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Israeli Soldiers Use Food Aid As Trap To Murder Palestinians

newtboy says...

So again, that’s a “no”. You are not man enough to admit statements that are true. No surprise.

Instead you would prefer to make up some alternative facts that make you feel good.

Violent settlers (often Americans) forcing Palestinians off their land at gun point or just outright murdering them to steal their land increased exponentially during Trump’s tenure, as did IDF attacks on innocent civilians (often in support of the settlers, not counted in official IDF killings), they also increased the slow genocide of medical embargoes, intentional starvation, cutting off water and electricity, violent random attacks on mosques, all under Trump. They don’t count those as “IDF killings” either, but they are.

The IDF has been committing a slow boil genocide for decades, under both parties, a genocide they accelerated under Trump’s regime in many ways, and again under Biden when they used their (intentional?) abject intelligence failure in Oct. as an excuse for escalating farther to such an extent its looking likely they allowed the attack for that very reason, an excuse for escalating the genocide. It’s become clear they caused many of the casualties on Oct 7 and made false rape claims that have been debunked, also to excuse their escalation.

Netanyahu is a far right wing “leader” Trump still today lovingly calls Bibi who would have been out of office without Trump’s help and quite recently Don has voiced his FULL support for any lengths Netanyahu wants to go including taking the entire Gaza Strip and expelling the residents (into the sea because no country will take them, knowing if they do Israel will use them having a country to take refuge in as a pretext to take the West Bank too)…and you want to pretend Biden who has called him a war criminal is MORE complicit than Trump who backed his every genocidal move. 😂

At least you are consistent in your fantasy world…you never leave. Too bad it cost you your balls, spine, mind, and soul. I hope you like it in there up your rectum. 😂

bobknight33 said:

IDF was not committing genocide under Trump.

Joe and IDF have the peddle mashed to the floor this go around.

God Made A Dictator

newtboy says...

Trump also supports Israel exclusively, and still does. He fully supports Netanyahu grabbing power and fully supports his war. Biden didn’t “do this”, Netanyahu did, but he’s continuing the policy that has been in place since the 50’s of blind support for Israel and turning a blind eye to their atrocities and illegalities while funding and arming them.

The UN, despite America’s obstruction and obfuscation, is finally waking up to the genocidal monster they helped create that is Israel, waking up likely far too late.

I actually agree with the second part, we should stop funding the Israeli/Palestinian war, and stop funding Israel. The blowback for our support costs us 10 times what we gift Israel to commit genocide.

A disproportionate number of the violent expansionist settlers, the main cause of continuing hostilities, are American immigrants, they should all lose their citizenship and be labeled as terrorists.

bobknight33 said:

Biden did this. Stop funding this war!

Israel-Hamas War: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

newtboy says...

Yesterday IDF forces murdered 3 hostages who were shirtless with hands up (so obviously unarmed) waiving white flags and begging for help in Hebrew. 2 shot to death immediately, the third shot to death after cease fire was called by the commander.
This is conclusive evidence that the IDF is targeting any living person including surrendering unarmed civilians, not Hamas. In fact, over half the 30000 bombs they have dropped are dumb bombs, and the smart bombs target hospitals, refugee camps, and caravans of refugees (anywhere civilians can be found in groups) 100% intentionally.

The world needs to wake up and eliminate expansionist Israel and the terrorist Zionists, every single one is a fascist murderer just like the Nazis and they deserve the same treatment.

Sadly, a huge percentage of the terroristic murderous “settlers” are American Jews, so don’t let anyone claim America isn’t to blame here, we not only cause the conflict, we fund it and arm the murderous side.

We deserve any blowback we get, no matter how big.

Palestinian UN Ambassador At UN

newtboy says...

