zed

Winning hearts and minds… Clearly, Bush will do nothing, hopefully some international pressure can be applied to allow aid in.

digg is now open Pups

Bush is beyond pressure from anyone or anything!! Except maybe if they came to his door and he was arrested for crimes against humanity…nah he could care less what happens to the “little People”.

The upside to being the most hated president in history and a lame duck is that you really don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do…Bush is irrelevant.

It seems like it would accomplish Isreals goals much faster if they just rounded ‘em all up in camps and took care of em.

Oh, wait, I guess they have effectively already built the worlds largest concentration camp.

Auschwitz, Treblinka, Gaza.

Great company those folk are keeping these days.

Denying food, fuel and medical supplies will not win the hearts and minds of the world to Israel’s point of view, then again if the press never reports it maybe it will.

drive by ot–mulkasey collapsed a little after 10pm eastern delivering a speech–no other news…

and i wanna know what brought on the rockets being fired from gaza that started this whole new phase of things, what happened?

Siun,

You post on this a lot. But frankly, what the hell do you expect the Israelis to do? They have limited options.

Suppose, for example, that there were people in Tiajana firing missiles into San Diego, and the Mexican government was either unwilling to stop it, or worse, helping out.

People in places like Sderot are unwilling to live that way, and it’s a foregone conclusion that the Israeli government — like any government anywhere — is going to be under pressure to take action to make this nonsense stop.

On the assumption that you don’t think that poor and old people in Sderot are legitimate military targets, you then need to suggest what the Israeli government can do to make this stop. The government in Gaza is not interested in dealing with the Israelis, and is not publicly committed to *any* long term accommodation with the Israelis; they do not even recognize a difference between the 1949 armstice lines and territory the Israelis took in 1967. And unlike Fatah, Hamas has not reached out to potentially sympathetic Israelis who might be willing to intermediate with the Israeli government — there really is not the kind of person-to-person contact on which a peace movement could be built. So there is little or no pressure on the Israeli government internally to reach an accommodation with Hamas, and little reason why that government would take foreign pressure seriously.

Given that Hamas is not giving the Israelis any hooks to deal with their security problems, the Israelis are under the impression that non-military options are off the table for Hamas. So they are crossing into Gaza to remove groups that are firing missiles, since Hamas is not removing them. And they preventing goods from crossing into Gaza, since it is very hard to keep arms from going without doing measures that hurt trade and the import of everything, including unfortunately essentials like food.

Past a certain point, Hamas has chosen a highly confrontational policy with the Israelis, and they are willing to subject their population to rather dire consequences to continue it. While the Israelis may dislike them, the Israelis are practical enough to choose non-military means of coping if Hamas is willing to do more than public relations and rhetoric.

You seem to see this entirely as an issue of Israel’s unwillingness to deal with Hamas. Frankly, you are simply wrong here. The Israelis can be made to change their policy. But without dealing with the problem with the missiles, you may expect the Israelis to “behave”, but you will be unrealistic to expect it.

It takes one dude to fire a few rockets.

It was a needed excuse. I doubt there is much more to it than that, although I may just be feeling extra cynical regarding my fellow man tonight.

WASHINGTON (AP) _ Attorney General Michael Mukasey has collapsed during a speech and is being taken to a hospital.

Associate Attorney General Kevin O’Connor says Mukasey began shaking during a speech to the Federalist Society and collapsed. He did not immediately regain consciousness.

Why doesn’t W just go on home right now? fucker. yea. you heard me. fucker.

and the food that was once consumed by the monster, became the monster.
and started to feed,
making new food.
I hate the Israeli government.
and i don’t hate much in this world.

It seems like Hamas has been being punished for winning elections. Has Isreal ever recognized the democratically elected government? What would they have Hamas do? I’m certainly no expert, but I seem to recall blockades of aid and such beginning immediately after Hamas came to power, in an election that WE supported and pushed to have happen ASAP.

Do I have my facts horribly wrong? I certainly do not condone attacks coming out of Gaza, but how can you NOT expect some people to react violently to years of collective punishment and more than a generation of oppression?

Somehow, I don’t think comparing the Israelis to the Nazis here does much to win the hearts and minds of Israeli voters, who care a lot that places like Sderot are getting pelted with missiles.

