If it were the reverse

[Classical_Liberal]

If it were the reverse

By Gideon Levy



What would happen if a Palestinian terrorist were to detonate a bomb at the entrance to an apartment building in Israel and cause the death of an elderly man in a wheelchair, who would later be found buried under the rubble of the building? The country would be profoundly shocked. Everyone would talk about the sickening cruelty of the act and its perpetrators. The shock would be even greater if it then turned out that the dead man's wife had tried to dissuade the terrorist from blowing up the house, telling him that there were people inside, but to no avail. The tabloids would come out with the usual screaming headline: "Buried alive in his wheelchair." The terrorists would be branded "animals."



Last Monday, Israel Defense Forces bulldozers in Khan Yunis, in the Gaza Strip, demolished the home of Ibrahim Halfalla, a 75-year-old disabled man and father of seven, and buried him alive. Umm-Basel, his wife, says she tried to stop the driver of the heavy machine by shouting, but he paid her no heed. The IDF termed the act "a mistake that shouldn't have happened," and the incident was noted in passing in Israel. The country's largest-circulation paper, Yedioth Ahronoth, didn't bother to run the story at all. The blood libel in France - a woman's tale of being subjected to an anti-Semitic attack, which later turned out to be fiction - proved a great deal more upsetting to people. There we thought the assault was aimed against our people. But when the IDF bulldozes a disabled Palestinian to death? Not a story. Just like the killing, under the rubble of her home, of Noha Maqadama, a woman in her ninth month of pregnancy, before the eyes of her husband and children, in El Boureij refugee camp a few months earlier.

And what would happen if a Palestinian were to shoot an Israeli university lecturer and his son in front of his wife and their young son? That's what happened 10 days ago in the case of Dr. Salem Khaled, from Nablus, who called to the soldiers from the window of his house because he was a man of peace and the front door had jammed, so he couldn't get out. The soldiers shot him to death and then killed his 16-year-old son before the eyes of his mother and his 11-year-old brother. It's not hard to imagine how we would react to the story if the victims were ours.......

http://www.forward.com/main/article.php?ref=greenberg200407141104

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

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[Classical_Liberal]

3. There was no such thing as Israelis till 50 yrs ago either

All of those countries attacked because Israel was ethnically cleansing Palestinians.

The Palestinians are not Jordanians. The Israeli propagandists make that claim because the West Bank at one time was part of TransJordan. Most of the Palestinians come from the province of Palestine, which was recognized as such since Roman Times. Many are probably descendents of Jews who converted to Roman religion after the Romans made it illegal for Jews to live in the province. who converted to Christianity when Rome became Christian(many still are) and converted to Islam during the time of Mohammed. Many are probably descendents of Canaanites. Israel was never 100% Jewish. They are 100% completely native.

The King recognized the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians so there were many that wanted to kill him. That isn't surprising.

They don't have to leave the country where they are born. Other Arab countries are under no obligation to admit them or
solve Israel's refugee problem.

The Jewish people believed they were displaced for 2000 yrs. How come Palestinian claims are less valid? Furthermore, making people homeless with no compensation and giving them day passes to serve Israelis is pretty shabby, actually.

Arafat is no doubt corrupt, but so is Sharon and his military industrial complex henchman.

You must get most of your info from Pat Robertson, the same guy who says Allah and the Christian God are not the same.

You are miseducated rather than educated.

The Palestinians are pissed because they are homeless not because they inherently hate Jews. Many Palestinians are Christians. They don't want to destroy Jews are Christianity. They want a homeland. Arafat's wife may have been raised in England but she is a Palestinian Christian, so was Edward Said, and Hanan Ashrawi. The Palestinian Christians are having their homes bulldozed too. Do you give a shit about them?

As for working toward a goal. They can't vote for Israel's leaders and they have no leverage with them. They can vote for their own but their own leaders don't govern the west bank so what good would it do?
The American political system is too corrupt to help them as well. Politics has failed them repeatedly, that is why their is violence.

[mike_c]

2. I once thought the Israeli's pursued a just cause....

No more.

The real horror is yet to come. When Israel feels threatened it will not hesitate to unleash a nuclear holocaust. When it realizes the futility of using tanks and helicopter gunships against stone-throwing children and civilian crowds, Isreal will lash out with unrestrained genocide. Count on it.

[number6]

4. concerns me too

"When Israel feels threatened it will not hesitate to unleash a nuclear holocaust"

[Djinn]

5. Likewise

if the Palestinians managed to arm themselves along the same lines as Israel and sent missiles into the apartment building that a top ranking military or political figure lived in.

Would the rest of the dead and wounded be considered collateral damage - would people insist that they were not "deliberately" killed?