The Obama Administration has responded critically to the decision from an Israeli court to give an Israeli border police officer just community service for his entirely unjustified attack on an American teenager. Tariq Khdeir, 15, a Palestinian-American, was beaten by the officer, whose name has been withheld by the courts to avoid any further repercussions for him or his family. The beating was filmed after the officer caught the teenager near a riot in East Jerusalem in July 2014. Despite this evidence (and no evidence of just cause) the Israeli court gave the officer just 45 days of community service and a suspended prison term of four months.
Here is the video showing the officer stomping on the teenager and hitting him despite his being on the ground and apparently immobilized. Indeed, he appears unconscious as they carry him to the road but he is again attacked by the officer:
State prosecutors requested a seven-month jail term for the beating after international outrage over the video.
The Court however noted the officer’s remorse and his service to the state security forces as mitigating circumstances.
Tariq, who was 15 at the time, was spending the summer with relatives in East Jerusalem when violence broke out over the gruesome killing of his cousin Muhammad Abu Khdeir, 16, by Jewish extremists. The killers reportedly acted to avenge the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli youths by Palestinian militants in the West Bank. Police said that Tariq was masked and holding a wooden slingshot when the officer chased him.
The State Department has sharply criticized the Israeli handling of the case in the following statement from Spokesperson John Kirby:
We were disappointed to learn that the Israeli police officer who severely beat American teenager Tariq Abu Khdeir in July of 2014 was spared prison time by an Israeli court yesterday. Given the clear evidence captured on videotape of the excessive use of force, it is difficult to see how this sentence would promote full accountability for the actions of the police officer in this case. We understand there is a possibility for the Israeli state prosecutor to appeal the decision, and we’re going to continue to follow that closely, as you might expect.
I’ll just state again, the safety, security, and protection of American citizens overseas is of paramount importance for this Administration, and we have demonstrated repeatedly – we’ve demonstrated that repeatedly in cases all over the globe.
Here is a statement from the family of Tariq Abu Khdeir:
“To hear that the officer responsible for the inhumane beating of our young son, Tariq, was only sentenced to one-and-a-half months of community service is a shameful slap on the wrist and sends the wrong message that Israel tolerates the violent, extrajudicial beating of children. We continue to demand that justice be served, for the officers that participated in his cruel beating to be held accountable in a transparent manner, and for assurances that such treatment of Palestinian minors by Israeli forces will end.”
I cannot imagine how a court could justify community service in the face of this videotape evidence. Even if the teenager was guilty of some crime (for which he was not charged), the beating was clearly excessive and unjustified. Community service is hardly a commensurate punishment for the beating received by this American teenager.
What do you think?
By the way, Karen, I answered your question, would you please answer mine?
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Do you consider crashing a van deliberately into a civilian bus stop, hitting people, and then jumping out with a knife to stab a woman with a baby a terrorist attack? Yes or now. And this time answer the question.
yes, I do!
Do YOU consider the bombing of hospitals, of schools, of ambulances, the dropping of a missile on 4 kids playing on the beach, the lighting of a sleeping family on fire a terrorist act? Yes or no? And this time answer the question, everyone is watching and waiting.
And this debunks every one of those usually advanced points that blame the Palestinians for their own massacre:
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Five Israeli Talking Points on Gaza—Debunked
Israel claims that it is merely exercising its right to self-defense and that Gaza is no longer occupied. Here’s what you need to know about these talking points and more.
By Noura ErakatTwitter JULY 25, 2014
Israel has killed almost 800 Palestinians in the past twenty-one days in the Gaza Strip alone; its onslaught continues. The UN estimates that more than 74 percent of those killed are civilians. That is to be expected in a population of 1.8 million where the number of Hamas members is approximately 15,000. Israel does not deny that it killed those Palestinians using modern aerial technology and precise weaponry courtesy of the world’s only superpower. In fact, it does not even deny that they are civilians.
Israel’s propaganda machine, however, insists that these Palestinians wanted to die (“culture of martyrdom”), staged their own death (“telegenically dead”) or were the tragic victims of Hamas’s use of civilian infrastructure for military purposes (“human shielding”). In all instances, the military power is blaming the victims for their own deaths, accusing them of devaluing life and attributing this disregard to cultural bankruptcy. In effect, Israel—along with uncritical mainstream media that unquestionably accept this discourse—dehumanizes Palestinians, deprives them even of their victimhood and legitimizes egregious human rights and legal violations.
This is not the first time. The gruesome images of decapitated children’s bodies and stolen innocence on Gaza’s shores are a dreadful repeat of Israel’s assault on Gaza in November 2012 and winter 2008–09. Not only are the military tactics the same but so too are the public relations efforts and the faulty legal arguments that underpin the attacks. Mainstream media news anchors are inexplicably accepting these arguments as fact.
Below I address five of Israel’s recurring talking points. I hope this proves useful to newsmakers.
1) Israel is exercising its right to self-defense.
As the occupying power of the Gaza Strip, and the Palestinian Territories more broadly, Israel has an obligation and a duty to protect the civilians under its occupation. It governs by military and law enforcement authority to maintain order, protect itself and protect the civilian population under its occupation. It cannot simultaneously occupy the territory, thus usurping the self-governing powers that would otherwise belong to Palestinians, and declare war upon them. These contradictory policies (occupying a land and then declaring war on it) make the Palestinian population doubly vulnerable.
The precarious and unstable conditions in the Gaza Strip from which Palestinians suffer are Israel’s responsibility. Israel argues that it can invoke the right to self-defense under international law as defined in Article 51 of the UN Charter. The International Court of Justice, however, rejected this faulty legal interpretation in its 2004 Advisory Opinion. The ICJ explained that an armed attack that would trigger Article 51 must be attributable to a sovereign state, but the armed attacks by Palestinians emerge from within Israel’s jurisdictional control. Israel does have the right to defend itself against rocket attacks, but it must do so in accordance with occupation law and not other laws of war. Occupation law ensures greater protection for the civilian population. The other laws of war balance military advantage and civilian suffering. The statement that “no country would tolerate rocket fire from a neighboring country” is therefore both a diversion and baseless.
Israel denies Palestinians the right to govern and protect themselves, while simultaneously invoking the right to self-defense. This is a conundrum and a violation of international law, one that Israel deliberately created to evade accountability.
2) Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005.
Israel argues that its occupation of the Gaza Strip ended with the unilateral withdrawal of its settler population in 2005. It then declared the Gaza Strip to be “hostile territory” and declared war against its population. Neither the argument nor the statement is tenable. Despite removing 8,000 settlers and the military infrastructure that protected their illegal presence, Israel maintained effective control of the Gaza Strip and thus remains the occupying power as defined by Article 47 of the Hague Regulations. To date, Israel maintains control of the territory’s air space, territorial waters, electromagnetic sphere, population registry and the movement of all goods and people.
Israel argues that the withdrawal from Gaza demonstrates that ending the occupation will not bring peace. Some have gone so far as to say that Palestinians squandered their opportunity to build heaven in order to build a terrorist haven instead. These arguments aim to obfuscate Israel’s responsibilities in the Gaza Strip, as well as the West Bank. As Prime Minister Netanyahu once explained, Israel must ensure that it does not “get another Gaza in Judea and Samaria…. I think the Israeli people understand now what I always say: that there cannot be a situation, under any agreement, in which we relinquish security control of the territory west of the River Jordan.”
Palestinians have yet to experience a day of self-governance. Israel immediately imposed a siege upon the Gaza Strip when Hamas won parliamentary elections in January 2006 and tightened it severely when Hamas routed Fatah in June 2007. The siege has created a “humanitarian catastrophe” in the Gaza Strip. Inhabitants will not be able to access clean water, electricity or tend to even the most urgent medical needs. The World Health Organization explains that the Gaza Strip will be unlivable by 2020. Not only did Israel not end its occupation, it has created a situation in which Palestinians cannot survive in the long-term.
