The official US view is that Hamas is to be blamed and it is too bad that 375 are killed but they were all "insurgents" anyway. Yes, including all those women and children. F**k UN. They are a bunch of ******.
Remember, any criticism of Israel or AIPAC or any Jew is treated as a threat to Israel and it is antisemitic.

So, if are an American and want to live in (one)peace just go along the official view !

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Granted after this long there are far more grievances than merely the control over 'Holy' sites, but it's certainly something to Pray for.
Ya think if these 'Holy' brick and mortar were obliterated by an Act of God, The Big 3 would get the clue.
These Three 'religions' (excuses for murder) have fucked up the last 2 millenia, I 'd love to See God hand them their Asses by destroying their shrines.

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Hamas deliberately kills Israelis women and children -- no problem. Israel moves to stop this attack and liberals get upset at ... Israel!! One wonders what double standard is at work. Perhaps complaints come from those who, like Hamas, won't be happy until Israel disappears.

It is true that Palestinian casualties outnumber Israeli casualties in these operations, but is that Israel's fault? No, the perverted Palestinian "culture" seems to believe that killing an innocent Israel is such a righteos achievement that ten Palestinian deaths are an acceptable price.

Israel is not blameless, obviously. But peace will come when Palestinians want it, when they embrace life over death.

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This same sterile tit-for-tat "debate" has been continuing since 1948. What does that say for the politicians on either side?

Sadly, the Israeli's have learned to sing from the same song sheet as the Americans. Shock and Awe (which the Palestinians are incapable of unleashing) does not solve anything, in fact makes the situation many times worse.

I thought Blair was the Big Deal who was to sort out this nonsense once and for all. Where the hell is he?

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I am not "for" Israel or Palestine. They can both go to hell. What I am for is nonviolence and peace. Not killing civilians and people not living in fear. Israel's attack can't be for that sake because violence does not beget peace. Neither is Hamas in any way justified because thier violence only generates ill will. What we need is a real, genuine peaceful resolution which would include the dissolution of Hamas and also full and free Gaza that is open to all commerce and business. This won't happen until Palestinians are seen as real people, and Israelis seen as equal to them, niether more important as human beings who deserve quality of life. Yes, I know no one would ever support that idea, but that's my 2 cents.

Oh, and it sucks living in Malaysia right now. Protesters blocked the street in front of the American Embassy today, which is near to where I live. I am a but uneasy to be American here, and I am cancelling an upcoming trip to Egypt because I fear retalliation because of my nationality. I wish Obama would be the better man.

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The behaviour of the Israeli racists today is only a continuation of outrage after outrage starting (in modern times) with the murderous ethnic cleansing spree through which they grabbed this part of Palestine for Lebensraum in 1947-48. Each new outrage is greeted by world demands that they cool it (while maintaining the myth of the right of racist Israel to exist) until next time. Every plea for them to go easy is an acceptance that they and their racist state have a right to be there at all.

What is needed is a re-focus on challenging the self-proclaimed right of Israel to exist which has no more moral weight than the right of the Boer regime in South Africa, or the European colonial empires, or the Third Reich, to exist. Of the six million people living in Israel four million were not born there and did not settle there with the permission of those born there. Of the remaining couple of million there by birthright half are Jews and half are not. Meanwhile there are more than four million people living in exile, prevented at gunpoint from returning to their homeland, regaining their property and (very important) their right to vote. They are the facts relevant to the right of Israel to exist.

The just solution is to resettle the four million exiles in their original homeland or, if they do not wish to move, to give them the vote in absentia, to disenfranchise all those four million who are there without either birthright or acceptance by those who have birthright, then let democracy decide what is to become of Israel. Settlers could be returned to their own countries, or any who can establish that they would face persecution at home could remain as non-voting refugees.

Reacting piecemeal to every vile atrocity the Zionists commit is just what they would want people to do - debate the periphery to protect the centre.

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I have been saying for years that one or two strategically targeted nukes would very likely put a chill into the hearts of any regime that uses suicide brigades and would make anyone think twice about strapping on a bomb walking into a crowd of people for political purposes.

The big advantage they wield in the tactic of suicide bombing is the psychological terror it induces: how can you even think of fighting against someone who is not afraid to die? The advantage we have as a nuclear superpower is the prospect of real shock and awe that could blow away a big part of the planet - including much of what the Middle Eastern lunatic fanatics hold dearer than life itself.

Big risk, yes. Huge sacrifice. Total last resort. We would hate ourselves for doing it. But a couple of mushroom clouds would scare the bejesus out of them for sure.

Why do we keep all these nukes around anyway? If we haven't used them by now in the "war on terror" it's pretty clear we are just a bunch of big-talking pussies that will never ever use them. What kind of deterrent is that?

Haven't heard of any Kamakazi attacks since Hiroshima, have you?

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Read about the damage caused to cities by an air burst or near ground detonation of a nuclear weapon and I think you will reconsider this notion. This type of thinking is not funny. It is born in ignorance. Genocide is not funny.

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Jess, Gotta give you credit. You sure do know how to simplify. Ten bucks says he'd like to do just that. Great minds do think alike. Anna

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Why is okay for Hamas to attack Israel but it's not okay for Israel to defend itself? Why is there never any commentary in Alternet or Democracy Now about Hamas' continual attacking of Israel - yet there is an immediate reaction to Israelis when they do anything? Other countries are praised when they defend themselves, but not Israel. Should she just lie down and roll over when attacked? There's something very wrong here in this reporting.

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...i.e., that they will never be permitted to return to the land their families lived on for centuries before the Zionists came, and that they must accept the two small, discontiguous slivers of territory, demarcated by tortuous boundaries designed to give Israel the best land and most of the water resources, that Israel and its U.S. sponsor have decided are to be erected into a Palestinian "state".

More than thirty years ago, the apartheid South African government tried to do something similar, creating a collection of nominally independent, discontiguous "homelands" for its black African population by gerrymandering together some leftover bits of land that its white farmers / businessmen hadn't yet found any use for. The hope was that by doing so, the regime could appease international opinion by appearing to grant "self-determination" and "independence" to a portion of its black majority population, while effectively keeping them herded together and thereby nicely "controllable" on small enclaves of territory which could be invaded and "pacified" by South African security forces on a moment's notice if necessary.

The "state" the Palestinians are being offered, at the cost of permanently sacrificing their right of return to the land they and their ancestors previously lived on for centuries, is a sham designed to salve Israel's conscience and appease international opinion. Indeed, the feeling I have is that the kind of "peace" Israel wants is the same kind of "peace" America forged with its Native American population - one where the majority of "inconvenient" natives are either dead or dispersed, and those remaining have been nicely collected in confined, strategically gerrymandered, resource-impoverished, readily invadeable "reservations" - possibly with the option for some well-placed border checkpoints to enable Palestinian housecleaners and janitors to cross over periodically and earn their keep by cleaning toilets for their generous Israeli patrons.

Were I Palestinian, I wouldn't go for it either. No, I wouldn't fire rockets at Israeli civilians, but on the other hand I'd never acquiesce in such a "solution". After all, whatever happens, Israelis shouldn't be left with the impression in the 21st century that doing the same sorts of things that people did back in the 19th is somehow morally OK.

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You never seem to hear an end to the carnage in the middle east? Islamic terror? Virgins in heaven? Why is it happening?

Go here to find out....

www.cactus48.com/truth.html

the site is called cactus48 because on the homepage they have pictures of cactuses from 1948, that seem to grow naturally in rows! in other words, palestinian villages that were stolen and razed in 48, were overplanted with cactuses to make it look like nothing was ever there.. btw, cactuses don't grow naturally in rows...

