These are links that I've been meaning to share for a while - organised in rough categories. I think they're an excellent resource. Some provide solid sources for many discussion arguments.
This entry is under construction: if you think there's something that needs to be up here, please write it in the comments.
Given that anti-war sources seem to be limited - spread it!
This entry is under construction: if you think there's something that needs to be up here, please write it in the comments.
Given that anti-war sources seem to be limited - spread it!
Live from Gaza - by non-reporters:
Tales to tell. Excellent coverage, from Sharon of the International Solidarity Movement. Like the ISM or hate them, this is day-to-day coverage of events at the very heart of the action: ISM volunteers accompany ambulances and report on things rapidly. The writing is compelling, too. a must-read.
From Gaza with love, by Dr. Mona El Farra. She a pediatrician and a human rights activist. The writing is hasty, almost childish, giving updates, commentary, second-hand reporting from other doctors in Gaza.
In Gaza (seeing a pattern here?). Eva, also ISM. Excellent (well, as excellent as destruction can look) photos, too.
Aid worker diary. Hatem Shurrab works in Gaza and files a short entry every day. The everyday struggle between doing his job, as well as fearing for his life and his family's life, is absolutely worthy of a novel, which will never be written (mainly because he'll probably be dead before the war is over)
Debunking the Gaza misinformation!
By authors far superior than me. (my debunking posts are still here and here, though).
What You Don’t Know About Gaza by Rashid Khalidi (yes, he's the one you're thinking of).
When an article begins with "NEARLY everything you’ve been led to believe about Gaza is wrong", you know you need to open your eyes - and your brain - wide. A simple, clear, focused New York Times op-ed.
Desmontando los tópicos de Gaza from El Pais. If you fancy practicing your Spanish.
Etgar Keret (my favourite Israeli author) pokes fun at the motives of the war with humour
CNN Confirms that Israel broke the ceasefire. Finally someone does the research... Dates, facts, events. Watch it!!
Oh, and: Booya.
"Why do they hate us so much, we will ask", Robert Fisk - putting things in context AND in the correct timeline. Now you know who's reacting to whom.
War of choice - why the argument that the war was 'unavoidable' is bullshit.
Because no analysis is complete without Jon Stewart speaking his mind:
The Gaza Strip-maul
For an image of Gaza pre-war:
Prof. Sara Roy (of Harvard U)'s article in the January issue of London Review of Books.
Other analysis of Interest
From the Ashes of Gaza, by Tariq Ali: the war and the one-state solution
The rotten state of Egypt is too powerless and corrupt to act, Robert Fisk. Not the wording I'd have chosen but it's the idea.
Israel pressured the US to abstain from UN vote? Do I hear someone saying Walt and Mearsheimer? :)
Senator Dennis Kucinich, kinda pissed off at the American idleness: Wake Up America!
Reports from Humanitarian Agencies
Numbers change, of course, around the clock.
Washington Post, Red Cross Reports Grisly Find in Gaza
AP, UN, Red Cross curtail Gaza aid, criticize Israel
Gaza humanitarian updates from Israeli Human Rights organisations
Richard Falk, UN Special Investigator for the Palestinian Territories who was recently deported by Israel: "Hard to justify deadly attacks"
ICRC demands urgent access to wounded as Israeli army fails to assist wounded Palestinians. 4 days for the army to allow the passage of ambulances? FOUR days?
On the media and the control of information
Israel still maintains a ban on foreign journalists from entering Gaza. As such, most journalists sit quietly in Jerusalem, TA or, for the most daring, Ashdod, sipping coffee and watching the smoke from afar, as this jock here. The media blackout is part of a successful disinformation campaign by Israel. Some commentary on the subject.
Israel Puts Media Clamp on Gaza, NY Times.
Lights Out in Gaza, News Blackout in US on the - well, self-explanatory really.
Ido Liven's Return of the Mehikon, or: Blue-and-White TV
Jerusalem Post, Spokesman's Unit hails fair coverage: When one side - the strong one - is satisfied with the coverage, YOU KNOW something's wrong.
Electronic Intifada with BBC: Eyeless in Gaza. (I always laugh when, in a discussion with Israelis, someone says the BBC is pro-Palestinian... vantage points i guess!)
