The western front of the jihad against the Jews

David

The problem is, Melanie, I've never seen a hint of a nuanced and balanced approach that you seem to demand of otheres. You've never once criticised Israel. Hell, when covering the fact that the UN school was not in fact destroyed, there was no comment on the appalling death of 40 or so people outside of it.

That's what makes you a poor defender of Israel.

JSPoint

"Thus in Spain a judge agreed yesterday to an investigation of seven former top Israeli security officials for alleged war crimes in the 2002 bombing in Gaza that killed top Hamas terrorist Salah Shehadeh and 14 other people" Yes, what about those 14 other people? When we oppose terrorism without any consideration of our methods then we just fall into hysteria. Like you I am afraid. An investigation is quite reasonable - regretfully it is in Spain not Isreal.

EDDIE

This has to be the scariest article that I have read so far. Having escaped from Germany just in time, I am acutely aware of the possibility of history repeating itself. it is a terrible sickness and represents the complete loss of all moral values

Edward in the USA

The Islamist/Socialist hijacked United Nations is silent on the genocidal threats by the Islamic Republic of Iran, against Israel.

The United Nations wants to ban any criticism of Islam, but no ban on bashing Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism (the Taliban destroyed the two 1,500 year old Buddahs of Bamyan Afghanistan).

Islamist, or mainline Islam dehumanization of Jews as "sons of monkeys and pigs", mirrors the depiction of Jews as vermin by the Nazis.

The UN Human Rights Council electing Current Day Slaver Sudan to it's body, rather than being a subject of censure.

Europe once again is taking its ingrained role as Jew hater while once more dark clouds are gathering over Europe.

Nick Shelley

Would strongly recommend others to read the piece by David Harris. As another has commented a tour de force!

Jenny

The ill omens for Israel and the Jews grow. Apart from picking my jaw out of my lap reading what Melanie records here, I now also read this account from Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of what Shimon Peres was subjected to at Davos.

The signals now coming out of Washington are now adding petrol to the jihadist inferno. The Obama presidency is their chance to strike while the iron is hot - and boy don't they know it - and once the Jews are gone, the temperature will be hot enough to fry the rest of us too.

Terrifying.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/ambrose_evans-pritchard/blog/2009/01/29/wef_2009i_will_never_come_back_to_davos

Carl

The content of this blog is most likely as accurate as the waves of anti-Semitic riots and violence that it was claimed were sweeping across the UK.

fullenglish

Most European Governments, if not all, are committed to a two state solution for the Middle East, for Muslims and Jews to live peacefully side by side.
Europe is certainly not a continent full of Jew haters, its judicial and political apparatus now gearing towards the destruction of Israel. There is certainly strong feeling that Israel's recent actions in Gaza have been disproportionate, just as there was anti-muslim feeling after Munich. Ultimately the silent majority of Muslims and Jews want peace, and the extremists on both sides - those who fight with the pen and the sword - now need to take advantage of the new US president's unique potential to actually affect change in the Middle East.

peter

Which part of cause and effect do people like you not understand?

Israel kills 1500 civilians in Gaza

Israel kills 400 children

Even Israel's best friend in the region, Turkey, accuses you of war crimes

Israel's actions have revolted right thinking people across the world.

Israel has any lost respect, trust and credibility it once deserved.

And people like you aren't going to make it any more popular. Are you?

Which part of that don't you get?

Gary O

The Fascist European Left have made their bed with islam. Lets see how long this marriage lasts, but before their inevitable divorce (for the islamists hate these do-gooders just as much), the European Jewry would be decimated.

Suffolkbor

I think that Jewish people wherever in the world they may live should seriously consider a much more militant approach for their own self protection .
The obvious indifference of law enforcement is becoming more blatant by the day .
I also wonder how long it will be before one of the Europaen countries suggest that it,s Jewish citizens have some kind of identification which highlights their religion under the spurious grounds that it is for "Their own protection ".
No doubt this could be in the form of an implant that can scanned and would bear an uncanny resemblance to A yellow star of David .
After all , why break with thousands of years of tradition ?

gary

Has Israel been accused yet of causing global warming?

Dan Carpenter

Full English: "....and the extremists on both sides - those who fight with the pen and the sword - now need to take advantage of the new US president's..."

Which side uses the pens and which side the sword in your view?

resistor

'Samuels noted that ‘apparently, a small number of Swedish Jews had received the necessary permit for a silent demonstration for peace, to be held in the centre of Malmö’. He continued: ‘Following the first speech, electric wires to the microphone were cut.'

A 'silent demonstration'? With speeches and microphones?

Margaret Muller-Johansson

I think the west is doing very bad dealing with Jihadist extremists who are taking over there countries, they are better of respecting the Jewish, but they are pleasing the Muslim extremist instead, it is very weird, "Good is bad and bad is Good" all this things is happening because the northern Europeans like Sweden, Norway, Denmark, England etc been letting in this people to their countries for last 10-15 years, and this people was immigrating to this parts of Europe because they have good state benefits, now they are afraid they can't say anything to them, I also read somewhere that the young Muslim men are raping and assaulting the Swedish and Norwegian girls, they are harassing the civilized people like the Jewish because they know they can get away sometimes, it is shame, I don't know what to say, i think it is time not to scare but to be careful!

Worried

@Suffolkbor: It is interesting to note that the liberal UK is leading the world with a system to put us all on a database, perhaps based on DNA and/or a unique identifier. No doubt this database will include ethnic origin. Therefore, if parliament does fall to our enemies, to track down and take out Jews and other 'undesirables', all they will need do is perform an electronic search.

It is nice to know that the next holocaust will be even more efficient than the last.

A very good reason NOT to provide your details when partaking in any online surveys, signing up for social networking services or even completing government forms.

To survive, remain anonymous.

Ricky

I note the Turkish PMs uncivil attack on Israeli President Shimon Peres at Davos yesterday.

This thug fits in with the Lefts infantile love affair with tyrants like Chavez.

He attacked Peres - a polite Israeli peacenik - for cheap publicity at home. He forgot to mention that he is reintroducing Islamism in a secular state, rounding up his opponents who object and slaughters Kurds (and their babies) from time-to-time, including illegal incursions into Iraq. What a fraud!

Mr Erdogan - remember what Danton famously said - "When the mob is behind you, all the more reason to watch your back."

Another reason not to invite Turkey into the EU.

Jenny

peter, January 30th, 2009 1:07pm, which part of "Make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal rigorously with them. Hell shall be their home: an evil fate." (The Koran) don't you get?

You clearly think there is some earthly reason for that and for things like: "O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!" (The Koran) - can you kindly tell us what it is?

ed

What a one sided rant at anyone who dares to have a different view.
on the arrest worries of the top of the Israeli military - thats justice, a value which i though Melanie would support. Maybe not.

tomh

David Lloyd, the "American" professor at USC, is British. Suprise..suprise.

Michael Spencer-Smith

I have no time for Hamas and the various 'clerical' loonies quoted here. But here's the problem; Israel keeps taking land that belongs to Palestinians. And they don't like it. These Israeli towns targeted by Hamas used to belong to Palestinians, and Israel drove them out at gunpoint. The only solution in my view is for all settlements in the West bank to be withdrawn, and for the UN to then establish a buffer strip between a new Palestinian state and Israel similar to the arrangement in Cyprus. In that way the Israelis will have security, and the Palestinians will have land. Otherwise, what will happen? More wars, more blood.
With Obama's election, the patience of the Americans with Israel may be wearing thin. If that shield is lowered, Israel will not have many other supporters.

