Heavy artillery fire: Israeli artillery guns fire toward Gaza Strip from the Israeli side of the Israel-Gaza borde
https://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,1395495,00.jpg
Following eight days of air strikes, Israel started a ground offensive in Gaza on January 3. Tens of thousands of military reservists were called back to duty through a major telephone action.
https://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,1395538,00.jpg
A destroyed home in Sderot: A family in Israel attempts to salvage a few belongings from their home, which was destroyed by a rocket fired from Gaza.
https://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,1395662,00.jpg
Fleeing Palestinians: Women flee their Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip as battles between Israeli troops and Hamas fighters take place in the area on Sund
https://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,1395541,00.jpg
An Israeli military helicopter over the northern Gaza Strip: Israeli troops have been advancing since Sunday morning as they surrounded Gaza City.
https://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,1395663,00.jpg
An Israel infantry soldier: Shortly before the invasion, a soldier prays.
https://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,1395522,00.jpg
An Israeli soldier observes the enemy line: Despite heavy fighting, Israeli troops are already entering Gaza City and have taken control of the most important roads in the Gaza Strip.
https://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,1395517,00.jpg
Rear guard: An Israeli soldier prepares for his deployment near the Kibbutz Nahal Oz. The Israeli government has said it is prepared to dramatically expand fighting if need be.
https://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,1395516,00.jpg
A wounded Palestinian is carried into hospital in Gaza on Sunday.
https://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,1395496,00.jpg
The battle against Hamas: A shell fired by Israeli forces explodes over the northern Gaza Strip on Sunday.
https://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,1395854,00.jpg
More explosions from Israeli fire are seen over the northern Gaza Strip. Thousands of Israeli troops backed by tanks and helicopter gunships pushed deeper into Gaza on Sunday, fighting militants at close range and surrounding the coastal territory's largest city in the first full day of an overwhelming ground offensive.
https://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,1395494,00.jpg
Artillery fire: Israel plans to take over areas from which Palestinian rockets have been fired into Israeli territory.
https://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,1395504,00.jpg
Smoke billows over Gaza City: Rescue workers claim that at least 19 Palestinians were killed in heavy combat on Sunday.
https://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,1395502,00.jpg
At least 524 Palestinians have been killed, at least a quarter of them civilians, a UN agency said. Forty-two, mostly civilians, were killed on Sunday, a medical source said.
https://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,1395492,00.jpg
Lasting fire: An Israeli army mobile artillery unit fires a shell towards Gaza.
https://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,1395485,00.jpg
There have also been casualties on the Israeli side: The soldier pictured here is being rushed into a hospital in the southern Israeli city of Beersheva after being wounded in a ground operation against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.
https://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,1395493,00.jpg
A tank assault: With this weekend's ground offensive, Operation Cast Lead entered into its second phase. According to the Israeli Army, a considerable number of troops are participating in the battl
https://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,1395694,00.jpg
Explosion: A thick cloud of smoke rises over Gaza City.
https://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,1395781,00.jpg
Deployment: Israeli armored military vehicles move towards the border with the Gaza Strip on Sunday.
sharingwisdom
01-06-2009, 11:37 PM
Shock, Awe and Lies: The Truth Behind the Israeli Attack on Gaza (https://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/3/1666-shock-awe-and-lies-the-truth-behind-the-israeli-attack-on-gaza.html)
Here is a simple, stone cold fact. You cannot read or hear the truth about what is happening in Gaza from any corporate media in the United States. The only thing you will find there are regurgitations of Israeli spin, which are themselves only regurgitations of the kind of spin that American militarists have put on their own depredations -- for centuries now. Up and down the American media and political establishments, you will find nothing but bleatings about Israel being "forced" to launch its vicious blunderbuss attacks against heavily populated Gaza because of the "recent spate of Hamas bombings" since the end of a six-month ceasefire.
This is of course a damnable and deliberate lie. Papers in Israel -- in Israel, but not the United States -- are reporting the truth: the murderous assault on Gaza was planned not only before the six-month ceasefire ended -- it was planned before the cease-fire even took effect. Indeed, the cease-fire was part of the military plan to decimate the civilian areas of Gaza; it was a hoax, a scam, a deliberate feint to buy time for military preparations -- precisely the same strategy followed by the Bush Regime (and its bipartisan Establishment supporters) in "going to the UN" to seek a "peaceful solution" to the "Iraqi crisis" -- when the invasion was already in the works.
