Israel president Shimon Peres accuses Britain of pro-Arab bias

[Hand Shandy]

Bigoted racist cunt.

You evil piece of fucking utter lying filth.

Sorry, I think AoT is nearer the mark than you.

 

Even if you didn't mean it that way, that statement was incredibly inflammatory.

[Nelly-Szoboszlai]

Okay, then.

 

Irrespective of their motivations, do you think that deliberately targetting and killing civilians is okay?

No. That applies to both sides.

[Strontium]

Bullshit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Hamas#Hamas.27_declarations_since_the_2006_legislative_elections

However, on February 13, 2006, in an interview in Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta, the same Khaled Mashal declared that Hamas would stop armed struggle against Israel if it recognized the 1967 borders, withdrew itself from all Palestinian occupied territories (including the West Bank and East Jerusalem), and recognized Palestinian rights that would include the "right of return". This was the first time that Hamas even talked about an eventual stop to armed struggle. But Mashal continued to refuse to acknowledge the Road map for peace, adopted by the Quartet in June 2003, "since nobody respects it". The Road map projected the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in 2005.^%5B61%5D The Palestinian Authority's Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda conducted a poll in 2006 that showed that 84% of Palestinians support a peace deal with Israel, based on the responses of "863 Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and West Bank," and that more than 75% of the peace-deal supporters voted for Hamas.^%5B62%5D

In April 2006, Henry Siegman, former director of the American Jewish Committee, stated that according to "a prominent senior member of Hamas's Political Committee" Hamas is prepared to explicitly recognize the state of Israel. "Members of Hamas's political directorate do not preclude significant changes over time in their policies toward Israel and in their founding charter, including recognition of Israel, and even mutual minor border adjustments. Such changes depend on Israel's recognition of Palestinian rights. Hamas will settle for nothing less than full reciprocity." These sentiments "are in striking contrast to the odiousness of Hamas's founding charter," said Siegman.^%5B63%5D

***********************************

Now show me any evidence of Israel acknowledging Palestine's right to exist.

 

And while you're at it, explain again how Palestinians are going to find peace by allowing the Israelis to keep killing them with impunity.

This is at odds with their official declarations, including more recent declarations.

 

September last year:

 

http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/insideisrael/2013/September/Hamas-No-Agreement-that-Includes-Israels-Right-to-Exist/

 

Hamas vowed never to accept any agreement that includes recognition of Israel's right to exist.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

Six people is still six too many.

 

Also, I'm afraid I don't see the irony. Are you implying I don't care about dead Palestinians?

Everything you've posted implies that you are happy to equate 6 dead Israelis with hundreds of dead Palestinians.

[Strontium]

So how come you appear to be arguing in support of pretty much anything they do?

 

Where? Give me a single example.

 

Like Stu Monty, you're seeing what you want to see.

 

Why haven't you come out and said 'This is unacceptable. They're going too far'?

 

I just did in the post you're responding to!

 

If you did that, maybe you wouldn't get so much grief for supporting them on other occasions.

I have never "supported" them on other occasions.

[Strontium]

Mike Tyson is pummelling a toddler to death.

 

The toddler doesn't have the same moral constraints as Mike Tyson does.

 

I wouldn't have the cheek to tell someone being so utterly savaged that they have to follow any rules at all. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't.

 

Your unwillingness to accept that the huge the power imbalance brings different responsibilities is intellectually cowardly.

 

Switch positions of power and I'd still be consistent in my view. I very much doubt you would.

 

Sorry, I consider deliberately targetting and killing civilians to be completely unacceptable in any circumstances.

 

In my book, intellectual cowardice is applying different standards to different people, just because one side has shittier weapons than the other.

[Strontium]

Everything you've posted implies that you are happy to equate 6 dead Israelis with hundreds of dead Palestinians.

 

Fuck you. I refuse to even play those shitty games. I'll leave that to the people who think a Palestinian life is worth more than an Israeli life. I will continue to maintain my consistent position that any death is a tragedy.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

I am curious as to why you are implying that this is Israel vs Palestinians, and that the other countries of the Middle East are mere disinterested spectators.

