The Middle East Conflict Thread

Garyvdh said:
So you acknowledge they never shelled that school? So the UN was lying in the first place? But not now? :confused:
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So there was a misunderstanding between Levinis cabinet and the UN.
Levini then said they hit the school because there were militants inside...

So Levini is the liar, shes been lying all along but we knew that already...
 
Xarog said:
But to put it into dumbspeak so you can get your foot out of your mouth : Trying to remove or disband Hamas without dealing with the Israeli Occupation is futile. Any attempts to address the existence of violent organisations within Palestinian society can only be done after Palestinian basic human rights are recognised and respected.
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Why?

Seriously, why?

There is a movie called Fireproof - it's a christian based movie about saving a marriage. But there are some lessons that could be taken from it.

Basically one side thinks that the other doesn't respect it and starts yelling. The other side thinks that the other side is too caught up in chasing its own goals to care about the marriage - so a divorce is looming. And then the movie is on about how the one side changes itself.

The first thing that people think about in a relationship issue is about getting counselling. And that that counselling can find some middle ground for both parties to want to do something.

Let's just say that that doesn't work, hasn't worked and probably never will.

The movie has a 40 day plan.

Day one - just for this day don't say anything negative. If something upsets you and you were about to complain, rather say nothing at all.
Day two - as before, don't say anthing negative and make some gesture.

And so it goes on.

Look, I know that it is a work of fiction and it has a happy ending but the parallels are amazing.

So, Hamas - go for a day without complaining about Israel. Then the next day don't complain and maybe publically destroy one of your missiles.

In the movie the guy gets to about day 20 and his wife tells him that she doesn't love him and she serves divorce papers. The guy's father tells him that this is when it gets hard - he needs to love unconditionally, even though he is being rejected.

Hamas may find that nothing changes in Israel's stance. But that shouldn't deter. Hamas should carry on. Because, ultimately, it is going to take an unconditional desire by one of the sides to find a way to live together.

In the end the guy's wife finds the book that has the 40 day plan and she asks him what day he is on and he says day 43. He chose to carry on. He found that he was able to change and that being 'right' wasn't as important as looking after his family. Hamas may need to do some serious soul searching and maybe being right about the terrible things that Israel is doing to the people, isn't as important as finding a way for their people to have peace.

Sorry, this may be naieve. But why can't Hamas try this?

I know that the counter could be, well, why doesn't Israel do it? I am afraid the answer may be that we need an asymetrical solution, just as we asymetrical warfare being the'solution' on the ground at the moment.

I'll PM my address to the Nobel Committee so they know where to send the Peace Prize. ;)
 
Hamas Kiddie-TV Puppet Bear wants to Kill Jews Too

Hamas Kiddie-TV Puppet Bear wants to Kill Jews Too

(IsraelNN.com) After having three puppet hosts -- Farfur the Mickey Mouse look-alike, Nahoul the bee and Assoud the rabbit -- all die on TV, Hamas children's television has introduced a fourth puppet host. The new one, a bear named Nassur, appeared Friday on Hamas TV promising to be a Jihad fighter, and declaring war on the Zionists.

Nassur: "I will join the ranks of the Izz A-Din Al-Qassam [Hamas'] Brigades. I will be a Jihad fighter with them and I will carry a rifle. Do you know why, Saraa?"

Saraa: "Why?"

Nassur: "To defend the children of Palestine, the children who were killed, the children who were wounded, the orphaned children. That's why, from this moment, I declare war on the criminal Zionists. Not only me, me and you. You are ready, right, Saraa?"

Saraa: "We are all ready to sacrifice ourselves for our homeland!"

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/129960

video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ0npNbHwUg
 
And people wonder why this goes on and on and on..

Israel 'prepares to expand'
16/02/2009 14:05 - (SA)

Jerusalem - Israel has taken control of 172 hectares of West Bank land, paving the way for the possible construction of 2 500 settlement homes, officials said on Monday.

