Freedom Black Day

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Permalink Reply by Basil Keilani on May 31, 2010 at 7:37pm

Adham, you wrote the following:

"It's much obviously that Israelis are terrorists and act against humanity and human rights."


While, I am angry about what happened, and even though I am not a military expert or a police law enforcement expert, Israel clearly violated international law. However, your comments are racist and racist comments go against the policies of mepeace whether it's from an angry Jewish or Palestinian poster.

Please, please, please don't make such comments. It's against our rules. I can understand emotions, but racism against our Israeli posters and calling them terrorists is like an Israeli or American saying "Arabs are terrorists". It's not a way of peace.

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Permalink Reply by Adham Khalil on May 31, 2010 at 7:45pm

First , I mean the Israeli leaders who give soldiers orders to kill civilians , and what make me angry that I havent seen any demonstartion in Israeli against what israeli navy have committed against the activist .
and if they dont care about the souls of people , i will not care about words .

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Permalink Reply by Basil Keilani on May 31, 2010 at 8:05pm

Adham, what made you come to mepeace? What do you want from Jews and Palestinians? How are we supposed to live with each other? I agree with you that the Israeli soldiers violated international law. I don't disagree with you. You said Israelis don't care about the souls of people, because they didn't protest. Adham Israelis in many cases believe what their government tells them. How many Palestinians protested or Arabs protested when Sudan killed pagans and Christians and even Muslims in Darfur? How many Americans protested when sanctions killed so many Iraqi children? How many Arabs protested when Indonesia killed hundreds of thousands of Catholics in East Timor? Nobody, Adham, nobody protested. To say Jews are bad, Arabs are good or Turks are good and Greeks are bad brings only more war and sadness and hatred. I support the Turkish people and love them. My grandmother was from Turkey, but I came here for peace, Adham. And I hope you did, too.

Salam

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Permalink Reply by Adham Khalil on May 31, 2010 at 8:13pm

Hey , I respect your opinion .
I care about others and respect all Israelis who respect me . I am here for peace . I am not going to bomb myself to react against this massacre . I act against Israeli Leaders who give permissions for killing . I struggle against against the terrorsists like Natanyaho , Liberman , Barak , Ashknazi ............. Israelis here should act against those peace killers .

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Permalink Reply by Basil Keilani on May 31, 2010 at 8:37pm

Adham, I agree that we need peace, and we want all people in the world Palestinians and Jews to act against the killing of any innocent people, and Palestinians need their freedom, and I am sorry for the Turkish families that lost their families, and I think the turkish people who cared for the people of Palestine and Gaza. People in Gaza need their freedom, and they need to breathe. We all need peace.

Salam

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Permalink Reply by Neri Bar-On on May 31, 2010 at 8:41pm

Dear friend Adham,

There is at this moment demonstartion of Israelis critisizing Israel government over gaza seige and this sad events of this day.

This kind of events are very strong emotionally and for many of my friends and for myself it deliver a message of no hope and that we are trapped in endless vilent strugle.

while Israelis see this fotage of the event:

Many of them will justify the use of force, but I agree with you that when any side decide to use force he engage in some kind of terror.


For the peace we all wish to create we do not want such events to happend, nor we want Gaza seige or even West Bank Israeli control. the Peace we wish to create challange many radicals around us, now many Israeli right wing radicals attack the government for not forcing more hardship on Gaza ... and lIsraeli left wing radicals attack the government for not letting this ships to pass and end the Gaza seige. but our reality is much more complex and we must hoold the middle position which recognize all parties of this bloody game and recognize that with the different side we have also radicals within each society who fight to gain power within their society.

The radicals play with our emotions to put us in their sides. they use relity and violant event to justify their position.

In this day I reminded myself:

1) The Settelments are in halt for the approximity talks, Israel plan to evacuate some of them
2) Abbas said there is a way to solve the territory problems with land swap
3) Hamas said it agree for Israel in 1967
4) Abbas planed to visit gaza for 1st time in 4 years for developing Palestinian unity
5) Fayyad continue his work to build palestinian capacities

yes, it is not ideal put the potential for peace now is high and while this kind of events of violance come from radicals from both sides who wish us all to forget the two-state solution and the potential of Independent Palestinian State as stage for peace, and this is what I think is important now, esspecially when we experience lost in life that we all agreed shold not happend and avoided by all sides.

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Permalink Reply by Hayyim Feldman on June 1, 2010 at 2:15am

Neri, thank you very much for posting this video. I find it very helpful - more so than any of the other video footage I've seen - in understanding how the situation unfolded as it did.

Do you really mean to blame the "radicals" (Israeli and Palestinian), as you appear to do here? My impression has been that you generally prefer to avoid blaming - or to blame only the "blamers," whoever they may be.

And do you really mean to define "radical" as anyone whose opinion about what the next stage will look like differs from your own view (of two independent states)?

And finally, what is so radical about wanting the Israeli government to let these ships pass and to lift the blockade?? Unless you mean that a little menschlichkeit (humaneness) would be a radical quality (in the best sense of the word!) to inject into this bloody conflict.

Blessings,
-Hayyim

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Permalink Reply by Basil Keilani on June 1, 2010 at 2:46am

Hayyim, the people on the ships were from many backgrounds. There were Germans, Greek, Turks, Leftists, Malaysians, and religious Muslims on there who were there as part of the their Turkish Muslimness and connecting that to Palestinians. At least, that's my impression. Whether they used violence or not, they were attacked on international waters; and, that, disturbs me. I get your point about saying if you side with the Israeli Government aren't you then blaming the guys on the ship including the Greek captain who was shot? Maybe, Neri was referring to the idea that some people on board the ship were possibly religious radicals. I can't say for sure, but I heard some video footage of people who used religious type parlance in English and were on the ship. I am not sure what that means. Religious doesn't mean good or bad unless you are a radical.

