Jewish Settler Attacks = Terrorism

JK18472

Actually I think Israel is a lot worse than Apartheid South Africa. And Zionist ideology is inherently racist.

Why does Israel not permit the Palestinians right of return? Because Israel is allegedly a 'Jewish state' - a state run by, and for Jews.

It's a racist state.

How can you say that ? Do Arabs live in Israel? Do Christians live in Israel do Muslims, do Asians ? Fo people from the west bank work in Istael, are there Arabs who ate voted into government positions in Israel. ?
Was tel Aviv not voted one of the top 10 vacation spots for gay and lesbian vacations? Is there not a day pride parade every year in Israel?
. Israel is not racist they just dint like the people who try to blow up their citizens , or kidnap their children and murder them. Its that simple

Byrnzie

yosi said:

Forgive me, but I don't agree that it was unworkable. You are simply throwing around this wild assertion about "Bantustans" without providing any evidence to support the claim.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14120.htm
Chomsky: The Barak proposal in Camp David, the Barak-Clinton proposal, in the United States, I didn't check the Canadian media, in the United States you cannot find a map, which is the most important thing of course, check in Canada, see if you can find a map. You go to Israel, you can find a map, you go to scholarly sources, you can find a map. Here's what you find when you look at a map: You find that this generous, magnanimous proposal provided Israel with a salient east of Jerusalem, which was established primarily by the Labor government, in order to bisect the West Bank. That salient goes almost to Jericho, breaks the West Bank into two cantons, then there's a second salient to the North, going to the Israeli settlement of Ariel, which bisects the Northern part into two cantons.

So, we've got three cantons in the West Bank, virtually separated. All three of them are separated from a small area of East Jerusalem which is the center of Palestinian commercial and cultural life and of communications. So you have four cantons, all separated from the West, from Gaza, so that's five cantons, all surrounded by Israeli settlements, infrastructure, development and so on, which also incidentally guarantee Israel control of the water resources.

This does not rise to the level of South Africa 40 years ago when South Africa established the Bantustans. That's the generous, magnanimous offer. And there's a good reason why maps weren't shown. Because as soon as you look at a map, you see it.

Solomon: All right, but let me just say, Arafat didn't even bother putting a counter-proposal on the table.

Chomsky: Oh, that's not true.

Solomon: They negotiated that afterwards.

Chomsky: That's not true.

Solomon: I guess my question is, if they don't continue to negotiate -

Chomsky: They did. That's false.

Solomon: That's false?

Chomsky: Not only is it false, but not a single participant in the meetings says it. That's a media fabrication . . .

Solomon: That Arafat didn't put a counter-proposal . . .

Chomsky: Yeah, they had a proposal. They proposed the international consensus, which has been accepted by the entire world, the Arab states, the PLO. They proposed a settlement which is in accordance with an overwhelming international consensus, and is blocked by the United States...

Byrnzie

yosi said:

I don't think it deserves blame for the occupation per se (distinct from the settlements and abusive treatment of Palestinians under Israeli rule). Israel conquered the West Bank from Jordan, which never had an internationally recognized claim to the territory. There was no Palestinian state at the time to hand the territory back to.

Does Israel have an internationally recognized claim to the territory? No, it doesn't. It's recognized as being illegally occupied by Israel. Why is that? Because the area was designated as part of a Palestinian state under the UN Partition Plan - the same plan that established the legitimacy of the state of Israel. Remember that?

yosi said:

In that situation I think it was reasonable for Israel to retain control of the territories for its own security until a transfer of sovereignty could be completed via a final peace accord and the creation of a Palestinian state. I certainly think that Israel should have done a lot more since 1967 to help foster the creation of that Palestinian state, but that doesn't make the occupation as such immoral.

Except Israeli control of these Palestinian territories has nothing to do with it's security.
And as for the occupation being 'moral', it's funny you should see it that way, because under international law, and specifically the Fourth Geneva Convention, the occupation represents a crime against humanity.

http://www.btselem.org/settlements/international_law
The establishment of settlements in the West Bank violates international humanitarian law which establishes principles that apply during war and occupation. Moreover, the settlements lead to the infringement of international human rights law.

The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits an occupying power from transferring citizens from its own territory to the occupied territory (Article 49). The Hague Regulations prohibit an occupying power from undertaking permanent changes in the occupied area unless these are due to military needs in the narrow sense of the term, or unless they are undertaken for the benefit of the local population.

The establishment of settlements results in the violation of the rights of Palestinians as enshrined in international human rights law. Among other violations, the settlements infringe the right to self-determination, equality, property, an adequate standard of living, and freedom of movement.

yosi said:

I do think the Palestinian leadership deserves their share of the blame for the continuing occupation.

