RE Update: Hamas has reportedly claimed it was behind the attack....

You’d better get this right Truthdig - search “Hamas radio retracted” or such and you see that ther has been a RETRACTION of the role of HAMAS in the shooting - The head of Hamas al-Aqsa radio retracted his station’s earlier report that Hamas took responsibility:-

Hamas radio had said Friday the militant group took responsibility, but later retracted the report. A previously unknown, Lebanese-based group, the “Martyrs of Imad Mughniyeh” — after a senior Hezbollah commander killed in Syria last month — claimed responsibility, the Al-Manar satellite TV station reported.... http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/israel_palestinians

Hamas on Friday announced it was responsible for Thursday’s shooting at the Mercaz Harav religious school in Jerusalem that killed eight people, then denied it was involved shortly afterwards. However, a spokesman on Sky television news then hailed the killing as a “normal response to the occupation”..... http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/961966.html

And Turkish Daily News refuted Hamas as being involved .......

Hamas, the Islamist militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, hailed the “heroic operation” but stopped short of claiming responsibility....  The attack was greeted with celebrations in Gaza, where an Israeli offensive that ended on Monday killed more than 120 Palestinians, about half of them civilians.....  The gunman’s home was decorated on Friday with the flags of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Islamist groups. None had claimed responsibility for the attack, however. http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid =98421

Even the Telegraph has equivocated on the story you quoted - Last Updated: 9:42pm GMT 08/03/2008, by Carolynne Wheeler in Jerusalem:-

There is some confusion over who was behind the attack after Hamas made contradictory statements over whether it was involved. A previously unknown group, the Martyrs of Imad Mughniyeh, named after an assassinated Lebanese Hizbollah commander, also claimed responsibility.... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2 008/03/08/wisrael108.xml

The US “tax dollar” is what is supporting the European Jewish invasion, the consequent land-grab and evacuation of two thrirs of the Arab population - and the inevitable bloody consequences for both sides in a 60-year long war.......

A map of Israels land appropriation.

http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/6761/palastinianlan dloss8tz.gif

Jewish spin explained at:

http://theuglytruth.wordpress.com/2008/03/07/sauce-for -the-goose/

All last week, Palestinians were continuously mourning the death of their 130 victims, most of them civilians, and a large number of them children, all killed by the Israeli state-sponsored terrorism.

Then on Thursday, it was the Israelis turn to mourn eight of their seminary students-soldiers at the hand of a lone Palestinian attacker, also would be called terrorist. This is a micro case study in comparative terrorism from which intelligent observers can draw their own conclusions about the sad tragic reality in Palestine-Israel, fueled in large part by a misguided and short-sighted American foreign policy, supported and maintained by billions from yours and mine taxpayer money. The serious question before us now is, “When are we going to use the weapon of our tax money, to at least slow the pace and scope of violence and terrorism, if not to hope stopping it all togther?! Has it ever occurred to you that you and I might have the blood of innocent people on our hands?!

Don’t lie, Howard.  The men at the “seminary” are armed settler terrorists.  The indigenous Palestinian people have a right to defend their land and children.

Actually Israel uses artillery, helicopter gunships and tanks, far more effective than unguided rockets.
Mortars do not have effective range.

Israel holds thousand of political prisoners in their jails and continues to expand settlements on occupied territory, against agreements they made.

The population of Israel is decreasing and the Palestinian people are increasing, it would only be in Israels best interest to strike a deal now because the Pals will win in the long run.

Amon

I’m relatively certain that Obama’s relative silence (of late, because he was far more vocal at one time) is short-term tactical positioning. There is little that he can do, until he gets to a position where he CAN do something. But yes, he’s aware.

Interesting comparison that you made to the Native Americans in your area, and the whole issue of going back.

It would be factually accurate to say that the Native Americans have been as persecuted as the Palestinians, but for much longer. 300 years. And, it was a much larger genocide, and it still continues, with so many Natives still confined to the conditions of the reservations, where working for wages is out of the question, and they are literally dirt poor, with no chance out. Even now, the feds routinely arrest them every they get their small crops planted,(hemp and other usable crops that can be sold) and then burn the crops.

So, it is for them, as it is with the Palestinians, not so much an issue of ‘go back’. I mean the Natives aren’t trying to get anyone to leave and go back to Europe, and they never have. The issue would be that they need access to the same survival methods as anyone else.

