You complain when innocent Israeli's get killed but what about innocent Palestinians or Lebanese people?Quote:
Originally Posted by Rani
Printable View
You complain when innocent Israeli's get killed but what about innocent Palestinians or Lebanese people?Quote:
Originally Posted by Rani
On behalf of Eki I take particular offence to this.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rani
What Eki is trying to illustrate is the hypocrisy of Israel. The Jewish people were victims of something rather horrible. We all know this and no one on this forum will deny it.
So why then do they go and do something similar to someone else if you thought it was horrible?
Sure Israel doesn't round Palestinians up and gas them or work them to death but you (Israel) impose economic hardship upon these people and when you feel like it you go into their territory and attack targets and don't care about the collateral damage. Why should anyone like or endorse such behaviour? Why should the Palestinians think "It's for our own good?"
The only difference between the behavious of the Palestinian terrorists and Israel is that you can dress it up and call it an army and they are simply branded as terrorists.
If only you could see how much risks soldiers take just to prevent collateral damage. I agree collateral damage is made, but never on purpose. Try to get some stats and you'll find that the "genuinely trying to help" US does (and has done) way more collateral damage in Afghanistan and Iraq. While the US preferred to strike from the air (this makes the most amount of collateral damage - especially in dense residential areas, but keeps your soldiers safe) Israel sends regular infantry to the streets a lot more, only using aircraft when there is no choice.Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel
I simply can't seem to grasp how someone would compare the murdering of innocent people by means of suicide bombings and intentional civilian targeting to targeting armed terrorists.
Can someone argue this last sentence?
Has anyone here ever heard of an Israeli soldier sent on a mission from his superiors to strap on an explosive device and blow himself up in the middle of a Humus restaurant in Jenin?
Has anyone here ever heard of an aerial strike in the middle of the Nablus Casba (the main market)?
Can't you see your views are distorted?
You call it toe may toe i call it to mar toe. If you kill a civilian you kill a civilian. What does it matter whether you kill someone by missile, mortar, plague of ravenous gerbils or a suicide bomb? You're no better than "them"
I find the same things in Sweden; Bonnier, who owns a lot of swedish media, are jews. Nazis ofcourse exploit this. On the other hand these medias are very negative towards Israel, and i believe the whole discussion is biased against Israel.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dylan H
Regarding wheather Iran is an arabic country or not, that is not very interesting, every one knows what I mean, and my thoughts upon this matter is not by any means depending on if Iran is a real arabic country or not, but wheater it is a muslim state or not. This is not a question of what to call certain countries, it is a question of hatred and religion.
As I have said before, Israel has big problems with how they deal with the situation, mainly because they are somewhat mezmerized by the religious propaganda, which goes for the US to a certain dregree aswell. But the main problem remains with the palestinians.
"Religion is only a tool in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict though"
IMO this is a huge misunderstanding, diregarding the very existence of the Israeli state and the somewhat awkward power of faith.
The thing is Magnus. I think we expect more from an affluent country than we do from a paramilitary organisation that was founded because the palestinians are oppressed.
No I don't, Israel wants to constantly play the 'poor me, why do all these bad things happen to us' theme, to get sympathy from the rest of the world.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rani
They conveniently forget that "Collective Punishment" against the all Palestinians is illegal under I believe Israeli law as well as international law.
How can the bombing of Beruit last year not be considered a terrorist act using "Collective Punishment" against innocent civilians?
Oh I forgot they are only 'innocent civilians' when they are killed in Israel, elsewhere they are purely collateral damage (a nice sanitised term for murder).
Rani, what were taught about the bombing of the King David Hotel in 1946 by members of Irgun? Were they not the members of Irgun by definition 'Fundamental Terrorists?". If their leader, Menachem Begin (who allegedly gave the order) had done that today to the US or their interests for example, he would be rotting in a cell chained to the floor in Guantamamo Bay.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombing
Yeah, just like Usama Bin Laden ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Camelopard
I have had my share of nice wine by now, and the house has gone to bed, and so will I. I will continue this very interesting discussion tomorrow.
G´Night to yall!
