What, no boycott?

Brian O'Connor

Melanie wrote:

When will we hear calls from British universities of a boycott of the Palestinians on account of their human rights violations?

Ahhh . . . When Hell freezes over?

David

When will we hear you comment on the resumption of settlement building by the Israeli government?

Alcuin

8 billion - making them the richest "refugees" on the planet. The folly our our leaders beggars belief: we feed them - to alleviate their suffering, while the Arabs - to whom we are increasingly in debt for our oil - arm them and fill their heads with hate. There are enough AK47s in Gaza for every citizen. Palestinian "suffering" is used cynically by the Arabs against us, they view our compassion as a weakness to be exploited in their war to exterminate Israel.

Forgive my cynicism, but I don't think people who behave like this sort of behaviour should be supported by us. In fact I don't think the EU should be involved in Palestine at all. Let their rich brothers feed them - it is something their massive sovereign wealth funds could be usefully doing instead of funding Muslim Brotherhood front organisations in Europe.

Nice Jewish Girl

Of course not, Melanie! Let's appease the Palestinians and give them more money to buy weapons... and let's continue to bash Israel. One rule for one, one rule for the others. Don't you just love the hypocrisy of the international community?

stanley Jerusalem

David - Do you really think that Melanie's commenting on Israeli building plans somehow mitigates Palestinian torture? Do try to keep up sunshine!

Roy

The $8 billion pledged by the international community is a sorry indictment to the mental capacity of peoples to appraise correctly a given situation. It is also a stunning revelation of how well and how successful the Palestinians have won over the gullible western liberal media. Who in turn have put out their buckets of insidious slop to the already indoctrinated public. How well they have successfully brainwashed them, changed truth to lies, consistently forcing the misinterpretation of every conceivable situation for their own good and mischief. It doesn't bode well for any sort of prevailing international honesty in the future.

George of Currumbin

Doubt if Al Beeb will be reporting this. On the other hand if Amnesty were to dip their noses in this matter, we might hear a few grunts of disapproval from certain MPs.
At the moment they are busy with Chinese violations of human rights.
In any case these unfortunate pals are at least not being hung from local lamposts as has happened to many of their brethren in the past - events which also went unreported in much of the British press.

john doe

"When will we hear you comment on the resumption of settlement building by the Israeli government?"

The incorrigible voice of the wilfully ignorant. Yawn.

N. Simon

No doubt some schmuck will soon say that the use of torture by Palis is all Israels fault!

Of course they won't be condemned by the international community who find that Arab torture is quite acceptable, but it's use by any western nation isn't.

The only people who thought up this double standards re torture, are the oil producing countries - and we, the idiots, have fallen for it hook, line and sinker.

patricia

AK 47s in Gaza do not kill five Israeli civilians for each Israeli soldier.

Which is the ratio of death the Palestinians suffer at the hands of Israel.

If you steal somebody's land, and build on his garden, and then block his exit from his own garden, you might expect him to be sufficiently upset to buy himself a gun.

Dr Martin Meenagh

One of the many sad things about all this is that Britain is now reported as being part of an effort to give this lot sixty million a year on top of aid and trade worth half a billion. My taxes are paying for it.
On top of the other stories that you have presented just lately, it is yet another incitement to emigrate somewhere decent and wait for the UK's collapse. This country has gone literally mad.

simon

David .... what have Israeli settlements, legal or otherwise, got to do with this. The two are completely unrelated. It's not as if Fatah and Hamas are torturing Israeli settlers.

Anwyay, we might be slowly winning the argument on this one. Even The Guardian gave these reports a good showing today.

I don't agree that we should stop financially backing Palestine. But I do think we should do more to point out our financial support whenever anyone mentions 'US/UK-backed Zionist conspiracies'

Joe Strummer

I'm sure the comedically titled " Islamic Human Rights Commission" will take care of all worries and concerns.

patricia

John Doe

Might you please expand on your tantalising reponse to another contributor regarding illegal settlements?

Yawn - is that the best you can say?

?

patricia

MODERATOR

Why do you skew the posts on this site to represent only the views of those who agree with Phillips?

Michael B

Universities? The primary incubator of adolescence in perpetuity? Where a stolid obduracy is allowed to pass for depth and range and maturity? It'll take more than hell freezing over. If hell were to freeze over they'd merely place a "climate change" spin on the subject and blame it on those who are actually attempting to accomplish something and give themselves a pat on the back in the process. That type of spin is known as the linguistic meaning of self-righteousness and b.s. in general, and heaven forfend if very many among the public acknowledge it for what it is. The chorus of harrumphs from the Left and nearby precincts would reach ear splitting levels.

Dee Ranged

Patricia

Get real woman!

Adam B.

Right on cue, Patricia wades in on a thread about the Palestinian use of torture to - surprise, surprise, attack Israel. Patricia, don't you condemn the Palestinian use of torture? Do you think it right that billions in aid is sent to a corrupt Palestinian Authority which regularly uses torture, and broadcasts outright racism and incitement to violence? And as for ratios, the RAF killed TEN times as many German civilians as the UK suffered at the hands of the Luftwaffe in WWII. By your logic, Britain must have been the aggressor, and the Germans the victims, right?

