Israil oversteps the mark

[Eli]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

Israel is far more suitable for Jews today, because of the historical roots there.

Um... and the Muslims don't have historicall roots there? I mean close to 1000 years ownership of the site would, I think, give some sort of historical right to the area.

No one denied it.
But in the current circumstances, to ensure our survival, the maximum we can give is what was offered by Barak.

[Sprayber]

You know. It gets tirsome defending Israel. But everytime I see someone smugly write about the poor blameless Pal it makes me sick. It makes me sick that they are protrayed as having no responsibility for their current situation.

If there was no sucide attacks almost daily

If it wasn't for their leader being a retired terrorist

If it wasn't for the fact they refused a peace deal when they there was a chance

and

If it wasn't for the fact that they scream for the destruction of Israel

Then I wouldn't defend Israel as much as I do.

[CyberGnu]

Umm, spraybear, if you use actions that are 55 years old to justify your view, why not 60 years? Or 100? How about 2000?

What it comes down to is that european nations are as a whole the most impartial of all nations on earth. The multitude of nations ranging from far left to moderate right ensures that one particular ideology won't get the upper hand, as it does in for example the U.S..


Barley, the jews did learn something in WWII. From Stalin they learned that any atrocity can be shoved under the carpet if you are strong enough.

It is therefore the civilized worlds task to show that acts of barbarism such as the Israeli occupation of palestine is NOT permitted.

[Eli]

Originally posted by CyberGnu
Umm, spraybear, if you use actions that are 55 years old to justify your view, why not 60 years? Or 100? How about 2000?

He's not the only one doing so...

[Sprayber]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

Then why should Isreal give a damn about what the Euros want now. Why should they accept them as impartial when in the past the Euros didnt care if the ARABS destroyed their lives.

Who is saying anything about the Europeans?

IIRC, US President Bush has been calling for withdrawl 'without delay', and the US has been thought to be an Israeli ally.

It was a general question that I threw out. You answered it.

I've said many times that Sharon does stupid things. Stupid all around in fact. He issues these orders for troops to go in and round people up, destroy property, get people killed and then he withdraws them without really doing much to solve the problem. In the end it causes more problems then it solves. But with constant attacks of restaurants, what can you do. You either take them and try to win sympathy or you strike back.

[Drake Tungsten]

Originally posted by CyberGnu
What it comes down to is that european nations are as a whole the most impartial of all nations on earth.

I haven't laughed so hard in a while. Thank you.

[Giancarlo]

The poor Palestinians... they are stuck under a tryannical Arafat government, and terrorist groups that makes the Israelis attack them. I am sick and tired of Sharon's overreacting and of Arafat.

It is like putting a cat and dog in a room, they would attack each other most of the time.

[Sprayber]

Originally posted by CyberGnu
Umm, spraybear, if you use actions that are 55 years old to justify your view, why not 60 years? Or 100? How about 2000?

Well, take your pick. 1948. or last week in a Israeli restuarant.

What it comes down to is that european nations are as a whole the most impartial of all nations on earth. The multitude of nations ranging from far left to moderate right ensures that one particular ideology won't get the upper hand, as it does in for example the U.S..

Thats the most arrogent quote I've heard in some time. People say Americans are arrogent. Euros are no less bias than any others. They may have different biases but still no less bias. And before some jump in, Americans are by no means imune from it either.

Barley, the jews did learn something in WWII. From Stalin they learned that any atrocity can be shoved under the carpet if you are strong enough.

The Arabs it seems don't have to hide theirs. They seem to be able to commit them in open and not only get away with it but become heros to the people in Europe.

It is therefore the civilized worlds task to show that acts of barbarism such as the Israeli occupation of palestine is NOT permitted.

I'll agree, as long as you act with equal vigor against the inhuman violence that the Pal do on a daily basis. What exactly will it take them doing to shock the Euorpeans? Is it a matter of numbers. Do they have to kill a thousand Jewish civilians at once to get a reaction? Surley they don't have to be as effeicent as the Germans became.

[Felch]

Everybody has a right to live in peace wherever they wish, so long as they respect the rights of others.

The Palestinians have, in violation of both Islamic law and Natural law, used suicide bombings to try to sway Israel into ceding territories it annexed for its own protection.

There aren't analogies to reflect this situation, and the Holocaust example is both tiresome and trivializing of one of the greatest crimes ever committed by Europeans. It would take a work of fantasy similar to Gulliver's Travels to find anything similar. European states, and the United States, supposedly in solidarity with the rest of the free world in opposition to terrorism, are condemning Israel in its own domestic issues, when Israelis are being murdered for no reason whatsoever.