Penny

David - I certainly feel that there is a need for balance but given the multitude of 'anti-Israel' journalists, perhaps Melanie is providing that?

In the interests of balance, the following is an extract from a BBC article on 27th Jan 2009

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7854601.stm
According to the BBC:

"A major humanitarian crisis is unfolding in northern Sri Lanka, with a quarter of a million people trapped by fighting, the Red Cross says.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) estimates that hundreds of people have been killed in fighting between troops and separatist rebels.

It called on both sides to allow immediate and free access to the combat zone for humanitarian workers.

The military say they are involved in a final push against retreating rebels.

See map of the region

Moving north from the captured rebel town of Mullaitivu, they are trying to secure the north-east coastline to encircle the rebels and say they hope to control the entire north within weeks.

The Tamil Tiger rebels could not be reached immediately for comment.

Access to the combat zone is tightly controlled, making it difficult to verify the actual situation."

The article continues, outlining the number dead and trapped, the lack of food, shelter and medical facilities

Quote:
"The UN secretary general and the European Union have also expressed deep concern for civilians caught in the fighting."

I will believe balance has come when people care about this situation as much as they care about Israel/Gaza.

When there are marches - with menaces - calls for investigations, cries of 'atrocity' and 'war crimes' and all we've heard in the last few weeks - then I will believe in 'balance'

I find it bizarre - and frankly, a little sick - that these crisis situations are occuring around the globe as I write, with thousands upon thousands suffering - and yet the 'humanitarian' population that is so outraged by Israel is apparantly unmoved by them.

Free-thinking people should be asking themselves many questions. Not least why double-standards exist within themselves and within the global media.

Straydingo

David,

It is clear before I even start this post that anything I, or anyone else says, which is contrary to your political views will fall on deaf ears.

Melanie is a commentator – she is note writing as a journalist but as a highly educated and gifted writer that uses her blog to offer up observations on whatever topic she is tackling at the time.

It is up to individuals interested in the truth to then research the various opinions and facts that are offered up to us via the MSM, government agencies or blogs such as this to then arrive at an informed opinion at which point a health debate can be had.

Now I have some questions for you:
Have you actually ever tried to read (objectively) any of the references put forth on this or other similar blogs?

What are your comments and thoughts on the fact that a UN agency clearly lied about civilians being intentionally targeted within their compounds?
What are your thoughts on the fact that Jewish protesters in European cities are intimidated when trying to participate in a civilised protest?
Do you acknowledge that Hamas intentionally puts its own civilians in harm’s way?
I have reached the point where I lay every ounce of innocent blood spilt, whether it be Iraqi, Palestine, Indian, European, American or Australian, squarely at the feet of Westerners such as you.
That’s because everyone of these lives lost is specifically targeted at you (and those of you that share a similar ideological view) by terror groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda etc as they know how to manipulate the beast that is the MSM which has an insatiable appetite that needs to constantly be feed to it can maintain 24/7 news broadcasts
So next time you see a image of a dead child being broadcast on the BBC or any other MSM pause for a moment and ask yourself “am I being manipulated here”.

Donna Gardier

DAVID

…“The problem is Melanie has never given a hint of a nuanced and balanced approach.”….

Please! The madness she’s bringing to our attention does not go anywhere near describing people in opposition where both sides have an equal enough tolerance to find a mutual solution. Or am I wrong? Are we happy thinking the Arabs are more tolerant than the Jews? Do a bit of TRANSPOSITION:….

Are we in a situation where we are observing the Arabs living in a tiny part of the Middle East precariously flanked and outnumbered by great swathes of Jewish land full of many lost and fragmented Jewish people who are floundering around in a dangerously confused contradictory culture with desperate inter tribal strife murder and poverty? Do we see these Jews enjoying in some areas contradictory dizzying amounts of wealth and resources in these great swathes of land where some of them live in comfort and safety. Where they cannot get themselves sorted out and look after their own people and nurture their race properly and find proper solutions to their problems? Where their unwanted banished Jewish Diaspora has then been welcomed and supported very widely in the world and where then said Jewish Diaspora have refused to assimilate and where some start to despise and blow up the people in the civil societies where they have been given the safe havens. And then from afar from a safe base, and resentful to the core, and full of hate, they carry on their scapegoating of the Arabs on their tiny piece of land who are trying to build a homeland for their future generations after the Arab people have been hounded and harried around the globe for centuries. And it should be mentioned that these Arabs have contributed greatly wherever they have settled in the world and gifted their people great pride and self respect….. end of transposition.

It should also be borne in mind too that Melanie will be in possession of many facts that she cannot share because of dubious libel laws. I’m heavily inclined towards thinking it is almost guaranteed that she will be in a better position to judge whether nuances and hints are relevant at this stage David.

Joe Strummer

Israel is now simply facing what the British Government faced in the 1980's and 1990's in its fight against the terrorism of the fascist IRA.

How many times was the UK dragged through the numerous European Courts and found " guilty" for simply defending itself and its people from IRA terrorism ?

Gibraltar was the classic case where a unit of the IRA was preparing to detonate a massive bomb which would have murdered both Army personnel and other innocent civilians, yet who got the blame when the terrorists were shot dead before their evil was unleashed ? The British security services.

Mainland Europe hates Britain just as it hates Israel.

Fridrik

"But now look: in Europe the madness created by ‘human rights’ has now reached such a point that European jurists think killing terrorists is a war crime." What a blatant lie! Children aren´t terrorists! Israel is a terrorist state, nothing else. Let´s not forget all the israeli occupied territories, the golan hights and in Libanon.

Ellien

peter:How come Britain and the US have not been accused of war crimes in Iraq and Afganisthan? Or Nato for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia? Or Sudan for its ethnic cleansing in Darfur? Or Georgia, Russia, Chechnya? Or the Congolese? Or The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan for its bombing of Palestinian refugees? Or Syria for its wholesale murder of its own population? Or Hizbollah for raining rocketfire on Northern Israel (prior to the fight back in summer '06)? Or Hamas for raining rocketfire on Israel for eight years (prior to this last conflagration)? And how come so many on this blog think that when Israel kills to defend itself, this somehow makes all Jews everywhere fair game? How come when Muslims kill each other (in far greater numbers than Israel does) there is no wholesale hatred towards all Muslims everywhere? How come no protest against Muslims in Iraq and Afganisthan killing other Muslims? How come no protest against Hamas for killing and maiming those among them in Gaza whom Hamas believe to have "collaborated" with Israel - many of whom were supporters of Fatah? No worries about this kind of internal hatred and murder between factions?
There is such fear now everywhere of the extremist Islamic agenda, its violence and complete lack of morality, that the West is terrorised and cowed into submission by it. Who has the chutzpa to stand up to it? It seems that only Israel does, although I begin to wonder if it is a losing battle when the West appeases, submits and grovels, and does not recognise that it does so out of fear.

phil

peter excellent first sentence "cause and effect " a little trite don,t you think going back less than a month ? could you struggle back to 1948 at least -60 years as a state and 7 wars all uncalled for ,rockets suicide bombers, airplane hijackers ,airport massacres do you need more? try camp David .Oslo ---------

.oh I am fed up with those like you nothing much to say but it doesn't stop you does it ,where were you when WE were under attack ,were those war crimes ? I know son this is just another little post to scroll over and ignore .Just swallow this ,we Jews care what happened to the Palestinians and had no wish for it and probably many will contribute to the appeal (which I have no wish to stop)-they do not give a damn about us and its obvious nor do you-------

.If it were not for those like you the BBC would not have felt bias was an issue ,your hate has only bred more hate and what have you achieved ?,so forgive me if I don't care for your approbation ,not that of the asinine "resistor"who objects to the sound of "silence"

phil

JSPoint you are well entitled to make that point but please do not assume it will not be done in Israel -it almost certainly will be ,and unlike hamas,s concern for the Israelis .