Because right now - as we are typing this - Israeli armed forces are killing Palestinians.  Other countries in the Middle East have not prevented a single Israeli shell from being fired at the Palestinians.

 

Obviously, both sides of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict have their supporters - it's just that Israel's supporters are far, far more powerful and ruthlessly determined.

[Stu Monty]

Sorry, I consider deliberately targetting and killing civilians to be completely unacceptable in any circumstances.

 

In my book, intellectual cowardice is applying different standards to different people, just because one side has shittier weapons than the other.

See, downplaying the huge power disparity as just shitter weapons really just isn't on.

 

Good job the Jews had people fighting the Nazis that disagree with you on the point of killing civilians when your very existence relies on it or they'd not be here.

[Strontium]

Because right now - as we are typing this - Israeli armed forces are killing Palestinians.  Other countries in the Middle East have not prevented a single Israeli shell from being fired at the Palestinians.

 

And why do you suppose that is?

 

Something to do with the weeping pustule that is the crisis in Palestine being a convenient stick to beat the USA and the Jews with, perhaps?

[AngryOfTuebrook]

You evil piece of fucking utter lying filth.

Evil? Explain.

 

Lying? Which part?  Bigoted, racist or cunt?  I quoted you being a bigot, a racist and a cunt to back my opinion up.

 

Piece of filth?  I didn't think you knew me so well, sweet-cheeks.

[Jairzinho]

A comment from this http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/20/gaza-occupation-occupier-israelis-peace?commentpage=1 Owen Jones article.

 

 

 

 

A very good, thoughtful article, Owen: correct on all levels. But a simpler way of putting it is the above constitutes an explanation for why the abused have become the abusers.

 

During the Holocaust, locals stood and cheered as Jews were thrown down mountains to their deaths in Mauthausen, Austria. I know this because my grandmother, a Holocaust survivor, witnessed it. This week, through those celebrating Israelis on the hill above Gaza, we came full circle. I see zero moral difference in the behaviour of either the celebrating Austrians, or the celebrating Israelis.

 

And you can say it's an extreme if you want. You can point out the way that the occupation relies on dehumanising the population to such a grotesque extent. But this is no longer the Israel of the Kibbutz, of idealism, of left-wing idealism, of Ben-Gurion... the Israel that was a dream to Jews everywhere. That Israel died many decades ago.

 

This Israel is cynical, militaristic, paranoid, aggressive beyond belief, and bent on revenge. Its politics have changed beyond all recognition; so have its attitudes. Hundreds of thousands marched in Tel Aviv in 1982 protesting the Sabra and Shatila massacre in horror; yet were the same thing to happen now, I doubt there'd be protests on anything like the same scale. The war criminal implicated in that massacre? He became Israel's leader less than two decades later.

 

A few days ago, I had a long, frustrating argument with an Israeli about what's going on. His frankly lunatic belief (clearly shared by many of his compatriots) was that if Israel stops shooting, there would no longer be an Israel; that Israel is "preventing another Holocaust". Preventing another Holocaust? Armed to the teeth by the US, with the most technologically advanced military on planet Earth and a nuclear weapon it won't even admit to, waging war on men, women and children living in some of the most deplorable, densely populated conditions anywhere in the world?

 

There is nothing more disgusting than how the suffering, the deaths, of those six million - many members of my extended family among them - are continually used and exploited to justify Israel's illegal, monstrous behaviour. This isn't war. It's mass murder.

 

More than that: unlike when brave men such as Yitzhak Rabin led the country, Israel isn't interested in peace. It wants control and it wants dominion. Peace, and a lasting, viable settlement, requires the strong to make real, serious concessions to the weak; but Israel isn't interested in that. It isn't interested in following, for example, the British government's lead in how it made peace with the IRA.

 

It thinks it can make demand after demand after demand of an impoverished, effectively imprisoned people stripped of their dignity; then it blames and attacks them when its joke, cynical beyond belief 'offers' are refused; and any kind of angry response from an illegally occupied people is met with wildly disproportionate slaughter.

