Israelis open fire on crowds in Gaza

[Sinner]

The Israeli army has opened fire on a crowd of Palestinian demonstrators in the town of Rafah in southern Gaza.



At least 10 people were killed, though some reports put the number of casualties higher.

Several children were among the dead, and more than 50 people were injured, many seriously, Palestinian medical workers said.

Thousands of people were demonstrating against a massive Israeli operation in the refugee camp on the edge of Rafah.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3728681.stm


Amnesty Urges Spain To Halt Arms Sale To Israel

Few hours after Amnesty International urged his government to stop arms sale to Israel, Prime Minister Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and his Palestinian counterpart Ahmad Qorei condemned Wednesday, May 19, Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip.

"Peace requires an immediate ceasefire," the leaders said in turn at a press conference after an Israeli airstrike killed at least 10 Palestinians in Rafah, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Zapatero lambasted Israel for embarking on actions that would lead down "a negative path for peace."

"Peace requires a ceasefire, respecting the roadmap and this is what the Spanish government is calling for and what the international community wants," he said.

Qorei, for his part, accused the Israeli government of not wanting a peace settlement in the region.

"These crimes which are being committed against our people on a daily basis ...show that that there is no desire for peace on the part of the Israeli government," he said.

http://www.turks.us/article.php?story=20040519091617733

[miss_silver]

IMHO Sinner

This war will never stop until there's is no plaestinians or israelies left alive This was always a no win situation and israel will not stop until there is no palestinians left or until their US funds runs out. The palestinians will never give up until they are all dead or until the US funds runs out.

It truly is a no win situation

[Heathcliff]

Originally Posted by miss_silver

IMHO Sinner

This war will never stop until there's is no plaestinians or israelies left alive This was always a no win situation and israel will not stop until there is no palestinians left or until their US funds runs out. The palestinians will never give up until they are all dead or until the US funds runs out.

It truly is a no win situation

I disagree. This will end the day one (or both) of the following
two things occur:

1. The Israelis stop indoctrinating their youth with the idea the goi are all animals who have not even the right to life ect...

2. The Palestinians stop indoctrinating their youth that Israel has no right to exist as a state.

Also:

Both parties are being manipulated by outside forces against their own best interests. Nuff said there...

And:

It just goes to show you that "Religion" per se was the most wicked thing ever devised by anybody. All of them. Damn them all to Hell!

Makes me want to chuck it all for a fallout shelter in the Rockies.

I don't get you pisser, I think you need to do some real soul searching to find out why you have such a depraved disregard for others.

[schmooky007]

I find that really hard to believe ..just look at the pics....blind freddy could have seen her

oh really? and how would you know? i urge you to read some of statements about rachel corrie's death on the ISM website. most of the stories there about this incident rely exclusively on what ISM members saw that day. according to joseph smith, an ISM member who was part of the group of people who were with corrie, ms. corrie "dropped her bullhorn and sat down in front of one of the bulldozers." isolated from the other members of the group, ms. corrie then climbed on top of a small mound of soil the bulldozer created and kneeled. it is there when she lost her balance and fell to the ground. the fact that she sat down, kneeled, and fell to the ground right in front of the bulldozer suggests that she was indeed out of the driver's line of sight. in an interview with an israeli newspaper, mr. smith confirms that "the driver lost sight of her and continued forward. Then, without lifting the blade he reversed and Rachel was underneath ... she wasn’t run over by the tread."

Rachel was run over while attempting to save the house of a pharmacist, Dr. Samir Nasrallah of Rafah in the Gaza strip

maybe stop quoting things from the ISM website and make it look like they're your own words. yeesh... and besides, so what? abdel aziz rantisi was a pediatrician, yet that didn't prevent him from being a mass murderer who spearheaded a terrorist organization that targets and murders israeli children. being a lawyer didn't stop hanadi jaradat from massacring 21 israelis, wiping out 2 entire families with children and infants, in a restaurant in haifa. working as a medic for the palestinian red crescent didn't stop wafa idris from becoming a homicide bomber who killed an israeli teen and wounded over 100 others. she was dispatched by a palestinian terrorist who was an ambulance driver for the palestinian red crescent. so you see, just because they happen to have fancy or important jobs doesn't mean they're not involved in terrorism.

Strangely, given the publicity that attended this tragedy, the Israeli Army has never shown any evidence of a tunnel in Dr. Nasrallah's house,

not everything is released to the public and certainly the IDF doesn't need to justify anything to a bunch of retarded anarchists. if the ISM want access to more material perhaps they should petition the israeli courts.

proof?

after the homicide bombing in the port of ashdod, israel closed the karni crossing. this crossing was once the main route to get arms into gaza. but because of its recent closing and the strict israeli crackdown for several years, the only realistic way the rifles and explosives could have made it through to the gunmen is to be smuggled from egypt through the tunnels. of course, we need to remember that according to the oslo accords the palestinians are not permitted to have such weapons. the international community never criticized the PA about this.

Yeah right, she was truly hard to miss wearing a fluo orange jacket and screeming through the top of her lungs on a loudspeaker

those pics were fake. the associated press published them and later retracted them.

You are right on this, nobody told her she had to do that but she did to try to protect innocent ppl and got killed for it

the ISM have a history of sheltering terrorists. they keep coming up with silly excuses to justify the circumstances.

Palestinians are not terrorists, they are only humans being like you and me

true.. at least some of them. still, palestinian opinion polls show otherwise. most palestinians support terrorism, believing that the ethnic cleansing of jews from the west bank and gaza is only the beginning of the liberation of all of "palestine". from river to sea, as they put it.

trying to protect what land is left to them in anyway possible since they don't get 3 billions a year to protect themselves like those murderers do.

nothing should be left to them because nothing is theirs. there was never an independent palestinian state from which these lands were seized from. israel took control of these areas during war, a war meant to destroy the jewish state launched by the arab world as a collective. the parties who controlled these areas prior to the war and lost them, egypt and jordan, have renounced their claims to it. the arab residents of these areas, the so-called palestinians, can move to jordan, egypt, saudi arabia, iran, just to name a few places. there is no shortage of muslem countries in the middle east that they can move into. and considering that most palestinians are islamists, living in a fascist muslem state would fit them quite well i reckon.

