Hamas Leader Killed Again [Archive] - Two Plus Two Older Archives

Chris Alger

04-18-2004, 01:13 PM

[ QUOTE ]
"But isn't Hamas at war with Israel and wasn't Rantisi responsible for many civilian deaths? We've gone around on this many times but it still amazes me how nations condemn the killing of a murderer.

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Rantisi was a member of Hamas, not Qassam, the organization that plans and carries out suicide bombing attacks in Israel. As the Economist noted the last time Israel tried to kill Rantisi, he was political, not military.

Rantisi was therefore as much a civilian as Rechavam Ze'evi, the "drive-them-into-the-desert" Sharon cabinet minister who's murder so outraged Israel and the U.S. three years ago. Our response then: "It is time for the Palestinian Authority to take vigorous action against terrorists," the White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said. "Words are not enough." The President, George Bush, also condemned the assassination "in the strongest terms" and called it a "despicable act," Fleischer said. (The Guardian). Our response now: "we understand and support Israel's right to defend itself." (Rice on ABC).

I while I wouldn't defend Rantisi's racism and support for murder any more than I'd defend Ze'evi's, it's fair to point out the double standard of condemning Palestinian terror while supporting Israel's. It proves, once again, that the "war on terror" is nothing but a PR slogan, that the U.S. and Israel are terrorists by their own definitions, and that the civilians in those countries that support their governments are no better than the Palestinians that support suicide bombers.

Rantisi also supported the Hamas line that it will stop supporting the killing of Israeli civilians if Israel stops killing Palestinian civilians, the same deal that Israel made with Hezbollah years ago. Sharon, of course, finds this too unacceptable to even negotiate, Palestinian terror being his ace in the hole. Thus, Hamas & Qassam cease-fires are reciprocated with Israeli assassinations, including those Palestinians who engineered and supported the cease-fires that Israel so hates.

I like your statement that a civilian leader who's "responsible for many civilian deaths" is farily termed a "murderer." However, since you never use it to describe your own leaders when they merit it, we'll have to consider it the usual hypocritical smoke-blowing.

MMMMMM

04-18-2004, 01:33 PM

You're saying Rantisi didn't orchestrate or promote suicide bombing attacks? As Rantisi was one of the most hard-line ideological opponents of the existence of Israel I find that hard to imagine.

Hamas is a terror org; any leader is fair game; the distinction between military wings and other wings is in the final analysis just so much BS IMO--those distinctions may exist operationally but not ideologically--all these terror orgs exist in order to kill Israeli civilians and to retake all of Israel "from the river to the sea". Calling Rantisi a political civilian just might be accurate technically speaking (not sure) but for all intents and purposes he promoted the random murders of innocent Israelis, as does Hamas itself.

jdl22

04-18-2004, 01:45 PM

I'm curious what you think the goal of the killing was. You certainly can't think that it happened to further the peace process.

The problem for me is that it seems the goal was simply vengeance. I don't think this is a very noble one. I think the fulfilled sense of vengeance that the Israelis no hold is neither important in a vacuum nor more important than their security which was surely set back. Unless they go on to kill every palestinian there will always be a Hamas leader. They can keep killing them but this will only anger the Palestinians who will then be even more sure that they are correct that Israel is evil and will have even less trouble recruited new suicide bombers.

Your point is well taken that he is a murderer. While I don't know specifically that he is I'll take your word for it (I would assume so in any case). I just don't think that "bringing him to justice" outweighs the personal risk that the Israeli government has subjected its citizens to.

BTW it's Israelis unless you're referring to something of an Israeli.

Chris Alger

04-18-2004, 03:23 PM

[ QUOTE ]
You're saying Rantisi didn't orchestrate or promote suicide bombing attacks?

[/ QUOTE ]
No, I didn't say that. I'm not sure what you mean by "orchestrated and promoted," but he was probably integral to the continuation of suicide bombing attacks. He had as much responsibility for them as the members of the governments of Israel and its patron, the U.S. for the following, from AI's 2003 Annual Report: "Hundreds of unarmed Palestinians, including more than 100 children, were killed by the Israeli army in random and reckless shooting, shelling and bombings or as a result of excessive use of force...." And note that the governments of Israel and the U.S. don't make the specious distinction between deliberate and reckless homicide. As my post pointed out, a Palestinian assassination of a key Israeli official responsible for so much death in the territories, even when no bystanders are killed, is "terrorism," but bombing of crowded civilian areas that predictably kills many civilians is "collateral damage" and "self-defense." When we kill civilians, it's okay, when they do it, it proves they're sick. It has nothing to do with intention or effect but simply on which side pulled the latest trigger.

For example, take the last time Israel tried to murder Rantisi. "Amal Jarosheh, 8, was standing in the gate leading to her family's house a few feet away when the first missile punched through the hood of the Rantisi car at 11:50 a.m. on June 10. 'I gave her some money to buy candy,' said her father, Nimer Jarosheh, 46, a mechanic. 'She never got a chance to eat it.'" Molly Moore (http://www.countercurrents.org/pa-moore300603.htm), Palestinian Media Center.

Civilians and bystanders constitute more than one-third of those killed by Israel's "targeted" killing attempts, so we can assume this is a typical Israeli atrocity. (If we add "bodyguards" it was exactly 40% by mid-2003). Since the numbers of those injured, crippled and maimed is far greater than this figure, we can assume that bystanders are an important if not primary target of this deliberate killing, one reason why so many Israeli pilots risk jail in their refusals to carry them out. As AI points out, after reviewing a brief period, "scores of men, women and children bystanders have been killed and hundreds have been injured in the course of assassinations or attempted assassinations of Palestinians by the Israeli army." AI (http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE150562003?open&of=ENG-ISR).

Of course, instead of killing civilians in the course of murdering alleged criminals, Israel could arrest them, the practice of civilized countries and a proven capability of the IDF. AI: "In the past two years the Israeli army and security services have arrested tens of thousands of Palestinians whom they accuse of having perpetrated, participated in or planned attacks against Israeli soldiers or civilians. Such arrests continue daily throughout the Occupied Territories. Those arrested have been apprehended individually or in groups, in their homes or other private houses, in universities or student dormitories, at their work place or at checkpoints, when moving around openly or while in hiding."

Since Sharon chooses the killing of civilians over other means of accomplishing his purported goals, he is morally indistinguishable from Rantisi and other who favor deliberate civilian targeting. Marwan Barghouti, for example, who together with a number of other Palestinian militants was seized in the West Bank wihout incident and brought to trial in Israel. So was half-blind quadraparaplegic Sheikh Yassin before Israel found it necessary to shoot rockets at his wheelchair in order to also take out his two assistants and a passerby. If Sharon had sent an IDF terrorist to the West Bank to kill three civilians randomly, the U.S. officials and the media might protest. But since he can claim that he was merely trying to kill a terrorist, he was able to brag about his "personal supervision" of the Yassin operation with impunity.

The thousands of civilians Israel has killed since 2000 has allowed it to reap the benefits of terror: fewer Palestinians demonstrating, throwing rocks at tanks, attending funerals, organizing and possibly ending up on Shin Bet's death list of "suspected militants." It prefers that Palestinians spend their time hiding their children in basements.

For example, in March 2003 Israel raided Yasser Mohammed 'Ali Taha's family home in March 2003 and arrested his father and three of his brothers. Israel preferred, however, to kill Taha with rockets on a crowded street where it could make its point more forcefully. So on June 12 "seven Palestinians, including an infant, were killed when an Israeli helicopter gunship launched several rockets at a car travelling in the centre of Gaza City, killing Yasser Mohammed 'Ali Taha, the target of the attack, his pregnant wife, and their baby daughter aged 18 months." AI.

The difference between you and me as that I'm opposed to the deliberate killing of 8-year-old little girls and 18-month-old babies, you and Bush are not. People like you perform the American equivalent of the notorious Palestinian "dancing in the streets," which you attribute to the brutality and backwardness of Arab culture.

The supporters of Palestinian terror understand this quite well. Echoing the very sentiments you've expressed so often when the killers are someone you don't support, Rantisi said this from his hospital bed, recovering from wound from the last assassination attempt: "The thing that makes me angry is they mean to kill as many people as they can. Their assassinations all occur in very crowded areas. This was one of the most crowded areas of Gaza." (Moore).

MMMMMM

04-18-2004, 04:17 PM

The Palestinian terrorists deliberately surround themselves with civilians. It's the same strategy used by Saddam's regime when he had placed anti-aircraft batteries in and around hospitals.

The point is that Israel targets the murderers; the Palestinians target every Israeli. Can we please have a little moral clarity here?

When Israeli attempts major operations to arrest terrorists in the territories, the Palestinians have all too often turned it into a firefight that must catch civilians in the crossfire. The Palestinian terrorists don't give a damn about their compatriots or they wouldn't use their innocent Palestinian brothers and daughters as human shields. But since they do, the consequences are at times tragic and unavoidable.

Chris Alger:[ QUOTE ]
The difference between you and me as that I'm opposed to the deliberate killing of 8-year-old little girls and 18-month-old babies, you and Bush are not.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is an asinine statement: Not I and Bush, but the Palestinian terrorists are those not opposed to the killing of children, since they target Israeli children. Moreover they use Palestinian children as human shields (and even recently used teen children as suicide bombers). When THOSE WHO TARGET CHILDREN try to hide behind civilians, of course some collateral damage will sometimes occur when the murderers are hunted down or targeted.

The moral relativism you espouse reeks of utter bullsh!t. Israel should kill every Palestinian terrorist leader ASAP, before they can be instrumental in launching more suicide bombing attacks on Israel. And let's hope or pray for as little collateral damage as possible, because we know that the terrorists will be praying for as much collateral damage as possible.

As Israel targets murderers and seeks to avoid innocent civilian casualties, Palestinian terrorists will be targeting innocent Israeli children. That so many could consider these things equivalent, is to me beyond reason, beyond moral clarity, and almost beyond hope.

Chris Alger

04-18-2004, 05:53 PM

[ QUOTE ]
The Palestinian terrorists deliberately surround themselves with civilians.

[/ QUOTE ]
It's like saying Israel deliberately populates is cities with civilians, and they are therefore fair game. Or are you so delusional that you think anyone would buy your silly lie that the Palestinians "stage" the busy streets and crowded apartments in which militants are murdered in their cars and homes, coordinating the activities of thousands of people in secret while successfully hiding all evidence, etc. etc.?

[ QUOTE ]
The point is that Israel targets the murderers

[/ QUOTE ]
When it comes to the routine Israeli practice of randomly shooting into crowds and shelling apartment buildings, this is like saying that the police throwing a firebomb into a crowded theatre to kill a suspected "bad guy" they could otherwise arrest is morally superior to just throwing a firebomb to kill people, even if the police admit their preference that no one attend the theatre. In fact, not just morally superior but something we should all suppport and applaud, while castigating the latter.

I imagine that if the police used Israel's technique for "terminating" arrestable suspects, and your neighbor or relative lost loved ones as a result, you'd tell him that he should still bear no animosity, and perhaps write a letter to the local paper endorsing the practice, maybe using your first post in this thread as a model.

For example, during the first few weeks of the intifada, according to Israeli journalist Ben Kaspit writing in Maariv and quoting official sources, the IDF fired one million cartridges in the West Bank and Gaza. You must believe Israel was compelled by the scourge of prospective terror (the first civilian deaths from a suicide bombing druing the intifada coming months later) to "target" a quarter or a third of the Palestinian population.

[/i] As I have so often pointed out, there are countless documented cases of snipers shooting unarmed civilians, including children at play. More to the point, when the option are arrest versus killing civilians and you choose the later, you target civilians.

[ QUOTE ]
When Israeli attempts major operations to arrest terrorists in the territories, the Palestinians have all too often turned it into a firefight that must catch civilians in the crossfire. The Palestinian terrorists don't give a damn about their compatriots or they wouldn't use their innocent Palestinian brothers and daughters as human shields. But since they do, the consequences are at times tragic and unavoidable.

[/ QUOTE ]
No, as your examples suggest, those that excuse Israeli murder on the grounds of Palestinian human shields can't seem to come up with the evidence (yours concerns children carrying explosives and Iraq, not the killing of bystanders by Israel). Further, as I have pointed out so often before, Israel has admitted to the practice of using Palestinians as human shields as a matter of policy. Once again, your objection to the practice concerns not its fundamental immorality but the ethnicity of those doing it.

[ QUOTE ]
The moral relativism you espouse reeks of utter bullsh!t. Israel should kill every Palestinian terrorist leader ASAP

[/ QUOTE ]
You, not me, picks and choose your targets for condmenation according to ethnicity while trying to disguise it with silly fabrications like "staging" cities full of people. I'm against all of it, yet I'm the one draws the phony distinctions of decadent "relativism." i suppose if the subject weren't baby-killing, this might be amusing.

MMMMMM

04-18-2004, 10:07 PM

The point, all misdrawn comparisons aside, is that the Palestinian terrorists are trying to kill innocent Israelis. The Israelis are trying to kill those not-so-innocent terrorists. Results are mixed and all too often tragic, but the point is: who is targeting whom for death. The Israelis do not decide that today, they are going to see how many people they can kill in a certain block of Gaza. The Palestinian terrorists however do precisely that with certain locations in Israel. Why is this difference so hard to understand?

Also, I'm not saying the Palestinians stage cities full of people in order to protect the terrorists (lol). Rather, the terrorists hide amongst civilians and thus jeopardize them as well.

Apparently in Chris Alger's world, intent counts for nothing. If the Palestinians merely targeted Israeli soldiers and political figures, and sometimes killed innocent Israelis by collateral damage, that would be one thing and I really wouldn't have such a problem with that. If an occasional bad apple shot an Israeli kid that would be one thing too. But the Palestinian terrorists are routinely TRYING to kill Israeli kids. And just as bad, they also send out Palestinian kids to throw rocks at Israeli soldiers knowing full well they'll get shot at.

If the Israelis were as intent on killing the Palestinians as the Palestinians are intent on killing the Israelis, guess what? The Palestinians would all have been wiped out long time ago. But that isn't the case, because the Israelis have acted from higher moral principles (than the Palestinians). And if the Palestinians had Israel's power, instead of showing the restraint Israel has shown for decades, they would have exterminated the Israelis by now. So, who is acting on higher moral principles in this scenario? I think it's pretty damn obvious, even if it isn't obvious to Chris Alger or to the bloc-voting Arab states in the U.N.

