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Is The State of Israel Above The Law?


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Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary." Mahatma Gandhi, 'Satyagraha Leaflet No. 13,' May 3, 1919Israel is decapitating Gaza while claiming that it is only fighting Hamas by targeting and destroying schools, mosques, private homes, charities, public buildings, drug stores, colleges and universities and committing genocide on the people of Gaza all under the false pretext of fighting Hamas.

The death toll continues to mount on this the third day of Operation Solid Lead intended by Israel to break the back of Hamas and uproot its capability to rain missiles on southern Israel. CNN reports hundreds Gazans are dead. The UN estimates that many of them are civilians.

I find it extraordinary that considering the firepower the IAF is using against Gaza that not only is Hamas able to continue its barrage, but that some of the rockets have proven lethal. In the entire several week period leading up to the end of the ceasefire, several hundred militant rockets didn't kill a single Israeli. It seems that now the Palestinians are out for blood and intend to make every missile count, which may be why there are now Israelis dead.

Israeli politicians continue to labor under delusions that this military operation can "clean up" their "problem" once and for all.

Both sides are renewing calls for bloodshed as age-old arguments resurface. "Hamas terrorist" not recognizing Israel's right to exist and "Israel the bully" not accepting its own responsibility of closing off Gaza like a prison.

http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/...-kills-children

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Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary." Mahatma Gandhi, 'Satyagraha Leaflet No. 13,' May 3, 1919Israel is decapitating Gaza while claiming that it is only fighting Hamas by targeting and destroying schools, mosques, private homes, charities, public buildings, drug stores, colleges and universities and committing genocide on the people of Gaza all under the false pretext of fighting Hamas.

The death toll continues to mount on this the third day of Operation Solid Lead intended by Israel to break the back of Hamas and uproot its capability to rain missiles on southern Israel. CNN reports hundreds Gazans are dead. The UN estimates that many of them are civilians.

I find it extraordinary that considering the firepower the IAF is using against Gaza that not only is Hamas able to continue its barrage, but that some of the rockets have proven lethal. In the entire several week period leading up to the end of the ceasefire, several hundred militant rockets didn't kill a single Israeli. It seems that now the Palestinians are out for blood and intend to make every missile count, which may be why there are now Israelis dead.

Israeli politicians continue to labor under delusions that this military operation can "clean up" their "problem" once and for all.

Both sides are renewing calls for bloodshed as age-old arguments resurface. "Hamas terrorist" not recognizing Israel's right to exist and "Israel the bully" not accepting its own responsibility of closing off Gaza like a prison.

http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/...-kills-children

I am afraid that as long as the United States supports Israel they can indeed act as if they are above the law. This is why they acted before the arrival of the new president. They have always known that Bush would always completely support their actions in the Middle East.

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Israel has become a mass murderer, an entity which uses its power to slaughter the weak,

just like the Nazis. In that sense, Israel has now turned onto the very horror they themselves

have been complaining about since the WWII.

Edited by Cigdem Eksi
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Both sides are at fault in the long history of bloodshed over there. That said, what practical alternative did Israel have in responding to Hamas rocket attacks? A plea, "Please stop attacking us?" An offer to go out of existence and go back home to - wherever home is? What?

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That said, what practical alternative did Israel have in responding to Hamas rocket attacks?

I think you are missing a very important point.

The truth about those Hamas rockets

By Dennis Rahkonen

Online Journal Contributing Writer

Jan 1, 2009, 01:24

Five years ago, the Bush administration lied about weapons of mass destruction to dupe us into supporting an illegal, immoral invasion of Iraq.

A few days ago, Israel trotted out only an infinitesimally more credible excuse -- the Hamas rockets case -- as justification for its own murderous shock and awe in Gaza, a long-planned campaign perniciously aimed at ousting a "regime" that came to power via popular, democratic vote.

Yes, such rockets exist, but they're little more than slingshots against Israel's incredible military might, and they're used out of desperation by Palestinians who've never been accorded the democratic space within which to gain redress of their eminently just grievances.

Israeli apologists have presented absurd propaganda about those devices.

We've been asked, for instance, what would we do if rockets were being launched on our homes in New York or Texas, from Canada or Mexico?

The proper answer is that, if those two nations had been unlawfully occupied or embargoed by the United States for 60 years of relentless oppression and repression, and if all attempts at peaceful change had been forcefully prevented or scuttled by the U.S., then such attacks would be an understandable, indeed a justifiable attempt at gaining intolerably deferred liberty.

Our appropriate response wouldn't be to bomb the hell out of the nearest Canadian or Mexican city, but to collectively look into mirrors and earnestly ask ourselves, "What have we done wrong to incur their wrath?"

And then act to correct the situation.

Conscientious Israelis acknowledge that the Hamas rockets rationale is fraudulent. For instance, Jerusalem Post writer Larry Derfner has noted, "We don't want to see how people in Gaza are living, we block it out of our minds -- which, I suppose, is natural for a society at war, but which also keeps that war going longer than it might if we would recognize that Gaza is getting so much the worst of it.

