Israeli Soldiers Kill Peace Activists

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='Winchester' date='03 June 2010 - 04:41 PM' timestamp='1275601271' post='2123304']
Breaking a blockade is a military act.[/quote]

Enacting a blockade that keeps out food and medical supplies is a war crime.

[quote]If Gaza wants the blockade ended, they must reject Hamas. [/quote]

A good end may not be achieved by immoral means. Inflicting starvation on a populace as a means of coercing them to do anything is gravely immoral.


P.S. Looking back and seeing his response after I responded to your post, it looks like Hassan is pretty well schooled in Catholic moral teaching.

~Sternhauser

Edited June 5, 2010 by Sternhauser

[Winchester]

[quote name='Sternhauser' date='05 June 2010 - 09:01 AM' timestamp='1275742881' post='2124043']
Enacting a blockade that keeps out food and medical supplies is a war crime.

[/quote]
They let through aid. After it is inspected. The blockade does not keep food and medical supplies out of Gaza. The idea was not to provide aid, but to break the blockade.

[Jesus_lol]

actually winchester, you should look up what type nof stuff they do keep out of Gaza. it isnt trying to break their military, its trying to break their citizens.
stuff like building concrete, CHOCOLATE, wheelchairs, etc.

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='Winchester' date='05 June 2010 - 10:35 AM' timestamp='1275752118' post='2124073']
They let through aid. After it is inspected. The blockade does not keep food and medical supplies out of Gaza. The idea was not to provide aid, but to break the blockade.
[/quote]

"The UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees Unrwa's list of household items that have been refused entry at various times includes light bulbs, candles, matches, books, musical instruments, crayons,clothing, shoes, mattresses, sheets, blankets, pasta, tea, coffee,chocolate, nuts, shampoo and conditioner.

Many other items - ranging from cars to fridges to computers - are generally refused entry.

Building materials such as cement, concrete and wood were nearly always refused entry until early 2010, when some glass, wood, cement and aluminium were allowed in."

[url="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7545636.stm"]http://news.bbc.co.u...ast/7545636.stm[/url]

"Aid" is allowed in. But nothing they can use to stay human. Because the Israeli State has the right to decide the fate of a population, while simultaneously inflaming the just anger of a people, a just anger they know will be expressed in unjust ways.

[url="http://www.rense.com/general89/breaking.htm"]Breaking The Silence: Women in the IDF Speak[/url]

[url="http://imeu.net/news/article006602.shtml"]Israeli State Soldiers on the Occupation, In Their Own Words[/url]

[url="http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,636178,00.html"]Israeli Soldiers Provide Damning Testimony[/url]



~Sternhauser

Edited June 5, 2010 by Sternhauser

[Jesus_lol]

[quote name='Sternhauser' date='05 June 2010 - 12:19 PM' timestamp='1275765586' post='2124155']
"The UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees Unrwa's list of household items that have been refused entry at various times includes light bulbs, candles, matches, books, musical instruments, crayons,clothing, shoes, mattresses, sheets, blankets, pasta, tea, coffee,chocolate, nuts, shampoo and conditioner.

Many other items - ranging from cars to fridges to computers - are generally refused entry.

Building materials such as cement, concrete and wood were nearly always refused entry until early 2010, when some glass, wood, cement and aluminium were allowed in."

[url="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7545636.stm"]http://news.bbc.co.u...ast/7545636.stm[/url]

Yes. Aid. But nothing they can use to stay human.

~Sternhauser
[/quote]

But Stern! they can do that because they are all terrorists!!!

[Winchester]

If they stopped attacking, their buildings wouldn't be getting destroyed. Building materials like concrete will only be used to build cover for terrorists.

[quote]Gaza's electricity supply is made up of 144MW from Israel, 17MW from Egypt and the rest from an EU-run power plant in Gaza which can generate up to 80MW. [/quote]

[quote]The UN says restrictions on cement have made the reconstruction of 12,000 Palestinian homes damaged or destroyed in Israeli military operations "impossible". [/quote]
Areas used for launching rockets get destroyed. Stop launching rockets.