You’re name has “smug” in it. Hamas can negotiate with the Israelis. Folks like my relatives in Poland did not have that option with Hitler, and I find your analogy offensive. Aushwitz and Treblinka were death camps, and while the situation is very bad in Gaza, you do violence to my family with the analogy.

Dubya’s got more monkey wrenches to throw in the gears. More free market pollution, privatization handouts, ponzi schemes, and general mischief to make it all as difficult to undo as possible.

The shame of Israel.

I, for one, am sick and tired of the US supporting a state that practices genocide while calling it self defense. Alan Dershowitz would say I’m anti-Semetic but I’m not concerned what a monster calls me. That goes for the whole Likud nest of monsters.

Suppose, instead, the Israelis opened up the borders, brought in food and medicine, created jobs, built schools, gave back what was taken in land and property, and looked upon the Palestinians not as enemies but as neighbors. Suppose.

Collective punishment is–per Geneva conventions–a war crime. Period.

Hey Laura!

What in the heck? this could be serious.

Hey to you, too, dearie!

This is not Poland. The state of Israel is using the same tactics the Nazis used throughout Europe. You can rationalize this until the sun falls from the sky but it doesn’t alter the reality.

Joe Lieberman is grinning from ear to ear. He and his Neocon buddies love every bit of the cruelty.

It does sound quite serious. What will The Federalist Society do for a speaker now with such short notice?

Supppose the Israelis had decided, decades ago, to treat the Palestinians as full citizens instead of third-class citizens.

Thanks.

Mukasey collapses

Yes, you have your facts horribly wrong.

There are enough people in the Israeli government (what’s that shit about “Isreal”) that are willing to deal with Hamas. The issue isn’t whether they are legitimate — I’d agree that they are the legitimate government. The issues is what the fuck can you talk about with them?

The Israelis and Fatah can at least negotiate on a range of issues, and there is some amount of reciprocity. There are person-to-person contacts at the non-government level that mean there are Israeli peace activists in the West Bank that help to bring pressure on the Israeli government, and that will ultimately make it possible to restart diplomatic progress towards getting the Israelis the hell out of there, and getting an independent Palestine established.

None of that currently exists with Hamas. It is frankly a mystery to me if Hamas has any plans or interest in a long term settlement that might lead to Palestinian independence and disengagement from the Israelis. There is no sign that Hamas will talk publicly about this — they will talk to European journalists in code, which pleases the journalists but is completely deniable for the Hamas reps who do this — and I see little or no sign of any interest in building support for Hamas’ position with regular Israelis. It’s regular Israelis who are getting hit with the missiles, and it’s regular Israelis who can vote for a government that wants peace, or for a government led by a mofo like Netanyahu who does not. So it’s ultimately regular Israelis who Hamas needs to convince. Especially compared with the long history of Fatah of building these relationships, the contrast with Hamas is stark. They have convinced most Israelis that the topic simply does not interest them. So Israeli governs pay no price domestically for treating Gaza as currently do.

If you’re happy calling the Israelis Nazis, it ultimately says more about you than about the situation. Mostly, it says that you as informed as Sarah Palin about it — you have opinions, but it isn’t backed with anything deep.

What I would like to see are demonstrations in the US in support of those suffering in Gaza. And relief being sent. Lots of it.

that’s what i think too, but had never heard an ‘official’ response, from the israelis or from the palestinians…
so, wonderedwhy.

I hope some of Homeland Security’s cameras captured the faces of all the attendees and that somebody has a copy of the sign-in list for this conference. Know the enemy.

mbayrob,

Israel provoked the firing of the rockets by invading Gaza on Nov 4 – Hamas or someone reacted – as Israel knew they would.

See my post here for more of the details.

Israel was supposed to ease the blockade when Hamas agreed to the ceasefire in June – and Hamas honored that ceasefire. As late as Sunday, Barak was warning of the danger of escalating the situation yet Olmert threatened a major incursion and sent bulldozers into Gaza once again.

If Israel wants peace, it should stop provoking attacks and violating interenational law with collective punishment.

he got the Netanyahu being a mofo part right

That’s being kind imo.

