Galway branch of the Ireland, Palestine Solidarity Campaign protest against the butchery in Rafah

by Danny Urnery Sun May 23, 2004 21:19

Hello !
I'm after posting the above article, with photo's,
and as you can see, there is a marked difference in quality in the first two photo's that I took myself and the two that I culled from the Electronic Intifada website (minimal downsizing/no cropping to accomodate the filesize requirements of Indymedia), so, I'm seeking your advice in cracking the problem of getting, after I downsize and crop, better quality shots - I use a 5 Megapixel Olympus C-50 camera. Many thanks, Danny.

by now I have taken sides. Sun May 23, 2004 21:57

End Sharon's ZioNazi State.
They have by their actions lost any legitimacy in the last week.
Their apologists in the Dublin Embassy must be exposed for what they are, manipulators of the fear of anti-semitism which has been stoked throughout Europe.

To write "End Sharon's ZioNazi State"
is not anti-semitic.
it's the reality of what they have done.

ethnic cleansing.
wanton destruction.
enslavery of agricultural workers.

there was a time when sensitivity and diplomacy and the wish to be non biased daily met with Israeli Propaganda on this site. NO MORE. BASTA!

by avi H. Mon May 24, 2004 09:48

will also be protesting against the murder of the Jewish family shown in the link.

If not, why not? Don't they care about the lives of Jews, then? Or do they only get upset when Jews defend themselves (which is not supposed to be in the script, right?)...

by Canteen Kevin Mon May 24, 2004 11:30

Hope to see YOU out protesting the death of Palestinians as well Avi but I doubt it.If not, why not? Don't you care about the lives of Palestinians, then? Or do you only get upset when Palestinians defend themselves?

P.S A Link to the Israeli Foreign Affairs Office?, is that the best you can come up with, dropped all pretence at appearing objective lately haven't you?

by avi H. Mon May 24, 2004 12:07

just to repeat my comments. We regret everyone's deaths. War is tragic. We do not target civilians, and we didn't target the crowd in Rafah. Hard luck, but no matter how many times a lie is repeated, that still doesn't make it true.

Incidentally, anti-Semitism exists in Europe, as do anti-Semitic crimes. We're not making it up, any more than we made up the holocaust.

As far Rafah etc., please note that in some situations, when we have no other reasonable choice, anyone who tries to kill Jews will find that they have an appointment with the IDF, whether they hide amidst crowds of civilians or not - a tactic long favoured by the 'brave' men of Hamas, Fatah, et al. They like doing that, by the way, because when they get slaughtered (which they generally do, because they're so inept), they can raise a hue and cry to inform the world how heartless we are. Talk about no self-respect...

by kokomero Mon May 24, 2004 14:00

The 13 IDF soldiers killed in Gaza using landmines were killed using straighforward guerrilla techniques without the use of human shields.

There is no evidence that armed men were in the protest which was attacked by the IDF using tank shells and missiles from helicopters. In fact there is ample evidence from a wide variety of sources that gunmen were told to stay away and did.

This is evidenced by the fact that the vast majority of those killed were children.

Finally IDF use of human shields it well documented by many groups including Israelis.

During the al-Aqsa intifada, IDF soldiers have used Palestinian civilians as human shields. This practice has been most common during IDF operations in Palestinian population centers, such as Operation Defensive Shield.

The method is the same each time: soldiers pick a civilian at random and force him to protect them by doing dangerous tasks that put his life at risk. For example, soldiers have ordered Palestinians to:

* enter buildings to check if they are booby-trapped, or to remove the occupants

* remove suspicious objects from roads used by the army

* stand inside houses where soldiers have set up military positions, so that Palestinians will not fire at the soldiers

* walk in front of soldiers to shield them from gunfire, while the soldiers hold a gun behind their backs and sometimes fire over their shoulders.

The soldiers in the field did not initiate this practice; rather, the order to use civilians as a means of protection was made by senior army officials.

