JB Globe

As Topaz pointed out there's information in that link which actually counters your point - that using current birth rates even by 2100 Muslims will only account for 25% of Europe's population, this figure not including the high birth-rate of immigrant Christians, and it being very possible that those birth rates could fall as more Muslims move out of poverty (because of decreased job discrimination). But this doesn't really answer to your earlier claim that Muslims are "choking out the white people" Personally I have never heard of such a threat, am I to imagine that you are saying that Muslims are going to try and out-breed pale-skinned people? What about all the pale-skinned Muslims? What about Latinos? Are they going to get out-breed? I'm sorry but your claims just don't make much sense to me. You also never bothered answering how you arrived at this conclusion, what experiences have you had in your life and in your town that have made you think of Muslims this way?

I would agree that a segment of virtually any group (religious, ethnic, political) is incompatible with basic Canadian values and society. I don't use the terms civilized or uncivilized because I believe them to be culturally-specific definitions and not a good objective means of grouping people.

No.

My main point about why your worldview is the way it is has to do with an extreme tendency of yours towards confirmation bias (ignoring/discrediting things inconvenient to your worldview, over-emphasizing things which fit into it). The fact that when pressed for things that prove your worldview you resort to anti-Islamic websites actually fits into my argument. The whole purpose of those sites is to reinforce confirmation bias. They're the other side of the coin to say, communist websites that have already decided that capitalism is evil, and spend their time ignoring evidence to the contrary and compiling things that "prove" this belief, even if it means taking them out of context. That may be true, but as this is an old article - the only place you can get it now is on the anti-Islamic websites I mentioned earlier. Your position all along has been "Islam is a backward religion" - a grand sweeping statement, and in order to prove something this huge, you need big facts. The words of two Imams just isn't going to cut it - this is Islam after all, not Catholicism. The Imam of the Grand Mosque isn't the Pope, even the most influential cleric in the world does not have a loyal following of much more than 1-2% of the population of the Muslim world. So what your quotes do is basically say that there are problems within Islam that need to be resolved. Antisemitism is accepted in some quarters, violence encouraged by a small minority. I've never denied any of this - what I have a problem with is your claim that Islam in general is "backward" and not compatible with secular democracies or modernity. My problem with that statement simply is that it isn't true, and you've yet to prove it. A word of advice - if you can't possibly back up your statements, don't make them, because otherwise they just end up looking like hyperbole - even if you're trying to be serious. And again, I refer you to the Topkapi Declaration and Amman Message for a more true consensus within the Muslim world on many issues we discuss here regularly. 500 of the world's top clerics from dozens of countries are far more representative of what the world's Muslims actually believe in than any two clerics. There simply is no counterpart in terms of hundreds of Islamic clerics endorsing a declaration supporting terrorism This fact may be true, but again - your prejudice is blinding you to the fact that non-Muslims regularly commit acts of terrorism all over the world. Meaning - that yes Muslims do bad things, but human beings do bad things in general. You are seemingly unaware that conflicts which do not affect Western interests get almost no coverage in comparison to conflicts which do, hence why you are under the impression that most of the world's acts of terrorism are committed by Islamic Jihadi groups. That list also includes some nations which don't fit that characterization, but your view that these societies are the way they are because of some inherent "backwardness" in Islam is just lazy determinism. Besides, you're ignoring two key facts - Western nations have either colonized every nation in that organization, and/or have interfered in their post-colonial political development routinely, by using various means to influence those societies towards their interests, and not necessarily in the interests of their own citizens, democracy, or human rights. Iran is a prime example - overthrowing a secular democratically elected government for oil interests, thus creating a climate where it's possible for a religious movement to claim power and repeal many human rights. If the West stopped propping up dictators who play our game, than many people in the Muslim world would be able to actually deal with many of the problems you mentioned. I simply can't chastise Muslim nations for not doing enough to expand pluralism, democracy or human rights when we're sitting here working against them most of time. That's what happens when religious (Wahhabi) forces control too much power in a given country. The issue here isn't that there's "too much Islam" in Saudi Arabia, it's that there's too much religion involved in the political