Saturday, August 12, 2006

Want to see the Palestinian Side of the story?

Take a little over an hour and watch this video that I watched thanks to Omar at Omar the Great.

If you still have the stomach for it after watching the video...look at pictures from Beruit taken by a friend of Omar's.

15 comments:

Hooda Thunkit (Dave Zawodny) said...

I tolerated about 15 minutes of the propaganda film, very well done, but still propaganda.

Each side does them.

I'm still convinced that Israel and Palestine should be left alone, until they sort this out for themselves.

Do keep interfering is to prolong what must happen.

Scott G said...

I wish we could leave Israel and Palestine alone to figure it out but my fear is that an unrestrained Israel will wipe them out. Then it will be Israel against the whole region as Sunnis and Shi'a unite against one foe. We can see teh beginnings of that unity with HAMAS and Hezbollah, and Iran and Syria. Then we will face a stronger foe in Iraq and will make the whole area worse. If that is possible I suppose.

I also think it is propaganda and it annoys me as much as the use of 9/11 for political purposes. I also want people to remember tragedies. Just not as political ammunition.

Anonymous said...

Omar said: "but when will the international community put the Israeli leaders (especially Ariel Sharon) in court and charge them for atrocities on palistinians and lebanese people and the use of illegal weapons"
I say that is a very one-sided narrow perspective. I ask you, Omar: What are your thoughts about suicide human bombers blowing up Israeli school busses, wedding receptions, restaurants, college dining rooms, and on and on and on??? I am really interested in your answer to that question.
I say hypocricy lacks validity.
Why doesn't everyone push for peace rather than blame one side or another or try to justify one's own biased position. My position is simple: quit assigning blame and rationalizing violence and advocate peace above all else. Violence only begets further violence.

Scott G said...

Can I blame both sides. I think the push for peace will ultimately only be successful when we get rid of the extremists on both sides

Anonymous said...

Me4prez has a very good point. Let's put all the extremists in a walled community far away from everyone else.
Hmmm, I understand there is a lot of open space in Antarctica.

bernie said...

I left a question on Omar's site asking why Hezbollah missiles used ball bearings (which is for human destruction) and Israel only targets infrastructure; but he deleted my question.

Your friend Omar cannot handle the truth. Muslims cannot handle the truth. By the way, on my blog post I linked to those photos of Lebanon with only a caveat that the author was in error to blame Israel for the destruction; but I linked to an opposing view regardless.

I have no problems with anyone offering a view different than my own.

I have left this question on about twenty pro-Hezbollah sites and have been unable to get my question to appear on even one.

Omar had my question up momentarily but when no one in his camp could figure out how to answer the question in a civilized manner the question was deleted.

Probably because the answer reveals the true nature of who they are supporting.

When we take a look at the Palestinian side, if we only look at Muslim propaganda we may not be seeing the whole picture.

For example, most Palestinians never mention that there are more Palestinians living in squalor in tent cities under Arabian hosts and have been kept as refugees to be used a pawns. After more than 50 years not one Muslim nation has let Palestinians come in and integrate into their countries, so there they remain, a perpetual refugee problem.

In the whole world, of all refugees everywhere, only Palestinians remain refugees for more than a year a two. Normally, they all get absorbed by their host countries, not kept in tent camps for more than two generations.

Of the millions of Palestinians, those living under Israeli control live better and healthier lives than their poor brothers living under tolerant, humane, peaceful Muslim rule.

So when you say let's look at the Palestinian side, be aware that Arab nations have purposely made Palistinian living conditions as squalid and intolerable as possible for consumption by the western world and liberal bloggers.

Don't forget to link to those videos of 3 year old Palestinian children being taught that killing Jews and becoming martyrs is the highest aspiration of Islamic culture.

Don't forget to balance.

bernie said...

By the way, Omar, in your photos I noticed that despite the seemingly wanton destruction of Lebanese cities, the Mosque looks untouched.

Amazingly, the Israelis don't just destroy helter skelter, but are very careful, almost polite. Meanwhile Hezbollah missiles with ball-bearings go flying who knows where, hospitals, schools, nurseries, doesn't matter.

Yes, the nasty, mean Israeli aggressor. All they want is all that worthless sand in Lebanon.

Unknown said...

Bernie - he probably deleted your post because Israel does more than just target infrastructure. If you know people are in side and bombing that building or that vehicle is going to kill them? You are doing a bit more than just taking out infrastructure.

Also, taking out certain necessities like power stations and bridges causes great human suffering. Water and food supplies as well as access to medical care happens. There has been more than one instance of Palestinians being prevented from getting to a hospital which resulted in a death.

Israeli children write messages on bombs as well as participate in stone throwing and other violence towards Palestinians as well - so it's pretty safe to say that both sides use children in a manner that they should not.

Omar's point was that the Palestinian side of the story is not often told in the US media and most people here in the US have no idea what life is like for those in Palestine.

