Photo Credit: AP by Mohammed Zaatari – Daylife
Palestinian boys hold the Quran, Islam’s holy book, as they wear fake explosives belts during a rally called by Hamas and the Islamic Jihad groups to protest against the Israeli offensive on the Gaza strip, in the Ein el-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp near the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, Friday, Jan. 2, 2009. Israel showed no sign of slowing a blistering seven-day offensive against Gaza’s Hamas rulers, destroying homes of more than a dozen of the group’s operatives Friday and bombing one of its mosques a day after a deadly strike killed a prominent Hamas figure.
Glen Greenwald at Salon is mulling over the “oddities” of a Rasumssen poll that shows Americans “closely divided” on Israel’s retaliation for Gaza aggressions.
(44-41%, with 15% undecided), but Democratic voters overwhelmingly oppose the Israeli offensive — by a 24-point margin (31-55%). By stark contrast, Republicans, as one would expect (in light of their history of supporting virtually any proposed attack on Arabs and Muslims), overwhelmingly support the Israeli bombing campaign (62-27%).
(emphasis in red is mine)
He laments that Democrat leadership is in lockstep with Republican leadership, on the side of Israel, while leaving “one half of the citizenry without no real voice.” He believes the policy on Israel is the ONLY “position where:”
(a) a party’s voters overwhelmingly embrace one position (Israel should not have attacked Gaza) but…
(b) that party’s leadership unanimously embraces the exact opposite position (Israel was absolutely right to attack Gaza and the U.S. must support Israel unequivocally)?
Does that happen with any other issue?
Well, yes it does. How about drilling and energy independence, which Americans overwhelmingly support but Democrat leadership eschews? How about bailouts which Americans overwhelmingly disapprove of but Democrat leadership has decided to ram through, one way or the other. How about federal tax increases, which Americans overwhelmingly and vehemently do not want, but Democrats in Congress are hell-bent to enact. How about illegal immigration and amnesty, which Americans are solidly against, but Democrats in Congress are willing to sneak legislation into Bills that no one takes the time to read, to do the bidding of their illegal constituents?
I’ll point out that we do not get to vote on the above issues, and polls are often willingly fraudulent. So you can call me wrong on the issues, but the world, as Greenwald claims, doesn’t vote either. If the people had a voice, the world would be astonished at the conservative and freedom-loving and freedom-protecting opinions around the globe. Need I mention that the voices that make it to print are often the voices of the media.
Greenwald offers links to these world opinions, but to be sure, he ignores the guarded and middle of the road voices:
From Europe, they warned of “provoking a humanitarian crises,” and the author characterized the warning as “sharp.” The PM of Finland demanded the release of Israel’s recently abducted soldier and the 64 Hamas parliamentarians arrested by Israeli troops AND he “insisted that Palestinians end the shelling of Israeli territory from within the Gaza Strip.” An EU spokesman condemned the “disproportionate use of force by Israel, but the truth is, the EU voted against the UN Human Rights Council on sending an investigative team to look into alleged violations by Israel.
Now here’s a real gem:
The criticisms of Israel came as a poll showed that four out of five Israelis want their government to assassinate Hamas leaders to end the Gaza crisis.
Tsk, tsk, tsk. Does any country in the EU have a next door neighbor plotting to eliminate them?
In the Asian link, with the Islamic Republic News Agency reporting,“China is shocked by the human tragedy,” in Gaza. This should be one of the “oddities” Greenwald is addressing, but he prefers to blast the U.S. for supporting an ally and the Middle East’s only democracy.
If China can be “shocked” by “human” tragedies of any kind, it would be only the happy event of their own dictators being called to task. Did I mention that China was meeting with Iran when the condemnation was issued, and that China wants Iran to solve these “regional” problems? Could Greenwald venture a guess as to how Iran would handle Israel?
The link to the Middle East opinions is certainly one Greenwald could give weight to, right? It tells us that Muslim nations are “angry.” South Africa is “gravely concerned.” South Africa – a country where rumors are high that genocide is escalating, and will escalate, upon Nelson Mandela’s death – with Jews already high on the hunt list.
Iranians are protesting and chanting and marching with signs:
Israel must be wiped off the face of the earth and We should all rise and destroy Israel.
Egypt has their protesters, but government statements are tepid, as are statements out of Saudi Arabia, and Jordan. Hamas is a bully whose shenanigans they could do well without.