This is in todays Sydney Morning Herald:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/bom...345008948.html
I quote a few parts,
"
Cluster bombs are not prohibited in warfare but their use is criticised because they contain "bomblets" that explode over a wide area and may strike unintended targets. In addition, bomblets that fail to explode become land mines that can be detonated by civilians long after fighting has stopped. More than 30 Lebanese are said to have been killed by munitions left behind after last year's month-long war."
"Soon after the fighting stopped, the United Nations humanitarian affairs chief, Jan Egeland, described Israel's use of cluster bombs as shocking and "completely immoral", partly because most were fired in the last 72 hours of the war, when it was clear that the conflict was moving towards a resolution"
""the majority of the cluster munitions were fired at open and uninhabited areas"
.................................................. .................................................. .................................................. ........
So the dead Lebanese were terrorists and legitimate targets or just "collateral damage"?
Makes me think of the fact that citizens of Laos are still dying today due to unexploded ordance dropped by the US over 30 years ago. Just another fact, not relevant here I know but anyway, the US and it's allies dropped more tonnage of bombs on Laos during the Vietnam war that were dropped on Germany during WWII.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2...os-bombs_x.htm
quote in part:
"Cluster bombs, known here as "bombies," account for about half the unexploded ordnance on the ground and most of the casualties. Since the bombing ended in 1973, 5,700 Laotians have been killed and 5,600 injured by UXO. Through the end of August, 14 of the 30 Laotians reported killed this year and 33 of the 58 injured by UXO have been children."
"
This impoverished, landlocked country endured one of history's heaviest bombing campaigns. From 1964 through 1973, the United States flew 580,000 bombing runs over Laos — one every 9 minutes for 10 years. More than 2 million tons of ordnance was unloaded on the countryside, double the amount dropped on Nazi Germany in World War II. "Certainly, on a per-capita basis, Laos remains the most heavily bombed nation in the history of warfare," says Martin Stuart-Fox, a historian at Queensland University in Australia and author of A History of Laos."
Quote:
Originally Posted by Magnus
Not though the lack of trying to find him, he's probably holed up somewhere in his home country, which suprise, suprise, isn't Iraq nor Iran nor even Afghanistan but that good ally of the west, Saudi Arabia.
whoever thought that the palestinians would forget "in a generationation or two" what had happened to them in 1948, had a screw loose.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dylan H
And building walls that divide Palestinian villagers from their fields! :( (http://www.auphr.org/thewall/)
Also dividing school classrooms from their playing fields!!!
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...814970,00.html
That's a really good way to get them onside.
you do know that fundamentalism originally applies to fundamentalist Christians. they believe that a big war has to happen before the Saviour returns, guess where they expect the Saviour to re-appear :?:Quote:
Originally Posted by Rani
only a very small amount of Muslims are fundamentalist terrorist fanatics, and I know that the Jews got on very well with the Muslims.
in the long term the wall wont work in demoralising the palestinians, just make them more determined.Quote:
Originally Posted by Camelopard
Exactly my point, why should the Palestinians be expected to forget that they lost a country, after all we are constantly being reminded not to forget the holocaust and what happened to the Jews, as if they were the only ones affected by atrocious acts in past history.Quote:
Originally Posted by SOD
The bombing of Beirut's Al - Dahia quater was conducted only after leaflets were dropped telling people the raid is going to commence. Like it or not this was Hizbollah's HQ (of course they built it in the city center so you'd have to think twice before attacking.).Quote:
Originally Posted by Camelopard
The bombing of the King David Hotel was indeed a terrorist act. With one differance. Had you read it through you would have seen that the Brits got a warning before the bomb went off. While I don't justify this by any means, everybody could have been saved had they listened.
I haven't heard any warning like this by Hamas or Islamic Jihad.
What about the massacre at Deir Yassin where over 100 Palestinian men, women and children were murdered by the Irgun and the Stern Gang.
Were they given leaflets and told to leave otherwise they would be killed??
http://www.revisionisthistory.org/wiesel1.html
So if the perpetrators of the Oklahoma City bombing had told people to leave the building that morning, this would have made their act of bombing the building justifiable?Quote:
Originally Posted by Rani
Because if they announce such warning foolishly before the bomb went off, Israel soldier would shot them out prior to the bomb prepared :oQuote:
Originally Posted by Rani
Rami. Just because you tell someone you're going to do something doesn't make it right. If I said I was going to burn your house to the ground tonight would that make it ok? :rolleyes: Israeli's just somehow think they're above the rest and that's why you have to live with the threat of terrorism all the time.
