1300 People Killed, 5400 Injured in Occupied Palestine

[ScudRunner]

Isreal just doesn't get it do they. You oppress a people and take away there hope they will fight back, You Kill 230 and wound another 400 you just created two thousand new Enemy's. Why does the world not seam to care.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — An Israeli government determined to stop rocket attacks that have traumatized southern Israel launched a wave of airstrikes that hammered security sites in Hamas-ruled Gaza with more than 100 tons of bombs.

At least 230 people were killed in one of the Mideast conflict's bloodiest attacks in decades. Most of the casualties in the attacks were security forces, but Palestinian officials said at least 15 civilians were among the dead. More than 400 people were also wounded.

The unprecedented assault sparked protests and condemnations throughout the Arab world, and many of Israel's Western allies urged restraint, though the U.S. blamed Hamas for the fighting.

But there was no end in sight. The first round of strikes began around noon Saturday followed by successive waves of attacks that continued into the early hours Sunday.

Israel warned it might go after Hamas' leaders, and militants kept pelting Israel with rockets — killing at least one Israeli and wounding six.

Hundreds of Israeli infantry and armored corps troops headed for the Gaza border in preparation for a possible ground invasion, military officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity under army guidelines.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said late Saturday that the goal was "to bring about a fundamental improvement in the security situation." He added, "It could take some time."

The Israeli airstrikes caused widespread panic and confusion, and black plumes of smoke billowed above the territory, ruled by the Islamic militant Hamas for the past 18 months. Some of the Israeli missiles struck in densely populated areas as students were leaving school, and women rushed into the streets frantically looking for their children.

"My son is gone, my son is gone," wailed Said Masri, a 57-year-old shopkeeper, as he sat in the middle of a Gaza City street, slapping his face and covering his head with dust from a bombed-out security compound nearby.

He said he had sent his 9-year-old son out to purchase cigarettes minutes before the airstrikes began and could not find him. "May I burn like the cigarettes, may Israel burn," Masri moaned.

Militants often operate against Israel from civilian areas. Late Saturday, thousands of Gazans received Arabic-language cell-phone messages from the Israeli military, urging them to leave homes where militants might have stashed weapons.

The offensive began eight days after a six-month truce between Israel and the militants expired. The Israeli army says Palestinian militants have fired some 300 rockets and mortars at Israeli targets over the past week, and 10 times that number over the past year.

"There is a time for calm and there is a time for fighting, and now is the time for fighting," said Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, vowing to expand the operation if necessary.

In Gaza City's main security compound, bodies of more than a dozen uniformed Hamas police lay on the ground. Civilians rushed wounded people in cars and vans to hospitals because there weren't enough ambulances to transport all the dead and wounded.

"There are heads without bodies .... There's blood in the corridors. People are weeping, women are crying, doctors are shouting, " said nurse Ahmed Abdel Salaam from Shifa Hospital, Gaza's main treatment center.

Military officials said aircraft released more than 100 tons of bombs in the first nine hours of fighting, focusing initially on militant training camps, rocket-manufacturing facilities and weapons warehouses that had been identified in advance.

A second wave was directed at squads who fired more than 110 rockets and mortars at Israeli border communities. Palestinians said Israeli bombs destroyed a mosque early Sunday. The military called it a "base for terrorist activities."

Another target early Sunday was the Al Aqsa TV station used by Hamas. Its studio building was destroyed, but the station remained on the air with a mobile unit. Palestinians counted about 20 airstrikes in the first hours of Sunday.

In New York, the U.N. Security Council issued a statement expressing serious concern at the escalating violence and called on Israel and the Palestinians to immediately halt all military activities.

After more than four hours of emergency consultations that began Saturday night, the United Nations' most powerful body issued a statement Sunday that also stressed the need for the restoration of a cease-fire between Israel and Gaza's Islamic Hamas rulers.

