Mona,

Thanks for a very balanced and rational article that uncovers the hypocrisy that all the parties are exercising at all levels. In such another insane moment, I really appreciate reading your sane voice.

Nader

Outstanding post! You expressed my sentiments EXACTLY.

“The technique legitimized and blessed by clerics throughout the Arab world as a weapon against Israel had gone haywire and was used against Arabs protesting Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. That twisted and morbid full circle completed on the streets of Mosul can be captured only by paraphrasing Karl Marx – Israel is the opium of the people.”

Well put, Mona. Yet what is your response to those who claim that such an opinion “doesn’t encompass enough of the Muslim worlds personal political agenda” (as one critic put it to me) and thus should be considered unimportant?

Fantastic piece!

Thank you all for your comments!

Solomon – I have never claimed to speak for all Arabs or all Muslims or to represent anyone’s view but my own.

But I am always stumped by those kinds of questions because implicit in them is the belief that to be rational or logical or to call for a halt to violence is antithetical to the “Arab” or “Muslim” view.

Do you know what I mean? That, if I make sense then I can’t possibly represent Arabs or Muslims!

Mona,

I have to thank you overall for writing this column, but I do have points of disagreement.

The Palestinians could easily be criticized, as they have brought their suffering upon themselves. After all, they are the ones who elect and support Hamas and Fatah, and they are the ones who overwhelmingly support jihad.

The day that the Palestinians stop supporting jihad is the day that peace happens. Until then, the Palestinians will continue to suffer the consequence of their own actions. If a criminal pulls a gun on me, I have no mercy on the criminal if I shoot said criminal in self defense.

And so while I overall agree with much of what you wrote, I have to disagree with you that there is any equivalence or even comparison in what Israel is doing and what the Palestinians have done.

I agree with you 1,000% there is so much blame to go around. But it seems like each side is only interested in putting all the blame at the others feet.

I too often wonder where is all this outrage attacks against Muslims from those in the Arabo-Muslim world, when the situation is not Israel Palestine: Darfur, Torture from any number of the Arab government militias/police, the Palestinians living in Arab refugee camps or the suppression of Shia and other Muslim minorities.

Until we can throw those stone at our own glass houses, and clean up our own backyards it violence will continue.

You are a breath of fresh air. Thank you!

How exactly has Hamas failed Gaza? What evidence do you have that they have not used the meagre resources they possess to better the lives of Gazans by supplying the basic social services that made them popular in the first place. As for resistance, this must always continue because Gaza is not a self contained entity that is capable of providing it’s entire subsistence within its boarders. It needs to have access to the outside world. To use Red Tulips analogy against her, if a criminal is strangling you, you not only have the right to defend yourself, you are obligated to do so. And when the whole context is considered, that of the struggle against both Zionist imperialism and the Arab bourgioisie who act as the “middle men” of neocolonial rule (and who’s perspectives that you, Mona, seem to represent), resistance is seen to be a necessity not only in Gaza, but throughout the ‘Global South’ from Haiti to Kashmir.

luqman,

You are openly supporting the purposeful murder of innocent civilians, and openly support jihadist terrorists. I have to ask you how you can possibly sleep at night knowing you support the purposeful massacre of civilians, which is what Hamas (and Fatah, as well as jihadists in general) engage in.

And for what?

So you can set up an oppressive Sharia state that suppresses the rights of women, minorities, gays, and dissidents? This is your goal? You support jihadist mass murder in order to set up this tyranny, as witnessed in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and the Taliban. And yet you have the shocking gall to complain about ‘Zionist imperialists’?

Beyond pathetic.

Loved your article. Please join me on twitter, it would be a pleasure to read more of your content.

an astute analysis of a chaotic situation, to weigh-in on this situation is dancing on a mine field, lets just hope a cease fire is put in place very soon.

btw happy double new year

I liked the phrase “Israel is the Opium of the People” so much. I even quoted you in my post here.

Mona, thank you for this post.

Red Tulips, you’re a cancer. Get your ass back to Little Green Footballs, you freak.

Thank you ya Mona for a wonderful and courageous article. I am appaled at the lens of conspiracy the arabs interpret every thing through!! I saw movies, directed by Israelis, trying to understand the middle east crisis through the arab point of view; but nothing from the arab side to understand the other point of view!!! All the new movies and series speak about the Israeli conspiracy against the Arabs!!!! It is really a poison!! Of course the rotten regimes benefit from this poison and I guess they are fueling it. They want their people to beleive that the cause of their misery is Israel and the conspiracy of the west against them!!
I watched the movie “American East” in the US. the movie was directed by an arab american and it showed the relationship between arabs and jews in the US, and at the end it argues that both have to work together, and that they can do that. When the movie was shown in Egypt, the censure requested that the last part of the movie was deleted; and the movie ended at this part that shows that the jews are bad, the arabs are victims, and there is no way an arab can trust a jew!!!!!! The whole message of the movie was twisted!!I beleive, in my turn, that this is Israel opium is a conspiracy against the arab mind!!!!

Superb article! I had issues with some of your points, but your overall message was to the point and I found myself shaking my head in agreement. I think the bigger enemy in all this debacle is the absolute cowardice of Arab leadership in this conflict and the ignorance of the masses in the Middle East. Unfortunately, as always the poor and the innocent are left to suffer for the utter stupidity of leaders and to a lesser extent, society itself. I pray for the Palestinians, and hope their deaths are not in vain.

Hello Mona,

Another good one! It is amazing how you manage to write what I am thinking. Kinda scary at the same time (smile).

This is probably going to make me come off extremely insensitive and down right mean, and perhaps I’m showing my youth with this statement but I when I hear, see and read about this continuous conflict between Israelis and Palestinians (and other surrounding countries) I cannot help but think that this is really starting to get old. I liken both sides to those washed up celebrities we see, whether we want to or not, doing something outrageous and shocking in front of cameras they themselves have summoned for the world to see so they can hold on to their fifteen minutes just a little longer and have some type of twisted satisfaction in knowing that the next day people will be discussing how crazy and messed up their are around the water cooler. Terrible analogy I know but the only two I could think of at the moment so sue me.

The major problem with this situation is innocent, evryday men, women and children are caught in the middle each and every time. Both Hamas and the Israeli government claim to be fighting for their respective groups of people yet their actions are causing the deaths of their own people.

Mona, you mentioned in your article “Talking to Hamas? Israel should do it if it will end the violence.” I’ve noticed, having followed this on going crisis since I started paying attention to it about 14 years ago, that quite a few Palestinians won’t be satisfied until Israel ceases to exist and a recognized Palestinian state is all that is left. How can Israel realistically talk to Hamas and come to some type of effective solution if Hamas refuses to respect Israels right to exist? How can Hamas realistically talk to Israel if Israel is not willing to give up land for a Palestinian state? I feel like any talks would not get either side anywhere, neither wants to compromise. Perhaps I am only seeing this from a pro-Israeli bias so please do educate me on how Palestinians really feel if I have this all wrong.

I really want this conflict to end, once and for all and soon. I don’t live anywhere near Israel/Palestine, this does not directly affect me or anyone I know however I’m frustrated by it and really starting to get tired of hearing about someone or something getting blown up every five seconds.

Keep ‘em coming Mona, I always look forward to reading your thoughts and opinions:)

Thank you Mona

I was hopelessly depressed of the arabic opinions about what’s happening there, now you recreated hope, and it’s not good at all, coz no one would listen .. they’re all cannabic!

What a crap! You blame Hezbollah for the refugee camps in Lebanon?! All the man did was calling the egyptian government to open Rafah and help the Palestinians! All he asked that if the moron mubarak will not do it, the Egyptian people should do it.

Israel continue its crimes because there are people like you who blame the victims and who attack anyone trying to help.

Mazan,

Please cite from the article passage above where Ms. Eltahawy was blaming the victim? If you read, actually read the article you will see that Mona is stating that BOTH sides are responsible for what is happening to the people there. She, in a nutshell, states that though many Arab countries point fingers at the way Israel treats the Palestinians, even if there is a shred of truth to it, these same countries are guilty of mistreatment and their own crimes against the Palestinians. If you can prove that argument incorrect, please provide the proof.

Hamas is not engaging in too many effective alternatives to get the desired results they are looking for.

Besides, reasonably speaking, what makes you think that Egyptian citizens can just open a border and let Palestinian refugees in with Mubarak doing absolutely nothing? We all have more sense than that, or at least we should. Sure, the citizens, if they truly felt altruistic enough, could do that, but wouldn’t the government turn right around and put them out?

“Israel continue its crimes because there are people like you who blame the victims and who attack anyone trying to help”. Who is trying to help? IS their “help” working at all? If so, please state how it is working to make the situation better instead of worse. I’m not attacking you, I really would like to know!

Mona, from what I gathered, is merely saying that ALL parties are responsible for the deaths of all the innocent people. I for one happen to agree.

Mona, just want to join the others in saying it is a brilliant post.

Dear Mona,

I am very pleased to read such a balanced article.
“Israel is the opium of the people”, just as Jews were for Europeans before the Holocaust. Holocaust ends, trouble stays. Arab world should learn from the Europeans.
I am an Israeli. I am really sorry that we are killing people there, but the logic is simple: Try to kill me = I will kill you in defense. All rules of logic can be used on that equation. And in fact, the solution to the conflict is in that equation.

Sigh,
Shalom.

Great post. thanks.

I believe we men like to fight. Evolution has wired us this way, and although culture can tone it down, at the root, we all need to prove ourselves so we can win the desired mate and reproduce.

If women in the Islamic world are liberated and their voice heard, violence will go down dramatically. Women liberation is a necessary step for curbing violent extremists and making peace with your neighbor. I hope women like you can lead the liberation and free us Israeli from being the drug-of-choice of so many violent people.

Mona,

“It is the ultimate dishonor to the memory of Palestinians killed this weekend to call for more violence. It has failed to deliver for 60 years.”

Exactly.

Thank you for your excellent article!

This is by far the most balanced article i read.

