dieter

Hi Nutbean Your point about the Taliban is sophistry. Okay, they were 'funded and equipped', have it your way. What's the difference? As is your point about Al Queda. Ditto the above. You probably also know that McCain and co funded and equipped ISIS. The articles I quoted from above would refute your notion that Mossad did not create Hamas. And, last but not least, I've seen kids at protests with their parents all over the world. You seem to be saying that no self respecting Palestinian parent would take their kids to a protest. Why? Because they should know the Israelis will try to murder them? Also, where is the 'border'? Don't you mean the fence that confines two million people into the Gaza Ghetto?

6: Tom McDonald 5: Lever 4: Jones 3: Brayshaw 2: Gawn 1: Lewis

This is for all the Weidemann knockers: just note how long it's taken big Jack to come good. I recall the last grand final the Eagles played: he was friggin hopeless. Please try to remember that freaks like Hogan appear as often as solar eclipses. Keep the faith with this boy. He will reward us....

Spain. In fact, ProDee, if the Moors hadn't gone to Spain Europe would still be in the Dark Ages.

For a start, Ethan, the title of 'Terrorist Organisation' is a totally arbitrary one. It's also co-incidental that it's always applied to organisations that oppose either European Colonialism or the results of European Colonialism. Incidentally, the term is mostly applied to countries or organisations which oppose the USA. ONce upon a time, Algerians were terrorists because they defied France, ditto the Congo Africans, and the Mau Mau who defied Belgium and England. Sinn Fein was declared a terrorist organisation by Britain because it opposed British rule in Northern Ireland. Secondly, I'll quote from the letter sent by New York Jews to the New York Times in 1948: 'Attack on Arab VillageA shocking example was their behavior in the Arab village of Deir Yassin. This village, off the main roads and surrounded by Jewish lands, had taken no part in the war, and had even fought off Arab bands who wanted to use the village as their base. On April 9 (THE NEW YORK TIMES), terrorist bands attacked this peaceful village, which was not a military objective in the fighting, killed most of its inhabitants (240 men, women, and children) and kept a few of them alive to parade as captives through the streets of Jerusalem. Most of the Jewish community was horrified at the deed, and the Jewish Agency sent a telegram of apology to King Abdullah of Trans-Jordan. But the terrorists, far from being ashamed of their act, were proud of this massacre, publicized it widely, and invited all the foreign correspondents present in the country to view the heaped corpses and the general havoc at Deir Yassin.The Deir Yassin incident exemplifies the character and actions of the Freedom Party.Within the Jewish community they have preached an admixture of ultranationalism, religious mysticism, and racial superiority. Like other Fascist parties they have been used to break strikes, and have themselves pressed for the destruction of free trade unions. In their stead they have proposed corporate unions on the Italian Fascist model.During the last years of sporadic anti-British violence, the IZL and Stern groups inaugurated a reign of terror in the Palestine Jewish community. Teachers were beaten up for speaking against them, adults were shot for not letting their children join them. By gangster methods, beatings, window-smashing, and wide-spread robberies, the terrorists intimidated the population and exacted a heavy tribute.' Thirdly, what do you know about Hamas anyway, other than the garbage hand fed to you by Israeli propaganda? Did you know, for example, that Mossad created Hamas? From War is Crime, December 2008:' '....Thanks to the Mossad, Israel’s “Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks”, the Hamas was allowed to reinforce its presence in the occupied territories. Meanwhile, Arafat’s Fatah Movement for National Liberation as well as the Palestinian Left were subjected to the most brutal form of repression and intimidation Let us not forget that it was Israel, which in fact created Hamas. According to Zeev Sternell, historian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, “Israel thought that it was a smart ploy to push the Islamists against the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO)”. Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of the Islamist movement in Palestine, returning from Cairo in the seventies, established an Islamic charity association. Prime Minister Golda Meir, saw this as a an opportunity to counterbalance the rise of Arafat’s Fatah movement. According to the Israeli weekly Koteret Rashit (October 1987), “The Islamic associations as well as the university had been supported and encouraged by the Israeli military authority”in charge of the (civilian) administration of the West Bank and Gaza. “They [the Islamic associations and the university] were authorized to receive money payments from abroad.” The Islamists set up orphanages and health clinics, as well as a network of schools, workshops which created employment for women as well as system of financial aid to the poor. And in 1978, they created an “Islamic University” in Gaza. “The military authority was convinced that