Up the wall in Jericho...

[landmarker]

Once more a middle-eastern mob is on the rampage. This time burning the British Council building in Gaza, which provided services for the local population and a library. All up in flames now it appears because an Israeli military operation stepped into a brief vacuum at Jericho nick after the British guards left, fearing for their safety. The rights and wrongs of the situation will out over time but a suspected murderer was contaiined there along with a few others the Israelis were after.

It seems the stock reaction there to any kind of injustice or even an affront is to wreck, burn, kidnap and kill, with hooded fanatics discharging automatic weapons in the street

How the heck we are expected to make peace, or even broker peace between factions like these is beyond me. I'm getting close to the edge of caring.

[Oddquine]

Once more a middle-eastern mob is on the rampage. This time burning the British Council building in Gaza, which provided services for the local population and a library. All up in flames now it appears because an Israeli military operation stepped into a brief vacuum at Jericho nick after the British guards left, fearing for their safety. The rights and wrongs of the situation will out over time but a suspected murderer was contaiined there along with a few others the Israelis were after.

It seems the stock reaction there to any kind of injustice or even an affront is to wreck, burn, kidnap and kill, with hooded fanatics discharging automatic weapons in the street

How the heck we are expected to make peace, or even broker peace between factions like these is beyond me. I'm getting close to the edge of caring.

They are certainly not doing themselves any favours..........however, even the least cynical person could be forgiven for thinking there was conivance in the speed of the Israeli arrival. That was my immediate reaction, certainly.....but then I am not the least cynical of people.

It would be equally beneficial to the peace process if the Israelis would stop charging into Palestinian areas under any or no pretext, with all guns blazing, imo.

[squidge]

the suspected murderer is exactly that suspected - no trial has convicted him, he was still in prison, The british and Americans walk away and the Israelis come trundling in with their tanks and blow the place to smithereens on the pretext that the guy might be going to be released sometime in the future.


Seems to me the Istraelis dont want to deal at all with the demopcratically elected government of Palestine and take every opportunity to cause trouble. Its a boiling pot of passion and hatred and this heavy handed approach is guaranteed to cause the sort of reaction that we saw on the news last night. In fact maybe THAT is the objective of the excercise by the israelis - nothing to do with the man in the prison. Its all quiet and then bingo - its front page news and america and Britain are up in arms again.

[Tom Cornwall]

I agree with the oddquine, it seems a bit of a coincidence that the British leave, after, according to Jack Straw, informing no-one, and the Israelis arrive, fully equipped with tanks and troops just minutes later...a wee bit odd, I think.
Or perhaps they are the quickest army in the world to get organised.

[fred]

How the heck we are expected to make peace, or even broker peace between factions like these is beyond me. I'm getting close to the edge of caring.

I think the Iranian Prime Minister had the best advice, wipe Israel off the map, that is the only way there will ever be peace. We did a very bad thing in the last century dumping all our unwanted Jews in Palestine and we did a worse thing still when we recognised the illegally formed state of Israel.

We hear all about Milosevics crimes in Bosnia and Saddams crimes in Iraq but we hear little about Israels crimes in Palestine aided and abetted by the US and Britain. The news is twisted and distorted so much that a recent poll found that many people who relied on TV news for their information thought that Palestine had invaded Israel.

So how does the media alter reality and rewrite history? A study was done by the University of Glasgow and this is the result:

http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/sociology/units/media/israel.htm

[pultneytooner]

I think the Iranian Prime Minister had the best advice, wipe Israel off the map, that is the only way there will ever be peace. We did a very bad thing in the last century dumping all our unwanted Jews in Palestine and we did a worse thing still when we recognised the illegally formed state of Israel.


That's one of the most bigoted statements I have read on here![mad]

[golach]

That's one of the most bigoted statements I have read on here![mad]
I totally agree with you Pultneytooner, but I have become used to Fred and his warped way of looking at the Middle East and the troubles there.
Fred, the British Government at the time created Israel with a UN mandate, nobody bothered about the Palestinians then.
I do not agree with all the actions Israel have taken against the Arabs, but when your surrounded by hostiles on every side, maybe desperate measures are all Israel can do

[Rheghead]

As far as I understand things, the British took in thousands of Jews after WW2 and tried to stem the flow of Jews that made their way into Israel.:confused:

Of course the accusation is that Britain didn't do enough but that is not how the Israelis see things when they were committing acts of terrorism against the occupying British troops.

[fred]

That's one of the most bigoted statements I have read on here![mad]

I don't see what you find bigoted about it, Israel has only been on the map less than 60 years and most of the trouble since is because it was put on the map with no consultation with the Palestinians. Start again from scratch and negotiate both Israeli and Palestinian states and there is a chance of peace carry on trying to legitamise the illegitimate and the killing will continue indefinitely.

The vast majority of Jews who ended up in Palestine in the 30s and 40s didn't want to go there in the first place, they wanted to go to America but America wouldn't let them in, only the Zionists wanted to go to Palestine. A poll in 1937 showed that 82% of Americans opposed allowing many Jewish refugees into America, the American Vetrans of Foreign Wars voted to urge government to ban all immigration for 10 years in 1938. The Comonwealth countries wouldn't take them, The Australian deligate to the Evian conference said that Australia didn't have a race problem and they didn't want to import one. Even after it became known of the Nazi attrocities against Jews no help was given, a bill to allow French Jews who were victims of persecution into America was voted down in 1942, in 1943 a bill to allow some Jews to enter America temperarily was blocked by the White House.

A few options were looked at but at the end of the day we had a choice, allow the Jewish refugees settle in America and the Comonweath countries or go with the Zionists and let them go to Palestine against the wishes of the Palestinians. The British did try to limit Jewish immigration into Palestine when things were obviously getting out of hand and did oppose the forming of the State of Israel but America backed both all the way.

[landmarker]

Interesting and forthright views.
I'm surprised your post has not been removed to be honest.
If you had taken a pop at the Arab's instead of the Jews & Israel then I feel certain the moderators would have taken the whole thread out.

You really cannot be serious in endorsing comments like 'wipe Israel off the map' President Arminadinnerjacket did not do himself any favours with that statement, and this is mainly why the world cannot allow him or his country to develop nuclear weapons. Such destructive force in the hands of Arab hotheads and their near cousins in the same region can simply not be allowed.
Even the Arab League supports this view.

Fred, I respect your right to say whatever you want, be it bigoted or not, misguided or not. This sight is highly censored in my opinion & I'll be interested to see if your comments are allowed to stand.