If there is one person who encapsulates the smarmy,
self-satisfied, know-nothing belief system
of the Village, it’s Ignatius.

Ignoramus.

-G

David “Sir, Yes Sir!” Ignatius is the kind of “journalist” who, when talking about his government/military sources, occasionally slips up and says “we” instead of “they.” like the other right-wing sock puppets at the Post, he views himself more a government official than a journalist. and he’s not going to tolerate any damn dirty Turk raining on Israel’s parade.

It’s rough out there for a journalist-courtier.

It’s wake-up time for the Washington Press establishment. They bought into the ‘we are an empire now’ bullshit, and it is going to take a while for them to realize that we are now owned by the Chinese and the Arabs, who have a first-mortgage on just about every piece of property in the United States.

We will see more of this in the coming months.

I suppose before venturing into the lions den, one should first ascertain if the lions have had their dinner.

Just for the record, Siun, the Bible doesn’t say “thou shalt not kill”. The Bible says “Don’t murder” (”Lo tirtsach”)

But of course, we’re concerned about the humanitarian suffering. We’re concerned any time innocent civilians, Palestinian or Israeli, are attacked. That’s why we support Israel’s right to self-defense. The rocket barrages, which are getting closer and closer to populated areas, cannot go unanswered. And it’s, you know, regrettable that the Hamas leadership apparently believes that it is in their interest to provoke the right of self-defense instead of building a better future for the people of Gaza.

not change.

Meanwhile Israel is vowing to support its feild officers from war criminal charges and to restrict information from investigators. How do you say Obstruction of Justice in WaPo speak?

Wait a minute…even if the US or Israel recognized the cognizance of the ICC or the Hague which the US does not and I don’t believe Israel does either in these kind of cases (Israel does War Crimes trials under its own national sovereignty) the IS NO recognized Obstruction of Charge under international law that can be brought. Let’s not conflate law, that’s misleading.

“How do you say Obstruction of Justice in WaPo speak?”

You don’t. You instead talk about bipartisanship and promises of change and a need to move forward as reasons why we can’t even think about potential crimes. Unless Obama has an affair or something serious like that, then you need a special prosecutor.

Here’s a good rundown of Israel’s war crimes in Gaza.

What is a hack “journalist” doing moderating a panel of world leaders?

Ignatius called my house once,I spoke with him for maybe two minutes, and both the phone and my ear smelled like (pompous) ass.

btw, that quote is from tuesday and by secretary of state clinton.

Seeing the Israeli bag of scum sit there and lie with every breath he took, removes further any consideration that Zionism is in any way able to sit at the table of civilization as an honourable member of the human race.

All those who died in the camps of WWII have died in vain, their suffering made meaningless by the suffering inflicted by their children upon the innocent peoples of Palestine who have only made the cry for justice.

[Comment edited by mod. Please do not suggest harm or violence be carried out on anyone. Thank you.]

howdy SD, just got your reminder on previous thread. thanks!

Change we can believe in without any supporting evidence. In other words, more faith-based initiatives.

Following recent events in the Middle-East, I think that it is appropriate to remind readers that at about the same time last year, the Turkish military, under instructions from prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has invaded Northern Iraq.
Turkey used jet planes, armored vehicles, and incredible military power to overwhelm Kurdish villages across the border. Quoted in the New York Times on February 23, 2008, Erdogan did not refer to any special provocation that caused the Turkish invasion, but admitted fully that this was merely a “limited operation to weaken Kurdish militants.”
Local Turkish television also screened without hesitation and at great length (and, I should add: with some pride) the assaults of military units on helpless villages during which civilians, women and children were killed.
No one had bothered to count the innocents who were killed and wounded during this “limited” operation, and the thought of either domestic or global condemnation had not crossed anyone’s mind.
I don’t believe that I have to write at great length to explain why I am recalling these events. Suffice it to say that even in world politics there are certain limits to hypocrisy. In his references in Israel’s actions in Gaza, Mr. Erdogan has transgressed these limits.

ersatz edit: , may their seen kind vanish …

OMG. Erdogan is a hypocrit.

Add him to the list.

If Turkey leaves Europe and Goes Muslim Israel loses its only kind of real Muslim friend.
And Europe can remember just how close the Turks are to Vienna.
All Turkey needs is an excuse like Serbs killing Muslims again while Europe waits for America to do something.
Sure Germany, France and England can beat them the rest of Europe I’m not so sure and Turkey’s population is growing fast.

