"I don’t know how to process the feeling of guilt and complicity when I hear about the deaths of a civilian family from a U.S. drone strike. But I know that we can’t let the sadness turn into apathy." - Ed Vedder
No doubt most everybody agrees with that sentiment too, Byrnzie. But what Ed said there was a preface to the heart of what he was trying to get across in his message to us- that despite the sadness and anger we can, do or probably ought to feel, we can still be against war, for peace, for love, for working together. That is the core message and it almost breaks my heart that you don't seem to want to hear that. Almost... until I see how much your anger feels like hatred. Anger is a powerful tool, B. You can use it do do great things, or you can let it merely increase the bitterness that throws shadows on the fields of hope. Please choose wisely.
You think it is understandable for people to hate jews.
That's right. Except you left out the part where I said "...at this point in time." Very important that part of my sentence. But don't let that get in the way of your slippery personal attacks on me.
Just as I've said on countless occasions that not all Jews support Israel. I've also said on many occasions that most of the most vocal and well known critics of Israel happen to be Jewish: Chomsky, Finkelstein, Michael Neumann, Gideon Levy, Uri Avery...
Again, don't let the truth interfere with the massive hard-on you have for me.
Palestine after Israel's disappearance will be no different then today's Iraq with ISIS in charge.
And your hypothetical future gives the Israeli's the right to follow the advice of Moshe Dayan, does it? It gives the Israeli's the right to continue being in massive violation of international law, and to continue committing war crimes against the Palestinians?
No it doesn't. It doesn't give Israel the right to any of those things. I have said that before. I don't think you even know my politics. All I am doing is outlining the horror show that is Hamas but for some reason any discussion of this causes you to blow your top and yell "DEFLECTION". You realize that the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, Saudia Arabia and others are opposed to Hamas? You realize that the average Gazan wants to be rid of Hamas? You realize that any lasting peace will have to be made with a party other then Hamas? You have such a "with us or against us" mentality that you fail to see the myriad of view points people can hold at the same time. No one is trying to make it "all about you" but when it comes to forging peace it will be the "you's" of the world that will have to find a way to bend.
Had to add this...
I remember you writing earlier how happy you were when you heard Eddie's initial speech (this is a thread on his speech after all). Later you added how disappointed you were that Eddie (in your opinion) back-pedalled. I think what you fail to realize (and what might disappoint you more) is that his speech was actually directed at you. Not just you but all the people like you on all sides that are so stuck in a zone of perpetual conflict. It's not wrong to be outraged by violence but once violence ends peace will require so much more.
Hes spot on with the Hamas issue.It has to be part of the equation
Hes spot on with the Hamas issue.It has to be part of the equation
Hamas have agreed to a peaceful settlement in line with the international consensus. A peaceful settlement based on the terms of international law.
But Hamas are the problem?
How about you take a look at 'The Palestine Papers' released by Wikileaks? They show that the P.A offered the Israeli's everything they wanted and more, and yet the Israeli's still refused to accept their offer. It's perfectly obvious that this has NOTHING to do with Hamas. The Israeli's don't want a peaceful settlement. They want to either maintain the occupation and continue the oppression of the Palestinians, and/or force them out of the remaining 20% of their homeland. It's known as ethnic cleansing.
Yes,Byrnzie Hamas is A real big problem in this peace process.Just like Netanyahu is stepping on Israeli dicks in this also.IMO both sides have factions standing the the way of progress.
There are sane,clear headed folks in both Israel's minority party and in The P.A that could have had this nonsense halted by now.This process needs honest brokers on both sides.
Collective Punishment in Gaza By Rashid Khalidi July 29, 2014
Three days after the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched the current war in Gaza, he held a press conference in Tel Aviv during which he said, in Hebrew, according to the Times of Israel, “I think the Israeli people understand now what I always say: that there cannot be a situation, under any agreement, in which we relinquish security control of the territory west of the River Jordan.”
It’s worth listening carefully when Netanyahu speaks to the Israeli people. What is going on in Palestine today is not really about Hamas. It is not about rockets. It is not about “human shields” or terrorism or tunnels. It is about Israel’s permanent control over Palestinian land and Palestinian lives. That is what Netanyahu is really saying, and that is what he now admits he has “always” talked about. It is about an unswerving, decades-long Israeli policy of denying Palestine self-determination, freedom, and sovereignty.
What Israel is doing in Gaza now is collective punishment. It is punishment for Gaza’s refusal to be a docile ghetto. It is punishment for the gall of Palestinians in unifying, and of Hamas and other factions in responding to Israel’s siege and its provocations with resistance, armed or otherwise, after Israel repeatedly reacted to unarmed protest with crushing force. Despite years of ceasefires and truces, the siege of Gaza has never been lifted.
As Netanyahu’s own words show, however, Israel will accept nothing short of the acquiescence of Palestinians to their own subordination. It will accept only a Palestinian “state” that is stripped of all the attributes of a real state: control over security, borders, airspace, maritime limits, contiguity, and, therefore, sovereignty. The twenty-three-year charade of the “peace process” has shown that this is all Israel is offering, with the full approval of Washington. Whenever the Palestinians have resisted that pathetic fate (as any nation would), Israel has punished them for their insolence. This is not new.
