decades, several large Islamic charities have come to be closely associated with Hamas, including the Mujamma Islami network, Al Salah Society, the Islamic Center and the Islamic University of Gaza. But the International Crisis Group said there was little “substantial evidence” that Islamic welfare institutions “systematically divert” funds to support terrorist activity.
“Hamas doesn’t have much in the way of resources, but they have a big network of charity working in order to reduce the suffering of the Palestinian people,” said Sami abu Zuhri, a spokesman for the group in Gaza. “People feel the credibility of Hamas, and its ability to make change through the charity organizations that it runs.”
In Gaza, Al Salah Society’s school for 1,000 orphans and other youngsters in the teeming town of Deir al Balah stands in sharp contrast to the crumbling concrete and dusty streets around it, a fenced-in oasis of palms and neat classrooms.
“Muslims are the best nation created in the world,” says a banner hanging outside the school, next to another that says, “Those who learn more earn a higher degree in paradise.”
Al Salah’s director, Ahmad Kurd, was recently elected mayor of Deir al Balah, and Hamas scooped up two of the region’s three parliamentary seats in the January elections.
“In 1994 there was an Israeli operation which destroyed several Palestinian houses [of families of suspected militants] in one of the poorest neighborhoods,” Kurd said. “I had to meet with the Israeli commander, and he asked me, ‘Why are you supporting and helping those victims who lost their homes?’
“I told him, ‘The Red Crescent is helping, the Churches United organization also gives some help to them, the Catholic Relief organization, the United Nations. And Al Salah Society is there as well. Is it forbidden?’ And he was not able to respond to that.”
When Israeli forces launched a major incursion into the southern Gaza refugee camp of Rafah in 2004, leaving nearly 1,500 residents homeless, Al Salah sent fundraisers with megaphones down the streets, going door to door, standing on street corners and outside the mosques. Women were asked to drop their gold necklaces into the collection boxes. Poor families gave sacks of rice. Al Salah collected $1 million worth of food, valuables and cash in Gaza, one of the poorest places in the Middle East.
Yet Kurd said it would be a mistake to think Hamas won the votes because of its charity work.
“The people are getting a lot more money from America, from the international community. The international donors distributed perhaps $6 billion in the last 10 years. The Islamic charity organizations didn’t pay out 1% of that money,” he said.
Palestinians associate U.S. aid with Washington’s support for Israel, he said. “The Palestinian feels, ‘You give me that money, and you kill me. You give me money, and you destroy my house. You give me money, and you send planes to kill our kids.’ ”
Abu Zuhri, the Hamas spokesman, said international aid had focused on public works projects but had done little to provide direct help to the poor, or to those families that have lost a breadwinner in the conflict with Israel.
“Unfortunately, the Western side has donated for projects like cleaning the streets or painting the walls, but they didn’t give anything for the care of orphans,” he said. Some of the most controversial programs operated by the Muslim charities provide stipends, housing and direct financial aid to the families of suicide bombers.
In the narrow alleyways of the sprawling refugee camp at Deir al Balah, hundreds of families get cash payments of $40 to $100 a month from Mujamma Islami and Al Salah, along with meat, beans, flour and eggs.
“We would be completely destitute without this help,” said Ataf Ostaz, 41, who has nine children and whose husband died of a stroke two years ago. “Naturally, we gave our votes to Hamas, because they are the ones who touch our need.”
The unlikely mix of services offered at Al Quds Clinic – pediatrics, maternal healthcare, orthodontics and post-surgical care – is no accident. Mujamma Islami, which opened the center in October 2002, conducted a survey of the clinics already operating in Khan Yunis.
“We did studies and reached the decision that some services are not good enough in government hospitals, and so we decided to offer these services ourselves,” said clinic director Atiya Abumoaamar. “The point is that the public hospitals are very, very cheap, so where we compete with them is not in prices, but in quality.”
At the same time, fees generally are substantially lower than those at private clinics.
Caseloads now reach up to 400 patients a month, and if there is a profit at the end of the month, Abumoaamar splits it with doctors and office staff. Otherwise, they work without salary as volunteers. The effort has been judged such a success that two more clinics are opening soon, with funding from the Saudi-based World Assembly of Muslim Youth.
“If the international community will just give it a chance and will not isolate it, if donors don’t freeze the funds, if the Arab countries help make some solution, I guarantee that Hamas will do a better job of running this society,” Abumoaamar said.
But some Palestinians point out that there is a big difference between operating schools and clinics and running a government for 3 million people.
“The Palestinian Authority has to reach everyone, and in a situation of closures, unemployment reaching unprecedented figures, and in an environment in which you are constantly being undermined, these services are obligatory,” said Issam Younis, director of the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights in Gaza City.
“Hamas has done its homework. Over the years, they have established very good social services, they have the maximum use of the mosque,” he said. “And it will be good to have Hamas in the government. Welcome! But think of the situation.
“With Abu Mazen [current Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas], the international community transferred only $350 million of the $1 billion they were supposed to send for 2005. This is with the good guys in charge, not the terrorists!” he said. “Imagine how things will be with Hamas.”"