Digg is open.

I have about as much use for Turkey in this world as Israel; neither country contribute much to making the earth a better place to live, but I do like Erdogan calling Peres/Olmert on their crimes. We need more of this and less comity.

Let’s work on the violence first, then the hypocrisy.
If you keep listening to the propaganda that tries to justify the barbarous murderousness of Israel or Hamas it’s only prolonging the violence.

good point. and i could write something similar about our war in afghanistan.

but that doesn’t mean the truth is not being told about israeli atrocities, only that we have to work at getting to all of it including our own culpability.

I hope you had the place fumigated.

707!

shorter, laugh out loud funny and way better in all respects than my response.

All those who died in the camps of WWII have died in vain, their suffering made meaningless by the suffering inflicted by their children upon the innocent peoples of Palestine who have only made the cry for justice.

This statement is ludicrous. “All those people who died in the camps of WWII” had died for some purpose until now? That the Israelis and their advocates in the U.S. are constantly invoking the Holocaust as a license to expropriate Palestinian land and terrorize its inhabitants is understandable, but you shouldn’t fall into the trap of strengthening that false and cynical connection in people’s minds with this kind of provocative claptrap. Judge events on their own merits and the Israelis come off looking quite barbarically sadistic enough without flourishes that misuse the Holocaust.

…more faith-based initiatives

silly me, and i thought i’d left all that behind when i pitched the church of my childhood (disclaimer: no offense meant to believers, just not for me and i’d rather avoid it in politics)

I had to have the phone and my entire head replaced. The new phone works gooder.

i don’t know where to begin… i disagree with just about everything in your comment especially wishing ill on anyone.

…the Bible doesn’t say “thou shalt not kill”. The Bible says “Don’t murder” (”Lo tirtsach”)

Of course, a commandment against murder is made meaningless when those with power have forever claimed that when they kill the powerless it’s never murder, but when the powerless kill them it’s always murder. That’s a circumstance that pretty much begged for someone to eventually come along and say, You know, actually, if you even so much as hate someone, it’s murder.

Erdogan spoke eloquently and truthfully. Perez sat there and lied. The lie of the century came out of his mouth; Israel wants peace. Erdogan spoke of the fact the he was negotiating between Syria and Israel. There was a disagreement about the wording of an agreement,so it was decided to take a few days off. Three days later, Israel started bombing Gaza.

Israel has had a blockade of Gaza for over two years. Israel broke the ceasefire. No rockets fell on Israel during the ceasefire. No amount of tough talk from Perez changes the facts.

Three men sat there and spoke of peace and the need to aid the citizens of Gaza; one did not.

How do you get through the hubris of arrogant self-righteous boneheads, bent on theft, shielded by terror, serving the cause of lie, that their cause is seen for what it is, and has no further value in the marketplace of ideas. Whatever ill there is, is of their own making, sometimes called consequences.

You are not required to participate, remain silent if that is your sensibility.

my objection was not because of my sensibilities – it was out of my sense of justice, however flawed that may be.

That’s a rather limited view of the ongoing fighting along that border … you might want to include a more complete picture of the problems raised by the PKK?

The catalog of sins you list doesn’t match the drastic remedy that you suggest or the foulness of your statement.

Ignatius is just another neocon courtier journalist.

Davos itself is a joke. It’s just a place where the rich and powerful go to intellectually masturbate themselves.

As for Peres, he is just a washed up old hack. He has made a career out of being a loser. He only became President after the previous one resigned over rape charges. He used to be a major figure, sometime leader, sometime prime minister from the Labor party. And he really drove it into the ground. Labor like Peres has moved increasingly to the right. Labor’s coalitions with Kadima, a party put together by the warmongering hawk Ariel Sharon, demonstrate just how far he and Labor have gone. Most of the differences between Peres and Likud are in their rhetoric. As the Gaza invasion showed, in their actions they are not very different.

A question; which justice is that, the forced displacement at the barrel of a gun in 1948; the life spanning generations in refugee camps throughout the region; the willful slaughter of Sabra and Chatila; the dispossession of the population of the West Bank into walled ghettos; the imprisonment of one million five hundred thousands in Gaza (guilty only of being Palestinians); the waging of all out assault upon that prison where none can escape; the use of white phosphorous in built-up civilian areas; denial of food; denial of clean water; denial of medicine; denial of the basic human needs; that people feed themselves on grass; just which justice do you refer? Which justice do you prefer?

my idea of justice does not include wishing early death on the children of those who are guilty of the atrocities you cite.