Punishing Palestinians for existing has a long history. It was Israel’s policy before Hamas and its rudimentary rockets were Israel’s boogeyman of the moment, and before Israel turned Gaza into an open-air prison, punching bag, and weapons laboratory. In 1948, Israel killed thousands of innocents, and terrorized and displaced hundreds of thousands more, in the name of creating a Jewish-majority state in a land that was then sixty-five per cent Arab. In 1967, it displaced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians again, occupying territory that it still largely controls, forty-seven years later.
In 1982, in a quest to expel the Palestine Liberation Organization and extinguish Palestinian nationalism, Israel invaded Lebanon, killing seventeen thousand people, mostly civilians. Since the late nineteen-eighties, when Palestinians under occupation rose up, mostly by throwing stones and staging general strikes, Israel has arrested tens of thousands of Palestinians: over seven hundred and fifty thousand people have spent time in Israeli prisons since 1967, a number that amounts to forty per cent of the adult male population today. They have emerged with accounts of torture, which are substantiated by human-rights groups like B’tselem. During the second intifada, which began in 2000, Israel reinvaded the West Bank (it had never fully left). The occupation and colonization of Palestinian land continued unabated throughout the “peace process” of the nineteen-nineties, and continues to this day. And yet, in America, the discussion ignores this crucial, constantly oppressive context, and is instead too often limited to Israeli “self-defense” and the Palestinians’ supposed responsibility for their own suffering.
In the past seven or more years, Israel has besieged, tormented, and regularly attacked the Gaza Strip. The pretexts change: they elected Hamas; they refused to be docile; they refused to recognize Israel; they fired rockets; they built tunnels to circumvent the siege; and on and on. But each pretext is a red herring, because the truth of ghettos—what happens when you imprison 1.8 million people in a hundred and forty square miles, about a third of the area of New York City, with no control of borders, almost no access to the sea for fishermen (three out of the twenty kilometres allowed by the Oslo accords), no real way in or out, and with drones buzzing overhead night and day—is that, eventually, the ghetto will fight back. It was true in Soweto and Belfast, and it is true in Gaza. We might not like Hamas or some of its methods, but that is not the same as accepting the proposition that Palestinians should supinely accept the denial of their right to exist as a free people in their ancestral homeland.
This is precisely why the United States’ support of current Israeli policy is folly. Peace was achieved in Northern Ireland and in South Africa because the United States and the world realized that they had to put pressure on the stronger party, holding it accountable and ending its impunity. Northern Ireland and South Africa are far from perfect examples, but it is worth remembering that, to achieve a just outcome, it was necessary for the United States to deal with groups like the Irish Republican Army and the African National Congress, which engaged in guerrilla war and even terrorism. That was the only way to embark on a road toward true peace and reconciliation. The case of Palestine is not fundamentally different.
Instead, the United States puts its thumb on the scales in favor of the stronger party. In this surreal, upside-down vision of the world, it almost seems as if it is the Israelis who are occupied by the Palestinians, and not the other way around. In this skewed universe, the inmates of an open-air prison are besieging a nuclear-armed power with one of the most sophisticated militaries in the world.
If we are to move away from this unreality, the U.S. must either reverse its policies or abandon its claim of being an “honest broker.” If the U.S. government wants to fund and arm Israel and parrot its talking points that fly in the face of reason and international law, so be it. But it should not claim the moral high ground and intone solemnly about peace. And it should certainly not insult Palestinians by saying that it cares about them or their children, who are dying in Gaza today.
It's an occupation. Do you understand what that means? It means that one side is the occupier - an illegal occupier - and the other is the occupied. What part of that equation do you find so difficult to grasp?
Yes,Byrnzie Hamas is A real big problem in this peace process.Just like Netanyahu is stepping on Israeli dicks in this also.IMO both sides have factions standing the the way of progress.
There are sane,clear headed folks in both Israel's minority party and in The P.A that could have had this nonsense halted by now.This process needs honest brokers on both sides.
2000- Atlanta, GA: New Orleans, LA: Memphis, TN: Nashville, TN
2003- Raleigh, NC: Charlotte, NC: Atlanta, GA
2004- Asheville, NC (hometown show)
2006- Cincinnati, OH
2008- Columbia, SC
2009- Chicago, IL x 2 / Ed Vedder- Atlanta, GA x 2
2010- Bristow, VA
2011- Alpine Valley, WI (PJ20) x 2 / Ed Vedder- Chicago, IL
2012- Atlanta, GA
2013- Charlotte, NC
2014- Cincinnati, OH
2015- New York, NY
2016- Greenville, SC: Hampton, VA:: Columbia, SC: Raleigh, NC : Lexington, KY: Philly, PA 2: (Wrigley) Chicago, IL x 2 (holy shit): Temple of the Dog- Philly, PA
after 32 pages.... this thread name should be changed to "Image That- we're still arguing..." because I think the original meaning has been buried.
