While We Are Obsessed With 12 Dead in Paris
No one seems to be interested in this story:
I guess the world just has its priorities.
Oh well, now that the Palestinian Authority has been farcically allowed to join the International Criminal Court, I am sure we will soon see Boko Haram doing the same thing to prove their legitimacy as an upholder of the rule of law.
Update: I am now reading that Boko Haram did not in fact kill 2,000 people in this incident, they only killed several hundred. Okay, I feel so much better now.
"Nigeria: 2,000 feared killed in Boko Haram's 'deadliest massacre'
Hundreds of bodies – too many to count – remain strewn in the bush in Nigeria from an Islamic extremist attack that Amnesty International described as the “deadliest massacre” in the history of Boko Haram.
The five-year insurgency killed more than 10,000 people last year alone, according to the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations. More than a million people are displaced inside Nigeria and hundreds of thousands have fled across its borders into Chad, Cameroon and Nigeria."
I guess the world just has its priorities.
Oh well, now that the Palestinian Authority has been farcically allowed to join the International Criminal Court, I am sure we will soon see Boko Haram doing the same thing to prove their legitimacy as an upholder of the rule of law.
Update: I am now reading that Boko Haram did not in fact kill 2,000 people in this incident, they only killed several hundred. Okay, I feel so much better now.
Comments
It's because Green Eagle is a Palestinian-hating bigot who defends the terrorist state of Israel's desire to conduct ethnic cleansing. In order to do that, he has to smear the Palestinians as would-be mass murderers.
In the Central African Republic, Christian militias have either killed or driven into exile 80% of the nation's Muslim population. See this PRI story.
But Green Eagle doesn't mention it. The criminals are not Muslim, so he doesn't care.
Meanwhile, in Myanmar, the government is herding the Rohingya into concentration camps. According to Time, these are slowly turning into death camps. The Rohingya are Muslims, and their killers aren't (they're Buddhist), so I'm not surprised Green Eagle doesn't care.
When it's Israel who kills innocent children, Green Eagle loves it. He says Israel is only defending itself Hamas. When I pointed out that Israel (and its predecessor terrorist organizations like Irgun and Lehi) had killed innocent Palestinian children for decades before Hamas even existed, he says that's completely irrelevant ancient history. There's an excuse for everything.
The only time Green Eagle pretends to care about innocent Muslims being killed is when other Muslims are killing them. That way, he can portray Muslims as inherently bloodthirsty, then throw in a mention of Palestine in a pathetic attempt to "justify" the Zionist ethnic cleansing project he supports.
This post shows what an anti-Palestinian bigot Green Eagle is. He has to attack Palestinians even when the topic has nothing to do with them.
1. Green Eagle covers many things, but not everything. There is only so much time in a day. And he has an actual job.
2. If the Palestinians threw the Israelis out of the West Bank, Abbas would last about a month. He would then be dead or in exile and Hamas would take over. Within six months many of Fatah members would be dead, having been murdered by Hamas. Within two years Hamas would start firing rockers at Israel and then there wold be a real bloodbath. Many Hamas members, but not its leadership (who would be hiding in holes) would be killed. Why do you want all those Palestinians dead?
3. I asked the following question at notoriously anti-Israe blog Cannonfire: "If Israel is the most vile, despicable country that exists, why is that? Is it A. Because Jews as a race are inherently evil and inferior (the Hitler approach), B. Because Judaism itself is inherently evil (the Shahak approach), C. The culture of Israel is evil as a result of the persecution visited upon them throughout history, sort of an abused child syndrome theory (in which case, of course, it should not ever allow Palestinians power over them since the Palestinians, having been tormented by the Jews, would no doubt be overly cruel to them) or D. Something else, which would be...what?" I never go an answer.
First of all, I'm a little put off by Sam's 250 word comment attacking me for showing sympathy for 2,000 people massacred in Nigeria. I guess they don't count for some reason. I wonder what that might be.
Second, I brought up Hamas because to me the genocidal murderers from Hamas are absolutely equivalent to Boko Haram. They are both gangs of crazed killers hiding behind their religion to justify almost incomprehensible barbarism.
The situation in the Central African Republic was generated completely when a Muslim minority, using weapons and financing from outside Muslim groups, violently took over the country and instituted a vicious form of Sharia law.
I have spoken about Myanmar and the Rohyngya before, although not recently.
Israel does not kill innocent children. Hamas kills innocent children by setting up their military facilities in civilian areas, which is a war crime, in the clear hope of inciting deaths among their own populace, so they can pretend they are the victims of wars which they always start. If you deny that, Sam, you are a vicious liar.