I know of no other wish that will cause these beasts to either stay their barbarity, or modify it. That is the sad state of affairs. That is also a meaningful consequence for those who are not deterred at the taking of another’s life for gain or to hide their own crimes.

I highly recommend watching the full session; link available via Laura Doty’s post in Oxdown. Shimon Peres is deeply sickening, even though is it true that Erdowan has blood on his hands wrt to the Kurds, as does (now) Obama through his airstrikes in Pakistan.

As a son of Holocaust survivors, I am ashamed at the American Jewish community and those progressives who abandon all credibility and proportion when it comes to rationalizing Israel’s outrages. (Not tremendously impressed by J Street so far…sorry.)

One does not transcend the Holocaust by emulating it.

We will be differing it seems.

and so the injustice continues to be spread to the innocent? that is no kind of justice i subscribe to.

yes. most profoundly.

My remarks are not intended for those who find horror at what is transpiring. I regret any offense taken.

thank you.

Collective punishment is a war crime; one does not not end it by inflicting it. My operating assumption, if you continue in this vein, is that you are a troll.

Our posts crossed in the ether. Thank you for your last comment.

The objects of my displeasure are the ones who instigate, effect, and carry out these atrocities as well as their defenders and propagandists. It goes against the grain of a lifetime to give voice to such judgments, but remaining silent is no longer an option. I hope I can get people to think about just what they believe, why would someone take such a position. Unfortunately, facts have become immaterial to discussions, victims of propaganda for decades know no difference. If the guilty are camouflaged by collective punishment prohibitions, justice will never be served. Hope this sheds some light on my point. All the best…….

I am not sure where you live but what do you think England would do if 6000 rockets were fired on London by a neighboring country, or what would the United States do if 6000 rockets were fired on New York, or what would any country do that had the capability to respond in such a situation. I think they would do exactly what Israel has done – probably a lot more and a lot sooner. Both England and the US and other countries have numerous times gone half way around the world to fight wars in situations where their own territory was not specifically endangered or attacked. Israel is fighting on its own border to protect its own citizens from non stop Hamas rockets and suicide bomb attacks. You must remember that Hamas is an islamic fundamentalist terror organization that does not recognize Israel’s right to exist, does not want a 2 state solution and will not renounce terror. It is the same organization that celebrated the 9-11 attacks, glorifies suicide bombers and has little respect for human and womens rights. Hamas is the real atrocity.

If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I would do everything to stop that, and would expect Israel to do the same thing”
– Barack Obama, in July 2008, while visiting Israel

* British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, on December 27: “I call on Gazan militants to cease all rocket attacks on Israel immediately. These attacks are designed to cause random destruction and to undermine the prospects of peace talks led by President Abbas. I understand the Israeli government’s sense of obligation to its population”

The real rub of the Davos incident was that Peres crossed the line from support to falsehood. He flatly stated there was no blockade of Gaza, which is such a distortion of the truth that it makes it impossible to understand Hamas’ actions even if you deplore them. For Ignatius to want the other three leaders on stage to simply let Peres false, not biased, not selective: inarguably false, description of what led up to Operation Cast Lead stand was very much in a way to ask them to tacitly endorse Peres’ version of history. That’s really an abuse of the forum and it’s as much a shame to the others they would meekly take part in a pro-Israeli propaganda stunt, which is what the effect of giving Peres 25 minutes minutes, the final word and leeway to inject outright propaganda into the event without rebuttal would’ve been. Erdogan was being asked to take part in his own public evisceration and Unlike the other two onstage he has to face direct election. He reacted in the way his populace expects of him and is clearly benefiting. What the hell Davos is doing letting itself get used as a forum for Israeli spin I don’t understand. If it weren’t for Erdogan breaking from the script all the news would’ve been about Israel threatening Iran, absolving itself of any responsibility for Gaza, and the world silently nodding along. Occasionally applauding. What’s in that for the global business class? Or for the Chinese or the Pakistanis, much less the Arabs?

As the Israeli army has announced, there are a lot of hacks for Israel’s war on Gaza who have marching orders and paychecks to go on the blogosphere and defend the indefensible. It’s best to ignore them rather than waste your time engaging them. They’re “here” for propaganda reasons and to derail discussion.

