when does the real war begin?

<b>Timing</b>, Amnesty International is misreading the situation.

The Palestinians are waging war on the Israelis, and the Israelis are killing the terrorist leaders. Civilians are always killed in battle, but we must blame the agressor for these innocent deaths! Arafat is the agressor here and now, and I don't see how anybody can argue that point.

Also, some Palestinians are taking children into the fighting and sacrificing them on the frontlines for PR purposes. THAT IS A FACT THAT YOU CANNOT REFUTE. When PLO cops with machine guns use children as a human shield, they reveal themselves as COMPLETE ANIMALS.

That young man in your picture was a victim, but he was not shot on purpose. He was caught in a crossfire and accidently shot, and it is unclear whether he was killed by the Israelis or the PLO.

Do you see the difference between that child dying accidently and a suicide bomber blowing up babies on purpose?

<b>Subatomic</b>, I don't think anybody has insulted Islam here, and if I have, I apologize. I know that Islam, like Christianity, can be both beautiful and disgusting- it depends on the actions of the followers.

 

Sorry RodneyMac, I know you're passionate on this subject but I see no difference between a government sponsored group of goons assasinating political leaders and killing innocent civilians with attack choppers and another government sponsored group of goons doing the same thing. Israelis are engaging in terrorism just as much as the Palestinians.

 

How is that a fact? there were 2 year old babies killed. HOW CAN 2 YEAR OLD BABIES BE USED AS SHEILDS?!??!?!?!

 

Timing, if we could magically end the violence, and procure a one month ceasefire, which group do you think would restart the violence first?

Which group walked away from the last round of Peace Talks?

Which group started the hostilities in 1948, and the 6 Day War?

I agree with you, both sides have committed horrible acts- that happens in war when heavily armed young men see their friends and family members die. The question is, how can the violence be stopped?

In my opinion, the key to peace is in the hands of Arafat, and he has clearly demonstrated that peace is not his goal.

 

I don't dispute that other Palestinian children have been killed on accident (and maybe some on purpose)- that happens in war. Maybe the PLO should stop the fighting, so more babies won't get killed?

I was referring though, to a quote that I posted earlier from a Palestinian mother who bragged that her child was sent to the fighting and sacrificed. She referred to him as a martyr, implying that he died honorably, when he was put in between Israelis and Palestinian soldiers.

This is the same ideology that caused millions of Iraqi and Iranian teenagers to die in the war between those two countries. The Iranians used teenage boys <b>to clear minefields</b>.

They think they are going to Heaven, and I think it is a damn shame.

 

Boy, what do you think the Israelis need to do to end the violence. What steps have to be taken for lasting peace in the region?

 

It appears that neither Israel or the US wants an international presence in the area to monitor the situation and keep peace. The US has vetoed UN Security Council attempts to put an international presence in the area to monitor the situation.

Human Rights News

The Israeli government refuses to investigate alleged violations committed during "war-like situations," in contravention of international human rights and humanitarian law.

Consider the killing of fourteen-year old `Ala Mahfouz. Last October, `Ala was watching clashes from the roof of his family home when he threw a stone that hit an Israeli soldier in the face. The soldier was evacuated, but a second soldier waited outside `Ala's home for more than an hour. When `Ala walked onto his balcony drinking a cup of tea, the soldier shot him in the forehead from a distance of fifteen meters. Soldiers then fired rubber bullets at `Ala's father and two neighbors as they tried to evacuate the boy, hitting all of them. `Ala died in a hospital. The soldier who shot him remained on duty, and witnesses told us that he openly boasted about the killing, and threatened to kill others in the household.

 

Timing,

If you have one group that strikes through terrorist bombings (behind the front lines) and another with a military that predominately strikes on the front lines (where observers would be), which group would want observers?

Regardless, so sad for all concerned.

 

Timing,

We could post examples of atrocities all day long from this conflict. Your stories don't faze me one bit, because I know a cycle of violence has started that is full of injustice.

Why don't you answer the questions I posed to you?

 

Ok, my memory is a little fuzzy, but lets take this back a step. If my memory is correct, the concept of Jeruselem as a holy city from a historical perspective relative to Islam, is more or less, "Well, the Jews like it, and it's kind of on the way to Tours, lets take it."

