"Never in the history of the human race..." So supporters of Israel are the most racist and bloodthirsty people in the history of humanity. And you wonder why some might think that your comments have a tendency to veer into bigotry.
Once again, twisting my words. You have a habit of doing that.
Here's what I said: "Never in the history of the human race has so much effort gone into trying to excuse and justify racism and murder."
I didn't say that supporters of Israel are the most racist and bloodthirsty people in the history of humanity. I didn't say that Israel's supporters can be compared to the Mongol Hordes, or to the Waffen SS marching through Europe. I said that "Never in the history of the human race has so much effort gone into trying to excuse and justify racism and murder."
Yes. Exactly. You are saying that supporters of Israel are more accepting of racism and murder than any other group of people...ever. Which would logically seem to imply that they are more racist and bloodthirsty than any other group of people ever. Which seems to be a comment that would be very easy to consider kind of bigoted since it implies that Jews (i.e., "supporters of Israel") are a uniquely evil sort of people.
twist and twist...that is still not what was said.
It's a yes/no question. No need to add your opinion. i just want to know if you think that Hamas is a terrorist organization.
Depends what you mean by 'terrorist organization'. Do you believe Israel is a terrorist state?
And I didn't add my opinion. I presented some facts.
Supporters of Israel dnt like to deal with facts byrnzie. What a lame ass question to ask byrnzie. When someone doesn't agree with their agenda or speaks out, they are labeled uneducated, misinformed or my favorite, Anti-Semite. I got a question for you Skeet. Look back at the last few PMs of Israel, any of them terrorists or belong to Israeli terrorist organizations in the past? It's a simple YES/NO question. Now, can you be honest with your answer?
The truth at last. The reason for the latest Israeli assault on the people of Gaza is that they want to destroy the unity government between Hamas and the P.A:
Israel wants a ceasefire agreement that would restore the authority of the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, in Gaza, according to a senior government official.
...Shobky said two main stumbling blocks remained. Israel does not want to release a number of Palestinian prisoners recently recaptured after their release under a previous peace agreement. Secondly, Israel and Egypt are reluctant to ease a blockade of Gaza that has crippled the region's economy.
The truth at last. The reason for the latest Israeli assault on the people of Gaza is that they want to destroy the unity government between Hamas and the P.A:
Israel wants a ceasefire agreement that would restore the authority of the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, in Gaza, according to a senior government official.
...Shobky said two main stumbling blocks remained. Israel does not want to release a number of Palestinian prisoners recently recaptured after their release under a previous peace agreement. Secondly, Israel and Egypt are reluctant to ease a blockade of Gaza that has crippled the region's economy.
This is the reason for Israel's latest assault on Gaza. The Israeli's can't accept a united Palestinian government that will not accept all of Israel's demands - demands that run contrary to what they are actually entitled to under international law.
Let me ask you, what are the Palestinians gaining from firing hundreds of missiles at Israel? How does this choice of action help them in any appreciable way?
"The Israeli Jewish public must understand that there shall be no security so long as they do not turn their anger and frustration at their very supremacist privilege and ideological system which is embodied in the Israeli government, left-wing, centrist, or right-wing. No one is asking them to leave, but they must accept Palestinian resistance insofar as they accept the arrogance which characterises the Zionist ideology. The radical potential of Palestinian rockets, of sirens going off, lies in these rockets’ ability to disrupt a system of privilege which Israeli Jews enjoy at the expense of colonised and displaced Palestinians. Rockets, in other words, are a radical declaration of existence and unmediated expression of self-determination."- Rana Baker [Open Democracy]
That's disgusting. That's like saying that if African Americans went around indiscriminately murdering white people pre-civil rights it would have been an acceptable expression of resistance. The abandonment of basic morality inherent in this line of thinking is just shocking.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
In my opinion both, Jews and Palestinians, have a right of self-determination, and living on the land, which both call home, I don't have a solution for the conflict, I only observe the fear and anger to one another goes deep. It Looks like there is no room for anything else then blaming the guild on the opposite side, but for all the citizens of Israel/Palestine, I hope there may be one soon. Cause everybody gets hurt and grieved at the moment.
