Is no one concerned about the crime against humanity which is currently being carried out Gaza, or are you all out protesting
It's an absolute outrage, however its nothing new and as long as the US continues to bankroll the most aggressive force in the Middle East without any sanctions whatever their actions there can never be any hope for the millions of Palestinians trapped in an open hell prison since 1947
That Hamas are out of control. I do not support war but i feel that since Israel have hit back that they should also go in on the ground and take Hamas out and all their infrastructure, bombing from the air kills more innocent people that anything else.
Quote from: Pangurban on December 29, 2008, 01:05:06 AM
Is no one concerned about the crime against humanity which is currently being carried out Gaza, or are you all out protesting
Yes, it is an outrage.
I dont know enough about the context though - is it a typical overraction by the Jews, or just their old testment eye for an eye stuff?
QuoteIs no one concerned about the crime against humanity which is currently being carried out Gaza
Hardly shocking around here now is it PB sure the US weren't involved... Oh Wait ::)...who'll we blame after Jan 20th :-\
I'm concerned for the future of Palestine when president elect Barrack Obama openly showed his support for Israel. I was hoping he would bring a more honest approach to politics and not just be another US president.
The United States has a lot to answer for and has committed horrific war crimes to various peoples a round the globe. You just wonder will something not give sooner or later. Nelson Mandela described it very well when he famously said "that there is enough in the world for mankind but not mans greed". What happened in Palestine was another huge blow for humanity.
Dear IPSC supporter,
In light of the ongoing attacks by Israel in Gaza (the current death toll stands at over 300, with many more injured) there will be another protest in Dublin tomorrow Monday 29th December. It will be held at the Israeli Embassy in Ballsbridge, and will start at 5pm, and there will be a march to the American Embassy down the road.
There will also be a demo in Belfast starting at 12 noon outside the City Hall.
Finally, here is a report from today's demo in Dublin: http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/ipsc/displayRelease.php?releaseID=94
In Solidarity
[Edited by Mod 3 - Disgusting Comment]
Everyone will be outraged but at the end of the day who actually gives a f**k, these pricks stand there saying its Hamas fault bla bla bla, bottom line is they are same as Ulster unionists except with serious weaponry.
Gaza is well & truly fcuked
Israel have lined their army personnel along the border with Gaza & have called up its reservists (sp)
Cant wait to see the reaction from the Brits & the US now :-\
The Israelis are behaving like animals. It is mass murder.
it's also f**king typical of the Irish to sit say we can do nothing about it. The hypocrisy of the Irish is sickening. The US and others are big players in this but that is no excuse for the Irish to sit on the fence and pretend we give a f**k. Brian Cowen should be calling the Israelis the war criminals they are. He should be telling the US and the EU that Israel are guilty of genocide and so should be held accountable.
We are the great peace keepers policing refuges in Chad and telling the world we are great while we stand back and watch Israel bomb the f**k out of innocent captives in Gaza. f**king disgusting.
One of the few journalists worth reading on the matter had this to say in todays indo. In my opinion Israel is one of the most powerful Tyrants in the world today. How ironic that they once suffered the same fate that the now meat out to the innocent civilians of Gaza and lebanon. Shame on Barak Obama for supporting these fascists.
By Robert Fisk
Monday December 29 2008
WE'VE got so used to the carnage of the Middle East that we don't care any more -- providing we don't offend the Israelis.
It's not clear how many of the Gaza dead are civilians, but the response of the Bush administration, not to mention the pusillanimous reaction of Gordon Brown, reaffirm for Arabs what they have known for decades: however they struggle against their antagonists, the West will take Israel's side. As usual, the bloodbath was the fault of the Arabs -- who, as we all know, only understand force.
Ever since 1948, we've been hearing this balderdash from the Israelis. Similarly, Arab nationalists and then Arab Islamists have been peddling their own lies: that the Zionist "death wagon" will be overthrown, that all Jerusalem will be "liberated".
And always, Mr Bush Snr or Mr Clinton or Mr Bush Jnr or Mr Blair or Mr Brown have called upon both sides to exercise "restraint" -- as if the Palestinians and the Israelis both have F-18s and Merkava tanks and field artillery. Hamas's homemade rockets have killed just 20 Israelis in eight years, but a day-long blitz by Israeli aircraft that kills almost 300 Palestinians is just par for the course.
The blood-splattering has its own routine. Yes, Hamas provoked Israel's anger, just as Israel provoked Hamas's anger, which was provoked by Israel, which was provoked by Hamas, which . . . see what I mean?
Hamas fires rockets at Israel, Israel bombs Hamas, Hamas fires more rockets and Israel bombs again and . . . got it? And we demand security for Israel -- rightly -- but overlook this massive and utterly disproportionate slaughter by Israel. It was former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright who once said that Israel was "under siege" -- as if Palestinian tanks were in the streets of Tel Aviv.
By last night, the exchange rate stood at 296 Palestinians dead for one dead Israeli. Back in 2006, it was 10 Lebanese dead for one Israeli dead. This weekend was the most inflationary exchange rate in a single day since -- the 1973 Middle East War? The 1967 Six Day War? The 1956 Suez War? The 1948 Independence/Nakba War? It's obscene, a gruesome game which Ehud Barak, the Israeli Defence Minister, unconsciously admitted when he spoke this weekend to Fox TV. "Our intention is to totally change the rules of the game," Barak said.
Exactly. Only the "rules" of the game don't change.
This is a further slippage on the Arab-Israeli exchanges, a percentage slide more awesome than Wall Street's crashing shares, though of not much interest in the US which -- let us remember -- made the F-18s and the Hellfire missiles which the Bush administration pleads with Israel to use sparingly.
Quite a lot of the dead this weekend appear to have been Hamas members, but what is it supposed to solve? Is Hamas going to say: "Wow, this blitz is awesome -- we'd better recognise the state of Israel, fall in line with the Palestinian Authority, lay down our weapons and pray we are taken prisoner and locked up indefinitely and support a new American 'peace process' in the Middle East!" Is that what the Israelis and the Americans and Gordon Brown think Hamas is going to do?
Yes, let's remember Hamas's cynicism, the cynicism of all armed Islamist groups. Their need for Muslim martyrs is as crucial to them as Israel's need to create them. The lesson Israel thinks it is teaching -- come to heel or we will crush you -- is not the lesson Hamas is learning. Hamas needs violence to emphasise the oppression of the Palestinians and relies on Israel to provide it. A few rockets into Israel and Israel duly obliges.
WE hear the usual Israeli line. General Yaakov Amidror, the former head of the Israeli army's "research and assessment division", announced that "no country in the world would allow its citizens to be made the target of rocket attacks without taking vigorous steps to defend them". Quite so. But when the IRA were firing mortars over the border into Northern Ireland, when their guerrillas were crossing from the Republic to attack police stations and Protestants, did Britain unleash the RAF on the Irish Republic? Did the RAF bomb churches and tankers and police stations and zap 300 civilians to teach the Irish a lesson? No, it did not. Because the world would have seen it as criminal behaviour. We didn't want to lower ourselves to the IRA's level.
Yes, Israel deserves security. But these bloodbaths will not bring it. Not since 1948 have air raids protected Israel. Israel has bombed Lebanon thousands of times since 1975 and not one has eliminated "terrorism". So what was the reaction last night? The Israelis threaten ground attacks. Hamas waits for another battle. Our Western politicians crouch in their funk holes. And somewhere to the east, a well-known man in a turban smiles. (© Independent News Service)
- Robert Fisk
Quote from: Zapatista on December 29, 2008, 11:25:08 AM
The Israelis are behaving like animals. It is mass murder.
it's also f**king typical of the Irish to sit say we can do nothing about it. The hypocrisy of the Irish is sickening. The US and others are big players in this but that is no excuse for the Irish to sit on the fence and pretend we give a f**k. Brian Cowen should be calling the Israelis the war criminals they are. He should be telling the US and the EU that Israel are guilty of genocide and so should be held accountable.
We are the great peace keepers policing refuges in Chad and telling the world we are great while we stand back and watch Israel bomb the f**k out of innocent captives in Gaza. f**king disgusting.
Zapista - you are mistaking our politicans for some other people that might have some principles or balls on any international issue. I'm going to make this issue the 1st question I ask the next canvasers at my door.
QuoteBrian Cowen should be calling the Israelis the war criminals they are. He should be telling the US and the EU that Israel are guilty of genocide and so should be held accountable.
Lets hope the flying pigs dont land on his head when he's making that speech.
IF Cowen was to condemn Israel he should also condemn Hamas for firing rockets into Israel. They have consistently done that for years and we hear nothing about it! Having said that Israel's response is akin to crusing a peanut with a steamroller!
Balance is a wonderful thing. People are jumping over each other to condemn the imbalance of Israel's disproportionate response and it is indeed outrageous and indefensible slaughter and the perpetrators would be tried as war criminals in other circumstances. But if we're to concern ourselves with balanced responses, why has nobody even thought it worth mentioning that Hamas is killing innocent Israelis as well? In fact, some of the comments here seem to condone that particular form of killing.
So is it OK for one side to kill but not for the other? Certainly Fisk, one of the most odious t**sers ever to pretend to be a journalist when in fact he's nothing more than a propagandist, seems to think so? This is one of the most amazing lines I've ever seen printed in a reputable journal:
"Hamas's homemade rockets have killed just 20 Israelis in eight years".
Cogitate on that for a while. What is an unacceptable rate of kill? What do the numbers have to be before even one of the people around here who are outraged (and rightly so) at Israel's savagery is moved to condemn murders by Hamas? How can I take anyone's outrage seriously when they seem completely unmoved by (or even condone) another set of bloodthirsty killings. Can someone tell me who it's OK to kill and who it's not?
Quote from: mylestheslasher on December 29, 2008, 11:28:24 AM
One of the few journalists worth reading on the matter had this to say in todays indo. In my opinion Israel is one of the most powerful Tyrants in the world today.
Surely what you really mean is one who you agree with? No doubt John Pilger would be another. Michael Portillo was excellent again yesterday in the Sunday Times on the subject and I look forward to reading what David Aaronovitch has to say on the matter in Tuesday's Times.
Good man Myles.
Like I said there are many typically Irish responses to my post. We claim ourselves great peacekeepers but many of us don't expect our politicians to do anything about Palestine.
While Pints thinks it would be stuff of fantasy to expect our Politicians to take a stand on this, Cicfada still wants them to stay on the fence. We should take the approach Myles is taking and get in their face about it. We should expect of them what we expect of ourselves.
A common mistake is that the Israelis are reacting to Hammas violence. Everytime there is an escalation in the attacks it is treated as the first time. There was a cease fire in which time there were no rockets fired but the Israelis continued to prevent medicine, fuel and food supplies getting to the suffering people being held captive in Palestine. While there was no violence Israel still have the power to kill off Palestinians and are doing so. the rocket attacks do not justify what Israel are doing. What Israel are doing does justify the rocket attacks. If there are no rocket attacks the Israelis will continue to cleanse Gaza of the Palestinians without the rest of the world knowing or caring about it.
Quote from: Zapatista on December 29, 2008, 12:31:09 PMthe rocket attacks do not justify what Israel are doing. What Israel are doing does justify the rocket attacks.
Well, at least I got an answer and fair play to you for stating clearly what you believe - killing of Israelis by Palestinians is "justified"; killing of Palestinians by Israelis is not. Interesting point of view. Can you broaden this out a bit and give me a fuller list of justifiable civilian killings around the world?
Lads, let's not make the mistake of blaming "the Jews" for this...that reeks of sectarianism. However, the statelet of Israel is a sectarian state created and ruled by Zionists. There is a difference. I have had this discussion with Jews for many years and although they all back the existence of the state (which I argued strongly against and still do) to the hilt, they have admitted that the Zionists are a bit of a law unto themselves.
Out of curiosity, does anyone know if the Palestinians are Sunni or Shia Muslim? That is a major factor in the reaction of other Arab nations in the region.
Quote from: Hardy on December 29, 2008, 11:46:55 AM
"Hamas's homemade rockets have killed just 20 Israelis in eight years".
Cogitate on that for a while. What is an unacceptable rate of kill? What do the numbers have to be before even one of the people around here who are outraged (and rightly so) at Israel's savagery is moved to condemn murders by Hamas? How can I take anyone's outrage seriously when they seem completely unmoved by (or even condone) another set of bloodthirsty killings. Can someone tell me who it's OK to kill and who it's not?
In fairness Hardy, dont pretend to be disgusted by this statement. Killing 20 Israelis in 8 years is wrong of course. Fisk isnt denying this. Of course any rate of kill is wrong. But its the reaction by Israel that is shocking on global terms.
Of course the death of one person by rocket attack is likely to draw less outrage than the death on hundreds in sustained bombardment. This is very obvious, and to have a go at Fisk for saying this is a bit unfair on him.
If one Palestinian was killed by the Israelis and they responded by bombing hundreds of Israelis to death, the outrage would be towards the Palestinians.
Perhaps your established dislike of Fisk has resulted in you overeacting to his comments a bit?
Quote from: his holiness nb on December 29, 2008, 12:47:54 PM
In fairness Hardy, dont pretend to be disgusted by this statement.
Pretend?
Quote from: Hardy on December 29, 2008, 12:36:15 PM
Quote from: Zapatista on December 29, 2008, 12:31:09 PMthe rocket attacks do not justify what Israel are doing. What Israel are doing does justify the rocket attacks.
Well, at least I got an answer and fair play to you for stating clearly what you believe - killing of Israelis by Palestinians is "justified"; killing of Palestinians by Israelis is not. Interesting point of view. Can you broaden this out a bit and give me a fuller list of justifiable civilian killings around the world?
I did not say the killings of innocents is justified. I said the rocket attacks are. Israel are killing off the Palestinians by denying them food, medicine and fuel. As these are silent killers there is nothing the world will do to stop it just as nothing was done to stop the Irish dieing during the potato blight. The Palestinian people are prisoners in their own land. They have suffered enough. I know innocents are dieing on both sides and it is sad but I honestly think that if these rockets were not fired many more innocent (particularly the young and old) will die as a result of Israel.
I do not condone the killing of inocent people but I do live in the real world and I not use the death of innocent people as an excuse to stay on the fence paint the two sides as the same when they are clearly not.
Well you really shouldnt be disgusted.
Saying that responding to the death of 20 people over 8 years with the killing of hundreds is an overeaction is quite clearly not saying the 20 deaths dont matter.
Theres no-where there that Fisk suggested the 20 deaths dont matter, he was commenting on the proportions of the response. I think its unfair to say Fisk isnt moved, or even condones those killings when he never said anything of the sort.
So no you shouldnt be disgusted, as what you are disgusted at never actually happened.
Quote from: Zapatista on December 29, 2008, 12:54:37 PM
I did not say the killings of innocents is justified. I said the rocket attacks are.
Now that is complete horseshit. Feel free to elaborate - maybe I'm missing something.
HHNB - I asked you what you meant by saying I was "pretending" to be disgusted.
Quote from: Hardy on December 29, 2008, 01:01:49 PM
HHNB - I asked you what you meant by saying I was "pretending" to be disgusted.
Apologies Hardy, I had presumed you were not actually disgusted, as what you were claiming to be disgusted at, never actually took place. My presumption was that you knew this, being one of the more intelligent (in my opinion) posters on the board.
I stand corrected (on the prentending bit, not the intelligence bit ;) )
Fine. Why is the killing of "just" 20 Israelis not condemned? How would people here react if I said "just" thirteen people were killed on Bloody Sunday? Why are Hamas murders of civilians sanitised as "rocket attacks"? I haven't seen them called murder anywhere here. Whay were there no protest marches outside embassies when Palestinian suicide bombers murdered (sorry, "attacked") innocent Israeli children?
Quote from: Hardy on December 29, 2008, 01:00:15 PM
Quote from: Zapatista on December 29, 2008, 12:54:37 PM
I did not say the killings of innocents is justified. I said the rocket attacks are.
Now that is complete horseshit. Feel free to elaborate - maybe I'm missing something.
What do you want me to say? The rocket attacks are justified as they are the only defence for the Palestinian people. I know innocent people die, I believe it has become a necessary evil. Once Israel stop killing the Palestinian people I will see no justification for rocket attacks.
Can you tell me how the Palestinian people should protest peacefully against Israel?
I don't want you to say anything other than what you believe. You've said the rocket attacks on Israeli civilians are justified. You've now admitted that that implies the killing (no, let's be clear - murder) of innocent civilians.
I just don't understand the mentality that condones the murder of one set of innocent civilians while being outraged at another set. If I said it was OK to murder black people, but not white people you'd call me a racist and rightly. However you say it's "justifiable" for Palestinian soldiers to murder Israeli civilians, but not vice versa. Why? Is it that the side you perceive to be right is allowed to use murder but the other is not? Isn't that the oldest fallacy in human conflict - the "God on our side" argument?
Quote from: Hardy on December 29, 2008, 11:46:55 AM
Balance is a wonderful thing. People are jumping over each other to condemn the imbalance of Israel's disproportionate response and it is indeed outrageous and indefensible slaughter and the perpetrators would be tried as war criminals in other circumstances. But if we're to concern ourselves with balanced responses, why has nobody even thought it worth mentioning that Hamas is killing innocent Israelis as well? In fact, some of the comments here seem to condone that particular form of killing.
So is it OK for one side to kill but not for the other? Certainly Fisk, one of the most odious t**sers ever to pretend to be a journalist when in fact he's nothing more than a propagandist, seems to think so? This is one of the most amazing lines I've ever seen printed in a reputable journal:
"Hamas's homemade rockets have killed just 20 Israelis in eight years".
Cogitate on that for a while. What is an unacceptable rate of kill? What do the numbers have to be before even one of the people around here who are outraged (and rightly so) at Israel's savagery is moved to condemn murders by Hamas? How can I take anyone's outrage seriously when they seem completely unmoved by (or even condone) another set of bloodthirsty killings. Can someone tell me who it's OK to kill and who it's not?
Sorry I must have missed the bit were Fisk condones the Hamas killings. Care to point it out, preferably in the context of the original article?
Quote from: Hardy on December 29, 2008, 01:12:57 PM
Fine. Why is the killing of "just" 20 Israelis not condemned?
I have no idea Hardy, I cant answer for what Fisk didnt write, just what he did write.
You can jump to conclusions as to why you think he didnt condemn them in this article all you like.
Quote from: Hardy on December 29, 2008, 01:12:57 PM
How would people here react if I said "just" thirteen people were killed on Bloody Sunday?
Badly I suspect, but if the response to bloody sunday was the killing of 300 or so people, I dont think many would have a problem with anyone pointing out the figures to suggest an overeaction.
Quote from: Hardy on December 29, 2008, 01:12:57 PM
Why are Hamas murders of civilians sanitised as "rocket attacks"? I haven't seen them called murder anywhere here.
It clear they were murder Hardy, but there have been different types of murder from the Palestians, rocket attacks, suidide bombings, shootings etc. This Iraeli offensive is in response to the rocket attacks in particular, so it makes perfect sense to single out these murders are "rocket attacks" when totting up the death count.
