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Middle East call for freedom/ Various Israel topics

47K views 678 replies 86 participants last post by  abraxas21 
#1 · (Edited)
Nothing? Take active steps to take Gadaffi down? Such as? Who should do it? If you think nobody should interfere, is there a situation where your opinion might change?
 
#346 ·
for those who don't know, Syria is Egypt 20 years from now had there been no revolution there, Bashar being a successful version of Gamal Mubarak, one of the worst regimes in the middle east, maybe second only to Saddam's Iraq (not surprisingly as it's also governed by the infamous Baath party).

been there back in 1999 and spent 2 months between Damascus, Bloudan and Zabadani, lived most of that time sharing the villa of a wealthy dentist who is a friend of our family, and I used to listen to all his and his neighbors stories of how the military and security-based mentality of the government controls even people's thoughts and breaths in their daily life, torture, prosecution and humiliation being the normal procedure if one had the misfortune of falling in their hands.

and of course I've witnessed first-hand the poverty and general misery in which the people lived under, dad used to bribe border soldiers with cigarette packs to help facilitate our entry and had we not done that they would have forced us to wait for long hours and complicated our lives, which showed how desperate people were, even those with respectable jobs.

it will be interesting to see how the situation progresses in Syria, it isn't nearly as antagonized as Libya so I can't see the Arab league urging or backing an international intervention, but how can everyone keep watching as Assad continues to respond to civil protests with tanks and snipers.
 
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#348 ·
Israel shouldn't be too happy about the possible change, as it has enjoyed de facto peace with Syria since 1973, when the Syrian people have control of their own destiny and express their will through politics, Golan Heights will be retrieved.

this applies to Arabs as a whole, when they have leaders whom represent them in power, Israel's days of tyranny will come to an end.
 
#353 ·
The problem with that is once you start rewinding history, when do you stop the rewinding process?

For example, all the property stolen from Jews in Europe during the last century? Would that be a legitimate recovery or is it unreasonable to ask the people who stole it to return it?
 
#360 ·
UN nuclear agency says for first time that Syria tried to build nuclear reactor
By The Associated Press


PARIS — The head of the U.N. nuclear agency has said for the first time that Syria tried to secretly build a nuclear reactor.
Yukiya Amano says that the target destroyed by Israeli warplanes five years ago "was a reactor under construction."
Syria denies that the bombed building had any nuclear uses and denies hiding secret atomic activities.
Previous IAEA reports have suggested that the structure hit could have been a reactor. But Amano's comments Thursday were the first time the agency has said so unequivocally.
Syria has stonewalled IAEA attempts to follow up on an initial 2008 visit to the site.

________________

I just have one question - the timing. If Syria wasn't outcast by the world right now, do you think the UN would have admitted this?
Syria claimed for years it was a lie, Israel bombed for no reason, etc. The UN could have backed up Israel's claims it was a nuclear site (they could have still objected to the bombing, if they wanted to - but they could have verified Israel's claims) but they chose not to until now.

Classic UN
 
#367 ·
#370 ·


Gaddafi's Son, Three Grandchildren Killed in NATO Strike

Tripoli, May 1 (IANS) Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and his wife survived a NATO air strike at their residence in Tripoli, but his youngest son Saif al-Arab Gaddafi as well as three grandchildren were killed in the missile attack Saturday that badly smashed the house, an official said.

The raid, which occurred around 8.00 p.m. local time (1800 GMT) Saturday, hit Gaddafi's home in the Bab al-Azizya residential area in western Tripoli.

The Libyan leader and his wife were present in the house when it was attacked but they are safe, Government spokesman Mossa Ibrahim said.

Ibrahim took a group of journalists to the site of of the house, Xinhua reported.

The air strike on Gaddafi's house also killed several of his friends and neighbours, RIA Novosti quoted the Libyan state run agency as saying, citing a statement from the government.

The three-storey building was hit by three missiles. It was partially destroyed, with the roof completely caved in at some parts, leaving mangled rods of reinforcing steel hanging down among splintered chunks of concrete, Xinhua said.