"This collective punishment is inhumane, immoral and should be stopped immediately," Palestinian U.N. observer Riyad Mansour said as he headed into the session.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Hamas' political leaders could soon be targeted. ""Hamas is a terrorist organization and nobody is immune," she declared.

The campaign was launched six weeks before national elections. Livni and Barak hope to succeed Ehud Olmert as prime minister, and the outgoing government has faced pressure to take tough action.

Gaza's political leaders, who have been targeted in the past, went into hiding earlier this week. In a speech broadcast on local Gaza television, Hamas' prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, declared his movement would not be cowed.

"We are stronger, and more determined, and have more will, and we will hold onto our rights even more than before," Haniyeh said. It was not clear where he spoke.

In Damascus, Syria, Hamas' top leader, Khaled Mashaal, called on Palestinians to rekindle their fight against Israel. "This is the time for a third uprising," he said.

Israel withdrew its troops and settlers in 2005 after crushing the second Palestinian uprising, but it has maintained control over the territory's border crossings.

Despite the overwhelming show of force, it was not clear the offensive would halt the rocket fire. Past operations have never achieved that goal.

Late Saturday, Gaza health official Dr. Moaiya Hassanain said 230 Palestinians were killed and more than 400 were wounded.

The lone fatality in Israel was in the town of Netivot, where a rocket killed an Israeli man. Six other people were wounded, rescue services said.

Netivot only recently become a target, and dozens of stunned residents, some weeping, gathered at the house that took the deadly rocket hit. A hole gaped in one of the walls, which was pocked with shrapnel marks.

"We need to finish this once and for all and strike back hard," said next-door neighbor Avraham Chen-Chatam, 57.

Streets were nearly empty in Sderot, the Israeli border town pummeled hardest by rockets. But dozens of people congregated on a hilltop to watch the Israeli aerial attacks.

The TV images of dead and wounded Gazans inflamed Arab public opinion, and protests erupted in Arab Israeli villages, the West Bank and elsewhere in the Arab world.

The campaign embarrassed moderate Arab regimes that have encouraged Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking and weakened Hamas' rival, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who has ruled only the West Bank since Hamas violently seized control of Gaza in June 2007.

Abbas condemned the attacks, but fearing violence could spiral out of control, his forces also broke up protests in the West Bank.

The offensive also risked opening new fronts, including unrest that could destabilize the West Bank and ignite possible rocket attacks by Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas on northern Israel.

Britain, the EU, the Vatican, the U.N. secretary-general and special Mideast envoy Tony Blair all called for an immediate restoration of calm. The Arab League scheduled an emergency meeting Wednesday to discuss the situation.

But the U.S., Israel's closest ally, blamed Hamas. "These people are nothing but thugs, so Israel is going to defend its people against terrorists like Hamas that indiscriminately kill their own people," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

President-elect Barack Obama was receiving an intelligence briefing Saturday from various security agencies, Johndroe said. Bush has spoken to regional leaders and the administration will remain in close contact, he said.

Obama also spoke during the day with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who was keeping Bush abreast of the situation

.

[bob sacamano]

Quit being anti-semetic. The jewish state does not practice state sponsored terrorism, it's the palestinians, they are all terrorists and deserve whatever the peace loving, human rights observing, jewish state dishes out.

[Changes in Latitudes]

Hamas must just love this. Not only do they get to fight their war against Israel, but then Israel runs through Palestine like a bull in a china shop and the world starts to really reconsider if the Israel is really doing the right thing. You're 100% correct .., there were 1000's of people in Palestine who were pretty indifferent or opposed to the Hamas cause, you can bet that changed on the streets of Gaza that day.
This guy woke up in the morning looking for breakfast and wanting cigarettes:

"My son is gone, my son is gone," wailed Said Masri, a 57-year-old shopkeeper, as he sat in the middle of a Gaza City street, slapping his face and covering his head with dust from a bombed-out security compound nearby.

