From Moshe Dayan,April 1969

[P F Tinmore]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zh1be2EX8Ws]Goldstone Reignites Gaza Debate - YouTube[/ame]

 

[JStone]

Khaled Abu Toameh: What About Hamas's Siege Of Gaza?

As Israeli naval commandos raided the flotilla ship convoy that was on its way to the Gaza Strip, Hamas security officers stormed the offices of five non-governmental organizations, confiscated equipment and documents, and ordered them closed indefinitely. Ever since it seized control over the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2007, Hamas has imposed a reign of terror on the local population in general and its critics in particular. Hamas has brought nothing to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip other than death and disaster.

The raid on the NGOs in the Gaza Strip, which received little coverage in the media, is seen by many Palestinians as part of Hamas's ongoing crackdown on political opponents and human rights organizations. Further, Hamas's recent decision to ban municipal elections in the Gaza Strip is yet another violation of one of the basic rights of its constituents.

Hundreds of Palestinians have been arrested by Hamas's security forces for daring to speak out against the state of tyranny and intimidation in the Gaza Strip. Over the past three years, dozens of Fatah officials and members have either been thrown into prison or killed. Under Hamas, the Gaza Strip is being transformed into a fundamentalist Islamic entity resembling the regimes of the Ayatollahs in Iran and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

While there is no ignoring the fact that Hamas originally came to power in a free and democratic election in January 2006, this does not give the movement the right to impose a social, intellectual, political and economic blockade on the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Instead of searching for ways to improve the living conditions of the 1.5 million Palestinians of the Gaza Strip, Hamas is busy enforcing strict Islamic rules on the population, such as Hamas policemen, for example, often stopping men and women who are seen together in public to inquire about the nature of their relationship.

Since the kidnapping of IDF soldier Gilad Schalit in 2006, more than 3,500 Palestinians have been killed, many of them during Operation Cast Lead which followed the firing of rockets at Israel. The kidnapping of Schalit and the rocket attacks have made the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip pay a very heavy price. If Hamas were really serious about ending the blockade on the Gaza Strip and helping the poor people living there, it would have accepted at least shown some pragmatism in dealing with the outside world.

Hamas could have, for instance, accepted the international community's demand to renounce terrorism and honor all previous agreements signed between the Palestinians and Israel. Moreover, it could have allowed representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit Schalit. Hamas, however, is more interested in clinging to power than in serving its people; and in light of increased calls for lifting the blockade following the flotilla incident at sea, the movement's leaders in Syria and the Gaza Strip are now convinced that they are marching in the right direction.

The flotilla incident came at a time when Hamas appeared to be losing its popularity among Palestinians, largely due to the deteriorating economic situation in the Gaza Strip. It also came at a time when even some of Hamas's supporters were beginning to criticize the movement, especially over its decision to demolish scores of "illegal" houses in the southern Gaza Strip and the execution of criminals and "collaborators" with Israel. It is one thing to help the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, but it is another thing to help Hamas. Those who wish to deliver aid to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip can always find better and safer ways to do so - either through Israel or Egypt. But those who only seek confrontation with Israel in the sea are only emboldening Hamas and helping it tighten its grip on the people of Gaza Strip.

Internation Musing: Istanbul, Amsterdam, Delhi, Portland, Utrecht, The Hague and Thessaloniki.: What About Hamas's Siege of Gaza? (by Khaled Abu Toameh)

 

[P F Tinmore]

Ever since it seized control over the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2007

Hamas was the elected government in office.

Your source is full of crap.

 

[docmauser1]

Huh THIS COMING OUT OF THE BIGGEST LOONY CANIBAL ON THIS SITE,IGNORANT<ILL INFORMED AND BASICALLY A COMPLETE LIAR.....I'm the liq kicking the canibal in the teeth

Drivel.

from the greatest Israeli Commander in Chief as quote. "Jewish villages were built in THE PLACE OF ARAB VILLAGES.You do not even know the names of these Palestinian Arab villages,and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist.Not only do the books not exist,the Palestinian Arab villages are not there either..........Nahlal arose in the place of MAHLUL,Kibbutz Gvat in the place of JIBTA;Kibbutz Sarid in the place of HUNEIFIS;and Kefar Yehushua in the place of TAL-AL-SHUMAN.

Garbage quote, faked by that lying-braying dog Walid Khalidi with his mahlul-jibta crap. The pos thought he could rely on the eternal ignorance of his pathetic readers, of course.
The real quote runs as:
'We came to a region that was inhabited by Arabs, and we set up a Jewish state. In many places, we purchased the land from Arabs and set up Jewish villages where there had once been arab villages. You don't even know the names and I don't blame you, because those geography books aren't around anymore. Not only the books, the villages aren't around."