I have a solution for the conflict. It's the same solution that's agreed upon by the whole of the international community - the whole World - and which is rejected by the U.S and Israel.
The United Nations General Assembly annually votes on a resolution titled, “Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine.” This resolution uniformly includes these tenets for “achieving a peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine”: (1) “Affirming the principle of the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war”; (2) “Affirming also the illegality of the Israeli settlements in the territory occupied since 1967 and of Israeli actions aimed at changing the status of Jerusalem”; (3) “Stresses the need for: (a) The realization of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, primarily the right to self-determination; (b) The withdrawal of Israel from the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967”; (4) “Also stresses the need for resolving the problem of the Palestine refugees in conformity with its resolution 194 (III) of 11 December 1948.”
Peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine - A/RES/68/15 Vote: 165 Yes, 6 against (Canada, Federated States of Micronesia, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau, United States) with 6 abstentions (Australia, Cameroon, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, South Sudan, Tonga)
So we have 165 countries on one side calling for a peaceful settlement of the conflict under the terms of U.N Resolution 242, and 6 countries - including Israel and the U.S - on the other; the U.S using it's power of automatic veto at the U.N Security council to block the settlement.
And by the way, three of those countries which voted against the Resolution are destined to disappear under the sea in the near future as a result of global warming, so the U.S and Israel will have even fewer allies in their opposition to a peaceful settlement of the conflict.
It's more than a little amusing that you are so preachy about the US and Israel opposing the peaceful settlement that everyone else wants, and yet you react so defensively to any and all suggestions about how that peaceful settlement might actually be brought about if it even implies that the Palestinians must, or should, or even may want to think about doing something themselves. It's almost as if you're more interested in screaming bloody murder about Israel than in actually thinking about how to improve the lives of real Palestinians on the ground.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
It's more than a little amusing that you are so preachy about the US and Israel opposing the peaceful settlement that everyone else wants, and yet you react so defensively to any and all suggestions about how that peaceful settlement might actually be brought about if it even implies that the Palestinians must, or should, or even may want to think about doing something themselves. It's almost as if you're more interested in screaming bloody murder about Israel than in actually thinking about how to improve the lives of real Palestinians on the ground.
The conditions for a peaceful settlement are not in any way ambiguous. They're actually perfectly straightforward, and are agreed upon by the whole World - excluding Israel and the U.S.
Though I can see why it would benefit you to pretend otherwise.
Let's take Rwanda as an example. What country prevented a U.N intervention and ordered the Dutch troops on the ground to do nothing to help the Tutsis?
http://www.e-ir.info/2012/04/07/rwandan-genocide-failure-of-the-international-community/ The United States is often blamed as being most responsible for inaction in Rwanda. This is partly because since the end of the Cold War, “no international action can be taken without the leading role of the United States” (Destexhe 1995: 49). As early as 1993, CIA studies warned of imminent massacres with up to 500,000 potential victims (Des Forges 2000: 141; Power 2003: 339). Before the genocide began, major powers knew “that something terrible was underway in Rwanda” and that there were plans for genocidal killings (Des Forges 2000: 141; OAU 2000: 54). Kuperman (2000: 101) states that by April 20, the US must have known about the genocide. However, since the death of its rangers in Somalia, the US had decided to “stop placing the agenda of the UN before the interests of the US” (Clinton in Melvern 2000: 78). President Clinton, who was worried about his poll ratings after bringing home body bags from African missions, had decided that a range of factors must be met in order for the US to approve future UN peacekeeping missions (Bellamy and Williams 2010: 107-108): The Presidential Decision Directive 25 (PDD-25), although not published until May 1994, strongly influenced US decision-making in April 1994 (Scheffer 2004: 129). Unfortunately for the people of Rwanda, their country did not “qualify” for a US-sponsored peacekeeping operation under PDD-25 (Power 2003: 332).
