Hamas are the one’s carrying out double war crimes for firing into Israeli civilian area’s while hiding behind there own civilians in gaza

@Deano. Idiotic that you can compare sporadic firing of rockets to retaliation from a sophisticated air force followed by thousands of troops ready to invade and the use of illegal weapons on civilians such as white phosphorus!

Deano, your right. Hamas are firing from civilian areas. But they’re not firing from people’s gardens! They fire from wasteland or industrial areas. Despite this, I strongly disagree with Hamas and their actions.

But let’s have some perspective. Do you have any idea what cluster bombs are? Or phosphorous bombs?

You should look them up. Israel uses them on civilians areas and most countries have actually banned them!

Hamas is a terror organisation. Dedicated to the distruction of Israel. Its in their covenant. Devoted to the destruction of jews anywhere. if youre Jew in America they want to kill you. If youre a Jew in Ireland they want to kill you. JEWS ANYWHERE. How any just and fair-minded person can support such an organisation? There is no justification for it.

I see commonsense is on the meter early this morning. Are you paid per word, per falsehood or per post? Or are you one of these guys….

http://thenextweb.com/me/2012/01/13/israeli-students-paid-2000-to-use-social-media-for-pro-government-messages/

The dictionary definition of genocide is the wiping out of a people. Since 1948 when the State of Israel was recognised by the UN, Palestinian Arabs have increased in number from approx 800,000, to approx 7,000,000.

Either Israel is doing a terrible job of effecting a genocide, or you have your definition wrong, Conor.

By comparison, Nazi Germany decimated European Jewry, industrially murdering approximately 6,000,000 people. That WAS genocide.

Every death that occurs during the current Gaza conflict is a death that could have been avoided. Israel has one of the most powerful military machines in the world. Why would Hamas continue to antagonise it by firing rockets at its civilians unless they wanted a reaction?

Hamas has deliberately and cynically engineered this conflict as a way of diverting attention away from Syria and Iran. It fires missiles from within inhabited civilian areas specifically to invite retaliation that will cause casualties. Those casualties are then held up to the world as examples of Israeli aggression, and those who want to find fault with Israel are given a cause to promote.

By the way, Hamas has been rocketing Israel long before this current crisis. It came to a head when they fired an RPG at an Israeli jeep across the border.

So in summary, no genocide, a conflict created by Hamas for the benefit of Iran and Syria and unnecessary casualties entirely down to Hams. So why is anyone supporting this bunch of theocratic, homicidal thugs?

Ruairi O’ Sullivan

“But let’s have some perspective. Do you have any idea what cluster bombs are? Or phosphorous bombs?”
Are you saying cluster bombs or phosphorous bombs have been used in this conflict? Please provide evidence.

Commonsense has clocked in!

Murray — As far as we know neither have been used in Gaza recently. However, Israel has used both in the past in Gaza and Lebanon. Lebanese children continue to die from unexploded cluster bombs.

Murray, there were images on sky news last week of Israeli trucks transporting munitions clearly marked as ‘cluster bombs’. Give bibi a chance, the conflicts only a week old, still loads of time for more Israeli war crimes to be committed. Oh, and they used whiute phosphorous during the last gaza war, also a war crime.

@murray I did not say I was supporting Hamas, I find terrorism to be abhorrant. But what Israel is doing is not defence, it is akin to genocide. The photos emerging from Gaza of dead children show us that.

As you point out Israels army is world class, and they are using it to crush an already beaten and downtrodden people. I do not agree with any of what Hamas are doing, and yes I do think it is distracting the world from Syria. But Israels response to 3 deaths in their territory is to blast Gaza to smitherines and kill so many more people. Its totally disgusting and unjustified.

