Demonstration against Israeli bombing of Gaza in London on Saturday.

[SmilleysPeople]

If anyone is intersted.

It's at 12.30pm along Embankment, nearest tubes Embankment and Charing Cross.

It's being organised by Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, Stop the War Coaltion and numerous other groups.

I will bump this sporadically, but if anyone else would like to help promote this, plaese bump too.

I will be there.

Rev - you also CATTed me after the previous thread and i did not reply. I have responded to CATs in the past hence my registration policy ( which was fixed in 2002) when MN was in infinitely more pleasant less threatening place and to help people/supply information etc.

Btw - i am not referring to you here _ I am sure you are a perfectly genuine person but I cannot afford to respond and divulge personal details in relation to such politically charged threads.

It may be the case that if we "met" in another situaiton we would become friends but where Israel is subject to the type of villification that I have seen here it makes me very very nervous indeed. Many posters will refute this but where criticism of Israel is invovled it quite often - and I mean quite often not always - involves criticism of the Jews.

And i do have expereince of this as a former member of the Socialist Workers Party and wiht a father very high up previously in the Labour goverment and on the very left wing side ( think Tony Benn and you'll get the idea)_. The amount of polite comments that slipped out in the safety of our lounge whilst I was growing up about the Jews ( not Israel - the Jews) was amazing. And ultimately led me away from teh SWP and my father out of his ultra left wing politics.

And less anyone doubt - he was not a religious jew - no-one would even know he was one and therefore these comments were made by many high rankiing and grass roots party memembers basking in what they felt was mutual solidarity against the jew.
So i am very very protective o fmy identity.

lisalisa i am so terribly sorry about your family - i think it is impossible for us to understand what it must be like to have lost such a huge part of your family to the Holocaust, and for that reason your views here are very important and illuminating. Of course many/most people in Israel will have suffered the same losses to their families, and many will feel like you. But there are Israelis who do not agree with the IDF's current actions, and who feel compassion for Palestinians who have been maimed and killed in this defensive and others like it. As long as Palesitinians have so few basic rights their anger will continue, and anger that led to the madness of electing Hamas in the first place. Violence it seem cannot be the answer for either side.

Ruty - thank you for your sensitivity. I agree with much of your post.

I also feel compassion for the innocent victims in this war - both palestinian and israeli. However I cannot help to feel that the palestinians elect their murderous leaders and therefore bear resposibility fo what happens as a result. It's slightly similar to Nazi Germany - the Germans elected Hitler and therefore, whilst sympathising wiht the ordinairy hoouseholder who doesn't particularly hold a political view who finds his family killed in an Allied bombing , one can't help feel that the vast majority of the Germans elected Hitler therefgore they must take the consequences of his actions.

If the palestinians were so interested in peace there would be peace parties in Gaza too ( as there are in Israel ) and they could be voted for.

Hamas has shot itself in the foot with the 'kill Jewish children' call, IMO.

Not 'kill Israeli children'.

How can Israel negotiate with Hamas?

I really hink the Palestinian people need to realise that Hama's is not intereted in bring them peace - it is using them as a means to an end - the destruction of Israel. They will use the people of Palestine as cannon fodder for that.

It's the people of the West Bank and Gaza that need to remove Hamas. Israel's tatic of brutal counterstrike has some logic to to it, maybe to attempot to force a coup from within - or at least plant a few seeds of change in some proto-political mind. How many mothers have lost male kinfolk to this conflict? If women had more of a voice, it could be them that could bring about this change. But as it is, the fate of women under Hamas is one of total oppresison. They are nor even allowed to grieve when a son is 'martyred' - they are told to be proud and celebrate.

This might just be the darkest hour before the dawn.

One of the Hamas leaders killed last week had sent his son off to die as a suicide bomber. I just can't get my head around that.

I agree lisalisa that there need to be more prominent Palestinians pushing for peace. i just think it is hard to get past the anger at the moment, on both sides. It really needs some unbiased intervention, IMO.

I've decide you're a good egg, MT.

There. Bet that's made your day.

lol Bubble. Have the planets collided?!

Get Relate over to the Gaza Strip sharpish!

Sit those two down and get them listening and empathising!

