[Flipside]

I don't think this is about any kind of ongoing 'score' to be honest, at least, not in that respect. The score that needs settling is much, much larger, and needs to involve far more than Israel and Palestine, it's easy to think of it as an ongoing, but localised annoyance in the world, but the roots, and most likely the solution to this problem both required international effort.

[karajorma]

Funny you should mention that, I was just bored enough to look, and the result was surprising...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaffa_orange

I think we've unearthed the conspiracy...  

The Jaffa orange, also known as the Shamouti orange, is a very sweet, almost seedless orange variety. Originally developed by Arab farmers in Palestine in the mid-19th century, it takes its name from the city of Jaffa where it was first produced for export.[1][2] Since the establishment of Israel in 1948, it has been grown and exported by Israeli producers.

Yeah, I knew of the connection when I posted. The only question is whether they use actual Israeli oranges or not cause they are grown over the border in Lebanon and Syria too IIRC.

[iamzack]

When said civvie uses that gun or any other weapon, they become a combatant.

Which means when Israeli civilians kill or maim Palestinian civilians, they are actually Israeli combatants, right? And, as we've learned from Iraq and Palestine, you can't tell a civilian from a combatant. Since the US and Israel both use that as an excuse to kill thousands of civilians, I guess Palestinians can use the same excuse against Israelis.

[Turambar]

I think subconsciously America wants Israel to be successful because of all those horrifying parallels.

Start things off with terrorism against the British?  Check.
Displace/kill natives?  Check.
Move remaining natives into the ****tiest parts of the country?  Check.
Aggressively expand into populated areas while using misleading words like "settle"?  Check.

The real question is:  Is this bull**** ok today?  The answer should be no, but things tend to be trending towards Might and Money make Right.

[Scotty]

When said civvie uses that gun or any other weapon, they become a combatant.

Which means when Israeli civilians kill or maim Palestinian civilians, they are actually Israeli combatants, right? And, as we've learned from Iraq and Palestine, you can't tell a civilian from a combatant. Since the US and Israel both use that as an excuse to kill thousands of civilians, I guess Palestinians can use the same excuse against Israelis.

Did you seriously just advocate escalation?

[Flipside]

I don't think iamzack is advocating escalation, she is saying that countries need to be very careful when they start playing word games with the definition of 'Combatant', much like Judge Scalia did with torture, because by opening the door to justifying that kind of action means they are also opening the door to making such actions against their own people justifiable.

No country signed the Human Rights Act to help other countries, they signed it to protect their own citizens, not enough countries remember that now.

[iamzack]

Yeah, that.

[Black Wolf]

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.

Invaded a sovereign nation, killed hundreds of Lebanese civilians, damaged or destroyed Lebanese infrastructure - yeah, totally justified.[/quote]

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).

The Goldstone report singled out reckless and excessive WP use in civilian areas as a war crime during that conflict, and nobody's talking about WP "rounds" like tracer rounds, but artillery shells. Which you know. And are deliberately avoiding.

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?

Source for the swimming pools and clubs? The UN has consistently condemned the blockade, and considers it to have caused the collapse of the legitimate economy in Gaza - are you saying that the Palestinians in Gaza are all awanning around in the lap of luxury?

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.

The Australian government is convinced enough to take formal action against Israel. I trust my government in that at least.

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.

If the soldiers are unable to subdue these people without killing them, then they were the wrong people to send in.

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.

Never said anything about a boycott, and nobody cares where things are invented. Do you even understand the basic ideas behind sanctions? Are you even aware of what the word means in this context? Or are you just posting unrelated videos for the fun of it? The fact that Israel has such a high tech economy would mean that relatively light sanctions would be far more crippling to them than many other less developed countries.

The fact is that Israel has a long history of violence and aggression, that has been demonstrated most noticeably in the last several years, and is only continued by this incident. And yes, it's in a dangerous part of the world, and under pressure from militant attacks, but they do nothing to help itself by perpetuating the treatment of the Palestineans, which represents the biggest destablizing factor in the entire middle east, and even less when they kill people trying to help them.
[/quote]

[Herra Tohtori]

Opinionations.

Of course they ****ed up, people are dead. Whether that was their intention or not is debatable.