Chris Alger

04-19-2004, 02:02 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Why is this difference so hard to understand?

[/ QUOTE ]
I never tried to equate murder with accident or negligence, so my understanding of the difference doesn't come into play. What I've been proving is that Israel murders civilians. What's hard to understand is why you bother posting the same assumption over and over -- Israel never deliberately targets civilians as a matter of policy -- without even responding to the facts from three posts ago that show otherwise.

[ QUOTE ]
Apparently in Chris Alger's world, intent counts for nothing.

[/ QUOTE ]
No, intent counts for a lot andy my definition of "intent" regarding "murder" is traditional, dating back hundreds of years. You seem to think that murderous "intent" only exists if someone "wills" the death of others. The common law of murder (as distinguished from manslaughter or negligence) made no such distinction. At common law, murder was the killing of people with a form of intent called "malice aforethought." Malice aforethought includes cases where "a person acts in an extremely reckless way that demonstrates a 'depraved heart' (moral corruption) or 'callous indifference' to the value of human life and, without intending to do so, thereby causes another's death. An example of this so-called depraved-heart murder would be if a person shot a gun into a crowd of people, killing an innocent bystander." Encarta (http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761557653_4/Criminal_Law.html).

Under the traditional norms that have governed our society for centuries, murder therefore does not necessarily require intended death. Depraved recklessness will suffice, as in the hundreds of cases where Israel has fired into crowds of people and killed innocent bystanders. Hardly a week has gone by during the last four years in which Israel has not committed this form of murder, culminating in the deaths of hundreds of children and other innocent civilians.

And, to reitirate, these are the "bystander" killings, which are in addition to Israel's deliberate, systematic sniping and targeting of civilians. Such as the recent muder of an unarmed Palestinian in Gaza: "Israeli military sources said the man was spotted near the [Netzarim] settlement's greenhouses and soldiers opened fire. The man, who was later found to be unarmed, was in a prohibited zone, they said." The Australian. (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,9323552%5E1702,00.html) Israel as much legal right to create a "prohibited zone" in the occupied territories as a burglar has to do the same within your house.

[ QUOTE ]
If the Israelis were as intent on killing the Palestinians as the Palestinians are intent on killing the Israelis, guess what? The Palestinians would all have been wiped out long time ago.

[/ QUOTE ]
Among the many reasons this is nonsense is the indisputable fact that the Palestinians never "wiped out" the Jews of Palestine despite their ability to do so for hundreds of years, including the first decades of Zionism when Jews remained a tiny minority in Palestine.

Aside from that fact, Israel's restraint in not committing literal genocide hardly provides any defense to the crimes it actually commits. It's like excusing any criminal on the grounds that he hasn't done anything worse than the crimes of which he's accused, such as murdering even more people.

MMMMMM

04-19-2004, 03:27 AM

No, I'm not saying that Israel, or Israeli soldiers, have "never" targeted Palestinian civilians or children. What I'm saying is that the Palestinian terrorists make a much greater effort to target innocent civilians than do the Israelis. That's the whole point.

Why you can't seem to admit that the Palestinian terrorists or suicide bombers are on average of more evil intent than the IDF soldiers, is a great mystery to me.

Your point is that not only the Palestinians, but Israel too has done bad things, and that some Israeli soldiers do bad things. I'm not disputing that, but I am saying that the Palestinian terrorists are more evil because their aim is more to kill innocents, and that therefore they must be condemned more strongly. Also, their terrorist leaders must be eliminated so they cannot continue orchestrating more deliberate murders of innocents.

ThinkQuick

04-19-2004, 03:59 AM

Your constant referral to the United States as a terrorist entity leads me to believe that you have somehow escaped the hidden patriotic agenda of the education system, and are now sheltered from the slant of the popular media, which would vehemently disagree with you.

If you truly are a truth-seeker, immune to media bias and misinformation, then my only hope for you, and I beg it of you, is to apply your immunity to the middle-east. Come to truly understand both sides of any story you wish to form an opinion on.

nicky g

04-19-2004, 04:55 AM

nicky g

04-19-2004, 05:04 AM

"The Palestinian terrorists deliberately surround themselves with civilians"

This sheer nonsense. Gaza is the most densely popluated place in the world. How is anyone to avoid "surrounding himself with civilians?" These people live in houses with, travel on the same roads with, go to the same mosques as their families and other civilians. There is no special terrorist haven where they could do these things instead. Is Ariel Sharon deliberately surrounding himsef with civilians by having a house in a residential neighbourhood? Is George Bush deliberately surrounding himself with musueums by living in the White House?
If you want to argue that the terrorists deliberately surround themselves with civilians when they carry out attacks, we can discuss that too. But what we're talking about here is the assassination policy; these people are being killed not in the course of carrying out attacks but in the course of going to the mosque, driving their cars or sleeping in bed - which is what makes the attacks illegal and immoral. Sleeping in bed in an appartment block full of cvilians is not "deliberately surrounding themselves with civilians."

nicky g

04-19-2004, 05:34 AM

"wasn't Rantisi responsible for many civilian deaths?"

Prior to becoming leader of Hamas, Rantissi was a political spokesperson for Hamas. During his short tenure as overall leader for Gaza, no significant attacks took place. Rantissi always denied being involved in the al-Qassam brigades, though he condoned their actions. Maybe he was lying; no serious evidence has been put forward that he was. The accepted, civilised way to determine such issues is through a trial rather than an illegal extrajudiciary execution. So the short and legal answer is no.

"Please spare me the rhetoric on how the prospects for peace have been set back. "

I'll spare you the rhetoric and give you some facts. The very first suicide bombing in Israel came directly after, and in retailiation for, guess what? The assassination of an Islamic Jihad leader. More than ten people were assassinated, including Thabet Thabet, a Fatah peace activist who noone ever seriously claimed was involved in militant attacks, before the first suicide bombing of the current intifada. Numerous truces and ceasefires have been ended by an Israeli assassination followed by a suicide attack. Every Hamas leader that has declared a willingness to negotiate and call a mutual ceasefire has been assassinated. The simple fact is that these gangland murders have massively escalated the conflict and repeatedly succeeded in derailing ceasefires, negotiations and long term peace prospects in conjunction with teh bombers. So if you think this has no impact on the peace process, you are deluding yourself.

The Israelis have clearly had some success in preventing a major attack since Yassin's death; at the cost of dozens of Palestinian lives and effectively improsing millions of people, but we'll let that slide for the moment. But noone seriously doubts that bombers will get through eventually. And the escalation of killing prominent spiritual and political leaders will ensure that dozens try and the odd one gets through for a very very long time to come.

Let me ask you something; do you seriously believe this is an effective long-term strategy for peace? Would you like to explain how?

Gamblor

04-19-2004, 09:31 AM

accepted, civilised way to determine such issues is through a trial rather than an illegal extrajudiciary execution.

Yes. And I'm sure the outrage that hundreds of citizens of the state were killed in trying to arrest a foreign murderer would also be civilized.

Even if Rantisi didn't strap the bomb to some kid, he organized the financing for it, organized the ideology behind it, and organized the group that perpetrated the act.

Where I come from, that's called Conspiracy to commit mass murder.

And risking the lives of hundreds of kids who are rightful citizens of the State, to catch a man who would kill every last citizen if he could, is not valid when a cleaner less dangerous method is possible.

The "very first suicide bombing" is irrelevant - the attitude never changed, regardless of whether Israel offered peace or war. Only the method of murder changed.

do you seriously believe this is an effective long-term strategy for peace? Would you like to explain how?

As of now, I don't think the Israelis are particularly concerned with peace, more survival.

When security is guaranteed, we can discuss borders. But the Palestinians have taken an active role in the genocidal warfare practiced by all of the Arab states, and since the first days of Jewish refugee immigration to Palestine, they have expressed opposition to any significant number of Jews in the region.

Those are the facts.

Gamblor

04-19-2004, 09:43 AM

"So was half-blind quadraparaplegic Sheikh Yassin before Israel found it necessary to shoot rockets at his wheelchair in order to also take out his two assistants and a passerby."

Same for a 70 year old saudi dialysis patient in Afghanistan. The Americans have been trying to get him for a few years now, and he's attached to a friggin' dialysis machine!

Yassin was a quadriplegic since he was 12 years old. That clearly is not a real hinderance to mass murder.

nicky g

04-19-2004, 09:44 AM

"And I'm sure the outrage that hundreds of citizens of the state were killed in trying to arrest a foreign murderer would also be civilized."

I'm sorry but I don't quite follow your sentence. Are you saying that hundreds of Israelis would be killed in trying to arrest Rantissi? Like the hundreds killed in arresting Barghouti? Name a single arrest operation in which more than a handful of ISraeli soldiers have been killed. In most I'd wager precisely none were killed. Contrast that to the number of civilian bystanders killed in these mafiosi murders; 14 including 11 children i the worst attempt.

Whichever way you look at it, deliberately targetting someone for assassination without any attempt to arrest them is a war crime. End of story. Speaking of which, do those pressing for Ariel Sharon (or Pinochet or whoever you like) to be tried for their war crimes demand that, because arresting them would be difficult or impossible, they should instead be murdered in cold blood? Er, no. Perhaps Israel could learn something from them.

"Even if Rantisi didn't strap the bomb to some kid, he organized the financing for it, organized the ideology behind it, and organized the group that perpetrated the act. "

No he didn't. Prior to becoming leader he was a spokesperson. "Organising ideology" is not a crime. Furthermore, even in Israel conspiracy to commit murder does not carry the death sentence, even for someone convicted. So how can it be applied to someone who's been convicted of precisely nothing?

"The "very first suicide bombing" is irrelevant - the attitude never changed, regardless of whether Israel offered peace or war. Only the method of murder changed. "

The "attitude" may be what counts to you. The number of people killed, which leapt several thousand percent, is what matters to sane people.

Gamblor

04-19-2004, 09:45 AM

Israel as much legal right to create a "prohibited zone" in the occupied territories as a burglar has to do the same within your house.

Wrong. No existing sovereign state claims the land, thus Israel is entitled to do whatever it deems necessary to meet security needs, dubious as you may find them.

nicky g

04-19-2004, 09:50 AM

The United Nations resolution that founded Israel called for a Palestinian sovereign state, which ISrael has repeatedly blocked. Your argument is akin to the burglar saying he stole the deeds to your house, therefore he's entitled to do what he wants in it. And why precisely does Israel get first dibs on this land that noone is allegedly claiming? First come first served, is that it?

Gamblor

04-19-2004, 09:50 AM

They had the opportunity to hand themselves to justice and answer for their crimes. They refused to do this. It goes without saying that we would have much preferred this, but the news that Saddam's sons are no longer a threat to the security of Iraq will be a reassurance to the Iraqi people."
- Jack Straw, July 22, 2003, on the killing, by US troops, of Uday and Qusay Hussein

"One has to treat such claims and proposals by al-Qaida with the contempt they deserve. This is a murderous organization which seeks impossible objectives by the most violent of means."
- Jack Straw, April 16, 2004, on the proposal, by Osama bin Laden, to arrange a truce with Europe

"Unjustified and counterproductive."
- Jack Straw, April 18, 2004, on the killing, by Israeli forces, of Abdel Aziz Rantisi

What a joke. If even one Israeli soldier were killed arresting that piece of shit, it would have been too many.

nicky g

04-19-2004, 09:52 AM

I gave my opinion on the killing of Saddam's sons at the time. You can look it up if you want. At the very least, they were violently resisting arrest. Showing that the Blair government is packed with hypocrites does not change the argument. The fact is that Straw is right in the last quote, regardless of the fact that he's usally wrong.

Gamblor

04-19-2004, 09:53 AM

The United Nations resolution that founded Israel called for a Palestinian sovereign state, which ISrael has repeatedly blocked.

Yes. It is Israel that has refused to recognize the Palestinian State.

"We will drive them into the sea!"

nicky g

04-19-2004, 09:56 AM

Try the more recent "We recognise the Israel's right to a secure existence." In return for what, exactly? 3000 deaths and Ariel Sharon deciding he has the pick of the choice parts of the Occupied Territories. They never should have bothered.

Gamblor

04-19-2004, 11:18 AM

Try the more recent "We recognise the Israel's right to a secure existence."

Oh I get it.

After 50 years of "We'll kill you all", we get "Okay you're here for now, but we'll get you the long way around... demand the return of refugees, turn Arabs into a majority in 'Palestine', join the Arab league, appoint a new Grand Mufti, and turn you Jews into second class citizens once again."

Really nicky. The Arab nations, along with a good chunk of the rest of the world, has spent 3 millenia trying to kill off those pesky Jews. Modern times dictate that outright murder is no longer socially acceptable (unless you call it "legitimate resistance"), so what to do?

Condemn their state as racist/apartheid when it is probably the least of any non-Western state, and call its people paranoid.

And how do you think Jews will respond to this, at least the ones not living in a god damn dream world?

"She'll fight like no lioness has ever fought to save her cubs".

nicky g

04-19-2004, 11:37 AM

"The Arab nations, along with a good chunk of the rest of the world, has spent 3 millenia trying to kill off those pesky Jews."

Garbage. Absolute garbage. There has never been any concerted attempt in the "Arab nations" to eliminate the Jews. And over 3 millenia? Neither Islam nor the "Arab nations" ahve existed for much more than half of that.

Gamblor

04-19-2004, 12:35 PM

Palestine Grand Mufti Haj Amin el-Husseini (http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate_grand_mufti.php)

MMMMMM

04-19-2004, 01:15 PM

Maybe the terrorists should set aside a special section of Gaza, and live and train there, so when they are targeted by Israel their fellow Palestinians won't suffer collateral damage. That way they could actually fight Israel without dragging civilians on both sides into the fray. That would be the moral approach to war--and then when they meet Allah, they could then be proud instead of being damned for deliberately killing innocents. But of course they are SO STUPID that they actually believe they will go to Paradise instead of to hell for murdering innocents. Stupid, immoral, despicable: the quintessential Palestinian Terrorist.

MMMMMM

04-19-2004, 01:26 PM

Guess that means the common Palestinians shouldn't be keeping company with terrorist kingpins if they want to be safe--eh Nicky?

