Metal Reviews

Clegg's response is pretty awesome yet to ask a govt. to stop selling millions of dollars worth of weapons simply isn't going to happen.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/ja ... rvel-comic

Spiderman and Obama!

I'll make myself clear first. I DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES SUPPORT ISRAEL.

However, at least the Norwegian media-view is downright fucking sickening. They are Hamas-symphatizers all the fucking way, and some of them are actually downright lying. They're supposed to be neutral for fucks sake, but only bring up stories on how fucked up Gaza is. Nothing on the background of this war in the first place is discussed. Ever.

The lefties are using the resistant organisations against the Nazi's as an argument. Completely clueless of that Hamas does not care about civilians getting killed. "We now courage every Jew a legit target".

Another thing. Our communist party, the utter lefties, is causing so much fucking trouble under peaceful demonstrations, it's actually horrible. They make themselves look bad with ruining stores, tell everyone to beat the crap out of every jew they encounter. Seriously, what the fucking hell are you thinking? The armed revolution you've been babbling about since Hitler is not gonna work! Fuck off, ramoaging demonstrations AGAINST Israel is not gonna fix things you know. Another thing they did was to cause trouble under the Israel-friendlies meeting. Show some fucking respect for other people's opinions. Oh and, grow the fuck up.

That was nice.

Now for my opinion on the matter. I definitely understand that Hamas should be removed. However, there has to be other ways of doing it. Not that I can come up with such a solution but Israel has gone completely overkill on their asses which seems pretty unnescesarry. One argument states that HAMAS are hiding in the town centers which makes the cities a legit military target. Fuck off. It's not an entire country you're attacking damn it.

Look, I can see that Israel does not tolerate 6000 rockets in three years. That's three pr. day. No other country would've allowed it. They've got to keep in mind that they've been on occupied ground since the land was given to them by the UN. And all in all, this crisis is really UN's fault damn it.

Metal_xxx, I disagree with a lot of what you said there... maybe not surprisingly.



Sorry, but if you consider stories about how fucked up Gaza is to be "downright lying", or sickeningly pro-Hamas, then it might be you who is more biased than they. Gaza IS fucked up... far, far more so than even the most rocketed parts of Israel. People I've spoken to who have been there describe it as "the world's biggest open prison"- which of course is pretty obvious because there is a huge wall keeping people inside, and keeping food, aid and supplies out.

The fact that the media is only now starting to show people how much the people of Gaza are suffering may reflect a pretty strong bias in the other direction, IMO.

But yes, more reporting on the background to this war (except it is not a war, because there are not two sides involved... there is one side massacring another with fighter jets whilst the other has a homemade pea-shooter) would be appreciated. Partyl, because if people were more aware of what Israel has been doing to that place, they might realise why the Palestinians are mysteriously voting for extremist nutcases, rather than the Liberal Democrats.



Nobody at all is clueless about this... partly because in the West our apparently pro-Palestinian media is always telling us how scary and evil those Muslim extremists are. Very few of these lefties you talk about will support Hamas. They will support the Palestinian population, who in turn may or may not support Hamas. That's another thing about media bias... protests rarely get reported accurately. 100000 people could turn up (200000 in London at the weekend), and if 5% of them are waving Hamas banners, then it is they that will be on all the photos.

But yes, quite a few go easy on Hamas leaders saying awful things such as you quote above. This is probably wrong, but is really put into perspective when you consider that the words they are speaking have been put into practice for many, many years by the Israeli armed forces.



For a start, what evidence do you have for these communist parties encouraging violence against jews? Because, to me it sounds like slanderous bollocks. In the UK, its pretty much always the communist/socialist parties that are leading protests against anti-semites. What you say doesn't ring true at all to me.

Secondly, nobody is under any obligation to "respect other people's opinions". They are under an obligation to let them express them, but certainly not to let them do so without protest. Seriously, I can't even understand why people even think there is a legitimate "other side" to this argument... If a group supports Israel in this particular adventure, then they support the bombing of schools and the killing of innocent civillians in their hundreds. Why should anybody respect that opinion, or allow it to be expressed without challenge?



