New EU foreign policy chief lambastes 'Israeli occupation'

[grassfed]

Catherine Ashton on Tuesday leveled scathing criticism at the "Israeli occupation," in her first speech as the European Union's first high representative for foreign affairs and security policy.

The British stateswoman, who has also served as the Commissioner for Trade in the European Commission, said that in the EU's view, "East Jerusalem is occupied territory, together with the West Bank."

Ashton demanded that Israel immediately lift its blockade on the Gaza Strip, and reiterated that the union opposes the existence of the West Bank separation fence, as it opposes evictions of Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem.

The stateswoman, whose full title is Baroness Ashton of Upholland, also only defined Israel's partial freeze of West Bank settlement construction as a "first step," as opposed to the warmer description of the move by EU foreign ministers, who last week took "positive note" of it.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1135787.html

[unabelladonna]

1. yawn, a british aristo criticizing israel?

how very quaint. isn't it foxhunting season?

[bemildred]

2. She is "the European Union's first high representative for foreign affairs and security policy."

You may scoff it you like, but I expect a large and seriously loud amount of commentary on this, in due course.

[Violet_Crumble]

3. Another shoot the messenger post ...

I know it must upset you greatly that anyone dare utter a single word of criticism of Israel, but how about focusing on what the criticism is rather than come out with ugly and stupid attacks on the person making the criticism, which say much more about you than anything else...

[LeftishBrit]

5. She is certainly not an aristo....

She isn't a hereditary member of the House of Lords! She is an appointed Labour member. She does not come from an upper class background at all.

Not that this is relevant to the particular topic, but since it came up, I am pointing it out.

[Sezu]

11. These days it's enough that she is

simply British.

[Alamuti Lotus]

12. what a revolting anti-anglotist view you have there

What is next, tea libels and other assorted ravings about the English? You sicken me.


Not giving the smallest shit about the sentiments of either the partisons of the zionist entity or that of any official somebody of a NATO member (I would query her views on the occupation of Kabul, whether it arouses a similar stance), I can only chuckle faintly at this whole matter.

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

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

[Alamuti Lotus]

14. No, I am not a Biqaa vegetable farmer: get your (allegedly) special forces away from me

I am not sure if that reference will find ears.. but if not, let me assure you that it is hilarious.

We will deal with your apparently vehemently racist views regarding the British at a later time.

[LeftishBrit]

16. 'Zionist entity'?

Whatever genuine points you may have, are totally obscured by your use of that denialist term. You sound as though you've been listening to Ahmadinejad on the subject.

[Alamuti Lotus]

17. my views and use of the phrase predate his tenure as Mayor of Teheran

lazy smear attempt, please try again.

Gotta admit though -- I am really onto something there. TEA LIBELS? REALLY? I belted that out on the fly, no less, only realizing afterwards the brilliance of the phrase. Yeh, the deleted message was also onto something: "get over myself" is sometimes the only appropriate response at times like this.

[LeftishBrit]

15. Ever been to Britain? Didn't think so.

[Violet_Crumble]

19. That's a really stupid comment...

Yr on a roll, Sezu. You'd be one of the first screeching in rage if someone said something like that about an Israeli. The only times the British are allowed to be ragged on is over any sporting event we manage to beat them at. And being an American, yr automatically excluded from the taking the piss out of the poms contests...

[azurnoir]

4. Well she's certainly off to a rousing start

I truly wish her luck it would seem the EU is leading the way rather than Obama which is sad, some of the rhetoric in the talkbacks was a hoot too, but nothing unexpected, just once I'd like to see something closer to the truth like

"you actually expect us to give up our cheap mortgages, nice houses, some of us have swimming pools for gosh sakes, who cares how we got it or who suffers for it as long as it's not us"

[LeftishBrit]

6. I agree with most of this, especially re lifting the blockade on Gaza...

though let us note that the EU cannot 'demand' anything from a non-member-state. I always love the way that the media reports any criticism or request from one country, or group of countries, towards another as a 'demand'.

