Everyone needs to watch this video

NoK wrote:

jlew24asu wrote:

Does that explain it to you better?
yea, it exaplins that you can totally make up shit to suit your agenda. well done

Hahaha. Is that all you have to say? Pathetic. You posted bullshit and got owned. Well done.

you somehow tried to justify a Hamas militant holding a child while running from gunfire. that is whats pathetic.

NoK wrote:

You speak like you have some kind of authority. I know Palestinians first hand and even the 10 year old kids will tell you to your face they are ready to die for their country. The fact that you cannot comprehend that doesn't mean it is wrong. It only means you cannot comprehend that.

Have you seen the little boys that run in front of tanks and throw rocks at them? No one forces them to do that. When a population is subjected to the worst kind of treatment even the children will fight. Just because you've lived an Americana lifestyle and cannot understand where they are coming from does not mean you are right.

kids are brainwashed into thinking its ok to kill themselves. you think its right, i think its wrong. end of story.

jlew24asu wrote:

do you believe the American southwest rightfully belongs to native Indians? a yes or no will suffice.

I'll try to answer this one, though the subject would probably be better served in another thread.

There were many treaties signed at the turn of the 19th Century - every one of which was broken by the white settlers. As far as I'm aware there are descendants of the Apache and Navajo tribes, and others in that area who have found that they still possess legal entitlement to the land, as some of these treaties still carry some weight in their favour. I doubt very much that they will stake a claim to the whole of the American Southwest, just the areas which are of religious and historical significance to them.
Just as is the case with the Palestinians, they have already compromised enough - they've had their country stolen from them by a foreign invader, and been subjected to the level of second class citizens ever since. They are now seeking a portion of what ostensibly belongs to them in law. They still have legal rights.

The Palestinians have stated that they will accept a truce along the June 1967 border, in line with the rest of the world - excluding the U.S. What the natives of the American South West are seeking to claim is another issue. Maybe you can look into that for us?

polaris_x wrote:

it is clear you have made no headway in convincing others that this problem is 50/50 in blame ...

That's because the Illegal occupation isn't 50/50 in blame. The Palestinians aren't responsible for being occupied.

NoK wrote:

jlew24asu wrote:

you somehow tried to justify a Hamas militant holding a child while running from gunfire. that is whats pathetic.

Haha you keep trying to divert the facts. You clearly did a quick search on youtube and posted the first links to support a biased argument. Then got owned.

Then you are trying to make me feel guilty by saying I am supporting a Hamas militant haha. Nice try. My argument is that what you are trying to describe the video as is BULLSHIT. I am not supporting a Hamas militant. You also have no proof it is actually a Hamas militant anyway.

To summarise, your links are bullshit. You could of posted other negative things about Hamas which I would of agreed with you on but you were too excited to start defending israel. Pathetic.

but the video isnt bullshit. its clearly shows a Palestinian militant (or Hamas or whatever you want to call him) grabbing a child and running away from gunfire. it speaks for itself.

jlew24asu wrote:

kids are brainwashed into thinking its ok to kill themselves. you think its right, i think its wrong. end of story.

NoK wrote:

The kids are brainwashed. Lovely. Are you a sociologist now? Nice try once again I never said it was right. You can keep trying to support your arguments with bullshit. I guess you learnt from the best bullshitters around... The hasbara.

yes I am. I also have common sense. 6 year olds dont decide for themselves thats its ok to kill themselves to support a resistance. they are taught that.

jlew24asu wrote:

I agree public perception is changing. but I disagree peace can or will happen while Hamas is in power as well as the current Israeli government.

Here's an interesting article on the bogey monster called Hamas:

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


Hamas Victory Is Built on Social Work

By Kim Murphy
March 02, 2006

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

NoK wrote:

jlew24asu wrote:

but the video isnt bullshit. its clearly shows a Palestinian militant (or Hamas or whatever you want to call him) grabbing a child and running away from gunfire. it speaks for itself.

You just said it yourself "grabbing a child and running away from gunfire". So the guy runs towards gunfire to grab a child and drag him away from the gunfire. Thats your definition of human shield? You forget to mention that the militant's top half is completely prone to a bullet. I bet if an American soldier was in that video you would be describing what a hero he was.. how he saved that child haha.