Incidentally, I'm suprised you havent taken offence to Fisks refusal to call the Israeli offensive as "murder" in his article. See, I can nit pick too.
Quote from: Hardy on December 29, 2008, 01:12:57 PM
Whay were there no protest marches outside embassies when Palestinian suicide bombers murdered (sorry, "attacked") innocent Israeli children?
I think rather than me, that question would be best directed at somebody who has been involved at protests outside the Israeli embassy Hardy, I certainly wouldnt be qualified to answer that one.
Quote from: Donagh on December 29, 2008, 01:40:24 PM
Sorry I must have missed the bit were Fisk condones the Hamas killings. Care to point it out, preferably in the context of the original article?
What am I to make of the statement "Hamas's homemade rockets have killed just 20 Israelis in eight years" in this context other than that it's being presented in contrast to the number of Palestinians killed by Israel in some sort of ghoulish scoring system? If the implication is anything other than that the Israeli death toll is negligible, it's passed me by. Otherwise I don't understand the use of the word "just". Maybe you can interpret it for me?
SO let's cut to the chase lads - (1) who else believes that it's justifiable for Hamas to murder Israeli civilians, but not vice versa and (2) who can explain the rush to condemnation when one side slaughters innocents while we hear very little to nothing at all when the other side does it? That's the nub of my involvement in this thread. We can all highlight little passages and take each other to task about the use of language (I've certainly been guilty of it), but what about the two simple questions above?
Here we are again, only two years after they killed over 1000 people in Lebanon, the Isrealis turn their attentions to the Palestinians by bumping off another few hundred while the West are obliviously tucking into their turkey dinners.
Also, let's not fotget that their has been a fair peace offer on the table from the Arab states which would secure peace in return for withdrawal to lands it unlawfully occupied during its "pre-emptive" strikes against it's neighbours in 1967.
Make no doubt about it, Isreal is a terrorist state but so long as the Yanks continue to favour it as their only ally in the region and the Arab states continue care more about their oil income than the Palestinians, then the Isrealis will continue to murder and maim at will.
That's a fine speech Donagh. I hope you won't be disappointed to learn that I agree with every word of it. Now - what about (forgive me - but I'll defend its use here) the murder of innocent Israelis and what can Fisk have meant by highlighting the fact that it's "just" 20 dead Israelis?
Quote from: Hardy on December 29, 2008, 01:49:07 PM
What am I to make of the statement "Hamas's homemade rockets have killed just 20 Israelis in eight years" in this context other than that it's being presented in contrast to the number of Palestinians killed by Israel in some sort of ghoulish scoring system? If the implication is anything other than that the Israeli death toll is negligible, it's passed me by. Otherwise I don't understand the use of the word "just". Maybe you can interpret it for me?
So in others works Fisk does not condone the Hamas attacks and your problem is with the word "just"? In the context of the Isreali death toll over the same period, 20 deaths by the rockets are negligible but not having read the article I would still suspect that Fisk doesn't even go as far as I would in that. Pretty weak attempt to justify your obvious dislike for the "odious t**ser".
Quote from: Hardy on December 29, 2008, 02:01:53 PM
That's a fine speech Donagh. I hope you won't be disappointed to learn that I agree with every word of it. Now - what about (forgive me - but I'll defend its use here) the murder of innocent Israelis and what can Fisk have meant by highlighting the fact that it's "just" 20 dead Israelis?
Not having read the article, I can't comment - that's why I asked you for the context, but I suspect it was a figure of speech which helps illustrate the vast difference between the death rates of both sides. I've read quite at lot of Fisk's stuff I know he's no cheerleader for Hamas or for the killing of civilians.
Quote from: Hardy on December 29, 2008, 01:54:24 PM
SO let's cut to the chase lads - (1) who else believes that it's justifiable for Hamas to murder Israeli civilians,
but not vice versa
Not me.
Quote from: Hardy on December 29, 2008, 01:54:24 PM
(2) who can explain the rush to condemnation when one side slaughters innocents while we hear very little to nothing at all when the other side does it?
While both are wrong, the killing of 300 people is quite obviously going to get more attention, therefore more condemnation, than the killing of one person Hardy. Its nothing to do with what side the killings are coming from. If one Palestinian was killed and they reacted by killing 300 Israelis, the condemnation would be just as audible.
Whether you like it or not Hardy (and its clear you dont) the killing of hundreds of people at a time will always draw more attention and comment than single killings. Nothing to do with which side you favour, more so with the scale of the atrocity.
Its not all a big anti Israeli conspiracy Hardy, just common sense.
Quote from: Hardy on December 29, 2008, 01:21:23 PM
I don't want you to say anything other than what you believe. You've said the rocket attacks on Israeli civilians are justified. You've now admitted that that implies the killing (no, let's be clear - murder) of innocent civilians.
I just don't understand the mentality that condones the murder of one set of innocent civilians while being outraged at another set. If I said it was OK to murder black people, but not white people you'd call me a racist and rightly. However you say it's "justifiable" for Palestinian soldiers to murder Israeli civilians, but not vice versa. Why? Is it that the side you perceive to be right is allowed to use murder but the other is not? Isn't that the oldest fallacy in human conflict - the "God on our side" argument?
That is far from clear. You can pretend to youself that all killing is wrong and no action should be taken if it results in a death but I won't. I know that the action of rocket attacks are needed to prevent the silent ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. You can pretend that there is no war going on so you do not need to think about who is right and who is wrong an create a situation were you can condemn both sides and have a clear conscience. I won't do that. I will be honest with myself and say yes, innocent people die. I have looked at the situation and I believe that Israel are the aggressors. The loss of Innocent life of Israelis is largely due to Israeli actions.
Just like in Iraq, you can blame Iraqis for killing Innocent people in Iraq but the bottom line is that the invaders created the situation and are largely responsible for the deaths. The invaders have made victims of all Iraqis and not just those involved in the war. For this reason I have more sympathy for the death of innocent Iraqis than I do for the death of the invaders. I do not have the luxury of taking it on a case by case basis so I am commenting generally. I will not use the fact that I can't take it on a case by case basis to condemn everyone. That would only be making excuses for myself.
The same applies to the Palestinians and the Israelis. I make no apology for it nor do I need to lie to myself to accept were my sympathy lies.
Ariel Sharon has a lot to answer for.
Quote from: under the bar on December 29, 2008, 02:17:45 PM
Ariel Sharon has a lot to answer for.
An excerpt taken from Portillo's column in yesterday's times:
Indeed, the issue has been dogged by weak leadership in America, in Israel and among the Palestinians. Since Clinton left the White House the brightest moment of hope came when Ariel Shar-on, an extraordinarily powerful Israeli prime minister, unilaterally handed Gaza back to the Palestinians and even sent the bulldozers to remove Israeli settlements on land seized in 1967. His determination and energy were so great that when Likud, his party, withdrew its support he abandoned it and created a new one, Kadima. What he single-handedly might have achieved, had illness not struck him down, must be one of the great "might-have-beens". What do you actually think Sharon did? Or are you getting your leaders mixed up?
Portillo's article in full:
From The Sunday Times
December 28, 2008
Holy Land tops pile in the in-tray from hell
Michael Portillo
Barack Obama was said to have the in-tray from hell even before the conflict between Hamas and Israel resulted in substantial loss of life in Gaza, as the Israelis took revenge on the terrorist organisation for its recent rocket attacks. If Obama harboured any idea of allowing the Arab-Israeli conflict to fall down towards the bottom of his agenda as he dealt with the economic slump or Iran or Afghanistan, he will by now have been disabused.
Able politicians do not fear inheriting what appears to be an impossibly complex agenda: they relish it. A significant moment during the US presidential campaign came when John McCain broke off electioneering to deal with the credit crunch. Obama was quick to point out that a president needed to be able to manage more than one challenge at a time. He will certainly now be tested on that very point.
The presidential election draws the clearest possible line between the past and the future: between what Obama will represent as all the failures of the Bush administration and all the possibilities of his own incumbency. Anything that he does to improve the situation at home or abroad will mark the contrast between old and new ways of doing business.
The conflict between Israel and Hamas is, in a way, an attractive issue for Obama and his team. It has been evident for decades that matters cannot be resolved without the closest involvement of the United States. Yet George Bush decided to hold aloof for most of his time in the White House, turning to it only in his last months and setting out impossible deadlines for progress. The issue was not ripe for settlement and Bush was an increasingly lame duck. Even so, the resumption of the process has been useful.
Bush's reluctance to get involved stemmed largely from his recollection of how Bill Clinton had failed to reach a resolution despite investing a huge amount of personal prestige and political capital in negotiations during the final days of his presidency. Bush did not want to suffer a similar rebuff although in the event he did, being forced to take up the issue too late, as Clinton had, and hoping like his predecessor that a deal there could polish a tarnished legacy.
The Clintons probably see it differently. They know that in those last days of the administration they came achingly close to achieving a breakthrough. In frenetic negotiations, Israel was induced to pile up concessions on the table. It was an interesting strategy: to move away from the gradualistic approach that had characterised earlier peace processes and instead to move at one go to an overall settlement. Clinton's disappointment must be all the more poignant because having come close to agreement, the failure of the talks led to a hardening of positions on both sides, the unleashing of the inti-fada and the opening of an era of Israeli repression of the Palestinians.
The conflict between the Palestinians and Israel is intriguing because for some time most of the world has known how it should end and has agreed to a solution. Most of the Arab world has now acquiesced in agreeing that there must be an Israeli state and a Palestinian one existing side by side, that the borders preceding the 1967 war provide the basis of the new boundaries but that land will have to be traded around that template, and that Jerusalem will require special arrangements to allow the Palestinians to have their capital there and to allow freedom for all religious groups to access their holy sites.
Of course, behind that outline lie many complications, but this conflict is unusual in that the eventual peace deal is understood and accepted by much of the world and most interested parties. It is not the destination but the journey that is most problematic. Clinton attempted to arrive without travelling and nearly succeeded. The problem was that Yasser Arafat lacked the authority, the support and the imagination to be able to sell it to his constituency.
Indeed, the issue has been dogged by weak leadership in America, in Israel and among the Palestinians. Since Clinton left the White House the brightest moment of hope came when Ariel Shar-on, an extraordinarily powerful Israeli prime minister, unilaterally handed Gaza back to the Palestinians and even sent the bulldozers to remove Israeli settlements on land seized in 1967. His determination and energy were so great that when Likud, his party, withdrew its support he abandoned it and created a new one, Kadima. What he single-handedly might have achieved, had illness not struck him down, must be one of the great "might-have-beens".
Hamas does not accept the proposed solution and the situation has been complicated still further by the split between Gaza, where Hamas won the elections, and the West Bank where the Fatah party administration led by Mah-moud Abbas would accept two states.
Obama and Hillary Clinton, his secretary of state, are likely to take the view that the election of Hamas has not been well handled by Israel or the United States. The democratic world has not devised a way to deal with election results that it does not like. The Palestinians of Gaza have been treated as pariahs since they made their choice at the ballot box. That has solidified their resistance and, of course, dislodged Israel and the West from the moral high ground.
It is true that Hamas refuses to recognise Israel as once did those countries in the region, such as Egypt, with which Israel has now enjoyed decades of peaceful coexistence. In diplomacy you have to be imaginative and see that your opponents are capable of changing their positions. Without that insight we would still be in turmoil in Northern Ireland. The wise old men of Israeli politics such as Shimon Peres used to say that the only way to negotiate was to begin with the idea of peace, to want it more than anything and to create in your imagination a peace that had somehow been achieved. That way you created the will to overcome apparently insuperable obstacles.
Unfortunately, that thinking does not prevail at the moment. As the foreign minister Tzipi Livni, under the Kadima banner, battles the former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, representing Likud, to lead Israel's next government after the elections in February, the campaign rhetoric is unsurprisingly bellicose. In the West Bank, elections will be held next month. Obama's inauguration will coincide with further political upheaval in the region.
What is clear is that neither Obama nor Hillary Clinton unquestioningly takes Israel's side in the way that the Bush administration did. Even Israelis should welcome that. The hope of a more peaceful future that Obama has engendered around the world arises because even the enemies of Israel, and of the United States, believe he will be more evenhanded between Jew and Muslim and between Christian and Muslim than any predecessor.
It could be that for once the Palestini-an-Israeli problem will receive the full attention of an American presidency at the outset, at the moment of its greatest prestige and when its mandate is strongest. Elections in Israel and the West Bank complicate matters just now, but new mandates could also enhance the authority of the leaders and improve the prospect for progress.
From what we have seen of Obama so far he will not be despondent to discover that yet another crisis will demand his attention after January 20. The conflict has simmered throughout the uneasy ceasefire, but the clamour from the Palestinians in Gaza could not be ignored for much longer. The severity of Israel's response – typical of its actions during election campaigns – places the issue on Obama's desk and demands prompt action from him. In that respect these exchanges of violence, although painfully familiar to us, could prove unusually significant.
bennydorano please read some more information on sharon before making a comment like you did. This man killed more innocent Palestinians proabably then any other Israeli.
some info
DOCUMENTATION
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ariel Sharon: Profile of an
Unrepentant War Criminal
by Jeffrey Steinberg
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Editor's Note: This introductory article appeared in the May 17, 2002 issue of Executive Intelligence Review. The following supporting material is drawn from previously published reports:
Ariel Sharon and the West Bank `Landscam' (March 1986)
Make Ariel Sharon Answer to Charges of Genocide (November 1990)
Ariel Sharon: Profile of a British Tool (March 1994)
Sharon Appointment in Israel Makes Death of Oslo Accords Official (October 1998)
Ariel Sharon Ignites New Middle East War (October 2000)
Darbyism in Israel: Ariel Sharon (December 2000)
Mideast War, Sooner Rather Than Later (January 2001)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ariel Sharon, the Prime Minister of Israel, is currently facing possible war crime prosecutions for two massacres that occurred 20 years apart: the September 1982 massacre of Palestinian civilians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon, and the April 2002 Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) mass killings in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank.
Sharon is, without doubt, guilty of these crimes against humanity, and others. He is also unrepentant. For him, these mass killings are merely necessary steps on the path toward his objective of a "Final Solution" to the "Palestinian problem," through the mass expulsion and/or extermination of the more than 3 million Palestinians and Arabs now living in Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights. Under various labels, Sharon and a rogues gallery of collaborators inside Israel, Britain, and the United States, are now moving toward the final phase of their "mass transfer" plans for the Palestinians and Arabs.
EIR has "written the book" on Sharon's blood-soaked career for over 30 years. (See 1994 Profile.) As a service to the current worldwide debate on his government's fascist actions, we provide this summary dossier on the Israeli mass murderer. This summary is linked to a compendium of earlier exposés of Sharon and his partners in crime.
The Sharon File
Sharon was born in Kfar Malal in 1928. At the age of 14, he joined the Haganah, and at 20, headed an infantry company in the Alexandroni Brigade during the 1948 War of Independence, during which the Israeli forces drove an estimated 300,000 Palestinians from their land, using some of the same genocidal methods against unarmed civilian populations that were used in the recent IDF invasion of the Palestinian Authority's Area A territory.
In 1953, Sharon founded "Unit 101," a secret death squad within the IDF that committed several mass murders of civilians. In October 1953, Sharon's "Unit 101" massacred 66 innocent civilians during a cross-border raid into the Jordanian West Bank village of Qibya. Under intense machine-gun fire, local residents were driven into their homes, which were then blown up around them, killing the occupants by burying them alive in piles of rubble. The April 2002 IDF massacre at the Palestinian refugee camp in Jenin was, in fact, modeled on Sharon's "Unit 101" operations at Qibya.
On Oct. 18, 1953, the U.S. State Department issued a bulletin denouncing the Qibya massacre, demanding that those responsible be "brought to account." Instead, Sharon was rewarded for his war crimes by having his "Unit 101" absorbed into the Israeli paratroop corps. By 1956, Sharon had been appointed paratroop brigade commander.
Between Feb. 28, 1955 and Oct. 10, 1956, a Sharon-led paratrooper brigade conducted similar cross-border invasions into Gaza, Egypt, and the West Bank in Jordan. At the West Bank village of Qalqilya, Sharon's death squad killed 83 people
Merely thought 'Ariel Sharon has a lot to answer for' seemed strange in this context as thou he ordered the operation or something.
Not a fan of the Israelis, but I'm not that fond of partial reporting either.
did seem a bit odd of a comment alright, but suggesting he didn´t do anything to contribute is a much worst statement.
Sharon if you look back actually helped Hamas begin as they saw Hamas as a way to Split the Palestinians into differnet grouping therefore making them weaker, particularly the PA or what was then the PLO or Fatah.
Sharon was the reason for the 2nd intifada, when he visited the temple mount therefore stirring tension and Allowing Hamas to show how many Martyrs it had ready to die for the Palestinian cause.
and probably the worst thing he did was the Withdrawal from Gaza and the removal of the settlements. Not beacuse this was the wrong thing to do but because it broke away from the road map to Peace (last chance saloon i suppose, probably wont have worked either) and as it was done without talking to the Palestinians, Hamas could claim that their rocket fire had forced Israel to back down and leave (settlements that were illegal the withdrawal should not have been praised but questions as why it took so long should have been asked). Hamas then went on to win fair elections before the big four turned their back again on the Palestinians and would not accept the results.
A lot of responses to my posts - I won't respond individually. I have nothing to add to my statement that I find it interesting, but not surprising that there's a rush to condemnation when one side slaughters innocents while we hear very little to nothing at all when the other side does it. It seems to me that our partisan sympathies should not be a basis for our moral judgements. I don't think there's anything revolutionary in that stance. I'm just surprised at how few seem to share it.
Just a footnote, Donagh - I don't feel any need at all to justify my dislike for the odious tosser.
It's far to easy to condemn one side and not the other . They are both wrong but from a purely strategic point of view ,hamas are hurting their people more than helping them and their goal of statehood is no where nearer now than 20,30 or 40 years ago. One side needs to exercise resistant and since the Israelis are the only one with a firm command of their Amry it would be easier for them too but hamas need to show realistic attempt to control their paramilitary wings
I can't believe the editor has allowed Man in Black's comment "Maybe Adolf had something after all." to stand without comment. This comment is akin to agreeing to what was done to the Jews during the war. Come on Ed, where's the warning about such an outrageous comment?
As to the current situation, the Israelis are totally to blame for all the carnage taking place. First, they steal the land from the Palastinians, coralling them into homesteads without freedom of movement, medicines and basic food provisions, all while under the scrutiny of more powerful weaponry, mostly suppiled by the holier-than-thou Americans. There will be no meaningful words from the White House condemning such behaviour, bearing in mind the shrub is a, now, powerless dead-duck President. I can't see Obama accepting Israeli violence such as this.
As for the numbers "game" - when you bomb open spaces in Israel, the liklihood of serious casualties are fairly slim. When you bomb heavily populated areas, such as Gaza, heavy casualties are inevitable, not that the Israelis would care about such niceties.