Byrnzie

yosi wrote:

I'm really shocked that you are throwing your hat in with Hamas here. These are really, really bad guys. I mean this is like radical-left-willful-blindness-in-the-face-of-Stalinism shit. Disagree with Israeli policy all you want. Don't cut Israel any slack. But seriously, in Hamas you're allying yourself (so to speak) with some of the worst people imaginable, or at the very least excusing their actions. I would really recommend that you find as much information as you can about these guys before so cavalierly giving them a free pass.

This is one of the most insightful articles I've come across on the I-P issue. I suggest you click on the link and read it in it's entirety.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n16/henry-sieg ... ocess-scam

The Great Middle East Peace Process Scam
Henry Siegman
16 August 2007

'..Palestinian moderates will never prevail over those considered extremists, since what defines moderation for Olmert is Palestinian acquiescence in Israel’s dismemberment of Palestinian territory. In the end, what Olmert and his government are prepared to offer Palestinians will be rejected by Abbas no less than by Hamas, and will only confirm to Palestinians the futility of Abbas’s moderation and justify its rejection by Hamas...

In fact, all previous peace initiatives have got nowhere for a reason that neither Bush nor the EU has had the political courage to acknowledge. That reason is the consensus reached long ago by Israel’s decision-making elites that Israel will never allow the emergence of a Palestinian state which denies it effective military and economic control of the West Bank. To be sure, Israel would allow – indeed, it would insist on – the creation of a number of isolated enclaves that Palestinians could call a state, but only in order to prevent the creation of a binational state in which Palestinians would be the majority.

The Middle East peace process may well be the most spectacular deception in modern diplomatic history. Since the failed Camp David summit of 2000, and actually well before it, Israel’s interest in a peace process – other than for the purpose of obtaining Palestinian and international acceptance of the status quo – has been a fiction that has served primarily to provide cover for its systematic confiscation of Palestinian land and an occupation whose goal, according to the former IDF chief of staff Moshe Ya’alon, is ‘to sear deep into the consciousness of Palestinians that they are a defeated people’. In his reluctant embrace of the Oslo Accords, and his distaste for the settlers, Yitzhak Rabin may have been the exception to this, but even he did not entertain a return of Palestinian territory beyond the so-called Allon Plan, which allowed Israel to retain the Jordan Valley and other parts of the West Bank.

Anyone familiar with Israel’s relentless confiscations of Palestinian territory – based on a plan devised, overseen and implemented by Ariel Sharon – knows that the objective of its settlement enterprise in the West Bank has been largely achieved. Gaza, the evacuation of whose settlements was so naively hailed by the international community as the heroic achievement of a man newly committed to an honourable peace with the Palestinians, was intended to serve as the first in a series of Palestinian bantustans. Gaza’s situation shows us what these bantustans will look like if their residents do not behave as Israel wants...