No side is better……all after the same pie-POWER.

Keep up the good work.

Mr. Cool,

If someone pulls a gun on you, do you not have an absolute obligation to defend yourself?

Hamas has sent 2,900 rockets into Southern Israel since the start of 2008 ALONE. If Israel does not defend itself, it gives up the right to call itself a state. It is the obligation of any state to defend its citizenry. Just as the Allies needed to fight the Nazis during WWII, so does Israel need to fight Hamas in Gaza. (who incidentally are also seeking a Final Solution of all Jews and are enemies of humanity itself)

I do not understand why we have to make statements that pretend there are two sides to this. Pretending there are two sides, and that both sides are to blame, ultimately is a form of blaming the victim, which is the innocent Israeli civilians who cannot live their lives in peace in Southern Israel.

Well put I must say, not necessarily meaningful or true at all, but well put.
I think you shouldn’t have listened to those people and instead kept your silence about this matter because, with all due respect, this is utter crap.
“And the demonstrators in Jordan and Lebanon? Who reminds them that in 1970, Jordan killed tens of thousands as it tried to control Palestinian groups based there, forcing the Palestine Liberation Army into Lebanon”

Where did you get that from? The Insider?
First off, lets be more accurate, 5000 Palestinians were killed in the armed conflicts, hundreds of Jordanian civilians and almost a hundred killed from the Jordanian army. The cause? Palestinian organizations try to assassinate king Hussein may his sould rest in peace, twice, they also try to take over the state of Jordan after the Jordanian army won the Karameh battle against the Israelis in an attempt from Yassir Arafat to attract more Palestinians to Fatih, not forgetting that Al Karameh was the only Arabic victory against Israel where Jordanian souls were lost because our late king said ” We are all fidai’s”, a rought translation: We are all willing to sacrifice our souls for Palestine’s liberation. It was a black month in the history of Arabs, Palestinians and Jordanians in particular and you’re not doing any good by mentioning those events and altering details and numbers, you might be hoping to prove that not only your government screws up which is simply silly. Leave Jordan out of all your Arab conflicts and our respectable regime and people will be very grateful.
As for the rest of your use of big words that offers nothing, did it ever occur to you that the reason we demonstrate against what happens in Palestine and we do not demonstrate about our “Dictators” is because Jordan has no dictators? At least in charge, we’re happy with what we’ve got and yes I speak for all Jordanians so please, stay the hell out of our “internal affairs” and put your big words to good use, write about fashion and Brangelina. We’re going to keep demonstrating and voicing our support to Gaza and disapproval and hatred for Israel, that’s all we, the average bunch who weren’t enlightened in NY, believe we can offer at the meantime.

Red Tulips:

“Hamas has sent 2,900 rockets into Southern Israel since the start of 2008 ALONE.”

Since the start of 2008 ALONE, how many israelis have died to Hamas rockets and how many Palestinians have died to israeli missiles?

Iman:

Your false equivalence is pathetic. Southern Israel has been terrorized for the span of eight years, and normal life is impossible. Moreover, to be exactly ‘equivalent,’ the IDF should start randomly shooting at civilians in Gaza. At that point, Israel would be ‘equivalent.’ The vast majority of people the IDF killed in the past couple days were Hamas terrorists who openly seek the destruction of every single Israeli (and Jew). Those who were not Hamas terrorists were ‘civilian’ human meat shields, who were cynically used for propoganda fodder. As this goes on, the most vile hate imaginable is being taught in Hamas and Fatah schools, mosques, and media. This hate includes things such as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and claims of Jews being apes and pigs.

There is no ‘equivalence’ here and there is no ‘two sides.’ Israel has a right to defend itself against those who seek its complete annihilation. If Israel refuses to defend itself, it ceases to be a nation and gives up its right to exist. The very day that Hamasniks recognize Israel and give up jihad is the day that peace will happen. Yet they continue their jihad, regardless, as their goal is not peace, but annihilation.

“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”

What a shame!! We are responsible for this MASSACRE!! Many of us aren’t Taking into consideration that those who are being SLAUGHTERED are H-U-M-A-N-S! Everyone is responsible for this, because this wouldn’t have happened if we weren’t so irritatingly QUITE!

Red Tulips:

Your justification is beyond pathetic. What israel and its IOF is doing to Palestinians is genocide and a crime against humanity.

K Jordan

You sound like a typcial victim of an abusive relationship. When someone points out how abused they are, they are super defensive and insist they love their abuser.

So you have no dictators in Jordan and you’re happy with what you have.

Here’s what Human Rights Watch says about your country. It’s no wonder our dictators in the region literally get away with murder. There are people like you who defend them:

http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2008/04/07/double-jeopardy-0

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/06/30/jordan-scrap-new-laws-stifle-democracy

http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2008/10/08/torture-and-impunity-jordan-s-prisons-0

“I am always stumped by those kinds of questions because implicit in them is the belief that to be rational or logical or to call for a halt to violence is antithetical to the “Arab” or “Muslim” view.”

Mona, does this help?

Iman,

To quote the commentator ‘lynne’:

If Israel is trying to murder the civilians of Gaza, they are doing a poor job of it. They have killed less Gaza civilians than Hamas has in their recent murderous rampage against Fatah in Gaza. If they wanted to use the scorched earth tactics so favored by the Europeans in the past, we would be seeing thousands of civilians dead. AS it is, they are doing their best to avoid harm to civilians, and no rational person could say otherwise. Operative word: rational. They would harm none if Hamas did not hide among women and children like the cowards that they are. The sign above shows ignorance, just plain ignorance not only of spelling but the total lack of historical knowledge and critical thinking skills.

Correction, not the Insider obviously, Wikipedia! If it weren’t for people like you google would run out of business. You should give actual books and research a shot, being selective and making up your mind on what is reasonable and convincing and what itsn’t wouldn’t hurt as well, give the online search engines a rest and tell me something that isn’t quoted or googled, or that you have a clue about instead of stating things you haven’t a single clue about, like politics, and psychology, that’s my list so far but I can assure you it is yet to expand the more you discuss things or the more precious time I’m willing to waste reading, I’d like to think of this as charity work, the way I’m enlightening you about matters, you’re welcome!
Human Rights Watch is every Westerner’s ultimate trustworthy resource, may I add that it has set reports about every single regime under the sun? The Egyptions and even Palestinians included! We’re all murderers! So that wouldn’t be my source when trying to learn about my country. Yeah yeah, they’re all dictators but only you can see that, I bet you don’t even know the name of our king, or wait, I take that back, you can still google it, well anyway, don’t issue fatawis on matters you know nothing about, speak for yourself and tell the world about your country and regime, just because his majesty King Abdullah II is Arab just like your Husni Mubarak that doesn’t mean his majesty or any other member of the Jordanian family can be spoken of when mentioning Husni Mubarak or Hassan Nasrullah or their likes.

Finally, get your facts straight, you’re a “journalist”, at least according to the general definition of a journalist, so it weakens your arguments to mention false facts quoted from Wikipedia.

K Jordan

If you weren’t so brainwashed and up to your eyeballs in denial, you would make quite the perfect parody!

Wow.

I present you as Exhibit A of why they Arab world is in the state that it is.

Thank you.

And yet again, you fail to discuss the issue at hand and instead resort to personal insults, well I don’t blame you, you gathered bits and pieces from online sources and chose a title for it so that’s all you got, you ran out of new ideas as well, BRAVO on the title BTW, the only original thing you ever came up with I’m guessing, or is it not? I’ll google it anyway and see what results will come up.
You’re a shame for journalism and women and Arabs.
I present YOU as exhibit A of why the media isn’t a reliable source.
I also present you as exhibit B (Exhibit A would be Malki of Iraq) of why Arabs are being stepped on.
I present you as exhibit D ( Exhibit A would be Hamas, exhibit B would be AhmadiNijad, exhibit C would be Nasrullah) of why the death of Palestinians only arouses attention for a few days and is then overlooked and instead replaced by conspiracy theories and shifting the blame game, exhibit D of how the west made people like you believe they know anything about something just because you represent the perfect ignorant unoriginal loud person who’s willing to take on any idea they present to you which they make you believe you came up with on your own. They gave you a trophy to go with it didn’t they?
Ekhs 3alaiki

I rest my case!

Speaking of dictatorship and freedom of speech the Arab world lacks, why are my comments being edited? My personal-insults-free comments may I add. Eh well, hypocrite.

K Jordan

This blog is not moderated. No one has edited your comments. Repost them again if you want. There are occasional technical hiccups but I don’t delete comments just because they disagree with me. Don’t be so paranoid.

Welcome to my blog by the way and I hope you spend some time reading my other articles. You never know – they might do you some good.

As an Egyptian, as a woman, as an Arab and as a Musim I am proud of my work and every word I have written.

This world is made for the survival of the fittest. It is time that Palestinian must arm them selves; not with ’sling shots’ or directing their kids to throw stones on the charging Israeli tanks but they must arm themselves to their teeth with latest weapons. To attain the command in the air should take priority. At least they could muster some surveillance drones units to start with.

It is no fun being good at, in retrieving and picking the dead and maimed bodies and rushing them to hospitals after every Israeli excursion. God Almighty clearly admonishes Muslims in; Quran, Chapter 8 -Al-Infal: Verse 60
“And make ready for them whatever you can of armed force and of mounted pickets at the frontier, whereby you may frighten the enemy of Allah and your enemy and others besides them whom you know not, but Allah knows them. And whatever you spend in the way of Allah, it shall be repaid to you in full and you shall not be wronged.”

Deterrent and Deterrent is the only answer which guarantees the peace and security with our neighbors and forbad even the arch rivals turning into adversaries. This is the way how peace may prevail in our neighborhood as well as in world at large.

Or every word you have quoted.

It already did me a lot of good in my self-esteem area, I always thought I was as smart and well-educated as an average 21 year old would be, but now I realize that people hit their fourties without having the slightest clue on how to compose a sentence that makes sense. Thank you! And thanks for the warm welcome! You can all carry on with the BRAVOS now.