Adam B.

Patricia, a serious question: was Prussia stolen from Germany?

A. McF.

Where on earth does patricia get her information from? Or does she make it up herself? What a load of nonsense!

Olga

"AK 47s in Gaza do not kill five Israeli civilians for each Israeli soldier." Though not through lack of trying!!!!!

"Which is the ratio of death the Palestinians suffer at the hands of Israel." Codswallop! (Next you'll tell me they are civilians going about their peaceful business. Pull the other one.)

"If you steal somebody's..."
Check your facts, dearie. WHO stole land from WHOM ????????????

michael

How many Palestinian detainees are festing in Israeli jail?

How many of those are tortured?

How may have been tried?

When did Israel last obey international law, let alone its own, when dealing with Palestinians?

Adam B.

Michael,
Israel is a country of law. There is an independent judiciary, and a Supreme Court which frequently rules aginst the government. In answer to your query, the answer is none. Torture is illegal in Israel, in stark contrast to most Arab countries, where lethal torture, including of purely political prisoners, is common. This is in a situation where Israel faces an overwhelming and daily terrorist threat. It is truly astonishing that you just can't admit it, so great is your irrational hatred for Israel. Don't you condemn the use of torture by the Palestinians?

john doe

"Might you please expand on your tantalising reponse to another contributor regarding illegal settlements?

Yawn - is that the best you can say?"

If you insist, I will oblige but you will certainly reject this information. But here goes anyway for what it's worth.
Judea and Samaria...what you would call the West Bank...are still illegally occupied by Arabs. This territory is part of the Jewish homeland that was legitimately restored to the Jewish people by the British and the League of Nations. It was then ILLEGALLY taken from the Israelis by Jordan in 1948 who then occupied it until 1967 when Israel regained it during another defensive war. Please note also that Jordan was given over 70% of the territory promised to Israel in the British Mandate but it still wanted more. It needs to be made clear over and over again to fanatical and irrational haters of Israel like yourself that the country was attacked by the Arabs in 1948 and 1967 and whatever territories any defending country wins in the process are the fair 'spoils of war' anyway. The Arabs are the illegal settlers and have absolutely no right to this land. You are a victim of the Big Lie ceaselessly propagated by the anti-Israeli media like the BBC and the Guardian. My suggestion is that you seek your information elsewhere. Try Dennis Prager, Caroline Glick, Daniel Pipes, Walid Shoebat and of course Melanie.

N. Simon

I think I proved my point that the Islamists and leftists find the Arab use of torture quite acceptable, even agreeable.

They haven't yet dared to condemn it.

Ahad Ha'amoratzim

Micahel, while Samir Kuntar was imprisoned in Israel for the brutal murder of a 4 year old girl and her father, he received food, medical care, visits from the Red Cross, was permitted to marry, and received conjugal visits resulting in his being able to have a family. The Israelis taken captive to bargain for his release were kept out of sight with no Red Cross visits, their families had no word of them for the 2 years they were in captivity, they received no medical care for their wounds, and were beaten and tortured to death by their captors. The fate of Gilad Shalit, captured at about the same time, and Ron Arad, captured decades earlier, is still concealed by their Palestinian captors. Two IDF soldiers arrested by the PA during the second intifada for nothing worse than driving by mistake into a PA town were turned over by their captors to be torn limb from limb and beaten to death by an angry mob. Still sure you want to play this game? Or to care how any of this justifies how the Palestinian forces treat each other or why the world gives them a free pass for torture, and criticises Israel for having prisoners at all?

Michael B

michael,

On any moral scale that has much meaning, your comment if vapid, in fact is demonstrably worse than vapid since a moral inversion inheres to what you're forwarding. If the subject matter addressed in the original post reflected an anomaly, it might pass without much mention. But it is not an anomaly since ad hoc corporeal punishment has existed within the Sunni Arab ranks in question since the emergence of the conflict, post-WWI.

Summary executions and extreme forms of brutal torture and dismemberment have been a common fixture of this Sunni Arab culture, at least since c. 1920. By contrast, while Israel is not a perfect or utopian society, they nonetheless do maintain classical liberal primary institutions (separation of powers into executive, legislative and judicial branches, due process, a highly progressive Supreme Court and court system in general) - all of which serve to guarantee basic levels of procedural justice.

By contrast, the Sunni Arab polities you're concerned with commonly resort to heinous forms of ad hoc tribal and doctrinaire "justice," from summary executions to the type of torture as reflected in the primary post above. One form of summary executions has included, after the execution, a public display of the body in order to ensure others in the community know the price to be paid for any type of (perceived) dissent.

Sneer and arrogate and deny all you care, but what you're conveying does not merely represent moral disarray and confusion and disproportion, it reflects a moral inversion of the first order wherein any more viable sense of prioritization is merely sneered at.

Iow, you're not merely throwing out the baby with the bath water, you're unloading a few rounds from your kalashnikov into the baby and then spitting disdainfully into what remains.

For all the blithe disdain and faux righteousness, it reflects the sordid and contemptible attitude of a genuinely wastrel political class.

