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Anaxagoras -> RE: Propaganda and Israel (12/2/2010 11:45:34 AM)
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Tweakabelle, you clearly know very little about the conflict in Northern Ireland. You didn’t even know if the IRA are still an organisation on the other thread. They are still active. That shows how little you know and yet you presume to infer that I am a liar when you have repeatedly misrepresented so many things I have said on here. BTW when you tried to infer Israeli policy based on one speech, my point about Netanyahu making different speeches to different people was shown to be correct as WikiLeaks showed in a document that he was prepared to consider a land exchange in 2009 rather than continue maintaining the settlements. Of course you tried to pour ridicule by saying I knew more about Israeli policy than him. Stop the dishonest argumentation. It should be clear I won’t let you get away with it. Sorry for the long post but with Tweak questioning my honesty it takes some time to justify my stance.
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ORIGINAL: tweakabelle
Yes there's definitely some misleading going on here. Let's take a close look and see exactly who is misleading ......
"Firstly the IRA were not like Hamas or even the PLO."
Here are 8 major similarities between the Palestinian resistance and the IRA, off the top of my head:
1. Both seek national unity/independence
2. Both fight what they see as foreign occupation
3. Both wage guerilla war or, if you prefer 'terrorism'.
4. Both have substantial support bases in an oppressed population who regard them as 'freedom fighters'.
5. Both fight within an occupied zone, in the occupier's homeland and internationally
6. Both operate in urban and rural environments within tiny geographical parameters.
7. Both are receive significant measures of support, both political financial and logistic, externally from (a) Diaspora members and (b) share in large measure the same international support from political and other organisations and other sympathisers.
8. Both are confronting major regional military powers.
There are many many more points of similarity but that's surely enough to make legitimate comparisons. Your claim is misleading and/or false.
How very comical - these are about the vaguest similarities that would similarly apply to other regions. Response to Point One – seeking independence is the wish of every nationalist movement and there are and were very many throughout the world, and point five is similar so you are just bigging up your position. Look at Point Four – virtually every paramilitary group sees themselves as “freedom fighters” lol. Point Two is similar. Even Al Qaeda sees there being a foreign occupation of another form in the Islamic world, and this was prior to the invasion of Afghanistan. Point Three: all terrorists, again of which there are many, fight conflicts that are terrorist in their nature. Point Six is comical – they fight in rural and urban environments – lets stop the presses for that profound similarity. Every country has such regions lol. Point Seven - people take and support differing sides in such conflicts, and there is often a need to seek resources elsewhere which again very many groups do. There isn’t a Palestinian diaspora as such – the populace is in very close proximity to the contested territory in question.
By making some very very general comparisons you have tried to tie the IRA and the Palestinian terror groups together to draw analogies with the Northern Irish situation. My point was not that there are no similarities – there are similarities in the sense that both are similar in terms of some tactics but this is only because they are organisations of a similar nature. This applies to all terror organisations in the world. The fact of the matter is that the IRA has far more in common with terror groups in South America. The IRA was more distinctly leftist and has no real religious views that it adopts other than representing the Catholic community. It is a secular organisation. By contrast Hamas and Hizbullah have radical Islam as a central part of their belief system. This makes them very different organisations.
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"The scale of the conflict in the North was by no means as intensive as the conflict that Israel faces."
The scale of conflict in Northern Ireland can be compared to the Middle East, especially for the period 1969-75. Up to 18, 000 British troops were deployed to support the civil authority in an area not much larger than that of Greater Sydney. Again comparisons are legitimate.
Yes when the conflict was at its worst in the early 70’s there were a lot of troops in Northern Ireland but there is no meaningful comparison to be made between Israel and Ireland. First there is the context which is essential to understanding players like the IRA and Hamas. The conflict in Israel is a pan Arab conflict in which the Palestinians, Egyptians, Jordanians and Lebanon/Syria are the primary players. Now Iran is muscling in. Some 41,000 Arabs have died in this conflict since 1947 and 22,000 Israeli’s. Israel has military superiority but a few of the other Arab states are also powerful. Egypt now has one of the biggest armies in the world and is seeking nuclear power and so is Syria. Thus the context of the conflict is completely different to Ireland and Britain. Britain was still a superpower at the time, whilst Ireland had an army that was principally used for peace keeping missions. Whilst the IRA were a danger on British soil, there was never any real threat to Britain’s existence. Britain had vastly more territory, vastly more resources and a vastly larger population to Ireland. The opposite is the case in the middle-east. Thus the IRA were always going to find it nigh on impossible to defeat Britain in Ulster. To move it to the groups themselves we can see that the opposite is the case in Israel. Hamas have extremely powerful backers in the surrounding states whilst the IRA never had in Ireland. Hamas have majority support in the Palestinian population in Gaza who democratically elected them on a mandate of continuing violence. They also have rising support in the areas under the PA. Hamas are supported by Iran and Syria. Hamas have a powerful Islamicist ideology which means they will not or are extremely unlikely to accept terms that they may see as religiously unacceptable. Central to the Islamic world is Dar al-Islam – the House of Islam in which Israel is located currently. They will never accept Israel’s existence as far as I can see and their ideology espouses the absolute destruction of the State. By contrast there was never any question of the IRA seeking to destroy Britain, just beat it in Ulster. I hope this is sufficient for you to understand why I see not just both organisations but both conflicts in which said organisations are located, as being completely different. There is no meaningful similarity.
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"They did actually use artillery in the North."
Really?????? I've never heard of this. AFAIK it never happened. Evidence to support your claim please. I'd prefer not to be forced to conclude that this is an outright lie. I re-state: AFAIK the British Army did not fire an artillery shell in anger for the duration of the conflict in Nthn Ireland.
