Is The State of Israel Above The Law?

[Mark Stapleton]

They seem like a civilized people. That's all people want, a place to live and work and create a community.

A very hazy couple of sentences.

So are you implying that Palestinians don't want to live and work and create a community?

What do you mean?

No, they're not hazy. I mean the Hamas terrorists don't want to create a community. Not if they take over Gaza, impose Islamic law and launch missiles into neighbors back yards. I think the Israel and the Palestinians want the same thing, to live and work in a peaceful community.

BK

Well Hamas won a free and fair election scrutineered by international observers, so the Palestinians disagree with you about Hamas. I thought you were in favor of democracy.

And if Hamas are terrorists, then so are Israel. Examples of terrorism by Jewish groups are well known and easy to research. Maybe we should just call everyone a terrorist, eh?

Anyhow, did you hear the one about the invasion of conquest designed to steal Palestine's offshore gas reserves?

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?con...a&aid=11680

[William Kelly]

They seem like a civilized people. That's all people want, a place to live and work and create a community.

A very hazy couple of sentences.

So are you implying that Palestinians don't want to live and work and create a community?

What do you mean?

No, they're not hazy. I mean the Hamas terrorists don't want to create a community. Not if they take over Gaza, impose Islamic law and launch missiles into neighbors back yards. I think the Israel and the Palestinians want the same thing, to live and work in a peaceful community.

BK

Well Hamas won a free and fair election scrutineered by international observers, so the Palestinians disagree with you about Hamas. I thought you were in favor of democracy.

And if Hamas are terrorists, then so are Israel. Examples of terrorism by Jewish groups are well known and easy to research. Maybe we should just call everyone a terrorist, eh?

Anyhow, did you hear the one about the invasion of conquest designed to steal Palestine's offshore gas reserves?

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?con...a&aid=11680

So the Palestinians voted to bombard Israel with rockets?

I don't think so.

Have you heard Cynthia McKinney's story.

She was actually on a boat delivering humantarian relief to Gaza when the attack began and her boat was rammed by the Isralies. With her were two Arab journalists who filmed reports on the incident. I have her side of the story if anybody's interested.

BK

[Cigdem Göle]

As long as the world goes on watching and as long as the peace loving leaders

get assassinated, the possibility of peace in the Middle East is unlikely.

I think everyone should protest the assault, since the military/economic power of

Israel and Palestine cannot be compared in any way. Therefore, Gaza has become

a field where the strong crushes the weak. It's not about religion, it's about conscience

or the lack of it.

[John Simkin]

As long as the world goes on watching and as long as the peace loving leaders

get assassinated, the possibility of peace in the Middle East is unlikely.

I think everyone should protest the assault, since the military/economic power of

Israel and Palestine cannot be compared in any way. Therefore, Gaza has become

a field where the strong crushes the weak. It's not about religion, it's about conscience

or the lack of it.

What you say is true and is accepted by most members. It is significant that only American members have attempted to justify what has been going on in Gaza. They are of course a nation that has long believed that it is morally right for the strong to crush the weak.

[Charles Drago]

The dead of Sand Creek and My Lai no doubt would concur with John Simkin.

So too would the victims of the Jallianwala Bagh (or Amritsar) Massacre.

There is all too much guilt to go around.

Until the life of the terrorist is valued as highly as the life of the terrorized, the terror will continue.

[Guest Gary Loughran]

As long as the world goes on watching and as long as the peace loving leaders

get assassinated, the possibility of peace in the Middle East is unlikely.

I think everyone should protest the assault, since the military/economic power of

Israel and Palestine cannot be compared in any way. Therefore, Gaza has become

a field where the strong crushes the weak. It's not about religion, it's about conscience

or the lack of it.

What you say is true and is accepted by most members. It is significant that only American members have attempted to justify what has been going on in Gaza. They are of course a nation that has long believed that it is morally right for the strong to crush the weak.

Surely the unadulterated, peace loving, Proconsul for the region will speak shortly...or maybe he has!!

I can't hear you Mr Blair.

[John Simkin]

The dead of Sand Creek and My Lai no doubt would concur with John Simkin.

So too would the victims of the Jallianwala Bagh (or Amritsar) Massacre.

There is all too much guilt to go around.

Until the life of the terrorist is valued as highly as the life of the terrorized, the terror will continue.

I am sure the British were just as bad as the Americans when they thought they ruled the world. It is comforting position to argue that might is right. The point that I was trying to make is that citizens of small countries are much more likely to be sympathetic to the plight of the powerless than those who are citizens of a superpower. The problem is that it is this lack of power that encourages them to resort to acts of terrorism.

