As I have said before I don’t know the answer to the question and I genuinely do see both sides of the argument. I ask one question, if the UN or some ‘New World Order’ supranational entity was to decide that this Middle East problem could only be resolved by creating a Palestinian homeland in the state of Texas for example and voted it through and then started removing families that had lived there for generations, what do you think would happen? That’s why I cannot agree one side is ‘right’ and one side is ‘wrong’ in such a way as this video would have you believe

Hope everyone is having a enjoyable week-end.

I just received this article below. It is basically a flashback to something that happened 30 yrs ago.
By reading this, it seems some practices haven’t really changed in those 30 yrs: scapegoating, mass indiscriminate bombing of civilians, use of cluster and phosphorous bombs/weaponry.

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/another-summer-another-siege-israels-war-p-l-o

Best to all,

LPG

Al, PLEASE don’t wreck my Sunday of all days!!!
By 1949, 700,000 Palestinian had been evicted by the IDF from 500 of their villages and towns. The Israelis looted many of the Palestinian homes before either destroying them or living there like cuckoos. Please listen in to Miko Peled’s lecture attached below (this very point made 8 mins into interview). Or see the way the Palestinian territories from 1948 have been shrivelled from their original size as Craig Roberts will show on various maps re the subject. Or how the Israelis have stolen bore holes from the Paletinians, or regulated their power supplies, or the way they’ve stolen settlements in East Jerusalem or the West Bank with abandon. Remember the Zionist goal is to restore to itself a total Israel that includes Gaza (Samaria) and the West Bank (Judea), referred to by the Zionists ONLY by their biblical names.
Your commentator explains that one side wants the other dead…couldn’t agree more! OH, LORD HAVE MERCY!

Scroll across to Miko Peled:
http://www.kereport.com/2014/08/03/big-al-middle-east-2/

Just to clarify at the end of Dennis Prager’s speel go to piece headed Israeli General speaking out for Palestinians

If the Canadians,Americans or British or Europeans(read anybody) had taken the Jews that survived the holocaust there would have been a different outcome.
The MS St. Louis comes to mind.
So,the Jews were given the right to return to Palestine and the Brits and Yanks did not care that the Arabs would kill them.
Nobody cared and that is why we have what we have today.
http://geography.about.com/od/populationgeography/a/displacedjews.htm

I tend to agree one big point about the video: it is a simple issue.
However, my views to solve it are quite different than the conclusions this gentleman came to.

Give back the land stolen from the Palestinians.
Stop taking more land from them – which is done one a daily basis.
Stop the illegal settlements, that the Government currently encourages one way or another.

It is amazing that no-one supporting the current Israeli’s government’s actions ever ever e-v-e-r answers the question raised by Nigel above.
No-one.
Why ?

I personally view stealing as being something wrong. W-R-O-N-G.
I personally view Palestinians as having an undeniable right to their having their own country, which the current Israeli government still denies. An undeniable right. Because I believe people have a right to have their own freedom. F-R-E-E-D-O-M.
These are my 2 simple angles of looking at the conflict.

I don’t need to see the conflicts as being Jews vs. Muslims. Or even Jews vs. Arabs as it is simply a subversive and fallacious mental shortcut.

Best,

LPG

I think that was addressed in the Camp David Accords and the following assassination of Anwar Sadat,LPG.

President Anwar Sadat’s signing of the Camp David Accords on 17 September 1978 and his shared 1978 Nobel Peace Prize with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin led to his assassination by dissatisfied Islamic extremists from within Egypt. The group was outraged over the president’s decision to make peace with Israel.

On 6 October 1981 President Anwar Sadat was assassinated by members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad during the annual victory parade held in Cairo to celebrate Egypt’s crossing of the Suez Canal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_David_Accords

Al,

I was quite surprised by one of your statements made upfront:
“Comments on this site show no middle ground. Opinions are in one of two categories. Israelis are terrible people or Muslims are terrible people. ”

Where is this coming from ?????????
I am sorry to say that I DO NOT CONCUR WITH YOUR STATEMENT or YOUR CONCLUSION AS I BELIEVE IT IN NOOOO WAY REPRESENTS THE WHOLE REALITY OF THE CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THOSE WHO POSTED COMMENTS.

Despite having read almost every single of the 220+ comments from Thursday’s “Ker commentary” (to be precise: 229 comments at the time of writing) I personally didn’t “see” the “overly simplistic” dichotomy or polarity you are referring to. It’s almost like you and I have read different posts !

My own/personal impressions from reading almost all of these 220+ posts are that:
(1) YES, there seems to be contributors who one way or another indeed would tend to suggest: “Muslims are terrible people”. –> so I agree with you on that part.
(2) YES, there seems to be contributors who one way or another indeed would tend to suggest: “Israelis are terrible people”. –> so I agree with you on that part.

3) BUT BUT BUUUUUT……
THERE ARE QUITE A FEW COMMENTARIES who, IMHO, tend to suggest:
the current actions from the Israeli GOVERNMENT are simply non-justifiable from a humane standpoint. Also, some tend to suggest (or agree to suggestions) that the conflict is neither religious nor ethnic (Jews vs. Arabs or Jews vs. Palestinians).

These comments (I see myself as having comments in that camp) have NOTHING TO DO with talking about Muslims or Israelis. Nothing. N-o-t-h-i-n-g.
They address the very specific actions of the Israeli Government right now. It’s a BIG DIFFERENCE AL. A B-I-G D-I-F-F-E-R-E-N-C-E AL.
And you seem to have totally missed or ignored those views. Amazing. How could you miss those?

I know it is intellectually easier to mix/mingle things together and take intellectual shortcuts, and make broad statements….
But please DO NOT confuse those who blame the actions of the current Israeli Government with a blame against Israel. Personally, this is a shortcut I don’t take – at all.
To my eyes, the current Government of B. Netanyahu is responsible or has ordered:
*before launching its military operation: arresting 400+ Palestinians (including elected officials) and killing several of them under the pretext that the Hamas was “responsible” for the abduction of 3 teenagers. Israeli officials now admit that the Hamas wasn’t responsible for this abduction. FORGOT ABOUT THAT ? THAT’S A FACT.
* mass killing of civilians by the dropping of bombs indiscriminately – THAT’S A FACT.
* the use of phosphorus ammunitions on civilian populations (prohibited by international conventions). THAT’S A FACT.
* indiscriminate destruction of infrastructure – THAT’S A FACT.

In all of this, I don’t blame for 1 second, one way or another, Israel, or Jews.
I don’t because this is not how I see things.
And I take great moral comfort in a growing minority within the Jewish community (Jews living outside of Israel, or inside Israel) clearly voicing their disapproval of the actions of the current Israeli government. Some posts were made by Jews and were very explicit in this regard.

So Al, how could you miss all of this ? How could you ? How ?
How could you just summarize the 220+ comments from Thursday with “Opinions are in one of two categories. Israelis are terrible people or Muslims are terrible people.”
That’s saddening. Very very saddening.

IMHO, your summarizing comment just helps perpetuating the idea that the conflict is “Israelis vs. Muslims”. This is exactly what the powers that be want the “average man of the street to believe”, so that the conflict can continue. Antagonizing people along religious or Israelis vs. Muslims lines keeps feeding the conflict. Well done !