K Jordan

That explains it all – you’re 21!

But usually people as young as you are itching for freedom and to fight repression. You are obviously not part of that category.

The young of the Arab world who want freedom and reform usually give me hope. You are an exception.

I was worrying there a bit for Jordanians. But your age has put it all in perspective.

why is there no mention of mahmoud abbas in your article .. good or otherwise .. why?

K Jordan,

You know I thought like you a lot when I was your age. I was a real hothead, a smart ass, thought I knew everything. You know what happened, what changed? I grew up and realized I did not know it all. I found out it helps to LISTEN. Listen to persons perhaps a little older, a little wiser than I (by the way, Mona that is not a personal jab at your age, you are very young yourself). I’m 25 now and I’m still learning. You will too, hopefully. Give it a few years, continue to follow the situation, follow the trends, you will see. You may not want to admit it but you will see it.

Also, you might want to do a little background research yourself on the person you happen to think “should give actual books and research a shot,”. If you did you’d realize how wrong YOU are.

Sorry Mona, I know you do not need me to throw my two cents in here and you are more than capable of speaking for yourself but hey, I like you! You’re alright in my book. Consider it a compliment.

I haven’t heard words so true in a long, long time! Will be reading your blog from now on.

Loved the post, Mona. That’s the most fair presentation of the situation as it is that I’ve ever seen from an Arab author. I hope nobody reading my comment construes it as evidence that your post is biased against Arabs lol. I probably would have read without commenting if it hadn’t been for this:

What israel and its IOF is doing to Palestinians is genocide and a crime against humanity.

Iman, I’m sorry, but that’s just *insane*. The UN (hardly pro-Israel) estimates that only ~50 of the ~350 gazans killed in the last week are “civilians”. That means that 80% of the casualties were COMBATANTS. That is an unheard of figure. Teh Israelis must be the most humane war-fighters in the history of man. Bar none. I challenge you to come up with some examples from history where civilian death rates in a war were so low.

And yet, you call it “genocide” and a “crime against humanity”!? When you say things like that, how can anyone possibly take you seriously?

another question if you don’t mind .. thanks

you said ..

“Yes, Israel’s occupation of Arab land angers Egyptians but there is absolutely no space in Egyptian media, culture or intellectual circles for discussing Israel as anything but an enemy.”

so is this a bad thing in your opinion?

Mona,

I really feel for the Egyption people and the Egyption youth that are “itching for freedom” but I honestly can’t pretend that we’re also repressed to make you feel better about your own country or to make you feel that you’re supporting a noble cause and that is to liberate Arabs. Again, you’re way off-topic and you’re just typing up random meaningless comments. Yes I’m THAT young! THAT young and this knowledgable! I hold pride in that. Anyway, I’m glad I told you how old I am, wouldn’t want you worrying about Jordan as well, you’ve got every Arabic countries’ internal and external affairs to work out and put into perspective. Just remember this as the day when a 21 year old repressed Jordanian who’s a main reason for the Arab world’s current state “put it all into perspective” for you and expanded your horizon. Good luck with liberating the Arab women, you noble you!

D.T.
I don’t claim to know everything, or even a lot, I don’t discuss things I don’t know about, I was simply stating historical facts, correcting altered ones, I was also stating facts about the present, didn’t come up with theories and assume they were right. I learn new things every single day, that doesn’t mean I should stop discussing matters and engaging in “debates” until I reach a certain age when I’ll know everything, I’ll never know everything, but right now I feel very strongly about what I believe in, and what I believe in is built on facts, the only way I can ever put my beliefs to the test is by discussing them to see if they hold up or come crashing down when encountered by different arguments, no argument was put forward here, just off-topic insults, she said tens of thousands when in fact it is far less than that, even her false statements were taken out of context and nothing she said regarding Jordan was correct, it was very misleading to those who do not know about Jordan, or don’t know enough. I simply corrected her and I’ll keep correcting anyone who does that.

Dear Mona,

As an Israeli guy who reads your posts from time to time.
I always knew that you’re smart, intelligent, decent, open-minded, hate-free, wise, honest, articulate – oh, and good-looking too…

Now I learn that your bravery has no boundaries as well.
You’re the most self-criticizing Arab writer I have ever read and your blog is a holy-cow free zone.

I wish there were more Arabs (and people in general) like you.
Sadly, you’re (more or less) one of a kind.

When we’ll have more of you, we will all enjoy:
1. Real Middle East peace
2. Democracy throughout the Arab world
3. A much better future for everybody

Keep up being a great gift to the world.
That’s what you do best

Craig,

40 children were killed during the past four days, 9 women, and over a hundred civilian all in all, but that’s not the issue, even if it were one civilian dead, that’s one too much. Actually, even if it were one person dead, civilian or not, it’ll be one too much. You’re missing the point here, they have no right to be bombarding Gaza or any other part of Palestine. It’s not a bargain and it’s not about numbers and we’re not thankful for their discount on our casualties like you’re suggesting we should be. It IS a genocide and a crime against humanity! Anyway, I’m not in anyway trying to win your support to our cause, Palestinians have made it all through these years on their own, and they’ll come out of this just like they always do … Dignified. Discussing the number of casualties to determine whether it is a genocide or not is a disgrace and an insult to the Palestinian martyrs, heroes and heroines, not a single death is acceptable and evey Palestinian’s soul is worth far more than you could ever imagine.

Craig:

I sort of have a hard time believing that only 50 have been children. But for now allow me to quote a JEWISH source showing figures between 29.9.2000-30.11.2008:

Palestinian minors (minors = children non-combatants) killed by IOF: 952

Israeli minors (refer to definition above) killed by Palestinians: 39

Palestinians killed by IOF: 4781

IOF personnel killed by Palestinians: 245

(http://www.btselem.org/)

What do you call that?!

here is another site I suggest you get yourself familiar with:
http://www.ifamericansknew.org

K Jordan

Consider this a warning: if you can’t debate with an Israeli or anyone else you will be barred from my blog.

I am proud of the diverse group which visits my blog and welcome everyone as long as they are respectful and tolerant.

Your bravado and insults directed at me are I’m sure due to your youth. However, I will not allow the kind of comment you just made to Israeli Guy and I’m deleting it.

k Jordan,

I believe that the Arab world can have 2 types of future.
You represent one type. Mona represents the other.

I often ask myself why there are so few Monas and so many k Jordans.
Perhaps a closer look at Mona’s life, can provide some clues.

Mona was born in Egypt, but had the opportunity to get out of the Middle Eastern bubble and experience the world.

Unlike so many Arabs, she knows what it means to live in a pluralistic democracy.
She knows what it means to see, meet and communicate freely with Christians, Muslims and Jews and even (god forbid) work in Israel or visit the country and talk to “murderers on the loose” like me, as you put it.

She knows what high-education means, she knows what elections mean, she knows what freedom means, she knows what human rights mean – and that’s just some of the basics.

However, since she intimately knows Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the general Arab world, she also knows what dictatorship, discrimination, hatred, backwardness, racism and fundamentalism mean.

In fact, she tries to change all that with her modest means and huge desire.
I salute her for that.

Iman,

I sort of have a hard time believing that only 50 have been children.

Only 50 were civilians, according to the UN. Presumably, fewer were civilian children.

Palestinian minors (minors = children non-combatants) killed by IOF: 952

The word “minor” means anyone under 18. For you to characterize all such as civilian children and exclude them from combatant status is absurd, considering there have been more than a few suicide bombers who were minors.

I’m not going to debate the stats with you. I don’t have time to vet your sources, and even here in your comment you are playing mix-and-match games with categories to make the numbers look as one sided as you can. You are also ignoring the nature of the conflict, and you aren’t placing blame on an aggressor. If 5 armed men break into my house and I shoot and kill 4 of them, while one escapes, am I the bad guy? Just because I did them more harm than they did me? What if I only shot one of them and gave the rest time to get away? Still the bad guy? What would it take for me not to be the bad guy in that scenario? Call the cops and hide under the bed? And then I suppose when the cops show up to retrieve body and the bodies of my family, I’ll be a big hero right?

There’s something very wrong with the way you look at things.

In any case, I don’t really want to argue numbers, I just took exception to what you said because it seems pretty far out there. Like, a different reality from the one I live in.

K Jordan,

Correcting? What authority do you have to correct? At 21, with mom’s milk still on your breath, how can you possibly correct someone who has committed herself to a career on this very subject? I will say this one more time, you keep on, you will learn one of these days. I’ve notice in your bantering that you keep throwing out your own facts, yet you provide NO proof to back up what you are saying. Try books? Do the research? Well, provide information because I’m not going to just take the word of some 21 year old angry kid. What books should I read? What sites should I visit that can support the claims you are making? I am honestly asking you for that information. Right now, it all just sounds like tribalism to me. The tone of your comments leads me to believe you are mostly trying to prove something to yourself…

See K Jordan, that is what we grown ups do. The mature intelligent ones anyway, few that there are. We don’t throw tantrums and pointless, sophomoric insults because we disagree. You state your case and you cite a credible resource to prove your argument. If someone disputes what you are saying in order for their argument to have any weight they must ALSO provide credible un-biased resources to support their argument.

So, cite your resource for me, I’ll read it, so long as it’s in English, and if what I find matches what you’re saying I’ll give you that. I’m an outsider. I don’t live in that part of the world, have yet to visit though I plan to God willing. So when this topic is being discussed I can only go based on what I’m being told, assuming the author is knowledgeable, provides FACTS and is credible enough in the topic they are discussing which I feel Mona is. Cite your resources. If you cannot, please leave us grown ups to our business. Consider yourself corrected.

D.T. Gamble and K Jordan

This if from a New York Times obit of Arafat:

“In September 1970 – later known to Palestinians as Black September – King Hussein sent troops and armor into Amman, his capital, to suppress the P.L.O. After days of shelling refugee camps where some 60,000 Palestinians lived, the army drove the would-be usurpers out of Jordan into Lebanon.

