posted June 09, 2010 05:53 PM         

Richard Tillinghast is an American poet who lives in Co Tipperary.

posted June 09, 2010 07:30 PM         

No clothing, no shoes, no notebooks, no bananas, no apples, no persimmons, no peaches, no dates, no macaroni, no apricots, no plums, no grapes, no avocados, no jam, no cherries, no pomegranates, no watermelon, no onions, no chocolate are allowed in Gaza?

posted June 12, 2010 11:23 AM         

I too believe the Israelis are acting unreasonably. They have far more patience than I do.

By now, those who refuse to recognize Israel's right to exist, those who commit daily acts of war against Israel by firing rockets from the West Bank, from Lebanon and from Gaza into Israel would all be dead...and their families expelled back to whatever Arab nation would take them.

There would be no swaps of land for peace because peace is not the objective of Israel's enemies, Hamas, Hezbollah, Fatah, the PLO or other groups of terrorists. The destruction of Israel is their objective.

Likewise, there would be no return of land captured after an attack on Israel by one or more Arab nations. There would be annexation of that land which would become part of Israel and no amount of empty promises by anyone, including the utterly corrupt United Nations would be sufficient to get it returned.

I'm a reasonable person. When someone, anyone, vows to drive you into the sea and kill you, believe them and act accordingly. Treat them as the enemy they are and give them the war their words and actions prove they want...but not at the time and place of their choosing.

June 12, 2010
Blockades and Muslims
By Jonathan F. Keiler

No competent legal scholar can seriously question the legality of Israel's Gaza blockade. The Israel Defense Force Judge Advocate has clearly laid out the basis for Israel's action, demonstrating its absolute conformity with international law.

The truth is that the IDF's actions were unnecessarily moderate. Blockade is a perfectly acceptable and often necessary act of war. And Israel is at war with the Hamas regime in Gaza, which not only emphatically calls for Israel's destruction, but also persistently and deliberately attacks the Jewish state, particularly targeting civilians. Britain brutally but successfully blockaded Germany in both World Wars (the blockade as much as any other factor brought about Germany's surrender in the WWI), while the United States effectively blockaded Japan in World War II.

But what is really ironic is that blockade is a favorite tactic of the Arabs and the Turks. The Turks control two of the world's critical waterways (the Bosporus and Dardanelles) and have historically blockaded them at will. Meanwhile, the Arabs, in violation of the armistice agreement that ended the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, completely blockaded the Gulf of Aqaba (i.e., not just to limit war materiel), cutting off Israel's southern port of Eilat.

After the 1956 Sinai Campaign (fought by Israel in part to break the Aqaba blockade), the United Nations stationed "peacekeeping" troops in Sinai as part of the bargain for securing Israel's voluntary withdrawal from this territory. In 1967 the Arabs told the U.N. to get out (which, of course, it cravenly did) and reimposed the blockade. While it is often said that Israel acted preemptively in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, striking the first blow, in reality, the blockade itself was a belligerent act under international law. Israel was already at war when its warplanes hit Egyptian airfields.

During the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the Arabs went one better. Having lost control of the Sinai and unable to maintain a blockade of Aqaba in the face of Israeli air power, the Arabs blockaded the distant Straits of Bab el Mandeb (over a thousand miles from Israel), which separate the Arabian peninsula from Africa. Talk about blockading international waters!

Of course, no "freedom flotillas" full of European and American "activists" sailed to break the Arab blockades, though they were in international waters and in violation of all manner of "humanitarian law" in that they were complete and indiscriminate, blockading foodstuffs and all other goods, not just war materiel.

By comparison, Israel's blockade of Gaza has been unnecessarily moderate, indeed hardly a blockade in the historical sense at all. Gaza is awash in food and consumer goods. And indeed, the primary intent of the "freedom flotilla," by the admission of its leaders, was not to resupply Gaza, which is hardly needed. Had it been, the ships could have been unloaded at an Israeli port and the goods shipped overland to the supposedly needy Palestinians. Rather, the intent of the "Free Gaza Movement" was to break the Israeli blockade.

Under the international law of war as articulated in the San Remo Manual (effectively the latest iteration of the law of war at sea), Israel treated the blockade runners like neutral merchant ships -- warning the vessels of the blockade and to dock at the port of Ashdod rather than face boarding. Even in boarding, the IDF acted not as a belligerent might have, but as a police force, not opening fire on the vessels, but rather attempting to peacefully steer the vessels safely into the Israeli port.

