IN GO THE GROUND TROOPS....
Saturday, January 3, 2009 at 08:28PM 
God's blessing on all those brave IDF troops now moving in to clean out the Hamas infested sewer that is Gaza. It is my strongest wish that they achieve their objectives as swiftly as possible and with as little loss of life as possible. Watch the Hamas apologists squeal, an example of which you can find here. It seems that the Jews are the new Nazis, that Hamas are the victims and that it is time the Jews got out of Israel. Nice. Leaving delusional Irish posters to one side (and the link has more than a few, the curious thing being the more they support the IRA, the more they like Hamas, go figure) I think we should all hope that Israel is successful and that Gaza is cleansed of the Islamic savages that make life there so very terrible for any decent person.
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Reader Comments (80)
hear, hear
Here, here.
Pity all the brave terrorist loving Irish posters wouldn't volunteer to sign up with Hamas if they support them so much. They 're all sows of the same litter these terrorist scumbags.
After all there isn't much to do here, now that their IRA colleagues have paid them off. Right ?
Well said, David.
I suppose these protestors are busy doing other things when Hamas rains rockets down on Israeli civilians.
Let's hope the IDF uses great violence and minimal time in clearing out the savages.
To the usual terror-loving suspects - forget it. The point of great violence against your enemy is to minimise civilian casualties.
' It seems that the Jews are the new Nazis'
David your better than the above childish prose. There are many, many Jews round the world who are not Israelis nor zionists. You attempt to portray anyone who is against Israeli action in gaza has being against Jews, which is utter horseshite you'll agree. One only hopes you'll amend or delete the sentence. After all, your claim that...
"A little historical lesson re the Nazi connection.In 1943, the Red Army broke through Rumanian lines at Stalingrad and found to their amazement an Arab SS panzer division in full Nazi regalia. They were mainly made up of Palestinians."
Was soundly shown to be bollox on the site you link. One hopes you'll see the light and drop the anti-semitic nonsense too.
RS,
You stand condemned by your visceral anti-semitism. You stand condemned for denying that Palestinians have made Mein Kampf a best seller. You stand condemned for denying that the Grand Mufti - Arafat's patron - was pals with Eichmann. In short along with the rest of the repulsive Slugger Fedayeen, you stand condemned as an apologist for Hamas savagery. But now you are on ATW, and the standards are higher and on the whole, we have little time for terrorist apologists. I leave you in the "horseshite" that passes for debate elsewhere.
David
Where is RS's anti-Semitism? I can't see any examples of this either on Slugger or here.
The Zionist supporters here are getting desperate and resorting to the last defence i.e. claim the other poster is anti-semitic.
This Zionist will resort to no such thing. Israel needs to, and should, defend its citizens no matter what it takes.
Gaza: just another example of how Muslims cannot live in peaceful coexistence with anyone not of their ilk. Let's hope Hamastan is razed!!
A sample of the delights that represent one of Ireland's most prominent blog....
"Israel continues to act outside of international law as does their ally George W. Bush. They are slaughtering civilians, they simply hate Palestinians,"
Israel is not killing Hamas fighters or combatants, it is murdering civilians.
"Actually David Vance at least is putting forward a logical position. If the Israeli goal is the extermination of the population of Gaza then at least their current actions make sense (although they could probably work faster)."
Perhaps if the Zionists offered to pay off Ukraines gas bill then they could purchase from the Ukraine a nice region on the Black sea coast, two, three times the size of the present “Promised land” and live happilly ever after.
Israel even today continues to bomb Gaza and refuses to allow medical or other supplies through to wounded civilians or hospitals. Having killed almost 400 Palestinians they now seem intent on killing even more to make a ‘point ‘
Israel is an expansionist state, determined to drive the indigenous peoples from Palestine in order to increase its own territory.
Condemning Hamas for their lack of moral rectitude in the face of Israeli barbarity is obscene.
