Nice, Plawolf 😀

It’s wonderful news that Putin is fighting terrorists.

Perhaps the former head of the KGB can at the same time solve which “terrorists” caused those mysterious bombings and explosions in Moscow that help create such a climate of fear that shot up his ratings just before he was elected as the “strong leader” that Russian so needed. The Chechans were conveniently blamed despite no evidence and Putin could order strikes in Chechnaya to appear strong for internal consumption but the “miscreants” that caused so many deaths still have yet to be apprehended 😉

Sauron is right about Russian incompetence and cover-up, possibly even deliberate murder of their own men so they’d carry this to their graves. I’m surprised no one has mentioned footage shown recently in the UK of the raised Kursk hull before it was covered (Dutch salvage company had to agree to cut off bow damaged section and leave on the seabed as the explanation that a loose “mine” may have caused the explosion would be disproved). Cutting the bow off still left one of the signature clean “inward” torpedo holes just under the conning tower (apparently targeted area) caused by Mk 48s fired by the American Sub Memphis after the American Sub Toledo collided with the Kursk was clearly visible. All the Russian Northern Fleet officers who wanted the truth out were fired by Putin as some of the sailors were alive for days after it sank as proved by dated messages found on dead sailors. The funeral of the 118 dead sailors was touching. We expect this behaviour from the ex-head of the KGB but the sad thing is the Americans were complicit in this cover up.

It seems KGB methods continue with the FSB, as saliors’ wives complaining about this cover up during a press conference were given “shots”, injections of drugs, that literally knocked them out in mid flow and they were quickly bundled out. Unfortunately for the FSB the cameras in the press conference picked all this up.

Try not to equate the Holocaust, with the Palestinian issues of today. Their is no Auschwitz camp for Palestinians, in the Negev or Gaza Strip.

I am disappointed you chose to mention the Holocaust when I did not! But do feel free to bring it up if you think it is relevant (I don’t).

I only mentioned compensation for stolen property as an aside, such as the return of the Klimt painting for £72m, sold by the Austrian Government and proceeds handed over to the descendants of the original owners. The fact that the thieves were Nazis and the victims Jewish, does not change the facts of the theft. They could have been French stealing from Italians. 😉

Clearly, it is unacceptable to murder or loot from people just because of who they are. The Nazis’ systematic murder of Jews, Gypsies, Mentally & physically handicapped, Slavs etc is indefensible by any rational person. Similarly, for examples the millions of Armenians killed by the Turks,millions of Kulaks by Stalin, millions in the Great Leap forward by Mao, millions killed by Pol Pot, Hutus killing milions of Tutsis in Rwanda (sorry I know black people don’t count for many “civilised” people :diablo: :D).

Murder of human beings is murder! (and not just murder of Jews, this being the point, as it seems I do need to spell it out 🙂 )

The Arab countries at the time of the invasion in 1948, demanded that the residents leave their homes. The multiple Arab armies that invaded, wanted to have the option of free maneuver within the towns and outskirts. This is why the people vacated their homes.

I think you must have thought if I slip this in they will just accept this load of tosh! You really must be rolling on the floor laughing out loud thinking of us simpletons believing “Palestinians left their homes so Arab armies had freedom of manoeuvre!” 😀 😀 😀

Instead, the cold reality is they left the homes in which they were born and from villages that had been in their family for centuries at gunpoint! They were forcibly expelled, but don’t believe me, believe Yitzhak Rabin, Chief of Staff IDF, amongst others who were unhappy at having to do this dirty work of ethnic cleansing. Of course the Stern Gang or Irgun (how different are they from Hamas?) were only too happy to oblige.

Morocco alone had 600,000 Jews, with this # from one Arab country, you can see that the # of Jews who lived in Arab countries, was not so trivial.

I suppose if you repeat a lie, however trivial, often enough, people will believe it (Josef Gobbels). See Sekant’s post above. For some Israelis, Arab people (yes, they are people 😮 ) that formerly lived in say Jerusulem should just go to Iraq or Yemen or Morocco because they are Arabs as well! (just like Portugese can go to Spain :rolleyes: ) But why should they leave their own homes?

Rabin never went anywhere as far as Barak. Barak’s offer was the best that the Palestinians could have obtained.