Haaretz reports on the Israel's deceit (https://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050426.html) in the latest outrage, in the aptly titled piece, "Disinformation, secrecy and lies: How the Gaza offensive came about":
Long-term preparation, careful gathering of information, secret discussions, operational deception and the misleading of the public - all these stood behind the Israel Defense Forces "Cast Lead" operation against Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip, which began Saturday morning. he disinformation effort, according to defense officials, took Hamas by surprise and served to significantly increase the number of its casualties in the strike.
Sources in the defense establishment said Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the Israel Defense Forces to prepare for the operation over six months ago, even as Israel was beginning to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Hamas. According to the sources, Barak maintained that although the lull would allow Hamas to prepare for a showdown with Israel, the Israeli army needed time to prepare, as well..The story also notes that the recent racheting of tension was sparked, deliberately, by a heavy-handed Israeli incursion into Gaza:
The plan of action that was implemented in Operation Cast Lead remained only a blueprint until a month ago, when tensions soared after the IDF carried out an incursion into Gaza during the ceasefire to take out a tunnel which the army said was intended to facilitate an attack by Palestinian militants on IDF troops....
While Barak was working out the final details with the officers responsible for the operation, Livni went to Cairo to inform Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak, that Israel had decided to strike at Hamas. In parallel, Israel continued to send out disinformation in announcing it would open the crossings to the Gaza Strip and that Olmert would decide whether to launch the strike following three more deliberations on Sunday - one day after the actual order to launch the operation was issued.
"Hamas evacuated all its headquarter personnel after the cabinet meeting on Wednesday," one defense official said, "but the organization sent its people back in when they heard that everything was put on hold until Sunday." Not only did this deception lead Hamas to send its officials back to work -- it also meant that there was no general warning to the masses of civilians packed like sardines into Gaza's hellish confines. It meant that civilian casualties would be maximized -- especially when the initial assault was launched in the middle of the day, with thousands of schoolchildren out at their lesson.
As Glenn Greenwald notes (https://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/12/28/peretz/index.html), Israel's massive bombing of civilian areas -- even if couched in terms of "retaliation" for scattershot strikes on Israeli territory by a political faction -- constitutes "a clear violation of the Geneva Conventions." Greenwald also adroitly turns Barack Obama's campaign kowtowing to Israeli militarism on its head:
[Obama on the campaign trail]: "The first job of any nation state is to protect its citizens. And so I can assure you that if -- I don't even care if I was a politician -- if somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I'm going to do everything in my power to stop that. And I would expect Israelis to do the same thing."Can't the exact same mentality be deployed to justify everything Hamas has done and is doing, to wit: "if a foreign power were brutally occupying my country for four decades -- or blockading my country and denying my children medical needs and nutrition and the ability even to exit -- I'm going to do everything in my power to stop that. And I would expect Palestinians to do the same thing"? But the last thing that our political class ever extends is reciprocal, two-sided analysis to this dispute.
What is the ultimate context of this carnage? The fact that the Arab inhabitants of Palestine had their land taken away from them by force -- not in some ancient, historic era, but within the lifetime of many thousands of Palestinians still living. I hold no brief for Hamas; like the Angry Arab (https://angryarab.blogspot.com/), whose coverage of the conflict has been relentless and penetrating, I don't care for any party based on religious extremism. But as Greenwald notes, every action taken by Hamas and other Palestinian resistance groups could be characterized as "retaliation" for the theft of their land, not to mention the war crime of collective punishment and genocidal blockades visited upon the Occupied Territories for years.
But there is not a single peep of this perspective from America's ruling class and its media courtiers. Of course, it is a bit much to expect a nation which itself was built on land theft, repression and slaughter to see anything wrong or "disproportionate" in Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. What else are you supposed to do when those dang heathen savages come around with their war parties and tomahawks, trying to get back the land that God Almighty has granted to good white folk?
Meanwhile, here's what Israel's "Manifest Destiny" looks like on the ground in Gaza. From the Maan News Agency (https://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&Do=Print&ID=34268) (via the Angry Arab, as was the photo above):
Death shrouds the hallways of Gaza City's Ash-Shifa medical compound Saturday, its smell creeping in from all corners. mputated bodies are strewn throughout hallways because morgues in the city can no longer accommodate the dead. In one corner a man stands with his seven year old son in a cardboard box because the hospital ran out of sheets to cover the dead with. This is how he will carry him home and bury him. Another man stands dazed, in shock after watching his son Mohammed killed during his graduation ceremony at the de facto police headquarters. The father of one of Mohammed's classmates stood next to his son as he was decapitated. The man is still screaming.