“David Axelrod, a top aide to Barack Obama, told CBS television the US president-elect was committed to achieving peace in the Middle East.” That’s a relief. Can’t wait to hear his plan. Obama will not comment, because, of course, we can only have one President at a time, but Bush has put his position on record, over and over. Here’s a quote from the same Middle East link, from a Bush spokesman:
The outgoing Bush administration blamed Hamas “thugs” for provoking the offensive by firing rockets into Israel from Gaza.
Our next President has a microphone anytime he wants it. For what reason would he not immediately condemn Hamas?
As Greenwald was gratified to claim Israeli condemnations by the Europe, he failed to mention at the least, this exception: German Chancellor Angela Merkel “blamed Hamas,” and agreed that responsibility “clearly and exclusively lies with Hamas.”
Greenwald muses whether or not Israel’s security is “enhanced or undermined” by the “attack” on Gaza and whether “the 40-year-old Israeli occupation,” among other events should “bear more of the blame.”
American opinion-making elites march forward to opine on the historical rights and wrongs of the endless Israeli-Palestinian territorial conflict with such fervor and fixation that it’s often easy to forget that the U.S. is not actually a direct party to this dispute….
Even for those Americans who…want endlessly to fixate on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, who care deeply and passionately about whether the Israelis or the Palestinians control this or that West Bank hill or village and want to spend the rest of their days arguing about who did what to whom in 1948 and 1967, what possible interests do Americans generally have in any of that…
Ignoring and rewriting history is the straightest path to legitimizing injustice, and Greenwald gives it his best shot. If historical events, such as the League of Nations’ clear mandate for land for Israel, is not important, then what is? If we continue to ignore that much of Israel’s land was stripped away to appease influential Arabs, then we can ignore anything. If we refuse to acknowledge that Israel has occupied these lands, continuously, from “time immemorial,” and not expect and demand that their neighbors civilly accept the reality of Israeli nationhood, then what good to the world are free nation’s everywhere?
If the free world cuts off funds to Israel, as Greenwald believes should happen; and if the free world leaves Israel waging this battle alone, then what happens to Israel? I don’t doubt for a minute that Israel is capable of taking care of business, but for how long? Who asks this question? What happens to Israel?
Can a Westerner, and most importantly, an American, believe that Israel should cease to exist? Without U.S. support and the support of other free countries, she cannot exist where she is today. And that’s the goal of the Muslim world.
“Just as was true for Israel’s bombing of Lebanon, it’s American bombs that — with the whole world watching — are blowing up children and mosques….”
Where is Greenwald’s concern about atrocities in the name of Allah?
The Iranian U.S. embassy hostages, double digit American kidnappings in Lebanon, a Hizbullah suicide bomber attack at the Beirut Embassy, the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, another Embassy bombing in Kuwait, again another in Beirut, Hizbullah hijacking a Kuwait flight and killing Americans, Hizbullah hijacking a TWA flight and killing a U.S. Navyman – 17 days of sheer terror for the passengers, the PLO murdering Leo Klingerhofer aboard the Achille Lauro, another TWA flight bombed just as the plane landed in Athens, Greece, the Pan Am Lockerie flight – killing 270, the 1989 World Trade Center car bomb, the Hizbullah bombing of the the U.S. military complex in Riyadh, bombings of embassies in Nairobe and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania – 223 dead, and injuring over 4000, the U.S.Cole, and September 11, 2001.
Nasrallah’s atrocities against his own, Hamas atrocities against their own, al-Qaeda atrocities against their own, Iran’s atrocities against their own, Islamic fathers’ atrocities against their wives and daughters in the U.S.
There are hundreds and hundreds of thousands of killings in the name of Allah. You and I would be dead now, if Islamic extremists had their way. What does Greenwald have to say about this? Oh yes, I remember: if other than an Islamic population had not dared put foot on their sacred ground…infidels would not be an enemy.
…should [the U.S.] continue to play such an active, one-sided role in this dispute.
So what would the world have Israel do? Any nation on earth…if in Israel’s place, what would they do?
With the 75% Jewish vote for Obama I am rethinking my support position on Israel. I am tired of feeling like a Putz..
Republicans have supported attacks on Islamofascists.
Saying that Republicans support attacks on Muslims is akin to saying FDR supported attacks on Germans.
Puppycock.
Liberalism is a disease. Greenwald is terminal.
Dennis D, I understand what you are saying and I feel somewhat the same, but I’m learning to separate American Jews from Israelis.
I follow many of the excellent, passionate, informed Jewish bloggers. Many American Jews do see the connection between support of an American President and supporting terrorism. What my fellow conservative Jewish bloggers tell me is that it is a cultural thing. They’ve always voted Democrat and will always vote Democrat. What happens in Israel doesn’t directly affect those without family there, and often their connection is secular.
