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Anything !!!
Was she knocked up before she was banged up???
@Mr Bigstuff wrote:
Once again you’re ignoring the facts. Yes the military wing of Hamas has been involved in many acts of terrorism but can you say the same thing about the social wing of Hamas? So to call it a purely terrorist organisation is far too simplistic.
In fact Mr B that is a very fair point and I was being too simplistic. Hamas is pretty fragmented as an organisation (as I suspect you already knew) and has a number ”wings”. Hamas is both a terrorist organisation, and a mass social, political and religious movement. Yes they do a lot of good social work and provide welfare services, only for their Palestinian supporters – but not of course for the Palestinian Fatah supporters. Still I guess you can’t have everything can you? However, politically and ideologically they are directed and controlled by their military wing which is under the direction of Khaled Meshaal – who is based in Damascus, Syria.
Whilst they are mainly popular for their paramilitary activities, they rode to victory in the recent elections at the expense of their corrupt rivals, largely on the back of their reputation for probity. Yasser Arafat and his henchmen have long since been discredited as thieves who cared little for their people and were only interested in lining their own pockets.
@Mr B wrote:
As for the impossibility of Hamas making any compromises, this is a quote from prime minister Haniyeh taken from an Israeli website, “If Israel withdraws to the 1967 borders, peace will prevail and we will implement a ceasefire for many years,” he told Haaretz. “Our government is prepared to maintain a long-term cease-fire with Israel.” Clearly this contradicts your claim that Hamas would never accept the 1967 borders. The willingness to compromise by Hamas was even reported in the Jerusalem Post (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1143498851330&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull)
In point of fact this quote of yours is only a partial quote. It originated from Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi who on 26th January 2004 did say the words quoted but went on to say “…. it is difficult to liberate all of our land at this stage, so we accept a phased liberation. The truce could last for 10 years but not more than 10 years” (Source: Al Jazeera).
In other words they did NOT accept the so-called 1967 border but merely looked upon a truce as a stepping stone towards achieving their ultimate goal. In case you have conveniently forgotten Mr B, their goal is the TOTAL eradication of Israel/Judaism and the formation of an Islamic state in its place.
Indeed Khaled Meshaal, currently hiding in his headquarters in Damascus and enjoying the protection of the Syrians, has reaffirmed that Hamas remained dedicated to the obliteration of Israel. At a meeting in Cairo last week Meshaal’s right-hand man Mohammed Nazal accused Hamas politicians inside the Palestinian territories of being “seduced by the seats of power and therefore incapable of responding to Israeli crimes.”
So Mr B, the bottom line is that Hamas will stop at nothing to continue to kill Israelis any way they can – in true terrorist style. Any attempt at a settlement will be bitterly resisted by them as it goes utterly against their core belief to concede that Israel has a right to exist.
No Tadpole you won’t get your thread locked for taking the piss – provided you do it cleverly. (BTW I do the sarcasm round here !!!)
Yup !!
@Mr Bigstuff wrote:
You seem to be arguing for the sake of arguing. You’re making things up to suit your argument and ignoring everything else that doesn’t suit your argument. Quote the post where I said Hamas was not involved in terrorism and the post where I supposedly said they primarily target military targets. You can’t because I never said those things. Anyway, if you define terrorism as attacks on non-combatants then clearly Israel is guilty of terrorism too. You could say that the scale of Israel’s terrorism is much larger than Hamas’.
OK so we both agree then that Hamas is ”involved in terrorism” – yes??? I guess that the difference between us is one of degree. I believe that they are a terrorist organisation first and foremost whereas you believe that this isn’t so and that they are driven to terrorist acts because of what they see as ”oppression” etc etc.
@Mr B wrote:
The idea that Hamas could never compromise is nonsense considering that the PM has already suggested a willingness to compromise by offering a truce if the occupation ends and by offering an acceptance of the 1967 borders. How can you say that this is not a compromise?