[/QUOTE]

 

[JStone]

Ever since it seized control over the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2007

Hamas was the elected government in office.

Your source is full of crap.

Time Magazine: Globally Isolated and Economically Crippled: Why Hamas is Losing Gaza

Besieged by Israel and the West, which regards it as a terrorist group, and cut off from the Palestinian majority in the West Bank, Hamas has little to offer beyond its jihadist credentials &#8212; and the promise of clean government. So it's hardly surprising that the party has been rapidly losing ground in its stronghold. Recent surveys by leading pollsters conclude that if elections were held in Gaza today, Hamas, an acronym in Arabic for the Islamic Resistance Movement, would not be returned to power. A June poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that Hamas would get just 28% of the vote, a steep decline from the 44% plurality it won in 2006.

Especially alarming for the Islamists is a precipitous drop in support for the party among Gaza's youth: two-thirds of the population is under 25. In a March survey taken in the afterglow of the protests in Cairo's Tahrir Square that led to the ouster of Egypt's dictator, Hosni Mubarak, more than 60% of Gazans age 18 to 27 said they too would support public demonstrations demanding regime change.

Soon after that poll, 10,000 turned out at a rally to voice a more modest demand &#8212; that Hamas end the bloody rift with Fatah, the secular party it bested six years ago. Hamas sent thugs to break up the demonstration. "We came out to say the people should be united, and they attack us!" says Shadi Hassan, 22, who lives in a refugee camp and sells cigarettes. "We are suffocated, and we need regime change."


Even party stalwarts agree that they've lost the street. "The majority of people want a change, yes," says Ahmed Yusuf, a former deputy foreign minister for Hamas who now runs a think tank called House of Wisdom. "They are not happy with the way Hamas is governing Gaza. Wherever you look is miserable life." Forty percent of Gazans live in poverty. The rate of unemployment is approaching 50%, among the highest in the world, and is likely to worsen as the population of 1.6 million doubles in the next 20 years. "Because they believe in God, they don't think a lot about the future," says Gaza economist Omar Shaban, who heads the Pal-Think think tank. "You won't find someone in Hamas who is thinking about 2045. They say, 'Oh, God will provide.'"

Globally Isolated and Economically Crippled: Why Hamas is Losing Gaza - TIME

 

[P F Tinmore]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yP8cPFnm1xQ]Huwaida Arraf 2 The Whitewashed UN Report on Gaza Flotilla [DemocracyNow!] - YouTube[/ame]

 

[JStone]

Former Gazan Nonie Darwish, Human Rights Activist, Founder, Arabs For Israel... An Arab-Made Misery - WSJ.com

International donors pledged almost $4.5 billion in aid for Gaza earlier this month. It has been very painful for me to witness over the past few years the deteriorating humanitarian situation in that narrow strip where I lived as a child in the 1950s.

It is Hamas, an Islamist terror organization supported by Iran, which is using and abusing Palestinians... While Hamas leaders hid in the well-stocked bunkers and tunnels they prepared before they provoked Israel into attacking them, Palestinian civilians were exposed and caught in the deadly crossfire between Hamas and Israeli soldiers.

Both Israel and Egypt are fearful of terrorist infiltration from Gaza -- all the more so since Hamas took over -- and have always maintained tight controls over their borders with Gaza. The Palestinians continue to endure hardships because Gaza continues to serve as the launching pad for terror attacks against Israeli citizens. Those attacks come in the form of Hamas missiles that indiscriminately target Israeli kindergartens, homes and businesses.

And Hamas continued these attacks more than two years after Israel withdrew from Gaza in the hope that this step would begin the process of building a Palestinian state, eventually leading to a peaceful, two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There was no "cycle of violence" then, no justification for anything other than peace and prosperity. But instead, Hamas chose Islamic jihad. Gazans' and Israelis' hopes have been met with misery for Palestinians and missiles for Israelis.

Hamas, an Iran proxy, has become a danger not only to Israel, but also to Palestinians as well as to neighboring Arab states, who fear the spread of radical Islam could destabilize their countries.

Arabs claim they love the Palestinian people, but they seem more interested in sacrificing them. If they really loved their Palestinian brethren, they'd pressure Hamas to stop firing missiles at Israel. In the longer term, the Arab world must end the Palestinians' refugee status and thereby their desire to harm Israel. It's time for the 22 Arab countries to open their borders and absorb the Palestinians of Gaza who wish to start a new life. It is time for the Arab world to truly help the Palestinians, not use them.

