BF2S Forums Palestinian terror attacks. Maybe they bring it on themselves?

FEOS wrote:

If pro-Israel were considered right-leaning and pro-Palestinian militant were considered left-leaning, you're just as far left as others are far right. The centrist approach would be recognizing the good and bad on both sides and looking to what would be best for the Palestinian and Israeli people.

I recognise the good and bad on both sides and in order to make up my mind about who I support (instead of sitting on the fence) I look at how the problems we have today have come to pass and the answer is it was the creation of Israel in a land that was already occupied that has created the problems we see today. I consider the situation similar to Northern Ireland, which was deliberately planted with extremist Unionist Protestants so as to secure a foothold in an already occupied land.

CameronPoe wrote:

Two wrongs don't make a right. Unnecessarily providing Palestinians with 'justification' for such heinous actions is also not right. Invariably a weaker party in a conflict will resort to more underhanded tactics against a goliath. It's a great shame they don't just concentrate on military targets and 'aggressors/invaders' - those that have settled in internationally recognised pre-67 Palestinian territory.

Actually, it's a great shame the Palestinians don't completely renounce violence. Thousands of Palestinians worked in Israel before the intifadas began and the income kept them from living in total squalor. Palestinians can gain negotiating leverage by becoming an important part of the Israeli economy, but that can only happen if they stop all violence. Also it's kind of nice for kids to grow up dreaming of becoming something other than martyrs.

Any sort of violence harms the Palestinian people and their cause.

If it were easy they'd call it bowling.

Braddock wrote:

san4 wrote:

CameronPoe wrote:

Two wrongs don't make a right. Unnecessarily providing Palestinians with 'justification' for such heinous actions is also not right. Invariably a weaker party in a conflict will resort to more underhanded tactics against a goliath. It's a great shame they don't just concentrate on military targets and 'aggressors/invaders' - those that have settled in internationally recognised pre-67 Palestinian territory.

Actually, it's a great shame the Palestinians don't completely renounce violence. Thousands of Palestinians worked in Israel before the intifadas began and the income kept them from living in total squalor. Palestinians can gain negotiating leverage by becoming an important part of the Israeli economy, but that can only happen if they stop all violence. Also it's kind of nice for kids to grow up dreaming of becoming something other than martyrs.

Any sort of violence harms the Palestinian people and their cause.

It's not easy putting up with apartheid societal systems, abuse from extremist settlers and inhumane and degrading treatment from security services, a certain amount of violent backlash is inevitable. The Israelis need to address several issues before they can expect the Palestinians to give up all forms of violence, again look at Northern Ireland as an example...the IRA didn't turn to violence during the troubles for the craic, people were suffering.

I don't know much about N. Ireland, but I don't think the issues are quite the same. First, violent backlash may be inevitable in some ways, but that is not what is going on between Israel and its enemies. Egypt, Syria, Jordan et al. attacked Israel with armies several times over a period of decades. Were those desperate acts of oppressed people? No, they were part of an intentional strategy of violence. The same goes for the rockets launched by Hamas, the carefully planned suicide attacks, the cross-border raid by Hezbollah and the Iranian money and training provided to Hamas and Hezbollah. Kids throwing rocks in the street are one thing, but the carefully planned operations could stop if the violent groups decided to do so.

Second, the Palestinians were offered a state before there was any Israeli occupation. Were they too oppressed to accept it? No, they decided to use violence instead. It was a mistake that they have continued to make for 60 years.

Third, you're certainly correct that Israel could behave much better. Settlements are destructive, settlers are violent, and evil abuse goes on at Israeli checkpoints. Fixing those injustices might stop the kids from throwing rocks at Israeli jeeps. It wouldn't stop the Palestinians who are pursuing the failed strategy of anti-Israel violence.

oug wrote:

SgtHeihn wrote:

Do a search for Israel on these forums and you will only find negative threads. I made a thread showing that they are not the only ones to blame for this issue.

This forum is a drop in the ocean compared to what can be found in the media around the world. It's totally insignificant. Truth is most Americans side with Israel for a multitude of reasons.

It's really amazing what propaganda can do. They've made you think that the Palestinians with their puny rocks are the aggressors against poor old Israel with its state of the art army who are trying to defend themselves. It's like believing that Georgia actually attacked Russia just like that. Get it into your heads, only the strong pick fights.

It is clear to me that neither you nor FEOS understand how exactly you have been led to believe Israel is in the defense. Read up on the Israeli Lobby. Some basic answers can be found in the examination of its role.

btw make no mistake, I'm not claiming the Palestinians are saints either. I recognize and despise all their monstrosities. But in order to put things into the right perspective, one needs to understand who is in control of this game, and respectively whose actions are desperate and taken as a last resort.

Hey have you read my posts? I don't agree with ether side. I made this thread because of all the negative ones on Israel. People here need to see that both sides are wrong.

Puny rocks? How about a 40lbs bomb strapped to a man going off in a shopping mall? Boarding a bus and opening fire on passengers that can't run anywhere?