In addition to the memories of Somalia, the United States had never had “national interest” in Rwanda, one of PDD-25’s many requirements (Power 2003: 330; The White House 1994: 2). Power (2003: 335) contends that Washington simply “remember[ed] Somalia and hear[ed] no American demands for intervention”. Citizens have a powerful voice in lobbying their government to place topics on the policy agenda. However, there was no such pressure in 1994, owing largely to the absence of international media in Rwanda (Power 2003: 375-361). Reports about the conflict also demonstrate Western misunderstandings of African conflicts: Instead of seeing the killings as extraordinary, there was the belief that “these people do this from time to time” (Power 2003: 351). Government officials realised that they would look ridiculous calling the killings in Rwanda genocide and then do nothing (PBS 2004). Apart from moral obligations, there are also legal requirements. Under the 1948 Genocide Convention, the international community is obliged to act if genocide occurs anywhere in the world (Genocide Convention 1948). This led to a “dance to avoid the g-word” in the US (Power 2003: 359). The US’ response to the Rwandan genocide demonstrates all three major reasons for inaction: the “shadow of Somalia” as well as inaction because of a lack of national interest and internal pressure.
This is the reason for Israel's latest assault on Gaza. The Israeli's can't accept a united Palestinian government that will not accept all of Israel's demands - demands that run contrary to what they are actually entitled to under international law.
this is exactly what i said in that facebook thread the day after ed spoke. i said this whole thing is just punishing the palestinians because they united their government, and israel ain't gonna let it stay united.
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
does anybody know if the people of israel are experiencing anything like we had here in 2003? is there a big patriotic ferver going on, like the "if you are against the war you are not an israeli" or "if you don't support your government in a time of war, so you gotta get out!"??
just curious if the people who are against the war are having their patriotism questioned.
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
Let's take Rwanda as an example. What country prevented a U.N intervention and ordered the Dutch troops on the ground to do nothing to help the Tutsis?
http://www.e-ir.info/2012/04/07/rwandan-genocide-failure-of-the-international-community/ The United States is often blamed as being most responsible for inaction in Rwanda. This is partly because since the end of the Cold War, “no international action can be taken without the leading role of the United States” (Destexhe 1995: 49). As early as 1993, CIA studies warned of imminent massacres with up to 500,000 potential victims (Des Forges 2000: 141; Power 2003: 339). Before the genocide began, major powers knew “that something terrible was underway in Rwanda” and that there were plans for genocidal killings (Des Forges 2000: 141; OAU 2000: 54). Kuperman (2000: 101) states that by April 20, the US must have known about the genocide. However, since the death of its rangers in Somalia, the US had decided to “stop placing the agenda of the UN before the interests of the US” (Clinton in Melvern 2000: 78). President Clinton, who was worried about his poll ratings after bringing home body bags from African missions, had decided that a range of factors must be met in order for the US to approve future UN peacekeeping missions (Bellamy and Williams 2010: 107-108): The Presidential Decision Directive 25 (PDD-25), although not published until May 1994, strongly influenced US decision-making in April 1994 (Scheffer 2004: 129). Unfortunately for the people of Rwanda, their country did not “qualify” for a US-sponsored peacekeeping operation under PDD-25 (Power 2003: 332).
In addition to the memories of Somalia, the United States had never had “national interest” in Rwanda, one of PDD-25’s many requirements (Power 2003: 330; The White House 1994: 2). Power (2003: 335) contends that Washington simply “remember[ed] Somalia and hear[ed] no American demands for intervention”. Citizens have a powerful voice in lobbying their government to place topics on the policy agenda. However, there was no such pressure in 1994, owing largely to the absence of international media in Rwanda (Power 2003: 375-361). Reports about the conflict also demonstrate Western misunderstandings of African conflicts: Instead of seeing the killings as extraordinary, there was the belief that “these people do this from time to time” (Power 2003: 351). Government officials realised that they would look ridiculous calling the killings in Rwanda genocide and then do nothing (PBS 2004). Apart from moral obligations, there are also legal requirements. Under the 1948 Genocide Convention, the international community is obliged to act if genocide occurs anywhere in the world (Genocide Convention 1948). This led to a “dance to avoid the g-word” in the US (Power 2003: 359). The US’ response to the Rwandan genocide demonstrates all three major reasons for inaction: the “shadow of Somalia” as well as inaction because of a lack of national interest and internal pressure.
