Letter from Gaza by a Norwegian doctor, "this,THIS cannot continue."

[G_j]

http://www.middleeastmonitor.com/articles/middle-east/12920-letter-from-gaza-by-a-norwegian-doctor

Mads Gilbert

Sunday, 20 July 2014 11:06

Dearest friends,

The last night was extreme. The "ground invasion" of Gaza resulted in scores and carloads with maimed, torn apart, bleeding, shivering, dying - all sorts of injured Palestinians, all ages, all civilians, all innocent.

The heroes in the ambulances and in all of Gaza's hospitals are working 12-24 hour shifts, grey from fatigue and inhuman workloads (without payment all in Shifa for the last 4 months), they care, triage, try to understand the incomprehensible chaos of bodies, sizes, limbs, walking, not walking, breathing, not breathing, bleeding, not bleeding humans. HUMANS!

Now, once more treated like animals by "the most moral army in the world" (sic!).

My respect for the wounded is endless, in their contained determination in the midst of pain, agony and shock; my admiration for the staff and volunteers is endless, my closeness to the Palestinian "sumud" gives me strength, although in glimpses I just want to scream, hold someone tight, cry, smell the skin and hair of the warm child, covered in blood, protect ourselves in an endless embrace - but we cannot afford that, nor can they.

Ashy grey faces - Oh NO! Not one more load of tens of maimed and bleeding, we still have lakes of blood on the floor in the ER, piles of dripping, blood-soaked bandages to clear out - oh - the cleaners, everywhere, swiftly shovelling the blood and discarded tissues, hair, clothes,cannulas - the leftovers from death - all taken away ... to be prepared again, to be repeated all over. More then 100 cases came to Shifa in the last 24 hrs. Enough for a large well trained hospital with everything, but here - almost nothing: no electricity, water, disposables, drugs, OR-tables, instruments, monitors - all rusted and as if taken from museums of yesterday's hospitals. But they do not complain, these heroes. They get on with it, like warriors, head on, enormously resolute.

And as I write these words to you, alone, on a bed, my tears flow, the warm but useless tears of pain and grief, of anger and fear. This is not happening!

An then, just now, the orchestra of the Israeli war-machine starts its gruesome symphony again, just now: salvos of artillery from the navy boats just down on the shores, the roaring F16, the sickening drones (Arabic 'Zennanis', the hummers), and the cluttering Apaches. So much made in and paid by the US.

Mr. Obama - do you have a heart?

I invite you - spend one night - just one night - with us in Shifa. Disguised as a cleaner, maybe.

I am convinced, 100%, it would change history.

Nobody with a heart AND power could ever walk away from a night in Shifa without being determined to end the slaughter of the Palestinian people.

But the heartless and merciless have done their calculations and planned another "dahyia" onslaught on Gaza.

The rivers of blood will keep running the coming night. I can hear they have tuned their instruments of death.
Please. Do what you can. This, THIS cannot continue.

Mads Gilbert MD PhD
Professor and Clinical Head
Clinic of Emergency Medicine
University Hospital of North Norway
- See more at: http://www.middleeastmonitor.com/articles/middle-east/12920-letter-from-gaza-by-a-norwegian-doctor#sthash.HjTiJu2P.dpuf

[hlthe2b]

1. ...

[intaglio]

2. But to certain people it will always be the fault

of the oppressed - not the oppressors

[appal_jack]

6. Do you consider Hamas leadership to be 'the oppressed?'

I agree that no civilians deserve this horror. I agree that Palestinians living in Gaza experience levels of deprivation and oppression I would never want to accept. I agree that these civilians deserve a life of dignity and freedom. However, do you consider Hamas leadership to be 'the oppressed?' I do not. It's hard to find visionary, compassionate leadership on either side of the IP divide, but the Hamas leaders who chose tunnel-digging and arms buildups over electricity and resources for hospitals certainly share in the blame.

-app.

[Larkspur]

8. Hamas was elected fair and square by the people of Gaza

so yes, Hamas represents the oppressed people of Gaza.
And they are natives to that 25 mile strip of land. They are not aliens from another land or world.

[Mosby]

18. No they weren't

They won the legislative election and then violently overthrew Fatah in Gaza. That was in 2007 and all the elections have been cancelled since then so Abbas and the Hamas leaders are now effectively unelected.

[appal_jack]

71. Excellent point. nt

[Fred Sanders]

9. Sorry, but you have lost the propaganda war, drowned in the rivers of blood of innocents.

You do realize Hamas is not a nation, a poor equipped militia is no match for a nation heavily armed by America.

Love the whole Hamas versus Israel tripe in the media making it out to be a war between nations, when it is nothing like that, that is how the propaganda has washed your mind clean, ready to receive more lies, ready to justify the slaughter.

200 to 0.

