was it iran or israel who attacked the u.s.s. liberty and murdered 34 american sailors and injured 171 others? where was the outrage? if iran had done this...we would have wiped them off the face of the earth. at the least, if iran had done this washington d.c. would not have recalled the fighter jets that were sent out to defend the liberty...but since it was israel our government did all it could to cover it up...we truly are israels b**** and im sick of it. they are not our friends.
I've been a long time critic of Saudi Arabia but you just see what you want to see because you're an obsessed nutso. Get a clue.
How often should we be outraged -- is this a 24/7 thing? I just don't have that much time for outrage -- sorry.
Thank you, I stand corrected as far as you are concerned (although I totally disagree with you putting Saudi Arabia and Israel on the same level - one is a repressive, brutal, inhumane dictatorship, the other one a liberal democracy). I am outraged at your lack of 24/7 outrage!
Israel might be a liberal democracy in Tel Aviv, but outside of that it has a history (recent) of being brutal, repressive, and inhumane.
I encourage you to go on a trip to both Israel and Saudi Arabia (you will most likely need two passports to do that) and report back on which country you consider less liberal. Also, please read this: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2015/0303/Is-Saudi-Arabia-any-less-brutal-than-ISIS Is Saudi Arabia any less brutal than ISIS? The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia embraces the same capital punishment techniques on convicted criminals as the Islamic terrorist group does on innocent hostages. Just over two months into 2015, Saudi Arabia has beheaded 37 convicted criminals. The two most recent came on Tuesday when Saudi Arabian authorities beheaded convicted rapist Mohammed bin Ali bin Mohammed al-Bishi, who reportedly assaulted his victim at gunpoint, and in a separate execution, Hamoud bin Salih bin Falih al-Zubi, who reportedly shot and killed a fellow citizen following a dispute, Agence France Presse (AFP) reported. "[Mohammed al-Bishi] also committed a number of armed robberies causing panic amongst the society. He had entered a number of homes by force and tried to kidnap and rape women and children," a government-issued statement read. If the current trend continues, the Kingdom projects to exceed the 87 beheadings carried out last year, which was up from 78 the year before, by the AFP's count. The US has executed eight convicted criminals so far this year. Saudi Arabia is currently a member of the United Nations Council on Human Rights with its term set to expire in 2016. Crimes such as murder, armed robbery, and sexual assault, among others, are all punishable by death in Saudi Arabia because the legal system is based on a strict interpretation of sharia or Islamic law. This leads some to question Western governments' attitudes towards the Kingdom when they carry out similar punishments as the Islamic State performs on innocent hostages, according to Newsweek. There isn't a morale equivalency but critics question the double standard when it comes to the brutal beheadings. “There seems to be a disconnect between Saudi Arabia’s condemnation of the practices of the Islamic State and the kingdom’s own state-sanctioned practices,” Lina Khatib of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut told Newsweek. Since the Islamic State group became organized in the midst of the chaos from the Syrian civil war, media and human rights reports have detailed the cruelty and inhumanity ISIS has brought to the embattled region. The latest United Nations report, cited by Reuters, shed light on the group kidnapping children and selling them as sex slaves, and killing scores of others via crucifixion and being buried alive. Back in February, ISIS reportedly decapitated 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians, according to CNN. In response, the Egyptian air force bombed ISIS-affiliated targets inside Libya less than a week later, the BBC reported. This followed high-profile beheadings of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff in 2014. The group's Algerian partners captured and executed a French mountaineering guide in late September. Also, three foreign aid workers, David Gaines, Alan Henning, and Peter Kassig, were all executed over the course of 2014. Two Japanese hostages were executed early in 2015. The UN report also indicated that boys under the age of 18 were being forced into becoming suicide bombers and bomb makers. The reach of the group is disturbing because, though many children from Yazidi and Christian minorities' have been taken hostage, children of both Sunnis and Shi'ites have been abducted as well, according to Reuters. "We are really deeply concerned at torture and murder of those children, especially those belonging to minorities, but not only from minorities," UN committee expert Renate Winter told the gathered media at a press conference. "The scope of the problem is huge." Monday, an Associated Press (AP) story reported that ISIS has simply chosen varied elements from the entirety of Islamic history to construct an ideology using distorted accounts of this history. Joas Wagemakers, assistant professor of Islamic Studies at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands, told the AP this amounted to an attempt by the IS to make God, "a co-conspirator in a genocidal project." As for Saudi Arabia, Amnesty International reported on the state of individual liberty among Saudis for 2014-2015, and reported that death penalties can also be handed down for offenses such as "sorcery," simple/minor drug possession, apostasy, and adultery. VICE News reported that executions by firing squad, stonings, and crucifixions are also employed by Saudi Arabian authorities in addition to beheadings, which they view as the most human method. The means in which individuals are convicted and subject to these death sentences, in some instances, have been extracted through coerced confessions and torture, according to Amnesty International. Citizens are subject to arbitrary arrests with indefinite detention without access to a lawyer and without being charged for as long as six months, according to the same report.
