Okay, soz...

My point is please don't assume we're all on the same wordy level as to understand your superior knowledge; just because it gets really too intellectually high-brow, middle-class and ultimately despairin, that dosn't make all us Spackmonkeys any less revelent than you.

I thought revolution is all about the masses, not about the prolix warblings of those must ultimately be conceived as utter turdmunchers.

Please be more clear when you prattle your prattlings.

Wurd X

Thinkov

No, I wasn't referring to punctuation. It's more that you can barely write English and you are so busy ranting that you evidently don't have time to think about the issues and put down a coherent argument on paper. I think people like you (on both sides, Israelis as well as Palestinians) are the major part of the problem. Angry, intolerant, inflexible and unwilling to listen to any viewpoint that isn't their own. Looking at most of the posters on this site, I clearly made a mistake thinking this might be somewhere for rational debate. Perhaps Mehdi's debating style and general rhetoric might have something to do with that.

I'd love to wait and see if Lorna finds a way to B.S. her way through defending collective punishment, but while I'm still young:

By blocking entry of food, medicine and construction supplies (so badly needed after the Israeli blitz of Gaza), Israel hopes to make Hamas's task of governing Gaza impossible. And if there is no Palestinian leadership (Hamas can't govern, Fatah doesn't have an electoral mandate), the Palestinians can't come to the table to talk. So Israel can stall the "peace process" whilst cementing its tentacular grip over Palestinian land.

@brydoolittle. If you are too thick to understand the basic structure of the English language it is not my fault.

Plus if you don't know what BICOM or ADL is you should stick to looking up "pretty girlz" you ignorant tw*t!

No one seems to be addressing my points above.

1. Hamas a bunch of phycotic fundamentalist lunatics - also the Western meejaliberals all seem to have ignored the fact that they took over in gaza mainly by murdering large numbers of Fatah people in a vicious internecine war which all good western lefties just ignore ( I dunno, maybe the folks in gaza would be worse off under Fatah - whatever you say about Hmas, at least they aint corrrupt: if fatah were running the place, most of the aid money would end up being spent by their wives at Harrods.

sorry bout that digression.....

2. Hamas are basically owned by Iran: Iran wants to wipe Israel off the map, AND THIS IS NOT RHETORIC

3. Iran are not far off getting the bomb.

4. Hamas get most of their arms sent to em by Iran

5. If Hamas had nuclear tech and means to deliver it, Israel would cease to exist that week.

THE ONLY WAY ISRAEL CAN LIFT SIEGE IS WHEN REPUBLICANS WIN NEXT US ELECTION AND BOMB IRANIAN NUCLEAR FACILITIES

Until then we are stuck with the blockade.

Anyway these Turks have all got their 77 virgins now so whats the problem?

Simon
I'm predicting that Zionism is sowing the seeds of it's own destruction,and you know it

smears are cheap

John Cronin

''Anyway these Turks have all got their 77 virgins now so whats the problem?''

Very witty, sadly John the New Statesman is full of anti semitic BNP voters and Holocaust deniers, sad but true.

Kenisnotthemayor

As far as I can remember, the Prodigal Son was loved by his father, given lots of money which he blew in a self-indulgent spree before being welcomed home by a kind and forgiving parent. An interesting comparison with the experience of Jews in Europe. Persecuted for centuries. Encouraged by Britain and other countries to create a homeland in the Middle East as a way to get rid of them and then systematically killed by the Nazis (with the enthusiastic help of the French, Swiss, Italians and others)to the point of successful genocide. How exactly is that like the Prodigal Son? If you were Jewish, would you fancy coming back to a continent with a long and undistinguished history of anti-semitism? A tradition which is alive and kicking, looking to many of the posts on this blog and lots of others.

Dave squeels

''LIKE TO KNOW HOW TO VOICE YOUR SUPPORT FOR THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE?''

Nah.

Simon Jones

Correct.

The muslims are intolerant, arrogant, not very bright, bar room brawlers and shit stirrers.

Simon Jones:
PLEEAASE!!! Do not attempt to play the anti Semitism card as soon as Israel is criticised on this site. I read all the comments and I can't find one serious one which strikes me as anti Semitic.
Your fake or real paranoia is disingenuous and sickening and is meant to stop any debate about Israel's actions. Enough of that!

Daniele

It is hard to see how Simon Jones is trying to shut down debate. I am sure that there are lots of people who criticise Israel or Zionism who are not anti-semitic, but there are many who are both. As for it being paranoid, it is not as if we in Europe have a history of anti-semitism, is it? As for not seeing any anti-semitism on this blog, I suppose that the posts of Baig and Thinkov, for example, strike you as reasoned contributions to the debate.