In otherwords, for Mohammed, it was Mecca & Medinna (sp) and nothing else. Jereuselem was sort of added in there many hundreds of years after his death for (somewhat) political reasons.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Otto, you are very wrong. Jerusalem is a <b>very</b> holy place for Islam. Remember, one of Abraham's sons was Ismael, a very important prophet to the Moslems. Ancient Islamic and Judeic history are interwoven.

 

Wait up, you posted info trying to show Palestinians in a bad light with the Holocaust denial stuff. This is equal time here. Israel is not the innocent that you've attempted to portray here. They murder, assasinate, and commit horrible crimes every bit the equal of Palestinian terrorists. Only with Israel it's not considered terrorism for some reason.

Palestinians are oppressed, abused, and mistreated every day. This is being documented by HR organizations. Did you read the link I provided? It documents unecessary harrassment, threats, and violence towards Palestinians. Does that every day oppression qualify as violence to you? It qualifies as human rights violations. Who is to blame, the human rights violator or the violated who fight back?

I would send in UN Peacekeepers. Take all of these Israeli policemen with itchy trigger fingers off these checkposts and replace them with UN Peacekeepers. The tensions would go down significantly and then some real peace could be brokered.

 

This sounds like revisionist history to me. I'm not talking about what is claimed today. Are you clear how many misconceptions that Mohammed had about Judiasm? To claim that they are 'interwoven' is sort of like saying Pat Robertson is a Talamudic Scholar. My understanding is that most likely, Mohammed's total experience with Jews was mostly second hand, through his wife and perhaps 1 or 2 chance encounters.

In otherwords, saying that Islam is based on Judiasm, is like saying that 'The Nation of Islam' is based on the teachings of Mohammed.

 

Actually he lived in Medina with Jews. The Jewish community was given complete rights in Medina with their own courts and everything else. So he did have expirence first hand with Jews. His neighbor was infact Jewish at one point in his life.

Masjid ul Aqsa (The Aqsa Mosque) is mentioned in the Quran and it is said that the land around it is blessed. In the Caliphate of the Second Caliph Omar it was taken under Muslim hands and the people (Jews and Christians) welcomed the Muslims. Omar signed agreements with the two religious groups granting them freedom. He was asked to pray at a Church but he refused claiming that people might make the Church into a Mosque if he did that.

The first place where Muslims used to pray to in the time of the Prophet Muhammad was infact Jerusalem. After a time it became Mecca.

So please don't come here with ignorant rubbish until you've researched the facts. And these facts can't be denied by anyone Muslim or Christian or Jew.

 

Otto,

Not sure if this helps or not, but here ya go.......

Islam, the new monotheistic faith which evolved during the first half of the 7th century, inherited many symbols from its monotheistic predecessors. Among them, the city of Jerusalem was sanctified in Islam as the "stairway to heaven". This was the sight where the father Abraham had been tested and where he had been commanded to sacrifice his son, the father of the Arab people Ishmael. It was from here that Mohammed the Prophet ascended to heaven and it was here that he received the law.

The 17th sura of the Quran states "Blessed be Allah who made his servant go by night from the Holiest Mosque to the Furthest Away Mosque." Islamic tradition (Hadith) explains that Mohammed was called away by Allah (The One God) to go on a night journey. He was magically transported on a winged horse (Al Buraq) from Mecca (The holiest mosque) to Al Aksa (The furthest away mosque) in Jerusalem. It was on the Temple Mount (Haram al Sharif) that Mohammed prayed with the six prophets:

Adam; Noah; Abraham; Moses; David and Jesus; and it was from the Rock on the top of that mount that he finally ascended to heaven.
In Mecca Mohammed had courted the support of the Jews for his new faith and had conceded to praying facing the holy city as the Jews were accustomed. His efforts to include the Jews amongst his early supporters were to no avail. But the centrality of Jerusalem as an Islamic symbol remained. After Mohammed's failure to spread his faith amongst the people of Mecca, he set out on the 'holy war' to bring his message to the pagan people of the Arabian Peninsula and the far East. In 638 CE, six years after the death of the prophet, the Islamic armies reached the gates of Byzantine Jerusalem. The city fell and so began a period of Islamic rule which was to continue almost uninterrupted through till the 20th century.
The Muslim conquest of Jerusalem was soon to change the physical appearance of the city. Jerusalem, was for them, as it had been for the Byzantines, a symbol of God's favour. The city, the "stairway to heaven" was made to express that favour. Jerusalem was to become an architectural expression of God's preference for Islam over the other faiths. In 692 CE Abd El Malik built the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount. Moriah was once again reinstated as the focal point of the city.

