Gaza Versus Israel (and the rest of the arab world) for dummies

reply to post by talklikeapirat


That's the whole dam problem, the Israelis want to live in peace with their Arab brothers but the surrounding Arab nations will not have it that way. God knows the Arabs have more land that they need to take in every so called Palestinian times ten. In every war troops get pissed when they see constant attacks on their buddies and families and war crimes take place, its only human to snap when people get pushed to their emotional limits.

Israelis have given tons of land for peace. What the hell have the Arabs gave them besides Rockets and Suicide bombers?

reply to post by curiouscanadian777


No, you guys are running around without offering a solution - aside of course from siding with Islamists against Israel.

And btw, what's your interpretation of that neat cartoon you posted? Why don't you share with everyone what you mean.

Originally posted by lspilot6946
I think the video seemed one sided but there is allot of good information in there. Also, for a one sided video it had this in there.

Between 2006 and 2010 the UN human rights commission condemned Israel in 20 of its 25 resolutions.
Myanmar, 4 times
N. Korea once.

I think that speaks volumes.

There some facts of life that a lot of people are refusing to acknowledge. It is a fact of life that the God of Abraham gave the land to the descendants of Abraham on the Isaac side. He also took it away because those people went into idolatry. But since the Savior came God has founded Israel again. Period. Learn to live with it or get run over by it. Bless Israel and you will be blessed. Curse Israel and you will be cursed. BTW Obama. That goes for the Christians in this country too. Bless us and you will be blessed. Curse us and you will be cursed.
I wouldn't get too drunk on my success just yet Obama. God will use you for a while to correct his straying children but he will destroy you when he's done with ya. This too is a fact of life.

This is certainly a complex situation and I'll admit I don't have the complete knowledge I need to make a good decision. I have a simple question- Could not someone have anticipated this conflict before Israel was given the land many years ago? This all strikes me as a phenomenal screw-up in planning, unless someone foresaw this conflict and fostered it to some end.

Also I want to believe the right-wing propaganda that says Israel is our ally, but, I can't forget the attack on the USS Liberty.

Originally posted by cantyousee

Originally posted by lspilot6946
I think the video seemed one sided but there is allot of good information in there. Also, for a one sided video it had this in there.

Between 2006 and 2010 the UN human rights commission condemned Israel in 20 of its 25 resolutions.
Myanmar, 4 times
N. Korea once.

I think that speaks volumes.

There some facts of life that a lot of people are refusing to acknowledge. It is a fact of life that the God of Abraham gave the land to the descendants of Abraham on the Isaac side. He also took it away because those people went into idolatry. But since the Savior came God has founded Israel again. Period. Learn to live with it or get run over by it. Bless Israel and you will be blessed. Curse Israel and you will be cursed. BTW Obama. That goes for the Christians in this country too. Bless us and you will be blessed. Curse us and you will be cursed.
I wouldn't get too drunk on my success just yet Obama. God will use you for a while to correct his straying children but he will destroy you when he's done with ya. This too is a fact of life.

I'm sorry but I must respond. You just spouted an amazing amount of nonsense and voodoo! We'll be blessed if we do the appropriate and sensible things to bring about a healthy economy and society. I can imagine we'll be substantially "cursed" because we put a narcissistic crazy man back in office for four more years.

reply to post by dontreally

This is all a run-around which doesn't lead anywhere.

I'm glad you noticed.

Hamas' ideology is an impasse for liberals. Do you have a problem with it? Its either their way or our way - neither can coexist when the latter - the Islamists - refuse to tolerate difference.

The logical fallacy on your part is that you are equating being critical of the Israeli government policies and clearly seeing how destructive and damaging they are for the Palestinian and the Israeli population, with being supportive of Hamas or radical Islam.

In the last decades the Palestinians have suffered the most in this conflict and this has started long before Hamas seized control of Gaza. You are constantly trying to justify any actions of the Israeli government as a means of self defense. You are trying to explain it away or just claim that there is no correlation between the situation of Palestinians in Gaza and the Westbank, the rise of radical Islam or the radicalisation in general and the official Israeli state doctrine. You're not the first one to do so.
It is either the Palestinians own fault and they should suffer for electing the Islamists or it is a simple necessity for Israels' self-preservation.
I will post only one example, but i already know you will able to find a justification. I take great comfort in the thought that our opinions mean little to nothing when it comes to finding a solution for any kind of peaceful coexistence.

