Once again Israel shows it doesn't screw around

[cal_guy]

Originally Posted by Nage Waza

Let me make something clear: If you hold Israel on a different standard than every other country, including countries with no human rights and that are currently in states of war against their people, than yes, I do think that is hate speech, and I am not alone in that. There is a lot of literature on the subject.

I'm appreciating the irony of the statement considering that Israel just turned a large swath of the West Bank into a war zone, arresting hundreds of people who were unlikely to be connected the case, and killing 7 people, and probably insuring that the murders will never likely be solved.

[smoothpops]

Somehow; Isreal, Palestine and a bunch of countries got the world wrapped up in their giant game of propaganda, and the world seemingly bought into it. People defending one side or the other need to think what their current end game is. Each side's supporters will tell you, "they just want (insert country name here)'s people to be able to live in peace, provide for the families and and live freely, but by doing that we're all just prolonging this ridiculous conflict and cheering louder as one side's people die. both government's are willing to do whatever it takes to win the propaganda war, and allowing external countries to dictate their policies. If you haven't read Thomas Friedman's first chapter of "from beirut to jerusalem", i recommend it as for some of you, it will completely change the way you see this idiotic conflict. both sides are reprehensible.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by cal_guy

I'm appreciating the irony of the statement considering that Israel just turned a large swath of the West Bank into a war zone, arresting hundreds of people who were unlikely to be connected the case, and killing 7 people, and probably insuring that the murders will never likely be solved.

Well...

It's 5 dead. They also died before the bodies were found. The Israeli army sent in troops to look for the missing citizens, which they should. They were often met with resistance, which included live fire, molotov cocktails, grenades, etc...

And the people they arrested were all Hamas members from the West Bank. Also, the case has been solved. They know exactly who did it. They were Hamas operatives (whether or not they were working under Hamas' orders has yet to be determined).

You have your facts mixed up or you are purposely mixing them to make this look like a case of heavy handed retribution. In reality, everything your complaining of happened before Israel had any knowledge of the deaths and was done in an attempt to located the missing Israelis.

[Tinordi]

Originally Posted by CaptainYooh

By far, the most bizarre statement in this thread. Either you have not a slightest clue about Middle East political dynamics or you are an irrational anti-Semite, akin to Barry Fisher, who writes similarly worded letters to Calgary Herald all the time.

Israel is by any definition a pariah state, that doesn't make me an anti-semite. The fact that you would lob that grenade so early into this conversation shows how little you have to argue or offer about it.

How would define a country that entered into a peace process about defining borders and retracting stolen land that then increased the speed by which it acquired more land from the party it was negotiating peace with and displaced more people than it did the year before it entered the peace negotiations?

Lets say Israel would be negotiating with Iran over nuclear proliferation and the Iranians during the negotiations doubled the amount of uranium they were refining. How do you think Israel would respond to that?

Well, between 2013 and 2014 Israel entered into formal peace negotiations with the Palestinians. During that time they seized 50% more land for illegal settlements than the year before and displaced 75% more people. Supposedly while peace negotiations were on.

Here's the thing with people who can't see rationally on this issue. They don't understand the fundamental dynamics that there are no other concessions the Palestinians can offer at this point. Israeli politicians can't climb down from their rhetoric of justice because Israel has taken so much of the capital and goodwill that any actual process should the Israelis genuinely want to achieve peace will require them moving first with large new concessions.

Calling that out makes me anti-semetic, okay then...

[oilyfan]

I will tend to agree with Tinordi, in only that the Mideast peace process is a mess. Israel has lost a lot of the momentum that it had since Sharon went out of the picture. Of course blaming Israel as the only cause of this is simplistic and one sided. That means we ignore the vast influence the other regional players have at the table, including notably Iran who has no interest in peace. And make no mistake trying to negotiate "peace" with an avowed terrorist group aimed at destroying you is a fools game to me.

And let's not ignore the history of Israel. While this is muddying the issue of peace at hadn't we cannot forget that all the people using for peace now have tried violence as their primary method, when that failed are now wondering why genuine negotiating is not working?