As are you in singling out and attacking Israel to the exclusion of all others a hack for the Hamas terror organization

Siun, had you seen this? BBC reports

Israel ‘hides settlements data’

The Israeli defence ministry has concealed information about the extent of illegal settlement-building in the West Bank, a leading newspaper reports.
A classified database of construction compiled by the ministry was leaked to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
It suggests most construction took place without the right permits, and more than 30 settlements were built in part on land owned by Palestinians.
Settlements are a contentious issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7861076.stm

No criticizing Israel = criticizing Israel. Supporting Hamas = supporing Hamas. Only propagandists conflate the two things as one and the same.

There is an astonishing “electric fence” to compassion and reality for the savagery of the Israeli massacre of Gaza in the United States. The US Congress and the media are amorally twisting and spinning the situation with not even a molecule of acknowledgement of serous compassion and realism.

They are not denying the voices of countries that could have a conflict of interest interpreting this slaughter, but the likes of Amnesty Intl, UN, IRRC, Human Rights Watch. These are the truth reporters and to ignore the sobering pronouncements of humanitarian crimes reveals a horrifying lack of conscience and soul in the “minimizers” of Israel’s murderous behavior. The Geneva Conventions articles on Genocide are to be considered with this massacre.

And yet the US leadership finally venturing into truth re Iraq and Bushco mistakes and corruption, now perpetrate crazymaking willfull denial of America’s wrongheadedness and accomplice status in this horror.

Israel broke the truce that was being honored in terms of termination of Hamas rockets by killing 7 members of Hamas on Nov. 4, 2008 when the world was distracted by the US election. How strategic was that? The starvation blockade of Israel to Gaza had been going on for two years already. That sounds like slow, mass torture. The rockets from Hamas to Israel were renewed, having been provoked, giving Israel an excuse and a provocation in the eyes of its subjective/intimidated/codependent supporters which happened to control information and are entrusted with the welfare of their countries, the governments and corporate media.

The US Congress raced to formally stand by Israel’s behavior (not to mention the premptive self-defense massive weaponry we put at its disposal — enormously cruel). How incredible. But revealing to maybe some, like me, how I have been obtuse to the US/Israel toxic and dangerous codependency on the world stage for too long. Growing up with enormous sympathy for the horrors of the Holocaust. Forever seeing Israel as underdog with US nobly standing by it was the kool-aid I was willingly drinking, too.

Now I see two MONSTER bully nations, willing to destroy human lives than work out reasonable solutions, since they have enormous power but not heart to do so. Seeing military might in the quest for power not world harmony as the tool to intimidate, their overblown senses of entitlement. Their regard for the lives of their own peoples regarded as valuable, and the lives of non-nationals, grotesquely expendable!

Obama and the US Congress and the US media and so many of the US citizenry are unwilling to embrace evidence of a near-genocide. I had hoped with hitting the bottom as a country in terms of Bush, the country was capable of humane awareness again. But the vast majority and its leaders and its media, horrifyingly … not so much.

‘I have about as much use for Turkey in this world as Israel; neither country contribute much to making the earth a better place to live,’

Well we made the ‘Bush shoe’ in Istanbul

SHAME ON YOU IGNATIUS!!!!

IGNATIUS DEFINETELY WASNT THE RIGHT PERSON FOR THAT!!!!

WE ARE LATE FOR DINNER, MÄÄÄ MÄÄÄ MÄÄÄÄÄH
ignatius! erdogan didnt talk about a movie!!!!!!!!!!!
HE TALKED ABOUT THE BABYKILLER IN ISRAEL!!!!
WE ARE LATE FOR DINNER…..
WHAT A….

AND ABOUT PERES THERE IS NOTHING TO SAY
IM HAPPY THAT EVERYONE KNOWS THAT HE LIES

peres IS A PACK OF LIES

you want peace peres?

than give 50% of israel to palestine
than you and your people and we all will have peace
and we can help to build palestine
which you have destroyed

OPEN YOUR EYES IGNATIUS

THE HOLE WORLD demonstrate against israel

SHAME ON YOU!!!