I have railed about it on my blog, but supporting Israel is more important, in my opinion, than these misguided Americans. So much is at stake for the world, and just consider what is right and humane and honorable.
Thanks so much for you comment.
“So what would the world have Israel do? Any nation on earth…if in Israel’s place, what would they do?”
—– —- —-
Nations like France would sit Hamas down and convince them that the Jews are not the “wicked enemies of all that is good”.
French philosophers will convince Hamas members that everything their mothers, fathers, teachers, imams, television, and the Holy Koran told them was a vicious lie… They would talk them out of Jihad & get them to take up bird-watching. The Izz Al Din Kassam brigades would form a soccer team. Khaled Meshal would be given a Villa near Cannes.
Suicide belts (with explosives removed of course, oui) would be uber-chic, terrorist-revitalization-cool, people will wear them from Milan to Paris.
New sources of income can be realized by turning the Kassam making factories into makers of fireworks (or French fries…whichever…)
That’s what others nations would do…
——
SERIOUSLY THOUGH:
IF I HEAR “DIPLOMATIC SOLUTION” EVEN WHISPERED ONE MORE TIME!!! WHAT “DIPLOMATIC SOLUTION” WOULD THAT BE?!
The day Hamas stops causing death and destruction and/or seeking the end of Israel IT WILL CEASE BEING HAMAS.
The day Israel accepts a group like Hamas and/or stops defending Jews within Israel IT WILL CEASE TO BE ISRAEL.
Negotiate on that…
Wingless: The day Hamas stops causing death and destruction and/or seeking the end of Israel IT WILL CEASE BEING HAMAS.
The day Israel accepts a group like Hamas and/or stops defending Jews within Israel IT WILL CEASE TO BE ISRAEL.
Exactly!
Maggie: You let the Jews who voted for Obama off too easy. As a Republican voter, I hope my fears about Obama and Israel are wrong; I hope Obama proves me wrong and I will be happy to say so.
I had debate after debate, discussion after discussion. I found that most of the Jews who voted for Obama just don’t really care about Israel. Rather than vote for McCain, who pledged his loyalty to Israel so many times, they voted for Obama because they hated Bush. The issue of Israel was not as important as hating Bush.
Most of the Jewish Obama voters I know all say that they support Israel, but the obvious truth is the safety of the State of Israel was just not important to them.
I am angry. I feel that if Obama fails to support Israel there will be a problem between Jews here in America. There is going to be some real fistfights in our Synagogues.
FREE COLLEGE EDUCATIONS @ INTERNETSURFSHACK.COM
Norm, I agree with everything you’ve said here. My point was that no matter what American Jews do, I’m not abandoning Israel to spite them.
I DO NOT understand their thinking or their actions. After 9/11 there was some hope, but that quickly dissolved.
I’ve just noticed that in my reply above to Dennis D I left a word out, which completely changes my response.
I intended to say: Many American Jews do NOT see the connection between support of an American President and supporting terrorism.
Sorry, I guess I forgot to proofread:-)
If our Synagogues are at odds with each other, then perhaps it’s a good thing. American Jews have everything at stake, as does our entire country.
I do not understand them, have asked over and over in my blogs, how they can do what they do, and vote as they do. Only the conservative Jews come and comment.
Thanks Norm.
Reading the exchanges here, leaves one pondering whether this is a real platform of thought exchange or it is simply another arena for self-gratification and wishful-thinking that Maggie is so conservative and thus right.
This overused notion, of having to support Israel to be a good American, has now found its place, amongst other propaganda lies, in the trashcan of thoughts.
What many fail to see is that Islam, whether Maggie likes it or not, will not simply disappear, as it is effectively the constitution of some one billion people or more. Maggie could marvel at one person converting out of Islam, glorifying his action and posting his silly logic, but failing at the same time to trouble herself in listing at least some the thousands of Christians and Jews who are converting to Islam everyday.
In reasonable minds, the conflict in Palestine is the direct result of solving the European Jewish question (unprecedented Anglo-Saxon/ Aryan European racism against European Jewry) at the expense of Muslim and Christian Palestinians by European colonial powers back in 1948. Effectively, thousands of Jews were shipped like sheep from throughout Europe (By the Jewish Agency) and contrived into a place where they did not and will never belong. Hawkish, aggressive, and belligerent Jewish terrorist organizations evolved (Haganna, stern…..) and with the aid of fanatic American Christian born-again clans, displaced the majority of the indigenous people of Palestine forcing them into exile in neighboring countries and simply took for free their homes, lands, and all possessions.
