What's your suggestion to hold Hamas to account for their crimes against Israel?

You've changed the subject .
That's a golden oldie .

In Pakistan war of 1971 about 3 million Muslims were killed;
In Sudan war of 1983 about 1 million Muslims were killed;
In Iraq war of 1988 about 800,000 Muslims were killed;
In Alger war of 1991 about 150,000 Muslims were killed;
In Alger "Arab Spring" of 2011 about 174,000 Muslims were killed;
In Syrian war since 2011 about 250,000 Muslims were killed;
Not one of them were killed by Israel
Now Israel was attacked by Gaza and in the process of defending against that attack 1,900 Gazans were killed. My question to you is this:
Which one is Genocide?

When Ali shows a little concern for the mass slaughter by muslims in Iraq and Syria we will know that he is not just spreading the anti semitic garbage that our 'progressive' media have been duped into reporting.

More apologist rubbish for the "poor Arabs".
One tiny nation, surrounded by literally millions of enemies who have been attacking non-stop for decades, and it's all THEIR fault for defending themselves?
Bash Humbug!
The entire situation was summed up succinctly in two sentences long ago...
"If Palestine were to lay down their guns tomorrow, there would be no war. If Israel were to lay down theirs, there would be no Israel" - Benjamin Netanyahu

Does Israel have a right to exist ? Of course, as much as a nation of Copts or Yazidis or Kurds or Druses or Turcomans or any of the other thousand small ethnic groups and sects.

And after all, strictly speaking, 'Arabs' have migrated from the lower-central Arabian Peninsula only over the last 1400 years, into the Fertile Crescent and across north Africa.

And even Mecca had a huge Jewish population back in 610 CE, before it was brutally expelled by Muhammad. Yes ? No ?

As Netanyahu indicated, Israel can't afford to let rockets fly into its territory, to show any weakness: to relent means to cease to exist.

Joe

Let’s parse Ali’s opening statement for a moment

“It is an irony of history that an entity, which claims to be innocent and the victim of the Holocaust ...”

Which “entity” is that, exactly? The entity attacking Gaza is the Israeli Defence Force at the direction of the Israeli government. The “entity” that endured the holocaust was European jury in the 1930s and 1940s. The state of Israel did not exist when the holocaust occurred. Only by the most coarse extension are these the same “entity”, Jews past and present, European and Israeli, pro- and anti-Zionist all participate in an undifferentiated lump sharing collective guilt. This is racism at its crudest

“… has been itself committing the most heinous crimes in contemporary history.”

Assuming that by “contemporary history” Ali means since 1948, when his list of crimes begins, this makes Israel’s crimes worse than the mass deaths and starvation of the Great Leap Forward, the genocides of Cambodia, Rwanda, the murderous oppression of Indonesia, Guatemala and Amin’s Uganda, and North Korea, the atrocities attending the break-up of the former Yugoslavia, the wars in Congo and Sudan, and Tibet.

or even the horrors today in Syria and Iraq.

The essay featured on the ABC Religion & Ethics website by Khaled Abou El Fadl titled The Tragedy of Great Power The Massacre of Gaza and The failure of the Arab Spring provides a very interesting nuanced perception and understanding of the behind the scenes dark machinations of all of the key players in the psychotic psycho-drama now being played out in the lunatic asylum called the Middle East.

A nuanced understanding which, if nothing else, shows how the stuff you read about this dreadful conflict in the main-stream media is little more than deliberate Orwellian propaganda (especially in the case of the Murdoch "news"-papers).

Meanwhile I have just finished reading a book titled The Invention of the Jewish People by Shlomo Sand. He convincingly argues that there never was, and is not now, such a collective entity called the Jewish People.
Such a fictional entity is of course the principal justification for the Zionist colonial occupation of Palestine.

no doubt in your mind dd their was no holocaust.

Whatever people did or did not in the first half of the 20th century, there are now 7.9 million Israeli citizens living there, of which only a handful in their 90s were old enough to possibly influence the course of Israel's creation. The vast majority of these citizens were born in Israel or were still children at the time Israel was created.