3) This Israeli operation, among others, was caused by rocket fire from Gaza.
Israel claims that its current and past wars against the Palestinian population in Gaza have been in response to rocket fire. Empirical evidence from 2008, 2012 and 2014 refute that claim. First, according to Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the greatest reduction of rocket fire came through diplomatic rather than military means. This chart demonstrates the correlation between Israel’s military attacks upon the Gaza Strip and Hamas militant activity. Hamas rocket fire increases in response to Israeli military attacks and decreases in direct correlation to them. Cease-fires have brought the greatest security to the region.
During the four months of the Egyptian-negotiated cease-fire in 2008, Palestinian militants reduced the number of rockets to zero or single digits from the Gaza Strip. Despite this relative security and calm, Israel broke the cease-fire to begin the notorious aerial and ground offensive that killed 1,400 Palestinians in twenty-two days. In November 2012, Israel’s extrajudicial assassination of Ahmad Jabari, the chief of Hamas’s military wing in Gaza, while he was reviewing terms for a diplomatic solution, again broke the cease-fire that precipitated the eight-day aerial offensive that killed 132 Palestinians.
Immediately preceding Israel’s most recent operation, Hamas rocket and mortar attacks did not threaten Israel. Israel deliberately provoked this war with Hamas. Without producing a shred of evidence, it accused the political faction of kidnapping and murdering three settlers near Hebron. Four weeks and almost 700 lives later, Israel has yet to produce any evidence demonstrating Hamas’s involvement. During ten days of Operation Brother’s Keeper in the West Bank, Israel arrested approximately 800 Palestinians without charge or trial, killed nine civilians and raided nearly 1,300 residential, commercial and public buildings. Its military operation targeted Hamas members released during the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange in 2011. It’s these Israeli provocations that precipitated the Hamas rocket fire to which Israel claims left it with no choice but a gruesome military operation.
4) Israel avoids civilian casualties, but Hamas aims to kill civilians.
Hamas has crude weapons technology that lacks any targeting capability. As such, Hamas rocket attacks ipso facto violate the principle of distinction because all of its attacks are indiscriminate. This is not contested. Israel, however, would not be any more tolerant of Hamas if it strictly targeted military objects, as we have witnessed of late. Israel considers Hamas and any form of its resistance, armed or otherwise, to be illegitimate.
In contrast, Israel has the eleventh most powerful military in the world, certainly the strongest by far in the Middle East, and is a nuclear power that has not ratified the non-proliferation agreement and has precise weapons technology. With the use of drones, F-16s and an arsenal of modern weapon technology, Israel has the ability to target single individuals and therefore to avoid civilian casualties. But rather than avoid them, Israel has repeatedly targeted civilians as part of its military operations.
The Dahiya Doctrine is central to these operations and refers to Israel’s indiscriminate attacks on Lebanon in 2006. Maj. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot said that this would be applied elsewhere:
What happened in the Dahiya quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which Israel is fired on. […] We will apply disproportionate force on it and cause great damage and destruction there. From our standpoint, these are not civilian villages, they are military bases.
Israel has kept true to this promise. The 2009 UN Fact-Finding Mission to the Gaza Conflict, better known as the Goldstone Mission, concluded “from a review of the facts on the ground that it witnessed for itself that what was prescribed as the best strategy [Dahiya Doctrine] appears to have been precisely what was put into practice.”
According to the National Lawyers Guild, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, Israel directly targeted civilians or recklessly caused civilian deaths during Operation Cast Lead. Far from avoiding the deaths of civilians, Israel effectively considers them legitimate targets.
5) Hamas hides its weapons in homes, mosques and schools and uses human shields.
This is arguably one of Israel’s most insidious claims, because it blames Palestinians for their own death and deprives them of even their victimhood. Israel made the same argument in its war against Lebanon in 2006 and in its war against Palestinians in 2008. Notwithstanding its military cartoon sketches, Israel has yet to prove that Hamas has used civilian infrastructure to store military weapons. The two cases where Hamas indeed stored weapons in UNRWA schools, the schools were empty. UNRWA discovered the rockets and publicly condemned the violation of its sanctity.
International human rights organizations that have investigated these claims have determined that they are not true. It attributed the high death toll in Israel’s 2006 war on Lebanon to Israel’s indiscriminate attacks. Human Rights Watch notes:
The evidence Human Rights Watch uncovered in its on-the-ground investigations refutes [Israel’s] argument…we found strong evidence that Hezbollah stored most of its rockets in bunkers and weapon storage facilities located in uninhabited fields and valleys, that in the vast majority of cases Hezbollah fighters left populated civilian areas as soon as the fighting started, and that Hezbollah fired the vast majority of its rockets from pre-prepared positions outside villages.
In fact, only Israeli soldiers have systematically used Palestinians as human shields. Since Israel’s incursion into the West Bank in 2002, it has used Palestinians as human shields by tying young Palestinians onto the hoods of their cars or forcing them to go into a home where a potential militant may be hiding.
Even assuming that Israel’s claims were plausible, humanitarian law obligates Israel to avoid civilian casualties that “would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.” A belligerent force must verify whether civilian or civilian infrastructure qualifies as a military objective. In the case of doubt, “whether an object which is normally dedicated to civilian purposes, such as a place of worship, a house or other dwelling or a school, is being used to make an effective contribution to military action, it shall be presumed not to be so used.”
In the over thee weeks of its military operation, Israel has demolished 3,175 homes, at least a dozen with families inside; destroyed five hospitals and six clinics; partially damaged sixty-four mosques and two churches; partially to completely destroyed eight government ministries; injured 4,620; and killed over 700 Palestinians. At plain sight, these numbers indicate Israel’s egregious violations of humanitarian law, ones that amount to war crimes.
Beyond the body count and reference to law, which is a product of power, the question to ask is, What is Israel’s end goal? What if Hamas and Islamic Jihad dug tunnels beneath the entirety of the Gaza Strip—they clearly did not, but let us assume they did for the sake of argument. According to Israel’s logic, all of Gaza’s 1.8 million Palestinians are therefore human shields for being born Palestinian in Gaza. The solution is to destroy the 360-kilometer square strip of land and to expect a watching world to accept this catastrophic loss as incidental. This is possible only by framing and accepting the dehumanization of Palestinian life. Despite the absurdity of this proposal, it is precisely what Israeli society is urging its military leadership to do. Israel cannot bomb Palestinians into submission, and it certainly cannot bomb them into peace.
randyjet
1, November 26, 2015 at 12:40 am
First off, I did not say that Hamas was using human civilian shields. The Minister of information said that Hamas wants civilian casualties as martyrs and as something they can play on to reduce Israeli attacks. YOU have to answer WHY NO CIVIL DEFENSE measures are taken in Gaza? There were plenty of tunnels for attacking over the border, and for Hamas big shots, but none for their own people. So Hamas uses civilian sites to attack Israel and thinks that some fools will say the IDF is committing atrocities since the Isrealis bomb them. Sorry, but as you can see there are very few people fall for that crap.
Randy, am not sure what you are saying!
What types of civil defense should be taken by Hamas?
What, erect an iron dome system too? Build some anti- missiles shelters like Israelis? Deploy an army?
Do you realize the tunnels are hidden, and that they head to Egypt, and that their aim is to bring in all the products that Israel doesn’t allow, building material, weapons, food, health care items…?
as for the rockets, where else should they head but towards civilian populations?
Let’s say new york state massed troops around NYC, makign incursions and killing city denizens, if those were to retaliate, where would they shoot?
Sure, aiming at civilians is a terrorist act, no one denies it, BUT, there is a case to be made in favor of Hamas, or against Israel that it is the occupying power and therefore it is held to a higher standard, which all international laws and resolutions do. In case you forgot, there are rules that regulate what the occupying power can and can’t do.