@Murray Freedman
Having one of the most advanced militaries in the world does not resolve israel of responsibility to treat it’s Palestinian citizens and neighbors (those under her control) as equals, you will know from studying Jewish history that any country which attempts to treat human beings as anything other than equal in the law is not sustainable and leads to a downward spiral of state sponsored inhumanity. In the occupied west bank two separate national and protonational infrastructures under the the control of one nation treat two separate groups of people in completely different ways. The nation in control is Israel. Palestinians in the Israeli legal system have basic rights denied. Palestinians have their economic and national rights actively supressed. In Gaza, you fail to mention Israeli military actions leading to escalation which include the killing of teenager playing football last week and undersell the importance on the assassination of Al Jabari in causing the escalation. Al Jabari was only above ground as a result of being offered a truce by Israeli operatives, this is claimed by activist and Zionist Gershwin Baskin. Your claim that Hamas is doing what its dong to divert attention is highly questionable, its motivations are more likely desperation. You also give yourself away by claiming that Hamas is “antagonizing” Israel, it smacks of the master-servent dichotomy Israel likes to foster in peoples mind sets; by your logic, if we assume people are equal Israel has been “antagonizing” Palestinians since 1948 and just because you have a bigger stick that doesn’t mean you should get away with murder more readily than a man with no stick at all.
In summary, no one here has pledged support for Hamas, we are witnessing the reality of Israel out killing Hamas by 30-1 and lack the stomach some have to see civilians killed; genocide is mentioned because Gilad Sharon made genocidal comments (read the article), White Phosphorus and Cluster Bombs were used in the Last Gaza conflict so we wait and see and, by being explicitly racist in who it thinks deserves civil, social, human and national rights Israel lays the foundations of enviable conflict in the land it has rapaciously colonized and it has built a bloody great army to ensure it gets away with it.

werejammin

“Murray, there were images on sky news last week of Israeli trucks transporting munitions clearly marked as ‘cluster bombs’. ” I think that is extremely unlikely so kindly provide a link/source/date of broadcast.

“Oh, and they used whiute phosphorous during the last gaza war, also a war crime”.
They didn’t and it wasn’t.

It is acceptable to use white phosphorous for other than direct bombing purposes and that’s exactly what the IDF did last time. If your info has it that Israel used it as bombs, your info is wrong and I can guess where it came from – the Hamas ministry of misinformation, whose mission statement is, “If the truth doesn’t work, tell lies”.

Evidence? Jenin – “thousands killed”. Er no, actually 56 of whom 48 were combatants.
Evidence? Beach killings. “Family wiped out by shells from IDF gunboat. Er, actually no – possibly a hand grenade or a mine.
Evidence? Mohammed Al Dura. “Boy killed – shot in his father’s arms”. Again, no. German tv showed that not only that the boy and his father could not have been fired at by the IDF base, but that any shots were almost certainly from his OWN SIDE. What’s more, the ‘martyr Mohammed Al Dura’, does not appear to have a grave. Why not?

The Palestinians use lies, pr and emotion to win the hearts of people world wide and i don’t blame them. They have crap lives and the worst possible leaders in the world, who not only steal from them, keep them in poverty and under threat of torture and worse, but actually take their children for use as human shields, or suicide bombers.

And did you know that under an Arab League policy, formulated in the late 1940’s, Palestinian Arabs living as refugees in any Arab state, cannot have a passport, citizenship, meaningful employment or in many cases, health care or education? They are the lepers of the Arab world and are treated appallingly by their ‘brother’ Arabs.

Strangely enough, Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank, have better healthcare, education and life expectancy than Arabs living in the surrounding states.

Murray freedman

“Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank, have better … life expectancy”

Tell that to the family of the stone throwing kid shot dead today in the West Bank.

Life expectancy is not good in neither Gaza nor the West Bank at present due to the aggression of Israel.

From the Goldstone report:

615. The Mission finds that on the morning of 15 January the hospital building and the administrative building were struck by a number of shells containing white phosphorous and by at least one high explosive shell. The fires these caused led to panic and chaos among the sick and wounded, necessitated two evacuations in extremely perilous conditions, caused huge financial losses as a result of the damage and put the lives of several hundred civilians including medical staff at very great risk.

Murray, what did they use the white phosphorus for then? fertilizing plants? turning the desert green? Wheres your evidence about the Hama MOI and what do you think of the fake photos the IDF tweeted showing soldier protecting arab children just last week? Gazans better healthcare than jordanians? eh, no señor they don’t thats a straight lie and the Palestinian refugee status is for the precise reason that that they want to to return to their homeland (ring any bells?). Israel doesn’t let them because they would threaten the Jewish nature of the state. Any other stories about black being white? You’re a liar.

Stop trying to justify israeli war crimes murray. While white phosphorous can be used in certain circumstances legally i.e. to illumanate battlefields during darkness, its use anywhere near civilian populations is strictly forbidden and constitutes the usage of a banned munition which is a war crime. You cannot use it in one of the most densely populated areas on the earth whatever your claimed intent.