WikiLeaks: Israel aimed to keep Gaza economy on brink of collapse

Israel told U.S. officials in 2008 it would keep Gaza's economy "on the brink of collapse" while avoiding a humanitarian crisis, according to U.S. diplomatic cables published by a Norwegian daily on Wednesday.
...

"As part of their overall embargo plan against Gaza, Israeli officials have confirmed to (U.S. embassy economic officers) on multiple occasions that they intend to keep the Gazan economy on the brink of collapse without quite pushing it over the edge," one of the cables read.
...
In a speech in January 2008, then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert appeared to spell out that policy, which has since been eased in the wake of an international outcry over a deadly Israeli raid last May on a Turkish aid ship trying to break the blockade.

"We will not harm the supply of food for children, medicine for those who need it and fuel for institutions that save lives," Olmert said at the time.

"But there is no justification for demanding we allow residents of Gaza to live normal lives while shells and rockets are fired from their streets and courtyards (at southern Israel)," he added.

Haaretz.com

That's clearly because the two sides are by no means "equal" in their character faults.

They are "equal" in that they are denying a large portion of their societies the right to live as they choose. Palestinians are systematically displaced, suffer repression and violence under the occupation, there is undoubtedly a great difference between sharia law and martial law in theory, but in reality the effect is quite often the same.
Of course, you could still say, "Palestinians as people doesn't exist anyway". Again, you wouldn't be the first to do so.

Describe to me what you think Zionism is, and what you would regard as 'extremist' about it?

I saw your thread about Islamism and you described quite eloquently the dangers of political Islam. You should do a thread about the influence of Zionism on the political reality in Israel.
As you seem to have no problem citing authors who are critical of their respective religious movements, you could use this as a source.

To our knowledge, this document is the most explicit, detailed and unambiguous statement to date of the Zionist strategy in the Middle East. Furthermore, it stands as an accurate representation of the "vision" for the entire Middle East of the presently ruling Zionist regime of Begin, Sharon and Eitan. Its importance, hence, lies not in its historical value but in the nightmare which it presents.

The plan operates on two essential premises. To survive, Israel must 1) become an imperial regional power, and 2) must effect the division of the whole area into small states by the dissolution of all existing Arab states. Small here will depend on the ethnic or sectarian composition of each state. Consequently, the Zionist hope is that sectarian-based states become Israel's satellites and, ironically, its source of moral legitimation.

Israel Shahak

Originally posted by WhamBamTYM

Originally posted by cantyousee

Originally posted by lspilot6946
I think the video seemed one sided but there is allot of good information in there. Also, for a one sided video it had this in there.

Between 2006 and 2010 the UN human rights commission condemned Israel in 20 of its 25 resolutions.
Myanmar, 4 times
N. Korea once.

I think that speaks volumes.

There some facts of life that a lot of people are refusing to acknowledge. It is a fact of life that the God of Abraham gave the land to the descendants of Abraham on the Isaac side. He also took it away because those people went into idolatry. But since the Savior came God has founded Israel again. Period. Learn to live with it or get run over by it. Bless Israel and you will be blessed. Curse Israel and you will be cursed. BTW Obama. That goes for the Christians in this country too. Bless us and you will be blessed. Curse us and you will be cursed.
I wouldn't get too drunk on my success just yet Obama. God will use you for a while to correct his straying children but he will destroy you when he's done with ya. This too is a fact of life.

I'm sorry but I must respond. You just spouted an amazing amount of nonsense and voodoo! We'll be blessed if we do the appropriate and sensible things to bring about a healthy economy and society. I can imagine we'll be substantially "cursed" because we put a narcissistic crazy man back in office for four more years.

Cantyousee that has been the problem all along. Some people and nations have thought the facts of life was just vodoo and nonsense. They have not accepted and acknowledged the facts of life. They take the facts of life and make a religeon out of it then they can ignore the facts of life with another religeon. Do you see now how the facts of life get discarded? All this trouble because the world has never accepted the facts of life. It is not religeon.
The same ball bounces for the Hamas that bounces for Israel. The rules do not change. I suspect if at anytime the players wanted to play by the rules then this conflict would be over and then God would bless everyone. But there is this controversy over the land and the people. It is born out of rebellion against the facts of life.

reply to post by talklikeapirat

The logical fallacy on your part is that you are equating being critical of the Israeli government policies and clearly seeing how destructive and damaging they are for the Palestinian and the Israeli population, with being supportive of Hamas or radical Islam.

