Übergeek 바둑이: Again, you fail to state the provocation that began the military action, not to mention the human shields that were used in an effort to up casulties and thusly feed the propoganda value.Firing rockets from within homes and villages will provoke retaliation to the source, a very cowerdly form of warfare................do you have any idea how many rockets were fired towards Israel before any action was taken? how long do you think the USA would put up with rockets being fired at them before taking action? Israel has shown amazing restraint in that respect.

Nobody has their hands clean in the issue of a Palestinian solution.I know a solution will one day arrive, and be agreed upon, but if you insist on painting a one sided picture, there is more than enough paint left to complete the other side.The peace process will begin when both sides begin to look to the future, and plant the seeds for trust and respect.

(V):

> No they don't.. not all. The UK government certainly doesn't, and many European governments have spoken out against the ghetto's that are the Palestinians homelands.

I think the real problem is not whether our governments speak out or not against what Israel or the Palestinians do. Speaking out againts it accomplishes little if the condemnation is not backed up by real action.

The last time Israel invaded Lebanon 1,191 Lebanese civilians were killed, as opposed to 44 Israeli civilians. Israel acted with extreme brutality over the 1 month that the hostilities lasted. Most countries spoke out against Israel, but in reality did little to stop Israel from killing all those civilians. Canada, the UK and the US supported Israel fully and the US provided Israel with precision guided missiles during the cinflict. Most western nations gave full support to Israel and in the end it was pressure from Russia which forced the US Security Council to pass a resolution to force Israel to stop hostilities.

After hostilies ceased, nobody helped the Lebanese rebuild their destroyed towns except for Iran. Today the president of Iran is there and he is being welcomed as a hero.

If western countries had taken an impartial stance from the start, hostilies would have ended sooner and instead of further pushing the local population towards extremism, they would have shown the Lebanese and Palestinian people that the west is committed to lasting peace in the area. Instead people are lining the streets and welcoming the Iranian president because he was the only one to show any support for the local civilians affected in the conflict.

The UN imposed cease fire had little effect on Israel. The only way these people are going to stop fighting and create a lasting peace will be when all external countries act impartially and fairly. Unfortunately our western governments talk and condemn, but they don't back their talk with sanctions or with a halt of military aid.

Statement by High Representative Catherine Ashton on Israel-Palestinian proximity peace talks

"I am deeply concerned by recent settlement-related activity in East Jerusalem and the recent unrest in Silwan. I recall that the European Union has never recognised the annexation of East Jerusalem. Settlements and the demolition of homes are illegal under international law, constitute an obstacle to peace and threaten to make a two-state solution impossible. If there is to be genuine peace, a way must be found through negotiations to resolve the status of Jerusalem as the future capital of two states. I would like to call on Israel to refrain from measures which may undermine the ongoing proximity talks. These talks enjoy our full support and the parties need to engage seriously in these negotiations.

I also want to strongly condemn the attack on UNRWA Summer Games recreation facility in Gaza. UNRWA’s Summer Games are an excellent initiative to promote the wellbeing of Gaza’s children and they will continue to count with our strong support."

Brussels, 30 June 2010
A 117/10

Übergeek 바둑이: No they don't.. not all. The UK government certainly doesn't, and many European governments have spoken out against the ghetto's that are the Palestinians homelands. Looking back at the history of UN resolutions against Israel.. the only stumbling block in decades gone that would have created a more probable atmosphere for peace by being able to put pressure on Israel to stop it's side of the crap has been the USA.

Whether they were decisions made purely by USA policy makers or with coercion/bribery from those within Israel is hard to work out.

The Col: The Holy See my have it's own laws and is recognised as a 'state'.. but it (as I said) only occupies a place that is a part of Rome... making it in my eyes just a big glorified church with very large church grounds.

Übergeek 바둑이: In many regards we are known by the company we keep.The Palestinians hitched their boat to terrorists, you can't have your cake and eat it too.

The Col:

> nor the distrust many countries have of the Palestinians

I suppose Israel is so trustworthy that they deserve billions of dollars in war planes. Yet Palestinians are so untrustworthy that they don't deserve even a boat loaded with medicines and food.


> You can't erase decades of terrorism my friend.

Neither can we erase decades of oppression, imprisonment, bulldozing people's homes, expelling people from their own country, etc.

