• crybabylu said on Oct 29, 2007....

  I agree.  This was completely justisfied, and the "smart" thing to do.

  Dee

   

• silverwhisper said on Oct 29, 2007....

  hamas has taken control of gaza, they and/or other terrorist groups are attacking israel and...they're slowing shipments. if israel were half the monster that its detractors think, gaze would be a sheet of glass by now.
  
  ed

• uniquely-ironic said on Oct 29, 2007....

  This is a cultural war that has been going on since the creation of Isreal.  I'm always amazed that Israel doesn't retaliate more often and with more force.  I think it's a shame that Hamas doesn't recognize that their extreme politics will only cause their people to suffer.  Of course, they will try to blame that on Israel.

• silverwhisper said on Oct 29, 2007....

  i've always felt that terrorists are particularly talented at self-aggrandizement and blame-shifting, and hamas certainly appears a compelling bit of evidence re: same, IMHO.
  
  ed

• uniquely-ironic said on Oct 29, 2007....

  I'd love to create a completely isolated country and put all extreme politicals in it.  Let them beat up on each other instead of preying on the masses.

• silverwhisper said on Oct 29, 2007....

  heh...then you could make a reality TV show of it! we could call it survivor: asshole edition!
  
  ed

• pickersplock said on Oct 29, 2007....

  I hope that in our lifetime,
  we will see this conflict peacefully resolved.
   

• silverwhisper said on Oct 29, 2007....

  sadly, pickers, while i share that hope, i'm pragmatic enough to consider it only a dream.
  
  [sigh]
  
  ed

• muckpar said on Oct 29, 2007....

  ed:   Rock on, its about time Israel responded to hamas in a forceful manner.

• silverwhisper said on Oct 29, 2007....

  well, i'm just surprised that they haven't suspended such shipments wholesale!
  
  ed

• GrapeKoolaid said on Oct 30, 2007....

  I don't know about this one ed...
  
  To punish everyone in the region for something a few have done...
  
  I do agree that Israel is showing restraint in the matter and the indiscriminate rocket attacks should be condemned, but even the UN Secretary General has criticized this wholesale punishment of the1.4 million living in Gaza strip.  (source)
  
  Two wrongs never made a right.  Civilians should always be protected, regardless of their nationality, and nation states should always try to meet their obligations under international law. 
  

• silverwhisper said on Oct 30, 2007....

  hamas has continued these attacks and they're in control of the area, have been since june. the populace refuses to distance itself at all from these acts of terrorism. it's state-spnsored terrorism, which in this case means that retaliating against the state is in some measure reasonable. furthermore, they're slowing shipments, rather than doing what the could very well do: turn the entire area into a patch of glass.
  
  ed

• GrapeKoolaid said on Oct 30, 2007....

  Such harsh language coming from such reasonable peoples...  See what passion and political allegiances do to people?
  
  Hamas was democratically eleceted(as crazy as that may seem).  Palestine is not a state(yet), so it can't be a state sponsored terrorism.  Just a point of contention.  US calls for democratic elections and when Hamas gets elected, they're rejected?  I understand that according to the US, Hamas is a terrorist organization, but to the people living in Gaza, I'm sure they're seen as freedom fighters.  
  
  I'm just saddened by the fact that rockets are fired at arbitrary targets and water and fuel supplies are cut off.  It's always the poor that suffer the greatest. 
  
  Maybe the Middle East and democracy don't mix, like oil and water.  Perhaps what's needed in the region is a bit of Oriental Despotism.  Perhaps a Stalinist military Strongman...
  

• silverwhisper said on Oct 30, 2007....

  grape, hamas has declared its mission the destruction of israel. what precisely do you suppose that israel should do, use harsh language? i'm hardly a kill 'em all kinda guy, grape, but no matter what israel does, short of absolutely nothing, it seems that people will want to criticize it, and that's just plain stupid. and i have little patience for stupidity.
  
  yes, it's always the poor that suffer. but guess what? hamas is making more people suffer. this is sadly one instance in which there is an ethical algebra.
  
  ed

• Trinov said on Oct 30, 2007....

