Harry’s Place

“With a Kadima-Labour government in power in Jerusalem and Obama in the White House, Fatah controlling both parts of the Palestinian territories – it would be the best chance in years for a final agreement on a two-state solution.”

What about the huge majority of Gazans who rejected Fatah’s decades of corruption and voted for Hamas? Does this will of these people not matter? Do you really think that majority in Gaza who have seen a week of bloodshed, bombings and death, will suddenly embrace Fatah?

Thats quite a simplistic way of looking at things

“This battle is the latest stage of a war that is entirely about whether a Jewish state will be allowed to exist in the land of Israel. On this point, both Hamas leaders and the Israelis are in agreement.”

Hamas, the Israeli leadership, the Iranians and the US Republican Party might share this view.

90% of the rest of the world know that it is war is about whether two viable, democratic states can co-exist peacefully with restoration of 1967 borders and some sort of justice for the displaced Palestinians.

Couching it in terms of a war ENTIRELY about the future survival of an Israeli state is just a useful paradigm that justifies IDF ruthlessness and years of American / Israeli rejectionism.

“What about the huge majority of Gazans who rejected Fatah’s decades of corruption and voted for Hamas?”

Voter’s remorse?

Or are you saying the majority of Palestinians do not want peace with Israel?

Excllent post, btw, Eric.

The defeat of Hamas and the re-insertion of Palestinian Authority control over Gaza – possibly enforced by a pan-Arab peace-keeping force including Egyptian troops – would the best possible outcome of the current fighting.

The fantasy continues.

Fuck off benji and take your nine year old mind with you!

I see the upgrade failed, Benji’s still here.

The German deployment of truly terrifying new weapons – jet fighters and V2 rockets, plus the danger of a German atomic bomb – compelled Allied leaders to continue fighting as if Germany was as strong as ever.

Like Netanyahu, Lee’s still churning out the ridiculous WWII comparisons.

However, Netanyahu and Likud do not control the US government, so we have not yet been treated to the broader Eric Lee/Netanyahu justification from them - in fact the Israeli govt slapped down a hot headed diplomat who suggested it was about destroying Hamas.

Rather, it is about stopping rocket attacks, even though rockets are not seen as a serious physical threat - and that’s by Israel’s own assessment, and despite the fact that rocket attacks were massively reduced in the recent ceasefire.

Some more numbers for you: there have been 8,500 rocket attacks in 8 years, killing 20 Israelis. 1,700 Palestinians have been killed by Israel in the last three years.

In 2008, settlements in the West Bank increased significantly, and another 4,950 Palestinians were arrested. Checkpoints rose from 521 to 699.

Since Annapolis, Israel has killed 546 Palestinians, including 76 children. On 29th December 2008, Israel shot and killed a peaceful protester in the West Bank village of Nihlin, and has injured dozens more.

do not control the US government

Should ‘do not control the Israeli government’.

Teedoff

Well, come on, Lee’s little scenario has virtually no chance of happening.

Israel is today being accused of over-reacting, of applying disproportionate force to what is essentially a defeated and weak enemy.

Actually, Israel is doing what is necessary to bring the long war to an end.

Allow me to quote Israeli commander Gadi Eisenkot as reported by the newspaper Yediot Ahronot (via Haaretz):

“We will wield disproportionate power against every village from which shots are fired on Israel, and cause immense damage and destruction. From our perspective, these are military bases,” he said. “This isn’t a suggestion. This is a plan that has already been authorized.”

I don’t understand Israel’s apologists’ need to deny what the Israeli military has already admitted to be its policy. They are being more Catholic than the Israeli pope.

The first and most important consequence of Israel’s military victories was the peace agreement with Egypt.

The peace agreement with Egypt was possible precisely because it was negotiated after the only war Egypt could claim to have won. (I know, I know Israel won that war as well, since Israel has the megic formula for winning all wars ["always fight the Arabs"]; but Egypt caused enough damage to claim some sort of a victory.)

The “taming them through destruction” approach worked with Germany and Japan because they understood the enormity of what they had done. In the case of the Palestinians, however, they’re the ones whose land was stolen (let’s not forget that Sderot used to be an Arab village called Najd), and bombing ‘em into the Stone Age simply won’t do the trick.

Eric Lee: “Even a defeated enemy could be extremely dangerous. That’s why instead of easing up, of seeking ‘proportionate’ responses to the ineffective efforts by the Luftwaffe to attack Britain, the Allies chose to intensify the strategic bombing campaign in the last months of the war. In doing so, there is no doubt that they shortened the war and saved the lives of Allied soldiers and civilians.”

How ironic. A Jew who has mastered the propaganda techniques of Goebbels, even having the chutzpah to liken the persecuted Palestinians in Gaza–a new version of the Warsaw Ghetto–to the powerful Nazi army.

“In the final months of the Second World War, it was by no means clear to leaders on either side how things would turn out. Allied hopes of a swift victory in 1944 were dashed by Hitler’s Ardennes offensive. The German deployment of truly terrifying new weapons – jet fighters and V2 rockets, plus the danger of a German atomic bomb – compelled Allied leaders to continue fighting as if Germany was as strong as ever.”

Except that

1) The Germans were invaders and occupiers of others lands like the Israelis not defending their land that has been stolen like the Palestinians. The Israelis are the Germans in this scenario not the Palestinians.

2) WWII was between two relatively equally armies- the Gazan conflict is between a nuclear armed state with a powerful army and a people with virtually no weaponry.

A better analogy would be the German attack on the Warsaw ghetto.

could mark the beginning of a new, much more positive, chapter in Israeli-Arab relations.

You mean get cosy with the corrupt Fatah and corrupt dictatorships like Egypt, who will give you a bit of tacit support if you have a go at the Muslim Brotherhood. Then hope that everyone shuts up about the occupation and quietly forgets about the dead women and children.

Good luck with that little game.

“Actually, Israel is doing what is necessary to bring the long war to an end.”

You fail to realise that Palestine has a wider significance worldwide to billions of people. By annihilitating Palestine, which is what your article appears to suggest, you are paving the way for greater radicalism in the world, greater hatred of Israel and its neo-Con US funders, and consequently an even more vulnerable Israel that will never feel secure.

Or is the next stage of the Israeli plan to murder all justice-loving people all over the world too to shut them up?

“We will wield disproportionate power against every village from which shots are fired on Israel, and cause immense damage and destruction. From our perspective, these are military bases,” he said. “This isn’t a suggestion. This is a plan that has already been authorized.”

Good, such a plan is necessary if one wishes to actually stop the rockets. And that is in no way incompatible with defanging Hamas - HB and Penny have no logic whatsoever behind claiming it is.

Benji thinks there’s no point trying to end the war when ending the war will only mean that fewer Jews are being killed when his main objection is that not enough Jews have been killed - it isn’t fair. I mean if the Israelis were sporting a few thousand of them would jump into the sea, just to even out the score.

Excellent post. Precisely.

Fatah’s mahmoud abbas is on record in the last three months as saying the palestinians would never accept a Jewish state, and still insists on the ‘right of return’ (which, BTW, does not exist anywhere else in the world). Contrary to popular belief, the fatah charter does not differ from the hamas version: both aspire to the goal of destroying Israel. The plo document was NOT amended.

Abbas can provide simple proof of his good intentions, if they exist. He can cease, overnight, the daily barrage of vicious anti-Israel incitement and anti-Semitism in the mosques, schools, media and government. That would convince Israelis that they will not be threatened by missiles from the West Bank after a withdrawal. It would not cost abbas anything to take this step, since it would mean that future generations are not being raised on a diet of hatred. Until that happens, we can unfortunately expect more of the same if Israel weakens her position by ceding land when there is no peace on offer.