The first premise of your statement is that there is something wrong with Israels policies with regard to the Palestinians. First, any approach to this subject has to be based on characterological features of the party in question, which can be had by analyzing their ideology and their history.

So whats the history of the Palestinians and the Israelis? We have to go far back, back to the decades of the late 19th century, in order to get at the root of how Zionism came to be. Towards the end of the 19th century - and far before - Jews were being persecuted by the Tzarist government in what was known as the pale of settlement (Belarus, Ukraine, Eastern Poland). The news spread across Europe and was known throughout Germany and France. In the late 1800's, France was dealing with antisemitism which culminated in the Dreyfus trial. Theodore Herzl was working as a columnist at the time in Paris and and wrote about it. This whole experience of his led to his taking up the "Zionist idea", which he picked up from the Jews who were moving to the holy land at that time (which began in the late 1840's). This resulted in his book "The Jewish State". In the Jewish state, Herzl talks about the underlying causes of Jew hatred. His conclusion: because Jews always lived as a minority amongst a foreign population, they became an object of contempt; the solution? The Jews, just like the French, and the German, etc, deserved a land to call their own.

This is the historical basis for a Jewish state. The Jews were 'wanderers' not of their free will, but due to religious persecution by the dominant population - whether Christians or Muslims. It's true that the Christians were far worse, but Jews suffered from time to time under the Muslims as well. In all times, Jews were exploited by having to pay a hefty Jizya tax that left the community mostly impoverished. Only a few Jews managed to 'live well', as bankers or merchants or advisers, while the majority were the lowest of the low and the poorest of the poor. If it weren't for the deep sense of community, and for the wealthy Jews who helped support the community, it would have been far worse for them. Jews also were forced to wear special clothing, to address a Muslim in a tone of submission, to pay the tax in a self-deprecatory way, etc.

The Jewish Agency was setup by European Jews to buy land for Jewish immigration. Polish and Russian Jews were the people who turned the swamps and deserts of Palestine into arable land fit for growing and building upon. The areas bought extended from as south as jaffah, up through Tel Aviv and Haifa, to as far west as the Galilee. This was the "basis" of the 1937 Peel commissions partition plan, which was taken up again in the 1947 UN partition plan.

So, first thing to dismiss is, the notion that somehow Zionism is akin to Nazism. It's quite a repulsive libel given the context in which Zionism emerged.

After the holocaust, the Jewish question reached the worlds ears. They saw for themselves how the persecution of Jewry over the centuries was what led to the Nazi holocaust. They were guilty, and DESERVED to be guilty, because they were partly responsible. Christian antisemitism smoothly transitioned into the ethnic-racial antisemitism of the 18th,19th, and 20th centuries. The Europeans knew this, but what about the Arabs? The Muslims didn't "do anything" they later argued, to be punished for Europe's sins. But there's two problems with this problem. First, a completely lack of sensitivity to the plight of the Jews. This was mainly due to the influx of Nazi propaganda into the Arab world during the 1940's, mostly in Cairo, Damascus, Palestine and Baghdad. This network was set up by the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin El-Husseini, who spent the war years in Berlin with a staff of 80 beaming Arabic Nazi propaganda to the Arab world. So, after Germany loss, and the Mufti was being sought for war crimes against Jews and Serbs, the Arab League pressured the French to extradite him to Egypt, which they did. The Mufti briefly became the "symbolic head" of Hassan Al Bannah's Muslim Brotherhood during his stay in Egypt, and during his return to Palestine in the 50's he served as an agent of their cause. Thus, after the war, Arabs had very little sympathy for the Jews, mostly because of the Nazi propaganda over the last decade combined with a nascent interest in the Palestine-Jewish conflict. The second issue is Islams own responsibility towards their treatment of Jews. They weren't "sinless" either, as they sanctimoniously imagine themselves to be.

They too had 3.5 disenfranchised Jews without a place to call home, subject to a kleptocratic Jizya tax and the humiliation of being regarded and treated as an inferior creature, following an inferior religion.