Yeah, but that conveniently lets everyone else off the hook. Kofi Annan completely ignored the commander of his own peacekeeping forces when he made a last-ditch effort to avert the genocide, and the French actively supported the Hutu government. The UN does a lot of good, but in a lot of ways it is a broken institution, and that the US is not the primary reason for that.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
does anybody know if the people of israel are experiencing anything like we had here in 2003? is there a big patriotic ferver going on, like the "if you are against the war you are not an israeli" or "if you don't support your government in a time of war, so you gotta get out!"??
just curious if the people who are against the war are having their patriotism questioned.
As it happens my parents are in Jerusalem at the moment. I haven't spoken to them that much about it, but from what they've told me the government is under a lot of popular pressure to act against Gaza. Which isn't really all that surprising given that a very large segment of the population is now scrambling to get to bomb shelters as a part of their daily routine.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
As it happens my parents are in Jerusalem at the moment. I haven't spoken to them that much about it, but from what they've told me the government is under a lot of popular pressure to act against Gaza. Which isn't really all that surprising given that a very large segment of the population is now scrambling to get to bomb shelters as a part of their daily routine.
Or maybe it's not really all that surprising considering the long history of support by the Israeli citizenship for crimes of state:
Finkelstein: 'Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History' 'When Israel attacked Lebanon in in June 1982 in order to "safeguard the occupation of the West bank" (Yehoshafat Harkabi's phrase), the popularity ratings of Defense Minister Ariel Sharon and Prime Minister Begin soared, while more than 80 percent of Israeli's held the invasion to be justified. When Israel's battering of Beirut in August 1982 reached new heights of savagery, more than half of Israeli's still supported the begin-Sharon government, while more than 80 percent still supported the invasion - which in the end, left up to twenty thousand Lebanese and Palestinians, almost all civilians, dead, and which the U.N General Assembly condemned by a vote of 143 to 2 (United States and Israel) for inflicting "severe damage on civilian Palestinians, including heavy losses of human lives, intolerable sufferings and massive material destruction." Only when the costs of the Lebanon aggression proved too onerous - initially, from the worldwide outcry against the Sabra and Shatila massacres and, later, from the escalating military casualties - did Israeli's turn against it. When Israel's violent repression of the first Intifada reached new heights of brutality in 1989, more than half of all Israeli's supported the deployment of yet "stronger measures" to quell the largely nonviolent civil revolt (only one in four supported any lessening of the repression), while "an overwhelming 72 percent...saw no contradiction between the army's handling of the uprising and 'the nation's democratic values.'" Operation Defensive shield (March - April 2002), although wreaking devastation on Palestinian society and culminating in the commission by Israeli forces of "serious violations" of humanitarian law and "war crimes" in Jenin and Nablus, was supported by fully 90 percent of Israeli's.
Beyond the emotional support that Israeli's have lent to crimes of state, it bears emphasis that Israel relies on a citizen army to implement policy: the collective responsibility of the Israeli people accordingly runs much deeper than "moral complicity." Finally, Israel couldn't commit such crimes without unconditional political and economic support from the United States, and it's the likes of Dershowitz who, through shameless apologetics and brazen distortions, crucially facilitate this unconditional support. What if [Alan] Dershowitz's home were subject to the "benign form of collective accountability" he urges for Palestinians?'
Byrnzie,your a fucking machine,I will give you that.You must have an anti Israel data base like a encyclopedia.Google must pay you for your visits.Correct me if I'm wrong(I know you will and think I am)But its not just Israel that wants Hamas out.All the moderate surrounding Arab states do.Your clinging to a sinking ship getting into bed with them.You guys can do better for representation.
One of the main problems in these kind of discussions, in my opinion... Great things are said, but does anyone hear them?
"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed".- Carl Jung.
"Art does not reproduce what we see; rather, it makes us see."- Paul Klee
Correct me if I'm wrong(I know you will and think I am)But its not just Israel that wants Hamas out. All the moderate surrounding Arab states do.Your clinging to a sinking ship getting into bed with them.You guys can do better for representation.
Do you not think that it's up to the Palestinians to decide who governs them politically? As to what Israel wants, Israel simply wants a 'moderate' Palestinian government that will agree to it's carve-up of the West bank into a series of disconnected islands - Apartheid-style bantustans. That's what the Israeli's want. And the reason they have a problem with Hamas, and the PLO before them, is because Hamas, like the PLO, calls for a settlement of the conflict based on international law, and not a settlement of the conflict based on what Israel wants.
