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Israel - Palestine

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luutzu said:
Seriously, Israel is a nuclear armed, economically powerful, militarily is among the most advanced nation in the world - and it's backed up by the US.

Who CAN seriously do any real damage to Israel's security? China? Russia? Germany?... oh, the Palestinians.

So Hamas hates the Jews, hates Israel... are you going to kill every man and his children if his militant representative hates you? I guess you would if you can do it with impunity.
Click to expand...

It is pretty evident all the Arab Islamic states are behind Hamas and in particular Iran who want to see the extinction of Israel.


http://dailycaller.com/2014/07/23/i...-crisis-is-israels-destruction/#ixzz38X51zmj8
 
noco said:
It is pretty evident all the Arab Islamic states are behind Hamas and in particular Iran who want to see the extinction of Israel.


http://dailycaller.com/2014/07/23/i...-crisis-is-israels-destruction/#ixzz38X51zmj8
Click to expand...

I don't know about Hamas and its origins so I don't know.

From what I've heard from the news debates and interviews, the blockade on Gaza since 2008 [?] and the coup in Egypt recently had made Hamas weak, broke, couldn't pay its employees and was losing support. So they want to join with Fatah in the West Bank and negotiate with Israel... Israel has no interests in peace.

In one of the lectures given by Finkelstein, he cite a study by a former Israeli Foreign or Defense Minister looking at all the wars since the 1948 War of Independence to I think 2008, and that former Minister concludes this: That of all the wars Israel has been involved in since 1948, maybe, maybe the 1948 war was a war of necessity. All other wars are war either of choice or of folly.

Lest I'm being accused of being selective and brainwashed... there's a lecture by the son of a famous Israeli general, whose grandparents also fought for Israel at its founding, and who himself was in the IDF, and whose 13 year old niece was killed in a terrorist attack by the Palestinians in a cafe...

He said that when he went through the transcript of the 1967 war room strategy meetings ... his father, a famous Israeli General, discuss how Israel ought to attack Egypt because Egypt is not ready, won't be ready for at least another year and since they're now on Mt. Sinai [?], it's easier for Israel to attack etc...

So the war was won, Gaza and the West Bank taken, the world love Israel for being able to defend itself against Arab aggressions...

The man said his father then turn to the question of the Palestinian state and recommend that Israel should define its border, give Palestine theirs, and both will be able to live in peace in each other's State.

Instead, part of the West Bank has already been bulldozed and billions of dollars has already been invested there, and then there's the land of Israel as written in the Bible etc. etc.

Anyway, those who are interested doesn't need me to summarise what I just learn - they can just youtube it themselves; those who aren't interested already have had their mind made up so it's quite useless what i'm doing.
 
luutzu said:
I don't know about Hamas and its origins so I don't know.

From what I've heard from the news debates and interviews, the blockade on Gaza since 2008 [?] and the coup in Egypt recently had made Hamas weak, broke, couldn't pay its employees and was losing support. So they want to join with Fatah in the West Bank and negotiate with Israel... Israel has no interests in peace.

In one of the lectures given by Finkelstein, he cite a study by a former Israeli Foreign or Defense Minister looking at all the wars since the 1948 War of Independence to I think 2008, and that former Minister concludes this: That of all the wars Israel has been involved in since 1948, maybe, maybe the 1948 war was a war of necessity. All other wars are war either of choice or of folly.

Lest I'm being accused of being selective and brainwashed... there's a lecture by the son of a famous Israeli general, whose grandparents also fought for Israel at its founding, and who himself was in the IDF, and whose 13 year old niece was killed in a terrorist attack by the Palestinians in a cafe...

He said that when he went through the transcript of the 1967 war room strategy meetings ... his father, a famous Israeli General, discuss how Israel ought to attack Egypt because Egypt is not ready, won't be ready for at least another year and since they're now on Mt. Sinai [?], it's easier for Israel to attack etc...

So the war was won, Gaza and the West Bank taken, the world love Israel for being able to defend itself against Arab aggressions...

The man said his father then turn to the question of the Palestinian state and recommend that Israel should define its border, give Palestine theirs, and both will be able to live in peace in each other's State.

Instead, part of the West Bank has already been bulldozed and billions of dollars has already been invested there, and then there's the land of Israel as written in the Bible etc. etc.