Both sides are to blame.

san4 wrote:

I don't know much about N. Ireland, but I don't think the issues are quite the same. First, violent backlash may be inevitable in some ways, but that is not what is going on between Israel and its enemies. Egypt, Syria, Jordan et al. attacked Israel with armies several times over a period of decades. Were those desperate acts of oppressed people? No, they were part of an intentional strategy of violence. The same goes for the rockets launched by Hamas, the carefully planned suicide attacks, the cross-border raid by Hezbollah and the Iranian money and training provided to Hamas and Hezbollah. Kids throwing rocks in the street are one thing, but the carefully planned operations could stop if the violent groups decided to do so.

Second, the Palestinians were offered a state before there was any Israeli occupation. Were they too oppressed to accept it? No, they decided to use violence instead. It was a mistake that they have continued to make for 60 years.

Third, you're certainly correct that Israel could behave much better. Settlements are destructive, settlers are violent, and evil abuse goes on at Israeli checkpoints. Fixing those injustices might stop the kids from throwing rocks at Israeli jeeps. It wouldn't stop the Palestinians who are pursuing the failed strategy of anti-Israel violence.

As someone who grew up on the border of Northern Ireland I can tell you that there are many similarities between the situation here and the situation in Palestine, hence why the Irish have such a strong affinity with Palestine (we have marches in support of Palestine quite frequently and there are plaques and monuments in honour of the Palestinian cause up in various locations around Dublin; there were also vocal protests made here when Israel came to play us in the Euro soccer qualifiers recently). The way most people see it here is that, like the North, the Palestinians have been subjected to a modern day plantation and are now forced to live in the second tier of an apartheid society that favours people one faith/race over all others.

One argument that is often made is that the Jews were originally from this part of the world but I'm afraid that doesn't wash because firstly it was not the modern day Palestinians who drove the Jews out so they should not pay the price and secondly the idea of going back hundreds and thousands of years to justify your present day actions is a bit stupid, many people say you can trace civilization back to Africa, what would happen if we in the west decided to move back to the 'homeland' and set up countries left, right and centre at the expense of the already existing countries?

M.O.A.B wrote:

Braddock wrote:

san4 wrote:

I don't know much about N. Ireland, but I don't think the issues are quite the same. First, violent backlash may be inevitable in some ways, but that is not what is going on between Israel and its enemies. Egypt, Syria, Jordan et al. attacked Israel with armies several times over a period of decades. Were those desperate acts of oppressed people? No, they were part of an intentional strategy of violence. The same goes for the rockets launched by Hamas, the carefully planned suicide attacks, the cross-border raid by Hezbollah and the Iranian money and training provided to Hamas and Hezbollah. Kids throwing rocks in the street are one thing, but the carefully planned operations could stop if the violent groups decided to do so.

Second, the Palestinians were offered a state before there was any Israeli occupation. Were they too oppressed to accept it? No, they decided to use violence instead. It was a mistake that they have continued to make for 60 years.

Third, you're certainly correct that Israel could behave much better. Settlements are destructive, settlers are violent, and evil abuse goes on at Israeli checkpoints. Fixing those injustices might stop the kids from throwing rocks at Israeli jeeps. It wouldn't stop the Palestinians who are pursuing the failed strategy of anti-Israel violence.

As someone who grew up on the border of Northern Ireland I can tell you that there are many similarities between the situation here and the situation in Palestine, hence why the Irish have such a strong affinity with Palestine (we have marches in support of Palestine quite frequently and there are plaques and monuments in honour of the Palestinian cause up in various locations around Dublin; there were also vocal protests made here when Israel came to play us in the Euro soccer qualifiers recently). The way most people see it here is that, like the North, the Palestinians have been subjected to a modern day plantation and are now forced to live in the second tier of an apartheid society that favours people one faith/race over all others.

One argument that is often made is that the Jews were originally from this part of the world but I'm afraid that doesn't wash because firstly it was not the modern day Palestinians who drove the Jews out so they should not pay the price and secondly the idea of going back hundreds and thousands of years to justify your present day actions is a bit stupid, many people say you can trace civilization back to Africa, what would happen if we in the west decided to move back to the 'homeland' and set up countries left, right and centre at the expense of the already existing countries?

Is protesting and stuff like that when another country's team comes to play not a form of interefering in their buisness?

They were in Dublin, we protested in Dublin. If we went to Tel Aviv to stage a protest you might have a point.

There's a difference between protesting publicly to voice opinion and show solidarity with a group of people you feel an affinity with and actually interfering with the mechanics of another country...surely you can see that  M.O.A.B?

M.O.A.B wrote:

Braddock wrote:

M.O.A.B wrote:

Is protesting and stuff like that when another country's team comes to play not a form of interefering in their buisness?

They were in Dublin, we protested in Dublin. If we went to Tel Aviv to stage a protest you might have a point.

There's a difference between protesting publicly to voice opinion and show solidarity with a group of people you feel an affinity with and actually interfering with the mechanics of another country...surely you can see that  M.O.A.B?