Go on earn your keep and deny it, after all it's what your government expects of it's paid liars!

by avi H. Mon May 24, 2004 14:41

much simpler just to get an armoured bulldozer to demolish the whole street than faff around with all that. I've seen it done: it works like magic, and quickly, too. The only thing that ever holds us up is getting as many civilians out as we reasonably can.

That's why Rafah is now a mess. Complaints to Hamas, Fatah, Hezbollah, including Messrs. Arafat & Co, Ramallah. The Palestinians should get themselves some better system of government, I'd say. To put it another way, here is what the Intifada has achieved for them:





Er, that's right, nothing.

by kokomero Mon May 24, 2004 15:21

You are trying to put a brave face on it Avi but ultimately Israel will have to go back to the negotiating table.

Economics demands it!

Hamas and other groups cannot defeat Israel militarily and they acknowledge this. On the other hand they know that continued resistance will ultimately destroy the Israeli economy.

There is ample evidence that this is happening both in terms of published reports and news reports of strikes and layoffs in the Israeli public and private sector:

Many commentators now refer to the "lost decade" of Israel's economy. The economy began to rise in 1994 in the grip of post-Oslo optimism and peaked in 2000. Now, ten years later, it has sunk to its early 1990s level again, and shows little promise of improving. The Israeli State of the Economy index has shown a consistent decline since the start of the intifada, as have the Israeli Index of Trade and Services and the Index of Manufacturing. Tourism, as may be expected, has declined precipitously since September 2000. Ghattas pointed out the Real Wage Indicator particularly, to show the "sharp decline" in buying power Israeli workers in the private and public sector have suffered. And although there have been recent fluctuations in the level of imports and exports in Israel, Ghattas dismisses their relevance, pointing to the basic economic indicators which show consistent decline.

http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=2590&CategoryId=5

Continue with the SA tactics in Rafah and elsewhere against the Palestinians with your economy already on its knees and the kick in the teeth of sanctions will eventually come.

And perhaps even uncle Sam will eventually be eventually no longer willing to support your bankrupt economy either, certainly things will change when Bush loses the election.

You need to wake up and negotiate before it's too late.

by avi H. Mon May 24, 2004 16:42

a lot more pain than the Palestinians can and it's very, very far from collapsing in the way that you think it is.

by Canteen Kevin Mon May 24, 2004 18:08

Israel can cause a lot more pain than the Palestinians can.

Your IDF are probably one of the most actively murderous rabble involved in human rights abuse in the world today. They are professional only in refining ever more depraved and cowardly methods of subjugating native populations.

by Northern Eye Mon May 24, 2004 18:46

All blatantly fascist states fall at some time. Its inevitable. The new false god of Israel is now called 'America' and when the era of this terrible god begins its decline (if it hasn't started already) the religious extremists who have seized the land by the Dead Sea for the second time in history will be without their murderous power.

The founding of this modren Israeli state was one of the most moronic acts in history. How can people be so arrogant and stupid that they think they'll go to the most hostile region on Earth, start wars, rob the indigenous people of their land, kill thousands of them, terrorise millions and do all this so they can feel safe in a land their ancestors fled from centuries ago? And all this in the nuclear age. The mind boggles. Israel's fucked in the long term at least if not the short term as they have never grasped the concept of not digging holes any further and theres no evidence to show they ever will. They've sown the seeds of the deepest hate in the hearts of so many Arabs that it'll last for a thousand years. Israel has no real future and I feel sorry for the innocent Israeli's as well as their neighbours who will suffer terribly for the dreams of mad men. Sad but true.

by kokomero Mon May 24, 2004 18:47

saying exactly the same thing Avi as they justified Apartheid and bantustaans .... where are the Afrikaaners now?

