America must be removed from the "Islamic World."

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Re: America must be removed from the "Islamic World."

Post by JimC » Sun Feb 27, 2011 10:19 am

Gawd wrote:
JimC wrote:
Gawd wrote:Israeli civilians are legitimate targets since it is they that are doing the ethnic cleansing. And also, Israeli citizens are the IDF. You can't claim to be a "civilian" all the while being part of the the Jewish murder weapon.
:sigh:

And this endlessly deep well of hate exists on both sides, leaving a toxic, festering sore that seems incapable of healing. The murderous nightmare will continue...
It's entirely Israel's fault. Way back in 2002/2003, Saudi Arabia and the other Arab nations all offered Israel peace treaties if it ceased ethnically cleansing the Palestinians and recognize the 1967 borders that every other nation in the world supports. Well, being Israel and a nation full of Jewish supremacists with the backing of the Americans, it was rejected. The entirety of the problem today is Israel's refusal to stop stealing land and ethnically cleansing Arabs from the area. Hamas is right to attack Israel, we see just how useless Fatah is in protecting the West Bank & Palestinians from the onslaught of Jewish "settlers" bent on carrying out pogroms against all Arabs.
And this opinion of yours on the rights and wrongs of the situation will materially effect the situation how?

"Israel is horrible and nasty and in the wrong, so we win, take that, zionist scum!"

The arab world and the palestinians combined cannot hope to defeat Israel by force of arms. The terrorist attacks are fleabites that do nothing except assist Israeli PR in the west. So, apart from invective and continuous, ineffective and impotent "armed struggle", just what is your program?
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Re: America must be removed from the "Islamic World."

Post by Gawd » Sun Feb 27, 2011 10:22 am

JimC wrote:
Gawd wrote:
JimC wrote:
Gawd wrote:Israeli civilians are legitimate targets since it is they that are doing the ethnic cleansing. And also, Israeli citizens are the IDF. You can't claim to be a "civilian" all the while being part of the the Jewish murder weapon.
:sigh:

And this endlessly deep well of hate exists on both sides, leaving a toxic, festering sore that seems incapable of healing. The murderous nightmare will continue...
It's entirely Israel's fault. Way back in 2002/2003, Saudi Arabia and the other Arab nations all offered Israel peace treaties if it ceased ethnically cleansing the Palestinians and recognize the 1967 borders that every other nation in the world supports. Well, being Israel and a nation full of Jewish supremacists with the backing of the Americans, it was rejected. The entirety of the problem today is Israel's refusal to stop stealing land and ethnically cleansing Arabs from the area. Hamas is right to attack Israel, we see just how useless Fatah is in protecting the West Bank & Palestinians from the onslaught of Jewish "settlers" bent on carrying out pogroms against all Arabs.
And this opinion of yours on the rights and wrongs of the situation will materially effect the situation how?

"Israel is horrible and nasty and in the wrong, so we win, take that, zionist scum!"

The arab world and the palestinians combined cannot hope to defeat Israel by force of arms. The terrorist attacks are fleabites that do nothing except assist Israeli PR in the west. So, apart from invective and continuous, ineffective and impotent "armed struggle", just what is your program?
It's either those "fleabites" or get ethnically cleansed by racist/religiously bigoted Jews.

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Re: America must be removed from the "Islamic World."

Post by pErvinalia » Sun Feb 27, 2011 11:50 am

JimC wrote:
Gawd wrote:Israeli civilians are legitimate targets since it is they that are doing the ethnic cleansing. And also, Israeli citizens are the IDF. You can't claim to be a "civilian" all the while being part of the the Jewish murder weapon.
:sigh:

And this endlessly deep well of hate exists on both sides, leaving a toxic, festering sore that seems incapable of healing. The murderous nightmare will continue...
The two sides are in no way equivalent.
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Re: America must be removed from the "Islamic World."