Now who cares whether these people are Jews or Arabs or anything else? Also who cares WHY their neighbours want to kill them all? They live there, that's their home and they have every right to defend themselves!

Hi Duck,

Nor would Jewish people claim to have one single collective identity, there are pro- and anti-Zionists, socialists, conservatives, liberal, Orthodox and Reform Jews, Ashkenazi (East, South and West) and Sephardi Jews, even atheist Jews. But all would take for granted that yes, they are all Jews regardless.

After all, is there a collective entity of 'English', with which all 'English' can identify ? Londoners, Scousers, Geordies, Cornishmen, Cumbrians and of course Yorkeshiremen ? Not to mention differences in class, political stance, etc.

In Scotland, Highlanders and Lowlanders, people from Glasgow and Edinburgh ? Not much love lost there either :)

Any group you want to claim a seamless collectivity for ?

Joe

Rhian

When Singer referred to Israelis as Jews did you nitpick?

Why not?

thanks Ali, top thread; pity the apologists for the terrorist Israeli government blither on

Good on you, Ali. Thanks for bringing some truth to the current slaughter of the Palestinians by Israelis who use American arms.

It is interesting that your essay took place at a time when the U.S. is in Australia being given anything it wants by our brain-dead politicians who it seems are incapable of seeing the danger that the imperial U.S. poses to us and the whole world.

Birds of a feather flock together!

Hark,

The Middle East and indeed the entire region from north-west Africa right across to India, has always been multi-national, multi-ethnic, multi-religious, all more or less living near each other in more or less uneasy peace.

Simple question: does Israel have the right to exist and not be pushed into the sea, and its population not exterminated ? Yes ? No ?

If no, then expect them to never stop fighting for their very lives.

If yes, then there should be no surprises, and a fair rationale, for their fighting for their very lives.

If Hamas recognised that right to exist, then both sides could sit down together and start talking. they're going to be a long time living side by side :)

Having said that, I must say that I don't support the extension of Israeli settlements on the West Bank. Until a two-state solution, or even a secular one-state solution, is proposed and agreed to, and the dust settles after that, Israel shouldn't initiate any more settlements, and only by agreement.

Joe

imajulianutter
I seldom read Singer’s pieces – they are somewhat repetitive. When I do, any comments I make are more often critical than supportive. If Singer has claimed that Israel represents and has the support of all Jews past and present then I’d disagree as much as I disagree with Ali.

Unlike Singer, I support a two-state solution. For that to work, Israel has to make compromises, cede territory and deal genuinely with the Palestinians’ representatives. What Israel has done in the past few weeks is immoral, excessive, counter-productive and quite possibly illegal. It plays into the hands of Hamas. But it is not one of “the most heinous crimes in contemporary history”.

Ali is trying to imply that the guilt of modern Israel negates the innocence of the Holocaust victims. The argument is both absurd and despicable.

Correction - in my earlier post, jury should of course read Jewry

Mr Omidi laments the impotency of international courts and tribunals, yet according to his piece there really is no need for such archaic bodies, as he has already pronounced his judgement. According to him there could be no doubt as to the guilt of the Israeli state, variations of the word "criminal" in relation to Israel are used some 20 times throughout his text. He even informs us that the Israeli crimes are "the most heinous crimes in contemporary history" (it would be fascinating to learn how he reached this conclusion). Since the guilty verdict has already been determined by Mr Omidi, it is difficult to see why he has any need for international courts or tribunals, the only thing he now needs appears to be the executioner to carry out his sentence.

It is interesting to see that while much of his writing is devoted to alleged Israeli crimes in Gaza, citing incidents of Palestinian deaths, he seems to be completely oblivious to the actions of Hamas and their responsibility for the continuous suffering of citizens on both sides of the conflict, failing to mention it even once. Many of the incidents involving the death of civilians in Gaza during the past month are still in dispute, with no independent verification as to who was responsible for the deaths – whether it was IDF bombing, Hamas rockets, whether the dead were indeed civilians or Hamas fighters, or whether the number reported was accurate. On the other hand there is no doubt about the long list of crimes Hamas are responsible for, including the exclusive targeting of Israeli civilians with rockets, the use of its own citizens as human shields, the violent elimination of any opposition, execution of suspected collaborators without any trial, persecution of homosexuals – the list goes on and on. Strangely, Mr Omidi seems to have missed this point entirely.

Hi Rhian,

The issues of the Holocaust and the behavior of the Israelis are of course separate issues.
Sadly Israeli propagandists link both and seek sympathy from the former to cover the crimes of the latter.

I personally think we should demand both sides adopt the peaceful passages of their traditional scripts and expunge the evil parts. A reformation so to speak of both religions.
We should encourage both sides to endorse only those passages which align with our western liberal Democrat values of forgiveness and peace-seeking. The extremists on both sides would soon be quite isolated and a genuine peace would result.

Any propagandist from either side advocating violence as a solution or excusing violence should be utterly rejected.

I have held this view for a very long time and have often been abused and denigrated for offering it as a solution.

Odd in a western Liberal Democracy. Our ways are debased every time we excuse or support violence. It is time we stood up and told the terrorists and warmongers among us their attitudes corrupt the harmony of our society.

The reason why Israel's" "crimes" go unpunished Ali Omedi, is because people of every race, creed and culture have a problem with Islam, and they much prefer the Israelis to the Arabs.

You people are incredible. You revel in a religion which preaches world domination, social exclusion, hostility to non Muslims, Jihad, and then you wonder why nobody supports you. Your people have committed acts of terrorism all around the world against innocent civilians and your people are becoming the most despised on planet Earth. Your region of the world is a cesspit of trouble. Your civilisation is a disgrace. Your civilisation has contributed nothing to world knowledge in 600 years. Half the females in Islam can not read or write. Half of your people who live in western societies are beggars who live entirely on social security. You are still stoning people to death for "crimes" which are not even considered crimes in enlightened societies.

Almost everybody who is not a Muslim or who's brains have not been atrophied by studying for a humanities degree, know that all you Muslims want to do is exterminate Israel. Nothing else matters. They know that the Arabs just keep firing rockets over the border and they don't blame the Israelis for shooting back. Everybody, even Muslims knows about the right to self defence. So save the feigned moral outrage because it doesn't work with intelligent people.

Reform your stupid religion or keep killing yourselves. Use your oil wealth to built universities instead of damned mosques. Ask the Israelis to help you, because they obviously know how to run successful societies using the accumulated capitol of a smart population, while your people do not. Emulate them. Learn from them.

Stop trying to kill the people who are proving every day how much smarter and superior they are to your people.

Hi imajulianutter
I agree that the holocaust in no way justifies or mitigates Israel’s behaviour. But nor does Israel’s behaviour diminish the holocaust.

I’m not sure appealing to the peaceful and tolerant elements of Judaism and Islam will solve the problem, though both faiths certainly have them. While religion is an element in the conflict, I suspect at core it is sectarian and territorial, rather as the conflict in Northern Ireland was not primarily about religion. Early Zionism was largely secular and even opposed by some orthodox Jews, who believed Israel could only be restored by God, not human agency. Admittedly some modern Israeli hard liners believe that God gave Israel to the Jews and mandated the extinction or expulsion of other peoples, as there are Palestinians who would wish the same on the Jews. Hopefully, neither will prevail.

I agree that any propagandist from either side advocating violence as a solution or excusing violence should be utterly rejected. But both sides argue that the violence they perpetrate is not initiated by them, but a necessary defensive measure against the violence of the other, and both sides have a point. Breaking this spiral is the only way to prevent violence erupting again in future, but it requires a degree of forbearance that neither side seems willing to exercise. Until they do, I fear the horrible tragedies such as we have seen in recent weeks will recur.