We must stop pretending that abbas is well-meaning just because hamas is even worse. Both groups want all of Israel. The difference is that abbas takes the longer view, and will wait until he feels he has achieved all he can through diplomatic means (ie, arafat mark 2, who launched a war in 2000 after the Clinton peace processing came to a conclusion). Then he will launch another war - which has been threatened often enough by his spokesmen. In contrast, hamas cannot wait. They want everything, now.

You fail to realise that Palestine has a wider significance worldwide to billions of people.

Billions? Hundreds, maybe. The rest of us aren’t involved. We do things like go to work, go out for lunch, go to parties. We’re not mad or obsessive, you see, and therefore not “radicalised” by whatever it is has sent you haywire, you loony.

Londoner, it’s possible that Abbas is cynical enough that, unlike Hamas’ religious fanatics, he knows that war to defeat Israel will always be impossible - but he also knows that his public loves the fantasy. He may be smart enough not to believe his own words, unlike the losers of Hamas.

Londoner,

Hatred is not bread by Palestinians. Hatred is bread against Israel by Israelis themselves by killing their children, brothers, sisters, mums and dads, by defying UN Resolutions to end their occupations, by carrying out daily incursions, by destroying homes and agricultural land, by preventing people working and studying, by denying access to food, water, medicines and fuel and by blocking all incoming and outgoing traffic.

If I perpetrate all the above evil atrocities on you, on the back of a flimsly “God promised me this land 5000 years ago”, are you and your children going to love me or hate me?

I love Irene. Just when you think the HP comment section couldn’t get any loonier along comes someone so nuts she makes our Nazi uncomfortable.

wardytron, then I suggest you watch the news and see the anti-Israel protests in every major country in the world.

Josh Scholar, there goes your radical religious extremist rhetoric again. You cant address the arguments, so you resort to childish abuse.

this myth about Hamas commanding the mass of Palestinian public opinion is bogus, the election was much closer than people will often admit:

“Of the Electoral Lists, Hamas received 44.45% and Fatah 41.43%[1] and of the Electoral Districts, Hamas party candidates received 41.73% and Fatah party candidates received 36.96%.[2]“

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_legislative_election,_2006

that’s about a 3% different, which led to their initial election victory in 2006, it was NOT a massive landslide, just over 3%

“radical religious extremist rhetoric” pffft! Lol, you don’t know me very well.

Masterly analysis yet again by Eric Lee.

What about the huge majority of Gazans who rejected Fatah’s decades of corruption and voted for Hamas? Does this will of these people not matter?

Once again, the usual suspects come up with this nonsense of the ‘will of the people’. When the ‘will of the people’ is to support fascism and a genocidal war against their neighbours, it is of no moral importance.
In any case, once again: Hamas is not a ‘democratic government’. It is in power as the result of a coup. It pursues its enemies through murder, like any group of gangsters does.

Thats quite a simplistic way of looking at things

Quite funny, really, from someone who’s never been to the Middle East.

90% of the rest of the world know that it is war is about whether two viable, democratic states can co-exist peacefully with restoration of 1967 borders and some sort of justice for the displaced Palestinians.

The ignorant slogan about ‘1967 borders’ - which never existed - reveals your agenda.
The ‘Palestinians’ have milked misplaced world sympathy for 60 years now. They started a war, and like any group who starts a war they are paying the price.

Couching it in terms of a war ENTIRELY about the future survival of an Israeli state is just a useful paradigm that justifies IDF ruthlessness and years of American / Israeli rejectionism.

Blah blah yackedy-yah. Peace was rejected by the Arabs, on a dozen occasions from 1947 till today.

by defying UN Resolutions to end their occupations

You have never actually read one of those, have you? Care to quote chapter and verse from 242, say?

In any event, the UN is a voluntary club dominated by fascists and mass-murdering regimes. It has no business telling Israel to commit suicide, which is clearly what you want.

Then hope that everyone shuts up about the occupation

It’s true. Over the last few days the Hong Kong brigadier has finally come out of the closet, sporting his Hamas credentials and spouting its propaganda without shame.

Egypt caused enough damage to claim some sort of a victory

Well yes, those fantasists can ‘claim’ it. It is still drivel. Israel was 100 km west of the canal. Some Egyptian ‘victory’.

In the case of the Palestinians, however, they’re the ones whose land was stolen

Utter nonsense, every word.

I have been keeping away from HP because my nerves can’t take the horrors. But I have just heard on the TV news that Palestinians in Gaza are phoning the Israelis to tell them where to strike military targets. Apparently many of them have had enough of Hamas.

Demonstraters below - lambs to the slaughter as they too belong to the category of people I. fundamentalism wants to eliminate.
Just corrected the mistakes I saw on the preview - ??

Still, the uneasiness among some of Israel’s supporters seems to be in stark contrast to the strident support for aggression in Lebanon back in 2006. This is encouraging. The scale, swiftness and militancy of protests probably had an effect here. Were it not for the immediate expressions of outrage, including the brilliant blockades outside the Israeli embassy in London, I suspect that many of the critics would have held their tongues, or moderated their position. That is one more reason, at least, to make this Saturday’s protest in London as huge as possible.

http://leninology.blogspot.com/2009/01/is-gaza-attack-driving-wedge-through.html

It remains questionable how effective they (Qassems) are, however. The fact that the occasional person might actually get killed by such a weapon is unlikely to result in pressure on Tel Aviv to adopt a more humane policy toward the Palestinians: quite the reverse. Indeed, there can be such popular support for war on Gaza only because it is tacitly acknowledged that the provoked response is unlikely to be very deadly or frightening. If Israelis were really that terrified of the rockets, they would be considerably less gung-ho about blowing the shit out of Ay-rabs. The basic inefficacy of Qassams means that the IDF has always had an array of ultra-violent responses available to them. Back in 2004, before the Gaza pull-out, the doctrine espoused by Major-General Shamni was “stimulus and response”: the IDF would try to stimulate attacks and then, with the evil-doers exposed, assassinate them. You don’t provoke attacks in that fashion if you think the rockets are truly that menacing. Today, it seems that the doctrine of “stimulus and response” has been elevated to a whole new plateau: having provoked Hamas into renewing rocket fire after months of ceasefire, they created an excuse to launch this vicious operation. The current assault is demonstrating, inadvertently, that the rockets are becoming more effective, with longer reach into Israel. Five Israelis have been killed during the assault, one a soldier. However, this is little compared to Israel’s ability to turn dozens of sites to rubble overnight, and kill hundreds in a few days.

The best hope that Gaza has is if the riots and protests still erupting across the West Bank turn into a full-scale Third Intifada, the protests in Egypt become the basis for the final demolition of the Mubarak regime, and the rest of the Middle East explodes in rebellion.

http://leninology.blogspot.com/2008/12/few-notes-on-hamas-military-strategy.html

Irene, I suggest to you to be realistic. Demonstrations are not changing anything in Gaza.

Many Western and Arab governments would like to see Abbas and the Palestinian Authority back in authority over Gaza, thus restoring credibility to the “peace process.” Because they wish to see Hamas contained if not diminished, they have moved slowly or not at all to respond to calls for action to stop the fighting.

I heard a Hamas leader in Damascus screaming demanding that the Israeli Arabs revolt, but they don’t. There was a demonstration in Sahnin in Israel with a few thousand demonstrators, but no revolt. So probably you cool down.

But I have just heard on the TV news that Palestinians in Gaza are phoning the Israelis to tell them where to strike military targets.

I’ve always thought that our main strength against theocrats is the fact that they will be surrounded and infiltrated by sane people in their own societies who understand that our side is the better one.

That’s the one place where the peaceniks have a point. We should not go so far that we stop attracting the loyalty liberals among our enemies. But on the reverse token we much always show enough toughness that we DO attract liberals among our enemies, and that’s much further than the peaceniks want.

