However, people are dying because Hamas does launch millitary operations from civilian population centers. It's that simple.
No, people are dying for the same reason they've been dying for the past 47 years - Israel's insistence on crushing the Palestinians and stealing their land.
You can pretend that Palestinian resistance to occupation is the cause of the bloodshed, but any honest person can see what the real root cause is. Hamas only came into power in 1987, so what was your excuse for murdering Palestinian civilians before that?
I believe the P A and the Israelis do want a peace treaty but Hamas does not in good faith.
What you believe has zero relation to the reality, as evidenced by the historical record.
As Gideon Levy explained, and as you apparently refuse to acknowledge:
"You just have to look at the record. I mean, sure, Israel wants peace. Israel just doesn’t want a just peace. And it’s all about justice. You look backwards, and you ask yourself: In which stage, in which moment, was Israel willing to give up the occupation? Give me one example in which there was a genuine readiness to put an end to the occupation. It was never there. It was all about gaining time and maintaining the status quo. And it’s also now about gaining time and maintaining the status quo—namely, the West Bank occupied, Gaza under siege, peaceful life in Israel. This formula cannot last forever. And I wish I’ll be wrong, but I cannot recall one example in which there was a genuine willingness to put an end to the occupation. This was never. There were all kind of—we had Oslo. We had other peace talks. But it was never there."
However, people are dying because Hamas does launch millitary operations from civilian population centers. It's that simple.
No, people are dying for the same reason they've been dying for the past 47 years - Israel's insistence on crushing the Palestinians and stealing their land.
You can pretend that Palestinian resistance to occupation is the cause of the bloodshed, but any honest person can see what the real root cause is. Hamas only came into power in 1987, so what was your excuse for murdering Palestinian civilians before that?
The PLO was a loving group of peace activists that dropped flowers from the sky in the hopes of peace with the sons of Abraham.
However, people are dying because Hamas does launch millitary operations from civilian population centers. It's that simple.
No, people are dying for the same reason they've been dying for the past 47 years - Israel's insistence on crushing the Palestinians and stealing their land.
You can pretend that Palestinian resistance to occupation is the cause of the bloodshed, but any honest person can see what the real root cause is. Hamas only came into power in 1987, so what was your excuse for murdering Palestinian civilians before that?
The PLO was a loving group of peace activists that dropped flowers from the sky in the hopes of peace with the sons of Abraham.
Listen: the prevalent Palestinian perspective is that the Palestinian People are collectively an oppressed People. The premise is then that an oppressed People have a right to revolt against their oppressors in the name of equitability - which is a premise which I do not for a second disagree with. If I walk into your house, push you into your room, restrict what you can bring into it, and ignore your knocks and begging for assistance when you plead that you're hungry and want to live your life, do I have the right to complain when you kick a hole through the door and angrily so, longing for retribution?
Do I disagree with brutality? Yes, I do. Do I UNDERSTAND the brutality? Yes, I do. Do I agree with Israel's right to defend itself? Yes, I do. But this isn't hockey: the "best defense is a strong offense" is a mantra which ought to be reserved for team sports, and not political situations with lives on the line.
'05 - TO, '06 - TO 1, '08 - NYC 1 & 2, '09 - TO, Chi 1 & 2, '10 - Buffalo, NYC 1 & 2, '11 - TO 1 & 2, Hamilton, '13 - Buffalo, Brooklyn 1 & 2, '15 - Global Citizen, '16 - TO 1 & 2, Chi 2
EV
Toronto Film Festival 9/11/2007, '08 - Toronto 1 & 2, '09 - Albany 1, '11 - Chicago 1
However, people are dying because Hamas does launch millitary operations from civilian population centers. It's that simple.
No, people are dying for the same reason they've been dying for the past 47 years - Israel's insistence on crushing the Palestinians and stealing their land.
You can pretend that Palestinian resistance to occupation is the cause of the bloodshed, but any honest person can see what the real root cause is. Hamas only came into power in 1987, so what was your excuse for murdering Palestinian civilians before that?
The PLO was a loving group of peace activists that dropped flowers from the sky in the hopes of peace with the sons of Abraham.