In general, the situation between Israel and Palestina (and the surrounding countries) has been ****ed up by everyone involved. The core of the most recent problems lies in colonial history of the area and the decisions made after the WWII, which injected the state of Israel into existence on very shallow grounds right on top of an area that was already inhabited by another group of people, namely the palestinians (arabs). Obviously, this has proved time and again to have been a Bad Idea.

However the blame seeking game is something that never typically helps in conflicts like this, since there's been too much time passed and blood spilled, and no one is willing or able to back up.

The most ironic thing is that the two sides in the conflict are more alike than either wants to admit.

On the Israeli side, we have people who have been displaced, shoved around, told what to do, constrained in movement and other freedoms and subjected to mass killings - a few generations ago. Then they were given their own state, location defined by their holy texts (!). In my opinion, these are at best dubious justifications for the existence of Israel as a state, but be that as it may they do exist now as a nation and a country, and their government and military have the obligation to do their best to protect their population in a situation where collateral damage is nearly impossible to avoid. There must be a lot of frustration going on there.

On the Palestinian side, we have people who have been displaced, shoved around, told what to do, constrained in movement and other freedoms (whether it be with good reason or no), have very low standards of living, limited supplies, limited infrastructure and a rotten leadership that is not helping the situation AT ALL.

As I see it, it's a Catch-22 situation at worst.

To reduce the overall tension on the area, Israel wold be required to lift their embargo and other regulations, giving the Palestinian areas more of an autonomous regime.

However, they cannot do that as it would arguably lead to increased terrorist activity and deaths of Israeli citizens. They would need to observe clear reduction in the support to Hamas and Fatah before easing up on the Gaza strip and West Bank.

Obviously, the  population's support to Hamas and Fatah is unlikely to continue as long as Israeli forces are there to provide easy targets for propaganda and to act as the embodiment of the oppression (perceived or intentional) of the Palestinian people. So, the acts of terrorism will continue as long as Israel is perceived as a threat, but Israel can't back off before acts of terrorism stop or reduce significantly.


So, there aren't easy solutions and neither side is free of wrongdoing in my eyes.

However I would say that it's not impossible to solve the situation. Northern Ireland was a real mess a few decades ago. Generational/cultural memory is a real curse in cases like this...

[Flipside]

Israel really do have to stop the whole 'sending in operatives with fake passports' thing. We, also, had to expel a diplomat because of fake passportery.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8582518.stm

Y'See. I always thought the people who used deception to sneak into other countries and kill people were the bad guys...

And, yes, I don't doubt every country does it to a degree, but that doesn't make it justifiable either. This sort of blatant disregard for the sovereignty of other people's land will never help add to the argument about the sovereignty of their own.

[Dilmah G]

Bloody hell, if the Mossad had their **** together, no-one would have known in the first place. I recall seeing an interview with an ex-Mossad bloke or some related **** talking about how their quality has rapidly declined from what it supposedly was 'back in the day', and if they keep this up, I'm inclined to agree.

But surely there must have been better ways to do this rather than using someone else's passports...

[Flipside]

Bloody hell, if the Mossad had their **** together, no-one would have known in the first place. I recall seeing an interview with an ex-Mossad bloke or some related **** talking about how their quality has rapidly declined from what it supposedly was 'back in the day', and if they keep this up, I'm inclined to agree.

Yup, about 20-30 years ago Mossad had their **** together, and they are still one of the best intelligence agencies in the world, but personally, I think the years of allies vetoing UN action against Israel has given their Intelligence service an 'above the law' attitude, and that belief that nobody would ever take action against them because they were protected has led to them getting sloppy and, to be blunt, arrogant.

[Dilmah G]

Absolutely, and it happens to everybody who gets to that stage. I can't think of anyone who would fill the gap, however.

[Splinter]

First of all, you misunderstand my meaning. Israel is *****ing about being under attack, and trying to defend itself, but it's six times more people than Palestinians are. That's what we call "overkill."

Who is 'we'? Depending on who those 'six times more' are it could be a very good thing. I hope six times more terrorists die than soldiers. I hope six times more militants die than civilians. I hope it's higher than that. I hope none of it is innocent lives. But anyone knows that's impossible. You cannot just take 2 numbers and say this one is higher therefore they are in the wrong. That's ignorant and deceptive.

