DaveC
Blue Crack Addict
Israeli ground troops have now invaded the Gaza Strip.
God help us all.
God help us all.
Millions of people, in multiple locations and of multiple backgrounds, were permanently displaced by the various catastrophes accompanying WWII and its immediate aftermath. Many of them--actually, statistically probably most of them--never got anything in return, save for the 'opportunity' to scrabble their way back up the ladder in some new location with nothing more than the clothes on their back to start with. Few governments, including the nascent Israeli government, were in much of a mood to give a flying fuck about the property rights of anyone they didn't consider their own. (And incidentally, property is not the most fundamental human right; life is. Because when all your relatives, all your friends, and all your neighbors are dead, and whichever few others survive from the community that in fact constituted your attachment to the place you once called home have been scattered to the four corners, then you most likely aren't going to give jack-shit anymore about that haunted plot of land in ____.) There are still compromises to be made, hopes to be reasonably held out, moral obligations to be insisted upon; there always are; but for better and for worse, that particular era is over and it's never coming back.The issue is fundamentally about human rights - indeed, the most fundamental of all human rights, which is the right to property.
A UN-enforced ceasefire, backed by international sanctions for violations from either side, calling for an end to all violent attacks (including targeted assassinations by Israel and missile fire from Gaza); the reopening of Gaza's border with Israel and resumption of normal trade, subject to inspections; a prisoner exchange; and rapid dismantling of the illegal Israeli settlements wouldn't make a bad preamble for a return to negotiations on an independent Palestinian state. And an initial good-faith gesture from Israel in the direction of eventual, inevitable compromises on right of return (a limited annual refugee return quota, and/or establishment of an international fund to help with the costs of resettling refugees) would certainly help to facilitate that process.
Dear Friends,
I'm sorry I've been rather remiss in my postings and replies to your messages. It hasn't been easy times for us here. I live in the city of Ashdod which has sustained a few missile attacks over the past week (some landing close to my house). I live with my older sister and elderly mother and it's really not easy to live in such a constant state of alertness 24/7.
To make things worse, we don't have a shelter where we live so we are all sleeping in our living room downstairs - which saves time when we only have 45 seconds to take cover when the siren sounds. During the day we keep our windows closed (because it's cold) but when the siren sounds my sister and I scramble to open all the windows just to make sure the glass doesn't shatter if a missile should fall nearby.
Let me assure you that we are ok and we are very strong people. I hate this fighting and I hate the fact that innocent people are being hurt and killed on both sides. Unfortunately, we had absolutely no other choice than to start this campaign which, hopefully, will end Hamas' reign of terror over us AND the Palestinians.
If you'd like more in-depth information about this campaign - you're welcome to check out the new IDF video channel on YouTube:
YouTube - idfnadesk's Channel
I hope you'll find it informative.
Thanks a lot and have a good day.
It's more newsworthy when they aren't killing each other, tbh.
ha, no kidding.
what a bunch of stupid fucks on both sides.
A UN-enforced ceasefire, backed by international sanctions for violations from either side....
It is the goyim moralists who are silent, not the Jews. It is the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, not the goyim media, that provides reports of Israel’s abuse of Palestinians. Gideon Levy’s “The Neighborhood Bully Strikes Again” was published in Haaretz (29 December), not in the goyim press. Levy’s words--“Once again, Israel’s violent responses, even if there is justification for them, exceed all proportion and cross every red line of humaneness, morality, international law and wisdom”--are not words that can appear in American print or TV media. Such words, printed in Israeli newspapers, never reach the goyim.
Palestinians in Gaza are not permitted to enter Israel or Egypt. Last week a humanitarian ship bringing food and medicine was rammed by Israeli gunboats and turned away.
The Palestinians are no more of a threat to Israel than Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto were a threat to the Nazi state.
It fools Americans, but it doesn’t fool Israelis. The Israelis have always known that “self-defense” is a cloak for a Zionist policy of territorial expansion. The policy is controversial within Israel. Many Israelis object, just as many Americans object to President Bush’s illegal wars and violations of US civil liberties. Many Israelis give voice to their moral conscience, but they are overwhelmed by vested interests.
Karl Marx declared morality to be merely a mask for vested interests.
The success the two regimes have had in instilling fear into their populations is part of the explanation for the impotence of morality.
Consider the case of Lee Bollinger. Columbia University is dependent on Jewish money, faculty and students. If Bollinger were to take a stand against Israel’s mistreatment of the Palestinians, he would be denounced as an anti-semite. Presidents of competitor universities would not come to his defense. They would pile on in hopes of recruiting Columbia’s top faculty and students and redirecting the flow of financial resources from Columbia to themselves.