In the packed hospital waiting room a mother sits silently staring into the distance; her son was pronounced dead shortly after she brought him in... Forty-year-old mother Nawal Al-Lad'a did not find the bodies of her two sons in the medical compound, so she left to look amid the rubble.
Husam Farajallah, a university student, was at the hospital collecting the body of his relative. He called what happened in Gaza a "black day" in the lives of all Palestinians, and wondered how the world could watch and do nothing.
Medics in Gaza confirmed that the majority of those killed in the day's attacks were civilians, including men, women and children. Most were cut to pieces, making the job of doctors and medics difficult, and the task of giving bodies back to families painful and gruesome. The medics working in the field continue to dig up bodies from the densely populated urban areas of Gaza City.
The scenes remind many Palestinians of the images that came out of the Sabra and Shatila massacres from Beirut in 1982, when thousands of Palestinians were killed by the Lebanese Phalangist militia.
As the death toll climbs and no word on a halt to the attacks has come from Israel, Gazans fear for their lives and loved ones.Chris Floyd is an award-winning American journalist, and author of the book, Empire Burlesque: High Crimes and Low Comedy in the Bush Regime. For more than 11 years he wrote the featured political column, Global Eye, for The Moscow Times and the St. Petersburg Times in Russia. He also served as UK correspondent for Truthout.org, and was an editorial writer for three years for The Bergen Record. His work appears regularly CounterPunch, The Baltimore Chronicle and in translation in the Italian paper, Il Manifesto, and has also been published in such venues as The Nation, the Christian Science Monitor, Columbia Journalism Review, The Ecologist and many others. His articles are also featured regularly on such websites as Information Clearing House, Buzzflash, Bushwatch, LewRockwell.com, Antiwar.com, and many others. His work has been cited in The New York Times, USA Today, the Guardian, the Independent and other major newspapers.
[quote=Zeno Swijtink;78687]Why are we funding this onslaught? Our hands are covered with blood.
toddwquigley
01-08-2009, 02:39 AM
Hmm, the Palestinians have been persona-non-grata throughout the Levant for several centuries now, but of course, it's all the Jews fault.
How about try this: The Palestinians have bitten the hand that has fed them wherever they have gone, and nobody feels sorry for them anymore. Jordan and Lebannon are tired of them, and Isreal re-took their land (lets remember that they bought the majority of it), and even when treated nicely, they still insist on terrorizing their benefactor.
"Oh, but it's not all the Palestinians fault, it's just a few bad ones", OK, fine, give them up, and everybody can all be happy again...
If the Israelis, have been planning this for months, it's only because they knew what they were dealing with, and planned accordingly.
The Palestinians are like the homeless people that beg for food, and when you give them something, they complain it not enough, piss on your doorstep, and then send members to throw rocks through your windows, key your car and leave grafitti and garbage everywhere, and then when you call the police and confront them, the all get quiet, and say: "I don't know nothing", even when the culprit is standing behind them.
Justifying terrorist rocket attacks on civilians as retaliation for losing their home, and not expecting a response is simply ridiculous. The Palestinians are the closest thing the World has to a "Nation of terrorists", there are not a bunch of innocents among the Palestinian men, in one way or another, the vast majority of them support, or in some way are part of Hamas, which has been the point that everyone else in the Levant has been making since they made the same point against the PLO.
Exactly what should be Israel's response to un-provoked rocket attacks upon it's civilians? If the Palestinians wanted to have some moral ground to stand on, they would keep their attacks to strictly military targets, but they don't, and never have. They randomly attack innocent civilians, and then act the victim when Israel retaliates against the culprits.
When the culprits hide among the people and are protected by them, it means there are very few that are truly innocent, non-combatents. To wit: If your brother comes over and beats up my sister, and you then you hide him, you are as guilty as he is. That is the law in all the lands. It's like the child that throws a rock through the neighbors window and then hides under their mother's skirt. Shame on the mother as much the child.
About the only thing I agree with is that the American news media is completely prejudiced, but it's prejudiced completely to the left. If the leftist media is painting the Palestinians as the bad guys, you have really got to wonder, because usually they are the first to blame Israel, even before Islam.
Good luck with your "Palestinians as victims theory", even the Egyptians, Jordanians and Lebanese would disagree with you on that one. Exactly how do you explain the fact that the Egyptians just kicked them out of Egypt?
The Palestinians have burnt every bridge, and bitten every hand, and pissed on every doorstep. You are among the incredibly small part of the World's population that sees them as being victims, or being on the right side. Maybe you should spend some time living in the Levant, it would quickly change your mind.
