Ozzie,

This is not about Jews (or Muslims or Christians), this is about criminal behaviour. No religious or ethnic group has a monopoly on that.

Think carefully about how you might behave in a concentration camp, before you pass on your auntie's hatred and racism, expressed when she told of her own horrific experiences.

The video from
www.IfAmericaknKnew.org
makes plain that Gaza is virtually a concentration camp, and children are being targeted.

Racism and vilification will not stop these atrocities, now or in the long run. Calm, persistent seeking after justice, in the face of horror, outrage and despair, is what is needed. It is what the video shows:
http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-5600677940569035557&hl=en

B'Tselem (www.btselem.org)is doing an outstanding job of this in Israel, and you will recall that the video's narrator cites B'Tselem as her source for many statistics regarding deaths of Palestinians.

Go back and read my post of Friday, 9 January 2009 9:43:14
with the lyrics:

"You've got to be taught to hate and fear
You've got to be taught from year to year
It's got to be drummed in your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught

"You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made
And people whose skin is a different shade
You've got to be carefully taught

"You've got to be taught before it's too late
Before you are six or seven or eight
To hate all the people your relatives hate
You've got to be carefully taught
You've got to be carefully taught"

from Rodgers and Hammerstein, South Pacific - first produced in 1949

You may also wish to visit
http://www.playgroundsforpalestine.org/,
which seeks donations to provide Palestinian children with some bright spots in their difficult lives.

The tactics of blockading Gaza and creating a barrier have not stopped the rockets being fired from civilian areas.

The options are to sit back and allow the rockets to be fired or
Destroy the fighters and rockets.

Tough choice.

Over 800 Palestinians dead to date and counting. Maybe Israel should review their PR methods and have educational training in human rights.

I've just come across an interesting article
by Miko Peled, an Israeli peace activist and
writer living in San Diego, US.
He writes, from San Diego,
1st January 2009.

"As I sit and view the reports, photos and live
videos streaming in from Gaza I find it impossible to
make sense of it all. As a boy growing up in Israel
and attending a regular public school, I remember
being taught the story of Abraham, the patriarch
arguing with God over the decision to destroy the
city of Sodom.

"And Abraham stood before the Lord. And Abraham drew
near, and said: wilt thou also destroy the righteous
with the wicked, perhaps there are 50 righteous within
the city, wilt thou also destroy and not spare the
place for the righteous that are therein? ... and the
Lord said, if I find in Sodom 50 just men within the city,
then I will spare all the place for their sakes"
(Genesis, 18, 23-26).

One has to admire Abraham for his tenacity, arguing with
God Almighty for the sake of 50! Today I heard the claim
made that "only" 50 innocent people were killed in this
attack and I thought: even if the number of civilians
killed were so low (and it is much higher) God would have
spared Gaza for those 50, but not Ehud Barak.

One has to admire the idea that no matter what, the life
of innocent civilians is sacred and must never be
compromised. There can be no doubt that among the
1.5 million people residing in Gaza there are more than
50 righteous men and women, but more importantly, there
are 800,000 children in Gaza.

According to reports in the Israeli newspapers
hundreds of thousands of children were on their way
to and from school at the time that 50 Israeli
warplanes began a nine-hour attack during which they
dropped more than one hundred tons of bombs."

Meredith you say "So you lied to prove your point? You can't defend it.. especially when misrepresentation is what your (sic) on about." I reread both of my posts and reread both of yours and I simply have no clue what you're talking about.

Israel has killed 800 people in a (so far vain) attempt to stop rockets landing in southern Israel. In that context, I believe that less than 20 killed by rockets over an 8-year period is a small number. If someone suggested that the deaths of 20 Australians (no matter how heinous the circumstances) justified killing 800 foreigners (including a large number of innocent women and children), I'd presume that person was irrational. It seems that this kind of stuff only makes sense in some alternative reality. Or in the Middle East.

CONT'D

"With Israeli elections scheduled for February, Israeli
Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who is hoping to once
again become prime minister, has once again unleashed the
Israeli military on the civilian population of Gaza.

Barak, who has earned the dubious distinction of
being Israel's most decorated soldier, is guaranteeing
that Israelis and Palestinians will see more violence
and more loss of innocent lives.

With columns of tanks, and brigades of infantry ready to
attack already destroyed Gaza. Barak hopes to prove that
he is a candidate who can deliver. But unlike the
biblical story, there is no one willing to stand up
to General Barak and argue for the lives of even
50 righteous people, not to mention, 800,000 children."

"The question has been raised of whether or not the
Israeli attacks on Gaza is disproportionate to the
threat that Gaza presents to Israel.

The answer to that lies not in numbers, not in comparing
how many rockets were fired or how many of the dead are
actually Hamas people and how many were bystanders.

The answer lies in the biblical Abraham's admonition towards
God in Genesis 18: "Far be it from thee to slay
the righteous with the wicked."

Miko Peled, the Israeli peace activist is a voice of
reason. We need to hear voices of reason at this time.
He raises the question,

"Why is it right to speak of equal rights everywhere
except for Israel and Palestine?...it is the right time
to discuss the establishment of a secular, democratic state
in Israel/Palestine in which human and civil rights
are guananteed to all of its citizens."