His life has been a total disaster and he wants as many people as possible to be as miserable as he is and will lie, justify and manipulate in order to get other people to help him. He also fits the Canadian Government's definition of a terrorist.

Helter Skelter.

I'm sure that it makes sense to an anarchist, but the rest of us realize that many evil groups also do good works to disguise their true agendas. Criminal Motorcycle Gangs all over the world hold charitible events to curry favor with the public while secretly indulging in serious crimes like murder for hire, selling speed, crack and heroin and selling unwilling human slaves. Would you say that they are good guys?

Yes, I know what you mean. It's just like Israel's much quoted aid to Palestinians.

How much aid would you give to someone who was shooting rockets at you every day and had no intention other to push you and your family "into the sea"?

According to pro-Israel debaters on online web forums, apparently a LOT and certainly MUCH MORE than they deserve.

I wonder how much food all of those rockets and weapons would buy?

According to the Canadian Government, "A terrorist is a man who murders indiscriminately, distinguishing neither between civilian and innocent and guilty nor soldier and civilian"

Aha! That's what happening in Gaza now ,RIGHT?

Not even close. According to the laws of war, Israel has every right to destroy the rocket launchers that are shooting at them, but Hamas is purposely hiding them in and firing them from areas with lots of civilians. If other Palestinians complain they will be killed. They are being used as human shields.

Israel does its best to avoid civilians, but it has a higher duty to protect its own citizens and has little choice but to fire back. If Hamas stops firing rockets, Israel will withdraw and totally cease fire.

The blood of the Palestinians is on the head of Hamas this time, but some people seem too dense to realize it.

I was holding my breath to proceed in posting in this interesting thread until I finish up my meeting.

To go back to the point that UlyssesG was challenging me to prove a wide reality about human emotions ;which can never get calculated or proved since it is only emotions! and sensed by whom? an enemy or an outsider who is judging the whole picture from a one-sided view.........

Iraq had accepted all the Palestinians refugees since 1948. Most of the leaders in Arab Bath Socialist party were Palestinians too .

Fact:They had generous privileges with their families and could gain the Iraqi nationality.They are/were living in modern buildings constructed by Saddam, Iraqis could not get a chance to get an apartment in these fancy areas that were kept for them.

These reports of Palestinians' killing accidents , that is all after 2003, when all Iraqis are/were being exposed to killing or kidnapped or bombed. They are part of the society there, so what goes around on the country all will effect them all.

You can take a trip to UNHCR in ESCAP compound at Bangkok, to ask how many Iraqi refugees( who are actually Palestinians but with an Iraqi passport) are in Thailand? When I do volunteering help in translation for the Arabic-speaking refugees, I hardly meet a genuine Iraqi with an Iraqi accent applying for asylum,most are Palestinians.

UG, if you were a Palestinian and your minimum goal was getting back the 1967 land areas, how would you go about it, with the resources the Palestinians have at the moment?

My dear old dad sat on the dunes along the coast of what is now Israel, from 1945 to 1947( lazy sod should have been working ). He watched as boats from Cyprus discharged European Jews who had been turned into little more than animals of survival by their experiences in the camps, pour into villages where Arab and Jew had lived in peace for centuries, forcibly remove the Arabs from their homes and declare the State of Israel.

He hates Israelis with a passion after dodging their bullets and watching his friends die. He does not hate Jews. Far from it, the original Jews often protected their Arab friends from the European hoard and many became good friends.

He also hates Arab terrorists. He can understand their passion for what they see as revenge, but they are in no way the same friendly, peace loving people he came to love before the troubles.

His view on today is it will never end until the two combatants are brought to heel by their own people. The Palastinians have to see the reality of the State of Israel and stop and prosecute indiscriminant terrorists from within their own to work towards their own State and a homeland to stop them from being irony of ironies, the "Jews of Arabia " unwanted by all.

He also believes the Israelis must come to terms with what they have done. Create a home for the people they so violently displaced and make genuine attempts to end the hatred and keep in check their own vile minority who seem to think they can still take what they want in the name of jehovah, by force.

Silly old sod my dad.