Listen: the prevalent Palestinian perspective is that the Palestinian People are collectively an oppressed People. The premise is then that an oppressed People have a right to revolt against their oppressors in the name of equitability - which is a premise which I do not for a second disagree with. If I walk into your house, push you into your room, restrict what you can bring into it, and ignore your knocks and begging for assistance when you plead that you're hungry and want to live your life, do I have the right to complain when you kick a hole through the door and angrily so, longing for retribution?
Do I disagree with brutality? Yes, I do. Do I UNDERSTAND the brutality? Yes, I do. Do I agree with Israel's right to defend itself? Yes, I do. But this isn't hockey: the "best defense is a strong offense" is a mantra which ought to be reserved for team sports, and not political situations with lives on the line.
With this though,disarming becomes the main objective ,so offensive action becomes crucial and necessary.How they do that can and should be debated and examined.But the right to disarm is equall to one sides security as pushing back against its aggressor is to the other
With this though,disarming becomes the main objective ,so offensive action becomes crucial and necessary.How they do that can and should be debated and examined.But the right to disarm is equall to one sides security as pushing back against its aggressor is to the other
Bullshit. The only right of self-defense the Israeli's have is to withdraw to their legal borders, in line with international law.
Again, how are we doing in here with this discussion? Being polite to each other while presenting thoughts on the issue? Speaking to each other as if face-to-face?
Again, how are we doing in here with this discussion? Being polite to each other while presenting thoughts on the issue? Speaking to each other as if face-to-face?
Trying my best, Kat!
'05 - TO, '06 - TO 1, '08 - NYC 1 & 2, '09 - TO, Chi 1 & 2, '10 - Buffalo, NYC 1 & 2, '11 - TO 1 & 2, Hamilton, '13 - Buffalo, Brooklyn 1 & 2, '15 - Global Citizen, '16 - TO 1 & 2, Chi 2
EV
Toronto Film Festival 9/11/2007, '08 - Toronto 1 & 2, '09 - Albany 1, '11 - Chicago 1
'As a Jewish youngster growing up in Budapest, an infant survivor of the Nazi genocide, I was for years haunted by a question resounding in my brain with such force that sometimes my head would spin: “How was it possible? How could the world have let such horrors happen?” It was a naïve question, that of a child. I know better now: such is reality. Whether in Vietnam or Rwanda or Syria, humanity stands by either complicitly or unconsciously or helplessly, as it always does. In Gaza today we find ways of justifying the bombing of hospitals, the annihilation of families at dinner, the killing of pre-adolescents playing soccer on a beach. In Israel-Palestine the powerful party has succeeded in painting itself as the victim, while the ones being killed and maimed become the perpetrators. “They don’t care about life,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says, abetted by the Obamas and Harpers of this world, “we do.” Netanyahu, you who with surgical precision slaughter innocents, the young and the old, you who have cruelly blockaded Gaza for years, starving it of necessities, you who deprive Palestinians of more and more of their land, their water, their crops, their trees — you care about life? There is no understanding Gaza out of context — Hamas rockets or unjustifiable terrorist attacks on civilians — and that context is the longest ongoing ethnic cleansing operation in the recent and present centuries, the ongoing attempt to destroy Palestinian nationhood. The Palestinians use tunnels? So did my heroes, the poorly armed fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto. Unlike Israel, Palestinians lack Apache helicopters, guided drones, jet fighters with bombs, laser-guided artillery. Out of impotent defiance, they fire inept rockets, causing terror for innocent Israelis but rarely physical harm. With such a gross imbalance of power, there is no equivalence of culpability. Israel wants peace? Perhaps, but as the veteran Israeli journalist Gideon Levy has pointed out, it does not want a just peace. Occupation and creeping annexation, an inhumane blockade, the destruction of olive groves, the arbitrary imprisonment of thousands, torture, daily humiliation of civilians, house demolitions: these are not policies compatible with any desire for a just peace. In Tel Aviv Gideon Levy now moves around with a bodyguard, the price of speaking the truth. I have visited Gaza and the West Bank. I saw multi-generational Palestinian families weeping in hospitals around the bedsides of their wounded, at the graves of their dead. These are not