Nothing about the thousands of missiles and rockets fired randomly for years at Israeli civilians or the genocidal intentions of Hamas that prompted this particular situation, Mr. Dawg.
What would you do if people were shooting at you every day and demanded that you ceased to exist?
Meanwhile in the West Bank, there is a process going on to dismantle Israeli security checkpoints points to let the PA Security manage.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/
Sat...d=1244034989878
What would you do if people were shooting at you every day and demanded that you ceased to exist?
Why, cut off their access to shoes and hair conditioner, of course. Six months after the shooting stops.
Come on, Ricardo, the Israelis are deliberately starving an entire population in retaliation for a terrorist group's past activities, and purposefully obfuscating the difference between the political and the terrorist wings of Hamas to justify doing it.
If you lived in Quebec it would be OK to barricade you in without access to sufficient good, medicine, and building materials (after having torn down all your buildings), because there are members of the FLQ hiding in the civilian population... and the justification is that you voted in a Bloc government and they also want sovereignty, therefore they are terrorists too? (The relationship between the extremists and the government is closer in Palestine, it is true, but the analogy is still fairly solid.)
And, well, there is a big difference between denying the right of a state to exist (like, say, Quebec) and denying the right of the people within it to their lives (like, say, the Holocaust). I am not my country. I can understand why Israelis would be upset by calls to dismantle their country all the same, of course, but don't confuse the two.
Dawg, that's a cute riposte, but Hamas has never withdrawn or changed its basic charter - which calls for the extinction of Israel and the slaughter of Jews all over the world as well as in the Middle East. And this harsh, Iran-sponsored regime is not averse using their own population as cannon fodder and human shields.
Pitiful photos of children rummaging in garbage dumps are very heart-rending. And those images are what the governing regime in Gaza wants the world to see.
In their estimation, that's more valuable than getting on with the actual business of state building, which includes doing something other than warring with your neighbors.
The shooting hasn't stopped. And can restart any moment.
You choose to ignore the fact that enough West Bank Palestinians have decided that terror isn't the preferred option, and are on a path to normalization and statehood.
Israel isn't the only country that recognizes Hamas/Gaza as a terror regime. The EU, Britain, US, Canada, Australia do so as well.
But you've heard all this already.
An open air prison it surely is but there are two doors. Shouldn't you save a little space in your column for Egyt?
Surrounded by enemies who wish death upon her citizens, unable to travel due to passport restrictions in their region...
Sounds an awful lot like Israel to me. Its just that Israel is a real country that doesnt wish genocide upon anyone.
If they wanted all of Palestine dead they could do it in a heartbeat.
The fact that the Palestinians and arabs and persians, and turks and kurds have all tried and failed to eliminate Israel is of no consequence.
Israel is besieged by genocidal enemies not palestine.
It appears that Egypt is now opening up the border on their side (Rafah crossing) from time to time:
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/20...aza-
border.html
Not that they get a pass on this.
Turks and Kurds, Colin? Do tell. Amazing alternate universe you live in.
So tell me Colin and Ricardo, now that you've apportioned blame and shined your the IDFs knob, will you get to the point where you can explain to us all, explicitly, why you think it's ok to starve people, deny them their fundimental human rights and generally engage in collective punishment?
As for the whole "surrounded" thing, who's attacking Israel besides a bunch of pathetic asshats with crap aim and even worse ordinance?
Seriously? What serious military threat is Israel facing right now? Iran? Iran isn't even incharge of it's streets right now. Egypt? hahahaha... sorry but come on. The House of Saud? As if...
So, besides the thousands of rockets (let's stipulate right away, it is wrong to fire rockets at civilian populations. Period. Which goes both ways... )who is threatening them? I don't mean "leaning forward in a menacing way" I mean "actually willing to step up and attack them and cross their borders (either with ordinance or with men/women at arms?"
No one.
