900(& still counting) Gazan's(Palestinians) DEAD

Dear MAPers,

The news today read of "900 Gazan's were slaughtered in the Israelis' merciless air strike within 24hrs." I am not being biased or whatsoever but what is wrong is WRONG and I feel I have the obligation to represent Muslim MAPers and all around the world to tell you how I felt.

I beleive that it is wrong for U.S to blame Hamas for Israeli's atacks. The U.S and Israel should instead acknowledge Hamas as the legal and true government of Palestine. U.S boast about their democratic policy and all but surely dissapointed of Hamas elect. The Palestinians have cast their vote and their choice is Hamas. Any country cannot break or destroys a country's sovereignity just because they do not like the government. Just like the recent U.S new election. A new party shall govern America but because of neighbouring country do not like the new president or party, they attack U.S. Surely, if you are an American you'll find this as unacceptable. Well, this is what happen to Palestine. The looks of things I think the Israeli's are commiting a herrondous crime = GENOCIDE.

The American news channels clearly biased and blamed Hamas for Israeli's attacks. Please open your eyes and see the big picture. Palestinians bombed themselves up because they would rather die than watched their family, friends, and colleagues being shot to death for no reason. A little boy watched in fear as his father were shot repeatedly by the soldiers and his mother and sister were raped to death. He watched so many of his beloved family and friends killed that he no longer fear death. This is when the little boy picked up an AK-47 and become a soldier. When will it end?

Let me tell you how superior Israeli's weapons are:

Palestinians=Rocks, bottles & sticks.
Israelis=Sub-machine guns, grenades, sniper rifles, and all sorts of advanced weapons that we might not know of.
(Is this fair?)

Palestine and Israel had their war since before I was born. All I'm hoping is my children would not need to hear and see the killings but only learn it from history books.

 

I would first like to clear up the slight discrepancy at the end of your comment. Hamas do have a little more than just sticks and bottles. One of the reasons that Israel gave for the airstrike is rocket attacks coming from Palestine. However this is really not much compared to the advanced air strikes, tanks and other weapons that the Israel posses as well as the fact that they have on of the largest armies in the world.

The US will probably always lend its support to Israel. On one level this is because of powerful Jewish think tanks that have an influence on policy. However what is perhaps more important in my opinion is the way that America views Israel as a microcosm of its own situation - being attacked by terrorists because of an extremist religious philosophy. For that reason I think Israel gains strong sympathy with the US and to some extension the UK (thinking back to the vote cast by the UN referring to the Lebanon war, this was perhaps one of the only times when I was ashamed to be considered British).

As far as your wish for Hamas to be accepted as the democratic choice of Palestine I agree with you, although undoubtedly there are some complications with the issue.

 

Intan,

I believe it is important that this does not become polarised into a Muslim/West issue-look at the protests in the UK yesterday, people from all walks of life are rightly disgusted by Israels 'blitzkrieg'.

I mostly agree with Burnsey, however the Hamas rocket strikes only re-started after Israel broke the ceasefire on 4th Sept. last year.

(PS American 'democracy' is highly subjective...look at the way they propped up Musharaf's military dictatorship in Pakistan...I could go on...)

 

I've reluctantly come to the conclusion that a two state solution is impossible. The UN should focus its efforts on getting Israel to cede Gaza to Egypt and the west bank to Jordan. Make whatever payoffs necessary to Israel, Egypt, and Jordan to allow that to happen. And make it absolutely binding that the ceded territories remain part of Egypt and Jordan. Muslim nations dealing with putting down terrorist organizations is much preferable to Israel doing it. They'd be much more equipped to do it up close and personal rather than relying on air strikes which results in so much collateral damage and death to innocents. And Muslims killing Muslims is always less inflammatory in the Muslim world than Jews killing Muslims.

Sure, there'd be risk for all parties involved, but the path Israel and the Palestinians have been going down for decade after decade is too well-worn and familiar to them both.

 

Would Palestinians really be happy being part of Egypt or Jordan? Mashing different tribes together into countries such as Iraq (same true in Africa i guess) has hardly been a receipt for lasting peace.

 

They'd probably be happier than they are now. And I don't think Iraq is very similar. There you had Non-Arabs(Kurds), and two rival sects of Islam crammed together. The Palestinians are Sunni Arabs as are the Jordanians and Egyptians.

 

Just out of interest you said someone was raped to death. How does that work?

 

Israel tried that after the 1967 war. Neither Jordan nor Egypt wanted those territories back.

BTW, Egypt occupied Gaza and Jordan occupied the West Bank between 1948 and 1967. They kept the Palestinians there living in squalor.

 

a two state solution can work, a three state solution cannot. The West Bank and Gaza have to become one territory again under one government for it to happen.

 

Israel is not going to lose the backing of the west. How often does the palestinian people have to do this to realize you can't poke the bear with a stick and then complain when you get your **** handed to you then cry out to the world that your being chewed up. I don't support the israeli's but what is fact is fact. The west wouldn't stop what was going on in darfur, why should it stop whats happening in israel?

I don't know what the answer is, but shooting rockets at the israeli's and then yelling when they shoot back is just insane!

 

Quoted for truth.

