I still love this attitude that both hands are dirty therefore no one is justified while CURRENTLY....ONE SIDE....continues to fight in an unjustified uncivilized mannor while the other protects its national intrests by use of force mostly consitant with international laws of armed conflict.
Israel is violating most of the laws of armed conflict, from the killing of individuals without trial (targeted killings of people that could just as easily be arrested) to the violation of the 4th Geneva Conventions protections of the rights of civilians in times of war. (collective punishment, seizure of land etc)
Do not make the mistake that Israel is fighting a "clean" war. Even the ICT, which is an Israeli propaganda mouthpiece, admits that far more Palestinian civilians (and they count rioters and stone throwers as combatants) have been killed by Israelis than vice versa. In particular, over 100 Palestinian children under the age of 12 have been killed, compared to less than half that number of Israel children.
The list of violations by the IDF is very, very long. It ranges from children shot dead by sniper fire through classroom windows to children killed by tank fire aimed into a market (because the people in the market were defying a daylight curfew) to a bomb planted on the outskirts of a refugee camp that killed 5 children, but was, according to the IDF, aimed at killing snipers (they deliberately left a booby trapped device in a built up area)
In almost all cases, the IDF holds an initial investigation, and conlcudes that the killing was justified. They held one into the killing of Tom Hurndall. When the British government complained, and pressed for a proper investigation, the IDF found that Hurndall had been shot by an IDF sniper with no justification. and the soldier was convicted of manslaughter. For thousands of Palestinians killed, there has been no proper investigation.
Go and take a look at the US state department report on human rights in Israel and the occupied territories:
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61690.htmYou will find one phrase repeated endlessly concerning the killing of Palestinian civilians:
"The IDF opened an investigation into the incident; however, at year's end there were no results."
And that's from a US government report. Others, not so staunch allies of the Israeli government, are a good deal more critical.
Go to
http://www.btselem.org , an Israeli human rights orginisation.
Sadly, a proportion of soldiers are always ready to commit such acts. Refusing to investigate and punish such actions is exactly the same as condoning them, and leads to ever more being committed.
FACT palistinians are the bastards of the muslim world
The Palestinians were split into two groups following 1948. Those who remained in Israel, and were granted Israel citizenship, and who have little involvement in terrorism, and those who were dispossesed of their homes and citizenship, either in 1948 or 1967, and are now stateless, either refugees or subject to military occupation (or both) and are amongst the most active terrorists in the world.
If it's not genetic (and the Israeli Arabs show it can't be) then it must be a reaction to circumstances.
FACT Israel has made more than a few concessions in thelast 5 years
Which are? Do not make the mistake of thinking the Gaza pullout was a concession to the Palestinians. It was a unilateral Israeli move, that they absolutely refused to coordinate with the Palestinian Authority, that was designed to benefit Israel, not the Palestinians. The pullout was Ariel Sharon's answer to the US Roadmap, and was intended to put an end to the much larger pullout that the roadmap called for.
See one of today's editorials from the web site of Israel's largest newspaper:
Disengagement was supposed to punish Palestinians. How did we wind up with Qassams, kidnapped soldiers?
The first faulty strategic decision that brought us to the tragic mess Israel now finds itself in was not the decision to vacate Jewish settlements in Gaza. The mistake was to do so unilaterally, without getting anything in return and without talking to the Palestinian leadership at that time.
Unilateralism stemmed mainly from the desire to win strong public support for the disengagement plan. Strangely, advisors to then-Prime Minister Sharon thought they could sell the plan to the Likud Party if it was packaged as some sort of punishment to the Palestinians. After all, it's a zero-sum game here in the Middle East: What's bad for the Palestinians must be good for Israel, and vice-versa.
Within this governmental PR bubble, the disengagement was carried out on empty, foreign land, rather than areas bordering on Israel and densely populated with Palestinians. They had nothing to do with the process, and from the earliest stages were excused from any expectations of diplomatic or political reward for Israel's biggest withdrawal since Sinai.
"Take Gaza and choke on it," was essentially the Sharon government's message to Fatah last autumn.
Choking on Gaza
And so it was. They took Gaza and choked on it. Ruling the Gaza Strip proved to be just about impossible. It took months for the Palestinians to create anything resembling a minimum of public order. The economic situation deteriorated, in part because of the loss of jobs once provided by Jewish towns, but also because no security arrangement was reached to allow border crossings to function.
International aid was slow in coming, and so the withdrawal that could have served to strengthen the influence of the moderate wing of the PLO, headed by Mahmoud Abbas, was lost. Hamas, which was supposed to be weakened by the disengagement, gained strength and raised its head: It presented Israel's unilateral pullout not as a punishment for terrorism, but rather – surprise, surprise!! - as a victory for it.
The rest:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3270385,00.htmlIn other words the bleeding hearts of the world seem to want to excuse the attrocities of one because they are an underdog. I don't know a single leftist in America that would approve of these kids being raised by this village
You think that's limited to the Palestinians? Try this, an article in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, about military style kindergartens for Jewish children in Jerusalem:
http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=181315The English language version is long gone, sadly, but it describes the children parading, being called "soldiers of Israel", staging a mock attack with swords etc.
See if you can find the story about schoolchildren encouraged to write to soldiers taking part in operation Defensive Shield, where they encouraged soldiers to kill Palestinians, and which a settler spokeswoman (wife of Benny Elon, an Israeli parliament member, and leader of one of the smaller parties) called "healthy hatred". The comments, quoted by Haaretz, went along the lines of "kill as many Arabs as possible.", "For me, kill at least 10" and "Ignore the laws and spray them."
The whole situation is a lot more complex than Israel = good, Palestinians = bad. Whilst that sort of attitude prevails, peace isn't very likely.