frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
yeah wouldn't surprise me at all
Israel warns of Gaza 'holocaust'
- Thread starter wreckhead
- Start date
yeah wouldn't surprise me at all
GarfieldLeChat
fucking awesome but wrong
odd though i have been but only from those who are actually aware of what they are being spun as lies and what is the reality.
Don't forget that tel aviv and other areas are shelltered from the true so the perception isn't due to them being hardline but due to them actuayl beleiving their filtered and distilled news sources...
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
indeed
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
What part of the word "most" do you have difficulty with?
It's accepted that the "rocketeers" have a very limited supply of military short-range rockets as well as the al-Qassams.
The same characteristics can also be indicative of how poorly the concrete was rienforced
I beg to differ. You may recall I've mentioned on Urban before that after his military career my grandfather worked in demolitions? I picked up quit a bit about blast characteristics, effects of different charges etc from him, I've also had the opportunity (if you can call it that) to see the results of improvised devices first-hand.
Again, I beg to differ. The al-Qassams, in any of their forms (and it is the Qassams that are overwhelmingly used), are little different from the (virtually undirectable except at extremely short range) DIY "rocket mortars" used by PIRA on Downing St, and on many RUC stations. Projectiles made from scaffolding pipe or pressurised gas containers, with stabilising fins welded on willy-nilly. Yes they're explosive devices, and as such potentially deadly, but personally I'd be far more worried about a single Claymore with it's 1kg of C4 and potential for wreaking havoc (and biting through reinforced concrete) than a whole barrage of al-Qassams.
Love the link, by the way.
Did you notice that most of their non-media-based citations came from various "anti-terrorism" offices of the state of Israel?
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Of course it isn't. A proportionate response would be to bombard a piece of Palestinian territory with the same population density (or lack of it) as Sderot or Ashkelon with the same type of mortar/rocket.
To do that wouldn't help to erase scores of Palestinian "facts on the ground" though, would it?
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Rather, Israelis may well be mostly Jews, but only a minority of Jews are Israeli. The two are not synonymous.
Spion
I hear ya
I was on a kibbutz not too far from TA (pre-1st intifada) and all I ever heard was things like 'Oh, look, Araveem. We hate them, they are our enemy', plus mocking of their religion etc.
but you have a point tho - I doubt most Israelis know the truth of how their state was founded
GarfieldLeChat
fucking awesome but wrong
yeah cos a kibbutz is a fair rational and reasonable place to get balanced real isreali views right
next in the series why polpot actually didn't do bad things...
Spion
I hear ya
You don't know much about the different ideological slants of different kibbutzim then. They range from left to right, and that one was actually relatively left wing (in Israeli mainstream terms). In '48 some kibbutzim - Mapam ones - were among the few Zionists in Palestine to oppose the ethnic cleansing (tho they were bought off with free land)yeah cos a kibbutz is a fair rational and reasonable place to get balanced real isreali views right
danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
I was listening to BBC Radio this morning. As usual, the Israeli bombing was described as "retaliation", but the Palestinian bombing was just described as bombing. This is a remarkable perspective, which we get day after day, year after year. Anyone with any memory longer than 4 days might realise the Palestinian bombing is also retaliation. At the very least the BBC could offer that perspective.
But this too, though better, is ahistorical. The bottom line is there is an occupying force and an occupied people. The former is the Israeli State, the latter is the Palestinian people.
Sasaferrato might like to ponder that fact.
But this too, though better, is ahistorical. The bottom line is there is an occupying force and an occupied people. The former is the Israeli State, the latter is the Palestinian people.
Sasaferrato might like to ponder that fact.
Spion
I hear ya
I doubt his state-mercenary mindset can deal with it
GarfieldLeChat
fucking awesome but wrong
i know that now they are state funded and provide a method of under cutting palestinian busiensses in order to put them out of business and of course ciouplled with the extra demands for water accesses and of course protection couplled with the ability for them to transport goods in and around Isreali ports with out problem means that they are another tool of the occupation. Kittbutzism might come accorss as being all left wing and hippy but if you know a thing about it you know it's another form of settlership which is being used to deprive palestinians of their land or access to it...
period.
Spion
I hear ya
Of course, there's no doubt about it - Kibbutzim predominantly exist on stolen land
tangentlama
Nameless voices crying
In the early days of kvutzot (predecessor of the kibbutz), this was not the case - they existed on land legitimately bought, and not taken by any force.
These kvutzot were committed to an ethos that would be today identified as both libertarian and socialist. To understand these ethos we look at the work of the cultural zionist Aharon David Gordon. The aim of these cultural zionist was not to found a Jewish state - indeed, they actively opposed such an idea - their aim was redemption through working on the land, but they did not seek to control the entirity of the land we call today Israel-Palestine.
