we have a parallel of WW II Nazis in yeshiva-taught Talmudic Jews who learn that Gentiles (Arabs included) are sub-human.

…if the school was a Nazi school and the assailant was a Jew during WW2, would you still condemn the incident?

Such historical parallels are very dangerous to make. But since you’ve done so let’s examine yours. Is the extremist settler movement really akin to the Nazis? Not really. Yes, they preach hatred of Arabs and are racist. Yes, they support immoral ideas like transferring Arabs from Israel. Yes, they justify violence against Arabs and even murder at times.

But do they support genocide against Arabs? That’s where the analogy fails. Despite the deep immorality & objectionable nature of their views they neither support genocide nor would they be capable of implementing such a policy.

“The BBC would have us believe that Mercaz HaRav yeshiva is a normal school where ‘religious students’ 3 pursue esoteric religious studies. In fact Mercaz HaRav is the main educational and training centre of the fanatical Israeli settler movement, Gush Emunim, what the British newspaper,The Independent, somewhat disingenuously calls the “controversial settler movement”. Many Mercaz HaRav graduates fill the ranks of Gush Emunim,4 which organises attacks on Palestinians from Jewish-only military settlements across the West Bank as part of its declared aim of dispossessing Palestinians of 100% of Palestine.5

The parent organisation, Gush Emunim, is heavily armed and carries out the most revolting crimes against innocent Palestinians across the West Bank.6 This writer has visited the Palestinian village of Yanun after settlers had washed their dogs in the Palestinians’ drinking water. A Medieval ideology goes hand in hand with Medieval tactics - Hebron settlers poison village wells with putrescent chickens. 7 They beat and shoot Palestinians, poison their sheep,8 generally act like the violent thugs they are. One well-known graduate of Mercaz HaRav, Rabbi Moshe Levinger, who founded the colonies of ultras in Hebron was such a vicious psychopath towards Palestinians that he was even found guilty of killing a Palestinian by an Israeli court, for which he served three months in detention.9 Rabbi Levinger was also found guilty of unprovoked assaults on women and children, unusually, since the settlers enjoy complete immunity10; many a Palestinian has been found guilty by the Israeli authorities of beating himself up in the vicinity of Jewish settlers.”

http://www.scottishpsc.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2249&Itemid=404

““WHEN WE HAVE settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle.”—Rafael Eitan, April 14, 1983″

Amazing what you can find when you dig beneath the surface.

Answer this honestly Richard, if the school was a Nazi school and the assailant was a Jew during WW2, would you still condemn the incident?

“PICTURE THIS:

— “A NAZI HIGH COMMAND RUNNING A SCHOOL for future officers is charged with exterminating all Jews using Mein Kampf as their guide. Suddenly a Judaic bursts into the school and opens fire killing eight of the students.” —

— “IF THIS HAD HAPPENED DURING WW II, a street in Germany would now be named in honor of the killer and he would be listed among the righteous at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum. Your son or daughter might even learn of his “heroism” during a mandatory “Holocaust Studies” class.” — Michael A. Hoffman

Indeed, we have a parallel of WW II Nazis in yeshiva-taught Talmudic Jews who learn that Gentiles (Arabs included) are sub-human. On this line, on February 29 2008, Israel’s Deputy ‘Defense’ Minister, Matan Vilnai, called for the extermination (”Shoah”) of the Palestinians of Gaza”

not sure if you agree with this man’s position, but it does make some interesting food for thought.

“I don’t know what HTML your site will understand…”

I myself have pondered this very question, so let’s try it out -

These words should be bolded.
These words should be italicized.
Red and not deprecated: Hello World
Red but deprecated: Hello World
Underlined and not deprecated: Hello World
Underlined but deprecated: Hello World

how does Hamas’ internal judicial process work? Israel isn’t perfect (like any nation) but at least they are answerable to someone.

So because Hamas does not have a judicial process that satisfies you that means that Israel’s record of impunity with regard to human rights violations against Palestinian civilians by IDF & Border Police is acceptable?? And do pls. tell me who the IDF is answerable to? The attorney general? The military echelons–military justice? Nah. The number of prosecutions compared to the number of serious documented incidents of killings, maimings & other outageous behavior is minuscule.

The terrorist/s in this case didn’t even attempt to hit an Israeli military target, and that is one fundamental difference between what Israel and Hamas is doing.

Your logic is fatally flawed because Palestinian militants deliberately trying to kill Israeli civilians have killed precisely one in the past few weeks (& one civilian lost a limb). The IDF, which claims is isn’t targeting Palestinians killed 130 over the past 10 days over half of whom were civilians. I’m less interested in whether one side targets civilians or not & much more interested in how many civilians are actually killed. The numbers speak for themselves.

I see Israelis in the streets openly protesting their country’s policies. I don’t see any Palestinians doing the same. This implies either 1) They are too frightened of Hamas, or 2) They don’t care.

