Shame on Israel!!!

[T-Rexx]

You're awfully good at spreading misinformation, but we're all too smart to fall for your bullshit.

The people on the ship were armed, just because it wasn't with guns doesn't mean they weren't. They attacked the soldiers and were surprised when they fought back.

So your point is that it is okay to line people up and shoot them in the back of the head with your Uzi because they "attacked" you with a slingshot?

 

[NotThatCreative]

If you want to call the Lebanon operations wars, then you could claim that two is "multiple", which is technically correct but also misleading.

I'm not going to get into a discussion of 'operations' vs 'police actions' vs wars, etcetera. As a matter of fact, I'm surprised some people still feel there's a legitimate discussion to be had there. The armed forces of Israel invaded Lebanon. That's a war. They also invaded Gaza in Jan 2009. You know what was an operation and not a war? Osirak, Operation Opera. Operation Orchard in Syria would qualify as well. A quick out and back. An airstrike, not too dissimilar from what we do in Pakistan. The First and Second Lebanon Wars were wars, so was the Gaza War. Given the thousands of deaths in the First and Second Intifadas, the case could certainly be made that those were wars as well. So there were 3-5 wars. 'Multiple' was, therefore, not misleading.

 

[NotThatCreative]

The requirement was "unprovoked". Of those you listed, Qibya arguably qualifies; the rest do not.

Since only one example was requested, I'm set then even by your standards and interpretation of history, aren't I?

 

[AsianDream]

The one truism all can easily agree upon is if the Arabs layed down their arms there would be no more war, If the Israelis layed down their arms there would be no more israel.

What you say is the reality of the situation - the Israelis are in a fight for survival - as such its a supprise that they are as restrained as they are in practice.

While there is an undoubted (by most) historical injustice to the Palestinians - one day the situation will be resolved - and this will hopefully be by peacefull negotiation.

History shows that the only alternative to negotiation and peaceful co-existance is outright victory for one side or the other.

 

[NotThatCreative]

Incidentally, NotThatCreative, your ideas about East Jerusalem would require never ending conflict. It is impossible that East Jerusalem, home to Muslims long enough to establish the great shrine of the Dome of the Rock, would not have some formal place as the principal city of a Palestinian state. It would be like asking Catholics to give up Lourdes to the Buddhists. It just can't be. And moreover, it needn't be.

The only alternative to East Jerusalem being the capital of Palestine would be Jerusalem (east and west) being some kind of United Nations Special Zone, and not formally part of either Palestine or Israel).

If Israel would agree to making Jerusalem a UN zone like was the plan back before the Six Day War in 1967, I think that'd be great. But the Palestinians rejected the UN partition plan in 1947, not the Jewish Agency. Then when Israel declared independence several Arab neighbors invaded. The Six Day War was begun by an attack by Israel on Egypt in pre-emptive response to imminent threat. That led to Israel taking the rest of Jerusalem.

All of which I'm sure you know. But the point of my saying that was this: there aren't re-dos. The Palestinians made a major miscalculation in 1947. Then the Arab world did it again in 1967. That's their fuck up. Now that they've been made aware of the size of their mistake, they can't just say, "oh, well, we'll accept that other plan we rejected already." That isn't the way the world works. They screwed up, now they pay the price. To ask Israel to give up Jerusalem after they had already agreed once to not have it, then agreed to have only half of it, and now have all of it, is to try to pretend the events of the past 61 years didn't happen. They did, and Israel came out on top. Palestine's response is essentially to cry for a do-over. They want an 'undo' button. That's just too damned bad for them.

 

[bankside]

If Israel would agree to making Jerusalem a UN zone like was the plan back before the Six Day War in 1967, I think that'd be great. But the Palestinians rejected the UN partition plan in 1947, not the Jewish Agency. Then when Israel declared independence several Arab neighbors invaded. The Six Day War was begun by an attack by Israel on Egypt in pre-emptive response to imminent threat. That led to Israel taking the rest of Jerusalem.