What would you say if some people having dinner with a Mafia capo happened to bite the bullet too when he got gunned down? Well Hamas is like one of the Palestinian Mafias (but even worse).

Yassin and bin-Laden are considered by many to be "spititual leaders" but really they are just mass murdering criminals. Spiritual leaders my foot. If they are genuine "spiritual leaders" then so were Charles Manson and Jim Jones.

Chris Alger

04-19-2004, 01:28 PM

Pretty much what I'd expect from someone who thinks that blwoing up and incinerating children is just fine if done in the name of defending the German people.

Oops. I meant the Jewish people.

MMMMMM

04-19-2004, 01:31 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Try the more recent "We recognise the Israel's right to a secure existence."

[/ QUOTE ]

If you believe they meant that, then the moon might as well be made of green cheese. They SAY one thing, but DO just the opposite.

When they truly stop sending suicide bomber (permanently), then they'll have recognized Israel's right to a secure existence.

MMMMMM

04-19-2004, 01:36 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Garbage. Absolute garbage. There has never been any concerted attempt in the "Arab nations" to eliminate the Jews.

[/ QUOTE ]

(excerpt)"...But first, let’s put the matter in perspective. The media, which cultivate historical amnesia, rarely tell us how Palestinian refugees became refugees.

The very hour that the Jews declared statehood in 1948, they were invaded by five neighboring Arab states. The stated goal was to drive the Jews into the sea. Their would-be liberators told local Arabs to evacuate so they wouldn’t be caught in the crossfire. Latter, they were assured, they could return to their homes, as well as those of the Jews – who by then would be floating in the Mediterranean.

Roughly 600,000 Arabs followed that advice. Another 200,000, responding to the entreaties of Ben Gurion and other Zionist leaders, stayed and became full citizens of the new state.

At the same time, 800,000 Jews were driven from Arab countries, some from homes their families had known for millennia. The choice: Stay and be killed by rampaging mobs or emigrate. No one – repeat no one – is suggesting that the Jews whose families fled Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, etc. be repatriated.

Nor, for that matter, is there a claimed right of return for any of the other political refugees (numbered in the tens of millions) who trudged or were shoved across national borders throughout the 20th century.

The Germans pushed out of Poland and Czechoslovakia at the end of World War II, the Hindus and Moslems who ended up in India or Pakistan respectively, the Greeks and Armenians ejected from Turkey, the Holocaust survivors who weren’t allowed to return to their homes in Eastern Europe, the pied noir (French settlers) forced out of Algeria at the time of its independence – are but a few examples of mass migrations caused by war, revolution or politics.

The solicitous attitude toward the Palestinians is a prime example of that most entrenched of international double standards -- one rule for Israel, another for everyone else. Not only the Arabs who left what became Israel, but their children and grandchildren have been granted refugee status in perpetuity by the United Nations. Clearly, most of the five million Arafat wants to foist on Israel have never set eyes on their “homeland.”

It’s equally clear that the Jewish state would be swamped by this proposed inundation. There are currently 6.6 million Israelis, including one million Arabs. Add an estimated five million Palestinian “returnees” (almost all of them descendants of the refugees of 1948) and – well, even The New York Times should be able to do the math. Also, bear in mind that the Arabs have one of the highest birthrates in the world.

Now, here’s where the real irony comes in. While Palestinians who’ve never set eyes on their “homes,” are to be repatriated, the Jews currently living in Judea and Samaria (AKA, the West Bank) are to be driven from theirs -- turned into refugees.

Palestine’s founding fathers have a dual agenda – flood Israel with millions of ersatz refugees, while engaging in ethnic cleansing, making their state judenrein, in the words of another anti-Semitic movement, while their neighbor is poised for another future partition.

Some observers wonder why Arafat turned down the sweetheart deal offered by then-President Clinton and then- Prime Minister Ehud Barak in 2000 – 97 percent of the West Bank and Gaza for a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital and $30 billion compensation for the Palestinian refugees. Simple: It didn’t also include a right of return.

Not that Arafat, the PLO, Hamas and the rest of the international jihad can’t destroy Israel with a militarized Palestinian state in league with Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia and other exemplars of the religion of peace.

But a right of return will make it so much easier. From a Palestinian perspective, what’s even better than stationing a few divisions on Israel’s borders? Stationing them inside the Jewish state."(end excerpt)

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=13023

Chris Alger

04-19-2004, 01:39 PM

Initial reports said as many as seven killed but most refer to four dead and 10-13 wounded. But who knows. Tip of the iceberg too: the next day Israel shot and killed a 13-year-old kid at a demonstration.

Chris Alger

04-19-2004, 01:55 PM

[ QUOTE ]
When they truly stop sending suicide bomber (permanently),

[/ QUOTE ]
That's pretty much the right-wing "solution" in a nutshell. Since by definition it's impossible to prove that terrorism will stop "permanently," Israel must permanently maintain its tyranny in the occupied territories. The same assumption lies in the demands by Sharon's cabinet: an indefinite period of time of "absolute quiet" following the cessation of all attacks, in or out of Israel, and the end of all "incitement" (i.e., protest and complaint), followed by some day by some kind of entity with "attributes of sovereignty," but maybe not if any "incitement" occurs.

That's the American right for you: they "say" they want an end to the occupation and two states, but they really mean something else. Of course, Israel doesn't even say it.

MMMMMM

04-19-2004, 01:59 PM

That's not the pivotal point at all.

That their guarantee to recognize Israel's right to a secure existence is so much bullsh!t should be obvious, because they DO keep sending suicide bombers.

Gamblor

04-19-2004, 02:08 PM

Re: Why shouldn't you? (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=exchange&Number=593124 &Forum=exchange&Words=dismiss&Match=Entire%20Phras e&Searchpage=0&Limit=25&Old=6months&Main=592257&Se arch=true#Post593124)

As for my "Arab propaganda,"...you dismiss out of hand simply because the facts they cite can't be reconciled with your sick worldview. This thread is another example of the dozens where you offer no specific refutation of the facts cited and instead relying on the usual racist slander (e.g., "its the Arab nations who want to murder").

Gamblor

04-19-2004, 02:17 PM

Suicide bombers are merely the tip of the iceberg.

I'm more concerned about random Arabs getting involved in daily sniperfire, random stabbings of Jews, Molotov cocktails at Yeshiva-bochers, Kasam rocket fire into Israeli towns, one-man attacks on army bases. Yep one guy. Attacking a whole army base.

The Palestinians' greatest victory was convincing the world that an political entity called Palestine was a de facto nation before any Palestinians knew or cared about national liberation.

Arafat is so good at lying he convinced his own followers they needed yet another Arab-only state in the Middle East.

Chris Alger

04-19-2004, 02:24 PM

[ QUOTE ]
The very hour that the Jews declared statehood in 1948, they were invaded by five neighboring Arab states. The stated goal was to drive the Jews into the sea. Their would-be liberators told local Arabs to evacuate so they wouldn’t be caught in the crossfire. Latter, they were assured, they could return to their homes, as well as those of the Jews – who by then would be floating in the Mediterranean.

Roughly 600,000 Arabs followed that advice. Another 200,000, responding to the entreaties of Ben Gurion and other Zionist leaders, stayed and became full citizens of the new state

[/ QUOTE ]
The only competent military to invade was Jordan's Arab Legion who's goal was neither to drive the Jews into the sea nor even occupy all of Israel but to steal the West Bank and Jerusalem for Jordan. Within a few weeks the inexperience, incompetently led, undertrained and underequipped Arabs were completely outgunned by Israeli firepower. Lebanon hardly participated and Jordan stood by watching Israel mauled the Egyptians and Syrians, who in turn refused to coordinate with each other. With a handful of exceptions, the Arabs told the Palestinians to stay put while Israeli troops massacred, raped and harrassed civilians and emptied whole villages at gunpoint, as declasified Israeli documents make clear. There were more than 700,000 refugees, not "roughly 600,000." Ben Gurion never made any entreaty to the refugees to stay, as his diary makes clear that he wanted most of them to leave and he refused to let them return, murdering starving families that tried, so that Israel could seize their land and property. The Palestinians that remained were placed under military occupation, suffered brutal discrimination and harrassment, had their land expropriated. And so on.

Calling it "absolute garbage" was putting it politely.

MMMMMM

04-19-2004, 02:35 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Within a few weeks the inexperience, incompetently led, undertrained and underequipped Arabs were completely outgunned by Israeli firepower. Lebanon hardly participated and Jordan stood by watching Israel mauled the Egyptians and Syrians, who in turn refused to coordinate with each other.

[/ QUOTE ]

Guess they shouldn't have attacked Israel. Wasn't too bright a move, was it?

Hope they never get back the remainder of the lands from which they launched the aggression.

Gamblor

04-19-2004, 03:04 PM

You are the biggest farce in the history of documented... history.

The only thing missing was "The holocaust is a myth."

But I'll humour you for a moment:

The only competent military to invade was Jordan's Arab Legion who's goal was neither to drive the Jews into the sea nor even occupy all of Israel but to steal the West Bank and Jerusalem for Jordan.

The Arabs, inside and outside the territory defined for the State of Israel, gave no consideration to offers of peace or any other attempts to negotiate a settlement. Their intentions were declared by Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League:

This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades.

Within a few weeks the inexperience, incompetently led, undertrained and underequipped Arabs were completely outgunned by Israeli firepower.

As sovereign states, the Arabs had no difficulty in securing whatever arms they needed through normal channels from Britain and other friendly powers. The pre-State Jewish forces, on the contrary, had been prevented from acquiring arms by the British and so had no matching artillery, no tanks, and no warplanes in the first days of the war.

Supplies of weapons arrived in the days that followed, however, and turned the tide. Little more than small arms - in paucity- had been available to the Haganah which on May 28, 1948 was to merge with other Jewish defense groups to form the Israel Defense Forces. The Irgun Zeva'i L'umi and the Lochamey Cherut Yisra'el agreed to cease their independent activities, (except in Jerusalem) and to absorb their members into the newly founded IDF.

Invaded from all directions, Israel had to cope with the outbreak of a thousand fires, and to do so with limited means. Numerous settlement outposts in the Galilee and the Negev were isolated, open on all sides to Arab attack, and had to rely on their own perseverance and meager armories to stave off defeat. The hastily mobilized army had to engage in offensive action to remove the enemy from key positions, block the advance of their columns, and rush to seal gaps in Israel's defenses.

This table is a summary of the forces estimated to be engaged in the 1948 war with Israel, based on available information:

<ul type="square">
Country Population Armed Forces Combat Deaths
Egypt 35,000,000 300,000 2,000
TransJordan 1,000,000 60,000 1,000
Syria 6,000,000 300,000 1,000
Iraq ??? 10,000 (in Israel) 500
Lebanon ??? ??? 500
Palestinian Arabs 1,250,000 50,000 3,000
Israel 650,000 140,000 6,000
[/list]

With a handful of exceptions, the Arabs told the Palestinians to stay put while Israeli troops massacred, raped and harrassed civilians and emptied whole villages at gunpoint, as declasified Israeli documents make clear. There were more than 700,000 refugees, not "roughly 600,000."

There is not one documented case of rape. And the Dir Yassin massacre was a hoax perpetrated by Arab dictators to enrage their citizens in the fight against Israel, as evidenced by the Daily Telegraph, April 8, 1998, Ayish Zeidan, a resident of the village and a survivor of the fighting there, stated:

The Arab radio talked of women being killed and raped, but this is not true... I believe that most of those who were killed were among the fighters and the women and children who helped the fighters. The Arab leaders committed a big mistake. By exaggerating the atrocities they thought they would encourage people to fight back harder. Instead they created panic and people ran away.

The Jerusalem Report from April 2, 1998 describes a BBC television program in which Hazem Nusseibeh, an editor of the Palestine Broadcasting Service's Arabic news in 1948, admits that he was told by Hussein Khalidi, a prominent Palestinian Arab leader, to fabricate claims of atrocities at Dir Yassin in order to encourage Arab regimes to invade the expected Jewish state.

Nusseibeh "describes an encounter at the Jaffa Gate of Jerusalem's Old City with Deir Yassin survivors and Palestinian leaders, including Hussein Khalidi... 'I asked Dr. Khalidi how we should cover the story,' recalled Nusseibeh. 'He said, "We must make the most of this." So we wrote a press release stating that at Deir Yassin children were murdered, pregnant women were raped. All sorts of atrocities.' "

It has also been alleged that the Dir Yassin hoax was supported by the left-wing political party of David Ben-Gurion in order to smear the right-wing, the Irgun and its commander Menachem Begin.

Ben Gurion never made any entreaty to the refugees to stay, as his diary makes clear that he wanted most of them to leave and he refused to let them return, murdering starving families that tried, so that Israel could seize their land and property.

On May 14, 1948 David Ben-Gurion read Israel's Proclamation of Independence in Tel Aviv. It included these paragraphs:

We appeal ... to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the building-up of the state on the basis of full and equal citizenship and representation in all its ... institutions.

We extend our hand to all neighbouring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and goodwill, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land.

The Palestinians that remained were placed under military occupation, suffered brutal discrimination and harrassment, had their land expropriated. And so on.

Why did this happen?

In February 1948 there was a bombing on the 1st in Jerusalem against the Palestine Post building (later renamed the The Jerusalem Post) which killed six people and injured dozens. Then on February 22nd, three booby-trapped trucks positioned in Ben-Yehuda Street exploded, destroying four large buildings, killing 50 and injuring more than 100. On March 11, a car bomb exploded in the courtyard of the Jewish Agency building, killing 12 people, injuring 44, and causing extensive damage.

Arab acts of hostility prior to statehood reached their peak in March. Arabs controlled all the inter-urban routes. The road to Jerusalem was blocked, settlements in the Galilee and the Negev were also cut off and daily attacks were perpetrated on convoys. In the four months after the UN resolution, some 850 Jews were killed throughout the country, most of them in Jerusalem or on the road to the city.

On April 13, 1948, Arabs set mines in the road in the Sheik Jarrah area to block a convoy of 10 vehicles -- trucks, buses and ambulances -- carrying supplies, nurses, doctors, scientists, and patients to Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus. In the attack, 78 were killed and their bodies mutilated. Dozens are wounded. British soldiers delayed intervention in the attack for 6 hours while the killing continued. The hospital was cut off from Israel until it was recovered after the Six Day War in June 1967.