The Arabs lacked both sympathy for the Jews, and a willingness to allow them some space to establish a state for themselves. The current state of Israel is the size of New Jersey or El Salvador. The total land area of the Arab League – the 22 Arab countries in existence – is 13,333,296 km2. It’s total population is 400,652,486. Israel is 20,770 km2, or, 661 times smaller than the total area of the Arab Leagues 22 member countries. If counting the Sephardic Jews who live in Israel alone – and not Ashkenazi Jews – you have 2 million people. 400 million (Arab League) divided by 2 million = 200. Yet, Israel is 661 times smaller than the Arab League. In short, if things were “fair” and we wanted to accord each people equal plots of land according to their numbers, Sephardic Jews would be entitled to a good chunk more of land above what they have in Israel. This is just a little experiment in population and land area, to highlight an area that is seldom mentioned, though I think it’s relevant in showing how entitled Arabs feel with regard to the lands of the greater middle east. Jews, Kurds, or Berbs, essentially don’t matter; they’re unjustly asked to accept minority status, even though the parts these groups live in – such as Kurdistan (parts of southern turkey, eastern Syria, northern Iraq and western Iran) – is clearly ethnically Kurdish, speaks Kurdish..

Arab’s also lacked sympathy for the fact that Jews were forcibly evicted from the land by the Romans in the 2nd century. They were the only people to have established a state there. The only ones to have left relics of an ancient civilization there – such as the Herordian architecture, ancient synagogues, Dead Sea scrolls and countless coins found in the Temple Mount area and Jerusalem. These are more than physical relics of an ancient civilization; they were signs of commonality, of the Jewish community, that has persisted from the most ancient of times to the present day. It is the land of the Jewish tradition, the Hebrew Bible, the ideology, theology and spirituality which was born and thrived there. This surely must account for something, just as I sense that Tibet means something very important to the Tibetan people and their traditions. .

reply to post by talklikeapirat

In the last decades the Palestinians have suffered the most in this conflict and this has started long before Hamas seized control of Gaza. You are constantly trying to justify any actions of the Israeli government as a means of self defense.

Which brings me to my second part: Why does Israel feel threatened by the Palestinians?

Forget about the 1929 Hebron Massacre or the 1929 Safed Massacre which saw 67 and 18 Jews murdered by crazed Arabs, the forerunners of today's Palestinians. This was the first indication to the Jews how serious the Arabs were. What makes this so typical of Arab-Muslim extremism, was that these Jews were natives of the land, Jews that had lived there for hundreds of years. Not immigrants from Europe. To the Muslims, it was "Jews" period, the sheer notion of a self autonomous Jewish state in Dar Al Islam, that infuriated them. And, perhaps rightly so; the Arabs have been nursed from a culture that stresses superiority, strength, power; Muslims believe in a God identified with will, power, as Al Ghazalli describes Allah as being. The Jews able to live freely, according to their own law, in Al Quds (Jerusalem) infuriated them. Their religion teaches that Jerusalem - the Jewish city - became Islamic territory (Al Quds) when they conquered the territory from the Byzantine Christians in the 7th century.

This has always, till this day, been the general attitude of the Muslims/Arabs towards Jews; one of bellicosity, and belligerence, where Arabs will only live with Jews if Jews accept to live under Muslim rule. Any other situation is a Nakba - a "calamity".

It is either the Palestinians own fault and they should suffer for electing the Islamists or it is a simple necessity for Israels' self-preservation.

The Islamists are a "necessity for Israel's self preservation"? How so? They're an extension of the resurgent Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood plotted its way into power, from being weak in the 1960s and made illegal by Nasr, to gaining strength in the 80's, 90's, and 2000's, until gaining power. Israel should just leave them as and treat them as a 'necessity', as if they weren't actively plotting Israel's destruction? I hope my sarcastic tone is making clear to you why Israel has responded as they have. They have no choice. They either die a slow death and let Hamas grow slowly but surely; or, they try to do this, take a risk, defend themselves against moral relativists who will stoop to whatever moral low - such as drawing in IDF soldiers, or planes, to kill Palestinian non-combatants.

WikiLeaks: Israel aimed to keep Gaza economy on brink of collapse

I can already tell you're too emotionally invested in this to think clearly, but i'll answer anyway.