Ok, but then you are making the assumption that Hamas has just sprung out of nowhere as this evil force. Hamas provides schools, healthcare and social support for the people of Gaza, which is full of desperate people in poverty because of what Israel is doing to it. If Israel want to get rid of it, maybe they should stop persecuting the area. In other words, the bombings that the people of Sderot are suffering from has been brought down upon them by their own government's brutal disregard for Arab life.

So, I have a problem with this whole, oh its just overkill thing, because it implies that some form of coercive action against Hamas is justified. Given the history and context, no, it is not. The only thing that is justified is better treatment of the Palestinians by Israel.



Look at the statistics of actual people killed... Gaza has already put up with far, far more than Israel will ever have to in the forseeable future.

I'd have more sympathy for the Palestinian side (and I have plenty of sympathy for them, far more than the Israeli) if they stopped shooting themselves in the foot quite so dramatically. Hamas should have stopped firing their little rockets the moment that the first Israeli rocket hit, end of.

Hamas does target civilians, yes, yet the only moral argument they're winning is that they kill less civilians than the other side. Come on, throwing Fatah officials out of windows, torturing them, they're proving themselves as barbaric as they're painted! Israel's excuse for continuing this slaughter is the militants, and any argument that says that killing civilians to get at militants is ok is clearly very wrong, yet the world seems to be accepting it, despite how many dead children now, nearly 300? The war in Lebanon proved that Israel can be defeated, yet Hamas aren't Hezbullah, and they should realise that. Nonviolence in their resistence would end this whole issue.

I realise that this depends on reporting, of course, and yet having seen mentions in newspapers like The friggin’ Times, of Israeli soldiers taunting Red Cross workers and firing rounds over their heads, surely it can’t be long before people realise what’s happening? Search the internet, go to Al-Jazheera, look at the pictures that aren’t being shown. I would be with Naomi Klein, boycott time! yet of course there won’t be enough involvement. The bottom line is that the majority of people don't want to know about dead kids, and so there'll be no end to this Israeli conflict unless Obama gets off his arse or Gaza is pounded to dust.

Zad, in some ways you are right, but this whole condescending "tut tut, they shouldn't have voted for Hamas" thing, even if you mean it to or not, takes the blame that Israel so richly deserves right off it and on to the victims yet again.

It is very easy for us to take this attitude, because we live in a liberal, secular and most of all peacefully affluent environment in which we have education and hospitals that aren't being blockaded or bombed. We are allowed to leave our immediate, overcrowded surroundings if we so wish.

The Palestinians are not just a bunch of bungling religious weirdos. They vote for Hamas for a reason. Maybe that reason is desperation rather than reason, but really, who are we to judge if it is? Secular, conciliatory Fatah and their corrupt blunderings failed them, but hell they supported them for a lot longer than you might expect of people in that situation, and I'm sure they still have support there. But Hamas build schools, provide medical care, social benefits, and by the standards of political parties are surprisingly uncorrupt. They also organise the blowing of holes in the wall between Gaza and Egypt, which is only to be applauded, IMO. They have a murderous, racist ideology, of course. But before taking the ideological moral high ground against the people that support them, we should probably consider that we are completely incapable of understanding the immediate practical problems that Gazans have.

Ah, sure, wasn't really talking about the Palestinians themselves there so much as Hamas itself, I realise that the oppressed will vote for any way out, and if we have to forgive ignorant Brits for voting BNP then presumably voting Hamas after being treated like shit by Israel is understandable...

And sure, Fatah were corrupt, Arafat was a greedy bastard, yet last I remember they didn't throw people out of windows or kneecap their opponents. Hamas really needs to take steps away from terrorism and towards being a 'proper' political party a la Sinn Fein - they swore to wage unceasing war too, and now... no reason the same thing can't happen to Hamas. More US money might do the job... it worked for Egypt. Here's hoping that Islamic Jihad et al won't bugger things up in the event there is a proper ceasefire, because I can see those little bastards shooting a rocket off just for fun, and Israel'd take any excuse.

