The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > Shalit - deal or no deal? > Comments

Shalit - deal or no deal? : Comments

By Mishka Góra, published 20/10/2011

Trading 1,027 criminals for one Israeli soldier does little more than guarantee the abduction of more Israeli soldiers.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. ...
  6. 9
  7. 10
  8. 11
  9. Page 12
  10. 13
  11. 14
  12. All
Dear Montgomery,

You're reacting as I used to so I'll not take offence at being called disingenuous or a terrorist sympathiser.

You find the fact that Hamas soldiers, operating in one of the most populated pieces of land in the entire world, would end up using a road or someone's orchard as a site to retaliate against incoming 155mm artillery rounds distasteful. They should be setting up in a bare patch of ground well away from any trees and buildings so they can be spotted by drones and eliminated by Cobra gunships? How terribly unsporting of them not to comply with your version of warfare.

Gaza has three times the population density of urban Melbourne and as stated over a two year period had 14,400 155mm artillery shells dropped into it.

To taint the entire Hamas organisation with the cruel shooting of Hassan is akin to tainting the entire IDF with the bulldozing to death of Rachel Corrie. This is the same IDF who were using human shields until to its credit the Israel's High Court of Justice banned the practice in 2005. The IDF appealed the decision to no avail. However Amnesty International found that during Operation Cast Lead "Israeli troops forced Palestinians to stay in one room of their home while turning the rest of the house into a base and sniper position, effectively using the families, both adults and children, as human shields”.

I mean for nearly every crime you accuse one side of the other is just as culpable. Lets take a favourite, 'those dreadful Palestinians have been known to use ambulances to move men and weaponry around'. Well the man referred to as the 'Nelson Mandala' of Palestine Marwan Hasib Ibrahim Barghouti “was arrested by soldiers of the Duchifat Battalion who had approached the building hidden in an ambulance to avoid detection.”
Forgive me for for thinking they are not more admirable in comparison. 

While I recognise Mishka's perspective I'm not sure why thinking people without that connection continue to echo it so stridently without taking a wider view, my former self included.
Posted by csteele, Wednesday, 26 October 2011 10:22:38 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Usefull post Mr/Ms Steele.

This type of info rarely raised in the Press in Australia.
Posted by kartiya jim, Wednesday, 26 October 2011 11:52:22 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Just so much twaddle.

' 'better that ten guilty escape than that one innocent suffer'.It is one of the most fundamental ideas to our justice system, the reason we presume innocence and insist on proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Israel's practical commitment to this notion puts us all to shame.'"

this is the total thrust of the argumet put by Gora.

That we westerners have abandoned our basic legal tenets when we don't go along with Israeli refusal to negotiate in good faith and it's attendant barbarism.

But then when she carries on about how the principle of the santity of life is common to both Christian Westerners and Jewish Israelis she shows she is totally ignorant that in the west we hold and apply the principle to everyone equally... including our enemies and those who attack us ... Gora fails to distinguish that this principle is not applied to everyone by the jewish Israelis toward everyone in Palestine.

Then how can anyone possibly share solidarity with such a divergent
basic belief and divergent resulting practises.

If she'd paid attention to the religious teachings of her catholic teachers she'd have known that the western adherence and practise to the principle is fundamentally at odds with the jewish traditions ... and current abhorrant practises.

Let her deny she doesn't know this.

She won't because to do so totally undermines her abusive criticism of us Westerners
Posted by imajulianutter, Wednesday, 26 October 2011 12:19:20 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
How dare I taint a terrorist organisation by associating them with the murder of a child?! That you can even ask that question shows how warped your moral perspective has become. Here’s a list of the people (and their ages) that Hamas has claimed responsibility for murdering in just ONE incident. (The victims were just passengers on a bus, by the way.) Hamas wasn’t accused of murder – Hamas proudly claimed responsibility for it!
• Daniel Biton, 42
• Yitzhak Elbaz, 57
• Boris Sharpolinsky, 64
• Semion Trakashvili, 60
• Yitzhak Yakhnis, 54
• Peretz Gantz, 61
• Anatoly Kushnirov, 36
• Anatoly Kushnirov, 37
• Masuda Amar, 59
• Swietlana Gelezniak, 32
• Celine Zaguri, 19
• Navon Shabo, 22
• Michael Yerigin, 16
• Matthew Eisenfeld, 25
• Sara Duker, 23
• Wael Kawasmeh, 23
• Ira Yitzhak Weinstein, 53
• Yonatan Barnea, 20
• Gavriel Krauss, 24
• Gadi Shiloni, 22
• Moshe Reuven, 19
• Arye Barashi, 39
• Iliya Nimotin, 19
• Merav Nahum, 19
• Sharon Hanuka, 19
• Arik Gaby, 16

God forbid that I should “taint” Hamas by mentioning this.

