3421

Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan:

We all remember how the Jews used to slaughter Christians, in order to mix their blood in their holy matzos. This is not a figment of imagination or something taken from a film. It is a fact, acknowledged by their own books and by historical evidence. It happened everywhere, here and there.

Fuck that guy. As long as HAMAS has people like that speaking for them, they will never have popular support in the West.

3422

I’m just waiting for Janster to bring up 9/11.

3423

Yes, your antisemitism is quite clearly displayed, no problem dude.

3424

Yeah, it ‘feels’ like lip-service currently. The Lib-Dems are still rumbling about looking at the renewal of the license for arms sales, though they have not been effective at much since their alliance with the Tory’s.

A couple more ‘outside of US and Israel’ news articles, the second quite a good read on what it is like being an Israeli that is against the war:

‘Cameron must push Israel over Palestinians, say MPs’:

David Cameron must do more to persuade Israel to lift restrictions on the movements of Palestinians, MPs say. The Commons International Development Committee said some controls on the movements of Gazans - who are rarely allowed to leave the territory - were not “proportionate”.

It also urged ministers to persuade Israel to improve the supply of water and electricity. The government said it was “committed to lasting change” in Gaza. Mr Cameron has said he is pushing for an “unconditional ceasefire” in the territory.

Israel launched Operation Protective Edge on 8 July with the stated aim of ending rocket attacks and destroying tunnels used by Palestinian militants. Gaza officials say the four-week conflict has killed more than 1,800 Palestinians. Some 67 Israelis have also died.

The committee’s report came after Foreign Office minister Baroness Warsi resigned from the government on Tuesday, calling its policy on Gaza “morally indefensible”.

This followed criticism from some Conservative MPs, who have called Israel’s response to rocket attacks from the Hamas group “disproportionate”, a sentiment echoed by London Mayor Boris Johnson. Downing Street said it was urging both sides to negotiate an “immediate and unconditional ceasefire”.

The cross-party committee, whose members visited Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories earlier this year, said it had been “shocked” by what it had seen in the West Bank city of Hebron.

It said: "We saw a country whose people have known immense suffering now imposing conditions on their Palestinian neighbours which cause a different but very real suffering and often without real security justification.

“We saw Israel taking a range of actions that hinder Palestinian economic development and must, at the very least, cause deep resentment on the Palestinian side, even amongst the most moderate and pragmatic people, and so will actually worsen Israel’s own security.”

‘Against the war: the movement that dare not speak its name in Israel’:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/06/gaza-israel-movement-that-dare-not-speak-its-name

Gideon Levy doesn’t want to meet in a coffee bar in Tel Aviv. He is fed up with being hassled in public and spat at, with people not willing to share the table next to him in restaurants. And now he is fed up with the constant presence of his bodyguards, not least because they too have started giving him a hard time about his political views. So he doesn’t go out much any more and we sit in the calm of his living room, a few hundred yards from the Yitzhak Rabin Centre. Rabin’s assassination by a rightwing Orthodox Jew in 1995 is itself a sobering reminder of the personal cost of peacemaking in Israel.

In his column in Haaretz, Levy has long since banged the drum for greater Israeli empathy towards the suffering of the Palestinians. He is a well-known commentator on the left, and one of the few prepared to stick his head above the parapet. Consequently, he is no stranger to opposition from the right. But this time it is different. Yariv Levin, coalition chairman of the Likud-Beytenu faction in the Knesset, recently called for him to be put on trial for treason – a crime which, during wartime, is punishable by death.

“It is time we stop regarding despicable phenomena like this with tolerance,” Levin said of Levy. Soon after that interview, Eldad Yaniv, a former political adviser to ex-prime minister Ehud Barack, wrote on his Facebook page: “The late Gideon Levy. Get used to it.”

Levy’s unpardonable crime is vocal opposition to the war and to the bombing of Gaza. According to recent polls, support for the military operation in Gaza among the Jewish Israeli public stands somewhere between 87% (Channel 10 News) and 95% (Israel Democracy Institute). Even those who are secretly against the war are cautious about voicing their opinion openly.

Thus public opinion went ballistic when Levy attacked those who were bombing Gaza by inverting the well-known Hebrew phrase “Hatovim La tayyis” – which means: the best ones go to the air force – by writing “Haraim La tayyis”: the worst ones go to the air force. Even in a time of peace this would be seen as a provocative statement, a heresy against what Levy sees as Israel’s real religion: military security. But in its current mood, this is not the sort of thing that you can easily say out loud.

Even Peace Now, the backbone of the Israeli peace movement, has been remarkably guarded, carefully avoiding official participation in public demonstrations. Peace Now was founded in 1978 by former members of the military who came out strongly in favour of peace with Egypt. It helped mobilise 10% of the Israeli public – some 400,000 people – to turn out against the 1982 war in Lebanon. But this time it is a shadow of its former self.

