The Gaza War: Is It Really So Hard to Understand?
But why, more than one reporter from highly reputable publications has asked me, is Israel attacking Gaza now? At first, I was astonished. Then I answered: because Hamas canceled the ceasefire and started massive rocket firings at Israel.
No, they responded, as if I had said something rude. Isn’t it the election, or an attempt to stop the tunnels, or this or that reason?
Absolutely not, I say, it’s like Pearl Harbor or September 11. If someone announces they are going to go to war with you and then does it, you retaliate and fight.
At that point, the reporters seem to lose interest and bring the interview to an end, as if clearly a person who can say such things is not going to provide any rational analysis. Yet if one cannot even understand this most basic fact, what comprehension can there be of this issue or, indeed, of Middle East politics in general?
There are reasons, however, for this response. Large elements in the West find it very hard to “get,” that is to understand, Hamas or the Palestinians in general — or, for that matter, Islamists in general, or Arabs in general, or Muslims in general — albeit with all the many variations and exceptions.
The problem with pragmatism
Today, people ask, why didn’t the Jews of Poland understand the Nazis were going to wipe them out, at least in the earlier period when escape or revolt was more possible? According to contemporary and later eyewitness testimony, because they didn’t think Germans would act in such an unpragmatic manner.
After all, hundreds of thousands of Jews were involuntarily contributing to the German war effort. They were making clothes, repairing roads, growing food. Why should the Third Reich destroy a highly effective, very cheap, and low-problem labor force, thus crippling itself and helping to ensure that it lost the war?
Answer: ideology. A doctrine and belief system will make people act in a way that doesn’t fit pragmatic expectations. Why should Hamas start a war against a stronger power? Due to believing itself to be stronger and its need to mobilize mass support. Why should Palestinian leaders reject a state even if it means the end of an increasingly small degree of “occupation”? Due to belief that total victory is inevitable, that compromise is treason, and that their enemies are satanic.
The solvency of solutions
The other big question asked is: what is the solution? How can, as some say, peace be attained? How can Israel, others say, eliminate Hamas? The presumption is that the first or the second is easy, or at least possible.
Answer: Wrong. This is the Middle East; we don’t do solutions. Hamas is not going to disappear, nor will it be moderate. Israel, for good reasons, has no interest in occupying the Gaza Strip. Fatah is incapable of retaking control there.
This situation will go on and probably end in some new ceasefire. Hamas will break the ceasefire a bit every week and smash it altogether every six to eighteen months, repeating the current situation. That isn’t the ideal outcome but it is by far the most likely one.
The unbearable lightness of gratitude
No matter how much diplomatic aid, sympathy, or money the West gives Hamas — and it has saved Hamas and the PLO over and over from their own mistakes — they will not become grateful or pro-Western. Anti-Western and anti-American sentiment is too valuable and too widespread to disappear. The Palestinians — and Iran’s regime, and Syria’s government, and Hezbollah, and other Islamists — need scapegoats. Who else are they going to blame for their problems? Themselves?
If you save the terrorists today, they will commit more terrorism tomorrow. If you let them escape the consequences of their own extremism, you can guarantee they will stay extremist and take a lot of the masses with them.
The reality of reality
In some ways, the most important — or at least second most important — thing to happen in the Middle East this week is that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah went too far, calling for the overthrow of Egypt’s government.
Egypt’s Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit responded, “They have actually declared war on Egypt.” And when he says “they” he means Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas. The Saudis and Gulf Arabs are also drawing lines deeper than ever before. Publicly and loudly, they look at Gaza and see Arabs and Muslims, and criticize Israel. More softly in public and loudly in private they look at Gaza and see the Iranian axis.
This is the Middle East of 2008 and not of 1958, 1968, 1978, 1988, or 1998. The Palestinian issue has little effect on any other issue. The real conflict is Iran-Syria against Egypt-Saudi Arabia. Islamists are seeking to conquer the region from Arab nationalists. Radical groups are not interested in happy homelands but jihad and genocide.
And so the issue is not why Israel is attacking Hamas in Gaza now, but why Hamas in Gaza is attacking Israel now.
The MSM, with few exceptions, did not report the week-long bombardment of several hundred rockets and mortars by Hamas of Israeli towns and cities along the border with Gaza.
If they did report it, they waited several days and/or relegated the news to short items in back pages.
The MSM, with few exceptions, also did not report that Hamas decided unequivocally not to extend the cease-fire it had agreed to several months before.
If they did report it, it was done in an equivocating manner (e.g., “Hamas may agree to extend the cease-fire”, or “Hamas has agreed to extend the cease-fire”, or “Israel may not agree to extend the cease-fire”) and/or relegated to the back pages.
The MSM, with few exceptions did not stress Israeli warnings to Hamas not to continue firing rockets and mortars into Israeli towns, warnings that lasted a week (but alas never happened, since they were not reported).
And so, reporters seem—honestly—to believe the dishonesty they have propogated: that the war only began when Israel decided that enough was enough. Certainly they have led their readership to believe so. Along with the belief that all Palestinian casualties are civilian victims of Israeli butchery. Not a “militant” among them.
Of course, we have seen all this before. And so while it comes as no surprise, one wonders—one continues to wonder—where such stunning, vile, almost universal prevarication will lead.
It should be no surprise that you got that response from the reporters. Most of those working in the Mass Media tend to be left wingers and the rise of antisemitism in the ranks of the left is becoming irrefutable to anyone with an objective mind. Being anti Israel or anti Zionist is just a cover for hating Jews and has become the new way to establish one’s socialist creds. The most incomprehensible thing of all is the spectacle of left wing Jews who value their Marxism over the survival of their own people.
You are right. Many Westerners don’t “get” the Islamists at all. They think they are just mildly annoyed people with a fair and clear political objective. The naivety is incredible!
Missing from this is the most obvious….once Dumbo becomes president expect the State department to be entirely non-supportive of anything Israel does. The US will then be participating in a diplomatic blockade of Israel led by the Hamas hugging Hillary.
The MSM are as usual only minimally right…it is about the “election”, but it is the results of the US election not about campaigning for the Israeli vote.
This is their last moment of support from Washington. If they are smart they will take out Iran too before Dumbo arrives.
What the other commenters are saying is that the MSM is today’s Der Stuermer, a collective Joseph Goebbels.
They are not journalists. They are terrorists dedicated to exterminating the Jews.
And Israel should treat them exactly as any other terrorists. To put it bluntly, kill them.
What will the Europeans do about it? Kick and scream and express outrage? None of them have the military to seriously attack Israel.
You are so wrong in your fundamental analysis. This is NOT like Pearl Harbor in so many ways. But I will only discuss the most important.
Japan did not have its stated goal the destruction of the USA. They wanted some territories and more power in the world. Wiping the USA “off the face of the map” was not a stated goal.
Hamas says that they will wipe Israel “off the face of the map.” They say it in print, on TV on radio and in their published papers etc.
So Israel instead of fighting an effective war and maximizing Palestinian casualties, chooses to allow humanitarian aid and put their soldiers in harms way so as not to have Palestinian civilian casualties.
War is ugly. The first Iraq war made a pretense of targeting just military assets through the use of guided munitions. But guided munitions were designed to protect pilots and make hitting the right targets efficient, not to protect civilians. It is by making life untenable for civilians that you get surrender, victory and the end of fighting.
This natural result of war has been short circuited by the new rules of engagement.
Want to stop the fighting in Gaza? Blockade everything, turn off power and carpet bomb from the Gaza-Israeli border inwards to Gaza until the missiles stop. Let it be up to the Palestinians if they want to stop on their own or if they no longer capable of sending missiles.
#4 is on to something. Iran, through Hamas, has provoked Israel into expending a lot of munitions, which may not be so easily replenished after Jan 20. Has Israel enough left to give Iran a thorough scrubbing?
Tell me again: What has Israel ever done for us, except interfere with our elections, spy on our government, steal our military secrets and sell them to our enemies, and endlessly thwart our own foreign policy imperatives in the Middle East?
This whole “our pal Israel” sentiment is utterly unfathomable.
Well said 6. SAF:
Your one of the few ppl that understand the different between war… and “actionable/gunboat diplomacy”.
I have many debated with euro trash all the time that say things like hamas and hez “shouldn’t” target civs… and in the same statement say that israel is just as bad has hamas and hez…
The key word is “shouldn’t” they shouldn’t do it but its ok if they do… because in our minds israel purposely targets civs as well.
You can ask pretty any anti-israel person on this issue and its also the same they “should target the israel military” or “they shouldn’t civs”…. its never “Yes they are evil terrorist purposely targeting civs”. The rare time you get ppl to admit that hamas and hez are evil they also turn around and same israel is completely the same.
This moral equivalence game is how stupid ppl run themselves into a circle and justify terrorism… because either they bring hamas and hez up to the moral equals of israel…. or more commonly they bring israel down to the moral equals of terrorists.
Another argument I love hearing is the “hitler was right argument”… however they are so poorly educated in history they don’t even know they are repeating hitler propaganda. The classic hitler propaganda basically amounted to “the jews are rich and have everything… and we have nothing… all our problems must be their fault”. Its a classic leftist whine vs both jews but more targeted at capitalist… which was the main reason why the jews are hated in many countries(at least in the past because the stereotype of a jew was a capitalist).
This is part of the argument by a euro trash that posted in another forum…
“Israel has a thriving economy, a ‘first-world’ standard of living, a strong military etc etc
Palestinians have a ghetto.”
The context is very clear that somehow the palestinians only reason for being in a ghetto is all israels fault… while the only reason why israel has all those great thing is because they are exploiting/stealing them from the palestinians. I’d post the whole thing but is many pages long. However everyone should be able to easily find their own version of this type of propaganda used all the time… dare try to point out that hitler used the same exact argument and watch what happens…
“What has Israel ever done for us…”
Indeed, Rotwang. Why would we want to ally ourselves with the only stable, free democracy in the Middle East?
We should be fellating the Arabic 9th-century, fascist, murderous, barbarians bent on world domination!
To win a war you first have to find the determination to fight a war–not a police action, but a blood-and-guts war, where the purpose is to crush the enemy to the point where they no longer have the will to resist. The Palestinians continue to hope and dream of doing this to the Israelis, buoyed up in large measure by misguided support in the West. This is what keeps the fires of their fanaticism burning. The Israelis, on the other hand, have never responded in kind. Until they do, the the situation will simply go on and on, rockets and reprisals, rockets and reprisals.
What has Israel ever done for us, except interfere with our elections, spy on our government, steal our military secrets and sell them to our enemies, and endlessly thwart our own foreign policy imperatives in the Middle East?
Rotwang, are you a Euro-nazi or an Islamo-nazi? It’s so hard to tell the two apart lately.