It is kind of telling that a thread intended to be about the quest for peace has erupted into a war.
I see it differently, the thread has evolved. It would have been long since dead without this evolution. I do not see anyone here wanting war......everyone posting here wants peace. They are debating how that peace is possible.
It was a debate started by Ed and continued by us.
Also if you feel like talking about any number of conflicts going on right now, feel free to do so. This is the place to do it.
after 32 pages.... this thread name should be changed to "Image That- we're still arguing..." because I think the original meaning has been buried.
It is kind of telling that a thread intended to be about the quest for peace has erupted into a war.
I see it differently, the thread has evolved. It would have been long since dead without this evolution. I do not see anyone here wanting war......everyone posting here wants peace. They are debating how that peace is possible.
It was a debate started by Ed and continued by us.
Also if you feel like talking about any number of conflicts going on right now, feel free to do so. This is the place to do it.
Fair enough. I just think there are several other threads on this board where this same conversation is also ongoing. This was intended to be something different but it has been taken over.
Not that the points being made are not valid or worthwhile. They certainly are.
i just cant get over this...someone please make them stop
Whilst the Hamas and Al Qassam fighters hit the IDF again today killing four more of their soldiers, the cowardly Israeli's bomb another school killing 19 civilians.
Gaza: at least 19 killed and 90 injured as another UN school is hit
UN official condemns ‘in the strongest possible terms this serious violation of international law by Israeli forces’
Wednesday 30 July 2014
At least 19 Palestinians were killed and about 90 injured early on Wednesday when a UN school sheltering displaced people was hit by shells during a second night of relentless bombardment that followed an Israeli warning of a protracted military campaign.
Pierre Krahenbuhl, commissioner-general of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, condemned “in in the strongest possible terms this serious violation of international law by Israeli forces”.
He said in a statement: “Last night, children were killed as they slept next to their parents on the floor of a classroom in a UN-designated shelter in Gaza. Children killed in their sleep; this is an affront to all of us, a source of universal shame. Today the world stands disgraced.
“We have visited the site and gathered evidence. We have analysed fragments, examined craters and other damage. Our initial assessment is that it was Israeli artillery that hit our school, in which 3,300 people had sought refuge. We believe there were at least three impacts.
“It is too early to give a confirmed official death toll. But we know that there were multiple civilian deaths and injuries including of women and children and the UNRWA guard who was trying to protect the site. These are people who were instructed to leave their homes by the Israeli army.”
It was the sixth time that UNRWA schools had been struck, he added. “Our staff, the very people leading the humanitarian response are being killed. Our shelters are overflowing. Tens of thousands may soon be stranded in the streets of Gaza, without food, water and shelter if attacks on these areas continue.”
You think it is understandable for people to hate jews.
That's right. Except you left out the part where I said "...at this point in time." Very important that part of my sentence. But don't let that get in the way of your slippery personal attacks on me.
Just as I've said on countless occasions that not all Jews support Israel. I've also said on many occasions that most of the most vocal and well known critics of Israel happen to be Jewish: Chomsky, Finkelstein, Michael Neumann, Gideon Levy, Uri Avery...
Again, don't let the truth interfere with the massive hard-on you have for me.
Palestine after Israel's disappearance will be no different then today's Iraq with ISIS in charge.
And your hypothetical future gives the Israeli's the right to follow the advice of Moshe Dayan, does it? It gives the Israeli's the right to continue being in massive violation of international law, and to continue committing war crimes against the Palestinians?
No it doesn't. It doesn't give Israel the right to any of those things. I have said that before. I don't think you even know my politics. All I am doing is outlining the horror show that is Hamas but for some reason any discussion of this causes you to blow your top and yell "DEFLECTION". You realize that the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, Saudia Arabia and others are opposed to Hamas? You realize that the average Gazan wants to be rid of Hamas? You realize that any lasting peace will have to be made with a party other then Hamas? You have such a "with us or against us" mentality that you fail to see the myriad of view points people can hold at the same time. No one is trying to make it "all about you" but when it comes to forging peace it will be the "you's" of the world that will have to find a way to bend.
Had to add this...
I remember you writing earlier how happy you were when you heard Eddie's initial speech (this is a thread on his speech after all). Later you added how disappointed you were that Eddie (in your opinion) back-pedalled. I think what you fail to realize (and what might disappoint you more) is that his speech was actually directed at you. Not just you but all the people like you on all sides that are so stuck in a zone of perpetual conflict. It's not wrong to be outraged by violence but once violence ends peace will require so much more.
Hes spot on with the Hamas issue.It has to be part of the equation
Lol, what? Did you read what he wrote about Hamas? He's not "spot on". His analysis of Hamas is not even calling for Hamas to be part of the equation, it's calling for nothing short of genocide. The dehumanization of Hamas in his posts is so in your face, he doesn't even try to hide it. He talks as if Hamas exists outside of the Palestinian people, while it is part and parcel of Palestinian society. He says himself "any lasting peace will have to be made with a party other then [though I think he means "than"] Hamas". He talks as if Hamas is made up of demons that crawled out of the Earth's crust to spread terror, as opposed to a resistance group made in reaction to decades of Israeli crimes against, oppression and occupation of the Palestinian people. He even has the audacity to speak on behalf of Palestinians (whom he calls "Gazans") by saying they want to be "rid of Hamas".