[quote]It says it has not been able to build schools to house 15,000 new pupils, necessary because of population growth since the blockade began. [/quote]
New pupils they will teach that the Holocaust never happened.

[quote]Israel generally allows medicines into Gaza. The WHO says that shortages of drugs are a problem, with 15-30% of essential drugs out of stock over 2009. But it blames problems in the supply chain, including the rift between Fatah and Hamas. [/quote]
In other words, they don't care about getting supplies to their citizens. Only about maintaining power and hatred of Israel.


If Hamas laid down their arms, there would be peace. If Israel laid down hers, there would be no Israel.

[Winchester]

My argument has never been perfection within Israel, or that her actions are always just. My argument is that you cannot break a military blockade and then beesh that you were attacked. They took a military action and were met with restrained force. In fact, had there been no violent resistence, there would have been no killing. They decided to create this issue and some people are damned stupid enough to fall for it. Just like the morons who were upset with the supposed Israeli strikes against schools (which were used to launch rockets).

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='Winchester' date='05 June 2010 - 02:40 PM' timestamp='1275766857' post='2124162']
My argument has never been perfection within Israel, or that her actions are always just. My argument is that you cannot break a military blockade and then beesh that you were attacked. They took a military action and were met with restrained force. In fact, had there been no violent resistence, there would have been no killing. They decided to create this issue and some people are damned stupid enough to fall for it. Just like the morons who were upset with the supposed Israeli strikes against schools (which were used to launch rockets).
[/quote]

They were in international waters. How exactly were they running a blockade in international waters? You can't complain that you were attacked after performing a non-violent action that harms no one? All right. "You can't just be a slave, then run away, and complain about being horsewhipped when you get caught. You're bringing it upon yourself."

"Violent resistance?" Yes. I know how that is defined by a police officer or by a soldier. Here's an example:


[media][url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bw0waKCGecc&feature=related"]http://www.youtube.c...feature=related[/url][/media]

It happened in April of this year.

[url="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/14/AR2010041404873.html"]The kid in the above video was charged with (multiple) felony assaults[/url] for "attacking police officers and their horses." The officers were just "defending themselves" from his "attacks." Then the video came out. And the backpedaling started.

~Sternhauser

Edited June 5, 2010 by Sternhauser

[Winchester]

So we're pretending now that statement of intent and action in that direction isn't sufficient.

[url="http://www.informationdissemination.net/2010/06/israeli-actions-are-stupid-but-legal.html"]Some blog by some guy. [/url]

This was simply a way to push Israel one way or the other. It's win-win for the Pro-Hamas flotilla. If Israel hadn't stopped them, they would have won a way to get through the blockade. If Israel does stop them, they can fight and win because of image.

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='Winchester' date='05 June 2010 - 03:08 PM' timestamp='1275768481' post='2124180']
So we're pretending now that statement of intent and action in that direction isn't sufficient.[/quote]

Winchester? Your attitude: tone it down. You can at least be civil in disagreeing.

They were doing nothing immoral. If you think violence is justified in enforcing any and every statute men concoct, that's another issue.

[quote]
This was simply a way to push Israel one way or the other. It's win-win for the Pro-Hamas flotilla.[/quote]

I doubt many, if any of the people on board the flotilla support killing innocents. Thus, they don't support Hamas. Or the Israeli State.

[quote]If Israel hadn't stopped them, they would have won a way to get through the blockade. If Israel does stop them, they can fight and win because of image.
[/quote]

Good.

~Sternhauser

Edited June 5, 2010 by Sternhauser

[Jesus_lol]

[quote name='Winchester' date='05 June 2010 - 12:37 PM' timestamp='1275766640' post='2124161']
If they stopped attacking, their buildings wouldn't be getting destroyed. Building materials like concrete will only be used to build cover for terrorists.

Areas used for launching rockets get destroyed. Stop launching rockets.

New pupils they will teach that the Holocaust never happened.

