As the Wall Street Journal wrote on May 6th,
"For reasons both telling and mysterious, Israel has become unpopular among that segment of public opinion that calls itself progressive. This is the same progressive segment that believes in women's rights, gay rights, the rights to a fair trial and to appeal, freedom of speech and conscience, judicial checks on parliamentary authority. These are rights that exist in Israel and nowhere else in the Middle East. So why is it that the country that is most sympathetic to progressive values gets the least of progressive sympathies?"
it is therefore very strange that, because of their rabid anti Israel views, these progressives have turned into apologists for Islamic fundamentalists (such as hamas and hezbollah) who loath and despise every progressive belief that these folks hold dear.
if peace were ever to exist, palestine or even worse the "one state solution" (which would result in the demographic destruction of the state of israel) would be just another arab cesspool, where women are despised and oppressed, other religions disrespected (and forbidden) and gay people murdered.
in Israel gay marriage is already recognized and NOW,
Overseas adoptions by gay couples get OK from Israel
United Press International (4/25)
To support the Palestinian Cause is to be anti women, anti gay and anti democracy.
Finally, To focus so much attention on the Palestinians at the expense of the genocide in Darfur (Muslim killing Muslim), the Muslim on Muslim violence in Iraq, the executions of Muslim gay teens in Iran, the violence towards women in Iran--(just for showing their hair), the sentences of stoning or beatings for rape victims in both Nigeria and Saudi Arabia (where woman are also forbidden to drive), The burning to death of young girls in a school in Saudi Arabia, as the religious police would not allow male fireman to save them, because the girls were not wearing their burkahs, the epidemic of honor killings by brothers and fathers of young girls in both Britain, Canada and Turkey is not only morally reprehensible but indefensible.
Hamas and Its Discontents
Charges and countercharges about who's responsible for civilian deaths in Gaza.
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It was 11:30 p.m. on Jan. 17, in a complex of apartment buildings at the Nuseirat refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, and Israel had just declared it would impose a unilateral ceasefire to begin at 2 a.m. The incessant sorties of Israeli jet bombers stopped almost immediately, but then suddenly there was a terrific whoosh, louder even than a bomb explosion. It was another of Hamas's homemade Qassam rockets being launched into Israel—and the mobile launchpad was smack in the middle of the four buildings, where every apartment was full, most of them with newly made refugees.
On this occasion, fortunately, there was no Israeli retaliation. At places all over Gaza, however, Palestinian civilians have not been so lucky. Israel blames Hamas for using housing areas, hospitals, schools and mosques to launch attacks into Israel or against its soldiers, provoking defensive counter-fire that it says is responsible for most of the civilian casualties. Hamas retorts that Israel was using indiscriminate force with complete disregard for civilians in the way, especially in its efforts to assassinate Hamas leaders. There are plenty of examples to support both their contentions.
In eastern Jabaliya, just north of Gaza City, an entire neighborhood—at least 50 homes—had been bombed by the Israelis, then occupied with tank units, and then methodically demolished house-by-house, some of them with bulldozers, others with high explosives. In several hours of interviews, every one of the residents interviewed in eastern Jabaliya insisted that there had been no provocation from the area, no resistance fighters, and no rocket launchings. "They are punishing us because they can't reach the resistance to punish them," said Majdi Qatari, a lawyer whose home was one of those destroyed, leaving 13 people homeless. Near him, Najah Abd Rabo shook her head and said Israeli actions were beyond comprehension. "They were claiming there are tunnels under here," she said. Hamas fighters use tunnels, often short ones that are little more than bunkers, to pop out and launch attacks and then get back in, hiding from Israel's ubiquitous surveillance drones, reemerging in a house or backyard as an unarmed civilian. "There aren't any tunnels around here, we are not resistance," she said. Yet not more than 20 feet away from Najah, there was just such a tunnel, which Israeli troops had unearthed. Right in the middle of the road, it had a convincingly camouflaged roof that matched the rest of the road. Inside it was shored up with timbers and concrete.
Down the road from the non-existent tunnel was Khalid Abd Rabo, who claimed that Israeli troops fired on his daughters and mother as they left his home under a white flag, killing Suad, 9, and Amal, 2, and gravely wounding Samer, 4, who has since been evacuated to Belgium for treatment. "The children died before my eyes," he said. "Four days later they came back and destroyed the house." Khalid, who had been a policeman with the anti-Hamas Fatah party, said the Israeli troops fired at them from only 22 yards away. His mother was wounded; he could not explain why they spared him. Surrounded by neighbors, he had no criticism of Hamas, but later on one of his relatives took a journalist aside and said that Hamas's actions had brought retaliation on such communities, while accomplishing nothing militarily. "We blame Israel but we also blame Hamas, because Hamas was not able to defend the people," he said, asking that his name not be used for fear of reprisal by Hamas militants.
Hamas officials accuse the Israelis of reflexively blaming them for provoking attacks, and even when they are retaliating, using excessive force. "I don't understand how Palestinians would use other Palestinians as a human shield," said Ahmed Yousef, Hamas's deputy foreign minister. "They consider all Palestinians collateral damage."
The most notorious of attacks killing civilians was the bombing of a UNRWA-run school, Faqhourah School, which was being used to house people newly homeless from the fighting. Forty-three persons were killed in the attack, and some of them lay dying while troops denied them medical assistance. At least two other UNRWA schools were hit by Israeli bombs. UNRWA head John Ging said the Israeli excuse that the schools were being used as firing positions against them is implausible. "These people had already fled the fighting, some of them lost everything they had. Do you think they'd tolerate someone setting up positions there?" In addition, he said, UNRWA staff strictly controlled access to the schools and would not have allowed armed men in.
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