Sepharad, the Israeli leadership has been talking peace and what you call a ‘second state’ for nearly a half century.  And they are perfectly willing to talk about it for another half century.  Meanwhile they will kill Palestinians and take their homes and land, and starve their children and destroy their economy.

What the Palestinians need are better weapons that can destroy Israeli planes and tanks.

I guess ignorance is bliss in this case, Folktruther - I don’t understand the problem. It’s quite against my grain NOT to want to but in this case I can live in ignorance.

I’ve lived in this world for over 70 years and travelled it for at least 55 of those years. Never ONCE have I even been threatened by someone with a gun. I’m not a wimp or worse. I don’t run from confrontation. My “weapon” is talking things out - DEescalation before some hothead goes for a gun. I can’t even imagine a situation that isn’t made WORSE when a firearm is involved. (Forcing someone to submit to your will at gunpoint is NOT solving the problem… it just postpones it until he/she figures a way to get back at you.)

Guess I’m just lucky, eh? Perhaps… but I believe my ATTITUDE has a LOT to do with my life-long good fortune. I believe that going around with a beligerent “get even” chip on your shoulder gets you only one thing… TROUBLE. I think that’s a really STUPID way to live.

A firearm is a useful tool but only in the RIGHT hands at the RIGHT time for the RIGHT reason.

hippie4ever, gun “control” is nearly impossible. There are regulations re permits and background checks for certain types of weapons, but there are so many guns on the market that anyone who really wants one can have one, with or without a permit. So it makes sense for private citizens to own a weapon for their own protection—but only if they learn how to use it properly and practice once in awhile.

We have a couple of pistols (incuding a .357 magnum) in our house, and we purchased these guns a long time ago when we still lived in the city in a high crime area. We moved to a rural, isolated place in ‘89 and still have those guns plus a huge old Italian shotgun my husband’s stepfather
left to him. I can handle the pistols but am afraid to use the shotgun as it kicks so hard it’d probably knock me down. Husband says it’s the only one that would be really useful if a lion is after the horses out back (though the mares form a circle around the foals and I pity the poor lion that gets in a scrap with them). On the other hand, I’d prefer a pistol if I had to shoot it at a mountain lion among the horses because I’d be afraid that the shotgun might take out a horse too close to the lion.

A policeman told a community meeting in the city that though he couldn’t say so officially, he recommended we have and learn to use a gun and carry it walking around alone. (The one time I needed the gun I’d forgotten to bring it.)

Some years ago, when Miami made it legal to carry a weapon, the crime rate went down. Pundits said it was because burglars, robbers and rapists felt less secure confronting someone that might themselves have a gun.

I’m all for banning automatic weapons—obviously built for killing people and not useful for hunting animals to feed the family—and having automatic really long sentences for traffickers in automatic weapons.

Folktruther, I do agree with something you said. Ultra-religious violence (as in Rabin’s murder, as in the guy who shot Palestinians inside a mosque, as in some of the things rabbis said to IDF troops going into Gaza, as in the Palestinian who shot up a bunch of Yeshiva students) IS increasing in Israel. I don’t think the Arabs and Israelis are becoming more fascist, but the friction is increasing and some leaders on both sides are only making it worse. Whoever signed off on evicting Arabs living in housing in East Jerusalem that they didn’t own but had lived in for 50 years, and moved Jewish settlers in, might as well have started shooting. Whoever decided to kidnap and murder two Israeli soldiers may not have intended for a war to start but it did.

The flip side is that if people on both sides try to behave civilly and fairly to one another it would change the dynamic so that it becomes rational to talk of peace and a second state. I don’t have a lot of faith in Netanyahu, and less in Hamas, and both of them are making it harder for any progress to be made. I’m becoming less optimistic than I’ve been.

Hippie4, there is certainly less violent killing with strong gun control laws but there isn’t a hope in hell that this will occur in the US.  In which case shooting back is better than rolling over and being killed without defending oneself.  It encourages the next killing.

You may feel that gun control is possible in the US.  Fine, until it is, a shotgun will give the loonies pause.

Rae, you are quite right, you don’t understand the problem.

The piece by Robert is so depressing.

I guess because I am Canadian, living in a country so vast that it seems to have no boundaries, I have no comprehension of the never-ending “war” over postage stamp parcels of parched land that I see in photos of Israel and Palestine.

My gut shouts “For God’s sake MOVE TO SOMEPLACE ELSE - there’s plenty of space on the planet.” Is fighting TO THE DEATH over a piece of almost useless property really worth the trouble? I guess it is to those doing it, but I’d be outta there - TO ANYWHERE ELSE - faster than you can read this.

Like I said… I have no comprehension of the problem. One thing I do know is that the coming generation must be TAUGHT TO HATE by the present generation - it’s not genetic. What a waste of time, talent and people.

