The State of "Palestine" Quiz

[gimmesometruth27]

wow, great read.

thanks for posting VP. you make some pretty compelling points with your posts.

[VivaPalestina]

wow, great read.

thanks for posting VP. you make some pretty compelling points with your posts.

Thanks, as do you! I have been wanting to write the same about your posts, but you beat me to it

[gimmesometruth27]

wow, great read.

thanks for posting VP. you make some pretty compelling points with your posts.

Thanks, as do you! I have been wanting to write the same about your posts, but you beat me to it

thanks to you too. i have always had incredible timing lol..


i am not as up on the conflict as i was at one time, so it is always nice to get to read posts from people from all perspectives that know a lot more about it than i do.

[yosi]

Viva, this is not some pissing match about who's suffered more, or who is entitled to claim victim status. I don't deny Palestinian suffering at all. All I'm saying is that you can make your criticisms without offensive comparisons to the Nazis. And yes, such comparisons are deeply, deeply offensive. Maybe you didn't know that before, but I'm telling you now. You are saying things that are truly, despicably offensive. Criticize all you want, but please stop with the Nazi stuff. I can't tell you what to think, but I can tell you that I find the way you are expressing yourself offensive and deeply hurtful, and I'm asking you to stop. And again, to be clear, I'm not asking that you stop criticizing. I'm just asking that you stop making rhetorical comparisons that are offensive. I would hope that you are a caring enough person to respect this request.

[yosi]

Regarding use of ambulances by Palestinian terrorists:

http://www.standwithus.com/pdfs/flyers/UNAmbulance.pdf
http://image.thelancet.com/extras/02art8008web.pdf

I would especially recomment reading the lancet article.

Use of Ambulances by Palestinian Terrorists

• April 12, 2002: New York Times: “The Israeli police said today that they had found a belt with explosives in a Palestinian ambulance during a check at a roadblock inside the West Bank. The ambulance was headed toward Israel with the body of a Palestinian man, the police said, and they found the device alongside him. It was the second time in two weeks that Israel has reported finding explosives in an ambulance.”
• February 5, 2002: Haaretz: Wafa Idris, the Ramallah woman killed when a bomb she carried into downtown Jerusalem exploded last month, reached the capital by a Red Crescent ambulance... One Israeli was killed and more than 100 wounded in the bombing
• June 30, 2002: Associated Press: “In Ramallah, Israeli troops stopped two Palestinian ambulances and found 27 people packed inside - ten of them suspected of involvement in shooting or bombing attacks.”
• October 31, 2000: IDF: “Shots were fired at Psagot from inside the Red Crescent building in Ramallah. In another instance, shots were fired at Psagot from a Red Crescent ambulance as it traveled towards Psagot. In both cases, the IDF did not return fire.”
• April 25, 2002 Jerusalem Post: “Reserve soldiers apprehended a wanted terrorist who was hiding in an ambulance that was stopped during a routine check near Kalkilya.”
• January 30, 2002 The IDF reports it captured a terrorist on the wanted list at a roadblock at Har Bracha. “He was disguised as a doctor and attempted to pass through in a Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance.”
• June 10, 2002 Haaretz: “In the Gaza Strip, soldiers arrested a wanted militant who was traveling in a Palestinian ambulance at the Gush Katif junction. The troops became suspicious after noticing that there were no medical personnel or injured persons in the vehicle.”
• March 4, 2002 IDF: “During the activity of IDF forces in the Jenin refugee camp, a Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance charged an IDF force. The force opened small arms fire at the ambulance, which exploded.”
• April 16, 2003 IDF Radio reported this afternoon that an Israeli Border Policeman was lightly wounded by a Palestinian terrorist who opened fire at a patrol of Border Police in Jenin. “The terrorist opened fire from within an ambulance as it passed near the patrol and then drove away.”
• October 30, 2003 The Jerusalem Times (Palestinian newspaper): In Nablus, troops stormed Rafidiyeh Hospital and arrested Jawad Ishtayeh, 27, a member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, a splinter group with links to Fateh. The military said troops found the Ishatayeh, hiding in the hospital’s cellar and armed with a pistol. The army said the man was healthy, and Palestinian security sources said the man was not a patient.
• March 26, 2002: IDF: Soldiers at a mobile roadblock today captured a Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance driver who was transporting an explosive belt of the type detonated by suicide bombers. The ambulance was stopped and searched between Nablus and Ramallah, and soldiers found the explosive belt under a stretcher upon which a Palestinian boy was lying. The boy’s family was with him in the ambulance. The ambulance driver, Islam Jibril, a resident of the Balata refugee camp near Nablus, told interrogators he received the belt from Muhammad Titti, a senior Tanzim activist close to Palestinian Authority West Bank security chief Marwan Barghouti [Marwan Bargouti is a relative of Mustafa Barghouti. Islam Jibril has also confessed to smuggling weapons on several occasions. On one ambulance run he transported a sack filled with rifles from Balata to Ramallah, where he delivered them to the chief administrator of Sheykh Zayed Hospital.]
• March 27, 2002: An intensive care ambulance carrying a wanted terrorist, an explosive belt and explosive devices was intercepted at an Israeli army checkpoint south of Ramallah. The explosive belt was found hidden underneath a stretcher on which a Palestinian sick child was lying. Also present during the incident were the sick child's relatives – a man, a woman and three children. The driver was Islam Jibril , a Fatah-Tanzim operative and wanted terrorist, who was employed as ambulance driver for the Palestinian Red Crescent. During his interrogation, Jibril admitted having received the bombing devices from Mahmud al-Titi , with the assignment to deliver them to other Fatah- Tanzim operatives in Ramallah.