system and not enough democratic institutions. That's how firebrands like this guy get to where they are. Again, more cherry-picking. Of course there are people that think like this, but again - this does not represent the world's Muslims, it only represents an extremely small minority. For every one of these guys, there's a few thousand academics who denounce terrorism. Notice they specifically mention their opposition to one of the people you quoted earlier. Again - what I am saying is that there are problems within the Muslim world that can be dealt with if Muslims and non-Muslims commit to dealing with them together using soft-power primarily, and hard power when absolutely necessary. I don't think that is an unreasonable view to most people - of course if you perceive ALL Muslims as the enemy, I suppose it would seem unreasonable to try and work with them. No, you shouldn't. You should not be comparing post-colonial nations which have had their internal affairs interfered with by outside forces for decades to those nations which did the colonizing, and are still doing the interfering. Of course there is going to be more unrest, poverty, instability, human rights violations, etc. in these nations - that's a natural result of being colonized and interfered with for so long. You're comparing developed nations to developing nations - It truly is an apples and oranges comparison. How about you go ahead and compare Muslim-majority developing nations to non-Muslim-majority developing nations? How about you compare Sudan to the Congo? Burma to Iran? Syria to North Korea? You're just not going to be able to prove that Muslim nations are more problematic than non-Muslim nations when it comes to the developing world. The differences you see in the Muslim world vs. the West have more to do with history and economics than religion, sorry to break it to you. And my point, again - is that those stories aren't enough. It's not enough to cherry-pick the worst examples from a religion of 1.5 billion people, and leave everything else out. That's actually dishonest and lazy and it doesn't validate your worldview for the rest of us. You should know perfectly well that someone who is committed to misinformation can do the same kind of hack-job on any group of people - be it a religion, political movement, nation, cultural group, etc. If you tried to use news articles alone to back up say, an essay (pick any topic) you'd get a failing grade - because they're simply not enough. Grand sweeping statements require grand sweeping facts - news articles about individual incidents aren't enough. You need global opinion polls, declarations by international Muslim organizations, large research studies - etc. that back up what you're saying. The problem for you is of course, is that all of these undertakings actually repudiate your worldview. The global opinion polls show, for example Muslims aren't frothing at the mouth Jihadis as you make them out to be. That doesn't mean there aren't some problematic views - but rather that we can work to address those views with Muslims. Actually as I've stated about 4 times now, the Topkapi Declaration and Amman Message are the result of over 500 of the world's top clerics and two of the largest religious gatherings of influential scholars in modern history. They are simply the pre-eminent documents on what Muslim scholars believe when it comes to democracy, secularism, pluralism, terrorism, etc. Meaning - that they're two of the BEST sources out there. I didn't have to seek out anything - all I did was go right to the best source available. Not if it's from something equivalent to the Topkapi Declaration/Amman Message. Unlike yourself, my worldview on Islam has changed with what I've learned over the years. If I were to come across substantial evidence that proves your worldview correct, I'll change. The problem for you is, there is no substantial evidence to support your claim. The best you can do is to troll news sites and post articles that "prove" your worldview, and not post the ones that disprove your worldview. Finally . . . 1 - You never deny you are a White Nationalist, you just claim you've never called yourself that. I believe that this is simply a ploy to avoid articulating your views, in full, because if you did, they would be nearly identical to standard White Nationalist views. 2 - You have NEVER stated any solution that you have to the problem of "Muslim backwardness" - Either you have no solution and just enjoy making slanderous statements (which would make you a troll), or you do have a solution which you refuse to reveal (either because you know the solution sounds ridiculous and/or inhumanely brutal, ie - go to war with all Muslims and kill as many as possible). 3 - You have almost no direct experience with Muslims, so your news articles are really all you have. Personally I think it's incredibly naive to put that much faith in pieces of journalistic writing that rarely exceed 1000 words.

How have you arrived at this conclusion? What kind of research and study have you done into the Muslim Canadian community? Or about Islam in general? What kind of personal interaction have you had with Muslims that has helped you to arrive at this conclusion? What were the context of these discussions? Where do you live? I'm trying to establish your knowledge base so that we can understand your views better. Please try and be specific.

