"What about this?"

Awful.

Anyone calling for violence should be condemned.

That said, just because someone calls for peace talks doesn't mean they actually want peace. The more i listen to Noam Chomsky, the more i disbelieve anything a politician says in public.

The justifications they invent for public consumption are usually false; at least if Hamas and the PA are calling for violence ou can tell they want violence, and there is no justification i would accept for that.

Further to this conversation, i will quote a bit from the Irish Times (in an article titled "US 'misreading' conflict, says Israel"*) "32 Palestinians and 7 Israelis have been killed in the past two weeks of blood-shed. The Palestinian dead include 10 knife-wielding assailants, police said, as well as children and protesters shot in violent demonstrations"

(Obviously this may be out of date (reported in the fridays irish times) as the situation continues to unfold... I'm guessing the citizenship of the Palestinian isn't being refered to, merely their presume nationality. Ie if they are attacking Israelis they must be Paletinian - very good simplification of the narrative)

*i hope the Israeli spokes person used air quotes when saying that.

Bask, you're just going to spin in circles with this crowd.

What I find the most humorous is that the (non-Islamic, or Islamic without the specific beliefs of Hamas) people here falling all over themselves to denounce Israel are viewed as sub-humans by the people they support. I can't even begin trying to wrap my mind around that.

Oh here is the most interesting bit of the article, after you skip over the political 'leaders' bs; "many Palestinians were incensed by amateur video that had shown [Ahmed] Manasra (13) [Palestinian child refered to by Palestinian 'leader'] lying on the street in Pisgat Zeev, a Jewish settlement on the northern edge of Jerusalem, with blood coming from his head. Israeli police said that he and a cousin had stabbed teo Israelis there on monday." (-Reuters)

So yeah, seeing a 13 year old dead? On amateur video is a terrible thing.

It is a pity that the Israeli police were not able to handle this incident more delicately, because it might not have incited as much violence. I'm sure the police do their best, but like US police accused of violence and discrimination (against black americans) you can't blame the person videoing their actions.

@trip - sub-humans? Everyone is entitled to their opinion (ref: freedom of speech) it is how they treat others which should be controlled.

In the UK you can't incite hatred - this hate speech is not free - so it would be illegal to call for the deaths of Israeli Jews ( by knife attack, or any other means ) - hate crime is rightly taken more seriously.

Likewise Israeli police shouldn't treat Palestinian children like they are sub-human.

There are two sides here, one is wrong for calling for the murder of the other. The other is wrong if their police force could have arrested people instead of shooting them. Maybe non-lethal weapons could be used, i don't know. (But there are definite parallels with police violence in the US, which makes John Kerry's claim reek of hypocrisy)

"What I find the most humorous is that the (non-Islamic, or Islamic without the specific beliefs of Hamas) people here falling all over themselves to denounce Israel are viewed as sub-humans by the people they support. I can't even begin trying to wrap my mind around that."

a) none of this is funny, you must be pretty sick to think that it is
b) I have not seen anyone on this thread supporting Hamas
c) you probably need a bigger brain

It's people like you that I find funny, not the situation. It's more of a sad funny if that makes you feel any better about it, not that I really give a shit.

I am funny because Hamas considers me sub-human? Nope, still bollocks.

"What I find the most humorous is that the (non-Islamic, or Islamic without the specific beliefs of Hamas) people here falling all over themselves to denounce Israel are viewed as sub-humans by the people they support. I can't even begin trying to wrap my mind around that."

The tragedy about the situation is that everybody keeps making it out to be Group A vs Group B, and thus frames all other commentators as such. I daresay for most outsiders it's not about Group A vs Group B at all. I for one don't support either team. I do support human rights though, which makes me sub-human for many zionists and islamists alike. I don't care what they think about me, I just care that they are free to live in peace and allowed to think it.

I've yet to see any Jewish leader refer to a person who believes in human rights as being sub human. I have seen countless videos from the leaders of Hamas calling Jews and non-believers exactly that. If I'm wrong about that first part, please post a link or something.

aren't jews supposed to be the 'chosen people'? where that places the rest of us?

To be fair, I guess not all jews interpret that in the same way, but sure I'm not in the same category of 'human' as many extreme-religious-people (not only jews) consider themselves.

I suspect that arguement could apply to anyone whose religion isn't Humanist.

@trip: Many have, including Avigdor Lieberman as most prominent one. He's often called for close scrutiny for those Jewish Israelis (!!) that strive to ensure that the IDF respects human rights. According to him, their only intent is abetting terrorism and undermining the state of Israel, because the IDF needs to account to no one.

The key thing to understand is there are indeed two sides: those who try to fight for peace and human rights, and those who fight against. They're not ethnically related, or even correlated. If you need proof of Israeli violence / abuse / disregard for human rights, you should visit Hebron sometime. Sometimes I feel many progressive Israelis just stay in Tel Aviv and have no idea of what goes on in their own country.

@orathaic: Ahmed Manasra (13) is not dead. His cousin (15) is. They were shot after stabbing a 13 years old Israeli kid.

Here is the video:
https://www.facebook.com/yoni.barak.5/videos/10153680644481115/?hc_location=ufi


Like I said before - the media is totally biased.

@Bask: The media didn't say he was dead. they said there was a video of him lying in the street after being shot.

It said that Palestinian leaders were using this for propaganda purposes and to call for violence (which i condemn). That said, you are aware that your own politicians repeat their own biased lies aswell, right?

I think most onlookers - including media - are simply out of their depth. It's hard to distinguish fact from fiction. There are also reports of police officers planting knives at some victims. Without having been there in each case, and without clearcut video, it's hard to tell. I mean, every country in the world struggles with how to deal with police violence vs violence against police. It's bound to be harder to draw clear lines of good / evil in Israel, with the occupation as a backdrop.

@TheMinisterOfWar
Avigdor Lieberman? The one who got 6 mandates out of the possible 120? 5%? Just a bit more than the minimum of 4? The one that dropped from 15 mandates in 2009 to 6 in 2015, because most Jewish population disagrees with his right-extremist views?

Yes, Avigdor Lieberman, who was serving in the admittedly very minor role of Deputy Prime Minister at the time.

You are probably confused. The Israeli police is not planting knives in the hands of the innocent shot Palestinians. It's the innocent Palestinians who are trying to plant their knives in the bodies of cruel Israeli police officers.

Seriously, people? Do you even compare Israel and Palestinians on the same moral level? Israel is the only democracy around here, and Palestinians did not have an election in over 10 years!

I was in the army and I know what are the orders of opening fire towards a threat. Yes, there are these assholes who disregard these orders, but most of them in the jail and there are very few of them anyway.

Have you seen a Palestinian terrorist sitting in a Palestinian jail after attacking and killing Jews? No? And when Israel catches them, do you know what happens? THEY GET PAYMENT FROM HAMAS AND PLO FOR THEIR TIME IN PRISON!

@TheMinisterOfWar Deputy prime minister is a meaningless role in Israel. He used to be a big shot, but when people realized how racist Lieberman is, he dropped from 15 mandates to a mere 6 (out of 120).

@Bask, judging from the same moral standard is not the same as the resulting judgement being that they are equal.

But also, i have stated before that Palestinians are not equal to Israelis. There is a power imbalance. Just like it would not be fair to judge a slave owner and a slave by the same standards. (and often the law judged them on the basis that a slave is property, so the slave owner is allowed to kill his own slave)

So no, I don't think there is any equality here.

"Have you seen a Palestinian terrorist sitting in a Palestinian jail after attacking and killing Jews? No? And when Israel catches them, do you know what happens? THEY GET PAYMENT FROM HAMAS AND PLO FOR THEIR TIME IN PRISON!"

Do you know what happens when an Israeli terrorist attacks and kills a Palestinian? They get paid because that is what the IDF (or any military) is paid to do.

So at least here we have some equality.

Your violence isn't justified just because your parliament approves it. Either you reject violence on both sides, or your enemies can use the same justifications you use for their violence against you.

"Palestinians did not have an election in over 10 years!" - They elected Hamas! Do you seriously think democracy is what they need right now?

