Will this increase or decrease the likelihood of terrorist actions in America, Europe and the rest of the world?

If you were a member of a family murdered in this conflict, would you be seeking revenge?

Should Tzipi Livni and Ehud Olmert, be tried for war crimes if or when this conflict comes to an end?

What will the price of oil be in 4 weeks time?

AN EDUCATED NON-JEWISH TAKE ON ISRAEL. PLEASE READ IT



>>
>> Denis MacEoin, a senior editor of the Middle East Quarterly, addresses
>> The Committee
>> Edinburgh University Student Association
>>
>>
>> Received by e-mail from the author, Denis MacEoin,
>> a senior editor of the Middle East Quarterly,
>>
>> The Committee
>> Edinburgh University Student Association
>>
>> May I be permitted to say a few words to members of the EUSA? I am an
>> Edinburgh graduate (MA 1975) who studied Persian, Arabic and Islamic
>> History in Buccleuch Place under William Montgomery Watt and Laurence
>> Elwell Sutton, two of Britain's great Middle East experts in their day. I
>> later went on to do a PhD at Cambridge and to teach Arabic and Islamic
>> Studies at Newcastle University. Naturally, I am the author of several
>> books and hundreds of articles in this field.
>>
>> I say all that to show that I am well informed in Middle Eastern affairs
>> and that, for that reason, I am shocked and disheartened by the EUSA
>> motion and vote. I am shocked for a simple reason: there is not and has
>> never been a system of apartheid in Israel. That is not my opinion, that
>> is fact that can be tested against reality by any Edinburgh student,
>> should he or she choose to visit Israel to see for themselves.
>>
>> Let me spell this out, since I have the impression that those member of
>> EUSA who voted for this motion are absolutely clueless in matters
>> concerning Israel, and that they are, in all likelihood, the victims of
>> extremely biased propaganda coming from the anti-Israel lobby. Being
>> anti-Israel is not in itself objectionable. But I'm not talking about
>> ordinary criticism of Israel. I'm speaking of a hatred that permits itself
>> no boundaries in the lies and myths it pours out. Thus, Israel is
>> repeatedly referred to as a "Nazi" state. In what sense is this true, even
>> as a metaphor? Where are the Israeli concentration camps? The
>> einzatsgruppen? The SS? The Nuremberg Laws? The Final Solution? None of
>> these things nor anything remotely resembling them exists in Israel,
>> precisely because the Jews, more than anyone on earth, understand what
>> Nazism stood for. It is claimed that there has been an Israeli Holocaust
>> in Gaza (or elsewhere). Where? When? No honest historian would treat that
>> claim with anything but the contempt it deserves. But calling Jews 'Nazis'
>> and saying they have committed a Holocaust is as basic a way to subvert
>> historical fact as anything I can think of.
>>
>> Likewise apartheid. For apartheid to exist, there would have to be a
>> situation that closely resembled things in South Africa under the
>> apartheid regime. Unfortunately for those who believe this, a weekend in
>> any part of Israel would be enough to show how ridiculous the claim is.
>> That a body of university students actually fell for this and voted on it
>> is a sad comment on the state of modern education. The most obvious focus
>> for apartheid would be the country's 20% Arab population. Under Israeli
>> law, Arab Israelis have exactly the same rights as Jews or anyone else;
>> Muslims have the same rights as Jews or Christians; Baha'is, severely
>> persecuted in Iran, flourish in Israel, where they have their world
>> centre; Ahmadi Muslims, severely persecuted in Pakistan and elsewhere, are
>> kept safe by Israel; the holy places of all religions are protected under
>> a specific Israeli law. Arabs form 20% of the university population (an
>> exact echo of their percentage in the general population). In Iran, the