All of which I'm sure you know. But the point of my saying that was this: there aren't re-dos. The Palestinians made a major miscalculation in 1947. Then the Arab world did it again in 1967. That's their fuck up. Now that they've been made aware of the size of their mistake, they can't just say, "oh, well, we'll accept that other plan we rejected already." That isn't the way the world works. They screwed up, now they pay the price. To ask Israel to give up Jerusalem after they had already agreed once to not have it, then agreed to have only half of it, and now have all of it, is to try to pretend the events of the past 61 years didn't happen. They did, and Israel came out on top. Palestine's response is essentially to cry for a do-over. They want an 'undo' button. That's just too damned bad for them.

The thing is, there are re-dos if it makes something right (sustainable and peaceable).

And, BTW, Israel does not have all of Jerusalem, they have half of it, and they occupy and provoke in the other half. And you'll forgive me if I discount as trivial, 61 years in the lifespan of a nation that counts the justification for its existence in millennia.

 

[NotThatCreative]

So your point is that it is okay to line people up and shoot them in the back of the head with your Uzi because they "attacked" you with a slingshot?

Nowhere in the article you linked does it say they were lined up and shot execution-style. You completely made that up. It simply says where they were shot.

 

[JB3]

So your point is that it is okay to line people up and shoot them in the back of the head with your Uzi because they "attacked" you with a slingshot?

No. My point is that people like you that minimize what these 'activists' did, and the fact that they DID attack the Israeli troops, you do a disservice to the seriousness of the situation.

You are assuming the default position that what Israel did was wrong, and the 'victims' are blameless.

 

[NotThatCreative]

The thing is, there are re-dos if it makes something right (sustainable and peaceable).

And, BTW, Israel does not have all of Jerusalem, they have half of it, and they occupy and provoke in the other half. And you'll forgive me if I discount as trivial, 61 years in the lifespan of a nation that counts the justification for its existence in millennia.

If Israel would support a re-do, I'd support them. But I'm not going to advocate we push them for it. The Palestinians fucked up, so they can just get over their own mistake. It's not Israel's responsibility to make things all better for them. If Israel comes to a point where it doesn't think it worth keeping, then good for them. I'll be behind them the whole way. But, somehow, given Israel's history with terrorism, I don't see them capitulating to it.

Israel has the Western half, thanks to the Arab-Israeli War. Now it has the Eastern half, thanks to the Six Day War. The international community doesn't recognize it, but that doesn't make it any less true. It administers and governs both halves, as dictated by the Jerusalem Law passed in 1980 that declares Jerusalem to be one whole city and the capital of Israel.

As far as how long its existed, that would be since they declared independence in May 1948, 6 1/2 months after the partition plan that was passed in the UN and rejected by the Palestinians. The history of the people goes back much further, sure. Millennia, as you point out. But the history of the state of Israel is 62 years long. And 61 years, being an entire lifetime, matters regardless of how you count the age of the nation. The current prime minister was born months after the official end of the Arab-Israeli War. He was not yet 18 at the time of the Six Day War. For his entire adult life Israel has been in possession of both East and West Jerusalem. To require him or his successors to give it up because the Palestinians made a mistake... You can count it as trivial if you want, but it's not trivial to the people who are living, working, and making decisions in that country.

 

[Kulindahr]

The only alternative to East Jerusalem being the capital of Palestine would be Jerusalem (east and west) being some kind of United Nations Special Zone, and not formally part of either Palestine or Israel).

Or the whole city being some kind of UN Special Zone, and the capital of both.

 

[Kulindahr]

Since only one example was requested, I'm set then even by your standards and interpretation of history, aren't I?

Arguably.

Which means... not really.