In the course of a war launched by Arab countries that sought to prevent the implementation of the UN partition resolution, Israel enlarged its territory by 50 per cent. If it is illegal to acquire territory as a result of war, then the question now cannot conceivably be how much additional Palestinian territory Israel may confiscate, but rather how much of the territory it acquired in the course of the war of 1948 it is allowed to retain. At the very least, if ‘adjustments’ are to be made to the 1949 armistice line, these should be made on Israel’s side of that line, not the Palestinians’.

Clearly, the obstacle to resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict has not been a dearth of peace initiatives or peace envoys. Nor has it been the violence to which Palestinians have resorted in their struggle to rid themselves of Israel’s occupation, even when that violence has despicably targeted Israel’s civilian population. It is not to sanction the murder of civilians to observe that such violence occurs, sooner or later, in most situations in which a people’s drive for national self-determination is frustrated by an occupying power. Indeed, Israel’s own struggle for national independence was no exception. According to the historian Benny Morris, in this conflict it was the Irgun that first targeted civilians. In Righteous Victims, Morris writes that the upsurge of Arab terrorism in 1937 ‘triggered a wave of Irgun bombings against Arab crowds and buses, introducing a new dimension to the conflict.’ While in the past Arabs had ‘sniped at cars and pedestrians and occasionally lobbed a grenade, often killing or injuring a few bystanders or passengers’, now ‘for the first time, massive bombs were placed in crowded Arab centres, and dozens of people were indiscriminately murdered and maimed.’ Morris notes that ‘this “innovation” soon found Arab imitators.’

The problem is not, as Israelis often claim, that Palestinians do not know how to compromise. (Another former prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, famously complained that ‘Palestinians take and take while Israel gives and gives.’) That is an indecent charge, since the Palestinians made much the most far-reaching compromise of all when the PLO formally accepted the legitimacy of Israel within the 1949 armistice border. With that concession, Palestinians ceded their claim to more than half the territory that the UN’s partition resolution had assigned to its Arab inhabitants. They have never received any credit for this wrenching concession, made years before Israel agreed that Palestinians had a right to statehood in any part of Palestine. The notion that further border adjustments should be made at the expense of the 22 per cent of the territory that remains to the Palestinians is deeply offensive to them, and understandably so.

Nonetheless, the Palestinians agreed at the Camp David summit to adjustments to the pre-1967 border that would allow large numbers of West Bank settlers – about 70 per cent – to remain within the Jewish state, provided they received comparable territory on Israel’s side of the border. Barak rejected this. To be sure, in the past the Palestinian demand of a right of return was a serious obstacle to a peace agreement. But the Arab League’s peace initiative of 2002 leaves no doubt that Arab countries will accept a nominal and symbolic return of refugees into Israel in numbers approved by Israel, with the overwhelming majority repatriated in the new Palestinian state, their countries of residence, or in other countries prepared to receive them.

It is the failure of the international community to reject (other than in empty rhetoric) Israel’s notion that the occupation and the creation of ‘facts on the ground’ can go on indefinitely, so long as there is no agreement that is acceptable to Israel, that has defeated all previous peace initiatives and the efforts of all peace envoys. Future efforts will meet the same fate if this fundamental issue is not addressed.

What is required for a breakthrough is the adoption by the Security Council of a resolution affirming the following: 1. Changes to the pre-1967 situation can be made only by agreement between the parties. Unilateral measures will not receive international recognition. 2. The default setting of Resolution 242, reiterated by Resolution 338, the 1973 ceasefire resolution, is a return by Israel’s occupying forces to the pre-1967 border. 3. If the parties do not reach agreement within 12 months (the implementation of agreements will obviously take longer), the default setting will be invoked by the Security Council. The Security Council will then adopt its own terms for an end to the conflict, and will arrange for an international force to enter the occupied territories to help establish the rule of law, assist Palestinians in building their institutions, assure Israel’s security by preventing cross-border violence, and monitor and oversee the implementation of terms for an end to the conflict...'

