Israel; the other side of the story

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Purple

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I friend of mine just sent me this link

"Horror in Samaria: A terrorist infiltrated the West Bank settlement of Itamar, southeast of Nablus, early Saturday and stabbed five family members to death.


The shocking attack occurred around 1 am as the terrorist entered the family home and murdered three children aged 11, 3, and a baby girl along with their parents. The victims were apparently sleeping as the killer came in."

I'm sure I'll read all about it in the Irish Times tomorrow...
 
This attack is horrific. I see the Pal. Authority has unconditionally condemned it and rightly so. But to refer to it as the other side of the story compares apples & oranges. This was an attack carried out by some Palestinians. Israel's ongoing occupation & attacks on the Palestinians are carried out by the state. Israel claims legitimacy but continues to violate international law. They continue to occupy,expand and settle Palestinian land. They continue to carry out collective punishment and imprisionment of the civilian population. They used illegal weapons against the civilian population when they dropped white phosporous in the horrific attack on Gaza. Not to mention the deliberate embargo preventing medicine & food entering Gaza.

None of Israel's crimes justify the Samarian attack, but it certainly puts it into context. It is one thing for a person or persons to commit a crime. It is quite another thing when a state does it, both in terms of scale and legitimacy. I see from the quoted article that the Palestinians are held accountable en bloc and the settlers are attempting to use it to justifiy the entire settlement project:

,”

The next victims of this attack will not be the settlers, but the entire Palestinan population, and it didn't take long either. Israel has approved 500 new settlement homes following this attack.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/nationa...lements-in-response-to-itamar-attack-1.348864
 
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I posted this to show that the Irish media is not interested in balanced reporting. I hope I'm proven wrong and read about this in todays papers. We,ve been around the block on Israel before.
 
Horrifying story. Sadly with Netinyahu walking away from peace talks to continue settlement building there doesn't seem to much hope for anyone in Palestine/Israel for the foreseeable future.
 
Purple said:
I posted this to show that the Irish media is not interested in balanced reporting. I hope I'm proven wrong and read about this in todays papers. We,ve been around the block on Israel before.
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Balanced reporting?

Lets look at the link you posted for some of that.


  • Five people appear to have been stabbed to death by a person or persons unknown.
  • There is a hole in a nearby fence.
  • Shots were reported.

That's pretty much it so far as reported facts are concerned. And yet, ynetnews.com managed to insert the words "terror" and "terrorist" no less than ten times. The reader comments are enlightening also.
 
My problem with the reporting on this issue is that it seldom looks at the motives of the extremists that carry out the atrocities on both sides. This is a good example; the family was killed in order to enrage the extremists on the Jewish side so that they would expand the settlement process. This makes it harder for the moderates on both sides to some to a peaceful accommodation. Both sides have been doing it since the start of the current process (over 100 years ago).
I am 100% opposed to the settlements. The settlers are religious extremists and no good has ever come from extremism. Those on the extremes of both sides view their perceived enemies as sub-human and justify their actions in the context of a religious struggle.
This incident is just one more in a list of many, just a few more innocent dead to add to the equation that both sides seek to balance in blood.

The author is right; the people who did this are terrorists. What he should point out is that there is no shortage of terrorists on his side as well.

BTW, when it comes to killing children both sides have plenty of blood on their hands;
This "Murder Schoolchildren Palestine"

The Ma'alot Massacre was the first high profile attack by Palestinian militants but hasn't been the last. The IDF has not had a policy of targeting children but when individual soldiers have been murdered by IDF members they have tended to close ranks.
 
Yawn! Israels occupation of Palestine is the same deal as the planters who were set-up in Ulster. They, too, were supported by a militarily superior force in their unjustness and oppression of the sitting owners of the land they decided to annex.

The israelis are reaping what they sowed just as the US reaps what it sows every time some nut-job flies a plane into a building or shoots a wheelchair-bound pensioner on a cruise ship and chucks him overboard.

No real sanity will exist in the middle east, indeed the world generally, until the US changes it's foreign policy and particularly it's support of Israel.. It bugs me that I worry about my kids travelling on romanian passports since this lot (the romanians) decided to field an army in Afghanistan.
 
That’s a very simplistic view and takes no account of history. In fact if you are drawing historic parallels with Ireland then the Palestinians are the planters who drove out the Israelis hundreds of years ago and the Israelis are like the Catholics come good who got their land back.
BTW, the modern conflict between the Jews and Arabs in Palestine dates back over 150 years. The American government didn’t start supporting the Jews ‘till after the second world war. Do you really think that if America walked away things would get better?
 
