Israel refuses peace negotiations

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Originally Posted by Jag_Warrior

Should I ever forget, I'm sure there'll be 5 movies per day on my TV to remind me.

While I'm not discounting their suffering during the Holocaust, they weren't the only people to suffer. And their cry of "Never Again!" has always appeared to me that it just applied to them. They certainly had no problems being one of South Africa's biggest trading partners and suppliers of military goods, while the rest of the world was putting the clamps on the apartheid government there. No, they saw that as a great opportunity to make some money.

And something else that's ALWAYS p!ssed me off is that when one admits that he is opposed to Zionism (and I am!), there will soon be an accusation of anti-Semitism (which I am not!). That's how the Israeli lobby and the Zionists in the U.S. have indoctrinated people to think. It's worked and it continues to work.

My bottomline is, no other country could get away with the sh## that Israel has gotten away with over the years, simply because it has an unflinching ally on the Security Council: the United States of Tail Wags the Dog.

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Good post.

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Originally Posted by Rollo

If in fact the flotilla was purely humanitarian in nature, then this was essentially an act of state terrorism by Israel, if if wasn't then perhaps there's an element of justification for it.

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I think it's clear that delivery of aid was not the true intention. It was offered several times that any aid could be delivered after inspection, but that offer was declined.

I'm still up in the air on this action myself. I think Israel could have easily just waited until the vessels were within the boundries set forth under the Oslo Accords, then seized the ships. However, at the same time, it seems that there is some grey area in how naval blockades are allowed to be enforced, especially when it is clarified that the vessels in question have full intention of violating the naval blockade.

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Originally Posted by Rani

Hundreds of tons of humanitarian aid passes over to Gaza each and every day. It's just inspected to make sure they don't smuggle weapons (which they fire into civilian population centers) inside. The flotilla was offered to unload all the aid and leave freely. They decided to go and commit a suicide PR attack. They succeded.

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The UN says the aid that get through is only fraction of what is needed:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/10193249.stm

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Israeli government press officers have been briefing journalists that the aid flotilla is not necessary. Israel says it allows 15,000 tons of aid into Gaza every week.

But the United Nations, which calls the blockade a "Medieval siege", says this is only a fraction of what is needed and less than a quarter of what was coming into Gaza before the blockade was enforced.

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Originally Posted by Jag_Warrior

What effect does a 5.56mm round have on a 12 year old with a slingshot? You really think that information is worth the billions a year we give to Israel? We'd be MUCH better off giving more weapons to warring countries in Africa or South America. At least then we'd have current information and data on what difference our weapons and technology make when roughly equal armies meet in battle.

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Or give them to the Palestinians, so that they'd have something else than their homemade rockets that never hit anything but ground.

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Originally Posted by Rani

I believe that if that ship was to enter Gaza, ships that would follow it would no doubt be carrying weapons. Hamas is in a big problem now since Egypt is building an underground wall to stop weapons being smuggled from Sinai. The only option for them to smuggle weapons inside is by sea now. Murdering civilians and protecting yourself against a lynch is about the same difference between lying and telling the truth.

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And we all know that Israel does the lying.

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Originally Posted by Bob Riebe

Wow then we could move N. Dakota to where Israel is and keep a much closer watch a deal much quicker with the muslim radicals.

Good idea.

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You have to get the jews out of there to increase the size of the bullseye. :)

Airshifter posted very similar to what I was thinking. There is no question this well publized flotilla was a deliberate attempt to break the blockade. Israel had no real choice except to intercept it if they were going to continue an effective blockade.
Right or wrong both Eygpt and Israel are blockading and checking all supplies into Gaza.
Everybody knew that Israel could not let the flotilla through without doing something. They maybe should have done the interception closer to Gaza but naval blockades and interception are nothing new on the open seas. At one time any merchant ship stupid enough to refuse to stop for an inspection by a warship was quite likely going to be sunk. Israel did not go that far.
A lot of the 'shock and horror' is just political posturing.
Should Israel not find any contraband then they should let the supplies proceed. If there is contraband then Israel has the right to seize all including the ships.
I hope they do not and do let everything not considered contraband be forwarded to Gaza.
Also Eki do not try and tell me that Hamas do not lie as well.

An interesting article here:

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion...s-1987989.html

I like the comparison with the Berlin airlift:

"In 1948, our politicians – the Americans and the British – staged an airlift into Berlin. A starving population (our enemies only three years before) were surrounded by a brutal army, the Russians, who had erected a fence around the city. The Berlin airlift was one of the great moments in the Cold War. Our soldiers and our airmen risked and gave their lives for these starving Germans."

"For it is a fact, is it not, that had Europeans (and yes, the Turks are Europeans, are they not?) been gunned down by any other Middle Eastern army (which the Israeli army is, is it not?) there would have been waves of outrage."

Not really related to this thread however, this guy's comments are so true.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010...pakistan-drone

"Specialised in logistic and finance, since 2001 Yazid became the key link between al-Qaida, which is based in Pakistan's tribal areas, and the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, according to Michael Scheuer, a former head of the CIA cell hunting bin Laden."

"All this is negated by what the Israelis did to that relief convoy," said Scheuer. "Whatever we gained from killing Sheikh Yazid, what the Israelis did will just cause more animosity to the United States. But Americans have a very hard time connecting the dots."

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Originally Posted by Camelopard

"For it is a fact, is it not, that had Europeans (and yes, the Turks are Europeans, are they not?)

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Yes, Turks are Europeans, unlike Israelis, although Israel for some weird reason is in the Eurovision Singing Contest. The least they should do to punish Israel for this atrocity is to ban them from the the Eurovision Singing Contest :p :