Israel Never Learns, So Much for Victory in Gaza

What Larry says:

But two things need to happen. Emplacement of international observers empowered to investigate and apprehend anyone who fires a rocket/mortar form (sic) Gaza coupled with the complete lifting of the economic embargo of Gaza.

What Hamas says:

Osama Hamdan, a Hamas representative in Lebanon close to the group’s leadership in Syria, told Al-Jazeera television…”“The idea of an international force is rejected and such forces which will come to Gaza to protect Israel will be dealt with as enemy forces.“

The stalemate thus continues. Recognition by Hamas of Israel’s right to exist and it’s people to even live, let alone live in peace, is as antithetical to Hamas as would be to the U.S. repudiating the Bill of Rights just to appease al Qaeda.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090107/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_palestinians

Thank You Larry.
War is not the answer——-on this particular issue, it has never been and never will be the answer.

Israel’s actions in Gaza were doomed to failure.

Your plan sounds like a workable solution — with the ability to pin point the location of the launched missiles — focus on that.

Israeli civilians need to be safe and secure — as do the Palestinians.

I personally don’t want to see any more photos of dead children — nor hear of deliberate head shots to Palestinian children by Israeli soldiers.

However, most of us know that this solution is a band-aid. These two can’t stop the hate on their own.

Some highlights from the Hamas Charter that people seem to ignore…

The principles of the Hamas are stated in their Covenant or Charter, given in full below. Following are highlights.

“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”

“The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. ”

“There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.”

“After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying.”

“Some highlights from the Hamas Charter that people seem to ignore…”

No…people aren’t ignoring it. They are ignoring your constant bleating that Hamas=Palestinians.

When you get that inserted in your narrative, you’ll be in the real world again.

You have seen over and over that people consider Hamas a problem, the problem.

But when they stand up for the rest of the Palestinians, you go apeshit to fuse it all back together again to fit your hateful little narrative against Palestinians.

Maybe the stalemate continues on the right of Israel to exist, Benny. But this common sense approach, or somnething similar, would at least help to defuse the situation and to cut down on some of the fighting and blood shed.

The entire Middle East could use a little common sense right now. C .E. Stowe, son of Harriet Beecher Stowe, said it best: “Common sense is the knack of seeing things as they are, and doing things as they ought to be done.” I think that sums of Larry’s idea.

sums up Larry’s idea, not sums of…

Keyboard problems again today.

Larry, your idea sounds reasonable. Whether the parties involved or the world at large has the will to make it work is anyone’s guess. But at the very least, it will give both sides time to ratchet down and cool off before other outside crazies decide to join the battle.

The present situation cannot continue indefinitely, and I agree that with an enemy woven within the indigenous population, killing the fanatics, only creates more dead civilians and thus more fanatics. It’s an endless spiral.

I like the idea of pouring economic features, investments and stabilizers into Gaza, giving the Palestinian’s themselves a reason to live and prosper.

It’s human nature, I think. If you have nothing to lose economically, no hope of anything better, then throwing it all to the wind in these convulsions of rage and frustration becomes far easier. But once you have a stake in a real community, one that’s truly thriving, you’re much less likely to risk it all.

Unfortunately, I don’t think thriving, supportive communities are in the jihadist’s best interest.

But it’s certainly worth giving it a chance, even if the odds aren’t great.

I thik Israel is doing the right thing. WHile War is not the answer, you have to use force to get rid of the rocket attacls that were hitting Israel cities. Israel ignored those rocket attacks for sevral years. Now she must defend hersel.

As far as the Palestinians, I have zero tolerance for any leaders who would hide behind women and children. Store weapons in hospitals as use the most vulnerable of its citizens as human sheilds. They are cowards.

The media can tells us how many Palestians have died by Israeli bombs but yet there is a war going on for over 5 years and the media refused to report on it. They claim the controversy is too complicated.

A war where over 5 million people have died since 2001. WHat war is that? The war in the Congo.

Why does everyone think Israel should back down? I see nothing wrong with ANY country defending itself from rocket attacks, and better than 5000 rockets have flown from Gaza.

