Zzzz.. Gaza, Day 4

[FMBI]

Since there's apparently an embargo on making this topic, I'm making it. So there.

 

 

Had a good LOL this afternoon when Johndroe was on C-SPAN and said "we don't know why Hamas is doing this, they should create a new ceasefire" - sure, just like the one that's been in place for the last several months, during which the IDF managed to turn Gaza into the worst humanitarian disaster this side of central Africa.

 

 

Any predictions on how this pathetically-stupid (in diplomatic terms) campaign is going to end?

[Bak]

it seems like there's always a 10:1 ratio of dead Palestinians to dead Israelites.

 

Usually you gotta wait until the next generation before displacement issues resolve themselves, but if they keep fighting like this there's no end in sight... maybe a big minefield like between the Koreas?

[SeVeR]

Israel is always trying to destroy the Palestinian infrastructure. They are keep the Palestinians down, keeping them from forming a functioning society. They are always bombing them into the past. They are calling the Palestinians terrorists (the 21st century word for 19th century savages) but Israel is responsible for making them into savages. Israel doesn't allow them to build a functioning society, and that has to piss any group of people off.

 

America has to cut ties with Israel until they obey international law and UN resolutions by going back to the 1967 borders. America is as corrupt as the terrorists, as corrupt as Israel until they do this. With Israel we are talking about a country that used illegal cluster bombs on civilians in Lebanon. Israel is NOT the victim in this. The Israelis treat the neighboring people's like animals, and considering how Hitler treated them, it's utter hypocrisy.

Edited December 30, 2008 by SeVeR

[Machu]

Palestinians = Not Terrorists

 

Hamas = Terrorists

 

K glad we clear'd that up.

 

 

 

can u liberals / america haters go form ur own country ?

 

Thanks

Edited January 1, 2009 by Machu

[SeVeR]

What makes Hamas terrorists?

 

K thx.

[aquarius]

THATS WHAT FOX SAYS

[SeVeR]

Answer the question? What makes Hamas terrorists? Define a terrorist for us.

[NBVegita]

Well being everyone defines terrorist in a different fashion I would have to say its a good bet that they're a terrorist group if they're recognized by both the EU and Canada as being terrorists.

 

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/site/e...9en00580062.pdf - EU

http://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/prg/ns/le/cle-en.asp - Canada

 

And just for reference the EU contains:

 

Austria

Belgium

Bulgaria

Cyprus

the Czech Republic

Denmark

Estonia

Finland

France

Germany

Greece

Hungary

Ireland

Italy

Latvia

Lithuania

Luxembourg

Malta

the Netherlands

Poland

Portugal

Romania

Slovakia

Slovenia

Spain

Sweden

the United Kingdom

 

I would have added that the U.S. also considers them one but that's a "DUH!"

[SeVeR]

Just satellite governments of the U.S. then.

[NBVegita]

Lol sever. You really are amusing.

 

Who would you consider a viable source for labeling a group a terrorist then?

 

Oh yeah I forget in order for anything to be a credible source to you it has to have a noted hate for either the United States, Israel or the west as a whole.

 

My mistake.

[SeVeR]

India i would respect to make a proper decision even though they are friends with the U.S.

China, Japan, Russia, and much of the far east i would expect to be impartial.

Much of South America, now that they're out of the pockets of the U.S. (except Colombia who the U.S. has kept for the cocaine.)

 

Basically everywhere except the E.U. and Canada (and the Aussies)... afterall you only mentioned them because they support your view. I could say the rest of the world doesn't support labelling Hamas as terrorists.

 

None of these countries/regions hate the U.S., they just don't have a vested interest in agreement with the U.S. If the U.S. took the opposite side then i'm sure Europe and Canada would go along with it. This is why i can't trust their terrorist definitions as anything other than an extension of the what the U.S. uses.

 

I'm sorry if that sounds amusing to you, it's quite logical to me.

Edited January 2, 2009 by SeVeR

[»freakmonger]

yea it is amusing LOL

 

keep it up, this is good stuff sever....

Edited January 2, 2009 by freakmonger

[SeVeR]

Of course i will keep it up. It always amuses me to see the extent for which conformist thinking will pervade the minds of half-wits.

[NBVegita]

[SeVeR]

I guess having 31 major world countries believe something means they're all half-wits? Or is it that they've all fallen to the all powerful brain-washing machine that doctor Spock invented for the United States but whom simply Russians, Arabs and the Chinese are naturally immune to?

