Grapeviney

1. No, I don't, and I don't agree that it was Palestinian land. It's Jewish land as much as it is Palestinian land, and that's why the partition plans made so much sense. 2. I can't look at Jewish migration to Palestine in the 30's and 40's as anything other than a blessing, especially in the context of what was happening in Europe and how few other nations put out the welcoming mat to the Jews. I only wish more of them had made it to the Promised Land, because then 6 million wouldn't have been slaughtered in the ensuing Holocaust.

No, deiter hasn't answered anything, and he never will. His contributions are nothing more than vile, anti-Israel spam - in your own words, 'the Cohen article wasn't exactly chock-full of hard information.' LOL, there's a master-piece of understatement. And I don't know what makes you think that 'we're all paying the price'. You're not paying anything. Have you ever had a Qassam rocket fired at your house, or your local pizza place blown to pieces? Ever get scared riding a public bus that one of the other passengers might be a suicide bomber?

It's hard not to laugh at the irony here. Stanley Cohen acted as a lawyer to the master-mind of the World Trade Centre bombing. He's also defended Hamas, Hezbollah, and members of al-Qaeda. Netanyahu's mother-in-law could provide a more reasoned analysis than the garbage posted here. There's nothing to refute in that article - it's fact-free and full of the emotive language that is the hall-mark of the Israel-hating mob. There's plenty of factual, well-argued legitimate criticism of Israeli policy, but this ain't it. Here's a few questions for you Jara. Do you support the notion of a Jewish homeland, in Israel? If not in Israel, where should a Jewish homeland be located? If not at all, why should there be 20 + Arab nations - including an additional one in Israel - but not a Jewish one? If you do, should the Palestinians / Arab nations have accepted the Peel Partition Pan, which would have given them large areas of modern-day Israel? Should they have later accepted the UN Partition Plan, which also promised them large areas of modern-day Israel?

Don't underestimate the importance of this win - we can now officially beat every other team in the competition, including the Tigers.

If you're going to pre-empt @KC from Casey in setting up this thread every week can you please follow the same format in the topic heading and preview info? Consistency is a wonderful thing and doing it that way allows posters to search and find the thread in the future, once the topic has dropped off the main page. Here's the template: Thanks

Oh FFS. For the second - and final - time, the NYT letter you posted is already on the board and was never censored.

Taken out of context? LOL, that old chestnut, hey. If he'd meant that all those killed were merely sympathisers with Hamas objectives, he would have said so, and NOT given a precise number - 50 out of 62. As for the offensive and now deleted article, you should be grateful that I've also saved you the embarrassment of associating with it on an intellectual level. As I've mentioned in several earlier posts, I'm sick of people - the Left - equating every single action they don't like with Nazism, or Hitler. It's a false equivalence and it's intellectually lazy. Colonialism is not and was not Nazism, and not every bad person is like Hitler. Is it really that hard to discuss Pol Pot, or Stalin, without saying he was like Hitler? The same goes for the Irgun, who could very reasonably be described as a terrorist organisation. But as Nutbean pointed out a few pages back, the Irgun was nothing like the Nazis, not in philosophy, and not in their actions, and the NYT letter - which you've already posted - fails to make the case on that count.

It didn't come from an IDF source. It came from a TV interview with a senior Hamas official. If you've got a problem with the numbers, take it up with your pals at Hamas. And I've taken the liberty of deleting your most recent post, equating Zionism with Nazism. I hope, like Pro, that you're grateful for this editorial intervention, because if WJ or Andy saw it they would boot your sorry backside permanently from the site without a moment's hesitation. You're welcome.

Let's clear up a few things. Firstly, Hamas have admitted that of the 62 people killed, 50 of them were actually Hamas operatives, and another 3 belonged to Palestinian Islamic Jihad, so good riddance to bad trash. Secondly, as Pro posted above, it's well known that Hamas like to base their operations out of schools, hospitals and other civilian facilities, happy to sacrifice their own people - including kids - in the interests of advancing their political narrative. It staggers me that people even doubt this. Did they not see what's just happened in Indonesia, where girls aged 8, 9 and 12 were part of suicide missions courtesy of their kind and caring parents? What kind of sickness afflicts these people? And finally, if you want to talk about propaganda, check out this recent gem from the Palestinian Information Centre, one of the most popular / viewed websites for the Palestinian faithful. Hahahahaha!!

You're not very good at this, are you? Dieter: Israelis are like the Nazis. Also Dieter: Stop comparing Israelis with the Nazis / Holocaust @Earl HoodSorry, it wasn't the word 'fascist', but if you refer the very first post in this thread, where you misuse the word genocide, just like Dieter misuses the phrase ethnic cleansing, and my response, post #32 on page 2. Anyway, bash away - I'm out... the direction of this discussion bears out my earlier point, that this is an exercise in demonising Israel, rather than any genuine concern for the plight of the Palestinians.

Not sure why your comment is directed at me - it was Earl who made the comparison and linked the two. You're effectively agreeing with me.

