Sir Vivor,

I’m glad you clearly idenitified Falks “interesting” article as an OP-ED piece.

You will no doubt know that the UNHRC is an organisation run by the Arab league/Islamic Conference voting bloc in the UN. No other voting bloc can compete with the number of votes this group commands. It is the SOLE reason that the VAST majority of resolutions concerning Israel.

Indeed >> “ In recent years, the Middle East was the subject of 76% of country-specific UNGA resolutions, 100% of the Human Rights Council resolutions, 100% of the Commission on the Status of Women resolutions … In particular, the UNHRC was widely criticized in 2007 for failing to condemn other human rights abusers besides Israel. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel,_Palestinians,_and_the_United_Nations

Considering the parlous state of most of Africa, large parts of Asia and South America, this is simply astounding.

In fact >> “By April 2007, the Council had passed nine resolutions condemning Israel, the ONLY country which it had specifically condemned.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Human_Rights_Council#Council.27s_position_on_Israel

>> “The council voted on 30 June 2006 to make a review of possible human rights abuses by Israel a permanent feature of every council session. The Council’s special rapporteur on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is its only expert mandate with no year of expiry. The resolution, which was sponsored by Organization of the Islamic Conference, passed by a vote of 29 to 12 with five abstentions. Human Rights Watch urged it to look at international human rights and humanitarian law violations committed by Palestinian armed groups as well. Human Rights Watch called on the council to avoid the selectivity that discredited its predecessor and urged it to hold special sessions on other urgent situations, such as Darfur. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Human_Rights_Council#Council.27s_position_on_Israel

The 2009 World Conference against racism will have Iran and Libya as Co-Chairs. Can you believe that? Given this fact; and remembering the exercise in blatant Israel bashing the last conference in Durban was; many western countries are opting out.

TBC

Dear All
Anyone wanting to get the historical facts about Palestine should log in to www.wrmea.com/jews-for-justice/index. The Washington Reports have traditional been very fair but leaning towards the Israeli position in the past.I think,but never mind that.

Here are other websites to get into to get FACTS.
1. www.jewishpeacefellowship.org
2. www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Seenate/7891
3. www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Bunker/5750/home
4.www.jewsnotzionists.org
5. www.diak.org/Haayesh-gvul.html
6. www.salam.org/activism/home-demolitions.html
7. www.btselem.org
8. www.occupied.org
9. www.rhr.israel.net This website is run by Rabbis for Human Rights
10.www.ariga.com/ozveshalom.index.asp

There are more ...if you want more I shall be only too happy to oblige.

No rancor.No bigoted hyperventalating. Get the facts.

One last service.

Try and get a book by the international famous expert on Palestine, BERNARD WASSERSTEIN.Let me introduce this scholar to you... he has held posts in Oxford (UK) and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.. He headed up the History Dept at Brandeis Uni in Massachussets (USA) it gets exhausting giving you his CV Read the book, called "ISRAEL & PALESTINE: Why they fight and can they stop?" It is a brilliant treatise, easy to read and less than 200 pages!It cost me $26.95.If you were in WA I's be glad to lend it to you.Ask your local librarian to get it in if you arent interested in buying it.

I havent included anything from Arab websites like Al Jezira for obvious reasons. But usually you want to get two versions of a story to make up your mind.Try these websites and this book all of which I recommend honsetly and sincerely to get a true and accurate picture of what is happening in Gaza and what the Israeli will settle for to end it.
Peace. Shalom.Shanti.

socratease

Dear CJ... I thought you might have some fun with that.

Let me expand. "Anyone" who literally follows the example of the inhuman Mohammad shares in his inhumanity. The Majority of Muslims however, tend to very selectively take the injuction

[33:21] The messenger of GOD has set up a good example for those among you who seek GOD and the Last Day, and constantly think about GOD...

So, they don't go around assasinating political rivals... oh wait.. many DO just that. Hamas/Fatah etc. Ok..but most other's don't......

I don't see too many poking hot steel rods into the eyes of criminals..as Mohammad did.. nor hacking off their feet and hands, as Mohammad did... Nor executing a freshly tortured Jewish chief so he can claim his beautiful wife (Saffiya) for himself nor do we see most of them then having sexual relations with the captive 3 days after she has witnessed her family hacked to bits.....lucky for us!

So, CJ.. those who DO follow his example in such areas where his behavior is clearly identifiable.. also share his inhumanity.

So my statement was entirely correct "His followers"..those who actually follow HIM. NOT his 'partial/selective' followers.

Sir Ivory says:(quotes)

"the people of Gaza are being severely victimized for reasons remote from the rockets and border security concerns"

Errr this is 'critical analysis'? in your dreams boyoh.. that is blatant Hamas propoganda.. no matter who said it. A-gain...it is rediculous to try to find where it all went wrong. Israel will survive and Hamas will try to destroy them. See Charter section 3 article 11.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/959229.html

An invention called'the Jewish people'By Tom Segev

Israel's'Declaration_of_Independence'states that the Jewish people arose in the Land of Israel and were exiled from its'homeland'.

