Why does no one even question whether or not palestinians have a right to exist? Do they not have a right to exist? They are not Egyptians, Jordanians or Lebanese. They are palestinians, having been there for hundreds of years. Do they not have a right to exist???? No homeland whatsoever to call their own. Israel has a right to exist. DO THE PALESTINIANS HAVE A RIGHT TO EXIST?
I am sorry - I think we are dealing here with a (let's face it) serious case of mental deficiency.
I take back all I have ever said. And I hope you seek and receive the help you need very soon.
Moshav Tekuma, Israel
Surveying the wreckage of a neighbor's bungalow hit by a Palestinian rocket, retired Israeli official Avner Cohen traces the missile's trajectory back to an "enormous, stupid mistake" made 30 years ago.
"Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel's creation," says Mr. Cohen, a Tunisian-born Jew who worked in Gaza for more than two decades. Responsible for religious affairs in the region until 1994, Mr. Cohen watched the Islamist movement take shape, muscle aside secular Palestinian rivals and then morph into what is today Hamas, a militant group that is sworn to Israel's destruction.
Instead of trying to curb Gaza's Islamists from the outset, says Mr. Cohen, Israel for years tolerated and, in some cases, encouraged them as a counterweight to the secular nationalists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its dominant faction, Yasser Arafat's Fatah. Israel cooperated with a crippled, half-blind cleric named Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, even as he was laying the foundations for what would become Hamas. Sheikh Yassin continues to inspire militants today; during the recent war in Gaza, Hamas fighters confronted Israeli troops with "Yassins," primitive rocket-propelled grenades named in honor of the cleric.
I mean, seriously, I posted a report that intended to take the thread in a direction that might add intelligent enquiry to the debate, and the best that we received from rowie was "What is the cost of human life?"
How do you deal with this? Answer it?
What? Two and sixpence?
The guy simply refuses to debate - and has done so consistently.
And you more intelligent souls who support this wailing should do some self-examination.
Staring straight ahead and rocking steadily backwards and forwards in her hospital bed, Sabah Abu Halima lists the fate of each of her nine children.
"Abed, 14 years old, was decapitated," she says. "Shaheed, one year and three months, was in my arms when the fire took her…"
Sabah explains that her husband and four of her children died when their house in northern Gaza was shelled during the recent Israeli offensive.
Many of the rooms in that house now lay dark and empty - blackened by fire.
The light fittings and power sockets have melted down the walls.
A shaft of light coming from the ceiling of the corridor, and mangled steel, marks the entry point of one of the missiles.
Scrawled, in Arabic, on the wall of a bedroom is the statement: "From the Israeli Defence Forces, we are sorry."
But on the next wall, there is a patch of white where, Sabah's 20-year-old son Mahmoud tells us, had also been the words "nice underwear". He says he scrubbed them off in anger.
Hundreds were killed in the 22-day Israeli offensive, but it is the manner in which Sabah's relatives lost their lives, and the weapon used, that has attracted attention.
Sabah herself has suffered terrible burns on her arms, legs and torso and is considerable pain.
"There was fire, and so much white smoke," she says. "The missile melted my children. My daughter-in-law melted in front of my eyes."
Dr Nafiz Abu Shabaan, the head of the unit in which Sabah is being treated, says he has seen many victims with what he described as "strange burns".
"These burns were very severe, very deep, and became deeper and wider over time," he says. "In some cases, smoke came out of the wound, even after hours."
The cause of these types of injuries is believed, by visiting medical officials, to be Israel's use of shells containing white phosphorus.
Incendiary weapon
In another part of the city, at a former security compound flattened by the Israeli bombardment, Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch, points out evidence that white phosphorus had been used.
"We're standing here right next to an M825A1, which is the US designation for their white phosphorus shell," he says.
"Manufactured in the US and sold to Israel, the shell here is unexploded, although it's cracked and you can see the phosphorus pouring out in kind of this yellow-orange colour."
"Around the area there are also some white phosphorus felt pieces," he adds.
"As the weapon explodes in mid-air, 116 pieces of felt doused in white phosphorus fall on a large area. These pieces are littered around here. If you kicked them open, they would begin to smoke and potentially reignite."
Controversial as it is, white phosphorus is not illegal, at least in an open battlefield setting, where it is used to mask troop movements, or set on fire areas of high brush that need clearing.
But the international convention on the use of incendiary weapons says it should not be used where there is a possibility of hitting civilians.
The compound sticks to human skin and will burn right through to the bone, causing death or leaving survivors with painful wounds which are slow to heal.
United Nations officials say it was used in the shelling of a school in which hundreds of civilians were taking refuge from the fighting, and fired at the UN's main headquarters in Gaza.
Eyewitnesses and victims talk of it being used on many other occasions in built-up areas.
Internal investigation
After initially denying that white phosphorus shells were fired in Gaza, some Israeli military officials have now acknowledged its use.