Is it sad when people die? yes, it sure is, but let's keep the facts straight, and place the blame where it has been earned.
Photoguy
01-08-2009, 11:19 AM
I have never had a homeless person I helped ever do anything more than thank me. Todd when you throw a quarter at a homeless persons head they might react badly, but if you actually try to help them with only a quarter the odds are they will be grateful. If you try warming the block of ice you call your heart you might find something good. I hope for the new year you can stop hating yourself and then you may find it less easy to hate so many others. Yes the Palestinians have a bad reputation in the middle east amongst other Arab groups, but they have not in fact been fairly paid for what little land was taken by "imminent domain" and have not been paid at all for much of the land that Israel has seized.
Hmm, the Palestinians have been persona-non-grata throughout the Levant for several centuries now, but of course, it's all the Jews fault.
How about try this: The Palestinians have bitten the hand that has fed them wherever they have gone, and nobody feels sorry for them anymore. Jordan and Lebannon are tired of them, and Isreal re-took their land (lets remember that they bought the majority of it), and even when treated nicely, they still insist on terrorizing their benefactor.
"Oh, but it's not all the Palestinians fault, it's just a few bad ones", OK, fine, give them up, and everybody can all be happy again...
If the Israelis, have been planning this for months, it's only because they knew what they were dealing with, and planned accordingly.
The Palestinians are like the homeless people that beg for food, and when you give them something, they complain it not enough, piss on your doorstep, and then send members to throw rocks through your windows, key your car and leave grafitti and garbage everywhere, and then when you call the police and confront them, the all get quiet, and say: "I don't know nothing", even when the culprit is standing behind them.
Justifying terrorist rocket attacks on civilians as retaliation for losing their home, and not expecting a response is simply ridiculous. The Palestinians are the closest thing the World has to a "Nation of terrorists", there are not a bunch of innocents among the Palestinian men, in one way or another, the vast majority of them support, or in some way are part of Hamas, which has been the point that everyone else in the Levant has been making since they made the same point against the PLO.
Exactly what should be Israel's response to un-provoked rocket attacks upon it's civilians? If the Palestinians wanted to have some moral ground to stand on, they would keep their attacks to strictly military targets, but they don't, and never have. They randomly attack innocent civilians, and then act the victim when Israel retaliates against the culprits.
When the culprits hide among the people and are protected by them, it means there are very few that are truly innocent, non-combatents. To wit: If your brother comes over and beats up my sister, and you then you hide him, you are as guilty as he is. That is the law in all the lands. It's like the child that throws a rock through the neighbors window and then hides under their mother's skirt. Shame on the mother as much the child.
About the only thing I agree with is that the American news media is completely prejudiced, but it's prejudiced completely to the left. If the leftist media is painting the Palestinians as the bad guys, you have really got to wonder, because usually they are the first to blame Israel, even before Islam.
Good luck with your "Palestinians as victims theory", even the Egyptians, Jordanians and Lebanese would disagree with you on that one. Exactly how do you explain the fact that the Egyptians just kicked them out of Egypt?
The Palestinians have burnt every bridge, and bitten every hand, and pissed on every doorstep. You are among the incredibly small part of the World's population that sees them as being victims, or being on the right side. Maybe you should spend some time living in the Levant, it would quickly change your mind.
Is it sad when people die? yes, it sure is, but let's keep the facts straight, and place the blame where it has been earned.
Exactly what should be Israel's response to un-provoked rocket attacks upon it's civilians?
Unprovoked? Isn't the situation as shown in the map of the West Bank above, a daily attack on the Palestinian civilian population?
And if you don't agree with that moral judgment you may at least agree that that geographic situation, and the separation between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, cannot continue if we want a peaceful resolution of this sad conflict?
Are you not curious by what path of injustices that fragmentation happened?
Or do you see the map as just showing where the "homeless people" live, who "deserve their lot?"
Think about the children who are born into that situation. Or do you see that as simply a case of the sins of the fathers inflicted on their offspring?
"You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me." (Exodus 20:5)
Read Israel's Occupation, by Prof. Neve Gordon.