Successive Israeli governments have broken promises to the US to halt settlement expansion, defined by Washington as an obstacle to peace. Ongoing expansion is likely to create particular friction with President Barack Obama, whose Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, has pushed for a settlement freeze. Obama has said he'd get involved quickly in Mideast peace efforts.

The composition of Israel's next government is not clear yet following inconclusive elections last week. However, right-wing parties are given a better chance to form a ruling coalition, with hardline leader Benjamin Netanyahu at the helm.

Netanyahu supports settlement expansion and has derided peace talks with the Palestinians as a waste of time, saying he would focus instead of trying to improve the Palestinian economy.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has dismissed Netanyahu's approach as a non-starter, and his aides said recently that peace talks can only resume after a settlement freeze.

At the centre of the latest expansion plans is Efrat, a settlement of about 1 600 families south of Jerusalem.

The mayor of Efrat, Oded Revivi, said the Civil Administration - the branch of the Israeli military dealing with West Bank land use - designated 172 hectares near Efrat as so-called state land two weeks ago at the end of a lengthy appeals process. He said nine appeals were filed by Palestinian landowners, adding that eight were rejected and one upheld.

Revivi said Efrat plans to build 2 500 homes on that land, but that several steps of government approval would still be needed before construction can begin. Eventually, Efrat is to grow to a city of 30 000 people, he said.

Sporadic violence continues

Nearly 290 000 Israelis live in West Bank settlements today, or 95 000 more than in May 2001 when Mitchell first called for a settlement freeze. At the time, he led a fact-finding mission to Israel and the Palestinian territories to find a way to end months of violence and resume peace talks.

Mitchell called on the Palestinians to halt attacks on Israelis, and demanded that Israel halt construction in settlements.

In other developments on Monday, Palestinian rockets exploded in southern Israel and Israeli jets bombed the Egypt-Gaza border, as talks dragged on over a long-term truce that would bring quiet to the coastal territory.

Israel has been battling Gaza's Hamas rulers, while simultaneously pursuing a peace agreement with Abbas's rival government in the West Bank.

In Monday's violence, two rockets fired from Gaza landed in Israel, the Israeli military said, a near-daily occurrence even after the devastating three-week Israeli offensive that was meant to bring a halt to the fire. No one was injured, the military said.

Several hours later, Israeli jets bombed an area of smuggling tunnels in the frontier town of Rafah, according residents and Hamas security officials. Israel's military said the strike targeted a tunnel used to smuggle weapons in from Egypt and was retaliation for the rocket fire.

Israel ended its military offensive in Gaza on January 18, and the territory's Islamic Hamas rulers declared a ceasefire the same day. But sporadic violence has continued as Egypt tries to mediate a long-term truce.

Hamas is demanding that Israel open Gaza's blockaded border crossings, but Israel says it will fully open the crossings only after Hamas releases Sgt Gilad Schalit, an Israeli tank crewman held by the group since June 2006.

Hamas wants Israel to release hundreds of prisoners in return for Schalit, including high-ranking militants and the masterminds of deadly suicide bombings.

Israel's top leadership is scheduled to meet this week to formulate a response to Hamas's demands.

- AP
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I'd love to see the US call Israel on these breaches.. if they 'fair' handed.. but i doubt they ever will. Just another day of the usual stuff :rolleyes:
 
krycor said:
I'd love to see the US call Israel on these breaches.. if they 'fair' handed.. but i doubt they ever will. Just another day of the usual stuff :rolleyes:
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This is no surprise, the right wing have won these elections, remember that Likud does not recognize Palestine or the west bank as Palestinian land.
 
Okay, this just sounds idiotic. The analogy I have is of someone putting up a town house complex in the middle of Alex without expecting the (town house) residents to be ripped off.

Who would want to live there?

Here are the keys to your new house and BTW, the bomb shelter is just down the road, you can do 100m in less that 10 seconds can't you? You can't? Didn't they tell you?

I'm telling you, too much sun fries the brain. Or it's chickpeas.
 