Also, Hamas is calling on war crime investigations on both sides, both it and Israel, and guess which refuses to participate?
Regarding hamas’ coup, have you forgotten the timeline of the events? That Bush insisted on elections, which Hamas won fair and square, which did not suit the powers that be (US and Israel) who then armed fatah to go after Hamas, which acted preemptively and removed the danger.
I agree that they used the occasion to remove all the challenges and establish themselves very strongly in Gaza but …politics?
Hamas has declared WAR against Israel and has repudiated the Oslo Agreements. When a smaller and weaker nation goes to war against a bigger and better armed opponent, I have no sympathy at all with them. Thus given the constant fire of rockets into Israel targeting civilians mainly, and the declaration of war, Israel has every RIGHT to impose a blockade of Gaza. if you don’t like that, then you will have to join with the Confederacy and have opposed the Union blockade which took hundreds of thousands of civilian lives. Then you will have to declare Gen Grant a war criminal for his siege of Nachez in which thousands died of starvation. Was Grant wrong? I sure as hell do not think so. By the way, Egypt is also enforcing a blockade of ITS own border with Gaza. They have said, they will lift it when the PA takes back control of it, but Hamas refuses to allow that. It is like the GOP winning the Congress, and the GOP governor of Texas killing the Federal ICE and BP agents, and using the Texas Rangers to take their place. So Hamas is willing to let this continue at the expense of their people.
Sorry randy, your parallels are so off as to be downright ignorant.
EVERY resistance, including david to Goliath, has always declared war against a bigger, occupying force. That is the essence of resistance. Whether that war is stated or simply practiced matters little, it is a rallying cry and a political statement to one’s base.
According to that logic, Israel’s declaration of war against Hamas calls for Hamas to rain down missiles on Israel? You are undermining your own argument here.
How do you fight an occupation other than the way Hamas has been doing it? The PA has been cooperating with Israel, acting as the default police force for Israel, leading to what? more massacres of palestinians and more land lost?
And since when did Hamas come to power? Who was in charge all along? What type of logic dictates we blame the group that has ruled for less than a decade for the action of the previous groups? How silly is that?
It is as silly as blaming Obama for the results of the invasion of Iraq!
And the blockade of Gaza has been ongoing BEFORE Hamas came to power! That’s is another bs excuse offered by israel.
And let me reiterate this, Hamas was democratically elected by its constituents, through elections forced upon the Palestinians by …who? yes, the US.
Egypt is earning the billions of dollars given to it by us, so to help further imprison the Gazans into the confines of their receding landmass.
Why did the US support the coup that removed the muslim brotherhood from power? yes, for the MB was reaching out to the Gazans and would have removed the blockade on Gazans.
Why woud they support the PA against the gazans’ wishes?
Why would the US support the PA against the Gazans’ wishes?
Why would Israel support the PA against the Gazans’ wishes?
All in the name of promoting democracy?
po, I see that you are not too smart as well as being ignorant or thinking that I am a fool too. First off, Hamas could construct underground shelters as ALL the nations in WWII did. They could have used all that effort that they put into building safe places for their leaders and tunnels into providing for the civilians. They chose NOT to do so. That tells me that they are relying on the IDF to be accurate shooters and that if they are not, then they can use the resulting dead civilians to cry about war “crimes”. That tells me and the WORLD that Hamas is not serious about the lives of those dead people, except to use them as cannon fodder for the PR mill.
The FACT is that prior to Hamas winning a plurality, NOT A MAJORITY, of the vote, Gaza was relatively peaceful and had trade with Israel, had a functioning airport. Thanks to the stupidity of Bush and Rice, Hamas only got 43% of the total vote, Fatah main party got 41% and the rest split between anti-Hamas groups. They got a disproportionate share of the delegates through the electoral system since Fatah had multiple candidates running for the same seat, splitting votes. Bush and Rice knew this, but went ahead to demand the vote at the time. So to try and tell us that Hamas is the majority is an outright LIE. Then to compound the lie, you overlook or make an excuse for the coup that Hamas made in Gaza which resulted in Hamas imposing its DICTATORSHIP on that part. I see that you used the term routed the PA to somehow justify this dictatorship. The people of Gaza have no means of removing Hamas from power now. So save your crap about the will of the people for those who are more gullible.
It is also a LIE to state that Israel is an occupying power in Gaza since they removed all of their troops and people from there. Thus Gaza is simply a rebel part of a nation at war with Israel, and they fall under the rules of warfare. Israel does not have a police or any other presence on the ground as they do in the West Bank. Thus the West Bank IS occupied territory, while Gaza is NOT. Then you miss the central point of the attacks that both sides are doing. The IDF targets military targets in the main, while Hamas ONLY targets people because of their religion or because they live in Israel. To excuse this MAJOR difference shows ignorance or willful deception. Thus Hamas and the Palestinian terrorists kill only because of a persons ethnic or religious identity, and thus becomes anti-Semitism by doing so. They do not do so based on their political or military status, as the IDF does.
I also dislike your lie about other liberation forces in equating them with Hamas. The IRA did NOT target civilians even in their bombing campaigns, and went to great lengths to avoid such casualties by having codes that they gave police to verify a bomb plot to get innocents out of the way. The ANC in its campaign against apartheid had the same policy of hitting only military and economic targets and avoiding civilian casualties. In fact, when errors were made, they agreed that their people who went beyond their limits would ALSO be subjected to the truth commission set up after the fall of apartheid. Thus to equate those legitimate fighters with the THUGS of Hamas is offensive in the extreme!
hskiprob says:
Po, stop wasting your time with them. They do not care how many people die or have no place to live. They worship the nation state and all the power and money it grants them by force and the usurpation of inalienable rights.
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No doubt, hskiprob, the same ones eager to call anti-semitism are the worse islamophobes and racists…
The following highlights exactly what was said before:
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Jewish-Only Cities to Evict Thousands of Palestinians
By IMEMC News | – –
Thousands of Palestinians will be displaced as part of a new Israeli plan to build several Jewish-only communities in the Negev region, in south of the Israeli territory, which will be built on top of Bedouin Palestinian villages, civil rights groups said Wednesday.
“This is part of an ongoing policy of pushing Palestinian Bedouins off their land in the Negev,” Sana Ibn Bari, a lawyer for the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), told Al-Jazeera.
The plan was approved by the Israeli government on Sunday, and allows the construction of five Jewish settlements in the Negev region, according to Telesur/Al Ray. Israeli Minister of Housing Yoav Galant hailed the government’s decision and said the region should be turned “into a desired and flourishing area, in accordance with the Zionist vision”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called, on Sunday, for more Jewish communities “to be built quickly while bypassing bureaucratic processes”.
The Israeli government classifies Palestinian villages in the region as “unrecognized”, and says that people there do not have proper permits for constructing houses. (The overwhelming majority of Palestinians are rarely, if ever, granted such permits.)
At least two villages will be affected by the plan, according to a press release by several rights groups in Israel who have denounced the plan. “The settlement of Daya would be built on the unrecognized village of Katamat, which is home to 1,500 people and the Neve Gurion settlement is supposed to be built on part of the land of Beer Hadaj, a recognized village with approximately 6,000 residents,” Bimkom and ACRI said in the statement.
Palestinians living in the Negev are part of the over 1.7 million Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, who, according to rights groups, are facing systematic discrimination by Israeli policies and laws.
In May, Israeli-based Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights issued a database documenting more than 50 discriminatory laws which directly or indirectly target Palestinian citizens of Israel by quelling their political expression and limiting their access to state resources, notably land.
Last month, a Bedouin village was demolished by Israeli forces for the 90th time in five years for being “unrecognized”. While Israel claims that these people do not have permits for the villages, residents say those villages existed before the foundation of the Israeli state in 1948.
