Protest at Israeli Independence Day Celebrations in Dublin

by Kev - IPSC (pers cap) Wed May 06, 2009 13:36

Here's a short video from the protest, many thanks to Tommy Donnellan of the Free Palestine Campaign for coming from Galway to record it.

Caption: Video Id: ZDxMvnsrw6o Type: Youtube Video
Video

by Moshe Wed May 06, 2009 17:09

Any rational person who is interested in genuine peace between Israelis and Palestinians would not use such a disgraceful slogan.
The clear implication of that statement is that the Palestinian cause as interpreted by the demonstrators in the video seeks the destruction of the State of Israel.

The hidden implication of that statement is that the Palestinian cause seeks that Jewish Israel be killed or expelled from their homeland in Israel and the territory of a future Palestinian state would include not only the West Bank and Gaza that were occupied after the 1967 war but all of the territory which is now Israeli territory.

Any rational person would seek mutual peace and respect between the Palestinians and the Israelis and the two-state solution with the democratic multi-ethnic and religious Israeli state living in peaceful co-existence with a Palestinian state encompasing the West Bank and Gaza - a return to the pre-1967 borders.

The issues of Israeli settlements, the rights to water and other natural resources and even the right to return of Arabs to their pre-1948 homes could be discussed when their peace between both peoples.

Demonising Israel for defending itself from attacks by rocket launching terrorists and Muslim extremist who deliberately targetted and murdered Israeli civilians is not going to contribute in anyway to any peace process in the region.

Internationalising the conflict and protraying it as part of a wider jihad by Muslims living in the West against Western society because of their backing for Israel is recipe for disaster.

The presence of supposedly Irish nationalist republican socialists demonstrating with the political representatives of homicidal palestinian terrorist groups speaks for itself about the diseased minds of the Irish Palestinian Solidarity movement.

by maverick Wed May 06, 2009 17:39

"Over the course of the 22 day Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip, a total of 1,434 Palestinians were killed. Of these, 235 were combatants....." sources: google, news reports, Palestinian web pages etc.

of course death is traumatic & terrible. imagine your parents or your baby, or your children having been killed in a war that both you & they didn't want.... (i have buried a baby myself, as a father).

but what of those 235 combatants? nothing is ever said on INDYMEDIA about that specific dimension....why not? those Palestinian soldiers are also a part of the saga of Gaza. they are the grey shading between the supposed-black (IDF) & the supposed-white (Gaza).

235 soldiers.....that is, statistically speaking, over 15% of all the deaths in Gaza recently were actually Palestinian army casualties. those particular deaths blur the "helpless Gaza victim" portrayal a little.

the 235 combatants in Gaza hardly went into a war as _soldiers_ & not have expected to be (possibly) killed....unless they were utterly naieve. all soldiers realise that death or injury is a high statistical probability, either by the enemy, friendly fire or faulty firearms etc.

"there is a war between the rich & poor
war between the man & the woman
there is a war between the ones who say there is a war
and the ones who say there isn't." - Cohen (Leonard)

http://www.indymedia.ie/article/92213

by Feyadeen Wed May 06, 2009 18:12

"235 soldiers.....that is, statistically speaking, over 15% of all the deaths in Gaza recently were actually Palestinian army casualties. those particular deaths blur the "helpless Gaza victim" portrayal a little."

How, exactly? Can you explain why it is shameful for people to fight back against the Israeli army when it invades their home city, firing rockets, shells and missiles randomly in a densely populated area, firing deliberately on UN centres, schools, hospitals and ambulance crews? Do you think the Palestinians who fired back at the IOF should apologise for daring to defend their people against aggression? There was armed resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto - does that "blur the helpless Jewish victim portayal a little"? What amoral rubbish. At least you admit that 85% of killings by the IOF during the Gaza attack were civilians.

by Jim Thu May 07, 2009 11:38

"Do you think the Palestinians who fired back at the IOF should apologise for daring to defend their people against aggression?"

There is no way you can justify the deliberate targetting of innocent Israeli civilians - the elderly, mothers, teenagers and children by Hamas rockets.
No matter how brutal life is for ordinary Palestinians because of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Israeli operations against Gaza, terrorist attacks on innocent Israeli civilians CANNOT be justified.

by Feyadeen Thu May 07, 2009 11:57

"There is no way you can justify the deliberate targetting of innocent Israeli civilians - the elderly, mothers, teenagers and children by Hamas rockets.
No matter how brutal life is for ordinary Palestinians because of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Israeli operations against Gaza, terrorist attacks on innocent Israeli civilians CANNOT be justified."