people who do not care about life. They are like us — Canadians, Jews, like anyone: they celebrate life, family, work, education, food, peace, joy. And they are capable of hatred, they can harbour vengeance in the hearts, just like we can. One could debate details, historical and current, back and forth. Since my days as a young Zionist and, later, as a member of Jews for a Just Peace, I have often done so. I used to believe that if people knew the facts, they would open to the truth. That, too, was naïve. This issue is far too charged with emotion. As the spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle has pointed out, the accumulated mutual pain in the Middle East is so acute, “a significant part of the population finds itself forced to act it out in an endless cycle of perpetration and retribution.” “People’s leaders have been misleaders, so they that are led have been confused,” in the words of the prophet Jeremiah. The voices of justice and sanity are not heeded. Netanyahu has his reasons. Harper and Obama have theirs. And what shall we do, we ordinary people? I pray we can listen to our hearts. My heart tells me that “never again” is not a tribal slogan, that the murder of my grandparents in Auschwitz does not justify the ongoing dispossession of Palestinians, that justice, truth, peace are not tribal prerogatives. That Israel’s “right to defend itself,” unarguable in principle, does not validate mass killing. A few days ago I met with one of my dearest friends, a comrade from Zionist days and now professor emeritus at an Israeli university. We spoke of everything but the daily savagery depicted on our TV screens. We both feared the rancour that would arise. But, I want to say to my friend, can we not be sad together at what that beautiful old dream of Jewish redemption has come to? Can we not grieve the death of innocents? I am sad these days. Can we not at least mourn together?
Gabor Maté, M.D., is a Vancouver-based author and speaker.'
'05 - TO, '06 - TO 1, '08 - NYC 1 & 2, '09 - TO, Chi 1 & 2, '10 - Buffalo, NYC 1 & 2, '11 - TO 1 & 2, Hamilton, '13 - Buffalo, Brooklyn 1 & 2, '15 - Global Citizen, '16 - TO 1 & 2, Chi 2
EV
Toronto Film Festival 9/11/2007, '08 - Toronto 1 & 2, '09 - Albany 1, '11 - Chicago 1
Again, how are we doing in here with this discussion? Being polite to each other while presenting thoughts on the issue? Speaking to each other as if face-to-face?
With this though,disarming becomes the main objective ,so offensive action becomes crucial and necessary.How they do that can and should be debated and examined.But the right to disarm is equall to one sides security as pushing back against its aggressor is to the other
Bullshit. The only right of self-defense the Israeli's have is to withdraw to their legal borders, in line with international law.
Says who?Hamas?Isnt the bombs they are lobbing also not in line with international law.Its 2sided Byrnzie.Your viewing this very Myopic.Tunnel vision.Think how to fix it ,not rehash decades of a past nonsense
'As a Jewish youngster growing up in Budapest, an infant survivor of the Nazi genocide, I was for years haunted by a question resounding in my brain with such force that sometimes my head would spin: “How was it possible? How could the world have let such horrors happen?” It was a naïve question, that of a child. I know better now: such is reality. Whether in Vietnam or Rwanda or Syria, humanity stands by either complicitly or unconsciously or helplessly, as it always does. In Gaza today we find ways of justifying the bombing of hospitals, the annihilation of families at dinner, the killing of pre-adolescents playing soccer on a beach. In Israel-Palestine the powerful party has succeeded in painting itself as the victim, while the ones being killed and maimed become the perpetrators. “They don’t care about life,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says, abetted by the Obamas and Harpers of this world, “we do.” Netanyahu, you who with surgical precision slaughter innocents, the young and the old, you who have cruelly blockaded Gaza for years, starving it of necessities, you who deprive Palestinians of more and more of their land, their water, their crops, their trees — you care about life? There is no understanding Gaza out of context — Hamas rockets or unjustifiable terrorist attacks on civilians — and that context is the longest ongoing ethnic cleansing operation in the recent and present centuries, the ongoing attempt to destroy Palestinian nationhood. The Palestinians use tunnels? So did my heroes, the poorly armed fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto. Unlike Israel, Palestinians lack Apache helicopters, guided drones, jet fighters with bombs, laser-guided artillery. Out of impotent defiance, they fire inept