The head of the UN has again called for Israel to cease its military action in Palestine and Israel has again ignored him. Just like they have when every other president, prime minister and foreign minister (apart from the Americans of course) has called on them to stop.
I’ve just sent the following email to David the Millibeast:
Dear Mr Millibeast,
Israel has ignored calls by the UN, the ICRC, presidents, prime ministers and foreign ministers (including yourself) to cease military in action in Palestine. Up until 2006, despite the constant use of the American veto, the UN made 101 resolutions against Israel for its aggression against Palestine and its other neighbours. This is more than any other country in history.
As they are clearly defying the will of the international community and are in possession of weapons of mass destruction – the reasons given for invading Iraq – can you please advise why Israel is not being dealt with in the same manner?
Regards,
Wonko
Technorati Tags: Israel, Gaza, David Millibeast
This would be the same Israel that has been invaded 3 times by its neighbours since 1948, had Scud missiles fired at it when it was not at war during the invasion of Kuwait and has had thousands of mortars and missiles constantly fired over its borders by said neighbours who also deliberately target its civilians by walking into public (not military) areas and blow themselves up?
I can’t see any reason why Israel should give a damn about international opinion under those circumstances, do you?
This is from David Cleggeron of the Illiberal Undemocrats, and before anyone groans, remember that even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day…
“The government’s own figures show Britain is selling more and more weapons to Israel, despite the questions about the country’s use of force. In 2007, our government approved £6m of arms exports. In 2008, it licensed sales 12 times as fast: £20m in the first three months alone.” http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/07/nick-clegg-israel-gaza-war
Speaking of Liberals, did you see the letter in the Shropshire Star last night from Dr Charles West, the Lib Dem Parliamentary Candidate for Shrewsbury & Atcham? I don’t think I have seen a better example of confused thinking in a long time. Here is a flavour:
“Those who love peace, and value life can have little difficulty in saying that Hamas is wrong to have killed four Israelis. Equally the Israeli government is wrong to have killed over 400 Palestinians in Gaza.
I would say that Hamas are wrong to have said that they wish to destroy the state of Israel, and I would say that Israel is wrong to have blockaded Gaza…”
Clearly Israel has inflicted far more damage on Gaza, than Hamas on Israel…However, it is easy …to point the finger of blame..
there is a more important question than to ask who started it. The question I would ask is who will have the courage to stop it?”
Can you believe it? To Dr West there is clearly a moral equivalence between the terrorist Hamas and Israel. Thus it was wrong for Hamas to kill Israelis. But as Israel has hit back harder, you shouldn’t point the finger of blame at anyone!
It’s thinking like this that makes the situation worse. There is right and wrong in our world and it is time that people recognise the truth that TERRORISM in all its guises is WRONG and that the DEFENCE and DEFEAT of terrorism, wherever it occurs in our world is ABSOLUTELY RIGHT. No ifs, no buts.
Yeah, I saw the letter. I noticed it said Liberal Democrat at the bottom and skipped over it.
I’m glad you agree that terrorism in all its guises must be stopped at all costs and by whatever means. I wonder if you followed the links to a dictionary definition of terrorism that I put in one of the other posts on Israel and in the comments.
Wonko, if I may say so, you are playing with words. In so doing you make the definition of terrorism so broad that it becomes meaningless.
Let me tell you what I mean by terrorism: it is the application of terror, fear, intimidation and the murder of innocent people in pursuit of a perceived grievance or goal.
So, a suicide bomber that walks into a crowded disco and detonates explosives, killing innocent people, is a terrorist. The people that sent him are also terrorists.
A militant, who fires rockets into Israel, because he can no longer enter as a suicide bomber, is a terrorist.
A state that permits these actions on a daily basis, even encouraging them, allowing murder to be perpetrated in its own name, is a terrorist state. Thus Gaza, under Hamas, is a terrorist state.
Now, those who would defend themselves against these terrorist efforts, are not, by definition, themselves terrorists. They did not target innocent people. They did not engage in terror, fear, intimidation or murder. Their actions are entirely defensive.
The defensive killing of a terrorist is not murder. An innocent civilian casualty in the defence against terrorism is indeed an appalling tragedy: but it is not terrorism and there is no moral equivalence between that and the original terrorist attack.
Terrorism is an ugly, disgusting concept and warfare and widespread bloodshed are the consequences of its application. While terrorism is encouraged and endures, the innocent will always suffer. To give in to terrorism acede to its demands is to kiss goodbye to free civilisation.
‘They did not target innocent people. They did not engage in terror, fear, intimidation or murder. Their actions are entirely defensive.’
And this allows them to bomb kids?
Both sides are justified in their actions, its just that IDF seem to be a lot better at retaliating.
Both sides are wrong but since they dont see that themselves, we, as their weapon suppliers must intervene and stop the war
But don’t you see, axel, that it can never be wrong to defend against terrorism?
