Oh complete rot, Zak. Hamas chose to fire rockets. To build tunnels. To fire at the airport. To constantly break the ceasefires…as you once more conflate all Isralies with their government. Do you support the Coalition? By your logic there…
Hamas refuses to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist, and has taken negotiations in the past as a sign of weakness, and that breakdown…well, there have been more confirmed Hamas fighter deaths than that, and it’s repeating the “value” fallacy - bashing Israel for not having more dead! There’s repeated suggestions in some of the “media” that youths and men over 60 cannot be Hamas fighters, for instance, and turns a blind eye to the fact that Hamas has used some Women fighters since 2004!
And there’s that other little “issue” in that makes 20-29 are massively over-represented, even in the figures so far (which are preliminary and unreliable, as their authors state!).
ShivaX
3522
Because the second they don’t the sitting president and his party are anti-Semites.
Oh rot. There’s widespread resistance to the settlements even within Israel, and using inflammatory terms for something very much of the Israeli political right…
(Again, that can be talked about, and opposed, and is!)
CraigM
3524
No, ShivaX has the right of it. In the US political climate there is no doubt that it would be used to try and tar the president as anti-semite. Whether it stuck might be a different matter. If it was a Republican I doubt it, since for a varety of reasons, liberals would be less prone to try and create a scandal. If a Democrat did it? You can bet every two bit hack from Limbaugh to Hannity would never shut up about it. Fox News would be frothing.
Just because a person doesn’t agree with a Jew doesn’t make him anti-Semite, but I see that term being flung around by Jews all the time for precisely that reason. Personally it’s getting tiresome.
No, Destarius, but as was talked about earlier in this thread, in Europe (not America), there’s a lot of New Anti-Semites who use “Israel” as an excuse for their anti-Semitic views.
And blaming “Jews” for this? Really? As Craig said, it would be the Christian right who might muckrake in America.
I can, will and do say that calling someone anti-Semitic for opposing the settlers is a bunch of complete nonsense, and they need to get a grip.
CraigM
3527
Well sure, it would be ridiculous. On that we can agree. Just because it is ridiculous, and annoying, and overly reductionist, and just plain stupid doesn’t mean that some wouldn’t try. It’s disturbingly common that being critical of something gets you characterized as anti something.
So yeah, being against settlements isn’t being anti-semite. Being against settlements would get you accused of being anti-semite in an effort by political foes to discredit you. The worst part? There are a bunch of uneducated fools who would buy it, and they can vote.
I can certainly agree that the Christian Right (or wrong, as usually the case) is certainly as involved in calling anti-settlement sentiment anti-Semite but the Israeli government often links the two as well. I recall the director general of the Israeli Strategic Affairs saying something like this but I’ll have to find it, mea culpa.
Starlight, you are still failing to find any empathy for the Palestinians, do you see that? Why is that? What do you really feel should happen to them?
Actually to be clear I am full of sympathy and empathy for Palestinians. How can anyone with a heart not find empathy for Palestinians?
It is Hamas I have no sympathy for. I don’t think Israel plays fair, as much as Hamas doesn’t play fair. The Palestinians deserve a better lot, but Hamas is NOT helping.
Yeah, I don’t think anyone here doesn’t have empathy for the Palestinians.
You’re conflating support for Hamas with support for the Palestinians. In fact, I’ve repeatedly condemned Hamas for oppressing the Palestinians of Gaza.
I support peace and a proper two-state solution (and screw the settlers). In fact, at root, my support for the two-state is because I am a Labour Zionist. It would be the height of arrogance to believe in Israel while denying Palestine, and while Revisionist Zionists manage that trick quite handily…
…but you can’t negotiate anything meaningful with terrorists who’ve sized land, who keep coming up with new ways to attack Israel, and would genocide the Jews of Israel if given the chance to. That’s Hamas.
I’ll point out again Gaza has a land border with Egypt, but Hamas managed to piss off all of the Egyptian governments - Mubarak, Morsi and now Sisi. Not exactly men who agreed on much…
Timex
3533
No Janster, you don’t really know anything about the situation at all. You’ve already demonstrated that.
Your beliefs are founded entirely in ignorance. The reason you think as you do, is because you have no idea who Hamas are, what they’ve done, or what the history of the conflict is.
Flowers
3534
If you think you have been grouped and are being treated violently because of your race you should be able to write the United Nations who should have to investigate and resolve the issue. If a majority of mankind’s representatives acting together to stop ghettoization and genocide don’t have the moral right and obligation to intervene in a dispute about such, I simply do not understand how anyone can have the right to protect anyone else at all.