Anyway, those who are interested doesn't need me to summarise what I just learn - they can just youtube it themselves; those who aren't interested already have had their mind made up so it's quite useless what i'm doing.
Click to expand...


One of the things that concerns me is the backing and involvement from Iran......They are on the cusp of having nuclear weapons and I fear some Iranian idiot may let lose on Israel with a nuclear war head on a log range missile......if that happens all hell will break out in the middle East.
 
noco said:
One of the things that concerns me is the backing and involvement from Iran......They are on the cusp of having nuclear weapons and I fear some Iranian idiot may let lose on Israel with a nuclear war head on a log range missile......if that happens all hell will break out in the middle East.
Click to expand...

I don't know the detail of Iran's intentions, not even going to try to guess what they'll do or think.

And you can argue that Iran is insane... but from a purely rational, political science perspective, nuclear weapon is only a defensive weapon. No country, not today, is going to build a nuclear weapon so they can use it on another country, and definitely not on a nuclear power like Israel.

Do you know what will happen if Iran even test a nuclear weapon? Nothing... because no country is going to try to come in and ask questions.

But if Iran were to have nuke, and were to strike at Israel... do you know what will happen to Iran? The entire country of Iran will be pulverised.

If you assume for a moment that Iran is run by an even somewhat rational human being who love their family and their children like we all do... you'll have to conclude that whatever nuke they can build is purely defensive, regardless of the speeches.

If I'm an Iranian, and if I hates the Jews... I seriously do not know why I would put out money, create a weapon, destroy my enemy and also commit myself and my family and my pepole to death. Why would anyone want that?

Personally, there are times in my life when myself or my relatives have been wronged so horribly that I have thought of going up to people's home and break legs and avenge justice and all that... But i stop... .because if i do, i'd be put in prison, lose my job, cannot feed my family. And I value my family, and my liberty, more than vengence.

To think that Iran or any Arab country would want self destruction to avenge their "brothers" or for pure hatred of the Jews is non sense. In fact, research and evidence have shown that the main, one of the main, reasons the Arab extremists commit terrorist acts against Israel and against the US and its allies is because of the continuing destruction of Gaza and the West Bank, because of policies of oppression against the Palestinians.

CIA analysts and other US national security specialists have known this... and this, as Mearsheimer and others have points out, will slowly be realised by the American public and pressure will be put on its leadership to distance itself from Israel.

That and because of the kind of brutalities used by Israel, the hardliners, the obviously racist policies of Israel against, say Arab/Christian Israelis... these will drive away support from young and idealistic Jewish youths in American and i'm assuming around the world's liberal democracies. And even though these younger generation might be Jewish of faith, their upbringing and the teachings of the faith have been shown to not align with Zionist Israel's policies of oppression.

Without these supports, Israel will soon be in a lot of trouble.

----
A good documentary is "the Gatekeepers" by an Israeli director. It interviewed 5 or 6 former head of Shin Bet [?] - Israel's internal security agency. These guys are involved in all military and security issues of Israel... They're all proud of their work, assassinating the enemies etc... but maybe for one exception, they all say that the wars had not kept Israel safe, that Israel have won all its battles but might not win the war.

The eldest gentleman there said that being an occupying power "...have made us cruel", had turn Israel's youth and its people to the likes of the German in WW2 in their treatment of other people - not as bad as how the Germans were to the Jews, but cruel.

In a modern age, I seriously don't know why you would want a "pure"-something state. But that's just me so let say it is rational and existentially important to the Jewish people to have Israel purely Jewish... the policies Israel has been pursuing will, eventually, be, in the word of Mearsheimer, committing policide - the death of the Jewish-Israeli state. That all the Palestinians need to do, one day when it is obviously clear to everyone that there is no such thing as a Palestinian statehood... all they need to do is march in peace, peacefully resists... and Israel will have no option, no political or moral high grounds to just welcome the now Arab Israelis... and that is the very definition of winning battles but losing the war.

Though i personally don't think that is a lost...
 
That was a very long post by Sam Harris. I can see some of his points but for another point of view - shorter and to the point consider Mike Carlton's piece.