In short-The small population of Arab natives along with a native Jewish minority welcomed a relatively small number of European Jewish refugees in the (edit:20’s and early) 30’s while under British rule (but with a date set for their independence by the League of Nations, a date that came and went without ever establishing a Palestinian state). Then in the 40’s (even by mid 30’s)the Jewish minority, America, and England ignored their pleas to minimize immigration, ignored immigration laws, and invited a major invasion, so many European Jews came illegally that the Arab natives quickly became the minority, then had all rights stripped by the now well armed invaders that now claimed their land and property…invaders that kept coming by the millions. How is that not an invasion of squatters?
It’s a complete abandonment of the Palestinian Mandate the Brits ruled under, which was allowed internationally after ww1 for the sole purpose of getting Palestine in a position to rule themselves, something the Brits failed to even try then actively sabotaged by supporting the mass immigration of millions of European Jews, and was the biggest possible “fuck off and die” to the Palestinian people that had cooperated fully with the international plan for their independent future that was unceremoniously stripped from them and handed to Israel.
From that point, details don’t matter so much. Invading occupying forces don’t get to whine because the natives won’t just go away and die….at least I’m not listening when they do. Want to stop being attacked, stop murdering innocents and taking land.

I wonder why you think Israel is not so dominant seeing as they already proved repeatedly their military dominance even when their neighbors band together. Not one of the countries you mentioned has an advanced military, they are last gen at best, really two or more generations behind, and have third world resources not trillions to spend. Iraq proved that advanced weapons beat numbers hands down every single time. Unless Iran gets a nuke capable of getting through the highest levels of missile defense on the planet, their “neighbors” (Palestines allies) pose no actual threat to Israel and a pretty minor threat to the expansionist settlers invading Palestine.

I never ignored any rolls of the neighbors supporting, arming, and instigating unrest…but those roles are minuscule compared to the actions of Israel. Nothing recruits for Hamas like the Israeli army. Nothing creates more terrorists than murderous settlers. No other factor has 1% the effect that Israel’s own actions do in creating enemies.
Murderous expansionist settlers should be eliminated with prejudice immediately. They are the biggest factor driving Israel’s murderous regime to murder more innocents.
If Israel acted civilly instead of treating the natives like the Nazis treated them, its neighbors couldn’t easily convince angry teens to pick up guns and shoot Israelis. Give the Palestinians something to lose, or they’ll have nothing to lose, a chip on their shoulder, and a clear enemy responsible for their plight. This is the official recipe for a terrorist.

Blaming the neighbors is like claiming N Carolina is RESPONSIBLE for all shootings in N Y because some guns used are procured there…nonsense. They are complicit, but minimally so. It’s the shooters motives you need to look at, not the store they use. Why are they so ready to sacrifice their lives to just shoot or throw rocks AT Israel (99/100 times hitting nothing)? Because they have nothing to lose but life in an ever shrinking ghetto ruled over by a foreign racist regime that wants them just gone and is more than happy to starve children to death and bomb refugee camps to accomplish that goal.
The neighbors didn’t invade, expel, ghettoize, and gleefully murder the Palestinian people, that was Israel.

Blaming the victims is not an argument that will win many over…and no question the Palestinian people are the TRUE and only victims.

Where are the European countries now…the same ones that facilitated the Jewish invasion should be obligated to enforce the borders, and/or take the Palestinian refugees and free them from the ghetto/prison Israel keeps them in….but none are.

Side note- I keep hearing people who support Palestinians described as anti semitic. It bears noting that European Jews, the VAST majority of Israelis, are NOT Semitic…but all Palestinians are. Being pro-Israel is actually and factually anti-Semitic.

Palestinian UN Ambassador At UN

newtboy says...

Agreed, the details are many, but trying to see what will happen in the future is simple, it’s the same thing that’s been happening in the past. Israel will continue to illegally expand into territory they agreed belongs to Palestinians, will continue to militarily support and defend the murderous settlers that murder Palestinian families and steal their land constantly with no repercussion at all, and will use any resistance to that violent expansion as an excuse to abuse and further control and murder the remaining citizens while blaming them for their plight.
That’s exactly what’s happening today.
The areas hit by Hamas were all Palestinian land stolen by settlers with full military support, not in Israel but in what was recently Palestine. The expansionist invasion continues, it’s never stopped, and some people don’t understand why the remaining civilians imprisoned in the ghetto by Israel, often with no food, water, or medicine, might revolt and throw stones, but you totally understand why the invaders should get to flatten entire populated cities if one of theirs gets hurt.