The largest Arab atrocity of the war was on May 13, 1948, the massacre of dozens of surrendering defenders, including some twenty women, at Kfar Etzion in the Etzion Bloc of settlements (Gush Etzion) just north of Hebron, in the territory allocated to the Arabs under the UN partition plan. The Etzion Bloc had already seen a massacre in January 1947 when a Haganah platoon of 35 soldiers sent to help them with medical supplies and ammunition was massacred by hundreds of Arab militants. Their stripped, mutilated bodies were found the next day by a British patrol.

The final battle for Gush Etzion took place between May 12-14, 1948. Massive, heavily armed enemy forces overran the Jewish positions. A handful of exhausted defenders, equipped only with light arms and very little ammunition could not withstand the attacking forces. On Thursday, May 13th, Kfar Etzion fell, its defenders killed, most of them slaughtered by Arab rioters after the collapse of the defense. Gush Etzion was destroyed in the aftermath -- everything of value was removed, then the buildings were reduced to rubble. Hundreds of thousands of trees in the orchards -- individually planted by the Jewish farmers -- were uprooted.

nicky g

04-19-2004, 03:29 PM

"What would you say if some people having dinner with a Mafia capo happened to bite the bullet too when he got gunned down? Well Hamas is like one of the Palestinian Mafias (but even worse)."

I would say there's a world of difference between that and people who happen to live on the same street as a Hamas leader.

nicky g

04-19-2004, 03:35 PM

"I'm more concerned about random Arabs getting involved in daily sniperfire, random stabbings of Jews, Molotov cocktails at Yeshiva-bochers, Kasam rocket fire into Israeli towns, one-man attacks on army bases. Yep one guy. Attacking a whole army base."

Amazing that you would dare mention sniper attakcs. Palestinian civilians die daily in sniper attacks attacks; blatantly targeted sniper attacks that can;t possibly be excused as accidents. How do you acidentally shoot a child through the sights of the best rifle US blood money can buy? And how many Israelis die every day from Palestinian attacks? Almost none. And how many Israeli civilians die every day compared to Palestinian civilians? About one fifth.

nicky g

04-19-2004, 03:37 PM

Attempting to prevent the emergence of a foreign state in Palestine after having been promised a free pan-Arab state by WW1 allies is not remotely the same as trying to exterminate all Jews. If it were the Arabs would have been far better off turning on their own entirely captive Jewish populations and massacring them. Did they do that? No.

Gamblor

04-19-2004, 03:41 PM

Amazing that you would dare mention sniper attakcs. Palestinian civilians die daily in sniper attacks attacks; blatantly targeted sniper attacks that can;t possibly be excused as accidents. How do you acidentally shoot a child through the sights of the best rifle US blood money can buy?

You "accidentally" put the child out in the open in front of the shooters. Why would someone do this?

The Answer (http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp441.htm)

And how many Israelis die every day from Palestinian attacks? Almost none. And how many Israeli civilians die every day compared to Palestinian civilians? About one fifth.

And how many Israeli civilians are targetted each day compared to Palestinian civilians? About a thousand times.

The most blatant example out the subhumanity of these terrorists is that the other day, a bomb filled with vials of AIDS, hoping to infect Israelis with HIV.[b]

Gamblor

04-19-2004, 03:54 PM

the very least, they were violently resisting arrest.

Of course, and if the Golanis were to walk in there demanding Rantisi give himself up for a trial in an Israeli court of (secular, democratic) justice, he would fully comply, with zero risk to the lives of Israeli citizens.

It is the role of a state to protect the lives of its citizens, placing those within the state at a higher value than those outside the state.

That's what a state is for.

nicky g

04-19-2004, 04:17 PM

"a bomb filled with vials of AIDS, hoping to infect Israelis with HIV. "

That is the most ridicuous thing I have ever heard. Isuppose Rantissi, a trained doctor who would have known the complete absurdity of such an attempt, must have been deeply involved in its coordination.

nicky g

04-19-2004, 04:20 PM

Still, I am glad you implicitly ackinowledge through your comparison that the IAF is just a rival set of gangsters attempting to eliminate the competition.

nicky g

04-19-2004, 04:26 PM

"You "accidentally" put the child out in the open in front of the shooters. "

These are trained snipers. THey are not shooting randomly into a crowd; trhey are killing people viewed cflearly through their gun sights. Even if Palestinian militant s were putting children to the foreground that would not excuse the Israeli Atrocity Forces taking the bait and shoting them.

"And how many Israeli civilians are targetted each day compared to Palestinian civilians?"

See above.

nicky g

04-19-2004, 04:26 PM

Gamblor

04-19-2004, 06:52 PM

New York Post (http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/18751.htm)

Ha'aretz (http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/414828.html)

MMMMMM

04-19-2004, 07:56 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Still, I am glad you implicitly ackinowledge through your comparison that the IAF is just a rival set of gangsters attempting to eliminate the competition.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's all relative, and by that I don't mean it's all equal, but rather that one side is relatively worse than the other. So I choose to side with the relatively better guys.

MMMMMM

04-19-2004, 08:52 PM

How so? Simply put, by keeping the terrorists on the defensive. Since Yassin's death, though the terrorists then pledged to "open the gates of hell", there has been only ONE suicide bombing which killed only one Israeli. A month free of suicide bombings right after Yassin's targeted assassination. Imagine that. Just the opposite of what the common wisdom supposed would occur.

"HAMAS' TRASH TALKIN'

[b]Hours after an Israeli missile claimed the life of Hamas head and co-founder Abdel Aziz Rantisi, the terrorist organization released a statement promising “100 unique retaliations” that would shake “the criminal entity.”

Senior Hamas official Ismail Haniya told more than 70,000 “mourners” at
Gaza City’s largest mosque, “Every time a martyr falls, Hamas is strengthened.”

But as the kids on the playground would say, Hamas is just talking trash.

Hamas is following in the footsteps of so many nearly-defeated people throughout time: talk tough to distract everyone. The model is time-tested: the person about to go down to ignominious defeat remains defiant, proudly—and ridiculously—predicting victory till the end.

But amid all the hyperbole about “exploding a volcano of revenge” and what not, Hamas refused to name its new leader. They’re afraid. “They” is the appropriate term here, not “it” as in the group, because Hamas’ leaders all know their deaths are imminent.

Hamas’ reticence notwithstanding, media reports were quick to identify the new terrorist leader: Dr. Mahmoud Zahar, Rantisi’s number-two and the personal physician to the late Sheikh Yassin, who met the same fate as Rantisi nearly a month ago.

Dr. Zahar has to know he’s next.

None of this is particularly good news for terrorist masterminds, but it is great news for more than just Israelis.

Young Palestinians should feel safer already.

Hamas’ hierarchy has been so busy trying to avoid their own deaths that they haven’t had nearly as much time to send little Abduls and Kareems to theirs.

Even if you want to take Hamas at its word that it really is devoting itself to “100 unique retaliations” instead of trying to find “100 unique undisclosed locations,” the terrorist group was no less determined to kill Jews last month (or last year) than it is right now.

Want proof? Notice the similarity in reaction after the targeted killing of Hamas’ “wheelchair-bound” “spiritual leader” Sheikh Yassin on March 22.

Hamas promised to “kill hundreds of Zionists on every street, in every city and everywhere in the occupied lands.”

Only, it hasn’t happened. That’s not to say that Hamas won’t be successful in killing more Jews, but it most likely won’t be as successful as it has been.

With Hamas leadership preoccupied with staying alive—even Yassin essentially lived underground in the months before his death and Rantisi went to great precautions as well—strategy and attack coordination are bound to suffer.

In fact, that has already happened. The lone suicide bombing since Yassin’s death was over the weekend, on the same day Rantisi got to test that “72 virgins” theory. Only one Israeli died.

This month free of suicide bombings came not on the heels of a truce or a peace agreement, but after Hamas had pledged to “open the gates of hell.”

The reason should be obvious: terrorism is not, and never has been, a grassroots, bottom-up movement. It is a top-down indoctrination industry that relies on brainwashing and a handful of key organizational leaders. In a perverse way, it operates like the structure of W.E.B. DuBois’ “talented tenth,” where the elite leadership guides the uneducated masses.

The young Palestinians who blow themselves up in the name of “martyrdom” (and getting their families huge paydays) do nothing more than detonate. The bombs are built for them, and the date and location of the attacks are chosen by the likes of Yassin and Rantisi—and, of course, Yasser Arafat.

What Israel is attempting is to cut off the head of radical Islamic terrorism. Will this work? Hard to say what the exact impact will be, but it certainly can’t make things any worse, no matter what many so-called experts have predicted.

It is impossible to radicalize further a population that has been brainwashed since childhood not just to hate Jews, but to kill them. It starts with the textbooks, if not with “delightful” nursery rhymes, and then teens and adults are fed a daily dose of such swine through the Arafat-controlled Palestinian media.

And lest we forget, Hamas’ stated goal is to eliminate the Jewish state. So if they need the killing of their leaders to stick to their original goal, that can only mean they were slacking off before. Which we all know, sadly, was not the case.

With its leaders marked for death, Hamas might not succeed in getting what it wants. But at least Rantisi did.

Shortly after his predecessor Sheikh Yassin died, Rantisi said, “We will all die one day. Nothing will change. If by Apache or by cardiac arrest, I prefer Apache.” Thankfully, his wish came true."

by Joel Mowbray

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=13047

ThinkQuick

04-20-2004, 01:32 AM

"Hamas is a fundamentalist Islamic group which has never recognised Israel's right to exist. It has prosecuted its war without any moral restraint. Its terrorists have not been merely careless but have deliberately targeted civilians, exploding bombs in circumstances designed to maximise the number of innocent men, women and children killed... Hamas is not interested in negotiation or accommodation with the Jewish state, simply its extermination."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,542-364789,00.html

Nicky you've said that 5 Palestinians are killed in targetted attacks for every Israeli targetted. Find it, documented; I'm challenging your word.

I can remember but can't seem to locate an article interviewing a senior Israeli official in Time magazine. They showed him alot of figures about how many more Palestinians had died in the Intifadah then israelis. He answered by saying he was not going to allow more Israelis to die just to rectify the statistics, and that in fact, him and his forces were trying their very hardest to keep Israeli military and civilian casualties as close to zero as possible.
That attitude seems to only come from the Israeli side.

ThinkQuick

04-20-2004, 01:33 AM

I am interested to know where you find documentary support for the idea that the democratic Israeli government has an established policy that targets civilian children.
I am interested to know how you explain that I've never heard of the opposition government or Israeli public in an uproar about this policy.

"The Fourth Geneva Convention goes into great and elaborate detail about how to assign fault when military activities take place in civilian areas... Hamas is at war with Israel. But instead of separating themselves from the general population in military camps and wearing uniforms, as required by international law, Hamas members and other Palestinian terrorists try to use civilians -- the "protected persons" mentioned in [The Fourth Geneva Convention] 3:1:28 -- as living camouflage. To prevent such a thing from happening, international law explicitly gives Israel the right to conduct military operations against military targets
under these circumstances."
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/53201.htm

Israeli soldiers are not "taking the bait" to kill civilians as you say. They are fighting their war to the best of their ability and recognize that the death of civilians is among the most awful of consequences. The attacks on civilians that Israel has experienced, often called "the equivalent of 9-11 every week" [http://www.cbn.com/CBNNews/News/Anti-Semitism0312.asp] has left Israel with intimate knowledge of how terrible it is.
And every Palestinian civilian that dies makes big news and Israel suffers a great deal in the media. How could you believe that this is an intentional policy?

Additionally, Israel makes inquiries and metes out punishments regarding all potential human rights abuses. I support Israel not because the army makes a move I support, but because I believe that the democratic system of checks and balances that will yield the 'best' end result.

Cyrus

04-20-2004, 02:16 AM

"I support Israel not because the army makes a move I support, but because I believe that the democratic system of checks and balances that will yield the 'best' end result."

Israel has the most advanced political system in the region but are we, in the West, assisting in the other countries' progress by our position on the conflict, or are we inhibiting it?

South Africa, pre-Mantela, had practically the same political system as Israel : Full democracy, western-style - but not for the plebes. A democracy only for Whites, a democracy only for Jews. Was it a coincidence that aparatheid-era South Africa and Israel had for decades the cosiest and closest of relationships?

I can only imagine what those infamous "training exchange programs" between the two states' security apparatuses were all about!

Chris Alger

04-20-2004, 03:49 AM

[ QUOTE ]
I am interested to know where you find documentary support for the idea that the democratic Israeli government has an established policy that targets civilian children.

[/ QUOTE ]
Unless you are seriously suggesting that the U.S. should arm Paletinian terrorists until some "documentary evidence" emerges proving that they "have an established policy" [and not just "a policy"] "that targets children," I suppose we should take this as a joke. When an entity admittedly kills 500 or so children in scores of lethal attacks over several years, civilized countries won't continue to supply it with ammunition on the grounds that it can't find a written admission of premeditation. Nor do they take solace in the country's "democratic" support for such violence, as if popular tolerance or support makes atrocities legitimate.

If you're serious you would have read some of the dozens of reports about Israeli uses of force from the half-dozen or so independent organizations that have investigated it. We constantly read that Palestinian terrorists "hide behind" children and use them for "human shields." Given all the dead kids, there must be a compendium somewhere of hundreds or at least dozens of such incidents. So why don't you go find some of the many eyewitness reports about how Israel has been exonerated?

Asking the experts might be a bit more persuasive than Podoretz. After all, his logic is that (1) the 4th GC does neither endorses nor precludes "military operations" in areas where "protected persons" are present; therefore (2) Israel can use whatever force it wants whenever its purported "military" targets (terrorists and "militants") can be found among civilians.

Children see through this. You can't imagine Poddoretz defending the IRA's practice of blowing up pubs because soldiers are present, or the Palestinian terrorism on the grounds that many of the "civilians" they kill are actually out-of-uniform reservists. Or defending Nazi brutality against the civilians in the Warsaw ghetto on the grounds that the resistors didn't wear uniforms. That's because Podorhetz is an unscrupulous sikfuk Israel flack writing dumbed-down propaganda for a credulous audience. After all, he doesn't even mention that none of the High Contracting Parties nor the ICRC have bought his argument, or that Israel and the U.S. (and Israel's organized supporters in the U.S.) opposed convening the ICR to consider whether Israel's actions in the territories complied with the 4th GC. (The Red Cross has instead has condemned Israel's settlements and other practices for violating the 4th GC).