  Hi, First of all, isn't shelling the town of Sderot and the neighboring kibbutzim and the moshavim 'collective punishment'?.............. Why is murdering Jews less terrible than Jews taking down a house and leaving the occupants alive?............... Why will the UN scream if Israel stops providing those-- that are daily trying to murder our children, the old people too tired to run, the housewives in their kitchens making breakfast,--- with all the conveniences our type of civilization has produced?...... Do you know that Arab Gaza families take their wounded to Israeli hospitals for treatment, Jewish doctors you know, (who take them in).......... (Arab doctors were once the best in the world, what happened?, Arab chemists were way ahead of Europe, but all that was in the time of co-existance with the Jews among them, (as in Cordoba in Muslim Spain,ever heard of Cordoba? conquered by the Christians in 1066 and a whole civilization of science destroyed), but at one point (or two points) the Muslim fanatics stopped all that cooperation-- that some historian said could have put Arabs on the moon in the 1500's! --but most of you out there would not even know who was Salach- a-din --right? (hint: Saladin) and who was his private physician --huh? and which English King coveted that physician? huh?..... No, the "experts" on the Middle East don't know their history. (I mean, huh, yeah, what's history, right?)....... Who was El Cid? anyone? El Razi? The Old Man of the Mountain?.....and I've forgotten one hundred times what I've remembered....And I read that Condelisa thinks that Abu Mazen is the Arab Martin Luther King and worries about the 'poor palestinian' who is 'forced' to become a terrorist bomber because he has such a depressing life.....Remember that there are very rich among the Arabs, richer than you can imagine, and instead of paying for teachers and doctors and lawyers they pay the families of the suicide bombers who sometimes are middle class themsleves, sometimes are retarded told that they will have a hundred virgins, sometimes unfaithful wives told by their brothers that they can do something for the family by blowing up Israelis instead of just getting murdered....all those experts who have no clue of an idea what is the Middle East, no clue at all, but many are just very politely anti-semitic, am I not correct? Remember, I met them all, I was a New Yorker and studied at a Seven Sister school etc and I met the WASPs and their polite, yes very polite anti-semitism. Let's call it as it is. not a spade this time though.

• kelly said on Oct 31, 2007....

  "Hamas is a terrorist organization, but to the people living in Gaza, I'm sure they're seen as freedom fighters.  "
  
  I don't think the people of Gaza are even that fond of  Hamas.  It's just that Hamas has been spending the money to make themselves the most popular.  Even people there think that Hamas has ruined much.
  
  If Hamas and all the other Arab countries spent one tenth of their energy on improving their condition and helping each other rather than trying to eradicate Israel they would be in terrific shape.  The biggest enemy the Arabs have isn't the Jews.  It's each other.
  

• Trinov said on Oct 31, 2007....

  Hi, the people of Gaza voted in the Hamas by a great majority--then they realized, only gradually :whoops we've been screwed......( Many of the brains are draining from that area). Hamas is a great fooler of the poor, since they have so-called "charity organizations" which provide food and money, and they set up day care centers, summer camps and even computer clubs, college clubs etc. They have a whole system called the 'Dawah' (civilian infrastructure) which basically draws in people with their charities and clubs and then indoctrinates them to be terrorists.... The Fatach or PLO movement realized too late that this entity was their enemy too and they have recently outlawed the Dawah in the West Bank....... The money that Arafat stored away in his Swiss accounts (over a billion dollars guys, how is that for a poor palestinian fighter and lover of his people?) never even dripped down to the poor ---so the Dawah was a very good propaganda strategy for the Hamas....Now the US is training the Fatach guys who are the 'policemen' and giving them hundreds of millions of dollars so that they can police the terrorists (themselves?) (and are planning to send in the private mercenaries to train them even better!). All the arms going to the so called palestianian government end up being used against Isreal --ie Israeli citizens, men, women and children.

• silverwhisper said on Oct 31, 2007....

  trinov, i've been wondering if you were going to find this blog entry. :> i don't know what happened to the arab world. heck, we have arabs to thank for the 0, and it's been indispensable to mathematicians since roman times! i am beginning to wonder if the state religion, the global caliphate notion, isn't to blame. by making everything, including logic, subservient to religion, i wonder if that hasn't had a stultifying effect on scientific inquiry in the muslim world. btw: given that you're actually an israeli who lives there, i'm curious what you think of this measure? too little, too late? is there another side to the slowing of shipments that we aren't seeing?
  