The Jews to not appear to care about anyone else but themselves. Even in Hollywood, if you are not Jewish or make them a lot of money, you do not get the amount of work they do. That goes for commercials as well as TV and Movies. Why do you think there are so many people who are anti-sematic? Because the Jews use ostracism and cronyism to exploit others. They are Gods chosen people and they will never agree that Goyims have the same inalienable rights as Jews. Why do you think so many of them are socialists. From Jamie Diamond to Paul Krugman. If you have ever read the Talmud you will see what I am saying is supported by those who claim to be God’s children. Interesting how the three largest religions in the world claim to be God’s chosen people.
You have the few like Milton Friedman who in his early days supported a central bank but as he saw it in action, he finally started supporting the libertarian movement.
Many of the Zionists are Jews and they have enormous central banking powers much of which is derived from taxation. Until such time as we abolish taxes (theft by force and coercion), you will be arguing with those that embrace it for use in exploiting others by warfare. War is a racket and those that argue in favor of it are a part of the racket.
Po, stop wasting your time with them. They do not care how many people die or have no place to live. They worship the nation state and all the power and money it grants them by force and the usurpation of inalienable rights.
Not all Jews are elitists, socialists, and zionists but there are still enough of them to cause many wars, recessions and depressions through their central banking controls and manipulations. And don’t think it is just Jews involved either.
The US and Israel Zionists are behind ISIS and there desire to remove Assad. Like I said they will murder and destroy such things as the WTC to reach their agenda. The 5 Mossad agents who where detained caught cheering as the WTC collapsed shows their Zionist mentality.
Nobody in the world wants to believe that there is such evil in our world, but history has shown it time and time again. It just happens to be the Zionists now committing many of the atrocities. Of course they are going to provide reasons for their actions; it the muslins who are the subhumans? How long have the Jews Christians and Muslims been fighting? Ever since God allegedly gave the promised land to the Jews. What did the Jews do when they reached the promised land. They went and killed those who were there. I wonder if the Palestinians are the progeny of those that inhabited the promised land prior to the Jews claiming it as theirs. Foolish human beings.
Mercenaries are being used for much of the atrocities being committed today. Of course according to the lame stream media they are all Muslims. Lol
Sorry, Randy, i must call bs on your claim. I have searched the internet for hours and did not come across that so called interview and admission. Hamas has always denied the human shields line, always, so to come out and announce that yes, that is the aim, sounds pretty incredible.
Perhaps you can find that video. By the way, hamas does not have a PR guy, so…
perhaps you can too enlighten us about the atrocities Hamas committed on Israel?
And you tell me, who is the civilian? According to Israeli processes of war, everyone under Hamas is a legitimate target…so how come Israelis aren’t legitimate targets?
If you can blame Palestinians for living under Hamas rule, can you not blame Israelis for living under Israeli, the occupying force’s rule?
Is a settler, armed to the teeth and protected by the IDF, who comes and abuses or maims Palestinian a legitimate target or not?
And then guess who created Hamas, supported it, armed and put it up against the PLO? yes, Israel
meanwhile, this is what I found on CNN, and it answers your claims pretty well.
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Civic presence complicates things
What complicates the dispute over alleged human shields — an offense against international law — is how Hamas is also a political organization embedded in civilian life in the Palestinian territory, Palestinian leaders say.
“Hamas is a political party after all, not just a military wing. And it has institutions, organizations, homes” in Gaza, said Hanan Ashrawi, executive committee member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization in the West Bank.
That means Hamas is more than its military wing, Ashrawi said. Its members are active in civilian society too.
“Several-story buildings were totally demolished and the people living there. How can you claim that Hamas is hiding anything in there? These are normal residential areas with no military or any munitions hidden there,” Ashrawi said.
“The question is that Israel is not discriminating, it is destroying the homes of people who are active (in Hamas). Now ‘active’ could mean you belong to a social service institution. Hamas has day-care centers, has schools, has hospitals; it’s a political party as well. It’s a movement.
“Hamas is not just an isolated, you know, sort of armed individuals. It belongs to a very pluralistic system. It has in Gaza many services, offices and so on. And therefore if you are going to destroy everything related to Hamas as a party, as a movement, it means that you’re going to go on the rampage against families, homes, hospitals, schools and social services,” Ashrawi said.
First off, I did not say that Hamas was using human civilian shields. The Minister of information said that Hamas wants civilian casualties as martyrs and as something they can play on to reduce Israeli attacks. YOU have to answer WHY NO CIVIL DEFENSE measures are taken in Gaza? There were plenty of tunnels for attacking over the border, and for Hamas big shots, but none for their own people. So Hamas uses civilian sites to attack Israel and thinks that some fools will say the IDF is committing atrocities since the Isrealis bomb them. Sorry, but as you can see there are very few people fall for that crap.
As for Hamas atrocities, EVERY rocket that they fire is one since they are aimed at civilian targets. If you think bombing Dresden was an atrocity, THEN you must say the SAME about Hamas doing the same thing. The FACT is that Israel does NOT consider ALL of the people in Gaza as legitimate targets, so you LIE about that FACT. If they did,they would not declare that they were going to bomb a place before they did it. If they are considering ALL Gazans as targets they would not do that.
While I have met Arshrawi and consider her to be relatively sane, her statement that Hamas in Gaza has a pluralistic society is absurd. They have many facets of their activity. but that is NOT the same as a pluralistic society since Fatah and other political groups are SHOT if they raise their heads. When Hamas staged their coup, they killed lots of their political enemies in Gaza. There was a scene at the border with Israel of Palestinians seeking refuge in Israel since they were being shot by Hamas. I read about one poor guy who was released from an Israeli prison and was shot by Hamas when he got home! Ms Arshrawi has NO means of knowing whether or not arms were stored in the places she said had none. She is willing to take the word of Hamas, I sure don’t, nor does ANY sane person.
Hamas has declared WAR against Israel and has repudiated the Oslo Agreements. When a smaller and weaker nation goes to war against a bigger and better armed opponent, I have no sympathy at all with them. Thus given the constant fire of rockets into Israel targeting civilians mainly, and the declaration of war, Israel has every RIGHT to impose a blockade of Gaza. if you don’t like that, then you will have to join with the Confederacy and have opposed the Union blockade which took hundreds of thousands of civilian lives. Then you will have to declare Gen Grant a war criminal for his siege of Nachez in which thousands died of starvation. Was Grant wrong? I sure as hell do not think so. By the way, Egypt is also enforcing a blockade of ITS own border with Gaza. They have said, they will lift it when the PA takes back control of it, but Hamas refuses to allow that. It is like the GOP winning the Congress, and the GOP governor of Texas killing the Federal ICE and BP agents, and using the Texas Rangers to take their place. So Hamas is willing to let this continue at the expense of their people.
randyjet – not to take anything from the BP personally, but the Texas Rangers could probably do a better job of guarding the border.
po – methinks thou do protest to much.
When you are done reading through my links, karen (you too bam), please answer my previous question:
Do YOU consider the bombing of hospitals, of schools, of ambulances, the dropping of a missile on 4 kids playing on the beach, the lighting of a sleeping family on fire a terrorist act? Yes or no?
And finally, this:
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Palestinian Children ‘Routinely Tortured & Used As Human Shields By Israeli Forces’, Says UN
Huffington Post UK | By Sara C Nelson
Palestinian children are being used as human shields and tortured in custody by Israeli forces, a report from a UN human rights watchdog has found.
Minors are systematically subjected to physical and verbal abuse, threatened with death, physical violence and sexual assault, said the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in a report released on Thursday.
The body expressed its “deepest concern about the reported practice of torture and ill-treatment of Palestinian children arrested, prosecuted and detained by the military and the police.”