Abuse of ambulance and medical services by Palestinian terrorists has been in the news again recently, as the lives of an UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees) ambulance team were threatened as they were forced to comply with the demand to transport three Palestinian terrorists to a hospital.

Throughout the last few years, there have been many recorded instances of ambulances, which should be used for protecting the sick, being used as a means to transport terrorists or bombs into Israel . The terrorists exploit the ambulances' relative freedom of passage through Israeli army checkpoints, for the purpose of perpetrating terror activities against Israel . Under these circumstances, Israel must protect its citizens and carry out thorough searches of ambulances.

Examples of abuse of ambulances and medical services

On 25 May 2004 , Israeli police uncovered a network that smuggled Palestinian Authority officers into Israel in fake ambulances. 1 The officers included members of PA Chairman Yasser Arafat's elite Force 17 personal protection unit. The police arrested a resident of Azzariyeh, suspected of posing as an ambulance driver and infiltrating dozens of Palestinians disguised as sick patients into Israel . The ‘patients' were hooked up to medical devices inside the ambulances and presented soldiers or police officers with forged documents at Israeli checkpoints. Police said it is possible the ring has smuggled terrorists into Israel using the same method. 2
On 11 May 2004, during the Israeli army operation in the Zeitun neighbourhood of Gaza City, armed Palestinian terrorists overtook an UNRWA ambulance, forcing the ambulance team - a driver and a paramedic - to drive a wounded gunman, as well as two others carrying weapons, to a hospital in Gaza City. UNRWA later issued a statement condemning the incident “in the strongest possible terms” and imploring all parties in Gaza to respect the neutrality of its ambulance service. A UN spokesman further reiterated that “while its [UNRWA's] ambulances do not make any distinction between the injured, whether they are injured fighters or non-combatants, at no time and under no circumstances should armed men enter any UNRWA vehicle.” 3
It was later reported that Reuters had filmed the incident by video, but the footage was only aired two weeks later on Israel 's Channel 10 television. 4 The pictures clearly show armed Palestinians boarding a UN-marked ambulance, with a UN flag displayed on it, and fleeing the scene. 5

