Another attack on Israelis, this time at the Egyptian resort city of Taba has left 40 dead and wounded 120.
Of course, it’s all the Jews fault. We all know the line. If Israel just rolled over and died, letting themselves once again be killed en masse we could finally have “peace in our time.” Those Palestinians who send children strapped with explosives onto busses to kill women and children are “partners in peace.” Those Israelis that died had it coming.
What amazes me is how patient the Israeli people are. Had the roles of the Palestinians and Israelis been reversed, the River Jordan would run red with blood as the West Bank and Gaza were eradicated of every Jew. Indeed, the only thing that prevents the Israeli people from being “pushed to the sea” by the seething hatred that has been festering in that region is that fact that this time the Jewish people are willing to fight back.
Part of me wants to believe that somewhere in Palestine there is a Gandhi, a peacemaker who would lead his or her people on the path to non-violence and compromise. Then that vision is shattered like the glass of Jerusalem bus or a hotel window as the Palestinians once again embrace fascism, racism, and terrorism – the bloody fruit of the revolutionary spirit that has been responsible for more bloodshed in the last 200 years than any other ideology in the history of mankind.
Perhaps there is a Palestinian Gandhi out there. However, chances are he’s already been strung up as a “collaborator”, his body ripped apart by the angry mobs.
UPDATE: Israeli officials believe al-Qaeda may be responsible for the attack. It does bear some signature elements of a Qaeda attack – multiple bombs designed to inflict mass casualties, however it’s also a technique used by other groups as well. Certainly whichever group did this, they designed the attack in order to kill as many people as possible.
Life handed the Palestinians lemons a half century ago and they’ve been making, and drinking, Jim Jones Kool-Aid ever since. They are Exhibit A as to exactly what rewards accrue to a people who insist on being ignorant, stubborn, spiteful and violent.
The day someone from among them stands up and says, “Nothing the Israelis have done to you, nothing anyone on the outside is doing to you, holds a candle to what you’re doing to yourselves, over and over,” and is heeded, will be their first day of liberation.
One of the things Israel needs to do is change its policy from being a state for jews, to a state for its citizens. Let us not forget the Druze, Bedouins, and Circassians who all voluntarily serve in the Israeli Army. These groups are all muslim, and the first two are Arabic ethnically. There are also Israeli Arabs who are loyal to the state, and who should be embraced. If Israel wants to get a better image, it needs to mobilize the entirery of its population in a common cause for the defence of democracy. In the wake of these abuses, Israel might seize the moral high ground and create a more truly inclusive society. It has done better than many Western European countries, but is not as good as it should be. One fact that the misguided politicians of the National Religious Party (modern orthodox), National Union (secular far right), and Shas (ultra orthodox) won’t tell you is that more Israeli Arabs support Labour than any of the Arab fringe parties. If this slips, and the Israeli Arab population (not counting Druze or Bedouins here) falls to the like of secular but isolationist hands of Azmi Bishara (Balad) or Ahmed Tibi (Arab Democratic Party) or the isolationist northern branch of the Islamic Movement, then Israel has lost. This struggle is not just against Palestinian terror, but to embrace the moderate majority of its own Arab population. This is the first knesset in 5 decades without any Arab representation in the mainline parties (namely Labour and Meretz) exept for Likkud’s Druze representative. This needs to be rectified.
I don’t really remember ever seeing any Israeli soldier deliberately shooting Palestinians (children or otherwise) in the back – sorry to burst your bubble like that.
Perhaps if you can provide some actual and specific examples to refresh my memory?
Oh and yeah: Americans and Fascists have been fighting for a century now. Remember the whole Nazi-Allied war thing? Can anyone tell me why we’re supposed to care about those two groups of people?
Thought not.