these activities would weaken both the PLO and the leftist organizations in Gaza.” At the end of 1992, there were six hundred mosques in Gaza. Thanks to Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad (Israel’s Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks), the Islamists were allowed to reinforce their presence in the occupied territories. Meanwhile, the members of Fatah (Movement for the National Liberation of Palestine) and the Palestinian Left were subjected to the most brutal form of repression.' And, Washington Post, July 30, 2014: ll signs indicate that the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is prepared to wage a protracted battle in the battered Gaza Strip as it seeks to crush the capabilities of the Islamist militant group Hamas. The ongoing conflict has already exacted a bloody toll, with the Palestinian death count approaching the total of Israel's 2008-2009 bombing campaign and ground offensive in Gaza, which led to the deaths of at least 1,383 Palestinians over three weeks. Netanyahu wants to wholly demilitarize the Palestinian enclave, beginning with the network of tunnels that allow Hamas's fighters to infiltrate into Israeli territory. But Hamas, a dogged outfit that thrives in wartime, is digging in its heels. On Tuesday, a Hamas spokesman said Netanyahu's "threats did not frighten Hamas or the Palestinian people." The current fighting — a clash between Israel's vastly superior armed forces and Hamas's insurgents — obscures the greater challenges facing Israelis and Palestinians, including the thorny question of how to accord equal rights to millions of Palestinians living under occupation in the event that a separate Palestinian state turns out not to be viable. It also obscures Hamas's curious history. To a certain degree, the Islamist organization whose militant wing has rained rockets on Israel the past few weeks has the Jewish state to thank for its existence. Hamas launched in 1988 in Gaza at the time of the first intifada, or uprising, with a charter now infamous for its anti-Semitism and its refusal to accept the existence of the Israeli state. But for more than a decade prior, Israeli authorities actively enabled its rise. At the time, Israel's main enemy was the late Yasser Arafat's Fatah party, which formed the heart of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). Fatah was secular and cast in the mold of other revolutionary, leftist guerrilla movements waging insurgencies elsewhere in the world during the Cold War. The PLO carried out assassinations and kidnappings and, although recognized by neighboring Arab states, was considered a terrorist organization by Israel; PLO operatives in the occupied territories faced brutal repression at the hands of the Israeli security state. Meanwhile, the activities of Islamists affiliated with Egypt's banned Muslim Brotherhood were allowed in the open in Gaza — a radical departure from when the Strip was administered by the secular-nationalist Egyptian government of Gamal Abdel Nasser. Egypt lost control of Gaza to Israel after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, which saw Israel also seize the West Bank. In 1966, Nasser had executed Sayyid Qutb, one of the Brotherhood's leading intellectuals. The Israelis saw Qutb's adherents in the Palestinian territories, including the wheelchair-bound Sheik Ahmed Yassin, as a useful counterweight to Arafat's PLO. "When I look back at the chain of events I think we made a mistake," one Israeli official who had worked in Gaza in the 1980s said in a 2009 interview with the Wall Street Journal's Andrew Higgins. "But at the time nobody thought about the possible results." Higgins's article is worth reading in full. He goes on to outline the type of assistance the Israelis initially gave Yassin, whom the PLO at one time deemed a "collaborator," and Gaza's other Islamists: Yassin's Mujama would become Hamas, which, it can be argued, was Israel's Taliban: an Islamist group whose antecedents had been laid down by the West in a battle against a leftist enemy. Israel jailed Yassin in 1984 on a 12-year sentence after the discovery of hidden arms caches, but he was released a year later. The Israelis must have been more worried about other enemies. Eventually, the tables turned. After the 1993 Oslo accords, Israel's formal recognition of the PLO and the start of what we now know as the peace process, Hamas was the Israelis' bete noire. Hamas refused to accept Israel or renounce violence and became perhaps the leading institution of Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation, which, far beyond religious ideology, is the main reason for its continued popularity among Palestinians. Just for the record, the USA founded the Taliban, another 'Terrorist' organisation. The USA also played a hand in setting up Al Quaeda. Ah, Ethan, there's more in God's universe than you'll ever imagine... I wonder too, Ethan, how you would regard Israelis if you had relatives who were butchered at Deir Yassin in 1948. ( Deir Yassin, by the way, was not a solitary example. Read Benny Morris, Schlomo Sand, Ilan Pappe etc etc.)

You mean Israel??????? Or, to quote Moshe Dayan: One man's Terrorist, another man's Freedom Fighter. Get a life Ethan, you seem to think there is only one definition of the word terrorist: yours...