Rashed Tarek al-Nimr, a Palestinian chemist working in Nablus and Bethlehem hospitals, was arrested in November 2003 for smuggling chemicals that he obtained from the hospitals to Hamas for the purpose of creating bombs. He told the Shin Bet that he used ambulances as a cover to transfer the chemicals, such as hydrogen peroxide to make TATP, which have been used several times by Hamas in suicide bombings. 6
On 8 May 2003 , Amer Nayef Amer Hilwan and his female companion, Zuhur Hamdan, were arrested on their way to perpetrate a suicide bombing attack in Petah Tikva. Under interrogation, Hilwan admitted that the two had passed through the IDF checkpoints using an ambulance, which was not checked by IDF soldiers. 7
Nidal Abd al-Fatah Abdallah Nazal, a Hamas operative from Qalqiliya who worked as an UNRWA ambulance driver, was arrested in August 2002 and admitted during questioning that he had used an UNWRA ambulance to transport arms to terrorists and to transmit messages to and from Hamas activists in different places. 8
In March 2002, an explosive belt was found in a Red Crescent ambulance at a checkpoint near Ramallah. The bomb, the same type generally used in suicide bombings, was hidden under a stretcher on which a sick child was lying. The driver, Islam Jibril, admitted that the belt was intended to be used for a suicide bombing and that this was not the first time that an ambulance had been used to transport explosives or terrorists. 9
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in reaction that it was “shocked and dismayed” at the incident and that it “condemns such abuse of an ambulance and of the Red Crescent emblem”. The ICRC called for Palestinian “respect of the ambulances' medical mission.” 10

On 27 January 2002 , Wafa Idris, a Red Crescent worker, blew herself up in the centre of Jerusalem , killing one man and injuring 140 others. An IDF investigation revealed that the attack was planned by other Red Crescent workers and it is believed that a Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance transported the bomber into Israel . 11

[yosi]

As to genocide, I really just don't get what you are arguing. You wrote:

"The fact that the population is still growing despite the unrelenting oppression and dispossession of it, does not mean that there is not a slow and methodical genocide of it. Were ALL the jews killed in the Holocaust, did they stop having babies and did their families cease to grow?"

Thankfully not all the Jews were killed in the Holocaust. But the Jewish population didn't, as you seem to imply, grow during the Holocaust. It shrank by 6 million. Because they were systematically murdered. The aim of the Nazis was a world without Jews, and had they had the ability to do so I don't doubt that they would have killed every last Jew on earth.

The fact that the Palestinian population continues to grow does, in fact, indicate that there is no genocide taking place, since empirically it is exactly the opposite of what one would expect to see under conditions of genocide. I'm not arguing that the Palestinians aren't suffering under oppression, but to claim that a genocide is taking place is just flat out not objectively true.

[VivaPalestina]

Viva, this is not some pissing match about who's suffered more, or who is entitled to claim victim status. I don't deny Palestinian suffering at all. All I'm saying is that you can make your criticisms without offensive comparisons to the Nazis. And yes, such comparisons are deeply, deeply offensive. Maybe you didn't know that before, but I'm telling you now. You are saying things that are truly, despicably offensive. Criticize all you want, but please stop with the Nazi stuff. I can't tell you what to think, but I can tell you that I find the way you are expressing yourself offensive and deeply hurtful, and I'm asking you to stop. And again, to be clear, I'm not asking that you stop criticizing. I'm just asking that you stop making rhetorical comparisons that are offensive. I would hope that you are a caring enough person to respect this request.

No I will not ever stop with the "Nazi stuff," I will not be the first and won't be the last to compare the current actions of israel to nazis. Why don't they stop with the Nazi actions? Your feelings are hurt? You are offended? You are requesting that I turn a blind eye to a murderous state's actions who are now beating the drum to commit more murder to spare your feelings. Feelings get hurt, but you know what's fucking worse than feelings getting hurt, is people fucking dying for the past 70 years and who will continue to die. You are missing the point in your pro israel zionist stance....you come at me with dumb examples, about the kkk and black people, what you are asking is like asking a black person not to call the kkk racist, there goes your example, i have yet to read your following posts, but I scanned through and I have yet to see a citation for all the claims you have listed, websites, books, authors?????