Indeed, although IMO the Sinn Fein thing is probably a bit optimistic... if Hamas was to become like SF, it would presumably require far more concessions from the Israeli side than they'd be prepared to give.

Clarification: What worked for Egypt? Lots of US money? It worked in keeping it a dictatorship... You mean the US should be funding secular forces in Palestine to the extent that they are able to suppress Hamas in the same way that Egypt suppresses Islamist parties there?

Call me cynical, but yes, it's a soution. The standard of living there's ok, isn't it? Certainly would be an improvement over bombed-out refugee camps, and yes, although I know that this-is-what-happened-with-Fatah-under-Arafat-and-look-how-that-turned-out. Obviously not the ideal solution, just brainstorming. At the very least, less money for Israel and more for Palestine should be considered.

Of course Gaza is fucked up. My problem is however, that there is absolutely no coverage of what is actually happening in Israel. No coverage on what those 6000 rockets caused. I just want both sides of the case being uncovered, which I'm struggling with.

Oh and I agree that this isn't a war. It's an assault.



Well something must be wrong when they're comparing Hamas with say the Norwegian resistance during the second world war. Stating things such as: We've done just the same when we spoiled the German operations during the second world war. No we haven't. Again, no civilianz got killed during these operations damn it.

Many of the people that were arrested are members of Red Youth. A twlveyear-old said in an interview that he was encouraged to beat the crap out of any jews he encountered by these guys.



Of course not. But there is a limit. There's a difference between showing up with banners and showing up with eggs, rocks, and blunt objects.



If Hamas couldv'e stuck to doing that, and not shooting 6000 rockets into the country which isn't any bigger than the region I live in, it would've been a different story. They're making it difficult for themselves when they decide to fire a missile into Israel 15 minutes into the arranged 3 hour long humanitarian armistice.

Being fair, Thomas, you should see what some of the Jewspapers are saying. ISRAEL UNDER ATTACK! they scream, completely without irony. Pages and pages about the few victims there have been, and in-depth discussion about why it's all Hamas' fault. I'd post website links, but there are none that I can find, the luddites. It says a lot that there was a column in one complaining not about the deaths, but the fact that the assault started on a Saturday, the 'holy' Sabbath.

And didn't all the WW2 resistence movements go around afterwards rounding up collaberators, publicly shaming and often executing them? Maybe Norway was different, but not from what I've heard.

Urm...

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

Weren't the Golan Heights Syrian until they were captured in the '67 war? Certainly not Palestinian, and as far as I'm aware they weren't part of the '47 partition.

Yeahyeah.. I'm not after the Israeli propaganda stuff either. I just want both sides on the matter and I won't get it by reading either pro-Israel or pro-Palestina stuff. I just want a more neutral angle on it all..

About the resistance thing. I've not heard of that, but maybe. I've been taught alot about this in history class, and there are lots of great documentaries regarding the subject. The gang of Oslo, and Forest-boys (I can't find any proper translation), did some major spoiling during the second world war which, for example, kept the Germans from getting out of our country blowing up the rail-roads and the huge ships. They also sank the boat carrying uranium from a coast somewhere. Post-war I've heard that the majority of them struggled with alcohol problems, psychological problems, and some of them even killed themselves.

You may be right of course, I just haven't heard of it.

I believe so.
But, still, the land grab is dramatic.
I cannot blame the Palestinians one bit for this.
It's actually rather sick what Israel is doing.

