Gaza Debate Goes Virtual 644
Ian Lamont writes "The war of words over the conflict in Gaza has moved from the real world to the Internet. Besides a furious stream of mini-debates on Twitter between supporters of and critics of Israel's military actions, there have also been demonstrations in Second Life at an Israel-themed sim and a collection of Facebook applications, including 'QassamCount' and 'Stop Israel's war crimes in Gaza.' Another project — 'mapping the war in Gaza' — was launched by Al Jazeera and takes user-submitted reports, tweets, and Microsoft Virtual Earth to track the number of casualties and other developments."
In addition to this, the series of website defacements we discussed a few days ago has now extended to sites controlled by NATO and the US Army.
I'd like to see that stats on traffic. (Score:4, Interesting)
How Fucking Retarded (Score:1, Interesting)
That's easily the stupidest thing I've seen in quite some time.
No wonder Israel is the pariah of the modern world. They're like the new South Africa - but with Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Flash game (Score:1, Interesting)
There's a flash game called Raid Gaza! [newgrounds.com]. Player is Israel. Object: have highest palestinian death: israeli death ratio. Includes some nasty quotes by Israeli leaders.
It makes its point well; a minute into the game I found it more sickening than sarcastically funny.
Re:Israeli Terrorism Isn't Funny (Score:2, Interesting)
Troll? Sorry, that view of Israel is held by a LOT of people outside the US and Israel (and not just Muslims either), and is certainly not less reasonable than the official US stance over Iraq.
Will I be modded troll too now? OK, go ahead.
Re:Second life sim (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, now that you mention it, when I was on Second Life, I made a few items that could be useful in virtual warfare.
1) Virtual covert activities: I scripted listening bugs and planted them in people's virtual apartments so I could hear them in non-IM chats.
2) Virtual propaganda: I scripted objects named after people so that I could put words in people's mouths by having the objects say offensive stuff.[*]
3) Virtual charity laundering: I scripted a bank so that people could hide their money. On certain days, the game would notice you're low on money and fill you up back to some sufficient level. So, you would look poor to get the bonus, and then take your money back out, allowing you to instantiate more virtual rockets.
[*] "But wait!" you ask, "isn't that impossible since objects have green text and human players have white text?" Oh ye of little cunning. When you throw your voice through an object, FIRST you have to make a bunch of comments along the lines of, "Hey, check this out guys, you can made your text green! This is awesome! I'm only going to speak in green lol." For best results, wait until they "afk".
US Support Of Israeli Terrorism (Score:1, Interesting)
There are three main factors that keep the US on the self destructive path of supporting Israeli state terrorism:
1. The Christian Fundamentalists who have their crazy beliefs about that region being part of their ticket to Heaven - they don't give a damn about how many civilian are killed by Israel.
2. The NeoCons in the US government who see Israel as a useful platform for their dreams of a US empire across the Middle East
3. Quirks of US election politics where a few key swing states just happen to have large Jewish populations that politicians end up being forced to pander to to get elected.
Nothing is going to change 1., they're just lunatics. Always will be
Things obviously are much better with 2. now that Bush is being dumped on the trash head of history, but the US government is riddled with the crazy people the NeoCons placed at all levels of agencies
Even with Obama's landslide he still completely sold out his foreign policy to the Pro-Israeli Terrorism Lobby, AIPAC in the process of getting elected. Perhaps if he had known he was going to win in a landslide he wouldn't of had to sell his soul to the anti-American AIPAC lobby.
Everyone who had hopes of the US getting safer under Obama better just get over it. The same support of Israeli State Terrorism that has threatened US security in the past will continue unchanged.
Um ,that was the point (Score:2, Interesting)
"So the occupation, colonization, and annexation aren't violent?"
Uh, yeah they are. Where did I make the argument that they weren't?
Which is why a non-violent response would be so effective, just like it has been in the past. Violence (from the Israelis) would be FAR less tolerated if they were using it against peaceful protesters.
Which was my point.
You seem to have trouble reading for comprehension, try actually reading what you're responding to please.
Re:correction (Score:5, Interesting)
Just to add some supporting information to illustrate their point, some might be surprised to know that US soldiers are currently stationed in Egypt where they patrol that country's border with Gaza, making sure neither people nor food supplies can pass.
Re:correction (Score:5, Interesting)
Switzerland is free to trade with it's neighbors and make arrangements for open (or closed) borders between them as it sees fit. Is Gaza in the same position?
Re:One other thing (Score:2, Interesting)
"A ceasefire is exactly that - an agreed pause in an ongoing confrontation so that negotiations can be held."
And the Palestinians DID NOT STOP. AT ALL.
"At the end of the agreed period, Hamas said they would like to continue the ceasefire with their sole condition being that more food be allowed into Gaza. "
Despite the fact that Hamas had been firing rockets into Israel during the entirety of the "ceasefire".
"But you pick the comments that support your case, not those that are most likely."
And you leave out facts that destroy your case.
That said, I haven't picked ANY comments. Not a single one. You have to pretend I have, so you can accuse me of cherrypicking, but you're simply lying here.