So, what you are saying is that every other Arab country wants nothing to do with the Palestinians, but that Saddam Hussein allowed some to stay in Iraq for some reason and as soon as he lost power all the other Iraqis started slaughtering them. Sounds like I am right.

Factsheet: Palestinians in Iraq*

Last Update: November 9, 2007

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), thirty-four thousand Palestinians lived in Iraq before the American invasion in 2003.

Many have since faced harassment, threats of deportation, abuse by the media, arbitrary detention, torture and murder.

Palestinian neighborhoods such as al-Hurriyya and al-Baladiyyat in Baghdad have been bombarded and attacked ever since the occupation.

Many Palestinians in Iraq were either killed, imprisoned, or have been forced to leave.

Many were expelled from their homes and initially took shelter in tents in Haifa stadium in Baghdad.

According to the UNHCR, about 21,000 have left the country since 2003, and only 13,000 remain.

A number of Palestinians who were forced to leave are now stranded in refugee camps on the Syrian and Jordanian borders:

http://al-awdacal.org/iraq-facts.html

UG, if you were a Palestinian and your minimum goal was getting back the 1967 land areas, how would you go about it, with the resources the Palestinians have at the moment?

I would kiss Obama's ass and I would kiss America's ass and I would guarantee no more violence - EVER - if we got what we wanted.

If they did not get the 1967 borders, they would get a heck of a lot better deal than they are looking at now.

Not even close. According to the laws of war, Israel has every right to destroy the rocket launchers that are shooting at them, but Hamas is purposely hiding them in and firing them from areas with lots of civilians. If other Palestinians complain they will be killed. They are being used as human shields.

Israel does its best to avoid civilians, but it has a higher duty to protect its own citizens and has little choice but to fire back. If Hamas stops firing rockets, Israel will withdraw and totally cease fire.

The blood of the Palestinians is on the head of Hamas this time, but some people seem too dense to realize it.

Human shields ?????????? I feel sick of this villainous use of killing-justifying f..up criminal's terminology !

Same as what happened in Iraq, when a nuclear shelter filled with women and children was bombed ;instead of apologizing and admitting the horrible crime ;some creepy legal Army man went on screen and announced : they were targeted cause they were used as "human shields"............Hundreds of such kind of disgraceful and shameful crimes happen till now ,and all goes under the same category!

Same as the use of "homeland security ,safety and protection" is used to wage bloody legalized wars.

Was the attack on a UN relief center in Gaza for the same exact thing?

I just wish you could step out of your very clear biased view and start calling things by their exact names.

I had always cursed Islamic terrorist or extremists. Called out the names of the rotten gulf's sheiks and criticized Arabs and Muslims when they are the offenders. I will not blindly defend them or deny their bad acts.

I won't debate or argue a humanitarian agony with a person; who does not even try to empathize or even consider those enemies are human as well.

Well, I guess in Bedlam we can discuss the entire topic, not only the Thai aspect of it.

Someone mentioned that some of the early Zionists were terrorists. They were, by modern definition. That doesn't mean they were right to engage in terror tactics or that it justifies terror tactics today. The reality is the Jews are in the region and the Palestinians are in the region and neither side is going to fully voluntarily evacuate. I say fully because huge portions of both peoples have already emigrated to other countries. I know I would!

The Thai related link I wanted to share is this:

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/9250...tensify/page-2/

This thickens the stew. Here the Thai Muslims are making the correct linkage between the USA and Israel and declaring a boycott of Coke and Pepsi, along the lines of money you are giving Coke and Pepsi buys a bullet to kill a brother. In my view, they should avoid these unhealthy drinks anyway, but it is a silly protest. Coke and Pepsi money goes to Coke and Pepsi companies and of course local Thai merchants and distributors.

The more serious things about these article are in these sentences:

asked the Thai government to end all military cooperation with the United States.

They can ask, the Thai government won't. The US and Thailand are very closely allied.

"If the situation (is) ignored it may result in many unexpected incidents to the world."

I read that as a not so veiled THREAT of violent actions IN Thailand. Or am I wrong about that? Its pretty outrageous and I hope the Thai government takes it seriously and beefs up its security operations to try to prevent such so called incidents.

