Good question isn't it?
I wonder if its so hard to trace back the organizers of the flotilla and what they really want.
Its not about poor people of Gaza very clearly.

On one piece
'nuff said:rotfl2:

That's how the flotilla calls itself, I don't see a terrible bias there. It's the same thing as the media calls the SPD "social democrats" - as they are neither very social nor very democratic :03:


Yes, the very same UN, that urges Hamas to finally recognize Israel. The very same UN which funds the Palestinian "refugees" through the UNRWA with more many per capita than any other refugee in the world receives - even more if you subtract the million Palestinians who only exist on paper: http://www.think-israel.org/MillionPersonGap.65.pdf
Delivering it to the very same Hamas that delayed the shipment of the goods that the last love boats brought to Gaza - however Hamas probably just didn't know what to do with medical supplies that were best before 1793 :know:

Regarding Denis MacEoin :
I honestly have heard of him for the very first time today. But regrding his biography, it looks that there are worse experts on the middle east:
PhD in Arabic and Islamic Studies, lived there for a long time, writes for the Guardian (good paper) and his blog is called: "A liberal Defence of Israel" - good there are still some people left defending Israel who come from the right (non-right;)) side.
No comment on his medical views however...:O:

Regarding MacEoin: Yes he written for the Guardian, the Guardian is a good paper it lets all sorts of people write, only last week it had a disgraced former Sun editor writing about how wonderful it was that Murdoch could expand his media empire without going through the regulator.
However if you take a couple of MacEoins pieces that were published in that paper as examples...you have a shocking one about the extent of extremism in UK mosques, it was so shocking the BBC were planning on doing a special program on it....until it turned out the "evidence" presented was faked.
Then you have his piece on the cruel barbarism in Britains arbitration courts...which it turned out was basicly cobbled together from websites like Fatwas'R'us.

So if I had a blog called "the democratic republic of happy zimbabwe" would you swallow it because of the word "democratic" or "happy"?

Sorry Penguin but he is unfortunately just a propogandist like the propoganda merchants people are complaining about on the other side of the aisle.
You gotta love his take on settlements though, it makes Daniel Pipes(who he also writes for) look balanced.:03:

touché!
Like I said, I heard about him today for the first time, didn't check deeply into his work. I got to read more to build my opinion, but at the first glance he didn't look too bad.
I do value people like Henryk Broder (hard to characterize in left-right terms) or also Moishe Postone (very left), who has done some excellent work about the (German) left and their anti-zionism/anti-semitism. He provides a brilliant analysis regarding this topic in this interview: http://www.workersliberty.org/story/...itism-and-left (never mind the source)
There are also some sources that I value, which come from the conservative side, but no special author comes to my mind.
If someine sticks to facts, I have no problem with the political affiliation, as long as they support the liberty of others to have their own opinions, so I guess this excludes Nazis, religious maniacs and other dogmatists, lol

Well, as this topic seems to be highly emotional, you seldom find any unbiased sources. I do read official israeli/IDF sources with two critical eyes, but I found more hard facts there, that survive a reality check, than in Pallywood.

@Penguin.

My guess is that Tribesman has a real good insight on whats going on here from some other outstanding leftist academics.;)
I mock him as leftist/liberal in many way myself.
Most of the stuff written by some "liberal" tyrants make me puke.
The level of confusion and disinformation mixed with some vision of how Israel should deal with its problems is simply ridiculous.
Those academics mostly disregard the region's culture politics and ambitions to enable them implement some idealistic and based on faith solutions to problems .
In many cases the solution put Israel and its citizens at great risk or defeat the sole purpose of state of Israel.
But again they are Irish or Swedish or whatever so they can afford themselves some ridiculous visions and its not them who have to live under the threats.
Of course there is no lack of far left idealist here as well who sometimes it seems to me confuse their location with different continent on earth.

The last not the least the would be peace loving friends friends who actually so far do a great job....its not a contradiction to them to hug terrorist.
Living in belief that hamas can be pacified or just because its good for Palestinians and anti Zionist.

Settlements are not great issue for me personally and majority of Israelis it seems.
It is clear that west bank can not be settled without using D9s(oops sorry)
Yea.. we are not this sort of people here.
Many settler themselves are not ideologically paralyzed and they sort of know that some day Israel may have to compromise but the key issue are:
security-bye bye jihad and hamas
public recognition of Israel
no right of return to any refugees.
exchange of territories.

No double political games and legitimation of terror organisations.

Settlements issue is a nice way to wage propaganda.
(Lebensraum association )
Israel is all just about settlement and depriving rights of Palestinians.
Its total bull crap...its clear for a very long time that this will not work.
Israel will compromise question is to what degree and at what risks.
We don't need million of Arabs under our control.
We also don't want them breaking our door asking for more.
.

@Penguin
The thing with that on the whole is the IDF is a good reliable source as are the Israeli govt. and judiciary.
Though it is conditional in the first two cases on pretty much ignoring all their initial statements as they are usually just crap that they put out to be dutifully parroted by the media and their fanclub.
It is rather illustrative that each time they will try the same lines even though they know its going to end up the same as last time, but its more illustrative how their fanboys carry on cheering on the specifics even after the sources have turned round and said it was crap.

@ the liar
It is no guess that MH has an insight that is at best myopic and is of such academic brilliance that he lies so repeatedly and so obviously.

