Israel's PM Netanyahu defends action against flotilla

Comments

[plod]

Good for him, some of our more lily livered politicians should take note!

[Ash]

Rubbish, he is a war criminal! Britain and the US should be pushing for sanctions against the practices of Israel.

[Victor M]

Absolutely so plod. Neatly summed up...how many are dead/severely injured from Afghanistan now due to our pathetic lily livered response?
BTW: Whatever happened to North Korea sinking a S. Korean ship killing 46 people viz á viz the Useless Nations? I am sure anything Israel does against "peace activists" (my ar*e) will take precedence.

[Simon]

Very funny ! are you a professional comedian Ash ?

[Victor M]

[email protected]. Professional anti-Semites will always be with us I'm sorry to say.

[Super Blue]

Quite, Victor.

[Elizabeth]

Benjamin Netanyahu’s father was born with the surname Milkwosky in Lithuania.
I just wonder how you can all justify this non semite running a country which is clearly not his own and which it can be argued was taken illegally from the original Semite population.
What we see in Gaza and the West bank is not terrorism it is rebellion against the forciful occupation of part of their nation.
I would hope that we in England would equally rebel against a group of ethnically different peoples - in Palestine's case Khazar Jews - occupying the South East and running things.
Israel is the greatest anti Semitic act in history.
Add to that the occupiers would be destroying our orchards and farms and gradually moving their occupation into the S W and the midlands.
Or are you really a pack of bigots and racists (and that is not a word I use lightly) who feel that we wouldn't have to tolerate it but that the Palestinians can suffer brutal suppression and occupation IN THEIR OWN STATE.
I have real worries about militant islam but murdering muslims, whether it be in Iraq, Afghanistan or Palestine only makes the problem worse and radicalises yet more.
We need a bit of justice and common sense not brainless zionist propaganda and blind loyalty to a zionist state that has lost its sanity and all semblance of acceptable conduct with its policy of mass murder, repression, occupation and invasion.

[Denis Cooper]

Well, I would agree with some of the substance of what Elizabeth has said, while noting that this kind of local territorial dispute can endure for centuries and people in other countries should be extremely cautious about irrevocably committing themselves to one side or the other.

Regarding the question of how the native people would react to an invasion of England our knowledge of the past offers a wide variety of possible answers, ranging across alternatives such as a largely peaceful acceptance of the new population, or violent resistance and slaughter of the invaders and expulsion of the survivors, or an acceptance of defeat in battle followed by a gradual merging of the previously established population with the immigrant population. But the last alternative would have been largely closed off if there were strong barriers to inter-marriage, which is always the most effective route for the integration of separate populations occupying the same or overlapping or adjacent but contested territories.

However having started from a position of neutrality I now lean towards the Israelis on this occasion, because of their antagonists' (hypocritical) attempts to invoke "international law" to deprive Israel of its inherent right of self-defence.

If "international law" meant that the state of Israel could not take necessary action to protect its citizens, then it would also mean that the British state could not take necessary action to protect its citizens, including myself and my family, and of course I will never, ever, agree to that becoming an accepted legal norm.

[Elizabeth]

Well Denis
You can rule out marriage.
Israel is an apartheid state where intermarriage - that is jew with non jew is forbidden.
Can you imagine the hypocrisy this brings to mind.
The outrage that would be expressed by such a rule anywhere else on the planet.
We also have the hypocrisy that it has been shown that the jewish lobby has been particularly active in western countries in forwarding immigration, multiculturalism and mixed marriage.
So one rule for Israel and pressure to be certain such a rule does not exist elsewhere.
So you think a merging of the two peoples.
C'mon. Been following what is happening in Israel.
The Berlin type wall to make sure the Semite Palestinians are kept out of the non semite areas.
Have you watched the video of the murder of Rachel Corrie as she faced the bulldozers that were demolishing Semite/Palestinian homes so that non semite settlers could take the land.
There is no intent to merge communities by the zionists in Palestine.
They have their foothold and they are expanding out, illegally settling now on the Golan heights (Syria) and East Jerusalem (semite/Palestinian).
So you lean to towards Israel because their opposition are invoking 'international law'.
Sorry but that is a ludicrous position.
Any people being persecuted, murdered, dispossessed and starved surely have the right to invoke international law. Isn't that the point of it.
As for Israel's security - moving back to its original borders and giving up illegally occupied areas of Palestine, Lebanon and Syria would be a start.
Strange isn't it. Serbia never had the right of self defence against international terror and got bombed back to the stone age for its trouble.
Clearly some states have more rights than others.
Why a pack of eastern and north eastern European Jewish religion by adoption Caucasian Khazars should have the right to take over part of Palestine and then commit mass murder and expansionism destabilising not just the whole middle east but the whole planet - defeats me.

