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The Forum > Article Comments > A mother's Gaza > Comments

A mother's Gaza : Comments

By Judi Hall, published 20/1/2009

From the calm of Australia how we can understand what it is like to live with neighbours like Hamas?

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rpg

You say:

• “Is it acceptable to fire rockets, nonstop for years at your neighbour trying to kill them? (Just because they weren't successful at killing, they certainly were successful at terror weren't they?)
Skip all the crap. Yes or No “

Yes. It is acceptable to fire rockets in defence of your homeland which has been illegally and brutally occupied against UN directions when you haven’t got ships, tanks, aeroplanes and the other high tech ammunitions, paid for with $2.4b annually from America.

• “So you judge conflict by how many were killed when and under what circumstances, correct? So if Hamas had bigger rockets, like the ones they were starting to use and could kill more Israeli from a distance - would that be OK, would you then criticise them?
Skip all the crap. Yes or No? “

This question is loaded and hypothetical and therefore difficult to answer simply, rpg. I was actually referring to the well accepted legal principle of proportionality, comparing the 20 Israelis dead from rockets in 7 years and the 6000 Palestinian casualties including women, children, and (if there is a God I hope s/he forgives you) babies, in 3 weeks.

• “Are you an apologist for terrorists?
Skip all the crap. Yes or No?”

I was thinking that the Israelis were the terrorists and the Palestinians were the freedom fighters. So NO, I am not an apologist for Israeli terror of this kind and magnitude.

Israel is morally bankrupt and its actions are self defeating. The 6000 extended families of the Palestinian dead and injured are going to remember Israel’s brutality and arrogance for generations.
Posted by Stan1, Wednesday, 21 January 2009 7:53:23 PM
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bigmal

'The very idea that because there are a few lovey dovey words in the Hamas Charter, that that their presence somehow cancels out the other odious and anti semitic bile, is just rubbish.'

I was not 'cancelling out' anything. I was responding to Leah Rachel's challenge to me to 'pick and publish for us some parts that do illustrate Hamas' committment to peace and human rights'. I stated in my reply that I was deliberately cherry-picking to obtain a certain outcome.

Besides, what is so unthinkable about the prospect that Hamas has a human side? After all, Hamas comprises three parts - political, military and humanitarian. This is typical of most liberation struggles throughout history. Once the oppressor finally gives up on trying to achieve a military victory over the liberation struggle and starts negotiating, the military arm of the liberation struggle eventually wanes - as does its militant rhetoric.

And as for that scriptural quote about the Day of Judgement when Muslims kill all Jews hiding behind trees and stones ... give us a break!
Is the Israeli foreign ministry offering a prize in one of its 'hasbara' kits for every 50 times a propaganda troll posts this quote? [http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/09/israel-foreign-ministry-media]

The quote is pretty innocuous stuff - not that far removed from any militant good-and-evil rhetoric throughout history ... from 'kill the filthy Hun' to 'God for Harry, England and St George'. As I said on another Middle East thread, the Hamas Charter was drawn up in the aftermath of the brutal put-down of the peaceful First Intifada, leaving thousands of Palestinian youths dead. Little wonder that the Hamas Charter writers quoted some Jew-hating rhetoric from their scriptures to make their point.

Is it any less dangerous than Israel's scriptural arrogance that God made the Jews the Chosen People or the Old Testament's Jehovah ordering the Jews to massacre entire cities?
Posted by SJF, Thursday, 22 January 2009 7:57:14 AM
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SJF

The Hamas Charter is full of the hatred of non believers and jews, and its not just a few passing references either.

In any case, just how delusional and screwed up are they when they also quote the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" as though it was some holy scripture, when the world knows it for what it is.

A work of fiction for gods sake.

It doesnt get any more stupid than that.
Posted by bigmal, Thursday, 22 January 2009 8:34:11 PM
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bigmal

I’m not going to be drawn into an extended volley exchange with you on the rights and wrongs of the Hamas Charter. Neither am I interested in defending the antipathy towards Jews or its rejection of secularism as contained in some parts of the Charter. My aim was to reject non-contextual, repetitive and selective quoting of the Charter to achieve the desired outcome of portraying Hamas as motivated purely by Jew hatred and/or fundamentalism.

You can serve anti-Jew/fundy quotes and counter-quotes across the net all day long – but without the critical context of Palestinian dispossession and persecution by successive Israeli administrations or the humanitarian wretchedness that causes people to seek comfort in religion, such an exchange is both misleading and meaningless.
Posted by SJF, Friday, 23 January 2009 8:44:16 AM
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So Jewish mothers have a stronger emotional connection to their children than Palestinian, is that what the author is saying?
I loathe propaganda pieces like this, they seem ridiculous, and out of date.
When it comes to mother-love, the universality of it compels us to count the number of dead. Proportionality counts if we are to focus on the suffering of mourning mums.
In any case, I agree with Robert - men's lives count, too.
Posted by floatinglili, Sunday, 25 January 2009 2:01:04 AM
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Floatinglili

I agree. But I doubt if it’s a question of valuing the deaths of women and children in war over the deaths of men. Quite the opposite.

War deaths and casualties among women and children are ruthlessly exploited for propaganda purposes while the war is raging. (This essay is a particularly reprehensible example.) However, it’s the combat deaths of men in war that form the overwhelming basis for public remembrance long after the war is over. It’s men who get the shrines, the parades, the medals, the war movies and general adulation – not the women and children (and civilian men) who bear the brunt of aerial bombings, landmines, war rape, war related diseases, famines and refugee dislocations.

With the notable exception of the Holocaust, how many shrines are there to the women, children and civilian men who died in wars? Worldwide, you’d be flat out counting them on the fingers of one hand.
Posted by SJF, Sunday, 25 January 2009 10:04:39 AM
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