Some of us, still a minority, try to see things beyond the religious or Israeli vs. Muslims angles.
But I take great comfort that we are a growing minority. And our views transcend our religious backgrounds or countries of origin. People, everywhere, are really starting to open their eyes. Many are still in the dark and want to ignore reality. But slowly, people are opening their eyes, questioning their strong held beliefs.
There is hope…
There is light…
… And as long as we as humans don’t fall into the trap of “Muslims vs. Israelis”, or Islam vs. Jews, there will be a chance to get this conflict sorted, and give Palestinians what their deserve as human beings: freedom and a country.

IMHO, history will not be kind with people such as B. Netanyahu for it has never been kind with politicians enabling the mass murdering of civilians, irrespective of the intended purpose.

And those who didn’t stand up against the atrocities enabled by the current Israeli government will be viewed with the same contempt than those people who collaborated with the Nazis during WW2 and allowed the mass killing of Jews during that time.

Best,

LPG

On an connected matter to the conflict, and related to the BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) movement:

http://www.thenational.ae/business/industry-insights/economics/soros-fund-drops-shares-in-israels-sodastream

Best,

LPG

LPG, I do agree that civilians should not be used as pawns but Hamas is not listening.They don’t care. It has come down to the obvious.
This campaign is one to have the world community turn against Israel and they are offering up the Palestinians as human fodder for their political objective-annihilation of the state.
Who supported the Jews in 48?
Who supported the Jews in 73?
Which Arab states supported the Jews when they made a comprehensive peace for the self determination of Gaza and Palestine?
It will be a fight until the extinction of the Jews,just like in Europe. The Arab world supports war with Israel and have since day one. The Palestinian people are just the means to the end.

Matt,

I think I see your angle.

When you mention
“It will be a fight until the extinction of the Jews,just like in Europe. The Arab world supports war with Israel and have since day one.”,
I just hope one thing: that you will ultimately be proven wrong – ie that events won’t come to that end.

Best,

LPG

See Ted Pike: Very informative

Ted Pike’s – The Other Israel (full documentary)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zc1xTiH9T8

Ted Pike – Why The Mid-East Bleeds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFBZ282RpAA

You ask for our comments Al. Just what are yours? See below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TdlJxW-m8A

Israel Is Stealing and Murdering Its Way Through Palestine

Paul Craig Roberts

As Zionists have endeavored to teach the world for decades, Israel is not subject to criticism. Only Jew-haters, anti-semites, and people who want to gas Jews and boil them in oil criticize Israel. Israel is above criticism, because Israelis are God’s Chosen People and despite being God’s Chosen People suffered the Holocaust.

This means that the Israeli government, like the one in Washington, can do whatever it wants and remain above criticism.

Since the 1940s Zionists have been stealing Palestine from the Palestinians. The majority of Palestinians have been removed from their homes and their country. They exist in refugee camps in other countries and 1.5 million are concentrated in the Gaza Ghetto, which is blockaded by Israel on one end and by the Washington paid Egyptians on the other.

This makes it convenient for Israel from time to time to attack the civilian population and civilian infrastructure in Gaza with military force. So far in Israel’s latest war crime, Israel has murdered more than 1,200 Palestinians, largely women and children. You will seldom see the photos of the destruction in the American media, but RT provides a few glimpses. http://rt.com/news/175852-gaza-ceasefire-deathtoll-thousand/

Israel is always the aggressor but always takes the role of the victim. Palestinian women and children are all subhumans–”snakes” as one Israeli politician put it–who sneak into Israel through secret tunnels (whose existence is akin to Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction) wearing suicide bomb belts and blow up innocent Israelis along with themselves while Israelis sit in cafes peacefully discussing philosophical issues and the latest news. To stop this slaughter of innocent Israelis, Israel has to blow up Palestinian hospitals, schools, and civilian homes and apartment blocks.

These unmistakable war crimes, these crimes against humanity are all ignored by the great moral arbiters of the world–the Governments of the West who are shaking their fingers not at Israel but their fists at Russia.

Western governments ignore Israel’s war crimes but not all Western peoples comply with this neglect. Many thousands of demonstrators against Israel have been in the streets in South America, London, Paris, Germany, Dublin, and Israel’s own Tel Aviv. http://rt.com/news/175860-london-gaza-protest-march/ But don’t look for much reporting of these demonstrations in the American presstitute media.

The American presstitute media is focused on those who died in the downing of the Malaysian airliner in eastern Ukraine, in order to blame those 290 deaths on Russia. As far as the American presstitute media is concerned, the murder of 1,200 Palestinian deaths is not happening or if it is, the Palestinians deserve it for responding to Israel’s oppression by firing in frustration primitive rockets that seldom, if ever, hit their targets.

What is another 1,200 murdered Palestinians? Who cares? Not Washington or the British PM in Whitehall and certainly not the Israelis. As far as Israel and the Great Moral West is concerned, 1,200 murdered Palestinians amount to nothing. They are not even chafe in the wind.

The last time Israel attacked the civilians in Gaza, a distinguished Israeli jurist, himself a Zionist, prepared a case for the UN that Israel had committed war crimes. On Israel’s orders the craven but very obedient US Congress passed a resolution denouncing the distinguished jurist for defaming the pure and innocent Israeli government. The pressure from Washington and Israel on the jurist broke his commitment to truth, and he retracted his findings.

This is what the Israel Lobby and the craven American presstitute media do to everyone who criticizes Israel’s crimes against humanity and Washington’s protection of Israel’s crimes. Anytime you see a person attacked by the Israel Lobby, you know for certain that the person under attack is the salt of the earth. The distinctive mark of a moral human being is to be attacked by the Israel Lobby and the presstitute American media.

While Israel murders Palestinians in Gaza with attacks on hospitals, schools, and civilian apartment blocks, Washington and its puppets in Kiev attack civilians in apartment blocks in the former Russian provinces of Ukraine who object to Washington’s overthrow of the democratically elected government in Ukraine and Washington’s installation of a Russophobic Russian-hating government in its place.

Washington has declared those in Ukraine who object to Washington’s takeover of their country to be “terrorists” and is seeking legislation that will permit US troops legally to enter Ukraine to suppress the “terrorists.”

David Ward, a member of the British Parliament, who has the right as a British citizen and member of Parliament to express his opinion, said that if he lived in Gaza under Israeli oppression, he would likely fire a rocket into Israel.

The British media and government is yet to criticize Israel for its crimes, but instantly attacked Ward for his “vile comments.” A Conservative member of Parliament, Nadhim Zahawi wrote the Metropolitan Police demanding an investigation into Ward’s statement “as a matter of urgency.” The Conservative party chairman Grant Shapps declared Ward’s statement to be an “incitement to violence,” a felony. The craven Labour Party declared Ward’s opinion to be “so vile and irresponsible” that “it defied belief.” http://rt.com/uk/174920-david-ward-israel-tweet/

The Liberal Democrats of which Ward is a member “utterly condemned” Ward’s remarks and declared that Ward would be subject to disciplinary hearings and may permanently be expelled from the party.

There you have it. A member of Parliament in the country that invented freedom of speech expresses an honest opinion, and he is dead meat. Ward’s harmless remarks killed no one. The Israelis with weapons supplied by Washington have, at this time of writing murdered more than 1,200 people. But it is Ward who must be restrained, not Israel. Ward’s remarks are declared “vile and irresponsible” but not Israel’s murder of 1,200 people.

The US and UK pretend to be countries that are not afraid of the truth, where there is free inquiry and freedom to express one’s views, but it is all a great lie.

