How to Fix It
Ending this war in Gaza begins with recognizing Hamas as a legitimate political actor.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/08/04/how_to_fix_it_jimmy_carter_mary_robinson_israel_palestine_gaza_hamas?wp_login_redirect=0

8/5/2014 12:09:37 PM

A lot of people will immediately dismiss that, because it's written by Jimmy Carter, who you know, is the worst president in the history of the world (well, behind Obama). Also because it's talking about recognizing Hamas (a terrorist organization) as a political actor. Which of course, some of the elements in Hamas could be considered terrorist, particularly their military wing, although terrorist actions are about the only military option they have.

8/5/2014 12:15:58 PM

that's all true, and i knew most would immediately dismiss it because OMG JIMMY CARTER IS A PEANUT FARMER, but its a quick and worthwhile read if any get past that


the tl;dr version is that peace requires Palestinian unity which requires at least a partial lifting of the sanctions and blockade and that there must be a way for the social workers currently on Hamas' payroll to be paid to improve the standard of living (and there are offers for that but Israel blocked them). The unification of Hamas and Fatah is the best promise for peace and only way for the Palestinian Authority to resume control and this is needed to return international border oversight and EQ border assistance.

the tl;dr version of the tl;dr version is that a unified Palestine is the best hope anyone has at peace, and that can only come by recognizing Hamas as a political organization.

8/5/2014 12:23:20 PM

For a discussion about Iron Dome with an MIT physicist:

http://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/2/e/8/2e82756bc26a8296/dn2014-0805-1.mp3?c_id=7475565&expiration=1407264173&hwt=dd47c689d4b29340e74f27679d7eeb2c


Skip to around the 26 minute mark.

8/5/2014 2:13:53 PM

about the physics of it? the logistics? cost? can you give us a summary?

8/5/2014 2:19:42 PM

^tl;didn't listen:

-Only about a 5% interception rate according to this guy. Most interceptors are "chasing" the primitive rockets fired off with a zero percent chance of catching them rather than intercepting them head on.

-The cost of the system is huge, and probably not financially even worth it, considering they are supposedly intercepting rockets that only cost a few thousand dollars. A Hamas rocket is cheap, and each iron dome launch is not.

-May not even be saving lives.

-Raytheon is the defense contractor that benefits the most from this.

8/5/2014 2:29:51 PM

Zionists caused $4-6bn damage to besieged strip

Quote :

"RAMALLAH: A month of fighting between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip will cost the Palestinian territory at least $4-6 billion in damages, deputy economy minister Taysir Amro said Tuesday. Amro told AFP the figure included only “direct damages” to the Gaza economy and warned it could climb further once additional impacts on the 1.8 million population are taken into account. A more precise assessment would be carried out once calm returns permanently to the overpopulated sliver of territory. Amro said international donors were expected to meet in Norway in September, but gave no further details. A 72-hour truce, brokered by Egypt and the United States, came into effect at 8 a.m. (0500 GMT) on Tuesday as the last Israeli troops left the battered enclave. Hundreds of homes were destroyed and last week the Gaza Strip’s only power plant was shelled, imposing total blackouts. Meanwhile, former Cuban leader Fidel Castro compared Israel’s offensive in Gaza on Tuesday to a “disgusting form of fascism” that its ally, the United States, is unable to control. “I think that a new and disgusting form of fascism is emerging with considerable force at this moment in human history,” Castro wrote in a column in the newspaper Granma titled “Palestinian Holocaust in Gaza.” “Why does the government of this country (Israel) think that the world will be impervious to this macabre genocide that is being committed today against the Palestinian people?” he asked. “Maybe it hopes that the complicity of the North American (US) empire will be ignored in this shameless massacre?” the 87-year-old former president said."

US, EU, Arab countries, and international aid organizations will pay for this... for what? For it to happen all over again after 5-6 years?

Unbelievable that something like this could be happening in today's world, to the same people and place again and again.








Hamas is a terrorist organization.

Israel is a terrorist country.


[Edited on August 5, 2014 at 5:39 PM. Reason : ]

8/5/2014 5:38:39 PM

Quote :

"^tl;didn't listen: -Only about a 5% interception rate according to this guy. Most interceptors are "chasing" the primitive rockets fired off with a zero percent chance of catching them rather than intercepting them head on. -The cost of the system is huge, and probably not financially even worth it, considering they are supposedly intercepting rockets that only cost a few thousand dollars. A Hamas rocket is cheap, and each iron dome launch is not. -May not even be saving lives. -Raytheon is the defense contractor that benefits the most from this."

