War in Middle East - part XXVVVII

[looney]

Fvck me - another (brief) history lesson!

The MB started in the late 1920s and developed into a pro-Arab nationalist organisation after the Anglo-Egyptian treaty in the early '30s - ie they didnt want westerners colonising their lands!1

Perhaps even you might see a pattern emerging here??!!

The only pattern I see is your selective and wrong claims with out sources.


the Islamic brotherhood became radicalised in the 50's.

The Egyptian government legalized the Brotherhood again in 1948, but only as a religious organization; it was banned again in 1954 because it insisted that Egypt be governed under shari'a (Islamic law).
http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/mb.htm

It was not anti-western or israeli and was a revivalist movement that yearned for the Kalifate..

The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928 by Hasan al-Banna, a 22-year-old elementary school teacher, as an Islamic revivalist movement following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the subsequent ban of the caliphate system of government that had united the Muslims for hundreds of years

 

[brighton bluenose]

Muslims latest round of radicalisation began in the 50's with the Muslim brotherhood in Eygpt and was aimed at eygptian government, it had NOTHING to do with israel.

Your ramblings are getting stranger and stranger and, if possible, even more incorrect!

One of the things that DID radicalize the Muslim Brotherhood in the '40s and 50s was seeing the Palestinians being robbed of their lands by the Jews - another fact to counter your bvllshit!

 

[looney]

No it was mainly the westernisation of the middle East and the corruption of their Governments. Israel was something latched onto later as a way of uniting muslims. a lot had and still do have a low opinion of Palastinians.

 

[brighton bluenose]

No it was mainly the westernisation of the middle East and the corruption of their Governments. Israel was something latched onto later as a way of uniting muslims. a lot had and still do have a low opinion of Palastinians.

See my post # 297 - however, I am correct re their radicalization due to the Palestinians problems in '48.

 

[raymondbriggs]

Home News Top Stories
Israeli war: Eye for an eye? This is an eye for an eyelash By Avi Shlaim Author And Professor Of International Relations At The University Of Oxford 8/01/2009

The only way to make sense of Israel's senseless war in Gaza is to understand the historical context.

I used to think Sir John Troutbeck's 1948 description of Israel as a gangster state headed by "an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders" too harsh, but Israel's vicious assault on the people of Gaza has made me reconsider.

I was a loyal soldier in the Israeli army in the mid-60s and I have never questioned the legitimacy of the state of Israel within its pre-1967 borders.

But I utterly reject the Israeli settlements on occupied Arab territory. The Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the aftermath of the 1967 war had very little to do with security and everything to do with territorial expansionism.

The aim was to establish Greater Israel through permanent political, economic and military control over the Palestinian territories. And the result has been one of the most prolonged, brutal military occupations of modern times.

Gaza is a classic case of colonial exploitation in the post-colonial era.

Jewish settlements in occupied territories are immoral, illegal and an insurmountable obstacle to peace.

They are at once the instrument of exploitation and the symbol of occupation.

In Gaza in 2005, the Jewish settlers numbered 8,000 compared with 1.4 million local residents. Yet the settlers controlled 25 per cent of the territory, 40 per cent of the arable land and the lion's share of the scarce water resources.

Cheek by jowl with these foreign intruders, the local population lived in unimaginable misery. Eighty per cent of them still subsist on less than Û2 a day.

Living conditions in the Strip remain an affront to civilised values, a powerful precipitant to resistance and a fertile breeding ground for political extremism.

In August 2005 Ariel Sharon's Likud government staged a unilateral Israeli pull-out from Gaza, withdrawing all 8,000 settlers and destroying the houses and farms they left behind.

Israel's settlers were withdrawn but Israeli soldiers continued to control all access to the Gaza Strip by land, sea and air. Gaza was converted overnight into an open-air prison.

From this point on, the Israeli airforce enjoyed unrestricted freedom to drop bombs and to terrorise the inhabitants of this prison.

Israel portrays itself as an island of democracy in a sea of authoritarianism, yet it has never done anything to promote democracy on the Arab side and has done a great deal to undermine it.

Despite all the handicaps, the Palestinian people succeeded in building the only real democracy in the Arab world with the possible exception of Lebanon.

In January 2006, fair elections brought to power a Hamas-led government.

Israel, however, refused to recognise the democratically elected government, claiming that Hamas was purely and simply a terrorist organisation.

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The US and the EU shamelessly joined Israel in demonising the Hamas government, and a surreal situation developed with a significant part of the international community imposing economic sanctions not against the occupier but the occupied, not against the oppressor but the oppressed.

Israel's propaganda machine persistently purveyed the notion that the Palestinians are terrorists, that they reject coexistence with the Jewish state, that their nationalism is little more than antisemitism, that Hamas is just a bunch of religious fanatics and that Islam is incompatible with democracy.

But the truth is that the Palestinian people are a normal people with normal aspirations. What they aspire to, above all, is a piece of land to call their own, on which to live in freedom and dignity.

The war unleashed by Israel on Gaza on December 27 was the culmination of a series of clashes with the Hamas government. Its declared aim is to weaken Hamas until it agrees to ceasefire on Israel's terms. The undeclared aim is to ensure that the Palestinians in Gaza are seen by the world simply as a humanitarian problem and thus to derail their struggle for independence and statehood.

As ever, mighty Israel claims to be the victim of Palestinian aggression but the sheer asymmetry of power between the two sides leaves little doubt as to who is the real victim. The resort to military force is accompanied, as always, by the shrill rhetoric of victimhood, self-pity and self-righteousness.

To be sure, Hamas is not an entirely innocent party. Denied the fruit of its electoral victory, it has resorted to the weapon of the weak - terror. Militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad kept launching rocket attacks against Israeli settlements near the border with Gaza until Egypt brokered a six-month ceasefire last June.

The damage caused by these primitive rockets is minimal but the psychological impact is immense, prompting the public to demand protection from its government.

Under the circumstances, Israel had the right to act in self-defence but its response to the pinpricks of rocket attacks was totally disproportionate.

The figures speak for themselves. In the three years after the withdrawal from Gaza, 11 Israelis were killed by rocket fire. But in 2005-7 alone, the Israel Defense Forces killed 1,290 Palestinians in Gaza, including 222 children.

Whatever the numbers, killing civilians is wrong. This applies to Israel as much as it does to Hamas, but its record is one of unbridled and unremitting brutality towards the inhabitants of Gaza.

The brutality of Israel's soldiers is fully matched by the mendacity of its spokesmen.

Eight months before launching the current war on Gaza, Israel established a National Information Directorate. The core messages of this directorate to the media are that: Hamas broke the ceasefire agreements; Israel's objective is the defence of its population; and Israel's forces are taking the utmost care not to hurt civilians. In essence, this propaganda is a pack of lies.

It was not Hamas but the IDF that broke the ceasefire. It did so by a raid into Gaza on November 4 that killed six Hamas men. Israel's objective is not just the defence of its population but the eventual overthrow of the Hamas government in Gaza.

And far from taking care to spare civilians, Israel is guilty of indiscriminate bombing and of a three-year blockade that has brought the inhabitants of Gaza to the brink of catastrophe.

The Biblical injunction of an eye for an eye is savage enough. But Israel's insane offensive against Gaza seems to follow the logic of an eye for an eyelash.

After eight days of bombing, with a death toll of more than 400 Palestinians and four Israelis, the gung-ho cabinet ordered a land invasion of Gaza. The consequences of this are incalculable.

Avi Shlaim is the author of The Iron Wall: Israel And The Arab World.

- Copyright Guardian News and Media 2009


the Mirror

 

[Seagull Stew]

I try to stay neutral on this issue I really do, but is there any way that the Israeli sympathisers can justify some of the actions mentioned in this piece, or do they actually think that the Red Cross are lying?

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20090108/twl-un-agency-suspends-gaza-operations-41f21e0.html

UN agency suspends Gaza operations
Thursday, January 8 08:17 pm


Print Story
A United Nations aid agency has suspended operations in the Gaza Strip because of the risk posed to its workers by Israeli forces.

Earlier, two Palestinian forklift workers were killed by Israeli shelling as a convoy for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) approached the Erez crossing with Israel.

