Quintessential Questions

Israel has forced Hamas leaders to dress up like nurses!!

From the JPost:

[IDF officials] said that it was likely that a number of senior Hamas operatives and terror chiefs were hiding and conducting their operations from within Shifa Hosptial in Gaza City.

“Hamas operatives are in the hospital and have disguised themselves as nurses and doctors,” one official explained.

SO WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE WHEN HAMAS LEADERS ARE HIDING IN THE HOSPITALS? ANYONE CARES?

friends,

don't miss this contributed news I just added from Juan Cole. It's dated Sunday.
//iranian.com/main/news/2009/01/04/micro-...

he repeats a lot of the points I have in this blog. I do have some issues with some of what he says but it's pretty similar, otherwise. He paints a more comprehensive historical picture as only a "professor" could.

Here's some portions:

...

Israel's political tradition seeks expansion if possible; if not possible, it seeks a balance of power with its enemies. If that is not possible, it seeks to be held harmless from its avowed foes. If that is not possible, it is willing to wage total war to punish the enemy population until it accepts at least a cold peace. Where necessary, Israel is willing to give up territorial expansion to get the cold peace.

...

By summer of 2007, the Israelis and the US had managed to sponsor a coup in which the secular Fatah, led by Mahmoud Abbas, took back over the West Bank, and Hamas was confined to Gaza. Hamas pursued the tactic of sending small home-made missiles against nearby Israeli towns, mainly Sderot, emulating what Hizbullah had been doing to the Israeli colony in the occupied Shebaa Farms in 2005-2006. Israel responded primarily by squeezing the Gaza public, denying it enough food, fuel, electricity and services to function healthily, in hopes that it could be made to turn against Hamas. This punishment of the civilian population (half of which consists of children and some large proportion of which does not anyway support Hamas) is illegal in international law, and failed in its purpose. Hamas became ever more entrenched.

....

The Israeli leadership knew that it could not reply to Hamas's microwar without engaging in total war on the Gaza population, and that this step would be unpopular with the world's publics. But the Israeli leadership has successfully thumbed its nose and world public opinion so often and so successfully that this sort of consideration does not even enter into their practical calculations (except to the extent that they are careful to do a lot of propaganda for their war effort). Their estimation that they will suffer no practical bad consequences of attacks on civilians is certainly correct in the short to medium term.

The Israel lobbies are wealthy and powerful, and the US congress depends heavily on them for campaign funding. If the US legislators voted on the Gaza operation, they would support Israel except for the same 10 who objected to the war on Lebanon (the 10 are mostly from congressional districts with a lot of Arab-Americans). Israel will suffer no practical sanctions from any government. Egypt and Jordan are afraid of Hamas and are more or less handmaidens of Israeli policy toward Gaza. Syria and Lebanon are weak. Iran, for all the hype it generates, is distant and relatively helpless to intervene. European governments have largely ceded the Palestinian-Israeli issue to the US and Israel.

....

The big long-term problem Israel has is that its assiduous colonization of the West Bank has made a two-state solution almost impossible, turning it into an Apartheid state. And if you go on practicing Apartheid long enough, that begins to attact boycotts and sanctions. And forestalling a Palestinian state means that likely the Palestinians will all end up Israeli citizens.

The outrage should be directed at HAMAS !!!

I agree with the last anonymous comment (How come Hamas is getting so much support from Iranians?).

Where is the outrage when Hamas is using schools and hospitals for their rocket lunchers? or when they use overpopulated building for their own operations?

Did you guys know that last month HAMAS was ordering SHARIA law on many things in GAZA? Do we really want to support a regime that is becoming like Taliban?

You know what I don't understand Anonymous is...

why don't you register yourself and blog it or write an article, you're the first damn person here who's stated this in a cohesive compelling way...

only problem you're wearing your Charlie the Tuna costume... :op

You men shield...oops, I mean, human shields...

the human shield is a point well-taken. I believe iit's true Hezbollah did this in Lebanon and I wouldn't doubt it from Hamas.

