Meanwhile, in the Middle East . . .

. . . on Wednesday, the Israelis attacked Jenin, a city in the West Bank which is (supposedly) under the Palestinian Authority, with 11 tanks and 2 bulldozers, according to an announcement by the Israeli Army. There were 9 dead, among whom an 11-year old girl, and about 50 wounded. Palestinians claim the number of dead was higher. Buildings were torn down by the bulldozers. No reason was given for the attack, by the Army, other than a mention about two "high ranking Palestinian officials" being the target of the attack, who have been "involved in terrorist acts", as every attack against Israel or its soldiers is characterised. Also, at night, the Army attacked Palestinians in Jericho and in the Palestinian sector of the city of Jan Hunis in the West Bank. The Palestinian Authority issued a protestation for the attacks and called on the European countries and the U.S. once again to send neutral military observers in the area to establish peace. There was no response to the pleas, once again.


...On an unrelated note, the American public are still puzzled as to the reaction of approval of some hundred or so Palestinians in Nablus for Tuesday's massacre.

The U.S. should stop supporting Israel.

Your observation is well-timed as the mainstream media's hypocritical condemnation of terrorism, other than that which we tolerate, condone and bankroll, reaches a fever pitch. You don't see much in the about the daily anguish of grieving relatives and other victims of our side. Even in normal times you don't see much about our own terrorism, like the pharmaceutical factory in Sudan we bombed with as much justification as the WTC attack, such as our role in blocking a UN inquiry into the matter, which could determine, for example, just how many civilians we slaughtered. Now, of course, all emphasis is place on how the other guys "don't believe in democracy" (Colin Powell) but instead prefer to accomplish their objectives through the use of force and terror, in stark contrast to U.S. methods.


It remains an article of faith among large sectors of the republican right that the CIA's contras that terrorized Nicaragua for years were heroic "freedom fighters," despite their well-documented, internationally condemned record of avoiding military confrontations in favor of rape, torture, murdering moms and kids and other civilians and destroying civilian homes, farms, buses, cooperatives, schools, clinics and the like. Even those people that fancy themselves on some higher or at least more sophisticated moral plane find it easy to accept our record here. You'll never see Rather or Brokaw, for example, quote the victims of these attacks on how minimum human decency requires bringing to justice those responsible for coordinating and facilitating such terrorism.


I suppose a lot of people suspect that critics of U.S. foreign policy short change the horror of the airliner attacks. What most of us really experience, I think, is an intensified nausea from both witnessing the victims while knowing that their suffering will be used as propaganda to justify further atrocities.

A brief web search provided the following info:


Jerusalem----July 25..... Family and friends buried 18-year-old Yuri Gushchin last night, hours after the PA returned his body to Israeli authorities. Gushchin, whose bullet ridden body was discovered by Palestinians near Beit El yesterday morning, is believed to have been kidnapped and tortured. Yasser Arafat's Fatah organization has claimed responsibility for "the killing of a settler in Ramallah."


Jerusalem-----July 27.....Palestinian terrorists opened fire on an Israeli family last night, killing Ronen Landau, 17, of Givat Ze'ev. Ronen's father and brother just missed the three bullets which entered the car and are presently being treated for shock.


Jerusalem----July 28......The PA launched deadly mortars on Israeli civilian targets last night, again breaking the Tenet Cease-fire agreement.


Jerusalem----July 29......A Palestinian terrorist car bomb partially exploded in an underground residential parking garage in Jerusalem this afternoon. Two Israelis were lightly wounded and others were treated for shock.


Jerusalem----August 1....In the past 24 hours five Israelis were injured by terrorist snipers inside Israel while driving on Israeli roads. Mark and Michelle Kam of Dolev were on their way home with their son Itai, 17, when bullets penetrated their car. They were seriously wounded and taken to hospital.


The Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo came under terror sniper gunfire with two apartments sustaining damage. In the south of Israel over two dozen mortars shells have fallen.


Jerusalem----August 2......An alert and courageous Israeli bus driver averted a terror bombing this afternoon on his bus near the upper Jordan Valley city of Beit She'an. The driver, Menashe Nuriel, who works for the Egged Bus Company, spotted a young Palestinian man carrying a bag onto his northbound bus. According to Army Radio he immediately order the suspicious Palestinian off his bus. When the terrorist was about ten feet from the bus, the driver ordered him to open his bag. As the terrorist then attempted to reach for something under the bag, a possible attempt to detonate the bomb, the driver then grabbed him and threw him into some nearby bushes. The driver screamed to the passengers to open the bus doors to allow waiting soldiers to come to his aid.