  

  kelly quoth:
  if hamas and all the other arab countries spent one tenth of their energy on improving their condition and helping each other rather than trying to eradicate israel they would be in terrific shape. the biggest enemy the arabs have isn't the jews. it's each other.

  
  quoted for truth (QFT).
  
  ed

• Trinov said on Oct 31, 2007....

  I've always been fascinated by Arab history, partly because my father's family comes from an area that was ruled by Turkey and Persia-- one after the other-- for a very long time, and Bablyon before that etc. While I dropped out of an Arabic course because it was too intense for me at the time, I can understand enough to enjoy Arabic movies, and when we were in the states and watched the International Channel to get Hebrew news,I ended up watching Eygptian and Syrian sitcoms. My sense of humor is very like the Arabic sense of humor and unlike the American. British humor, ironically, is also funny to me, although the British, actually the English, are also Israel's worst enemies. ...anyway the question of what happened to the Arab high civilization is not one I can answer,even though I am probably the only one here on Soulcast who ever read any Arabic history, but I am not interested in giving an ignorant opinion anymore than I am of reading one.... Why did the Arab civilization fail? Why did Rome fall? Why did Persia fall?--and Persia had a very organized civilization with something like the pony express, and all Court Manners that the Europeans later cultivated came to them from Persia, via the Balkans etc --falconing, table manners, etc. ....The Rubbiyat of Omer Kayyam was my father's favorite poem, my brother has by now probably the full collection of Um Kalsum's records, so being accused of being anti-Arab for no reason by an ignoramous or two on Soulcast makes me laugh....Ya Habibi I do not hate Arabs on a personal level, we have had an Arab lawyer, as well having Arab mechanics, dentists, pharmacists etc. However, if they want me to give up my identity and my state, they can get the f-out of here or we will eventually have to throw them out.....or it will happen as it did in 1948 that they will flee for their own reasons--for example the Arab armies in 1948 told them to leave so that they could be free to murder all the Jews without worrying that they would be an Arab among them--for we don't look so different at all....And I should worry about those who fled for that reason? I'm not crazy. And the fact the the UN helped them add millions to the rolls who never had stepped foot in Israel, that is another story, or that the Arab states have kept the descendents of those refugees in poverty, while Israel took in 600,000 Jews forced to flee their homes in Arab countries. So when we Jews react to comments by people who are just having cocktale conversations about subjects that are life and death to us, try to understand, that we are reacting to the general level of ignorance, the arrogance of the assumptions, and some quiet anti-semitism that sometimes sneaks out--much more subtle than Seanwhat's his name using 'jerk' as a synonym for Jew.( That should be inexcusable even for a polite anti-semite, no?) (I don't ever forgive such shit.)

• Trinov said on Oct 31, 2007....

  Whoops did I answer the wrong question? What do I think of cutting off electricity to 'Aza? I think that they have to go in there and take it back. Someone said that Olmert is against going in because of a deal about buying gas or oil from a British Company in 'Aza which is partly owned by one of his cronies. Sounds too much, heh? Well, he is up on charges already for corruption.... The people in Sderot have a right to live --they are under constant shellling day and night. While this was 'tolerable' forty years ago for the kibbutzim--and it should not have been--kibbutzim are built differently and life can go on with the children in the shelters for years. Nice huh, that was the reality in Beit Shaan and Emek HaYarden in the 1970's, and I don't remember one effing American or Frenchman, or anyone crying about those kids, for they were just Jews, right? Or the kids growing up in Kiryat Shomah having to run to the shelters, never heard an effing squeak out of anybody from the enlightened nations, just like the Red Cross never said anything about the one-two million children butchered by the Nazis and their friends...When a Jewish baby girl was targeted and shot through the head nobody said anything outside Israel, but if Israel accidently kills an Arab child, well we are murderers....And we don't want the UN there either, they just 'party' and help the Arabs, for hashish is dirt cheap in Lebanon and probably not too expensive in 'Aza too. And NATO, you must be kidding. So I answered your question, no?

