Part 6: Israeli-Palestinian conflict

[AndHarry]

Sorry, lost the end of the thread there!

Thread 5

it all sounds farcical and of course it was but for a woman traveling alone in her twenties, exhausted after a long journey and a year away from home and with literally no one to represent her or be a witness or advocate for her rights it's horrible.

if your children say they'd like to go to israel i'd recommend discouraging them. i was a reasonably seasoned traveler and used to things like checkpoints in the desert in the middle of the night with kids with guns surrounding your minivan but it was still utterly hideous.

A british/palestinian friend recounted how she and her 5 year old child were detained for 12 hours with no food or drink.. Whilst the child was told that they would give her mother an injection that would not allow her to walk again. They are both stoll traumatised. They went to the MP here who told them there was nothing he could do as she was palestinian nationality... Any other country and they could take it up.. But apparently you are not human if you from palestine. Such is the slavery entrenched in our deranged establishment.

Honeybadger.. Sorry to hear about your experience. They have this veneer of being democratic and western like.. But its very easy to see through thr facade and you realise very quickly they are a typical illeberal middle east country; not much different to the neighbouring dictatorial countries.. But even they have moral standards. Israel doesnt seem to havr any.

Thanks for the link halfdrunk. The more I am finding out about Israelis, the more shocked I am with their sleepwalking. Soon it will be them under duress too. You can see it happening already with the left wing who are already hounded by the right wing.

Israel s most definitely not a free thinking state is it. A nation that has been scared into submission and now they are meting out treatment that many of their grandparents received at the hands of Nazis. There are so many parallels.

Hamas executions are detestable. Violence begets violence. Does it have to be endless?

Interesting overview of international law here: m.hrw.org/news/2014/08/03/qa-2014-hostilities-between-israel-and-hamas. It seems that "mere membership or affiliation with Hamas, which is a political entity with an armed component, is not a sufficient basis for determining an individual to be a lawful military target. Israel's labeling of certain individuals as 'terrorists' does not make them targets as a matter of law so attacks on such persons may be deliberate attacks on civilians or indiscriminate on the grounds that there was no military target, in violation of the laws of war."

Another interesting article looks at the potential legal challenges to settlement, apartheid and resistance: electronic intifada.net/content/what-would-happen-if-palestine-joined-international-criminal-court/13783

Interesting, but in the final analysis depressing reading, given that it's all likely to be theoretical only. Can't begin to imagine the mighty lobbies/powers that will be working against any such actions actually making it into court (and feel quite sick at the idea of that ultimate injustice).

maami, thank you for sharing that story. I am really interested in hearing about these accounts. Reading about HB's and other westerners' experiences are pretty bad but the palestinian treatment is so harrowing. This is happening in this day and age. I cannot believe that a Palestinian national has no human rights!

Maami, what you said in your last post about Israel's facade, I was thinking exactly the same. The more I learn about Israel, the more I feel that those who try to defend it, they are defending the indefensible. Its like defending the white superiority over black's in apartheid South Africa - completely indefensible!

qnboudi yes, i am feeling quite pessimistic about the ICC at the moment. It makes me sick that US and UK are so complicit in denying Palestinians justice even in the ICC.

Thank you to the poster who linked to the "I Remember the Children" Facebook page. I placed some tributes, but felt stupidly nervous doing so (there were many people passing).

Yruapita: it is indefensible fir someone with some moral backbone.. But this is a very deliberate and decades of sustained effort by the israelis and their staunch allies in the West.

Think about it.. How else does the

yes my experiences are clearly nothing compared to how palestinians are treated i suppose my point is having seen how they treated me for being associated with arabs in their minds (re: spending lots of time in egypt and working there and not wanting an israeli stamp in case i wanted to go to petra one day) i can well believe how hideous the treatment of and contempt for arabs is and how sanctioned it is by the authorities and how 'nowhere to go' for a higher authority to help it is for them. even being associated with arabs singled me out for hours and hours of humiliation and contempt that was essentially like a punishment rather than having any purpose and there was no 'can i talk to your manager' approach available.

when i read the claims that arabs in israel are treated as equal citizens i know it to be a complete lie even without watching all of the videos on evictions and reading all the facts and accounts.

Sorry..got cut off. I was going to say;

How does one of the most powerful military in the world subjugate and isolate a whole population; and still turn everything on its head and claim to be the victim?

How can they claim that they will be wiped off the map when they have effectively wiped palestine off the map?