 

[P F Tinmore]

&#8220;Whatever became of the settlement lands? Such lost opportunities! The land has returned and what waste&#8221;, we hear time and again from Zionist apologists and their kind. &#8220;If only Gazans would make a life for themselves rather than blaming their problems on others!&#8221;

Leaving aside the obvious question of how a territory and its people whose every marker of sovereignty is effectively controlled by an occupying power that nevertheless refuses to recognize its responsibility as an occupier can &#8220;build a state&#8221; and &#8220;make a life&#8221;, the Gaza government has actually been doing some pretty impressive things.

It was a follow-up to an interview colleague Maggie Schmitt and I did with the Minister of Agriculture, Mohammad Al-Agha. In consultation with dozens of international and local NGOs, the Gaza Ministry has drawn up an impressive &#8220;ten-year plan&#8221; aimed at reducing Gaza&#8217;s dependence on imported Israeli produce, incorporating organic farming on a wider scale, and generally &#8220;helping Gaza help itself&#8221; through a return to more sustainable agricultural practices (such as relying more on rain-fed crops rather than cash cropping for export which involves wasteful amounts of water and an abundance of pesticides, and is subject to the whim of Israeli authorities and their punitive border closure).

Gaza Mom » Gaza; settlements; Israel; Hamas; agriculture

 

[JStone]

Pulitzer Prize-Winning Writer Charles Krauthammer...

Israel is the very embodiment of Jewish continuity: It is the only nation on earth that inhabits the same land, bears the same name, speaks the same language, and worships the same God that it did 3,000 years ago. You dig the soil and you find pottery from Davidic times, coins from Bar Kokhba, and 2,000-year-old scrolls written in a script remarkably like the one that today advertises ice cream at the corner candy store.

Tel Dan Stele Verifying King David Dynasty 3000 years ago
The Tel Dan Stela and the Kings of Aram and Israel

Jewish Bar Kokhba Coins Minted 2000 Years Ago...
Bar Kochba Revolt coinage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Judaea Capta Coins Minted By Romans against Jews 2000 years ago
Judaea Capta coinage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jewish Dead Sea Scrolls 2000 years old.
Dead Sea Scrolls - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yale University Press: The Archaeology of Ancient Israel

In this lavishly illustrated book some of Israel's foremost archaeologists present a thorough, up-to-date, and readily accessible survey of early life in the land of the Bible, from the Neolithic era (eighth millennium B.C.E.) to the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the First Temple in 586 B.C.E. It will be a delightful and informative resource for anyone who has ever wanted to know more about the religious, scientific, or historical background of the region.
The Archaeology of Ancient Israel - Ben-Tor, Amnon; Greenberg, R. - Yale University Press

PBS Nova...

In the banks of the Nile in southern Egypt in 1896, British archaeologisit Flinders Petrie unearthed one of the most important discoveries in biblical archaeology known as the Merneptah Stele. Merneptah's stele announces the entrance on the world stage of a People named Israel.

The Merneptah Stele is powerful evidence that a People called the Israelites are living in Canaan over 3000 years ago

Dr. Donald Redford, Egyptologist and archaeologist: The Merneptah Stele is priceless evidence for the presence of an ethnical group called Israel in Canaan.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yvg2EZAEw5c]1/13 The Bible's Buried Secrets (NOVA PBS) - YouTube[/ame]

 

[P F Tinmore]

Charles Krauthammer is an Israeli tool.

 

[JStone]

Charles Krauthammer is an Israeli tool.

Washington Post Writers Group

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and named by The Financial Times as the most influential commentator in America, Charles Krauthammer has been honored from every part of the political spectrum for his bold, lucid and original writing -- from the famously liberal People for the American Way (which presented him their First Amendment Award) to the staunchly conservative Bradley Foundation (which awarded him their first $250,000 Bradley Prize).

Since 1985, Krauthammer has written a syndicated column for The Washington Post for which he won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary. It is published weekly in more than 250 newspapers worldwide.

Says Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor of The Washington Post: "Krauthammer's weekly essays on the war on terrorism, bioethics, the Middle East, anti-Semitism in Europe and other complex and contentious issues cut through the cant and the muddy thinking in a way that many other columnists can only envy."

The Washington Post Writers Group

 

[docmauser1]

BEAUTIFUL TINMORE,BEAUTIFUL steve

But this isn't a gay lifestyle site!!

