British parliamentarian says Israeli leaders are 'mass-murderers and war criminals'

[muriel_volestrangler]

A statement by the British foreign minister David Miliband on "the appalling situation in Gaza" drew strong responses from both sides of parliament.

The Labour Member of Parliament Peter Kilfoyle asked the minister to "undertake to ensure that no arms at all go to Israel at the moment, given that it is guilty in many people's eyes of state-sponsored terrorism with its activities in the Gaza strip".

The Conservative MP Sir Patrick Cormack asked the minister to inform Britain's Israeli ambassador "that many of us who have been in this House for a very long time and who have been proud to call ourselves friends of Israel now feel ashamed because Israel is not behaving as a civilised state should behave".

The Labour MP Sir Gerald Kaufman said: "In congratulating (Mr Miliband) on steering resolution 1860 (calling for an immediate ceasefire) through the United Nations Security Council, may I ask him what the international reaction would be if Hamas had slaughtered nearly 900 Israelis and subjected nearly 1.5 million Israelis to degradation and deprivation? Is it not an incontrovertible fact that Olmert, Livni and Barak are mass-murderers and war criminals - (Interruption.) Yes. And they bring shame on the Jewish people whose star of David they use as a flag in Gaza, but whose ethos and morals go completely against what this Israeli government are doing."

http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090114/GLOBALBRIEFING/962952220/-1/OPINION

Kaufman was shadow Foreign Secretary for Labour from 1987-1992: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Kaufman

[Behind the Aegis]

1. Can't say I find this at all surprising.

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

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

[Behind the Aegis]

3. Classy. And oh so expected!

[coruscate]

12. Israel broke the cease fire; Hamas abided by it

Well known fact that Hamas rounded up and arrested rocket senders right up until Israel attacked on Nov 4th last year.

Israel also never opened the blockade.

This is racial supremacy motivated genocide.

[donnaming]

5. israel

i agree
these are war crimes in any ones eyes.

[Shaktimaan]

7. except perhaps...

those people who know the definition of "war crimes" I suppose.

[EFerrari]

15. No. Especially those people. n/t

[Shaktimaan]

24. In that case...

what war crimes do you believe have been committed?

[Shaktimaan]

8. So the Israelis and the Americans are all Nazis now?

Where, pray tell, do you call home?

[Webster Green]

14. Northern California..

One of the more civilized places on the planet, but WTF does that have to do with anything?

It was always considered "over the top" to call the chimp a nazi, even though he is one.

Tuff shit if people don't like getting called what they are.

If someone doesn't like being called a nazi, they should simply stop acting like one. :wtf:

[Shaktimaan]

17. Actually neither Bush nor the Israelis are anything remotely like Nazis.

Calling them such is not so much an insult to them as it is a dilution of what the term really means.

The Nazis were responsible for modernized genocide on an unprecedented scale.

War, though it is always a horrible thing, is not genocide. And even genocide itself does not imply Nazism.
However neither the US nor Israel has been engaging in anything remotely resembling Nazism or genocide. Genocide is not the hardest thing in the world to prove. It is obvious in practice. Just because you disagree with something or dislike someone's policies does not make them Nazis.

If there actually were any similarities at all then they would be pretty easy to spot and point out.

[Webster Green]

19. They are fucking Nazis!

Sorry if that is disturbing.

[Shaktimaan]

20. It's not disturbing, it's offensive.

What you are doing is diminishing something truly evil in your zeal to attack people/groups you dislike.

It's disgusting, quite frankly. Either you don't care that you are making gross exaggerations about serious subjects or you are alarmingly uninformed.

Either way I don't see much point in continuing this conversation. (Crap, I was curt. Now you're probably going to accuse me of being a Nazi too.)

[EFerrari]

22. Actually, what you are engaging in is a truly disgusting diminution of human suffering

that has every earmark of genocide. In the name of self defense, people are being starved, deprived of water, deprived of medical care, hidden from the media, used as an excuse for belligerence, blamed for their own violent deaths, demonized beyond their actual power, prevented from fleeing to safer ground and coldly, too, as part of a political strategy.

The comparison is detestable and the parallels are even more detestable because they are happening to human beings right now.

[Shaktimaan]

23. I'm doing no such thing.

My post said nothing that could be construed as being dismissive to the suffering of the Palestinians. Unless you think that my defending Israel from absurd Nazi allegations is somehow the equivalent of negating Palestinian misery.

As I said earlier, war is always horrible. People always suffer during war. One could even say that all war is an atrocity. However that does not mean that every participant in every war is the equivalent of the Nazis. There are degrees of atrocity and they are not generally measured by gauging the suffering of the individual victims of war but are determined via the actions taken by the war's active parties. The suffering of a Jew who died in Auschwitz is not of any greater importance than that of a Palestinian civilian. However the circumstances and motives behind their deaths differ significantly.