All the more reason for the Jews to just bend over and take it.

8/5/2014 9:51:32 PM

They say it will take 30 years to revuild. Only a dumb hamas would spend relief mdoney on building things instead of weapons.

8/6/2014 8:56:07 AM

From 2 years ago, but shows the mentality of the right wing Israelis



http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/A-decisive-conclusion-is-necessary

[Edited on August 6, 2014 at 4:16 PM. Reason : ]

8/6/2014 4:15:48 PM

That's it. I'm changing my stance. Fuck Israel. Starting today I'm boycotting kosher pickles aaand salt.

8/6/2014 5:43:51 PM

8/6/2014 5:45:44 PM

Mourning for a Judaism Being Murdered by Israel
Tikkun Daily / By Michael Lerner
Why Israeli behavior toward Palestinians throughout the past decades is destroying Judaism.
http://www.alternet.org/belief/mourning-judaism-being-murdered-israel?paging=off

Quote :

"Let me explain why Israeli behavior toward Palestinians – not just during this latest assault but also throughout the past decades during which Israel militarily enforced its Occupation of the West Bank and the blockade of food and building materials to Gaza – and the cheerleading for such behavior by Jews around the world is destroying Judaism and creating a new kind of hatred of Jews by people who never before had any issue with Jews (not to mention strengthening the hands of the already existing anti-Semites whose hatred of Jews would continue no matter what Israel or Jews do or do not do)."

Quote :

"That belief that Israeli goodness would ultimately prevail began to wane in the past eight years when Israel ignored the Saudi Arabian-led peace initiative, refused to stop its expansion of settlements in the West Bank, and imposed an economically crushing blockade on Gaza. Israel did all this in spite of the fact that the Palestinian Authority was promoting nonviolence, actively cooperating with Israeli security forces to prevent any attacks on Israel, and seeking reconciliation and peace. The Saudi Arabian led peace initiative, which Israel never even responded to, would have granted Israel the recognition it has long sought, ended the hostilities, and given Israel a recognized place in the Middle East (though it had some imperfections, it was a generous first step toward a realistic peace accord with all the Arab states of the region). Even Hamas, whose hateful charter called for Israel’s destruction, had decided to accept the reality of Israel’s existence, and while unable to embrace its “right” to exist, nevertheless agreed to reconcile with the Palestinian Authority and in that context live within the terms that the Palestinian Authority would negotiate with Israel. Most Israelis ignored all this and were content to ignore the Palestinian suffering under occupation or the Gazans slowly being reduced to penury from Israel’s blockade. Without violence Israelis turned their attention to becoming the Silicon Valley of the Middle East and electing a right-wing government that could charm Israel’s American based cheerleaders among Christian Zionists, the American Jewish community, and a super-compliant and fawning U.S. Congress with each major political party competing with the other on which could be seen as most hawkish."

Quote :

"Using the excuse that Hamas is using civilians as “human shields” and placing its war material in civilian apartments – a claim that a UN human rights investigatory commission found groundless when Israel used it the last time it invaded Gaza in 2008-2009 and engaged in similar levels of killing civilians – Israel has managed to kill over 1,500 Palestinians and wound over 8,000 thousand more."

Quote :

"And this is precisely where the American Jewish community and Jews around the world have taken a turn that is disastrous – turning the Israeli nation state into “the Jewish state” and making Israel into an idol to be worshipped rather than a political entity like any other political entity, with strengths and deep flaws, a political entity which should be held to account for its systematic violations of human rights."

its a long read, but worth it

8/6/2014 9:12:19 PM

http://youtu.be/8EDW88CBo-8

8/6/2014 10:09:28 PM

Quote :

"From 2 years ago, but shows the mentality of the right wing Israelis"

You mean of a single right wing Israeli. There are plenty of crazies there, just like we have here.

8/7/2014 12:46:27 AM

Cease-fire? What cease-fire?

http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/07/world/meast/mideast-crisis/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

If you know there's a bear in the woods that will eat you for breakfast and shit you out by the time lunch rolls around, you don't go poking it.

8/7/2014 11:11:21 PM

But the bear is inside your house, sleeping in your head and eating your food. Eventually you wouldn't try to get it out?