The population of Israel is 15 times Gaza, but the casualties of this 70 year conflict are statistically all Palestinians. Just this latest conflict has seen under 1400 Israeli casualties and over 15000 Palestinian civilians…nearly 5000 YOUNG children. THE NORM IS MUCH WORSE, normally this retaliation would come after fireworks hurt 4 settlers almost killing one and damaging their stolen house.

There’s something Americans can do. Vote for a president that will cut all military aid to countries that commit war crimes regularly. Simple, but not easy.

Israeli military is only so strong because we support them. Without American weapons and support, Israel would be a long distant memory of a short lived immigrant invasion.

Yes, Hamas has rhetorically been as genocidal as Israel (also totally genocidal)…but they have zero ability to follow through, while Israel is actively committing genocide today with the most advanced weaponry on the planet we supply, and for the last 70 years. If Israel directly eliminated Palestine as they have stated they will, they would start another war with every neighbor, this time likely without support. Otherwise they would have followed through 40+ years ago. This newest “occupation” may be the last. There will be no rebuilding under occupation, and there are few habitable structures left in Gaza. It’s a small town of 750000 people flattened, under total embargo, and under a shoot on sight order from their oppressors.

Yes, Israel is fighting its neighbors….100% because of their treatment of Palestinians and blatant intent to ignore any borders in their expansion. Combined with Iran their neighbors aren’t 1/2 the military power Israel is thanks 100% to America supplying advanced weapons and defense platforms for decades at our expense.

Invading occupying military forces have no right to complain they are threatened…that’s like saying we should hand squatters AR-15s and grenades because they keep being threatened by the home owners and the neighborhood, and the squatters have every right to shoot neighbors in their own yards if they seem threatening, but the neighbors and home owners have no rights whatsoever, not even the right to leave home because that threatens the squatters. Not even the right of self defense when the squatters invite their family over to take the neighbor’s homes.
I prefer shooting squatters and dumping the bodies in the sewer where they belong. Zionists are all squatters….well armed squatters.

The squatters do not have the right to murder the neighbors who signed the petition to remove the violent squatters. The squatters are always the wrong party no matter what. Period. End on line.


Because Israel intends to act unilaterally and violently to ensure their defense and continued expansion, always at the expense of their neighbors, they should be abandoned by the rest of the world. Murderous expansionist invading occupying racist armies get zero sympathy, and there’s no such thing as an Israeli civilian, they do not exist, only those yet to be military, andtive military, and those in reserve…conversely there’s no such thing as a Palestinian soldier in Gaza…does not exist.

Militaries that attack civilian populations are war criminals…every time. Yes, that includes America in Afghanistan, but bears noting the Afghans protected Alkaida (sp?), the Palestinian government and most civilians do not support Hamas.
I do not want to be supporting foreign war crimes with my tax dollars.

bcglorf said:

Tragically it's all more complicated than anyone can really state, right? I mean, if you had a 30 book(10k pages a book) series solely on the conditions in the region of Palestine between 1930 and today you'd still have so much material to cut, you could limit all 30 books to only 1 sides POV.

The closest I see to shortcutting things, is trying view what is likely to happen in the future, and from that maybe what one might try and do.

The trouble being there's so little one can do. The reality is that Israeli military strength compared to Palestine is completely and entirely one sided, and thus Israel can and will do whatever it wishes to militarily. It's all their choice, period. In fairness to Israel, you have to note that Hamas as stated in their own charter, given that same power would've already cleansed the entirety of Israel and have created their own single state 'final' solution.