Original Tony

Resistor 1:33pm ...substitute 'silent' with 'peaceful' then! What a stupid observation you have made!!

Grumpy the Golani

'Which part part of cause and effect do people like you not understand'

Tell you the part that I understand damn well:

the part that goes like this -

EIGHT years of rocket bombardments into the south western Negev region of Israel and FINALLY a response.

Now bud, which part of THIS dont'cha understand!

John

David,
I trust you demand a "nuanced" approach about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from all commentators, not just Melanie. All the rabid anti-"Zionist" propaganda in the Muslim world and the tedious boilerplates about "war crimes" and what have you regurgitated daily in much of the western media are fine by you eh.

Your type of argument is really wearing thin. Consider what happens in the world at large on any given day -- Thais setting hundreds of Burmese refugees adrift on the high seas without provisions to die, say -- but your outrage only extends to the largely self-inflicted wounds of the Palestinians. Open your eyes a little wider and you'll be surprised to learn that Palestinians have it comparatively easy in the bigger scheme of things.

Original Tony

Peter, 1:07pm...Israel kills 1500 Civilians? What, NOT one Hamas operative killed? 400 kids killed? What, NOT one of them used as human shields?
Just remember, the young males you saw on TV being rushed into Gaza's hospitals, although wearing civilian clothes, were Hamas operatives.
Go do the maths or don't they teach that where you come from??

Norman

I was always under the impression that a sovreign nation has the right to defend itself when attacked by whom ever.

After all launching rockets into a neighbouring country is an act of war.

The unfortunate side of any war / conflict is that the innocent suffer along with the aggressors - especially when the aggressors hide behind women and children and use their places of worship as weapons storage facilities.

But, the kicker in all this that we have a nation being attacked and that nation is then blamed by a highjacked UN and some portions of the media for defending itself.

We can go back to WW2 and more recent conflicts to understand that if you bomb London then Hamburg is fair game or Stalingrade then Berlin etc and a lot of none combatants died as a result.

War is ugly but what is Israel supposed to do - give up against an enemy that has sworn to destroy it as part of their manifesto?

If the Islamists want to see their "electorate" protected, they must rein in their extremists - but then would Iran keep their funding intact.

There is the dilema, food and weapons or dead women and children on the streets. One has to believe we have their answer, the later over the former as the rockets keep flying.

In closing it should be recognized that what Melanie is describing is the effective use of propaganda to "attack" a sworn enemy - and to our shame they appear to be very effective at winning the hearts and minds of the UN, the western media and PC crowd. It is no accident but is the deliberate use of propaganda to undermine and weaken resolve.

And we are allowing it to happen.

John

JSPoint,
In the comfort of your cozy little home with no one plotting relentlessly to eradicate you, your loved ones and your entire nation from the face of the earth just because you happen to be there, you're certainly in a position to pass judgment how Israel should wage its war against the constant threat of terrorism against its citizens.
If Israel were as close to being a rogue nation of "war criminals" as you and your friends would have it, the Palestinian question would have been solved long ago, just as the Chinese don't have to worry much about a "Tibet question."

full english

Dan: Thats my point. You asking that question illustrates that you have no agenda in actually finding a resolution to the problem.
Both sides have their faults. Until both sides accept this, the problems will go on forever, both peoples hiding behind their siege mentalities.

Grumpy the Real

A 'silent demonstration' With speeches and microphones?

as apposed to ranting abuse/inflammatory posters/threats to life and limb/smashing in store fronts etc etc

Yeah - by comparison a 'silent demonstration'

Squire Trelawney

Oh Carl,

Still trying to be naughty and upset other contributors.

New board, same old Carl-Jones.

Dixon

Nothing good will happen about any of this until something so bad it cannot be hidden has happenned.

porkbelly

And let us look ahead a year or two to an Iran armed with nuclear missiles able to deliver a first strike upon Israel, knowing that even in extremis Israel will not be able to muster the will to retaliate in kind and that Obamadoff will simply stand on the sidelines wringing his hands and calling for "mutual restraint". If Israel still exists five years from now it will be against all odds.

Raymond Joseph Douglas

David, the reason our Melanie is such a strong advocate of Israel, is that she feels to be alone voice in a sea of lies, deceit and misinformation. With a world media ever ready to believe the worst of Israel, it is no wonder Melanie may give the impression of been unbalanced. I think I would be the same if I was subject to the same sort of treatment that Israel gets !

sorwar

com'n you surely know that you are not referring to the extent of brutality from the Isreali Army which comprises of voluntary soldiers and common people, who committed war crimes according to UN and other international agencies. There should not be reasons why Pro-Israely should wear olive leaves and sing for peace and others will tolerate. wake up and let ur conscience wake.

Suffolkbor

"Has Israel been accused of global warming yet?"
Not yet Gary but I am sure they are working on it.
Israel was , however , accused of causing disproportionate damage to the ozone layer in the early 1990,s through it,s use of the sterilant Methyl Bromide used to treat strawberries for export and to sterilse soil .
Greenpeace had a go at them about that .

Brian O'Connor

A paraphrased thought experiment, not of my own invention (I can't remember the correct attribution).

Question: What would be Israel's response were Hamas and its fellow ideological travelers (Hizbollah, the PA, Iran, etc.) to renounce violence, throw their weapons into the sea and acknowledge Israel's right to exist?

What would be the response of Hamas and its fellow travelers were Israel to renounce violence, throw their weapons into the sea and acknowledge the right of Hamas to set up it's own independent state in Gaza?

davidka

The Israelis have understood that the only way to fight those who see your annihilation as a religious duty is to fight a tough war. This lesson has not be understood by the decadent western democracies who respond to attack by offering more appeasement, until they are finally reduced to the status of slaves in a 9th century hell.
If the west believes it can save itself by sacrificing its Jews in Israel as they did 70 years ago, it hardly deserves to survive the attack of radical Islam as it is next on the list .
To those accusing Israel of war crimes, just look up how tens of thousands of Palestinians were murdered in Kuwait after the first Iraq war or the earlier actions of the Jordanians during Black September.
they dwarf many times over the killings in Gaza but never pipsqueak call for genocide or war crimes.
Hamas is playing the West for weak spineless suckers and unfortunately they are quite right.

