|
« The Unconstitutional Secretary
Main |
January 15, 2004
International solidarity with murder
The family of Tom Hurndall, the International Solidarity Movement activist who has now died after apparently being shot by an Israeli soldier, seems determined to arraign the entire Israel Defence Force for his death. They want the soldier charged with murder or manslaughter, and yet at the same time say the Israelis are hanging the soldier out to dry. One or the other, surely; it can't be both. The anger and bitterness of the family is understandable. If the soldier in question shot Tom Hurndall either with deliberate intent or as a reckless act, he should be tried and punished. However, there is surely something distasteful about the way the Hurndall family appears to want to make political capital out of their son's death and use it to whip up more hatred of Israel. The fact that is being overlooked is that Israel is fighting in Gaza to prevent arms being smuggled in to murder more Israelis. If people venture onto that field of battle while it is raging -- however humanitarian their reasons -- surely they are behaving recklessly, to say the least. Moreover, as the Telegraph points out today in a helpful balance to the compassionate story about the Hurndalls' bereavement, the ISM is anything but a group of 'peace activists': 'The International Solidarity Movement is often described as a peace group but its founders back the Palestinian right to wage an "armed struggle". The International Solidarity Movement is often described as a peace group but its founders back the Palestinian right to wage an "armed struggle". 'Launched in 2001, the ISM says it uses "non-violent direct action" in the style of Gandhi, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Dr Martin Luther King. A closer look reveals that the leadership sees volunteers not as pacifists but as combatants on the Palestinian side. 'In a 2002 article, the movement's co-founders, Adam Shapiro, a New York Jew, and Huwaida Arraf, a Palestinian Christian, urged: "The Palestinian resistance must take on a variety of characteristics, both non-violent and violent." Mr Shapiro and Miss Arraf predicted that "yes, people will get killed and injured" and suggested that the casualties "would be considered shaheed", using the Arabic term for martyrs applied to suicide bombers. 'In its mission statement, the movement says that, for Palestinians, "armed struggle" is "their right". Activists have shown their hatred for the Jewish state. " 'Israel' is an illegal entity that should not exist," wrote Flo Rosovski, an ISM "media co-ordinator" who was deported last year. 'Some links between ISM activists and Palestinian terrorists have emerged. Less than two weeks after Corrie's death, ISM members allegedly tried to prevent Israeli troops from searching their office in Jenin in the West Bank. When the soldiers forced their way in, they discovered Shadi Sukia, a leading member of Islamic Jihad. The movement claimed that it had known nothing about Sukia but had simply offered him tea, clothes and a blanket when he appeared unannounced off the street. 'ISM members also shared tea with Omar Khan Sharif and Assif Muhammad Hanif, Britons who visited the site of Corrie's death with the group last April before carrying out a suicide attack on Mike's Place, a Tel Aviv pub, killing three and injuring dozens.' Not peace activists at all, in other words, but accomplices to mass murder.