As for what happened before Hamas, the PLO used, and in fact, virtually created this strategy.
"Predecessor terrorist organizations" are mentioned by people like Sam, because they can find nothing severe enough in Israel's behavior to justify the Palestinians' hate and violence.
The number of Muslims and non-Muslims killed by other Muslims in recent decades dwarfs whatever damage Israel has done. This includes the 10,000 Boko Haram has killed in just the last year, nearly five times the number killed as a result of Hamas' war against Israel. Over two million have been killed in Sudan, tens of thousands in Egypt, a hundred thousand or so in Algeria, 150,000 or so in Syria, uncounted thousands butchered by ISIS, continuing mass violence in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and on and on. And none of these has the justification of being carried out in self defense. Yet to liars like Sam, it is only Israel that commits acts of barbarity.
Well, you can see what it takes to even list my responses to Sam's vicious charges against me, let alone provide the proof- a task I do not have the time for, as Sam is purposely trying to suck me into dealing with his lies for hours every day, so I cannot use my own blog to say what I want to say. Sam's comments are really designed to stifle any views contrary to his, and the more so because we all know that no matter what kind of proof I provide, Sam will refuse to acknowledge it and just carry on telling the same lies.
When I worked in Israel and the West Bank, I got to know a number of Palestinians, as well as Bedouins and Israeli Arabs. As I have stated on my blog many times, I found them to be without exception decent people who, like most all people, just want to live decent lives. Since that time I have taken every opportunity to present my experiences to other people, as my little effort to combat the common notion that all Palestinians are crazed terrorists. I stand by that record. Sam, I suspect, has never met a real Palestinian living in the Middle East in his life, and has chosen to live in a malignant fantasy world. And yes, I think a dead Muslim killed by his own people is just as dead as one killed by Israeli bombs in Gaza, and I also think the millions of dead Muslims killed by other Muslims represents a far more tragic situation than what has happened in Israel. So, basically, screw you, Sam. You are a person without honor who has no respect for the truth. Don't expect this kind of reply to your smears in the future.
Vastly more children starve to death or die of preventable diseases from simple poverty than terrorism and war put together and months can go by without a single mention in local news.
I’m sad for France, which country I enjoyed, and I’m also very concerned about the counter-extremism this will agitate. They don’t need the likes of National Front, and fuck knows what else is brewing.
"It became necessary to destroy the town to save it" -- unknown U.S. Major to Peter Arnett, justifying civilian deaths at Ben Tre.
You are claiming that Israel has to continue violating international law and killing Palestinians. If Israel doesn't kill Palestinians, all of those Palestinians would die, therefore, if you like Palestinians, you should support the government that is killing them. This makes no sense.
Why, if you supported Vietnamese civilians, you should have supported their mass murder.
Here's Anne-Marie Kriek's classic South Africa Shouldn't Be Singled Out. She states that Blacks in South Africa have it good, and continues,
"Control over the movement of people is a common practice throughout Africa. In Tanzania, Kenya, and Nigeria shanty towns are demolished, people forced to relocate.
"There are endless lists of human rights violations - mounting atrocities of black against black. Political prisoners are tortured in Zimbabwe. There are 200,000 to 300,000 people behind barbed wire in Mozambique. Escaped SWAPO detainees tell of torture - in some cases until death. "
The implication is clear. If you support the end of apartheid, you will be causing hundreds of thousands of deaths among Black people. Therefore you should support apartheid.
That's just how your argument sounds.
----
"3. I asked the following question at notoriously anti-Israel blog Cannonfire: "If Israel is the most vile, despicable country that exists, why is that?" -- Joseph
It isn't the most vile, despicable country in the world. North Korea's government is much worse. However, I don't have any leverage over that government, and that government isn't receiving my tax dollars.
Joseph, back in the 1990s, I was protesting against Indonesia's genocide in East Timor. A bunch of people asked me why I didn't protest against what China did to Tibet, which was (and still is) a popular cause.
I replied that the U.S. government wasn't giving aid to China, but it was giving military aid to Indonesia. Since the United States is my homeland, I could do more about Indonesia, which the government supported, than about China, which the government didn't.
Similarly, the U.S. government's giving aid to Israel triggers a similar response. That's my tax dollars going to support war criminals. I can work to stop this government policy, since Israel couldn't commit its crimes without the U.S. government shielding it from responsibility. I don't know what more the U.S. government can do regarding, say, Sudan -- it's already imposed sanctions on the government, and military action would make things even worse.
There is a further wrinkle -- I am a Jew. When Israel kills innocent people, and when it keeps people in the concentration camps of Gaza for over four decades, it is claiming to do so in my name. Zionism goes so far to claim that Israel is my nation. Israel is not my nation -- the United States is.