Rhian

There is a solution it is quite simple.
Support the Palestinians gaining sovereignty and engaging with the world community.
Peace would naturally follow. Hamas would be sidelined as a terrorist force by the Gazan's. They would peacefully get on with their own life's.
Set up a fair dinkum Palestinian state in the west bank. Have it engage with the world.
Much of the support for terrorism in the mid east is the resentment harboured by Muslims over the west's support for Israeli expansionism in the west bank.
Stop that and Muslims will do what they have always done. Control their own extremists in much the same way we in the west have done. Currently because of the injustice in Palestine Muslim communities have an aversion to and find it nigh impossible to dissipate support for extremists in their wider community.

"Set up a fair dinkum Palestinian state in the west bank. Have it engage with the world."

I agree.

I suspect its not quite that simple though. Borders, economic relations, right of return, the view of extremists on both sides that they have a right to the other's territory, religious antagonism, ideological differences, political interference by outsiders, ecomomic inequality, and a host of other issues are gpoing to make it a long and rocky road even when we get an autonomous and sustainable Palestinian state.

Dream on,you pair.

Peace was supposed to come when Israel withdrew from Gaza. The Israeli hawks opposed the pull out and said that Gaza would simply become a Muslim terrorist stronghold where the Muslims would be free to throw rockets and mortar bombs over the fence into Israel.

Just in case you did not notice, the Israeli hawks were proven right.

And you think that the Israelis are going to withdraw from Jerusalem and repeat their well intentioned mistake? What is it like dancing with the fairies at the bottom of your garden?

lego,

To which of the withdrawals from Gaza are you referring ? 2009, 2012 or 4014

The blockade was the cause of the current war. No one doubts that fact except you.

May my god forgive you believing in fairies. The one you support would try to destroy the fairies tunnels by bombing the cr.p out of the top floor of my garden apartment block or UN school.

Ima

In case you don’t remember, the blockade was actually triggered by the violence in Gaza, not the other way around. I realise it was a long time ago, but you should still be able to recall that Israel withdrew unconditionally from Gaza in 2005, leaving behind infrastructure that should have been used for improving the Palestinian economy and living standards. Instead it was completely destroyed by the Palestinians, and the violence in the form of rockets lobbed over the border on Israeli civilians started shortly after. That was the trigger for the blockade. No one doubts THAT fact except you, it seems. Claiming that the violence is a result of the blockade is misleading and dishonest as I’m sure you are well aware.

Avw

Both sides share blame in this conflict. Each side thinks its own violence is a response to the other’s provocation. Trying to discern “who started it” is a fruitless exercise. The question is, how to end it?

Israel can continue is current policy of periodically battering Gaza to deplete its enemies’ leadership and military capability and waiting a few years until they build up again. The destroyed homes and innocent dead of Gaza give Hamas a propaganda victory. Israel is losing friends in the Western democracies and gaining fresh enemies in its neighbourhood. Comparative moderating influences, like Turkey, are alienated. Israel’s military are far superior to anything its Palestinian enemies can throw at them right now. But one day they, or their supporters in the region, may strike a major blow, perhaps even lethal.

In 1984 the IRA bombed a hotel in Brighton (UK) that was hosting the Conservative Party’s Annual Conference. It did some damage but did not hurt any of the senior government politicians that were its target. Afterwards, the IRA issued a statement:

“Today we were unlucky, but remember we only have to be lucky once. You will have to be lucky always. Give Ireland peace and there will be no more war”

Israel’s strategy is to rely on being lucky all the time. Its enemies only have to be lucky once. Better to make peace.

Rhian:

There is no doubt that Israel is not entirely blameless. There are many policies and decisions taken by Israel in the past that could have been better handled. However Hamas is the only entity that has the power to stop the violence, not Israel. You have to remember that Israel’s retaliations are for Hamas’ rocket firing against Israeli civilians. There have been times in the past when Israel refrained from responding. It did not stop the firing of rockets. If Israel stops retaliating tomorrow, as it has tried in the past, the rockets will not cease. Rocket firing from Gaza started well before any Israeli retaliations, before any blockades, when there was no occupation of any area of Gaza. It is not related to any retaliation by Hamas against Israeli strikes or because "the other side started it". The reason for the violence is simple. It is the uncompromising policies of Hamas calling for the destruction of Israel above all else. You cannot negotiate with such a fanatic organisation bent on killing you. They are really no different to ISIS, other than the fact that the area they control is much smaller.

