war in Gaza

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Better a darling in the Arab street than a rocket in my living room.

The problem is that now Israel is going to get both.

[Anonymous]

Political credibility. Negotiating with Hamas doesn't give them political credibility at ALL, does it? Treat them like a political equal on the world stage really DAMAGES their credibility, doesn't it? Insane logic you employ.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Political credibility. Negotiating with Hamas doesn't give them political credibility at ALL, does it? Treat them like a political equal on the world stage really DAMAGES their credibility, doesn't it? Insane logic you employ.

Okay, don't negotiate with Hamas, I don't care, but don't go in bombing Gazans like they're fish in a barrel.

I don't know why Israel didn't learn from their ill-fated invasion of Lebanon. The Lebanese invasion just made Hezbollah stronger, the Lebanese government weaker, and it never freed those Israeli soldiers Hezbollah had kidnapped. Hezbollah became the heroes of the Arab street and it appears that Hamas thinks they're going to follow along in the same story line.

Hmmmm.....maybe things would have been better for everyone if Israel hadn't invaded Lebanon to begin with!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:"While much attention has been focused on alleged Israeli human rights violations in the volatile West Bank and Gaza, the popular press has chosen to virtually ignore violations of fundamental human rights that take place daily in almost every Arab country. According to annual reports compiled by the State Department, most of the Arab states are ruled by oppressive, dictatorial regimes, which deny their citizens basic freedoms of political expression, speech, press and due process. The Arab Human Development Report published by a group of Arab researchers from the UN Development Program concluded that out of the seven regions of the world, Arab countries had the lowest freedom score. They also had the lowest ranking for "voice and accountability," a measure of various aspects of the political process, civil liberties, political rights and independence of the media. In most Arab countries, the Shari'a, or Islamic law, defines the rules of traditional social behavior. Under the law, women are accorded a role inferior to that of men, and are therefore discriminated against with regard to personal rights and freedoms. Wife-beating is a relatively common practice in Arab countries, and abused women have little recourse. As the State Department has noted regarding Jordan (and most of the Arab world): "Wife beating is technically grounds for divorce, but the husband may seek to demonstrate that he has authority from the Koran to correct an irreligious or disobedient wife by striking her."


Guess Im a bigot for thinking that way of life is backwards.

Ah, pulled that straight from Mitchell Bard, I see. And he's the most knowledgeable, informed, fair-minded Middle East source you and your mad googling skills could come up with?

"Mitchell Bard is the Executive Director of the nonprofit American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise (AICE) and a foreign policy analyst who lectures frequently on U.S.-Middle East policy. Dr. Bard is also the director of the Jewish Virtual Library, the world’s most comprehensive online encyclopedia of Jewish history and culture.

For three years he was the editor of the Near East Report, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's (AIPAC) weekly newsletter on U.S. Middle East policy.

Prior to working at AIPAC, Dr. Bard served as a senior analyst in the polling division of the 1988 Bush campaign."


and you're point would be?

Sigh. Please stop being so disingenuous, he was and is clearly aligned with AIPAC, who are not known, even in the wildest of fantasies, to provide realistic and unbiased information on anything Arab or Muslim. No one in a million years would ever take seriously a similar ridiculous screed from a similarly highly biased source about Israel. UGH. I've read this man's ridiculous, offensive, borderline hate-filled tripe on Huffington Post.

Stop wasting my time with straw men. And please consult a spell-checker.

Ha-So, you're actually going to say that what I posted (yes, what this man you hate said) is false? Are you seriously going to say that the above mentioned is wrong? If so, Id really like to see some proof that Arabs are able to speak their minds freely and women are not abused. Please, show me some information on that.

I'm Arab. I'm a woman. I grew up in the middle east. I have never been abused, and have always spoken my mind. I am a physician, so obviously education was provided as well.

I am a doctor, and I look at this site daily, AT work, a nice break from the daily grind!


Nice try. Everyone knows Physicians don't surf the internets during the day.

You assume I'm currently practicing and not on maternity leave.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How does the violation of human rights in Arab states undermine the allegations of racism against Israel?

Additionally over the years Israeli society has been dominated by light-skinned Jews of European origin. I don't think Jews from Ethiopia get equal treatment there and certainly there was much discrimination over the years against Jews of Middle Eastern origin. Israel, like every country, has a dominant group which wants to stay in power and that group has been the Ashkenazi Jews from Europe.

But again I don't get how the fact that there are serious human rights violations in other Middle Eastern countries undermines the fact that there is racism in Israel?

Agree, and Israel had little trouble having good diplomatic relations with South Africa in the 80's.
As an African American, I have been repeatedly insulted by Jewish people, WRT race. Yes, these are usually not Israeli's, but the sentiment is there. The many comments about Blacks having lower IQ's, my son's "Brillo" head, and so on.

[Anonymous]

Okay, let me break it down for you since you are clearly confused.

I'm not the poster you are addressing, but why are you talking to us like we are toddlers?

1) Poster said Arabs way of life was backwards and messed up.

Other posters (including myself) said that you can't make that generalization about the Arab world. There are SOME parts of SOME cultures - including ours, mind you - that I don't agree with in human rights terms. But as I said earlier, you can't take an extreme example of one religion/culture and generalize that to every person that subscribes to said religion/culture. I also think there are some practices in the Muslim world that I would prefer to ours. Surely you aren't going to argue the point, for example, that every Arab muslim is a wife-beater?