8/8/2014 8:22:22 AM

Along with kosher pickles, I'll also no longer be buying Hebrew National hotdogs, which is a shame b/c they are really tasty.

8/8/2014 9:44:49 AM

^Not even close



Some of these are hard to avoid but they are all pretty shifty products so it's not like you will suffer. Your quality of life will go up by consuming alternatives that are easily higher quality.

[Edited on August 8, 2014 at 11:27 AM. Reason : improve your life for a good cause]

8/8/2014 11:23:00 AM

Quote :

"You mean of a single right wing Israeli."

Don't be dishonest:

http://normanfinkelstein.com/2014/the-word-is-out-israel-is-a-lunatic-state

Just an excerpt showing how fucking crazy many powerful Israelis are:

Quote :

"The statements of Ovadia Yosef, whose recent passing was met with flattering memorials both in Israel and the US, are legendary. The former Chief Rabbi of Israel and spiritual leader of many Middle Eastern Jews, said, among other things, that Palestinians “should perish from the world” and that “it is forbidden to be merciful to them”; of non-Jews in general, he declared that “Goyim were born only to serve us.” Despite comments like these, his funeral last October was the largest in the country’s history, with 800,000 Israelis attending. In the past month, Rabbi Noam Perel, head of Bnei Akiva, the largest Jewish religious youth group in the world, called for the mass-murder of Palestinians and for their foreskins to be scalped and brought back as trophies, alluding to an episode in the Book of Samuel; and a Jerusalem city councillor, in charge of security, encouraged a crowd to mimic the Biblical character of Phineas (Pinchas in Hebrew), who murdered a fellow Israelite and his Midianite lover for the “crime” of miscegenation… One local chief rabbi ruled that bombing Palestinian civilians is permissible, while another, considered a “liberal” by Israeli standards, declared the assault on Gaza to be a holy war mandated by the Torah–one which must be merciless."

With people such as those, how can there be peace? Hope they all die soon, like today.



BUT, there ARE good Israelis and Jews, here is an example:

http://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/israel-has-broken-my-heart-im-a-rabbi-in-mourning-for-a-judaism-being-murdered-by-israel

Also see the links after the article, lots of good stuff exposing the truth and unmasking the lies.

8/10/2014 10:03:15 PM

OMF look at these self-hating Jewish soldiers!!!


http://www.breakingthesilence.org.il

Video testimonies
http://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/testimonies/videos

Sample video (good one)
http://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/testimonies/videos/78477


I can't understand how people side with that terrorist oppressive racist Apartheid land-stealing property-destroying ethnic-cleansing maniacal murderous state.

[Edited on August 12, 2014 at 3:06 AM. Reason : ]

8/12/2014 3:06:13 AM

Looks like it's on again
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/19/us-mideast-gaza-idUSKBN0GI12O20140819

8/19/2014 5:11:37 PM

http://www.wral.com/israel-gaza-militants-trade-fire-after-talks-fail/13907885/

this poster has it all figured out

Quote :

"Israel should intensify the retaliation. When the population of Gaza has to choose between SURVIVAL or having Hamas fire rockets they will either end the violence by removing Hamas or won't be alive to fire more rockets."

So when Palestinians start dying, then they'll remove Hamas.

8/20/2014 9:46:44 AM

http://conservativepost.com/gaza-corpses-caught-moving-when-they-forget-cameras-are-on-them/

8/20/2014 5:27:06 PM

Hundreds of people sign up to burn in hell.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/08/12/israel-welcomes-american-and-canadian-recruits-for-the-idf_n_5671892.html

Disgusting terrorists.

8/20/2014 11:23:10 PM

(hell isn't real)

8/21/2014 9:49:57 AM

you often hear people say the the solution to this crisis is the Palestinian people should work against and try to overthrow hamas....

easy for them to say: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/22/hamas-executes-suspected-infomers-gaza

Quote :

"Hamas has turned its anger over Israel's assassination of three military commanders against alleged collaborators in Gaza, killing 21 people in a little over 24 hours and warning that the "same punishment will be imposed soon on others". The suspected informers – who included two women – were killed in three batches in a campaign codenamed "Strangling Necks". Three were killed on Thursday, 11 at a disused police station early on Friday, and another seven shot dead in public outside a mosque in Gaza City shortly after noon prayers. The killings triggered swift condemnation from Palestinian and international human rights organisations. Raji al-Surani, the director of the Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, said: "We demand the [Palestinian Authority] and the resistance [militant groups] to intervene to stop these extra-judicial executions, no matter what the reasons and the motives are.""