OMG Bubble, about the son. Believe me, only a man, (contribution - one sperm) would do that. A woman - (contrubution, massive egg, 9 months gestation, and 18 years primary carer)would never come up with such an idea unless she was demented.

agree re Hamas doing their people no good. Being against this Israeli action does not make one a supporter of Hamas.
Just seen tv footage of the UN school bombed by Israel today.
40 at least dead. The footage harrowing.
We can argue rights and wrongs all day/night
Meanwhile people are being slaughtered.
It may be as much Hamas's fault as israels, believe who/what you will
But this must get back to the table. Any kind of dialogue is better than this.
Utterly harrowing today.

i'm against all of them. how many more children are going to be killed.

Lisalisa, your post I understand
I have an ideogical 15yr old ds, highly politicised and studying historyof this conflict
He has been reminded by me on numerous occasions to make a massive distinction between Jewish people and Israel. He now communicate with a young Jewish lad who is similarly politicised ( not as ideological natch) and by heck he has learned loads about humanity since.

But Piff, it was Hamas who started this. Israel didn;t just wake up one morning last week and say, 'hmm, lets start an all lot offensive on Gaza' they reacted to sustained attacks from Hamas. This misery you see is what Hamas wanted

That may well be the case MT. But Israel knows Hamas are prepared to sacrifice their civilians as martyrs or whatever inorder to further their cause.
Israel are playing right into their hands.
Time for a different approach perhaps.
This incursion will not breed peace. It will breed more hate and more power to Hamas propaganda
Meanwhile 100 odd people a day are being killed, god only knows how many more injured.
Houses, shelter, schools, infrastructure being demolished.
How does this ever expect to lead to progress.

MT
I agree - 'tis a fact - that Hamas started firing rockets on Israeli towns thus provoking the Israeli response.

What of Israel's continued blockade of Gaza during the ceasefire, frequently not even allowing in UN aid such as food? More than once the UNHCR had cause to protest that they had no food to hand out. Many of the children in Gaza were showing signs of malnutrition such as stunted growth. This could also be construed as breaking the ceasefire since they had agreed to allow in aid.

Donk - I have asked that question so many times on this thread - strangely the pro Israeli lobby is reluctant to address it. I wonder why that is.

I wonder at what point one is able to describe such widespread death as a 'holocaust'- the dictionary defines it as 'great destruction and/or loss of life or source of such destruction'. I ask since the question of 'holocaust denial' has been bandied about on this thread .

I don't usually 'do' political arguments but...

I was in tears last night as I saw the bodies of children on the news. Not malitia, not soldiers, but small kids. One man was kissing his dead kid (about 3 years old) and had also lost his wife and 2 other children.

Why can't the UN lock the leaders in a room and not let them out until they have agreed a ceasefire and plans to work out peace plans. The more you dehumanize your enemy the easier it is to fire bombs at them. They need to get together face to face and stop the tit-for-tat bombings and childish rhetorict (sp). Neither side can 'win' and it is just getting more violent with each year. Neither side will just 'give up and bugger off' and that is just what each side seems to want - the other side just to go away.

And I don't like the idea ANY nation having nuclear weapons - what is the point if you are not prepared to use them?

also it was reported that Israeli snipers shot at people and killed a fair few during said ceasefire. That and the blockade didn't help...
But it's beyond fault now ffs who has the gazan I habitants interests as a priority? Not their own leaders, not the Israelis. Not Egypt who helpfully also playing shilly shally with the border there.
It's the impotence that drives me mad here

I think some of you are fogetting numerous raids by Israeli forces in Gaza to assassinate their opponents. Does this not count as "breaking the ceasfire"?

One could also point out the irony of Israel - which itself came into being, at least in in part, as a result of terrorist activities - refusing to deal with terrorists. As the saying goes, "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." One day the two sides will have to talk - I don't believe that any solution imposed by violence (from either side) can lead to a lasting peace.

I could also say that, IMO, Israel is making a mistake in thinking that by killing one terrorist, there will be one terrorist less to deal with. I think their present course of action is likely to increase the number of "terrorists" who wish to damage or destroy Israel. I think it is tragic that so many are unwilling or unable to see the link between Israel's policies oiver the last decades and the current situation. If people have chosen to vote for Hamas, then the question "why?" needs to be asked.

a UN run school. How much more evil and despicable could things be? Watch that BBC footage and weep. God knows I am weeping.

Me to donnie
Utterly despair for those people
Lambs to the slaughter.