Child Victims of Israeli Aggression

[Anonymous]

Not being a believer in kum ba yah in the real world a change in Israeli policy to Gaza has inherent risks in it. You want them to change those policies with assuming any of the risks and consequences that they do. You aren t even willing to do any thing to change things your own government does if it will cost you any damn thing

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:Oh a circle jerk (oh sorry a protest) I stand totally corrected and put in my place. People who went to the south in the civil rights movement risked something. What did you risk. Nothing that's what

Dude, you are so pissed off you can hardly sit still simply because we post messages in a forum. If we were doing more, I would worry about your health. You could easily suffer heart problems or have a stoke.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the concern re my health. I was worrued about an eye sprain with the rolling I have been doing. But please point out where anything I said was invalid

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the concern re my health. I was worrued about an eye sprain with the rolling I have been doing. But please point out where anything I said was invalid

What is invalid is your assumption that any change in Israel's policy would result in a greater threat to Israel's citizens. Hence, if we are not willing to take a similar risk, we should shut up. But, my view is that policy changes I support would not increase the danger to Israeli citizens. Indeed, I think Israel's current policies increase the longterm threat. Hence, the policies I support would actually be safer for Israel longterm. I think what I am saying is validated by the fact that so many Israelis look at the situation and turn toward even harder line policies. For instance, I think any rational person would conclude that Israel is simply creating increased enmity among the Palestinians. Therefore, some Israelis conclude that the Palestinians should simply be wiped out or transferred to another country. Even in this forum we are seeing calls for Palestinians to move to Jordan. That's a result of the realization that current Israeli policy is guaranteeing Palestinians attacks. When a military policy is resulting in decreased security, I think it is time to change it.

[jsteele]

The US State Department issued unusually harsh language about the latest Israeli attack on an UNRWA school:

https://twitter.com/ZekeJMiller/status/495988680654204928/photo/1

"The United States is appalled by today's disgraceful shelling outside an UNRWA school in Rafah sheltering some 3,000 displaced persons, in which ten more Palestinian civilians were tragically killed,"
...
"The suspicion that militants are operating nearby does not justify strikes that put at risk the lives of so many innocent civilians."

Of course, this doesn't mean we will stop sending the Israelis weapons.

I also see in my Twitter feed that an Israeli general said on Israeli TV that the school was purposefully targeted. But, since TV clip is in Hebrew, I can't confirm myself.

[Anonymous]

The bottom line is this is all a continuation of the 1948 war that Israel did not start and is struggling to find a way to finish. While people decry their violence they could in reality do all those things to Palestine. I hope they don't but lots of people die in wars. There is not a damn thing new under the sun when it comes to that. And further more if Gaza had the whacking stick they would whack too. That to is the nature of war. There are no innocents past the age of 10 or so in any of this. They are all assholes.

Further moreif they did the worst the world would get over it and do business with them. We still do business in the world and we dropped nukes on not one but two civilian cities in Japan. I would hope they will come to a different solution, but don't delude yourself if they wipe every last man woman and child out we will back them. We will back them even if the mideast rises against them.

No protest here is going to make any difference. They are our toe hold in the mid east. We will not give that up. It has nothing to do with Israel and everything to do with China and Russia. Not everyone wants to be friends. Some leaders/nations just want to win. And that is something we can not afford to let them do. Not if people want to live in their McMansions and pretend they are conserving by driving a super cute little Prius to the airport to fly off on their yearly vacation.

We have shown no willingness to put our lifestyle on the line. If everyone here who was decrying the violence moved into a 800 square foot apartment, made their kids walk to the neighborhood school, dropped after school activities, ate a very different diet, stopped taking a vacation etc we would need the mid east less. That would put Israel in a weaker position. No one here is willing to alter their lifestyle to that extent. Until we are willing to get off the oil tit even if it hurts us the mid east will be what it will be.

Until we are willing to take a cold hard look at why we do what we do we will continue to have emotional thrashing without a pragmatic solution.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The bottom line is this is all a continuation of the 1948 war that Israel did not start and is struggling to find a way to finish. While people decry their violence they could in reality do all those things to Palestine. I hope they don't but lots of people die in wars. There is not a damn thing new under the sun when it comes to that. And further more if Gaza had the whacking stick they would whack too. That to is the nature of war. There are no innocents past the age of 10 or so in any of this. They are all assholes.

Further moreif they did the worst the world would get over it and do business with them. We still do business in the world and we dropped nukes on not one but two civilian cities in Japan. I would hope they will come to a different solution, but don't delude yourself if they wipe every last man woman and child out we will back them. We will back them even if the mideast rises against them.

No protest here is going to make any difference. They are our toe hold in the mid east. We will not give that up. It has nothing to do with Israel and everything to do with China and Russia. Not everyone wants to be friends. Some leaders/nations just want to win. And that is something we can not afford to let them do. Not if people want to live in their McMansions and pretend they are conserving by driving a super cute little Prius to the airport to fly off on their yearly vacation.

We have shown no willingness to put our lifestyle on the line. If everyone here who was decrying the violence moved into a 800 square foot apartment, made their kids walk to the neighborhood school, dropped after school activities, ate a very different diet, stopped taking a vacation etc we would need the mid east less. That would put Israel in a weaker position. No one here is willing to alter their lifestyle to that extent. Until we are willing to get off the oil tit even if it hurts us the mid east will be what it will be.

Until we are willing to take a cold hard look at why we do what we do we will continue to have emotional thrashing without a pragmatic solution.

Most of this is incoherent. Israel is not critical to the US now either economically or for military purposes. It is important because of cultural ties and the political sway that AIPAC has on US politics.

When Israel has sent over $100 billion in aid to the US, not vice versa, perhaps then you can opine as to how a change in our relationship will have any bearing on the homes and cars owned by Americans. Until then, it's just another post asking Americans to butt out (but keep writing those big checks) because we don't live in as rough a neighborhood as Israel. But Israel's treatment of the Palestinians is a major reason why that neighborhood is so rough.

[Anonymous]

The hell they aren't. We are dependent on middle eastern oil for the time being. Period. Full stop. If we lose it or a large portion of it abruptly you will live through harder times than you can even imagine. Israel feeds us intelligence, launches attacks like stuxnet, is a physical place we could stage in the mid east without fighting for it. Also if they go off the deep end and nuke Iran it will draw us in(and not on Irans side) tread carefully. The mid east is some about religion/resources on a local level. On the macro level it is Russia, China, and the USA jockeying for control of a dwindling resource. Aipac could vanish into thin air and we would back Israel because no one else that area will ever serve their purpose in the proxy battle. Watch Bibi do what ever he wants. We will make clucking noises and send them more weapons. People will say whatever they want but when you watch what they do you will know the truth of it.