Israeli forces storm Gaza aid ship, and beat people on board. Fatalities reported.

[frogwoman]

for someone who's spent so much time on the middle east forum, you'd think he'd be a bt moe intelligent than this.

 

[tangentlama]

Particularly interesting analysis from Max Blumenthal:
http://maxblumenthal.com/2010/06/th...idf-detailed-its-violent-strategy-in-advance/

Always there's good commentary from Max!

 

[rioted]

Johnny, please read some history books. Even bad ones. But at least read something.

He's not here to learn anything. He doesn't need any sources other than Israel state ones. Why read history books?

 

[toggle]

for someone who's spent so much time on the middle east forum, you'd think he'd be a bt moe intelligent than this.

you're assuming he isn't deliberately muddying the waters with this crap rather than addressing the issues.

at least he's avoided the 'self-hating' label (as far as i can see). Amazes me how many non Jews try to tell Jews they aren't proper Jews unless they define themselves as Zionist.

 

[Knotted]

Always there's good commentary from Max!

I've got to say I'm impressed with him. He hasn't just blabbered off the standard right on message like the world was hanging his every word like some lefty journos I could mention. He actually did his research and came up with something meaty and original.

 

[cesare]

Mackenzie - what a truely fucking horrible cunt he is. Wasn't QT in Brecon? I remember him equating the IDF being attacked with bars etc. when they landed on the boat as, "If you were walking down the street in Brecon on a Friday night and someone came up and punched you" and thus as a defence for their killing the 9 activists.

And no-one - literally no-one - pulled the cunt up on this. Come and walk down my street you cunt.

He was so awful, and hardly any reaction

 

[Doctor Carrot]

He was so awful, and hardly any reaction

He got the words "absolute bollocks "slimy cunt" and "utter shit bag" from me, unfortunately they just bounced off my screen though .

 

[Spymaster]

Mackenzie - what a truely fucking horrible cunt he is. Wasn't QT in Brecon? I remember him equating the IDF being attacked with bars etc. when they landed on the boat as, "If you were walking down the street in Brecon on a Friday night and someone came up and punched you" and thus as a defence for their killing the 9 activists.

And no-one - literally no-one - pulled the cunt up on this. Come and walk down my street you cunt.

Quite astonishing wasn't it? Even the most rabidly militant zionist would have facepalmed his head off.

Perhaps they were as gobsmacked as the rest of us.

if you play the role of tag team partner with JC2/3 you may find that his and your precise take on the arguement get somewhat blurred in the readers mind.

But I disagree with most of what JC has posted and certainly haven't posted to support him, although he has agreed with me.

Again you've assumed that anyone that questions anything uncomfortable to you, and doesn't simply shout "Israeli Cunts!" is on Johnny's "team".

You're wrong. I like JC and agree with him on plenty of other things but I think he's got this arse-about-face.

I've just been back through your posts and was about to apologise, but after seeing your edit you can get a fuck right off instead.

I will however, apologise to you for the edit that annoyed you (the inclusion of your user name I presume). I've been fighting fires here and have been (deliberately?) misunderstood/misrepresented by a lot of posters. I thought you were doing the same but now realise that you hadn't read my back posts.

 

[free spirit]

I will however, apologise to you for the edit that annoyed you (the inclusion of your user name I presume). I've been fighting fires here and have been (deliberately?) misunderstood/misrepresented by a lot of posters. I thought you were doing the same but now realise that you hadn't read my back posts.

it was my user name attached to the rest of the sentence that pissed me off, not just the use of my user name, but apology accepted, and I'm happy to apologise for accidentally misrepresenting your views in return.

I fully expect blatant misrepresentation from the likes of Free Spirit and his pals, that's what they do when they don't like what you're saying. In this case, that both sides fucked-up.

for the record, I don't deliberately misrepresent anyone's views. If I do misrepresent someone's views, it's either because they've expressed those views badly, or I've misunderstood what they've written possibly because I've not read every word they've written on huge thread. If you feel I'm misrepresenting you, feel free to clarify your position, and you'll generally find I'll accept that and apologise if I was wrong....

I accept that you're not defending Israel's actions as such, but still feel that by repeatedly making the case for attaching blame to those on the boat for the shootings, you're creating the same overall effect. Israel's obviously aiming to create a PR smokescreen based around the idea that it's troops were shooting in self defence, you're basically either supporting that notion directly, or supporting at least the basis for it as far as I can see. This may well not be your intention, but it is the effect that I believe it has. Ponder on that thought, or ignore it at your discretion.

btw when you object to my tag team description of your behaviour towards Johnny on this thread, you may want to check your actual posting history, which shows no posts where you've quoted Johnny and disagreed with him, only these posts that contain a quote from him...