The US and UK are the two greatest threats to free speech on the face of the earth. In the UK no truth contrary to the line is permissible. In the US people who speak the truth are put on the Watch List.

How much longer will the governments of the rest of the world regard the US and UK as homes of free speech and uplifting Western morality?

In America the success of Israeli propaganda, never challenged of course by the US media, exceeds the success of Washington’s own propaganda. Most Americans believe that Palestinian women and children are outfitted with explosive suicide belts and that “the snakes,” as they are described by Israeli politicians, walk into Israeli cafes and blow everyone up including themselves.

The fact of the matter is that Palestinians cannot get into Israel. Gaza is blockaded as are the few remaining Palestinian settlements in the West Bank. Israel has stolen almost all of Palestine. The few Palestinian settlements still permitted to exist are cut off by a massive wall from Israel and from each other by barbed wire and check points, cut off from hospitals and schools, from water, and from their fields and olive groves, which are being destroyed to make room for settlers‘ apartment blocks.

People this hemmed in are helpless, and the extreme right-wing Israeli settlers are moving into the few remaining Palestinian settlements evicting the Palestinians from their properties with the aid of US-provided Caterpillar tractors especially designed for uprooting Palestinian olive groves and demolishing Palestinian houses, just like the Caterpillar tractor that the Israelis ran over US citizen Rachel Corrie, murdering this protesting US citizen in cold blood. Yes, you are correct, the Great Moral US government did nothing about it. Israel learned when it murdered the crew of the USS Liberty in 1967 that Israel had carte blanche from Washington to murder US citizens.

When you view the photos of Palestinians who have undergone an Israeli attack, what do you see? You see unarmed people crying, hugging dead children in their arms and one another. You never see a resolute armed people prepared to repel the next Israeli attack. You see devastated hospitals, schools, and apartment complexes and Palestinians in tears and no weapons.

What is striking about the success of Israeli propaganda is its success when all evidence is that Palestinians are pacifists, incapable of resistance. The bulk of the people in Gaza are refugees from the West Bank where their land and homes were stolen by the Great Democratic State of Israel. The Israeli destruction of Palestine has been going on for almost seven decades. And still Palestinians are not armed and have no effective military units.

After seven decades the Palestinian people remain unarmed. Hamas has a few ineffective weapons, but the people themselves are unarmed. Their response to the Israeli murders of their children, wives, husbands, brothers, sisters, parents, cousins, and friends is to cry. This is not the response of a warlike people.

In contrast, there are reports that Israeli civilians sit atop the hill overlooking Gaza on sofas that they bring along with their drinks and food and watch in glee, clapping and cheering as Israeli bombs destroy Palestinians in their homes, children in their schools, and the ill in hospitals. If this is the true face of “the only democracy in the Middle East,” it is the face of evil.

Here are photos from the New York Times of Israelis gathered to enjoy the slaughter of Palestinians. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/15/world/middleeast/israelis-watch-bombs-drop-on-gaza-from-front-row-seats.html?_r=1 If Hamas’ rockets were a threat, these Israelis
would be dead.

The view brainwashed into the West that Palestinians are a threat to Israel is absurd. If Palestinians are a threat and a danger to Israel, how is it possible that Palestinians are locked away into sealed ghettos in the remnants of their own country or into refugee camps in foreign countries?

As Israel’s most distinguished historian, Ilan Pappe, has related, the story of Israel is the story of “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.” This story has been hidden by Western “moral” governments and by a corrupt Western media and “Christian” priests from Western populations that, possibly, would have objected, but who are now too brainwashed and disinformed to know.

Israel Is Stealing and Murdering Its Way Through Palestine

Paul Craig Roberts

As Zionists have endeavored to teach the world for decades, Israel is not subject to criticism. Only Jew-haters, anti-semites, and people who want to gas Jews and boil them in oil criticize Israel. Israel is above criticism, because Israelis are God’s Chosen People and despite being God’s Chosen People suffered the Holocaust.

This means that the Israeli government, like the one in Washington, can do whatever it wants and remain above criticism.

Since the 1940s Zionists have been stealing Palestine from the Palestinians. The majority of Palestinians have been removed from their homes and their country. They exist in refugee camps in other countries and 1.5 million are concentrated in the Gaza Ghetto, which is blockaded by Israel on one end and by the Washington paid Egyptians on the other.

This makes it convenient for Israel from time to time to attack the civilian population and civilian infrastructure in Gaza with military force. So far in Israel’s latest war crime, Israel has murdered more than 1,200 Palestinians, largely women and children. You will seldom see the photos of the destruction in the American media, but RT provides a few glimpses.

Israel is always the aggressor but always takes the role of the victim. Palestinian women and children are all subhumans–”snakes” as one Israeli politician put it–who sneak into Israel through secret tunnels (whose existence is akin to Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction) wearing suicide bomb belts and blow up innocent Israelis along with themselves while Israelis sit in cafes peacefully discussing philosophical issues and the latest news. To stop this slaughter of innocent Israelis, Israel has to blow up Palestinian hospitals, schools, and civilian homes and apartment blocks.

These unmistakable war crimes, these crimes against humanity are all ignored by the great moral arbiters of the world–the Governments of the West who are shaking their fingers not at Israel but their fists at Russia.

Western governments ignore Israel’s war crimes but not all Western peoples comply with this neglect. Many thousands of demonstrators against Israel have been in the streets in South America, London, Paris, Germany, Dublin, and Israel’s own Tel Aviv. But don’t look for much reporting of these demonstrations in the American presstitute media.

The American presstitute media is focused on those who died in the downing of the Malaysian airliner in eastern Ukraine, in order to blame those 290 deaths on Russia. As far as the American presstitute media is concerned, the murder of 1,200 Palestinian deaths is not happening or if it is, the Palestinians deserve it for responding to Israel’s oppression by firing in frustration primitive rockets that seldom, if ever, hit their targets.

What is another 1,200 murdered Palestinians? Who cares? Not Washington or the British PM in Whitehall and certainly not the Israelis. As far as Israel and the Great Moral West is concerned, 1,200 murdered Palestinians amount to nothing. They are not even chafe in the wind.

The last time Israel attacked the civilians in Gaza, a distinguished Israeli jurist, himself a Zionist, prepared a case for the UN that Israel had committed war crimes. On Israel’s orders the craven but very obedient US Congress passed a resolution denouncing the distinguished jurist for defaming the pure and innocent Israeli government. The pressure from Washington and Israel on the jurist broke his commitment to truth, and he retracted his findings.

This is what the Israel Lobby and the craven American presstitute media do to everyone who criticizes Israel’s crimes against humanity and Washington’s protection of Israel’s crimes. Anytime you see a person attacked by the Israel Lobby, you know for certain that the person under attack is the salt of the earth. The distinctive mark of a moral human being is to be attacked by the Israel Lobby and the presstitute American media.

While Israel murders Palestinians in Gaza with attacks on hospitals, schools, and civilian apartment blocks, Washington and its puppets in Kiev attack civilians in apartment blocks in the former Russian provinces of Ukraine who object to Washington’s overthrow of the democratically elected government in Ukraine and Washington’s installation of a Russophobic Russian-hating government in its place.

Washington has declared those in Ukraine who object to Washington’s takeover of their country to be “terrorists” and is seeking legislation that will permit US troops legally to enter Ukraine to suppress the “terrorists.”