“What is different this time is the anti-democratic spirit. Zero tolerance of any kind of criticism, opposition to any kind of sympathy with the Palestinians,” says Levy. “You shouldn’t be surprised that the 95% [are in favour of the war], you should be surprised at the 5%. This is almost a miracle. The media has an enormous role. Given the decades of demonisation of the Palestinians, the incitement and hatred, don’t be surprised the Israeli people are where they are.”

3425

Peace Now isn’t stupid. I support them, and the fact is that the tunnels really need to be closed.
They condemned the last invasion, but not this one, for good reasons.

The fact is, 95% is the miracle. Hamas have managed to get near unanimity among one of the most fractious populations in the world, by their actions.
I remind you that Israel is 75% Jewish. 20% Arab. (5% other)

3426

Oh noes, I dislike Israels brutality in Gaza, I must hate ALL jews…

Fetchez la vache!

3427

The fact that you laud the idea of a woman being attacked for supporting Israel, yeah… you’re probably an anti-semite.

Also, given the fact that you are openly supporting a group whose clearly stated purpose is the extermination of Jews (not even Israeli Jews, mind you, but ALL jews everywhere) means… yeah, you’re an anti-semite.

Frankly, I’m not even sure why you mind being called one. I figure maybe there’s some part of you that realizes it’s bad, but you still embrace the ideas, so I’m not sure why you don’t just own it. Hell, there’s a whole wikipedia article specifically about antisemitism in your country.

3428

Well, it’s a little out of date. The current Jewish population is closer to 900. And is likely to be a few hundred within a decade at present trends.

(Almost all those leaving are going to Sweden, which in turn is seeing significant numbers of Jewish people leaving)

3429

It is interesting that most American liberals who fault Israel seem to believe either (A) that HAMAS has a set of political objectives that actually fall well short of the total annihilation of Israel, or else (B) that it is too early in the hoped-for journey toward peace to start worrying about who is in the driver’s seat of the Palestinian cause.

Most American conservatives who praise Israel doubt that HAMAS has goals short of genocide and are therefore unconcerned with Israel’s failure to make concessions. Instead, one often hears them argue that Israel’s reaction to HAMAS is no different than the U.S. reaction to 9/11.

3430

To be honest, you dragged that topic in here Timex, I however focus on Israel and their works, and how the brutal repression of Gaza bears mind of a certain long gone apartheid state. Do you really expect wisdom to come from the ruined heaps of Gaza? Do you think great minds are made in the refugee camps? You should REALLY read Robert Fisk; the great war for civilisation, it tells you little about what you can expect. We cannot sit on our high horse and demand tea and scones when the war is almost at the baseline of human conduct, that is a SHITTY position to take.

3431

Disastrous overreach and the mortgaging of civil society to an unaffordable and unstoppable security apparatus?

3432

Hamas are the ones repressing the Palestinians in Gaza.

You blame anything but the cause, for ideological reasons.

3433

Critical of Israel equals anti-Semitic is bullshit.

It’s also the line of thinking that means nothing will ever change.

HAMAS is a bunch of murderous fucksticks and blowing them to hell is the right move, but that doesn’t mean Israel has been remotely acting in good faith. Honestly, I don’t really blame Palestinians for rallying around HAMAS, they don’t know any better and likely never will. It’s easy to judge when you’re on the outside and have all the facts, but from their point of view Israel just lies to them and oppresses them. Wanting someone to stand up for them is understandable, though extremely misguided. But again, they don’t really have objective information or perspective.

3434

It’s called “common”. There are critics of the Israeli government who are not anti-Semitic, but the vast majority of those lashing out are like Janster - at the end of the day, they blame Jews. The entire point of the New Anti-Semitism is that it tried to cloak itself in flowery language.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/07/gaza-coverage-rise-antisemitic-attacks-europe

That you refuse to differentiate between Israel and it’s government is ham-handed. (And I mean ham-handed, nothing more)

The Palestinians are not rallying around Hamas either, whatever gave you that impression? Many of them oppose Israel’s policies, which is not the same thing.
Remember that 95% opinion poll in favour of the attack to destroy the tunnels? Israel is 75% Jewish, and 20% Arab? There must be an overlap there. Hamas has pissed basically everyone off.

3435

Fair enough. I’ll admit I just skimmed Janster’s comments because I didn’t see much of interest, but I am tired of the dynamic of any criticism of Israel makes you racist (which is fucking everywhere, all the time in this country).

As far as HAMAS, they elected em. Reap what you sow and all of that to a large extent.

3436

I agree it gets out of hand in America. But unfortunately, anti-Semitism really is on the rise in virtually all of Europe outside Germany and Italy, and it’s being fuelled on the back of the New Anti-Semitism.

(Heck, someone was arrested yesterday for putting up anti-Semitic posters in several places over the last few weeks in my neighbourhood, and there’s high alert status for the CSR and Shomrim, the organisations which handle security for the Jewish community here)

But…it’s not fair to blame the the Palestinians in Gaza for Hamas. While they were elected by the PA as a whole back in 2006, that was more a reaction to Fatah corruption than anything and Hamas seized control of Gaza by force in 2007. They’ve not got to vote for anything or anyone else since, and the penalty for Hamas’s election was international sanctions on the entire PA (which remained until Hamas seized Gaza).

