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.

Not firing from within the school
Close by the school
Shells and mortars are a dreadfully inaccurate load.
Clearly by the bodies cleared out of that building it was not Hamas gunfighters in there.

I cannot find anything to suggest Hamas fighters were inside that school. But clearly if Israeli officials say it, it must be true.

I can't bear to discuss this any more. I am going to try and not watch /listen to any news tonight but I know i'll fail.

No, don't watch it. I found by chance, deeply distressing and graphic, bodies lying everywhere with children dying. I'm assuming the arab journalists are in there.

I'm wondering what with the credit crisis in the US, will the american public be able to stomach 30 Billion dollars per year being supplied to Israel to buy arms/weaponry?

I remember seeing a report on the news a while back about the Israeli army sending a young Palestinian child into a suspected booby-trapped building to make sure it was safe.

There is no doubt that Israel and Hamas are both as bad as each other, but the fact is that many people living in Israel chose to live in a war zone. Palestinians have nowehere else to go.

Yes I'm sure Al Jazeera is an unbiased source of information .

Sorry but the Israelis don't kill for the fun of it. They are not Hamas. If they bombed a School there is going to be a good reason for it such as Hamas being inside. It has happened before you know - when Israel captured Rezhan in 1992, he was hiding in his home with explosives strapped to his children and his pregnant wife. He threatened to detonate if Israel opened fire. Israel called his bluff and sent troops into the house calling on the megaphone that the occupants should surrender with their hands up and they would not be hurt. REzhan detonated the explosives and sent the bodies of his 5 kids and pregnant wife hurtling into pieces. I know as I have a family member who was part of that operation. He told me that 3 soldiers were violently sick at the sight of children's body pieces everywhere. The terrorist himself was sat calmly smiling with his hands up insisting he wanted to be killed so he could die a martyr. The general in charge told him that he would be denied that pleasure and took him outside to a waiting Jeep alive.

At this point Rezhan started screaming in arabic that the Jews had murdered his pregnant wife and children - a general wailing was heard and my family member and the soldiers around were stunned. If it weren't for a Times correspondent ( they were the paper of choice for the government re war coverage at that time - I don't know if they still are or are in now) who had recorded the whole thing including the Israeli warning , the subsequent resopnse from Rezhan, the sound of explosives and the the flying body parts the world would probably have been touting these pictures and claims as more evidence of Israeli brutality.

What i am therfore saying is such: the Israelis do not - I repeat - not - purposely seek to kill and maim innocent people particuarly children . Hamas however at adept at using kids as shieldsd and care nothing at all for human life. Part of their mission statement is that martyrdom is good and to be encouraged and that doesn't start at age 18.

If children have been killed at all that is to be lamented and regretted. I feel great sadness if a school has been bombed and children killed. The tradgedy hurts me. What I can tell you is that the Israeli soldiers will also be hurting if innocent kids are killed. Several of those soldiers invovled in that 1992 operation had children and ended up in therapy after witnessing what they did. Teh IDF and its soldiers do care if innocent kids are targeted.

Saadia - can you substantiate that story please or is it more fiction/propaganda? Very easy to say one seems to remember.....

rev -do you mean in a conflict situation or in "normal times. " What do you mean by occupied territories? Hamas claim the whole of Israel is occupied?

rev - I know they are. Most of my family are there and I have countless friends and family in the IDF and several in Gaza. Many don't want to be doing this but are cognisant that the constant rocket attacks had to stop. Let's not lose sight that if Hamas had not fired up to 60 rockest per day into sourthern Israel during the so called ceasefire this would not have happened.

The world service will have a neutral standpoint. I can't see the use in watching footage of it though - it's rubbernecking, which does carry a legitimate curiosity humans have with death, but this kind of tragedy - we've seen it before. 'The grocer of despair', Leonard Cohen called it, when the main currency of the news is tragedy and we the viewers can't get enough of it.

It's horrifying just thinking about it. I couldn't watch it even if I wanted to.

