I am filled with grief to see today, as I come back from a day of recreation with my family, that Israel has invaded Gaza on the ground:
http://news.antiwar.com/2009/01/03/israeli-troops-invade-gaza-strip/
As I sit here typing this with my 3 year old daughter on my lap late at night, I cannot help but to feel grief for the fathers who will not be able to shield their daughters from Israeli bullets and missiles and bombs. As my sweet little girl puts her arms around my neck and kisses my cheek, I cannot help but to think of the little children of Gaza who’s ears are dulled by the weapons fired around them, who see their fathers and brothers killed, their bodies torn apart by cruel gods of steel. So many people will pass from this world today as a result of this unthinkable act of violence. I pray that even Obama and Bush will be horrified by the volume of blood shed by now and will call on Israel to cease fire. This has got to stop. I know the purpose of my fasting tomorrow. I pray that many will join me in calling upon God to open the eyes of world leaders to exert pressure on Israel to stop their murders.
The Radical Mormon 
Ok, I can see how you’d feel bad for all the Dad’s in Gaza. I’m a Dad too. But why is it you couldn’t give a crap for all the Dad’s on the other side of the green line? 8000 + rockets (bombs or missiles, whatever you want to call them) have rained upon southern Israel since disengagement. How would you have explained that to your kid when tucking her in at night? “Good night sweetie, Daddy will grab you on the way to the bomb shelter if the air raid alarm wakes me up tonight.”?
I get it, you hate Jews. Enough already.
If you’ve been following the conflict for any amount of time, you would be aware of the massive injustice going on over there for many years now. The Israelis are brutally opressing the Palestinians in numerous ways. They have been killing the Palestinians in far greater numbers than they have been killed in. The Israelis occupy Palestinian land, but have subjected them to a miserable existence and the Palestinians are virtual prisoners shoved into a very small portion of their homeland. The Israelis have long stated that it is their intention of pushing the palestinians out of Eretz Israel, to transfer them to other lands. This is being resisted by Palestinians in a very crude manner with homemade rockets which do very little damage to Israel in comparison to the massive damage done for decades to Gaza. The 8000 rockets pales in comparison to the 3 billion dollars sent to Israel each year from the USA, mostly for military purposes. Where Palesinians have homemade rockets, Israel has F-16’s and Apache helicopters and unmanned drones. The Palestinian resistance has a very good arguement for its existence. The motivation of Israel is not self-defense, but expansion of its borders regardless of who lives in the land legally.
Sure, Israel gets 3 bil. Egypt gets 3 bil. How many do the Saudi’s get? What about the UAE? Yemen?
What difference does it make? Israeli’s have been a net contributorz to the western world since it’s inception in sciences, arts and technology.
I can get why Zionist ideology scares the crap out of lesser minds because it promises to take care of Jews above all others, but since Jews make up less than 10% of 1% of worldwide humanity, are you at all surprised? The Balfour Declaration was the 1st opportunity in almost 2000 years for Jews to claim a part of the earth as their own, and your going to blame them for jumping on the opportunity?
Israel didn’t ask it’s neighbors to attack in 1948. They weren’t supposed to win either, but they did. Poor make believe nation of Palestinians lost some ground, oops.
1967, Israel responds to the closing of supply routes and obvious troop build ups on her borders and proceeds to kick serious multiple asses. At the same time, Israel finds itself possesing significantly more territory.
1973 on it’s holiest of holy days (as a Mormon, you should have some appreciation for the seriously sneaky evilness) Israel’s neighbors return the favor. Nonetheless, to no avail, Israel, once again, kicks some asses.
1982, Israel screws up, big time and invades Lebanon to stop the PLO from completely destabelizing. Nice in theory. Didn’t work.
Today we have what we have. Gaza could have been something more than it is, but it’s people and caretakers have not chosen wisely.
Whatever complaints over their status, their Egyptian brothers or their Jordanian brothers are just as culpable for their state of affairs having been administrators for 25 years compared to 36 for Israel. Although in retrospect, Israel did more in 36 years to build up the gaza economy than Egypt ever has.
2005, Israel disengages and physically removes it’s own citizens from their multi-generational homes. Not to mention removing the last vestiges of Jewish history from an area which had a Jewish presence for over 3000 years.
So, what the heck, you are a Pal, the Jews are gone, so what are you going to do now? Oh, ok, let’s start by burning down the greenhouses. Next, let’s vote in the homicidal killers that promise us not a better life, but more dead jews! Horray, let’s watch them take pea-shots for 4 years! What? The dirty jews get mad? They have the temerity to kill a few of our soldiers? More rockets! Now what, they start restricting the sending of money to the killers and supplies to us? How dare they, More Rockets!
