Is Israel practising a form of apartheid?

[Starlight]

The fact is these Arab rulers never offered the Palestinian natives their own state. Period.

That seems a mind bogglingly stupid thing to say. Someone saying "the rulers of America never offered to seer to make his house its own country, therefore he didn't have a country at all and clearly his rulers cared nothing for his welfare" would be an utter moron. You are part of the country of the USA, and thus it's your country. In the same way the people in Palestine had countries they were part of over the millennia.

[seer]

That seems a mind bogglingly stupid thing to say. Someone saying "the rulers of America never offered to seer to make his house its own country, therefore he didn't have a country at all and clearly his rulers cared nothing for his welfare" would be an utter moron. You are part of the country of the USA, and thus it's your country. In the same way the people in Palestine had countries they were part of over the millennia.

And you do know that there was a continuous Jewish presence in the land all those centuries? Thankfully leftists like you have no say or sway over the Jewish state.

[Gondwanaland]

And you do know that there was a continuous Jewish presence in the land all those centuries? Thankfully leftists like you have no say or sway over the Jewish state.

And in more recent years they lived and coexisted relatively peacefully with the Muslims who lived in the same land (called Palestine). It was only when countries started pushing Jews who did not live there, to migrate into the land and begin buying and taking land, that there were issues. Including a hell of a lot of terrorist attacks by zionists (which is one reason I scoff heartily whenever someone bleats about hamas, which is doing the same thing zionist Jews they did over half a century ago) who wanted to create their own state in the land, which unfortunately the world made the mistake of agreeing to.

[Gondwanaland]

Then again...

Source: Israel showed US ‘smoking gun’ on Hamas in AP office tower, officials say

"We showed them the smoking gun proving Hamas worked out of that building," a senior diplomatic source said. "I understand they found the explanation satisfactory."

Israel shared intelligence with the US showing how Hamas operated inside the same building with the Associated Press and Al-Jazeera in Gaza, officials in Jerusalem said on Sunday.

Officials in more than one government office confirmed that US President Joe Biden’s phone call to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday was, in part, about the bombing of the building, and that Israel showed Biden and American officials the intelligence behind the action.

"We showed them the smoking gun proving Hamas worked out of that building," a senior diplomatic source said. "I understand they found the explanation satisfactory."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed the source’s remark, when asked about The Jerusalem Post’s reporting in an interview with US TV show Face the Nation.

"We share all the intelligence with our American friends," he said. "The intelligence we had is about an intelligence office for [Hamas] housed in that building that plots and organizes terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians. It is a perfectly legit target."

Netanyahu also remarked that there were "no deaths whatsoever" from the strike on the building, because of measures Israel takes to avoid harming civilians, including giving an advance warning.

Another senior Israeli official admitted that the fact that the bombing took place two days after a tweet by the IDF misled some foreign media into reporting that ground troops had entered Gaza made the situation more difficult from a public diplomacy perspective.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman said the ministry briefed thousands of journalists on the matter in the past day, including a joint briefing with the IDF and police spokespeople for foreign media on Saturday night.

But in government-to-government diplomacy, Israeli officials felt that the situation was still good.

The US was the only country to inquire about the IDF strike on the building, which the military said housed Hamas military intelligence offices, as well as AP and Al Jazeera, other news outlets, and other offices and apartments.

"From an analysis the Foreign Ministry did [on Sunday], 80% of the 90 countries we spoke to in recent days released official statements supporting Israel’s right to defend itself. They aren’t calling to stop the operation," a ministry source said.

Ashkenazi also spoke to over 30 foreign ministers around the world.

"We’re still in a positive place when it comes to our legitimacy to act," the Foreign Ministry source added. "There is very clear support for the Israeli stance that the terrorism crossed a line."

The IAF struck the 12-story tower in Gaza on Saturday, giving a warning an hour in advance.

"The building housed the offices of civilian media, which the terrorist organization Hamas hides behind and uses as human shields," the IDF said in a statement. "The terror organization Hamas deliberately places its military assets in the heart of the civilian population in the Gaza Strip. Prior to the attack, the IDF warned the civilians who were in the building and gave them sufficient time to evacuate."

After Operation Protective Edge in 2014, former AP reporter Matti Friedman wrote in The Atlantic: "Hamas understood that reporters could be intimidated when necessary and that they would not report the intimidation... The AP staff in Gaza City would witness a rocket launch right beside their office, endangering reporters and other civilians nearby – and the AP wouldn't report it, not even in AP articles about Israeli claims that Hamas was launching rockets from residential areas."

In light of the attack on the building in Gaza, Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed his "unwavering support" to Associated Press president and CEO Garry Pruitt on Saturday, noting the "indispensability of their reporting in conflict zones."

The AP and Al Jazeera condemned the airstrike in strong terms.

Pruitt called the strike "an incredibly disturbing development." He said a dozen AP journalists and freelancers had been in the building, but were evacuated in time.

"We are shocked and horrified that the Israeli military would target and destroy the building housing AP’s bureau and other news organizations in Gaza," he said. "The world will know less about what is happening in Gaza because of what happened today."