That doesn't make it right. Not by a long shot. But it does show the purpose was not to kill people, but to make a political statement.Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel
I don't think I'm above anybody. I actually think you're the one who's saying "how hard can it be?" for Israel to give in to Hamas' and Fatah's every wish.
I'd like to hear your solution to this conflict. Criticizing is easy but finding solutions is much tougher. If your solution means closing Israel up and giving the land away, I guess we won't be agreeing. I think that we have a right to this land (and by that I don't mean Gaza and the West Bank) and that pushing us out to sea isn't an option.
I do agree that continuing to build settlements in the territories is wrong, and I do think that cutting off electricity to Gaza is wrong.
Agreed, Israel is more powerful than Hamas, but I don't think this fact makes it ok for Hamas to use terrorism.
I think that had anyone here visited Israel, while they might not agree with a lot of actions this country takes, their view would be a lot less anti - Israel. I wish you could see the looks in the eyes of kids 8-9 year old, pure hatred and killing intentions as they pelt you with rocks the size of bowling balls. The bottom line is that I wasn't brought up like that, you weren't brought up like that, and we both would never bring up our kids up like that.
Come visit, The sun is great, the food is good and Rally Jordan is not far from the Dead Sea (I will probably go anyway).
What troubles me is the massive criticisme towards Israel everywhere. In my mind this is always a warning signal that something is very wrong...
When the US invaded Iraq, I was among them who critisiced the action taken, along with thousands of other people in Sweden and throughout the world. All the ususal arguments where brought up: capitalisme, Bush being intellectually challenged, Bush being a murderer, oil and so on.
But where were all these people when Saddam Hussein brought terror upon his people? Nowhere. The terror of Hussein was not interesting, the only interesting aspect of the situation in Iraq and the state-terrorism was when it was able to use it as a weapon towards USA. This very sick reversed thinking is to be found in many other conflict areas in the world aswell. Who cares if the talibans supress their women if it is the "capitalisme" under Bush or his likes who challenges it? If it is a capitalistic state which in some way is giving a helping hand towards the people in dispair, then the people might just aswell remain in the regimes of terror, it seems.
When the government of Burma earlier this year with brute force brought down the uprisings in the country, many burmanese people where upset with the US for not coming and aiding them... We know whose side mainstream media would have taken if the US had taken such an action. Peoples suffering always comes second to the chances of throwing mud on states like the US, GB, France, Spain or Israel.
The US and Israel for shure does a lot of things wrong, like ignoring the will of the UN, but somewhere people should also react to the assaults made by many muslime countries on their own people, and on neighboring countries.
The criticisme is very simple I believe, it can not be that everything is the israels fault. The palestinians are at least as ignorant towards human rights as Israel.
Stop right there. IT'S WRONG. It pisses people off and just makes them want to attack you. At the end of the day someone's got to be the "bigger man" and say "Screw this it's pointless. Lets try and stop the bloodshed"Quote:
Originally Posted by Rani
At the end of the day there's going to come a point where the international community doesn't tolerate your childish tit for tat attacks and leaves you to your own devices. There's only so much you can do to defend yourself these days against terrrorism. Either there will come a day when Israel realises this or there will come a day when it's not just small bombs and mortar attacks. It'll be small nuclear devices, dirty bombs and chemical or biological weapons.
It's your choice as a country if you want it to get worse and we all know it can get a whole lot worse. You're not exactly surrounded by friends or neutral countries now are you.....
This is where i hope we can meet. That we think of Israel more of a "real" state, and thus could expect more from them. But I seldom see any evidence that this is the case...Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel
Guess what? We've tried that already. didn't work. Does that surprise you?Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel
http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/About+the+Mini...1-Dec-2006.htm
BTW this was a year ago.Quote:
Since the beginning of the cease-fire with the Palestinians on 26 November, more than 40 Kassam rockets have been fired into Israel - nine of them in a single day (Wednesday, 20 December). In effect, in cannot be said that a cease-fire truly exists; rather, Israel has shown restraint by not responding to this continuous fire from the Gaza Strip at Ashkelon, Sderot, and the western Negev.