But the IDF needn't have done so. The Free Gaza Movement's flotillas are not humanitarian convoys, but blockade-breakers, and so, in actual fact, belligerents. Israel and Hamas are at war, and Israel's blockade is a legitimate act of war against Hamas. The freedom flotillas' calculated attempts to break the blockade are deliberate acts of war against Israel. The wacky but dangerous collection of left-wing activists, Arab and Turkish terrorists, and just plain crazies are not humanitarians, but belligerents in a war. Israel would have been within its rights under international law to have sent the whole motley fleet to the bottom of the sea.

The Israelis did not do this, but rather acted with restraint, dropping paintball-armed commandos onto the deck of a ship filled with armed and violent fanatics -- and yet they still face international opprobrium and condemnation. But this, of course, is nothing new. Whenever Israel attempts to please the humanitarians, they are doubly punished -- not only by taking unnecessary casualties themselves, but in heightened levels of bogus legal and propagandistic attack.

So in 2002, when Israel sacrificed 23 soldiers rooting out terrorists room by room in the Jenin refugee camp rather than just bombing the place to rubble, they were accused of a massacre. When Israel pulled its punches in against Hezbollah in 2006, it was not only condemned for "disproportionate attacks," but also mocked for military incompetence. And even though during Operation Cast Lead the IDF went so far as to personally telephone individual Palestinians in Gaza to warn them of impending attacks and urge them to evacuate (an almost laughably considerate form of war), it was accused of all manner of war crimes in the Goldstone Report.

The lesson ought to be clear by now. The humanitarians don't want peace; they want blood. And they are getting it.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/06/blockades_and_muslims.html

posted June 12, 2010 11:34 AM         

the soldier who refused to hit said USS LIBERTY because it was american was ARRESTED.
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/ussliberty.html

so, the obvious question...why are we still so pro israel that we will take a hit like that and still not utter a peep against them? that we will stand by and watch what goes on there?

posted June 12, 2010 12:36 PM         

Also, no mention of the shooting down of a Chinese civilian airplane, no mention of a cruise missile going off track and hitting Iran...by US military forces.

Now katatonic, can you actually speak to the thrust of what's been said on this thread?

Or, must you forever nibble around the edges of arguments and never get to the meat and potatoes of issues?

As I said, there's a wide racist streak of anti-Semitism running through the so called "humanitarian crowd"...and they have their champion, the racist anti-Semitic Barack Hussein O'Bomber in the White House.

posted June 13, 2010 10:27 AM         

Further, though some have "converted" to Judaism, the vast majority of those of Jewish heritage can trace their family tree back to it's roots...in ancient Israel.

So, your nonsense that those of European nationality, past and present have no Semitic heritage is utter bullshiiit.

Further still, your assertion that Semitic association includes ALL people of the Middle East region is more bullshiiit.

The decedents of Ishmael are also Semitic owing to the fact Ishmael was a son of Abraham with a slave mother.

But, in common language usage of today when one is talking about Semitic and anti-Semitism, one is talking in general about the decedents of Isaac, son of Abraham and half brother of Ishmael, i.e., the Jews.

posted June 13, 2010 12:33 PM         

PLUS all arabs are semitic peoples so YOU and all who consider islam our enemy are at least as anti-semitic as someone who does not approve of israel, which includes MANY MANY jews.

judaism is a religion, not a race. israelis, like americans, come from everywhere.

this thread was started with a poem about the distressing condition of the palestinians and the cruelty of the israeli government. a large percentage of israeli PEOPLE do not agree with the way their government behaves. however that is their home and they put up with it. dissent is not exactly encouraged in your precious theocracy. YOU are trying to derail it into a condemnation of OUR president, as you do with pretty much every topic posted. not everything is about obama.

posted June 13, 2010 01:54 PM         

OT--
What do you think about Helen Thomas words and the reactions?

I am horrified that one of the last true WHPC journalists is gone, and like others wonder when does America’s firm and unwavering defense of Israel begin to compromise our defense of free speech?

I feel that Helen was thrown under the bus.

posted June 13, 2010 02:39 PM         

If the Jews should have gone anywhere, post WWII/holocaust, they should have been sent to Germany and the German people made to support them for the remainder of their lives for reparations. If they didn't like that, they should have been allowed to go home, ie where they were stolen from their homes, you know Europe?