In other words, they don't care about getting supplies to their citizens. Only about maintaining power and hatred of Israel.

If Hamas laid down their arms, there would be peace. If Israel laid down hers, there would be no Israel.
[/quote]

"If she stopped talking back i wouldnt have to keep hitting her"

the civilian heavy parts of Gaza that got destroyed cant be rebuilt and you somehow think that is a good thing.

and you now dont want them to have schools either.

just think about how much bad stuff you are justifying because their are "terrorists in their midst". think about how much of a feedback loop this creates. happy, non desperate people dont shoot rockets or blow themselves up.

and what about all the other supplies? " light bulbs, candles, matches, books, musical instruments, crayons,clothing, shoes, mattresses, sheets, blankets, pasta, tea, coffee,chocolate, nuts, shampoo and conditioner."

how is denying any of that to innocent people a morally good action?

and concrete isnt just needed to rebuild the structures Israel has destroyed. building new ones, like is needed with growing populations, kind of depends on it. when houses are built in your suburb, it isnt because other houses elsewhere were bombed.

people talk of revolution on PM when taxes are hiked, or govt programs start. civil wars, etc. I would say the people in Gaza have it much worse than we ever have or ever will have, and yet it isnt called self defense when they fight back.

[Winchester]

[quote name='Jesus_lol' date='05 June 2010 - 07:00 PM' timestamp='1275778840' post='2124247']
"If she stopped talking back i wouldnt have to keep hitting her"

the civilian heavy parts of Gaza that got destroyed cant be rebuilt and you somehow think that is a good thing.

and you now dont want them to have schools either. [/quote]
Controlling the amount of building supplies makes sense. If the UN wants places rebuilt, they could go in with their own engineers and do it. Israel would probably allow that.
[quote]
just think about how much bad stuff you are justifying because their are "terrorists in their midst". think about how much of a feedback loop this creates. happy, non desperate people dont shoot rockets or blow themselves up.[/quote]
Actually, it's not one particular social group that does suicide bombing. Terrorism existed prior to supposed oppression. Princes supply money to terrorist organizations.
[quote]
and what about all the other supplies? " light bulbs, candles, matches, books, musical instruments, crayons,clothing, shoes, mattresses, sheets, blankets, pasta, tea, coffee,chocolate, nuts, shampoo and conditioner."

how is denying any of that to innocent people a morally good action?[/quote]
At various times, they were denied. When did Israel permit the shipping of rockets? Obviously the blockade is an inconvenience, not some impenetrable wall. They are interested in killing Israelis, not in helping their people.
[quote]
and concrete isnt just needed to rebuild the structures Israel has destroyed. building new ones, like is needed with growing populations, kind of depends on it. when houses are built in your suburb, it isnt because other houses elsewhere were bombed.[/quote]
So you think it's good policy to rebuild the country you're at war with after you respond to their attacks? That's war. You don't give your enemies supplies to keep them going. If Israel does this, it prolongs the war and strengthens Hamas. They provide the majority of electricity, they provide food and medical aid. In a real siege (which is essentially what this is) you deny the enemy everything. The only thing I could see as changeable is permitting women and children to leave Gaza. In fact, I would probably encourage this. If I were running things, I would consider providing them a good incentive to leave. But there is a mindset of pushing the Jews into the sea to contend with that noone in the media or in this thread wants to mention. Israel has attempted peace. Israel has offered a two state solution. Hamas isn't interested.
[quote]
people talk of revolution on PM when taxes are hiked, or govt programs start. civil wars, etc. I would say the people in Gaza have it much worse than we ever have or ever will have, and yet it isnt called self defense when they fight back.
[/quote]
They don't conduct decent war. They intentionally target civilian noncombatants. This does not compare to soldiers with ROEs in combat that permit firing prior to verifying that the person in what Hamas has turned into a combat zone is indeed a terrorist scumbag. They hide amongst and attack whilst surrounded by civilians. They hide in people's houses, shoot from these locations and then everyone cries when the house is taken out. If my neighbor started shooting into my house from his and I had a quick and easy way to take down his house, I would do it. I am under no obligation to risk getting killed because some arse portal decided to use civilians as body armor. For some reason, if a rocket kills an Israeli kid, I don't see Diane Sawyer or the Today Show crying their eyes out, but if some arse portal hiding in a kindergarten gets smoked from above and some kids get killed, the screen is full of wailing Palestinians and everyone is pissed at Israel.