 

[Kulindahr]

If Israel would agree to making Jerusalem a UN zone like was the plan back before the Six Day War in 1967, I think that'd be great. But the Palestinians rejected the UN partition plan in 1947, not the Jewish Agency. Then when Israel declared independence several Arab neighbors invaded. The Six Day War was begun by an attack by Israel on Egypt in pre-emptive response to imminent threat. That led to Israel taking the rest of Jerusalem.

All of which I'm sure you know. But the point of my saying that was this: there aren't re-dos. The Palestinians made a major miscalculation in 1947. Then the Arab world did it again in 1967. That's their fuck up. Now that they've been made aware of the size of their mistake, they can't just say, "oh, well, we'll accept that other plan we rejected already." That isn't the way the world works. They screwed up, now they pay the price. To ask Israel to give up Jerusalem after they had already agreed once to not have it, then agreed to have only half of it, and now have all of it, is to try to pretend the events of the past 61 years didn't happen. They did, and Israel came out on top. Palestine's response is essentially to cry for a do-over. They want an 'undo' button. That's just too damned bad for them.

Actually, in 1947 they were all Palestinians, because back then it just meant "people living in the mandate area called Palestine". But a great many non-Jewish ones did indeed make a major miscalculation -- them, and a whole bunch of Arab countries and some friends.

At this point I think Israel has the right to say "You guys keep trying to wipe us out. Now we have the right to set borders that make us feel safe. If you don't like it, go live with the allies who keep prodding you to hate and murder."

It's only common sense that repeat offenders get reduced liberties.

 

[Kulindahr]

Nowhere in the article you linked does it say they were lined up and shot execution-style. You completely made that up. It simply says where they were shot.

True.

"Execution style" is an immense distortion; nothing in the article supports it. That term presumes that the people were alive and well and arbitrarily shot in the back of the head.

But we have videos showing IDF soldiers being attacked and putting a good deal of effort into not fighting back. The restraint is astounding. But then it ended -- and to explain the rest, we should ask "Why?" The answer is obvious: human restraint only goes so far; they got angry, and cut loose. They defended themselves, and then, I suspect, instead of killing people who weren't attacking them any longer, they poured more rounds into the ones they'd already killed.

Unfortunately the information provided in the article is so skimpy as to be almost useless. Questions that should have been answered include: What were the angles of the rest of the bullets? Were any from the sides? Can it be told of any were done after the victims were already dead? Do the exit wounds show evidence of deck material scattered back onto the victims, which would show they were already down on the deck when the shots were fired? How do the angles of the bullet entries correlate to the positions in which the bodies were recovered from the deck?

There's a huge difference between cold-blooded killing with an over-abundance of bullets and a loss of control after putting up with violent abuse to the point of injury. Until we have forensic information beyond that of merely the existence of additional wounds and the location of some, what we have means... exactly nothing.

 

[T-Rexx]

No. My point is that people like you that minimize what these 'activists' did, and the fact that they DID attack the Israeli troops, you do a disservice to the seriousness of the situation.

You are assuming the default position that what Israel did was wrong, and the 'victims' are blameless.

You seem to have evidence that the international community is lacking, which Israel cannot produce (and appears to be attempting to hide), and which would contradict the autopsy evidence.

Please tell us how you know this. You would do a huge service to Israel (and to the Obama administration) by enlightening us with your information.

 

[T-Rexx]

True.

"Execution style" is an immense distortion; nothing in the article supports it.

Nowhere in the article you linked does it say they were lined up and shot execution-style. You completely made that up. It simply says where they were shot.

"Execution-style" is shooting someone in the back of the head, at close range.

Five of the nine men killed on the Mavi Marmara were killed this way. Furkan Dogan was shot in the head FOUR TIMES! That's not a coincidence. That was an execution.

 

[Kulindahr]

You seem to have evidence that the international community is lacking, which Israel cannot produce (and appears to be attempting to hide), and which would contradict the autopsy evidence.

Please tell us how you know this. You would do a huge service to Israel (and to the Obama administration) by enlightening us with your information.