Forgive me, for reminding you the Olso Accords were signed in 1993, Rabin was assassinated in 1995 and Barak went to Camp David in 2000. Rabin was murdered by Jewish extremists because they knew he wanted and could have pushed through a genuine agreement with the Palestinians based on the Olso Accords. You will remember the PLO made a major concession in the Olso accords by recognising Israel – in effect the PLO agreed to the theft of their land. The ARAB part of Jerusulem has been made an untouchable subject for negotiation (why?) by right wingers as they well know Arafat could have sold the deal to his own extremists had East Jersusulem been included.

Instead we had a cycle of atrocities followed by collective punishment reprisals that eventually derailed the Peace process. The Arab extremists wanted Netanyahu to win the elections so carried out sucide bombings to make sure he won (he did not implement any of the agreed Olso Accords by the way). Barak had the chance to clinch a deal that extremists on both sides did not want but he admitted later he could not let the Palestinians have back any part of Jerusulem (just the Arab part) because he was afraid of an electoral backlash.

The Palestinian issues, will lose international recognition and credability, as the first world nations, eventually phase in alternative energy, in the not too distant future.

Nice try! The question of Palestine was not related to oil in 1948 and it still isn’t today! So what has the West obtaining alternatives to oil got to do with Israel and the Palestinians working out a way to live closely and peaceably together on that little piece of the Earth?

The only concession the Palestinians need to think about is their acceptance that their country was stolen from them on the basis of biblical promises made 3,000 years ago and a new state has been in its place for half a century.

I fail to see this.

Of course you would fail to see this! 😀 😀

Actually the Palestinian state is a complete myth. As you can see, Jordan is Palestine, and Palestine is Jordan. The Palestinian problem, was created by the Arab League, after the Six Day War, for the sole purpose of descrediting Israel internationally.

So now the Palestinian Problem was created by the Arab League in 1967 just to make Israel look bad 😀 and has nothing to do with 1948 when they were slung out of their own homes to make way for a new country, a Jewish country by the way, because God “gave” this land to the Jews in biblical promises made 3,000 years ago! 😀 😀

Their was NO Palestinian drive for independence from Egypt in Azza, and from Jordan in The West Bank between 1948-1967. No calls for independence from their masters. Their was also no drive for independence from the Turks. – and before the Turks. – on and on etc… However their was always a Jewish presence on the land.

Sekant answered some of the above in his post.

I would add that in 1967, only 19 years after they had been driven from their homes, they actually thought they would be going back there soon, so why would they call for independence in 1967 for just a fraction of their original land?

As for no drive for independence from the Turks, the Ottoman Empire was on its last legs and the new colonial powers of France and Britain had their own ideas that did not include independent Arab countries in the Levant or Palestine.

What is the point you are making with your statement there was always a Jewish presence in Palestine? Out of 11m Jews in the world around 1900, about 78,000 lived in Palestine. Most lived in Russia (3m+), Poland (2m+), Austro-Hungary, Germany and 1.5m in America.

Why should Palestinians living in their own homes be kicked out so Jews from Europe can live there instead because “God” gave the land in biblical promises to Jews 3,000 years ago?

Hamas is just trying to buy time, to resupply and regroup. They are taking a page out of the North Korean and Vietnamese play book. When the time is right for Hamas, they will show their true colors. .

Time will tell whether the Jews and Arabs will find a way of stopping this cycle of hate and live in a land with no need for border controls one day! 🙂 But please tell me how the Jewish terrorist groups Irgun and the Stern Gang differ from Hamas?

Agreed. However I do feel that Israel has tried to let the Palestinians work things out for themselves in Azza. At this point, their is no drive for investment in industry. The government is interested in building explosive labs and Qassam missile shops. The government is not interested in building computer assembly plants, fax machine component assembly shops, and investing in hi-tech agriculture. I understand that some greenhouses were vacated in the Azza Strip by Israel, that were immediately destroyed purposely by the Palestinians :confused: . .

I don’t know why vacated buildings were destroyed.

It doesn’t not seem logical to me to destroy buildings just because they were built by Jewish settlers but I don’t know enough to comment further.

In a “hot house” atmosphere filled with hate I’m sure someone would come up with a reason.

With all the artillery, F16s, and other hi-tech gadgets, the casulties are extremely low. Obviously hi-tech weapons are not being utilized properly..

With all due respect, the question is not that hi-tech weapons are not being utilised properly but why it is necessary to kill people with F16s in the first place! Remedy: talk seriously with the Palestinians and address their genuine grievances and thereby avoid a civilian population fighting the IDF.

We know the IDF needs to minimise civilian deaths for PR reasons (fiasco on the beach recently-who are they kidding Hama planted a mine there!-it was a Israeli artillery shell! The IDF press conference was shameful but at least some of them had the grace to look embarassed).