Ron

I suspect the donors of the $8billon believe they are buying influence and can as payers of the piper call the tunes. The Israelis financially supported Hamas at one stage, the Iranians financially back Hezbollah, and the West finance the Palestinian Authority (PA). All the donors use their money to back one faction against another, for example Fatah against Hamas, the lesser of two evils? It is a tough call not to get involved, but I think the Israelis support the West in backing Fatah. It doesn’t make it right, but what are the alternatives? If the West (Israel’s proxy?) had no place at the table how could they influence events? As for the universities in the UK condemning the PA,that will only happen after they give three cheers for Israel reaching its 60th Birthday.

JJS

Hilarious! Nobody is agreeing with patricia. So who does she blame .... the moderator!!!

Adam B.

Ahad, I would add that the Palestinian "hero" (child murderer) Kuntar was allowed to take a degree with the Israeli Open University whilst in prison for murdering that family. And if I remember correctly, those two Israeli reservists who wandered into the wrong place were lynched not just by locals but by Palestinian policemen, official servants of the PA, salaries paid by western aid. One of them proudly showed his bloodied hands to the cameras out the window (having just thrown the two men out of this same window). The cell phone of one of the reservists was answered whilst he was being beaten to death. The Palestinian who answered it said "I'm killing your husband". Utterly savage and barbaric. I can imagine the reaction of patricia if Israeli police had acted in this manner! Such hypocrisy.

Adam B.

The refusal of Patricia and michael to condemn the Palestinian use of torture speaks volumes.

RUTH

I think Adam B. should criticise overt levels of violence by the Israeli military against Palestinian civilians, and Israeli settlers against them too, before he asks others to denounce violence in others.

Adam B.

Ruth, Israel never deliberately targets civilians. Unfortunately civilians are killed accidentally (a tragic inevitability when terrorists hide amongst a civilian population). Any loss of innocent life is tragic. Any unprovoked attacks on Palestinian civilians by Israeli settlers (which has yet to be conclusively proven) is utterly unacceptable, and prosecutions should follow. None of this is relevant to this particular thread, but I have answered it anyway. Now I await Patricia's, michael's, and your own condemnation of the use of torture by Palestinians, and the DELIBERATE targeting of Israeli civilians by Palestinians(and the disgusting celebrations which ensue in the Palestinian areas).

CC

Many here confirm the double-standards used by het IRC and other socalled 'humanitarian organizations'in their policies towards Israël and the PA.

Truely appaling torture is willfully being neglected while EVERY violation of some internatinal rule by Israël is presented as a war crime or 'human rights violation'.

Without articles and sites like these, anti-Israëli and antisemitic sentiments would be ven far more wide-spread than they allready are.

Thanks for the knowledge and insights shared in defence (or defense? CC) of Israël.

p.s. I am a Dutch supporter of Israël and its war against (political) Islam.

phil

I look forward with interest to reading michaels response to the scholarly writing of both John Doe and Michael B.but I don't think he will be back for a while yet -I suppose he could surprise me -hope he does . Well said guys but I fear you waste your efforts and education on a a person like michael.

Perhaps if he does reappear he will explain the recent tractor men or even the killing of the students in Jerusalem ,the bombings of synagogues in Argentina and Turkey -He may even be able to tell us why the grand mufti spent the second world war in the bunker with hitler -Seeing as he knows so much about this area can he tell us why the united nations voted for the establishment of The State of Israel on a free vote -come on michael answer these and I will set you a few more I am sure you will enjoy them .

phil

michael que pasa hombre -where are your answers?-you can of course say sorry I dont have any -"lo siento" will do if you cant bring yourself to say it in english .

Ann

"The refusal of Patricia and michael to condemn the Palestinian use of torture speaks volumes"

And that of Ruth, another member of the usual clique.

BJ

As a matter of fact the Prussians were a Slavic people wiped out by the Tuetonic Knights.
But John Doe's comments on the Occupied Palestinian Territories also take some beating for ignorance of historical facts.
Take a look at the United Nations Charter on the inadmissibility of acquiring territory by force. It's called international law and Israel needs to comply with it just the same as other nations.

Proud To Be Saxon

Whenever the situation in Palestine is mentioned or reported, it seems that the British media particularly, seem to have selective blindness to the human rights abuses by the Palestininans.

There has never been a mention, as far as I am aware, of the plight of the Christians in Gaza.

Before Hamas took over, the population of Bethlehem was approximately 80% Christian. Hamas has effectively cleansed Bethlehem of most of its Christian population until it is now less than 10%.

The ethnic cleansing of Christians, the attacks on Christian churches and even the murder of Christians by moslems all over the world, including the UK, goes unreported and uncondemned.

Neither the Pope or the Archbishop of Canterbury has publically condemned moslem agression against Christians, instead preferring to offer appeasing noises.

The world needs to wake up and take punitive action against the abuses perpetrated by moslems, instead of continually regarding them as the victims they like to portray themselves.

Adam B.

BJ, I never mentioned Prussians. I mentioned Prussia, territory of Germany until 1945. Please read carefully. Please explain the difference between Prussia being absorbed by Poland and Judea and samaria by Israel.