But we're still talking about the interdiction of a flotilla that was designed to cause exactly the mess it caused. It was a PR op. And because the world is freaking stupid, it worked. These are the same arse portals who flew planes into buildings in my country (and before you squeal it was AlQaeda, remind yourself that islamo-fascist freaks are supported by the same countries and also train together and share resources).

What should Israel have done with the flotilla?

[Winchester]

[quote name='Sternhauser' date='05 June 2010 - 04:19 PM' timestamp='1275769159' post='2124189']
Winchester? Your attitude: tone it down. You can at least be civil in disagreeing.
[/quote]
My response was appropriate and you're not in my chain of command.


IHH was the main sponsor of the flotilla. It has ties to Hamas, Hezbollah and AlQaeda.

Edited June 6, 2010 by Winchester

[Winchester]

[url="http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=177342"]Items aboard flotilla and CLA info[/url]

There's a little too much editorializing, though.

Edited June 6, 2010 by Winchester

[Jesus_lol]

[url="http://www.alternet.org/story/147115/the_gaza_blockade_is_illegal_and_the_flotilla_attack_was_an_illegal_act_of_war?page=entire"]The Gaza Blockade Is Illegal and the Flotilla Attack Was an Illegal Act of War[/url]

[quote]
Because the blockade of Gaza itself violates international law, Israel committed an illegal act of war attacking the convoy, regardless of who attacked whom first. [i]June 5, 2010[/i] |
Israeli officials claimed that the IDF commandos who killed and wounded dozens of activists on a humanitarian aid convoy bound for Gaza this week faced a potentially lethal attack, and opened fire in self-defense. Eyewitnesses on board tell a different story, saying the special forces troops fired on the ships before boarding, weren't in fact attacked and were unrestrained in their hostility. The question of who attacked whom is irrelevant, however, according to experts in international law. The blockade itself is illegal, and therefore Israel had no right to board those ships in the first place. It renders the argument over culpability moot. Israel committed an illegal act of war attacking the convoy, regardless of who tried to draw "first blood."Israeli officials claim that the Jewish state is at war with Hamas, which controls the Gaza strip. On that basis, officials say Israel has a right to intercept shipping in and out of Gaza under the law of war. In [url="http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-05-31/israel-was-right-to-board-the-gaza-flotilla/"]an opinion piece[/url] AIPAC has been pushing to reporters this week, Leslie Gelb, a former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote that "blockades are quite legal," and compared the Gaza siege to the Anglo-U.S. blockades of Germany and Japan during World War Two. "Only knee-jerk left-wingers and the usual legion of poseurs around the world would dispute this," wrote Gelb sneeringly. Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to the U.S., [url="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/7796277/Gaza-flotilla-attack-Israeli-ambassador-compares-raid-to-Second-World-War.html"]echoed the World War Two comparison[/url].

The parallel is entirely false. Gaza is not an independent state at war with Israel. Gaza is [i]occupied[/i] by Israel, and, as such, an entirely different set of international laws apply. As UC Hastings legal scholar George Bisharat [url="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/06/03/EDGF1DPDK9.DTL#ixzz0puW6Bdk9"]explained[/url] this week, the 2005 withdrawal of Israeli troops and settlers from the ground in Gaza is immaterial, as the area remains under Israel's "effective control" -- it's a remote occupation but an occupation nonetheless.

[indent]Under customary international law that Israel accepts as binding ... a territory is "occupied" when foreign forces exercise "effective control" over it, whether accomplished through the continuous presence of ground troops or not.