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Every discussion of the Palestinian cause should begin with the simple statement that all the Palestinians want is to regain the land and the rights that were taken from them by force, by the Zionists, with US help. That's really the key point, but it almost never is mentioned on any media forum. Perhaps it's too inflammatory, because it's true. I was glad to read a few people here mentioning it though.

All these whiners going on about Israel "defending itself" can be shut down easily by pointing out that the land they're defending was stolen from Palestine in the first place. When the Zionists took over enough of Palestine through force after WWII, and declared "independence," the jews comprised only 1/3 of the population. How can you declare "independence" in a country where you are only 1/3 the population?

The jews stole Palestine from the Palestinians. And just as we would do, the Palestinians continue to fight to get it back. It's hypocrisy to deny them the right to fight for their freedom.

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Now there's no doubt that the so-called state of israel is a criminal new nazi state and that it is the real cancer of the middle east to answer Netenyaho's saying "jerusalem is the cancer of the middle east". What did the criminals do? They simply put the people of gaza under siege. They made them hungry they killed those who were in urgent need for medicines and health care. They didn't succeed to break the neck of the gazan people who are just calling for independence and for their human rights. As th e gang of criminals realized that the seige is not giving the fruit they are aspiring they decided to move to the second step. That step is killing.Killing them all under the claim: Destrying Hamas. Hamas is by the way the political fraction DEMOCRATICALLY elected by the palestinian peple to govern it. It's clear Hamas is the tantamount to Saddam's arms of mass destruction. The same lie is perpetuated. For me there's no solution to stop the political criminals in the so-called state of Israel and all the criminals all over the world is to BOYCOTT their goods. BOYCOTT American and Israeli goods to start with and things will change. All that they are doing is done under the pressure of international capitalism, big companies profiting from the status co in the middle east and feeding wars there. BOYCOTT is the key solution.Let us put them under economic siege and they will get strangulated . They will leave the political scene to honest people and problems will be solved .

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Israel and the United States exist. "Right" or wrong, they do in fact exist. There can be no just solution in Palestine any more than there has been a just solution for native Americans in their own homeland (q.v. the American holocaust).

As the earth becomes even more over-populated- wars and genocide, social injustices and inequities, diseases and death will only increase. This is neither a Jewish nor an Arab problem- this is a human problem.

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Why are Zionists treated differently than their European bretherns in South Africa?

Consider the research of Zionist-Israeli scholars such Professor Shlomo Sand (Tel Aviv University):

"According to the Tel Aviv University historian, Prof. Shlomo Sand, author of "Matai ve'ech humtza ha'am hayehudi?" ("When and How the Jewish People Was Invented?"; Resling, in Hebrew), Jews of North Africa originated in indigenous tribes that became Jewish and are the main sources from which Spanish Jewry sprang.

In this work, the author attempts to prove that the Jews now living in Israel and other places in the world are not at all descendants of the ancient people who inhabited the Kingdom of Judea during the First and Second Temple period.

Sand: "My initial intention was to take certain kinds of modern historiographic materials and examine how they invented the 'figment' of the Jewish people. But when I began to confront the historiographic sources, I suddenly found contradictions. And then that urged me on: I started to work, without knowing where I would end up. I took primary sources and I tried to examine authors' references in the ancient period - what they wrote about conversion."

Inventing the Diaspora
"I started looking in research studies about the exile from the land - a constitutive event in Jewish history, almost like the Holocaust. But to my astonishment I discovered that it has no literature. The reason is that no one exiled the people of the country. The Romans did not exile peoples and they could not have done so even if they had wanted to. They did not have trains and trucks to deport entire populations. That kind of logistics did not exist until the 20th century. From this, in effect, the whole book was born: in the realization that Judaic society was not dispersed and was not exiled."

If the people was not exiled, are you saying that in fact the real descendants of the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Judah are the Palestinians?

"No population remains pure over a period of thousands of years. But the chances that the Palestinians are descendants of the ancient Judaic people are much greater than the chances that you or I are its descendents. The first Zionists, up until the Arab Revolt [1936-9], knew that there had been no exiling, and that the Palestinians were descended from the inhabitants of the land. They knew that farmers don't leave until they are expelled. Even Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, the second president of the State of Israel, wrote in 1929 that, 'the vast majority of the peasant farmers do not have their origins in the Arab conquerors, but rather, before then, in the Jewish farmers who were numerous and a majority in the building of the land.'"

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Israel wants a two state solution. Indeed, she does not want any contact with Palestinians at all. Her dismantling of settlements, the unilateral withdrawal and the wall all indicate there is no need for further negotiation.
The Palestinians prefer a one state solution. They think they can further their cause through violence. They are mistaken.

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Again, just sitting there with a corrupted UN rather than cutting off business ties to the US and Israel. Furthermore, the US and Israel are actually doing business with corrupt dictators in rogue nations such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and believe it or not Pakistan. The civilians in those nations are in no better shape than the Palestinians. The day civilians in those nations unite against the elites and zionists is the day Israel and Palestine can rest in peace and not pieces.

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Knowing that I will be attacked for writing this: The Holocaust was the best thing, ever, to boost the cause of Zionism and the founding of the modern state of Israel. This is not to minimize or deny the brutal murder of six million innocent men, women and their children, whose only "crime" was belonging to the "wrong" religious sect.

Yet because of this monumental crime committed by Hitler and his henchmen against this sizable segment of humanity nearly 70 years ago, modern day conservative Israeli politicians of the Likud Party, and even more racist Zionist splinter groups, use the Holocaust, with its attendant battle-cry of "Never Again!," to whitewash their own agenda of ethnic-cleansing.

So now we witness, once again, the Israeli Defense Force, an ironic appellation in this case, posed to take the offensive into the Gaza strip with the expressed aim of destroying the military might of Hamas.

These periodic exercises in ethnic cleansing by Israel's conservative government are carried out to curry favor with the so-called ultra orthodox sects and political parties, the most vehemently Zionist and racist segment of modern Israeli society, a minority representing 10% of the total population. And the irony of these actions are not lost on the young men and women who must carry out this state sanctioned butchery, for men and women of draftable age identified as "ultra orthodox Jews" are exempt from compulsory service in the IDF.

Perhaps it is time the secular Israelis of the IDF to say "Never Again!" and rise up in mutiny and refuse to play the Einstazgruppen for corrupt Likud politicians and their ultra orthodox, racist Zionists collaborators.

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Too bad as humans we have to murder to defend our boarders. What if we annilate the whole human race? Any excuse will do such as - We do not like the color of your skin or your religion. Israel was right in defending itself. Pray for peace and do the next right thing.

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How presumptuous to expect the Palestinians to protest their ghetto status,
the further confiscation of their land to appease the bogus Zionist state, the blockading of food, medical and other supplies of any kind. Who are they, the rightful inhabitants of Palestine, to expect security for their own people, to want to pursue statehood? The world apathetically observes a people slowly being eradicated or otherwise plowed into submission, but the compromised political and media machinery in the US continue to
argue for "Israel's security." Why, given the staggering imbalance of military capability and a no-brainer evaluation of the right and wrong of the situation? Possibly because the pervasive control of Israel and AIPAC dictate foreign policy to us. God forbid that Obama turns out to be another ass-kissing Israeli lackey. The world is not yet sufficiently outraged to bring Israeli barbarism to a halt, but it's getting there. Israel will have to answer to the world for its atrocities sooner or later; sooner, I hope.