“If the gay headquarters had guns available, they could defend themselves from rightwingers.”—Folktruther

There used to be a group called “Gay Guns” and they advocated arming the Community for the reasons you’ve stated. The problem was the nature of the violence aimed at LGBT people usually did not involve guns. Beatings, employment terminations, rental evictions, slurs, hate speech, and shutting down public health research at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic were all acts of violence and cruelty, but did not involve firearms. My wrong issue and your wrong point.

Guns wouldn’t have prevented this attack; the perpetrator would have found a way around security or would have chosen another target. The problem is a lunatic with a warped sexuality found a gun and then went “clubbing.” Had he not found a gun, he would have used something less lethal, or merely screamed hateful rubbish. Definitely an improvement, as I’m sure the eight victims would concur.

And I believe there’s a big difference between people owning guns for hunting, and buying guns to commit crimes or for personal defence. The Canadians are hunters: many Americans (and now the Israelis—the disease is spreading internationally and has occurred in Germany as well) are not planning a caribou hunt in the near future. They’re violent people using lethal machines regulated in every civilised nation on earth.

And Folktruther, how can you explain the drastically decreased mortality among populations in nations with strong gun control? Seems like a “cause and effect” argument to me, but I suppose we’ll just have to disagree.

Israel condemned over forced evictions

By Middle East correspondent Anne Barker and staff

Posted Mon Aug 3, 2009

“The United Nations has condemned Israel for evicting two Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem.

Clashes erupted about dawn when police ordered the eviction of more than 50 Palestinians, including 19 children.

Jewish settlers moved in to the homes with drills, shovels and ladders as others helped carry the belongings of the expelled families to a truck.

The Israeli Supreme Court ordered the evictions after an appeal by Jewish settlers who claim they have the title deeds for the properties.

The evicted families and the United Nations deny this and neighbours say the deeds are fake.

One Palestinian man says he has a right to live there.

“We don’t steal this land and I am born at this house, also my kids born at this house,” he said.

“But after they evacuate us, they bring settlers to live in our house.”

“I want to ask, where [are] those settlers born and their fathers born?”

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/08/03/2644487.htm?section=world

RAE, Israel’s government has struggled with Jewish religious extremists for a long time, but real progress was only made under Ariel Sharon, who was an atheist and nationalist, who wanted to curtail the free ride the most radically orthodox religious were getting at the expense of the rest of Israel’s population. With the advent of Netanyahu, orthodox power is again on the rise. Tzipi Livni could not put together a government, even though she got more votes than Netanyahu, because she refused to take the religious parties as part of her coalition. At the time I thought she was wrong—her policies on negotiating with the Palestinians were far more promising for peace than Netanyahu’s—but perhaps she knew what she was doing. Enemies inside the state are more threatening than those without.

I agree with you that the extremist elements of all religions are equally pejorative, whether Moslem, Christian or Jew.

Originally I wrote that these hate crimes were more despicable because they occurred in Tel Aviv, but on reflection, the fact that people are actually moving out of Jerusalem and into Tel Aviv because the extremists are so prevalent there should mean that the situation in Jerusalem should be corrected, rather than forcing people to relocate because the orthodox extremists in Jerusalem who harass other citizens cannot be controlled well enough. I hope the Israeli government and police will give this situation the same attention they give other security matters.

PS to Folktruther: as usual you’ve got it backwards because of your obsessive “I-hate-Israel” mantra. Extremists of any religion—indeed, religion itself—grow stronger when their homeland is beset by increasing outside threats and internal hard times. No one turns to that big pie in the sky like an insecure, starving person.

When the gay community of Moscow planned to hold a “gay parade” the chief rabbi of Russia urged the mayor of Moscow to arrest or kill them in the streets. The Tel Aviv murderer has not been acting alone. No way. Cherchez le rabbi!

Interesting metaphor, Ed. I’m waiting for someone to object to it on the grounds that one chooses to be gay, while as a Jew, one is chosen. lol

I didn’t understand what you were saying, Sepharad, about the Haridim being an anti-gay group. That they encourage this kind of vigilante mass murder the way that Anerican fundamentalists support killing birth control doctors.  right wing Judism was also involved in the murder of Rabin, who was assassinated with Rabinical complicity.  It is likely this religiosity will increase as Israel becomes more fascistic.

I can understand your identification with your political hero Sharon. He kept religion in its place and united the seclularized Jewish population to massacre the Palestinians. 

Removing the Jewish settlers from Gaza, he turned it into a Ghetto-concentration camp, allowing militarized pogroms by the Israeli army to reinforce mass strarvation.  It is true that the army had rabbis address the troops to get them to kill the women and children, but this, after all, is the function of religion as a power ideology. 

And it underpins the Zionist secularism that you espouse, the hijacking of Jesish nationalism by ziofascism.  Used to support the Israeli policy of mass murder, torturre and rape, which you indentify with.

