Nor to further elucidate the Orwellian, Goebbellesian or Kafka-esque techniques employed here and elsewhere to legitimize and to defend the wholly indefensible act/s of Grand Theft Larceny that are and remain at the very core of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

It really is tiresome debating apologists for heavily-armed race or religiously-motivated thieves — apologists furthermore who are able to vomit forth on demand a panoply of erroneous, mendacious and obscurantist drivel designed to bend, to contort, to fog, to confuse, to deny hard facts and to abuse language on behalf of a state apparatus that apparently derives a morbid delight in continuing a 60-year old killing spree against a displaced, heavily traumatized and wholly defenseless civilian-refugee population.

And moreover, a state apparatus that’s primed and ready to wreak even further trails of indiscriminate mayhem, terror and carnage against both them and the populations of adjacent states whenever it so pleases itself to do so.

The patronizing arrogance directed against the writer of this article also leads one to conclude that if shaming alone will no longer suffice, then the “mockery” described above is now a more essential weapon to have at one’s disposal…
– to continue heaping on the scorn and piling up satiric invective in the forlorn [??] hope that large and influential sections of the “Jewish People” might soon come to their senses, realize fully this descent into utter dystopian madness made on their behalf, then pause, step back, and, in moments of sublime apocalyptic catharsis,
OWN UP and FULLY CONFESS,
then commence to atone for the crimes committed in their names by the more neurotic, crackpot, and racially-tortured elements among their numbers….

I finally add this,
the millions of Jewish victims of Herr A. Hitler’s Holocaust must, I’d imagine, be currently turning over in their graves and retching up their stomach linings at what’s subsequently been erected
– a bizarre and grotesque testament to their grievous sufferings and to their tragic and untimely deaths

– namely — the Zionist state of Israel

You are ignoring the fact (maybe intentionally, or maybe because lack of knowledge) that Israeli’s and Arabs got along in Israel/Palestine for thousands of years, up until about 100 years ago. At this point, Jews started immigrating in much larger numbers to Israel. The claim that Palestinians have lived there for thousands of years is true, but the fact that Jews have lived there for thousands of years is equally true. The problem 100 years ago was that Arabs were worried that the Jew/Muslim ratio would shift away from Muslim favor, which upset them to no end. Regardless, Jews kept coming.

Without going into too much detail, the major ‘spark’ that started the conflict was, of course, the declaration of the Nation of Israel. The fact is, the Jews were more or less content with the land that was allotted to them by the UN … Far Less than what they have now (again, Wikipedia). Next, the tiny nation of Israel was attacked by the majority of the Arab nations, all well armed, all with one goal in mind, “Destroy All the Jews!” According to Jews, the Arab world then asked the Palestinians to ‘willingly’ leave their land, so that the Jews could be properly exterminated … after which, they would be allowed to safely return to their homes. Of course, the Arab version is that the Palestinians were driven out of their homes by force (I am 100% sure that the truth is in the middle … some left willingly, others were forced). After the Jews won this war, against all odds, how could you possibly expect them to allow Palestinians to return? How could you possibly expect them to give back all the conquered land? Would you accept the Arab’s apologies and just say, “Oh, that’s ok, have you land back, have your homes back, and we will wait for your next attack” … because, the Arabs were anything but apologetic, and openly threatened to attack soon … still do.

This continued … and continued … attack after attack. You can claim that the Jews stole land, but you are ignoring the fact that this land was never Palestinian, and it was barren when the Jews arrived. The Jews moved into some o the worst terrain, reformed the land, and lived there. The Palestinians already had the best land, but they weren’t happy with that, they wanted the destruction of the Jews. Again, the Jews have also peacefully lived side by side with the Palestinians for thousands of years in Israel/Palestine, these new Jews were simply moving into the worst parts of Israel because, well, they had no home of their own. They were refugees, for all practical purposes.

Of course, this is a very brief description. Rather than mock what is missing, please, add to the story your side and we will go from there.

