|
Anaxagoras -> RE: 3 month suspended sentence for breaching Geneva Convention (11/24/2010 11:25:03 AM)
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: tweakabelle
"I saw the way you behaved on the "Israel" thread where you repeated all the accusations of "war crimes" etc. etc. that I fully answered on the previous "Israel's deputy PM threatened with arrest for war crimes" thread."
They are no longer “accusations” – they are facts. Fact: The Israeli legal system convicted the two soldiers of using a 9 yo boy as a human shield. Fact: The officers were reprimanded for their role in bombing the UN warehouse with white phosphorous. Fact: both events are war crimes. To reduce these events to “accusations” is a self-serving distortion.
Firstly you misrepresent what I was referring to with regard to accusations of war crimes. I was not referring to the use of phosphorus nor to the treatment of the child in the case above - I actually said the sentence was far too low. I was referring to your continued assertions on the “Israel” thread that in the so called “Occupied Territories” Israel violated Article 49 of the Geneva Convention when in fact this applies to large scale population transfer as occurred during World War II with the Nazi’s, e.g. the movement of Polish slaves to Germany. Article 49 is not relevant. Most settlements are quite small (500 in Gaza before Israel forced the people to leave, and a similar number in Hebron after 40+ years) and were created in a voluntary fashion. The Palestinian Mandate makes it clear Jews can settle on this land if they desire. At times the State encouraged the continuing survival of settlements by offering tax breaks but this was part of a defensive strategy. No Palestinians were forcibly taken from the “OPT”.
quote:
Your “full answers” on a previous thread culminated in the memorable and laughable advice that I shouldn’t take the words of Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister as “official Israeli policy”. Yes you actually made that absurd suggestion. At which point I declined to continue discussing your nonsense. (Anyone interested can read all this for themselves at the thread "Israel's deputy PM threatened with arrest for war crimes" thread.) More self-serving distortion.
Tweakabelle I have to say this is becoming a bit silly. Not only are you repeating all the accusations that I fully answered but you are misrepresenting what happened on the thread and restating the criticisms against myself that I fully answered on that thread too! In Post 87 you cited Netanyahu and inferred from that that this represented Israeli policy. I replied by saying that like all politicians he says things that are different to different audiences. Some of his speeches are harder whilst others are more conciliatory. At the time he was facing a great deal of international pressure and relied on a coalition of pro-settler parties as I stated in Post 89. Surely a reasonable point to make but in Post 91 you replied in an unnecessarily unpleasant way that I was saying I was a higher or better authority on Israeli policy than Netanyahu. I replied in the next post that I did not – I merely said that he said different things to different people so quoting one speech that suits your beliefs is not sufficient to establish Israeli policy. After that you dropped the issue. Here is a link to the page if anybody thinks what I say is incorrect: http://www.collarchat.com/m_3457940/mpage_5/tm.htm – I’m sure you know this anyway so the fact that you resort to such a fabrication yet again is a testament to your sincerity. As the thread shows it did not “culminate” in this post as you continued to post and I replied a good bit there
quote:
"I have difficulty trusting the BBC since they suppressed reports referring anti-Israeli bias in the past but even here they manage to note that Hamas still denies ever firing rockets into civilian areas."
If you are unable to believe the BBC, here’s a New York Times report that says pretty much the same as the BBC report:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/world/middleeast/02mideast.html
But of course, the BBC, the UN, the Red Cross, the International Court or anyone who criticises Israel in any way is "biased". You're not biased of course - just the rest of the world is.
The BBC report actually stated: “The Islamist movement Hamas has denied that its forces deliberately targeted civilians with rockets”; which you report as “here they [the BBC] manage to note that Hamas still denies ever firing rockets into civilian areas”. Not the same thing at all - more self-serving distortion.