Now, after 60 years, we have people like Maggie profess to us the need to continue that human atrocity of 1948 and further deprive the Palestinians from their basic human rights to exist and defend themselves.
The situation in Palestine today, is akin to the following scenario happening in sometime in the future in the USA:
Some conspiring Red-Indian group gain the support of other imperial world power/s (who wish to see the USA weak and devastated) to establish a homeland in the heart of the United States. They form armed gangs and effect the displacement by war and atrocities of white/ Black/ Hispanic Americans from Illinois and establish an independent entity in the midst of what used to be a United Country. Those imperial powers, using their military and economic might, assure the recognition of this new entity by many countries in the world. All of those displaced become refugees in the surrounding states. Then, this new contrived hawkish entity is armed to the teeth by those foreign powers and initiate continuous warfare against the surrounding states to justify and try to protect its existence. All of those displaced are told to be good Christians and forgive what had befallen them; giving away for free all what they once had. Additionally, those world powers tell the adjacent states that they must recognize this new entity and come up with all the financial resources to absorb the displaced people from Illinois. They appoint (by venue of military coups and threat of war) and support weaklings to rule the adjacent states.
Once those displaced Americans from Illinois stand up to resist and defend their human rights, they are immediately labeled by those foreign powers as terrorists and thugs with any of the surrounding states seeking to support them as a part of an axis of evil deserving belligerence and war. The displaced people of Illinois are bombarded by the conniving foreign powers media with demands that they be “peaceful” and tame and accept their inevitable fate.
Those people from Illinois, who happen to be Christians and believe in their duty to defend their peers, are taunted for being Christians and their religion is analyzed by inept people to find “proofs” how evil a religion theirs is.
They are continuously lectured by those foreign powers, who helped create their misery, about peace and the value of agreeing to be effectively slaves. They are told that the massacres, genocide, and mass killings committed by those foreign powers were only necessary means to keep the peace or to save lives of their invading soldiers across the globe.
When a group of those people from Illinois, after a bitter struggle for some 58 years, succeed in establishing a semi political existence in one of the cities on the coast of Illinois, they are immediately surrounded and a siege is laid forbidding them from any natural life. When they dare to break that siege by hurling at their enemies some primitive hand made rockets, the foreign powers encourage the new Red-Indian entity to attack them with the most lethal of its military arsenal and have their mouthpieces “Maggie here” rush to express their worry about the fate of their baby entity from those daring indigenous Christian people of Illinois.
The above scenario would leave one wondering how would the American people from the rest of America react? Would they actually succumb to the new situation created by the foreign powers or would they rush to the help of their brothers and sisters from Illinois? The answer is very clear!
Israel is an artificial existence rejected by Muslims across the globe and their fate will be the same as that of any foreign military base acting on behalf of foreign powers. Their only positive glimpse into the future is the fact that their self-made enemies (Arabs and Muslims) are not Western powers who believe in genocide as a solution and have exercised that option in modern history more than once.
The Muslim nation will absorb them as it did the many invaders before them throughout history. Spreading lies and manufacturing points against Islam as a religion will not change this inevitable fact no matter how mighty Israel and its Western supporters like to believe.
This Jew proudly voted Republican
Solomon, I do have thoughts on what is “inevitable,” but this isn’t the forum for them.
You are conveniently ignoring the fact that the Jews were first in the holy land. A majority was eventually chased out by the Romans.
Your characterization of statehood and “displacing” the majority of Muslims is completely wrong. The mandated lands were sharply cut. The Jews didn’t protest. They took what they could, and they made something magnificent of it.
Haganah might be seen as a terrorist group from your point of view, but in truth, they did what they had to do to survive. They lived in kibbutzim, peacefully, near to many Arabs. What did you expect them do with the real terrorist, the Mufti of Jerusalem?
No, they were paramilitary, and they took a hard line. Without them, at that time, the Jews would have been destroyed.
To think that I believe radical Islam will go away is ridiculous. I know it will not. That’s the problem for the rest of the world, as well.
No weeping for the Muslims who cannot produce anything out of their desert next door to a flourishing Israel – on their pitiful few miles of land.
I wonder why this is not the forum to discuss anything related to Israel and its bleak future?
Should one plot relative graphs as to the political, social, and military progress of Israel against its enemies since 1948, one would readily see abundantly clear the inevitable fate of Israel as an independent Jewish entity within the Arab/ Muslim world.