2) Poster was called a bigot by another poster.

It basically IS bigotry to across-the-board condemn an entire ethnicity as "backwards and messed up".

3) Poster provided proof that the Arab way of life was mostly backwards. Poster provided information from a pro-Israel site.
4) You said the author of that site was biased and way off. Posted that he worked for the bush admin. therefore having no validiaty?

I think that the facts have validity, but the author's conclusions were pretty subjective and pretty illogical in the way that it seemed to justify Israeli human rights violations in the Palestinian territories on the basis of Palestinians being backwards. But, in my view, that is exactly the way Palestinians are treated by some, eg. like dogs.

5) Poster said that it didn't matter where that information came from, that the basis of the article was pretty much true. NOT THAT IT WAS OKAY TO KILL INNOCENTS!!!!
6) Poster is still waiting for facts that prove that article wrong.

Again, I think it is entirely possible to agree with the facts and not agree with the conclusions of that article on the basis of the conclusions being too generalized.


1, 2, 3...Go...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

1) Poster said Arabs way of life was backwards and messed up.

Poster pretty clearly has never been to Beirut (between wars, of course!) - a lovely city with a low crime rate and a good university. If that's backwards, give me more of it.

[Anonymous]

Poster pretty clearly has never been to Beirut (between wars, of course!) - a lovely city with a low crime rate and a good university. If that's backwards, give me more of it.

And a pretty rockin' night life scene, from what I hear!

[Anonymous]

1) Poster said Arabs way of life was backwards and messed up.
2) Poster was called a bigot by another poster.
3) Poster provided proof that the Arab way of life was mostly backwards. Poster provided information from a pro-Israel site.
4) You said the author of that site was biased and way off. Posted that he worked for the bush admin. therefore having no validiaty?
5) Poster said that it didn't matter where that information came from, that the basis of the article was pretty much true. NOT THAT IT WAS OKAY TO KILL INNOCENTS!!!!
6) Poster is still waiting for facts that prove that article wrong.

Poster says unless others can prove that Arabs are not backwards barbarians with conclusive proof that poster is not a bigot, but rather, correctly making broad generalizations about groups of people based on their ethnicity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

1) Poster said Arabs way of life was backwards and messed up.
2) Poster was called a bigot by another poster.
3) Poster provided proof that the Arab way of life was mostly backwards. Poster provided information from a pro-Israel site.
4) You said the author of that site was biased and way off. Posted that he worked for the bush admin. therefore having no validiaty?
5) Poster said that it didn't matter where that information came from, that the basis of the article was pretty much true. NOT THAT IT WAS OKAY TO KILL INNOCENTS!!!!
6) Poster is still waiting for facts that prove that article wrong.

Poster says unless others can prove that Arabs are not backwards barbarians with conclusive proof that poster is not a bigot, but rather, correctly making broad generalizations about groups of people based on their ethnicity.

Re-read posters 6th point.

[Anonymous]

I don't see how it is meaningful to debate which side is less awful.

In this mess, there are millions of Israelis and Palestinians who deserve to live their lives in peace. They are decent people who want to live, marry, have kids, or grow a business, and they are victims of their respective leaderships.

Hamas bears plenty of blame, for their position against Israel and the rocket attacks and how they have conducted themselves in this conflict. And of course, all the people who vote for Hamas bear some of the blame for this mess.

Israel bears plenty of blame, too. Israel has created the conditions that cause desperation in Gaza. I am speaking not just of the immediate situation (blockades, etc.) but of the entire disposition of the Palestinian territories. There is no way for people to live decent lives there with the restrictions imposed on them. And Israel also bears some blame for the rise of Hamas itself, mainly by undermining Fatah, never appreciating the difficult role it played in Palestine.

Some will say that the Palestinians have no choice. But they do. They need to turn to new leadership willing to acknowledge Israel's right to exist and stand down militarily. Negotiations have brought progress before. That all fell apart over the last several years, but negotiations can resume, especially with the right encouragement on our part.

Some say the Israelis have no choice but to defend itself. Yes, but in fact, such a defense have no lasting benefit on its own. Their leaders attack because they can't sit idly by, but which of them actually believes that real good will come of it? None. The only defense is the creation of an economically and politically viable Palestinian state. The reason for this is entirely practical. The Palestinian population in Israel and the territories is growing faster than that of Israeli Jews. Those people are not going away, and the disparity grows every year. The only way to preserve a Jewish state is to have some place the Palestinians can call their own. Otherwise they either look like 1980's South Africa or become a multicultural state.

[Anonymous]

Re-read posters 6th point.

Poster is a bigot.

[Anonymous]

As the old saying goes. Truth is the first casualty.
I do not believe either side is lily white. Just read history and you will see that there has never been a conflict like that.
News media is very biased.
I recommend BBC news.
www.bbc.com/news

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Re-read posters 6th point.

Poster is a bigot.

This poster eats his own boogers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Re-read posters 6th point.

Poster is a bigot.

This poster eats his own boogers.

And you all expect Israelis and Gazans to be mature.