Clerics urge new jihad over Gaza

Clerics urge new jihad over Gaza

At a weekend meeting in Istanbul, 200 religious scholars and clerics met senior Hamas officials to plot a new jihad centred on Gaza.

The BBC's Bill Law was the only Western journalist at the meeting.

In a hall crowded with conservative Sunni Muslim sheikhs and scholars, in a hotel close to Istanbul's Ataturk Airport speaker after speaker called for jihad against Israel in support of Hamas.

The choice of Turkey was significant. Arab hardliners were keen to put aside historic differences with the Turks.

As one organiser put it: "During the past 100 years relations have been strained but Palestine has brought us together."

Many delegates spoke appreciatively of the protest by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who stormed out of a Davos debate on Gaza two weeks ago.

The conference, dubbed the Global Anti-Aggression Campaign, also gave impetus to Sunni clerics concerned about the growing power of Hezbollah, the Shia movement backed by Iran, which rose to international prominence in its own war with Israel in 2006.

"Gaza is a gift," the Saudi religious scholar Mohsen al-Awajy told me. He and other delegates repeatedly referred to the Gaza war as "a victory".

"Gaza," he continued, "gives us power, it solves our differences. We are all now in a unified front against Zionism."

In closed meetings after sessions delegates focussed on the creation of a "third Jihadist front" - the first two being Afghanistan and Iraq. The intensity of the Israeli attack had "awakened all Muslims," Mr Awajy claimed.

"Palestine is a legitimate theatre of operations for jihad (holy war)," he added.

Road to liberation

Mohammed Nazzal, a senior Hamas leader based in Damascus, challenged Arab governments to "open their borders and allow the fighters to come."

Delegates from all over the Middle East, and from Somalia, Sudan, Pakistan and Indonesia applauded as he stabbed the air with a raised finger and declared: "There will be no agreement with Israel... only weapons will bring respect."

Mr Nazzal told his audience: "Don't worry about casualties."

The 23 days of bombardment of Gaza, in which some 1,300 people, many of them civilians and nearly 300 of them children, are believed to have died, was "just the beginning" of the struggle, Mr Nazzal said.

To laughter in the audience, another speaker noted that twice as many babies were born as children were killed during the war.

Every death, I was told, was a martyrdom on the road to liberation.

For the hardline sheikhs, it was an opportunity to underline what they see as the growing gulf between Arab regimes who are hesitant to back Hamas and the people of the region who, they say, embrace Hamas as heroes fighting against overwhelming odds.

More importantly, this conference represented something of a coup for Hamas. They were promised weapons, money and fighters.

The question remains whether such rhetoric can or will be translated into action. Israel keeps a tight blockade on the Gaza Strip, where Hamas exercises de facto control, and Israel's other borders are also heavily guarded.

But at the very least this statement of intent from Sunni hardliners poses new challenges, not just to the Israelis and to Western efforts to broker a peace deal but to Arab regimes as well.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7895485.stm
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Here comes some more trouble
 
R/SGT said:
Here comes some more trouble
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No, here comes more trouble...
Binyamin Netanyahu to be Israel's next Prime Minister

Israel was today poised for its most right-wing government in decades after Binyamin Netanyahu was asked to be the country's next Prime Minister.
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This is his party...
Likud charter
The 1999 Likud charter emphasized the right of settlement in "Judea (and) Samaria" (more commonly known as the "West Bank") and Gaza,"[3] and as such, brings it into direct conflict with Palestinian claims on the same territory. Similarly, their claims of the Jordan river as the permanent eastern border to Israel and Jerusalem as "the eternal, united capital of the State of Israel and only of Israel," do the same.