[Byrnzie]

Politics, bringing people together

[catefrances]

As to genocide, I really just don't get what you are arguing. You wrote:

"The fact that the population is still growing despite the unrelenting oppression and dispossession of it, does not mean that there is not a slow and methodical genocide of it. Were ALL the jews killed in the Holocaust, did they stop having babies and did their families cease to grow?"

Thankfully not all the Jews were killed in the Holocaust. But the Jewish population didn't, as you seem to imply, grow during the Holocaust. It shrank by 6 million. Because they were systematically murdered. The aim of the Nazis was a world without Jews, and had they had the ability to do so I don't doubt that they would have killed every last Jew on earth.

The fact that the Palestinian population continues to grow does, in fact, indicate that there is no genocide taking place, since empirically it is exactly the opposite of what one would expect to see under conditions of genocide. I'm not arguing that the Palestinians aren't suffering under oppression, but to claim that a genocide is taking place is just flat out not objectively true.

and worse than that... they were allowed to do it.

as heinous as i think their actions are, i see what the israeli govt is doing as a security issue. the formation of the state of israel meant the destruction of the life the palestinian people had known. and that is gonna cause some sort of reaction, as it rightly should. you cant move people from the homes and communities theyve known for as long as they can remember and expect them to go quietly. you cant tighten the screws on peoples freedoms and expect them to sit there and take it. personally i think israel fails in its security with its own actions. i think the israeli govt would be most happy if the palestinians were absorbed into the surrounding countries and leave the land left behind to be claimed as a part of the state of israel. unfortunately thats not gonna happen.. and why should it? but what i see being done to the palestinians is oppression but it is not genocide. the nazi comparison is pulled out becasue it is an emotive one and it is the most offensive comparison that can be levelled at the israeli govt. even ive said how can the israeli govt act the way it does after what had been done to the jews? how can an oppressed people turn around and oppress others. then i realise its like an abused child who grows up knowing nothing else. they know they shouldnt but its the only way they know how to deal. and no im not excusing the israeli govts actions just trying to be somewhat objective.

[gimmesometruth27]

israel is stealing palestinian land and occupying it. like it or not, the main objective of war, aside from the annihillation of the opposing army, is to gain and control territory. to take over the land of another country. if you look at it like that, the expansion of the settlements onto palestinian lands and seizure of that land is the EXACT same thing that hitler and the nazis did when they annexed austria.

[yosi]

gimme, by that analogy any country that has gained territory through war is analogous to the nazis. such a comparison loses any sort of descriptive value. When people make comparisons to the nazis they aren't talking about gaining territory through war. the comparison is made to evoke the holocaust. since what is going on with the Palestinians (as horrible as it may be) is not truly analogous to the holocaust, I don't see the comparison as apt.

[catefrances]

israel is stealing palestinian land and occupying it. like it or not, the main objective of war, aside from the annihillation of the opposing army, is to gain and control territory. to take over the land of another country. if you look at it like that, the expansion of the settlements onto palestinian lands and seizure of that land is the EXACT same thing that hitler and the nazis did when they annexed austria.

well im not looking at it like that gimme because i dont see it that way. what army were the jews a part of in WW2? they werent exterminated so the nazis could gain land. they were exterminated because the nazis saw them as sub human. hitler annexing of austria was about uniting all ethnic germans into one big glorious country. so whether it was necessarily just a land grab as you suggest is open for discussion.