rockets, causing terror for innocent Israelis but rarely physical harm. With such a gross imbalance of power, there is no equivalence of culpability. Israel wants peace? Perhaps, but as the veteran Israeli journalist Gideon Levy has pointed out, it does not want a just peace. Occupation and creeping annexation, an inhumane blockade, the destruction of olive groves, the arbitrary imprisonment of thousands, torture, daily humiliation of civilians, house demolitions: these are not policies compatible with any desire for a just peace. In Tel Aviv Gideon Levy now moves around with a bodyguard, the price of speaking the truth. I have visited Gaza and the West Bank. I saw multi-generational Palestinian families weeping in hospitals around the bedsides of their wounded, at the graves of their dead. These are not people who do not care about life. They are like us — Canadians, Jews, like anyone: they celebrate life, family, work, education, food, peace, joy. And they are capable of hatred, they can harbour vengeance in the hearts, just like we can. One could debate details, historical and current, back and forth. Since my days as a young Zionist and, later, as a member of Jews for a Just Peace, I have often done so. I used to believe that if people knew the facts, they would open to the truth. That, too, was naïve. This issue is far too charged with emotion. As the spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle has pointed out, the accumulated mutual pain in the Middle East is so acute, “a significant part of the population finds itself forced to act it out in an endless cycle of perpetration and retribution.” “People’s leaders have been misleaders, so they that are led have been confused,” in the words of the prophet Jeremiah. The voices of justice and sanity are not heeded. Netanyahu has his reasons. Harper and Obama have theirs. And what shall we do, we ordinary people? I pray we can listen to our hearts. My heart tells me that “never again” is not a tribal slogan, that the murder of my grandparents in Auschwitz does not justify the ongoing dispossession of Palestinians, that justice, truth, peace are not tribal prerogatives. That Israel’s “right to defend itself,” unarguable in principle, does not validate mass killing. A few days ago I met with one of my dearest friends, a comrade from Zionist days and now professor emeritus at an Israeli university. We spoke of everything but the daily savagery depicted on our TV screens. We both feared the rancour that would arise. But, I want to say to my friend, can we not be sad together at what that beautiful old dream of Jewish redemption has come to? Can we not grieve the death of innocents? I am sad these days. Can we not at least mourn together?
Gabor Maté, M.D., is a Vancouver-based author and speaker.'
Nice article Ben, thanks for posting this. It shows that even some Israelis (Jews) know what's going on and are starting to question and know answers. This needs to stop asap. No more, NOW
Are you all taking vacation days off from work to keep this thread going?
Who? Me? No man, just doing what I think is right and making people aware of what's going on.
Not pointed at any one person. And not saying this isn't a subject worth the time. Really just curious where people find the time to research all this stuff and post article after article.
Are you all taking vacation days off from work to keep this thread going?
Who? Me? No man, just doing what I think is right and making people aware of what's going on.
Not pointed at any one person. And not saying this isn't a subject worth the time. Really just curious where people find the time to research all this stuff and post article after article.
Cool man, didn't know who it was directed at so I figured id answer lol
Again, how are we doing in here with this discussion? Being polite to each other while presenting thoughts on the issue? Speaking to each other as if face-to-face?
Kat - thank you for jumping in and keeping everyone on track. I've been a lurker of this thread from page one and I am learning tons (and I know I am not alone).
Lot of valuable information presented and would hate to see this one get locked up.
Are you all taking vacation days off from work to keep this thread going?
Who? Me? No man, just doing what I think is right and making people aware of what's going on.
Not pointed at any one person. And not saying this isn't a subject worth the time. Really just curious where people find the time to research all this stuff and post article after article.
Cool man, didn't know who it was directed at so I figured id answer lol
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This may help answer the question.My inside sources have passed along to me Badbrains secret information and technology lair.location unknown.