Post by Coito ergo sum » Sun Feb 27, 2011 1:24 pm

rEvolutionist wrote:
Seth wrote:
Gawd wrote:
Seth wrote: Right. Raid the place, kill everyone holding a weapon, save the hostages, release the ships, and tell everyone still living to leave the area and never return. Then carpet bomb the place. Post some signs saying that the area is an interdicted zone subject to being bombed without notice. Sow a few hundred thousand land mines. Then watch from the sky, and if someone tries to reestablish a base there, carpet bomb the place again. Repeat as necessary, until they get the message and give up piracy.
I like your thinking Seth. I would like to apply this to America's thieving "friend" in the Middle East that I so frequently talk about...... Don't you agree?
Nah. Israel isn't engaging in piracy. I say we need to loan Israel a bunch more nukes and aircraft at the moment, to induce the grasshopper-eating camel fuckers next door to cool their jets.
So a couple of tinpot pirates = evil, but heavily armed children killers = good? :ask:
Yes, pirates who kidnap unarmed old people, steal their boat and murder them in cold blood - yes, that's pretty evil.

Israelis aren't children killers. Once again - evidence?

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Re: America must be removed from the "Islamic World."

Post by Coito ergo sum » Sun Feb 27, 2011 1:28 pm

rEvolutionist wrote:
Coito ergo sum wrote:
rEvolutionist wrote:
Anytime you want to back up your assertions with some evidence - like maybe some news reports from a non-Pallywood source - I'll stop laughing at your jokes long enough to look at them.
Are you claiming that settlement activity is a media/UN conspiracy? Huh?!?
Settlement activity? Oh, no. There has been settlement activity. Focus.

We were talking about "piracy" and we were also talking about "stealing homes and water wells." "Settlement activity" does not equal "stealing homes and water wells."

You have some credible source to back up "stealing homes and water wells," and "piracy?" Let's see it.
Umm, *cough*, aren't you forgetting something?

You wrote: "They don't steal land, homes or water wells from the Palestinians".
Exactly. They don't. Creating a settlement is not (necessarily) theft of land. If they actually took land owned by someone, then that would be another story. If you'd like to present some evidence, I'd be happy to look at it. Any citations/links?

The Palestinians think that the existence of the State of Israel is theft of Palestinian land. It isn't. If the existence of the state of Israel is the theft of Palestinian land then so is the existence of Lebanon and parts of Jordan.

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Re: America must be removed from the "Islamic World."

Post by Coito ergo sum » Sun Feb 27, 2011 1:39 pm

rEvolutionist wrote:
Coito ergo sum wrote:
rEvolutionist wrote:
Coito ergo sum wrote:
Gawd wrote: I like your thinking Seth. I would like to apply this to America's thieving "friend" in the Middle East that I so frequently talk about...... Don't you agree?
Which friend? Is he committing acts of piracy on the high seas?
Does 'Gaza Aid Flotilla' ring any bells? :ask:
How am I supposed to know he's talking about Israel? He makes shit up all the time.

The "Gaza aid flotilla" incident wasn't piracy. To call it that is to pretend that words don't have meanings.
Umm, they stormed a civilian boat in international waters.
They boarded a boat after announcing a blockade, which the boat proceeded to run.
rEvolutionist wrote:
I don't care if you want to argue in the context of this thread that it was morally justified, as morals outside the law are thoroughly subjective.
Of course. What they did was not illegal.
rEvolutionist wrote:
But it was illegal,
What law?
rEvolutionist wrote:
and there's been plenty of professional legal opinion to back that up.
What's the flaw in the following?
Although the wisdom of Israel's actions in stopping the Gaza flotilla is open to question, the legality of its actions is not. What Israel did was entirely consistent with both international and domestic law. In order to understand why, the complex events at sea must be deconstructed.

First, there is the Israeli blockade of Gaza. Recall that when Israel ended its occupation of Gaza, it did not impose a blockade. Indeed, it left behind agricultural facilities in the hope that the newly liberated Gaza Strip would become a peaceful and productive area.

Instead, Hamas seized control over Gaza and engaged in acts of warfare against Israel. These acts of warfare featured anti-personnel rockets, nearly 10,000 of them, directed at Israeli civilians. This was not only an act of warfare, it was a war crime. Israel responded to the rockets by declaring a blockade, the purpose of which was to assure that no rockets or other material that could be used for making war against Israeli civilians were permitted into Gaza.

Israel allowed humanitarian aid through its checkpoints. Egypt as well participated in the blockade. There was never a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, merely a shortage of certain goods that would end if the rocket attacks ended.

The legality of blockades as a response to acts of war is not subject to serious doubt. When the United States blockaded Cuba during the missile crisis, the State Department issued an opinion declaring the blockade to be lawful. This despite the fact that Cuba had not engaged in any act of belligerence against the United States. Other nations have similarly enforced naval blockades to assure their own security.