This is what a human shield looks like:
http://attendingtheworld.files.wordpres ... onists.jpg

jlew24asu wrote:

yes I am. I also have common sense. 6 year olds dont decide for themselves thats its ok to kill themselves to support a resistance. they are taught that.

You don't need to teach a kid anything if he's seen his mother or father shot dead by an IDF soldier for no reason.. or seen his home bulldozed to the ground for no reason.. or seen his classmates get killed by a bomb.. or seen his parents belittled everyday for years every time they want to pass a checkpoint to go to work or home.. or NOT seen his father the night an IDF soldier refused to let him pass a checkpoint because he felt like it.. Kids are like a sponge they don't need to be taught when things are right in front of their eyes.

as long as you don't support the use of children as human shields on either side, then we agree. and we'll agree to disagree that children decide for themselves that its a good thing to kill themselves to support resistance. I dont care what they've been through. deliberately strapping a bomb to oneself to be detonated it is something that is taught and encouraged.

On a more positive note:


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8059021.stm

UN Gaza inquiry 'to proceed despite Israel'

Wednesday, 20 May 2009


'A UN inquiry into possible war crimes in Gaza will go ahead even if Israel does not co-operate, says Richard Goldstone, who leads the inquiry team.

Mr Goldstone said he was "disappointed" Israel had given no positive response, and said his team would enter Gaza via Egypt if Israel refused them visas.

The UN wants to investigate whether Israel and Hamas committed war crimes during the January conflict in Gaza.

Israel accuses the UN branch carrying out the mission of bias against it.

The UN Human Rights Council has been accused of singling out Israel unfairly, and is viewed by some as having less credibility than other parts of the UN.

But correspondents say the selection of Mr Goldstone, a respected South African war crimes prosecutor who is also Jewish, as head of the inquiry has given it greater clout.

Mr Goldstone said his team had hoped to visit southern Israeli towns which have suffered Palestinian rocket fire , before entering Gaza from Israel.

But if Israel failed to allow the investigators passage, entering through the Rafah crossing on the Egypt-Gaza border would be a "second choice".

He said that after talks with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the team had decided to hold a series of public hearings.

If these could take place in the Middle East "so much the better", but if not they would be held in Geneva, with witnesses flown in or testifying via video link, he said.

Most Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are unable to leave because of Israel's blockade on the territory.

Israel has given no official response to the inquiry team, but media reports have suggested it does not plan to co-operate.

Israeli ambassador in Geneva Leshno Yaar told Associated Press earlier that the council treats Israel "unfairly" and that "justice cannot be the outcome of this mission".

Several investigations into alleged violations of international law during Israel's 22-day operation in Gaza, which ended on 18 January, have now reported back.

Mr Ban has requested more than $11m (£7m) compensation from Israel for damage to UN property in Gaza, after a limited UN inquiry accused Israel of targeting known civilian shelters and providing untrue statements to justify actions in which civilians were killed.

The report found Israel to blame in six out of nine incidents when death or injury were caused to people sheltering at UN property and UN buildings were damaged.

The Israeli military has concluded in an internal investigation that its troops fought lawfully, although errors did take place, such as the deaths of 21 people in a wrongly targeted house.

Meanwhile, a fact-finding team commissioned by the Arab League said there was sufficient evidence for the Israeli military to be prosecuted for war crimes and crimes against humanity, and that "the Israeli political leadership was also responsible for such crimes".

It also said Palestinian militants were guilty of war crimes in their use of indiscriminate attacks on civilians.

About 1,300 Palestinians died in the January conflict. Israeli and Palestinian estimates differ on the numbers of civilian casualties.

Ten Israeli soldiers were killed, including four by friendly fire, and three Israel civilians died in rocket attacks by Palestinian militants.

Byrnzie wrote:

jlew24asu wrote:

Hamas is part of the PROBLEM because.....they deliberately target and kill Israeli civilians.

And what does Hamas targeting civilians have to do with the illegal occupation?

Since you love talking about what's justified, here's a simple yes or no question for you:

Is it ok for Hamas to target civilians?