JB Globe

Well if you want to go back to the source, the decision to occupy Palestine following '67 was a pretty huge tactical error - it certainly hasn't made Israel any safer than throwing up a fence on the border and staying home. But the blockade is a failure because it's purpose isn't officially clear and there are no benchmarks to judge it's success. ie - if this is about stopping weapon smuggling, fine - but than why are you banning things like cumin, livestock feed, and dried fruit and nuts? Why were potatoes banned until this December? It gives the appearance this is more about punishing Gazan civilians than stopping weapon smuggling - which, btw - is happening regularly on the Egyptian border through the tunnel network. And when does Israel claim that the blockade has worked? What measurement do they use? And when does it end? When Hamas leaves? What if they managed to retain power, despite a shift among citizens against them? Do you continue punishing people by strangling the economy and keeping over 80% of people dependent on food aid? And the whole operation plays terribly for Israel internationally. It tarnishes the brand and makes Israel look like a brutal Imperial power that doesn't care about human rights. And in the past 10 years there's been a steady decline in favourable opinions of Israel in many polls - most significant, the amount of American Jews who have positive feelings towards Israel has dropped 10% since 1999, and has been dropping since the beginning of the intifada. This isn't uprising if you look at occupations throughout history - the ones that don't have a clear end date seriously damage the perpetrator. No matter the intentions of the occupier, the actual system of occupation slowly transforms them into a monstrous version of their former selves. Occupation forces states to do terrible things they might not otherwise do in an effort to keep a firm grip. And this moral corruption spreads throughout society, if left unchecked. I just fail to see how the blockade as it's being conducted now, or this flotilla incident, does anything other than hurt Israel long-term. No argument here, it's just said when some people (not yourself) take everything that comes out of the Israeli government as the gospel. For the record, the IDF retracted their claim that IHH has Al-Qaeda links a day after they put out a press release with the claim. Well, if they were, I'm pretty sure they'd be on an American blacklist by now. I personally haven't seen any evidence to suggest they're giving money to Hamas, unless you take the neo-con position that giving aid to Palestinian civilians is the same thing as giving money to Hamas. I think they had two motivations depending on what transpired - either get the aid to Gaza and break the blockade, or get stopped and turn the incident into a symbolic event about the injustice of the blockade. It seems like they were prepared for either outcome. Kind of head to do when you've been ordered to use non lethal force...hence the paint ball guns...but normally yes the ship the commandos where on would disable the ship if it refused to stop...by either shots across the bow, or just below the water line... And it's not as if Israel hasn't boarded ships over the side before without incident. I kinda wonder if Barak was hoping to deliver the Israeli public another dramatic operation a la the commando raid on the airport in Uganda in the 70's. If he was, he made a pretty bad gamble. We agree on the rockets, but considering the US' hand in this conflict from day one, I think they and the British should pony up some peacekeepers - you could also get some Turks in there as well. Everyone is tapped out right now, but I don't think the notion of UN peacekeepers running the Gaza border is going to be taken seriously for a while - plenty of time to draw down.

It's a youtube video, what's up with your Norton buddy?

The IDF seized all of the recordings the 40-odd journalists on board the Marmara made, and is now editing them and putting them up on their youtube website. They're not returning any of the footage to the journalists. I mean really, you have to be off your meds to say that Israel doesn't enagage in blatant propaganda when you see this. Hell, you'd have a case to say that they don't respect press freedoms either. Why is this so hard for some to swallow? This is the Middle East - no one does things cleanly there, not even Israel.

All your link says is Hamas gets some money from charities which could be located anywhere. Your link also says that most of the money Hamas still receives is from Syria and other Arab states hostile to Israel, that and cigarette taxes. There's nothing about charities located in Canada, and even if there is some money raised here in Canada, I highly doubt it's a significant amount, otherwise I'm sure CSIS/RCMP would have been all over it a long time ago, especially considering Harper's position on Hamas. So your earlier claim that lefties around the world are bankrolling Hamas $ billions is still rubbish.

