Hamas Covenant
 

I recommend everyone really interested to read it through.

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/hamas.htm

Following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the 1949 Armistice Agreements between Israel and neighboring Arab states eliminated Palestine as a distinct territory. With the establishment of Israel, the remaining lands were divided amongst Egypt, Syria and Jordan. The Arab governments at this point refused to set up a State of Palestine.
Arab countries sure aren't offering Palestinians lands for a Palestine and they never will. The problem isn't land, the problem is the destruction of the Jewish people.
It's common enough knowledge that whatever lands the Israeli's "give back" to Palestinian control is used for attacks against Israel so has to be reoccupied. There will never be peace in Israel as long as Israel is Israel or there are Jews in the region. Before Israel Jewish settlements were routinely butchered by Arabs so giving Palestinians a Palestine isn't going to accomplish squat.

um, the lands the egyptians and the jordanians held after 1948 are the gaza strip and the west bank, which would be the basis of any palestinian state today, so i'm not sure i understand the claim "Arab countries sure aren't offering Palestinians lands for a Palestine and they never will."

the israelis did their own share of butchering arab settlements.

Yes, many people think that the history of violence in that area started out in 1946. The violent history between "israelis" and palestine goes back to the turn of the 20th century.

Violence on both sides. No one's hands are clean in that area.

Prior to 67 they never offered to give that land for a new Palestine. As the Gaza Strip and the West Bank are occupied by Israel and not claimed to be part of Israel the Arabs could still offer those areas as a new Palestine. Some Palestinians, as well as some Arab states have stated that they would accept a 2-state solution based on pre-1967 lines. Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran,and others however, continue to call for the "liberation" of all of "historic" Palestine from the "Zionist Entity." While Hamas has recently offered a 10-year "hudna", or truce, contingent on Israel returning to the 1967 lines, they have stated publicly they would leave the ultimate solution to the conflict open to "future generations", thus leaving open the possibility that a solution based on the 1967 lines would not suffice, and they have steadfastly refused to alter their Charter, which explicitly calls for the destruction of the Jewish State and its replacement with an Islamic Theocracy. Would you believe a truce being honored. There has been none honored to date that I'm aware of.
The stumbling block is Israels right to exist. There are probably more Israelis and Palestinians that want to co-exist then don't but who is going to allow a state next to you who's ultimate goal is your destruction.
Millions of Arabs with 800,000+ Jews living in nine middle eastern countries. How much butchering do you think they did? After the birth of Israel all Jews were persecuted, some countries in retaliation stripped Jews of all possessions, bank accounts, property and evicted. Some had no more than the suitcase in their hand.
About 560,000 made it to Israel the rest to European or American countries. Now it's estimated that approx 7,600 Jews live in Arab countries. Of those 5,500 live in Morocco and 1,500 in Tunisia.

First, I'm not saying there wasn't persecution of the jews. but the israelis' hands aren't clean, either -- they persecuted the palestinians too, before and after 1948, culminating in forcing a significant proportion of the palestinians out of their homes. israel promulgates this fiction that the palestinians left willingly.

and that was in 1948. wouldn't you count what happens to the arabs in the occupied territories today as persecution?

funny, that's how plenty of palestinians and israeli arabs view israel -- not without some justification.

i'd like to think so, otherwise things will only get worse.

No human being who has outgrown their diapers is without some sin Caspofungin, but that don't make Mother Teresa as bad as Charley Manson, does it?

Car bombs, deliberate murder of children and innocents, kidnappings, hijackings, torture, daily rocket attacks aimed at civilian communities INSTEAD of miltary bases, WTF! The worst of Israeli transgressions can hardly compare to stuff like that.

that's not really the best analogy, is it? if you honestly believe that the way the israelis treat the palestinians is 100% justified, there's no point in further discussion.

From my perspective, both sides are guilty of murder of innocent civilians. somehow, though, no one calls the israelis to task for what they do.

you're joking right? the israelis have killed many more palestinian civilians than israli civilians have died, and let's not even count lebanese civilians in 2006. amnesty international, human rights watch, even israeli sources. and that's just the killing. how many israelis live in refugee camps in their own land, running water and electricity working at the whim of the occupiers? restrictions on travel, and so restrictions on health, education, trade?

an entire people living with an israeli jackboot on the back of their neck, punished for the "transgressions" of the minority? and i put transgressions in quotes, because i'll bet you anything you like, if some foreign country takes over your land, August, you'll be one of the first to take up arms in resistance, right? but you'd deny the same right to others?

placing all the blame on one side is pretty weak, both sides have a lot to answer for. but things aren't as clear cut, black-and-white as hollywood, congress, and the knesset would have you believe. and things aren't gonna get fixed when someone can't even attempt to establish a dialogue without being taken to task (to return to the original post.)

Well you're wrong on both counts, but in my book "taking up arms in resistance" does not mean targeting civilians, nor does it mean using civilians as meatshields to hide behind. It does not mean strapping explosives to my childrens waists before i send them out to blow themselves in the nearest crowd of people. Get my drift?

I believe I have already said that no side is blameless but things aren't gonna get fixed by some has been do-gooder letting himself get used for one sides propaganda effort either.

Oh I'm supposed to ignore anything that "hollywood, congress, and the knesset" says but take "amnesty international, human rights watch, even israeli sources" as gospel? Who's joking who here?

And why did Israel invade Lebanon in 2006? I don't know where you're from but i don't know of any country that would allow rocket attacks upon its territory. Again their enemy uses his own civilians as meatshields in order to score propaganda points with a sympathetic world press. Lovely.

You call walking into a sleeping household and murdering Israeli infants in their beds or blowing up school busses with suicide bombs "transgressions"?! :o

The kidnapping of that soldier (who BTW has never been returned), the murder of those who were with him and the shelling of Israeli border towns you mean.