And yes, a direct result of their election was the PA and Hamas fighting and splitting the Palestinian territories into the divided West Bank and Gaza we see ruled by different groups today.

@Bask: interesting that you would not have seen the reports about police planting knives. You'd almost think that media is biased. And if you think that the position Deputy Prime Minister is meaningless, then I'd love to play a game of Diplomacy against you some time.

The key thing though is that you need to get your ehtnicities straight. Are you talking about Israeli vs Palestinian again? Because these guys are mostly Israeli, so that point is off target. Unless you really mean that all Palestinians share an ethnic relation. Because if you do embrace that, the link between the Gaza war, the West Bank occupation and the recent violence becomes all too clear.

@orathaic Are you saying the IDF is a terrorist organization? IDF is the most moral army in the Western World. IDF does not attack civilians on purpose, not as a part of a bigger strategy - like the Palestinians do when they are attacking our cities with rockets!

Has the world gone mad? Do you not see a difference between terrorists who deliberately attack civilian population, and an army that attacks combatants that hides in the civilian population? Is there no difference to you?

@TheMinisterOfWar - I have a game pending. PM me for details.
In addition, 'Israeli' is not ethnicity. Israeli is a citizenship and it has a lot of ethic groups - Jews, Arabs, Druze, Bedouin, etc.

And yes, all Palestinian Arabs share an ethnic relation. This is what their national claim is based on.

'combatants that hides in the civilian population' *you say*

well, to see the difference you want us to see is at least as hard as to say that.

@Baskineli: you seem to think I'm confused. I'm not. I'm quite aware of the ethnic makeup of Israel and Palestine. I'm pointing to the fact that Palestinians in all places in the world, Israeli, Jordanian, European, wherever, still feel themselves affected by the occupation of the West Bank and the destruction (and subsequent choke-hold) of Gaza. These things are related. There are knife-wielding maniacs in Jerusalem because there are IDF soldiers raiding homes in West Bank with impunity. Personally, I think the attacks are most closely related by the rapid rise of settler violence in East Jerusalem, where the homes of Israeli Arabs are routinely violated and plundered and Israeli citizens of Palestinian descent are given no support by police and allowed no legal recourse.

"They that sow the wind, shall reap the whirlwind".

Also, I hate to rain on your parade, but I think there are more climate deniers than scholars who think the IDF is the most moral army of the western world.

@Bask, i do think they IDF use terror as a tactic to suppress the Palestinians.

Further I have repeated, all violence is abhorrent; with self-defence being the only exception*.

I do indeed see the difference in required tactics used by the Palestinian terrorists, and the IDF terrorists. The IDF is backed by a democratic state, and if it was seen abusing its power advantage (never mind the effect wiping out the entire Palestinian population would have on global perception of Israel.)

Maybe the IDF aren't as bad as the US military, with their drone assassination program. (which denies even US citizens the right to a fair trial, if they are suspected of maybe one day posing a threat to the US) But in the last invasion of Gaza they killed about between 1,552 and 2,251 Palestinians;

Of whom the IDF claim >1068 were enemy combatants.

Unfortunately the Palestinians will not forget these deaths. And guess who they are going to blame...

*I'm ignoring what consenting partners do; boxing involves no violations of a person which they did not consent to... if no-one is violated, not violence has occured.

Let's assume for a moment that IDF indeed just tries to attack combattants that hide among civilians, though, I'm afraid that could have very little accuracy, but let's assume it's indeed the case.
So, you call IDF 'moral' even when they choose (cose one always chooses what one does) to attack those combatants even when they perfectly know that it's perectly possible that many innocent civilians can die...
So, your original supposed objective was to avoid the dead of innocent people but you end killing more innocent people, and you knew it, I can't help but question your definition of 'moral'.

This is a chicken and egg situation.

The Palestininian response to Israeli behaviour is as understandable as the Israeli response to Palestinian behaviour. The response of one side *causes* the response of the other. The current strategies of both sides will not break this cycle, they ensure that it continues, and thus I criticise both.

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.680882?utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook?date=1445341175040