It's not a loophole, it's called REALITY and it's happening in Afghanistan with Canadian taxpayer money right now, but you're not feigning indignation about that. You might not be aware of this, but we don't live in a perfect world, and sometimes you have to make hard choices. Most fully-functional human beings would agree that sending aid to an area controlled by a thuggish regime or with lax rule of law is worth it if the vast majority of that aid gets to people who would otherwise die without it. Frankly I'm willing to take it as an overhead if Hamas is going to tear bags of rice out of the hands of some families after they take them home from the UN distribution centre, so long as the VAST MAJORITY of the aid gets to the people who need it. I guess you disagree. What's your solution? End all aid and let mass starvation take place? . . . And of course, in that case, both Israel and Egypt would be legally culpable in that case - and it might even meet the definition of genocide. You're trolling again. I know you read my post and checked the links I gave you, I just disproved that those rallies were "pro terrorist demonstrations" by linking the cbc article on the demonstration itself - the only source you have that backs up your claim is the Israeli ambassador's accusations, who is obviously doing some political posturing and he wasn't even at the frickin protest anyways. For the life of me I can't understand why you do this - play this pathetic misinformation game when you pretend that you didn't just read a whole argument I wrote backed up by links from reputable sites and then just repeat your initial accusation repeatedly - is the thinking that the facts I brought up aren't true until you admit they're true? That would explain a lot if that's your line of thinking then - then the flotilla incident can't be a scandal until you acknowledge it's a scandal, because you're the gatekeeper of truth . . . No matter if Barak looses his job because of it.

, especially since Israel has confiscated all recordings of the incident, and Canada and the US have blocked a UN investigation.

Another aid ship en route to Gaza . . .

You're trolling again.

If you think an article from a propaganda website is a credible as something from the New York Times, you're off your rocker.

That's not true. I doubt you've even read past the first page in this thread. I've posted articles from Israelis in Israel's biggest daily paper criticizing the tactics used in the incident by the IDF, I've posted articles criticizing Israel's recent hardline, isolationist strategy from conservative sources like the economist. I've even posted a great analysts of the incident from a Jewish prof at Harvard, which conveniently all you goy's have conveniently ignored. Quite frankly, you and several other posters here are complete ideologues who treat this conflict as if it was a geopolitical football game - you are completely unable to admit when Israel has made any significant mistake - something which ISRAELIS THEMSELVES ARE ABLE TO DO. And that's a key point here - how "pro-Israeli" are you and how informed are you if you're position is out of step with the majority of Israelis? If most Israelis view this incident as a debacle because of government fumbling, and you don't - than what does that say about how much you actually know about the situation in specific, or the conflict in general? If this seems harsh, so be it - I don't take kindly to folks grossly mischaracterizing my position on things, especially when I make great efforts to find balanced sources. And now they have sunk the hook deeper into those guliable enough to buy into this garbage... That's completely bogus. The only people who claim that IHH is involved with Al-Qaeda is the Israeli government, because they want to discredit them. There was the initial statement by the deputy foreign minister the day of the incident, now we have this article that you provided with us that's by an organization made up of former Israeli intelligence agents: I think the best evidence that this terrorism link is pure propaganda is the fact that IHH is not on any other country's blacklist, including the US. And that the group was active in the former Yugoslavia when NATO was calling the shots on humanitarian aid at the time following the conflict in Kosovo. Open up the border, have a UN force handle inspections, stop stalling on the peace process. If they don't they might as well open the borders .....or armed them themselfs.... Would the Canadian Navy try to drop onto the deck of a ship full of tense and emotional people one at a time from a helicopter? Or would they have tried to block/slow down the ship, disable the propeller, clear the deck with water canons if people didn't go below deck, and then board in groups over the side?