David Ward, a member of the British Parliament, who has the right as a British citizen and member of Parliament to express his opinion, said that if he lived in Gaza under Israeli oppression, he would likely fire a rocket into Israel.

The British media and government is yet to criticize Israel for its crimes, but instantly attacked Ward for his “vile comments.” A Conservative member of Parliament, Nadhim Zahawi wrote the Metropolitan Police demanding an investigation into Ward’s statement “as a matter of urgency.” The Conservative party chairman Grant Shapps declared Ward’s statement to be an “incitement to violence,” a felony. The craven Labour Party declared Ward’s opinion to be “so vile and irresponsible” that “it defied belief.”

The Liberal Democrats of which Ward is a member “utterly condemned” Ward’s remarks and declared that Ward would be subject to disciplinary hearings and may permanently be expelled from the party.

I forgot that more than one link causes moderation, so I took the links out.
The whole article is at Paul Craig Roberts sit.

There you have it. A member of Parliament in the country that invented freedom of speech expresses an honest opinion, and he is dead meat. Ward’s harmless remarks killed no one. The Israelis with weapons supplied by Washington have, at this time of writing murdered more than 1,200 people. But it is Ward who must be restrained, not Israel. Ward’s remarks are declared “vile and irresponsible” but not Israel’s murder of 1,200 people.

The US and UK pretend to be countries that are not afraid of the truth, where there is free inquiry and freedom to express one’s views, but it is all a great lie.

The US and UK are the two greatest threats to free speech on the face of the earth. In the UK no truth contrary to the line is permissible. In the US people who speak the truth are put on the Watch List.

How much longer will the governments of the rest of the world regard the US and UK as homes of free speech and uplifting Western morality?

In America the success of Israeli propaganda, never challenged of course by the US media, exceeds the success of Washington’s own propaganda. Most Americans believe that Palestinian women and children are outfitted with explosive suicide belts and that “the snakes,” as they are described by Israeli politicians, walk into Israeli cafes and blow everyone up including themselves.

The fact of the matter is that Palestinians cannot get into Israel. Gaza is blockaded as are the few remaining Palestinian settlements in the West Bank. Israel has stolen almost all of Palestine. The few Palestinian settlements still permitted to exist are cut off by a massive wall from Israel and from each other by barbed wire and check points, cut off from hospitals and schools, from water, and from their fields and olive groves, which are being destroyed to make room for settlers‘ apartment blocks.

People this hemmed in are helpless, and the extreme right-wing Israeli settlers are moving into the few remaining Palestinian settlements evicting the Palestinians from their properties with the aid of US-provided Caterpillar tractors especially designed for uprooting Palestinian olive groves and demolishing Palestinian houses, just like the Caterpillar tractor that the Israelis ran over US citizen Rachel Corrie, murdering this protesting US citizen in cold blood. Yes, you are correct, the Great Moral US government did nothing about it. Israel learned when it murdered the crew of the USS Liberty in 1967 that Israel had carte blanche from Washington to murder US citizens.

When you view the photos of Palestinians who have undergone an Israeli attack, what do you see? You see unarmed people crying, hugging dead children in their arms and one another. You never see a resolute armed people prepared to repel the next Israeli attack. You see devastated hospitals, schools, and apartment complexes and Palestinians in tears and no weapons.

What is striking about the success of Israeli propaganda is its success when all evidence is that Palestinians are pacifists, incapable of resistance. The bulk of the people in Gaza are refugees from the West Bank where their land and homes were stolen by the Great Democratic State of Israel. The Israeli destruction of Palestine has been going on for almost seven decades. And still Palestinians are not armed and have no effective military units.

After seven decades the Palestinian people remain unarmed. Hamas has a few ineffective weapons, but the people themselves are unarmed. Their response to the Israeli murders of their children, wives, husbands, brothers, sisters, parents, cousins, and friends is to cry. This is not the response of a warlike people.

In contrast, there are reports that Israeli civilians sit atop the hill overlooking Gaza on sofas that they bring along with their drinks and food and watch in glee, clapping and cheering as Israeli bombs destroy Palestinians in their homes, children in their schools, and the ill in hospitals. If this is the true face of “the only democracy in the Middle East,” it is the face of evil.

Here are photos from the New York Times of Israelis gathered to enjoy the slaughter of Palestinians. If Hamas’ rockets were a threat, these Israelis
would be dead.

The view brainwashed into the West that Palestinians are a threat to Israel is absurd. If Palestinians are a threat and a danger to Israel, how is it possible that Palestinians are locked away into sealed ghettos in the remnants of their own country or into refugee camps in foreign countries?

As Israel’s most distinguished historian, Ilan Pappe, has related, the story of Israel is the story of “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.” This story has been hidden by Western “moral” governments and by a corrupt Western media and “Christian” priests from Western populations that, possibly, would have objected, but who are now too brainwashed and disinformed to know.

Israel Is Killing Hundreds of Civilians in Gaza, and American Elites Don’t Really Care

By Michael Tracey Jul 22 2014

The political climate surrounding Israel’s ground incursion into Gaza is increasingly disconcerting for a number of reasons, first and foremost being the mounting death toll and general suffering inflicted on innocent civilians. Lower on the “horrific” scale would be the portrayal of the bombardment in American media. Too infrequently do journalists make clear, for instance, that Israel is the United States’ most generously-funded client state; taxpayers subsidize 25 percent of this prosperous power’s military budget. So at the very least, the US government is culpable for any Israeli attack on its besieged and blockaded neighbor. Without the military, political, and cultural support (almost) unconditionally provided by American elected officials, Israel could not wage such an audacious campaign.

Unlike in the United Kingdom and other places, where mainstream news anchors sometimes challenge the claims of Israeli government officials, US journalists generally take a meek and submissive approach. Allowing these officials to repeat their talking points uncontested is standard practice. But as Israel’s attacks intensify, there have been encouraging exceptions. Jake Tapper of CNN reacted with incredulity last week when Israeli Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer said, “Disproportionality has nothing to do with a body count on both sides.” Tapper countered Dermer’s suggestion that such a huge discrepancy in respective death totals—some 600 Gazans to around 30 Israelis as of this writing—has no moral relevance. Nevertheless, variants of Dermer’s meme have taken firm hold in social media thanks to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) public relations “war room,” manned by 400 volunteer college-aged students, which has proven quite adept at feeding highly shareable memes, graphics, and other propaganda materials into Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

In the CNN interview, Dermer reminded viewers that the “disproportionality” between the number of German deaths in World War II and the number of American deaths “didn’t make the Nazis right.” But what this 8th grade history level analysis omits is that when critics point out the casualty discrepancy, they intend to posit that the threat allegedly posed to Israel by Hamas rockets is not quite as profoundly existential as the Israeli government’s rhetoric often implies. A total of 28 Israelis have been killed by rocket fire from Gaza since 2001. That is tragic, and prudent steps to protect Israelis from the attacks are reasonable—but for some perspective, in 2013, there were 303 traffic fatalities in Israel. A sense of proportionality means not overinflating threats to justify military actions that cause the deaths of hundreds of innocent civilians, including many children.