I guess the government wants to completely control Gaza from the outside. I suppose Israel could have said they will inspect the ships for weapons and if there were any, they wouldn't let anyone pass. Israel could have just blocked the ships from Gaza instead of boarding

There is too much love of one's own race, religion, and race. And that encourages hatred, and I am not under any illusion that the hate is one-sided. And I am not saying there weren't radicals on the ship, but wanting to help Gazans is not radical. It's humane!

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Permalink Reply by Hayyim Feldman on June 1, 2010 at 9:37pm

Basil, I'm not sure why you addressed this to me. To join in with something I said? To disagree with something? Maybe some of both?

You are quite right about the multinational makeup of participants in the flotilla, and certainly the fact that the attack occurred in international waters is a major reason for the widespreaad condemnation of Israel for it (as illustrated by the news story from Ireland you posted to the mepeace discussion I started on "Free Gaza, Israeli piracy, and nonviolence).

I don't think you've correctly understood what motivated Neri's comments about radicals (and he did not mention "religious radicals" - though I might fit in that category, myself), but I'll let him speak for himself on that if he sees fit.

Love of one's race is an odd concept to me, since the only real race is the human one. But I cannot agree that love of one's cultural community - whether religious, national, or whatever - encourages hatred, or that there is too much of such love. How can love encourage hatred? What you are calling love seems to me not love at all, but fear, and perhaps egotistical pride. I wish people like Benjamin Netanyahu, for example, felt more love for the Jewish people, because love engenders a kind of quiet confidence that needn't rely on aggression to assert its rightful place in the world. But I recognize the still-recent historical trauma that drives his fear, and that of many other Jews (and, in a roughly parallel way, many Palestinians).

But I couldn't agree more with your last sentence, which echoes my own earlier statement.

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Permalink Reply by Neri Bar-On on June 1, 2010 at 10:24pm

Dear Hayyim,

I do not blame, I think the radicals (religious/ideologic/egocentric etc.) cannot be blamed, the issues are regarding the dynamics and understanding it.

The causes of the killing come from combination of Israeli radicals and pro-palestinians (Hamas) radicals who pushed the situation to its edge. But we need to understand the dynamics.

I think that we need to review what this activity done for the "non-violent" movments where it make them less trusted and missing the importance of non-violent approach in the Peace activities.

The Radical element is not wanting that Gaza Siege will end, the Radical is in the way it is managed. the radical is to be pro-hamas and not pro-Gazans.

The situation of Gaza is complex and the siege is an element in power structure of the conflict between Hamas ideology and violent acts towards Israeli citizens. The issue of ending the siege will not end the conflict and if you support Hamas you support radical view of how this conflict need to end (distruction of Israel and Muslem state).

and last thing about Paradoxes, if you wish to think that reality is a rational good vs. bad war go ahead and try to convince the "bad" to be "good". Hamas people beilve they are doing good .... so are the Israelis by blaming any of the sides we do not contribue resolution we are contributing the repetition of agression and violance. This conflict will not end by the Good killing the Bad and live happy ever after. this conflict will end when we , arabs and jews, find the path of co-creation of our future that include all of us. the people on this ship thought that it is justify to kill an israeli solder and you say there is nor justification to kill them.

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Permalink Reply by Hayyim Feldman on June 4, 2010 at 3:48pm

Neri,

I meant to be asking about your more general comments about radicals that seem to me to blame them for the conflict as a whole. One example:

The radicals play with our emotions to put us in their sides. they use relity and violant event to justify their position.

But one needn't be a radical to do that. You and I do the same thing every time we use historical events as evidence for the validity of our perspective. There are many parties, not just radicals, whose blameworthy actions have contributed (and continue to do so) to the overall conflict. Singling out just one party as you did earlier - whether that party is the Israelis, the Palestinians, the political leaders, the radicals, or the blamers - seems both false and counterproductive to me, as you often say to others.

Since your response focuses more narrowly on the recent incident, it doesn't really address my earlier question about blame for the conflict as a whole. But it does raise a new question for me. I think it's fine to assign blame (or to give credit) to the parties responsible for particular actions, as long as that is done with consistent standards of judgment for all sides. But it seems to me that the overall blame of radicals that you expressed earlier is distorting your perception of what happened with the Free Gaza flotilla. You blame Israeli radicals and pro-Hamas radicals for it as though the Israeli government and military had no responsibility at all for sending armed commandos into international waters to forcibly intercept ships flying under the flag of another nation! Or do you mean to include Ehud Barak, for example, as one of the Israeli radicals with primary direct responsibility for the incident?

Blessings,
-Hayyim

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Permalink Reply by Basil Keilani on May 31, 2010 at 10:19pm

Yes, Adham is welcome here at mepeace. Neri and I are sensitive to this fact. We are sensitive to the emotions. We feel the sadness connected to the deaths of the people. I definitely question what happened. This was a raid on international waters, and it makes me angry. However, I only said based on the rules of our site calling Palestinians or Israeli terrorists is not the way of mepeace, but I can understand the emotions behind such words, and I wish for peace just like Adham, and I think Adham and I understand each other. We moderators have to follow what we said we would about guidelines. It's not always popular.

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