Israel patrols the territorial waters and airspace of the Gaza Strip, regulates Gaza's land borders, restricts internal movements by excluding Gazans from a "buffer zone" that includes 46 percent of the strip's agricultural land, and controls the Gaza Strip's supplies of electricity, heating oil, and petrol. Together these factors amount to remote but "effective control."

[/indent]According to Bisharat, this is not a matter of dispute. "The Gaza Strip remains occupied," he wrote, "as the United Nations, the U.S. government and the International Committee of the Red Cross have all recognized." Hamas controls the ground within Gaza, but Israel controls [i]Gaza.[/i]

There are two important ramifications to this. First, a blockade that restricts the local population's access to vital goods violates the Fourth Geneva Convention, which specifies that an occupying force has a legally binding duty to protect an occupied population. Bisharat explained it like this:

[indent]Israel has authority to halt arms imports into the Gaza Strip. But it also owes a general duty of protection to civilians under its control, and has specific duties to allow them access to adequate food and medical supplies, and to maintain public health standards - duties it has deliberately violated in imposing the siege on Gaza. Currently 77.2 percent of Gaza Palestinians either face or are vulnerable to hunger ...

Moreover, collective punishment is specifically barred under Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Israeli officials have repeatedly stated that the objective of the blockade is to weaken the Gaza economy and undermine support for Hamas. That is a political, not a military, objective, and it is impermissible under international law to target innocent civilians to achieve nonmilitary goals.

[/indent]The second point pertains to the attack on the Freedom Flotilla. As Bisharat notes, "Actions taken to enforce an illegal siege cannot themselves be legal." The Israel commandos were transported 70 miles offshore, into international waters. There, they attacked a civilian vessel flagged to an allied state -- a NATO member -- and killed and wounded some yet unclarified number of activists whose journey was motivated by their opposition to the blockade.

It was not an act of "piracy," because the Israeli troops were operating under the flag of a nation-state. Because the blockade violates international law, and Israel had no military justification for boarding her with special forces troops, it rather constituted an "illegal act of war." Craig Murray, a former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, [url="http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/05/the_legal_posit.html"]called[/url] the legal situation "very plain":

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

There are therefore two clear legal possibilities.

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

Possibility two is that, if the killings were not authorised Israeli military action, they were acts of murder under Turkish jurisdiction. If Israel does not consider itself in a position of war with Turkey, then it must hand over the commandos involved for trial in Turkey under Turkish law.

[/indent]After perpetrating an act of war on Turkey, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, among the most extreme figures to serve in [i]any[/i] Israeli government, said of the attack: "We didn't start this provocation, we did not send bullies with knives and metal rods to Turkey... In this case, the entire blame, all of it, from beginning to end, is that of Turkey."

They didn't in fact send "bullies" to Turkey armed with "knives and metal rods"; according to Craig Murray, they sent a heavily armed special forces team to Turkey -- the deck of that ship represented Turkish "soil."

A final point. Israeli leaders say they have no animosity towards the people of Gaza. Some of Israel's defenders have suggested that it's relatively easy to get goods in and out of the territory; that Israel simply wants to "inspect shipments for arms." So it's important to note just how deeply damaging the blockade has been for the people of Gaza.

[i]Foreign Policy Magazine[/i] [url="http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/06/03/what_exactly_is_the_blockade_of_gaza"]compiled a large volume of information[/url] from reports issued by the United Nations and various NGOs working in Gaza. Just a few highlights:

[list][*][b]Electricity: [/b]In 2006, Israel carried out an attack on Gaza's only power plant and never permitted the rebuilding to its pre-attack capacity.... The majority of houses have power cuts at least eight hours per day. [url="http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/Gaza%20Feb_08_2008.pdf"]Some have no electricity for long as 12 hours a day[/url]. The lack of electricity has led to reliance on generators, many of which have exploded from overwork, killing and maiming civilians.[*][b]Water: [/b]Israel has not permitted supplies into the Gaza Strip to rebuild the sewage system.[b] [/b][url="http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/report/israel-rations-palestinians-trickle-water-20091027"]Amnesty International reports[/url] that 90-95 percent of the drinking water in Gaza is contaminated and unfit for consumption.[*][b]Health:[/b] [url="http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ochaopt_who_gaza_health_fact_sheet_20100120_english.pdf"]According to UN OCHA[/url], infrastructure for 15 of 27 of Gaza's hospitals, 43 of 110 of its primary care facilities, and 29 of its 148 ambulances were damaged or destroyed during the war. Without rebuilding materials like cement and glass due to Israeli restrictions, the vast majority of the destroyed health infrastructure has not been rebuilt.[*][b]Food: [/b]A 2010 World Health Organization [url="http://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA63/A63_28-en.pdf"]report stated[/url] that "chronic malnutrition in the Gaza Strip has risen over the past few years and has now reached 10.2%. ... [url="http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/gaza_agriculture_25_05_2010_press_release_english.pdf"]According to UN OCHA[/url]:[b] [/b]"Over 60 percent of households are now food insecure ...[*][b]Industry[/b]: A [url="http://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA63/A63_28-en.pdf"]World Health Organization report from this year states[/url]: "In the Gaza Strip, private enterprise is practically at a standstill as a consequence of the blockade. Almost all (98%) industrial operations have been shut down.[/list]Israeli officials are correct that the state has a right to defend itself. Every nation does. But it has no right to commit war crimes in mounting that defense. The European Union has condemned the blockade of Gaza as a form of "collective punishment," a serious violation of international law. Here's an excerpt from [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Geneva_Convention#Collective_punishments"]Wikipedia's summary of the Fourth Geneva Convention:[/url]

[indent]By collective punishment, the drafters of the Geneva Conventions had in mind the reprisal killings of [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I"]World Wars I[/url] and [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II"]World War II[/url]... In World War II, [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism"]Nazis[/url] carried out a form of collective punishment to suppress resistance... The conventions, to counter this, reiterated the principle of individual responsibility.

[/indent]Israeli officials often invoke the image of rockets reining down on Israel from Gaza as justification for their aggressive policies. While they represent a modest threat -- [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel,_2008"]fewer people died[/url] in rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza in all of 2008 than perished in a few hours during the Israeli attack on the Freedom Flotilla -- they are terrifying and constitute a war crime. Yet punishing the population rather than the militants who fired those rockets is a war crime as well. Approximately [url="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/bs-ed-israel-gaza-20100602,0,4100031.story"]half of the population of Gaza are under 18 years [/url]of age.

Matt Yglesias [url="http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2010/06/collective-punishment-in-gaza.php"]noted[/url] that Israel's defenders have described the blockade "as some kind of narrow effort to prevent arms smuggling," but adds: "this simply isn’t what’s going on." "The objective," he wrote, "is to make life in Gaza miserable."

Yglesias linked to Peter Beinart [url="http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-06-01/israel-flotilla-disaster-gaza-embargo-us-supporters-to-blame/"]arguing[/url] that, as far as Israel's government is concerned, "the embargo must be tight enough to keep the people of Gaza miserable, but not so tight that they starve."

[indent]This explains why Israel prevents Gazans from importing, among other things, cilantro, sage, jam, chocolate, French fries, dried fruit, fabrics, notebooks, empty flowerpots and toys, none of which are particularly useful in building Kassam rockets. It’s why Israel bans virtually all exports from Gaza, a policy that has helped to destroy the Strip’s agriculture, contributed to the closing of some 95 percent of its factories, and left more 80 percent of its population dependent on food aid. It’s why Gaza’s fishermen are not allowed to travel more than three miles from the coast, which dramatically reduces their catch.

[/indent]Beinart concluded that the deaths on the Freedom Flotilla were not the fault of the Israeli commandos who boarded those ships in the dead of night (a position I'm not necessarily endorsing), but of "the Israeli leaders who oversee the Gaza embargo, and with Israel’s American supporters, who have averted their eyes."