Wrong,says the historian Shlomo-Zand...There never was a'Jewish people',only a Jewish-religion,and the exile also never happened..hence there was no return.

Zand rejects most of the stories of national-identity formation in the Bible,including the exodus from Egypt,and,the horrors of the conquest under Joshua...It's all fiction and myth that served as an excuse for the establishment of the State of Israel,he asserts;the Romans did not generally exile whole nations,and most of the Jews were permitted to remain in the country...It follows that the progenitors of the Palestinian Arabs were Jews...Zand did not invent this thesis;30 years before the Declaration of Independence,it was espoused by David Ben-Gurion,Yitzhak Ben-Zvi and others.

If the majority of the Jews were not exiled,how is it that so many of them reached almost every country on earth?

Zand quotes from many existing studies,some of which were written in Israel but shunted out of the central discourse..The first Jews of Ashkenaz Germany)did not come from the Land of Israel and did not reach Eastern Europe from Germany,but became Jews in the Khazar Kingdom in the Caucasus.

Zand explains the origins of Yiddish culture:it was not a Jewish import from Germany,but the result of the connection between the offspring of the Kuzari and Germans who traveled to the East,some of them as merchants.

We find,then,that the Zionist need to devise for them a shared ethnicity and historical continuity produced a long series of inventions and fictions,along with an invocation of racist theses...Some were concocted in the minds of those who conceived the Zionist movement,while others were offered as the findings of genetic studies conducted in Israel.

Prof.Zand teaches at Tel Aviv University.His book,"When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?" published by Resling in Hebrew),is intended to promote the idea that Israel should be a"state of all its citizens"-Jews,Arabs and others[ie all semites]-in contrast to its declared identity as a "Jewish and democratic" state.

many Israelis will be astonished to read for the first time.

Sir Vivor

cont' from above,

I present all the above as background when considering the likelihood of Falk being in any sense objective or impartial.

Bernie Morris’s article is, I agree, a very well argued and cogent piece.

You say >> “Both articles avoid asinine name-calling, and the religion-based blaming and vilification that some of our posters offer up here, in place of critical analysis.”

Bernie Morris’s article fits that bill. Falks most certainly does not. He clearly blames Israel for the failure of the ceasefire, whilst writing off Hamas repeated missile attacks on Israel as harmless and irrelvant.

Furthermore, you’re quote from Falk’s piece clearly demonstrates that not only is he not balanced or unbiased, but that he has clearly CHOSEN a side.

Comparing Hamas missile attacks with car accidents is simply fallacious. We could just as easily compare Palestinian deaths due to cancer, or heart disease and conclude Israel’s attacks are nothing to worry about. Hamas missiles aren’t causing limited casualties by choice. They simply have poor guidance, and the Israelis have bomb shelters. We have seen time and again what the suicide bombers will do when let loose in a civilian area. Maximum civilian casualties. Tell me, if these attacks are so insignificant, why does Hamas carry them out?

I think there is a good case to be made that they are acts of aggression which graphically demonstrate Hamas intention to never make peace with Israel. Another objective is to invite retaliation, which they can then turn into PR and support in the West.

I have a simple question for you. Do you honestly believe that Hamas has ANY intention of making peace with Israel?

Paul L,

I share your frustration regarding the public prominence of some issues and public ignorance of others.

I read your concern in your first post as the inconsistency shown by the UNHRC governing body toward human rights in Israel as opposed to African crisis points. Beyond a general commiseration, I can only say that I know very little about UNHRC or its relationship to my local UN Association, where I would expect to find face-to-face expertise and/or interest.

Likewise, I know relatively little about the middle-east. My interest in the relationship between Palestinians and Israelis is passionate but general, and is largely an expression of my ideas and feelings about natural, social and politically expressed justice. I have not been to the Holy Land for any reason, and do not expect to go there. My acquaintance with Israelis, Jews and other middle-easterners no longer extends much beyond personal acquaintance, as Tasmania is geographically remote from the Diasporas of middle-eastern people; I have been here for nearly 20 years, with few visits elsewhere.

As for the comparison between fatalities from traffic accidents and acts of war, I noted, "Plainly there is a difference in intent".

And I ask - what is the intent of the Israeli government in blowing up a police station and killing a lot of new police recruits, then dismissing it as collateral damage? When police recruits are targeted in Iraq, it is publicised as terrorism. When buildings are blown up in Iraq, by insurgents, it is publicised as terrorism.

What are the Israelis trying to teach you and me, and the rest of the listening world? Will the Israelis use the same methods of instruction to reach other goals? That question is the (admittedly obscure) point of my earlier post.

One of my concerns is that Israeli government is leading the people of Israel and Palestine toward destruction and shame, on a scale not seen since the end of WWII. That such a thing should happen speaks no good of the many governments who are willingly involved in this continuing murder and mayhem.