PKK not kurdish

But you only attack Israel to the exclusion of all others and you say nothing about the actions of the terror group Hamas. When you remain silent on the terror of Hamas, the strategy of hamas to use the civilian population of Gaza as human shields, to hide weapons in mosques and civilian homes, to smuggle bombs and rockets instead of trying to make peace, to turn gaza into a launching pad of missiles and mortars fired intentionally at Israeli civilian targets. Like it or not your silence on all that, and your singling out of Israel for all the blame makes you a hack for Hamas

The ferocity and savagery of the Israeli attack on Gaza is impossible to justify.Stop trying. You should understand that the actions of the Israeli government would have sickened an earlier generation of Israelis.
This attack was deliberate and meant to show Hamas and its’ supporters that Israel would be every bit as criminal and vile as Hamas has been.

Among many inaccuracies, you are so whipped up and blinded by your all consuming hatred of Israel that you completely ignore the fact that not just Israel, but also Egypt shares a border with Gaza. The Egyptians, Arab brothers of the Palestinians, have also largely kept their border closed since Hamas kicked out the Palestinian Authority – which operated these passages – from Gaza during a violent coup in June 2007. Even so, Israel has allowed thousands of trucks of humanitarian aid through their side of the border including during this latest conflict. I don’t know what the Egyptians have done on their side but once again, Hamas actions have harmed the people of Gaza. It is because of Hamas that both Egypt and Israel have had to curtail border activities. When are you going to stop blaming everything on Israel and start taking a more fair minded approach – looking at both sides of the problem. So please include Egypt in your innacurate but so called ’starvation’ blockade of Gaza.

Maybe if you guys had made them more accurate, it would have counted.

You probably missed the picture, it was early on in the assault on Gaza, of the head of a small girl, probably about four or five years of age, maybe six, it is so hard to tell age with youngsters anymore, hers was an age where coming out of toddler stage, the beginnings of the individual, the personality are starting to appear. In the picture the flesh gone blue, a dusting of sand and small bits of concrete scattered over the face and in the hair, her eyes were closed as was her mouth, drawn into a line, giving a countenance to the face, a subtle expression, an expression of displeasure, no more that of annoyance, just as children get at that age, when they cannot have something they want but realize nothing they can do will change that and they will have to do without. One wonders what may have put that look on this child’s face, here in the picture, sitting amongst the rubble of once her home, only the head is showing and a bit of neck, my eyes refused to record whether this piece of a child was sticking up through the rubble or was sitting on top of a slab, decapitated from the torso, my eyes refused to record that fact to report to you, and I will inquire no further into the matter, however it does strike me that the cause of that child’s annoyance might be, and it would be a substantial cause, that she found herself dead, that would annoy even a saint, if you were only four or five.

If you can explain to me sir, just what sin this child committed to be found as she was in this picture, maybe we can come to some other understanding, but without that understanding, that picture is iconic, seared completely into my memory, should you have missed it, your beautiful mind will never comprehend, and you will commit to words such as you have, never-the-less, that picture of a dead child is become the foundation upon which my reaction to the wholesale wanton slaughter of caged peoples is based, you would never understand, lacking empathy for another human being, it is also the well-spring of absolute contempt for all those who brought this picture to pass, and their denigration of others can only be reflected by, as you state, the foulness of my statement.

Try to go in peace.

I’ve seen the pictures. This one isn’t the first. Thousands of Palestinian children have been blown apart. Hundreds of Israeli children blown apart by suicide bombs filled with nails, bolts and screws.
I can well understand the anger that causes you to say what you’ve said.
I’ve seen, not in pictures, children ripped apart.
The anger has to be used for something other than fueling more of this shit.
May all of us go in peace.

It is not impossible to justify at all. In fact it is what the US or Britian or any country would do if 6000 rockets were fired at their civilian populations. As Barack Obama said when he was in Israel this past summer “If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I would do everything to stop that, and would expect Israel to do the same thing.”
You should understand that you should stop your blind hatred of Israel and look at what the Islamic terror group Hamas has done to Gaza. Not only have they killed and imprisoned many of their fellow fatah members in an illegal coup but they have been shunned by every western country in the world. They have fired 6000 rockets at Israel and Israel was fully justified in its attack of Gaza. You are completely wrong – few if any wars have had more support from the people of Israel than this one. 750,000 Israelis were having to hide in bomb shelters and under vehicles every day for years as Hamas fired rockets into Israel. Finally Israel said enough is enough as any country would do. The only thing you are right about is that the attack was deliberate. It was meant to defend the people of Israel from rocket attacks and show Hamas that there are consequences for firing 6000 rockets into the cities and towns of Israel. Hamas has been warned that if they start firing rockets again, they will be attacked again. It’s up to them but given that they glorify death and not life, celebrated 9-11 as a glorious event, promote suicide bombing, and care little if at all for the consequences of their actions on the people of Gaza, I’m quite sure they will start firing again. Thanks but no thanks – I wont stop defending Israel’s right to defend its population from Hamas terror and rockets.