Even though most of these rockets aimed at Israel's civilians have fortunately not resulted in loss of life or serious property damage, no country in the world would tolerate any such attacks on its civilian population. Israel continues to follow a policy of restraint out of a desire to give a chance for peace to develop; out of a willingness to give Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas an opportunity to solidify his control of the government and because Israel wants to avoid an escalation of the situation - but this cannot go on forever.
Don't worry about us, Wer'e few but we give a he11 of a fight when attacked by real soldiers instead of cynical hiding in families' homes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel
Rani, I may be wrong about bulldozing the houses of all known terrorists but it goes beyond just suicide bombers. Perhaps the houses of significant terrorist leaders. I do know that the bulldozing of such homes preceded suicide bombing by decades.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rani
I know several Israeli ex-soldiers, obviously every able bodied Israeli adult is one. You're not trying to tell me that there aren't Israeli soldiers who enjoy the position of power they hold over Palestinian civilians and abuse it at checkpoints etc? They may be a minority and more likely to be from the poorer elements of Israeli society but they do cause an amount of animosity out of proportion to their numbers and they most certainly do exist. Certainly the Israelis I know who tend to be of European origin viewed Jewish Israelis descended from those who had been in the territories from way before 1948 as being a totally different and more brutal group of people.
Forget the Palestinians for a moment, how long can Israel carry on doing this Rani? How long can it keep sending kids of both sexes to be traumatised in the Occupied Territories? And how far is the reality of life in Israel in 2007 from the founding principles of the Jewish State in 1948?
Another thing is that globalisation is going to hit Israel as hard as it does any other country. Israel's recent economic growth is highly reliant on IT/High tech. Problem with that is (and I'm going to stereotype here) the kind of geeks you need for those fields tend to be highly employable anywhere in the world and tend to be averse to a military lifestyle. If Israel carries on being unstable will the economy be able to tolerate the braindrain caused by these geeks moving off to the US or the EU rather than serving in the reserves?
First of all, you might have seen that I'm very careful in every word I say. If I claim something I back it up. In my view, Tossing around populistic claims when you're not sure isn't valid discussion conduct, and that's why I don't do it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dylan H
Yeah they do exist, I think that this kind of attitude is not an Israeli-only trait. These people can be found anywhere in the world in any position from Police officers to managers at fast food restaurants. They certainly do a lot of damage, and I am against this sort of behavior.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dylan H
That's just racist.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dylan H
It already has started to hit, and I think your wrong in your stereotypical assumptions. You'd be amazed how many of those "geeks" are former fighter pilots, special forces or non combative intelligence officer.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dylan H
Here the army generally tries to capitalize on people's attributes, and gifted programmers usually use their talents in that field. Companies like Intel and Google (in their Israeli branches) usully try to employ these people because of their experience.
Also, because it's mandatory people don't view going to the army as something you'd do for macho or economical purposes.
Those who cheat their way out of enlisting are free to leave any day if they ask me.
It's not racism. It's an observation. Certainly if I was to say "All black people are brutal people and so on" that would be racist but it does seem to be that people in Africa seem to be central Africa can we very brutal and ruthless people who seem to value life less than us Westerners. We have to get away from this "you mentioned something to do with race and something negative in the same sentence so you must be racist" attitude that some people seem to have. The fact of the matter is how many people have you heard of being hacked up by machette in Australia or the UK? They're simply not brutal people and they value life a lot more then a lot of people in Rwanda and Somalia and other African countries. Is that racist? Nope. It's merely an observation.
If Dylan's friends have experience of these matters then it's not racist. It's simply an observation.
