Israel vs. Hamas

Remove all ads!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balad_(Israel)

Does not sound undemocratic to me, in fact quite on the contrary. In my opinion banning political parties is a lot bigger threat to democracy than any individual party, especially when these parties are quite clearly in the minority.

Of course I don't know what actual crimes this party has committed, if they have committed acts of terrorism the individual members should be tried by the courts of law and after that most parliaments have the power to exclude members that have been convicted of serious criminal activities. For some reason however the Israeli legislators seem to be unwilling to go to the courts and rather chose to take a shortcut.

 

Blind on the right eye? There are Palestinian children, too. What do you think they're going through in Gaza, like now? With so much greater a number of casualties infinitely more concentrated than in Israel? Do they matter?

Fun news around Gaza:

1. Olmert has just, yes, what, ordered Bush, or demanded the US, to veto a ceasefire resolution the US themselves had laboriously drawn up, but that Olmert disapproved of and wanted dead. Successfully. And now that moron is even bragging about it. It means essentially that Israel is running the US Israel policy. It means that Israel has carté blanche, or the dog and tail and wag thingy:

I see someone desperate to look the tough guy, and in the process biting the hand that feeds him. It is unwise of Olmert to say such a thing so loud.

2. And then, Joe "The Plumber" Wurzelbacher is now an amateur war correspondent and war zone tourist. His main talking point is from what I read that what Israel does sure feels right to him. Guess what. He reports for "Pajamas TV", a Web site of the conservative Pajamas Media, the kooks that bring you 'Little Green Footballs'. Competent, fair and ballanced open source war reporting.

It is not. Yes, Germany had 'Parteiverbotsverfahren'. The first party to be banned was in 1952 the Sozialistische Reichspartei (SRP), a follow on organisation of the NSDAP, and in 1956 the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (KPD). There were two more ban procedures that didn't lead to a ban. In 2001 it was attempted to ban the right extremist Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD), and the ban failed on procedural grounds, including, among others, the fact that a large percentage of the party heads were secret informers for the Verfassungsschutz, a German counterpart to the MI5. That's two bans in 50 years - something other than 'all the time'.

Besides, Haaretz reports that the chances that the Israeli Supreme Court holds up the bans are slim, also noting that the requests to ban the Arab parties were filed by the two ultra right parties Yisrael Beiteinu and National Union-National Religious Party, just before an election. Make of that what you will.

 

so, your in favour of 2 wrongs then, it doesnt matter that Isralie children are suffering because palestinian childern are

Im sure the US would allow Al Qaeda or The Ba'ath party to run for US presidency

 

No Shoshino, the point is that it matters both. You can't honestly lament the one without lamenting the other. Do you have preferred civilian casualties?

 

nope, but when argued that children or civillians on the Isralie side suffer, you always bring up the suffering of the palestinians instead of arguing that children and civillian deaths are inexcuseable.
The palestinians target civillians endlessly but you only seem to care when its the Isralies fireing the weapons.

 

But don't you see, Shoshino? The Palestinians are forced to target civilians because they are the underdogs -- and everybody loves the underdogs. They are standing up to the big, bad Israeli State, which as everyone knows is only a proxy for the US. Because of that, they are never, ever right, whereas the Palestinians are ALWAYS in the right by virtue of being the underdog.

That is crap logic when it's used to totally absolve the Palestinians of any responsibility for their own atrocities, and it's also crap logic when turned around and used to absolve the Israeli's for their atrocities. Both sides need to acknowledge the right of the other to peacefully exist -- I know for a fact hamas is not willing to do that. I know that some would argue that the Israeli's are also unwilling to acknowledge the rights of the Palestinians, but I'm not as sure about that.

 

Your comparison is quite false, allthough the second one does have some merit, and yes I think a Ba'athist party would be allowed in the US. I doubt there is anything in the US constitution against one. Al Qaeda on the other hand is not a valid comparison since it's not even a political party and has yet to participate in any democratic elections. It's also a criminal organization, the criminality of the arab parties on the other hand have not been determined by any court.