And here are just 7 of the prisoners released and the number of lives they took:
• Walid Abd al-Aziz Abd al-Hadi Anajas (36)
• Nasir Sami Abd al-Razzaq Ali al-Nasser Yataima (30)
• Maedh Waal Taleb Abu Sharakh (17)
• Tamimi Aref Ahmad Ahlam (15)
• Abd al-Hadi Rafa Ghanim (16)
• Muhammad Waal Muhammad Douglas (15)
• Muhammad Taher Mahmud al-Qaram (15)

I’m sorry, csteele, but I don’t see the point in continuing this discussion. You are more polite than some of the others commenting here and I thought that might indicate you were more reasonable, but you are not. When you won’t have the common decency to condemn terrorists or a terrorist organisation like Hamas, anything you say loses credibility and any attempt at rational debate is a waste of time.
Posted by Montgomery, Wednesday, 26 October 2011 12:39:35 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear Montgomery,

Since you are not posting here any further I don't expect an answer but I will reply to your post anyway.

To start with I have been assuming you are not Jewish or more specifically an Israeli Jew. If you are I apologise since if I were in their shoes I know the release of these people would have me grinding my teeth in pure seething anger.

However if you are not I can only say I have been where you are now and reacted in much the same way.

I don't think God would forbid you tainting Hamas with the story of Hassan any more than he would forbid me tainting the IDF with the stories of Asma, Ahmed, Ibrahim, Seber, Yousef, and Ayub.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/may/20/israel

Yet your post has given me hope. The list you have posted appears to be taken from the one posted on Wikipedia here;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaffa_Road_bus_bombings

Why hope? Because you appear to have stripped out the details showing that eight of the number were soldiers. Why do it? Why not just copy and paste? Why take the time to modify it? I think it is because your conscience knows it matters.

It is important to pause and also acknowledge the 48 injured because many of those will have been maimed for life.

Let me turn to the incident in Operation Cast Lead which finally convinced me I could not longer support one side over the other. It was the al-Fakhura School incident in which 40 civilians were killed plus one Hamas fighter with 55 injured. The school was a UN refugee centre housing hundreds of civilians fleeing the conflict. The IDF were given the coordinates by the UN yet they mortared the street out the front killing Palestinians both in the street and in the school grounds.

Cont,
Posted by csteele, Wednesday, 26 October 2011 10:50:36 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Cont,

The first reports, erroneous as it turns out, said the school itself was bombed. Let me quote from Wikipedia;

“The IDF originally claimed that Hamas militants were inside the school. The Israeli army stated that Hamas militants were firing mortar shells from the school just moments before the strike. The IDF stated that a number of Hamas gunmen were inside the school, among them Imad and Hassan Abu-Askar, who are known to the IDF as Hamas rocket-launching operatives and claimed to have found their bodies following the attack. Israeli defence officials told The Associated Press that booby-trapped bombs in the school had triggered secondary explosions that killed additional Palestinians there. The IDF has released footage of militants launching rockets from a UNRWA school in a different incident in 2007 to support its account. Israeli army Spokeswoman Avital Leibovich claimed that a mortar had been fired from the school, and that Israeli forces responded with one mortar shell. She stated, "Let me be clear–I am not apologizing," in relation to the bombing of the school.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Fakhura_school_incident

All totally fabricated. Even to this day the IDF puts the casualties at just 12. I now never take any report from either side at face value.

I need to be told why I can not legitimately say a civilian to fighter ratio of 40:1 is worse than 17:9 of the Jaffa bus bombing or is it just me being unreasonable?

I'm wondering if you know the names of any of the 40, many of them children, who were massacred at al-Fakhura?

I remember reading in one of Rabbi Kushner's books about the Jewish custom of spilling a little wine, at Seder I think it was. This was in memory of the Egyptian children who perished through the plagues and Passover in order that the Jewish people be freed. It always impressed me that a very human, non-God ordained, tradition like this would develop.

“Our cup of joy is diminished even when our enemies suffer”
Posted by csteele, Wednesday, 26 October 2011 10:51:56 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. ...
  6. 9
  7. 10
  8. 11
  9. Page 12
  10. 13
  11. 14
  12. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy