True there are human right abuses that occur in Iran.

But its not surprising to hear this from UN Watch, they always take a strong stand against anyone they believe is not in support of Israel.

Israel's methodology of imposing collective punishment on the Gaza Strip, which constitutes a war crime under the Geneva convention is however not a concern of an organization that seeks to promote "Human Rights for all"

Oh the hypocrisy.

Israel is limited in its ability to respond to the rocket-fire coming daily from Gaza (more than 600 since January, be them poorly aimed or not). They're at a loss, so they resorted...unwisely if you ask me... to a threat of withdrawing the power and water they supply to Gaza (essentially an enemy territory). Still it's better that they make threats than simply invade and reacquire their territory at this point. This while they make moves to give MORE territory to the Palestinians.

Arguments about Israel almost always come down to what side you choose to believe at the outset. No one ever changes sides on the argument and many of those chosen sides are based on religion anyway. Christians and Jews often side with Israel. Moslems and generally those that oppose western culture choose Palestine. Makes sense; protect your interests. Other people are generally scattered on either side based on what media source they choose to trust. Of course there is a lot of crossover there, but in general it applies. People on both sides are also vehemently convinced that they are right. The truth is likely somewhere in the middle.

Anyway, the argument over whether Israel is justified in its actions is a non sequitur in the argument over Iran and its leadership. It's sort of a tu quoque argument. But still it's a good point that they have chosen their side and it is plain to see.

I disagree with your assumption that the issue takes religion into account when picking sides or media (the US has a highly constricted view to reporting news from Israel in AIPAC controlled way, have you ever heard anything critical of Israel from US news sources?), there are many Christian and Jewish activists who believe that Israelis process of peace is heavy handed. As I recall Israel is the only nation that has a nuclear weapons program that is hush hush on the International scene, and is well armed with Merkava tanks, AH-1 Cobras and M-16 wielding soldiers, that force has always been there and is not a response to the threat recently. Not that this is a justification for Palestinian tactics, but what other response would you expect after 60 years? Them throwing rocks still?

I believe that the Israeli people want a peaceful resolution to this conflict, but that is at odds with the decision reached in high government of Israel to deny the Palestinian people the right to their own land.

For all the peace rhetoric of the last 60 years, all you have see is a slow dismemberment of the Palestinian territory into ever smaller enclaves. As Henry Siegman writes:

"The Middle East peace process may well be the most spectacular deception in modern diplomatic history. Since the failed Camp David summit of 2000, and actually well before it, Israel’s interest in a peace process – other than for the purpose of obtaining Palestinian and international acceptance of the status quo – has been a fiction that has served primarily to provide cover for its systematic confiscation of Palestinian land and an occupation whose goal, according to the former IDF chief of staff Moshe Ya’alon, is ‘to sear deep into the consciousness of Palestinians that they are a defeated people’.

But I digress from the main video, I just find it so supremely ironic as well for UN Watch to attack the human rights records of Iran when you have Bush come up on the podium and talk about human rights when we have Guantanamo bay. Robert Parry from ConsortiumNews:

George W. Bush – who asserts his unlimited personal authority to kill, kidnap, torture and spy on anyone of his choosing anywhere in the world – opened his annual speech to the United Nations by hailing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The U.S. President pushed the envelope of the world’s credulity even further by citing the U.N.’s Universal Declaration of 1948 as justification for his “war on terror” and his draconian policies for eliminating “terrorists” or other threats to world order with little or no due process.

I mean srsly?

On Israel's militiary: They must have one and it must be strong in order to maintain their very existence. If they did not, they would be conquered by surrounding Islamic countries such as Syria and Iran and those in Palestinian territory. Iran has said it many times that they want such a result. Ahmadinejad's religious end-times theology calls for this as an inevitability. Israel has attempted to appease these groups by surrendering land they were given by the international community. Yet, every territory that is turned over becomes a new front for said rocket fire and violence. Can't these people settle in and stop fighting? Just get a job and make peace?

And I've definitely seen criticisms of Israel from US media, and yes, they can seem heavy-handed. But they tend to use western-style attempts at precision strikes on enemy combatants rather than attacks on civilian centers. If there are casualties, it is unfortunate but at least unintentional. They certainly do have nuclear capability, but they've never threatened to use them. It is another protective deterrent. The world gave Jews a good dose of protectionalism during WWII. They don't want to see the same thing happen again. If there is Arab persecution in Israel, it needs to stop, but the equal needs to be done in Arab countries who persecute Jews and Christians.

Also Israel is the only ally we have in the entire Middle East... with the marginal exception of possibly the UAE and Kuwait... well, and many of the Kurds anymore.