How's this for an example PH? Northern Ireland. For seven hundred years the Irish were invaded, pillaged, tyrannized, starved, and deprived of basic civil and human rights, especially the right to religious freedom. Following the negotiated autonomy of the IFS, extremists in the Republican movement first waged a violent civil war with their own Free State, and more recently carried out attacks in the UK. The Irish were historically treated at least as inhumanely as the Palestinians, and the tactics used by the British and the loyalist paramilitaries in supressing the PIRA during the past few decades involved detainment without trial, secretive military tribunals, and heavily armored vehicles being used to patrol city streets.

Bearing in mind that even a modern, self-righteous, WASPish state would deprive its own citizens of basic liberties in order to quell a much less barbaric uprising, how can we legitimately condemn the Israelis who are simply doing the same thing the British did near the end of the last century?

[CyberGnu]

Eli: ?

Drake: Please elaborate. BTW, are you by any cahnge one of the people who claim that Bill O'Reilly only seems to be biased because all other media in the world are biased to the left?

Spraybear:

Well, take your pick. 1948. or last week in a Israeli restuarant.

I'm sorry, what happened last week? Was a german customer rude to the jewish waitor? should we firebomb Berlin?

You could of course be referring to the palestinian freedom fighter to set off a suicide bomb, but I fail to see how that is connected to whether Europeans are biased or not...

It also seems I overstimated your intelligence. I assumed you would understand that if you extend the time frame only five years, you encompass the German Reich and the Holocaust. It is pretty clear that the situation has changed quite drastically... As one editorial in Todays LATimes put it 'jews today go to germany for vacations, while claiming that arab anti-semitism can only be met with tanks'.

So you might want to be more careful when you set your time limits. How about looking at a more realistic perspective, i.e. the last ten years or so?


You also seem to confuse 'biased' with 'partial'. They are very different things. European politics are, AFAIK, not partial to or against muslims. Nor are the partial to or against Israel. They are, however, condemning the Israeli practice of aggression.

The U.S., on the other hand, has shown itself to be immensly partial, supporting right-wing goverments mainly because they are anti-communist, and in more recent years supporting Israel no matter what atrocities that country carries out.

But I might be wrong. Please, if you have more information, show how european politcs (as in the EU, not individual countries unless you can show the same practice being carried out by at least five independent nations) is partial. I'd like to know. I grant that the French insistance on importing bananas from their former colonies is a partial policy, and I don;t agree with it. I don't think it matter much, however.


The arabs arean't hiding what Europeans (and the rest of the world apart from the US) consider a struggle to liberate their land from a foreign occupier. I guess the US, never had had a foreign power occupy their land can't really sympatise...


As I've said before. I don't belive suicide bombings are effective right now, mainly ebcause the person who benefits most from these acts is Sharon... Giving him more justification to eliminate the peace process, which has been his goal for many many years. but to condemn a peoples struggle for their own nation is to turn your back on 200 years of civilization...


Felch, there are MANY examples of similar struggles. The most obvious one is the French resistance. The french resistance killed both civilians and soldiers of the occupying germans, not to mention collaborators among the french. History shows them as heroes... do you really think history will do anything else with palestinan freedom fighters?

In Northern Ireland, the english did carry out atrocities, something they have been very apologetic over. It should be noted, however, that not until the snglish realized that meeting violence with violence was not going to work did the IRA lose power... When this is brought up, Israeli apologists usually claim that the Norther Ireland conflict is completely different for a myriad reasons...

And in one sense it is. England would have happily gotten rid of Norther Ireland if it could, but the voters in NI wanted to belong to england. Israel, on the other hand, is trying to acquire land through the occupation and removal of the legitimate population of palestine. they have no interest in peace, as that would effectively stop the ongoing landtheft...

[Drake Tungsten]

Originally posted by CyberGnu
Drake: Please elaborate. BTW, are you by any cahnge one of the people who claim that Bill O'Reilly only seems to be biased because all other media in the world are biased to the left?

I don't know if you actually read this thread, but I made an earlier post that I think laid out my views on European "impartiality". I won't write the whole thing down again (just scroll up if you want to read it), but the basic point was that the treatment of the Palestinians by their Arab "brothers" has been as bad or worse than the treatment of Pals by the Israelis. In spite of this, Europe seems to blame all of the region's problems on Israel and ignores the huge part that the Arabs have played in creating the intractable situation we have today. Are Europeans biased (or partial, to use your your phrase) toward the Arabs? I can't say for sure, but I think you can make a very good case for it. Certainly European behavior is questionable enough to make any claim that "european nations are as a whole the most impartial of all nations on earth" laughable. Not to mention extremely arrogant, as Sprayber mentioned.

Finally, what the hell does Bill O'Reilly have to do with anything? It seems like a weak attempt to paint me as an "American conservative" you Euros so love to hate. My criticism of European views has nothing to do with the general liberal bent of European politics and everything to do with the huge omissions made by many Europeans when commenting on the Middle East.