“People are misled by propoganda [sic] daily…

If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.
— Adolf Hitler…”

Excellent
– you just summed up the entire Zionist-Israeli-Hasbara narrative for the past 60 carnage-filled years in one sentence and a highly appropriate quote…

Excellent — he/she finally gets something right…

And, we just might add, that the entire world now “supports the Palestinians…”
– with the sole exception of the US government & its international network of lawless elected crime syndicates masquerading as “Democrats”, and their adoring despotic affiliates…

“The Victor” also wishes to pose “a simple ‘hypothetical’ situation…”
and we say “Great — bring it on…”
and pose it right back at him…

Mr. Victor,
Let us assume that you live in a low rise “apartment building”.
Let us also assume that it houses no less than 1 million families.
Let’s further assume that a family, or group of people, moved into this Building and told you how,
“God” gave them this “Building” 2000 years ago and, moreover,
“God” says its OUR “Building” — again, here, now, —
and the 1 million families should just pack up all their belongings and “clear out” — or else…!

I would have to make a logical leap here, and guess that “Mr. Victor”, or anyone else for that matter, would most likely contact some authority and ask for JUSTICE — for these God-quoting “Psychos” to be removed, right?

Or, at the very least, as even more “Psychos” poured into “the Building” — and as JUSTICE is nowhere to be seen — you and your neighbors will begin defending your family home and your family property against “the Psychos” — by any means necessary… !

I have a feeling that you know where I am going with this…

So the residents defend the “Building” against the raving lunatic God-quoting “Psychos” who firmly believe,
– we have it on good authority, clearly stated [above], that

“To the VICTOR goes the SPOILS”
– and thus we assume, the SPOILS are “the Building”… OK…?

You can try and sugar coat this all you want, you can attempt to justify moving more and more heavily armed “Psychos” into a formerly peaceable “Building” when they have NO “right” to be there at all….

– NONE whatsoever — Nix, Nada — no God, no Bible, no NUTHIN…

… But the fact remains, the vast majority of these by now literally helpless “Building” residents are well aware of “the Psychos”,
– i.e. “the terrorists” located inside “the Building”.

They see “the terrorists” in the streets outside, in the shopping centers, in the hilltop settlements, in the IDF, the IAF, the Shin Bet, and most of all, in the Knesset
– a God-damned house of “Psychotic Terrorists” if ever there was one — now proudly perched on top of “the Building”

… in short, “the terrorists” and “the Psychos” are now everywhere…

The “Building” residents know this — they’ve been telling us for years — and now We know, and moreover, the Whole damn World knows!
The Building-Heisters dirty little secret is out in the open…
That’s the problem.

I am ok with the Psychos getting their equal share of health care — psychiatric therapy, treatment etc. — but going about it by barbarically killing civilians in their tens of thousands and emptying “Buildings” of long established residents is only hurting their cause.

Just think, what would the Psychos do if Nazi Germany acted like the Israelis — laying claim to “Eretz Europe”? What would you do if you were a European?

There are no Jews in Gaza. Haven’t been for almost three years. Have the gazans developed anything like an economy of their own? Yet? No and they don’t intend to. It’s a piss and moan society. Sponging off whoever will give them handouts and making war in return.

Unless you think blowing up shopping malls full of civilians is a worthwhile national expression?

Mary, the article you are citing is written by an outlet that is Pro-Palestinian. They will intentionally leave out all information that could possibly lead the reader to believe that the Palestinians are at fault. Where as Hugh, you are reading an article posted from the other side that is doing the exact opposite. Each of the two authors will have no problem embellishing a claim, or mentioning something that was never fully confirmed but merely whispered.

The Israel/Palestinian argument is one that will only end if the Jews abandon Israel, or the Jews kill all the Palestinians. Since neither of these options will ever happen, we are in for a long conflict. I know that it isn’t immediately clear in my response, but my biggest dream would be for the media to always post both sides of a story, rather than the one that fits the editors agenda. Everyone here, including myself, has been lied to repeatedly until we believed what was stated, then restated. Rather than yell opinions about a subject that we know little about (I am sure that the vast majority of American’s know maybe 5% of the whole story of Israel/Palestine, yet they have no qualms in making their opinions known), people should wisper them and see what the other side has to say. This is true not only in Israel/Palestine, but in USA/Iraq and every other conflict zone. People are misled by propoganda daily.