It would help, very much. And the people of Gaza both need and deserve it.

But if school children got blown up in Jerusalem buses, and old people got killed by missiles in towns near Gaza, it would be very hard to maintain the open borders needed to have that kind of open policy.

Unfortunately, five years ago, there were school kids in Jerusalem getting blown up, and missile hitting nearby towns. And the people pulling the strings were Hamas military leaders operating out of Gaza. The dispatching of brain-washed teenagers to blow up buses has stopped. But the missiles have not.

I’d rather do your policy than not. But that kind of policy is unsustainable without a commitment from both sides to stay the hell away from non-combatants.

You are ignoring Hamas’ acceptance and honoring of the cease fire from June as well as their previous offers of peace agreements. This is convenient but does not reflect the reality.

And nothing – nothing – justifies collective punishment.

See the comments in the Palestine Monitor – Hamas and others are firing rockets, the idea that they would was never in question. So the question is why did Israel chose to breach the ceasefire and set this off? They have some ideas:

Israel’s actions are part of a new round of provocation and reaction after a mostly successful cease fire was declared in June. Why now? The Palestine Monitor provides an explanation:

The fact that Palestinians are moving forward in their internal dialogue and attempts to reunite the West Bank and Gaza Strip as we speak; the fact Israel is undergoing a political transition which has effectively frozen the Annapolis Process to the point that Sec. Rice must return once more to ‘thaw’ it out; and the fact that the attacks occurred on Tuesday night while the entire world watched the US elections and where almost no news time could be spared to discuss the events, seems almost too well timed to be purely an act of pre-emptive self defense by the IDF.

A renewal of violence emanating from the Gaza Strip will throw a spanner in the works of the internal Palestinian dialogue.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worl…..efire-gaza

i’m still remembering the destruction of the main power plant in gaza a yaer ago, and teh freezing of assets, and the blockage of payments to palestinians, money that ran programs there, their own money, held by israel…among other things.

The Guardian article is from Friday – since then more rockets have been fired though with only minor wounds to Israelis, meanwhile 17 Palestinian fighters have been killed and … 750,000 people in Gaza are without food, fuel or medicine.

Israel plans to continue the blockade Friday – and still no journalists are allowed in to report on what is really going on.

Within Israel’s own borders, those Palestinians who ended up under Israeli rule in 1949 ultimately got a deal somewhat like that. There are a lot of problems with being an Arab citizen of the State Of Israel, but if you look at opinion polling, most of those Palestinians think that living as an ethnic minority as an Israeli citizen will be better than being part of the majority in a future State Of Palestine.

With the West Bank, Gaza, and Jerusalem, it’s a different issue. The Palestinians don’t want citizenship, they want independence. If you believe, as I do believe, that an Israeli presence in the occupied territories is not compatible with both Israeli security and Palestinian human and civil rights, then the goal must be to get the Israelis out of these areas and to make the Palestinians the masters of their own state. Israeli public opinion has been fairly stable on this for a long time — when people believe they can quit these areas without risking death, they favor it. While a very vocal fraction of the public wants to hold on to that territory for ideological reasons, they are and always have been a minority. Without the security argument, the Likud has nothing to work with.

Most of the Israeli political class (and most of the voting population) gets that; even folks like Olmert and Livni — life long Likud people — get this. And with the new administration here in the US, progress with Fatah’s leadership may well help make it possible.

Hamas is another matter. It’s not just what they’re saying in public; it’s that what they are saying in private seems to jive with it. The Israelis have already left Gaza. If the border is quiet, the problems with the Israelis can be solved. Until the border is quiet, the Israeli public will continue to see this as a military public, and the Israeli government will act accordingly.

You might want to try letting them have their own country on their own land.

What you are not addressing is the persistence of the Israeli government in provoking attacks …

Siun,

It’s not collective punishment. But there are limits to what the Israelis can do to prevent paramilitaries from crossing into Israel, and keep the parts needed for missiles from crossing in, that won’t completely screw up the needed flow of goods and people to keep the very poor and very densely populated Gaza region fed and supplied with medicine.