On the political level, Zionism (the main driving political/ religious ideology behind manufacturing Israel as an idea) has waned to a great degree and has been steadily replaced by secular Western-like political system that owes its continuation to Western support and without which has no chance of surviving in the midst of Arabs and Muslims. On the other side, Muslim/Arabs have revolted against WWII colonial forced Western styled political systems and have made strides in reassuring their Muslim political identity. Such is evident in the success of the Iranian revolution that replaced the Western puppy (The Shah) with a very progressive Muslim system that is growing more assured and confident by the day. Another example, is the success of once disarrayed Muslim Lebanese in creating a very potent political/ military existence in half of Lebanon which used to be a purely Western playground. One more example, is the unprecedented rapid success of Dubai as a progressive civic diversified center in the whole world that have brought the envy of Western powers themselves. The fall of the the defeated weaklings in Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia is only a matter of time, after which the whole situation would dramatically change in the favor of the Arabs and Muslims. The Crusaders (who also attempted to settle in the Muslim world by force) also felt very mighty for many years but like chemical reaction, political developments produced the correct leadership that eventually evicted some and absorbed the rest.
On the social level, Israel has become a country with a contrived identity as pure home for the Jews. Unable to duplicate what the Europeans had done with the Red Indians when they stole their country, Israel is now a place where millions of Palestinians (many Israelis are mindful of this impeding threat and have made frantic calls to exterminating them) exist and who swear and work for the destruction of the racist idea of Israel; such forcing the confused political Israeli leadership to erect a separation wall akin to the wall that once had separated west Berlin from its east. In actuality, there is not a better proof of the failed status of Israel as a country as this physical barrier which never worked in history as a solution. All of Israel’s atrocities, might, and belligerence have not worked throughout the past 60 years to dishearten the political/ religious will of the Palestinians, Arabs, or Muslims.
On the Military level, suffice it to mention the humiliating defeat of the IDF at the hands of Hezbollah (a party of few thousand determined fighters) in July 2006. Iran has also appeared on the scene with a sufficiently potent military to deter any Western threat.
As to your point regarding who was first in Palestine, all now contend is invalid. Bringing who was where thousands of years ago would change the maps of all countries on earth, Besides, it was not the Jews who were there first, rather it was the Canaanites whom the Jews evicted by force.
Benny Morris, an enlightened Jew scholar from Israel, fully explained the agenda of the Haganah in 1948 to empty Palestine of its population to make room for the Jews. Please handle this discussion with some dignity so that historical facts are not debated. Everyone with a reasonable level of education know the facts and your contention that the Jews in 1948 did not engage in ethnic cleansing is very easily refutable by Israeli academic sources, let alone the Arab or other ones. No one has forgotten Deir Yasin Maggie.
Every nation has its share of radicals and the Jihadists are only one part of an overall mechanism that would assure what I had mentioned before; Israel has no chance to continue a pure Jewish state and its absorption by the Muslim nation is only a matter of time and from the way it looks now; it is not so far in the distant future.
Solomonthewise – Thank you for clear common sense, Maggie you are so brainwashed.
Just a note, Maggie do not tell anyone what they can and cannot write, you sound like a dictator.
Kateii: to whom did I dictate?
Solomonthewise: Your view of Israel’s poor performance in 2006 Lebanon is your view. There are others. Hananah DID NOT empty Palestine. The people with the money left willingly.As to who was their first. I did not say Jews were there first but that it was their first homeland. This is also an argument for another forum. Either fact has nothing to do with anything, except Arabs deny Israel any connection to the land.
You whole position is that Jews have no connection and should go. It is a faulty position.
Maggie – I believe I made myself clear as to what you were dictating – please do no be so foolish as to fein ignorance.
Excuse me, do NOT be so foolish as to fein ignorance.
Kateii, just a note (as you said above) at no time did I say Greenwald could not write whatever he wants to write.
Maggie:
As far as the “poor performance” of the IDF in 2006, your attempt to soften what really happened is misguided; Israel was simply defeated and such was declared by both the political and military leadership of Israel. That is not my or your personal view; that is a fact that the whole world knows and specifically Israel and its inhabitants.
Regarding Jewish ethnic cleansing in Palestine in 1948-49, why don’t you expand on your knowledge base and read Benny Morris’s book:
In that book you will discover parts of the truth as narrated by Morris. When engaging in discussions, it does not suffice to simply negate facts; you have to produce proofs. I did not quote any Arab or Muslim sources, even though plentiful, knowing that it might entice you to challenge them as being biased; instead I have quoted you an Israeli scholar who could not play the propaganda game and hope to keep his tenure as an academic scholar. I am not about to fill this response with quotes from his book as I trust anyone seeking to know the truth would readily read it on his/her own accord.