[
SIZE=4]]Israel's rank and rotten fruit is being called fascism[/SIZE]

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/israe...led-fascism-20140724-zwd2t.html#ixzz38ldkVZQZ

....It is a breathtaking irony that these atrocities can be committed by a people with a proud liberal tradition of scholarship and culture, who hold the Warsaw Ghetto and the six million dead of the Holocaust at the centre of their race memory. But this is a new and brutal Israel dominated by the hardline, right-wing Likud Party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition. As one observer puts it: "All the seeds of the incitement of the past few years, all the nationalistic, racist legislation and the incendiary propaganda, the scare campaigns and the subversion of democracy by the right-wing camp – all these have borne fruit, and that fruit is rank and rotten. The nationalist right has now sunk to a new level, with almost the whole country following in its wake. The word 'fascism', which I try to use as little as possible, finally has its deserved place in the Israeli political discourse."

...But in all these long and agonising decades, Israel has never offered the Palestinians a just and equitable peace. They would have only a splintered, vassal state, their polity and economy and even their borders and freedom of travel and trade managed and determined by Israel. The occupation of Palestinian lands would remain with the relentless expansion of illegal Israeli settlements on the West Bank of the Jordan and the Dead Sea.

As the Palestine Liberation Organisation official Hanan Ashrawi put it this week in a television interview with the Australian journalist Hamish Macdonald: "No nation can accept being imprisoned, being besieged by land, by air, by sea and deprived of the most basic requirements of a decent life: freedom of movement, clean water. For seven years they have been under a brutal and lethal Israeli siege ... You shell them and you bomb them; you destroy homes, you destroy whole neighbourhoods. You obliterate, annihilate, whole families, and then you come and say that this is self defence?"

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/israe...led-fascism-20140724-zwd2t.html#ixzz38leA3Ben
Click to expand...


By the way I have selectively quoted Mikes piece. The person calling Israels policies "fascist is in fact a Jewish writer. Worth reading the whole piece.
 
bellenuit said:
Why Don’t I Criticize Israel? (Sam Harris)

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/why-dont-i-criticize-israel

I think that article encapsulates what many of us feel about this conflict. Shocked with the overreaction of Israel, but somewhat understanding of the impossible situation they are in.
Click to expand...

What impossible situation is that? Rather kill an entire family or be inconvenient by facts and reason and history?

But whatever let us keep the faith I suppose.

I suppose those kids would grow up to be terrorists anyway, and when they're terrorists, Israel will blow them up anyway... so what's the difference between now and a decade or two later, right?

I doubt very much that any informed person in the world feel about this conflict as you do.
 
basilio said:
That was a very long post by Sam Harris. I can see some of his points but for another point of view - shorter and to the point consider Mike Carlton's piece.


By the way I have selectively quoted Mikes piece. The person calling Israels policies "fascist is in fact a Jewish writer. Worth reading the whole piece.
Click to expand...

Good article, it's refreshing, and rare, to find any article critical or objective of Israel in the mainstream media.

I don't think it's just the current party in Israel though... Saw some lectures a couple of years ago where the guy said that more and more Orthodox and Ultra Orthodox Jews are settling in Israel while the more moderate and liberal ones pack up and leave.

I saw an interview with a guy in Israel and he laugh at the idea of there being a left or centre/moderate party.
 
luutzu said:
I doubt very much that any informed person in the world feel about this conflict as you do.
Click to expand...

Maybe it depends on who is doing the informing.

I said I was shocked at the overreaction of Israel. Am I the only one in the world who feels that?

I have said I think they are in an impossible situation. What do you do when your neighbour's ruling elite say their aim is to annihilate you no matter what? That aim is not contingent on the outcome of the conflict between the two, but an absolute goal that they intend to pursue no matter what the outcome. Do you not think that is an impossible situation? We in the West might have the luxury of treating such a threat to us as just bellicose rhetoric, but if I were Jewish, I might have a very different perspective. Yes, I would like to see the Palestinians have their own state too, but there have been many people more informed than I who have stated over and over that Arafat could have had what they now would accept, but failed to grasp that opportunity.