Finally, consider Amira Haas's 2000 interview (http://www.mideastfacts.com/index_uprising.html) with the IDF sniper who tells her that "they forbid us to shoot at children" although "12 and up is allowed." Or for NYT MidEast correspondent Chris Hedge's report (http://home.mindspring.com/~fontenelles/hedges/hedges1.htm) 2001 report from Gaza: "Children have been shot in other conflicts I have covered - death squads gunned them down in El Salvador and Guatemala, mothers with infants were lined up and massacred in Algeria, and Serb snipers put children in their sights and watched them crumple onto the pavement in Sarajevo - but I have never before watched soldiers entice children like mice into a trap and murder them for sport." Or Chris McGeal's account (http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1007051,00.html) in the Guardian: "The killing of Ali and wounding of his five-year-old brother is particularly disturbing because the commander admits there was no combat and the boys were the focus of the soldier's attention." Note the response of the Israeli commander: "Usually with children this age, we don't shoot."

nicky g

04-20-2004, 06:09 AM

"Nicky you've said that 5 Palestinians are killed in targetted attacks for every Israeli targetted. Find it, documented; I'm challenging your word."

No, I said approximately 5 Palestinain civilians have been killed for every Israeli civilian. Approximately 600 Israeli civilians have died since the start of the intifada and approximately 2500 Palestinian civilians have died, so my gues was slightly off but not by much (slighlty over 4:1). The Palestinian figure includes resistance fighters (as they are technically counted as civilians); if we discount them I estimate the ratio would be around 3:1. In addition, the ratio of Palestinian children to Israeli children killed is 5:1. Moreover in the first intifada the ratio of Paletinians to Israelis killed was much much higher, some estimate up to 25:1. That may give you a little insight into the background of the current hate.
I don't have time to some detailed research, have a look around if you want. Here are some basic figures on the current intifada from an Israeli human rights organisation:
Casualty stats (http://www.btselem.org/English/Statistics/Al_Aqsa_Fatalities.asp)

Notice that about 40% of Israeli casulaties are military. The source doesn't give a breakdown for civilian:resistance Palestinian figures but noone believes it is anything close to that. If I have time later I will try to find one.

Gamblor

04-20-2004, 12:20 PM

These are trained snipers. THey are not shooting randomly into a crowd; trhey are killing people viewed cflearly through their gun sights. Even if Palestinian militant s were putting children to the foreground that would not excuse the Israeli Atrocity Forces taking the bait and shoting them.

That's pretty weak my man.

I suggest very strongly that you research the concept of "Tohar haNeshek".

The degree to which it permeates Israeli society may shock you, considering youve never met an Israeli soldier who has served in the Territories.

(would I be wrong in this assumption)?

Gamblor

04-20-2004, 12:24 PM

Israel has the most advanced political system in the region but are we, in the West, assisting in the other countries' progress by our position on the conflict, or are we inhibiting it?

By supporting the only country that has anything resembling a democracy, it is certainly an incentive to democratize, as Khaddafi has figured out.

Now, the support of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, now that I question.

South Africa, pre-Mantela, had practically the same political system as Israel : Full democracy, western-style - but not for the plebes. A democracy only for Whites, a democracy only for Jews. Was it a coincidence that aparatheid-era South Africa and Israel had for decades the cosiest and closest of relationships?

The Palestinian Arabs are not citizens of Israel and thus are incomparable to the blacks of South Africa.

Furthermore, Israel's justice system is secular both in theory and practice, frequently ruling in favour of Arabs in legal matters.

Gamblor

04-20-2004, 12:29 PM

So why don't you go find some of the many eyewitness reports about how Israel has been exonerated?

Of course. An local would surely tell the truth, as they did in Jenin (500 killed? 10,000 killed?).

Never have I seen such blatant disregard for a people simply because of their ethnicity. You bait and goad Jewish participants of this forum by manipulating truth, and encouraging them to submit to terrorism. In fact, you even suggest that Israelis are not entitled to life by virtue of your support for a cultural entity that would have them all dead if they had the choice.

Look, I can spew biased, baseless rhetoric too. I place no value whatsoever in those eyewitness accounts, just like I place no value in your opinion on this subject.

nicky g

04-20-2004, 12:37 PM

Gamblor, I'm not interested in whatever nebulous concepts are taught to and by the Israeli army. The fact is there is overwhelming evidence that numerous Israeli troops target civilians, and that almost no killings of civilians are properly investigated, let alone soldiers charged. It took over a year of concerted UK Foreign Ofice pressure to get Israel to carry out a proper investigation into Tom Hurndnall's death. Prior to that the IDF always insisted that the soldier involved had acted properly and shot at a gunman. Eventually the IDF conceded that was not the case and now the gunman is on manslaughter charges, with the family rightly pressing that they be upgraded to murder. If it took over a year for one of ISrael's closest allies to get the IDF to properly investigate the killing of one of its own citizens, what hope is there for proper investigations into similar killings of Palestinians? Noone cares about these concepts you harp on about if they aren't followed up with proper punitive actions for the numerous war crimes carried out by Israeli troops. There is no question that individual soldiers have deliberatley killed civilians and children (even M admits to "bad apples"), and if there are no serious attempts to curb or punish these actions, the entire army becomes tarnished with a de facto policy of targetting civilians.

Gamblor

04-20-2004, 03:12 PM

If it took over a year for one of ISrael's closest allies to get the IDF to properly investigate the killing of one of its own citizens, what hope is there for proper investigations into similar killings of Palestinians?

What kind of government prosecutes soldiers during a war?

I'm sure that all, if any, crimes will be properly investigated at the war's conclusion.

But this is war. And soldiers defending a nation must necessarily be afforded leniency in all but the gravest circumstances. When the mess dies down, you'll see much more justice, includingi against those who violate the principles of Israeli warfare.

And if you can't be bothered to study the principles of an entity, you have no right to condemn them.

There is no question that individual soldiers have deliberatley killed civilians and children (even M admits to "bad apples"), and if there are no serious attempts to curb or punish these actions, the entire army becomes tarnished with a de facto policy of targetting civilians. .

By this logic, all Palestinians should be killed by their support and indifference to terror.

Cyrus

04-20-2004, 05:24 PM

So, you don't appreciate too much the eyewitness testimonies of Jewish soldiers or the confessions of the IDF perpetrators themselves?

It's all just "biased, baseless rhetoric" to you, I guess. But then again anything that doesn't jive with your idea of a honorable and restrained Israeli military is anathema to you. You would find ways to refute even Ariel Sharon himself if he would openly admit tomorrow that, hell, yes, the Israeli Defence Forces, carrying on a tradition that began almost sixty years ago, will harass, bully and murder the Palestinian civilian population until it gets the hell out of the Holy Land!

I so envy the flat and peaceful valleys of your mind.

crash

04-20-2004, 05:27 PM

"Hamas Leader Killed Again"

They killed the guy twice? Man, those Hamas leaders are tough.

John Cole

04-20-2004, 05:57 PM

Nicky,

I did read about one Iraeli soldier who beat to death a rock throwing adolescent. He was sentenced to three months in prison.

Gamblor

04-20-2004, 06:37 PM

So, you don't appreciate too much the eyewitness testimonies of Jewish soldiers or the confessions of the IDF perpetrators themselves?

Jewish soldiers? What, they couldn't have been Druze or Bedouin Arab soldiers, both conscripted as well to defend the state? of course. Only the Jews are evil.

Nevertheless, there have been rumours surfacing on the inside (that is, where YOU aren't), that people have been manufacturing reasons not to serve in the Territories, as indeed some Israelis are permitted individual opinions, such as the one that states that Israel should pull out. Not so in the PA-run areas...

You would find ways to refute even Ariel Sharon himself if he would openly admit tomorrow that, hell, yes, the Israeli Defence Forces, carrying on a tradition that began almost sixty years ago, will harass, bully and murder the Palestinian civilian population until it gets the hell out of the Holy Land!

I don't particularly trust Sharon. Specifically, his plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza, under fire, of Jews . What, individuals aren't allowed to dwell wherever they choose? Of course. They're all tools of the evil Israeli government.

And that 60 year tradition? You're a laughingstock. Let's examine Arab terrorist efforts that began long, long before the Jews were even organized in the old Yishuv. It makes your claims of terror rather miniscule. Search "Gush Etzion".

Cyrus

04-21-2004, 02:15 AM

"[The IDF soldiers who testify of war crimes against Palestinians] couldn't have been Druze or Bedouin Arab soldiers, both conscripted as well to defend the [Israeli] state? Only the Jews are evil?"

You didn't get it. Those Jewish soldiers were not evil, they are heroes in my book. They did what they did but, still, they have the decency to come out and testify to what they did, and were ordered to do. They have not lost all moral direction yet.

I am sure that that's what makes them dangerous to serve in the IDF, for you. And evil.

"There have been rumours surfacing on the inside, that people have been manufacturing reasons not to serve in the Territories, as indeed some Israelis are permitted individual opinions, such as the one that states that Israel should pull out."

They call those people conscientious objectors, you know. As in, people who still have a conscience.

And it is them that keep the Jewish spirit alive. Not some brown-shirted, goose-steppin' fascists I could mention.

"I don't particularly trust Sharon."

I am certain your views are even more extreme than Sharon's, something that reasonable observers would find impossible, but there you are.

"Specifically, [Sharon's] plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza of Jews . What, individuals aren't allowed to dwell wherever they choose?"

But of course they are! Individuals are allowed to dwell wherever they choose in Israel. Provided they are Jews, naturally. The right of returning home, the right of settling, the right of buying land, all those rights are available to all citizens of the democratic state of Israel -- provided they are Jews.

Which brings us back to where we started, apartheid South Africa and its many similarities and active collaboration with Israel. (Listen. Instead of all this boring nonsense about democracy and Sharon, why don't you regale us with some anecdotes about getting training from the South African counter-insurgency agency? Surely you must have heard stories "from the inside".)

"And that 60-year tradition [of Jewish terror tactics against Palestinians]? You're a laughing stock."

Yes, you think I am short changing you? I should have gone perhaps back 100 years? You may be right. But not too many people are on "the inside" here about what Zionist "freedom fighters" did to the local population before WWII. So, let's stick with 60 years, OK?

Chris Alger

04-21-2004, 03:39 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Hamas is not interested in negotiation or accommodation with the Jewish state, simply its extermination.

[/ QUOTE ]
This typical way of setting forth the goals of Hamas and other Arab rejectionists amounts to so much holocaust exploitation to cover Israel's refusal to accomodate Palestinian national rights.

The absurdity becomes apparent if we apply it in other contexts. Let's say the USSR refused to negotiate with Reagan or the South African government refused to negotiate with the ANC on the grounds that both Reagan and the ANC, given their way, would "exterminate," respectively, the Soviet and apartheid states. It could not be doubted, of course, that Reagan and the ANC both had extreme objections to the very nature of these states, that they preferred that they be radically changed, and that they denied the right of the U.S.S.R. and S. Africa, as then constituted, "to exist." Yet few people ever believed that the Soviet Union and S. Africa could never reach any compromise with such adversaries without risking national self-destruction.

In the Israeli context, however, the implication is clear: the Arabs don't want to abolish the ethnocentric character of the Jewish state, they want to exterminate all the Jews. They don't merely want to turn Israel into a state of all its citizens (instead of one only for Jews), they want to "drive the Jews into the sea." Moreover, they are so devoted to this goal that any accomodation with them amounts to admitting the legitimacy of these goals and likely furthering them. This was the standard line for the right-wing opposition to Oslo, and was brought to its furthest extreme by Sharons's failure to seek any reciprocal benefits in exchange for the Gaza pullout: he didn't want to create the impression that anything good could come from dipomacy, even though he was effectively on a freeroll. The echoes of the holocaust are intended for western, mostly American audiences, for obvious reasons. But it doesn't bear any relation to reality.

In fact, Hamas has always claimed to be willing to accomodate the Jews of Israel in a binational, Islamic state. One might not believe Hamas, but it should put to rest the notion that Hamas has "admitted" its intention to wipe out the Jews. I also agree that this isn't much of a solution, trading in an ethnocentric Jewish state for an ethnocentric Islamic one. But it's certainly as defensible as the platforms of Likud and other right-wing Israeli factions that seek to bolser that status of Jews in Israel/Palestine vis-a-vis the Arabs. In fact, it's actually more accomodating that several of the Israeli parties and leaders that favor the "transfer" option. Cabinet Minister Uzi Landau, for exmple, was quoted as saying "we should do to the Palestinians what the Turks did to the Kurds" (e.g., murder huge numers of them). That's fairly extreme, yet no one believes that it evidences some intent by the Jewish right to "exterminate" all Palestinians or that Uzi Landau and like-minded thinkers must be "wiped out" before the Palestinians consider accomodating Israeli national rights.

In short, the equation of seeking to destroy the "Jewish state" with seeking to destroy Palestinian Jewry is not valid as a matter of logic or history. IMO, it's a bad idea for a lot of reasons, but not because its shorthand for genocidal intent.

Some combination of three other phenomenon are usually added to the propaganda mix to convince people that anti-Zionism means genocide: (1) Arabic anti-Semitism (I mean this in the dictionary sense), which is obviously widespread, partly a byproduct of long and deadly political struggles over Palestine and partly a legacy of European influence; (2) Arabic tribalism, in which conflicts are borne by entire communities, rather than specialist armies and mercenaries, which in turn places less emphasis on civilian/military distinctions; and (3) Arabic insecurity and braggadocio, typified by bloodcurdling speeches and threats of "annhilation" by forces that couldn't conquer Gaza or Golan on their best day. But its just as easy to find Israeli counterparts, and indeed both sides to any conflict between different ethnic groups. These fairly common failings of human nature are not an excuse for permanent war and tyranny, nor are the latter likely to prove much of a solution.

nicky g

04-21-2004, 05:31 AM

"What kind of government prosecutes soldiers during a war?"

This is not a war, it is an occupation. At least investigating and suspending soldiers killing civilians would be a step.