While two of the missiles had exploded, the third was seen lying in one of the rooms of the building.

Spokesman Ibrahim described it as an attempt to kill their leader Gaddafi.

'This was a direct act to assassinate the Libyan leader, a violation of international law which has no legal or political justifications,' he said.

'We ask the world to look into this carefully because what we have now is the law of the jungle,' said Ibrahim.

'How is this helping in the protection of civilians? Mr Saif al-Arab, 29, was a civilian, a student... He was playing and talking to his father and mother and his nieces and nephews and other visitors when he was attacked and killed for no crime he committed.'

Meanwhile, a BBC report said NATO confirmed the air strike, without denying or confirming the reported deaths.

A NATO spokesman said the strike had hit a 'known command and control building in the Bab al-Azizya neighbourhood'.

'All NATO's targets are military in nature... We do not target individuals,' said Lieutenant-General Charles Bouchard.

On Saturday, the Libyan leader had presented a ceasefire proposal and urged the parties concerned to follow it. He also wanted the NATO forces to stop their attacks.

A total of 14 of the 28 NATO countries are taking part in the operation Unified Protector in Libya, which includes air strikes, a no-fly zone and naval enforcement of an arms embargo.

The UN Security Council adopted a resolution imposing a no-fly zone over Libya March 17, paving the way for a military operation against Gaddafi which began two days later.

The command of the operation was shifted from a US-led international coalition to NATO in late March.

 
#375 ·
on the subject of the american zionist lobby, an american jewish old lady who survived the holocaust wrote a very interesting op/ed for the electronic intifada. the bolding is mine.

AIPAC does not speak for me​
By Hedy Epstein

Hedy Epstein (holding sign) taking part in the Gaza Freedom March in the winter of 2009-2010. (Free Gaza)

In 2004, the end of one of my first journeys to the Israeli-occupied West Bank, I endured a shocking experience at Ben-Gurion airport near Tel Aviv. I never imagined that Israeli security forces would abuse a 79-year-old Holocaust survivor, but they held me for five hours and strip-searched and cavity-searched every part of my naked body. The only shame these security officials expressed was to turn their badges around so that their names were invisible.

The only conceivable purpose for this gross violation of my bodily integrity was to humiliate and terrify me. But it had just the opposite effect. It made me more determined to speak out against abuses by the Israeli government and its military.

Yet my own experience, unpleasant as it was, is nothing compared to the indignities and abuses heaped on Palestinians year after year. Israel’s occupation of the West Bank is based not on equal rights and fair play, but on what Human Rights Watch has termed a “two-tier” legal system — in other words, apartheid, with one set of laws for Jews and a harsh, oppressive set of laws for Palestinians.

This, however, is the legal system and security state AIPAC (The American Israel Public Affairs Committee) will defend from 22-24 May at its annual conference in Washington, DC. And, despite this grim reality, members of Congress will converge to hail AIPAC and Israel. The Palestinians’ lack of freedom is bound to be obscured at the AIPAC conference with its obsessive focus on security and shunting aside of anything to do with upholding fundamental Palestinian rights.

Several years ago near Der Beilut in the West Bank, I saw the Israeli police turn a water cannon on our nonviolent protest. As it happened, I recalled Birmingham, Alabama in 1963 and wondered why an ostensibly democratic society responded to peaceable assembly by trying, literally, to drown out the voice of our protest.

In Masha, also in the occupied West Bank, I joined a demonstration against the wall Israel has built, usually inside the West Bank and occasionally towering to 25 feet in height. I saw a red sign warning ominously of “mortal danger” to any who dared to cross in an area where it ran as a fence. I saw Israeli soldiers aiming at unarmed Israelis, Palestinians and international protesters. I also saw blood pouring out of Gil Na’amati, a young Israeli whose first public act after completing his mandatory military service was to protest against the wall. I saw shrapnel lodged in the leg of Anne Farina, one of my traveling companions from St. Louis. And I thought of Kent State and Jackson State, where National Guardsmen opened fire in 1970 on protesters against the Vietnam War.