The Israelis are more akin to the Nazis than the Palestinians
And so it goes, My apologies to ATW readers for having to re-print this venom but you get the picture.
Judenfrei uber alles on some sites.
David I would like, as Chris has asked, evidence of my anti-semitism?
Please none of this 'I won't dance to your tune' nonsense. you've made an accusation, now back it up with evidence, which you weren't able to do with your...
"A little historical lesson re the Nazi connection.In 1943, the Red Army broke through Rumanian lines at Stalingrad and found to their amazement an Arab SS panzer division in full Nazi regalia. They were mainly made up of Palestinians."
claim.
David ref your 10:57PM, nowhere do i see the word jew or the plural or even the word judaism. I take it then for someone to criticise Spain, one is therefore being anti-catholic?
Please answer.
Why are you reprinting that David, what is the point exactly?
Sorry Guys - this is my turf and these are my rules.
The "horseshite" that passes for debate on Slugger does not pass here.
I think any objective reader of the selection of comments above could not fail to conclude that it is evidence of PROFOUND anti-Semitism, a desire to see Israel wiped off the map.
The apposite expression is condemned by your own words. If you don't like it - tough
The fact that the best RS and all the other little Jew-haters on the site concerned can come up with is one inaccurate historical reference is risible. I subsequently pointed out to the historical 100% accurate fact of the Palestinian recruited 13th Waffen SS and it was ignored entirely. In fact, it's kind of ironic that when the fact of a Muslim SS division, recruited by the old thug Al-Husseini is pointed out - silence.
Hamas is the manifestation of anti-Semitism and I am sorry to say that Hamas enjoys the widespread support of those posting on the linked site.
Meanwhile, here on ATW, we view Hamas as savages and trust that the IDF will grant them their dearest wish to get to the 72 virgins pronto. They love death like we love life, they boast. Why deny them their wish? Allahu akhbar/
"Sorry Guys - this is my turf and these are my rules"
Sorry David, I must have missed that rule. Are you saying that we are only allowed to post good things about Israel and anything negative= anti-semitism?
Do you even realise what anti-semitism means?
I support the Paletinian people and they are semitic.
Even people who wish to see the destruction of the Israeli state are not necessarily anti-semitic as there are orthodox Jews who call for the same thing.
Did you cut and run because you got it wrong? Can you debate better on your own turf bacause you are in control of the debate, and when you are not in control do you hop it?
Wading through a cesspit has little attraction for me, Evidently you think otherwise. ATW is not Judenfrei and all the better for it. Now crawl back to where you came here from.
>>It is my strongest wish that they achieve their objectives as swiftly as possible and with as little loss of life as possible.<<
I suppose after the bubbe of all retreats out of Lebanon, Israel now thinks it more advisable to take on some militia even less well armed than Hezbollah.
It looks upon reading it you got hammered in debate on another site and cut and run and now you are trying to wipe the egg off your face with a ATW towel.
'Sorry Guys - this is my turf and these are my rules.'
So you therefore wrongfully accuse people of anti-semitism and think its alright?
David are you aware that throwing the term anti-ssemitie about so friviously you actually lessen its impact and trivialise the term. Which is not something anyone who dislikes anti-semities should be doing. You actually should reserve its use for people who are bigoted toward the jewish religion. Not people who are critical of a state. I ask again Davivd, If i were critical of Spain, does that make me anti-catholic?
David are you also aware the German Zionist Organisation negociated an deal with the Gestapo that any Jews exiled from Germany should be forced to head for Palestine, even though they may have wished to head for britain or America? I bet your still a fan a fan of zionism though eh?
RS, forget it. You are talking to people who care as little about Israeli civilian casualties as Hamas does.
This is all just an extension of their hatred for Arabs and Muslims.
RS,
I do not require you to improve my understanding of anti-Semitism. I read the Hamas charter, I read the support for Hamas on the linked site, end of story pal,
I am 100% in support of Israel, and trust that it wipes as many Hamas savages off the face of this earth as is possible.
