So who's the terrorist again?

[davereid]

sure they happened but the western media controlled by capitalists with major interests in the ME have convinced little minds that all were the fault of the Arabs and other peoples of the region...

Arabs declared war, and went to war first every time. Its not propaganda, its history.

without yank support, israel would have fallen in no time at all. Why is that Yank support there at all? Yank leaders do nothing for humanitarian reasons, it's all for economic or political gain.
If Yanks has militarised NZ to the tune of close to $100 billion, we too would be a nuclear state with more power than any nation in our region.
Of course the Yanks add together all money given to Israel (including never pay back loans) and call it 'aid'.

Nope. Lets just look at the facts again, as inconvenient as you may find them.

1948 Israel formed.
1948 Invaded by Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq - who lost.
The Arabs were well armed. The Brits had sold them spitfires, and the balance of the British war equipment used in the middle east.

They didnt sell anything to Israel.

In fact the US and the Brits embargoed aircraft and war equipment sales to Israel. Hardly sounds like "support".

1949-1950 Jordan annexed what became known as the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and Egypt took control of the Gaza Strip.
Israel still embargoed by US and Brits.

1950-1956 continuous war with Egyptian fedayeen from Gaza strip
Israel still embargoed by US and Brits.

1948-1952 In Libya, Jews were deprived citizenship, and in Iraq, their property was seized.
Israel still embargoed by US and Brits.

1956, Egypt, in an act of war, closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, and blockaded the Gulf of Aqaba, in contravention of the Constantinople Convention. Israel responded on October 29, 1956, by invading the Sinai Peninsula with British and French support. During the Suez Canal Crisis, Israel captured the Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula.

Yep, before this event, and after, the US and Britisn stopped arms sales to Israel.

1967, Egypt deployed 100,000 soldiers in the Sinai Peninsula. It again closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, returning the region to the way it was in 1956 when Israel was blockaded.

1967, Arab leaders met in Khartoum in response to the war, to discuss the Arab position toward Israel. They reached consensus that there should be:
No recognition of the State of Israel.
No peace with Israel.
No negotiations with Israel.


1967, Jordan entered into the mutual defense pact between Egypt and Syria intending to destroy Israel. The Israeli Air Force (IAF) destroyed most of the surprised Egyptian Air Force, then turned east to pulverize the Jordanian, Syrian and Iraqi air forces. At the war's end, Israel had gained control of the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights.

Israel still couldnt reliably buy US or British equipment. And the French, who had been paid for Mirage jets and patrol boats kept the money, but never delivered the kit. Hardly sounds like support

1969, Egypt initiated the War of Attrition, with the goal of exhausting Israel into surrendering the Sinai Peninsula.

1973, Syria and Egypt attacked Israel on Yom Kippur, initially overwhelming the surprised Israeli military.

When Israel had turned the tide of war The United States,secured a ceasefire on October 25


Doesnt sound much like yank, or even western support to me !

[Jez]

Forest;

yes, but given the rise in oil prices and the massive profit they're making, it seems they really don't give a damn about the shit hitting the fan: control of energy is their ace

after all, the poor and middle class do the dying for the rich not the reverse.

the only limit to their power is their fear the populace will overthrow them.
at the moment it's hard to see that happening; big brother, well constructed fear, a highly reactive military and govt, all backed by trillions of big business dollars make it pretty hard for ordinary people to organise any credible uprising.

you referring to Iran or the USA there?

[Jez]

Nope. Lets just look at the facts again, as inconvenient as you may find them.

1948 Israel formed.

1948 Everything turns to custard in the middle east ...

seems to me to be a correlation between the forming of Israel and the decline in stability within that region ...

[Street Gerbil]

1948 Everything turns to custard in the middle east ...

seems to me to be a correlation between the forming of Israel and the decline in stability within that region ...

Except you are confusing cause and effect. The region started deteriorating a long time before that (look up 1929 massacre for example). In 1948 brits decided that the mandate territory is becoming too hot for their comfort and pulled out, which, among other things, led to establishment of the Jewish state.

[Biggles41]

Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to
whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is
indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood,
just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have
reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the
mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the
rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear
and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto
the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have
done. And I am Caesar. " ~ Julius Caesar"

[Sanx]

Ladies and gentlemen,

Click on the User CP link at the top of the page. When the control panel appears, click on Edit Ignore List in the left-hand menu.