Now, back to the post at hand, I agree with 99% of what Dawg says, but at the end of the day, no matter what you think of Israeli foreign policy, the two sides in this idiotic, hermetic, never ending spiral of stupid and death bear responsibility for what is going on. And unless they are honestly thinking that they can negotiate for peace with someone nice like, say I dunno, Jamaica, then they all have to grow the hell up and deal with each other for real.
Oh, and Colin and Ricardo, people are starving. That should be all that matters to you.
Well Cameron we both know that the starving people problem can be fixed the second that the Arab states proffer up the needed cash and stop shipping weapons instead of food.
Israel cannot allow weapons to be smuggles in via food shipments and the arabs refuse to ease the suffering of the Palestinians. Neither of which is Israel's fault.
I should clarify that yes, I know that the Hamas charter does actually call for the death of Jews - Hamas is a despicable organization whether terrorist or political, but the majority of Palestinians didn't vote for Hamas as a party because they wanted to kill Jews, but rather because their government was corrupt and ineffective - polls show that most Palestinians want negotiation with Israel and want Hamas to recognize the Jewish state, and while even many so-called moderates do call for the end of Israel as a state, they don't call for the death of Israelis (and ending the bombings of civilians has become one of those "You stop targeting civilians!" "You first!" "No, you first!" kind of things.)
Cameron wrote:
"..What serious military threat is Israel facing right now? Iran?..."
Yeah Iran's got a wacky president who used to be an interrogator and torturer in their Republican Guards. He's publicly pledged the eradication of Israel including by nuclear numerous times.
Oh, and there was another shooting attack today from Gaza towards Israel. Skirmishes like these are more or less a daily occurrence.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Sat...icle%
2FShowFull
"...Thursday, either a 17-year-old Palestinian woman or a three-year-old girl was killed in the central Gaza Strip, according to conflicting Hamas sources. The IDF said an initial probe showed she was killed by Palestinian mortar fire. Hamas said she was killed by an IDF tank shell.
The military said Nahal Brigade troops had responded with gunfire and mortar shells after they came under fire from terrorists near the Nahal Oz crossing, but did not use tanks. It said mortar shells fired by the soldiers landed in open areas in the Gaza Strip.
The army added that all of the mortar shells fired by the Palestinians landed inside the Strip...."
For newcomers to this blog...
You have to understand (...) that Dawg has a calendar in his computer which is programmed to post about Israel's racism/apartheid/inhumanity (and the hypocrisy of its defenders) every 2.684 weeks, rain or shine.
http://www.haloscan.com/comments...3220476/
#199299
Yup, just checked. Right on time.
June 16 -
http://drdawgsblawg.blogspot.com...mmer-
drops.html
Though, it seems that Dawg's anti-Israel calendar was a bit fuller in June than every 2.684 weeks...
June 10 -
http://drdawgsblawg.blogspot.com...i-
semitism.html
June 1 -
http://drdawgsblawg.blogspot.com...ock-
troops.html
Geo's back, it seems, under a different name.
Personally I think Israel's the one with the computer. If you get my drift.
"Personally I think Israel's the one with the computer. If you get my drift."
Well, doing the kids rummaging on the garbage pile is a rather stale bit of agitprop. And refusing to acknowledge progress being made in Arab/Israel relations in the West Bank kinda gives it all away if you know what I mean.
You don't have to be Jewish to see a double standard thing happening here.
It's just ironic because otherwise you seem to be intelligent, compassionate and a promoter of human rights.
It's like there's two of you running this blog.
Nice to see Egypt stepping up and opening the border for three days. One would think that if there was the humanitarian, hair conditioner, kids shoes crisis you depict Dawg, the Egyptians (and the rest of the Arab world) would be rushing hair conditioner and kids shoes through.
But one would be wrong because much of the Arab world and the ruling elites in Egypt cannot stand the Palestinians in general or Hamas in particular. Plus, it is extremely important for a number of the non-democracies in the ME to have the handy object of hate Israel represents.