Just wanted to pick this one point out. The Israeli engineers that work for Intel are brilliant and have done some very good work. So I don't only have "bad" things to say about Israel and it's people.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rani
I don't think that's a good analogy. When Finland got independent, it was populated by people who were born there and not by immigrants. Israel is largely populated by first, second or third generation immigrants from Europe and America. I believe if they hadn't immigrated there in the first place, there would be a lot less trouble.Quote:
Originally Posted by Magnus
It's not just that though. It's the fact that they had displaced people who were happily living there before.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eki
Judging by what you say eki and daniel, israel does not have the right to defend what they believe is their territory. Where would the jews go then?
Besides the historic implications of Israels rights to territory in the region is very diminished in the discussion. You simply can not say that isarel has no rights. Hence you can not either say that thay have not got the right to defend themselfes.
But of course, as I have said befire, Israel has no right what so ever to take more land than they are entitled to according to the agreement of 1948, and they also have no right to attack cilivilians or otherwise terrorise palestinians.
Neither have the palestines!
Exactly, but first they need a cause.Quote:
Originally Posted by Magnus
- Lockerbie was because of US meddling in the Middle East
- Madrid was because Spain joined the US in the invasion and occupation of Iraq
- I don't know about Bali, but I think it might have been against citizens of countries who joined the Iraq war or by some independece movement that exist in Indonesia
- Tokyo was because of some weird cult
- Oklahoma was because of some nutcase
I can't see any cause why muslims or palestinians would make a terror attack against Finland.
Do you think that it's right to take it on their family members and neighbours? Isn't it a bit like the Nazis did when fighting resistance? If they couldn't get the real culprits, they took their family members or just random villagers and killed or tortured them for revenge.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rani
I was 1 too, and i still have not seen any reason to change my mind, still no WMD found, going to war based on farytails and lies still is wrong, and if doing like this practically what ever country can be the target.Quote:
Originally Posted by Magnus
Generalizing people as being brutal and ruthless on an ethnic basis is racist in my book.Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel
I agree. Israel has a historic right to this land, as the ancient Israelites lived in this area on and off for a few thousand years. I think there's a famous book about it, it'd be nice to look that one up.Quote:
Originally Posted by Magnus
If you ask me the, immigrant ones could go where they came from. There would be more room for the native ones, jews and others, to try to live in peace with each other. Maybe if the country after that would be called Palestine, like I think it was called pre-1948, instead of Israel could also help. People tend to be petty over names, like the Greeks don't let the Former Republic of Yugoslavia Macedonia call themselves just Macedonia, because they think the "real" Macedonia is in Greece.Quote:
Originally Posted by Magnus
Good for you! I hope it makes you sleep better at night.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rani
Magnus. I never said Israel doesn't have the right to defend themselves. But a lot of the time they do react in an overly agressive and inciteful manner. Then Hamas, Fatah or Hezbollah attack Israel again and then Israel strike back with unreasonable strength and then more Islamic people get radicalised and then the cycle repeats itself.
I agree that Israel has a right to the land. But I also think that Palestinians have a right to their land and to electricity and economic prosperity. If Israel doesn't realise this their dream of a peaceful homeland will never be realised.
Israel is just like a child at school. It's always someone elses fault and sometimes they might be right but no one ever achieved anything by purely blaming the opposition.
Where would you send the 6 million who parished from "where they came from"?Quote:
Originally Posted by Eki
Where would you send the eight refugees your country sent to die in November 1942?
Do you know that houses of jews who were deported to the ghettos and camps in ww2 now belong to regular people who didn't pay a buck for them?Quote:
“The surrender of eight Jewish refugees to the Nazis in 1942 is a stain on Finland ’s history. The wrongdoing cannot be undone nor can it be justified under any circumstances. Neither does the number of the extradited refugees give any grounds for writing off the issue. Every man has but one life and all lives are equally valuable.”
- Paavo Lipponen, Finnish Prime Minister, 2000
I know this because I visited Poland and saw houses of many of my classmates' granparents now containing ordinary Poles. All this means that even if they were to return to their own houses they wouldn't be able to live in them. I have another question for you, please answer sincerely:
Could you imagine yourself as a jew going back and living in a country that betrayed you and sent you to die in the hands of the Nazis?
I say again, Jews have a right to live in Israel. History has proven that eventually they are prosecuted on basis of their religion or race anywhere else. That's just the way it is.
Why not launch airstrikes against the poles. That seems to line up with your current policy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rani