knows about flickr of israel?

hope u can give this information tp your readers

Just had a look at that short BBC news online article; it includes the likes of ‘Israel says’ six times, in a piece just 253 words long. Interesting.

For a civilian vessel to break a blockade is as much an act of war as for a belligerent to enforce one.

In his previous comment that there is no war, Craig Murray makes himself look more stupid than he really is.

On 19 September 2007 the Israeli government declared Gaza to be a hostile entity, and Hamas received this as a declaration of war.

So the San Remo Manual applies.

Go study.

Of course the organisers said that. They would, wouldn’t they?

The only law appliacable is Israeli law. We don’t have a world government, or any comparable body with the moral right to tell sovereign countries what to do. International law is nothing more than an agreement between some countries… it isn’t real law at all.

How about that free book?

Now I’m a Zionist troll, I suppose?

Are you sure the ship was boarded in international waters, Craig? all I can make out is that it was ‘close to the Gaza coast’.

Michael Petek,

I’d be interested to know which version of which browser you were using when you found this site, and how you found it.

If you wish to expound on the morality of this situation, that could be interesting, too.

For my part, I expect that many people on that ship feel that they have to try to do something rather than permit the enforced starvation of the people of Gaza. I feel that way too, which is why I question your motives.

I found this line in the BBC article a bit odd:

“Israel has blockaded Gaza since 2007, when the Islamist Hamas movement seized control of the territory.”

Seized control? In an election, you mean?

I’m aware there was a war between Hamas and Fatah after the late-2006 election but it was Hamas who won power in the election so doesn’t that mean they were defending control of the territory, not seizing it?

I’m not pro-Hamas but I am pro-democracy.

@Neil Barker:

I’m also perplexed by comments (both yours and elsewhere) from people who seem to think international law is a fiction that can be ignored.

Do you think if Iran ignored international law, to anywhere near the extend Israel does, that the rest of the world would turn a blind eye?

Might does not equal right.

And “getting away with it” does not mean a law or enforcement of it is an illusion, any more than getting away with nicking a newspaper from a shop would mean that shoplifting was fine & dandy.

@Michael Petek:

If Israel are at war with Gaza/Hamas, why aren’t they treating all their prisoners as PoWs, among other requirements of countries at war?

You seen anyone starving in Gaza, Clark?

You have a right to your idiotic opinion, but I would never accuse you of being an Islamist troll.

Now how about that free book, O rich Craig?

Leo, I didn’t say it was a fiction. I said it’s not really any kind of law, and I explained why I made this claim.

What is law, in your opinion?

Nor do I think might is right.

Incidentally, being “illegal”, however defined, doesn’t mean being wrong. It means someone’s rule is being broken – no more, no less. In the case of international “law” it means that a rule decided by some countries is being broken. So what?

Maicahel Patek

Care to comment on the legality of Blowing up Americans on the USS Liberty or the Lavon Affair or for that Matter the murder of Rachel Corrie or Tom Hurndall, James Miller……. to name a few?

Thanks for mentioning the book Neil – so have these people:

“I thought that diplomats like Craig Murray were an extinct breed. A man of the highest principle”

?”John Pilger

“An important and well-told story from a frontline on the war of terror”

?”The Spectator

“The Uzbek people know only one word for Craig Murray: hero”

?”Mohammad Salih, Uzbek opposition leader

“Heroic. This darkly comic tale…rings horribly true. It helps explain the moral bankruptcy [of] the Blair government”

?”Sir Max Hastings, Sunday Times, 16 July 2006

“The book is fantastic. It is very, very funny…It also deals with the fact that the reason he is no longer ambassador is that the British Government was using information obtained from torture and he thought that was wrong”

?”Michael Winterbottom, Director

“This candid account…looks set to ruffle a few feathers”

?”Bookseller

“The actions of this brave and principled man have certainly exposed the ‘war on terror’ for the sick charade that it is”

?”Morning Star

“Excellent”

?”Sunday Express

Michael Petek:

Go back and reread the original blog.

“They ignore those parts of San Remo that specifically state that it is illegal to enforce a general blockade on an entire population.”

Neil Barker:

How cheap are you? Go to the library or save a little. Do you not expect to be paid for something you produce? Do you go and ask farmers for free fruit and veggies?

Neil Barker,

you are a scrounger.

Craig,

I have found a link that may lead to a torrent of a scan of Murder in Samarkand. May I post it for our regular scrounger? He seems incapable of using Google.

Update – Neil Barker,

I refer my questions to Michael Petek to you, also. What software, how did you get here, and do you deny that there is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza?

Well I am sure the Somali and Other Pirates will welcome this Statement, they can ask ships to accompany them to Mogadishu and handover their Cargo. If the Maritime law does not Apply to Israel than it applies to no one.

” Mike Hammer, a spokesman for the US national security council, said in a statement.

“In the interest of the safety of all involved, and the safe transmission of assistance to the people of Gaza, we strongly encourage those on board the Rachel Corrie and other vessels to sail to Ashdod to deliver their materials to Gaza.”

ten copies in my local library system, get yourself signed up Neil, it’s for free!

michael – i guess jamming emergency radio signals in international waters is also acceptable to the zionist apologists?

Israel is basically a failed state, it is doomed!

Why is the BBC the mouth piece for the Zionists?

The BBC is the mouth piece of the British government.

The British government is just a tool of the American government.

The American government is just department under the Israeli government.

The Israeli government takes their orders for satan himself.

Lame.

Everyone knows that Israel takes it’s orders from Vulcan!

Well, at least there’s a new angle being used here by the Tel Aviv trolls, one I haven’t seen before:

“What is The Law, after all?”

Yes, let’s get existential about it. The Law is an illusion, didn’t you know?

This bit of propaganda has no legs though. It’s a bit too deep for the average right-winger to grasp.

And since the trolls are admitting now there’s a war-footing between Israel and Gaza, they need to explain:

1. Why Israel is complaining about rocket attacks and other military actions by the Gazans?

2. Why they are not giving the Gazans in their jails the rights of POWs, as Craig stated previously?

3. Does this mean they consider themselves to no longer occupy Gaza, and so Gaza can proclaim itself a sovereign state?

Let’s not hold our breath while awaiting answers.

Question for Craig Murray: Could Gaza declare itself a sovereign state? Since Israel is effectively at war with it, it seems like it should be their right to do so, to form a proper military response.

BTW a little off topic but any updates on the issue of the Mavi Marmara’s flagging? I dunno, but I think that if it really was flagged to the Comoros Islands, the hasbara machine would be all over it by now. The fact that they’re not is surely telling. Isn’t it?

Dave:

My understanding is that the most important aspect in becoming a sovereign state is for other states to recognise this. As Israel and Egypt surround the Gaza strip it is most important for them to recognise the state. Currently the chances of this happening are close to 0. Also I would assume that there is some Palestinian reluctance to declare the Gaza strip as being a separate state to the West Bank.

Mr Avey is one of the “Heroes of the Holocaust.” and has been awarded by Gordon Brown a solid silver medallion inscribed with the words “In the Service of Humanity.”

Mr Avey smuggled food and cigarettes to Jewish prisoners at Auschwitz during his incarceration in the adjacent prisoner of war camp. The Telegraph reported him saying, “We were faced with this bestiality every day and we knew exactly what was happening in there, and I suppose being an Englishman I recognised this and wanted to do something about it.”

Unfortunately well meaning people trying to relieve the suffering of the Gazans inflicted by the Israelis just get a series of bullets in the head.

Cheeba–I see your point. But at the same time, it seems easy to make a case that neither Israel, as the party making war, nor Egypt, as a party helping the blockade, is in any position to be objective. Wouldn’t the rest of the world, besides the US, jump on the bandwagon? Certainly most of the Muslim world would do so, as would most of Europe, and I suspect most of the former Soviet countries.

Can the entire world be so afraid of Israel?

Neil Barker,

you are a scrounger.

Ah, I understand! Anyone poor man who asks a rich man for something for nothing is a scrounger! Right, got it.

And anyone who draws a parallel between this simple, personal request and the poor Palestinians asking for aid is, er, a Zionist troll.

How hilarious is that!

Disagree with someone? Then blacken their name and reputation…. bit like what Ian Blair used to do, innit?

Thanks for mentioning the book Neil – so have these people:

“I thought that diplomats like Craig Murray were an extinct breed. A man of the highest principle”

?”John Pilger

“An important and well-told story from a frontline on the war of terror”

?”The Spectator

“The Uzbek people know only one word for Craig Murray: hero”

?”Mohammad Salih, Uzbek opposition leader

“Heroic. This darkly comic tale…rings horribly true. It helps explain the moral bankruptcy [of] the Blair government”

?”Sir Max Hastings, Sunday Times, 16 July 2006

“The book is fantastic. It is very, very funny…It also deals with the fact that the reason he is no longer ambassador is that the British Government was using information obtained from torture and he thought that was wrong”

?”Michael Winterbottom, Director

“This candid account…looks set to ruffle a few feathers”

?”Bookseller

“The actions of this brave and principled man have certainly exposed the ‘war on terror’ for the sick charade that it is”

?”Morning Star

“Excellent”

?”Sunday Express

I know. That’s why I badly want to read it! Craig’s other book was superb. But I have no money, no credit card, no library…..

So I must be a Zionist troll.

O tempora, O mores!

Whatever one says about the Israelis one cannot dispute that when it comes to respect for human rights & international law they are thousands of times ahead of the Nazi scum who attacked Yugoslavia. It is a matter of record that the number of people killed in the entire Gaza war, overwhelmingly combatants, is less than the number of civilians, in nominal peacetime, dissected while alive, by NATO “police” (formerly the KLA) under NATO authority to steal their body organs.

It seems clear that anybody who complains more about the Israelis, let alone who supports racist & pro-Nazi parties, such as the LibDems responsible for such atrocities, unmatched even by Mr Hitler, cannot, under any circumstances claim to be motivated by concern for human rights.

Perhaps if the author here disagrees he will be able to explain.

Craig, a significant proportion of your supporters appear to believe that everyone has money or library access. How many of these supporters actually live and work in third world countries? Don’t they have the slightest idea how difficult it is to get hold of an English book? They are all sitting at home in their middle class armchairs with their always-on internet connection and their wallets full of plastic.

You of all people ought to know this.

Neill Barker–since you say you have no money and no library, but somehow have a computer and an Internet connection, I suggest you sell your computer and cancel your Internet service, and use the money instead to buy a copy of Craig’s book. Obviously, the need to read it is consuming your life.

Doesn’t Israel have a free clinic you could visit? I believe my tax dollars helped build it.

Neill Barker–since you say you have no money and no library, but somehow have a computer and an Internet connection, I suggest you sell your computer and cancel your Internet service, and use the money instead to buy a copy of Craig’s book. Obviously, the need to read it is consuming your life.

Ah, here we go again. Have you no idea how many people don’t have a computer or internet service? Clearly not. Have you any idea how people access the internet in poor countries? Obviously not.

But Craig knows.

Doesn’t Israel have a free clinic you could visit? I believe my tax dollars helped build it

Ah, here we go again…. I must be a Zionist troll.

Grow up, travel, work in a poor country, then reply.

Dave:

Of course Israel and Egypt aren’t objective. Unfortunately those are the rules of the game. I think you would be surprised at how few Islamic states would be prepared to piss off the US and Israel. From their perspective the choice is helping a few million poor Palestinians (who can’t offer anything in return) or keep the global and regional powers happy. ‘Regime change’ is a real concern for many states. From a real politics perspective it is a no brainer. Europe and Russia have even fewer reasons to rock the boat. Think about how much effort China and Russia have expended just to protect the pre-existing state that is Iran (I understand that altruism has no part in their reasoning).

I think Israel must be really intimidated by Craig’s blog

I live and work in a developing country, although I wouldn’t call it 3rd world. My top internet speed is 20k/sec and that’s when the power hasn’t gone out. I haven’t had a chance to read Craig’s latest book either, but I don’t make post after post begging for a free copy. I can wait until I have a chance to obtain my own copy or else arrange with some family or friends to send me a copy. The only English language books I have access to are The Da Vinci Code, The Beach and crap like that. It’s the price I pay for living where I do. Although I did recently hit the jackpot when I found Graham Greene’s ‘Heart Of The Matter’.

Your comparison of food aid to poor children and you getting a free copy of a book is in really poor taste and shows a lack of empathy towards those with real problems.

I think Israel must be really intimidated by Craig’s blog

Clearly, given the amount of transaparant trolls it’s called into action.

Cheeba–well, it looks as though at least Turkey and Ireland aren’t afraid to cross the Israelis.

The US is in decline, and though we might end up spending our last dollars on Israel, I’m not sure the world will need to be so worried about what we do in the future.

And if I were a European or Asian country, I’d be getting a bit worried about this rogue nuclear power called Israel.

Dealing with the Israeli problem would surely bring a lot of stability to that part of the world.

I read quote from a French government official stating they would feel obliged to recognize Gaza/Palestine, if it declared itself a country.

Neill Barker (or should I say, “Carnival Barker?” Look it up):

You have no computer and no Internet access, yet you are able to read and post to the Internet? Wow. You must be one of those magical trolls.

Please do write more, with your magical powers. Posterity will want to know what other important and vital things you have to say. Begging for a book won’t be quite enough.

“Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan plans to visit the Gaza Strip to break the blockade imposed by Israel, Lebanese Al Mustaqbal newspaper writes, citing well-informed sources”.

http://www.focus-fen.net/index.php?id=n221845

Also reported on Sky News apparently.

I think a entire fleet of boats needs to sail, non-stop, day-and-night, to Gaza. Let them board every one. It’s become a symbol of resistance.

“…the number of people killed in the entire Gaza war, overwhelmingly combatants, is less than the number of civilians…”

Neil Craig, that’s simply not true. I agree about the Kosovo Mafia, but that’s another subject. It’s not related to Palestine.

Neil Barker, just out of interest, what country or part of the world are you in?