RS (Really Stupid)
#1 this is NOT your turf get your own blog and that will be yours a party of one I'm sure
#2 can't speak for slugger I only read there and never post but RS has shown at the minnimum anti Israeli and pro-terrorist feelings here on a regular basis.
#3 Long Live Zion
David i think 'only asking?' hit the nail on the head.
'It looks upon reading it you got hammered in debate on another site and cut and run and now you are trying to wipe the egg off your face with a ATW towel.'
Classic.
Wow troll you have such a Wildean wit.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=3b3_1230864719
(not for the easily offended)
That scene must be like porn for some of the people on here.
>>That scene must be like porn for some of the people on here.<<
It definitely will be porn for some of them.
Others will say all those dead and dying and those with their legs hanging off are simply acting.
Wow that must be some seriously gucci hardware the Israelis are using to minimise civilian casualties, maybe the box said 'ach fire it' and the israelis thought it close enough to 'accurate' ?
But then if it hit any 'Palis', its accurate enough for some on here.
You know, at least if some people had the decency to respectfully support Israel's actions and think that it's for the greater good or something like that, but the sheer joy that certain people seem to be exhibiting at the actions of war (regardless of the politics of the situation) is disappointing and shows a real lack of perspective.
Too bad the British troops didn't go all out and bomb most of West Belfast and other republican sewers at the onset of the PIRA campaign of death and destruction, it would have saved many innocent lives in the long run.
James, you don't think it would have made things a lot worse?
David,
Far be it from me to defend every thread on Slugger from the accusation it may contain 'horseshit' (any site that doesn't contain at least modicum of the gardener's best friend is probably pruning too earnestly).
I do try to encourage high standards; but dog whistle issues like Israel Palestine often bring out the worst in people on both sides of the argument, so in the most general of terms, I'm happy to let that stand.
I should have a piece coming out on Comment is Free which attempts to tackle the problem indirectly through my own observations of the Peace Process™ in Northern Ireland.
In general, I agree with Jonathan Freedland that Israel lacks a game plan for peace. That's it's major failing; not necessarily its essentially defensive measure of targeting Hamas personnel in Gaza. The last figures I looked at at the time I wrote the piece on Friday indicated that it was hitting 3/4 of its intended targets.
For the most part, Israel's critics seem to believe that it is an ordinary western country with the same sets of free actions as the rest of the west generally does. It doesn't. After sixty plus years of trying to push it into the sea; its neighbours have failed to snuff it out.
Israel has no other existentialist choice but to fight back when it is attacked. Hamas for its part is politically powerful in Gaza; but militarily weak. According to Robert Fisk it is as riddled with informers as the IRA was by the end of its campaign which is one reason why the IDF seem able to kill its military leadership at will.
And Hamas is being punished severely for its hubris. And the people of Gaza are being punished alongside them. That is bad news for Israel as well as the innocent Palestinians civilians that are being slaughtered in their sleep.
The death of those five sisters as they slept both personifies and prolongs the tragedy of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. It ought to be a rallying point for both sides to get together to solve the conflict in an above board and open way.
But as with Northern Ireland this is a Prisoner's Dilemma. Israel cannot dance without a partner. But as Freedland notes:
there are immediate questions, eerily similar to the ones that surfaced in Lebanon two years ago. How exactly does this end? If Israeli tanks go into Gaza, won't they get bogged down in the mud and narrow streets of the refugee camps, terrain known intimately by Hamas?
He goes on to note: "most Palestinians insist that a relaxation of the blockade would have granted Hamas its key objective - a chance to prove it can govern effectively - and it would not have jeopardised that with rocket fire. It would have had too much to lose."
He then goes on to note that this is politically difficult for Israel because whilst Hamas is the democratically chosen champion of the Palestinians, their charter 'drips with anti Semitism'.
The key problem going forward is not a military, or even a moral one but political.