From what I know about the situation (and it isn't much) I would like to state my opinion.
First of all, I think Hamas is disgusting. A government with as its stated agenda the destruction of Israel and the Jews should not be allowed. This is what you get when you combine religious intolerance with weapons.
Second of all, making a nation for Jews after WWII in the middle of a bunch of countries who aren't very sympathetic to jews in the first place was a bad idea. Shows just how generous Europe was
Thirdly, Israel has overreacted dramatically, refusing to entertain the notion of diplomatic solutions, which is why they went batshit now, they want to get it done while Bush (Obama wants a more diplomatic approach) is still in office.
Fourthly, Hamas are dicks for hiding military bases and offices underneath schools and hospitals etc, probably hoping that children are going to get martyred. Assholes. However, the extreme orthodox jews who were necessary to colonize the land in the beginning are misbehaving by trying to settle in lands outside of their geopolitical spectrum, just because they feel a religious right to those lands.

It's all a fucking mess.

Originally, they wanted to create it in Africa. You can imagine how that would have turned out... The idea of a Jewish homeland is quite a fascinating one, whatever you think of it. The Japanese wanted to create a Jewish area out of China at one point, I think, and resettle lots of Jews there as one giant Semetic brainblock!

I must also add that placing military bases beneath schools and hoping that they'll get bombed isn't nearly as asshole-ish as the ones doing the bombing, knowing full well that they're bombing a school.

Didn't the jews buy off big parts of land after they got permission from the U.N. to settle in Palestina?

There is no such thing as a "neutral angle".... The person that defines neutrality is the person that controls what the truth is. The whole rightwing media complex functions on the idea that there is this mythical "neutral" position that can be located and then used as a basis for that truth. They can present the relatively (please note, I stress relatively) miniscule suffering of Israel as somehow being a legitimate counterweight and justification for what that country is doing.

You seem to be saying you want equal screen time for the suffering of Israelis being rocketed at. But the reason this isn't done is not because of some pro-Hamas bias (Christ, the idea that there is a pro-Hamas bias in the Western media seems crazy to me), but because the effects in Palestine are so, so much more severe. Look at the fatality figures, including women and children. Where's the neutrality there?

From http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/ja ... -palestine

"In the three years after the withdrawal from Gaza, 11 Israelis were killed by rocket fire. On the other hand, in 2005-7 alone, the IDF killed 1,290 Palestinians in Gaza, including 222 children."



Still euphemistic language... it is the bombing and invasion of an area overwhelmingly inhabited by civillians.



It is hyperbolic, sure, and a romanticisation of an unsavoury group, but in the grand scheme of things so what? If Germany was on the Norwegian border, and there was a procession of German civillian settlers moving across that border to bulldoze Norwegian houses to build their own, then yes, the Norwegian resistance probably would have killed civillians. And they probably would have used whatever long-range weapons they had to fire at Germany itself.



Doesn't sound that representative of the protest movement as a whole, though?

How about this, by comparison. (If it's not at the top, scroll down to the entry called "Wipe them all out")

http://leninology.blogspot.com/

You might say they were generalising about a huge movement based on a few idiots? That's pretty much what people in the pro-Palestinian campaign have to put up with every time they do anything publicly.

Also, the politicians talking at those rallies are all Democrats. Even if the media were biased, political power is overwhelmingly against the Palestinians.



How much violence has there actually been directed at pro-Israel activists? Serious question... the people in that video above don't look too much like they were being intimidated.



During the ceasefire that Hamas apparently broke themselves, Israel was systematically tightening their grip on Gaza, preventing exports from getting out and aid and food from getting in. This is still the best article on the subject I've seen, written by an ex-Israeli soldier.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/ja ... -palestine

Didn't Israel break the cease-fire?


From wiki:
" November 2008

November 4
Israel breaches ceasefire by military raid into Gaza, in order to destroy a tunnel going towards its border, killing one Palestinian. Later air strike killed 5 more. In retaliation, 35 Qassam rockets were launched, one hitting Ashkelon. The Israeli military said the purpose of the tunnel was to kidnap additional Israeli soldiers and hold them as hostages"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007%E2%80 ... ember_2008


Anyways, you are quite right in your assessment.