[helene_t]

Thanks for the link Lynn, very wise words.

[helene_t]

hrothgar, on Jun 2 2010, 11:12 AM, said:

For what its worth, here is a statement from the Gaza Freedom March before the Israeli attack

Quote

A violent response from Israel will breathe new life into the Palestine solidarity movement, drawing attention to the blockade.

These people are into violence for its own sake.

Why don't they take up a more challenging task, like igniting hatred in Hawaii, Costa Rica, Norway, New Zealand, Bhutan? The Middle East is too easy.

[hrothgar]

helene_t, on Jun 2 2010, 05:08 PM, said:

hrothgar, on Jun 2 2010, 11:12 AM, said:

For what its worth, here is a statement from the Gaza Freedom March before the Israeli attack

Quote

A violent response from Israel will breathe new life into the Palestine solidarity movement, drawing attention to the blockade.

These people are into violence for its own sake.

Why don't they take up a more challenging task, like igniting hatred in Hawaii, Costa Rica, Norway, New Zealand, Bhutan? The Middle East is too easy.

Just to be clear, you're claiming that Mairead Corrigan-Maguire is "into violence for its own sake"?

Regradless, I'm calling "bullshit"

The Israelis are systematically starving 1.5 million people as form of collective punishment. I think that its perfectly reasonable to take action to try to force a change in the policy, even if this action is predicated on the assumption of violence.

I suspect that the actions of members of the flotilla would have come across as more "noble" if they practiced Ghandian style non-violence. (The results would have certainly been more telegenic). Then again, I'm not sure that this would necessarily have have provoked the type of over-reaction they were looking for.

I really don't see much difference in the actions of the flotilla members and the Civil Rights protests here in the US.

[luke warm]

PassedOut, on Jun 2 2010, 08:24 AM, said:

Liked this quote in Thomas Friedman's latest column: When Friends Fall Out

Quote

One of my oldest Israeli friends, Victor Friedman (no relation), an education professor from Zichron Yaacov, e-mailed me the following on Tuesday: “It’s time we started using our wits. If we used even a tiny fraction of the brain-power and resources we put into ‘defense’ into finding a way forward in terms of living with the Palestinians, we would have solved the problem long ago. The strategic situation has never been more opportune — the Arabs are scared of the Iranians, the Saudi peace plan is still on the table, and the Palestinians are beginning to act rationally. But we lack the leadership to help us make a real change.”

Alas.

from the hamas charter

Quote

"Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it." (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory).

"The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. "

"There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors."

"After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying."

where does friedman suggest that israel begins negotiations?

[blackshoe]

According to wikipedia, the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" are a crock, put together by anti-Semites, with statements culled from previous crocks which actually had nothing to do with Jews.

Ergo, and not seeing any other compelling evidence that the Hamas Charter has a clue what the Israelis want, I conclude that the last paragraph of that quote up there is another crock, spin generated solely to "justify" Hamas' desire for genocide. Screw that.

[kenberg]

I'll bet to the blockade in a bit. First dome general thoughts.

Contrary to Winston, I think the world should ignore it. Shocking, yes. But I generally try to stay out of other people's fights. Hamas hopes to destroy Israel. Israel hopes to destroy Hamas. I am not suggesting equivalence, I favor Israel by a wide margin in this struggle. But they each wish to destroy the other and I fully expect that to be true tomorrow and the day after tomorrow and five years from now. Hamas, the Wik tells me, has "only" been around since 1987 but in the broader sense these guys have been killing each other for my entire adult life. And, I suppose, long before. We can help both sides most, and ourselves the most, by butting out when either side comes shouting "Look what they have done". It's not isolationism, it's not even not caring about the horrible pain and suffering, it's realism. As long as Israel exists, this will continue. I do not favor abandoning Israel.

Now to the blockade: It's stupid to blockade something and not enforce the blockade. Quite possibly this means that it is stupid to blockade. Let them figure it out.

[helene_t]

Winstonm, on Jun 2 2010, 12:37 AM, said:

But from the news bytes I heard the claim from Israel was in keeping with the same reasoning that established the Bush Doctrine, i.e., we have the right to go anywhere and do anything to anyone in order to stop our enemies from acting against us.

