RE: After learning more about West Beirut..

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 29-04-02 AT 06:57 PM (GMT)]What’s the problem, those cars are most likely Israeli cars anyway. Besides, I didn’t know cars could be bulldozed.

As for AI: I have lost my faith in the fairness organization. It fails to condemn terrorist activity carried out by the Palestinians, yet screams of human right abuses by Israel, with no evidence whatsoever. Once again, look to what Skythe and I posted, and you understand why Israel bulldozed those houses, not for revenge, but out of military considerations. Have you read how many Palestinian booby-traps were found in the rubble? Do you know how these 13 soldiers died? Is there a bell ringing now? Ding-dong!

RE: What happened in Jennin?

If assistance had been granted the headlines about this incident may have read:

“Israeli soldiers save 5 day old Palestinian girl.”
Israeli soldiers have numerous times saved the lives of innocent Palestinians, including babies. If you had read what I wrote earlier, you wouldn’t be making such redicilous statements. Did you know that even suicide bombers who weren’t killed in the attack are treated in Israeli hospitals? How’s that for humanity. There is no legal obligation to do so, in fact, terrorists may be shot on the spot according to international law, but since Israel at least has some humanity, it doesn’t always do that.

About Jenin now, here are some photographs form the Jenin refugee camp:

http://www.idf.il/newsite/english/map_jenin.jpg

As you can see, the destruction in the camp is far less than the media tends to let the people believe. The area in the circle is the place were the 13 soldiers were lured into a booby-trapped, as described in the article Skythe posted.

Shalom,

Jonathan

RE: What happened in Jennin?

Geforce, why won’t you answer my question: why investigate if you already made up your mind about what happened (or know what happened, as you’ll put it)?

You know what the problem is with an investigation? Palestinians are fighting in civilian clothing. Take away the arms after one is killed, and you have a ‘civilian’ again. Not only this, but there are other questions: were it the Israelis that kiled civilians, or were it the Palestinians. Were they shot by accident, or on purpose. But, since you already made up your mind, these questions are irrelevant. Now, just for my sake of health, answer my question: why investigate if you already made up your mind about what happened (or know what happened, as you’ll put it)?

Shalom,

Jonathan

RE: What happened in Jennin?

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 20-04-02 AT 05:22 PM (GMT)]What a nice show of ‘unbiased media’. Really, the reporter of the second article can’t even get his facts straight. Only in 1988 did Arafat offer some kind of peace, not in the seventies, as this article tends to suggest. Furthermore, already in 1982 this journalist must have been very anti-Sharon (or anti-Israel). Oh, do you also have such an article about Arafat, displaying his peacefull intentions ever since the forming of the PLO in 1965, through the hijackings of airlines in the seventies (most famous example: Air France flight in 1976), the hijacking of (school) busses, the hostage-taking of children (1972, Ma’alot), the killing in hotels (Savoy), firing of Katyushas on cities, the killing of children in children houses, etc., and now the Intifada. I guess not.

Oh, and Geforce, once again: you stated there was a massacre in Jenin. If your opinion and world opinion is that there was a massacre, why investigate?

Shalom,

Jonathan

RE: Israel vs Palestine

Ask yourself why no that instead of that, officers and men are refusing to serve. Some of your fine men know the difference between right and wrong. This goes to the credit of your society. They claim they do not want to fight on behalf of settlers in occupied land, yet they would gladly fight to the death to protect Israel. These men are the Israeli army of old…….
Some officers may not want to serev out of their principles, because they believe the conflict is wrong, but this is very marginal. Only a few hunderd (I believe the number was somewhere in between 200 and 300) refused to serev. On the other hand, of those reservists called up, 95% showed up. That number is much higher than the army expected, much higher than most in Israel expected. They believe they are figthing for a good cause, so do I. That those few refuseniks haold the same view as you do doesn’t make them right. It also goes against democracy. If everybody does what he wants, because this or that person believes in something, it’s going to be a big mess. The decisions are made democratically, and people must abide by them, whether they agree with the decisions or not.

I have lots of sympathy for IDF-soldiers. I wouldn’t like to be one, in fact, I would also refuse to serve. Especially if they are conscripts, 20-year old boys shouldn’t be used to defend the settlements of some assholes who don’t wanna give up one inch of their territories. That’s very selfish. If I were a soldier, I would probably react in a very similar way than IDF-soldiers are doing right now. Can you imagine what stress they have to suffer from, responsabilities?
The soldiers are not protecting the settlements, they are protecting Israelis, inside and outside the green line. Most of the suicide bombings take place inside the Green Line. Now you wouldn’t call Tel Aviv, or Netanya or Haifa a settlement, do you?

Shalom,

Jonathan

RE: Israel vs Palestine

Come on, OK, you are probably not best friends with Syria, Iraq, Iran etc, but there are also moderate regimes like Jordan, Saudi-Arabia, Egypt … Criticizing Israel is not the same as destroying Israel.
OK then, 20 Arab countries that are eager to destroy Israel. Now you will probably say, why 20, and not 19? The reason is that I don’t deduct SA, as SA heavily supports terror organizations which have a stated goal of destroying Israel. The only conclusion can be that SA is bound on destroying Israel.

