Israel, getting away with it again...

[BANGKOK RED]

FWIW. Below is a post taken from a local forum, written by a Thai that is living out there:

i can tell u that im proud of my son; he managed to get a hold of people from the pikud ha orif (the civilian body that functions in time of war) to deal with the thai workers at least in the moshav near netivot: beit hagedi

since a friend of anon told us that they were working there as usual, and didnt go anywhere protected, nor know what to do, when the sirens sound; they are just sitting and listening to the booms etc... so today, 10 days later, my son found someone that would go in to the moshav at least there, and arrange a 'safe room' for them to go to, when there is a siren... and to talk with the employers to make sure they remember that thai workers are people also... of course thai news doesnt mention this either - the treatment of the workers during times of war... havent seen any official statements from high places about thai people (workers) coming back to thailand; or any other advisories... the thai in the north here havent a clue what's going on here in the southwest area either. and from anon's reaction, it doesnt seem to to matter to them either... it seems to matter more to me than to him (my husband who is a fatalist anyhow)

the thais that we spoke with on the phone say they are mostly drinking and working and ignoring the siutuation; maximum, they will go home for free (in a body bag)... that is the thai black humour of the day....

dont see that that interests most people here on the board either... or maybe they are hoping they will have less relatives to support back in the village... rolleyes.gif

i heard one thai got killed; wasnt exactly on the front pages though; and the guy that was helping my son organize the stuff for the thais, got called back to family as his nephew was KIA yesterday....so new guy, starting all over again with the organizing stuff

my own thoughts: everyone has made their beds, now we are laying in them...

bina
israel

in point: the arab guys i work with at the hotel, well, most really dont seem to care what happens there either... these guys are well off, educated, a bit more assimilated and mainstream, and are still going to clubs, hanging out, and ignoring the political situation altogether, or maybe just wishing it would go away as it is interfereing with their daily lives of 20+ yr old males.

[Lumps]

Two things:

Paul is speaking increasingly as if the membership of Hamas is in some way separate from the Palestinian population. He's verging on an "outside agitators" type of argument. Hamas may be funded and armed by Iran but it's membership is Palestinian, it's leadership drawn mainly from the veterans of the Intafada (in fact the whole organisation was formed out of the Intafada).

And I'm not sure what Paul means by Hamas being "solely interested in concentrating their own power" surely if that was what they were interested in they'd have backed off a bit, called off the rocket attacks, taken what international funding they could and built themselves a bit of a power base. Pretty much what Fatah have been doing for years. Instead they've thrown themselves into what I agree is a fairly futile attempt to destroy Israel. When they say they want to get rid of Israel and replace it with an Islamic Palestinian state I think they fucking mean it.

As for Ironside's rather odd assumption that hundreds of millions of pounds of aid to the Palestinian Authority over the period of several years means that everything would be alright in West Bank and Gaza if they hadn't spent it all on weapons, this is a slightly confused argument.

For a start, the point is irrelevant, I was arguing that the shit conditions in which these people are forced to live give rise to support for Hamas and for the attacks on Israel. Now if those conditions do exist, and they do, you can see them on the news every day, does it matter that they could have been avoided?

More importantly, whilst I accept that the Fatah leadership were fairly notorous for their levels of corruption, the same isn't usually held to be true of Hamas, who have built their support by their opposition to corruption, and their investment in social programmes, hospitals etc. But over the last year, since the last widespread Israeli incursions, they've had very little financial aid, and more importantly the blockade's been in place blocking anything but essential short term supplies getting into the place.

In any case "hundreds of millions" may sound like a lot of money, but for an area under a total blockade, who's economy is consequently crippled and which therefore has a population largely dependent on aid to survive, it's fuck all. Sheffield spends over £800m a year on healthcare alone for a population of about a million. Providing even basic puplic amenities for a population of 4m across Gaza and West Bank would cost at least that every year.

[Ironside]

Agree with those points Paul, but by way of illustration the Yanks & British armed forces do have a different attitude when shooting. My brother used to be in the Navy & whilst his ship was in the US was sent to one of their weapons training courses.
The brit philosphy is / was take aim & fire. The yank philosophy just spray as many bullets in the general direction.
The Israelli attitude is probably more like the Americans

true, especially for the British.  The British doctrine has always been to give each man a certain amount of ammunition and no more.  That way they're a little bit more careful with their targets.

[Phil_S]

So where is Blair in all of this. Wasn't he appointed a special middle east envoy or something. (No doubt on some huge salary paid for by us tax payer mugs)

[Fred Elliot]

So where is Blair in all of this. Wasn't he appointed a special middle east envoy or something. (No doubt on some huge salary paid for by us tax payer mugs)

In the reserves

[Samdy Gray]

Boom boom!

