Hail Author Balfour. Praise the Lord. Jesus H. Christ will be back soon.

That's a ridiculously simplistic way to look at the conflict. What of the Palestinians who are blockaded into a tiny strip of land, and bombed? SHould they just let it slide, because on balance there are more Muslim-square-miles in the world than Jewish-square-miles? Because there are moer adherents to one faith than another?
Do you believe that the Israeli action in Gaza is proportionate?

20 dead from Palestinian rockets over the last eight years.
Almost 1000 dead in the last two weeks.

Tchocky, I agree that the Israelis bombed in violation of the most recent ceasefire. But was not the target a tunnel, which was by its very existence a violation of the ceasefire? In which case, it would be the Palestinians who violated the ceasefire first, and the Israeli bombing was a reaction to this...? Anyway debate will continue back and forth depending on which source you rely upon for news.

Firstly though, since the UN mandate created Israel they have had to be constantly on guard. After several attacks there came the 6 Day War, in which Israel captured large tracts of land. This land was seized legally and fairly by the Israelis. Had they not been attacked, the land would never have come into their posession.:ping:

They're stuck between a rock and a hard place. The Israelis pulled out of Gaza and essentially gave it back. Almost immediately though, the attacks started again. they tried to do the right thing (possibly left it a bit late, but they left nonetheless) and were stabbed in the back as they were walking out.

Now the Palestinians went and elected Hamas, a party sworn to see Israel's destruction. given the Jewish history, I can understand them being a little antsy about that. This is, I believe, where debates like the one we're having (civil, not nasty, hooray) stem from. The Israelis control the flow of aid etc to Gaza. But they know that supplies etc going in are almost all pilfered by Hamas. The Israelis could allow more through in the hope that some will reach the majority of the civvies, but Hamas would simply line their coffers more thickly. So, not wanting to supply the enemy they limit the flow, which means the civvies miss out. The more liberal-minded among us feel that aid is the number one priority, that the Israelis ought to be more selfless and allow for and provide more aid to the Palestinians. However, on the other hand there are those of us who see inherent risks in supplying your enemy, particularly one sworn to your destruction. If they allowed more aid in, who disperses it? Hamas...

Personally im in the latter camp. As much as I'd love to see peace and free love and harmonious living break out, I know it won't because there are people too ideologically opposed to it.

A final point to keep in mind. Yes, Civvies are being killed, there is no doubt at all. It always has been and always will be a fact of war. However, whats the difference between a Hamas fighter and a civvy? remove his weapon for a photo, and theres another civvy lying on the ground. Don't think that the palestinians aren't propaganda-savvy. they're looking to gain as much ground with the more liberal-minded westerners, and will lie about it - anyone remember the video of the kid cowering with his dad under fire, and then it emerged they faked the whole thing??

The whole thing there is a mess, and i don't see it ending until a group is wiped out entirely (barring a Star trek style intervention, that is).

Event of shame in Germany:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...601122,00.html

Spit.

Not exactly good press, but displaying an Israeli flag in Duisburg is like the proverbial white man donning a Klan hood and running through a Ghetto shouting "******s!".

Duisburg is Eurabia, maybe the worst in Germany.
I suppose most if not all protesters were turkish or other muslims.
And this flag guy was neither jewish nor israeli, a college student, most likely one of those anti-germans who are so leftist that they came full circle and support Bush and everything else...

Still kicking in the door and removing the flag was a bad call. Best course of action would've been not to take any action at all.
A few snow balls wouldn't have cause the building to collapse.
If they started assaulting the house they could've called for reinforcements.

But still, one wonders why the same police that is quite ready to bash some heads in if going up against German protesters is always so peaceful against foreigners.

Re the whole situation, I am still not sure what Israel is trying to accomplish.
Sure it feels good to kill a lot of Arabs, but it won't solve the whole situation.
In the end, I suppose they will simply declare they have succeeded and withdraw and everything starts over in a few months.
I mean they could occupy Gaza, that would stop rocket attacks, but they declared this was not the aim. They could also try to remove Hamas from Power, but that is also not the aim.
So this seems to me like the military action is mostly governed by internal politics of Israel.
In old times, Israel made war with clear cut political and strategic objectives, but today they're lacking that.
The IDF in Ghaza might be better trained and better performing than two years ago in Lebanon, but the politicians are definitely not.

That's why I think Americans have a point with that gun ownership thing they keep going.

Mikhayl:

Israel can do no right, yes? It is very simple, really.
Israel cleared Gaza. Palestinians get to vote. They vote the terrorist organization Hamas. Hamas is shooting rockets. They don't stop. Israel warns them. They don't stop. Israel strikes back.
It doesn't matter to you. There could be 5 armies again about to invade Israel and you would still have them sitting idle and getting killed. Because you are in total agreement with Hamas and other terrorist organizations that Israel has no right to exist. For people like you it doesn't matter what Israel does or does not do, it is always wrong.

The Palestinians have had ample opportunities to give it a rest and start doing something constructive with their time. Instead, they indulge in a culture of hatred against the Jews and the West, teaching their own children that very hatred from early on, in their "schools", mosques and on TV. That is just DUMB.
And please stop calling people here racist all the time, or I should start calling you an Anti-Semite.

*Holy cow. I mostly just skipped over the stuff you wrote, but after re-reading some of it I got to say these guys would probably run as "collaborators" for you if they did. lol. I suggest you check out when the next plane departs Paris for the Middle East. I heard Hamas is running low on manpower these days.

Hamas did stop shooting rockets

Palestinians? tiny strip of land?

I'm not sure if you are unable to understand my simple statement, or you do understand but are attempting to act like you don't get it. Because what I said was, the Muslims should give up trying to eradicate the tiny state of Israel, they are not hurting for living space. So, there should be no rockets from the Gaza strip into Israel, and that would mean no Israeli bombardments on the Palestinians or anyone. Eh?

Proportionate? I don't believe in proportionate response, if you attack or endanger my family the way the Hamas do, wipe them out. I know you don't don't like to hear that, it is too simple of a concept, but that's how I roll. You can tell me I'm bad for thinking this way, that may make you feel better, doesn't matter. There it is. :smug:


Mikhayl, when you start calling people here racist, is pretty much means you've run out of facts or logic. I know not all Muslims are the same, etc, etc. but you can bet as far as their religous identity, they stick together pretty well against non-Muslims (and yes! I know there are sub-groups of Muslims who battle each other).

I use to agree with Neal on some things, and on others not, but only rarely I agree with Neal to such a wide degree like here, and almost completely. Especially the part of proportionate responses i like. This is no basketball match, and every two pointer against you would mean two of your family dead. therefore you do not want to win just by a narrow margin. You want to win by a clear score X to zero, not allowing any basket being thrown against you at all.

There is no such thing like a "Communist Muslim". Maybe that is a communist, but a communist surely is no Muslim, as long as Muslim does not mean a cosmetic characteristic as skin colour or haircut or nationality only. So, a communist Muslim essentially is no Muslim at all. "Muslim" is an ideological identification, and some ideologies simply cant be put together. Democracy and totalitarianism, for example. Also, there is no secularism in Islam possible, the ideological basis, the scripture, the foundation, the theology, the idea behind it - call it what you want - rules that out. Islamic ideology does not know such things, such things can only be acchieved in violation of islamic ideology. So use "Muslim" and "Islam" in the meaning described in their foundation, the Quran and Hadith, to use them correctly. If you mean something different, use other terms, else your labels do not mean anything anymore. "Communist Muslim" makes as much sense as "democratic stalinist". maybe such a person is communist, but sure as hell he cannot be Muslim/Muhammedan at the same time as long as words still have an inherent meaning anymore. Islam is Islam. And only that. No inbetween. No second lineage. no alternative quran. No other Muhammad. This is not the Christian churches, this is not the Jews splitting hairs to interpret their brutal deity as a friendly one. Any deviation from muhammad - must be acchieved in explicit violation of Muhammad. and then it is not Muhammedan/Islamic/Muslim anymore, not in any other but a purely superficial, cosmetical understanding.

When will western naive aesthetes finally understand what they are dealing with when saying "Islam"... :roll: You are not dealing with Beauty, but with the Beast. And different to the fairy tale's happy ending, this beast eats beauties, always.

I thought the "collaborating" ones were the bad guys?

BTW, lots of funny vids around. I love this stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0FXU...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzlFP...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3M5D5_m93A0

I hope the last one isn't too racist. ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w57JL...eature=related

Actually, taking what is shown in the first three vids into account, I find it difficult to insult those people more than they already did do so themselves. Those guys are beyond ridiculous. They are full of it, and anyone letting his children participate in crap like that is a NUTJOB. End of story.

No, look at the Quran and the Hadith, and see the correlation between what is said in there and what has been done in 1400 years of history. Neither you nor the Islam-happy EU will re-invent Islam, or redefine what the term means, and what kind of thinking and tradition stands behind it. Plenty, a whole damn lot, of tolerance (ort is it ignorration) of Muslims for the inner contradictions, the totalitarianism, and the unforgiving determination for power in islam comes from the simple fact of lacking thorough education about Islam, education in a western, analytical tradition. Quran schools do not teach you to question and analyse the quran. They teach you to uncritically adapt your thinking, to understand why it is always right, to memorise the suras word by word, and to fall under their superstitious spell. It is no education, it is brainwashing and conditioning. That is not the kind of education we understand education to be in Greek-western understanding, featuring terms like analsis, trial-and-error, logic, reason, insight and knowledge.