This first complete history of Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip allows (https://israelsoccupation.info/content/books-description) us to see beyond the smokescreen of politics in order to make sense of the dramatic changes on the ground that have developed over the past four decades. Looking at a wide range of topics from control of water and electricity to healthcare and education, as well as surveillance and torture, Neve Gordon's panoramic account reveals a fundamental shift from a reliance on a politics of life--when, for instance, Israel helped Palestinians plant more than 600,000 trees in Gaza and provided farmers with improved varieties of seeds--to a macabre politics characterized by an increasing number of deaths. Drawing attention to the interactions, excesses, and contradictions created by the forms of control used in the Occupied Territories, Gordon argues that the occupation's very structure, rather than the policy choices of the Israeli government or the actions of various Palestinian political factions, has lead to this radical shift. Provocatively addressing difficult questions about why occupying forces in general are unable to normalize their rule, this book sheds new light on the way power, people, and place are shaped in this bitter ongoing conflict.
Neve Gordon teaches in the (https://israelsoccupation.info/content/about-author) Department of Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University, Israel. He has been a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and the Watson Institute at Brown University. During the first intifada, he was the director of Physicians for Human Rights – Israel. Gordon is the co-editor of Torture: Human Rights, Medical Ethics and the Case of Israel, the editor of From the Margins of Globalization: Critical Perspectives on Human Rights, and most recently the author of Israel's Occupation. His writings have appeared in numerous scholarly journals as well as in publications like The Guardian, The Nation, Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, Chronicle of Higher Education and The National Catholic Reporter.
toddwquigley
01-08-2009, 08:23 PM
Since you have studied this a lot, it makes it easier to respond to you. You are correct, at first the Israeli's tried to help the Palestinians, and then eventually they stopped and it has been neighbors that don't trust each other ever since, why? Yassar Arafat and the PLO.
The PLO started a war of terror (Now Hamas), and has been pointed out by everybody in the Levant, that in order to stop it, all the Palestinian people had to do was to give up the perpetrators, which of course they have never done.
It comes back to my analogy: Your brother comes over and beats up my sister because he feels disrespected, he then runs home and hides behind you, now you are as guilty as he is according to the law of all the lands. The Palestinian people are the reason that the PLO and now Hamas are able to survive, the same is true of all terrorists, somewhere they must have a home base and support, and invariably the more of them there are, the larger the support base must be. In the case of the Palestinians, there are enough terrorists, that there are not very many innocents.
I'm not going to get into land rights, because they lost and the Israelis won, and that's the way it is. The truth is that the Palestinians live at the mercy and grace of their benefactors and neighbors which are: Egypt, Jordan, Lebannon and Israel. In each case they have made themselves unwelcome by repeatedly biting the hand that feeds them.
Egypt just told them to leave, which means: "Sorry cousin, but we are tired of your bad attitude, and whether or not you have a good reason to have one doesn't really matter, because it has worn out your welcome, and we really don't want to piss off Israel over you, because you haven't earned our trust and respect".
Is this all very sad, is it sad when young children and women get hurt because of the actions of their menfolk? You bet it is, but what do you propose as an answer? Israel quite rightly will not negotiate with terrorists, and a good majority of the Palestinian men are members, or are in support of Hamas.
A mighty big mess it is, and I don't see anyanswer to it. The Palestinians have pissed off all the people the have tried to help them, and they don't have any friends left, yet still they stand on their milkcrate, and shake their fist. Still they keep using terror attacks to provoke Israel, and Israel of course retaliates. If you want to launch rockets from within your populace to within the Israeli populace, it should come as no surprise when the retaliate in kind.
It makes as much sense as attacking a hornets nest, and then complaining when they sting you. The first few times you might get some sympathy, but after a while nobody feels sorry for you any more. Thus is the case of the Palestinians: Nobody feels sorry for them anymore, and their ploy to stir up World opinion against Israel isn't working, because everybody just considers them to be angry fools. Again: They have pissed off ALL of their neighbors and potential benefactors.
It isn't a perfect World, and there really isn't any answer except for the Palestinians to go begging with hat in hand, and the members of Hamas trussed up and given as a peace offering.
I don't see this happening because of Islamic male pride, and thus I don't see an end to the drama.
MsTerry
01-08-2009, 09:27 PM
Todd, what if we just kill them all, wouldn't that solve the problem?
And since their rockets have killed a handfull of people in the last ten years, we should call it self defense!
It isn't a perfect World, and there really isn't any answer except for the Palestinians to go begging with hat in hand, and the members of Hamas trussed up and given as a peace offering.
I don't see this happening because of Islamic male pride, and thus I don't see an end to the drama.
toddwquigley
01-08-2009, 10:42 PM
There isn't really any answer that is acceptable to Israel except they stop ALL violence against Israel. That will just get a cessation of hostilities, if they want to get any sort of help, they are going to have to start acting recalcitrint.
