A year later, Gaza reels

So Dan, why not after all these decades of hostilities between the warring parties, and given the Palestinians' dismally inept and corrupt leadership throughout the decades, why don't the Palestinians simply agree TOMORROW to the Israelis' peace terms?
What have they got to lose at this point?
Has it been worth 60 years of poverty, fighting, death and all that lost prosperity which the Palestinians would surely have shared with their Israeli neighbors were it not for the corruption, recalcitrance and vanity of the Palestinian leaders?
Abba Eban's famous comment is as true today as it was when he first said it in 1973 that "The Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity" (for peace).
Dan, you're backing the wrong horse.

JONATHAN
Your use of the term "holocaust" contains your own answer. "Holocaust" refers to the actions taken in WWII by Hitler against Jews and others. Capital "H" gives it status as a proper noun. The word "holocaust" with a small "h", however, is generic. We cannot let the atrocity of the "H" take a perfectly good word out of circulation. I used "h" deliberately to free the word. Thank you for making my point. What happened in Gaza in early 2009 was a "h."

HELLERCARBONCAPNTRADELLC
You raise an excellent point. We might think that would be the best option for the Palestinians. However, enough of them still hold out hope for a Palestinian State on their own terms, which are probably too steep given the geo-political situation.

DAN VALENTI wrote:

JONATHAN
Your use of the term "holocaust" contains your own answer. "Holocaust" refers to the actions taken in WWII by Hitler against Jews and others. Capital "H" gives it status as a proper noun. The word "holocaust" with a small "h", however, is generic. We cannot let the atrocity of the "H" take a perfectly good word out of circulation. I used "h" deliberately to free the word. Thank you for making my point. What happened in Gaza in early 2009 was a "h."
HELLERCARBONCAPNTRADELLC
You raise an excellent point. We might think that would be the best option for the Palestinians. However, enough of them still hold out hope for a Palestinian State on their own terms, which are probably too steep given the geo-political situation.

Your idiocy is only surpassed by your ignorance and your anti semitism.

HUNTED
To make a charge such as anti-semitism is strong stuff, dismissed out of hand not only by the facts of who I am (a lover of all) but by the fact that you hide behind your fake name. Be a mensch. State your opinions under your own name. Until you do that, we stamp your file: CASE DISMISSED. Fact is, I have many good friends of most all religious persuasions, especially Jewish, Muslim, and Christian.

Dan,

Either you support the Zionist state of Israel or you don't. You seem to be riding the fence here.

I was impressed by the truth of your article (and shocked that the Eagle would even print it).

Your comments here at the forum now appear to be a smokescreen as to your personal stance on Israel.

It really is none of my business what you think, but you did bring up the subject.

Are you afraid of being perceived as an anti-semite? All who question Israel run that risk...doesn't make it right...but that is, sad to say, the zionist agenda.

Boo hoo,the peoople who voted for terrorist representation are reaping what they sowed!

SPITUEE
No smokescreen. My article is clear enough. I do not support the government of Israel, the "Zionist state" to which you refer. I support people who are oppressed by corrupt governments.

How others perceive me is beyond my control, so it is a non-factor and non-starter. I am "for" or "against" no one. I present information, based on lots of research, thought, and due diligence. Information is neutral, and positions based on facts have the highest truth content (as in my article).

The moment Israel recognizes (by demonstrating in action) authentic commitment to the peace process, that's the moment I will sing Israel's praises. At this time, though, it's the Palestinians who need the most help.

ramdan wrote:

Boo hoo,the peoople who voted for terrorist representation are reaping what they sowed!

The Palestinians voted for Hamas for one simple reason- Fatah had become (and still is) nothing more than a lap dog for Israel, caving in at every turn and giving up more and more Palestinian rights. Hamas represented a body willing to fight for rights.

You conveniently forget about the U.S. and its alleged commitment to "free and fair democratic elections" and "sovereignty." When Hamas was freely and fairly elected, the U.S. immediately refused to recognize it as a legitimate government, proving its one-sided bias towards the Israeli government.

The only bias is against Terrorists.
Hamas is a Terrorist organization,indiscriminately killing civillians of all nationalities.