It's truly astonishing the manner in which people here not only keep insisting that this is a "two-sided" conflict (which it's not), but they have to take it one step further by demonizing the victim (the Palestinian people, by acting as if Hamas is outside of them) and victimizing the oppressor (Israel), without acknowledging the power imbalance or the fact that one side is in fact occupying the other. Reading everyone's posts here, we'd think Hamas is besieging the Israelis!
No political entity involved is without guilt here.Failing to see that will hold back the eventual peace that should come from this.
Would you have said this about the Black South Africans living under apartheid? At least we now know where you stand in these conflicts. History doesn't forget.
It's an occupation. Do you understand what that means? It means that one side is the occupier - an illegal occupier - and the other is the occupied. What part of that equation do you find so difficult to grasp?
And this is why the thread will go nowhere and why unfortunately we will have perpetual war.
i just cant get over this...someone please make them stop
Whilst the Hamas and Al Qassam fighters hit the IDF again today killing four more of their soldiers, the cowardly Israeli's bomb another school killing 19 civilians.
Gaza: at least 19 killed and 90 injured as another UN school is hit
UN official condemns ‘in the strongest possible terms this serious violation of international law by Israeli forces’
Wednesday 30 July 2014
At least 19 Palestinians were killed and about 90 injured early on Wednesday when a UN school sheltering displaced people was hit by shells during a second night of relentless bombardment that followed an Israeli warning of a protracted military campaign.
Pierre Krahenbuhl, commissioner-general of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, condemned “in in the strongest possible terms this serious violation of international law by Israeli forces”.
He said in a statement: “Last night, children were killed as they slept next to their parents on the floor of a classroom in a UN-designated shelter in Gaza. Children killed in their sleep; this is an affront to all of us, a source of universal shame. Today the world stands disgraced.
“We have visited the site and gathered evidence. We have analysed fragments, examined craters and other damage. Our initial assessment is that it was Israeli artillery that hit our school, in which 3,300 people had sought refuge. We believe there were at least three impacts.
“It is too early to give a confirmed official death toll. But we know that there were multiple civilian deaths and injuries including of women and children and the UNRWA guard who was trying to protect the site. These are people who were instructed to leave their homes by the Israeli army.”
It was the sixth time that UNRWA schools had been struck, he added. “Our staff, the very people leading the humanitarian response are being killed. Our shelters are overflowing. Tens of thousands may soon be stranded in the streets of Gaza, without food, water and shelter if attacks on these areas continue.”
.....
How old or what grade do u have to be to understand what the fuck is really going on over there in Gaza? Report after report coming out with shit like this and people still make excuses for the "Israeli" government. Pictures after pictures of civilians, relief workers, animals, anything that fucken was alive at one time, murdered by Israel. When does your heart finally have that "wow" moment, the moment that moves you? When you say this is bullshit, this is a massacre and innocent men/women and CHILDREN are being killed for NO REASON. How old do you have to be? Do you have to be at least smarter then a 5th grader?
Edit- my post isn't directed at anyone in here directly, I'm generally speaking on what I've been seeing all over the network world.
I have some major issues with your post here. First and foremost is the inability to distinguish between "acceptable" and "understandable". But that point has been made by others, so I will not focus on that. My second major contention is your comparison of anti-semitism due to Israel's actions, with racism against Muslims following 9/11. The reason for this is that you are acting as though we live in a vacuum where all things are constant, all sides are equal, and there exists no power dynamic. This is not just you, so I apologize for focusing on my response on here to you, because many people here are committing this mistake.
You and others on here, from what I've skimmed, have mistakenly emphasized the "both sides" argument. I personally view this equivocation as minimizing the suffering of the Palestinians who live under a brutal Israeli occupation, and it actually is part of the "blame the victim" mentality that has plagued third party viewers of conflicts for far too long now.
Of course, despite how I feel about this, I understand where you're coming from with that mentality, but I do find it unacceptable. And I understand the worry about anti-semitism, because it is always a concern when people spout off intolerant views, which I concede some (few) pro-Palestinian voices hold. But from the way I read history, it is clear that intolerance that comes from a place of power (in which it can actually carry out ethnic cleansing, genocide, institute apartheid and so on) and intolerance that comes from a place of consistent victimization (which is what Palestinians, as the occupied, ethnically cleansed people are) are two very different things. Jews who lived under the Nazi Holocaust, African Americans who lived through slavery and Jim Crow, Blacks in South Africa and Irish Catholics all probably had some nasty things to say about their oppressors. As despicable as those views may be, because yes, they are equally racist and intolerant, they cannot be put on the same moral playing field as the racism of the US, South African, and British governments against those disenfranchised populations. This is similar to the racism Muslims faced following 9/11.
