Israel: The Double Standard

Most Israeli people, just like most Palestinian people, simply want to live their lives. Most Israeli people, like most Palestinian people, are just not exceptionally bright (by definition 50% of the population is less intelligent than the median) and thus easily taken in by fear-mongering and propaganda. Palestine is in the hands of religious extremists, but so is Israel - non-Jews (and even Jews with the 'wrong' background) are discriminated against and treated as second-class citizens, they do not get many of the civil rights that Jews do get, and let's not even mention economic opportunities and education. If that's not apartheid, I don't know what is. It is the nefarious combination of a powerful military/weapons industry, territorially expansionist nationalist politics and religious bigots that are turning Israel into a kind of North Korea-light - a state ruled by fear, propaganda and an ever-more authoritarian army.

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Hit the nail right on the head.

Let's put events in the form of a parable to see how outragous the Israeli military actions are, and how flawed their defense of it is:

A bank robbery takes place. The police surround the building. The robbers take the people in the bank hostage. The SWAT team uses heavy weapons to kill everyone inside - after all, if they used less force, they might risk one of their own getting hurt. They give a press conference: it's the robbers' fault all those innocent civilians died, they put them in the line of fire.

Does that sound reasonable to you? Then why do we accept it when Israel acts like this and gives that exact same excuse?

Because the west needs an ally in the middle east that isn't run by radical islamists.

That would be Kurdistan, another one of Balfour's promises that wasn't fulfilled (like Israel and Palestine, neither of which got what they were promised).

North south east or west kurdistan?

North south east or west kurdistan?

An independent Republic of Kurdistan consisting of those four informal regions. However, its territories would consist of regions that are now part of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria, so it is as politically volatile a subject as the Israeli-Palestine question.

Then what can we do?

Whatever it is we can to stop the fighting.

Like cutting support to Israel we supply them with ammunition and money two things which make this disaster possible.

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In part, that was because of a vicious terrorist campaign by jewish extremists who murdered and lynched British troops (the same troops who helped liberate the Nazi death camps). They also blew up the King David Hotel, killing 91 people. Many of these jewish terrorists then ended up in the first Israeli government. 
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[b]thomasquinn 32989 wrote: [/b] That would be Kurdistan, another one of Balfour's promises that wasn't fulfilled (like Israel and Palestine, neither of which got what they were promised).[/QUOTE]

Yes, I'm well aware of that. They're also the same types who, within two decades, terrorized many of the more progressive people (Jewish and gentile) who came to help on the communal farms into leaving the country forever. To a large extent, by the 1960s, Israel was no longer a refuge for victims of the nazis and lingering anti-semitism who wanted to start a new life, but a haven for intolerant types who want to force their religious views on the whole population (the people who are now the colonists).

It is striking that in the supposedly anti-semitic demonstrations against the state of Israel as a Jewish state that are held in Jerusalem every year, Hamas-types and ultra-orthodox Jews march side by side: the most orthodox Jews, those much more deeply religious than the colonist-types, consider the state of Israel itself a blasphemous entity, because Judaism teaches that Israel will be rebuilt when, and only when, the Messiah comes.

[QUOTE] [b]thomasquinn 32989 wrote:[/b]

brENsKi: I'm disappointed that you fail to see the difference between having a right to defend oneself and massacring some 1500 innocent civilians and attacking UN schools. I also see that you are remarkably uncritical of the propaganda that is being spread, in that you are entirely convinced that Hamas provoked this war every step of the way. I had expected a more intelligent response from you.[/QUOTE]
perhaps you should be reading what I actually typed as opposed to what YOU think it meant.
and as for propaganda - you're far more guilty of "buying into" the "Israel Goliath stomping all over innocent Arabs" - cept that we ALL know Goliath was an Arab...and still is.
As for Hamas. Read their charter on Palestine - in particular articles 11 and 13. This applies to EVERYONE who doesn't subscribe to the Hamas version of Islam.

And I know you're likely to respond with considered opinion - you always do - but this site has one or two professional gainstsayers who'll latch onto what you say - just to spout overt and extreme crap.

So before I bow out of this one let me add some salient facts for Doga and Jefffab1995 who think this situation is so black and white (conflict based on religion never is)

>> Hamas has launched 15,000,000 rockets at Israel since 2001 - that's THREE every day!!!! would YOU like to live like that? Moreover, would YOU put up with it? or expect your leaders to respond?
>> 10 years ago Israel withdrew from Gaza - removing almost 10,000 Jewish settlers who had lived there 30 years.
>> blockades do NOT stop humanitarian aid - they stop weapons
>> Hamas are targeting humanitarian crossing points and THEY are preventing the humanitarian aid getting thru.
>> There is no balance between Israel defending itself and a terrorist organisation hiding rockets in schools and using innocents as human shields. If Hamas stopped NOW they'd have instant peace. They won't - because peace is not their objective - eradicating Israel is.

1,500 Palestinians is tragic - but it's NOT genocide. And let's make no mistake - I don't hear you banging a drum against Assad's massacre of 150,000 Syrians - half of which are said to be innocent civilians.