Whatever you think of hamas, are the continued missile attacks a good idea?

[chilango]

Exactly. Hamas is an organisation that arose on the back of horrible oppression from the state of Israel and I suspect they care little or not at all about how much 'sympathy' they get from lefties in the West. Personally I think the best path Palestinians could have taken in the face of Israeli attitudes would have been pacifism, but that's easy for me to say - in reality pacifist campaigns occur very rarely anywhere in the world, let alone in places under military occupation.

So I don't see the need (or the point) in expressing either disapproval of or support for Hamas - the Palestinians are in a horrible situation that you are not in, nor ever will be, and if they make political mistakes, they suffer for it, not you. Both sanctimoniousness and cheerleading seem a bit tasteless in that light.

If we would prefer to see a more moderate Palestinian leadership then that will likely only arise when the military occupation ends, so we should concern ourselves with our political leaders' support for the military occupation - by selling arms to Israel and turning a blind eye to the state's murderous campaigns and constant human rights abuses.

One of the most sensible posts i've seen.

although...

If we would prefer to see a more moderate Palestinian leadership then that will likely only arise when the military occupation end

seems a little optimistic to me.

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

You think children, people over 45, disabled people, Arabs and ultra-orthodox Jews are 'few and far between' in Israel?

comparitively yes only a fool would think otherwise.

 

[Yossarian]

comparitively yes only a fool would think otherwise.

Pretty sure if you add all those groups together you'd get a majority so I don't know how you get 'few and far between' out of that.

 

[treelover]

So I don't see the need (or the point) in expressing either disapproval of or support for Hamas - the Palestinians are in a horrible situation that you are not in, nor ever will be, and if they make political mistakes, they suffer for it, not you. Both sanctimoniousness and cheerleading seem a bit tasteless in that light.

if so, how effective and important are the marches in London, etc?,(which for critiquing, I have been cyber bullied) i do support the Palestinian cause and would suggest the best way to help them at present is to raise money for humanitrarian aid(an idea attacked by the armchair warriors on here)
I am very dubious about the STWC motives having seen how they operate from the inside, they are not against all wars, a big silence on DARFUR, for instance..


I also think by working on domestic issues here, we could rebuild a progressive left gaining the support of large sections of the W/C , which may then could have some leverage in the M/E.

 

[Demosthenes]

I also think by working on domestic issues here, we could rebuild a progressive left gaining the support of large sections of the W/C , which may then could have some leverage in the M/E.

What, try and concentrate on our own country rather than set the world to rights.? Perish the thought.

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

Pretty sure if you add all those groups together you'd get a majority so I don't know how you get 'few and far between' out of that.

you don't get the majority though inside israel if you are an isreali you have to have served your military service and will be on reservist duty if you have completed your tour in the present situation these reservists are now being called back up there's no technical time limit on the amount of time you can be a reservist.

as for the absurd notion that isreal is controlled by a few military minded people and the majority aren't then you're in cloud cuckoo land chap...

 

[nino_savatte]

as it says .. personally i think they are a dangerous religio-fascist-nationalist organisation who do not care how many hundreds of palestinians die, as it fits in with their religious nut beliefs

.. but anyway even if you DO support hamas, or sympathise with them, do you still agree with continued attacks? .. cos even then surely it is NUTS to carry on ..

hey i even gave an option for kbj!

Once again, you've bought into this notion that this is all about Hamas; it is not, it is about the Palestinian people. As I have already pointed out before, there are other fighters from other Palestinian factions in Gaza. How could these factions stand by and watch their brothers and sisters being killed by their hundreds and do nothing?

Hamas is merely being used as a convenient peg for the Israelis to hang their murderous tendencies on.
Get a clue.

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

if so, how effective and important are the marches in London, etc?,(which for critiquing, I have been cyber bullied) i do support the Palestinian cause and would suggest the best way to help them at present is to raise money for humanitrarian aid(an idea attacked by the armchair warriors on here)
I am very dubious about the STWC motives having seen how they operate from the inside, they are not against all wars, a big silence on DARFUR, for instance..


I also think by working on domestic issues here, we could rebuild a progressive left gaining the support of large sections of the W/C , which may then could have some leverage in the M/E.

i think this is a multi facetted thing really some good will come of humanitarain aid however getting it to the right places without it's interception by the rest of the world for funding terrorist organsieations (regardless of the actuality of the organiseation or it's afiliations) can and does run people in to a lot of hassle at best or at worst be called out as a terrorist supporter....

marches are needed to force our own governments to adopt a policy which we all tacticly agree with making the vote for the UN resolution when they might want to veto or vote against because of the arms industry profits which need protecting for the sake of the 'economy' etc

so really marches are about action we can take locally (ie in this country) about an international issue. as well as of course demonstrating that the world is not looking the other way on this issue publically as well...

 

[Yossarian]

as for the absurd notion that isreal is controlled by a few military minded people and the majority aren't then you're in cloud cuckoo land chap...

Where the hell did I say that?

You're saying that people who aren't reservists are few and far between, since there's millions of Israelis too young or effectively too old to serve as reservists, as well as over a million Arab Israelis exempt from military service, I reckon you're pretty plainly wrong.

 

[phildwyer]

maybe we should just reffer to you as that ill educated stupid canuck nigger from now on

You can't even spell you racist moron. Get the fuck out of here.

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

Where the hell did I say that?

You're saying that people who aren't reservists are few and far between, since there's millions of Israelis too young or effectively too old to serve as reservists, as well as over a million Arab Israelis exempt from military service, I reckon you're pretty plainly wrong.

compartively jesus.