Mainly, these kvutzot were filled with intellectuals who were able to escape the increasing Russian antisemitisms of the early 20th century.
After the end of WWI, and by the late 1920s, the Palestinian kibbutzim suffered a period of party institutionalisation and the institutions who were, in effect, the zionist state-in-waiting began to establish a monopoly over both seed distribution and produce, and these kibbutzim lost their autonomous status. Later, I think in the first half of the decade of the 1930s, the kibbutzim were fully mobilised into the capitalist economic system and/or privatised.
Today, and certainly since the mid-late 1930s, the kibbutzim were participating fully in a capitalist, nationalist, frontier settlement project. Whether your particular kibbutz was on land that was bought legitimately as the majority of original kibbutzim were, or whether your particular kibbutz was part of the later frontier-settlement program existing on forcibly approrpiated land is not within my knowledge, however, you swallowed a myth that somehow the kibbutz system was somehow non-capitalist and/or taking no part in an ultra-nationalist land grab that dispossessed the original inhabitants of that land. This was not how the kvutzot and pre 1930s kibbutz operated, but it certainly was the case when you worked in one.
Spion
I hear ya
Both the Kibbutzim I worked on had the ruins of former (presumably Arab) inhabitants' houses on them.
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
excellent post.
tangentlama
Nameless voices crying
In order to show true solidarity, you have to also extend your support to oppressed Israelis, who are aware of the oppressive and suffocating effect of the occupation upon the Palestinian people and also upon Israelis themselves.
Spion
I hear ya
Which ones are these? Most Israelis collude in the denial of justice to the Palestinians, not to mention actually benefit in terms of land, water, suppression of competing economic players
Spion
I hear ya
Who? Me?
tangentlama
Nameless voices crying
Here you have managed to not only reduce of the entire Israeli Jewish experience to equate and identify it with one narrow form of expansionist, nationalist zionism, but you have also assigned to Israeli Jews the very thing you deplore - the application of collective guilt and collective responsiblity to an entire people.
64% of Israeli Jews want their government to re-negotiate a ceasefire with the Hamas - this was achieved before the Hamas even came to power, and lasted some months until after their election, ending with the bombing of Palestinian civilians on the Gazan beach in early June 2006 by the IDF.
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=229
Spion
I hear ya
Here you have managed to dodge my question.
Many peoples benefit from the acts of their ruling classes - the British in the benefits of empire and slavery which built their economy; those of the US similarly today.
At the same time these societies are divided by class, and in the Israeli case I have no problem relating to them as workers, to the struggles for equal treatment of their subordinate ethnicities etc, but there's no way I can solidarise with an Israeli simply for being an Israeli while they benefit from the spoils of war and ethnic cleansing, where as I can solidarise with practically ALL Palestinians who are denied their national rights
Spion
I hear ya
Peace in the form of a ceasefire is not the same as peace with justice.
I'd like to know how many Israelis recognise that to gain lasting peace they will have to address the root cause of the Palestinians' dispossession
GarfieldLeChat
fucking awesome but wrong
some not all. I'm pretty sure that the ones i worked closely with would be bitterly upset if they thought that they were being lumped in with their more immoderate nationals.
tangentlama
Nameless voices crying
I see this argument presented all the time by the Christian Right in USA and by the Israeli Right - only they are saying this about Palestinians and/or Arabs.
"There's no way I can solidarise with a Palestinian whilst they continue to fire rockets at Sderot/Ashkelon and send suicide bombers to blow up innocent Israeli civilians"
tangentlama
Nameless voices crying
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
"Most"? Please quantify, qualified majority, simple majority, what?
To save you time and effort you could, of course, admit that what you're airing is your perception rather than a factually accurate representation.
tangentlama
Nameless voices crying
There is a clear step-by-step process to walk through.
First, restore a semblance of normal life and prevent further killing on both sides.
Peoples cannot make just and wise descisions when under this amount of stress and in fear for their lives, whether Israeli or Palestinian.
First, restore a semblance of normal life and prevent further killing on both sides.
Peoples cannot make just and wise descisions when under this amount of stress and in fear for their lives, whether Israeli or Palestinian.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Of course not, but it gives a better basis for seeking peace with justice, if only because it puts a barrier in the path of bigots who wish to claim that their existence is threatened by people who want to push them into the sea.
So would I.
I suspect that we'd be surprised at the answer, especially if ideology were left out of the equation.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
I think we need to accept that, as with the populations of many nation-states, the population of Israel is, to some extent, politically inert, in that while they may express a preference in favour of left or right solutions, they tend to follow what the political elite decide, rather than pushing a separate agenda, and that this isn't down to complicity, but to complaisance.
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