Yeah, Nick Berg behedding was a shock to the world and it was considered a bloody murder... How come Rachel Corrie in your views, murder, is considered less?

that's the stupidest thing you've said yet. how can you compare the brutal beheading of an innocent civilian, nick berg, for the use of islamic propaganda, with the accidental death of rachel corrie, who belonged to a group of terrorist sympathizers who was stupid enough to play hero and got killed as a result?

1. The Israelis stop indoctrinating their youth with the idea the goi are all animals who have not even the right to life ect...

wtf are you talking about?

[miss_silver]

Originally Posted by schmooky007

oh really? and how would you know? i urge you to read some of statements about rachel corrie's death on the ISM website. most of the stories there about this incident rely exclusively on what ISM members saw that day.

And a few other palestinians, but let's dismiss it because they were labeled "terrorists" by the IDF.

abdel aziz rantisi was a pediatrician, yet that didn't prevent him from being a mass murderer who spearheaded a terrorist organization that targets and murders israeli children. being a lawyer didn't stop hanadi jaradat from massacring 21 israelis, wiping out 2 entire families with children and infants, in a restaurant in haifa. working as a medic for the palestinian red crescent didn't stop wafa idris from becoming a homicide bomber who killed an israeli teen and wounded over 100 others. she was dispatched by a palestinian terrorist who was an ambulance driver for the palestinian red crescent. so you see, just because they happen to have fancy or important jobs doesn't mean they're not involved in terrorism.

What you seem to forget is that for each isralie killed in those attack, atleast 10 palestians were killed in retaliory strikes by the IDF.

not everything is released to the public and certainly the IDF doesn't need to justify anything to a bunch of retarded anarchists. if the ISM want access to more material perhaps they should petition the israeli courts.

Of course and with reason since they are scared shit about releasing it. Come on, now, Israel have "carte blanche" to murder US and UK peace activists if they stand in their way! Also, you just gave a new depth to the word anarchy... If fighting the occupation because you value freedom and don't want to have your house bulldozed down, then i'm an anarchist all the way.

those pics were fake. the associated press published them and later retracted them.

Pretty bold statement! have some proof to back it up?

the ISM have a history of sheltering terrorists. they keep coming up with silly excuses to justify the circumstances.

Don't know... some kids spending 2000$ to get there to protest for peace and put their life on the line like R. Corrie did or T Hurndall, I would hardly call them terrorists sympathiser. Again, got some proof about the ISM sheltering terrorists?

true.. at least some of them. still, palestinian opinion polls show otherwise. most palestinians support terrorism, believing that the ethnic cleansing of jews from the west bank and gaza is only the beginning of the liberation of all of "palestine". from river to sea, as they put it.

Heard some jewish extremists say the same thing about the palestinians, ethnic clensing, expultion and the destruction of all palestinians home as a solution to the isralite colonisation.

nothing should be left to them because nothing is theirs. there was never an independent palestinian state from which these lands were seized from. israel took control of these areas during war, a war meant to destroy the jewish state launched by the arab world as a collective. the parties who controlled these areas prior to the war and lost them, egypt and jordan, have renounced their claims to it. the arab residents of these areas, the so-called palestinians, can move to jordan, egypt, saudi arabia, iran, just to name a few places. there is no shortage of muslem countries in the middle east that they can move into. and considering that most palestinians are islamists, living in a fascist muslem state would fit them quite well i reckon.

Now that's the worst load of crap i've ever read. I suggest you carefully read sinner's post on that matter. About the land issue, not being theirs, i'm pretty sure a lot of american indians would have the same opinion as you do! Don't know where you live but if it's in the US, i'm pretty sure you wouldn't like a delegation of native americans indian reclaming their land on which youre house was built upon.

that's the stupidest thing you've said yet. how can you compare the brutal beheading of an innocent civilian, nick berg, for the use of islamic propaganda, with the accidental death of rachel corrie, who belonged to a group of terrorist sympathizers who was stupid enough to play hero and got killed as a result?

Nick Berg, so far as the story goes (and didn't they tie him up with one of those terrorists on 9/11) was a freelancer who didn't need to play hero either. He went there in search of a contract aka making money. Rachel Corrie went to Palestine to truly help opressed ppl, not to make a dime out of their suffering. In return to her courage and her kindness, you treat her of terrorists sympathizer?

As for the stupidest thing i've said so far, just don't read my posts. Simple and effective. Only a child would/can resort to name calling or when in lack of words to express it's true feeling.

Anyway, since you seem to support a bunch of terrorists in my own views, and in your own views, I seem to support a bunch of terrorists, this argument will lead nowhere fast.

When/if you reply, please drop the name calling

[Wenchie]

Originally Posted by schmooky007

no massacres took place, ...... 52 palestinians, most of them armed terrorists, and 24 israeli soldiers were killed.

Originally Posted by schmooky007

being a lawyer didn't stop hanadi jaradat from massacring 21 israelis

Why is the killing of 21 Israelis a "massacre" but the killing of 52 Palestinians not a "massacre" ?

[schmooky007]

Why is the killing of 21 Israelis a "massacre" but the killing of 52 Palestinians not a "massacre" ?

because these palestinians, most of them at least, were militants who died fighting. by their own admission, they tried to lure israeli soldiers into a trap in a small area of the camp. the militants suceeded in luring the troops but in the process lost many of their fighters. the difference between israel and the palestinians is israel never intentionally targets non-combatants. the palestinians do. there's a difference between a soldier and a palestinian militant fighting with their own weapons and a palestinian terrorist who straps a bomb on himself or herself to blow up infants and children in a restaurant or a cafe or a crowded bus.

[pisser]

Originally Posted by Heathcliff

I don't get you pisser, I think you need to do some real soul searching to find out why you have such a depraved disregard for others.

I'll leave the soul searching to you. If you don't know what I am about by now, you never will.

I'll help you to understand:

"KILL ALL STINKY ISLAMIC ARABS SCUMSUCKING TURBANHEADS!"

Got it???.......

[schmooky007]

a fitting article for you miss silver.. "we didn't know..

Making the Case for Israel
By Alan M. Dershowitz

Alan Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard University Law School. He is an internationally respected attorney and human rights activist. At one time he was actively involved as an attorney in the Soviet Jewry Movement and helped to free Natan Sharansky from the USSR. He is recognized as a member of the liberal establishment yet a strong supporter of Israel. He has also become aware of the continual anti-Israel bias that is growing on college campuses in the United States.