Now, what has been done here is that posters here have actually given credence to the accusation of anti-semitism, by addressing it over and over again and detracting from the main topic. It truly stuns me that when Eddie goes on a very angry anti-war rant where he specifically cites 1) crossing into land that doesn't belong to you and taking it, 2) our tax dollars being used to fund this, and 3) bombs being dropped on children, at a time when Israel's war on Gaza is the number 1 news story, and Israel is the biggest recipient of US foreign aid (over $3billion a year), and pictures of murdered Palestinian children are on display worldwide, in a territory occupied by Israel (land taken that does not belong to them), well, it truly stuns me that such an angry rant is not seen as being directly about this. I guess it's just coincidence that Eddie happened to feel angry that night while the number 1 news story was about Israel's war on Gaza.
This was a backtrack on Eddie's part by refusing to talk about Palestine. Given the backlash people get for calling Israel out for its crimes, it's "understandable" he'd do that
But unacceptable. I hope he finally comes out in support of Palestinian rights soon enough. It was the same when people were waiting for celebrities to publicly support Black South African rights in the 80s. The time for this will come soon.
If racism is understandable in this particular case then racism is understandable in every case throughout history. Racists always believe they have legitimate reasons to feel the way they do. Jew, Muslim, Black, Asian...it doesn't matter what group is being hated, someone somewhere believes they are correct and just to do so. Understand, this isn't splitting hairs between understandable and acceptable. This is about rejecting racism in all manners, in all shapes and sizes, and in all practices. I thought we as a society had moved past this, and I have on a few occasions in these threads rejected claims of racist or anti-Semitic activity. In my opinion, it is a step backward to state that racism in this case or any other is understandable.
I stand by the 9/11 comparison. Every situation is different and of course not every situation is equal. That was never my point. However, the events of that day and the images from New York and Washington unleashed an ugliness in this and other countries that had festered for some time. The events in Gaza and the disgusting reactions from Israeli supporters around the world are having a similar effect. We can argue back and forth about the history and the power structure all you want. To my eye the trigger and the response are not entirely different.
If you read through my posts, when I speak of "sides" I am mostly referring to the sides of the argument represented here on this board, not on the ground in Israel and Gaza. Neither "side" here has represented itself entirely well, in my opinion. There have been insults and attacks fired both ways. It has been an oftentimes ugly exchange and there have been "sides" to it.
As for what Eddie said, only he knows for sure what he meant that night at Milton Keynes. But to insist that he was speaking specifically and exclusively about Israel ignores the prior history of his political rants. This is a guy who has never minced his words and never had a problem being specific in his rants. Not about Bush, not about the NRA, not about Iraq, etc. To accuse him of backtracking because he did not single out Israel in his follow-up is unfair to him. He said his piece, and then he said it again. I know the issue is deeply personal to you, and I can understand why you would want him to weigh in more deeply than he did. Israel was certainly a factor that night, but it was not the only one.
Again, you seem to think "understandable" means we can sympathize with racism. That's not at all what anyone here is suggesting. We are simply saying that we can comprehend it, the LITERAL definition of understand. How can we ever make any progress if we don't understand the roots of racism? You wanna understand the roots of modern anti-Semitism? Guess what, it's the fact that Israel insists on committing crimes in the name of the Jewish people, and insisting that it is in defense of them. That's why we have so many Jews who are speaking out against these crimes, because they see these repercussions. That's what people mean here. We aren't saying that this is justified. We are simply saying that it is logical that humanity will drive people to emotional hatred of someone (and their group, through generalization) who hurts them. It is by acknowledging this that we can try to move forward.
Let me ask you a question: Do you have children? When your child gets hurt, even a scrape on the arm from a fall, what emotions do you feel? When someone else pushes your kid on the ground, how do you react? How about you then multiply that, and take a look at the images coming out of Gaza, of parents holding their dead child in their arms, with their limbs or head blown off. Can you even comprehend the feelings they must be feeling? The thoughts that must be going through their minds? That was my whole point in my post: OF COURSE we categorically reject all racism. But the point is that it is the racism of those in power that ACTUALLY matters. You think Jews who reject Israel's crimes are hated by Arabs and Palestinians? Of course not. At the end of the day it is the occupation and crimes against humanity being committed that are the issue here, so let's get back to that.
You think it is understandable for people to hate jews.
That's right. Except you left out the part where I said "...at this point in time." Very important that part of my sentence. But don't let that get in the way of your slippery personal attacks on me.
Just as I've said on countless occasions that not all Jews support Israel. I've also said on many occasions that most of the most vocal and well known critics of Israel happen to be Jewish: Chomsky, Finkelstein, Michael Neumann, Gideon Levy, Uri Avery...
Again, don't let the truth interfere with the massive hard-on you have for me.
Palestine after Israel's disappearance will be no different then today's Iraq with ISIS in charge.
And your hypothetical future gives the Israeli's the right to follow the advice of Moshe Dayan, does it? It gives the Israeli's the right to continue being in massive violation of international law, and to continue committing war crimes against the Palestinians?