"...the fresh supply of hatred Israel has stored up against itself, creating a new generation of Gazans bent on revenge. Every child who witnessed this week's bombing is another recruit for the violence of the future."
Although I have my criticisms of the many moral elisions of the Northern Irish peace process, in some respects it has done what many thought was impossible: it has reconciled the so called 'political extremes'.
It has left us with a questionable democratic inheritance. But it has slowly shut off the tap of sectarian violence and targetted killing, and begun to put our politicians in positions where they rather than someone else are responsible for the destiny and fate of the people who elect them.
The thought that Israelis can only lose this battle for survival once may always be uppermost in their minds, but it should not be the last word in everything they think and do.
When it comes to the death of Gazan innocents, I humbly suggest that they must find a way to remember the words of an old friend of mine, who was at the time of writing a young British Army doctor with the troops who liberated the death camp at Bergen Belsen (http://www.sluggerotoole.com/archives/2005/01/remembering_hol.php):
Death of one is the death of all.
It is not the dead I pity.
Flaminglip, how exactly could have things been any worse than what they were?
Why DV didn't and doesn't clean house on ATW amazes me. But it is his turf and his rules, as he says. Think yourselves lucky, you Jew-hating wankers. Personally I hope you all burn in the hell of your choice along with Hitler and Arafat.
Mick,
As ever, informed comment from yourself which I respect! The "horsehit" term was employed by Republican Stones - not a term I bandy about.
DSD,
You have a point - though the hatred of Israel that pervades certain comments stretched even my tolerance.
>>Israel has no other existentialist choice but to fight back when it is attacked. Hamas for its part is politically powerful in Gaza; but militarily weak<<
Occasional rockets flying over a remote border that kill nobody can hardly be termed an "attack" in any military sense. That's like saying the UK was under attack every time the "long rifles" barked northwards from Dundalk. Anyone who has witnessed a real military attack - as Israel, and of course also its neighbours, has - would judge those rockets to be little more than the nuisance they are.
They at any rate don't constitute any threat to Israel by any stretch of the imagination. Any response to them - on any Israeli border - has in fact always led to far more Israeli deaths than the rockets themselve. They therefore don't justify the kind of scenes posted here here at 01:48 and which all have apparently been shying away from since.
>>though the hatred of Israel that pervades certain comments stretched even my tolerance.<<
Oh come off it, nobody said anything remotely comparable to the calls for mass killings of Arab civilians from your pro-Israeli cohorts, so spare us the cant from fools like DSD please.
It is not surprising that the republicans, the supporters of the butchers and murderers who practiced an equally primitive religion as islam and maimed and killed so many in the name of their disgusting cause would side with these murderous islamic cowards whose goals not just in this instance, but worldwide is one of allah commanded death of the non-muslim.
I wonder if these same republicans supported the muslim PLO when it butchered its way through Catholic Maronite Lebanon?
James,
The more they support the IRA, the more they support Hamas. Same people - same degenerate mindset.
'The "horsehit" term was employed by Republican Stones - not a term I bandy about.'
Indeed it was I. (You bandy about the term 'anti-semitie')
Heres the quote where I employed it.
'You attempt to portray anyone who is against Israeli action in gaza has being against Jews, which is utter horseshite you'll agree.'
It seems also DSD doesn't like dissent from the prevailing view here on ATW, he must'n have read the tagline.
'Israel's critics seem to believe that it is an ordinary western country with the same sets of free actions as the rest of the west generally does. '
Afraid not Mick. Israels critics, many of them, recognise Israel is no ordinary western country. We recognise it is a sectarian statelet which was established through the ethnic cleansing and murder of an indigenous people, to assuage the guilt of the west. It is Israels supporters who think its just a little ordinary David of a country surrounded by Goliaths.
Morris Ernst, Roosevelt's advisor, summed it up nicely during the whole debacle of the aftermath of WW2, and the issue of zionist demands for a state...