Ellien

The Israeli army recruits soldiers through conscription (national service)at age eighteen. It also employs career soldiers and officers following national service. Reservists are what I suppose sorwar refers to as "common people". They are called up for training yearly and join their units in times of war.
So called "war crimes", when committed by other armies, are regarded as part and parcel of ordinary warfare. For some reason, the world expects Israel to conduct war by different rules. Never mind that Israel actually notifies residents to vacate certain areas prior to attacking; or allows a three hour cease-fire during the day.
It's not as if Hamas was not using the whole of Gaza as an urban military camp and arms depot, nor that rockets were not being fired for years from within its boundary into Israel in order to terrorize and murder its citizens. Or perhaps Hamas knew nothing about it?

Brian Moshe

Melanie provides a link above to a broadcast by Egyptian cleric Amin al Ansari on an Egyptian TV channel called 'Mercy'(sic).

It is possibly the most revolting broadcast I have ever experienced and I defy anyone to find anything any worse. (No doubt worse is coming one day, perhaps scenes of the Holocaust mixed with jubilantly presented scenes of the next one.)

Yet reading down this thread - a thread still in its beginings - what do we see? No condemnation of Amin al Ansari, but instead several unpleasant knocks and snipes at Melanie ("People like you" as a poster addresses her twice).

The day Melanie ceases to write a light will have gone out and the world will be a darker, less truthful place than it is already.

Munga

Sorwar,

Do you what consitutes a war crime? You would be suprised to know that everything Hamas and Hizbollah have done constitutes a war crime.

But of course you conviniently leave this little fact out of your fake moral tirade

Louise

If you’re not registered with Memri to see the clips mentioned by Ms Phillips and Brian Moshe, here they are on YouTube:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=q5kQjQorDoU
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=OZYQmJe34-o

I’ve just watched Channel 4 News read out their 7.00 o’clock headlines: a man has been jailed for life for trying to blow up a restaurant in a suicide attack.

Yes, Channel 4, and what did our truth-loving channel omit from that headline? Yes, you guessed it. This was a Muslim suicide bomber. (It was Nicky Reilly, who converted to the ‘religion of peace‘ and, er, became peaceful.) Can you imagine that if a Jew did the same they would leave that out of the headline? This is the world we live in.

Donna Gardier

To: fullenglish @ 12.57

Of course Europe is not "full" of Jew haters. Europeans are not recognised these days for venting hatred, but in our efforts to absorb people who get high on hate to fuel radical beliefs, we are being highly ingratiating and hypocritical, and showing enormous weakness to fanatical bullies and then expecting Jews to show incredible and unrealistic tolerance.

Forgive me but I read your post and it caused this image flash into my mind, Obama standing in front of thousands of disaffected Islamists and with one wave of his Parker pen wipes out the warrior instinct in all of them…(actually he does look a bit like Will Smith in Men in Black), then he picks up a loaf and then a fish.. and then….? :)

Ian Miller

The main stream criticism of Israel is not "lies". Lies are statements that the author knows to be untrue. I think that there are very few people lying about Israel.

Much of the disagree between Mrs. Phillips and the people she accuses of lying is not in fact disagreement about the facts, but about definitions. Notably what words like "civilian" mean, who qualifies as one.

It is clear that Mrs. Phillips and the Israeli establishment is categorising the whole of Hamas, rather than merely its paramilitary-wing as a "terrorist organisation". The difficulty is that Hamas is a diverse organisation which provides social and medical services as well as engaging in violence. Many of its employees have nothing to do with the violence, and do not by most people's standards qualify as terrorists. Nevertheless Israel seems to be classifying them as such, and hence considers it is legitimate to target them.

A great many people take the view that anyone in a normal civilian occupation (e.g. policeman) who has not "directly engage in hostilities" has full civilian status and that this is how it is defined in the Geneva Conventions. This applies for example to police cadets killed at a parade. There seems little doubt (I don't think it has ever been denied) that they were targeted. For people who consider them to be civilians, that was targeting civilians, and hence a war crime.

Clearly opinions differ. That is no justification for accusing people of lying, just because they disagree with you, or of being motivated by hate when they express dismay at the death and destruction.

Melanie Phillips does her cause no service at all by gratuitous insulting anyone and everyone who does not agree with her in every particular.

MasterP

Good on you Melanie, thank god for people like you

AisA

Donna:

Your Melanie worship is touching, but what a one-sided black and white view. Your transposition was very fluent, and very clever, but it seems that you view one side as completely in the right and one side completely in the wrong.

There have been Jewish atrocities too. What about the Deir Yassin massacre in by the Israeli terrorist group Irgun in 1948 (just before the creation of Israel) in which 250 innocent people were murdered? Or the 1946 King David Hotel bombing against the British Mandate offices? Then there was the sacking and plundering of Jaffa in 1948. The UN plan had been for it to be a Palestinian enclave, but the future Israelis just ignored that and sent Irgun in for a bit of ethnic cleansing. More Jews arrived and simply took over the abandoned homes of the Arabs who had fled in fear. Millions of Palestinian pounds were then seized by Israel. Some nasty haunting echoes there…. And what happened to all that money ?

I bring up these particular incidents because they were so soon before the 'creation' of Israel and, as such, inform much of the (unquestionably appalling) conduct of Muslims afterwards. But both sides are fighting for land whose ownership will never be clear, because of the complete hash that the British and American governments made of things in 1948. (Although a clue may be found in the phrase 'Occupied Territories'. I don't think I would be feeling particularly accommodating to people 'occupying' land that I had called home before their arrival). But it is unfair to characterize everyone who criticizes the Jews as Jew haters, as they are not all on a par with fundamentalist Islamic suicide bombers. They have made a decision about what they think, and although some may be unreasonable, some may be bigots and some may indeed be hateful, they are not ALL knee-jerk anti-semites.

Dixon

All talk of "war crimes" is twaddle.

War is what happens when law ends. If differences were settled lawfully between the parties, they wouldnt be at war.
Its like saying theres such a thing as a "legal punch up" and an "illegal punch up".

I get sick of this "war crimes" twaddle.

Lee laurie

David....you are so one eyed,you really should have a parrot and a wooden leg.

Dan

I think the gist of the pro commenter is, Israel can not be held morally and lawfully accountable what ever it does. There are many who support Israel's statehood, but please don't try to justify the unjustifiable, you are not making convincing argument.

Ed Snack

David, Edward, and othersw. The act of firing rockets at random into a civilian population is a war crime, indisputably. The acts of using civilians as human shields, of using children to run arms, of using amublances to ferry combatants, are all indisputable war crimes. All these are carried out by the people you champion, and yet,...silence. Where are the calls to prosecute those responsible, to make THEM pariahs, to put them under the spotlight. Instead, they are glorified, their lies accepted as the truth, their "struggle" mythologized. And you question that anti-semitism is again live and well in Europe. Shame.

Conservative Cabbie

There was a time when the left used language like "racist" to condemn people with opposing views rather than engage in argument. Now the rhetoric has changed. Has anyone noticed on both the Israel and George Bush threads, they use the constant refrains of "it was an illegal war" or "they committed war crimes"? The left are seemingly bereft of useful arguments and have to constantly resort to ape-like regurgitation of Michael Moore-ian fallacies. What a tedious bunch!