"The [Palestinian] Kassam [rockets] have terrorized the 25,000 people in Sderot and its environs, but have caused very, very few deaths or serious wounds. By contrast, Israel has terrorized 1.5 million Gazans, locked them inside their awfully narrow borders, throttled their economy, and killed and seriously wounded thousands of them . . .

"This is crazy. Israel is the superpower of the Middle East, but because we still think we're the Jews of Europe in the 1930s, or the Israelites under Pharaoh, we spend a lot more time fighting our enemies than we might if we looked at the whole picture, not just our half of it . . ."

As Gazan hospitals and morgues fill beyond capacity because of an ongoing air assault that cruelly began at precisely the hour when countless children were heading home from school, we're expected to believe that small craters mostly in empty Israeli fields constitute this terrible episode's chief sin.

Bugs bothered by sporadically impacting, glorified fireworks cobbled together in backyard garages are ludicrously supposed to be the primary problem, not human limbs and lives shattered by the most destructive weapons that military science can produce!

At any point during the past six decades, Israel could have had peace, simply by assenting to the great moral imperative of our time, namely the Palestinians' right to their own, unitary, sovereign homeland.

Something which Israel continues to resist tooth and nail.

Two years ago, in Southern Lebanon, Israel engaged in similar bombings in civilian areas. Then, too, it maintained that only "terrorist" targets were being hit. As impartial observers finally ascertained the truth, clear evidence of enormous civilian carnage surfaced.

The Israeli leadership lied then, and it's lying now.

There's a veritable holocaust occurring in densely packed Gaza. Think Guernica, or the Warsaw Ghetto, with all the searing irony that comparison involves.

Apart from being an ethical travesty offending all decent hearts, it's an unpardonable outrage to especially Arab/Islamic peoples around the world.

Witness the angry demonstrations in cities across the planet.

It takes no extraordinary analytical prowess to appreciate that, when the White House ridiculously blames what's currently happening on "thugs" in Gaza, and when moderate Arab states adopt an accommodationist position pleasing the U.S. and Israel, a profound Arab/Islamic radicalization billows and swells.

New Osama bin Ladens are being born as innocents in Gaza are getting ripped to death by American-made Hellfire missiles, dispatched toward fleshly targets by Israeli pilots.

In fact, the almost certain, counterproductive outcome of Israel's action makes us necessarily suspect that secret motives mistakenly judged by Tel Aviv to be worth the risk are actually at play.

Three possibilities spring immediately to mind:

1) Obscenely using de facto genocide to give the present Israeli government a "tough" image before upcoming national elections.

2) Roping Barack Obama into a harder pro-Israeli stance than Tel Aviv fears he'd otherwise take.

3) Creating a manipulated, intensely propagandized situation that would enable a desired Israeli attack on Iran.

Whatever the most deeply hidden reality, Israel's gargantuan crime must be universally condemned in the strongest possible terms . . . and halted at once!

Dennis Rahkonen of Superior, Wisconsin, has been writing progressive commentary with a Heartland perspective for various outlets since the '60s.

Copyright © 1998-2007 Online Journal

Email Online Journal Editor

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_4186.shtml

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There is no such thing as civilian casualties when an entire population is regarded as the enemy. Even a 3-year-old child is a terrorist and enemy. And anything is justified to eliminate that threat.

This is the same mentality that justified genocide in Nazi Germany: each and every Jew was a traitor and enemy of the "state."

Once refugees from persecution who founded a nation that seemed admirable, the Israelis moved on to behave like Pharaoh holding the Israelites in bondage. The circle will be complete once they move on to a result that may seem merely logical -- the extermination of each and every "enemy."

Unless they are stopped by the United States. Hopefully, Obama will develop a new policy on Israel. I suppose he is afraid of the Jewish lobby but in the UK, the Jewish community, except those organizations closely linked to the political parties (Labour Friends of Israel, Conservative Friends of Israel, etc.), have been very critical of what is going on in Gaza.

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Israel has become a mass murderer, an entity which uses its power to slaughter the weak,

just like the Nazis. In that sense, Israel has now turned onto the very horror they themselves

have been complaining about since the WWII.

The abused child grows to become an abuser.

Indeed.

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I would put it as acting not above the law, but as a law unto themselves, with an uneasy but cooperative relationship to the neocon agenda in the Middle East and Central Asia. Remembering, of course, that the neocons are just the party of purpose for larger interests.

Edited by David Andrews
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Operation Cast Lead: Day 8

http://www.rightsidenews.com/200901043194/...lead-day-8.html

I guess, under John Simkin's assessment, the Hamas decided to launch rocket attacks against Israel in order to provoke a war before Bush leaves office.

The USA is at fault again.

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." — Aug. 5, 2004, at the signing ceremony for a defense spending bill." President Bush

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Both sides are at fault in the long history of bloodshed over there. That said, what practical alternative did Israel have in responding to Hamas rocket attacks? A plea, "Please stop attacking us?" An offer to go out of existence and go back home to - wherever home is? What?

Israel should carry on doing EXACTLY what it needs to do, PERIOD!

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Israel should carry on doing EXACTLY what it needs to do, PERIOD!

