Robert DG Smith
:Google Is the Last Company I'd Begrudge for Avoiding Taxes
Emma Seery
:The Truth About British Treasure Islands
Harry Cooper
:A Referendum on Europe Tomorrow Would Not Stop Ukip
Alice Farmer
:A Real-Life 'Hunger Games'
Ed Miliband
:A Distant and Distracted Cameron Cannot Tackle Tax Avoidance
In my opinion, Israel is a rogue state which commits war crimes. It is an aggressor state that has invaded Lebanon several times and holds a chunk of Syria illegally, but despite being the fourth most-heavily-armed country in the world has not won a war outright for 45 years, since 1967.
Its current lethal assault on Gaza, with under-reported violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank as well, is the latest in a series of such criminal assaults. Like its predecessors this is killing many innocent children, woman and men and causing horrendous damage as well. Like its predecessors it will fail.
Israel is a democracy, undeniably. But a democracy that commits war crimes is still a war criminal. It has an exceptionally right wing government, with an overtly racist foreign minister. That government has taken office on the basis of an election. This means that the Israeli electorate is complicit in its government's war crimes.
The casus belli for the latest Israeli assault is the rockets, primitive and ill-targeted though they are, that are being targeted by Hamas on southern and central Israel. Hamas is an odious organisation, whose practices I do not condone, as I pointed out to its prime minister when I led an international delegation of 60 parliamentarians from 13 European countries to Gaza the year before last. Its government is, however, a legal entity elected in a legitimate election, as certified by international observers: an election far more legitimate than that which brought George W Bush to the White House in 2000.
It is the refusal of the international community to have dealings with the Hamas government which has been a factor in the aggressive acts committed by Hamas. Those aggressive acts are a small proportion of aggressive acts carried out by the Israeli government. Both the international community and the Israeli government ignore the maxim uttered by the former Israeli foreign minister, Abba Eban, who said: "You make peace by talking to your enemy." That is a maxim, observed by both Conservative and Labour governments in Britain, which brought peace to Northern Ireland after decades of terrorism and counter-terrorism.
No country in the world could get away so easily with slaughter, destruction and repression as the Israeli government has committed and is committing in Gaza and the West Bank: the blockade of Gaza, the hundreds of checkpoints in the West Bank, the illegal wall built within Palestinian territory on the West Bank, the illegal Jewish settlements - inhabited by half a million - which are entangled almost inextricably on the West Bank, the driving of Palestinians out of Jerusalem so that their population in that city has been amputated exponentially. The world does nothing about these crimes, daunted by the cynical Israeli exploitation of continuing guilt about the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust.
The Israeli government believes that it can continue to get away with its crimes. It very well may, for a period. But the example of South Africa, an apartheid state which thought that it could, permanently, get away with murder, shows that there is never any such thing as a status quo. As the Greeks said in ancient times: 'Panta rhei' - 'Everything flows.' The craven sanctimony of Barack Obama and the European Union will not sustain Israeli policy forever. The sad fact is that, when the reckoning comes, the two-state solution, recited as a rote by Western foreign ministries, will no longer be an option. What Israel has sowed and is sowing, it will reap.
Israeli–Palestinian conflict - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gaza War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gaza Israel conflict: November 15 as it happened - Telegraph
Gaza Strip - paul krugman - The New York Times
Where is US public opinion on Israel, Palestine and the Gaza conflict?
US Politicians who hold dual Israeli/American citizenship, who lead us to war.
and
US Politicians tied to Goldman Sachs, who run the country
The palastinian Christains and Muslins desperately need help. They are not the screaming foaming at the mouth hamas types picked out by the telly but very ordinary people being slowly crushed by a power that seems to deny basic humanity to anyone not jewish
The same Israel that on the very first day of its re establishment in 1948 a coalition of Arab neighbours Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria & Iraqu told all the Arabs living in Israel to leave, as they the Arabs were going to wipe Isreal from the face of the earth as a dish cloth wipes a dish clean. And once they had dealt with them they would be able to move back into Israel.
Then most of the Arab nations expelled the Jews living in their countries,these displace Jews were assimulated by Israel. But the Arabs that the Arabs told to leave were not assimulated by Arab conutries why not?
What do you think of the apartheid state of Saudi Arabia which bans all religions other than Islam?