Disclaimer: Of course that was a generalisation and there are many on the left capable of framing a reasonable discussion, I'm just fed up with the didactic assertions of the wannabe international lawyers that there seems to be a preponderance of on this site.

gary ashton

people hate the jews. they always have and always will and given the choice would rather sleep under a caliphate than the idea of israel. that's all there is to say really.
battle lines are drawn, people need to search their souls and make their choices.
me i'm happy and proud to say i choose israel and for a small young nation to have made so many achievments in the overwhelming face of adversity it stands alone as a symbol of a place for those who cherish life over death and it's cults of fear.
israel has enemies becuase of what its become, a modern technological, diverse, multi cultural, smart, secular, sexy and vibrent society. we can't have that now, can we?

phil

where is peter ?run away no doubt

6 OSR

Peter, if there's any 'not-getting' going on then you need to be asking the question of yourself. Lazily copying and pasting a list of Israel's alleged 'crimes' does nothing to address the point of Melanie's article which is that we are creating the conditions where a people who have done little but add lustre to the economic, cultural and academic conditions of our civilisation for hundreds of years have legitimate concern for their future acceptance in our society.

Alex

All these hysterical articles from Mad Mel are driven by politics and prejudice not by principle. Where is the criticism of the Pope for readmitting to the Church a bishop who denies the holocaust? No where. Why? Because bothe the pope and the bishop in question are white, male, Christian and conservative. Just like Mel likes them. If they was a 'funny' colour or liberal, I'm sure we'd have seen one of her rants about the issue on here. The fact we haven't speaks volumes.

Britannia Patriot

The left in Europe and America are acting as they did in the 1930s and early 1940 - read Nick Cohen's book: 'Whats Left' for an expose. They did not want us to fight Hilter either, until the bulk of the people of Britain just got on with it. The lefty-socialist cabal went silent...
If we do not wake up soon we will find a nasty, Islamic, theocratic state running our lives. You will not like it. Lefties watch out, you will be Dhimmi's too....or maybe not. I guess you'll just side with the bad guys as you always do because it is too 'difficult' and leads to'conflict'...lefty cowards will not fight for anything. Fortunately there are those that will.
Isreal is the Canary in the coalmine but no one wants to believe what is really happening.

phil

Donna .not on topic but it doesnt always have to be --you have been transformed into a female edition of me and are now in full flow -amazing:)I wrote to you as you will see below, (because I am copying it to you again from the thread "the Jews of the gathering night")a polite and pleasant letter and I had expected you would have replied in a similar vein as most of us do -I am disappointed particularly as you have been writing with admonishment to those whose opinions you reject -thats ok with me as that is something like what I do but why are you at odds with me when you are doing the same thing ?-All the ones you write to and praise are the ones who agree with me and the people who you consider my "friends "-I just find it a little strange -------------------------

anyhow
phil
January 29th, 2009 6:32pm
Donna Gardier I am delighted that you have started writing now on topic instead of castigating me .you will have noticed that many are now acknowledging one another too.It is of course a good feeling to unburden oneself and speak one,s mind ,if you check back what I write, you will find I debate with all those who write to express their thoughts so long as those thoughts are not filled with hate ,nor are they lies -I am also sure you will find I am polite even when I disagree with them ,as for the others -yes I am rude on occasion when I believe they deserve it .a very subjective matter of course --

.Writing like this is very emotional as no doubt you are finding ,those like Kate A and Adam B and myself express our compassion and I am amazed why you found that not to your taste .You do not appear to be one who is impressed by the carl,s of this world and sundry others like him We seem to have similar views too-If you feel like being rude to me ,so be it that is your privilege but i am intrigued as to why you did it -----------

.May I ask you if you are the singer or is that your pseudonym ? I f you are that person you have a very nice voice and I hope it reflects your real nature and that this unnecessary spat is at an end .I am a nice guy Donna ,most ladies like me (LOL)

Carl

Dixon, of course you find talk of war crimes to be "twaddle", after all, it was you that said that the Serbs did the right thing in massacring Muslims.

Richard

Carl-I NEED to answer your misinformation.Serbs did kill many muslims but it is nothing compared what happened to them from peace loving Muslims.Regards.

An American

Phil,
Sorry my answer didn't make it into the other blog though I tried three times..

Obama won by 53%, McCain 46%, others 1%.

Donna Gardier

To AisA @ 1.48am

I concur that maybe I didn’t indicate it very strongly AisA but my point to David was put with a view to reflecting on what Melanie is defending and how she defends it. It is very easy for commentators, of which there are many on this subject, to skulk around in secondary evidence and semantics on these issues. They find themselves far too easily in two minds about too many aspects for my liking.

There comes a time when someone somewhere has to take a painful stance other than that of on fence posts. Melanie does, and maybe for her the luxury of nuance and hint of balance that David recommends, with regard to the atrocities that are going on, would be a contradiction in terms, and therefore a gross insult to the loss of life. Remember she along with her kith and kin are living with it and in amongst it all and her research is not only limited to international law and its implications.

As far as legislation goes, the Palestinians use Islamic sources including such things as Hadith traditions which were set out by Mohammed as authorative directives for Islam today. Included in such directives is the one that Palestinians are seen as the vanguard in the war against the Jews, and all Islamic nations are obligated to assist in this war. Another is that all agreements with Israel are inherently temporary in nature, and are signed only because of Israel’s temporary balance of power advantage.

Can you really say that the Yanks and Brits or anyone really would ever have been capable of putting together something watertight in 1948 to properly secure Israel for the Jews in the face of the sheer geography, numbers and strength of feeling of Islam? At least they tried. Or are you saying we were negligent in fact? If so, then we certainly have some responsibility for having led them into a web, and we need to try and keep them from being annihilated I would think.

To Phil @ 10:58am

….No I am not that Donna Gardier, and I agree with you about her singing.

….LOL

….Yes perhaps we have spat enough.

phil

An American thanks for trying -when I have a problem like that which I do sometimes ,I send by email to Pete hoskins who always posts for me -the info was the popular vote for O -the actual public individual vote-hope you managed to read my massive tome :)regards phil
ps I found it and my friend seems to be talking nonsense -nothing new :)
Nominee Barack Obama John McCain
Party Democratic Republican
Home state Illinois Arizona
Running mate Joe Biden Sarah Palin
Electoral vote 365 173
States carried 28 + DC + NE-02 22
Popular vote 69,456,897 59,934,814
Percentage 52.9% 45.7%

Samson

Dear Gary and Suffolkbor:

Israel has been accused of being responsible for global warming:

"There was Clare Short, a member of the British Parliament and Secretary for International Development under Prime Minister Tony Blair until she resigned in 2003 over the Iraq war. Claiming that Israel is actually "much worse than the original apartheid state" and accusing it of "killing (Palestinian) political leaders," Ms. Short charged the Jewish state with the ultimate crime: Israel "undermines the international community's reaction to global warming." According to Ms. Short, the Middle East conflict distracts the world from the real problem: man-made climate change. If extreme weather will lead to the "end of the human race," as Ms. Short warned it could, add this to the list of the crimes of Israel."

Source: Wall Street Journal

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118877270728215947.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

fellow traveller

Richard: I have a feeling I'm going to be sorry I asked, but

"Carl-I NEED to answer your misinformation.Serbs did kill many muslims but it is nothing compared what happened to them from peace loving Muslims.Regards."