Re Israel's treatment of the Palestinian people:

posted June 13, 2010 05:52 PM         

i have to confess i only briefly noticed what helen thomas is supposed to have said. objectively i don't think there is anything nasty about suggesting that the jews who were transplanted after the war be allowed to repatriate, except that apart from the very old ones, that is now their home. repatriation, like bussing, is a difficult process. like many of our own immigrants' children and grandchildren, it would be like exile...

posted June 13, 2010 06:50 PM         

As for the ship that recently tried to cross the blockade that I think the poem is about, I'm leaning toward Israel. The ship willfully defied it and their own footage they turned over showed them using deadly force against Israel soldiers as they came aboard with Israel looking stunned (ie, they weren't already firing) and I consider them damn lucky to have not just been sunk. Because of their attacking the Israel soldiers (who they KNEW would try to stop them) I think they WANTED to be martyrs, too, as opposed to unfortunate innocents with more passion than sense and still way too naive.

And while I don't like a lot that Israel does (and sympathize with those caught in the crossfire on both sides) I tend to side with Israel over Hamas anyway. I think Israel's belligerence has led to Hamas being able to seize power over the Palestinians, however, and are thus a form of karma. Nevertheless, Hamas is a cure worse than the disease for the Palestinians who came to power by murdering more moderate Palestinians and goad Israel by intentionally targeting (as opposed to collateral damage) daycare centers, schools, and using children as suicide bombers trusting the soldiers won't be as inclined to abuse kids (and when they do to make sure they're not living bombs then that's propaganda gold or at least taking out a few more soldiers).

I can understand Leftists sympathizing with Palestinians, but I've always been gobsmacked by so many Leftists even SUPPORTING Hamas. Hamas isn't a race, and it's not the Palestinians, it's a political faction that holds views very similar to many of our own homegrown neo-nazis, particularly in regard to the Jews, Israel, and the Holocaust (and since they're supposed to have cells in the US may even help our neo-nazis oppose the "ZOG" or what's called "Zionist Occupied Government" by neo-nazis).

Furthermore the views of Hamas on women are barbaric and they execute gays, whereas Israel is not only the most enlightened Middle Eastern country regarding women & gays, but even has more equality between the sexes and sexual orientations than we do in the United States. This is one of the reasons Hamas list why they want to see them destroyed, too.

Then there's Hamas marrying child-brides in mass (10 and younger girls married to full grown men). I know there's some argument over what happened, but those who claim the children were actually relatives of the actual brides never could show who the actual brides are so I'm inclined to believe it was as it was shown, especially as it's common in other fundamentalist Muslim countries (not that they make a spectacle of it as Hamas did), but it would also serve to alienate Israel and bond the Palestinians to the Hamas faction (especially if they're one of those who married a child) which strikes me as something Hamas would do.

While I don't recall the specifics (I could find out with some effort), Israel also control industrial pollution more than the US, too, something else Hamas would undo (granted they didn't say they wanted to, but I think it's safe to assume they would).

And I could go on.

posted June 14, 2010 10:10 AM         

I consider them both to be clinically insane or outright con artists.

Now katatonic, spare me the Jewish history lesson. It's another topic you know nothing about...but, I'll give you a clue about those blonde, blue eyed Israelis.

The "Jews" are decendents from ancient Israel, Judah, a tribe and Levi the law givers.

But, there were 12 tribes of ancient Israel...decendents from the sons of Abraham.

You should be able to take it from there.

posted June 14, 2010 10:20 AM         

judaism is a religion, not a race. and israelis are from everywhere, not necessarily israel, just as americans come from all over the globe. zionism is a mistake in the eyes of many jews the world over. but you know it all so - no more point in talking to you, is there?

posted June 14, 2010 10:35 AM         

The ancient tribes of Israel are also historical facts.

There is certainly no point in you attempting to "school" me in facts about ancient Israel, the Jews..Judah and Levi or the rest of the tribes of ancient Israel.

posted June 14, 2010 11:24 AM         

"What did the President know, and when did he know it?" asked Howard Baker about President Nixon during the Watergate hearings. The carefully planned May 31 ambush of Israeli naval commandos by armed Turkish martyrdom fanatics, in collusion with Jodie Evans of the radical leftist group Code Pink and along with Obama friends Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, (O'Bomber's communist domestic bomber terrorist A-Hole buddies) raises precisely the same question.

Most conspiracy theories are hogwash, but not all of them. Stalinism really was a conspiracy to infiltrate, sabotage, and ultimately conquer the West. It had some spectacular successes, like stealing nuclear secrets from the Manhattan Project, a feat for which physicist Klaus Fuchner was celebrated in Communist East Germany.

The Boomer Left's "march through the institutions" was really a secretive plan to take over U.S. universities and media in the 1970s and '80s. The Great March shifted the whole U.S. media and political culture to the left.