Of course you do.

yosi said:

Arafat flatly rejected viable peace deals from Ehud Barak not once but twice (Camp David and Taba), and Abu Mazen failed to respond to Olmert's offer.

That's a lie. Read the Chomsky piece I just posted above.

badbrains

JK18472 said:

Actually I think Israel is a lot worse than Apartheid South Africa. And Zionist ideology is inherently racist.

Why does Israel not permit the Palestinians right of return? Because Israel is allegedly a 'Jewish state' - a state run by, and for Jews.

It's a racist state.

How can you say that ? Do Arabs live in Israel? Do Christians live in Israel do Muslims, do Asians ? Fo people from the west bank work in Istael, are there Arabs who ate voted into government positions in Israel. ?
Was tel Aviv not voted one of the top 10 vacation spots for gay and lesbian vacations? Is there not a day pride parade every year in Israel?
. Israel is not racist they just dint like the people who try to blow up their citizens , or kidnap their children and murder them. Its that simple

And Palestinians don't like their land stolen or their children put in jails for some of the stupidest shit. Look, enough of the excuses for Israel. Simple, get the fuck out of Palestine, let the Palestinians RETURN to THEIR land and stop trying to bully everyone cuz u have big bad ass America backing you. Question for you, what do you think would happen to Israel if America STOPPED backing her? Don't worry cuz it'll never happen with our congressman walking around with their hands held out for $$$, but hypothetically speaking, what do you think would happen?

badbrains

I just read that Israel arrested over 400 for connections to the killing of the 3 Israeli teenagers. Amazingly, NOT 1 arrest was made when the idf dropped a "smart" bomb on that Palestinian school couple years back. Or NOT 1 arrest was made in connection with the idf dropping a bomb on that UN safe house. Can anyone tell me why? I'm seriously curious as to why one rogue nation is above everyone else.

Byrnzie

yosi said:

The Palestinians know that insisting on the refugee's right of return is a deal breaker but refuse to drop that demand, thereby blocking any possible deal

Not true.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n16/henry-siegman/the-great-middle-east-peace-process-scam
'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.'

Re: the meetings between Olmert and Abbas:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/magazine/13Israel-t.html?pagewanted=all

'...THE RIGHT OF RETURN

Olmert agreed to allow 5,000 Palestinians to return to Israel proper, 1,000 a year for five years — each applicant to be reviewed by Israel, and each accepted “for humanitarian reasons.” As “an integral part” of this offer, Olmert said, there would be a signing statement that strongly emphasized how repatriation of any refugees would be carried out “in the spirit of the Arab League peace initiative of 2002.” That initiative stipulates “a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with the U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194.” And U.N. 194 resolves that “the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property.”

...Equally important, Olmert proposed that all sides work with international bodies and financial institutions to establish an international fund to “generously compensate” refugees for their loss of property. He made it clear that Israel would help organize this fund. “In return for this,” Olmert said, “I expected a written commitment that this was the end of all claims and the end of the conflict.”

So Olmert did not specifically recognize the Palestinian right of return but agreed to do everything that someone who did recognize it would do, suggesting 5,000 returnees but leaving the exact number subject to further negotiation. (Olmert said the final number would be only “symbolic” and not more than 15,000.) Abbas, in this context, welcomed the principles but not the number: “I told Olmert that I have five million refugees, all of them expelled from Israeli territories — all of them. If I ask you to accept that all five million should return to Israel, you will tell me, and you are right, that I would destroy Israel. I said, O.K., let us talk about how to find a solution. But don’t tell me that no single Palestinian can return to Israel” — by which he implied that 5,000 was a negligible number.

Palestinian negotiators have mostly accepted “the modalities for compensation” that were negotiated during the round of talks held in Taba, Egypt, and later made public: refugees could immigrate to Palestine or stay in the states in which they now lived (especially Jordan), or go to a third country. In exceptional cases, refugees could go to Israel. In all events, they would be compensated and their relocation paid for.

In other words, both leaders agreed on the principle that a certain number of Palestinians should return, but that the governing question should be how to limit that number in a way that preserves Israel’s distinction as a state with a Jewish majority but that does not prejudice the rights of the Arab minority. As with the land question, the leaders agreed on the principle but disagreed about a number.

yosi

Byrnzie said:

yosi said:

God, you and this "race war" bullshit. The conflict has nothing to do with racism. You're like a kid trying to fit the square peg in the circular hole. You want so badly for Israel to be just like South Africa that you just insist that the conflict is all about racism when it is very plainly about competing nationalism. And please don't dig up some racist quotes and pretend that they prove your point. They prove nothing more then that there are racists in Israel, not that the state as a whole is motivated by some sort of genocidal racism.