You pulled this from either Islam-Watch or Militant-Islam-Monitor: both are blatantly anti-Islamic websites, which goes to prove my earlier claim that one of the two primary sources of information on Islam for you are biased sources. I'll discuss the quotes directly in the next segment. This article currently only exists on Jihad Watch, another blatantly anti-Islamic website. Again - you sit there and try and tell us that you don't get your info from amateurish, prejudiced websites, but you do. Now either your whole worldview is so warped that you don't believe these sites are biased (ie - you really do believe "Islam is backward," so a website that says as much isn't being biased, it's telling the truth in your warped world), or you know these sites are junk - but it's more important for you to "win" in a debate than it is to be truthful. Of course, now you've been outed, so I would hope that the few people here who still actually don't laugh when you write take you even less seriously. But even if you pulled these quotes from the BBC, they're still accurate right? True - but the thing is they're not representative of all the world's Muslims. I counter your two quotes from two Arab Sunni scholars with the Topkapi Declaration (part of the Amman Message) which was crafted and signed by hundreds of the world's most influential religious leaders and scholars (both Shia & Sunni, and representative by population of the Muslim world). To summarize, the Declaration says that Muslims in Western countries have a duty to uphold the laws of the nations they reside in precisely because those nations allow them freedom of worship and social justice - they also need to take pride in these nations, be good neighbours and citizens, and defend these nations from aggressors, while acknowledging Islamophobia exists - it makes clear it is no justification for breaking the law. It also completely condemns terrorism. The problem with your whole position on Islam is that you go overboard with confirmation bias (look it up, please). ie - you seek out information that confirms your prejudices and ignore or discredit information that goes against (hence why you spend so much time on anti-Islamic websites). Everyone does this SOMETIMES when it comes to SOME ISSUES, (we're all human) however, when it comes to Islam - you go above and beyond - you do this almost all the time. These quotes are a perfect example - you used biased sites to cherry pick two quotes from two religious figures, and tried to present them as representative of the opinions of 1.5 billion Muslims. Now either you think that's enough proof of Islam's "backwardness" (because you never actually had to argue a point like this in a moderated setting, or in an academic paper), or you know it's not enough proof but you posted it anyways because it's more important to you to "win" than it is to argue honestly. Because if you did argue honestly, you might have to ask yourself the tough questions that many of us have had to do throughout our lives either in our personal lives, school, or professionally: "Am I basing my views on sound information? Have my life experiences ingrained biases in me that I might not be aware of? How are these biases influencing how I perceive reality? Am I reinforcing these biases in terms of what information I seek out/don't seek out?" It doesn't appear like you've ever really taken a long, hard look in the mirror before. And that's sad because it limits your growth as a human being - no matter what your opinions may be. Of course they have influenced you. If I spent my lifetime only taking in negative information about a group of people, I would probably end up with a negative view of them. But to only hear negative information about Islam also means ignoring all of the positive and NORMATIVE (key word here) information about Islam. It also means ignoring the same kinds of stories of brutality perpetuated by non-Muslims (be they Christian, atheist, Hindu, Jew, etc), because acknowledging that non-Muslims can be just as brutal as Muslims, means that Muslims aren't inherently more brutal than non-Muslims. And most importantly it means ignoring the context these incidents occur in. ie - it's very disingenuous (see: dishonest) to imply that machine gunning schoolgirls is commonplace throughout Islam, when such an attack has only occurred in Afghanistan, at the hands of the Taliban, which does not have popular support even among Afghanis. What information you don't pick up from anti-Islamic websites, you filter through your already prejudiced worldview. Actually, my opinions of your personal life are formed by what you've written here . . . You regularly post about how terrible Islam is, and how Muslims are threatening to destroy Canada. When pressed on your personal interaction with Muslims, you have two responses: 1 - You live in a part of Ottawa with a high Lebanese-Canadian population. 2 - Some of your ex-coworkers used to be Muslim. It's telling that you never said you have had any friends who are Muslims, just casual acquaintances. That's important because usually people will not casually open up about potentially explosive topics like religion and/or its relationship to violence with people they don't know well, or who are of a different religion/ethnicity (especially the ethnicity to which most Islamophobes belong). What that tells me is that you have never had an opportunity to engage in an honest and respectful discussion about these serious issues with Muslims and (here's the most important part) see things from their perspective, even if you don't necessarily agree with them (having empathy is not the same thing as condoning something). This is why I say you simply do not understand how most Canadian Muslims live and view the world - because you don't really know any of them (and as I pointed out before, the information you do/don't seek out doesn't inform you of their experiences either). Add to this your self-admited negative view on Islam - and these kinds of interactions seem as likely as a fundamentalist Christian having a casual heart-to-heart with an atheist at the local fruit market. I think this qualifies as a gross assumption. The three TV/film projects I have worked on start-to-finish since graduating recently did not receive any government grants. One was featured on the CBC, one is an educational product for Ontario schools, the other is being broadcast this fall in on Omni. How does that foot taste? As for "welfare writing" - I don't see anything wrong with new artists receiving some government assistance when they're first starting up, especially when those grants are given out based on merit. Many of our country's most well-known artists who make a lot of money now, had a helping hand in the past. If it wasn't for that, I don't think Canada would have much of an indigenous art scene - it's part of the problem of living next door to a cultural goliath. What do you write? And does it taste like Gouda or more like Blue Cheese? Can you BE any more inane? Speculation is just that. It does not require one being privy to any particular event. So you're not a White Nationalist? So what are you exactly? I mean - you think Islam is backward, as well as pretty much all non-Christian, non-Anglo cultures to varying degrees. And you have alluded to wanting discriminatory immigration and domestic policies, against non-Christian, non-Anglo people (including citizens). You've even made casual references to wanting to get rid of such people from Canada. Of course, when asked to be more specific about these views, you never answer directly, which leads me to believe that you are in fact a White Nationalist, but you don't want to admit that to yourself, and/or to us because you realize that White Nationalism in the Canadian context is a reactive and discriminatory ideology, and you don't want to think of yourself/be thought of as a bad guy. But hey, this could all be resolved if you actually laid out your beliefs, and actually said what you think the solutions are to the "Muslim/immigrant problem"