Below is an edited transcript of his speech at UC Berkeley, one of the most anti-Israel campuses in the United States. Dershowitz addressed an audience of 1,200 people on April 29, 2004, about the growing problem of anti-Semitism on U.S. campuses.

I remember so well the early days in the 1970's when I sat down in UC Berkeley. I was there for a year. I was probably defending some of the parents of the kids who are outside protesting tonight.

I defended Angela Davis and many of the people involved in the free speech movement at UC Berkeley. But I was also deeply involved with the Soviet Jewry Movement. Recently I was on a radio talk show and somebody asked me what my biggest fee I ever earned was. Was it Michael Milken or Leona Helmsley? I said it was Natan Sharansky.

"Sharansky?" they said, "We didn't know he had any money."

And I said no. He didn't have any money. I had to defend him at my own expense. But when he walked over the Glienicke Bridge and he threw his arms around me, and he whispered in my ear in Hebrew "Blessed are those who help free the imprisoned." Tears came to my eyes, to his eyes -- I'll never earn a bigger fee in my life than that.

When we were in Jerusalem, we said we'd look back at that time and remember it as a wonderful point in history, when civil liberties, love for Judaism and a love for Israel came together. This week marks the 56th anniversary of Israel. And I'm reminded of myself in 1947 and 1948, watching the UN on television, the division of Palestine into hopefully a Jewish state and a Palestinian state. It was accepted by the Jews, but rejected by the Palestinians.

And then Ben Gurion announced the statehood. It was such a joyous moment! I remember when the director of my yeshiva came in and announced the words from Hatikva [Israel's national anthem] were officially changed from "going back to the land of our fathers" to "a free people in our land."

Those were the days. Those were the days when the Israeli-Arab conflict presented a clear-cut conflict between good and evil. Israelis were Holocaust survivors trying to build a Jewish democratic homeland that would always be open to Jewish immigrants and refugees. Doors to the world had been closed to so many refugees during the Holocaust.

On the other side were the Holocaust perpetrators. We forget too often that the Egyptian army commanders in large part were former Nazis given asylum by the Egyptian government. Amung them was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, the recognized leader of the Palestinian people. These were indicted war criminals who spent most of the war years with Hitler in Nazi Germany.

This was a conflict between democracy and tyranny. A conflict between those who wanted to accept the United Nations' plan of a two-state resolution and those who rejected the existence of Israel. Those were the days when it was so clear on which side civil liberties and human rights and progress led and on which side tyranny and oppression lied. The sad reality is that nothing has changed on the ground. These facts are still the same today as they were in 1947 or 1948, yet the perspectives have changed so dramatically. Even in 1956, even in 1967, even in the early 1970's, most progressive, liberal and centrist people supported the right side of this struggle.

Sure, I favored a two state solution. I've always favored a two state solution. Israel has always favored a two state solution, since 1937, when they accepted the Peel Commission report which would have give the Palestinians a long, contiguous state and the Jews a totally non-contiguous state. The Jews said yes and the Palestinians and Arabs said no.

In 1947, the Jews were offered a non-contiguous state in which Jerusalem was separated from Tel Aviv and other Jewish cities, and the Palestinians were offered a contiguous state. And the Palestinians said no. Ben Gurion and the Israelis said yes. Nothing has changed. Not Israeli actions to be sure.

What changed is the perception of the world. The United Nations tragically has become a mega bomb for bigotry against Israel. If a space alien from another planet were to come down to earth and land at the General Assembly of the United Nations, or at some American college campuses, or many an urban capital, and have to report back to the distant galaxy from which he came, he'd have to report this is a wonderful planet with great countries that love peace. Like Syria, which is on the Security Council. Or Libya, that chairs the Human Rights Commission. But there's this one country, this evil nation that's been condemned by the UN more than any other country or all other countries combined. If the spaceship landed on the Berkeley campus, all the canards and untruths about Israel--genocide, apartheid, all the claims you hear so often, would be heard. And that's the tragedy.

And that's why I had to write The Case For Israel. It's my least favorite book, I have to tell you. It's the book nobody wants to write. Nobody has to write the Case for Canada or the Case for Spain or the Case for Australia. There's so much lying on college campuses today, so many untruths, so many legalese falsities being directed against Israel. But the impetus to write the Case For Israel came when the divestiture campaign began at Harvard and Berkeley and many of our college campuses. No members of the law school faculty, nor of the medical school faculty, nor the business school signed, but many at the other schools and departments signed the petition.

What did it call for? It called for no further investments in Israeli industries. What are Israel's main industries? It's not Jaffa oranges, it's high tech, life saving medical equipment, like kidney dialysis machines. Israel per capita saves more lives than any other country in the world.

I said cutting off this industry was immoral, so I challenged one of the leading pro-divestment professors at one of the Harvard colleges to debate me in front of his students. I challenged him to debate the morality of signing the petition to divest from Israel, but not from North Korea, not Cuba, not China, not Libya, not from Iraq in those days, not the Sudan -- only Israel. This was a man who taught the Christian approaches to the Old Testament. He said to me "Professor Dershowitz, my knowledge of the Middle East ended with the death of Moses." I invited those students to see me, watch me debate him or a surrogate. When nobody showed to take his position, I set the petition on a chair as a token surrogate and we had a dialog.

Many of the students who attended were not Jews and held no firm views of Israel. They all came up to me afterward and said the same three words: "We didn't know!"

"We didn't know Israel first offered a two state solution, a Palestinian state, but the Arabs rejected it!"

"We didn't know in 1967 Israel accepted Resolution 242, in which the United Nations called for the return of territories captured in exchange for full peace and secure boundaries."

All Arab states rejected it saying, "no peace, no recognition, no negotiations," but students today said, "We didn't know!"

These Harvard students didn't know that in the years 2000 and 2001 Ehud Barak along with President Bill Clinton had initially offered the Palestinians everything they were asking for -- a state made up of 97% of the West Bank and all of Gaza, a capital in Jerusalem, control of East Jerusalem, control of the Temple Mount, 30 billion dollars in a compensation package, and symbolic return of several thousand refugees. Instead of accepting it or coming back to the negotiating table, Arafat walked away and started the intifada and all the violence. The Harvard students kept saying, "We didn't know!"