Have a good look because thats where you'll be in a few decades.

by Indymedia Ireland Editorial Group - Indymedia Ireland Mon May 24, 2004 18:51

Hi Danny,
join the photo list at
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-irl-photo
there's some experts there to answer your questions. Can't help you myself. I have notified appropriate people about your query though - R. Isible

by Gaillimhed Tue May 25, 2004 15:51

Palestine, occupation and self-criticism
By Lawrence Smallman

Israeli Justice Minister Yosef Lapid stunned Prime Minister Arial Sharon when he compared a television image with his personal experience of the Holocaust.

link to Al Jazeera.net

by scaramouche Tue May 25, 2004 15:57

?

by Gaillimhed Tue May 25, 2004 16:08

killing non-Jewish civilians is compatible with religious laws according to a ruling by Rabbi Dov Lior, Chairman of the Jewish Rabbinical Council, considered among the most learned sages of the Torah.

Lior, like most of the rabbis of the Gush Emunim settler movement, believes that Biblical commandments such as "thou shall not murder" refer only to "Jews" since the Torah was given to Jews, not Gentiles.
Dov Lior is considered a champion rabbi among settlers. In 1994, he strongly supported the murder by an American immigrant settler, Baruch Goldstein, of 29 Palestinian worshippers at the Ibrahimi Mosque.
Lior then issued a religious edict, saying, "a thousand non-Jewish lives are not worth a Jew's fingernail".

Several months after the massacre, Lior told disciples in Kiryat Araba near the occupied West Bank city of Hebron "Jewish blood was redder than non-Jewish blood … and that a Jewish life is preferred by the Lord than a non-Jewish life".

"The law of our Torah is to have mercy on our soldiers and to save them. This is the real moral behind Israel's Torah and we must not feel guilty due to foreign morals,"

So far, the majority of Israeli religious leaders, including the two Grand Rabbis (one representing Western Jews 'Ashkenazim' and the other representing eastern Jews 'Tsfaradim') have refused to condemn or repudiate Lior's views.

by avi H. Wed May 26, 2004 13:53

do not accurately represent the Jewish faith. To assert otherwise is either ignorance or malice.

by Ali Mc Wed May 26, 2004 15:18

why don't we hear denunciations from the Rabbis?

Afterall fair is fair and we've heard you and others call often enough for Muslim leaders to denounce their extremists (which they've done numerous times incidentally).

by Gaillimhed Wed May 26, 2004 17:16

Thanks Ali, that was exactly the point i was attempting to make,
According to AVI Somehow its OK for Mainstream Israel to allow such vile extremism to pass by without comment, (which is a public endorsement indeed) while at the same time refusing to recognise by deed or action the difference beteween normal 'going about their lives' palestinians and the extremist groups who carry out terrorist attacks, instead choosing to carry out a policy of collective punishment in the occupied territories.
HYPOCRISY of ISRAEL makes me sick. And as i have said before, i would expect of all the peoples of the world, the good and long suffering Jewish peoples would have learned better than to subject themselves to the Sharonazis.
then again i suppose we are all in similar situations, with terrible deeds carried out daily in our names.
Anyway, Come on Avi, lets have some of your ridiculous defences, obfuscations sputterings and propagandist rebuttals. I am sure decent humane Israelis would be disgusted by most of your racist and hateful postings to this site. Your support of War crimes can be nothing but repugnant to any human with a shred of respect for human life.

Of course Avi, they're not actually human are thay.

by eastern eye Sun Jun 13, 2004 03:07

calm urself. arabs has been saying for more than 50 years, that the house of israel is going to collapse. it won't happen so soon.

about moronic acts, what do u think of that:
1.refusing to share a land with the nighbors, after U.N decided to approve it, attacking violantly and trying to conquare the naighbors immediatly. calling ur big brothers to help u, so arab countries invaded israel at her first day, losing totally at this war.
2. being occupaied by the countries that came to ur help (nice, eh? have u ever thought how come a palestinian state hasen't been established on the west bank and Gaza strip ay least?)
3. after being occupied for about 30 years, getting a chance to have an independant state of ur own on 98% of the west bank & gava, ruin that chance with the excuse of Ariel Sharon's visit at the temple's moutain, also called El-Aktsa mosque.

more moronic than that?

by Sayful Islam Sun Jun 13, 2004 03:12

Instead of leaders they have terrorist Godfathers. I have no sympathy for the Palestinian's because they're all supporters of terrorism. No sympathy at all for them.

by eastern eye Sun Jun 13, 2004 03:30

funny u quote Aljazeera, a source that is not famous in its objectivity.

