From behind the bar at "Cheers"...

[Guest TJH]

Listen up:

 

Saddam Hussein makes food, medical supplies, etc. freely available to those in central Iraq, namely Sunni Muslims (the name of the clan escapes me). He denies this aid to the rest of Iraq, as they hate him, and he uses his military to crush any dissent. It is his choice whether such supplies get through, and more often than not, he says NO.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

Which is wrong. A leader shouldn't have the right to let his people starve.

[Zorin Industries 0]

Israel is a transparent, virtuous, and just democracy.

Whose Prime Minister was convicted of War crimes by an Israeli court.

 

It somewhat muddies the water of trying to support them (which I do)

[Guest Cancer Marney]

Israel is a transparent, virtuous, and just democracy.

Whose Prime Minister was convicted of War crimes by an Israeli court.

Which demonstrates absolutely her transparency, virtue, and justice. You think a Saudi Arabian or Iraqi court would ever convict "Prince" Abdullah or Saddam Hussein?

[Zorin Industries 0]

So its all right for a country to allow a man like this to be elected, even though he is directly responsiable for civillian deaths in a Lebanese refugee camp? Innocent men, woman and children died because of this man, the Infitada, at least in its current form is partly his responsablility as well.

 

Tell me if the Serbs wanted to re-elect Miliosovic would you be praising there Democracy?

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

He was elected even after all this was brought to light?

[Zorin Industries 0]

The massacre was in 1982 I believe and he was charged soon after. So yes, his record was there to see.

 

Though I don't really blame the Israeli's as they wanted peace, and thought the old war horse would bring it, big mistake.

[Guest Cancer Marney]

Y'know, if you ever bothered to have some facts behind your inane accusations, you'd have more credibility here. Ariel Sharon has NEVER been accused of being directly responsible for civilian deaths. He was found negligent, and when Time Magazine repeated the same crap you're spewing here, General Sharon sued them for libel in a federal district court in New York. Time was found guilty of careless and negligent reporting, just as you are guilty of at best uninformed and at worst malicious dissemination of invented facts and anti-Semitic propaganda.

 

The intifada is the direct responsibility of the "Palestinians" and those who use them for their own ends. I love the way you utterly dehumanise the "Palestinians" by reducing them to mindless reactive drones on the one hand, so that everything they do is someone else's fault, and then claim you're supporting them on the other. But then that's what Europeans and Arabs have been doing for decades now; why should I be surprised?

[Guest Cancer Marney]

He was elected even after all this was brought to light?

Please remember that Zorin is a liberal with a consistent and documented history of bias against Israel. Do your own research before taking his accusations at face value.

 

General Ariel Sharon is NOT a "war criminal," and he has never been called that save by the same anti-Semitic filth who want to destroy the state of Israel.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

I didn't take it at face value, that's why I asked the question.

[Guest Cancer Marney]

Tell me if the Serbs wanted to re-elect Miliosovic would you be praising there Democracy?

This is precisely the kind of stupid non sequitur that makes me inclined to dismiss, prima facie, anything you say. It has absolutely no relevance because

 

1) Ariel Sharon is not Slobodan Milosevic.

 

a) The crimes of which they were accused are not even remotely comparable. A few hundred people dead in two isolated and uncharacteristic incidents versus tens of thousands tortured and killed in institutionalised death camps? Please don't make me laugh.

 

b) The level of personal complicity in each case is orders of magnitude apart. Accidental negligence in preventing atrocity is NOT the same as giving an order to commit atrocity.

 

2) My point was that Ariel Sharon was censured by the Israelis themselves: the Kahane Commission was a government inquiry.

 

a) This PROVES that the Israelis regulate themselves conscientiously through the same system of checks and balances and transparency that we have in the United States.

 

b) Not ONE Arab country can claim the same distinction. Israel is utterly unique in the region.

 

i) The previous king of Jordan, Hussein, butchered over ten thousand "Palestinians" in the space of a fortnight; ever heard of Black September? He's remembered now as a "man of peace." Why didn't you ever call for his head? He was a genuine war criminal.

 

ii) Why wasn't King Hussein tried and convicted? Oh, that's right, because Jordan isn't transparent, virtuous, or just. Jordan isn't Israel.

 

Your arguments are based not on facts but on your evident hatred for Israel and her people. Your analogies are despicable, wildly inaccurate, and slanderous. You're using the "Palestinians" as tools of dishonest rhetoric just as the Europeans and the Arabs use them as tools of dishonest war. And you are all beneath contempt.

[Zorin Industries 0]

Your arguments are based not on facts but on your evident hatred for Israel and her people. Your analogies are despicable, wildly inaccurate, and slanderous. You're using the "Palestinians" as tools of dishonest rhetoric just as the Europeans and the Arabs use them as tools of dishonest war. And you are all beneath contempt.