Actually I think Israel is a lot worse than Apartheid South Africa. And Zionist ideology is inherently racist.

Why does Israel not permit the Palestinians right of return? Because Israel is allegedly a 'Jewish state' - a state run by, and for Jews.

It's a racist state.

I would say that, actually, Zionist ideology is not inherently racist, and the notion that it is is itself racist. See:

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-trouble-with-anti-zionism/
(the essay is too long to paste here in its entirety)

From the above linked-to essay:

"Zionism is, at its core, the belief that the Jewish people have a right to self-determine in the Land of Israel.

Zionism does not, strictly speaking, require the belief in a Greater Israel, nor toleration of any degree of civil or political inequality between Jews and others in the Jewish state. Criticism of practical manifestations of Zionism that are not logically entailed by the Zionist ideal (e.g., the Occupation) is not necessarily anti-Semitic, if only because it is not aimed at the principle of Zionism itself as the simple belief in the self-determination of the Jewish people in Israel.

...

This latter form [of anti-Zionism] is the more common in anti-Israel discourse, certainly in the Middle East, and it is gathering support through those who endorse the euphemistically named one-state solution, or even more circumlocutiously call for a return of the descendants of Palestinian refugees to their homes in Israel-proper, which would turn Israel into an Arab-majority state and terminate Jewish self-determination by stealth.

...

There are three principal reasons why anti-Zionism is inherently anti-Semitic.

Firstly, anti-Zionism is the position that the Jewish people should be dispossessed, against their will, of a fundamental right that they currently enjoy: namely, the right of self-determination. Whatever one believes about whether the Jewish people had a moral right to self-determine in 1948, this right is now a fact of international law, which states that “all peoples have the right freely to [self-]determine”, recognises that the Jewish people constitute a people and, although the law does not require self-determination to be manifested through political independence (of which more anon), accepts that the creation of the State of Israel was the valid manifestation of this right.
Anti-Zionists may claim that the international community was wrong to grant Jews a legal right that had no moral basis, but anti-Zionism today is the demand that Jewish people should be deprived of their internationally recognised legal right to self-determine, and that Jews worldwide should be divested of a right that they already lawfully possess as Jews.

Anti-Zionists may argue that Zionism has deprived the Palestinians of their political rights, and self-determination exercised in a repressive form has neither legal nor moral basis: Israel is a racist regime, and has no more right to exist than did the white supremacist Apartheid regime in South Africa. The fine distinction, however, is between those who seek justice by accommodating Jewish and Palestinian claims for self-determination through a pragmatic partition of the land, helpfully suggesting adjustments to bring the practice of Jewish self-determination closer to liberal ideals, and between those who believe that justice can only be attained if the rights of one community are allowed to override those of another: fiat justitia, ruat caelum, as the old saying goes.

The selective deprival of fundamental rights is the essence of discrimination. There is simply no conceivable sense in which attempts to retroactively strip Jews, and only Jews, of fundamental rights can be anything other than anti-Semitic."

yosi

And since I already know what you're going to say...

"Critics will no doubt say that the equation of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism is a sinister attempt to silence legitimate political discourse. It should be self-evident, however, that there is no room in civilised debate for singling out Jews for the deprivation of fundamental, internationally recognised rights.

...

The proposition that anti-Zionism is inherently anti-Semitic does not mean that anti-Zionists necessarily hold classically anti-Semitic beliefs: anti-Zionism is a variant of anti-Semitism, even if it sometimes also manifests itself as a cover for a more traditional variety of anti-Semitism. Many anti-Zionists are probably sincere, therefore, when they deny accusations of anti-Semitism. That is irrelevant, however, because their agenda can be anti-Semitic in deed if not in intent. The bearer of prejudiced views may still be prejudiced even while ignorant of the nature of his offence."

And from the follow up essay in response to reader criticism that the author explicitly invited at the end of his first essay:

"I was accused, for example, of suggesting that criticism of Israeli policy is anti-Semitic, which would obviously be stupid, which is why I explicitly disavowed this position, except for the cases of usage of classically anti-Semitic tropes.

I was also accused of playing the anti-Semitism card in order to shut down debate (that trope again!), despite ending with an invitation for readers to share their criticism. I guess I must have been been trying to cover up my conspiracy to shut down debate by disingenuously seeking to generate debate: we Jews Zionists are so sneaky! (#JewishConspiracy?)

...