[shira]

7. typical demonization

1. The separation barrier and the Gaza blockade saves human lives. They have greatly minimized the most extreme violations of human rights - the killing of innocent people. That minor human rights are violated in order to preserve the greatest of human rights (the right to live) seems to always elude the Baroness types and her nasty and mindless followers who cry crocodile tears for HR violations.

2. The settlements could have been solved had Abbas accepted Olmert's proposal last Sept 2008 and therefore the 'freeze' would be irrelevant now...
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/ehud-olmert-still-dreams-of-peace/story-e6frg76f-1225804745744

Olmert's 100% land proposal with limited RoR and separation of Jerusalem (east and west) was very fair and covers everything that would be included in any fair 2-state deal. How is it Israel's fault that Abbas rejected it in favor of more Palestinian suffering and the continuation of settlements?

That Baroness is quite the piece of work.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

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

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

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

[ConsAreLiars]

18. It's rather strange, and worse, but not surprising, that you would

characterize collective punishment, the denial of sufficient food, the destruction of schools, hospitals, infrastructure, and thousands of homes and the mass murder of 1400 human beings as "minor violations" of human rights.

If that were being done to the citizens of Israel I am certain no one in this forum would characterize those acts in that way.

Unfortunately, and very sadly, there are others also allowed to post here who have no problem with characterizing such indiscriminate brutality and inhumane actions as "minor violations" of some unimportant guideline when the victims are Palestinians, but would and do howl and wail and demand vengeance and retributive massacres when some Israeli gets awakened by a loud noise.

Can you say "double standard." I knew you could mouth the words, but not grasp the meaning. Try this:

"The Palestinians are as fully human as Israelis, Muslims are as fully human as Jews or people of any other faith or heritage, and I will forever hereafter condemn every bit of violence done to any of them in proportion to the suffering being inflicted."

(edit out one adjective)

[shira]

20. how about some facts?

1. The separation barrier saves lives.

PIJ leader Ramadan Abdallah Shalah told Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV that the terrorist organizations had no intention of abandoning suicide bombing attacks but that their timing and the possibility of carrying them out from the West Bank depended on other factors. “For example,” he said, “there is the separation fence which is an obstacle to the resistance , and if it were not there, the situation would be entirely different” 1 (Al-Manar TV, November 11, 2006 ).

Mousa Abu Marzouq , deputy chairman of Hamas's political bureau in Damascus , was asked by a group of Egyptian intellectuals and politicians why the suicide bombing activity had decreased during since the Hamas government came to power. He said that “ such attacks is made difficult by the security fence and the gates surrounding West Bank residents ” 2 (Abd al-Muaz Muhammad, Ikhwan Online, the Muslim Brotherhood Website, June 2, 2007 ).

http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/html/ct_250308e.htm

Check out this neat bar graph display...
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obstacle+to+Peace/Palestinian+terror+since+2000/Victims+of+Palestinian+Violence+and+Terrorism+sinc.htm

Israelis are fully human beings whose lives matter too. The separation barrier has greatly minimized the most extreme violations of human rights - the killing of innocent people. Minor human rights are violated in order to preserve the greatest of human rights (the right to live).



2. As for OCL and the 1400 killed last year in Gaza...

"There are different accounts of the numbers of civilian deaths in Gaza, and of the ratio between civilian and militant deaths. B’Tselem, the reliable Israeli human rights organization, carefully examined names and lists of people who were killed and came up with the following ratio: Out of the 1,387 people killed in Gaza, for every militant that was killed, three civilians were killed. This ratio--1:3--holds if you include the police force among the civilians; but if you consider the police force as combatants, the ratio comes out to 2:3. There are 1.5 million people in Gaza and around 10,000 Hamas militants, so the ratio of militants to civilians is 1:150. If Israel targeted civilians intentionally, how on earth did it reduce such a ratio to 1:3 or 2:3?