Dear Grapeviney You are in the position of power here, you can pontificate and delete at your whim. You then list a series of generalized refutations of what you have personally deleted as though you are like the Pope, I.E. speaking Ex Cathedra. Pro Dee does that too. It's like you are not only the sole arbiter, but also the font of all unassailable evidence as well. It has been said for a long time now that if the truth is unassailable then allow debate. Allow differing opinions and points of view. So that, for example, the article you censored - published online by Counterpoint - which presents Colonization from the perspective of the Colonised is taboo and censored. Why, because it mentions the H and N words. You then state - once again - as though you are Pontius Pilate and the font of all wisdom - that the letter signed by so many prominent prescient Jews in 1948 'fails to make the case on that count'. Good luck to you Grapeviney, it must be so happy to be the judge and jury, it must be so comforting to smugly sit on your sofa and censor everything you don't agree with. Welcome to Democracy, the 'Only democracy' on Demonland, to coin a phrase. By the way, I would love to meet you and share a bagel or a poppy seed cake and a coffee. In the end, we all share a common humanity and I guess I've decided to devote my life to embracing that humanity, a humanity that embraces every creed, culture and way of life, especially the culture and way of life of the people who have been wrongly stigmatised and persecuted. Hence my total support and admiration and commiseration for the people the Nazis persecuted, E.G. the Jews, the Poles, the Gypsies, the Russians, the Gay, the people they deemed untermensch. I urge you to think about it and cut through the propaganda, there is no Untermensch. We are all the same given the chance to be who we are. That's why, for example, I abhor the racist ramblings of Prodee. I'll leave it to you...

In fact, ProDee, I've been thinking about it.I think you're right. THIS IS THE SMOKING GUN. THIS IS ALL THE PROOF WE NEED THE PALESTINIANS WANT TO COMMIT GENOCIDE ON THE POOR INNOCENT ISRAELIS. THE ONLY SOLUTION NOW - AND TRUMP WOULD GIVE THE GREEN LIGHT - IS TO NUKE THEM. PROBLEM SOLVED. I'M WIDDYA ALL THE WAY, PRODEE.

So frigging funny, ProDee, what, imagine a Palestinian armed with a pistol. How dare he. Why should a Palestinian have a pistol to face the third most equipped and deadly army in the history of the universe. Indeed, just proves your point, the Palestinians are wanton, arm bearing TERRORISTS. Why, some of them EVEN HAD SLING SHOTS AND ROCKS. We won't mention the deadly tyres and the even more deadly children. By the way, ProDee, how many Israelis were murdered during this combat? Also, ProDee, do you have any idea what the Palestinian Death Toll since 1976 is compared to Israel which is an occupier, condemned - for once - even by the United Nations? I bet you have no idea....

The quote is taken out of context: it is an 11 second exerpt. You know that, you are not that dumb. And he WAS NOT saying they were Hamas operatives, or Jihadists, he was trying to say the people who were murdered would have agreed with what Hamas was trying to do by organising these demonstrations. And that's what they were, they were demonstrations against the Occupation, against being confined into an uninhabitable ghetto like Gaza, about being totally dispossessed 70 years ago. It is every man and woman's right to demonstrate against these conditions. As for your deletion of my post, once again, you are so selective, Grapeviney. The article was an attempt to understand European Colonialism, it was an attempt at explaining just why the so-called Christian Western world goes shock horror when a white man dies, and is totally oblivious to the wholesale slaughter of Asians, Africans, Arabs, Indians, Chinese, Australian aborigines, American Indians etc etc etc. The author of this article - like the writers he quotes, James Baldwin, for example - make equations about the shocking number of fatalities directly attributable to European Colonisation and he equates the indifference shown by the Western world to the sheer scale of deaths and this process caused with what Europeans and other Western Nations regard as the vilest and most objectionable characters in their history, namely Hitler and the Nazis. The article lambasts all perpetrators of these historical atrocities with the term Nazis and Hitler-like, he does not single out Zionists. Now Grapeviney, maybe make yourself acquainted with the letter published in the New York Times in 1948. The letter was signed by over twenty very prominent American Jews, including Albert Einstein and Hannah Arendt. The letter was in regard to the visit by Menachim Begin to solicit funds for his Party which then became Likud. They used the term Nazi and Fascist to describe Begin, and his history ,and his Party. I guess WJ and Andy would have had to permanently ban them from this site as well by your reckoning...I could post it here but you'd probably try to ban me from the site if I did...

Gee, Grapeviney, people like you stagger me with their logic. The 'evidence' that of the 60 people murdered, 50 were Hamas Operatives comes from a site devoted to spreading Israeli propaganda misinformation and lies. To be frank, I do not believe anything that comes from an IDF source. It's about as reliable as the Colon in the UN pre Invasion of Iraq when he held up the fictitious phials that supposedly contained enough weapons of mass destruction to wipe out 'civilization', or the Soviets maintaining till 1991 that the Germans were responsible for the Katyn massacre.. Can you now point to the hospitals and schools and civilian facilities Hamas hid their victims in during last week's slaughter. And, once again, what the F has the tragic bombings in Indonesia got to do with Palestine????????? Or, are you just smearing a religion? Now, it seems to me you, are and I'm surprised that as a jew and a victim of indiscriminate and also focused 'smearing ' and worse during its history, a jew would indulge in pure unabashed hatred of another religion. It does not make sense. But then again, neither does your 'report', sources from IDF - the Purest Army in the world , what a tragic joke - that Hamas has admitted that 50 victims were Hamas Operatives and another 3 were Jihadists.