.how can they will be pushed into the sea by a tiny strip of land where they have isolated or humiliating checkpoints at every point of turn?

How can they claim to be the most moral army in the world whilst they they level the tiny strip of land within days?

How can our leaders still wear their 'friends of israel' badge with honour; threaten the icc and blame the palestinians instead..?

It takes years of sustained lies manipulation propaganda bribery targeted slander media bias...from the highest level to embed in the psyche in this way.

i think it's hard for people to see it clearly because of the history and horror of the holocaust.

any other situation where you said western immigrants are going into a country and automatically having superior rights to the native people, sometimes even being given the homes of the native people who are turfed out to make room for them the superior race and people wouldn't dream of defending it.

any situation where one group was having superior rights and another group was systematically having their human rights corroded and people would again get it.

but with israel there is so much sympathy and pathos for the events of 70 odd years ago even though the immigrants going in nowadays may have zero connection to those events whatsoever other than having jewish heritage and may be a 25 year old russian whose having a family of 8 kicked out of their home to give to him that people find it hard to see.

Is this better PigletJohn?

HoneyBadger I think you can go to Jordan with an Israeli stamp - there are day trips to Petra from Eilat. I once had my stamps on a separate piece of paper and didn't have any trouble with asking that. However, I'd come from the UK not Egypt; your experience does sound horrendous.

This student coming from Egypt had her laptop blown up

back then you couldn't enter syria and possibly a couple of other countries if you had an israel stamp - i did the ask for it on a piece of paper thing too. the worst time i had was flying out of tel aviv - so not even coming into the country. it was a pure exercise in bullying and power tripping i think.

Thanks.

For background, Glaxo SK say they spend over £300,000 per hour on research, so a million wouldn't last to lunchtime. No doubt every little helps, especially for a company wanting access to world markets.

It's all so depressing. So many children dying. So much brutality by Israel. I've been on the thread from.the start and name changed.

An innocent israeli child is dead, Netanyahu threatening to escalate the violence. 100 palestinian children must pay the price. Does he not see his murderous hypocrisy? Every single child is innocent.

i know hundreds of palestinian children dead = nothing. one israeli child dies and uproar. it is so sad and inhumane.

Attended our weekly protest in the city centre today. A horrible woman came over and started ranting at an elderly man at the stall telling him its not just One sided and that an Israeli boy was killed by hamas. She was very aggressive and I couldnt stop myself and asked her whether she knew how many Palestinian children have been killed and whether they matter. She ignored my question, kept ranting at the old man and asked him over again whether he has read the bible and that its all in there! Then she walked off.

I cannot believe how angry I felt. Seeing someone in the flesh putting more value on Israeli life was hard to stomach.It took a lot of self-control not to answer her aggression with aggression. I dont want to go too much off topic, but what was she talking about when she said its all in the bible?

'what was she talking about when she said its all in the bible?'

My guess is she is one of these Christian Bible prophecy End of Days type believers. A deluded person who thinks she is right and non-Bible readers don't know what is going on. That explains her aggression as she is so deluded that she believes she knows the truth and others don't etc. Exactly what these Bible prophecy types believe, I don't know, but it is probably something to do with that.

yes it is to do with biblical prophecy but ranting at someone about it in public is not great.

'ranting at someone about it in public is not great'

Some of these believers are so deluded and so sure that they are right that they act with this certitude and aggression in public. You can only feel sorry for them because they are in an almost zombie-like state so sure are they that they are right. Ignore them, humour them, pity them.

Sorry to go off tangent, but the problem wth aggressive believers like that is that their faith has no doubt. They are certain they are right and that is why they are wrong. But real faith is trust, not certainty. In real faith doubt still exists.

“Doubt is but another element of faith.” (St. Augustine)

“Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith.”
(Paul Tillich)

“Don’t expect faith to clear things up for you. It is trust, not
certainty.” (Flannery O’Connor)

“You call for faith: I show you doubt, to prove that faith exists. The more of doubt, the stronger faith, I say, If faith o’ercomes doubt.” (Robert Browning)

The unpleasant experiences described on this thread are hideous. And evidence that these attitudes are entirely engrained now can be found from this catalogue of violations of various international laws, from 1948 to 2009: www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2010/01/27/rogue-state-israel-violations-of-u-n-security-council-resolutions/

There are a number of leaflets which supporters are welcome to draw on at LiverpoolfriendsofPalestine.co.UK/?page_id=4328. This site also has a huge number of links on its resources page, from books and films to in reports, online sources etc.