I didn't make the rules, it's not my game, I'm just stating what the reality of the situation is.
A further reality is that Washington DC is commonly referred to as: "Tel Aviv West", which means that the USA will always stand behind Israel, right or wrong, regardless of who is in office because so much of the current ruling elite of our country is of Jewish origins.
The European Jews of the las century saw America as the promised land, and have been a big part of the ruling elite ever since. The State of Israel was financed largely by American Jews such as Ladi Lawrence.
FYI Sidebar: I grew up with Ladi Lawrence's grandchildren. His son David, married 3 time Olympic ski champion Andrea Mead Lawrence, who grew up skiing at the Von Trapp's (Sound of Music) family ski resort in Vermont, her children are like my extended family.
So, what you have is a vastly superior military force that will not deal with terrorists, backed by the World's biggest power who also will not deal with terrorists. This doesn't look very good for any further aggression from the Palestinians, yet there they were just a few days ago, launching rockets at Israeli civilians.
Does this make any sense? Like I said: It's like whacking a hornet's nest with a stick, and then crying when you get stung. Unfortunately you are up against the Islamic male machismo, which will not let the Palestinians back down and say they are sorry, and therefore, I don't see any happy answers to the problem.
What you have is a 3500+ year old problem, and there is no answer to it except the total destruction of one of the parties envolved, because neither side is going to back down. It is the same problem we face with Islam, which so many people don't want to believe.
People can complain all they want that Israel stole those lands, and the Jews will tell you that those lands have been their's since the days of Abraham (Whereupon they stole them from the Palestinians's ancestors), but the truth is the Jews hold those lands, and they hold all the cards, and they are not going to give up either of them.
Read the Koran, one the first precepts of Islam is that the World shall be a 100% Islamic World by whatever means necessary. We (The Western-non-Islamic World) have been fighting this battle since the beginning of recorded history. There is no happy outcome where we all live together peacefully, because as long as both side exist, the battle is joined to the death. You can wish for it, but only a fool would bet on it.
Like I said: I didn't make the rules, it is what it is. You can back down and be nice to Islam, but they just take it as a sign of weakness and use it against you, because the ultimate goal of a 100% Islamic World has not yet happened, and they will not let up until it is so. You can't change their mind with reasoning, you can't use logic, the World will either be 100% Islamic, or they will all die trying. Certainly there are Muslims that don't believe in these precepts, but they are not the majority, and they are not the ones in charge, and they will never will be, because of the way that Islam is.
I find so many people that think that we can just reason with them, and they will want to live in peace, and these people are so deluded. They don't want peace, they don't want to be our friends, it's not going to happen no matter how much you wish for it. If you put down your weapons, they will just take the opportunity to attack. This is how the World has been for 4000+ years, and especially the last 1200+ years since Mohommad , and wishful thinking is not going to change anything, except to give them an opening.
Believe me, I completely wish it wasn't so, but it is...
Pretty sad, but that's how it is.
toddwquigley
01-08-2009, 11:17 PM
I have never had a homeless person I helped ever do anything more than thank me. Todd when you throw a quarter at a homeless persons head they might react badly, but if you actually try to help them with only a quarter the odds are they will be grateful. If you try warming the block of ice you call your heart you might find something good. I hope for the new year you can stop hating yourself and then you may find it less easy to hate so many others. Yes the Palestinians have a bad reputation in the middle east amongst other Arab groups, but they have not in fact been fairly paid for what little land was taken by "imminent domain" and have not been paid at all for much of the land that Israel has seized.
Yet more assumptions on your part:
I lived near the park in SF, my experiences with the homeless are a little different than yours. Give them a buck (a quarter doesn't go very far) and they are only grateful to your face. The vast majority of the homeless are so because that is how they want to be. They don't want to take part in society and play by society's rules. They don't have any respect for society.
I have been one of those homeless people. I got myself on the street by my own actions, and after wallowing in self pity for a while, I got myself off the street by my own actions. It's not hard really, IF you WANT to do it.
There are so many programs for those who are down on their luck in Sonoma County, that it is known as the place to go by the homeless all up and down the West Coast. Why do you think we have such a disproportionate number of homeless in Sonoma?
In the case of the vast majority of the homeless, you are not helping them when you give them money, you are ENABLING them, because they do not want to be part of society. If they honestly want off the street, there is a ton of help available to them. Those that want off the street, find a way off the street. Even the serious drug addicts and mentally ill eventually get caught by the sytem and get help. Whether they accept this help, is up to them.
