Another Homicide Bombing

[Guest DrTom]

From an MSNBC.com story.  How much longer will Israel allow this to happen before they finally wise up and just eradicate the Palestinians?  Their patience is admirable, but it's costing them more innocent lives every week.

 

On a peripheral note, it's good to hear someone call Ted Turner's unwanted, bleeding-heart, moral relativist remarks "stupid."  Fuck you, Ted.

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Bomber blasts Jerusalem bus

 

 

MSNBC STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

 

     JERUSALEM, June 18 —   A suicide bomber detonated an explosive device packed with nails and metal shards on a crowded city bus in Jerusalem during morning rush hour Tuesday, killing 19 passengers and wounding dozens more. Visiting the scene of the carnage, which reportedly included students on their way to school, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon blamed the city’s worst suicide attack in six years on “Palestinian terror.” The Palestinian Authority also condemned the attack.    

 

       THE BLAST shattered the bus just before 8 a.m. local time (1 a.m. ET), peeling off its roof and sides as it waited at a traffic light near a busy intersection in southern Jerusalem. Jerusalem police spokesman Koby Zrihen and Israeli radio said 20 people had died, including the bomber in the first suicide bombing in Jerusalem since April 12.

      It was not clear whether the attack would delay plans by President Bush to issue a major Mideast policy statement, which had been expected by Wednesday. Bush condemned the attack “in the strongest possible terms,” said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.

      “There was a huge explosion, smoke and pieces of the bus and body parts were flying everywhere. It was horrible,” a witness told Israel Army Radio, giving only his first name, David.

      Israel blamed Yasser Arafat, saying his Palestinian Authority has encouraged terror attacks. Sharon made an unusual visit to the scene about two hours after the attack.

      “The terrible sights we have seen here are stronger than any words,” Sharon said as he walked past a row of bodies. “It is interesting to know what kind of Palestinian state they mean. What Palestinian state?”

      Later, the militant Islamic Hamas group claimed responsibility for the bombing. The bomber’s father, Hazaa al-Ghoul, told Reuters he received a telephone call from a Hamas official to inform him that his son, Mohammed al-Ghoul, carried out the attack.

     

        About a dozen bodies lay near the shattered bus, covered in plastic sheeting that blew up occasionally with the wind. One woman screamed at volunteers collecting remains, “Where is my sister? Where is my sister?”

      Ruth Elmaliach, a high school teacher, was sitting in traffic at the time of the blast. “I’m sure our students were on the bus,” she told Israel Radio. “Now we’re checking to see if all the students have arrived, but I’m afraid some of them have not.”

      MSNBC’s Bob Arnot reported from Jerusalem that hospitals treating the wounded were finding ball bearings — used to make the bomb more damaging — imbedded in the bodies of the blast victims.  

 

      The Palestinian Authority denied Israeli accusations that it was to blame.

      “We condemn all attacks against civilians, whether Palestinians or Israelis,” said Ahmed Abdel-Rahman, a senior aide to Arafat. “But at the same time, the Israeli government’s accusations against the Palestinian Authority about responsibility for the attack are rejected.”

     

ISRAEL VOWS FIGHT

      Sharon vowed that Israel would not give up its fight.

      “This terrible thing that we see is a continuation of Palestinian terrorism, and against that terrorism we have to fight and struggle — and that is what we will do,” Sharon said.

      Palestinian extremists have carried out about 70 suicide bomb attacks in the past 21 months of Israeli-Palestinian fighting. Israel often responds to such attacks with military strikes on Palestinian territory, sometimes targeting security installations or suspected militant hideouts. Overall, more than 1,700 Palestinians and more than 500 Israelis have been killed since September 2000.

      It was not clear what Israel’s response would be to the latest bombing.

      Jerusalem police had been on high alert since Monday after receiving warnings that a suicide bomber was trying to carry out an attack in Jerusalem. Acting on specific intelligence information, police set up checkpoints throughout the city.  

 

         Over the weekend, Sharon gave the go ahead to extend along the length of the West Bank a controversial electronic fence to keep suicide bombers out. A majority of suicide bombers entering into Israel cross from the West Bank. The Gaza Strip is entirely fenced in.