"Tanks were a common sight as were armoured cars."
A common sight perhaps, but were they ever used like Israeli tanks? Is there a single instance of a British tank firing an artillery shell through its turret for the duration of the conflict? Not as far as I know. Same goes for armoured cars. A half-truth at best.
There is no “perhaps” about it. Similarly armoured cars which usually carry quite heavy weaponry were a common sight on the streets, and feature in many photos from the time. There were several British artillery divisions posted in Northern Ireland at differing times. That is common knowledge. There was a lot of artillery in Northern Ireland, tanks, armoured cars and heavy guns. There were even light cannons mounted on some jeeps. If you want some proof of their ample presence just go to an internet search engine. Google etc. a fairly obvious wording like “british artillery in northern ireland” and you will find relevant sites. Here you ask me to show you proof of a tank firing an artillery shell to somehow “prove” I’m a liar. I heard reference to artillery use in a documentary a while back and I did a quick google search to post up a link about artillery fire bit only got hits about the recent incident in Korea so I can’t post up a link but this is hardly a court of law. Consider instead how absurd your position is - artillery was a common sight in the conflict for 30 years and now you are saying to me that not once was it fired by any method, not just by a tank because this is the substantive inference of your overall argument! Its akin to saying that a single gun was not shot at a firing range. It is simply absurd.
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"Military helicopters (some with rocket capacity AFAIK) were also a common sight in the North."
Same as above - seen but never used as firing platforms AFAIK. Logistic and surveillance roles only. Air-to-ground missiles were never used. Another half-truth at best.
"The use of these facilities was not nearly as intensive but neither was the conflict."
Correct. Logistic and surveillance roles are not as intensive as offensive warfare roles are they? But that is not what you meant to convey is it? The 'facilities" were never used offensively in the Israeli style were they? More misleading.
Here in one you misrepresent what I said over two things – clearly your strategy. I never mentioned ground to air missiles. You are correct in saying it was not or rarely was used in an offensive context but I did say the use of such weapons was not nearly as intensive – this is plain English so stop trying to reinterpret what I said to suit your argument. Neither is this a thesis so loose wording goes with the territory of a forum. You are trying to make honesty of another contributor seem questionable by nit picking. Meanwhile you continually misrepresent what others that disagree with you say. It is not a legitimate form of debate and I think others will see that. It says a lot about your clearly extreme hatred of Israel that you cannot concede anything of substance such as the low civilian to combatant death rate or accept that those who defend Israel could be arguing in good faith.
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"The only fire from the South was the occasional mortar fired from Joe O'Blogs' field near the border."
There were hundreds of cross border incidents during the conflict. The worst was the Warrenpoint ambush, 27 Aug 1979 in which 18 British Army soldiers perished.* Outright lie, you must be familiar with this incident.
Yes I know about the Warrenpoint attack. I didn’t mention it because that was the most serious event relating to fire from the South by a huge margin so it wasn’t representative of normal conflict in the North and it wasn’t only due to the cause of fire from the South. Most of the damage came from several hundred pound bombs planted nearby so it isn’t really fair to present it as an attack principally from the South. You say hundreds were fired, well maybe but we are talking about a thirty year period! Hamas fired 300 rockets into Israel in the week leading up to the Gaza war so that is why I presented it as minor by comparison demonstrating how much lower the intensity of conflict was in Northern Ireland.
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"I know a few IRA lads. They're not at all religious in contrast to Palestinian fundamentalism."
I know a few IRA lads too. Family connections. Some are very religious. Some aren't. The Palestinian resistance is largely, but far from exclusively Islamic now, but that hasn't been the case always, especially in the PLO/Fatah days. Misleading.
Anyone reader of this bulletin board unfamiliar with the details of Ulster would gain a totally false and misleading impression from your series of half-truths, lies and elisions.
Why the half-truths? Why the lies? Why the distortions? Why the deceit? Why do you find it impossible to deal with the issues honestly?
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrenpoint_ambush
The members of the IRA are not any more religious than the normal population, in fact probably less so. If you really knew some of these people you would know it is a secular group. The Catholic Church has opposed the IRA 99% of the time. The Palestinian “resistance” as you like to call these terrorists are principally religious and extremely so. Hamas have morality police following some women in Gaza and preventing them from doing the most basic things. Some imans are also figureheads in Hizbullah.
I tried to be polite and even made a joke about sounding like a broken record in the previous post but it has to be said you really are being deceitful. From your conduct on here and your pretend efforts at balance to seem reasonable, it is quite obvious you have malign motives for demonising Israel and for your continual efforts to attack the honesty of posters who disagree with you. I addressed most of your points against Israel in the first thread you contributed to only for you to parrot them off in the following thread. You are doing the same here. Truth means nothing. You cannot concede anything meaningful in Israel’s defence. Similarly you would not go into why the UN did not see any evidence of crimes against humanity in Darfur when you were challenged about it on the deceitful but utterly stupid pretext that that wasn’t what the thread was about. On Post 126 of another thread you stated "I'd be delighted to answer that question and any others you may have if you can demonstrate their relevance to a thread called :" 3 month suspended sentence for breaching Geneva Convention"." Sudan is a region where 2+ million people have been killed since the 90’s – where black muslims are being slaughtered by Arab muslims wholesale. This is the biggest issue of white on black violence in the world today and you can’t bother to say yes that was wrong as it would stain your precious Goldstone report. I find that sickening. I honestly thing you are a pretend humanitarian and a fine example as to why pro-Palestinianism is really a hate movement.
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