Which makes me say "good day", as I have no tolerance for people who will lie to make their points like you have.
Re:correction (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, Yes it would kill them. Probably not as bad as the gazans but letting gazans escape into Egypt without israels permission (which it wont give). Could very well jeopardize Egypts safety. Israel has given them very stern warnings about this, and no body wants to be israels next target. Cowardly? Sure. But they are doing it so the barrel doesnt swing south west.
Re:correction (Score:2, Interesting)
Yeah but the fact that Gaza's population is 1/3 what it used to be, 50% of the population living as refugees outside. Their borders are blocked and they arent allowed water or supplies from the outside, oh and they have no electricity cause their powerplants got bombed. Oh and that israel is running an 80:1 kill ratio. Oh and that what is now Israel used to be Gaza. Oh and that Israel has expanded every decade since its inception. Oh and the IDF have been accused of as many war crimes as hamas by international commisions they also have more weapons. Oh and that Israel ignores UN pleads to ceasefire. Oh and they wont sign the geneva convention. I can keep going if you'd like.....
Re:correction (Score:5, Interesting)
Explain to me how this works, please? Swiss, being 100% surrounded by other countries, is occupied by them? or did I miss some leap of logic?
If one of Switzerland's neighbours blocked off all its borders, including those of its other neighbours, and periodically bombed and invaded it, that would be a much better comparison.
Occupation means presence at the territory in question.
No, it doesn't. The question of whether the Gaza Strip is occupied territory from a legal perspective looks interesting, but I think there's a good argument that it is.
The so called occupation hamas keeps on about is the occupation of so called palestinian territories pre-1947 - virtually all of the israeli state. That is why their charter still denies israel's right to exist. "So called", BTW, because back then there was no political entity correlating to the current palestinians.
Errm... that region had been called Palestine for about two millenia. To put things in perspective, that's longer than Islam has existed. (I think that's also rather longer than it was called Israel for, but it's hard to be sure.)
There was no political entity corresponding to the current Palestinians, yes - mainly because it's only recently that there have been countries in that part of the world. It was, however, a distinct region with varying degrees of autonomy.
The uncomfortable fact remains that the current Palestinians were indeed living in Palestine (the original definition of it), and did have their land and their homes taken from them to form the Jewish state of Israel. (There are people still alive who can remember this, even with the atrocious healthcare and life expectancy in the Palestinian territories.) They were about as happy with it as could be expected - which is to say, very angry. I think you'd get the same reaction in any Western country.
Re:Israel's right to exist? (Score:5, Interesting)
You can talk about rights all you want, but the bottom line is that nations hold territory through force or the threat of it, until they've been there long enough to be considered historically justified.
The creation of Israel wasn't about giving it back to some original inhabitants. It was about the presence of Jews in Palestine agitating for a homeland and pointing to the Holocaust as a reason they needed one, at a time when almost every ethnic group in the area was agitating for the same, and the people in charge generally agreed that everyone should have a homeland. At the time, the British were controlling what used to be the Ottoman Empire, and there was a variety of efforts to negotiate a partition of Palestine that would give both the Palestinians and Jews a homeland.
The history of those negotiations is long and tortured, and involves bad acts by all around: Zionists at the time were what we call terrorists today; Arab nations were deliberately obstructionist, believing they could prevent any land being given to the Jews who were already there, and also believing that they could destroy any Jewish partition if it happened.
It's one of the many ironies of Palestine that if the Arabs had accepted any of several partitions that were acceptable to the Zionists, they would have the majority of Palestine under clear control.
Regardless, you have an area controlled by the Ottoman Empire for centuries, followed by the British, and an attempt to settle partitions that would be agreeable to everyone who was right there. Negotiations failed, neighboring Arab countries invaded, and got their asses kicked. Repeat in 1967 and 1972. Each time, Israel took territory from the attackers (the Golan Heights from Syria, the Sinai from Egypt, the West Bank from Jordan). The Palestinians were run over by everyone.
So it's a huge shitpile of wrong, and the Palestinians are on the bottom of that pile, but talk of Israel's right to exist is a non-starter in teasing it out and finding a peaceful solution, mostly because every nation is legitimated in the same way as Israel: force and history. Everyone involved has dirty hands, and legitimate grievances.
Peace in Northern Ireland was achieved by starting from the point of trying to placate each side's core concerns, not trying to clear up a backlog of injustices.
Re:correction (Score:5, Interesting)
In the end, the British and UN proposed a two-state solution, which was accepted by most of the Jewish population (but notably not the Jewish terrorist organisations). However, the Arab nations weren't happy, since it involved kicking out the current Arab residents of the areas making up the proposed Jewish nation (i.e. the majority of the residents of said areas) - they wanted a one-state solution. The Jewish leaders declared independence prematurely, the surrounding nations invaded "to protect the Arab population", and in the end the Zionists won (and carried out a lot of ethnic cleansing in the process). Then they seized the land of Arabs who'd left or been forced out, without compensation, and handed it to Jews.
