Israel: How do they get away with it?

[Kanda]

Just arrived in my Inbox:

The Saudi Ambassador to the U.N. has just finished giving a speech, and walks out into the lobby where he meets his American counterpart. They shake hands and as they walk the Saudi says, "You know, I have just one question about what I have seen in America"
The American says "Well your Excellency, anything I can do to help you I will do."
The Saudi whispers "My son watches this show 'Star Trek' and in it there are Russians and Blacks and Asians, but never any Arabs. He is very upset. He doesn't understand why there are never any Arabs in Star Trek."
The American laughs and leans over, "That's because it takes place in the future."

 

[mod]

How do they get away with it?

Easy.

Yeah I find myself agreeing with a lot of what they write regarding Israel and Iraq.

Would the paper's critics (and there are many) call this a liberal or left wing stance?

 

[ZAMB]

Yeah I find myself agreeing with a lot of what they write regarding Israel and Iraq.

I think Robert Fisk of the Independent is a great reporter - though I don't always totally agree with his conclusions. I recommend his book 'The great war for civilisation' though, about the middle east - I'm maybe a third of the way through its 1300 pages - it has the advantage that, as a reporter, he interviews people on all sides of the conflict.

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

Don't be silly. No one in the british government has the balls to come out and protest to Israel.

I think the reason Israel gets away with it is because
1) the west regards arabs as sub human
2) guilt over the holocaust prevents the EU from taking any real action
3) israel has a very good PR machine

You forgot something...

4) And because Lord Levy is Blair's bag man and Middle East envoy and possibly, probably, allegedly may have incriminating evidence against Blair.

 

[moono]

http://www.palestinechronicle.com/story-07210632340.htm

Joshua Frank: Why Israel Gets Away with Murder

 

[denniseagle]

Another great Indy front page.

Just out of interest are the 'flags' of hamas or hezbollah (sp) shown anywhere on the page??

If not, its a bit difficult to ask /demand one side to stop shooting when, as everyone knows, the other side wont.

 

[RhymnRzn]

Looks like Israel is moving on from one agitation to the next.

 

[RhymnRzn]

I keep hearing vain-Israel saying they have not provoked their neighbors. Rather, they lunge at the mote in their brother's eyes with beams in their own eyes.

Mercy, mercy.

 

[chainsaw cat]

Don't be silly. No one in the british government has the balls to come out and protest to Israel.

I think the reason Israel gets away with it is because
1) the west regards arabs as sub human
2) guilt over the holocaust prevents the EU from taking any real action
3) israel has a very good PR machine

...and a great big 4)...

their army and air force are shit hot, and ten times better than any of the fuck-up rabble that go up against them. Guerillas don't count, they never accomplish much over there. Therefore, the Israelis can do what they see fit in the region 'cos they is the hardest.

This is NOT to say I think the Israelis are right.

 

[ska invita]

Just out of interest are the 'flags' of hamas or hezbollah (sp) shown anywhere on the page??

If not, its a bit difficult to ask /demand one side to stop shooting when, as everyone knows, the other side wont.

There is some truth in your point, but what is depicted is the UN voting countries.

The fact is on countless occassions this is the voting pattern on international issues - an american vote NO cancels out 180 yesses.

The UN voting system is a joke = even if you dont have one country one vote, at least an attempt to let the majority decide would be helpful.

edit: I would expect Lebanons flag to be there... they should have a vote at the UN.

The UN is utterly useless when the US doesnt need its endorsement.

 

[moono]

That's the price for inviting them into WW2. Now everybody needs to get rid of them. Any ideas ?

 

[ZAMB]

The fact is on countless occassions this is the voting pattern on international issues - an american vote NO cancels out 180 yesses.

The UN voting system is a joke = even if you dont have one country one vote, at least an attempt to let the majority decide would be helpful.

The UN is utterly useless when the US doesnt need its endorsement.