The point is made by you. Our governments trust and support Israel implicitly. Yet they deplore Palestinians and view them with distrust. So we use that distrust to justify unfair foreign policies and to justify giving Israel aid while Palestinians live in misery.

We keep making excuses for Israel. "It is the threat from Hamas and Hezbollah and Al Qaida. It is Iran and the moslems bent on destroying Israel." Now that we have made an excuse, let's justify letting Israel have WMDs, war planes, tanks, etc. After all, a Palestinian with a bomb strapped to his chest is much more deadly than 30 F15s!

In the end, our governments are hypocrites. Why can't they just say the simple truth. "We support Israel because of its strategic military position in the Middle East."

Übergeek 바둑이: What I do find disgusting, is how the Palestinian people, the regular guy on the street, who just wants the love of his family, and a roof over his head, has been used as a pawn by so many Arab countries(and terrorist groups) who couldn't give a damn if they lived or died, but sure like using them.Are you aware of how looked down upon the Palestinians are by their Arab brothers? or a good number of them.Palestinians and Israelis actually don't get along badly in Israel generally speaking, and many Palestinians have attained pretty high standing within Israeli society........but that's not the juicy stuff is it

Übergeek 바둑이:yet totally dismissive of its impact on the entire situation, nor the distrust many countries have of the Palestinians recieving financial aid, and then funneling it to their close buddies Hezbollah and Hamas.You can't erase decades of terrorism my friend. regardless of how well it frames the argument.Israel is far from perfect, that I have acknowledged, but you can not give a full account of the present situation without presenting both sides, and some history.

The Col:

> not acknowledge even once in your post the many years of terrorism towards Israel by the PLO

I am well aware of the PLO, suicide bombings, home-made rockets, etc.

What I am getting at is the completely lopsided approach that western powers take in the whole issue.

As an example, today in the radio (CBC) they were talking about how the Canadian government instigated Lockheed-Martin to provide Israel with 30 state of the art F15 fighters. The F15 is the most sophisticated fighter jet in history. Each fighter comes at a price of about US $150 million and an estimated $300 million in maintenance costs over the lifetime of the plane. These fighter jets are expected to be delivered to Israel within the next 2 years.

Contrast this with the fact that since March of 2006 the Canadian government suspended all aid to Palestinians, not that they were giving much to begin with.

Such a one-sided approach only aggravates the situation. Western governments want Palestinians to abandon all territorial claims and to be content with whatever scraps of desert Israel feels Palestinians deserve. Israel has undergone a population explosion since the end of the Cold War. Jews have emigrated from Russia and other countries by the thousands and that means that to house them it is necessary to displace Palestinians. Western countries have given Israel carte blanche to do whatever they want and rather than pressuring Israel to change its stance, they are giving Israel more weapons to counteract the rising threat from Iran.

The current approach is obviously not working. Any aid given to israel should be matched as aid given to Palestinians. As long as there is injustice there, things will not get better and the current approach to foreign aid is failing.

lizrising: It is very complicated,and the emotion on both sides makes it even more so.Strategically speaking though, if peace ever does come between both sides it will really mess with the haters in the middle east, as I heard a Jordanian diplomat explain a few weeks ago.

The Col: It's interesting to read your views on Israel and Palestine. I attend a Reconstructionist synagogue that is generally on the side of the Palestinians. I have very mixed feelings about the whole thing because there are so many layers to everything.

(V): The Holy See is considered an independant state by some,wiki it

Übergeek 바둑이: Historically,Israel has had to fight wars against(instigated most often by) multiple countries all at once, vastly outnumbered.I'm pretty sure that is the root of the military aid they recieve.If they did not have top notch military equipment Israel would not exist today.Personally I'm torn on the preservation of a Jewish State issue, while I am atheist,I have strong cultural ties to Judaism, and know that atheist or not, if Jews ever became another target,I would not be spared due to my atheism, the name on my birth certificate would be enough to put me in harms way.I think you need to understand the Jewish mentality, regardless of where Jews live in the world,Israel is considered their only safe haven if the unthinkable ever happened again.You are dealing with a very fragile insecurity in regards to the Jewish relationship to Israel, and that is something that cannot be seperated from the discussion.I do not condone much of Israeli policy in relation to the Palestinians, but to not acknowledge even once in your post the many years of terrorism towards Israel by the PLO, and the environment of distrust that has created towards peace displays an incomplete side of the story, and resolution.