In response to Tapper’s continued queries about Palestinian civilian deaths, Dermer conceded, “We’re not perfect,” which would likely not be tolerated as an excuse by Barack Obama’s domestic political opponents if his administration had used it to explain some US military campaign that claimed hundreds of innocent lives. Probably, Obama and his spokespeople would be expected to provide a better explanation for why children playing on the beach were bombed. But as Daniel Larison of The American Conservative notes, “the near-total ‘pro-Israel’ uniformity among conservative pundits” has meant that Republicans are “constantly propagandized on this subject in one direction” and therefore tend not to raise even a murmur of disquiet about the unrelenting killing of Palestinian kids. Despite their regular calls for attention to the persecution of Christians in the Middle East—including the truly outrageous expulsion of ancient Christian communities in northern Iraq by ISIS—US conservatives have offered nary a peep in defense of approximately 1,000 minority Christians subjected to bombing and terror, right alongside Muslim Gazans. Father Mario Cornioli, parish priest of Beit Jala in the West Bank, denounced Israel’s actions as a “massacre” in an interview with the Vatican radio service last week.

Progressive media have taken slightly more interest in the humanitarian calamity in Gaza, but still lag behind the rest of the world. As of Friday morning, July 18—more than a half-day after Israel’s ground incursion commenced—the words Gaza and Israel appeared nowhere on Mother Jones magazine’s homepage (one headline photo essay was later added). A spokesperson for the outlet, Jacques Hebert, told me, “We publish our top stories each day typically at 6:00 am, and the Gaza story was one of them.” But still, as of Tuesday afternoon, the only piece on the liberal zine’s homepage mentioning Israel or Palestine is about the threat posed by Anonymous hackers to the IDF (in fairness, Mother Jones did publish this worthy examination of US funding for the Israeli military earlier in the year).

Likewise, MSNBC political reporter Benjy Sarlin’s main Twitter analysis of the assault has been to point out an instance of “insane anti-Israel rhetoric,” and favorably link to commentaries by journalist Jeffrey Goldberg—a former IDF prison guard whom Roger Cohen of the New York Times once described as “Netanyahu’s faithful stenographer”—and Philip Klein, a polemicist associated with hardline neoconservative causes. In 2010, journalist Glenn Greenwald remarked of Goldberg: “The more discredited his journalism becomes, the more blatant propaganda he spews, the more he thrives in our media culture.” Klein has tarred critics of previous Israeli attacks on Gaza, such as former Congressman Ron Paul, as abettors of ”the global propaganda campaign to delegitimize Israel,” and regularly flings baseless charges of anti-Semitism at his political opponents.

One propaganda meme much heard of late is that those who make civilian suffering and death central to their analysis of this conflict are somehow by extension expressing sympathy with the hardline Islamism of Hamas or other militant groups. This is absurd. In fact, one can be generally “pro-Israel” and still deplore the Netanyahu government’s conduct for the simple fact that it will likely provoke further attacks on Israel, and further jeopardize the well being of ordinary Israeli citizens, who, like most Palestinians, simply wish to live their lives in peace.

Just as opposing the policies of Obama or George W. Bush don’t ipso facto make a person “against America,” there is nothing intrinsically anti-Israel about opposing the Netanyahu government’s military ventures, and anyone who suggests otherwise is engaging in pretty transparently fallacious reasoning. The notion that one must take sides in order to assess this conflict critically is infantile, and stymies the kind of inquiry that we would apply to almost any other contentious subject.

One factor that exacerbates this dynamic is that many view Israel as a profoundly metaphysical project, often with divine features, rather than principally as a state. (Every year hundreds of American Jews aged 18-26 take an all-expense-paid pilgrimage to Israel called Birthright—funded in part by billionaire GOP donor Sheldon Adelson—where they fraternize with IDF soldiers, hook up, and establish deep emotional bonds with the country. In fact, one of the IDF soldiers killed in the fighting was an American who “graduated” from Birthright.) A sounder way of assessing Israel’s conduct is to view it as a state acting in what it perceives to be its own self-interest. With passions so inflamed on both sides of this issue, it is often difficult to deploy dispassionate analysis; when discourse is fueled by angry emotionalism, there are almost always awful consequences.

Thought experiment: If a leading client state in, say, Southeast Asia, whose armaments were supplied by the US, repeatedly bombed and then invaded its immiserated neighbor, killing hundreds of civilians, how would the American public react? The client state would almost certainly receive at least a mild rebuke from an elected official or two. But this pretty much describes the current situation with Israel, and yet not a single condemnatory remark has been heard from Congress. Not a word, either, for the hundreds of thousands of Gazans who’ve been subjected to trauma and terror, and will likely suffer long-lasting psychological harm as a result.

Meanwhile, American politicians such as New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind—best known for dressing up with blackface for a holiday last year—have just returned from a solidarity mission to Israel. Hikind was pictured consulting with military personnel from the “Ashkelon war room” near Gaza. A spokesperson for Hikind, Yehudah Meth, refused to comment on the Assemblyman’s activities. Wolf Sender, liaison to the Orthodox Jewry for Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson, also made the voyage. Before Sender confirmed the trip, the DA’s office would not comment on his whereabouts. “The answer to your question is that no one is in Israel on behalf of the Brooklyn DA’s office or being sponsored by the Brooklyn DA’s office,” Public Information official Helen Peterson wrote to me. “If an employee is there it is on their own time and with their own funds.”

Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI), founder of the House Liberty Caucus and vocal critic of US military aid to foreign countries—and himself of Palestinian descent—did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Rep. Jim Moran, a Virginia Democrat and one of the very few congressmen in recent history to utter even mild criticisms of Israel, said last week, “There are going to be too many innocent Palestinians killed in this” and dismissed as “feckless” the rockets fired by Hamas that allegedly pose such a severe threat to Israelis. But his spokesperson told me he was “not available” for further comment. Rep. Keith Ellison, one of only two Muslim members of Congress, co-released a statement calling for unspecified efforts to stop the “cycle of violence,” but offered no direct condemnation of Israel’s actions, and was said to be unavailable for further comment.

Through spokespeople, Democratic Representatives Donna Edwards of Maryland and Rush Holt of New Jersey declined to comment. Walter Jones, Republican of North Carolina, was unavailable. Patrick Newton, a spokesperson for Tennessee Republican Congressman John Duncan, said via email, “My boss votes always to support Israel and beyond that […] this isn’t an area he covers in congress [sic] or something he is commenting on at the moment.”

A Senate resolution endorsing Israel’s assault was co-sponsored by, as usual, a broad bipartisan coalition including New Jersey Democrat Cory Booker, libertarian-leaning Rand Paul of Kentucky, progressive civil liberties champion Ron Wyden of Oregon and conservative hardliner Ted Cruz of Texas. Booker, a protege of celebrity rabbi Shmuley Boteach, took pains to describe the current violence as “Hamas-initiated.” (This doesn’t jive with the facts.) In other countries, politicians occasionally—gasp!—criticize the Israeli government’s attacks on children. UK Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has denounced Israel’s actions, characterizing them as “deliberately disproportionate” and having unjustly caused a “humanitarian crisis.” (It would seem that the word disproportionate doesn’t quite capture the moral dimension of purposely bombing civilians, but whatever.)

Another popular talking point propagated by Israeli PR apparatchiks goes something like this: ”The IDF does not deliberately target civilians, unlike Hamas.” But again, this logic doesn’t hold up. As Glenn Greenwald told me, “Slaughter can be so indiscriminate that it’s tantamount to intent. Same under the law: gross recklessness can be viewed as intent.”