He said he had sent his 9-year-old son out to purchase cigarettes minutes before the airstrikes began and could not find him. "May I burn like the cigarettes, may Israel burn," Masri moaned.

You can bet by the end of the day, his priorities had changed. Israel is the greatest recruiting tool Hamas could ever want.Hamas puts its weapons next to civilian buildings, Israel goes in and hits them, innocents die of course, and the Palestinian rage deepens. Israel is not going to stop Hamas this way.


And then Israel puts a statement like this out:

"There is a time for calm and there is a time for fighting, and now is the time for fighting," said Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, vowing to expand the operation if necessary.

That's a public call to Jihad if I've ever read one. What a nightmare.

[Dash-Ate]

Israel loves to terrorise them.
The IDF is bred to hate and kill them and view them as sub human. That's a fact.
collective punishment and genocide. SS camps all over again.

If you wonder why they fight back....



Israeli blockade 'forces Palestinians to search rubbish dumps for food
'UN fears irreversible damage is being done in Gaza as new statistics reveal the level of deprivation
Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor The Observer, Sunday 21 December 2008

Impoverished Palestinians on the Gaza Strip are being forced to scavenge for food on rubbish dumps to survive as Israel's economic blockade risks causing irreversible damage, according to international observers.

Figures released last week by the UN Relief and Works Agency reveal that the economic blockade imposed by Israel on Gaza in July last year has had a devastating impact on the local population. Large numbers of Palestinians are unable to afford the high prices of food being smuggled through the Hamas-controlled tunnels to the Strip from Egypt and last week were confronted with the suspension of UN food and cash distribution as a result of the siege.

The figures collected by the UN agency show that 51.8% - an "unprecedentedly high" number of Gaza's 1.5 million population - are now living below the poverty line. The agency announced last week that it had been forced to stop distributing food rations to the 750,000 people in need and had also suspended cash distributions to 94,000 of the most disadvantaged who were unable to afford the high prices being asked for smuggled food.

"Things have been getting worse and worse," said Chris Gunness of the agency yesterday. "It is the first time we have been seeing people picking through the rubbish like this looking for things to eat. Things are particularly bad in Gaza City where the population is most dense.

"Because Gaza is now operating as a 'tunnel economy' and there is so little coming through via Israeli crossings, it is hitting the most disadvantaged worst."

Gunness also expressed concern about the state of Gaza's infrastructure, including its water and sewerage systems, which have not been maintained properly since Israel began blocking shipments of concrete into Gaza, warning of the risk of the spread of communicable diseases both inside and outside of Gaza.

"This is not a humanitarian crisis," he said. "This is a political crisis of choice with dire humanitarian consequences."

The revelations over the escalating difficulties inside Gaza were delivered a day after the end of the six-month ceasefire between Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers, which had been brokered by Egypt in June, and follow warnings from the World

[sky's the limit]

I see we lost two more Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan yesterday, bringing the total to 106 or something - the Israelis just killed well over 200 in an afternoon...

When will the world start to wake up and put the Israelis back where they belong, ie behind the 1967 borders. This occupation and oppression has gone on too long, but it seems Obama is going to do nothing about it either. I just shake my head every time this happens... I still can't get over the invasion of Lebanon two years ago.... Seems the world has chosen to look the other way - wonder how Saddam feels about that?

stl

[JBL]

***DELETED*** stl

[niss]

Where was everyone condemnation of launching rockets at civilians?

No good can come from this thread and JBLs post is beyond offensive. This thread should be closed.

[sky's the limit]

Where was everyone condemnation of launching rockets at civilians?

No good can come from this thread and JBLs post is beyond offensive. This thread should be closed.

Niss,

I deleted the above comment, but the actions of the Israelis since 1967 are appalling by any reasonable measure, and were it not for the unmitigated support shown by the US and Britain, it would have stopped a long time ago.

Firing rockets at a nation who has not only occupied, but colonized Palestinian lands for the past 40yrs is not where you should be looking.... People need to start looking at the Palestinians as "humans," and not the caged animals we have made them.