What has Israel ever done for us? From Wiki:
Israeli contributions to science and technology have been significant. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, Israel has worked in science and engineering. Israeli scientists have contributed in the areas of genetics, medicine, agriculture, computer sciences, electronics, optics, solar energy, engineering and other high-tech industries.
Israeli science is particularly well known for its military technology, from simple submachine guns like the Uzi, ranging to advanced anti-ballistic defense systems – like the Arrow. Moreover, Israel is among the small group of nations in the world that have the capability to launch satellites into orbit (the others include the USA, Russia, China, Japan, India, and some European nations through the ESA).
As a dry land, Israel has pioneered in advanced agricultural technology such as water-conserving irrigation methods, anaerobic digestion, salinity research, enriched compost, irrigation, and enhanced genetic engineered crops. Dry lands which have peace with Israel have received aid from and/or collaborated with Israeli experts in order to improve desert agriculture and produce more food. Israel has a world-wide reputation in this area.
Israel also has a high reputation in theoretical physics. Israeli physicists tend to deal more with theoretical and conceptual aspects of physics, especially in questions of time and space, and the paradoxes and strange phenomena of quantum mechanics.
Israel is also known for its well-developed and revolutionary medicine. Israel medical researchers and surgeons have worldwide reputation, in searching for new cures as well in high technology and reliability. Recently, a group of researchers from the Weizmann Institute developed a molecular biocomputer to assist in cancer research.
Which foreign policy imperatives does Israel thwart, our “friendship” with the Saudi sponsors of 9/11, Hamas and al Qaeda? Our friendship with Vlad “Polonium 210″ Putin?
Brain Drain…
“Name one- 1 -thing the Arabs have ever done for us except triple the price of oil to pay for their socialist sucking peoples and terrorist operations?”
Apart from being pioneers in medical research and science hundereds of year before anybody else.
My guess you are just an ignorant idiot.
I am by no means anti Israeli, but your completely disproportionate response in Gaza 2008 was a complete crime against humanity, and i personally hope that all of your generals are hung out to dry for war crimes in the Hague.
Many of these bloggers here accuse the Arabs of planning genocide, when you have no qualms about the indiscriminate murder of hundreds of innocent Palestinians.
Many of these bloggers accuse Europeans of being anti-israeli. Can you blame them??
And Israel should treat them exactly as any other terrorists. To put it bluntly, kill them.
You’re not seriously suggesting that Israel should target and cap Anderson Cooper…are you? Because reporters are required to be unarmed, and targeting them would be a violation of every moral and civil law out there..
Rotwang #8: Israel does not need a justification for its existence anymore than does the United States or Liechtenstein. It exists. Period.
As to why the United States needs Israel, if you cannot think of why, then you need to consult the web more. Try israel21c.com.
About thwarting US foreign policy initiatives, you had better visit Europe before you decide that things ought to change in America. Some changes are not reversible, you know.
Regarding Israel spying on the US, the US does the same to Israel in spades. You ought to know as well that the US profits from Israel’s military technology including but not limited to UAVs that have helped prosecute the war in Afghanistan, thus keeping terrorism from our shores.
With regard to interfering in US elections, did you know that Clinton sent his PR men to Israel to aid Olmert against Netanyahu in the last election. That is pretty direct intervention. This is a case of the the pot calling the kettle black.
My guess is that you simply would prefer if Israel disappeared. You first, friend!
Name one- 1 -thing the Arabs have ever done for us except triple the price of oil to pay for their socialist sucking peoples and terrorist operations?
I guess the 9/11 killings of 3000+ Americans was sponsored by AVON?
Name One-? One invention?- Name One – of their religions that doesn’t believe it is OK to cut off heads and hands to increase membership?
Name One – you troll?
I will check back all day.
Israel is fully justified in attacking and continuing to attack Hamas and all of the Gaza Strip. If someone was shooting rockets into the US, we wouldn’t stop until they stopped. There is no reason for Israel to stop! As for the fact that wars kill people this is nothing new to most people except in the media. You go to war to kill enough of your enemy so that they no longer want to wage war against you. Ask Germany and Japan about the effectiveness of this strategy.
We have reached a point where there is an idea that only soldiers die in wars, but that is not the case in reality. You need to kill the enemy and that includes civilians because they support the state with which you are waging war. I am not saying purposely target civilians and kill unarmed people in the streets, but if they are around military targets and get killed it is a sad fact of life. How quickly we forget the fire bombings and the V2 rockets. If you don’t like getting bombed day in and day out then force your government to sue for peace, but that doesn’t mean that you will necessarily get it, unless it is unconditional surrender. Some countries really take offense to being attacked by others and will not stop until there is an unconditional surrender, which means a lot of dead citizens(see again Germany and Japan).
Israel has every right to keep bombing and bombing until the citizens of the Gaza do something to stop the rockets. If that means changing government leadership, great. If it takes thousands of dead people to get to that point, then it is sad but their own fault. This is what is wrong with the world today, we prevent self protection of one group because it isn’t nice to their sworn enemy who wants nothing more to wipe them off the face of the earth. If it was happening here in America, we would not stop until the last one of them begged for unconditional surrender.
You mention striking back after 9/11. If I would be unfair, I would say that this is exactly one reason not to attack Hamas with military power. As striking back – mainly in Iraq – was completely disastrous in its main purpose and raised terrorism popularity in the Islamic world and destabilized a region.
Israel has given in its helplessness after Rabin’s death a major reinforcement to Hamas, giving Gaza as a pit of dust to the Palestinians and believing that locking them out – or locking them in, how you want to see it – will solve all the problems.
In fact, there should have been a reliable amount of repay for what they call their land and has been taken from them by power and force to form the Jewish state.
But, if you tell us that ideology is not following pragmatic ways, that belongs not only to the ideology of the “bad guys”. For me I understand that Israel is quite not free of lethal ideology, spread by well-respected hardliners and spiritual dignitaries, whose expressions are not unlike to those of their so-called enemies.
This ideology is close interleaved with religion and mixes (in a matter of modern serenity) incomparable archaic history with present claims.
It is quite understandable that the ideology of the Chosen has become a major part of the self-identification of the Jewish folks, after what happened under Nazi-Germany. But – and this is a great, big but – if you claim from others to understand that and the subsequent actions Israel had to take to establish its position on the map, you cannot claim to negate the history of the people who suffered from.
So, what we have is a constellation that could not other than have led to the current situation. We have a People that dictates since about more than 50 years how and where another people have to live. Their common community is, where obligatory intermixed, in fact divided into Israeli and Arabic Israeli with disadvantage to the Arabic Israeli, additionally stabilized by the overall presence of Israeli military. Where both people cannot live in common, the stabilization by military forces is taken essential over decades, and this is a major fault, because the military has to be primarily reliable for its owner, and too, military has not to fulfil many human/social/ethical pretensions, but only to maintain security and order.
When we take a look at the progress of the last decade, we will find a strong descent in life-quality since the last (and even first) try of make a way to peace. This is a good base for growing such groups like Hamas. You can every time feed such groups with injustice, suppression, recklessness and whatever punishment. Those on the other side can always see themselves as honourably fighting guerrilla, if you give them a chance. In this case the chance was taken with putting 1.5 millions of them into a deserted encampment, where merely some thousands of your own could hardly survive, and make them dependent from you in most parts of infrastructure. Also, you suspect (I admire that it is reasonable) permanently dangerous and criminal activity there, and blockade the area often (also not unreasoned).
Now, excuse me, you can’t say I am partial or ignorant to the suffering of the rulers of the country because of assaults, when they always act with military brains, when they always show their advantages to the others, dishonouring them with visible pleasure. I say, such a behaviour over a long time must evolve to the current situation and that it is pure logical, that Hamas was elected for leadership after the more moderate groups in their society were weakened also by Israeli – harsh word – incompetence (of solving problems).
I have the strong impression that Israel is not willing to take responsibility for the gift of a homeland. Responsibility doesn’t mean simple evacuation, simple exclusion, or simple use of the elbows. It means also to incorporate that the gift was not given by the original owners. It means also to avoid hypocrisy and claiming archaic rights only for having an argument.
Feel free now to push me as a terrorist’s friend, but I say honestly, I don’t like those Palestinians very much, but I also won’t misjudge them (permanently).
I’m hoping the Israelis can destroy or seriously weaken Hamas AND convince ordinary Palestinians that supporting Hamas and other rocket-shooting organizations is more dangerous than it’s worth. Absolutely not getting my hopes up too high, though. For some reason, the Israelis always seem to stop well short of success.
Israelis are smarter than we could ever imagine.
Israel knows that if the Palestinians are ever totally removed,
they would be under constant long range attack.
Even Saddam Hussein refused to attack with his nerve gas Scud missiles.
What if one of the Iraq missiles had missed its target and killed 4,000 Palestinians?
Iran would never attack with nuke rockets unless they could place said nuke in the middle of Israel.
Turning Gaza into a sea of glass and killing 1,000,000 Palis would cause the Unman to come out of his 1,000 year old well and kick Iranian ass.
The old saying ‘keep your friends close and your enemies closer’ could never have worked any better.
If you happen to read the writings of Fjordman, Takuan Seiko, or El Englaes to name just a few, you will come to understand the real enemy to the Western World is not some third world morons, but leftist elitists.
Remember how Mussolini ended up? Keep this in mind for when IT hits the fan.
Brain Drain:
Yes you have figured it out it was Avon!
Mary Madigan:
“You’re not seriously suggesting that Israel should target and cap Anderson Cooper…are you? Because reporters are required to be unarmed, and targeting them would be a violation of every moral and civil law out there..”
Maybe not Anderson Cooper (I don’t want to hit Americans anyway, and Anderson is more clueless than malicious), but Euro-terrorists with the BBC and continental propaganda outlets? Yes, absolutely.
If they are lying and distorting to vilify any attempt by Jews to defend themselves against Nazis (which is what Hamas proudly is), then they are guilty of laying the groundwork for the Second Holocaust by stating that the Nazis are good and the Jews are evil. They are doing exactly what Goebbels did — a little more slickly, but the same nevertheless. And remember, we did sentence Goebbels on war crimes charges.
For Israel, this is a war of survival. If she has to play by a “moral law” that results in her own annihilation, then that law is not “moral”, is it? Maybe you should ask the Euro-propagandists about the “moral law” of vilifying Jews for defending themselves against rabid Nazi savages and thus condemning us to extinction.
Besides, threatening journalists with death for bad press seems to work for the Jihadists, doesn’t it?
There are no clean hands on either side in the conflict over this wasteland/backwater of the old Ottoman empire. This generations-old tribal warfare will end either when one of the tribes realizes that it’s no longer worth the cost or it gets so soft/mechanized that it can no longer “fix bayonets” in order to defend itself.
