Recent Comments

1. about 15 years ago on Pat Oliphant

   In no way do I shrink back. I chose not to debate with people incapable of doing so without making personal attacks. They are waste of my time and provide nothing of value to the reader.

   In addition to your personal attacks, you have demonstrated you are incapable of staying on point, which is the discussion of the cartoon of Mr. Oliphant. So call it what you will, but I prefer to invest my time in those who may be part of the solution. You WilliamBrown are part of the problem.

2. about 15 years ago on Pat Oliphant

   Initially, I was going to close this chapter due to the personal attacks of one poster. Instead, I will simply ignore his posts.

   I see Oliphant’s cartoon as representing the US (dark headless figure) as using Israel as an instrument of war. As a result of this blind aggression, women and children are trampled in the path, regardless if it is the intention.

   If this imagine is correct or not is less important than the conversation is has brought forth.

   As a global community we have to look past our own bias, the bias the media forces upon us, and past the emotions of the situation and look for the truth. By this we become powerful. Truth can change the world and it is truth the media and bias haters who only have personal attacks want to suppress.

   Regardless of what ever may or may not have happened in the past. Israel’s action did nothing to bring peace, destroyed the lives of many people, and has harmed their image to those who would otherwise support her. I being one of them.

   Defy the media and the propaganda machines. Think for yourself. Get past your bias. Quit using the Bible as a whipping stick for your own agenda. For this it was never its intended. Demand the truth and accept nothing else.

   I once lived with huge bias towards a specific political direction. I am thankful through travels and study to have escaped this perspective. I encourage other to do the same.

   I have no agenda against the Jewish people or great love for Arabs. I just demand the truth and the truth in the portion of this situation represented by Oliphant’s cartoon is well presented. Time to quit drinking the kool-aide folks.

3. about 15 years ago on Pat Oliphant

   WilliamBrown, I will not dignify your personal attacks with a response. However, for the sake of other readers I will provide overall response. Least they believe your blowhard ranting.

   Regarding the munition used, I never used the word bombs, you did. I am quite familiar with the munition used and I did not required a trip to Jane’s to know about it. I am also personally familiar with the effects of such munitions when applied to personnel. I am also acquainted with DIME and FLM munitions. I am also aware of the reports of Dr. Mads Gilbert and Dr. Erik Fosse and the possibility that they were used both in July of 2006 and in the most recent attack on Gaza by the IDF. I am also ware of Israel’s denial.

   I encourage you to actually read the British Mandate. Again, as it uses the term “Palestinians” in article, you point is moot.

4. about 15 years ago on Pat Oliphant

   bones327, if you look at the whole of the thread, I provided you citation to the actual self declaration of Israel as a state. I encourage you to read it. . It was the “The Zionist Organization” which made the declaration. Again, the UN (which was only 1 year old) had no (and still has no) authority to declare a state. For example, the US declared their independence. There is nothing wrong with this action, in fact that is how one becomes a state. However, it is historically incorrect to state the UN is the one to make the declaration. The UN may recognize a state, but declaring it a state is beyond it’s mandate.

   I am assuming your Jewish. If you are, I encourage you to quite crying and whining about how everyone hates the Jewish people and start taking accountability for your actions. You will find many of us who have a heat for the Jewish people will be much quicker to defend you.

   Actually I am a student of middle eastern history and have spent many years traveling the region. Your attempt to rewrite history is just short of ridiculous. Your opinion is very emotional, however it is not factual. There has been accurate information about the population and property ownership of the region since the end of WW1, and it is a known fact many transactions which took place were at best illegal.

   bones327, as you have obviously never read the British Mandate, I will help you out here. I encourage you to read it before commenting further as it may clear some things up for you. Article 7 of the British Mandate, “The Administration of Palestine shall be responsible for enacting a nationality law. There shall be included in this law provisions framed so as to facilitate the acquisition of Palestinian citizenship by Jews who take up their permanent residence in Palestine.” April 24, 1920 Hmn… 40 years before you say the word Palestinian was ever used and long before Hitler came to power.

   “White smoke weapons” Wow, that is easier to accept than white phosphorus used to destroy homes and maim people. Once again, have you ever seen the effects of white phosphorus? I suspect not.

   Finally, the topic is not about what Arabs do or do not do. That would be an interesting thread and one in which I would not be opposed to engaging, but it is not the topic of Mr. Oliphant’s cartoon nor of this conversation.

5. about 15 years ago on Pat Oliphant

   “Anti-semitism”: The Jewish people have built a persona and even more a State by self proclaiming the world’s hatred for them. It is time for this little nation to stand for who it is today and their action of today. The assumption that the world has to accept what ever the Jewish people do or accept what ever they say as truth or one is “Anti-semitic” is absurd. As I stated before, I have no specific dislike for the Jewish people. In fact, among my closest friends are Jews. However, I also have close friends who are Russian and I do not feel the need to support everything Russia does or has done.

   Regarding the comments by sabaira and WilliamBrown, why would we accept the information provided by those suspected of perpetrating the crime? What are they going to say, “Yep, we killed a bunch of babies!” Of wait, that is exactly what Israeli soldiers were saying on their t-shirts when they returned!

   However, if you are willing to consider there is some truth in their numbers, how could they know that 709 of the people they killed where terror operatives? Come on people. It is time for Israel to take some accountability for what they have done. What was the result of their operation other than adding additional suffering to a people whose land they have taken and lives they have destroyed? Is there now peace? Is anyones life better?