If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.
— Adolf Hitler

“The UN is demanding an investigation into how the Israeli military killed one of its Palestinian school teachers by blasting open the front door of her Gaza home with explosives in the presence of three of her children.

Wafer Shaker al Daghma, 34, a teacher at a local UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) elementary school, was killed last Wednesday as she stood preparing to open the wooden door of her home to the troops. According to UNRWA and relatives who found her body, the military used an explosive device on the door which blew most of her head from her body”.

THIS IS NOT FRIENDLY FIRE. THIS IS MURDER

Unfortunately the Gaza teacher was killed because of “friendly” fire. The Israeli patrol engaged with and shot at armed Hamas soldiers, the teacher was killed because a Hamas person was carrying explosives. These were touched off in that battle.

Two of the biggest tragedies of the Palestinian Arabs are as Zhan pointed out above, that their own people use their own civilian population as “shields” and that they are so messed up with internecine squabbles and warfare that they can’t or won’t sustain themselves.

The major difference between Israeli attacks on civilians and Palestinian attacks on civilians is that Palestinians directly target civilians … while Israeli’s target terrorists that are intentionally surrounded by civilians. You can try and sugar coat this all you want, you can attempt to justify the harboring of terrorists … but the fact remains, the vast majority of civilians are well aware of the terrorist located in the apartment, in the shopping centers, in the refugee camps … everywhere. They know! That’s the problem. However, once a terrorist is killed by a rocket that is ’strategically’ launched … they cry that the people harboring them were also killed. You may ignore the fact that Hamas uses human shields all you want, but it doesn’t change the fact.

I understand that I am going against the grain here, the vast majority of people here support Palestinians. I am ok with Palestinians getting their equal share, but going about it by sporadically killing civilians is only hurting their cause. Just think, what would America do if Mexico acted like the Palestinians laying claim to Texas? What would you do if you were a Texan?

http://uruknet.info/?p=m43957&hd=&size=1&l=e

Blast kills Gaza teacher in front of her children
Donald Macintyre in Khan Younis

Wafer Shaker al Daghma was with three of her children when she died
May 11, 2008

The UN is demanding an investigation into how the Israeli military killed one of its Palestinian school teachers by blasting open the front door of her Gaza home with explosives in the presence of three of her children.

Wafer Shaker al Daghma, 34, a teacher at a local UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) elementary school, was killed last Wednesday as she stood preparing to open the wooden door of her home to the troops. According to UNRWA and relatives who found her body, the military used an explosive device on the door which blew most of her head from her body. They then confined the traumatised children – aged from two to 13 – for five hours while the body lay outside the door of the room where they were held.

Although the soldiers finally left the house – in darkness because of a blackout – at around 9pm, Mrs al Daghma’s 13-year-old daughter Samira was too terrified to go outside for help for another two hours because of the continued presence of Israeli armoured vehicles outside her home.

Tiles above a washbasin opposite the front door of the house were still heavily spattered with dried blood yesterday. There was a pile of splintered wooden planks from the destroyed door on the floor where Mrs al Daghma’s body, which soldiers apparently covered with a rug, had lain as the military incursion continued.

Chris Gunness, spokesman for UNRWA, said that the Israeli forces were using the house as a post to monitor “alleged militants”. “The children heard many gun shots but do not know where they came from,” he said. He said UNRWA had asked Israel in writing for “an impartial investigation, for accountability and allowing the facts to speak for themselves,” adding: “We again condemn the killing of innocent civilians.”

Mrs al Daghma’s widower, Majdi, 34, who was out of the house at the time, said his daughter had told him that her mother, knowing that troops were on a search and arrest operation in the vicinity, had put on a headscarf, told the children to go into a bedroom and said that she would open the door when the troops arrived.

An Israeli tank had parked by the outer, open, metal door and the inner, wooden front door was then blasted open.

“Samira heard a very loud explosion and there was a lot of smoke. She looked for her mother but couldn’t see her,” he said.

Samira al Daghma said yesterday that after entering the house the soldiers had kept her, her sister Roba, four, and brother Qusay, two, in the room. “They did not let us out. There was one soldier at the door of the room. I asked him: ‘Where is my mother?’ He was speaking in Hebrew and I didn’t understand him.”

She said that when the soldiers finally left, she crawled with her siblings to a room on the eastern side of the house. “There were still tanks outside our house and if I had gone out they would have seen me. I tried to call my father on my mother’s Jawwal [cellphone] but there was no line. I lifted the carpet and saw a bit of my mother’s clothes. She was not moving. I did not see her head.”

Mr al Daghma said the family were Fatah rather than Hamas supporters. The funeral was arranged by Fatah and there were Arafat portraits in the house yesterday. The Israeli military said it was looking into the incident.

The Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert yesterday promised “strong action” to stop Gaza militants if they continued their attacks after a 48-year-old Israeli father-of-four was killed by a Hamas-claimed mortar on Friday. Oxfam urged Israel to avert a health crisis as Gaza’s power station shut down, saying it had run out of fuel.

:: Article nr. 43957 sent on 12-may-2008 08:57 ECT

no doubt an earnest, well-intentioned, “in the middle” of the road truth-seeker, who, we are informed, is avidly [quote] “reading the news” and therefor, “know[s] whats going on in Israel…”

I’d be curious to know more of the no doubt highly generous, yet strangely invisible “offer[s] made by Israel to Arabs, in 1948″ and later on,
or how his assertion — “to the victor goes the spoils” — dovetails with the central core principle of UNSC 242 — namely — the inadmissibility of retaining territory captured during warfare…

We may also be forgiven for concluding that in Zhann’s search for “truth”, Israel is NOT — no way Jose — “notorious” for “shooting Rockets”
and, one just might add, hugely expensive, highly sophisticated, “precision-guided”, US-supplied “Hellfire” rockets,

— at densely crowded Palestinian civilian-refugee camps in the Gaza or the West Bank as a matter of pure routine over the last 10-15 years,

– or at densely packed hi-rise apartment blocks in west or south Beirut,

– or at civilian towns-villages across south, middle and east Lebanon,

– or at fleeing civilian-refugee convoys under UN or NGO “protection”,

– or at Red Crescent ambulances gathering up the dead and the dying,

– or at dirt poor, dehydrated old men, women and kids huddling in dank, airless school or hospital basements for days and nights until
– BOOOOOOM —
an Israeli missile “accidentally” delivers them prematurely into the hands of Allah — where they no doubt all belong anyhow… from a “truth-seeking” Nth Ay-murkan perspective,

– or at UN observation posts, who might just bear witness to some of the above mentioned indiscriminate, air-launched callous butchery, when they really shouldn’t be in a war-zone, compiling reports of what they’re seeing before their very own eyes that may tend to “sully Israel’s reputation”…

Oh no…
these “incidents” do not I’ll suggest even enter the equation in Zhann’s “middle of the road” search for the “truth”…

…and anyhow, there’ll always be a nice, clean cut, highly articulate English speaker in a Tel Aviv studio, ready and willing to appear on Zhann’s TV set to explain to him/her and to all other nice, clean-cut, rational, civilized Ay-murkans that such “incidents”
– didn’t really occur,
– or if they did, its because shit happens in a war zone,
– or because the “terrorists” are “hiding behind civilian populations”,
– or how there’ll be “a full inquiry” carried out by Israeli PR experts, which will shortly disappear into the hereafter — never to see the light of day again in any “truth-seeking” western media outlet…

… unlike a “notorious”, “Palestinian”, “child martyr” suicide bomb story, which we can all rest assured will run for days and days and days in the afore-mentioned “truth-seeking” outlets…!

“I may be a bit confused here,” says Zhann…
and that dear reader really says it all…

Grad rocket strikes crowded Ashkelon mall

14 May 2008

A Grad rocket smashed into a busy shopping mall in the coastal city of Ashkelon at 6 pm today, burying many shoppers under the rubble. Initial reports state that 31 people were wounded – five seriously, two moderately and the rest slightly

The aftermath at the Ashkelon mall, after being struck by a Grad missile launched by Hamas from Gaza (Photo: Edi Israel)

An Iranian-made Grad rocket launched from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip hit a medical clinic on the second floor of a busy shopping mall in central Ashkelon today (Wednesday, 14 May 2008). The attack occurred at approximately 6 pm Israel time.

