"Go to the West Bank!" yelled the soldier

[Resistance]

Should we send free money and weapons to racist punks like this?

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article2095.shtml

The first hint Fares Abu Mohamed and his wife had of the catastrophe about to befall them was the sudden roar of the massive bulldozer. That was at 9 o'clock this morning and their baby was still asleep in his cot. They were given 10 minutes to collect a few items and told to vacate the black tent and corrugated zinc shack that served as their make-shift home.

Fifteen minutes later Fares stood with his pregnant wife, his young son, his two sisters and his mother looking at the rubble of their home. Many of the family's possessions had been destroyed. There was no time to save the baby food and the police and soldiers even refused Fares a few extra minutes to salvage his wife's jewellery - her only personal possession. Instead the soldiers yelled at him "Go to the West Bank!"

Of course the irony is that were Fares and his family already in the West Bank there would have been nothing unusual about the dawn demolition of their house. It happens there all the time. But Fares does not live in the West Bank. He lives in Wadi al Naam in Israel's northern Negev and, like all Negev Bedouin, Fares and his family are Israeli citizens. They pay taxes and vote in national elections. Many Bedouins even serve in the Israeli Army.

So how can it be that Israeli citizens can have their home demolished by the authorities? Is such a thing possible? Unfortunately, the answer is yes. What makes it worse is that house demolitions are a regular occurrence. The explanation for them is simple. Fares and his fellow Bedouin are not Jews. They are Arabs and thus, as Shmuel Rifman, chairperson of the Ramat HaNegev Regional Council said on the occasion of Israel's 55th Independence Day: "We came to this country to establish a Jewish state in the land of Israel. Ben Gurion did not intend to establish a Bedouin state." He was echoing Moshe Dayan's well-known statement of July 1963 that "We must turn Bedouin into urban labourers. The Bedouin will no longer live on a land with his flocks, but will become an urbanite who comes home in the evening and puts on his slippers. The reality that is known as the Bedouin will disappear." Dayan's intention was to hand over Bedouin lands to Jewish settlers.

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

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[Resistance]

2. I would also add

5. Stop the endless murder of innocent civilians.

[Resistance]

17. just for the record

There was nothing wrong with post #1.

It was a suggestion that the U.S. withhold money from Israel until it starts adhering to a list of certain demands, which the user then wrote out along lines like this:

1) end settlement expansion
2) stop bulldozing homes
3)
etc..

which you can see where I replied with a number 5) suggestion of my own in post #2.

[drewb]

22. I agree with whatever it was that post one said...

If it got deleted it had to be good...

Are any of the bulldozer operators female? That would be so hot!

[Name removed]

24. Deleted message

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

[drewb]

31. Oooooh... stop it!

:spank:

[edzontar]

33. Me too--solidarity with the exiled!!!

nt

[bluesoul]

3. Crimes

Crimes against humanity. Nothing less

[Muddleoftheroad]

4. Shock

I am shocked that after 55 years of war (following a worldwide Holocaust) that some Israeli Jews have developed bigoted attitudes toward their neighbors. Maybe if so many of their neighbors didn't hate them, that would be surprising.

Still it is sad.

[Sesquipedalian]

5. neighbor?

This was an Israeli citizen whose home was demolished for no other reason than ethnicity.

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

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

[Muddleoftheroad]

10. Not defending bigotry

I do understand it though.

Since so many here are using this incident to score political points, that point needs to be made as well.

[Resistance]

12. Ah, you understand bigotry

Your view is becoming clearer now, except, I didn't see you rushing in to the defense of the Malaysian PM recently.

So just how do you account for that discretion?

[Resistance]

18. no answer?

[Muddleoftheroad]

19. Slight difference

Between an ordinary moron of which all societies have plenty, and a world leader who is a moron bent on world war. We have enough of those.