 

I could be mistaken but I don't think the Palestinians are trying to "defeat" Israel in the sense of meeting force with force. They're trying the bipartisan approach that the IRA used in the UK; putting pressure on Israel through their government via legitimate political channels while also trying to make it too much trouble to not do what they want via criminal means.

The difference being that if the UK had retaliated to IRA terrorism by blowing the hell out of Ireland with an infinitely stronger military force (and saying damn the civilians), the Americans would have stepped in on the side of the Irish (Reagan couldn't lose all those Irish-American votes after all!); whereas in the case of Israel, the USA is unwaveringly supportive of the retaliators because of the hugely influential Jewish lobby.

The US needs to do what it did in the 1990s in the UK and involve themselves in brokering negotiations between the sides rather than simply say "whatever Isreal does is OK by us".

Could you imagine what would've happened if the UK had just carpet-bombed Ireland in response to the IRA attacks? That's what Israel are doing - they were provoked, but their response is disproportionate and unhelpful.

 

Spot on.

(Funny how after 9/11 the American support for the IRA dwindled away isn't it? Terrorism wasn't quite as fashionable as before)

The Jewish 'lobby' in the US is insanely disproportionate to the population percentage, as is the media ownership.

Israel has to make concessions regarding it's borders, it's that simple.

To quote Yehosophat Harkabi former head of Israeli Military Intellegence. "To offer an honourable solution to the Palestinians respecting their right to self determination: That is the solution of the problem of terrorism", he continues, "When the swamp disappears, there will be no more mosquitos".

 

What I dont get is why Hamas didn't take the opportunity the UN's call for a ceasefire presented. Hamas should have come out and said 'We accept the UN's call, we will cease our rocket attacks immediately." Israel says 'Go to hell.' Israel become the bad guy. It was a win-win situation for Hamas, all of a sudden, Israel cant use the rocket attacks as an excuse anymore (anyone who thinks this is about rocket attacks is a damned fool by the way). Instead they continue to attack Israel, even though the damage they are causing is negligible.

 

The thread starter's story about the little boy taking up arms after daddy's shot and mama's raped to death is a flagrant appeal to emotion, both factually unstubstantiated and irrelevant. It is hollow and propagandistic.

That said, the "Holy Land" has been a war zone for much of recorded history. I don't know what it is about monotheism that evokes such murderous self-righteousness, but Abraham's children just can't get along. Maybe everyone should be cast out of Jerusalem and the city should be used as a nuclear bombing range. That way it's taken off the table as something to fight about.

The Jewish people lost their claim on the real estate around Jerusalem centuries ago, but somehow held onto the notion that it was rightfully theirs. No other race, tribe or ethnic group has been restored to their divinely bestowed lands after a two thousand year diaspora, but in the wake of WWII the Hebrew people won a bloodless coup, displaced those who had a centuries old claim to the land, and in the greatest public relations victory of all time; have managed to be viewed and treated as the aggrieved party by the Western World ever since.

In response to the Holocaust it would have been fair to create a Jewish state in Germany after WWII, but to disenfranchise and relocate the Palestinians was a great social injustice, and a huge socio-political blunder as it has kept the region destabilized for more than sixty years. Imagine being moved at gunpoint from your ancestral home, relocated to a refugee camp or reservation, and then watching your greatest ideological nemeses move into your father's house, assume all mantles of power, and proceed to treat you, your family and your "ethnicity" as second, or even third class citizens.

Now imagine living on either side of this divide for your entire life. Imagine being born into the anger and tension of such a culture. Growing up in it, becoming a parent in it...

Holy land, my ass.

 

I take no stock in religion. I have seen men do horrific things in the name of religion. That is why I choose to be a Humanist.

 

But it's not 1967 anymore.

 

Chutzpah!

And they've abused the Holocaust ever since to justify their every action, and preyed on the guilt of the West-particularly the USA- to construct something akin to immunity from criticism. (My personal opinion is this demeans the holocaust and is at best a trivialisation of the memory of the millions that died.)

The world is tiring of the holocaust industry, perpetuated by American Jews. However, America is still in deeply love with Israel and will continue to bestow it's gifts of weapons, money and diplomatic support. On the plus side the Bush administration has all but destroyed the USA's global standing and hopefully the credit crunch will further erode the USA's standing to something a little more fitting and proportionate.

Yeah, I don't get it too. I suppose they rely on the Palestinian public's support for their existence and have to do something in response.

Until, the US puts pressure on Israel and withdraws financial and diplomatic support , Israel will always play the 'my dad's bigger than yours' game. Of, course that will never happen....but there will be a future when the US is no longer the 'biggest dad'. Then they might have to engage in real diplomacy rather than standing behind a bullying Israel looking menacing and polishing their weapons!!!

 

Personally I think Israel simply needs to withdraw from all Palestinian territories and stop blockading the flow of trade in and out of Palestine. Which also includes the dismantling of all of the illegal settlements set up by Israel.

Rather than simply deal with the terrorists, Israel has gone out of it's way to make an enemy of all Palestinians. As we've seen in Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan, things will only get a lot worse before they get better when a nation chooses that tactic.

 

I recommend caution before accepting this number before it has a chance to be independently verified. We know from Jenin that the Palestinians have a long history of inflating body counts, and even forging footage of bodies.