Let me get this straight; Your argument is based on an attack 45 years ago, in which said country was in the middle of an invasion and you're resorting to conspiracy theories? There are no conspiracy theories in which many of the countries in the middle east would love to see our country nuked...its common knowledge.
Bulldozering people and houses isn't Brutal? Thousands of Palestinians killed, many of them women and children - that level of scale doesn't mean anything? Saudi Arabia isn't defensible for it's level of repression and backwardsness. But Israel doesn't get a free pass just because Saudi Arabia is brutal too.
More Palestinians (women and children) got killed by rockets fired by Hamas. Pallywood then made it seem like it was the Israelis. Israel has a right to defend itself. Hamas - a terrorist organization - is the aggressor.
The Hamas rockets killing more is only true of the recent skirmishes, and not overall. Nobody, especially Hamas should not get a free pass for civilian deaths. But let's not pretend like Israel doesn't kill plenty of civilians as well.
Hadn't heard about it until this thread. I'm outraged and all. I condemn the airstrike. Is that better? Now, speaking more generally: Israel gets criticism because they are our friends. It's the same as France or England or Germany. Saudi is an ally of convenient circumstance, but I don't think Americans feel anything with them akin to the friendship we have with Israel. You look out for your friends, you tell them when you think they're going astray. When a friend gets behind the wheel after too many drinks, or maybe oppresses half the people in their country, you say something to avert them from doing foolish, evil things. When its just some guy you recognize, like Saudi Arabia, you don't really have that relationship of trust you need to say they are doing this or that wrong. And you don't really care, except that you do your best to protect yourself from them.
I see what you are saying, JuanValdez. But if you take an honest look at some of the posters here, they are certainly not hating on Israel because they are our friends. They are hating on them for the same reason ISIS hates them.
I think you have this fact wrong. The report was that Hamas rockets killed more Palestinians than Israelis. As in, fewer Israelis died by Hamas rockets than Palestinians died by those rockets. Not that Hamas killed more Palestinians than the Israelis did. If I remember correctly, the Hamas rockets killed something like 5 Israelis and 15 Palestinians. Those numbers were dwarfed by the numbers killed by Israel. Not trying to take a side here, just fact checking.
And what has ISIS done to Israel to make you believe they're hating on them specifically. Have they done more damage in Israel as they've done in other countries...?
The soft bigotry of low expectations? Israel is better than Saudi on human rights;; also better than ISIL. So why aren't we talking about human and civil rights in ISIL? Why the outrage about human rights in Israel when ISIL is worse?
As FB pointed out - only true in the last operation but overall false. While Israel has a right to defend itself as anyone does, it does not have a right to violate to oppress an entire people which happened long before Hamas or even the PLO existed . It also doesn't have a right to expand it's territory and colonize land belonging to another people outside what the UN has recognized. If Israel is so much better than the savages of Islam that you constantly decry, why then can't we hold Israel to a higher standard in conduct? Yet when Israel acts in similar ways to another country you disparage and others point this out, you cry foul. I find that to be a double standard. Finally, Israel was a supporter of Hamas despite knowing how extreme it was, but because they viewed the moderate PLO as their enemy, Israel didn't care and provided political support to Hamas.
Israel has a right to defend itself, ie invade neighbors, bomb civilians, conduct assassinations, but the Saudis don't? What strange logic. Hamas exists because of Israeli aggression so it's historically inaccurate to claim Hamas is the aggressor in the area. There wouldn't be a Hamas without what Israel has done.
So why does Al-Shabaab exist? Why does Boko Haram exist? Why does the Hisbollah exist? Why does Al Qaeda exist? Why does ISIS exist? All Israel's fault, in your opinion? Wait...what do they have in common? Yep, all Islamist.
I don't know. Why don't you go look them all up and enlighten yourself why they exist. Hamas was created after the First Intafada with the intention of liberating Palestine. Hamas is also an elected group among Palestinians. They are not the aggressor, they're the response to illegal occupation. An occupation decried by most all of the entire world. You're so ignorant and belligerent that you just conflate all Muslims to fit your neat little story. You didn't answer the question however. Why do you consistently defend Israel's right to invade neighbors, bomb civilians, and conduct assassinations but deny Saudi Arabia the same right?
If you feel like Israel and Saudi Arabia are somehow comparable and on equal moral footing, then you have already exposed yourself - no point in having any further discussion with you.