A high-powered cellphone-activated bomb was found inside the bag and was neutralized by police sappers who were on the scene within minutes. The large duffle bag, weighing 22 pounds and packed with nails and scrap metal, contained three mortar shells, explosives and a triggering device.


Tel Aviv----August 3......An alert security guard at Tel Aviv's Central Bus Station was responsible this afternoon for preventing a major terrorist attack. The Israeli guard, in performing a routine check of hand bags, alerted police to a Palestinian woman who refused to allow him to check her belongings.


Israel Radio reported that police sappers discovered a bomb inside the woman's belongings consisting of 4 kilograms of explosive materials packed with nails and metal shards.


Jerusalem----August 6.......One Israeli woman was killed this evening and four Israelis were wounded when Palestinian terrorists opened fire on their vehicle between the communities of Alfei Menashe and Karnei Shomron.


Tehiya Lomberg was murdered, her husband, Shimon, and daughter, Tzippi, 14, were seriously wounded, and two other children and a hitchhiker were injured in the attack.


Jerusalem, August 7........An Israeli motorist, Ranem Wahyl, a resident of Taibe, was shot and killed in a terror attack this morning near the northern Samaria community of Alfei Menashe.

An Uzi submachine gun, an assault-rifle, and spent pistol bullet casings were found at the site of the attack, according to Israel Radio.


Jerusalem----August 8.....A Palestinian suicide bomber detonated explosives in his car near an IDF checkpoint in the West Bank this morning, killing the terrorist and lightly wounding a soldier, Israeli Radio reported.


Jerusalem----August 8.......Zohar Shurgi, 40, of Moshav Yafit in the Jordan Valley, was killed last night in a drive-by shooting on the Trans-Samaria Highway between Ariel and the Tapuah junction. Shurgi was married and the father of three children.


Jerusalem----August 9.......A Palestinian suicide bomber targeted a crowded restaurant in central, downtown Jerusalem just minutes ago, claiming at least 18 lives and wounding over 100 people. The restaurant was crowded with lunch time patrons, including several children. Live images on Israel Television illustrate a scene of carnage, with bloody bodies laying on the ground. The terrorist detonated a high-powered device packed with nails and other shrapnel as he walked into the restaurant. Several children and babies were among the dead.


Jerusalem-----August 25.....Three Israeli soldiers were killed and 7 wounded in a attack on an IDF base in Gaza early this morning. Army radio reported that two Palestinians had entered into the IDF outpost in the Gaza Strip and killed a deputy battalion commander and two soldiers with automatic gunfire and hand grenades.


Jerusalem-----August 26...... Four Israelis were killed and two children were wounded in the last 24 hours when terrorists ambushed a family car and a commercial truck.


Jerusalem----August 30.......Palestinian terrorists brutally murdered a 60-year-old Modi'in resident this morning. The Israeli, Amos Tajouri, was shot at point blank range execution style by masked terrorists while eating breakfast in a Na'alin restaurant. The Israeli was a regular visitor to the Palestinian village.


The man reportedly had a number of friends in the village, which falls under Israeli security control, and made almost daily visits to the restaurant. A number of armed Palestinian youths reportedly dragged him out of the restaurant, shot him to death, and threw his body out of the village.


Jerusalem-----September 9......At least three Israelis were killed and dozens were wounded when a suicide bomber exploded in the Nahariya train station this morning.


Earlier in the morning, Palestinian terrorists shot dead two Israelis in an attack on a van carrying teachers to a school in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank.


Jerusalem-----September 11......This morning at approximately 00:15, the Ivtan Border Police base near Kibbutz Bachan in central Israel came under hostile gunfire. Two Border Police officers were killed in the attack and one was wounded.


This is the fourth terror incident in this area over the past three months. Killed in the attack was Tzachi David , age 19, from Tel-Aviv. The name of the second Border Police officer has not been cleared for publication.


``We must educate our children on the love of holy war for the sake of God and the love of fighting for the sake of God,''

- Sheik Mohammed Ibrahim al-Madhi said in a mosque sermon broadcast on state-controlled Palestinian TV last month.


I lack the knowledge to evaluate Israel's recent actions. If they are taking this opportunity to undertake what they believe will be more effective anti-terrorism measures, I would be hard pressed to condemn them.

"The U.S. should stop supporting Israel."


Surely one of Bin Laden's goals is to weaken our support of Israel. However, I think his terror attacks are more likely to have the opposite effect.

Like this:


Yehida massacre; khisas massacre; qazaza massacre; al-sheikh village massacre; deir yassin massacre; naser al-din massacre; beit daras massacre; the dahmash mosque massacre; dawayma massacre; sharafat massacre; kibya massacre; kafr qasem massacre; al-sammou' massacre; the sabra and shatila massacre; oyon qara massacre; al-aqsa mosque massacre; the ibrahimi mosque massacre; the jabalia massacre; eretz checkpoint massacre.