So as AIPAC meets and members of Congress cheer, I hold these images of Israel in my mind and fear AIPAC’s ability to move US policy in dangerous directions. AIPAC does a disservice to the Palestinians, the Israelis and the American people. It helps to keep the Middle East in a perpetual state of war and this year will be no different from last year as it keeps up a steady drumbeat calling for war against Iran.

AIPAC pretends to speak for all Jews, but it certainly does not speak for me or other members of the Jewish community in this country who are committed to equal rights for all and are aware that American interventionism is likely to bring further disaster and chaos to the Middle East.

Israel, of course, would not be able to carry out its war crimes against civilians in Lebanon and Gaza without the United States — and our $3 billion in military aid — permitting it to do so. At 86 years old, I use every ounce of my energy to educate the American public about the need to stop supporting the abuses committed by the Israeli government and military against the Palestinian people. Sometimes there are people who try to shout me down and scream that I am a self-hating Jew, but most of the time the audience is receptive to hear from someone who survived the Holocaust and now works to free the Palestinians from Israeli oppression.

The vicious discrimination brought to bear against Palestinians in the occupied territories deserves no applause from members of Congress attending the AIPAC conference. Instead, they should raise basic questions with Israeli officials about decades of inferior rights endured by Palestinians both inside Israel and the occupied territories.

Hedy Epstein is a Holocaust survivor, who writes and travels extensively to speak about social justice causes and Middle Eastern affairs. She will be participating in Move Over AIPAC, a gathering in Washington, DC from 21-24 May 2011, to expose AIPAC and build the vision for a new US foreign policy in the Middle East (www.MoveOverAIPAC.org).
if more people were as wise as her, the world would be a safer and better place.
 
#378 · (Edited)
Arabs - The real enemy of the Arab World

http://www.arabnews.com/arab-spring-and-israeli-enemy

Arab Spring and the Israeli enemy
Abdulateef Al-Mulhim

Saturday 6 October 2012 Last Update 6 October 2012 2:53 am

Thirty-nine years ago, on Oct. 6, 1973, the third major war between the Arabs and Israel broke out. The war lasted only 20 days. The two sides were engaged in two other major wars, in 1948 and 1967.

The 1967 War lasted only six days. But, these three wars were not the only Arab-Israel confrontations. From the period of 1948 and to this day many confrontations have taken place. Some of them were small clashes and many of them were full-scale battles, but there were no major wars apart from the ones mentioned above. The Arab-Israeli conflict is the most complicated conflict the world ever experienced. On the anniversary of the 1973 War between the Arab and the Israelis, many people in the Arab world are beginning to ask many questions about the past, present and the future with regard to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The questions now are: What was the real cost of these wars to the Arab world and its people. And the harder question that no Arab national wants to ask is: What was the real cost for not recognizing Israel in 1948 and why didn’t the Arab states spend their assets on education, health care and the infrastructures instead of wars? But, the hardest question that no Arab national wants to hear is whether Israel is the real enemy of the Arab world and the Arab people.

I decided to write this article after I saw photos and reports about a starving child in Yemen, a burned ancient Aleppo souk in Syria, the under developed Sinai in Egypt, car bombs in Iraq and the destroyed buildings in Libya. The photos and the reports were shown on the Al-Arabiya network, which is the most watched and respected news outlet in the Middle East.

The common thing among all what I saw is that the destruction and the atrocities are not done by an outside enemy. The starvation, the killings and the destruction in these Arab countries are done by the same hands that are supposed to protect and build the unity of these countries and safeguard the people of these countries. So, the question now is that who is the real enemy of the Arab world?

