I'm done digressing for the night, have an early day tomorrow : ((  

Sometimes when I read posts, I flash back to 36 years ago when I was a new bride and someone who didn't know who I was at a party was chatting with me.  She gestured at my husband who was across the room, and informed me 'He's darned nice for being a trained killer and all....' 

Apr 25, 2012 -- 10:41AM, browbeaten wrote:

Apr 25, 2012 -- 9:55AM, Dostojevsky wrote:

To me this is disturbing. Just watched some videos - I don't look for things to watch, don't know what's 'there' but one link leads to another....I watched Israeli soldiers break into Palestian houses in the middle of the night, throw family into chaos, arrest children and adults. Watching the young faces of Israeli IDF or whoever they are, I can not help but think that they have not had stable cultural roots of society of where you are a part, part of the people, of the land, and you treat it with respect. They or their parents come from all over the world and no matter how many words are used, they are strangers to each other, strangers in Israel. And they like machines follow the orders. No American youth or Australian youth or European youth would behave like that. Even Australia is a young country of  only 200 years but long enough to have our own culture and traditions. Today we commemorated Anzac Day and lovely to see old and young united in rememberance of our contribution to building a nation.

I come to these forums with more questions than anything else;  I find this highly disturbing and cruel. Destructive to the Palestians but also destructive to the young men who are behaving like this; it is bound to affect their very being of who they are as human beings.

electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora/report...

"As I reported a couple of weeks ago, a new report by Defense for Children International - Palestine section has found that Israel’s routine arrests, detentions, interrogations, abuses and torture of Palestinian children are in breach of various UN and international laws, and that the majority of arrests of minors occur in the middle of the night. The report added that:

In the past 11 years alone, around 7,500 children, some as young as 12 years, are estimated to have been detained, interrogated, and imprisoned within this system. This averages out at between 500-700 children per year, or nearly two children, each and every day.

Wolf said that what’s important to note about Israel’s policy of arresting children “is the psychological effects that this has on not just the kids, but their families … how destructive it is to a community that feels like they can’t protect their kids. It tears at the fabric of family structures. One man in Beit Ommar had four of his sons in jail at one point. The psychological torture of having your kids dragged away from you in the middle of the night creates a collective dynamic of being under siege and total instability in family life.”

the video is here  uruknet.info/?p=m87531&hd=&size=1&l=e

 

We've certainly got another anti-Isrel pro-Palestinian with us.  Electronic Intifada, Mondoweiss and Uruknet are sleazy propaganda and blog sites and quoting from them diminishes whatever credibility some have left.

browbeaten,

Persons who oppose human rights abuses and speak against crimes against humanity are heroes to some, and these websites you name are an illustration of sites where people of conscience write on and congregate to take stands against injustice and crimes against humanity.

Sherri

Apr 25, 2012 -- 11:46PM, LeahOne wrote:

Browbeaten, I think we've got to distinguish between 'anti-Israel' and 'pro-Palestinian'.  Seriously, I think it's very important that we do so.

I certainly consider myself 'pro-Palestinian'!  Thus it goes without saying that I don't consider it necessary to be 'anti-Israel' to be 'pro-Palestinian'.

Nobody is arguing that it is right and 'normal' to imprison children.  But there is a lot of room between 'this is an absolutely terrible policy which belies the claims of a civilized society'  - and the wholesale demonization of Israeli society and Zionists in general.

 

I do not see what  placing  labels on posters has to do with the Palestinian prisoners being unlawfully detained or their hunger strikes, all of which is discussed in The Guardian article in the OP.

Sherri

I do not see what  placing  labels on posters has to do with the Palestinian prisoners being unlawfully detained or their hunger strikes, all of which is discussed in The Guardian article in the OP.

Sherri, nobody else is responsible for your inability to see something, nor does a single person's inability to see relevance have any bearing on whether such relevance actually exists. 

Unlike 'person of conscience' - that irksome PC blob of fecal hypocrisy! - trying to assess whether a person is more 'pro-this' or 'anti-that' is attempting to see their orientation and motivation.  That is helpful in communicating with the person.  

For example, some here talk about wanting to see two peoples living in peace side by side.  And others never mention that idea.

Apr 26, 2012 -- 11:43AM, LeahOne wrote:

Persons who oppose human rights abuses and speak against crimes against humanity are heroes to some,

And those who do so ONLY selectively, while demonizing entire societies and proclaiming only one ideology 'evil' are assuredly not focused primarily on relieving human suffering - but rather on mounting assaults upon entire societies and whoever in ANY way supports the ideology they've chosen to demonize. 

 

 and these websites you name are an illustration of

Exactly what I've described - a group who are SO much more interested in vilifying and demonizing one group of people, AND in self-aggrandizing emotional mutual masturbation, rather than in actually making any concrete effort to support the very people whose rights they claim to care for so much.

sites where people of conscience write on and congregate to take stands against injustice and crimes against humanity.

That's not at all accurate.  The 'injustice and crimes against humanity' which are the complete focus of those sites are ALL Israeli, and ONLY Israeli.  The core concept which underlies each of those sites is a definition of 'Zionism' as inherently and indelibly EVIL - and no other ideology is ever criticized in such terms on any of those sites.  EVERYTHING is evaluated on those sites in terms of 'Zionism' (their 'definition'!) ONLY.  This has been to the extent of NOT criticizing Assad's murder of now 10,000 Syrian citizens simply because Assad has credentials as an 'anti-Zionist'.

 

Leah,

I have closely read all you say here and not one single word you write addresses the thread, the Palestinian hunger strike.

The websites addressed by Dos you were responding to were primarily human rights organizations and websites referring to their reports, not the websites you addressed in response to his post.

Human rights groups who investigate and disclose human rights abuses to the world are held in high esteem by many people, and I think rightly so.

We choose whether we care about or could care less about others, and whether we care about human rights abuses perpetrated against all peoples, to include Palestinians. 

I choose to care about the unlawfully held Palestinian prisoners and the human rights abuses they are being subjected to.

Websites that discuss the human rights abuses are essential for us to read, those of us who are concerned about the human rights abuses the Palestinian prisoners are being subjected to.

Sherri