A further major criticism was that Zionism is inherently inconsistent with liberal theories of the state; as a liberal, I take this criticism very seriously. The argument is that the ‘Jewish and democratic’ formula is a contradiction in terms: the two pillars of Israel’s identity cannot be logically reconciled, and since only democratic states can be morally legitimate, it is clear which one has to go. This is a conclusion that Zionists are desperate to avoid: to side with one value to the exclusion of the other would be, as Meretz MK Nitzan Horowitz put it beautifully, “like choosing between your father and your mother”.

So long as the tension between the two identities has little practical import, however, the allegation loses steam: if the two identities never clash over substantive issues, there is simply no problem. Israel can continue to function as any other democracy, but with a Jewish majority: a country “as Jewish as England is English“, as Chaim Weizmann envisioned. Attempts to impose Jewish law or give preferential civic rights to Jews would indeed be an affront to democracy, but they are policy choices rather than inherent questions of Israel’s self-definition, so criticism would not be anti-Zionist at all.

...

A problem might arise if changing demographics within Israel-proper forced Jerusalem to prioritise one of the two values. Note, however, that the problem would arise not from Israel’s self-definition per se, but from its collision with the unique situation facing Israel: a growing national minority, relatively homogeneous, resistant to integration and harbouring a very different vision of the state’s basic identity. Minorities in Western states are mostly heterogeneous; national minorities remain comparatively small. Concerns arising from the Jewish part of Israel’s identity would arise from a conjunction of a Western nation-state-style definition with problems that other nation-states do not face. I do not know what Israel should do if forced to choose between Jewish and democratic, but no other state is required to stipulate what it would do in a hypothetical dilemma to avoid allegations of racism. One wonders how India would react if its Muslims were set to form a majority, which might entail a union with Pakistan – but this isn’t an issue. Hypothetical problems are not real problems so long as they are only theoretical."

Byrnzie

And the anti-Semitism card rears it's ugly head yet again. I wondered how long it would take you to reach up your sleeve for that one.

yosi said:

Zionism does not, strictly speaking, require the belief in a Greater Israel, nor toleration of any degree of civil or political inequality between Jews and others in the Jewish state.

Zionism does not, 'strictly speaking' preach inequality between Jews and those 'others' over whom it feels it has a divine right to occupy and govern.

Yeah, righteo.

Michael Neumann - The Case Against Israel
Zionism was a movement that advocated not so much the defense of an ethnic group, as the formation of such a group in Palestine, where those who were thought to fit a certain semi-racial category were to find refuge. It was a lovely dream where all Jews would live happily together and, with typical Wilsonian obliviousness, no one seemed to notice that those who did not pass ethnic muster had no place in this fantasy. If they were to be tolerated, welcomed, even loved, it was to be at the pleasure of the Jews. Of that there could be no mistake. This is exactly the sort of vulnerable subordination that Jews, quite understandably, were trying to escape. "Trust us, we'll be nice" is not a promise endorsed by the historical record.

Zionists respond with fury when their movement is identified with racism. Many ethnic supremacists do. They protest that they do not advocate their own superiority, but simply want a land or culture of their own. But that is of neccesity a land where one race is guaranteed supremacy: whether or not this is on grounds of intrinsic superiority hardly matters. And that such movements and attitudes gain respectability is not the fault of the Zionists, much less of the Jews, but of an idiotically false tolerance of ethnic nationalism.'

http://www.counterpunch.org/2009/10/14/fearsome-words/
'We are so bemused by the lovely vision of peoples determining themselves, we cannot see that ethnic self-determination is, in the real world, a quest for racial sovereignty, not a bid to enter some international folk dancing festival. We take the Zionist adoration of Israel, its commitment to racially Jewish rule of Palestine, as a paean to freedom and human rights. We look up to Israel for precisely what should make us abhor it. The ‘self-determination of peoples’ is a poison set in the very heart of our humanitarian ideologies.'

yosi said:

Firstly, anti-Zionism is the position that the Jewish people should be dispossessed, against their will, of a fundamental right that they currently enjoy: namely, the right of self-determination.

Nobody's arguing that Israel has no right of self-determination - within it's legal, and internationally recognized borders.
However, it has no right of self-determination on land stolen from it's neighbours.

Byrnzie

yosi said:

. Israel can continue to function as any other democracy, but with a Jewish majority: a country “as Jewish as England is English“, as Chaim Weizmann envisioned. Attempts to impose Jewish law or give preferential civic rights to Jews would indeed be an affront to democracy, but they are policy choices rather than inherent questions of Israel’s self-definition, so criticism would not be anti-Zionist at all.