Those in custody have access to toilets, food and water routinely restricted, it added.
The findings, which cover the previous ten years, state: “Palestinian children arrested by (Israeli) military and police are systematically subject to degrading treatment, and often to acts of torture, are interrogated in Hebrew, a language they did not understand, and sign confessions in Hebrew in order to be released.”
The information was obtained from other UN rights bodies, military sources and Israeli and Palestinian rights groups. Israel did not cooperate with requests for information, it said.
An estimated 7,000 Palestinian children aged between 12 and 17 have been arrested, interrogated and detained since 2002 – an average of two a day, AFP reports.
“These crimes are perpetrated from the time of arrest, during transfer and interrogation, to obtain a confession but also on an arbitrary basis as testified by several Israeli soldiers as well as during pre-trial detention,” the committee added.
And then there is the theological argument:
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“Gary M. Burge
Professor of Theology at Wheaton College (Chicago) specializing in religion and politics in the Middle East
‘But They Use Human Shields!’
If truth is the first casualty of war, then ethics, its twin sister, dies in the same explosion. Karl Barth, perhaps the 20th century’s most famous theologian, lived through two European wars and described the ensuing darkness as a complete “collapse of ethics.” He was right. The ability to reason morally may be an accidental victim of war, or it may be targeted as carefully as if a sniper had taken aim. There are those who practice evil, and there are those who promote it without conscience. In war, Barth saw both. And we are seeing the same.
In today’s asymmetrical warfare, battles are no longer enjoined on the field. They appear within cities, where populations become the immediate victims of weaponry that previous generations never imagined. And civilian causalities are inevitable.
But as Shlomo Ben-Ami has shown, when a major military power is fighting a lesser (though lethal) opponent, it runs the risk of winning the war and losing all credibility in the world community. Hence Israel’s risk in Gaza. There is no doubt that Israel will succeed in its present campaign, as it did in 2009. It has monumental military superiority. But it is precisely at the moment when the trophy is presented that Israel may well find itself viewed as one of the world’s pariah states. No country wants a UN webpage like this describing its conduct. It’s a dilemma: You win, and then you immediately lose.
So what is a nation to do?
The current strategy has been to use the “human shield” argument. This is common in Ukraine, where both Ukrainian nationalists and pro-Russian separatists blame civilian causalities on the other side “because they used human shields.” It has also been used by the Assad regime in Syria. The U.S. used it in the battle for Fallujah in 2004. Now the same is being used in Gaza, and the Israelis have repeated this argument in the American media ad nauseam.
Hamas, Israel argues, fires rockets from population centers so that they can be protected from attack. So far so good. But then the discussion takes a peculiar turn in moral logic, with Israel asserting that these casualties therefore should be blamed on Hamas, not on Israel, which gives Israel license to continue its bombing. On NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, in a statement surely crafted by media specialists, Benjamin Netanyahu said it succinctly: “”We use missiles to protect our people. They use people to protect their missiles.” It’s a stroke of media genius, conjuring in the popular imagination images of Arab terrorists hunkered down behind unarmed women and children as cover.
But it may be more complicated.
In densely populated Gaza City, it is impossible to prosecute a conventional battle when you’re sending artillery rounds into one of the most densely populated regions on Earth. Of course, Israel claims Gazans are given warnings to get out of their neighborhoods. But there is no place to run. No bomb shelters. No safe zones. Not even the beach, where last week even children far from the intended targets were shelled by Israeli missiles. Therefore many Gazans stay at home to guard their possessions and hold on to what little hope they have, which explains the shocking number of children killed by Israel. H. A. Goodman recently summarized the Israeli claim that Hamas is using civilian facilities such as schools and mosques to store and fire their weapons. And he makes a compelling case (although other local agencies in Gaza dispute the extent of it). But then he takes the next courageous step, saying it is immoral for Hamas to use human shields, and it is immoral for Israel to bomb human shields.
It is at this moment that I like to imagine myself leading a seminar in theological ethics. And using my best Socratic pedagogy, I’d present the class with a few scenarios: If a genuine terrorist were in the street, armed and lethal, and hiding behind two innocent civilians, would you consider shooting all three of them in order to save 25 bystanders? Would it be morally justified? I can imagine a long silence while the class anticipates a trap. Some would argue against the triple deaths; others would argue that it is expedient and necessary. I can hear it now: What if the man killed 25 people while you didn’t do anything? This is the ticking-time-bomb argument. You are justified in doing anything if it saves the greater number of people.
But then I’d like to press on: What if our terrorist were holding 15 people hostage and threatening to kill 25 bystanders? Do we kill all of them to save the 25? And on we go. I’m pressing the parameters of proportionality (a vital component in any just-war theory). But there is more: What if the terrorist were sleeping in bed with his wife, dreaming about whom he might kill tomorrow, and his 10 children were in his apartment with him? And what if there were 50 innocent neighbors on adjacent floors in his building? This is precisely the scenario that occurred in the Jebaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza on Tuesday evening. “We are targeting Hamas militants,” Israel argued. But wait. Is it morally acceptable to also kill his 10 family members who do not participate in his work? Are we justified if we demolish his entire building? Two buildings? Six? May we kill 1,200 people in Gaza to protect 50 Israelis? Why not kill 5,000? Why not all of them?
Speaking of human shields, Israel used Palestinians as human shields at least 1200 times in 5 years.
Are you, karen and bambam saying it is justifiable.
I sure do hope you would answer.
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“Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz on Tuesday demanded that the High Court review a ruling it issued last Thursday in which it declared that the ‘human shield’ procedure employed by the IDF when detaining Palestinian terror suspects is illegal and violates international law.
Sources at the Ministry of Defense said that Mofaz’ comments are not an attempt to subvert the Court’s decision, adding that the defense minister intends to use democratic means to revoke the ruling.
According to defense officials, the Israel Defense Forces made use of the ‘human shield’ procedure on 1,200 occasions over the last five years, and only on one occasion did a Palestinian civilian get hurt.
An 18-year-old Palestinian was killed in 2002 during one such operation.
Mofaz instructed the IDF to freeze the use of the ‘human shield’ and ‘early warning’ procedures in its arrest operations in the territories until the Court holds a new hearing on the issue.
In 2009, Wikileaks published an Israeli government memo stating:
Individual Palestinians also testified to IDF abuses such as looting, beatings, vandalism of property and the use of the local population as human shields. But by far the strongest reverbration in Israel was that created by the Israeli organization “Breaking the Silence”, which collected testimony from 26 unnamed IDF soldiers. All of the soldiers had been involved in Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip, and testified to instances where Gazans were used as human shields, incendiary phosphorous shells were fired over civilian population areas, and other examples of excessive firepower that caused unnecessary fatalities and destruction of property.
The Nation noted last month:
Israeli soldiers have systematically used Palestinians as human shields. Since Israel’s incursion into the West Bank in 2002, it has used Palestinians as human shields by tying young Palestinians onto the hoods of their cars or forcing them to go into a home where a potential militant may be hiding.
And the Guardian pointed out:
Israel, meanwhile, does not have an unblemished record in the use of human shields. In 2010, two soldiers were convicted in an IDF military court of using an 11-year-old Palestinian boy as a human shield in its 2008-09 operation in Gaza. The pair ordered the child to search bags they suspected of being booby-trapped.””
Vox has a good breakdown of the issue, which proves that the claim that Hamas is holding human shields to be another one of the lies propagated by the Israeli propaganda.
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Why 70% of the people killed in Israel-Gaza violence are innocent Palestinian civilians
Updated by Max Fisher on July 30, 2014, 1:20 p.m. ET @Max_Fisher max@vox.com
The Israel-Gaza conflict, since it began, has killed 1,170 people. Of those, a shocking 815 are thought to be Palestinian civilians, and 232 of those children. That means that about 7 out of 10 total deaths are innocent Palestinian civilians, and 2 out of 10 innocent Palestinian children, an appallingly high rate. Why is this conflict so disproportionately killing Palestinian civilians? What is responsible?