No, you're distorting the evidence that's given -- inventing details that aren't there. He's just sticking to the information given.

"Execution-style" is shooting someone in the back of the head, at close range.

Five of the nine men killed on the Mavi Marmara were killed this way. Furkan Dogan was shot in the head FOUR TIMES! That's not a coincidence. That was an execution.

What special information do you have? The article you referenced doesn't say this.

 

[JayHawk]

Regardless it is easy to explain... the first group came with paint guns and non lethal force... the second group came to end the violent attack against their boarding party... Would you suggest they say hey over here ...stop beating that man on the ground... I have a gun and some armchair idiot will try to question my motive in saving my countrymans life so turn around and I can get a double tap in the brain....

No I imagine they went in with the intent (the second wave) of ending the violence against their people onboard.... they did so with prejudice. I would expect no less.

I didnt hear the same people pissing themselves when our snipes put down a somali pirate and that guy was simply threatening violence... not in the act of beating a man to death.... Weird

 

[T-Rexx]

No, you're distorting the evidence that's given -- inventing details that aren't there. He's just sticking to the information given.

What special information do you have? The article you referenced doesn't say this.

Nope. Everything I said is in The Guardian article or the news clips I posted.

There is a discrepancy about Furkan Dogan between different sources. The ABC News clip I posted says he was shot four times in the head and once in the chest (as do most of the Western media sources). The Guardian article I referenced (and Aljazeera) says he was shot twice in the head, once in the chest, and twice in the leg. But the discrepancy hardly matters.

The nine men were shot primarily in the back at close range. Five of the nine were shot in the head.

The preponderance of head shots is not some bizarre coincidence. The Israelis were shooting the aid workers in the head at close range, and often multiple times! That was not an attempt to control a hostile and violent crowd (which is usually accomplished by shooting the hostiles in the legs). This was an attempt to kill.

Each of the nine victims on the Mavi Marmara in international waters off the coast of Israel in the early hours of Monday morning was shot at least once and some five or six times with 9mm rounds.

According to the scientists at the ATK, Dogan, who held US and Turkish citizenship was shot five times – from close range in the right side of his nose, in the back of the head, in the back and twice in the left leg.

"Approximately 20cm away was the closest."

Cengiz Alquyz, 42

Four gunshot wounds: back of head, right side of face, back, left leg

Ibrahim Bilgen, 60

Four gunshot wounds: right chest, back, right hip, right temple

Cegdet Kiliclar, 38

One gunshot wound: middle of forehead

Furkan Dogan, 19

Five gunshot wounds: nose, back, back of head, left leg, left ankle

Sahri Yaldiz

Four gunshot wounds: left chest, left leg, right leg twice

Aliheyder Bengi, 39

Six gunshot wounds: left chest, belly, right arm, right leg, left hand twice

Cetin Topcuoglu, 54

Three gunshot wounds: back of head, left side, right belly

Cengiz Songur, 47

One gunshot wound: front of neck

Necdet Yildirim, 32

Two gunshot wounds: right shoulder, left back

You can argue, if you choose, that the Israelis were somehow justified in exercising this remarkable level of violence against people who were, in their own description, armed with knives, metal rods, sling shots, and metal balls.

But I'm not willing to give Israel a pass just because it is a US ally. It would have been easy for any modern navy to prevent this flotilla from docking and redirect it without boarding. The Israelis insisted on boarding because they thought they would find weapons aboard the ships. They lost that bet - the ships were full of cement.

But, having made the decision to board, it should have been easy to control this non-military and unprofessional mob without killing them. But shooting to kill was clearly the first priority of the Israeli attack force. They aimed for the heads of their victims - and managed to hit most of their targets multiple times at close range (mere inches).

Israel clearly seems embarrassed by the action of its military. They have tried to control the depiction of events by erasing all the video and still pictures recorded by members of the Gaza flotilla and releasing only their own video edits. But the autopsy evidence is damning.