The one where the Israeli Army fought their own settlers and tore down the Israeli settlements to comply with the peace process, which the Palestinians did not honour.

Trying to get the Muslims to honour an agreement is like trying to get the Greens Party to honour one.

The blockade of Gaza is to stop HAMAS from importing rockets and arms into Gaza to toss over the border into Israel. You know the rockets, don't you Julianuttter? They are those whooshy wiz bangs that the Palestinians fire over the border into Israel to amuse themselves. They are the things they hide in schools and hospitals in the hope that the Israelis will shoot back, so that misguided people such as yourself, with no depth of understanding of the real issues can get all puffed up and self righteous about it.

Dear Avw,

You wrote;

“You have to remember that Israel’s retaliations are for Hamas’ rocket firing against Israeli civilians.”

Well sir you have to remember Hamas' rockets were retaliations for the brutal shootings of scores and the kidnappings of hundreds of Hamas members in the West Bank along with the trashing of their charities, the demolition and vandalism of hundreds of their homes and businesses plus hitting targets in the West Bank.

Dear SR:

"...you have to remember Hamas' rockets were retaliations for the brutal shootings of scores and the kidnappings of hundreds of Hamas members in the West Bank..."

I'm sorry, but you have to be reminded that the arrests of Hamas members in the West Bank were a direct result of the campaign of terror launched by Hamas shortly after the Oslo accords were signed. Deeply worried that peaceful relations might actually break out between Israel and the Palestinians, making them (Hamas) and their philosophy of hatred largely irrelevant, they were determined to demolish the agreements reached using any means necessary.

Dear Avw,

I'm not sure going back through the history books will get us very far since the innumerable 'begats' would have us back to Zionist terror squads ethnically cleansing Arab villages.

Perhaps in the interest of brevity we can keep our focus on the current conflict. We all know that prior to the brutal slayings of a number of Palestinian teenagers this year then the horrific kidnapping and killing of the three Israeli teenagers the rocket fire from Gaza by Hamas was zero. Not only that they had managed, with only the very rare exception, to keep the other militias in Gaza under tight control. Israel used the kidnappings of the 3 teenagers as an excuse to come down brutally on Hamas in the West Bank in order to knobble the moves toward a unity government.

So this from you;

“Deeply worried that peaceful relations might actually break out between Israel and the Palestinians, making them (Hamas) and their philosophy of hatred largely irrelevant, they were determined to demolish the agreements reached using any means necessary.”

Could just as well be written;

'Deeply worried that peaceful relations might actually break out between Fatah and the Hamas, exposing them (Likud) and their philosophy of hatred, they were determined to demolish the agreements reached using any means necessary.'

Dear SR:

I agree with you, going back to the early 20th century when armed Arab gangs were massacring Jewish civilians, well before the formation of the IZL and LHI that I assume you are referring to, will not get us very far. This is why I made no reference to that period in my previous post. Let’s concentrate on more recent history.

Sorry, we do not actually know that “rocket fire from Gaza by Hamas was zero” at any time this year. In fact we actually do know that well over 150 rockets and mortars were fired at Israel from Gaza between January and June. It’s a little more than zero, and at an average of about 1 rocket every day it’s a lot more than “[a] very rare exception”. They obviously did not manage, or even attempt, to keep militants under any kind of control. We also know that Hamas have been trying for the past 2 decades to scuttle any agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, with a large degree of success. Don’t take my word for it, listen to what Hamas are saying about the Oslo accords. Read about their policies and their plans to eradicate Israel.

We could, of course, re-write my paragraph as you suggest, but that does not change the fact that Hamas exist with the sole purpose of destroying any chance of peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Furthermore, Israel took action in June against Hamas militants in an attempt to locate the kidnapped teenagers. Are you suggesting that they should not have tried to locate them? Are you suggesting perhaps that Israel was actually behind the kidnapping using an elaborate twisted plot to act against Hamas?

"Why Israel's impunity goes unpunished by international authorities".

Just to be pedantic, how does one punish 'impunity'?