DEMOCRACY OR HYPOCRISY
Excellent point. Hamas won the election — a democratic election, by popular vote — because it ACTED where Fatah failed. Its actions were humanitarian, focused almost exclusively on helping people with food and water, health care, education and the like. The U.S., that great promoter of democracy and regime change, refused to recognize the people's choice in Gaza.

HAMAS TERROR
You are wrong. Let me ask you: from what information do you base your view? Mainstream media, no doubt, where you will not get the truth about the Mideast. I have sources who are there, in Jerusalem and Gaza (both Israelis and Palestinians, I might add). Hamas has a military wing that it uses defensively. It is a political entity with a humanitarian purpose, that being justice.

Dan,
Thank you for your response. You cleared up the questions I had. I value your reasoning and contribution concerning the horror that is taking place.

DAN VALENTI wrote:

DEMOCRACY OR HYPOCRISY
Excellent point. Hamas won the election — a democratic election, by popular vote — because it ACTED where Fatah failed. Its actions were humanitarian, focused almost exclusively on helping people with food and water, health care, education and the like. The U.S., that great promoter of democracy and regime change, refused to recognize the people's choice in Gaza.
HAMAS TERROR
You are wrong. Let me ask you: from what information do you base your view? Mainstream media, no doubt, where you will not get the truth about the Mideast. I have sources who are there, in Jerusalem and Gaza (both Israelis and Palestinians, I might add). Hamas has a military wing that it uses defensively. It is a political entity with a humanitarian purpose, that being justice.

How unfair of you to apply your Stockbridge sensibilities to such a complex situation. Sorry, but it is not a black and white situation. The Hamas charter calls for the complete annihilation of Israel, the death of all its Jewish inhabitants and the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate. which part of that is democratic?

Reminds me of Michael Dukakis trying to tell Mid-western United States farmers they should be growing jonathan sprouts!!! Total lack of being in touch with reality.

Must be something in the Massachusetts water that gives the ability to know so much, and impose a liberal solution to a problem.

moonsea wrote:

<quoted text>
How unfair of you to apply your Stockbridge sensibilities to such a complex situation. Sorry, but it is not a black and white situation. The Hamas charter calls for the complete annihilation of Israel, the death of all its Jewish inhabitants and the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate. which part of that is democratic?

DAN VALENTI wrote:

DEMOCRACY OR HYPOCRISY
Excellent point. Hamas won the election — a democratic election, by popular vote — because it ACTED where Fatah failed. Its actions were humanitarian, focused almost exclusively on helping people with food and water, health care, education and the like. The U.S., that great promoter of democracy and regime change, refused to recognize the people's choice in Gaza.
HAMAS TERROR
You are wrong. Let me ask you: from what information do you base your view? Mainstream media, no doubt, where you will not get the truth about the Mideast. I have sources who are there, in Jerusalem and Gaza (both Israelis and Palestinians, I might add). Hamas has a military wing that it uses defensively. It is a political entity with a humanitarian purpose, that being justice.

Defense includes launching rockets indiscriminately against civillian population centers?
Kidnapping People and using them as pawns in a game of political assassination?
You are a turd,a hypocrite and a total idiot!
I have cousins who are there,and they tell me that you are wrong beyond the pale!

ramdan wrote:

<quoted text>You are a turd,a hypocrite and a total idiot!

Those descriptions define you to a "T". Just add "Zionist Koolaid Guzzler," RamalamaLickMyBalls.

ramdan wrote:

<quoted text>Defense includes launching rockets indiscriminately against civillian population centers?
Kidnapping People and using them as pawns in a game of political assassination?
You are a turd,a hypocrite and a total idiot!
I have cousins who are there,and they tell me that you are wrong beyond the pale!

The Palestinians are resisting a deliberate, pre meditated Extermination and Expulsion "Solution" Initiated by by Invading FOREIGN, EUROPEAN, ASHKENAZI TERRORIST GANGS with absolutely NO connection to Palestine or the Levant.(like your "cousins")
You "have cousins there" and not ONE can trace their family roots in the Levant back more than 2 generations.
As Moshe Dayan Said: " There is not one place built in this land that did not have a former Arab population."
What don't you understand about that honest FACT by one that knows far more than you or your whining, squatting " cousins"?