So, what you are saying is that every other Arab country wants nothing to do with the Palestinians, but that Saddam Hussein allowed some to stay in Iraq for some reason and as soon as he lost power all the other Iraqis started slaughtering them. Sounds like I am right.

We are/were all exposed to be killed/slaughtered, ALL IRAQIS: Muslims shia/Sunni ,Christians and Zaidies(they worship the devil-in north of Mosul), Sabia'a .Kurds, Arabs (including Palestinians) ,Turks ! we were all bombed EQUALLY in war and killed by terrorist after!

Stop using sensitive issues just to prove you are right!

When someone hides behind another human being so that he can not be killed without killing the person being used as a "shield", it is called using a human shield and it means the same thing no matter who does it. It is not "criminal terminology". However, it takes a real sick puppy to do it to someone who is your allie!

Deliberate use of civilians as human shields

In its fight to defend itself against Hamas attacks against its civilians, Israel is faced with moral challenges unprecedented in their complexity. Hamas, as a basic element of its strategy, exploits the Palestinian population as shields for its terrorist operations and infrastructure. This cynical strategy include the following tactics:

- The deliberate launching of rocket from populated areas

- The deliberate use of civilian homes to shield Hamas arms and explosives manufacturing facilities

- The deliberate use of civilians as human shields against anticipated airstrikes

Deliberate use of civilians as human shields against anticipated air-strikes

In order to avoid civilian casualties, Israel sends warning messages before attacking terrorist targets advising civilians to leave. Israel prefers to attack empty buildings used to manufacture rockets, even taking into consideration that the terrorists too will be warned and their lives spared.

Hamas, on the other hand, calls on civilians to come and to protect with their bodies the precise locations they expect Israel to attack. Since they know that Israel will usually strike from the air, they send the children to the roofs to prevent the air force from targeting that building.

During the course of the Israeli operation against terrorists in the Gaza Strip (March 2008), Hamas repeatedly called upon Palestinian civilians to gather near buildings where they feared that the IDF was about to launch air-strikes against Hamas targets hidden within. The purpose of the civilian presence was to have them serve as human shields, exploiting the fact that the IDF avoids harming Palestinian civilians, even if it means aborting attacks on crucial terrorist infrastructure targets.

The following are but a few of the documented examples of calls in the Hamas controlled Gaza media for Palestinians civilians to serve as human shields:

1) Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV called upon children to form a human shield at the home of Abu al-Hatal of the a-Shouqaf quarter of Sajaiyeh in order to protect the building from an anticipated IDF airstrike (March 1).

View clip

2) Al-Aqsa TV News broadcast a story about how a crowd of civilians gathered on the roof of Abu Bilal al-Ja’abeer in the Northern Gaza strip, in order cause the IDF to abort a threatened airstrike against the structure.

View clip

3) Al-Aqsa TV called upon the Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip to go to the house of Othman al-Ruziana in order to protect it against an anticipated IDF strike (February 29).

4) Al-Aqsa TV called upon the residents of Khan Yunis to gather at the house of Ma’amoun Abu ‘Amer due to an anticipated airstrike. (February 28). An hour later dozens of Palestinians from Khan Yunis were reported to have gathered on the roof of Abu ‘Amer’s house to serve as human shields to prevent the house from being hit (Pal-today Website, February 28).

A Palestinian terrorist confesses to using civilians as shields:

5) Excerpts from a speech by Hamas MP Fathi Hammad, broadcast on Al-Aqsa TV on February 29, 2008:

Fathi Hammad: [The enemies of Allah] do not know that the Palestinian people has developed its [methods] of death and death-seeking. For the Palestinian people, death has become an industry, at which women excel, and so do all the people living on this land. The elderly excel at this, and so do the mujahideen and the children. This is why they have formed human shields of the women, the children, the elderly, and the mujahideen, in order to challenge the Zionist bombing machine. It is as if they were saying to the Zionist enemy: "We desire death like you desire life."

http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obsta...ic+evidence.htm

That's term is used in a hostage case or an exact point that the terrorists has control of, and keeping civilians by threat or force .

NOT A WHOLE COUNTRY or a wide region or a city full of population! where all the common ordinary people proceeding their daily lives with no horror or threat to Israel. But, when civilians would got get killed in Israel attacks;pop up this term just to justify a war crime or and an act of terrorism too!