Also, the whole World supports a peaceful settlement based on international law. (Scroll up this page for the evidence I already provided). The whole World supports it, including the Palestinians, and every year the U.S vetoes it. The whole World is on one side, and the U.S and Israel are on the other. And yet you pretend that Hamas is the problem?
'...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.
...Just one year after the 1967 war, Moshe Dayan, a former IDF chief of staff who at the time was minister of defence, described his plan for the future as ‘the current reality in the territories’. ‘The plan,’ he said, ‘is being implemented in actual fact. What exists today must remain as a permanent arrangement in the West Bank.’ Ten years later, at a conference in Tel Aviv, Dayan said: ‘The question is not “What is the solution?” but “How do we live without a solution?”’ Geoffrey Aronson, who has monitored the settlement enterprise from its beginnings, summarises the situation as follows:
"Living without a solution, then as now, was understood by Israel as the key to maximising the benefits of conquest while minimising the burdens and dangers of retreat or formal annexation. This commitment to the status quo, however, disguised a programme of expansion that generations of Israeli leaders supported as enabling, through Israeli settlement, the dynamic transformation of the territories and the expansion of effective Israeli sovereignty to the Jordan River."
Protesters force BBC to confront its pro-Israel bias 07/17/2014
Approximately 5,000 protesters brought the roads around the BBC’s London headquarters to a standstill on 15 July, forcing the news organization to confront its one-sided coverage of Israel’s current assault on Gaza.
As the protesters shouted “BBC, shame on you,” Hugh Lanning, Chair of Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), handed in a letter to the BBC’s Director General, Tony Hall. The letter calls on the BBC to reflect the reality of Gaza’s occupation and siege in its reporting. The open letter had been signed by 45,000 people in under a week. Signatories include scholar Noam Chomsky, filmmaker John Pilger, film director Ken Loach, musician Brian Eno, journalist Owen Jones and comedian and filmmaker Jeremy Hardy.
Protesters held up placards bearing statements from the letter, including: “We would like to remind the BBC that Gaza has no army, air force or navy” and “The BBC’s reporting of Israel’s assaults on Gaza is entirely devoid of context or background.” Speakers from organizations including Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Palestinian Forum in Britain, Friends of Al Aqsa and Stop the War addressed the crowds.
As BBC employees watched from the top of their building, some recording the protest on mobile phones and tweeting out the footage, Lanning told the protestors: “There are lies, there are damned lies, and then there’s the BBC. Come on BBC, tell the truth — it’s the occupation, stupid.”
Taking place on its doorstep, and with police having to guide out BBC staff who wanted to leave the building, it was a protest against its coverage that the BBC couldn’t ignore.
And the next day, the BBC’s flagship news program Today on Radio 4, ran a seven-minute segment asking, in the words of presenter Mishal Husain, “Are the protestors right? Have we been biased at the BBC in favor of Israel?”
It was an unprecedented segment — and maybe the first time the BBC has publicly held up a mirror to its reporting of the occupation.
Answering the question was Greg Philo, co-author of More Bad News from Israel, an in-depth study of the BBC and ITV’s (another British television network) coverage of Palestine, and professor of Communications and Social Change at Glasgow University.
Philo’s answers also broke new ground for the BBC. Uninterrupted, Philo was allowed to talk about subjects which normally appear to be taboo across the BBC’s output: Israel’s occupation, its siege of Gaza, the forced displacement of Palestinians in 1948, Israel’s “brutal apartheid” as he was allowed to describe it, and the illegality of Israel’s actions.
And, throughout, he emphasised the lack of the Palestinian viewpoint in BBC coverage in general.
Philo also praised those who had been at the demonstration, telling Husain: “I think actually the protesters are doing the BBC a favor. I think they will help the journalists to give a better perspective … I’ve had many senior journalists at the BBC saying they simply can’t get the Palestinian viewpoint across, that the perspective they can’t say is the Palestinian view that Israel is a brutal apartheid state.” #BBCTruth4Gaza
Asked by Husain what picture is given by BBC reporting, Philo replied: “Well, the Palestinian perspective is just not there. The Israelis are on twice as much. But the Palestinian view and the historical analysis of the events is that they were displaced from their land, they are living under military rule.”