If Hamas' growth means Israel's destruction, than Hamas' economy must be made to struggle. Economy is just another form of warfare. If Hamas were to thrive economically, they'd get the money and means to fight Israel. Therefore, subverting their economy is a necessary measure towards isolating Hamas. And again, if you are remotely interested and not only pretending an interest in peace, to let Hamas grow means Israel's destruction; it means facilitating the advancement of Islamism in the region.

They are "equal" in that they are denying a large portion of their societies the right to live as they choose.

Oh, so delegate the intricate political difficulties to democracy? Let people choose? That is absurdly naive. As if their aren't parties actively undermining each other. And the party mostly to be worried about are the Islamists. Not the Israelis, who have given back large swathes of land to secure peace.

Originally posted by Scope and a Beam
Biased BS. How can they not even mention Sabra and Shatila?

OP why post this video? Waste of time.

I posted it to present clear easy to undertsand historical fact with the hope it may encourage intelligent debate, which it seems to have done, so thanks to all who take the time to watch and debate. If historical fact is BS then yes it was a waste of time, if not then it wasn't. So no it wasn't. As for Sabra and Shatila, I have no excuse for a nutter like Ariel Sharon getting involved. Nor for the idf involvment but the slaughter was carried out by Phalangist.
By the way I'm not locked in, as your signature suggests, I'm flying free.

Originally posted by talklikeapirat

To our knowledge, this document is the most explicit, detailed and unambiguous statement to date of the Zionist strategy in the Middle East. Furthermore, it stands as an accurate representation of the "vision" for the entire Middle East of the presently ruling Zionist regime of Begin, Sharon and Eitan. Its importance, hence, lies not in its historical value but in the nightmare which it presents.

The plan operates on two essential premises. To survive, Israel must 1) become an imperial regional power, and 2) must effect the division of the whole area into small states by the dissolution of all existing Arab states. Small here will depend on the ethnic or sectarian composition of each state. Consequently, the Zionist hope is that sectarian-based states become Israel's satellites and, ironically, its source of moral legitimation.

Israel Shahak

That's funny! The exact same year (1982) that Israel Shahak wrote this analysis, the Muslim Brotherhood published "The Project" exposing some of their plans as well...,

- Inflaming violence and keeping Muslims living in the West “in a jihad frame of mind”.

- Supporting jihad movements across the Muslim world through preaching, propaganda, personnel, funding, and technical and operational support.

- Making the Palestinian cause a global wedge issue for Muslims Adopting the total liberation of Palestine from Israel and the creation of an Islamic state as a keystone in the plan for global Islamic domination.

- Instigating a constant campaign to incite hatred by Muslims against Jews and rejecting any discussions of conciliation or coexistence with them.

- Actively creating jihad terror cells within Palestine Linking the terrorist activities in Palestine with the global terror movement.

- Collecting sufficient funds to indefinitely perpetuate and support jihad around the world.

www.barenakedislam.com...


P.S. Not sure I'll be posting any more Muslim Brotherhood info. While I was on this website, I got kicked off of ATS and when I tried to log back in, it wouldn't let me. I had to request a new password for the first time ever to get back in.

@notreally:

I'm not 'siding with Islamists against Israel', I'm saying that the Palestinian right to their land is a fact, no matter how inconvenient it is to Israel or how much some people wish to deny it. You seem more intelligent than to believe that the only possible stance is "If you're not with us, you're against us!".

The cartoon: I posted it to point out a difference in perspectives, which I thought is pretty obvious, ie speaks for itself. Since you demand in your tiresome and belligerent way, I interpret it thusly:
We think they are to be pitied for being forced into wearing things, behaving a certain way by their male-dominated society; they think we are to be pitied for being forced into striving to look a certain way, behave in a certain way, according to our male-dominated sex-sells society. I've seen a similar cartoon comparing a nun and a muslim woman, same idea - as most see it, one represents an oppressed woman we should pity, one represents a pious woman we should admire. Maybe they don't perceive us how we perceive ourselves? Maybe they don't perceive themselves the way we perceive them? Maybe they think a bikini is just as shocking and abhorrent as we find total coverage to be? Have a lot of the people judging them and demanding change on their behalf actually asked what they think about it all? The answer is usually somewhere in the middle, not on either side of the extremes.
It is what I said-food for thought. You know, something to think about? In a way one might not have considered before? I'm not advocating any particular view, you are.