TriumphantAngel

yosi wrote:

I have to ask whether you really care about the Palestinians at all or simply hate Israel.

you need to understand something. it is not anti-semitic to defend Palestinian human rights. every single person in the world is entitled to basic human rights whether Israel and it's supporters like it or not.

pretty much the whole of the rest of the world criticizes the Israeli occupation. do they hate Israel too?

poor poor Israel. :roll:

you know what i think? the only reason people cry anti-semitism when it's clearly not the case, is just so they can try and discredit and silence anyone that has different views to theirs.

and they do that because they know that they can't win the argument based on the facts.

rebornFixer

TriumphantAngel wrote:

pretty much the whole of the rest of the world criticizes the Israeli occupation. do they hate Israel too?

Hmm ... If you look at the numerous UN resolutions targeting Israel over the past few decades, the vast majority (if not all of them) are tabled by countries with predominately Arabic, Muslim populations. So yes, they probably DO hate Israel, if you want the truth. Not saying that these folks don't have valid concerns. Just saying that there IS animosity there, and I'm not convinced that these nations are all just playing the hero and trying to rescue Palestine. Jordan, to name one example, wanted (and wants, present tense) NOTHING to do with Palestinian refugees.

Pepe Silvia

yosi wrote:

A few choice quotes taken directly from the Hamas charter, which is still the defining document for the Hamas movement, and which Hamas refuses on principle to ammend:

"Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it." (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory).

"The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up."

"There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors."

"After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying."

I mean for gods sake, these guys are quoting the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion"! They are straight up anti-semites, who believe that they have a divine mandate from god to redeem Islamic land from infidels. Are these really the kind of people you want to be giving a free ride to? This is not a zero sum game. Blame Israel all you want, but maybe, in the interest of intellectual honesty, fairness, balance, decency, whatever, reserve some outrage for these guys as well.

what i find hilarious is the guy you quoted first died in 49...and yet when i posted quotes from Israeli government officials and whatnot saying similar things you said "the past is the past, give me something current" i had quotes in there that were 40 years after this guy died :roll:

nice set of double standards ya got yourself there

and i started a thread where Hamas said they woulod recognize Israel within the '67 borders, care to reply in that?

Hamas: We have already stated repeatedly that we accept the existence of Israel within the 1967 borders as a political reality even if we do not approve its moral legitimacy.
Israel on the other hand has never recognised the right of a Palestinian state to exist even under the PA, despite the PA recognising Israel's right to exist. All Israel has recognised is the legitimacy of the Palestine Liberation Organisation as the sole representative of the Palestinian people.

yosi

TriumphantAngel wrote:

yosi wrote:

I have to ask whether you really care about the Palestinians at all or simply hate Israel.

you need to understand something. it is not anti-semitic to defend Palestinian human rights. every single person in the world is entitled to basic human rights whether Israel and it's supporters like it or not.

pretty much the whole of the rest of the world criticizes the Israeli occupation. do they hate Israel too?

poor poor Israel. :roll:

you know what i think? the only reason people cry anti-semitism when it's clearly not the case, is just so they can try and discredit and silence anyone that has different views to theirs.

and they do that because they know that they can't win the argument based on the facts.

When did I say anyone was anti-semitic? I said Hamas is anti-semitic, and I said that I think people on this thread are way too easy on Hamas, but I never said any of you guys are anti-semitic. I quite frankly don't care what the rest of the world thinks. This line of argument is tantamount to "if everyone else were jumping off a bridge would you do it too." Just because a lot of people think something it doesn't make it right. And I don't think they hate Israel (or at least not all, or even most of them). I think they are uninformed, or misinformed, or only partially informed.

yosi

Pepe Silvia wrote:

yosi wrote:

A few choice quotes taken directly from the Hamas charter, which is still the defining document for the Hamas movement, and which Hamas refuses on principle to ammend:

"Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it." (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory).

"The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up."

"There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors."

"After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying."