There are several questions here for me to answer.

I found Craig Murray’s website having been referred to it by a friend. I’m not one of those ‘Zionist trolls’ people keep referring to.

The reason why Israel declared Gaza to be a hostile entity on 19 September 2007 is that the government’s legal experts advised that it had to in order lawfully to be able to impose a blockade. In itself it is not unlawful, nor immoral, as long as starvation of civilians is not the direct object of the blockade, and as long as the effect on civilians is not out of proportion to the anticipated military advantage.

Clark at 12:37 asks me to expound on the morality of the situation.

The state of belligerency between Gaza and Israel is not subject to evaluation according to international law, because they are not both states. Save that, in so far as Hamas is in common plan or conspiracy with one or more states to wage war aimed at the political destruction of the State of Israel, its members are indictable as conspirators in a species of aggression – the supreme international crime – so extreme that not even the Security Council could authorise it.

As for enforced starvation, according to UN figures the crude death rate for Gaza is between 3 and 4 per thousand. In the UK it is 10 per thousand. Not exactly the siege of Leningrad.

Acts of belligerency committed in Gaza against Israel are subject to Israeli jurisdiction according to the protective principle, just as they would be subject to Egyptian jurisdiction if aimed at Egypt. As such, they are in violation of Israeli law.

Now for the moral question. I can answer it only in terms of Christian morality, though I would get the same answer if put in humanist terms.

A war aim of Hamas is to destroy the State of Israel and to replace it with an Islamic state ruled according to Islamic law. This is morally repugnant because Mohammed is not a true prophet, and because Islam is a false religion. Therefore it is supremely immoral to wage war for the purpose of imposing the law of that religion on any part of the Earth’s surface.

If Israel are at war with Gaza/Hamas, why aren’t they treating all their prisoners as PoWs.

Because Hamas generally do not deploy and fight in uniform sufficient to distinguish them from civilians. If they did, they would have to be treated as PoWs, but could still be tried and punished for war crimes if they committed any.

Israel is just a poor wee mite trying to protect itself from all the bad people out there.

If we appear paranoid, psychotic and psycho it’s just because everyone hates us.

And we didn’t do anything to deserve such hatred.

We’re the most oppressed people ever.

We’re good and everyone else is bad.

And if you don’t agree with us we’ll kill you.

I really can’t see what the point of the law issue is?

International law doesn’t really mean anything.

We all know that Israel is above international law.

And we also know that Muslims in particuler and brown people in general are below the protection of international law.

I see Netanyahu has now released a statement about the MV Rachel Corrie:

“We saw today the difference between a ship of peace activists, with whom we don’t agree but respect their right to a different opinion from ours, and a ship of hate organised by violent Turkish terror extremists.”

For someone who doesn’t hesitate to humiliate the American vice-president, this sounds very strangely mellow. Is he *afraid* of Mairead Corrigan and Denis Halliday?

Well, I tell ya, if Israel is at war with the hostile entity, Gaza, that has to be the weirdest frakkin war I ever did see. Historically speaking, whenever did any antagonist have its enemy penned in and unable to escape yet did not press home the advantage? Okay, Mistah Petek, why doesn’t Israel just start shelling and gassing the Gaza strip? Didn’t Israel’s great protector, Bush the Lesser, say that if you harbour or protect a terrorist then you are a terrorist? And we know that Israel believes Hamas to be terrorists, so if the populace supports them then the people of Gaza are also terrorists, yeah?

Instead, Israel allows trucks of aid to pass through checkpoints into this place which is so hostile that all its borders are closed and watched night and day.

Well, of course the Gazans are hostile towards Israel. Its as if you, Mr Petek, had a pet dog which you kept in a cage, poked it with knives and sticks day after day, disturbed its sleep week after week, starved it of food and water month after month, whipped it and beat it year after long tormenting year. If you did that, you would hardly expect it to react towards you like a friendly puppy, would you?

The short answer is that anyone who would do these things to the weak and the powerless, whether its a animal or a human being, is a psychopath. Hostile? What else did anyone expect as a result of the depraved policies inflicted on the Palestinians for decades? Israel is at war – my arse. Like Bill Hicks said, a war is where you’ve got two armies fighting…so we can all agree…there is no war.

There are, however, voices and unarmed aid boats which will keep on speaking out, and keep on sailing through the Med. You can’t stop the signal. Peace and justice will prevail in the end (and before you blurt out that I MUST crave the destruction of Israel, no I dont. Get a grip).

The new Foreign Office already nicely into newspeak vocabulary: the “peaceful interception” was “resolved peacefully”:

http://ht.ly/1UtFn

So how do the Zionists pull off being able to control a state broadcaster of a major nation?

Mr petek

“So the San Remo Manual applies.

Go study.”

Your Jew nonsense is revealed. It’s already been shown that this is a desperate water-muddying diversion, but you’ll keep repeating it ad nauseam. Not because you value the truth, but because if you can foist your lies on to somebody else as truth, or simply cause confusion, well, you’ve done your job.

Crawl away.

“We aren’t the world”

Video: Warning, have sick bag at the ready.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOGG_osOoVg

kingfelix – what the f**k is ‘Jew nonsense’? Y’know, I do believe that your racism is showing. Careful now.

“Historically speaking, whenever did any antagonist have its enemy penned in and unable to escape yet did not press home the advantage?”

Paddy Ashdown, formerly our man in the Balkans, met General Ratko Mladic during the siege of Sarajevo.

“I can take Sarajevo any time I like” said the General. “But I was trained by the Russians. They say if you shoot a man in the head it takes two people half an hour to bury him. If you shoot him in the balls, it takes several thousand to keep him alive for months.”

On the eve of Israel’s Remembrance Day, Ehud Barak said: We live in a tough environment. “This isn’t western Europe or North America. There is no mercy for the weak here, and no second chance for those who can’t defend themselves.”

He’s absolutely right. Nearly a century ago, the Ottoman Armenians tried to break away from Muslim rule and they turned out to be too weak to succeed. They were given no second chance and were shown no mercy. That’s why they don’t exist any more. If they had been strong enough and ruthless enough to their enemies, they might have prevailed.

Israel’s neighbourhood is infested with fanatics who are convinced that Jews are the offspring of apes and pigs, but who will respect anyone who can show that he’s the strong horse. According to local custom, the way to do that is to shoot the man who disrespects you, and then the man next to him.

It’s nothing to do with being a psychopath. In the eastern Mediterranean, it’s the only way to stay alive.

“Whatever one says about the Israelis one cannot dispute that when it comes to respect for human rights & international law they are thousands of times ahead of the Nazi scum who attacked Yugoslavia. It is a matter of record that the number of people killed in the entire Gaza war, overwhelmingly combatants, is less than the number of civilians, in nominal peacetime, dissected while alive, by NATO “police” (formerly the KLA) under NATO authority to steal their body organs.

It seems clear that anybody who complains more about the Israelis, let alone who supports racist & pro-Nazi parties, such as the LibDems responsible for such atrocities, unmatched even by Mr Hitler, cannot, under any circumstances claim to be motivated by concern for human rights.

Perhaps if the author here disagrees he will be able to explain.”

What amazing nonsense.

Such a change of theme would suit you. You need to adjust your tactics. Your speaking English, but it just doesn’t jive here, you need to adapt your Zionist Attack Machine tactics for the UK market.

I meant to add the above video was in a link at lobelog.com

“Tax-Exempt US $$ Fund Tasteless Israeli Flotilla Satire”

http://www.lobelog.com/tax-exempt-us-fund-tasteless-israeli-flotilla-satire/

@mike cobley

The San Remo meme was seized on by the Israeli Commenting Machine.

Jews are not a racial group, but an ethnic group, I think you’ll find, though they managed to insinuate themselves into the Race Relations legislation in the UK as such, but definitions do seem to fluctuate when Israel comes into focus, you know, leaving them off the list of states with undeclared nuclear weapons, etc.

Of course, everybody, EVERYBODY who opposes Israel’s actions is a vile anti-Semite etc… mate, we’ve been hearing it in the West for generations, it’s just a way to smear opponents that no longer works too well. What I actually am is sick of the Jewish state and its fanatic adherents committing atrocities and then distorting reality with their PR surges through the world media. If you mistake it for racism, fine, fuck you.

And Craig should add a script to this site that shows the location of commenters via IP address.

Michael Petek–The original sin, of course, was that of the Zionists. They bullied and bribed the Western powers to give them a large part of Palestine, via what was really a criminal act of the UN. That land was not the UN’s to give.

Everything that has happened since then is simply the victims trying to get their land back. That they didn’t simply slink away has given Israel a false excuse to steal more and more.

It’s time to admit the UN made a huge mistake in 1948, and look at other options. Israel’s imposed apartheid has shown the world they are unable to resolve the present conflict in a peaceful way.

Michael Petek

You say – “the Ottoman Armenians tried to break away from Muslim rule and they turned out to be too weak to succeed.”

Why the sudden interest in the Armenian Holocaust?

quote: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3899265,00.html

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said on Saturday Israel’s blockade of Gaza is illegal and should be lifted, and reiterated calls for an investigation into Israel’s raid on aid supply ships this week.

“International humanitarian law prohibits starvation of civilians as a method of warfare and … it is also prohibited to impose collective punishment on civilians,” Pillay said. (Reuters)

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3899265,00.html

I’m not sure on this one.

I suspect Israel are at war with the Palestinians since the invasion in 1967 (correct me if the date wrong), i.e they are an occupying force.

Thus the blockade is valid, but the UN must see it as a war and enforce the outstanding 90+ UN resolutions against Israel.

Some clarification on this is needed, oh and by the way if its is a war, then why isn’t the UN and USA placing a blokade on Israel. Just gotta go look at the definition of ‘double standards’ on this one to see if i’ve missed a caveat?

There has been a massive Gaza protest in London today. The BBC online makes no mention of it. However, under the Scotland section, it does mention the Gaza protest…in Edinburgh.

To the new folks above (and I count only two):

You’ve probably picked up on the fact that people who express dissenting opinions around here are immediately accused of being Zionist spies.

Par for the course. 95% of the posters here are 911 truther nuts, who believe that Bush and Cheney and the JOOOOOS pre-wired the WTC.

In other words, they’re willing to exonerate ignorant hateful Muslim terrorists of their crimes based on the incompetent rantings of a few select insane religious figures.

This site is a cesspool of stupidity, failed logic and Jew hatred.

“the Ottoman Armenians tried to break away from Muslim rule and they turned out to be too weak to succeed.”

Ironic that an Apologist for the actions of the Pariah Gangster State of Israel should unknowingly regurgitate the official Turkish apologist’s justification for the Armenian Genocide.

Does this souring of Israel-Turkish relations, mean that Israel will now end it shameless refusal to officially acknowledge the Armenian Genocide?

From Juan Cole:

“In what Irish Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness described as a “raid,” the Israeli Navy again commandeered an unarmed, peaceful ship in international waters, the Rachel Corrie, in a bid to prevent wheel chairs from reaching the blockaded people of Gaza, an Occupied Territory of which Israel controls the borders, air and sea.

The Irish government (the ship took off from Ireland) is furious, with the deputy first minister condemning the raid as a “completely unacceptable and unjustified use of force”.

McGuinness insisted, “The Rachel Corrie should have been allowed to proceed to Gaza without Israeli aggression,” adding, “This is an attack on an Irish flagged vessel and it demands a strong response by the Irish government.”

Well at the least the Irish have the balls the US and UK clearly lack to say loudly what is obvious, and is also a refutation of the delusional, unctuous and hate-filled Netanyahu. Using the Rachel Corrie, particularly with the significance of its name, to exonerate Israeli thugs is about as sick and truly twisted as you can get. Except with Israel nothing is a surprise.

“In what Irish Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness described as a “raid,” the Israeli Navy again commandeered an unarmed, peaceful ship in international waters, the Rachel Corrie, in a bid to prevent wheel chairs from reaching the blockaded people of Gaza, an Occupied Territory of which Israel controls the borders, air and sea.

The Irish government (the ship took off from Ireland) is furious, with the deputy first minister condemning the raid as a “completely unacceptable and unjustified use of force”.

He isn’t the Irish deputy first minister. He isn’t a member of the Irish government at all. He’s a former IRA terrorist who relied on Libyan supplies.

Lots of ad hominem attacks from the Zionists here, but nothing factual in terms of rebuttals.

Some interesting sophistry from Michael Petek, but it’s all been debunked in earlier posts, especially those by Craig.

Israel wants to paint the picture that it’s one-sided war is legal and moral, but of course it is neither.

That’s funny, Dave I though it was me who was debunking Craig!

By the way, how can a war by a state against a non-state belligerent be illegal, unless it’s a question of Islamic law or Borat’s law.

Dave says:

“The original sin, of course, was that of the Zionists. They bullied and bribed the Western powers to give them a large part of Palestine, via what was really a criminal act of the UN.”

Dave, you really do need to take a day off!

When Israel was created on 15 May 1948 it was restricted to the territory of Palestine, where at the time there was no state of any kind, any more than there is a state in Somalia other than the Republic of Somaliland.

The emergence of Israel was not at the expense of another state and not against international law.

However, it was – and is – against Islamic law. Political power and the bearing of arms are only for the Muslims. The Jews and the Christians can stay alive as long as they know and keep their place as dhimmis.

The fact that the Jews don’t is the reason why Hamas regard them as apes, pigs and kikes, not as Israelis.

Then there’s Borat’s law:

(1) A Jew, but not another, commits an offence if any part of his person comes into contact with an offensive weapon in use by that other.

(2) A Jew commits a war crime if he incurs a defence injury.

(3) Everyone has the fundamental human right to beat a Jew or to throw him down the well or, if a well is not available, overboard.

Michael,

I follow the logic of your argument. But in that case, what right does Israel have to continue to complain about rockets fired from Gaza into Israel, if it considers itself still in conflict with Gaza?