Well Mr B I suspect that the ‘compromise’ that you refer to is the one offered by Mahmoud Abbas as Palestinian Authority President. However, Hamas won 74 seats out of the 132 seat legislature in the January 2006 elections making THEM the de facto Palestinian Authority government.
Mahmoud Abbas (currently) leads the Fatah organisation and yes, he is ready and willing to cut a deal with the Israelis – or at least he was until the latest bout of confrontations orchestrated by Hamas.
However, and by contrast, Hamas continues to maintain its refusal to recognise Israel’s right to exist and continues to fully support, maintain and uphold the ‘Hamas Charter’. Indeed the leader of Hamas, Mahmoud Zahar (from his base in Damascus) on Palestinian TV stated “We do not recognise the Israel enemy or his right to be our neighbour, nor to stay on the land, nor his ownership of any inch of land. We are interested only in restoring our full rights to return all the peoples of Palestine to the land of Palestine. Our principles are clear: Palestine is a land of Waqf (Islamic trust) which cannot be given up.”
So although the Palestinian President (Fatah) is prepared to negotiate and find some sort of compromise, sadly for all concerned Hamas is simply NOT prepared to negotiate.They will NOT accept the 1967 borders or any other borders for that matter. for them it is really simple…. Israel has NO right to exist and should be wiped off the face of the earth.
@Mr B wrote:
As I already said, the story about Saddam is disinformation because he was giving money to the families of “martyrs”. Over there, a martyr is considered to be anyone killed by the Israelis or killed while attacking Israelis. Even British civilians have been called “martyrs” after being shot and killed by Israelis. Some people take liberties with the translation from Arabic to English and translate the arabic for martyr as “suicide bomber” which is not an accurate translation because even a 3 yr. old baby can be called a “martyr”. So the money was not just going to the families of suicide bombers, the majority of donations were most likely going to the families of non-combatants since more civilians die than suicide bombers.
To be completely accurate Mr B all of the 26 families got $10,000 each (hence $260,000) and yes they were all ”martyrs” but not all of them were suicide bombers. Yes some of the families had suffered their loss as a result of a member being killed in the fighting and equally some of them were suicide bomber’s families. Maybe I hadn’t spelled out this point clearly enough, if so I apologise.
However, I think that we are squabbling over semantics here. The underlying point is that Saddam Hussein did support terrorism (including suicide bombers) and to that extent the story was true and was not ”disinformation”. However, given his current demise, pursuing this point takes us no further. Maybe we should let it drop and move on.
@Mr B wrote:
I do not condone attacks on either the arab or Israeli civilian populations. They are violations of the 4th Geneva convention and therefore unacceptable. However, do YOU condemn the killing of palestinian civilians by the Israeli military and all other human rights abuses? You seem to be avoiding this question. You say Hamas’ objective is the destruction of the state of Israel but one could equally argue that Israel’s objective is the destruction of the palestinian government and the annexation of all of the West Bank. So what’s the difference? At the end of the day it is the Israelis who are imposing themselves on the Palestinians not vice-versa.
Well I guess we have another difference in perception here Mr B. Contrary to your belief, I do not condone terrorist murder whether it is of a civilian or indeed a soldier.Hopefully that at least answers that particular question.
I see the situation as a country (Israel) defending itself from attacks made upon it by a terrorist organisation (Hamas). Sometimes they act in retaliation and sometimes they act in a pre-emptive way to eliminate assorted rocket firers, terrorist leaders, terrorist training bases, suicide bombers and so on. You will I hope note that I keep on referring to Hamas in this context (which is the subject of the topic after all) and NOT to the Palestinians in general.
I think that if it was left to the ”Palestinian people” whatever they actually are, then it may be possible to sort something out. Problem is that Hamas specifically do not want this as it totally conflicts with their goals. Unfortunately right now, Hamas IS and represents the ”Palestinian people” as their elected government. And so it goes on.
Undulation
Suction
@Mr B wrote:
When did I ever say that Hamas was not involved in terrorism? All I said was that attacks on Israeli military targets are not acts of terrorism because they are combatants. If attacks on soldiers in a conflict equates to terrorism then all war is terrorism.