>> Baha'is (the largest religious minority) are forbidden to study in any
>> university or to run their own universities: why aren't your members
>> boycotting Iran?
>>
>> Arabs in Israel can go anywhere they want, unlike blacks in apartheid
>> South Africa. They use public transport, they eat in restaurants, they go
>> to swimming pools, they use libraries, they go to cinemas alongside Jews -
>> something no blacks could do in South Africa. Israeli hospitals not only
>> treat Jews and Arabs, they also treat Palestinians from Gaza or the West
>> Bank. On the same wards, in the same operating theatres.
>>
>> In Israel, women have the same rights as men: there is no gender
>> apartheid. Gay men and women face no restrictions, and Palestinian gays
>> often escape into Israel, knowing they may be killed at home. It seems
>> bizarre to me that LGBT groups call for a boycott of Israel and say
>> nothing about countries like Iran, where gay men are hanged or stoned to
>> death. That illustrates a mindset that beggars belief. Intelligent
>> students thinking it's better to be silent about regimes that kill gay
>> people, but good to condemn the only country in the Middle East that
>> rescues and protects gay people. Is that supposed to be a sick joke?
>>
>> University is supposed to be about learning to use your brain, to think
>> rationally, to examine evidence, to reach conclusions based on solid
>> evidence, to compare sources, to weigh up one view against one or more
>> others. If the best Edinburgh can now produce are students who have no
>> idea how to do any of these things, then the future is bleak. I do not
>> object to well documented criticism of Israel. I do object when supposedly
>> intelligent people single the Jewish state out above states that are
>> horrific in their treatment of their populations. We are going through the
>> biggest upheaval in the Middle East since the 7th and 8th centuries, and
>> it's clear that Arabs and Iranians are rebelling against terrifying
>> regimes that fight back by killing their own citizens. Israeli citizens,
>> Jews and Arabs alike, do not rebel (though they are free to protest). Yet
>> Edinburgh students mount no demonstrations and call for no boycotts
>> against Libya, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Iran. They prefer to make
>> false accusations against one of the world's freest countries, the only
>> country in the Middle East that has taken in Darfur refugees, the only
>> country in the Middle East that gives refuge to gay men and women, the
>> only country in the Middle East that protects the Baha'is.... Need I go
>> on? The imbalance is perceptible, and it sheds no credit on anyone who
>> voted for this boycott.
>>
>> I ask you to show some common sense. Get information from the Israeli
>> embassy. Ask for some speakers. Listen to more than one side. Do not make
>> your minds up until you have given a fair hearing to both parties. You
>> have a duty to your students, and that is to protect them from one-sided
>> argument. They are not at university to be propagandized. And they are
>> certainly not there to be tricked into anti-Semitism by punishing one
>> country among all the countries of the world, which happens to be the only
>> Jewish state. If there had been a single Jewish state in the 1930s (which,
>> sadly, there was not), don't you think Adolf Hitler would have decided to
>> boycott it? Of course he would, and he would not have stopped there. Your
>> generation has a duty to ensure that the perennial racism of anti-Semitism
>> never sets down roots among you. Today, however, there are clear signs
>> that it has done so and is putting down more. You have a chance to avert a
>> very great evil, simply by using reason and a sense of fair play. Please
>> tell me that this makes sense. I have given you some of the evidence. It's
>> up to you to find out more.
>>
>> Yours sincerely,
>> Dr. Denis MacEoin