A lot of this has to with the big picture of how the conflict is structured (lots more on that here). But more immediately, at the ground level, there are two common explanations you hear for this, each putting the onus for the deaths predominantly on one side.
On the one hand, Hamas appears to be at best indifferent to the fact that, by firing rockets from heavily civilian areas, it knowingly invites or even desires Israeli strikes that will kill civilians. (Hamas is frequently accused of using civilians as human shields for this reason.) On the other, the plain truth is that Israeli bombs are causing most of the civilian deaths. While Israel has many guidelines to prevent civilian casualties, it also uses overwhelming force in civilian areas and makes strategic and tactical choices that dramatically and foreseeably raise the rate of civilian deaths, and has continued making these choices even as hundreds of Palestinian civilians have died.
Ultimately, both are deeply negligent in their responsibilities to avoid causing Palestinian civilian casualties, but in very different ways to very different ends, and there’s a lot more complexity to both ends of this than you might think.
Does Hamas really use human shields? Not legally speaking, but the effect of their tactics is similar
The truth to this is not simple; while Hamas does not appear to force civilians into the line of fire, which is the legal definition of human shields, the group is extremely cavalier about indirectly causing Palestinian casualties by firing from civilian neighborhoods and storing rockets in civilian buildings. This is a real, serious form of culpability.
Observers on the ground tend to say that Hamas’s actions do not meet the legal definition of human shields. The BBC’s Jeremy Bowen recently wrote, “I saw no evidence during my week in Gaza of Israel’s accusation that Hamas uses Palestinians as human shields.” The New York Times’ Anne Barnard and Jodi Rudoren wrote, “There is no evidence that Hamas and other militants force civilians to stay in areas that are under attack — the legal definition of a human shield under international law.”
Amnesty International, which has a number of people on the ground in Gaza and consistently condemns Israeli and Palestinian abuses alike, announced recently on its site that it does not see proof of Hamas using human shield — but they added an important asterisk.
“Palestinian armed groups have stored munitions in and fired indiscriminate rockets from residential areas in the Gaza Strip,” an Amnesty report noted recently. The groups have also “reportedly urged residents in some areas of the Gaza Strip not to leave their homes” after Israel had warned it would attack the area, all of which have the effect of putting Palestinians at risk in the fighting.
An important secondary question, though, is whether they do this out of a deliberate desire to hide behind (or even provoke the bombing of) Palestinian civilians, or out of simple disregard for putting those civilians at risk.
Some observers argue that Hamas is more than just indifferent to civilian deaths, and may be doing something even worse than hiding behind them: that the group actively wants Israel to kill Palestinian civilians so that Hamas can rally world opinion against Israel.
THAT LACK OF REGARD FOR THE HUNDREDS OF PALESTINIAN CIVILIANS KILLED, THE APPARENT SENSE THAT THEIR LIVES ONLY MATTER AT THE MOMENT OF THEIR DEATH SO THAT IT CAN BE BLAMED ON ONE SIDE OR ANOTHER, IS PERHAPS THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTH OF THE ISRAEL-GAZA WAR
Some of these observers have met and interviewed Hamas leaders, some have not.
The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, who has interviewed Hamas members, wrote that the group “is trying to get Israel to kill as many Palestinians as possible” because “dead Palestinians represent a crucial propaganda victory for the nihilists of Hamas.” While that is not exactly akin to using unwilling human shields, if true, the effect would be in many ways similar.
The Globe and Mail’s Margaret Wente wrote, “Hamas openly encourages civilians to act as human shields,” pointing out that a Hamas spokesman had encouraged Gazans to “defend their rights and their homes with their bare chests and their blood.” While again this is not actually the same as human shields, it is another form of culpability.
While it is within the realm of possibility that Hamas at some level desires the deaths of Palestinian civilians, proving that the group is acting on this requires a lot of extrapolation and supposition about the internal motivations of Hamas officials. Speaking for myself, I will not pretend to possess special insight into the minds of Hamas leaders.
What can be proven is that Hamas makes tactical choices, particularly firing from dense civilian areas, that increase the odds that Palestinian civilians will be killed. Hamas could save lives by firing rockets from less crowded areas of Gaza City or storing those rockets in a building that is not a school. But it doesn’t. Even if this is “only” coldblooded indifference, which is the most generous possible reading, this is surely a form of culpability.
Still: Israel uses overwhelming military force against Palestinian civilian areas, knowing it will kill civilians
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The El Suusi Mosque, destroyed after an Israeli attack in the Al-Shati Refugee Camp in Gaza City (Ashraf Amra/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
Israel and its defenders further point out that the Israeli military does take measures to reduce Palestinian civilian deaths, such as dropping fliers or even calling people whose homes are about to be bombed.
That has not prevented Israel’s campaign in Gaza from foreseeably killing an overwhelming number of innocent Palestinian civilians. Israel has bombed a number of civilian structures, such as a mosque and a school for the disabled, in attacks that kill civilians. Israel defends such attacks as necessary to target militants and rockets tucked within the civilians. Israel does not claim that it was unaware that mosques and schools might contain civilians.
On the one hand, surely Israel is responsible for the bombs it drops in areas it knows to be civilian, especially given its overwhelming military superiority in the conflict. On the other, Israel and its defenders argue that Hamas forces it launch these overwhelming campaigns in civilian areas; this is not totally unreasonably, due to the Hamas tactics explained above.
But Israel bears some responsibility for this end too. Part of this comes from an unresolved contradiction in Israeli policy, which is both to avoid civilian causalities and to punish Hamas with overwhelming force in a way that will deter it from attacking Israel. The Israeli Defense Forces “gets and gives somewhat contradictory orders on this,” the Brookings Institution’s Daniel Byman wrote recently:
“There is both a strong and formal “when possible, try to avoid killing civilians” order, but also a message of “show them we mean business” and, of course, “protect the troops at all cost” (which can mean you bring down the building rather than try to clear it room by room to avoid civilians). So I think Israel often tries to do both proportionality and deterrence, and as a result both suffer.
To follow up on what randy says, I have never heard a Hamas leader say they want palestinians to be killed en masse. That narrative has been shared by jeffrey Goldberg, an ex-prison Israeli guard and forceful zionist.
I have heard of them urging the population to remain in place IN ORDER to dissuade Israeli from lobbing bombs among them
Now one may say, why would Hamas hide among the population, and one may answer, where else would they be?
When the patriots fought the British, where did they hide?
When the Irish fought the British, where did they hide?
The french against the nazis?
Jewish resistance to Nazis in the ghettos of eastern Europe?
Where did the North Vietnamese hide? Were we justified in carpet bombing them?
What about the Tamil tigers?
Where does any resistant group, without an army and a territory, under siege, since the beginning of times, hide but among its population?
Then one may ask, why is Hamas fighting the israelis anyway? And one may answer because they hate Jews!
And another may look at the first one puzzled and ask them, are you insane?Are you blind to the fact that there is an Israeli occupation of Palestine ongoing for over 60 years? And, they would continue, are you a dummy or just lying through your teeth?
po I heard the Hamas PR guy on CNN say exactly that Hamas calculates to have civilian casualties to generate “innocent” civilian “atrocities” If a person stands by an anti-aircraft gun, and it gets bombed, TOUGH! The same thing goes for putting guns on top of a hospital that gets bombed. The group responsible for placing the gun there is the war criminal, NOT the attacker. There are plenty of places for Hamas to launch rockets apart from homes. Then Hamas has devoted all of their activities into providing shelter for their leaders, fighters, and their families, and leaving the rest to become martyrs for their cause. During WWII, all the countries involved dug shelters, and evacuated their populations from targets. If you choose to live next to an armaments factory, then you have no grounds to complain about your home being bombed. That is simple common sense. The FACT that Hamas is willing to use their resources to not provide for civil defense speaks volumes about their lack of concern for their own people. I am appalled that you are so blind and bigoted that you will ignore the barbarism of Hamas and its ilk. As far as I am concerned the IDF can go in and kill off Hamas as much and as often as they wish. They are the ones who make peace impossible.