Luutzu, it is obvious that you have strong feelings about what is happening to the Palestinians, but there is not just one opinion about the situation. I am expressing my opinion and if I am the only person in the world that has that opinion, how do you account for the article by Sam Harris? That is his opinion too. Is nobody informed accept those who agree with you? I don't think anyone should injure or kill anyone else, but that doesn't mean I am to ignore Hamas and the role it is playing. They clearly want this to happen. The more Palestinians that get killed and the more graphic the imagery is on TV the better it is for them politically. Have you even considered that one sided reactions such as yours and in particular what now seems a personal attack on other people's (my) opinion on the situation may be exactly what Hamas is trying to evoke? By not condemning Hamas too, which you seem to have done only in the meekest of terms, you may actually be contributing to what is happening as it only encourages them to pursue the struggle in the way they are doing it. As I said in one of my first posts, Hamas would not be firing rockets at Israel and we would not have had the over the top retaliation that we have seen from Israel, if those in the West were to condemn Hamas for its actions as vociferously as they condemn Israel.

I don't have a cold heart to the suffering of the Palestinians, but I am also not a pawn to the political strategy of Hamas. Condemnation is deserving to both sides and if I am more forceful in calling out Hamas, maybe it is because I perceive a lack of balance in the general discourse.

I was unsure if I should contribute to this thread after you started it as I believe the topic is very emotive and issues can quickly become personal. Perhaps I would have been wiser to keep my "uninformed" opinions to myself and not accepted your invitation to comment.
 
What "Informed" is, is very subjective.

This was from the BBC Twitter Feed about 2 hours ago....

Israeli airstrike hits compound of main hospital in Gaza, causing casualties - Palestinian officials

This is their more recent story on the same incident.....

Gaza strikes at Al-Shifa Hospital & Al-Shati Refugee Camp appear to be Islamic Jihad fire - Israel military spokesman

Both links now point to the same updated story.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28529611

Which is true? I don't know because I know both sides will lie if it is to their political advantage.
 
bellenuit said:
Why Don’t I Criticize Israel? (Sam Harris)

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/why-dont-i-criticize-israel

I think that article encapsulates what many of us feel about this conflict. Shocked with the overreaction of Israel, but somewhat understanding of the impossible situation they are in.
Click to expand...

Thoughtful Jerry Coyne (@EvolutionIsTrue) on thoughtful Sam Harris (Dawkins words).

Sam Harris on the Israel/Palestine conflict.

http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2014/07/28/sam-harris-on-the-israelpalestine-conflict/
 
bellenuit said:
Maybe it depends on who is doing the informing.

I said I was shocked at the overreaction of Israel. Am I the only one in the world who feels that?

I have said I think they are in an impossible situation. What do you do when your neighbour's ruling elite say their aim is to annihilate you no matter what? That aim is not contingent on the outcome of the conflict between the two, but an absolute goal that they intend to pursue no matter what the outcome. Do you not think that is an impossible situation? We in the West might have the luxury of treating such a threat to us as just bellicose rhetoric, but if I were Jewish, I might have a very different perspective. Yes, I would like to see the Palestinians have their own state too, but there have been many people more informed than I who have stated over and over that Arafat could have had what they now would accept, but failed to grasp that opportunity.

Luutzu, it is obvious that you have strong feelings about what is happening to the Palestinians, but there is not just one opinion about the situation. I am expressing my opinion and if I am the only person in the world that has that opinion, how do you account for the article by Sam Harris? That is his opinion too. Is nobody informed accept those who agree with you? I don't think anyone should injure or kill anyone else, but that doesn't mean I am to ignore Hamas and the role it is playing. They clearly want this to happen. The more Palestinians that get killed and the more graphic the imagery is on TV the better it is for them politically. Have you even considered that one sided reactions such as yours and in particular what now seems a personal attack on other people's (my) opinion on the situation may be exactly what Hamas is trying to evoke? By not condemning Hamas too, which you seem to have done only in the meekest of terms, you may actually be contributing to what is happening as it only encourages them to pursue the struggle in the way they are doing it. As I said in one of my first posts, Hamas would not be firing rockets at Israel and we would not have had the over the top retaliation that we have seen from Israel, if those in the West were to condemn Hamas for its actions as vociferously as they condemn Israel.

I don't have a cold heart to the suffering of the Palestinians, but I am also not a pawn to the political strategy of Hamas. Condemnation is deserving to both sides and if I am more forceful in calling out Hamas, maybe it is because I perceive a lack of balance in the general discourse.

I was unsure if I should contribute to this thread after you started it as I believe the topic is very emotive and issues can quickly become personal. Perhaps I would have been wiser to keep my "uninformed" opinions to myself and not accepted your invitation to comment.
Click to expand...