How the intelligent Grapeviney leans to the left is one of life's great mysteries. And it's not lost on me that he edits or deletes some of my posts as a favour. He keeps me safe from trigger happy George He'd do us all a favour if he deleted anything you write that isn't about football.

Any more rantings from war mongering fringe lunatics - in this case a commander of British forces in three illegal wars/and/or occupations - up your sleeve, ProDee?

Any more IDF propaganda up your sleeve? Maybe get the White Helmets involved...

So you condone mass murder?

Get a life, Ethan. You are just regurgitating bulldust Israeli propaganda. I could quote you thousands of you tube examples of contemporary Israelis saying the same things about Palestinians. Read Schlomo Sand, Ilan Pappe, Miko Peled, all contemporary Israelis who make your statements sound like the ravings of a lunatic. The Palestinians do not want to kill Jews, they just want their land back. A land no-one had the right to give away. Unless you want to believe biblical voodoo nonsense, nonsense that turned your notion of god into a real estate agent....

So you obviously don't believe Israel deserves to be deomised for murdering so many Palestinians? I know, they were only defending their fences....

Really? All these 'weapons' sound terrifyingly deadly to me. Yes, Rope is a big killer, ask any USA hangman. Yes, burning tyres are very very very deadly. As are children That's why Israeli snipers murder so many of them....

THis is one of the sickest posts I've read in my life. So, according to you, snipers who murder kids and women are simply defending their fence line and Hamas is the problem. Wow, that's a novel way of avoiding the facts of the matter. Ok, we shot them but it's all Hamas' fault. Wow!!!!! We won't go into any evidence that you have to show and prove your point that 'Iran is presently the worst of all the rogue police states'.Perhaps you're relying in the assertions of the likes of George Bush. Now there was a great , peace loving, god fearing leader...

No I'm not agreeing with you at all. I'm agreeing with Earl by pointing out that there is a similarity with the way the Nazis behaved and the way the Israelis behave and have behaved. Both the Nazis and Israelis imprisoned innocent people into ghettos - the Nazis did it to Jews, the Israelis did/do it to Palestinians in Gaza and the Occupied Territories. Both Nazis and Israelis behave/behave in a brutal way. I am simply pointing out to you, Grapeviney, that mentioning Treblinka doesn't cut it any more. That happened 66 years ago. What the Israelis have done and continue to do - since the ethnic cleansing of whole towns and villages in 1948 - has nothing to do with the Holocaust. Mentioning the way Palestinians are treated in other countries is a specious avoidance of looking at what the Israelis do and have done. Jews who support the notion of Israel - and there are very many who don't - need to own up to that brutal, criminal behaviour. Murder of civilians by snipers and other military personnel is MURDER.

Hi Grapeviney As much as the story of your poor grandparents is horrendous and totally disgusting from the point of view of human behaviour - the behaviour of the Nazis and their henchmen - a good Jewish friend of mine once said - Ed was one of the founding member of the Israeli Air Force, he is a Hero of Israel - that any Jew who mentions the Holocaust in relation to what Israelis are doing/have done to Palestinians/Palestine needs to have brought to their intention that the murder and treatment of Palestinians has absolutely nothing to do with the Holocaust. I would love you to imagine what it might be like to be a Palestinian in Gaza, the West Bank, or any other of the Occupied Territories.It would require an effort to walk in another downtrodden man's shoes and it would probably go against all of your inclinations to avoid the responsibility that Israel has for its horrendous behaviour and track record. I repeat, Treblinka has absolutely nothing to do with the murder of Palestinians by snipers of the IDF.

About time that was said!

I agree with you broadly. Of course, we now have to put up with the remarks of the very far right wing, those who delude themselves that the greatest terrorist organisation in world are the good guys, the people who lied about Vietnam, Iraq twice, Libya and Syria. Also the same people who totally destroyed North Korea in the 50's, the same people who toppled the democratically government of Iran and installed their puppet, the Shah.. Yay, god help us all

There is no way Garlett is not in our best 22. Just an opinion. When the Demons fire Garlett is the cream. When the Demons play like they did against Hawthorn a bloke like Garlett is not going to save them, nor is he the core problem. The Hawthorn game problems stemmed from our dysfunctional defence. That problem is being mended. Bring back Jeffie, as good as Spargo is and will be, Jeffie will ice our cake even more.

I agree about his body language. I feel sorry for him...