Yes, propaganda works, unfortunately. The journalists who are endowed with a sponge where you might expect to find a brain can’t even defend themselves against propagating the poison as a mere side-effect of breathing. This is where the power of Hamas, Hez & Co and their cohort of apologists comes from.
What can we do? We can teach critical thinking to our children. They just love it. Why deprive them? As far as this goes, I expect the soldiers to be among the best parents. They have faced the problem, and some have paid with their life for it.
There is something noteworthy this time around: Egypt and Saudi Arabia, while spewing the ritualistic and predictable insults, are quietly hoping that Israel will help them get rid of Iran’s ideological tentacles.
We should keep in mind that Persia was transformed into a Muslim nation. It was originally based on something else, whatever is left of it. Can ideological torpedoes execute a U-turn maneuver after a millenium?
Barry (first comment): When Hamas declined to renew the “ceasefire” (which they violated daily anyway), I watched the MSM closely and took daily notes. You are exactly correct. The MSM is dishonest, which is to say that they, frankly, are liars. I don’t need my “news” from dishonest sources, so I check the blogs, Pajamas Media, and I signed up for a news think tank, Stratfor, out of my hometown of Austin, Texas. The service is not expensive, a lot less expensive than being misinformed.
Ha.
These Islamic loving leftists think we should rid the world of Jews and fill the vacuum with Muslims.
Spain changed their government after the Islamic subway bombings!
England has suffered bus bomb attacks from pacifist views of Mosques!
And everyone in Paris France gets a new car after the Islamic youths burn all the old ones! Most of the ‘youths’ attackers are drawing social funds and have free health care?
America has enough problems, we don’t need the European vision of a new world order.
To 17. knossos:
“You mention striking back after 9/11. If I would be unfair, I would say that this is exactly one reason not to attack Hamas with military power. As striking back – mainly in Iraq – was completely disastrous in its main purpose and raised terrorism popularity in the Islamic world and destabilized a region.”
This argument is peace nik propaganda based on knowing nothing…
This argument would only be correct if we lost iraq and the terrorist groups were able to gain control… which so far they haven’t. Also as long as obama don’t give iraq to them this argument will be completely moot. However lets look at the propaganda that surrounds this argument.
First and most of all this argument assumes that arabs/muslims are completely peaceful and love the US. It also assumes that causing terror in the US is as easy as in iraq.
The iraq war didn’t cause any “raise” is arba/muslim terrorism/terrorist counts. It made it easier for those who wanted to fight against the US to have a place to go. Unlike Afghanistan which was out in the boondocks with little way for ppl to get to expect through long travel across very rough terrain… iraq is at the center of many countries all with large airport systems and many many road ways that will let ppl in quickly. Plus the fact that pretty much any muslim can get a passport to Saudi Arabia saying they want to goto mecca this makes flying very easy. This made for very easy travel and recruitment to the battlefield. The overwhelming vast majority of the numbers of supposed “terrorism popularity” is directly related to the fact that for the first time they could actively and easily commit acts of terror against their target the US.
You can see this effect in gaza and the west bank. Hamas has huge numbers of supporters actively launching rockets/committing terror vs israel. While their is no doubt that their is likely a higher number of the percent of population that wants to inflict harm to israel the vast majority the action is because its very very easy to do the action… not from some lack of ppl willing to due it. They can walk into any hamas recruitment center and say “hey today’s a great day to launch a rocket are israel… mind if i join you?”. They can even using basic machine tools to create their own rockets to launch at local targets. Gaza doesn’t somehow have some massively larger number of terrorists who want to commit terror vs other arab/muslim countries around the world… they just have the easier means to do it.
This applies very much to iraq… their wasn’t some massive surge in anti-US terrorism because of iraq but because it was very easier to get to iraq…
Its alot easier to get a passport to some arab country, spend a few hundred dollars on a plane ticket, find a recruitment center in your home country or in one of the neighboring arab countries, link up to your group of terrorist friends, find weapons and not just weapons but powerful weapons, be able to force the local population to either supply you or maybe even protect you.
Vs
Trying to get a US passport, spending thousands of dollars to fly to the US, having a very hard time finding a local cell to join up with, having a very hard time getting weapons, you have no local support and you can’t go around threatening ppl demanding they obey you.
In the short term iraq has killed off up to hundreds of thousands of targets that already hated the US. It didn’t really raise any more tension and hate then most already feel about the US…
In the long term if iraq works out it will greatly improve our imagine in the region. The number of terrorist/anti-US forces we killed will be replaced by a new breed of propaganda feed morons so the death numbers are meaningless(unless we are able to counter the propaganda…which is very doubtful).
David Horowitz was so correct in his book “Unholy Alliance.” The downfall of the West, including Israel, is the legions of cultural Marxists who have made a deal with the Devil. Islam and the Hard and Soft Left are converged for the sake of destroying our heritage, our religions, our culture, our unique and beneficent civilization. Every year it keeps getting worse. In Europe and North America they grow stronger and more disruptive.
Until we wake up and realize that we are in the fight of our lives, I’m afraid things are going to continue to drift this way. Nothing good is going to come of this.
This Israeli counter-attack into Gaza has really brought out the Anti-Semites. Sure they are willing to sympathize with dead Jews but living Jews are another matter. Today’s Nazis are both intellectual and physical cowards. The real Nazis were both proud of what they did and not afraid of doing it. No Holocaust denial for them! Our new progressive neo-Nazis maintain their moral self-righteousness by tut-tuting both sides while they root for Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran to wipe out the Jews. They are cowards who wish to keep their hands “clean.” so they can continue their moral preening. The only time that Progressives could be open with their Nazi sympathies was from the opening of WWII until Hitler invaded the USSR. It was a time when Progressivism and Nazism walked hand-in-hand.
Oh, give rotvang a break. He isn’t necessarily motivated by rabid Jew-hatred, although many on the left are. A pro-US, democratic country just sets his teeth on edge. Why, oh why, can’t there be more Cubas and Irans and North Koreas in this world? Why can’t we have more noble leaders like Che and Arafat and Castro? Israel fails on all counts.
The left once loved Israel, with its socialist kibbutzes. The love affair ended about 6 minutes after the 6 day war did. Then the “Palestinians” (who were just plain old Arabs before 1967) suddenly became the left’s new darlings and poster children. The more violent and savage the Pals became, the more the left swooned over them.
At this point, there is is nothing, absolutely nothing, the Palestinians can do to discredit themselves in the eyes of the Left. If repeatedly breaking treaties, deliberately targeting Israeli civilians, transporting explosives in Red Cross ambulances and extolling the greatness of the Final Solution hasn’t done it, nothing will alter minds now. Conversely, the only thing the Israelis could do to win the Left’s approval would be to let the Arabs finish them off. They just won’t die like good little Jews should.
Gotta try to understand your enemy. Long-term, as I said, it is to take the two state option off the table. What is the short-term Hamas objective? It is to goad Israel into a ground invasion and a ground war. A war, by the way, that if the experience in 2006 is any indication, might not go Israel’s way at all.
Interesting, how the objectives of the Israeli extreme right/neocon amen corner once again line up with that of Hamas.
I am not pro Israeli or pro hamas, I am pro right and wrong. Hamas stated goal is to wipe Israel off the map. Kill every jew is what they have stated they want. They do not have the tools needed too, but if they did, do you think they would not? Israel could wipe them off the map,today, has the tools too, but chooses to try not to target civilians. That is the right thing to do, launching rockets blindly in the hope it will kill someone, anyone in Isreal. To me that is wrong. As a American I can say if Canada was launching a few hundred rockets into maine, and we had to sleep in bomb shelters at night, We would think alittle different about this. The world is behind giving the Palestinians a state, if they Just wanted that, put down thier wepons and came to the table it would happen. If the guy across the street was shooting randomly at my house and I had a tank, I would use it. You? After he stops shooting at my house I will talk, But not before. Thats just the right thing. Who’s right? I don’t know, but I do know rockets and suicide bombers will never make me listen. It makes me sick. Stopping this and comming to the table, I would respect that. And so would much of the world. Right and wrong. Lets try that.
As a retired Army officer, I am still nonplused by the fact that so few civilians seem to understand that the basic purpose of combat operations is to kill the enemy. They always seem to think that the violence masks some other purpose rather than serving its own ends. I wrote about “intentional lethality” on my own blog, Sense of Events.
Israel’s attacks are intended to do four main things:
1. Kill as many high-level Hamas figures as possible.
2. Reduce the ranks of Hamas rank and file by causing casualties among them.
3. Provide disincentives for Gazans’ support of Hamas’ control of their political future and hence,
4. Delegitimize Hamas’ political authority.
The first two objective are near-term tactical, the second two longer-term political. They are all closely interrelated, and unless the first two are done, the second two won’t happen.
What’s funny is the avowed self-righteous moralizing of the Hamas apologists. What’s sad is that so much space is wasted trying to convince such naifs of any other view than what their infant minds conjure. Leave such naivety to stand and scream, “la la la,” with their fingers in their ears. You can’t reason with infantile self-righteousness. Why bother?
Again, here is the prayer mill of anti-Semitism rotated against other opinions. When will those who run this dull thing finally be more inventive ? Couldn’t they say that any opposition against Israel’s activities is simply a crime and every no should be punished ? That would rather hit the core of their mindset.
@ robotech master #27:
I cant let you go with this, sorry. Actually, Iraq is still ruled by outlaws and assassins, with flimsy improvements in security and politics. You know also that there was the purpose to bring a new and healthy age to the Iraqi people, not civil war like conditions. I doubt that any threat from Iraq alone could have cost as many American’s lives as the war and the occupation (appr. 4100). However, any connection between 9/11 and Saddam was denied by G.W. Bush himself (!) in 2006. So I call this a defeat, not for Bush himself, because he had reached his own goals, or the military, but both for the Iraq and US citizens, who have to pay in all bad ways for this needless adventure.
Additionally, I did not mean any operative increase of terrorism (because I have no time to investigate) but the raise of popularity of terrorist activities, and following, the increase of supporting people, as the picture of a terrorist they have is not the picture we have, it is now the picture of an honourable fighter against evil, personified as Americans and Israeli, as there is a common accordance between Arabs that they are together.
With this I dare to predicate that with every violent and impetuous step Israel does (like now) – how understandable those steps may be – it will be more difficult for the Arabs to differentiate between rightful self defence and simple cruelty, because they also can see the situation from outside and believe second hand informations, like us. If Israel wants to live once as a respected neighbour, it has to take care of the other’s opinion about it, not only feeding their fear. Until now, Israel didn’t care, and obviously America too.
SAF‘s remarked,“It is by making life untenable for civilians that you get surrender, victory and the end of fighting.
This natural result of war has been short circuited by the new rules of engagement.”