The second issue is whether it is lawful to enforce a legal blockade in international waters. Again, law and practice are clear. If there is no doubt that the offending ships have made a firm determination to break the blockade, then the blockade may be enforced before the offending ships cross the line into domestic waters. Again the United States and other Western countries have frequently boarded ships at high sea in order to assure their security.

Third, were those onboard the ship simply innocent noncombatants? The act of breaking a military siege is itself a military act. And let there be no mistake about the purpose of this flotilla; it was decidedly not to provide humanitarian aid to the residents of Gaza, but rather to break the entirely lawful Israeli military blockade. The proof lies in the fact that both Israel and Egypt offered to have all the food, medicine and other humanitarian goods sent to Gaza, if the boats agreed to land in an Israeli or Egyptian port. That humanitarian offer was soundly rejected by the leaders of the flotilla, who publicly announced: "This mission is not about delivering humanitarian supplies, it's about breaking Israel's siege on 1.5 million Palestinians."

It is a close question whether "civilians" who agree to participate in the breaking of a military blockade have become combatants. They are certainly something different from pure innocents, and perhaps they are also somewhat different from pure armed combatants.

Finally, we come to the issue of the right of self-defense engaged in by Israeli soldiers who were attacked by activists on the boat. There can be little doubt that the moment any person on the boat picked up a weapon and began to attack Israeli soldiers, they lost their status as innocent civilians.

Even if that were not the case, under ordinary civilian rules of self-defense, every Israeli soldier had the right to protect himself and his colleagues from attack by knife- and pipe-wielding assailants. Lest there be any doubt that Israeli soldiers were under attack, simply view the online video and watch the so-called peaceful activists pummel Israeli soldiers with metal rods.

Every individual has the right to repel such attacks by the use of lethal force. That was especially true in this case, when the soldiers were so outnumbered on the deck of the ship. Recall that Israel's rules of engagement required its soldiers to fire only paintballs unless their lives were in danger.

Would any country in the world deny its soldiers the right of self-defense under comparable circumstances?

Israel's critics fail to pinpoint precisely what Israel did that allegedly violates international law. Some have wrongly focused on the blockade itself. Others have erroneously pointed to the location of the boarding in international waters. Most have simply pointed to the deaths of so-called peace activists, though these deaths appear to be the result of lawful acts of self-defense.

There can be little doubt that the mission was a failure, as judged by its results. It is important, however, to distinguish between faulty policies and alleged violations of international law. Only the latter would warrant international intervention, and the case has simply not been made that Israel violated international law.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/201 ... z1FAMD5ine
rEvolutionist wrote: If you want to read all about it, there's a couple of hundred pages of it over at Ratskep in the Gaza Aid flotilla thread. I'm not going to dig through that for the evidence, as I can tell from your comments so far that you wouldn't even bother to consider it. What I really hate is people who confuse their own subjective moral opinion with the law.
Of course I would. I'm not going to do your research for you, though. You made the assertion. You back it up.

As far as whose comments suggest they won't consider the opposing view - dude - have you even once here considered backing up your claim, or even considered that Israel might not be a pack of genocidal maniacs out to slaughter babies? I mean - that's what you've called them. That's what you think they are: they have an army that you think guns down children and goes into Palestinian towns and takes their water wells.

I've never asserted a moral opinion. What I hate are people who don't know the difference between their own opinion and the law.

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Re: America must be removed from the "Islamic World."

Post by Coito ergo sum » Sun Feb 27, 2011 1:48 pm

rEvolutionist wrote:
Robert_S wrote:
JimC wrote:
sandinista wrote:
JimC wrote:
Not piracy, agreed, but still a completely over-the-top military response from a fairly trigger happy IDF which resulted in unecessary deaths.

This whole fucking debate gets so polarised, particularly in that the people who take "sides" cannot see the evils perpetrated by the opposite numbers. An apologist for the palestinians will never admit the inherent barbarity of rocket or suicide attacks against civilians, the anti-democratic nature of most of the Palestinian factions, or that Israel's enemies are backed by fanatical islamic fundamentalists.

Israel's defenders gloss over the poor treatment routinely dished out to Arab inhabitants of Israel, the religious underpinnings of a supposedly secular state, and the creeping settlement program, which is eating away at any remaining land which might be available to a Palestinian state created by a genuine peace treaty.