The army says it has started an internal investigation, the insistence being until now that no weapons were used illegally.
Human rights groups have meanwhile started their own research.
"It's important that we investigate the use of white phosphorus, because it does appear that it was used incorrectly in a clear breach of Geneva Conventions, " says Mr Garlasco.
"But as grave as the injuries caused by white phosphorus are, there are a number of weapons that were used in Gaza that killed and injured an awful lot more people," he adds.
"We have to look at the full variety of weapons that were used here, how they were employed and how they impacted on the civilian population."
I don't see what's classic about it. I am just fed up with your latter posts. You began in this thread being reasonable and open to argument, but now you ask fatuous questions such as what is the cost of human life? (not the "value" but the cost). How are we supposed to process this? I don't know. I can only suppose you are saying that if we do not agree with your position on the situation in Gaza we are somehow guilty of devaluing life. Gee thanks.
Five minutes later you ask "Why does no one even question whether or not palestinians have a right to exist?" Once again, I don't know what you mean. I assume you are saying that people should question this? But why? I would have thought it was a central plank of the argument for the Palestinian case; as central as the Israeli's right to exist. Why do you want to have people question this?
You then ask the rhetorical "Do they not have a right to exist????" - once again (a straw man somewhere?) assuming that people are suggesting that they don't have this right. I haven't read this anywhere; have you?
You then shout at us "DO THE PALESTINIANS HAVE A RIGHT TO EXIST?"
By this time, I want to strangle you, not because I don't agree that they have the right to exist, but because in two posts you have managed to insult me, puzzle me, shout at me, and try to bludgeon me into agreeing with you.
I am going to leave this forum now because I am tired of the left-wing bias (I'm not even right-wing) and the constant belittling of anyone who has an even slightly opposing or to the right viewpoint. disarray's last post was spot on.
It seems that anyone with a left-wing bias can get away with ridiculing his opponent, and rowie has been happy to call forum members numbnats, gooses, twits, a joke, uneducated etc. at the drop of a hat. I notice he wasn't called into line. Even the moderator is guilty of questioning a forum member's training credentials - a new low in my opinion - though he was always fair to me.
There seems to be one rule for those of a particular persuasion and another for everybody else. You can think what you like.
I don't see what's classic about it. I am just fed up with your latter posts. You began in this thread being reasonable and open to argument, but now you ask fatuous questions such as what is the cost of human life? (not the "value" but the cost). How are we supposed to process this? I don't know. I can only suppose you are saying that if we do not agree with your position on the situation in Gaza we are somehow guilty of devaluing life. Gee thanks.
Five minutes later you ask "Why does no one even question whether or not palestinians have a right to exist?" Once again, I don't know what you mean. I assume you are saying that people should question this? But why? I would have thought it was a central plank of the argument for the Palestinian case; as central as the Israeli's right to exist. Why do you want to have people question this?
You then ask the rhetorical "Do they not have a right to exist????" - once again (a straw man somewhere?) assuming that people are suggesting that they don't have this right. I haven't read this anywhere; have you?
You then shout at us "DO THE PALESTINIANS HAVE A RIGHT TO EXIST?"
By this time, I want to strangle you, not because I don't agree that they have the right to exist, but because in two posts you have managed to insult me, puzzle me, shout at me, and try to bludgeon me into agreeing with you.
I am going to leave this forum now because I am tired of the left-wing bias (I'm not even right-wing) and the constant belittling of anyone who has an even slightly opposing or to the right viewpoint. disarray's last post was spot on.
It seems that anyone with a left-wing bias can get away with ridiculing his opponent, and rowie has been happy to call forum members numbnats, gooses, twits, a joke, uneducated etc. at the drop of a hat. I notice he wasn't called into line. Even the moderator is guilty of questioning a forum member's training credentials - a new low in my opinion - though he was always fair to me.
There seems to be one rule for those of a particular persuasion and another for everybody else. You can think what you like.
From The Times
January 24, 2009
Israel admits using white phosphorous in attacks on Gazahttp://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5575070.ece
The Jews in the US do pretty well.On a bigger issue is the rise of anti-semitism in western countries which is being pushed and pushed by certain groups and others of the persuasion that israel should be destroyed. There is no reason for any jew to be attacked in another country just for being Jewish. If it were the other way the bleeding hearts would be out all over the place.
The Jews in the US do pretty well.
Try being a Muslim.
War on terror is a cute code for war on Muslims!
The "war on terror" is simply a shibboleth the West now employ to justify a myriad of once illegal acts.Try not to be so sensitive, it is a war on terror and the terrorists choose to use the Muslim flag to justify their attacks.
My personal feeling is that we are over the top on bending over backwards to appease Muslim religious and cultural sensitivities.
You could always ask Cat Stevens (no longer known by this name) how nicely he was treated when he last went to the US, if you believe what you do about bending over backwards to appease.
Try being a Muslim.
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