As to who would come to Gaza'a aid from within the Arab world, I would say the whole Arab nation would stand ready to attack the common enemy, Israel, if they had the wherewithal to do so. Having said that though, I am very concerned that Syria has, so far, appeared to be unconcerned. Just wait till they stick their oar in...........
hardy one dead Israeli makes news it takes more than one dead Palestinian to make the news. this is a reality. We don't hear each time a Palestinian cannot get to his , job or family because Israel has closed a checkpoint or that the wall has taken another metre of Palestinian land or that more settlements are going up around east Jerusalem. But we repeatly hear about the rockets that although over 8000 have been fired only 20 have died. 20 too many but it shows how ineffective these rockets are. in 2 days 300 palestinians have died.
It seems to matter to people that some were Hamas and other civilian but they are all people regardless. Human life, my aunt a nun said at the start of the war on iraq when the figures for dead iraqi civilians and US troops was given on the radio why no mention of the Iraqi Troops where these not people too. That comment stayed with me. It is a cycle of Violance the reason Israel is deemed the bad guy i think is because as said earlier Israel can bring peace not that the region is full of rainbows and happiness peace but it can bring a lasting peace if it ends its Greater Israel policy and goes back to the 67 border which under international law it must.
Obama will be no different on this issue but maybe the change of policy on Iran might help Obama take a more balanced view.
Quote from: Dougal Maguire on December 29, 2008, 03:15:52 AM
Quote from: Tankie on December 29, 2008, 01:48:09 AM
That Hamas are out of control. I do not support war but i feel that since Israel have hit back that they should also go in on the ground and take Hamas out and all their infrastructure, bombing from the air kills more innocent people that anything else.
Just the sort of response I'd expect from an illiterate like you. Check out your Middle East history to see who is out of control. Look at what the Israelis have done in Palestine since 1921 when they murdered innocent people in pursuit of their goal of a Jewish state and then look at what they have done since. Look at the 1947 maps of the borders of the Israeli and Palestinian state and look at the land each has now. Check out, in particular, their creation of illegal settlements on the West Bank and the Golan Heights and how the Israelis, with their nuclear capability have flaunted various UN resolutions over the years. Read about the security wall which is separating farmers from their land and stealing even more Palestinian land then you'll see that it's the Israelis who have been out of control and getting away with it for years thanks to their US paymasters.
Dont talk that shite too me, at this stage they are both as bad as each other, and if you do not think Hamas are out of control you are a fool. Hamas knew what would come by attacking Israel and clearly have no respect or care for the citizens they have taken control of.
Quote
Dont talk that shite too me, at this stage they are both as bad as each other, and if you do not think Hamas are out of control you are a fool. Hamas knew what would come by attacking Israel and clearly have no respect or care for the citizens they have taken control of.
Have you read Zap's posts on the subject?
Hardy jsut because we dont have threads about 20 deaths in israel doesnt mean people approve of them. 300 deaths in 2 days is quite shocking and it's not surprising that people comment on it.
I'm sick to the teeth of Israel, it was Lebanon a couple of years ago and now it's palestine. It's a joke that they are allowed to get away with it and it's not surprising their neighbouring countries want rid of them.
Quote from: pintsofguinness on December 29, 2008, 06:16:30 PM
Quote
Dont talk that shite too me, at this stage they are both as bad as each other, and if you do not think Hamas are out of control you are a fool. Hamas knew what would come by attacking Israel and clearly have no respect or care for the citizens they have taken control of.
Have you read Zap's posts on the subject?
Hardy jsut because we dont have threads about 20 deaths in israel doesnt mean people approve of them. 300 deaths in 2 days is quite shocking and it's not surprising that people comment on it.
I'm sick to the teeth of Israel, it was Lebanon a couple of years ago and now it's palestine. It's a joke that they are allowed to get away with it and it's not surprising their neighbouring countries want rid of them.
We both know Israel could be most humanitarian ,happiest place on earth and some of the surrounding countries would still want rid of them
israeli policy has forced the palestine's into this mess. gaza and the west bank are not viable as a 'country' yet there is no other alternative on offer from israel. at the very least they should be forced back to their 1947 borders and a viable palestine state set up. then in a few generations things might approach normal. as americas biggest fan i have never understood american foreign policy in relation to the middle east but maybe that will change on jan 20th but i wont hold my breath
Quote from: pintsofguinness on December 29, 2008, 06:16:30 PM
Quote
Dont talk that shite too me, at this stage they are both as bad as each other, and if you do not think Hamas are out of control you are a fool. Hamas knew what would come by attacking Israel and clearly have no respect or care for the citizens they have taken control of.
Have you read Zap's posts on the subject?
Hardy jsut because we dont have threads about 20 deaths in israel doesnt mean people approve of them. 300 deaths in 2 days is quite shocking and it's not surprising that people comment on it.
I'm sick to the teeth of Israel, it was Lebanon a couple of years ago and now it's palestine. It's a joke that they are allowed to get away with it and it's not surprising their neighbouring countries want rid of them.
Grrr go get 'em tiger. To the western liberal approx 1000 dead Israeli's is equal worth to 1 dead Palestinian. Certainly attacks (rockets, bombings etc.) by Hamas are seen as justifiable in the eyes of the average liberal keyboard commandant, many of whom post on here. It's all about the struggle, man.
Quote from: Tony Baloney on December 29, 2008, 07:11:14 PM
Quote from: pintsofguinness on December 29, 2008, 06:16:30 PM
Quote
Dont talk that shite too me, at this stage they are both as bad as each other, and if you do not think Hamas are out of control you are a fool. Hamas knew what would come by attacking Israel and clearly have no respect or care for the citizens they have taken control of.
Have you read Zap's posts on the subject?
Hardy jsut because we dont have threads about 20 deaths in israel doesnt mean people approve of them. 300 deaths in 2 days is quite shocking and it's not surprising that people comment on it.
I'm sick to the teeth of Israel, it was Lebanon a couple of years ago and now it's palestine. It's a joke that they are allowed to get away with it and it's not surprising their neighbouring countries want rid of them.
Grrr go get 'em tiger. To the western liberal approx 1000 dead Israeli's is equal worth to 1 dead Palestinian. Certainly attacks (rockets, bombings etc.) by Hamas are seen as justifiable in the eyes of the average liberal keyboard commandant, many of whom post on here. It's all about the struggle, man.
Dont be daft.
Seems to me that Israel do whatever the f**k they want and then when someone responds they crush them with rockets and hundreds of civillian deaths. I dont know how anyone can support that.
Hardy it is your right to dislike Fisk, personally, I can't see how any sane person that wants to learn about the middle easy can avoid reading fisks two books "Pity the nation" and "The Great war for civilisation". If you bothered to read either you would know that Fisk condemns totally all attacks by all sides on civilians. In the latter book he talks about how he came across a suicide bomb attack on Israelis and the horror that he witnessed. He listed it all, the blood, the guts the bodies of men, women and most horrific of all the children blown to bits in front of him. He also reports in detail (as the first journalist on the scene) of the horror of what happened in the Sabra refugee camp. In the camp lived palestinian men women and children dispossesed of their homes by Israel. The camps were then invaded by Chritian militias in Lebanon who are deeply allied/armed by Israelis. The Israelis watched on as the militias murdered everyone in the camps. Fisk is an idependant journalist who lives in Beirut. He does not get embedded in military units or spin the lines of either side. He has always been courageous in bring forward the truth and insisting on his words being printed in full (he left the times after they sensored one of his reports). I am disgusted that you would describe him as an "odious t**ser". On what do you base this? Are you claiming he is somehow biased in his views? Clearly, the sentance you take issue with in this report in the indo was made to compare the actions of hamas versus the reaction of Israel, i.e. Totally disproportionate. Only someone with a sever chip on their shoulder about something could read it the way you have
Israel is an apartheid regime, full stop. It is also in possession of the greatest 'get out of jail' card in history, namely if you criticise it you are branded anti-semetic and no better than the Nazis who murdered 6 million jews in WWII. What's happening to the Palestinian people is as much a war crime as what happened to the jewish people at the hands of the Nazis ...
Quote from: magickingdom on December 29, 2008, 07:08:09 PM
israeli policy has forced the palestine's into this mess. gaza and the west bank are not viable as a 'country' yet there is no other alternative on offer from israel. at the very least they should be forced back to their 1947 borders and a viable palestine state set up. then in a few generations things might approach normal. as americas biggest fan i have never understood american foreign policy in relation to the middle east but maybe that will change on jan 20th but i wont hold my breath
So it was Israel who started the 48 war ?
Israel can do what it likes because those champions of fair play and democracy and holier than thou etc etc - the Yanks- bankroll them uncritically for a number of reasons - a US toehold in the middle East,Isrealis have whiter skins than Arabs and are therefore on "our" side, rich American Jews contribute vastly to US Presidential campaigns etc etc
Until the yanks put a leash on them the Israeli terrorist Govenrment will continue to do the only thing they know how - terrorise as much of the Palestinian population as they can as often as they can with total impunity.
Speaking for myself -if I see made in Israel on anything I dont buy it full stop.
I'd ask everyone else to do the same.
Hardy, I feel it's a pity that you did not emphasise the sentence that offends you in its entirety; doing so might show u Fisk's reasoning in a different light.
QuoteHamas's home-made rockets have killed just 20 Israelis in eight years, but a day-long blitz by Israeli aircraft that kills almost 300 Palestinians is just par for the course.
Now; I do not see any insinuation therein to suggest that killing innocent Israelis is not wrong.
QuoteFor me at any rate, the paragraph following the sentence you draw attention to delivers the substance of Fisk's article:
The blood-splattering has its own routine. Yes, Hamas provoked Israel's anger, just as Israel provoked Hamas's anger, which was provoked by Israel, which was provoked by Hamas, which ... See what I mean? Hamas fires rockets at Israel, Israel bombs Hamas, Hamas fires more rockets and Israel bombs again and ... Got it? And we demand security for Israel – rightly – but overlook this massive and utterly disproportionate slaughter by Israel. It was Madeleine Albright who once said that Israel was "under siege" – as if Palestinian tanks were in the streets of Tel Aviv.
What I take from Fisk's article is what I have accepted to be the case ever since the conflict began or at least since I first became aware of it. I certainly don't imply any support for the goals of Hamas when I say that the crimes of the Israelis stink to high heaven.
Fisk may be a one trick pony in that he adopts a consistently anti-West line but
I see nothing in what he has written here to make me change my overview of the situation; money talks and the biggest players on the international money markets are Jews. As long as the Rothschilds, Rockefellers, Solomons and the likes are dominant figures, America and its allies will back the Israeli cause and to hell with any talk of justice or fair play for the Palestinians or any one else involved.
This image is interesting
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/Intifada_deaths.svg
When Hardy draws attention to the moral equivalence between the deaths of Israeli and Palestinian civilians, he is quite right, both are equally repugnant. But desperate people do desperate things, and in all wars civilians suffer. What must be exposed is the banal, sanatised reporting which attempts to paint both sides as equally culpable, or in some cases blame Hamas. During a 6 month ceasefire, not one Rocket was fired, yet Israel continued to enforce their embargo, denying Palaestinians access to even the most basic needs. Water and Electricity was cut off, food and medicines were severely restricted, Farmers were denied access to their land. All these actions were a clear breach of the ceasefire by Israel. Yet despite almost daily condemnations by the U.N., who described the situation as the greatest humanitarian crisis facing the World today, Israel remained indifferent to the suffering. It was only when Hamas resumed their Rocket attacks to draw attention to their plight, that the main-stream media reacted in their usual fashion by attemting to blame the victims. In doing so they have lost all credibility as impartial News organistions. Hardy is a very intelligent Man, he may for the sake of argument equivocate, but he knows the truth
Hardy's correct in that Fisk's use of 'just' does seem to indicate a smidgen of bias in his reporting. However I think he's (the Meathman) also using that slip to bash Fisk more so than anything else. It wasn't really important to the ethos of the report.
Fisk has put almost a lifetime of reporting effort into experiencing and faithfully reporting what the pitiful Middle-East is all about, and he hasn't been afraid to jeopardise his own personal safety in so doing, not in the slightest. I don't understand Hardy's antipathy, I feel it to be benighted and reactionary in the extreme. Mylestheslasher calls it correctly, in my opinion, in that he has a well-read take on the body of Fisk's (extensive) work.
Quote from: ONeill on December 29, 2008, 11:33:41 PM
Hardy's correct in that Fisk's use of 'just' does seem to indicate a smidgen of bias in his reporting.
I would disagree with that. The Israelis have justified the massive use of force shown in the last number of days by pointing to the
recent missile campaign. This missile campaign did not produce any injuries, never mind one death. In the light of that statistic, many elements of the media are asking if 350+ dead is a disproportionate response, and it is against this background that Fisk used the term of 'just twenty dead'. The use of this body count may appear cold or callous, but it in no way points to Fisk in any way justifying those deaths or saying that they are somehow less important than the deaths of other innocents - what he is trying to do is paint the context for the events that have occurred in recent days.
Quote from: ONeill on December 29, 2008, 11:33:41 PM
However I think he's (the Meathman) also using that slip to bash Fisk more so than anything else. It wasn't really important to the ethos of the report.
Notwithstanding our difference on Fisk's article, I would agree with that. To my mind Hardy you clearly don't like Fisk and you have let that influence your argument - that is disappointing.
As regards Fisk, I have to say I applaud anyone who is willing to rise above the parapet and speak on behalf of the downtrodden - the Palestinian people are definitely that.
The Israelis have shown themselves again to be ruthless people, filled with a lust for revenge. The air raids have prompted an absolute barrage of rockets into Israel in return and hardened attitudes in the Gaza Strip. That was always going to be an obvious consequence of their actions - they would have known that and it would suggest that the real reasoning for their actions have been a bit of electioneering as well as the aforementioned lust for revenge. It was also obvious that in such a densely populated area, there would be significant collateral damage, i.e. death and injury of the innocents. That again was taken into account when the fighters were launched - bottom line is they place no value on the lives of ordinary Palestinians.
The Israeli government minister (whose name escapes me) at least had the good grace not to burst out laughing when he talked about the fact that the ordinary Palestinians were their friends. Those words I imagine would ring hollow with the mother of the five little girls who were killed yesterday.
Quote from: Rufus T Firefly on December 30, 2008, 01:52:52 AM
Quote from: ONeill on December 29, 2008, 11:33:41 PM
Hardy's correct in that Fisk's use of 'just' does seem to indicate a smidgen of bias in his reporting.
I would disagree with that. The Israelis have justified the massive use of force shown in the last number of days by pointing to the recent missile campaign. This missile campaign did not produce any injuries, never mind one death. In the light of that statistic, many elements of the media are asking if 350+ dead is a disproportionate response, and it is against this background that Fisk used the term of 'just twenty dead'. The use of this body count may appear cold or callous, but it in no way points to Fisk in any way justifying those deaths or saying that they are somehow less important than the deaths of other innocents - what he is trying to do is paint the context for the events that have occurred in recent days.
Quote from: ONeill on December 29, 2008, 11:33:41 PM
However I think he's (the Meathman) also using that slip to bash Fisk more so than anything else. It wasn't really important to the ethos of the report.
Notwithstanding our difference on Fisk's article, I would agree with that. To my mind Hardy you clearly don't like Fisk and you have let that influence your argument - that is disappointing.
As regards Fisk, I have to say I applaud anyone who is willing to rise above the parapet and speak on behalf of the downtrodden - the Palestinian people are definitely that.
The Israelis have shown themselves again to be ruthless people, filled with a lust for revenge. The air raids have prompted an absolute barrage of rockets into Israel in return and hardened attitudes in the Gaza Strip. That was always going to be an obvious consequence of their actions - they would have known that and it would suggest that the real reasoning for their actions have been a bit of electioneering as well as the aforementioned lust for revenge. It was also obvious that in such a densely populated area, there would be significant collateral damage, i.e. death and injury of the innocents. That again was taken into account when the fighters were launched - bottom line is they place no value on the lives of ordinary Palestinians.
The Israeli government minister (whose name escapes me) at least had the good grace not to burst out laughing when he talked about the fact that the ordinary Palestinians were their friends. Those words I imagine would ring hollow with the mother of the five little girls who were killed yesterday.
Why do you consider the Israeli air raid a provocation too and not a reaction the initial Hamas rockets? Isn't that the problem that it is a circle of violence. Aren't Hamas as much to blame for their peoples suffering as the Israelis?
Perhaps the high civilian death toll could be directly related to the fact that Hamas amongst others have a habit of barricading themselves
into corners surrounded by schools, hospitals and the like from which to direct the rocket attacks into Israel,
the oldest trick in the book yet the media fall for it everytime.
By the way I'm the furtherest thing from a fan of Israel and their heavy handedness >:(
But lets face it I'd rather be here looking in than be in Israel looking out surrounded by such hatred on all sides.
It is a tough one and there are some fine points being made here on both sides.
Quote from: Tyrones own on December 30, 2008, 02:26:52 AM
Perhaps the high civilian death toll could be directly related to the fact that Hamas amongst others have a habit of barricading themselves
into corners surrounded by schools, hospitals and the like from which to direct the rocket attacks into Israel,
the oldest trick in the book yet the media fall for it everytime.
By the way I'm the furtherest thing from a fan of Israel and their heavy handedness >:(
But lets face it I'd rather be here looking in than be in Israel looking out surrounded by such hatred on all sides.
It is a tough one and there are some fine points being made here on both sides.
F**k, now I've heard it all! 2 million people crammed into a bit of land a quarter the size of Co Armagh and you expect them to have the luxury of being able to pick and choose where they set up shop? Maybe the Israelis should give the Palestinians some of their land back, if only so they can send their tanks against the Hamas AK's without fear of hitting a hospital.
Quote
F**k, now I've heard it all! 2 million people crammed into a bit of land a quarter the size of Co Armagh and you expect them to have the luxury of being able to pick and choose where they set up shop? Maybe the Israelis should give the Palestinians some of their land back, if only so they can send their tanks against the Hamas AK's without fear of hitting a hospital.
Yes I do... and wind your neck in FFS
Quote from: Donagh on December 30, 2008, 03:03:39 AM
Quote from: Tyrones own on December 30, 2008, 02:26:52 AM
Perhaps the high civilian death toll could be directly related to the fact that Hamas amongst others have a habit of barricading themselves
into corners surrounded by schools, hospitals and the like from which to direct the rocket attacks into Israel,
the oldest trick in the book yet the media fall for it everytime.
By the way I'm the furtherest thing from a fan of Israel and their heavy handedness >:(
But lets face it I'd rather be here looking in than be in Israel looking out surrounded by such hatred on all sides.
It is a tough one and there are some fine points being made here on both sides.
F**k, now I've heard it all! 2 million people crammed into a bit of land a quarter the size of Co Armagh and you expect them to have the luxury of being able to pick and choose where they set up shop? Maybe the Israelis should give the Palestinians some of their land back, if only so they can send their tanks against the Hamas AK's without fear of hitting a hospital.
When the West Bank was in Jordan's hands their was no talk of a state. The Arabs provoced the 6 day war with Israel and as such lost control of the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. So while all this talk of returning too the pre 67 borders is well and good it must be remember the Arabs refused Israeli offer of Land for peace before.