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

You can't even spell you racist moron. Get the fuck out of here.

ffollowing people about from thread to thread love... selectively quoting to change the meaning of a post you're just looking for shit because you haven't anything remotely on topic to say again.

time for the usual response love

fuck off dwyer...

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

ffollowing people about from thread to thread love... selectively quoting to change the meaning of a post you're just looking for shit because you haven't anything remotely on topic to say again.

time for the usual response love

fuck off dwyer...

I didn't know that 'following' had two 'f's. Is that a local dialect spelling?

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

Where the hell did I say that?

You're saying that people who aren't reservists are few and far between, since there's millions of Israelis too young or effectively too old to serve as reservists, as well as over a million Arab Israelis exempt from military service, I reckon you're pretty plainly wrong.

actually it even bears up statisitcally the population of israel is current around 7,184,000 so even if you are right with your figures there are still more milartised peoples who are in active or reservist duty than civilians.

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

I didn't know that 'following' had two 'f's. Is that a local dialect spelling?

threads not about you JC2 much as you want and need the attention diverted from it's original topic post on topic in context or not at all...

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

threads not about you JC2 much as you want and need the attention diverted from it's original topic post on topic in context or not at all...

Spell check is your friend. If they were intelligible, maybe your posts might make some sense.

 

[phildwyer]

ffollowing people about from thread to thread love... selectively quoting to change the meaning of a post you're just looking for shit because you haven't anything remotely on topic to say again.

Cunt, if you think anyone's ever going to forget this you should fucking think again.

maybe we should just reffer to you as that ill educated stupid canuck nigger from now on

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

ffollowing people about from thread to thread love... selectively quoting to change the meaning of a post .

No matter how much I selectively quote your posts from last night, I can't get the definition of 'nigger' to turn into something else.

 

[Brainaddict]

if so, how effective and important are the marches in London, etc?,(which for critiquing, I have been cyber bullied) i do support the Palestinian cause and would suggest the best way to help them at present is to raise money for humanitrarian aid(an idea attacked by the armchair warriors on here)

There is already a fair amount of aid to Palestinians, so as long as the aid can get through they won't actually starve - though anything to improve their quality of life is appreciated I'm sure.

As for the marches, I think marches against Israel's actions directly are pretty pointless gestures - what possible effect can they have?

For us in Britain I think the obvious entry point is that our government grants licences to sell weapons to the military occupier and aggressor in this war. The government do this claiming that Israel has the right to defend itself, which is true, but military occupation is not a legitimate (or necessary) form of defence. So our government is complicit in this occupation and in the wars associated with it. Campaigners do bring up this point, but I reckon it is worth focussing most of our energy on it, because it is something that is actually within our control within our country.

That's my tuppence worth anyway.

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

No matter how much I selectively quote your posts from last night, I can't get the definition of 'nigger' to turn into something else.

then perhaps you are too stpuid to use the internet ... here's hoping...

 

[phildwyer]

then perhaps you are too stpuid to use the internet ... here's hoping...

Stupid? Coming from you? You, the racist illiterate fucker who fancied it might be acceptable to write this fucking shit:

maybe we should just reffer to you as that ill educated stupid canuck nigger from now on

Take a looooong holiday Garfield. Your sort aren't welcome here.

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

fuckoff dwyer...

 

[audiotech]

As for the marches, I think marches against Israel's actions directly are pretty pointless gestures - what possible effect can they have?

To let the Gazans know that the people of this country see the crimes commited against them and protesting this fact to the government.

 

[8ball]

And to let the Israeli Government know that we've noticed.

 

[Brainaddict]

To let the Gazans know that the people of this country see the crimes commited against them and protesting this fact to the government.

Hmm, I suppose so, but the Palestinians have had a lot of solidarity from the left for years and it hasn't got them very far. I reckon they'd appreciate a reduction in arms supplies to the Israeli government a lot more.

And to let the Israeli Government know that we've noticed.

They know we've noticed. And they are sitting there balancing that against their rising popularity in the polls as elections approach. Which carries more weight?

I'm not against demonstrations/riots, I just think they should be focused on things we can actually change, like what our own government does. Otherwise it's mostly just a gesture to make ourselves feel like we're doing something.

 

[phildwyer]

fuckoff dwyer...

My God, the racist shiteater who thought it might be funny to post this:

maybe we should just reffer to you as that ill educated stupid canuck nigger from now on

Is getting vexed is he? What are you still doing here moron?

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

My God, the racist shiteater who thought it might be funny to post this:



Is getting vexed is he? What are you still doing here moron?

post on topic now or not at all and do fuck off...

 

[8ball]

They know we've noticed.

Without any protests they'd just think their PR is working perfectly.

 

[Brainaddict]

Without any protests they'd just think their PR is working perfectly.

I'm not trying to be needlessly controversial - just trying to be a bit pragmatic. What can we change with our actions? Not the policies of the Israeli government, in my opinion. We might be able to change our own government's policies, in a way that would really sting the Israeli government - so let's focus on that.

I'm not having a go at people for going on the demos - just saying that I reckon the energy could be directed a bit more productively

But I'm just a guy on the internet with no organisational abilities, so I guess I'll just go and have lunch now

 

[treelover]

I'm not having a go at people for going on the demos - just saying that I reckon the energy could be directed a bit more productively

I got crucified for saying all that, wait till he big boys get back, then you are in for it!