616. The Mission also notes that, as a result of the conditions the attack created, the hospital was unable to provide the necessary care for an eight-year-old girl. Despite heroic attempts to save her, she died later in another hospital. The girl had been shot by an Israeli sniper. The Mission finds the Israeli armed forces responsible for her death.

Here’s a Murray that knows what he’s talking about; Craig Murray -

Lies, Damn Lies, White Phosphorus and Israel

@Murray: ““Murray, there were images on sky news last week of Israeli trucks transporting munitions clearly marked as ‘cluster bombs’. ” I think that is extremely unlikely so kindly provide a link/source/date of broadcast.”

I’ll do better. Heres the clip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDhKMf7RaW8&feature=youtube_gdata

Oh, and you are in NO position to infer anyone around here is being dishonest, given the content of your posts justifying israeli war crimes

@murray “Strangely enough, Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank, have better healthcare, education and life expectancy than Arabs living in the surrounding states” are you completely blind or delusional?

Gaza has practically run out of medical supplies since the blockade began. They get very little allowed across, and now with this latest Israeli act of wanton destruction I imagine they have even less left!

Sorry, too many of you to answer individually but I’ll do my best.

On the assumption that (some of) you are posting your personal feelings, rather than as part of an organised anti Israel propaganda drive, I’ll declare my alliances and thoughts.

I am a UK Jew with strong connections to and in Israel, from which I just returned last Friday. I have tremendous sympathy for the Palestinian Arabs in both the West Bank and Gaza, who are trapped between a rock and a hard place – the rock being their own leaders and the Arab League and the hard place being Israel and the IDF.

In 1948 following the Israeli War of Independence, approx. 700,000 Palestinian Arabs became refugees. In the following years, approx. 900,000 Jews from Arab lands became refugees too, ‘encouraged’ to leave those countries.

Today, there is not a single Jewish refugee from that time; there are however hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arab refugees, along with their families. Why? Why has not the Arab League absorbed it’s brother Arabs? Why do they remain living in squalid and disgusting refugee camps?

In the past 64+ years, much has happened in the world. I won’t begin to debate the rights and wrongs of the Middle East conflict as I have work to go to and we could be on screen for hours if not days.

As has become obvious from the Arab Spring, treatment of Arabs by their leaders has been ‘unsatisfactory’, hence the uprisings. The treatment of Palestinian Arabs has been worst of all and not by Israel, but by their own leaders.

Right now in the West Bank, Salam Fayad, the PM, is building the infrastructure of a state for the Palestinian people and there is relative calm there. It will take time but the basis for a future state is now being created and will hopefully emerge in due course. Gaza on the other hand is in chaos. Hamas is, as their charter points out, not just opposed to Israel, but to all Jews globally. As things stand, negotiations and compromise with Hamas are impossible – you cannot negotiate with people that do not accept your right to life.

The recent conflict was stage managed by Hamas on behalf of Iran and Syria – you don’t have to take my word for it – a Saudi journo wrote here http://www.asharq-e.com/news.asp?section=2&id=31846 and people in the Middle East are waking up to the fact that in 64 years, Israel has built a truly flourishing state, while the Arab states have squandered billions of oil money with just Dubai to show for it.

Here is another link to an article, written by a former naval commander of the Saudi navy, i.e., someone close to the top. http://www.arabnews.com/arab-spring-and-israeli-enemy

I do not say that Israel is without fault, any more than I say that the UK, US, Ireland or any other state is without fault, but the acrimony, hatred and demonisation it attracts is out of all proportion to reality. Be critical by all means but please try to understand, that it inhabits a very rough neighbourhood and unless it fights back, it will be swept aside as has been promised more than once.

“Israel military forces only use munitions that are acceptable under international law and international convention,” Mark Regev, spokesman for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

The Israeli spokesman Mark Regev is the biggest liar in the Middle East since the Iraqi Information Minister Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf. Two of a kind but the latter makes his lying funny:

http://www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com/

But Murray, Eli Yishai has already given the game away: “The goal of the operation is to send Gaza back to the Middle Ages”

Terrible that a senior Israeli government figure would render your propaganda efforts pointless with a single sentence, but that’s what he’s done I’m afraid.