You are so full of poison aren't you.:up:

Dont worry, after a while you get used to him spewing his "poison", and just learn to ignore it

The description of you is entirely accurate, nothing poisonous there at all. If someone is a liar I call them a liar, it really is as simple as that.
If you had more valid points to make on the subject you wouldn't have to repeatedly lie would you.

You sound like you have monopoly on truth.
A most dangerous case lol.
Sorry my friend i have proven(to myself at least) that you don't really know flying **** about Israel and Palestinian issue besides the usual google crap and some skewed to your liking historical facts....
Its especially evident in the way you like to cling to some extreme insignificant events to prove some points.
In other cases where you chose to finely risk showing some personal knowledge you demonstrate stubborn ignorance .

There is no doubt the the issue is very important to you for some reason but again BBC its not enough especially in conjunction with your mental state -as it seems.
You really suffer from the typical reptile syndrome well known in countries surrounding Israel.
I don't know what is your degree of education but you certainly aren't intellectual.
Your brain is too much clouded by your poison.
Again you probably are smart enough to know that... at least.

(Damn i cant believe i felt obligated to write the above:rotfl2:)

B.w

Have more fun

You mean facts don't yo,u not "insignificant events", but it is OK I understand you have a problem with people using facts as they tend to flatten lies.

Again and again on those finer points of knowledge you have to lie.


BBC, damn have you forgotten that you said I only read ...what was it again?????oh yeah the "liberal" publication you link to.
Make your mind up:har::har::har::har:

Really? And you expect people to take it that a liar could be any judge of intellect:yeah:

It would have been funnier to see you try and deny that you lie repeatedly in topics on the middle east.

Sorry MH but even someone with a barely functioning brain would realise by now that if what I write was so wrong or twisted then you wouldn't be finding yourself having to lie so often when you attempt to counter it.
It really is that simple.:yep:

Have a puppy.....

http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:A...ze4qcDXGWUWZaw

You are very touchy about this aren't you...:haha:
That's your problem to begin with but i'm not therapist.

@MH and Tribesman

I don't want to play UNO, but you both seem to happen to talk with me in this thread, but not with each other. Which honours me, that you are still open to the voice of the unwise penguin - as I respect both of you, each on his own style!
So my hats off to Tribes, for not being one of those blind Irishmen who joined the flotilla, and hats off to MH, for not having become an ignorant; in your situation it is much harder than many people imagine, not to turn many bad experiences into racism and hate.
(I wear multiple hats in case someone wonders ;))

And I think you both got more in common than maybe each other wants to reveal. Maybe Tribesman is much more the ultra-religious, fascist, nationalist, magnetist, zionist, Betonkopf and MH much more the long-haired, flower-eating, keffiyeh-wearing, Kumbaja-singing Commie guy than each other wants to reveal, lol. Each man is his owns most fierce critical voice, or as the Germans say: "The biggest critiques of moose are the very same!"

But as I think you would treat each other with much more respect when you would meet each other in person in a pub, we shouldn't forget the basic respect we ought to have of each other in Onkel Neal's den - or more bold: never trash the bar in the pub that you like!

Two guys having much in common, but only arguing about the differences is a picture, many people have of the conflict in The middle-East. Sure: arguing about differences can be much more fun, only telling each other how right they are that pizza is tasty, would be boring. However unproductive arguing, is something that certainly keeps people out to participate in this thread, many of them certainly be able to write much smarter things than I do.

holy Lemmy, even when I worked with kids and never sounded so preachy. :o
But here's my little reading gift to anyone not bored to death from reading until here:

How To Debate Politics Like A Gentleman

And from both of you I would like to want you to know what you think of Postone's analysis, which I posted earlier in this thread: Zionism, anti-semitism and the left From MH as he asked for explanations of this weird mindset of people shouting peace for Ali, but not for Samuel. From tribes as an non anti-semitic european leftie, who I bet read at least some theoretical stuff. Never been much of a person of the theory, but as a good, unlazy (lol) worker I have the communist manifest here - and the German Basic Law of 1949 :know:
The linked interview is about antisemitism in the left; the guy did some good research. He's a marxist professor of jewish heritage, good for this case, as lefties sometimes know something about the left - and i found out it's often jews who happen to know a lot about Israel, much more than most catholics know about the pope - or the woods :DL

And to make it clear: those flotilla loonies have nothing to do with "my" left, which stands for thinking for oneself, not following thinking patterns, who stand up for freedom instead of hiding behind dumb propaganda and an pseudo-superior morale, able to learn and - maybe most important- be able to laugh about oneself - but honestly I don't know what ideology would be nearest to mine. :hmmm:

Now I'll step out of the ring again and do what the Germans do very good at the moment: sell the weapons each of you, to blast each other off the earth! - in good old WW1 Krupp-tradition!

Peace!

PS: Leos are on sale at the moment ;)

PPS: the settler issue is an interesting one, would like to debate this later, as it has only indirectly to do with the flotilla - and I don't have the time to type an even longer response :)

Sorry Penguin, nice piece and nice try, but someone who repeatedly lies as MH clearly does deserves no respect on the subject regardless of if its face to face in a pub as you put it or on the internet.

I only mentioned that issue in regards to MacEions rather unique interpretations of it.