Israel radio reported at 7 pm that the rocket wounded 31 people, many of them children. Five people were wounded seriously, including a mother and her two-year-old daughter who were in the clinic at the time of the attack. Two additional people were injured moderately and the rest slightly. Many of the injured are children. The rocket ripped through the roof of the mall, causing extensive damage and burying many shoppers under piles of rubble.

MDA paramedics reached the scene seconds after the mall was hit, and struggled to extract shoppers buried under the rubble. Ambulances rushed the wounded to nearby Barzilai Hospital, which was itself attacked about two months ago. An additional 62 people were treated for shock at the scene.

Physicians for Human Rights condemned the latest attack on civilians in Ashkelon. “PHR demands acknowledgement that punishing civilians or committing violent acts against them and against medical staffs or patient-care facilities reflects a deep violation of international law as well as basic human morality,” the organization said in a statement.

In the recent escalation of deadly rocket attacks from Gaza aimed at civilian population centers in southern Israel, 70-year-old Shuli Katz was killed on Monday in Moshav Yesha, and Jimmy Kedoshim was killed last Friday outside his home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza.

Two Palestinian terror groups, the Jabril Front and the Popular Resistance Committees, have claimed responsibility for the attack, which occurred while US President Bush and Prime Minister Olmert were meeting in Jerusalem. Later that evening, in his address at the Presidential Conference, PM Olmert mentioned “the dangers, the fears that so many Israelis have to face living in the State of Israel, in the south part of our country.”

…because they don’t have F-15s, they don’t have tanks, they don’t have guided missiles, they don’t have cluster bombs. yes, children were martyred — many more by the Apache helicopters and tanks, than by suicide bombing. yes, crowded areas and buildings full of civilians were obliterated — by the F-15s and tanks. yes, whole areas — orchards, homes, etc., were bulldozed, using Caterpillar equipment the palestinians don’t have.

yes’ they should have sat on their hands, after their country was STOLEN from them, in the name of some santa claus beliefs from a million years ago. their property was STOLEN. their people MASSACRED. (but the arabs should have accepted the done deed; the palestinians should have accepted the done deed, to the victor go the spoils. same nazi philosophy, but no, these are civilized people, these israelis, who STEAL, and PLUNDER and RAPE. they had their holocaust, and now they can do whatever the basest in them pleases to the others, all is forgiven by people like you).

Shame, shame, shame, eternal shame. and we support this. our politicians fall over themselves to go over there, pledge allegiance to israel before that to the us, and kiss israeli ass and lick israeli boots. and shit on these poor people, kick the helpless in the gut while they are lying down.

Eternal shame on us, for establishing this cancer in the first place and for maintaining it with our hard earned tax dollars. for our traitorous leaders who join in this inhumanity and who shit on our own long-term interests in all of this.

but you know what, justice will prevail in the end. do you think that israel will exist 1,000 years from now, when it’s surrounded by hatred, when it was conceived in hatred?

btw, speaking of Arundhati Roy it might be of interest to those who consider argumentation based on where they believe their ancestors lived 2,000 years ago as a valid line of reasoning to consider that she has a much stronger claim to real estate in the “Holy Land” based on unbroken lineage stretching back 18 centuries.

Here’s a question asked in a review of a recent biography of Mussolini:

What degree of continuity was there with the pre-Mussolini “Liberal Italy”?…Bosworth points out that Mussolini’s colonial atrocities in Ethiopia and Libya (where in Cyraneica he killed half the population) as well as his opportunistic entry into the Second World War was all too much in keeping with “Liberal” traditions.

Enzo Traverso also raised troubling questions about the relationship between “Liberal 19th-century Europe–the heartland of racism, imperialism and colonial war” and the regimes of upstarts like Mussolini and Hitler (who, in fact only came to power with the collusion of factions from the established ruling elites).

JJBoulas