@Murray, I respect your position, but your thoughts on the refugee issue go to the root of the problem. you are a UK Jew with strong connections to Israel, its those connections, and the rights they afford you that Israel denies Palestinians by denying right of return. How many of the 900,000 Jewish refuges you mentioned would yearn to return to Libya or Morocco or Iraq? and what of the 50,000 jews living happily in Iran? they can’t be moved, they like it there. Palestine (or whatever you want to call it) is in the living family memory homeland of 5 million refugees world wide; they lose refugee status, they lose their right to return in the future. I talked to a Londoner recently naturalized while in Israel, she said she had never been to Israel before she turned 19, but never felt like she “belonged” there while Israel was now her home. For Palestinians the pull of the ground which borne them cannot be negated and you cannot assume they will be as happy in Algeria just because they are Arab. Thats actually quite ignorant and breathtakingly insensitive given the weight Jews give to their connection to their “homeland” (inverted commas very intentional, 2000 years and all that). Its the Palestinian’s homeland; 2 million in the Jewish state, 2.8 million in the West Bank and 1.7 million in Gaza as well as the 5 million refugees and as well as that of the 5.5 million Jews and 500,000 odd christians living there (those numbers scare you a bit, eh? democracy and all that…awkward). The refugee issue is the thin edge of the wedge when it comes to the wider injustices that fuel this conflict. I respect your remarks, but like allot (but certainly not all) of Jews, you need to go that little step further when it comes to feeling genuine empathy for Palestinians. Personally, I found your “leper” remark on an earlier post Islamaphobic and right up there beside the worst examples of anti semitism out there on the web. They aren’t lepers, they are people.

@ Murray, the Israeli government never denied using Cluster munitions. They initially denied using Phosphorous artillery shells but after being shown video evidence, they admitted to it and withdrew them from the front lines.

I don’t need to prove this to you, the evidence is everywhere.

The funny thing is that there are so any problems Israel posters here that are telling blatant lies…… And when pulled up on it, they stop posting or go for the good ol’ hamas are terrorists….

The blatant lies being posted by supporters of Israeli aggression is only adding to Palestineians support….. So well done and thanks

Sean Mullin
“@Murray, I respect your position, but your thoughts on the refugee issue go to the root of the problem. you are a UK Jew with strong connections to Israel, its those connections, and the rights they afford you that Israel denies Palestinians by denying right of return”.

A Christian of any denomination knows he can go to any number of countries and practise his religion in peace. The same is true for a Muslim. There is just one country in the world where I know that I can live as a Jew.

“Palestine (or whatever you want to call it) is in the living family memory homeland of 5 million refugees world wide; they lose refugee status, they lose their right to return in the future”.

No it’s not. The Palestine Mandate region was populated very sparsely prior to WW1. Only after Jewish immigration and the establishment of agricultural communities brought employment did Arabs from Egypt, Transjordan, Lebanon and Syria come to get work. Refugees are those who lost their home – i.e. approx 6-700,000. Their families are not refugees and did not ‘know the land’.

In Jerusalem, the population from 1840 -1948 was as follows:
1840
Jews – 5,000
Muslims – 4,600
Christians – 3,300

1870
Jews – 11,000
Muslims – 6,500
Christians – 4,500

1917
Jews – 32,000
Muslims – 13,500
Christians – 15,000

1948
Jews – 84,000
Muslims – 40,000
Christians – 25,000

Of course after the 1948 war, all Jews were banished from Jerusalem by the Jordanians and their holy places destroyed, not to be reinstated until 1967.

Fact is, what you are asking for – a one state solution that eventually transforms a Jewish state into a Muslim majority state will never happen. My entire family perished in Poland – I for one would never allow this to happen again.

In 1948, the land could have been split between Jews and Arabs as was suggested by the League of Nations Partition Plan. The Jews said yes, the Arabs said no and went to war. They lost. They went to war again in 1967. They lost again and with it, Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. They went to war again in 1973 and lost again and with it, the Sinai and Gaza.

Israel has handed back the Sinai, in exchange for peace with Egypt and has moved out of Gaza. There has been no peace with Gaza – just continuous missiles and terror attacks.

The clock cannot be turned back, but the Palestinian Arabs could have infinitely better lives than they have now, but not if they continue to hit at Israel.