The people of England don't constitute an ethnic group. Being English doesn't presuppose that you belong to any particular ethnicity. And imposing Jewish law or giving preferential civic rights to Jews would not only be an affront to democracy, but it would represent an act of racism, or the implementation of a racist policy.

yosi said:

I do not know what Israel should do if forced to choose between Jewish and democratic, but no other state is required to stipulate what it would do in a hypothetical dilemma to avoid allegations of racism. One wonders how India would react if its Muslims were set to form a majority, which might entail a union with Pakistan – but this isn’t an issue. Hypothetical problems are not real problems so long as they are only theoretical."

No other state is required to stipulate what it would do, because no other state is presently grounded in an ideology of racial, or semi-racial, superiority and dominance, i.e, an ideology of ethnic nationalism. If you begin by claiming the country belongs to one ethnic identity or another, then you shouldn't be surprised when confronted with the question: ethnic nationalism or democracy.
If the country was founded on democratic ideals to begin with, then the question would be null and void.

Byrnzie

Anyway, the football starts in a minute. I'm taking a break...

Thirty Bills Unpaid

Byrnzie said:

Anyway, the football starts in a minute. I'm taking a break...

Naah. Keep going. You wont be able to watch the game anyways- that loud dude that just walked in the pub yelling into his new cell phone while smoking his menthol cigarette is going to distract you into entertaining visions of punching him.

JK18472

You are aware that hammas stick piles weapons under hospitals, school and residential areas. Before Israel "drops bombs" they drop leaflets in Arabic and Hebrew making the residents aware that a bomb will b dropped in x amount of hours giving the innocent time to leave the area. When hammas launches rockets into Israeli cities do they follow the same protocols. How many rockets were fired in the last week ?
. Who's fault is it when weapons are hidden in these areas, dint you think the hammas terrorists ate pitting their own people in danger this way?

speaking if American aide shouldn't the us stop aide to the PA as lng as Hammas is in power? A terrorist organization responsible for killings, and who's mission statement clearly points out the objective us to wipe the Jewish people off the map, nothing to do with Israel or birders more about killing Jews

badbrains

JK18472 said:

You are aware that hammas stick piles weapons under hospitals, school and residential areas. Before Israel "drops bombs" they drop leaflets in Arabic and Hebrew making the residents aware that a bomb will b dropped in x amount of hours giving the innocent time to leave the area. When hammas launches rockets into Israeli cities do they follow the same protocols. How many rockets were fired in the last week ?
. Who's fault is it when weapons are hidden in these areas, dint you think the hammas terrorists ate pitting their own people in danger this way?

speaking if American aide shouldn't the us stop aide to the PA as lng as Hammas is in power? A terrorist organization responsible for killings, and who's mission statement clearly points out the objective us to wipe the Jewish people off the map, nothing to do with Israel or birders more about killing Jews

Dude, go back to watching TV. Your statement is full of holes. Ya drop leaflets. Are you fucking kidding me. Did they drop a leaflet before the bulldozed Rachel corrie??? Did they drop leaflets before they dropped that smart bomb on the UN safe house? It was a fucken UN safe house. Ya and let's stop aiding both sides. I'm down with that. We can stop giving the BILLIONS AND BILLIONS of dollars to israel and we can stop giving the Hundreds of millions of dollars to the Palestinians. I think that'll be a fair trade. Please America, let's stop.

Byrnzie

JK18472 said:

You are aware that hammas stick piles weapons under hospitals, school and residential areas.

No they don't. That's a lie.

http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE15/015/2009/en/8f299083-9a74-4853-860f-0563725e633a/mde150152009en.pdf
In the aftermath of Cast Lead, Amnesty International carried out an exhaustive report of human rights abuses by both Israel and Hamas. The report “did not find evidence that Hamas or other Palestinian groups violated the laws of war to the extent repeatedly alleged by Israel,” and that ”contrary to repeated allegations by Israeli officials of the use of ‘human shields,’ Amnesty International found no evidence that Hamas or other Palestinian fighters directed the movement of civilians to shield military objectives from attacks. It found no evidence that Hamas or other armed groups forced residents to stay in or around buildings used by fighters, nor that fighters prevented residents from leaving buildings or areas which had been commandeered by militants.”

Amnesty International investigated dozens of destroyed homes and civilian infrastructure by Israeli airstrikes and found that none of them were being used by armed groups for military purposes. The report does not contest the presence of Hamas fighters and weapons in civilian locations, but does not believe this is “conclusive evidence of intent to use civilians as ‘human shields’”, but rather the reality of a densely populated society under military occupation.