When has a UN Peace Force?Inspectors ever done anything? The UN is being run by the 57 Islamic states, and regardless of the topic, I know which side they will ALWAYS side with.

There can be no Palastinian state until the Plaestinians can control their own people, polkice themselves, and act like a country should act, repsecting its neighbors and all.

If Israel has to clean out the Gaza strip to end the rocket BS, sop be it.

Does anyone here want rockets lobbed into their back yard? I thought not.

How about Israel honoring these cease fire agreements? On November 4th, Israel killed 6 Palestinians in a Gaza raid in a preemptive strike. The Hamas rocket attacks followed.

Stop treating your neighbors like shit and maybe this shit wouldn’t happen to them. Israel is to blame.

Israel is clearly the aggressor. The Hamas rocket attacks followed from Israel breaking from the cease fire agreement by killing 6 Palestinians in Gaza on Nov. 4. They are NOT acting in self-defense.

Larry and Susan: Are you reading the trash she posts to other site-readers?

She’s really waaaaaay over the edge in her emotional frenzy.

Correct, James.

Hamas had honored the ceasefire until those 6 Palestinians were killed; only then did the rockets begin again.

Not to mention, that Israel never opened the border crossings, as they has assured Egypt they would.

There are crazies on both sides

First the Hamas crazies:

“The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up.”

Now the Israeli crazies:

“It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism, colonialisation, or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands.” Ariel Sharon

Both quotes above are mild compared to what both sides have said their intentions are.

That is why this situation needs an outside intervention. The USA currently is not being even handed and is perceived as such.

No, you are obsessed with me. I merely posted the opening of the Hamas Charter, in response to what the poster ABOVE me posted about what HAMAS SAID…It was really calm, simple and not offensive. Then I got accused of saying the words “I hate Palestinians” which I have never said. You follow me around too and it’s really kind of scary, although as we have seen on other threads, most people respond to you that you don’t know your facts about this situation. You can cry to Larry all you want. But yesterday someone accused HIM of something HE didn’t do and he responded rather forcefully as well. I will not tolerate anyone here misquoting me. And you creep me out.

Mary, Mary, quite Contrary,
How did your brainstem grow?
Not by much,
Filled with dung and such,
After all, there’s so little to know…

Facilis descensus Averno;
Noctes atque dies patet atri ianua Ditis;
Sed revocare gradum superasque evadere ad auras,
Hoc opus, hic labor est.

Smooth is the descent, the way down below;
Day and night the gates of Hell stand wide open;
But to retrace your steps, and return to clear skies:
This is the task, this is the real work.

Vergil, Aeneid

Many thanks Jesse!

http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/

Zeke,

You’re a POET too? Wow. Way to GO on the multi-tasking LMFAO.

That wasn’t a pre-emptive strike, but a strike on a huge tunnel along the border with Egypt that was being used to smuggle large Grad rockets into Gaza.

pd: With all due respect, you are completely clueless on this issue if you would even attempt to make such an argument. Israel isn’t “defending” itself; this is a political tactic designed to silence the incoming US president. In other words, this was all just a threat to Barack Obama, along with a political ploy to get votes in the upcoming election in Israel. Meanwhile, more than 500 Palestinians have died in a massive slaughter, including more than 200 children and 100 women.

Israel broke the ceasefire. Israel has violated international law; Israel has used depleted uranium and phosphorous against civilians in an urban attack in Gaza. Israel has defied international law, banning the ICRC [International Committee for the Red Cross], banned foreign journalists, and bombed a fully identified UN safe zone, identified to Israeli military as a school where civilians were located. During the Lebanon attack, Israel also bombed a fully identified UN observer point and killed 4 UN observers. Israel has committed war crimes in this operation, and the only reason Israel is not held accountable is because the US vetoes international condemnation each time it is brought up in the UNSC. This has occurred more than 60 times. The world seeks to condemn Israeli actions in the Territories; the US prevents that condemnation.