Then, type in the first few letter of iiimbecile's name (hint: it's not spelled delusional fuckwit), and then click Okay.

Once done, you'll never have to read the torrents of textual effluent he produces on a regular basis. I think he's like a small child whose mother doesn't love him - he feeds on attention. If you deprive him of that attention, he might just go away and find some other unsuspecting bunch to dribble on.

So, try adding him to your ignore list. It's cathartic.

[Flatcap]

Ladies and gentlemen,

Click on the User CP link at the top of the page. When the control panel appears, click on Edit Ignore List in the left-hand menu.

Then, type in the first few letter of iiimbecile's name (hint: it's not spelled delusional fuckwit), and then click Okay.

Once done, you'll never have to read the torrents of textual effluent he produces on a regular basis. I think he's like a small child whose mother doesn't love him - he feeds on attention. If you deprive him of that attention, he might just go away and find some other unsuspecting bunch to dribble on.

So, try adding him to your ignore list. It's cathartic.

Why would you do that? III's posts are the written equivalent of slapstick.

I have this image in my head of him running in circles shrieking "The Capitalists are coming!, THE CAPITALISTS ARE COMING!!!"

[Jez]

Except you are confusing cause and effect. The region started deteriorating a long time before that (look up 1929 massacre for example). In 1948 brits decided that the mandate territory is becoming too hot for their comfort and pulled out, which, among other things, led to establishment of the Jewish state.

So a de-stabilising region was given a focal point for their - struggling to find the right word here - need for blood? I don't think the Israeli state are really the victims they claim to be. Their policies since 1948 have more than likely antagonised the surrounding states rather than pacifing the situation.

Their effective control and persecution of the Palestinian people is the most noticable reason for the attacks they have faced from many quarters in the last 3 decades. There are two labels minorities or the poor receive when they decide to stand-up and fight back, terrorists or revolutionaries, it all depends what side of the fence you sit on.

Che Guevara is possibly one of the most famous modern revolutionaries due to his assistance of Fidel Castro in the Cuban Revolution, yet the US (who were at the time backing the Batista dictatorship) labelled him a terrorist because he attempting to overthrow their regime.

So back to the OP original statement "So who's the terrorist again?" - it all depends which side you want to win.

[SPman]

you referring to Iran or the USA there?

Both, I'd say! Ahmadinejad and his Guard are loonies, just like the US heirachy.
I'd trust neither as far as I could spit!

[Street Gerbil]

So a de-stabilising region was given a focal point for their - struggling to find the right word here - need for blood? I don't think the Israeli state are really the victims they claim to be. Their policies since 1948 have more than likely antagonised the surrounding states rather than pacifing the situation.

You are right. Cemeteries rarely breach peace and Israel has done very little in the "roll over and play dead" department. Or as someone expressed it rather colorfully, "If Arab countries will lay down their arms, there will be no more war. If Israel is to lay down its arms, there will be no more Israel".

Their effective control and persecution of the Palestinian people is the most noticable reason

Yes, fetching Arafart from Tunisia and forcing him upon PA Arabs was cruel and unusual punishment.

So back to the OP original statement "So who's the terrorist again?" - it all depends which side you want to win.

No, that depends solely on which side chooses to employ terrorism as a part of their military strategy.

[SPman]

No, that depends solely on which side chooses to employ terrorism as a part of their military strategy.