The Arab world wasted hundreds of billions of dollars and lost tens of thousands of innocent lives fighting Israel, which they considered is their sworn enemy, an enemy whose existence they never recognized. The Arab world has many enemies and Israel should have been at the bottom of the list. The real enemies of the Arab world are corruption, lack of good education, lack of good health care, lack of freedom, lack of respect for the human lives and finally, the Arab world had many dictators who used the Arab-Israeli conflict to suppress their own people.

These dictators’ atrocities against their own people are far worse than all the full-scale Arab-Israeli wars.

In the past, we have talked about why some Israeli soldiers attack and mistreat Palestinians. Also, we saw Israeli planes and tanks attack various Arab countries. But, do these attacks match the current atrocities being committed by some Arab states against their own people.

In Syria, the atrocities are beyond anybody’s imaginations? And, isn’t the Iraqis are the ones who are destroying their own country? Wasn’t it Tunisia’s dictator who was able to steal 13 billion dollars from the poor Tunisians? And how can a child starve in Yemen if their land is the most fertile land in the world? Why would Iraqi brains leave Iraq in a country that makes 110 billion dollars from oil export? Why do the Lebanese fail to govern one of the tiniest countries in the world? And what made the Arab states start sinking into chaos?

On May 14, 1948 the state of Israel was declared. And just one day after that, on May 15, 1948 the Arabs declared war on Israel to get back Palestine. The war ended on March 10, 1949. It lasted for nine months, three weeks and two days. The Arabs lost the war and called this war Nakbah (catastrophic war). The Arabs gained nothing and thousands of Palestinians became refugees.

And on 1967, the Arabs led by Egypt under the rule of Gamal Abdul Nasser, went in war with Israel and lost more Palestinian land and made more Palestinian refugees who are now on the mercy of the countries that host them. The Arabs called this war Naksah (upset). The Arabs never admitted defeat in both wars and the Palestinian cause got more complicated. And now, with the never ending Arab Spring, the Arab world has no time for the Palestinians refugees or Palestinian cause, because many Arabs are refugees themselves and under constant attacks from their own forces. Syrians are leaving their own country, not because of the Israeli planes dropping bombs on them. It is the Syrian Air Force which is dropping the bombs. And now, Iraqi Arab Muslims, most intelligent brains, are leaving Iraq for the est. In Yemen, the world’s saddest human tragedy play is being written by the Yemenis. In Egypt, the people in Sinai are forgotten.

Finally, if many of the Arab states are in such disarray, then what happened to the Arabs’ sworn enemy (Israel)? Israel now has the most advanced research facilities, top universities and advanced infrastructure. Many Arabs don’t know that the life expectancy of the Palestinians living in Israel is far longer than many Arab states and they enjoy far better political and social freedom than many of their Arab brothers. Even the Palestinians living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip enjoy more political and social rights than some places in the Arab World. Wasn’t one of the judges who sent a former Israeli president to jail is an Israeli-Palestinian? [Emphasis added]

The Arab Spring showed the world that the Palestinians are happier and in better situation than their Arab brothers who fought to liberate them from the Israelis. Now, it is time to stop the hatred and wars and start to create better living conditions for the future Arab generations. [Emphasis added]

— This article is exclusive to Arab News.
almulhimnavy@hotmail.com
 
#380 ·
Re: Arabs - The real enemy of the Arab World

that's true, one if the judges who send our president to jail was Arab.

About the article well the truth Hurts, I'm glad that a Muslim Arab wrote it.
 
#382 ·
Re: Arabs - The real enemy of the Arab World

that's true, one if the judges who send our president to jail was Arab.

About the article well the truth Hurts, I'm glad that a Muslim Arab wrote it.
It seems that Abdulateef Al-Mulhim and Pat Condell share many opinions. Mr. Al-Mulhim probably has a fatwah on his head by now.
 