The prospect that this dispute should be settled by the Israelis and the Palestinians is ludicrous because both sides are flippant in their disregard for human rights and their commission of war crimes. You don’t, as a civilized persons, just let two drunk people fight it out until one of them is unconscious or they both pass out. It does not matter that it is their dispute, they are doing violence to the innocent and mankind’s striving for peace. Essentially, Israel and Palestine have both shed their respective rights to privacy in this conflict.
Timex
3535
lol, yeah, the UN is totally gonna do something because this is an anime movie. Maybe they’ll send their giant robots into battle.
Janster
3536
Doing this short.
a) Going with giant robots as Israel has ignored any and all Un resolutions for now.
b) They are going to face boycott eventually, they can buy weapons from China
c) Human nature is a bitch, you’re not going to get cooperation when you oppress.
d)Flowers, a rare sight.
Phew! thank god. Because the way you rant about this i was having a growing pit in my stomach that you were one of ‘those’ Israeli supporters that you know, basically wants to kill the Palestinians.
You are free to take this suggestion on board or not, but i would suggest the next step for you (and other staunch pro-Israeli’s) is to ask why the people of Palestine voted democratically for Hamas? In the time frame this happened (because as we have verified, it has not always been Hamas in power right?) what was Israel doing that might have prompted this choice? Because the support for Hamas amongst the Palestinians was pretty widespread by this time.
Because until Israel the country and those that support Israel understand the ‘why’ of it, they are never going to be able to take part in real negotiations for a two state solution. And again the death-count is significant, and every jew can understand an eye for an eye right? So indeed “what could Israel have done better?”
In other news i found this interesting article about a game, and it’s from kotaku no less!
In February 2007, one of Israel’s renowned major generals had been invited to play a new simulation game of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on prime time Israeli TV. It seemed like a good idea at the time, as he was running for prime minister on behalf of the Labor Party.
After being confronted with a suicide bomb in the opening sequence of the game, he responded with a series of hawkish moves, including an Apache helicopter airstrike and a ground operation to destroy the militants’ infrastructure. Not long after, a pop-up informed him that his actions as the Israeli PM initiated the Third Intifada, or Palestinian uprising. He lost the game.
“Is this game realistic?” probed the reporter.
“There is nothing to learn from this game about reality,” replied the major general with confidence, “as I took all the right actions.”
Quite a good read.
Zak, I’ve said several times why Hamas was elected in this thread - corruption in Fatah.
I very much doubt, were elections possible today (and they’re not) that Hamas would do well in Gaza.
And just another example of what happens when you let your society drift towards right-wing extremism:
‘Israel bans national service with human rights group B’Tselem in Gaza row’:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/15/israel-btselem-service-aid-gaza-human-rights
Israel has banned young people from serving with one of its most prominent human rights groups because of its opposition to the war in Gaza. B’Tselem, which campaigns against Israeli settlements in the West Bank, was informed on Wednesday night that it has been blacklisted as a civilian alternative to military service.
The director of the body responsible for non-military options for Israelis who don’t want to serve in the IDF, Sar-Shalom Jerbi, told Channel 2 TV that B’Tselem had: “crossed the line in wartime (by) campaigning and inciting against the state of Israel and the Israel Defence Force, which is the most moral of armies.”
Hagai el-Ad, executive director at B’Tselem, said that the move was the latest in a campaign of intimidation and threats against the organisation over the last three weeks, during which it has voiced vociferous opposition to the war in Gaza. It had tried to have the names of Palestinian children aired on state TV during Operation Protective Edge, but was denied. Its appeal to the high court of justice was rejected on Tuesday.
“The level of intimidation and the broadness of attacks on the organisation over the past three weeks is unprecedented in the 25-year history of B’Tselem,” Ad said, citing death threats and attempts to violently attack employees, as well as an organised internet campaign against the group.
He said it was a trend that could apply more generally to Israeli society over the past month, where groups of rightwing Jews and ultra-nationalists have attacked peace rallies in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and there has been a surge in racism against Arabs in Israel.
B’Tselem are pretty much anti-Israel. Remember, I support Peace Now, which remains firmly on the list for service despite their anti-Settler stance.
That they try and link it with anything else…pfeh. They are extremists, part of the problem, and have released dodgy statistics repeatedly.
I don’t have a problem with removing them from a list of organisations available for national service. This does not affect their funding, people can still volunteer for them, and of course anyone making death threats or offering violence should be prosecuted.
