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Israeli troops have killed five Palestinians, including a 75-year-old woman, in Gaza, Palestinians say.

The reported deaths come a day after at least 23 Palestinians were killed by the Israeli military in Gaza.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
You're right "they" are still killing people in Gaza every day...Ever since Israel gave the Palestinians what they wanted and unilaterally withdrew from Gaza, fanatics have been sending terrorists over the border into Israel to kill Israelis.

There is a consistent pattern. Everytime Israel withdraws (which I agree they should do) - the only result seems to be that the terrorists take advantage of the situation to establish bases of operation that are even closer to Israel. They could just say "thank you very much for withdrawing and nmow we will lay down our weapons and strive to make Gaza the Singapore of the Middle East", but life would be soooo boring without daring terrorist attacks to plan. Who knows some of those terrorists might actually have to work in in a factory or a field or a shop instead of doing "sexy" stuff like planning commando attacks on civilains.

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Here's a link to an article that debunk the notion that Israel gave Palestinians "what they wanted":

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/736009.html

“Israel left Gaza only partially, and in a distorted manner. The disengagement plan, which was labeled with fancy titles like "partition" and "an end to the occupation," did result in the dismantling of settlements and the Israel Defense Forces' departure from Gaza, but it did almost nothing to change the living conditions for the residents of the Strip. Gaza is still a prison and its inhabitants are still doomed to live in poverty and oppression. Israel closes them off from the sea, the air and land, except for a limited safety valve at the Rafah crossing. They cannot visit their relatives in the West Bank or look for work in Israel, upon which the Gazan economy has been dependent for some 40 years. Sometimes goods can be transported, sometimes not. Gaza has no chance of escaping its poverty under these conditions. Nobody will invest in it, nobody can develop it, nobody can feel free in it. Israel left the cage, threw away the keys and left the residents to their bitter fate. Now, less than a year after the disengagement, it is going back, with violence and force.

What could otherwise have been expected? That Israel would unilaterally withdraw, brutally and outrageously ignoring the Palestinians and their needs, and that they would silently bear their bitter fate and would not continue to fight for their liberty, livelihood and dignity? We promised a safe passage to the West Bank and didn't keep the promise. We promised to free prisoners and didn't keep the promise. We supported democratic elections and then boycotted the legally elected leadership, confiscating funds that belong to it, and declaring war on it. We could have withdrawn from Gaza through negotiations and coordination, while strengthening the existing Palestinian leadership, but we refused to do so. And now, we complain about "a lack of leadership?" We did everything we could to undermine their society and leadership, making sure as much as possible that the disengagement would not be a new chapter in our relationship with the neighboring nation, and now we are amazed by the violence and hatred that we sowed with our own hands.”

I've posted this chronology on another thread, but it's relevant here, too:

http://www.counterpunch.org/lin07252006.html

[ 29 July 2006: Message edited by: Michael Nenonen ]

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By the way, the Israelis never ended their occupation of Gaza. They forced settlers to withdraw because it was too much trouble to guard them. But they retained control of Gaza. Nobody can go in or out without Israeli permission. The airport is closed. They cut off the tax money that is paid by Palestinians and rightfully should have gone to the Palestinian Authority. In other words, they turned Gaza, already one of the most densely populated areas in the world, into a Middle East version of the Warsaw Ghetto. And they regularly bombed it or sprayed it with artillery.

Yet, so effective is Israeli propaganda and so ineffective is American news coverage, Israel is once again playing the poor victim.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
Israel has to be reassured beyond a shadow of a doubt that there will never be another terrorist attack coming out of Gaza again until the end of time.

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How about assuring Lebanese and Palestinians that Israeli army will never wake another old man up in the middle of the night with rifle butts and flatten his shack with U.S.-made bulldozers ?.

How about some assurance that Palestinian children will never have to observe another Israeli soldier urinating into downspouts on rooftop perches, their apartment building's drinking water supply ?.

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You repeated insistance that Arab people are a Borg like blob is racist.

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How about assuring Lebanese and Palestinians that Israeli army will never wake another old man up in the middle of the night with rifle butts and flatten his shack with U.S.-made bulldozers ?.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:

It wasn't my idea. There has been a very long running current in the Arab world championed by everyone from Nasser to Khadafy to the Ba'athists in Iraq and Syria that the division of the Arab world into 20 odd countries is a vestige of colonialism and that Arabs are one nation. There were even attempts in the early 60s to unite Egypt and Syria as one United Arab Republic.

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freedom fighters

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Oh so you attribute your racist idea to Arabs. More racism. You can't even take responsibility for what you say.

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I fail to see what is racist about saying that Arabs are one ethnicity. I believe that is an anthropological and sociological fact. Otherwise why would we ever even use the term "Arabs" to describe anyone??? Arabs certainly call themselves Arabs.

In fact, I read that up until 1948 the very term "Palestinian" was only ever used to describe the JEWISH inhabitants of palestine. What did the Arab inhabitants of Palestine call themselves you might ask? Apparently they called themselves very generically "Arabs living in Palestine". It was only in the late 60s that the term Palestinian ever came into common usage. before that they were simply "Arabs". Its not even clear what the Arab state that was proposed in the 1947 UN partition plan would have been called (non-Saudi Arabia perhaps?).

In fact I suspect that any ethnologist would tell you that there is far more homogeneity among Areabs than there is among Jews. Arabs all speak Arabic, all live in the Middle East, are almost all Muslim and almost all eat various incarnantions of eggplant and lamb and chickpeas etc... Jews on the other hand speak vastly different languages, eat different foods and live all over the world. Some would even argue that Jews from countries like Morrocco or and Yemen are really Jewish Arabs.

Arab children are still executed for insulting the Saudi royals. These are friends of Israel's closest military allies. It's simple, really. The people want social democracy, not militant Islam. Who wants militant Islam, Stockholm?. Who benefits from that ?.

[ 29 July 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
... ... If you can show me evidence that there are terrorist groups in Israel that want to eliminate the entire Arab world and create an Israeli empire that stretches from Morocco to Iraq then I would agree that it should also be disarmed. But there has never been any question of whether or not there would be ANY Arab Muslim country on the face of the earth.

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Third, early Zionist leaders referred to an Israeli intent to rule large territories. Around 1900, Theodor Herzl and Isidore Bodenheimer routinely referred to Jewish settlement in "Palestine and Syria," as did organizations like the Jewish National Fund and the Zionist Congress. In 1898, Herzl planned to ask the Ottoman sultan for a territory stretching from the Egyptian frontier to the Euphrates.[11] Four years later he spoke of settling Jews in Mesopotamia.

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