If you want to know the true history of Israel and its dreadful behaviour then read this. The whole book is on the web.

http://www.marxists.de/middleast/schoenman/

This is how Jerusalem Post correspondent Hirsh Goodman described the uprising of Palestinian youth in the West Bank and Gaza in mid-December 1987.

Goodmans remarks were written the day before the December 21, 1987, general strike which engulfed every Palestinian community under Israeli rule. The strike was described by the Israeli daily, Haaretz, as writing on our wall even more serious than the bloody riots of the last two weeks. [2]

On that day, wrote John Kifner in The New York Times, the vast army of Arab laborers who wait on tables, pick vegetables, haul garbage, lay brick and perform virtually all Israels menial work, stayed home. [3]

The Israeli response to the uprising was brutal. Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin ordered the use of tanks, armored vehicles and automatic rifles against an unarmed population.

The San Francisco Examiner cited Rabin as openly advocating assassination. They can shoot to hit leaders of disorder, Rabin said in defense of the armys practice of using marksmen with high-powered .22-caliber rifles to shoot indiscriminately at Palestinian youth. [4]

Rabin ordered house-to-house searches, first for young men and later for anyone of whom an example might be made. By December 27, over 2,500 Palestinians were seized, many of them as young as twelve; by the end of January the number reached 4,000 and was rising. [5] The militants were marked for deportation. Israeli high-security jails and detention centers were overflowing. Mass trials of Palestinians were underway.

The act of brutality which most inflamed the Palestinian population was the army seizure of the wounded from hospital beds. This practice, standard procedure throughout the invasion of Lebanon in 1982, made Shifa Hospital in Gaza a center of resistance. Great crowds amassed to defend the wounded, whom, they rightfully feared, would never be seen again.

The youngsters in Gaza and the West Bank where riots erupted, wrote Jerusalem Post correspondent Hirsh Goodman have not received any terrorist training, nor are they members of a terrorist organization. Rather they are members of that Palestinian generation that grew up knowing nothing but occupation. [6]

A mother of a Palestinian man shot three times in the head by Israeli soldiers was asked if she would let her remaining sons join the demonstrations. As long as I am alive, she responded, I am going to teach the young people to fight ... I dont care whatever happens, as long as we get our land. [7]

Rashad Shawaa, deposed Mayor of Gaza, expressed the same sentiment:

The youth have lost hope that Israel will ever give them their rights. They feel the Arab countries are unable to accomplish anything. They feel that the Palestine Liberation Organization (P.L.O.) has failed to achieve a thing. [8]

Los Angeles Times correspondent Dan Fishers account is even more significant:

This new-found sense of unity has been one of the most striking changes to foreign observers and non-Gaza Palestinians ... It is a phenomenon that extends to previous divisions between young and old and between those who work in Israel and those who do not. [9]

why is it that all terrorist are muslims and use helpless women and children as bombers . why do they only want war and NOT peace

You have a serious gap in your facts.

not all muslims are terrorists but all terrorist are muslims and only muslims kill there own women and children for gain

There is a long list of terrorists that are not muslims. The other part of your sentence is just nonense.

hay why will you not face the facts . gaza does not want peace .

Here are just a few non muslim terrorist groups;there are plenty more.

The first is a far right Jewish group banned in Israel and classigfied as terrorists by Israel, Canada, the European Union and the United States.

Kahane Chai (Kach) (Israel)
Aum Shinrikyo (Japan)
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) (Sri Lanka)
Communist Party of the Philippines/New People's Army (CPP/NPA) (Philippines)
Continuity Irish Republican Army (CIRA) (United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland)
Real Irish Republican Army (RIRA) (United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland)
Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) (United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland)
Ulster Defence Association (UDA) (United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland)
Revolutionary Organization 17 November (Greece)
Revolutionary Struggle (Greece)
Revolutionary People's Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C) (Turkey)
skadi Ta Askatasuna (Basque Fatherland and Liberty) (ETA) (Spain, France)
National Liberation Army (ELN) (Colombia)
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) (Colombia)
United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) (Colombia)
Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso, SL) (Peru)

.

b rill brill . 10 out of 10

nigeria bombings was that more muslim terrorists be cause only muslims do it .
same in gaza. they do not want peace they live to kill

Cairo: Protesters demand Israeli ambassador leave Egypt

Egyptian security forces deployed in area amid fears "Million-man march" could turn violent; Iran: Protesters gather in Tehran.

Hundreds of people were protesting outside the Israeli Embassy in Cairo on Friday demanding that the ambassador be removed from the country. The protests came amid tensions between the two countries following the deaths of three Egyptian security officers who were apparently shot by IDF troops last week.