I'm not attempting to justify the deliberate targeting of Israeli civilians - I'm talking about Palestinians guerrilla fighters in Gaza who fired on Israeli SOLDIERS who were invading their city and killing hundreds of civilians - they had every right to fire on those soldiers, and I only wish they had better weapons so they could have destroyed a few tanks and shot down a few planes - that might have stopped some of the war crimes. There were fewer than 10 Israeli soldiers killed by Palestinian resistance in Gaza, because of the overwhelming unbalance of military power between the two sides - if there had been 100 or 200 soldiers killed, it might have had some impact on Israeli public opinion and they would have seen that there is a price to pay for an unprovoked, criminal attack on a civilian population.

by Susan Thu May 07, 2009 12:32

114 Israeli soldiers were killed in the attack on Lebanese civil society by the Lebanese resistance, but it did not have the effect of bringing any sense or moral clarity to the Israeli public. This is the great sadness of the situation that Israel has caused so much suffering beyond its own border and it's own people's understanding. Devestating other peoples societies utterly. Levelling neighbourhoods to dust, wiping out families. But they never have the same horror visited upon them so that they can actually understand the true depth of suffering they bring to other people around them all the time.
Israel's so called wars, which are more like staged and timed aerial bombardments, come at a very inexpensive price to Israel. The ground infantry element of these attacks are more for show than for effect. The ground element where they actually risk troops is a token gesture of potential sacrafice so as to give the illusion that it is a dangerous war of two armies. When they actually started to pay above the intended odds in Lebanon they scarpered in quick time and dropped a million bomblets to cover their tracks.
It is unlikely that they will ever suffer a similar devestation to those which they mete out liberally to others, so they will continue to carry on this belligerent manner. Feeling no remorse for the killing and destruction and never understanding the hatred that they are fostering among their potential neighbours.

by Mike Novack Thu May 07, 2009 15:13

There is a very simple explanation why on one hand we see here a count of 235 combatants killed and on the other hand a much higher figure from the Israelis. Not using the same criteria. I understand that the various Palestinian fighting militias have posted the names of their fallen and that if you add up the names you do come up with a total number pretty much like the Israeli claim. The discrepency comes about because of the fundamental difference between soldiers on full time duty and militia warriors who by definition are part time fighters and part time civilians, sometimes doing activities appropriate to both even on the same day.

See in a regular war between two regular armies while some of the soldiers killed were killed while actively engaged in combat (fire fights) many others get killed while not at the moment engaged in actual fighting. They might be sleeping in their bunker when a shell hits, standing in line waiting for food in the mess tent or busy preparing that food, driving a truck with supplies, etc. But since they are full time soldiers each and every one of those casualties obviously gets counted as a fighter killed. But suppose one side isn't a regular army but a militia. Now it isn't so obvious. If a militiaman is sleeping, waiting to eat or preparing food, driving a truck, etc. when the shell hits how do you count that death? Fighter or civilian?

Remember -- when giving their figure the Israelis never said that they were making the determination by what the person was doing at the moment they were killed but by who they were (identification on the bodies checked against lists of known persons). That is the probable explanation of why their figure comes close to the total of the names released by the various militias but is a very different number than the 235 figure which is probably "combatants killed while actually engaged in combat when killed".

PLEASE -- do not take this as in any way, shape, or form telling YOU how to count. You decide that for yourself. It's just an explanation of where the different numbers come probably come from.

by Fred Johnston Thu May 07, 2009 15:21

Congratulations to all who made the effort and went to Dublin to protest. Israel administration unease is showing at the prospect that the current administration, however sluggishly, will act differently towards Israel and its murderous tactics, as well as its nuclear capability. Off goes the lobby in Washington - but Israel does not want a solution with the Palestinians and for years the US has more or less accepted that. If things change in the relationship between the US and Israel, it will change between Europe and Israel, and then instead of craven appeasement we may get peace and justice in the Middle East.

by Chaim Fri May 08, 2009 09:12

"61 years of ethnic cleansing"?

If true, then Israel has managed to redefine ethnic cleansing as increasing the population of those ethnically cleansed. 600,000 have become 3,000,000. Even within 1967 borders, the Arab population is over 1,000,000 and increasing.

"Slaughter of 1,400 people"?