For the Palestinians, the Israelis DO need to pull back to at least their 1967 borders, and to allow Gaza to operate as a sovereign entity. Holding a million people captive and starving them in the open air prison that is Gaza, is simply never going to provide any sort of security to the Israelis.

Same with the West Bank. It is set-up as a place for the Settlers, and the permanent infrastructure makes it another prison, just as Gaza is.

So, it’s not so much a matter of the Jews needing to ‘go back’ to wherever they fled from Europe, but to stop practicing the ongoing genocide against the Palestinians. These are the Highest Crimes Against Humanity.

As for help from the US, that seems to be what has worsened the problems over the years. I’m including a link to a terribly troubling (though not even surprising at this point) article.

The Gaza Bombshell
By David Rose
Vanity Fair

April 2008 Issue

After failing to anticipate Hamas’s victory over Fatah in the 2006 Palestinian election, the White House cooked up yet another scandalously covert and self-defeating Middle East debacle: part Iran-contra, part Bay of Pigs. With confidential documents, corroborated by outraged former and current US officials, David Rose reveals how President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Deputy National-Security Adviser Elliott Abrams backed an armed force under Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza and leaving Hamas stronger than ever.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030508A.shtml

Terrorists?  What an instigator you are.  How do you know that about kids.

Are you a member of Hamas to throw false lies like that about teen-agers who were just murdered ? Have you no respect of life? How low can you get.

Make that “Palestinians.” The Zionists kill infants.

The men at the “seminary” were terrorists.  Palesinians have a right to defend themselves.

well, howard, you’re obviously cool with israel expropriating the west bank. you’re talkin’ the talk, so why doncha walk the walk and go live there?

so what?  Even if true.  They are kids, kids, kids. Do they deserve to be shot point blank in their school?

Are you demented, man?

Just read this piece and draw your own conclusions about what kinds of students those attacked were!

“The fact that the school is at the heart of the settler movement in the occupied West Bank may have been the reason why it was targeted, BBC Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen reports.”

Many of its students are on special courses that combine religious study with service in combat units in the Israeli army, he notes.”

More injustices done to the Israelis over the years. Ever since ‘48, pals more interested in destroying Israel than establishing their own country that was mandated to both. Was a contentious time then as now and the Arabs attacked Israel at that time when mandate announced by UN. Have refused to make peace ever since.

One state?  Israel is not going to commint suicide.

Arabs have 23 states already.  Jordan is 85% Palestinian already.  Let Egypt have Gaza as they ruled it until 1967, otherwise

or let Saudi Arabia, Syria, or EU take care of this welfare state called Gaza.  Hamas rules it with iron fist. But is a disaster leadership.

Israel left Gaza completel 2 years ago and does not want any part of it.  No rockets into Israel, no response by Israel.

cyrena....unfortunately, i believe there are palestinians who believe jews should should be driven into the sea..or at least go back to where they came from.  and to some degree i can understand the “go back” view.  after all, zionism did attatch itself to british colonialism. but, i’m a 2nd generation slovene living in minnesota and if native americans told me to go back to slovenia, i wouldn’t like it and would certainly fight back if i had to.
and you’re probably right about the 1 state solution being the way to go.  i guess the truth and reconciliation commission idea could be of some help, but what would be of most help would be our country pushing for a 1 state solution.  and we know that’s a longshot.  i get the feeling obama is quite aware of the injustice done to the palestinians over the years...let’s just hope his relative silence on their suffering is short-term tactical positioning.

Both side are killing god childreen.Pretty soon all god loving childreen will gone and will be replaced by hate mongering adults.This area is becoming a asylum for lunatics being presided by American policies. Love thy childreen, for god or Allah sake do not destroy there innocence let them enter there youth with love in there heart not hate.

Well Amon, first, I’m pretty sure that no Palestinians have ever tried to drive any Jews into the sea. Somehow, that think that’s just part of the rhetoric of the conflict, not to be taken literally.

Meantime, I attended a talk by Sandy Tolan last week. It was quite good. I’d already read his book, “The Lemon Tree’ back last Spring, so I was anxious to hear a follow-up from him.

In talking about the 2-state 1 state solutions, he didn’t have much hope for either, without some sort of truth and reconciliation commission, which have been extremely helpful in other similar conflicts.He mentioned that a 2-state could possibly work, but only because even with the symbolic right of return given to the Palestinians, most would not exercise it. On the other hand, the situation on the west bank would almost HAVE to be a 1-state solution, because of what he says is a very advanced and PERMANENT Jewish infrastructure that has been assembled there. It’s not like a few settlers here and a few there in termporary sorts of housing. They are VERY permanent, and so it would be difficult of foolish to start tearing those structures down, even though that’s exactly what happens when Palestinians try to build anything their. The Israelis just bulldoze whatever it is they might try to build.

