the media loves depicting us as the bad guys, and the Palestinians as the oppressed underdogs.
Uhh... What media? Certainly not US media, lol.
Anyway, to be honest, the more research I do, the more I'm convinced Israel shouldn't even be there. All this talk about rockets, but Palestinian casualties are several times that of Israeli casualties to date. The IDF repeatedly kills nonviolent protesters. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been forced out of their homes.
I love when people quote the ratios. It's like the world forgot what war was. Yes don't kid yourself this is a war. A very long and drawn out war with fuzzy lines and shady players. So if the kill death ratio was closer together you would feel much better right? Next time I am being shot at by 20 terrorists and I happen to have 1st class military training and 1st class support at my disposal I will be sure to try and miss them all and let them hit my compatriots first before I actually try and hit them. Wouldn't want to tip the scales there would we. Very nice how they conveniently don't point out how many of those deaths were armed terrorists/militants/peace activists gone berserk.
What are the Iraqi or Afghani to Coalition forces kill/death ratio? Next time I see them I will ask them to die cause you are getting a bit worried about the ratio and they seem to be surviving better than the terrorists they are hunting.
They have a K/D ratio of (this is figuring the LOWER estimates of Iraqi casualties) 4,500 – 90,000. That's a very nice 20 to 1 ratio. The Israeli Palestinian ratio is 6 to 1. I suppose in WWII the Allies won by keeping the K/D ration closer to an acceptable 2 to 1 right?
Funny how people just like to take war out of their vocabulary when it comes to Israel. They are after all just monsters so who cares right? They bath nightly in the blood of the innocent and invoke the name of Lucifer to keep them safe right? (Every jew has 666 tattooed on their left butt cheek but shhh don't tell anyone.)
Meanwhile Israeli settlers continue to build illegal outposts all over the place, and then destroy Palestinian homes, crops, et cetera.
All over a claim that a god gave them the land?
Maybe the American Indians should rise up and take the land a god gave them. After all, they have ancestral rights to it!
Now we are getting somewhere. The legality of the settlements is messed up since all that land was gained in a defensive war (something that hasn't really happened much) The rules for land gained in an offensive war should have applied. But nevertheless, me and Sandwich will disagree (I think), It was ruled illegal. Fine I think all the settlements should be pulled back as much as possible (I'm sorry but huge cities like Gilo and Ma'le Adumim aren't going to dissapear... ever.) and the Palestinians should be given a state where they can control their own people their own water their own electricity their own food their own fanatics and when they show their true colors it will be an act of war by one sovereign nation on another... You can imagine the rest.
Personally, I'm getting sick to death of Israel being a mob of pricks and getting away with it. Just in the last few years they've invaded Lebanon,
Ooooh nice context. Invaded Lebanon after Hizbullah attacked and killed several soldiers and kidnapped the other who were returned in pieces. But you go right ahead to their families and tell them they had no right to react and they should have just accepted it.
attacked in Gaza with illegal weapons,
Attacked Gaza after how many rockets over how many years? Oh I'm sorry I didn't see you there with fingers in ears screaming LALALALALALALA. White phosphorus rounds are not illegible and are used by every western army in the world. If Israel wanted casualties with those phosphorus rounds you would have had hundreds of burn victims instead of a couple unfortunate souls caught in the crossfire. But then that begs the question what were those people doing in those areas? It had nothing to do with the fact the the leaflets and phone calls and sms text warnings were used by Hamas to assemble the residents in those areas so that the attack would cause civilian casualties. Nope it also had nothing to do with the fact that many of those people were held at gun point. Had nothing to do with the fact that if they didn't help Hamas would slaughter their family and if they did help and were killed their family would receive money from Iran (just like Saddam was doing back when he was still kicking).
blockaded Gaza causing massive poverty and economic hardship,
Blockaded Gaza causing Olympic sized swimming pools and 5 star restaurant/clubs to open. And it had nothing to do with the prevention of weapons and materials to a group that is accepted the world over as a terrorist organization. And they cut off all supplies right? No medical, food, water, electricity, gas supplies allowed in right? There are reports of thousands of people dying of starvation and diseases caused by poverty and lack of any civilized treatment right?
used Australian and other international passports to commit international murder
Oh I didn't realize they had found out that it was the Mossad. Funny.
and now killed 10 people in international waters.
10 “peace activists” who didn't try and beat and stab to death commandos. You expected the reaction to be... the soldier down on the ground getting beat senseless one metal rod after another finally finds the strength to pull out his... sternly written letter telling them how angry he is with them.
North Korea han't killed anywhere near as many people as the Israelis in the last decade, and yet they have huge sanctions while Israel gets treated as a civilized, responsible member of the international community. And they're not, not by a long shot.
good luck.
Huh... looked at the linked documents, and a lot if it is straight from the horse's mouth--The IDF. Other linked sources appear to be fallacious extrapolations intended for political purposes. In short, this evidence is (to me) unacceptable.