 

[P F Tinmore]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd2fdoJxCcw]A Palestian talks about the Nakba -1/4 - YouTube[/ame]
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CngFzsfVKk8&feature=related]A Palestian talks about the Nakba -2/4 - YouTube[/ame]
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4yOoijlX6s&feature=related]A Palestian talks about the Nakba -3/4 - YouTube[/ame]
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jp-_ydl_28&feature=related]A Palestian talks about the Nakba -4/4 - YouTube[/ame]

 

[JStone]

Tashbih Sayyed, Muslim Pakistani scholar, journalist, author and former Editor in Chief of Our Times, Pakistan Today, and The Muslim World Today Global Politician - Israel&#8217;s Arab Citizens And The Jewish State

Blinded by their anti-Semitism, Arabs ignore the fact that neither are they an indigenous group nor is the Jewish nationhood a new phenomenon in Palestine; the Jewish nation was born during 40 years of wandering in the Sinai more than five thousand years ago and has remained connected with Palestine ever since. &#8220;Even after the destruction of the last Jewish commonwealth in the first century, the Jewish people maintained their own autonomous political and legal institutions: the Davidic dynasty was preserved in Baghdad until the thirteenth century through the rule of the Exilarch (Resh Galuta), while the return to Zion was incorporated into the most widely practiced Jewish traditions, including the end of the Yom Kippur service and the Passover Seder, as well as in everyday prayers. Thus, Jewish historic rights were kept alive in Jewish historical consciousness.

Palestinian Arabs, on the other hand, never had a separate identity. They always thought of themselves as Arabs rather than as Palestinians. It is a matter of record that the Arabs owe their presence in Palestine to the Ottomans who settled Muslim populations as a buffer against Bedouin attacks and Ibrahim Pasha, the Egyptian ruler who brought Egyptian colonists with his army in the 1830s. And during all those times when Arabs lived under the Ottoman rule, they never showed any desire for national independence. According to Bernard Lewis, &#8220;From the end of the Jewish state in antiquity to the beginning of British rule, the area now designated by the name Palestine was not a country and had no frontiers, only administrative boundaries; it was a group of provincial subdivisions, by no means always the same, within a larger entity.&#8221; Lewis notes, "There had been a steady movement of Jews to the Holy Land throughout the centuries." In 135 CE Jews took part in the Bar Kochba revolt against imperial Rome and even re-established their capital in Jerusalem. Defeated by the most brutal of the Roman legions under the command of the emperor Hadrian, Jews were forbidden to reside in Jerusalem for nearly five hundred years. Once a year on the ninth of the Hebrew month of Av, they were allowed to weep at the remains of their destroyed Temple at a spot that came to be called "the Wailing Wall." In the meantime, the Roman authorities renamed Judea as Palestina in order to obliterate the memory of Jewish nationhood.

A resolution adopted by the first Congress of the Muslim Christian Association which met in Jerusalem in February 1919 underlines the Arab understanding of the situation conclusively. It said, "We consider Palestine as part of Arab Syria, as it has never been separated from it at any time. We are connected with it by national, religious, linguistic, natural, economic and geographical bonds."

Jerusalem has always remained a Jewish majority &#8211; a symbol of Jewish yearning to be an independent nation as they thrived in communities in many of Palestine&#8217;s towns. &#8220;By 1864, a clear-cut Jewish majority emerged in Jerusalem - more than half a century before the arrival of the British Empire and the League of Nations Mandate. During the years that the Jewish presence in Eretz Israel was restored, a huge Arab population influx transpired as Arab immigrants sought to take advantage of higher wages and economic opportunities that resulted from Jewish settlement in the land. President Roosevelt concluded in 1939 that "Arab immigration into Palestine since 1921 has vastly exceeded the total Jewish immigration during the whole period."

The present Arab declaration challenging the Jewish character of Israel cannot be ignored because it is not just an expression of dissatisfaction by a minority about their socio-economic situation but a reminder that Islamist radicalism and fundamentalism has now decided to challenge openly the legitimacy of the Jewish state using Arab citizens of Israel as its proxy in Israel. It must not be forgotten that the Israeli Arabs are part and parcel of the same Global Jihad that has been murdering our gallant soldiers on the war fronts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

[P F Tinmore]

It must not be forgotten that the Israeli Arabs are part and parcel of the same Global Jihad that has been murdering our gallant soldiers on the war fronts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

What a load of crap.

 

[JStone]

It must not be forgotten that the Israeli Arabs are part and parcel of the same Global Jihad that has been murdering our gallant soldiers on the war fronts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

What a load of crap.