This is not even a debate, there is no justification for these actions. Israel is sick of the rockets? OK, fine. Then stop the oppressive occupation and dismantle the illegal settlements - it's really that simple.

stl

[niss]

Where was everyone condemnation of launching rockets at civilians?

No good can come from this thread and JBLs post is beyond offensive. This thread should be closed.

Niss,

I deleted the above comment, but the actions of the Israelis since 1967 are appalling by any reasonable measure, and were it not for the unmitigated support shown by the US and Britain, it would have stopped a long time ago.

Firing rockets at a nation who has not only occupied, but colonized Palestinian lands for the past 40yrs is not where you should be looking.... People need to start looking at the Palestinians as "humans," and not the caged animals we have made them.

This is not even a debate, there is no justification for these actions. Israel is sick of the rockets? OK, fine. Then stop the oppressive occupation and dismantle the illegal settlements - it's really that simple.

stl

There are no Israeli 'colonies' in Gaza. Israel opened the crossings when there was quiet and closed them in response to rockets.

Are you attempting to justify the launching of rockets at civilians?

Are Palestinian civilians lives worth more than Israeli civilians lives? Are you trying to tell me that Israeli civilians should pay with their lives for the action of their government but the Palestinians should be let be?

[sky's the limit]

There are no Israeli 'colonies' in Gaza.

Really, since 2005 perhaps... But then what do you call the plethora of illegal "settlements" all through the other occupied territories?

Are you attempting to justify the launching of rockets at civilians?

Yes. What else are they supposed to do after four decades of occupation? Are you trying to insinuate that those rockets impart even a fraction of the damage, terror, or loss of life caused by the Israeli Army on a yearly, monthly, or even daily basis? Not even a fraction...

Are Palestinian civilians lives worth more than Israeli civilians lives? Are you trying to tell me that Israeli civilians should pay with their lives for the action of their government but the Palestinians should be let be?

Last time I checked, the Israelis elected their government. So yes. Are you trying to tell me the 300 lives lost yesterday were justifiable in response to Hamas??? Can you even see the hypocrisy in your statement?

The actions of the Israeli State should, in 2008 be universally deplored - but they are not for one reason or another. I find that to be rather unacceptable now, as it has been unacceptable for decades, yet justified.

There is not an argument in the world that can lend credibility to the Israeli policies in the occupied territories. If you think there is, may I humbly suggest you look at your reasons for doing so?

Anyway, I've said my peace, and I will make sure this thread stays in good faith...

stl

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7801973.stm

[Dash-Ate]

What a swell bunch of guys eh?

Who are they kidding they torture 24/7 the most despicable evil.

This is religious fanaticism at its worst. Even more dangerous than radical islam because these guys are more organized and have the bomb.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/637293.stm

Wednesday, 9 February, 2000, 22:46 GMT
Israel admits torture


An actor demonstrates a technique called the banana




An official Israeli report has acknowledged for the first time that the Israeli security service tortured detainees during the Palestinian uprising, the Intifada, between 1988 and 1992.

[sky's the limit]

This is not even a debate, there is no justification for these actions. Israel is sick of the rockets? OK, fine. Then stop the oppressive occupation and dismantle the illegal settlements - it's really that simple.

stl

THIS is exactly what I'm talking about on with regards to this bush-league board.

No moderator can claim to be objective after a comment like STL's above is made.

This is one of the most highly debated (AND UNRESOLVED) items in world politics, and yet a moderator on here thinks they have the right to start censoring one series of views on the topic.

What a joke.

I wonder if the advertisers on this site are aware of how the mods behave? Maybe we should be sure that they're all made aware. I see an enerjet banner above. Maybe I'll drop them an email and see if they support the views of the mods on here.

You should stop typing - you're just making a fool of yourself...

You obviously did not see what was deleted, and it was racist in the extreme - there is no place for that here. While I may choose to disagree with Niss, he, nor any other person of the Jewish persuation should have to read utter crap like that.