Now, you are being very clever, David, especially that little smiley emoticon at the end, because now I can't really answer you alluding to any specific person (unless it's me dialoguing with my own subconscious). So you have put me in a bind, but I am ASSUMING that that smiley is sincere although perhaps sardonic and a bit puckish as opposed to sarcastic...

So based on that assumption I'll throw in a smiley too :o)))

and without mentioning anyone in particular, David, just say t you know a person has integrity when you know that you yourself try hard to have it and you are going through an unendurable crisis made embarrassingly public and so many people are saying you're a self-agrandizing foolafter you worked so hard, so hard, for a community, and that person sees through the crisis of the moment and sees you still have integrity and fights for you and supports you more vocally publicly and privately and more consistently than anyone else, even after you disappoint them and leave...

doesn't abandon you...

you just know, David. You just know.

Nighty night,

R.

How come Hamas is getting so much support from Iranians?

where was the world outcry for Kurds when they were getting killed by IRI and Saddam?

Where are all the demonstrations for Darfur genocide?

I don't remember Palestinians demonstrating for Rwandan genocide niether?

Did Palestinians demonstrated for Afghani women being prosecuted by Taliban? did they even send them any relief aid?

Where are all the demonstrations for kicking most of christian Palestinians out of Gaza and West Bank?

It's time to stop this love affair with Hamas, open you eyes and see that most atrocities committed to Palatinates, are by Hamas. I guess you guys don't remember how they kicked Fatah member out of Fatah? don't you remember the hanging of many young fatah members?

where was the outrage then?

Yes..

Yes war is bad and so is siding with those who instigate war for any reason under any ideology, philosophy or religion. 

I commend those who are speaking out against the situation in Gaza from humanitarian standpoint

But I do have issue with those who are simply trying to make their political point by taking advantage of the humanitarian disaster.

I also have no issue with people picking and choosing their battles, I do that all the time since we cant take them all and at the end the the efforts add up if we each take a cause or two. 

But again I have issue when some are for human rights in one place but then side with violators in another place!!

In short I have issue with using humans lives as a shield (on the ground or in blogs) for political advancement and also have issue with hypocrisy and inconsistency that somehow some are more human than others. Depending on which side some are politically, ideologically or religiously , then their care for humanity's right changes !

Note: These are general comments and not directed at a specific individual unless someone is taking it personally which in that case its not me but your own subconscious which is making that observation :-)

Thx, all, Detector:

I got the feed, believe it or not could only find it in Turkish Weekly!!?? Next time please put your source, it looks a lot better than mine...also if you registered you know you could post your own newsfeeds, but honestly I would humbly suggest you chose a less...er..single-issue name.

R.

Robin

I couldn't agree more:

all the leaders suck and nobody gives a shit about the people.

Thanks for thinking clearly and fairly

IRANdokht

Israelies demonstrate against their government's action

Amid cries of "Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies!" and banners reading, "Enough!" thousands of Israelis took to the streets of Tel Aviv on Saturday night to protest against the country's war on Gaza.

Protesters called for an immediate end to the Israeli attacks, in which more than 450 Palestinians have been killed and around 2,100 injured since air assaults on Gaza began last Saturday.

Organisers, a coalition of groups such as Gush Shalom, the Hadash party and the Coalition of Women for Peace, were encouraged by the turnout. anti-war protesters responding with "The army is a terror organisation!" and "Children in Gaza and in Sderot want to live!"

Earlier on Saturday, about 10,000 demonstrators, predominantly Palestinian-Israelis, protested in the northern Galilee village of Sakhnin.

Robin,

You are a great Soul! Thank you for all these freedom of speech and true thinking.

Roxane,

Take off your shoes and stay for awhile. Our home is yours. We'll be surely pleased to have you as our guest.