"We're told all the time the Palestinians want to throw us into the sea. We have six million people in the strongest Army in the region yet we speak of them as if they were two equal powers. It's just manipulating people's fears"

Shrilamut Aroni,
former cabinet member

i dont have any idea who they r talking about. i've never heard the name Shrilamut. searching the net shows sites that quotes Aljazeera. i think they invented him.
all israel is 6 million people. including 20% arabs and 20% ultra orthodox that usually doesnt serve in the army.
Druzian and religeus Jewish Girls doesnt serve at the army (while the boys does).
most of the IDF is people at the age of 18-21, with addition of vererans in case of troubles.
surprisingly, there r many kids and many old people and many people that don't want to serve so thay don't.
how's that be 6 millions?
could it be that aljazeera likes the number?

and Yosef Lapid is not "many israelis".
israel doesnt have the ability to clone people. even politicians

by eastern eye Sun Jun 13, 2004 03:37

cause them u hear, and they r concenzus. and Dov Li'or, to know that he said this, u have to
1. read Aljazeera.
or
2. be one of that fanatics that lives in Hebron. they r the only ones that listen to him. and they r extreemists anyway.

by eastern eye Sun Jun 13, 2004 03:39

cause them u hear, and they r concenzus. and Dov Li'or, to know that he said this, u have to
1. read Aljazeera.
or
2. be one of that fanatics that lives in Hebron. they r the only ones that listen to him. and they r extreemists anyway.

by Nordie Sun Jun 13, 2004 04:07

1. Why the fuck should they have willingly shared it with their 'neighbours' (foreign invaders who stole the land off them) on the back on the UN's say so. It wasn't the UN's land to give away in the first place.

2.Why is it moronic of the Palestinians to be occupied by anyone? Why? I can't work that one out. Maybe its me who's the moron. Maybe its you.

3.Ye foolish creature. Israel continued to build 'settlements' even when they were meant to be dismantling them in those days. And even if they had colonies in just a tiny living area of the West Bank or Gaza they had them slap bang in the middle of it which meant major roads where closed off to the Palestinians, the sometimes only sources of water were diverted for the colonialists, armed Zionists were allowed to run rampant and above the law where ever they felt like it and the Zionists armies could enter anywhere they liked and gun down whoever they felt like to name but a few things.
Plus Sharon only went on that visit becasue he knew what would happen and he knew he could only trive in a climate of total fear.

Take a wee read at this article for some truth about Israels attempts to bring peace:

http://home.att.net/~/louaysafi/articles/2001/peace.htm

And hey, Israels lasted almost a whole 60 years. Impressive that. Yeah, I reckon its one of the safest countries to bet on to last the course in the world.

by nordie Sun Jun 13, 2004 07:23

don't think that link worked. try this:

http://home.att.net/~louaysafi/articles/2001/peace.htm

by eastern eye Sun Jun 13, 2004 14:03

well.
here r my comments (i'm doing it from work, i sit next to a mac, i dont have babylon so i'll have more spelling mistakes than the usual. u'll have to forgive me. usually people with spelling and grammar mistakes r treated preety badly in the net. usually its right, something like, "first go to learn how to write properly, than write us ur interesting oppinions", but as i wrote elsewhere, english is not my mother tongue).
back to the issue.