"The hypocrisy of closing our own doors while making sanctimonious demands on the Arabs"
Toynbee summed it up nicely too...
"An innocent non-Western people's territory could, it was held, legitimately be given away to the Jews by the victorious Western powers.This amounts to the declaration of the inequality of the Western and the non-Western sections of the human race.
It is a claim that Westerners are privileged, however guilty they may be."
Noel,
"This is all just an extension of their hatred for Arabs and Muslims."
Surely that kind of comment is just as bad as the dismissive 'jew hating' stuff from the other side of the argument?
I normally stay out of these discussions because I don't know much about it, and the layers of propaganda are impenetrable to me. But it is clear enough that there are plenty of people criticising Israel's actions who are not reflexive anti-semites, and plenty of people criticising hamas et al that are not reflexive arab/muslim haters.
Polyee Toynbee - doyen of the Slugger fedayeen! lol. How about a few quotes from Alexei Sayle to follow?
Eh no actually, it was Arnold Toynbee.
I feel embarrassed for you David.
RS, you got me bang to rights. What can I say.....I mean how could I have made such an error.
Oh --- hang on a second.Incoming....
"The well-known British historian Arnold Toynbee, a notorious anti-Semite, claimed in his major work A Study of History that the Israeli treatment of Arabs during the 1948 war was morally comparable to the Nazi treatment of the Jews. He repeated this accusation in a 1961 debate with the then Israeli ambassador to Canada, Jacob Herzog, who asserted that the Nazi murder of six million Jews was incomparable to the unfortunate uprooting of Arab communities."
http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=381&PID=470&IID=1526
And then there is this gem!
"In the 1950s and 1960s Arnold Toynbee, the renowned British philosopher of history, was immensely popular. He came to shockingly anti-Zionist conclusions presented in the grand style of historical generalization. As an Englishman he felt superior to the German Gentile barbarians who had infamously inflicted the Holocaust on the Jews. But he also claimed that the Jews were worse than the Nazis because they had knowingly imitated their evil deeds and become ruthless persecutors. Today, a disturbingly large number of English people--misguided, intoxicated, and half-brainwashed by parts of the media--would probably agree with Toynbee."
http://mideastoutpost.com/archives/000478.html
LOL- stick to quoting Polly, she's less repulsive than dear Arnold. You quote a notorious anti-Semite to prove you are not anti-semitic. What next - Hitler quoted to prove you are not a Nazi-worshipper?
LOL - I feel embarrassed for you, RS. I really do.
David, would you please, please stop trying to embroil the Irish in the Arab-Isreali conflict.
From what I can see, about 20 or 30 people attended a rally in Belfast (part of the UK) and another 20 or 30 people post comments on a Northern Irish (part of the UK) website and you conflate this with Irish support for Hamas.
I live in Ireland and I have never, ever met a single person in the flesh who supports Hamas. Most people do think the Isrealis are ruthless and brutal - who knows, perhaps they need to be? Or perhaps their tactics make the situation worse - I don't know much about it to be honest. I do know that my great-Uncle, a retired British soldier, tells tales of gun and bomb attacks during his time serving there (British Palestinian Mandate) by Isreali seccessionists that could only be described as terrorist attacks. I believe their leadership then served in the governent of the new state on British withdrawal.
Your posts won't do much in the way of influencing Irish opinion, if you think we are ill-informed or mistaken in our views. I find it hard to believe a politico such as yourself would be unaware that your attacks on the Irish obscure your pro-Isreali message and serve to alienate. The only conclusion I can come to, is you want to conflate the issue and encourage anti-Irish feeling among the pro-Isreali blogosphere, rather than influence Irish opinion.
Please tell me I am wrong?
Mack,
Unlike certain others, I find your comments interesting and worthy of a response.
Let me deal with your points.
1. I note that those who support the IRA, are also vocal in their support for Hamas. I know most Irish people don't support the IRA, so my ire is directed the way of Provo-spawn.