To be perfectly blunt there is no excuse to treat human beings that way so even if your issue of the ball bearings was one that caused even close to the amounts of deaths that have happened at the hands of Israel? At the end of the day Israel still holds all of the power and the military ability to kill more people, destroy more property and will continue to do so because no one has the guts to stop them.

Sitting here in the comfort of our US homes it's really easy to play judge. It seems abhorrent to us that anyone would teach a child to hate or to want to die. Yet these children see death on a pretty regular basis, they see their homes/schools/neighborhoods destroyed and their parents powerless to do anything about it.

So, yeah I think it's wrong for Hezbollah to have used scrap metal in some of their bombs, I also think it's wrong to teach young children that the best they can hope for is to grow up to be a suicide bomber. I also think it's wrong for Israel to keep killing innocent people and to make their life increasingly more difficult by destroying their homes and their ability to survive, because it creates a perpetual circle of hate/revenge/violence.

I also think it's wrong for the US to keep protecting Israel and wrong for the other Middle Eastern Nations to continue to not do anything about Palestine, especially the numbers of refugees that I think everyone with one iota of reality knows will never be allowed to return to Palestine. I could go on in who is responsible because that can be shared. But the point is? Most people don't see the other side and I seriously doubt anyone that truly took a look at what is happening in Palestine would agree that it is okay...

Jill said...

Lisa Renee - have you watched the movie, Obsession, yet?

Here's a link to info about it.

http://www.obsessionthemovie.com/

And here's what I wrote about it when I first heard about it. I know you through your writing and our exchanges to be someone open to at least listening or watching. I hope you'll take a look.

http://writeslikeshetalks.blogspot.com/2006/07/view-obsession-and-then-tell-what-is.html

Sorry I'm so bad at embedding links. Feel free to fix it - or give me advice on how to do it better!

Unknown said...

Jill, I haven't seen it but you are right I always at least try to keep an open mind. There are two sides to every story and I think we all realize the truth typically lies somewhere in the middle.

putting links in comments is pretty easy - you have to use a < first with no space then a href="http://whateverurlyouarelinking" followed with a > with no space. Then you follow that with a name for your link and then a < / a > no spaces - I listed spaces here so that blogger wouldn't think I was trying to insert a code. Then it will look like:

this

It seems complicated at first but once you do it a few times you'll be putting links in with ease.

:-)

Jill said...

Thank you! I am going to print that out and keep it next to the computer - no kidding.

Unknown said...

this might be an easier format to print out - just remember to take out the periods.

:-)

bernie said...

There is no way to trivialize the loss of innocent human life. I know I would be devastated if my children or grandchildren were killed during a war. I recall how helpless and frightened I felt when mortars were dropping around me in Israel during the 6 day war in 67.

However, if you do not like the way civilians are dying in Lebanon, then your complaint is with Hezbollah. They purposely stage their attacks from civilian areas and in fact keep civilians as hostages, preventing them from leaving areas for the express purpose of getting high civilian casualty counts.

If you know of any way that Israel can defend itself from rocket attacks without hitting civilians then please let me know, I will pass it on to the general's staff.

If you think Israel is purposely targeting civilians then you are not reading widely enough. I'm not talking about rightwing blogs, just the news.

Despite your concern about civilian deaths on both sides, you must realize in your heart that any civilian Israeli deaths were by design by Hezbollah. Any Lebanese deaths were by accident or force of circumstances, i.e. they were sitting on top of missiles in their homes.


No Israeli who died had any military value hidden in their homes.

You don't see the difference?

Again, if you have any way or method that can eliminate civilian deaths, especially when they are being used as human shields by Hezbollah, let me know.

Unknown said...

Easy solution Bernie - quit creating more terrorists. The way to do that is to treat the people of Palestine like free citizens rather than prisoners and to stop destroying their homes, farmlands, and dehumanizing them on a daily basis. Force Hamas into actually having to be a real government rather than to be able to use Israel's continual destruction and interferance as a reason why they can't do anything.

In other words - make Hamas Govern...Israel isn't defending itself - this is an endless cycle of revenge on both sides. The difference is the choice of weaponry and destruction and Israel is more efficient at both killing and destruction.

How do you justify that the whole reason the Jewish Homeland was created was because of the horrible conditions the Jewish people survived thru only to have them treat others with almost the same disdain for human life? A nation of people who were insulted when they were forced to wear a yellow star now force another group of people to basically submit to the same daily degradation...While of course Israel has not performed the huge mass murders that happened to Jews in Europe does that make it any more okay? Do we magically reach a point when enough innocents have been killed that makes a difference? Or should the lack of respect for basic humanitarian needs be something we never support.

The fact that this irony is missed on so many amazes me. If it is wrong to dehumanize and punish/kill/maim/ and starve one group then it is wrong to do the same to another. My great grandmother never forgot the horrors she saw as a young girl escaping from Poland to the US. She said no one should have to live like that...and she was right..No one should have to live like that.

bernie said...

Sorry to take so long replying, Lisa, you are quite correct, both sides use their children for war, the Israelis by letting kids write on bombs, Hamas by letting kids ride on bombs. Some people might make a moral distinction between the two.