Things cannot be the same as they were in ’48, ’67 or even ’73 – the world has moved on. The Palestinian Arabs can either accept that and decide to change their lives, or they can continue the ‘struggle’. Only they can decide.

With regard to Yishai and Sharon – there are extremists everywhere and these guys do not speak for me.

Murray: “A Christian of any denomination knows he can go to any number of countries and practise his religion in peace. The same is true for a Muslim. There is just one country in the world where I know that I can live as a Jew.”

What are you talking about? You live in the UK!

Murray: “With regard to Yishai and Sharon – there are extremists everywhere and these guys do not speak for me.”

Well, the ‘extremists’ – they’re fascists actually – are running the country. Likud’s merger with Yisrael Beiteinu seems natural enough. Lieberman as Foreign Minister, Shas with four cabinet posts….

Come on, this is not the lunatic fringe, this is your government, and the people voted for it.

Petr Tarasov
There is not a building housing Jewish community activities anywhere I know that does not have to have security.

Nurseries, schools, religious institutions, synagogues, community offices, all have to be guarded against attacks.

I did security duty at my kids nursery and youth activities such as guides and scouts; I continue to do security duty outside my place of worship any sabbath and on high holy days, when we are joined by local police.

You cannot book a Jewish wedding at a hotel or function hall without being encouraged to have security guards on duty.

My son has been attacked in the street, my daughter has been spat at and called names and in my youth I have had numerous racist incidents. And in France, Italy and Spain, it’s much worse.

So the fact that I live in the UK does not mean I or my family are free to practise my religion safely or peacefully.

I agree with you. The Israelis are being allowed to literally get away with murder!! Mind your own business Orla !!

Murray, I’m sorry you have suffered. Ever stopped to think how many of those racist incidents (inexcusable as they are) were caused by peoples reactions to contemporary Israeli actions, rather than classical anti semitism? Perhaps you need to redirect your anger. Those jslm figures are a bit misleading are they not? jews have been a majority there since 1860, unlike the rest of the country where they only tipped the scales following 1948 (and massive immigration). On the refugee issue, You are negating and denying. This is text book Zionist Hasbara, unfortunately the concrete historical evidence (much of it collected by diligent Israelis) makes your arguments hollow. An Israeli friend of mine on a school field trip to find archeological evidence of the longevity of jewish connections to Israel once stumbled upon the footprints of one of the several hundred Palestinians villages abandoned during the Nakba..”Whats this?” she asked the teacher “never mind that” the teacher said etc and so on. Arab economic immigration to to Palestine occurring at the same time as Jewish Aliya in the 1930s did not occur, the theory has been debunked (in fact people have ruined their careers by debunking it), again by diligent Jews. I don’t know if people haven’t told you or what, or whether its just too comfortable a lie to discard. Of course they have connection with the land, more than someone from the UK who read about it in the Torah and felt it sounded like home. Your comments are ridiculous and insulting and while you may be right about a shared state never happening the idea of a jewish state on a land where approximately 50% of the population aren’t Jewish is in fact deeply wrong and the root cause of the violence. Two states or a shared state with mutually built on protections for both populations is the only just solution and no amount of lying to yourself or others will change that. Remember that for all their angry words since the land was taken from under them, no Arabs have perpetrated crimes against Jews on the same scale as the christians in eastern Europe and the Nazis in Germany. They are a gentle people actually, and you existential angst is misplaced, handy though, when you try to justify the unjustifiable. Please stop lying, you say something intelligent then undermine it with a lie every time you post.

Sean Mullin
“Murray, I’m sorry you have suffered. Ever stopped to think how many of those racist incidents (inexcusable as they are) were caused by peoples reactions to contemporary Israeli actions, rather than classical anti semitism?”
This has been true since I grew up and I’m now in my 60′s – Israel was just 2 years old when I was born.

“On the refugee issue, You are negating and denying. This is text book Zionist Hasbara,”

Nah this is classic PSC propaganda and I’m out of here.

Murray — What happened to your children is horrific and disgusting. It’s awful to hear that that is happening. I must say, in my experience in Dublin, it is not like that. There is a synagogue is south Dublin which I’m quite sure has no security and I’m pretty sure the Jewish Museum in Dublin has no security. I’ve been twice and didn’t see any.. it’s tiny!

That said, your experience is different, and less positive.

Do you have any opinion on the Israeli people electing fascists to government? I’d be deeply concerned if it was my country, I really would.