Levantine Arabs "have cousins there" and have lived there for countless generations until FOREIGN INVADERS Massacred their families, neighbors, friends and stole their land of countless generations.
Would you stand idly by while FOREIGN, EUROPEAN AMERICAN, invaders continued to massacre your family and steal what little of your home land is left?
So, the Occupiers whine about the few, inaccurate, home made Rockets used by Resistance groups........You and your Land thieving "cousins" want them to quietly starve away in a squalid, waterless, disease ridden Walled Concentration Camp........Right?
Here's a solution to those few primitive Resistance Rockets that mess up your golf courses, pool partoes etc.

Let's level the playing field and give them the same sophisticated weaponry that AIPAC extorts from American taxpayers for Israel. I'm sure they would choose IDF targets unlike IDF that KILLS ANYONE AND EVERYONE with gleeful, genocidal enthusiasm like this:
http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.ph...

Israel's criminal Leadership had a choice for Peace over conflict with the June '08 Peace Agreement with hamas.
Hamas ABIDED by its side of the agreement.
Israel's used it as a shield to effect a deadlier massacre by:
1. Refusing to abide by ONE condition
2. Having Planned its Christmas Massacre back in March of '08 TO OCCUR no matter what.
3. Not ONE Israeli died while Hamas abided by its side of the June '08 Peace Agreement
6. Dozens of Palestinians died from medical deprivations from ISRAEL'S STARVATION BLOCKADE.....

Israel has proven over and over again:
It doesn't want "Peace" IT WANTS ALL PALESTINIANS DEAD AND ALL OF THEIR LAND.
According to Moshe Dayan .....the land your "cousins" is stolen.
Don't whine when its rightful owners try to get it back.
Israel MUST negotiate SERIOUSLY AND HONESTLY because the world is getting justifiable fed up with genocidal land thieves and their "Final Solution" i.e. Plan Dalet" on steroids

ramdan wrote:

<quoted text>Defense includes launching rockets indiscriminately against civillian population centers?
Kidnapping People and using them as pawns in a game of political assassination?
You are a turd,a hypocrite and a total idiot!
I have cousins who are there,and they tell me that you are wrong beyond the pale!

I apologize for the angry tone in my earlier response.......
My exposure to Nakba survivors while working in Palestinian refugee camps in 1973, their stories, their memories and their tattered photo albums continues to dwell deeply in my memories. I am especially shamed by America's ongoing criminal complicity in this dispicable, ongoing, man-made horror.
The fact that you and "your cousins" are so selfish and arrogant as to think that the world owes you its sympathy and money and America owes "Your cousins" unconditional and endless "support" i.e.$$$$$ because of the entirely understandable & justified resentment & hostility from Palestine's rightful owners has gotten beyond tiresome, especially since the only lesson, apparently learned by Israel's Holocaust descendants is "How to do it to someone else more quietly, cleverly and slickly"
Nothing is Free........Especially someone else's Homeland of generations.

Do you think I would stand, idly by, while gangs of greedy and delusional, foreign thugs murdered my family, neighbors. friends and tried to steal my home?.........Like Hell !!!!!

..........and thank God for our 2nd Amendment and former military training.

I'm not worried about Islamic Terrorists "following us home".......
.....I AM worried about AIPAC and its traitors that prey on America
For example
http://www.amconmag.com/article/2007/may/07/0...

ramdan wrote:

<quoted text>Defense includes launching rockets indiscriminately against civillian population centers?
Kidnapping People and using them as pawns in a game of political assassination?
You are a turd,a hypocrite and a total idiot!
I have cousins who are there,and they tell me that you are wrong beyond the pale!

And if someone came to your house and said leave here or you will die here what would you do? Or if you came home and found this what would you do?
----------
http://www.zs.i8.com/photo.html
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http://ark2.www7.50megs.com/MohammedAldura.ht...
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http://video.google.com/videoplay...
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http://www.elmandjra.org/photos_holocaust.htm
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http://thewe.cc/weplanet/news/middle_east/atr...
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http://www.politicaltheatrics.net/2009/12/isr...
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http://www.nogw.com/download/_07_il_child_kil...
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United Nations
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ocha_opt_gaz...
----------

If any of these were yours what would you do? That is the question.