And you'll find that I absolutely do not support the Iraq war. We have as much right to be killing hundred of thousands of Iraqis as Israel has to be killing thousands of Palestinians.

Well good for you. But I still don't see the world up in arms at the coalition forces for their abhorrant treatment and absolute massacre and disregard for lives. (which is not what I believe about them at all)

It's retarded to claim victim or self defense status when you're occupying an entire country. It sounds incredibly stupid to whine about being attacked by the people you're caging up like dogs. What the hell do you expect?

Yeah but what came first? the cage or the bite? See before the cage (read: security fence/wall) that caged dog was running free blowing up buses supermarkets shooting up schools and hotels... on a daily basis deliberately going for the weaker undefended targets. But hey you have a pit bull next door who gets into your yard and decapitates and mutilates your children playing back there your damn right you will build a fence to keep him out and you will shoot the dog. I am sorry that the situation came to this but I have a hard time sympathizing with a people who in general support and facilitate and at the very least don't speak up or try and bring an end to the terrorist attacks against a sovereign nations general populace. But hey that's great for you that you can not only look past that but completely ignore the whole provocation that put that dog in it's cage. Way to be objective. 

If I was Palestinian, I'd be firing rockets too.

If you were Palestinian you would get up go outside point a rocket in the direction of a city say Allah is great and shoot it hoping to hit a civilian target. This is the meaning of what you just said. You realize this? Do you maybe think you might want to take back the fact that you just agreed to the indiscriminate targeting and killing of innocent unarmed civilians? Maybe you would just target the military targets? I really hope you simply forgot the connotations and the meaning of what you said. Because if you really justify that then we really have no other business talking to each other. Nothing and I mean nothing justifies the deliberate targeting of civilians.

Exactly. Invaded Lebanon after a terrorist organisation and NOT the government of the country did something. So you declared war on a country over the actions of what your own country call a terrorist organisation.

My sides almost split. If Israel had declared war there would not be a Lebanon. Why the hell do you think that was such a messy situation BECAUSE Israel was tiptoeing around Lebanese Army and infrastructure as much as possible while still creating a living hell for Hezbollah. But don't worry. Hezbollah the internationally renowned terrorist group has been elected into an official standing inside the Lebanese government. Next time it will be swift, painless (for Israel), and easy.

Indeed, the irony is that Israel may actually be in a position to gain more from helping the Palestinian authorities than from harming them.

What like arming the Fatah? Helping them fight the Hamas? Helping them evacuate from Gaza to the West Bank where they were being hunted like animals and slaughtered? You mean like transferring millions of dollars to them? Or allowing Egypt to transfer weapons and ammunition to them?

Funny how when a group shows the slightest interset of living peacefully and not trying to destroy the Jews, Israel does some crazy stuff and helps them.

What I find particularly weird about Splinter's kill/death ratio argument is the morally bizarre notion that outrage over the number of Palestinian deaths is somehow predicated on the comparatively small number of Israeli deaths.

A death is a death, and worthy of concern, no matter who's doing the dying. It's a tragedy either way. And more people dying is bad. The fact that relatively few Israelis have died compared to Palestinians isn't the root cause of the concern here.

It was presented as 'how can you claim the moral high ground that you are the victims of attack when Israeli deaths are lower than Palestinian deaths/Israeli Kills are higher than Palestinian kills'. Either way it's one of the most blinded out of context statements possible. What are the ratios of civilians to military? what efforts were made to target or avoid unnecessary deaths/damage? THESE factors set up moral high ground NOT how many people died.

Don't get me wrong. I agree with Sandy. No one is rejoicing in the pain of others... well except for Hamas... but I will not feel bad if I kill 20 militants/terrorist/anyone coming to do harm to the nation I protect and no one on my side dies. That is a good thing and I will not feel bad about it.

[Flipside]

What like arming the Fatah? Helping them fight the Hamas? Helping them evacuate from Gaza to the West Bank where they were being hunted like animals and slaughtered? You mean like transferring millions of dollars to them? Or allowing Egypt to transfer weapons and ammunition to them?

Funny how when a group shows the slightest interset of living peacefully and not trying to destroy the Jews, Israel does some crazy stuff and helps them.