You don't appear to have made any contribution except to tell someone else what he should or shouldn't say.

Neither Simon Jones, nor I, said that all critics of Israel are anti-semitic - that would be rather silly. But my view is that that many are. If you don't like that view, then you are free to disagree but it is people like you who seem to be trying to shut down the debate.

Perhaps you should read your post again. Or read Lou's, who thinks that to raise the issue of anti-semitism is to say that all critics of Israel are anti-semitic. Or perhaps Kenisnotthemayor, who thinks that we should have "an orderly evacuation of jews from Israel" Now, where have I heard that sort of language before?

Simon Jones:
Read my post again. I did not describe YOU as sickening, only your and many other "friends" of Israel 's PARANOIA.
Yes the persecution of Jews in Europe was terrible, nobody denies that but you can't go on labelling any one who disagree with the Israel's regime as anti-Semitic. It will not wash. It is a cop out and IS an attempt to shut up any opponent of Israel's policy as to how to deal with the Palestinian problem.
As to my lack of contribution to the debate, I did contribute countless times to this issue on this site but I am tired of talking to people like you whose only response is to shout: anti-Semitism.There is no point to try to argue reasonable points with people who think your only motivation comes from the hate of Jews. I haven't a racist bone in my body and I am fed up with people who assume I am a racist because I happen to disagree with them.
You say you are not Jewish. How can you defend the indefensible then?

Nick Wilde,
Re 'Lou who thinks that to raise the issue of anti semitism is to say that all critics of Israel are anti semitic'
That is your interpretation of my comment and NOT what I was saying which was -
"There's a distinct difference between the Jewish people and the Zionist state. To cast anyone who points the finger at the Israeli state as antisemitic is just lack of argument on the part of the accuser"

I was answering the charge that any of us who make criticisms of the Israeli Government are then called anti semites on this site. The two are distinctly separate. A critic of the Israeli Government is just that, a critic - whereas an anti semite is one who is critical of the Jewish race.
I am not critical of the Jewish people, I would neve criticise the Jewish people. I have a problem with the Government of their people.
Get your facts right Nick before making spurious comments.

"I am genuinely disturbed by the western lefts obsession with Israel: "

You can turn the whole think around and say what's the western right's obsession (likes of Melanie Phillips) with SUPPORTING Israel both emotionally in the case of USA and financially and claiming it is absolutely essential for the west. If there really care about Islamic extremism why not send billions of dollars in arms to Russia/ China/ India, Thailand who have also have Islamists. I bet if those countries ever put a giant wall around their muslim communities and blockading they would be calling them savage and not congratulating thm

My viewpoint in supporting Israel in a way we don't any other state (yeah we sell them weapons but no military "aid" actually decreases out security and doesn't benefit us at all.

I suppose its a chicken and egg what came first, the rights support for Israel or the lefts support for the Palestinians. I don't think its anything at all to do with antisemitism however

And it's the people shouting anti semite at every detractor of the Israeli Government who shut down the debate, not the likes of Daniele and myself.

As for your evidence that many of those expressing anti Zionist comments are really anti semitic - where's your evidence for that?
Mind reader are you now? Psychic? Do not make judgements based on no knowledge of the individual.

I criticise Mugabe's Government too, amongst many, am I therefore a racist because I do that? I ctiticisd the Bush Government, did that make me anti American?

I rest my case.

Lou

I have to concede that your original post refers to people who attack any criticism (at all) of Israel as anti-semitic. And I agree that those people are either stupid or ill intentioned.

If we are talking of semantics, though, your earlier post seems to be arguing that the President of Iran isn't - what? Anti-semitic? Anti-zionist? Is he not trying to kick the Jews out of Israel (not just the West Bank, but out of any part of the Middle East) and to establish a muslim sharia state in Palestine? If not, I must have really misunderstood him. If he is, what does that make him and what criticism should we offer of that, when we are not criticising Israel?

Thank you Nick.

The points in my post were all separate points addressing various comments, hence their separation in paragraphs.

My point about Ahmadinejad was made in response to John Cronin saying -"Iran wants to wipe Israel off the map, AND THIS IS NOT RHETORIC"

I was correcting a misleading comment that he was claiming to be fact. The facts as outlined by john cronin are wrong.

For the record I think Ahmadinejad has undermined the will of the Iranian people, committed terrible abuses of human rights, is clearly unbalanced in a lot of his beliefs and I think he uses Palestine as a political tool but actually doesn't give a damn about it's people. The sooner power is no longer his, the better.