All are atrocities committed by Israeli military forces and their clients against civilians over the years. Israel killed 20,000 alone, mostly Lebanese and Palestinian civilians, when it invaded Lebanon in 1982 in an effort to destroy Palestinian resistance to Israel's occupation of their homeland.


Of course, like most terrorism, the cold-blooded killings you cite (although shooting border police trying to bottle up refugees isn't exactly terrorism, is it?), have no direct connection to the massacres above.


But then, like most terrorism, I don't see any direct connection between the 15 Palestinian civilians that Israel has killed in the last two days and the murders you cite, to say nothing of the nearly 500 civilians Israel has killed in that last 18 months or so.


You write: "If they [the Israelis] are taking this opportunity to undertake what they believe will be more effective anti-terrorism measures, I would be hard pressed to condemn them."


I take it that if the murders you cite were undertaken by what the murderers believe "will be more effective anti-terrorism measures" against Israel, that you would be hard pressed to condemn them too.

You state that "The U.S. should stop supporting Israel." I believe that "The U.S. should stop supporting Israel unconditionally".

....I hope you rot in hell you bastard arab sympathizer

The highhandedness of the Israelis is legendary. For more than a half century Israelis have dispossessed people who have, for up to eighty generations, owned land in what had been ancient Judea, on the basis that they are interloping squatters. And when the dispossessed people protest, the Israelis treat them like diseased livestock. If you ever befriend an exiled Palestinian (and there are so very many), their tales will horrify you.


Perhaps it is true that there are some problems for which civilized solutions do not exist.

...with your tedious facts, absurd historical precedents and pretentious logical arguments. Really, you should add some impulsive spontaneity to your presentations. After all, you don't want to risk failing to persuade someone to your points of view by boring them.

"...On an unrelated note, the American public are still puzzled as to the reaction of approval of some hundred or so Palestinians in Nablus for Tuesday's massacre. "


How many Amrericans do you see dancing in the streets at the news of the death of Palestinians?


vince

Arafat declared such celebration was wrong-headed and donated blood for our injured. But I've heard that Palestinian authorities had suppressed the reporting of such street demonstrations (suppressed the reporting, not the demonstrations).


When Bin Laden, his cohorts and supporters are dead, I won't be dancing and gloating. I'll just be glad.


I don't get it.

--""How many Americans do you see dancing in the streets at the news of the death of Palestinians?""--


Vince, this is not an applicable question.


Why should Americans (or French, English, Italians, Germans, etc) care AT ALL if a Palestinian or an Israeli dies or not? It is to perfectly natural that we DON'T.


WE westerners affect THEIR lives - and very, very much so. NOT vice versa!


SOME Palestinians were idiotic enough to be joyful with the pain of what they perceive to be their oppressor's main ally. MOST Palestinians (and they have not survived till now by being idiotic) have understood Tuesday's tragedy to be like an episode of their own tragedies. They can only sympathize and feel empathy. They've been there and they know.

Dr. Wogga:


While I too strongly disagree with what Cyrus has said, isn't that the whole point? If the terrorists were to win, wouldn't dissenting views like Cyrus holds be totally surpressed? And doesn't that defeat many of the freedoms that we in this country cherish so highly?


Best wishes,

Mason

>>WE westerners affect THEIR lives - and very, very much so. NOT vice versa!<<


Cyrus I expected a little more out of you than this. This statement is blatently wrong. I'll let other elaborate hehe.

Israel uses offense as part of its defense, and it has to, or it would cease to exist. It is a very small country surrounded by large enemies and would have ceased to exist long ago if it were not so vigilant, strong and competent. Israeli assassination of terrorists is, sadly, a necessary means of self-defense.


I think perhaps Cyrus is right that we should not "unconditionally" support Israel, but I would be at a loss as to where to draw the line...and I don't know if anyone else could either. They are under constant pressure by terrorists in a way that we are only now coming to understand in our own experience. If we were being attacked by terrorists frequently, as is Israel, I bet we would be proactively assassinating them too.

Hey guys,


There really is no in between with Israel. I have talked to a lot of jewish people here in the states that have served for the military out there. I think not giving them any more support might just create another monster. I am glad I don't have to make that decision for our country because there is no easy answer.


Zach

"bastard arab sympathizer "


Mason,


This Wogga guy is a looney. I hope you delete his post.


Vince

Keep it the same way the Turkish troops in Korea used to catch a thief inside their perimeter (demarcated by a single strand of barbed wire) and hang his corpse for a week at the front gate as an example for the villagers. When the time came to cut him down, they'd cut HIM, not the rope. Meaning they've decapitate the corpse and preserve the rope for the next thief.