I also don't think it is a fair to compare our military prisons to the blatant terrorism (or support of such) performed by many of those nations. The wiretapping bit is only used for potential international suspects and is not new with Bush and probably won't go away with Hillary... or whoever else wins. I don't know if I feel ok with that or not, but it has helped stop some plots and there have been no reports of abuse, so I'll reserve judgment.

As for it being religious. It is for many people. Not everyone.
lol. I digress on my own post. It won't likely get through anyway, but thanks for the discussion.

I disagree, Israel does not concede land, it paints itself as being the ever ready benefactor waiting for a 'deserving peace partner', while it builds new illegal settlements, asking the Palestinians to sort themselves by which time they claim new stretches of land because lo and behold Israelis live there now.

The problem is not, as Israelis often claim, that Palestinians do not know how to compromise. (Another former prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, famously complained that ‘Palestinians take and take while Israel gives and gives.’) That is an indecent charge, since the Palestinians made much the most far-reaching compromise of all when the PLO formally accepted the legitimacy of Israel within the 1949 armistice border. With that concession, Palestinians ceded their claim to more than half the territory that the UN’s partition resolution had assigned to its Arab inhabitants. They have never received any credit for this wrenching concession, made years before Israel agreed that Palestinians had a right to statehood in any part of Palestine. The notion that further border adjustments should be made at the expense of the 22 per cent of the territory that remains to the Palestinians is deeply offensive to them, and understandably so.

The whole process of Peace in the regards to Israel and Palestine is non-existent, there is a huge imbalance of power that allows Israel to constantly come off as being the retailator of enemy attacks when it stages so many incursion of it's own into Palestinian areas. You claim that they use precision strikes when they form just one component of Israeli occupational strategy which works through road blocks, choke points, incursions into areas, random searches, arrests, house demolitions, removal of citizens, attacking civilian centers. The whole Gaza strip and West bank areas are enclosed open air prisons, movement to and forth is highly controlled.

I don't see how you can reduce this issue to them just needing to get a job and make peace as if violent fighting against Israeli is coded in Palestinian genes, maybe the reasons that attacks continue is because there is actual legitimate abuses that are committed?

Not that this is in any way legitimaizing the terrorist attacks that occur, but after so long I don't see how else the Palestianin people would have not responded.

You mention that Arab countries prosecute Christians and Jews, yet in Iran itself plays host to the largest Jewish population outside of Israel. Iran is not against Israeli people but against Zionism.

Not fair to compare Military prisons to blatant terrorism? So The Decider can pick and choose who he defines as a enemy combatant hold them and torture them as long as necessary with any heabus corpus rights? What of Abu Graibh then? Was that a military prison? Water boarding? I don't understand how degrading our moral standing makes us come off any better. As for the results that this practice produces we are never allowed to know for reasons of national security, yet the government expects us to give them a blank check for everything that they carry out, if we ask too much there 'will be bodies in the streets'.

hello, is that the pot? yeah hi, it's the kettle, er.. you're black.

I'll have to cede to you on some of your points. I'm not quite passionate enough about the subject to spend the time and research needed to fully understand every detail of the history of the region. I'll have to dive into it a bit before I try and continue with this debate. And I'll admit I'm a bit biased. When I saw Palestinians cheering and parading in the streets on 9/11, let's just say it didn't win them any points. And that while America was at least making an attempt to get them "country" status back.

I've heard little of any offensive incursions other than those meaning to capture terrorists. I'll have to blame the media if I'm under-informed on that. and I don't trust most middle eastern news outlets to give honest news, so that's no help. Honestly I'm surprised that Israel has held back, seeing as how they have a massive military advantage and Palestine still holds complete control of Judaism's single most holy site on earth.

On Jews in Iran, well, first here's another perspective you can read, it's short:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/iranjews.html

And I mentioned getting jobs, because that is absolutely an extreme problem in the middle east and many other developing nations. When people, especially youth (and those countries are mostly youth), have nothing to do, they wind up getting into trouble. It's an oversimplification, but you get the idea. I don't wanna waste my time describing the stats for it.

As for Palestine's response to their treatment, bombings of civilians is never justifiable. Find another way.

Discarding this video. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 4 days.

Doc_M ... a couple of things... Jerusalem is a holy city for christians, muslims AND jews, because they are 3 branches of the same damn religion.

Palestinians "cheering in the streets"? well there's debate about certain bits of news footage being a bit staged, and the whole Mission Accomplished thing on the aircraft carrier is kinda equivalent, don't you think?

As for telling palestinians to "find another way" to resist genocide, well i dunno man, not sure they've got many options left.

*waronterror

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