you deiceve yourself, and many muslims deceive themselves as well. Wether you like it or not: Islam IS a radical ideology, it is a fudnametlist ideoloigy, it is a conqueror'S self-justifying ideolgy. And that all is a bit too much brutality all at once as if sensible, well-meaning minds like yours could imagine that somerthign like that could be reality. On eof the biggest problems wioth Islam is that in it's history there never was formed (or survived) a tradition that analytically questioned itself. that was and is heresy, and often led to quick execution, or imprisonment. If you want to know what isalam is, you need to see it not from a muslim point of view, but a Western, analytical point of view. Asking an Islamic scholar about it makes a smuch sense as asking the Pope for an objective critical reflection of the history of the catholic church and the trustworthiness of the church'S dogma: it makes no sense at all. So stop swallowing all that deceptive self-perception Islam is feeding to you. It only leads you to the confusion you are actually in. Come to your mind and then see that it is by far the biggest cultural and historical catastrophe the people of the world ever had suffer from for over one millenium now.

Doesn't really matter, in a few days/weeks both sides will claim glorious victory, Hamas for just surviving, Israel for having killed a whole lot of guys without losing a whole lot of guys themselves and then it will be up to the EU to clear up the mess, I suppose.
I say a max of 6 months before the rockets fly again and everything starts over.
Maybe Barack Obama can do something constructive, but much will depend on who's going to get elected in Israel.
Livni/Barak most likely improved their chances by mutanting from Peaceniks to tough guys, but I'm afraid if Netanyahu wins, the middle east will see another really dark age.

As Europeans, I often think we shouldn't give a ****. Israel's existence is not threatened by a few Kassams, so they don't need us.
The Palestinians are not exactly appealing to my sympathies either.

I just dont like that every mideast discussion ends in absolutes.
If you don't agree with Israel bombing schools and hospitals, you're an anti-semite.
If you say Muslims have a problem with peaceful coexistence with Jews and Christians, you're a racist.

I do believe Israel to have a right to exist and to be a natural ally of Germany, Europe and western civilization (not for historical debts but for common values) but I still can believe that what they're doing right now will turn out to be utterly useless in the end.



Btw, and Heartcs diatribe about gun ownership and the Duisburg flag incident is the stupidest thing I've read in a long time from anybody here who is not called Subman or Downly ( :D).
If we'd have US gun laws, the Turks/Islamists/whatever would've hurled 9mm bullets against that window, not snowballs.
If that 25 year old Israel fan had been at home and armed, should he have pulled a Baruch Goldstein and mowed down all these guys for not liking the star of David?

I just saw in the news that Osama bin Laden encouraged his fellow Muslim brothers to start a Jihad against Israel because of the authrocities (sp?) in Gaza.

It wouldn't surprise me, if some really started to do it...:roll:

Care to provide me with the "proper" translation? Or is your claim that it is incorrectly translated just your own propaganda?
Also, what's with the third video? That's just carnival? Or, let me guess, those are in fact Israeli kids and it's all just staged by one of the "Israeli propaganda arms". Right?

Want to know why Hamas kept shooting rockets into Israel and is hiding among the civilians? Because they know there are people like you in the West. Hamas can't kill Israel all alone, it needs your help.

Get a reality check. Your mindset is seriously confused, and you distort facts in order to make them support your distortions. And by your direct or indirect and implicit descriptions of your impressions of Islam you make it clear to everybody having studied history and content of Islam that you simply do not know what you are fantasising about. Instead you talk about some kind of populistic urban legends that have little to nothing to do with Muhammad and islam, but gets mislabelled as Islam - in the West. In the Orient, these follies are not as much shared as they are popular amongst Western leftists and wellmeaning philantropists. But realism never was a strength of philantrophism, was it - too tough, too harsh, too unkind.

If you would do that in one of this globe's real islamic societies, you would play with your life, at least with your wellbeing, while voicing that heresy of yours, you sleeping fool. Wake up while you still have some freedom left to defend, fool! Once that rest of freedom is gone, you better do not worry about waking up anymore, for freedom then you only can have in your dreams anymore. In an Islamic world, be afraid to ever wake up again as long as you are not strong enough to fight it - or stupid enough to believe it.

Yea yea yea...Oh but wait. Weren't you guys basically saying the same thing about Jews a while back? And handicapped people? And Slavs? Etc. :roll:

Comparing the criminal holocaust against the Jews and the Bolshevist sub-humans, and Nazi racism over nose shape and eye colour, with not agreeing with Islam's black on white written ideology that is illustrated by it's history as well, is so rich that for me this disqualifies you to be taken serious as a debator. Get back to your senses. By the mechanism of your attempt, even drinking coffee with milk and sugar while you prefer coffee to be black, could be called "racism.

I wonder if that would have been said by you as well if you would not have known or thought of me being a German. Judging by the usual way of going in this forum, probably not.

I just don't like Germans. My grand-dad fought against them in the Lapland war. They mined almost the whole of Lapland so that long after the war civilians were still dying of German mines. Latest explosions were just awhile ago.

So on the whole, I don't need no Germans telling me about racism.