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Gaza Debate Goes Virtual
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.
there have also been demonstrations in Second Life at an Israel-themed sim
...and it's only a matter of time until the virtual Islamic trolls fire virtual rockets and bomb their virtual busses while cowardly hiding amongst virtual women and children.
I should have said "virtual Zionists" instead of "virtual Jews" since a lot of Jews, including Israeli ones, have courageously condemned Israel's actions.
Israel, the Jewish state, wants to conflate itself with all Jews, and obfuscate the reality, but the fact is, it doesn't speak for all Jews anymore than Saudi Arabia speaks for all Muslims.
Israel has pretty much completely infiltrated the US government from top to bottom. Things will get better with the bat shit insane Neo Cons getting kicked out of office but purging the Israeli supports and flat out agents the Neo Cons littered the US government agencies with over the past decade is going to take years.
The US media no longer even tries to pretend to try to report news on the Middle East and is now just outright working as PR agents for every new Israeli atrocity against people living in Palestine or other countries.
Since my side is completely blameless and your side is the obvious aggressor.
"You got to admit though, it's a lot easier to play the victim when you're starving, walled into a tiny area and can only defend themselves with scraps of old military hardware and bits of rubble against a rich country armed with the latest in US air power that assassinates their democratically elected leaders."
What are they "defending themselves" from? Oh right, retaliation from their rocket attacks.
It's a lot harder to play the victim when you chose the path of violence in the first place.
Imagine how this conflict would go if the Palestinian's weren't so cowardly and instead used non-violent protests. You know, like Gandhi.
Nah, that kind of stuff never works.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
As long as I see 10 to 100 Palestinian casualties reported for every Israeli casualty, I will continue to view Israel as the aggressor and the one with the much larger share of the blame.
Sure, wall them in, take away their land by turning your settlers loose all over the place, freeze their bank accounts and turn off their electricity, bomb them with the latest US hardware, and then complain about how you 'just want to get on with your life' and whine about the occasional mortar while ignoring the damage your bombers and tanks do - just don't expect me to buy that.
Why is evacuation of Israeli colonies in the West Bank unrealistic? Israel evacuated their colonies in Gaza, they can do it in the West Bank. The settlements would be good partial reparation to the Palestinians. It's not like Israel and the colonists didn't know that what they were doing was illegal and wrong.
Otherwise, I'm right with you on the one state solution. Don't forget a constitution that's the supreme law of the land (along with treaties) that guarantees equal rights for all persons.
If the Muslims put down their weapons, there would be no more war.
If the Israelis put down their weapons, there would be no more Israel.
That alone tells you all you need to know about who is the good and who is the bad in this war.
When was the last time the Palestinians tried non-violent protests?
It would be very hard for Israel to justify a military response against people who openly acknowledge they have no desire for violence.
They would probably do it anyway, but world opinion would be decidedly different I suspect.
Instead you get geniuses who bring a knife to a machine gun fight, and complain that they're getting shot at for firing rockets into civilian areas.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
States don't have rights, only persons have rights. Instead, States have powers that they justly derive from the people. States also exist or not at the whims of the people. Sometimes the people have a revolution, found a new state and the old state is wiped off the map.
Did Apartheid South Africa have a right to exist?
To give you a faaaaint idea of what I'm hinting at. Imagine if the US wasn't in the UN, and the UN decided that Native Americans needed their land back. So, they gave them the entire east coast of the US, to be their land. They were given basically whatever they wanted, and they began to push the US citizens gradually to the west, claiming various areas that are more desirable than others (IE, they take Yellowstone national park, leave us Death valley). They are far richer than the US citizens, and have far more support (although Canada and Mexico support the US citizens, lets just say the UN has marked them as third world terrorists). So, let's say that the US citizens scrap together some money, and a small group that want to win back their land, bomb the native Americans. The retaliation? The natives start bombing the civilians that didn't have a thing to do with it. They keep bombing, despite the UN telling them to stop.
Seems like a stretch.
Of course, I don't see why Israel was reinstated. People lived there after the Israelites got wiped out, and then the rest of the world told the Palestinians (arguably not the same exact people who did this), were told to shove over.
I'll probably get modded troll though...it's very mean and uncool to be pro-Palestine civilians. Nope, if you think Israel is wrong, you are a pro-terrorist.
"What happens at these non-violent protests, such as demonstrations against the construction of the "security wall" in the West Bank? The protesters get stoned by right wing Israeli settlers, or are dispersed by tear gas and rubber bullets from the Israeli army
Which is EXACTLY what they want.
Then some fucking imbecile fires off some rockets at Israel and undoes every single bit of sympathy those people who got stoned and shot at earned with their blood.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
"So, actually, the Palestinians are trying both violent and non-violent approaches"
No, they aren't.
ANY attempt at non-violence protest is immediately and totally undermined by accompanying violence. You cannot have any credibility when you are protesting non-violently in one place, and using violence in another
It's one or the other, and Palestinians chose violence.
And it's really telling how many people cam out of the woodwork to defend violence, or give lame idiotic excuses for why non-violence won't work.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
If the UN had its way, Israel would be wiped off the map. Let's face it, Europeans hate Jews and will always hate Jews, even when Europeans themselves don't even see themselves as much as Christians any more. It's just irrational.
This is my sig.
That's true, but it's also convenient for Egypt to keep things this way because it gives the Egyptian government (like the other Arab governments in the region) a very convenient distraction from all of its domestic problems. Hey, Egyptians, ignore our mismanagement of the economy, the torture that goes on in our prisons, and the pervasive corruption in our government -- instead, get angry at what the Israelis are doing to our Palestinian brethren! In the end these governments don't really want to help the Palestinians either -- they'd rather have big bad Israel as a convenient punching bag to distract their people's attention. It's the same thing Fidel Castro used to do with the US -- he loved the US embargo for that reason.
None of this excuses Israel, of course -- what they're doing in Gaza is both cruel and counterproductive. Besides the humanitarian tragedy, in the long run it only undermines Israeli security as well.
And the Palestinians DID NOT STOP. AT ALL.
You're a fucking liar. The "palestinians" were never required to stop. Hamas did stop, as evidenced by the massive dropoff in rocket attacks once the cease-fire went into effect. The simple fact is Israel broke the cease fire.
Really, both sides are assholes. It's just Israel is the asshole with US backing and a ridiculous military advantage who is murdering children and other innocents in mass numbers.
If Hamas was smarter they'd cease violence or focus violence strictly on military targets. Israel would be in a shitload of trouble then. As it stands, Israel loves this because they have an excuse to go kill the people who voted in Hamas, even though Israel helped create Hamas in the first place. And we all know voting badly makes you deserving of having your kids blown into 5 parts.
As a European I've got to say that's absolute rubbish. Can't believe you got modded up for peddling such bullshit.
I think your track record proves it. Let's see, prior to World War II, there's 2000 years of anti-semitism. Then, during the war, well, there's plenty of people collaborating on the holocaust, and then, after the war, pretty much every European state unanimously sides with Islamic states in continual condemnations of Israel, no matter what she does. I can't how many times the only reason some resolution condemning Israel made it through the General Assembly on a unanimous vote, and that really means, Europeans sided with the Arabs to curry favor with the muslims. And, you did it again in opposition to Operation Desert Storm, and you bitched at the USA until the world is going to basically let Iran get the atomic bomb!
This is my sig.
By that logic, the first Gulf War would have been the fault of the US/coalition rather than Sadaam Hussein, as there were far more Iraqi than coalition casualties.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it