The Col: The original formation of 'Palestine' was supposed to have given both Jewish and Arab people an equal right to live in what we call Israel today. While I can accept the Israelis saying "we live here" and the right to live there being 'written in stone', I cannot accept the declaration of Israel being purely a Jewish state. It's not the same as The Holy See, that is a place in Rome which is in Italy.

From my reading of history and from recent progs.. Israel is still a place of where those of many religions live. Especially in Jerusalem, where people of non Jewish persuasion have had their rights to live in their homes abused to the extent where a person of Jewish faith can just walk all over them and take the families home from them with nobody stopping it from happening.

Perspectively wise... we have seen before what happens when a country declares that only certain people can live within it's boundaries many a time. The results ain't good.

Sadly, the UN Security Council has always played a one-sided game that favours Israel over the Palestinian people. From its creation after WW II to the present, Israel has enjoyed the favour of most superpowers. Things in Israel will never improve as long as external powers intercede to defend Israel every time Israel does something that contravenes UN resolutions and tries to extend its official territorial boundaries.

If Israel is to be recognized as a Jewish state, then other religious states would deserve the same priviledge. Mullahs in Iraq and Afghanistan want those countries to be recognized as Islamic states. The Taliban (however despicable its social policies might be) would have a point in saying that its existence as a state structure is justified on religious grounds.

Thus western powers play an inconsistent game that favous Israel. They pretend to deplore the conditions under which Palestinians live, but at the same time they give Israel billions of dollars in economic and military aid. They carry out trade and commerce with Israel, but do little to help the Palestinian economy. It comes as no surprise then that Israel has the resources to build one of the largest armies in the World, equipped with war planes, tanks, battle ships and even nuclear weapons; while Palestinians have to fight back with rocks and home-made bombs.

It is a one-sided game with the UN pretending to care but doing nothing to change anything. The Security council is blind and refuses to pass any resolutions or trade embargoes that would force both Israel and Palestine to make a lasting peace and recognize each other's right to exist.

If western powers wanted peace in the Middle East, they would start by using economic weapons in the same way that they have used them with Iran and North Korea. They would halt all military aid and declare a trade embargo in armaments and military technologies. They would impose banking restrictions and they would stop trading in anything that could be used as a weapon or to give either side an advantage in a war. As it is, that situation already exists with the Palestinians, but not with the Israelis. Any move to curtail trade and impose embargoes would affect mostly Israel because Palestinians are already at a huge disadvantage. The only way to move forward is to end the one-sided game, and nobody wants that. Not our western powers and least of all Israel.

(V): It's political posturing, but recognising Israel without its Jewish identity, is like recognising The Holy See without acknowledging its Catholic culture.Israel was created to be a Jewish state,(rightly or wrongly) to delete that from the recognition, is to not fully recoginise.The Palestinians have done their share of walking away, or sabotaging agreements, it's a shame former Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin are not still around to lend their wisdom to the process.

The Col: From what I've found....

"The Palestinians formally recognised Israel on the eve of the 1993 Oslo Accords, but have rejected demands to recognise its Jewish character because it would effectively renounce the right of return for refugees from the 1948 Arab-Israeli war."
http://www.citizen.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=132515&catid=29:world-news&Itemid=53

"A day earlier, Netanyahu set out recognition of Israel as a Jewish state as his price for a renewal of a ban on construction in the occupied West Bank, seen as key to rescuing direct talks relaunched last month.

That demand was rejected out of hand by the Palestinians, who said it had "nothing to do with the peace process," and was also widely criticised by Israeli politicians and commentators as a political ploy to sabotage the talks."

Artful Dodger: I couldn't agree more

Vikings: Ohhh, thanks for clearing that up. In a world where no one in any part of the spectrum wants to take blame for any of their mistakes, it's hard to remember who did what.

lizrising: Clinton was too busy with his box of cigars.

lizrising: no it's still ALL Bush's fault

Übergeek 바둑이: Hang on...so it's not Clinton's fault anymore?

(V): Can you provide me the actual statement?

At least Fox News doesn't provide a free propoganda pulpit for the terrorist wing of the Palestinians, as CNN and MSNBC seem very happy to do.........Israel has handled the situation badly in many respects, no argument on that count, but they also have enough past history that warrents very careful movement on the issues before them.

Last night a meteorite landed somewhere in Mongolia.

Some Mongolian shepherd said:

"It was liberals who ..."