...While Amnesty International did not find evidence of Hamas using civilians as human shields, they did find evidence of Israeli soldiers doing just that:

'In several cases Israeli soldiers also used civilians, including children, as “human shields”, endangering their lives by forcing them to remain in or near houses which they took over and used as military positions. Some were forced to carry out dangerous tasks such as inspecting properties or objects suspected of being booby-trapped. Soldiers also took position and launched attacks from and around inhabited houses, exposing local residents to the danger of attacks or of being caught in the crossfire.'

In addition to Amnesty International, the U.N. Human Rights Council “concluded that Israel used disproportionate force, deliberately targeted civilians, used Palestinians as human shields and destroyed civilian infrastructure during its incursion into the Gaza Strip to root out Palestinian rocket squads.”

Breaking the Silence, a human rights group that publishes testimonies from Israeli soldiers, released a report in which soldiers admitted to their commanders urging troops to “shoot first and worry later about sorting out civilians.” The group also published testimony from a soldier who claims that his unit used Palestinians as human shields while raiding houses during a January 2009 invasion of Gaza.
Further, The Goldstone Report concluded that “the Israeli armed forces repeatedly opened fire on civilians who were not taking part in the hostilities and who posed no threat to them,” and that “Israeli armed forces had carried out direct intentional strikes against civilians” by using “deliberately disproportionate force designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize the civilian population.” One may mention Goldstone’s op-ed in the Washington Post, but all he retracted on is “that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy”. That does not excuse the fact that he, the Human Rights Watch, and others investigated cases and found IDF soldiers guilty of firing at and killing dozens of Palestinian civilians that had been waving white flags.

JK18472 said:

Before Israel "drops bombs" they drop leaflets in Arabic and Hebrew making the residents aware that a bomb will b dropped in x amount of hours giving the innocent time to leave the area.

Yeah, and during the attacks on Gaza the Israeli's dropped leaflets telling those in the city to flee to the rurual areas, whilst it dropped leaflets on the rural areas telling them to flee to the city.
Either way, if it's terrorists they're after, then why drop leaflets warning them to flee? If, as they claim, the terrorists are hiding in amongst the civilians, then do they think these 'terrorists' won't also see the leaflets and flee?

Either way, during operation Cast Lead the Israeli's managed to kill 1,600 civilians, including over 400 children, and were found to have deliberately targeted unarmed civilians - read above.

Byrnzie

JK18472 said:

speaking if American aide shouldn't the us stop aide to the PA as lng as Hammas is in power? A terrorist organization responsible for killings, and who's mission statement clearly points out the objective us to wipe the Jewish people off the map, nothing to do with Israel or birders more about killing Jews

What do you think about this?:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/jun/28/comment.israelandthepalestinians
Snipers with children in their sights

Palestinian civilians have been killed by the army with impunity

Chris McGreal
The Guardian, Monday 27 June 2005

It was the shooting of Asma Mughayar that swept away any lingering doubts I had about how it is the Israeli army kills so many Palestinian children and civilians.

Asma, 16, and her younger brother, Ahmad, were collecting laundry from the roof of their home in the south of the Gaza Strip in May last year when they were felled by an Israeli army sniper. Neither child was armed or threatening the soldier, who fired unseen through a hole punched in the wall of a neighbouring block of flats.

The army said the two were blown up by a Palestinian bomb planted to kill soldiers. The corpses offered a different account. In Rafah's morgue, Asma lay with a single bullet hole through her temple; her 13-year-old brother had a lone shot to his forehead. There were no other injuries, certainly none consistent with a blast.

Confronted with this, the army changed its account and claimed the pair were killed by a Palestinian, though there was persuasive evidence pointing to the Israeli sniper's nest. What the military did not do was ask its soldiers why they gave a false account of the deaths or speak to the children's parents or any other witnesses.

When reporters pressed the issue, the army promised a full investigation, but a few weeks later it was quietly dropped. This has become the norm in a military that appears to value protecting itself from accountability more than living up to its claim to be the "most moral army in the world".

As Tom Hurndall's parents noted yesterday after the conviction of an Israeli sergeant for the manslaughter of their son, the soldier was put on trial only because the British family had the resources to bring pressure to bear. But there has been no justice for the parents of hundreds of Palestinian children killed by Israeli soldiers.

According to the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, the army has killed 1,722 Palestinian civilians - more than one-third of them minors - as well as 1,519 combatants, since the intifada began nearly five years ago; the comparable Israeli figures are 658 civilians killed - 17% minors - along with 309 military. The army has investigated just 90 Palestinian deaths, usually under outside pressure. Seven soldiers have been convicted: three for manslaughter, none for murder.

Last month, a military court sentenced a soldier to 20 months in prison for shooting dead a Palestinian man as he adjusted his TV aerial, the longest sentence yet for killing a civilian, and less than Israeli conscientious objectors have got for refusing to serve in the army.