"By this logic, all Palestinians should be killed by their support and indifference to terror. "

Rubbish. A. I am not suggesting Israeli soldiers should be killed; they should be investigated properly and jailed for any crimes. B. Iti is not the responsibility of Palestinian civilians to police Palestinian militants any more than it is the responsibility of Israeli civilians to police the ISraeli army.

nicky g

04-21-2004, 05:33 AM

"I did read about one Iraeli soldier who beat to death a rock throwing adolescent. He was sentenced to three months in prison. "

Exactly. A soldier who shot a 98 year old woman sitting in a taxi in an entirely unprovoked incident recieved six weeks in prison. THat's how much the IDF cares about civilian lives.

nicky g

04-21-2004, 08:27 AM

"Notice that about 40% of Israeli casulaties are military"

Sorry, this is wrong: I misread one of the stats boxes. It's actually about 31% (265 out of a total of 858).

nicky g

04-21-2004, 09:16 AM

Compare this to the following figures: B'Tselem reports 2400 Palestinians killed by Israeli occupation forces in the occupied territories. Of these the Palestinian Centre For Human Rights reports that around 1700 of these were civilians - this figure excludes militants targeted for assassination, "Palestinians killed while participating in armed offensive attacks against Israeli targets", or on-duty Palestinian security forces or suicide bombers. Nor does this figure include numerous Palestinians who have died from occupation forces preventing medical assistance etc and other effects of the occupation, problems which Israel of course does not suffer from.

1700 out of 2400 is what: just over 70%. So the Israeli occupation forces in their infinite care to avoid civilian casualties have managed to kill almost precisely the same proportion of non-combatants to combatants as Palestinian terrorists, who we are constantly reminded deliberately target civilians, have managed to kill (civilians: uniformed military). Not to mention that the Israelis have killed nearly 3 times as many Palestinians as Palestinians have killed Israelis, including 5 times as many children. Astounding.

Gamblor

04-21-2004, 10:58 AM

The 1988 Covenant of Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, speaks for itself. It begins, "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it." It continues: "There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors." Its violent message is invoked in the name of defeating the "plan of World Zionism" "embodied in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion." In Rantisi's words of July, 2001: "I urge all the brigades to ... target the Israeli political leaders and members of parliament ..."; "the Hamas political leadership has freed the hand of the brigades to do whatever they want against the brothers of monkeys and pigs."

Hamas Covenant (http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/hamas.htm )

MMMMMM

04-21-2004, 11:00 AM

Of course your discussion of Hamas' goals says nothing of the Hamas Charter, which clearly calls for the destruction of the Jewish state; claims that the land is "an Islamic waqf"; and even cites a purely genocidal passage from the hadiths calling for the murder of all Jews by Muslims (on religious grounds, of course).

nicky g

04-21-2004, 11:02 AM

Last I checked incitement to violence was not a capital crime.

adios

04-21-2004, 11:03 AM

Of course it does and simply stated Israel is at war with Hamas. Why wouldn't Israel be?

nicky g

04-21-2004, 11:05 AM

"Israel is at war with Hamas"

Does that then give Hamas the right to target Israeli politicians and government figures?

MMMMMM

04-21-2004, 11:16 AM

Nicky, if a band of Hell's Angels motorcycle gang attacked Ray Zee and HDPM while they were out hiking in the mountains--if the Hell's Angels came at them with clubs and knives--and Ray and HDPM shot them dead--the casualty count would be lopsided too. In other words the Palestinians are attacking a better armed foe and the results should be expected to be lopsided. Don't you think the casualty figures for a brick-throwing teens versus soldiers would be almost 100% one way? Yet bricks can be very harmful or even deadly. Same principle applies when Isaelis target a militant leader or go to make an arrest.

The Palestinians must stop attacking.

If I were a Palestinian I'd be out of there in a flash. Their leaders convince them they can actually win this war: how ignorant can they be, to believe this? At least some of them now are becoming disillusioned with the fruits of the intifada, and realize that the intifada has resulted in them being worse off than before.

They should ask Israel for the deal offered in 2000: 97% of the territories, part of Jerusalem, and $30 billion in cash. Air-of-f*ck walked away from that deal because it didn't also include a "right of return" ("return" for mostly descendants of refugeees--yet most of these people had never lived in Israel in the first place).

The Palestinians need to stop thinking about what's "right" and start thinking about what's best for them.

Where would the American Indians be today if they never admitted that they were going to get the short end of the stick, and kept on fighting? Dead, dead and deader, that's where they'd be. But they did accept it and now they have full rights and then some. Some are even opening casinos and getting rich.

Countless peoples besides the Palestinians have been displaced throughout history--sometimes it's time to make lemonade when life deals you a lemon. The Palestinians need to start thinking about making lemonade instead of this insane violent fanatical resistance which will never succeed, and which simply brings them is more misery.

With 97% of the territories, part of Jerusalem, and $30 billion in cash compensation, I'll bet they could make lots of lemonade. They should ask that negotiations be re-opened on that offer. Just maybe, if enough security guarantees were included, Israel would offer it again. The Palestinians need to take a pragmatic approach to their situation and future, instead of continuing this irrational battle they can never win.

nicky g

04-21-2004, 11:21 AM

"Don't you think the casualty figures for a brick-throwing teen versus a soldier would be almost 100% one way?"

A brick-throwing teen should not be targetted with live ammunition.

It is not particularly surprising that the IDF kills more Palestinians than Hamas et al kill Israelis. What is surprising is that the proportion of civilian casualties of both sets of attacks is the same. The IDF is far more militarily advanced than the Palestinian resistance, which uses indiscriminate methods such as suicide bombs in civilian areas. It is absurd to pretend that the IDF with its billions of dollars worth of military technology could not keep its civilian death toll much lower than people who blow up restaurants on purpose.

MMMMMM

04-21-2004, 11:37 AM

[qoute] It is absurd to pretend that the IDF with its billions of dollars worth of military technology could not keep its civilian death toll much lower than people who blow up restaurants on purpose.

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe it's "absurd" to think that; maybe it's not. Israel must of course value its own people more highly in certain situations. Neither of us are experts on such tactical fighting in densely populated security situations anyway.

What do you think about the rest of my post ? (maybe I added some editing while you were responding to the original).

MMMMMM

04-21-2004, 11:37 AM

[ QUOTE ]
It is absurd to pretend that the IDF with its billions of dollars worth of military technology could not keep its civilian death toll much lower than people who blow up restaurants on purpose.

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe it's "absurd" to think that; maybe it's not. Israel must of course value its own people more highly in certain situations. Neither of us are experts on such tactical fighting in densely populated security situations anyway.

What do you think about the rest of my post ? (maybe I added some editing while you were responding to the original).

MMMMMM

04-21-2004, 11:43 AM

Let's not forget this GENOCIDAL quote from the HAMAS COVENANT:

[ QUOTE ]
The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said:

"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).

[/ QUOTE ]

MMMMMM

04-21-2004, 11:49 AM

[ QUOTE ]
"Israel is at war with Hamas"

Does that then give Hamas the right to target Israeli politicians and government figures?

[/ QUOTE ]

In my view it does. Howver it does not give Hamas the right to engage in indiscriminate suicide bombings which generally target civilians. In fact that has been my moral objection all along.

Further, certain Palestinian terrorist groups have publicly stated they consider every Israeli citizen an equal enemy and will target them all (irrespective of status, age or sex). In my mind this is what makes the Palestinian terrorists spiritually subhuman, as it were.

nicky g

04-21-2004, 11:53 AM

Sorry I did indeed miss the rest of your post.

I thought your solution was that the Palestinians should just leave?

"They should ask Israel for the deal offered in 2000: 97% of the territories, part of Jerusalem, and $30 billion in cash. Air-of-f*ck walked away from that deal because it didn't also include a "right of return" ("return" for mostly descendants of refugeees--yet most of these people had never lived in Israel in the first place)."

A. No actual deal was ever tabled in 2000. It was reported in some quarters that Barak was briefly considering offering such a deal at Taba, but it was never actually tabled and therefore could never have actually been rejected.

""97% of the territories"

This is wrong. Only 3% of the territories would have been actually incorporated into Israel under most of the positions the Israelis were reported to be negotiating from (again, no deal was ever actually tabled). But this ignored the fact that Israel intended to keep all the major settlement blocks and their system of interlinking "security" roads, as well as indefinite "securit yzones" in the Jordan valley and military posts to defend the settlements. The West Bank would have been carved up like grated cheese, and the amount of West Bank land not actually available to Palestinians would have been anything between 20% and 45% (this is from memory). The state would have been completely unviable (Israel refused to budge from controlling borders, air space and various water resources) and not remotely close to the 97% figure often cited.

Furthermore none of Jerusalem was up for negotiation by the Israeli side. All of Palestinian pre-1967 East Jerusalem would have been incorporated into ISrael under Israeli positions that they were not willing to compromise on. What the Israelis were proposing to offer was a suburb several miles outside East Jerusalem called Abu Dis - they suggested the Palestinians could take this, rename it Al-Quds (Arabic for Jerusalem) and have it as an administrative capital. Of all the stupid, deliberately insulting hare-brained schemes of the peace process, this has to be the best.

I never heard the US$30bn figure.

If what you describe had have been offered along with proper sovereingty (ie no Israeli control of air space, water etc) along with at least a willingness to discuss the refugee issue, then I would agree with you that the Palestinians should have accepted. But no offer was made and what the Israelis were willing to consider was absurdly unfair and insulting.

nicky g

04-21-2004, 11:55 AM

" Howver it does not give Hamas the right to engage in indiscriminate suicide bombings which generally target civilians. "

I don't think it does either. I also don't think political leaders or non-combatants outside of conflict situations should be targetted for murder on either side, as international law states.

MMMMMM

04-21-2004, 12:53 PM

Political leaders, depending on their positions and authority, can be considered military leaders as well, for all intents and purposes. Yassin was a military leader and IMO Sharon is too, even if those are not their official designations.

Whatever international law states, I don't think the Israelis targeting Yassin as an effective military leader, or the Palestinians targeting Sharon similarly, should they do so somehow, would be anything nearly like targeting innocent civilians.

adios

04-21-2004, 01:12 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Does that then give Hamas the right to target Israeli politicians and government figures?

[/ QUOTE ]

They want to wipe Israel off the face of the earth .... I guess they already have.

Gamblor

04-21-2004, 01:45 PM

Whatever international law states, I don't think the Israelis targeting Yassin as an effective military leader, or the Palestinians targeting Sharon similarly, should they do so somehow, would be anything nearly like targeting innocent civilians.

Too late.

President Saved from Assassination (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=60795)

Gamblor

04-21-2004, 02:27 PM

Re: Objectors I am sure that that's what makes them dangerous to serve in the IDF, for you. And evil.

I didn't say evil, but I did say a liability to the nation.

Each is entitled to his own opinion and is represented in government, and that's the point, and that's why Israeli government actions are ipso facto of a higher morality, regardless of what your opinion is.

Not some brown-shirted, goose-steppin' fascists I could mention.

I'm all for happy coexistence. But it's simply impossible at a point in time where the average Israeli gets a 21st century education, and the average Arab is living in the Crusades, fighting religious war and shouting "Allah Achbar" and "Itbzach al Yahud" as part of his morning routine.

The right of returning home, the right of settling, the right of buying land, all those rights are available to all citizens of the democratic state of Israel -- provided they are Jews.

The right of returning home is not a fascist law, it is a law designed to fulfill the mandate of the state - as a haven for Jews persecuted around the world, in past and present. Such a law would be necessary to this end. A democratic state, in order to serve this function, must necessarily be of a Jewish majority. This is a fact.

of all this boring nonsense about democracy and Sharon, why don't you regale us with some anecdotes about getting training from the South African counter-insurgency agency?

If you're implying that collaboration with another nation requires one to adopt the values of this nation, then it only follows that the United States is an Islamist/terrorist/Ba'athist state. Oh, wait. Holding up past events, which may or may not be true, as original sin, makes YOU the racist. After all, all the Jews are the same, right? The Israelis must, through dealings in no way motivated by self-interest, have explicitly supported apartheid. /images/graemlins/confused.gif

But not too many people are on "the inside" here about what Zionist "freedom fighters" did to the local population before WWII. So, let's stick with 60 years, OK?

Who rejected whose immigration? Yep. Oh wait, Jews in Israel were being murdered by the dozens before the word Zionism even was coined.

trippin bily

04-21-2004, 02:33 PM

very simple cyrus, hamas targets woman and children every day.EVERY DAY. u tell us. what should the israelis do?

Gamblor

04-21-2004, 02:36 PM

"End the occupation"

Of course, an occupation necessarily requires a sovereign state to be occupied - which of course is a non-issue here.

trippin bily

04-21-2004, 02:42 PM

well said

hetron

04-21-2004, 03:44 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It is absurd to pretend that the IDF with its billions of dollars worth of military technology could not keep its civilian death toll much lower than people who blow up restaurants on purpose.

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe it's "absurd" to think that; maybe it's not. Israel must of course value its own people more highly in certain situations. Neither of us are experts on such tactical fighting in densely populated security situations anyway.

What do you think about the rest of my post ? (maybe I added some editing while you were responding to the original).

[/ QUOTE ]

You have made post after post stating how the Israelis TRY to avoid civilians, while the Palestinians DELIBERATELY try to kill them, yet their civilian:combatant kill ratio is almost exactly the same. And this is the best you can come up with. We're not experts in tactical situations? Look at the rest of my post?

I love how people argue on this forum. Hey, when someone throws some serious heat on my argument, just run away from it. GWB would be proud.

Gamblor

04-21-2004, 04:34 PM

, yet their civilian:combatant kill ratio is almost exactly the same

How many times must I explain this!

It has been estimated that 95% of terror attacks perpetrated by Palestinians were unsuccessful. Thus, the Israeli death toll would be 20x higher if we were to judge by the proper measure: attempted attacks.

For a better reasoning, let's consider what the situation might be like if the Palestinians had the arms and the Jews were fighting.

Search:
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Grand mufti Haj Amin el-Husseini

That'll show you.

hetron

04-21-2004, 05:45 PM

[ QUOTE ]
, yet their civilian:combatant kill ratio is almost exactly the same

How many times must I explain this!

It has been estimated that 95% of terror attacks perpetrated by Palestinians were unsuccessful. Thus, the Israeli death toll would be 20x higher if we were to judge by the proper measure: attempted attacks.

For a better reasoning, let's consider what the situation might be like if the Palestinians had the arms and the Jews were fighting.