What bothers me most about claims of concern for the plight of muslim women is that a lot of the people who make these claims also support the bombing of them and their families and homes without a thought. Without apology. And that's the people who think they're actually helping them, being kind somehow, 'bringing them freedom, democracy and equal rights!', not the outright bigots. How #ing insane. To think they would be grateful to us for this, to think they want any part of what we have to offer in exchange for that so called equality and freedom...Sort of like the rabid right to life people, who mostly support these wars as well. Makes no sense to me whatsoever.

So, I tend to see these arguments more as a smokescreen, a clever way to make our actions seem noble somehow; to legitimize the crimes that are being committed against them, demonize them so we feel less guilty for the wrongs we continue to perpetrate upon them.
I think I've been pretty clear that I think that both sides are guilty of this. You seem to believe that only Islamists engage in propaganda and demonization, and that there are no Israeli extremists.
What I haven't said clearly is that I support a two state solution, so perhaps you thought I was suggesting that by 'Palestinians right to their land' I meant all of it? So, to state similar to the above: The Israeli's right to their land is a fact, no matter how inconvenient it is to the Palestinians or Arab states or how much some people wish to deny it. It needs to be negotiated and the extremists on both sides are making things worse, which seems to me to be exactly as they want it, with both of their civilian populations caught in the middle.

Anyway, let's agree to disagree and leave it at that.

reply to post by dontreally


Correct me if i'm wrong, but i can see you've changed your signature. If i remember correctly, it was the famous James Madison quote before.

“To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people is a chimerical idea.”

Interesting, if you really did change it.

"Nor are the present-day nations really fit for democracy, and I believe they will become ever less fit for it ... I have no faith in the political virtue of our people, because we are no better than the rest of modern man." - Theodor Herzl

Oh, so delegate the intricate political difficulties to democracy? Let people choose? That is absurdly naive.

If i mistook you for another poster, nevermind. I will reply to you when i have more time later.

reply to post by dontreally

The first premise of your statement is that there is something wrong with Israels policies with regard to the Palestinians.

No, the premise is, that for you any criticism of the Israeli Government is akin to being against Israel and therefore tantamount with supporting the Islamists.

"You are either with Israel or you are against it."

No, you guys are running around without offering a solution - aside of course from siding with Islamists against Israel.

Dealing in absolutes is a hallmark of totalitarian regimes. None of us would enjoy the freedoms we have today, if that would still be the ideological basis of our society or any debate about the values that define it.

So, first thing to dismiss is, the notion that somehow Zionism is akin to Nazism. It's quite a repulsive libel given the context in which Zionism emerged.

No need to dismiss something that hasn't even remotely anthing to do with what has been said before. I can't even guess what prompted you to make that point.

Your attempt to characterise Zionism by analysing its foundation and history is at best insufficient. But, despite the fact that you failed to mention that parts of the Zionist movement collaborated with the Nazis, it would be the same logical error to conclude that one is equal to the other.

Given the historical context, any comparison with the Nazis is not only "a repulsive libel" as you called it, it is also an effective way to muzzle any criticism.
Ironically, it was the Nazis who coined the term "Totschlag-argument".

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cheapened the memory of the Holocaust in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday. He did so twice. Once, when he brandished proof of the very existence of the Holocaust, as if it needed any, and again when he compared Hamas to the Nazis.

If Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denies the Holocaust, Netanyahu cheapens it. Is there a need of proof, 60 years later? Or, the world might think, is the denier right?

And if we can compare a poorly equipped terrorist organization to the horrific Nazi killing machine, why should others not compare the Nazis' behavior to that of Israel Defense Forces soldiers? In both cases, the comparison is baseless and infuriating.

Haaretz

First, any approach to this subject has to be based on characterological features of the party in question, which can be had by analyzing their ideology and their history.

Any approach to the subject, if there is something wrong with the policies of the Israeli Government regarding the Palestinians, has to be based on the question, if it is violating basic human rights, international and israeli law.

The report disputes Israel's claim that the Gaza war would have been conducted as a response to rockets fired from the Gaza Strip, saying that at least in part the war was targeted against the "people of Gaza as a whole".

Intimidation against the population was seen as an aim of the war. The report also says that Israel's military assault on Gaza was designed to "humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability".

