A reasonable point of view.
Since when is a Marxist tract (from People's World Weekly) considered reasonable? I'm sure tallslim will be very happy to know he has the commies on his side in blaming Israel for everything.
I stopped reading this halfway through. Among other biased statements, the article notes UN has wanted two-state solution for 60 years, yet fails to mention it was the Arab states who blocked that, not Israel, because they wanted all the land, including all of Israel, for themselves. The implication from the article, of course, is that Isreal somehow blocked that resolution 60 years ago, before the nation even existed as a UN member.
It also states a six-month ceasefire ended but fails to state who ended it. Hamas, by firing rockets into Israel. Without stating it, the implication of course is that Israel ended the cease-fire first by attacking Gaza without provocation. Completely false.
It also conjectures, without any evidence whatsoever, that Israel's military against Gaza is strategically designed to take place now because it is after the election but before the new administration takes place. Gee, maybe its actually because Hamas has started firing rockets into Israel again. But of course this was not given as a reason for Hamas to end the cease-fire by firing rockets again. So was Israel supposed to wait, tell Hamas to continue their daily rocket attacks for another month, and only after the new administration takes place Jan 20 will they formulate reprisals but they have Carte Blanche until then?
Reasonable indeed. At least there was no mention of "capitalist lackeys" from what I saw.
-- Modified on 1/1/2009 10:53:04 AM
if one of our border neighbors started lobbing rockets at the US how we would respond?
Did anyone play that card during WWII?
Since you read only half of it, why did you bother to post a reply?
is considered a disproportionate response. I think the UN came up with the term to condemn the use of force against civilians. WW2
can't be compared with with the turf war between the Zionists and Hamas.
The same critics are now speaking out against the U.S’s. extreme violence against Japan.
Not surprised it could have been the U.N.
BTW, civilians are not the targets. I think that since the rockets haven't stopped yet, then the force used thus far has been too weak.
attacks and suffer whatever fate that the Zionists have in store for them. That wont happen though. Israel needs to get serious about cutting off the supply of war material and personnel to Gaza regardless of where those supplies come from. The problem is Israel's military lacks sufficient strength to accomplish this.
The concept of "disproportionate response" is a stupid idea because it allows the aggressor to determine what the victim can do.
For example, Hamas fires rockets at civilian areas. They miss. But then they (and the world) can limit the initial victim's response by saying, "You can't do anything excessive."
That way, the aggressor can decide exactly how much punishment the aggressor will receive, since if the victim "over-reacts" the victim loses its sympathetic stance.
This is akin to the "hard love" concept. Tell the aggressor, "Anything that happens, you bring on yourself. You cannot commit this type of act and then seek sympathy." If they know they can't gain sympathy by provoking a "disproportionate" response, they won't provoke any response, i.e, they won't be the aggressor.
A war where the enemy gets killed at all costs, a war between capitalist supported thugs. In such a war anything goes.
because the bias in the first half was so obvious, why continue? And given there was so much bias already present, why not comment on it? I commented specifically on what I did read.
I didn't comment on what was sure to be the continuation of the biased perspective from the remainder of the article.
And YOU were the one who claimed it was a reasonable view in your post. It useless to state now the author claims their own work is reasonable. No kidding.
-- Modified on 1/1/2009 12:49:20 PM
total bullshit,phil.as i'm sure you well know.
a concept of "disproportionate response" can be found implicitly all the way back to the "Lex Talonis" the good old "eye for an eye..." idea which crops up in the Old Testament,so beloved of your heroes currently holding sway in Occupied Palestine and other terrotories annexed thereunto.
need we mention, the idea of Lex Talonis was to moderate acts of vengence,not to excuse any and all acts of vengence.
"civilians are not the target."no, they just wind up dead and mained.
Charlie... you are so very wrong and misguided here...
Firstly... don't get me started on the whole "Zionism is separate from Judaism which is separate from Israel" crap. That is the shallow excuse of the ignorant and misinformed... of which it seems you are firmly in the middle of. Which one, I'm not sure yet. Sometimes you actually say stuff that sounds reasoned and intelligent, but at others, you sound like tallslime's slightly less ignorant lackey.
Secondly... don't kid yourself, shmaltzkopf, Israel could wipe out the entire Gaza strip in a heartbeat if they were unconcerned with civilian casualties. Hell, everyone believes they have nukes, which means if they wanted to they could end the Mideast conflict with the touch of a button. The world already condemns Israel for existing in the first place, so why not take it all the way? BECAUSE ISRAEL DOES CONCERN ITSELF WITH CITIZEN CASUALTIES AND HUMAN RIGHTS!!! If it didn't, why does it still allow humanitarian aid into Gaza and continue to supply them with heating oil and fuel for their power plants? Why not turn off all the power, thereby making it more difficult for Hamas to build bombs and fire their rocket launchers from residential compounds. You're so narrow minded, you're even worse than Joe Scarborough.
Don't forget to ignore the volumes of past experiences with Hamas and other Arab terror groups using ambulances and red cross vehicles to smuggle bombs ammunitions, and homicide bombers inside Israel.
For a Socialist, you sound like a Fascist.Bah!!
Why do I bother with cretins like you and tallslime anyway?
I posted what I thought was a reasonable article. You read half of it and wondered who thought it was reasonable? Now you state that you knew that I thought it was reasonable from the onset, but asked who thought it was reasonable anyway. Since my post said it was reasonable and it was my post , I responded by saying that the author thought it was a reasonable article. Now you say it is useless to answer your question. The only bias that I see here is yours.
I think that both the Zionists and Hamas are capitalist thugs involved in a turf war. Both sides have a right to defend themselves, however neither side can win. The Zionists do not have the manpower to obtain a decisive military victory over Hamas.