Moshe Feiglin, the Deputy Speaker of the Israeli Knesset, has called for the “conquer” of Gaza, “elimination” of undesirable occupants, and establishment of the territory as “part of sovereign Israel” to be “populated by Jews.” Hamas leaders have said similarly terrifying things about wiping out Jews and Israel (the latter being an objective that remains in the militant group’s charter), but no one seriously thinks they have the capacity to achieve those archaic, contemptible goals.

Journalists face enormous pressure to stay silent in the face of the stalwart pro-Israel sentiment that permeates elite US political and media circles. Expressing basic moral revulsion toward the deaths of children, calls for ethnic cleansing by prominent Israeli politicians, and so forth is seen as uncouth, and has led to the sanction of renowned reporters. It does seem, though, that the weight of the human suffering inflicted by Israel is becoming too much to bear, compelling some high-profile journalists to prod Democratic Party figures on their staunch pro-Netanyahu views. (Former Democratic Congressman Barney Frank got all pissy on MSNBC Saturday when host Steve Kornacki asked a few minimally critical questions about Israel’s tactics.) What’s more, US Secretary of State John Kerry was caught on a hot mic over the weekend mocking Israel’s assertion that its attacks have been “a pinpoint operation.” This client state has long enjoyed unwavering public support from the United States government, and has been carrying out its latest assault comfortable in the knowledge that the world’s sole hegemonic power has its back, no matter what. But, you know, nothing lasts forever.

Follow Michael Tracey on Twitter

Thanks bb

Al

I don’t normally post video links, but I’ll make a first exception here.

The following Youtube video features Rabbi Weiss. It is 16mn long and I highly encourage everyone to pay specific attention to the segment starting at 5’00 and ending at 7’30.

Then, think for yourself about the historical events he refers to.

Best,

LPG

There won’t be peace until one side exterminates the other. I’d be my retirement savings on that.

See Ted Pike: Very informative

Ted Pike’s – The Other Israel (full documentary)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zc1xTiH9T8

Ted Pike – Why The Mid-East Bleeds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFBZ282RpAA

Why would Israel deny the Palestinian right to exist? Palestine has been its greatest asset for the growth of its military industrial complex. The constant warfare is also fodder to maintain the victim syndrome. Prager apparently paints this as some positive moral attribute of Israel. Israel wants and uses Palestine for it own purposes, always keeping Palestine on the edge of existence and despair for continued use every couple of years. Palestine is never any real threat to Israel’s existence. This present conflict is just one in a never-ending series. Israel could put an end to Palestine in short order, but it won’t for what Israel considers it’s best interests — not for a supposed moral high ground. To the supposed extent Palestine actually is on a mission to wipe Israel of the map, Israel already has the moral right to eliminate Palestine — forever, and right now. But it won’t, because it is advantageous not to.

The map in the video was never approved–the 1947 UN Partition that was never implemented,

Here’s a more matter of fact and thorough overview of the region.

http://seekingtruth.co.uk/israel_borders.htm

This has nothing to do with jews, the real jews (Sephardic orientals) generally speaking do not like the khazar zionist ,nor do the Hasidic. They want a all khazar Ashkenazi zionist state.

The United states has her own problems. So called jews are 1.8% of the population but make up 44% of the supreme court. Ginsberg, breyer, kagan, sotomaryor, all jews.all radical liberal, pro-death

This video reminds me of one of those cheesy propaganda movies put out by the US government during and after WWII. You notice how they don’t delve into specifics but instead generalities because they know the caliber of the listener they are aimed at. The Israelis are masters at the art of propaganda on how to win public support and fool those who can’t think critically.

Good video, thanks for posting Al.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmAxrdgiJP4

Correcting on of the typos of my post above:

“I’m the kind of human being WHO thinks that we can discuss the conflict without showing any hatred message from either camps because hatred messages carry nothing to build upon. SORRY.”

Some things are way too simple.

Since 2001 8000 Palestinians who lived in Gaza have been killed by attacks from Israel. 20 Israelis have been killed by rocket and mortar fire from Gaza. Anyone who can add can figure out who wants to kill who.

I’m astonished the the U.S. State Department initially referred to the school strike as “a shelling,” with spokeswoman Jen Psaki calling it “appalling” and “disgraceful.” when 7 more children were killed in UN Shelters. The first 16 didn’t bother the US, the 2nd 20 didn’t bother the US, I suppose Obama was too busy signing the transfer order shipping more bombs and mortars to Israel.

The US could end the carnage in a week by cutting up Israel’s Platinum American Express card and Israel could end the carnage in a day by fulfilling the other part of the Balfour document where it said, “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.[1]

I am astounded at Michael Tracy’s 8th grade history level analysis and at those that agree with it. Let’s start with the facts. Hamas, the elected leaders of Gaza, are firing missiles at Israel with the intent and hope that they get through densely populated areas and kill hundreds or thousands of people. They spend 8 years building terror tunnels that exit into populated areas in Israel and Israeli kindergartens and are aimed at infiltrating Israel, and hijacking and killing innocent people and kindergarten children. They used the millions that other nations gave them to strengthen the economy to build these tunnels. They used the cement Israel provided for construction to build these tunnels. The reason that the people live poorly in Gaza is because their leadership pocketed the donated money they received or used it for terrorist activities like building tunnels and buying missiles instead of using it to help their people.
You would think from Tracy’s piece that Hamas was lobbing spitballs at the Israelis. These are armed missiles capable of killing thousands of people if they get through to their densely populated destination. That Israel has good defense systems which have thwarted these missiles is not relevant to any response they are allowed to implement. Israel has every right to destroy any area from which a deadly missile is launched regardless of who is at that site since the area from which a missile is shot is considered a battlefield. Hamas is committing war crimes by shooting missiles from mosques, residential homes, hospitals and schools since they are turning them into battlefields and putting civilians in harm’s way. They know that by shooting a missile Israel will retaliate and bomb that site. They know they cannot defeat Israel militarily so their plan is to provoke Israel to kill as many of their own people in Gaza as possible so that Israel should be criticized – as you see on this site – by as many people as possible and be forced to provide concessions to them. They purposely shoot from civilian areas so maximize their own casualties. That is Hamas terrorism in its ultimate form – both to Palestinians and Israelis.
But because Israel cares about the Palestinians in Gaza more than Hamas does, they notify them in advance that they will bomb the area so that they can leave unharmed. No other army has ever performed that humanitarian feat in the midst of battle. But Hamas terrorists do not let their own people leave the soon to be bombed site so that they should be killed! Israel is not interested in killing innocent civilians. It is immoral and serves them no purpose strategically.
Tracey’s comment that because more Gazans are being killed than Israelis, Israel must be employing disproportionate use of force is ludicrous. Hamas is trying to kill many thousands of Israelis with their deadly missiles. It is their intent that counts – not whether they are successful in accomplishing it. Their missiles are a threat and need to be dismantled at any cost. The fact that ONLY 1000+ people in Gaza (many of them Hamas terrorists themselves since they dress as civilians but the counts don’t really tell you that) have died is because Israel is being careful about where and how they strike to limit casualties. Kudos to Israel for being as careful as they can by not bombing aimlessly into densely populated areas and notifying people in advance so they can leave safely. If Tracey chose to look at history he would find that in many wars those who were defending themselves wound up killing more people from the aggressors in order to stop the aggression. That did not make the defenders wrong in the eyes of the world.
If Tracey is so numbers driven, he should be more focused on Syria who have killed 170,000 of their own people in the past year alone and then make his way to Libya, Nigeria and Iraq where more people are being murdered now in one day than were killed in the entire Israel-Hamas war. Shame on Tracey and those who try to spin the facts is in some other way most likely (as one must assume they are not ignoramuses) because they have some other predispositions about Israelis or have other agenda’s they are trying to promote.