Quote from: Rufus T Firefly on December 30, 2008, 01:52:52 AM
[This missile campaign did not produce any injuries, never mind one death.
I think there was one Israeli fatality as a result of the Hamas missile campaign
Quote from: Rufus T Firefly on December 30, 2008, 01:52:52 AM
This missile campaign did not produce any injuries, never mind one death.
Be carefull, if you support the missle campaign Hardy will claim you support the murder of innocent Israelis.
Quote from: Rufus T Firefly on December 30, 2008, 01:52:52 AM
I would disagree with that. The Israelis have justified the massive use of force shown in the last number of days by pointing to the recent missile campaign. This missile campaign did not produce any injuries, never mind one death. In the light of that statistic, many elements of the media are asking if 350+ dead is a disproportionate response, and it is against this background that Fisk used the term of 'just twenty dead'. The use of this body count may appear cold or callous, but it in no way points to Fisk in any way justifying those deaths or saying that they are somehow less important than the deaths of other innocents - what he is trying to do is paint the context for the events that have occurred in recent days.
That's not really a strong argument. It actually does attempt to justify sympathy on the basis of death toll. If that 'missile campaign' had killed 60 or 100, would the 'just' sentence have been omitted. The missiles weren't fired to kill 'only 20'. A journalist student would be rapped for poor reporting. Again, Fisk's overall point in the article is clear and in my view correct but in this instance he isn't being altogether impartial. That's all, and veering off the purpose of this thread I suppose.
Quote from: Zapatista on December 30, 2008, 07:31:33 AM
Quote from: Rufus T Firefly on December 30, 2008, 01:52:52 AM
This missile campaign did not produce any injuries, never mind one death.
Be carefull, if you support the missle campaign Hardy will claim you support the murder of innocent Israelis.
Zap - why would you fire rockets at civilians if not to kill them? You yourself have admitted (how could you believe otherwise) that firing rockets at people results in their death. How, therefore, can you support the rocket attacks without supporting the murder they bring? It doesn't make sense.
Five pages now and nobody here has typed a single word on my condemnation of Israel's murder of innocent civilians yet my condemnation of Hamas's murder of innocent civilians provokes reams of dismissal, justification and analysis. Yet I'm the one accused of bias because I dislike a journalist. I don't undertstand that huge imbalance.
Many here continue either to refuse to condemn the murder of innocent civilians if they belong to the wrong side or to attempt to justify it. Others exhibit more outrage at my dislike for a particular journalist than at the deaths of innocents (on one side), expend lines of textual analysis to justify Fisk's dismissal of Israeli deaths as insignificant in comparison to those of Palestinians and analyse my motives in doing nothing more than insisting that one murder is as bad as another.
I have neither attacked a community with fighter jets nor fired rockets at civilians, so try to have a sense of proportion in your criticism of my antipathy to Fisk. It may be irrational, it may even be wrong and it certainly colours my interpretation of what he writes. So shoot me; but I surely can't be the only one here whose prejudices influence their analysis. I'm thinking particularly of those who justify the murder of civilians when it's in a cause they support.
I have a very simple problem with Fisk - when I want news, he gives me one-sided propaganda. I know what I will get before I read the article. Where's the value in that sort of journalism? He's also pompous, self-aggrandising and, like a global version of Charlie Bird, seeks to make the story about Robert Fisk. My apologies to everyone who is upset that I should have the temerity to dislike a pseudo-liberal icon, but my petty little prejudice won't cause a single death in Palestine or Israel.
Israel has a right to defend itself, not that their blockade had any sort of justification in the first place.
It appears to me that the indiscriminate firing of rockets into southern Israel is, regardless of fatalities, more haphazard and designed to murder civilian life than the attempted targeting of Hamas personnel and infrastructure that the Israelis are undertaking. That Hamas choose to hide amongst their own people is despicable in itself in my view, but they'd hardly last anywhere else. All fatalaties are disgusting before anyone labels me a pro-Israeli.
I'd imagine that this is a concerted attempt to remove Hamas from the equation ahead of a new American president taking office, a sort of pre-negotiation bloodbath. Distasteful as it is, there will be never be peace while the likes of Hamas are still pllayers in the whole thing, Isreal and the US won't be bothered talking to those whose raison d'etre is to wipe out the other side.
Quote from: Hardy on December 30, 2008, 09:21:02 AM
Quote from: Zapatista on December 30, 2008, 07:31:33 AM
Quote from: Rufus T Firefly on December 30, 2008, 01:52:52 AM
This missile campaign did not produce any injuries, never mind one death.
Be carefull, if you support the missle campaign Hardy will claim you support the murder of innocent Israelis.
Zap - why would you fire rockets at civilians if not to kill them? You yourself have admitted (how could you believe otherwise) that firing rockets at people results in their death. How, therefore, can you support the rocket attacks without supporting the murder they bring? It doesn't make sense.
Driving a car can result in death too. It doesn't mean you don't drive your car.
Quote from: Zapatista on December 30, 2008, 09:52:36 AM
Quote from: Hardy on December 30, 2008, 09:21:02 AM
Quote from: Zapatista on December 30, 2008, 07:31:33 AM
Quote from: Rufus T Firefly on December 30, 2008, 01:52:52 AM
This missile campaign did not produce any injuries, never mind one death.
Be carefull, if you support the missle campaign Hardy will claim you support the murder of innocent Israelis.
Zap - why would you fire rockets at civilians if not to kill them? You yourself have admitted (how could you believe otherwise) that firing rockets at people results in their death. How, therefore, can you support the rocket attacks without supporting the murder they bring? It doesn't make sense.
Driving a car can result in death too. It doesn't mean you don't drive your car.
I'd say the percentage of deaths are slightly higher for firing rockets. ::)
Absolutley pathetic response
Jesus Christ! Next you'll be telling me people swim to keep themselves dry or that bleeding is an incidental side-effect of shooting someone in the head - it was never intended to draw blood.
Simple question - why are they firing rockets at people?
Quote from: stephenite on December 30, 2008, 09:37:41 AM
Israel has a right to defend itself, not that their blockade had any sort of justification in the first place.
It appears to me that the indiscriminate firing of rockets into southern Israel is, regardless of fatalities, more haphazard and designed to murder civilian life than the attempted targeting of Hamas personnel and infrastructure that the Israelis are undertaking. That Hamas choose to hide amongst their own people is despicable in itself in my view, but they'd hardly last anywhere else. All fatalaties are disgusting before anyone labels me a pro-Israeli.
The missiles Hammas launch do not have the range to target civilians. It is not indiscriminate targeting of civilians. Suicide bombing is but the rocket launching was not. Hammas are the Palestinian people, they live amoung the people, they were elected by the people.
You can talk all you like about how it is bad to kill but you are only fooling yourself. The truth is that it has got to the stage were people will die. People are dieing. You can call for a cease fire and an end to violence but it will not help anything. The Palestinian people will continue to die in big numbers due to Israels control of their borders. This is a fact. If you say Hamas are bad for launching rockets and endangering innocent lives and do not apply the reason behind it you have your head in the sand and are choosing an argument that will keep yo whiter than white and able to condemn everyone. That is the position of a coward in my opinion.
Quote from: Zapatista on December 30, 2008, 10:00:34 AM
Quote from: stephenite on December 30, 2008, 09:37:41 AM
Israel has a right to defend itself, not that their blockade had any sort of justification in the first place.
It appears to me that the indiscriminate firing of rockets into southern Israel is, regardless of fatalities, more haphazard and designed to murder civilian life than the attempted targeting of Hamas personnel and infrastructure that the Israelis are undertaking. That Hamas choose to hide amongst their own people is despicable in itself in my view, but they'd hardly last anywhere else. All fatalaties are disgusting before anyone labels me a pro-Israeli.
The missiles Hammas launch do not have the range to target civilians. It is not indiscriminate targeting of civilians. Suicide bombing is but the rocket launching was not. Hammas are the Palestinian people, they live amoung the people, they were elected by the people.
Range is ever increasing - they've just hit a bus stop in Ashdod killing one and wounding two, not indiscriminate?
Of course they are the people, they have been elected, which is why I find it somewhat distasteful that there are attempts to have them taken out of the equation. However, there will never be a peaceful solution to the conflict while they are still there. There will also never be a peaceful solution while Israel continue to exercise such control over Palestine and the right of their people, but I feel they are slowly going down the road of realisiation on this score, and hopefully Obama can push them over the line. They have pulled back on settlements, they have forcefully evicted those who returned to illegal settlements. I wouldn't pay too much heed to Obama's comments re Israel during the campaign either, the man was doing what he needed to do to get elected, I hope he'll be able to engineer something of consequence.
If you say Hammas are good for launching rockets and completley unable to apply the reason behind the response (which is, a strategic attemt to end Hammas influence and re-unite the Palestinians under Abbas, ahead of an American sponsored peace negotiation) you have your head in the sand, and that in my opinion is the position of an ill informed idiot.
Quote from: stephenite on December 30, 2008, 10:19:13 AM
If you say Hammas are good for launching rockets and completley unable to apply the reason behind the response (which is, a strategic attemt to end Hammas influence and re-unite the Palestinians under Abbas, ahead of an American sponsored peace negotiation) you have your head in the sand, and that in my opinion is the position of an ill informed idiot.
I believe the Israelis are intent on wipping out Palestine not just Hammas.
Quote from: Zapatista on December 30, 2008, 10:32:31 AM
Quote from: stephenite on December 30, 2008, 10:19:13 AM
If you say Hammas are good for launching rockets and completley unable to apply the reason behind the response (which is, a strategic attemt to end Hammas influence and re-unite the Palestinians under Abbas, ahead of an American sponsored peace negotiation) you have your head in the sand, and that in my opinion is the position of an ill informed idiot.
I believe the Israelis are intent on wipping out Palestine not just Hammas.
Well, I don't think they want to go that far, perhaps 60 years ago they would have, but not now.
you make peace with your enemies not your friends.
Removing Hamas is not an option it will never happen. While Fatah were stealing money from the Palestinians Hamas was building schools, hospitals etc. Hamas are democratically elected. The pre conditions that were set for them before entering talks would have been like asking the IRA or sinn fein swearing an oath to the Queen, Paisley and Trimble before entering talks.
The rocket fire i believe is aimed to Kill but it has a second purpose to show the Palestinians that they can fight the Israelis like the Hizbollah did and thirdly that it lets the citizens of south Israel know what it is like to live in constant fear like they do in Gaza.
Most People know what the end Solution to the conflict is. 67 borders slightly altered to accommodate facts on the ground, east Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine, some sort of symbolic act on the right of return issue.
The question is how many more people will die before it is realised
Quote from: Zapatista on December 30, 2008, 10:08:30 AM
You can talk all you like about how it is bad to kill but you are only fooling yourself. The truth is that it has got to the stage were people will die. People are dieing. You can call for a cease fire and an end to violence but it will not help anything. The Palestinian people will continue to die in big numbers due to Israels control of their borders. This is a fact. If you say Hamas are bad for launching rockets and endangering innocent lives and do not apply the reason behind it you have your head in the sand and are choosing an argument that will keep yo whiter than white and able to condemn everyone. That is the position of a coward in my opinion.
Good man Zap - the last refuge of a man losing his argument is to start name-calling his opponent. My simple position is that I challenge the view that it's right for one side to murder people and wrong for the other side to do the same, based simply on one's view of which side is in the right. And that makes me a coward? Fine. I don't follow the logic. But then again I wasn't expecting logic from someone who is capable of arguing that firing rockets at people is equivalent to driving a car and that any casualties of either activity are incidental.
Quote from: Hardy on December 30, 2008, 09:21:02 AM
Zap - why would you fire rockets at civilians if not to kill them? You yourself have admitted (how could you believe otherwise) that firing rockets at people results in their death. How, therefore, can you support the rocket attacks without supporting the murder they bring? It doesn't make sense.
Five pages now and nobody here has typed a single word on my condemnation of Israel's murder of innocent civilians yet my condemnation of Hamas's murder of innocent civilians provokes reams of dismissal, justification and analysis. Yet I'm the one accused of bias because I dislike a journalist. I don't undertstand that huge imbalance.
Many here continue either to refuse to condemn the murder of innocent civilians if they belong to the wrong side or to attempt to justify it. Others exhibit more outrage at my dislike for a particular journalist than at the deaths of innocents (on one side), expend lines of textual analysis to justify Fisk's dismissal of Israeli deaths as insignificant in comparison to those of Palestinians and analyse my motives in doing nothing more than insisting that one murder is as bad as another.
I have neither attacked a community with fighter jets nor fired rockets at civilians, so try to have a sense of proportion in your criticism of my antipathy to Fisk. It may be irrational, it may even be wrong and it certainly colours my interpretation of what he writes. So shoot me; but I surely can't be the only one here whose prejudices influence their analysis. I'm thinking particularly of those who justify the murder of civilians when it's in a cause they support.
I have a very simple problem with Fisk - when I want news, he gives me one-sided propaganda. I know what I will get before I read the article. Where's the value in that sort of journalism? He's also pompous, self-aggrandising and, like a global version of Charlie Bird, seeks to make the story about Robert Fisk. My apologies to everyone who is upset that I should have the temerity to dislike a pseudo-liberal icon, but my petty little prejudice won't cause a single death in Palestine or Israel.
You've a notion of an Israeli blade in Bellewstown, haven't you?
Quote from: ONeill on December 30, 2008, 11:16:28 AM
You've a notion of an Israeli blade in Bellewstown, haven't you?
Keep that to yourself. I don't want anyone shooting at her and saying "I was only shooting at her. Don't blame me if she's dead".
Quote from: PadraicHenryPearse on December 30, 2008, 11:15:26 AM
While Fatah were stealing money from the Palestinians
Seriously? Have you a link to anything that might back that up?
Hardy - have you read either of Fisks 2 books on the middle east? I suggest you do before you continue to accuse him of spreading arab propaganda - you are starting to sound like an Israeli minister.
Quote from: stephenite on December 30, 2008, 09:37:41 AM
Israel has a right to defend itself, not that their blockade had any sort of justification in the first place.
It appears to me that the indiscriminate firing of rockets into southern Israel is, regardless of fatalities, more haphazard and designed to murder civilian life than the attempted targeting of Hamas personnel and infrastructure that the Israelis are undertaking. That Hamas choose to hide amongst their own people is despicable in itself in my view, but they'd hardly last anywhere else
In the minds of most observers Israel has
far exceeded its right to defend itself. Their sledgehammer approach will only secure worse reprisals against them in the long term and will give them very little strategic advantage other than battering Hamas into a quite temporary submission.
Regarding the Hamas tactic of hiding amongst their people - in many instances this is a disgusting piece of spin to excuse 'collateral damage' at best and an attempt to hide cold blooded murder at worst. Its important that you recognise the source of these reports, quite predictably from Israeli commanders.
To my mind, Israel has effectively turned the Gaza strip into a hell hole from which its people have no escape OR aid from outside. Those on the ground there will not discern coherent targeting of Israeli bombs/artillery when they see their streets blown to rubble and strewn with bloody corpses. I'm sure the reaction of any of us in that situation would range from utter despair to murderous rage and I would imagine a very significant number of Palestinians would not be in a position to recognise a way out other than desperate reprisal that more often than not will prove utterly futile.
Quote from: Hardy on December 30, 2008, 11:16:12 AM
My simple position is that I challenge the view that it's right for one side to murder people and wrong for the other side to do the same, based simply on one's view of which side is in the right.
I don't think anybody has taken this black and white stance Hardy. But if you insist in dealing in simple fact then Israel has more blood on its hands than Palestine.
Many observers will also identify with those in the Gaza Strip as being a people driven to complete desperation moreso than Israel with their military might and powerful allies.
A lot of talk about who is right/wrong.
What are you doing to help prevent more bloodshed?
Anyone can complain on an internet board but action would justify all the words thrown about.
All it takes is one action to help either side.
What are you going to do?
Quote from: mylestheslasher on December 30, 2008, 11:44:05 AM
Hardy - have you read either of Fisks 2 books on the middle east? I suggest you do before you continue to accuse him of spreading arab propaganda - you are starting to sound like an Israeli minister.
Perhaps I should - it's always good to read points of view you disagree with. But, to be honest, there are a thousand books on my list that I'd rather read first and I don't think I'll ever have the stomach for it, since I find it so hard to read even one of his columns. I'd rather read Enid Blyton.
Your catcall about sounding like an Israeli minister is typical of the tiresome right-on left wing propagandist shite that we have to listen to here masquerading as comment. What Israeli minister has described the air strikes on Gaza as a war crime and savagery? I have - in my first post. So take that back, if you're man enough. No wait - I don't give a shite.
Quote from: whiskeysteve on December 30, 2008, 11:50:45 AM
I don't think anybody has taken this black and white stance Hardy. But if you insist in dealing in simple fact then Israel has more blood on its hands than Palestine.
Fine - if they don't hold that simple view, why are they so reticent to say it in black and white? Will anyone (other than Zapatista) support their "yes, but" stance and come out and say that killing Israeli children is less wrong than killing Palestinian ones?
I have never denied that Israel has killed (vastly) more Palstinians than vice versa. Does that mean we should support the killing of Israelis until the score is evened up? I know that's not what you're suggesting, but why bring up that point in an argument about whether it's fundamentally right or wrong to kill innocents?
Quote from: Hardy on December 30, 2008, 12:01:53 PM
Quote from: whiskeysteve on December 30, 2008, 11:50:45 AM
I don't think anybody has taken this black and white stance Hardy. But if you insist in dealing in simple fact then Israel has more blood on its hands than Palestine.
Fine - if they don't hold that simple view, why are they so reticent to say it in black and white? Will anyone (other than Zapatista) support their "yes, but" stance and come out and say that killing Israeli children is less wrong than killing Palestinian ones?
I have never denied that Israel has killed (vastly) more Palstinians than vice versa. Does that mean we should support the killing of Israelis until the score is evened up? I know that's not what you're suggesting, but why bring up that point in an argument about whether it's fundamentally right or wrong to kill innocents?
I don't think you can look for such narrow conclusions in this fiasco, it is important to look at what is driving the killing rather than sweeping this aside to pursue a fundamental judgement. The death of a person on either side is equally wrong but this does not necessarily lead to a universal judgement on the perpetrators.
If this were so we would have one standard sentence for murder. we don't.
Your argument could be re-stated as this:
It's wrong to kill innocents. But it's less wrong to kill Israeli innocents than Palestinian innocents. (No doubt there will be a supporting argument, but that's just the "God on our side" philosophy again).
Or, more starkly:
I condemn the murder of innocents by the side I disagree with. I don't condemn (at least not as much) the murder of innocents by the side I agree with.
One of my favourite Columnists take on the situation:
From The Times
December 30, 2008
That's enough pointless outrage about Gaza
The trouble is that we have no idea what the arguments inside Hamas are or how they are affected by Israeli actions
David Aaronovitch
Let's have a pointless discussion about Gaza and begin it by talking about whether Israel's bombing is "disproportionate".
To illustrate the meaninglessness of such a debate let us attempt to agree what "proportionate" would look like.