Israel is applying terror, fear, intimidation and the murder of innocent people in pursuit of their decades-old grievance at the Arab attacks on Israel and their goal of destroying Palestine so they can keep the whole of the “promised land” for “God’s chosen people”. Israel is a terrorist state. If it can never be wrong to defend against terrorism then you’re justifying Palestinians defending themselves against Israeli terrorist attacks against them.
I don’t agree with you. Although I didn’t fully understand the issue when I was a kid, I used to hear a very similar argument from both the far-right and the far-left and I didn’t accept it even then.
I do not believe that Israel is a terrorist state by any definition. They are targeting Hamas, a terrorist and paramilitary organisation which, although it did win a majority of Palestinian votes, seized power by force in Gaza and has menaced Israel from within Gaza ever since.
I abhor the current bloodshed – I wish it wasn’t happening. It is a human tragedy and I know that we both agree on that.But, Hamas knows that Israel is the stronger. It knows that when it fires its rockets at innocent Israelis that, eventually, Israel will strike back.
Hamas knows that innocent Palestinians within Gaza will endure the most appalling suffering as a consequence of its own actions. Yet it continues to fire the rockets. Wonko, Hamas terrorists don’t care about human life, Palestinian or Israeli. For them, bloodshed on the streets of Gaza is manna in the propaganda war against Israel. That is pure wickedness and one that inviites retribution.
The very best thing that can happen in Gaza and to her people, in the long-term, is a conclusive Israeli victory against Hamas.
“I didn’t fully understand the issue when I was a kid”
This is still the case, George.
God forbid if a foreign army cuts off vital supplies into a region of England, banning foreign journalists from entering, bombing civilian infrastructure, and shelling aid agencies during a ceasefire leading to the UN ending its humanitarian operations and we are without food, electricity, or running water. If this situation were to come about I’m sure you’d be saying that the occupiers blowing up churches and universities were bravely fighting terrorism…
If you are not aware of the history of the conflict, it is not surprising, as John Pilger explains:
‘They know that the horror now raining on Gaza has little to do with Hamas or, absurdly, “Israel’s right to exist”. They know the opposite to be true: that Palestine’s right to exist was cancelled 61 years ago and that the expulsion and, if necessary, extinction of the indigenous people was planned and executed by the founders of Israel. They know, for example, that the infamous “Plan D” of 1947-48 resulted in the murderous depopulation of 369 Palestinian towns and villages by the Haganah (Israeli army) and that massacre upon massacre of Palestinian civilians in such places as Deir Yassin, al-Dawayima, Eilaboun, Jish, Ramle and Lydda are referred to in official records as “ethnic cleansing”. Arriving at a scene of this carnage, David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, was asked by a general, Yigal Allon: “What shall we do with the Arabs?” Ben-Gurion, reported the Israeli historian Benny Morris, “made a dismissive, energetic gesture with his hand and said, ‘Expel them'”.
‘The order to expel an entire population “without attention to age” was signed by Yitzhak Rabin, a future prime minister promoted by the world’s most efficient propaganda as a peacemaker. The terrible irony of this was addressed only in passing, such as when the Mapam party co-leader Meir Ya’ari noted “how easily” Israel’s leaders spoke of how it was “possible and permissible to take women, children and old men and to fill the road with them because such is the imperative of strategy. And this we say . . . who remember who used this means against our people during the [Second World] War . . . I am appalled.”‘
Whereas Israel does as evidenced by the 100:1 ratio of Palestinian to Israeli deaths and the fact that Israel bombed a UN-run school, claiming after the event that they were coming under fire from mortars from the school while the UN says they are 99.9% sure that there were no militants or militant activity in the school.
But lets not let the truth get in the way of terrorist appeasement, eh?
Is being indiscriminate worse than engineering a massacre of civilians, George?
“They know that the horror now raining on Gaza has little to do with Hamas or, absurdly, “Israel’s right to exist”. They know the opposite to be true: that Palestine’s right to exist was cancelled 61 years ago and that the expulsion and, if necessary, extinction of the indigenous people was planned and executed by the founders of Israel”.
This is arrant nonsense. Palestine was never an exclusively Arab country. No independent Arab or Palestinian state ever existed in Palestine. The Arab-American historian, Prof. Phillip Hitti, said in 1946 “There is no such thing as “Palestine” in history, absolutely not”.
In 1937, a local Arab leader, Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, told the Peel Commission: “There is no such country [as Palestine]! “Palestine” is a term the Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria”.
Even a chairman of the PLO, Ahmed Shuqeiri, declared “It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern Syria”.
Palestinian Arab nationalism is largely a post-world war 1 phenomenon that did not become a significant political movement until after the 1967 six-day war and the Israeli capture of the West Bank.
Arrant nonsense?
So there were no expulsions? No massacres?
I think you are dodging the issue, George. You seem to be saying that the IDF is incapable of terrorism, even when acts of terrorism occur.
Perhaps the next maniac who tries to blow up people in one of our towns or cities will use the IDF defence – “I was targeting terrorists and regret all civilian casualties”