My brother just showed me this. Shows the temporary nature and sheer insanity of this situation pretty well. Fuck this killing. I'm tired of it. What ever you believe in, this madness must end. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-evIyrrjTTY
'05 - TO, '06 - TO 1, '08 - NYC 1 & 2, '09 - TO, Chi 1 & 2, '10 - Buffalo, NYC 1 & 2, '11 - TO 1 & 2, Hamilton, '13 - Buffalo, Brooklyn 1 & 2, '15 - Global Citizen, '16 - TO 1 & 2, Chi 2
EV
Toronto Film Festival 9/11/2007, '08 - Toronto 1 & 2, '09 - Albany 1, '11 - Chicago 1
the UN is going to investigate war crimes committed by the idf.
2 nations have gone on record as opposing the investigation.
the us and israel.
at some point, when it feels like the entire world is on the opposite side of an issue from you, you have to admit that you might be on the wrong fucking side.
unfortunately, in this age, being american means you never have to apologize for being wrong on foreign policy.
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
Says who?Hamas?Isnt the bombs they are lobbing also not in line with international law.Its 2sided Byrnzie.Your viewing this very Myopic.Tunnel vision.Think how to fix it ,not rehash decades of a past nonsense
There's no equivalence between Palestinian rockets and one of the most powerful military machines on the planet. Any five year old with one iota of honesty could tell you that. Did you read the article that benjs posted? No? You don't care for anything longer than a soundbite?
As for how to fix it, I've already explained that too. But you only read what you want to read. The whole World has agreed upon a peaceful settlement of the conflict, and the U.S and Israel oppose it. That's the problem.
'There is no understanding Gaza out of context — Hamas rockets or unjustifiable terrorist attacks on civilians — and that context is the longest ongoing ethnic cleansing operation in the recent and present centuries, the ongoing attempt to destroy Palestinian nationhood. The Palestinians use tunnels? So did my heroes, the poorly armed fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto. Unlike Israel, Palestinians lack Apache helicopters, guided drones, jet fighters with bombs, laser-guided artillery. Out of impotent defiance, they fire inept rockets, causing terror for innocent Israelis but rarely physical harm. With such a gross imbalance of power, there is no equivalence of culpability. Israel wants peace? Perhaps, but as the veteran Israeli journalist Gideon Levy has pointed out, it does not want a just peace. Occupation and creeping annexation, an inhumane blockade, the destruction of olive groves, the arbitrary imprisonment of thousands, torture, daily humiliation of civilians, house demolitions: these are not policies compatible with any desire for a just peace. In Tel Aviv Gideon Levy now moves around with a bodyguard, the price of speaking the truth.'
UN human rights body to investigate claims of Israeli violations in Gaza UN's human rights chief says Israel has not done enough to protect civilians while also condemning attacks by Hamas
The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has agreed to launch an international inquiry into violations that may have been committed during Israel's latest military offensive in Gaza.
Navi Pillay, the UN high commissioner for human rights, warned earlier that Israel may have committed war crimes in its offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, where hundreds of Palestinian civilians have been killed in the past two weeks.
Pillay told an emergency debate at the UNHRC in Geneva that Israel had not done enough to protect civilians.
"There seems to be a strong possibility that international law has been violated, in a manner that could amount to war crimes," Pillay said, citing air strikes and the shelling of homes and hospitals. The killing of civilians in Gaza, including dozens of children, raised concerns over Israel's precautions and its respect for proportionality, she said.
She also condemned Hamas, the Islamist movement that rules Gaza, and other armed Palestinian groups, for their "indiscriminate attacks" on Israel.
At the end of an emergency session, the 47-member Geneva state forum adopted a resolution presented by Palestinians by a vote of 29 states in favour, one against (the United States) with 17 abstentions (including some European Union members).
Pillay's comments, in a debate held at the request of Egypt, Pakistan and the state of Palestine (which has observer status at the UN), were in response to a resolution calling for an investigation into the Gaza campaign, launched on 8 July with the declared objective of halting rocket fire into Israel.
The UN human rights council body has a majority that is pro-Palestinian. Israel only recently rejoined it after a 20-month boycott.