   WilliamBrown, you sound like your part of their propaganda machine. ;) “Lie! Legal white phosphorous artillery shells were used for screening and marking.” Why were they marking residential neighborhoods full of civilians? Why were they marking women and children? Legal? Who’s law? Give us all a break. We can read the propaganda war being waged by Israel all over the net. You do not need to copy and paste it here.

   Have you ever seen the damage done to a human body by white phosphorous? I have seen it first hand and it is devastating. As I stated before, what if they were “marking” your house? What if they were “screening” your wife and children.

   Israel did their best to create a media blackout. In the west they were mainly successful by preventing any western media from entering the Gaza Strip during the conflict. However, thee were many already there. The western media will not show you the images. They say they are too harsh for western TV. But if you are looking and if you care, they can be found with little effort.

6. about 15 years ago on Pat Oliphant

   WillBerry, I am afraid you are incorrect. If you are referring to the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, it was rejected by both the Jewish population and the Arab. Israel declared their independence 14 May 1948 the day the British Mandate expired. It was not the UN (nor does the UN have such authority) which declared Israel a state. But the leadership of the Zionist Movement.

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declarationof_Independence(Israel)

   As a result of the Jewish population declaring itself the lands Sovereign, the Palestinian population revolted. Immediately Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria joined this revolt resulting in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. When the war was over in 1949, Israel expanded it’s boarders by 50%.

   I restate, before this action Jews, Christians and Muslims lived in this same land side by side in peace since the 16th century. Jews have lived in Israel next to Muslims since 638 when Arab Muslims invited them back after they were expelled by the Romans. Once again they lived in relative peace with their Arab Muslim neighbors.

   Arab nations continue not to recognize Israel as a state as they believe the land has been taken from the people of Palestine. This is actually a matter of historic fact and continues to happen today. Arabs did not cause what happen to Jews in Europe, and it is completely off topic. However, with what happened to the Jewish people in Europe they should be defining the standard for human rights, protecting the innocent and creating a place where people are free to worship and speak to others about their faith openly.

   So, back to the point: Mr. Oliphant’s Cartoon. I believe it is tame compared to the atrocities committed by Israel in not only their siege of the Gaza Strip, but in their 22 day slaughter of the people of Gaza. Mr. Oliphant, thank you for being bold enough to depict truth and not be curbed by the pressure imposed by the media machine in the west.

   Oh, and for the record, I am conservative Christian, a US citizen and prior service US Military. I have no distain for the Jewish people and I recognize their chosen place by God both currently and historically. This is true also for the Arab people. They are both people chosen by God for very different purposes. This providence does not give them the right to commit atrocities. In fact, it calls them to a higher moral standard of which the fall very short.

7. about 15 years ago on Pat Oliphant

   paulstendal, I am sure none of them have mothers or children.

   Ask yourself a simple question. Who has kill more civilians in the last 90 years of conflict in Palestine? The Jews or the Palestinians?

   Israel just carpet bombed the Gaza strip with white phosphorous, burning women and children, many to nothing but charred remains. The place is leveled. In 22 days Israel killed 1,434 Palestinians, 960 of those civilians and many of them women and children.

   These are people with names. They are mothers and fathers who love their children just as we do. They are a people trying to survive in a cage with hell being poured down on top of them. ..and yes they resist.

   Again, what if this was YOUR town surrounded by a wall. Nowhere to run. Nowhere safe for you and YOUR family and they started raining fire from the sky down on YOUR children. On YOUR wife. YOUR home.

   It is past time for we as Americans to stop looking through the rose colored glass provided for us by OUR government through media. It is time to wake up and start seeing what OUR decisions are doing to the lives of people around the world.

   Oh yeah, do you know where those white phosphorus weapons were produced? Pine Bluff Arkansas.

8. about 15 years ago on Pat Oliphant

   Actually, davidk14 you are incorrect, they do not have the West Bank. Israel continues to seize land in the West Bank and build illegal settlements while defending them with their military. Even the little land ‘granted’ to them by Israel is taken from them.

   Again, what would you do if it was your home on the land of your family? Would you resist or lay down? I would fight like hell.

9. about 15 years ago on Pat Oliphant

   Folks, do a history lesson.

   Israel ‘declared’ it’s statehood in 1948. They took the homes, businesses and lands from people who have lived there for generations upon generations. The approximately 84,000 Jews who lived in Palestine before the British Mandate of Palestine of 1922 lived in peace with their arab neighbors. They only represented 11% of the population. In fact, there were nearly as many Christians living in Palestine (10%) during this same period. By 1945, the Jewish population has grown to about 30% due primarily to illegal immigration. Only 3% of the land was owned by Jews and much of that obtained illegally.

   Imagine if you will, a minority population in the land raises up and takes your homes, your fields and your way of life from you which your family have had since at least the 16th century, likely long before. They declare your country their own and impose their laws and way of life on your family. What would you do? What would you do if it was Virginia or California. Think of your own state, your own home you built with your hard work.

   Now, I have been a supported of Israel for some time knowing only part of the story. We have been lied to in the west. We get told only a small part of the story. Israel carpet bombed residential neighborhoods in Gaza with white phosphorus, not once (which would be horrible in itself), but over and over again. They systematically leveled the Gaza strip. Killing and destroying everything in their path including women and children. Why? To crush the few left who resist the people who took their land and their lives.

   May God bless the suffering people of Gaza.