Conservative estimates put Palestinian losses at 2,000. Mr. Arafat, who made his way unharmed to Cairo, later claimed that Jordan’s Army had killed 25,000. By the following summer, the Jordanian Army had nullified the P.L.O. as a military power in the country. Sapped and shaken, the guerrilla movement drifted into Lebanon.”

K Jordan – Black September probably isnt’ taught in Jordanian history books, as inter-Arab conflicts and killings usually aren’t in the history books across the region so I can understand what a sensitive topic this is for you.

Jordan’s relationship with Palestinians, both inside and outside its borders, is infamously fractious, again like many other Arab countries. And it would be opening an entirely new can of worms to get into that with you as I’m sure you’ll deny and get hysterical again and when I reply you’ll complain I’m insulting you.

But my argument with you doesn’t lie in numbers – how many thousands of Palestinians were killed in Jordan. I wasn’t there, you weren’t there and there are various figures out there. My point was that many Arab countries have slaughtered Palestinians and have devleoped amnesia about it. And yet yell and scream when Israel is doing the killing.

But that still isn’t my argument with you.

My argument with you lies in your adamant insistence that you don’t live in a dictatorship, as just about the whole Arab world does. That denial is frightening and until you see it, no one can free you – not even noble me!

And don’t take it personally or feel honoured that I call Jordan the dictatorship that it is – I write against dictatorships all over the Arab world not just in your beloved country.

And when you talk about Palestinians and Israel, need I remind you that it was your deceased “his majesty” who sigend a peace treaty with Israel.

What was his name again?

With all due respect ,you knowledge about palestine ,Arabs and Zionism is close to zero,
First ,this is not the first or the last blood bath Israel has committed in the name of defending it’s self against “terrorists” .if you just do little homework on the crime of Zionism and off course read them you would not write such shallow article.
Second ,yes Arabs committed massacres against Palestinians, whether in Jordan , lebanon or Kuwait, that is beside the point, two wrongs does not make right,,and lets take Jordan for example, as you know Jordan king Hussein was a double agent for Israel and the Americans,in matter of fact,he was on the payroll of the CIA till Jeremy Carter came to power in 1979 and told him, we and I mean the American government is no longer going to provide you with monthly check.
Third, you keep mixing apples with oranges to make your point,for example, Lebanon is not the christian phalange, who in the first place, where supported and financed by Israel since the early of 1940s and on Hezbollah you want to implicate Hassan Nasrallah for the ill treatment of Palestinians in lebanon,and in matter of historical facts Hezbollah has never committed any crime against Palestinians, period and just because Hezbollah is mostly lebanese does not mean they are guilty by association.
and lastly,,,Hussney Mubarak of Egypt is and was a puppet for the American Empire for various reason some of financial and some of political, and he is doing what he is told to do ,just like every Arab puppet.

Anyone following the news closely for the past few years can explain the bigger picture: A democratically elected government was undermined by the United States, resulting in a civil war in Gaza that ended with a Hamas victory. That the “withdrawal” from Gaza is a sham, as Israel is now in the position of a jailer standing beside a locked gate, while declaring the inmates to be free. That the seige of Gaza has resulted in enormous suffering and hardship, mostly to the poorest and most desperate residents.

The question Israel prefers to answer is: what else could we have done in response to the rocket attacks?

The question we must raise in the media is: why is Israel allowed to act as jailer and occupier of the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank?

p.s. i asked a couple of questions and you still didn’t answer .. i guess you’re too busy looking down on the jordanian dude

Some weeks ago a DVD entitled “Don’t Mess with the Zohan” was rented and brought into my house without my prior knowledge. I got up and left the room as I considered it to be the dumbest movie I have ever seen. After the silliness was over, I watched the special features with the interviews of the Jewish/Israeli and Palestinian actors. This, I found much more interesting than the movie.

It reinforced an unpopular belief I hold; that Arabs and Jews are the same people. You both generally have brown hair, brown eyes and brown skin, you eat the same foods, observe the same religious rules, and even worship the same God. Neither of you will be going away any time soon.

As much as I would like to admonish you both for behaving like unruly children on a playground, (with AKs and Uzis perhaps) it won’t do any good. Neither of you would ever listen to me for no other reason than that I am a Hated American/Christian.

An Arab soldier I once soldiered with had it right, there will be no peace in the Middle East until everyone there is dead. That’s the Final Solution everyone seems to be rushing toward at breakneck speed with no brakes.

My advice? Dig some deep holes and stockpile food.

What are the deep holes for? Two possibilities; they can be your shelter or your graves. Your call.

Interesting way of looking at things, mo. You only mentioned the US once, so I’ll take up that one: Do you think the US has/had a moral obligation to support “democratically” elected governments, no matter how repugnant they are, and even if they are self-avowed enemies of the US?

The question we must raise in the media is: why is Israel allowed to act as jailer and occupier of the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank?

The answer to your question is written in the text of international law. Palestinians lost several wars with Israel. In fact, Palestinians are at war with Israel as we speak. In 60 years, there has never been a peace agreement signed between Israel and Palestinians. Which means the 1948 war never ended. There have been several ceasefires, the last of which HAMAS itself declined to renew. Does a combatant have a right during war to occupy enemy land, under international law? Does a combatant have a right to restrict the movements of enemy nationals during a war, under international law?

Why don’t you encourage people to ask why Palestinians insist a fight to the death with Israel, rather than seeking a peace agreement? It has been quite clear for some time that in a fight to the death, Palestinians will lose, and lose badly. Do you think someday God Himself will intervene on behalf of the Palestinians? Or is it the UN you expect to come riding in a white horse to change the facts on the ground?

PS-mo, the settlements are illegal, and should be dismantled. That’s been a flagrant violation of both the letter and the spirit of all international conventions on warfare, right from the start, and I have no idea under what pretext Israel decided upon the policy.

But, you didn’t mention settlements.

Mona, this is all very interesting and I applaud you for writing this. I’m not Muslim or Middle Eastern; I’m a South Asian American Hindu and one thing, despite the problems and inequalities that we have in India, is that there is a healthy room for improvement and dialogue because of the free press; and considering the massive scale of the country and the the hundreds of relgions, ethnicities, caste I am hopeful for better equality and applaud the strides we’ve made in equality (I feel the same way about the US). But the changes and the constitution that we have, all have come about through a relatively free press – and I feel that is missing in the Middle East.

I say I applaud you for this b/c (and keep in mind I have had little exposure to the MidEast Muslim world) is that I thought it would DANGEROUS for you to state such views publicly.

This continous threat of death, that I see, on people being able to express their opinion (The Indian Salman Rushdie came across this) I think prevents positive change in many countries of the mideast and elsewhere.

It’s amazing to me the divergent views I read in Indian newspapers and blogs, intellectuals, so much self-analysis and self-criticism and praise and I think in a country with that much diversity, it prevents all out genocide or all out oppression of people. I see this also among Jewish intellectuals, writers, and newspapers. I understand the problems that we have in India with say the caste system, but there is, despite the horrible injustices perpetuated by some people on some castes, room for improvement and there is a stride to equality, as in our laws and constitutions it’s stated we are equal and so many popular movements have helped pass – movements that have also come from India’s Muslim heritage as well. —- okay I’m going off track here….

Anyways just want to say thank you, for humanity, that you have been public in your self-analysis. It’s all enlightening to me.

craig .. yes the settlements are definitely illegal and should be dismantled .. that’s from an international point of view .. from my own point of view .. all of israel is illegal and should be dismantled but that’s a different story ..

now about your question regarding the US .. well the US claims to support democracy and says it wants to spread democracy in the region and they say that we “hate freedom” and bla bla .. so you tell me if they’re obligated to support democratically elected governments or not .. if the answer is no, so then spare us all your freedom rhetoric and continue supporting your puppet dictators ..

the last part of your paragraph is misleading .. true there’s never been a final peace deal but you make it sound like there’s been this raging war for the past 60 yrs .. like there wasn’t countless negotiations and agreements and so on .. i thought it was interesting that you would use terms like enemy land and combatants .. and the entire arab league put forward a peace initiative but israel threw it back in their face ..

and the palestinians will not lose .. it might take some time but they will win in the end .. make no mistake about it

Hi mo,

Just because we support your freedom of choice, doesn’t mean we have to support your choice once you make it. Does it?

the last part of your paragraph is misleading .. true there’s never been a final peace deal but you make it sound like there’s been this raging war for the past 60 yrs ..

I didn’t make it sound like anything at all. I merely stated the facts, as they are. As they are – under international law.

like there wasn’t countless negotiations and agreements and so on ..

Negotiations and agreements are nice, but they don’t amount to an end of hostilities. They don’t amount to a peace treaty.

i thought it was interesting that you would use terms like enemy land and combatants ..

Those are the correct terms to use.

and the entire arab league put forward a peace initiative but israel threw it back in their face ..

Again, putting forward an offer is not the same as reaching an agreement.

To take this point a little bit further, though, Israel had and has no reason to believe that Palestinians will comply with an agreement it makes with the Arab League. The Arab League is not one of the warring parties. If a UN delegation approached HAMAS with a purported peace deal with Israel:

a) Would HAMAS believe that the UN had the capability of forcing israel to comply with a peace deal it may not like?

b) Would HAMAS even be interested enough to talk about it?

I think the answers to both of those questions is no. So, do you think the Israelis are more gullible than HAMAS is?

I don’t mean to say that the Arab League had bad intentions, I’m just saying it’s not the open and shut case you make it out to be. Doubting the worth of the offer isn’t the same as “throwing it back in their face”, right?

and the palestinians will not lose .. it might take some time but they will win in the end .. make no mistake about it

OK. I admire your tenacity is a strange kind of way, but I’d still like to know how. The Israelis could kill every Palestinian man woman and child in the area in a matter of weeks if they decided they really wanted to do that. What is it that you are expecting to change? From where I’m sitting, it seems like Palestinians are relying on their enemies to be more charitable and more merciful than they are themselves. That’s not exactly sound strategy, in my opinion. I don’t think there are many Jews in Israel who have much doubt about what would happen to them if the tables were turned, so I suspect the tables will never be turned. No matter how long you wait. But it’s your choice to make. Just don’t expect me to support it.