 

[JayHawk]

If you pull your weapon you shoot to kill . Period, end of story. Who the fuck shoots in legs?

That is our doctrine, why would it not be Israels?

 

[Sausy]

Turkey and its increasingly pro Islamic fundy government can go to mother fucking hell...Turkey who has massacred Armenians and ruthlessly keep down their large Kurdish minority,now adopting the cause of the Gazan Palestinians,it's so much hogwash!This has nothing to do with the Palestinians,but establish Turk cred with the Islamic street and vie as leader of the Muslim world.European racists who kept out the Turks from the EU are equally responsible as it has driven many Turks into the eager hands of the Islamists.Turkey which had a secular constitution which made it relatively progressive in the Muslim world...now just execises its own muscles in a cynical,manipulative,treacherous grasp at power and glory.

Israel doesn't stand a chance here on JUB with the majority of "Progressives" or with the world at large.Other nations make mistakes which are excused or quantified...Israel is flawed but damn well deserves respect and admiration for its existence in spite of all obstacles,it is truly compared to the rest of the Middle East a virtual oasis of progressive ideals,as flawed as it is.But what would one have Israel do?Hamas did not want to build a functioning state,they want revolution,they want total religious domination...they want Israel out of the way and have never even tried to hint about good faith negotiating.The Palestinians suffer more because of their "leadership".Most Israelis would dearly trade land for a secure,meaningful peace.....the Palestinians in the West Bank for the longest time with Fatah and with Gaza and Hamas have not made any meaningful move towards acceptance.reconciliation and peace.Israel didn't even have the West Bank until winning the Six Day War.Obviously Israel has acted in more of a shade of grey thanalways in righteousness...but when have the Palestinians or the other main players other than Egypt under Sadat or Jordan to a smaller extent ever shown courageousness or righteousness other than knowing looking like perennial victims gains the sympathies of ushy gushy moronic lefties in the West.

Ehud Barak was Labor,not big bad right wing Likud(though Menachem Begin,a Likud prime minister and notorious hawk,willingly and proudly made peace with longtime foe Egypt because of Anwar Sadat's true act of defiance and courage)and Yasser Arafat threw him and Bill Clinton under the bus because he couldn't agree to a good faith negotiation of peace.He NEVER was going to agree,that dishonorable maggot.He spat in their faces and initiated an intifada....an uprising that he knew would bring in really big,bad Ariel Sharon.Ariel Sharon who though he cracked down as anyicipated also sincerely like Begin WAS interested in a REAL peace based on security and trust.Why can't the Palestinians EVER show good faith in public?Israel has worked at times unofficially with Abbas' government in the West Bank,and economically the Palestinian territory has made amazing economic progress yet the Abbas government always has to publicly treat Israel cooly and distantly at best.They dare not risk even looking like they are getting soft (or at least pragmatic...which would be inevitable if they seriously were interested in going somewhere as an entity).

Israel has NO oil,few natural resources to speak of but has an amazingly tough and forward minded population who have through sweat,toil and pure will have made a desert bloom.The Palestinians can learn a great deal about moving ahead despite adversity from Israelis.The Palestinians like the Jews deserve a home,a life and a positive direction of their own making and control but lack the leadership to move forward.Israel will exist...if threatened its enemies will be crushed,and it will suffer greatly too.Surely the Palestinians have to learn there is NO other road.Make peace with Israel,and have a chance to live and prosper...or follow the hard liners who will not move an inch to embracing the hated Jews to a certain misery and devastation for EVERYONE.

Sorry for the rant,but the case against Israel is one that is being determined by those who will only convict it and who have no interest in an honorable,humane peace and security while looking the other way or culturally excusing the brutal,totally alien top progressive thinking at EVERY level,oppressive nature of Israel's enemies.Israel has too much honor to stand for being judged by fools at best and uncivilized,hateful butchers.Shame on most of the Middle East,and the progressives in the West who stand with the backward,the brutal,the oppressive and bigoted!