 

Everyone knows Jerusalem will have to be divided, under UN auspices most probably. Everyone knows the illegal settlements - deliberately built and expanded to prevent a contiguous Palestinian state ever occurring - will have to be dismantled. Everyone knows a Palestinian state must be allowed control over its water supply. Everyone knows that, with 78% of historic Palestine already in its pocket, Israel has to give ground now - but it never will. Never ever. It prefers this instead: precisely for the complex psychological reasons which Owen outlines above.

 

It's like a psychosis. Victim's psychosis - but however much that explains it, it will never excuse it. Not for a single moment. The lesson Israel has drawn from the Holocaust is that to prevent it from ever happening again, it must be strong. But this isn't 'strength'. It is cowardice on the most epic, inhuman scale.

 

All sense of right and wrong has been lost; any moral compass guiding the country abandoned. Its behaviour leaves Jews like myself, who know the tragic history of the Jewish people, and know how it was handled with such grace and stoicism throughout history, feel nothing other than disgust and shame.

 

By arming Israel, then standing aside and watching this slaughter, the international community is complicit in Israeli war crimes, Israeli flouting of international law and Israeli mass murder. Sanctions must be brought to bear against this apartheid state immediately; the country and its products and businesses should be boycotted at once. And those sanctions and boycotts should only end when Israel is truly serious about making peace.

 

My thoughts and prayers are with all those who have lost loved ones in all this - but above all, with the occupied, brutalised Palestinian people. No Jew that I recognise would ever be party to such slaughter; and in the words of Norman G. Finkelstein, if you have any kind of heart anywhere inside you, it's the Palestinians we should be weeping for. Not those with the machine guns.

[Hand Shandy]

 

 

Where? Give me a single example.

 

Like Stu Monty, you're seeing what you want to see.

 

 

 

I just did in the post you're responding to!

 

 

I have never "supported" them on other occasions.

Point A - seriously? I don't need to give specific examples. The tone of your posts are enough of an indicator as to where your loyalties lie.

 

Point B - only because I asked you directly. Nowhere else had you condemned their behaviour.

 

Point C - again, seriously?

[Hand Shandy]

.

[Nelly-Szoboszlai]

Stronts, nobody is advocating the killing of innocent civilians.

 

But, you seem to be implying that Israel are constantly acting above board, treating the Palestinians with dignity and respect, then the Palestinians because of some long standing and irrational "beef" about illegal occupation decide to, without any sort of provocation at all, fire rockets into Israel.

 

That's simply not the case. See above posts about check points, IDF harassment, bulldozing of legally built dwellings while allowing the flourishing of illegal settlements. Humiliating injustices which have gone on for years.

 

Without wanting to condone the actions of those firing the rockets, can you acknowledge that they might see this course of action as the only thing they have left? To lash out?

 

They're plight is largely ignored by the international community. If they demonstrate in their own territory, they are rounded up on, shot, sometimes killed, detained on trumped up charges etc.

 

Again, I think you're being rather disingenuous to imply that the actions of those on the Palestinian side of the conflict are the sole cause of recent escalations, when they've been humiliated and treated like worthless pieces of shit by Israel for years.

[Strontium]

Evil? Explain.

 

Lying? Which part?  Bigoted, racist or cunt?  I quoted you being a bigot, a racist and a cunt to back my opinion up.

 

Piece of filth?  I didn't think you knew me so well, sweet-cheeks.

 

It's fucking bullshit. There was no racism or bigotry in my post.

[Strontium]

Point A - seriously? I don't need to give specific examples. The tone of your posts are enough of an indicator as to where your loyalties lie.

 

Point B - only because I asked you directly. Nowhere else had you condemned their behaviour.

 

Point C - again, seriously?

 

Yes, I'm being serious. Cite examples or shut up.

[Nelly-Szoboszlai]

I was waiting for the good, old "if you criticise Israel, you're anti-Semitic" card to be played/touched upon.

 

It's inevitable...

[Strontium]

Stronts, nobody is advocating the killing of innocent civilians.

 

Actually, Stu Monty was. But only for one side, of course.

 

But, you seem to be implying that Israel are constantly acting above board, treating the Palestinians with dignity and respect, then the Palestinians because of some long standing and irrational "beef" about illegal occupation decide to, without any sort of provocation at all, fire rockets into Israel.

 

Untrue. There is no dignity in how Israel treats the Palestinians.

 

That's simply not the case. See above posts about check points, IDF harassment, bulldozing of legally built dwellings while allowing the flourishing of illegal settlements. Humiliating injustices which have gone on for years.

 

I know all this already.

 

Without wanting to condone the actions of those firing the rockets, can you acknowledge that they might see this course of action as the only thing they have left? To lash out?

 

I don't think Hamas are representative of the Palestinian people.

 

They're plight is largely ignored by the international community. If they demonstrate in their own territory, they are rounded up on, shot, sometimes killed, detained on trumped up charges etc.

 

Again, I think you're being rather disingenuous to imply that the actions of those on the Palestinian side of the conflict are the sole cause of recent escalations, when they've been humiliated and treated like worthless pieces of shit by Israel for years.

 

Again, I'm not implying anything of the sort.

[Jairzinho]

Stronts, nobody is advocating the killing of innocent civilians.

 

But, you seem to be implying that Israel are constantly acting above board, treating the Palestinians with dignity and respect, then the Palestinians because of some long standing and irrational "beef" about illegal occupation decide to, without any sort of provocation at all, fire rockets into Israel.

 

That's simply not the case. See above posts about check points, IDF harassment, bulldozing of legally built dwellings while allowing the flourishing of illegal settlements. Humiliating injustices which have gone on for years.

 

Without wanting to condone the actions of those firing the rockets, can you acknowledge that they might see this course of action as the only thing they have left? To lash out?

 

They're plight is largely ignored by the international community. If they demonstrate in their own territory, they are rounded up on, shot, sometimes killed, detained on trumped up charges etc.

 

Again, I think you're being rather disingenuous to imply that the actions of those on the Palestinian side of the conflict are the sole cause of recent escalations, when they've been humiliated and treated like worthless pieces of shit by Israel for years.

 

Treated like rats, dehumanised to the point where trying to take out a few Israelis before their inevitable, imminent, death seems like a fairly logical choice.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

Fuck you. I refuse to even play those shitty games. I'll leave that to the people who think a Palestinian life is worth more than an Israeli life. I will continue to maintain my consistent position that any death is a tragedy.

Who thinks that?

 

Any death is a tragedy.  Six deaths are more tragic than one.  Hundreds of deaths are many times more tragic than six.  It's not a "numbers game" - it's not any sort of game you amoral arsehole.

[Nelly-Szoboszlai]

Fair enough Stronts.

 

It's clearly a case of you wanting everybody to condemn the actions of Hamas's military wing, while you acknowledge the indiscretions of Israel in blissful, non-judgmental silence.

 

I think you need to have a 3 day week on here. It's getting a bit too much for you.

[Strontium]

Who thinks that?

 

Any death is a tragedy.  Six deaths are more tragic than one.  Hundreds of deaths are many times more tragic than six.  It's not a "numbers game" - it's not any sort of game you amoral arsehole.

 

Don't you fucking dare to call me amoral. Six deaths, a hundred deaths, one death, they are all tragedies. You're the one playing the numbers game, asserting that number of dead is somehow proportionate to the level of tragedy.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

And why do you suppose that is?

 

Something to do with the weeping pustule that is the crisis in Palestine being a convenient stick to beat the USA and the Jews with, perhaps?

Hmm... Listen, we can have a pleasant little chat about conspiracy theories (you bring that line, I'll bring Reagan's quote about "if Israel didn't exist we'd have to invent it") some relaxed time when there isn't a captive people being murderously shelled by a hugely powerful army.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

It's fucking bullshit. There was no racism or bigotry in my post.

Then you clearly don't know what racism or bigotry is.  You tool.