There is nothing at all preventing the Egyptians from opening the Rafah crossing except their loathing of the Palestinians. So, if you want to Dawg on about the sad plight of the Palis take your complaints to Cairo.
(And, Renee, it is entirely insulting to the Bloc to infer that they are somehow the political arm of the FLQ. You know better.)
Jay the arabs have actually created the palestinian problem in order to destabilize Israel at very little cost to them.
They use the palestinians as a weapon. They need to keep them down enough to fuel the hatred and anger that creates the suicide bombers.
No muslim state will fix the palestine situation as long as it works for them.
The saudi's could funnel enough money into there to make them all millionaires many times over but then there wouldnt be a ready supply of bombers.
What the left ignores is that any arab state could easily alleviate the palestinian suffering IF it suited their interests. Since it doesnt they dont.
Yes, yes, Ricardo. Everybody is out of step but Israel--UNRWA, Amnesty International, Ha'aretz, even little old me. Spare us.
"Progress in Arab-Israel relations?" Who knew? With the ex-convict and Kachnik Avigdor Lieberman as Minister of Foreign Affairs? With settlements expanding? With Gazans starving? I must have missed the memo.
Jay, the 1979 peace treaty that Egypt signed with Israel contains this clause:
Each Party undertakes to ensure that acts or threats of belligerency, hostility, or violence do not originate from and are not committed from within its territory, or by any forces subject to its control or by any other forces stationed on its territory, against the population, citizens or property of the other Party. Each Party also undertakes to refrain from organizing, instigating, inciting, assisting or participating in acts or threats of belligerency, hostility, subversion or violence against the other Party, anywhere, and undertakes to ensure that perpetrators of such acts are brought to justice.
A quick reading tells me that opening the border with Gaza could be interpreted by Israel as a violation of this undertaking, given the Hamas charter.
Meanwhile the resident troll, back from looking for Turks, Kurds and other phantoms trying to destabilize Israel, suggests that if my house is robbed I should go to the millionaire at the end of my street and ask for a handout.
Jay, you're probably right - I just needed a first-world example of a terrorist group which had the same aims as a political party but used different means to accomplish it, and the error of lumping the two together for diplomatic purposes (The Bloc and the FLQ weren't even contemporaries, so I figured I'd be safe). A far better example would have been Sinn Fein and the IRA.
There are actually two problems: negotiating with one group and then expecting that this group can tell the other group what to do; and, lumping together members of an organization into a monolithic entity and ignoring the political realities of the situation in favour of a black-and-white all-or-nothing interpretation.
Most people don't agree with everything the party they voted for stands for. People pick the least-worst party they feel is able to deal with whatever problems are facing them, and the majority don't agree with the hard-liners - they're just the ones with the loudest voices and the willingness to be violent (see: neoconservative abortion-doctor-shooters, and all other hard-line "spoilers" who love to step up violence just when peace is about to break out).
Treating the entire civilian population of Palestine as combatants because of their hard-liners is an attempt to punish them for voting wrong, and also ignores the intolerable situation that led to that vote in the first place.
Nope, not "Geo", just picked up on his(her?) comment when rummaging through your back posts.
Even if we go by recent history, (2006, 2008-9) Israel's computer calendar counts in years. A quick tour of Google links shows that Hamas' computer (programmed for infiltrations, attempted kidnappings, sporadic rocket fire, mortars and mine-planting - though, to be sure, there are other groups involved) operates 24/7.
Dawg, I am aware of the treaty. (And aware that the tunnels all originate in Egypt but we'll leave that for another day.) The point I am making is that the Palis tragic lack of hair conditioner and kids shoes could be solved tomorrow by Egypt opening the Rafah crossing and carefully inspecting the loads going through.
And, Dawg, if ever there was an unreliable witness the UNRWA is it. They are in the business of continuing to keep the Palestinians refugees and have never, in their history, sought alternatives to this refugee status.