Benji, HB and assorted discontents have a problem with a Jewish state protecting her citizens. They want to see Jews defenceless and at the mercy of whoever rules them, in keeping with their condition over centuries in arab lands, dhimmi-style. What else explains their objection to Israel refusing to countenance rocket attacks after eight long years? Just as Israel is an affront to arabs because Jews have finally jettisoned the dhimmi-status in their own state, Israel’s existence troubles Benji and HB for the same reason.

HB can play word-games about proportionality, and quote as many people as he likes. The facts do not change: a state which is being attacked by rockets aimed at her civilians does not count up the rockets in order to deliver back the same number. She seeks to eliminate the threat from the terrorists - it is that simple, and it is her duty to her citizens.

A state has nothing to negotiate with a terrorist group which is not amenable to reason (according to its Arab brethren, let alone Israel), and which seeks its destruction as is clear in the hamas charter.

Israel provides her citizens with shelters to protect them from hamas rockets. Hamas provides shelters for its leaders, while exposing their civilians to attack by firing missiles from civilian locations. Today the hamas bloodletting of fellow-palestinians was reported again. Career terrorists will lash out in any direction, and have no qualms about killing their own kind.

wardytron, then I suggest you watch the news and see the anti-Israel protests in every major country in the world.

Pro-Israeli rally draws thousands to Paris
French capital sees 12,000 demonstrators gather in show of support for Israel, Operation Cast Lead.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3650405,00.html

Hears a Syrian govt rep on SKy News.

“This is a disproportionate response. 400+ Palestinians killed and only four Israelis”

Anyone who buys that argument is either terminally stupid or just a Jew hater (or both).

Seymour is an idiot. What he fails to realize is that if the rockets had been good enough to already be a near existential threat then the response would be much more brutal. Israel would do whatever it takes to end the threat, no matter how many people they had to kill, or how much land they had to evacuate…

Maven, they’re all both. And too stupid to realize it.

I mean the people in this comment section who agree with Syria.

in fact the Israeli govt slapped down a hot headed diplomat who suggested it was about destroying Hamas.

Quite right too! Shtumm!

OK, how do we stop the rockets?

Let’s see, we go into Gaza and reduce Hamas to rubble that can’t fire rockets?

Great idea Shlomo.

Israel’s policy is to stop the rockets.

Bob Latchford are you actually trying to argue that the Palestinians who elected Hamas did so because they wanted this war and Hamas using them as human shields? If so they it seems that they, or you, are crazier than I thought.

All this twaddle about Hamas’ democratically elected status is so much that. It has no opposition, having killed it all off. Democratic rule means listening to opposition. How many of those opposed to Hamas can actually say so in public and live to tell the tale? What sort of cockeyed “democracy” is that?

Hamas’ behaviour reminds me of what I have read about Hitler’s last days in Berlin. Descending deeper and deeper into psychosis Hitler didn’t care one jot for the welfare of his people, indeed he wanted them to die and go out in a blaze of “glory” and gave orders that officers who refused to fight to the death for his lost cause be shot.

Irene, this is for you. Read it and try to convince us that Hamas really has no choice but to put its own people and little children in harm’s way: Earlier this afternoon I heard a Norwegian doctor in Gaza, yelling condemnation of Israel for having killed, he said, young children in one of its bombardments. Later in the interview it transpired that the children had been playing on the roof of the targeted building! Some questions, Irene:

What caring parents allow their children even to go outdoors while shells and rockets are falling around them? Contrast this wilful neglect with the behaviour of parents in Sderot towards their children.

Is this yet another example of Hamas forcing its children onto roofs in the hope that buildings containing weapons or explosives of from which rockets have been fired won’t get hit? That is, after all, Hamas’ strong suit.

You mention atrocities - OK, where are the bomb shelters for the Palestinian people? Any caring, civilised government would make preparations if it intended to behave in such a way as to invite retaliation for acts of war. Why didn’t Hamas behave so responsibly when it knew that its people would be shields for it and literally take the flak? Perhaps its most fundamental miscalculation was that the sight of its dead and wounded didn’t sway public opinion as much as it expected (although dead children are an abomination to civilised people, they are a definite publicity ploy for Hamas).

No child or civilian should be wilfully put in this position. Why then does Hamas do this and why do you seem so keen not to see their pathology for what it is?

“Seymour is an idiot.”

God, I really hate that bastard. There aren’t many things that make my blood boil but his blog, the people he attracts and the fact that he still calls himself ‘Lenin’ just about does it.

Irene! Darlin’ Mavey wants to give you a big sloppy wet one. Whumph!

I thought you’d gone forever. Now you’ve made my evening (until I get the latest on Hamas casualties).

Give me a few dirty posts I can get off on!

“Utter nonsense, every word.”
Nearly Oxfordian,you stupid shithead,I realise your brain has its work cut out pushing shit out of your mouth,but how about some proof for your assertions.You pompous,idiotic fascist.

Hatred is not bread by Palestinians. Hatred is bread against Israel …….

All this bread about but only Hamas will be TOAST!!!!!

Bwaaaaahhhahhhaa!

All this bread about but only Hamas will be TOAST!!!!!

Or if we take the Pesach parody about UNLEAVENED BREAD!

Looks like Hamas are Matza Brie!!!!!

Bwahhhaaaaa!

I have been keeping away from HP because my nerves can’t take the horrors. But I have just heard on the TV news that Palestinians in Gaza are phoning the Israelis to tell them where to strike military targets. Apparently many of them have had enough of Hamas.

If that is true then I salute those brave Palestinians for putting peace before War. They risk their lives by Hamas assassination.

Irene, you expose your ignorance of recent history with every word you write. When Israel took control of the West Bank and Gaza, she improved the lives of the residents immeasurably, giving them the basic infrastructure that 19 years of jordanian and egyptian rule never gave them. She introduced universal education - something that does not exist in a single arab state today. She built universities, and a healthcare system - which functions better than many oil-rich arab countries. The palestinians were employed in Israeli towns between 1967 and 2000 (and there were no impediments to free movement whatsoever). In 2000 the career terrorist arafat started a barbaric war of suicidal psychopaths. That is when employment for palestinians in Israel was closed off, and that is when Israel started building her barrier and roadblocks. All states put up roadblocks to catch terrorists, and many, many states have put up walls and security barriers. But Irene only obsesses about Israel’s security measures. Does Irene think that Israel is uniquely, amongst all states, obliged to facilitate the ease of travel of those who mean to kill her citizens?

The closure of work opportunities in Israel brought self-inflicted poverty to palestinians. Their living standards plummeted, almost overnight. Their per capita income until then was higher than in the surrounding arab states. Yet Irene prefers to infantalise palestinians by never holding them responsible for their own behaviour. You must really believe that palestinians are so backward that they cannot make the connection between the terrorism they inflict on others, and the security measures others take to defend themselves.

A palestinian child in gaza will illuminate you, Irene. His home is located next to a compound which was attacked by Israel last week. See this extract from the NYTimes:

Amid a Buildup of Its Forces, Israel Ponders a Cease-Fire
By ETHAN BRONNER and TAGHREED EL-KHODARY, 30 December 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/31/world/middleeast/31mideast.html?_r=1&fta=y

His 13-year-old son, Yousef, was with him. When asked his view of the situation, Yousef took an unusual stand for someone in Gaza, where Israel is being cursed by most everyone. “I blame Hamas. It doesn’t want to recognize Israel. If they did so there could be peace,” he said. “Egypt made a peace treaty with Israel, and nothing is happening to them.”
—–

Mark those words - ‘nothing is happening to them’. In the meantime, repeat slowly:
No terrorism, no roadblocks.
No terrorism, no security barrier.
No terrorism, no aerial attacks.
No terrorism, no ground invasion.

HB can play word-games about proportionality, and quote as many people as he likes. The facts do not change: a state which is being attacked by rockets

I don’t play any word games. People here say Israel’s response is not disproportionate; I quote an Israeli commander who claims it’s official Israeli policy to use disproportionate force. And I believe the Israeli military is fully aware of what the word “disproportionate” means.