The United States government is responsible for genocide and ethnic cleansing via their policy in the Middle East. It is no wonder we were attacked on 9/11.

How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe

Oxford professor of international relations Avi Shlaim served in the Israeli army and has never questioned the state’s legitimacy. But its merciless assault on Gaza has led him to devastating conclusions

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine

I loved the quote Bert!
May I ask if you believe it possible to achieve this desirable end when one side says it will never rest until the other is dead?
The Palestinians and Radical Islam in general truly want all Israelis and all Jews worldwide, dead. And since it has historically been the province of the USA to be the only other country in the world to, so far, “Never Forget,” we are in their sights too.
A crude but appropriate analogy is the old saying of “Why don’t men lick their own scrotums like dogs do? Because they can’t.”
Why doesn’t Radical Islam annihilate Israel and the United States of America?
Because they can’t… yet

pd:

Israel isn’t “defending” itself; this is a political tactic designed to silence the incoming US president. In other words, this was all just a threat to Barack Obama, along with a political ploy to get votes in the upcoming election in Israel. Meanwhile, more than 500 Palestinians have died in a massive slaughter, including more than 200 children and 100 women.

Israel broke the ceasefire. Israel has violated international law; Israel has used depleted uranium and phosphorous against civilians in an urban attack in Gaza. Israel has defied international law, banning the ICRC [International Committee for the Red Cross], banned foreign journalists, and bombed a fully identified UN safe zone, identified to Israeli military as a school where civilians were located. During the Lebanon attack, Israel also bombed a fully identified UN observer point and killed 4 UN observers. Israel has committed war crimes in this operation, and the only reason Israel is not held accountable is because the US vetoes international condemnation each time it is brought up in the UNSC. This has occurred more than 60 times. The world seeks to condemn Israeli actions in the Territories; the US prevents that condemnation.

The United States government is responsible for genocide and ethnic cleansing via their policy in the Middle East. It is no wonder we were attacked on 9/11.

How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe

Oxford professor of international relations Avi Shlaim served in the Israeli army and has never questioned the state’s legitimacy. But its merciless assault on Gaza has led him to devastating conclusions

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine

Israel broke the ceasefire. Israel has violated international law; Israel has used depleted uranium and phosphorous against civilians in an urban attack in Gaza. Israel has defied international law, banning the ICRC [International Committee for the Red Cross], banned foreign journalists, and bombed a fully identified UN safe zone, identified to Israeli military as a school where civilians were located. During the Lebanon attack, Israel also bombed a fully identified UN observer point and killed 4 UN observers. Israel has committed war crimes in this operation, and the only reason Israel is not held accountable is because the US vetoes international condemnation each time it is brought up in the UNSC. This has occurred more than 60 times. The world seeks to condemn Israeli actions in the Territories; the US prevents that condemnation.

The United States government is responsible for genocide and ethnic cleansing via their policy in the Middle East. It is no wonder we were attacked on 9/11.

How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe

Oxford professor of international relations Avi Shlaim served in the Israeli army and has never questioned the state’s legitimacy. But its merciless assault on Gaza has led him to devastating conclusions

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine

And no matter how long or how loud Israel insists that it does not intend to kill children, women, and other non-combatants, the reality of the modern media world is that a picture or a film clip outweighs anything a government spokesman or woman can say.

On GMA it was said 25% of the fatalities were children.

I’m not sure the goal, unless it was decreased support for Israel.

As I’ve recently posted here, Larry and Co. are educating me on the Middle East. Whew.

Where I grew up there weren’t many trees
Where there was we’d tear them down
And use them on our enemies
They say that what you mock
Will surely overtake you
And you become a monster
So the monster will not break you

–Bono

Makes me think of certain Israelis, and the Holocaust, especially the last two lines.

The trauma must have been unimaginable, to the survivors.

May I ask if you believe it possible to achieve this desirable end when one side says it will never rest until the other is dead?

No matter what Hamas says or does, Israel will DIE by its own hand if it does not move away from the neocons and their methodolgy.