I know this from personal experience. I decided that there was no reason to take that help, because I could do it on my own. It was amazing, I worked for a couple hours unloading and stacking river rock for a landscape contractor, and spent that money on some clean clothes at the thrift store, and a shower at the campground. The next morning I hung out on the corner with the Mexicans and did day labor for a while until I could afford a room, and it was all uphill from there.
Since then, I have been very careful whom I give money to, if they look and act as though they are trying to go somewhere in their life, I am very generous, but for the person that just wants money to drink and cus out society, I don't have anything.
I certainly dont hate myself, I love myself very much, and I don't hate anyone.
I had a friend that wound up on the street a couple of years ago, and it was very sad to see, but everything I gave her was just enabling her, and it was very hard for me to say no, and step away. Eventually, she hit bottom, and started the climb back up. Ever since then I have tried to help her in any way I can. This Christmas I spent about $1500 (which is a lot to me) on a new computer, and some new dress clothes for her, so that she could make a success of herself. She has already used them to get a better job. To me, it was money well spent, and I thank God that he allowed me to help her when she really needed it.
As far as the Palestinians go, read my other posts: I didn't make the rules, nor the situation, and there is no pretty answer. The Palestinians are not the great victim they claim to be. Their bad behavior has come home to roost, and instead of reassesing the situation, and coming up with a plan to get along, they have continued with their acts of terrorism.
Did the Jews short them on recompensing for Iminent domain? Yes, but several years ago the county did the same thing to me, and I didn't launch suicide attacks and rockets against them.
toddwquigley
01-09-2009, 12:37 AM
Here's Bob Simon's interview on Charlie Rose regarding the mega mess in Gaza. Bob has lived in Israel for years, and has a very realistic, non-partisan view.
Charlie Rose - A conversation with Bob Simon (https://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/9900)
He really lays it out there that there really isn't any pretty answer, and it's just going to continue on as it has been with just worsening arparthide, unless a US President were to mandate that Israel withdraw all it 300,000+ settlers from Gaza at the threat of cutting off all aid and relations with the USA. Since The ruling elite of America are predominately of Jewish ancestory, this isn't likely, as any President that did so would find himself quickly un-empowered by the ruling elite that own all of our Media, Mega Corporations, Financial Institutions, Congressmen and Senators, (IE: The Jews).
What a mess....
MsTerry
01-09-2009, 10:15 AM
If you listen closely to this interview. you'll hear that Bob squarely puts the blame on Israel for the current mess by allowing these settlements to proliferate and stand in the way of peace.
Here's Bob Simon's interview on Charlie Rose regarding the mega mess in Gaza. Bob has lived in Israel for years, and has a very realistic, non-partisan view.
Charlie Rose - A conversation with Bob Simon (https://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/9900)
He really lays it out there that there really isn't any pretty answer, and it's just going to continue on as it has been with just worsening arparthide, unless a US President were to mandate that Israel withdraw all it 300,000+ settlers from Gaza at the threat of cutting off all aid and relations with the USA. Since The ruling elite of America are predominately of Jewish ancestory, this isn't likely, as any President that did so would find himself quickly un-empowered by the ruling elite that own all of our Media, Mega Corporations, Financial Institutions, Congressmen and Senators, (IE: The Jews).
What a mess....
Neshamah
01-09-2009, 11:33 AM
At least we all agree the media is biased.
The Middle East is a big place; Israel is about the size of New Jersey. Israel nonetheless absorbed about 600,000 Jewish refugees from other parts of the Arab world in 1948. Yet, the Arab world refused, and after 60 years continues to refuse, to absorb the then similar number of Arab refugees. It is long overdue for the world community to pressure Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan to grant citizenship to the refugees and resettle them in permanent homes. Israel cannot be expected to solve this all by itself.
Alternative fuels have been slow in coming, but they are coming. The world's dependence on Mideast oil will wane, and with it will wane the Arab world's ability to coerce world policy against Israel.
I was going to stay out of this discussion, but while I am here, let me remind everyone that 'Palestine' is a region of the world and is no more limited to non-Jews than 'America' is to the United States. The Arab world's successful co-opting of 'Palestinian' to mean non-Jewish and that there must therefore be a 'Palestinian' state (other than Jordan) is a perfect example of language being changed to artificially shift the dialogue.
The refugees caught in the middle of all this are no more to blame than Israel, and the ones not directly targeting innocents deserve our sympathy and a concerted effort from all the countries that have done them wrong. However, the solution to this problem has to involve responsibility from the entire Middle East, not just Israel and U.S. diplomats.