Both sides are locked into a hard line position, which is maintained by the alliances they have made over the years.
Your acting like both sides are somehow equally repressed or equally mis-treated, that's simply not true.
Well, I am looking at the actual actions of both sides, as well as the imperatives that drive them. Western support for Israel is maintained and strengthened by every rocket fired randomly by Hamas from the Gaza strip, and by every suicide bombing. Everytime there is an absolutist rant by one of their backers, promising Jihad, or that Israel will drown in rivers of blood, or be removed from the face of the earth, the Israeli hawks smile with delight; they know they have been given the sort of PR spin that money simply cannot buy...

Without these factors, without the barbarism, islamofascism and absolutism of their enemies, support for Israel would ebb, and more and more people would take a hard look at their own repressive actions, and poor treatment of palestinians now and in the past, and Israel would soon start to feel the pressure for change...
Which side would most likely kill us all if we were to have a Ratz meet in their country?
The extreme christian right in America would probably kill us all. Let's oppress the US.
Again, you demonstrate your massive ignorance of the United States. Someone has sold you a bill of goods, and you bought it.

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Re: America must be removed from the "Islamic World."

Post by Coito ergo sum » Sun Feb 27, 2011 1:54 pm

Gawd wrote:
Robert_S wrote:
Gawd wrote:Well, Robert you can't. You and I are not Jews. In Israel, we are unwelcome because of our race.
Really? You think we couldn't pool our money together and have Dory rent out a hotel and convention center for us? Who here would be denied entry?
If I were to reveal the things I say here to the Jewish border police, what do you think they would do to me? I'm an enemy of their state and I'm not Jewish. Look at what happened to Chomsky, and he's a full fledge Jew. Besides, we are not allowed to stay for any extended time since we are not Jews.
About 500,000 Americans visit Israel every year, mostly Christians. There is no reason people form the US can't go to Israel.

I'll worry about Israel's border policies when Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, etc., don't discriminate. Muslims....you folks only want equality one way, right? Peace under Islam? That's why Muslims think they can slander everyone else's religion, and suborn the murder of apostates and blasphemers, but everyone else has to talk nicely about Islam. Right?

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Re: America must be removed from the "Islamic World."

Post by Coito ergo sum » Sun Feb 27, 2011 2:08 pm

JimC wrote:
Warren Dew wrote:
JimC wrote:Well, it may have technically been a fair election, but the fact that one is voting for an armed militia in control of most activities around you might be seen as somewhat pressured. There is also no doubt that the rule of Hamas at present is via the barrel of a gun, quite capricious, and without any genuine rule of law. Maybe it couldn't really happen any other way in their situation...
Hamas wasn't in any way "in control" of anything in the palestinian territories when they were elected. Fatah was firmly in control before those elections. The vote for Hamas was a repudiation of corrupt Fatah rule, and a ringing endorsement for Hamas' rhetoric of violence against Israel. A policy of sticking it to the national enemy always plays well in a democracy - just look at how well Ahmadinejad and Chavez do with their anti-US rhetoric.

As for the present situation, after how Hamas was treated by the U.S. and Israel for winning fairly by democratic rules, is it any surprise that they decided democracy was a bad idea after all?
Well, I am no fan of Israel's actions with respect to the inhabitants of Gaza, and for that matter its own arab citizens, who are second-class citizens for clearly religious reasons.
Let's be clear that what the Palestinians want is for Jews to be made second class citizens, if not driven out of the middle east altogether, and they want what most Muslims over there (backed up by the polling numbers) want - an Islamic middle east, under Islamic governments, which make all non-Islamic folks second and third class citizens.
JimC wrote:
However, Hamas (mandate or no mandate) had a clear policy of not recognising Israel as a state, and engaging in military struggle against them by terrorist means. One could scarcely expect Israel or the US to congratulate them on their fine election result...
The majority of Muslims there believe that Israel itself - the land on which Israel now sits (not referring to the "occupied territories" of West Bank, Gaza and Golan Heights) - they think that Israel itself is illegal and a theft of Palestinian land, and they think all of Israel should be Muslim. That's what they mean when they clamor about freeing the Al Aqsa Mosque (the Mosque at the Dome of the Rock). They think that for some reason the Muslim conquerors in the 7th and 8th centuries turned the place into an inherently Muslim place, and that it's a great tragedy for non-Muslims to live there (unless as dhimmi recognizing the superiority of Islam).

