A Question About Israel

Goodness, you can see why it's a social faux pas ever to bring up religion or politics.

This has both, and the divide will not be bridged, however cross or abusive the participants become.

Marc

I think that other wars have been going on for 5000 years. This one really can be focused since 1948.

I have read the old testaments, or at least many of them, which means I can be caught out, and I have tried to read the Torah. In other words I have read some of it! However since then we have had christianity to update the old testaments and even the israeli government will be aware of other peaceful religions beyond the Torah and the old testaments. Do we really still need to blame old religion as our reason that we are unable to talk to each other/compromise/ achieve peace?
If so we remain no better than those who lived in the caves we left behind, just with more sophisticated weapons?

james

quote:

Originally posted by Marc Newman:

Mike,
You are changing the subject.

No I am not, Marc.

You asked me a question - "what say you?" and I answered fully, then asked your opinion ( which you have not given.) You have also deleted one of your posts, which does not help matters.

quote:

You have no idea to what extent the Brits,American,and all others have done. There were more crimes than will ever be reported.These souls are dead.

What on earth are you talking about? The thread is about the IDF killing civilians.

quote:

Defend,but with facts.

Defend what, against what? Stop trying to change the subject - the IDF killing civilians.

quote:

Not my quote mike. That was from the newspaper.
http://apnews.excite.com/artic...00601/D9G2DR6G0.html

Your quote, regardless of source.

quote:

As far as me being an American...Having the right to own a gun? I think you're jumping the shark....The relevance is nano.
Making an association based on a legal right may be considered prejudice or provincial(in this instance).

What are you talking about?

quote:

I hear you. You do not agree with what Israel has done. Ok.

regards
Marc

Which brings us neatly back to my original point; you have no problem with the IDF machine gunning civilians, do you?

quote:

Originally posted by Marc Newman:

The peace with Turkey was brokered by the West.

For some reason (sic) I had no idea that Israel and Turkey had been at war.

I'm glad you cleared up that troubling legal point Mr Lacey. Its a pity that many lawyers disagree with you though including Nick Grief, Professor of law at Bournemouth University and a specialist in international law; Christine Chinkin, Professor of international law at the London School of Economics; Sir Adam Roberts, Professor of international relations at Oxford University, and co-editor of Documents on the Laws of War; Lord Alexander QC, Chairman of the legal organisation Justice and a past chairman of the Bar and Lord Goldsmith the then Attorney General.

The assertion that Israel is perpetrating genocide against the Palestinians is simply risible and leads me to wonder about the motivations of those making such unfounded allegations.

I am not defending Israel's actions in this case and I condemn the deaths of innocent civilians and Human Rights abuses in all cases equally. I do look forward to reading similar outpourings of vitriol directed to the other regimes behaving wrongly. No doubt you will join me in expressing your outrage on behalf of victims of Human Rights abuses perpetrated by no less than 159 countries (according to Amnesty in its 2010 report.)

quote:

Originally posted by lutyens:
Marc

I think that other wars have been going on for 5000 years. This one really can be focused since 1948.

I have read the old testaments, or at least many of them, which means I can be caught out, and I have tried to read the Torah. In other words I have read some of it! However since then we have had christianity to update the old testaments and even the israeli government will be aware of other peaceful religions beyond the Torah and the old testaments. Do we really still need to blame old religion as our reason that we are unable to talk to each other/compromise/ achieve peace?
If so we remain no better than those who lived in the caves we left behind, just with more sophisticated weapons?

james

James-
What you say is very admirable. The world is an extreme sport. Trying to find the rulebook has been a goal of mine.

The more unpopular Israel becomes, the more I sympathise with them. And if you try to beat an Israeli soldier to death with an iron bar, you're going to have a bit of a problem.

Hope someone can answer; under International Law:

1 Did Israel have the right to board the ship?

2 Did the passengers have the right to defend themselves and to what extent?

Thank you,
OW

Just wondering: Since when can simple 'humanitarian' workers take on and injure 5 commandos from one of the world's best trained militaries? Some aid workers!

For What it's Worth, Bob

Marc, may we both walk in peace. My extreme sport remains cycling in and out of London every day.......taxi drivers...don't get me started That said I have also been known to try to climb snowy gullies much to my better half's concern. I do try to narrow the extreme sports I do to ones I might, and I say might, manage!