Well what sources provided the evidence that caused you to reach your own conclusions? Please share them. I want to know where the line of legitimate and not legitimate news reporting is with you. (by the way I noticed throughout your post that you are careful to say “to me” and “personally” I think that is important and I appreciate how you have presented your views not many people care enough to make that distinction anymore.)
Personally, it looks like some of those videos are staged--the 'preparing for attack' video shows waves at the point where hostilities begin, when in all other footage of the skirmish show the surrounds of the ship to be pitch black. I also question the 'stun grenade' that was thrown at the IDF soldiers. If I recall correctly, the stun grenade (aka flashbang) is supposed to be insanely loud and insanely bright. The camera had a direct view of the device, but was not blinded. I'm not an expert, but let me just say, I'm not convinced.
I'm not sure which videos you are referencing could you link to the different ones?
Can someone shed light on what kind of firefighting equipment civilian ships are equipped with? It doesn't make sense to see activists using what look like garden hoses when they might have something much more powerful at their disposal.
Where do you see garden hoses? I see metal rods.
I'm willing to accept new evidence and am not in particular favor of any one side, but currently I am more suspicious of Israel due to it's refusal to allow an international investigation, it's seizure of all communications and media equipment during the raid, and reported abuse of prisoners after the raid. It seems as if it has something to hide, and/or something it's trying to find.
Ah the media, the greatest weapon at their disposal. Win the media and you win world opinion no matter what the facts are. We may never know if they did or did not confiscate those tapes. It could very well be that they did or just as likely/unlikely it could be that the news crews won't release it because it corroborates the Israeli account. These are news crews most of whom got this gig because they take an interest in the topic and are usually quite decided on their views consequently most of the news crews at this level, including the ones representing big news, are generally locals from whatever country that news is from. So it's not CNN but the Turkish reporter of CNN in Turkey. And as much as we would like to think they always put their nationality and views aside to get the facts and show the truth we all know that is not true all the time for any side. There is no way of knowing. So far however there have been several videos released that were not at all taken by any IDF or Israeli source so...
The whole thing is fubar.
Israel does have a right to defend herself, but not to murder innocent people trying to prevent an illegal blockade.
Innocent? These people were stabbing and beating soldiers to death. There was nothing innocent here. And as infuriating as it is for you to accept the blockade is very much a legal thing.
Today they captured ANOTHER ship. The Irish-owned MV Rachel Corrie. At least this was peaceful and nobody (from what i know so far) was hurt.
Well they took one of our ships, maybe I should take their embassy in Dublin. 
I have also just heard according to couple of news channels (still to be confirmed) that the Turkish PM is to travel on the next aid convoy WITH a Turkish military escort. Interesting.....
That would be very interesting. Any idea when?
[Edit] Actually, on re-re-reading my first post, I can see how he might have understood one of the sentences differently than I intended. I was a bit ambiguous in the phrasing. So I guess it may be an honest misunderstanding. At any rate, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on that.
I apologize if I misunderstood your intent. I sincerely don't look for more people to disagree with. It was unintentional.
But Israel is not exactly making it easy for them. They're being kept in a state of perpetual poverty and starvation as the blockade allows far less supplies to pass than is actually needed for any kind of decent life. And under those circumstances, expecting them to clean up their game is rather optimistic. Israel is making much the same mistake that the US did with post-war Iraq and in Afghanistan, albeit on a smaller scale - You're making people's life miserable instead of improving it, and at the same time expecting them to stand up to the only group that seems to be trying to help them... in this case, Hamas.
The only poverty and starvation are being caused by Hamas while they may go hungry Israel sends plenty of food and supplies but Like I mentioned before Hamas steals their supplies both for the gain of Hamas with more money and food and also to create this notion that Israel is starving the people. Hamas just happens to have enough money for huge swimming pools and fancy restaurants and clubs. Abuse on every level has been a complaint by the Palestinian people many times from stealing food to stealing supplies to stealing children to use for shields to murdering those that don't lend support or complain about the stealing.
Sandwich makes it sound liek most of the violence is directed at Israelis, but it probably isn't. Wikipedia has casualty numbers all the way back to 1987. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli%E2%80%93Palestinian_conflict#Casualties
Also, Sandiwch said something about IDF bulldozing illegal housing, and some of it happens to be Palestinian? As far as I'm aware, there's really aren't Palestinians building houses in Israeli-controlled areas, just Israelis building homes in Palestine in order to steal the land. But then again, all of Palestine apparently belongs to Israel. If I was Palestinian, I'd be launching rockets too. Israel has them all caged up like pet dogs and then goes on about how it's soooo good to them by feeding them, when the reason they need feeding in the first place is that Israel is keeping them from fishing, growing crops, etc.
The reason they need feeding in the first place is because of farming and living and letting live they chose the path of blood. They demanded war and sought violence they took to the streets blowing people up shooting at people driving by launching rockets and using what precious little they had to fund a flailing terror machine and then complain about the punishments. Yes many of them are caught in the middle but all they can do is blame Israel and yell for Israels destruction or get beaten and murdered by the local branch of terrorists. They are hostages to the monster they facilitated.