[Natan]

Originally posted by CyberGnu
Felch, there are MANY examples of similar struggles. The most obvious one is the French resistance. The french resistance killed both civilians and soldiers of the occupying germans, not to mention collaborators among the french. History shows them as heroes... do you really think history will do anything else with palestinan freedom fighters?

How many people do you know who think the Polisario front is a great band of freedom fighters? How about the Jaish e Muhammed and the Harkat al-Mujahadeen, liberating Kashmir? Or maybe the Uighurs? The reason the French resistance is praised is that it fought Nazis, not because it fought to put the border of France on the Rhine rather than the Loire. If it were the latter rather than the former which was to their credit, history would remember the French as the great heroes of WWI and the Germans as its villains. In fact, it views the struggle as essentially an amoral one, with the only possible villains being uncompromising statesman on both sides.

And in one sense it is. England would have happily gotten rid of Norther Ireland if it could, but the voters in NI wanted to belong to england. Israel, on the other hand, is trying to acquire land through the occupation and removal of the legitimate population of palestine. they have no interest in peace, as that would effectively stop the ongoing landtheft...

As you yourself would explain if the British were Jews, Northern Ireland is an example of zoning.

[Sprayber]

As I've said before. I don't belive suicide bombings are effective right now, mainly ebcause the person who benefits most from these acts is Sharon... Giving him more justification to eliminate the peace process, which has been his goal for many many years. but to condemn a peoples struggle for their own nation is to turn your back on 200 years of civilization...

You say they aren't effective. I say that they are wrong because they target civilians for no other purpose than that they are Jews. You can sit there and call them freedom fighters all you want. But it can't be used to justify what they do. As long as they use these means than I will continue to support the right of Israel to seek them out and kill them. This goes to the heart of what I'm saying. You seem indifferent. To you, many Euros, and even many Americans, the daily murder of Israeli citizens are some kind of cry for freedom instead of simple bloody murder. For as long as this continues there will be no end to the many bad things that the Israelies do in the name of defense. Your arrogance in the face of people dieing is astounding.

I'll ask you the same thing I asked Imran.

Do you hold the pals responsible for anything? Other then ineffective tacticts


***note. I had written responses to your insulting remarks but decided that the central issue of the arguement was more important than me trying to prove to you that Euros are not the most unbiased people on the planet. If that's what you believe than nothing I say is going to change your mind. If you want to live with that fantasy then who am I to make you.

[Sirotnikov]

Ya'll are justifying the terracts as result of occupation - an occupation which Israel tried to end in 2000 only to be refused by Arafat.

[S. Kroeze]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

The surrounding Arab states are doing the same thing. In many ways, they are worse. Israel isn't occupying the West Bank for political reasons; they're doing it for their own survival. The Arab states, on the other hand, allow the Pals to live in the squalor of the refugee camps because it provides a powerful tool for Arab leaders to use to destabalize Israel and maintain their own corrupt regimes. Yet we never hear the international community protesting the cynical actions of the Arab states. I guess some people just find it easier to blame the whole problem on Israel, irregardless of the truth.

By now, Israel has occupied the West Bank for about 35 years. I guess that should have been sufficiently long to provide a final solution to this conflict. I see three possibilities -please correct me when there are still other possibilities:

• Kill ALL Palestinians
• Deport ALL Palestinians to the frontier
• Make a lasting peace with the enemy: giving the Palestinians -the former inhabitants of this country- a substantial part of former Palestine and also a part of Jerusalem.
  Originally the UN plan was to make Jerusalem international territory. Giving less than 20% of all land will not do!

When no final solution will be reached in the short turn, Israel will be wiped off the face of the earth sooner of later. Time is running out!

In my opinion the international community -which includes Europe and the US- has committed a most heinous crime by first allowing the Holocaust without doing anything to thwart it, then allowing the Jews to be slowly tormented, undermined, killed and wasted in some extremely volatile and underdeveloped part of the world -largely desert- acting as a hateful colonial oppressor, far away from Europe and the US.
I guess this has been one great pharisaic, Christian conspiracy from the beginning: making Jews the unpaid guardians of 'our' Holy places!

The killing of Palestinians -actually far more Palestinians are killed- is no problem at all: the life of an 'Arab' is still even more useless than the life of a Jew!
When the Muslims of Srebrenica were slaughtered -about 7000 men- Dutchbat wisely looked the other way.
That is probably also the reason the US -and Europe to a lesser degree- do support these unpleasant and corrupt regimes, like the shah(Iran), Saddam Hussein(Iraq), Syria, Turkey, Saudi-Arabia etc. To my knowledge Bush and O.benLaden moved in the same upper walks of life!

Yet we never hear the international community protesting these extremely cynical actions of Europe and the US!