Like davidminzer, I’m Jewish and descendant of holocaust survivors. Moreover, I’ve been a Zionist all of my life. I went to a Zionist school, I was active in Zionist youth groups. I’ve always been a fervent supporter of Israel as a refuge for Jews around the world who seek a place to exercise their traditions and embrace their identity in peace. I sang the Israeli anthem in the train rails of Aushwitz-Birkenau and I pledged to fight every day of my life to make sure the savage crimes that had taken place there would never happen again. Every year I pledged: Never Again. Remember and Never forget.
Well, I haven’t forgotten. And so to honor that pledge, to honor the memory of my family members who died in those death camps and because “there comes a time when silence is betrayal,” today I finally and publicly end my support for the state of Israel.
ENOUGH. I’m done justifying crimes against humanity by a country that claims to be an illuminated western democracy. I’m done defending a country that is unwilling to grant self-determination to a neighboring people because it won’t let go of a few settlements and divide a city. I’m done tolerating the slaughtering of innocent kids, the murderous and barbaric occupation of an impoverished people, the utter disregard for human life.
Fuck them.If they think their daily peace of mind is worth the lives of hundreds of innocent people, Fuck them. If they think the best way to go right now would be to vote for Natanyahu (who is so far winning in the polls), Fuck them.
If they won’t bat an eye before keeping millions without electricity or water, before bombing civilian neighborhoods at exactly the time when kids are leaving schools, before breaking every standard of international law or moral decency, Fuck them.
It’s time for every true progressive in this country and around the world to do the only thing that our consciences should allow us to do, the only thing that can keep us consistent with our supposed beliefs that human life is precious and that unnecessary violence is always criminal, barbarous and unacceptable. We must demand that Israel stop violence and immediately put an end to its colonialist military occupation of Palestine. And until they do so, we must organize and do everything we can to make sure our money is not financing mass murder and oppression.
Thanks to Ian Warner
I don’t support either side and think all aid should be suspended (except that of the humanitarian variety, i.e. medicines and food).
But, that’s just my opinion.
#94–Beonarri==so do you believe in fairies or that with all aid suspended Israel would continue to exist for how long?
“I don’t support either side but recommend action that would kill one of the sides.” Well done.
Man up. You hate jews.
#88, bobbo:
“Would you go further and say the notion of “a moderate muslim” is lying to the infidel?”
🙂 nice one. Not entirely mandatory. There are moderate muslims, but the trouble is that they are a tiny minority in the muslim world. Almost insignificant.
It’s an interesting question because as a matter of fact, muslims are allowed to do whatever they want to infidels: lie, cheat, steal, kill, enslave… you name it.
But for the sake of discussion, I am saying YES to your question.
#96–Jopa==again we agree. I understand their are reasonable Repuglicans too, but like moderate Muslims, like any larger diverse group, the group is captured by its motivated minority===and thats a “best case” scenario. Fundamentalist Conservative organizations are made up of a majority of Fundies–moderates being the minority. No hope at all.
Do you agree that non-Arab muslims are the ecumenical moderates we hypothesize, or are they just too poor and weak in numbers to exercise their forgotten preferences?
I’m sorry I have more important things to worry about…like the unemployment rate, bail out bonanza, and getting laid. I really don’t see why we are so concerned with a stretch of land smaller than new Jersey.
Oh yeah…its near some oil.
The earth is millions of years old.
Your life will span just a brief piece of history.
Why waste a single day fighting over lines in the sand.
Wake up, look around, and enjoy what nature, not god, has provided for you.
“god”, “homeland”, whatever. Make something of your life…don’t expect god to do it for you.
#16 – I hate to disappoint you princess but you’re not even close… I’m north of you, which is where the little arrow points to when you look at a map. You know, the thing Dora carries in her backpack. And since I never went to school, I thus can’t read or write, so I couldn’t possibly read the New York Times.
Your comments clearly illustrate that your intelligence on this complicated matter is far greater than anyone’s on this posting. I suggest you run for office, I know I’d vote for you. I now bow before you all mightly one whom assumes a 1:100 ratio sounds about right. I wonder what the ratio was that the Germans thought was right? Now go get some beauty sleep princess, you have a big day tomorrow.
#22 – Sorry that I didn’t mention that killing is wrong, I made the assumption that most people understood that. Apparently, it has to be said.