Damn, how are we going to find you a specific example…Maybe just in yesterday’s news:
“A Rafah, dans le sud de la bande de Gaza, une fillette, Iman Al-Hams, 13 ans, est morte, atteinte de “vingt balles dans diverses parties du corps”, a déclaré Ali Moussa, directeur de l’hôpital de Rafah, où elle avait été transférée.
Un témoin, Omar Khalifa, a affirmé que la fillette marchait vers l’école lorsque les soldats ont ouvert le feu d’une tour d’observation le long de la frontière avec l’Egypte.
L’armée a affirmé que des soldats avaient tiré sur elle après qu’elle eut pénétré dans une zone interdite et y eut posé “ce qui a semblé être un engin explosif”, avant de tenter de prendre la fuite.”
In case someone doesn’t speak french (but of course everybosy does!)-roughly: “a 13 yo girl was walking to school and was shot by at least 20 bullets from an observation tower. Soldiers thought she had been setting-up a bomb.”
It was her schoolbag…Of course, when there are a few checkpoints, a 8 meter-high wall and security zones on the way to school, it’s harder not to do something forbidden. Does any of you ever had to cross a landmine to go to school? I don’t think so.
How dare you Jay come up with your story as if it was the only thing happening! The death of 40 israelis or jews is a tragedy, but about 100 palies per day have been shot in the current operation in Gaza for over a week now. Your double standard is a real shame and the final evidence of your biased view.
The only way, as Justin just proved it above, is that Israel becomes secular: What other country is having orthodox fanatics in power? Iran!!! Nice comparison!
Israel is a religious country. Their values (Eretz Israel, elected people…) are retarded and their promises empty lies. Jay, you haven’t commented the speech of Dov Weissglass, Sharon’s minister from yesterday when he said: “We don’t want a palestiniand state. The current unilateral plan of retreat will be the end of any negotiation for an unlimited period of time. We will retreat of Gaza and take over all the rest”. What about the roadmap? What about the right to have a palestinian state that Bush acknowledged?
Of course the US had their veto ready when the whole world agreed on condemning the current operation of Tsahal in Gaza. I was looking for the figure the other day and I finally found it: it’s been 28 times since the US are vetoing a resolution approved by the majority of the UN security council against Israel’s behavior.
Finally Jay, your title sucks. Comparing this to the Holocaust shows you don’t know what the Holocaust was. Maybe you should watch “Shoah” from the fench jew Mr Lanzmann, and you’d realize that the genocide today looks more like what the israelis are doing to palestinians than the other way around: walling off a population, pretend everything is their fault, create the conditions to force them to break the law, apply disproportionate sanctions, deport them in mass…the end of the story is nasty, and soon on CNN.
Yes, Israel is doing such a good job of genocide with the Palestinians that their population is growing faster than just about anywhere else on the planet.
Sadly enough, fertlity rates tend to decrease with development. what does that tells you if fertility rates are so different between populations living on the very same territory=>palestinians are being discriminated!
Fertility is by the way a totaly different problem. I was talking about who is KILLING more. Last year, it was a 2 palies/1 israeli ratio. In 2004, certainly because of productivity gains, it’s more of a 3/1 ratio. Can’t wait for next years figures, with the ratio of which body parts are hit more often, the average kill with only one missile in a refugee camp, and the special poster of snipers shooting schoolgirls, bulldozers razing terrorists olive tree…As far as I know, palestinians are reduced to launch fireworks attacks (when was the last time a Qassam rocket killed anyone?) against jewish settlements in their own countries, which wouldn’t happen if the colony was not taking over their best land in the first place.
Jay, can you answer ONE question please: How much would you like the police if they had kill your parents in a missile blast because a terrorist was living in the same neighbourhood as theirs? Seriously? Would you ercommend using missiles when going after ONE individual in an urban area? Can you justify this?
Vincent-
Israel ALREADY is secular. Likkud are not orthodox fanatics. Orthodox fanatics would be groups like United Torah Judaism, but they have like 6 seats in the Knesset. I am sorry Vincent, but your knowledge of Israeli domestic politics is shamefully ignorant to make a statement like that.