Oh yes, Canadian Forces soldiers generally sound like 14-year-old boys playing Call of Duty. Very believable.

Nice cheerleading, armchair general. Obviously someone doesn't know anyone who actually served in Afghanistan.

In order to "prove" that Muslims are inherently violent/evil/backward and that Muslim immigration to Canada is inherently bad, you referenced 3 cases that didn't happen in Canada, and that were the subject of a paper on mental illness. What is most interesting about this post is that you would rather make yourself look like a fool than admit to yourself that maybe, just maybe, things aren't as bad as you've been making them out to be, and maybe your fear of the unknown might be causing you to view some molehills as mountains. What I find the strangest is that this post has come out of nowhere - it's not as if any of these cases are new (I think they're all at least 2-3 years old) so it's not as if you're reacting to a recent news story - you sat there and chose this one topic out of the thousands you could have written about. I think it speaks to a rather dangerous obsession with this false notion that non-white, non-Christian Canadians are tearing this country apart.

Well thank you for clarifying which ignorant and false belief you subscribe to. If you're so learned about Islam how come you never quote any information from a respected scholar on the subject? News reports on websites and analysis from biased sources doesn't count as serious study - and the only way you could even attempt to make a statement like "Islam is backward" is if you have done some serious study, which you haven't. I rebut your arguments (which often do not contain facts, or contain facts taken out of context) on a regular basis. This Goebbelesque tactic of repeating something often enough in the hopes that people will start believing it speaks to the fact that you really don't have much of a case to stand on. Did you really just say "no one can no what is in another man's heart" then in the next sentence, claim to know what is in another man's heart? It's really amusing when you claim to know what goes on in the heads of people you've never met. Perhaps you don't know this, but I'm a filmmaker and writer, I interview people on a regular basis, I'm willing to put good money down that I have much more experience speaking about difficult subjects with people than you do - meaning I'm pretty good at getting people to open up with how they really feel - because it's part of my job. Also - how can you even speculate when you're not privy to the conversations? Things have gotten quite heated, and sometimes ugly, but usually all of us leave the convo with our perceptions changed (usually for the better) so I can say that Muslims (much like most people) seem to be much more rational and open-minded than you. So please spare me this "I know best because I'm a White Nationalist who sees the truth in the world that everyone else is blind to" nonsense. Especially when your basing your opinion on "what Muslims REALLY think" on one column in a statistical study . . . This is what I mean when I say you take things out of context . . . If you're referring to the same poll I'm thinking of, that poll also found that Muslim-Canadians also feel strong allegience to Canada, take pride in the rule of law, good government, and Multiculturalism, to the tune of over 80% - which is actually pretty equal to their non-Muslim counterparts. But you wouldn't mention that part, because it doesn't fit in with your "Muslims are backward" theory. Also consider that the support for Sharia law is for Sharia law for non-criminal disputes like family matters - that 50% is not advocating for a separate justice system. Also consider close to half of Jews would like Jewish law for non-criminal disputes as well - are Jews backward as well? Wait - your White Nationalist-self doesn't need to answer that one. So while I don't agree with Sharia law being used at all, this issue is not as bad as your making it out to be (which really is par for the course - Molehills ---> Mountains). Now either you're unaware of the context of the fact that "50% of Canadian Muslims support Sharia" or you're deliberately excluding it. So you're either ignorant about Islam in Canada, or completely dishonest about it. Take your pick.