I would think that if the Hamas government was directly responsible for firing them, that maybe they’d be a little more complicated/advanced and have a far greater ability to deliver death rather than the small (yet very significant all the same) numbers to date.
I do think you make a good point and illustrate a flaw in my statement. But if I can alter that into another question… if Hamas was in fact directly responsible and was able to deliver a far deadlier rocket, say something on equal/par with what Israel is using, would Israel unleash even more wrath? What would their next move be? How about if there was WMD’s involved? Eventually, that will happen if this direction continues.
That is one of the questions at hand, and if it can’t be addressed now, when the numbers are relatively low, how can it be addressed in a few years, when the numbers involved are significantly larger?
#93 – Bobbo
>>Zybitch==you post like a litle girl. Lets
>>all hold hands and sing Kumbaya!
Ho ho! You should see her on her own blog – roaring like a lioness about the “niggers” that stomp each other to death on black Friday.
ROAR!!
#96 – Jopa
>>Not entirely mandatory. There are moderate
>>muslims, but the trouble is that they are a
>>tiny minority in the muslim world. Almost
>>insignificant.
Have you ever actually met any Muslims irl?
All that the Palestinian extremists had to do was abide by the ceasefire, and not begin lobbing missles into civilian areas of Israel, and all the Palestinian citizens had to do was tell their masters who dominate them not to start up another war with Israel, and, instead, concentrate on winning internatinal support for their natural right to self determination and to make Israel look like the bad guy blocking off their access to humanitarian supplies. But, the terrorists who dominate them wanted two things: war with Israel, and civilian Palistinian casualities to show the world how “monsterous” Israel is wnen it retaliates for the hundreds and thousands of missles fired over the past many months into Israel. That is why ithe Palestinian terrorists concentrate their missle launchers near schools, hospitals, etc.
Palestinian terrorists wanted this war. Only blind, stupid, suckers would blame Israel for defending itself.
When will they ever learn?
#101
He does not have any idea what he is talking about, there are more than 1 billion Muslims in the world, imagine if the majority were violent extremists.
By the way, why no one talks about the extremist Jews, who do you think lives in those settlements, carrying weapons and doing what they like while the military and police (usually) supports them?
How typical. It isn’t the average Palestinians firing rockets, it’s the militants in Gaza WHO ARE BEING SUPPORTED BY IRAN AND OTHER EXTREMISTS. Just like Hizbollah to the north. The people starving in Palestinian terror–er, territories are doing so largely because the groups that ‘govern’ them have little interest in providing government services aside or otherwise placing nice. These so-called freedom fighters are nothing but parasites upon their own people, they hide behind them, and unfortunately the only thing Israel can do is try to clear the area of the greater short-term threat. In the near-term Iran will have to be dealt with. Last time (a few years ago), Iran’s proxies created a diversion in Lebanon which Isreal walked right into, gettig the world to concentrate on that instead of Iran’s own destabilizing plans.
The real truth is that Hamas wanted to keep at it, low-level, for as long as possible. Every rocket launched into Israel is a victory, especially if Isreal doesn’t strike back. The overall war to wear down Israel has been going on for decades, their neighbors have never given up on forcing them out. Israel has tried the path of peace with Arafat and his predecessors but each truce is just a space in time for the opposition to replenish weaponry, etc…There will never be peace as long as these groups continue to be funded from the outside, and as long as leaders (both secular and otherwise) in the rest of the Middle East preach hatred.
There is no point in seeking peaceful resolution in Gaza or elsewhere. They may as well bulldoze the areas in question and salt what little arable land is there. Capitulation only breeds contempt and more attacks.
#100–Mustard==I went to Zybitch’s blog. Some good stuff there. Most of her blog starts were rip-offs of Dvorak. I guess thats a compliment?
#103–Bahram==why didn’t Arafat accept the peace plan offered under Clinton? Because the minority/controlling muslim extremists would have killed him if he did.
It matters not what the majority of some group thinks. Its what the majority put up with that defines the group.
You sure seem to let the surrounding Arab nations off the hook for the Palestinians predicament. I’ve seen video clips of Egyptians Soldiers denying Palestinians access to Egypt during yesterday airstrikes into Gaza.
Meanwhile, Israel is still taking in any Jew from anywhere in the world. Must really suck to be a Palestinian== wrong kind of muslim.