Search:
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Grand mufti Haj Amin el-Husseini

That'll show you.

[/ QUOTE ]

That might explain why there are more Palestinians dead than Israelis, but how does that explain the similar civilian:combatant kill ratios? I'm curious to hear this.

nicky g

04-21-2004, 06:01 PM

"It has been estimated that 95% of terror attacks perpetrated by Palestinians were unsuccessful. Thus, the Israeli death toll would be 20x higher if we were to judge by the proper measure: attempted attacks."

Why would this change the ratio? After all it's harder to kill 'hard' military targets than "soft" civilian targets; so one would assume of more attacks got through a higher proportion of military personnel would be killed.

On the point that the terrorists try to kill more people than they do, sure. But it's obvious that if Hamas want to execute a suicide bomb attack but know only a small percentage will get through, they'll send more bombers. Hence you can't simply say that if all were able to get through there'd be as many attacks as there are currently attempted attacks. Certainly they'd go way up, but not to the number attempted.

I'd like to know where you get your 95% figure from.

nicky g

04-21-2004, 06:10 PM

The residents of the West Bank and Gaza have been living under ISraeli occupation for 30 years. The refugees have been waiting for a solution for 50 years. Palestinian civilains have been being killed, losing their homes and brutally repressed for decades. What would you propose they do? Twiddle their fingers?

The question of a sovereign state is irrelevant. The populations of the territories are clearly overwhelmingly opposed to the Israeli presence, and the occupation is recognised as such under international law. They have an internationally recognised right to self-determination. Israel is the force that is preventing the emergence of such a state.

Gamblor

04-21-2004, 07:15 PM

After all it's harder to kill 'hard' military targets than "soft" civilian targets; so one would assume of more attacks got through a higher proportion of military personnel would be killed.

Except that most Hamas attacks are directed at civilians, but unfortunately run into the military entrusted to protect those civilians of the state, Arab, Jewish, or Other.

A Hamas operative prepares to attack knowing in advance that he will die, as does the organization. Thus, it is fallacious to assume a lower success rate = more attempts - there is a finite number of operatives. Basically, anyone available will do (for the PFLP, IJ, Tanzim), while Hamas requires one to be a devout Muslim young adult male.

I repeat: any devout Muslim young adult male is immediately prepared for an attack upon acceptance of his candidacy. In other words, the supply drives the market, not the demand.

The Israel Defense Forces' commander in Gaza, Brig. Gen. Gadi Eisencourt, said this week that the IDF managed to foil 95 percent of the suicide bombings, and that the terror organizations did not lack volunteers for attacks, but lacked "engineers" for the explosives. There is evidence of cooperation between the organizations to overcome that problem, Eisencourt noted.

Israel Line (http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Archive/Israel+Line/2004/Israel+Line+26-Mar-2004.htm)

I have no doubt you will find the source less-than-unbiased, but then again, there isn't anywhere else to look. Anecdotally, a cousin informed me that pretty much every day there is mention of a half-dozen attacks thwarted by the IDF in a variety of Israeli Newspapers, most notably Yediot Acharonot, Ma'ariv, and for you English fans, the Jerusalem Post (owned by Cana-Brit Conrad Black, who incidentally has his own problems to deal with).

I have repeated here often that Ha'aretz, while the darling of the peaceniks outside HaAretz (the Land), is what amounts to a scandal rag at home. Think the Sun.

Gamblor

04-21-2004, 07:28 PM

That might explain why there are more Palestinians dead than Israelis, but how does that explain the similar civilian:combatant kill ratios?

Allow me to explain:

Palestinian terrorists often run into Checkpoints (thank goodness for those things), bases, patrols, guards, before they actually make it to the restaurant/bus/market/disco then intend to send to kingdom come. In addition, often attacks are directed at Israeli soldiers, which I find far less morally reprehensible than terror attacks. Unfortunately for them, it is the same organizations attacking soldiers as who attack civilians, thus they are still "terrorists", despite the fact that this time, it happened to be a military target.

Now, how do we explain the high number of civilian casualties among Arabs in the Terrortories (a pun... ignore...)? It is the nature of Palestinian fighters to use homes/houses/mosques as hideouts/bases of operations/bomb factories. They necessarily bring the fight to the streets. Now that they have successfully lured the IDF into civilian populated areas, the PA calls upon the people to go out and join the fight. So you have 10 kids throwing rocks, Palestinians with Kalashnikovs firing at soldiers from behind them, and what is a 19-year-old, who only is following orders to arrest Terror Suspect "A", do to when he is fired upon? Ask the children to get out of the way?

Children are encouraged in every medium - school, TV, radio, mosques, to go and face the evil Jews and stand out there, making loud noise and confusing soldiers who are otherwise trying to ignore them. When the soldier repeated demands the children leave the area, and the children start making trouble, then you hear about a soldier who "brutally" beat a child, when in fact, he was likely subduing a kid who had likely been throwing anything from rocks to Molotov cocktails.

Check out Palestine media watch (http://www.pmw.org.il) for what these kids see on a daily basis, and then you'll see why the violence continues.

Gamblor

04-21-2004, 07:32 PM

What would you propose they do? Twiddle their fingers?

The saying is "Twiddle their thumbs".

They ought to properly direct the blame to the Arab nations, especially Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt for creating the problem via Rejection of Jewish self-determination, and King Terror Mr. Arafat for leading them into hell - and convincing them it was the Jews' fault.

Palestine Media Watch (http://www.pmw.org.il)

The populations of the territories are clearly overwhelmingly opposed to the Israeli presence, and the occupation is recognised as such under international law.

You'd be shocked to know that it is very much the opposite. A significant percentage of Arabs didn't care one way or the other - in fact many profitted astronomically from the occupation, from access to the Israeli market, and for Israelis permitted to shop in Arab-majority towns we now call "Palestinian". When the first Israeli soldiers ventured into these towns to hunt for foreign armies, they were at times welcomed with open arms, in fact, my uncle ate a meal, while on patrol, in the home of an Arab family who welcomed him "Salaam! salaam!". They were just so thankful to get the Jordanians out that they didn't care. It is Arafat's relentless stream of propaganda that turned the tide.

Even the rejectionists never wanted a Palestinian state until they finally realized the Jews weren't going to roll over and die. Now they figure they can just do it in stages. Nonetheless, another Arab/Islamic state in the Middle East? How many more are coming?

Israel is the force that is preventing the emergence of such a state.

What state? What institutions, outside the military, has the PLO created? What kind of state?

What will this fantastic utopian Palestinian state be, if not an organization of Arafat and his cronies to organize their Military, steal more of the EU and UN's money, and rule the Arabs under his control with the same Iron fist he has for decades?

Chris Alger

04-21-2004, 08:36 PM

[ QUOTE ]
How many times must I explain this!

[/ QUOTE ]
On the subject of terror, you can't purport to explain anything because you've already admitted (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Number=606902&page=&view=&sb =5&o=&vc=1) admitted to being in favor of terror. You're on record on this forum as justifiying the planting of bombs in marketplaces, of incinerating innocent children, at least when the perpetrators are Jewish and the random victims are Arabs.

You're a walking recruiting poster for al Qaeda. If you had been born Palestinian you'd have blown yourself up by now.

nicky g

04-22-2004, 05:41 AM

"Except that most Hamas attacks are directed at civilians, but unfortunately run into the military entrusted to protect those civilians of the state, Arab, Jewish, or Other."

Sometimes that is the case; other times the military are targetted directly, and it is self-eviently obvious that those attacks are going to be foiled more often than attacks on buses etc, especially given the trigger happy nature of the IDF.

"I repeat: any devout Muslim young adult male is immediately prepared for an attack upon acceptance of his candidacy. In other words, the supply drives the market, not the demand."

This clearly isn't true. A hefty proportion of the attacks are direct retaliations for assassinations or incursions or come at otherwise politically opportune moments. It would be a hell of a coincidence for a volunteer to magically appear every time a lull or ceasefire is broken by an assassination. The supply isn't unlimited but it is claear that, horribly, the terrorists do ahve "reserves" of bombers to draw upon when they need to.

"The Israel Defense Forces' commander in Gaza, Brig. Gen. Gadi Eisencourt, said this week that the IDF managed to foil 95 percent of the suicide bombings, and that the terror organizations did not lack volunteers for attacks, but lacked "engineers" for the explosives."

You are right about my opinion of the source. Nevertheless a. this refers to " last week "; you have expanded it to the entire conflict. It is obvious that recently Israel has been having far more success in preventing attacks. Secondly, as the commander says, there is no shortage of volunters, which contradicts your earlier assertion.

nicky g

04-22-2004, 05:49 AM

"Palestinian terrorists often run into Checkpoints (thank goodness for those things), bases, patrols, guards, before they actually make it to the restaurant/bus/market/disco then intend to send to kingdom come. In addition, often attacks are directed at Israeli soldiers, which I find far less morally reprehensible than terror attacks. Unfortunately for them, it is the same organizations attacking soldiers as who attack civilians, thus they are still "terrorists", despite the fact that this time, it happened to be a military target."

This still explains why more people aren't killed, not why the ratio is how it is.

"Now, how do we explain the high number of civilian casualties among Arabs in the Terrortories (a pun... ignore...)? It is the nature of Palestinian fighters to use homes/houses/mosques as hideouts/bases of operations/bomb factories. They necessarily bring the fight to the streets. Now that they have successfully lured the IDF into civilian populated areas, the PA calls upon the people to go out and join the fight. So you have 10 kids throwing rocks, Palestinians with Kalashnikovs firing at soldiers from behind them, and what is a 19-year-old, who only is following orders to arrest Terror Suspect "A", do to when he is fired upon? Ask the children to get out of the way?"

Contrary to your repeated assertions, those using Palestinian human shields aren't Palestinian militants but the IDF. See here for example.

Human Shield: Use of Palestinian Civilians as Human Shields in Violation of the High Court of Justice Order (http://www.btselem.org/English/Publications/Full_Text/Human_Shield/index.asp)

"you have 10 kids throwing rocks, Palestinians with Kalashnikovs firing at soldiers from behind them, and what is a 19-year-old, who only is following orders to arrest Terror Suspect "A", do to when he is fired upon? Ask the children to get out of the way?"

Human rights monitors have repeatedly testified that troops have opened fire on demonstrations when they were not under fire and no real danger was posed to them. Furthermore a large number of Palestinian casualties are shot from sniper towers, not from tropps firing level into the crowds. A sniper can tell the difference between a gunmen at the back and a child at the front, and even 10 year olds can't move faster than high-velocity bullets. As an ex-British policeman sent by Amnesty to investigate the killings described IDF tactics at demonstrations, they are bad attempts at policing and good attempts at wiping out the demonstrators. Furthermore demonstrations are far from the only places Palestinian civilians are routinely killed.

nicky g

04-22-2004, 06:00 AM

"The saying is "Twiddle their thumbs". "

Thank you.

"You'd be shocked to know that it is very much the opposite. A significant percentage of Arabs didn't care one way or the other - in fact many profitted astronomically from the occupation, from access to the Israeli market, and for Israelis permitted to shop in Arab-majority towns we now call "Palestinian". When the first Israeli soldiers ventured into these towns to hunt for foreign armies, they were at times welcomed with open arms, in fact, my uncle ate a meal, while on patrol, in the home of an Arab family who welcomed him "Salaam! salaam!". They were just so thankful to get the Jordanians out that they didn't care. It is Arafat's relentless stream of propaganda that turned the tide. "

Some may or may not have initially welcomed the Israelis. I find it hard to believe it was a large proportion. Regardless, that clearly didn't last too long. Who would welcome a regime that gives you no democratic rights, appropriates your land to build settlements and roads you aren't allowed to use, and pumps ten times as much of your desperately needed water to feed these settlers as it lets you have? Did the refugees living in Gaza and the West Bank welcome the ISraelis? I bet they were just thrilled to be ruled militarily by the army that had expelled them from their homes.

The first intifada happened years before Arafat got anywhere near the West Bank, and it happened because Palestiians were sick to the back teeth of the endless occupation and theft.

"Nonetheless, another Arab/Islamic state in the Middle East? How many more are coming?"

The region is almost entirely populated by Arabs and Muslims. What do you want there to be, Buddhists states? Hare Krishna states? Why don't you go to Latin America and complain about all the Hispanic Christian states. Those guys have got a real nerve with their lack of Jewish states and Shinto states and Zoroastrian enclaves. What kind of state do you propose Arab Muslim Palestinians to live in? You won't let them live in ISrael, and you won't let them live in their own state.

"What will this fantastic utopian Palestinian state be, if not an organization of Arafat and his cronies to organize their Military, steal more of the EU and UN's money, and rule the Arabs under his control with the same Iron fist he has for decades? "

Those are legitimate questions (to an extent - Arafat has barely ruled a single decade) but they don't give a foreign power the right to impose military rule on those people. People prefer to be ruled by their own bastards than foreign bastards. At least Arafat and co wouldn't spend their time diverting money and resources to foreign colonists.

Gamblor

04-22-2004, 09:16 AM

This clearly isn't true. A hefty proportion of the attacks are direct retaliations for assassinations or incursions or come at otherwise politically opportune moments. It would be a hell of a coincidence for a volunteer to magically appear every time a lull or ceasefire is broken by an assassination. The supply isn't unlimited but it is claear that, horribly, the terrorists do ahve "reserves" of bombers to draw upon when they need to.

Only the mega-terror attacks attempted, i.e. the near-massive explosion at the Ashdod port, are in direct reponse. Tell me, what was the Passover attack in Netanya in response to, or the attack in the Dolphinarium club in Tel Aviv? No nicky, they attack whenever and wherever they can. Their idea of provocation is the existence of Jews in their land. "All of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf".

The supply is nothing close to unlimited, as the recent use of retarded children, such as Hussein Abdo, indicates.

Gamblor

04-22-2004, 09:27 AM

This still explains why more people aren't killed, not why the ratio is how it is.

It explains why the Israeli military death rate is high, and the Palestinian civilian death rate is high, the two abnormalities that conflict with my claim - thus bringing the proportions more in line with each other.

Contrary to your repeated assertions, those using Palestinian human shields aren't Palestinian militants but the IDF.