The "facts" which you claim prove your "Islam is evil" idea are actually a prime example of confirmation bias. For the record, I think the whole notion of being "politically correct" is bogus - it's just a means of masking someone's deeply held prejudices. I prefer the notions of RESPECT and TRUTH. The thing is Argus, is that you have never done any substantial reading on Islam or terrorism - your "studying" involves trolling anti-Islamic websites for things which confirm what you already believe to be true. Nevermind the fact that your day-to-day interaction with Muslims is extremely limited. How you can claim to posses such an infinite amount of knowledge about something as complex as Islam without ever really studying it or interacting with those who practice it is ridiculous. If someone from outside of what you consider to be "your culture" used the same methods to arrive at the conclusion that "Anglo-Canadians are evil" You would dismiss it out of hand as ignorant, unsophisticated and plain wrong. I don't even need to look at your conclusion to know you're wrong - you only need to look at how you arrived at that conclusion.

I think by this point you should know how pointless it is to argue with people who have little/no real-life experience interacting with Muslims, much less any basic knowledge of Islam that hasn't been trawled from blatantly anti-Islamic sources. These people have made it their life's work to make themselves believe that Islam as a whole is evil, while I hope that they reach an epiphany one day and realize they've been acting like fools their whole lives, I'm not going to sit around and waste my time trying to convince them of anything - it's about as fruitful as persuading an ardent believer of the "moon-landing hoax" Try and find something more productive to do - there's a reason why I go weeks and months between posting here . . . And why these people are here regularly spewing their vile . . .

Rue, Thank you for being mature and intelligent enough to debate this issue and disagree without acting like a jackass - it's a skill a lot of people here could learn. I don't have the time for a full reply, but I agree with most of your characterization of Hamas. And while I do criticize the IDF to a degree, I realize that they are given a raw deal in terms of the type of operations they have to carry out. It's not as if the IDF decided it wanted to oppress the self-determination of Palestinians, that was a result of politicians' decisions and a rabid segment of Israeli society. The best I can summarize my view on the whole conflict is that the decision to occupy the West Bank and Gaza strip was a fatal error that has made possible the kind of atrocities and indignities that Israel has perpetrated on Palestinians. In return this has made possible the rise of groups who believe that violence and/or terrorism is the best method to strike back at Israel. It's not Israel's fault that terrorists do what they do, but it is their fault they they would rather continue building settlements than drain the swamp that breeds future terrorists. It's also Palestinians fault for choosing to resist occupation in a way that gives some justification to Israel for military action. It also happens to be the worst way to try and force a democratic nation to change it's policy. I think that rather than arguing that each side is doing something immoral, it would be a lot more productive to argue that the policies that each side engages in are counterproductive to their goals.

Not really - top army general Douglas MacArthur, the Prez's chief of staff Admiral Leahy, Brig-Gen Clarke (in charge of translating intercepted Japanese communications), and Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Nimitz all didn't think the bomb was necessary. I'm not going to debate this anymore because it's off-topic, but just wanted you to know it's not complete nonsense, and there was dissent against the bomb at the highest levels of the military at the time.