The resolution called for the urgent dispatch of "an independent, international commission of inquiry" to investigate "all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip".
On past precedent, Israel would be highly unlikely to cooperate with any such investigation. That was its position with the Goldstone investigation into its Operation Cast Lead offensive of 2008-09, which killed about 1,400 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Israel rejected that report as prejudiced and full of errors, and dismissed the charge that it had a policy of deliberately targeting civilians.
Pillay also called for an end to the blockade of Gaza, the underlying reason for the conflict and an issue that will have to be tackled if any ceasefire is to endure.
Israel's envoy to the UNHRC, Eviatar Manor, responded to Pillay's comments by accusing Hamas of committing war crimes and insisted that Israel was acting as any other state would in seeking to defend its citizens. "There can be no moral symmetry between a terrorist aggressor and a democracy defending itself," he argued.
Hamas, he said, was a terrorist organisation, not the Salvation Army. It was responsible for civilian casualties because it was using people as "human shields".
Riyadh Malki, the Palestinian foreign minister, appealed to the international community for Israel to be held accountable for its actions in Gaza. "How many martyrs must die before Israel puts an end to its aggression?" he asked.
Pillay, whose term at the UNHRC is due to end shortly, has been active in trying to highlight the issue of war crimes committed in Syria. But she has failed to overcome divisions in the UN security council, which have prevented attempts to get the Syrian government referred to the international criminal court.
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
'The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says that "one child has been killed in Gaza every hour for the past two days".'
Comments
You can pretend that Palestinian resistance to occupation is the cause of the bloodshed, but any honest person can see what the real root cause is. Hamas only came into power in 1987, so what was your excuse for murdering Palestinian civilians before that?
As Gideon Levy explained, and as you apparently refuse to acknowledge:
"You just have to look at the record. I mean, sure, Israel wants peace. Israel just doesn’t want a just peace. And it’s all about justice. You look backwards, and you ask yourself: In which stage, in which moment, was Israel willing to give up the occupation? Give me one example in which there was a genuine readiness to put an end to the occupation. It was never there. It was all about gaining time and maintaining the status quo. And it’s also now about gaining time and maintaining the status quo—namely, the West Bank occupied, Gaza under siege, peaceful life in Israel. This formula cannot last forever. And I wish I’ll be wrong, but I cannot recall one example in which there was a genuine willingness to put an end to the occupation. This was never. There were all kind of—we had Oslo. We had other peace talks. But it was never there."
2013- Brooklyn2, Philly1, Philly2, NOLA
Do I disagree with brutality? Yes, I do. Do I UNDERSTAND the brutality? Yes, I do. Do I agree with Israel's right to defend itself? Yes, I do. But this isn't hockey: the "best defense is a strong offense" is a mantra which ought to be reserved for team sports, and not political situations with lives on the line.
EV
Toronto Film Festival 9/11/2007, '08 - Toronto 1 & 2, '09 - Albany 1, '11 - Chicago 1
47 years of illegal occupation and land-theft, and countless war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Yet he says it with a straight face.
EV
Toronto Film Festival 9/11/2007, '08 - Toronto 1 & 2, '09 - Albany 1, '11 - Chicago 1
'As a Jewish youngster growing up in Budapest, an infant survivor of the Nazi genocide, I was for years haunted by a question resounding in my brain with such force that sometimes my head would spin: “How was it possible? How could the world have let such horrors happen?”
It was a naïve question, that of a child. I know better now: such is reality. Whether in Vietnam or Rwanda or Syria, humanity stands by either complicitly or unconsciously or helplessly, as it always does. In Gaza today we find ways of justifying the bombing of hospitals, the annihilation of families at dinner, the killing of pre-adolescents playing soccer on a beach.
In Israel-Palestine the powerful party has succeeded in painting itself as the victim, while the ones being killed and maimed become the perpetrators. “They don’t care about life,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says, abetted by the Obamas and Harpers of this world, “we do.” Netanyahu, you who with surgical precision slaughter innocents, the young and the old, you who have cruelly blockaded Gaza for years, starving it of necessities, you who deprive Palestinians of more and more of their land, their water, their crops, their trees — you care about life?