 

No. There are some Palestinians that target civilians. Most Palestinians aren't terrorists. Israel, in its retaliation, targets civilians, too. What's the difference? The level of force used, for one. Israel lost one life in the rocket attack that started this, and in its retaliation, 10 soldiers died. The Palestinian death toll in this conflict is now over 900, and at least 380 of them were civilians.

One other difference remains, as well. The actions of Israel are made at the behest of its democratically elected government, which heavily implies that the people of Israel endorse them. The actions of the Palestinian terrorists, on the other hand, are not.

 

But when the non-terrorist Palestinians won't give up the terrorists, how is Israel supposed to know the difference? The disturbing thing is that sooner or later, they won't even pretend to give a damn.

 

You're right, didn't look this up, I was influenced by the not so long ago issue with the NPD (which is actually discussed again) and other hot discussion about similar parties and I knew about the KPD.
My point was that banning must not automatically mean abusing power when it is in defense for the national constitution.Whether it is one or the other in the Israel case is another story.

I don't think so. The Hamas terrorists express violently what the majority of the Palestine people think anyway.
Heck even the most muslim people living in my country think this way (Israel should be destroyed, all Jews should be killed), I know it because I already have discussed with some of them on that issue.
The ones I know are nice people but when it comes to this they will really get angry.
Recently, in some major towns here thousands of (mostly) muslim people made protest marches and had some very direct slogans in the like of "Put Jews in Ovens" (<- this one e.g. from a protest in LA) or
slogans which imply similar hatred (in Germany in a more careful manner because law is more rigorous in this area).
When so much muslim people in Europe think this way, what is with the ones in Palestina/Israel?
I'd say the majority of Palestinians back up the small group of terrorists at least by ideology. There are also enough who don't (and have a hard time for this), but my impression is that most do.

 

Just a thought to put out,

If I had been shoved off my land by strangers claimming it was theirs
The hate would start.
If I and my children were forced to live jammed into a small area with over 1,500,000 others
The hate would grow.
If one of my children or grandchildren were killed by a "strike" by some countrys army trying to kill someone else
Eternal war untill I was killed taking as many as possible with me.

No matter who or what is right it boils down to convincing "me" to quit hating my childrens killers. On both sides.
Who is to blame does NOT MATTER! (caps deliberate) Untill both Jews and Arabs control deep seated feelings about each other, feelings I well understand, and elect leaders who can talk to each other nothing will happen. Isreal cannot just wipe out or scare away Hamas or other Palestinian people by creating more hatred. It is crazy to think so. Israel must find another way other than mass attacks planed months ahead of time. Hamas must start thinking more of working to improve the lot of Gaza rather than sending a rocket threat to Israel ever so often. Untill this happens finger pointing and blaiming the other will continue to cause fighting. Does it really matter who started the fight? All that matters is that it stop.
I am ashamed to read in this thread what Bush did to the UN resolution under pressure from Israel. War in an occupied land is always successfull isn't it?

Viet Nam
Afgan. war
Iraq war
USSR in Afgan.

It took 600 years of war for the Arabic people to keep free of the Crusaders. It took 100 years to kick them out of what is now Israel. Learn from the past Israel and do take the high ground.

I am nowhere near as good at debate as the young people at this site and it takes me a very long time to type anything so usually I don't. This time I ask everyone to try to put yourself, you as a person, in the place of the people involved.

 

Old One I agree with you on some of your statements about what one would feel.

But this quote is only one side of the coin.It looks as if the Arab always had to suffer under the evil 'crusading' Europeans.And it is true, much woe was involved with the crusades.