As for observing the truce — you are not putting it right either. Hamas is now, as folks have pointed out, the elected government. If Hamas allows non-Hamas paramilitaries to take pot-shots at Israeli towns from within its borders, it makes no difference to the Israelis that strictly speaking, Hamas is observing the agreement. Both the Israelis and Hamas not only know where these people are, they know who these people are, which is how and why the Israelis can do cross border raids that are targeted at specific people. Hamas possesses, if anything, more information about this than the Israelis do, but for their own policy reasons, chooses not to do this. If Hamas refuses to act like an accountable government, the Israelis have no practical reason to treat it like one. If they do start to act as an accountable government, the Israelis actually do have a history of being “practical”.

Fatah can do this, and does. Hamas chooses not to.

Until the border is quiet

There’s the caveat. The border will never be quiet. The IDF will continue to provoke some Palestinians to do stupid things. A never ending cycle of violence. A minority driven by the ideology that Israel has a divine right to occupy the land from the Jordon River to the Mediterranean Sea controls the government, much as the neocons have controlled ours. Spokesmen for the government continue to deny that is the case, unconvincingly. The goal of the Likud party is no different than the goal of Irgun or Haganah. Unless and until that policy is no longer the driving factor of the government there will be no peace.

Please explain your definition of collective punishment. The blockage of food, medicine, fuel, cash etc to a complete area sure looks like it to me. The UN being unable to feed 750,000 people sure looks like it.

And Hamas kept the truce until Israel broke it by entering Gaza on the 4th.

There is perception, and there is reality.

There’s a need to build trust between the Hamas leadership and the Israelis. It took decades to build something like this between the Fatah leadership and the Israelis, and it is still fragile.

Right now, what you perceive as “the persistence of the Israelis provoking attacks” may not (and fact largely do not) look that way to the Israeli government. I don’t think the Israelis want or need an escalation right now anyway — there’s an election coming up in February, and trouble with Gaza is unlikely to help either Labor or Kadimah. But neither can they readily deal with attacks on Israeli towns in the Negev without giving Bibi Netanyahu the keys to the kingdom.

I don’t know how closely you care to follow the Israeli press, but in this conflict as in many others historically, misperception of the other side is almost always the problem. It’s worth looking at how each incident is reported from both sides to see how these perceptions differ.

To paraphrase Stephen Hawking, when people saying things like “Israel has a divine right to occupy the land from the Jordon River”, I get out my water pistol.

Wrong. Such people exist. But they are not the policy makers.

Outside of the Likud, a consensus has been there for years that subject to what the Israelis see as the needs for military security (i.e., threat of invasion, threats of missiles and of entrepreneurial bombing of civilians), the goal is to get the hell out of most or all of the territory taken in 1967, and let the Palestinians go their separate way. But most Israeli governments probably want more security than they realistically can ever have. And the public expects and demands that the government take seriously their physical safety.

I recommend reading the Israeli press a while if you think this is the case. Because if you do — even reading just Ha-aretz, which is available in English — you’ll see that the calculus is actually much more practical than you seem to believe, and that perceptions of security is what’s driving it.

And yeah, the borders can be quiet. And where they have been, the Israelis actually tend to respect them. Look at Jordan, and look even at Syria. The Egyptian border has been basically quiet for more than 30 years. And on the whole, Fatah in the West Bank is not having the problems that Hamas is having with the Israelis over Gaza.

Means and ends. I don’t expect you to agree with it or like it. But given the geography — Gaza is very small, extremely densely populated, and has a limited number of points to enter and leave the area, any policy that keeps people with guns and bombs from crossing into Israel, and explosives and missile parts from crossing in, is also going to cause a lot of pain to the people who live in Gaza.

Right now, the government in Gaza is more interested in maintaining its military posture than it is interested in improving the situation of its population. Certainly, there are people such as yourself who are responsive to that policy. You are frustrated that the Israelis are not responsive, as is Hamas. I’m not sure if you’re real interested in the security problems from the Israeli point of view (Hamas sees this as a feature, and not a bug as far as I can tell). But frankly, the quickest way to get the Israelis to stop doing this would be to get Hamas to keep people from lobbing missiles at the Israelis from within Gaza.