Obama and his liberals are to blame for EVERYTHING that has gone wrong EVERYWHERE.

Artful Dodger:

> that he experienced an ‘‘awakening” when he watched former Vice President Al Gore’s environmental documentary ‘‘An Inconvenient Truth.”

That documentary must be just like "The Catcher in the Rye". Environmentalists are going postal because of it.

The Col: I agree.. the Palestinians have not done much to give them the chance of a Noble peace prize.. but neither have the Israeli's in this matter. one of the big stumbling blocks is building on the West Bank... which by international law is illegal.

The Fox banter at the bottom says it's because the Palestinians do not recognise Israel.. yet they have since 1993.

... Maybe those on the Israeli side should just admit many right wingers on their side do not want to stop the building... why does it seem right wingers get in the way of progress everywhere!!!

(V): If you had the track record of the Palestinians, I would hold back on granting you sainthood, unlike most of the world press so gleefully have.Both sides have much to do before real peace can ever be achieved.Maybe tossing bombs in school buses and night clubs is a noble deed to some, but I'm not quite ready to grant them the martyrdom so many do.

Glen Beck sounds like the Nazi propaganda machine of the 1930's.... They made films depicting themselves as peaceful people standing up against the Jews/Communists... And it was the Jews/Communists who were violent thugs attacking and killing real Germans just because the real Germans stood up and disagreed with what the Jews/Communists were saying.

I saw on the Glen Beck show when he's in teacher mode the news rolling at the bottom about how the Palestinians are rejecting peace talks due to disagreements over the West Bank and the Israelis carrying on building on land which is not theirs. Yet it's all the Palestinians fault!!

Artful Dodger: oh come on.. you know its always "someone elses fault"

According to a police investigation, Williams opened fire on California Highway Patrol officers who had stopped him on an Oakland freeway for driving erratically. For 12 frantic minutes, Williams traded shots with the police, employing three firearms and a small arsenal of ammunition, including armor-piercing rounds fired from a .308-caliber rifle.


"I would have never started watching Fox News if it wasn't for the fact that Beck was on there. And it was the things that he did, it was the things he exposed that blew my mind." - Byron Williams

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoTpLr-mBLc&feature=player_embedded#!

So.. the depression we are in might give Obama worse unemployment figures than Ronald Raygun got!!

.. That one was started by the stock exchange crash!!

Artful Dodger: Federal govt can't do anything right/efficiently.. so yeah, let's give them MORE to do for us!

Craziness.

(V): I love when a plan comes together
I had better brush up on my Bahasa Indonesia

The Col: Does she know the location of the bank accounts??

(V): Does he have a single daughter?

This week General Suharto, former US-backed Indonesian dictator and mass murderer for 34 years, died at the age of 86 with an estimated $30 billion squirreled away. Mass murderer Suharto left an appalling legacy of about 0.5-1 million Indonesians murdered (Communists, progressives, ethnic Chinese), 0.2 million East Timorese murdered out of a total population of 0.6 million in the East Timorese Genocide (1975-2002), goodness knows how many people killed in Aceh and West Irian (West Papua), terrorizing by brutal and corrupt military, rampant corruption and consequent rise of Islamist activism and (variously military- and police-complicit) terrorist activity against the Indonesian Christian minority (about 10,000 killed with about 100,000 refugees) (see:

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-duin010202.shtml ) and recently against Western hotels and visitors (e.g. the 2003 Bali bombing that killed about 200 Western tourists).

GTCharlie: What about those that were caught in the middle???

What about the people in Europe as a whole that were crapping their pants over the fact that we were bang in the middle of the firing line is someone decided M.A.D. was a good idea?

We had American cruise missiles based in the UK.. Women from the UK then camped outside that base.. As they knew if someone got trigger happy that base would be targeted.

In the end, any country that thought the playing of countries (as happened on both sides) and the use of nuclear weapons as a means to avoid direct confrontation (a cowardly action) does not deserve to be called any better than any other country who took part in that mess called "the cold war". Millions died, were maimed, tortured any much more as a result of all sides playing 'Risk' with the world. Our whole planet is now more radioactive through 'boys' showing off their 'toys'.. In certain respects I wonder (as I don't know the science) whether the hundreds of atomic weapons detonated have in some ways contributed to the increase in Leukaemia levels??

... Strontium 90 being a by product ....