Posted by melanie at January 15, 2004
Comments
I guess the key to a reasonable response to this is to focus primarily on the injustice of an individual shoot-to-kill incident of an apparent non-combattant. Stop there, and we, the Israeli govt. and the Hurndalls can all agree. That is not to condone the ISM organisation or Hurndall's involvement, or their use of him and others like him. In fact, the ISM and the Israeli soldier are in the long run equally deserving of condemnation- one for deliberately risking such incidents, the other for accepting the bait in such a lethal manner. Posted by: at January 15, 2004 10:37 PMHow many of the ISM take turns to sit on Israeli busses or sit in Israeli cafes? They don't want peace - they're backing terrorism! Posted by: at January 16, 2004 12:54 AMThis is a typically formulated Melanie Phillips argument. She denies moral reponsibility for unlawful killings or settlement activity yet goes on to say that the opposition is always far worse. Perhaps her credibility would be enhanced by devoting the occasional column to (for example) Israeli military attrocities or the actions of settlers in Hebron. I, for one, have nothing but admiration for people who would risk their lives standing in front of IDF bulldozers to bring the abhorent conduct of the Israeli army to global attention. NO, I don't dispute Israels right to self-defence. NO, I don't underestimate the problem Israel faces in terms of terrorist attacks. HOWEVER, it seems to me that most military operations in the occupied territories have more to do with protecting the insane ideological beliefs of a bunch of loony settlers than defending the legitimate territorial integrity of the Israeli state. This is where the problem lies. As for the ISM - (as far as I know) it is a broad based group incorporating both obsessionate lefty anti-Israeli's (for whom Israel's crimes far out-weigh those of any medievalist arab regime, whatever the evidence) and those who want to make a genuine point about human rights abuses. In other words, I'm sure that there are people who use anti-Israeli rhetoric as a tool to further their own political position and that there are those with a genuine sence of right and wrong. As for the latter, well done. Either something is wrong or right in terms of human rights discourse. It matters not whether someone else is doing it, somewhere else. Otherwise we regress into the language of the school playground. Posted by: guy chambers at January 16, 2004 01:19 AM "This is a typically formulated Melanie Phillips argument." Yes, well done! Posted by: Solomon at January 16, 2004 04:35 AMguy chambers: "She denies moral reponsibility for unlawful killings or settlement activity." This is what she says: "If the soldier in question shot Tom Hurndall either with deliberate intent or as a reckless act, he should be tried and punished." How is that an abdication of responsibility for unlwaful killing? Most of her post is merely a reproduction of a Telegraph article; dry, factual, recitative: your beef, then, is with fair reporting, which puts in a highly questionable light your professed "admiration" for these dangerously scummy people. (For more, go here.) Odd, too, your insistence that criticism of ISM be offset by detailing "Israeli military attrocities or the actions of settlers in Hebron." Perhaps your own credibility would be enhanced if you explcitly acknowledged and criticized the war crimes committed by the Palestinians, not to say the efforts of their fellow travelers in the West. As for your complaint "that most military operations in the occupied territories have more to do with protecting the insane ideological beliefs of a bunch of loony settlers than defending the legitimate territorial integrity of the Israeli state": if you genuinely belief that, then you should support the security fence. Separate the two sides, so that military operations in the territories won't be necessary. Posted by: wm. tyroler at January 16, 2004 05:42 AMHere's an "action of settlers in Hebron" that turned out to be a fabrication. When I read the article in the Times yesterday, my immediate thought was that the Hurndalls were disappointed that the Israeli soldier was not a Jew. Maybe it would have suited them far more if this were the case. Hence their anger that the IDF revealed that the soldier was a Beduin. Melanie was absolutely spot on about the Hurndalls. Posted by: hyam lehrer at January 16, 2004 09:34 AMReading Melanie's words and those offered in response, it occurs to me that I have no personal knowledge of what happened in this incident and that I am entirely at the mercy of the media reporting and the views of other third parties. This is, however, the truth of almost everything that happens and I wonder how anyone can ever be certain that their opinions are based on the events rather than the reporting. Am I being overly cynical in wishing to believe only those things I see, experience or investigate myself? Posted by: Henry Kaye