Be Excellent To Each Other

Israel have always had an Iron Fist policy, with the idea being that you respond to small attacks by a disproportional amount of force to make the other side realise they're outmatched and should just back the fuck down. That's what I meant when I said they still haven't got the message yet. I never said it was right, it's just how they're doing it


Oh I don't know, you could engineer it fairly well I think. Massacre all the palestinians in an horrific display of violence, and then fabricate a new government to replace the 'shocking and evil actions' of the old one, pay a bit of reparation to the survivors, and voila, problem solved.

If they really do want the land, why did they so recently pull out all of their settlements from those areas? Presumably clearing room to start blanket bombing later?

Oh I'm aware that's how they've always done it, and they're going well over the top this time to show the rest of the ME that their failure to meet their objectives in Lebanon shouldn't be seen as a sign of weakness.

I'm aware of their reasons, but they're cuntish all the same.



This is, I'm afraid, somewhat in cloud cuckoo land mate.



Some of those settlements. Some. Mainly the ones it was too expensive to provide their own Israeli Army guards for as they were in teh middle of nowhere. There are still a lot of illegal settlements on West Bank land, that they have now built this wall around.

Not en-masse as a state, sure. I bet there's a fair level of straight forward emigration though. And I did say "hope"



Totally.

Yes, don't worry, I was being mildly sarcastic

Is there, though? I'd been under the impression there wasn't (possibly due to the book From Beirut to Jerusalem by Thomas Friedman - can't remember). And there are still shit loads of Palestinian refugees knocking around in Southern Lebanon.

It can be slightly hard to tell, sometimes. If *you* were running a country I'd fully expect some continent-scale FURIOUS ANGER.

Israel won't let them out (might be terrorists). Not that Egypt/Jordan will let them in.

Jesus fuck. Is Kafka required reading for Israeli ministers?

Of course, you could simplify the whole thing by saying that the strong always dominate the weak and fairness be damned. It's always happened, always will happen, and its just tough fucking bacon for the weakest.

Slightly harsh of course, but wholly accurate.

The mere fact that something happens doesn't justify it happening, of course, otherwise we'd legalise rape.

Actually I think the Egyptians have a closed border with the Gaza Strip as well - it's virtually impossible for a normal Gazan to emigrate at the moment.

Yep - didn't a bunch of Gazans bust out into Egypt to go shopping a while ago?

Again, I never said it was right, merely that it was fact

The BBC HYS is, as usual, full of polarised views, some of them very, very simplistic. I'd hate to be the poor bastard that has a moderation queue of > 8000 comments.

Indeed, I was just suggesting, in a roundabout way, that that doesn't matter.


I want to stay sane and calm and not catch mental rot, so I don't read HYS. I do read SYB occasionally though...

Colour me wrong on that one then.

So, on the basis that the population isn't going to reduce very fast by walking out of there, Israel needs there to be a higher level of military engagement?

Or less food, medicine, power and water. Ooh - would you look at that!

I don't read HYS either as a rule, just because I know already that its filled with the brain-spurting majority who often churn out whatever bias they've most recently read elsewhere.

The Daily Mash wins again though.

Originally, it was only virgins and nuns.

Yes, but that did change. The last (and by then quite small, after successive narrowings) marital loophole was closed by judges in the early 90s, as no government could be arsed to do it.

Either way I think it does work as an example - rape happens, it's illegal, and if the fact of something happening justified it we'd abolish the rape laws. Or for "rape" substitute any other crime.

Although if the hornets had stolen your house and had held you hostage under the stairs for 60 years you'd have reason to.



Martine Croxall on the BBC is the one person I've heard actually point this out, asking the Israeli's UN representative if they really want the rockets to stop because "That wouldn't be very convenient would it?"

I note that Israel's stated objective is to "degrade" Hamas's ability to launch rockets, not to "stop" them...

In the same way, I bet Hamas depend at least partially on Israeli attacks for their support.

Over time, it began to shift, ending up in, off the top of my head R vR which was in 1991, where a bloke raped his wife and tried to et off on account of them being married.

Now it's protected under the 1994 act.

The Egyptians don't want the Gazans to enter Egypt as they may claim refugee status. The Israelis don't want them to enter Israel en-route to the airport in case they blow themselves up on the way.

Absolutely.

Its a bit like Northern Ireland. The ordinary people just want to live a life without being blown up, but the people currently in charge will lose power if that happens. So they feed the cycle and damn the consequences.

Erm... boat?

I was surprised some months ago to read, somewhere, I recall not where, that there was a little trip made by one of Hitler's gentleman associates to the region. Hitler realised he needed to rid Germany of the Jews and they were always banging on about this promised land of theirs. So off the chap went, and when he got there the British Empire:



were in charge. He asked whether it mightn't be a good idea for Germany to send these Jewish folk over so they could live in their promised land and the Krauts could get on with being teutonic in peace without all those big noses getting in the way, or something. The response:

"Nope, no way. No sir, never going to work. Stupid idea. Trillions dead over centuries if you do... Sorry old chap, you'll have to think of something else"

"Vell, ve can't encourage zem to move elsewhere, zey vont to stay put or come here. Ve vill have to kill zem instead, it is ze final zolution, Gott in himmel!"