Your contention that it was the wealthy leaving willingly is quite laughable. Are you suggesting that the displaced one million Palestinians were all wealthy; Maggie please avoid silly stands to keep some value to this discussion.
So what if the Jews had a homeland in Palestine thousands of years ago ? Are you implying that Muslims today have the right to reoccupy Andalusia and evict all Spanish people from there because they had a Muslim homeland there for 800 years ? Or the Red Indians doing the same in the USA as in the scenario I had narrated in my previous post?
I am and have not denied the connection of the Jews to Palestine; what I contend though is that their recent connection to the land starting in 1948 and on has been an evil and inhumane one; copying the racist tactics of their tormentors in Europe. Riding the horse of arrogance and claiming that Israel is a flourishing state surrounded by savages _as the Europeans had claimed when they dispossessed the Red Indians_ is the big lesson the Jews had learned from the Nazis who also claimed exclusiveness and looked down on other people.
You must be mindful that in terms of deep rooted cultural values, the recently settled Jews in Palestine are not a match to the Islamic culture and civilization. The Jews pretentious attempts at real culture is so evident. They circulate silly notions in New York and Europe that Arabic Hummus and Falafel are Israeli dishes; prompting laughter from the rest of the world who know better. This claim, as silly as it is, shows their desperate, pathetic, and despondent attempt to show the world a unified Israeli culture that does not yet exist. It is also an indication that their absorption by the superior Muslim/ Arab culture has already begun.
The now very probable defeat of the IDF in the War in Gaza will spell the beginning of the end. The IDF which often prouds itself in its simultaneous defeat of several Arab armies in 1967 in 5 days, is now unable to subdue one city, in now 10 days, which is only defended by irregulars using primitive weapons compared to the arsenal of the IDF.
It is actually remarkable that the IDF is held at bay unable to progress its ground offensive despite of an unprecedented atrocities against the Gaza civilians, support from Weakling Arab leaders, support from the whole Western world, and a very advanced army and air force. What is going on in Gaza clearly shows that Israel has no moral grounds for its war or the siege it has been laying on Gaza for 2 years.
Hamas, the legally elected political party in Palestine, which Israel and its Western allies conveniently dismiss as a terrorist organization, is showing them all the meaning of steadfastness, political will, and also a glimpse into the coming future of this racist idea called Israel.
Kateii:
It is refreshing to see enlightened people like yourself on this discussion board.
Maggie:
I missed giving you the name of Benny Morris,s book, here it is:
The Birth of Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949, published in 1987
Solomon, a book for you: Joan Peters’ From Time Immemorial.
What I suggested, Solomon, that you are negating is that the League of Nations gave Israel this small parcel of land. Portions of that land was then taken from Israel to appease Arab Sheiks and Kings.
The IDF could have fought the battle differently in Lebanon but world opinion battled them: collateral damage was not an option after a certain point. It’s ridiculous to think that Israel could not have won the war had they had the mind to do. Israeli’s see it as a loss because, in the end, their leaders quite before it was finished. It is one thing to be beaten, another thing to quite before the finish. Israel was not beaten.
Maggie:
What is that book all about? Who is the author and how is it relevant to the discussion at hand? I am not impressed with a book that you just name; do mention to the other readers how it would support your point of view and the credibility of the author if any.
And who is the League of Nations to give away Arab/ Muslim lands? were they not but a collection of imperial colonial powers who had absolute control over the world and wanted to create an aggressive puppy called Israel to create continuous war in the heart of the Muslim world? Their giving the Jews anything that did not belong to them was illegal and unbinding unless the Palestinians agreed which they did not.
I am amazed that you think that the IDF defeat in 2006 was the result of its restrain! So you think that all the collateral damage Israel caused in Lebanon was not sufficient? Don’t you know that Israel ran out of its arsenal of guided missiles and bombs and was forced to ask the US to get replenishment from the US’s strategic deposit. You do not seem to know sufficiently about that war and what had ensued.
Are u suggesting Israel should have used its nuclear weapons? If so, don’t you know that those are useless weapons that Israel can only use for propaganda? The fallout of any such weapons would simultaneously destroy at least northern Israel with atomic fallout.
The IDF could not have won that war no matter what it did and this is exactly why it cried wolf and sued for stopping the fight. This seems that it will also be the case in Gaza now; just wait and watch.