No it doesn't. It doesn't give Israel the right to any of those things. I have said that before. I don't think you even know my politics. All I am doing is outlining the horror show that is Hamas but for some reason any discussion of this causes you to blow your top and yell "DEFLECTION". You realize that the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, Saudia Arabia and others are opposed to Hamas? You realize that the average Gazan wants to be rid of Hamas? You realize that any lasting peace will have to be made with a party other then Hamas? You have such a "with us or against us" mentality that you fail to see the myriad of view points people can hold at the same time. No one is trying to make it "all about you" but when it comes to forging peace it will be the "you's" of the world that will have to find a way to bend.
Had to add this...
I remember you writing earlier how happy you were when you heard Eddie's initial speech (this is a thread on his speech after all). Later you added how disappointed you were that Eddie (in your opinion) back-pedalled. I think what you fail to realize (and what might disappoint you more) is that his speech was actually directed at you. Not just you but all the people like you on all sides that are so stuck in a zone of perpetual conflict. It's not wrong to be outraged by violence but once violence ends peace will require so much more.
Hes spot on with the Hamas issue.It has to be part of the equation
Lol, what? Did you read what he wrote about Hamas? He's not "spot on". His analysis of Hamas is not even calling for Hamas to be part of the equation, it's calling for nothing short of genocide. The dehumanization of Hamas in his posts is so in your face, he doesn't even try to hide it. He talks as if Hamas exists outside of the Palestinian people, while it is part and parcel of Palestinian society. He says himself "any lasting peace will have to be made with a party other then [though I think he means "than"] Hamas". He talks as if Hamas is made up of demons that crawled out of the Earth's crust to spread terror, as opposed to a resistance group made in reaction to decades of Israeli crimes against, oppression and occupation of the Palestinian people. He even has the audacity to speak on behalf of Palestinians (whom he calls "Gazans") by saying they want to be "rid of Hamas".
It's truly astonishing the manner in which people here not only keep insisting that this is a "two-sided" conflict (which it's not), but they have to take it one step further by demonizing the victim (the Palestinian people, by acting as if Hamas is outside of them) and victimizing the oppressor (Israel), without acknowledging the power imbalance or the fact that one side is in fact occupying the other. Reading everyone's posts here, we'd think Hamas is besieging the Israelis!
Let's hear from the Son of Hamas himself Mosab Hassan Yousef
As for what Eddie said, only he knows for sure what he meant that night at Milton Keynes. But to insist that he was speaking specifically and exclusively about Israel ignores the prior history of his political rants. This is a guy who has never minced his words and never had a problem being specific in his rants. Not about Bush, not about the NRA, not about Iraq, etc. To accuse him of backtracking because he did not single out Israel in his follow-up is unfair to him. He said his piece, and then he said it again. I know the issue is deeply personal to you, and I can understand why you would want him to weigh in more deeply than he did. Israel was certainly a factor that night, but it was not the only one.
Ignores history of his rants? Ok, how about this for history: Do you remember ONE time, in all the times he has ever ranted, that he followed up his rant at a concert with an eloquent, carefully worded written post to be shared widely across the internet to explain what he meant? No? Well why do you think he did it this time? What called for it? Oh, maybe it was all the pressure he felt from the pro-Israel lobby regarding his calling out of their illegal appropriation of Palestinian land and the fact that they are murdering children. Oh, and of course he asked that our tax dollars stop funding this. This isn't a backtrack per se in the sense that he contradicted himself -- it is a backtrack in that he was finally speaking up about one of the biggest injustices of the modern age, Israel's ethnic cleansing campaign of the Palestinians, and instead generalized his comments so as not to seem hurtful to the people justifying these crimes.
To insist that he WASN'T backtracking actually ignores the entire campaign by pro-Israel lobbyists pressuring artists to not speak out against Israel. Look at all the stories of celebrities who do. Either they stick by it (rare and courageous) or they backtrack.
I remember you writing earlier how happy you were when you heard Eddie's initial speech (this is a thread on his speech after all). Later you added how disappointed you were that Eddie (in your opinion) back-pedalled. I think what you fail to realize (and what might disappoint you more) is that his speech was actually directed at you. Not just you but all the people like you on all sides that are so stuck in a zone of perpetual conflict. It's not wrong to be outraged by violence but once violence ends peace will require so much more.
No. His speech was directed at those like you defending Israel's crimes and demanding that artists stop "singling" Israel out, despite their committing one of the gravest crimes of the 20th century which continues to this day. We aren't representing a "side", except the side that demands an end to the oppression of Palestinians by a settler colonial power that not only occupies them, but continually murders them in cold blood by the thousands. To want an end to this is seeking "perpetual conflict"? What a twisted world you live in.
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You're ooooooookay, Byrnzie. :-D
But Hamas are the problem?
How about you take a look at 'The Palestine Papers' released by Wikileaks? They show that the P.A offered the Israeli's everything they wanted and more, and yet the Israeli's still refused to accept their offer.
It's perfectly obvious that this has NOTHING to do with Hamas. The Israeli's don't want a peaceful settlement. They want to either maintain the occupation and continue the oppression of the Palestinians, and/or force them out of the remaining 20% of their homeland.