This one!

There you go!

I think he's pissed.

I disagreed with pretty much all of his posts, but he polite, intelligent and made the place interesting. He was certainly "hounded" but he was far smarter than many of his detractors so it was water off a duck's back.

Bit of a cunt though, but this place is full of cunts.

The Middle East forum just went back to being a circle-jerk when he was banned.

can you see how this might come across as a tag team effort?

 

[smokedout]

There used to be an actual live Israeli who posted here named Rachamim, but he was eventually hounded out the door.

The opinion of an actual live Israeli isn't really truly wanted around these parts, you see.

i posted the opinion of a real live Israeli earlier in this thread as it goes

 

[tarannau]

Rachmanin was a revionionist nutjob though; more Israeli PR drone than real person.

Strangely enough some of us even know some Israeli people IRL too. Rachmanin was in no way typical, thank bleeding god.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Somehow it's the state of affairs that no rockets are being launched at you in Brixton? Right?

Does that obviate the possibility of them? Nope.

After all, one of the first well-publicised uses of such munitions took place about four miles from me as the crow flies, in Downing Street.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Imagine me trying to make a point that...........doesn't agree with yours!

Shoddy selective editing there, Johnny. You made it obvious.

 

[ViolentPanda]

You tell me. Im sure jews being killed by the spanish weren't exactly PC in their language. Im sure quite a few ukrainian peasants starved to death by stalin mentioned "the russians" instead of "the soviet union".

"Russiski chazerim/mamzerim" rather than "the Russians", according to my gran. She liked to swap between "pigs" and "bastards".

 

[ViolentPanda]

I'm not the one referring to jews as 'the brothers of apes and pigs.'

We're all the brothers of apes.

 

[sihhi]

He got the words "absolute bollocks "slimy cunt" and "utter shit bag" from me, unfortunately they just bounced off my screen though .

I thought about typing and posting a full postal letter of complaint to the BBC with signatures of neighbours, but I thought actually what's the point? KM thrives on negative publicity. That's why he gets called back onto QT onto Radio5 etc.

I woke up early in the morning to transcribe this:

KELVIN MACKENZIE: I think they were justified in their actions, yes it's a tragedy. They, the Israelis, had begged this flotilla to allow them to take the stuff of them so that they could check it out, not unreasonably by the way, not unreasonably, for arms. After all Gaza was blockaded because in the year prior to the blockade started, 30,000 missiles fell on Israel right near the Gaza area, the Gaza border so they locked it down. And what's happened? Very, very few. Why should the Israelis say 'Come on in, and please blast rockets at me!'?
And let me just say this, one of the effects has been, of course, that there is very much a nationalist politician running running Israel now, right? That is what you'd expect from a country that is contantly under siege from all the countries that are around it. For instance when our country faced problems in the Second World War, right, we dumped the peacelover Chamberlain and we went to Churchill, which is why Netenyahu and his colleagues run
Israel. Israel every day of its life fears that this is going to be its last day of its life. A friend of mine was there recently and what they said about Israel was 'it was like living on an aircraft carrier every day there is a sense of war around you'. The Israelis, right?
So now let's look at the dead, right? What a tragedy! Six people dead! They were Turks. All their relatives back in Turkey now reveal, now reveal that these people actually wanted to be martyrs. So when they took that boat 'of peace' out to Isarel, they weren't interested in peace.
They were interested in, because they were Muslims, they were prepared to die for their cause and yet we were told that this was some kind of food
liberation for the people of Gaza. I'm sorry this is the wrong story. I want peace, by the way. I don't believe this will damage the Palestinian peace talks are on next week in America, right? And the Palestinian Authority have not said they are pulling out, Hamas want to get rid they want to get rid of Israel off the map. All Hamas have to say is 'Actually we're not going to do that' with that the borders will open and everybody can have
everything and we can all have food.

You're right, Matthew's right in respect of one thing he says, we have been living with conflict now for 60 odd years we need peace otherwise it'll be another 6000. The only thing I will add to that is that that since Tony Blair has become the Middle East envoy, actually the situation has got a lot worse, I suggest he gets out.

===

MAN: I'm sorry Kelvin, you seemed to have equated Hamas with 1.5 million people. How many...

KELVIN: (interrupting) They elected them. The people elected them.

MAN: even so, what choice do they have when they have a government that's locked them up, did these people fire these missiles at Israel? No.
It's some awful collective punishment we have a state inflicting and you seem to be supporting it...

KELVIN: I do, yeah

MAN: also on the basis that this has lessened Hamas when in reality it has concreted Hamas' position. Hamas is stronger now and the opinion to detroy Israel, now in the Arab world is stronger ... now ... Hamas ...