It's also not actually about Palestine vs. Israel, which should be obvious given the fact of Israel's military dominance. Israel IS really facing existentially threats of it's own, just not directly from Palestine, and instead from ALL of it's neighbours. That state of constantly requiring Israel to be capable of winning an existential war since it's inception has kept things in a perpetual state of near-war, and more often proxy-war with the Palestiniances as the pawns of alternately Iran, Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and others depending which time and region we choose to look at.

Predictively, that gives us that Isreal can not, under any circumstances, accept conditions to exist where any party(in particular Iran as the main backer) views the "Al Aqsa Flood operation" as a success. That means Israel will do whatever they deem necessary to ensure that happens and Iran in particular views that operation as a mistake. Nothing the UN or any of the rest of us say or do can change that.

Inside the mind of white America

bcglorf says...

I'd have to beg to differ on America having similar Aboriginal/White conflict. IMO the divide between aboriginal/white in Canada is actually much deeper, and with a greater potential for future violence than even black/white relations in the US. The conditions on Canadian native reserves are MUCH worse than in the US. It's severe enough that the first time a Canadian is driving past an America aboriginal reserve they have to ask twice to confirm it really is one. The general state of broken down infrastructure, housing and in general is so bad it's even visibly unavoidable up here in Canada. In the US you can't tell you've gone past anything different unless something culturally relevant is posted up.

It's also made worse by systematic segregation that the reserve system in Canada creates so any seed of racism has lots of fertile ground and lacks any reference to counter balance it.

When a car is stolen is something goes missing on farms near a reserve the immediate default assumption is that someone 'aboriginal' took it. It's only made worse when more often than the statistical distribution should dictate, it actually was someone from a reserve that did it. Recently a car of young aboriginal kids pulled into a farmers yard and one of them was shot and killed. They said they had a flat and were just looking for help. The case is on going, but the courts have heard that the neighbour had already put a call in to police about a theft minutes before the shooting though. Of course, white folks on the internet made such helpful comments as suggesting the farmers mistake was 'leaving any witnesses'. It's also not just white racism against natives though, the racism against settlers(whites) amongst aboriginal populations can be just as ugly and rampant. When Canada decided to have our border crossing guards carry guns, we had to close a border crossing that was in a Mohawk reserve because they wouldn't allow it. The border station there was already riddled with bullet holes before this. If the government DID try and enforce the same law there as the rest of the border, people were going to die.

newtboy said:

That's not a real difference. We have all that too, on top of the black/white, Mexican/white, Arab/white, non-white/white issues.
The main difference we have is reservations here have their own tribal courts instead of special treatment in normal courts. An alleged side effect of that is a white person can go to a reservation and attack a native, and never be charged because they can't get a fair trial in tribal courts and normal courts won't take a minor case from the reservation (I've never tried it myself).

Native American Protesters Attacked with Dogs & Pepper Spray

newtboy says...

Some refugees arrived during the war, but not that many. Before that, Jews were about 8%of the population, so barely "significant".
Invaders came in mass soon afterwards, ignoring local laws and wishes, causing major problems, they didn't assimilate, they grabbed land, then power from the natives, and ended the peaceful coexistence that had lasted centuries before they invaded. The Nazis were long gone when they did this in about 1948, and not a factor at all then, and certainly not in 1974 when the U.N. suggested the two state solution (as you suggest), which might have worked if not for Israel's insistence on not moving or stopping expansionist "settlers" (read invaders) in Palestinian territory and supporting them with the military, and has been supported by Palestinians since the mid 70's (and publicly by their 'leaders' since 82), while Israel and the U.S. veto to this day, (and get upset when it's even mentioned internationally).

When you steal the land and push the locals out, it's not a surprise that their allies and neighbors come to their defense, I hope ours would, and I'm sure the European Jews wish their neighbors had.

It was an invasion by European Jewish people after the war was over (not refugees) with militarily superior allies that helped them and sold/gave them vastly superior weaponry.