On Tuesday, three UNRWA-run schools in Gaza were hit by Israeli fire, killing more than 45 Palestinians who had been taking shelter from the violence.

Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross has said Israel is breaking international law by blocking emergency teams in Gaza from helping wounded Palestinians.

Workers for the organisation found four starving children sitting next to their dead mothers and other corpses in a house bombed by Israel.

The ICRC said: "They were too weak to stand up on their own. One man was also found alive, too weak to stand up. In all there were at least 12 corpses lying on mattresses."

Pierre Wettach, ICRC chief for Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, said: "This is a shocking incident. The Israeli military must have been aware of the situation but did not assist the wounded.

"Neither did they make it possible for us or the Palestinian Red Crescent to assist the wounded."

In another house, the team found 15 survivors of Israeli shelling including several wounded. Three corpses were found in another home.

Israeli soldiers posted 80m away ordered the rescue team to leave the area, which the ICRC said they refused to do. It has demanded that safe access be granted for Palestinian Red Crescent ambulances to return to evacuate more wounded.

There are also reports that Israeli tanks have been running over bodies - including that of a baby.

An Israeli offensive launched in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip on December 27 has drawn increasing international criticism over mounting civilian casualties. At least 700 Palestinians have been killed, including more than 200 children and 90 women.

The number of wounded has risen to over 3,100 with nearly half women and children.

Earlier, Israel launched shells into Lebanon in response to rockets fired into its territory which wounded two people. A military spokesman said Israel aimed "a pinpoint response at the source of fire". An Israeli security source said the army retaliated, firing five artillery shells.

On Thursday, Pope Benedict condemned the use of violence by Israel and Hamas a day after one of his senior aides angered Jews by calling the strip "a big concentration camp".

 

[brighton bluenose]

I try to stay neutral on this issue I really do, but is there any way that the Israeli sympathisers can justify some of the actions mentioned in this piece, or do they actually think that the Red Cross are lying?

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20090108/twl-un-agency-suspends-gaza-operations-41f21e0.html

UN agency suspends Gaza operations
Thursday, January 8 08:17 pm


Print Story
A United Nations aid agency has suspended operations in the Gaza Strip because of the risk posed to its workers by Israeli forces.

Earlier, two Palestinian forklift workers were killed by Israeli shelling as a convoy for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) approached the Erez crossing with Israel.

On Tuesday, three UNRWA-run schools in Gaza were hit by Israeli fire, killing more than 45 Palestinians who had been taking shelter from the violence.

Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross has said Israel is breaking international law by blocking emergency teams in Gaza from helping wounded Palestinians.

Workers for the organisation found four starving children sitting next to their dead mothers and other corpses in a house bombed by Israel.

The ICRC said: "They were too weak to stand up on their own. One man was also found alive, too weak to stand up. In all there were at least 12 corpses lying on mattresses."

Pierre Wettach, ICRC chief for Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, said: "This is a shocking incident. The Israeli military must have been aware of the situation but did not assist the wounded.

"Neither did they make it possible for us or the Palestinian Red Crescent to assist the wounded."

In another house, the team found 15 survivors of Israeli shelling including several wounded. Three corpses were found in another home.

Israeli soldiers posted 80m away ordered the rescue team to leave the area, which the ICRC said they refused to do. It has demanded that safe access be granted for Palestinian Red Crescent ambulances to return to evacuate more wounded.

There are also reports that Israeli tanks have been running over bodies - including that of a baby.

An Israeli offensive launched in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip on December 27 has drawn increasing international criticism over mounting civilian casualties. At least 700 Palestinians have been killed, including more than 200 children and 90 women.

The number of wounded has risen to over 3,100 with nearly half women and children.

Earlier, Israel launched shells into Lebanon in response to rockets fired into its territory which wounded two people. A military spokesman said Israel aimed "a pinpoint response at the source of fire". An Israeli security source said the army retaliated, firing five artillery shells.

On Thursday, Pope Benedict condemned the use of violence by Israel and Hamas a day after one of his senior aides angered Jews by calling the strip "a big concentration camp".

Funny isn't it tht after a few facts the Zionists disappear!!