By the way, your definition of defeat is only in your own mind! Military defeat, in reasonable minds, is the failure of the military to force the leadership’s political will on the opponent. Israel was unable to force anything on Hezbollah who only returned the bodies of the 2 slained Israeli soldiers on its own terms (Forced its political will on Israel) and with the release of their prisoners as named before the battle.
If you are referring to an end game whereby the defeat is in a full and final war, then I agree. I assure you however that Israel’s defeat in the final showdown between Arabs/ Muslims and Israel is not too far off. It starts with losing battles like the 2006 campaign and the current Gaza, then the end will surely come much faster than you think.
Countries on the path of complete defeat usually resort to extreme measures and atrocities; Israel is excelling at ruthlessness but without any true military benifits.
Solomon, I AM NOT impressed with a book that you would suggest to me and I’m certain it would represent your viewpoint.
Solomon,
You wrote:
“further deprive the Palestinians from their basic human rights to exist and defend themselves.”
What utter nonsense. None of us who support Israel are trying to deny Palestinians any basic human rights. Just deny Islamic terrorists the right to blow up Israeli citizens.
And if anyone is denying anyone the right to defend themselves, it’s you. You accuse Israel of being “ruthless” because it had finally had enough of its civilian population being murdered in the marketplace by suicide bombers? Of their residential apartment buildings being struck by Hamas missiles? Well, yes, how intolerant of them!
You also refer to Israel as being “Arab/Muslim” lands and completely disregard Maggie when she points out that the Israel has always been the homeland of the Jews, whether they were allowed to live there or not.
“What utter nonsense. None of us who support Israel are trying to deny Palestinians any basic human rights. Just deny Islamic terrorists the right to blow up Israeli citizens.”
I shall not chronicle for you the many many incidents in which Israel committed extreme atrocities against the Palestinians; starting in 1948 on; it remains your prerogative to research and learn on your own.
As to the events at hand; I presume you feel it proper to lay a siege on Gaza and have the populace starve, no medicine, no electricity, no fuel unless Israel allows it. Hamas’s missiles were the response to that immoral siege and the continuous attacks on Gaza. You make it sound like Israel made no attacks until late December 2008; this cannot be further from the truth.
Hamas,s missiles will continue until the siege is lifted completely, the Israelis leave for good, and all ports of Gaza allowed to function normally so that the Palestinian human rights are guaranteed. Hamas ought to develop its military as the years come to deter any further aggression on the part of Israel; it will never work to allow Israel to do what it is doing now.
Palestine in its entirety is an Arab/ Muslim land just as America is America and the Jews wishing to live there may do so just as they live in New York under American law; no pure racist Jewish state that treats non-Jews as tenth class citizens and forbid the Palestinian refugees from returning to their homes. Those who think that the Palestinians will forget their rights are so deluded.
You may support Israel as much as you want, but the truth is no longer hidden in this age and the lies upon lies that the Zionists were able to circulate in the US before are not working anymore; the American and European people are learning the truth now. But what matters the most, is that the Arabs and Muslims of today are not those that the imperial colonial powers left in 1948; they are growing strong, confident, and determined.
Maggie:
Of course the sources I name would support my contentions; there is nothing wrong with that. Your refusal to read is an indication of the level of intellect that you possess and a pointer to your worry to read something that negates what you have been indoctrinated to believe. I am willing to read any book that you may call but only if it is relevant to the points at hand; otherwise I do my own reading.
I was not seeking your being impressed; I was attempting to appeal to your commonsense which you do not seem to have plenty of.
Lee:
I am not sure if you are aware that not all Jews believe in Zionism or Israel as a Jewish state. There are Jews who condemn the very establishment of Israel and actively work to reverse what had happened in 1948.
Recently, they have marched in New York against the Israeli atrocities and sported banners that call for Israel to be returned to Palestinian sovereignty and condemns the carnage in Gaza.
If you wish to expand on your knowledge and learn more about them, you may do so at some of their websites:
http://www.NKUSA.org
http://www.TorahTrueJews.org
http://www.nkcanada.ca
Those are the enlightened Jews who did not engage in the calamity that surrounded the illegal creation of that entity called Israel.
Here is an interesting article for all to read:
Robert Fisk: Why do they hate the West so much, we will ask
Wednesday, 7 January 2009
So once again, Israel has opened the gates of hell to the Palestinians. Forty civilian refugees dead in a United Nations school, three more in another. Not bad for a night’s work in Gaza by the army that believes in “purity of arms”. But why should we be surprised?