Do you see the madness? The sheer lunacy? I understand the loss of innocent life, I really, really do. But I can no longer give a damn for a societal urge to murder their neighbors. I don’t care anymore.
Eretz Israel is a metaphor. Are there some right wing loons? Yes, but they are the minority in a minority. I’ve known many Israeli’s and they all, without a doubt, without a SHRED of doubt, want to move on and live in peace.
Whatever paranoid fantasies you may possess about Jews and the people of Israel, you are wrong, and I feel bad for you.
So, do I know enough background? I apologize for any mispellings.
Jroth,
No sir, that’s not history. I don’t have time to write now, but will get back to you sooner or later.
Actually, you are right, it’s a partial history that doesn’t bother looking at the Oslo accords, the 3 No’s, the Hamas charter, the settlement movement, Arab pogroms, and a variety of human rights abuses committed by both sides. Nonetheless, the Jews of Israel, against all odds, have managed to build a liberalized, secular state committed to growth and being a part of the western world.
History is a moment by moment, day to day catalogue of a myriad of happenings and changes. Israel has shown by it’s actions, militarily or otherwise, that it consistently values human life. How many Arabs have been treated in Israeli hospitals over the last 12 days? How many lives saved? How many Jews treated in Pali clinics/hospitals since 1948? You answer that one, and you’ll get an idea of who is righteous.
Jroth,
You said, “Sure, Israel gets 3 bil. Egypt gets 3 bil. How many do the Saudi’s get? What about the UAE? Yemen?”
That’s a non-starter. Per capita, Israel gets way more aid from the US than any other country in the world. Egypt gets about half of the dollar amount that Israel gets, but Egypt also has 64 million people to Israel’s 7 million. That makes Israel’s aid about 18 times more per capita than Egypts aid from the US. On top of this, the US has given well over 100 billion dollars to Israel since the year 1948. Egypt and Saudi Arabia have nowhere near those numbers. It’s no contest. Total aid to Israel is not limited to the 3 billion dollar number often cited. It is more close to 7 billion dollars. This number does not even count the 3 billion dollars the American taxpayer pays for annual compound interest on the loans taken to give Israel all of this money. Israel gets anywhere from 1/6 to 1/3 of all US dollars devoted to foreign aid. No other country is anywhere close. The USA owns the Israeli military. There should be no argument there.
You also said, “The Balfour Declaration was the 1st opportunity in almost 2000 years for Jews to claim a part of the earth as their own, and your going to blame them for jumping on the opportunity?”
The problem with the Jews was that they jumped on the opportunity and then jumped on a bunch of land that wasn’t included in the original agreement. Additionally, they sought to make their nation into a Jewish nation, which alienated and made the indigenous Arab population into immediate second class citizens. Arabs had legitimate beefs with the Jews at that time. Up till then, the Irgun etc. had been carrying out terrorist attacks against Arabs and had been taking Palestinian land, both paid for and stolen (mostly stolen). As early as 1895, Theodore Herzl, one of the fathers of modern day Zionism, is quoted as follows:
“We must expropriate gently the private property on the
state assigned to us. We shall try to spirit the penniless
population across the border by procuring employment
for it in the transit countries, while denying employment
in our country…the process of expropriation and the
removal of the poor must be carried out discretely and circumspectly”
The aspirations of Zionism have been criminal from the very beginning. David Ben Gurion said in 1948:
“The acceptance of partition does not commit us to
renounce Transjordan… We shall accept a state in the
boundaries fixed today–but the boundaries of the
Zionist aspirations are the concern of the Jewish people
and no external factor will be able to limit them.”
Menachim Begin added:
“[I am] satisfied with part of the country, but on the basis
of the assumption that after we build up a strong force
following the establishment of the state–we will abolish
the partition of the country and we will expand to the whole Land of Israel.”
Eretz Israel. Doesn’t sound like the right wing loonies does it. Instead it is the very founding fathers of Israel who state very clearly from the beginning that their intention was to ignore the UN mandate and steal the land from Palestinian Arabs and expand borders into Syria and Lebanon until biblical Israel was fulfilled. Is it any wonder there was a war in 1948? From late 1947 Jews had driven 300,000 non-jews off of their own land, even before there was a war. By the time the British troops left in May of 1948, the Zionists had already occupied most of the land that wasn’t allotted to them by the UN. By the time the Arab forces intervened on behalf of the Palestinian Arabs, Israel had what peeked at about 115,000 man army while the Arab forces never got above 55,000. You say that they weren’t supposed to win with that sort of advantage?