Until they do, you can continue your daily series on this, and you will continue to feel that the world is being unreasonable by letting the situation continue. But your anger is misplaced.

get the hell out of most or all of the territory taken in 1967

Hence the settlements that the government says will stay, in addition to new settlements being planned. Palestinian olives groves destroyed in their entirety either as punishment or to expand settlement. Israel didn’t build the “security roads” in the West Bank with the idea of ever turning them over to the Palestinians. IIRC Ben Gurion made the statement that he wanted “…an Arab free Israel.” Places like Sabra come to mind.

Going to bed.

Namaste

I do read the Israeli press and you may note that I quoted at length from an Israeli human rights group in the post – something I have done before as well since I am aware of and think raising the visibility of Israeli peace and justice groups has value and helps to remind us all that Israel is not a monolith.

Over the weekend it looked as if the Israeli government was in a bit of a tussle over which direction to go in and while Barak was sorta suggesting caution, Olmert announced he was planning military action to take out Hamas. Since then – and against the expectations of many who thought the Israeli government would step back from that brink, the next day bulldozers roared into Gaza and Livni and others refused to allow food in. This is a choice – not to pursue a more rational resolution but to hype it more.

And the people of Sderot and Gaza end up suffering.

But without dealing with the problem with the missiles, you may expect the Israelis to “behave”, but you will be unrealistic to expect it.

You can be militant to achieve security. And, to that end I accept you have to stop the rockets which attack Israel from a distance. It’s not as easy as just putting up a roadblock to keep people out. How’s the wall coming? The wall and some kind of DMZ between it and ‘the enemy’ has to be how big to stop all attacks including rockets?

After security is established would there be anything left of Gaza for Palestinians to live on?

Maybe Israel has to be more aggressive about setting up that buffer zone around Israel.

If they can attack Israel from any place within Gaza, then maybe Israel needs to escort them away to the West bank or somewhere else.

Q: How much of a buffer zone does Israel need to be free from attacking rockets, tank fire or anything of that sort?

If you want a country worth living in then you have to set the borders and then really fight for it. If you need a wall build a wall (I recommend that). If you have to keep out bombers, then keep out anybody from where the bombers arrive. If you need a buffer zone then decide how big and create it. It’s not really your country to live in if you can’t defend it and live within the country in peace.

The difficulty in achieving these things means, in many places around the world, it is simply better to find a political solution with your neighbors. You must leave that path open as an option and have political leaders who can and want to try that.

A sword in one hand and an olive branch in the other.

the hearts and minds of Israeli voters, who care a lot that places like Sderot are getting pelted with missiles.

Whatever Israel has been doing to stay free and live in peace doesn’t seem to be working. Time to change policies. Break free of the prisoner of war mentality.

I, for one, am sick and tired of the US supporting a state that practices genocide while calling it self defense. Alan Dershowitz would say I’m anti-Semetic but I’m not concerned what a monster calls me. That goes for the whole Likud nest of monsters.

Genocide or not it doesn’t seem to be working. What do you do with policies that don’t work? Has all the violence made Israel safer? Where does the genocide lead to great national feelings of guilt?

Seek peace. If you don’t you’ll never find peace and you’ll feel idiotic.

Worth a careful read: Jonathan Cook’s “The Real Goal of Israel’s Blockade of Gaza”.

(And, as always, thank you so very much Siun!)

The problem here is you’re not actually right. The situation is tolerable for the Israelis. It works well enough. To do something better, Hamas would need to give the Israelis a better alternative. Specifically — decide to start treating their relations with the Israelis as a problem more of diplomacy than a military problem. For ideological reasons, talking about armed struggle and striking back at the Zionists is very appealing — it’s a good piece of their rhetoric in their fight with Fatah. And as much as I hate to say it, there are a lot of people who just smile at the idea of dead Jews. But that’s probably not most Palestinians, even in Gaza.

Most Palestinians know that the Israelis are here to stay, and not going away. Most Israelis know that the Palestinians will never stop fighting until they have their own state. But there are enough people on both sides who think otherwise that has made this conflict go on for close to a century.

“Genocide” is a dumb word; it’s what Hitler did to the Jews, and what the Turks did to the Armenians. It’s a word to use when you don’t want to get people talking rationally about what’s possible and what would work for both sides. It’s a word you use if you care more about effective propaganda than effective diplomacy, policy, and agreements people can live with.