Have we forgotten the 17,500 dead – almost all civilians, most of them children and women – in Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon; the 1,700 Palestinian civilian dead in the Sabra-Chatila massacre; the 1996 Qana massacre of 106 Lebanese civilian refugees, more than half of them children, at a UN base; the massacre of the Marwahin refugees who were ordered from their homes by the Israelis in 2006 then slaughtered by an Israeli helicopter crew; the 1,000 dead of that same 2006 bombardment and Lebanese invasion, almost all of them civilians?
What is amazing is that so many Western leaders, so many presidents and prime ministers and, I fear, so many editors and journalists, bought the old lie; that Israelis take such great care to avoid civilian casualties. “Israel makes every possible effort to avoid civilian casualties,” yet another Israeli ambassador said only hours before the Gaza massacre. And every president and prime minister who repeated this mendacity as an excuse to avoid a ceasefire has the blood of last night’s butchery on their hands. Had George Bush had the courage to demand an immediate ceasefire 48 hours earlier, those 40 civilians, the old and the women and children, would be alive.
What happened was not just shameful. It was a disgrace. Would war crime be too strong a description? For that is what we would call this atrocity if it had been committed by Hamas. So a war crime, I’m afraid, it was. After covering so many mass murders by the armies of the Middle East – by Syrian troops, by Iraqi troops, by Iranian troops, by Israeli troops – I suppose cynicism should be my reaction. But Israel claims it is fighting our war against “international terror”. The Israelis claim they are fighting in Gaza for us, for our Western ideals, for our security, for our safety, by our standards. And so we are also complicit in the savagery now being visited upon Gaza.
I’ve reported the excuses the Israeli army has served up in the past for these outrages. Since they may well be reheated in the coming hours, here are some of them: that the Palestinians killed their own refugees, that the Palestinians dug up bodies from cemeteries and planted them in the ruins, that ultimately the Palestinians are to blame because they supported an armed faction, or because armed Palestinians deliberately used the innocent refugees as cover.
The Sabra and Chatila massacre was committed by Israel’s right-wing Lebanese Phalangist allies while Israeli troops, as Israel’s own commission of inquiry revealed, watched for 48 hours and did nothing. When Israel was blamed, Menachem Begin’s government accused the world of a blood libel. After Israeli artillery had fired shells into the UN base at Qana in 1996, the Israelis claimed that Hizbollah gunmen were also sheltering in the base. It was a lie. The more than 1,000 dead of 2006 – a war started when Hizbollah captured two Israeli soldiers on the border – were simply dismissed as the responsibility of the Hizbollah. Israel claimed the bodies of children killed in a second Qana massacre may have been taken from a graveyard. It was another lie. The Marwahin massacre was never excused. The people of the village were ordered to flee, obeyed Israeli orders and were then attacked by an Israeli gunship. The refugees took their children and stood them around the truck in which they were travelling so that Israeli pilots would see they were innocents. Then the Israeli helicopter mowed them down at close range. Only two survived, by playing dead. Israel didn’t even apologise.
Twelve years earlier, another Israeli helicopter attacked an ambulance carrying civilians from a neighbouring village – again after they were ordered to leave by Israel – and killed three children and two women. The Israelis claimed that a Hizbollah fighter was in the ambulance. It was untrue. I covered all these atrocities, I investigated them all, talked to the survivors. So did a number of my colleagues. Our fate, of course, was that most slanderous of libels: we were accused of being anti-Semitic.
And I write the following without the slightest doubt: we’ll hear all these scandalous fabrications again. We’ll have the Hamas-to-blame lie – heaven knows, there is enough to blame them for without adding this crime – and we may well have the bodies-from-the-cemetery lie and we’ll almost certainly have the Hamas-was-in-the-UN-school lie and we will very definitely have the anti-Semitism lie. And our leaders will huff and puff and remind the world that Hamas originally broke the ceasefire. It didn’t. Israel broke it, first on 4 November when its bombardment killed six Palestinians in Gaza and again on 17 November when another bombardment killed four more Palestinians.
Yes, Israelis deserve security. Twenty Israelis dead in 10 years around Gaza is a grim figure indeed. But 600 Palestinians dead in just over a week, thousands over the years since 1948 – when the Israeli massacre at Deir Yassin helped to kick-start the flight of Palestinians from that part of Palestine that was to become Israel – is on a quite different scale. This recalls not a normal Middle East bloodletting but an atrocity on the level of the Balkan wars of the 1990s. And of course, when an Arab bestirs himself with unrestrained fury and takes out his incendiary, blind anger on the West, we will say it has nothing to do with us. Why do they hate us, we will ask? But let us not say we do not know the answer.