And Tinordi do you really think that Hamas is going to provide an inclusive progressive government that the Palestinians need?

[Tinordi]

If Iran has no interest in peace why did it sign the nuclear pact with the U.S. in November?

Iran's no saint but they did much more to advance peace in that region in the past two years than Israel has.

Why is Israel stepping up settlement building? Why are they using such hyperbolic militaristic rhetoric with Iran? Why are they seizing apartments in Jerusalem? Why have they interned 10,000 African migrants? Why has the political culture veered so far right?

Israel is not Rabin's Israel anymore. It has actively inserted itself into the U.S. domestic politics to undermine the President's peace efforts. It is succumbing to a right-wing paranoid institutionalism that is increasingly isolating it throughout the world. The distance between Israel and the U.S./EU has never been wider. Mainstream Jews in the U.S. are more than ever starting to question what it means to be allied with Israel. J Street is growing in significance. All of this is pointing to a country that is looking more dangerous than vulnerable.

All the while, the conditions for peace negotiation have never been better. Abbas and Fayyad are about as good as you're going to get for a Palestinian leadership. The Obama presidency was well placed to drive a meaningful peace process and the Bebu scuttled everything. It makes you wonder whether peace is really an objective at all among the Israeli right wing?

That's for another post.

[oilyfan]

Interned 10,000 migrants? At a given time? Israel is facing a crisis with African migrants trying to cross into Egypt, most figures put the number interned at 2,000. What is your source?

Iran had no interest in peace till the world turned against it. UN sanctions have hurt Iran significantly, only then has it decided it wants "peace". The day Iran stops shipping rockets to Hezbollah it will have decided it wants peace.

[Tinordi]

Good catch, it was 2000 migrants, my bad, 10,000 demonstrated against it.

And sure Iran may have been forced into peace but they came to the table and accepted it. Israel meanwhile tried to block the deal. Strategically from Israel's perspective is Iran's nuclear program the mountain to die on? I mean Israel has more than enough deterrent itself and we live in a world where Pakistan has a bomb. This goes back to my point that Israel doesn't actually appear to be interested in peace. They appear to be gladly pandering to scared right wing fringes that are fundamentally destabilizing to its long-term security.

Being afraid of an Iranian nuclear weapon is valid, but it isn't actual strategy. How do you contain it with a view of the state of Israel 100 years from now. That's the point, does Israel simply plan on being in permanent destabilizing low-intensity warfare throughout its existence? As the country with the biggest stick and the most to gain from peace they have to start making the first real concessions.

And don't take my word for it. Are prominent intellectuals like Stephen Hawking anti-semites now for recognizing what it is that Israel is becoming?

Hawking has visited Israel four times in the past. Most recently, in 2006, he delivered public lectures at Israeli and Palestinian universities as the guest of the British embassy in Tel Aviv. At the time, he said he was "looking forward to coming out to Israel and the Palestinian territories and excited about meeting both Israeli and Palestinian scientists".

Since then, his attitude to Israel appears to have hardened. In 2009, Hawking denounced Israel's three-week attack on Gaza, telling Riz Khan on Al-Jazeera that Israel's response to rocket fire from Gaza was "plain out of proportion … The situation is like that of South Africa before 1990 and cannot continue."

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...ademic-boycott

[FlamesAddiction]

The situation in general there is so complicated that I find it hard to take one side over the course of the whole conflict. It really depends on which day and what specific events we are looking at.

Do I agree with everything Israel does? Certainly not, but big picture-wise, I tend to feel they are on the level more so than their enemies.

[Coys1882]

I don't know a lot about the middle east but I seem to have formed the following opinions:
-if everyone left Israel alone, they wouldn't bother anyone.
-the other countries in that region seem to regularly war, revolt and terrorize each other all the time.

[cal_guy]

Originally Posted by blankall

Well...

It's 5 dead. They also died before the bodies were found. The Israeli army sent in troops to look for the missing citizens, which they should. They were often met with resistance, which included live fire, molotov cocktails, grenades, etc...