I mean for gods sake, these guys are quoting the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion"! They are straight up anti-semites, who believe that they have a divine mandate from god to redeem Islamic land from infidels. Are these really the kind of people you want to be giving a free ride to? This is not a zero sum game. Blame Israel all you want, but maybe, in the interest of intellectual honesty, fairness, balance, decency, whatever, reserve some outrage for these guys as well.

what i find hilarious is the guy you quoted first died in 49...and yet when i posted quotes from Israeli government officials and whatnot saying similar things you said "the past is the past, give me something current" i had quotes in there that were 40 years after this guy died :roll:

nice set of double standards ya got yourself there

and i started a thread where Hamas said they woulod recognize Israel within the '67 borders, care to reply in that?

Hamas: We have already stated repeatedly that we accept the existence of Israel within the 1967 borders as a political reality even if we do not approve its moral legitimacy.
Israel on the other hand has never recognised the right of a Palestinian state to exist even under the PA, despite the PA recognising Israel's right to exist. All Israel has recognised is the legitimacy of the Palestine Liberation Organisation as the sole representative of the Palestinian people.

The al-Banna quote was taken from the Hamas charter, which remains in effect today as the defining document for the organization. If I really have to explain to you how this is current then there is hardly any point in arguing with you.

TriumphantAngel

i''m tired of repeating myself. no one really gives a fuck what you say anyway.

all i know is i might not have as many fancy links as some of you, but when i post, i post from my heart. and i know where my heart is. it's with the ordinary, beautiful, Palestinian people. and the kids. those poor innocent children. what's their crime again?

they are a child born in Gaza. that's their crime.


our spirit will never die
we will not go down
in Gaza tonight.

yosi

TriumphantAngel wrote:

i''m tired of repeating myself. no one really gives a fuck what you say anyway.

all i know is i might not have as many fancy links as some of you, but when i post, i post from my heart. and i know where my heart is. it's with the ordinary, beautiful, Palestinian people. and the kids. those poor innocent children. what's their crime again?

they are a child born in Gaza. that's their crime.


our spirit will never die
we will not go down
in Gaza tonight.

I entirely support your empathy for the ordinary Palestinians. I don't know why your empathy has to fuel such anger at those that disagree with you about politics. Seriously, everyone here seems to be really personally offended that I disagree with you guys.

redrock

yosi wrote:

When did I say anyone was anti-semitic? ...... but I never said any of you guys are anti-semitic.

When you say "I have to ask whether you really care about the Palestinians at all or simply hate Israel", it does sound like this is what you may be implying. Hating Israel... anti-semitism...

yosi wrote:

.... I think they are uninformed, or misinformed, or only partially informed.

So all those who have strong views that are not compatible with yours are not 'informed'? Your (or those who agree with you) take on events is the only 'informed' one? I think not.

Also, don't flatter yourself. I don't think anyone is 'personally' offended that you disagree. I notice you have some very clever reparties in the other threads! But obviously, you know Pepe doesn't hate Israel - he's not anti-semitic, don't you?

yosi

redrock wrote:

yosi wrote:

When did I say anyone was anti-semitic? ...... but I never said any of you guys are anti-semitic.

When you say "I have to ask whether you really care about the Palestinians at all or simply hate Israel", it does sound like this is what you may be implying. Hating Israel... anti-semitism...

yosi wrote:

.... I think they are uninformed, or misinformed, or only partially informed.

So all those who have strong views that are not compatible with yours are not 'informed'? Your (or those who agree with you) take on events is the only 'informed' one? I think not.