Would it be best if Israel were to manufacture a thousand or so wildly inaccurate missiles and then fire them off in the general direction of Gaza City? There is a chance, though, that since Gaza is more densely packed than Israel, casualties might be much the same as they are now, so although the ordnance would be proportionate, the deaths would not. Of course, if one of Gaza's rockets did manage to hit an Israeli nursery school at the wrong time (or the right time, depending upon how you look at it), then the proportionality issue would be solved in one explosion. Would you be happy then?
This is not about proportionality. Let us instead express outrage and, perhaps, illustrate it with pictures of crowds of similarly outraged protesters in Damascus, Amman or Indonesia. Let half of us concoct round-robins of suddenly active professors, Gallowegian politicians and unthinking actors, expressing hyberbolic rage at "genocide", describing Gaza as Israel's Guernica and demanding sanctions, while the other half wonders why no petitions ever get launched against the funders and organisers of, say, the suicide bomber in Khost at the weekend, who blew up his vehicle beside a group of passing Afghan schoolchildren; or against the Taleban cleric threatening last week to kill female students in Pakistan for their un-Islamic desire to learn.
This is not about outrage. We could then, perhaps, from the other side, attempt to suggest Israel's moral superiority on the basis that, unlike the careless firers of Qassam rockets, any civilian casualties caused by Israel's bombs were the unintended victims of its actions, however many of them there are. Israel takes care with its targeting, they don't. But the eight students killed by a bus stop in Gaza are just as dead, their families just as bereft, and their feelings towards the originators of the bombs just as compounded of hate and regret.
So this is not about moral superiority. Perhaps we could now try to have a discussion with a point. Will the Israeli action advance or hinder any movement towards a long-term solution in the area, or have we all given up on that (in which case expressions of anything very much seem not just irrelevant, but irritating)? Will it, in the long term, relieve Israeli citizens from the threat of arbitrary extinction? I'm pretty sure it will help in the short term. I cannot easily see what it accomplishes in the longer run.
While we debate the gap between Israeli policy intentions and their outcomes, it is worth stopping for a moment to consider what the calculations of Hamas may have been in recent months. When Hamas refused to renew the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire ten days ago, and then when it allowed a series of rocket attacks on Israel, what did its leadership think was likely to happen? We know that it was warned by both Egypt and its Fatah rivals that there would be an Israeli reaction, but did Hamas believe such warnings were exaggerated, or did it want there to be such an attack? Unlike the Israeli Government, whose representatives have been all over the media in the past two days, at the time of writing not one Hamas bigwig had put himself up for interrogation.
This is the great lacuna in our conversation about Gaza and Palestine. We simply have no idea what the arguments inside Hamas are, and how they are affected by Israeli actions. It is as possible to believe that the bombing of Gaza will strengthen hardliners as it is that they will be sufficiently weakened to allow a ceasefire. We just don't know.
What we shouldn't do is fall into the easy analytical trap of designating Hamas as an al-Qaeda equivalent, however much its anti-Jewish propaganda and dedication to martyrdom disgusts us. In any long-term solution a large section of Hamas's current support, and a not insignificant part of its membership, would have to be won over to the side of peace.
The historian Tom Segev, writing in the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, yesterday reminded readers that "all of Israel's wars have been based on yet another assumption that has been with us from the start: that we are only defending ourselves", but that "no military operation has ever advanced dialogue with the Palestinians". He wasn't saying that Israel hadn't the right to stop the rockets from being fired from Gaza, but that it would get the larger process precisely nowhere.
Adamant though I am about the need to combat Islamist violence, it is hard not to see Western and Israeli policy towards Gaza since Israel's unilateral withdrawal in 2005 as one huge strategic error. There was the refusal to deal with the Hamas Government elected in January 2006, the siding with Fatah in the subsequent internal dispute, the imposition of an effective blockade on Gaza that amounted to collective punishment. The capacity of Hamas to govern, or fail to govern, in the eyes of the Palestinians was thus never tested.
In some ways this policy towards Hamas, though wrong, was understandable. But the failure of Israel to proceed in any substantial way with easing the conditions for Palestinians on the Fatah-controlled West Bank, or the commencement of a policy of dismantling West Bank settlements before an agreement, meant that no encouragement was given to the opponents of Hamas either.
The message that has been given out to Palestinians, time and again, is that there is no clear advantage to be gained from being moderate. It has been all stick and no carrot, to the frustration of those, such as Tony Blair, who have tried to create some impetus towards peace.
But why speak about such things when we can hold up placards equating Jews with Nazis, emote over dead babies or talk tough about defending Israeli citizens? It was Shimon Peres, the Israeli President, who said that, far from there being no light at the end of the Middle East tunnel, there was indeed light. The trouble was that there was no tunnel. Bit by bit, inducement by bribe and ceasefire by restraint, we have to construct one.
If we are to do this then the friends of the Palestinians would be best advised to put pressure on Hamas never to launch another of its bloody rockets and to stop its death-laden rhetoric, and the friends of Israel well placed to cajole it into making a settlement seem worthwhile. All else is verbiage.
Quote from: whiskeysteve on December 30, 2008, 11:50:45 AM
To my mind, Israel has effectively turned the Gaza strip into a hell hole from which its people have no escape OR aid from outside. Those on the ground there will not discern coherent targeting of Israeli bombs/artillery when they see their streets blown to rubble and strewn with bloody corpses. I'm sure the reaction of any of us in that situation would range from utter despair to murderous rage and I would imagine a very significant number of Palestinians would not be in a position to recognise a way out other than desperate reprisal that more often than not will prove utterly futile.
After 20 years of total political, economic and military would you think you'd start too see beyond this rage at look for a other solution?
Another interesting article.
From The Times
December 29, 2008
Gaza is more than a simplistic morality play
The Zionist dream of reclaiming the biblical lands is over. But Israel will still lash out when it feels threatened
Mick Hume
Those images of the carnage caused by Israeli airstrikes inside the Gaza Strip brought to mind another film of bomb victims that I watched early this month in Sderot, an Israeli town targeted by rockets fired from Hamas-controlled Gaza.
In a bomb-proof room at the ambulance station Tiger Avraham, the chief paramedic, showed us his grisly home movie of the aftermath of an attack. We were told that 23 Israeli civilians had been killed, more than a thousand injured and many more traumatised by rockets since 2004. Nobody mentioned the two Gazan youths killed in an Israeli airstrike the day before our visit.
Mr Avraham embodies the Sderot siege mentality: "It is not easy to live here. For five years my little one has slept in a bomb shelter." He could leave for Tel Aviv or America, but "I am here because it gives a sense of meaning to my life. Here I am not only a Jew, I'm an Israeli."
Asked his view of Palestinians, he replied: "I am a health worker, not a politician. I hope for peace in the end." Many of his neighbours have welcomed the military response to rocket attacks that increased to almost 200 in the week since Hamas formally ended its ceasefire with Israel.
In Sderot, where they get a 15-second warning of an attack, the streets are lined with bomb shelters and schools are covered by concrete arches. Behind the police station the twisted remains of rockets are on show - mostly crudely made from lampposts, with some more sophisticated Iranian devices. Many observers object that the airstrikes are disproportionate: the weekend body count was one Israeli killed, more than 290 reported dead in Gaza. The Israelis will counter that those who start a war on civilians are in no position to demand restraint.
To make sense of a conflict in which both sides claim to be victims requires more than an emotional response to gory pictures. I support the Palestinian right to self-determination. But I am disturbed by the rise of anti-Israeli sentiments in Britain and the West, as when my old friends on the Left declared: "We are all Hezbollah now."
There is a tendency to reduce the Middle East to a simplistic morality play where Good battles Evil, projecting our own victim politics on to other people's complex conflicts.
The Israelis I met bear no comparison with the caricature of expansionist "Zio-Nazis". These attacks seem very different from 1967 when Israel occupied Gaza and other territories after the Six-Day War. The Zionist dream of Israel reclaiming the biblical lands is over. Most Israelis seem prepared to withdraw to the pre-1967 borders and abandon Gaza (as they did in 2005) and most of the West Bank while bunkering down behind the big new security barriers that snake across the countryside. An insecure Israel will still lash out when it feels threatened, as it did in Lebanon in 2006 and Gaza now, even though such military spasms are likely to be ineffective and even counter-productive.
Israel's initial response to rocket attacks in this year's ceasefire was to lock the door by closing the border with Gaza. When we visited the deserted Erez crossing, little food or fuel was getting through, and most of what Gazans survived on was smuggled through tunnels on the Egyptian side. At the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) base, the major commanding the shockingly young men and women soldiers admitted that it was hard "to balance the civilian needs of the Palestinian population" with the security demands of Israelis. "But we will take all steps to protect our soldiers. We just want peace and quiet. If they stop firing at us, more food will go inside."
His PowerPoint presentation made clear that "the main aim for the IDF" was not to stop the rockets, but to rescue Gilad Schalit, a soldier held in Gaza since June 2006. That seemed a remarkably defensive priority for an army of occupation.
Peering through binoculars over the security fence at the concrete blocks of Gaza, the only sign of life was grazing sheep. Inside, more than 1.5million Palestinians live in grim conditions, governed by the Islamic movement Hamas, which won the 2006 election and last year drove out the last of its opponents in Fatah.
There is talk now of the need to uphold the integrity of the Gaza Strip as Palestinian territory. Yet Gaza is little more than a glorified refugee camp, propped up by 300 international bodies. Is this really for what the Palestinians have been fighting for so long? The other Palestinian territory is the West Bank, where Fatah remains the big movement and the Palestinian Authority sits amid the rubble in Ramallah, while the IDF watches warily from security barriers. How, one might ask, are these two stunted pseudo-statelets at the edges of Israel supposed to be united as a sovereign Palestine? There is futuristic talk of ceding a strip of territory for a tunnel or an elevated roadway to join them.
Back in the real Israel of today, all the big parties in the forthcoming elections agree on the eventual need for a two-state solution. Yet perhaps the Cold War-style stand-off around Gaza, now going through a hot phase, shows that a divisive "two-state solution" is already taking shape on the ground and in hearts and minds: a new partition where ghettoised Palestinians vent their fury at bunkered Israelis who sporadically lash out. When I was there, all sides talked not of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas but of "the lull".
There is much debate about what impact President-elect Obama might have. Yet the history of the Middle East suggests that outside interference offers no solution. I felt like a tourist taking snapshots of somebody else's life-and-death issues, a conflict that the peoples themselves ultimately have to resolve.
Back in Sderot, Mr Avraham, the paramedic spoke of his future hopes: "I am left-wing, I believe in peace, we don't have a choice. I hope to live here side by side one day."
Just so long, many might sadly say today, as those sides have a security barrier between them.
Quote from: Hardy on December 30, 2008, 12:30:54 PM
Your argument could be re-stated as this:
It's wrong to kill innocents. But it's less wrong to kill Israeli innocents than Palestinian innocents. (No doubt there will be a supporting argument, but that's just the "God on our side" philosophy again).
Or, more starkly:
I condemn the murder of innocents by the side I disagree with. I don't condemn (at least not as much) the murder of innocents by the side I agree with.
im sorry Hardy but your insistence on reforming other arguments into your fundamental interpretations is quite misleading. Murder on either side is equally wrong. However, you need to take a look at the big picture here to understand the depth of anti-Isreali feeling. You seem unwilling to do this.
Maybe we are pursuing separate arguments here.
Just to be clear then, I am asking this as a question away from the main topic of this thread.
Why don't we have one standard sentence for murder in the western world?
Quote from: Gnevin on December 30, 2008, 12:35:50 PM
Quote from: whiskeysteve on December 30, 2008, 11:50:45 AM
To my mind, Israel has effectively turned the Gaza strip into a hell hole from which its people have no escape OR aid from outside. Those on the ground there will not discern coherent targeting of Israeli bombs/artillery when they see their streets blown to rubble and strewn with bloody corpses. I'm sure the reaction of any of us in that situation would range from utter despair to murderous rage and I would imagine a very significant number of Palestinians would not be in a position to recognise a way out other than desperate reprisal that more often than not will prove utterly futile.
After 20 years of total political, economic and military would you think you'd start too see beyond this rage at look for a other solution?
If i existed as a country, yes. As a young fella in the street who just had a family member blown to bits, who knows what solution you would see right now? This is a conflict of fresh, raw, individual experiences that for many will not be distilled by 20 years of history. I hope a peaceful political solution can be found
Quote from: whiskeysteve on December 30, 2008, 12:52:23 PM
im sorry Hardy but your insistence on reforming other arguments into your fundamental interpretations is quite misleading. Murder on either side is equally wrong. However, you need to take a look at the big picture here to understand the depth of anti-Isreali feeling. You seem unwilling to do this.
Maybe we are pursuing separate arguments here.
Just to be clear then, I am asking this as a question away from the main topic of this thread.
Why don't we have one standard sentence for murder in the western world?
How do you conclude I'm unwilling to understand anti-Israeli feeling? Have you not read my condemnations of Israel's actions? I'll match my anti-Israeli* feeling with anybody's. I won't parlay that into a justification for killing Israeli civilians while fulminating with outrage at the killing of Palestinian civilians. That would be hypocritical.
As to your question about murder sentences, I'll do my best to answer if you'll resolve the conflict between your statement that "murder on either side is equally wrong" and the apparent implication in your follow-up that in reality they're not equally wrong.
(*I mean opposition to Israel's warmongering policies and fundamental opposition to Zionism).
Quote from: Hardy on December 30, 2008, 09:59:12 AM
Jesus Christ! Next you'll be telling me people swim to keep themselves dry or that bleeding is an incidental side-effect of shooting someone in the head - it was never intended to draw blood.
Simple question - why are they firing rockets at people?
Simple answer, Hardy, is to try and kill as many of them as possible!
I have no doubt whatsoever that Hamas will do their utmost to destroy the state of Israel and kill each and every one of their oppressors.
The Israelis on the other hand, quite correctly, see Hamas as their deadly enemies and will stop at nothing to nullify their threat. The problem is that "nothing" seems to be interpreted literally by the said Israelis.
Given their monopoly of airpower and their huge superiority where other forms of weaponry are concerned they can afford to strike at will, wherever and whenever they choose.
Hamas are hopelessly outgunned and out numbered in every conceivable way, not that that gives them any moral licence to kill their intended targets. But I think it is irksome to have to stop every couple of sentences to apportion blame equally. I most certainly have reservations of every possible sort about the Arab fundamentalists who control every facet of life in their own communities.
I don't for one moment think Fisk is unbiased in his reporting. Why should he be?
If he is or has been on the ground there and reports what he has seen and heard at first hand, why the onus should be on him to condemn both sets of antagonists equally- if he finds this not to be the case.
After all, he puts his thoughts and views into the public domain when he publishes them and it is up to each and every one of us to accept or reject his findings. We are blessed in our own society that we enjoy an unfettered press and also have access to a wide range of TV and radio stations that between them will give us a fairly comprehensive assessment of the Middle East situation.
Therefore, I don't depend on Fisk alone to influence my thinking. But based on what I have read and seen from a variety of sources, I tend to agree with most of what he writes.
The article we are referring to did not trivialise the deaths of innocent Israelis; at least I can find no evidence that it did. As he says, it's an endless circle of violence with each side reacting to the latest depredations of the other.
Fisk's rant was directed at the hypocrisy of western powers who call for "restraint" on both sides as if they were equal combatants in the conflict. And at the hopelessness of finding a settlement as long as this deception continues.
I was in the US for a period at the time of the last Israeli attack on Gaza. I was absolutely appalled at the bias of all the main TV channels in their reportage of the invasion. It was self-imposed censorship, pure and simple- not a single report in my time there showed any sense of balance or concern for the Palestinian cause.
I think Fisk and others of the same outlook do us all a general service in presenting us with a counterbalance to the majority viewpoint.
And make no mistake about that last point. On the international scene, where it counts most, the Palestinian viewpoint is ignored. Even here, we get a widespread point of view that, somehow the Israeli attacks on hospitals and schools in Gaza are justified because Hamas uses them for cover by setting up their bases in or near such buildings. A phone conservation with my American nephew confirmed for me this morning that this is certainly the general feeling over there.
Yet, either here or there, it seems odd that few consider the fact that Hamas are not welcomed by the community at large and are certainly not invited to locate their bases where they do.
All in all, I think dissident voices, like that of Robert Fisk, do help maintain a sense of balance in the whole sorry affair.
Quote from: Gnevin on December 30, 2008, 02:26:36 AM
Quote from: Rufus T Firefly on December 30, 2008, 01:52:52 AM
Quote from: ONeill on December 29, 2008, 11:33:41 PM
Hardy's correct in that Fisk's use of 'just' does seem to indicate a smidgen of bias in his reporting.
I would disagree with that. The Israelis have justified the massive use of force shown in the last number of days by pointing to the recent missile campaign. This missile campaign did not produce any injuries, never mind one death. In the light of that statistic, many elements of the media are asking if 350+ dead is a disproportionate response, and it is against this background that Fisk used the term of 'just twenty dead'. The use of this body count may appear cold or callous, but it in no way points to Fisk in any way justifying those deaths or saying that they are somehow less important than the deaths of other innocents - what he is trying to do is paint the context for the events that have occurred in recent days.
Quote from: ONeill on December 29, 2008, 11:33:41 PM
However I think he's (the Meathman) also using that slip to bash Fisk more so than anything else. It wasn't really important to the ethos of the report.
Notwithstanding our difference on Fisk's article, I would agree with that. To my mind Hardy you clearly don't like Fisk and you have let that influence your argument - that is disappointing.
As regards Fisk, I have to say I applaud anyone who is willing to rise above the parapet and speak on behalf of the downtrodden - the Palestinian people are definitely that.
The Israelis have shown themselves again to be ruthless people, filled with a lust for revenge. The air raids have prompted an absolute barrage of rockets into Israel in return and hardened attitudes in the Gaza Strip. That was always going to be an obvious consequence of their actions - they would have known that and it would suggest that the real reasoning for their actions have been a bit of electioneering as well as the aforementioned lust for revenge. It was also obvious that in such a densely populated area, there would be significant collateral damage, i.e. death and injury of the innocents. That again was taken into account when the fighters were launched - bottom line is they place no value on the lives of ordinary Palestinians.
The Israeli government minister (whose name escapes me) at least had the good grace not to burst out laughing when he talked about the fact that the ordinary Palestinians were their friends. Those words I imagine would ring hollow with the mother of the five little girls who were killed yesterday.
Why do you consider the Israeli air raid a provocation too and not a reaction the initial Hamas rockets? Isn't that the problem that it is a circle of violence. Aren't Hamas as much to blame for their peoples suffering as the Israelis?
I pointed out above that I felt the motive for the Israeli air strikes was to avenge the rocket campaign - does this not indicate that I see these air strikes as a reaction to the Hamas rockets?
I agree totally about your point on the 'circle of violence'. I would suggest both sides should be concerned about the respective suffering of their own people and make genuine efforts to do what they can to ease that. Both sides can try and justify why this recent cycle started - both sides though continue to suffer in their own ways.
