Well said, and most of the world agrees. They willfully target civillians with reckless abandon. To Israel Hamas = all Palestinain Men, Women, and Children. No exceptions. :shrug:
I love the way people all seem to insist that one side must be in the right, and the other in the wrong. In my opinion they're both being dicks. Hamas launches rockets into Israel (bad) and Israel responds with disproportionate retaliatory strikes (also bad). If I shove someone and he turns around and hits me with a baseball bat, neither of us are behaving properly. You can argue about which one of us is behaving worse, but that doesn't make the other any better.
I am still waiting for those reliable Hamas militants to display those Israeli soldiers they claimed to have captured earlier during the war!
So they came anyway and bough the swamp and desert, and made it bloom, and in the avarice and greed of the Arabs, they wanted that land too.
If I come to the US and buy land it doesn't give me the right to call in all Muslims and create a sharia state; or does it? Can I put all non-Muslims in a Gaza?
It gets along with anyone who doesn't condone terrorism against Israel and accepts their right to exist and who condones terrorism by Israel.
If the Palestinians could become citizens of other countries then collective punishment would work. Who would not give their family a chance to lead a good life in a new country rather see their children and grand children raised in a prison. The great grand children of immigrants usually won't remember the injustices done to their great grandparents. To break the Palestinians will to resist while still in captivity genocide must be a believable outcome of further resistance. The threat of genocide is how the USA broke the resistance of the native Americans in a similar situation to the one that the Palestinians find themselves in. This collective punishment is just going to drive Palestinians mad with hate and will create more suicide bombers.
Your writing reflects the Israeli story line because it has the Hamas rockets as being unprovoked. The Hamas storyline says the rockets were retaliation for recent Israeli killings of Palestinians. To use truly neutral language it has to be retaliation against retaliation against retaliation against retaliation......
Thats not how its currently working. Even when parents send their children abroad, many children get an education [along with nasty western ideas of liberty, equality and justice] and come back. Those who want their children to have a better life abroad, stay abroad till children grow up, then come back. And still seond generation Palestinians, who prefer their places of residence, want a Palestine for "their people" and support them even if they don't come back. e.g. half the population of Jordan is Palestinian refugees. They may not come back but they all support a Palestine state. Same as diaspora Jews who support an Israel even if they do not consider themselves practicing Jews and are not Israelis by birth or residence. Are we talking about people from the Middle East?
Most of the time you sound like a total moron, but this is dead on. If the Palestinians did adopt a non-violent movement 100%, Israel would be forced by the international community into action. But, that's not Hamas' goal. Hamas does not support a two-state solution. They support the destruction of Israel. So it seems unlikely they will support any non-violence without Israel gone as a state. Forty years. And the other Arab nations put up a valiant effort beforehand to try to rid the area of Israel.
Doubt it. Remember the years before Hamas? And the blockade is STILL on: http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/FBUO-7NGD24?OpenDocument Plus, except for a few groups here and there, Jews by and large either support these atrocities or are silent in the face of them. Note the media silence in the US and UK over the Gaza crisis. If dying violently by the hundreds didn't do it, starving silently by the million certainly won't.
So the palestinian nationalist movement that preceded that was just an elaborate illusion? Israelis are more of a myth than palestinians.
Sam, you know I live in China. And am Canadian. So access to American news outlets is not exactly something I can speak with high accuracy about. That said, I do get the podcast (woohooo!) of NBC news every day. And every day it's been at least 5 minutes out of a possible 30 on the Gaza war. And every day has seen horrific images of violence and destruction. And every day I've heard death tolls and how "international pressure is against Israel in this massive use of disproportionate force". So, at least from NBC, my one TV news outlet, I have seen almost nothing good about Israel from day one. So, I'm not sure what you mean by silence. But I have also listened to Al-Jazeera every day and I'd say the news from that source is even more political than current American news sources. In 20 straight days of listening to Al-Jazeera, I have not heard about one bad thing an Arab person did. Should I assume no Arab person in the Arab world has done one bad thing in 20 days? It seems slightly unlikely. I actually quite enjoy Al-Jazeera. I rarely can agree with their views for 20 minutes straight, but one doesn't watch news simply to agree with everything. In fact, I think if one's news intake comes from a wide variety of sources (for Canucks like myself - the CBC and Global; America's NYTimes, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal; The IHT, The Guardian, BBC, J-Post, Haaretz, The Economist, China Daily, China Times, Al Akhbar, numerous personal blogs and "indie" sources like Democracy Now, etc.) adding Al-Jazeera into the mix is helpful, enjoyable and, considering