Number of kids in Gaza killed to 0 in Israel, not a one has a scratch in
Israel. But those are Jewish children so they are at least 200 times more precious and loved by their parents, you must believe that to believe it is Israel being moral.

This is what happens when people do NOT have the right to defend themselves.

Bottle rockets versus drones, Apaches, fighter jets, navy ships, tanks, why are people so blind to facts?

[appal_jack]

11. Getting your own civilians killed does not confer moral high ground.

Getting your own civilians killed does not confer moral high ground. The fact that Hamas is militarily ineffective does not contradict the fact that they chose guns (rockets & tunnels) over butter (hospital equipment).

The fact that Israel does a better job of protecting their own civilians is, likewise, not a sign of moral failure. The 200 to 0 ratio is therefore meaningless when divorced from the larger context.

-app

[vanlassie]

13. Larger Context? Squeezed and starved and controlled. How does that fit in to your picture?

[Fred Sanders]

14. Math don't lie, and of course a nation can do all kinds of things that a militia in a prison can not

Again, you fail to note the David versus Goliath difference, but you have to I guess, what else you got to work with, claiming the enemy wants dead children, who would be mad enough to say that?

"Telegenically dead" children, what mad man would even think of that let alone say it as justification, it would be sheer madness to say so, do you not agree?

[renate]

59. "telegenically dead children"--he is a sociopath

That was unspeakably vile. How did that not ignite international outrage?

[pscot]

19. The moral failure lies in the theft of Palestine from the Arabs

The Jewish state was created at the expense of the Arabs who lived there.

[appal_jack]

25. Well, I can see where you're coming from.

Well, I can see where you're coming from. You oppose Israel's right to exist. How very enlightened and humanitarian of you.

Are you willing to vacate the Native American land that your home presently occupies? No? Why not?

Regular Israelis I have met just want to live without rockets raining down upon them. They (or their ancestors) were told to move to Israel in the aftermath of one of the more horrible attempts at genocide in recent human history. Yes, some Palestinians were living there, but by 1948 there were not many truly unoccupied regions of the globe. Judea/Palestine/Israel was certainly among the least densely populated back then, and it was also a promised homeland in Jewish texts. Of course, it happens to also be a promised homeland in Islamic texts. As my kid sister used to say: aaawwwwwwkkkwwaaaarrrrd.

These regular Israelis just want to live in the home that was given them by the UN. Many regular Americans (myself included - not a Jew by ancestry or culture or religion, but with many Jewish friends) support them up to and including whatever it takes to prevent existential threats to Israel.

I also support self determination and dignity for Palestinians. Do I have a bright idea about what solution would provide both? Not really. The Clinton Peace Plan of 2000 seemed very fair to this American outsider, for both Israelis and Palestinians. But Arafat walked away from the table and demanded more. Color me unimpressed:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Camp_David_Summit

100% of Gaza and 92% of the West Bank, plus sacred sites such as the Al Aqsa Mosque were on the table; all the Palestinians had to do was say yes and do their part to work for peace. Israel also offered monetary compensation in lieu of a right of return to lands within Israel. Instead, Arafat and the PLO held out for more. Their loss.

-app

[pscot]

31. Palestine was inhabited when the mandate was created in 1919

There were Jews living there in peace with their Arab neighbors. Even as late as 1945 most privately held land in Palestine was owned by Arabs. Those Arabs were driven out by European Jewish immigrants, a process still happening today in the West Bank. Their land was stolen and is being stolen today without compensation. Are you seriously arguing that European genocide of Native Americans justifies Israel's actions?

[appal_jack]

32. I am recognizing historical forces.

I am recognizing historical forces. I am living on land that was probably Cherokee summer hunting grounds prior to the Trail of Tears, a shameful incident in our own nation's history. But as someone born in this country forty-odd years back, I don't feel responsible or individually culpable for this past oppression. Back when the Cherokee were being driven off their own lands, my ancestors were busily trying to avoid starvation in Italy and Ireland. This is the world we inherit.

Like the Cherokee of the 19th Century, Palestinians in the 20th Century lost a number of political and military struggles. They need to come to grips with present 21st Century circumstances rather demanding a return to 1918, or 1947, or 1966. Them claiming land inside Israel now is as pointless as a Cherokee descendant showing up at my house and telling me to leave: it ain't happening.

-app

[G_j]

34. are the Cherokee still captive on a reservation?

denied equal rights with other Americans?

[former9thward]

49. Can Natives have their land back?

What about property lost by Jews in the Holocaust. Can Jews have that property back?

[whathehell]

52. You mention the property lost by Jews in the Holocaust

and ask "Can Jews have that property back"?

That's an interesting question because many have claimed that it was (and is)

Europe -- Germany, specifically -- who owes land, property and all sorts of compensation

to the Jews, rather than the Palestinians, who had nothing to do with the holocaust.