Unlike you I read and research articles & surveys of Palestinian opinion to discover what Palestinians actually believe. I don’t base my judgments in this regard on anecdotes, propaganda or one-off events that one reads about from time to time. The majority of Palestinians are opposed to suicide attacks & killing Israeli civilians. This is a flat out fact. I’d venture to say that perhaps the majority of Israelis MIGHT say they were opposed to the killing of Palestinian civilians; but if you asked whether it was permissible to kill Palestinian civilians in pursuit of militants the result might distress you (that is, if you even would be distressed by Israelis accepting this as the price you pay for combatting terror). So there is little difference overall in Israeli & Palestinians attitudes towards killing civilians. Both sides would prefer not to do it. But there are circumstances under which many might justify it.

More importantly, the Palestinians live under a brutal Occupation. Why would any Palestinian be eager to attack publicly the one force which seems to resist Occupation effectively? If Occupation were to end I have no doubt that resistance to Hamas would grow exponentially & that it would be voted from office. Israelis (though not enough) do protest government policy. But they have a 60 yr. history of such dissent and they have not had to live under the same oppressive conditions (regardless of the legitimate threats they do face) as Palestinians.

no one will sit down at a table to discuss an equitable solution unless the violence stops first.

You’ve got it ass backwards. History is full of examples of warring parties who negotiated the end of various conflicts BEFORE there was a ceasefire. The PLO negotiated with Israel before it declared its intent to stop acts of violence against Israel.

John–I’m not interested in continuing to debate this issue with you since most of the pts you’ve brought up & my responses have been written here countless times before & I start to feel like I should just have a macro designed to respond to various criticisms raised by commenters like you. So pls, you’re welcome to comment in other threads but let’s call this particular debate in this thread done bet. the 2 of us.

Amir: You maintain that my claim that settlers celebrate Baruch Goldstein is “false” & yet you write “some of them [the celebrants] may be settlers.” I’m sure you know that settlers celebrate Goldstein at his grave every Purim. I even have a post about this quoting the celebrants with a photo of his grave. So it is you, in fact, who err. Besides, there are many settlers who would not publicly dance at Goldstein’s grave for fear of the bad public impression it would create, but who nonetheless honor Goldstein’s memory. Similary, there are many Israeli rightists who defend Yigal Amir, the assassin of Yitzhak Rabin. You’re trying to sweep this behavior under the rug when you can’t.

the reason innocent Palestinians are killed is because the Hamas and Islamic Jihad use them as fighters and as human shield.

This is pathetic. You see the pictures of little babies being buried in Gaza & yet you persist in the lame excuse that this is Hamas’ fault. That may satisfy you but it doesn’t satisfy 98% of the rest of my readers nor me.

One side is clearly much more evil then the other (the Hamas and Islamic Jihad side).

You remind me of the person who hears something they don’t like & puts their hands over their ears & endlessly repeats just the opposite in a very loud voice to drown out what they don’t want to hear. The rest of the world sees evil on both sides of this conflict. Most Israelis in fact do as well. You’re in a distinct minority & yet you persist in trying to sell us this swampy moral real estate.

Do you think Jonathan Cook is just an antisemite? How realistic do you think is the scenario he suggests in the end?

“In line with these policies, Israel broke the latest period of “relative calm” in Gaza by initiating the executions of five Hamas members last Wednesday. Predictably, Hamas responded by firing into Israel a barrage of rockets that killed the student in Sderot, in turn justifying the bloodbath in Gaza.”

Another case of “relative quiet”. Scary, I agree.

http://southjerusalem.com/2008/03/09/the-ministry-of-dangerous-statements/#more-22

“Israeli Housing Minister Ze’ev Boim has given instructions to renew building of a major development in the West Bank settlement of Givat Ze’ev, northwest of Jerusalem. (Here’s an earlier Hebrew report on the affair.) The development is planned for ultra-Orthodox Jews, and the ultra-Orthodox Shas party has been pressing to go ahead. So much for the “total freeze” on settlement construction that Vice Premier Haim Ramon described at a press briefing several weeks ago. What’s even scarier is this: The radio quoted sources in Boim’s office as saying that that it was possible to resume construction of the stalled settlement project because of the “relative quiet” in the West Bank. As my wife asked after hearing the report, “What is a Palestinian to conclude from such a comment?” For that matter, apropos my previous post, what is an Israeli parent supposed to think before his child takes a bus?”

On the other hand, the reason innocent Palestinians are killed is because the Hamas and Islamic Jihad use them as fighters and as human shield. They also wage wage war from civilian areas. Their weapons labs are set up in civilian areas. They launch rockets from near and within civilian areas. They call on civilians to protect houses of terrorists they think may be targeted by the IDF. These things have been well documented. The conflict IS not balanced. One side is clearly much more evil then the other (the Hamas and Islamic Jihad side).