“Why is the [UN] General Assembly quiet on suicide bombings? This is the crime of the 21st century,”
Because they're committed by people who hate Jews, so that makes them okay in the UN's eyes. (It's only racism to be a Jew, you see, not to hate them -- just ask the folks at Durban).

A resolution would signal to those who recruit suicide bombers - and those they target - that their actions are wrong,
Oh yeah. That'll really make them take notice and change their ways. Not.

the issue has the “same kind of urgency as famine, as AIDS, as climate control.”
Three more things the UN has been so successful at taking care of.

Why not just condemn bombing altogether ?? Could it be because the Israelis practice a little bombing of their own ?? Let's not forget that more than three times as many Palestinians as Israelis have been killed since the start of the Second Intifada (960 Israelis, 3000 Palestinians).

rdelephant

Are you trying to be provocative?

Tell me, do you see a moral difference between Aushwitz and Hiroshima?

rdelphant does not say how many of the 3000 Palestinians "killed by Israelis" blew themselves up in pizza parlors, buses, and universities.

rdelphant does not say whether he thinks the intention of the killing has any bearing on the matter either.

People who are killed by soldiers because they are sniping at schoolchildren are not people who deserve my sympathy. Whatever legitimate grievances they may have--and I concede they exist--are completely annulled by the means they use to address them.

rdelphant is, I believe, a lawyer. Perhaps he has heard the maxim "those who come seeking equity must come with clean hands".

At any rate, I don't think that rdelphant's opinions on the wrongs or rights of Israel and Palestine would change if it were 1000 dead Palestinians and 3000 dead Israelis. After all, there were only 600,000 dead Americans in WWII and we killed far more than that, presumably rdelephant doesn't think we become the aggressors?

But here is an excellent test.

At the end of WWII thousands of Germans were ethnically cleansed from what is now Poland and Russia, from areas that had been ethnically German for hundreds of years. Do these dispossessed Germans have a moral right to blow themselves in Polish discos until such time as the ethnically German areas are restored to them?

Do Jews and their descendants driven from Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, and Iran have a moral right to blow themselves up in coffee shops throught the Middle East until they are allowed to return to their homes?

And what of the city of Hebron, which was 90% Jewish from biblical times until 1948, and is now completely Jew-free? Do Jews get to snipe at Arab kindergartners until they are allowed to return to Hebron?

Gabriel

May I congratulate on your post above, very well put.

Well, at least you concede that the Palestinians have a grievance. My point is simple. There is an ongoing war between the Israelis and the Palestinians. It is terribly convenient for the Israelis to condemn Palestinian killing of Israelis, while framing the issue so that their far more numerous killing of Palestinians is insulated from scrutiny. Maybe it eases your consicence to believe that all (or even most) of those 3,000 dead Palestinians are "snipers," but I seriously doubt it. In fact, I will wager that there are more dead Palestinian civilians than there are dead Irsaeli civilians in the last three years. Regardless, if it offends you that I find both equally abhorrent, that sounds like your problem, not mine.

Okay, rdelephant, ignore my inconvenient questions.

Your questions are not worthy of a response, but here it is -- nothing justifies the killing of civilians on either side.

Okay, rdelphant, WWII was unjust because America killed civilians.

You go right ahead and make the perfect the enemy of the good.

But in the real world, we are often forced to a choice of evils, and the deliberate murder of schoolchildren does not even begin to compare to collateral damage among civilians who are trying to help conceal the murderers of schoolchildren.

rdelephant, maybe these pictures will explain to you where some of the 3000 Palestinian deaths came from:

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=9838_Palestinian_War_Crimes#comments

Don't worry, it's nothing graphic. Just some AP photos of Palestinian gunmen using children as human shields while they shoot at the IDF.

Totally cool with that, are you?

So when Palestinian civilians are killed it is collateral damage, when Israeli civilians are killed its a war crime, is that about right ?? You sicken me with your double-standard.

The difference, rdelphant, is intent.

I thought you were a lawyer? Why don't we prosecute every homicide as first-degree murder, using your logic?

Hamas, Hezbollah et al deliberately target civilians and deliberately use them as human shields. IDF explicitly eschews both behaviors in theory and practice.

And the PA rounds up Palestinian civilians and shoots them in public squares, without trial. Compare with Israeli jurisprudence, lawyer-boy.
You're not even attempting to argue now. You're just name-calling now. Waste of time to try to reason with you.

I notice also, rdelephant, that you don't have a word to say about Palestinian gunmen using children as human shields, photographs of which I posted a link to.