#384 · (Edited)
Again palestinian terrorists fire rockets in to Israel

I wonder if any of the 1.4 million palestinian/Israeli "citizens" were dancing in the streets while their brothers in Gaza were indescriminately firing rockets in to Israel for the purpose of murdering innocent Israeli civilians, they way palestinian immigrants were dancing in the streets in Patterson, N.J. while the twin towers were comming down? Hamas has been doing this for decades. And, where are these palestinian terrorists getting their rockets from, palestinian terrorist exiles living in Ireland? Further, if the terrorists associated with the rocket attacks flee, like the cowards they are, to hide among nearby palestinian "human sheilds," would Israel be justified in bombing them where they find them despite the collateral damage that would occur? Shouldn't the palestinian people take responsibility for the criminal acts of the terrorist government that it freely elected?

http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/24/world/meast/mideast-violence/index.html

Death toll at 4 as Israeli planes hit Gaza after Palestinians fire dozens of rockets

By the CNN Wire Staff
updated 6:40 AM EDT, Wed October 24, 2012

(CNN) -- As dozens of Palestinian rockets rained down on southern Israel, the country's air force carried out new raids on positions in Gaza on Wednesday. Two days of air strikes have so far killed four Palestinians.

Attacks and counter attacks between the two sides are a frequent occurrence but appear to have escalated in the past two days.

On Tuesday night, the Israeli military said its aircraft had targeted two rocket-launching squads in northern Gaza as they prepared to fire rockets into southern Israel. That attack killed two militants from Al-Qassam group, the military wing of Hamas, and wounded two others.

But the barrage of rockets continued, with more than 65 fired from Gaza in an eight-hour period, the military said Wednesday morning.

Israeli aircraft struck Gaza again early Wednesday, killing two people and seriously wounding nine others, said Ashraf al-Qidra, the spokesman of the health ministry in Gaza.

The strike targeted a rocket-launching site in northern Gaza, the IDF said, adding that its tanks had also shelled "terrorist targets."

The Palestinian rocket attacks wounded three Thai workers in Israel, hospital officials said..

Israeli areas around Gaza are under heightened alert amid fears that more rockets could be launched.

The violence came after the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, visited Gaza on Tuesday, becoming the first head of state to visit since Egypt and Israel instituted a blockade in 2007.

Annual Qatari aid to Palestinians in Gaza will increase from $250 million to $400 million, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya told reporters in Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

In Washington, State Department Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said U.S. officials "share Qatar's deep concern for the welfare of the Palestinian people, including those residing in Gaza."

But she expressed continuing concern over the "destabilizing role" of Hamas, which has governed Gaza since 2007.

CNN's Michael Schwartz and Kareem Khadder contributed to this report.
 
#385 ·
Re: Arabs - The real enemy of the Arab World

I doubt this thread will generate much interest.

As Filo suggests, "Too simplistic, not worth talking about, no more need be said. Let's just stick to Jew-bashing in other threads, can't we? That is so not simplistic.''
 
#388 ·
Re: Arabs - The real enemy of the Arab World

I doubt this thread will generate much interest.

As Filo suggests, "Too simplistic, not worth talking about, no more need be said. Let's just stick to Jew-bashing in other threads, can't we? That is so not simplistic.''
like i said, the truth hurts esp when its been said by a Muslim Arab :facepalm:
 
#386 ·
Re: palestinian terrorists again fire rockets in to Israel

This is happening as we speak.

But again if they can't blame us they will ignore the news.

Wanna tell me what the USA would have done to any country or place who dare to fire rockets at her civilians?

No need to, it's pretty clear but when it's us the there a double standert and hypocritical


U will think I'm anger or something I'm not, I'm so used to it I'm just wondering when they will wake up to the 21 century.
 
#387 ·
Re: palestinian terrorists again fire rockets in to Israel

This is happening as we speak.

But again if they can't blame us they will ignore the news.

Wanna tell me what the USA would have done to any country or place who dare to fire rockets at her civilians?

No need to, it's pretty clear but when it's us the there a double standert and hypocritical


U will think I'm anger or something I'm not, I'm so used to it I'm just wondering when they will wake up to the 21 century.
The U.S. would declare war against Iraq as a subterfuge for war profiteering and oil stealing.
 
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