Well, anyway… time for me to go outside and get ready to watch the fireworks. Happy New year, everyone

Just because we support your freedom of choice, doesn’t mean we have to support your choice once you make it. Does it?

so what do you suggest .. the US should approve the candidates before they run?
it sounds to me like you are saying the US reserves the right to veto the democratic choices made by the arab people if it doesn’t agree with them .. am i correct?
so if that is the case i.e. if the US is not willing to support the choices of the arab people so then it should do everyone a favor and cut the crap about spreading democracy bla bla.

Hi Mona,
I’m a Jewish Upper West Side New Yorker currently in Israel and I thank you for the post.

Hamas, like Hezbollah, is a proxy for Iran and while Israel is dealing with Hamas it is not dealing with Iran.

Hamas has intentionally sited missile launchers and weapons caches next to civilians hoping that there will be casualties that they can trumpet in the media in order to garnish sympathy in the West and make anger on the Arab street. Hezbollah did the same in 2006.

Israel, on the other hand is trying to avoid civilian casualties by 1) using the latest highly directed bunker buster bombs and 2) actually calling Palestinian civilians on their cell phones and land lines warning of an impending strike.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1230456505080&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

“The GPS-guided GBU-39 is said to be one of the most accurate bombs in the world. The 113-kg. bomb has the same penetration capabilities as a normal 900-kg. bomb, although it has only 22.7 kg. of explosives.”

“Palestinians reported that they received phone calls to their cellular phones and landlines from the IDF. The phone call, the Palestinians said, conveyed a recorded message ordering the immediate evacuation of homes that were next to Hamas infrastructure or being used by the terrorist organization.”

Thank you, too, for pointing out that the Palestinian standard of living is actually higher than that of many Egyptians, especially before the first Intifada. This is from a article in Commentary by Efraim Karsh entitled, “What Occupation” (July/Aug 2002, p.46).

In sharp contrast with, for example, the U.S. occupation of postwar Japan, which saw a general censorship of all Japanese media and a comprehensive revision of school curricula, Israel made no attempt to reshape Palestinian culture. It limited its oversight of the Arabic press in the territories to military and security matters, and allowed the continued use in local schools of Jordanian textbooks filled with vile anti-Semitic and anti-Israel propaganda.

At the inception of the occupation, conditions in the territories were quite dire. Life expectancy was low; malnutrition, infectious diseases, and child mortality were rife; and the level of education was very poor. Prior to the 1967 war, fewer than 60 percent of all male adults had been employed, with unemployment among refugees running as high as 83 percent. Within a brief period after the war, Israeli occupation had led to dramatic improvements in general well-being, placing the population of the territories ahead of most of their Arab neighbors. In the economic sphere, most of this progress was the result of access to the far larger and more advanced Israeli economy: the number of Palestinians working in Israel rose from zero in 1967 to 66,000 in 1975 and 109,000 by 1986, accounting for 35 percent of the employed population of the West Bank and 45 percent in Gaza. Close to 2,000 industrial plants, employing almost half of the work force, were established in the territories under Israeli rule.

During the 1970’s, the West Bank and Gaza constituted the fourth fastest-growing economy in the world-ahead of such “wonders” as Singapore, Hong Kong, and Korea, and substantially ahead of Israel itself. Although GNP per capita grew somewhat more slowly, the rate was still high by international standards, with per-capita GNP expanding tenfold between 1968 and 1991 from $165 to $1,715 (compared with Jordan’s $1,050, Egypt’s $600, Turkey’s $1,630, and Tunisia’s $1,440). By 1999, Palestinian per-capita income was nearly double Syria’s, more than four times Yemen’s, and 10 percent higher than Jordan’s (one of the better off Arab states). Only the oil-rich Gulf states and Lebanon were more affluent. Under Israeli rule, the Palestinians also made vast progress in social welfare. Perhaps most significantly, mortality rates in the West Bank and Gaza fell by more than two-thirds between 1970 and 1990, while life expectancy rose from 48 years in 1967 to 72 in 2000 (compared with an average of 68 years for all the countries of the Middle East and North Africa). Israeli medical programs reduced the infant-mortality rate of 60 per 1,000 live births in 1968 to 15 per 1,000 in 2000 (in Iraq the rate is 64, in Egypt 40, in Jordan 23, in Syria 22). And under a systematic program of inoculation, childhood diseases like polio, whooping cough, tetanus, and measles were eradicated.

No less remarkable were advances in the Palestinians’ standard of living. By 1986, 92.8 percent of the population in the West Bank and Gaza had electricity around the clock, as compared to 20.5 percent in 1967; 85 percent had running water in dwellings, as compared to 16 percent in 1967; 83.5 percent had electric or gas ranges for cooking, as compared to 4 percent in 1967; and so on for refrigerators, televisions, and cars. Finally, and perhaps most strikingly, during the two decades preceding the intifada of the late 1980’s, the number of schoolchildren in the territories grew by 102 percent, and the number of classes by 99 percent, though the population itself had grown by only 28 percent. Even more dramatic was the progress in higher education. At the time of the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, not a single university existed in these territories. By the early 1990’s, there were seven such institutions, boasting some 16,500 students. Illiteracy rates dropped to 14 percent of adults over age 15, compared with 69 percent in Morocco, 61 percent in Egypt, 45 percent in Tunisia, and 44 percent in Syria.

wow so israel actually calls the people to tell them to get the f out because there’s a missile about to land on their house .. well why didn’t you say so .. awwwwww that’s so sweet

here are some photos of israel’s precision strikes ..
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=50118

easier than replying to all the zionists here ..
http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m50125&hd=&size=1&l=e

Mo,
Those pictures of the children are truly horrible. But if you read my post again you’ll see that Hamas is intentionally locating military targets in civilian areas — even in civilian homes and for the very reason of causing those children to be killed.

If Hamas truly cared about its people, it would not locate missile launchers, weapons caches, and weapons making shops in civilian areas but on separate bases at least 300 meters from any civilians. So, your beef is with Hamas for locating military targets among civilians and not with Israelis using the most modern technologies available to destroy the targets. So, if you truly, truly, care about minimizing the deaths of children that you see on the web sites you mention, you should ask your government to protest to Hamas for putting military targets in civilian areas. Can we agree on that? Can everyone reading this blog agree that there should be at least 300 meters clearance between military targets and civilian areas?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/01/world/middleeast/01mideast.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all

“Tens of thousands of Gazans have received recorded phone calls from the Israeli Army warning them that their houses have been marked as targets because they harbored either militants or weapons facilities like rocket workshops. Noncombatants were urged to clear out. Hundreds of thousands of leaflets gave the same message.”

I accidentally posted my previous comment before finishing:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/01/world/middleeast/01gaza.html?hp=&pagewanted=all

“At Kamal Edwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, in northern Gaza, Mahmoud al-Sheik, 11, was recovering from wounds he received two days before — he thinks from a rocket fired by an Israeli warplane. Even at his age, he is aware of how fighters and civilians are mixed together in Gaza, saying that the bomb was aimed at the house of his neighbor, Salim Zaqout, whom he identified as a member of Hamas.”

You see, Hamas has no business locating military targets next to civilians. They do it because they want the pictures on the web site that you mentioned so that they can get sympathy in the Western media and make Arabs like yourself angry and posting them on blogs like this. Make no mistake: if Hamas cared about its children, the very children that you see in those pictures and the one mentioned in the quoted paragraph above, it would locate military targets far, far away from the children. But they don’t care. They want to use these children’s deaths for sympathy. And that demonstrates the problem with people like Hamas (and Hezbollah which did the same thing as Hamas): they don’t care about their children.

The also don’t care about their women which is why there is still “honor killings” in Gaza. For those that don’t know, “honor killings” are cases where women are killed by their own relatives, even their brothers, sometimes for such crimes as wanting to marry someone they loved as opposed to someone they were told to marry. At other times it is because they had affairs with men before they were married. The killers often get very, very light sentences, maybe a couple of years in jail. If Hamas cared about their women they would give the killers the same penalty in prison as killing a man, but they don’t.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/01/world/middleeast/01gaza.html?hp=&pagewanted=all

“In the debate over civilian casualties, there is no clear understanding of what constitutes a military target. Palestinians argue that because Hamas is also the government in Gaza, many of the police officers who have been killed were civil servants, not hard-core militants. Israel disagrees, asserting also that a university chemistry laboratory, which it claims was used for making rockets, was a fair target in an attack this week, even if it could not show conclusively that those inside the laboratory at the time where engaged in making weapons.”

In this case, Hamas doesn’t care about its own university (built by Israel I might add) because they are doing weapons development in their science labs thus making their own university a military target.

honor killings? seriously? that’s your counter-argument?

i think i’ve said enough and would like to stop discussing at this point if you don’t mind .. i’d still like mona to answer my questions though

Mo,
You are missing the point. Please say you agree that Hamas should not locate military targets near civilians and that there should be at least 300 meters distance between military and targets and civilians.

You do agree as do others on this blog I assume that locating military targets near civilians like the children in the web site you posted is wrong don’t you? Or do you approve of Hamas deliberately locating their military targets (missile launchers, weapons caches, weapons making factories) near children like the ones in the blog post you referenced?

If you truly care about the children in that blog posting you referenced, then you will agree that Hamas is wrong is locating military targets near the children and for the sake of the children there should be at least 300 meters distance. Do you agree or disagree? Do you truly care for these children or not?