In asymmetric war, which this is, the smaller power wars against a better armed enemy by BAITING him into military action, then launching a guerilla war, with or without an occupation, death by a thousand cuts, perhaps over a number of years.

For instance, Russia does not have a military as well equipped as the US, does not have our resources. But it knows if it baits a guy like Cheney into a guerilla war, it can weaken the US over time, thowing our economy and the domestic population into chaos, much like the US did to the USSR, in Afghanistan.

Israel is following the same military model as the USSR, essentially, and it WILL suffer the same fate.

The idea is to develop solutions to defeat the violence, without succumbing to the violence.

Zeke – in answer to your question – no. But because I can see, admit, and face reality doesn’t mean I think we should give up trying. I also believe you don’t go for the whole enchilada right from the start. First let’s try and stop the bloodshed. And I thought Larry’s idea was good. And I am sure others have other good ideas. But let’s try to get something going. Even if we only stop 50% of the bloodshed, that’s a start. Then, maybe someone will come along and try to reduce that in half. And so it goes.

In asymmetric war, which this is, the smaller power wars against a better armed enemy by BAITING him into military action

Asymmetric war is waged not only militarily but also economically and politically, sorry.

Until you internalize the simple fact that Hamas was Overwhelmingly elected to power on the platform of Israel’s destruction, you’ll never figure this out.
My feeling about this is that if you do something which you know is malicious and also know that if you do it, you will get the crap knocked out of you and so will your wife and kids, that perhaps you might open your soon-to-be-dead-otherwise mind to some less destructive means of achieving your ends.
This is logical and do-able if you desire a peaceful solution. It has always been in Israel’s best interest for the Gazans and West Bankers to be happy and successful.
It is, in theory, something that is in both sides’ best interest. The problem comes from the simple fact that the things that the Palestinians believe religiously are 100% incompatible with the reality of the nation of Israel.
Until Islam worldwide, abandons its insane hatred of all things Jewish and most things American, there will be no peace. Israel will fight and she will do only one of two things afterward… she will either win or she will TIE.
And then there will be no more game…
A quick refresher:
Radical Islam attacked us on 9/11
Radical Islam is firing rockets into Israel
Radical Islam is mutilating young girls every day and killing them because some man touched them.
Radical Islam has no moral merit
What is happening is a lesson in cause and effect
You, who condemn Israel are perforce siding with people who, through their own insanity, are happily letting women and children die for THEIR cause.
When one exposes innocents to combat intentionally, they are the bad guys.
I know how hard this is for a people who, in America, have been fed this pablum that there is good in all people. It is an illusion.
Hamas, elected by the people who are letting their kids play in the street while there is shelling going on, embraces evil and thrives on it.
What has hurt America more than anything during the past eight years has been the fact that our government crossed over and endorsed torture.
Show of hands, who thinks torture is evil? Good, everyone. Now, since torture is a child of the mindset of evil and is universally despised, (in theory) we must, as a nation demand of our leaders that they not do it.
We can agree on that much, right?
So, given that we, as a nation have now solemnly sworn to stand against torture, we are also legally choosing sides in any conflict which has one side basing its philosophy on Evil, something we have stated beyond certitude we are against!
Evil enjoys causing harm to innocents. Evil enjoys making its enemy appear like itself.
Evil is demanding the genocide of Israel and America.
What is siding with that evil other than enablement?

Hamas can’t destroy Israel.

Someone needs to act like a grownup and make the first move. With the overwhelming firepower and US support they’ve enjoyed, this role could easily be played by the Israeli side. Instead of sending tanks, how about engineers to start rebuilding the destroyed infrastruicture. Along with negotiations to give Joe Palestine the idea that he has some reason to reject the Hamas solution.

Both sides claim to want peace, but neither has the balls to be a big boy and be constuctive. How about a place for M. Barghouti (sp?) in this? Refusing to talk to the other is at the root of this dilemma. Like it or not, the citizens of Gaza DID elect Hamas to be their government. Israeli bombs can’t change that, and as long as the occupation goes on this way, there is little hope of replacing them.