• silverwhisper said on Oct 31, 2007....

  trinov: where did sean use "jerk" as a synonym for "jew"? i need to see a link to that b/c i honestly don't think he'd ever say such a thing.
  
  wait: who should go in and "take" electricity?
  
  the constant terrorist attacks against israeli citizens (notably not military bases) is horrible and inexcusable, IMHO. people who try to do so are simply not thinking clearly, if you ask me.
  
  ed

• Trinov said on Nov 01, 2007....

  Hi, it was in a post of Eilan's and I said that if she left it on her post I I would not read her anymore, and she said good riddance. After that I did not go into her post, but my husband did, and SeanRenard made the comment that I must be ignorant of American ways for anti-semitic comments are usual in American society. In a way he is right about that, but it is usually much more subtle. Oh and you came in and said he deserved a trout smack. So you did see it, and it annoyed you. Then Renard went on to say how much I was anti-Arab etc. Ya habibi, I get along with Arabs in courses, when they are my lawyers in buying a house, when they are mechanics who fix our old car, when they are the dentists or the pharmacists etc.In the Galil, there is usually normal interaction between Jews and Arabs. In Israel many Arabs are educated academics. They don't love us particularly, we may not love them, but as long as they are Israelis there is no problem. The Druze serve in the Israeli army and more and more Muslims are doing alternate service-peace-corp like in their own village institutions. As I said in another post, I am not anti-Arab, just anti-enemy. I can't fool myself anymore about always being on the liberal side, I grew out of that long ago, but I am an empath....I was in an inservice course run by a leftist son of a bitch about 8 years ago. He thought that since I am religious I could not get along with Arabs and he matched me once with a Muslim Arab male for a short project and we got along famously, to the instructor's chagrin. It also freaked him out when I approached a young Arab woman in the course to give her some advice after she told about a terrible case of being abused as a woman teacher in her village. So just as I don't like being sterotyped --I also dispise when Israel is being sterotyped and I abhor any anti-semitic comments that I hear or are published. So this is what I say to the anti-semites: Say it in your locker rooms, in your clubs, with your buddies, but if you say it publically you are just showing you are 'assholian' --especially if you think that even Jews are going to accept it. Hope you meet up with an old fashioned JDLnik with a chip on his shoulder.

• silverwhisper said on Nov 01, 2007....

  trinov, i'm having difficulty making sense of your comment, mainly b/c you cover an awful lot of ground.
  
  1. i would need to find the blog entry in question. i read an awful lot of them. having said that: i don't think sean's an anti-semite. indeed, i don't know of any anywhere on SC.
  
  2. nobody's calling you anti-arab, either. you don't need to defend yourself here, trinov.
  
  ed

• Trinov said on Nov 01, 2007....

  To silverwhisper: Israel has to go into 'Aza (the G is a Greek invention to indicate the glotal stop of the "A". It is called 'Aza) and take back control. It will happen, it has to happen, and everyday the Chizballa get better armed through smuggled weapons so the fight will be bloody when it finally occurrs.......................... To Kelly--if there actually had ever been a 'palestine or a palestinian people' there would be infrustructure, but most of the Arabs in the State of Israel only came here once the Jews started returning and so there were jobs provided foir them -- the 'native Arabs were mostly tenent farmers with no equity of their own, the serfs of very wealthy Lebanese Christians and Syrian and Turkish Muslims-- before the Jews came back, when the Jews came back the immigrating Arabs were the poor from Syria and Eygpt and were later brought in on purpose en masse by the British in the 1930's as a political ploy (ie Divide and Conquer). See From Time Immemorial by Jane Peters....The Arab social mentality is still mostly feudal, with the rich enjoying their wealth and the poor taking the crumbs, except for Kuwait which has a full social program and a sharing of wealth. The Suadis may also be beginning to wake up to some social responsilbility...but the word beginning should be stressed. They finally understood that they needed an educated middle class to survive as a power.

• silverwhisper said on Nov 01, 2007....

  trinov: don't neglect the fact that the other arab nations wanted nothing to do with the people we now call palestine, btw. :>
  
  ed

• cotterall&elaineadams said on May 30, 2008....

  Collective punishment will fuel divisiveness between moderate and extremist political elements in Gaza and could lead to a second civil conflict.  This prevents any real discussion of a Palestinian homeland with the P.L.O.  It is wrong to break the backs of Palestinians who would be less likely to support extremism if they are were given the basic supplies they need.  It is a form of structural poverty and is discriminatory.  Walling in people and preventing them from leaving Palestine for Egypt is wrong.  It also doesn't provide any real security for Israelis.  