Talk about revisionist history BS.

I continue to think them violent invaders, and horrifically racist genocidal ones at that.

Edit: It's anti-Zionist hate mongering, btw. The religion has nothing to do with it.

Native American Protesters Attacked with Dogs & Pepper Spray

newtboy says...

You need to be specific, because your response can be taken two ways.
Are you talking about the measured Palestinian response to Israeli state sponsored rocket and heavy weapon fire on civilians?
I also can't imagine a country putting up with the treatment the Palestinians have endured since the invaders shoved them into the (constantly shrinking, and increasingly ruined) ghetto they live in today without retaliating, and considering the statistics on casualties, and the continuing expansion of Israel, it's clear who benefits from continuing the conflict and who suffers.
In the last 15 years, there's been little to no military action from the Palestinian government (the dumbfire rockets are basically home made model rockets) but there's been constant deadly action from Israel inside what's left of Palestine, and constant expansion by "settlers" (armed invaders with the military's backing).
Considering the history, nuking the entire region seems like a measured response to me...At least better than the status quo (if you're Palestinian). ;-)

EDIT: OK, I finally read the link, and see you were agreeing at least in part, with the above.

transmorpher said:

Ok so I've gone and read about it in the last few minutes (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28439404)

Seems like the response is quite measured honestly.

I can't imagine any country putting up with rockets being fired at civilians. Any other country would treat it like an act of war, and respond appropriately.

British Farmer's Son Shocks Meat Farmer Dad with this video

dannym3141 says...

Just to point out, I didn't say that. I'm not taking a moral cue from how animals behave. I'm saying our species and precursors have a long history of eating meat and it turned out pretty good for us.

(aka - my ancestors are smiling down at me imperial, can you say the same?!)

For the record if i had to kill my own food, i would have no problem with that. I'd rather pay someone to do it for me - yes. But if i needed food and could get my hands on an animal, you better believe i'm sleeping on a full stomach that night.

But as for eating less bacon if you had to slaughter the pig - if you were a farmer, settler or nomad or something and you had pigs you'd probably eat lots of bacon. In society right now, it's pretty unrealistic to slaughter your own pig if you live in an average suburb. It makes more sense to buy bacon than slaughter a pig for most people right now, but there are situations when the opposite would be true and i don't think it would bother me (or you).

Jinx said:

Animals are serial rapists. I'm not sure why our diets should be informed by them.

Settlers of Catanada

The Israel-Palestine conflict: a brief, simple history

greatgooglymoogly says...

The formation of Israel and the question of stealing land can be debated, but at this point it is history and cannot be changed. At some point a nation needed to arise out of the ashes of the Ottoman empire. The problem was, when one did it didn't encompass the entire area. Arab Palestinians didn't vote to accept the border, but neither did they declare war on Israel in 1948, how could they if they weren't even a state? The root of today's problems have to do with the taking of land by act of war. Palestinians are punished for the acts of the other arab nations.

I found it highly surprising the video didn't mention the countless UN resolutions condemning Israel's acts of land confiscation, usually with the USA and Israel the only ones opposing it. In war you can defend yourself, even invade the enemy's territory. But when it's over you have to go back your home, you can't keep a permanent army presence on the captured land and slowly allow your citizens to start living in the captured territory. The fact that the land wasn't part of Jordan made it easier for people to give Israel a pass since they weren't stealing land from a nation, just a nation-less people. That doesn't make it any more justifiable. Israel should have occupied the territory until the end of hostilities and then completely withdrawn.

The video mentions the land they grabbed from Egypt, the almost empty Sinai peninsula that was an incredible strategic value. They were plenty happy to hand it back for a peace treaty, mainly because the hardcore Zionists weren't determined to expand the state of Israel there as they are in the west bank, which has much more history for their people. Notice how they went out of their way to establish a salient to Jerusalem during the 1948 war.