Tim..... sorry but Israel may become unpopular but it is unlikely ever to be come the physical underdog in this arguement....unless of course they stick to those paintball guns they say they were going to use in their raid ...(that is until they found themselves being beaten by metal bars... so they shot the cheeky buggers!) True attacking the israeli commandoes with bars and clubs and spanners ( as displayed by the israeli footage) is without doubt going to cause a problem........maybe the people on the ship believed the israeli's would only shoot paintballs?

Maybe when the 'prisoners' come home we shall learn more? Footage I have seen on the television seems to suggest that there were more than just those terribly radical muslims seeking martyrdom on board! I am also slightly bemused at the report that a certain Mr Menkell may have been amongst them.

It's getting late and I am clearly becoming cynical (for which I apologise now) and shall now stop.

atb
james

quote:

Originally posted by cabiner:
Just wondering: Since when can simple 'humanitarian' workers take on and injure 5 commandos from one of the world's best trained militaries? Some aid workers!

For What it's Worth, Bob

This is from the BBC News site:

Video has emerged showing some on board the aid ship shouting anti-Jewish and radical Islamist slogans as they prepared to sail to Gaza last Friday.
The pictures, from Arabic TV, showed the campaigners in a jubilant mood. One said she was determined either to get to Gaza or to die a martyr.

quote:

Originally posted by cabiner:
Just wondering: Since when can simple 'humanitarian' workers take on and injure 5 commandos from one of the world's best trained militaries? Some aid workers!

For What it's Worth, Bob

Not a lot.

Any group of people, no matter how mild mannered will turn into a bloodthirsty mob if threatened by another group of people. It’s called tribal warfare.

It was natural for the people on the ship to fight. As a consequence, it was natural for the commandos to fight. But it was hardly a fair fight, some of the blockade breakers where wielding patio furniture.

It was pretty naïve for the Israelis not to figure this would happen. Or maybe they just didn’t care, as usual.

very true fatcat. last time me and the lads were stopped by the filth on a night out and they proposed what was clearly an illegal stop and search we gave em what for!

In all violent confrontations between military and civilians, regardless to who is the instigator and even when some on the civilian side are using arms, the military always looses and sympathy goes to the underdogs.

The Israelis should have realized that they had little to gain by boarding those ships and a lot to loose if something went wrong like it did on one of those vessels. In my opinion, the right decision would have been to let those ships sail to Gaza.

As for the guys waving the Apartheid and genocide flags I wonder if they are honest enough to use the same yardstick to measure the standards of behavior of other nations as well as theirs.

Between Israel and any of her neighbors, I am for Israel.

quote:

Originally posted by Haim Ronen:
In all violent confrontations between military and civilians, regardless to who is the instigator and even when some on the civilian side are using arms, the military always looses and sympathy goes to the underdogs.

The Israelis should have realized that they had little to gain by boarding those ships and a lot to loose if something went wrong like it did on one of those vessels. In my opinion, the right decision would have been to let those ships sail to Gaza.

As for the guys waving the Apartheid and genocide flags I wonder if they are honest enough to use the same yardstick to measure the standards of behavior of other nations as well as theirs.

Haim - your comments sum things up for me better than I ever could.

Chaps, possibly the most erudite response to the Israeli attack I have found came from the Turkish PM.
Too long to attach here so THIS IS THE LINK
Deserves to go down in the history of great speaches.

Haim

yes I do! And I will continue to do so. And I still cannot support Israel and its oppression of the Palastinians and Gaza.

atb james

quote:

Originally posted by JAB:
I'm glad you cleared up that troubling legal point Mr Lacey. Its a pity that many lawyers disagree with you though including Nick Grief, Professor of law at Bournemouth University and a specialist in international law; Christine Chinkin, Professor of international law at the London School of Economics; Sir Adam Roberts, Professor of international relations at Oxford University, and co-editor of Documents on the Laws of War; Lord Alexander QC, Chairman of the legal organisation Justice and a past chairman of the Bar and Lord Goldsmith the then Attorney General.

The UN Security Council Resolutions 678 and 1441 authorised the War.

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The assertion that Israel is perpetrating genocide against the Palestinians is simply risible and leads me to wonder about the motivations of those making such unfounded allegations.

Is this a veiled accusation of Racism? Smells like it to me. Kindly confirm that it is not.

Israel is blockading Gaza and ( according to the Red Cross ) allowing something like 25% of the required supplies to get through. Hardly what I'd call humantitarian intervention, is it?

quote:

I am not defending Israel's actions in this case and I condemn the deaths of innocent civilians and Human Rights abuses in all cases equally.