It's known as ethnic cleansing.
There are sane,clear headed folks in both Israel's minority party and in The P.A that could have had this nonsense halted by now.This process needs honest brokers on both sides.
Collective Punishment in Gaza
By Rashid Khalidi
July 29, 2014
Three days after the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched the current war in Gaza, he held a press conference in Tel Aviv during which he said, in Hebrew, according to the Times of Israel, “I think the Israeli people understand now what I always say: that there cannot be a situation, under any agreement, in which we relinquish security control of the territory west of the River Jordan.”
It’s worth listening carefully when Netanyahu speaks to the Israeli people. What is going on in Palestine today is not really about Hamas. It is not about rockets. It is not about “human shields” or terrorism or tunnels. It is about Israel’s permanent control over Palestinian land and Palestinian lives. That is what Netanyahu is really saying, and that is what he now admits he has “always” talked about. It is about an unswerving, decades-long Israeli policy of denying Palestine self-determination, freedom, and sovereignty.
What Israel is doing in Gaza now is collective punishment. It is punishment for Gaza’s refusal to be a docile ghetto. It is punishment for the gall of Palestinians in unifying, and of Hamas and other factions in responding to Israel’s siege and its provocations with resistance, armed or otherwise, after Israel repeatedly reacted to unarmed protest with crushing force. Despite years of ceasefires and truces, the siege of Gaza has never been lifted.
As Netanyahu’s own words show, however, Israel will accept nothing short of the acquiescence of Palestinians to their own subordination. It will accept only a Palestinian “state” that is stripped of all the attributes of a real state: control over security, borders, airspace, maritime limits, contiguity, and, therefore, sovereignty. The twenty-three-year charade of the “peace process” has shown that this is all Israel is offering, with the full approval of Washington. Whenever the Palestinians have resisted that pathetic fate (as any nation would), Israel has punished them for their insolence. This is not new.
Punishing Palestinians for existing has a long history. It was Israel’s policy before Hamas and its rudimentary rockets were Israel’s boogeyman of the moment, and before Israel turned Gaza into an open-air prison, punching bag, and weapons laboratory. In 1948, Israel killed thousands of innocents, and terrorized and displaced hundreds of thousands more, in the name of creating a Jewish-majority state in a land that was then sixty-five per cent Arab. In 1967, it displaced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians again, occupying territory that it still largely controls, forty-seven years later.
In 1982, in a quest to expel the Palestine Liberation Organization and extinguish Palestinian nationalism, Israel invaded Lebanon, killing seventeen thousand people, mostly civilians. Since the late nineteen-eighties, when Palestinians under occupation rose up, mostly by throwing stones and staging general strikes, Israel has arrested tens of thousands of Palestinians: over seven hundred and fifty thousand people have spent time in Israeli prisons since 1967, a number that amounts to forty per cent of the adult male population today. They have emerged with accounts of torture, which are substantiated by human-rights groups like B’tselem. During the second intifada, which began in 2000, Israel reinvaded the West Bank (it had never fully left). The occupation and colonization of Palestinian land continued unabated throughout the “peace process” of the nineteen-nineties, and continues to this day. And yet, in America, the discussion ignores this crucial, constantly oppressive context, and is instead too often limited to Israeli “self-defense” and the Palestinians’ supposed responsibility for their own suffering.
In the past seven or more years, Israel has besieged, tormented, and regularly attacked the Gaza Strip. The pretexts change: they elected Hamas; they refused to be docile; they refused to recognize Israel; they fired rockets; they built tunnels to circumvent the siege; and on and on. But each pretext is a red herring, because the truth of ghettos—what happens when you imprison 1.8 million people in a hundred and forty square miles, about a third of the area of New York City, with no control of borders, almost no access to the sea for fishermen (three out of the twenty kilometres allowed by the Oslo accords), no real way in or out, and with drones buzzing overhead night and day—is that, eventually, the ghetto will fight back. It was true in Soweto and Belfast, and it is true in Gaza. We might not like Hamas or some of its methods, but that is not the same as accepting the proposition that Palestinians should supinely accept the denial of their right to exist as a free people in their ancestral homeland.
This is precisely why the United States’ support of current Israeli policy is folly. Peace was achieved in Northern Ireland and in South Africa because the United States and the world realized that they had to put pressure on the stronger party, holding it accountable and ending its impunity. Northern Ireland and South Africa are far from perfect examples, but it is worth remembering that, to achieve a just outcome, it was necessary for the United States to deal with groups like the Irish Republican Army and the African National Congress, which engaged in guerrilla war and even terrorism. That was the only way to embark on a road toward true peace and reconciliation. The case of Palestine is not fundamentally different.
Instead, the United States puts its thumb on the scales in favor of the stronger party. In this surreal, upside-down vision of the world, it almost seems as if it is the Israelis who are occupied by the Palestinians, and not the other way around. In this skewed universe, the inmates of an open-air prison are besieging a nuclear-armed power with one of the most sophisticated militaries in the world.