The acting director-general of the Qatar-based Al Jazeera Media Network, Dr. Mostefa Souag, called the strike "barbaric" and said Israel should be held accountable.

“The aim of this heinous crime is to silence the media and to hide the untold carnage and suffering of the people of Gaza," he said in a statement.

The spokesman for the IDF's International Media Branch, Lt.-Col. Jonathan Conricus, rejected the notion that Israel was seeking to silence the media. "That is totally false – the media is not the target," he told Reuters.


Source

© Copyright Original Source

Get warned that you're staying in a building housing a Hamas base.

Ignore it and stay anyways.

Get warning that the building is slated to be attacked in a few hours.

Ignore it and stay anyways.

Building is attacked.

Act shocked and outraged that the building that you insisted on staying in was attacked just like you were told it would be.

Hmmmmmmmm.... Seems Blinken disagrees with Israel's claims that they showed evidence to support their strike.....

Blinken says he hasn't seen evidence Hamas was in AP building Israel struck

[Gondwanaland]

US evangelicals are so indoctrinated on this issue, it's pointless talking to them. Their bubble is a mile thick.

Too true.

[Gondwanaland]

You issued a blanket statement about what you thought about the "US's idea of 'credible evidence' is (yellowcake uranium in Iraq, anyone?)."

I simply pointed out that there was indeed yellow cake uranium in Iraq. 550 tons of it.

Yes, I issued a blanket statement on the topic of intelligence that the US decided was 'credible evidence' You then tried to point to yellowcake uranium that had already been known about and had been sitting in decaying containers since at least the 1990s, well before the intelligence in question. Try to keep up, hun.

Just admit that you thought you found a 'gotcha' and didn't bother to read your own source. It's not that hard.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

No, Israel is not practising a form of apartheid. I live in South Africa and know the difference. Here is a good link from the Jerusalem Post:

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/israel...itorial-666516

What do you make of this?

https://truthout.org/articles/as-a-r...artheid-state/

[I hope Gondwanaland won't object to my "borrowing" his link.]

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Hmmmmmmmm.... Seems Blinken disagrees with Israel's claims that they showed evidence to support their strike.....

Blinken says he hasn't seen evidence Hamas was in AP building Israel struck

Concerning the Jerusalem Post taking the Israeli line on that incident, the famous remark made in court by Mandy Rice Davies line comes to mind [when Lord Astor denied his affair with her] "Well he would, wouldn't he"?

[Starlight]

Thankfully leftists like you have no say or sway over the Jewish state.

If you knew that socialists had founded Israel would you support it less?

[Mountain Man]

Meanwhile, a nutter from the Washington Compost laments the effectiveness of Israel's Iron Dome, basically saying that Hamas' inability to inflict death and destruction will cause Israel to be less likely to accede to the terrorist nation's demands.

"The unintended consequences of this protective system complicate the story — by reducing the expected costs of bombing Gaza, Iron Dome allows Israel to act with less concern for civilian casualties, and gives Israel less incentive to find a political solution to its conflict with Gaza."

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattve...oblem-n2589610

[CivilDiscourse]

Meanwhile, a nutter from the Washington Compost laments the effectiveness of Israel's Iron Dome, basically saying that Hamas' inability to inflict death and destruction will cause Israel to be less likely to accede to the terrorist nation's demands.

"The unintended consequences of this protective system complicate the story — by reducing the expected costs of bombing Gaza, Iron Dome allows Israel to act with less concern for civilian casualties, and gives Israel less incentive to find a political solution to its conflict with Gaza."

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattve...oblem-n2589610

It also creates the lop-sided casualty lists that then get used as propaganda.

[seer]

If you knew that socialists had founded Israel would you support it less?

Yes, I know that a lot of them were Communists in the early kibbutzs in fact. Thankfully it didn't really take hold.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Yes, I know that a lot of them were Communists in the early kibbutzs in fact. Thankfully it didn't really take hold.

From the Israeli reporter Uri Cohen-Aharanov [died 2015]

“Prime ministers like Menachem Begin and Ben Gurion were public servants, living in small two-bedroom apartments. “They got up at six a.m. working for Israel and were still doing so when they went to bed at midnight. Now you say the word kibbutz and people laugh. Ariel Sharon has a huge farm a few kilometers from Sderot where the poorest people in the country live. The difference between the rich and ordinary people reminds me more and more of the gap between rich and poor in South America."

[Esther]

What do you make of this?

https://truthout.org/articles/as-a-r...artheid-state/

[I hope Gondwanaland won't object to my "borrowing" his link.]

The rabbi experienced an emotional response devoid of knowledge of how the Israeli government is run.

[Mountain Man]

Hmmmmmmmm.... Seems Blinken disagrees with Israel's claims that they showed evidence to support their strike.....

Blinken says he hasn't seen evidence Hamas was in AP building Israel struck

Blinken is a bit blinkered. It seems that as Secretary of State, Blinken would not necessarily be privy to all intelligence information shared with other agencies, and that his statement that he has not seen the information refers only to his own personal knowledge. He also said at another point that he is aware that Israel did provide the information supporting their claims to the administration but that it's not something on which he can comment further.

https://dailycaller.com/2021/05/18/a...mas-ap-office/