Secondly, a wide embargo aimed at the general population as collective punishment remains illegal, as this embargo – which includes shoes, coriander, cheese and cement – plainly does.

But frankly, your support for Israel because you believe their religion is superior tells me all I need to know about you and your arguments.

“I follow the logic of your argument. But in that case, what right does Israel have to continue to complain about rockets fired from Gaza into Israel, if it considers itself still in conflict with Gaza?” – Craig

What a bizarre question! A is at war with B so can’t complain about B’s actions? Are you for real?

Neil

I see. “I am at war with you so I can bomb you and kill over 2,000 civilians, but you are not allowed to fire back with your pitiful weapons”.

“Israel is in a state of war and so is allowed to blockade, but only Israel is allowed to fire in this war”.

Neil Barker you are shown up for the callous racist prat that you are.

Michael Petek–just because you say there was no state, and even if the UN said there was no state of Palestine, doesn’t make it true. The fact remains that a whole population of Palestinians was living there, and had been living there for centuries, most of whom owned deeded property. Now that deeded property is occupied by Israeli settlements etc. Have the Palestinians been paid for that land?

Nope.

Israelis have legally paid for 8% of the land they now occupy. The rest was stolen. Most of the Palestinians who lost their land don’t want compensation–they want their land back, and I don’t blame them.

So please drop the tired old propaganda line, that “Palestine was never a state.” That’s also been debunked over and over.

Explain instead what right the Israelis ever had to take over someone else’s land?

This article at the link below, reporting the Turkish forensic findings, states that five of the nine killed had wounds in the back of the head or back only.

I’m no forensic or fire-arms expert but that doesn’t sound like self-defense to me.

http://www.focus-fen.net/index.php?id=n221820

Actually, before anyone wastes too much time arguing with Michael Petek, I suggest they look at the nutter’s website

http://www.crownofdavid.com/

“Neil Barker you are shown up for the callous racist prat that you are.” – Craig.

Craig, not everyone who disagrees with you is racist, Zionist, etc. Your question remains bizarre. Of course one side can legitimately complain about the actions of the other, during a war. You won’t find any racist element in any of my comments. You can’t argue properly so you resort to abuse. Does this have anything to do with my pointing out that you are a rich, privileged man?

Craig, I didn’t say that Israel’s religion is superior. That is irrelevant, because Israel’s claim of jus ad bellum is based on secular and political grounds and has no religious basis.

Hamas has stated its war aims not in terms of restoring international peace and security (which might include regime change in Israel). It aims to destroy Israel politically on the grounds that Allah has reserved political power and the bearing of arms to the Muslims.

That is why the truth claims of Islam are a matter of public interest, and as a Christian I say they are false.

Last year Shaul Mofaz MK presented a plan to hold talks with Hamas and establish a Palestinian state in 60 percent of the West Bank within one year.

In its official response, Hamas called Mofaz’s offer “Zionist vulgarity” and said it would never recognize Israel or give legitimacy to the occupation.

The correct response to such a rebuff would be to serve Hamas an ultimatum to change its religion or find another country to live in.

The fact that Israel is at war with Gaza is not a matter of international law. Gaza’s belligerency is against Israeli law and falls within Israel’s jurisdiction according to the protective principle.

When rockets are fired by Hamas into Israel and kill Israelis, this is an act of genocide, because the facts disclose concurrent intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Israeli national group, or the Jewish ethnic or religious group, as such.

“The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him! This will not apply to the Gharqad, which is a Jewish tree (cited by Bukhari and Muslim). (Article 7, Hamas Charter).

It is prescribed in Islamic law that, when dhimmis rebel against the Muslims, jihad is to be resumed against them, and their men are to be killed and their women and children enslaved.

So far as collective punishment of a civilian population is concerned, it seems it is lawful unless it is lethal in the ordinary course of events.

The population of Gaza is increasing by the year. The majority of the Ottoman Armenians were wiped out within eight years.

“Actually, before anyone wastes too much time arguing with Michael Petek, I suggest they look at the nutter’s website

http://www.crownofdavid.com/” – Craig

Ah, here we go again. His argument is coherent and civil, but he doesn’t agree with you so he’s a nutter whose argument shouldn’t be entertained. Ever thought of addressing the arguments instead of abusing those who offer them?

Larry

why don’t you lay down and keep taking those pills!

“So how do the Zionists pull off being able to control a state broadcaster of a major nation?”

Easy, by shouting antisemitism until they are given full control.

@ Michael Petek

You state:-

“The state of belligerency between Gaza and Israel is not subject to evaluation according to international law, because they are not both states. Save that, in so far as Hamas is in common plan or conspiracy with one or more states to wage war aimed at the political destruction of the State of Israel, its members are indictable as conspirators in a species of aggression – the supreme international crime – so extreme that not even the Security Council could authorise it.”

A response to Michael

But let’s put events in chronological sequence:-

1. During and subsequent to 1948 some 700,000 Palestinians were forcibly expelled from what is today Israel. Viewed through the eyes of the law, one may consider this fact conjunctively with fact 2 below.

2. Subsequent to the recognition of the 1967 borders as Israel’s territorial area, Israel has continued with a policy of settling on lands outside that territorial area.

The law might be considered in light of the factual situation at 1 and 2 above:-

The Geneva Convention on the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, known as the Fourth Geneva Convention: -

Article 49: Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive. … The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.

The United Nations Charter, Article 51 reads:-

Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.

Comment

If one were to put the matter in basic human terms, forgetting the legality for a moment, maybe in the most humane way I might ask:-

If you lived on a stretch of land for some ten generations, or more, and inherited your family home there, I assume that you would have some sense of belonging and ownership in respect of the home and the land upon which your home is built.

If someone forcibly expelled you, then in self-defence you would, I assume, retaliate.

The sense of displacement, might, I also assume, lead to a sense of grievance, which if not fairly addressed would extend to violent acts at some stage.

Some personal reflections

As a student at London University, I saw posted one day, a discussion between a Palestinian Professor and a Jewish Professor. Young man that I was then, with dreams of one day being a lawyer, I learned a lesson about civil debate. Both men impressed me with the degree of civility and intellectual clarity with which they addressed the question of the Palestinian/ Israeli conflict. In summary, both articulated two narratives of the histories of both people and their placement in Palestine/Israel.

I listened keenly, made notes, and reflected deeply on what both men said. At a later stage I read a book written by Abba Eban, and again, the clarity of thought and articulate expressions were impressive.

Having said all that, myself a lawyer, these many years later, with a multitude of cases behind me, I ask a fundamental question, noting both the

Israeli ?” Yom Ha’atzmaut (Independence Day)

And

The Palestinain – Nakba Day ( “day of the catastrophe”)

I ask the question ?” what does constitute justice for the Palestinian people if not the right of a homeland which they had before 1948?

The Palestinian intellectual, Edward Said, on a PBS interview in the US, made the observation that the only solution was a one state solution. He raised the issue of the demographics of the region. It seems that the state of Israel, based as it is on an assumption of conferred rights derived from ethnicity, must also transfer that de facto assumption into a de jure format, for the continued functioning of the Jewish state. How does one then give equal rights under the law to non-Jews, and over time maintain Jewish statehood if one does not discriminate as regards the electoral rights of those who are non-Jews in the Jewish state, if it is to be a Jewish majority that is to determine the character and nature of “the Jewish state”?

The action of extending occupation beyond the 1967 borders does not find support under international law.

So, Michael, when you say:-

“The state of belligerency between Gaza and Israel is not subject to evaluation according to international law, because they are not both states.”

you are in point of fact and in law, quite incorrect.

So far as the future of any likely negotiated settlement on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is concerned, the fact of the US giving blind partisan support to all Israeli actions, does not proffer well for any honest brokerage or for any just peace anytime soon. The recent official US response to the boarding by the IDF of the ships carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza, is sufficiently indicative of why the problem’s intractability is made all the more intractable.

Aluta continua.

“For the past week, a person named Neil Barker, in a fit of petty and vicious vengeance, established accounts not only in his name, my MY real name, Frank Dalrymple, as well.

Posing as me, Neil Barker has posted my resume, photo, and other personal information ?” as well as bogus statements/posts, using my real name, completely against my will.

The other ESL websites, Dave’s ESL Cafe.com and ESL Teachers Board.com took swift action. They terminated Neil Barker and “Frank Dalrymple” membership and took down his various posts and threads.”

http://www.eltworld.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2524

Dave, since the 16th century there never was a state in Palestine except for the Ottoman Empire, followed by the British Mandate.

From November 1947 to May 1948 there was a breakdown of state authority in the context of intercommunal violence escalating into war. The establishment of a state was imperative for the sake of peace. The Jews were quicker off the mark than the Arabs, but if the Arabs had got in first they would have had as good a claim to political sovereignty as anyone else.

Now what about whose land it is by way of private property?

Dhimmis were allowed to own land in consequence of the Tanzimat reforms progressively implemented by the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century. Under strict Islamic law, ownership of land is reserved to the Muslims.

Now, the Muslims came by the land by conquest and apartheid, and in any event they only ever owned the usufruct, as Palestine was an Islamic waqf in trust for all Muslims.

Michael Petek’s website:

“3. The supreme civil authorities in Israel or any other State within the allegiance to the Sovereign Throne of David are Regencies of the Throne and must be acknowledged and dealt with as such in both the internal and the external relations of the State.”

http://www.crownofdavid.com/english/hldec.htm

Michael, your arguments seem to quantify Palestinians as Muslims at the expense of their rights as human beings.

Courtenay Barnett, your long posting deserves an answer.

Half of the 700,000 Arabs who were displaced from their homes either by evacuation, flight or direct expulsion were displaced before the establishment of the State of Israel, when there was no state authority capable of keeping the public peace.

Therefore, it was imperative to establish a state of one kind or another, whether Arab, Jewish or Balto-Peruvian, simply to stop the killing and destruction.

Anyone who, thereafter, resisted the establishment or consolidation of the state – or who refused to bear allegiance to it while present within it – was a traitor and had no place in it.

In the event, some Arabs stayed amd were allowed to keep their possessions and have political rights in Israel.

I wonder what would have happened to the Jews if the Arabs had been the ones to establish a state, with Haj Amin al-Husseini at its head.

In a way Neil Barker and Michael Petek are fairly predictable. The depraved arguments are taken out, given another coat of paint, another shot of volts across the temples, then set loose to shamble out onto the blogs of the world. “Poor Israel, surrounded by demented enemies, saddled with these primitive, ungrateful Palestinians who were never a state when we arrived so hey, finders keepers!”

Poor Israel is armed to the teeth, and possessed of the 4th most powerful military on the face of the planet. And is closely allied to the global superpower currently spending over half a trillion on weapons. In the name of the wee man, no one – NO ONE – in this day and age would be stupid enough to make a wrong move in Israel’s direction. So spare me the oooh, all the howwid howwid moozlums say such tewwible things about us. In fact just spare us all the endless, grating whining about how bad everyone else is, how no-one understands Israel. We see the suffering and the deprivation, the dispossession and the theft of land and lives and potential and we KNOW where the blame lies.

And while I’m handing out revelations for free, here’s another for you. No-one – and I really mean no-one with a modicum of sanity – gives a rats ass what the Torah says or the Koran says or the Bible says about land or history or what one bunch of human beings says about another bunch. We don’t need a holy man on hand to figure out what is unjust. The Israeli government and its sympathisers, on the other hand, very much care what is said, especially by the designated enemies. How could it be otherwise? Netanyahu and the IDF know in detail the military capabilities of the Palestinians (comparable to a gnats bite) and likewise know that Iran has no bomb. But words…ah, words are almost like bombs and bullets. History has been swerved by words, the world has been changed by them, which is why hasbara exists, and people like Petek and Barker have come to give us something to struggle against.

Perhaps we should actually thank them for taking the trouble to post here at Craig’s blog. Debating with them will help us to sharpen our wits and our arguments and help us to further our cause. So thank you Neil and Michael – keep up the good work.

Michael Petek–I must admit you take sophistry to the extreme. I’ve never seen such arcane references used in this sort of argument before.

Of course, you’re hiding from my question, namely what to tell the Palestinians who still hold, in their hands, the deeds and keys to their properties, now occupied by Israelis.

The Throne of David doesn’t carry much weight with them. Or with me.

So why not just do the honorable thing, and admit Israel stole most of it’s current land in Palestine?

@mike cobley

+100

Matt Keefe, the Palestinians have rights and obligations like everyone else. The contrast is between al-Fatah who do not allow Islam to intrude much into political life, and Hamas who insist on implementing Islamic law, which is irreconcilable with any true conception of human rights.

They took a wrong turning by harnessing their political cause to the religion of Islam, for by doing so they render the truth claims of Islam to be a matter of civil interest.

And Craig, I’m glad you’ve taken a look at my website. Imagine the idea of the Davidic Monarchy – a ‘kingless crown’ – as the principle of unity of the State of Israel, the State of Palestine, and as a link between them, not unlike the link between Austria and Hungary under the Habsburgs.

Now there’s an offer the Israelis couldn’t refuse

Dave at 8:55. You’re confusing the sovereign rights of states over territory with the private property of persons in an estate.

Israel succeeds, according to state succession, to the British Mandate, which in turn succeeded the Ottoman Empire.

What to tell the Palestinians who still hold the deeds to the land? That has to be sorted out according to Israeli law in the Israeli courts.

The Throne of David doesn’t cut much ice with them? I’m not surprised. They have problems with my religous beliefs, and I have problems with theirs.

Michael

Well, at least we agree on a one state solution!

Actually I wish the Gazans hadn’t voted for Hamas. But they did. No reason to impound them all in a worsening ghetto and kill them.

Don’t romaniticse al-Fatah either. It became horribly corrupt and compromised.

Israel’s behaviour to the Plaestinians is unconscionable. Within Israel itself the arabs are subject to layers of racist legislation. Settlemets encroach more and more outside Israel on occupied land. The “two state” solution is just the same as the apartheid bantustans.