It is also worth remembering that the state of Israel was founded as a result of terrorism. The Irgun Zvai Leumi resistance movement was established in Palestine in 1944. Menachem Begin became Commander-in-Chief. Over the next five years Begin organized over 200 acts of terrorism including the destruction of the central British administrative offices in the King David Hotel. The explosion killed ninety-one people.

[William Kelly]

As long as the world goes on watching and as long as the peace loving leaders

get assassinated, the possibility of peace in the Middle East is unlikely.

I think everyone should protest the assault, since the military/economic power of

Israel and Palestine cannot be compared in any way. Therefore, Gaza has become

a field where the strong crushes the weak. It's not about religion, it's about conscience

or the lack of it.

What you say is true and is accepted by most members. It is significant that only American members have attempted to justify what has been going on in Gaza. They are of course a nation that has long believed that it is morally right for the strong to crush the weak.

John Simkin's bland generalizations about Americans, Israel, the UK and the current conflict over Gaza sure expains everything.

As an American who, he says, "has long believed that it is morally right for the strong to crush the weak," I have to ask for some examples.

We think it is morally right to crush the weak, just because they are weak?

Who are you talking about here John?

BK

[Ron Ecker]

I have no love for the Israeli government. I believe it is ruthless, that it deliberately bombed the USS Liberty, and that it may have played a role in 9/11 and God only knows what else. (I also have no love for the American government, and have never believed that might makes right.) That said, I'm still wondering what Israel was supposed to do in the case of rocket attacks from Gaza. The argument that those attacks were really nothing sounds like nonsense to me. "Oh, it's just those Hamas boys having some fun again." How would you like to have a "nothing" rocket coming your way while you're mowing the lawn or eating dinner? I believe that one of the first responsibilities of a government is to protect its people from attack.

[Cigdem Göle]

Red Cross: Israel delayed access to Gaza wounded

By FRANK JORDANS – 23 hours ago

GENEVA (AP) — The international Red Cross accused Israel on Thursday of "unacceptable" delays in letting rescue workers reach three Gaza City homes hit by shelling where they eventually found 15 dead and 18 wounded, including young children too weak to stand.

The Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross said the Israeli army refused rescuers permission to reach the site in the Zeitoun neighborhood for four days. Ambulances could not get to the neighborhood because the Israeli army had erected large earthen barriers that blocked access.

Israel said the delay was caused by fighting in the area and accused Hamas of using Palestinian civilians as human shields. Since Wednesday, Israel has observed a daily three-hour halt in operations to allow humanitarian evacuations and aid deliveries throughout Gaza.

Eventually, rescuers from the international Red Cross and Palestine Red Crescent received permission to go into the shelled houses during the halt in fighting Wednesday, four days after the buildings were hit by Israeli shells.

"This is a shocking incident," Pierre Wettach, head of the ICRC for the region, said.

The rescue team "found four small children next to their dead mothers in one of the houses. They were too weak to stand up on their own. One man was also found alive, too weak to stand up," the statement said. "In all, there were at least 12 corpses lying on mattresses" in one of the houses, it added.

The organization said the children and the wounded had to be transported by donkey cart to ambulances.

"The Israeli military must have been aware of the situation but did not assist the wounded," the international Red Cross said. "Neither did they make it possible for us or the Palestine Red Crescent to assist the wounded."

The ICRC normally conducts confidential negotiations with warring parties, and the statement was a rare public criticism of one party to a conflict over a specific incident.

The organization said it believes "in this instance, the Israeli military failed to meet its obligation under international humanitarian law to care for and evacuate the wounded."

"It considers the delay in allowing rescue services access unacceptable," the Red Cross statement said.

The organization alleged Israel also refused requests to go to other destroyed houses in the same neighborhood of Gaza City, where they had reports of more wounded people.

Red Cross medics in Gaza could not be reached for comment on the condition of the children rescued from Zeitoun. ICRC spokeswoman Dorothea Krimitsas in Geneva said the children were evacuated during Wednesday's three-hour cease-fire. The Palestine Red Crescent said the children are in the Shifa and al-Quds hospitals in Gaza City.

The Associated Press was not able to visit the hospitals because of the dangers of moving around Gaza, and it has been difficult to obtain information from the hospitals about the children because staff are overwhelmed with casualties and unable to talk with reporters.

Red Cross spokesman Iyad Nasr said emergency crews evacuated 105 more injured people from Zeitoun on Thursday and were struggling to find shelter for them. Also Thursday, a Palestinian health official said the bodies of 35 people have been found in the rubble of bombed out building in Gaza City during a three-hour pause in fighting, many of them in the Zeitoun neighborhood.