KELVIN: (interrupting) Why don't they go for peace then? Why don't Hamas go for peace? If they have the electorate behind them in Gaza and I accept that they do why don't they sit down with Israel and say let's work out a two-state solution on this, why don't they? Why don't they say that?

===

KELVIN: I know amongst all this rhetoric it's unfashionable to bring facts into it, but last year the Israelis supplied 800,000 tonnes of food into into the Gaza and more importantly the FT have just been there about three weeks ago. And they wrote a piece about it in which there is an overwhelming supply of bizarre things like Snickers in the market and many marketeers now in Gaza are complaining about falling prices becaue there is oversupply in the area. I am not trying to claim that this is a holiday camp, what I am trying to say is that it very much plays to certain parts of the world to try and always make this little piece of democracy in the Middle East, Israel, little old Israel, always trying to make it out to be the big bad bull,y when they're surrounded, on all sides almost, by nondemocratic states who would actually obliterate them.

Remember what Hamas says in their charter, remember what Hamas says in their charter? They say that they follow Allah and Allah believed in murdering all Jews. Now, if people were saying that about Christians in the UK, you might be a bit worried about your future. So, I think we should look upon Israel as a rare friend in an area of really, really violent people and I for one am not here to criticise Israel even when things have clearly not gone right.
===

DIMBLEBY: Stick with the point Kelvin Mackenzie, if you think it was a crime ... it was in international waters...

KELVIN: One of the great things about television video which is fantastic, as distinct from the printed word, where you claim it's all been changed. The video, quite clear on the news, these guys, the Israelis, land on the boat. What happens? Who was smashing them with metal bars on boat number 6? Who was doing that? And let me tell you this, if this happened in the Brecon - somebody as I walk down the high street smashes me over the head, right? And I have a gun. I'm using that gun. Don't even think about it. They were there, they were there to have violence, right? Every other ship was fine. Ship number 6, they had the martyrs on there, and 4 of those people died. I feel it's terrible, but their families, their families, said they wanted to be martyrs.

===

It would be very helpful, if Hamas would then sit down with Israel. Actually what they want to do, they want to blow them off the face of the earth.

I was also translating Turkish TV clip half way through - but then why bother?

Pointing out his slanders would be meaningless. His slanders over Hillsborough have only enhanced him. The BBC just carry letting him lie again and again and pay him handsomely for it.

There was a surge of Liverpool fans who had been drinking and that is what caused the disaster. The only thing different we did was put it under the headline "The Truth". I went on The World at One the next day and apologised. I only did that because Rupert Murdoch told me to. I wasn't sorry then and I'm not sorry now because we told the truth.

 

[Blagsta]

We're all the brothers of apes.

It's not like prominent Israeli politicians don't do this too. According to Wikipedia

In February 2004 Likud member and deputy defense minister Ze'ev Boim, speaking at a memorial ceremony, said "What is it about Islam as a whole and the Palestinians in particular? Is it some form of cultural deprivation? Is it some genetic defect? There is something that defies explanation in this continued murderousness." In a comment, Likud member of Knesset Yehiel Hazan supported Boim's statements: "I think this it is in their blood. It is something genetic. I have not researched this, but there is no other way to explain this,". He added "Don't believe an Arab, even one who has been in the grave for 40 years."

In remarks at the Knesset in December 2004, Likud member Yehiel Hazan repeatedly likened Palestinians to "worms" and stated that the Palestinians are a nation of "murderers" and "terrorists."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Likud#Anti-Arab_statements_by_Likud_members

 

[ViolentPanda]

I think you do if you equate the original Jewish settlement of Israel with the post war period.

so perhaps you could explain why you choose to do this?

He's making the error of conflating the state of Israel and its' foundation with the concept of Israel, not realising that for the settlers of the mid-nineteenth century to mid-twentieth century, they may have been going to live in Ottoman Palestine, or the Mandate of Palestine, but what many were actually doing was returning to Israel, even if that wasn't the current name of the territory.
Of course, "original Jewish settlement" is also a misnomer, because there have always been Jews in that corner of the Middle East, just as there have been Muslims as long as Muslims have existed, and animists, Zoroastrians and assorted others before them.

Johnny chooses to do such things because he's often an ignorant tit.

 

[laptop]

there have always been Jews in that corner of the Middle East

And those in Palestine collectively resisted the Zionist project.

Under the Mandate, for example, their representatives on Jerusalem city council sat with the other Palestinians, in opposition to the settler Jewish Agency.

Zionists had some pretty insulting things to say about them...

 

[ViolentPanda]

There used to be an actual live Israeli who posted here named Rachamim, but he was eventually hounded out the door.