Here's Lord Montagu on why Zionism is anti-Semitic. He wrote it in 1917, and the reasons hold up today. A nation committed to Zionism is therefore a nation committed to an anti-Semitic ideology. Why should I support such a nation?
I don't know how to reply to misrepresentation and nonsense. But as far as Montagu is concerned, he worried that countries would expel Jews. Would that his concerns had been realized, millions that were killed would be alive. He also didn't believe in a Jewish community, I do. Lastly, you still haven't addressed the question, why would Israel do all the horrible things you accuse the only Jewish nation in the world of doing?
Apartheid-era South Africa was racist. Furthermore, during the Boer War, the British military would try to put Afrikaaners into concentrtation camps. Why would South Africa do all the horrible things the only Afrikaaner nation in the world of doing?
When Zionism began, only about 3% of the population of Palestine was Jewish; the other 97% was Gentile. The aim of Zionism was a Jewish state -- one run by and for Jews. However, the 3% of Palestinians who were Jews weren't very interested to establish a Jewish state. Palestine was populated; it had more people in 1860 than Vermont did, even though both entities were about the same size.
Now, if you're trying to establish a country for the benefit of one ethnic group, and you're trying to establish it in a well-populated country where 97% of the people aren't of that ethnic group, there are going to be problems.
You can't risk popular democracy, because the majority are not going to agree to be discriminated against. Why else would Whites trying to impose Jim Crow in the South deny Blacks the right to vote? Furthermore, the majority are going to resist this imposition. (In Africa, resistance to European colonialism was near-universal. That doesn't mean it was immediately successful.) It's necessary to use violence in order to impose your will on the population.
By 1948, the population in the proposed "Jewish state" was about 60% Jewish and 40% Gentile, mostly Arab. This still poses a problem for those who wish to establish a state serving one ethnic group. If all the Gentiles get just 18% of the Jews to work with them to stop the state from being specifically Jewish, it's not going to be a Jewish state.
The Zionists didn't want a state where Jews had equal rights; for the first four decades of Zionism, such a country more or less existed -- it was called the United States. They wanted a land where the Jews were supreme. So it was necessary to reduce the number of Arabs who could vote. If they just disenfranchised the Arabs who were already there, it wouldn't look too good. It was much easier to expel many of them from this state -- which was the goal of Ben Gurion's Plan Dalet. The founders of Israel were conducting ethnic cleansing, and they knew it.
When Israel finally succeeded in controlling the land between the Jordan and the Mediterranean -- another long-term Zionist goal -- the "demographic problem" returned. The occupied territories were placed under military rule; Zionists couldn't let the occupied people vote on their own fate because they wouldn't accept their homeland being used for the purpose of helping an invading ethnic group.
Theoretically, Israel could renounce being the "state of the Jewish people" and become the state of all its citizens. It could cease being a state dedicated to the service of a single ethnic group. Israel could become a real democracy, just like post-apartheid South Africa and post-Jim Crow South Carolina.
However, if Israel becomes a democracy, that would end the end of Zionism, just like South Africa's becoming a democracy meant the end of apartheid.
It is impossible for any government dedicated to the promotion of one ethnic group to privilege it without using violence against those who resist.
I'm going to recommend a book which doesn't mention either Israel or Palestine:
The Memoirs of George Grivas.
Grivas was the head of a terrorist group called EOKA, which wanted the British colonialists out of Cyprus (good) and the union of the island with Greece, with ethnic Greeks privileged (bad).
At one point, EOKA, with only 400 fighters, brought a 40,000-strong British occupation source to a standstill.
Eventually, negotiations produced a plan where (a) Britain would maintain two military bases on the island, but otherwise leave; (b) Cyprus would be an independent country, not connected with Greece; and (c) Greeks and Turks would have equal rights.
EOKA didn't like it. Too bad for them. The majority of Greek Cypriots, who had been strong supporters of EOKA when the only alternative was continued British colonialism, felt the plan was good enough. Those people accepted the plan, and rejected continued violence by EOKA.
Write it down: The Memoirs of George Grivas.
Learn brevity. You don't know what you're talking about. You use words that don't mean what you think they mean. And you are so committed to your anti-semitism that I might as well talk to the wall.
And Sam, I doubt that anyone believes that you are Jewish. I certainly don't.
If you want to post again, why not (as I requested) explain your actual contact with Palestinians, Israeli Arabs and Bedouins in the Middle East. My opinions of them derive from that first hand contact. I believe yours (e.g. that there are concentration camps in Gaza) come from nothing but your consumption of one-sided propaganda.