Also, you need some historical perspective:
Israel doesn't try to exclude non Jews the way Muslim nations do to non-Muslims.
Muslim nations didn't, in general, exclude Jews up until the founding of Israel. You additionally neglected to mention that Jews have a special right to citizenship that other people don't, and that a lot of the housing is Jewish-only. (Oh, and there's lots of racism, too.)
When "Zionists" were legally migrating back to their old homeland and buying up land from the Ottoman Empire, it was considered worthless wasteland until they developed it into garden
Not really. Firstly, people had been living there for millenia - it wasn't great compared to what the Jewish immigrants were used to, but it was hardly worthless wasteland. Secondly, converting arid land into something close to garden isn't hard - you just need some infrastructure and loads of water. A lot of said water was (and is) obtained from taking far more than their fair share of common rivers and water supplies - basically, they stole it. Despite this, and strict regulation of water use, they still ended up with unsustainable usage - and that's going to catch up with them in the future.
Re:correction (Score:2, Interesting)
The uncomfortable fact remains that the current Palestinians were indeed living in Palestine (the original definition of it), and did have their land and their homes taken from them to form the Jewish state of Israel.
I learned this in school too. That is because my teachers were either clueless or leftist Palestinian lovers. It is still not, and has never been, true.
The state of Israel was created to provide autonomy for the Jewish population already living in the region, not for a new set of people moving in. The UN did this because the Arab population had been using Jews in particular but also Christians as target practice since the early 1930s. The UN knew that there was only one possible way to have some chance of security for the non-Muslim population in the region and that was through a two-state solution.
After this legal and only reasonable decision by the UN, the Arab nations attacked the legal country of Israel, and they lost. When countries lose wars they tend to lose a lot. A town that used to be called Danzig is now called Gdansk. The reason? The attacking Germans lost the war and the winners pushed them out of the area.
The allied nations occupied Germany after WWII. Naturally. They since left (except for the communist Soviet Union). Why? Well, because occupation is inevitably expensive and counter productive once the aggressor (in that case Germany) has been subdued. Do you think the allies would have ended the occupation if the German population had continued the war? Would the US and the UK have left Berlin if every single day a bus of school children was blown up by German terrorists in Washington, DC or a mall was flattened by a suicide bomber in London? Clearly not.
The Arabs attacked. They lost. They should have had the sense to stop the fighting. They never did and they have never shown any inclination to stop. Israel has the right to defend it self against such an aggressor, even when the aggression goes on for more than 60 years. If the loser aggressor, in this case the Arabs, wants the war to end, just stop it.
The Arabs lost the war and have never been able to understand that. They started it and they lost. Since then the Arab states have kept the Palestinians in refugee camps to provide nice recruits for their war against Israel. You see, with a constant war on Israel the population of many of the Arab nations forget that they are oppressed and abused by their own government and they do not rise up and overthrow them.
The leaders of the Arab nations want and need a conflict between the Israeli and the Palestinians. They won't survive without it. That is why they do everything they can (with some exceptions) to make sure the conflict continues. Part of that is denying the Palestinian population all rights in their new home-lands. Why are there no Palestinian "refugee camps" in Jordan?
The Palestinian problem is an Arab problem. It was created by the Arab nations when they invaded Israel. They need to fix it. That has to start with an effort to seek peace, something that has never happened. The closest "effort" was the Oslo accord, and that would have been good had it not been for the fact that Arafat, immediately after signing it, stated that he was not bound by it, that he didn't care about the content of it at all, and that the total destruction of Israel was still the only real goal of the Arab people.
As long as the Arab side treats every agreement as if it is just a stepping stone to the inevitable wiping Israel of the map they will never be able to have peace.
Re:correction (Score:5, Interesting)
Israel responded by throwing out anyone inside its borders which seemed to be stabbing them in the back.
This isn't quite true. The Arab population living in "refugee camps" were generally not sent there by the Israeli, quite the contrary, in the lead-up to the 1948 war Golda Meir traveled all over trying to stop the Arabs from leaving. The Arab population (Palestinians as they call themselves today) fled the area because they were told to do so by the Arab military command leading up to the 1948 war. A handful were expelled from two cities between the Jewish area and Jerusalem to secure the transport of aid to the embattled Jewish population inside Jerusalem.
The refugee problem was created by the Arabs. It has consciously and cynically been maintained by most of the Arab countries ever since. The reason they do it is simple. With a population angry over the "Palestinian issue" nobody notices that a huge number of these states are run by corrupt, nasty megalomaniacs who only exploit their population for their own gain.
The reality is that if the Palestinian problem was ever solved with peace the regimes of the middle east would tumble like dominoes as people realized that their own leaders are the source of their misery, not Israel. The leaders of these regimes obviously don't want that, and the easiest way to prevent it is to make absolutely sure that the refugees from 1948 and their descendants live in poverty and misery.
The main benefactor of a peace with the Palestinians would be Israel, and they desire nothing else. Sadly the Palestinian leaders have never wanted peace and every peace agreement they have ever signed they have subsequently abandoned, some quite immediately.