"Anywhere" includes Iraq (for the US) and Gaza (for Israel)?

I think there is a difference. I think Israel's stakes in Gaza are a lot more real than USA's stakes in Iraq.

[hrothgar]

kenberg, on Jun 3 2010, 12:38 AM, said:

As long as Israel exists, this will continue. I do not favor abandoning Israel.

I do.

They made their bed, now they get to lie in it.

I think that we should let most any Israeli citizen who wants emigrate to the US.

The rest of them should get treated just like South Africa.
End all US military and economic aid + trade embargo.

[kenberg]

hrothgar, on Jun 2 2010, 05:36 PM, said:

kenberg, on Jun 3 2010, 12:38 AM, said:

As long as Israel exists, this will continue. I do not favor abandoning Israel.

I do.

They made their bed, now they get to lie in it.

I think that we should let most any Israeli citizen who wants emigrate to the US.

The rest of them should get treated just like South Africa.
End all US military and economic aid + trade embargo.

While we make different choices here, we might ?) agree that really this is what it comes down to.

[hrothgar]

the following article does a pretty good job summarizing the timeline

http://www.salon.com/news/israel/index.htm..._reconstruction

[helene_t]

richard's link above said:

The government offered to transfer any humanitarian aid to the Palestinian territory, but the flotilla's organizers refused, saying their goal was to break a blockade they considered illegal.

[Winstonm]

helene_t, on Jun 2 2010, 05:04 PM, said:

Winstonm, on Jun 2 2010, 12:37 AM, said:

But from the news bytes I heard the claim from Israel was in keeping with the same reasoning that established the Bush Doctrine, i.e., we have the right to go anywhere and do anything to anyone in order to stop our enemies from acting against us.

"Anywhere" includes Iraq (for the US) and Gaza (for Israel)?

I think there is a difference. I think Israel's stakes in Gaza are a lot more real than USA's stakes in Iraq.

I don't think it matters - the Bush Doctrin IMO is an abortion. There was a reason the Nuremberg came with the decision that an act of aggressive war was a war crime. Iraq has simply shown why Nuremberg was wise and the Bush Doctrine so glaringly wrong.

If we start into the well they did so-and-so first, yeah, but you-did-whatchamacallit then you go down the same idiotic slope that the middle east has been sliding about on forever.

Maybe we should just ask god who started it all - hmmm, but then we have to figure out which god to ask, don't we?

[gwnn]

[Winstonm]

I thought Justin Raimondo of anti-war.com made an interesting observation about the realtionship between the U.S. and Israels. Perhaps the U.S. is misguided and living in the past?

Quote

It is often said, by Israel’s defenders, that the Jewish state is part and parcel of the West: that Israel, the only democracy in the region, must be defended because they are, after all, reliable allies who share our values, the heritage of Athens and Jerusalem. That has been the conventional wisdom – and it’s wrong. The Mediterranean Massacre underscores the wrongness of this assumption.

Quote

Israel is not a Western country, and hasn’t been for some time: helped along by this latest incident, the realization of this fact by Western governments and peoples will represent a turning point in the Jewish state’s relations with the civilized world, especially including Jews in the Diaspora. I have argued this for years: that the successful aliya program pushed by the Israeli government has displaced the old European-derived Israeli elites with a new, more Asiatic influence, one that is now – with the rise of the Israel far right – the dominant factor in Israeli politics.

[Rossoneri]

PassedOut, on Jun 2 2010, 02:24 PM, said:

Liked this quote in Thomas Friedman's latest column: When Friends Fall Out

This quote from the article sums up my sentiment:

Quote

I have no problem with Turkey or humanitarian groups loudly criticizing Israel. But I have a big problem when people get so agitated by Israel’s actions in Gaza but are unmoved by Syria’s involvement in the murder of the prime minister of Lebanon, by the Iranian regime’s killing of its own citizens demonstrating for the right to have their votes counted, by Muslim suicide bombers murdering nearly 100 Ahmadi Muslims in mosques in Pakistan on Friday and by pro-Hamas gunmen destroying a U.N.-sponsored summer camp in Gaza because it wouldn’t force Islamic fundamentalism down the throats of children.

A friend of mine showed support for the protests in London on Facebook. So I asked him, North Korea killed 46 when they sank the South Korean naval ship without provocation, so why are you not protesting against them? His reply was highly unconvincing.