And the people they arrested were all Hamas members from the West Bank. Also, the case has been solved. They know exactly who did it. They were Hamas operatives (whether or not they were working under Hamas' orders has yet to be determined).

You have your facts mixed up or you are purposely mixing them to make this look like a case of heavy handed retribution. In reality, everything your complaining of happened before Israel had any knowledge of the deaths and was done in an attempt to located the missing Israelis.

Investigators were aware that the teens were likely dead early in their investigation. The only evidence that Israeli and Palestinian investigators have on the two suspects are that the two have recently disappeared which is reasonable suspicion but not enough to ensure that when these two individuals are captured or killed that justice for the three boys have been served.

Also sadly another boy has been murdered after his abduction.
http://m.theglobeandmail.com/news/wo...service=mobile

[jonesy]

History and conext aside, I don't understand the position taken by Hawking that a response to rocket fire was out of proportion. I cant think of any country subjected to rocket fire inside their borders not answering back with a hammer.
I can imagine what the US would do if Canada lobbed a few missles at them now and then. Even weak ass poorly aimed often inneffective ones would draw massive response.
Then take a moment to realize that Israel is subject to rocket fire almost DAILY. It probably gets a bit irksome.

[CaptainYooh]

How dare you say this?! You are from Iceland for God's sake!

[Flash Walken]

Transparent attempts to silence criticism with absurd cries of anti-Semitism.

Shameful.

[_Q_]

Originally Posted by jonesy

History and conext aside, I don't understand the position taken by Hawking that a response to rocket fire was out of proportion. I cant think of any country subjected to rocket fire inside their borders not answering back with a hammer.
I can imagine what the US would do if Canada lobbed a few missles at them now and then. Even weak ass poorly aimed often inneffective ones would draw massive response.
Then take a moment to realize that Israel is subject to rocket fire almost DAILY. It probably gets a bit irksome.

Yeah but Canada isn't territory controlled by the United States. Say the Tsutina was lobbing rockets at Calgary. Would it be fair for Canada to send in fighter jets to carpet bomb the Tsutina and go in and demolish homes? No, we would probably undertake a police investigation and bring the perpetrators to justice.

But none of that would happen in Canada anyways because Canada is a nation that respects human rights and equality amongst minorities.

[Coys1882]

Why doesn't the population that holds group like Hamas just expose them and oust them from their ranks? Why do they let them live within their communities? If those threats to Israel were gone - would these issues even exist? I find it hard to believe that Israel goes looking for fights based on what I've seen and read.

[Nage Waza]

Originally Posted by _Q_

Yeah but Canada isn't territory controlled by the United States. Say the Tsutina was lobbing rockets at Calgary. Would it be fair for Canada to send in fighter jets to carpet bomb the Tsutina and go in and demolish homes? No, we would probably undertake a police investigation and bring the perpetrators to justice.

But none of that would happen in Canada anyways because Canada is a nation that respects human rights and equality amongst minorities.

More lies...Israel does not carpet bomb Palestinians, and you know that. Quit trying to lie.

[_Q_]

^^ Because its a tough sell for the average Joe in Gaza or the West Bank to believe that Israel will ease up on them and leave them alone.

History shows the Palestinians that 1) Israel wants to annex the Palestinian territories, build settlements and drive the Palestinians out. 2) attacks on Israel DO work as seen trough Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and southern Lebanon after repeated attacks on Israel.

[Nage Waza]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

Why have they interned 10,000 African migrants?

You never cease contradicting yourself.

The migrants in Israel are people who have crossed Africa to escape, you guessed it, hostile regimes and terrorism. They come to Israel because they know they will be treated better than any other place. Israel really needs to figure this out, this is certainly a crisis.

And what does the world do? Criticize Israel.

Again, you are trying to have a different set of rules for Israel while ignoring every other deplorable nation.

[_Q_]

Originally Posted by Nage Waza

More lies...Israel does not carpet bomb Palestinians, and you know that. Quit trying to lie.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_War

During the 3 week operation, over 1400 Palestinians were killed, 5300 injured and 50,000 displaced.

Maybe not carpet bombing in the true sense of the word, but how does indiscriminate destruction and murder sound?