GTCharlie:

> How many did McCarthy execute? or send to the Gulag? oh.. did he ruin their careers? awww poor Hollywood. Again please answer, what is the ratio of defectors? how many got shot escaping into East Germany? I dare say one side ... was a heck of a lot worse than the other.Again.. how does eastern europe feel? During the Cold War NOBODY was good. are you serious??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????


How many people were killed in Vietnam by carpet bombing, napalm, agent orange, etc.?

How many people wre killed in Korea by the allies?

And when the CIA propped up dictators in Latin America and Africa, and those dictators went onto kill thousands upon thousands, who did they do it for? What for?

Both sides were equally rotten. Just because Americans enjoyed a good life while the developing world got screwed, it does not mean that the comfortable life of the North American middle class was enjoyed by all. Capitalism brought as much misery and death as communism did. Capitalism succeded in stopping communism, at a very high price. The only way that price can be justified is if capitalism claims some form of ideological and moral superiority. Without that self-superiority, the actions of capitalist countries during the Cold War are reduced to mere exercises in oppression and brutality, as bad as what the communists inflicted.

> how does eastern europe feel?

Then, how does Latin America feel? Why do you think Latin Americans are electing left wing governments? Is it Cuba "infecting" their minds? Or is it the fact that after all the killing and brutality, capitalism failed to improve the lives of common people? 20 years after the end of the Cold War, people are as poor and living in injustice as much as they did before. In many places people are as disillusioned with capitalism as Eastern Europeans are with communism.

We live in a world out of balance, always stuck in ideological extremes. Each ideology claims moral superiority and is incapable of accepting its wrongdoings. Communists were wrong. Capitalists were wrong too. Both sides were wrong and both sides did terrible things. Neither side was good in the end.

(V): yeah, that kinda of happens to treasonous spies, on either sides. safer to defect

Übergeek 바둑이: How many did McCarthy execute? or send to the Gulag? oh.. did he ruin their careers? awww poor Hollywood. Again please answer, what is the ratio of defectors? how many got shot escaping into East Germany? I dare say one side ... was a heck of a lot worse than the other.Again.. how does eastern europe feel? During the Cold War NOBODY was good. are you serious??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

GTCharlie: The KGB managed to find people in the UK who would spy for them, acting in some cases as double agents. Some after being discovered yet escaped capture by the British authorities were found to be living in Russia.

GTCharlie:

> Cold war adversaries were the same
> fraud and hypocrisy

That is exactly my point. During the Cold War NOBODY was good.

The US can claim moral superiority but the reality is that the USA (through the CIA) promoted fascism and dictatorship in many countries. The USA (as well as the UK, Canada, and other western governments) subverted democracies when the governments elected were not ideologically aligned with American expectations. Governments were toppled only to be replaced by military dictatorships whose function was to exterminate left wing groups, unions and anyone opposed to the economic interests of big corporations. The USA declared war on countries both openly and subvertly. Millions of people were killed in the name of ideology (freedom and democracy) with the end result being big capitalist corporations making billions in profits. Capitalists are incapable of acknowledging that in order to keep capitalism alive they readily dispatched millions of people to their deaths, including anyone who dissented from the capitalist system. When those nice dictators sent left wingers to their deaths, they were killing dissidents, not some foreign element external to the system. What were the McCarthy era witch hunts if not the pursuit of people who dissented from capitalism?

Of course, everyone knows what Stalin did, or what Mao did? Power-hungry men will do anything to acquire even greater power. People on the other side of the Iron Curtain suffered too much. Millions were also killed and even more millions oppressed. Equality of all workers, revolution, the end of capitalist exploitation. They all have a nice ring to them, and they were the excuses used by Communists to exert power and brutality.

People are defined by their actions and in the end ideology is just empty talk. In any system all that we have to do is look at who acquired wealth and power. In communism it was the communist party elite. In capitalism it was the corporate elite. Everything else was (and still is) nothing but empty ideology. Higher principles have always been swept aside when it has become politically and economically convenient.

If you are trying to say that the cold war adversaries were the same and it wouldn't matter who came ahead, then there is nothing on this board but fraud and hypocrisy. Agree? Comrade?

Imagine if China still clung to Chairman Mao's philosophy?

Übergeek 바둑이: And the Human experiment repeats itself , again and again.But you didn't address the defector thing.. who was climbing the Berlin Wall to go EAST??????? or windsurfing into Havana from Marathon Key?/