[gimmesometruth27]

israel is stealing palestinian land and occupying it. like it or not, the main objective of war, aside from the annihillation of the opposing army, is to gain and control territory. to take over the land of another country. if you look at it like that, the expansion of the settlements onto palestinian lands and seizure of that land is the EXACT same thing that hitler and the nazis did when they annexed austria.

well im not looking at it like that gimme because i dont see it that way. what army were the jews a part of in WW2? they werent exterminated so the nazis could gain land. they were exterminated because the nazis saw them as sub human. hitler annexing of austria was about uniting all ethnic germans into one big glorious country. so whether it was necessarily just a land grab as you suggest is open for discussion.

the annexation of austria was a land grab. had there been no hitler, there would have been no land grab.

but still, the goal of war is to gain territory and resources. you can see it as you wish to see it. but i see it like that. what is happening with settlement expansion? are they just "spreading out"" or are they stealing the land? it is pretty obvious that they are stealing land, building upon it, and expanding the state of israel and displacing palestinians. there is no regard to the palestinians that owned that land. same as what happened in austria. given their history just 70 years ago i would have thought that israel would have been better than that. i would have thought that they of all people would fight to guarantee that oppression and subjugation in that region would never happen again.

you make the argument that hitler was just uniting the ethnic germans into one country. but what happened to the gypsies, the jews, the homosexuals, the non aryans in this annexation? they were starved, they were evacuated and displaced. the same as what is happening in this conflict. if hitler was not trying to take land why did he expand the war to brittain? why did he expand it to africa? why did he attack russia? grabbing land was strategic and essential to his vision or world domination. plus he had to take land outside of germany so that he could carry out the final solution in as secreat of conditions that he could...

[gimmesometruth27]

gimme, by that analogy any country that has gained territory through war is analogous to the nazis. such a comparison loses any sort of descriptive value. When people make comparisons to the nazis they aren't talking about gaining territory through war. the comparison is made to evoke the holocaust. since what is going on with the Palestinians (as horrible as it may be) is not truly analogous to the holocaust, I don't see the comparison as apt.

exactly. the nazi land grab is the same as any country that has ever attacked another and occupied it. this did not begin with the nazis. it has been going on since the dawn of civilization. frankly i do not care if it does not hold water with you. it is what it is. you can either recognize it as such, or just dismiss it and try to minimize it in your defense of your homeland. but if things go on as they are, palestinians are going to die. they are going to be starved, they are going to be displaced, they are going to continue to be blockaded. it might not be as fast or as systematic and industrialized as the holocaust, but these deaths will result and it will happen over time.

the holocaust was a result of the nazis wanting to rule the world. world war 2 was not the result of the holocaust. the holocaust was a result of the maniacal desire to rule the world AND cleanse europe of the jews. germany had to take land in austria and poland so that they can make the death camps there so that they were not not within the boundaries of germany. they had to go about their systematic murder in land outside of their boundaries.

security is a funny thing. americans are willing to give away their rights to make sure that there is security. the minute someone speaks out against these policies they are immediately dubbed a threat and are dealt with as such. the security measures the israelis take are very similar to those of the us, yet they are less even-handed. they are much more proactive in the security protocol that is offense in the name of defense. it is disgusting.

[catefrances]

...if hitler was not trying to take land why did he expand the war to brittain? ...

im pretty sure when a country identifies as your enemy in a war you tend to attack them to disable them. i imagine hitler was weary of britain given their history so why not bomb them into submisson.. that way youve got one less enemy to be concerned with. didnt quite work out that way but it was a good try anyway.

the extermination of the jews wasnt critical to hitlers land grab, as you call it. sure he wanted no jews in europe but the 2 things are separate issues as far as im concerned. and that is why the analogy between the nazis and the israeli govt is flawed. and thats aside from the fact that the israeli govt isnt trying to exterminate the palestinian people. but i do suspect theyd be happier if the palestinians were elsewhere.

i think comparisons between the nazis and the israeli govt are somewhat hysterical and borne of the justified outrage at the actions of the israeli govt. its an emotional issue and i just think itd be better for the discussion if cool heads could prevail.