The don't bitch about the creation of Jordan out of whole cloth, and they don't say that Jordan is "occupied" or "stolen" because Jordan has a Muslim government and places Muslims at the highest level, with everyone else being at best second class citizens. That's despite the fact that Jordan never existed as a country before the British created it out of whole cloth. In 1921, Transjordan was carved right out of "Palestine" and made into a new country, which was later renamed "Jordan." That's exactly how Israel was created in 1947. Israel was carved out by the British out of the remaining British Mandate (under UN auspices). Why do the Muslims object to Israel? Because it's a Jewish country. Why do they not object to Jordan? Because it's a Muslim country.

And, Lebanon - it was formed in 1926 by France out of the "French Mandate" (under League of Nations auspices), and it was a Christian country. The fucking Muslims didn't like that, though, and ever since they have been working to turn it Islamic. Up through the 1970's, Lebanon was an nice place - Beirut was called the Paris of the middle east. Then the Muslims turned it into rubble, and successfully drove most of the Christians out - and "pushed them into the sea."

Sea a pattern here?

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Re: America must be removed from the "Islamic World."

Post by pErvinalia » Sun Feb 27, 2011 2:24 pm

Coito ergo sum wrote:
rEvolutionist wrote:
Seth wrote:
Gawd wrote:
Seth wrote: Right. Raid the place, kill everyone holding a weapon, save the hostages, release the ships, and tell everyone still living to leave the area and never return. Then carpet bomb the place. Post some signs saying that the area is an interdicted zone subject to being bombed without notice. Sow a few hundred thousand land mines. Then watch from the sky, and if someone tries to reestablish a base there, carpet bomb the place again. Repeat as necessary, until they get the message and give up piracy.
I like your thinking Seth. I would like to apply this to America's thieving "friend" in the Middle East that I so frequently talk about...... Don't you agree?
Nah. Israel isn't engaging in piracy. I say we need to loan Israel a bunch more nukes and aircraft at the moment, to induce the grasshopper-eating camel fuckers next door to cool their jets.
So a couple of tinpot pirates = evil, but heavily armed children killers = good? :ask:
Yes, pirates who kidnap unarmed old people, steal their boat and murder them in cold blood - yes, that's pretty evil.

Israelis aren't children killers. Once again - evidence?
You're shitting me, right? Don't you get a news service at the rock you live under?
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Re: America must be removed from the "Islamic World."

Post by pErvinalia » Sun Feb 27, 2011 2:29 pm

Coito ergo sum wrote:
rEvolutionist wrote:
Coito ergo sum wrote:
rEvolutionist wrote:
Anytime you want to back up your assertions with some evidence - like maybe some news reports from a non-Pallywood source - I'll stop laughing at your jokes long enough to look at them.
Are you claiming that settlement activity is a media/UN conspiracy? Huh?!?
Settlement activity? Oh, no. There has been settlement activity. Focus.

We were talking about "piracy" and we were also talking about "stealing homes and water wells." "Settlement activity" does not equal "stealing homes and water wells."

You have some credible source to back up "stealing homes and water wells," and "piracy?" Let's see it.
Umm, *cough*, aren't you forgetting something?

You wrote: "They don't steal land, homes or water wells from the Palestinians".
Exactly. They don't. Creating a settlement is not (necessarily) theft of land. If they actually took land owned by someone, then that would be another story. If you'd like to present some evidence, I'd be happy to look at it. Any citations/links?

The Palestinians think that the existence of the State of Israel is theft of Palestinian land. It isn't. If the existence of the state of Israel is the theft of Palestinian land then so is the existence of Lebanon and parts of Jordan.
Israel is obviously stealing it, and if you can't see that, there is something terribly wrong at your end. Israel has no legal entitlement over the west bank.
UN wrote:United Nations Security Council Resolution 446, adopted on March 22, 1979, concerned the issue of Israeli settlements in the "Arab territories occupied by Israel since 1967, including Jerusalem".[1] This refers to the Palestinian territories of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip as well as the Syrian Golan Heights.

In the Resolution, the Security Council determined: "that the policy and practices of Israel in establishing settlements in the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since 1967 have no legal validity and constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East"

The Resolution was adopted by 12 votes to none, with 3 abstentions from Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States of America.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nat ... lution_446
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Re: America must be removed from the "Islamic World."