The only reason at some point in the last 40 years Israel hasn't just put up a fence and closed the border permanently(surely the safest choice if you're really worried about suicide bombers) is they wouldn't be able to move beyond that border and capture more land, which is what the orthodox Jews demand. People living in the west bank live under different laws based on their religion. Israeli civil code if they're settlers, military rule if they're Palestinians. How ironic that Israel is lauded as the great democracy in the middle east, yet deny the right of representation to millions under their control.

What's Really Going on in Oregon! Taking Back the Narrative

newtboy says...

Sorry, Ms Constitutional lawyer...the supreme court disagreed with you long ago on almost every point.

AND...if the fed can't actually own the land as she claims, then they couldn't possibly legally have GIVEN that land to the ranchers, could they? The land would be the property of the people the fed took it from, namely the native Paiute in this case. The fed broke treaties, and illegally used the military to remove the owners, then gave it to settlers. Somehow I doubt they care about THAT overreach of the Fed, though, because that doesn't help them steal land for themselves.
So, if the Fed owning and managing land were unconstitutional, it would legally go back to the natives. Period. I think if that was pointed out clearly to these idiots, they would suddenly find the Fed's ownership of land legal, because otherwise the land they own today (not just the federal land) is the forcefully stolen property of the natives, and these people would have to leave their ranches and go back to England (or wherever their ancestors came from).

Federal law IS above the states law, so in the way she's mentioning, the federal government IS above the state.

It's so sad that her interpretation of the Constitution is so incredibly different from the well defined, legally codified interpretations made by the only group that is empowered to make final interpretations, the supreme court, but she somehow doesn't understand that her self serving interpretation doesn't trump theirs. If she's really a lawyer, how did she ever pass the bar with such a poor grasp of the law and how it works?
*lies

Real Time with Bill Maher: Christianity Under Attack?

RFlagg says...

OMFG... really bob... really... It's people like you that made me ashamed of being a Christian when I was a Christian. Completely believing anything they are told or read from someone with supposed authority without actual critical thought of the original source themselves.

I've hear that Jefferson never meant to exclude religion from politics and believed and repeated it myself for years. Then you know what I did? I actually read the letter that Jefferson wrote. I could have my son, who's going into 6th grade read it and he'd tell you the same thing I'm about to tell you. It's about keeping religion from unduly influencing politics. Especially when you read it in context with the letter that the church sent him that he was responding to, and it becomes more apparent if you read his drafts which were much more to the point.

Yes the phrase "wall of separation" does come from the letter and not the Constitution, but the 1st Amendment includes an establishment clause that prevents the government from favoring one religion over the others. Remember the pilgrims came here to escape a Christian nation that favored one form of Christianity over all others. Admittedly they were more about the fact they couldn't persecute others the way they thought they God wanted them to, but it was the government's church that prevented them from doing so. You can't even be King or Queen of England unless you belong to the Church of England, and if you were Catholic at some point in your past, you are disqualified, even to this day. Yeah, the Church of England no longer has as much influence over the laws as it did when the pilgrims and other early settlers escaped England to come here,

And if the only reason Christians are good is because of fear of punishment or hope for reward, then they are horrible people. Millions of people are good because they are good people without their faith dictating to them to be so. Most people of other faiths are good without the racist brutal Abramic God of the Bible. Most atheists are good without any god. Most pagans are good with their various gods. This insane all morality comes from God alone didn't make sense even when I was at my most evangelical, Fox News watching/defending mode. There were too many people in the world who's good without God and even in those days the concept that somebody would be good only because the Bible tells them so, or they are afraid of God's wrath if they don't is backwards. And as I read the Bible more and more, it became apparent that the far rights obsession with people's sin over love was misplaced (though the far right's sickening defense of Dugger shows a great deal of hypocrisy since if Dugger was on the Left, they'd be all about his sin rather than showing any sort of love, it's when others sin differently than they do they get upset, like at the gays). It was reading the Bible that moved me to the left as the clear Christian way, since the right defends and loves the people Jesus condemned and shames the people that Jesus defended and told us to love and help. It eventually got to the point I couldn't hold onto faith when over half the Christians of this Nation just blindly follow what they are told in church and on Fox News over the truth that Jesus and the Bible was teaching and thinking they were doing the Christian thing at the same time. I then began to do a critical analysts further and eventually became an atheist, because they are all equally bad/good. There is nothing new or original in the Abramic faiths that wasn't there before or since either in the same region or elsewhere... all those other elsewhere's where Jehovah somehow couldn't make himself known, as if he was just a figment of one small regional tribe or worse a racist jerk not worthy of following.