Where's your evidence? I was under the impression that the most reliable source was the research done in 2006 by the Research and Documentation Centre in Sarajevo, which took four years to make an accurate count.

Dead: 97,207, 60 per cent soldiers and 40 per cent civilians (note: many asked for their relatives to be buried as soldiers to get state benefits, so the civilian death toll is probably under-represented).

Of the deaths:
65 per cent Bosniaks
25 per cent Serbs
8 per cent Croats

Of the civilian deaths:
83 per cent Bosniaks
10 per cent Serbs
5 per cent Croats

And I can't find any independent source that is seriously disputing the Srebrenica massacre - Europe's biggest civilian massacre since WW2.

Terrible things were done by each side, and the people from both communities who used the war to encourage violence against innocents deserve to be condemned.

However your snarky description of Bosnian Muslims, thousands of whom can't answer back because they were shot in cold blood is, in my opinion, tasteless at least. It's the sort of armchair historical revisionism that's such a charming feature of the blogosphere.

John Edwards

Anyone dropping a one ton bomb on a packed residential area as happened in the Shehadah case must have known that there would be civilian casualties. The "14 other people" included small babies. In Barak's disgusting comments these were also apparently "terrorists".

I salute the Spanish Courts for taking up the case, although in the contaxt of the recent Gaza slaughter it is one of the lesser of Israel's war crimes.

Vision Aforethought

@Samson, Gary and Suffolkbor: I think Clare Short should research into which company on Planet Earth as devised the most practical sustainable energy technology and strategy for the automotive industry. 'Better Place', of Israel & California. And they are already working in Australia and Israel to release those contries from the burden of the carbon economy. I believe the great satan Israel is to be 100% solar in a decade or two.

But I don't think the lefty media will give Better Place much space and therefore cut off the nose to spite the face.

(I have no fiscal interests in Better Place, I just read about them a month or two ago on a technology blog.)

Vision Aforethought

@John Edwards: Are courts in any country holding any other political or military leaders to account for their day to day defensive or offensive operations where unlike Israel, they really are carrying out ethnic cleansing and/or outright massacres? I understand from accurate sources that there are currently about 40 wars being fought around the world. I am not reading much about them right now.

I wonder why everyone is focused on the tiny (40 miles wide at one point) country of Israel? Because it may or may not be someone else's homeland? I don't think so. I tell you why, because it is the only place where Jews feel safe(r), dignified and can get on with their lives and prosper (and help the world too with their technology and medical advancements.) No matter how much land Israel gives up, Jews will be targets. And if Israel vanishes, (not that I expect it to go down without a fight), do you think the world will be a safer better place? Free of terrorist attacks? Or in fact, full of guilt for taking such a one sided stance against such a hard working, well meaning (if missunderstood) juditious race because they are so jealous of how such a minority have achieved so much? (Like the jock who bullies the clever bespectacled schoolboy.)

The Palestinians are victims of proxy warfare against Jews and don't you forget that.

Stop the crocodile tears for people whose religious values are in fact in direct contrast to liberal concepts. The hypocrasy is embarassing to your cause! Now go save the environment, because on that matter, we can agree, there is a problem. (Even if M doesn't think so...)

Joe Kaffir

To Ian Miller. oh, dear you are going into the semantics involving use of the word "lie". That should really ring alarm bells in your brain. i think most people are aware of what a lie is! But i would ask you whether Hitler lied when he compared Jews to Rats, when the Nazis created the racial laws in nuremburg, when so-called "blood Jews" were blamed for all the ills of Germany (and the world). By your arguments they were not lies because they, the Nazis, believed them. Just look on the innocuosly named "press TV" (of Iran) and try and filter the lies from the falsities, from the ommissions of fact, and the slights twists of truth.

When a group of people have been misled long enough they will believe virtually anything. And the bigger the lie the more successful it is likely to be (Holocaust denial??). Forget the arab and muslim world for a second (where overt antisemtism is endemic), sadly, the steady cascade of such falsities has changed the narrative of Western (particularly European) thought on the issue. The source is the more overt antisemitsm of the 9th century arab/muslim world. The tranliterators are the far left and the well-meaning liberal left. To put it curdely, they have been played like harps and the likes of HAMAS and Hizballah know the exact tune.

read Bernard Harrison's "The Resurgence of Anti-Semitsm" for a deeper look.

Melanie is one of the few polemic's with the courage to say what others will not and if she neglects to put in the opposing view she does it in the full knowledge that there are plenty who will, and then some. We need more Melanies and less Pilgers, Tamimis, Irvings and other Historical Revisionists.

Yehuda

AisA: your conclusion tries to create the illusion that you are a "reasonable, rational" critic of Israel.
The rest of your presentation, however, betrays:
a. that you have uncritically digested and assimilated the Arab mythology of the conflict.
b. you have either failed to study the Zionist version of events, or that you are intrinsically a pro-Arab partisan.
Look, why not , for a start at least, read the version of an eminent Irish non-Jewish public figure, namely Conor Cruse O'Brien's book, THE SIEGE.
Try to open your intellect and emotions, enabling them to break out of the intellectual straitjacket which "the media" have clearly foisted onto you.
To give just two illustrations of lacunae in your knowledge:
did you know that the legal basis (leaving aside for the moment all the other bases) for the Jewish communities in what you call "the West Bank" and Gaza is the internationally, legally codified Mandate for "Palestine", which was ratified in 1922 by the Council of The League of Nations.
It mandated Britain to facilitate Jewish immigration into and domicile in the territory lying between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.(Initially, even east of the Jordan.)
Now, people might argue that for one reason or another, Jews should restrict their presence to the pre-1967 armistice lines, but critics of Israel, in their zeal to Satanify the Jews, allege that Jewish "settlements" are illegal. Nonsense. Libel. Incitement.
Secondly: prior to the reconstitution of the Jewish Nation State, ownership of the actual soil was divided as follows:
1. some was legally owned by private Arab owners.
2. some was privately owned by Jews.
3. the bulk of it was public land. Between 1922 and 1948, the public land was held in trust by Britain for the future State of Israel.
Upon Israel's attainment of independence in 1948, this public land became Israeli state land.
The governments of Israel have never dispossessed private landowners (Arabs or Jews) of legally owned private land. The Jewish "settlements" are built on public land, which, under international law, should be part of the State of Israel.
The political expediency or cowardice or ignorance of some politicians and some journalists who deny this, does not alter the fact.
There are circumstances where governments all over the world resume privately owned land for public purposes, but compensate the owners. This happens in Britain, in the USA, in Australia etc.
Beyond this Israel's governments don't interfere with anyone's private property.
Furthermore, did you know that Israel has a government agency that holds in trust any Arab property that was abandoned when Arabs fled from the 1947-48 war which their leaders initiated against Israel.
As part of a definitive peace settlement, Israel has undertaken to compensate the owners.
I do not believe that the Arab states will ever compensate the almost one million Jewish refugees whom they forced to flee from Arab countries where Jews had lived for centuries before the Arab conquest.
It's staggering, e.g., to think that Jews lived in what today is called Iraq at least 1,200 years befor any Arab set foot there.
In 1948 the Iraqi rulers robbed them of all their property and expelled them. Similar pillage and persecution occurred all over the Arab Empire.
Whose hearts bleed for these Jewish dispossessed refugees?