Simon Jones:
Your sarcastic tone, your sneering comments and your deliberate attempt at distorting everything I and other people write do not make you worth debating with. I will therefore ignore whatever you write from now on.
Another point no one has mentioned is the fact that the UN and many individual countries such as Britain are now sending an enormous amount of aid to Gaza (no doubt inspected first by the Israelis and a lot of it confiscated) as those people are prisoners and prevented from developing an economy or even rebuilding their houses raised after the bombing.They have nothing and are entirely dependent of the outside world in the form of International aid.Why? because there has been a natural disaster in Gaza? no, because their neighbours are maintaining an illegal siege against them and holding them hostage. That in itself is scandalous.
In effect the world has to waste all these resources on the Palestinians just because the Israelis have decided to inflict a collective punishment on the population.These resources could be used for Haiti or other places in the world where a natural disaster has occurred.
Why is the world paying for Israel's inhuman policy instead of forcing it to respect international law and stop the blockade? Why is the world so soft on Israel and let them get away with it? Other countries have been invaded for less.The answer to my question of course is America is their friend so they can do no wrong.
One last thing: why does everyone seems to accept that those aid boats should be searched in case they are bringing weapons to Gaza? Don't these people have any right to have weapons like the rest of the world? no right to defend themselves, no right to any form of autonomy and self determination? This is while Israel is buying the latest weaponry from America and everywhere and uses it with great enthusiasm on innocent populations. It is also almost certain that they have atomic bombs, but that's all right, they are the good guys, right?

Interesting picee in yesterdays Irish Ind: dunno if will all fit on page....

Kevin Myers: Israel has walked into a well-laid ambush and its government shows every sign of being insane

*
By Kevin Myers

Thursday June 03 2010

WELL, the Israeli commander who authorised the operation against the Gaza flotilla should now be given a job commensurate with his talents: he should be sent as a missionary to Helmand province, where he can promote the new Jewish sect of Nude Nomadism. This will include having sex with various mullahs' teenage daughters outside mosques, then publicly smearing their bodies with pork fat.

Every single feature of the Israeli operation was wrong. I say this as a friend of Israel. There is barely a better way of putting your men in danger than by dropping them slowly, one by one, from helicopters into the waiting arms of Islamicists. And that's what the Turkish-Arab boat largely consisted of.

Whatever the humanitarian motives of the Irish party heading towards Gaza on the 'Rachel Corrie', the overall effect of this mission to Gaza has been to support Hamas.

Did you see the Arab women's headgear on Al Jazeera TV News before the assault? Did you hear what they were singing?

Passengers on the Turkish vessel chanted: "Remember Khairbar, Khaibar, O Jews. The Army of Mohammed will return." This was a reference to the prophet's seizure of a Jewish-held oasis, the last Jewish settlement in Arabia.

Most of the Jews were slaughtered and their leader, Kinana bin al-Rabi, was captured. He was tied down and a fire lit on his chest and, just before death, he was beheaded. His wife was then forcibly 'married' to Mohammed. This is the event that some of the Gaza 'peace mission' -- though obviously, not the Irish -- were celebrating in song.

And no, this doesn't justify anyone being killed. But do you really believe that the Israelis set out to murder people? If so, why did they kill so few?

It's really time to grasp the gravity of what's going on here. Turkey is rapidly departing from the comity of secular states and moving towards Islamicism. Turkey is now closer to Iran than it has ever been since the Shah was overthrown. And Turkey's closest ally in the Arab world is now Syria, which is in a state of permanent war with Israel.

Hamas provides the elected government of Gaza. It is effectively a neo-Nazi movement, whose policy is to kill Israelis.

It demands the destruction of the state of Israel, just like Khaibar was destroyed (though I am not sure whether the forcible marriage of the surviving Jewish widows will form part of the Hamas project).

Most sinister of all, Sunni Hamas is being armed by Shia Iran. That's the reason for the Israeli blockade. Are the Israelis to allow open borders to a state that has fired 8,000 rockets into their towns?

Would you, if you had such a neighbour? For western Europeans to take sides with these forces against Israel constitutes a form of cultural suicide, the equivalent of a peace-convoy to aid the oppressed Germans of the Sudetenland in 1938.

Certainly, Israel has walked wide-eyed into a well-laid ambush. And not surprisingly, for its present government gives every sign of being clinically insane.

It's only weeks since it insulted US Vice President Joe Biden, actually during his visit to Israel, by announcing the construction of more Jewish settlements on the West Bank, in direct contravention of US policy.

Then there was, of course, the shockingly open murder in Dubai of a Hamas official, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh (50), by Mossad, and which involved the cynical use of forged passports of half a dozen 'friendly' countries. And now this flotilla fiasco.

So what bizarre foreign-policy initiatives lie ahead for this deranged Israeli government? We shouldn't be surprised to see it try and cement its relationship with Norway by promoting a Lapland Liberation Front, with Mossad training special suicide reindeer.