But the Palestinians – like all arab nations – have also suffered from their own corrupt, incompetent and venal leaderships whose agendas are personal gain rather than the good of their people.

I once decided to ‘debate’ with a posse of Zionist trolls. It was similar to a kind of joust, except the odds were different. I was more or less alone and they came in droves.

The first ones were merely run-of-the-mill foot-soldiers, not really in my league; but then, gradually, new opponents appeared who were far more fomidable, or so it seemed.

I thought I was cutting through layers of bullshit and getting closer to the source as time went on; the guys who actually compose the crib-sheets the lower orders learn to spout by rote.

Then when their arguments didn’t work, I suddenly became ‘anti-semetic’ which is absurd and ironic given my family background. I could be a Jew, in the eyes of a Nazi. I was then ‘a self-hating Jew’ which I found offensive.

Anyway, this ‘debate’ went on for days. I simply didn’t want to give ground and accept that these Zionist fanatics had a patent on ‘truth’ and what being Jewish means, or what Israel was/is supposed to be. Like Nazis didn’t have a devine right to tell everyone what being a ‘true’ German was.

I must admit that I did feel a slight sense of triumph when they eventually gave up on me. I think I just wanted to show them that they weren’t as invincible as they thought, and in my opinion they weren’t guided and protected by some non-existant, mythical diety, who reminds me of a psychopath, but the force leading them was closer to Satan.

@michael petek

all very fascinating but I’m having a little trouble connecting this with Israelis hijacking ships on the high seas and shooting people in the face

you wouldn’t happen to have any idea what your version Jesus would say about that would you?

Michael Petek–your response posted at 9:06 is precious. Keep ‘em coming. We couldn’t embarrass you any more than you are doing yourself.

So the victims of a theft should petition the thief himself for return of their property? Hey now! That’s one for the books.

If that’s how justice works under the Throne of David, let me send you the list of American prisons. You can get a few hundred thousand converts at one shot.

just to correct one of the typos in my earlier question to Michael Petek

when I said ‘in the face’ I, of course, meant ‘in the back of the head’

Neil Barker. spreading lies is something the Zionists use constantly. Martin McGuiness IS the Deputy First Minister for Northern Ireland and also a UK Member of Parliament. If you know about McGuiness’ background you also know the truth: you are a deliberate liar.

Craig, perhaps not a one-state solution, at least not yet.

Consider our own country. England and Scotland were at war for centuries. Then we shared a line of Kings from the House of Stuart, a personal union of two states. Political union came a century later.

As for voting for Hamas, it’s like votong for the Nazis. Put a cross next to those madmen on your ballot paper and you’re bound to get the war and death you wish for.

Romanticise al-Fatah? I don’t think so. They’re the less bad of two sets of bad guys.

To the anonymous poster who asks what would Jesus say about Israeli forces hijacking vessels on the high seas and shooting people in the face, I say as follows.

I’m absolutely certain he takes exception to the representation of Mohammed as a messenger of God. He’d tell the Hamas regime to change its religion, serve and obey him, and stop killing people who leave Islam for Christianity.

He’d also say, all who take the sword will perish by the sword.

Hamas and Hezboallah reprent the future of resistance to the occupation. Whether Israel, the corrupt Arab states, or anyone else, likes it or not.

Both groups are a kind of mirror-image of the dedicated, religious, well-trained and militant Zionists who carved Israel out of Palestine.

Israel is a kind of modern Sparta, not a democracy in the normal sense. It’s obvious that such a culture and state, as successful culture and state, would encourage imitation and that others would learn from Israel’s methods. This is exactly what Hamas and Hezboallah have done. They too are becoming Spartans. And they have both shown that resistance to Israel is possible and that Arabs are not doomed to eternal defeat and humiliation. This alone, is a massive and historic propaganda victory for them, which explains there collosal popularity and why the Arab leaders, who prefer to surrender to Israel are scared stiff of what the future holds.

The current leadership of Israel are a gang of corrupt, deluded, quasi-religious, heretical, nationalist, fanatics; who are leading Israel towards eventual disaster. Because they are too greedy for more Arab land and they think they will have the upper hand militarily for ever. A big, big, mistake. Their brutality is creating the circumstances for their own undoing.

The Zionist don’t want ‘peace’ with the Arabs, repeat, the don’t want ‘peace’. What they want more is piece by piece to take more Arab land and drive the Arabs out, based on a crazed and lunatic misreading of the Bible and God’s covenant with Israel.

Peace would mean Irael becoming just another state in the Middle East and the Israelis becoming just another ethnic minority. That’s not what they want. Peace would be a threat to the very foundations of the Zionist delusion over time because of demographics; gradually the Israelis would become absorbed into the surrounding Arab population and the ‘unique’ nature of Israel as an exclusive home for the Jews would disappear with peace. War, eternal war, or somehting like it, is necessary to unphold the Zionist delusion.

Zionism is more than merely ‘bullshit’. It is a very dangerous and ultimately a counter-productive ideology and mythology, which could lead the entire region towards disaster, for all the semetic people.

“Neil Barker. spreading lies is something the Zionists use constantly. Martin McGuiness IS the Deputy First Minister for Northern Ireland and also a UK Member of Parliament. If you know about McGuiness’ background you also know the truth: you are a deliberate liar.”

I pointed out that he isn’t a member of the Irish government. He isn’t.

Michael Petek

The Old Testament is not a real-estate contact.

“Pastor Hagee and Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem 3/8/10″

Benjamin Netanyahu “salutes” Pastor Hagee

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYW9pAZfKLE

@Michael Petek

You have stated that you are a Christian by faith, and from the link Craig has provided with a website which you associate with it seems you really are into it.

However, do you not find it troubling to be a lapdog of the Zionists when they revile your King Jesus, and His Mother Mary in the most insulting manner?

“I think Israel must be really intimidated by Craig’s blog”

- Christina

I suspect not, love. Delusions of grandeur or what.

Hello, writerman! Wrong first time!

Zionism is nothing other than the Jews’ sense of their own capacity political nationhood and their aspiration to actualise it. It is no different in kind from a similar sense in any other nation, or ethnic group in potentiality to political organisation.

Secular Arab nationalism is similar, and like Zionism can take many different expressions. Both nationalisms can evolve such that either can compromise with the other, but it will take decades.

Hamas and Hezbollah represent something different. These organisations have chosen to wage the Arab struggle as a religious war.

Given the nature of religious war, this is a terrible development. Hamas and Hizbollah are the irreconcilable, existential blood enemies of all who do not share, and will not embrace, their false religious beliefs. Either the Israelis crush them as King John III Sobieski did before the gates of Vienna, or they go the way of the Armenians.

Ed, I would say the the Old Testament is a real estate contract in the following sense: The LORD, the God of Israel, has given eternal sovereignty of Israel to David and his sons by an inviolable covenant (2 Chronicles 13:5).

Shmulk, I do wish you wouldn’t call me a lap dog of the Zionists. The Jews have the same right as anyone else to imagine themselves as a nation, to behave as one and to aspire to nationhood. It is anti-Semitic to hold that they of all peoples don’t.

But I have to say I am rather troubled when Jews, or for that matter anyone else, revile Jesus and Mary, as they run the risk of going to hell when they die, or even of being punished in this life. But I’ll let Him deal with that one. As for those who take the sword, they will perish by the sword, or by an IDF Uzi 9 millimetre.

Hamas are not madmen. This is typical Zionist propaganda and hyperbole, designed to divert attention for the central issues.

For decades the Zionists labelled the main Palestinian resistance groups as terrorists and fanatics, and Arafat was an evil monster, and on and on… Today the tune has changed and one is almost sentimental about Fatah.

Arafat pleaded with Israel to make ‘peace’ with him before it was too late, give me some crumbs to feed my people, because when I’m gone, look at the people who are coming over the horizon to replace me!

Hamas won the election in Gaza and the West Bank, in probably the most democratic and fair election held in the entire Middle East, apart from the last election in Iran and the ‘rigged’ elections inside Israel itself, but they don’t really count as half the potential electorate have been expelled and are not allowed to take part in the democratic process, very smart move indeed.

Hamas has repeated offered Israel ‘peace’, as have the Arab states for decades. But Israel repeatedly rejects the offers of peace, because it’s still dreaming of grabbing more Arab land and creating a bigger and bigger Israel, mostly because it has the military might to do it, and that kind of temptation is difficult to resist when one is trying to create a new nation, and Israel is far from unique in this repsect. It is what the state does, what it is for.

Anyway, Israel could have ‘peace’ tomorrow, or rather a ‘deal’ which they are crazy to keep rejecting. Israel should take the Arab deal which is on the table and be thankful, before it becomes irrelevant and compormise becomes irrelevant as new, determined, forces take over on the Arab side, forces like willing to make peace than Hamas.

The Arabs have offered over and over again to normalise relations with Israel, recognise Israel and make peace, ‘all’ Israel has to do is pull back to the pre-1967 borders. Now I think the Arabs are being incredibly generous with this offer. After all time is on their side. Soon they will be the majority inside Israel, in few short decades. What happens to the Zionist fantasy then? Strangely the Zionists choose to ignore these demographic facts, prefering to hold on to their fantasies about God and providence.

And, finally, if Israel pulled by to its old borders, it would still be perfectly safe. It would still, de facto, be part of the United States, it would still have the biggest military in the Middle East, it would still be protected by two or three hundred nuclear warheads…

What is taken by the sword, can also be taken back by the sword.

Michael – No, they don’t register the truth of the claims of Islam a matter of civil interest. I am as uninterested in those claims as I am in the claims of Christianity, Judaism and any other religion. Where does the truth or otherwise in any religion enter into the provision of human rights for the Palestinians?

“To the anonymous poster who asks what would Jesus say about Israeli forces hijacking vessels on the high seas and shooting people in the face, I say as follows. I’m absolutely certain he takes exception to the representation of Mohammed as a messenger of God. He’d tell the Hamas regime to change its religion, serve and obey him, and stop killing people who leave Islam for Christianity. He’d also say, all who take the sword will perish by the sword”

So nothing to say to the Israeli face-shooters themselves then? Maybe your version of Jesus would just give them the thumbs up, eh?

So much for all that Love God, Love Your neighbour, blessed are the meek, turn the other cheek, pacifist decency crap then

If nothing else, your contributions do underline the point that Christian Zionists are just as OK with murder as Jewish Zionists

Writerman, my case against Hamas is not that they are madmen – let me concede that they’re not – but that they wage war in furtherance of a false religion which imposes and enforces a law irreconcilable with universally accepted human rights and fundamental freedoms. The fact that they have a democratic mandate to do so is neither here nor there.

Hamas doesn’t offer peace. It offers a ‘hudna’, which is what Muslims in jihad may do for ten years at a time if they are in a position of weakness.

My counsel would be to take advantage of that weakness and crush the enemy while he is weak.

Now what about peace with the Arabs?

Egypt and Jordan have peace treaties with Israel and they keep them. Lebanon and Syria maintain their claim of belligerency arising from their aggressive war against Israel in 1948, and they haven’t implemented the international legal consequences of their aggression, as Egypt and Jordan have.

As for peace with Hamas and Hizbollah, forget it. Let them change their religion, then think about talks.

Check out Rachel Corrie’s I’m Here Because I Care Videos.

If the hairs on the back of your neck don’t stand up you’re only half alive.

Rachel was keen to improve the quality of all human lives from Day One.This comes out strongly from the video of her in 5th Grade school posted by her parents.

If there ever was someone who deserved to have a ship named after her it was Rachel!

Rachel Corrie RIP

http://morris108.wordpress.com/2010/06/03/rachel-corrie-5th-grade-speech-im-here-because-i-care-video/

Dave

That is exactly what the Americans proposed as the solution to the Zionists killing people on that ship.

“Let the Israelis do the investigation!”

And Craig, why are you giving Larry’s latest incarnation the time of day???

Angry sober, Larry, Stephen and this new bastard? whats the difference?

And the very fact that this new bastard as well as other Zionists see Hamas as worse than fatah should tell us they are better than Fatah.

Fatah had sold out, but even though they had sold out, the Zionists bombed them to bits, right up until the point when Hamas were elected. Then they because the solution and Hamas became the problem.

Now someone mentioned Jesus?

What would he do?

He would destory Israel, the Zionist and the rest of those bastards, who are clearly manifestations of the Antichrist!

Jesus was not a racist, those Zionist bastards are.

And New Bastards, you say those who live by the sword will go the same way?

I agree, that is the way Israel will go.

Because they are burning each and every bridge they have for a peaceful solution.

Craig who the Palestinians elect is there business not yours. I agree, they shouldn’t have elected Hamas, because hamas shouldn’t have been stupid enough to take part in the election. They should have known thatdemocracy is a load of bollocks. That the imperialist nations that call on Brown people to take part in elections, don’t mean brown people should choose who rules them. Imperialists, the white man are just telling brown people, to elect the people the white man orders them to elect. And if the Browns elect anyone else, they will be sloughtered and starved.

As the new bastard Michael Petek, stated, putting a cross next to who the Zionist don’t want you to vote for means death.

Craig, I know I have said this before. And you have disagreed with me on this before. But there is only one solution to this problem. Israel has lived by the sword it is time for it to go the same way.

The middle east carve up after ww1 must be reversed. Reunification of the whole middle east, if Israel chooses to join it peacefully, they can all live in peace anywhere they want.

If they don’t, then they deserve what the likes of the New bastard says the palestinians desrve.

Matt Keefe, the truth claims of a religion are usually irrelevant in politics, but not when religion is invoked in favour of war.

Hamas insist that Allah has commanded them to fight and kill the Jews and to establish an Islamic state implementing Islamic law.

In a pig’s eye he has!

Arsalan, why would Jesus destroy Israel when he is a son of Israel and a patriot, assuming that patriotism is a virtue?

Michael Petek, says he will have peace with Muslims when they change their religion?

Why am I not surprised.

Muslims will not change their religion.