David,

I'm deeply disappointed by your comment (if you ever care).

At the end of my life, if I will have the chance to find the time to look back,

there will be one thing I will mostly be proud of, that is; not having sided with

tyranny regardless of its reason or source.

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There is a fanatical religious element in this long-standing conflict of Arabs versus Jews that cannot be overlooked. Here is part of a post I read on another forum that I think is worth quoting for its historical perspective:

There will not be peace in the Middle East until there is such a thing as a moderate Muslim leader or leaders from the area. But unfortunately, Muslims that live in the area tend to be scared to stray from the hard party line of "death to the Jews" . . . The truth is Islam is as much a religion of peace as Christianity was during the crusades and dark ages. The difference is, Christianity, for the most part, matured and underwent a renaissance. Islam has never had such a thing, and even those Muslims that would want Islam to undergo a similar transformation either don't exist, or they aren't very vocal.

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Israel should carry on doing EXACTLY what it needs to do, PERIOD!

David,

I'm deeply disappointed by your comment (if you ever care).

At the end of my life, if I will have the chance to find the time to look back,

there will be one thing I will mostly be proud of, that is; not having sided with

tyranny regardless of its reason or source.

an excellent position Cigdem, unless of course you and/or yours become victim of tyranny or terrorism. Siding seems to be a spectator sport these day's. Seems a bit one-sided here these days....

Care? You have no idea...

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Both sides are at fault in the long history of bloodshed over there. That said, what practical alternative did Israel have in responding to Hamas rocket attacks? A plea, "Please stop attacking us?" An offer to go out of existence and go back home to - wherever home is? What?

The problem is that Israel is occupying the land of the Palestine. Don’t you think Americans would be firing their guns at people who occupied their land and established settlements in their country?

Israel has become a mass murderer, an entity which uses its power to slaughter the weak,

just like the Nazis. In that sense, Israel has now turned onto the very horror they themselves

have been complaining about since the WWII.

The abused child grows to become an abuser.

Indeed.

It is true that the abused child often goes on to be an abuser. In the case of Israel it is the children and grandchildren of those who have been abused who are the abusers.

Operation Cast Lead: Day 8

http://www.rightsidenews.com/200901043194/...lead-day-8.html

I guess, under John Simkin's assessment, the Hamas decided to launch rocket attacks against Israel in order to provoke a war before Bush leaves office.

The USA is at fault again.

This is not something Hamas and other Arab militant groups have just started. They have been carrying out attacks on Israel since they began occupying Arab land in 1967. I would imagine the Americans would have reacted in the same way if this had happened to them, I know the Brits would.

It is Bush’s fault because he has given Israel complete freedom in their fight against the Arabs. It is only the US government that is not calling for an immediate cease-fire. I suppose with the credit-crunch the government is only interested in selling more of the latest weaponry to Israel.

This morning we are informed that 50 people, including an entire family of seven young children, have been killed as a result of Israeli forces bombing UN schools. I cannot understand how any rational human being cannot watch these scenes without being horrified by this abuse of military power.

As someone who has an affluent existence, I can afford to call myself a pacifist. However, if I was the grandfather, father, brother or son of those people being killed by these Israeli attacks, I would become a militant willing to use violence against the invaders. I suspect 99.9% of the members of this forum would make a similar decision. That is why Israel will never gain a permanent peace by acting in this way. It is why Hitler was not successful in his attempt to destroy Jews and communists in the 1930s and 1940s and why the United States and its allies were not successful in Vietnam and Iraq. For every terrorist/freedom fighter you kill, you create several more.

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Israel has become a mass murderer, an entity which uses its power to slaughter the weak,

just like the Nazis. In that sense, Israel has now turned onto the very horror they themselves

have been complaining about since the WWII.

Why can't the Israeli-Palestinian conflict be compared to the Holocaust?

The two are so dissimilar that they cannot be compared in any meaningful way.

The Holocaust was the attempt by the Nazis and their partners to kill all the Jews. In the Holocaust a sovereign nation harnessed all the apparatus of their state to the goal of the mass systematic murder of a specific people.

More than anything else, the murder of the Jews stemmed from Nazi racial ideology. According to that ideology, the Jews were an evil race, whose very existence endangered Germany and all of human civilization. The Nazi crusade against the Jews was not focused on winning tangible gains, such as land and other wealth from the Jews. Its goal was to rid the world of the supposed pernicious influence of the Jews.

The Nazis systematically murdered Jews in shooting actions and by gas in specially designed gas chambers in extermination camps. In the ghettos, camps and slave-labor installations under the Nazis, hundreds of thousands of Jews were also brutally worked to death. The end result was the murder of close to 6 million Jews.

The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is not racial, but national; it is political and territorial. It is a struggle between two peoples for a small land. Throughout the decades this struggle has oscillated between violence and attempts to negotiate a settlement. As tragic as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may be, there are no mass graves, no public executions of thousands of people, no gas chambers. It cannot be compared to the Holocaust. Using terms taken from the history of the Holocaust to describe the situation in the Middle East does more to obscure than to clarify the events and their consequences

http://www1.yadvashem.org

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