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Yesterday at noon, hours after the tanks and armored personnel carriers (apc) rolled out, as-Siam was still busy cleaning and removing the dirt and garbage left by the soldiers and assessing the damage. Broken furniture, cracked doors, cigarette burns on fabric and furniture, smashed glasses in the kitchen, walls sprayed with Hebrew slogans.

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The operations of the Israeli Defence Forces constitute at the least war crimes, if not crimes against humanity, according to international criminal law. As acknowledged by the Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the OPT, these interventions are disproportionate [1].

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Israel has the right to collectively punish, starve to death, kidnap democratically elected civilian ministers and try them "in accordance with Israeli law", destroy its neighbours’ infrastructure, instigate a humanitarian disaster, assassinate at will, violate international law without hesitation, because Israel is not Palestine, and the lives and well being of the residents of Israel, at least some of them, cannot be equated with Palestinians. Turn the tables for a moment, and you’ll understand how repellent such racism is.

Inequality has always been at the heart of this conflict, late Professor Edward Said used to say. Racism is at the heart of inequality, I must add. The media can be ignorant, biased, self-serving, indeed, but it can also be racist, utterly racist.

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Internationally acclaimed author and former Peruvian presidential candidate, Mario Vargas Llosa, over the weekend slammed Israel's "out of proportion" operation in the Gaza Strip, saying he was ashamed of being Israel's friend.

The Jerusalem Prize recipient rebuked Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's administration at a Madrid convention organized by the International Freedom Fund, a South American research fund headed by Vargas Llosa and based out of Argentina.

"Israel had become a powerful and arrogant country, and it is the role of its friends to be highly critical of its policies," Vargas Llosa said.

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Its the occupation stupid

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Corporal Shalit was on the Israeli side of the border, defending not the occupation, but the internationally recognized 1967 boundary. If it's all about the occupation, where was Shalit supposed to be stationed?

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Originally posted by ohara (from the Star):
Corporal Shalit was on the Israeli side of the border, defending not the occupation, but the internationally recognized 1967 boundary. If it's all about the occupation, where was Shalit supposed to be stationed?

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If it's all about the occupation, where was Shalit supposed to be stationed?

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It IS all about the occupation, and its a fallacy to argue that Shalit, properly stationed on Israeli soil, represents the entire IDF.

Occupying a country doesn't give you the right to insist that all battles take place on THEIR soil*. They're allowed to counter attack.

He's a soldier, a combattant, in a war zone. He got attacked by the other side. That's unfortunate, but hardly illegitimate.

* ALthough I do note that despite constantly yelling about how many times Israel has been 'attacked', the Israelis have never, ever, fought a single battle on their OWN SOIL, except for palestinian guerilla assaults like this one.

[ 10 July 2006: Message edited by: S1m0n ]