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This is a pathetic joke by the US press. Israel always claims to be defending itself, and the US lies to back them up. On November 4, Israel broke the cease fire agreement. You never get the real news from the corporate media in this country. If you want the truth, look to the European press.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov /05/israelandthepalestinians

Where was Condoliar Rice when this happened? I don't remember her or anyone else in the Bozo the Bush administration condemning Israel.

For the link above, you must remove the space after nov. It won't let a word over 60 characters be posted.

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I am worried that the US may be drawn into this war militarily. (We already have been drawn into this in a way by giving 100% of our support to Israel.)
What if Syria or some other Arab country comes to the support of the people of Gaza? The US would "have no choice", as they would say, but to join in on the side of Israel. And the Arab world ALREADY blames the US for allowing Israel to act with impunity against Muslims and Arabs.

Whatever you think of Hamas, they were indeed democratically elected by the people of Gaza. Will the United States AGAIN intervene, as it often does from time to time, in helping to overthrow a democratically-elected government somewhere in the world!?

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Speaking of the whole Israeli-Palestinian nonsense:

Those on the right have said that anyone who dares to even question Israel's actions is an "anti-Semite".
Let me tell you, equating a lack of support for Israel's right-wing and war-like government with hating Jews is not only wrong and asinine, it is dangerous for Jews as well!
First of all, just because I don't support Israel's policies does NOT make me an anti-Semite. Saying it does is like saying I am bigoted against MYSELF just because I don't support the Bush administration or the right-wing policies of my own government!
Also, I would be PROUD to be a Jew. Many of them are good people I can identify with.

But the claim that having a lack of support for Israel means someone is anti-Jew is dangerous to Jews. For, if some people have legitimate concerns with Israel's behavior, then are told over and over that they are anti-Semitic, then some of those people may start to believe they ARE anti-Semitic, and may become anti-Semitic when they otherwise would not have been!

We need to be made aware of JEWS who disagree with the Israeli government. There are many. I myself don't blame ALL Americans for the Iraq war, even though many people around the world do. And I don't blame ALL Jews for the war-crimes committed by Israel!

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"Made in the USA" on the armaments used to blow the little children to pieces.

I put my ear to the wind and all I heard from the "anti-war" Obama administration was roaring silence.

No wait, I just heard a whisper from the Obama people and it went something like this: "Israel has a right to defend itself."

Israel's version of Manifest Destiny looks like this:

"Death shrouds the hallways of Gaza City's Ash-Shifa medical compound Saturday, its smell creeping in from all corners. mputated bodies are strewn throughout hallways because morgues in the city can no longer accommodate the dead. In one corner a man stands with his seven year old son in a cardboard box because the hospital ran out of sheets to cover the dead with. This is how he will carry him home and bury him. Another man stands dazed, in shock after watching his son Mohammed killed during his graduation ceremony at the de facto police headquarters. The father of one of Mohammed's classmates stood next to his son as he was decapitated. The man is still screaming.

In the packed hospital waiting room a mother sits silently staring into the distance; her son was pronounced dead shortly after she brought him in... Forty-year-old mother Nawal Al-Lad'a did not find the bodies of her two sons in the medical compound, so she left to look amid the rubble.

Husam Farajallah, a university student, was at the hospital collecting the body of his relative. He called what happened in Gaza a "black day" in the lives of all Palestinians, and wondered how the world could watch and do nothing.

Medics in Gaza confirmed that the majority of those killed in the day's attacks were civilians, including men, women and children. Most were cut to pieces, making the job of doctors and medics difficult, and the task of giving bodies back to families painful and gruesome. The medics working in the field continue to dig up bodies from the densely populated urban areas of Gaza City.

The scenes remind many Palestinians of the images that came out of the Sabra and Shatila massacres from Beirut in 1982, when thousands of Palestinians were killed by the Lebanese Phalangist militia.

As the death toll climbs and no word on a halt to the attacks has come from Israel, Gazans fear for their lives and loved ones."

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...SHOULD know better, are now not much better than the Nazi's, except they do it in the name of self defense. A Rose by any other name...

I guess this continues to show the beauty and wonder of religion and its followers.

While there is blame to go around on both sides, they are essentially separated, inspired and motivated by a belief their god is better. So maybe they can settle this once and for all and when the last person is standing, that will represent the one true god and religion. Can't wait.

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will tell you pretty much all you need to know. Remind anyone of Manifest Destiny here in The Homeland?

Click the link to see the map and the progression from '46 to present.

Palestinian Loss of Land 1946-2000

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Here are some alternate sources of information. Ha'aretz is an Israeli newspaper, sort of like their NY Times or Washington Post... but you will get more honest information about what Israel is doing with your tax dollars from this Israeli newspaper than you can find here.

Electronic Intifada

Ha'aretz

Palestinian Centre for Human Rights

B'Tselem: Israeli Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories

Background history from Jew For Justice

Bill and Kathleen Christison are both retired CIA analysts, who now focus on education RE: Israel-Palestine conflict

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Something the likes of you, self righteous, crude, repulsive Americans always fail to acknowledge as you promote nuclear holocaust for others. Best to simply nuke North America and Europe, a world without parasitic Europeans where peace on earth may finally be possible.

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I wonder if we can have a discussion about this. Personally I have been extremely reserved about use of the term in describing the conflict in Palestine. However, recent events have got me thinking perhaps that really is what is going on. Let's take a look at some definitions and understandings of the term itself:

2.1 The definition of genocide

The United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted in 1948, states: 'In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring a out its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Here, we have (a) is obviously covered. Israel has killed thousands of Palestinians in recent years. (b) is also covered. Bodily and mental harm is constantly being inflicted. (c) - we do see deliberate infliction of harsh conditions upon Palestinians, but the question is, of course, is it intended to bring about the destruction of Palestinian society itself? (I think a case can be made that it is) (d) I am unaware of measures specifically intended to prevent births, although there are the cases of pregnant Palestinian women denied access to hospitals. (e) I know of no cases where Palestinian children are transferred to another group.

So overall, based on these 5 acts, we do have at least 2 covered, with (c) being very close (d) not being close, and (e) not covered at all. I think there is enough where a case can be made.

I think there is stronger reason why a case can be made for genocide:

* The term genocide (from genos, a people, and -cide, killing) was coined by the jurist Raphael Lemkin. He had stressed that genocide did not necessarily mean the immediate physical destruction of all members of a target group, but applied to a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of the essential foundations of their life, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.

* In the UN debate before the Convention was agreed, Soviet representatives succeeded in excluding political groups from the list of those protected; as Leo Kuper (1981: 39) writes, this is a 'major omission'. Social classes were also left out.

* Nevertheless the Convention's phrase 'destruction in whole or in part' left ambiguity about the extent of mass killing required for genocide to be established. Many adopted the term genocidal massacre to refer to episodes of killing with genocidal intent that fell short of the wholesale destruction of a population.

* Others continued to regard only cases that approximated the maximum case of total extermination (as with the Jews) as genocide. This could be political convenient, of course, if it excused politicians, from regarding as genocide, cases of mass killing about which they wanted to do nothing. This classification has also been adopted, however, by some some social scientists, such as Mann (2001).

Yesterday was the anniversary date of the massacre at Wounded Knee. I got to thinking about the systematic destruction of the Native Americans, and it caused me to reconsider my ambivalence to use of the term 'genocide' in the course of discussion regarding Israel's destruction of Native Palestinian society, particularly given recent events where hundreds of Gazans are being massacred by Israel's bombs. I was wondering if others here felt similar about that.