• silverwhisper said on May 30, 2008....

  o look, more ridiculous apologetics for jackholes.
  
  tell me, do you try to be a troll, or are you simply that far out to lunch?
  
  the palestinians need to take a little responsibility for terrorist attacks launched from their midst, and that's the simple truth.
  
  ed

• cotterall&elaineadams said on May 31, 2008....

  Israel is maintaining the occupation in order to segregate and colonize Palestinians.  It is wrong to reject their perspective out of a hatred for Arabs or a dislike of Islam.  Many of them are secular, atheist, moderate, Christian, animist, etc.  They are not just one uniform group of people.  Whatever happened to Jews in the past was wrong but it is not right to suppress Palestinians because of it.  They are not responsible for past misdeeds against others.
  
  If Israel wants to deal with terrorism, it needs to start with the root causes.  Syria and Iran fund militancy in Lebanon.  Lebanon, Syria and Iran are aggressors in the region.  This has nothing to do with the lives of everyday Palestinians who live under occupation and are denied their own country with a right to self-determination.  Land seizures, housing developments and confiscation of property in the name of the Greater Israel areis wrong.  Many moderate, liberal and leftist Israelis criticize their government policies and support a Palestinian homeland with East Jerusalem as a capital and either financial compensation or a right of return into Jordan/West Bank/Gaza for Palestinian refugees.  For that they are called unpatriotic but they all had to serve in the army and support their country's existence and right to self-defense.
  
  Perhaps the money spent on housing in Palestine for Israeli settlers could have been used to alleviate poverty, the housing shortage, unemployment, hunger and lack of access to resources for both sides.  One out of three Israeli families live in poverty.  In Gaza it is closer to eighty percent.  It is wrong to encourage anger and confrontation by using U.S. policy to deny Palestinians the right to food, income and shelter.  That is counterproductive and will do nothing to stop rockets in Southern Israel.  It is one matter to support a right to self-defense for a country and the right to fight extremism and another to stereotype and villify an entire group of people (Palestinians) because of extremism (more common in Lebanon and Syria than Palestine)....
  

• silverwhisper said on Jun 01, 2008....

  suppress? who's suppressing? the palestinians were turned away by every other arab nation, yet the israelis took them in. think about that next time you start banging the "palestinians have it so hard" drum.
  
  ed

• cotterall&elaineadams said on Jun 01, 2008....

  Americans, I think, do not always see the situation the way the rest of the world does.  The EU is very supportive of the P.L.O. and if a country like Turkey, Norway or Sweden was were allowed to manage the situation, there would be a better chance of peace on both sides.  As for 'Arabs causing the problem', I would point out that Jordan, Syria and Egypt are willing to make peace.  Lebanon is a different story along with Iran but neither are Arab countries as Lebanese people are Phoenician (ancient descendants of Greeks) and Iran is Persian (not Arab).  I do not condone their aggression.  The P.L.O. is the partner for peace.  I am not an extremist; the glorified Jimmy Carter advocates negotiations with Hamas, I think a discussion with the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and P.L.O. is a good idea....also, I am not a left-wing liberal but a libertarian, a totally different breed and have nothing to do with the anti-Semitism of the Left...some people advocate sanctions, an end to aid, economic boycotts and military intervention/armed conflict and I do not...I also condemn militancy and reject the right of return of refugees into Israel and expect North African/Arab countries to make peace and acknowledge a right to their existence...
  
  also, I have never called it genocide or claimed that Jewish nationalism is racism (U.N.) or colonialism...I pointed out that the Greater Israel settler's movement is based on religious fundamentalism, colonialism, apartheid and a desire to limit resettlement of refugees into Jordan and the West Bank, which is true...it just is...the Left and Right are both extremists and while superficially oppositional, they have more in common than they will ever know...if Palestinians get criticism, it is not wrong to criticize the right-wing religious types of Israel, but really, they are mostly American.
  

• silverwhisper said on Jun 02, 2008....

  you have a real knack for making comments completely divorced from any context, including what was said to you.
  
  ed

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