PS I write here from a 24 hour Yemeni pizzeria in my

building because they've shut down all the cafes and my computer isn't working, there's a pay by minute I'net computer here. Abdul is Yemeni, he's one of the owners, he's a VERY traditional and "macho" Muslim, Mike is a progressive half-French Egyptian Muslim raised in Morocco who lived in France for many years, an elderly couple Yosef, an Ashkenaz Jew like me, raised in New York, and his wife, a "Sabra", Sepharad native-born Israeli Jew and I all celebrated New Years here together because I don't like New Years parties. Yusef and his wife speak fluent Hebrew and Arabic, Mike and I often speak French or Spanish...we watch the massacres on the I'net in Arabic. We all agree on one thing:  all the leaders suck and nobody gives a shit about the people. Abdul too, and all his very conservative Muslim friends (women should walk with their eyes down, etc.--not me though...) think Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah, Fatah, all suck. Religous extremists in government he thinks are dangerous. We all get on very well.

Now we three me you ET you Q we all hear the sound of a thousand rats caught in traps screaming their agony unnecessarily prolonged for hours on end...oen often says 1 x 1000 = 1000, the other often says 1000 \ 1000 = 1. Can we bridge the communication gap?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LWMKl6vHjc

Yes, David,Q, I Do Want to Make a Few Comments...

Q, I believe what David said I could explain maybe a little more clearly is that as long as we all agree there are no winners in war, it is a really nice way to click the glasses of champagne and say, yes, we are friends, ultimtaely we're on the same side, let's take a breather now...

David, I do not believe Q modified his political arguement by stating there are no winners in war after having said Israel lost in Lebanon. In his first statement he is speaking of a reelpolitic analysis and in the second he is making a humanitarian statement about human life being sacred and first and foremost before any political strategems. Obviously you hold this principle very dear to your heart and you have to both understand that really you are two of the most committed pacifist activists on this website. However you see the diamond from such differing facets that sometimes you both fail to remember it is the same diamond. (Again Q, I think that is the concession David had tried to make).

I have spoken at length with both of you and my understanding is that Qumars places value of human life in terms of numbers killed, wounded, tortured etc. and that gives rise to a kind of philosophy of "always go with the underdog" bearing in mind he knows perfectly well that most leaderships are corrupt (notice his sardonic comment about Hamas as not being model citizens...)  David places a humanitarian but also in some sense SYMBOLIC value on each individual life being as important in principle as the number of lives taken, because without the taking of these individual lives no large scale massacres can exist.

Also it's a kind of Weltschmerz, the German word for sense of the pain of existing in the world...one time in a cafe a rat got caught in a rat trap and I had to get a man to get rid of it. You should have heard the agonizing screams. I have never heard anything like it. To this day three years later it is horrible for me to imagine that that poor rat was then thrown out into a garbage can trap and all still agonizing probably for many more protracted hours than necessary.

So you see you're both looking at the same diamond from different sides. David, like Abermard as I understand him, says well, one busload of children (I speak figuratively here of course) versus thousands of Paletinians to me is that terrible screaming of the rat. Qumars says look, thousands and thousands of screams.  I agree with both of you.

I am curious now since David questined it to know, Q, where in fact you did get those stated objectives of the Israeli military regarding its goals vis a vis the disgusting repulsive depradation upon Lebanon two summers ago.

David, I followed very carefully the events in Lebanon that summer on pretty much a moment to moment basis, since as I teach I wasn't working. I read everything from the ultra-Zionist Sun to the tabloids to the Times, to znet to electroniclebanon and so on. It was in fact my understanding that Q is correct in that the Israeli public considered the war a fiasco and it discredited the administration for quite some time. I believe it was largely for the reasons Q said, for all the raiding of all the villages they were lousy on the ground, they just didn't know how to do it, and of course Israel lost TERRIBLE TERRIBLE if not FACE respect (whatever respect it had before, that is) in the eyes of the entire world...I also believe it is true that at least in the short term the war legitimized Hezbollah further among the Lebanese (at least the Sunni...). However I have no idea to what extent the disarmament has proceeded.