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Yesterday, I called the Israeli Embassy at 202-364-5500 and left my message demanding they stop the Bombing of Gaza. Today I attempted the same but it seems their phone system is partially disabled and I can't get thru to leave a message. Maybe if EVERYONE calls all day long it will shut it down completely
That number again is 202-364-5500
If you get through to them, give them our new definition of the word "Shalom"
That number once more is 202-364-5500

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It has created mayhem for milleniums, murder and hatred to the extreme. That goes for the three big ones as well. Karl Marx certainly was right on this point. Whatever happened to live and let live? Zionists and Muslims are equally at fault. Christianism does not help in any way either.

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Alternet writes, "Update: The Gaza death toll has passed 350."

In other words, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) killed 350 Palestinians in a few days, while Hamas has killed only 19 Israelis since they began firing rockets at Israeli towns and settlements IN 2002.

The British newspaper, The Gaurdian, writes, "...The deaths brought the tally of civilian fatalities from rocket strikes to 19 since 2002, when militants in Gaza first began firing missiles at Israeli towns."

The aforementioned statistics bring new meaning to "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth."

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I would say that the reason that there is one dead in Isreal and 320 in Gaza has more to do with bomb shelters and the Israel's respect for their citizenry.
Instead of receiving life sustaining tools Palesinians are being incited to hate, fed weapons and strategies to kill and distroy. The Palestinian strategy is: to provoke retailation from the very people they have sworn to distroy. The goal: setting the stage in civiilian territory for reporters to witness Israel's retaliatiion so that the reporters vision is stamped with the horror of war in a civilian zone. The goal: reporters will write the kind of articles that will bring world sympathy for their cause DISTRUCTION OF ISRAEL. EX. the NYTimes: 1 picture of a few Israeli's watching tv in a bomb shelters and 6 pictures of Palestinian civilians in harms way.....somewhere buried in the last 1/3 of the article is the awareness that Hamas builds its missle centers in civilian territory. ANd that Palestinians sent missles and rockers.

As for the leadership of countries that are so outraged that Israel does not find 15 or 20 missles a month fired into their civilian territory acceptable. Israeli hope is that a strong retalliation would help Palestinians realize that co existance is the only answer, For all Palestinian sympathizers I say, send food, meds, courses in tolerance, teach an understanding that the basis for ending the pain and killing on both sides is CO - EXISTANCE and the real enemy of everyday Palestinians is the misbelief that distroying Israel will enhance their lives..

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Finally at the end of the interview the right of the duly elected government of Gaza to self-defence was mentioned. Do the Palestinians not have the right to fight to keep their homes and property? Has everyone so conveniently forgotten that the ancestors of many of those imprisoned in Gaza were thrown off their land and out of their homes by the Jews in 1945 and ever since? Because the Jews of Europe were betrayed by their own religion into passively walking into the death camps, they now must be given the right to use the same kind of tactics and strategy on their neighbors as the Nazi's used on them? I don't think so. I say, Stop it, Israel! Remember when whole villages were destroyed and the people massacred in retaliation for one dead German officer.

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Lets open up a discussiion:

What are Israel's options?

1. To allow the continuous reign of terror caused by Palestinian missles, rockets or human bombs. Is that a reasonable option? does that speak to world justice? What will be the lessons learned from this -- will terrorism become the new way of controlling t he world?

2. Or should the free world support Israel's attempt to force reasonable peace negotiations by not allowing itself to be undermined and physically harmed?

War and hate even in self defense is an ugly business and there is much blame and criticism to go around....but the bottom line is.....HAMAS's CLEARLY STATED PLANS TO DISTROY ISRAEl is simply NOT an acceptable basis for sustainable negotiations.

The real anger should be directed at the glaring lack of respect for the life of its own populace by the Hamas brand of leadership that places the war centers amongst the civilian population and not building bomb shelters for its own people. With these actions, Hamas and those that support terrorists, have set the stage for the journalists, stamped with the horror of civilian harm, caused by Hama's instigated retalliations to carry out Hama's plan to lable Israel the war mongreling aggressor. Hama's goal: this planned strategy is to incite world anger and make it possible for outsiders to accept the Hama's plan to distroy Israel..

To put an end to this madness, the world must look carefully at the base rules for building peace. IN simple terms, accepting Israel's RIGHT TO EXIST WITHOUT FEAR OF DISTRUCTION OR SHOWERS OF HATRED is the bottom line to negotiating a sustainable peace treaty. To accomplish this, Hamas, Palestinians and all supporting Arab leadership must willingly accept ISRAEL'S RIGHT TO EXIST. Only then can Israel, who has in all of these wars been -- not the aggressors but the defenders of their sacred right to life -- and only then can a quest for sustainable peace begin.

That is plain common sense -- however, in article after Middle East article, Alternet's progressive belief in human rights, justice and the desire to end wars, been displaced by articles that confuses the underlying basic truth. WE MUST ACCEPT CO EXISTING IN PEACE AND GOOD WILL.

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I was born into a Jewish family however I believe that for the sake of world peace and security, it's time for the state of Israel to relocate. Some place in the USA would be fine. Bring all the sacred sites over and rebuild them here. Enlist Disney to help build the new Israel. Disrael. I love my Jewish brothers and sisters in Israel but they need to get the hell outta the insane middle east. Why stay in a neighborhood that doesn't want you? I wouldn't. Peace to Israel. Someplace else.

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At this point in time nothing will end insanity but a third party that seperates the people from each other.
But more important, they all, that's Palestinians and Jews, Zionist Israelis,
be put under ridgid physological reprogramming of the mindstreams.

Like any prayer or music that is repetitively done, it sticks in the fore front of their thoughts and is repeated. SO too is vengence, hate, anger, and violence. Throughout the generation of these people their brain wiring has been corrupted like a bad computer operating system that just can not be fixed without being completely erasing the hard drive and reloading new software.

They, both Israelies and Palastinians, can not over come their anger while bathing in it. Justification for 'it" is no justification to continue it.

Unless these people are put under a full third party control and they are reoriented over at least four generations, their mental corruption that is now genetically afixed in their neural pathways, they can not overcome their mentally diseased situation.

Sorry but the medicine is always hard to swallow.

The rest of the world is guilty too if they don't intervene, and physically stop it all. The United States government is dead wrong in supporting retaliation any way. To do so is a confirmation of their mentally and moral corruption too.

If Jews and Palastinians move to the US they should let go of their connections to Israel and Palastine, including those that they left behind. After all they left because they could live with it there. And they shouldn't bring their attachments with them here.
For it will spread their corrupted mental disease.

Reshaping mental thinking is hard for people. But if they would rather die, move back and get the hell off of North America.

Before North America was invaded by Euroasian factions. This continent was relatively civil in comparison to the medevil mentalities they brought over here. Now those same archaic mindsets are spreading back and forth like a plague.

The word civilization has no place in the modern age of man.
This has become an age of new futilism which originated in EurAsia.
Humanity is no better now than a realm of metally handicaped cannibals. Neandrthals where less violent than Humans.

Unless all people like these accepts this truth. The demise of the species of man may well be the best thing for the planets fauna of the higher order. For Homosapiens we are not.

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She tried to tell the world something, with her life, and with her death. Michael Moore dedicated one of his books to her. Of course killing is unjustifiable, whoever is the perpetrator of it - Israel, Hamas, whoever. And of course both the Israeli and the Palestinian people suffer because of this conflict. But go to Youtube and listen to what she has to say. And then you decide for yourselves who is the underdog in all this - who is being slowly and systematically starved to death - who has the upper hand and who is struggling just to survive - who is the oppressed and who is the oppressor.

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HERE'S THE SOLUTION !!