Not so much Common Sense I fear. A lot of what you’re saying is regurgitated junk. Civilians hiding as terrorists…. oh please, spare me. What do you truly know to be facts? Put yourself in the shoes of Hamas and if you do nothing else see the post below. Nor are we talking of the other global tragedies here. Israel has been stolen according to the Jewish Torah. God tells us that such a thing should NEVER have occurred. Palestine is and remains Palestine!
Unhook from the Zio-Christian agenda my friend, and please really start to heed the still small voice of the Holy Spirit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOaxAckFCuQ

The regurgitated junk is the idea that Hamas has no choice but to terrorize people – as if anyone has forced them to do so.

Hamas do not put on uniforms. And let’s stick to the topic which is the war that just started. No matter how anyone says interprets the past, there is no excuse for Hamas shooting missiles from civilian areas, effectively killing their own people.

Rabby Weiss has some peaceful views. Worth listening to and having a deep thought afterward.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuAy2xkeniY

LPG

Yes, you posted that before already. This Rabbi represents an extreme minority of orthodox Jews who believe that Jews should not create a Jewish state before the Messiah comes at which time Israel will be given to the Jews (ALL of it). No matter what Israel does, he will say it is wrong because he believes it was created in sin and so should not exist. It is beyond belief that anyone would pay attention to this Rabbi who is part of a fringe minority representing no one but his own small group. Certain media stations and people use him as part of their propaganda campaign to malign Israel.

Rabby Weiss has his views.
Up to people to make up their own after listening to him.
That’s common sense to me.

LPG

What puzzled/intrigued me in what you wrote last was the following:
” It is beyond belief that anyone would pay attention to this Rabbi who is part of a fringe minority representing no one but his own small group.”

So according to you, because someone is part of a “fringe minority”, he is not worth “paying attention to” ? Interesting mindset.

So according to your logic, paying attention to the majority is something we should focus on instead? Great. So based on that, I’ve got some “news”:
there have been a few decisions by something called the UN with a majority of countries in this planet deciding that Israeli settlements are illegal. The same entity who decided the creation of Israel.

So, could you please weigh in to ask for these illegal settlements to stop ?
And for all of those illegal settlements already in place to be dismantled ?
In other words, for Palestinian land stop being stolen from Palestinians?

Again, given that it’s the view of the majority of nations/countries in this planet that these settlements are illegal, I’m sure you will have no issue in paying attention to that.

Here again, using plain common sense helps.

Good luck and thanks in advance for your assistance !

LPG

LPG,
You missed the point. You are free to listen to whomever you want. As long as you are not using this Rabbi as an objective view for anything on rhis topic since the group he represents will always say Israel is wrong because of their own religious beliefs . They do not analyze anything politically . If you do the same, then use him to confirm your beliefs . But if you analyze situations for what they are, I would not advise listening to this person. I also cautioned anyone who listens to this person to somehow think that Jews themselves believe this way. That is why I said that this person represents a very small group of people that he is a member of.

LPG,
I will answer your previous hole poking points , none of which address or deny the atrocity that Hamas is perpetrating by using civilians as human shields.
You are correct that Hamas is shooting rockets, not missiles.  But that doesn’t change the argument at all since the close to 3,000 rockets are deadly anyway and can kill thousands of people if they hit densely  populated areas which is the intent of Hamas.
Perhaps you didn’t read the argument carefully enough but Israel has no obligation to notify any civilian about targets they are about hit if those targets are the source of military rocket fire. The fact that they do any notification is humanitarian. No one knows whether EVERY single Israeli missile attack is preceded by notification but that is not the point  Hamas is still using civilians areas as battlefields and that is a crime.
In terms of the count of civilians deaths, I said that a portion of the count are Hamas themselves since they commit another war crime by not wearing uniforms and looking like civilians. Obviously not all the civilians being killed are Hamas. You are implying that I said that but I did not . 
So if you can justify what Hamas is doing, we would all like to hear that argument. 

Fighting for freedom is fine. Using terror by using civilians as human shields is not . The fight has to be within certain legal confines which Hamas is violating.

When any government orders mass bombing of one of the most densely populated area in the world… I wonder how it can expect not killing civilians by the dozens?

And if it continues to do so… what does this say to the world about its morals?
So I agree. The fight has to be within certain legal confines indeed.

GL,

LPG

We can go round and round. As I have communicated above multiple times now, the bombings of civilians in Gaza is the fault of Hamas because they use civilians as human shields while firing explosive rockets from civilian areas. Israel has every legal right to destroy those rocket fire sites no matter who is there.

Thanks for being clear CS: “Israel has every legal right to destroy those rocket fire sites no matter who is there.”
History will judge.

GL,

LPG

Im really happy there are people that don’t like the Isrealis killing people.
Last night, on the news, I saw a fleeting moment where a woman was able to say she was embarrassed by our governments support of Isreal.
I havnt seen msm allow that comment previously.
Me? complete shame,
I spoke to a friend of mine last night, I havnt for months, he had always supported Harper, he is voteing Justin next election.

Should history judge this the wrong way and allow Hamas to get away with this atrocity , everyone especially in the middke east should be prepared for this type of warfare to take hold. No wonder all Arab nations except for the Hamas supported Turkey and Qatar hold Hamas responsible.

So the problem started in 1948…I didn’t know that?

My focus is on what Hamas is doing now. You are off topic- perhaps because you have no good defense for Hamas.

The general topic discussed by Miko Peled is a a larger one that has been discussed by many people with different perspectives. Miko has his perspective but his is not the authority on the topic.

What Hamas does is terrible. What the IDF is ten times more so. Remember one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter, and what would you do if you felt sheer helplessness at feeling overwhelmed? Think before you print!

Wow. So feeling overwhelmed means one can shoot rockets and use civilian sites? I hope more people don’t feel this way or we are all in trouble.

I’m glad an increasing number of people within Israel and an increasing number of Jews outside of Israel see things differently from you CS. These are truly man and women of peace.

I think they have stopped to believe that the same old spin: “It’s not us, it’s them, they hate us” will solve this conflict. People within the jewish community all across countries are increasingly opening their eyes, and this will slowly make a difference.

Personally, I think history is in march. It’s a slow process, but it’s in march.
Year after year, after all the suffering imposed on them, Palestinians have decided to not give up their land and to continue to resist the occupying army and the hundreds of thousands of illegal settlers.

Year after year, hundred of civilians are killed. Sometimes, a few thousands at a time, like over the past 3 weeks. However, they are still standing up for their rights. For their freedom. Because they want to live free in their own state. Without Israeli army checkpoints, without illegal settlements.

To me, this situations is similar to the end of the king-dollar.
The USD is still the king, and many still believe it will always be.
But the process of global de-dollarisation has started. Slowly. Slowly. Slowly. Tic Tac Tic Tac.

Or, to take another analogy, it’s like the Fed’s QE.
By printing more and more, the Fed tries to make us believe the situation will get better and there is even a cohort of intellectual cowards within the mass media who repeat this nonsense. But what the Fed is just doing is just postponing the d-day. Just postponing. Tic Tac.