"We didn't know that Prince Bandar at Taba called Arafat's rejection of the offer a crime against the Palestinian people and against all the people of the region."

The students just didn't know.

I came away with a different view than my friend Natan Sharansky. He came away with a sense of hopelessness. When he toured American campuses, he believed that America was becoming like France [which is exceedingly anti-Israel].

I came away with a very different, optimistic view. To be sure, 15 to 20% of students on college campuses -- perhaps more at Berkeley, Michigan, or Rutgers, fewer at Harvard and Yale -- you can't argue with them. It's like putting a dollar in the soda machine and the soda doesn't come out and neither does your dollar. You just can't argue with them. You want to kick the machine but you can't do that.

You cannot convince people like Noam Chomsky. And there are 15% on the other side who are clearly favorably disposed to Israel. But then there are 70% on college campuses with open and unfortunately empty minds when it comes to Israel. They take what their peers and professors say the Gospel truth. It's crucially important to fill that information gap.

During the same divestiture campaign, a young student came to me from Harvard College and asked me for forgiveness. I said, "What do I have to forgive you for? I don't even know you."

He said, "I never speak up on campus, in my classroom, in my dormitory, at dinner. I never speak up in favor of Israel even though I've been there on Operation Birthright and I know the facts and hear the lies."

"Why not?" I asked.

He replied, "Because if I am perceived as pro-Israel, pro-Zionist, in favor of Israel, I won't be able to get dates with young girls."

It was as simple as that. It's not cool to be a "Zionist." It's not cool. I thought I should start a program at the Harvard campus: "Date a Zionist Tonight!" That's the way he put it -- Not cool to be a Zionist. It's really a problem.

I decided to make it cool again to support Israel and show you can support Israel from a progressive, liberal perspective. Indeed, I support Israel not in spite of my history as a human rights activist, but because of it. I support Israel because I support female rights, women's rights, feminism, and the Palestinian Authority does not.

I also support gay rights. I saw a student at a college campus hold up a sign that said, "Gays For Palestine." I said to him "Imagine what would happen if you carried that sign in Ramallah. You'd be killed." I support Israel because I support gay rights. Recently a progressive congressman, Barney Frank from Massachusetts, worked with me and Israel to grant asylum for 40 Palestinian gays.

"Environmentalists For Palestine" is another ironic group. Palestinians are utterly insensitive to environmental concerns. Israel is the most environmentally sensitive country in the Middle East.

Israel is the only country in the Middle East in which an Arab can file a case against his country in the Supreme Court. Israel's Supreme Court is among the finest courts in the world today. It enforces the rule of law on a daily basis against inevitable abuses that occur when a nation is at war. As we look at the United States Supreme Court this week there are two big cases -- the Hamdi case and the Padilla case. At question is if we can detain and hold terrorist combatants at Guantanamo indefinitely, while deciding if they are prisoners of war or common criminals. One has only to look to Israel, which see resolved these things 20 years ago.

We see that the Israelis routinely decide in favor of the Palestinians against their own government. In 1989, Justice Brennan, perhaps the most liberal justice in America's court, went to Israel at the invitation of Justice Aharon Barak of the Israeli Supreme Court. Brennan said, "God forbid that terrorism should ever come to the shores of the United States. At least we in America have the model to help balance the needs of security against the needs of liberty. That model is Israel."

I think the American courts today will look to that model, just as the United States Army looks to the Israeli army as a model to fight guerilla wars against terrorists with "holiness of arms." I recently attended a hearing of the Ethics Committee of the Israeli Army which decides when it's appropriate to consider somebody a combatant and target him for killing when he can't be arrested as a terrorist. The Ethics Committee consisted of a professor of Philosophy from Tel Aviv University, a human rights activist from Bar-Ilan University, several lawyers, mathematicians, and experts on how to evaluate potential collateral damage -- civilian deaths in numbers. They were debating how to value the life of a Palestinian civilian against the life of an Israeli soldier. The Ethics professor said the Israeli government has the right to balance and to value the life of its own soldiers over enemy civilians. And the Israeli general disagreed and said the Israeli soldiers must die to save the lives of civilians even if they are enemy civilians.

Now, however you decide what is the right result, the interesting point is Israel is debating these issues. The Israeli Supreme Court is debating these issues. They're trying their very best to fight within the constraints of the Rules of War. Laws are enacted that give terrorists an advantage in this fight against democracy. You know, Israel has nothing to be ashamed of in its general record. It's fought terrorism for over 56 years.

There was the massacre in Hebron in 1929 before the advent of Israel, before the occupied territories, before the settlements. Hebron's Jewish population was subject to a massacre at the whim of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. The victims were not armed Zionists, but primarily yeshiva students and rabbis and they were massacred because they were of the wrong religion. In all its years, Israel has killed fewer civilians than any other comparable country.

Israel is the only country in modern times that has never dropped bombs on enemy capitols in retaliation for bombs dropped on its own civilians. People forget that in 1948, Egypt dropped bombs on a Tel Aviv bus station, killing many people. The '67 War began when the Jordanians lobbed 1600 bombs into downtown West Jerusalem. In the '73 War Syria tried to kill civilians in Galilee. But Israel never bombed Cairo or Damascus. When Israel did bomb on the outskirts of Beirut during the Beirut War, it tried its best not to kill innocent civilians.

In fact, in order to destroy a terrorist base in the middle of Beirut, Israel sent Ehud Barak dressed as a woman on a raft to eliminate the base so as not to drop bombs from the air.

The United States today, when they go into Fallujah from the air or on the ground they use Israel as the model. Israel went in on the ground in Jenin and lost 23 soldiers, yet it's called a massacre: first they claimed 5,000 people were killed, then 500, then 100. In truth, 52 people, most of them combatants, were killed. Twenty-three Israeli soldiers were killed in the process. Israel can be really proud of the way it fought terror and efforts to destroy it over the years. And Israel can be proud of the fact that it has constantly been willing to support the creation of a democratic, peaceful Palestinian state.

Look, I know there are people outside claiming they are Jews for Palestine. I suspect many of you in the auditorium are Jews for Palestine. We favored a Palestinian state in '37, in '47, and we favored Resolution 242. Many offers of statehood were made by Ehud Barak. It was not we who turned them down. It was Yasser Arafat. It's not we who stole money from the Palestinian people, not we who turn Palestinian children into suicide bombers. Yasser Arafat's primary victims have been the Palestinian people. He has stolen his people's lives from them.