They all employ, what is loosely referred to as Terrorism as part of their military strategy!
"Two weeks ago, I presented a young Palestinian, Mohammed Omer, with the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism. Awarded in memory of the great American war correspondent, the prize goes to journalists who expose establishment propaganda, or “official drivel”, as Martha called it. Mohammed shares the prize of £5,000 with the fine war reporter Dahr Jamail. At 24, Mohammed is the youngest ever winner. His citation reads: “Every day, he reports from a war zone, where he is also a prisoner. His homeland, Gaza, is surrounded, starved, attacked, forgotten. He is a profoundly humane witness to one of the great injustices of our time. He is the voice of the voiceless.” The eldest of eight children, Mohammed has seen most of his siblings killed or wounded or maimed. An Israeli bulldozer crushed his home while the family were inside, seriously injuring his mother. And yet, says a former Dutch ambassador, Jan Wijenberg, “he is a moderating voice, urging Palestinian youth not to court hatred but seek peace with Israel.”
Getting Mohammed to London to receive his prize was a major diplomatic operation. Israel has perfidious control over Gaza’s borders, and only with a Dutch embassy escort was he allowed out. Last Thursday, on his return journey, he was met at the Allenby Bridge crossing from Jordan by a Dutch official, who waited outside the Israeli building, unaware that Mohammed had been seized by Shin Bet, Israel’s infamous security organisation. Mohammed was told to turn off his cell phone and remove the battery. He asked if he could call his Dutch embassy escort and was told forcefully he could not. A man referred to as Avi stood over his luggage, picking through his documents. “Where’s the money?” he demanded. Mohammed produced some US dollars.
“Where’s is the English pound you have?”
“I realised,” said Mohammed, “he was after the award stipend for the Martha Gellhorn Prize. I told him I didn’t have it with me. ‘You are lying’, he said. I was now surrounded by eight Shin Bet officers, all armed. The man called Avi ordered me to take off my clothes. I had already been through an x-ray machine. I stripped down to my underwear and was told to take off everything. When I refused, Avi put his hand on his gun. I began to cry: ‘Why are you treating me this way? I am human being’. He said, ‘This is nothing compared with what you will see now’. He took his gun out, pressing it to my head and with his full body weight pinning me on my side, he forcibly removed my underwear. He then made me do a concocted sort of dance. Another man, who was laughing, said, ‘Why are you bringing perfumes?’ I replied, ‘They are gifts for the people I love’. He said, ‘Oh, do you have love in your culture?’
“As they ridiculed me, they took delight most in mocking letters I had received from readers in England. I had now been without food and water and the toilet for twelve hours, and having been made to stand, my legs buckled. I vomited and passed out. All I remember is one of them gouging, scraping and clawing with his nails at the tender flesh beneath my eyes. He scooped my head and dug his fingers in near the auditory nerves between my head and eardrum. The pain became sharper as he dug in two fingers at a time. Another man had his combat boot on my neck, pressing into the hard floor. I lay there for over an hour. The room became a menagerie of pain, sound and terror.”
An ambulance was called and told to take Mohammed to a hospital, but only after he had signed a statement indemnifying the Israelis from his suffering in their custody. The Palestinian medic refused, courageously, and said he would contact the Dutch embassy escort. Alarmed, the Israelis let the ambulance go. The Israeli line, as reported by Reuters, is familiar; it is that Mohammed was “suspected” of smuggling and “lost his balance” during a “fair” interrogation.
Israeli human rights groups have documented the routine torture of Palestinians by Shin Bet agents with “beatings, painful binding, back bending, body stretching and prolonged sleep deprivation”. Amnesty has long reported the widespread use of torture by Israel, whose victims emerge as mere shadows of their former selves. Some never return. Israel is high in an international league table for its intimidation and murder of journalists, especially Palestinian journalists who receive barely a fraction of the kind of coverage given to the hostage-taking of the BBC’s Alan Johnston.
The Dutch government says it is shocked by Mohammed Omer’s treatment. Former ambassador Jan Wijenberg said, “This is by no means an isolated incident, but part of a long term strategy to demolish Palestinian social, economic and cultural life... I am aware of the possibility that Mohammed Omer might be murdered by Israeli snipers or bomb attack in the near future.”
While Mohammed was receiving his prize in London, the new Israeli ambassador to Britain, Ron Proser, was publicly complaining that many Britons no longer appreciated the uniqueness of Israel’s democracy. Perhaps they do now."

[Street Gerbil]

They all employ, what is loosely referred to as Terrorism as part of their military strategy!
"[I]Two weeks ago, I presented a young Palestinian, Mohammed Omer, with the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism.

Yawn. Google "Muhammed al-Durrah". Google "Jeningrad". Google "fauxtography". Google "green helmet guy". Google "red cross ambulance incident". Sorry, I guess excessive wolfcrying has left me a bit sceptical.