There’s an episode of Star Trek (the original series) that illustrated how this sort of sanitized, minimal-collateral damage warfare can go on indefinitely. Only when Capt. Kirk arranged things so both sides would face potentially widespread gory deaths, destruction, and total misery did the phony war come to an end.
After 60+ years of Palestinians choosing to rank their hatred of Israelis ahead of love for their own children, the Israelis might wake up and decide that Israel might as well rate Palestinians and their children that low too. Then, buh-bye Palestinians — this time for good.
To 35 knossos:
Actually iraq has always been ruled by outlaws and assassins… we sometimes also call them arabs…
The so called flimsy improvements are just that improvement which I’m sure you can’t stand. Also a clear leftist you seem to think theirs a magic button that you suddenly press and everything better… iraq is doing far better under the US control after 5 years then any country under UN control after 50 years… If you bothered to review history(which I’m sure your not a fan of) you’d know that post ww2 germany suffered many of the same problems… along with much of the same defeatist propaganda to go along with it. Germany has turned out ok… iraq if we stayed for another 20 years or so could easily be on par as germany in that time… however morons have decided that it better to leave now… that way theirs a chance of failure and defeatist can use it in the future to bash the US vs doing the right thing and staying and finishing the job.
The US is a country of freedom… part of who and what we are is spreading that freedom to others. 4100 ppl died to give freedom to iraq… that is frankly a drop in the bucket compared to other wars we’ve had… 4100 is a minor battle in a war… On D-day more then 4100 died in the first hours of the battle… this whiny over bearing propaganda of 4100 who willing gave their lives to make iraq a better place disgraces everything US soldiers stand for… but that is the end goal of propaganda like that.
Only someone like you would consider freeing millions from oppression a defeat and a needless “adventure”… I suppose you consider the civil war and WW2 both needless as well…
“Additionally, I did not mean any operative increase of terrorism (because I have no time to investigate) but the raise of popularity of terrorist activities, and following, the increase of supporting people, as the picture of a terrorist they have is not the picture we have, it is now the picture of an honourable fighter against evil, personified as Americans and Israeli, as there is a common accordance between Arabs that they are together.”
This is a meaningless strawman argument… none of this was caused by iraq nor really effected by iraq.
“With this I dare to predicate that with every violent and impetuous step Israel does (like now) – how understandable those steps may be – it will be more difficult for the Arabs to differentiate between rightful self defence and simple cruelty, because they can’t see the situation from outside and believe second hand informations, just like ME.”
I fixed that for you…
“If Israel wants to live once as a respected neighbor, it has to take care of the other’s opinion about it, not only feeding their fear. Until now, Israel didn’t care, and obviously America too.”"
I whole heatedly agree… the first steps are…
1. Killing hamas
2. Killing hamas propaganda
3. Killing any other terrorist that rise up.
4. Educating the poorly educated and brainwashed that terrorism is good and just and that it will get them any expect a missile in the face.
If the pen is mightier than the sword, how much mightier still is the nightly news?
Not that I believe that Mr. Cooper should be a direct target. But ideas have consequences. Lies told by people in a position of trust have consequences. It’s just hard to put an exact number of deaths on his account.
One thing that never seems to be pointed out is that this is a perfect opportunity to see how the “cycle of violence” cliche is simply that. Israel is attacking Gaza and not the West Bank. The “rationalists” asking you these questions should ask themselves: “Why is Israel attacking Gaza and not the West Bank? What is the fundamental difference between the 2?” Answer: The West Bank is not firing rockets into Israel. Very simply put: if Hamas were not attacking Israel from Gaza, Israel would not be attacking Gaza – the proof is how Israel is treating the territory which is not attacking them directly (at least today). If the Palestinians stop attacking Israel, Israel will stop retaliating; if Israel stops defending itself, the Palestinians will continue their attacks.
To Barry Mieslin: I note that the MSM, at least in my area, did report the Hamas rocket attacks (usually as a brief paragraph in the ‘World/Other’ section in the back of the paper) and did report that Hamas was ending the hudna, again briefly. Not sure that such reporting represents a bias on the part of the MSM or just a recognition of the newsworthiness of such events to the average American.
To those who talk about what the Israelis should do: in a full, all-out war, the real objective in the end is to break your enemy’s will to fight. If you do that you get everything you wanted. We broke the will of the Germans to fight in WWII: on May 8, 1945, those Germans still alive throw down their weapons and put their mitts in the air. Everything after that was straight-forward. We broke the will of the Spanish to fight in the Spanish-American war: we sank their fleets and took Cuba, and everything after that was fine. And the Confederates became a lot more reasonable after Bobby Lee surrendered.
So one real question the Israelis have to address is, what do they want? If the real objective is to break the will of the Palestinians to engage in terror attacks, fight the Israelis and in general be a problem, then you have to break their will. That doesn’t necessarily mean carpet-bombing, but it does mean, BREAK THEIR WILL. So far the Israelis haven’t done that.
Likewise, if the real objective is just to beat Hamas down for a period of weeks/months/years, then what they’re doing is fine, because they sure aren’t imposing their will on the average Hamas hard boy. They’re just wrecking equipment and real estate.
Finally, Knossos writes that the result of our intervention in Iraq is that we “raised terrorism popularity in the Islamic world and destabilized a region.”
Well, not exactly: our goals in Iraq were 1) remove a threat to us 2) push Iraq into becoming a more-or-less democratic state and 3) plant the democratic idea into the heart of the Arabic world. Given those real objectives, we’re doing pretty well (finally). The on-going acts of the PLO, the L-e-T and other groups over the past forty years suggests that terrorism has and remains popular. And the region has been chronically unstable; indeed, a more stable Iraq is precisely in our interest.
Knossos seems to think that Israel is repeating our mistakes. To the contrary, look at the West Bank: it is NOT firing Qassam rockets at Israel and is NOT rising up to fight Israel right now. Why? Because the objectives of Fatah are different than those of Hamas, and therefore Israel’s response has been different.
Knossos also seems to think that Israel has been in the wrong these past 60 years for not ‘incorporating’ the Arabs into their country and life in return for their ‘gift of a homeland’. It hasn’t been for a lack of trying.
Why does so many people complain about the MSM. By now if you don’t know they are being funded by special interest money scientist then I guess you’ll asking to be deceived. My statements include FOXNews. I hope you see how fair and balanced are my statements. Go Israel!!!
One thing Israel has done for the US is in the field of intelligence collection. Israel has human assets in places where the US intel system is incapable of gaining them. Not much of this comes into the public eye, but one that did was Krushchev’s Secret Speech in 1956 about Stalin’s crimes. A Mossad agent got a copy and delivered it to Israel. Israel passed it along to the US, so we were able to make it public when the Soviets wanted to keep it a deep secret.
The US has also benefitted from the field testing as it were, in actual combat, of American weaponry, especially aircraft. Zahal’s experience in combat has enabled the US to make developmental changes on its weapons systems to improve them before we had to risk the lives of our troops in war.
rotvang may not be a leftist. He sounds to me rather like a Buchananite.
The aim of the Palestinian Arabs (and many other Muslims) is the destruction of Israel and the genocide of its Jewish inhabitants. So taking the Pali’s side in this fight is to encourage and approve of the side that wishes to carry out genocide of the Jews. That sounds like antisemitism to me. It seems to me that there are a lot of people around the world who become nervous at the thought of armed Jews defending themselves against genocide. It even seems to make them hysterical sometimes. I can only wonder why.
Hamas has been making war on Israel. Now Israel is making war back at Hamas. The Palis have no one to blame but themselves. War is what the Arabs wanted. Hamas campaigned on a platform of killing Jews, so the Palis who voted Hamas in knew what they were getting. Maybe they should reflect on that old adage about being careful what you wish for.
Way to go IAF! Encore! Brilliant strategy and smart timing of this offensive. It’s going to take the hamas terrorists a looong time and lots of money to rebuild all their weapons factories, office buildings, and replace all the cars, boats, weapons and ammo depots that were destroyed.
Hopefully a number of hamas leaders were destroyed too in the initial suprise raid.
Now if Israel could destroy half (10,000) of hamas members, maybe fatah could crush the other half, regain total authority, and transform Gaza into something resembling a moderately civilised society that Israel could co exist with (if they held their noses)
Six months ago Israel asked and received a cease-fire from Hamas. It unilaterally violated it when it blew up a tunnel
Israel never denied they broke the ceasefire. Only the RW israeli apologetics in the U.S. do. They only justified it by saying that the tunnel was a threat to their security. However, there was no provocation from Hamas before that Israeli incursion. Tunnels were the only way the Palestinians were breaking the Israeli blockade to smuggle food, medicine and other necessities to Gaza. Israel had a tight siege on Gaza for most of the time during the ceasefire, which by itself was a violation of the terms of the ceasefire. The Israelis allowed supplies into Gaza only after the air strikes on Saturday to reduce the reputation fallout because of the civilian casualties. The Palestinians are also entitled to self defense. If you do not want to surrender to Israeli intimidation, what would you do if you were a Palestinian?
Moral Issue, you live on MArs. Israel moved out of Gaza voluntarily three years ago but the Palestinainans continued firing missiles into Israel. That’s not only immoral. That’s sick. The Paleos are lucky the Israelis are kind. Most countries would have bombed them into extinction by now.
To 44. Moral_Issue:
You got links to back that up….
17. knossos:
“This ideology is close interleaved with religion and mixes (in a matter of modern serenity) incomparable archaic history with present claims.”
Sorry knossos, the entire Old Testament disagrees with you and I think it is more reliable.
Robotech requested links.
From Israeli newspaper Haaretz:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050460.html
To 48. Moral_Issue:
The link only states the info no sources or other documents… being propaganda is so common your going to need to post some direct news stories about the tunnel and either the truce paper in some form(like pdf) or a complete “non-summed up” version of it where it says clearly that the israels are required to do XXX as part of the truce.
PJM is rapidly turning into Little Green Footballs lite when it comes to stories from the Middle East. I don’t know what’s driving this policy, but it creates an odd effect. On other issues PJM seems to be purposely alienating the GOP Fundamentalist “base,” but when Israel comes up, the site turns to rather frighteningly bellicose rhetoric.
An exceptionally good article (..and I read everything.)
I agree with rotwang. What point is there in we protecting and supporting the Jews? It’s the Jewsish problem all over again.
That is a German name isn’t it?
Knossos said:
“So, what we have is a constellation that could not other than have led to the current situation. We have a People that dictates since about more than 50 years how and where another people have to live……
I have the strong impression that Israel is not willing to take responsibility for the gift of a homeland. Responsibility doesn’t mean simple evacuation, simple exclusion, or simple use of the elbows. It means also to incorporate that the gift was not given by the original owners.”
