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Well done Poshy. That other one has to be Anelka, eh?
:lol: Good riddance to over sensitive , smelly rubbish, I say.
:lol: Ruby, I think the Leeds site just had a hit on the majority of the constituent words. The site doesn’t mention the riddle at all.
How does the League Cup fit, Herman?
:-s Why’s that, Ruby?
I saw this too. Dashed bothersome.
Get the money, motherfucker.
Guns’n’Roses
@Mr Bigstuff wrote:
You say there’s no alternative but to report non-violent protests if the violence stops but the news companies can just ignore those type of protests. Non violent protests get ignored all the time even in this country. Occasionally you get news reports about organisations such as Seeds of Peace but mostly the activities of the non-violent and the peacemakers get less news coverage than the activities of the Israeli war machine and the other men of violence.
I’m saying it has to be a pan-Palestinian campaign. To take your example, Rachel Corrie’s death was reported, amongst many others, by CNN, FOX, The New York Times and The Washington Post. Imagine the impact that story combining with many more would have made on American popular opinion in the absence of any obscuring Palestinian violence whatsoever.
@Mr Bigstuff wrote:
You also said that Palestinians could refuse to work for Israeli firms as a protest but you’re looking at the issue from an English perspective. The Palestinian economy is not in good health and there is a lot of unemployment. People need to feed their families and if the only option they have is to work for an Israeli firm then they will do it.
I absolutely, categorically do not advance this as an easy option. I firmly believe it to be the most courageous option open to the Palestinians, involving probably the greatest sacrifice, but still their best chance of obtaining justice.
@Mr Bigstuff wrote:
I’m not advocating violence by the palestinians as a viable strategy or a way to end the conflict, but they do have the right to self-defence and the violence is inevitable in the absence of any peace process or any real hope of better things to come in the future. No amount of peaceful protests will replace the effect that meaningful negotiations will have.
I don’t believe violence is inevitable. I believe the Palestinians have a choice, with clear lessons from history, on the futility and failure of their current strategy and an example of a different approach to achieving their aims. Otherwise, negotiations are just putting the cart before the horse. Any international ruling of any force would have to come through the P5. Considering Uncle Sam’s veto, nothing would happen under current circumstances and there would be no pressure on Israel to act with a sense of fairness. It’s up to the Palestinians to change those circumstances and that means garnering support and sympathy in the United States.
Pointing to isolated incidents, however tragic and typical, is not the plan, Bigstuff. It has to be a continued and popular withdrawing to purely peaceful means. That way, when the abuses happen, there is nothing else for the Western media to report. Gandhi’s campaign wasn’t immediately successful. It took the Indian people enduring repeated incidents of great hardship, violence and loss to shame Britain into withdrawal. That’s why I mentioned it takes more balls than the armed approach. A truly fitting form of jihad, even.
Also, it is not just a matter of placard waving protest. Non-cooperation is a vital part. Like all modern economies, Israel goes looking for cheap labour and the Palestinians climb over each other to oblige. How about a spot of work withdrawing fraternité instead of collaboration?
Consider the alternative, Bigstuff, and assume the Palestinians continue with their suicide belts, AKs and Qassams. What do you think they will achieve?
@Mr Bigstuff wrote:
The fact is that what matters most to US politicians is their own domestic constituencies.
That’s exactly my point. I think we’re agreed, at least you and I, that we want a viable Palestinian state along the 1967 borders. The key player is the United States. As it is, the Zionist lobby is more powerful than the Palestinian lobby. Hence no serious pressure on Israel. If the Palestinians could shift that so that general public opinion outweighed the Zionist lobby in America’s politicians minds then America’s one sided support for Israel would fade. Their best bet is therefore non-violent protest. I don’t agree that the news media would keep quiet about that sort of campaign. That’s verging on the net kooky side of things.
Palestinians need to play to California, not Tehran.
That’s exactly why and how non-violent protest works, Bigstuff. If only one side is ever brutalising t’other, then it quickly becomes obvious and opinion shifts towards the truly oppressed. If Israel lost its international backers in this way, if general opinion can be made to count for more than the Zionist lobby in the Whitehouse, the the Palestinians would quickly begin to make progress. As it is, every rocket attack on a schoolyard, intentional or not, sets back their cause.