Actually I cannot find a quote from you where you have admitted that Hamas IS involved in terrorism. Your constant stance seems to be that Hamas does all the dreadful things it does because they are ‘’oppressed’’ or as an act of ‘’resistance’’ and so on. You claim that they primarily attack “Israeli military targets” whereas in my previous post I listed all the purely civilian targets that they constantly attack. Yes they have attacked border posts as well, but some 97% of all their attacks are against women and children.
By any reasonable definition of terrorism (including your own as above) these attacks, being attacks on non-combatants therefore constitute terrorism. That Hamas IS a terrorist organization is not just my view, but is the view of the vast majority of Western governments.
@Mr B wrote:
You say Hamas could never compromise but they said the same thing about Arafat and the PLO. We have even seen the Palestinian PM offer recognition of the 1967 borders which would be a de facto recognition of Israel. That sounds like the possibility of compromise to me.
The major difference between Hamas on the one hand and Arafat’s Fatah organization / PLO and Palestinian Authority on the other is this: Hamas has an absolutely unbreakable covenant, established back in 1988, which is that that they are dedicated to and utterly committed to the total eradication of the Jewish state. Their total focus is on the obliteration of Judaism and the creation of a pure Islamic state. No compromise, no watering down of this aim, no give and take, no sharing, no nothing. This is what they want, this is what they demand, this is what they are really fighting for, and they won’t stop until they either get it or they are all killed in their (as they see it) holy war.
Yes of course I realise that the now electorally defeated Palestinian Fatah / PLO / PA / organizations – fraqgmented though they are – were and possibly still are prepared to accept the existence of Israel and compromise with them, so that they can somehow agree to live side by side. Indeed talks on that very subject had reached an advanced stage and were nearing success a couple of weeks ago.
But Hamas cannot and will not accept this situation and they utterly refuse to make this fundamental concession – hence my comment that the recent cross border attack was deliberately planned and conceived to derail the ‘peace’ talks that were then taking place.
Hamas certainly succeeded in derailing these talks and they now have stepped back to open confrontation with Israel – which is exactly and precisely what Hamas wanted all along. No surrender, no compromise, and an Islamic state overthrowing Judaism, completely in line with their Covenant .
@Mr B wrote:
That story about Saddam is just disinformation by the Israeli government that a lot of people swallowed hook line and sinker.
In fact what you say is inaccurate. The story came from the Al-Jazeera website – which is about as anti-Israeli as you can get – amongst others and was widely reported at the time.
On Wednesday 12th March 2003 Saddam Hussein distributed $260,000 to 26 families of Palestinians killed in fighting with Israel including $10,000 cheques to families of suicide bombers. In a packed banqueting hall in one of his palaces in Baghdad, the families came forward one by one to receive their $10,000 dollar payments under a large banner which said “The Arab Baath Party Welcomes the Families of the Martyrs for the distribution of Blessings of Saddam Hussein”.
However, leaving aside the financial support that Hamas receives for its acts of terrorism from other terrorist supporting states and organisations:
I guess my main concern is that it seems to me that Hamas is hell bent on the overthrow of the STATE of Israel. Yes they use the grievances of the Palestinian population as their apparent justification, but at the end of the day they simply want to eradicate the state itself. I really cannot see how you can justify the launching of literally hundreds of Quassam rockets against a civilian population in another country, and the indiscriminate and wanton killing that this involves – unless of course you also support the aims and objectives of the terrorists that do this.
The Hamas terrorists aren’t forced to kill women and children, they choose to do so. They aren’t forced to dispatch suicide bombers against civilian targets; they make that choice themselves, carefully plan it, and execute it with a dreadfully cold blooded lack of interest or care for the consequences.
All they need do is to stop murdering people and there would be no need for Israel to retaliate and take preventative measures to stop them.
…or even liquorice allsorts ????? (The West Indian ones could be called ”gobstoppers”)