Maybe if you read what I say to you, you wouldn’t mischaracterize my position.
You’ve no right to say that I have a “blind hatred of Israel” and if you reply to me I want you to acknowlege that. I probably would have family there if they’d made it out of Europe. I understand every damned thing that Hamas has done. I remember the busses.
Whether the US, Britain or my mother would have done what Israel just did will NEVER make it right.
Israel must be defended from Hamas. But not by becoming Hamas.

You are being attacked lustily by the edges of this argument because you decline to swing to either extreme.
Good for you.

Thanks.
I just can’t understand how people can fail to see that when both sides shoot and no longer give a shit who their guns are killing, that it’s got to be stopped.

Your writings indicate that type of hatred because they single out Israel to the exclusion of all others, but if you say different then I believe you. I guess we just disagree about Israel in general. I do agree it all should stop and everyone should live in peace but what do you suggest Israel should do to stop an organization that doesn’t recognize its right to exist, that is against a 2 state solution, that refuses to renounce terror, that has in its charter that is ok to kill a jew (not just as Israeli) but a Jew anywhere in the world as part of its ‘resistance’, that is virtually at war with its more moderate Fatah brothers, that seized this territory in a bloody coup, that has been firing rockets and sending suicide bombers into Israel since Israel unilaterally left every inch of Gaza, and that hides and fires from behind its own civilians. What would you do when almost a million citizens are demanding these rockets be stopped or responded to? Do you just tell your citizens to sit back and take it day after day, year after year ? Israel is full of political debate and dissent but in this case the left, the right, the centre, they all backed this attempt to hit hamas hard and to try and stop or reduce these rocket attacks. What would you do ?
It just seems odd that no one has written a word here about the 6000 rockets Hamas fired into Israel terrorizing its population prior to this Gaza war, or about any of the other terror attacks it carries out specifically against civilian targets. This whole site is a verbal assault on Israel to the exclusion of all others so I am standing up for the other side because no one else here will.

Point to one thing in my writings that “singles out Israel to the exclusion of all others”.
You and I both know that the number of Israelis being killed in the last few years is very small. This attack wasn’t about anything happening now. This was all anger from the past and fear for the future.
If you want to defend Israel, you have to find a different way. The lives of Israeli children are no more precious than the lives of Palestinian children.
If you want to defend Israel,do what the Israelis know to be true. You know the saying about “pick two”? Stop stealing the West Bank while you’re crying about Hamas.
If you want to stand up for something, stand up straight.

I see from the speed of your reply that words come easily to you, even glibly taken from your remarks here. When it is reported that Hamas did not start the current round of reprisals, why do you insist to the contrary? Are you informed by facts not available to the rest of the world, or are you informed by propaganda put out by one party as justification of their crimes.

Hamas is an entity that owes its existence to Israeli contrivance and deceit vis a vis the Palestinian Authority, Arafat, and the militant but secular Fatah. The Palestinian people spoke loudly when they democratically elected Hamas to replace Fatah and the Palestinian Authority’s Abbas, successor to Arafat. The day the election results were known, Israel began economic warfare upon the elections victors. Why you could ask? Because Hamas was not the Israeli puppet that Israeli policy had made of Arafat and his successor Abbas. Without absolute domination and control over the Palestinian Authority, the Israeli policy to over run the West Bank and fragment what was left of the Palestinian population into unsustainable ghettos in which to dominate and control that population into submission to Israel’s theft of Palestinian lands, a process that began prior to the creation of the Israeli state. Hamas survived the economic warfare put in place by Israel and abetted in the crime by the U.S. So ably did Hamas conduct their administration with aid to the population, the only the Palestinian Authority could retain any authority at all was to stage a coup against the democratically supported Hamas administration. It is propaganda and outright lie that Hamas violently overthrew Fatah. On this your comments depart from reality. Hamas was not involved in rocket attacks on Israel during the period of truce 19 June 08 but instead was targeted by IDF to try to exterminate by extra-judicial murder members of their leadership. Only after did Hamas quit restraining those firing rockets into Israel. During the ceasefire, there has been no evidence, admitted to also by Israeli sources, that Hamas was involved in the firing of rockets. Hamas has from the beginning offered to negotiate with Israel WITHOUT PRECONDITION. Israeli demands for negotiation have been nothing other than precondition. Any other story is a lie and propaganda. Your blaming Hamas in your comments perpetuates those lies and propaganda. It does not reflect well on your otherwise excellent presentation. It will be extremely difficult for you to overcome nearly 75 years of propaganda, that is a mountain of sorting to be done, or you could rely on reliable news sources for your information and to base your opinion, or you can continue down the facile path of accepting untested the propaganda that is fed you. That is your choice, do make a better one than the present.