If we are to move away from this unreality, the U.S. must either reverse its policies or abandon its claim of being an “honest broker.” If the U.S. government wants to fund and arm Israel and parrot its talking points that fly in the face of reason and international law, so be it. But it should not claim the moral high ground and intone solemnly about peace. And it should certainly not insult Palestinians by saying that it cares about them or their children, who are dying in Gaza today.
Now I'm beginning to understand why so many Americans think the way they do. This shit is unreal.
this thread name should be changed to "Image That- we're still arguing..."
because I think the original meaning has been buried.
livefootsteps.org/user/?usr=446
1995- New Orleans, LA : New Orleans, LA
1996- Charleston, SC
1998- Atlanta, GA: Birmingham, AL: Greenville, SC: Knoxville, TN
2000- Atlanta, GA: New Orleans, LA: Memphis, TN: Nashville, TN
2003- Raleigh, NC: Charlotte, NC: Atlanta, GA
2004- Asheville, NC (hometown show)
2006- Cincinnati, OH
2008- Columbia, SC
2009- Chicago, IL x 2 / Ed Vedder- Atlanta, GA x 2
2010- Bristow, VA
2011- Alpine Valley, WI (PJ20) x 2 / Ed Vedder- Chicago, IL
2012- Atlanta, GA
2013- Charlotte, NC
2014- Cincinnati, OH
2015- New York, NY
2016- Greenville, SC: Hampton, VA:: Columbia, SC: Raleigh, NC : Lexington, KY: Philly, PA 2: (Wrigley) Chicago, IL x 2 (holy shit): Temple of the Dog- Philly, PA
2017- ED VED- Louisville, KY
2018- Chicago, IL x2, Boston, MA x2
2020- Nashville, TN
2022- Smashville
2023- Austin, TX x2
2024- Baltimore
"...I changed by not changing at all..."
I see it differently, the thread has evolved. It would have been long since dead without this evolution. I do not see anyone here wanting war......everyone posting here wants peace. They are debating how that peace is possible.
It was a debate started by Ed and continued by us.
Also if you feel like talking about any number of conflicts going on right now, feel free to do so. This is the place to do it.
Not that the points being made are not valid or worthwhile. They certainly are.
"...I changed by not changing at all..."
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/30/gaza-another-un-school-hit-in-further-night-of-fierce-bombardment
Gaza: at least 19 killed and 90 injured as another UN school is hit
UN official condemns ‘in the strongest possible terms this serious violation of international law by Israeli forces’
Wednesday 30 July 2014
At least 19 Palestinians were killed and about 90 injured early on Wednesday when a UN school sheltering displaced people was hit by shells during a second night of relentless bombardment that followed an Israeli warning of a protracted military campaign.
Pierre Krahenbuhl, commissioner-general of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, condemned “in in the strongest possible terms this serious violation of international law by Israeli forces”.
He said in a statement: “Last night, children were killed as they slept next to their parents on the floor of a classroom in a UN-designated shelter in Gaza. Children killed in their sleep; this is an affront to all of us, a source of universal shame. Today the world stands disgraced.
“We have visited the site and gathered evidence. We have analysed fragments, examined craters and other damage. Our initial assessment is that it was Israeli artillery that hit our school, in which 3,300 people had sought refuge. We believe there were at least three impacts.
“It is too early to give a confirmed official death toll. But we know that there were multiple civilian deaths and injuries including of women and children and the UNRWA guard who was trying to protect the site. These are people who were instructed to leave their homes by the Israeli army.”
It was the sixth time that UNRWA schools had been struck, he added. “Our staff, the very people leading the humanitarian response are being killed. Our shelters are overflowing. Tens of thousands may soon be stranded in the streets of Gaza, without food, water and shelter if attacks on these areas continue.”
.....
It's truly astonishing the manner in which people here not only keep insisting that this is a "two-sided" conflict (which it's not), but they have to take it one step further by demonizing the victim (the Palestinian people, by acting as if Hamas is outside of them) and victimizing the oppressor (Israel), without acknowledging the power imbalance or the fact that one side is in fact occupying the other. Reading everyone's posts here, we'd think Hamas is besieging the Israelis!
Edit- my post isn't directed at anyone in here directly, I'm generally speaking on what I've been seeing all over the network world.
Let me ask you a question: Do you have children? When your child gets hurt, even a scrape on the arm from a fall, what emotions do you feel? When someone else pushes your kid on the ground, how do you react? How about you then multiply that, and take a look at the images coming out of Gaza, of parents holding their dead child in their arms, with their limbs or head blown off. Can you even comprehend the feelings they must be feeling? The thoughts that must be going through their minds? That was my whole point in my post: OF COURSE we categorically reject all racism. But the point is that it is the racism of those in power that ACTUALLY matters. You think Jews who reject Israel's crimes are hated by Arabs and Palestinians? Of course not. At the end of the day it is the occupation and crimes against humanity being committed that are the issue here, so let's get back to that.
To insist that he WASN'T backtracking actually ignores the entire campaign by pro-Israel lobbyists pressuring artists to not speak out against Israel. Look at all the stories of celebrities who do. Either they stick by it (rare and courageous) or they backtrack.