[/quote]

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='Winchester' date='05 June 2010 - 10:07 PM' timestamp='1275793649' post='2124432']
My response was appropriate and you're not in my chain of command.[/quote]

Your response was rude and condescending, and you are at liberty to deny and disregard the tenets of civil discourse.


[quote]IHH was the main sponsor of the flotilla. It has ties to Hamas, Hezbollah and AlQaeda.
[/quote]

And probably the CIA.

[quote]That's war. You don't give your enemies supplies to keep them going.[/quote]

"If thy enemy be hungry, give him to eat: if he thirst, give him water to drink." Proverbs 25:21.

Repeated by Paul in Romans 12:20-21. "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head."

~Sternhauser
[font="Times New Roman"] [/font]

Edited June 6, 2010 by Sternhauser

[KnightofChrist]

[size="3"][url="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/03/AR2010060304287.html"]Krauthammer: Those troublesome Jews[/url][/size]

Charles Krauthammer
Friday, June 4, 2010

The world is outraged at Israel's blockade of Gaza. Turkey denounces its illegality, inhumanity, barbarity, etc. The usual U.N. suspects, Third World and European, join in. The Obama administration dithers.

But as Leslie Gelb, former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, writes, the blockade is not just perfectly rational, it is perfectly legal. Gaza under Hamas is a self-declared enemy of Israel -- a declaration backed up by more than 4,000 rockets fired at Israeli civilian territory. Yet having pledged itself to unceasing belligerency, Hamas claims victimhood when Israel imposes a blockade to prevent Hamas from arming itself with still more rockets.

In World War II, with full international legality, the United States blockaded Germany and Japan. And during the October 1962 missile crisis, we blockaded ("quarantined") Cuba. Arms-bearing Russian ships headed to Cuba turned back because the Soviets knew that the U.S. Navy would either board them or sink them. Yet Israel is accused of international criminality for doing precisely what John Kennedy did: impose a naval blockade to prevent a hostile state from acquiring lethal weaponry.

Oh, but weren't the Gaza-bound ships on a mission of humanitarian relief? No. Otherwise they would have accepted Israel's offer to bring their supplies to an Israeli port, be inspected for military materiel and have the rest trucked by Israel into Gaza -- as every week 10,000 tons of food, medicine and other humanitarian supplies are sent by Israel to Gaza.

Why was the offer refused? Because, as organizer Greta Berlin admitted, the flotilla was not about humanitarian relief but about breaking the blockade, i.e., ending Israel's inspection regime, which would mean unlimited shipping into Gaza and thus the unlimited arming of Hamas.

Israel has already twice intercepted ships laden with Iranian arms destined for Hezbollah and Gaza. What country would allow that?

But even more important, why did Israel even have to resort to blockade? Because, blockade is Israel's fallback as the world systematically de-legitimizes its traditional ways of defending itself -- forward and active defense.

(1) Forward defense: As a small, densely populated country surrounded by hostile states, Israel had, for its first half-century, adopted forward defense -- fighting wars on enemy territory (such as the Sinai and Golan Heights) rather than its own.

Where possible (Sinai, for example) Israel has traded territory for peace. But where peace offers were refused, Israel retained the territory as a protective buffer zone. Thus Israel retained a small strip of southern Lebanon to protect the villages of northern Israel. And it took many losses in Gaza, rather than expose Israeli border towns to Palestinian terror attacks. It is for the same reason America wages a grinding war in Afghanistan: You fight them there, so you don't have to fight them here.

But under overwhelming outside pressure, Israel gave it up. The Israelis were told the occupations were not just illegal but at the root of the anti-Israel insurgencies -- and therefore withdrawal, by removing the cause, would bring peace.

Land for peace. Remember? Well, during the past decade, Israel gave the land -- evacuating South Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005. What did it get? An intensification of belligerency, heavy militarization of the enemy side, multiple kidnappings, cross-border attacks and, from Gaza, years of unrelenting rocket attack.