~ Neshamah
toddwquigley
01-09-2009, 12:22 PM
As Neshamah points out, there are 4 other countries that should take part in accomodating the Palestinians, and they will not, leaving it all up to Israel.
Is it any surprise that 300,000+ Israelis personally decided to settle in Gaza in order to try and stop the Palestinians from getting a seperate country? I'm not saying that it's sompletely right, but I can certainly see their point that Israel should not have to give up land to accomodate the Palestinians when there are 3 other nations, with plenty of land to accomodate them, and therefore why should Israel be the one to bear all the burden, why could not their Arab brothers take them in.
As far as the violence, this can all be laid in the lap of Hamas, but as I note: Hamas permeates the Palestinian people to the pint that there are few innocents among the Palestinian menfolk.
As Bob Simon notes: Israel has made all the accomodations they are going to make, unless the Palestinians want to move to the Golan Heights, but I'll bet that Syria doesn't like them any more than Egypt does.
It all comes back to two big questions:
Why must Israel be the only ones to accomodate them?, which leads to question number two:
Why won't their Arab brothers accomodate them?
The answer is that they have made themselves unwelcome throughout the Levant by their bad behavior.
The Egyptians, Israelis, Jordanians, Lebanese, and Syrians, have all learned to live together without constantly attacking each other, and nobody wants to break that uneasy peace, because they all know what happens when you go to war with Israel: You lose.
Everybody wants to tray to live in peace EXCEPT the Palestinians.
Thank Yassar Arafat (Thank God he died) for spending his life stirring up trouble for no other reason than male Muslim Machismo. Thank Hamas for perpetuating this.
Had these idiots not stirred up the Palestinian males, the Palestinians would have been accomodated a long time ago.
Here's the root of the problem: Nobody is going to accomodate the Palestinians as long as they harbor and support people like Hamas.
And nobody should be expected to either. It comes back to the Palestinians, the ball is in their court: They can either band together, and disown Hamas, and come begging hat in hand, or they can stay in refugee camps and be treated as second class citizens for eternity, because as long as they keep up these acts of terrorism, nobody in the Levant feels sorry for them. World opinion is against terrorists, regardless of the "correctness", of their cause, and nobody is going to give in to it.
They problem is the behavior of the Palestinians, only if their behavior changes will the problem resolve itself.
MsTerry
01-09-2009, 12:29 PM
Are we to assume that Israel is not just a place for Jews???
Are you saying that the Arabs living in Israel have the same rights as Jews???
Are you forgetting that Jews are automatically a citizen of Israel no matter where they live???
Please don't spread more of this base Israeli Propaganda
I was going to stay out of this discussion, but while I am here, let me remind everyone that 'Palestine' is a region of the world and is no more limited to non-Jews than 'America' is to the United States. The Arab world's successful co-opting of 'Palestinian' to mean non-Jewish and that there must therefore be a 'Palestinian' state (other than Jordan) is a perfect example of language being changed to artificially shift the dialogue.
~ Neshamah
toddwquigley
01-10-2009, 02:15 PM
https://www.onenewsnow.com/uploadedImages/Media/Images/hamas_supporter.jpgA former Palestinian terrorist says the West continues to pursue a failed idea that somehow terrorism against Israel will stop when the Palestinians get their own homeland.</STORYLEAD>
<STORYBODY>Walid Shoebat is a former member of the Palestine Liberation Organization and a convert to Christianity. He now runs the Walid Shoebat Foundation (https://www.shoebat.com/), which is an organization that cries out for the justice of Israel and the Jewish people. Shoebat, author of the recently published God's War on Terror: Islam, Prophecy and the Bible, believes the recent terrorist rocket attacks by Hamas have nothing to do with wanting a Palestinian homeland.
"The core issue is not an issue of land whatsoever. It's an issue of wiping the state of Israel out. If you look at even suicide bombing -- historically, if you look from 1980 until 2003, let's say -- 224 suicide bombings out of 300 existed in Islamic countries with no occupation whatsoever," he notes. "So it's not simply the desire to create a Palestinian state. It is the desire to destroy the Jewish state, and that's what we see."
https://www.onenewsnow.com/uploadedImages/Media/Images/20070117WalidShoebat.jpgShoebat contends this effort is being carried out by a huge network of Islamic enemies. "It's a rebel network involved between Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran, Syria. Many Islamic countries are involved in this," he points out. "Saudi Arabia was funding...this kind of thing. So it's a huge network that we're dealing with."