Israel to Hamas: Stop saying in schoolbooks it is the duty of children to kill Jews. Stop training and sending bombers to our side of the border. Stop smuggling heavy weapons from Iran via Egypt and your port. Stop firing missiles on our territory, especially from civilian areas, when you KNOW we will retaliate on that area. Destroy other 'factions' who will not abide by this. Renounce our destruction, called for in your Charter.
THEN will will lift our blockade, allowing BILLIONS in international aid to rebuild your country.
OTHERWISE, we will completely and utterly DESTROY you, and unfortunately any non combatants who happen to be in the areas you hide out in. WE DO NOT BELIEVE IN TIT FOR TAT. That's what WAR is about.

OOPS........JUST REALIZED THAT WAS SAID WHEN ISRAEL LEFT GAZA 2 YEARS AGO !!!! So why don't they just do that?? I think perhaps it is just not their nature. Too bad for the moderate civilians who get caught up in this. Of course, THEIR opinion is never heard in the Arab media. Or they get murdered by their Muslim 'brothers'.

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Just after US invaded Iraq in 2003, an Europe wide survey was done with a sample population of 25000 people from all the EU countries. The purpose of the survey was to make a study of what the average European thinks of the security situation in the world. One of the questions was "which country do you think is the most dangerous country ?". Just over 75% voted for Israel !

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I'm an old lady and I'm sick of our government backing Israel no matter how outrageous their behavior. I just heard that an Israeli patrol boat fired on and rammed a boatload of volunteer international doctors and aid workers headed to Gaza to help the injured and dying. They had already brought several loads of humanitarian aid to Gaza and Israel was angry, calling their aid terrorist activities. However, this time a CNN reporter was among those fired upon and filed a report. It can be seen on cnn's website: http://www.cnn.com/

You can also lodge a protest:
CALL Mark Regev in the Prime Minister's office at:
+972 2670 5354 or +972 5062 3264
mark.regev@it.pmo.gov.il

CALL Shlomo Dror in the Ministry of Defence at:
+972 33697 5339 or +972 50629 8148
mediasar@mod.gov.il

Dammit,this has to stop and now! I hate that my tax dollars and yours are being used to fund genocidal warfare that is only going to backfire and spread more violence.

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Mr. Obama has said if his daughters had to live in fear of being struck by a missile he would have to do something about it just as Israel is now doing to protect its people. I would put to him the following questions: as a father, what would you do if your daughters were daily demoralized by lack of food, lack of education or being stoned and spat at on their way to school, lack of health care if they became seriously ill, fear of an Israeli night raid that might deprive them of their father, fear of having their house bulldozed, and harassment by soldiers at any checkpoint they might have the misfortune of needing to pass through? What would your reaction as a powerless man, as a father filled with helpless anger be, Mr. Obama?

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... this is a USA operation by proxy.

The right in this country claims that muslims hate amerika for it's "freedom". This lie is believed by the unwashed lynch-mob hordes of the white racist trailer-trash population. Just as the same unwashed horde believed that the "niggers" and the "injuns" and the "illegals" (codeword for Hispanics) have it coming.

Well, for anyone with a shred of decency and reason, the truth is right before your eyes: If muslims hate amerika, it is because the US govt routinely murders (or enslaves) muslims by the thousands and millions.

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War is Hell said Sherman, who surely would have known. Lobbing rockets over a border is an act of war. It may surprise some, but the Israelis are better armed, trained, and supplied than Hamas. If Hamas demands a war, it will lose. That is the point of the Hamas rockets. By instigating a war they cannot win they are causing civilian deaths that will swell their ranks. Poor old Hamas. They have only managed to murder 19 Israelis despite their best efforts. What is Israel supposed to do? Laugh it off? "Ho ho, that's just Hamas blowing off some steam." Easy to say when the rockets are not falling your heads.

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It pains me deeply to read otherwise well-intentioned columnists blame Israel for atrocities against humanity, and unnecessary and inappropriate aggression in Gaza. It seems the default liberal position has come to embody one in which Israel has no rights of self-defense, and the Palestinians can never be blamed for their provocations. Israel fights for survival every single day against its manifold enemies. For the west to blame only Israel for the mid-east madness is akin to blaming an underdog (Israel) for fighting back against a bully (the entire muslim world).
When will the shrieking left take a breath an really examine what goes on on the ground in the mid-east?

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Palestinian textbooks
Such charges generally stem from Israeli PR campaign. For instance in 2002, Israeli army "study" charges that Palestinian school textbooks contain "systematic education to delegitimise the existence of the state of Israel, fanning the flames of hatred and violent revenge to destroy the country" ("Palestinian schoolbooks fan the flames of hatred," Haaretz, June 28, 2002).

An independent study of Palestinian textbooks by Professor Nathan Brown of George Washington University in Washington, DC, notes that "virtually every discussion in English on Palestinian education repeats the charge that Palestinian textbooks incite students against Jews and Israel". Brown states that: "It may therefore come as a surprise to readers that the books authored under the PNA are largely innocent of these charges. What is more remarkable than any statements they make on the subject is their silence — the PNA-authored books often stubbornly avoid treating anything controversial regarding Palestinian national identity, forcing them into awkward omissions and gaps."

Brown, while not uncritical of the Palestinian textbooks, concluded that "the Palestinian curriculum is not a war curriculum; while highly nationalistic, it does not incite hatred, violence and anti-Semitism. It cannot be described as a peace curriculum either, but the charges against it are often wildly exaggerated or inaccurate." ("Democracy, History and the Contest over the Palestinian Curriculum," an independent report prepared for the Adam Institute, 2002).

Israeli Textbooks
Israeli school textbooks as well as children's storybooks, according to recent academic studies and surveys, portray Palestinians and Arabs as "murderers," "rioters," "suspicious," and generally backward and unproductive. Direct delegitimization and negative stereotyping of Palestinians and Arabs are the rule rather than the exception in Israeli schoolbooks.

Professor Daniel Bar-Tal of Tel Aviv University studied 124 elementary, middle- and high school textbooks on grammar and Hebrew literature, history, geography and citizenship. Bar-Tal concluded that Israeli textbooks present the view that Jews are involved in a justified, even humanitarian, war against an Arab enemy that refuses to accept and acknowledge the existence and rights of Jews in Israel.

"The early textbooks tended to describe acts of Arabs as hostile, deviant, cruel, immoral, unfair, with the intention to hurt Jews and to annihilate the State of Israel. Within this frame of reference, Arabs were delegitimized by the use of such labels as 'robbers,' 'bloodthirsty,' and 'killers,'" said Professor Bar-Tal, adding that there has been little positive revision in the curriculum over the years.

Bar-Tal pointed out that Israeli textbooks continue to present Jews as industrious, brave and determined to cope with the difficulties of "improving the country in ways they believe the Arabs are incapable of."

This message, continued Bar-Tal, was further emphasized in textbooks by the use of blatant negative stereotyping which featured Arabs as: "unenlightened, inferior, fatalistic, unproductive and apathetic." Further, according to the textbooks, the Arabs were "tribal, vengeful, exotic, poor, sick, dirty, noisy, colored" and "they burn, murder, destroy, and are easily inflamed."

Textbooks currently being used in the Israeli school system, says Bar-Tal, contain less direct denigration of Arabs but continue to stereotype them negatively when referring to them. He pointed out that Hebrew- as well as Arabic-language textbooks used in elementary and junior high schools contain very few references either to Arabs or to Arab-Jewish relations.

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How does the killing of 4 Israelis justify the killing of 350 and wounding 1,400 Palestinians? It is time the world realizes that the genocidal Israeli policy of killing the maximum number of Palestinians at every opportunity will not save Israel. The higher birth rate of Palestinians will eventually overwhelm the Zionist nation, it is simply a matter of time and the departure of an increasing number of Jews from Israel.