Egyptian security forces were deployed in the area around the embassy amid fears that the demonstrations, dubbed the "Million-man march" could turn violent.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/egyptians-to-hold-million-man-protest-against-peace-accord-with-israel-1.380723

Egyptians to hold million-man protest against peace accord with Israel
Egyptian protesters set their sights on changing the countrys foreign policy, calling for the reexamination of the Egyptian-Israeli peace accord, following the recent developments on the two countries' border.

Who and how many will take part in today's million-man demonstration in Tahrir Square? It is not expected to be one of the routine demonstrations that have shaken Egypt since January. This time, Tahrir Square will confront Egypt's foreign policy. The headline of the demonstration is "Million-man demonstration to expel the Israeli ambassador," and most of the protest groups have announced that they will participate. Egyptian anger is not only directed at Israel which killed five soldiers during the terrorist attack near Eilat last week, but also against the Egyptian government's policy toward Israel.

Since the terrorist attack there have been raucous demonstrations in front of the Israeli embassy in the neighborhood of Giza that have resulted in a national event and a national hero, who climbed the flagpole in front of the embassy and removed the Israeli flag. Even though there are reports of smaller crowds and consequently smaller amounts of security guards protecting the embassy, the public discourse on the issue remains intense.

Those who organized the demonstration today also relied on a report in the daily Al-Masry Al-Youm, which said that Israel has still not responded to an Egyptian request for a joint investigation, and that National Security Adviser Ya'akov Amidror said that Israel will hold no such joint probe.

Even though Amidror took back his statement Thursday, it does not appear that the commitment to hold a joint investigation has calmed the atmosphere. Egyptian reporters told Haaretz yesterday that they had learned from Egyptian political sources that the prime minister and representatives of the Supreme Military Council were in touch with the leadership of the protest, but they intend to hold the demonstration "in order to make it clear to the government of Israel that Mubarak's Egypt no longer exists and that the Egyptian public will have its say also on matters pertaining to state security."

well we can now see that the rebels in libya are no better than gaddafis army .
the rebels are now out of control and just killing any one

.

mna . you are wrong i would hang any one for murder .
these rebels are now killing people who put there arms up they are just murders
and it is the UN that beat gaddafi not the rebels.
so when are the UN GOING BOMB SYRIA or it not worth it to the west.
and when is blair and bush going to face the courts for crimes of war iraq had no weapons it was all lies

Armies in conflcts are notoriously difficult to police. The Btitish army has committed its share of arocities over the years and plenty in recent years. The rebel army of Libya is infinitely more difficult to control as they have no real army structures or oficers. They are an assorted buhch of fighters with a lot of resentment against the regime. You could have expected bad behaviour from them. I am only surprised that it doesn't seem to have been a lot worse.

.

mna . power and greed remember these politians make milions before they retire

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/polish-jewish-sociologist-compares-west-bank-separation-fence-to-warsaw-ghetto-walls-1.381828

Sygmunt Bauman, the Jewish sociologist and one of the greatest philosophers of our time, castigated Israel harshly this week, saying it did not want peace and was afraid of it.

Bauman said Israel was "taking advantage of the Holocaust to legitimize unconscionable acts," and compared the separation fence to the walls surrounding the Warsaw Ghetto, in which hundreds of thousands of Jews perished in the Holocaust.

In a long interview to the important Polish weekly "Politika," Bauman said Israel was not interested in peace. "Israeli politicians are terrified of peace, they tremble with fear from the possibility of peace, because without war and without general mobilization they don't know how to live," he said.

"Israel does not see the missiles falling on communities along the border as a bad thing. On the contrary, they would be worried and even alarmed were it not for this fire," the Polish-British sociologist said.

Bauman, who lived in Israel briefly, referred to an article he wrote in Haaretz, in which he expressed concern that the younger Israeli generation was being raised on the understanding that the state of war and military alert were natural and unavoidable.