at January 16, 2004 11:02 AMThe harming or killing of innocent civilians (Hurndall was clearly marked as one, and unarmed) is a war crime. If the ISM accepts the Palestinians right to armed struggle then they are in the good company, the UN, USA, UK all accept that an illegal occupation exists and the Palestinians legal right to fight this illegal occupation. Posted by: MIke at January 16, 2004 11:08 AMThe Israeli soldier who shot him was an Arab. Those who venture into a war zone must expect to get hurt. Posted by: DP at January 16, 2004 11:25 PMYes (DP), you must anticipate the possibility of getting hurt if you venture into such an operation...but there are strict international rules laid down as to what counts as lawful/unlawful killing. There is no evidence that this incident is anything other than a BARBARIC crime - and trying to mitigate its impact by attributing sinister motives to the parents, or by relativising the situation by ranting about Palestinian terrorists does not change that. wm.tyroler, Why should I support the fence? It grabs more land for Israelis (outside the 1967 borders) and, what is more, it fails to deal with the questions of Palestinian refugees and Jerusalem. BTW - I think that there is room for pragmatic compromise on these issues before you start ranting about the "real" intransigent agenda of Palestinians. "Perhaps your own credibility would be enhanced if you explcitly acknowledged and criticized the war crimes committed by the Palestinians, not to say the efforts of their fellow travelers in the West." Read my post. I criticised those on the left who want to use Israel as a political football. I appriciated that fact that Israel was in a difficult situation (to put it lightly) but criticised the fact that this was used as some blanket justification for, or deflection from the immoral actions of the IDF. Travis, Fine. If Israel really is the bastion of western enlightenment it claims to be, then let's judge it it terms of the standards which it sets for itself. Rather than the But... or What about.. arguments that seem to be made purely to avoid such questions. "The harming or killing of innocent civilians (Hurndall was clearly marked as one, and unarmed) is a war crime. So this conflict is being conducted according to the Geneva Convention, is it? "If the ISM accepts the Palestinians right to armed struggle then they are in the good company, the UN, USA, UK all accept that an illegal occupation exists and the Palestinians legal right to fight this illegal occupation." The last I heard, the occupation was a legitimate act of war, the war itself being provoked by Egypt's blockade of Eilat in May 1967. If the Palestinians wish to exercise a "legal right to fight", they could, of course, act in accordance with the Geneva Convention themselves. No bombing of civilians in restaurants and shops, combatants to wear a recognisable uniform....what are the chances of that? "...but there are strict international rules laid down about what counts as lawful/unlawful killing." International rules? What a laugh. I'll believe in the sincerity of those who talk about "international rules" when they vehemently condemn homicide bombing - from the Islamofascists who killed 3,000 in New York to the dirty work of the insane doing the bidding of Hamas/PLO/et al. in Israel. I'll believe in "international rules" when I get an explanation of the authority under which I'm being ruled. Until then I'll believe in Israeli law governing Israeli citizens and Israeli justice taking its course. Posted by: Theodopoulos Pherecydes at January 17, 2004 04:52 PM"If the ISM accepts the Palestinians right to armed struggle then they are in the good company, the UN, USA, UK all accept that an illegal occupation exists and the Palestinians legal right to fight this illegal occupation." The mark of a an anti-Semite is always to lie his head off in the hope that most people don't care (which is usually the case amongst European gentiles), or are ignorant of the true facts. Two points: 1) The UN, the USA, and the UK do not accept that the occupation is illegal at all. What UN Security Council Resolution 242, which is the prevailing legal authority in this area, states is that some of the territories currently held by Israel in Gaza and the West Bank should be exchanged for peace. Israel has been waiting in vain for the hand of peace for over 36 years now. 2) Leaving aside the fact that the Arabs were offered virtually everything they suggested they had been "fighting for " at Taba, but rejected it on the obvious basis that they wish to destroy all of Israel, the deliberate targeting of civilians is a most serious crime under international law. Those who support this indiscriminate mass-murder of Jews are no better than those who collaborated with and cheered on the many millions of European gentiles who murdered 1.5 million Jewish children by herding them into gas chambers and machine-gunning them into open pits. These people are evil beyond belief. We Jews will certainly take no lessons in morality from a Britain which inter alia: 1) Effectively collaborated in the genocide of the Jewish people in Europe through their deliberate anti-Semitic policy of total inaction, whether in terms of closing off all exits to those Jews fleeing genocide, to refusing to bomb the railway tracks at Auschwitz. Britain fought a war in spite of and not because of the Jewish people. 