Wider Middle East conflict

[paul_oshea]

I have a lot of sympathy for Israels battles with terrorists but they have gone too far this time.

here read this, if you want to learn about terrorism:

and for those of you who say Israel is fighting
terrorism, here are some facts about Israel and their
use of "terrorism"

Terrorism has been the hallmark of Israeli leaders,
including Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir, Ehud Barak,
Benjamin Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon, amongst others.
The massacres, including Deir Yassin, Doueima, Safsaf,
Tantura, amongst scores of others, and war crimes that
they have orchestrated would take volumes to relate.

One of the most notorious examples of Israeli
terrorism in the post-war period 1945-1948, was the
bombing of the King David Hotel on July 22, 1946,
which killed 92 people.

Assassination of Palestinian leaders and
intellectuals, in Europe and the Middle East has gone
on for years. Fathi Shikaki was assassinated in Malta
in 1995 on the orders of Yitzhak Rabin. The role of
Ehud Barak, dressed as an Arab woman, in the
assassination of three Palestinian leaders, including
the poet Kemal Nasser, in 1973 in Beirut, must not be
forgotten.

Israeli assassination is not limited to Palestinians
but includes the 1944 assassination of the British
minister Lord Moyne in Cairo as planned by Yitzhak
Shamir.

A horrible crime was committed in the assassination of
the Swedish nobleman, Count Folke Bernadotte, a UN
mediator, on Sept. 17, 1948, in Jerusalem, on the
orders of Yitzhak Shamir, who later became prime
minister of Israel. Count Bernadotte’s sin was his
recommendation, as the UN mediator, that Palestinian
refugees who were driven out from their homes by
Israel should be allowed to return to their homes.
This recommendation was the substance of the UN
resolution 194, on Dec. 11, 1948, stipulating the
right of return for the Palestinian refugees as soon
as possible.

Israeli use of chemical weapons is also on record in
the botched attempt to assassinate Khalid Meshal, a
Hamas leader, in Amman in 1997, on the orders of Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The first act of air piracy in the history of civil
aviation was carried out by Israel in 1954, when a
civilian Syrian airliner was forced down in Tel Aviv
and its passengers and crew held hostage, despite
international condemnation.

The first act of shooting down a civilian airliner was
deliberately carried out by Israel when a Libyan
airliner was shot down by Israeli jet fighters over
Sinai in February 1973, on the orders of Israeli prime
minister Golda Meir, killing 107 of its passengers and
its entire French crew.

Israeli terror was not restricted to Palestinians,
Arabs and Europeans but included its own closest
supporter and ally, the United States. In 1954,
Israeli secret agents bombed the U.S. diplomatic
centres in Cairo and Alexandria (known as the Lavon
Affair), in an attempt to put the blame on the
Egyptians. Israel later honoured the perpetrator,
Marcello Ninio.

In June 1967, Israeli forces attacked the U.S. spy
ship USS Liberty, and strafed rescue boats, killing 35
and injuring 170 U.S. servicemen, in an attempt to
conceal its own secret communications, and again tried
to blame it on the Egyptians. To this day, incredible
as it may seem, the U.S. Congress refuses to hold an
inquiry into this crime, as requested by the surviving
crew. Needless to say, no sanctions were imposed or
calls to extradite the perpetrators were made.

Zionist terror did not spare Jews. In 1940, Menachem
Begin’s Irgun Zwei Leumi terrorist gang bombed the
ship Patria in Haifa harbor, killing 240 Jewish
refugees, so as to put the blame on the British for
political gain.

In 1950-1951, Israeli agents were dispatched to Iraq
where they tossed hand grenades into the crowded
Massauda Shem-Tov synagogue, causing numerous deaths,
in order to blame it on the Iraqis and encourage
reluctant Iraqi Jews to rturn to Israel.

[paul_oshea]

oh and looks like our government got something right for once:

http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1104532006

[pete]

Moderator: Please give links to sources or i will have to remove posts!

[Saint Tom]

Bennocelt, bear with this point.