 

[Westdene Seagull]

Funny isn't it tht after a few facts the Zionists disappear!!

I can think of more appropriate words than funny but I agree with your point.

It's particularly difficult to argure that the Israelis are in the right when a neutral organisation like the Red Cross accuse them of breaking international law. Here's hoping they feel the full force of said law.

 

[raymondbriggs]

and the article in my post above was written by a proud jew who served israel's army.many jews are as disgusted by this war.
this whole argument isn't anti semetic as israel's appologists on here pretend.it is a humanitarian crises that persons of all and no religion are offended by.

 

[looney]

I'm not apologising for anything.


Maybe I haven't responded is I have better things to do than respond to all your emotive half cocked rhetoric.

Israel is breaking international law by blocking emergency teams in Gaza from helping wounded Palestinians.

Wrong, war zones are covered by military law and emergency teams can be blocked for a variety of reasons.


If this is true so what? They are dead, do you expect them to climb out of their tanks and clear bodies and risk death by sniper fire.

Oh great youve found a loyal israeli who condemns the war, again so what? There were Unionist Catholics and republican Unionists in Ulster, not many, but that point you avoid as well as adressing what he says.

He seems to think that all this is due to Israeli blockades and if Gaza wasn't blockaded then Hamas wouldn't be stockpiling ammo etc to wage war, even though thats what its commited to.

This person is whats called Nieve, there are many like that as this thread pays testament to.

 

[looney]

Maybe its the islamacist apolgists on here who should be apologising?

Its obvious to anyone that a war would result in the Palestinians getting a really good shoeing, then beaten.


shouldn't you be encouraging them to either surrender or recognise Israel rather than defending them on their blind quest for self-destruction

 

[Southover Street Seagull]

I'm not apologising for anything.


Maybe I haven't responded is I have better things to do than respond to all your emotive half cocked rhetoric.

Israel is breaking international law by blocking emergency teams in Gaza from helping wounded Palestinians.

Wrong, war zones are covered by military law and emergency teams can be blocked for a variety of reasons.


If this is true so what? They are dead, do you expect them to climb out of their tanks and clear bodies and risk death by sniper fire.

Oh great youve found a loyal israeli who condemns the war, again so what? There were Unionist Catholics and republican Unionists in Ulster, not many, but that point you avoid as well as adressing what he says.

He seems to think that all this is due to Israeli blockades and if Gaza wasn't blockaded then Hamas wouldn't be stockpiling ammo etc to wage war, even though thats what its commited to.

This person is whats called Nieve, there are many like that as this thread pays testament to.

What is a Republican Unionist oh Zionist one?

 

[NMH]

shouldn't you be encouraging them to either surrender or recognise Israel rather than defending them on their blind quest for self-destruction

Surrender, be a second-rate citizen forced to give up your home, and serve the Naz....oops.....I mean Israelis.
It does have a familiar ring to it.

Why is it that Israel can declare that Palestinians must be cut off from the world, while Israel is financed and armed without any limit or sanction?
Why is it that Israelis have forced Palestinians into a compound that they police (even in times of peace ), yet take the constant stance of having being oppressed?

Incidentally looney, your regardless defence of anything and everything Israel does, suggests one thing to me. It's something that is common to less and less of them, but generally it comes only from Jewish people.
There are now a lot of Jews who are tired and un-supportive of Israel's behaviour now though.

Your points on Israel might carry more weight if they were not always so myopically sided with Israel regardless.

 

[looney]

I meant A Republican protestant oh Al-queida sympathiser.

 

[NMH]

Maybe its the islamacist apolgists on here who should be apologising?

Its obvious to anyone that a war would result in the Palestinians getting a really good shoeing, then beaten.

shouldn't you be encouraging them to either surrender or recognise Israel rather than defending them on their blind quest for self-destruction

Another thing, probably more pertinent;- Why should "anyone" encourage one side to kow-tow to the other's every wish, just because they are a minority?

Would everyone have respected Poland more, if they just joined Germany when they saw they were outnumbered? Howabout Britain surrender to Hitler because the odds were stacked against?

 

[Southover Street Seagull]

I meant A Republican protestant oh Al-queida sympathiser.