[Edited on August 22, 2014 at 12:27 PM. Reason : ]

8/22/2014 12:26:38 PM

So if the Palistinians can't get rid of Hamas, and Israel can't get rid of Hamas(due to the awful collatoral damange they inflict upon Palistinians), who's gonna do something about Hamas? It can't be us, we're getting ready to go full retard in Iraq.

8/22/2014 12:34:58 PM

I don't claim to have the answer at all, but has been suggested many times, a possible solution would be for Israel to relax their occupation which could appease the common Palestenian, making the extremists in hamas less relevant. i think now a lot of the common Palestinians are so angry with israel's treatment of them, the occupation, the killing of hundred of innocents, etc, they support an aggressive opposition to israel, and therefore support hamas. (sorry, not enough time to make this make more sense)

8/22/2014 12:40:30 PM

The solution is to recognize Hamas as a political organization and work with them

8/22/2014 12:47:59 PM

the same hamas that just executed 21 people in the streets in less than 24 hours because they suspected them of being informants for israel?

[Edited on August 22, 2014 at 12:51 PM. Reason : ]

8/22/2014 12:51:01 PM

It makes sense.

It will be difficult though, because Israel doesn't see itself as an occupier.

8/22/2014 12:52:46 PM

^^ yes, unfortunately it's still the best option and I doubt that was a decision from any kind of central leadership. Hamas has reasonable people in it, we have seen them police rocket attacks and want to form a unity government in the very recent past.

Removing hamas won't remove the kind of people who execute people in the street, they will still be there only now more likely to organize into something even more extreme.

8/22/2014 12:56:13 PM

^yeah, i pretty much agree. I was kinda trying to suggest a way to remove the extremist parts of hamas

8/22/2014 1:06:57 PM

I think you have to let that happen on its own and encourage it by lifting the siege, I don't think an outside party can really do much and I definitely don't think an American outside party can do anything

8/22/2014 1:13:03 PM

Our brand is tainted now. Unless your talking about Israel, American involvement only makes it worse, and pisses people off.

8/22/2014 1:34:35 PM

The only action that I think the US should take is to stop preventing other nations from helping Gaza and stop supporting Israel in the UN

8/22/2014 1:51:39 PM

"I think"

"should"

Of all people dtownral you should know at this point your opinions are probably the least respected. The only thing you're good at is trolling fatties.

8/22/2014 3:05:29 PM

^ Regardless of what you think of him, this:

Quote :

"The only action that I think the US should take is to stop preventing other nations from helping Gaza and stop supporting Israel in the UN"

Is the opinion/demand of the VAST majority of nations and humans on the planet.

8/22/2014 7:09:55 PM

Is that a fact?

8/22/2014 8:33:58 PM

Yes, that's a fact.

Go through the newspapers of the world for the last one month.

8/22/2014 10:05:00 PM

"newspapers of the world"

Don't think I have a subscription currently.

8/22/2014 11:28:55 PM

Newspapers of the world, i.e., google news.

(You can get the websites of the major newspapers of most countries, and seriously, anybody who has been following the world's reaction to Israel's butchery would know that what I quoted is fact. Otherwise, you have been sleeping through the whole 'war'.)

8/23/2014 1:46:02 AM

Just before the executions

8/23/2014 4:00:03 PM

from a month ago, but shows why the conflict will never be resolved. i understand the US voting against, as nearly every US politician/lawmaker/president is israel's bitch, but what about european countries? they denounce the atrocities when they are committed, but when it comes to votes like this, they always abstain... what the hell are they scared of???

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/07/24/us-stands-alone-vote-against-un-inquiry-gaza-assault

8/30/2014 9:47:53 PM

triple post, ban

8/30/2014 9:55:54 PM

^^because nations eho votes yes are antisemitic

8/30/2014 10:53:39 PM

^ yup. sadly, even the japs and koreans are lacking balls, even though they have no history of being involved with jews (whether positively or negatively) or israelis. and some african countries too.

8/30/2014 11:18:06 PM

Mostly countries in and around the middle east and Latin America. Want to know why?

8/31/2014 5:45:36 AM

hey look, more propaganda by bdmazur!

8/31/2014 9:01:30 AM