The most needed reform of the UN is getting rid of the veto for the 5 permanent members of the 'security council' - which means that one country can, and often does, block the wishes of the rest of the world. However, as this website points out[below], the US and Russia probably wouldn't have even backed the creation of the UN without the veto. The security council seems to be an oxymoron, as the last thing it is concerned with is the 'security' of the rest of the world - it's more like protecting it's special interests - like the US continal veto of any action against Israel.
It's ironic too, that the only way to dispose of the security council and bring some democracy to the UN is for the 5 permanent members to support a vote to get rid of it.

The five permanent members of the Security Council (China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, and United States) enjoy the privilege of veto power. This power has been intensely controversial since the drafting of the UN Charter in 1945. The United States and Russia would probably not have accepted the creation of the United Nations without the veto privilege. Fifty years later, the debate on the existence and use of the veto continues, reinvigorated by many cases of veto-threat as well as actual veto use.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/membship/veto.htm

 

[ZAMB]

Because israel is lucky as its enemies are even more unpalatable than it .Too western governments
syria palestians hezbollah hamas etc.The only reason they are not bombing the crap out of israel is they cant.Hard to feel sympathy for someone who would do exactly the same to the other side if given a chance imho.

The Israelis so far have not been able to enter Aita al-Shaab to recover the tank that was exploded by Hizbullah and the bodies of the soldiers that were killed in the original operation (this is a main indication that the operation did take place on Lebanese soil, not that in my opinion it would ever be an illegitimate operation, but still the media has been saying that it was inside ‘Israel’ thus an aggression first started by Hizbullah).
http://polizeros.com/2006/07/18/captured-israeli-soldiers/

This is something I haven't really seen reported in the Western press, the possibility that Israel were inside Lebanon when their soldiers were captured, and thus that they may have been the agressors initially. I must admit that when I saw the initial headlines 'israeli soldiers captured in Lebanon' it was my first thought .... but Israel, the US and of course our resident israeli apologists, have denied it ....... it had to be those devilish Hizbullah going into Israel for the US to insist that Israel had a right to 'defend itself'!!!

 

[ZAMB]

You should make of point 1: Some in Europe regard Arabs as sub-humans (none I know, but you know other people then I do). In the USA however Arabs are only "known" as pictured by Hollywood (and hence only exist as a fairy tale figure) or as pictured by the US media (and hence only known as retarded, sand-eating "US haters" and terrorists.)

salaam.

An extract from an article which seems to support Aldebaran's view of Muslims by the US as sub-human, expendable people.

The lives of Muslims mean nothing. They’ve become the “expendable” people whose security simply doesn’t matter. Their wholesale slaughter appears regularly on the evening news while heart-wrenching stories are spun about the suffering of Israeli fathers and mothers who lost loved ones in retaliatory attacks.

Don’t Muslims have mothers and fathers? Is it so important to demonize them that they must be stripped of every trace of humanity including parents?

Where will these “expendable” people go as the world’s resources continue to dry up and their homelands are increasingly besieged?

Indonesia, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Afghanistan; where will they all go? Will they be shunted off to refugee camps or live as prisoners in their own land; be shot like dogs or stand and fight until the end?

How many will chose to join the growing ranks of jihadis and resistance groups plotting and planning to strike back in any way they can? How many will figure that it’s better to die on your feet than live on your knees?

Lebanon has paved the way for a century of war. It’s been ravaged and its people evacuated to settle scores with Hezbollah and create a buffer zone on Israel’s northern flank. The ruined lives are of no consequence. The city will be rebuilt by loans from the World Bank and IMF and the work will be contracted by Halliburton and Bechtel. We’ve seen it all before; the utter destruction of a society so that it can be placed in the hands of the global corporatists. Lebanon will be no exception.

Now that Israel’s northern flank has been “pacified” Olmert can turn his eyes eastward towards Damascus where the ophthalmologist Bashar Al-Assad will have to be toppled to secure pipeline routes from northern Iraq to Haifa. That way Israel will become a major player in this century’s resource wars and a leader in the region.

The geopolitical chess match is unfolding just as it was written years ago by neoconservatives who were dismissed at the time as radicals and lunatics. No one is laughing now. The 12 villagers who were massacred in Srifa yesterday by Israeli bombs aren’t laughing nor are the parents of the 11 children who were vaporized by an Israeli missile while taking a swim in a canal at Oasmia refugee camp.