Quote from: Hardy on December 30, 2008, 01:04:08 PM
Quote from: whiskeysteve on December 30, 2008, 12:52:23 PM
im sorry Hardy but your insistence on reforming other arguments into your fundamental interpretations is quite misleading. Murder on either side is equally wrong. However, you need to take a look at the big picture here to understand the depth of anti-Isreali feeling. You seem unwilling to do this.
Maybe we are pursuing separate arguments here.
Just to be clear then, I am asking this as a question away from the main topic of this thread.
Why don't we have one standard sentence for murder in the western world?
As to your question about murder sentences, I'll do my best to answer if you'll resolve the conflict between your statement that "murder on either side is equally wrong" and the apparent implication in your follow-up that in reality they're not equally wrong.
Look, don't get me wrong I would like to agree with your fundamental idealism that murder is murder whoever suffers but we know it is impossible to implement equal justice on this premise.
To clarify as best I can, every murder of an innocent on either side should be deplored as an equally tragic and wrong event. A universal punishment to fit each of the crimes would be ideal. This is impossible in the real world.
In the context of a conflict between two groups this is especially true. One side may be culpable for more killings than another. Individuals from one side may have killed in cold blood, accidentally, in the act of saving another, person, in self-defence of a country, in the act of invading a country, etc. It would be impossible to single out each individual criminal from either side and cast equal judgement.
I would also like to stress this is a general argument and not meant to be tied in with the current events in the gaza strip.
QuoteWhile Fatah were stealing money from the Palestinians
Seriously? Have you a link to anything that might back that up?
Just type Fatah and corruption into google and their are plenty of links from Israeli, Palestinian and international sources. Abbas sacked 6 officals after the last election after protests in Gaza about the corruption.
hmmm Hardy I seem to remember a time on this board when I criticised posters, you were one of them, for condemning IRA actions when the same posters hadnt even commented on something the Brits done, I think it might have been something about the shoot to kill policy. You rubbished my comments saying you didnt feel it needed condemned as it went without saying.
I'm surprised to find you on here getting upset because people arent condemning murders on both sides.
Don't be.
You were asking back then whether I condoned British killings because I hadn't specifically mentioned them. When you asked I clarified that, then as now, I view murder as murder, whoever does it.
In this case, I have asked people who were falling over themselves to condemn Israeli murders of Palestinians, whatever they condemned Hamas murders of Israelis. With a few exceptions I have got evasions and prevarications in response and it appears that some who are not prepared to come out and say it do in fact believe that innocent Israeli lives are less important than innocent Palestinian lives.
And I'm not getting upset.
Quote from: Hardy on December 30, 2008, 05:13:06 PM
and it appears that some who are not prepared to come out and say it do in fact believe that innocent Israeli lives are less important than innocent Palestinian lives.
That's a wee bit ridiculous Hardy and a touch sensationalist.
Quote from: Gnevin on December 29, 2008, 07:57:41 PM
Quote from: magickingdom on December 29, 2008, 07:08:09 PM
israeli policy has forced the palestine's into this mess. gaza and the west bank are not viable as a 'country' yet there is no other alternative on offer from israel. at the very least they should be forced back to their 1947 borders and a viable palestine state set up. then in a few generations things might approach normal. as americas biggest fan i have never understood american foreign policy in relation to the middle east but maybe that will change on jan 20th but i wont hold my breath
So it was Israel who started the 48 war ?
never said they did and i'm not talking about 60 years ago gnevin but the current state of the israeli/palestine conflict. the israelis have a blind spot when it comes to justice for the palestine's and until the rest of the world (read usa) force them to see this it will not end. the israelis response as always is over the top (they managed to killed 5 girls in one family) and that is sowing a terrible hatred among even moderate palestines
Quote from: ONeill on December 30, 2008, 06:01:26 PM
Quote from: Hardy on December 30, 2008, 05:13:06 PM
and it appears that some who are not prepared to come out and say it do in fact believe that innocent Israeli lives are less important than innocent Palestinian lives.
That's a wee bit ridiculous Hardy and a touch sensationalist.
Agreed - and you can add to that;
Quote from: Hardy on December 30, 2008, 09:21:02 AM
My apologies to everyone who is upset that I should have the temerity to dislike a pseudo-liberal icon, but my petty little prejudice won't cause a single death in Palestine or Israel.
Come on Hardy - you can do better than that!
Hardy if someone broke into my neighbours house and proceeded to seriously assault him, then my neighbour used force to defend himself, would it not be slightly ridiculous for me stand outside calling on both of them to desist as if they were equally culpable.
Quote from: Hardy on December 30, 2008, 05:13:06 PM
Don't be.
You were asking back then whether I condoned British killings because I hadn't specifically mentioned them. When you asked I clarified that, then as now, I view murder as murder, whoever does it.
In this case, I have asked people who were falling over themselves to condemn Israeli murders of Palestinians, whatever they condemned Hamas murders of Israelis. With a few exceptions I have got evasions and prevarications in response and it appears that some who are not prepared to come out and say it do in fact believe that innocent Israeli lives are less important than innocent Palestinian lives.
And I'm not getting upset.
I don't know if this is aimed at myself or zaptista or whoever. To further clarify just in case...
Firstly, I believe innocent Israeli lives are as important as innocent Palestinian lives.
Secondly, I believe Israel on the whole are culpable for more deaths and particulary more death as a result of being fully aware that the bombing of a certain target would result in collateral murder of innocents and proceeding anyway - i.e the specific targeting of mosques, etc. I believe Hamas reprisals are relatively isolated and desperate in comparison and that Israel have much more to be condemned about than Hamas.
I do not see how these two viewpoints are mutually exclusive. My belief of the second point does not impinge upon my belief of the first pont as you seem to conclude
Fair enough Whiskeysteve.
I have nothing to add to what I said already. Wouldn't want to be sensationalist. Or ridiculous. So would it be ridiculous to give a little summary (from memory, so forgive me if I'm mistaken) of this little debate? So far, Zapatista has stated that the Hamas attacks on civilians are justified. I can see no other logic to that than the justification of civilian murders. But fair play to him for stating honestly what he believes.
Whiskeysteve has given his reasoned and reasonable position, but I'm still not sure if he believes the Hamas targeting of innocent civilians is justified or not. Nobody else, that I can remember has taken the offered opportunity to condemn the killing by Hamas of Israeli civilians. Many have seemed to indicate that they believe Hamas are justified in targeting civilians by making comparisons with other situations where one side is the aggressor or citing self defence, etc. (I'm not sure how the killing of a random civilian who isn't attacking you can be construed as an act of defence). Or, most ludicrously, some have defended the Hamas rocket attacks on the basis that they're not very good rockets and the lads are not very good at aiming them anyway, so what harm.
So, just to be clear, can I ask all of those who condemned the murder of Palestinian non-combatants by Israeli forces, whether they equally condemn the murder of Israeli non-combatants by Hamas? If you'll answer honestly, I'll know how seriously to take your outrage at the targeting of civilians.
Hope I haven't been too ridiculous.
Hardy, I should be added to your list who has condemn the killing of innocent civilians on both sides, i actually went further and condemn all the killings of either IDF or Hamas People. all unneccassary.
i can however see the reasons why Hamas do what they do, all they have is crude missiles from scrap. Gaza is an open prison. That does not mean i agree with their tactics. The reasons for the Israeli assult is something i find hard to understand. Their objective is not achiviable, if anything it hardens the Palestinian resolve.
some information from IPSM
Dear supporters,
The Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign has called a National Demonstration in solidarity with Gaza for this Saturday 3rd January. The protest will begin with speeches at 1pm at the Central Bank Plaza, we will then march to the Dail (Kildare Street), the EU Offices (Molesworth Street), and finish up with a rally at the Spire on O'Connell Street - which will feature a live phone-link to Gaza. The slogan we will be moibilising around is simple "Free Gaza: Stop the Slaughter! End the Siege!". We are asking you to help us mobilise for this event - see below for how to help.
Please note: On Saturday 3rd Dec there will also be an IPSC demo in **Cork** - see here: http://www.indymedia.ie/article/90337
The death toll in Gaza now stands at over 360 with countless more injuries, and the Israeli Government has vowed "long weeks of action" in the area, with the likelihood of of a full ground invasion. We in Ireland must take action to oppose the ongoing brutal assault on a defenceless people - the IPSC is calling on all political parties, civil society groups, trade unions, and ordinary people to build and mobilise for Saturday's demo.
Furthermore, on Tuesday morning, it is reported that an Israeli patrol boat rammed the Free Gaza Movement boat the SS Dignity which was bringing three tons of medical aid and medical experts to Gaza. The boat - flying the flag of Gibraltar - was in international waters and, according to a CNN journalist that was aboard, it was rammed without warning. The boat began taking on water, and has now made its way to the safety of Lebanon.
What you can do:
1. Encourage as many members of your political organisation, trade union, civil society or community group etc as possible to attend.
2. Encourage your friends and family to come along.
3. Advertise the demo on your website, mailing list(s), social networking sites, internet forums or any other online outlets. (see below for info on how to advertise it on social networking sites - a web banner is also attached for display on websites - you can link to either the Indymedia notice < http://www.indymedia.ie/article/90361 > or the IPSC website < http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/ipsc/displayEvent.php?eventID=498 >).
4. If you work or have contacts in the media, please try to use your influence to advertise the demo via any medium. The IPSC can provide interviewees if needed.
5. Print out and distribute the leaflet attached to this email. Or display it in your window, car, work noticeboard etc.
Leaflet: http://www.ipsc.ie/images/events/gazajan3.jpg
Id love to post more on this issue but i am currently in Phuket Learning Muay Thai and i have trainign now for 3 hrs.
Sorry PHP - I didn't trawl back through all posts.
no problem Hardy. You probably only looked at the regular posters, or those that disagreed with your opinions. i do this all the time on other messageboards when arguing a point i usually only read the posts that are opposed to my opinions and skim over other posts.
Can i ask you if you can see why Hamas employs the tactics it does? And do you think the Israeli response will do more harm than good to the region?
Considering there has been several ceasefires over the years and the Palestinians have not seen any improvement in the living conditions etc. infact according to the UN and others they are in the worst position they have ever been in. During these Ceasefires settlements cont. to be build and more land taken as Israel try to create facts on the ground. Sharon before the Oslo agreement said what we take now we keep and they increased over 250000 settlers in the Oslo era. They are currently building settlements around East Jerusalem cutting it off from what would be a future Palestinian state.
Muay Thai will have to wait until the 5th before training starts again........
Does anyone really know the truth as to what is actually happening on the ground? There are those who claim the Israelis are hampering basic provisions ('prison camp') whilst others claim the opposite with repeated provocation by the Hamas.
"The Israelis have been warning you that this was coming if you continue your cross border rocket attacks. Egypt has been imploring you to stop firing rockets into Israel, but you ignored our words. We have been urging you to renew the cease-fire with Israel, but you refused. You have brought this upon yourselves. You are responsible for what is happening to the people of Gaza."
~ Ahmed Aboul Gheit, Egyptian Foreign Minister
they are not claims that Israel is blocking basic provisions. They are and have being doing it Since Hamas won free and fair elections. Everyone turned their back on hamas and Palestine as a result. There was a chance to work with the more moderate members of Hamas and bring about change. Instead Israel and American helped a corrupt Fatah to put an end to Hamas Rule. Hamas the took Gaza and what you Are left with is what you see today.
The Arab League all support Fatah as Hamas is an Islamic Resistance Movement and they don't want to be topple by Islamic fundamentalists in their own country.
Quote from: PadraicHenryPearse on December 31, 2008, 09:10:22 AM
Can i ask you if you can see why Hamas employs the tactics it does?
Yes I can. I don't see the relevance of the question to whether it's right or wrong, though. I find every "yes, but" or "however" in these answers tends (a) to seem to justify and (b) to be one-sided based on individual perceptions of who has right on their side. I don't add a "however" to my condemnation of Israel's savagery, so I think I'd be dishonest to add one to my condemnation of Hamas's just because I believe the balance of right favours the Palestinians.
QuoteAnd do you think the Israeli response will do more harm than good to the region?
Of course.
QuoteWhiskeysteve has given his reasoned and reasonable position, but I'm still not sure if he believes the Hamas targeting of innocent civilians is justified or not. Nobody else, that I can remember has taken the offered opportunity to condemn the killing by Hamas of Israeli civilians.
Possibly your memory is slipping, Hardy, but, as I recall most credible posters here appear to regard murder as morally wrong, no matter where it comes from.
I have no problem at all in going about 90% of the way with you; I do have reservations about letting your antipathy towards Robert Fisk get in the way of objective evaluation of what he had to say.
For all I know, he may be more obnoxious than Kevin Myers is to me; I could add in John Waters too and still the balance could tilt in Fisk's direction but my opinion of what he had to offer would still be as objective as possible.
From what I have seen, read and heard from a wide range of sources I can find nothing factually inaccurate in what Fisk penned in this instance. Thad's all I can say and it would be pretentious of me to claim I am an expert on such matters. ASAIK, while he may have subjectively marshalled his facts together, to me, they still remain facts.
It does strike me how (relatively) lucky we all are to be able to sit back and trade words, while in real life it is literally a matter of life or death for so many innocent people involved.
Subjunctive clause or semicolons won't blow a family to smithereens.
I also feel it is unnecessary to proclaim my abhorrence of Hamas actions every time I complain about the excesses of Zionism. I think some things can surely be taken for granted and that murder is wrong no matter what the reason is or who commits it. I do not feel it
I think the hoors of Hamas who fire those rockets knew full well that they would provoke a disproportionate reaction from the equally obnoxious hoors on the other side. Obviously, they have their own reasons for provoking a conflict with infinitely more powerful and equally fanatical neighbours.
But without exonerating Hamas in any way, I just can't get inside the minds of those who will line an array of tanks up and aim their guns at a defenceless refugee camp. It was the same f**kers who stood aside and allowed Christian militia to get at similar camps in southern Lebanon some years ago. Here, the inhabitants the inhabitants were massacred without mercy or exception.
Has the lessons of the Holocaust been lost on all Zionists?
Quote from: Lar Naparka on December 31, 2008, 01:38:45 PM
Possibly your memory is slipping, Hardy, but, as I recall most credible posters here appear to regard murder as morally wrong, no matter where it comes from.
Good post (again) Lar, but while I'd accept that statement I'm not all that sure about the size of that majority. There are still very few takers, for instance, for my invitation to condemn the Hamas murders. And that's before we come closer to home.
I have been taking my time in thinking through my reply to you Hardy. Clearly it is wrong for any side to target civilians, Hamas included. However, looking at this from Hamas point of view you have to ask - what else can they do? The Israelis are the agressors in this war. Paint it up as tit for tat all you want but the agressions started with Israel and continues with Israel. It is my opinion that Israel does not want peace or a settlement. Hamas (or the palestinians) have no one to listen to them in the international community, or at least no one that will actually do anything. They have no other options but to fight. But how can they fight? Israel is armed to the teeth with a professional army, with the best weapons the yanks can sell them and with more or less a free pass to do ANYTHING they want. If there is a mosque full of worshippers and they suspect a couple of them are "terrorists", they'll carpet bomb the mosque. They are a ruthless army and have been shown to have no problem wiping out the innocent. They ignore UN condemnations, calls for withdrawls and calls for retraint. As a palestinian what can they do but make there home made rockets and fire them into Israel. They know they will never beat Israel this way but I suppose they take some comfort from the fact they are fighting back. I am not condoning this behaviour but trying to understand it
So I have tried to answer your question Hardy and now I have one for you. What do you think the palestinians should do, given that the land they have been promised is shrinking day by day. How do you negotiate with ruthless bully boys like Israel that hold all the cards while you hold none?
Hardy, you mentioned (on page 5, I'm just catching up) that theres so many pages without anyone condemning the Hamas murders. In my posts I have clearly labelled them as both "murder" and "wrong".
If thats not condemnation I dont know what is, but just for you "I condemn them".
I havent said "I condemn" the Israeli murders either, lest you jump to conclusions, I condemn them too.
Theres plenty posted on here to get annoyed about, theres no need to jump to conclusions about what people havent posted.
Grand HHNB.
Quote from: mylestheslasher on December 31, 2008, 03:50:36 PM
So I have tried to answer your question Hardy and now I have one for you. What do you think the palestinians should do, given that the land they have been promised is shrinking day by day. How do you negotiate with ruthless bully boys like Israel that hold all the cards while you hold none?
Myles - I honestly don't think it's for me to formulate Hamas policy. My only purpose in getting involved in this debate was to point out the inconsistency involved in rushing to condemn Israeli atrocities while ignoring Palestinian ones and to state that such one-sided condemnations are at best self-satisfied cant, at worst rank hypocrisy.
It was said, reasonably, that silence doesn't mean approval, so for clarity I asked those who posted specifically to condemn the Israeli murder campaign whether they equally condemned the Hamas murder campaign. It's been interesting that many have declined. In fairness, maybe they haven't been back to the thread. Unless that's the case, I now know how seriously to take their concern for innocent civilians.
In an attempt at an honest answer to your question (what should Hamas do?), my best suggestion is (1) stop firing rockets at civilians and suicide bombings; (2) recognise the right of Israel to existence; (3) engage in the peace process.
Hardy - why should Hamas (or any other Arab group) respect the right of Israel to exist when the Israeli territory was taken from the Palastinians by force? Why also would they recognise Israel when after taking said land, are being treated as diabolically as they are by the Israelis? Maybe, you are thinking that recognition would be better than obliteration due to inferior stocks of weaponry?
No. The international community, including the Arab states, recognises Israel's right to exist. So do all the representatives of the Palestinian people except Hamas. There is no possible solution to the conflict that involves the dissolution of the state of Israel. I think those are sufficient arguments for the case that Hamas should recognise Israel.
Hardy Moderate people in Hamas have said they accept the two state solution. hamas alos offered a ten year truce after coming into power if israel return to the 67 border.
If hamas stop sending rockets it achieves nothing, they did during the 6 month ceasefire and PA or PLO have done so in the past but israel has never offered anything in return in terms of a just settlement based on international law. Or any incentive to continue aceasefire as more land is stolen during these periods as it is when they fight.
your third point that they should enter the peace process. Was this a joke? the moment they came into power they were ignored by everyone. How can they enter peace talks if nobody talks to them.
PHP - I was asked what I thought Hamas should do. I tried to answer.
What do you think they should do? Your post seems to imply that they should just keep firing the rockets. You say stopping the rocket attacks will achieve nothing. What will continuing them achieve? A bright future for all Palestinians?
And of course Hamas can enter the peace process any time they want to. But not while they're killing civilians. Only states get that luxury. We know enough about peace processes in this country to know that's how it works. And to know that a flawed peace process is better than no peace process.
man in black has been banned for a couple of idiotic posts, including one disgusting one at the start of this, otherwise entertaining and well argued thread.
Can I just say that instead of wailing about what the Mod should do in relation to a post, actually contact us with your complaint. We do not read each and every thread on the boards, so if something comes up, bring it to our attention, don't assume someone else will, or that we will see it ourselves. And if you don't raise it, don't start giving out yards about why a post is being tolerated!!