Murray Freedman

You arguments are moral relativism using the holocaust victimhood industry.

An attempt to justify the amoral, aggressive, belligerent, imperialist atrocities of Israel; past, present and I have no doubt future because as the population of Israel increases, it will accelerate its extermination of Palestine.

Change the record!

Petr Tarasov
Thanks for your reply. I have been to Dublin but didn’t visit a synagogue or Jewish institution, so I can’t comment. Having been to a number of such places around the world, I can assure you that tight security is the norm. In Rome, Venice and Florence there were police with machine guns on guard and in Prague there is similar levels of security. In Buenos Aires, following the bombing of the Jewish community centre with the deaths of 85 people (and hundreds of injuries) in 1984, believed to be the work of Hez B’Allah under the direction of Iran, we were only able to gain entry by showing our passports and in the company of an approved guide.

WRT your question about fascists being elected to government, during the 2nd intifada, my friends’ daughter was in Israel with a youth group on a gap year before university. They spent the majority of their time either indoors or bussed out of town into the country, in order to avoid the suicide bombings. At the same time, an Israeli husband and wife and their two young sons rented a house in our road in the UK. They were doctors, GPs with a practice near Tel Aviv. Every day, they were putting their sons on different buses to minimise the possibility of them being killed by a suicide bomber. Unable to stand the terrifying anxiety about whether their kids would return home safely, they decamped to the UK until the intifada wound down.

Today in the paper, I read interviews with two soldiers on the Gaza border. Both wanted to go into Gaza to finish the job – i.e., put an end to Hamas.

My friend’s daughter, the one who did the gap year, commented that following the intifada, there were no left wingers left in Israel. While this is no longer the case, the public appetite for simplistic and violent solutions to a 64 year old problem is very seductive. You also need to take into account that with proportional representation, tiny parties on the extremes can have tremendous power in what inevitably is always a coalition.

Live in a country that is constantly under threat and I think you’ll find that it must inevitably turn to the right. If you consider them fascists that’s your prerogative, but perhaps you feel the same about the UK or US governments.

Randy O’Toole
Thank you for your considered and empathetic response, taken presumably straight out of the Marxist/Leninist/Trotskyist book of considered responses. Maybe one day you’ll get a life and an opinion of your own. On reflection, I suspect you won’t. Repeating slogans is so much easier than thinking, isn’t it?

typo. dam phone

Seriously. What did Hamas expect when they started firing rockets indiscriminately into Israel. Did they think the Israelis would just let them fire away. If they had any respect for their own people they would recognise israels right to exist & try & come to a peaceful compromise, until Hamas end their campaign to eliminate Israel there can’t be peace. & Israel needs to put a stop to settlements in the Palestinan area.

Quick to launch an attack in Syria? 20 months of violence in Syria and still no sign of Western military intervention. Where is all the outrage against China and Russia for using their UN veto with Syria?

Er, two problems with your post. It’s not genocide, just cos the Palestinians are the underdog doesn’t mean Israel is trying to wipe them all out. And what does having no army got to do with anything? Seriously, do rockets,guns and suicide bombings not count for some reason?
To be honest I always had a problem with Israel when I was younger but lately I’ve been able to be more objective. And I think partly that’s because of people like you. I also think it’s because of people like you that the Palestinian cause doesn’t have more support. It’s not enough for you people to say they are oppressed and don’t have equal rights. You have to say it’s genocide. And you ignore the evil shit they do, or somehow think there’s something worse about being killed by expensive modern ordnance as opposed to a suicide bomb or rocket?

I think you’re forgetting that Russia has already vetoed attempts to stop the Syrian conflict…as long as Hamas are firing rockets into Israel, refusing to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist and intent on its destruction, there will never be peace. Equally, illegal Israeli settlements need to stop in The West Bank….until all this happens, well…..

@Reginald. Using your logic, should the British have retaliated to IRA bombs in UK by launching aerial assaults on Newry and Dundalk? There is no justification for what the Israelis are doing in Gaza! They should be forced to desist by the international community and retreat to the 1967 borders, if they weren’t propped up by the USA they would soon be exposed for the cowards they are!