He added: “People don’t even understand that it’s a military occupation that Palestinians are subject to. They don’t know about the economic blockade, they don’t know about the consequences of that on Palestinian life.”
As Husain interrupted to argue that the BBC had carried “many reports from Gaza … reporting on the casualties, reporting from the morgues,” Philo came back to remind her that the underlying story was not being dealt with.
“The problem with the coverage is that it doesn’t refer to the history,” he said. “That [the Palestinians] lost their homes and lands, that the occupation and the way it is conducted is illegal, that they lose their water, that they had their lives, in effect, stolen from them … Even if the BBC can’t give the Palestinian view, it should at least respect international law. The BBC should be reporting the international judgements on things like the wall …”
What the fuck is wrong with you dude.Remove the stick that is firmly planted in your ass and chill out a little.I thought your partner there would get A chuckle out of it.It wasnt meant disrespectfully or with malice.Remember we are all on a PJ fan site so we all have a little common ground.Now fun and levity is not acceptable?I don't agree 100% with your politics so now being civil is below you? Classy Badbrains,very Classy.
Comments
http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/07/16/what-happened-when-palestinian-children-were-killed-in-front-of-a-hotel-full-of-journalists/
Guess they had it coming.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/17/israel-seeks-ceasefire-restore-abbas-authority-hamas
Israel wants a ceasefire agreement that would restore the authority of the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, in Gaza, according to a senior government official.
...Shobky said two main stumbling blocks remained. Israel does not want to release a number of Palestinian prisoners recently recaptured after their release under a previous peace agreement. Secondly, Israel and Egypt are reluctant to ease a blockade of Gaza that has crippled the region's economy.
2013- Brooklyn2, Philly1, Philly2, NOLA
This is the reason for Israel's latest assault on Gaza. The Israeli's can't accept a united Palestinian government that will not accept all of Israel's demands - demands that run contrary to what they are actually entitled to under international law.
Though I can see why it would benefit you to pretend otherwise.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/mar/31/usa.rwanda
US chose to ignore Rwandan genocide
Classified papers show Clinton was aware of 'final solution' to eliminate Tutsis
http://www.e-ir.info/2012/04/07/rwandan-genocide-failure-of-the-international-community/
The United States is often blamed as being most responsible for inaction in Rwanda. This is partly because since the end of the Cold War, “no international action can be taken without the leading role of the United States” (Destexhe 1995: 49). As early as 1993, CIA studies warned of imminent massacres with up to 500,000 potential victims (Des Forges 2000: 141; Power 2003: 339). Before the genocide began, major powers knew “that something terrible was underway in Rwanda” and that there were plans for genocidal killings (Des Forges 2000: 141; OAU 2000: 54). Kuperman (2000: 101) states that by April 20, the US must have known about the genocide. However, since the death of its rangers in Somalia, the US had decided to “stop placing the agenda of the UN before the interests of the US” (Clinton in Melvern 2000: 78). President Clinton, who was worried about his poll ratings after bringing home body bags from African missions, had decided that a range of factors must be met in order for the US to approve future UN peacekeeping missions (Bellamy and Williams 2010: 107-108): The Presidential Decision Directive 25 (PDD-25), although not published until May 1994, strongly influenced US decision-making in April 1994 (Scheffer 2004: 129). Unfortunately for the people of Rwanda, their country did not “qualify” for a US-sponsored peacekeeping operation under PDD-25 (Power 2003: 332).
In addition to the memories of Somalia, the United States had never had “national interest” in Rwanda, one of PDD-25’s many requirements (Power 2003: 330; The White House 1994: 2). Power (2003: 335) contends that Washington simply “remember[ed] Somalia and hear[ed] no American demands for intervention”. Citizens have a powerful voice in lobbying their government to place topics on the policy agenda. However, there was no such pressure in 1994, owing largely to the absence of international media in Rwanda (Power 2003: 375-361). Reports about the conflict also demonstrate Western misunderstandings of African conflicts: Instead of seeing the killings as extraordinary, there was the belief that “these people do this from time to time” (Power 2003: 351). Government officials realised that they would look ridiculous calling the killings in Rwanda genocide and then do nothing (PBS 2004). Apart from moral obligations, there are also legal requirements. Under the 1948 Genocide Convention, the international community is obliged to act if genocide occurs anywhere in the world (Genocide Convention 1948). This led to a “dance to avoid the g-word” in the US (Power 2003: 359). The US’ response to the Rwandan genocide demonstrates all three major reasons for inaction: the “shadow of Somalia” as well as inaction because of a lack of national interest and internal pressure.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
ground war is on.
