Let's get this right: Israel, not Hamas, started the war in Gaza

[sherazade]

Israel broke the four month ceasefire in november 2008 after a raid into the territory which killed six member of hamas.

Hamas responded with the rockets.

Prior to this, Gaza's people has been subject to an almost 2 year long siege involving harsh sanctions against its people which has resulted in appalling life conditions. According to Ann short a ridiculously high percentagte of Gazan children are 'malnourished' because of the siege.

Hamas is asking for the siege to be lifted.
Hamas is not a terrorist organisaiton. It is a democratically (first fair elections in the middle east) elected polticial party made up of highly qualified and educated doctors, lawyers, and engineers and is amongst the most highly educated governing body in the world with over 500 phD's between its members. It is certainly not 'misogynistic', with many women amongst it upper ranks.

It was hamas' internal, not foreign, policy which got them elected.

Now with almost a thousand innocents dead, the lack of compassion on this forum has sickened me beyond belief.

This is a sad, sad, world we live in.

"i'm an arab but apparently i am not longer classes as a semite. not only has the zionist lobby legitimised the bulldozing of our homes and farms that we inhabited for centuries and were the orignials inhabitants ...they have also tried to trash our ethnic origins, to strengthen the 'anti semitic' answer to every damn thing you throw at them "

WTF? That's ridiculous and quite frankly pretty offensive.

It is quite simple - Semitic peoples means one thing - and includes jews, arabs etc.

Antisemitic, despite the fact that it shares etymology with the word "semitic", was a word specifically invented by people in Europe who were anti-Jewish. It has never referred to semitic peoples in general - only to the Jews.

The OED definition of antisemitic is "hostility to or prejudice against Jews". It been lexicalised in a specific meaning.

The jewish people did not appropriate the word, and no one is saying that Arabs are not semitic people.

I saw my name being mentioned and thought I'd just ocme in. As some posters will have seen my mind has been occupied with more intense and personal matters of late.

All i will say on this is that we re-hash the same arguments time and time again.
Sheherazade's play on the word " anti semitic" however deserves a special mention for its pure dishonesty and sheer ingenuity. Take away the charge of "anti semitism " from Hamas and the arabs and you have removed a large obstacle. How? Byt calling the arabs semites as well. Therefore arabs can't be anti semites. Nice twisted logic that one but an appalling attempt to hijack a despicable charge that has rightly been levied against many nations and races throughout the ages. As you well know Sheherazade arabs can be anti jewish and thereofre anti semitic in its true and pure meaning. No need for you to hijack the grief and suffering MY people ( not yours ) have endured throughout the ages and claim it as your own by making a play on semantics.

The thing is, lots of words lose their "true" or "original" meaning over time.
I think "anti-semitic" clearly means "anti-Jewish" these days, even though Arabs are semitic people (as well as Jews).

In fact, to take the argument to the extreme, I would imagine that it wouldn't be very hard to find a large number of "anti-semitic" Israeli Jews.

Doesn't really make sense, does it?

I think it's just a distraction from the main arguments, arguing about semantics when everyone knows what is meant and implied by the word.

Yes scarletlillybug - so do I !!! In fact I was appalled when Sherazade tried to hijack the anti semitism thread by stating that as an arab she was semitic and therefore could automatically reject any accustation of being anti semitic as could the rest of her ilk.

lisalisa, there is no need for me to claim YOUR grief and suffering as my own. we have plenty of our own grief and suffering, thanks to the israelis pouring white phosphorus down our skies under the silly pretext that militants are hiding under children's beds or something, and the world is finally starting to realise that. I'm sorry you don't like that, and i'm sorry that you would like grief and suffering to be exclusively yours.

Maybe we'll just have to coin a new term for 'arab haters', since there seems to be many of them around.

sherezade - I agree that there needs to be a word for Arab haters - I said this earlier on either this thread or one of the other ones. There are a few of them on MN yes.

"the rest of her ilk" - another racist slur there lisalisa? or would you like to clarify that one?

Well my take on "the rest of her ilk" was LL not referring to arabs but to people like sherezade who would like to see israeli's "pack their bags and leave" (I think that was what S said when I asked on another thread what she felt the israeli's should do in the face of terrorist attacks).