What do you think of the apartheid state of Turkey which is occupying Northern Cyprus and refuses to admit to its ethnic cleansing and genocide against Greeks and Armenians?
What do you think of the apartheid state of Sudan which has committed multiple genocides against its indigenous African communities?
I agree that Israel is dominated by right wing / extremist groups and something has to be done about this.....through the ballot box!!! Israel has the right to defend itself and use overwhelming force if need be. They are not playing cricket....this is war with Iran by proxy. Should Israel let itself be attacked? "Sir" Gerald Kaufman is utterly deluded in my view.
Israel is fighting for its survival.
Who occupied or who were occupied, this is just a point of view. Well here's my point of view about different but similar issue:
My country, Turkey, is being and unfortunately will be occupied by arabian-islamist terrorist population and doctrines(i.e brainwashing) which steal this country's efforts and money which should be directed toward TURKish prosperity instead of choosing a side in a war that is not our business and that brings nothing but poisoning Turkish people's minds with middle-east-origin lies and taking billions of dollars away.
So what do you say about that Sir Gerald?
Yes, Sir Gerald, it is your OPINION. That does not make it a fact.
QUOTE: “It is an aggressor state that has invaded Lebanon several times
Just like that. No just cause? No reaction to terrorist and rocket attacks? You may disagree with the decisions taken – like many Israelis – but denial of real concerns about the physical safety of Israeli citizens, threatened daily, as they were by groups found in Lebanon, is misrepresentation. These wars were quite clearly reactive.
Has the UK never fought a reactive War? The Falklands, Iraq, Afghanistan? Does that make the UK, in whose House of Commons you sit, an aggressor state?
QUOTE: “and holds a chunk of Syria illegally”
Chunk of Syria – the Golan - military strategic heights. But there are also movements within Israel who would happily return these to Syria. Why has this not happened? Apart from the obvious political differences within Israeli society that need to be reconciled – to whom should they be returned? Syria does not recognise the State of Israel. How do you negotiate with someone who denies your existence? Or, in other words, how does Sir Alex transfer Rooney to a team who won’t even visit Old Trafford?
QUOTE: “but despite being the fourth most-heavily-armed country in the world has not won a war outright for 45 years, since 1967.”
If they HAD won? Sounds like hypocrisy to me.
An analysis of the creation of any post WW1 state is full of intrigue and errors.
It is not the nature of the creation of the State of Israel, I take up with Kaufmann, but rather his inflammatory use of language in describing conclusions he makes on the basis of selective (or no-existent) factual knowledge,
I disagree with many actions instigated by the Government of the State of Israel, however they do not make me go public and have printed such accusations as "War Crimes".
Not unless, as a public figure and Member of Parliament, I had been consistent in my application of this term when considering actions by the armed forces of the UK in the Falklands (esp. sinking of ARA General Belgrano), Iraq (actions of special Forces), Afghanistan and Pakistan (use of drones), the rendition of accused terrorists to the USA or the torture of the Mau Mau in Kenya.
All of which have taken place within Israel's short fight for survival.
And non of which has had any direct consequence for, or was the result of any direct threat to, the citizens of the UK and took place thousands of miles from any UK border.
see. it all began with a british two-faced scam coz they wanted to ensure their shipping.
where r those HP censors when it comes to plain everyday editting?
Come on Israel, if you're going to 'astroturf' you're gonna have to do a lot better than this.
only difference is some of us knows wot we'z talkin about.
Why don't you take an interest in all of the Arab and Islamic states which are apartheid states.
As a neutral, I have nothing to fear from Israel. As a neutral, I have much to fear from Islamic extremists.
Seems to be the norm on this subject.
QUOTE: “The British suggested a partition based on populations…”
The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was a plan for the future government of Palestine.
The Plan was described as a Plan of Partition with Economic Union which, after the termination of the British Mandate, would lead to the creation of independent Arab and Jewish States and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem.
On 29 November 1947, the General Assembly adopted a resolution recommending the adoption and implementation of the Plan as Resolution 181.
anyhowz, to get the story straighter: moslem palestinian arabs - a turkish import of railway construction workers, coz the local orthodox jews were too lazy to work and the bedouins stole raw materials. there were some christian villages, mainly upkeeping 'holy' sites, but these have over the years been annihilated by their precious moslem neighbors - especially in the palestinian authority and by jordan pre 67. .