ikeaboy wrote:It seems to me religion is used a lot in this case as a smokescreen to make a conflict seem intractable (i.e. 'this conflict has gone on for ages and will never be resolved') which sucks the energy out of peoples will to seek a resolution and to cover up greed, oppression and land grabbing. There are plenty of people alive now in the region who remember Jewish and Muslim families living side by side even babysitting each others children.
ya. it's smokescreen 101.
Just look at how the discussion has trailed off into a pointless debate on the merits of religion. It's just a small scale representation of how the whole "it's muslims V jews" outlook plays out in the real world. And look how much energy people are willing to put into it, even though it's absolutely 100% irrelevant and that is plain to see.
Zionism hijacks religious rhetoric for it's own ends, as a glib justification for an occupation of a region where palestinians have lived for a consecutive thousands of years. If the illegal settlements were lived in by buddhist settlers, then the smokescreen would be ''muslims V buddhists'' .... of course the issue is really all about the occupation.
If you want to believe zionism and the zionist occupation of the palestinian region is a purely religious movement, so be it. But don't be so utterly idiotic as to think palestinians are resisting purely because of the aggressors choice of faith. no people, no matter what their faith, would allow themselves to endure what the palestinians have had to endure at the hands of an occupying force.
For everyone else the issue revolves around textbook occupation moves, politics, illegal settlements and the concept of hateful/aggressive settlers being imported from around the world to occupy these illegal plantations.
as for the rest of the posts in this thread, I wish I could say I was amazed by the comprehension failure on display. The aid flotilla is, obviously, more about breaking the illegal blockade than it is about the aid itself. On the topic of aid, what is let through by israel isn't even a fraction of what is needed. dov weisglass on israel's siege: “It’s like a meeting with a dietitian. We need to make the Palestinians lose weight, but not to starve to death.”
when israel assaulted gaza for three weeks (operation cast lead 2008/2009) they leveled in the region of 50,000 houses. This includes schools & hospitals. Nearly ALL palestinian factories were damaged.
The blockade, financed by america, denies entry of essential supplies to repair any of the damage caused. no repairs to machinery in factories, no repairs to sewage treatment, no housing repairs, no school/hospital repairs.... it is the intention of the blockade to send palestinians back to the stone age and keep them there. as stated to a UN official by a senior official in benjamin netanyahu's government: Israel's goal for Gaza is "no development, no prosperity, no humanitarian crisis."
so, the aid flotilla and accusations that it was 'fail' in it's organisation and media exposure.
'fail' isn't really a term i'd ever find myself conjuring on this topic, but I think I understand the intent behind it's usage here. The flotilla did, of course, go to great lengths to ensure media exposure BEFORE it took off - it had many diplomats, journalists, authors from all over the world on board, and of course exposure in any newspaper that would cover it. That you, failstation, didn't hear about it until after the massacre says nothing about the organisers capacity to orchestrate media exposure. One has to be interested in the world around them, and actually read a respectable paper or two in order to see the coverage. So perhaps, failstation, the next aid flotilla would be better off contacting gizmodo, engadget and whatever other utterly mundane blogs you have on rss feed.
regarding the flotilla massacre.
well, the protesters were expecting to be boarded 20 miles off the gaza coast. This is how it usually goes down, and infact this is exactly how it went down just the other day with the irish boat 'rachel corrie'. The massacre occurred 70 miles off the coast, at night, and by all accounts the IDF started shooting before boarding. From helicopters. (at night)
It's been pointed out already, but the 'weapons' were kitchen utensils and an assortment of poles used in ship upkeep. That the protesters defended themselves is human nature, and really doesn't warrant criticism. It is quite clear that the intent of the IDF was to deliver a militant 'fuck you' to the aid organisers. We could start several threads covering israeli war crimes where the guilt, intent & arrogance is blatant. The flotilla massacre is not an exception to that rule.