There have been many fatwas issued against Al Qaeda and the Taliban over the years, these go virtually unreported in Western Media. The most prominent condemnation occurred at a large summit convened by Saudi King Abdullah in 2005, he invited over 200 of the most influencial scholars from over 50 countries to debate issues and come to a consensus. One of them being that allegations of Takfir are forbidden between Muslims, meaning Bin Laden's entire philosphy that he's practicing "true" Islam and everyone else is faking it, is blasphemous. He's already been labelled a heretic by clerics in Indonesia, Pakistan and Saudi, it's just this happens to be the biggest condemnation he's received so far. Re: http://www.ammanmessage.com/

This assumes of course, that there is no other option the military force. Considering Hamas had a legitimate reason for their illegitimate actions (the blockade) that left the door open for negotiation. But of course, negotiations with Hamas and Israel are always difficult - mainly because it's hard to negotiate when you won't get in the same room as the person on the other side of the table. However, I think negotiations would have worked, would have prevented a lot of civilian deaths, and Israel's reputation would not have taken the hammering that it did during the Gaza War. All in all, I think Israel's long-term interests were better served by NOT going to war in this case. I know you have better examples than ones from WWII. Besides, most of the highest ranking military officials at the time didn't believe it was necessary to drop the a-bomb to end the war.

Can you read? Or are you misrepresenting my argument as usual? Here's my full post: Notice I said SPECIFICALLY I didn't think that Hamas had a legitimate claim to use violence - that no one ever really tried large-scale organized civil disobedience before resorting to violence. I said SPECIFICALLY that I wasn't talking about Israel-Palestine when asking the second question, yet you cut those parts out of your quote so that you could claim that I was somehow supporting Hamas' legitimacy. Is it possible for you to debate without resorting to misinformation?

How? By stating that the civilian population in Gaza is deeply distrustful of the IDF and that's why they won't camp out in a field in plain sight of the IDF? In their minds it would make them sitting ducks. I didn't even mention Hamas in this context - how could I be apologizing for them? Quit it with these knee-jerk reactions to people with a different interpretation of the situation. I think Hamas should have tried, (and for the record I think it's criminal that they didn't) but I don't think by their will alone they could've gotten the whole population out of the cities - there would still be too many people too frightened to do it, which speaks to the Palestinian opinion of the IDF if they would rather sit it out in the middle of the conflict. This shouldn't be something that's hard to understand - you've got a group of people who's only interaction with a military force has resulted in oppression, humiliation, and violence - what reason do Palestinians, from their perspective have to trust the IDF? Notice I'm not even saying their perspective is valid or invalid, I'm just saying that the reality of Occupation means that there's no way to have even a working relationship between the IDF and Palestinian civilians. You could say the same thing about what terrorism does to the relationship as well.

The thing about the Taliban & Al Qaeda is, that according to the traditional interpretation of the lesser Jihad, they're not Jihadis, because their basic operating practices violate the definition of Jihad. Add to that the fact that they're Takfiris - meaning they have no authority to delcare who is or isn't a Muslim, but do so anyway, and once that's done they feel they have the right to go ahead and slaughter civilians whom they claim are apostates because they don't practice their austere idea of what Islam is - this to is again against the most basic Islamic principles.

Either your reading comprehension is at a 4th grade level, or you're lying. Personally I think you know damn well I never said anything like that. I think you've already read the posts in this thread where I explained the reasons why these facts exist, but it's easier for you to misrepresent what I'm saying than it is to come up with a rebuttal. Actually it's totally relevant: Your logic that when a group is over-represented in a certain kind of crime, that justifies racial profiling and discriminatory policies to deal with that fact - this should apply to all groups. Meaning, there should be racial profiling of black folks for gang violence, and YOU should be racially profiled next time a child is found raped and murdered. But of course - as with all proponents of racial profiling - they're only for it when it doesn't affect them. And given that racial profiling and discriminatory policies haven't been proven at increasing overall public safety anywhere, I'm wondering just how you figure any of this is going to work. And why don't you spell out your solutions anyway? You drop hints here and there about racial profiling, but you're never specific about what you mean. You already read my posts where I explained and responded to this point - stop playing dumb. You know what, I have a source right here, but I actually find it more amusing to hear you suggesting that the black community in Canada ISN'T over-represented at the lower-income level. As opposed to which country's fantastic immigration system? No really - who should we be emulating? Our immigration system needs some work of course, but it's our "integration system" that is the real source of this problem. You're not a bigot, you just enjoy telling people from minority groups that you know our reality better than they do, because your white mind is superior to ours - right? Nothing's more hilarious than the hissy-fits white bigots pull when you won't play their "model minority" game.