I do not hate Israel and never have. I do not hate the Plaestinians and never have. I hate those on BOTH sides who prolong this destructive war, I include Sharon (the man dosen't deserve the title General) and Arafat on this list, along with the terrorists on both sides.

 

Both the peoples of Israel are deserving of life and peace, it is a shame their leaders are not strong enough to deliver.

 

P.S: I thought that the Israeli court found him guilty of more than just negligence, or at least negligence with a suspect amount of evidence pointing to responsability.

[Guest Cancer Marney]

Again, do some goddamn research. What you "thought" is wrong.

[Zorin Industries 0]

O.K, while my main point APPEARS to be wrong (i'm still not convinced, i'm sure I read reports that he was found guilty of more than negligence) it still stands that the man has a very questionable record, and since coming to power has not helped the situation one bit.

 

Oh, and when I said he was PARTLY responsable maybe I should have made clear that the Palestinines also have themselves to blame for the Infitada

[Zorin Industries 0]

Did he not also shell civillian targets during one of the Arab/Israeli wars, which there were questions over, but charges were never brought.

[Guest Cancer Marney]

From the final report of the Kahane Commission:

 

"It is our view that responsibility is to be imputed to the Minister of Defense for having disregarded the danger of acts of vengeance and bloodshed by the Phalangists against the population of the refugee camps, and having failed to take this danger into account when he decided to have the Phalangists enter the camps. In addition, responsibility is to be imputed to the Minister of Defense for not ordering appropriate measures for preventing or reducing the danger of massacre as a condition for the Phalangists' entry into the camps. These blunders constitute the non-fulfillment of a duty with which the Defense Minister was charged.

We do not believe that responsibility is to be imputed to the Defense Minister for not ordering the removal of the Phalangists from the camps when the first reports reached him about the acts of killing being committed there. As was detailed above, such reports initially reached the Defense Minister on Friday evening; but at the same time, he had heard from the Chief of Staff that the Phalangists' operation had been halted, that they had been ordered to leave the camps and that their departure would be effected by 5:00 a.m. Saturday. These preventive steps might well have seemed sufficient to the Defense Minister at that time, and it was not his duty to order additional steps to be taken, or to have the departure time moved up, a step which was of doubtful feasibility."

 

Again: Major-General Sharon is NOT a war criminal, nor is he incompetent. His record isn't "questionable" in any sense. He fought honourably on the front lines starting at fourteen years of age, he commanded the armoured divisions which won the Yom Kippur War, and he has served his country in innumerable ministries ever since. Your petty, small-minded, carping attacks on him are ridiculous. "Since coming to power?" When would that have been, the early '70s? He's been a driving force in Israeli politics since even before the Likud party was founded. It's only the ignorant and the bigoted who claim that he's just started to have an influence now, and therefore the PLO situation has become worse. Your "main point" was always nonsense from beginning to end, as were the rest of your indefensible assertions. Responsible for the intifada? As opposed to, say, Yasser Arafat, who fosters, feeds, rewards, prunes, and maintains it? - as opposed to the cynical Arab regimes who invented the "Palestinians" in the first place? - as opposed to the Moslem preachers who shriek their venomous screed of lies and hatred from the rooftops?

 

Please cut the fucking bullshit, okay?

[Guest Cancer Marney]

Did he not also shell civillian targets during one of the Arab/Israeli wars, which there were questions over, but charges were never brought.

Look you ignorant little peasant. Don't make unfounded accusations without citing so much as one credible source, or even giving time and place, and then waiting for other people to dispel your foolish misconceptions point by point. If you're talking about Qibya, you are wrong. General Sharon's forces rescued Arab civilians in that operation - they were hiding in the apparently deserted houses which had been targeted after the murder of 450 Israeli civilians. The IDF didn't know they were there because the "civilians" succeeded in deceiving them. When civilians were found, they were rescued and given medical care. As Arabs still are today even as they shout "Death to the Jews."

I don't have the time or the inclination to refute every single lie that's been pumped into your head over the years. Either offer me a salary and pay for your tuition or do your own research and conduct a real debate instead of just throwing out any old vague bullshit which you think might support your idiotic theories. "Oh, my mother's friend's uncle's sister told me..." argh! Knock it off! Quote a real source. I don't care what you "thought." I don't care what you "feel." I don't care what you "believe." Offer facts to back up your thoughts, feelings, and beliefs.

[Guest EricMM]

All I'm saying is this.

 

Remember the brief interlude this summer? The Israelis lowered some restrictions, marginalized some of the policing, and what happened? Two more bombings in two days.

 

The Israelis are never going to look like saints, the whole area is too dirty. But from where I sit, they look much more right than some suicide bombers. Non-violent protests would be much better than the shit the palestinans are pulling now. They're never going to accomplish anything, they don't have the means. All they have is the evil, and that just makes them look bad. They answered freedom with bombs. Wrong answer, dumbass.

 

*EDIT* Squelched some confusing pronouns *EDIT*