I think David is right, yes, the shellings have stopped.

David, in mentioning all the villains, the religious extremists don't forget the secular extremists who contributed to the mess...Fatah having originally been funded largely by the Soviets.

I do concur with David wholeheartedly and have spoken about it with Qumars that I think that many people here who are so close to me ideologically (new left) should be as Iranians MUCH more vocal in their outcry against the IRI outrages (lovely photo of crane hanging today from Azadeh's blog...) And I was NOT really kidding, it is satrie but REAL satire below when I wrote the post I Am an IRI Apologist, I DID come here sympathizing with the Ahmadinejads of the world against the Cheneys because of size. Colonel Hemayat of whom I spoke was the first person to confront me on this issue.

But that doesn't mean David that my motives were questionable or that I was on the wrong "side". I do not believe Qumars' allegiances or motives are suspect in any way, I wish he would be more vocal about the Ebadi issues and so forth, I believe we all have to pick and choose our battles, remember your telling me IRI is an internal problem when I spoke of need for mass I'net global media campaign to raise consciousness especially in US of the greatness and huge cultural ties historically and achievements and sensibilities of Iranians...I don't know but I suspect Q might not agree with you there. So really it's about two ways of looking at the diamond, but I think they are reconcilable.

But I don't think reconciliation will be speeded up by ending questioning a person's motives WHO AS I HAVE REPEATEDLY SAID HAS POSTED FEEDS ABOUT IRI ATTROCISTS AND SAYS OVER AND VOER AND OVER AGAIN HE DOES NOT SUPPORT THE IRI GOVERNMENT (ESPECIALLY AS IT STANDS).

On the other hand Q, sometimes when you get an olive branch, it's best to leave some water under the bridge...let it go a little...you can always pick up later on on the specifics of the polemics (and you know how important I believe precise linguistic analysis is to polemics.  But...I think...I will close with what I was starting to say here and there before I left end summer:

WHEN SYLLOGISMS KEEP BUTTING HEAD AGAINST SYLLOGISMS PERHAPS IT IS TIME TO FIND A NEW LANGUAGE.

Let's dance...

Shalom

Roxane

Palestinians Genocide, our tax dollars at work

Israel would not be able to destroy the lives of a whole people without our military political financial and technological help. We have been paying them off for so many years to tune of 3 billion dollars a year. Plus billions of dollars of loans Signed and approved by our Congress and White House.

How did this happen? There's a revealing research done by 2 of the most respected political scientist at the University of Chicago that shows how the Israeli Lobby has infiltrated our political system. It's a must read for those who want to understand the position of U.S. government including the outragious silence of President elect Obama. It is called THE ISRAEL LOBBY AND U.S. FOREIGN POLICY
//www.ccun.org/Documents/The%20Israel%20Lobby...

Israel Broke the Cease Fire back in November (Video)

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jOFXL62zw0

thank you for your truth telling in face of Zionist media.

Mola, yes and no:

yes, Gaza is a very close replica, probably resembling a large Warsaw ghetto more than actually the camps, w/the checkpoints and so on, and especially since the building of the wall.

However I believe your "definion" of the Holocaust is not a definiton but rather a description of the successive steps leading up to the Holocaust. It is very good that you post it here because many people fail to remember that any singlnog out of any group to take away ANY civil rights granted others is just different in degree from the taking away of the life itself. In other words, if I am a "Negro" in the South and I can't drink at your fountain, that is the first STEP, the last STEP would be a lynching (if it were actually legal which de facto it really was...), however lynching s were not SYSTEMATIC as were the fountains...