[Violet_Crumble]

27. But you were trying to justifying it...

That sentiment came across clearly in yr post, and if you didn't intend it to, maybe you should reword it in different way. The only thing to understand about bigotry is that it's incredibly ugly and borne generally out of ignorance and/or a belief in the superiority of the bigots own ethnic/racial/religious group over others. But when someone tries to reach inside the mind of a bigot and drag up what they consider to be legitimate reasons behind the bigotry, that's when it becomes justification of the bigots bigotry. So, I don't understand it any more than I would if you'd popped up saying you understood the bigotry of a Palestinian bigot and pointed out the years of oppression and suffering they've gone through....

As for yr claim that 'many' here are using this incident to score political points, it's interesting to note that you don't shoot off the same accusation at Team Israel in some of the threads they feature heavily in. Anyway, I thought this forum was a place to DISCUSS the conflict, which is what I think many folk try to do. Was I wrong?

Violet...

[Muddleoftheroad]

30. You just love to speak for me

Should I give you my login information so you can do the posting as well?

Actually, we all know there are assholes on every side of every issue. Does that justify the other side? No. I was simply mocking the political hay so many seemed to quickly make out of this alleged incident. (I say alleged, because it is from EI and they are a propaganda arm, nothing more.)

This forum clearly is to discuss conflict. But at this point, based on your messages and private messages, it seems obvious you have problems with most anything I post. That is not my problem, it is yours.

[Violet_Crumble]

32. You might like to reread my post...

Calm down. I'm not particularly interested in speaking for you as you do enough of it on yr own, and if you read my post you'd see I wasn't speaking for you. What I am interested in is trying to show you the difference between understanding why bigotry happens (as I said, ignorance and feelings of superiority) and actually justifying someone's bigotry. And I suggested to you that if you weren't trying to justify it, maybe you could reword yrself in a clearer manner. What I'm not interested in is copping a personal attack for my efforts...

I didn't see anyone trying to make political hay out of the article posted. And after reading yr post where you said you'd disagree with EI even if they said the Earth rotated round the Sun, I think anything you have to say about the credibility of EI (remembering that sites can be biased AND credible at the same time). After all, you've never given one single example of the lack of credibility you claim EI displays....

I'm here to discuss the I/P conflict. I thought the whole point was to discuss and disagree on things in a constructive way. If that's my problem, then I wish more people had it...


Violet...

[Muddleoftheroad]

36. So that putting words into my mouth was just accidental?

Frankly, I'm calm.

I didn't give a personal attack, I did receive one and responded.

I saw several people "trying to make political hay out of the article posted." If you didn't you missed this thread.

I base my comments on the fact that EI is a propaganda arm of the Intifada. That means NOTHING they say can be treated as legit. They are Debka of the Intifada.

Yes, we are all here to discuss I/P, but even we collectively can't even vaguely agree on a solution though most of us are safe from the conflict. Given that, how can we reasonably assume that the two sides can solve what we can't.

[Resistance]

39. what bullcrap

Show me one untrue thing on Electronic Intifada's website.

[Name removed]

34. Deleted message

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

[Muddleoftheroad]

35. Oh what twaddle

I know blacks who hate white people because of what we have gone through. It's bigotry, but I understand it. Duh.

Other than bigotry, I am also opposed to people blindly trying to capitalize off of a questionable article from a propaganda source like EI. But even if true, as I pointed out in my earlier post, there ARE scumbags on every side of every issue. That doesn't make their sides less valid.

[edzontar]

37. You are trying to have it both ways....

I notice when ever you slip into--let us call it your more "angry" mode--and get called on it, you pull back and say there are "bad guys on all sides."

Then you pooh-pooh anyone who calls you out on the flaming generalizations and sweeping condemnations that provoked the response in the first place.

Interesting argument strategy.

[Resistance]

38. yeah

it's called "defending the indefensible"

[Darranar]

41. No, it's not...

he isn't defending it; he's giving reasons for it.

What's wrong with that?

Suicide bombings are indefensible, too, but giving reasons for them isn't defending them.

[Equinox]

43. I like that....

.."defending the indefensible"....

has a nice ring...along with "today we are all Palestinians."