      Israeli settlers in the West Bank and their supporters in the right-wing parties in Sharon’s coalition maintain the fence is a prelude to an Israeli withdrawal to the Green Line. Palestinians fear the fence only further carves up West Bank land they hope one day will make up their state.

 

 

PALESTINIAN PEACE PLAN

      The latest violence comes as Palestinians try to muster U.S. goodwill with a proposed outline for a state living in peace with Israel.

      The Palestinian peace proposal, obtained Monday by The Associated Press, appears to soften the Palestinian demand that all 1949 war refugees and their descendants have the right to return to Israel, and for the first time proposes Israeli sovereignty over part of Jerusalem’s Old City.

      The outline was delivered to Secretary of State Colin Powell in Washington last week by Palestinian Cabinet Minister Nabil Shaath, Palestinian officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.  

 

       Israeli reaction to the plan was muted. Sharon maintains that a final peace deal is far off and rejects key Palestinian demands, such as a renewed division of Jerusalem and a dismantling of Jewish settlements.

      Israeli government spokesman Dore Gold said it was premature to discuss ideas for peace talks.

      “Right now, the only realistic way we’ll be able to proceed is once violence is vanquished,” he said.

     

IN OTHER DEVELOPMENTS

Israeli forces killed a senior Palestinian Islamic militant wanted for the killing of two international monitors in the West Bank in March, Israeli security sources said Tuesday. It was the second killing of a prominent Palestinian militant in the West Bank in as many days and occurred hours after the suicide bombing in Jerusalem. Israeli security sources identified the militant killed as Muhmad Basharat of Islamic Jihad, one of the main groups behind a wave of suicide bombings against Israel.

 

Israeli government spokesman Daniel Seaman described as “stupid” remarks by CNN founder Ted Turner to a British newspaper in which he said Israel was engaged in terrorism against the Palestinians that could be compared to the suicide bomber attacks on Israelis. “Right now, aren’t the Israelis and the Palestinians both terrorizing each other?” the vice chairman of AOL Time Warner Inc. told The Guardian in an interview published on Tuesday.

 

Arafat rebuked U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice for saying his Palestinian Authority is corrupt and “cavorts with terror.” Arafat said on Monday: “She does not have the right to put or impose orders on us about what to do or not to do.”

[Guest]

Why doesn't the war on terror focus on Hamas and Hezbollah? And why isn't Arafat on the most wanted terrorists list? Israel should have imprisoned him when they had him in the corner. Tom, I know we have disagreed before, but as far as Israel and the rogue Palestinians are concerned, I agree with you 110% Arafat's apathy is costing Jews and Palenstinians  lives everyday. One day you have a suicide bomber, innocent civilians are killed. Israel retaliates (rightfully so) and not only avenges the attack with terrorist casualties, but also collateral damage, which is to be expected in war, and that's what this is.

[Guest DrTom]

"Israel should have imprisoned him when they had him in the corner."

 

No, they should have killed him and his slimy "lieutenants" when they had Arafat's HQ surrounded for several days.  All someone had to do was stick some nice C-4 on the side of the building, rig up a detonator, and walk down the street.  While some Palestinians would make a martyr out of the worthless Arafat, I think his death would go a long way toward easing tensions and getting that mess resolved.

 

THe proposal I laid out in an earlier thread about the issue was this: Israel should give the Palestinians two weeks to evacuate.  Kick them out and tell them to go to a country that actually wants them.  After those two weeks, any Palestinians who remain will be shot in the head.  No questions, no exceptions.  It's an extreme measure, but Palestine has proven itself to be nothing but a collection of terrorists and people who harbor them.  The world would be no poorer for their absence.

[Guest Vyce]

There were children on the bus.  School students.

 

And yet, when Israel retaliates - and I hope they do - THEY will be called the bad guys.  The aggressors.

 

FUCK the rest of the world.  Israel should wipe out all of Palestine, UTTERLY, and then worry about the reactions after the fact.  Enough of the nonsense.

[Guest HBK16]

I now this is a serious matter and I do take it seriously and what I am about to say might anger some but by any chance did anybody catch that police dog taking a piss on a piece of the bus?

[Guest big Dante Cruz]

Does it surprise anyone else that the most read newspaper in Great Britian is a tabloid? Friend of mine in Wales told me that the media is basically garbage anyway...