For decades, the network of leftists and Islamic fascists behind the Gaza ambush has been trying to create a media extravaganza to make Israel look bad before the world. Call it a conspiracy, or call it a network of like-minded radicals and Islamofascists. Whatever it was, their chance came on May 31 off the coast of Gaza.

As Robert Maginnis just wrote,

The contrived Turkish-led aid flotilla crisis was intended to force Israel to lift its arms blockade of Gaza. While the Israelis were victorious in forcing the flotilla to its demands, the political outcomes are still reverberating around the globe. For now the Islamist forces have been emboldened, Turkey has been added to the list of terrorism supporters and long-term Israeli security has been weakened.

Obama is now trying to use the flotilla crisis to force concessions from Israel.

My question is whether Obama's network of associates colluded before the fact to provoke a "suicide by cop" spectacular to put Israel at a political disadvantage.

The evidence for Hamas and Turkish connivance before the event is now widely recognized. Three days before the bloodshed, the Hamas TV channel in Gaza showed a Yemeni professor proclaiming that "as much as the heroes on the flotilla want to reach Gaza, the option of martyrdom is more desirable to them." That same day, Al Jazeera TV, seen throughout the Middle East, reported of the "Freedom Flotilla," "Before Its Departure for Gaza: Activists on Board Chant Intifada Songs and Praise Martyrdom."

Shortly before the May 31 ambush, Obama's "anti-terror Czar," John O. Brennan, made worldwide headlines by praising jihad (martyrdom warfare to convert infidels by force or terror), reciting a passage in Arabic signaling his sympathy and approval, and referring to Jeruslaem as "al Quds," its Arabic name. Jihad has a deliberate double meaning. To Western suckers, it means the inner struggle for Muslim virtue. To Iran and Saudi Arabia, Hamas, Hezb'allah, and now Turkey, it means killing the infidels unless they surrender to Islam.

The Turkish cruise boat, decorated with an enormous red Turkish flag, was owned by the IHH and backed by the Islamist government of Turkey, including Prime Minister Erdogan, who has described Israel as "a festering boil in the Middle East that spreads hate and enmity." Erdogan also claims that "It is not possible for a Muslim to commit genocide" -- while congratulating the Islamist perpetrators of genocide in the Sudan.

That was not the story spread by the Western media, and especially not oby Code Pink, the radical leftist group led by Jodie Evans, or by Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, trying to agitate for a march on the Gaza blockade in Egypt at the very same time. The radicals promised peace and love if only Israel lifted the blockade on terror materiel for Hamas.

Is there any chance that Bill Ayers and Jodie Evans and the other Americans did not know whom they were in bed with? If anybody wants to know what Islamic fascists say and do when they get a chance, just look at the daily stream of English translations from Arabic and Persian on the MEMRI website. A little sample from Imam Ahmad Ibrahimi, Coordinator of Algerian Delegation to "Freedom Flotilla": "Our Hatred of Them Is So Intense That We Wished We Could Have Been Bombs and Blown Ourselves Up among the Brothers of Apes and Pigs." Hamas TV and the Arab and Iranian propaganda channels drive that message home to their captive audiences day after day.

In the upshot, "peaceful protesters" from Code Pink provided false-flag cover to the Turkish cruise ship Mavi Marmara, filled with an estimated forty Turkish wannabe suicides and even owned by the Turkish version of Hamas. The Turks engaged in standard pre-martyrdom rituals before leaving, wearing white headbands, writing their last wills and testaments, chanting martyrdom slogans, and equipping themselves with curved knives, steel bars, night goggles, and perhaps guns.

The idea that Code Pink and the others did not see the Turkish suicides-to-be getting ready before the confrontation is absurd. They knew. In fact, according to Bill Ayers in the days before the crisis, Hamas was guaranteeing the safety of Code Pink in Gaza.

In a New York Times op-ed, Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren wrote:

The Mavi Marmara on Monday was not motivated by peace. On the contrary, the religious extremists embedded among those on board were paid and equipped to attack Israelis -- both by their own hands as well as by aiding Hamas -- and to destroy any hope of peace. Millions have already seen the Al Jazeera broadcast showing these "activists" chanting "Khaibar! Khaibar!" -- a reference to a Muslim massacre of Jews in the Arabian peninsula in the seventh century. YouTube viewers saw Israeli troops, armed with crowd-dispersing paintball guns and side arms for emergency protection, being beaten and hurled over the railings of the ship by attackers wielding iron bars.