somebody needs to rein in netanyahu, the man who gave the idf the go ahead, before a lot more people get killed.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
just curious if the people who are against the war are having their patriotism questioned.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Finkelstein: 'Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History'
'When Israel attacked Lebanon in in June 1982 in order to "safeguard the occupation of the West bank" (Yehoshafat Harkabi's phrase), the popularity ratings of Defense Minister Ariel Sharon and Prime Minister Begin soared, while more than 80 percent of Israeli's held the invasion to be justified. When Israel's battering of Beirut in August 1982 reached new heights of savagery, more than half of Israeli's still supported the begin-Sharon government, while more than 80 percent still supported the invasion - which in the end, left up to twenty thousand Lebanese and Palestinians, almost all civilians, dead, and which the U.N General Assembly condemned by a vote of 143 to 2 (United States and Israel) for inflicting "severe damage on civilian Palestinians, including heavy losses of human lives, intolerable sufferings and massive material destruction." Only when the costs of the Lebanon aggression proved too onerous - initially, from the worldwide outcry against the Sabra and Shatila massacres and, later, from the escalating military casualties - did Israeli's turn against it.
When Israel's violent repression of the first Intifada reached new heights of brutality in 1989, more than half of all Israeli's supported the deployment of yet "stronger measures" to quell the largely nonviolent civil revolt (only one in four supported any lessening of the repression), while "an overwhelming 72 percent...saw no contradiction between the army's handling of the uprising and 'the nation's democratic values.'"
Operation Defensive shield (March - April 2002), although wreaking devastation on Palestinian society and culminating in the commission by Israeli forces of "serious violations" of humanitarian law and "war crimes" in Jenin and Nablus, was supported by fully 90 percent of Israeli's.
Beyond the emotional support that Israeli's have lent to crimes of state, it bears emphasis that Israel relies on a citizen army to implement policy: the collective responsibility of the Israeli people accordingly runs much deeper than "moral complicity." Finally, Israel couldn't commit such crimes without unconditional political and economic support from the United States, and it's the likes of Dershowitz who, through shameless apologetics and brazen distortions, crucially facilitate this unconditional support. What if [Alan] Dershowitz's home were subject to the "benign form of collective accountability" he urges for Palestinians?'
Great things are said, but does anyone hear them?
"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed".- Carl Jung.
"Art does not reproduce what we see; rather, it makes us see."- Paul Klee
EV
Toronto Film Festival 9/11/2007, '08 - Toronto 1 & 2, '09 - Albany 1, '11 - Chicago 1
And the reason they have a problem with Hamas, and the PLO before them, is because Hamas, like the PLO, calls for a settlement of the conflict based on international law, and not a settlement of the conflict based on what Israel wants.
Also, the whole World supports a peaceful settlement based on international law. (Scroll up this page for the evidence I already provided). The whole World supports it, including the Palestinians, and every year the U.S vetoes it. The whole World is on one side, and the U.S and Israel are on the other. And yet you pretend that Hamas is the problem?
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n16/henry-siegman/the-great-middle-east-peace-process-scam
'...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.
...Just one year after the 1967 war, Moshe Dayan, a former IDF chief of staff who at the time was minister of defence, described his plan for the future as ‘the current reality in the territories’. ‘The plan,’ he said, ‘is being implemented in actual fact. What exists today must remain as a permanent arrangement in the West Bank.’ Ten years later, at a conference in Tel Aviv, Dayan said: ‘The question is not “What is the solution?” but “How do we live without a solution?”’ Geoffrey Aronson, who has monitored the settlement enterprise from its beginnings, summarises the situation as follows:
"Living without a solution, then as now, was understood by Israel as the key to maximising the benefits of conquest while minimising the burdens and dangers of retreat or formal annexation. This commitment to the status quo, however, disguised a programme of expansion that generations of Israeli leaders supported as enabling, through Israeli settlement, the dynamic transformation of the territories and the expansion of effective Israeli sovereignty to the Jordan River."