I really do not know where you are going with the nuclear issues ? As far as E rahn ? I would assume most elected governments, very first responsibilities, are to protect their own citizens ? – With that being the case, perhaps someone should consider what the fundamentalist Islamic gov’t in E rahn has to say.

Mutually Assured Destruction would come into play even if Iran got the bomb. So a pre-emptive “tactical” (!) nuclear strike (including by the US as a proxy on behalf of Israel) because of Ahmedinejad’s rhetoric would not be helpful as this would result in a desolate radioactive wasteland in the area with unknown consequences. It would also poison relations with that region for generations (don’t care? Or small price to pay? :diablo: )

One small point, I don’t believe in organised religion, I don’t believe in the man made tosh they spout, so I don’t like fundamentalists be they Islamic, Jewish or Christian. May “God” (if he exists!) forgive me! :diablo: 😀

I assume you feel that the US Gov/Clinton/State Department/Ross lied to the entire world ?

Barak got cold feet at Camp David just before the elections because he felt he would have lost heavily if he had agreed to parts of East Jeruslem becoming part of a Palestinian state and its capital. Barak had no stomach for this; perhaps someone of the stature of Rabin could have done it but we all know what happened to him unfortunately.

The easy part was to blame Arafat for the failure to agree a Palestinian state but what was discussed in Olso and after and what Barak actually offered at Camp David did not include East Jerusulem (forget other issues such as no return of return of Palestinians to their former homes). How easy was it to make Arafat a scapegoat as he was already a figure of hate: “we offered him 95% of what he wanted and still he refused!”

(Orient House in East Jerusulem was earmarked for their Parliament but occupied 2am night of August 10 2001 by Israel troops after a suicide bomb killed 18 the day before;see:easy, these “animals don’t deserve anything”. Systematically exclude 150,000 palestinian residents (in 1999, don’t know how many now) from Jerusulem by making up rules and laws so over time it would be “ethnically cleansed”).

And by the way lying and mendacity is part of international diplomacy. Pity the persons who accept all they are fed!

As for the rest, Israel’s justification to exist is in the Book of Numbers in the Old Testament (OT is a wonderful read – full of fire and brimstone, contradictions, 900 year old prophets, Adam & Eve were first humans etc etc ). What if you don’t believe in any religion and think it’s a load of man-made tosh. Abraham, the Patriarch or father of both the Jews and Arabs was born in Ur in Chaldea in what is now Iraq. Perhaps some people will suggest as Abraham’s forefathers (Noah, though his son Shem etc) were there (in Iraq) 5,000 years ago so they have a right to it today; just kick out whoever’s being there for 100s or 1,000s of years as that doesn’t mean squat as they don’t have a covenant with God!

Let’s not even go to the archaelogical evidence concerning David (and ancient kingdoms in that area. This is more properly a story told by academic researchers but you can get the history that agrees with what you want to believe in and also reinforces your beliefs: “there were no other people there living on that land and if they were, they certainly didn’t have a covenant “signed” by God that actually “gave” the land to us!”

If God exists, he’s playing a cruel joke on us all! 😀

****!! the post was from fabe. So fabe you’re right :p

As fabe put so well, sometimes fact is stranger than fiction! :diablo:

I find the idea of the majority of police being unarmed ridiculous.

America is an armed society – Britain is not.

What might be appropriate and even necessary elsewhere, may not be the thing we need here.

Here only the military and certain police units carry weapons – only a minority of criminals use weapons. When we see guns in the street, it is something out of the ordinary and long may it remain so.

Ronnie Barker had great timing – and was great as Fletch in Porridge and some of the sketches in the Two Ronnies -only slightly dated now – interesting use of “Naff off” and “Naffing hell!” in Porridge in the days when you couldn’t swear on TV.

A modest man who shunned publicity. Rest in Peace.

I did not know Steve personally but I always enjoyed his posts. He made a great contribution and he will be missed. Condolences to his loved ones. Rest in peace.

I can’t bring Steve back, but I did copy his thought’s on what he would do if he only had a week to live :-

Originally Posted by Steve Young
20 September 2003 I’d give up my job, go flying again for the last time, hit the ski slope again for the last time, give my son a huge hug and tell him that I love him, make sure my will is made out and that Haydn gets everything, and after that anything else would be a bonus. Would I be scared? No. We all get a finite time here, and I’d like to think I’ve lived as full a life as I could so far. No regrets at all.

I like many others never met Steve, but if only more people had his qualities the world would be a better place.