Who started it?

[lonestarnot]

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/736009.html

Who started?

By Gideon Levy

"We left Gaza and they are firing Qassams" - there is no more precise a formulation of the prevailing view about the current round of the conflict. "They started," will be the routine response to anyone who tries to argue, for example, that a few hours before the first Qassam fell on the school in Ashkelon, causing no damage, Israel sowed destruction at the Islamic University in Gaza.

Israel is causing electricity blackouts, laying sieges, bombing and shelling, assassinating and imprisoning, killing and wounding civilians, including children and babies, in horrifying numbers, but "they started."

They are also "breaking the rules" laid down by Israel: We are allowed to bomb anything we want and they are not allowed to launch Qassams. When they fire a Qassam at Ashkelon, that's an "escalation of the conflict," and when we bomb a university and a school, it's perfectly alright. Why? Because they started. That's why the majority thinks that all the justice is on our side. Like in a schoolyard fight, the argument about who started is Israel's winning moral argument to justify every injustice.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Both started it

good enough?

Until the pattern is broken it will not end

[libhill]

4. Until -

humans outgrow their juvenile god worshiping phase, it will not end. Religion is the root source of all of this insanity. The Middle East, Ireland, fatwas, fundies, Jews, Muslims, Catholics, Protestants... devil take them all.

[KAT119]

5. Could Not Agree More, libhill. The Bible & Koran are WMD's destroying ALL!

[mzteris]

8. I agree....

religion seems to be the root of all evil.

[libhill]

11. Well,

I wouldn't say the it's the root of ALL evil, but it certainly accounts for a fair share of it. I think we can all agree on that. :)

[Orangeone]

20. I disagree

Israel hated the Palestinians when they were the PLO, which was a secular organization.

[mzteris]

2. mommy - he hit me FIRST!!!!!!!!!

son - if you hit back, then YOU"RE going to get in trouble, too. Hitting just brings on more hitting, you know.

And if you do hit somebody, you should never be surprised when they hit you back. And the bigger the bully is, the greater the extremes that weaker of the two will go to, in order to get you back.

[rucky]

3. This is why we don't let 3rd graders carry weapons. n/t

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[libhill]

7. But but but -

that fails to explain the idiocy in Ireland, between Orange men, Catholics, Protestants, ad nauseum. Another hate filled cesspool of religion, just like the Middle East...

[PatriotMom]

9. If you check out the ...

Illuminati and the Free Masons, and this secret society crap that Bush and all of them belong to way back even to George Washington (read John Robinson's "Proofs of a Conspiracy" written in the 1700's} this is beyond politics it is freakin strange religion I really don't claim to understand, but I do know they (the elite) beleive it worship it and live by it....hense 911 was not by accident the date nor the buildings being in the shape of an 11 for purposes of their numerology worship.

[libhill]

13. Oh, I entirely agree

with you about 9/11. Inside job from the get go. I'm only saying that I don't see much evidence of Zionist influence in the Irish mess. They seem to be screwing things up pretty good on their own shanks...

[liberaliraqvet26]

10. what a source haaretz.com, why dont you use the New Republic??

they are fair and balanced

[Avalux]

12. Israel just rolled tanks into the Gaza Strip; MSNBC.

Not good; not good at all. :( Doesn't matter who started; it needs to STOP on both sides. If we had a president worth a damn, he'd be actively trying to find a solution instead of playing patty-cake with Putie.

[PatriotMom]

14. I fear it will be an attempt at total genocide

For the Palestinians

[Avalux]

15. Why do you think that?

Are you saying Israel wants to kill all Palestinians? They do want to eradicate Hamas along with Hezbollah. It won't work, but it looks as if they're giving it a go at the expense of innocent lives. Of course getting rid of these extremist groups would be wonderful - but bombing and killing is not the answer.

[PatriotMom]

16. I think some in Israel do but not all feel that way

I ran across this website with quotes that I will not put in here.

[PatriotMom]

17. Whoops here is the website link

http://www.monabaker.com/quotes.htm

I have a very limited opionion on all this really I am truly too uninformed to really make more of a comment than to only share what I have read. I am always open for new ideas.

[Clark2008]

24. What would call it?

They push them to the worst lands, put them in refugee camps, give them no hope and now they're rolling tanks into the Gaza strip for the umptenth time.

If they're not trying to kill all Palestinians, they're sure fooling a lot of people.

:shrug:

[sutz12]

18. Hey, it's only matter of hours until the Fundies blame it on Clinton.

:evilgrin:

[libhill]

19. Ahhh yes...

that infamous Clinton B.J. The source from which all evil floweth, yea, even until the end of time. Or at least until the Fundies get ruptured, uh, I mean, raptured.

[niyad]

21. "at the well of sarah and hagar"

I wish all of you could have seen this amazing piece as I did, and learned about all the work that israeli and palestinian women are doing jointly to try to find an end to the horrors going on there. as they both said during the presentation, it no longer matters who is right or wrong, it simply has to stop.

Peace Talk, The Female Way
by Stephanie Hiller

Against a background of bloodshed and death portrayed via film and slides, three women from the land of "holiness and conflict" enacted an alternative to the violent conflict in the Middle East in a performance that toured the US in February 2006.

'By the Well of Sarah and Hagar' is a "sacred theatrical collage sharing the journeys of two women, Muslim and Jew", according to the flyer for the event. In this little play, a Palestinian woman and an Israeli approach each other in pain to extend the hand of reconciliation. The third woman - Mia Cohen - who holds a large mirror, introduces herself as the witness. "I am you."

The two women, Ibtisum Mahamid and Dorit Bat Shalom, play themselves - two women of war-torn Palestine and Israel. This collaborative effort by the three women - Mahamid, Shalom and Cohen - works at many levels.

Mahamid tells her story - the expulsion of her family during Al-Nakba (the refugee flight of Palestinian Arabs during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war).

Footage taken by an Israeli father whose son was killed in the intifada - and shown at the beginning of the performance - tells the other side of the story. As Shalom explained during the discussion following the performance, the conflict is a complex story; what the women have in common is their pain. Shalom herself turned to peace work after her brother was killed in the 1967 Six Day War.

"Israeli and Palestinian women can come together because they have the same problem: they feel unsafe. Something inside tells them not to forget the past, but not to get stuck in it. What can we do together to change it.

. . . . . . . . .

http://www.boloji.com/wfs5/wfs560.htm

[lonestarnot]

23. Excellent example of how peace can work. The secret is once it starts

don't look back.

[PatriotMom]

22. kick

[PatriotMom]

25. kick

[Toots]

26. God started it when he had Israel take land that others owned.

:shrug: If the Bible is in fact based upon any sort of history then I would say it is God's fault.