The current crisis in Gaza, no matter how horrible, does not resemble genocide in any way whatsoever. Genocide is an attempt at exterminating a people from the face of the earth... making them extinct. Nothing about this conflict suggests genocide as a motive on either side. The Palestinians are victims of oppression, not genocide.

No one has been starved. No one is being deprived of water or medical care. (Though both may be in limited supply.) No one has been hidden from the media. Demonized beyond their actual power? I don't even know what that means but I'm pretty sure that it isn't an earmark of genocide.

-Israel has been allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza every day. No one in Gaza has starved.

-Israel has not refused to allow doctors or ambulances from operating. They have even allowed some Palestinians into Israel for care.

-Gaza is one of the most intensively watched places in the world regarding the media. If Israel is trying to hide Gazans from the media then it is doing a terrible job.

-Before bombing a residential house Israel usually calls ahead to warn its occupants. Before bombing a residential neighborhood Israel usually drops leaflets warning people. In almost every instance Israel has taken precautions to keep the deaths of civilians to an absolute minimum, even when it involves exposing their soldiers to additional risk.

Israel is not perfect. Not by a long shot. And many of its policies, including this one, are deserving of heavy criticism. But that criticism will only be effective in affecting change if it accurately reflects reality. Making accusations that every Israeli (and 98% of the rest of the world) all know to be wrong only dilutes legitimate criticism and diminishes the meaning of real genocide's impact and consequences.

[Shaktimaan]

4. That's interesting...

considering England's role in the Iraq War. I don't remember, was Saddam launching thousands of rockets at England? And did England kill more than 1000 Iraqis?

Someone help me out here, why does this seem so... what's the word, ummmmm... retardedly hypocritical perhaps?

And they bring shame on the Jewish people whose star of David they use as a flag in Gaza, but whose ethos and morals go completely against what this Israeli government are doing."

This is interesting too. The Magen David is actually a symbol of Zionism, not really of Judaism. So in trying to make a point about how Israel has abandoned its Jewish ethics he actually demonstrates that he knows fuck-all about both Judaism and Zionism. Nice job there slick!

[Behind the Aegis]

6. And, he is a Jew, to boot, so you know he will be "useful!"

[shira]

9. using logic and pointing out facts just doen't work

on blind, hateful secular religionists.

Like all those whose politics are formed by emotion and not reason, they are not amenable to learning, but only indoctrination. No amount of evidence would be satisfactory to invalidate any one of their views on I/P. They are impervious to any counter evidence and are even deluding themselves into thinking they are leftists.

[High Plains]

16. Try looking in the mirror:

"Like all those whose politics are formed by emotion and not reason, they are not amenable to learning, but only indoctrination. No amount of evidence would be satisfactory to invalidate any one of their views on I/P. They are impervious to any counter evidence and are even deluding themselves into thinking they are leftists."

I don't know a whole lot of leftists who spend their time shilling for the Israeli war machine, except for the handful who are apparently assigned that duty here. How much does the IDF media department pay, anyway?

[Howardx]

18. "assigned that duty" is exactly right

notice the numbers of posters who only come out of the woodwork to defend israel's latest atrocity, they never discuss domestic politics, only i/p. same thing happened during lebanon.

[Shaktimaan]

21. Meaning that...

we must all be undercover Mossad plants?

[shira]

25. we're obviously paid by the Lobby

Hey Shakti,

I wonder if we're getting equal pay from the Elders of Zion? :sarcasm:

And where does this British dolt get the nerve to preach to Israelis, given his country's involvement in the killing of over a million in just the past 15 years (Iraq, Kosovo/Bosnia, Afghanistan)? Britain doesn't even have the excuse of having ANY of its civilians ever threatened by Iraq, Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan.

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. "Why I oppose an attack on Iraq" by Gerald Kaufman

http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/features/10264/why-i-oppose-an-attack-on-iraq-.thtml

[Shaktimaan]

11. So has he gone on the record as saying that

Britain's leaders are also mass murderers and war criminals?
Do these members of Parliament believe that England is also incapable of being trusted with weapons?

It seems hypocritical to me for a state such as Britain to critique another state with such harsh terminology when it is currently guilty of perpetrating far, far worse actions itself.

[Marrah_G]

13. Yes they are- right along with Bush-Cheney- the leaders of Hamas

The idiot Imadinnerjacket from Iran, The asshats in China slaughtering monks, every member of the Taliban and every fucking "warlord" on the planet.


If there were any real justice in the world, the entire lot of them would be dropped off on a deserted island somewhere.

[bemildred]

26. Muslims urge end to anti-Semitism

Prominent British Muslims have denounced anti-Semitic attacks amid fears of a backlash against Jewish communities in Britain over Gaza.

The leaders said that British Jews "should not be held responsible" for Israel's actions in Gaza.

Jewish groups say there has been a record rise in anti-Semitic incidents since the crisis began.

A letter to mosques comes as muslim leaders urge ministers to do more to stop extremists recruiting young men.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7831897.stm