The Israeli military did not comment on the specifics of the Red Cross allegations, but said it is closely cooperating with international aid organizations during the Gaza fighting to assist civilians caught in the crossfire.

"The Israel Defense Forces are engaged in a battle with the Hamas terrorist organization that has deliberately used Palestinian civilians as human shields," a military statement said. "The IDF in no way intentionally targets civilians and has demonstrated its willingness to abort operations to save civilian lives and to risk injury in order to assist innocent civilians."

Israel said it would investigate any formal complaint against the army's conduct within the constraints of the current military operation.

Israel's ambassador in Geneva, Aharon Leshno-Yaar, denied his country was failing in its humanitarian obligations.

"Once the military activity was over, then it was possible for humanitarian teams to evacuate the wounded," he told The Associated Press.

Leshno-Yaar said Israel respects international humanitarian law and is working with aid groups to allow the wounded to be removed and in some cases transferred to hospitals in Israel.

But aid groups say safe passage around Gaza remains a problem.

On Thursday, the United Nations said it was halting all aid deliveries inside Gaza after gunfire from an Israeli tank killed an aid truck driver.

The international Red Cross said it would continue its operations despite one of its convoys coming under fire from an Israeli position at the Netzarim crossing during the three-hour halt in fighting Thursday. One driver was lightly injured.

ICRC spokeswoman Dorothea Krimitsas said the convoy, which was escorting ambulances to the south of Gaza, was forced to abort its mission.

The World Health Organization said 21 Palestinian medical workers have been killed and 30 injured since Israel launched its offensive on Dec. 27.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

[Mark Stapleton]

So the Palestinians voted to bombard Israel with rockets?

I don't think so.

The Palestinians elected Hamas in a fair election.

Israel won't accept the result.

Are you in favor of democracy or not?

Answer the question.

[William Kelly]

So the Palestinians voted to bombard Israel with rockets?

I don't think so.

The Palestinians elected Hamas in a fair election.

Israel won't accept the result.

Are you in favor of democracy or not?

Answer the question.

Majority rule is the one of the worst forms of government, as the majority are often wrong. If the majority of the people of Gaza wanted to shoot rockets into Israel in order to provoke a war, then they were successfull.

If the majority of people vote for an Islamic rule in which everyone must live according to Islamic religous rules, where women cannot attend school, centuries old monuments are destroyed and those who disagree with the rules are killed, especially the children and women, then there is no democracy.

Democracy isn't the answer, as the American political system has shown.

But those who want to establish a community, and live and work together, and get along with neighbors without sticking pins in them or shooting rockets at them,

well that's a different.

I'm not even a big supporter of Israel, I just think they have a right to exist, just as the Palestinians have a right to exist side by side, or part of the same system. Many Gaza residents work in Israel, or used to.

I don't think a terrorist organization can make a community work.

I don't argue with the idea that Israel is the well armed, well financed, best educated and most efficient terrorists in the world, but knowing that, why antagonize them to come kill you and your children?

Have you read Cynthia McKinney's report from Gaza?

She's a good example of John Simkin's description of the powerfull Americans who slaughter the innocent and weak.

If Americans have anything in common, they truely do fight for what they believe is right, and often support the underdog, the weak and those who cannot defend themselves.

And if there ever was a just cause in the world, it is preventing Fundamentalist Islamic militants from taking over a country and imposing their rule of religous law on everyone, whether they are Hamas, Al Quada, Taliban or whoever.

Does that answer your question?

Bill Kelly

[William Kelly]

So the Palestinians voted to bombard Israel with rockets?

I don't think so.

The Palestinians elected Hamas in a fair election.

Israel won't accept the result.

Are you in favor of democracy or not?

Answer the question.

Majority rule is the one of the worst forms of government, as the majority are often wrong. If the majority of the people of Gaza wanted to shoot rockets into Israel in order to provoke a war, then they were successfull.

If the majority of people vote for an Islamic rule in which everyone must live according to Islamic religous rules, where women cannot attend school, centuries old monuments are destroyed and those who disagree with the rules are killed, especially the children and women, then there is no democracy.

Democracy isn't the answer, as the American political system has shown.

But those who want to establish a community, and live and work together, and get along with neighbors without sticking pins in them or shooting rockets at them,

well that's a different.

I'm not even a big supporter of Israel, I just think they have a right to exist, just as the Palestinians have a right to exist side by side, or part of the same system. Many Gaza residents work in Israel, or used to.

I don't think a terrorist organization can make a community work.

I don't argue with the idea that Israel is the well armed, well financed, best educated and most efficient terrorists in the world, but knowing that, why antagonize them to come kill you and your children?