Carry on.
Quote from: Hardy on December 31, 2008, 08:01:25 AM
Fair enough Whiskeysteve.
I have nothing to add to what I said already. Wouldn't want to be sensationalist. Or ridiculous. So would it be ridiculous to give a little summary (from memory, so forgive me if I'm mistaken) of this little debate? So far, Zapatista has stated that the Hamas attacks on civilians are justified. I can see no other logic to that than the justification of civilian murders. But fair play to him for stating honestly what he believes.
Whiskeysteve has given his reasoned and reasonable position, but I'm still not sure if he believes the Hamas targeting of innocent civilians is justified or not. Nobody else, that I can remember has taken the offered opportunity to condemn the killing by Hamas of Israeli civilians. Many have seemed to indicate that they believe Hamas are justified in targeting civilians by making comparisons with other situations where one side is the aggressor or citing self defence, etc. (I'm not sure how the killing of a random civilian who isn't attacking you can be construed as an act of defence). Or, most ludicrously, some have defended the Hamas rocket attacks on the basis that they're not very good rockets and the lads are not very good at aiming them anyway, so what harm.
So, just to be clear, can I ask all of those who condemned the murder of Palestinian non-combatants by Israeli forces, whether they equally condemn the murder of Israeli non-combatants by Hamas? If you'll answer honestly, I'll know how seriously to take your outrage at the targeting of civilians.
Hope I haven't been too ridiculous.
Hardy, I condemn all civilian targeting and murder.
I don't understand your cynicism of other posters though. Which of my posts did you interpret as supportive of attacks on civilians? You seem to have a need to pin others down to 1 of 3 positions; for, against or firmly on the fence. This would be understandable if we were talking about isolated incidents but this is a large scale conflict. For example, if I stated my belief that Britain was right to go to war with Nazi Germany would you immediately say "So you were in favour of the Dresden fire bombing then were you?"
Right now the death toll in the Gaza strip is over 400 about 100 of whom are civilians. But they got their Hamas leader...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7807124.stm
...which will acheive nothing for them. How many will now be willing to take his place? How many will now be driven to take up arms that weren't before?
Quote from: hardstation on January 01, 2009, 07:47:39 PM
Quote from: Gaaboardmod3 on January 01, 2009, 03:14:47 PM
man in black has been banned for a couple of idiotic posts, including one disgusting one at the start of this, otherwise entertaining and well argued thread.
Can I just say that instead of wailing about what the Mod should do in relation to a post, actually contact us with your complaint. We do not read each and every thread on the boards, so if something comes up, bring it to our attention, don't assume someone else will, or that we will see it ourselves. And if you don't raise it, don't start giving out yards about why a post is being tolerated!!
But, may I please remind all members of gaaboard that touts are the lowest form of scum on earth. I know that we act like the RUC, in that we have a certain few members, who, if they say anything remotely bad, we'll hammer the f**k out of them but most of you are alright and we'll let you away with what you like. Well, the same as anything, really, friends are friends, and all of our friends will be let off the hook. Just report the w**kers who we don't like and we'll ban them. I love the bard.
Carry on.
Good post.
(http://www.sokwanele.com/images/general/mbekimugabe_cartoon.jpg)
Whiskeysteve - I don't need to pin anyone down to anything. I'm just asking simple questions and drawing conclusions. I ask someone who volunteers, without being asked, their outrage at the murder of a set of civilians whether that outrage applies when another set of civilians are killed, this time by the side they sympathise with. I get no answer. I conclude that this means one of three things - they haven't seen the question, they prefer not to answer (why?) or they apply different criteria in judging the actions of the side they support.
Where is the flaw in my reasoning? What have I done wrong? Why suspect the questioner? If I had asked "who here condemns the Israeli air strikes on Gaza?" would you be challenging me for asking such a question?
The Dresden fire bombing was a war crime, as was the deliberate targeting of civilians throughout Germany by the Allies. It was part of a policy of terrorism, admitted by the British government as such, in the infamous "Directive 22" to the RAF that bombing was to be "focused on the morale of the enemy civil population".
Hardy, just in case you missed it
Quote from: whiskeysteve on January 01, 2009, 07:15:04 PM
Hardy, I condemn all civilian targeting and murder.
The flaw in your reasoning is your jumping to baseless (and cynical) conclusions. Like I said, just stick up the post where I indicated my support for civilian murder. You wont find it
I said earlier that Israel has more blood on its hands in this affair and I stand by that. I also described the Palestinian reprisals as isolated and often desperate in comparison. The Israelis have killed 100 people in the Gaza Strip for each loss on their own side. I make no apologies for sympathising with the Palestinians in the face of such a murderous exchange rate.
I didn't miss it. I saw and accept your condemnation. I never accused you of supporting civilian murder. I was referring to the remaining people who haven't responded to my question. You're not in that category. And I haven't asked you to apologise for sympathising with the Palestinians. I sympathise with them too.
You say I jump to baseless and cynical conclusions. Here again is the single conclusion I have stated (about people who haven't responded to my question about whether they condemn the murder of civilians by Hamas):
"This means one of three things - they haven't seen the question, they prefer not to answer (why?) or they apply different criteria in judging the actions of the side they support."
How is that conclusion baseless? How is it cynical? It may be wrong - if so I'd appreciate it if you point out where it's wrong. And I mean that - I have no problem with being shown where I'm wrong when I'm wrong. That's the only way we ever learn anything. It's stupid to think you're right all the time, though it's not all that uncommon, unfortunately.
On thinking about it, I am wrong. There is at least one more possible interpretation of a failure to answer my question - they may be thinking about their response.
Who are 'they', the posters in question?
Judaism: An eye for an eye
Zionism: Thirty eyes for an eye
This thread is going around in circles.
The current situation in Gaza has gone way past the need for condemnation. It's typical of the Irish leadership to trip over themselves to not offend anyone and sit on the fence. The position of cowards in regard to what is happening in Gaza and a complete diversion from the actually problem. It's time for Ireland to pin it's colours to the mast.
10 pages on and hundreds of deaths later and the thread can't move on until both sides are condemned. The play on words is f**king shocking in the Irish media too. It's disgusting to see the international community set the rules for themselves in order to trick their own conscience and morals into believing they are taking the higher ground. We can continue to occupy our time dedicated to Gaza disagreeing on who condemned who and pretend we have a position on it and did something about it or we can actually do something about it.
The EU countries should offer passprots to the 1.5 million prisoners being illegally held and killed off in Gaza.
Fisks latest article - can you call this biased. I think he gives Hamas a fair bit of stick.....
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-keeping-out-the-cameras-and-reporters-simply-doesnt-work-1225800.html
Monday, 5 January 2009
What is Israel afraid of? Using the old "enclosed military area" excuse to prevent coverage of its occupation of Palestinian land has been going on for years. But the last time Israel played this game – in Jenin in 2000 – it was a disaster. Prevented from seeing the truth with their own eyes, reporters quoted Palestinians who claimed there had been a massacre by Israeli soldiers – and Israel spent years denying it. In fact, there was a massacre, but not on the scale that it was originally reported.
Now the Israeli army is trying the same doomed tactic again. Ban the press. Keep the cameras out. By yesterday morning, only hours after the Israeli army went clanking into Gaza to kill more Hamas members – and, of course, more civilians – Hamas was reporting the capture of two Israeli soldiers. Reporters on the ground could have sorted out the truth or the lie about that. But without a single Western journalist in Gaza, the Israelis were left to tell the world that they didn't know if the story was true.
On the other hand, the Israelis are so ruthless that the reasons for the ban on journalism may be quite easily explained: that so many Israeli soldiers are going to kill so many innocents – more than three score by last night, and that's only the ones we know about – that images of the slaughter would be too much to tolerate. Not that the Palestinians have done much to help. The kidnapping by a Palestinian mafia family of the BBC's man in Gaza – finally released by Hamas, although that's not being recalled right now – put paid to any permanent Western television presence in Gaza months ago. Yet the results are the same.
Back in 1980, the Soviet Union threw every Western journalist out of Afghanistan. Those of us who had been reporting the Russian invasion and its brutal aftermath could not re-enter the country – except with the mujahedin guerrillas. I received a letter from Charles Douglas-Hume, who was editor of the The Times – for which I then worked – making an important observation. "Now that we have no regular coverage from Afghanistan," he noted on 26 March that year, "I would be grateful if you could make sure that we do not miss any opportunity for reporting on reliable accounts of what is going on in that country. We must not let events in Afghanistan vanish from the paper simply because we have no correspondent there."
That the Israelis should use an old Soviet tactic to blind the world's vision of war may not be surprising. But the result is that Palestinian voices – as opposed to those of Western reporters – are now dominating the airwaves. The men and women who are under air and artillery attack by the Israelis are now telling their own story on television and radio and in the papers as they have never been able to tell it before, without the artificial "balance", which so much television journalism imposes on live reporting. Perhaps this will become a new form of coverage – letting the participants tell their own story. The flip side, of course, is that there is no Westerner in Gaza to cross-question Hamas's devious account of events: another victory for the Palestinian militia, handed to them on a plate by the Israelis.
But there is also a darker side. Israel's version of events has been given so much credence by the dying Bush administration that the ban on journalists entering Gaza may simply be of little importance to the Israeli army. By the time we investigate, whatever they are trying to hide will have been overtaken by another crisis in which they can claim to be in the "front line" in the "war on terror".
Quote from: mylestheslasher on January 05, 2009, 10:52:49 AMBut the last time Israel played this game – in Jenin in 2000 – it was a disaster. Prevented from seeing the truth with their own eyes, reporters quoted Palestinians who claimed there had been a massacre by Israeli soldiers – and Israel spent years denying it. In fact, there was a massacre, but not on the scale that it was originally reported.
He has some neck, I'll give him that. He himself is probably the most famous of those by whom this "was originally reported", as he so coyly puts it, as if it were fact - complete with references to mass graves that didn't exist.
Please feel free to denounce me for disliking the way this character goes about his work, but I'll try not to respond as I'd prefer not to make Robert Fisk the main topic of discussion again when there are more disturbing things to talk about.
C'mon Hardy, he's a journalist - his job is to sell advertising. He's no worse (and no better) than the ones with whom he disagrees.
Quote from: Hardy on January 05, 2009, 12:01:59 PM
He has some neck, I'll give him that. He himself is probably the most famous of those by whom this "was originally reported", as he so coyly puts it, as if it were fact - complete with references to mass graves that didn't exist.
Please feel free to denounce me for disliking the way this character goes about his work, but I'll try not to respond as I'd prefer not to make Robert Fisk the main topic of discussion again when there are more disturbing things to talk about.
Then why bother even mentioning him?
Failed at the first fence. To answer Donagh - in the interest of letting people know, who mightn't otherwise, a reason to be careful about how much credence to attach to Fisk's reporting.
Quote from: Hardy on January 05, 2009, 12:12:53 PM
Failed at the first fence. To answer Donagh - in the interest of letting people know, who mightn't otherwise, a reason to be careful about how much credence to attach to Fisk's reporting.
Ah come on Hardy he's an award winning journalist. I think if you directed that venom you have for all things Islamic towards refuting Fisk's take on things instead of wasting it on ad hominem attacks, your point may seem less hysterical.
Donagh, that's a nice trick - state my supposed "venom for all things islamic" as a subordinate clause meant to slide by as it it were a fact and denounce as hysterical an opinion simply because you disagree with it.
Let's be clear - is my statement right or wrong? If it's right, what am I being asked to defend?
There's nothing hysterical at all in the tone or content of what I said and I think the ad hominem element is quite mild given that misreporting the truth, to be euphemistic about it, is a fairly fundamental offence for a journalist. Are you suggesting I shouldn't have even mentioned it, even when it was brought up by Fisk himself?
Quote from: Hardy on January 05, 2009, 12:23:00 PM
Donagh, that's a nice trick - state my supposed "venom for all things islamic" as a subordinate clause meant to slide by as it it were a fact and denounce as hysterical an opinion simply because you disagree with it.
Let's be clear - is my statement right or wrong? If it's right, what am I being asked to defend?
There's nothing hysterical at all in the tone or content of what I said and I think the ad hominem element is quite mild given that misreporting the truth, to be euphemistic about it, is a fairly fundamental offence for a journalist. Are you suggesting I shouldn't have even mentioned it, even when it was brought up by Fisk himself?
Which statement - that he has some neck, that he reported mass graves or as you stated elsewhere on this thread that he is biased? I don't know about his neck or what he reported on the mass graves but what I've heard from him over the past few days and from what's in that article, he certainly kicks your bias assertion into touch. Which leaves speculation on why you reserve such venom for an internationally respected journalist on Middle Eastern affairs...
Quote from: Donagh on January 05, 2009, 01:11:11 PM
Quote from: Hardy on January 05, 2009, 12:23:00 PM
Donagh, that's a nice trick - state my supposed "venom for all things islamic" as a subordinate clause meant to slide by as it it were a fact and denounce as hysterical an opinion simply because you disagree with it.
Let's be clear - is my statement right or wrong? If it's right, what am I being asked to defend?
There's nothing hysterical at all in the tone or content of what I said and I think the ad hominem element is quite mild given that misreporting the truth, to be euphemistic about it, is a fairly fundamental offence for a journalist. Are you suggesting I shouldn't have even mentioned it, even when it was brought up by Fisk himself?
Which statement - that he has some neck, that he reported mass graves or as you stated elsewhere on this thread that he is biased? I don't know about his neck or what he reported on the mass graves but what I've heard from him over the past few days and from what's in that article, he certainly kicks your bias assertion into touch. Which leaves speculation on why you reserve such venom for an internationally respected journalist on Middle Eastern affairs...
Yes hardy, you started by declaring fisk one of the biggest "odious t**sers ever to pretend to be a journalist when in fact he's nothing more than a propagandist", now you are going on about false reporting of mass graves 10 pages later. What is at the core of your hatred for Fisk, do you believe the middle east would be better of without his reporting? Of course this mass graves "story" is the work of the Israeli media. In a report in the Indo, Fisk described Jenin (i.e. the place) as a mass grave. A methaphor to describe the huge loss of life in the area. The Israelis jumped on it of course and accused Fisk of falsly accusing them of creating a mass grave in the traditional sense - a big hole full of dead bodies. I suppose they were struggling to find some ammo against one of the most courageous reporters of our time and this is the best the came up with. But there will always be some half wit that will buy there bull I suppose.
Here is what he said....
"As Israel's indisciplined soldiery yesterday continued to hide their deeds from the outside world by preventing the Red Cross, aid workers, ambulances and journalists from entering the rubble of Jenin, Mr Powell was sitting idly by in Israel, calling for the "utmost restraint'' from an army that has not yet finished filling the mass grave of Jenin."
Here we go again. Why does everyone feel such tenderness towards poor Mr. Fisk that they're outraged that I should disrespect him? Are either he or I that important? I dislike him intensely. That's irrational, by definition, since dislike is an emotion and therefore not based on reason. Live with it.
I do have a good basis for it, to my own satisfaction. Part of it is that he has reported as fact something which wasn't true. That disqualifies him from ever having any of his reports accepted as true, as far as I'm concerned. How am I to know when he's telling the truth in future?. Where am I wrong in that? The Sunday Independent once carried an interview with the fugitive ex bishop of Kerry as its front page story. An interview that never took place. I never read that paper again. Why would I, since I couldn't even believe the racing results in it after that?
Mylestheslasher - does it make you feel good to call me a half wit? Grand, then - go ahead and feel good. Simple question - what mass graves was Fisk referring to? The ones that didn't exist? Isn't that enough in itself to strip his reporting of all credibility. But he said more than that about Jenin that wasn't true.
Donagh- answer the question and stop fooling around. Is my statement that Fisk misreported the events in Jenin true or false? To be clear - that's an accusation of much more than bias. If it's true, why does he continue to be "internationally respected" and why should the fact that others respect him influence my opinion of him? And why does it bother you so much? Do you want a list of all the other people I dislike? Surely you'll get bored at some stage, if I start that.
I don't like Mick O'Dwyer either.
Quote from: Hardy on January 05, 2009, 02:00:01 PM
Here we go again. Why does everyone feel such tenderness towards poor Mr. Fisk that they're outraged that I should disrespect him? Are either he or I that important? I dislike him intensely. That's irrational, by definition, since dislike is an emotion and therefore not based on reason. Live with it.
I do have a good basis for it, to my own satisfaction. Part of it is that he has reported as fact something which wasn't true. That disqualifies him from ever having any of his reports accepted as true, as far as I'm concerned. How am I to know when he's telling the truth in future?. Where am I wrong in that? The Sunday Independent once carried an interview with the fugitive ex bishop of Kerry as its front page story. An interview that never took place. I never read that paper again. Why would I, since I couldn't even believe the racing results in it after that?
Mylestheslasher - does it make you feel good to call me a half wit? Grand, then - go ahead and feel good. Simple question - what mass graves was Fisk referring to? The ones that didn't exist? Isn't that enough in itself to strip his reporting of all credibility. But he said more than that about Jenin that wasn't true.
Donagh- answer the question and stop fooling around. Is my statement that Fisk misreported the events in Jenin true or false? To be clear - that's an accusation of much more than bias. If it's true, why does he continue to be "internationally respected" and why should the fact that others respect him influence my opinion of him? And why does it bother you so much? Do you want a list of all the other people I dislike? Surely you'll get bored at some stage, if I start that.
I don't like Mick O'Dwyer either.
Knock yourself out Hardy - tell us what he said about Jenin that was not true. Perhaps you could even provide evidence and a link to the article?
Ah go and Google it yourself. It won't be hard to find.
I would guess you already tried that Hardy and couldn't find what you were looking for so now you want me to look it up for you. Am I right?
No. How would a half wit like me know how to look up Google?
If you were able to find that (mis)quote* above, you'll be able to find where he reported the killing of 52 Palestinians (including 21 non-combatants, some children) as "hundreds". This was presumably based on statements from Palestinian sources that he accepted as truth and reported without checking.
You wonder why I dislike that sort of carry on. It's because it destroys the credibility of reporting on the outrageous slaughter of 21 civilians that DID happen in Jenin and of all the other atrocities on both sides and contributes to damaging the credibility of all reporting and allows the Israelis to claim that the media is biassed against them and makes it easier for them to cover up their actual atrocities. If reporters get carried away by their sympathies for one side, it damages the good that proper reporting can do.
* All quotes I've seen refer to the mass graves of Jenin.
If you want to debate something Fisk said in the past please post what you are talking about in some detail. Maybe you are right but at the moment I don't even know what you are talking about. You brought it to the table so why don't you finish up by clarifying what you are saying. I do have a vague recollection in Fisks book "the war for civilisation" of where he reported something and got it wrong. I can't remember if it was incorrect numbers of casualties or something else completely or if it was some other book I am thinking of. If you substantiate what you are saying maybe I'll take the time to open that book tonight and find out if it is the same thing. Deal?
What are you, lazy? Why should I do the research for somebody who thinks I'm a half wit?
