Palestine (1 Viewer)

[Milker]

That's Israel's "Samson plan", isn't it? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson_Option

sweet jesus

 

[Janer]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7803305.stm

'The biggest problem is lack of blood, but we also lack medication and equipment because of one-and-a- half years of blockades by Israel. We lose so many patients simply because of shortages.'

 

[Unicron]

The Israelis are not interested in accommodating the indigenous people in the area. They're interested in securing and settling on the land they do have, and also the fertile and strategically important areas of the West Bank. The people who live there are as important to the Israelis as the Australian aborigines were to European settlers 200 years ago i.e. a nuisance on "their" land.

It's not like the jews suddenly showed up in '47.

 

[Janer]

Most of them did though.






























and yes I know what you referring too.

 

[the strange guy]

People here act as if the UN stepped into the sovereign
Palestinian state in 1948, told the Palestinian government that its
services wouldn't be needed anymore, claimed the entire region for
the new state of Israel and parachuted a load of Jews into Jerusalem.
Palestine has never really existed, not as an official state run by
'indigenous' Palestinians. I'm not trying to argue that Palestine should
not exist, far from it, but people should get their facts straight when
they talk about Jews stealing land. The Jews had been officially
returning to the region from the late 19th century; they didn't
magically appear in '48 waving flags and stealing farms.

 

[Janer]

People here act as if the UN stepped into the sovereign
Palestinian state in 1948, told the Palestinian government that its
services wouldn't be needed anymore, claimed the entire region for
the new state of Israel and parachuted a load of Jews into Jerusalem.
Palestine has never really existed, not as an official state run by
'indigenous' Palestinians. I'm not trying to argue that Palestine should
not exist, far from it, but people should get their facts straight when
they talk about Jews stealing land. The Jews had been officially
returning to the region from the late 19th century; they didn't
magically appear in '48 waving flags and stealing farms.

You not see my wee small line in my last reply?

Anyway final post on this as I'm going out!

If you read diff websites from Arabs/Jews and even the experts its inconclusive who actually was 1st or what year bla bla, hence the quaqmire of today!
and the 19th century thing...or how should I put it, its like politicians in any walk of life, they pick the juciest bits to tell you but omit other bits....

I think a lot of people refer to the annexation of lands since '67 as most people know it will never go back to the 47/48 borders, in all honesty it'll take some effort to get back to the pre '67 borders!!
I do think Golan will be given back sometime in the future though, if Obama was clever and he showed overtures to the Syrians they could easily do a Libya and in the Wests eyes come in from the cold, Assad yearns for recognition as a important player for the region.
This is what Iran fears.
Tis so easy to join the dots from a computer though eh..

 

[robitusson]

The fact is the West Bank and East Jerusalem are being illegally occupied and colonised now. They're stealing farms and waving flags there today. Never mind what did or didn't supposedly happen 60 years ago. This is the crux of the current injustice and what the violence were seeing now leads back to.

Israel bangs on about its right to exist being challenged, as if this is actually a real danger. The people in the West Bank and Gaza strip are the ones who have to worry about whether their state will ever exist in any shape or form.

 

[hugh]

People here act as if the UN stepped into the sovereign
Palestinian state in 1948, told the Palestinian government that its
services wouldn't be needed anymore, claimed the entire region for
the new state of Israel and parachuted a load of Jews into Jerusalem.
Palestine has never really existed, not as an official state run by
'indigenous' Palestinians. I'm not trying to argue that Palestine should
not exist, far from it, but people should get their facts straight when
they talk about Jews stealing land. The Jews had been officially
returning to the region from the late 19th century; they didn't
magically appear in '48 waving flags and stealing farms.

This is all true and I also agree with the notion that many jews have as much right to be regarded as "indigenous" to the region as Palestinian arabs. But I have a serious problem with the idea of, for example, Russian jews with at best tenuous ancesteral connections to the land being parachuted in and welcomed with open arms as citizens of Israel while Palestinian arabs are living in squalid refugee camps 50 miles across a border and refused access to the houses and farms that they themselves used to own.