#105 – Bobbo
>>Mustard==I went to Zybitch’s blog. Some good
>>stuff there. Most of her blog starts were
>>rip-offs of Dvorak.
Yeah, I noticed that too. I think she took down the post about niggers, niggers stomping niggers (Barbara Streisand parody tune I just made up for the DittoHeads) from her blog. That was a little nasty, even for a she-bitch like Z-bitch.
Just wondering if any of the pro-Israel comments here have anything to do with this: http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050402.html
and Bobbo, as you requested, i start to generate a list of all the baseless claims you have made in this post, but it got so long and tedious already after comment#64 that i gave up.
But it amazing to have an insight on what goes on in your mind, “… People are the same all the world over. Thats why when any group of them declare themselves to be your enemy, you owe them a quick painless as possible DEATH ….” wow, just wow, you seem to be kind of stock in some prehistoric level of development, I was under the impression that we are civilized now, don’t you think you might be better of, investigating the reason of some group declaring you the enemy first? or you believe in “shoot first, ask later” method?
Carcarius said,
>> you must realize that the whole point of being jewish is to be God’s chosen people and thus are people on a higher plane of existence than gentiles.
You think that’s the “whole point” of being Jewish?
And you wonder why people might think you’re anti-semitic?
#105
About the peace deal, go do your homework and read this ( http://newleftreview.org/?view=1867) for example.
And again, no matter what sort of justification you have;
*Unnecessary murder of innocents is always wrong.
*Selfish and unjustifiable occupation is always wrong.
*Inaction in the face of massive suffering and injustice is always wrong.
Wait a tick… (both quotes written by fedup)
“Call me all the names you want. Im not a liberal so name calling doesn’t mean shit to me.”
“bahram, I have forgotten more about this issue than what your lesbian history professor at Cal taught you.”
I do believe you just contradicted yourself.
(Or to make it completely clear: If namecalling doesn’t mean shit to you, why are you calling other people names?)
Another problem fueled by religion. The human race is doomed because we keep running over the same old ground and nothing gets accomplished. I for one think that it’s already too late. How many more lives will it take before Israel AND Palestine see they’re fighting over trivial nonsense?
Clearly this is bait. I sincerely doubt any thinking person would take issue with swatting the block bully because he keeps stomping on your kids head.
I find it telling that Egypt, right next door to Gaza, doesn’t let the thugs into Egypt, just as the Israelies don’t let them into Israel. You can be assured, if the bombs were targeting Egypt, Egypt would be taking action against Hamas.
Here’s my recommendation – If you have an issue with the Israeli’s taking action, travel to Israel, spend a night in one of the neighborhoods being targetted by Hamas, and see if your opinion doesn’t change. It will do you good to get out of Cape Code for a weekend. Maybe Caroline Kennedy will join the little trip and develop an opinion about the world as well (instead of looking like an idiot who can’t respond to a simple question).
>> Snick422 said,
>> Another problem fueled by religion.
Yeah, we need some good old fashioned atheists like Stalin and Mao to purge society of religion.
That went well.
#105, bobbo,
#103–Bahram==why didn’t Arafat accept the peace plan offered under Clinton? Because the minority/controlling muslim extremists would have killed him if he did.
No. Because it was a bad plan for the Palestinians. It would have left most of the land and settlements stolen by Israel in Israeli hands. But if he had of sold them out yes, they have assassinated him as they did Rabin.
See the George Mitchell Plan on why this was bad for the Palestinians. Oopps, that would require some researching and maybe a little reading.
*
The problem is that so many Americans don’t give a rat’s ass what happens to Palestinians. They don’t care that Israel has been denying food, medicine, travel, and electricity for years. When that fact is publicized, the right wing nut / evangelical crowd get on their soapbox and loudly claim it is untrue. They put their fingers in their ears and cry nanananana so they won’t hear the truth.
Those rockets being fired by the Palestinians? How about they were being fired at Palestinian land taken over by Jewish terrorists armed with automatic weapons. Illegal settlements that the Jewish terrorists refuse to leave and the Israeli soldiers won’t budge.
There is only one reason this is happening now. Because Bush wants to see some more blood sport before he leaves office. In another three weeks, Israel wouldn’t dare try this.
Honestly, cheering for the bombing of hundreds of innocent lives? You people are sick. No wonder America has such a low standing in the world of public opinion.