Hating Israel may or may not be indicative of anti-semitism. I would not be comfortable leveling such a charge unless someone actually said something anti-semitic. As for the rest of the world, no, my take is not the only possible informed response one can have. That said it is simply a fact that very few people will know very much at all about any given subject. Their knowledge will be completely devoid of any sort of context, detail, and nuance. That's just the way people are. They don't want to take the time to really learn about issues, especially if the issue has nothing at all to do with them, or they simply can't take the time. Given this reality, what most people will know about this particular issue (Israel-Palestine) is that the Palestinians are occupied, there is some sort of issue with terrorism, and Israel has a big army. They draw the natural conclusion that this is your run of the mill david vs. goliath story and move on.

gimmesometruth27

and you guys wonder why everyone else left this thread days ago...i realized it was just not worth my fucking time to debate with people that believe that they are right 100% of the time.... not worth my time to search for links or formulate an idea for a reply in my head and type that out onto this board. not worth the effort anymore...debate is supposed to be give and take and hopefully learn something. this is not debate, its a lecture from some people, and pissing match for everyone....

"everyone is right and no one is sorry, its the start and the end of the story"

like many people around here, i have had it with this place....

maybe see you all at some shows or something, then again its been 6 years since we had one around here...so i am not holding my breath....

yosi

redrock wrote:

yosi wrote:

When did I say anyone was anti-semitic? ...... but I never said any of you guys are anti-semitic.

When you say "I have to ask whether you really care about the Palestinians at all or simply hate Israel", it does sound like this is what you may be implying. Hating Israel... anti-semitism...

yosi wrote:

.... I think they are uninformed, or misinformed, or only partially informed.

So all those who have strong views that are not compatible with yours are not 'informed'? Your (or those who agree with you) take on events is the only 'informed' one? I think not.

Also, don't flatter yourself. I don't think anyone is 'personally' offended that you disagree. I notice you have some very clever reparties in the other threads! But obviously, you know Pepe doesn't hate Israel - he's not anti-semitic, don't you?

Judging only from what he posts Pepe sure does seem to hate Israel. I cannot remember a single thing he has written about Israel that hasn't been negative, and he's responded with fury every time anyone has said anything positive about Israel, or tried to explain Israel's actions as being anything other than purely predatory.

Byrnzie

yosi wrote:

...it is simply a fact that very few people will know very much at all about any given subject. Their knowledge will be completely devoid of any sort of context, detail, and nuance. That's just the way people are. They don't want to take the time to really learn about issues, especially if the issue has nothing at all to do with them, or they simply can't take the time.

Very few people, including you, right?


Funny, but wasn't it you who was talking about self-righteousness just yesterday?

yosi

What is self-righteous about noting that on most subjects most people will know next to nothing? I know for a fact that I know nothing about all sorts of things. This particular subject I happen to know intimately and first hand. But if we're going to talk about self-righteousness, I'd mention first the parable about people in glass houses not throwing stones, and second that he who is without sin should cast the first stone. I'd also add that perhaps a guy living in China who has never been to the region, seen first hand what goes on, or even spoken with the participants in the conflict would think that he has all the facts simply because he has an internet connection. Perhaps there is some small degree of self-righteousness in that?

redrock

yosi wrote:

I..... who has never been to the region, seen first hand what goes on, or even spoken with the participants in the conflict would think that he has all the facts simply because he has an internet connection. ..

?

You've been to Gaza then? Seen what goes on? Spoken to palestinians? I think not.

yosi

I have not been to Gaza, but I have been to Israel more times than I can count, and to the West Bank multiple times, and I have spoken on numerous occasions with Palestinians. I also have close friends who have been to Gaza, and who relayed to me what they saw there.

Byrnzie

yosi wrote:

What is self-righteous about noting that on most subjects most people will know next to nothing? I know for a fact that I know nothing about all sorts of things. This particular subject I happen to know intimately and first hand. But if we're going to talk about self-righteousness, I'd mention first the parable about people in glass houses not throwing stones, and second that he who is without sin should cast the first stone. I'd also add that perhaps a guy living in China who has never been to the region, seen first hand what goes on, or even spoken with the participants in the conflict would think that he has all the facts simply because he has an internet connection. Perhaps there is some small degree of self-righteousness in that?

I never visited America during the Civil War either, so does that mean it's not possible for me to be thoroughly knowledgeable on the subject?

I've been interested in the I=P issue since I was dragged along on a demonstration in London in 1989. That's 20 years. Probably longer than you've been alive, right?