2. I note that the Irish media e.g Irish Times, Sunday Tribune etc are very anti-Israel. Again I think this fierce dislike of Israel is disturbing but I link it to the media elite. The UK media is no better, btw.
3.I have no mission to generate anti-Irish feeling but have every mission to support Israel for which I am an unapologetic supporter. I found the debate on Slugger demeaning insofar as the venom from the Hamas lovers was way beyond the point of reason.
There is nothing wrong with people holding opposite opinions, and expressing them freely is the sort of liberty that I hold dear. For example, the Israeli media constantly criticise and attack their own government. Try that in Gaza and you're dead.
You say that you "live in Ireland and I have never, ever met a single person in the flesh who supports Hamas." Have you ever met a single person who openly supports Israel? If not, why do you think this might be?
I believe that the UK has a nasty element of anti-Semitism in it that is crystallised in the media and political establishment, is it possible Ireland is as bad? What do you reckon to this?
"Have you ever met a single person who openly supports Israel? If not, why do you think this might be?"
Well, I have great admiration for Jewish people and I'm not a fan of Islam (to put it mildly) - yet it's damn difficult to support Israel at times. Maybe I've been brainwashed by the media.
Wow what a fascinating and interesting thread. The openly anti semitic support above by RS is utterly revolting. How you stand for it I don't know given what anti-semites would do to Jews given an inch. But I disagree with your last point David. Most of the media is run by Murdoch. He is not British.
Public support is influenced by unrelenting propaganda but it is not representative. It is simply handing a coup to Hamas to suggest we are and one of the few things I find rather pathetic and bigoted about Israeli and American Brit bashing and Brit hatred of which there is plenty.
Disraeli, Thatcher's Jewish cabinet etc, much of our successful business and businessmen are just a small testament to this. We should not ignore that because of some dimwit students, that idiot Scot and the likes of the ailing 'Respect' party being able and willing to do what you and I would not - get out there with rent-a-mob and bleed for the media. Noone suggests that San Francisco moonbats represent American opinion after all.
The complete lies being put about by spokespeople on Sky right now David is just risible. Totally risible! People will buy into that bullshit though sadly David.
Flaminglip,
Well said.
Alison,
I think that many ordinary Brits support Israel and that is, as you say, what counts. I also think the political intelligentsia here is usually ant-Israel. I have not heard Cameron on the issue yet so maybe I am missing his clarion support for Israel. As for the press. The Mail is pretty appalling in its relentless anti-Israel stance, as is the Telegraph, whilst the Indie and Guardian are Hamas extensions!
Sky is every bit as bad as Al Beeb. Agreed Alison.
Tim Marshall is the exception on Sky and is usually pretty good at challenging the status quo on air. I like him a lot.
re the Tories
The Tories have gone on record asking for a ceasefire - that's what they have to do to ya know go along with the usual BS - but they have put the onus on Hamas as the cause of the current issues.
Writing for The Sunday Telegraph, Tory Sir Malcolm Rifkind offers a very sympathetic account of Israel's actions:
"The Israeli attacks on Hamas are not unreasonable, regardless of electoral considerations. Imagine missiles being fired, most days, across the 21 miles of the English Channel and landing in the towns and villages of Kent. Imagine if, for several years, the IRA had been allowed to fire missiles into the villages of Northern Ireland from the Irish Republic with the consent and approval of the Irish government. Of course, it is controversial to make such comparisons, as Israel's conflict in Gaza has a very different historic background. But every government has a first duty to protect its citizens. Israel evacuated Gaza in 2005, removing not only its soldiers but all Israeli settlements, despite bitter resistance from the settlers and their political allies. If Hamas, with total power in Gaza, had been willing to concentrate its energies on the economic development of the region and cease cross-border attacks, the Israeli government and public would have been much more willing to make a similar withdrawal from the West Bank where the majority of Palestinians live."