Obama’s refusal to comment meaningfully on this situation does not bode well, IMO. Since Bush seems more interested in his new china, perhaps Hillary could make a couple of calls and get the ball rolling.

“Until you internalize the simple fact that Hamas was Overwhelmingly elected to power on the platform of Israel’s destruction, you’ll never figure this out.”

You mean until I simply accept this falsehood.
Hamas won because of proportional representation. They only had a few thousand more votes than Fatah. And the total votes for candidates other than Hamas was greater than the votes for Hamas.

Your comment about “overwhelming” is false.

Exactly!

With the overwhelming firepower and US support they’ve enjoyed, this role could easily be played by the Israeli side. Instead of sending tanks, how about engineers to start rebuilding the destroyed infrastruicture. Along with negotiations to give Joe Palestine the idea that he has some reason to reject the Hamas solution.

Problem is, countries like Iran do fund terrorism, in part against Israel, and will continue to do so, a stable Palestine not necessarily in the equation. Look how they treat their own. And Israel can be used as a proxy v the US.

Again, solutions have to be worked out where Israel, (and the US) can protect itself, while also disarming the terrorist groups, and those who would use them as a proxy military.

(And certainly, that involves the world players, such as Russia, who, in part, support Iran financially, and the world neocons, who have probelms of their own. Rights to mid east oil also enter the equation, as of now, energy helps determine the balance of power. This in part brings to mind the totality of Putin’s actions, with Russia, toward Europe, and even the US.)

Terrorism, in their heads, is good business, short term, and they never worry about the future, or are unable to understand the greater ramifications.

is there any limit to the killing? is there any number of dead that either side will say…’that’s enough’ or does each side just chaulk it up to collateral damage and faceless, invisible beings that do not count as human…they need an intervention that requires everyone to use their heads…and not the same old heads that just keep repeating the vicious cycle on both sides and same old excuses…with more and more weapons…and leaders that keep bragging about how many they killed…it is sick..

imagine if a fraction of the money spent on weapons on both sides was dedicated towards education, clean living envioronments, schools, hospitals, jobs…attempts at mutual understanding…for both sides…

what has all this repeated killing on both sides accomplished…hate, death and more hate…

my hope is that Obama and Hillary come into power and say “Enough is enough…both sides will be accountable and both sides will have to make concessions toward peaceful co-existence…neither side has the high ground…two wrongs do not make a right…let’s try another way…let’s put the weapons aside and try using our brains as thinking people…require each side to listen to what the other side is saying…some balance…give and take…not all one sided…one way…

I know, naive…easier said than done…but it is a new century…a time of change…they need a new way to interact besides killing each other

frankly when I look at the map and see how small Gaza is…I cannot believe what is going on over this small area…this is crazy…work it out, people…work it out…

This is very sweet and gives me tingles up my frikken leg. Is that Jesse Colin Young singing in the background?
All we are sayyyying…. is give peace a chance
Lets just roll over and give up right now.
Why not? You guys are busy little beavers trying to find some frikken silver lining to the philosophy of genocidal hatred which is endemic to all of Radical Islam and trying to fit all that diseased shit into a tiny, little palatable pill and call it peace.
Peace is a two sided coin.
There is little hope for a cease fire due to your own excuses for why the Palestinians aren’t at fault, that being that a small cadre is really the one behind this.

Let me ask this one,
What would happen if the people of Palestine who all have guns, just decided to shoot the next sonofabitch with a rocket in his hand and bring both his carcass and the rocket to the border?
My supposition would be that “pay to play” would have new meaning. No matter how you want to assign blame, the source lies with a populace who cannot see their own best interests lie in stopping this “small bunch of terrorists” from exposing them to such danger.
If the truth were really told, the Palestinians and Israelis are sharing a common enemy: Hamas.
Palestinians are sadly becoming a group who is happiest when they are in the deepest shit.
I do know that if I were forced to live in Gaza that not one sonofabitch would shoot a rocket from my roof or any other nearby roof that I could reach with my rifle.
If your society is so f’d up that it believes exposing you and your family to danger is OK, then it comes down to you to protect your own family. This is law of the jungle stuff here, people and crosses all boundaries.
Most fathers and husbands believe this: DO NOT MESS WITH MINE! Hell, even Obama used that line and everybody backed off Michelle.
What makes this any different? If bank robbers were on the loose and shooting it out with cops while exposing your family to police fire and you were armed, would you Hope things Changed?