1. at least he admits the subject is complicated, what i can't say u do.
2. not only European Jewery dreamed about returning to the land of Israel. Jews in Arab countries dreamed about it just the same. the first immigration wave in 1882 was not only of Jews from Russia, fleeing from the pogroms in the south Tsaric Russia, but from Yemmen as well.
3. the tempel, ruined by Babylon, was rebuiled, in a preety dull way after the return to Zion (means israel) from Babylon (about 520 B.C), rebuiled into a fancy building by Hordos. the Romans ruined the new tempel. its not that they helped the ruins to ruin a little more.
4. the riots that came after Ariel Sharon visited the tempel's mountain were too organized. Sharon's visit was just an excuse.
the Arab citizens that were killed, it did made a tempest in israel. a special committe established to investigate the events. i'm not trying to justify it, but pay attention that somehow, among Palestinians "protest" doesn't mean a demonstration, but violence and even murder (suicide bombers that bomb themselves among civilians, inc. women and children, r "protestors" in ur eyes?)
5. nowdays the IDF deals not only with bombing Palestinians' houses, but with evacuation of new settlements.
6. now, i must admit its a good assay, far better than the matterial u usually set links to. i even intend to read other essays of Mr. Safi. good assay, as i said, till the part he start dealing with God.
and speaking about God - for God's sake, leave God's promise to Abraham aside please! this is out of the subject, no one in Israel (expect few lunatic extreemist) speak in this langughe.
and if we mention Abraham, Ishmael is his son too, and Arabs r Ishmael's descendants, and God promised Abraham all the land between the Nilus till the Prat river ( one of Iraq's main rivers). between ourselves, Arabs sit preety good in this area Jews too deserve some room.
7.quoting Dov li'or, as i said elsehwere, won't lead us anywhere, since its like quoting Ben Laden as all Muslims' spokesmen. and lets not speak about Jihad, that it seems that God askes it from Muslims. and not about what Muhamad (himself) did to the Jewish Bedouin tribes in Khaibar. speaking about muslim mercy.
8.u cant achieve peace and freedom for long time by conquering the other? in Latin it is called Pax Romana.

by Nordie Sun Jun 13, 2004 19:27

. 'the riots that came after Ariel Sharon visited the tempel's mountain were too organized. Sharon's visit was just an excuse.
the Arab citizens that were killed, it did made a tempest in israel. a special committe established to investigate the events. i'm not trying to justify it, but pay attention that somehow, among Palestinians "protest" doesn't mean a demonstration, but violence and even murder (suicide bombers that bomb themselves among civilians, inc. women and children, r "protestors" in ur eyes?)'

Christ, what are you talking about? What suicide bombers died in those protests. Only Palestinians throwing rocks and shoes or fuck all were gunned down.

'5. nowdays the IDF deals not only with bombing Palestinians' houses, but with evacuation of new settlements.'

Fuck, well they still deal with bombing Palestinains houses.

'6. now, i must admit its a good assay, far better than the matterial u usually set links to. i even intend to read other essays of Mr. Safi. good assay, as i said, till the part he start dealing with God.
and speaking about God - for God's sake, leave God's promise to Abraham aside please! this is out of the subject, no one in Israel (expect few lunatic extreemist) speak in this langughe.
and if we mention Abraham, Ishmael is his son too, and Arabs r Ishmael's descendants, and God promised Abraham all the land between the Nilus till the Prat river ( one of Iraq's main rivers). between ourselves, Arabs sit preety good in this area Jews too deserve some room. '

God promised nobody nothing. But thats what the Israli state was built on and thats how it survives - by dollars from insane Christians from America who think a god did promise a patch of land to a certain tribe who could do what they wanted to anyone else on that land. Thats the root of the problem

'78.u cant achieve peace and freedom for long time by conquering the other? in Latin it is called Pax Romana.'

You certainly can't in this situation sister.

by eastern eye Sun Jun 13, 2004 21:24

it was based more on the fact that jews set there on their own country for hundreds of years and under other's rule for hundreds of years, even as minority, and those in the diaspora kept longing to return there.

now.
as a result that jews, as any other nation (yes. jews r nation, not only religion. religion that ancient (the romans considered it ancient, at their time), that its a folk's religion)
deserve a state of their own. where else could they go?

by $/% Fri Jan 27, 2006 17:56

Or are we to think that a palestinian regime which piled wanton corruption on the Israeli occupation was more legitimate simply because it stopped using guns a while back?

welcome to government Hamas.
we know you can wage war, now show you can make peace.