Just answering a post made a couple of pages back about the socialist workers party - well what a load of bollocks!!! You forgot to mention that the SWP was founded by a Jew who was so horrified by the way he saw Palestians treated that he left Palestine where he had been born and came to this country.

Secondly the SWP has a tradition of fighting anti-semitism, racism and naziism - remeber the anti-nazi league.

Thirdly accusations of anti-semitism were continually hurled at the SWP because they do not support zionism (which lets be clear was a minority political sect until the 1940's!) or the state of Israel. The last major accusation was because the SWP translated a book by Marek Edelman a survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto - despite the fact that Edelman was not a member of the SWP or even considered himself a socialist the fact that he had criticisms of zionism was enough to brand the publishing of 'The Ghetto Fights' an anti-semitic act - how bizarre!!!

I am aware that this is a bit of a rant but honestly it is infuriating that such mis-information would be propagated -

by the way in case you haven't guessed I'm a jewish member of the SWP, I was on the demo on saturday and i'm in favour of a democratic secular state of Palestine.

I think it was the BBC, a while ago, the last time that violence escalated and we had a similar discussion about it on MN, you may remember.

But I have to ask lisalisa can you hear yourself? Your absolute and blind defence of everything Israel really doesn't help your cause. It's not realistic. Everyone knows that in times of war, chaos and evil descends. Look at how some US troops behaved in Iraq, people just degenerate to the lowest of the low, and I think that probably applies to the Israeli army as well as all others.

Well then rev I can tell you that its not true! In fact its a load of bollocks. That's why I asked whether its in peacetime or confclit. If the latter I wouldn't know as I am not there. In peacetime I can tell you exactly what happens. The bomb disposal squad clear the area and make the package safe through a controlled explosion. Can you really believe that they drag a palestinian off the streets and force him to do the job? REally and truly believe this? Good god! I have4 been present in many bomb alerts and not one palestinain has been asked to do this.

Soon I will be hearing that ther Jews poisened the palestinian drinking water too. That was doing the rounds in Gazan schools along with Mein Kampf a few years back.

Kate1956 - sorry but that is bollocks. AS i said , I was a member of the SWP and my father was high up in left wing labour party - attended SWP meetings and spoke at many conferences ( my father did) . Was ultimately threatened to lay his colours on the line with either SWP or Labour. He chose SWP. In my house I have had the higher echelons of the SWP and went to many meetings as a young child. The inherent anti semitism is disgraceful. I recall my father having at least 2 or 3 major rows with SWP high ranking members asking them to retract their statements. They woudln't. His final words or so he says ( he is still very bitter as he feels betrayed by the cuase he fought for and loved all his youth ) was

" Well, Sir, if you are not good enough to apologise for calling the Jewish nation a parasite on the back of the world I will have to resign"

The response: " Put it in writing and we'll have your card back Sir.

My father flung the memebership card at him from his wallet and left the meeting. He cried for some time .

So don't - p[lease-give me your stupid nonsense.

Kate - and sorry - maybe a MN board isn't the time or place but more fool you for being a member of such a party as a Jew particularly if you adhere to their principles ( that they used to have in any case - maybe they actually recognise Israel's right to exist now but I doubt it). Their platform on the subject used to be that the state of israel is an illegal entity and should be dismantled.

Remember as a Jew that it doesn't matter what nice political beliefs you have or how well you assimilate or how vociferously you sing for palestinian rights , come another Hitler you'd still be first on the list love. Where would you run then? Israel?

LisaLisa
Have you read any of the statements on the Breaking the Silence site?
Are you telling me that they are fictional?

Sorry if anyone is offended by these messages btw - as Ruty said below - this is a acuase I feel incrdibly deeply about and is not just an intellectual debate as it is for some on here or a cause at which to shout about whilst the topic is hot and then to abandon in favour of the next "maltreated" people. This is survival for the Jews. Nothing bloody less .

As far as I know, believing that Israel is an illegal entity is not incompatible with being Jewish. I'm sure I have heard of a Jewish sect/group which was opposed to the creation of Israel. Again, you are confusing anti-Semitism with opposition to Israel. They are not the same thing.