3437

The problem with this blinkered (but common) thought process is that, you know, Hamas have not always been in power in Gaza, and the Israelis were still being less than fantastic neighbours then. To be more accurate would be to suggest that it is perhaps Israel’s long running oppression of the Palestinians that caused Hamas to become so popular they won a very democratic election? (rated more democratic by UN monitors than the American elections for example).

Then maybe we can have a ‘chicken and egg’ discussion on the subject where ultimately Israel never walks away looking anything other than over-harsh in it’s recent history. If it is all about the very Jewish ‘eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth’ ideology, then surely, using the prized Jewish wit and deep thinking the current modern course of action by the state of Israel is only going to backfire, and instead of bringing ‘peace’, ultimately bring about the destruction of the State? When no friends will be at hand to be able to stomach to stand side by side with Israel (due to decades of naked child murder), and all around further radicalized enemies wait, what then? Israel is currently ‘at war’ with the world to some extent, by attacking the UN (and killing UN workers) that is effectively on some level waging war with everyone. Is this going to be worth it, i just can’t see how, and it saddens me deeply, as i know my ancestor’s of Jacob only ever wanted to be able to live in peace in their own country.

Currently only the intolerant radicals and extremists are ‘winning’, and their path will 100% lead to ruin. As it always does. RIP Israel, you lost sight of your aims in innocent blood.

3438

“To be more accurate would be to suggest that it is perhaps Israel’s long running oppression of the Palestinians that caused Hamas to become so popular”

No. Really no. It’s to do with Fatah’s internal corruption. You clearly haven’t read up on this…

You are calling for Israel’s destruction, you realise? That defending against terrorists is “naked child murder”, that all Israelis must be condemned for the actions of a government. Like others, you’re not bothering to look a the situation in more than black and white terms…you’re saying that Hamas should get a free pass for hiding behind Human shields, ignoring the storage of rockets under UN buildings, etc.

It’s not “blinkered” to consider the terrorists who seized control of Gaza as, er, terrorists. Who target civilians. This is not excusable.

3439

I think a lot of conservatives see anti-Semitism, or anti-Judaism, behind liberal criticisms of Israel because they can’t square those positions with the apparent lack of concern for, say, Syrian or Iraqi war dead. It’s similar to the way liberals see racism behind conservatives’ rumblings about Affirmative Action.

3440

I think that in America, I don’t tend to attribute anti-israel beliefs to antisemitism, as it’s just not that rampant here. But in Europe? There is a huge rise of antisemitism, and it most certainly does color their perceptions of Israel.

One thing though, about situations like engagements with Hamas, which kind of boggles the mind when I hear folks criticizing Israel, is that Hamas is LITERALLY a terrorist group. Some of these folks criticize Israel for not being nice enough to Palestinian civilians, while then turning around and applauding a group whose STATED INTENTIONS are to murder innocent civilians.

If the roles were reversed, and Hamas had the power of Israel, what would they do? They would exterminate every Jew they possibly could.

Beyond that, I honestly can’t really argue that Israel needs to be more compassionate, because for the past half century, every time they’ve acted with any compassion at all towards the Palestinians, they have been bitten in the ass for it. Hell, even with this most recent round of attacks, the Israelis allowed the Palestinians to import tons of concrete, which was supposed to be going to the construction of infrastructure. Instead, the Palestinians used it to build tunnels and bunkers to launch attacks on Israeli civilians from.

What is Israel supposed to do in response to that? When seemingly EVERY concession they EVER make is just used against them… and not against them in a traditional military manner, but rather against their civilian population.

Israel tries to avoid civilian casualties… while Hamas tries their hardest to maximize civilian casualties, not even just on the Israeli side, but on their OWN side. They intentionally place their military assets as close as possible to civilian structures like hospitals and schools. If the Israelis were truly the monsters they claim, they wouldn’t bother doing this, because then the Israelis wouldn’t CARE about hitting them. They place their assets in such locations because they know the Israelis don’t WANT to murder women and children.

Meanwhile, the Israelis separate their military assets from their civilian populace, and then Hamas directly attacks the civlian population centers anyway.

Hamas is an absolute monster in this engagement. There is no comparison. There is no parity between the two when it comes to morality or ethical conduct. Hamas, and by extension, the Palestinians who elected them, are the bad guys. If the end result is that one side must be destroyed in this conflict, then I most definitely pick the Palestinians to be the side that is wiped out. There is absolutely no question in my mind.

And we can’t even pretend like Hamas is a unique occurence when it comes to the Palestinian leadership. Their entire history has been plagued with them having corrupt, terrorist leadership. And when they were given the chance to have free elections, THEY CHOSE SUCH LEADSHIP AGAIN.

No country in this world is perfectly moral and righteous. But when I compare the Israelis and the Palestinians, the Israelis come out as the clear winner in this regard. The Palestinians stand for things which civilized society finds barbaric.