The thing is though, a war was fought over what the definition/composition of Palestine would be (and by war I mean in both the military and propaganda sense). This war really started in the late 19th century and reached it's climax in 1948. Israel decisively won that war and then consolidated their victory in 1967. Everything that has happened since then is a long drawn out negotiation (usually by means of violence) on the terms of Palestinian surrender.

If only Israel had been slightly more gracious in it's treatment of those it vanquished then maybe there would not be this mess now. If only they had allowed the Palestinians a viable future and not pursued this insane idea of a greater Israel via the settlement construction we might have an actual Palestinian state by now. It would still be unjust but it might be liveable and workable.

I really don't see any way out of this crap now.

 

[robitusson]

There is no way out of it at the moment.

With American/ Israeli support consolidated, an unbeatable Israeli military, no one in the region that the Israelis will make themselves accountable to, a fanatical supremacist streak in the Israeli psyche, and effectively deserted by the Arab world, all the Palestinians can do is try to live in squalor with some kind of meaning and hope they get some scraps off the Israeli table.

Unfortunately Israel is right when it says that the Palestinian leaders must be compliant. They can suffer either slowly, with less violence, through abject poverty and humiliation, or quickly, through the kind of current violence going on now, if they don't accept their lot unconditionally.

 

[Janer]

Last 3 posts have being superb points put across excellently.

 

[Cryptid]

Last 3 posts have being superb points put across excellently.

Agreed.

What about making the Gaza strip a French protectorate or summat like that? Maybe an EU protectorate? Though Dana, Concerned Parents Against Change, the Electorate and the Irish Daily Mail would flip the lid about that.

 

[the strange guy]

Though Dana, Concerned Parents Against Change, the Electorate and the Irish Daily Mail would flip the lid about that.

Dana International is fine with it.

 

[Cryptid]

This is the latest from the beeb.

Page last updated at 20:03 GMT, Friday, 2 January 2009
E-mail this to a friend Printable version
Gaza facing 'critical emergency'

The UN an estimates that at least 2,000 Palestinians have been wounded

The UN has warned that Palestinians in Gaza are facing a serious health and food crisis, as Israeli air strikes continued for a seventh day.
The "critical emergency" comes despite an increase in humanitarian shipments, said Maxwell Gaylard, the UN's chief aid co-ordinator for the territory.
The UN believes that at least 100 of some 400 Palestinians killed by Israeli action so far were civilians.
Israel said Gazans were continuing to receive sufficient food and medicines.
In a statement, the Israeli foreign ministry said that since the beginning of the campaign, 335 truckloads of humanitarian aid (7,800 tonnes) had been delivered into Gaza.
It said it was working with international organisations in Gaza as well as various governments "in order to assess the humanitarian needs... and make the necessary response".

Map: Gaza and Israel violence
Aid worker diary: Part five
Gaza voices: Family fears

All reports indicate that there are sufficient medicine and food in Gaza, the statement read. The UN's Maxwell Gaylard said: "It is true supplies have been going into the Strip, in fact possibly more than in previous weeks, but at the same time there are critical gaps."
A leading international charity, Oxfam, which has a programme in Gaza, warned the situation "is getting worse by the day", with clean water, fuel and food in short supply.
It said hospitals were overwhelmed with casualties, and reported that raw sewage was pouring into the streets in some areas.
Israel tightened its control of what gets in and out of the crowded coastal Strip after Hamas, the elected power, seized control of the area from rival Fatah forces 18 months ago.
Since then the UN says there has been a significant deterioration in infrastructure and basic services, with 80% of the 1.4m population unable to support themselves.
'Tacit backing'
Five Palestinians, including three children, have been killed in the latest Israeli air attacks. The Israel Defense Forces have attacked more than 500 Hamas targets in Gaza since the campaign began.