[Fred Elliot]

Tish

[pauld]

Two things:

Paul is speaking increasingly as if the membership of Hamas is in some way separate from the Palestinian population. He's verging on an "outside agitators" type of argument. Hamas may be funded and armed by Iran but it's membership is Palestinian, it's leadership drawn mainly from the veterans of the Intafada (in fact the whole organisation was formed out of the Intafada).

And I'm not sure what Paul means by Hamas being "solely interested in concentrating their own power" surely if that was what they were interested in they'd have backed off a bit, called off the rocket attacks, taken what international funding they could and built themselves a bit of a power base. Pretty much what Fatah have been doing for years. Instead they've thrown themselves into what I agree is a fairly futile attempt to destroy Israel. When they say they want to get rid of Israel and replace it with an Islamic Palestinian state I think they fucking mean it.

Fair point Lumps, I think I got carried away with my own argument a little and was talking bollocks on the second point. The Iranians are certainly manipulating the situation as an outside force and using it for their own ends. Hamas are just fucking nutters.

On the first point, I accept they're "part of" the Palestinian population in that they are Palestinians but would see them as separate from the general larger population in that they're a smaller subset. And the point I was trying to make, is that the suicidal course of action chosen by this smaller subset has inevitably dragged in the more general Palestinian population at large.

Hence my overall conclusion that Iran, as manipulators of the situation to conduct a war against Israel by proxy, and Hamas, as fucking nutters, must share the blame for the suffering of the general civilian Palestinian population at large who are suffering because of their actions. Hopefully that's a bit clearer. No nearer a solution, mind, and I suspect you'll still disagree with some of it, but hopefully clearer.

[janaage]

Boom boom!

Very topical Sam (if that was an intended pun)!!

That reminds me of Baldrick's poem from Blackadder Goes Forth, that does.

[Fred Elliot]

So where is Blair in all of this. Wasn't he appointed a special middle east envoy or something. (No doubt on some huge salary paid for by us tax payer mugs)

In all seriousness, he is in Washington recieving an award from Bush for all his sterling work

[janaage]

In all seriousness, he is in Washington recieving an award from Bush for all his sterling work

What kind of "award"?

 :a2m:

[Samdy Gray]

Very topical Sam (if that was an intended pun)!!

It wasn't, but I will claim the credit.

[sheepshagger]

Paul, I agree with a lot of your points BUT surely Israel need to take some responsibility here as well - its all very good saying it is Iran's fault and the Hamas "nutters" - but Israel are still killing innocent people at an alarming rate.....

Hamas are certainly not helping the situation with their positioning of the rocket launchers - but there is a whole lot more to it than that - that is a bloody good excuse for Israel to hide behind.......

[Lumps]

Fair point Lumps, I think I got carried away with my own argument a little and was talking bollocks on the second point. The Iranians are certainly manipulating the situation as an outside force and using it for their own ends. Hamas are just fucking nutters.

On the first point, I accept they're "part of" the Palestinian population in that they are Palestinians but would see them as separate from the general larger population in that they're a smaller subset. And the point I was trying to make, is that the suicidal course of action chosen by this smaller subset has inevitably dragged in the more general Palestinian population at large.

Hence my overall conclusion that Iran, as manipulators of the situation to conduct a war against Israel by proxy, and Hamas, as fucking nutters, must share the blame for the suffering of the general civilian Palestinian population at large who are suffering because of their actions. Hopefully that's a bit clearer. No nearer a solution, mind, and I suspect you'll still disagree with some of it, but hopefully clearer.

I still think you're missing the point that there's a fairly large pool of support for Hamas within Gaza, both in electoral terms and in the number of volunteers queueing up to man the rocket launchers and strap on the bomb vests.

Hamas has said fairly plainly that their plans were to take the war to the Israelis by whatever means they could, and the people elected them on that basis. These attacks, whilst clearly designed to drive a wedge between the Hamas leadership and the people are quite likely to do just the reverse and provoke more young men to take up arms. And when they do that lets face it they're going to go to Hamas as there's a complete vacuum of credible alternative leadership.

As for the term "nutters", well I've made it clear my feelings about anyone who claims any kind of rights or moral authority based on their religion, so I have to agree that there are clearly some fundamentalist religious maniacs at the head of Hamas. However, there are plenty of senior Israeli figures that see the land of Israel as being the property of the Jews on an Old Testament basis, complete with God's authority to smite any other bastard that gets in the way, and as long as the monkey boy is still in the hot seat in the White House there's an equal level of fundamentalist idiocy there.

[Ironside]

The Obamessiah will not change things either Lumpy. He's not powerful enough.