"I say, that's rather drastic, but perhaps the less death-laden option in the long run <sigh>"


and so on. So the British (who admittedly didn't have an entirely peaceful time of it over there) were able to occupy and not only that, explain to the Germans that while they were able to get away with doing so, one Jew with a back garden living anywhere in that area would be fucking dead within a week.

And yet they still tried to set up a state there. "We're here because of the holocaust"

Well, no, the holocaust was because you can't ever be there, and there be peace



As for Hamas - they are firing rockets because Isreal is blockading their food. So, how come Isreal isn't blockading the rockets? Or if rockets can get past a blockade, surely food can get pst one as well, isn't it better to feed your children, bring them up to hate peacefully and once the entire area is about one peaceful palestinian per square meter, what are Isreal going to do?

It's so fucking bovious - fighting isn't working, and yet they are so fucking stupid they continue. Dumb bastards, they deserve no more happiness than the Isrealis.

I'd go in there tomorrow, rescue all children from Iseal and the West Bank and Gaza, then shoot all the adults, then nuke Jerusalem, then maybe they'll all shut the fuck up.

It's the only way to be sure.

Yip I gotta say I agree with Yard (mostly).

They're both as bad as eachother tbh. It's absolutely awful that people have to die because of this stupid 'row' they're tangled in but unless one side decides to back down it'll just go on forever.

I'm no historian but you'd think the jews would try and get out of this without any more of them dying. Not like the holocaust didn't already kill millions of them so you would think that they would try everything they could to get out of this without another single jew losing his/her life.

Instead they just remain stubborn and hot headed, and the palestinians are the same. To that ends what can you do? if they won't listen and obviously don't care then all you can do is just let them get the fuck on with it and learn their own lessons or step in. And fuck would I bother doing the latter.

I think from their point of view they're getting a much better deal out of it this time - something like 10 to one on the comparative casualties over the years...

just do what the song says, build another Jerusalem in (some other - Ed) green and pleasant land. Whoever thought that arbitrarily handing over the city that has changed hands dozens of times was going to work was an idealistic fool.

No, leave it where it fucking is.

"thoughtless" rather than "idealistic", I think.

And shall my sword sleep in my hand? Not a good idea. You're going to chop your bits off.

I don't think a chariot of fire would get past health and safety either. bow of shining gold though....

I don't imagine gold has the elastic properties when placed under tension or compression to make a suitable bow-crafting material. A traditional wood or horn bow would easily out perform it, at significantly less cost as well.

So that's why it costs £40 a year. Mystery solved!

Oh good and now the fuckers have bombed a UN run school.

Yeah, that's "Avoiding civilians". I'm finding it increasingly tricky to not actively cheer for the people crammed into a tiny corner of their country and forced to rely purely on foreign aid which they have little to no means of distributing anyway.

Gaza, yesterday. And tomorrow. And today.

The news on the radio said that was the second UN-run facility they've hit this week (I can't remember if the first was a school or not).

BBC though, so who knows how correct that is. Shocking fact-checking recently.

Israel's reaction to the rockets reminds me of the sad tale I heard in court one day.

A youth (A) laughed at another youth's (B) shoes. Youth B responded by going into his house and getting a 12 inch kitchen knife before returning to plunge said blade into teenager's (A) chest.

An extremely violent and completely disproportionate response.

Well at the least the BBC have someone IN Gaza, if by stealth.

They've got means of distributing rockets though, haven't they?

I used to work with this old Jew who banged his drum day and night. He explained that the arabs could never be allowed to be Isreali citizens and vote because they'd get in power and wipe out the Jews, and that they don't see themselves as individually important, so long as the Jews are all killed. It reminded me of a story my father told of when he was stationed in Aden, guarding the gates to his RAF base. An arab came running up the road to the gates with a grenade in his hand, he pulled out the pin, carried on running towards my father and his mate, who had levelled their rifles. The arab then exploded.

As they were checking out the mess and arguing who would have to clean it up, this other arab guy wandered over and joined them in gazing down at the world's shittest (suicide?) bomber. He looked up at my Dad, shrugged and said "plenty more arab" then sauntered off. How do you fight against that?

There's really no solution over there, is there?

About 4 of them yes. That's not going to go far distributing food.



No different from the attitude of the US to their people in Iraq.



Well they could start by near stealing a country, imprisoning the entire population in the world's largest concentration camp and then committing what skates within feet of "Genocide" on that camp.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=SQyIKyd2gqA

Top tip: Don't throw rocks at the men with guns. But man, that girl has balls of steel.

Feex, surely.

missing an h from that, but even with it, I'm getting a error at youtube's end, somthing to do with a Malformed video id.

Malc