You seem to be quite comfortable with people quoting Ahmadinejad’s words that he will wipe Israel off the map (which he never said, but that’s another story), but you get nervous when an Israeli general is quoted confessing to a policy of disporportionate force.

Career terrorists will lash out in any direction, and have no qualms about killing their own kind.

Jewish terrorists, back in Mandate Palestine, used to murder Jews who were loyal to the British or even to the Haganah (not that the Haganah themselves did not engage in terrorism, mind you). Some of those terrorists went on to become Prime Ministers of Israel.

The kettle’s blackness continues to horrify certain pots.

No terrorism, no roadblocks.
No terrorism, no security barrier.
No terrorism, no aerial attacks.
No terrorism, no ground invasion.

No illegal settlers, no terrorism.

No illegal settlers, no terrorism.

bullshit

Josh Scholar, you wrote that “it’s possible that Abbas is cynical enough that, unlike Hamas’ religious fanatics, he knows that war to defeat Israel will always be impossible - but he also knows that his public loves the fantasy. He may be smart enough not to believe his own words, unlike the losers of Hamas.”

I would like to believe you, truly. But I read the media in the entire arab world, and in abbas-land, daily. It is not a pretty sight. Israel’s Government cannot overlook it.

Abbas funded the Munich massacre in 1972. His PhD thesis in Moscow minimised the Holocaust. The man is a fraud.

Goodnight Irene

No illegal settlers, no terrorism.

One more thing, HB. When it finally dawns on you that settlers are a red herring, that the terrorists want to kill every Jew on the planet, will your support for them disappear?

Remember the Jews they tortured to death in Mambai
http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/nov/30mumterror-doctors-shocked-at-hostagess-torture.htm
No settlers, no terrorism?

I’m sure Tim has already posted this, but Galloway’s show was pulled last night because of the Israel demo:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1105103/George-Galloway-axed-TalkSPORT-scuffle-police-pro-Palestinian-rally.html

HB, you are a liar and a fraud. Ahmedinejad ’s statement was verified by the NYTimes, especially for people like you who get their kicks from absolving today’s hitlers from all responsibility for the genocide that they are planning. Ethan Bronner wrote that it was confirmed by translators in Tehran who work for the president’s office. We can only assume that you are in sympathy with today’s hitlers, or why go to the lengths you do to defend the indefensible?

Your ‘kettle’s blackness’ quote is a classic case of mirror-imaging. Keep it up, HB, since you are best placed to expose your true intent.

Ethan Bronner, Just How Far Did They Go, Those Words Against Israel?, New York Times, 11 June 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/11/weekinreview/11bronner.html?ex=1307678400&en=efa2bd266224e880&ei=5088
&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

I am not ‘nervous’ in the slightest about the statement by the Israeli commander. You have to be dense not to understand that he was trashing the concept of ‘proportionality’. The point stands: Israel is duty-bound to do whatever is necessary to eliminate the threat. Armchair twits can afford to philosophise about ‘proportionality’. A state with responsibility for the security of her citizens does not have that luxury.

,

Having ´friends´ like lenin & co. is not the least of the disasters that have befallen the Palestinians throughout the years.

Seymour said: “It remains questionable how effective they (Qassems) are, however. The fact that the occasional person might actually get killed by such a weapon is unlikely to result in pressure on Tel Aviv to adopt a more humane policy toward the Palestinians: quite the reverse.”

That is because “pressur[ing] Tel Aviv to adopt a more humane policy” was never the intention. The qassams are however very effective in their intended role, by keeping a war going that advance the interests of neither ordinary Palestinians nor Israelis; they are also very effective in making any further Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank nearly impossible.

Unlike some, Hamas is not stupid. It became a significantr player by waging unceasing war on the peace process in the 90s. By doing so it atracted the support of those more interested in ethnic cleansing Tel Aviv than liberating the West Bank. And lenin´s.

When it finally dawns on you that settlers are a red herring, that the terrorists want to kill every Jew on the planet, will your support for them disappear?

When did I support the terrorists? On the contrary, I have quite clearly stated that I reject the use of terrorism to fight the Israeli occupation. I condemn all acts of terror, including the kidnapping of Gilad Schalit. See here.

That said, I also reject the notion that terrorism against Israel can be explained away as a mere expression of genocidal intent. That is paranoia. Let’s see: you claim the terrorists want to kill all Jews; you also claim that Iran funds the terrorists; yet Iran has a vibrant Jewish community! Where’s the genocidal intent? Please do give me a break.

HB, “No illegal settlers, no terrorism”.

Spoken like a true nazi! So now you have established for us that you also get your kicks from advocating the ethnic cleansing of Jews.

Why else do you believe that both Jews and Arabs may not live in a future palestinian state, as they will continue to live in Israel? Real peace means that both groups can live with each other on both sides of the border, and inter-act as good neighbours.

But the nazi HB wishes to ensure that the conflict is perpetuated by deciding that Jews and Arabs may never live together in the same state. These nazi thoughts are also what motivated the expulsion of a million Jews from Arab lands, the majority of whom now reside in Israel. The nazi HB wants to enact hitler’s Judenrein regulations. Join hamas, whose clerical fascist theocracy has a lot in common with hitler. They’ll love you.

The Hasbara Buster when you say I don’t play any word games. People here say Israel’s response is not disproportionate; I quote an Israeli commander who claims it’s official Israeli policy to use disproportionate force. And I believe the Israeli military is fully aware of what the word “disproportionate” means.

You are talking absolute bollocks and as someone with massively superior grammatical transformation and lexical analysis skills I can wipe the floor with any of your feeble attempts to play around with the word’s “Proportional” and “Disproportional”.

I can tell from most of your posts you are a classic “Bait ‘n Switcher” you refer to Item “A”, pattern match with Item “B” and try to assert that Item “B” = Item “A”. So, you found an article where an Israel Genberal has stated that he will use “Disproportional” force if fired on from a village. Oh Dear, that means Israel MUST be guilty of “Disproportional Force”. HB calls ‘case proven’.

Then you examine the article and discover this General has stated a future policy in a war against HEZBOLLAH!!! Suddenly, the pattern doesn’t match!

What is he saying here (and I find a bit of military swearing conveys it nicely) . “Last time we were in The Lebanon quite frankly we pussy-footed. Did our best to avoid civilian casualties and what happened. We got fucked. My men got killed because we underestimated what we needed to do. Next time we ain’t gonna get fucked. I’m gonna blast those fuckers with everything I got until they are silenced. we’re not short of ammo and I ain’t risking my guys lives”. Hence, he has decided to ‘let them have it’.

That does NOT translate to Israel’s policy in Gaza. If we used the same analogu you have tried to pass off then the response would be something like:-

“Them Hamas fuckers are all over Gaza City. All I know is if I drop a million tons of TNT I’ll get most of them.”

But that clearly isn’t happening so your analogy and conclusion is shot to pieces.

You have never defined proportionality because you can’t. You aren’t smart enough to get near it. I am!

I’l repeat what I posted once before with different words.

Proportionality is in the eye of the beholder. Usually the simpletons like you will choose a parameter where you find one number is bigger than another number and use it to define what is proportional. In your case and most other idiots of single dimensional thinking they look at “4 Israelis killed” versus “400 Palestinians killed” and call it a “Disproportional Response”.

So, how about how many missiles have been fired at Israel versus how many have been fired at Gaza. Let’s take up to day three when people were already bleating “Disporportional”. So how many misisles had Israel fired? I doubt they managed 8,000 in three days. Let’s say 1,000.

This is CLEARLY “Disproportional” because Israel ONLY fired 1,000 and Hamas have been allowed 8.000. Clearly, this needs adjusting to a fair and equal proportion. Israel, owed 7.000 missiles plus one for each fired from the point that the response began. Isn’t that fair HB?

