Pro-Hamas demo in Lebanon: "Oh our people in Gaza, you are honorable" -- Hamas is honorable?
Actually they're protesting against Israel defending itself, after making nary a peep about the Hamas Qassams lobbed at Israeli civilians. And why are they doing this now? Because they know how to tug on credulous Western heartstrings. "Across Mideast, thousands protest Israeli assault," by Bassem Mroue for Associated Press, December 28 (thanks to James):
BEIRUT, Lebanon – Crowds of thousands swept into the streets of cities around the Middle East on Sunday to denounce Israel's air assault on Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip.
Think about all the many things we have never seen thousands of Muslims protest against. 9/11, for one. The July 7, 2005 London bombings, for another. Mumbai, for a third. Shall I go on?
From Lebanon to Iran, Israel's adversaries used the weekend assault to marshal crowds into the streets for noisy demonstrations. And among regional allies there was also discontent: The prime minister of Turkey, one of the few Muslim countries to have relations with Israel, called the air assault a "crime against humanity."
Baseless, hysterical, and -- Erdogan hopes -- effective against Israel in the court of world opinion.
Several of Sunday's protests turned violent. A crowd of anti-Israel protesters in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul became a target for a suicide bomber on a bicycle.
A Zionist suicide biker in Mosul? More likely, the biker represented a sect of Islam that objected to the sect of the protesters.
In Lebanon, police fired tear gas to stop dozens of demonstrators from reaching the Egyptian Embassy. Some in the crowd hurled stones at the embassy compound. It was unclear if anyone was hurt.Egypt, which has served as a mediator between Israel and the Palestinians as well as between Hamas and its rival Fatah, has been criticized for joining Israel in closing its borders with Gaza. Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit called on Hamas to renew its truce with Israel: "There has been a calm and we should work to restore it."
In Islamic law, a Muslim force may conclude a truce with a non-Muslim force only if the Muslims are losing and need some time to regroup.
France also called for the truce to be renewed and rallied European nations to use "all their weight" to stop the fighting between Israel and Hamas."We have entered a new spiral of despair," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told the Journal du Dimanche in an interview published Sunday. "The truce must be restored."...
Kouchner, of course, has no idea of the Islamic theology and law governing truces.
In Beirut, Hamas representative Osama Hamdan told the crowd that the militant group had no choice but to fight. Gaza militants have been lobbing dozens of rockets and mortars into southern Israel since a six-month truce expired over a week ago, prompting Israel's fierce retaliation."We have one alternative which is to be steadfast and resist and then we will be victorious," Hamdan said.
In the capital of neighboring Syria, more than 5,000 people marched toward the central Youssef al-Azmeh square, where they burned an Israeli and an American flag.
One demonstrator carried a banner reading, "The aggression against Gaza is an aggression against the whole Arab nation."
"Down with America, the mother of terrorism," read another.
In Amman, Jordan, about 5,000 lawyers marched toward parliament to demand the Israeli ambassador's expulsion and the closure of the embassy. "No for peace, yes to the rifle," they chanted.
In Jordan's squalid Baqaa camp for Palestinian refugees and their descendants, protester Yassin Abu Taha, 32, blamed America and Israel for the Middle East's problems.
"The Israelis kill our people in Gaza and the West Bank. The Americans kill our people in Iraq. We're refugees, kicked out of our home in Tulkarem in 1967 and we're still displaced," he said, bemoaning his family's flight in the 1967 Mideast war....
Tired victimology. But it still plays in the West.
The Hamas hide in the midst of the local population, don't wear uniforms and have a strong support from the peopel living there. So they are the ones responsible for making the lines between fighter and civilian blurred. Whenever there is an attack they will inflate the number of 'civilian' casualties for propaganda reasons, but in reality it can be impossible to know who is what in such an environment, except perhaps if it's children or old peopel we are talking about.
If they would fight like men, in a regular army, only attacking military targets on the Israeli side, I would have some respect for them, even if I don't agree with what they fight for. But they don't, instead they attack Israeli civilians and hide behind their own semi-civilian population, thus forcing the Israelis to retaliate in a way that is bound to turn international opinion against Israel.
Though it makes sense to do that politically - in order to rally their own peopel behind them, to deamonize the Israelis internationally and so on - I have no respect for it. It's a cowardly and dirty way to wage a war.
Now imagine that instead of Israel, Gaza had borders with China.
If Gazans were lobbing rockets into China, (if they dared), how would Gaza look when the Chinese finished with them?
And would China take any notice of world opinion?
