Message-ID: <20040721220103.E29547@ubzr.zsa.bet>
From: measl at mfn.org (J.A. Terranson)
Subject: [OT] The Middle East Conundrum


From: Stormwalker <bruen@...drain.net>
> http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3023.htm
>
> Quoted from this website: "This web site represents the effort of one
> person. I need your help to offset the costs associated with site
> hosting and bandwidth usage. If you find this site informative please
> help by clicking here"
>
> One man's opinion is hardly proof.

The fact that you are actually going to question this shows your agenda.
Here: of the 17,000 references, pick one you trust.

> The Arab community has tried destroy Israel since its founding (approx.
> 3000 years ago, not 1948).

I am unconcerned with what happened 3000 years ago.  The fact is that what
is happening TODAY is the systematic eradication of another race. I am
concerned that Israel is doing it, and I am concerned that my appointed
(this didn't even bother with the formality of election) goverment is
actively assisting.  Why does this bother me?  Because I have no reason to
be helping to kill these people.  Because I don't want this to be the
[valid] cause of the retaliatory massacre of my own people (sorry - too
late there_.  Because it's just flat out wrong.


> They are simply defending themselves. If the Palestinian Arabs would
> stop attacking Israel, then Israel would stop attacking them. War is
> never pretty.

Nobody has bought into that in YEARS.  Those of us not personally involved
in the Israeli slaughter of civilians can see with our own eyes what is
really happening.

Regardless of who is right and who is wrong, it is not my governments job
to be propping up a country that participates in mass murder - remember
that this is *supposedly* one of the reasons we just invaded another
country. If we are willing to spend 4 trillion dollars to get rid of an
Arab government that behaves like this, then we should be willing to
*withhold* a few billion dollars from a government that behaves like this.

Let's face it - the two sides are quite happy killing each other off.
And as far as most of the world is concerned, at this point, it would be
no loss if they wiped each other out completely.  But asking me to
participate is BS.

> J.A. Terranson is just another anti-semite in a long history of
> antisemites who does not know history and does not care about facts.

Ahhh yes... Anyone who does not support Israel blindly is an "antisemite".
Sorry ashhat - if that's what it makes me, then I wear it proudly.


> From: whiplash <whiplash@...pammed.com>
>
> And *sistematically*. Take a look to the meaning of genocide.

OK.  Let's do that:

	http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=genocide

	1. The systematic and planned extermination of an entire
	national, racial, political, or ethnic group.

> Qana was a crime, an atrocity. Like in every bloody war: never heard
> about Dresda bombing, at the end of the II WW?

Two points:

(1) That it has happened previously, to other people, can in no way excuse
it happening today;

(2) I wasn't alive in WWII, so I could not do anything about it.  I am
alive now, and my idiot "president" is handing my hard earned money to a
country that is using it openly for the purpose of wiping out another
people.  I have a moral duty to fight this.  That you feel differently
says a lot about how you see the world.

> And what about *some* tons of napam spreaded around the Vietnam?

I was alive for that.  And I also spent that period as a very outspoken
"dissident".  Like today, I tried to do whatever I could to stop it.  And
again, that you use previous occurances of evil to justify evil today is
very scary.

> But *genocide* remains something absolutely different, I'm sorry.

See link, above.



> From: Brad Griffin <b.griffin@....edu.au>
>
> For the content challenged mail gateways all references to the f word
> have been removed in this copy
>
>
>
> I love a good us and them flame war.

Well, that makes two of us Brad :-)

> Get with the ******** picture fools. History shows that almost every
> country/society/culture has attempted to, or succeeded in destroying
> another culture at various times in the past.

While 100% true, cannot be used as a moral justification.

> The British committed Genocide on Tasmanian aborigines less than 200
> years ago. Indonesians tried to wipe out the East Timorese. That's just
> two recent examples. Here we have someone talking about 3000 year old
> history in 2004!

No.  I am talking about TODAY.  The repeated attempt to characterize the
middle east conflict as "2000 years old" is misleading and disingenuous:
the killing is happening TODAY.

> What the **** relevance does ancient history have to do with the
> systematic destruction of another culture/society today? Sweet **** all
> your honour. If you are intent on using 3000 year old history to make
> your point, you'd best start condemning the Spaniards to Hell because
> they wiped out a number of South American societies not too long ago
> too!

So, by this logic, we can discount anything that has happened in the past,
right?

(1) "Those who do not remember history are condemned to repeat it."

(2) If I go over to your house and rape your dog, beat up your wife, and
burn down your house, you should have nothing to say about it, becuase by
the time you find out, it will be "history".

(3) Just for my own edification, how old does something have to be under
your world view to be considered "immaterial"?


> Face facts, the Israeli govt is slowly but surely destroying a society
> with full backing of U.S. govt. The society being destroyed is fighting
> back.

BINGO.

> It doesn't matter *who* is at fault in the end because both sides are
> killing children. Both should be condemned for that action.

Agreed.  But me and you are being made to foot the bill.  And to prop up
these murdering scum when their respective countries would otherwise have
collapsed under the weight of their own acts.

This support makes us accomplices.  It makes us combatants.  It makes us
spend trillions of dollars trying to defend ourselves from an enemy that
we cant see or fight effectively.

"I have seen the enemy, and he is us".

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