But it won’t quit trying even knowing that…

This is very sweet and gives me tingles up my frikken leg. Is that Jesse Colin Young singing in the background?
All we are sayyyying…. is give peace a chance

That’s not what I said.

You either misunderstood, or are not capable of understanding. Perhaps you are so entrenched in your POV, you can no longer function, rationally. Those who do not recognize the tactic lose the war, whether it’s the IDF, or Cheney’s Pentagon.

Scary, isn’t it?

And this is why the Israeli neocons will fail.

Good luck.

So, out of all of my above statements, you two pounce on the one about Hamas wanting Israel dead.
You don’t deny siding with them is enablement.
And, oddly enough, you don’t deny that Radical Islam is the source of this.
Hamas, at this time is an action arm of the Radical Muslim movement, the one I described as being against both us and Israel. They are merely a tentacle of a larger beast. What you want to see is Israel allowing this gigantic beast to whack it anytime it wants as long as it is with just the one tentacle. And your argument is that since it only hurts to be whacked with said tentacle and that it isn’t fatal that it is wrong to amputate the tentacle.
Hmmmm

See, that shit about why Israeli neocons will fail is all a bunch of bullshit.
Israel is not going to fail. You may blahblahblah all you want about their tactics, (which, in the main, you are more vapid about than the dung you think is right) but they aren’t going to fail.
They will piss off the whole world with this but it won’t stop them.
Israel has the military might in both armament and men to scrape Gaza to bedrock if they have to.
They tried to do this as humanely as possible but here’s the biggest rub.
No nation on earth has to sit idly by while being bombarded from across a border. The party on the side which is firing the rockets is responsible for what goes on under its rule. When that side elects to expose its citizens to peril and doesn’t care, it ceases to be representative and is eligible for civil war under international guidelines.
Would the Palestinians accept military assistance to eradicate enemies of their people, i.e: Hamas, from the UN?
After all, its Hamas who is supposedly the group you all say is barely in charge there. I mean nobody in Palestine really hates the Jews do they, I mean, like man, how uncool would that be?
KumByYah, BayBay

word, zeke.

Well it’s like this Israel need to deal with hamas by any and all means possible with out outside interferance. War is a horrible thing by it is war and casulties will compile even in the civilian area. Israel didn’t start this war but I sure hope they finish it and put and end to hamas and all other terrorist groups

Israel has tried do your home work if someone dropped 6000 bombs in your back yard would say ohhh stop it or would you do something about it gerk

your an asshole 6000 bombs dropped on Israel soil this year alone if just one landed here do you thik we would look for a peaceful solution I’d shoot the fu–er that dropped it dick

I also didn’t deny being Magic Johnson, or having the Royal Crown Jewels.

Do I have to spend my night denying things that you are concerned with? That is a bit ridiculous.

“What you want to see is Israel allowing this gigantic beast to whack”

See, you’re problem Zeke, is you’re so busy trying to assert things on people, you have no honesty to this conversation.

“And your argument is that since it only hurts to be whacked with said tentacle and that it isn’t fatal that it is wrong to amputate the tentacle.”

Nope, never made that argument. You are confusing yourself again. Pay attention.

Here’s what’s funny…You say Hamas wants to destroy Israel, and I agree. Someone says, Hamas can’t destroy Israel, and I agree…and yet…you want to insert more denials instead of acknowledging agreement.