Have you read Cynthia McKinney's report from Gaza?

She's a good example of John Simkin's description of the powerfull Americans who slaughter the innocent and weak.

If Americans have anything in common, they truely do fight for what they believe is right, and often support the underdog, the weak and those who cannot defend themselves.

And if there ever was a just cause in the world, it is preventing Fundamentalist Islamic militants from taking over a country and imposing their rule of religous law on everyone, whether they are Hamas, Al Quada, Taliban or whoever.

Does that answer your question?

Bill Kelly

Another example of American moral value of crushing the weak.

BK

Send a Message Saturday: STOP the Massacre in Gaza

Stop the U.S./Israeli War

Against the Palestinian PeopleNational March on Washington

Saturday, January 10

Assemble at the White House (north side) at 1:00 PMGaza Chicago 1.2.09Tens of thousands have marched across the country.

Above: Chicago, January 2Flyer for the DC demonstrationBuses are being organized to bring people to Washington, D.C., from across the East Coast, Midwest and South.

Click here to find transportation from your area.Become a volunteer Continue Reading »

www.Playahata.com - Interesting Quote of the Day - ""As long as I don't write about the government, religion, politics, and other institutions, I am free to print anything." -- Pierre-Augustin Beaumarchais (1732-1799)

Then there's CNN:

http://www.jossip.com/cnn-gets-duped-into-...ganda-20090109/

Edited January 10, 2009 by William Kelly

[John Simkin]

I have no love for the Israeli government. I believe it is ruthless, that it deliberately bombed the USS Liberty, and that it may have played a role in 9/11 and God only knows what else. (I also have no love for the American government, and have never believed that might makes right.) That said, I'm still wondering what Israel was supposed to do in the case of rocket attacks from Gaza. The argument that those attacks were really nothing sounds like nonsense to me. "Oh, it's just those Hamas boys having some fun again." How would you like to have a "nothing" rocket coming your way while you're mowing the lawn or eating dinner? I believe that one of the first responsibilities of a government is to protect its people from attack.

Of course all governments have a duty to protect its citizens. What I have argued is that the way that Israel is trying to do this will make them even more unsafe. Their action is guaranteeing the creation of even more terrorists. As I said in an earlier post:

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.

There is also the issue of proportionality. The UN estimate that about 800 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its military operation on 27 December. Thirteen Israelis have died so far in the conflict (most of them from accidents and friendly fire). The UN also report several incidents that indicate serious war crimes have been committed. The International Red Cross has also accused Israel of failing “to meet its obligation under international humanitarian law to care for and evacuate the wounded."

The situation is similar to the situation the UK found itself with the IRA. There is no doubt that Roman Catholics were discriminated against in Northern Ireland. The UK government sided with the Protestant majority and did very little to remove this discrimination. The Catholics lost faith in the democratic process and began supporting the IRA. The UK government responded by introducing internment in August 1971. Over 1,870 Irish nationalists were imprisoned without trial. Even the politicians who introduced this measure now agree it was a terrible mistake and acted as a recruiting sergeant for the IRA.

On 21st November, 1974, the IRA placed bombs in two central Birmingham pubs that killed 21 people and injured 182. This resulted in even more attempts by the UK government to suppress the IRA. That was of course the intention and guaranteed another 30 years of violent conflict in Northern Ireland. This did not stop until the UK government began to address the original problem of Catholic discrimination.

The same is true of Israel. Until they withdraw from land they have taken illegally and begin political negotiations with their enemies, they will not enjoy peace in Israel.

[David G. Healy]

'John Simkin' wrote:

...

... 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.

and Hamas and Hezbollah try to destroy the Jews AND Israel (as history [near and ancient] show, have been on the receiving end more than a few times)....

and further, I DOUBT there will (ever) be permanent peace in the area.... wishful thinking by do-gooders...

There is also the issue of proportionality. The UN estimate that about 800 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its military operation on 27 December. Thirteen Israelis have died so far in the conflict (most of them from accidents and friendly fire). The UN also report several incidents that indicate serious war crimes have been committed. The International Red Cross has also accused Israel of failing “to meet its obligation under international humanitarian law to care for and evacuate the wounded."

Proportionality? In a war for survival? You have to be kidding me... and who cares what the Red Cross has to say, they're not a political organization, they help clean up the mess....

The situation is similar to the situation the UK found itself with the IRA.

dgh: hardly, the UK was not around when the old testament was written.

An official source in Israel commented today: Hamas is responsible for the current situation (including Palestinian civilian deaths)! Evidently, when the citizens of GAZA rid themselves of Hamas, then expect peace. Which of course means, NO peace!