Seems to me you are both caught in a cycle of being convinced you are trying to destroy each other. Israel believes that all Palestianians want them dead, Palestinians believe that all Israelis want them dead, not the most stable foundation to build a relationship on.

As I said in my previous post, it's a case of victims of propoganda, both sides have painted the opposite side as 'evil' for so long that now any peace between them is 2 generations away, at least, and willingness by either side to adopt a position other than complete mistrust and hatred is seen as 'weakness' by the hard-liners, there are maybe 2-3 hundred people who are probably responsible for 90% of the rockets coming into Israel, and every single time Israel takes 'retaliatory' action for those attacks, the aftermaths tend to create more haters than it removes. Under such circumstances, it's impossible for the majority of those in Gaza to look 'good' in the eyes of Israel, because then that would mean admitting that maybe those massive shelling campaigns were a bit over the top.

The main problem is that this is an entire section of society being ostracised for the actions of a few, and that ostracisation is not fixing the problem, it is nurturing it, allowing it to fester, and pride won't let either side back down.

[Kosh]

Keeping the palistinians impovrished in a castrated psuedostate certainly isn't going to help anything.


We shouldn't forget the religious factor to all of this. Zionists believe it is their destiny to have control over the region, american fundies support Israel and want it to do whatever it wants in order to start the apacolypse according to their doomsday prophecies. I don't know enough about islamic doomsday prophecies to speak about the Palestinian view, other than trying to get out from under Israel's boot. As long as this factor remains in politics, the Israel-Palestine problem will never go away, period.

[Mika]

I think I need to mention a couple of things of the IR camera.

- IR camera is able to produce shades of gray. The reason you don't see it is simply that humans are rather small compared to the field of view.
- A visible wavelength camera sees the almost the same as eye. A true IR-camera does not see visible wavelengths.

That's all

[Nemesis6]

More media is popping up now - Hürriyet has pictures of the peace activists(See: Islamist fanatics) kidnapping and their stabbing of an Israeli soldier:
http://fotogaleri.hurriyet.com.tr/GaleriDetay.aspx?cid=36575&p=1&rid=2

[iamzack]

If I was Palestinian, I'd be firing rockets too.

If you were Palestinian you would get up go outside point a rocket in the direction of a city say Allah is great and shoot it hoping to hit a civilian target. This is the meaning of what you just said. You realize this? Do you maybe think you might want to take back the fact that you just agreed to the indiscriminate targeting and killing of innocent unarmed civilians? Maybe you would just target the military targets? I really hope you simply forgot the connotations and the meaning of what you said. Because if you really justify that then we really have no other business talking to each other. Nothing and I mean nothing justifies the deliberate targeting of civilians.

Well apparently Palestinians can't get toys, paper, or crayons, so what else have they got to do but kill the people oppressing them?

[Flipside]

More media is popping up now - Hürriyet has pictures of the peace activists(See: Islamist fanatics) kidnapping and their stabbing of an Israeli soldier:
http://fotogaleri.hurriyet.com.tr/GaleriDetay.aspx?cid=36575&p=1&rid=2

Following what happened with the Audio tapes, I'll wait for more word than simply 'Israel says so' before I take those pictures at face value, though, I'll accept they could very possibly be real, but stabbing someone who is trying to forcibly invade your vessel, possibly already using firearms at that stage is not evidence of 'Islamic Fanaticism', no time-frame was given for those pictures, was this after one protester recieved 4 bullets in the head? Were these people who, by this stage, genuinely believed they were fighting for their lives?

Neither side behaved particularly well in that situation, the difference was that it was armed soldiers versus civilians with shanks and metal poles. even if they had kidnapped a member of the IDF, what, exactly, would they do with him on aid ship, surrounded by the Israeli navy, that would not completely cripple any chance of Gazas blockade being lifted for another decade and, indeed, strengthen Israels argument to maintain one?

Both sides have published photographs without context, edited audio tapes etc, claims of 'abuse' etc are rife, though, frankly, I suspect both sides were riling for a fight before the ship was ever boarded, I'm not saying that the people on the relief ship were 'innocents', I have no real evidence either way, but when you get a situation of guns vs metal poles, people's sympathy will land with the underdog.