ROCKET ATTACKS FROM GAZA
Since the start of Israel's operations in Gaza, Israeli sources say Palestinian militants have fired the following:

27 December 2008: 61 rockets, 33 mortar shells
28 December: 14 rockets, 16 mortar shells
29 December: 57 rockets, 15 mortar shells
30 December: 42 rockets, 6 mortar shells
31 December: 43 rockets, 25 mortar shells

Source: Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, Israel
To date, some 2,000 Palestinians have been wounded, according to the UN.
Palestinian militants continued to fire on Israel, launching more than 60 missiles in 24 hours. Four people were injured in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon.
Four Israelis have died in the rocket attacks Israel is trying to prevent.
Hamas leader-in-exile Khaled Meshaal said Israel faced a "black destiny" if it launched a ground offensive.
In a pre-recorded statement broadcast on al-Jazeera television, he said Israelis would be making a "stupid mistake", adding that Hamas resistance and infrastructure were intact.
"We will not break, we will not surrender or give in to your conditions," Mr Meshaal said in Syria.
'Sustainable' ceasefire
The US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, called for a "durable and sustainable" ceasefire - one which should "not allow a re-establishment of the status quo ante, where Hamas can continue to launch rockets out of Gaza".
The BBC's Kim Ghattas in Washington says it is unclear what Ms Rice means by "sustainable ceasefire" or how it can be attained.
But it is a position that is widely interpreted as tacit backing by Washington for Israel to continue its military operation and try to weaken Hamas as much as possible, our correspondent says.
Meanwhile, thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank joined demonstrations on Friday after a call from Hamas for a "day of wrath" against the Israeli attacks on Gaza.
Correspondents say protesters were directing their anger not just at Israel but at Arab governments and their own leaders for their failure to stop the offensive.
Huge crowds gathered in Ramallah, while in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem, youths threw stones at security forces, who fired tear gas.

Advertisement

Palestinian youths clash with Israeli security forces in East Jerusalem

Demonstrations were also held across the Middle East and in several Asian countries, as well as in Australia and Kenya.
The protests were called after an Israeli air strike hit the home of Nizar Rayan, a firebrand leader of Hamas who refused to go into hiding, killing him and members of his family.
In a separate development, about 100 foreign passport holders - mainly women married to Palestinians, and their children - were allowed by Israel to leave Gaza. Correspondents say it is being seen as a possible last move before Israeli tanks roll in.
BBC Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen says a week of bombardment has not been able stop the rocket fire, and Israel now has to decide whether to send in ground troops.
Israel is refusing to let international journalists into Gaza, despite a Supreme Court ruling to allow a limited number of reporters to enter the territory.

Not sure how many Israeli are starving, lacking medicine, sanitation etc. Must be really bad if the Israelis aren't letting the journalists in.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7808825.stm

 

[Raudi Raus Schinkel]

Ground offensive starts
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSLS69391620090103

 

[pete]

Israel released video of an air attack on 28 December, which appeared to show rockets being loaded onto a truck. The truck and those close to it were then destroyed by a missile.

This was clear evidence, the Israelis said, of how accurate their strikes were and how well justified. A special unit it has set up to coordinate its informational plan put the video onto YouTube as part of its effort to use modern means of communications to get Israel's case across. The YouTube video has a large caption on it saying "Grad missiles being loaded onto the Hamas vehicle." As of Saturday morning UK time, more than 260,000 people had watched it.



It turned out, however, that a 55-year-old Gaza resident named Ahmed Sanur, or Samur, claimed that the truck was his and that he and members of his family and his workers were moving oxygen cylinders from his workshop.



This workshop had been damaged when a building next door was bombed by the Israelis and he was afraid of looters, he said.
The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem put Mr Sanur's account on its website, together with a photograph of burned out oxygen cylinders.
Mr Sanur said that eight people, one of them his son, had been killed. He subsequently told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz: "These were not Hamas, they were our children... They were not Grad missiles.".



The Israeli response was that the "materiel" was being taken from a site that had stored weapons.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7809371.stm

 

[mr pharmacist!!!!1]

Dana International is fine with it.

shithorn

 

[Blackenedflag]

Kids dressed up in military gear. Sure to send the right message.

 

[plug]

witnessed the pleasant sight in cork today of about 15 teenage scobes standing in the middle of patrick street in front of the protest and throwing stuff at the marchers, and I think a bit of racial abuse too. not a cop in sight all the way up and down the street at two in the afternoon. on the main street in cork. on a saturday. in the middle of the day. during a protest march. unfuckingbelievable.

 

[Cryptid]

Kids dressed up in military gear. Sure to send the right message.

Kids starving, that sends the right message too? Also, it's symbolic?

 

[Goff]

Dana International is fine with it.

I would. Has a fanny, yeah?