The Turkish chant "Khaibar! Khaibar!" is the equivalent of "Auschwitz! Auschwitz!" It is the name of a famous genocide of the Jews of Mohammed's time.

In the upshot, the Israelis fell into the Turkish-Code Pink trap and lucked out with only six badly wounded soldiers. The suiciders got what they were looking for: martyrdom for Allah and outraged anti-Israel headlines around the world.

What did the White House know, and when did it know it? That's what I am wondering. We have a mass of circumstantial evidence. But I wonder: Was there culpable collusion among the Obama White House, Jodie Evans, Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, and the Turkish Muslim Brotherhood -- or was it a matter of like-minded individuals acting independently?

White House National Security staffers have long been directly involved in undercover operations, from LBJ's Gulf of Tonkin deception to Ollie North's Iran Contra outreach to the mullahs.

Shortly afterward, the White House sent its advisor Dalia Mogahed to the U.K. to appear on a radical Islamist television show. Ms. Mogahed's message to the U.K. audience was that "Sharia Law is misunderstood." Shariah law "includes the controversial 'Hadd offences,' crimes with specific penalties set by the Koran and the sayings of the prophet Mohammed. These include death by stoning for adultery and homosexuality and the removal of a hand for theft."

The Obama White House was therefore signaling to Islamist radicals that it would be willing to indulge their actions against Israel and the West.

Jodie Evans and Code Pink also ensured the presence on the flotilla of many small leftist delegations from Europe and the U.S., who flew home immediately after the Turkish ambush to spread malicious disinformation. One of these "eyewitness accounts" has since been retracted, as the true story has emerged via YouTube and the blogosphere and even filtered through some of the mainstream media.

As for the wildly biased media, Reuters has confessed to yet another "fauxtography" scandal by cropping Turkish weapons out of the photos of the fight on the cruise ship.

After the Gaza ambush hit the headlines, another amazing coincidence occurred. Within a few days, the usual liberal chorus simultaneously called for Israel to lift the weapons blockade around Gaza. The chanting chorus included:

1. Barack Obama

2. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

3. Turkish P.M. Erdogan

4. The U.N. Security Council

5. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon

6. Britain, Spain, the EU, Egypt, and Iran

This is pure Alinsky, giving the impression of unanimous "non-negotiable" demands after an agitprop stunt grabs the headlines. It's what Obama has done by publicly scapegoating the car companies, Wall Street, the banks, Rush Limbaugh, doctors who supposedly perform operations on kids just for the money, the State of Arizona, British Petroleum, and anybody else who can be shocked and scared by the President of the United States. It is Obama's SOP. The attack on Israel looked like just another example of Obama's Chicago Way.

Let's back up for a moment and look at it strategically.

Obama is in a huge mess. His ratings are in the dumps. The Democrats in Congress are running away from him. The Gulf oil fiasco has even Louisiana Dems raging against him. The economy is entering a second dip.

So Obama desperately needs a foreign affairs victory. But he has alienated all of our allies, including the U.K., France, Germany, and Japan. He's even scared the Chinese, who will lose a ton of money if the US economy gets worse. He has promised a New World Order to the Muslims, but they haven't seen any results.

What do you do if you're Barack Obama and you've been surrounded for decades by Jodie Evans, John Brennan, and Rashid Khalidi? Not to mention Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan, and Bill Ayers?

Your playbook says to create a provocation to give cover for a radical shift in U.S. policy against Israel. Whether the White House knew what was going to happen, or whether Obama just watched it benignly from a distance, we don't know. I believe there is a serious, rational question whether this was an NSC black op, just like LBJ's Gulf of Tonkin and JFK's assassination of the president of South Vietnam.

The Watergate burglaries were known to a lot of people, including Mark Felt at the FBI, who leaked it to the WaPo in the guise of Deep Throat. If the Gaza ambush was stirred up with White House knowledge or collaboration, there must be large numbers of people around the world who know all about it. Turkey's role has now been exposed. The role played by Hamas is clear. Code Pink's open collusion is a public fact.

Stand by for more revelations. I don't think they will get away with this.

posted June 14, 2010 02:31 PM         

jwhop i don't know what happened to arrest your intellectual development but what is the point of posting articles to back up your argument when you have none? just the same old drivel that you made up your mind about at some point in grade school and nothing will EVER get in to make you think you might not know everything. poor old sod. enjoy your blinkered life. but be careful, a steady diet of bullsh1t is very dangerous to your health,.

posted June 14, 2010 04:31 PM         

But, do refute it with facts, not with blather, bloviation and misrepresentations.