The commission never asks that question, or an even more obvious one. In operating under such conditions--Gaza is an extremely densely populated area--is such a ratio a sign of reckless shooting and targeting? One way to think about this is to compare it with what other civilized armies achieve in the same sort of warfare. I do not have the exact numbers of the ratio of civilian to militant deaths in NATO’s war in Afghanistan, but I doubt that it has achieved such a ratio. Is it ten civilians to one combatant, or maybe 20 civilians to one combatant? From various accounts in the press, it certainly seems worse. The number of collateral deaths that are reported concerning the campaign to kill Baitullah Mehsud, one of the main Pakistani militant operatives, is also alarming: In 16 missile strikes in the various failed attempts at killing him, and in the one that eventually killed him (at his father-in-law’s house, in the company of his family), between 207 and 321 people were killed. If such were the numbers in Israel in a case of targeted killing, its press and even its public opinion would have been in an uproar.

Besides the 500 civilians who were killed in the bombing of Serbia, how many militants were killed? The inaccurate high-altitude bombings in Serbia, carried out in a manner so as to protect NATO pilots, caused mainly civilian deaths. What would have been the ratio of deaths if NATO forces were fighting not in faraway Afghanistan, but while protecting European citizens from ongoing shelling next to its borders? And there are still more chilling comparisons. If accurate numbers were available from the wars by Russia in Chechnya, the ratio would have been far more devastating to the civilian population. Needless to say, the behavior of the Russian army in Chechnya should hardly serve as a standard for moral scrupulousness--but I cannot avoid adducing this example after reading that Russia voted in the United Nations for the adoption of the U.N. report on Gaza. (The other human rights luminaries who voted for the Goldstone Report include China and Pakistan.) So what would be a justified proportionality? The Goldstone Report never says. But we may safely conclude that, if the legal and moral standard is current European and American behavior in war, then Israel has done pretty well."

http://www.tnr.com/article/world/the-goldstone-illusion?page=0,0

Care to comment on those facts?

Mass murder?

Indiscriminate brutality?

Inhumane actions?

You must be speaking of Hamas. Hamas used the Gazan population as a human shield, stole food sent in by Israel to the Palestinian population, deliberately fired from civilian populations, dressed as civilians, used child combatants, stored weapons in and boobytrapped homes, mosques, and schools, hid within the main Gaza hospital, and comandeered ambulances.

In short, Hamas did everything they could to maximize their own civilians' casualties. These are serious war crimes that make it more likely civilians will be harmed by the IDF's very legitimate defensive attempts to defend its own citizens from attack.

But you don't really have a problem with what Hamas does and has been allowed to get away with, right?

[ConsAreLiars]

21. None of that RW fiction and diversionary blather is responsive to my observations.

I'll repost them:

It's rather strange, and worse, but not surprising, that you would characterize collective punishment, the denial of sufficient food, the destruction of schools, hospitals, infrastructure, and thousands of homes and the mass murder of 1400 human beings as "minor violations" of human rights.

If that were being done to the citizens of Israel I am certain no one in this forum would characterize those acts in that way.

Unfortunately, and very sadly, there are others also allowed to post here who have no problem with characterizing such indiscriminate brutality and inhumane actions as "minor violations" of some unimportant guideline when the victims are Palestinians, but would and do howl and wail and demand vengeance and retributive massacres when some Israeli gets awakened by a loud noise.

Can you say "double standard." I knew you could mouth the words, but not grasp the meaning. Try this:

"The Palestinians are as fully human as Israelis, Muslims are as fully human as Jews or people of any other faith or heritage, and I will forever hereafter condemn every bit of violence done to any of them in proportion to the suffering being inflicted."

[shira]

22. LOL....RW fiction and diversionary blather? What I posted is reality and you can't deal with it.

Maybe you don't remember but back in 2000-2004, many civilians were being killed in Israel - many people on both sides. Remember all the suicide bombings? In order to stop that most extreme of all violations of HR's, Israel decided to erect a separation barrier, start a checkpoint system, and partially blockade Gaza. Inconveniences were created, minor human rights were violated but major HR's (the right to live) were preserved. Without those measures, the lives of Israelis and Palestinians were endangered. Their inherent rights were severely violated. I understand that you don't like those measures, but what alternatives exist?