There is zero claim to objectivity from anyone on the moderation team - that is not our function... It is simply to enforce the forum rules. Why the hell would I be "objective" on one of the biggest outrages of our times?

You seem to have a very weak grip on the role of Moderator's here, not to mention your understanding of the situation in the Middle East. Perhaps some reading of the forum rules followed by a few books written by someone other than a Fox News contributor would be a good start.


As for your response to ., well that's just the most ignorant thing I've read in a long time....

stl

[reality check]

[
This is one of the most highly debated (AND UNRESOLVED) items in world politics, and yet a moderator on here thinks they have the right to start censoring one series of views on the topic.

You really have no idea do you?

There is no debate on this subject, it is essentially the US, Britain, and Israel who justify these actions, while the rest of the world writhes in disgust or protects their own interests through silence.

Perhaps you'll listen to somebody who's lived and reported there for 30yrs... But I doubt it.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/co ... 15045.html

Robert Fisk: Leaders lie, civilians die, and lessons of history are ignored

Monday, 29 December 2008

We've got so used to the carnage of the Middle East that we don't care any more – providing we don't offend the Israelis. It's not clear how many of the Gaza dead are civilians, but the response of the Bush administration, not to mention the pusillanimous reaction of Gordon Brown, reaffirm for Arabs what they have known for decades: however they struggle against their antagonists, the West will take Israel's side. As usual, the bloodbath was the fault of the Arabs – who, as we all know, only understand force.

Ever since 1948, we've been hearing this balderdash from the Israelis – just as Arab nationalists and then Arab Islamists have been peddling their own lies: that the Zionist "death wagon" will be overthrown, that all Jerusalem will be "liberated". And always Mr Bush Snr or Mr Clinton or Mr Bush Jnr or Mr Blair or Mr Brown have called upon both sides to exercise "restraint" – as if the Palestinians and the Israelis both have F-18s and Merkava tanks and field artillery. Hamas's home-made rockets have killed just 20 Israelis in eight years, but a day-long blitz by Israeli aircraft that kills almost 300 Palestinians is just par for the course.

The blood-splattering has its own routine. Yes, Hamas provoked Israel's anger, just as Israel provoked Hamas's anger, which was provoked by Israel, which was provoked by Hamas, which ... See what I mean? Hamas fires rockets at Israel, Israel bombs Hamas, Hamas fires more rockets and Israel bombs again and ... Got it? And we demand security for Israel – rightly – but overlook this massive and utterly disproportionate slaughter by Israel. It was Madeleine Albright who once said that Israel was "under siege" – as if Palestinian tanks were in the streets of Tel Aviv.

By last night, the exchange rate stood at 296 Palestinians dead for one dead Israeli. Back in 2006, it was 10 Lebanese dead for one Israeli dead. This weekend was the most inflationary exchange rate in a single day since – the 1973 Middle East War? The 1967 Six Day War? The 1956 Suez War? The 1948 Independence/Nakba War? It's obscene, a gruesome game – which Ehud Barak, the Israeli Defence Minister, unconsciously admitted when he spoke this weekend to Fox TV. "Our intention is to totally change the rules of the game," Barak said.

Exactly. Only the "rules" of the game don't change. This is a further slippage on the Arab-Israeli exchanges, a percentage slide more awesome than Wall Street's crashing shares, though of not much interest in the US which – let us remember – made the F-18s and the Hellfire missiles which the Bush administration pleads with Israel to use sparingly.

Quite a lot of the dead this weekend appear to have been Hamas members, but what is it supposed to solve? Is Hamas going to say: "Wow, this blitz is awesome – we'd better recognise the state of Israel, fall in line with the Palestinian Authority, lay down our weapons and pray we are taken prisoner and locked up indefinitely and support a new American 'peace process' in the Middle East!" Is that what the Israelis and the Americans and Gordon Brown think Hamas is going to do?