Who's winning the PR War? By the Jerusalem Correspondent in Jerusalem. Very smart. I like.
Eyeless in Israel - brilliant Lisa Goldman does it again. Published in the Forward.
Some Israelis are still lucid, Baruch HaShem!
Some Israelis have decided to stand up to the ambient warmongering and, well, think for themselves. The result is the excellent commentary and analysis below.
(needless to say, there are many Israeli bloggers whose opinions I value and respect: in this very respect, we happen to disagree drastically. This doesn't mean, of course, that I read their blogs or value their writing and our discussions any less.)
Haniyeh and his Israeli sisters: wartime tales from Gaza and Israel. Lisa Goldman's epic post on the war. A must!
The grand Gideon Levy: The IAF, bullies of the clear blue skies
Yossi Sarid's beautiful If you (or I) were Palestinian
Yudit Ilanyi on the ground in Jaffa. Honest, smart, incisive.
The Truth Herzl, Daniella's excellent and frequent posting makes you wish Ben Gurion U was off for longer.
South Jerusalem , proof that you can be religious AND still have (excellent) brains.
Jonathan Geffen, iconic poet and singer: "Welcome to the Bombing Show" in Hebrew, and in French
Interesting Jewish-American commentary on Jvoices
* Thanks to all the people whose posted links I allowed myself to steal!
28 comments:
Thanks for the links
Great Job :)
The unbroken link for Yossi Sarid / If you (or I) were Palestinian . Very Interesting:
"One student, who had expressed rather conservative, accepted opinions - that is opinions tending slightly to the right - succeeded in surprising me. Without any provocation on my part, he opened his heart and confessed: "If I were a young Palestinian," he said, "I'd fight the Jews fiercely, even by means of terror. Anyone who says anything different is telling you lies.
His remarks sounded familiar - I had already heard them before. Suddenly I remembered: About 10 years ago they were uttered by our defense minister, Ehud Barak. Haaretz journalist Gideon Levy had asked him then, as a candidate for prime minister, what he would do had he been born Palestinian and Barak replied frankly: "I would join a terror organization." "
Deuteronomy 20:13-20
13 And when the LORD thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword (even the unarmed ones):
14 But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the LORD thy God hath given thee.
15 Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations.
16 But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth:
17 But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee:
18 That they teach you not to do after all their abominations, which they have done unto their gods; so should ye sin against the LORD your God.
19 When thou shalt besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, thou shalt not destroy the trees thereof by forcing an axe against them: for thou mayest eat of them, and thou shalt not cut them down (for the tree of the field is man's life) to employ them in the siege:
20 Only the trees which thou knowest that they be not trees for meat, thou shalt destroy and cut them down; and thou shalt build bulwarks against the city that maketh war with thee, until it be subdued.
1- All men, including the unarmed ones, were to be executed (Deuteronomy 20:13).
2- All women and children were to be taken as spoils of war (Deuteronomy 20:14).
3- For the others, kill and destroy every creature that is breathing - that is all men, women, children and animals (Deuteronomy 20:16-17).
I think the Koran says something quite similar following the massacre of a Jewish tribe, no?
None of us live in the Ancient Days, okay? As a matter of fact, there is ample Jewish authority that the rules of engagement in Deuteronomy applied only once--during the conquest of Canaan--and besides, the Jews back then were punished because they DID NOT follow these commands.
As for the Religion of Peace:
“Then when the Sacred Months have passed, kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, and capture them and besiege them, and prepare for them each and every ambush. But if they repent and observe the Islamic lifestyle, then leave their way free. Verily, Allah is Oft Forgiving, Most Merciful.” Sura 9:5
"Crushing the heads of the infidels and splitting their skulls with sharp swords, we continually thrust and cut at the enemy. Blood gushed from their deep wounds as the battle wore them down. We conquered bearing the Prophet's fluttering war banner. Our cavalry was submerged in rising dust, and our spears quivered, but by us the Prophet gained victory." Ishaq: 578
I seem to recall reading that when the Jews of Medina refused to recognize the Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, as a Prophet of G-d, the men were killed and their women divided up among the Arab men as spoils of war.
I told Mohamed once that the Devil can quote Scripture to serve his own purposes, so I think we should forego this exercise of dueling quotes and get back to figuring out how to extract peace from war, which is a far more pressing need at the moment.