Not once in this thread I have claimed to have supported or supported any of Al-Qaeda's policies, so how you can think I am one of their sympathisers is beyond me.

 

[looney]

Surrender, be a second-rate citizen forced to give up your home, and serve the Naz....oops.....I mean Israelis.
It does have a familiar ring to it.

Why is it that Israel can declare that Palestinians must be cut off from the world, while Israel is financed and armed without any limit or sanction?
Why is it that Israelis have forced Palestinians into a compound that they police (even in times of peace ), yet take the constant stance of having being oppressed?

Incidentally looney, your regardless defence of anything and everything Israel does, suggests one thing to me. It's something that is common to less and less of them, but generally it comes only from Jewish people.
There are now a lot of Jews who are tired and un-supportive of Israel's behaviour now though.

Your points on Israel might carry more weight if they were not always so myopically sided with Israel regardless.

In a final settlement I beleive Israel would have to be lent on bigtime to make big consessions even to the exstent of a major redrawing of borders in the favour of the Palestinians. But untill that day it is pointless because they are not the bad guys.



And Like charlie chaplin I have never felt the urge or need to deny that I am jewish.

 

[looney]

Not once in this thread I have claimed to have supported or supported any of Al-Qaeda's policies, so how you can think I am one of their sympathisers is beyond me.

just a retort to your Zionist jibe. as a zionist is someone who accepts the state of Israel should exist you would be in a pretty small club of those that think it shouldn't, Hamas, Hizbollah, Iran, Al-quieda...

 

[Southover Street Seagull]

just a retort to your Zionist jibe. as a zionist is someone who accepts the state of Israel should exist you would be in a pretty small club of those that think it shouldn't, Hamas, Hizbollah, Iran, Al-quieda...

Yet again you are wrong I have not said in any posts on this thread that Israel does not have the right to exist as a sovereign independent state.

A Zionist is a supporter of Zionism, and from reading your posts I think you fit the OED definition of what a supporter of Zionism is:

Zionism
/ziniz’m/

• noun a movement for the development and protection of a Jewish nation in Israel.

— DERIVATIVES Zionist noun & adjective.

 

[looney]

Yet again you are wrong I have not said in any posts on this thread that Israel does not have the right to exist as a sovereign independent state.

A Zionist is a supporter of Zionism, and from reading your posts I think you fit the OED definition of what a supporter of Zionism is:

Zionism
/ziniz’m/

• noun a movement for the development and protection of a Jewish nation in Israel.

— DERIVATIVES Zionist noun & adjective.

Exactly, you calling me "oh zionist one" in your post above means I beleive in "the development and protection of a Jewish nation in Israel. " and by implication that you dont beleive in that.

also
http://www.jewsnotzionists.org/

It is often used in a derogetroy context by exstremists.
Iran does not recognise Israel and Iranian firms and individuals are banned from dealings with Israel or Israelis, often referred to as the "Zionist regime" Reuters


moreover it is often used as an insult or a proxy for jew as a cover for anti-sematism.

David Hirsh is lecturer in sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London. He argues that anti-Semitic ways of thinking are becoming acceptable in Academe and public life, and that this encourages rising levels of violence on the street

"There are many spheres in Britain in which it has become common sense that Israel is a unique and radical evil in the world. 'Zionist' has now become an insult, an epithet for evil.

These shared assumptions about Israel are fertile ground for the emergence of an anti-Semitic movement. Much of the far right is now adopting the language of the anti-Zionist left. And you have people being accepted in the Palestine solidarity movement, such as Gilad Atzmon, who denies being anti-Semitic but says he is "an anti- Zionist".

Project Management Standard Program "Contemporary anti-Zionism emerged after the 1967 war, but there's now a clear, accelerated process of mainstreaming going on. It's even big in the Liberal Democrats. What does Baroness Tonge mean when she says that the 'pro-Israel lobby has got its grips on the Western world, its financial grips'?.........
' has now become an insult, an epithet for evil' | Independent, The (London) | Find Articles at BNET


"Your're not to be so blind with patriotism that you cant see reality.Wrong is wrong no matter who does it or says it"

Malcolm X