Why the need to qualify?

quote:

I do look forward to reading similar outpourings of vitriol directed to the other regimes behaving wrongly. No doubt you will join me in expressing your outrage on behalf of victims of Human Rights abuses perpetrated by no less than 159 countries (according to Amnesty in its 2010 report.)

This is about an event that took place this week, no need to try to conjoin other suffering with the death of 9 civilians unless of course you are attemting to be the Most Politically Correct Poster here.

The IDF got it wrong, even Israel admits it.

I look forward to your confirmation that you are not accusing me of Racism.

quote:

Originally posted by Haim Ronen:
In all violent confrontations between military and civilians, regardless to who is the instigator and even when some on the civilian side are using arms, the military always looses and sympathy goes to the underdogs.

Not always, Haim.

Two (?) years ago a Warrior Armoured Fighting vehicle was surrounded by a mob in Iraq. It carries a 30mm cannon, 7.62 chain gun ( and some 2-3000 rounds of ammunition ) plus a dismounted section of seven Riflemen in the troop compartment.

The mob stoned and petrol bombed the Warrior, and some of the crew inside where set alight. In exiting the turret of the Warrior the (burning) commander was set upon by the crowd, and beaten. Despite this, the crew did not engage the mob with their machine guns or drive through them; they pretty much just took it.

I honestly believe that any other Army in the world would have just closed the hatches and hosed the crowd with machime gun fire.

quote:

Originally posted by Mike Lacey:

quote:

The assertion that Israel is perpetrating genocide against the Palestinians is simply risible and leads me to wonder about the motivations of those making such unfounded allegations.

Is this a veiled accusation of Racism? Smells like it to me. Kindly confirm that it is not.

It never takes very long for you to play the racism card, does it.

quote:

Originally posted by Haim Ronen:
As for the guys waving the Apartheid and genocide flags I wonder if they are honest enough to use the same yardstick to measure the standards of behavior of other nations as well as theirs.

I am quite happy to use the same yardstick. My supermarket is not full of shelves of produce on countries like Zimbabwe, it is full of produce from Israel.

I don't see Zimbabwe being given the huge support from the USA that Israel is.

I am not labelling anyone anything Mr Lacey.

You said, inter alia, Israel is waging genocide against the Palestinians.

Genocide is a specific term and a highly emotive one. It simply does not apply in the Israel/Palestinian conflict.

The international legal definition of the crime of genocide is found in Articles II and III of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide.

Article II describes two elements of the crime of genocide:

1) the mental element, meaning the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such", and

2) the physical element which includes five acts described in sections a, b, c, d and e. A crime must include both elements to be called "genocide."

"Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Note the mens rea goes to the attempt to destroy a people. Without this any single civilian death in a conflict would amount to genocide.

Why have you used this term?

quote:

Originally posted by Derry:

quote:

Originally posted by Mike Lacey:

quote:

The assertion that Israel is perpetrating genocide against the Palestinians is simply risible and leads me to wonder about the motivations of those making such unfounded allegations.

Is this a veiled accusation of Racism? Smells like it to me. Kindly confirm that it is not.

It never takes very long for you to play the racism card, does it.

Your comment appears to be aimed at me. I don't like veiled ( and wholly inaccurate ) ad hominem accusations of racism. I struggle to see how this can be seen as me "waiving the Race card".

I presume you have no problem with my dislike of veiled accusations of racism.

quote:

Originally posted by JAB:
I am not labelling anyone anything Mr Lacey.

Thank you, I shall take that as a retraction.

quote:

You said, inter alia, Israel is waging genocide against the Palestinians.

Genocide is a specific term and a highly emotive one. It simply does not apply in the Israel/Palestinian conflict.

The international legal definition of the crime of genocide is found in Articles II and III of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide.

Article II describes two elements of the crime of genocide:

1) the mental element, meaning the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such", and

2) the physical element which includes five acts described in sections a, b, c, d and e. A crime must include both elements to be called "genocide."

"Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Note the mens rea goes to the attempt to destroy a people. Without this any single civilian death in a conflict would amount to genocide.

Why have you used this term?

Your definitions of Genocide show preciseley why, most notably A,B and C.

You have extended the Mens Rea to require an attempt to destroy a people yet your source states quite clearly "in whole or in part" and "members of the group". I have assumed that you are aware of the Isreali blockade of Gaza and the recent military actions such as the use of White Phosphorous shells in heavily populated areas ( a war crime, AIUI. )

You have shown convincingly why the Israeli actions are Genocidal, when I'd used the term in a far looser manner.