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It is not a Holocaust and it's not genocide, it's war and Israel is going about it as indiscriminately as Hamas, only with much more devestating results. The only way to deal with a specific threat is specifically, even though that would require an invasion and building by building search with likely a much higher loss of life for those doing the searching. But it would be much more fair to the civilians even if it involved a temporary reoccupation, than this indisciminate destruction.

I suppose that's not politically an option. I wonder what would have been the best response to the rocket attacks? Anyone have an answer?

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So it's OK for Hamas to launch rockets into Israel---unprovoked? And to TARGET civilians and children? And Israel should do nothing, right? Is that it? Or how long should the Israeli government have waited before reacting? Until 2 Israelis died? Twenty? Two-hundred? Two-thousand? Twenty-thousand? Or maybe all? Maybe they should just let themselves be annihilated, as per Hamas' stated goal? Or maybe Jews are supposed to just shut up and quietly march into the gas chambers? What if Canada launched rockets at the US? The liberal defenders of Hamas remind me of why I'm an Independent. And if someone points a gun at these liberals, they'd be the first to hide and ask SOMEONE ELSE to kill the one pointing the gun. Get the facts straight: Israel gave Gaza back to the Palestinians and they did nothing with it. Hamas just built up a cache of weapons and, the minute the truce was over, THEY launched an unprovoked attack.

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I HOPE THEY BLOW THE PALESTANIANS OFF THE FACE OF THE PLANET. TO HELL WITH HAMAS AND THE REST OF THE SCUMBAG MUSLIMS. IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE USA OR ISRAEL, WHY DON'T YOU GET OUT AND MOVE THERE WITH THE REST OF THE TERRORISTS. QUIT USING ALTERNET TO PROMOTE YOUR OWN HATE.

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anyone trying to defend this must be either ignorant, misinformed, mentally ill or evil. i mean come on, do you think the world is *that* dumb? we can see what is and has been going on for years. its an utter disgrace to humanity. have you learned nothing? it's the worst and most blatant case of ethnic cleansing in modern history. and it's been going on a lot longer than most people even realise. that nutjob hitler even awarded two zionists for their "skills" in driving out and murdering palestinians in the 1930's - i shit you not. look it up. israel is, no doubt, the biggest deception and lie in history. jewish homeland - lie. defending ourselves - come off it. been taking the world for fools. and it's causing world terror now. the USA are just as bad. not that im anti american, far from it. the politicians, the system they have - messed up. as for our pathetic politicians in the UK - utter pussies. poodles no less. as is abbas, nothing but a puppet. oh and that giyus.org website - what is that all about? another dirty trick, disgusting and underhand.

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Zionism as a political movement developed in the late 19th century. Its founder, Theodore Herzl, was influenced by two phenomena: the extent of French anti-Semitism revealed by the Dreyfus Trial, and nationalist ideals then popular in Europe. Herzl held that Jews cannot be assimilated by the nations in which they live, and that the only solution to the “Jewish question” was the formation of a “Jewish state” in which all the Jews would come together. The early Zionists contemplated as the site of the future state Argentina or Uganda, among other locales. Herzl favored Palestine, because, although an agnostic, he wanted to make use of the custom, widespread among Jewish mystics, of going on pilgrimages to the “holy land” and establishing religious communities there.

In 1868, there were 13,000 Jews in Palestine, out of an estimated population of 400,000. The majority were religious pilgrims supported by charity from overseas. They encountered no opposition from the Muslims, and their presence led to no clashes with the Arab population, whether Muslim or Christian.

In 1882, Baron Rothschild, combining philanthropy and investment, began to bring Jewish settlers from Eastern Europe to build a plantation system along the model the French used in Algeria. They spoke Yiddish, Arabic, Persian, and Georgian. Significantly, Hebrew was not among the languages spoken. The outcome of Rothschild’s experiment was predictable: Jews managed the land, while Arabs worked it. This was not the result the Zionists had in mind; a Jewish society could not be based on Arab labor. Consequently, they began to encourage the immigration of Jewish farmers and workers.

In 1917 British Foreign Minister Lord Balfour, seeking support for Britain’s efforts in World War I, issued his famous declaration expressing sympathy with efforts to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The Zionists immediately seized upon this statement, which they interpreted to mean support for a Jewish state. At the time of Balfour’s declaration, Jews comprised less than 10% of the population and owned 2.5% of the land of Palestine.

The problem of building a Jewish society among an overwhelming Arab majority came to be known as the “conquest of land and labor.” Land, once acquired, had to remain in Jewish hands. The other half of this project, known as Labor Zionism, called for the exclusive use of Jewish labor on the land acquired by the Jews in Palestine. The Labor Zionists maintained this dual exclusionism (or apartheid, as we would now call it) in order to build up purely Jewish institutions.

To achieve the conquest of the land, the Zionists set up an arrangement whereby land was acquired not by individuals, but by a corporation, known as the Jewish National Fund (JNF). The JNF acquired land and leased it only to Jews, who were not allowed to sublet it. Thus land was acquired in the name of “the Jewish people,” held for their use, and not subject to market conditions. The idea was for the JNF to gradually acquire as much land as possible as the basis for the expected Jewish state.

just some of a lecture by the esteemed professor noel ignatiev. a man of truth and right. look him up and hear the truth. good will always win over evil!

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Bulimia News and Discussion Forum

Find the latest Bulimia news and discuss the latest topics with members of the Bulimia and Eating Disorders Community.

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No matter what the Jews do if they defend themself from Hammas who has launched MORE than 3,600 rockets against them and the Nation of Israel make surgical strikes to stop the rockets that are raining down on them indiscriminately they are called the terrorists.

As far as I am concerned the Palestinians are angry and attacking the wrong party. It was the U.K. and the rest of the UN who established the nation of Israel in 1948.

After the Holocaust the Jews rightly demanded s homeland so they could protect themself from other peoples and nations who wanted to do them harm.

Before the Holocaust deniers but in and say that didn't happen. IT DID. I have seen pictures of the soap made from human beings, the gold and silver bars that were once in human beings teeth, and lampshades made out of human skin. I have a friend who went there many times in the 1970s. Jessie was forever changed by what she saw.

I would recommend that you watch the movie "Shindler's List" That movie was based on the life of Oskar Schindler

Here is the URL for the page at Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_Schindler

Here is a brief excerpt from the page

He is buried at the Catholic cemetery at Mount Zion in Jerusalem, the only member of the Nazi party to be so honored.[3] Schindler's grave is located near Zion Gate. At the bottom of the ramp leading to the parking lot, across the street is a gate to the graveyard with a small sign indicating the way to his grave. It is on the lowest terrace, to the right of the entrance. The GPS location is UTM 711223 East, 3517126 North, Zone 36N (which translates to [show location on an interactive map] 31°46′12″N 35°13′50″E / 31.7701, 35.23042). Usually many stones are placed on top of the grave, as a token of gratitude according to Jewish tradition, although Schindler himself was not Jewish. On his grave, the German inscription reads 'The Unforgettable Lifesaver of 1200 Persecuted Jews'.

No one really knows what Schindler's motives were. However, he was quoted as saying "I knew the people who worked for me... When you know people, you have to behave toward them like human beings."[11]
-----

At the end of the movie there is a segment showing a large group of jews at his grave. This group of people are some of the people he saved from the gas chambers, and many of their descendants. He was given the highest award any non Jew can receive because of his work to save 1,200 human beings if memory serves.