2) Put down many legitimate uprisings throughout the world with a callous disregard for anything other than its own narrow commercial and political interests. 3) Post-1945 treated the few surviving Jews who fled Europe for "Palestine" with a cruelty and measure of anti-Semitism that gave the Nazis a definite run for their money. It was the world's shock at this barbarity that finally convinced it that Britain was not morally fit to govern the Holy Land. 4) Committed the outrages known as the "Bloody Sunday Massacres." 5) Stood by with its arms folded and eyes closed as genocide in Africa has been committed. 6) Murdered hundreds of Argentinian sailors aboard the Belgrano as that ship was retreating from a war zone. 7) In 1973, when Israel stood on the brink of being wiped out together with millions of its citizens, refused to allow American overflights which were rushing aid to a beleaguered Israel. 8) Murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent German civilians in Dresden by fire-bombing that fair city from the air. You would imagine that Britain would have wanted to be judged by higher standards than prevailed in Nazi Europe. Obviously not. The list goes on and on. It is truly endless. "There is no evidence that this incident is anything other than a BARBARIC crime" Having, courtesy of the BBC and Guardian newspaper, heard nothing, for the most part, except extremely one-sided accounts which have been furnished by individuals whose bias is both profound and obvious, this individual wishes to find someone guilty of murder. How very British of him. Posted by: Charles at January 17, 2004 05:10 PMCharles, "the fact that the Arabs were offered virtually everything they suggested they had been "fighting for " at Taba" You are joking right? There were serious issues of territorial integrity, the status of Arabs in land annexed by Israel, a timescale for taking away outlying Jewish colonies and the level of control exercised by Arabs in East Jerusalem amongst many other issues. "The UN, the USA, and the UK do not accept that the occupation is illegal at all." However, they clearly think that Israel's actions within the territories contravene international law as seen in both Bush and the UK governments clear position on settlements. Israel is justified in holding the territories for security purposes only - not for instituting a wholesale land grab for a bunch of fundamentalist freaks. BTW - I could produce a similar list of attrocities committed the US, France or China (for example). What is your point?
Who doesn't veheremently condemn suicide bombings? Who is this point directed against? Grimreaper, I don't think you really get the point behind the Geneva convention. It is a series of inviolable principles of right conduct in war - not something we pragmatically take or leave if the other side is not playing fair. Charles, you say Jews should take no morality lessons from Britain who: 'Murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent German civilians in Dresden by fire-bombing that fair city from the air.' Other than by waging a war, which sadly meant the death of civilians as well as soldiers, how else should the Nazi regime have been ended? I suppose we should have talked diplomatically to them while millions of Jews were being murdered in the camps. Posted by: Cat Lover at January 18, 2004 06:44 PMMelanie Phillips is naturally opposed to those who use force to resist the Israeli occupation. I accept that, although I'm tempted to ask how she thinks the Jews in Palestine came to declare their own state - it certainly wasn't through organising bring and buy sales. But she also seems to oppose those who would bring change through peaceful means. Those who stand in front of bulldozers illegally demolishing houses are actually upholding international law. And when she says "If people venture onto that field of battle while it is raging -- however humanitarian their reasons -- surely they are behaving recklessly, to say the least", is she suggesting there should be no right to peaceful protest, no humanitarian relief, no ambulance workers of first aiders or paramedics? Tom Hurndall was trying to protect a child when he was shot. She seems to think he was responsible for his own murder. What next? Women guilty for getting themselves raped? To have written what Melanie Phillips has written about the family, the day their son died is obsence. Yes they want the soldier charged with murder if that is what the evidence suggests. But quite rightly they want to know who gave him the order to fire, why