And of course after all of this time, it’s highly unlikely that Israel will even agree to anything, since they never have before. I guess it looks good to pretend from time to time, maybe to keep the UN off of them, but with the US now doing the Empire Law there as well, it’s been pretty ineffective.

Still, that’s what I thought I’d pass on from his talk. It’s an excellent book by the way. It is a non-fiction account that explains the story from the point of ‘the other’ - both side, a Jew and a Palestinian share a house that originally belonged to the Palestinian family, and had been built by the father. When they were forced to leave in advance of the 1967 war, the incoming Jewish Family selected the house for themselves, having been told that the Arabs had all just ‘abandoned’ the homes.

So. it was interesting once they were able to meet each other, and learn what the other had been told, and what the real story was.

He didn’t end with any definite solutions, and that would have made him a bit of a miracle man if he had. Still, there was a bit of hope in considering that both sides might eventually begin to recognize the other.

The Israelis after 2 years of incessant rockets and mortars onto their cities, goes after only terrorists and missle crews, who hide behind and in the apartments and houses of the civilians. The IDF goes out of its way to avoid hurting civilians. They are noted for that.  Imagine if they were not so careful !

Not Hamas, who indiscrimanetly fires these rockets and missles ON PURPOSE , to hurt civiians. And grows and nurtures suicide killers to prey on Israel, like last nite. Purposelfully to goad and incite a reaction by the people of Israel.  A big big difference.  Been like that for 60 years.

And now they have got a response.  Is it a baseball game where some commentators here keep score.  Should Israel give missles to their population and let Them fire indiscrimately into Gaza? Make it about 2500 missles to be equal in numbers that Israel has had shot at it.

Israel does not occupy Gaza. They do not want to go into Gaza.They left Gaza. Look what they got after leaving. Not peace. Workers from Gaza returning to work in Israel again? Hamas murders those who want to work in Israel.  Fired on the crossing points and that ended that long good economic beginnning for their citizens.

Let Egypt take it back and be responsible for this welfare state called Gaza.  Or let Jordan which is 80% palestinain. Hamas rules Gaza with an iron fist. Unable to run it properly.  Is a death giving organization to its own people. Five century old thinking.

Did we give supplies and food to the Germans and the Japanese after they declared war on us and we went into battle? Israel does not have to give Gaza supplies, etc.  Let Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, and Egypt take care of them.  Bet you they don’t and won’t.

Is not “The Tables are Turning” but “reap what you sow”...... nor is anyone genuinely “innocent” in any of this, nrobi.

The Israelis were “settlers” - that is they were occupying land which was taken by force from its rightful owners just as the white Americans and white Australians and white “settlers” in Africa stole from the native inhabitants.

The big difference here is that once the Jews lived alongside the Christians and the Moslems. Then came the European Jewish invasion and the false “founding” of an Israeli state usurped from the Arab former majority.

This is the game played universally by “settler society” which then forever seeks to justify its actions and to reinforce its “authority” by ever-increasing acts of violence and brutality.

In addition, they never recognize it as a “war” once their initial occupation is achieved. They proclaim their “right” to sieze whatever lands they can and then proclaim “peace” as and when it suits them.

Thereafter, the retaliations of the oppressed are seen as “illegal” and “irrational” because the occupation is supposedly so good and so righteous..... and hypocritically acclaimed by other “settler societies’ around the world.

Poor Howard! Gaza (and the West Bank) is what is left AFTER the Jewish invasion and Israeli military occupation over 60+ years.

It is an enclave, a quarter or a ghetto depending on how you view it but it is no more than a fenced-off area of the entire country of Palestine which is currently being occupied by the Jews (themselves a fake race) under the fake name of “Israel”.

The remaining Arab people of Palestine thus have two options - either to wait meekly to be crushed (or “driven into the sea") or to fight and be crushed by the US-funded Israeli military. They have chosen to fight as and how they can.....

It might be “a natural reaction” to the killings by the Israeli military last week but both sides have their religions and neither are adhering to the wisdom of their teachings. Instead, both seek to continue to participate in an endless cycle of avenging the atrocities of the other. Thus, the results of their actions are continually visited upon them in a negative way.