We are living in the latter time. Financial interests, the military-security complex, and the Israel Lobby are the powers that rule America.
The world will need to remember that although Israel is a Jewish state, it is a state whose policies many Jews find objectionable, just as a majority of American Jews oppose President Bush’s wars of aggression in the Middle East and his unconstitutional policies at home. We must not confuse Israel’s Zionist government with world Jewry, just as we must not confuse the American people with the war criminals in the Bush Regime.
Consider, who do you trust with your civil liberties, the US Department of Justice or the ACLU’s phalanx of Jewish attorneys?
We must avoid the mistake that was made by blaming the German people for Hitler. It was the aristocratic German military that tried to remove Hitler. In contrast, Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi blocked the attempt to impeach George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Pelosi is a discredit to California, but shall we blame all of America for Pelosi’s defense of war criminals? How can we do so when US Rep. Dennis Kucinich courageously read out the articles of impeachment on the House floor?
Are all Americans guilty because Kucinich did not prevail?
if peace were possible.
To me this pretty much sums up the contrived, hollow even-handedness that this author is striving to effect. Jews don't walk around talking about "the goyim media" any more than African-Americans walk around talking about "the honky media," and the effect is just as ridiculous (and just as discomfiting)."It is the goyim moralists who are silent, not the Jews. It is the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, not the goyim media, that provides reports of Israel’s abuse of Palestinians. Gideon Levy’s 'The Neighborhood Bully Strikes Again' was published in Haaretz (29 December), not in the goyim press...Such words, printed in Israeli newspapers, never reach the goyim."
But seriously, if anything it's the United States that uses Israel for its interests, not the other way around.
I don't know if your friends ever want to go back, but hating is easy. Someone can hate them just the same because of what they represent to him, without even knowing them.
Stay safe. I will keep you and your family in my prayers for peace.I live in the city of Ashdod which has sustained a few missile attacks over the past week (some landing close to my house).
They were all here for 3 year contracts, so they all did go back to Israel in the end. And by the way, he wasn't the only one, the rest of them expressed the same view. Additionally, they also said that after spending time in North America, that they really had a bad taste left in their mouths by the Jewish diaspora, which they saw as really right wing and really militant and not in touch with what they said was mainstream sentiment in Israel.
Stop Gaza Attacks : Le Petit Canard NoirThe violence in Gaza suits the agendas of both the eliminationist, antisemitic, Hamas and the Israeli rejectionist, racist right. On the Hamas side, Jews are behind the French and the Communist Revolutions and there is no war that broke out anywhere without [Jews’] fingerprints on it, and on the other, Hamas’ response to Israeli bombardment is ‘proof’ that Palestians are ‘terrorists’ and ‘justifies’ the ongoing occupation of Palestinian land and denial of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination.
Hamas spews violent antisemitic hatred, and despite a cloak of anti-imperialist rhetoric, is an implacable enemy of socialism and independent workers’ organisations. Hamas intimidates and threatens workers and attacks trade union leaders, tortures and murders political opponents and those it designates as ‘collaborators’ and enforces the ‘veiling’ of women in areas under it’s control. While Hamas was considered less corrupt than the opportunistic and institutionally corrupt Fatah (themselves never turning down a ride on the antisemitic bandwagon when it suits them), Hamas ministers have been found travelling with suitcases full of millions of dollars for which they are unable to offer any explanation. Hamas is another bourgeois elite parasitic on the Palestinian workers whom they use as cannon fodder in their reactionary nationalistic war with both secular Palestinian society and the Israeli State.
The Israeli blockade and isolation of Gaza for the two years since Hamas were elected, has had the unintended — or intended — consequence of ensuring that Hamas has not been given enough room to ‘fail’, as the people of Gaza are concerned with the day to day struggle for survival. Fatah has provided no way forward and Hamas promises a social and political disaster for Palestinians, while Israel’s divide and rule strategy and continuing brutal occupation and isolation of Palestinian lands will bring nothing but further chaos to Jews, Israeli Arabs and Palestinian Arabs alike. The Palestinian and Israeli ruling classes have failed to provide peace and security for their respective peoples, despite majority support for peace on both ’sides’ of the conflict. It is time for ordinary Israelis and Palestinians to join together to realise the aspirations of peace and self-determination for both peoples.
I don't intend to be rude, but what's your point?
They were all here for 3 year contracts, so they all did go back to Israel in the end. And by the way, he wasn't the only one, the rest of them expressed the same view. Additionally, they also said that after spending time in North America, that they really had a bad taste left in their mouths by the Jewish diaspora, which they saw as really right wing and really militant and not in touch with what they said was mainstream sentiment in Israel.
I don't intend to be rude, but what's your point?