Is there proof of this? Hamas doesn't get donations from Canada or the US - it's blacklisted, and rightly so. When people donate money here it goes to UN agencies and/or big international NGO's that distribute the aid themselves directly to civilians. If Hamas goes and steals food from families after it's been given to them, that's out of the agencies' hands. And if that occurs it actually proves my initial point - that Hamas doesn't care about world opinion if in fact it has a policy of stealing food from it's own starving citizens. Oh, so I guess there isn't any widespread leftist support for Hamas after all then? Good, we can put that ridiculous claim to rest . . . As for this article, it isn't an article about the demonstration in question, it was a report on the reaction of several "pro-Israeli" figures like the Israeli ambassador, B'Nai Brith, and Canada's top evangelist VcVeaty to that demonstration. It doesn't even confirm in what numbers flags were present, it only states "it has been described as anti-Israeli in tone, with some Hezbollah flags present" and "it has been describe as" means - "folks like the ambassador think that . . ." Of course, when you read articles written about the demonstration itself, they make no mention of any anti-Israeli sentiment in general, or that any Hezbollah flags were present. It noted: So really, your article is a story about a few hawkish neo-cons trying to conflate opposition to an Israeli military operation with support for Hezbollah. Much like many people here trying to conflate the criticism of the flotilla incident with support for Hamas. It's all just so pathetic. [quote name='M.Dancer' date='03 June 2010 - 11:50 AM' timestamp='1275578544' post='545721'http://www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/yourspace/mps_hezbollah.html What the MP is doing here is taking a pragmatic approach to dealing with Hezbollah - it seems as though he wants to employ a method to encourage Hezbollah to moderate itself by giving it legitimacy in the political sphere, a carrot and stick approach if you will - stick with politics and we'll deal with you, stick with militant action and we'll blacklist you. I don't agree with the strategy, but it's not as if he's Hezbollah's buddy. I don't think you really have a leg to stand on with your "the left is cozying up to Hamas and Hezbollah" and therefor "Hamas and Hezbollah care about global opinion" argument, if this is all you can come up with.

Except, the flotilla raid had nothing to do with the defence of life & liberty of Israel - in fact, it HARMED Israel. That's not just me talking, that's the opinion of conservative media outlets like The Economist So if you care about Israel as much as you claim you do, why are you and others on this board completely incapable of admitting that this incident is a scandal? I mean it's hard to figure out a solution to a problem if you can't even admit there is one.

This article is a joke . . . "Documentation?" - Obviously the commander of the flotilla said no such thing - otherwise the article would quote him directly instead of going on second-hand information that apparently nobody other than this Sharia Law prof can verify. When did this guy supposidly say this? Has he been released from Israeli custody yet? If so - the international media would have been trying to interview him as soon as they got a chance - how come they didn't hear him say this? . . . This is just bunk. Next time if you don't have a reputable source just don't post it - you'd probably be the first to throw a hissy fit if someone posted an equally pathetic article from Jewwatch.org

What funding are you talking about? I'm not aware of such an incident. I think you're conflating increasing support for the Palestinian cause as increased support for Hamas, and I don't know if you can find any actual evidence of increased support for Hamas.

Just because someone disagrees with your worldview doesn't make them an apologist for the other side. Personally I think you know this but you're just trying to slander people because you can't/don't want to engage in actual debate. After all, you could have debated my point about global opinion not mattering to Hamas, instead you chose to try and call me a Hamas apologist. I think the world would be a better place if Hamas never existed, and the best thing the Gazans could do would be to try and get them out of power, but that doesn't mean that Israeli policies don't have a hand in creating the kind of environment where a group like Hamas can come to power. To ignore that would be like trying to ignore the fact that the treaty of Versailles had a hand in creating an environment where Hitler came to power.

No, that's because Hamas and Hezbollah aren't affected by global public opinion - it doesn't matter if everyone in Canada hates them or like them, it doesn't change the situation for them locally. It's like protesting North Korea - they just don't care, so why waste your time organizing protests? To make you personally happy? Also - people don't expect the same things out of terrorist groups and militias as they do from nations that build themselves up with taglines such as "a beacon of democracy and freedom in a sea of dictatorships"

I've been reading and thinking more about the incident on the deck of the Marmara. I'll try and put it in context . . . - There was only violence on one out of the six ships. - There was only violence involving two dozen or more people out of the several hundred people on board the Marmara. What this means is the vast majority of people involved in the flotilla were entirely peaceful. And as much as some here would prefer to forget, there are rarely any kind of mass non-violent protests where some fringe elements didn't slip up and become violent when provoked. It happened in civil rights marches under MLK, and it happened in India with Ghandi. But we don't focus on the actions of the few in those cases, we focus on the actions of the many. And just like MLK and Ghandi - the organizers of this flotilla were seeking a confrontation - that's the whole point of non-violent protest. You force the state to make a decision between using brute force to keep you at bay, or standing down. If the law you're challenging is unjust, than no matter what the state choses to do - you win, because you either demonstrate the state's brutal commitment to injustice, OR you show that the state is not immune to the will of the people. Frankly the more time I have to digest this incident, the more I think that the flotilla organizers were justified in the course of action they took. Of course, it would have been a better scenario for all involved if the IDF just stood down - many commentators in Israel are saying that the damage done by letting the flotilla (and thus in their eyes, damaging Israeli naval deterence) in would have paled in comparison to the current situation. And that way of course the aid would have actually gotten to Gaza. However, it's not the fault of the organizers that Israel chose to maintain their illegal blockade against their own best interests.