Today, I pledge my support for the truth about Zionism according to Stephen Sizer:
Bible Answer Man program 15 August 2006.
Questions and Answers program 16 August 2006.
Greg Allen,that is stupid. To say that their atheism was the causation of, or even in strong relation to their corruption is rubbish
# 78 Steve said, in part:
“It’s easy for Israel to do the big splash punishment routine to make the voters feel compensated for the nagging fear that someone is always trying to kill them. But I wonder if they truly believe that killing innocent people in large disproportionate numbers will ever have a positive result.”
Hey, look where it got _them_ — they got their own country!
I suppose at some point, Israel will have killed, say, six million Palestinians, so the U.N. will have to step in and give them _their_ own country. Then the displaced former residents of _that_ country can rebel against the Palestinians, and so on…
It’s as old as the Old Testament. It’s the _real_ story of David and Goliath:
This little shrimp David kept skinning pebbles at the big jock Goliath with his slingshot until finally Goliath had had enough and stomped the crap out of the conniving David. Everybody (with David’s help) was thinking “Hey, pick on someone your own size!” So then David became king of Israel and _then_ boy howdy, did he ever kick Goliath’s butt.
The Palestinians are making a big play to displace the Jews as the Worst Victims in the World, and World Champion Martyrs.
Could Carl Rove himself come up with a better strategy?
Hamas is firing rockets because Israel has placed the entire 1.5 million residents under a blockage, essentially starving them. It is a form of collective punishment that is a war crime.
Additionally, Israel has been building settlements for 40 years in the territory they have occupied. Forty years is a long time. They need to either incorporate these people into the country and make it a single nation of give the people self rule.
Finally, Israel is doing all this destruction with US dollars and US weapons. The US will become a target of this and so when the next terrorist act happens don’t say it was because they ‘hated our freedom’.
The US will be a less free and less safe society because of Israel’s action and the actions of her US supporters.
To the guy who posted from “bombed Israel”
Oh poor little you. Those 1 or 2 silly little home-made rockets by hamas that most of the time hit nothing.
Compared to Israel’s war-machinery those are peanuts.
1 Israeli dead in the past months justify 350+ mostly innocent deaths and thousands of injured (number most likely to exceed much higher in the next days)
I don’t support Hamas firing rockets into surrounding Israel but what would you do if you were supressed over the year so much?
http://www.sott.net/image/image/9591/israel-palestine_map.jpg
Two years ago Israel bombed Lebanon into oblivion and stone-age because of some Hezbollah rockets coming from there. How can you justify complete destruction of a country and innocent people because of that?
And clearly neither the USA, UK nor Israel are interested in middle-east peace. Why?
Because those 3 countries possess some of the biggest military industrial complex of all time and war and defense is the biggest money and business in the world!
They want wars continuing there. That’s why Bush ignited “terrorism” up to more than 1000% in the past 8 years and made this world a hell-hole, much unsafer and triggered a world financial crisis with so much going into debt because of the Iraq/ Afghanistan fiasco.
They rather destroy the rest of the world if they can keep their buddies in the military industrial complex, defense, secret-service and oil busy & rich.
War is business. Or War is Peace.
Now turn on your CNN or FOX news for some more propaganda.
#113, Greg Allen
Yes, atheism was the sole cause of their ruthless, power hungry, paranoid ways. Not.
There is not a single shred of evidence to suggest that they would have acted any differently if they were religious.
“today I finally and publicly end my support for the state of Israel.”
Proving what exactly? That a leftist ally is no ally at all?
Do you propose, sir, that any nation in the world would or should tolerate the indiscriminate shelling of its civilian population by the puppet of an enemy power?
Here’s how I see it. Israel abandoned gaza, hamas took power. The border between gaza and egypt is no longer patrolled by israel. Hamas could have seized the opportunity to build diplomatic bridges between nations but instead decided to lob rockets into israel. Gaza needs support, but the behavior of Hamas is exactly why nobody helps them. The sunnis distrust hamas because it gets aid from iran, egypt distrusts hamas because it is a destabilizing force on its border. The arab league turns its back on its fellow arabs in need all the time for any reason, so extremism doesn’t sit well with them. Hamas needs to ditch the black hoods, stop waving green flags, stop having mass hate rallys, and instead try GOVERNING.
I wounder if he read this story
http://tinyurl.com/735brb
nah. probably not.