Maybe those human rights organisations' reports; the UN Reports into the conflict; history; maybe former Israeli soldiers; maybe studies, research and conclusions by professors of political science from Harvard and Uni of Chicago...

I thought that would be a good section of academic and objective information.

Did you see in any of those sources opinions and columnists, on any side?

Maybe my own sense of right and wrong, own readings of history and politics and war...

But that's not it though, must be Hamas' PR machine.


It's amazing that Hamas is committing double crimes against humanity because Hamas fired rockets into Israel indiscriminately (killing 2 Israeli citizens and a foreign maid), and also committing crimes by forcing the Israeli military to fired back non-indiscriminately and kill and maim thousands of civilians.

Honest minds that come up with that, and minds that bought that fluff... wow.

It's like an abusive spouse beating the heck out of the other spouse then blame him/her for forcing it on themselves and making the abuser look and feel bad for doing it.
 
bellenuit said:
Why Don’t I Criticize Israel? (Sam Harris)

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/why-dont-i-criticize-israel

I think that article encapsulates what many of us feel about this conflict. Shocked with the overreaction of Israel, but somewhat understanding of the impossible situation they are in.
Click to expand...

That's a scholarly piece of work there.

I wish I could "reason" like that.

Honestly, I didn't read the entire blog... maybe half. The first 1/3 goes on about most Jews don't believe in their Bibles, 'cause those books are bad, worst than the Koran... So Jews are liberal and not religious nuts like the Arabs and their Koran. Is that a fair summary?

Then I love this argument... That Arabs deny the Holocaust, and if it didn't happen, the Arabs want to make it happen and wipe Israel off the map. And you can see this in their teachings and their children's shows...

But the noble Israeli, it's noble and meant the Arabs, meant the Palestinians no harm because how? Because look at what happen when the Israeli could do anything they want to do to the Palestinians? Did they kill all the Palestinians? No! They could if they wanted to, but the fact that they didn't kill all Palestinians meant that they are kind and good and any civilians death, like the killings of those four boys playing soccer on the beach... that of course is an accident, and if not an accident, it's by some rouge solider under a lot of pressure.

Woah!

If a person could beat another person to death, but decided to only beat them half to death... would a judge let that person go and say... yea he's good, he didn't mean it, he's a noble soul because if he wanted to, he could have beat the victim completely to death.



Fact:

Israel controls the electricity, the water, the food, the movement, the leadership, the roads, the sea, the air.... controls everything the Palestinians do or could not do.

Human rights organisations have reported that the food rations to Palestinians are below hunger level while Israel argue that it's hunger level plus.

It's good to know that Palestinians diets and daily caloric intake are monitored too.

---

You know what's sad?
All powerful countries commit crimes and invade weaker countries.
That's just a fact of life.

It's sad that you actually believe Israel is fighting a just war, fighting for survival like it was 1939. Sad that given all the research and studies and histories, done by scholars, by the UN, testimonies by some Israelis themselves... that you would believe that.
 
What I have witnessed on this link that is happening in France is frightening to say the least.

Can it happen here?...........Yes it can if we continue to allow more Muslims to enter Australia illegally or legally.

The problem is those who are already here are reproducing at an alarming rate and the ratio is 8 to one the number of rebirths by Australians.

It is generally stated that the majority of Muslims are peace loving and it is the radicals who make all the trouble.

Yes they are all peace loving until they get the numbers and that is when the peace lovers become radicals...they are like a sleeping dog.

Wake up Australia and don't let it happen here.

I ask the question....why is there so much hatred between the Jews and the Muslims?




http://www.i24news.tv/en/news/inter...as-executes-30-suspected-collaborators-report
 
bellenuit said:
Why Don’t I Criticize Israel? (Sam Harris)

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/why-dont-i-criticize-israel

I think that article encapsulates what many of us feel about this conflict. Shocked with the overreaction of Israel, but somewhat understanding of the impossible situation they are in.
Click to expand...

Sam Harris appears to provide a very balanced view on the conflict, bagging both sides with cutting dialogue.

Harris ultimately comes done on the side of Israel.

Very conveniently, he neglects to reveal that his mother is jewish.

When asked "why don't I criticise Israel", Harris fails to be honest and just come out with the truth, which is, he is biased.
 

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