This article is similar to Mona’s and written by another Egyptian:

Gaza solution is in the hands of Palestinians
By TAWFIK HAMID

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1230733118401&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Mentioned this article in our Urdu podcast at:

http://azadkarachiradio.blogspot.com/2008/02/program-011-december-2008.html

On the night of July 22, an Israeli F-16 dropped a one-ton bomb in a densely populated area of Gaza City, killing Hamas military wing leader Salah Shehadeh and 16 others, of whom 15 were civilians and 9 were children, including Shehadeh’s wife and child. Over one hundred others were injured in the attack.

according to david, there is nothing wrong with this .. because shehadeh is a “military target” and it’s his fault he was located next to the dead civilians.

david if you like .. i can give you instances where israel deliberately killed children .. you know as opposed to when children are killed in an attack on a “military target” .. i doubt it would change your mind but if you’re interested i can give you some examples .. interested?

and why was the latest relief ship to gaza which was carrying a former US congresswoman btw attacked by israel .. was it also a military target?

sorry david, your zionist propaganda fails.

in a similar scenario to shehadeh’s assassination .. today israel dropped a bomb on nizar rayyan’s house .. rayyan is a prominent political figure in hamas (tell me are political leaders also legitimate “military targets” oh david) .. killing him, his two wives, and seven of his children .. oh well .. he shouldn’t have been with his family i guess .. right david?

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-the-true-story-behind-this-war-is-not-the-one-israel-is-telling-1214981.html

Thank you all for your comments and for your debates and arguments which I am happy to follow and which I hope we can keep civil.

Mo – sorry I haven’t responded to your questions. I’ve spent the past four days arguing on Facebook where I first posted this and I’ve had close to 200 comments there. So I’m bit tired of arguing. I will try my best to get back to you within a few days if you are interested in hearing my views on Abu Mazan and the intellectual space in the Arab world to discuss Israel.

Nata thank you for your post about India which I visited in the summer and can’t wait to revisit.

ifaqeer thank you for mentioning my oped in your broadcast.

Happy New Year to you all and to your loved ones. I wish you all a happy and peaceful year.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7807124.stm

Nizar Rayyan, the most senior Hamas figure to be killed since 2004, had urged suicide attacks against Israel.

Mo, why don’t you tell us if you think he was a legitimate military target? It seems like you already know the answers to most of the questions you ask. I do appreciate your honesty, though… I don’t often meet people on blogs who openly support a continuation of the violence in the mideast conflict, though I’m sure many of the people I see complaining about Israeli aggression secretly do.

http://raquelevita.wordpress.com/2008/12/31/love-for-the-palestinian-people-not-sympathy-for-hamas/

“One cannot watch the scene unfold – Hamas hiding rocket launchers in residential neighborhoods, for example – and not see that they are effectively using Palestinians as human sacrifices to further their own aims. Muslims who care about Palestinians would never want them sacrificed in such provocations as Hamas’ recent violation of the ceasefire.”

I am very sorry that children and other civilians are getting killed and believe me so are Israelis.

It is a problem when Hamas military leaders/other leaders involved in killing Israelis are living among their families because by not killing these leaders, more Israelis will die. Believer me America and any other country defending its people from military leaders such as these would do the same thing because there is no choice.

Do you really think that Israel is deliberately out to kill civilians? If you can offer a better solution to killing these Hamas military leaders, I’d like to hear it.

You ignore the other comments about Hamas deliberately putting targets among their own civilian citizens so that they will be killed and used for propaganda purposes. The blog poster at the top of my comment also acknowledges it. The way Hamas treats its people is truly horrible, don’t you agree? Don’t you also agree that by using the new bunker buster bombs I mentioned in a previous comment and by calling innocent Palestinians ahead of time that Israel is doing what it can to preserve innocent human life while Hamas is doing just the opposite. I send you do agree since you haven’t addressed directly what I wrote before.

‘King Hussein was a “double agent”… LOL!!! I love some of these historical “facts”..they crack me up…

meanwhile, David, are you clear how big Gaza is? Exactly where is all this unpopulated space where Hamas is supposed to set up their rocket launchers??? what is the density of Gaza… ? do you have any perspective on this at all? Or would you just prefer to have this view that Hamas are not actually Palestinian civilians at the same time as being Hamas? and prefer to think that Palestians love death and hate life. That was the same line General Westmoreland used about the Vietnamese… those asians just don’t value life…sigh….

David, Red Tulip, and Israeli Guy… : I don’t think anything Mona wrote in her excellent piece was in any way EXCUSING Israeli aggression – that wasn’t at all her purpose. So you needn’t get so high up on the mountain singing about the morality of Israel.
No, her topic was one about the hypocrisy in the Arab world regarding their own violence and the violence of the arab leaders…etc.

K Jordan, you need to go to Wikipedia and look up the word “genocide” which actually does have a ‘factual’ dictionary and legal definition,and much to your chagrin- Israeli policy doesn’t meet the criteria.
Nonetheless, not reaching a standard of genocide, doesn’t mean that retaliation and violence out of all rational proportion is justifiable or something to be excused.

Thank you so much, Mona. The world needs more columnists who straddle that careful line between criticizing the suicidal policies of groups like Hamas and recognizing that Israel must stop its murderous occupation and draconian policies towards Palestinians.

I still hold onto the belief, despite all indications that I’m a dinosaur whose politics were more relevant 20 years ago, that there can be a two-state sollution. I would be open to the idea of a binbationalist state if its government was secular, Hebrew and Arabic wre recognized languages, and Jews, Muslims and Christians could live in a society similar to where I live in Canada. But perhaps that’s unrealistic. Mind you, I don’t know what’s realistic anymore. In the meantime, keep being an amazing writer.

Mordecai

david i said i didnt want to discuss anymore and i wont .. but here is a link that might help change your mind about the myth that israel doesnt target civilians ..

http://qumsiyeh.org/targetingcivilians/

another example of a military target that was attacked by israel during the current war ..

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/30/israel-gaza-aid-ship

According to wikipedia, Gaza is 360 sq km which allows for plenty of space to allow for a few places to put missile launchers, weapons caches, and missile making shops with 100 meter clearance so civilians aren’t hurt. As pointed out in the previous post by a Muslim blogger, Hamas is deliberately locating these military targets among civilians.

http://raquelevita.wordpress.com/2008/12/31/love-for-the-palestinian-people-not-sympathy-for-hamas/

“One cannot watch the scene unfold – Hamas hiding rocket launchers in residential neighborhoods, for example – and not see that they are effectively using Palestinians as human sacrifices to further their own aims.”

The Palestinians had the Fatah government which signed a peace agreement with Israel. Hamas was elected and instead of keeping to the agreement with the previous administration reneged on it and is bent on the destruction of Israel and is in a state of war with Israel.

Now, can you imagine if the Obama administration reneged on the agreements and treaties of previous administrations? That sort of thing isn’t done.

Meanwhile Hamas is sending missiles towards Israel. Any nation, any nation, from Egypt to America would target missile launchers, weapons caches, rocket factories, and leaders in an opposing military so Israel is not acting any differently than any other nation.

War is never perfect: civilians get killed in every war. What is different here is that Hamas is using their civilians as shields for their military targets. Ships and other parties have no business in a war zone. Certainly people understand that.

strong piece as usual.. my only problem with your pieces is the consistent references to israel.. like its a single person..

Hello Mona, happy new year to you and to your visitors! This is the first time I write on your blog, but I have already linked it on my blog.
I like so much your article Mona. I have just 2 observations:

1- I quite realized that Palestinians are victims of Hamas, of their leadership, of the other Arab and Islamic States, more than they are victims of Israel. The strategy of Hamas is aggressive and Israel tries to defend itself.

2- I’m not Egyptian and I don’t live in Egypt, but I unluckly don’t see in effect any alternative to Mubarak’s regime… . What a sadness to see Kefaya to protest against him and for Gaza… SIDE BY SIDE with Muslim Brothers!

3- Go on to not care about who says to you that you aren’t “enough Arab, enough Muslim, not enough”!

Ale from Italy.

david, it all boils down to one thing ..

Either Israel stops its inhumane blockade of Gaza or people there will continue to launch rockets against the towns and cities their parents and grandparents had to flee from. Short of killing all Gazans, there is no other solution and there will be no other outcome.

This is bad,made me sad.It seems you are joining the Israeli massive lie and propganda campaign in America to justify mass murder and war crimes.Shame on you mona

who are you trying to please here, the corrupt egyption goverment of Mubarak who is selling the Palestinians so his son can take over.or is it the Israelis with THe US administration which has done nothing right so far.Israel is lying now about this war like it did for the last 40 years.so now we have hamas rockets, that killed no one for the last 3 years.Does hamas have F-16s,tanks, apaches,ships,bunker busters,noooo mona, Israel does and is using.theres no comparisn here.from year 2000 till 2007 Israel killed over 4000 palestinian civilians during the intifada, did they have rockets? noo mona.

before Hamas Israel also Attacked arafat who signed a treaty with them, destroying all his offices and infra structure,
Israel does not want any peaCE.How many times Israel violated the peace treaty with egypt.

You try here to make the Arabs look bad and ignore the bloody insane history if Israel in the area and the USA.
shame on you mona

I’ll say this and then I’ll stop posting on this. I’ve noticed that some who have posted here accuse the author of having a western bias or trying to cater to the western masses and try to make Arabs and Muslims look bad. I lot of folks in the Afro-American community attacked Dr. Bill Cosby with his “Pound Cake Speech” when he basically called out certain groups of people within the community for the ills that are befalling the community and the situations and circumstances which said group of folks found themselves in.

In a nutshell Dr. Cosby basically said that the cause for the major destructive problems within the community are not due to racism and white supremacy, rather the cause was faulty parenting, poor morals and values resulting in all around bad behavior, and general lack of responsibility.

Now, when critics came out against Cosby, and they came out by the thousands it seemed, they all slammed Dr. Cosby for attacking the “poor”, the “misguided and vulnerable amongst us”, and mainly “airing our dirty laundry” if you will. Yet, none could really prove him wrong. Dr. Cosby was bringing the problems to the surface and challenging the black community to do something constructive and effective about them. His critics never addressed the issues rather they just addressed and accused Dr. Cosby of being “white-washed”.