@Gearóid. I think you’ll find the Palestinians have plenty of support, including support from Ireland!

http://www.smh.com.au/world/european-vote-is-pro-palestine-20121119-29m8i.html

@Reginald

What did Israel expect when they shot dead this 12 year old child?
Look at the pictures and don’t brush it off.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=535839

Or better yet, dispute this timeline of events.

Timeline
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/11/who-started-the-israel-gaza-conflict/265374/

Gearoid: Sharon’s son writes in the Jerusalem post that Gaza should be flattened like Hiroshima and Nagasaki! And a lot of Israeli would fully agree with that.

@Gearoid. The op-ed Hugh O’Connell refers to definitely does aspire to Genocide; he didn’t say anything about helpfully moving the residents back to their original homes within the State of Israel before flattening Gaza. The guy who wrote that op-ed I refer to is a former Israeli Prime Minister’s son. It would be like Mark Thatcher saying West Belfast should be flattened because they tend to vote Sinn Fein, now Mark Thatcher might well say that, but would the Sun post it in their leader Column? Not even the Sun. What is happening is not Genocide, but it is Terrorism, it is only happening because Israelis have been sufficiently brutalized by their own government and the fear of Hamas rockets to wants it.

Gearoid, did you even read the article?

Calling for the area to be flattened sounds pretty genocidal to me!

Or are they going to relocate everyone to those nice condos they’ve been building in Palestine?

And by Australia.

I would doubt his view is representative of everyone in Israel. or even a majority. Again I don’t think it’s any wonder they feel like that. Forget illegal settlements, or how Israel has treated the various people it’s oppressed (I served with UN in south Lebanon and I’m familiar with their handy work) but imagine you’re an Israeli. Imagine, like most of them, that you were not there at the formation of the state. Imagine, like most of them, that you’re not a politician or policy maker or a Zionist or even particularly religious. Imagine you constantly have to worry about suicide bombings and rockets hitting the country of your birth. Can you honestly not see why they might expect their leaders to do something about it? I’ve commented on other articles that since the original issue, Israel being set up at the expense of the previous inhabitants, is their fault that I think the onus is on them to make the big steps to fix things but don’t dare for a second think that it give others a license to commit acts of violence. It’s cliched but two wrongs don’t make a right but at the end of the day they’re as bad as each other. One just happens to be way better equipped!

I think people who post on here should read the Hamas Charter its well worth a read

Gearóid Ó Murchadha

Original locations for Israel were Uganda and Madagascar.

That they chose to stick it right in the middle of the Middle East and surrounded by their traditional enemy, is entirely their own fault.

Pity they never accept responsibility for their mistakes.

Probably bit to hard for the red thumbs to read :)

@ Ruairi Israel pulled out of gaza in 2005 after occupying it for 38 years for peace but received 5000 rockets from hamas after the pull out , there are no Israeli settlers living in gaza now

Deano, if I moved into your house at gunpoint would you like it?

How about I eventually move out, but I keep the garden? Do you find this acceptable?

Ruairi, well said except they built a wall around the garden and made you wait for hours to get through the gate to your own house

Niall, to be precise in my comparison, I’d also have to destroy power and water supplies, block materials for repairing it. Then supply water and power and claim I’m a humanitarian…. Oh and of course there’s mobile towers, phone lines and the Internet……

The Palestineians will work towards peace if Israel honors the 1967 borders, which was agreed by all sides.

It would mean all of the internationally (including UN) condemned and illegal settlements would have to be evacuated and handed back to Palestine!

It’s so easy for Israel to claim they want peace and blame Hamas, but every day they protect civilians as they cross the borders to steal land.

They claim peace with one hand and slap Palestine with the other. It needs to stop….

JakkiB – when you refer to ‘a token woman’ might you be referring to the United States Secretary of State? Presumably their ‘token man’ is busy visiting Burma and Cambodia

70bn is the cost of re-election

Anybody can play the “pick the UN report that backs their POV” game.

UN Palmer report said blockade is legal.

“Israel faces a real threat to its security from militant groups in Gaza…The naval blockade was imposed as a legitimate security measure in order to prevent weapons from entering Gaza by sea and its implementation complied with the requirements of international law.”

OH MY GOD……….. So what your saying…….. “Nothing to see here move along now”

And don’t try to pretend your Irish or even in Ireland!