Heartless, not half-wits. The government of *insert random European nation* doesn't care about Israel. They care about how much pretending to care is worth to them.

 

And obeying international law regarding terrorists is different to accepting that a group are terrorists.

[FMBI]

Zzz... Why don't people realize that Hamas doesn't do just one thing?

 

Its activities have ranged from terrorism, to defensive militia, to civilian administration. Most people would see this transition as a good thing, I would think, because it signifies that Hamas is willing to step up and become a quasi-state if it can retain the support of the Palestinians. That isn't to excuse what they've done in the past, but they could certainly be a lot worse. And, unlike Abbas, who is best suited to playing the role of a modern-day Kai-shek, they've actually got a future, so the Israelis are going to have to learn to live with them, like it or not.

 

Which goes back to my theme from that other topic, semi-recently, which was that Israel is going to have to accommodate the Palestinians at some point regardless, and the sooner the better.

 

 

Also, whether the EU considers a group a "terrorist organization" is, indeed, irrelevant. I wouldn't say that the member nations are all "in the pocket of the US," as Sever believes, but the organization, as a whole, is so pathetic and useless that it doesn't even deserve a second glance.

Edited January 3, 2009 by Finland My BorgInvasion

[SeVeR]

It's a pity that one side of this argument, with the exception of NBV, is incapable of discussion. Idiots or trolls, you decide NBV, and delete their posts accordingly.

[quickspy]

It is easy to call Israel the bully. They are the ones big tanks and expensive bombs. I believe that the reaction of Israel has been to strong. To many innocent people are dying and we see no end.

However there has been NO logical solution for this conflict.

Remember that the current majority party in the Palestinian area is HAMAS. Hamas has made it clear that they consider Israel a Zionist threat. Outside countries can form whatever ceasefire they want but it will only be temporary. This anti-Zionist concept is integral in Hamas. Asking Hamas to stop attacking Israel is like asking the ACLU to stop taking on civil right legal cases.

If anyone has a solution that doesn't involve getting rid of Israel where ~7.2million people live please speak up.

 

People need to debate solutions rather than who is to blame.

[AstroProdigy]

It is easy to call Israel the bully. They are the ones big tanks and expensive bombs. I believe that the reaction of Israel has been to strong. To many innocent people are dying and we see no end.

However there has been NO logical solution for this conflict.

Remember that the current majority party in the Palestinian area is HAMAS. Hamas has made it clear that they consider Israel a Zionist threat. Outside countries can form whatever ceasefire they want but it will only be temporary. This anti-Zionist concept is integral in Hamas. Asking Hamas to stop attacking Israel is like asking the ACLU to stop taking on civil right legal cases.

If anyone has a solution that doesn't involve getting rid of Israel where ~7.2million people live please speak up.

 

People need to debate solutions rather than who is to blame.

 

And Israel is also the one who first broke the ceasefire by sending in forces to attack Hamas militants on November 4th to coincide with the American elections. They're also the ones who attacked Hamas militants again when Hamas was considering extending the ceasefire this time around Christmas and invaded around New Years. This whole thing was planned by Israel over 6 months ago.

 

Here.

Unlike the confused and improvised Israeli response as the war against Hezbollah in Lebanon unfolded in 2006, Operation Cast Lead appears to have been carefully prepared over a long period.

 

Israeli media reports, by usually well-informed correspondents and analysts, alluded on Sunday to six months of intelligence-gathering to pinpoint Hamas targets including bases, weapon silos, training camps and the homes of senior officials. The Cabinet spent five hours discussing the plan in detail on December 19 and left the timing up to Ehud Olmert, the caretaker prime minister, and his defense minister Ehud Barak. Preparations involved disinformation and deception which kept Israel's media in the dark. According to Ha'aretz, that also lulled Hamas into a sense of false security and allowed the initial aerial onslaught to achieve tactical surprise - and kill many of the more than 300 victims counted so far.

 

They're going to be done before Obama on January 20th takes over though as this was their last chance to get guaranteed and unconditional support from the US to whatever they do and they don't want to burden Obama with this right in the beginning of his term (and piss him off).

 

The problem is Hamas won democratic elections and letting up on the pressure might allow them to lead the country that wants them in power. Funny thing democracy advocacy dries up when the democratically elected leaders aren't puppets.