I am no longer going to try to educate you, and will not waste any further time with your disinformation, distortion, and half-truths and shall not reply to your comments in the future, life is too short, and ignorance too widespread. Put your critical thinking skills to better use, to honest ends.

Well, I’m glad that you don’t want to talk to me anymore because nothing in your last reply has anything to do with anything that I’ve said.
Maybe later you can read back through the remarks and see that I don’t have any love for what the Israelis are doing.
Peace isn’t going to be advanced by cheerleaders for either bunch of the morally bankrupt fools.

You constantly tirade against Israel but not against Hamas or other terror organizations attacking Israel nor do you call out Iran for supporting Hamas and Hizbullah – both of which stir up so much trouble in the region as Iranian proxies. I doubt you wrote a single comment in the last 3 years condeming Hamas and Hizbullah rocket attacks.
Additionally, you didnt give an answer as to what you would do to stop the rocket fire from Hamas controlled Gaza.
The Gaza operation was about fear – the fear 750,000 Israeli civilains facing 6000 rockets that have been fired on Israel day after day, year after year with very little response from Israel until now. The restraint Israel showed was truly amazing. I dont think any other country would have shown that kind of restraint but eventually enough is enough.
The West Bank has nothing to do with it. Rockets are not coming from the West Bank, they are coming from renegade Gaza which is not on friendly terms with the Fatah controlled West Bank. Do you recall the violent and bloody Hamas Gaza coup where they brutally killed many Fatah supporters ? Hamas is not wanted in the West Bank. The last thing Fatah wants is a strong Hamas. Hamas simply wants to disrupt the peace process because they have no interest in a 2 state solution – they want the elimination of Israel. I don’t know why you fail to understand that simple and widely known fact.
Third I never said one sides childrens were more precious than than the others. Every innocent life is precious no matter what side.
Proportionality is not measured by the number of civilians actually killed, but rather by the risk posed. This is illustrated by what happened recently when a Hamas rocket hit a kindergarten in Beer Sheva, though no students were there at the time. Under international law, Israel is not required to allow Hamas to play Russian roulette with its children’s lives.
That is like saying that because about 7 million German civilians and soldiers were killed in WW2 and only 400,000 Americans were killed, that the Germans were right and the Americans were wrong. War is not fought ‘even steven’

While Israel installs warning systems and builds shelters, Hamas refuses to do so, precisely because it wants to maximize the number of Palestinian civilians inadvertently killed by Israel’s military actions. Hamas knows from experience that even a small number of innocent Palestinian civilians killed inadvertently will result in bitter condemnation of Israel by many in the international community.
Israel understands this as well. It goes to enormous lengths to reduce the number of civilian casualties — even to the point of foregoing legitimate targets that are too close to civilians.

Until the world recognizes that Hamas is committing three war crimes — targeting Israeli civilians, using Palestinian civilians as human shields, and seeking the destruction of a member state of the United Nations — and that Israel is acting in self-defense and out of military necessity, the conflict will continue.

I also didn’t say anything about Gabon or Nepal! And rhank you for not pointing that out.
No matter how many crimes others commit, you’re still trying to say things that aren’t true.
This time, again, this time Israel didn’t try to reduce the number of civilian casualties. They quite deliberately killed Rayyan’s family in order to kill him.
I want you to stop the bullshit about me defending Hamas. Is that clear to you? Hamas is a bunch of vile criminals. Is that clear?
What Israel did in Gaza was really hard to distinguish from something Hamas would do. That was the intent. The Israelis chose to get way down and way dirty.
That’s not standing up.