There was a cartoon in the Berkeley Daily Planet. It shows a picture of a man holding a Palestinian flag that says. " State of Palestine," and it shows an American flag and a man with a Jewish Star of David stabbing him in the back, as if Israel denied statehood to the Palestinian people.

Prince Bandar, the Saudi Arabian member of the peace delegation, said if Arafat had accepted what was offered by 2001, we could be celebrating the third year of Palestinian statehood. Palestine could have been one of the wealthiest states in the Middle East, with all kinds of money pouring in from Europe, with great medical care and good education.

The best thing that could happen to the Middle East would be the existence of a democratic, economically viable Palestinian state. It is not Israel that has prevented that from happening. It's the Palestinian leadership. The Palestinians should value having their own state more than the destruction of the Jewish state. But it cannot come without, it must be a condition of, recognizing the existence of the state of Israel.

And statehood cannot come as a reward for terrorism. As Tom Friedman wrote in the New York Times, if Palestinian statehood is a reward for terrorism, then terrorism is coming to a theater near you. The world learned a terrible lesson when it rewarded Palestinian terrorism at Munich in 1972; when it rewarded Palestinian terrorism in Turkey and in France; when it rewarded Palestinian terrorists in Italy and Israel, as well. Indeed, I think Usama Bin Laden learned an important lesson from Arafat -- that terrorism works because the United States doesn't have the backbone to stand up to it.

Many European countries become complicit with terror by making deals with the devil, like when Germany's Wily Brandt freed the murderers of Munich after the fake hijacking that he arranged with the Palestinians. This is the kind of cowardly act which results in spreading terrorism around the world. And it's the United States that shares this same destiny with Israel. Both are victims of terrorism against civilians. They fight for the preservation of democracy in a world where terrorism is tolerated; a world where terrorists think they can change the outcome of elections the way they did in Spain, and hope to do in England, Australia, Untied States and Israel. These democracies have to be able to stand up to the tyranny of the world.

Israel can be proud of the way it stood up to terrorism. Israel should be proud of the way it has fought the wars that were thrust upon it for so many years. The last thing Israel wanted to do was fight the wars. Not in 1947, in 1948, not in 1956, not in 1967, not in 1973 and not in any era since. All Israel wants to do is live in peace and prosperity and openness and become a center of science, of intellectualism, of art and culture.

You know you hear excuses all the time that democracy is only for secure nations. "It's only for rich nations. It's only for old nations. Don't expect democracies too quickly in Iraq, don't expect it in other parts of the world. Don't expect it in China. It's a luxury. The United States can afford it, Western Europe can afford it." Israel puts the lie to that.

Israel has been a democracy since the day it was born. Israel never gave up democracy even when faced with genocidal attempts to destroy it. Even when faced with a war and the potential for major, major destruction, it never gave up on democracy. There is no question Israel will remain a democracy.

And as a democracy, Israel can take criticism. Israel is a country with a thick skin. It has had to develop that thick skin over a number of years. It will remain a democracy, believe it. That's a given. Just go online and read the Israeli press. If you want to see criticism in Israel just read Ma'ariv or Yediot Ahranot or Ha'aretz. They tell the joke of the Israelis who were stranded on a deserted island. They were rescued after five years and they had 15 political parties and several newspapers. And American Jews shouldn't be timid to criticize policies of a particular Israeli government. You hear Michael Lerner and others say that to criticize Israel you are called an anti-Semite. That's just nonsense.

I have challenged Michael Lerner, I have challenged others both in the Bay Area and other places too. Show me a single instance where a major Jewish leader or Israeli leader has ever said that criticizing a particular policy of Israeli government is anti-Semitic. That's just something made up by Israel's enemies. It is not something that can actually be argued today.

It is anti-Semitism to single out Israel -- to single out the Jewish nation and blow its faults out of proportion and beyond any kind of recognition, and it is anti-Semitism to continually compare Israel to Nazism.

I was accused of carrying my own anti-Semitisic agenda the first time in my adult life when I spoke at Fanueil Hall and received an award from a Jewish organization for my work in human rights. As I walked out there was a group from the hard Left chanting "Dershowitz and Hilter, it's all the same, the only difference is the name!" and "Dershowitz and Goebbels, all the same, the only difference is the name!" They were chanting that Jews who support Israel are worse than Nazis. Norman Finkelstein has said he doesn't understand why Israel isn't flattered by the comparison with Nazis.

You'll notice these people never compare Israel to others -- to dictatorships, to China, never to Pinochet, never to Cuba, never even to Mussolini and never to solve anything. And that is anti-Semitism. To compare a democratic state that is trying so hard to conform to the rule of law and has never killed innocent civilians deliberately or willfully to the Nazi regimes that killed Jews can only be motivated by hatred and bigotry. So criticism is there. Criticism should be comparable, contextual, constructive. Israel thrives on criticism and the Jewish community thrives on criticism. All I want when I come to Berkeley is to confront those people, those professors, those Israel haters.

Again, I say I'm pro-Palestinian. The only difference between me and other pro-Palestinians is they are anti-Israel. I could debate them because my goal is simply to bring more nuances in the discussion of the Israeli/Arab Palestinian conflict to the college campus. Enough of the shouting, enough of the polemics, enough of the extremism, enough of the ignorant comparisons to Nazism or to apartheid. Enough of the thoroughly non-intellectual sloganeering. Let's have a real intellectual discussion, let's have a real conversation. Let's have a real case.

But you can't buy that case unless there's elimination of the extremist rhetoric -- this sense that Israel is demonized, de-legitimized in the world. In fact, the extreme criticism makes it hard to get the nuances of criticism of both sides. And what happens is each side gets polemical views and that doesn't make progress toward peace.

So I ask those in the progressive movement, who support feminism and civil liberties, -- the kind of political theories I've supported all my life-- to come join an effort to support Israel and support Palestine. To support a democratic Palestinian state to be sure. Take the position you want on unilateralism, or on the fence; they are issues about which reasonable people can disagree. Israelis disagree.

The fence case is now in the Israeli Supreme Court as well as the International Court of Justice. The Israeli Supreme Court will resolve it fairly. The International Court of Justice won't. Why? Because the International Court of Justice is just like the Mississippi Supreme Court in the 1930's.