The destroyed Mountain blossomed with new life as the new Temple, the Moslem shrine, was built. With a Dome of almost identical proportions to that of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the golden top of the shrine on Moriah outshone the silver roof which stood on Golgotha. The magnificent building, with its eight walls and gates representing the eight doors to heaven, looked triumphantly on the six walled church which stood on the facing hill. The city of Jerusalem which ranks only third in the "sanctitometer" of Moslem cities was made to express the triumph of Muslim truth over Christianity. The Mount which Jesus had prophesied would remain in ruins was now rebuilt and splendid. For the Jews of Jerusalem this was perhaps something of a victory too.

 

You have completely misinterpreted what I wrote.

My ONLY point is that Jerusalem is a very holy place for Islam. I never said that Islam is based on Judaism, rather, their histories have common figures- such as Abraham and Ishmael.

Please don't try to read anything further into my very simple post.

 

TPL, I am not a religious person, and I did not realize that there is a dispute about whether Abraham was going to sacrifice Isaac or Ishmael during God's test of obedience.

This dispute is part of the core problem- who did God give the "promised holy land"?

The more I read, the less respect I have for organized religion.

 

United Nations Security Council Resolution 242:
1. Israel must withdraw from territories occupied in 1967.
2. All states in the region will live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries.

The Palestinian obligations under 242 were fulfilled many years ago. The State of Israel in its 1967 borders were recognized by the PLO. However, the Israeli obligation, withdrawal from the occupied territories, has gone unfulfilled. Israel is bound by international law to withdraw from all territories occupied in 1967, including Jerusalem. That Jerusalem is included in the territories referred to in 242 is specifically stressed in Security Council Resolution 496 which "reaffirms the overriding necessity to end the prolonged occupation of Arab territories occupied by Israel since 1967, including Jerusalem." 242 is a commitment to the Palestinians and they have carried out their part of the bargain. Israel has not.

Under the terms of the Fourth Geneva Convention, Israel is obliged to defend the civilian population living under its control. Its crystal clear that the massacre of Palestinian civilians by the Israeli military has been a complete violation of this obligation, and Israel has also failed to protect the Palestinian civilians from the heavily-armed Jewish settlers it introduced into the occupied territories. Israel again has failed to reach their end of past agreements. Big surprise.

As far as the claim that Palestinian youth are taken out of school for demonstrations etc, one will see that historically, youth have always been at the forefront of uprisings against opression. Demonstrations and stone-throwing by youth in no way justifies Israel's massacre of them any more than southern governors in turning dogs on youth involved in the American civil rights movement.

Lastly, I want to adress the claim that Palestinian deaths have come in the course of the crossfire, specifically the picture Timing posted. The following is an exact quote from a statement given under oath by Mr. Talal Abu Rahma, photographer for France 2 television who filmed the murder of 12 year old Mohammed Al-Durah, made at the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights on October 3, 2000:

"Then, it was quite clear for me that shooting was towards the child Mohammed and his father from the opposite direction to them. Intensive and intermittent shooting was directed at the two, and the two outposts were not a source of shooting, as shooting from inside these outposts had stopped after the first 5 minutes, and the child and his father were not injured then. Injuring and killing took place during the following 45 minutes. I can assert that shooting at the child Mohammed and his father Jamal came from the above - mentioned Israeli military outpost, as it was the only place from which shooting at the child and his father was possible. So, by logic and nature, my long experience in covering hot incidents and violent clashes, and my ability to distinguish sounds of shooting, I can confirm that the child was intentionally and in cold blood shot dead and his father injured by the Israeli army."

Sadly, biased American media continued to misreport the incident.

 

I guess my point was not whether it is a holy place, but whether it should be, based on the tenants of the faith, a legitimate holy place. I apologise for not clearly and faithfully putting those thoughts to keyboard, but what I really intended to point out is that you seem to have passed by the original intent of the post to which you were responding.

Please try to read anything further into my very simple post.