Mike

Yehuda: Before the founding of Israel in 1948, the Zionist movement acquired land by purchase in Palestine and held it in trust for an eventual Jewish national home. In Israel today most land is still held in trust by an agency devoted to furthering the Jewish homeland. As a practical matter, land used by Israeli Jews for home or business or farm is hardly ever sold to Arabs. So the idea of Palestinians wanting to keep what land they have is not unusual. (Anthony Lewis, New York Times, 16 May 1997)

Miranda Rose Smith

Dear Peter: Who, besides Hamas, says that Israel killed 1500 civilians in Gaza, including 400 children? The only reason the civilian death toll was as high as it was is because Hamas uses children as human shields. THE acid test of a right thinking human being is that he or she ignores Hamas casualty figures and takes into consideration that the reason the civilian death toll was so high is that Hamas uses children as human shields. A right thinking human being is a pro-Israel human being.

Miranda Rose Smith

Dear Mr. Spencer-Smith: Those Israeli towns targeted by the so-called Palestinians never belonged to the so-called Palestinians. There was never a sovereign Arab state in mandatory Palestine, except for Jordan, which was created by the British in 1921. The British hacked off 80% of what the Balfour Declaration said was supposed to be the JEWISH homeland, and gave it to Arabs. Later, in 1947, the U.N. voted to partition what was left of the Jewish homeland into Jewish and Arab states. Most Jews were willing to accept this arrangement. The Arabs wern't. Five or seven-I forget which-Arab states attacked Israel, and it was only then that SOME Arabs were forcibly expelled. Others left voluntarily, figuring Israel would be defeated in a week and they could come back and loot Jewish property. This is called "betting on the wrong horse." Hundreds of thousands of Jews were expelled from Arab states at about the same time as SOME Arabs were expelled from Israel. They're not firing rockets at said states. The ethnic Germans who were expelled from Poland and Czechoslavakia, the Tibetans, Boat People, the East Indians who were expelled from Kenya in the 1960s, do not go around firing rockets at anybody, nor, I suspect, would you sympathize with them if they did. The Moors really WERE expelled from Spain, when Spain was united under Ferdinand and Isabella, and today there are plenty of Arabs who think they're entitled to get it back. Are you going to give it to them?

Miranda Rose Smith

So, Ms. Trine Lilleng thinks that when Israel shoots back when Arabs shoot at it, "the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors are doing exactly what was done to them by Nazi Germany." If its doing what the Nazis did to the Jews for ISRAELIS to shoot back when Arabs shoot at them, then it will be doing what the Nazis did to the Jews for NORWEIGANS to shoot back when Arabs shoot at them.

Miranda Rose Smith

Deer JSPoint: Just how, exactly, do you kill a terrorist who has surrounded himself with civilains without killing any of those civilians?

Miranda Rose Smith

Does Judge Fernando Andrue REALLY want the precedent set that its a crime against humanity to attack a terrorist in a densly populated civilian area? Doesn't he realize that he would be putting handcuffs on the SPANISH army and police WHEN, and I say WHEN, they have to fight terrorists? When the British threaten to arrest highranking ISRAELIS for war crimes, should the Israelis set foot in Britain, do the British not realize that there must be BRITISH soldiers who have indulged in unboyscoutly behavior in, for example, Northern Ireland or in Kenya, vacationing all over the world, and that such a precedent would make THEM subject to arrest?
Before anybody says I never criticize Israel-I once blew my chance to get a grant and I suspect it was by criticizing Israel!

phil

Aisa Your tone does seem to have changed from that on the "what the war" thread ,and as many never scroll back I will take the liberty of copying my reply to you from that thread.----

AISA why do you think we do,nt try to fit in ?-The Jews of the Diaspora have always bent over backwards to be helpful to the communities in which they were graciously accepted -they are rarely in trouble with the police ,they tend to be professionals like doctors, lawyers accountants ,they are very charitable and most people who actually are in real contact with them ,like them .

Over 2 millennia we have been depicted as the killers of Jesus who in fact was born,raised and died as a Jew-I never hurt anyone so why am I blamed even now and particularly when the teachings of the churches say it is wrong .Aisa we do not walk about with a chip on our shoulders, we are optimistic but we will never rid ourselves of those who exhibit their hatred on these columns You read my little tale against myself but I believe it is the weakness of humanity that I am happy to say I grew out of rapidly-- you must have seen it as a minority and it is of course worse when things are not going well for the majority -like now

-I personally am uplifted by the many "righteous gentiles"( that is a term of the highest esteem) who write here to give us support and also occasionally a real Muslim who is not to scared to say it -Yehudah has tried to be informative .I hope I have added a little but the best way to find out is to mix with some Jewish people you may find it very rewarding although not to good for those on diets .""

""

Yehuda

Well, Miranda, what many in the world are tacitly replying to your question is: "if you're a Jew, allow the terrorist...oops, militant freedom fighter to kill you. After all,you Jews have been doing that for two millennia. Why change now?"

Maybe it's time to recount the story of Samson. It might focus these people's attention on what might just happen if the
Jews are pushed too hard.

phil

Miranda Rose Smith it is an unwritten rule here that you must not ask the "critics" questions that they cannot answer:):).They run away and tell their friends about us --jspoint, peter, mister b where are you ?:

Ronnie

Dear Miranda Rose Smith: Can you explain why, in the name of sanity, you would do the terrorists job for him by killing all the civilians that surround him?

Terry

peter

Which part of being a modern nazi don't you understand? Maybe the part where you become the enemy and thus a target.

The survival of the Jewish people isn't negotiable. If you support the enemy of civilisation, then you are the enemy and when the fighting starts, you'll be finished.

You are about hating Jews. If you weren't, you'd have opened your mouth over the past few years of nazi bombardment of Jewish kids by your friends in hamas.

Adam B.

Phil, they've all scarpered, as has Derek Blades on another thread. He got confronted with too many facts, and he couldn't handle it. Shows how confident thay are in their beliefs!

Si, N

Grumpy the Golani

"'Which part part of cause and effect do people like you not understand' Tell you the part that I understand damn well:
the part that goes like this -
EIGHT years of rocket bombardments into the south western Negev region of Israel and FINALLY a response.
Now bud, which part of THIS dont'cha understand!"

How about the bit that completely misses out the 14, 0000+ mortars (military grade high explosives) fired by Israel into Gaza and the 600+ Palestinian deaths from the same during the period in discussion.

phil

Adam B.and look who has just reappeared beneath you -don.t ya miss him

Original Tony

Britannia Patriot..10:10am..."Israel is the Canary in the coalmine.."
This is a brilliant phrase and should be shouted from the political rooftops!
Well said!!

Mandy

On the topic of the jihad, has anyone seen Melanie's online article today in the Mail with video footage that "clearly shows the police retreating under fire, being chased through central London by protesters chanting ‘Allahu akhbar’"

We are all sunk.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1134042/MELANIE-PHILLIPS-British-police-running-Muslim-demonstrators-Christian-nurse-facing-sack-offering-pray-patient--way-society-dies.html

The footage is absolutely shocking throughout and at 3.01 minutes into it, after another round of 'Allahu akhbars', you can clearly hear the most spiteful roar of 'kuffir' aimed at the police from some thug.