the IDF lied about the incident and smeared the victim (claiming he was a gunman), why there is so little control over a trigger happy army who shoot with impugnity (1 million live rounds fired in the West Bank in one three weeks period). Well done the Hurndalls - had it not been for them the killer would have got off free to kill again. Finally, guilt by association. So ISM members have had tea with Islamicists. Members of the IDF were responsible for planting bombs in the cars of West Bank mayors. Does that make the IDF a terrorist organisation? I've got an even better one for Ms Phillips. If ISM supporter has tea with terrorist means ISM is or supports terrorist organisation, then it must follow that the IDF is a murderous terrorist organisation. Why? IDF officer Baruch Goldstein murdered 29 people at prayer using a weapon and rounds supplied to him by Israeli government. And his funeral cortege was given an IDF escort. Case proven? Or ridiculously tenuous link used to support a totally illogical and stupid argument? Posted by: Tony at January 19, 2004 10:48 PMHey "Caroline" I've a new nomination for the Darwin Awards you're running. I think my vote goes to the Israeli soldier who decided to go for a joyride into Lebanon yesterday. All full of confidence in his armoured bulldozer he forgot that they've got these anti tank missiles. Boom! Direct hit. Hizbullah are the business. They video taped the whole thing and I'm told that you can hear the injured Zionist squealing like a pig and calling for his mum. The driver's new nickname is Lord Lucan because his body has disappeared and they can find no trace of him. Funny, eh? Posted by: Bassam at January 20, 2004 01:26 PMThe soldier was wrong to shoot at the head; he may even have been wrong to shoot at all; he should be strung up for lying to Provost-Marshalls; and he should be cashiered for making his country look so stupid and clumsy.......is he not a Bedouin from the Bedouin Brigade ? He has certainly damaged his Unit and his country; and should face swift punishment. Posted by: Romulus at January 22, 2004 06:27 PMThe only problem with the soldier is that he didn't kill more ISMers. Who do these people think they are? They enable terrorism. Period. No other Western, liberal country would let them undertake their "activities" (ie providing cover for terrorists smuggling weapons). Israel should just round them up and throw them out. Posted by: BIg guy at January 22, 2004 09:25 PMA couple of ironies here. First the soldier who shot Tom Hurndall has been charged with murder. Big guy (the name says it all!) says he shuld have murdered more people. Now when I studied law I learned it is actually illegal to encourage people to commit crimes such as murder. Melanie Phillips is happy to allow such comments to appear on her web site. But my e-mail correspondance with her (nothing offensive let alone illegal in any of it) which I posted here for all to see is deleted. Odd, eh? Second irony: this from a lady who defends Kilroy Silk's right to publish racist abuse on the grounds of "freedom of speech". Posted by: Brendan at January 22, 2004 11:54 PMBrendan, Rarely have I seen one who is more of an apologist for terrorists than you. Hurndall wasn't "helping a child." That's bunk. What he was doing -- what ISM always does -- was attempting to disrupt Israel's sovereign right to defend itself by pursuing murderers who threatened the security of both Israeli citizens and Palestinians alike. You may believe the nonsense about how Israel tears down homes for short but it's a fact -- admitted by Hamas itself -- that it smuggles weapons through tunnels that start in Egypt and end in HOMES in Rafah. Unlike you, I've been there. It is the most dangerous place in Gaza. and one more thing . . . a question -- let's see how consistent you are -- why is Kilroy Silk out of a job and Tom Paulin still ensconed comfortably at the BBC? Huh? Is one forbidden "rascist speech" and the other not? You are a blithering hypocrite. But it won't help you when the Islamists come. They'll kill you anyway - infidel. Get them before they get you. Posted by: Big Guy at January 23, 2004 01:27 AMBig Guy, I trust the "big" does not refer to your interlect. 1) Most military operations in the territories have nothing to do with "Israel's sovereign right to defend itself" but more to do with protecting illegal settlers and **collective punishment** of the indigenous population. 