Isreal

Sand

But what i find startlng is your apparent ignorance of the other sides suffering in all of this.

Im well aware of the Palestinian suffering. I fully believe they are entitled to justice and a fair settlement of the conflict which would include the foundation of a Palestinian state and the normalisation of relations with Israel. I have said this before.

How the above clashes with my (stongly held) belief that there is no justification whatsoever for the deliberate murder of women and children is beyond me.

Unfortunately some people seem to see only two options for the Palestinians A) Randomly murder Israeli civillians in an orgy of violence, Roll over and die. One wonders what their advice to Ghandi would have been when he went on with this crazy idea of peaceful resistance and political action.

That's so important and it's something that, like you say, Sand is conveniently overlooking.

Dada, read above. Im not overlooking the Palestinian side of the problem. Im saying that they have no exscuse to murder people because of it. Do you agree?

Sand is clearly the most vocal anti-Palestinian (or pro-Israeli, depending on how you read things) person here,

I prefer the most vocal anti - terrorist person here myself. Everyone else seems to want to get in touch with the terrorists inner child and make exscuses for them.

In general, the pro-Israeli stance seems to be about "if you support Palestine, then you are a terrorist-loving JPF no matter what you say".

Given my support for a Palestinian state, what does that make me then? The one tragedy for the Palestinians that the terrorism they use completely negates any sympathy people might have for them.

Hairy Homer

Originally posted by bonkey




No. Its an interpretation of the facts. Unless Sharon was dictating policy, then you would need to prove that he was acting independantly rather than following orders before he has a history of massacre. If you cannot prove that his actions were not followign orders, then he is no different to any other soldier who follows orders.


And again, unless you can prove it was Sharon's orders, and that he was aware that the houses were populated, then he is not guilty of massacre.


Sheesh!! You really are splitting hairs here. First off, this 'I was only following other people's orders' is the Nazi defence that was rejected at Nuremberg.

Secondly, the word Massacre is defined in my dictionary (Collins English Dictionary) as 'to kill indiscriminately or in large numbers'

So you imply that my calling what happened at Kibya a massacre is contingent on the interpretation of 50 as a large number. Seems pretty obvious to me. Personally, I think trying to put a pro-Sharon spin on that would be evidence of the most apalling bias.

And Kibya is not the only black mark in Mr Sharon's book. His own people criticised him for his role in the Sabra/Chatila massacres (sorry, killings of large numbers of people) in Beirut in 1982. And going back to my first post, I was merely trying to point out that the person heading the Israeli government at this point in time has a track record that makes him a particularly unloved person among even moderate Arabs.





You call him guilty of massacre in 1957 in two seperate posts. IN each case its presented as a fact. Only then, you quietly mention that the Israelis "claim" they didnt know there were people in those buildings. So - without refuting this claim, you brand a soldier whom you havent shown to be acting independant of orders as guilty of a massacre, and would have us believe that this is a fact.

It is not a fact - it is your interpretation of questionable events.

Go look up your own dictionary for its definition(s) of massacre.