[Guest MR. COOLING]

<Israeli government spokesman Daniel Seaman described as “stupid” remarks by CNN founder Ted Turner to a British newspaper in which he said Israel was engaged in terrorism against the Palestinians that could be compared to the suicide bomber attacks on Israelis. “Right now, aren’t the Israelis and the Palestinians both terrorizing each other?” the vice chairman of AOL Time Warner Inc. told The Guardian in an interview published on Tuesday. >

 

 

Israel's bang on about that. Now I know it might seem a verve a bit to the Palenstinain cause (which is more or less true) but the idea you can compare Israel's retaliation to the Palestinain sucide bombers is absurd, naive and stupid (basically its leftist). First off it shoud be noted that whatever the Palenstinians think about Israel (and that's debatable) the likes of Hamas and Islamic Jihad are on the far right of that opinion, they are rejectionists (as said by the ultra liberal BBC) who want Israel destored and every Jew out of the "Holy Land".

 

Also with the Sucide Bombers it should be noted that these are not just bombs but bombs with nails added in just to make sure. Also it should be noted why they use sucide as a tactic. Now had pondered this for a while and thought it was too with the whole martyr complex Muslims have but Micheal Gove on Straight Talk put it brilliantly, he basically said that the sucide bombers use their sucide to put the attention onto their suffering, not the suffering of their victims but their death to hide the fact that they are deliberatly aiming to kill.

 

Problem is that this insight is going completely againist British and European public opinion that can be summed up by Cherie Blair's remarks that "as long as young people have no hope but to blow themselves up then they'll always be a problem" (now I should add that far from the spin put on it by Blair, 10 Downing Street actually defended it as a "statement of the obivous"), basically they see the sucide bombers through the prisim of western attitudes to sucide which again as Janet Dailly pointed out on Dateline London is false as sucide to the bombers isn't hopless but a joyous thing as it will herald them into heaven and help them achieve poltical objectives and also the wider Palenstinan cause.

 

Basically this is just rambling to get to the wider point, the fact is I haven't a clue how we can do anyting about the whole Israel/Palenstian situation. I disagree with the likes of Dr Tom about forced repartitation as I'm not convinced that Israel could pull it off without provoking a blood bath (which they know as well as can be seen by them pretty much leaving Gaza alone). Personally I'm alienated by both sides espeacilly the Palestinains. Not due to the sucide bombers as I had no illusions about them anyway but the wider Palenstian movement. Watching Dateline London an Arab commentator which a had hitherto respected let it slip when he insisted on the right of return and attacked Israel as a Jewish state and defended Saudi/Iraqi payments to the families of Sucide Bombers.

 

Damn! I don't know what can be done save an all out war or giving in to the terrorists. Like a believe in Israel in its 1948 borders and I believe in a Palenstian state but goddamit I don't see the Palenstiains making it easy nor Israel for that matter.

 

Personally I've got to the point where I feel we should just say fuck 'em let Israel and Palenstians do their worst to each other until either side are ready to comprimise but there are going to be alot of innocents dead on BOTH sides.

 

Also America could help force this issue by finally dealing with Saudi Arabia which is a scare on the Middle East and is at the root of almost all Islamist thinking and terrorism (far more than Iran or Iraq).

 

William

[Guest MR. COOLING]

<Does it surprise anyone else that the most read newspaper in Great Britian is a tabloid? Friend of mine in Wales told me that the media is basically garbage anyway... >

 

I think you've got to be careful there. Now I'm assuming you come from America and so are comparing British Tabloids to American ones that is wrong. Our tabloids just refer to the size of the paper (their are tabloids and broadsheets) but within the tabloid section there are big varities. The Sun is the biggest selling paper and yeah thats pretty much garbage but it does have some talented people writing for it like Trevor Kravangh. This is repeated in other "red tops" like the Mirror and increasingly the Express which have lots on showbiz and football but a fair amount on politics and current affairs (espeacially the Mirror which is going serious).

 

However the Daily Mail is the second biggest paper (and rising) and is a quality paper with serious journalists like Mealine Phillips and Anderw Alexander. And of course there are our broadsheets like the Times and Guardian which are all very good.

 

Personally I think your friend is probably either a left wing moaning about the "tory bias" in our press or a welsh nationalist moaning about the London-centric nature of our press. Either why he's wrong, we've got a good press and a very popular press.

 

William