Oh, your concern for Palestinians just shines on through.

We did not get 3,000 dead Palestinains because the IDF are choirboys, no matter how much you spin it. Your picture shows a gunman preparing to engage in urban warfare (presumably) and a bunch of teenagers who obviously do not perceive any danger yet, just milling about the scene. Calling them "human shields" betrays an overactive imagination, if you ask me.

"Milling about the scene", forsooth! STANDING DIRECTLY ON TOP OF THE MORTAR? Crouching LESS THAN A FOOT BEHIND A GUNMAN'S BACK?

Oh, rdelephant, I sure hope they aren't paying you because your lies suck.

Anyone can click on that link and see for themselves what those "bystanders" are doing.

And while you say that the IDF aren't "choirboys", you don't actually give examples or anything.

I've given several examples of what I find to be reprehensible on the Palestiian side--deliberately targeting civilians, using children as human shields, dragging civilians out of their homes and executing them summarily.

You cannot cite anything on the Israeli side remotely comparable, and in fact you do not even try.

I won't ever convince you--you've already decided beyond any standard of evidence. But anyone reading this thread will compare my argument to yours, you know.

There is obviously no engagement going on in your picture. A mortar can hardly be fired with a man standing right in front of it. Noticeably he has his back to the "enemy" as well, looking pretty damn calm for a human shield, if you ask me. Do you really think the Israelis would have any compunction about shooting a Palestinain teenager in the back to get at a mortar ?? I don't. I think you are grossly misreading this picture.

As for your ignorance of Israel's tactics which resulted in 3,000 dead Palestinians, try these two on for size.

http://www3.sympatico.ca/sr.gowans/f16.html

"This was a deliberate attack on the site knowing that innocents would be lost in the consequence of the attack," remarked White House spokesmen Ari Fleischer.

Fifteen died, nine of them children, including a two-month old and a 15-month old, after an Israeli F-16 fired a one-ton bomb at a dwelling in Gaza occupied by Salah Shehada, a founder of Hamas.

The bomb hit at night, when residents of one of the most densely packed neighborhoods on earth were asleep. Afterwards, four apartment buildings were demolished, and half a dozen others were damaged beyond repair.

Some reports claimed that at least 140 were injured.

Israel Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, evincing unbridled chutzpah, claimed "The information we had was that there were no civilians near him." What he meant to say is, "The information we have is that people will believe anything."

For his part, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon crowed, "This operation was in my view one of our biggest successes."

http://www.dannymorrison.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-2992.html

The Israeli warplanes opened missile fire and killed 23 protesters in the city showing the "brutality of the massive Israeli war has no limits", according to Le Monde Thursday, May 20.

The Israeli warplanes opened fire on the peaceful demonstration Wednesday, May 19, killing at least 22 people protesting against the devastating raid on Rafah, which also left massive scenes of destruction.

And the other picture, rdelpehant? The one where then gunmen are shooting at the IDF from inside a crowd of children?

Did you not look, or do you just not care to comment?

Doesn't matter. As I said, your mind is made up.

At any rate, the Palestinian terrorists hide among civilians so they can blame Israel for the deaths. They always have done. People like you are morally depraved enough to buy it and blame Israel, rather than the terrorists who show such depraved indifference to human life.

They round up Palestinian civilians and shoot them without trial. They target Jewish children when they can, deliberately. You cannot deny that. You don't even try.

And they use their own children as human shields--I showed you the pictures and you refused to look at or comment on it.

So, why bother with you? Your soul is sold.

So did you figure out yet that there are two photos in the link I posted? And you strangely refuse to comment on the second one. Stupid or dishonest, take your pick, but I personally think you are dishonest in refusing to comment on the second picture, since I think you are not stupid.

It shows at leasked two masked gunmen firing automatic rifles. In the foreground, crouching immediately behind the nearest gunmen are three children, looks like they could be 8 - 12 or so.

The two gunmen are taking cover among a crowd of what appears to be at least 100 people, at least some of whom are children.

And you, rdelephant, <b.can't bring yourself to utter a word of condemnation

.

The second photo is even less revealing than the first. It shows a bunch of adolescents on a hillside watching a gunman who may or may not be firing from the crest of the hill. Its kind of a dangerous spectator sport, I agree, but that is what I see happening there, not anybody being used as a human shield (which would obviously not work in any event, since the Israelis have no compunction about killing Palestinian kids, whether they are throwing rocks or are just sleeping in their beds ...as pointed out by one of the articles I cited and you ignored).

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