My point is this, this article is an Oped, granted. But, that does not mean that the author is just spewing untruths. She has provided in a few of the posts sources to support what she is saying. Every time such a post has come up, no one has provided proof that what she is stating is an out and out lie. She never said Israel was right about the situation on their part, she holds both sides accountable for their atrocities against innocent Palestinians. She, as a Muslim, is holding the community to which she belongs responsible for their actions with respect to the conflict at hand, just as Dr. Cosby did, have the right to do and as they both should, I feel. It works for her to address the Muslim community because the best and most effective change usually starts from within.

It really helps for you all to actually read the article above and what is being said, not what you want to hear. I remember a quote though I do not recall the author of that quote which goes a little something like this, “We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are.” Just because a person says something that you do not like, agree with or something that just hurts your feelings does not mean that person is wrong. Instead of attacking the author why not research what she is talking about and determine how you can better the situation.

Thanks for the good article i think we Arabs should directly identify the one how started and gave Israel the reasons to attack.Hamas should get out of Gaza and the the ordinary people live there life in peace.

“Palestinians still have no state. What a shame it would be for one Arab state after the other to fail in the name of Palestine.”

Yawn. They’ve got 90% of the Mandate-Territory of 1922.

Your Israeli friends are destroying more mosques now killing more children,i guess u have to blame that on arabs too.just think if hamas killed 400 israelis in few days or attacked jewish temples.what would be the worlds reaction.

for those who want us to believe israel would never deliberately target civilians ..

Israel would use “disproportionate” force to destroy Lebanese villages from which Hezbollah guerrillas fired rockets at its cities in any future war, an Israeli general said in remarks published on Friday.

“What happened in the Dahiya quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which Israel is fired on,” said Gadi Eisenkot, head of the army’s northern division.

Dahiya was a Hezbollah stronghold that Israel flattened in sustained air raids during a 34-day war with the Shiite group two years ago.

“We will apply disproportionate force on it (village) and cause great damage and destruction there. From our standpoint, these are not civilian villages, they are military bases,” Eisenkot told the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.

“This is not a recommendation. This is a plan. And it has been approved,” Eisenkot added.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L3251393.htm

Israeli loves blood , killing and destruction.now its hamas, before that the stone throwers, before that Arafat who gave Israel everything.Israel thanks to its power in America is above the law,it can kill and destroy without fear.
Bush after 8 years of bad policies has not learned, he is supporting Israeli murder and war crimes

Israel thanks to its power in America is above the law,it can kill and destroy without fear.

Does it make you feel better to think that the only reason you haven’t been able to defeat Israel after all these years, is because of the US?

no it does not but Israel will be defeated like all other evil forces in the history of the world.Israel is not just a threat to the Middle east but the biggest threat to America.Because of Israel America is hated all over.Israel have cost the USa trillions since 1948.Israel has a spy and espianage network in America that is stealing secrets that was sold to russia and china.Remeber jonathan polard.israel attacked the USS liberty in 1967 and killed 32 Americans, the list goes on

Your concept of “evil” must be very different from mine! What does one have to do to be considered evil in your faith, Ahmed? Has the Islamic Republic of Iran ever done anything evil, in your opinion?

Israel is not just a threat to the Middle east but the biggest threat to America.

Well, if you say so… speaking as an American, I gotta say I don’t feel very threatened by Israel. I assume you must mean that Israel’s enemies will become ours? That’s not really a surprise, it tends to happen when allies go to war.

Because of Israel America is hated all over.

OK… should I cry about that now or later? I think you give Israel too much credit though… the US is perfectly capable of generating hate without any help from the zionists.

Israel have cost the USa trillions since 1948

I’d rather spend money on a friend than on an enemy!

Israel has a spy and espianage network in America that is stealing secrets that was sold to russia and china.

And, I’d rather be spied on by a friend than an enemy, too! The chances that Israel will use our own tech against us are very slim. On the other hand, China and Russia have been spying on us for decades, and that’s an entirely different situation.

israel attacked the USS liberty in 1967 and killed 32 Americans…

And Saddam attacked the USS Stark in… 1988, wasn’t it? Saddam said it was an accident, and we believed him. The Israelis said it was an accident, and we should accuse them of doing it deliberately. Is that your take on it?

Is this your list of ways you think Israel has been an unworthy ally of the US? The US has a lot of alliances, but Israel (despite it’s flaws) has probably been the best ally we’ve ever had. Do you think France is an ally we cherish? lol.

whatever sites I go too I always meet the zionist Israeli resident there, u must be the one, welcome, at least u r polite.let me answer u as much as i can.

-Iran: I do believe in sepration of state and religion.however Iran is not in violation of 62 UN resolutions like Israel, Iran did not steal other people lands and displace them like Israel did and Iran is not getting billions of dollars from the USA like Israel.Israel and Iran however are very similar because both r religious countries.

-Israel a threat to USA, yes, bigger than binladen and anything.maybe u r not threatend but America feels it and suffering.spying on america for 40 years,working against american intersts making America a partner to insane policies.last bad costly threat , the Iraq war,
designed and planned by the Israeli sleeper cells known as the neocons.creating and falsfying evidence to scare american so they go to war that only serves Israeli interst.Iraq has nothing to do with 9/11.

And yes Israel’s enemies become America’s enemies, even if they have done nothing to America, such as the Plo, egypt, syria,hamas,the arab world.why should America have enemies that it does not need or want, this is stupidty.

America hated- yes because of Americas blind support for Israel in the last 40 years, the whole Arab and Muslim word hates America.when Israel uses american weapons and bombs to kill innocent civilians people get angry, when america used the veto in the UN to defend Israel crimes 35 times people get angry.when the US congress put Israel’s interst over americas the world gets mad. why dont u read the book the lobby and find the facts about that.

money given to Israel-its stupid to give billions to Israel so it can use it again to spy on u, to use it to steal land and to kill and destroy.u keep refering to them as a friend, I dont, friends dont spy on frinds or abuse their trust, or get them in trouble, or use terror to silence them, or to kill any public debate about the middle east.or threaten congressmans and senator in order to support insane policies.
The Iraq war have cost over 700 billions, money america needs to fix the infrastructure and fix america, not to mention the americans dying in Iraq to protect Israel.

spying-for me I dont like anybody spying on me, especily so called friends, what kind of logic is that, I only hear this from zionists.jonathan polard, the american jewish spy has cost the biggest damage to american Intelligence .over half a million ducments stolen,it cost the US billions to fix it.nice friend indeed.Israel used the tech. and will use it in the future, Israel have no friends.they even spied on clinton when he was in the white house.

USS liberty- saddam fired one rocket at the stark by mistake, israel spent 2 hours attacking the USS liberty, by baot and jets.the ship had a big american flag and markings.
it was coverd up.Iraq was bombed to the stone age, where is saddam now?

Israel is the worst ally for sure, its a parasite that sucks the blood of america.in fact this great nation super power America is a hostage to Israel. Israeli sleeper cells are in control of much of America’s foreign policy and national security positions.99% of what you hear in America is Israeli lies and propganda.
the best ally America had in the middle east has been saudi Arabia, surprised? for over 60 years America had good relations with saudi arabia.America oil companies came to saudi arabia over 60 years ago, they made over 3 trilion dollars.cheap oil for many years helped the American economy grow.Saudi arabis kep prices low for years, the saudis never stapped america in the back,nor spied, nor occupied anybody, nor cost the USA any money.bin laden wanted to destro that relation with the USA

Hi Ahmed,

whatever sites I go too I always meet the zionist Israeli resident there, u must be the one

And I always get called a zionist… sometimes even a Jew, even after I make it clear I’m a Christian lol. One of the reasons I try to avoid this kind of discussion, usually. This is the first time I’ve ever been called an Israeli, though. I’m not. Not that it matters much.

-Iran: I do believe in sepration of state and religion.however Iran is not in violation of 62 UN resolutions like Israel, Iran did not steal other people lands and displace them like Israel did and Iran is not getting billions of dollars from the USA like Israel.Israel and Iran however are very similar because both r religious countries.

Well, OK. But the question was about “evil”. You said Israel was one of the most evil nations in history or something like that. I asked if Iran had ever done anything evil in your opinion. Do you consider it evil for a government to take innocents hostage for political leverage? Do you consider it evil for a government to orchestrate the rounding up and execution of tens of thousands of political dissidents? Do you consider it evil for a government to impose very harsh religious laws on the unwilling, including people of different religions? Do you consider it evil for a government to sponsor hijackings, bombings and other violent activities against the innocent in other countries?

Those are examples of things *I* consider to be evil. Do you disagree?

last bad costly threat , the Iraq war,
designed and planned by the Israeli sleeper cells known as the neocons.creating and falsfying evidence to scare american so they go to war that only serves Israeli interst.Iraq has nothing to do with 9/11.

I agree with most of that. But it’s not the first time the US fought the wrong war for the wrong reasons, and it probably won’t be the last. But, while that’s a valid criticism, I don’t see how it is evidence that Israel poses an existential threat to the US

And yes Israel’s enemies become America’s enemies, even if they have done nothing to America, such as the Plo, egypt, syria,hamas,the arab world.why should America have enemies that it does not need or want, this is stupidty.

Well, there is plenty of stupidity going around for everyone, isn’t there? The Eastern Europeans used to hate us too. Now, they are mostly friendly. The US can’t decide policy based on who will like us if we do or don’t do something. No country could be governed that way.

America hated- yes because of Americas blind support for Israel in the last 40 years, the whole Arab and Muslim word hates America.

That’s been pretty clear for quite some time. At least, it has been to me. You know who in the Muslim world doesn’t hate America? Iran. Strange, isn’t it? The one country we haven’t even been trying to get along with. Seems like that should tell us something, but I’m not quite clear what that is.

when Israel uses american weapons and bombs to kill innocent civilians people get angry, when america used the veto in the UN to defend Israel crimes 35 times people get angry.when the US congress put Israel’s interst over americas the world gets mad. why dont u read the book the lobby and find the facts about that.