Post by pErvinalia » Sun Feb 27, 2011 3:38 pm

Coito ergo sum wrote:
rEvolutionist wrote:
Coito ergo sum wrote:
rEvolutionist wrote:
Coito ergo sum wrote:
Which friend? Is he committing acts of piracy on the high seas?
Does 'Gaza Aid Flotilla' ring any bells? :ask:
How am I supposed to know he's talking about Israel? He makes shit up all the time.

The "Gaza aid flotilla" incident wasn't piracy. To call it that is to pretend that words don't have meanings.
Umm, they stormed a civilian boat in international waters.
They boarded a boat after announcing a blockade, which the boat proceeded to run.
The blockade was illegal.
Israel's blockade of Gaza is a clear violation of international humanitarian law, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10306193

A blockade is only legal in times of war. Israel was/is not at war with Gaza, for a number of obvious reasons which you alone apparently don't know: 1. Gaza isn't an independent country/state. It is occupied territory.; and 2. Israel and Gaza were under a signed cease-fire at the time. :fp:
rEvolutionist wrote:
But it was illegal,
What law?
Geneva Convention on collective punishment and punitive action.
Moreover, collective punishment is specifically barred under Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Israeli officials have repeatedly stated that the objective of the blockade is to weaken the Gaza economy and undermine support for Hamas. That is a political, not a military, objective, and it is impermissible under international law to target innocent civilians to achieve nonmilitary goals.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... z1FAnc19lj
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... z0puW6Bdk9
UN chief Ban Ki-moon has asked Israel to end the blockade in Gaza, stop the construction of the wall in West Bank, and cease violating human rights of Palestinian children in detention.

In his latest report on human rights of the Palestinians, Ban stressed that the blockade of Gaza, which is in its third year amounts to "collective punishment", and is violation of right to food, water, health, work and adequate standard of living of the Palestinian people.
http://www.dnaindia.com/world/report_un ... on_1312842
rEvolutionist wrote:
and there's been plenty of professional legal opinion to back that up.
What's the flaw in the following?
Although the wisdom of Israel's actions in stopping the Gaza flotilla is open to question, the legality of its actions is not. What Israel did was entirely consistent with both international and domestic law. In order to understand why, the complex events at sea must be deconstructed.

First, there is the Israeli blockade of Gaza. Recall that when Israel ended its occupation of Gaza, it did not impose a blockade. Indeed, it left behind agricultural facilities in the hope that the newly liberated Gaza Strip would become a peaceful and productive area.

Instead, Hamas seized control over Gaza and engaged in acts of warfare against Israel. These acts of warfare featured anti-personnel rockets, nearly 10,000 of them, directed at Israeli civilians. This was not only an act of warfare, it was a war crime. Israel responded to the rockets by declaring a blockade, the purpose of which was to assure that no rockets or other material that could be used for making war against Israeli civilians were permitted into Gaza.

Israel allowed humanitarian aid through its checkpoints. Egypt as well participated in the blockade. There was never a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, merely a shortage of certain goods that would end if the rocket attacks ended.

The legality of blockades as a response to acts of war is not subject to serious doubt. When the United States blockaded Cuba during the missile crisis, the State Department issued an opinion declaring the blockade to be lawful. This despite the fact that Cuba had not engaged in any act of belligerence against the United States. Other nations have similarly enforced naval blockades to assure their own security.

The second issue is whether it is lawful to enforce a legal blockade in international waters. Again, law and practice are clear. If there is no doubt that the offending ships have made a firm determination to break the blockade, then the blockade may be enforced before the offending ships cross the line into domestic waters. Again the United States and other Western countries have frequently boarded ships at high sea in order to assure their security.

Third, were those onboard the ship simply innocent noncombatants? The act of breaking a military siege is itself a military act. And let there be no mistake about the purpose of this flotilla; it was decidedly not to provide humanitarian aid to the residents of Gaza, but rather to break the entirely lawful Israeli military blockade. The proof lies in the fact that both Israel and Egypt offered to have all the food, medicine and other humanitarian goods sent to Gaza, if the boats agreed to land in an Israeli or Egyptian port. That humanitarian offer was soundly rejected by the leaders of the flotilla, who publicly announced: "This mission is not about delivering humanitarian supplies, it's about breaking Israel's siege on 1.5 million Palestinians."

It is a close question whether "civilians" who agree to participate in the breaking of a military blockade have become combatants. They are certainly something different from pure innocents, and perhaps they are also somewhat different from pure armed combatants.