Knossos, a brief history lesson is in order.
First, there is not such nation or nationality as “Palestinian”. The area covered by modern day Israel was initially the city-state of Jerusalem, then fell under Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek, Roman, Sassanian, and Byzantine rule. The Moslems conquered Israel, eventually becoming part of the Ottoman Empire until the First World War.
Britain controlled the area after WWI, the European Powers arbitrarily divided the area, creating nations where none had existed previously. They created the nations of Eqypt, Syrian, Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel.
Immediately on its formation, the other nations attacked Israel. Israel fought back, and formed boundaries based on what it could control and defend.
HERE’S THE IMPORTANT PART. From 1948 to 1967, the West Bank and Gaza were *controlled by, and part of* Eqypt and Jordan, respectively. The Arabs in these areas were INSIDE the Eqyptian and Jordanian nations. These nations did little to aid the Arabs in this area. When attacked in 1967, the Israelis drove the Eqyptian and Jordanian armies back, and occupied these areas.
Since, the Jordanians and Eqyptians have done nothing to assist the Arabs in these areas. They will not allow them to emigrate back into their original nations of Eqypt and Jordan.
Did you notice that when the Gaza attacks started, and Gazans were forcing their way across the border into Eqypt, the Eqyptians OPENED FIRE on the Gazans? Why would they do this? The Gazans were their citizens prior to the 1967 war.
The answer is, the Arab nations USE the ‘Palestinians’ as a wedge, as a fulcrum, as a flashpoint that they can exploit for their ultimate goal of exterminating the Israeli state.
As I always say, the entire issue can be boiled down into one question:
If all the Arab nations, plus Hamas and Hezbollah, destroyed all their weapons, what would happen the next day? Answer: Peace.
If the Israelis destroyed all their weapons, what would happen the next day? Answer: Invasion, war, and genocide.
well as we kow the Israel those stablished their state the malti-nation named their name Jewish form Father or Mathor Naver registered the history such Nation , why the must bilong to their origin counry therefore we say the colony of Palastinians.
#48, have you got any CREDIBLE sources? Ha’aretz is not – how can put this politely – know for fact-checking it’s journalists…. and you quoted an op-ed not “news”.
However, there was no provocation from Hamas before that Israeli incursion.
Thousands of rockets are apparently not a provocation to you. I’ll tell you what. You sit still while you get TNT and other high explosives lobbed at you and I’ll laugh, telling you it’s no provocation.
Great article. Our president-elect doesn’t seem to get it, either. Remember him talking about the “legitimate claims” of Hamas and Hizbollah? Exactly what about these Iranian-backed terror groups is legitimate? Sigh. Happy New Year.
Gee Moral_Issue, most people would think that Gaza actually having a terror tunnel and using it to smuggle arms with would be the first violation of the cease-fire, not the Israelis blowing it up…
” …Because the objectives of Fatah are different than those of Hamas, and therefore Israel’s response has been different….”
And Fatah doesn’t want Hamas to run the West Bank, nor do any of the Arab states want Hamas – a stalking horse for Iran – to be successful, and they are glad Israel is doing their dirty work for them, Egypt has even chastised Hamas out loud.
Basically no one likes Hamas but the Gazans, and no one likes them much either. Ther fellow Arabs treat their Palestinian “brothers” like sh*t.
I abhor terrorism and believe that the majority of people involved in wars are victims of a cock-up or a ego act by a relatively small number of people. Consequently. I am very aware of the responsibility of the UK in all this. Using the clout of WW1, the UK established the Palestine Free State then, using the clout of WW2 (with others) took most of it away again.
It has nothing to do with left-wing, right-wing or any other political camp. It is more to do with the Euro-USA assumption that they have the right to police the world. The UK and their allies never seem to consider what the consequences or their ‘international’ actions might be.
Is there a solution. Probably not now. It is worth considering, though, had the debatable ‘pragmatism’ been exercised in 1947/48,
leaders of the middle eastern nations should have realised the financial and intellectual clout of their new ‘neighbours’. If they had accomodated Israel, the Middle East would probably be the richest trading arena on this planet by now.
In consequence to an assumed humanitarian act, people who were freed from oppressive European regimes were placed in a situation where they justifiably feel threatened.
It is worth remembering that the justifiable and humanitarian act of abolishing slavery did not give millions their freedom, it made the majority of them unemployed and homeless. Judging by the attitudes of those ‘in power’ at the present time the solution to the ‘Middle East Problem’ is not with our generation. It needs leadership ON BOTH SIDES with acceptance that there has to be progressive dialogue over maybe a long period of time. Europe and USA must also accept that they have no right to impose a solution. They are mere mediators.
I hope that ALL the people of the Middle East will soon be able to enjoy a long, prosperous and peaceful life. Meanwhile, Happy New (Christian) Year to everyone, including the opressed where even small steps towards liberation might be a source of happiness.
8. Rotwang:
Tell me again: What has Israel ever done for us, except interfere with our elections, spy on our government, steal our military secrets and sell them to our enemies, and endlessly thwart our own foreign policy imperatives in the Middle East?
And what exactly have the Palestineans ever done for us?
The truth is simple. Any distortion of truth is shaded in all sorts of colors and is complicated and esoteric. Distortions/lies can only be rationalized and understood by the elite pseudo-intellectuals ie the drive-by media and not us little people. Suffice to say that Israel is completely in the right and has every right to defend itself. No fool can dispute that fact. They are welcome to their own opinions but not their own facts. God Almighty said that the Jews are his chosen people and that anyone who undermines Israel and its right to survive/thrive will be cursed and swept away. That is a pretty simple truth from truth itself.
¨Gaza truce broken as Israeli raid kills six Hamas gunmen¨5 November 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/05/israelandthepalestinians
“Gaza rockets strain Israel-Hamas truce” 24 June 2008
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0625/p25s04-wome.html
Did Hamas ever stop firing missiles and mortars into Israel during the cease-fire?
Hey, Amanda, a couple of days ago, you said you were disgusted with PJM and not coming back!
I guess like most Europeans, your insatiable hatred of Jews got the best of you.
Well, guess what? Your beloved Palestinians are still depraved Nazi savages who should be bombed to Allah.
Now, don’t let the door hit you again on the way out.
Eric R,I never said i was ¨ disgusted¨ with PJM
you made that up,what i did say was ¨I think i will stop posting here¨, meaning that thread, actually i quite like the site at least they allow free speech, (The door was held open by the Tyler)
Xanthippe: said ¨Did Hamas ever stop firing missiles and mortars into Israel during the cease-fire?¨
from your link:
¨Islamic Jihad said it fired a salvo of Qassam missiles, which left two people with minor injuries, as retaliation for the killing of two of its members by the Israeli army in the West Bank earlier in the day¨. It was not Hamas
So amanda being in November their had at that point been over 1,000 rockets fired… none of them were from hamas?
and PS did Hamas find and put any of these ppl in jail for their crime of breaking the truce…
61. phil bernal:
Totally true Phil. But the anti-semites of the world can’t accept it because accepting the truth of the Bible would undermine their whole world view.
———————————————
By the way, I hope all you rich liberals out there are going to pay a bunch of taxes because Joe Biden said it’s your patriotic duty to do so and I am waiting for my share of the free stuff Obama promised me.
Shef Rogers wrote:
PJM is rapidly turning into Little Green Footballs lite when it comes to stories from the Middle East. I don’t know what’s driving this policy
Er, Shef, you do know that Charles Johnson is one of the founders of PJM? And Roger L. Simon has never hidden his pro-Zionist opinions either.
As a Catholic conservative who strongly supports Israel, I am quite happy with PMJ’s coverage. But if you’re looking for more “balanced” (i.e. pro-Hamas) views, there are plenty of other places to go – like CNN, the NY Times, the LA Times, Daily Kos, the Huffington Post. They’re already known for their balanced and impartial views of conservatives, are they not? I’m sure the information you’ll glean from them about Israel will be just as accurate and fair.
/sarc
To Shef Rogers, personally to you.
In times of war, and we are at war, enemy agents must be identified and deported immediately otherwise Americans are not safe
Anyways, about who broke the cease fire first, from the following link http://blog.camera.org/archives/2008/12/post_39.html :
“Sderot residents inspect damage to a house after a Palestinian rocket slammed into it on June 24, 2008, five days after the ceasefire was declared (Photo by Rafel Ben-Ari/Chameleons Eye)
Ha’aretz’s Gideon Levy, like any columnist, is entitled to argue for whatever policy he prefers, but journalistic ethics require that even Op-Eds stick to factual accuracy. Yet, in his column today advocating direct negotiations which Hamas, he writes:
“The ceasefire was violated first by Israel with its unnecessary operation of blowing up a tunnel.”
Of course, Israel blew up the tunnel in question the beginning of November, while Palestinians again started firing rockets into Israel just days after the June 19 ceasefire was declared.
By Aug. 28, Palestinians had fired 40 rockets and mortars at Israel.”
Dear Barry Rubin:
Phyllis as usual is excellent as usual. And an Evil Yvonne Ridley’s Believe It Or Nut’s as per usual. And your column is the crux o the matter innit? Defeat and victory, life or death is very clear. But not when other pinheads always want Jews to die on their behalf. It’s amazing how many anti-Semites there are, but they just can’t admit it staight out. They sicken me.
IT matters not what Taquyaa Muslims and Marxist Leftards spin. Islam is entirely and always about nihilism, murder, deception and spreading totalitarian fascist and insane Islam globally.
Mohammad was and always will be a paedophile rapist mass murdering pervert bandit and Jew hater, hallucinating as Christopher Hitchens said, the “filth of the Koran” in a lice ridden cave.
The old joke of how do you know when a politician is Lying? Their lips are moving, applies precisely to millions of Muslims and much of the Left. No matter what Ridley the freak says, it’s ALWAYS a lie in Taquiyaa speak.
For the last few days I can’t help thinking of our own dhimmi National Security website charged with er, our cultural security etc. NOT once do they mention Islam. In fact they deny completely ANY connection between terror and any particular religion”, all with the threat that you better not too.
Anyway, here’s my laughter filled, monumental and shabby take on it.
I’d dig to know what you think and about any other examples. The UK under PM Brownnose must have the same official drivel. Gotta Mister! Israel and the Jewish people owe the world nothing. Not a single apology or explanation. The world owes Israel and the Jewish people almost everything.
All the VERY best. Keep on taking no crap from anyone and not suffering treasonous fools gladly. Colonel Neville.
http://colonelrobertneville.blogspot.com/2009/01/beyond-belief-and-dangerous-pc.html
Dear Barry:
And another thang, this week the Rudd govenrment in Australia, decided to back some of the anti-Israel/anti-Semitic venality of the UN’s largest voting block of the 52[?] freak states of the UIC, or Union of Islamic Countries. I kid you not. Amazingly as per usual, mild rebukes from the often daffy, polite and oddly naive local Jewish press. How Jewish I sometimes wonder.
Myself I’m so very Zionist, it hurts! A lot. Colonel Neville.
WOW, i am amased at most ignorant people on here, how can you all talk rubbish without finding the facts?, the problem here is this, jews/israelis stole the land under the guise of persecution/guilt(the holocaust, feel sorry for us), they stole the palestinians land.
What normal human being would NOT defend his land? to what extent would you go to with limited weapons ? hamas was democratically elected (which israel and america wanted a democratic election), america and israel then cried out foul after hamas won (because fatah was robbing the ordinary citizen of the donated money).
Another myth is that hamas won’t recognise israel, this is pure rubbish, apporoximately 2 years ago hamas said it would recognise israel but as long as israel gave back land post 1967, allowed them their freedom to go and come and allow them to expand their economy unhindered.
Since when is it as crime to fight against an apartheid regime that stick you in a concentration camp (which is exactly how israel runs gaza), how would you feel, going through checkpoints and to wait sometimes hours before your told by the army wether you could go through or not?, how would you feel if you were literally being starved(as the aid agencies have complained many times for a lack of food basics)?
How would you feel if your children were killed by israel fire on the lie that they were after militants? what country in the world as an anti-defamtion league in every country that protects only jews, always threatening to sue?.
What country spies on it’s “friends” but still claims financial and moral support?.
I am appaled at the jews that claim that they have invented so much to our well being, it astounds me that they claim to have developed so much when it is a well known lie, go on, ask the medical boards who the founders of so much of the breakthroughs are? it clearly seems that the jews claiming this are standing by the torah, and the torah exclusively says that all non-jews are heathens/gentiles, that christians are the worst creatures in the world, mary was a whore who slept with many men, While there is only one mention to islam.
I once saw a youtube video on ordinary americans knowledge ( no offence to the knowledgable people here or anywhere), it was astounding, an australian news reporter had a world map, but he had labeled australia as iran, and asked the people to stick a flag on the country who they think america should attack next, to my amasement, they ALL stuck it on australia, (we here know the world blindfolded), he had also asked them to name a country starting with “a”, again, not one of them named the country they lived in, and were shocked when the reporter said “how about america?”.
it scares me to know that if the worlds most powerful nation is full of mainly ignorant rednecks then we are in alot of trouble, but hey, america was, with george bush, again and again as they voted him in.
It is amazing how a people with nothing but rocks and home-made rockets have created the worst nightmare for the greatest empire in the history of mankind. Israel will be defeated by Gazans and once again human will-power will win over military power. Gazans are fighting for humanity, independence, freedom, and dignity. They are fighting for all of us. Let’s pray they win and their enemies end their occupation once more in humiliation.
lgkick,
Sorry, your trolling lacks subtlety. It’s too over the top in its attempt to p*ss people off, too blatant. I’ll give you a 3/10, if only for effort.
#73, “journalistic ethics” and “Gideon Levy” don’t belong in the same sentence unless u add “has no”. In this way he is perfectly at home at Ha’aretz, I wonder if Meron “cluster bombs” Rappaport has made any lies yet?
Good evening folks. I’m just an American and don’t classify myself beyond that. I’ll leave the rest up to the people who choose to read this. I like to be direct, so I’ll start with a simple thought-provoking question: If a Hamas member or member of any other organization and/or government walked onto your children’s schoolbus and blew them up, what would you ask from your government in response? Now for a simple follow-up: What would you do yourself in response?
If your answer to either question was ignore them, elect a new government, give them stuff in hopes they won’t do it again, or just accept that they have issues and were thus justified in killing your child you are probably not psychologically or spiritually capable of having meaningfull conversations with other humans.
If your answer was to hunt them down so that no other person had to suffer your pain, congratulations! You are a proud member humankind.
Israel exists. The United States exists. Too late to change that. And yes, muslim extremists exist. So here we are. One out of the three I mentioned is trying to kill the other two. Simple math indicates a very small chance of success, and yet they do it anyway. Crazy, I know. But walking onto a school bus and blowing up kids isnt’t exactly rational either. So, what do the ‘normal’ people do?
Self-defense is a natural instinct. Sure, you could say that Palestinians are only trying to take back what is theirs because of some stipulation that only makes sense to people who already think the way that you do and are thus also acting in self defense. But its crap. After all, Israel doesnt blow up a school untill someone parks a missle launcher in it and starts shooting at Israeli schools now do they?
Lets try another couple of questions to really get the thoughts simmering. If some appendage of your local government decided to park a missle launcher in your child’s playground so that it could fire shots at your neighbor’s civilians, would you let them, knowing full well they might shoot back? Even if you really agreed that your neighbor deserved a missle or two, would you let them? Lets have another thought: If your local government did this and you were not aware and your kid was blown up in retaliation, would you let them do it again in another playground? Could you?
I’m sorry these questions are so graphic, and that the feelings they provoke may be unsettling. But this is the reality of Islamic extremism and the resulting sympathizing with those who’ve practiced it. Do you not believe there might have been a more strategic place for a missle launcher than their own children’s playground? The answer is actually no. You see they are willing to sacrifice their children and women so that they can parade their bodies in front of news cameras and decry Israeli aggression when it was their own missle which was fired first and with this exact intent. Please, even if you believe me to be whatever agree with me that this is insanity. I couldn’t bear the loss of my child. Not for religion, not for power, not for land, and certainly not for a 30 second spot on international news.
I have another thought for you, and its more disturbing than the ones before: its working pretty good for them. Just listen to the U.N., most of Europe, some of the U.S., and of course the Middle East in general. Oh, those horrible Israelis, invading the small and defenseless Gaza strip which, if geography serves, is actually within Israel. All they did was blow up some school buses, launch a bunch of missles into civilian areas, hide tactical munitions amongst the populace and state they wanted nothing less than Israel’s destruction. Come on, we’re all human, right? What does that mean old Israel think they’re doing!
Not enough, it seems. And neither are we.
Israel exists. I’m not going to argue their existance, it’s merely fact. And it’s made far more concessions than anyone could have asked a sovereign nation. Its won many wars to prove their place back when their rivals fought as warriors rather than cowards who hide behind masks and children. Israel has endured enough. Trouble is, its never had a reasonable negotiating partner to make concessions to and its sadly apparent they never will. And yes, every once in awhile the Israelis get fed up and kick the crap out of them all over again, only to stop short of finishing the job because jerks like us tell them appeasement is the answer. But Israel still exists. Deal with it. Or let the bloodshed continue, but I can tell you there are many amongst the West who are sick to death of it and pity the Palestinian cause less and less with every missle. And we really didn’t buy into it much before the civilian-targeted areas and suicide bombers, to be honest. So peddle your crocodile tears elsewhere. Fight like a nation or concede that you are not. Demand sanity from those who attack from within your borders or concede that you cannot. Perhaps then I can take a fresh look at this conflict, and possibly even their dilema.
Some of you people amaze me (and I thought I was beyond amazement after seeing what some of you people say and post after what to you apparently passes for “thought.”
Facts are facts. FACT. Hamas “won” an election in Gaza by convincing enough Gazans that if they didn’t vote for Hamas, they’d be murdered in their beds along with their wives and children. FACT. Hamas has lobbed IN EXCESS of 6,500 unguided rockets into Israel since 2005, pausing only a few days during the vaunted “cease-fire.” FACT. Our idiot media is prone to telling us about each and every Palestinian child who is killed in this conflict, but who here’s heard how many Israelis have been killed and injured by these rockets? FACT. Hamas shields themselves by hiding among a civilian population, using “aid” money to BUY the rockets and mortars they’ve lobbed into Israel, hides them in Mosques, schools, hospitals and private homes and fires them in close proximity to Mosques, schools,hospitals and private homes in hopes that will protect them from Israeli retaliation. FACT. If Mexico started lobbing rockets into Texas cities, how long do you think it would be before Mexico (1) was at total war with the U.S. or (2) was a big glass bowl? FACT. Israel effectively closed its borders to Palestinians because Hamas and Fatah kept sending in morons with bombs strapped to their bodies to blow up innocent Israelis and foreign visitors. FACT. The Palestinians have received BILLIONS in “aid” from the West and even from Saudi Arabia to help them build an industrial infrastructure, schools, roads, sewer treatment facilities, water purification plants, etc. How many such facilities have been built by EITHER Hamas or Fatah??? Answer? ZERO!
Wake up and smell the roses. Some Israeli once said that the war between Palestinians and Israel will end ONLY when the Palestinians begin to love their children more than they hate Israeli children.
Colonel Robert Neville wrote
“Islam is entirely and always about nihilism, murder, deception and spreading totalitarian fascist and insane Islam globally.
Mohammad was and always will be a paedophile rapist mass murdering pervert bandit and Jew hater, hallucinating as Christopher Hitchens said, the “filth of the Koran” in a lice ridden cave.”
How can anyone think and write this hate-filled drivel and then complain about antisemitism? Zionists live and breathe hatred and have no qualms about spreading their obnoxious opinions on the inferiority of everyone else, while talking up what they perceive to be their own superiority.
I know the difference between a decent Jew and a bloodthirsty Zionist who stole Arab land through the barrel of a gun and then set about spreading the myth of Arab aggression. Israel never had the moral high ground and more and more people worldwide are beginning to acknowledge this.
Starkey [post 82] read some history. Israel was created by the UN in 1948 and at the same time the UN created a Palestinian state. However, the Pals chose war and they are still no better off than they were in 1947.
Paul – Indiana (post 83) why don’t you read some history instead of parroting your US Zionist controlled propaganda. The British went to war for Palestine and occupied it in 1917. They used T.E. Lawrence (even you must have heard of Lawrence of Arabia) to negotiate with the Arabs, promising them an INDEPENDENT country in exchange for their support. At the same time, the Brits had promised Chaim Weizmann, the Zionist chief, a home for Jews in Palestine. (Note: A home for Jews, not a Jewish homeland.) Perhaps you’ve also heard of the Balfour Declaration, Zionists trot it out religiously whenever they are forced to go back to the REAL history. You probably aren’t allowed to know about this in the land of the free, so here it is:
Foreign Office,
November 2nd, 1917.
Dear Lord Rothschild,
I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet:
“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”
I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.
Yours sincerely
Arthur James Balfour
Notice how the Balfour Declaration was sent to Baron Rothschild – you know, one of those Jewish bankers that never interfere in politics, that’s just another antisemitic conspiracy theory – anyway, that’s what your Zionist buddies point to when anyone can manage to drag them back to the origin of the conflict, something they really hate doing.
Notice also how it states that NOTHING SHALL BE DONE WHICH MAY PREJUDICE THE CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS RIGHTS OF EXISTING NON-JEWISH COMMUNITIES IN PALESTINE. That means the Arabs who were living there at the time, the ones your lying friends claim didn’t exist.
Check out the San Remo Conference, that’s where the Allied Supreme Council gave the famous Mandate for Palestine to Britain. Also check out the Treaty of Sevres. The Zionists were perfectly happy with the British mandate, insisted on it in fact. Remember that. You need to read a lot of history to see how the British and the French wrangled over the territory they had taken from the Arabs and how the British reneged on their promise to the Arabs, retaining control of all the territory instead of granting the independence they had promised.
The British consistently refused to grant political or national rights to the Arabs, in direct contravention of the famous Balfour Declaration, which promised that their rights would not be prejudiced. In other words, Britain simply stole Palestine from the Arabs and disenfranchised them, and allowed Zionists to immigrate to Palestine from Europe until they outnumbered the Arabs, stripping the Arabs of more and more land. Is it any wonder the Arabs rose up in revolt?
Eventually the brilliant Brits came up with the idea of restricting Zionist immigration and land acquisition, thereby making enemies of Zionists as well as Arabs. Read about Irgun and the Zionist terrorists who blew up, shot and assassinated everyone they didn’t agree with.
That was the situation at the outbreak of World War II, and the British restrictions on immigration were the reason why Jews from Europe found themselves with nowhere to go. Irgun continued blowing up whatever took their fancy, like the King David Hotel, for example, Zionists have never worried about bombing civilians, it’s an old tradition with them.
Then came the Peel Commission and the first proposals for the partition of Palestine into two states, and the whole mess was handed over to the United Nations. The Arabs rejected partition and Menachem Begin, leader of Irgun, also rejected it, but David Ben Gurion accepted and declared independence before the British Mandate was even terminated! Nobody cared whether the Arabs accepted or not, only the Jews mattered. So much for democracy, eh?
As an American you probably don’t think it matters if people are cheated out of their land and if promises and agreements are reneged on, after all you have a notorious history of doing that sort of thing yourselves to the Native Americans.
Would you like me to go on to describe how after the Zionists got their state they went to work in earnest, murdering Arabs and destroying Arab property, and forcing them to flee and become the refugees that Zionists now call terrorists?
Read some of the Zionist writing on the subject, they know full well the wrong they did to the Arabs, and they know full well that they don’t have the moral high ground and never did. The land belongs to the Arabs, the Zionists are the aggressors, and the Arabs have every right to try and get back what rightfully belongs to them.
Oh, and don’t tell me to read some history, you propaganda-filled nitwit.
Starkey, records of the UN action is easy enough to find. BTW, I have read quite a bit. Have you read through T.E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom? You are just parroting the anti-Jews propaganda. Are you also anti-UN?
Paul – Are you seriously saying that everything I wrote is anti-Jew propaganda? The British takeover, the Balfour Declaration, the Brits’ reneging on their negotiations with the Arabs, Irgun, the Peel Commission? All these did not happen?
I did not leave out the United Nations, so don’t refer me to “the UN action”.
Lawrence was a decent man who knew that his government was giving the Arabs a raw deal and was outraged by it. Maybe you should read quite a bit more than you have.
The only ones who are anti-UN are your bastard government and Israel, who treat it with utter contempt and simply ignore any UN resolutions they don’t like.
As I said before, I know the difference between a decent Jew and a bloodthirsty Zionist, so don’t come to me with your insinuations of antisemitism.
To implement all international agreements on Israel:
No to discrimination – Yes to the children of Palestine
6th January 2008
On the eleventh day, the genocide of children and women in Gaza at the hand of the Middle East’s supposed-democratic state, and in the name of those who call for peace, the signing of agreements and international conventions, continues.
As organizations active in the field of human rights, we bear witness to this genocide, contemplating the complicity of the world’s governments and signatories of the international conventions and agreements, which aim at preventing the precise destruction of infrastructure and human life as it currently occurring in Gaza.
On the eleventh day of the current conflict in Gaza, the percentage of children and women among the martyrs to Israel’s aggression has exceeded 60%; the Israeli occupational government continues its bombings, disregarding protests by citizens around the world who call for an end to Israeli aggression in Gaza, unified in the horror of Israel’s latest atrocities.
By commission of its latest massacres, Israel has been strengthening its borders, breaching the Geneva Conventions and the three additional Protocols, in which the most important articles guarding against the precise savagery as practiced currently precise by Israel now in the Gaza Strip, are enshrined.
As the Arab world witnesses the current drama in Gaza, the commission of which is sanctioned by the international community, and implemented on the world stage by Israel, civil organizations and free people must re-examine the international agreements, and ensure that in the future these are not imposed solely on the weak.
As members of the Child Protection Networks that include upwards of 50 social, human rights, and education organizations, we demand the following:
1. The immediate and unconditional cessation of Israeli military offensives in the Gaza Strip.
2. The evacuation of wounded civilians from the Gaza Strip and provision of needed medical treatment to them, and the unconditional allowance of medical supplies and relief aid and support into the Gaza Strip.
3. The prosecution of the Israeli government and heads of the Israeli Defense Forces and Israeli Air Force in the International Criminal Court in the Hague, for their violation of international law, and for Israel’s use of illegal munitions against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip such as white phosphorous and cluster bombs, and other chemical weapons, the use of whom is banned by Geneva accords of 1925 and 1972, and all further amendments to these accords signed by Israel.
We ask the United Nations and the international organizations working on women’s, children’s, and human rights to implement once and for all the international agreements and conventions in their truest sense and meanings, in order to protect human rights and lives, delay of doing will result in:
First: The creation of future obstacles to the implementation of these rights in the Middle East.
Secondly: The unification of the weak and dispossessed in the Middle East with the Palestinians in disinterest and lack of conviction in all issues pertaining to human, women, and children’s rights, democracy and peace.
Thirdly: The spawning of further terrorism – a catastrophe affecting the entire region – due to the indifference and irresponsible stance taken by the world on the issue of the lastest war crimes in the Gaza Strip.
Yes to an end to the Aggression.
Yes to the Children of Palestine.
Yes to the Children’s Rights.
Child Protection Network/ Saida
Child Protection Network/ Tyre
Child Protection Network/ North Lebanon
Hey, Naser, what about protecting the children of Israel, or the Sudan or the Congo? Can you point me to the websites that you have posted to that show your support of all children, or is it just Palestinian children you want protected? Shouldn’t we be taking Hamas to task for sending rockets into Israel and attacking the children there?
While Almost nine hundred Palestinians are killed so far, and three thousand five hundred are wounded in less than two weeks, some people are still justifying Israel’s right to self-defense. Israel is been attacked by Hamas- they claimed- since eight years.
I would like to ask those people, how many causalities Palestinians rockets has made during those eight years? How much destruction did these local-made rockets did cause? I think anyone who keeps close watch on the news would not believe Israel’s allegations on this matter. Nevertheless, what can justify such an extermination! NINE HUNDRED are dead so far, the third of them are children, and “we still in the beginning”- the Israelis announced in cold blood!!! Definitely, Israelis do not care if the war continues. For the last eight years, they have killed more than FIVE THOUSANDS Palestinians, and they intend to kill more. Besides, they do not care because they are using airplanes and tanks, and the big supply of weapons they have never paid for!
To Sana:
You could do your own findings of the numbers of deaths and injured for the past 8 years of rockets fired at Israel.
Why ask ? Are you trying to justify the numbers of deaths in Gaza are more ever since the war started ? Why don’t you protest when rockets are fired at Israel for several years ?
Put yourself in the shoe of the Israelites and feel about the rockets landed at your doorstep before you make these comments.
Killing seems to do no justice in any sense… however, if this is the perceived way to end the rockets firing at your homeland, do it by all means !
What can you do to bring peace even Israel do not start the war ? I’m sure you can do nothing at all !
In my opinion, peace needs both sides to talk amicably. Hamas stated to wipe out Israel in their agenda, would Israel sit and wait for ultimate destruction ? If you are the Israelite, what would you do ?
The answer is obvious and Israel is only doing what a man would do. Go for it Israel !!!
‘be wise’ please be wise cause you are either very naive or a zionist – it is israel that wants to wipe out palestine – just look at the regional map since the 1940s. if zion children were being murdered by the 100s as are palestinian children people would also hold protests. This is because there is still much goodness in the world despite the efforts of the dark forces. israel is on a mission and peace is not one of them!
This might help to put things in perspective, it shows how the poor peace-loving Zionists have never had any designs on anyone else’s land, and how the Palestinians have no right to complain that they are being slowly squeezed out of existence. It should make a lot of people on this forum very happy.
http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2006/05/10/the-shrinking-map-of-palestine/
Check this link, it will show how the poor, peace-loving Israelis have consistently grabbed Palestinian land over decades. If your land were grabbed like this and the grabbers kept telling the world that you were fighting them for no good reason, I wonder what your reaction would be?
http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2009/01/the-shrinking-map-of-palestine.html
The recent events suggest that Hamas are progressively out-manouvering Israel in the war of perception.
The arguement of ‘who is terrorising who’ and ‘who is defending from whose agression’ go the core of both Palestine and Israeli existence. Recent actions have significantly undermined the previously dominant Israeli position here- and it is hard to see how they might regain the moral high ground again.
It is in this war that the UN’s and ultimately the US’s involvement will be revolve around. The US abstention in the security council ceasefire resolution is a significant signal that it cannot provide indefinite support in the face of global repudiation of Israel’s position.
The Israeli endgame of eradicating Hamas through a decisive military victory severely calls into question the ability of the IDF to competently advise their political partners. Despite the Israeli closure of Gaza to journalists it has been impossible to restrict the wider world catching glimpses of the horrendous situation that is being perpetrated. As a result Israel has been forced to defend the IDF’s actions to world and also to its key sponsors- the US and the UN. This is where Hamas have inflicted the real damage.
Forced onto the back foot the Israel PR machine has been pushed into the realms of blatent miss-information and increasing irrelevance. Its credibility has been severely damaged, and continues to be by such revelations as the Israeli forced admissions to the UN of shelling a packed school building, while categorically denying it in public. Its public denials regarding its illegal use of white phosphorus in dense civilan areas have been found to similarly miss-leading. Hamas’s relative silence and primary reliance on directly reported imagery really has blown apart Israel’s strategy of restricting reporting and conducting a ‘talking offensive’.