Gaza specifically? Yes: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/07...port/index.html Admittedly I'd like more than anonymous testimony, but given the situation in Gaza at the time (no media allowed, people are too poor to be "citizen journalists" and have a camera handy to film this stuff) it's the best we have. However given the numerous past incidents, I think it's safe to assume that if the IDF has been found to be using human shields in places where they don't have such an information stranglehold, that they'd definitely be using human shields when they're able to operate in the dark in the information vacuum that was the Gaza invasion. Especially considering that the IDF openly admitted it used human shields until the Israeli Supreme Court squashed this as a violation of the Geneva code in 2005. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4333982.stm Given how frequently it's happened since then, or reported to have happened (because of course, cameras aren't allowed during Israeli operations), I don't think it's too far-fetched to think that there's a chunk of soldiers in the IDF who are pissed off at Supreme Court decision, could care less, and are continuing the policy. I also think that there's a lot of soldiers who look the other way, because they don't want to be a snitch (police have blue shirts mostly - so it's the "no snitch" barrier is called the blue wall, with the military, is it the olive-wall?). And btw, while it might seem nice that the IDF former policy on human shields demanded that soldiers get permission first - there have been many cases where people cited in IDF reports as willing shields have later said that they or their families were threatened into complying. I know there's going to be a knee-jerk reaction (not you specifically Rue) to deny that Israel does bad things, because after all, this is a cosmic war and us Jews are the good guys - but really that speaks to the ignorance and naivety of the people who react that way to the entirety of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Dirty wars make good folks do unspeakable things - this isn't a radical concept.

It's true. My parents gave me the initials JB just so that a few decades later I could pattern myself after you. Get over yourself.

And of course, acting accordingly would have meant not attacking Gaza. Now on my end, I've always derided Hamas for choosing the worst tactic (terrorism) when dealing with a democratic state that loves to pat itself on it's back for being morally superior. I think that Palestinians could have complete control over their land if they took to large-scale civil disobedience. So when I ask this question, I'm not talking about Israel-Palestine . . . But I do recognize that in some circumstances militant groups don't really have much of a choice: the government they're fighting is totalitarian, if they operate in a conventional military style they'll be crushed - so they do what they can, which may involve operating in civilian areas. Do they still bare total responsibility? Even if they have legit grievances against the government (ie - the government is committing crimes against them?)

Walking out into the middle of a field in plain sight of IDF artillery positions to sit and wait for an Israeli offensive to finish sounds suicidal to a Palestinian. Kind of like for an Israeli - slapping on your Israeli-flag-Yarmulke, hoping the fence and going for a nice stroll in downtown Gaza is an activity reserved only for those with a death-wish.

West? Are there different rules of war depending on where your country is located on a map? Was that a slip of the Clash of Civilizations? Or just a typo? Here's the thing - when the amount of innocent lives lost is far greater than the actual security gains you're going to get, a decent politician is supposed to call off the attack. But unfortunately, this is the Middle East, and there are three things which are in very short supply: 1 - Water 2 - Decent Politicians 3 - Mustache trimmers The Gaza invasion put short-term security ahead of long-term security. That and it made Labor look really, really, badass running into the elections, which made Olmert look as badass as ever running up to the elections, too bad for him war isn't everything in Israel anymore. No, of course not - Palestinian parents can't throw teargas at their kids for fun. BTW - I wasn't aware that happening to live in an apartment with your kids on the same Gaza street as a government health clinic was one in the same as strapping a local kid to the hood of a jeep while paroling hostile territory. How about for starters: stop using the actions of terrorists to excuse your own continual failure to do what's best for your long-term security and bring peace to your own people. Incidentally, this sounds a lot like my opinion on what Palestinians should do differently . . .