Bloodbath in Gaza

[Chilperich]

Originally Posted by Reiner Torheit

By the same token, the people who bombed the UN School and killed 40 people aren't exactly the Cherubim and Seraphim either.... It's not a Beauty Contest.

Perhaps not, but you seem to be making it a sort of ugliness contest. I'm not at all convinced that you can draw moral equivalence between the kind of targeted attacks being carried out by Hamas against the Israelis and the "collateral damage" (a vile, Orwellian phrase!) of the Israeli retaliation. (This, incidentally, isn't to condone the Israeli response.)

Speaking of Orwell, we really need someone with his insight and moral clarity to untangle the situation in the Middle East. However, it's worth bearing in mind that the mainstream media in the West have adopted a pro-Muslim position in general, and a pro-Palestinian one in particular. It's also worth bearing in mind that what is occurring is a kind of proxy war, with Hamas a front organisation principally for Iran.

Again speaking of Orwell, I remember reading an article of his about how, as a young man, he had read Winwood Reade's The Martyrdom of Man (Reade was a 19th-century agnostic and rationalist). Orwell said that at the time he didn't know whether Reade's account of the world (in distinction to the official version he had been taught at school) was true, merely that it could be (while the official version seemed patently false).

I feel this about the "official" take on the situation in the Middle East. As an Anglo-Saxon atheist (lapsed C of E, if one can "lapse" from so wishy-washy an institution!) with no racial or emotional ties to Israel, and only the fairly tenuous cultural tie of Judeo-Christianity, I am far from being an addle-brained Zionist, or an uncritical cheerleader for it. However, as a corrective to the "official" point of view, I feel it my duty to visit web sites such as Melanie Phillips's at The Spectator (where there is lively debate from both sides), and to read books such as Robert Spencer's The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades (Regnery, 2005) and Ibn Warraq's Defending The West (Prometheus, 2007).

[Alpha Centauri]

I'm afraid I would be instantly dismissive of anything connected with that violently unpleasant bitch Melanie Phillips

[Kuhlau]

I have a prediction: that Israel will be the first nation since the US to use (in aggression) a nuclear bomb. Probably, against Iran ...

FK

[Héctor]

[Alpha Centauri]

Originally Posted by Kuhlau

I have a prediction: that Israel will be the first nation since the US to use (in aggression) a nuclear bomb. Probably, against Iran ...
FK

Certainly, against Iran. And without provocation, allegedly in self-defense.

And USA, GB, and Israel's other shills will wring their hands... and do nothing.

[Herzeleide]

Originally Posted by Reiner Torheit

I'm afraid I would be instantly dismissive of anything connected with that violently unpleasant bitch Melanie Phillips

She's described Obama as a 'revolutionary Marxist'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanie_Phillips

[Alpha Centauri]

Originally Posted by Herzeleide

She's described Obama as a 'revolutionary Marxist'.

She's not the sharpest knife in the drawer Quite separately from her distasteful views...

The only thing MP knows about Marx is the chain of shops he opened with Mr Spencer

[Philidor]

Jeremy Greenstock interviewed on BBC Radio 4's Today Programme, this morning. He's been in direct talks with Hamas, declared transparently to the Israeli government. He's a former senior UK diplomat* and is worth listening to.



Direct link, including the Blair interview

Forward Thinking

* Sir Jeremy Greenstock GCMG (born 1944), educated at Harrow and Worcester College, Oxford, was a British diplomat from 1969-2004, serving in Washington DC, Paris, Dubai and Saudi Arabia. He is the former United Kingdom Ambassador to the United Nations in New York and Her Majesty's former Special Representative in Iraq, where he worked alongside Paul Bremer within the Coalition Provisional Authority.

Source

[Florestan]

Originally Posted by Philidor

Jeremy Greenstock interviewed on BBC Radio 4's Today Programme, this morning. He's been in direct talks with Hamas, declared transparently to the Israeli government. He's a former senior UK diplomat* and is worth listening to.



Direct link, including the Blair interview

Forward Thinking

Could this be a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel that isn't an oncoming train? A clear light of sanity amid all the nightmarish madness, lies and violence? People behaving like GROWN UPS, fgs? I am not usually big on praying but I pray this works.

[Florestan]

Originally Posted by Reiner Torheit

She's not the sharpest knife in the drawer Quite separately from her distasteful views...

The only thing MP knows about Marx is the chain of shops he opened with Mr Spencer

I'm not sure she's all that ignorant, but profoundly pernicious, certainly. It's the clever, or at least knowledgeable, ones that do the most damage. She is far more dangerous in that regard than some BNP moron.

I was completely amazed to discover she was married to Joshua Rosenberg.