Middle East Terrorists Kill 20. Bush: oh well

[nicky g]

That's generous of them. Are they going to revive the children they killed too?

[trippin bily]

Utah i am still lmao. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Chris Alger]

The whole world understands quite well the rationale for Israel's decision to make all Palestinian lives miserable, and it is quite logical: resist our dictatorship and we'll shoot your kids, blow up your houses, bulldoze your business, raze your orchards, steal your water and land, choke your daily movements with humiliation "checkpoints," cutoff your food supply, restrict your access to medical care -- even in emergencies -- and place you under mass house arrest enforced by summary execution.

And if anyone objects we'll accuse them of being anti-Semites who don't believe "Jews" have any right to "self-defense."

[trippin bily]

Will the algers of the world, nicky g and the rest of the anti israel crowd please tell me what the israelis should do to stop their woman and children from being killed. Honestly, enough. How can Israel bring peace. What do the palestinians want that will actually stop them from all the killing. Someone please tell me what has to be done to make it stop. Both sides kill each other. How do we make it stop?
Honestly.How do we make it stop?

[nicky g]

NB Despite Feingold's suggestion that the Palestinians may have blown their own march up, the Guardian is reporting that Israeli military sources have told it an Israeli helicopter missile was responsible for the blast.
Israeli Forces Fire on Crowd in Gaza, Killing 10 Wed May 19, 2004 09:22 AM ET
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By Cynthia Johnston
RAFAH, Gaza Strip (Reuters) - Israeli forces opened fire on a protest march in a besieged Gaza refugee camp on Wednesday, killing at least 10 Palestinians and raising the death toll to 33 in Israel's bloodiest raid in Gaza in years.

Israeli media said at least 22 bodies, most of them school children, had been counted after the strike in the Rafah camp, which some witnesses said was carried out by helicopter gunships and others blamed on firing by tanks.

People fled screaming, some dragging bloodied comrades and others carrying wounded children in their arms.

"It was horrifying," said Mahmoud Abu Hashem, 35. "There was one person with his intestines coming out. Another had blood covering his face and you couldn't even make out his features."

Medics said 10 people were killed and 50 wounded in Rafah in southern Gaza, which raised the two-day death toll to one of the highest in three and a half years of conflict.

The Palestinian Authority branded the attack a "war crime" and demanded international protection for the Palestinian people.

The Israeli army said it was investigating but that it was too soon to say what had happened. "This is a combat zone filled with explosive devices laid in advance by the Palestinians," said Captain Sharon Feingold, an army spokeswoman.

The bloodshed seemed certain to bring fresh international pressure on Israel to end its assault, which began Tuesday with the stated goal of rooting out militants and uncovering tunnels used to smuggle weapons across the border from Egypt.

The marchers had been surging toward the Tel Sultan neighborhood, the focal point of Israel's sweep into Rafah, when the firing began.

Wednesday morning, Israeli forces killed four Palestinians and demanded the mass surrender of militants in Rafah

Bodies had piled up earlier in a flower freezer converted into a makeshift morgue after overflowing the refugee camp's main hospital, where staff strained to cope with the dead along with dozens of wounded in two days of Israeli military assaults.
After the strike on the protest march, residents flooded the hospital, looking for loved ones. "Did you see my brothers, the three of them who were in the rally?" cried one person. "Where is Ahmed?" a woman shouted.

Soldiers in the Tel Sultan neighborhood, a militant stronghold, called on loudspeakers for armed militants to come out waving white flags of surrender or risk demolition of family homes. Troops searched house to house amid clashes with gunmen.

The raid has raised an international outcry because of Israeli threats to flatten hundreds of Rafah homes to widen an army-controlled security corridor along the border with Egypt.

Palestinian witnesses said Israeli forces were summoning all male residents over 16 to come out and assemble in a local school. The army said it was after militants, not all males.

Some residents said they had heard of neighbors being shot at by troops after emerging from their houses. The army said some militants were firing wildly from rooftops while other men surrendered. Neither of these reports could be confirmed.

Amid the bloodshed, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon worked to revive his Gaza withdrawal plan, which aides said may be presented for cabinet approval as early as next week.

Violence has worsened in Gaza since Sharon proposed evacuating troops and Jewish settlers in a plan backed by most Israelis and the United States, but rejected by his right-wing Likud party in a referendum earlier this month.

Militant groups want to claim as a victory any pullout by Israel from territories it captured in the 1967 Middle East war, while the army is determined to smash them first.

President Bush called the Gaza bloodshed "troubling" but, addressing Jewish-Americans in a tight election campaign, told the powerful pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC that Israel "has every right to defend itself from terror."

[nicky g]

For people who like their solutions simplistic: stop killing Palestinians.

[elwoodblues]

I'll make it a little more complex.

Israel: Stop killing Palestinians.
Palestinians: Stop killing Israelis.


Unfortunately, it's rarely that easy especially when both sides keep falling back to "he started it."

[trippin bily]

elwood an honest answer. nicky g. could learn from you.
O.K. lets say we are world leaders what do we do to make it stop with the exception of pointing out that both sides kill each other? I have read and participated in all the bs from both sides. Lets find a solution and stop accusing each side of doing what the other side is doing as well. How do we fix it?

[nicky g]

You asked what Israel should do, not what Palestinians should do. Militant groups should of course stop targetting Israeli civilians. At the end of the day though it is Israel occupying Palestine and not the other way around.

As for what world leadders should do: the only people who have any real influence over ISrael are the US government. It should make it clear to Israel that there will be serious consequences if it carries on with its brutal policies rather than simply expressing "concern" and carrying on supporting the country financially, militarily and diplomatically to the hilt. It should act as an honest broker and refrain from prejudicing negotitations. It should not wilfully insult the Palestinians by calling Sharon "a man of peace." In short it should press both sides fto return to serious negotiations and stop supporting Israel when it imposes preconditions, refuses to compromise and repeatedly undermines peace initiatives with incursions, settlement expansions, assassinations and land grabs.

[Gamblor]

Just out of curiousity (if you don't want to answer, no big deal) I noticed that your location lists Toronto. Did you relocate to Canada after living in Israel? How long did you live in Israel?

My family moved here when I was young, I moved back to finish high school and do the first year of my Tzava service, where I made Turash (basically private first class), then I left to come back here, as I had no intention of being a Single Soldier (a soldier without local parents, basically an orphan, the military takes special care for you).

If and when I go back I have to finish my service - the length depends on whether or not I'm married/have kids/have work, etc.

I'll be in the miluim (kinda like reserves) until I'm 45-50, or whenever a doctor says I'm done.

Of course I have a biased opinion. But more importantly, I know that ultimately I want to live in peace with the Arabs, and as a registered voter I have the right to choose whatever government I think will closely provide that.

But I also don't want to live like Jews of Europe, who fear attacks from anti-semitic groups, or in Arab countries like my Iraqi Mom, whose family fled the Arab rioters when she was a baby.