Muslims will unite, and fight Israel.

If Muslims lose, they will fight again.

And this will repeat until Israel is defeated.

there are 1.5 billion of Muslims and growing, Muslims can loss as many times as they want. Muslims only need to make Israel loss once!!!

Israel, the bastard state created by athiests have nothing to do with jesus and everything to do with the antichrist..

this is what Israelis think of jesus::

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvnrBU4vaGY

Arsalan, I assume from your name that you’re Turkish.

Your guys got a hell of a beating at the gates of Vienna in 1683, didn’t they!

This bitch thinks jesus doesn’t hate Israel:

I propose when ever this bitch posts we should post things like this:

Comments by Zionist on Jesus:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvnrBU4vaGY

Arsalan,

Thank you for showing up here and not being shy about being a true Muslim.

Michael Petek

I assume your name is a name for hell fire.

Aren’t your parents buring well in the deepest pit of hell waiting for you to join them?

Larry the lying bitch, I knew you to were togeather.

You both can carry on being togeather eternally in deepest pits of hell.

So your latest incarnation pretends to believe in God?

While using your name you state your atheism?

Don’t distort my words, Arsalan.

I said there will be no peace with Hamas until they change their religion. I can live with Muslims fine as long as they don’t try to kill me.

Now, be warned O Muslim who would take the sword and fight to destroy Israel. One of these days you will be opposed in battle by Israel’s immortal King, whom you cannot see and against whom you cannot fight.

The story so far…

Christian Zionists are bestest buddies with the Jewish Zionists because they believe that if Jewish Zionists are successful this will fulfill Biblical prophecy and Jesus, like some kind of performing animal, will return

Jewish Zionists think this is bollocks and that Jesus was a false prophet who is boiling for Eternity somewhere. But they play along with the Christian Zionists because they like getting F-16s without paying for them

Now that the last of the “flotilla” ships has been “deactivated” by the Israelis, the huge section, west of Israel, including the entrance to the Suez canal,in the marinetraffic.com map, which was devoid of ships over the last while, is suddenly full of them.

Was this a jamming blackout or what?

“Now, be warned O Muslim who would take the sword and fight to destroy Israel. One of these days you will be opposed in battle by Israel’s immortal King, whom you cannot see and against whom you cannot fight.”

Poor Michael thinks he’s in Narnia.

Arsalan, where my parents are in eternity is for God to disclose on the Day of Judgement.

You people still got a good thrashing at Vienna in 1683, didn’t they.

Prince Eugene of Savoy was pretty good with the sword as well.

Then there’s Vlad the Impaler. Not exactly Geneva Convention, was he?

Look, Craig, this was meant to be a political discussion! It was Arsalan who took it in a religious direction!

He sticks up for Islam, I stick up for Christianity! OK!

“I stick up for Christianity”

that would be *your* particular version of Christianity

to the best of my recollection Jesus himself had, due to a slight timing difference, precisely biff all to say on the subject of Islam

and quite a lot to say about not killing people

Gondor, Craig, not Narnia! Gondor!

StefZ, do you have any sense of history, or what? Jesus said nothing about Islam because he preceded Muhammad by 6 centuries!

“He sticks up for Islam, I stick up for Christianity! OK!”

Yeah, Craig Murray has no problem with jihadist hatred at his site, but he would certainly have a problem with someone like you.

Michael, I hate to break it to you but the kingdom of Solomon and David is a myth. Kingdoms at the time of the size and importance of David’s as described in the Torah left a wealth of archaeological information, not just buildings but written documents too.

David’s kingdom left absolutely nothing.

“StefZ, do you have any sense of history, or what? Jesus said nothing about Islam because he preceded Muhammad by 6 centuries!”

at least equal to yours

have a cup of tea and a nice wee rest then read my post again. I recall making reference to a timing difference

and the fact that Jesus wasn’t a bloodthirsty pyscho

who almost certainly would disapprove of shooting people in the back of the head on boats

To me peoples from Muslim and Christian countries are not so different and share certain values but the Israelis appear to have completely different moral standards.

Michael Petek

“I would say the the Old Testament is a real estate contract in the following sense: The LORD, the God of Israel, has given eternal sovereignty of Israel to David and his sons by an inviolable covenant (2 Chronicles 13:5).”

Thanks for the reply Michael.

So where do I sign up for this free plot of land?

A desperate attempt to supply Gaza’s luxury restaurants has failed and resulted in deaths. Perhaps catering will solve the tragedy.

Arabs continue to play the disproportion game wherein having the bigger gun is deemed immoral and intent is thrown out the window. 2000-3000 rockets flying out of Gaza mean nothing to the international media in such a scenario. Arabs across the region will bang the drum while holding the children of the now extinct ‘refugees’ hostage in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Gaza itself. Nice PR move if one likes George Orwell or has the mind of a child.

“To me peoples from Muslim and Christian countries are not so different and share certain values but the Israelis appear to have completely different moral standards.”

I think you delude yourself such that you think the IDF opened fire on that ship without provocation.

The fact is that the martyrdom candidates attacked the IDF boarding party with the only weapons the Turkish authorities would allow them to have.

Michael Petek the new Zionist bitch said:

“One of these days you will be opposed in battle by Israel’s immortal King, whom you cannot see and against whom you cannot fight.”

I’m sure we will, we know him by Dejjal, and the Christian know him by AntiChrist.

He will come, and you are right, he will defeat us, and when he is about to wipe out the last of us, Jesus will descend from heaven, defeat him and kill him.

We are the ones who believe in Jesus and you the Zionists are the ones who worship the Antichrist.

And that isn’t surprising, who other than the followers of the Antichrist would attacks ships filled with food and medicine?

Michael Petek :

“He sticks up for Islam, I stick up for Christianity! OK!”

What you stick up for is not Christianity. You are in no way shape or form a Christian. You are about as AntiChristian as it is possible to be, or should that be Antichrist!

Christians are those Irish people who ricked their lives trying to take food to the Palestinians, they will have their reward from God.

I repeat, you are not a Christian!

But the same satan who has convinced you to support the racist state of Israel has convinced you, that you are a follower of christian, when you are clearly a follower of the Antichrist.

Jesus would not let anyone starve, each and everyone who knows anything about him, christian or not knows that he would be on those boats doing whatever he could to get food to the hungry. While you, do what you can to justify starving babies.

I repeat, you are not a Christian. But the God of every religion and everyone has blinded you to this.

You said:

“StefZ, do you have any sense of history, or what? Jesus said nothing about Islam because he preceded Muhammad by 6 centuries!”

And I say, the satan that has blinded you to so much has also blinded you to this verse and its true meaning:

John 14:26 ” But the Comforter, which is the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.”

amk, that’s a sweeping statement if ever there was one. David and Solomon’s empire was short-lived and therefore would not have left a great deal in the archaeology. The line continued through the Kings of Judah the last of whom was deposed by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar.

True, Jesus wasn’t and isn’t a bloodthirsty psycho. But if you read the book of Revelation you’ll see he is just in judgement and just in war.

He also says something in Luke’s Gospel (19:27) that says:

“But as for those my enemies, who would not have me reign over them, bring them hither, and kill them before me.”

Would he disapprove of people being shot in the head? He’d most probably regard a shot in the head as being the logical consequence of picking a fight with soldiers as opposed to doing as you’re told and sailing for Ashdod.

Arsalan, you are a prime twat! God isn’t the God of every religion,he’s the God of the true one, not yours.

You call me the Antichrist. Trouble is, I’ve got two eyes, Dajjal according to Islam has only one.

@ Michael,

If I am to take you seriously, I would recommend that you read Professor Sholomo Sands ” The invention of the Jewish people”.

If you are hinging your claim of “legal right” to some sort of Biblical contractual absolute, how then does a mere mortal, such as I am, debate the voice of the almighty, coming as it does through an earthly medium?

You say:-

“Courtenay Barnett, your long posting deserves an answer.

Half of the 700,000 Arabs who were displaced from their homes either by evacuation, flight or direct expulsion were displaced before the establishment of the State of Israel, when there was no state authority capable of keeping the public peace.

Therefore, it was imperative to establish a state of one kind or another, whether Arab, Jewish or Balto-Peruvian, simply to stop the killing and destruction.

Anyone who, thereafter, resisted the establishment or consolidation of the state – or who refused to bear allegiance to it while present within it – was a traitor and had no place in it.

In the event, some Arabs stayed amd were allowed to keep their possessions and have political rights in Israel.

I wonder what would have happened to the Jews if the Arabs had been the ones to establish a state, with Haj Amin al-Husseini at its head.”

Taking the commencement of your post:-

“Half of the 700,000 Arabs who were displaced from their homes either by evacuation, flight or direct expulsion were displaced before the establishment of the State of Israel,…”

Precisely, they were displaced to establish the state of Israel. But it seems Michael, that you attribute no rights to those people. And then, no doubt, if we pursue the article, we arrive full circle back to the “Chosen people” who have rights and the Palestinians, who have none.

Anyway, in a proper and polite manner, I thank you for your response to my post.

The new Zionist bastard said:

“Arsalan, you are a prime twat! God isn’t the God of every religion,he’s the God of the true one, not yours.”

I believe everyone of every religion who calls to their God calls to my God.

You believe your religion has some sort of monopoly on God, as if he is your own private property, belonging to your gang.

I know what you, I have spoken to you bastards before, and we will find out in the next life who is right and who is wrong.

“You call me the Antichrist.”

Did I?

What I meant is you are a follower of the anti-Christ and not a follower of the Christ as you wrongly claim.

But when it comes to being one eyed. That is exactly the phrase I will use to describe your outlook on what happened.

And I am sure everyone here will agree, you one eyed, even if you have two functioning eye balls.

This thread has officially left orbit. I posted some way back that noone with a modicum of sanity gives a rats ass what any of these pre-medieval holy books has to say about modern times. And the above gang of god-botherers proved me right.

Justification for killing is all I’m hearing.

@Michael Petek

You quoted:

“But as for those my enemies, who would not have me reign over them, bring them hither, and kill them before me.”

If this fantasy of yours happens and your around for it. Will you turn your gun or sword on your current IDF heroes?

Because the Israelis ain’t to fond of the idea of Jesus being their President.

“As for enforced starvation, according to UN figures the crude death rate for Gaza is between 3 and 4 per thousand. In the UK it is 10 per thousand. Not exactly the siege of Leningrad.”

As the saying goes, there’s lies, damn lies, and then, there’s statistics…

Nice try, Michael Patek, indeed much more sophisticated than Larry’s output, but if you want to use crude death rates to highlight health or living conditions, these must first be age-adjusted. Countries with widely differing demographics cannot be so easily compared. The UK has a much higher proportion of elderly people. This age group quite naturally has a high mortality rate, which, of course, pushes up the crude death rate, especially in comparison with countries with a very high proportion of children.

Please note the relevant stats for 2010:

Gaza: 44.4% under 14; 53% aged 15-64 and 2.6% aged 65+

UK : 16.7% under 14; 67.1% aged 15-64 and 16.2% aged 65+

If you allow for the fact that, all in all, 56% of Gazans are under 16, whereas in the UK we’ll soon have more people of pensionable age than children under 16, you quickly realize that comparing crude death rates of countries with such diverse demographics is not just misleading, it’s actually pretty pointless.

You could compare infant mortality rates instead (UK: 4.85 per thousand, Gaza 18.35 per thousand), or child mortality rates (under-5′s UK: 6 per thousand, West Bank and Gaza 27 per thousand), or, indeed, the mortality rates of any other age group to give a more realistic picture of the situation – if you wanted to.

Mike Cobley, I agree with you. With respect, all this stuff about religion, while fascinating is itself, really is irrelevant in the context of the thread. It is, though, perhaps reflective of the essential idiocy of absolutism and that is of pertinence in relation to ‘The Holy Land’. Sometimes, I wish that God had chosen to reveal Himself in text, flesh or spirit (in any one, two or three of these) in Antarctica. Penguins would’ve made a better job of the world, I reckon, than have we. While the argument was mainly about land, there was the possibility of a solution. When it’s about God, there can be only absolute victory and absolute defeat, Paradise and Armageddon. It’s pointless, a dead end.

Let’s talk corporate militarist economy. Let’s talk about Israel’s enormous conventional and nuclear arsenals (in the name of a God whose name cannot be spoken). Let’s talk about Saudi Arabia’s heinously oppressive laws (in the name of a God whose name trips too easily off the lips). Let’s talk about the massive support provided by the USA to both of these ‘God-states’ and to other oppressors in the region who stifle their/ other peoples’ aspirations, needs and rights, for the purposes of maintaining hegemonic control of wealth, power and resources in the region for the benefit of the rich companies of the world.

Neil Barker, you say: “I pointed out that he isn’t a member of the Irish government. He isn’t”.

But he is a member of the devolved N. Ireland government. There are two Irelands at present, the North and the South. You seek to mislead. You probably know the Mossad motto: “By way of deception, thou shalt do war.”

Nine Turkish men on board Mavi Marmara were shot a total of 30 times. Fulkan Dogan was shot five times from less than 45cm away in the face, in the back of the head, twice in the leg and once in the back.

Barbaric. No respect for human life.

Israel with its huge nuclear capability portends the most extreme threat that terrorism poses. Sanctions must be drawn up against this terrorist state

If we take Michael Patek at face value, then what we have is something even worst than a militant Zionist, namely a Christian Zionist, who believes and longs for the “rapture” of Armageddon, which can only occur once all the World’s Jews are in Israel.

I say at face value, because I suspect that what we really have here is just another nasty little racist Islamophobe.

Michael Petek

St Paul, not content with cancelling the Law of the Torah, like you who were trying to cancel international law, proceeded to preach the perversion that Jesus, pbuh, was God’s son, which was a lie that as a Pharisee he very well knew to be a lie.

Like all the other Zionist trolls, you assume that the rest of the world will automatically swallow the lies which the Zionists knowingly present to the world.