The friendly neighbour tactic takes advantage of the racist nature of Palestinian society, hoping that a terrorist will be less likely to fire indiscriminately at a fellow Arab than a soldier attempting to place him under arrest. IDF soldiers are not engaging combat from behind these people, as the Palestinian terrorists are: rather they use the human shields to minimize danger, while Palestinians use the human shields to maximize casualties (thus gaining world sympathy from people like, oh, say, you?).

Arafat begs all the kids to go out and get killed - the Palestinian cause looks more righteous when children die.

Human rights monitors have repeatedly testified that troops have opened fire on demonstrations when they were not under fire and no real danger was posed to them.

Of course. Human rights monitors know anything about danger and military necessity, or the potential for disaster whenever thousands get together to rally. Nicky. Let me say it again:

They all learn, from birth, that Jews should be killed because they are donkeys and apes and stole their land. There is no recognition of Jewish rights to anything. They are convinced, by Arafat himself, through education and relentless propaganda, that the longer and harder they fight, the more of them that die, they will one day rule the Jews again. Arafat can't accept any agreement less than full right of return, because he has been using the promise of such a victory to quell the unrest of people he manipulates like puppets.

There is very little way to humanely fight people that don't view you as human.

nicky g

04-22-2004, 09:31 AM

"what was the Passover attack in Netanya in response to, or the attack in the Dolphinarium club in Tel Aviv?"

I did not say all, I said many. For example:

[ QUOTE ]
a nearly certain predictor for a suicide bombing is when Israel assassinates a senior commander or political leader of a militant group, especially when it does so during or in the negotiations for a truce by these groups on attacks on Israelis. Examples from the past few years include:

Israel's assassination of the two leading Hamas commanders in Nablus on July 31 2001 that put an end to a nearly two-month Hamas cease-fire on Israeli civilians, leading to the August 9 Hamas suicide bombing in a Jerusalem Sbarro pizzeria.

Israel's assassination of the senior Hamas militant Mahmud Abu Hanoud on November 23, 2001 while Hamas was upholding an agreement with Arafat not to attack targets inside of Israel following the September 11 terrorist attacks on the US, leading to the Jerusalem and Haifa Hamas suicide bombings on December 1 and 2.

Israel's assassination of leading Fatah militant Raed Karmi on January 14, 2002 during a cease-fire declared by all the militant groups in late December, leading to the Fatah linked Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigade first suicide bombing on January 27.

Israel's July 23, 2002 air attack on a crowded apartment block in Gaza City that assassinated the senior Hamas military leader, Salah Shehada, while also killing 15 civilians, 11 of them children, hours before a widely reported unilateral cease-fire declaration by the Fatah-linked Tanzim and Hamas, leading to the Hamas suicide bombing on August 4.

Israel's assassination on December 26, 2002 of three prominent members from Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigade while representatives from Fatah, Hamas and other factions were meeting in Cairo to formulate a cease-fire on Israeli civilians to last through the Israeli elections on January 28, leading to the Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigade suicide bombing on January 5, 2003 that killed twenty-two Israelis.

Given this striking pattern, it was no surprise that four out of the five recent suicide bombings came within a week of Israel's recent assassinations or attempted assassination of such high level militant commanders. All of them came during or in the process of negotiating the three-month truce against attacks on Israeli civilians that was implemented on June 29. Palestinian militants group had very clearly stated that they would consider Israeli assassinations to be a violation of the truce and that they reserved the right to respond accordingly.

Israel's Assassination Policy Triggers Latest Suicide Bombings (http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article1877.shtml)

[/ QUOTE ] Many others are not in direct retaliation but come in waves that would not have occured if various lulls and ceasefires had been maintained by one or both sides. The early bombings of the intifada were in clear retaliation for the deaths of over 200 Palestinians in the first weeks of the intifada.

By the way I do not wish to suggest that any of this means any of these attacks were justified; they certainly weren't.

" the recent use of retarded children, such as Hussein Abdo, indicates. "

He was transporting a bomb, not carrying out a suicide mission. Contemptible either way, of course.

"Their idea of provocation is the existence of Jews in their land. "All of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf"."

"They" have said repeatedly that the provocation for ths suicide bombs is the occupation, and that if that ended future generations could be left to choose how to struggle for their various goals. "They" have repeatedly offered long-term ceasefires that have been spurned, costing hundreds of lives on both sides.

By the way earlier I said that the first suicide bomb came in retaliation for the assassination of a militant; in fact, of coursem the frst suicide bomb came in teh wake of the Goldstein massacre. It was the first IJ suicide bomb that followed the assassination of a militant.

nicky g

04-22-2004, 09:37 AM

"It explains why the Israeli military death rate is high"

No it doesn't. What proportion of Israeli miltary deaths have been caused by suicide bombs that exploded prematurely on their way to civilian targets. No more than a handful, I'd wager. If you know otherwise, show us some evidence.

"The friendly neighbour tactic takes advantage of the racist nature of Palestinian society, hoping that a terrorist will be less likely to fire indiscriminately at a fellow Arab than a soldier attempting to place him under arrest."

LOL. You really are crazy. How is it "racist" for a militant to prefer to fire on an enemy soldier than his neighbour? nd given your repeated assertions that htese people don't care for the lives of fellow Palestinians, indeed incite them into getting killed, why would the care here? Either way such policies are blatant war crimes.

"rather they use the human shields to minimize danger"

It is outrageous and disgusting for soldiers to use a civilian to minimise danger to themselves while deliberately placing him in extreme danger. How about using Palestinian civilans as firing positions - is that to minimise danger as well? Realise how ridiculous you sound.

nicky g

04-22-2004, 09:42 AM

"Human rights monitors know anything about danger and military necessity, or the potential for disaster whenever thousands get together to rally"

Most of the routine demonstrations are a few dozen stone throwers. Even human rights monitors know what guns look like and what gunfire sounds like. There's plenty of other evidence too. Video tape of camerman James Miller proves the unit that killed him was not coming under fire when he was shot, for example.

Gamblor

04-22-2004, 09:46 AM

Some may or may not have initially welcomed the Israelis. I find it hard to believe it was a large proportion. Regardless, that clearly didn't last too long.

Who would welcome a regime that gives you no democratic rights, appropriates your land to build settlements and roads you aren't allowed to use, and pumps ten times as much of your desperately needed water to feed these settlers as it lets you have?

There is a huge difference, one you seem to ignore, between a police state and a military regime. For the most part, in the early days, the Israeli governments left the Arabs alone. There was no collective consciousness between towns, they were simply isolated villages and cities. When the Jewish settlements began to go up, there were no bypass roads, no water diversion, none of that - they were simply towns. The bypass roads were built because Jewish cars driving through Palestinian towns were constantly fired upon. Arab nations for years had been threatening to cut off Israel's water supply as part of the ongoing war started in '48.

Did the refugees living in Gaza and the West Bank welcome the ISraelis? I bet they were just thrilled to be ruled militarily by the army that had expelled them from their homes.

They were. They were treated far worse by the Egyptians and Jordanians than you could ever imagine. The Israelis, for the most part, tried to ignore the Arab population, trying to pretend it didn't exist. The Jordanians and Egyptians exploited it and built the quagmire that exists today.

Nicky, it didn't start this way - what you see now is entirely Arafat's doing, from 1972 Munich to 2001 Netanya.
They took advantage of the Jewish state's respect for human life. If they had rebelled against the Jordanians/Egyptians, they know they'd all be massacred instantly. Only Israel bends over and takes their shit.

The region is almost entirely populated by Arabs and Muslims. What do you want there to be, Buddhists states? Hare Krishna states? Why don't you go to Latin America and complain about all the Hispanic Christian states. Those guys have got a real nerve with their lack of Jewish states and Shinto states and Zoroastrian enclaves. What kind of state do you propose Arab Muslim Palestinians to live in? You won't let them live in ISrael, and you won't let them live in their own state.

They were offered their own state in '48, and they refused. That is the fact. Oops, opportunity lost (Abba Eban knew a little something about Arafat - "He never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity"). There is so much land for Arabs to live. They just want the Jewish land. That's all it is. A land grab. Not nationalism, not pride, not even anti-semitism (although, that is a byproduct). They want to control all the land. The Great Pan-Arabian continent. The Sauds, the Hashemites, the Assads, they all got something. Now Arafat wants his.

nicky g

04-22-2004, 10:01 AM

"Israelis, for the most part, tried to ignore the Arab population, trying to pretend it didn't exist."

That is not a good thing or a sensible plan.

"If they had rebelled against the Jordanians/Egyptians, they know they'd all be massacred instantly."

What, like when teh PLO rebelled against Jordan? Pretty bloody but I don't remember all of the Palestinians being massacred instantly. They still form a majority of the Jordanian population.

"Arab nations for years had been threatening to cut off Israel's water supply as part of the ongoing war started in '48."

And this somehow justifies each settler receiving ten times the water allocation each Palestinian gets? Do tell.

"They just want the Jewish land. That's all it is. A land grab. "

Some may want that, just liek some Israelis want to build a greater Israel on as much of Biblical Israel as they can possibly get hold of. The vast majority want self-determination for the land they are living on. THey want to live in a proper accountable sovereign state, like everybody else, rather than under military occupation by a foreign country forever. Like everybody else gets to.

Gamblor

04-22-2004, 10:19 AM

And this somehow justifies each settler receiving ten times the water allocation each Palestinian gets? Do tell.

Israel is now responsible for providing resources to non-citizens as well as citizens?

Some may want that, just liek some Israelis want to build a greater Israel on as much of Biblical Israel as they can possibly get hold of.

No party with that as a goal has ever been in power. The Likud's territorial strategy is based on political and military necessities, as the Likud is a secular-right party.

The vast majority want self-determination for the land they are living on. THey want to live in a proper accountable sovereign state, like everybody else, rather than under military occupation by a foreign country forever. Like everybody else gets to.

No they don't. They don't care any more than you or I care. They want whatever makes their lives easier, just as everyone else does. They don't want to have to worry about politics or any of that crap, because it's an unnecessary burden. But Arafat has convinced them that once they get their state, everything will be good. Virtually no prominent Arabs have ever even seen what they think are their homes in what is now Israel - Arafat has convinced them that once they go back, their lives will be perfect and all the poverty and hatred will go away. That's what they want. But you know that this is not the case, and that no state will accept them.

Why is Jordan against the security wall? Humanitarian concerns? Don't make me laugh. They are against it because they fear, more than anything, that Palestinian Arabs will begin to migrate to Jordan.

Look at Arab policy towards the Palestinian Arabs: The entire Arab world thinks, and knows, they're scum, from Arafat right on down. But the only thing worse than scum, is a Jew.

nicky g

04-22-2004, 10:33 AM

"Israel is now responsible for providing resources to non-citizens as well as citizens?"

That's precisely the point. The residents of the West Bank and Gaza are citizens of nowhere. Their local resources are being administered by a foreign state and diverted to a citizens of a foreign state. If Israel is going to preside over the territory it should make those people citizens; otherwise it should [censored] off.

"No they don't. They don't care any more than you or I care. They want whatever makes their lives easier, just as everyone else does. They don't want to have to worry about politics or any of that crap, because it's an unnecessary burden. "

They care, and I care; and you clearly care too, in the opposite direction. Noone but a lunatic would be happy living in a stateless no man's land with no rights over their own land, property or resources, especially in a desperately underresourced region.

"Arafat has convinced them that once they go back, their lives will be perfect and all the poverty and hatred will go away"

We're not talking about "going back", we're talking about the right to live in a sovereign state rather than under permanent military occupation.

"The entire Arab world thinks, and knows, they're scum"

Gamblor's Holy Trinity:
Palestinians are scum.

Terrorist attacks on civilians, or using civilians as human shilds, is OK so long as they're in the name of Israel.

Palestinians have no rights to citizenship of a sovereign state on the lands they live on. All Jews have a right to citizenship of a sovereign state in Palestine, regardless of where they live.

Chris Alger

04-22-2004, 12:14 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Of course your discussion of Hamas' goals says nothing of the Hamas Charter, which clearly calls for the destruction of the Jewish state; claims that the land is "an Islamic waqf";

[/ QUOTE ]
Because my discussion assumes this. As I pointed out, Hamas wants an Islamic state instead of a Jewish state.

[ QUOTE ]
and even cites a purely genocidal passage from the hadiths calling for the murder of all Jews by Muslims (on religious grounds, of course).

[/ QUOTE ]
But the passage is not "purely genocidal" and does not reflect any commitment by Hamas to genocide. The Hamas Charter expressly provides that within an Islamic state "it is possible for the followers of the three religions - Islam, Christianity and Judaism - to coexist in peace and quiet with each other." This mirrors the constant claims by Israel apologists that Muslims can thrive within a Jewish state; a state devoted to the interests of Jews to the exclusion of Muslims is therefore no big deal. As has been pointed out to you innumerable times, there is no commandment in the hadiths or the Qu'ran that Muslims kill all Jews, which the Qu'ran expressly approves of as "righteous" "people of the Book." Nor is there any history of attempted genocide by Muslims or Arabs against Jews, who thrived as powerless minorities in Muslim and Arab countries for hundreds of years, including the Muslim- dominated Palestine to which Hamas wants to return. Your persistence in assuming the contrary reflects your coward's devotion to the convenient delusions of racism and group hatred.

The sentences from the hadiths derive from Mohammed's campaigns to subjugate the competing "pagan" tribes of or Arabian peninsula, including the Arabic Jews. Hamas cites them to lend scriptural support for its vision of millenial religious and tribal conflict for political control over holy land. Hamas is matched equally by Zionist fanatics cite their own genocidal passages from the Torah to justify the subjugation of the Palestinians. Such as Joshua's genocidal campaign described in Numbers: "And though shalt exterminate them, for if you allow any to remain, they shall become pricks in your eyes and thorns in your side, and they shall trouble you in the land where they dwell." This bit of mass-murder imagery was cited by Rabbi Zion Usphizai of Israel's National Religious Party to justify the expansion of settelements into the occupied territories, a cause for which many times the number of Palestinians have been murdered compared to the victims of Hamas (and all Palestinian) terrorism.

Therefore, by your logic, the Palestinians should not adjure from violence until the Israelis annhilate the Israeli religious right. This is merely the mirror image of your insistence that Israel should avoid available non-violent solutions diplomacy until Hamas is "wiped out," it being equally clear that the Israeli right poses a genocidal threat to the Palestinians.