(I do not mean we should hang Wogga, so don't get carried away.)

"Why should Americans (or French, English, Italians, Germans, etc) care AT ALL if a Palestinian or an Israeli dies or not? It is to perfectly natural that we DON'T. "


Cyrus,


Somewhere along the line we reached a disconnect. This American and I believe the great majority of other Americans have always sympathised with other peoples loss. Whether those suffering the loss are Israeli, Palestinian, Norther Irish, Somalian or whatever doesn't matter. I recall feeling grreat remorse at the news that over 100,000 Iraqi's lost their lives during Desert Storm. I was not happy to see the devastation done to that country. Nor do I believe were the vast majority of Americans.


The point I was making was just that we Americans do not celebrate in the streets tragedies others suffer. That is why so many had a problem with Palestinian jubilation. It gives the perception that somehow they were involved. Something a lot of Americans believe to be the case anyway.


Vince

Israel was created under the United Nations, and has been under attack ever since. Yes the Palestinians have real problems, and I am not trying to minimize the plight of the Palestinians, but Israel essentially has acted in accordance with the charter given it by the U.N., hasn't it (I don't know a great deal about history in this area)? As far as Israeli aggression, can't it be seen as a necessary form of self-defense?


The U.N. should realy consider buying some land and giving it to the Palestinians as a homeland. Sure it wouldn't be what they most want but it would be a sight better than what they now have.

While you strongly disagree with what Dr. Wogga has said, isn't that the whole point?

Actually, before th UN could create Israel, under it's partition plan (which would also have created a Palestinian state, the Jews of Palestine seized control and declared the state of Israel. After which they fought of all opposition to it.


Palestine was 1% Jewish in 1900. From the Palestinian perspective (right or wrong) the Jews were European colonists.


Ironically, Isreal was created because of hatred of Jews in Europe, not in the Arab world were Jews were treated much better than in Europe pre-1947.

If the U.S. took some massive retalitory action in the West Bank, Gaza or Southern Lebanon, I'm sure many would be even if thousands of civilians were wounded or killed.

"The point I was making was just that we Americans do not celebrate in the streets tragedies others suffer."


I don't know where you were when Americans "celebrated in the streets" the victory that caused, as you point out, the death of over 100,000 Iraqis, but I was in NYC during the parade when confetti flew and drinks poured freely for the troops that, justifiably or not, inflicted this tragedy. I don't recall anyone expressing any reservations for how this celebration might be received by the hundreds of thousands of sudden widows and orphans in Iraq. I also don't recall blood drives for Iraqi civilians or anything like the prayer vigils that are occuring for the American victims of the terror attacks that are taking place throughout the occupied Palestinian territories, certainly nothing like the one yesterday in which one million Palestinian school children observed a moment of silence.

Chris-


You make good points. However, I believe what you witnessed in NYC that day was: Relief the war was over. Our soldiers were out of danger and coming home. We had achieved our objective in liberating Kuwait. In essence, we won the war. Maybe I'm naive, but I refuse to believe that this parade was held to celebrate the deaths of the Iraqi soldiers. If memory serves, I recall immediate public demands of explanation anytime it was suspected that an errant missile caused collateral damage to a civilian populace or a non-military structure.

Those Iraqi troops so well vanquished a decade ago are a poignant reminder that the only inevitable product of war is casualties. I don't love war. I despise it. But, it has been inflicted upon us. We must prevail or more Americans will perish

I sort of agree, but it wasn't that the war was simply over, it was that the war was over and we won it.


Regardless, stripped of the more innocent reasons for the celebration to which you refer, it takes little imagination to see how the official Iraqi media might have played it, interspersing clips of drunken GI's with mass funerals, etc. Similarly, the so-called "celebrations" by a few dozen Palestinians were stripped from the context of American subsidies for settlements, for the occupation of Palestinian territory, and for the provision of weaponry used against Palestinian civilians.


This context was removed because it would blunt the propaganda effect of the broadcasts and the media's reflex to create demons and villify official enemies. As with the propaganda apparatus of Iraq and other totalitarian societies, it was presented as a celebration of terrorism and by implication the death of innocent Americans. Certainly it was received as such by several posters here, regardless of how the other 4 million Palestinians might have felt. The suggestion is blatant: this isn't reflexive but misguided applause by a few Palestinians for any defeat by the chief sponser of their chief oppressor, its a shocking display of the absence of ordinary humanity by people that don't have the same regard for human life that we do.

... is not my strong suit, poker fans.


What little English I know, I was taught on the billiards table.