My prophet, may God’s peace and mercy be upon him, is a true, noble, righteous prophet. You do not have permission to say otherwise, on this blog or anywhere else, without being challenged for that first lie.

As to the rights and wrongs of the naval blockade of Gaza, you state that in the Middle East you have to be completely ruthless in order not to be destroyed. If any group of people resort to total ruthlessness, they have by definition already destroyed themselves. Physical survival at the expense of moral death is a pretty strong concept in all religions.

That’s how Zionism is viewed by the world, as a stinking moral corpse. When people like you describe international law as nothing more than someone’s rule, the danger of infection spreads across the whole globe. Fortunately most people can see that these are the words of Satan and they protect themselves from their influence by condemning them utterly, as I do.

Israel is locked into its apartheid mental illness, which I saw when I went there, and it is Israel which is being contained in isolation, and being observed from the safety of a locked cell door.

“Neil Barker, you say: “I pointed out that he isn’t a member of the Irish government. He isn’t”.

But he is a member of the devolved N. Ireland government. There are two Irelands at present, the North and the South. You seek to mislead. You probably know the Mossad motto: “By way of deception, thou shalt do war.”" – Doug

It was your quote that sought to mislead, giving the impression that McGuinness was speaking on behalf of the Irish government, who were angry because the incident involved an Irish-registered ship. Mc Guinness’s views aren’t relevant. Or maybe you simply didn’t realise that Ireland is a different country.

Mac, “If we take Michael Patek at face value, then what we have is something even worst than a militant Zionist, namely a Christian Zionist, who believes and longs for the “rapture” of Armageddon, which can only occur once all the World’s Jews are in Israel.”

This is indeed what Christian Zionism is about. The majority of them are in the US. Be scared because this is what these rich and powerful cranks are praying for.

Doug: I haven’t read every post in this thread, but I get the impression you’re right. This Patek freak is an armageddon evilgelical, who actually believes we should have massive amounts of slaughter – and welcomes it earnestly – so that when the pile of bodies gets sufficiently high, the Baybe Jaysus will be pleased enough, come slithering down the pile of corpses, and rapture the faithful to heaven.

The rich and powerful do indeed find these people useful idiots, because they’ll go along with _anything_ to get the old prophesies fulfilled, and turning over the currently occupied lands to the Israelis, killing all the Arabs if they won’t get out of the way quickly enough, is just part of it. Once the Temple Mount is built, and the Gog Magog wars done with (a lot of them – including Bush – thought that was what Iraq was about, and astounded Jacques Chirac when he confided the “fact”), we’re very near Rapture time. It doesn’t work out too well for the Jews in the long run, because every last one of them needs to be slaughtered unless they convert. But these Christianist freaks are willing to help the Israelis out at least up until that bit.

They’re useful because anything that looks like it might be a end-times event is Good News to them. More trouble in the West Bank? Wonderful! Another intifada? We might be getting closer! A war with Iraq, possibly Iran too? Oh, be still my beating heart! (Psst… vote republican, and you’re likely to get more middle-east wars! Bring on that old-time rapture!) For political support of the right wing and for the military, media, industrial complex, they’re invaluable.

There are more of these whack-jobs than you can shake a stick at in the midwest of America. Mainly because they’re isolated, don’t know any better, are surrounded by the equally delusional and hear this crap all day and night across the dial on their radios. It is surprising to come across them in this country, though.

“There are more of these whack-jobs than you can shake a stick at in the midwest of America.”

Glenn, you’re horribly ignorant. The criticism would be best leveled against Americans in the South, not the Midwest. If you knew anything about America, you would know that.

It’s quite telling when Brits talk about the Midwest, as if they know anything.

And coming from a country with government-funded primary schools dedicated to inculcating children in believing in an Abrahamic God, your blanket statements are absurd.

Plus, we need to keep in mind that you’re a 911 truther, which means that you’re a member of a failed religion.

I’ve been following these events closely and it’s interesting to watch as it unfolded.

But the legal aspects of this have me intrigued.

Craig, knowing you’re pretty good with this side of things, what do you make of this:

http://www.blackfive.net/main/2010/06/a-modest-proposal-for-resolving-this-flotilla-business.html

During the UK election numerous posters in this blog advocated adopting PR.

Given the current events are an outcome of Israel’s election system which uses full PR, not mixed, you may find the following alternative analyses by a Palestinian instructive as well as relevant to the current situation.

Please see

http://jamescaspell.blogspot.com/2009/02/israeli-elections-significant-step.html

An earlier article by the same author very much relevant to the current situation is called Our South Africa Moment Has Arrived and available at

http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=14921

No, we don’t have an Armageddon Evangelical. What we have is a non-Armagaddon Roman Catholic whose paternal ancestors in Eastern Europe had to learn to fight and win to defend what was then the Turkish frontier, and they had to be ruthless with their enemies.

They had to do this to stay alive and be left in peace against an enemy determined to fight a religious war. The Armenians and the Pontic Greeks didn’t learn fast enough and they were wiped out. The Assyrians get culled by a pogrom every two generations or so.

I’m not quite a Christian Zionist. What the Christian Zionists believe is that the Jews collectively and directly have from God the sovereign rights to the Land of Israel.

My position is that God gave sovereignty to King David and his legitimate royal descendants. Politics and the formation of states runs their course independently of this.

Now, as for the point about crude death rates, what is the absolute figure for deaths per year since the imposition of the siege.

“My position is that God gave sovereignty to King David and his legitimate royal descendants.”

That seems highly unlikely. Do you have any evidence for this?

OK, Larry. 2 Chronicles 13:5.

What’s useful about it is this. It enables us to conceive of a future in which allegiance to the monarchy, rather than exclusive Jewish ethnicity, serves as the principle of national identity. It makes for a more inclusive nation. It is thought that up to 20 per cent of the population of ancient Israel was non-Israelite.

Mind you, you can always rely on the headbangers of Hamas to screw things up for everyone else.

Very good article by Nick Cohen in today’s Observer.

Yeah, but that’s not really evidence, is it? That would be like citing Genesis for the proposition that two of each animal went voluntarily onto Noah’s boat. It all seems highly unlikely.

But I will read Nick Cohen’s article.

In relation to Michael Petek, I came across a recently-defaced Jewish graveyard in Slovakia. Swastikas all over the stones, stones pushed over, etc. No Jews have lived in that village in central Slovakia since 1942; the last dates on the gravestones are from 1942. It used to be a Jewish village. It was a haunting and terrifying sight.

The Nazi-collaborator Slovakian government was even more assiduous than the German Govt about rounding-up their Jews; in fact, they actually PAID the German govt. to remove ‘their’ Jews.

If we’re talking about Eastern Europe in the context of Israel, we need to talk about Eastern European ant-Semitism.

I have American and British friends whose Jewish grandparents, and all their families who couldn’t get out, were butchered in Prague or in concentration camps. I also have Roman Catholic Slovak people in my family (as well as friends) who are aware of all of this and who are not in denial about it. Of course, there were people in Eastern Europe who helped Jews escape – to Turkey or elsewhere.

One of the central historical reasons there is hell in the Levant right now is that Eastern Europe and Germany (as a culmination of trans-European persecution more generally over a thousand-plus years) murdered six million Jews (as well as millions of Roma and other people too).

The fag-end Ottoman Empire committed the Armenian genocide. This is a fact that needs to be recognised openly by modern-day Turkey.

During WW2, Turkey – albeit that there were anti-Semitic attitudes in parts of the ruling elite – took in many thousands of Jewish refugees from the Balkans. Turkish-British writer, Moris Farhi has written a novel about this; he is Jewish.

So as we know, matters are not black-and-white.

Petek’s comments suggest that he seems to have learned nothing and also suggest that he and those who hold similar beliefs prefer simplistic historical narratives.

The current propagandistic obsession of the right-wing nationalist parties in Eastern Europe with a four hundred year-old historical Ottoman threat (“to quote one of them: “turbans in Bratislava”; what planet are these poeple on?) is laughable but also very serious. It would be like cultivating fear, in present-day Uzbekistan, of the Moghuls in India. The fact that he – wherever he is now – continues to render this as argumentation suggests the transference of guilt on a massive scale.

On the USA, there are many good people in both the South and elsewhere; we tend to get a distorted view here in Europe. Not to take away from an analysis of a certain group of Protestant Evangelicals (and again, I should emphasise many Evangelicals – I have friends who are that, too – are the opposite of this; it’s a specific subset only) who have extremist views on the world. But the sensible people (i.e. those with whom we may agree or disagree in rational terms but who do not believe frantically in enhancing the onset of a Nuclear Winter) tend not to conform to caricature and so don’t get the same press. Nonetheless, the impact over the past three decades of the Evangelicals on right-wing politics of the extremist groupings is far from minimal.

But the main focus of our argumentation in relation to the Middle East needs to be on land, justice, corporate backing for illegal regimes, etc. Not on King David and the psalms. Otherwise, we simply engage in distraction and abstraction, a futile chiromancy.

A dance of death.

Suhayl Saadi, the subtext of the last thing you say – about ‘illegal regimes’ is that the very existence of Israel is itself illegal, much as the state of Northern Cyprus is illegal as a creation of Turkish aggression.

I said before (maybe on a different post) that the existence of Israel is illegal only under Islamic law.

Now, if you want to bring religion into it – and you’ll find plenty video climps on Memri TV doing just that – then be my guest. You’ll get a rejoinder in religious terms, but remember you started it.

No, I did not mean that the state of Israel itself is illegal; clearly, under international law, it is legal; I was referring to the Occupied Territories. There should be corporate disinvestment in Israel with a strategy of complete withdrawl from the Occupied Territories as is reqd by international law and by numerous accords signed by multiple sides.

In the context of geopolitics, I’m not at all interested in Islamic Law, Christian Law, Jewish Law, Hindu Law. I don;t think any of these should have any part in it. That’s my view.

You have avoided responding to my central points concerning eastern Europe, I notice.

the whole world is against israel now, though what zahal did on that flotilla was not really illigal …i hardly can imagne all consiquences of these stories..

No, asis, the whole world is not against Israel, all most people want is some justice for the Palestinians.

Suhayl, I didn’t comment about your remarks on Eastern Europe because I don’t disagree with what you say. Is there anything in particular you want me to engage with?

By the way, the Occupied Territories (besides the Golan Heights and Shebaa Farms) don’t belong to any state, so why is their occupation illegal?

Is that Michael Petek? Thank you. The UN – and virtually every country in the world – has called on numerous occasions for Israeli withdrawl from those areas and supports the establishment of a Palestinian state. Even the term, ‘Occupied Territories’ has become a battleground, but this itself is part of the war of disinformation perpetrated by the Israeli state.

The occupation is illegal, but also, the occupation itself, on the ground, ipso facto and de facto, is hugely oppressive. It’s the creation of multiple Bantustans – as both Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu eloquently have pointed-out.

And, as many supporters of Israel have argued, the occupation also will do Israel no favours in the long-term.

I am aware that the long-term agenda is to squeeze and squeeze the enclaves until they become unlivable for Palestinians and thereby to ‘complete’ the process of expulsion. This has become really quite clear.

Michael Petek

If there is a religious claim for the Jews to occupy Palestine, why was St Paul so upset that Judaism had been cancelled, and indeed cursed on the lips of their prophet Jesus, Esa, alaihi salaam, whom they rejected in favour of the international polytheism which had earned them the cash to rebuild the temploe of Solomon?

Whoops! Rome took it down in 73 AD, fulfilling Jesus’, AS, prophecy that not one stone would stand upon another within one generation of the Jews rejecting his message, calling them back to their true religion of Islam. Who are you going to make foot the bill for restoring this ancient conservation building? The Italians for cultural sabotage, or Jesus, peace be upon him, for cursing the Jews and prophecying their removal from Palestine?

Anyway, British policy is to promote nationalism wherever it can, in order to defeat the nationalism they promoted by moral condemnation. To quote the Qur’an, ‘Satan’s plan is weak.’ This is why they supported Saddam’s Arab nationalism, in order to defeat it. This is why they pay Iran to supply Gaza and Lebanon with weapons, to change the Palestinian cause into a Nationalistic struggle, instead of the religious struggle which is the heart of the problem.

There is no solution to the problem of Palestine without recognising that Israel’s claim to the land was cancelled in Jesus’ pbuh lifetime. Then, if the Jews want to live there in peace and harmony with their neighbours, so be it. What is intolerable is Israel trying to convince the Christian world that its violent means justify the ends, because of a right to live in Palestine that was abrogated, and that Christianity is the natural partner to Judaism. Judaism was abrogated. The natural partner to Christianity is Islam. Sorry Suhayl, don’t agree with you about a secular solution on this one.

I know that, anno. We agree to disagree! But let’s not let that get in the way of the struggle to achieve peace and justice for Palestinians.

How do the Israelis always manage to stay so cool when they are being condemned by the whole world? Because they are laughing up their sleeve at you believing, hook, line and sinker, their lie about being the rightful heirs to Palestine. They are laughing at us, but all the Christians think they are laughing with them, and they are on their side.

Plastic Gonks, the lot of them. Fluorescent nylon wool growing out of the cavity where there should be a brain. Why did Zionist Tony Blair abolish fox-hunting? because it was much more fun taking the Christians for a ride and hunting Muslims. Tally-ho! you don’t even have to wait for the right season. Come on you wimps, there’s more carnage to be done.

legal status of israels raid on the high seas:

‘Jose Maria Ruiz Soroa, a Spanish maritime law scholar and co-author of the legal commentary Manual de derecho de la navegacion maritima,said that Israel is not entitled,according to international law, to constrain the freedom of navigation of any ship on the high seas, except in a number of situations that do not apply to the Gaza flotilla case.

He said blockade is not a valid reason, as it is a concept only applicable to war situations. He also said that Israel’s action is a breach of the UN International Maritime Organization Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation (SUA),which was signed by Israel in April 2009; According to the article 6.1 of the SUA, the jurisdiction over the offences that a ship might have committed lays in the State whose flag the ship is flying.