It is called the "state terrorism" that you are loyally advocating over here.

Human shield

Human shield is a military and political term describing the presence of civilians in or around combat targets to deter an enemy from attacking those targets. It may also refer to the use of civilians to literally shield combatants during attacks, by forcing the civilians to march in front of the soldiers.

This is done in the hope that the other party will be reluctant to attack them. Furthermore, if the other party attacks these targets anyway, the resulting civilian casualties have propaganda value.

Using this technique increases the civilian casualty rate and is illegal by any nation that is party to the Fourth Geneva Convention

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_shield

You seem to be ignoring the facts that do not suit you.

During the course of the Israeli operation against terrorists in the Gaza Strip (March 2008), Hamas repeatedly called upon Palestinian civilians to gather near buildings where they feared that the IDF was about to launch air-strikes against Hamas targets hidden within. The purpose of the civilian presence was to have them serve as human shields, exploiting the fact that the IDF avoids harming Palestinian civilians, even if it means aborting attacks on crucial terrorist infrastructure targets.

Article by Alan M. Dershowitz who is a law professor at Harvard University.

I don't necessarily agree with this but it demonstrates that the pro-Palestinians don't have all the smart people on their side.

ISRAEL's actions in Gaza are justified under international law, and Israel should be commended for its self-defence against terrorism. Article 51 of the United Nations Charter reserves to every nation the right to engage in self-defence against armed attacks. The only limitation international law places on a democracy is that its actions must satisfy the principle of proportionality.

Since Israel ended its occupation of Gaza, Hamas has fired thousands of rockets designed to kill civilians into southern Israel. The residents of Sderot - who have borne the brunt of the attacks - have approximately 15 seconds from launch time to run into a shelter. Although deliberately targeting civilians is a war crime, terrorists firing at Sderot are so proud of their actions that they sign theirweapons.

When Barack Obama visited Sderot last year and saw the remnants of these rockets, he reacted by saying that if his two daughters were exposed to rocket attacks in their home, he would do everything in his power to stop such attacks. He understands how the terrorists exploit the morality ofdemocracies.

In a recent incident related to me by the former head of the Israeli air force, Israeli intelligence learned that a family's house in Gaza was being used to manufacture rockets. The Israeli military gave the residents 30 minutes to leave. Instead, the owner called Hamas, which sent mothers carrying babies to the house.

Hamas knew Israel would never fire at a home with civilians in it. They also knew that if Israeli authorities did not learn there were civilians in the house and fired on it, Hamas would win a public relations victory by displaying the dead. Israel held its fire. The Hamas rockets that were protected by the human shields were then used against Israeli civilians.

These despicable tactics - targeting Israeli civilians while hiding behind Palestinian civilians - can only work against moral democracies that care deeply about minimising civilian casualties. They never work against amoral nations such as Russia, whose military has few inhibitions against killing civilians among whom enemy combatants are hiding.

The claim that Israel has violated the principle of proportionality - by killing more Hamas terrorists than the number of Israeli civilians killed by Hamas rockets - is absurd. First, there is no legal equivalence between the deliberate killing of innocent civilians and the deliberate killings of Hamas combatants. Under the laws of war, any number of combatants can be killed to prevent the killing of even one innocent civilian.

Second, proportionality is not measured by the number of civilians actually killed, but rather by the risk posed. This is illustrated by what happened on Tuesday, when a Hamas rocket hit a kindergarten in Beersheba, though no students were there at the time. Under international law, Israel is not required to allow Hamas to play Russian roulette with its children's lives.

While Israel installs warning systems and builds shelters, Hamas refuses to do so, precisely because it wants to maximise the number of Palestinian civilians inadvertently killed by Israel's military actions. Hamas knows from experience that even a small number of innocent Palestinian civilians killed inadvertently will result in bitter condemnation of Israel by many in the international community.

Israel understands this as well. It goes to great lengths to reduce the number of civilian casualties - even to the point of foregoing legitimate targets that are too close to civilians. Until the world recognises that Hamas is committing three war crimes - targeting Israeli civilians, using Palestinian civilians as human shields, and seeking the destruction of a member-state of the UN - and that Israel is acting in self-defence and out of military necessity, the conflict will continue.