I can't offer further clarification on Deuteronomy, but perhaps I may be able to do so on the Quran verses quoted.
Verse 9-5: from surat (chapter) Al-Tawba - a very special one indeed: an angry one. It is the only Surat that does not begin by the recitation of the customary "Bismillah Al Rahman Al Raheem" - (in the name of God, the most Gracious, the most Merciful) because it would contrast with the following verses of divine wrath.
The Surat was sent after Muslims were betrayed by people they had signed a treaty with - and were both in shock and in disarray.
The first few verses are therefore a explanation of how to behave: those who have maintained their agreement with you, you honour your agreemnt with them. Those who have betrayed you, you are allowed to fight, except in the months of the truce (the "forbidden months").
The verse before the one you quote - very much out of context - is this:
"Excepting those of the idolaters with whom ye have a treaty, and who have since abated nothing of your right nor have supported anyone against you. (As for these), fulfill their treaty to them till its term. Lo! Allah loveth those who keep their duty (unto Him)."
So this wasn't a "kill everyone" verse - quite on the contrary. It was about what to do when YOU have been backstabbed: you are allowed to fight back. But respect agreements made with those who haven't attacked you.
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There is no surat (chapter) Ishaq in the Quran. Nor is there a verse 578: the longest surat (Al-Baqara - the Cow) has 286.
I tried 5:78 or 57:8, but none is the line you cite.
And that looks to me like the description of a battle: I don't see how that makes Islam evil.
If you know what book that is, I'd be grateful to know. I'm keen on reading more historical accounts in english..
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On the Jews of Medina: no. People of the Book were deemed to have a special status; no conversion could've conceivably been imposed on them.
They were expelled from the city, however, after they allowed the tribes of Quraysh to attack Medina from the north, which they inhabited, despite having agreed with the Muslims that the border would be sealed from their part.
This was during the battle of the Trench (Al-Khandaq), otherwise known as the Tribes (the tribes being the Qurayshite tribes that got together), which took place in the year 5 of the Muslim calendar.
And they weren't killed - they were expelled.
The decree to make a Muslim-only Medina actually came much later, during Omar Ibn El Khattab's reign. The only exception, a Zoroastrian by the name of Louloua, was actually the one who murdered Omar, during the dawn prayer.
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Now corrections in place - I agree. Right now, there's a dire need to get this madness out there to STOP.
They are following the commands in Gaza Strip! The problem is: Your TV doesn't show bloody graphic images so that you don't faint out. Do you think that I live in Mars? I have watched the interviews with the israeli soldiers on the ground and could heard what they are planning for. "To kill them all", "To swim on the beach of the Gaza Strip", "to demolish all of their houses", "To bring a ship so that we can send them anywhere we want". Correct me if I'm wrong, This is called genocide or ethnic cleansing? This is what the Israeli public opinion is pushing for. Thanks God, the Camera was invented to film Israeli Terrorism in Gaza. Otherwise, they could have bombed them with a nuclear weapon and then claim that Hamas was using biological and chemical weapons!
I think your last blog post shows the spirit of hatred and the amount of misconceptions that you posses.
Actually, Khaled, I don't hate anyone, except maybe racists, stupids, and the criminally insane who say things like "Death to the Arabs!!" and "Death to the Jews!"
Let's not hate each other, okay? You don't know me, but if you're a friend of Mohamed's, then you must be okay.
No one is following Deuteronomy, trust me. They're following a battle plan that morphs, moment by moment since, as one American general put it: no battle plan survives beyond first contact with the enemy.
We get al-Jazeera, too, you know. It's not like we live in a vacuum and don't see Jordan Television and the scenes from the Gaza Strip. But we also see what the Ara world doesn't---bloody attacks on our own people by Hamas; injured and dead Israelis, many of them women and children.
Hamas thought we'd throw flowers at them for rocketing our towns? Or that we would whimper in terror and hide forever in our basements and bomb shelters?
There are people here protesting the war in Gaza. They are the minority, but they're a big minority. My guess would be that the majority felt like Hamas didn't leave us much choice.
Bloody Attacks! All I hear of is נפגעי חרדה!
Unfortunately, I don't know about the military plans, but the soldiers on the ground are acting like monsters. Witnesses & medical teams have reported about horrible stories of executions and usage of white phosphorous against inoccent civilians. Don't you watch this white shit exploding in the air, do you think that they are distributing candies? Stop defending Israel's self-righteous self justification fury and look at the victims that you have actually caused. It is worth quoting Illan Pappe Here: "Every act whether it was ethnic cleansing, occupation, massacre or destruction was always portrayed as morally just and as a pure act of self-defense reluctantly perpetrated by Israel in its war against the worst kind of human beings."
"Today in Israel, from Left to Right, from Likud to Kadima, from the academia to the media, one can hear this [self-]righteous fury of a state that is more busy than any other state in the world in destroying and dispossessing an indigenous population."
Again your caricature sucks. It really does .
I wouldn't demean the intelligence of anyone by quoting Ilan Pappe, a Marxist famous for stating that history should be taught purely for ideological reasons, not for the truth. He's something of an hysterical ideologue and a joke in serious history circles.
We're not fighting because we like to send our sons into Hamas's booby-trapped schools and ambushes; we're fighting because Hamas is rocketing our cities. You keep seeming to miss that point.
I think the civilian carnage in Gaza is horrific. What's your suggestion? We should continue to allow Hamas to fire more and better missiles at us?
Khaled, stop sounding like the Palestinians have never done anything to the Israelis and are the "poor victims" at all times. Your complete ability to ignore Israeli casualties at the hands of Palestinians undercuts your arguments.
BTW, the Palestinians are as much, and no more, the "indigenous people" than the Jews are. We didn't all arrive in 1948, contrary to popular Palestinian belief. Arabs weren't even a majority in the sanjaks that comprise what you call Palestine when the first census was taken--Greeks, Venetians, Armenians, Circassians, Druse and (yes, really) Jews all lived here. No one group had a majority, except in Jerusalem, where the majority population was Jewish.
"Maybe after all, the rabbis of Vienna who were sent in 1897 on a fact-finding mission to Palestine to investigate whether it was a suitable place for Jewish settlement were right. They reported back that the “bride was beautiful but married to another man”. Reference.
And no you didn't all come here in 1948. The british mandate eased your immigration ever since they occupied palestine.
Stop the process of twisiting the facts and the dehumanization of the palestinian people. I understand it is the only way to give legitmacy to your occupation here.
Facts Twisters (Liars)
Here is another on of Dennis Kucinch on the House floor calling out "Wake up America"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrtPpk6nhF8
Khaled, please--Jews have lived here for centuries. Many were already residents of the Ottoman Empire, and many more fled to the Ottoman Empire to escape European persecution.
The British didn't "ease" our arrival--they did everything they could to stop it (look up "1939 White Paper")in order to secure Arab support for the British (and oil for their industry) in the looming confrontation with Nazi Germany.
You need to be more accurate in your terminology--the British never "occupied" Palestine, strictly speaking (although it is a point you and I would agree upon) because the League of Nations handed them the Mandate.
Even pro-Palestinian web sites don't report much Arab population here -- 411,000 in 1860. Hardly an overcroweded place. (553,000 in 1890; 738,000 in 1914; etc.--http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Palestine-Remembered/Story559.html)
I had to laugh when I read the quote from the rabbis---they were (and many still are) virulently opposed to a Jewish state--true anti-Zionists. Why? It takes power away from them. (They dress it up with religious reasons, but that's the real reason). Jews might actually get to live in a free democracy under their own governance instead of being dependent on rabbis for religious rulings and as buffers between the masses and the gentiles. Naw, rabbis wouldn't want that!
I'm not dehumanizing the Palestinian people. I haven't said anything which dehumanizes the Palestinian people. I merely take strong issue with Hamas using us all as cannon fodder in their sociopathic ambition to kill their way to the top. And that wasn't even on this thread---here, I came aboard when you claimed we're following some ancient scripture which we didn't follow the first time, and are not following now....
First, These rabbis were representatives of the zionist movement after the first zionist congress in Basel.