But on the other hand, did you know that for centuries, a big part of Europe had been invased by muslim people? E.g. half of Spain and a good part of the Balkan were islamic.Many cruelties were done one time or another by either christian Europeans or islamic people. [edited 'people' in for 'Arabs' as in the Balkan it was the Turks, e.g. and in Spain the Arabs]
Forceful conquest and annexion of foreign land or lots of crimes are a guilt that both sides share.

edit:

This one is something I am not content with.Because, before there were Arabs in Israel/Palestina/Judaea there were Jews.
By the way, There has been remained a Jewish community in this land all over the time.After Arab occupation they were forced to minority, but some have allways stayed there.
This is a fact that many forget to consider.

 

True, though in your second example it was the Turks, who while Islamic were not Arabs - actually I think the two peoples didn't get along that well. At any rate, there are two sides in this conflict and both can assume some guilt. Still, imo Israeli civilians are no more guilty of the deaths caused by the IAF raids than Palestinian ones of those caused by Hamas missiles. In this case, it would be counterproductive - as well as simply wrong - to ascribe specific deaths to entire peoples.

 

Of course there is no blanket blame but Israel is lauded as the only true democracy in the middle-east and their armed forces are controlled by their democratically elected officials some of the blame falls on the voters. Just as some of the blame falls on the American voters if the US army does stuff or if the Swedish army would go off on some adventure. The Israeli people have the (maybe theoretical) power to vote in more peace seeking representatives.

 

@hannibal555

I do know about the muslim rule and almost accidental conquest of southern Spain. It was a time of peace for the most part in a violent time. The most amazing part to me was the fact that jews, christians, muslims living together in the same citys without waring on one another for the most part. This is one example that it can be done.
One other thing to remember is that the jews marched from Egypt to what is now Israel and proceded to try to slaughter everyone living there. Sound something like today in Gaza? The West Bank in years past?

I do not think that a people who have held their idenity for 3500 years and even solved the problems they have faced for that long cannot find a way to live with the people of Gaza. The people of Gaza & Israel must get past the "past" and start talking. Anger brings the worst out in leaders and peoples. Our 911 did this to us. (the US)
Takes a long time to undo and learn. After 60 plus years how much harder for the arab peoples of Gaza and the jews of Israel?
I have been watching and following overseas brodcast from Gaza and like the BBC and UAE coverage. Things are showed we here never see. One was a few Hamas fighters and kids throwing rocks, rocks, at tanks until arms were brought up. I don't know how it ended but thats a hell of a way to fight armor. The tanks must have supprised everyone when they appeared. Another I will never forget was a young man with two others beside him screaming and carrying his I think, dead baby. This must end or these people will end up setting off bombs inside Israel busses and buildings and be attacked in retaliation. I would if hurting that badly, might you too? Question yourself what would I (you) do if I lived in Gaza, in Israel. This is why I called for Israels people to put in more moderate leaders and take the high road. Better relations with Gaza would lower violent actions and make less atractive the rule of hard liners. 100 to 1 deaths does put the need to back off on them first.
This is becomming a long almost rant and I am sorry I am so long winded. Tal & Ragusa do have good points to listen to. The "other" side of the coin from what we see here in America. The ones on the other side of the fence need to look over it. All of us.

 

The fighting will only end when one or both sides gets more sick of death than they are hungry for revenge. There's no sign that that is anywhere in sight.

 

Well, you can't blame the jews for attacking Hamas. After all, we let them die back in the '40s. They watched as 6 million of their people died without doing something back. Right now they must've been sick of waiting to die. Now finally, after thousands of years, they have their own country, Israel. Now they choose to defend it with all they've got. It's the lesson they've learned.

 

That's right. The US army is supposed to be under a civilian commander, the president (civilian control). And the voters share the blame through their elected officials.

Yes, they even invaded France, and were turned back at the Battle of Tours. But during that time, they were more kingdoms and empires than they were nation states. Still, religion was always a good pretext for gaining more land and weallth. Fighting the crusaders was a good pastime when the Muslims were taking a break from killing each other, just as their European counterparts had gotten tired of doing the same (to each other). Hence, the Crusade was good solution for them.

 

I don't know who this guy is, but I think I might have to find out more about him.