But No!, its NOT fair. Let’s divide all the days over which Hamas fired 8,000 missiles and state that a fair proportion would be if Israel ONLY fired that number each day>

Now here’s a revelation to all you who are transfixed in a trance, having been hypnotised by the media, or should I say ‘conditioned’.

You can call that a pardigm shift. I call that classical NLP transformational grammar Reframe

Here’s a great response anyone should use if asked that question. Just ask “Disproportionate to what?” then you force the questioner to state the stimulus against which you can say “Thank you for acknowledging that Hamas has fired 8,000 missiles at Israel”. (BTW I am sure this is the type of verbal skills training Israel PR has undergone. I call it Verbal Nimawashi)

What is Disproportional? The stimulus for Israel’s response are rocket attacks from Hamas in Gaza. If Israel’s response is to bomb every school and mosque but only when they know they are occupied then that is Disproportional (and illegal) since the response has no intention to stop rockets except by using children and worshippers lives as some hostage against Hamas stopping.

But Israel targets Hamas to stop rockets. Have the rockets stopped completely? No. Hence whatever criteria you want to measure Israel’s response, in terms of casualties or firepower then the response has not been of the right quality. It is “Disporportionate” to dealing with the threat by being UNDER the value of a response required to achive an objective.

Hence, “Disproportionality” or “Proportionality” has to have an intangible quality that cannot be defined by comparisons of numbers but by whether a goal is achievable or has been achieved.

Now we have the last factor of “Disproportionality”. The Moral factor. Do I kill children to achieve the goal or do I target only Hamas and acknowledge it will be slower.

“Proportionality” and “Disporportionality” cannot be discussed unless you are able to define your measure and factor strategy and goals with morals.

Basically HB, as a one dimensional thinker you don’t qualify to be able to discuss “Disproportionality”

Ahmedinejad ’s statement was verified by the NYTimes

On the contrary, the Times’ article you link to quite clearly confirms that the words used were “Zionist regime,” not “Israel.”

Also, in further statements Iran made it clear that it will NOT attack Israel:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday that the Zionist regime is inherently doomed to annihilation and there is no need for Iranians to take action.

My emphasis.

I.e., Israel’s annihilation will come about spontaneously, not as the result of Persian action.

Unless you can cite a statement contradicting this quote, I kindly ask you to acknowledge that Iran has not threatened to attack Israel, much less to wipe it off the map.

That is because “pressur[ing] Tel Aviv to adopt a more humane policy” was never the intention.

Brigadier General (Res.) Shmuel Zakai, former commander of the IDF’s Gaza Division, begs to differ:

“The state of Israel must understand that Hamas rule in Gaza is a fact, and it is with that government that we must reach a situation of calm.”

(…)

In Zakai’s view, Israel’s central error during the tahadiyeh, the six-month period of relative truce that formally ended on Friday, was failing to take advantage of the calm to improve, rather than markedly worsen, the economic plight of the Palestinians of the Strip.

(…)

“We could have eased the siege over the Gaza Strip, in such a way that the Palestinians, Hamas, would understand that holding their fire served their interests. But when you create a tahadiyeh, and the economic pressure on the Strip continues, it’s obvious that Hamas will try to reach an improved tahadiyeh, and that their way to achieve this, is resumed Qassam fire.

“The carrot is improvement of the economic situation in the Gaza Strip. You cannot just land blows, leave the Palestinians in Gaza in the economic distress they’re in, and to expect that Hamas will just sit around and do nothing. That’s something that’s simply unrealistic.”

The Qassams were fired because Israel failed to ease the blockade of Gaza during the truce, according to this gentleman with some experience on the ground.

But then who is an Israeli general to contradict the flat-screen warriors at Harry’s Place.

I’m sure Tim has already posted this, but Galloway’s show was pulled last night because of the Israel demo:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1105103/George-Galloway-axed-TalkSPORT-scuffle-police-pro-Palestinian-rally.html

I tuned in to hear a Galloway Rant-a-thon but was pleasantly suprised to hear Ian Collins who explained that he was doing an extended news coverage special edition as he had done before. He emphasised that the presenter hadn’t been changed (from Galloway) for any conspiracy theory reasons.

The program was reasonably balanced and Collins remarked that 80% of the callers waiting and e-mail/text messages were pro-Palestinian. Hardly suprising when the usual suspects, whack-jobs who love Galloway’s ..w bashing diatribes about Israel always pile in in droves to satisfy their blood lust. Anyway, Collins balanced it up with longer calls from articulat Zionists and they HATED it.

I do wonder whether Galloway was pulled not for his anti-Israel rhetoric but the possibility of pro-Hamas stuff leaking out which would put Talksport in difficulties by hosting pro-Terrorist sentiment.

The guy from 1:00am continued the call-in’s and played dumb. Gave lots of pro-Israel balance and pissed off a few Muslim callers who called him a Zionist propagandist and bigot just for allowing articulate peace-loving pro-Israelis to mention their “We love peace” stuff. Didn’t fit the Muslim caller who almost creamed himself when it was suggested there might be a one state solution. Great he said, I’ll get millions of Palestinian refugees in and we’ll run the place.

You are talking absolute bollocks and as someone with massively superior grammatical transformation and lexical analysis skills I can wipe the floor with any of your feeble attempts to play around with the word’s “Proportional” and “Disproportional”.

—

Actually, this kind of bluster is usually associated with an inferiority complex–in this case intellectual and political.

HB, one can’t help repeating: YOU ARE A LIAR. I hope other posters reading this comment also check out the NYTimes article and verify the extent of your dishonesty for themselves.

Read the NYTimes article again. It ends with these words: “So did Iran’s president call for Israel to be wiped off the map? It certainly seems so. Did that amount to a call for war? That remains an open question.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/11/weekinreview/11bronner.html?ex=1307678400&en=efa2bd266224e880&ei=5088
&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Even more pathetic is your attempt to whitewash admedinejad’s words by substituting “Zionist regime” for Israel. How many countries qualify as “Zionist regime” in ahmedinejad’s terminology?

You can store your ‘further statements’ under your pillow for safe-keeping. They are no good to anyone else. They convince nazis, only.

You are talking absolute bollocks and as someone with massively superior grammatical transformation and lexical analysis skills I can wipe the floor with any of your feeble attempts to play around with the word’s “Proportional” and “Disproportional”.

For all your skills, you still have to master the use of apostrophes.

Then you examine the article and discover this General has stated a future policy in a war against HEZBOLLAH!!! Suddenly, the pattern doesn’t match!

Not so. He said the policy applies to every village that fired shots against Israel. Analysts who have discussed the doctrine agree that it applies to Gaza as well:

Colonel (Res.) Gabriel Siboni recently authored a report through Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies backing Eisenkot’s statements.

The answer to rocket and missile threats from Syria, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, he believes, is “a disproportionate strike at the heart of the enemy’s weak spot, in which efforts to hurt launch capability are secondary. As soon as the conflict breaks out, the IDF will have to operate in a rapid, determined, powerful and disproportionate way against the enemy’s actions.”

But the nazi HB wishes to ensure that the conflict is perpetuated by deciding that Jews and Arabs may never live together in the same state.

When did I say that??

I said “no illegal settlers, no terrorism.” I didn’t say “no Jews in the West Bank, no terrorism.”

See, I’m all in favor of Jews living in the West Bank. In fact I support a one-state solution from the Jordan to the Mediterranean, in which both Jews and Arabs will live side by side and with equal rights. If and when such a state is established (and I believe it will be established, given the current situation in which both Jews and Arabs are living on both sides of the Green Line, thus making it impossible to unscramble an egg), the Jews in the West Bank will no longer be illegal settlers. They will be citizens of that utopian, yet possible, entity.

Londoner, if you can’t understand the difference between “Zionist regime” and “Israel,” then you can’t grasp the difference between “Apartheid regime” and “South Africa” either, and I’m afraid it’s a bit difficult to debate someone unable to make such distinctions.