As to OCL, the facts speak for themselves. That wasn't even remotely 'indiscriminate mass murder' and I challenge you to respond to the facts provided to you. I'll repost what I cited for you, and I'll remind you that the writer who presented this is without question a LW Israeli liberal whose credentials as a bonafide progressive aren't questioned. The mention of facts and reality is never "rightwing blather".

"There are different accounts of the numbers of civilian deaths in Gaza, and of the ratio between civilian and militant deaths. B’Tselem, the reliable Israeli human rights organization, carefully examined names and lists of people who were killed and came up with the following ratio: Out of the 1,387 people killed in Gaza, for every militant that was killed, three civilians were killed. This ratio--1:3--holds if you include the police force among the civilians; but if you consider the police force as combatants, the ratio comes out to 2:3. There are 1.5 million people in Gaza and around 10,000 Hamas militants, so the ratio of militants to civilians is 1:150. If Israel targeted civilians intentionally, how on earth did it reduce such a ratio to 1:3 or 2:3?

The commission never asks that question, or an even more obvious one. In operating under such conditions--Gaza is an extremely densely populated area--is such a ratio a sign of reckless shooting and targeting? One way to think about this is to compare it with what other civilized armies achieve in the same sort of warfare. I do not have the exact numbers of the ratio of civilian to militant deaths in NATO’s war in Afghanistan, but I doubt that it has achieved such a ratio. Is it ten civilians to one combatant, or maybe 20 civilians to one combatant? From various accounts in the press, it certainly seems worse. The number of collateral deaths that are reported concerning the campaign to kill Baitullah Mehsud, one of the main Pakistani militant operatives, is also alarming: In 16 missile strikes in the various failed attempts at killing him, and in the one that eventually killed him (at his father-in-law’s house, in the company of his family), between 207 and 321 people were killed. If such were the numbers in Israel in a case of targeted killing, its press and even its public opinion would have been in an uproar.

Besides the 500 civilians who were killed in the bombing of Serbia, how many militants were killed? The inaccurate high-altitude bombings in Serbia, carried out in a manner so as to protect NATO pilots, caused mainly civilian deaths. What would have been the ratio of deaths if NATO forces were fighting not in faraway Afghanistan, but while protecting European citizens from ongoing shelling next to its borders? And there are still more chilling comparisons. If accurate numbers were available from the wars by Russia in Chechnya, the ratio would have been far more devastating to the civilian population. Needless to say, the behavior of the Russian army in Chechnya should hardly serve as a standard for moral scrupulousness--but I cannot avoid adducing this example after reading that Russia voted in the United Nations for the adoption of the U.N. report on Gaza. (The other human rights luminaries who voted for the Goldstone Report include China and Pakistan.) So what would be a justified proportionality? The Goldstone Report never says. But we may safely conclude that, if the legal and moral standard is current European and American behavior in war, then Israel has done pretty well."

http://www.tnr.com/article/world/the-goldstone-illusion?page=0,0

Finally, as to whether Palestinians or Muslims are fully human - I'd appreciate if you would respond to this part of my last post...

Hamas used the Gazan population as a human shield, stole food sent in by Israel to the Palestinian population, deliberately fired from civilian populations, dressed as civilians, used child combatants, stored weapons in and boobytrapped homes, mosques, and schools, hid within the main Gaza hospital, and comandeered ambulances. In short, Hamas did everything they could to maximize their own civilians' casualties. These are serious war crimes that make it more likely civilians will be harmed by the IDF's very legitimate defensive attempts to defend its own citizens from attack.

If you believe Palestinians are fully human, Hamas actions should outrage you. Do they? And if not, why not?

Do you strongly condemn every bit of HAMAS violence done to Palestinians in Gaza? Goldstone and other HR's organizations aren't strongly condemning any of that. Are you okay with that? They say no evidence exists of any of that, despite the fact there are dozens of MSM news articles and video proof of Hamas war crimes that can easily be googled.

[cqo_000]

10. Ashton's rhetoric is beyond boring

The EU have no interest in putting any real pressure on Israel