I think Commonsense is a bot or a dimwit, its hard tell. He has posted identical comments on I.Times, Independent and Journal websites and does not seem to have engaged in any debate. The Israeli government pay students to spam forums around the world with Pro-Israel propaganda, calling anyone who opposes their view an anti-semitic or Jew haters.

No one here is defending Hamas’s right to fire missiles at Israel, yet many argue that it is acceptable for Israel to fire (much bigger) missiles at Gaza. The hypocrisy and double standards on show are really astounding.

The common theme is all these repeated conflicts is that Israel always ends up with more land – out of one side of the apologists mouth comes the argument that Israel is a civilised democracy looking for peace but the effect of what they do is always the same – more dead Palestinian children and more land for Israel.

blockade is legal during an armed conflict.

Actually its not if it causes undue suffering to a civilian population. There is clear evidence that the blockade was not to diminish Hamas capacity to attack israel, but to cause suffering to the population of gaza. Collective punishment is illegal under international law and the terms of the geneva convention.

Clear evidence would be Hamas and the other groups stopping rocket attacks for a prolonged period of time. Then if Israel continues the blockade you have clear evidence. Until then Israel is involved in an active armed conflict and can legally blockade Gaza.

Actually, clear evidence is the declassified document showing the calorie restriction calculations for gazans, and the comments in relation to the blockade by Israel chief fo staff Dov Weisglass : “”The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.”

@ Aiden 0 hanlon

“Wall Street and the banks in America are being run by the Israeli Jews”.
Who? Name them.

“The Israelis pump 1 million US dollars into American banks every single day”.
How do you know? Show evidence.

“There is more gold in a vault in tel aviv than there is in Fort Knox”.
How do you know? Provide evidence.

BTW, I know little about banks, but in your list of banks you quote Lehman Brothers, a bank that went bust back in 2008/9.

wikipaedia says that the Federal Reserve is part of the US Government. You say a Jewish consortium. Think I’ll defer to wiki.

Commonsense is telling lies to try and justify the Israeli governments actions.

This is what a certain political party did in Germany in the late 20′s and 30′s. They would circulate pamphlets and hold meetings claiming the Jew was evil and wanted to take over the world. They spread misinformation over a long period of time to gather support for the crimes they would commit. Eventually they were so unnapposed for so long they killed millions of Jews, and other minorities.

Now, what was Ariel Sharons son printing in a major newspaper? Level gaza?

Now what is this fake twitter account ‘commonsence’ saying?

You paid to spam identical posts across multiple threads as well?

http://www.thejournal.ie/gaza-strip-israel-army-photos-681335-Nov2012/#comment-740916

You’d be banned on a lot of comments sections for doing that. You need to put more effort into your propaganda.

Murray……. you keep asking for proof of comments……. And your getting it.

Your doing a great service to the long suffering Palestineians people, well done.

Aiden o hanlon
“Here are the Jews that control the government of America:”
So you are saying that only Jews runs US Banks?
And that Jewish bankers run the US Government?
And presumably non Jewish US bankers and US politicians simply have no say? Thanks, great answer.

Ruairi O’Sullivan
Asking for proof – getting racist crap.

And you are doing what exactly for the long suffering Palestinians? Cheering their violent struggle from your comfy armchair? It figures.

Yeah sure Aiden. The Jews control the money eh? Take your anti-Semitism elsewhere.

The Federal Reserve Bank is a consortium of 9 Jewish-owned & associated banks with the Rothschilds at the head:

$1. Rothschild Banks of London and Berlin

$2. Lazard Brothers Banks of Paris

$3. Israel Moses Seif Banks of Italy

$4. Warburg Bank of Hamburg and Amsterdam

$5. Lehman Brothers of NY

$6. Kuhn, Loeb Bank of NY (Now Shearson American Express)

$7. Goldman, Sachs of NY

$8. National Bank of Commerce NY/Morgan Guaranty Trust (J. P. Morgan Bank – Equitable Life – Levi P. Morton are principal shareholders)

$9. Hanover Trust of NY (William and David Rockefeller & Chase National Bank NY are principal shareholders).

Shut up Aiden, your making a fool of yourself. Go back to playing call of duty

@ben Barnes
How am I making a fool of myself ?
I’m writing facts. The us government is in debt to the federal reserve bank. Go ahead and google who runs the federal reserve bank in America. I have listed there chairmen and directors in a previous post. Do u not realise that the bankers run the world. It’s all about money and greed.