The Abused become the Abusers

"Once you extend the definition of combatant in the way that IDF is apparently doing, you begin to associate individuals who are only indirectly or peripherally involved… it becomes an open-ended definition, which undermines the very object and purpose of the rules that are intended to be applied."
Philippe Sands, Professor of International Law at University College London, says he is not aware of any Western democracy having taken so broad a definition.
The International Committee of the Red Cross - guardian of the Geneva Conventions on which international humanitarian law is based - defines a combatant as a person "directly engaged in hostilities".
But Israeli Defence Forces spokesman Benjamin Rutland told the BBC: "Our definition is that anyone who is involved with terrorism within Hamas is a valid target. This ranges from the strictly military institutions and includes the political institutions that provide the logistical funding and human resources for the terrorist arm."

"The difference in numbers in the Gaza war is stark - Palestinians say more than 500 Gazans have died in eight days, compared with 18 Israelis from rocket fire since 2001."

B’Tselem's Ms Montell (Israeli human rights group) describes the rocket fire as a "blatant war crime", she adds: "I certainly would not expect my government to act according to the standard Hamas has set for itself - we demand a higher standard."

bbc news12:29 GMT, Monday, 5 January 2009

Well - Just who is the criminal - does one really have to ask

Have the abused become the abusers ?

And again

"If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights, then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished,"

Mr Olmert is quoted saying in Haaretz newspaper.

Can it be spelt out any more clearly. So much for toleration and equality.

Is This What we really want to deal with ?

If ever the face of racism reared its ugly head so spectacularly.


Ehud Olmert, Israel's prime minister, warned this week that it was unlikely that there could be a better Palestinian leadership -
Israel needed to take advantage of the opportunity to create a Palestinian state in order to maintain a Jewish majority in Israel and "avoid ending up like South Africa", he told the Knesset foreign affairs and defence committee.

Israel and Abbas agree to peace talks
Ian Black in Jerusalem
Saturday November 17, 2007
The Guardian

'Ending up like South Africa'

Perhaps he should have said how the natural order of things should be.

Dear Mr Olmert, you are an embarrassment to the word 'Just', you have shown yourself to be nothing but a raciest and bigot. You have been elected to your post and thus your electorate must either remove you or share in the poo you let loose. People suffered and fought for freedom from oppression to gain the chance to live in a country that was their birth right. You now deny and shame the very selfsame principals that your forefathers fought and suffered for themselves, Freedom.

Are you all not brothers under Heaven?
Your us vs them mentality will only serve to heap more blood upon more blood
Demographics change, the world is in a constant state of flux, and that is its beauty, You and the people who think like you make it an ugly place to live.

Forward to Redemption

Head of the CIA Gen Hayden said programmes such as extraordinary rendition produced what he said was irreplaceable intelligence.

Under the programme, terror suspects are transported to secret prisons in countries with less stringent interrogation rules.

Mr Hayden, speaking in Chicago, said the leads gained justified rendition.

"The irreplaceable nature of that intelligence is the sole reason why we have what I admit freely is a very controversial programme."

BBC News 31/10/07

Onwards and forwards that is the way to stop this maddness, teach by example
and so the world turns

Smellinghill

Out of the frying pan into the fire, waiting for a bed.
This is Englandia. The cost of the developed world.
I suppose that complaints are part of the countryside now.
No worries I can muck in with the best of them.
One small step, one giant leap for a future that is
as undefined now as it was many moons ago when I set out on this cross country malarky.
As to whether I have stopped, No would have to be the response.
One only lays ones hat when one is at home, and that I fear is South of the equator.
The North is played out, north west that is at least.

Ascot

Up and running, nothing like hanging out in poncelandia

Back in Blighty

Back in Blighty, Turklandia now a memory
but not forgotten.