Now we move on to citing specific rules of law found in International Law; Admiralty and Maritime.

Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation ?” Article III

etc

http://www.politicaltheatrics.net/2010/06/so-you-want-to-defend-israel/

Michael Petek.. running a blockade is NOT an act of war. But attacking a ship with a navvy in international waters IS an act of war

Okay, I have to retract something that I said before, the bit about being combatively pleased that Michael Petek is posting here. Reading the above, I realise that MP isn’t really a pseudo-rationalist defending the legality of Israel’s right to defend itself against the weak and the powerless. In fact, he’s a pre-mediaevalist propounding an abhorrent mixture of monarchic and theocratic absolutism. God gave the Land of Israel to the House of David, and is the whole of the law. After that, what room is there for debate, for the exchange of views, for the critical rationalist stance which has as its foundation the mind-state “You might be right and I might be wrong, and together we may be able to get closer to the truth.”

Micky P knows the truth. So bow your heads, unbelievers.

Monty

One of your comments was automatically blocked for too many links.

Anno, the religious claim is that the Land of Israel belongs forever to the House of David, whose head according to the Christian religion is Jesus Christ. That claim is imperishable.

Political claims run their course independently. The claim of the State of Israel is that it came into existence in 1948 in the same way in which other states do. Its mode of earthly government runs its course as a modern democracy and its constitution is in itself non-religious.

What Israel is facing is not merely a Palestinian claim to land, but an Islamic holy war.

There is no propaganda antidote to this kind of onslaught except for Israelis to assert that the God of Israel is the true God and that Mohammed is a false prophet – and to invite anyone who thinks differently to come on over if they think they’re hard enough!

Quod erat demonstrandum

Michael

“There is no propaganda antidote to this kind of onslaught except for Israelis to assert that the God of Israel is the true God and that Mohammed is a false prophet – and to invite anyone who thinks differently to come on over if they think they’re hard enough!”

There are proponents of religiously motivated violence all over. You are just another violent fanatic.

The IDF received a bloody nose in the Lebanon. But what triumphalist Zionists seem not to have grasped is that the Turkish military is in a different league to the IDF or to anything the IDF has ever thought.

Really, it is. The Turkish military is very good indeed. The urkish Navy, for example, could sink the entire Israeli navy before lunch. This whole “Nobody can defeat Israel” bravado could come to a very sticky end. I strongly recommend Zionists to stop the Turkish flag burning.

Craig, thanks for the heads up about the link restrictions!

I hope it is OK to post again without so many links.

If anyone is interested, the most common photo of the MV Rachel Corrie (as used on for example on Wikipedia and BBC) seems to have been photoshopped by Free Gaza Org.

It is a small point in the light of things but annoying since the photo is used on many high profile news websites.

The photo on Wikipedia comes from Free Gaza Org’s Flickr page.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/freegaza/4537506480/sizes/o/in/set-72157623830394876/

It is dated April 17th and if you click on “more properties” you will see it says; Software: Adobe Photoshop CS3 Windows.

This is strikingly similar to a photo, also dated April 17th, of the ship with the old name of Linda here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/freegaza/4529097080/sizes/o/in/set-72157623830394876/

Note the flags, and particularly the light blue material draped over the stern.

Furthermore, no other photo shows the ship with the above Rachel Corrie signwriting.

Monty – Not commenting on what you’re trying to say, as I don’t get your point, just to say that many people uploading to the web use software like photoshop simply to change the file size of any given photograph. All my photos are files larger than 1MB, after optimizing for the web, they’re reduced to between 20 and 150kB. My online storage has an upper limit and viewers’ page loading time suffers if your photo file size is too large, so I try to keep it as small as possible.

Craig at June 6, 2010 11:03 AM

This is indeed a new dynamic and follows closely the new accord with Iran and Brazil re. Iran’s nuclear energy program.

How serious do you think Turkey is?

How does this sit with its desire to join the EU?

Mae at June 6, 2010 12:01 PM

I had meant to reply to you on the other thread. Suffice to say, thank you for your candid and thought provoking reply. My view is that we are all (not any particular nation or other involuntary group) collectively responsible to see truth and justice wherever in the world.

@Mae – my point is simple – I seek truth and I find it a pity that Free Gaza Org have resorted to uploading a manipulated photo that is now the most popular photo of the MV Rachel Corrie, which itself was very honourably seeking to promote the truth about the terrible conditions in Gaza.

If you examine the two photos in the links you might agree with me that it has been manipulated.

I accept your point that photoshop has many oft benign uses, but combined with the other evidence, the photo seems to me to be manipulated to represent an untruth.

What the idiot Michael doesn’t understand is there is only one God.

And that God is the one who owns people of every religion, and that God isn’t own by anyone including Israel.

I find Christian Zionists to be a very funny bunch.

They side with people who say this about Jesus:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvnrBU4vaGY

Over people who accept Jesus as a Prophet.

I think this Buffy Saint-Marie song (sung here by Donovan) is timeless:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UC9pc4U40sI

Craig: There are proponents of religiously motivated violence all over.

Yes, and the principle proponents and by far the most violent were the US and the UK under George Bush and Tony Blair, may they both both burn in eternal hell-fire, which is the purpose for which it was made.

Anyone who disagrees with rich, priveleged Craig is a Zionist troll, a racist prat, or a nutter.

Nuff said

Or maybe privileged. Either way, Craig, you have made a fortune at the taxpayer’s expense. How much did you get paid when you were a British ambassador? Who footed the bill for your wine?

What a hypocrite you are!

Neil Barker at June 6, 2010 2:46 PM

You could create your own (at the tax payers’ expense) Fortune 500.

Where do you think Craig would appear (if at all) in the top 500?

Where might Blair or Mandelson or Middleton appear?

What constitutes a fortune to you?

Are you angry about and envious of others fortunes?

I suggest your own motivations are, at the very least, suspect.

Craig, you can call me a violent fanatic all you like, but it’s not a matter of principle that I resemble one.

It is that the jihad always provokes the crusade.

And I say again: Hamas must either change their religion, or emigrate with their possessions and their sins, or else.

I don’t doubt that the Turkish Navy is very good indeed. So is the Israeli Air Force. Israel can launch its nuclear weapons as easily to the north as to the east.

Don’t forget, a people convinced that the world is against it and that it’s God’s chosen people is never going to say sorry, even if it has to go down in flames while taking as many enemies with it as possible.

Neil Barker, hello. You never answered my politely asked question about what part of the world you’re in. So I’ll ask it again: what part of the world are you in? What country? You’d suggested that you were in a ‘poor’ country. Where is that? Just out of interest.

You also seem to have a personal grudge against Craig Murray, yet you ask him to send you a book, free-of-charge. How very odd. Can you elaborate?

Michael Petek, really, you’re sounding more and more shrill by the post. In this, you’re tending to fulfill some others’ expectations of the caricature of someone who supports Israel’s every action, right or wrong. It doesn’t actually help your arguments, indeed it detracts from them.

Monty – the first thing one should note when examining both photographs is that the photographer is standing in a different place, slightly more to the front, for the second one. It’s certainly the same kay, but there is a different sky and slightly more wind in the second; in the background of the repainted one is what looks like a low barge, in the “Linda” photo two people are on the deck. The “Rachel Corrie” photo has the foremost ropes going in a slightly different direction. The most likely explanation is the simplest – “Rachel Corrie” was painted over the previous name after a small area was painted over with new blue paint – the cheapest, quickest and most effective way to get the new name on.

I’ve photoshopped plenty of shots, some for publication (legitimately, before you get worked up about it) and while it is possible that the second photograph itself has an original which was then manipulated in some way, the two photographs you point to are emphatically not the same. It’s much more likely that the proud new owners of the MV “Rachel Corrie” took before and after shots.

P.S. It’s quite difficult to distort the letters in “Rachel Corrie” properly (you can see the distortion due to the shape of the hull in the photo quite clearly) and if you had the skill to do that, you’d also manage to clone the blue much more convincingly rather than in a very flat patch.

Suhayl Saadi, you still don’t understand what kind of people you’re dealing with.

If the Israelis know or think they’re in a fight for their very existence, they will kill as many people as it takes to protect themselves.

If they know or think their struggle is hopeless, they will do what they did at Masada two thousand years ago, or resist to the last soul as they did in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Either way, they will take as many enemies with them as they can.

Michael Petek You are right, this is what it is all about:

“Don’t forget, a people convinced that the world is against it and that it’s God’s chosen people is never going to say sorry, even if it has to go down in flames while taking as many enemies with it as possible.”

It is about people who think they are better than everyone else. Not due to good deeds, but due to birth.

A people who are argant enough to assume God has choosen them, them alone. While the rest of Humanity are not chosen.

“even if it has to go down in flames while taking as many enemies with it as possible.”

And I agree, this is the dirrection Israel has choosen for itself. This is absolutly clear now.

Israel has choosen the Direction of Nazi German. So like Nazi German they will go down, because they must go down.

The world can not under survitude to Israel. So nucelear weapons or not Israel will be stopped, because it must be stopped.

Your racism will end.

All of Humanity are the chosen people, but racists like you are too stuped realise that.

Tell me Arsalan, why according to Islamic law must Muslims be on top, and everyone else under their feet as dhimmis, if they’re allowed to live at all.

“You have been the best nation that has been raised up for mankind. You enjoin what is right, forbid what is wrong, and believe in Allah. If the People of the Book believe [in Islam], it would be better for them; there are believers among them, but most of them are backsliders. (3.110) They will not harm you but a slight hurt. If they fight you, they shall turn their backs to you [to flee], and they shall not be helped. (3.111) Abasement has been imposed on them wherever they are found, except under a covenant with Allah and a covenant with men, and they have become deserving of wrath from Allah, and humiliation is made to cleave to them. This is because they disbelieved in the verses of Allah and slew the prophets unjustly. This is because they disobeyed and exceeded the limits. (3.112) They are not all alike; among the People of the Book there is an upright party; they recite Allah’s verses in the nighttime, falling prostrate. (3.113) They believe in Allah and the Last Day, they enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong, and they hasten to good works. Those are among the righteous. (3.114) Whatever good they do, they shall not be denied it. Allah knows the pious. (3.115)”

Look, we could debate all millennium about religious texts, and all of that simply boils down to: “My god’s better than your god, so there!” It’s diversionary; I’m not saying it’s deliberately diversionary – people have all kinds of interests – but it’s nothing to do with the subject. This thread, and those associated with it, is about the illegal boarding of Gaza-bound humanitarian vessels in the eastern Mediterranean and the killing of people on board one of those vessels earlier this week.

Suhayl, let’s get back to the beginning then, shall we.

Israel declared Gaza to be a hostile entity on 19 September 2007, because their legal advisors told them they had to in order for a blockade to be lawful.

Hamas received and understood it as a declaration of war.

The rest of the world was then on notice that there was a war going on, and that there were places it wasn’t safe to sail to.

Israel is a belligerent, so is Hamas, as a non-State entity.

International law regulates relations between Israel as a belligerent, and the Comoro Islands as the neutral flag-state of the Mavi Marmara.

So the San Remo Manual applies.

Now, can someone tell me: where in the Manual does it say that the rules apply to armed conflicts of an international character only?

Astonishing posts on Gaza and Palestine. I suggest any new poster who thinks that life there is acceptable might watch ‘To Shoot an Elephant’, a documentary filmed during ‘Operation Cast Lead’ (for which read ‘Operation Illegal Use of White Phosphorous on Civilians’) before posting, but then I’ve recommended it before.

Also incredible ‘my god is better than your god’ stuff, I agree. Don’t you think it would be better to let the gods fight it out, somewhere on a mountainside, perhaps, with the rest of us as spectators?

Patriarchal religious extremism, fascistic thought and sadism; all linked.

Meanwhile, Afghanistan. Average life expectancy, 44.21 years. Just in case anyone was forgetting.

“Israel declared Gaza to be a hostile entity on 19 September 2007, because their legal advisors told them they had to in order for a blockade to be lawful.”

The UN called this an illegal and provocative act, violating the Geneva Convention. An occupying power cannot declare war on the territory it occupies. Whatever the Israeli government claims, if one country is in full control of another’s territory, it is legally an occupying power.

Israel has had full control of Gaza’s borders since before it first tightened its ongoing blockade in January 2006, immediately following Hamas’ election win.

Btw, it was Israel and the US who insisted on the election being held, even though regional observers from the various organisations working there counselled against it and told them that Hamas would win. Certain their money and influence could prop up the corrupt but suitably impotent Fatah party, they chose to ignore those warnings.

After Hamas won, in an effort to weaken support for the democratically elected government by punishing the electorate, Israel drastically reduced the movement of goods and people in and out of Gaza, tightening their ongoing blockade, and the EU and other aid givers cut off their aid as they had threatened they would in the case of a Hamas victory.

They then demanded that Hamas, who won a clear majority, share power with Fatah in order to prove their willingness to further the peace process and have the aid reinstated. Unexpectedly, Hamas conceded and formed a coalition government with Fatah.

As reported in Vanity Fair in 2007, the USA and Israel then proceeded to arm Fatah members within Gaza (incidentally, these weapons were used to fight against the IDF during “Operation Cast Lead”), training them and preparing them to overthrow the legitimate government. Yet another botched job, the coup failed and Hamas defended its position (rather brutally, I’ve read the human rights reports on this, too, just to let you know I am fully aware of what Hamas and Fatah supporters did to each other and to civilians during those weeks).

Immediately following this disastrous Israeli/US attempt to achieve through violence what they failed to manage with political means, Israel closed off the Gaza strip completely, in an effort to force the civilian population itself to overthrow Hamas. By then, Israel was also the only supplier of electricity to the strip, having bombed Gaza’s only power station to smithereens in 2006, so they were now in the optimum position to try and starve the only Palestinians still resisting the Israeli occupation into submission.