Capitalist thugs but they are not stupid. If the Zionists cut Hamas Military supply lines the war would end. The real question is why is this not being done?
charlie, you've convinced me you're just a parrot and a tallslime sockpuppet.
Keep spewing your recycled Karl Marx manifesto manure. Communism always was, and always will be nothing more than a Red Herring, you proletarian putz. It has as much to do with true socialism as tallslime has to do with AIPAC.
Now, as to your question... Israel is criticized for cutting off supplies to Hamas, and is criticized for NOT cutting supplies to Hamas.
The fact is, Israel would like nothing better than an end to the hostilities and peace in the region.
All the Arabs have to do is stop preaching the destruction of Israel. But its more politically expedient for them to continue the hostilities, and use the spin and propaganda to further their goals of the destruction of Israel and the genocide of the Jews.
But you're too narrow minded to understand that.
If Israel cut off power entirely to Gaza, do you think the Arab countries will step up and assist? Egypt is ALSO NOT opening their borders with Hamastan, pardon me, Gaza, but THEY aren't being criticized.
In the 6 day war of 1967, Israel conquored the the Sinai desert, Gaza strip, the West Bank, and reunified Jerusalem. They did not occupy, they conquored.
In 1973, when the Arabs launched the Yom Kippur War they opened themselves up to further conquest. Israeli troops were within a half days march of taking Damascus, but were stopped by pressure from the US. so they settled for the Golan Heights as defensive borders.
When Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty and Israel returned the Sinai to Egypt, it marked the beginning of a peace between the two countries that has continued even to this day despite pressure from the Arabs on Egypt to break diplomatic relations. Same with Jordan.
In neither case has Israel broken the peace, in both cases Egypt and Jordan have benefitted financially, economically, and technologically.
But you won't see that, because you're an ignorant sockpuppet, and I'm done with you.
Preach on, you pucillanimous wretch. Take your hammer and sickle and put it where the sun don't shine.
I wish we could erect such a nice wall in Texas.
Charlie,you dumb Communist shithead,you haven't got a fucking clue!But you do mean well,so i cant really be all that pissed off at you.
Read this damn board,read all the blind, unreasoning pro-Israel hatred being spewed at every opportunity.Making any sort of an impression on you?
Wake up, Marx boy.You think capitalism is the problem.Think again.It's clear that the US will oppose every and all foreign "isms" save one-Zionism.Which it clutches to it's breast.Just as Cleopatra clasped the snake to her bosom.
Better for you to worry less about the effects of the profit motive and more about the effects of the prophet motive.The Old Testament prophet motive,that is.
doing the bidding of the running dogs of capitalism.
thugs. The combatants may be fighting for god but the war is about profit, capitalist profit.
You need to add the running dogs of capitalism to the mix.
It gives old Barack a test real early, a conflict before he even goes into office involving his masters and their cannon fodder.
He will surely show himself to be a man of change when he starts echoing those time honored phrases.
"Israel has the right to defend itself."
"Israel is only retaliating after attacks from the Palestinians."
ETC ETC ETC ...
I would have imagined that world Zionism would have been pretty much content woth the fact that Obama has surrounded himself with plenty of jews in his cabinent, I mean his cheif of staff WAS in the Israeli army.
Looks like they are determined to get him up in front of the world and make him dance like all the other puppets before him.
Time to take that arrogance down a notch Obama, and serve the people responsible for placing you where your at. No doubt that he will.
Those masters are the capitalist ruling classes. The capitalists will do anything for profit. The Zionists are defending their turf from all
aggressors. The militant Islamists vow to recapture their long lost turf that extends into western Europe. There are countless capitalist's stooges whipping up religious fanatics into homicidal trances all to support the goal of more profits for the running dogs of capitalism. Nothing is easy about this capitalist induced orgy of homicide,genocide and greed.
in its entirety, you state
"A reasonable point of view."
and then give a link. That is all.
So yes, by your OP, I was able to determine YOU thought it was reasonable, because that is what you stated. How else can one interpret your statement?
And here you state again, "I posted what I thought was a reasonable article". So again, it is YOUR view, not just the author's.
I didn't say it was useless to answer my question, but rather your specific answer was useless. If all you have to say is that the author of a given article thinks they are being reasonable, that tells me nothing. Why did YOU state it was a reasonable view if all you meant to convey is the original writer thinks their own view is reasonable? After all, what author doesn't think that? Your response to my question was that the author thinks its reasonable. That response is what I referred to, and is a useless response.
I was going on the assumption that you knew that I thought the article supported a reasonable point of view. A better question would have been ;do you agree with the article? The answer is yes,
however Hamas needs to seek peace or be crushed.
You "DO" believe that Israel has the military might to crush Hamas. Any position to the contrary would be asinine.
Israel could elimnate Hamas without breaking a
sweat. What they cannot do is crush Hamas without unacceptable loss of civilian life. A position similar to the one we find ourselves in, in both Iraq and Afganistan.
Hamas is the tip of the Islamic militants spear. Israel alone cannot crush the jihadist movement. The war is not about just the Zionists and Hamas it is about Jihad. And as I said before , when the capitalists stop supporting both sides there will be a chance for peace.
This is what you said.
"The Zionists do not have the manpower to obtain a decisive military victory over Hamas."
Are you wrong now? or where you wrong before? or both?
Hamas is part of the jihad. It is the name of a a political/military unit of jihad deployed in Gaza.
No one ever admits when they are wrong around here, why should you be any different?
Your words speak for themselves. Try reading them sometime. You have made a rather fast leap from amusing to annoying.
wrong about what? I try to take a global view of politics from an anti-profit motive point of view. Most things that I post support that view.