2) Paulin attacked US settlers in the territories - i.e. those who choose to be part of the colonisation of Palestinian land so as to make the prospect of a unified Palestinian state impossible. NOT JEWS. Kilroy-Silk attacked ARABS. He leaps from talking about suicide-bombers to Arabs claiming social security to the torture practices of Arab states. No distinction made. Who is the racist? Posted by: guy chambers at January 23, 2004 04:15 AMIt is probably not worth engaging with the Israel apologists but I feel I should do so. Tom Hurndall was trying to move two children away from an area that was comin under fire from the IDF. That is not bunk it is the fact as testified to by a score of eye witnesses. There was no exchange of fire, there was no Palestinian gunfire, the soldiers were shotting towards, not at, the children, for what reason one can only imagine. The soldier who was shooting, when he found Tom in his sights, lowered his aim and shot Tom directly in the head. The soldier then lied about Tom being armed, conspired with another soldier and misled an IDF investigation. All of these facts have been established and admitted, under pressure, by the IDF. The family beleive that the soldier responsible for his death AND those resposnisbile for the cover up AND those that are proven to have given permission, tacit or otherwise for the killing should also be prosecuted. Forget the legal arguments over whether the occupation is legal or illegal. The fact on the ground is that civilains are deliberately targeted by an army who are at best reckless and at worst murderously contemptuous. It is the belief of many that this contempt is encouraged by allowing to go unchallenged hence the accusations of impunity. Making an accusation against the IDF, beleiving that the actions of the army in the occupied, or disputed, areas is a criticism of the army and of the governmental policy, it is not a criticism of Israel per se. As a further example let me point you to the little reported actiosn inside Rafah this week. A family of five were forced out of their house at gunpoint with no time to retrieve their possesions and their house bulldozed flat while they were kept in the area by soldiers. A total of 30 houses were destroyed. 400 people were made homeless. There was no resistance either civil or militant. This is a residential street where families live close to the iron wall that is being built. The houses are too close to the wall for the liking of the army and have been demolished. The manner in which the houses were destroyed is despicable but even worse is that the family receive no compensation for having their house destroyed. The official IDF response was that the houses were destroyed in an investigation into smugglimg tunnels. I lived in this house for a month. I know the family. A farmer his wife and four children all under 5 years of age. The farmer used to work inside Israel, he speak fluent Hebrew. He receives Israeli guests into his house and treats them warmly. A sniper has now taken residence in one of the houses and managed to shoot an old woman and the sister who went to her aid, all the while not facing any hostile fire. The sniper by the way is an Israeli soldier. There are no tunnels in a single house in this street, there is no armed resistnace in this street. I know this for a fact. I know the families who live here. Let me see a sigle shred of evidence that there is and I will retact the claim. This is an example of terrorism and it is carried out by the Israeli army with the approval if not the direct order from the government. This is what has to be challenged as a crime against humanity. This is what the ISM seek to raise aweareness of. The ISM do not support terror. All the allegations against them are obfuscation by those who seek to defend the actions of the army. Anti semitism is a poison as is all racism. The desire to destroy Israel should be defended against. Energy would be better spent attacking those who are truly anti semetic or those anti semites who hide behind anti-Israel rhetoric. The fact remains that the methods used by the army inside the 'disputed' areas are disgustingly inhumane and should be answerable as should all the crimes against Israeli civilians and the crimes of the PA. One State, Two State, borders, access, permits are all political issues. The ISM does not seek to enagage in them just to highlight the misery caused to the Israeli and Arab civilians. The Hurndall family wish to expose the culture of impunity that exists in the army regardless of whether the serving soldier is a Jew or an Arab. Nearly all of the activists working with the ISM in Rafah were Jewish, and observant Jews at that. Honest criticism of the Israeli policies in the West Bank and Gaza is not an attack on Jewry. Get a grip. Posted by: Mark at January 23, 2004 09:53 AMAs if the above post was not long enough... I would like to pint out again that the ISM simply 'understands' that according to the Geneva Convention it is stated that there is a 'right' to armed resistance. That is not saying it supports it just that it recognises the legal status. Under the terms of the Oslo agreement I 'recognise' that Israel has control over the water resources in the West Bank. I dont agree that Israel should have control over that resource or that they should use that right to take over 80% of the water from that resource, in fact I condemn it. The fact remains though that I recognise the legal right of Israel to do it. People who attack the ISM do so through selective quotation