The situation in Gaza is dire. But there’s no reason to be stupid.

The border will never be quiet. The IDF will continue to provoke some Palestinians to do stupid things. A never ending cycle of violence.

That’s a good reason for a non-human wall and DMZ where interaction of Israeli and others doesn’t happen … by design.

A minority driven by the ideology that Israel has a divine right to occupy the land from the Jordon River to the Mediterranean Sea controls the government, much as the neocons have controlled ours.

This is an effect, I think, of proportional representation instead of majority rule. I could be wrong, but if it is true, then it is fixable. If, however, the majority still ‘respects’ the minority commitment to violence in the same way the non-violent Muslims ‘respect’ the minority militant commitment to jihad, then you have dysfunctional governments on both sides. Change is not only desirable there, but required for peace to ever begin.

Question is, would the majority on either side change their views about ‘respecting’ the militants for their religious views?

Civil, even heated discussion, fine.
Name-calling and insults – no. Please.

The problem here is you’re not actually right.

About what? Is Israel being ‘pelted with rockets’? America isn’t and we it works well enough for us. What is wrong with a people who say it’s working well enough to have a few citizens killed now and then with rockets? How well is it working for those people?

The situation is tolerable for the Israelis. It works well enough.

If this is a common view then this is where your evaluation of reality has gone astray.

Most Palestinians know that the Israelis are here to stay, and not going away. Most Israelis know that the Palestinians will never stop fighting until they have their own state. But there are enough people on both sides who think otherwise that has made this conflict go on for close to a century.

Working well enough huh? Seems to me like a chronic illness which only dopes would put up with for close to a century.

Maybe America should give the Palestinians more military and dare the two peoples to settle it. Choose: peace or unacceptable deaths.

Dang, got the quotes messed up.

The situation in Gaza is dire. But there’s no reason to be stupid.

That’s why I said “genocide or NOT”. Whatever the situation…

People are on the verge of starving.

It’s not an accident, and I think the comparison is apt. Horrible things being done to your or my ancestors, does not justify the present, and an analogy, apt or not, does not do violence to anyone’s family.

I have been looking unsuccessfully for a rocket recipe that includes flour.

No luck yet.

I’m not asking you to like it. I’m simply pointing out to you that for the last several years, the situation has been more sustainable for the Israelis than it is for the Palestinians, especially in Gaza. The conflict has been going on since the late 1920s at least (depending on how you define it). People cope.

You can vent about it and be irate, but past a certain point, I have to ask people: would they rather help solve the conflict than express their moral indignation. Or, as a couple of people do in this thread, say stupid things about Nazis.

The US has an opportunity to push towards real improvement. But paradoxically, when the Israelis feel safe, they are easier to manage, and they are a lot easier on the Palestinians. Folks like Siun, on the whole, are suggesting policy for the US that will not help. The Israelis use force because, frankly, it works. The main reason why “responding” to the Israelis from the Palestinian side is stupid? Because it does not work. At best, it is useful from the Palestinian perspective for public opinion. But it does not “get” anything useful for Hamas beyond that. Hamas is simply not capable of inflicting enough pain on the Israelis to accomplish that.

But the Israelis have shown they will indeed quit territory (Gaza and a number of West Bank settlements only a couple of years ago), and they can show flexibility. There’s an emerging consensus that Israel should leave the Golan Heights and settle with Syria (something Bush’s FP prevented in my opinion). Most Israelis do not want religious fanatics in Hebron or West Bank settlements forcing the IDF to protect these idiots from Palestinians who want to kill them (and with some of those idiots, who can blame the Palestinians). A lot can be accomplished.

But the solutions are slow, practical, and unsatisfactory for both sides. I don’t think there’s a better choice, though.

I hear a lot of about this from peace activists. But frankly, if more people took their advice, a lot more Israelis and Palestinians would die to satisfy the activists.

I see people defending Hamas a lot, as if the Israelis were just “reasonable” it would help. It’s wrong and it’s stupid. I’d be more upset about it if I thought it was effective or going anywhere, but it isn’t, and Siun can raise her blood pressure as much as she likes, and that will not change. It’s not getting taken very seriously on the ground, for which we should all be thankful — it is literally saving human lives in this case.