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/amena-saleem/protesters-force-bbc-confront-its-pro-israel-bias
Protesters force BBC to confront its pro-Israel bias
07/17/2014
Approximately 5,000 protesters brought the roads around the BBC’s London headquarters to a standstill on 15 July, forcing the news organization to confront its one-sided coverage of Israel’s current assault on Gaza.
As the protesters shouted “BBC, shame on you,” Hugh Lanning, Chair of Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), handed in a letter to the BBC’s Director General, Tony Hall. The letter calls on the BBC to reflect the reality of Gaza’s occupation and siege in its reporting. The open letter had been signed by 45,000 people in under a week. Signatories include scholar Noam Chomsky, filmmaker John Pilger, film director Ken Loach, musician Brian Eno, journalist Owen Jones and comedian and filmmaker Jeremy Hardy.
Protesters held up placards bearing statements from the letter, including: “We would like to remind the BBC that Gaza has no army, air force or navy” and “The BBC’s reporting of Israel’s assaults on Gaza is entirely devoid of context or background.” Speakers from organizations including Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Palestinian Forum in Britain, Friends of Al Aqsa and Stop the War addressed the crowds.
As BBC employees watched from the top of their building, some recording the protest on mobile phones and tweeting out the footage, Lanning told the protestors: “There are lies, there are damned lies, and then there’s the BBC. Come on BBC, tell the truth — it’s the occupation, stupid.”
Taking place on its doorstep, and with police having to guide out BBC staff who wanted to leave the building, it was a protest against its coverage that the BBC couldn’t ignore.
And the next day, the BBC’s flagship news program Today on Radio 4, ran a seven-minute segment asking, in the words of presenter Mishal Husain, “Are the protestors right? Have we been biased at the BBC in favor of Israel?”
It was an unprecedented segment — and maybe the first time the BBC has publicly held up a mirror to its reporting of the occupation.
Answering the question was Greg Philo, co-author of More Bad News from Israel, an in-depth study of the BBC and ITV’s (another British television network) coverage of Palestine, and professor of Communications and Social Change at Glasgow University.
Philo’s answers also broke new ground for the BBC. Uninterrupted, Philo was allowed to talk about subjects which normally appear to be taboo across the BBC’s output: Israel’s occupation, its siege of Gaza, the forced displacement of Palestinians in 1948, Israel’s “brutal apartheid” as he was allowed to describe it, and the illegality of Israel’s actions.
And, throughout, he emphasised the lack of the Palestinian viewpoint in BBC coverage in general.
Philo also praised those who had been at the demonstration, telling Husain: “I think actually the protesters are doing the BBC a favor. I think they will help the journalists to give a better perspective … I’ve had many senior journalists at the BBC saying they simply can’t get the Palestinian viewpoint across, that the perspective they can’t say is the Palestinian view that Israel is a brutal apartheid state.”
#BBCTruth4Gaza
Asked by Husain what picture is given by BBC reporting, Philo replied: “Well, the Palestinian perspective is just not there. The Israelis are on twice as much. But the Palestinian view and the historical analysis of the events is that they were displaced from their land, they are living under military rule.”
He added: “People don’t even understand that it’s a military occupation that Palestinians are subject to. They don’t know about the economic blockade, they don’t know about the consequences of that on Palestinian life.”
As Husain interrupted to argue that the BBC had carried “many reports from Gaza … reporting on the casualties, reporting from the morgues,” Philo came back to remind her that the underlying story was not being dealt with.
“The problem with the coverage is that it doesn’t refer to the history,” he said. “That [the Palestinians] lost their homes and lands, that the occupation and the way it is conducted is illegal, that they lose their water, that they had their lives, in effect, stolen from them … Even if the BBC can’t give the Palestinian view, it should at least respect international law. The BBC should be reporting the international judgements on things like the wall …”
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=byrnzie
Is this true?
2013- Brooklyn2, Philly1, Philly2, NOLA
2013- Brooklyn2, Philly1, Philly2, NOLA