Maybe you you think that rocket sites firing from the tops of civilian buildings should be immune from attack?

The bottom line here is that Lebanon allows a foreign army, Hezbollah, to operate from their territory. That will have it's consequences when that army goes to war on Lebanons neighbors.

How would you have fought them? they store weapons and ammo in schools. They locate their firing positions in civilian areas - and often kept the residents with force of weapon from running away. Thye place a rocket launcher on top of a hospital. they do not aim at Israel in order to hit the government or it's offices and the army, but they intentionally target for killing as many civilians as possible, and they try hard to provoke Iraels striking back - and due to the way they hide behind civilian infrastructure, Israels necessarily hits civilians when it intentionally targets fighters. that that civil infrastructuire that helps the enemy to fight, move and survive, also gets intentionally destroyed, comes by the logic of war, and should be no surpsie. You cannot win a war by saving and helping your enemy.

Your indignation makes little sense if you do not honour this difference between Israel, and Hezbollah, or Hamas. Israel targets Hezbollah and Hamas and that infrastructure that supports it, and by doing so it accepts to eventually kill civilians. Hezbollah/Hamas intentionally target civilians, and provokes Palestinian civil deaths and even arranges them so that it can score in the propaganda war - a score that you will to give them. Think twice. It is not as easy as you try to make it appear. Let's not forget that Hamas for example was voted into power last time, and that Hezbiollah was accepted into power in Lebanon. It is antidemocratic to save the Palestinians from the choice a suffienct ammount of their voters has made - you can see it also this way. the freedom in democracy works both ways: the voted gain their legitimcay from the election, and the voters can be held responsible for the choice they made and who they voted for. enough of the palestinians wanted Hamas, and they got what they wanted. The lebanese allowed long enought the deployment and strengthening of Hezbollah, and what they got is the logical conseqeunce from that: they are no longer master in their house, but depend from Iran's "legion etranger".

They did, and still do, and that is what counts. Christian militias in Lebanon, and the Druse people, are not as strong as they were in the 80s anymore. Lebanon cannot do anything against the will of Hezbollah, behind which stands the full support and massed strength of Iran.

In war you do not care so much for what ways of killing yourn enemy are authorized by somebody not being involved, and what not. Your only care in war should be to kill and to destroy and to win. Leave peace missions, police operations and teaching a lesson to the UN, it has long reputation of being militarily impotent - of the Israelis I would have expected something better, and much tougher. War is not nice, as Nancy Reaan once put it in understatement - but that'S the very nature of war, and the reason why it is not called "picnic in the park". Both the bad planning and bad preparation and - in the end - the lacking willingness to go all the way rewareded Israel a very hurting defeat that has a long rat-tail of negartive consequences for Israel. The most important one: they have lost their aura to be unbeatable. They will never be as feared again as before, and Hezbollah has demnstrated by what tactics and weapons types the Israeli army can be fought down and being brought to a halt. From now on, and with Hezbollah alöready being armed up with ATGMs again in larger quantities than before - the Israeli army is vulnerable.

There is no way to fight a war around a civilian population Mikhayl. There is no smart bomb smart enough to distinguish a fighter from a civilian and mistakes will happen like they do in any other human activity of comparable complexity and scale.

The Palestinians in particular use this fact of war to their advantage. Their whole strategy is to make people such as yourself think the Israelis are as bad as they are, so they seem less horrible by comparison. They don't just do this with the Isrealis either as the Lebanese Army and the folks in the city of Nahr al-Bared found out last year.

Hezbollah Envoy: War on Israel to Widen

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/...8J2C23G6.shtml

This is what started it.

Yeah it's a sad thing alright. That's why i see no resolution to the problem until one side or the other is ejected totally from the area.

Actually i'd like them to live together in peace and harmony. Hold hands and dance around the campfire singing "Cumbayah" and "I want to teach the world to sing". :yep:

I just don't think that's what is going to happen though.

Mikhayl, I would be interested to know what you understand to be "Skybird'S own truths", since what I say is not just my own reasoning, but has been reflected in essays and articles throughout all the international press. I also would like to know what you mean by Israel's reply being out of proportion when going to war after it's territories, settlement and citizens having been under constant missile shelling since years. what else must they get thrown at them before finally starting a war in an attempt to destroy the faction doing so would no longer being considered as a disproportionate response? If I threaten your family and randomly shoot at your house several times per day - would you act disproportionatly when starting to finally shoot back at me and trying to kill me? And if you cannot see me, starting to lob grenades at my position, destroying the cars behind which I hide, and turn into flames the buildings from whose windows I am shooting at you? Hardly. Once you start firing back to protect your family from me, you would do your best to strip me off any covber, any help, any support, any location where I could rest. If you would not do that, first you would be an idiot, and next you would be dead. ;)

You..dont..believe...in.....world peace?! :o

no, i call it murder, just like killing 5 or 6 civilians in a rocket strike to kill 1 militant.

let me get this straight -- the israelis can do whatever they deem necessary to protect themselves, flout whatever international laws they like, and that's "just war." but the other side is supposed to line up in an orderly fashion in an open field and wait to get mown down? if you're fighting against an army that's better equipped, better trained, better in every respect, then what wouldn't you do to win?

that's the point -- in my opinion, the israeli defence force is as bad as any militant group. both sides are horrible, with no respect for innocent life.

the crux of the matter is, is a dead israeli civilian more of a tragedy than a dead palestinian civilian? if so, why?

"World peace". I've read of that concept somewheres. Isn't that when one has destroyed all their enemies, scattered their flocks and heard the lamentations of their women? :p