From BBC.com your only reliable news source! Israeli troops pour into West Bank city Witnesses say more than 100 tanks went into the city Israeli tanks and troops have entered the centre of the Palestinian city of Nablus in large numbers. Witnesses said about 150 armoured vehicles, some firing heavy machine guns, moved into the West Bank city in the early hours of Friday morning. One Palestinian is reported to have been killed. The operation came hours after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon vowed to retaliate for Wednesday's bomb attack at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The blast, carried out by the Islamic militant group Hamas, killed seven people and wounded dozens of others. Israel took control of Nablus in March after Palestinian militants carried out a wave of suicide bombings in Israel. Thousands of Palestinians have taken to the streets of the city for the past four days in protest at a curfew imposed on the city two weeks ago. 'Militant killed' Witnesses said tanks and armoured personnel carriers which had encircled the city took up positions in the centre of Nablus and surrounded the Old City. Soldiers left the tanks and entered the Old City's narrow alleyways, exchanging fire with Palestinian gunmen, residents said. Israeli media reported that Israel's internal security service believes the Hebrew University bomb was prepared in a workshop in the Old City. Troops have avoided entering the city's cramped alleyways before now because of the risk of fighting at close quarters. A Palestinian was shot dead in the centre of the city, Palestinian sources said. Witnesses said Israeli forces also went into the neighbouring village of Salem and shot dead a member of Hamas. The Israeli army said it would not yet comment "for operational reasons".
Rocks turn into guns at some point, I think Israel needs to take a harder stand. It is clear that the "try for peace" stand is not working. Time to make it deadly to oppose them, and then finally they may have peace.
Nah, I am just sick of Hamas killing innocent civilians which makes Israel HAVE to retaliate. I wish Israel would just get down and dirty and get this over with. Israel needs to kill all known Hamas leaders and anyone associated with them...then maybe there can be the start of peace.
Slippery road Dada. Now since Israelis are subject to mendatory service in the army, a civilian may turn into a militant some day. What are you exactly arguing for?
The problem is that the Israeli army kills scores of civillians when they perform these strikes to get rid of a handful of militants. There were children killed in the air raid last week executed to kill ONE militant leader. That's justice. Start to have peace? That's not peace, that's beating a group into submission. When enough of you are dead we can have peace making NO concessions. If that's what you believe in then good...you are in great company...Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Milosevic...just about any tyrannical faction in world history.
DaDakota, you aren't buying all of the liberal media are you? Sheez that New York media has you eating up the bad guy Palestinian stuff, huh? (actually my head might pop if I try to figure out which side we're supposed to pull for, lol, are we supposed to get official newsletters? mmmm... I can't think for meselffff. Palestinians, good/bad? Jewish people, good/bad? Black and white. One side must be evil, the other side must be honorable. Cowboy movies. Mmmm... simple mindedness.) Oh, where am I? I don't know who's right anymore in the middle east... is it neocolonialism? What is it? Should we care anymore? If a tree falls on me in the forest and a Palestinian and an Israeli kill one another, will I hear the tre... wait a minute, I'm confused. DaDakota explain the cycle of violence to me... the Israeli soldiers killed nine children the other day. Why are you anti-Palestinian? Why not just be anti-the friggin' four year olds that will be doing this for eons... over some belief in invisible things that none of them have ever met before. Seriously, they're killing one another b/c various mommies have told them different things about the way the world works. Hate the mommies!!! Buy a bunch of land in North Dakota and offer it to the Israelis. If they take it, fine. If they don't, what can you do? Other than acting like this is the only foreign policy the US needs to have, what, can, you, do.
We agree on this one. Sadly, they probably WILL shoot the guys throwing rocks. That's the problem over there is that nobody has any restraint. The only real difference between the 2 groups is that one has military weaponry and the other has hommade explosives they can strap to themselves. The reason why the Palestinians are viewed as being the evil aggressor is that blowing yourself up in a mall looks so much worse. We call that terrorism while doing air strikes over a residential area killing several children in the process is called a military action.
You catch more flies with guns than butter. Compare the picture in the first post to the image of the lone Chinese guy in Tienamen Square who stood in front of the PLA tank, and when the tank moved to go around him, he moved to stop it. One galvanized international support and one doesn't. Those tanks came into the city with troops. Rocks CAN hurt troops. Don't bring a knife to a gunfight. Non-violence is the only way for the Palestinians. Untill they 'get it' they're going to keep 'getting' it.
Just to emphasize here that the tank actually didn't roll over HIM. And there were incidents of rock throwing that western cameras didn't see or show. I will leave the other stuff out here.
The students were non-violent until they started to get crushed. Even then 'on balance' the students maintained their non-violence. The point is that when a peaceful demonstration is beaten down international opinion will almost always go against the offending government/group. People wonder why all of opinion is not automatically against the Israelis, but its because people haven't seen any move toward non-violence. Personally I've grown up with the PLO shelling Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah bombing civilians, Libya and Syria (with help from our friends in the former USSR) and Iran sponsoring bombings of discos and airliners. Haven't seen any signs of non-violence. People ask 'do you expect the Palestinians to sit at the table for 20 years while the Israelis continue to attack them?' But I haven't seen the Palestinians stop for ANY signficant amount of time, much less twenty years.