So to recap, first, as an occupying power, Israel cannot legally declare war on the occupied territory or blockade it, which is why the International community has never accepted it as legal. Second, the blockade had been in force far longer than the date mentioned by you, indeed, this declaration had nothing to do with the blockade but with planned military strikes by the IDF. Third, Israel is supposed to either provide Gazans with sufficient food, clothing (which includes shoes btw) and housing or allow others to do so without hindering them.

And finally, but most importantly, if Israel was legally at war with Hamas, (which they don’t want to be as it would have other legal and undesired consequences), and it legally imposed a blockade in an international armed conflict (which this isn’t unless they recognise Gaza or Palestine as a state), the law states unequivocally that humanitarian aid ships must be allowed through the blockade and into the blockaded port.

Of course, Israel is allowed to inspect any ship claiming to carry humanitarian aid, but they are not allowed, under all those rules Israel invokes to defend the blockade, to unload the ship and arrest its passengers and crew.

Israel is also not allowed to decide what constitutes humanitarian aid, as they do, and change it about at will, or to hold up aid until it is unusable as they did last year with donated blood, for instance, which they left in the sun, without refrigerating and then handed over to the UN in Gaza (which is also why nobody, who wants the aid to reach its destination, wants to hand it to Israel in the first place, seeing as they also auction off the (illegally held) donations that haven’t been ruined in Israeli storage).

Within this thread’s many twists and turns, including off topic, among the nuggets of thoughtfulness found here, I wish to address three plus:

Courtenay Barnett, in quoting another, I wish to say thank-you to your longer posting spelling out that people who disagree with one another need not be disagreeable in doing do. How true! And further to your site, in the words of a black South African I caught on our news during the Apartheid years stated equally eloquently “to deplore and do no more is not enough”. I wish your project well and perhaps privately, I would like to know by what tools (means or levers of power to actually affect positive change) you hope to achieve “JUSTICE REQUESTS REPARATIONS”?

Suhayl Saadi, under less than agreeable circumstances, thank-you for modelling how to voice your disagreement in kindness. How you and so many have the time for so much engagement as witnessed here, I do not understand. More power to you…

Craig Murray, I empathise with you on how in this thread alone

you gave voice to at least 3 different types of attack, all of which underlines the question whether those who throw stones, or threaten to do so, have ever thought of addressing the arguments instead of abusing those who offer them and argument?

Furthermore, instead of simple black and white assessments; Craig, I much appreciated your two-pronged June 5, 2010 9:08 PM statement: “Israel’s behaviour to the Palestinians is unconscionable… (adding) But the Palestinians – like all arab nations – have also suffered from their own corrupt, incompetent and venal leaderships whose agendas are personal gain rather than the good of their people.”

This latter insight of a people being hard done by, not only by a common enemy, but by their very own leadership as well, surely is not limited to the Palestinians? Is your country’s leadership, earlier and now, mine and many others including my neighbour any more virtuous than the Palestinians?

I ask the latter question rather rhetorically, as I wish to lastly draw attention again to my two statements within this thread somewhat earlier. Namely the politics of mutual self-destruction should they not get their unilateral way as advanced by some on this same thread, may be representative of some within the Israeli government, however in the words and assessment of the Palestinian I quoted earlier, it is Israeli’s PR system which aids and abets very unrepresentative people gaining access to the levers of government power and that their actions, like our own government’s actions are very much out of step with significant numbers of citizens who are neutered into silence through the illusion of what in all of these countries are described by those in power as democratic elections.

There are still peaceful ways before us by which we can still avoid unnecessarily repeating the history of our own earlier governments “leadership” in their own advocating some form of a fight to the finish, with one of these then rewritten as the war to end all wars.

May we learn, while still able…

The Qur’an at least is self-explanatory and only perverted minds could try to represent the disgraceful violence perpetrated by Israeli soldiers on the blockade breakers as the work of pious, God-fearing people. The trouble is, the minds of the Israelis are perverted by fifty years of propaganda, until some of them really believe that these acts of violence are acts of piety, and the rest of them, if not uncomfortable about the violence, are deeply confused.

Mae, would you please read the San Remo Manual. I have, and I can’t find any support for your position.

International law distinguishes only between armed conflicts of an international character (between states) over which the UN has jurisdiction, and armed conflicts not of an international character (in which one or both belligerents are not states). The UN has no jurisdiction over these because international law does not govern them exceptas to jus in bello.

The fact that Hamas was democratically elected doesn’t make its armed struggle just. Since it is a jihad – a holy war to impose Islamic law on a state it intends to destroy – it is unjust and criminal out or hand.

Actually, the Gazans do have sufficient food, in fact every year the population is larger than it was the year before due to normal growth. They’re not dropping dead from starvation as the Russians were during the siege of Leningrad.

Compare this with what happened in 1915-1917. The number of Armenians alive in the Ottoman Empire was 2.2 million to start with. At the end of the period there were only 800,000.

If it were Hamas besieging Ashdod, they wouldn’t be so kind. They would storm the city, and as shari’a prescribes for rebellious dhimmis they would kill all the men and enslave all the women and children. Just like in southern Sudan and East Timor.

Don’t forget, Hamas regard Jews as yids, kikes and the offspring of apes and pigs.

Michael Patek, spare me the religious jabbering, please, I do not subscribe to it.

For your questions regarding the applicable laws, the San Remo Manual refers only to armed conflict at Sea, I was arguing about the legality of declaring war and imposing a blockade on an occupied territory. You’ll find that there are other laws applicable, specifically the Geneva Conventions.

I recommend you read Craig’s post discussing why the San Remo Manual does not apply, furthermore, plenty legal opinions can be found on the subject on-line (from actual lawyers and law experts). You’ll find that the vast majority disagree with your position.

As for the things you allude to in regard to living under Muslim rule as a non-Muslim, I have studied enough history to know that non-believers in Christian lands often suffered worse fates than those in Muslim lands and that the rules you refer to were often more acceptable than their counterparts in Europe.

Most importantly, though, sizeable Jewish communities prospered and lived peacefully in Muslim lands, while they were being hounded out of one European country after another, for centuries. Despite the rigid structures of Muslim societies, the persecution of the Jewish people was an obsession of Christians not Muslims.

Although I have responded to your cockeyed use of statistics in order to deny the suffering of the Gazan population with my own counter arguments previously, this time I will say only this: Anyone who can summarily dismiss the suffering of more than three quarters of A MILLION CHILDREN by pointing to some historical conflict and saying “they had it worse” betrays a lamentable shortfall in the most basic human quality one expects to find in others. Compassion for the suffering of children is usually lacking in the most damaged minds only and I hope you get help, soon.

Mae, the San Remo Manual does refer to blockades, as you’ll find out if you go to the Red Cross site and read it. I did read Craig’s post about it, and he missed the fact that Israel had declared war, which Hamas received as such.

What legal experts, and where on line? Post a link.

Regarding the treatment of Christians and Jews in Muslim lands, their treatment varied enormously from time to time and from place to place. You could say that Blacks were better treated in South Africa than in, say, Uganda, but that doesn’t change the fact that Hamas want to impose a religiously-sanctioned apartheid on non-Muslims, and that’s if they allow them to live at all.

For example, in Morocco and Yemen centuries ago Jews weren’t allowed any footwear outside their segregated quarter, and in Iran weren;t allowed to go outdoors on rainy dau=ys.

The point is, what would be the consequence of Hamas rule today? Women would have fewer rights than men, non-Muslims than Muslims.

Non-Muslims would not be allowed to own land, and they wouldn’t be allowed to sue a Muslim in court or give testimony.

Mae – re: photoshopped ship name. Of course, it is not the same photo, that is not what I said. I have examined both photos on Free Gaza Org’s Flickr page in detail and I still strongly maintain that the two photos were taken minutes apart from slightly different positions on the quay and the Rachel Corrie name was digitally added.

It seems I am not the only one to think this. Below is from Notmytribe.com:

QUOTE”Photos of the Rachel Corrie have been so sparse that media outlets are still using the image used on the Corrie’s unveiling, featuring a Photoshopped logo on her stern. Her previous name was still the Linda, but enthusiastic activists no doubt wanted to get the ball rolling.” ENDQUOTE

No other photos show the Rachel Corrie name in block capitals in that location.

Mae, where’s that (those) link(s) I asked you for?

I just had a thought this morning. Someone – Craig I think – said on this blog that what the Israelis did on the Marmara a week ago was unconscionable.

Since the only consciences that matter are those of the commandos who did the shooting, there’s a strong possibility that it wasn’t.

The nine people who were shot and killed were Muslims who had explicitly said beforehand that they were seeking martyrdom. If that’s their ‘deen’ I suppose we have to respect it. When the Israelis killed them it’s possible they were acting according to theirs.

['deen' = (Arabic: 'way', 'religion')]

As I remember from my diversity training:

‘Listen up brother, me iz Ali G.

If ya see da big tooled-up Izra-e-li.

Do not impoze ya morality.

Maximum respec da diversity.

If ya wanna be a shaheed ‘im drill ya fa free.

Booyakasha!

PS. When ya say ‘Rachel Corrie illegally boarded’, how come it iz illegal to bone a Julie? Iz dat Islamic law, or what? Duz it apply in Staines as well?

Monty – ah, I misunderstood your post then. Like I said in my reply to you earlier, it is entirely possible that the photograph with the new name “Rachel Corrie” on the hull was manipulated. Looking at it again, I still consider it unlikely, but you could be right about it, of course.

Seems like we might have to wait until we get some newer photos for confirmation, or do you think it’s still sailing with the old name painted on?

Eduard, many thanks.

Mae, go for it! Your pieces on this blog are wonderful.

The basic situation, of course, is that Israel is exerting sustained and intensifying colonial oppression on a population and now, last week, has carried out what I consider to have been a very deliberate, pre-meditated (after all, that is the definition of murder) act of mass murder in international waters in pursuance of this policy.

The more far-fetched the constructed moralities (which are really constructed positions of amorality) evinced the variegated supporters of Israeli state policy, the deeper into overt mendacity they sink.

The empereror has not been wearing any clothes for some considerable time. Thank you for pointing out his nakedness in so lucid a manner.

I see, Suhayl. It’s colonial oppression when Jews do it, but not colonial oppression when Muslim Arab armies invaded the Roman Empire in the 7th century in a war of aggression.

The Caliph isn’t wearing any clothes either.

Michael, the Caliph has been non-existent since 1923 and was nude for many centuries prior to that. What the Dickens has this to do with caliphs, anyway? I am not interested in the caliph or the sultan or the snake-charmer or Hasan-i-Sabah or the Old Man of the Mountains or Douglas Fairbanks (Junior or Senior).

I am interested in the variegated manifestations of European colonialism and neocolonialism as it has manifested, largely via the capitalist economic system, since the C17th. and most particularly since C19th. This is what defines our world today. It is to this rubric that the problems and conflicts Middle East most closely align.

Really, in your recent post, you are beginning to sound a little like Nick Griffin of the BNP.

Suhayl, I was cribbing your reference to the Emperor wearing no clothes!

Comparing me to Nick Griffin is a bit over the top. I detest the man myself.

If Israel is a colonial outpost, whose colony is it? Is it British? French? Dutch? German?

52-54 per cent of Israeli Jews are of North African or Middle Eastern descent, so how can they be colonials?

How about Arab colonialism in Lebanon at the expense of the Maronites, in Iraq at the expense of the Assyrians, in Egypt at the expense of the Copts, and in Morocco at the expense of the Berbers?

Look, are you denying that Israel is enormously oppressive on Gaza and the West Bank? I think so.

I realise you are likely to harbour deeply negative feelings about Muslims – you’re not alone in this – and it colours everything you write, Michael. You therefore assume, wrongly, that everyone feels the same about those of other faiths, ethnicities, etc.

Israel is behaving in a colonialist manner – and has done so since at least 1956 with the invasion of Egypt (along with France and the UK) – because it is part of the ‘corporate body’ of the US hegemon to the extent that in general it aggressively furthers US policy objectives in the Middle East in alliance with corrupt elites in Arab countries – Saudi Arabia, for example. But Saudi Arabia is a colony ruled by a local elite, whereas Israel is an intrinsic part of the colonial apparatus. It doesn’t really matter, in that sense, whether its population consists of Chinese Malays, Iraqis, Moroccans, American ex-pats or Falasha, or whatever. The actions of the state of Israel – remember, I am talking here of states, not of individual human beings – are in essence and in reality, in political science and historical terms of a deeply colonial nature.

I really don’t know why you seem to think I would bear any allegiance towards what Morocco might do, or what the Prime Minister of Lebanon might do. Well, you know that Lebanon was created by the French colonial power out of a piece of the Ottoman province of Syria very deliberately to act as a colonial outpost. I am sure that there is tension and unfairness in Mongolia and many other places, too. Is it just because I have a Muslim name, you think I’ll rush to defend the King of Morocco or the Sultan of Brunei? Or the Algerian military regime which killed how many of its own people – fully supported, incidentally, by France and the USA – in order to scupper the results of a democratic election?

I hate all of these things and more. I hate injustice and pain, I hate killing. I don’t give a damn what someone’s religion is, or their ethnicity, or their politics.

Well, you will most definitely know, Michael, that there are Saadis who are Jews, too. And Christians. One of the major commentators on the Sefer Yitzirah was an Egyptian named Saadia Gaon who, in his later years, lived in Baghdad.

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

I certainly don’t have any negative feelings towards Muslims, Suhail. Only towards Hamas. And I’m saying the same things about them today as I said about Serbs during the wars in Yugoslavia during the 1990s, and for much the same reason that they were bloodthirsty savages. On that occasion the Muslims were not waging jihad, but a war for secular purposes only.

I’d say the same thing about Muslims who waged jihad in East Timor, cutting its population by a third. And about those waging jihad against Christians in Nigeria today, and in Egypt.

In Egypt, the Copts don’t take any nonsense from their oppressors. They resist.