People love to get angry. The Europeans absolutely HATED Ronald Reagan during the 1980s, because he was attempting to actually win the damn cold war instead of letting the status quo drag on for another 50 or 100 years. Just because people feel righteous, doesn’t mean they are right!

money given to Israel-its stupid to give billions to Israel so it can use it again to spy on u, to use it to steal land and to kill and destroy.

We give money to lots of countries. Egypt is the second largest recipient. Seems like the money is well spent on Israel, relatively speaking. If it wasn’t for US aid, people all over the planet would be starving to death, literally… and yet some of those countries which receive absolutely critical aid from the US, are America’s biggest critics in the UN. If the US threw more money at Arabs, would you like us more, or less? I’ve seen a lot of Egyptians complain that the only reason Mubarak plays along with America is all the aid money.

u keep refering to them as a friend, I dont, friends dont spy on frinds or abuse their trust

Lol. You’ve had better luck with friends than I have! My own wife abused my trust, that’s why she’s my ex-wife now

spying-for me I dont like anybody spying on me, especily so called friends, what kind of logic is that, I only hear this from zionists.

Well, if you live in the middle east than you live a country where your own government is spying on you all the time, so I don’t know what to say about that. If you don’t like being spied on then why not clean up your own house before telling me what to do with mine? If you got rid of every informant and undercover operative for one faction or another in Lebanon, for instance, who would be left? Three french guys at the embassy?

Israel is the worst ally for sure, its a parasite that sucks the blood of america.in fact this great nation super power America is a hostage to Israel.

You know, the only people in the US who say things like that are white supremacists. Would you like it if Americans started paying attention to what white supremacists say?

Israeli sleeper cells are in control of much of America’s foreign policy and national security positions.99% of what you hear in America is Israeli lies and propganda.

Let me tell you something… if it was Israelis who dictated to Ronald Reagan that he should pull out of Lebanon after the barracks bombing in 1983, then you should be very grateful to them. Maybe you should be sending them aid too, no? They do a lot for you! They got the war on terror postponed an extra 20 years, and that can’t have been an easything for them to pull off!

the best ally America had in the middle east has been saudi Arabia, surprised? for over 60 years America had good relations with saudi arabia.America oil companies came to saudi arabia over 60 years ago, they made over 3 trilion dollars.cheap oil for many years helped the American economy grow.

Yeah? How’s about that embargo in 1973? Nice, eh? Good friends!

Saudi arabis kep prices low for years, the saudis never stapped america in the back,nor spied, nor occupied anybody, nor cost the USA any money.bin laden wanted to destro that relation with the USA

After Saddam invaded Kuwait, maintaining a good relationship with the US was a matter of survival for the Saudis. Now they have… other concerns… but it’s pretty farfetched to try to claim KSA has been a good friend to the American people. And it is the American people we are talking about, right?

Craig and David, I appreciate your rational arguments against ad hominem attacks.

Can I just say, that if you look at the amount of aid that the U.S. has given to many Muslim countries, even as their societies block what in the U.S. is considered basic civil and human rights – religious freedom, freedom of speech, and basic civil rights that doesn’t prejudice you b/c of your gender, race, tribe or religion – U.S. has given billions to Saudi for instance.

How much money has the U.S. given to Pakistan, a country that wouldn’t allow a Hindu, Buddhist, and I’m not sure a Christian to exercise their basic right to build a place a worship. There’s a lot of global politics that goes into where the U.S. and lots of other countries give money….there has been billions given in the Middle East and in other parts of the world that go against the grain of the basic civil rights, that so many come to a country like the U.S. for.

The basic right that allow people like Ahmed to state his opinion freely, and worship freely and build a mosque freely in the U.S. (or India for that matter) isn’t allowed in many of the countries that he tries to juxtapose against the “evilness” of Israel – I just find that ridiculous.

Israel’s single act of bombing the Iraqi nuclear reactor made it much easier (if not possible at all) to save Kuwait and Saudi Arabia from Iraq. Also, the bombing of the reactor happened during the Iran-Iraq War and before Israel succeeded Iran also tried to bomb it without success. Because Israel bombed the reactor it saved Iran from being a potential target of the atom bomb.

Thus, ironically, as Israel saved Iran from the bomb now Iran claims it wants to use the bomb on Israel. How is that for thanks and appreciation?

That single act by Israel, let alone all the other good it has done alone justifies all of the American financial and other support.

craig..Ill take ur word, u seem to be ok even though we disagree..ill answer u soon..i am upset, my wife crying at wats happining in Gaza , another 40 civilian killed in a UN school in gaza, they thought they would b save.

as for nata, you have no idea what u talking about.Saudi arabia does not get any money from the USA, I repeat no aid to saudi arabia, no billions given, this is a lie.In fact if not for saudi arabia and china buying US bonds and t bonds in the billions america would b in deeper trouble.so in fact its saudi arabia who is giving billions to the USA, check ur facts.

Israel gets about 26% of all US foreign aid , the rest of the world get the balance.Egypt gets about 2 billion, a price to keep it at peace with israel. that is about 50$ for every egyption, compared to $1000. for every Israeli.
most of this aid is giving to buy influnce or to support Americas policies.
As for freedom to exress myself things have getten better over the years, muslims and christans lived in peace for hundreds of years in the middle east.20% of palestinians are christians,they suffer from Israel who forced many of them to flee.the arab world is not perfect and there r problems, but no arab country represent the threat Israel does

OK, Ahmed, no worries

thanks craig, things r getting much worse in gaza now..Israel is attacking civilians now without fear, attacking Un workers also, red cross and medics..tens more dying…people have no place to go….All with the blessings of Bush.the America media is presenting the Israeli line and story…

these are the rules I guess in The US coverage

Rule #1: In the Middle East, it is always the Palestinians that attack first, and it’s always Israel who defends itself. This is called “retaliation”.

Rule #2: The Palestinians are not allowed to kill Israelis. This is called “terrorism”.

Rule #3: Israel has the right to kill Palestinian civilians; this is called “self-defense”, or “collateral damage”.

Rule #4: When Israel kills too many Palestinian civilians, the Western world calls for restraint. This is called the “reaction of the international community”.

Rule #5: Palestinians do not have the right to capture Israeli military, not even 1 or 2.

Rule #6: Israel has the right to capture as many Palestinians as they want (around 10,000 to date being held without trial). There is no limit; there is no need for proof of guilt or trial. All that is needed is the magic word: “terrorism”.

Rule #7: When you say “Hamas”, always be sure to add “supported by Hezbo-Allah , Syria and Iran “.

Rule #8: When you say ” Israel “, never say “supported by the USA , the UK, European countries and even some Arab regimes”, for people (God forbid) might believe this is not an equal conflict.

Rule #9: When it comes to Israel , don’t mention the words “occupied territories”, “UN resolutions”, ” Geneva conventions”. This could distress the audience of Fox, CNN, etc.

Rule #10: Israelis speak better English than Arabs. This is why we let them speak out as much as possible, so that they can explain rules 1 through 9. This is called “neutral journalism”.

Rule #11: If you don’t agree with these rules or if you favor the Palestinian side over the Israeli side, you must be a very dangerous anti-Semite. You may even have to make a public apology if you express your honest opinion

(Isn’t democracy wonderful?)

But my question to Egyptians and others across the region incensed at Israel is where is their anger at the human rights violations, torture, and oppression in their respective countries?

Mona, the anger IS THERE and it is often expressed. Only it seems it doesn’t get expressed as loudly or as often as you would like it to be. But that disparity isn’t all unreasonable, and any blame doesn’t all rest in the hands of the people. You have to keep in mind several points:

Why it’s not all unreasonable:

1- In most countries that you talk about (you mentioned Jordan), there is no current record of human rights violation that yields the horrific results that Israel’s mad war machine can churn in a week (700+ dead and 3000+ wounded).

2- The frequency of human rights violations committed by Israel against the Arabs is much higher than what happens in these other countries. The blockades are a daily fact of life for Gazans. The road blocks too in the West Bank. The wall is a physical barrier that’s there. On the other hand, honor crimes in Jordan happen on average between a dozen and 20 times a year. Still a horrible record that a growing portion of the population is expressing anger over, but again, the frequency is nowhere close to that of the Israeli occupation.

Why we can’t put all the blame in the hands of the people:

1- One of the main internal problems that you talk about in these countries is exactly the one you blame the people for: lack of freedom of expression! How can we put all the blame on the people for not expressing loudly or frequently enough, when we know they do not enjoy that freedom to express.

People in this part of the world do not live under normal circumstances and I think it only follows naturally that the process of development in this world will not progress in a normal fashion.

It’s very hard for the average Arab in this part of the world to pause and think about the value of freedom of expression when he/she has to interpret sad and horrific events that happen around in almost every neighboring country, and sometimes neighboring cities.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1180527966693&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

but remember .. israel does not target civilians

Hi Mona,
I think you have missed out on one important point. MUSLIM UMMA. The Arab regimes and Pakistanis are fed on this concept that Saudi Arabia(Protector of two Holiest sites)is the leader of Islamic Caliphate and so they harp on Israel,India and USA as the satans while MUSLIM UMMA is the greatest heaven on earth.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/20/gaza-israelandthepalestinians

but remember … israel does not target civilians!

hey craig, r u around buddy

as for nata, you have no idea what u talking about.Saudi arabia does not get any money from the USA, I repeat no aid to saudi arabia, no billions given, this is a lie.In fact if not for saudi arabia and china buying US bonds and t bonds in the billions america would b in deeper trouble.so in fact its saudi arabia who is giving billions to the USA, check ur facts.

**************************************************

You are wrong Ahmed – Saudi Arabia has been receiving a ton of aid from the US and US investment built the country – of course the US had major interest in investing. Up until oil became a resource the world needed, Saudi Arabia, was a sparsely populated, rural, undeveloped country that had different tribes conquering each other. At the time that the House of Saud gained most of the control of what is now Saudi, that’s when oil became a commodity better than gold and by chance Saudi Arabia was sitting on a ton of it; And the Americans knew it and began investing.

I believe there was just recently a bill pass by Congress, stopping any aid to Saudi.

I’ll give you details about the aid later.