B'Tselem argues that a lack of accountability and rules of engagement that "encourage a trigger-happy attitude among soldiers" have created a "culture of impunity" - a view backed by the New York-based Human Rights Watch, which last week described many army investigations of civilian killings as a "sham ... that encourages soldiers to think they can literally get away with murder".

In southern Gaza, the killings take place in a climate that amounts to a form of terror against the population. Random fire into Rafah and Khan Yunis has claimed hundreds of lives, including five children shot as they sat at their school desks. Many others have died when the snipers must have known who was in their sights - children playing football, sitting outside home, walking back from school. Almost always "investigations" amount to asking the soldier who pulled the trigger what happened - often they claim there was a gun battle when there was none - and presenting it as fact.

The military police launched an investigation into the death of Iman al-Hams last October only after soldiers went public about the circumstances in which their commander emptied his gun into the 12-year-old. He was recorded telling his men that the girl should be killed even if she were three.

Colonel Pinhas Zuaretz was commander in southern Gaza two years ago when I asked him about the scale of the killing. The colonel, who rewrote the rules of engagement to permit soldiers to shoot children as young as 14, acknowledged that official versions of several killings were wrong, but justified the tactics as the price of the struggle for survival against a second Holocaust.

Perhaps that view was shared by the soldier who shot dead three 15-year-old boys, Hassan Abu Zeid, Ashraf Mousa and Khaled Ghanem, as they approached the fortified border between Gaza and Egypt in April. The military said the teenagers were weapons smugglers and therefore "terrorists", and that the soldier shot them in the legs and only killed them when they failed to stop.

The account was a fabrication. The teenagers were in a "forbidden zone" but kicking a ball. Their corpses showed no evidence of wounds to disable them, only single high-calibre shots to the head or back. The army quietly admitted as much - but there would be no investigation.

yosi

Byrnzie said:

yosi said:

I don't think it deserves blame for the occupation per se (distinct from the settlements and abusive treatment of Palestinians under Israeli rule). Israel conquered the West Bank from Jordan, which never had an internationally recognized claim to the territory. There was no Palestinian state at the time to hand the territory back to.

Does Israel have an internationally recognized claim to the territory? No, it doesn't. It's recognized as being illegally occupied by Israel. Why is that? Because the area was designated as part of a Palestinian state under the UN Partition Plan - the same plan that established the legitimacy of the state of Israel. Remember that?

yosi said:

In that situation I think it was reasonable for Israel to retain control of the territories for its own security until a transfer of sovereignty could be completed via a final peace accord and the creation of a Palestinian state. I certainly think that Israel should have done a lot more since 1967 to help foster the creation of that Palestinian state, but that doesn't make the occupation as such immoral.

Except Israeli control of these Palestinian territories has nothing to do with it's security.
And as for the occupation being 'moral', it's funny you should see it that way, because under international law, and specifically the Fourth Geneva Convention, the occupation represents a crime against humanity.

http://www.btselem.org/settlements/international_law
The establishment of settlements in the West Bank violates international humanitarian law which establishes principles that apply during war and occupation. Moreover, the settlements lead to the infringement of international human rights law.

The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits an occupying power from transferring citizens from its own territory to the occupied territory (Article 49). The Hague Regulations prohibit an occupying power from undertaking permanent changes in the occupied area unless these are due to military needs in the narrow sense of the term, or unless they are undertaken for the benefit of the local population.

The establishment of settlements results in the violation of the rights of Palestinians as enshrined in international human rights law. Among other violations, the settlements infringe the right to self-determination, equality, property, an adequate standard of living, and freedom of movement.

yosi said:

I do think the Palestinian leadership deserves their share of the blame for the continuing occupation.

Of course you do.

yosi said:

Arafat flatly rejected viable peace deals from Ehud Barak not once but twice (Camp David and Taba), and Abu Mazen failed to respond to Olmert's offer.

That's a lie. Read the Chomsky piece I just posted above.

As usual you've simply ignored what I actually wrote. I clearly distinguished the military occupation as such from the establishment of settlements, and yet your entire response relates to the legality of the settlements. Discussion is a lot easier if you respond to what I actually write.

yosi

Byrnzie said:

And the anti-Semitism card rears it's ugly head yet again. I wondered how long it would take you to reach up your sleeve for that one.

yosi said:

Zionism does not, strictly speaking, require the belief in a Greater Israel, nor toleration of any degree of civil or political inequality between Jews and others in the Jewish state.

Zionism does not, 'strictly speaking' preach inequality between Jews and those 'others' over whom it feels it has a divine right to occupy and govern.

Yeah, righteo.