The report focused on 36 cases that it said constituted a representative sample. In 11 of these episodes, it said the Israeli military carried out direct attacks against civilians, including some in which civilians were shot "while they were trying to leave their homes to walk to a safer place, waving white flags".
Talking to Bill Moyers Journal, Goldstone said that the committee chose 36 incidents that represented the highest death toll, where there seemed to be little or no military justification for what happened.

According to the report, another alleged war crime committed by IDF include "wanton" destruction of food production, water and sewerage facilities; the report also asserts that some attacks, which were supposedly aimed to kill small number of combatants amidst significant numbers of civilians, were disproportionate.

The report concluded that Israel violated the Fourth Geneva Convention by targeting civilians, which it labeled "a grave breach". It also claimed that the violations were "systematic and deliberate", which placed the blame in the first place on those who designed, planned, ordered and oversaw the operations. The report recommended, inter alia, that Israel pay reparations to Palestinians living in Gaza for property damage caused during the conflict.

source

The Dahiya doctrine is a military strategy put forth by the Israeli general Gadi Eizenkot that pertains to asymmetric warfare in an urban setting, in which the army deliberately targets civilian infrastructure, as a means of inducing suffering for the civilian population, thereby establishing deterrence.

...

The doctrine is defined in a 2009 report by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel as follows: "The military approach expressed in the Dahiye Doctrine deals with asymmetrical combat against an enemy that is not a regular army and is embedded within civilian population; its objective is to avoid a protracted guerilla war. According to this approach Israel has to employ tremendous force disproportionate to the magnitude of the enemy’s actions." The report further argues that the doctrine was fully implemented during Operation Cast Lead

Richard Falk wrote that under the doctrine, "the civilian infrastructure of adversaries such as Hamas or Hezbollah are treated as permissible military targets, which is not only an overt violation of the most elementary norms of the law of war and of universal morality, but an avowal of a doctrine of violence that needs to be called by its proper name: state terrorism."

source

Since 1949, Israel is a member of the United Nations and with its admission it has agreed to adopt the Unversial Declaration of Human Rights.

273 (III). Admission of Israel to membership in the United Nations

Having received the report of the Security Council on the application of Israel for membership in the United Nations,1/

Noting that, in the judgment of the Security Council, Israel is a peace-loving State and is able and willing to carry out the obligations contained in the Charter,

Noting that the Security Council has recommended to the General Assembly that it admit Israel to membership in the United Nations,

Noting furthermore the declaration by the State of Israel that it "unreservedly accepts the obligations of the United Nations Charter and undertakes to honour them from the day when it becomes a Member of the United Nations",2/

Recalling its resolutions of 29 November 1947 3/ and 11 December 1948 4/ and taking note of the declarations and explanations made by the representative of the Government of Israel 5/ before the ad hoc Political Committee in respect of the implementation of the said resolutions,

The General Assembly,

Acting in discharge of its functions under Article 4 of the Charter and rule 125 of its rules of procedure,

1. Decides that Israel is a peace-loving State which accepts the obligations contained in the Charter and is able and willing to carry out those obligations;

2. Decides to admit Israel to membership in the United Nations.

source

The initial assumption, that to examine the 'characterological features' of Zionism, would provide an explanation, let alone a justification to what grants the Israeli Government the right to commit war crimes against Palestinians and to violate the Human Rights it has itself agreed upon, is simply wrong.

The entire first part is full of factual errors, your over-simplifyied narrative of guilty europeans, sympathy-lacking arabs, generalized as jew-hating muslims, is only a distortion of history and borders close on islamophobia and racism

In fact, Israel never agreed to the division of "Eretz Israel" or to the founding of an independent Arab state in any part of it. In 1937, when partition was first officially raised (by the British), David Ben-Gurion stated flatly what it was only "the beginning of full redemption and the most powerful lever the gradual conquest of all Palestine."

The entire spectrum of Zionist opinion shared this view and still held fast to it a decade later. The Zionists' acceptance of the Partition Resolution was—in Flapan's words—only "tactical...a vital step in the right direction...a springboard for expansion when circumstances proved more judicious."

In fact, the Mufti did not enjoy much popular support and all his efforts to organize a popular resistance to the Partition Resolution proved unavailing. This is not to say that the Palestinian Arabs supported the division of their homeland, only that they were reconciled to its inevitability.