The current Israeli government seems to be willing to inflict pain/collective punishment on Palestinian civilians, but IMHO, they are just postponing the d-day too. Same logic. But Tic Tac nevertheless.

Good luck to you and your views.

Tic Tac.

LPG

O I give up. Well done CS – I’m rendered speechless by your line of arguments..

Thank you Bob for this finding.

I find it very encouraging that the High Court issued this ruling.

As I’ve written repeatedly, things are going in the right direction. Slowly. Slowly, but in the right direction. And that’s what matters to resolve this conflict.

There is plenty of hope to have, even if the Israeli army seem to target hundreds of civilians blindly, and hundred of children die in the process.

Change will come. The clock is ticking.

Tic Tac.

LPG

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEKwXsmDXOA
Discussion over.

You mean Proger’s a lop-sided bigot Joel?

The biggest joke is now that Iran is claiming that al-baghdadi is an ex mossad agent.

Great lie……for suckers that believe without verification, maybe just because they are Jew-Haters!

Our heroes, we paid for the gun and the bullets
Israeli soldier: ‘I killed 13 childrens today and ur next muslims’

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/13162-israeli-soldier-i-killed-13-childrens-today-and-ur-next-muslims

Yeah,and all Muslims believe Jews mix Christian blood in matzos because a Hamas leader is quoting it as if it is truth.
I don’t think that is true and neither do I believe that the average israeli soldier is represented in Bob’s offering.

http://situationroom.blogs.cnn.com/2014/08/04/wolf-challenges-hamas-leader/

There will not be peace until the palestinians recognize Israel as a state .
As long as the goal is to eliminate Israel as stated in the Hamas charter, every ceasefire will be violated by Hamas as soon as they reload to continue their pursuit of goading Israel into a situation that produces political condemnation. That’s their game plan and it seems to work because there is an audience who is buying their game. What a shame. It doesn’t have to be this way.

There will not be peace until Israel recognizes the Palestinian right to a state. Peace has always been in the hands of Israel and PM after PM makes it clear they have no intention of giving any rights to the people who lived there for 5,000 years and are the original and only Semites.

There has not been peace as the Arab world rejected and reject Israel’s right to exist.
That has been the case since the day the state of Israel was created.
Only Sadat accepted Israel’s right to exist-and then he was assassinated.
Palestine exists and yet the Arabs are not coming together to build it into an acceptable state but rather,have always used it as a base to attack Israel.
Israel could have shown every Palestine out to the border of Jordan,Egypt and Lebanon in ’48.
Arabs will never stop until Israel is vaporised and Israel will always protect themselves.It’s not like there are some nice folks in happy place democracies surrounding Palestine and Israel.

You need to stop pretending you are a victim. You aren’t.

Bob,
Your anti Israel sentiment is clouding your thinking. Either that or you are ignorant of history . Israel accepts an Arab state. Arabs could have had their state in 1947 as part of the UN partition plan. Israel was good with that. They then offered an Arab state in 2000 and 2008. But the Arabs rejected all these because by doing so they would have to recognize a Jewish state. So their all or nothing mentality has doomed them and continues to doom them. This principle of non recognition is in the Palestinian and Hamas charters. I suggest you read them. The core of the conflict is that Arabs want the Jews out. Not that they want their own state. That’s history and fact. Otherwise things would be very different today in the middle east. So no peace will happen until the Arabs change their thinking.

Bit sick today but Jordan also recognised Israel’s right to exist.

Maybe somebody can ask Britain and the UN to reverse their charters so that the Arabs did not have to go in and collectively attack the Jews on day 2 of the existence of the Israeli state.
Maybe the Allies can give back large chunks of east Germany to the rightful owners. Maybe the British and French can reverse their ruin on most of the mid-east? Maybe the British should give up the north of England and settle the Jews there? How about America? New Zealand? Australia?
Nobody wanted the Jews. Kill a few million here ,round them up and vaporise them with the help of the Arabs that were pissed off. Seems the British have really screwed up a lot in the past few hundred years.

I’m not anti-Jewish but will admit being anti-Israel because of what they do. They are a nation of war criminals. Why don’t some of the terrorist supporters on the site try justifying this?

Israeli official calls for concentration camps in Gaza

The Nazis never felt like being this blunt. Why don’t some of you guys try spinning this?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2715466/Israeli-official-calls-concentration-camps-Gaza-conquest-entire-Gaza-Strip-annihilation-fighting-forces-supporters.html

You continue to amaze with your anti Israel rhetoric . The nazis were very blunt about what they did and called for gassing Jews . Even the extremist you mention doesn’t talk about that. And Jews were not trying to destroy Germans like Hamas is trying to do. So there is no comparison. That said, this guy is an extremist and his plans are just his. They are not the plans of the Israeli government . Everyone there has an opinion . It’s what they do with those opinions that count. So relax and stop trying to find reasons why Israel is bad especially when you have not yet acknowledged or answered any of the atrocities beIng committed by Hamas. You don’t know how to debate because you go off topic . That’s exactly what the head of Hamas and their spokesman did this week when interviewed by CNN. Since they can’t answer why they use civilians areas as combat zones, they change the topic and condem Israel without answering the question . That means they know they are wrong but don’t care because it’s suits them. You sound the same . I would have thought you would have more intelligent views than those terrorists who work based on hate and emotion. But like I said before , Israel haters make a great audience for lies and libels that accuse Israel falsely .

The Allies orchestrated and then watched while the Russians ethnically cleansed 3 million Schlesian Germans.
Seems many have taken their turn being war criminals.
Convenient to find blame in others when one has their own country to fix,first.
‘Calling’ for concentration camps is a bit different than wiping out millions of people.
Then again,it is a good diversion when recalling the horrors of the human race.

Speaking of war criminals,I see Dubya and his Daddy’s gang were convicted in absentia.
http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2012/05/12/bush-convicted-of-war-crimes-in-absentia/

The turmoil gripping the Middle East is a direct result of the provision of cash, weapons and surveillance to Israel by the US…..
“The new documents underscore the indispensable, direct involvement of the US government and its key allies in Israeli aggression against its neighbors. That covert support is squarely at odds with the posture of helpless detachment typically adopted by Obama officials and their supporters,” Greenwald wriites.
http://rt.com/news/177716-us-israel-funding-aggression/

Al,
let me start with what Golda Meir, an Israeli politician and one of the founders of the State of Israel, said in 1969. “There were no such thing as Palestinians. When was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state? It was either southern Syria before the First World War, and then it was a Palestine including Jordan. It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist.” As quoted in Sunday Times (15 June 1969), also in The Washington Post (16 June 1969)
This may be true in terms of state building. However, this is NOT true as people are concerned. Many families lived in that area which is now called Palestine, families which were forced to leave their homeland, their houses, their entire life and which were forced to start a new life.
These men and women simply resisted. Oh yes, resistance is the correct term to describe their behavior. And even today they resist against those Ashkenazi people. You see, there are Ashkenazim, Sephardim, and a few more Jewish tribes. However, nearly all leaders of Israel, e.g. Ben Gurion, Golda Meir, Sharon, Netanyahu were or are Ashkenazi. And these Ashkenazim came from Eastern Europe and took over the land of those people which had been living there for generations.
What would you expect these Arab people to do? What tried the Red Indians centuries ago to do?
I can only ask some questions. And the most important question is “What would you do? Would you flee? Or would you rather try to resist?”
Greetings