Actually, it's because no one here disputes the fact that Hamas commits war crimes. No one seems to have a problem when reports from human rights organizations detail Hamas violations, but when these same organizations apply the same methodology to Israel, then somehow according to Israeli apologists, they become flawed and motivated by "hatred" I mean really - why is it that Israelis seem to be more capable of being critical about this incident than you are? You won't even acknowledge that it's a scandal, which it blatantly is, given the political shitstorm within Israel. It seems like you're treating this conflict like it's some kind of geo-political football game, where all you do is root for your team and dismiss outright any suggestion that they're not the best team on earth. In that sense, you're in the same camp as Naomiglover - whom you seem to dislike quite a bit.

You could add Meshugeneh to that as well.

Check out the Saudi peace plan - it offered full peace with Israel upon the establishment of a Palestinian state and a removal of settlements.

While I appreciate the attempt, I think your planned is a little flawed. I won't repeat what's already been said, however I have two points . . . 1 - I think that leaving Jewish settlers in the West Bank to become citizens of a new Palestine is a huge mistake. Most settlers range from conservatively religious to outright irrational zealots, and I can see them zealously refusing to leave the West Bank, cursing their fellow Jews who turned their back on "what Torah tells us to do" and going it alone against their sworn enemies, the Palestinians, committing terrorist attacks against them. This of course, would give whatever Palestinians who were looking for vengeance the pretext they need to go after settlers paramilitary-style, and before you know it you have a civil war. 2 - The neo-con/fundamentalist block in Israel is adamantly, and eternally opposed to establishing a Palestinian state. That reality would signal that they lost the fight, they'd never go for it. So you would have to force this on Israel through international law, this isn't something you could let Israelis come to on their own.

Actually the opposite is true. In America especially, the public has been conditioned to believe that Israel is the eternal good guy in this conflict. Criticism of Israel is so stiffled by the ADL and Israeli lobby groups that politicians and journalists who take rational criticisms based on factual information against Israel, get blacklisted as anti-semites or self-hating Jews even when they go out of their way to say their criticisms are purely about Israel, and not about Jews in general. Israelis are able to criticize their government's policies more openly, precisely because they know that these policies are crafted by politicians belonging to different parties and ideologies, whereas in the US as well as Canada to an extent Israel and Jews are viewed as a monolith - whereby anything Israel does is supported by all Jews. ie - if Netanyahu's neo-con foreign policy is a dismal failure, progressive Israelis will have no problem criticizing it, but do the same thing in the US, and you'd be an anti-semite because the public and press view a criticism of the policy of a certain political party as an attack on Jews in general. That's actually not what people are so angry about in Israel, they're angry about HOW the interception of the blockade was done, the specific strategy used, and the lack of planning involved for the interception itself, as well as the PR counter-offensive that followed. There is also a lesser debate as to the merits of just letting the flotilla get through, the fallout might have been less damaging. But this is the Middle East, and like Thomas Friedman says - everyone plays by Middle East rules. And sometimes that means a counter-productive commitment to being "tough" even when the softer approach might be more beneficial.

From Harvard's George Friedman . . . Yet another self-hating Jew I suppose . . . A pretty money analysis if you ask me

In exactly the same way that Spain is secular, but still catholic.

Are you being disingenuous or naive? The incident didn't happen in a political and social vacuum. There is actually something beyond the immediate military confrontation, believe it or not. This is an enormous black eye for Israel globally - no nation has come out in support of it. Even the US and Canada, which defended Israel's actions in the Gaza War, are silent. Turkey, who is a military ally and key to dealing with Lebanon and Syria is mulling completely breaking off military ties with Israel. Public opinion on this incident throughout North America and Europe is overwhelmingly negative against Israel. This is even threatening to bring down Bibi's government in Israel if he doesn't salvage something soon, and Ehud Barak's time as defence minister is probably over. But you're calling this a success? God I hope that was sarcasm earlier . . .