While I acknowledge Israeli crimes, it does not excuse or mitigate the atrocities Hamas inflicts on Israel, and their own people. It is absurd to equate Hamas rockets to Israeli bombing of legitimate targets. Hamas seeks to deliberately kill innocents, and the Israelis seek to minimize those casualties. BIG DIFFERENCE and no amount of rationalization can erase that FACT. I had to laugh at the apologists for Hamas saying that the rockets are alright since so few people have been killed by them. If they seriously believe such crap, I will come to their homes and shoot it up and not hit anybody. That will be OK then, right? That is the absurd lengths to which apologists will go. Tell it to a true believer who hates truth and logic.
yep, and each of them had a knife, a rocket or a stone!
http://mondoweiss.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/imeu-image.png
Karen S
What po and others disseminating misinformation do is to give and present half-truths, which we all know are whole-lies. Israel, like all nations, when attacked by bombs launched from mosques, schools, hospitals, etc., must respond to neutralize those threats. It is a well-documented fact that Hamas FORCED, yes, FORCED, with penalty of death, its own inhabitants–fellow Palestinians–to remain in the buildings used as launching sites. That’s not Zionist propaganda–that is well documented by various agencies assisting the Palestinians. When Israel blanketed the area with fliers, warning the inhabitants of imminent strikes to various targets and insisting that they leave the area, it was the brutal, inhumane and evil Palestinians, themselves, who thwarted their own people’s way and prevented men, women and children from escaping. All information which is easily accessible. Why, you ask? So that they could increase their own death count and bellow to the world about atrocities. Po, as usual, keeps that out.
I have to say that I heard the spokesman for Hamas say that he and Hamas deliberately make innocents stay in place to yield dead bodies. He called them martyrs. I call him and Hamas war criminals and I can care less about Hamas followers being killed. I do feel sorrow for the innocents Hamas condemns to death, but their deaths are on the heads of Hamas, NOT Israel. I was listening to CNN and posting on line at the time, and the person I was posting with verified that he heard the same thing as I did.
I also know that Israel is in violation of many laws of warfare and occupation, laws that were brought about by the suffering of the Jewish victims of the Nazis. It is very disturbing to me to see that Israelis are mimicking the Nazis in many of their measures. Karen is using myths rather than facts to justify the Isreali atrocities. The Palestinians are long time residents of Palestine and were hardly brought in after the Zionists started coming. They are the ones who were there to greet the Zionists who LIED about the area being vacant. Jerusalem did have a bare majority Jewish population around the time of WWI, but the rest of the land was mainly Palestinians. They of course had no governmental power or a state, but that hardly means that they had no rights or property. After WWI, the entire area was under British control except for Syria and Lebanon. I had to laugh at Karen saying Jordan was the right place for Palestinians to have a home since the Zionists were vehemently OPPOSED to the formation of Jordan since they wanted that part as well. The Zionists have their sights on a good part of Iraq as well as Jordan since it is part of their homeland.
Just what would Karen do if a foreign country invaded her home, and decided that they wanted it? They would simply kick her out, destroy it or give it to their people with no compensation. What could she do? This is the situation the Palestinians are faced with. They have no rights that an Israeli has to respect. They are routinely murdered by settlers, police and army. So while I think individual terrorism is not the way to go, I can understand their frustration and that the Israeli terrorism of the Israeli state is viewed as being less malevolent. Just because the terrorism is done by the Army does not make it legal or right. Sharon was notorious for having murdered women and children in West Bank villages when the men had run off.because they thought wrongly that Major Sharon would not kill them. It was OK for Sharon to go into Palestinian homes and kill all the people found, but an outrage when a suicide bomber kills Israelis. Sorry but I find that double standard wrong and obnoxious.
I have condemned violence by Jewish extremists. That is not even in question.
That is in question, for you have yet to condemn one act of jewish extremism and not end up blaming the Palestinians for it.
This was my question to you, which you have NOT answered, unlike me to yours::
Do YOU consider the bombing of hospitals, of schools, of ambulances, the dropping of a missile on 4 kids playing on the beach, the lighting of a sleeping family on fire a terrorist act? Yes or no?
I have condemned violence by Jewish extremists. That is not even in question.
I support a Kurdish Homeland, but not a Palestinian one. Why? The former is an ethnic group that has been persecuted by just about everyone in the region. They have a long history of Kurdish customs, traditions, dress, etc. I also support the existence of Medina and Mecca. So I do support Muslim homelands and areas of intrinsic religious significance to Muslims; but it has to be supported by the facts. The Palestinians have not convinced me.
“Palestinians” refers to anyone who lived in what was considered the region of Palestine. It was not a country, but a region. It was populated by mostly migrant Arabs. In fact, most Palestinians are actually descended from the migrant workers who came for the jobs when Great Britain first started creating the state of Israel. Other than that, they were a mixture of Muslim nationalities, with a smattering of other faiths. Palestinians do not have their own unique customs and traditions like the Kurds do. There is already a “Palestinian Homeland” for the Muslims; it’s called Jordan. In fact, the bulk of the region formerly known as Palestine is now Jordan. Why get more? And what do Palestinians do with more land? The use them to launch missiles at Israel. Israel is already so tiny that it would fit into CA roughly 20 times. The narrower it gets, the easier it is to launch missiles across the entire country. Which terrorists actually do.
I do, however, sympathize with Palestinians being considered second class citizens. That is true for anyone in a theocracy who does not subscribe to the state religion. I cannot see a solution, however, other than ensuring their rights are protected. If Israel became secular, and lost its inherently Jewish nature, then it would inevitably become another Muslim nation, where human rights are abused just like in every other country in the region. I have remarked before that Israel is Mecca to the Jews, and must be preserved as such. The sites of religious significance in Israel to the Muslims pale in comparison to Mecca or Medina. They should be allowed free access to their religious sites.
You continue to deny that the intifada is because it considers the creation of Israel illegal, but you know this is true.
Under Israel, Palestinians have higher literacy rates than anywhere else in the Middle East. Israel has superior technology and health care, which is shares with Palestinians, as well as other Middle Eastern countries. As long as it says “made in Cyprus”, Middle Easterners buy it, regardless of whether Israel produced it. Palestinians have better housing than anywhere else in the ME, women have the right to vote, they all have equal voting rights, and they are represented in government. Are Jews represented in Iran’s government? In the PA? Do they get equal voting rights? No. Palestinians, however, are not required to serve in the army like Israeli Jews, so they lack the economic advantages given to veterans. This was decided, however, to prevent Israeli Arabs from having to take up arms against their Arab neighbors who keep trying to kill Israel. They have the same rights to buy land as anyone else. The Palestinian Authority, by contrast, issued a fatwa that an Arab selling land to a Jew was punishable by death. Israel’s economy supports many Palestinian workers. In fact, Israeli company Soda Stream employs many Palestinians, providing them with transportation, breakfast, and lunch.
In 622, Mohammad drove the Jews who would not convert out of Medina, killing almost a 1,000 men and enslaving their women and children. Throughout the past 1,000 years, there have been periodic massacres of Jews, especially when they are deemed to be too successful or politically active. (Sounds like the same sentiment behind that disturbing string of anti-semitic pictures, slogans, and cartoons you and Patriot glutted yourselves with on another thread.) These series of massacres decimated the Jewish population, kept knocking them down whenever they achieved success, and the Jews are not treated well at all in any Muslim theocracy. Definitely not a fraction as well as Israel treats Palestinians. And yet, extremists rose up in several Intifadas, which has forced Israel to tighten security to protect itself. And STILL, Palestinians go to work every day in Israel.