The 'Peace & Security' chapter of the 1999 Likud Party platform “flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river.” The chapter continued: “The Palestinians can run their lives freely in the framework of self-rule, but not as an independent and sovereign state.”
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And don't forget...
To that, Olmert replied, "Netanyahu has gone back to being the same old Netanyahu," and accused him of directly contributing to strengthening the Hamas movement by releasing the movement's founder, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, during his term as prime minister.
"Netanyahu established Hamas, gave it life, freed Sheikh Yassin and gave him the opportunity to blossom," he said, adding that the current political situation in the Palestinian Authority came about "because of the nonsense that was done while Netanyahu was prime minister."
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Recieved this mail...

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

Rule #1: In the Middle East, it is always the Palestinians that attack
first, and it's always Israel who defends itself. This is called
"retaliation" .

Rule #2: The Palestinians are not allowed to kill Israelis. This is called
"terrorism".

Rule #3: Israel has the right to kill Palestinian civilians; this is called
"self-defense" , or "collateral damage".

Rule #4: When Israel kills too many Palestinian civilians, the Western
world calls for restraint. This is called the "reaction of the international
community".

Rule #5: Palestinians do not have the right to capture Israeli military,
not even 1 or 2.

Rule #6: Israel has the right to capture as many Palestinians as they want
(around 10,000 to date being held without trial). There is no limit; there
is no need for proof of guilt or trial. All that is needed is the magic
word: "terrorism".

Rule #7: When you say "Hamas", always be sure to add "supported by
Hezbollah, Syria and Iran".

Rule #8: When you say "Israel", never say "supported by the USA, the UK,
European countries and even some Arab regimes", for people (God forbid)
might believe this is not an equal conflict.

Rule #9: When it comes to Israel, don't mention the words "occupied territories" , "UN resolutions" , "Geneva conventions" . This could
distress the audience of Fox, CNN, etc.

Rule #10: Israelis speak better English than Arabs. This is why we let them
speak out as much as possible, so that they can explain rules 1 through
9.This is called "neutral journalism".

Rule #11: If you don't agree with these rules or if you favor the
Palestinian side over the Israeli side, you must be a very dangerous
anti-Semite. You may even have to make a public apology if you express your
honest opinion

(Isn't democracy wonderful?)

#12. The opinions of Arabs come from "The Arab Street" or terrorists. The opinions of Zionists come from Jewish civilians, Israeli officials, or Middle East experts.

# 13 Repeat the term "democracy" in reference to Israel, making sure to include the phrase, "the only democracy in the Middle East"; avoid the term "elections" or "elected official" and above all "democracy" in reference to Palestine or Hamas.

#14. To explain Israel, try to liken Israelis to Americans, as for example through inconceivable scenarios like, "Imagine if Canada bombed the U.S...." Never draw analogies between Palestinians and Americans or non-Arabs or humans in general, even hypothetically.

# 15. Avoid mentioning U.S. tax-dollar financial aid to Israel, and where you must do so, do not spell out the amount -- whether absolute (the total dollars) or relative (dollars per Israeli citizen) or accumulative (all the aid provided over decades). Never compare US aid to Israel with aid to other countries, funding for international causes like AIDS, or funding for domestic US expenditures like education.

# 16 Program coordinators, please note: A panel of all Zionists can be considered representative of the issues. A panel of all Arabs or Arab-defenders is the stuff of terrorist media like Al-Jazeera: radical, antisemitic, anti-Western, and propaganda. A half-half panel should be considered biased toward Palestine.

#17. Remember grammar! The verb "Recognize" ( or auxiliary in "Must Recognize") is used only with the subjects Palestine/Hamas/ Arab countries, not with the subject Israel. The noun-phrase "right to exist," meanwhile, can be modified only by the possessive "Israel's." Any predicate like "recognize Palestine's right to exist" is jibberish.
 
Something I don't get is how arrogant the Israeli's are getting.. check press releases and you find that they openly state that they will do as they please because they believe they are 'right' irrespective of what the world, world law etc says.

Will post an interview with the Jerusalem Mayor and you will see what i mean. To think that Israeli's are goody two shoes is complete and utter bull. They are no worse than the 'terrorists'. ['' because the definition between terrorist and freedom fight/occupation resister now is the same due to Bush]
 
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