Again and Again and Again I understand your dilemma of existence. The storry of the fight against the british mandate is essential for your fictional storry of "independence". And the script will never got old as long as we keep hearing about המחיר של כל רקטה (cost of every rocket) and the word הרס Destruction all together while looking for התמונה של ניצחון the image of victory whatever it takes for. It is the same mentality which allows Yisrael Betenou to achieve 14 mandates (according to the latest polls) while calling to bomb Aswan Dam in Egypt together with Gaza and bombing damasucus together with beirut. Yesterday on a TV show on channel two he said a couple of interesting things:
1- "When you are in Rome you act like the people of Rome and when you act in the middle east you act like the people in the middle east. " ~ I wonder if he didnt mean terrorizing everyone else?
2- He wants to become a defenece minister. What a bright future is waiting for us?
I think the implementation of Deuteronomy to its full extent.
Racists, Stupid & Criminals
I doubt that anyone can call Ilan Pappe a "hysterical ideologue and a joke". He's not my favourite historian but he does his research pretty darn well.
And yes, the immense majority of Israelis are at most second or third Israelis. There's no denying this.
And yes, Jews have been present, continuously, in Palestine. In very small numbers. Surely this is not your justification for the legitimacy of a Jewish-majority state? Might as well go with the "because God said so" argument..
Mohamed--I was a history major prior to law school, and contemplated getting my MA before my JD but didn't.....in serious history circles, Ilan Pappe is disregarded because historical research requires seeking facts, rather than cherry-picking facts to suit a given end, an exercise in intellectual dishonesty at which he excels.
So, is this a 'dating' game? We determine whether or not someone is entitled to live anywhere because of how long they've been there? How many German citizens of Turkish origin, or English citizens of Pakistani origin, or French citizens of Moroccan origin would take to being expelled from their countries because suddenly they don't fit a certain 'date profile' (i.e 'your family wasn't here prior to 1957, therefore you have to leave' kind of test).
People migrate. We've been doing so since the dawn of time. There are "Arab" populations now whose ancestors came from Morocco, Algeria, Circassia and Bosnia...does that make their 4th or 5th generation descendents less entitled to live here than someone whose family goes back to a farther date? No.
And those 2nd, 3rd, 4th generation Jews here? Under your scenario, where do they live? My best friend and his children should go back to Morocco where his grandfather came from? (I have another friend who is 7th generation Yerushalmi; my cousins on my father's side have been here since the 1800s).
The point of this is that the date is irrelevant.
The point of this is that all people deserve self-determination.
The Kosovars should have it; the Kurds should have it; the Chechyns should have it; the Abkhazians should have it; the Palestinians should have it.
And so should the Jews.
Israel is our homeland, our refuge and our exercise of self-determination, a place where we can celebrate our lives, our culture, our holidays, customs and religous requirements (like kashrut) without being fined, jailed, persecuted, killed, or otherwise punished for it; we no longer want to live as a minority amid a majority population whose religious and political bents periodically require our persecution. We don't want to live as a persecuted minority lacking government protection as we have in the ages past, or like the Copts in Egypt or the Kurds in Turkey today.
Khaled--Israel's existence is no dilemma to me, although I see it quite differently than you do; I also hear your anger about our existence. We can't stop existing because we make you angry--we can only hope that somehow, like France and England who used to be bitterest of enemies, we can come to some accord and mutual respect in the future. Since we can't seem to find a common ground here, it seems best if I simply acknowledge that I've heard what you've said, and hope someday you understand us more fully. Peace.
Two videos for you to review!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUFLpP9Prxo
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/1/14/leading_israeli_scholar_avi_shlaim_israel
We can co-exist if BOTH parties are willing and you cannot tell me that this attack on Gaza had anything to do with peace.
The only thing it produced is hate and just fueled allot of Palestinians and its arab neighbors to be anti-Israel.
all I can say is
"well done Israel you achieved your objective'!!!!
I don't mind you, your family, your friends, your schools, your synagogue or any jewish existence being here.I understand that you have suffered from persecution throughout the centuries and I understand your dream of having a state. At the very same time, I cannot agree that your dream should be achieved on the expense of the palestinian people .
I cannot be happy and cannot understand that your refuge is my exile and your majority is my minority and your freedom is my occupation.
Tragedy
THE GRANDCHILDREN OF HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS FROM WORLD WAR II ARE DOING TO THE PALESTINIANS EXACTLY WHAT WAS DONE TO THEM BY NAZI GERMANY...