Israel is the only place left in the Middle East for the Jews, and it is just as sacred to them as Mecca. In fact, it is more so, because Judaism has existed for thousands upon thousands of years, whereas Islam is merely 1,000, still in its infancy as far as religions go.
Leave Israel alone. They have murdered and persecuted and driven the Jews out of everywhere else. Israel belongs to them. And we are their allies. These repeated calls for the destruction of Israel are pointless, and only drag Palestinians through more bloodshed and violence. For nothing. Because Israel will never fall with the US at her back, and she has other powerful friends, as well. They are fighting a fight they cannot win, and they are morally wrong. They DID get a Palestinian homeland. It’s called Jordan. So if they want to live in Israel and enjoy its superior rights, benefits, infrastructure, economy, and freedom to worship, then they should cease the violence and accept Israel’s right to exist.
By the way, bambam, the past tense of notice is purposeful!
Karen S says:
Most of the world acknowledges that Israel suffers terrorist attacks. You seem to be justifying them.
Most of the world agrees that israel is an apartheid state that oppresses Palestinians and massacres defenseless women and children, you are justifying them.
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Do you consider crashing a van deliberately into a civilian bus stop, hitting people, and then jumping out with a knife to stab a woman with a baby a terrorist attack? Yes or now. And this time answer the question.
yes, I do!
Do YOU consider the bombing of hospitals, of schools, of ambulances, the dropping of a missile on 4 kids playing on the beach, the lighting of a sleeping family on fire a terrorist act? Yes or no? And this time answer the question, everyone is watching and waiting.
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Unlike you, I have condemned actions that are wrong, regardless of religion or politics. I criticized the orthodox Jews that held up a plane demanding female passengers be reseated, I condemned the murder of the Palestinian boy as a revenge killing by Jewish extremists, and I condemned the beating of this boy.
<you condemn them ONLY to turn around and blame the palestinians for causing it. That's not condemnation, that is diversion!
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Your statements about me are openly dishonest, and you appear to be banking on no one actually reading what either you or I have written before.
<we are both consistent here, you justify the massacre and oppression of Palestinians, I condemn them. The dishonesty appears when instead of answering my questions, your raise fallacies. Then you make such deceiving statements as going back to 1964 when the current PA accepts israel's right to exist. I notice you have yet to address how. Do you believe there should be a PAlestinian state yes or no? If so, what is your opinion of the Likud party and netanyanhu openly saying there will be no Palestinian state?
Do you agree with the israeli leaders and rabbis that Palestinians women and children should be massacred? Do you?
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Ah, yes, the massacres:
Noticed I mentioned the hundreds of women currently held in Israeli prisons without cause, and noticed how you responded with something other than what I brought up?
Noticed how you failed, once again, to show any concern for the plight of fellow women?
Noticed how you responded with arguments that seek to show that Israel is justified in its killing of Palestinians?
Noticed how you went back to anti-semitism, which has nothing to do with this case as it is Israel doing the racism and the oppression?
Noticed how you brought up the PLO, which is no longer the representative of the Palestinians, and asking them to accept the right of Israel to exist, in order for Israel to stop massacring Palestinians!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What loopy world can raise such an argument?
Noticed how by the above, you just proved, once more, you have NO IDEA what you are talking about and are grasping at straws (men) to make an impossible argument?
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I worked with a Palestinian years ago who was just disgusted with all the violence. He said it ruined everything. The people had jobs and better education than anywhere else in the Middle East. He wanted nothing to do with it so he left to emigrate to the US, to work in peace and be left alone.
whence did the violence come from?
Did you just end up making my point? thank you
The definition of genocide requires that a concerted effort be made to wipe out an entire people.
What does Israel do? It drops leaflets to warn Palestinian civilians of impending bombings, urging them to evacuate. Most Palestinians work for Israeli companies. Most that sell products, such as produce, sell to Israelis. Israel shares technology, infrastructure, healthcare, and education with Palestinians. Palestinians have a far higher literacy rate than Muslims anywhere else in the Middle East. They have clean water, electricity, education. Israeli doctors treat Palestinians (although there are heartbreaking accounts of some Palestinian doctors refusing to treat Israeli victims of terrorist attacks.)
That literally precludes the application of the term genocide. If they were trying to wipe out Palestinians, they wouldn’t warn them when they drop bombs. They wouldn’t educate them, treat them in hospitals, or give them water or electricity. By comparison, the Nazis rounded up the Jews and put them in concentration camps, where they suffered malnutrition and disease, and then they murdered them all, sometimes making crafts out of their body parts, like lamp shades from the skin of Jews. That is what genocide looks like.
Extremism ruins everything, in every form it’s practiced.
Po:
“And yet, Israel suffers terrorist attacks every day.
uh, who made that argument? Palestinians are under occupation, their children killed daily, unable to move around their own land, their olive groves uprooted, their land and homes taken over and demolished…”
Most of the world acknowledges that Israel suffers terrorist attacks. You seem to be justifying them.
Do you consider crashing a van deliberately into a civilian bus stop, hitting people, and then jumping out with a knife to stab a woman with a baby a terrorist attack? Yes or now. And this time answer the question.
Unlike you, I have condemned actions that are wrong, regardless of religion or politics. I criticized the orthodox Jews that held up a plane demanding female passengers be reseated, I condemned the murder of the Palestinian boy as a revenge killing by Jewish extremists, and I condemned the beating of this boy.
Your statements about me are openly dishonest, and you appear to be banking on no one actually reading what either you or I have written before.
Ah, yes, the massacres:
Udaay Hashim al-Masalma, 24, was shot and killed after he attempted to stab an Israeli soldier during clashes in Beit Awwa. Avraham (Asher) Chasno, 54, a Jewish Israeli, from the Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba, was killed on Route 60 in the West Bank. Chasno was driving on Route 6o when his car was allegedly hit by rocks. He exited his vehicle near the Al-Fawar refugee camp, and was then run over by a Palestinian lorry driver. So this may have been an accident. Later in the afternoon, a Palestinian man was shot and killed after he allegedly rammed his car into two pedestrians near the Israeli Gush Etzion settlement in the West Bank. The Israel Police Foreign Press Spokesperson labelled the incident a “terrorist attack.” On Tuesday evening, two Palestinians, identified as Bashar Nidal al-Jabari, 15, and Hussam Jamil al-Jabari, 17, were shot and killed in Hebron after they allegedly attempted to stab a soldier at a military checkpoint in the Old City. Another Palestinian, Ahmad al-Sarhi, 27, was also shot and killed by Israeli forces Tuesday during clashes in Gaza.
The argument is that people who were stabbing or attempting to stab police and Jews should not have been shot in the old gun-against-knife theory. Our own police often shoot knife wielding suspects, because they get carved up by knives all too often.
But the anti-semitic movement labels any violence a massacre, regardless of who started it, who contributed to it, and who the players were.
The US would be SO DONE if we had to suffer a similar per 100,000 level of attacks.
Perhaps if the PLO would accept the existence of Israel the fighting could finally stop. How many Palestinians have died in this PLO-instigated uprising? How about when they tell people to remain behind after they’ve been warned about a bombing? How about when they urge kids to pick up a rock or a knife or a bomb and go kill some Jews? How is that helping the Palestinian people???
I worked with a Palestinian years ago who was just disgusted with all the violence. He said it ruined everything. The people had jobs and better education than anywhere else in the Middle East. He wanted nothing to do with it so he left to emigrate to the US, to work in peace and be left alone.