Who hates Arabs?

I think presenting a case against Hamas doesn't necessarily mean you hate Arabs.

It's pretty much the same line as presenting a case against the Israeli government doesn't necessarily make you an anti Semite (and in the UK vernacular, that means prejudiced against Jews).

I do think there are those in the world who do hate Arabs and Jews for no other reason than they are Arab or Jewish or for the acts their leaders undertake. And there will be lot more expression of this hatred.

I hope the conflict ends soon.

Sorry to be a pedant, but it's not even just that it means that in the UK vernacular, it just means anti-Jewish full stop, it has never meant anything other than anti-Jewish, it has never included reference to other speakers of semitic languages. My friend who is a lexicologist confirmed this. Petty of me to bring it up I know but it kind of peeves me when people start saying that "Arabs can't be antisemitic actually" thinking they are (cleverly) playing on semantics but it's just a red herring, the word only ever came into existence to describe anti-Jewish sentiment.

There was a post on Haaretz in response to an article by Gideon Levy yesterday (an excellent article) which basically defended the killing of children in Gaza as 'they would have just grown up to be Hamas fighters , and they are not like any other children in the world anyway.'

Many of the comments (not articles) on Haaretz have really shocked me. I am afraid there are many Israelis who do not seem to view Palestinians as human, and view thier deaths with no compassion whatsoever, even viewing it as good thing.

I think Israel and Israeli's really need to stop and study thier consciences, they are in danger of loosing all morality and we know sadly where that can lead.

I saw a similar response by Israeli children on a news programme once when they were asked how they felt about the death of a little palestinian boy (I think he was hiding behind his father and was shot dead by Israeli soldiers )

Its very sad and I'm sure there are Palestinians who would give a similar response.

How do you undo so much brainwashing?

I was following this thread from the very beggining and cannot add any comments coz I hardly familiar with the subject. Yes, I understand the OP when she is worried about her relatives and friends in Gaza. But I clearly rememeber when I went to visit my aunt in Germany and it was afternoon news on tv and I was in the kitchen when I heard her screaming and saw her fainting-news was about one of the many terrorists attacks made by palestinian people in Israel and it happened just right at the very bus stop where my cousin and his family take bus every morning.... It was terrible time for us then. Awful when you do not know whether among those bodies were your close relatives!!

And plus kids of Gaza.. I was shocked deep down whe saw palesinian kids at the anti-demonstration(Australia) and they were so aggresive-with guns and with closed faces and really aggresive... I could feel their anger thru the TV screen. Do you really believe those kids will not pick up arms in some years and go and kill other people???? If you do such kind of demonstartion do it peacefully. Show to the world that Palestine is not terrosrist people...

For me , living in Ukraine and having our own stupid wars around gas, that Middle East conflict is not a big deal, sorry if this will upset someone. But I clearly see Palestine as an aggresive state or land or nation.

Look at theses photos and then tell me you don't understand or realise the hatred that Israel is perpetuating:

terrible photos of children in Gaza

why they show aggresive kids on TV??? boys girls aged 8-11 years old look like they about to kill anybody right now??
I think bith sides should began from themselves by showing what they want to have. And why some of those kids will grow up hating Israel??? my nation has a long years problems with Russia but I do not hate them, I will not let my child hate russians. And I am pretty sure my child will never go and kill russian. But you cannot say it about palestine kids coz they gew up in atmosphere of revenge. This is wrong!!!!!!

http:www.gazaprotest.org/terrible photos of children in Gaza]]

Sorry. this should work now I think:

terrible photos of children in Gaza

I have seen those photos. they are horrible. but I bet if we could go back in time we would see even worse photos of killed kids during the other wars like WWII.
I do not support of killing kids in any country but would it not be better for Palestinians to not forget what it looked like and what it was like and do not allow this to happen anymore??? Saving of a drowning person is in the hands of that drowning person...

It would Ukrainmum, bt we need to understand human nature, and such inhumanity will inevitable breed hatred, even if iy is self destructive.

It was on the news a few days ago and it was a anti war demonstarion in Australia. See with our own big troubles we do not hear much news from Middle East.