Israel's Swedish policy probably hinges on the recent capture of half a dozen vegan lesbian Swedes in Jerusalem, who will be ceremonially garroted live on YouTube. Israel's revised Asian strategy involves acclaiming the Dalai Lama as the head of an independent and sovereign Tibet and recognising Taiwan as the one true voice of China. Meanwhile, Israel is withdrawing its ambassador from Seoul, as it hails North Korea as the sole voice of the Korean people and agrees a bilateral ABCD pact with Pyongyang, covering atomic, biological, chemical and decibel warfare.

And of course, just to show the independent spirit of this current Israel, it is now probably about to throw its weight behind Mexico's territorial claims over Arizona, New Mexico and California, plus Canadian claims over New England and Oregon.

Oh yes -- and can it have its next cheque from Washington a little bit earlier this year, please?

Governments come and go in Israel. But in Gaza, Hamas has destroyed the power of the Fatah movement by murdering its leaders, scores of them, ruthlessly and methodically, without protest from 'the international community'.

It is now effectively a permanent government, whose operatives have this week again been trying to fire rockets into Israel.

Yet this is the organisation which is now being represented across the world's media as a victim. Delightful.

kmyers@independent.ie

- Kevin Myers

Irish Independent

"Using these weapons Israel is murdering and oppressing the Palestinian people under the longest illegal occupation in living history."
=============================
Baig not nearly as long as Constantinople, Syria, Egypt, Jordan or Israel have been occupied by Islamic agressors.

Remember Islam killed and expelled all the jews from Medina.

I'd say the 600's is longer than Gaza where did you take history?

The Jews were in Gaza first.

Israel should do the same to Gaza.

Did the Islamic agressors care about the Armenians? Kurds?

Show Gaza the same courtesy.

Why the need for such nastiness? Why can you not believe that good people of conscience can disagree? They way that you self-selected parts of my blog to suit your argument without dealing with the bigger, and more difficult questions, is telling. It is easy, and she does make it easy, to criticize Israel, and as I said – she isn’t above criticism. But stating the obvious does not solve the problem; it might make you feel better, but it does nothing for the people of Gaza. Where are the answers to the question about how you deal with helping the innocents in Gaza without rewarding Hamas, and thus rewarding violence, and without further weakening Abbas and the moderate Palestinian leadership?

We as the West, and those of us who have fought for a two-state solution all our lives, cannot ask the Palestinians to stand up for a two-state solution and renounce violence– as with Abu Mazan and Salam Fayyad and then simply cut them off at the legs. Which is what we would be doing by rewarding violence in the form of Hamas. This isn’t a game, we cannot march people up a hill and ask them to literally put their lives on the line for peace, and then reward the violent extremists in Gaza. I have just come back from Amman and Cairo, and I spent a lot of time in the West Bank. This isn’t what I say – this is what they are saying.

We on the Left have to have a better answer than just vilifying Israel, and those who are prepared to raise these difficult questions.

Whatever you want to think of me, Mehdi, I have fought all my life against hate and those that peddle it. Peddling hate, and being pejorative is exactly what will perpetuate the problem.

So I ask again : what are the answers to the questions about smuggling of arms, the renunciation of violence the release of Gilad Shalit and supporting the moderate Palestinians in the form of Abu Mazen to keep peace alive?

Like many Israeli apologists, Lorna Fitzsimmons is insisting we approach the problem of Israel by ignoring the manner of it’s creation and Jewish terrorism in the area then. Israel was created against the wishes of the indigenous population – the Jews got the majority of the land and the best land. The Palestinian lands were split in two, making proper governance more or less impossible. Israel has nukes (“illegally” obtained – probably with US assistance via proxies), is bristling with armaments supplied by the West. By supporting the Terrorist State of Israel, the West has ensured that the situation in that area remains completely unstable. Why was Israel created in the first place? To assist Jews in the hope that they might help topple the Russian government of the time, is one theory. As a “Western” buffer state, is another. If so, these were a dismal failure. The treatment of the Palestinians is one reason why there is so much Muslim enmity towards the West. I have never understood the “we on the left” who insist on supporting Israel against the Palestinians. I would inform Fitzsimmons that the Jews were peddling hate against the indigenous population of the region during their campaign to gain support for a “Jewish homeland”. This took the form of rhetoric and films similar to those the Nazi regime in Germany used to brand the Jews as “untermensch”.

Medhi gushes ''The Israel lobby whitewashes human suffering''

Nah.

Lorna gets paid to support a brutal regime who have no compassion to allow nuts, dried fruit or anything else which couldn't be seen as threatening.

Moral arguments cease to exist