I see the difference, but I still think its interfering on one form or another imo.

Well I disagree seen as the act itself has no input into the mechanics or running of the nation in question save possibly for the raising of awareness of certain issues among those who might have direct input into the running of the country.

It's certainly a long way away from picking a side, arming it to the teeth and then doing all you can to turn world opinion against the opposing side.

Wait didn't the IDF blow up like a U.N tent during the ass raping of Lebanon?

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Despite_6_w … _observers
'An Israeli bombardment killed four United Nations Observers, despite multiple warnings by UN peacekeeper. The peacekeepers at the post said the area within a kilometer of the post was hit with precision munitions, including 17 bombs and 12 artillery shells, four of which directly hit the UN observation post. The fatal strike with a "precision-guided weapon" according to UN military personnel hit the post at about 7.20pm. The victims were Austrian, Canadian, Chinese and Finnish UN-observers.

The Irish foreign ministry said that Israel ignored repeated warnings from Lieutenant-Colonel John Molloy, a key UN liaising officer, that its bombs were falling close to United Nations observers in southern Lebanon. The warnings came allegedly before an Israeli bomb killed four of the U.N. observers. "On six separate occasions he [Lieutenant-Colonel John Molloy] was in contact with the Israelis to warn them that their bombardment was endangering the lives of UN staff in South Lebanon". "He warned: 'You have to address this problem or lives may be lost'," an Irish foreign affairs spokesman said.

Suzanne Coogan, a spokeswoman for the Irish Defence Minister Willie O'Dea said Molloy "warned the Israelis that they were shelling in very close proximity to the post, and his warnings were very specific, explicit, detailed and stark." She concluded, "Obviously those warnings went unheeded."

Irish Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern said "Evidence that we have would suggest that this was either an incredible accident or else was in some way directly targeted".

In 1996 over 100 civilians were killed by the Israeli bombing of a UN compound in Lebanon in an incident known as the Qana shelling.


The United Nations
Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, said "I am shocked and deeply distressed by the apparently deliberate targeting by Israeli Defense Forces of a United Nations observer post in southern Lebanon that has killed two United Nations military observers, with two more feared dead."

Kofi Annan also said "This coordinated artillery and aerial attack on a long established and clearly marked U.N. post at Khiyam occurred despite personal assurances given to me by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that U.N. positions would be spared Israeli fire."'

FEOS wrote:

You feel your bias is "better" because it's more popular and you also think it's more centrist. It's not. You are biased against Israel to the same degree that many in the US are biased against the Palestinian militants (notice I did make a distinction there).

Now that I disagree with.

It is more popular. It is also more centrist. On the one end of the spectrum you have the US on the other you have Middle Eastern states - in the middle ground, between those viewpoints, you have the mainstream European view. That is what being more centrist is, occupying the middle ground.

san4 wrote:

Bertster7 wrote:

[snip]

In fact I can't even say I agree with your point about the Palestinians bringing greater light to their cause by not killing school children. Maybe they would now, but if they hadn't conducted a horrific terror campaign, then they would've disappeared in obscurity and no one would be paying them any attention. It was probably in the interests of their state to do so and since they are simply using the same tactics that Israel used (with great success) to take the land from them in the first place, it is not hard to see why - which is not justification, but rationalisation.

You're saying that if the Palestinians had just accepted the partition plans they have been offered they would have disappeared into obscurity? They would have had a state sixty years ago.

The Arabs' & Palestinians' strategy of trying to reclaim land through violence has been an extraordinary failure.

Accepting the partition plan or not had very little to do with the Palestinians themselves. It was the Arab League putting al-Husayni in charge of things that caused the problem and he was a notorious anti-Semite. His actions and the response of the Arab league to the partition plan are what precipitated the war.

You also make it sound like the partition plan was the start of the problem, it wasn't. There had been at least 30 years of conflict prior to that, where many of the worst acts of Zionist terrorism occurred, as did a number of riots by Arabs in which many were killed.

Had the Palestinians not pursued, in general, the course they have, then I do believe they would be in a worse state than they are now.

I was just looking at the thread title and considered starting a similar thread...

9/11. Maybe the Americans brought it on themselves?

My point being that only looking at one side of an argument is foolish. Although Sgt.Hein started this thread because he believed many people here are biased and one-sided his thread title would suggest he himself is equally as one-sided in his own views.

Bertster7 wrote:

SgtHeihn wrote:

Both sides are to blame.

Yes. Absolutely. For the perpetuation of the violence.


For the initial problems, the Jewish agency are almost entirely responsible - which is how this whole debacle came about and is why many people, certainly me, view the Israelis as being more to blame than the Palestinians.

Same point of view as myself. People can try and use the age old excuse that the Jews 'owned' that land years and years ago but the fact is the Palestinians did not drive them from it and should certainly not be made to pay the price they have paid since Israel's inception. It's just not fair.

But yes they are both responsible for the perpetuation of the violence.