[pete376403]

Ladies and gentlemen,

Click on the User CP link at the top of the page. When the control panel appears, click on Edit Ignore List in the left-hand menu.

Then, type in the first few letter of iiimbecile's name (hint: it's not spelled delusional fuckwit), and then click Okay.

Once done, you'll never have to read the torrents of textual effluent he produces on a regular basis. I think he's like a small child whose mother doesn't love him - he feeds on attention. If you deprive him of that attention, he might just go away and find some other unsuspecting bunch to dribble on.

So, try adding him to your ignore list. It's cathartic.

er, if you're ignoring III, how come you're posting on this thread? You shouldn't even be aware of it.

[Jez]

"If Arab countries will lay down their arms, there will be no more war. If Israel is to lay down its arms, there will be no more Israel".

yet if they ALL laid down their arms there would be peace ... i am by no means suggesting that the arabs are innocents in this, but i am very tired of israels continual "we are the victim here" line.

Israelis arent starving, they arent getting their houses bulldozed, they arent being cut off from family by walls, they arent getting stopped from international travel (or made to jump thru hoops to do so as illustrated above let alone what happens when they get back).

but i guess starvation doesnt count as terrorism
i guess bulldozing family homes doesnt count as terrorism either
illegal detention and "interrorgation" surely wouldn't be classed as terror
building a giant wall and controlling freedom of movement
shooting at crowds of youths with high velocity firearms for throwing stones at tanks? ... well i guess a stone could cause a bruise, that deserves to be shot in the head i guess
helicopter strikes causing considerable "collateral" damage/deaths ...

yes they do justify all this by the occasional suicide bombing, or poorly directed rocket attack ... so surely their replies are not terroristic ...

[mstriumph]

If you had followed the thread you would have seen that I was responding to someone elses post and used the terminology that they did. I do not think of arabs as 'ragheads' and I was purely responding in a language that person would understand e.g., 'ragheads' and not ragheads..................If you look at what I have written elsewhere on this thread you may come to understand why I would not use the term raghead in my everyday writing or spoken language

It is true, neither of us knows the other - and posts on a website are not a reliable remedy to that ...... which is why i told you directly that i found a term you used offensive and, so there could be no misunderstanding, specified what that term is

- on the other hand, from what you say [above] YOU use it as a means of communication [with or without inverted commas] both in your original post and, as a justification for that use, in your response to me

so i say again - to me that term is offensive -
if you really find it offensive too, i wonder that you keep right on repeating it. However, I have registered my protest and you have the right to use whatever terms you choose on here ........ that's freedom of expression ......

while we are on the subject and for what it's worth, i also find phrases like

you might learn something!

offensive in that, to me, they appear arrogant and unhelpful to the discussion ..... but, once again, that's freedom of expression and i respect your right to use whatever expressions you choose

Try reading the whole thread in future before jumping on someone about thier terminology and look at the way something is written

i did - but found it a bit heavy going when you got to the part about "Arabs ....... getting had for assistaing the Brits" and the " Jewsih lobby pressurised the Brits into giving the Jews a honmeland"
.... and lost it entirely when you had Jews moving into "Paletine"and suggesting we "Trisiting the Gaza Strip" ........

perhaps i'm being too picky [spelling isn't my strong point, either]
but it helps to pay attention to these things if you want to avoid being misunderstood...

The arabs did not threaten to push the jews or israleis into the sea, this is what is known as propoganda! You might want to look at the UN meeting at which Yaser Afarat spoke and see what he had to say or try reading some 'non-propoganda' literature about the region, the politics there and the culture.

Are we supposed to infer from this that anything WITNESSED by Arab action since 1946 is 'propaganda' and that every word that proceeds out of the mouth of Mr Afarat ['Afarat'??] is pure and unblemished truth? ...... and, by implication, that the 'non-propaganda' literature you refer to proceeds from similar source? in short, 'jewish = bad, arab = good'??

At the risk of being boring, I'll repeat myself
"there's a lot wrong on both sides..... name-calling and emotive language don't help anything" ........ but i'd defend your right to disagree with that as it's my PERSONAL opinion - and you are entitled to your own ....

And as for name calling you might want to take on all those people who use anti-semetic incorrectly!

nah - idleidolidyll has already done that better than I could .......