PS It’s 2:22 where I am and I can’t stand up any longer.
Peace.

Nobody counted the civilian causalities during Turkey’s operation in Northern Iraq?

That is interesting. Given that Turkey has many traditional enemies, I would expect there would be many waiting to count every single civilian who had been harmed.

Maybe there was nothing to count???

“…even though is it true that Erdowan has blood on his hands wrt to the Kurds…”

Actually, it is not true. Personally, Erdogan does not have blood on his hands w.r.t. to the Kurds.

Turkey’s Kurdish policy has not always been very peaceful or democratic over the years, however, since Erdogan came into power in 2002, his government has shown some initiative to solve the problem in civilian terms and they made some progress in recognizing Kurds’ rights within Turkey.

That being said, it is difficult to consider Erdogan a true democrat and his party’s conservatism is still rooted in classical Sunni-Turkish orthodoxy. Furthermore, he has had fragile relations with the Turkish army over secularism issues. Therefore, he has always been willing to give up any democratic initiative with respect to Kurds to protect his status. He has not been very open to the Kurdish party’s (DTP) political involvement either. This should be understandable though, since the public opinion in Turkey with respect to Kurds is quite nationalistic, and Erdogan’s party can still be considered the only one with a moderate attitude toward Kurds among all mainstream parties (excluding the Kurdish DTP, which has strong ties with PKK).

Your pro-Israel propaganda using extreme twist of the truth about what Turks do in Northern Iraq is unbelievable, I can’t believe that you were hoping to get away with it. Comparing Israeli action in Gaza with Turkish action in Northern Iraq would be worse than comparing apples to oranges, yet you are trying to show Turks even more barbaric with complete lies?

Turkey shows extreme precaution during its attack to the terrorists, there are no civilian casualties and that is why there is no international condemnation. PKK terrorists live in the mountains in training camps far from civilization, there are hardly any civilians closeby to begin with. Turkey does not attack Kurdish cities or villages and kill civilians saying that there were terrorists among them. Turkey has never bombed any civilian building, no schools, no hospitals, no UN buildings; there were no civilians killed unless there were some “innocent people” at the terrorist training camps. Turkey never invaded Northern Iraq, the operation you mentioned lasted a couple of weeks and it was in response to sudden attacks to Turkish border posts and death of tens of Turkish soldiers. Turkey attacks a terrorist organization recognized by the international community including the European Union and the United States. Kurdish terrorists killed over 30K people in southeastern Turkey in three decades, and Turkish military has been trying to eliminate them as much as possible without harming any third parties.

It is true that Gazans send rockets to Israeli soil, but everybody must realize that these are not hitting Jerusalem, they are hitting a small Israeli village by the border which causes limited damage only and maybe a few casualties per year. Making an excuse out of this and wrecking entire Gaza, and killing and injuring a ton of civilians while eliminating some terrorists is unacceptable.

You still could not answer the question.
We agree to disagree about Israel’s actions in Gaza. There is no equivalency between Hamas and Israel and it is not just me saying it. The entire western world will not talk to Hamas because they are a terrorist organization

A few of these seem to have popped up here.
**************

Some 1,000 new immigrants and foreign-language-speaking Jews volunteer to army of bloggers set up by Absorption Ministry and Foreign Ministry with the stated objective of flooding blogs with pro-Israel opinions.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articl…..79,00.html

I didn’t say the 2 events were exactly the same but there are parallels and Erdogan was sounding like Mother Theresa which he is not. Turkey has conducted two dozen large-scale incursions into Iraq since the late 1980s. The 1997 operation, involved tens of thousands of troops and government-paid village guards. Results were inconclusive. Turkey did what it did given the situation it was facing which is not exactly the same as the situation Israel faces. They have faced no where near the intensity of attacks Israel has faced and Turkey is not surrounded by enemies wanting its destruction.
It is true the Hamas cannot hit Jerusalem or Tel Aviv yet but they are working on it and soon will be able to do so. Better to stop them now than later. Unfortunately Hamas operates, not at terrorist training bases, but rather by shooting and hiding behind civilians.

And you still haven’t said anything about Gabon or Nepal!!!
Answer this if you can; what has four wheels and flies?

No excuse can justify the killing of 1400 civilians by a legitimate government.