[Denis Cooper]

Elizabeth, you can fulminate against the Israelis as much as you like, and others can fulminate against the Palestinians and their allies as much as they like, but I'm not going to take the part of one side or the other in their ongoing local territorial dispute. I will however take the part of my own country and people by rejecting any attempt to use "international law" to deprive states of their inherent right of self-defence, wherever that attempt may originate.

[Elizabeth]

Dennis

Wash your hands.
Sort of like Pontius Pilate.
Well done.
Lets forget the evil - just take the easy way and blame the victims for resistance.

[Victor M]

Oh dear oh dear Elizabeth. You have so many facts wrong that with people like like around I fear for the future of my grandchildren. Your bilge/propaganda gleaned no doubt from anti-Semitic web sites is not even worth answering - life is too short.
Suffice it to say that the Arabs/Muslims in Israel enjoy far more freedom than in Arabia to name but a few. Are you really a WOMAN you should think harder before you write this claptrap.
Try (say) 2 weeks holiday in Israel and write us again when you get back luvvie.

[Elizabeth]

Really Victor

So many mistakes?.
Then please clarify and show them to me with corrections.
What are the mistakes?
I wait with interest some hard facts not just generalised and rather cheap smeers.

[Denis Cooper]

Elizabeth, this dispute has been running more or less for the whole of my life, and I don't really expect to live long enough to see it resolved. Maybe you won't live long enough to see that, either. Having heard arguments from each side about the unspeakable evil of the other side, decade after decade, and having seen both sides committing unspeakable evil, I'm certainly not going to align myself with either even if I was ever tempted to do so in the past. On this occasion I lean towards the Israeli position for the sole reason that I've stated, that I can't accept an argument which carried to its logical conclusion would deprive my own country of its inherent right of self-defence. That's all.

[john parkes]

The British government had a key role in the establishment of Israel and the Balfour Declaration was evidence of our intention to see the setting up of a Jewish Homeland, using biblical precedent to settle on the area in which this would be located. An alternative site was proposed in Montana, I think, or anyway a US State that was barely populated at the time. However the Zionist lobby would settle for nothing less than what they saw as their traditional national home.
The majority of Zionist immigrants came from countries where they had suffered persecution and I believe they decided that once they had settled in Israel, nothing would dislodge them. I also believe that in setting up there, many people from non-Jewish groups were evicted in what are now seen as unfair circumstsnces. To categorise them as "the Palestinians" and try to say that they too are a nation dispossessed is far from true. I think they were family, even perhaps small tribal groups who were evicted but who in due course have built up a case for being seen as a "nation"; which has only become accepted as they have decided to fight to re-possess what has now become Israel.
This dispute has also become a handy weapon for any anti-Israel group of Arabs or other non-Jewish group in the region. This cause has also been taken up by certain neighbouring countries to further their own ambitions in the area. However they find that in setting up against Israel they now face a clever, resourceful and determined opposition. The result is impasse as both sides now have too much to lose by giving way.
I believe we have now reached the stage where Israel will stand or fall only by force of arms and if it looks like going down, it won`t go quietly. A nuclear war is the very possible outcome and this would be a disaster from every point of view in both a narrow regional sense as well as in the wider international context.
Somehow both sides have to decide between themselves that living in peace side by side, each accepting the existence of the other, is the only outcame that will work in the interests of all. Who will persuade them this is the answer? Certainly lobbing bricks at each other from the entrenched positions (Elizabeth!) is not the way forward.