It is called the "state terrorism" that you are loyally advocating over here.

If Israel had wiped out all the Palestinians in order to get rid of them, THAT would have been 'State Terrorism" and it would also have been 'Genocide", and everyone knows that Israel has the weapons to do it.

Israel is full of Arabs who have joined their country and are much better off for it while the ones who still want to fight and kill Israelis are in camps until they can come to some sort of compromise . Do you think for one second that the Palestinians would not wipe out every single Jew if they had the means to do it? THAT would be terrorism!

And another article in that well known pillar of conservatism The Washington Post.

Moral Clarity in Gaza

Late Saturday, thousands of Gazans received Arabic-language cell-phone messages from the Israeli military, urging them to leave homes where militants might have stashed weapons.

Some geopolitical conflicts are morally complicated. The Israel-Gaza war is not. It possesses a moral clarity not only rare but excruciating.

Israel is so scrupulous about civilian life that, risking the element of surprise, it contacts enemy noncombatants in advance to warn them of approaching danger. Hamas, which started this conflict with unrelenting rocket and mortar attacks on unarmed Israelis -- 6,464 launched from Gaza in the past three years -- deliberately places its weapons in and near the homes of its own people.

This has two purposes. First, counting on the moral scrupulousness of Israel, Hamas figures civilian proximity might help protect at least part of its arsenal. Second, knowing that Israelis have new precision weapons that may allow them to attack nonetheless, Hamas hopes that inevitable collateral damage -- or, if it is really fortunate, an errant Israeli bomb -- will kill large numbers of its own people for which, of course, the world will blame Israel.

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For Hamas, the only thing more prized than dead Jews are dead Palestinians. The religion of Jew-murder and self-martyrdom is ubiquitous. And deeply perverse, such as the Hamas TV children's program in which an adorable live-action Palestinian Mickey Mouse is beaten to death by an Israeli (then replaced by his more militant cousin, Nahoul the Bee, who vows to continue on Mickey's path to martyrdom).

At war today in Gaza, one combatant is committed to causing the most civilian pain and suffering on both sides. The other combatant is committed to saving as many lives as possible -- also on both sides. It's a recurring theme. Israel gave similar warnings to Southern Lebanese villagers before attacking Hezbollah in the Lebanon war of 2006. The Israelis did this knowing it would lose for them the element of surprise and cost the lives of their own soldiers.

That is the asymmetry of means between Hamas and Israel. But there is equal clarity regarding the asymmetry of ends. Israel has but a single objective in Gaza -- peace: the calm, open, normal relations it offered Gaza when it withdrew in 2005. Doing something never done by the Turkish, British, Egyptian and Jordanian rulers of Palestine, the Israelis gave the Palestinians their first sovereign territory ever in Gaza.

What ensued? This is not ancient history. Did the Palestinians begin building the state that is supposedly their great national aim? No. No roads, no industry, no courts, no civil society at all. The flourishing greenhouses that Israel left behind for the Palestinians were destroyed and abandoned. Instead, Gaza's Iranian-sponsored rulers have devoted all their resources to turning it into a terror base -- importing weapons, training terrorists, building tunnels with which to kidnap Israelis on the other side. And of course firing rockets unceasingly.

The grievance? It cannot be occupation, military control or settlers. They were all removed in September 2005. There's only one grievance and Hamas is open about it. Israel's very existence.

Nor does Hamas conceal its strategy. Provoke conflict. Wait for the inevitable civilian casualties. Bring down the world's opprobrium on Israel. Force it into an untenable cease-fire -- exactly as happened in Lebanon. Then, as in Lebanon, rearm, rebuild and mobilize for the next round. Perpetual war. Since its raison d'etre is the eradication of Israel, there are only two possible outcomes: the defeat of Hamas or the extinction of Israel.

Israel's only response is to try to do what it failed to do after the Gaza withdrawal. The unpardonable strategic error of its architect, Ariel Sharon, was not the withdrawal itself but the failure to immediately establish a deterrence regime under which no violence would be tolerated after the removal of any and all Israeli presence -- the ostensible justification for previous Palestinian attacks. Instead, Israel allowed unceasing rocket fire, implicitly acquiescing to a state of active war and indiscriminate terror.