"We can co-exist if BOTH parties are willing and you cannot tell me that this attack on Gaza had anything to do with peace."
Halla, I agree with you. This attack had to do with rage and frustration and people in Israel demanding that the government DO something to stop the rocket attacks. I think Hamas was surprised by the degree of the force used, and I know that Israelis were surprised--we sort of expected some bombs, a limited incursion, and a withdrawal followed by truce negotiations. No one thought THIS government would seriously go after Hamas's rockets and tunnels.
No, this did nothing to advance the process of peaceful co-existance---but is there anywhere in the press or blogosphere where Arab writers have advocated for Hamas to stop firing rockets at civilian towns? Something that also does not advance peace.
"The only thing it produced is hate and just fueled allot of Palestinians and its arab neighbors to be anti-Israel."
I, and most Israelis, have assumed from the Arab press, from terror attacks, from sermons which are transcribed into Hebrew and English, and all such sources that Palestinians and our Arab neighbors were already anti-Israel. I would agree that this certainly pushed many moderate, open-minded Palestinians and Arabs away from the idea of any rapproachement with Israel.
And vice-versa: several years ago Kadima won on the platform of withdrawal from Gaza followed by withdrawal from the West Bank. After three years of rocket attacks from Gaza, the idea of withdrawing from the West Bank has lost a lot of its attraction for the moment. How, as an Israeli leader, do you justify pulling out of the West Bank and putting not the million people of southern Israel at risk of rocket fire, but the many millions of the center at risk of rocket fire from Kalkilya?
The Occupation is a tiger we are all riding....the trick is how to get off and live to tell of it.
"At the very same time, I cannot agree that your dream should be achieved on the expense of the palestinian people . "
Khlaed, the majority of Israelis agree with you. We think you should have your own state, your own self-determination as a nation/culture/people just as we do. The issue is how do we get there from where we are both entrenched now?
"I cannot be happy and cannot understand that your refuge is my exile and your majority is my minority and your freedom is my occupation."
Then let's find a way to end the West Bank's occupation, find a way to reconcile Gaza and the West Bank so there is one unified leadership concerned with the day to day well-being of the Palestininan people and bring about a Palestinian state as a refuge and homeland for the Palestinian people, where they can express their own unique culture among the nations of mankind.
We all see the same issues but through different eyes: Israelis see the current occupation as a result of Palestinian attempts to kill us (rightly or wrongly, that is the perception); Palestinians see the 'armed resistance' as a response to occupation. It's a what-came-first question: the chicken or the egg? Predictably, each side argues that the other side started it.
Instead of apportioning blame, trading accusations and comparing body counts, we would be better served with leaderships that prepare us for coexistence, mutual respect, and peace.
Yuli Tamar, among others, has revised children's texts in schools to include the Green Line and show where the borders of Palestine could be; started including the Palestininan narrative of the Naqba to teach children that the Palestinians have suffered also, not just the Jews. These are small steps, but a start....it would be nice to see Abu Mazen's Education Dept. take similar steps instead of encouraging school children to chant "From the River to the Sea" ideological songs calling for Israel's destruction.
Maybe we can get there. The Cold War Ended. The Hundred Years War ended. This too will end, hopefully sooner than later, with two homelands for two people who ultimately get along as sons and daughters of Abraham.
Aliyah06 . After reading your blog I see that you are wearing two faces under the same hat.Here your talk sounds so sweet so good.On the other hand, and while calling to stop the body count you claim that the Islamic Terrorists have caried xxxxx attacks since 9/11? While calling for peace ,mutual respect and the stop of mutual accusations , You are giving a super racist opinion about the cause of the high deaths count in Gaza strip.Uffffft.... I hope that you stick to the face you wear here.
"Then let's find a way to end the West Bank's occupation, find a way to reconcile Gaza and the West Bank so there is one unified leadership concerned with the day to day well-being of the Palestininan people and bring about a Palestinian state as a refuge and homeland for the Palestinian people, where they can express their own unique culture among the nations of mankind."
and who decides who leads the Palestinians? Israel? USA? or the people?
Lets get real here. Israel & the USA has to deal with Hamas!! They were democratically elected and negotiations can only be done by Hamas & Israel for peaceful coexistance because who else do you negotiate peace with? your friends? or your enemies?