[bluesoul]

7. Tell me

Muddle as much as some love to bring the Holocaust into discussion I fail to see what Palestinians have to do with what happened 60 years ago in Europe. Is that supposed to justify such clear violations of human rights and racist policy of driving people out?

[rini]

47. I agree

it is very sad, but not surprising, humans are humans after all.

[Gimel]

8. I don't trust it

The source is the Electronic Intifada, the writer is a British peace activist. I don't see any proof of his claims.

[Resistance]

9. ah, yeah

probably it's all make-believe. Propaganda.

You know how those "leftist retards" can be sometimes.

[Sesquipedalian]

11. it could have been much worse..

Wadi al Naam residents do pay taxes and do vote in national elections, however they are forbidden to vote in regional elections and have been given a toxic waste dump for a neighbor and though they pay taxes are forbidden electricity, water or garbage service. They tend to live in tents more or less because no one bothers to bulldoze them and when the Israeli's do periodically wreck them they are cheaper to repair.

It's nothing like apartheid though, nothing to see here

[DuctapeFatwa]

13. Sounds like things that used to happen to African-Americans

in the rural south in the US, not too many years ago.

It was accepted as the norm by the voting classes, and there are those today who would not find anything objectionable if this story were set in rural Alabmama and the victims had brown skin.

[Resistance]

14. and,

I am sure, if the story were actually set in a racist rural area, there would be far too many who would bravely proclaim, "I understand the bigotry" against the brown skinned victim.

[rini]

48. Where is your documantatiom

for the claimes you made?

[ForestsBeatBushes]

51. On this forum,

we require links for something such as you just posted.

Please provide your sources. Thanks.

[Muddleoftheroad]

20. thanks, I didn't notice that

I wouldn't believe EI if they said the Earth revolved around the sun.

[Name removed]

21. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

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[Violet_Crumble]

28. Really?

So you'd disagree with an obvious fact just because you read it somewhere you don't personally approve of? Oh-kay...


Violet...

[drewb]

42. Yup...

If I don't actually have dead people in my living room how can I know that dead people really exist?

I think it gets down to the core of the problem. How can we over here know what is going on over there without actually being there.

Someone from DU that is filthy rich should bankroll a "fact-finding" mission and send a few of us from I/P to Israel, The West Bank, and Gaza (or is that just called "Israel"?) and we can check it out and report back. But if I don't personally get to go I can't guarantee that I will believe anything they say...

[TimeLord]

50. But it does.

n/t

[ForestsBeatBushes]

52. Do you understand when something is not literal?

I know you have the intelligence; I really do.

There was no need to attack Muddle.

[Equinox]

15. Resistance...

I think you are being too harsh. I mean really. The IOF soldiers (I know it's in Israel proper) gave them 10 minutes to get a few items. That's very moral and decent of them.

Geez, Resistance, I mean calm down, man. Don't speak ill of the "Most Moral Army in the World" or you will go to bed without dinner!

:shrug:

[Resistance]

16. oh I think I see your point

I mean, Hamas suicide bombers don't give their victims 10 minutes to clear out -- therefore the IOF/IDF/ITF (whatever you want to call them) is just so moral. How brave of them to tell their victims to run off to the West Bank (where they'll likely drop a missile anyway).

[tinnypriv]

23. You know, Amira Hass (I think) made this same point

She mentioned an incident at a checkpoint:

She asked an IOF soldier where he was, and he thought he was in Israel and to his east was the West Bank. He was actually in the middle of Qandiya or someplace.

Madness.

(-- that story is on Znet somewhere if somebody wants to read it)

[Gimel]

29. Do you mean Qalkilya?

It's on the border. No story here.

[tinnypriv]

40. No

Qalandiya.

It's south of Ramallah in the middle of the WB.

[Equinox]

44. Ouch!

:spank:

[dudeness]

26. the divisions only deepen

these stories only engender more hatred..why can't people just get on?

[drewb]

45. btt

[drdon326]

46. W h y ????

:shrug:

[drewb]

49. I THINK IT IS IMPORTANT...

:dunce:

[drewb]

53. btt

n/t

[drewb]

54. btt