By the end of 1948 hundreds of Palestinian villages had been not only depopulated, but obliterated so that there could be no question of return by the refugees. There are now 6 million refugees stemming from the 1948 Nakba. Yet, Israel refuses them the right of return despite the fact that their membership at the UN is conditional upon Israel allowing the return of the refugees to their lands within Israel.
I would like to answer the other blatant falsehoods in your superficial and manipulated history of the region, but as you can see, it takes quite a bit of space to even address a few of the falsehoods you propagate. If you wish, I will continue.
Besides working from the top of my head, and not off a well worn copy of “Chomsky for Dummies”, I too will sit back and do my own research which you well know will refute your claims. You know this will happen, because that’s how these dialogues work. You will also not believe me, nor will I believe you. You will take quotes out of context, so will I. You will quote rabid anti-Israeli haters (like you did with Benny Morris), and I’m sure I can do the same vice-versa. We can go on and on.
Sound familiar?
What I’m advocating, and you aren’t, right now, is who is to blame for our current situation. Can’t blame Ben-Gurion, Begin or any other dead leftists (which they we’re, by any standard).
I blame Hamas, a current group dedicated to genocide, which it is more than happy to put in it’s Charter (some would call this the Gaza Constitution) and teach their kids. You blame a current peoples for the last 62 years of their right defend themselves and to simply exist.
You also blame America, for protecting something it believes in (this didn’t happen overnight, mind you, but they did come around in 1973).
Have you ever thought of what you would have done, depending on which side you were born on? Or are your decisions solely based on a desire to feel bad for somebody you think can’t stand up for themselves? In my opinion, Hamas is standing up. But only for themselves. Not for Palestinians.
Once again, I’ll bring up your own Mormonism. As a people, as a culture and religion, you have withstood a lot of difficulties and trials in becoming a positive force. I’m proud to know Mormons. I still find you guys a little weird. Not that my history isn’t–at my High School Grad dinner, I shared a table with a couple of Mormon kids and their parents. My date was wigging out on mushrooms, which she had neglected to inform me of, and my dad spent the dinner trying to buy rounds of wine and champagne for the table. Sorry, that story should have been a sidebar. I meant to draw a parallel between the Mormon aversion to alcohol and my dad’s obliviousness to that aversion.
What I was trying to reference as the trials of Mormonism was the exclusion of blacks post Joseph Smith until 1978 (excluding some of the more fundamentalist off-shoots of course. Not that we should give them too much heed for their “settler-ish” ways).
Oh, one more thing, about that “right of return” thing.
Currently, 1.4 million Arabs live in Israel. Do the math. Explain to me how Israel can conceivably absorb the current 6 million “refuges”. Don’t you just love that number?
Personally, I think Israel fulfilled it’s obligation to “return” when it absorbed the 1 million Jews cast out from Arab lands. Tit for Tat, n’est pas?
Jroth,
You said, “I too will sit back and do my own research which you well know will refute your claims.”
Nothing I have seen yet has refuted the actual history of the region. Give it the old college try if you like though.
“You will take quotes out of context.”
Are you predicting the future or do you have a specific example of a quote I’ve taken out of context.
” You will quote rabid anti-Israeli haters (like you did with Benny Morris)…”
A rabid anti-Israeli hater? Does that mean he hates anti-Israelis or Jews? Any way, he is not considered an “Israeli hater” any more. Here from the man’s own lips: Morris calls the Israel-Palestinian conflict a facet of a global clash of civilizations between Islamic fundamentalism and the Western World, saying that “There is a deep problem in Islam. It’s a world whose values are different. A world in which human life doesn’t have the same value as it does in the West, in which freedom, democracy, openness and creativity are alien.[2] He also says “Revenge plays a central part in the Arab tribal culture. Therefore, the people we are fighting and the society that sends them have no moral inhibitions.”[2]
When a Haaretz interviewer called the 1948 Palestinian exodus “ethnic cleansing,” Morris said, “[t]here are circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing. I know that this term is completely negative in the discourse of the 21st century, but when the choice is between ethnic cleansing and genocide—the annihilation of your people—I prefer ethnic cleansing.” Morris has also written in the Irish Times in February 21, 2008, that “There was no Zionist ‘plan’ or blanket policy of evicting the Arab population, or of ‘ethnic cleansing'” and that “the demonisation of Israel is largely based on lies — much as the demonisation of the Jews during the past 2,000 years has been based on lies. And there is a connection between the two.”[24] Morris has criticized Ben-Gurion for not carrying out such a plan, saying “In the end, he faltered… If he had carried out a full expulsion – rather than a partial one – he would have stabilized the State of Israel for generations.”