There is no understanding Gaza out of context — Hamas rockets or unjustifiable terrorist attacks on civilians — and that context is the longest ongoing ethnic cleansing operation in the recent and present centuries, the ongoing attempt to destroy Palestinian nationhood.
The Palestinians use tunnels? So did my heroes, the poorly armed fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto. Unlike Israel, Palestinians lack Apache helicopters, guided drones, jet fighters with bombs, laser-guided artillery. Out of impotent defiance, they fire inept rockets, causing terror for innocent Israelis but rarely physical harm. With such a gross imbalance of power, there is no equivalence of culpability.
Israel wants peace? Perhaps, but as the veteran Israeli journalist Gideon Levy has pointed out, it does not want a just peace. Occupation and creeping annexation, an inhumane blockade, the destruction of olive groves, the arbitrary imprisonment of thousands, torture, daily humiliation of civilians, house demolitions: these are not policies compatible with any desire for a just peace. In Tel Aviv Gideon Levy now moves around with a bodyguard, the price of speaking the truth.
I have visited Gaza and the West Bank. I saw multi-generational Palestinian families weeping in hospitals around the bedsides of their wounded, at the graves of their dead. These are not people who do not care about life. They are like us — Canadians, Jews, like anyone: they celebrate life, family, work, education, food, peace, joy. And they are capable of hatred, they can harbour vengeance in the hearts, just like we can.
One could debate details, historical and current, back and forth. Since my days as a young Zionist and, later, as a member of Jews for a Just Peace, I have often done so. I used to believe that if people knew the facts, they would open to the truth. That, too, was naïve. This issue is far too charged with emotion. As the spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle has pointed out, the accumulated mutual pain in the Middle East is so acute, “a significant part of the population finds itself forced to act it out in an endless cycle of perpetration and retribution.”
“People’s leaders have been misleaders, so they that are led have been confused,” in the words of the prophet Jeremiah. The voices of justice and sanity are not heeded. Netanyahu has his reasons. Harper and Obama have theirs.
And what shall we do, we ordinary people? I pray we can listen to our hearts. My heart tells me that “never again” is not a tribal slogan, that the murder of my grandparents in Auschwitz does not justify the ongoing dispossession of Palestinians, that justice, truth, peace are not tribal prerogatives. That Israel’s “right to defend itself,” unarguable in principle, does not validate mass killing.
A few days ago I met with one of my dearest friends, a comrade from Zionist days and now professor emeritus at an Israeli university. We spoke of everything but the daily savagery depicted on our TV screens. We both feared the rancour that would arise.
But, I want to say to my friend, can we not be sad together at what that beautiful old dream of Jewish redemption has come to? Can we not grieve the death of innocents? I am sad these days. Can we not at least mourn together?
Gabor Maté, M.D., is a Vancouver-based author and speaker.'
EV
Toronto Film Festival 9/11/2007, '08 - Toronto 1 & 2, '09 - Albany 1, '11 - Chicago 1
2013- Brooklyn2, Philly1, Philly2, NOLA
http://uprootedpalestinians.wordpress.com/2014/07/11/israels-long-history-of-carrying-out-massacres-genocide-aganst-palestinians/
Lot of valuable information presented and would hate to see this one get locked up.
Cheers all.
This may help answer the question.My inside sources have passed along to me Badbrains secret information and technology lair.location unknown.
EV
Toronto Film Festival 9/11/2007, '08 - Toronto 1 & 2, '09 - Albany 1, '11 - Chicago 1
the UN is going to investigate war crimes committed by the idf.
2 nations have gone on record as opposing the investigation.
the us and israel.
at some point, when it feels like the entire world is on the opposite side of an issue from you, you have to admit that you might be on the wrong fucking side.
unfortunately, in this age, being american means you never have to apologize for being wrong on foreign policy.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
As for how to fix it, I've already explained that too. But you only read what you want to read. The whole World has agreed upon a peaceful settlement of the conflict, and the U.S and Israel oppose it. That's the problem.