Finally, we come to the issue of the right of self-defense engaged in by Israeli soldiers who were attacked by activists on the boat. There can be little doubt that the moment any person on the boat picked up a weapon and began to attack Israeli soldiers, they lost their status as innocent civilians.

Even if that were not the case, under ordinary civilian rules of self-defense, every Israeli soldier had the right to protect himself and his colleagues from attack by knife- and pipe-wielding assailants. Lest there be any doubt that Israeli soldiers were under attack, simply view the online video and watch the so-called peaceful activists pummel Israeli soldiers with metal rods.

Every individual has the right to repel such attacks by the use of lethal force. That was especially true in this case, when the soldiers were so outnumbered on the deck of the ship. Recall that Israel's rules of engagement required its soldiers to fire only paintballs unless their lives were in danger.

Would any country in the world deny its soldiers the right of self-defense under comparable circumstances?

Israel's critics fail to pinpoint precisely what Israel did that allegedly violates international law. Some have wrongly focused on the blockade itself. Others have erroneously pointed to the location of the boarding in international waters. Most have simply pointed to the deaths of so-called peace activists, though these deaths appear to be the result of lawful acts of self-defense.

There can be little doubt that the mission was a failure, as judged by its results. It is important, however, to distinguish between faulty policies and alleged violations of international law. Only the latter would warrant international intervention, and the case has simply not been made that Israel violated international law.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/201 ... z1FAMD5ine
All of the flaws I've just pointed out above. Israel wasn't at war with Gaza and in fact can't be at war as Gaza isn't an independent state but in fact is under occupation by Israel. Because Israel isn't at war with Gaza, it has no right enact a blockade of Gaza. Even if it did, the blockade is punitive and collective punishment and therefore contravenes the Geneva Convention on Human Rights. What Israel did was either an act of war against Turkey or murder of Turkish citizens.
It was not an act of "piracy," because the Israeli troops were operating under the flag of a nation-state. Because the blockade violates international law, and Israel had no military justification for boarding her with special forces troops, it rather constituted an "illegal act of war." Craig Murray, a former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, called the legal situation "very plain":

Because the incident took place on the high seas does not mean ... that international law is the only applicable law. The Law of the Sea is quite plain that, when an incident takes place on a ship on the high seas (outside anybody's territorial waters) the applicable law is that of the flag state of the ship on which the incident occurred. In legal terms, the Turkish ship was Turkish territory.

There are therefore two clear legal possibilities.

Possibility one is that the Israeli commandos were acting on behalf of the government of Israel in killing the activists on the ships. In that case Israel is in a position of war with Turkey, and the act falls under international jurisdiction as a war crime.

Possibility two is that, if the killings were not authorised Israeli military action, they were acts of murder under Turkish jurisdiction. If Israel does not consider itself in a position of war with Turkey, then it must hand over the commandos involved for trial in Turkey under Turkish law.
http://www.alternet.org/world/147115/th ... age=entire
rEvolutionist wrote: If you want to read all about it, there's a couple of hundred pages of it over at Ratskep in the Gaza Aid flotilla thread. I'm not going to dig through that for the evidence, as I can tell from your comments so far that you wouldn't even bother to consider it. What I really hate is people who confuse their own subjective moral opinion with the law.
Of course I would. I'm not going to do your research for you, though. You made the assertion. You back it up.

As far as whose comments suggest they won't consider the opposing view - dude - have you even once here considered backing up your claim, or even considered that Israel might not be a pack of genocidal maniacs out to slaughter babies? I mean - that's what you've called them. That's what you think they are: they have an army that you think guns down children and goes into Palestinian towns and takes their water wells.
Foreign Policy Magazine compiled a large volume of information from reports issued by the United Nations and various NGOs working in Gaza. Just a few highlights:

* Electricity: In 2006, Israel carried out an attack on Gaza's only power plant and never permitted the rebuilding to its pre-attack capacity.... The majority of houses have power cuts at least eight hours per day. Some have no electricity for long as 12 hours a day. The lack of electricity has led to reliance on generators, many of which have exploded from overwork, killing and maiming civilians.
* Water: Israel has not permitted supplies into the Gaza Strip to rebuild the sewage system. Amnesty International reports that 90-95 percent of the drinking water in Gaza is contaminated and unfit for consumption.
* Health: According to UN OCHA, infrastructure for 15 of 27 of Gaza's hospitals, 43 of 110 of its primary care facilities, and 29 of its 148 ambulances were damaged or destroyed during the war. Without rebuilding materials like cement and glass due to Israeli restrictions, the vast majority of the destroyed health infrastructure has not been rebuilt.
* Food: A 2010 World Health Organization report stated that "chronic malnutrition in the Gaza Strip has risen over the past few years and has now reached 10.2%. ... According to UN OCHA: "Over 60 percent of households are now food insecure ...
* Industry: A World Health Organization report from this year states: "In the Gaza Strip, private enterprise is practically at a standstill as a consequence of the blockade. Almost all (98%) industrial operations have been shut down.
http://www.alternet.org/world/147115/th ... age=entire
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Re: America must be removed from the "Islamic World."

Post by pErvinalia » Sun Feb 27, 2011 3:44 pm

Coito ergo sum wrote:
rEvolutionist wrote:
Robert_S wrote:
JimC wrote:
sandinista wrote:
Your acting like both sides are somehow equally repressed or equally mis-treated, that's simply not true.
Well, I am looking at the actual actions of both sides, as well as the imperatives that drive them. Western support for Israel is maintained and strengthened by every rocket fired randomly by Hamas from the Gaza strip, and by every suicide bombing. Everytime there is an absolutist rant by one of their backers, promising Jihad, or that Israel will drown in rivers of blood, or be removed from the face of the earth, the Israeli hawks smile with delight; they know they have been given the sort of PR spin that money simply cannot buy...

Without these factors, without the barbarism, islamofascism and absolutism of their enemies, support for Israel would ebb, and more and more people would take a hard look at their own repressive actions, and poor treatment of palestinians now and in the past, and Israel would soon start to feel the pressure for change...
Which side would most likely kill us all if we were to have a Ratz meet in their country?
The extreme christian right in America would probably kill us all. Let's oppress the US.
Again, you demonstrate your massive ignorance of the United States. Someone has sold you a bill of goods, and you bought it.
So the extreme christian right in the US don't kill abortion doctors and some women who seek abortions? Does Fox News not cover these stories? :ask:
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Re: America must be removed from the "Islamic World."

Post by pErvinalia » Sun Feb 27, 2011 3:51 pm

Coito ergo sum wrote:
JimC wrote:
Warren Dew wrote:
JimC wrote:Well, it may have technically been a fair election, but the fact that one is voting for an armed militia in control of most activities around you might be seen as somewhat pressured. There is also no doubt that the rule of Hamas at present is via the barrel of a gun, quite capricious, and without any genuine rule of law. Maybe it couldn't really happen any other way in their situation...
Hamas wasn't in any way "in control" of anything in the palestinian territories when they were elected. Fatah was firmly in control before those elections. The vote for Hamas was a repudiation of corrupt Fatah rule, and a ringing endorsement for Hamas' rhetoric of violence against Israel. A policy of sticking it to the national enemy always plays well in a democracy - just look at how well Ahmadinejad and Chavez do with their anti-US rhetoric.

As for the present situation, after how Hamas was treated by the U.S. and Israel for winning fairly by democratic rules, is it any surprise that they decided democracy was a bad idea after all?
Well, I am no fan of Israel's actions with respect to the inhabitants of Gaza, and for that matter its own arab citizens, who are second-class citizens for clearly religious reasons.
Let's be clear that what the Palestinians want is for Jews to be made second class citizens, if not driven out of the middle east altogether, and they want what most Muslims over there (backed up by the polling numbers) want - an Islamic middle east, under Islamic governments, which make all non-Islamic folks second and third class citizens.
Evidence please. Your use of the phrase "what the Palestinians want" suggests that a majority of them want that. I'll await the evidence for this. :coffee:
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Re: America must be removed from the "Islamic World."

Post by Coito ergo sum » Sun Feb 27, 2011 4:06 pm

The Palestinian organization the JMCC did a study finding that 66% of Palestinians support suicide bombing and the murder of civilians in Israel, including women and children. And, at least 51% of Palestinians want Israel eliminated and replaced with a Palestinian state encompassing all of what they consider to be "historic Palestaine." That's from a Palestinian source, which would not be expected to be biased toward Israel or even neutral/unbiased in any way. http://www.factsofisrael.com/blog/archives/000099.html

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