HB, playing with words does not impress. Who apart from Jews do you mean when you use the term ‘illegal settlers’.

No one cares what you are in favour of, now that we know you advocate the ethnic cleansing of Jews from a future palestinian state. A Judenrein state was what hitler wanted, and what the arab countries in the Mideast enacted.

Now that it has been incontestably established that you are a LIAR, in your flimsy claims that you ‘know’ what ahmedinejad said better than translators from his office, you are wastiing your time posting on a blog where your lies have been exposed.

HB, thanks to present-day nazis like you, I know only too well the difference between “Zionist regime” and “Israel”, too well.

You could do with finding out the definition of Zionism, but not the version given in the hamas charter or similar - however tempting it is for you to look there first.

I said “no illegal settlers, no terrorism.”

Don´t forget, that in HB´s opinion the Jewish ihabitants of
Sderot are illegal settlers.

But Israel targets Hamas to stop rockets. Have the rockets stopped completely? No. Hence whatever criteria you want to measure Israel’s response, in terms of casualties or firepower then the response has not been of the right quality. It is “Disporportionate” to dealing with the threat by being UNDER the value of a response required to achive an objective.

Hence, “Disproportionality” or “Proportionality” has to have an intangible quality that cannot be defined by comparisons of numbers but by whether a goal is achievable or has been achieved.

Now we have the last factor of “Disproportionality”. The Moral factor. Do I kill children to achieve the goal or do I target only Hamas and acknowledge it will be slower.

“Proportionality” and “Disporportionality” cannot be discussed unless you are able to define your measure and factor strategy and goals with morals.

Basically HB, as a one dimensional thinker you don’t qualify to be able to discuss “Disproportionality
Good, but it’s sad to have to attempt to explain concepts as basic as counting - the retarded folks who can’t think by the time they’re old enough to post here won’t be capable of learning now.

hmm why did the blockquote fail?

HB is a liar, and not an accomplished one. He lied about the contents of a NYTimes article, intimating that he, HB, knows better than the translators in the office of ahmedinejad, what the latter said in his statements about Israel. He resorts to semantics when he has been rumbled. But the game is up.

So HB, we finally get a chance to de-bollox your claim to “Disporportionality” whereby we can state categorically that Israel has not responded “Disproportionaly” in Gaza because you have used the test of numbers of civilians while the General has discussed the proportionality of the type of response which relates to my discussion point that the goal must be factored into an equation of proportionality.

The quote now is:-

The answer to rocket and missile threats from Syria, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, he believes, is “a disproportionate strike at the heart of the enemy’s weak spot, in which efforts to hurt launch capability are secondary.

He doesn’t say “to kill lots more people or fire more rockets” what he argues is that you attack infrastructure, command and control and NOT the launch site.

HIS measure of proportionality is whether you confront the direct threat or confront the structure that supports it. The “Disproportionality” this article refers to is to hit a different type of target, nothing to do with casualties.

So, by the same equation Israel’s response is “Disproportionate” because whereas Hamas target civilians so IDF targets Hamas infrastructure.

Well, why didn’t you say so instead of pretending it was all about numbers.

I now know I can ‘take you any time I want’.

Lack of apostrophe control is the least of your problems.

Gotcha! Busted!

Londoner the game was up when he first posted “Everyone is a Nazis we just don’t have enough information”

Josh, must have missed that. But really, the last thing we need here is someone who intersperses lies with Jew-hatred.

Anyone who objects to Jewish residency in the West Bank, and, by extension, wishes to see them ethnically cleansed, is a nazi, and should be labelled as such.

Is Alberto insinuating that he is opposed to the enshrining of Sharia law - as it precludes equal rights - as the law of the land even if Muslims who want Shariah constitute a majority in the utopian one state between the Jordan and the Mediterranean?

Neatly done Hasbara Buster, aligning Zionist with Apartheid. But this is culture not colour.
Israel is about Jews living in a Jewish democracy. Sixty years ago, the UN gave them less than one sixth of the Palestine Mandate territories. Two thirds was hived off to form Jordan. The greater part of the land between the Jordan and the sea was given to the people we now call the Palestinians.
The Arabs launched five wars against Israel, and lost all of them almost immediately. This is how they are accustomed to dominate people who are not Muslim, and do not submit to Islam, but it has not worked. As a result of their aggression, they have lost ground. It is their own fault, but instead of coming to terms with it, they have continued to struggle in this futile way. When they understood they wouldn’t win any war, they took to intifada, and suicide bombs, and then to rockets.
The Israelis will never allow the right of return, because they would be in a minority. Historically, Jews have tolerated being powerless in many countries far more successfully than Muslims ever have. They are not like white people in South Africa. They have a right to a homeland, where they feel secure. Multiculturalism is a looseness in which a strong identity like Islam will eventually come to dominate. In our fair play way, we imagine it will be ok here because we cannot imagine our culture in jeopardy. I hope we are right, but many here are now having second thoughts about that. Muslims took the lands they dominate by force, and keep them by force. They have no more right to do so than Israel does.
I support their right to defend themselves and their country. All the Palestinians have to do is stop trying to kill them, and the conflict will end.

The first and most important consequence of Israel’s military victories was the peace agreement with Egypt.

You’re underplaying the importance that multilateral diplomacy, the death of Nasser, US financial assistance, British withdrawal from the Gulf, Warsaw Pact impoverishment and key individuals like Aziz Sidqi had in the Accords.

The entire discussion about disproportionate force is bogus.
Any study of military history shows that the army that won used disproportionate force. It is the goal of any military strategist to be able to use disproportionate force against the enemy. That is why, for example, in WWI the French could stop the Germans only once they had “numerical superiority” (basically another term for disproportionate force, if you think about it) for the First Battle of the Marne. Same with the Russian battle for Berlin, El Alamein, The allied air war on germany, etc. etc. back to antiquity.

So anybody who argues Israel isn’t using disproportionate force (ie more for than its enemies) is wrong. Israel wants to win this battle, therefore it uses disproportionate force. If it used “proportional force,” whatever that means, the outcome might go as well from Israel’s point of view.

It has been noted that the force required to achieve the objective isn’t disproportionate and I understand this point of view, but from a military standpoint, Israel is obliged to use disproportionate force to achieve those objectives.

The sentiment in the post’s fine and there is some good stuff; but there are plenty of ‘ifs’ in a row here to make how this will all pan out as rather uncertain, more so than the confidence projected intimates.

What we can say; is that it will likely change the dynamic on the ground. But I do agree, that there is a fair chance it’ll be for the better.

So anybody who argues Israel isn’t using disproportionate force (ie more for than its enemies) is wrong. Israel wants to win this battle, therefore it uses disproportionate force. If it used “proportional force,” whatever that means, the outcome might go as well from Israel’s point of view.

My only beef with people like HB and media commentators is that they use number of casualties to determine proportionality and not whether the goal is a moral one.

If the goal is to achieve no rockets fired at Israel then reporters in studios and reporters can’t be judges of what is reasonable.

Who says responses to attack have to be some proportion related to the scale of the attack?

Oh, I know who says that. Losing Islamists and Arabs who are all mouth but cowards in the fight. Who do Islamist Terrorists mainly target? Innocent civilians of course. Not anyone who would shoot back. Not Mano o Mano. No siree! Why do they always talk about loving death so much? Because the chances are they will get a chance to prove it.

Or is the next stage of the Israeli plan to murder all justice-loving people all over the world too to shut them up?/i>

No, that’s the next stage of the Islamist/Hizbullah/Hamas plan to murder all justice-loving people all over the world to shut them up.

Was Switzerland under occupation in WWII when all its boarders were under Axis control?

Was Sweden under occupation in WWII when all its boarders were under Axis control?

Was Poland under occupation following WWII when all its boarders were under the control of the USSR?

Josh Scholar

“One more thing, HB. When it finally dawns on you that settlers are a red herring, that the terrorists want to kill every Jew on the planet, will your support for them disappear?

Remember the Jews they tortured to death in Mambai
http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/nov/30mumterror-doctors-shocked-at-hostagess-torture.htm”

Hamas did that? You certainly learn something new on HP

The Arabs launched five wars against Israel, and lost all of them almost immediately. This is how they are accustomed to dominate people who are not Muslim, and do not submit to Islam, but it has not worked.

The Arabs you talk about include Jordan and Syria, two countries with sizable Christian minorities. In fact, they have been greeting large masses of Christians who have fled democratic Iraq. What imposition of Islam are you talking about?

Also, George Habash, probably the Palestinian terrorist with the most blood on his hands, was Christian. Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian legislator and one of the fiercest critics of Israel, is also Christian.

Multiculturalism is a looseness in which a strong identity like Islam will eventually come to dominate.

It’s not multiculturalism; it’s culture blending. And it has been under way for quite some time. The European Jews who immigrated to Israel have long abandoned their Yiddish words to adopt Arabic ones (for instance, curse words). Israeli Jewish cuisine is not about kreplach and gefilte fish any more; it’s about falafel and humus and other dishes that come from the surrounding Arab cultures. Israeli Jewish music no longer sounds like traditional Russian melodies, but like Arab litanies.

Arab culture is slowly taking over Ashkenazic culture — so what! Those who come to a neighborhood must learn to live according to the customs there. Nobody forced them to come in the first place.

Benji, HB and assorted discontents have a problem with a Jewish state protecting her citizens. They want to see Jews defenceless and at the mercy of whoever rules them

Try not to tell untruths. I will spell it out to you just yet again: Israel has the right to defend itself by any way it sees fit.

However, that does not mean one has to agree with every military action particularly if one thinks it won’t work and will result in many civilian deaths and additional needless suffering.

Simple to understand - I hope it sinks in this time.

How can commentators on here claim Israel’s actions are not disproportionate, when a senior Israeli officials talks about the Gaza Holocaust?

“The more [rocket] fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, they (the Palestinians) will bring upon themselves a bigger holocaust because we will use all our might to defend ourselves,” Matan Vilnai told Israeli army radio.

http://arabist.net/archives/2008/02/29/bbc-israel-warns-of-gaza-holocaust/

as reported by the BBC.

At the start of this aggression, Zsipi Livni said Isreali terror will continue “as long as it takes to dismantle Hamas completely”.

Now today the zionist President is talking about “teaching Hamas a lesson”.

So within 8 days and 500 murders, and with billions of dollars of hi-tech American weaponry unleased on a civilian population the ‘mighty’ Israel has conceded that it cannot destroy Hamas.

If only Israel had listened to the experts at the outset, it would not be sufferring such embarrassment in front of the whole world.

Does Hezbollah 2006 come to mind anyone?

Irene, the Islamists will always “win” absolute victories as long as your criteria for judging victory is “they issued a press release claiming absolute victory!”

To be fair, I think Matan Vilnai used the word ’shoah’, which does not necessarily mean directly “holocaust” (very loaded) but can mean ‘disaster’. Still, not a helpful sentiment.

Irene, the BBC statement you quote is almost a year old. It is not related to the current war, other than in your dense head.

Are you a military expert? Are you so conceited as to believe you know what constitutes ‘disproportionate’? Israel is being attacked, and she is duty-bound to eliminate the threat. Missiles were being fired even during the hamas-style ‘ceasefire’. Irene would probably define that as ‘proportionate’, because Israelis were being targeted.

If you reckon Israel is acting ‘disproportionately’ by destroying hamas targets only, how would you describe the levelling of Grozny by the Russians? Or the bulldozing of the town of Hama in Syria together with all its 20,000 inhabitants in 1982? Rhetoric escalation serves only to undermine your claim.

The blame for civilian casualties in gaza lies squarely on the shoulders of hamas, for firing rockets from civilian locations, while the cowardly hamas ‘leadership’ hides away in tunnels. But why let facts get in the way of your preferred narrative Irene? It is so much more fun to let rip on Israel, isn’t it?

The hamas terrorists you admire so much can bring this war to a swift end by giving up the missiles to spare their civilians. But why should they, when useful idiots like you defend them no matter what they do? They have been killing fatah members in the hospitals, but Irene looks the other way because she cannot blame Israelis for those deaths.

After hamas, the greatest enemy of the palestinian civilians in gaza are the Irenes of this world, who make excuses for the murderous terrorists’ missile fire, while expecting Israel to accept such fire without defending her population. You forget, Irene, the hamas terrorists’ oft-repeated boast, that Israelis love life whereas they love death.

Londoner

Of course the ceasefire with Hamas was not total, as there were a small number of rockets being fired. However, there was a huge reduction in rocket attacks, representing a significant improvement in the security situation for Israelis in border areas. After several months of this improvement, the Israelis went in to kill 6 in Gaza apparently because of a tunnel, and then the ceasefire broke down. It seems an odd way to behave after such a success in reducing rocket attacks. Even after the rockets started up again you would have thought wiser heads would have prevailed to negotiate another ceasefire.

I think when folk talk about a disproportionate response they are referring to a comparison between the crude, militarily insignificant Hamas rockets (notwithstanding that they do occasionally and tragically kill people - about 20 people from around 8,500 rockets), with the huge, modern firepower and widespread bombing and ground capability of the world’s 5th largest military. This bombing includes destruction of mosques, police stations, government facilities and numerous other buildings and infrastructure, as well as the killing of many more civilians than Hamas does with its rockets.

Notwithstanding the rights and wrongs of Israel’s action, it’s this sort of comparison which leads folk to talk about disproportionality. It’s a reflection of the fact that Israel is fighting a conventional war against a guerrilla opponent.

Moreover, as in Iraq, bystanders are left to ponder the ironies of huge military machine fighting a conventionally puny opponent which nevertheless is claimed to be deadly and threatening their very existence. In Iraq, the US talked of WMD and mushroom clouds; Israel talks about the “death lottery” of hundreds of rockets “raining down” “on heads”, when, by their own estimation, these rudimentary unguided rockets are more of a psychological threat than a physical one.

They’ll soon forget their haunted nights; their cowed
Subjection to the ghosts of friends that died, -
Their dreams that drip with murder, and they’ll be proud
Of glorious war that shatter’d all their pride…
Men who went out to battle, grim and glad;
Children, with eyes that hate you, broken and mad.

Siegfried Sassoon

“Moreover, as in Iraq, bystanders are left to ponder the ironies of huge military machine fighting a conventionally puny opponent which nevertheless is claimed to be deadly and threatening their very existence. In Iraq, the US talked of WMD and mushroom clouds; Israel talks about the “death lottery” of hundreds of rockets “raining down” “on heads”, when, by their own estimation, these rudimentary unguided rockets are more of a psychological threat than a physical one.”

Benjamin-
Firstly, the US was referring to the Hussein regime with the WMD issue (error). The resistance in Iraq today is made up of multiple groups which are clearly not a direct existential threat to the US. The US are not arguing that these groups are the same (Aside from AQ in Iraq based on AQ’s 9/11 attacks and I think that reasonably intelligent and informed people can see the distinction).

The terrorists in Iraq today are more of a threat to their own people rather than anyone else - and this has been amply demonstrated by their willingness to blow up crowds of civilians as some form of blow against the US occupation, the sectarian murders, religious extremism, death squads etc. The fact that these people are conventionally puny does not call into question my support for their elimination because they are terrorists who are killing their own people, mainly civilians, in massive numbers. That is the bottom line, everything else is waffle.

As to the rockets in Israel - I’m not sure how you can suggest that Israel determined they are more of an psychological threat than physical? Because they haven’t killed enough people? You would have to be a callous individual to argue the position you seem to be.

I’m not sure how you can suggest that Israel determined they are more of an psychological threat than physical? Because they haven’t killed enough people? You would have to be a callous individual to argue the position you seem to be.

Yes, because they haven’t killed enough people or caused enough damage for the number of missiles fired. Sounds callous, but that is how all offensive military weaponry is measured. They are inefficient. However, that is not my calculation.

“Clearly everyone wants to be surrounded by concrete block, but we need to remember that Qassams are more a psychological than physical threat.” Defense Minister Director-General Yaakov Toran.

All accusations of callousness should be directed at Toran, not me.

HB: On the contrary, the Times’ article you link to quite clearly confirms that the words used were “Zionist regime,” not “Israel.”

You stupid idiot, that’s because the Iranian leadership refuses to utter the word Israel and instead uses Zionist entity or Zionist regime. They mean Israel.

Benji, like many people you’re a much better judge of poetry than of strategy. Nice choice.

‘The Arabs you talk about include Jordan and Syria, two countries with sizable Christian minorities. In fact, they have been greeting large masses of Christians who have fled democratic Iraq. What imposition of Islam are you talking about?’

Jordan and Syria took part in the wars against Israel of course. Both, more especially Jordan, have absorbed the lessons of those conflicts, which is the point made in the post we are commenting on.
But we are talkiing about Israel. Violence grew during the twenties and thirties when many Jews came to live in Palestine, because they were more successful. Many societies can tolerate dependent, subjugated minorities, but not successful ones. Are those Christians in Syria and Jordan allowed to build churches, even repair the ones already present? In Jordan, a relatively moderate Islamic country, the percentage of Christians has dropped from 18% in 1952 to 4% now. Persecution is widespread, Christian schools are harassed and converts jailed. By contrast, the muslim Arabs in Israel enjoy more respect for their human rights than in most Islamic countries. Arab lesbian groups in Haifa are obliged to lease premises for meetings in Jewish areas of the city. This is not apartheid.

‘Those who come to a neighborhood must learn to live according to the customs there. Nobody forced them to come in the first place.’

Maybe you’d like to tell that to the muslims in this country who want sharia incorporated into British law? Just a crazy minority? Or 43%, as indicated in a poll a year or two ago? If we talk like here, we are islamophobic racists.

‘Israeli Jewish cuisine is not about kreplach and gefilte fish any more; it’s about falafel and humus and other dishes that come from the surrounding Arab cultures’.

This is not about cooking. I like Rogan Josh, but do not want sharia.

Benjamin, you state that “the Israelis went in to kill 6 in Gaza apparently because of a tunnel, and then the ceasefire broke down. It seems an odd way to behave after such a success in reducing rocket attacks.”

First, the tunnel was intended to kidnap another Israeli soldier. They did it before, on 25 June 2006, when they kidnapped Gilad Shalit. He is still a hostage, and not even the Red Cross has seen him. It is Israel’s duty to prevent another kidnapping from her territory.

‘Reducing rocket attacks’ may be enough for onlookers from afar, but not to the targeted civilians. It is obscene to expect any civilian population to live with any level of rocket attack whatsoever, and just because their neighbours cannot control their desire to inflict harm.

A targeted country cannot base her reaction on the number of rockets; the damage caused by those rockets; or on a crude comparison of the death count. She must have one guiding goal: the elimination of the threat.

Israel’s mistake was that she endured rocket fire for too long - 8500 rockets have landed since 2001. The rocket infrastructure became so entrenched in gaza in the interim that when Israel finally decided to eliminate it, the scale of the operation to do so was necessarily expansive. Today we are witnessing the result.

It simply compounds the terrorist problem if they are permitted to carry on attacking with impunity. Had Israel dealt with it in the early stages, there would have been no escalation.

But, we should not forget that it was egypt which facilitated the tunnel smuggling, and should be held accountable. hamas can construct qassams, but smuggles in the longer-range missiles. Egypt is a police state in which nothing happens without the agreement of its authoritarian ruler. He turned a blind eye to the smuggling along the 9-mile egypt-gaza border, because it does not bother him to see Israel targeted. He thought he could always exert control over hamas. But the problem inevitably escalated because terrorists are never controllable for long - they become increasingly bolshie for many reasons.

In the case of hamas, it knew it could rely on useful idiots in the West for support against Israel, ever-ready to scream ‘disproportionate’ if Israel defends her population. The tragedy for the residents of gaza is that western support for hamas translates into their repression.

hamas terrorists have been killing their fatah oppponents in hospitals in the last week, as reported by the NYTimes, or shooting them in the knees, as reported by Khaled Abu Toameh. hamas terrorist leaders have been hiding in tunnels, while firing rockets from civilian locations. On 23 December, 4 days before Israel attacked, hamas instated the hudood laws, whereby the punishments of flogging, hand amputation, execution and crucifixion were introduced. All those who are motivated by sympathy for the residents of gaza, rather than antipathy towards Israel, should be helping Israel unseat the tyrants of hamas.

That’s a very optimistic commentary. It would be a sight less panglossian if you factored in 1) the likelihood that the Hamas arsenal (and the Hezbollah one too) will become more powerful and sophisticated in the future 2) the likelihood that the possession of such an arsenal will do nothing to temper the suicidal tendencies of the jihadists from both groups and hence their willingness to sacrifice themselves and their Palestinian/Lebanese hostages in the frantic hope they could also destroy ‘Zionism’.

By contrast, the muslim Arabs in Israel enjoy more respect for their human rights than in most Islamic countries. Arab lesbian groups in Haifa are obliged to lease premises for meetings in Jewish areas of the city. This is not apartheid.

“By contrast” with whom? Gays persecuted in democratic Iraq have found refuge in — Jordan. Allow me to quote from The Los Angeles Times:

After the 2003 invasion, a man who gave his name as Ahmed still cruised Rubaie Street, a once popular gay thoroughfare in the eastern Baghdad neighborhood of Zayuna, but he was not openly gay, he said.

A year and a half ago, one of the men he’d met there showed up at his apartment wearing an Iraqi army uniform. He threatened to tell fellow soldiers that Ahmed was gay unless he paid a bribe of 160,000 dinars, about $135.

That was a probable death sentence, he said.

Ahmed paid, fled the country for Amman, Jordan, and considers himself among the lucky ones.

Why do you think gays would be fleeing a democracy to live in a totalitarian dictatorship which, according to you, persecutes homosexuals?

Hasbara ‘I’m a proven liar’ Buster, give it up. Your posts are a waste of space.

Typical of HB’s bull that switches from Israel to Iraq on the subject of gays.
Israel is the only country in the Mid-East that has equal rights for gays.

Londoner:

“Israel’s mistake was that she endured rocket fire for too long - 8500 rockets have landed since 2001. The rocket infrastructure became so entrenched in gaza in the interim that when Israel finally decided to eliminate it, the scale of the operation to do so was necessarily expansive. Today we are witnessing the result.”

Absolutely right. They let their own population down in a disgraceful manner. They should have delivered an immediate and salutory lesson to the terrorists, and they didn’t. This was an unforgiveable dereliction of duty. It set the imprimatur of acceptability on the daily bombardment of Jewish civilians. It is now normal to do this. And the western supporters of hamas are now trying to extend that logic to the Jewish populations of London, Antwerp, and in the US we have seen the demonstrators calling for the return of the ovens.

What a bloody stroke of genius that was.

Israel is the only country in the Mid-East that has equal rights for gays.

…so long as those gays are Jewish.

An Arab gay born in Jerusalem must APPLY for citizenship — and must prove that he can talk Hebrew. A Jewish gay born in Jerusalem is AUTOMATICALLY granted it… even if he doesn’t know a yod of Hebrew!!!!

Hasbara ‘I’m a proven liar’ Buster, there is always another fabricated negative story about Israel, desperate to emerge from your miserable existence to inflict itself on others. Can’t help reckoning the word ‘misanthrope’ was created just for you.

The right course of action for someone who has undermined himself as a compulsive liar is to hop it.