'There is no understanding Gaza out of context — Hamas rockets or unjustifiable terrorist attacks on civilians — and that context is the longest ongoing ethnic cleansing operation in the recent and present centuries, the ongoing attempt to destroy Palestinian nationhood.
The Palestinians use tunnels? So did my heroes, the poorly armed fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto. Unlike Israel, Palestinians lack Apache helicopters, guided drones, jet fighters with bombs, laser-guided artillery. Out of impotent defiance, they fire inept rockets, causing terror for innocent Israelis but rarely physical harm. With such a gross imbalance of power, there is no equivalence of culpability.
Israel wants peace? Perhaps, but as the veteran Israeli journalist Gideon Levy has pointed out, it does not want a just peace. Occupation and creeping annexation, an inhumane blockade, the destruction of olive groves, the arbitrary imprisonment of thousands, torture, daily humiliation of civilians, house demolitions: these are not policies compatible with any desire for a just peace. In Tel Aviv Gideon Levy now moves around with a bodyguard, the price of speaking the truth.'
UN's human rights chief says Israel has not done enough to protect civilians while also condemning attacks by Hamas
http://www.theguardian.com/global/2014/jul/23/un-high-commissioner-navi-pillay-war-crimes-israel
The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has agreed to launch an international inquiry into violations that may have been committed during Israel's latest military offensive in Gaza.
Navi Pillay, the UN high commissioner for human rights, warned earlier that Israel may have committed war crimes in its offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, where hundreds of Palestinian civilians have been killed in the past two weeks.
Pillay told an emergency debate at the UNHRC in Geneva that Israel had not done enough to protect civilians.
"There seems to be a strong possibility that international law has been violated, in a manner that could amount to war crimes," Pillay said, citing air strikes and the shelling of homes and hospitals. The killing of civilians in Gaza, including dozens of children, raised concerns over Israel's precautions and its respect for proportionality, she said.
She also condemned Hamas, the Islamist movement that rules Gaza, and other armed Palestinian groups, for their "indiscriminate attacks" on Israel.
At the end of an emergency session, the 47-member Geneva state forum adopted a resolution presented by Palestinians by a vote of 29 states in favour, one against (the United States) with 17 abstentions (including some European Union members).
Pillay's comments, in a debate held at the request of Egypt, Pakistan and the state of Palestine (which has observer status at the UN), were in response to a resolution calling for an investigation into the Gaza campaign, launched on 8 July with the declared objective of halting rocket fire into Israel.
The UN human rights council body has a majority that is pro-Palestinian. Israel only recently rejoined it after a 20-month boycott.
The resolution called for the urgent dispatch of "an independent, international commission of inquiry" to investigate "all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip".
On past precedent, Israel would be highly unlikely to cooperate with any such investigation. That was its position with the Goldstone investigation into its Operation Cast Lead offensive of 2008-09, which killed about 1,400 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Israel rejected that report as prejudiced and full of errors, and dismissed the charge that it had a policy of deliberately targeting civilians.
Pillay also called for an end to the blockade of Gaza, the underlying reason for the conflict and an issue that will have to be tackled if any ceasefire is to endure.
Israel's envoy to the UNHRC, Eviatar Manor, responded to Pillay's comments by accusing Hamas of committing war crimes and insisted that Israel was acting as any other state would in seeking to defend its citizens. "There can be no moral symmetry between a terrorist aggressor and a democracy defending itself," he argued.
Hamas, he said, was a terrorist organisation, not the Salvation Army. It was responsible for civilian casualties because it was using people as "human shields".
Riyadh Malki, the Palestinian foreign minister, appealed to the international community for Israel to be held accountable for its actions in Gaza. "How many martyrs must die before Israel puts an end to its aggression?" he asked.
Pillay, whose term at the UNHRC is due to end shortly, has been active in trying to highlight the issue of war crimes committed in Syria. But she has failed to overcome divisions in the UN security council, which have prevented attempts to get the Syrian government referred to the international criminal court.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
'The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says that "one child has been killed in Gaza every hour for the past two days".'