The situation needs to change in Gaza. And I think it will. But not for the reasons suggested here, and not via the path that will please many of you.

I have been looking unsuccessfully for a rocket recipe that includes flour.

No luck yet.

Deep. Anything more to share?

I think your threshold is a little low.

Folks that use terms like “Genocide” or “Treblinka” in this context probably deserve language a lot stronger than the rather mild word I used, I think.

The term on Daily Kos is “not HR worthy”.

Disagree all you like. Do it with a civil tongue towards other commenters, or not at all.

With respect — WTF?

I’ve seen a lot of these discussions. This one’s been extremely civil all around.

It is easy to forget that the Nazis holocaust engulfed many others, not just jews. That, however, does not reduce the crime against humanity that Israelis are perpetrating where Israel has no business in being neither does it bring back the dead.

Israel is not the moral/ethical agent in Gaza or West Bank. In real world measure Israel can inflict suffering and practice moral depravity on/in Gaza and West Bank evidently with no restraint/constraint. And does.

Those who insist and repeatedly choose to describe Israel as the victim and proceed to whitewash and rationalize Israeli occupation conduct in Gaza and West Bank are moral cowards and apologists of/for wicked,depraved conduct of the powerful against the helpless.

Where there should be shame and compassion there is this prideful fraud and a blindness of ignorance that is pathetic.

That WashingtonDC gives Israel repeated passes and condones Israel’s ongoing,deepening depraved occupation conduct in/of West Band and Gaza something that does not stand in face of truth,fact and plain rightness.

Israel and WashingtonDC seem indifferent or worse void of human qualities of shame,contriteness or mercy and compassion. The width/depth of these Hitlerian styled moral/ethical/political violations Israel and WashingtonDC now are fully engaged with/in Gaza in particular should bring on steep condemnation. This conduct is in the realm of depraved criminal conduct. The indictment it brings forth is harsh,stark and not amendable.

Shootthatarrow is right. mbayrob’s comments provide no valid defense of the behavior of Israel’s government. mbayrob’s rhetoric indicates he may be a politician.

The US government, by providing huge amounts of money for the Iraeli military, is effectively responsible for the resulting inequality of power which leads to violence in the region.

Granted I am younger than 90 years old, so I have only read books, but has Israel forgotten what a ghetto is? Very ironic. Is history repeating itself? A powerful and rich country such as Israel has better ways than making innocents suffer.

mbayrob: Your responses are uniformly well-reasoned. It’s to your credit that you have the energy and self-restraint to respond with rationality to some of the more unglued flames being thrown your way…

I do hope for a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian divide. But it’s important to note, regarding the main problem identified in this thread, that the blockade is not being performed by Israel alone. Egypt’s seal on its Gaza border is also air-tight. Any reason why people here haven’t pined about Egypt preventing supplies? To their own brethren, no less!

It’s shocking that this needs to be mentioned, but it’s also important to emphasize the essential difference between Israel’s prosecution of the war vs. Nazi approach to Holocaust: The Israelis would accept a political solution The Nazis killed Jews, Poles, Roma, Russians, etc. SIMPLY FOR BEING THE PEOPLE THAT THEY WERE. Clearly, Israel and the Palestinians / Arabs will both negotiate for maximum benefit. But that doesn’t change the fact that any comparison between Israel and the Nazis is an affront to all Nazi victims, AND TO ALLIED WAR HEROES.

If the Palestinians and Arabs choose to act contrary to their own best interest, so be it! As to what could be done, how about an easy start: Hamas ending its official, institutionalized teaching of hatred to children (I’ll provide references if anybody is foolish enough to dispute).

Sheldon
Toronto

@ Sheldon Toronto

Your apologue for monstrous illegal conduct of Israel in West Bank and Gaza displays a moral indifference and ethical blindness that should cause you shame.

That it does not and you choose to parade it at this site is a true pity.

Israel cannot lay claim to victimhood in West Bank or Gaza.

To suggest or claim Israel is the victim in West Bank or Gaza is a lie.

Who tells lies? Liars do. What is a lie? What is not so. Not the truth.

Israel is telling lies over and about West Bank and Gaza. Israel is a Liar.