Imagine your people, the only one of its kind in the world, having sufffered thousands of years of persecution, eviction and injustice, are given a state in which to protect themselves for the first time in two thousand years. You are surrounded by hostile FUNDAMENTALIST neighbours who vow that your way of life/religion and identity should be exterminated. Would you lie down and take it??

Now, I dont back Israel 100%, far from it, but maybe people should just consider the mentality that exists amongst Israeli Jews. what happened at the weekend are war crimes, but people fast forget that this was all started by incursion into israeli territory and missile attacks on a city double the size of Cork.

[dancinpants]

Bennocelt, bear with this point.

Imagine your people, the only one of its kind in the world, having sufffered thousands of years of persecution, eviction and injustice, are given a state in which to protect themselves for the first time in two thousand years. You are surrounded by hostile FUNDAMENTALIST neighbours who vow that your way of life/religion and identity should be exterminated. Would you lie down and take it??

Probably wouldn't have taken the land to begin with!!!

Who was in that area before it was given to Israel?

[Saint Tom]

beduoin arabs, but it was no more than desert and their population wasnt huge at that. also, jewish people settled under the british mandate from 1900 onwards, so by the time of the 2nd world war, they nearly equalled the numbers of the arabs in historical palestine

they didn't take the land, our british friends held a mandate on the territory and divided it between an arab state (west bank and gaza) and a jewish state. It would have remained like that had all surrounding arab states not invaded the jewish state. Irony is had that not have happened there would be a palesinian state now

[Student Mullet]

Imagine your people, the only one of its kind in the world, having sufffered thousands of years of persecution, eviction and injustice, are given a state in which to protect themselves for the first time in two thousand years. You are surrounded by hostile FUNDAMENTALIST neighbours who vow that your way of life/religion and identity should be exterminated. Would you lie down and take it??

What I'd do is decide that I want my state to be just slightly bigger and occupy the neighbouring lands, keeping the people there in poverty. That way I could ensure to keep my fundamentalist neighbours really cheesed off.

[bennocelt]

Bennocelt, bear with this point.

Imagine your people, the only one of its kind in the world, having sufffered thousands of years of persecution, eviction and injustice, are given a state in which to protect themselves for the first time in two thousand years. You are surrounded by hostile FUNDAMENTALIST neighbours who vow that your way of life/religion and identity should be exterminated. Would you lie down and take it??

Now, I dont back Israel 100%, far from it, but maybe people should just consider the mentality that exists amongst Israeli Jews. what happened at the weekend are war crimes, but people fast forget that this was all started by incursion into israeli territory and missile attacks on a city double the size of Cork.

i like the fact that you said "are given"
the palestinain people have the right to defend themselves as well you know.....

[Saint Tom]

I totally agree that they have a right to defend themselves bennocelt, totally and absolutely. and they have been the victims of injustice also. I just feel that people dont see things from both sides of the arguement. Israeli mentallity is still firmly rooted in "the holocaust could happen again" mode, and I think that if I were in their situation, I would be kinda inclined to be protectionate of my people.

Given is the correct term to use, since the british held the mandate and sanctioned the creation of the state.

I just feel sorry for the hundreds of thousand of people caught in the middle of an arguement that cant and wont be solved

[dfx-]

but people fast forget that this was all started by incursion into israeli territory

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKq38...related&search

^ Something about Israel taking civilians in Gaza that started it , perhaps..? (according to Noam Chomsky)

[dancinpants]

Breakingnews is that Israel have captured some Hezbollah at a hospital close to the Lebanon/Syria border...Hezbollahs gonna be seriously bummed now.

Also Saint Tom, just because Israel tells us that Hezbollah snatched the soldiers from inside Israel doesn't necessarily make it so. Word going around the radio talkshows here, is that it may be the case that the soldiers were nabbed while they made an incursion into LEBANON.

[Beavis]

oh and looks like our government got something right for once:

http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1104532006

Very glad to see this.

I still feel the integrity of our country is being destroyed by the failure of our government to denounce the terrorist state of Israel and its supporters. However, this is a welcome step.
As for the UN security council, they are a joke.