 

This anti-zionist concept is as integral to Hamas as the concept of the West Bank being holy Jewish land is to Israel. Israel is the one who made any Palestinian country in the internationally recognized pre 1967 borders impossible by sending in half a million settlers to 1) take over all of Jerusalem and 2) cut up the Palestinian populated territories in an apartheid type of arrangement. Israelis even have nice new roads in the West Bank that Palestinians are not allowed to use. Considering the resistance to Israel by a relatively small group of settlers how do you think Israel is ever even supposed to evacuate the West Bank even if the leaders want to.

 

Israel created an impossible situation itself by thinking of the short term benefits of cutting up and colonizing the West Bank without considering the consequences. Even in Gaza sure there are no settlers, but all the borders are tightly sealed off and even access to the sea for this coastal strip of land is impossible thanks to Israel. How are Gazans supposed to even survive when Israel allowed barely any humanitarian supplies in while it was supposedly observing a ceasefire purposely to try to starve the Gazans into overthrowing Hamas. Let's face it here Israel hasn't been the victim for a long time now and the sooner we stop putting the Holocaust into every sentence involving Israel the sooner we'll realize that Jews are susceptible to becoming oppressors just like every other group in the world. Just think logically who would be the ones with long term strategic planning like this the 60 year old country under a constant state of readiness or the newer wannabe Hezbollah reactionaries.

 

I'll post a Charlie Rose interview that explains all of this tomorrow.

Edited January 12, 2009 by AstroProdigy

[SeVeR]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with being anti-Zionist, and nothing about anti-Zionism means the Jews in Israel have to leave. Zionism is a political movement that believes Jews are the only people who can own and live on the land we now call Israel. Considering that Zionism was born in the late-nineteenth to early-twentieth centuries as a response to the European anti-semitism, the founders of Israel always believed that the Arabs should be removed by any means. Whether they bought the support of the Western governments or not, their motives were clear, to remove the Arabs from their homes. Zionism was born out of racism and is an equally racist reaction to European anti-semitism.

 

Now back to the point: The Jews don't have to leave. Jews and Arabs lived in relative harmony in Israel for hundreds if not thousands of years before Zionism came onto the scene. When this politically racist movement engulfed the region the Arabs fought against it because it sought to remove them from their land. Zionism is not Judaism. If the Zionist movement were stopped, ties could be mended between the two populations.

[NBVegita]

Astro, Agreed.

[AstroProdigy]

Here's the link to the interview it's been updated to include more than I watched last time Here

 

Astro, Agreed.

Woot!

 

Sever the Jews didn't live in peace with Arabs for very long throughout their history. The fact is Muslims may have been better to the Jews than Christians were historically, but that isn't saying much. There were periodic pogroms and massacres whenever there was chaos (comparable to the way Assyrians are the big losers in Iraq since 2003) or when a particular leader didn't like them. Jews would have probably done the same thing to Muslims and Christians if they dominated large swaths of land. That was how it was then and now that there is so much bad blood between the Jews and the Arabs it's impossible unless there is some serious reconciliation over a long period.

[SeVeR]

Oh, my post was in reply to quickspy. I agreed with most of what you said Astro.

 

Anyway, Jews and Arabs still live in peace over much of the Middle East. Arabs are generally very good at distinguishing between Zionism and Judaism. In Iran there are huge numbers of Jews and they are not attacked because it's well known that Zionism is the enemy. If the Zionist government disbands and power in the region is shared, then there would easily be peace. Yes, there might be tensions between the populations initially, but i doubt they would last.

[AstroProdigy]

There are practically no Jews in the Arab world, though. A few tens of thousands each live in Turkey and Iran, but these aren't Arab countries. Considering all the bad blood a power sharing agreement it would take a long time before a power sharing agreement could work.

 

Edit: Cyber Propaganda

 

Israel’s Government has thrown its weight behind efforts by supporters to counter what it believes to be negative bias and a tide of pro-Arab propaganda. The Foreign Ministry has ordered trainee diplomats to track websites and chatrooms so that networks of US and European groups with hundreds of thousands of Jewish activists can place supportive messages.

Let's wait for the responses then!

Edited January 14, 2009 by AstroProdigy

[SeVeR]

There are some similar topics to this over at http://forums.deathstarbattle.com/viewforum.php?f=27