Yes, let's remember Hamas's cynicism, the cynicism of all armed Islamist groups. Their need for Muslim martyrs is as crucial to them as Israel's need to create them. The lesson Israel thinks it is teaching – come to heel or we will crush you – is not the lesson Hamas is learning. Hamas needs violence to emphasise the oppression of the Palestinians – and relies on Israel to provide it. A few rockets into Israel and Israel obliges.

Not a whimper from Tony Blair, the peace envoy to the Middle East who's never been to Gaza in his current incarnation. Not a bloody word.

We hear the usual Israeli line. General Yaakov Amidror, the former head of the Israeli army's "research and assessment division" announced that "no country in the world would allow its citizens to be made the target of rocket attacks without taking vigorous steps to defend them". Quite so. But when the IRA were firing mortars over the border into Northern Ireland, when their guerrillas were crossing from the Republic to attack police stations and Protestants, did Britain unleash the RAF on the Irish Republic? Did the RAF bomb churches and tankers and police stations and zap 300 civilians to teach the Irish a lesson? No, it did not. Because the world would have seen it as criminal behaviour. We didn't want to lower ourselves to the IRA's level.

Yes, Israel deserves security. But these bloodbaths will not bring it. Not since 1948 have air raids protected Israel. Israel has bombed Lebanon thousands of times since 1975 and not one has eliminated "terrorism". So what was the reaction last night? The Israelis threaten ground attacks. Hamas waits for another battle. Our Western politicians crouch in their funk holes. And somewhere to the east – in a cave? a basement? on a mountainside? – a well-known man in a turban smiles.

[JakeYYZ]

Have there ever been people with more stupid political instincts than the Palestinians (especially the Gaza ones)? Self created squalor and hopelessness coupled with resentment encouraged by their Arab brethren. The belief they will overcome the "occupiers" by mortar and rocket attacks.
Dear Palestinians, ask the Germans from East Prussia and Pomerania when they get their homes and farms back from the Russians and Poles and Czechs.

Forecast for Israel: More homemade rockets, Katyushas and mortars, lobbed indiscriminately at civilian targets.

Forecast for Gaza: Steel rain delivered precisely on target.

Forecast for media: Evil Joooos murder innocent Gazans without provocation.

[ScudRunner]

Isreal just doesn't get it do they. You oppress a people and take away there hope they will fight back, You Kill 230 and wound another 400 you just created two thousand new Enemy's. Why does the world not seam to care.

You don't get it, do you? The Palestinians started launching rockets into Gaza unprovoked. Israel warned of an attack if they didn't stop. They didn't stop, so Israel shit-kicked them, just like they said they would.

The Palestinians got what they deserved.

So Israel Oppresses a people for the last 40 years cutting them off from any chance at a free life or economic prosperity all the while there houses are bulldozed friends and family killed in the name of some fairy tale prophecy that they are the chosen people by the magic guy in the clouds so it gives them the right to do whatever they please. You would think that a state such as Israel would know what its like to be beat down and oppressed and say never again let this happen in the world, instead they turn into a force for destruction and oppression.

So some people fight back, Obviously not all people in Gaza or Occupied Palestine agree with every aspect of Hamas nor does every Israeli agree with there governments action. So they got what they deserve? 230 people who where going about there daily lives with family, people who might never think to pick up a weapon just trying to get by like you or I are dead. They deserved it??? Well good job Israel you can live in peace and nothing bad will ever happen there again oh wait a tick now you just made every person that knew any of these victims hate you and everything you stand for if they already had these beliefs you just reinforced it.

Not saying that Palestinian are innocent far from it, but when one state with vastly superior technology and is unconditionally back by a super power that gives them advanced weapons systems its the same old story. This all will be forgotten in a week and no one will give a shit. Then the next suicide bomber will blow up a cafe or bus and everyone will ask why?