Anyhow, the best way to maintain Christianity is to keep it out of politics. Because what happens if you set things up to let religion influence politics and the Muslims gain power? Then you'll be crying how religion shouldn't influence politics. Or perhaps not that extreme, perhaps some form of Christianity that other Christian's don't agree with gains power and influence? Perhaps the Morman's or the Catholics or the Jehovah Witness? At what point does religious influence stop? When laws are passed that any church that doesn't practice or allow the speaking in tongues is outlawed? The 1st Amendment is designed to keep religion out of politics in order to protect religion.

Let's break that last sentience out again. The 1st Amendment's establishment clause is designed to keep religion out of politics in order to protect religion. The whole point is to keep one form of one faith from dominating all other forms of the same or other faiths. It protects those other forms Christianity and other faiths.

Finally there is no war on Christianity. I admitted that long before my fall from faith. I was there with it all, with how it was targeted, but the reality is there is no war on Christianity here... all that's happening is specific forms of Christianity are loosing their influence on other Christians and society as a whole, and they are very vocal about how it's persecution, because like the pilgrims, they are no longer allowed to persecute others the way they want to. Maybe if the people screaming about how Christianity is being persecuted while they try to deny equal rights to others because they sin differently than us, would actually show the love of Christ and behave the way He actually would have in modern society rather than trying to show how Christian they are, then perhaps Christianity wouldn't be losing the numbers they are. I know I, and many other atheists, likely wouldn't have had at crisis of faith if it wasn't for the far right. I never would have explored the logical and theological problems with Christianity and the Abramic faiths... I'd probably eventually found a more Quaker, left leaning (most the Quaker "Friends" related churches in this area are the far evangelical right Fox News types) type church that seems to be more in line with the Bible and teachings of Jesus, but the far right pushed me into a far more critical mode than I would likely ever have gone to on my own. So keep it up those on the far right, you are the ones destroying and making a war on Christianity. You push more and more people away, and more and more people stop seeing any difference between the far right and radical Islam.

TYT - Israel's devastation of Gaza

charliem says...

Noone is telling Israel to shrug their shoulders....the issue is not with the defence, it is the measure of the defence.

Israel should send in a police force, and find those responsible. Shut down the tunnels by ground, stop bombing indiscriminately.

This requires police action, not military...the 'missiles' you keep referring to are pathetically weak, absolutely pathetic.

Were I leader of Israel, I would drop the wall, set about repairing the damages inside the city, allow the organisation of a government, support it in getting benefits in for the people of Gaza and Palestine, halt the invasion of settlers into Palestinian territory, halt the bombings and send in armed police where reports of weapons stashes are. Set up large scale police patrols in troubled areas, let people go about their lives without the fear of having a bomb dropped on their head, try to give them a leg up in life....and the revenge attacks using piss weak rockets will stop.

The Israeli measure of force is far far higher than it should be.

There is no army inside gaza, its kids playing with homemade rocketry. Get cops in there, not 500lb bombs.

If both sides agreed to a ceasefire, allowing UN peacekeepers into the area to...you know...keep the peace, whilst the cities are rebuilt, peoples lives can get back to normal...my god imagine that world.

shinyblurry said:

You didn't address my question; I never said I am ok with civilians being killed. Could you please address the scenario; how do you think the US would respond to rocket attacks on its cities? Would we attack and eliminate the threat or shrug our shoulders? We're asking Israel to shrug its shoulders about these attacks yet isn't it true we ourselves would never do that?