Its a hideous crime to kill those 3 children. But i wonder how far you would need to go back to find 3 palestinian children murdered.... my guess would be not to long. But its rarely reported these days.
 
changes said:
Its a hideous crime to kill those 3 children. But i wonder how far you would need to go back to find 3 palestinian children murdered.... my guess would be not to long. But its rarely reported these days.
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How far would you have to go back to find three children specifically targeted by the IDF? I don’t know if you’d ever find that. There have certainly been way too many incidents where children have been killed by the IDF but it is also the case that the fundamentalists attacking Israel often do so from positions close to schools etc, using the children as a sort of human shield. These guys are happy to see their own children die as long as it creates the right headlines.
 
You think theres a limit to what the IDF would do?
(theyre probably reading this right now.. id better move out)
 
dockingtrade said:
You think theres a limit to what the IDF would do?
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Yes, of course there is. They are accountable to a government which is accountable to the people. They are also accountable under the law. Even if they were totally unaccountable it makes no tactical sense for them to target children.
That said there are plenty of incidents where IDF soldiers have, at the very least, totally over reacted. In one case a soldier shot a 13 year old girl 17 times
and got away with it.
 

Purple, the notion that the IDF is really accountable in the fullest sense we might understand is questionable. This is the state that exonorated the Shatilla and Sabra massacres in Beruit, the attack on the aid flotilla etc etc ad nausem. They are very good at citing their democratic credentials, but Israel is a racist and fundementally flawed state. Any state based on the premise of a preferred religion cannot be truly impartial or fair. It''s very essence is corrupted by it's view of a certain race and religion as an elect. Can it really view non-jewish people or children in the same lightor as equals? When it imprisons over a million people in Gaza does it really care what happens to them or view them as deserving of as much as its own children ? No, and this is the heart of the issue .Israel as it is constituted is incapable of equality. Thousands, maybe millions of children have been condemned to refugee camps where disease,impresionment, displacement or lack of opportunity condemn them to misery and often into the hands of extremists. Young people, so utterly bereft of all hope, are willing to strap bombs to themselves and die, is Israel not truly responsible, at least in part, for this? Okay ans Israeli soldier didn't put a bullet in their head, but are they any less responsible through mistreatment, injustice and neglect?
 
There are over one million Palestinian citizens of Israel. It is the only country in the Middle East where a Palestinian minority enjoys anything close to equal rights. This shows that the state is not racist, though many of its citizens are.
It should also be pointed out that Israel didn’t and doesn’t imprison anyone in Gaza. It does restrict movement through its border but so does Egypt. Why is it that a fellow Muslim state does this to their Palestinian brothers? Why is it that investment in Gaza by Israel and (gasp!) the USA far exceeds investment by Muslim states?
The situation in Gaza exists historically because of Jordan and Egypt. It continues to be a problem because of Iran and Syria. The last time Israel tried to get out they invested millions putting civil infrastructure in place and training and equipping a police force. The first thing that police force did was use their new guns to attack Israel.

I agree that the Palestinian people of have been treated outrageously. I’d rank it as follows;
Worst; Their own leaders, particularly that murdering terrorist Arafat who stole over a billion dollars from his own people.
Second: Their Arab neighbours who have conspired for over half a century to keep then in a state of powerless poverty and despair.
Third: Extremist Israeli politicians who view the biblical lands of Israel as their religious right (even though Israel was never united under David as the bible suggests).

Israel is a deeply flawed country but it's 100 times better than any of its neighbours. I would take it over any Arab state.
 
Purple said:
That said there are plenty of incidents where IDF soldiers have, at the very least, totally over reacted. In one case a soldier shot a 13 year old girl 17 times
and got away with it.
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I would go as far as to say quite a few of them don't give a damn so long as they are not too blatant and don't end up before their own courts (to be slapped on the wrist of course).
 
changes said:
I would go as far as to say quite a few of them don't give a damn so long as they are not too blatant and don't end up before their own courts (to be slapped on the wrist of course).
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Ye, I agree.
That in no way means that the Palestinian side is any better. In fact they are far worse.
 
Purple said:
There are over one million Palestinian citizens of Israel. It is the only country in the Middle East where a Palestinian minority enjoys anything close to equal rights. This shows that the state is not racist, though many of its citizens are.
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Could one of these palestinians be constitutionally permitted to become President or Prime Minister. Or must they be jewish.
 
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