I wonder how much of the civilian carnage is caused not directly by the air strikes, but caused by the secondary explosions of the munitions and rockets that were hit. I saw one today that had several large secondary explosions, and it was directly between two houses.
Given the territory of Gaza, how small it is, and how exposed their non-residential areas would be for munitions and rocket launching, there is no way that anyone could fight a 'clean,' 'just' war from there. They absolutely must use these evil, human-shield tactics. They have no choice, er, um, well, they do have the choice of facing reality and giving up the jihad. But Iran won't let them...
And the chumps in the civilized world fall for these blatantly fraudulent tactics, hook line & sinker. Whether it is out of stupidity, naivete, or a deep-seated hatred of Jews &/or Israel, it is obscene and sickening.
The poor Muslim Hamas terrorists!
They hide behind civilians and children (i.e. setting up rocket launching sites in schoolyards, parks and civilian residential areas). When they are hit they claim the Israelis of "genocide".
When the militants fight as soliders, they have no uniforms and carry weapons which if they are killed a fellow "brother" or militant picks up the weapon and shows that the enemy shot down a "poor defenceless"family man or student. This gives the impression of murder to the ignorant dhimmis of the West. So the outcry is loud againest everyone in Israel and the Western countries who are fighting this great evil of Islam.
It sickens me!
"Think about all the many things we have never seen thousands of Muslims protest against. 9/11, for one...."
I got to thinking about it and did a little research.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrM0dAFsZ8k
One tiny ray of light. At the CNN online website they have a poll for the readers to take.
The question being, are the retaliatory strikes by Israel justified?
Even at that leftist website the results are presently, 61% feel Israel is justified while only 31%, (about the same percentage that believe we attacked ourselves on 9/11) condemn the attacks.
Go Israel! Kill terrorists! No mercy for Islamic murderers! Hamas begged for what they are presently receiving. Heap it on!
Islam is a lie and truth is killing it...along with some 500 pound laser guided bombs.
Oh, give us a break!
We're SO on to you Islamic Barbarians. Get real.
Israel - Keep on keepin' on against the Mohammedan Bullies/Mass-Murderers/Jew Haters.
What's unbelieveable is of all this talk from Western foreign ministers about "restoring the truce". There's been no bloody truce to begin with! Hamas don't care about a truce! Hamas wants to destroy Israel! They've stated it loudly, plainly and openly and yet, too many Western pollies still don't get it.
The only truce Hamas will agree to is one where Israel doesn't exist.
Israel is doing all of us a huge favour by going after these guys. I only hope that, unlike Lebanon in 2006, they actually do the job right and ensure Hamas are permanently removed.
Jordan sure love the "Palestinians" during Black September.
How soon~ and how conveniently~ they forget.
The one on the right looks EXTREMELY certain of herself.
So Erdogan called the air assault a "crime against humanity?"
Nothing new here. Only Muslims are human, unbelievers are "the vilest of creatures" according to the "holy Koran"- that must be understood.
I would say Israel should make tabula rasa, wipe them out just like they would wipe us out if it was in their powers. But we can't do that, "because that would make us just like them"- right?
My famous, well-informed Jewish lawyer friend gave me that sermon this morning, after he scoffed at me for being such a 'radical'.
Can't have that. We can't be 'radical'... WTF NOT????
'In Jordan's squalid Baqaa camp for Palestinian refugees and their descendants, protester Yassin Abu Taha, 32, blamed America and Israel for the Middle East's problems.
"'The Israelis kill our people in Gaza and the West Bank. The Americans kill our people in Iraq. We're refugees, kicked out of our home in Tulkarem in 1967 and we're still displaced,'"
Wasn't Jordan supposed to be the part of Palestine given to the Moslems as their share? So how is this guy a refugee, since he's living in his "homeland"?
And how can he have been "kicked out" of his home 9 years before he was born? He's no refugee, he's a natural-born citizen of Jordan, so why does the Jordanian government keep him in a "squalid" camp?
I don't understand what this fuzz is all about. These terrorists love to die and Israel is granting them their wish while putting them out of their miseries. It is a win-win situation for both, the Israelis will be able to get rid of some Muslim terrorists and these Muslims terrorists will get to meet the 72 Muslim virgins they have been waiting to meet all their lives. So why are the Muslims so angry? Do they know the truth that there no virgins waiting for any of them? They must because they are acting like they know the truth.
Have they been lying to us about their love for death?
So now it seems like the Muslims Terrorists are both liars and cowards.
There are those pointing fingers again. My response is a different finger...