That, in itself, is a never-ending path which consumes the lives of the young people involved. As such, Israel is as guilty as any party. There is not a thing which Israel has ever done which did not justify or reinforce its own hegemonic and expansionist position in the region. It is unacceptably precious of the UN’s Ban Ki Moon to condemn what is essentially an act of war by the weaker side.

You thought that this was not a war? You thought that this was not the result of a military occupation? Just because it has been going on over a couple of generations means only that outside factors have continued to meddle and to exacerbate the situation by themselves taking sides unfairly. Is the USA funding the Palestinian Authority with $30 or $40 billion in aid???

What is worse is that the Israelis are screaming their demands once again around the world that anyone who doesn’t agree with them and their actions unconditionally must be seen as an “outsider” - an auslander. No doubt, AIPAC will be rushing its cadres into the halls of power in Washington and into the offices of all US politicians to extoll Israel’s righteous position after themselves having murdered 100’s only last week - and to exhort all kinds of support for what it has in mind next!!!

Israeli historian Ilan Pappe explains what the Zionists have in mind.  Click http://www.electronicintifada.net/v2/article9370.shtml

Sad, angry and troubled after a week of Israeli State-terrorism in Gaza, using the most sophisticated weapons of mass destruction your and mine taxpayer money can buy, and killing over 130 people, among them a large number of children, and wounding untold number of other civilians, all I was hoping for was few days of calm for reflection on the meaning of all this. But even that little respite was not meant to be, as if normalcy in the heart of the Middle East is an old outdated thing from a distant past.

But as day follows night, a one-man retaliatory reaction to Israeli state-sponsored terrorism, punctuated a week of violence and made the news of further killing of eight Israelis and wounding of scores. Sad as this further fresh killing of Jews by a lone Palestinian, taking the law in his own hands, for lack of a universal law of justice, one cannot escape to make a comparison between Israeli and Palestinian terrorism.

On the one hand, there is the continued Israeli state-terrorism through the continued occupation of Palestine and the continued Israeli military retaliatory attacks against people who refuse to stop resisting occupation and humiliation. On the other hand, there is the Palestinian desperate individuals and groups, who see no hope but through isolated acts of high profile operations, which they know well would not lead to the liberation of Palestine in the short term, but they believe them to be legitimate retaliatory acts of revenge against those who wronged them. And there is no worst enemy for those, after the state terrorist army of Israel, than the other smaller army of colonialist settlers who stole their land and built religious seminaries on it.

In light of the facts about the settlement movement and its history of violence and fanaticism, a conscientious observer does not fail to understand that these religious seminaries in the occupied lands are perceived as legitimate military targets. One need only to remember the notorious Jewish terrorist Baruch Goldstein, not a poor desperate and dispossessed Palestinian, but a highly educated American-born Jewish physician, who in 1994, massacred 29 Muslims at prayer in the Ibrahimi Mosque and wounding some 150 others. Another point of contrast is the fact that in the case of Goldstein massacre none of the Muslim victims had even a knife, while the latest Israeli victims of the seminary were all armed and the proof of that is that two of them managed to shoot at the Palestinian attacker as the news about the attack make it clear.

And tomorrow and after tomorrow there will be a big retaliatory Israeli state sponsored terrorist operation, to continue the cycle of perpetual violence as perceived by the colonialist powers when they created a colonialist military entity in the heart of the Middle East!

Sad! Sad! Sad!

nrobi, my dear,

If it’s maxims that concern you, try this one:  actions speak louder than words.

True, Israel doesn’t have a “charter” that explicitly calls for the destruction of the Palestinian nation, but, as the maxim teaches, the inquiry doesn’t stop at mere words (or the lack thereof).  What about Israeli actions?  Please explain how it’s possible for the Palestinians to survive as a nation when EVERY aspect of their civic, cultural, economic, and political life is subject to the control of another country, armed to the teeth with the most advanced weaponry ever developed (and enriched by the might and treasure of the world’s wealthiest country and sole superpower).  What do these actions tell us about Israel’s commitment to Palestine’s existence?

so sad, but any sentient human being knows that post-1967 israel has been occupying another people’s land.  either they pull out of the west bank or they, along with the palestinians, agree to form a single state.  they HAVE to do 1 of the 2.  if by some miracle one of those 2 possibilities happened and there were still palestinians who attempted to drive jews into the sea, i have no problem any with any forceful self-defense.