And it started not so long ago.....With the Balfour and Sykes Agreements
http://palestinefacts.org/pf_history.php

----------
There is a lot the World doesn't know about 'WHY' Arabs and Palestinians are hateful towards Israel.
Any sane person would feel animosity, towards Israeli Jews, if they were treated like Israel treated the people there in the last 100 years, up to the use Weapons of Mass Destruction on civilians, in present day scenarios....

Gray wrote:

<quoted text>
I apologize for the angry tone in my earlier response.......
My exposure to Nakba survivors while working in Palestinian refugee camps in 1973, their stories, their memories and their tattered photo albums continues to dwell deeply in my memories. I am especially shamed by America's ongoing criminal complicity in this dispicable, ongoing, man-made horror.
The fact that you and "your cousins" are so selfish and arrogant as to think that the world owes you its sympathy and money and America owes "Your cousins" unconditional and endless "support" i.e.$$$$$ because of the entirely understandable & justified resentment & hostility from Palestine's rightful owners has gotten beyond tiresome, especially since the only lesson, apparently learned by Israel's Holocaust descendants is "How to do it to someone else more quietly, cleverly and slickly"
Nothing is Free........Especially someone else's Homeland of generations.
Do you think I would stand, idly by, while gangs of greedy and delusional, foreign thugs murdered my family, neighbors. friends and tried to steal my home?.........Like Hell !!!!!
..........and thank God for our 2nd Amendment and former military training.
I'm not worried about Islamic Terrorists "following us home".......
.....I AM worried about AIPAC and its traitors that prey on America
For example
http://www.amconmag.com/article/2007/may/07/0...

Agreed Gray...
People only see what the joo media has gives them in the past 70 years, It's left up to the rest of us to fill them in with the missing pieces.....
http://www.palestinehistory.com/

And it all boils down to the scriptures, which give them the power, through a few verses, that any scribe could have fabricated through times gone by......

truths wrote:

<quoted text>
Agreed Gray...
People only see what the joo media has gives them in the past 70 years, It's left up to the rest of us to fill them in with the missing pieces.....
http://www.palestinehistory.com/
And it all boils down to the scriptures, which give them the power, through a few verses, that any scribe could have fabricated through times gone by......

Its Great to hear from you and others who THINK and think rationally.
Unfortunately, this forum, like all forums, Letters to the Editor etc are simply manufactured rubbish from paid, trained, programmed, and subsidized Hasbara Trolls using Megaphone software and ALL funded by OUR taxes through Israel's Foreign Ministry:
http://www.redress.cc/palestine/slittlewood20...
http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/cgi-bin/blogs/...
....and on and on.
Israel’s Hasbara Propaganda Industry is the most sophisticated, extensive, international, expensive Propaganda Industry the world has ever seen.
They shuttle “trainees” to and from Israel & New York for Fellowship Programs, Scholarship programs,“Special “ meetings with sponsored through Ex. P.M.s etc with U.S. media executives etc etc. Don’t look to hear this from Wolf “Mr.AIPAC” Blitzer
http://vodpod.com/watch/2041873-wolf-blitzer-...

Not to sound snobbish but, until the advent of the internet, Americans have been rendered the most effectively, professionally and thoroughly misinformed populace on the planet.
It was almost impossible to easily get information that was not approved by AIPAC, CAMERA and their ilk.
Unfortunately,many Americans still think that if they watch major media they're seeing "the News"
How many Americans still believe THIS Lie:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php...

Now, CAMERA is after Wikipedia
http://www.globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php...

Because the TRUTH is anathema to Israel’s Criminal Element, its Regional hegemony Scheme, Genocidal agenda, Exposure of AIPAC’s blatant spying etc etc you can be sure that Israel’s Propaganda Industry is busy on “sanitizing” not just Gaza, but the internet as well
Most important of all, this is not a jews vs Non Jews conflict as countless, dedicated, compassionate and courageous Jews and Israelis feel the same way we do. Much of my material comes from Jewish/Israeli sources ......so, enough for now.
Many thanks , best wishes and keep up the good work,
Gray