There was a Mississippi Supreme Court that could do justice only for cases of a White against a White. It was an all White court. It could in a paternalistic way solve a case of a Black against another Black, but it couldn't do justice in a case involving a Black and White. It would always find in favor of a White in such a case.

The same goes for the United Nations General Assembly and the International Court of Justice, which is a United Nations court. It can do justice in some disputes, but when Israel is involved it is incapable of doing justice. Like the Mississippi Supreme Court, it used its credibility that existed in some cases to pretend it was doing justice, but no perspicacious students of the International Court of Justice will be fooled. But many people are not perspicacious. They'll see judges with robes declaring the use of a fence to prevent terrorism not only a violation of international law, but a grievous one!

Among cases now pending before the International Court, there are no cases pending involving genocide or slavery, or oppression of women. There are no cases of oppression of people because of their religion. There are no cases involving events in Algeria or the Sudan or Rwanda. But Israel builds a moveable fence, a fence that three times already has been moved by order of the Israeli Supreme Court and by the Israeli government in response to changes on the ground, and that seems to be the greatest violation of international law.

There is a clear effort on the part of those who want to demonize and de-legitimize Israel to win a struggle for the hearts and souls and minds of the next generation of American leaders. The generation educated at Berkeley, at Stanford, at the University of San Francisco, today's students at UC Santa Cruz. Students from all over the state of California and all over the United States. Fifteen to 20 years from now these will be the congress people, the senators. These will be the judges and business leaders. The President of the United States and international leaders as well. The goal is to make these people so knee-jerk anti-Israel that they will resemble typical French or most Western European leaders of today. That's the goal of the divestiture campaign. The leaders of the divestiture movement knew it couldn't work. Noam Chomsky knew it. He said he never believed in divestiture, yet he supported it. Why? Because it would cause students to be misled by the context of the petition, to believe Israel deserved to be singled out as a great human rights violator of the world.

So it is a struggle for the hearts and minds of the students. "College is a dangerous place," Chomsky said. Your children and grandchildren and the children and grandchildren of our friends, they come from high schools, many from a Jewish education, and they are directed into classes that present a totally one-sided perspective. And when somebody tries to speak up for Israel they are demonized the way I have been demonized.

My book has been attacked viciously. I've been accused of plagiarism when I have all my original hand written copies. Norman Finkelstein said I didn't write it. People are prepared to make all kinds of false allegations not only against Israel, but against any Israel supporters also. Martin Gilbert, Stuart Eisenstadt, Debra Lipstadt, Elie Wiesel -- everybody who can speak in favor of the Jewish community -- is subjected to a well-organized, well-orchestrated and well-financed attack.

But they cannot stop us. They know they are not going to stop us. They know they aren't going to succeed in discrediting me, but they are sending a message to young assistant professors that "if you write a book that is pro-Israel or you write an article that is pro-Israel, we will savage you, we will accuse you of plagiarism. We will savage you, we will call you a fraud. And Dershowitz may be able to survive those charges, but you won't; when your tenure comes up those charges will be there, they will be in the air."

As Churchill said, "A lie can make its way half way around the world before the truth can get its pants on."

That's the goal, that's the purpose. And let there be no mistake about it. This is a battle for the hearts and minds for all of our future generation. That's why you all have to become Op Ed writers, you all have to become the people who call the TV and radio stations. You all have to write letters to the editor. You all have to support your local federation in the best defense of Israel.

[Nicobie]

This smook is just brainwashed.

[schmooky007]

first of all, they didn't intentionally fire at people. a tank crew shot 4 shells from the back at a building where 4 terrorists were seen hiding and apparently one of the shells or parts of it hit in the middle in the crowd. the western and arab press made it sound as though it was a deliberate act and it wasn't. the palestinian bullshit patrol immediately took over the scene, saying to the worldwide press that at least 30 people were killed. israel said only 7. today a palestinian doctor finally revised the count which agrees with the israeli claim.

second, the reason why this operation is taking place is because palestinian terrorist groups have received a shipment of anti-tank missiles and katyusha rockets waiting for pickup in egypt, which they were planning on smuggling through the tunnels in rafah. these weapons can hit major israeli cities if launched from gaza. israel advised the palestinian authority about this and arafat refused to act. so once again israel has to take self defense action, which it is fully entitled to under international law, to prevent terrorists from targeting israeli cities with sophisticated weapons.

[Wenchie]

Originally posted by schmooky007
. the palestinian bullshit patrol immediately took over the scene, saying to the worldwide press that at least 30 people were killed. israel said only 7. today a palestinian doctor finally revised the count which agrees with the israeli claim.

the death toll from the protest is about 10 which is what the press and Palestinians are reporting....with around 40+ injured...
The report of 30 killed was from the previous attack which is what sparked the protest.

more

Israeli forces fired tank shells into a peaceful Palestinian protest during the ongoing assault on Rafah refugee camp yesterday, killing at least 10 people - mostly children - and critically wounding many others.
The army described the incident as "very grave", claimed it had only fired "warning shots" and said there was no intention to harm civilians. But it attempted to shift responsibility for the carnage to the several thousand demonstrators by saying some were armed.

However, no weapons were visible as the crowd walked through the heart of Rafah trailed by children.

Witnesses described seeing children soaked in blood and men with their intestines hanging out.

The dead included 12-year-old Waleed Abo Kamir, Mahmoud Mansour, 13, and Mobark Hasbash, 15. Doctors said that four other bodies brought to the morgue and not immediately identified appeared to be teenagers.

The Israeli army has killed 33 Palestinians in Rafah over the past two days, some of the highest casualties of the present intifada. More than half of the dead are civilians and at least seven of them children.

more

[multi]

from an israeli news source:

Yesha rabbi: IDF allowed to hurt civilians
The chairman of the Yesha rabbinical council, rabbi Dov Lior, on Wednesday said that the Israel Defense Forces are allowed to hurt so called innocent civilians during warfare.

"The law of our Torah is to have mercy on our soldiers and to save them. This is the real moral behind Israel's Torah and we must not feel guilty due to foreign morals," he said.

A similar ruling was made in the past by rabbi Lior on the backdrop of the fighting at the Jenin refugee camp.