it's increasing popularity, even necessary. But Al-Jazeera being the sole source of news for many in the Arab world is a bit dangerous. I think it over-politicizes and over-dramatizes the Israeli-Palestinian issue. (Keep reading before you get too pissed off at what I just said). This is a very emotional issue for many people. It's also an awfully bloody issue. I understand Al-Jazeera criticizes American news media for not being very graphic with the details, or (as in a recent episode), showing Palestinian pain alongside Israeli pain as if to paint them as equals in quantity. I think this is a very fair criticism and ought to be made. But this criticism of American media is not a license to break journalistic integrity. It is not a license to give up on attempts to remain objective. It is not a license to essentially turn your program into a series of gory images and dramatic music. I agree with Al-Jazeera: someone has to do that. Yup. But not a news sources. Appealing to emotions, playing on violence and overt musical themes, and politicizing every single story that comes across the desk are the jobs of bloggers, activists and organizations. Al-Jazeera is right to suggest the Americans break their own ethical guidelines. I would argue Al-Jazeera does exactly the same. (I guess that's one eyelash for one eyelash.) --------- The only other complaint I can make about Al-Jazeera is that I think it makes caricatures out of the whole event. It paints all Israelis as being represented by nazi-like soldiers in black who never experience pain, never smile, never cry, but simply march gun-first into a field of innocent children and begin the blood bath. It paints Palestinian civilians as essentially a collection of children with missing limbs, old women sobbing in the street and no hope in the world against the evil Zionist pig. There have been two massive obstacles (among many smaller ones) to working a two state solution. (1) The Jews (mostly outside Israel) characterizing Palestinians as militant Islamists who eagerly await the day the trees help righteous Moslems slaughter the Jews / the Moslems (mostly outside Palestine) who believe Israelis are essentially a group of heartless nazis or, worse, a heartful, hateful and very intentional manifestation of the Elders of Zion. (2) The actual Palestinians who are such militants / The actual Israelis who really do wish to slaughter innocent Moslems. I believe that category one is much larger than category two. And I believe if we got rid of these perceptions we would be well on the way to a solution. I don't think category two would have much power in either nation if category one wasn't propping them up. And so in this sense I think Al-Jazeera is actually doing a disservice to the Palestinian citizens. I think they are very intentionally rallying Moslems around the world to view Israelis (as a group) this way. And I think that attitude is very destructive and fostering it is unhelpful to Moslems, Jews, Israelis, Palestinians and even little old me on my computer in China.
Al Jazeera presents the Arab point of view. Perhaps you fail to realise it but reporters on al Jazeera are mostly Brits and Americans, some with Arab ethnicity. IOW, inasmuch as the Islamist is the western point of view, the violent lying Israeli is the Arab one. You hear Israelis on al Jazeera more than you hear the Palestinian POV on western ones. As for rallying Muslims around the world to view Israelis as such a group, I'd say the Israelis are doing that just fine all by themselves.
Al Jeezera is a response to Fox. The Israeli media didn't look at whether or not the war was right, instead focusing solely on the Israeli side of the story. Anywho, Tyler: I don't think you can stand by and watch while your home slowly gets demolished. Especially if you have an attachment to the place. Gandhi tried non violence, and I think it was through real dedication and charisma that he managed to pull it off. Unless we see something like that, which i'm not expecting given the volatile nature/religion/characteristic/ etc. That we see of the two parties, Non violence simply is, emotionally impossible.
I don't think a news agencies job is to present one groups point of view. Again, that is the job of an NGO or activist group. If Al-Jazeera were to refer to itself as an activist group, I would think it's doing a fantastic job. In that sense, perhaps my complaint isn't necessarily against Al-Jazeera. Rather, it's a cry over the lack of what I would consider a real "news source" in the Arab world that reaches such popularity. If the Arab world had a greater variety of non-state-owned news sources and a more popular group (such as NYTimes, Wallstreet Journal and LA Times in America) of more middle-ground news sources, Al-Jazeera would fit it's role as activist perfectly. As it stands, though, it is for many people the only player in town. And I think that's dangerous. As well, Sam, I've yet to hear an Israeli on Al-Jazeera. Then let them. Don't incite more hatred. Let them do all the wrong themselves and give others no reason to claim you've done wrong. Walk the righteous path, even in the face of the sinner.
I take it you don't watch al Jazeera. Its more like CNN. Although there is no direct criticism of the Arab point of view, the questions put to the Arab side [without offering opinions on them] are similar to those put to the Israeli side in CNN. They are partisan of course, they cater to the audience. I would say Ramattan is more like Fox News in Gaza. And I hear them all the time. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! More than on CNN even; in fact, al Jazeera has interviewed more Israeli ministers, IDF troops and rocket victims than any other channel I've seen