and misrepresentation. They would be bwtter off looking towards true enemies of Israel whose intentions are clear. Finally the point about ISM not riding Israeli buses. How the hell do you think we get around Israel? I rode buses from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv and back. I ate in restuarants in Tel Aviv while waiting to go on ISM training. I felt the anxiety of the Israeli's, I tasted their fear. It made me even more determined to try and do something to help. So I worked with ISM. I stayed in Israel and in Gaza. I arrived in Rafah the day after Tom was shot and saw the witnesses still soaked in Tom's blood. I slept in the houses of the families whose homes no longer exist simply becasue those houses were in the way. I know for a fact that the IDF have lied about the true reasons for some of their operations. I know for a fact that the allegations against the ISM are groundless. The article is factually incorrect and damaging to peace. It is also downright bloody rude to the Hurndall family. Posted by: Mark at January 23, 2004 10:16 AMTo guy and Mark, you guys have got to be kidding. in order -- guy: you tie yourself in knots trying to explain the logic of paulin. let's see -- he calls for non-combatants (who ALL oh, just happen to be jewish) to be killed b/c he doesn't like their political views. But he's not a racist. He accuses Jews of Nazism. but he's not a racist. He refers to the Settlers as "Brooklyn-born" -- a term loaded with inneuendo (read "Jew") but he's not a racist. You're ridiculous. Mark -- now, let's be clear. I've read time and again the ISM diaries relating to Hamas and justifications for violence. It is therefore not surprising at all that a member of Islamic Jihad is found hiding in an ISM office or that two BRITISH suicide bombers are having tea with the ISM. It is their responsibility to police their members and activities. Furthermore, please go back and read any number of interviews with the Jewish Taliban Adam Shapiro. He doesn't "recognize" the "legitimate right of the Palestinians" to violently resist. He approves of it. At the very least he accepts it. To do so in the context where this "right" is used to justify suicide bombings is to be an apologist for those bombings. And if the ISM is so "peaceful" why is it that it's full of anarchists who dress like ninjas and raddle the Israeli security fence screaming a Hamas slogan "From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free." BIg Guy Posted by: Big Guy at January 23, 2004 05:46 PMBigGuy, When you say "Brendan ... Unlike you, I've been there" How can you possibly know that? I would wager that I've spent considerably longer in Gaza and the West Bank than you ever will. As for Hurndall, whatever you think of his motives or beliefs he was engaged in a peaceful and lawful activity, so what you're saying is that people who peacefully and lawfully go about their business in the Occupied Territories are liable to be shot and killed by the IDF because of their views. In fact, if I understand you, you're saying they SHOULD be shot and killed. Which provides us with a valuable insight into the mind of at least one Zionist. That all settlers are Jews is not the issue. One could comfortably attack Morrocan settlers in the Western Sahara or Turkish settlers in Cyprus without attacking their religion, ethnicity or nationality. The point is that what they are doing in contributing to a colonialist stratergy in that region (and by choosing to SETTLE THERE they are, by definition, complict in such a stratergy)is wrong. It is not a question of "not liking" their political views but of "not liking" the appauling restrictions the Palestinians face because of the separate roads, roadblocks, water diversion, olive grove demolition etc. that they face to facilitate settlement. Posted by: guy chambers at January 24, 2004 12:45 AM > Big Guy The classic response from someone who condones the actions of the IDF, you ignore the facts presented and then repeat false accusations.
The first incident that you refer to occured on March 27th 2003, 23 year old Soon afterwards IDF soldiers entered the building and arrested Sukiya. When asked for proof of these allegations, the IDF changed it's Somewhat chastened, the Associated Press, which had originally run At present (23rd January 2004) nearly 10 months after his arrest,
A few minutes after the service began, the IDF appeared in the form Subsequently the two were found to be suicide bombers - their entire The cover the bombers used for entry into Israel from Jordan was two Italian journalists yet I haven't seen you accuse the Italian Press of being 'friends' of terrorists.
You should re-read my comments above, and try and understand that the ISM has nothing to do with hate for ISrael, nothing to do with politics or terror and everything to do with desperately wanting an end to an occupation that heaps misery on Palestinains foremost but to a lesser but no less tragic extent, the Israeli's. |