No he wasn't.

The opinion of an actual live Israeli isn't really truly wanted around these parts, you see.

Bullshit, as usual. The fact that his self-confessedly hard-right views were virulently disagreed with doesn't equate to them not being wanted, and only a dishonest person (that'd be you) would attempt to claim that this was the case.

 

[ViolentPanda]

He was banned.

Remember what he was banned for, Johnny (hint: It wasn't because he was a right-wing Israeli)?

 

[ViolentPanda]

so why did you claim he was hounded out if you knew he was banned?

Well, either he believes that one or more of the mods was part of a conspiracy to deprive Rachamim of a voice, or he was being dishonest.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I disagreed with pretty much all of his posts, but he polite, intelligent and made the place interesting. He was certainly "hounded" but he was far smarter than many of his detractors so it was water off a duck's back.

Bit of a cunt though, but this place is full of cunts.

The Middle East forum just went back to being a circle-jerk when he was banned.

Polite, my arse. He may have couched his insults somewhat, but you'd have to have been blind (and, if you happened to be a Jewish poster, culturally ignorant) not to have seen the many barbs he threw.

 

[agricola]

But the account of Andre Abu Khalil, a cameraman for Al Jazeera TV, described how activists seized four Israelis before other commandos stormed aboard, firing on activists. "There were four Israeli soldiers brought to the lowest deck. They had fracture wounds," the Lebanese told Reuters. The soldiers were captured during attempts to descend on to the ship from helicopters.

No wonder the IDF hasnt made that fact well known, assuming that its true - what a complete and total fuckup. Incompetence is not a strong enough word.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Best he doesn't confuse his knuckle-headed self. He exists to bang home the message that anyone who criticises Israel is anti-jew

You do realise that Johnny is a fan of Bernard Lewis, right? Some of us had to explain that the good professor wasn't exactly academically rigourous or value-neutral in his "popular history" books.

 

[ViolentPanda]

for someone who's spent so much time on the middle east forum, you'd think he'd be a bt moe intelligent than this.

That'd only be the case if he were there to engage honestly, rather than to dissemble.

 

[Crispy]

http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=8346017&postcount=40

 

[ViolentPanda]

It's not like prominent Israeli politicians don't do this too. According to Wikipedia



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Likud#Anti-Arab_statements_by_Likud_members

It's not like ordinary pro-Zionist Jews don't do it either.
I mentioned earlier about not going to synagogue any more, and one of the reasons, alongside the "my Israel, right or wrong" attitude, was the horrible abuse that the Palestinians had heaped on them by people who'd never dream of using such language to a British person from an ethnic minority.

 

[Spymaster]

... but apology accepted, and I'm happy to apologise for accidentally misrepresenting your views in return.

Yep, sorted.

I accept that you're not defending Israel's actions as such, but still feel that by repeatedly making the case for attaching blame to those on the boat for the shootings, you're creating the same overall effect.

It is very clear that the blame must be placed massively at Israels door. However that shouldn't preclude discussion regarding the actions of others.

I think that those who ignore one side of a situation simply come across as fanatics, and because of that are ignored by many others who'd be otherwise sympathetic. Another thread has been started "The Reasons For The Attack" which is borderline maniacal, yet usually sensible posters are actually buying into the OP.

The subject matter is the most divisive on the boards, which is why so many ignore it.

Israel's obviously aiming to create a PR smokescreen based around the idea that it's troops were shooting in self defence, you're basically either supporting that notion directly, or supporting at least the basis for it as far as I can see.

I'm doing neither. Any smokescreen that Israel attempts to construct on the basis of self-defence, falls at the first hurdle on the simple fact that the troops shouldn't have been there in the first place.

btw when you object to my tag team description of your behaviour towards Johnny on this thread, you may want to check your actual posting history, which shows no posts where you've quoted Johnny and disagreed with him, only these posts that contain a quote from him...can you see how this might come across as a tag team effort

When two people are surrounded by a baying mob, they're likely to stand back-to-back, regardless of whether or not they agree with each other!

 

[ViolentPanda]

And those in Palestine collectively resisted the Zionist project.

Under the Mandate, for example, their representatives on Jerusalem city council sat with the other Palestinians, in opposition to the settler Jewish Agency.

Zionists had some pretty insulting things to say about them...

I think people tend to see the word "Zionism", and think of either Herzl's formulation, or the modern nationalist-Zionist project, when it needs to be borne in mind that there were "Zionisms", and that not all of those Zionist currents were exclusive. A "Jewish homeland" has never had to be "a land for Jews only", just as it's never had to have been sited in the historical bounds of eretz yisroel.