Meretz MK Ran Cohen, in response to Lior's statement, said Wednesday that "Dov Lior puts to shame the concept of rabbi, Judaism, Zionism and all of Israel's citizens... woe to us that such a negative element has grown among us, and we should be ashamed that his opinion is accepted and even favored by certain groups in Israel," he said.

you supporters of israel say that the arabs are barbaric..
ffs
their preists actualy say shit like that , man that is just plain backward..

fucn worse than witch doctors..

burn those women and children they have the spirit of evil in them..

least there is a small minority in israel willing to speak out at this kind of attitude..

[schmooky007]

Originally posted by Wenchie
the death toll from the protest is about 10 which is what the press and Palestinians are reporting....with around 40+ injured...
The report of 30 killed was from the previous attack which is what sparked the protest.

incorrect.. the international "protest" was started to prevent israel from widening the philadelphia corridor. when the tank shell hit the demonstrators, the media worldwide reported 30 people killed in that attack, a figure that was grossly exaggerated. the same happened in jenin in 2002. palestinians and the media reported over 500 killed when in fact only 50, most of them militants fighting, were killed. no apology was issued by any publication for that false story as well as no retractions. a documentary was recently made and aired here in canada about the pathetic way the international press covered the jenin incident. most of the culprits, the authors, the editors, refused to appear on camera to give their side of the story despite being proved wrong by a UN report. the guardian (one of the sources you quoted), the independent, BBC news, all of them refused to appear.

[Squid]

Originally posted by miss_silver
IMHO Sinner

This war will never stop until there's is no plaestinians or israelies left alive This was always a no win situation and israel will not stop until there is no palestinians left or until their US funds runs out. The palestinians will never give up until they are all dead or until the US funds runs out.

It truly is a no win situation

most idiotic post ever.

[miss_silver]

Originally posted by Squid
most idiotic post ever.

Don't like my post, don't reply.

oh, and your fucking "tard gif" says it all. wanna insult ppl squid? then don't be a pussy about it and do it right

[Wenchie]

Originally posted by schmooky007
. when the tank shell hit the demonstrators, the media worldwide reported 30 people killed in that attack, a figure that was grossly exaggerated.

I can only find reports putting the death toll for the protest march at between 7 and 10....
Maybe you have a link to your 'media worldwide' sources?

the same happened in jenin in 2002. palestinians and the media reported over 500 killed when in fact only 50, most of them militants fighting, were killed.

A figure of about 100 was initially put forth by an IDF spokesperson.....the figure of 500 was suggested by Erekat and was largely reported by world media as an 'alleged' figure that it was unable to either confirm or deny ......perhaps had the media been allowed access to jenin earlier they would have been able to refute the claim by Erekat.

no apology was issued by any publication for that false story as well as no retractions.

a quick google turned up an apology from Phil Reeves of The Independent posted on 3rd August 2002

a documentary was recently made and aired here in canada about the pathetic way the international press covered the jenin incident. most of the culprits, the authors, the editors, refused to appear on camera to give their side of the story despite being proved wrong by a UN report. the guardian (one of the sources you quoted), the independent, BBC news, all of them refused to appear.

The UN report was compiled from second hand sources as they were denied access to the site......I wouldnt place too much weight on it.
As for the media refusing to appear in the doco.....given the past treatment of journalists by Israelis they may just have felt it in their best interests not to comment....who knows....

[schmooky007]

Originally posted by Wenchie
I can only find reports putting the death toll for the protest march at between 7 and 10....
Maybe you have a link to your 'media worldwide' sources?

most of them have already changed the figure and it was done only after a palestinian doctor from the hospital where the bodies were brought confirmed that only 8 palestinians were killed. on the day of this incident, CNN and BBC (the TV stations, which report differently from their websites) reported "dozens" dead. this figure was eventually taken down to 30, 15, 12, 10, and so forth.. israel from the very beginning said only 8 were killed, yet that was of little importance to the media.. 20, 30 has a nicer ring to it.

A figure of about 100 was initially put forth by an IDF spokesperson.....the figure of 500 was suggested by Erekat and was largely reported by world media as an 'alleged' figure that it was unable to either confirm or deny

yet they reported it anyway.. they flooded the airwaves and newspapers all over the world with 500 and 600 dead without any proof. 500 or 600 innocent people killed in a cramped refugee camp by the mighty israeli army now that's the kind of headline that sells.

perhaps had the media been allowed access to jenin earlier they would have been able to refute the claim by Erekat.

the media was never banned from the camp. they were not allowed into certain areas where there was heavy fighting between troops and militants for their own protection and not because of israel's intention to hide anything.

a quick google turned up an apology from Phil Reeves of The Independent posted on 3rd August 2002

this was not an apology. he said journalists were "sometimes" wrong but that it's israel's fault we were wrong. that's after he compared what was going on in jenin to genocide in cambodia. he didn't bother to admit the real reason for the false reporting was the media's perception of the worst case scenario without any evidence, and that the images of tanks and armed soldiers inside a poor refugee camp would surely cause hundreds if not thousands of casualties. the bottomline is the media jumped the gun. they reported figures that were grossly inaccurate and they should apologize unequivocally and not simply shift the blame for their shitty reporting to israel.

The UN report was compiled from second hand sources as they were denied access to the site......I wouldnt place too much weight on it.

what are you talking about? the report was compiled from statements of UN officials who were at the scene, the palestinian red crescent, human right groups who had their people on the scene, and representatives from five different "neutral" countries. the report was accepted by kofi annan.. no massacres took place, the 500 or so dead is fiction.. 52 palestinians, most of them armed terrorists, and 24 israeli soldiers were killed.

As for the media refusing to appear in the doco.....given the past treatment of journalists by Israelis they may just have felt it in their best interests not to comment....who knows....

yeah i'm sure that's the reason

[Wenchie]

Originally posted by schmooky007 most of them have already changed the figure and it was done only after a palestinian doctor from the hospital where the bodies were brought confirmed that only 8 palestinians were killed. on the day of this incident, CNN and BBC (the TV stations, which report differently from their websites) reported "dozens" dead. this figure was eventually taken down to 30, 15, 12, 10, and so forth.. israel from the very beginning said only 8 were killed, yet that was of little importance to the media.. 20, 30 has a nicer ring to it.