Colin, tragically you are absolutely right and I have yet to see a lefty commentator acknowledge the fact that without the Arabs' active hatred of the Palestinians, much of the Palestinian problem would have vanished a couple of decades ago.
Pictures of kids on a garbage heap like that are just part of the passive/aggressive asymmetrical warfare that is part of the mix, I am afraid...
Another recent piss and moan warfare tactic includes the latest "Free Gaza" boat excursion to "symbolically liberated' the Gazans.
The activists/provocateurs could have sent all the aid they wanted overland and via established channels that include the Red Cross, but that wouldn't serve their propaganda purpose. As per usual, the scam was predicated on a lie. The boat left Cypress having cleared the authorities with a sailing destination of Port Said Egypt. The Israeli navy intercepted them after they divurged from their declared course and headed obviously for the
Gaza coast, which is a closed military zone.
Oh and one more thing. The Gazans aren't starving. The strip is substantially agricultural plus They get hundreds of truckloads of aid per week.
Hamas wants to keep it that way too. Because if they normalized relations with Israel, then they wouldn't get their rake-offs on the tunnel smuggling, which has become very lucrative.
So the fact that there actually are kids rummaging for food in a garbage dump should simply be ignored. Miserable little Ay-rabs. Nits breed lice, etc.
The Gazans are living in what you like to call a "closed military zone." I prefer plain speaking, and "large concentration camp" will do nicely.
As for starvation and war crimes, obviously everybody is lying except official Israeli spokespeople. And you, of course.
Dawg, call it what you like but the fact is that truckloads of food go in daily.
And how do you know the kids are rummaging "for food"? Given a garbage dump my well fed kids would be on their hands and knees rummaging for whatever looked like a treasure (which at 5 and 8 could be pretty much anything.) One of them appears to have found a soccer ball.
Not only do truckloads of food and other relief supplies enter the Gaza Strip daily...there's another traffic of Gazans (and West Bank Arabs)who go back and forth between Israel and Gaza together with their caregivers to receive medical services in Israel.
Now why would anybody risk a trip like that to a "genocidal regime?"
That's because Israel isn't a genocidal regime, even though Gaza's current masters are.
http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templat...&PID=0&
IID=2649
http://www.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_.../A60_ID7-
en.pdf
I don't recall referring to Israel's government as a "genocidal regime."
"genocidal regime."
That's okay, inferring that Gaza is a "concentration camp" is close enough to do.
What crap! Are you familiar with the genesis of the concentration camp? Not all of them were death camps by any means. Just prisons.
If memory serves the concept of "concentration camp" in modern times goes back to the Boer war, when the British interned Boer civilians - mainly women, children and the aged in wire enclosed guarded compounds.
Rather than shooting people out of hand, the poor food, exposure to elements and unsanitary and crowded conditions did the hangmen's work.
I don't recollect that the Boers had put a death sentence upon every person of English decent in South Africa and the world, nor did they purposely terror bomb British day-care centres or train stations.
Oh and the Warsaw Ghetto people didn't attack Germany either.
You are correct about the Boers. Also about the Warsaw Ghetto--you probably know that I have little sympathy for Gaza-Warsaw comparisons. I was, however trying to make a distinction between "concentration camps" and the smaller subset "death camps." The intent was not always to kill, but to imprison.
Dawg, for your next go-around on this this topic, Here's a little object lesson about how anti Israel propaganda SHOULD be done.
From your friends and mine, the nice folks at FREE GAZA. ...these folks have the violins keyed up just right BUT...
What I would like you all to pay specific attention to, however are the current images of starving, deprived and most importantly, helpless Gazan Palestinians.
Problem is, that none of them appears to be starving. They all look rather healthy. Starving children don't have clear skin and clear eyes. Starving people have hollow chests,look listless and have swollen bellies and stick-like arms and legs.
You know, like concentration camp victims.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=7...player_embedded
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