Halla--although Hamas may have been democratically elected, IMHO they have forfeited their "democratic" credentials with their putsch in 2007; subsequent slaughter of dissidents, including Fatah members and their families, doesn't make Hamas anything other than a dictatorship who uses the veneer of past elections to cover their corruption.
That aside, no, no one has to deal with Hamas. I am old enough to recall the entire world deciding not to deal with South Africa. The US still doesn't deal with Cuba and for many years did not deal with China. The Arab League for many years chose not to deal with Israel. Countries have their own interests and non-recognition of a political organization whose platform calls for genocide is a legitimate position. Were Hamas to modify their platform along the lines spelled out by just about the entire world, then recognition would follow.
Khaled--the voice you hear here is my own. That tag comes from another site and has nothing to do with Gaza or Palestine....it is (at least to me) an ironic commentary on George Bush's (and others') insistence that Islam is the "religion of peace" while pointing out that statistically, Moslems are killing so many in the world today that "peace" is an oxymoron. The statistics have more to do with Moslem-on-Moslem violence, which is what is sad and ironic about it. Most of the deaths have nothing to do with the Israel-Palestine conflict--the blog it comes from maintains a log of all the deaths caused by anyone in the world who is Moslem, and reading it, you will see deaths in Thailand, in Pakistan, in Kashmir, in various African countries, etc....
Let me clarify something in anticipation of what I'm afraid you are thinking: I do not believe that all terrorists are Moslems and I do not believe all Moslems are terrorists. I know that there are some ignorant and frightened people in the world who have never met anyone outside their own homogenous neighborhood, and wouldn't know a mosque if they fell into one, who feel this way, because I have read about such people. I don't know anyone who believes such drivel, nor would I care to know anyone who subscribes to a stereotype like this. These people (in the West, anyway) are also the ones who think Jews eat Christian children at Passover, so please don't lump me in that category. I don't like them, either.
I'm confused about the 'racist' label, though. "Racism" is putting a kind of vile label on a group of people who share an ethnic heritage...why does this qualify as 'racism' since its commentary (to me, anyway) is political rather than racist. What am I missing here?
As for my blog, well, it ain't journalism. As I told Haim Watzman, it is a personal diary, a place for me to muse, to vent, to explore and the comments I receive make me rethink my position, rein in my frustration and anger at times, and often look at things from a new perspective.
To the extent that the sidebar offended you, I apologize--no offense was intended, and if you look at it again after reading this, maybe you will see it in the ironic light I read it?
Hamas are not being recognized as a punishment for their political opinions. If your claim that Hamas is a dictatorship , does this mean that the world would recognize Hamas if they were "democratic"? Why does the whole world recognize Israel, a state which doesn't imply the UN resolutions? In the first place, how do you define Israel, what are the borders of the state that Hamas has to recognize? Does Israel recognize Palestine as an independent state on Israel minus X(Land) ?? What if Yisrael Betneou (which calls for Transfer of Palestinians) becomes the ruling party in Israel, should the whole world stop recognizing Israel?
It is the common and completely untrue opinion that is being represtened by Israeli media that Palestinians are sacrificing their children to protect themselves. First,and during the current war Israel didn't have a singal proof that Hamas has fired from within schools and on all ocassions Israel has apologized from targetting schools. Secondly, Israel itself has a long and bad history in taking palestinians as human shields. Moreover, your constant call for palestinians to stop fighting IDF from within the residential areas is a total joke. Unfortunately, we are not living in the middle ages, swords are no more used. Israel have got F15s,F16s ,Tanks, artillery fire, machine guns , night goggles and collaborators. Hamas have got machine guns, mortars, Kasams, Grads, hand made bombs and a lot of suicide bombers. Would IDF use machine guns to fight Hamas? NO! they don't fight at all. They have used heavy literally heavy fire to target everything nearby. Goolani & Tzanhamin don't advance for a singal inch unless the jets bomb & monitor everything nearby.Afterwards, tanks continue the shelling. The engineering corps then move forward to make sure that no surprising tunnels are waiting them nearby. Do you think that anyone has fought? it was an electronic war with a lot of civilians being killed as a result of the heavy untargetted fire.
Ehhhh, I just hope that peace prevails.
I'll say "Amen" to that last sentiment. So far, so good....
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