Let's be honest. No-one really gives a rat's about the Palestinians - they're only ever mentioned in relation to Israel, including by posters on this board. No mention of the 450,000 Palestinians in Syria, 95 per cent of whom are in dire need of humanitarian assistance in order to survive, and 280,000 of whom are internally displaced. Even the UNRWA - their specialist UN-appointed agency - doesn't mention the estimated 13,000 Palestinians who are political prisoners in Syria, of which an estimated 700 have been murdered. Palestinians in Syria are actually prohibited from leaving that country - they're trapped in what must surely be the greatest hell on earth at the moment. But hey, there's no need to talk about that, when we can compare Israel to apartheid South Africa or, better still, to Nazi Germany. As for your question @Earl Hood, it's clear you know very little about World War II, and I seem to recall we've argued before about your penchant for describing anyone/thing you don't agree with as a Nazi / fascist. So here's a bit about the ghetto of Piotrokow, where my father's parents were, and which was the first ghetto to be established in Europe. In total, between 16,500-28,000 Jews went through Piotrokow on their way to the Treblinka and Majdanek death camps. As Wikipedia notes: "The Ghetto liquidation action began on the night of October 13, 1942, commanded by SS-Hauptsturmführer Willy Blum. About 1,000 Jews unable to move were shot in their homes for "insubordination". By the next morning, some 22,000 Jews were herded onto the square by the Synagogue in order to undergo a "selection". In the course of the next few days, Jews were marched in columns to the railway station and loaded onto the awaiting freight trains without food or water, 150 to one car....Many non-Jewish Poles were murdered by the Gestapo for helping Jews....Following the 1942 deportations to Majdanek and Treblinka extermination camps, some 3,500 Jewish factory workers still remained in the small Ghetto. However, mass executions became more frequent in 1943, even inside the depleted Synagogue, in the Jewish cemetery, and at a special execution site near Raków. By 1944 only 1,000 Jews were still alive." So let's do it this way: Rather than me point out the differences between Gaza and the Nazi ghettoes, why don't you point out all the similarities, making sure you explain how Gaza is a holding place for Palestinians on their way to Israeli-run extermination camps, and how many tens of thousands of Palestinians have already been murdered in a systematic program of genocide.

@Demonland and I were sitting near the boundary line and Clarry ran past us at one point while he was warming up on the bench. I yelled out 'Go Clarry' and he looked at me and half smiled. I'm never washing my eyes ever again.

Good news - the MCC has revised its estimate and is now predicting 85,000, up from 82,000 yesterday. So it looks like my OP has had the desired effect and this thread has been a huge success. For the record, last year's game (85,657) was the largest home-and-away crowd we've drawn since 1964 (86,664), and the largest ever for a Melbourne-Richmond game. Would be great to top those and set some new records on Tuesday. After all the years in the wilderness when we were irrelevant to the competition and never played in a game of consequence, it's so good to be front and square again on the big stage. Hope we turn it on and produce our best, most exciting footy.

PJ would have been filthy with the weekend's thrashing. Had we won against the Hawks, and won well, we could have drawn 90,000 on Tuesday night and been hyped up as the biggest clash of the year to date. Now the narrative is about our response to the shellacking, rather than a block-buster clash between two teams near the top of the ladder, which would have drawn thousands more neutral supporters through the gates. The MCC is predicting 82,000, but I suspect it'll be closer to 75,000. For comparison's sake, the MCC expect 90,000 for the Collingwood-Essendon match. A real missed opportunity, both for additional revenue and the chance to play in the biggest game of the season outside finals.

And such a classy user of the ball. That snap around the corner from the boundary to hit Hoges in the goalsquare was sublime.

Thread deserves a bump after his sensational game on the weekend. And to think some on here wanted him dropped after one quiet game. He's still criminally under-rated, on this board and in the broader footy community. Jeff Garlett: 169 games / 299 goals Cyril Rioli: 187 games / 274 goals

Is that the same Mick Jagger who played Lizzie Birdsworth in Prisoner?

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that he's 'right on track'.

When she was 5, my niece 'wrote a book' about going to the football with me. The only thing I say in the book is "Oh no, oh no, oh no" over and over again on every page, which is pretty much what you'd get if I was calling the game.

Ripper headline out of the UK earlier this week about possible trade retaliation against US tariffs: "We'll put a levy on your Chevy and tax your whiskey and rye."

Unfortunately we ran out of time - we had at least another half dozen questions up our sleeves, and there were a number of other areas he touched on in his answers that merited follow-up questions. The interview was only meant to last 15 minutes, but Jetts was good enough to give us about 25, which is very generous for someone who was trying to put his young kids to bed at the same time!

I wouldn’t put too much store in what Goyder says ldc; he was also publicly critical of pokies when he was head of Wesfarmers, but never did anything about it. Then, as now, he was paying lip service to the issue, and most people, aside from Davey Dee, can see through the spin and window-dressing. The notion that some clubs have agreed - in principle - to get rid of their pokies is laughable, a bit like the time I decided - in principle - to give all my money to charity.

Trump a genius? Bwahahahha!! The Wall Street Journal - hardly a lefty newspaper - described his tweets on trade yesterday as ‘one of the greatest displays of economic nonsense in presidential history.’

Very funny dc, but nothing beats the real thing. This is a genuine ad for the Department of Finance.