This is the calculus of human misery; the deliberate killing of innocent people to achieve political objectives. It is no different than terrorism. Bush and Olmert are two men who have absolute confidence in the ability of violence to shape behavior. They are not concerned about the rivers of blood that feed their dreams. After all, those people are “expendable.”

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14064.htm

 

[TAE]

It's not just muslims though, it's anyone who stands in the way of the US.

Remember the bombing of Belgrade. No city or ethnic group is safe.

 

[lunatrick]

I agree with the original poster - holding a whole country responsible for the actions of the extremists is ridiculous.......and bombing residential neighbourhoods is way out of order. Israeli's have the weight of history on them - but are unable to translate this into compassion for their fellow man / woman / child - which I find extremely disturbing....where now for the roadmap in the middle east?

 

[Bernie Gunther]

TYRE, Lebanon — They would bury their dead in mass graves, the doctors decided.

The government hospital had run out of room for human remains by Friday. More than 100 bomb-wrecked bodies were already crammed into poorly refrigerated container trucks, and more corpses were pouring in daily.

So they built cheap coffins of pine. Bulldozers carved 6-foot-deep trenches into a desolate lot littered with old telephone poles.

The stench of death seeped into the warm seaside air as the dead were brought out. Children pinched their noses; the men's faces grew a little stonier. Men and boys jostled on the streets and hoisted themselves up hospital walls to better view the spectacle.

There was no opportunity for a more dignified burial: The clashes between Israel and Hezbollah have been too fierce for people to collect their loved ones or hold funerals.

"I've been a doctor for years, and I've never seen anything like this," said Nabil Harkus, a slight man who stood over a trio of unidentified corpses and spoke with slow, intense rage.

"They can't fight Hezbollah because Hezbollah is not an army," he said, referring to the Israeli warplanes overhead. "They kill the people because they think it's the only way to stop Hezbollah."

source

 

[ZAMB]

I agree with the original poster - holding a whole country responsible for the actions of the extremists is ridiculous.......and bombing residential neighbourhoods is way out of order. Israeli's have the weight of history on them - but are unable to translate this into compassion for their fellow man / woman / child - which I find extremely disturbing....where now for the roadmap in the middle east?

As far as history goes, isn't Israel like formerly abused child who grows up to be a mass assassin? As for a roadmap for the ME, I don't think Bush really had one - it was just something he talked about while letting the Israelis go their own way.

 

[moono]

where now for the roadmap in the middle east?

Bury it. The Zionists murdered it . It contained some references to 'Palestinians' so it had to go.

 

[RhymnRzn]

Miserable sinners want to add insult to injury, and are to sue the Lebanese gov't:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/741066.html

It's lookin like a mad dash for money and power with all the weapons traders: MAY GOD JUDGE THEM.

 

[kakuma]

holding an entire country responsible for the actions of their extremist is ridiculous

maybe its time to stop attacking israel and focus on the bigger problems

 

[moono]

There's a bigger problem than Israel ?

 

[kakuma]

There's a bigger problem than Israel ?

nationalism would be a start, recognising that there are cunts on both sides making profits form this fucked up conflict

and focusing on victories for your class rather than murdering people based on their supposed nationality

 

[moono]

That doesn't do it for me. Israel is the bigger problem.

 

[kakuma]

with nationalism you are kind of backing a losing side

 

[moono]

The Zionists have friends in hi places. Lol.

 

[TAE]

Miserable sinners want to add insult to injury, and are to sue the Lebanese gov't:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/741066.html

It's lookin like a mad dash for money and power with all the weapons traders: MAY GOD JUDGE THEM.

Will the israeli government pay for the repairs of the lebanese infrastructure?

 

[RhymnRzn]

^*shrugs*

My recommendation is that not only the Israelis, but everybody cooperate in bringing about a Sabbath Year (O.T. commandment, every seven years) for everybody. A year of rest, and release of bills and debts would be a starter for healin' the nations.

 

[TAE]

You mean like Jubilee which should happen after every 'seven times seven' years?

http://www.jubileedebtcampaign.org.uk/

 

[RhymnRzn]

Jubilee according to the scriptures would be lovely