(2) Active defense: Israel then had to switch to active defense -- military action to disrupt, dismantle and defeat (to borrow President Obama's description of our campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaeda) the newly armed terrorist mini-states established in southern Lebanon and Gaza after Israel withdrew.

The result? The Lebanon war of 2006 and Gaza operation of 2008-09. They were met with yet another avalanche of opprobrium and calumny by the same international community that had demanded the land-for-peace Israeli withdrawals in the first place. Worse, the U.N. Goldstone report, which essentially criminalized Israel's defensive operation in Gaza while whitewashing the casus belli -- the preceding and unprovoked Hamas rocket war -- effectively de-legitimized any active Israeli defense against its self-declared terror enemies.

(3) Passive defense: Without forward or active defense, Israel is left with but the most passive and benign of all defenses -- a blockade to simply prevent enemy rearmament. Yet, as we speak, this too is headed for international de-legitimation. Even the United States is now moving toward having it abolished.

But, if none of these is permissible, what's left?

Ah, but that's the point. It's the point understood by the blockade-busting flotilla of useful idiots and terror sympathizers, by the Turkish front organization that funded it, by the automatic anti-Israel Third World chorus at the United Nations, and by the supine Europeans who've had quite enough of the Jewish problem.

What's left? Nothing. The whole point of this relentless international campaign is to deprive Israel of any legitimate form of self-defense. Why, just last week, the Obama administration joined the jackals, and reversed four decades of U.S. practice, by signing onto a consensus document that singles out Israel's possession of nuclear weapons -- thus de-legitimizing Israel's very last line of defense: deterrence.

The world is tired of these troublesome Jews, 6 million -- that number again -- hard by the Mediterranean, refusing every invitation to national suicide. For which they are relentlessly demonized, ghettoized and constrained from defending themselves, even as the more committed anti-Zionists -- Iranian in particular -- openly prepare a more final solution.

[Winchester]

[quote name='Sternhauser' date='06 June 2010 - 12:05 AM' timestamp='1275797141' post='2124461']

"If thy enemy be hungry, give him to eat: if he thirst, give him water to drink." Proverbs 25:21.

Repeated by Paul in Romans 12:20-21. "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head."

~Sternhauser
[font="Times New Roman"] [/font]
[/quote]
Proof texting.

Of course, Israel does provide aid to her enemies. The flotilla provided hardly any compared to what Israel does. But let's pretend. Again.

[Winchester]

Jlol,

Others claim the blockade is legal. It is clear that the blockade is moral. It is clear that Israel provides aid. She provides electricity. She is going to give over the food and toys that were on the boats. What happens to the aid? [url="http://www.unrwa.org/etemplate.php?id=692"]Complete detachment from reality.[/url]
[quote]Gazans are still picking up the pieces from last year’s war and there are high levels of poverty, deprivation and unemployment. With the imminent completion of an Egyptian above-and-below-ground steel barrier to prevent a thriving tunnel economy between Egypt and Gaza, residents are worried they will become almost completely reliant on aid.

[/quote]
Tunnels used to rearm Hamas against a nation that is not actively attacking them. Seriously. The UN supports this. I suppose we should support the tunnels used to smuggle people and drugs into the US.


"Remote occupation". I suppose the US "remotely occupied" Germany and Japan. And Cuba. That's incredible. If Israel is remotely occupying Gaza, then she is also remotely at war with Iran and several rich Mohammedans. But you won't see that pointed out in the article.

Those opposing Israel have stated they must push the Jews into the sea. If that's not clear enough for you and for the world, I really don't know what else could be said. Can you honestly say that lifting the blockade would solve the problem? Do you think that Hamas would suddenly run Gaza properly and not attack Israel? How many deaths must Israel suffer before she's allowed to fight? How many? Two to one? Three to one? Should the IDF resort to using knives instead of guns? Perhaps give Hamas a nuke or two?

[Hassan]

Fareed Zakaria summed up the situation pretty well

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2010/06/06/gps.take.flotilla.cnn