A Gazan doctor disagrees an puts the number nearer to 600, the majority combatants. See link below.

by Feyadeen Fri May 08, 2009 12:35

The "source" you give is an Italian newspaper article which is based entirely on anonymous quotations - they claim that their sources had to remain anonymous for fear of their lives - much more likely they didn't exist and were simply made up by the newspaper, or preferred to remain anonymous because they knew they were telling lies. The same story you link to reports that the IOF is still upholding a figure of at least 1,200 deaths, although they claim that the majority of those killed were Hamas members. If the Israeli army isn't even willing to back up your ludicrous claims, you should give up. This is just like the toxic nonsense that was put around by Serb nationalists about the Srebrenica massacre, claiming that there were only 200 or 300 people killed and they were all soldiers.

by Mike Novack Fri May 08, 2009 12:47

".....The same story you link to reports that the IOF (sic) is still upholding a figure of at least 1,200 deaths, although they claim that the majority of those killed were Hamas members. If the Israeli army isn't even willing to back up your ludicrous claims, you should give up ".

As I explained earlier, but here it is from another source --- note that "were Hamas members". Which is a very different thing than saying "were actively engaged in combat at the moment they were killed". The much higher percentage of "civilians" killed that some of us feel correct is because we might not consider a Hamas militia member to have died as a combatant if he was killed when a bomb fell when he was eating supper in his own house but instead that he died as a civilian.

by Vincent Fri May 08, 2009 13:56

The slaughter on Gaza commenced with an attack on a police station where hundreds of police officers were massacred in cold blood without warning. These police men were considered legitimate targets by the IOF so it is perfectly logical to presume that it is then militarily desirable for Palestinian militants to attack Israeli police stations and operatives at any given time and that the Israeli chief of police is fair game at any given time.

Furthermore the assertion that militant operatives who were not engaged in militant activity but were killed nonetheless are potentially legitimate targets because they would sooner or later carry out a military actions is important. This is the case with almost everybody in Israel over the age of 20 who will have served in the military at that stage and will be trained in militant tactics and will have been indoctrinated with hatred for Palestinians. Each time Qassam Brigades fire rockets at Sderot , there is a very high probability they will hit a trained soldier or reservist who will almost certainly one day take military action agaainst Palestinians. The Qassam attacks are legitimised under Israel's rules of engagement.

by maverick Fri May 08, 2009 14:50

Q. why do so many Palestinians suffer under the Hamas dictatorship?

A. In Febuary 2008, Hamas representative, Fathi Hamad, explained on TV the policy of using human shields to defend their missile launchers:

"We desire death as you desire life...."

in closing, do any INDYMEDIA have a total of how many rockets were fired into Israel over 8 years?

here's the detailed answer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Qasam_graph2002-2007.svg

David Miliband, UK Foreign Secretary quotes just one short period when "almost 300 rockets were fired into Israel between December 19th & 27th....."(Hansard 12th January)

by Vincent Fri May 08, 2009 19:37

The only thing you are proving there Maverick, is the undeniable extent to which Israel's propagandists have penetrated Wikipedia and made it an absolutely useless source of information in relation to Israel's continual war crimes and human rights abuses. That is of course unless you are going to produce graphs on Wikipeida showing the rise in missiles and rocket in their thousands fired at the Palestinians. Another graph showing the trend for kidnapping hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza and the WB. And perhaps another graph for the thousand of deaths caused by Israel against a defenseless people. And maybe a final graph showing the rapid acceleration in land theft and illegal settlement building in contravention of all international agreements and laws.

Good luck finding those graphs on Zionist Wikipedia.

- A pro-Israel pressure group is orchestrating a secret, long-term campaign to infiltrate the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia to rewrite Palestinian history, pass off crude propaganda as fact, and take over Wikipedia administrative structures to ensure these changes go either undetected or unchallenged. -

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9474.shtml

by TD - Free Palestine Campaign Fri May 08, 2009 20:13

As I took down the video for reediting purposes, here's the new link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6fPvhc3Doo

by Mike Fri May 08, 2009 23:31

Vincent, once the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 is passed, "it will become a crime for any American to tell the truth about Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and theft of their lands. It will be a crime for Christians to acknowledge the New Testament’s account of Jews demanding the crucifixion of Jesus. It will be a crime to report the extraordinary influence of the Israel Lobby on the White House and Congress, such as the AIPAC-written resolutions praising Israel for its war crimes against the Palestinians in Gaza that were endorsed by 100 per cent of the US Senate and 99 per cent of the House of Representatives, while the rest of the world condemned Israel for its barbarity" etc, etc.

by Benny Fri May 08, 2009 23:55

Israeli "Purity of Arm(s)"