Hamas

[Skip N]

Democracy is a great thing. Its to bad the Palestinians are brain washed by terrorism and hatred for Isreal. Its not Democracy being bad is the Palestinians being stupid and clueless. Nothing like voting for people who train thier kids to strap bombs to themselves and blow up Isreali school children. Between Hamas in power and that wack job in Iran threatining to wipe Isreal off the map with a nuke this could get ugly real fast.

[zacs]

Originally Posted by Skip N

Democracy is a great thing. Its to bad the Palestinians are brain washed by terrorism and hatred for Isreal. Its not Democracy being bad is the Palestinians being stupid and clueless. Nothing like voting for people who train thier kids to strap bombs to themselves and blow up Isreali school children. Between Hamas in power and that wack job in Iran threatining to wipe Isreal off the map with a nuke this could get ugly real fast.

So to paraphrase, you are saying

"democracy is great, but only if you vote for who I like. If you don't, you must be a brainwashed idiot."

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by zacs

So to paraphrase, you are saying

"democracy is great, but only if you vote for who I like. If you don't, you must be a brainwashed idiot."

No ZacS:

It is:

Democracy is great, but only when the people involved in the democratic process are not coerced and blinded by both insane intolerant terroristic views promulgated by their extremist authoritarian leaders and by a probable fear that those extremist leaders will execute them in the middle of the night should they "vote" against them.

Do you really think it is a true democracy when these overriding pressures exist? For example, do you really think a true democracy exists in Venezuela under Chavez?

Give me a break.

[zacs]

I have never been to Israel or Palestine, so I can't say I am familiar with the true situation, but if the way you describe it is accurate, Joe, than those are certainly not conditions where democracy can thrive. However, that is not what Skip said. He said, "Its to bad the Palestinians are brain washed by terrorism and hatred for Isreal. Its not Democracy being bad is the Palestinians being stupid and clueless." That has nothing to do with coersion and fear, more with political and moral ideals that differ from his....

[JoeP]

ZacS-

I know but I think what I said is what Skip means.

[Skip N]

Originally Posted by JoeP

ZacS-

I know but I think what I said is what Skip means.

Amen brother

[Skip N]

yeah they just want whats best for thier children....

[spence]

Originally Posted by JoeP

Democracy is great, but only when the people involved in the democratic process are not coerced and blinded by both insane intolerant terroristic views promulgated by their extremist authoritarian leaders and by a probable fear that those extremist leaders will execute them in the middle of the night should they "vote" against them.

Do you really think it is a true democracy when these overriding pressures exist?

I object your honor, the defense is applying his personal value system upon another culture!

The Palestinians are screwed up in a lot of ways, but you gotta look at the last 60 odd years in perspective to get a grip on what's going on. Not that there's been parity necessarily, but both sides have behaved poorly and the Palestinians have been screwed over by just about everyone including the Brits, Jews and Arabs and Persians.

In the end, unless someone can indicate the election was fraudlent, (that there was corruption or forced votes) what you would have are people voting for who they think is going to deliver the best quality of life for their children. We find terrorisim to be abhorrent, they look at the razing of homes and annexing of land to be just as so...it's all relative.

-spence

[Nebe]

what blows my mind is that 80% of americans have no idea that the country of Israel is only 50 years old. If everyone here knew that 50 years ago millions of pallestinians were kicked out of thier homes and forced into giant refugee camps like in the gaza strip, i think our people would understad what Hammas stands for and why they are blowing them selves up in jewish settlements.

you gotta hear both sides of a story to make a fair decision.

[MakoMike]

Originally Posted by Nebe

what blows my mind is that 80% of americans have no idea that the country of Israel is only 50 years old. If everyone here knew that 50 years ago millions of pallestinians were kicked out of thier homes and forced into giant refugee camps like in the gaza strip, i think our people would understad what Hammas stands for and why they are blowing them selves up in jewish settlements.

you gotta hear both sides of a story to make a fair decision.

Kicked out by who? Not the Jews, it was their fellow arabs who told them to get out of the way so they could destroy Israel. They didn't and Israel didn't let them back in. And who kept them in those refugee camps for the last 50 years? Arab governements, who refused to let them integrate into their countries. Jordan has more of the land from "palistine" than Israel does, and yet most of the Palistinians are still in refugee camps. It's been a PR coup for the arabs, who have a large part of the world blaming Israel for the "palistinian problem" when it was realy all created by the arabs themselves.