The debate has been altered to such an extent that it is now no longer credible to consider Hamas an ‘Agent of Terror’ without putting the IDF in the same frame- access to weaponry being the more fundamental difference than intent to perpetrate fear. One has terrorised and killed 3 civilians firing handmade rockets at several small towns, the other has terrorised and killed over 500 people and wounded over 3000 using 21st century guided missiles and weaponry within one of the densest urban areas in the world. Similarly the Palestinian claim that its actions are ‘defensive’ against a long term aggressor that has threatened it territorially, economically, humanitarianly and ultimately existentially, are very much more plausible than those of Israel. There is little doubt as to whether the current predicament of Israel or Palestine would justify the more concerted defensive action.
Poor Mr Regev, the interminable Israeli spokesman, has been sounding increasingly deranged in his desperate attempts to regain the moral high ground. He recently told the BBC that Israel’s goals were “very minimalistic” and “purely defensive”.
So now Israel has bombed the UNRWA Headquarters, destroying tens of millions of dollars’ worth of food and medical supplies. The UNRWA spokesman denies categorically that militants were firing from the building. Israel has also bombed a building housing the Gaza offices of Reuters, Fox, and other media organizations.
Great tactics – tell the world how compassionate you are to be letting humanitarian aid into Gaza, “no other country in the world would do this for the enemy, blah, blah,” and then bomb it all.
The death toll is over 1100 in Gaza now, and the names of the dead children are beginning to be released. Israel will never recover from this, who can believe their lies and spin ever again?
Israelis should go back to their original homeland in eastern europe and Russia and give up Palestinia lands to their original owners. Everybody knows
That christians,muslimans and orient jews been living in peace since Moses
Saved the lives of children of Israel from Faros of Egypt and everyone should
Be O.K.
15. Brain Dain
I have something for you – how can you go insulting one’s religion when it has NOTHING to do with the war!And for inventions I have a list that will clean your ass!If you have the guts read it!
1) Coffee
The story goes that an Arab named Khalid was tending his goats in the Kaffa region of southern Ethiopia, when he noticed his animals became livelier after eating a certain berry. He boiled the berries to make the first coffee. Certainly the first record of the drink is of beans exported from Ethiopia to Yemen where Sufis drank it to stay awake all night to pray on special occasions. By the late 15th century it had arrived in Mecca and Turkey from where it made its way to Venice in 1645. It was brought to England in 1650 by a Turk named Pasqua Rosee who opened the first coffee house in Lombard Street in the City of London.The Arabic qahwa became the Turkish kahve then the Italian caffé and then English coffee.
2) Pin-Hole Camera
The ancient Greeks thought our eyes emitted rays, like a laser, which enabled us to see. The first person to realise that light enters the eye, rather than leaving it, was the 10th-century Muslim mathematician, astronomer and physicist Ibn al-Haitham. He invented the first pin-hole camera after noticing the way light came through a hole in window shutters. The smaller the hole, the better the picture, he worked out, and set up the first Camera Obscura (from the Arab word qamara for a dark or private room). He is also credited with being the first man to shift physics from a philosophical activity to an experimental one.
3) Chess
A form of chess was played in ancient India but the game was developed into the form we know it today in Persia. From there it spread westward to Europe – where it was introduced by the Moors in Spain in the 10th century – and eastward as far as Japan. The word rook comes from the Persian rukh, which means chariot.
4) Parachute
A thousand years before the Wright brothers a Muslim poet, astronomer, musician and engineer named Abbas ibn Firnas made several attempts to construct a flying machine. In 852 he jumped from the minaret of the Grand Mosque in Cordoba using a loose cloak stiffened with wooden struts. He hoped to glide like a bird. He didn’t. But the cloak slowed his fall, creating what is thought to be the first parachute, and leaving him with only minor injuries. In 875, aged 70, having perfected a machine of silk and eagles’ feathers he tried again, jumping from a mountain. He flew to a significant height and stayed aloft for ten minutes but crashed on landing – concluding, correctly, that it was because he had not given his device a tail so it would stall on landing.Baghdad international airport and a crater on the Moon are named after him.
5) Shampoo
Washing and bathing are religious requirements for Muslims, which is perhaps why they perfected the recipe for soap which we still use today. The ancient Egyptians had soap of a kind, as did the Romans who used it more as a pomade. But it was the Arabs who combined vegetable oils with sodium hydroxide and aromatics such as thyme oil. One of the Crusaders’ most striking characteristics, to Arab nostrils, was that they did not wash. Shampoo was introduced to England by a Muslim who opened Mahomed’s Indian Vapour Baths on Brighton seafront in 1759 and was appointed Shampooing Surgeon to Kings George IV and William IV.
6) Refinement
Distillation, the means of separating liquids through differences in their boiling points, was invented around the year 800 by Islam’s foremost scientist, Jabir ibn Hayyan, who transformed alchemy into chemistry, inventing many of the basic processes and apparatus still in use today – liquefaction, crystallisation, distillation, purification, oxidisation, evaporation and filtration. As well as discovering sulphuric and nitric acid, he invented the alembic still, giving the world intense rosewater and other perfumes and alcoholic spirits (although drinking them is haram, or forbidden, in Islam). Ibn Hayyan emphasised systematic experimentation and was the founder of modern chemistry.
7) Shaft
The crank-shaft is a device which translates rotary into linear motion and is central to much of the machinery in the modern world, not least the internal combustion engine. One of the most important mechanical inventions in the history of humankind, it was created by an ingenious Muslim engineer called al-Jazari to raise water for irrigation. His 1206 Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices shows he also invented or refined the use of valves and pistons, devised some of the first mechanical clocks driven by water and weights, and was the father of robotics. Among his 50 other inventions was the combination lock.
) Metal Armor
Quilting is a method of sewing or tying two layers of cloth with a layer of insulating material in between. It is not clear whether it was invented in the Muslim world or whether it was imported there from India or China. But it certainly came to the West via the Crusaders. They saw it used by Saracen warriors, who wore straw-filled quilted canvas shirts instead of armour. As well as a form of protection, it proved an effective guard against the chafing of the Crusaders’ metal armour and was an effective form of insulation – so much so that it became a cottage industry back home in colder climates such as Britain and Holland.
9) Pointed Arch
The pointed arch so characteristic of Europe’s Gothic cathedrals was an invention borrowed from Islamic architecture. It was much stronger than the rounded arch used by the Romans and Normans, thus allowing the building of bigger, higher, more complex and grander buildings. Other borrowings from Muslim genius included ribbed vaulting, rose windows and dome-building techniques. Europe’s castles were also adapted to copy the Islamic world’s – with arrow slits, battlements, a barbican and parapets. Square towers and keeps gave way to more easily defended round ones. Henry V’s castle architect was a Muslim.
10) Surgery
Many modern surgical instruments are of exactly the same design as those devised in the 10th century by a Muslim surgeon called al-Zahrawi. His scalpels, bone saws, forceps, fine scissors for eye surgery and many of the 200 instruments he devised are recognisable to a modern surgeon. It was he who discovered that catgut used for internal stitches dissolves away naturally (a discovery he made when his monkey ate his lute strings) and that it can be also used to make medicine capsules. In the 13th century, another Muslim medic named Ibn Nafis described the circulation of the blood, 300 years before William Harvey discovered it. Muslims doctors also invented anaesthetics of opium and alcohol mixes and developed hollow needles to suck cataracts from eyes in a technique still used today
11) Windmill
The windmill was invented in 634 for a Persian caliph and was used to grind corn and draw up water for irrigation. In the vast deserts of Arabia, when the seasonal streams ran dry, the only source of power was the wind which blew steadily from one direction for months. Mills had six or 12 sails covered in fabric or palm leaves. It was 500 years before the first windmill was seen in Europe.
12) Vaccination
The technique of inoculation was not invented by Jenner and Pasteur but was devised in the Muslim world and brought to Europe from Turkey by the wife of the English ambassador to Istanbul in 1724. Children in Turkey were vaccinated with cowpox to fight the deadly smallpox at least 50 years before the West discovered it.
13) Fountain Pen
The fountain pen was invented for the Sultan of Egypt in 953 after he demanded a pen which would not stain his hands or clothes. It held ink in a reservoir and, as with modern pens, fed ink to the nib by a combination of gravity and capillary action.
14) Numerical Numbering
The system of numbering in use all round the world is probably Indian in origin but the style of the numerals is Arabic and first appears in print in the work of the Muslim mathematicians al-Khwarizmi and al-Kindi around 825. Algebra was named after al-Khwarizmi’s book, Al-Jabr wa-al-Muqabilah, much of whose contents are still in use. The work of Muslim maths scholars was imported into Europe 300 years later by the Italian mathematician Fibonacci. Algorithms and much of the theory of trigonometry came from the Muslim world. And Al-Kindi’s discovery of frequency analysis rendered all the codes of the ancient world soluble and created the basis of modern cryptology.
15) Soup
Ali ibn Nafi, known by his nickname of Ziryab (Blackbird) came from Iraq to Cordoba in the 9th century and brought with him the concept of the three-course meal – soup, followed by fish or meat, then fruit and nuts. He also introduced crystal glasses (which had been invented after experiments with rock crystal by Abbas ibn Firnas – see No 4).
17) Pay Cheques
The modern cheque comes from the Arabic saqq, a written vow to pay for goods when they were delivered, to avoid money having to be transported across dangerous terrain. In the 9th century, a Muslim businessman could cash a cheque in China drawn on his bank in Baghdad.
18) Earch is in sphere shape?
By the 9th century, many Muslim scholars took it for granted that the Earth was a sphere. The proof, said astronomer Ibn Hazm, “is that the Sun is always vertical to a particular spot on Earth”. It was 500 years before that realisation dawned on Galileo. The calculations of Muslim astronomers were so accurate that in the 9th century they reckoned the Earth’s circumference to be 40, 253.4km – less than 200km out. The scholar al-Idrisi took a globe depicting the world to the court of King Roger of Sicily in 1139.
19) Rocket and Torpedo
Though the Chinese invented saltpetre gunpowder, and used it in their fireworks, it was the Arabs who worked out that it could be purified using potassium nitrate for military use. Muslim incendiary devices terrified the Crusaders. By the 15th century they had invented both a rocket, which they called a “self-moving and combusting egg”, and a torpedo – a self-propelled pear-shaped bomb with a spear at the front which impaled itself in enemy ships and then blew up.
20) Gardens
Medieval Europe had kitchen and herb gardens, but it was the Arabs who developed the idea of the garden as a place of beauty and meditation. The first royal pleasure gardens in Europe were opened in 11th-century Muslim Spain. Flowers which originated in Muslim gardens include the carnation and the tulip.
As for the head cutting – I don’t even know if that’s true or not, but its to teach the
other citizens that crime is not permisable and they learn a lesson. And umm know your weapons before you attakc
brain dain! Seriously.
Whassup?!
I love your post. This was interesting to read.
I wonder why I didn’t find this blog earlier.
I will go and spread the word. Many of my friends will love it.
Cheers and keep up the good work!