Not daily, but also many victims fell to terrorism.
The number of victims fallen to IRA terorism doesn’t come even close to the number of people butchered by the PLO, Hamas, Hezbolllah, Islamic Jihad, PFLP-GC, DFLP et cetera et cetera et cetera.

I think the IRA was very good organised, probably even better than Hezbollah or Hamas. PA is NOT a terrorist organisation, at least I won’t call it, as it is not on the list of the EU-terrorist organisations.
The organization of the IRA was not as large as the organization of, for instance, the PLO. The IRA was not funded and trained by a number of countries, nor did it receive large outside support. Ever heard of IRA-land? No. Ever heard of Fatah-land? Yes.

Also, that the PA is not on the EU list of terror organizations doesn’t mean anything. The list is more political than factual. Recent documents, discovered by the IDF, which you can look up for yourself at http://www.idf.il, show that the PA is a terror organization. EU money is used to pay for the costs of the terror organizations, yet the PA continues to pay the PA. Also, Hezbollah is not present on the EU-list. Does that mean it is not a terror organization? The organization is present at the US-list.

PA so far is the only organisation who represents the people of Palestine. Once PA will be destroyed, Hamas and Jihad will take over their job (like education), and they are probably a lot worse, because they ARE terrorists.
I doubt how far the PA actually represents the people. Afterall, it was not establoshed by the Palestinians, but the PLO with outside help from Israel, the US and the EU. It’s chaiman was not elected in democratically help, open and free elections. Nor can some who is elected remain in his position ad infinitum, as Arafat does.

The fear of Hamas and Jihad taking over is also misplaced. Many PA police organizations still have a decent force with whicgh they can enforce the law in the territories. The operational capabilities of Hamas and Jihad, amongst others, have been severely damaged by recent Israeli operations. These organizations don’t know anything about government and how to do it, they will not take over the educational system for example. Not that this would make any difference, since 1993 all the Palestinian youth has learned there was hatred, from kindergarten on.

One latest remark, the EU you said was a big joke. How come that in the 50 years it exists, there hasn’t been a war in the EU zone anymore, while the past 3000 years they was one every decade?
The EU exists for 50 years already? Where are the celebrations for this remarkable achievement. And I was only thinking that the EU was only formed in 1993.

The bulldozer incident was just an answer on JJ saying that Israel uses precision guided munitions to avoid “collateral damage”.
Never said the IDF used PGMs in recent operations. Not that they didn’t, but I never said that. I said that current IDF operations are executed in a way to minimize civilian casualties by enetring villages with troops. This is what cost Israel 13 soldiers in an instant, because of a booby-trapped house that was blown up by a suicide bomber. Entire villages were booby-trapped, in Jenin almost every house was booby-trapped. No doubt the Palestinians set off many of these booby-traps, thus causing much damage to the houses themselves. Also, after the incident in which 13 soldiers were killed, the gloves were off, and anything suspicious would be bulldozed.

RE: Israel vs Palestine

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 16-04-02 AT 05:59 PM (GMT)]The difference between Israel and the UK is that the UK is not surrounded by 22 Arab states bound on destroying it, aiding terror, and trying to make Israel look bad. The UK was not rocked by daily suicide bombings. Nor did the UK offer the other side a state of their own, which was then turned down. Neither did the UK have to fight a terror organization that settled itself deep in urban areas. It didn’t have to fight an enemy that booby-trapped almost every singel house in a town or city. Nor did it have to fight an organization that is hilghly organized like the PA. You simply cannot compare the situations.

This images were manipulated by TV-stations like CNN.
No, they were not. The images were not manipulated, not were they images form the Gulf War. That story is a lie. There were cars in the picture that didn’t even exist back then. They were real.

If you still believe everything the media is telling you … sad.
Well, it seems you are.

Calling Palestinians terrorists is like calling Americans terrorists because Tim. McVeigh was one.
Timothy McVeigh was a lone man. Palestinian terrorists aren’t. Again, you fail to see the difference.

Also, you might want to change Churchill’s quote. Not only does it prove PhantomII has brains (that is, if Churchill is right), the person doesn’t fit you. Churchill, like Israel was fighting for the survival of his nation, and he refused to compromise over that. He too was fighting evil (and incidently also an enemy that wanted to get rid of the Jews, like the Palestinians). You’d better change it to Chamberlain and his “peace in our times”-quote, as you too support the idea of appeasement. And this, BTW, is not meant as an offense.

Shalom,

Jonathan

Liberals

In order to keep the discussion on topic I will only make a small note: Liberals in the Netherlands and some other countries are pro-Israel, others are anti-Israel. The thing is that being liberal has nothing to do with support for either side (being socialist does, though ofcourse not all socialists are anti-Israel or pro-Palestinian). Also, you should note that liberal views have heavily influenced the US. Just look at the constitution. All the basic rights of freedom of speech etc. are part of the liberal intellectual property. So I think it would be too easy to condemn all liberals, or liberalism in general. After all, if it were not for liberalism, you wouldn’t be able to critisize your own government or Geforce!

Shalom,

Jonathan