Hamas's rejection of an extension of its often-violated six-month cease-fire (during which the rockets never stopped, just were less frequent) gave Israel a rare opportunity to establish the norm it should have insisted upon three years ago: no rockets, no mortar fire, no kidnapping, no acts of war. As the U.S. government has officially stated: a sustainable and enduring cease-fire. If this fighting ends with anything less than that, Israel will have lost yet another war. The question is whether Israel still retains the nerve -- and the moral self-assurance -- to win.

[email protected]

'sceadugenga' date='2009-01-08 15:09:39' post='2454130']

Under international law, Israel is not required to allow Hamas to play Russian roulette with its children's lives.

While Israel installs warning systems and builds shelters, Hamas refuses to do so, precisely because it wants to maximise the number of Palestinian civilians inadvertently killed by Israel's military actions. Hamas knows from experience that even a small number of innocent Palestinian civilians killed inadvertently will result in bitter condemnation of Israel by many in the international community.

Until the world recognises that Hamas is committing three war crimes - targeting Israeli civilians, using Palestinian civilians as human shields, and seeking the destruction of a member-state of the UN - and that Israel is acting in self-defence and out of military necessity, the conflict will continue.

The truth will set you free.

around combat targets??what if this was there city !

The causalities and civilian victims that were reported in Gaza ,yet, do not fit into the definition you had provide.

That hamas call you had "copied & paste" is very weak. Because; no Israel's war-propaganda or news had reported that crowds had been gathering or responding to Hamas call to provide human shields. People their are in owe and grief surviving hunger and many brutal conditions. you have to be in a similar situation to realize ;in such helly times, you only want to survive and stay alive , you don't give a dam_n shit what is your president or hamas f... say or declare!

Do you know why???

SIMPLE; NO one wants to be killed and his body got shredded by missiles by their own choice, the hard core fanatics can do it to themselves,but; surely, No ONE would sacrifice his family and kids just to get attention as one of the victim's story in Gaza !

Hamas was firing rockets from a school while there were children studying there. Why don't you wake up?

Israeli hits UN school

Go on and defend criminal acts!

Would that be the school that Hamas was firing missles from by any chance?

The head of the UN agency in Gaza running the school that was attacked by Israel forces has rejected claims that Hamas fighters were inside the converted shelter.

The Israeli military accused Hamas of using civilians sheltering inside the building as "human shields" and said its troops had returned fire after fighters fired mortars at their positions from within al-Fakhora school in the Jabaliya refugee camp.

But John Ging, the director of operations in Gaza for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa), told reporters that he had visited the school during a three-hour lull in the fighting on Wednesday and "was reassured by the management of the school ... that there were no militants in the school".

That hamas call you had "copied & paste" is very weak. Because; no Israel's war-propaganda or news had reported that crowds had been gathering or responding to Hamas call to provide human shields. People their are in owe and grief surviving hunger and many brutal conditions. you have to be in a similar situation to realize ;in such helly times, you only want to survive and stay alive , you don't give a dam_n shit what is your president or hamas f... say or declare!

Actually, Israel DID report it and Hamas does not always ask for volunteers. They march their "brothers and sisters" to a location that they want to protect and if they don't go they will get their heads blown off.

Hamas are scum and so is anyone who defends them.

The head of the UN agency in Gaza running the school that was attacked by Israel forces has rejected claims that Hamas fighters were inside the converted shelter.

The Israeli military accused Hamas of using civilians sheltering inside the building as "human shields" and said its troops had returned fire after fighters fired mortars at their positions from within al-Fakhora school in the Jabaliya refugee camp.

But John Ging, the director of operations in Gaza for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa), told reporters that he had visited the school during a three-hour lull in the fighting on Wednesday and "was reassured by the management of the school ... that there were no militants in the school".

That is too bad if it is true, but did you notice that he wasn't there during the fighting and that Hamas just might have strolled on in and done their business. Also, it would be interesting to know the nationality of the "school management".

I am not defending Hamas in no matter what may it be

It is very clear whom am defending ,whether you like it or not!

I am a human enough; to avoid blind and biased approach to defend only one side of a conflict.