[BigFish]

They said on the morning news with Hamas now in power....the chance of peace in the mid-east has no chance.........like it had a chance before???

[spence]

Originally Posted by MakoMike

It's been a PR coup for the arabs, who have a large part of the world blaming Israel for the "palistinian problem" when it was realy all created by the arabs themselves.

Mike, I think you're forgetting the small part about the UN partition in 1947 done against the wishes of every Arab nation!

While I agree the surrounding Arab states could and should have done much more to help Palestinian suffering over the years, the fact is the UN displaced three quarters of a million people...promised to help them and did little to nothing.

-spence

[chris L]

Originally Posted by Nebe

what blows my mind is that 80% of americans have no idea that the country of Israel is only 50 years old. If everyone here knew that 50 years ago millions of pallestinians were kicked out of thier homes and forced into giant refugee camps like in the gaza strip, i think our people would understad what Hammas stands for and why they are blowing them selves up in jewish settlements.

you gotta hear both sides of a story to make a fair decision.

HERE HERE jolly good eben . you hit the nail on the head and so did spence .

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by spence

I object your honor, the defense is applying his personal value system upon another culture!

The Palestinians are screwed up in a lot of ways, but you gotta look at the last 60 odd years in perspective to get a grip on what's going on. Not that there's been parity necessarily, but both sides have behaved poorly and the Palestinians have been screwed over by just about everyone including the Brits, Jews and Arabs and Persians.

In the end, unless someone can indicate the election was fraudlent, (that there was corruption or forced votes) what you would have are people voting for who they think is going to deliver the best quality of life for their children. We find terrorisim to be abhorrent, they look at the razing of homes and annexing of land to be just as so...it's all relative.

-spence

Nope Spence, just what I consider normal human universal values. Jusr because some people portray their causes as sympathetic or somehow moral in their own sense of culture does not mean I have to believe or accept their crap.

I consider it coercion when people are led to believe that strapping bombs to themselves or their kids is the "right" thing to do and will lead to some sort of salvation for them.

Tired now...

[spence]

I think you're confusing the cause of the general people vs the cause of those aligned against Isreal. The whole Wilsonian "universal values" thing is fragile, it exists in a world of plenty, not in a world of poverty.

I'm not justifying any of their actions, I find terrorisim to be abhorrent and Hamas to be evil in many ways, but I also understand (somewhat) how humans could come to do these things.

Think about US action in Dresden or the atomic attacks in Japan. These clearly were intended to kill large numbers of civilians to crush the will of our opponents. Were they in our interests at the time? Sure they were...but you know where I'm going.

The key is, we can't just look at terrorists as crackpots, because you can never stop all the wackos. The world today is such that a few people can create tremendous harm for the masses if their motivated.

We need policy that places a wedge between the real fanatics and the mainstream. Today we've lost a billion people on the wrong side of the wedge...

-spence

[JoeP]

Spence I agree with alot of what you said - it's just that the premise of my original comments came from the other comments about whether or not the Hamas vote today was "true" democracy in action.

But I will add, again, that I believe policy and diplomacy with these types of people only goes so far, and then aggressive protective and instinctual defensive tactics must take over. That is why I fully support what our President has done for this country in the past 4 years...

[Pete_G]

Originally Posted by Skip N

Democracy is a great thing. Its to bad the Palestinians are brain washed by terrorism and hatred for Isreal. Its not Democracy being bad is the Palestinians being stupid and clueless. Nothing like voting for people who train thier kids to strap bombs to themselves and blow up Isreali school children. Between Hamas in power and that wack job in Iran threatining to wipe Isreal off the map with a nuke this could get ugly real fast.

Israel is historically a fiesty little country. If they get the sense that something is headed their way there's going to be hell to pay for the country responsible. The pre-emptive strike known as the 6 Day War in which they crushed Egypt, Syria, and Jordan would be the classic example of that. The same countries again took another pounding a few years later. I'm not sure if anyone knows what Israel has in terms of nuclear capability, but it is generally assumed they have nuclear weaponry since all signs point to that being the case.

Israel also has a lot of United States weaponry including F-16's as part of a capable air force. Maybe not the latest and greatest, but engaging them in any way is definitely a risky activity for any country. IMO, Israel, if provoked, would eliminate a lot of countries our current administration doesn't really care for...