I would never think that I would not chastise the Israelis for the very same thing. My grandfather was Jewish and I would hope that I would have the common sense and decency to let the Israelis know that to do the very same thing as the Palestinians is wrong and will only lead to more and more violence and killing.
I take no sides in this conflict other than the side of commonsense and decency. Israel is causing many of the things that are taking place today. The Covenant speaks of justice and mercy, yet the leaders of Israel have no idea of what justice and mercy are. The men who lead that country are not followers of the book and will reap what they have sown. A whirlwind of destruction and misery, unless they cease, both sides, fighting and bickering and come to a lasting and binding peace. Nothing other than this will cause an end to the bloodshed that happens on a regular basis in the land.

60 years, yes; of refusing to come to terms with Israel.  If there was no instigation and a willngness to develop a country that they were given in ‘48 they could have become like Israel, instead of warring on them ever until this very day.

No instigation or terrorist murders all these years, there would not have been any response by Israel.

they’ve caused their own suffering. Egypt does not want them, nor Jordan, nor Lebanon, nor Syria. they pretend to care about them.  But suits their home politics to make Israel the bad guy.  Unreal.

There is NO occupation.  Left Gaza 2 years ago. completely.  Now look what happened since. Rockets and mortars every day since.  And then this abominable shooter of children in cold wanton blood.
Do they build an infrastruce of social or economic happenings?  Far from it; they depend even now on handouts from the U.N.  On and on. And you are going to defend them?

But all the Pal’s do is teach, promote, inculcate on their tv, radios, children’s schools, and mosques, complete hatred of Israelis. Over and over, decade after decade. Always blaming anybody except themselves for their condition.

P.T. How can you justify the killing of innocent men and children?  The very idea that the Hamas group was celebrating the deaths of civilians is totally contradictory to the cause of freedom and recognition by the world community. I, must protest the use of the idea that killing innocents is justified, in any conflict there is no justification for the murder of people who are not combatants and have no weapons or are peacefully going about their lives. The maxim is not, you reap what you sew, but you reap what you sow. Sow is the planting of a crop for the purpose of reaping the fruits of one’s labor.
Both sides of this conflict have sown many heartaches and the continuation of the conflict will only lead to more and more violent events and the escalation of the war until there are no more people left who will not die for their cause.  The international community must now step in and enforce a peace, for the charter of the Hamas organization, calls for the destruction of the nation of Israel. Until they repudiate this part of their charter they will reap the whirlwind that they are sowing, much like Israel must stop their killing of people in retaliation for the killing of their people.  Israel must also lift the barricade of the Gaza Strip and allow humanitarian aid into that area.  No thinking person in their left mind would agree that punishing the whole of the population of Gaza is morally and ethically correct. Hamas is an organization that should have been invited to the Annapolis meeting, but being that the shrub was the inviter, no one would have expected that he would do the right thing and include them. Now Israel and the US are reaping what they have sown, a hardened and resolute group of men and women that are driven by hatred to avenge their losses. The international community must become involved, but without the presence of the shrub and under the auspices of an international body that is not tied to any of the combatants and will mediate between them and therefore come to an equitable solution that has at its base integrity and honesty for both sides of this horrible and ongoing conflict.

http://uruknet.info/?p=m41691&hd;=&size=1&l=e

You sew what you reap.

An obscenity.

So Israel’s response should be what, exactly?  Fight racism and insanity with ever more ferocious racism and insanity?  Yeah, that’s just what we need, more collective punishments, more targeting of civilians, more ethnic cleansing, more theft of land and destruction of Palestinian civic, cultural, economic, and political life.  Because that’s worked SO WELL these last sixty years.

You know, it’s not like they’ve haven’t suffered enough already.  It’s not like, were the tables reversed, and the Jews had had to suffer one-tenth of the horrors visited upon the Palestinians over these last several decades, that the US would have stood by and let that happen. 

No, better to make the Palestinians suffer more, because every time one of them lashes out against Israel it justifies the further theft of land, and the eventual transformation of the Palestinian nation into a mere tourist attraction, complete with souvenir shops (can you say “Geronimo”?).  Who knows, maybe they’ll even let them build a casino or two.  Talk about your existential crisis. 

It’s easy to condemn the shooter, but the people of Israel, and the vicious and racist (not to mention deeply dishonest) agenda that they have pursued for more than sixty years are also very much to blame for this latest spasm of horror and violence.