Ben-Gurion rebuffed the various efforts of more pragmatic Palestinian Arabs to reach a modus vivendi since it was his "belief ... that Zionist expansionism would be better served by leaving the leadership of the Palestinians in the hands of the extremist Mufti than in the hands of a 'moderate' opposition. 'Rely on the Mufti' became his motto."

source

Cleasing the Galilee

Let's compare the responses from both sides regarding the new cease-fire agreement...

Netanyahu's statement...

‘‘I know there are citizens that expected a wider military operation and it could be that it will be needed. But at this time the right thing of the state of Israel is to take this opportunity to reach a continuous cease-fire,’’ Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

Mashaal's statement...

At a news conference in Cairo, the top Hamas leader in exile, Khaled Mashaal, claimed victory, saying the Israelis ‘‘failed in their adventure’’ and that Israel is ‘‘inevitably destined for defeat.’’

www.boston.com...

reply to post by cody599


There is a reason why 5 minute explanations of the Arab-Israeli conflicts are laughed at. Because they are stupid. You cannot sum up a complex history which includes not only relations between the Arabs and Israelis but also Israel's internal political history, Egyptian internal history, Lebanese internal history, Palestinian internal history, Jordanian internal history, American internal history, British internal history, French internal history and many others. There is a reason why this idiot is laughed at.

I agree, the conflict isn't difficult to explain, if you actually understand it. But it still takes time, a lot more than 4 minutes.

ISRAEL'S PECULIAR POSITION
By Eric Hoffer (LA Times 5/26/68)

The Jews are a peculiar people: Things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews.

Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people, and there is no refugee problem. Russia did it. Poland and Czechoslovakia did it. Turkey threw out a million Greeks, and Algeria a million Frenchmen. Indonesia threw out heaven knows how many Chinese--and no one says a word about refugees.

But in the case of Israel, the displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees. Everyone insists that Israel must take back every single Arab. Arnold Toynbee calls the displacement of the Arabs an atrocity greater than any committed by the Nazis. Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms. But when Israel is victorious it must sue for peace. Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world.

Other nations when they are defeated survive and recover, but should Israel be defeated it would be destroyed. Had Nasser triumphed last June, he would have wiped Israel off the map, and no one would have lifted a finger to save the Jews. No commitment to the Jews by any government, including our own, is worth the paper it is written on. There is a cry of outrage all over the world when people die in Vietnam or when two Negroes are executed in Rhodesia. But when Hitler slaughtered Jews no one remonstrated with him.

The Swedes, who are ready to break off diplomatic relations with America because of what we do in Vietnam, did not let out a peep when Hitler was slaughtering Jews. They sent Hitler choice iron ore and ball bearings, and serviced his troop trains to Norway.

The Jews are alone in the world. If Israel survives, it will be solely because of Jewish efforts and Jewish resources.

Yet at this moment Israel is our only reliable and unconditional ally. We can rely more on Israel than Israel can rely on us. And one has only to imagine what would have happened last summer had the Arabs and their Russian backers won the war to realize how vital the survival of Israel is to America and the West in general. I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel, so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the holocaust will be upon us.

[Via Pajamas Media.]

[ADDENDUM: Change "the Arabs and their Russian backers" in Hoffer's essay to "the Arabs and Iranians hamas hezzbolla and their (fill in the blanks) backers."]

It bears repeating: Eric Hoffer on Israel

It was written in 1968, and perhaps you are familiar with it: Eric Hoffer's piece on what he referred to as the "peculiar" position of Israel.

Hoffer's essay is not only still astoundingly pertinent today, but it's also notable for its brevity and clarity. So I thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to present it here in its entirety, as food for thought.

Source:

neo-neocon.blogspot.co.il...

Originally posted by WhamBamTYM


Also I want to believe the right-wing propaganda that says Israel is our ally, but, I can't forget the attack on the USS Liberty.

Come to israel and look on the us embassy you may think that this is a branch of the national security agency (many listening antennas/devices on the roof) only an ally whould allow that.

Israel shared with the us military many soviet military hardware it put her hand on (including a mig-21 in 1967)
which i am sure saved many lives of us troops. only an ally whould share such things.

Israel is developing the Anti missile (icbm) thechnology which will be implimented in us hardware/systems. only an ally whould share such things.

and the list go on and on.