This is very important for people to bear in mind. Life itself is the last civil right. HOWEVER, I truly beileve that no matter HOW MANY civil rights are taken away from the Palestinians, no matter how many incursions on their villages, no matter how many dead and wounded (thousands...), evenhow much hunger due to lack of work, the Israeli governemtn will NEVER perpetrate a "Holocuast" on the Palestinian people in the literal sense of the word as applied to the Reich. A Holocaust is a Greek word meaning burnt offering and signifies a "sacrifice" of sorts (for which reason its use is often critiqued). It implies the total extermination of a people, eradication, which is what the Reich set out to do (not only with Jews btw). The word "Vernichtung" in "Vernichtungslager" (concentration camp in German) beautifully captures the concept" nothingification, making into nothing...obliteration.

There will be no doubt events like the present one perhaps worse repeated but as for a wholesale Holocaust...ain't gonna happen baby...ordinary Israelis wouldn't permit it (pleeeeeeeeeeease don't anyone argue about this, the very idea appalls our Zion) and anyway in a world with human rights resolutions and UN and so on....the thought of a true Holocaust of the Palestinian people or in fact ANY people (black Africans by the way being probably closer in risk than Palestinians) is unthinkable and impossible.

In other words the STAGES you refer to led UP to the Holocaust but that doesn't MAKE them the Holocaust. C'mon, think it through.

So many of these comparisons are so...facile...to make....there are differences, nuances, shades...the Israeli state mirrors the Reich in many eerie ways for various historical, political and psychological reasons but NOBODY is going to send the Palestinians en masse to the ovens..maybe some are thinking they'd like to exterminate them all, Khodadad mentions such a couple in his last blog and these in LA...but...they're not going to do it, or be able to...

Roxane

Arabs never said Stop to Saddam to IRI for killing Iranians

I am for peace and I support the co-existence of Israel and Palestine. Tell me while we're in a war with Iraq and many of our best were killed did ONCE Palestine or any group of people from Arab nations demonstrate against Saddam? Has there been a Palestinian or Arab group who protested against the killing of innocent people in Iran by Saddam, and the Iraqis from killing Kurds?

anonymous 8

You can find the answer to your question from me here:

//iranian.com/main/blog/david-et/ebadi-ir-israel-and-all

thoe who kill innocent children

will pay the price 1000 times worse. humanity will not stand for this butchery.

No I am not MRX1

please stop insults and your hatefull comments in Farsi . I know who you are and you know who you are & JJ knows who bad copy of MRX1 is and He/she is not me . Site is now using language of intimidation and insults to push away people . but thats okay .one writes a blog insulting lors to get to me with folks cheering him on and calling me names and here . Isn,t it pathetic . yes it is .

David ET,

this issue is a much bigger humans rights concern right now than Ebadi's office. would you agree?

Israel ground forces now moving in

sadly Lebanon experience is being repeated before the transition of power in US as anticipated:

//www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28404637/?GT1=43001

Dear Samsam

I noticed that too and that is why I dropped the MR from the name when addressing the writer .

I was under impression that site automatcially not allow non-registered users to copy names of registered one but I might have be wrong on that.

This is not MRX1

these tactics are downright dishonest . why is this character allowed to copy the identity of original MRX1(a real patriot)? this is not ethical. The impopster has total contrast views of original MRX1 .  This is ethicaly wrong and moderators should stop this practice .

X1

I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. I see no words of disrespect to any of my comments here and if you are talking about the "glasses" I drew with the letter Q, that was just a fun (thinker) internet gesture in good humor and again nothing disrespectful in it and actually a compliment!

So unless you be more sepecific as to what on earth!! you are talking about, I will IGNORE your comment as beseless nonesense.

David ET

‫اگر تربیت میداشتی به کسانیکه هم عقیدت نیستند احترام میذاشتی.

\Q^Q/

 Fundamental purpose that Israel had about Hezbollah was for them to Stop shelling and leave their citizens alone and that was achieved. Of course they were not stupid to know Hezbollah would not have disappeared in thin air as IR and Hezbollah claimed that was their goal and you repeating it, Especially that Hezbollah is a child of IR Hezbollah never disappears unless IR does first but as long as Israel can neutralize Hezbollah's (and Hamas's) extremists and can have peace in its land, they have accomplished their goal , because they have no more intentions of geographic expansion and only want to protect their existence now.