The sad thing is that Israel treats its Arab citizens better than France does. There is more Arab political represenation in Israel than France (even in this knesset when Arab MK’s is down to an all time low it’s better than the French system which has disenfranchised its biggest minority).
One more thing, while some of Israel’s recent actions are troublesome, this is not a condemnation of Israel or Zionism as a whole. Many Israelis are digusted with the recent Gaza raid. Vincent, please don’t whitewash the elements of Zionism which have stood up against its more shady elements. The policies enacted by mayor Amram Mitzna in Haifa to give Arab institutions more power, the Israelis and American Jews who stood up for Palestinians rights to pick olives and confronted the settler scum who opposed them. These people did these things BECAUSE they were Zionists. Theodore Herzl’s book head an Arab Deputy Prime Minister. Those who claim Israel is committing a genocide or zionism is inherently racist are basing these things on total lies. If Israel didn’t like Arabs it wouldn’ be an officially billingual state, give our civil affairs to Arab Muslim, Arab Christian, Druze and Bedouin religious courts. These sorts of things wouldn’t be done in a country run by orthodox fanatics. Criticize certain action of Israel’s army all you want, that’s fair game. But to do these things in an absolute vaccum and to ignore or lie about Israeli’s domestic policies, as Vincent has done for a long time, is fraudulent.
Genocide.. look at what Jordan did to the Palestinians.. oh the silence is defeanening.
I totally agree with everything you say on the state of the law in Israel, just as much as I consider the US as the first democracy in the world. In the same spirit, I still consider the american democracy not as shining as it really is when Bush is in power and the Israeli democracy not so clean when Sharon leads it.
I’m not sure that the way you describe the israeli society (secular, tolerant, etc.) is what Sharon really wants (just as when Bush says he went to Irak to spread democracy, it just doesn’t sounds like it’s the whole story). The recent words of Dov Weissglass about the peace process are revealing, I think, the real aim of Sharon’s politic. I think he’s hiding behind the legitimity of the nation to go his own way, guided by a few orthodox lobbys. To this extent, I consider this nation not “detached” from religion and religious objectives.
P.S: Good thing you talk about the genocide in Jordania. Did I never mentionned and condemned this atrocity and the refugee status of many palestinians still today?
One question for the sake of it, Justin: You attack my post on the Israeli government. Ok, fine, I responded to it. But tell me, honestly, what do you think of Jay’s title :”Holocaust in slow motion”? THAT is fine to say?
Vincent-
I would disagree with the title it is probably a bit extreme in its charachterization of. However, in the sense that the end goal of the Hamas/Jihad movement would be the complete obliteration of Israel, it’s not a million miles off.
I agree with you that some of Sharon’s statements on the road map are worrying. Likkud has had a traditional alliance with some of the smaller orthodox parties. However, domestically, he has increased participation of Israeli Arabs in Israeli democracy.
The first Arab cabinet minister (from the Labour Party) was appointed by Sharon. He has appointed 2 Arabs to the Israeli Supreme Court. Peres and Rabin paid a lot of lip service to the Israeli Arabs, but only Sharon has actually increased funding to Israeli Arab areas.
A lot of Israeli Arabs are pissed off at Labour right now for sort of taking them for granted. I am not saying the Arabs are going to go en masse for Likkud (only the Druze and some Bedouins will). What I am saying is that Sharon really is a doctor jekkel and mister hyde. He has been very tough on the Palestinians, and his west bank policy could well prove an obstacle to peace.
However domestically he has done things to help Israeli Arabs. Sharon is not some religious zealot Effi Eitam or Eli Yishai, not he is a far rightist racist like Michael Kleiner and the Herut Party.
Israeli Democracy is far from perfect, but any charachterization of Sharon’s policy towards Arabs needs to reflect how he has been towards both Palestinians and Israeli Arab citizens.