OK - only because you seem to want to imply I'm lying, you only have to type Fisk, Jenin, hundreds into Google. You'll get
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=2124E243-7360-4A15-8222-A44879E625C4
and
http://theblueoctavonotebooks.blogspot.com/2004/04/one-must-see-for-himself-what-fisk.html
for starters.
It is very difficult to interpret what you have posted given that according to wiki....
FrontPage Magazine (also known as FRONTPAGEMAG.COM) is an online conservative political magazine, edited by David Horowitz and is published by the David Horowitz Freedom Center (DHFC) (formerly the Center for the Study of Public Culture), a non-profit organization in Los Angeles, California. It is a publication presenting a conservative viewpoint on various subjects.
FrontPage Magazine's main focus is on issues pertaining to foreign policy, war, and Islamic terrorism. It regularly condemns official enemies of the U.S. and is a strong proponent of the war on terror, the Iraq War, and Israel's military actions. It has also published articles condemning what it perceives as left-wing organizations and causes, such as the Democratic party, the media, the environmental movement, affirmative action, reparations for slavery, left-wing interpretations of feminism, Islamism, socialism, communism, anarchism, anti-war groups, the United Nations, and other matters.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontpage_Magazine
The other site doesn't even list the name of the author. Any credible evidence? Is it possible Fisk made an error and the Pro Israel side went to town on it.
So a "conservative point of view" = a lie?
Right - do your own research and stop asking me to do it for you and then rubbishing what I give you. I've given you a start.
I'm telling you Fisk wrote these reports. I remember it well. Rather than rely on my memory of it from the time, I did a quick Google and found the above. If you suggest I'm lying and that the reports cited are untrue, you'd better provide some evidence. Maybe a link that says these reports are untrue. If these publications have published lies about Fisk, you can be sure they haven't gone unanswered. Why are you willing to believe I'm a liar, but unwilling to believe documented evidence that Fisk misreported?
Quote from: Hardy on January 05, 2009, 04:34:20 PM
So a "conservative point of view" = a lie?
Right - do your own research and stop asking me to do it for you and then rubbishing what I give you. I've given you a start.
I'm telling you Fisk wrote these reports. I remember it well. Rather than rely on my memory of it from the time, I did a quick Google and found the above. If you suggest I'm lying and that the reports cited are untrue, you'd better provide some evidence. Maybe a link that says these reports are untrue. If these publications have published lies about Fisk, you can be sure they haven't gone unanswered. Why are you willing to believe I'm a liar, but unwilling to believe documented evidence that Fisk misreported?
I never called you a liar. All I did was pointed out that the 1st article you posted was written by people with a track record of beating up on those they believe are anti israeli. It leaves the potential open the the quotes are taken out of context and are being twisted by the author. Who knows. I do know if I were looking for commentary on a pro Israeli journalist I wouldn't consult the Neo Nazi Weekender for evidence. You brought the issue of fisks mis-reporting to the board it is you that should be following that up with evidence (which you did eventually, after calling me lazy for not doing it for you). I didn't find anything by a reputabile source taking the same line as these guys and neither have I seen anywhere where Fisk has refuted these accusations. Maybe there is too much evidence missing to make a call. Maybe Fisk made a mistake or maybe what he reported was true.
Some other articles worth reading on the jenin battle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Jenin
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1937048.stm
Clearly there is a lot of dispute over exactly what happened so it is hardly all about Fisk is it?
You believe what you want. I couldn't be bothered trying to open a closed mind and I'm not remotely interested in trying to prove anything to you, especially when what I get in return from you is your prejudice masquerading as proof. I give you the evidence you ask for and you dismiss the source. GIVE ME A SOURCE FOR YOUR ACCUSATION THAT IT'S A LIE THEN.
You are determined to believe what you want to believe. You refuse to believe the quoted publications for no reason other than that they don't suit your case. Why would I bother looking for more for you? You're the one saying (or implying) what I'm saying is untrue. Prove it or stop blathering.
You're not calling me a liar? I've told you I remember Fisk misreporting Jenin. You disbelieve me and ask me to prove it. What's that if not calling me a liar?
And now you finish up where I started with your "it's hardly all about Fisk". I said more or less that in my first post today, posted simply in response to Fisk's own statement about Jenin. That's all I wanted to say about it. You have spent the day tackling me about it and now, when you can't make your accusations about me stick, you try to back off with "it's hardly all about Fisk is it?". You couldn't make it up.
For the last time - Fisk reported that "hundreds" had been killed at Jenin by the Israelis and wrote about the "mass graves" of Jenin. He had no source for these stories other than one of the protagonists - the Palestinians. He wasn't there himself. He couldn't be, as he admitted - the Israelis wouldn't allow it. So, by his own admission, he published as fact statements from an interested protagonist that he didn't even check.
Tell me again that's untrue, if you want. I couldn't care less what you believe.
Come down of the pulpit Hardy. Here are some awards Fisk has won....
In 1991, Fisk won a Jacob's Award for his RTÉ Radio coverage of the first Gulf War. He received Amnesty International UK Press Awards in 1998 for his reports from Algeria and again in 2000 for his articles on the NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999. He received the British Press Awards' International Journalist of the Year seven times, and twice won its "Reporter of the Year" award. In 2001, he was awarded the David Watt prize for "outstanding contributions towards the clarification of political issues and the promotion of their greater understanding" for his investigation into the Armenian Genocide by the Turks in 1915. More recently, Fisk was awarded the 2006 Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize along with $350,000.
He was made an honorary Doctor of Laws by the University of St Andrews on June 24, 2004. The Political and Social Sciences department of Ghent University (Belgium) awarded Fisk an honorary doctorate on March 24, 2006. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by the American University of Beirut in June 2006. Trinity College Dublin awarded him a second, honarary, Doctorate in July 2008.
You claimed Fisk reported lies without clearly, for a number of posts, stating what you were refering to. I finally get it out of you that you are talking about the massacre of Jenin. I ask you for evidence that Fisk (given his impecible record on reporting on the middle east) lied and you paste links to two articles. One written by persons unknown, the other by a known right wing US Zionist magazine. I pressed you further on this as totally biased commentary is hardly proof of the facts and then you accuse me of calling you a liar.
When you state something on the board you should be able to back it up with evidence. Your word is not enough! I did my own digging on the issue and it seems, at the time of the massacre, there were reports 1st from an Israeli General and then from Palestinian Human rights agencies that 100's of civilians had been killed at Jenin. Since Israel had allowed no journalists into Jenin (a bit like Gaza today) this was wrongly reported as fact. Fisk was on holidays in the US at the time and it was colleagues of his in the indo that report back to him on the massacre. It turned out that "only" 56 had been killed (although there seems to be still a lot of debate about this - some pallestinians claim 500 died still). The israelis then tried to deflect people from the massacre by throwing dirt at journalists that had reported on the massacre of hundreds - this became the news instead of the actual massacre. How many has to die to call it a massacre I don't know.
Here is what Fisk says about it in his newest book "the war for civilisation"...
"So when does a bloodbath become an atrocity? When does an atrocity become a massacre? How big does a massacre have to be before it qualifies as genocide? How many dead before a genocide becomes a holocaust? Old questions become new questions at each killing field. The Israeli journalist Arie Caspi wrote a scathing article ... which caught the hypocritical response to the Jenin killings [in April 2002] with painful accuracy:
Okay, so there wasn't a massacre. Israel only shot some children, brought a house crashing down on an old man, rained cement blocks on an invalid who couldn't get out in time, used locals as a human shield against bombs, and prevented aid from getting to the sick and wounded. That's really not a massacre, and there's really no need for a commission of enquiry ... whether run by ourselves or sent by the goyim.
The insanity gripping Israel seems to have moved beyond our morals ... many Israelis believe that as long as we do not practice systematic mass murder, our place in heaven is secure. Every time some Palestinian or Scandinavian fool yells "Holocaust!," we respond in an angry huff: This is a holocaust? So a few people were killed, 200, 300, some very young, some very old. Does anyone see gas chambers or crematoria?
These are not idle questions. Nor cynical. ... f at least two dozen Palestinian dead in Jenin was not a massacre, how should we describe the four Israelis dead at the Adora settlement? Well, the official Israeli army spokesman, Major Avner Foxman, said of the Adora killings: "For me, now I know what a massacre is. This is a massacre." The Canadian National Post referred to the Palestinian assault as being "barbarous," a word never used about the killing of Palestinian civilians. I don't like the mathematics here. Four dead Israelis,including two armed settlers, is a massacre. I'll accept this. But twenty-four Palestinian civilians killed, including a nurse and a paraplegic, is not a massacre. (I am obviously leaving aside the thirty or so armed Palestinians who were also killed in Jenin.) What does this mean? What does it tell us about journalism, about my profession? Does the definition of a bloodbath now depend on the religion or the race of the civilian dead to be qualified as a massacre? No, I didn't call the Jenin killings a massacre. But I should have done.
Yet our responsibility does not end there. How many of our circumlocutions open the way to these attacks? How many journalists encouraged the Israelis -- by their reporting or by their wilfully given, foolish advice -- to undertake these brutal assaults on the Palestinians. On 31 March 2002 -- just three days before the assault on Jenin -- Tom Friedman wrote in The New York Times that "Israel needs to deliver a military blow that clearly shows terror will not pay." Well, thanks, Tom, I said to myself when I read this piece of lethal journalism a few days later. The Israelis certainly followed Friedman's advice.""
Robert Fisk lives in Beirut and has done for 30 years. He speaks Arabic and has covered numerous wars in the region. He is better placed than anyone on this board to know what is going on. I think if you are going to claim he is a deliberite liar you should have strong facts to back that up. If its between the word of Fisk and you Hardy I'll believe Fisk thanks very much.
Quote from: Hardy on January 05, 2009, 04:03:47 PM
What are you, lazy? Why should I do the research for somebody who thinks I'm a half wit?
OK - only because you seem to want to imply I'm lying, you only have to type Fisk, Jenin, hundreds into Google. You'll get
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=2124E243-7360-4A15-8222-A44879E625C4
and
http://theblueoctavonotebooks.blogspot.com/2004/04/one-must-see-for-himself-what-fisk.html
for starters.
Hardy, thought I'd have a look at those sources and I don't see how they can be taken as conclusive evidence. Regarding the first article from Front Page, the author quotes Fisk on many occasions but never references it so we cannot see the context in which he was speaking. Failing that we have to rely on the objectiveness of the author (listed as Sean Gannon).
However a wikipedia of Sean Gannon says this:
Sean Gannon is an Irish journalist. As a freelance writer and researcher, he writes primarily on Irish and Middle Eastern affairs.
A prominent advocate of Israel, he contributes to numerous magazines and newspapers such as FrontPage Magazine, Haaretz, The Jerusalem Report, The Irish Times, Magill and the Israel Hasbara Committee. He is chairman of 'Irish Friends of Israel', a group which devotes its work to challenging and correcting what it perceives as anti-Israel bias and general misconceptions about the Middle East in Irish and British media[1].
Gannon frequently exposes what he views as Arab culpability in the Middle Eastern conflict, criticising the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, Hezbollah and Syria, among others. He is also critical of Western perceptions of Israel, and has most notably challenged assertions made by Raymond Deane, the chairman of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, in an exchange which took place in the letters pages of the Irish Times[2].
In addition, Gannon has criticised aspects of Catholicism, particularly the policy of John Paul II towards Jews[1] and the Catholic Church's attitude to homosexuality. He has questioned the much-lauded reputation of Mother Theresa and the Islamic account of the origins of the Koran[2].
He is currently preparing a book on the relationship between Ireland and Israel since 1948.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Gannon_(journalist)
This does not sound like an objective journalist!
Regarding the second link, which has no named author as myles has said, the basic assertion of the whole article is that Fisk denied that he described something as a massacre when he clearly painted it out to be. They use the quote "I did not say they [Israeli troops] committed a massacre." and fair play provide a link to the article. Which then makes a nonsense of their argument when you read Fisk's words "I did not say they committed a massacre. But I should have."
Pretty much sounds like your clutching at straws Hardy!
Whiskeysteve, what are you trying to prove? What's the point in quoting reams of Fisk's writing at me? And listing awards he's won? How is that going to disprove that he misreported the events in Jenin?
He wasn't the only one, by the way. Many journalists accepted the initial Palestinian statements, without verification, which began with a claim of more than 1,000 dead, and buried under the ruins of bulldozed buildings. The claims then dropped to about 500, then "hundreds". The final toll was 52, of whom approximately 21 were innocent victims. These innocent victims were forgotten in Israeli ridiculing of the initial reports by Fisk and the others and holding them up as evidence that the media could not be trusted to report Israeli activities truthfully.
Why are you trying to disprove this when it's true? I'm still bemused as to why it's so important to you to vindicate Fisk. What's the deal?
Sorry, but I'm not the one clutching at straws. I made a simple statement of truth and you and others have spent the day for some reason trying to find evidence that I'm wrong. Why? Anyway, you won't find it because it doesn't exist. It's not that hard to find what he wrote. Here it is:
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0414-06.htm
Hardy do you believe wilfullly misreported or was genuinely misled, or does it make any difference to you. Incidentally i am not a fan of Fisk myself, because of his tendency towards making himself part of the story, what i call celebrity journalism
Pangurban, I don't imagine he set out deliberately to lie. But he failed in the first responsibility of a journalist, which is to report the truth. All good journalists know the procedures and will be wary of falling into an elementary trap like reporting a story unchecked. I think he was too willing to believe something that confirmed his own prejudice and this led to a lapse whereby he failed to check his story.
Yes - celebrity journalism is a good description. That's why I'm unimpressed with the list of international awards. Though I'll admit that to describe him as an odious tosser was a tad OTT.
I must say Hardy, I don't find too much wrong from that article except that the line" "Hundreds'' – on Israel's own admission – have died, including civilians. Hundreds in quotation marks attributes the quantity to an Israeli source - A general if I remember correctly. This was, at the time, backed up by palestinian aid workers. The fact that the quantity of people was wrong is the only thing incorrect in this report. I don't see the use of the word massacre anywhere. Perhaps you can see why I was inclined to discount the 2 reports you posted on the matter. Look at how their authors dissected what Fisk said to suit their own aims.
It seems Fisk reported an incorrect statement made by other sources (an Isreali general who you would find difficult to disbelieve since it was in his interest to play down the numbers dead). Since no jounalist was allowed access to Jenin I presume that is effectively thats what everyone was doing. A bit like now when the whole worlds journalists are outside Gaza, looking in and reporting what Israel tells them is happening. Do you have similar distain for those journalists. In the end of the day he did not report that a mass murder had occured that in fact had not. He reported the incorrect amount of casualties!
Pamgurban - Personnally, I don't find Fisk to be a celebrity journalist - just my personal opinion.
Where did this Israeli general come from? I've never seen any Israeli source quoted in support of the "hundreds" claim.
I never said Fisk called it a massacre. He said afterwards he should have and I wouldn't argue with that. The killing of 21 civilians is a massacre and would have received proper attention if it hadn't been drowned in the hysteria of false reporting of the killing of hundreds and the subsequent ridiculing by Israel of the reporting of Jenin.
Where did he get the "mass graves" from?
Quote from: Hardy on January 06, 2009, 09:37:42 AM
Where did this Israeli general come from? I've never seen any Israeli source quoted in support of the "hundreds" claim.
I never said Fisk called it a massacre. He said afterwards he should have and I wouldn't argue with that. The killing of 21 civilians is a massacre and would have received proper attention if it hadn't been drowned in the hysteria of false reporting of the killing of hundreds and the subsequent ridiculing by Israel of the reporting of Jenin.
Where did he get the "mass graves" from?
The generals name is in his book. I saw it yesterday on the net somewhere too. I can dig it out for you. I assume the mass graves came from the fact that the israelis, after the battle, attempted to take the dead away and bury them in a mass grave somewhere. A group (a palestinian one i believe) took out a court injunction against them doing this which was upheld in due course and the bodies were returned. I suppose on the day of the massacre there was probably a lot of talk about Israel taking away the bodies without consent. Thats one possible explanation?
'The generals name is in his book. I saw it yesterday on the net somewhere too. I can dig it out for you. I assume the mass graves came from the fact that the israelis, after the battle, attempted to take the dead away and bury them in a mass grave somewhere. A group (a palestinian one i believe) took out a court injunction against them doing this which was upheld in due course and the bodies were returned. I suppose on the day of the massacre there was probably a lot of talk about Israel taking away the bodies without consent. Thats one possible explanation?'
There's irony for you ... didn't the Nazis used to do this type of thing?
Myles - I did a Google - according to Norman G. Finkelstein, General Ron Kitri said that "hundreds" had died before correcting himself "a few hours later" saying that was the figure for dead AND wounded. That was two days before Fisk's article.
Quote from: Hardy on January 05, 2009, 11:11:29 PM
Whiskeysteve, what are you trying to prove?
That those sources could not not be relied upon to back up your argument.
From the start of this thread I was intrigued by your view of Fisk, from your initial description of him as an odious tosser (I see you have admitted this to be OTT, i agree) and subsequent arguments that he was a journalist with no credibility. When pressed you display that he got the number of dead in a massacre wrong in one instance and that 'he failed in the first responsibility of a journalist, which is to report the truth'.
As you say, journalists were restricted from the area and many reported what they initially heard. Presumably you hold the same critical attitude toward all these journalists. The point is, if you really look hard enough, nearly every conflict journalist fails to report the truth at some time or another. For example, a great many 'credible' journalists were guilty of reporting at great length the existence of WMDs in the run up to the Iraq war.
You are entitled to dislike his views or method of getting them across, I wouldn't argue otherwise. He does tend to argue emotively against Israeli actions, as seen by his 'mass graves' metaphor. On the other hand I can't see how he suffers from a serious lack of credibility or more importantly, integrity as a journalist.
In short, I feel that your critical tirade against him has been bogged down by your determination to unveil some nefarious intention, on his part, in his mistake of exaggerating an already significant number
In other words, he misreported the events at Jenin, as I said.
Alright Hardy, looks like you have him bang to rights on mistakenly exaggerating a number that was incidental to his main argument. On a single occasion. His integrity is in shreds :P
Your like a dog with a bone on this one
Quote from: whiskeysteve on January 06, 2009, 12:10:45 PM
Your like a dog with a bone on this one
No. I only mentioned it in response to the post containing Fisk's article, in which Fisk himself specifically brought up Jenin. I don't think it was unreasonable of me to point out that Fisk himself had misreported that event. Anything I've posted since then has been in response to those who tried (and failed) to prove I was wrong.
The bone is not mine.
Quote from: Hardy on January 06, 2009, 12:15:21 PM
Quote from: whiskeysteve on January 06, 2009, 12:10:45 PM
Your like a dog with a bone on this one
No. I only mentioned it in response to the post containing Fisk's article, in which Fisk himself specifically brought up Jenin. I don't think it was unreasonable of me to point out that Fisk himself had misreported that event. Anything I've posted since then has been in response to those who tried (and failed) to prove I was wrong.
The bone is not mine.
Then let it go ;D
At least we have moved on from the initial sensationalist statements
Is this a last word competition? ;D
"No you hang up" ;D