If Palestinians accept Israel's right to exist and live peacefully side by side, at this time of history Israel has achieved its goal and whatever the name of Palestinian ruling parties be, that's fine with them.

That is why I do blame Palestinian religious extremists and their Israeli counterparts for lack of peace as well as those such as IR for instigating hatred instead of promoting peaceful coexistence of two groups of human beings.

one more note: They say show me who your friends are and I show you who you are. Both Hamas and Hezbollah are buddies with thugs of Islamic Republic which makes them thugs too ....

What is happening in Gaza is awful and Israel should stop its aggression but this situation did not exist after Israel left Gaza and left its affairs to Palestinians but what did they get in return? HAMAS! An extremist group who does not even recognize Israel and wants its extinction. So We are where we are , at square one again because of Hamas extremism and Palestinians wrong choice of extremists during their elections. A mistake that sadly , they are heavily paying for now!

As for here, You defend one extremist and Zion defends the other and the two that you support are the causes of this bloodshed one way or another but then you both are antiwar !!

 If you REALLY are antiwar, ONLY support those who promote peace and coexistence and oppose those who promote hatred and extinction of one another ...It's that simple!

and also I see you with 10's of comments all over and your own blog etc about Palestinians and Israel but then when there are posts such as Ebadi's office being attacked or Students in Shiraz university, //iranian.com/main/node/52082 , you seem absent , which makes one wonder where your priorities and motives are !

Words have senses, David

As far as the definition of military loss, that is "failure to achieve objectives," yes, it was a loss. Hezbollah's objective was to stay alive and relevant and they achieved that. I quoted you the Israeli sources that agreed with that assessment.

But in a bigger sense, in terms of humanity, of course there are no winners in any war. I'm glad you liked the comment, but that is a statement of belief and does not contradict the previous statement.

That is my belief since I'm strongly anti war. But it would be stupid of me to say "no one won World War II", because that statement would be usually in a different, military sense of the word "winning."

yes, I do primarily blame Israel because it is an infinitely bigger power and it has used that power ruthlessly.

The genocide of Native Americans in the United States was marred with countless incidents when Indians killed innocent women and children or raided caravans. They were at fault for those individual acts but those are insignificant in comparison to the tremendous genocide against them by the British, Spanish and the United States. Rightfully when that chapter of history is written, the bigger crime committed by the settlers and the US gets justifiably most of the attention. How meaningul is it to "blame both sides" in that conflict in the face of the huge discrepency in deaths? Does anyone say when it comes to the conflict with Native Americans "both sides were at fault" ? Let's not say things just because they sound politically correct. Say them because they are accurate reflections of reality.

If you look at military capability, and the tools to inflict pain and suffering on great numbers of people, the proportions between Israel and HAMAS are even more drastic than US Army and Native Americans.

I have never had a problem with you or anyone else. I just like to be accurate myself and ask that others be accurate when describing me.

Q

OK let me explain: You said Israel lost Lebanon war and Hebollah won and then after I posted the signed treaty you wrote:

" there are no winners in war. I firmly believe this
philosophically. So the real loss goes to those who gave their lives
and most of them were Lebanese."

That was a great comment that really mattered. The rest is old history and I am not in to long arguments which serve no purpose except making one feel better or for scoring points.I said my piece and you did yours and thats both good, then we and others can decide on own

you conisder Hamas and Hezbollah liberating armies and I call them thugs. You blame it all on Israel and I blame all three .  So what that we have different views as long as we are not armed killing each other.

Despite all that you said and I can say, your comment above is what is important and we both can build it from there.

So yes I "feel better now" and I hope you have no problem with that my friend!

Rosie can explain better than me!