Gee, maybe we need to set up a settler-state for gay people.

Let’s see, there must be someplace in the world where we can kill, expel, and subjugate the local people, take their land, erase their culture, and set up a state as a haven for gay people, in a state of constant war with the natives who refuse to disappear. Wouldn’t that be a great idea? We could call it Gaysrael, and run a massive lobbying operation in Washington to force the US Congress to give zillions of dollars to the gay state, or face being branded as homophobic.

Wouldn’t gay people everywhere feel safer knowing that this state exists, even if they didn’t want to live there? Wouldn’t the existence of Gaysrael generate respect and love for gay people all over the world?

What could possibly go wrong with this plan?

Sepharad wrote: “Very orthodox Jews, like some very orthodox Moslems, consider homoosexuality as a very serious sin.

It’s more than irritating that some religious person decided to enforce their craziness in Tel Aviv…”

Many governing bodies, the world over, loudly proclaim their secularism and separation of church from state. So why do so many of these governments seem to tremble and cower whenever some religious CULT* challenges or lobbies them on some point of public policy that offends their concocted beliefs and dogma? (Recent example - “Harper’s Wafergate”).

How long must we wait until such phrases as “devout Christian” and “orthodox Jew” carry the same perjorative weight as “fanatic Muslim?”

I find the situation INTOLERABLE in countries like Iran where some religious freak & his cronies (always HIS never HER) are allowed to intimidate, manipulate and I’m sure MURDER in order to enforce their complete control over the population. I find even more perplexing that the population allows them to do it. They can’t all be into BONDAGE & DISCIPLINE - which is EXACTLY what it is.

I hope the murderer of the gay people in this case are caught, convicted and incarcerated forever. In prison, I’m sure, they’ll learn all about the variations in human SEXUALITIES that occur quite normally and commonly on this planet. But somehow I doubt they’ll learn the most important lesson - that if they expect the right to be fully entitled to their OWN sexuality, EVERYONE ELSE IS TOO.

*(ALL religions are CULTS - it’s just that some are larger than others and have found a way to “tone down” their more bizarre beliefs and practises, or at least keep them hidden from public view.)

I’m surprised that a policeman said it was a criminal rather than nationalistic thing. What it almost certainly was is a religious thing. The Haredim and other extremely orthodox sects consider homosexuality a big-time reason for “Trembling before G-d.”  Very orthodox Jews, like some very orthodox Moslems, consider homoosexuality as a very serious sin.

It’s more than irritating that some religious person decided to enforce their craziness in Tel Aviv—bad enough, disgraceful even, that the orthodox have parts of Jerusalem so nailed down by orthodox religious customs. Many young people have moved from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv because they prefer the more modern, less religious ambience. I hope Israel’s next leader will return to Sharon’s policies of keeping the super-orthodox from running Israeli society.

The wrong cause, hippie4.  It is not guns that are the problem in US and Israel, but the constant legitimation of violence in the truth organs.  When violence is the Manly thing to do, men do it.

Canada, I’ve read has more guns per inhabitant, I seem to remember, than the US.  And less crime.  In Vancouver, girls walk home at night after dark and hitchhike in isolated areas by themselves.  People don’t lock their doors.  The guns are used for hunting, not for killing people.

If the gay headquarters had guns available, they could defend themselves from rightwingers.  those people are excited by vulnibility, just as the military rape and kill women and children.  It’s easier than shooting someone who may shoot back.

“It wasn’t the bars and associations of gay people who committed a crime, why are their businesses closed?”

I guess you’d prefer to just leave them all open as targets for the next ignorant loonie to attack. I’m sure they won’t be closed for long because this attacker will not be able to keep his/her crime secret. This was a great success in the minds of the ignorant homophobes and whoever did it can’t wait to proclaim his/her victory over the “abominations.”

I do hope the police catch this murderer. If I were the judge passing sentence I’d sentence him/her to LIFE - not in prison - but 7 days a week acting as janitor to all the gay and lesbian centres in Tel Aviv… cleaning toilets, washing floors, cleaning up after parties… making the windows “sparkle”... FOR THE REST OF HIS/HER MISERABLE LIFE.

If the murderer turns out to be one of the really, really “queer” ultra-orthodox crowd, I think they perhaps should all be rounded up and placed on some sort of “reservation” away from sane people. They may have a right to their beliefs but not to express them in a way that harms anyone else.

This confirms what my friend (who was an Israeli fighter pilot) told me about his countrymen: that with the possible exception of Americans, Israelis are the craziest people on earth.

It also confirms what I know to be the logical result of a society with too easy access to guns. I anticipate all the objections of both gun nuts and armchair revolutionaries who dream of kicking it off with an AR-15. I don’t care—if that homophobe hadn’t a gun, eight gay people would still be with us.