People like to throw around the number 6 million that were murdered by the third Reich. The number was more like 10 million. there was a bit more than 6 million Jews. The other four million were murdered because they were sexual deviants, or mixed blood.

There is another mass murderer that makes Adolph Hitler look like a lightweight. Check up on what Stalin did. He is responsible for the death of around 36 million people.

It is long past time that people start educating themself instead of relying on the newsmedia to tell you the truth BECAUSE THEY WON'T. That hasn't been in their job description for almost 40 years. I took radio journalism in the early 1970s. What I was taught and what I see coming out of CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, etc doesn't even look similar.

Today instead of answering the 5 W and 1 H ueations.

They are

Who?
What?
When?
Where?
Why

and How?

Everything has a spin to evoke emotion in you the audience and push your buttons and make you react emotionally instead of telling you what happened and reach your own conclusion

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It's time to crash the Hamas bloody terrorists and save the Arab Palestinian people from self suicide.
No other nation would have waited for 8 years, after daily attacked by various terror model actions, as Israel quite did. Israel, as the US, Russia and Britain, has the right to react to orchestrated terrorism by vicious force.

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It won’t be long before the first wave of whining, hypocritical and malevolent op-ed pieces condemning the Israeli operation that began in Gaza this morning rolls in. Israel will be accused of acting disproportionately, committing genocide, deliberately targeting babes in arms and much else besides.

There will also be calls for international intervention to protect civilians (Palestinian civilians, of course. Israeli civilians don’t count for the arbiters of international dinner party morality,) for the “root causes” of the conflict to be addressed (in the eyes of Hamas, and not only Hamas, the root cause of the conflict is not the absence of a Palestinian state but the existence of a Jewish one) and for the political and military leaders of Israel (and no other party to the conflict) to be investigated for war crimes.

Hamas, and its supporters in the West, can have no complaints about the unfolding Israeli operation. They have repeatedly declared their lack of interest in extending the recently expired ceasefire and their determination to keep on attacking Israel with all the means at their disposal. Indeed, this morning’s air attacks are a sign that Jerusalem views them with the respect and seriousness that parties to armed conflict always owe to their most challenging adversaries.

It’s possible that Hamas’s leaders had started to believe their own propaganda about their organization’s strength and Israel’s moral weakness, and think that they had achieved a level of strategic deterrence such as that which prevails between Israel and Hezbollah. If this was the case, then it’s good that the process of disabusing them of these beliefs has begun before they had a chance to make them a reality. While the vulnerability of Israel to mass rocket attacks against its civilian population and the concomitant restraints on its freedom of action was indeed demonstrated by the Second Lebanon War, the same conflict also demonstrated the foolishness of allowing enemies just over the border to acquire such an arsenal and the infrastructure to support it.

There may also some nervous beard stroking going on in Tehran this morning. The mullahs have quite possibly fallen into the trap of believing that the state for Jews was on its last legs, just because they themselves were blue in the face from repeating that it was so. They may also have believed that, chastened by its 2006 experience in Lebanon, there was no end to the provocations Israel would endure from Gaza and that Hamas would be allowed to grow in both strength and arrogance on an unlimited basis.

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I see allot of words on paper in the Bible, Qur'an and Torah. Wow, guess thats bonifide proof to use as evidence of a 'gods' existence.

I see paintings of 'god'. yep,,there it is. 'God' truly exists. I see people praying which shows that 'god' must truly exist.

Oh wait,.those written words are right from 'god' itself. More proof of 'gods' existence.

evilbible.com

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These people have been fighting for centuries.

When a group of people or dogs or cats or what ever can't solve their violent tendencies it is because they've been reciting a mantra of violence so long it has corrupted their mind stream so much that they are unable to see or visualize or feel anything but violence and vengeance.

It has become their identity because it is congruent to their blind "ero"gent belief.

Until you people, who ever you are, realize this,
no argument you can muster up can justify who's right and who's wrong.

When a people tattoo their body with an attitude they tend to embrace that as their identity and it isn't easily removed. The inner scar will remain.
The same is true of constantly reciting a mantra of retaliation violence and vengeance. Their minds become corrupted and stained so much they can not get past it.

So for all you that would rather debate who's right and who's wrong, pushing ego, instead of and resolution by justifying a position, you'll never clear your own mind stream either.

A solution to the Israeli / Palestinian dilemma rests on a third party to intervene between Israeli and Palestine, physically!
One thing for sure though is the United States is just exacerbating the problem by "standing behind" Israeli retaliation. This is absolutely wrong.

But with as many Israelis that have infiltrated the very fabric of the American government they have brought their mental disease into our country and it is infecting the US now.

Have no doubt about it either, both Israeli and Palestinian mind sets of violence and vengeance has become a mental disease.
Only when it is dealt with as such can the problem begin to be cured. And any other approach is nothing more than other people catching the disease.
The only inoculation for it is to not feed the disease by accepting any justification for the violence.
The disease needs to be isolated and contained.

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Why is it that AlterNet does not post anything about Hamas launching rockets at Israel and purposely targeting innocents?

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There are many accounts of the happenings from different Israel and Palestinian officials. There is an embargo..which was a pre-war attempt to stop the missles and rockets and human Palestinian bombs. This obviously did not work, because, there are tunnels where food is getting in....and weapons and water......after all...from a scientific point of view... a person can only live without water 1 or 2.days..three tops.......
before they die.

This is war, baby....UGLY, SAD, UNNECESSARY WAR....PEACE...BEAUTIFUL WONDERFUL PEACE requires acceptance of CO-EXISTANCE... a point you refuse to open up a discussion about. And if you do not .... then there is no other answer.

Now from your response to me it would appear that you are so angry at Israel because you care about the pain of the Palestinians.

Didn't I read that it was with great tredpidation that Egypt opened its door to allow Palestinians to enter its hospitals. Why? after all from the tunnel in Eygpt comes the weapons.....

NOw.....if you care as much for the Palestinians as I do..you would understand that Co Existance and learning how to better their lives...are the best answer not just for Israel..but for the every day Palestinians.
After all, the leaders are hoping to gain public opinion and htey do not care how many Palestinians are killed.

If it is really peace you want:
1. than spreading anger is not the answer
2. shooting rockets and missles is not the answer
to getting food and water and electricity from the very people you have sworn to kill.

Drop the distruction of Israel as your mantra and come to the bargaining table. Or offer a viable plan for co-existance instead of this bickering back and forth about who did more harm to whom....because from where I sit no one did more harm to the Palestinian people than its leaders

IF you want to stop the blood shed and killings and harm then lets discuss what is necessary to go to the negotiating table

....OR is peace for all and a better life for the Palestinians not your goal????

Oh and I repeat again.....if the Palestinians think they are helping themselves by following their leaders......then let them go to their leaders and demand: BOMB SHELTERS
MILITARY PLACES AWAY FROM CIVILIAN TERRITORY...
FOOD AND MEDICAL SUPPLIES WITH THEIR WEAPONS
MEDS AND HOSPITALS AND EDUCATION TO MAKE ENGINEERS THAT WILL INVENT MORE THAN IMPORTED WEAPONS
Not using their children as human bombs

OH, I do not repeat either what Alternet says or what a newspaper prints.....I am highly intelligent and have a talent for piecing together pieces of information from many sources.........

And plain common sense says: If you want:
1. to stop the use of Palestinians as fodder for sympathy...you have to care about your citizenry.
2. to stop the war..you have to be willing to negoatiate a real treaty not a bandaide so you can regroup and continue missle and rocket throwing
3. if you want to negoatiate a real treaty ....you must accept ISRAELS RIGHT TO EXIST.