Palestinian Valentine's Card...

Allah, oh our Lord
Vanquish your enemies, enemies of the religion [Islam]
in all places
Allah, strike the Jews and their sympathizers,
the Christians and their supporters
Allah, count them and kill them to the last one,
and don't even leave even one.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrI8-qb9M9A]Hamas: Kill Christians and Jews "to the last one" - YouTube[/ame]

 

[P F Tinmore]

Allah, strike the Jews and their sympathizers,
the Christians and their supporters

It seems strange, then, that so many Christians and Jews support Palestine.

 

[JStone]

Allah, strike the Jews and their sympathizers,
the Christians and their supporters

It seems strange, then, that so many Christians and Jews support Palestine.

Palestine wuz a made up word invented by the Romans to call Israel. The Romans went back to Italy 1500 years ago.

Jesus was King of Israel, not Palestine

Jesus Christ, King of Israel...

John 12:12-13 The next day the great crowd that had come for the Feast heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. They took branches of palm trees, and went forth to meet him, and cried, Hosanna: Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord.

Jesus Enters Jerusalem as King of Israel

Passover was one of the three feasts that Jews were supposed to attend in Jerusalem, and consequently the population of Jerusalem swelled enormously at this time. As this great crowd is beginning to gather from around Israel and the larger world of the diaspora, news about Jesus is spreading, and people are wondering whether he will come to the feast. On Sunday, the day after the party in Bethany at which Mary anointed Jesus, news arrives that Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, and a crowd of pilgrims, presumably those who had been wondering if he would come, goes out to meet him. Mary's private expression of emotion is now matched by the crowd's public outpouring of enthusiasm.
They shout Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!. These are lines from one of the Psalms of Ascents sung as a welcome to pilgrims coming up to Jerusalem. As such, this is an entirely appropriate thing to do as Jesus is coming up to Jerusalem. The cry of Hosanna! is a Hebrew word (hoshi`ah-na) that had become a greeting or shout of praise but that actually meant "Save!" or "Help!". The cry of Hosanna! and the palm branches are in themselves somewhat ambiguous, but their import is made clear as the crowd adds a further line, Blessed is the King of Israel! (v. 13). Clearly they see in Jesus the answer to their nationalistic, messianic hopes. Earlier a crowd had wanted to make Jesus king (6:15), and now this crowd is recognizing him as king in the city of the great King. Here is the great dream of a Davidic ruler who would come and liberate Israel, establishing peace and subduing the Gentiles (cf. Psalms of Solomon 17:21-25).

John the Baptist's witness to Israel (1:31) finds its initial response in the confession of Nathanael, a true Israelite (1:47), when Nathanael confesses Jesus to be the Son of God, the King of Israel (1:49). Nathanael stands in marked contrast to Nicodemus, a teacher of Israel (3:10), who is unable to understand earthly things, let alone heavenly things. So the first three chapters are characterized by a concern with the initial witness to Israel, and this motif now finds its fullness in this crowd's acclamation of Jesus as the King of Israel. Jesus is indeed King of Israel, and this motif now comes to the fore as the story nears its end His kingdom, however, far transcends Israel's boundaries. "What honor was it to the Lord to be King of Israel? What great thing was it to the King of eternity to become the King of men?".

The crowd is probably not aware that the line they have added to the acclamation is an echo of another passage that further contributes to the depth of revelation concerning Jesus in this story: "The Lord, the King of Israel, is with you; never again will you fear any harm". John 12 Commentary - Jesus Enters Jerusalem as King of Israel - BibleGateway.com

Biblical Historian and Scholar Dr. Paula Fredriksen, Ph.D, History of Religion, Princeton University, Diploma in Theology, Oxford University...

The Judean revolt against Rome was led by [Jewish messiah] Bar Kochba in 132-135 CE. The immediate causes of this rebellion are obscure. Its result was not: [Roman Emperor] Hadrian crushed the revolt and banned Jews from Judea. The Romans now designated this territory by a political neologism, "Palestine" [a Latin form of "Philistine"], in a deliberate effort to denationalize Jewish/Judean territory. And, finally, Hadrian eradicated Jewish Jerusalem, erecting upon its ruins a new pagan city, Aelia Capitolina.
Augustine and the Jews: A Christian ... - Paula Fredriksen - Google Books

 

[P F Tinmore]

Still having a problem with that Israeli land and border thing, I see.

 

[JStone]

Still having a problem with that Israeli land and border thing, I see.

Still having a problem getting one rep point.

Maybe, prayer will help