Michael Neumann - The Case Against Israel
Zionism was a movement that advocated not so much the defense of an ethnic group, as the formation of such a group in Palestine, where those who were thought to fit a certain semi-racial category were to find refuge. It was a lovely dream where all Jews would live happily together and, with typical Wilsonian obliviousness, no one seemed to notice that those who did not pass ethnic muster had no place in this fantasy. If they were to be tolerated, welcomed, even loved, it was to be at the pleasure of the Jews. Of that there could be no mistake. This is exactly the sort of vulnerable subordination that Jews, quite understandably, were trying to escape. "Trust us, we'll be nice" is not a promise endorsed by the historical record.

Zionists respond with fury when their movement is identified with racism. Many ethnic supremacists do. They protest that they do not advocate their own superiority, but simply want a land or culture of their own. But that is of neccesity a land where one race is guaranteed supremacy: whether or not this is on grounds of intrinsic superiority hardly matters. And that such movements and attitudes gain respectability is not the fault of the Zionists, much less of the Jews, but of an idiotically false tolerance of ethnic nationalism.'

http://www.counterpunch.org/2009/10/14/fearsome-words/
'We are so bemused by the lovely vision of peoples determining themselves, we cannot see that ethnic self-determination is, in the real world, a quest for racial sovereignty, not a bid to enter some international folk dancing festival. We take the Zionist adoration of Israel, its commitment to racially Jewish rule of Palestine, as a paean to freedom and human rights. We look up to Israel for precisely what should make us abhor it. The ‘self-determination of peoples’ is a poison set in the very heart of our humanitarian ideologies.'

yosi said:

Firstly, anti-Zionism is the position that the Jewish people should be dispossessed, against their will, of a fundamental right that they currently enjoy: namely, the right of self-determination.

Nobody's arguing that Israel has no right of self-determination - within it's legal, and internationally recognized borders.
However, it has no right of self-determination on land stolen from it's neighbours.

So explain to me, if the Jewish nature of the state derives from the fact that the state has a Jewish majority population why is that a racist state? There is no principled contradiction between a Jewish majority state that derives its Jewish character from the legitimate democratic will of the majority and the provision of full equal rights to all citizens regardless of whether they are part of that majority. Were the state not majority Jewish I would agree that there would be a real risk to democratic principles, but as things stand such a problem simply doesn't exist. That's not to say that Israel doesn't have laws on the books that are discriminatory, but those are particular instances, they don't undermine the democratic nature of the state as such, nor do they make the state as such, and the national project that created it, fundamentally racist.

Byrnzie

yosi said:

So explain to me, if the Jewish nature of the state derives from the fact that the state has a Jewish majority population why is that a racist state? There is no principled contradiction between a Jewish majority state that derives its Jewish character from the legitimate democratic will of the majority and the provision of full equal rights to all citizens regardless of whether they are part of that majority. Were the state not majority Jewish I would agree that there would be a real risk to democratic principles, but as things stand such a problem simply doesn't exist. That's not to say that Israel doesn't have laws on the books that are discriminatory, but those are particular instances, they don't undermine the democratic nature of the state as such, nor do they make the state as such, and the national project that created it, fundamentally racist.

Because as far as Israel goes, we're not talking simply about a Jewish majority population. We're talking about a state run by, and for Jews, that does not provide full equal rights to all citizens regardless of whether they are part of that majority, as has been amply documented. As for your 'particular instances', try telling that to those effected, including those living in the occupied territories.

Byrnzie

yosi said:

As usual you've simply ignored what I actually wrote. I clearly distinguished the military occupation as such from the establishment of settlements, and yet your entire response relates to the legality of the settlements. Discussion is a lot easier if you respond to what I actually write.

Bullshit.

Here's what I wrote:

'Does Israel have an internationally recognized claim to the territory? No, it doesn't. It's recognized as being illegally occupied by Israel. Why is that? Because the area was designated as part of a Palestinian state under the UN Partition Plan - the same plan that established the legitimacy of the state of Israel. Remember that?'

The occupation is illegal. Under international law, It's illegal to acquire territory by war. And the fact that Jordan controlled the West Bank for 20 years after the 1948 war does not legitimize Israel's occupation of it today.

Try pretending that the settlers and the settlements are a distinct aspect of the occupation. Try pretending that the settlements aren't intrinsic to the occupation, and to the Zionists professed intention to steal all of the land between the river and sea. I know how you try every trick in the book to excuse and justify this slow ethnic cleansing and land-grab.Oh, yeah, and I know...there's not one Zionism; there are many different 'Zionisms' - impenetrable to the eyes of the ignorant gentile - right?