You are misrepresenting my position. I did not doubt the veracity of the fact in the news story from the BBC itself, it was more its tone. I believe that no country should be above criticism but that criticism should be fair - in Ireland we took a hammering in the media but that must be nothing to what Israel goes through. I have repeatedly justified why bias is a serious issue with Israel. Take the BBC. You ignore the fact that the BBC actually spent a quarter of a million pounds actually suppressing a report on news bias a few years back. This was at a time of significant scrutiny into its spending by other parts of the media as wasteful and there was a campaign to stop paying the licence fee AFAIK. Suppressing a report it commissioned itself at great expense through the courts is a remarkable thing surely?
How is it “self-serving distortion” (your favourite terminology it seems) to note that the BBC managed to state Hamas denied targeting civilians. It was one sentence in the entire article which wasn’t a short piece so it is entirely fair to say they “managed” a bit of balance. I think they also suggested the fact was buried in the report. They act as if the UN has the resources of a country law firm. It’s absurd.
quote:
And finally, leaving aside a few obfuscations and irrelevancies, let’s consider this gem:
"The reason people like myself occupy the moral high ground is because we don't condemn and demonise one side over the other."
It appears from the above and your own words that your idea of the ‘high moral ground’ is to alternate between self serving distortions, wild allegations of bias, evasions and absurdities.
You talk about “a few obfuscations and irrelevancies” and "alternate between self serving distortions, wild allegations of bias, evasions and absurdities.” etc. To obfuscate is to mislead or lie in a highly deceptive fashion. You accuse me of being evasive when I think everything I have said is pretty blunt and forthright. I must ask you to take issue with any other assertion I have made that I cannot justify fully. You don’t cite a single example in this paragraph - you only make assertions and the stuff above hardly proves it either.
I'll try to answer any question asked of me. I hadn’t communicated with you directly on this thread so don’t make out I was trying not to answer. It is anyone’s right on here to focus on any part of a post another has written. If Israel used phosphorous in a built up area then it is a crime. Since it is at a time of war then it would be a “war crime” according the conventions relating to the rules of war but I cannot say that it must be a “war crime” for the simple reason that such things can be in error. Phosphorous should only be used at high altitudes to give light if it is near civilian areas. Secondly the term “war crime(s)” is highly emotive and pro-Palestinians bandy it about in order to conflate it with vastly more extreme instances with what the Nazi’s, Stalin etc. did. That is deeply dishonest IMHO. You lot bandy about labels in order to harm reputation of the State rather than to add any sort of clarity, which is what we normally do with words. That is part of the reason folks like me have the moral high ground. I’m critical of the Palestinians but I don’t call them “animals” etc. like Hertz re. Israel.
quote:
Why all the distortions? Why not address the three questions I asked at the end of my post? Why can’t you even bring yourself to openly admit that the Israelis do commit war crimes, when even the Israelis do? Is your adherence to the Israeli side so fanatical and one-eyed that you are no longer capable of applying any kind of moral judgement or criticism, that you have completely lost any critical faculty on this issue?
I hope you’ll understand why, unless you lift your game dramatically, I won‘t be responding to any more of your drivel on this thread either.
Assuming the level of my argument is poor, it still wouldn’t matter a jot if I changed the quality of my argument because your mind is closed. It is as simple as that. You do not accept anything that challenges your stance. That is why it is impossible to have an honest discussion with you.
You can call it “drivel” all you like but others won’t simply shut up when pro-Palestinians like yourself come on here spouting evidence of this or that “war crime”. Despite the pro-Palestinian propaganda whirlwind that grips the mainstream media, enough people still accept Israel's right to continue to exist and speak up about unfair criticism so please just get over it. Sanctions will not destroy Israel. It will fight to the death to exist so unless you want to see a nuclear holocaust you should accept its right to be.
I don’t wish to upset you unduly but it is quite clear you are a pro-Palestinian propagandist that shows contempt for any truth that does not suit your intent to demonise Israel. You are like many other pro-Palestinians in that respect. I’m telling you, and I hope you actually listen for once, that if you truly care about human suffering you should not be attacking so aggressively one side over the other when the side you support is so obviously contributing to the strife in a very overt substantial fashion. I hope that at some stage you will have sufficient clarity to genuinely reflect on that simple point.
|
|
|
|