[andrei]

Rossoneri, on Jun 2 2010, 09:06 PM, said:

PassedOut, on Jun 2 2010, 02:24 PM, said:

Liked this quote in Thomas Friedman's latest column: When Friends Fall Out

This quote from the article sums up my sentiment:

Quote

I have no problem with Turkey or humanitarian groups loudly criticizing Israel. But I have a big problem when people get so agitated by Israel’s actions in Gaza but are unmoved by Syria’s involvement in the murder of the prime minister of Lebanon, by the Iranian regime’s killing of its own citizens demonstrating for the right to have their votes counted, by Muslim suicide bombers murdering nearly 100 Ahmadi Muslims in mosques in Pakistan on Friday and by pro-Hamas gunmen destroying a U.N.-sponsored summer camp in Gaza because it wouldn’t force Islamic fundamentalism down the throats of children.

A friend of mine showed support for the protests in London on Facebook. So I asked him, North Korea killed 46 when they sank the South Korean naval ship without provocation, so why are you not protesting against them? His reply was highly unconvincing.

+1

Israel actions in Gaza: all over the news, first page in all newspapers
Syrians, Iranians, North Koreans actions: right after the sports news or in page 23.

Sad to see how people are manipulated by the media.

[helene_t]

andrei, on Jun 3 2010, 05:57 AM, said:

Sad to see how people are manipulated by the media.

I think it's the other way round.

People hate USA and because Israel is an ally of USA they hate Israel, too.

Or they just hate Israel because they hate Jews.

And the media tell people what they want to hear.

[hrothgar]

Rossoneri, on Jun 3 2010, 05:06 AM, said:

A friend of mine showed support for the protests in London on Facebook. So I asked him, North Korea killed 46 when they sank the South Korean naval ship without provocation, so why are you not protesting against them? His reply was highly unconvincing.

Simply put, we expect better from the Israeli's

The world sat back and watched while millions of African's hacked each other to death with machetes. We - the US in particular - didn't bother to raise a finger to try to stop this. We cried a few crocodile tears after the fact, however, this is Africa. We expect it to be screwed up.

In a similar vein, compare the Holocaust in Germany with a number of other genocidal activities. (Pol Pot in Cambodia, Stalin's actions in the Soviet Union). I'd argue that the reason that the Holocaust has captured the world's imagination isn't the unique characteristics of the victims or even the systemic / even clinical nature of the process. Its the fact that this atrocity was carried out by Germans. (And once again, the world expects better from the land of Goethe).

In the case of Israeli

1. The world has a (high) set of expectations regarding Israel
2. Historically, these expectations are what justify the enormous amounts of continuous military and economic aid that flow from the US to Israel. Its also what stops the world from treating Israel in the same way that they treat other apartheid regimes.
3. If the Israeli's want to break these expectations, so be it. However, they need to be aware that there are consequences to these actions.

[PassedOut]

hrothgar, on Jun 3 2010, 05:17 AM, said:

1. The world has a (high) set of expectations regarding Israel

And not so high for, say, North Korea.

Because of the strong linkage between the US and Israel, every mistake by Israel reflects badly on the US as well. The US is trying to recover from the stupidity of invading Iraq, and incidents like this one hurt that effort.

[luke warm]

hrothgar, on Jun 3 2010, 05:17 AM, said:

Rossoneri, on Jun 3 2010, 05:06 AM, said:

A friend of mine showed support for the protests in London on Facebook. So I asked him, North Korea killed 46 when they sank the South Korean naval ship without provocation, so why are you not protesting against them? His reply was highly unconvincing.

Simply put, we expect better from the Israeli's

why do you expect better from the israelis than, say, the syrians? or the iranians? or even the n. koreans?

Quote

If the Israeli's want to break these expectations, so be it. However, they need to be aware that there are consequences to these actions.

i'm interested, what would you expect to happen if the u.s. suddenly withdrew military and other support from israel? do you think that if israel was left to stand alone the middle east would be more or less peaceful? for my money, if the u.s. wasn't in that picture there would surely be all out war over there (with the exception, perhaps, of egypt), and israel would almost surely come out of it with even more land that it now has