[Rudderless]

Why is it that the Palestinians have been left on their own by all the Arab states, none of them are helping, in fact they are rejected by them.

Israel has done more for the Palestinians than Arabs have, even to the point of providing weapons to Palestinian police in the past, who of course have used them against Israeli citizens. It wasn't Israel who called an official halt to the ceasefire.......

[Dash-Ate]

Israel is the #1 cause of war in this world. Do you think the mossad goes around planting flowers?NO they operate in secret and set off bombs to cause wars.


Proof of israeli terror upon civillians.

BBC: Israel bombs university in Gaza

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7802515.stm

[Rudderless]

There were wars in the middle east before Israel existed. If Israel was left alone, it would leave everyone else alone. It has the right to vigorously defend itself. If Hamas purposely sets up its posts in civilian areas and those areas get hit, Hamas is responsible for what happens. They do it as a PR thing. They are NOT nice people.

Gaza is ruled by militant Hamas (btw no Arab state officially recognizes them as leader). Hamas has isolated Gaza from the rest of the world and is using it as a terrorist base of operations. Does anyone think they are just trying to improve the lives of the Palestinians??? Ha. Not. They are making life miserable for the residents of Gaza. They are targeting and bombing and killing Christians. Should we sit back and let that happen as well? These Hamas terrorists get trained in Iran They are not the least bit interested in peace, period. Whose side are we on? The only mid eastern democracy in existence, or the terrorist organization bent on annihilating a society, and who knows what else? Do you think anyone in Hamas has any respect or use for us here in North America? No, they do not. Stop feeling sorry for them and the people that support and help them. Anyone remember Sept 11, 2001, same mindset, boys and girls.

[beaverbob]

The situation in Isreal is very complicated. Isreal is the original homeland of the Jewish people. All that happened in 1948 when Isreal as a nation was formed was that the Jewish people finally, after about 2000 years, took some of their land back. The hatred of the Jew goes back to a time when the first Jew and the first Arab (brothers) were born and developed a hatred for each other. The english speaking people of the world are, for the most part, descendents of the ancient Isrealites. Yes friends, like it or not, we are all the descendents of the original Isrealites.
This is history, and I doubt we on Avcanada can change it.
Bob

[grimey]

The situation in Isreal is very complicated. Isreal is the original homeland of the Jewish people.

And before that it was someone else's homeland. And I don't see how it's the Jewish people's original homeland if they migrated there and took much of it by force.

The english speaking people of the world are, for the most part, descendents of the ancient Isrealites. Yes friends, like it or not, we are all the descendents of the original Isrealites.
This is history, and I doubt we on Avcanada can change it.

What exactly are you basing that on?

[niss]

Last time I checked, the Israelis elected their government. So yes. Are you trying to tell me the 300 lives lost yesterday were justifiable in response to Hamas??? Can you even see the hypocrisy in your statement?

I think it was exactly what hamas deserved. Hamas was elected by the palestinians remember? They took over gaza in a bloody coup and are the de facto government of the gazans. They were warned to stop but they didn't, now they suffer the reprocussions.

15 out of almost 300 were civilians, the rest were hamas militants and policeman. I think Israel did a very good job at keeping civilian casualties down and this is exactly what they deserved.

230 people who where going about there daily lives with family, people who might never think to pick up a weapon just trying to get by like you or I are dead.

Rethink this one, the great majority of the dead are Hamas members, militants and policeman. Their daily lives consisted of arranging attacks against Israel. The IAF did a great job of keeping the civilian casualties low on this one.

Even Abu Mazen is saying that Hamas could have easily stopped this from happening.

[Rudderless]

Even the real Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas is quoted as blaming Hamas for the violence. From the horse`s mouth.

[bob sacamano]

The number of victims of the israeli terrorism has increased to 301 and the wounded to 800.

Reuters.

[Inverted2]

What would ceiling cat have to say to all this nonsense?

[bob sacamano]

A documentary worth watching if you're bored.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... ocumentary