Celina

In a column in the weekly newspaper, Al Risalah, Sheik Yunus al-Astal, a Hamas legislator and imam presented a Koranic verse suggesting that "suffering by fire is the Jews' destiny in this world and the next." concluding, "therefore we are sure that the Holocaust is still to come upon the Jews. Ref IHT 1 April 08

Al Astal again states in a sermon on Hamas' Al-Aqsa television,
"Today, Rome is the capital of the Catholics, or the Crusader capital, which has
declared its hostility to Islam, and has planted the brothers of apes and pigs in
Palestine in order to prevent the reawakening of Islam.
"I believe that our children, or our grandchildren, will inherit our jihad and our sacrifices, and, Allah willing, the commanders of the conquest will come from among them"
He also declares that Rome will become, "an advanced post for the Islamic conquests, which will spread though Europe in its entirety, and then will turn to the two Americas, even Eastern Europe." Ref- Fox 14 Apr. 2008

The Trojan horse has landed on our shores and while we sleep, dreaming we are multi- culturally respectful and politically correct, it has already opened its portal to let out the hordes of Islamic warriors.

Adam B.

Sin, 140,000? What's your source?

By the way, have you heard of cause and effect?

AisA

Donna:

"Can you really say that the Yanks and Brits or anyone really would ever have been capable of putting together something watertight in 1948 to properly secure Israel for the Jews in the face of the sheer geography, numbers and strength of feeling of Islam? At least they tried. Or are you saying we were negligent in fact? If so, then we certainly have some responsibility for having led them into a web, and we need to try and keep them from being annihilated I would think."

I think they were possibly naive in thinking that it would be possible to create such an arrangement. But I don't think we should read it that the Jews "led" into a web. They and everyone else knew very well that the area was by then inhabited by people (Arabs) who directed by their god to annihilate the Jews.

Being of no specific race and certainly of no religion, I can't help but wonder why some other territory for Jews to settle in might have been a better choice? My point is - if it's because it's the 'Holy Land', and the Jews are the people 'Chosen' to live there, then as I have said in another debate, the discussion moves into the very shaky area of religion. That can never be the basis of a fair sharing of this earth.

The annihilation of anyone by anyone is beyond barbarism, and of course we must always do whatever is necessary to prevent this kind of atrocity.

AisA

Yehuda:

In a post on another thread you made several assumptions about me, all completely erroneous. I am not a 'Westerner' for one, although I happen to inhabit the UK at the moment.

But what is much more irritating is that you cannot take the slightest criticism. I am not a Jew hater, and it sets my teeth on edge that your every utterance seeks to put in on the defensive on this point. Being unable to take criticism is a quite revealing trait, and I have not said anything here that is hateful. I willingly admit that my knowledge is riddled with lacunae, and I read your very knowledgeable post with interest, but your own answers are so one-sided, so absolute. You seem to think that you are right and everyone else is wrong. I only ever hear one story from one side, and then a completely different one from the other. So many angendas... (agendae?) I try to read up on this, and it’s one of the reasons I keep up with these blogs, but it's nigh on impossible to get an objective view, as you’re all on the warpath.

Every race and religion makes mistakes, some greater than others, and it is understanding this that will help us to write an accurate history, not just for us, but for everyone, for all time. Why do you have to attack me when I have no agenda here?

AisA

phil
I didn't really mean that Jews don't "fit in" as such, and I agree with everything you are saying. Anyway, I can think of plenty of other communities who fit that bill (my own, for one, and I deplore it).

It's more to do with a sense of treading on eggshells at times, which can be very wearing...

I was hoping I would never have to use this dreadful phrase, but I have a very large group of Jewish friends (you can never have just the one!) (and one ex- too but we couldn't have a life together because I wasn't Jewish...) Anyway we do have this debate. Interestingly enough the views amongst them are almost as varied and diverse as on this thread. Many are atheist too,(as I am) which adds another good twist to discussions.
Thank you for your openness and warmth, and for engaging with me.

Adam B.

Aisa, I think Yeduda's frustration with your post stems from several great sweeping statements which are in fact untrue. These statements, which are unthinkingly regurgitated, sometimes by well meaning people who think they are true, are part of a torrent, a positive deluge, of propaganda and misinformation about Israel and her people. This can be infuriating and frustrating - because people like Yehuda and me have rebutted these claims time and time again, only for a new person to appear and regurgitate these same outright lies all over again. I'm not saying you're doing it deliberately, and I have the sense that you may be someone who is grappling with different narratives and trying to find the truth. But this may involve a profound rethinking of some of the received wisdoms you clearly believe.

Linda Smith

You have failed to think through the consequences of your statements.

phil

Aisa thank you that was charming-we all need to talk and understand each other better ,that is the way forward .:)

Linda Smith

Worried: In response to your post on 30 Jan at 1:52pm "To survive, remain anonymous": If required on an official form to provide personal details, for "ETHNIC ORIGIN" I propose to write WHITE CAUCASIAN or EUROPEAN; for RELIGION I shall write UNDECIDED.

Linda Smith

Part of my submitted post on 3 Feb 12:34pm has not been printed. I do not know if this is intentional on the part of the moderator. As the omission of much of my post may be an error, I am resubmitting it.

Aisa: You have failed to think through the consequences of your statements. For example, you posted on 2 Feb at 10:01 pm "...everyone else knew very well that the area was by then inhabited by people (Arabs) who directed by their gods to annihilate the Jews..... I can't help but wonder why some other territory for Jews to settle in might have been a better choice?"

As every country of the world is now inhabited by moslems and other antisemites, and we are also facing the global Islamist project for world domination which particular "territory" would you now deem to be a better choice for Jews to settle - Antartica - the moon?

I await your response with interest.

AisA

Linda Smith:

"Failed to think through the consequences" is an unfair statement. Look at the tense I used..."might have been..."

I agree that there are NOW militant islamists residing in almost every country of the world, but I don't think that was the case in 1948. (Or maybe it was - do we know?) It was however absolutely certain that they were inhabiting the area that is now Israel and the territories immediately around it. So it does look as if the Jewish people were moving directly into a known hot-bed of enmity. It just seems a terrible place to have wanted to be if you were a Jew in 1948.

Anyway, the whole world is now a terrible place to be unless you are islamic, and as a non-religious person, I feel more than a little aggrieved to have been swept up into this madness brought on by other people's holy fervour. I think I am quite aware of the consequences of my statements, thank you. Here's one - Religion and its mad adherents will kill off humanity, and then all this territorial nit-picking will be irrelevant.

I hope that's 'interesting' enough for you.

Oliver Chettle

This is the usual cynical attempt to conflate the Jewish race and Zionism. Jews are not evil; Zionism is evil. Germans are not evil, Nazism was evil. It isn't hard to follow, and I expect you know it's true yourself, but you can't help yourself shooting for what looks like an open goal. It is comical that a movement that hides behind an organisation called the Anti-Defamation League employs defamation as its core strategy. The mind boggles that their are Zionists who insist that there cause gets an unfair press. It is treated with absurd over-tolerance and deference by an intimidated media. I understand how this comes to be because I was once one of Zionism's useful idiots myself.

Adam B.

...whereas now Oliver, you are one of the Islamofascists useful idiots. Oliver, you obviously have no inkling what Zionism is. Why is it "evil" for Jews to have the right to self-determination? Do some research.