Israeli crowd cheers with joy as missile hits Gaza on CNN

Asmo says...

More philosophical wank citing junk analogies (lol, blowing up peoples houses with them still inside = drunken manslaughter in a bar fight?) to justify a position directly contradicted by people who should know...

http://electronicintifada.net/content/israels-auschwitz-borders-revisited/7847

"The late Tommy Lapid, justice minister in Ariel Sharon’s government, caused an uproar in 2004 when he said that images of an elderly Palestinian woman in Gaza “crouching on all fours, searching for her medicines in the ruins of her house” demolished by the Israeli army reminded him of his own grandmother who perished at Auschwitz. Lapid compared the Israeli army’s writing of numbers on the arms and foreheads of Palestinian prisoners to the Nazi practice of tattooing concentration camp inmates. “As a refugee from the Holocaust I find such an act insufferable,” he said in 2002."

"Lapid, who was chairman of Yad Vashem, Israel’s official Holocaust memorial, also likened the routine harassment of Palestinians by Israeli settlers in the West Bank city of Hebron to the anti-Semitism of pre-World War II Europe. “It was not crematoria or pogroms that made our life in the diaspora bitter before they began to kill us,” he said in 2007, “but persecution, harassment, stone-throwing, damage to livelihood, intimidation, spitting and scorn.” Lapid did not live long enough to see Hebron settlers attempt to burn down a house with a large Palestinian family trapped inside, an act witnessed on 4 December by Avi Issacharoff, reporter for the Israeli daily Haaretz, who called it “a pogrom in the worst sense of the word.”


or perhaps:

http://youtu.be/qMGuYjt6CP8

"Sir Gerald, who was brought up as an orthodox Jew and Zionist, said: "My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town a German soldier shot her dead in her bed.

"My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza. The present Israeli government ruthlessly and cynically exploits the continuing guilt from gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians."

He said the claim that many of the Palestinian victims were militants "was the reply of the Nazi" and added: "I suppose the Jews fighting for their lives in the Warsaw ghetto could have been dismissed as militants."


I'll take the word of people who lived through the Holocaust and the formation of Israel over you... = P

shveddy said:

I do understand that the purpose of Godwin's law is to reduce the worst kinds of hyperbole, and that's exactly what I'm trying to do.

Whatever you think about Israel's policies regarding the Palestinians, referring to it as extermination only shows that you haven't taken the time to understand anything about the current conflict and you are just reacting emotionally to the terrible horror of war. Extermination is the total elimination of a certain population by killing, and such an action is so far beyond the state of oppression we see in Gaza today that I just can't take your comparison seriously.

The only way you bother to support these outlandish statements is by telling me that death is death - no matter what the cause - as if that mindless tautology is enough to render two wildly different sets of circumstances and tactics equivalent.

Should we also call all murders murders and not bother to make distinctions between first degree, second degree, involuntary manslaughter, etc? Should we treat the serial killer the same as the drunken brawler who hit someone too hard in a bar fight?

Of course not. As thinking people we analyze factors such as intent, quantity, severity, remorse, and perhaps most importantly, we consider what measures can possibly be taken to correct the underlying cause. All of these elements are wildly different in the different degrees of murders, and having an honest grasp of these differences helps us understand how we as a society should react to each degree, both in terms of punishment and rehabilitation.

To similar ends, it is very important that we consider analogous distinctions in the different degrees of atrocities between nations or ethnic groups. The fact that it is obvious that I would much rather be in Gaza today than a concentration camp in 1943 is very much so relevant to this sort of analysis. The fact that there is no Israeli intent to exterminate the Palestinians is also relevant.

But if you want to leave the depth of your understanding at "dead is dead" then I guess that's your choice.



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