At the risk of sounding impolite.......

thats absolute rubbish.

yet they reported it anyway.. they flooded the airwaves and newspapers all over the world with 500 and 600 dead without any proof. 500 or 600 innocent people killed in a cramped refugee camp by the mighty israeli army now that's the kind of headline that sells

The report of " the number of Palestinian casualties at around 100 in Jenin" as I said was put forth by Brigadier General Ron Kitrey, Spokesperson for the IDF ......which he at a later time clarified to mean dead and wounded.
Again.....the reports of '500 deaths' were largely reported as 'alleged by Palestinians' as opposed to being reported as hard cold fact.......and again this could possibly have been avoided had journalists had access to the site.

the media was never banned from the camp. they were not allowed into certain areas where there was heavy fighting between troops and militants for their own protection and not because of israel's intention to hide anything.

the media was barred from Jenin for approximately 2 weeks ( 3rd - 17th April) and initially after that 'selected' journalists were given 'restricted' access in that they were allowed to 'tour' the camp under IDF supervision

what are you talking about? the report was compiled from statements of UN officials who were at the scene, the palestinian red crescent, human right groups who had their people on the scene, and representatives from five different "neutral" countries. the report was accepted by kofi annan..

Tenth emergency special session
Agenda item 5
Illegal Israeli actions in Occupied East Jerusalem
and the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory

Report of the Secretary-General prepared pursuant
to General Assembly resolution ES-10/10

This report was prepared on the basis of General Assembly resolution ES-10/10, adopted on 7 May 2002, in which the Assembly requested the Secretary-General to present a report, drawing upon the available resources and information, on the recent events that took place in Jenin and other Palestinian cities. The General Assembly requested the report following the disbandment of the United Nations fact-finding team that had been convened by the Secretary-General in response to Security Council resolution 1405 (2002) (2002) of 19 April 2002.

The report was written without a visit to Jenin or the other Palestinian cities in question and it therefore relies completely on available resources and information, including submissions from five United Nations Member States and Observer Missions, documents in the public domain and papers submitted by non-governmental organizations. The Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs wrote to the Permanent Representative of Israel and the Permanent Observer of Palestine to the United Nations requesting them to submit information but only the latter did so. In the absence of a response from Israel, the United Nations has relied on public statements of Israeli officials and publicly available documents of the Government of Israel relevant to the request in resolution ES-10/10.

no massacres took place

that depends on your definition of the word itself

the 500 or so dead is fiction..

true

52 palestinians, most of them armed terrorists,

around half of them armed and half civilians

[schmooky007]

Originally posted by Wenchie
At the risk of sounding impolite.......

thats absolute rubbish.

check the daily independent's website for that date. there's a headline that says "dozens killed in rafah" and when you click on the article the heading reads "8 killed in rafah". this is just one example of how online publications revise their articles as more facts come out.

Again.....the reports of '500 deaths' were largely reported as 'alleged by Palestinians' as opposed to being reported as hard cold fact.......and again this could possibly have been avoided had journalists had access to the site.

what a load of crap! journalists from around the world reported rumours as factual information. while the palestinians alleged that 500 people were killed, the media jumped to their own conclusions with reports of genocide and mass graves, equating what's taking place in jenin to genocide in cambodia and bosnia even though this was clearly not the case.

a few examples of what the press printed:

- "We are talking here of massacre, and a cover-up, of genocide..." (london evening standard)

- "Rarely, in more than a decade of war reporting from Bosnia, Chechnya, Sierra Leone, Kosovo, have I seen such deliberate destruction, such disrespect for human life." (london times)

- "Israel's actions in Jenin were every bit as repellent as Osama Bin Laden's attack on New York on September 11." (the guardian)

- "I personally saw 30 Palestinian corpses at the hospital on April the 20th, and with dozens of other foreign reporters, watched them being buried at a mass grave just up the road from the hospital... Just as in Tiananmen Square, the power of the gun and the tank ensured there was no proper body count or accounting. Just as happened in Tiananmen Square, the uninformed and those with their own agenda, are now claiming there was no massacre. There was a massacre, a considerable number of human beings were indiscriminately and unnecessarily slaughtered..." (peter cave, australia's ABC)

the story was never proved as no mass graves were found, and if reporters like peter cave really wanted to provide their viewers with impartial coverage they could have went to abu kabir to check on the corpses of the 30 israeli civilians who were blown to pieces on the eve of passover just two weeks earlier. THAT he'll actually find. but of course he and literally everybody else had no intentions of doing so. all this rhetoric from the media proves beyond doubt that not only the reports about what happened in jenin were flawed and biased, but most of them were not based on information coming out of the PA so you can't say the press was saying what the palestinians were alleging. these were all fabricated lies that were brought upon by the media's perception of the palestinians as victims du jour and the israelis as the aggressors.

the media was barred from Jenin for approximately 2 weeks ( 3rd - 17th April) and initially after that 'selected' journalists were given 'restricted' access in that they were allowed to 'tour' the camp under IDF supervision

this is another myth. the media was never banned from jenin. civilians were banned from certain small areas of the camp for their own protection and not because israel was trying to hide anything. once the operation completed and the dust settled, reporters were surprised to find that their exaggerated claims were unfounded. the new york times interviewed dozens of palestinians in the camp and found "no solid evidence of large-scale deliberate killing of civilians", and according to the washington post, "no evidence has surfaced to support allegations ... of large-scale massacres or executions by Israeli troops."

The report was written without a visit to Jenin or the other Palestinian cities in question and it therefore relies completely on available resources and information, including submissions from five United Nations Member States and Observer Missions, documents in the public domain and papers submitted by non-governmental organizations. The Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs wrote to the Permanent Representative of Israel and the Permanent Observer of Palestine to the United Nations requesting them to submit information but only the latter did so. In the absence of a response from Israel, the United Nations has relied on public statements of Israeli officials and publicly available documents of the Government of Israel relevant to the request in resolution ES-10/10.

all the relevant palestinian, UN, and human rights organizations contributed to the report. israel didn't participate in the inquiry because it already provided most of the information it had to the public. despite this, convinced that a massacre in jenin indeed took place, the international community shunned the israeli figures. initially the report gave the palestinians the full exposure they wanted, and it started with their claims of over 500 palestinians killed. eventually the palestinian claims proved to be an outright lie and the UN report ultimately agreed with the israeli figures. on the day the UN released its report on jenin and kofi annan accepted the findings, a few journalists and editors issued pathetic excuses for their flawed coverage.