The man is as rabid a zionist as they come.
“What I’m advocating, and you aren’t, right now, is who is to blame for our current situation.”
Somehow you can separate history from the current situation and say that the historic wrongs of Israel have nothing to do with the current situation. They have much to do with the current situation, but lets look at what brought the current situation on as you apparently have no idea at all.
We all hear about the truce violations by Hamas. That is what you blame for the current massacre. However, this doesn’t bear out. Your theory is that Hamas is suicidal and wants to destroy Israel and that is the end of the story. They have no good reason to be fighting Israel, they just want to wipe them off the map. This is plainly untrue. Look at how the truce went from the beginning. The truce began 6/19/08. Almost immediately, Israel began to violate the truce. The UN reports that of the first 8 violations of the truce, 7 of them were from the Israeli side. Here is a list of what happened:
“The UN sources said that most of the violations were carried by Israel and that these violations originated from an incident when the army opened fire at Palestinian farmers attempting to reach their lands close to the border fence.
The sources added that on June 20 at 10:05, Israeli soldiers opened fire at farmers for ten minutes in an attempt to push them away from their lands; no injuries were reported. On the same day, at 19:20, soldiers carried a similar violation by firing at farmers attempting to reach their lands. The shooting lasted for five minutes, no injuries were reported.
Moreover, soldiers opened fire at Palestinian fishermen near Beit Lahia, in the northern part of the Gaza Strip.
During the early morning hours of June 21, soldiers opened fire at the same area causing no damages or injuries.
On the same day, soldiers fired at farmers in an area in Al Maghazi refugee camp, south of Gaza city; no injuries were reported.
During the morning hours of June 23, soldiers opened fire at Palestinian loggers near Beit Lahia, and seriously wounded a 68-year old man who identified as Jamil Al Ghoul.”
On July 10, 2008, Israel shot dead an unarmed Palestinian man.
Also, a big provocation on the Israeli side, was the murder of two Islamic Jihad resistance fighters in Jenin, a town in the West Bank, which precipitated rockets fired from Islamic Jihad in response.
All thru this time, Hamas had kept its part of the deal, not firing any rockets into Israel. Hamas also swore it would imprison anyone found firing rockets into Israel during the truce. Of course this broke down in November after Hamas men were killed by the IDF and Hamas again began firing rockets into Israel.
We all know about the violations of Hamas of this truce. It is what is advertised by the pro-Zionist media everywhere. What is not advertised is what I have listed above and the almost daily violations by Israel shooting at unarmed Palestinian fishermen. The blockade was also a huge provocation. Literally hundreds of critically ill Palestinians died because they were denied access to Israeli hospitals due to the blockade. Food deliveries were way down. Harrassment of Palestinians by soldiers and settlers continued incessantly. Israel never meant for the truce to hold up in the first place.
Sure there are Hamas violations of the truce. However, it should be noted that these violations were largely in response to Israeli violations and that the preponderance of blame for the truce falling apart lies in the Israeli court.
I don’t quite understand what point you are trying to make by bringing up the Mormon treatment of Blacks until 1978.
Jroth,
Oh, and one more thing:
You said: “Currently, 1.4 million Arabs live in Israel. Do the math. Explain to me how Israel can conceivably absorb the current 6 million “refuges”. Don’t you just love that number?”
I give you this:
“The right of refugees to return is not only sacred and
legal but also possible. Studies show that 80 percent
of Israelis live in 15 percent of the land and that the
remaining 20 percent live on 85 percent of the land that
belongs to the refugees.
By contrast, more than 6,000 refugees live per square
kilometer in the Gaza Strip, while over the barbed wire
their lands are practically empty. 97 percent of the
refugee population currently lives within 100 km of their
homes, 50 percent live within 40 km, while many live
within sight of their homes.
Israel rejects the return of the refugees because it
would change what it calls the “Jewish character” of the
state. The Jewish character is based on a permanent
Jewish majority, special privileges for Jewish citizens,
residents and non-residents, set forth in Israel’s laws,
and permanent Jewish control of land and property
confiscated from the refugees.”