This is the bottom line..and the reason you do not see it is because, know it or not, you are actively helping Hamas and supporting the actions of the terrorists by spreading anger and hatred instead of trying to help Israel bring Hamas, the Palestinians and all their supporters to the negotiating table. After all, you surely do not want to terror and hatred and propaganda to become the new bargaining chip.

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Ehud Barak is fooling himself if he thinks that smashing Gaza will enable Israel to keep the illegal settlements in the West Bank and the Golan Heights. The core problem is Israeli occupation (and attempted strangulation of Gaza), which must end. Craven US politicians intimidated or coopted by Aipac deserve the deepest contempt of the entire world.

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how little respect you have for the Alternet readers.

well now...if the Romans could not t ransport people how did they manage to get whole armies to march into Egypt and other countries?

And how did so many like the Greeks have slaves? I do not know what books you are reading or drugs you are on..but.....why would Jews all over the world be studing the same books long before the 20th century. It is quite criminal how you dare to write such untruths.

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http://arabwomanblues.blogspot.com/2008/11/no-title.html

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http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/

Check out the above link. Basically, most religions suck because they talk down to and try to scare the crap out of their followers. They treat adult, would-be rational thinkers as if they are misguided, corrupt, evil little children in need of a good spanking and a long time-out on their knees begging for forgiveness. You better dare not think for yourself, just swallow the rote prayers and ancient scripture and don't ask too many questions. If you don't heed the admonitions of the enlightened religious leaders, then all sorts of horrible harm will befall you either here or in the after-world. But don't forget, "God loves you!", as was so brilliantly pointed out by George Carlin.

The past is the past, but today, one religion more than any other is responsible for the majority of the world's terrorism, war, brutality to women and children, extremist propaganda in schools and indoctrination of children, strife, misery, despotism, illegal drug trade, pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, and the promotion and the pursuit of all this horror in the name of holy glory and martyrdom. Oh, and it's also the main cause today by far of violent death to Muslims.

It's Islam. The number one threat to a young Muslim's life doesn't come from Israel, the United States, or any other Western power, it comes from fellow Muslims. Far more Palestinians have been killed or injured by fellow compatriots in the name of Jihad and Sharia law than have been killed by Israelis. Where is the outrage?

Why aren't Muslims protesting in the streets against the government of Sudan with its Janjaweed Arab militants and their protracted genocide vs. the Christian and Animist peoples in Darfur? There has been an exponential amount of death and injury there compared to Gaza. And why is it allright for Turkey to bomb and blast Kurds in Iraq, and most Muslims don't get too disturbed? Where were the Muslim street protests after the terrorism in Mumbai recently?

And why, of all the liberation movements and struggles on the planet, does the Palestinian one seem to matter more than all the others, to the point where the rest of the world has an entirely different set of standards and tolerance/intolerance of the disputing parties?
Why are Palestinians who intentionally target civilians called "militants, martyrs, insurgents," while on sites like AlterNet many people call Israeli military personnel, who are targeting Hamas leaders and armed fighters (who surrond themselves with civilians), "Nazis, terrorists, Gestapo, etc.."? Why can otherwise seemingly rational people suddenly froth at the mouth and start comparing Israel to Nazi Germany (truly without merit, and a very flawed analogy for many reasons) and at the same time disregard Palestinian horror, hate, despotism, and pure evil even towards their own people? Liberal or Conservative, it does not matter. This double standard and desire to blame Jews/Zionists for all the troubles in the region, even the world, is found everywhere. Hate is so easy to inherit, as is mindless obedience to ancient religious traditions.

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Mr. henry ford wrote a book called" the international jeew' you can google it and read it for free

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1) unfair reporting from a biased perspective.
2) The author makes no mention of the 33000+ missles fired ruthlessly into Israel, keeping many families in bunkers and schools closed but she attempts to present Israel as the bad bully.
3) I'm glad that are other sources that I can get straight facts and thoughtful commentary from.

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Hamas has always addressed Israel, never the world at large. Only if Hamas had some grievance based on what Hamas claimed was retaliation did Hamas address their actions not the world at large. Hamas has no idea how to address the world when the world rejects terrorism, missile attacks are no way to address Israel nor the world and is a terrorist act. Had this been a U.S. problem anyone firing missiles at the U.S. would have been dealt with as a terrorist, hasn't Hamas ever learned from their mistake to stop trying to change the world's view on terrorism yet.

There may not be a Hamas soldier remaining if the Hamas continues to make their presence against Israel a threatened environmental solution for them to have to accept. Israel is not nor the world is not accepting anything Hamas has undertaken. Recruitment of people to serve Hamas is a mistake. There simply cannot be a legal terrorist operation considered against the free world.

Hamas should not expect anything better than that. All the people that are hurting because of the Hamas should resort to protesting the presence of Hamas and expose the Hamas for what it is doing to their lives as a terrorist act and end the Hamas occupation and jurisdiction on their behalf. It is all that the world should expect to save lives.

RESULT = Hamas does not get anymore opportunity to control.

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Israel has sent in both troops and tanks.

Israel sends troops into Gaza

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Israel will sign a peace treaty with Syria and leave the Golan Heights. Later they will link up with Abbas and crush Hamas and then leave all the Occupied Territories by Agreement.

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I agree with Jimmy Carter who says that there will be no peace in the Mideast until Israel leaves the Gaza Strip. I am not an anti-semite, but I am a pacifist.

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From the NY Times transcript of Obama's remarks at AIPAC.

I understood the Zionist idea, that there is always a homeland at the center of our story...

Our story? He identified that closely? Considers himself a Zionist?

We know that the establishment of Israel was just and necessary, rooted in centuries of struggle and decades of patient work.

Yes. The patient work of ethnic cleansing.

NY Times Transcript
Obama’s Remarks at Aipac

Official website of Israeli historian Ilan Pappe and author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

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In 1939 the editor of a Zionist newspaper in New York sent a letter to Mahatma Gandhi pointing out that in Nazi Germany “a Jewish Gandhi would last about five minutes before he was executed.”

Gandhi stuck fast to his nonviolent principles. “I can conceive the necessity of the immolation of hundreds, if not thousands, to appease the hunger of dictators,” he replied.

Gaza health officials say more than 550 Palestinians have been killed and another 2,500 wounded since the start of the Israeli military operation.

Now the whole world is opposing Israel,

Except a lone voice is supporting.

But only that voice is giving strength till date to just 7 million people to fight against justice!

Like the West Bank, the Gaza Strip has been - and continues to be - illegally occupied by Israel since 1967.

Despite the withdrawal of troops and settlements four years ago, Israel maintains complete control of the territory by sea, air and land.

And since Hamas won the Palestinian elections in 2006, Israel has punished its 1.5 million people with an inhuman blockade of essential supplies, backed by the US and the European Union.

Like any occupied people, the Palestinians have the right to resist, whether they choose to exercise it or not.

But there is no right of defence for an illegal occupation - there is an obligation to withdraw comprehensively.

During the last seven years, 14 Israelis have been killed by mostly homemade rockets fired from the Gaza Strip, while more than 6,000 Palestinians were killed by Israel with some of the most advanced US-supplied armaments in the world.

The issue is of course not just the vast disparity in weapons and power, but that one side is the occupier, the other the occupied.

It amazes me the ignorance of Israel (or the super power).

If you oppress a people long enough, they will turn to whatever hope they feel exists.

This has become so common in today’s world.

You push a group of people into a desperate situation and they will turn to whatever organization they feel will support they’re needs, terrorist or otherwise.

It is time for Israel to stop suppressing the Palestinians.

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