You aren’t doing so well at keeping up with what people are saying, and you might want to back off your projection stuff.

what percentage of the palestinian people’s support would Hamas have to have before they could be considered at least a little bit representative of the people? i think that if Hamas has got 51+% support, one can hardly act like they don’t have anything whatsoever to do with the will of the average palestinian.

no…the question is,…what is the threshold for you to decide to use the subjective term, “overwhelming”.

and they won 44% to Fatah’s 41.9 percent…

If it were in Minnesota, they’d be in an automatic runoff.

“will of the average palestinian”
NBNW, we went over this before…you say average all the time, yet told me you base your sense of average on internet posts and such.

I really don’t like discounting you, and I thought we were getting pretty real with each other the other day. I hope we don’t have to say it was a waste.

I’d like to know why you think out of 1.3 million voters, 440,000 is overwhelming, when 550,000 voted another way? (divided between Fatah and others)

So please explain to me, seriously, now if…out of 1.3 million voters…less than 1/3 of them voted for Hamas, and you say, “overwhelming” support. Please.

and, I’m done calling you a bigot or any such thing because people are dying and I would like to know where you get the idea that Hamas has “overwhelming” support with these numbers.

Exactly, I haven’t accepted Larry’s coverage of this story, because is a terrorist organization. End of story. Hamas and Hezbollah are Islamic Extremists.

One more thing, you have used terms that contradict, “overwhelming”, your earlier premise.

How do we go from “overwhelming” support to:
“at least a little bit representative of the people”? and
“one can hardly act like they don’t have anything whatsoever to do with the will of the average Palestinian”.

All or nothing? There’s a pretty big difference in my mind between “overwhelming” and “a little bit”, then to the completely reduced, “don’t have anything whatsoever to do with”.

It seems you’re trying to cast that net as wide as possible to make Hamas=All Palestinians, no matter what facts are available.

440,000 out of 1.3Mil for Hamas. 550,000 who voted other than Hamas…not the majority of voters even. A majority would be 550,000 over 440,000.

To me, an overwhelming support in US politics would be a victory of say…55% or so. Above half plus some. Again, in US politics if you earn less than 45 percent of the vote your “mandate” is questioned.

Did we forget how quickly people skewered presidents who thought they had a mandate when they won less than half the vote?
So why is Hamas so different?

They have a different system, but the percentages didn’t change.
110,00 more people voted for someone other than Hamas.

“Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them. There is almost no kind of outrage—–torture, imprisonment without trial, assassination, the bombing of civilians—–which does not change its moral color when it is committed by ‘our’ side. The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.” —–George Orwell

Digging For The Dead

Israeli Attack on 4-storey Building in Gaza Kills 25

3 Minute Raw Video

Israeli F-16 planes hit a 4-storey apartment building belonging to civilians in Gaza on Tuesday. While the building was razed to the ground, 25 people were killed in the building.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21678.htm

===

The lying silence of those who know

By John Pilger

When the truth is replaced by silence,” the Soviet dissident Yevgeny Yevtushenko said, “the silence is a lie.” It may appear the silence is broken on Gaza. The cocoons of murdered children, wrapped in green, together with boxes containing their dismembered parents and the cries of grief and rage of everyone in that death camp by the sea, can be viewed on al-Jazeera and YouTube, even glimpsed on the BBC.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21680.htm

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The Courage To Resist: Woman Faces Down Armed Israeli Soldiers.

Please watch this 2 minute video

53 seconds into the video an unknown woman stands in front of Israeli soldiers and prevents them from firing on unarmed protesters.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21676.htm

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Why Do They Hate The West So Much, We Will Ask

By Robert Fisk

So once again, Israel has opened the gates of hell to the Palestinians. Forty civilian refugees dead in a United Nations school, three more in another. Not bad for a night’s work in Gaza by the army that believes in “purity of arms”. But why should we be surprised?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21675.htm

700 dead – mostly civilians, inc women and children versus about 14 soldiers seems pretty heavy handed to me…

as was said…like an eye for an eyelash…

name callers like you are part of the problem…cannot manage their own anger, let alone try to understand there are two sides to every story…

does israel have any responsibility at all in this war or do you blame the other side for everything…if so, you are part of the problem, not the solution…