It makes sense to me.

[former9thward]

53. The Palestinians were allied with Hitler.

So yeah they did have something to do with the holocaust.



The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem (al Quds) Haj Amin al-Husseini, meeting with Hitler in November 28, 1941

Hitler's statement:

Germany stood for uncompromising war against the Jews. That naturally included active opposition to the Jewish national home in Palestine, which was nothing other than a center, in the form of a state, for the exercise of destructive influence by Jewish interests....This was the decisive struggle; on the political plane, it presented itself in the main as a conflict between Germany and England, but ideologically it was a battle between National Socialism and the Jews. It went without saying that Germany would furnish positive and practical aid to the Arabs involved in the same struggle, because platonic promises were useless in a war for survival or destruction in which the Jews were able to mobilize all of England's power for their ends....the Fuhrer would on his own give the Arab world the assurance that its hour of liberation had arrived. Germany's objective would then be solely the destruction of the Jewish element residing in the Arab sphere under the protection of British power. In that hour the Mufti would be the most authoritative spokesman for the Arab world. It would then be his task to set off the Arab operations, which he had secretly prepared. When that time had come, Germany could also be indifferent to French reaction to such a declaration

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relations_between_Nazi_Germany_and_the_Arab_world

[Douglas Carpenter]

58. that is absolute bullshite -and Nazi Germany did actively support the Jewish settlement in Palestine

Last edited Thu Jul 24, 2014, 03:54 PM - Edit history (3)

This from the Simon Wiesenthal Center - hardly a pro-Palestinian source

http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/site/pp.asp?c=gvKVLcMVIuG&b=395105


snip:"Germany's Palestine policy between 1933 and 1940 was based on a fundamental acceptance of the post-World War I status quo in the Middle East. For different reasons, the Hitler regime continued in the footsteps of the various Weimar governments by identifying German interests with the postwar settlement in Palestine. That settlement embodied a growing Jewish presence and homeland in Palestine, as well as the establishment of British imperial power over Palestine and the Middle East. It also represented a denial of Arab claims to national self-determination and independence in Palestine and throughout the Middle East. Between 1933 and 1940, German policy encouraged and actively promoted Jewish emigration to Palestine, recognized and respected Britain's imperial interests throughout the Middle East and remained largely indifferent to the ideals and aims of Arab nationalism. (p. 201)"

Snip:"The relationship between Nazi Germany and the Palestine Question of the 1930s is widely misunderstood. Except for a few scholars here and there, this subject lends itself to a pervasive kind of misconception: we tend to read the Nazi policies of World War II back into the 1930s. The Nazis' "Final Solution of the Jewish Question," their pro-Arab attitudes, and their battle against Great Britain makes it difficult for most of us to imagine that before the war the Nazis, even the SS, aided the illegal immigration of Jews into Palestine, and that Hitler so feared British displeasure that he absolutely prohibited German support for the Arabs of the Palestine mandate. Yet this is exactly what Francis R. Nicosia has described and proved in his excellent scholarly study.

Nicosia clearly shows in his impressive introductory chapter that Germany's policy on Palestine remained unchanged from the late Empire through the Weimar Republic. German policy makers supported Zionist efforts because they recognized that Zionism could be an effective instrument of German foreign policy. During the 1930s, the Nazis continued this traditional policy because they wanted to use Zionism and please the British.

snip: Nicosia examines the role of the SS, and it is noteworthy that there was some cooperation between the SS and the Revisionist Zionists in the period 1933-1937. There is of course some logic to this, since the SS recognized that the Revisionists were vigorously pursuing Jewish emigration from Germany to Palestine. This too was the rationale behind the German government's support of the Zionists' agricultural retraining program; incidentally, Nicosia thoughtfully provides a map showing the distribution of the retraining centers (Appendix 11, p. 217). In retrospect, it is difficult for us to imagine that the Nazis encouraged Zionists from Palestine to enter Germany, teach Hebrew, educate German Jews about Palestine, and even display the blue and white Jewish national flag; the Revisionist Zionists even wore uniforms. Clearly this was all done for the promotion of purely German domestic and economic ends, with no concern for the Palestine situation itself.

snip:"Most Arabs never realized that the Nazis viewed them as racially inferior and that Germany was directly responsible for the increase in Jewish immigration during the 1930s. It was the Arabs, especially Palestinian Arab leaders like Haj Amin al-Husayni, the Mufti of Jerusalem, who openly made their pro-German feelings known. But Nicosia's analysis of the scholarly biographies of the Mufti shows that these biographies cannot be relied on for an accurate account of Nazi Germany's involvement in Palestine (p. 250, n. 3). Like others, I had relied on these biographies; now I must, however, agree with Nicosia's conclusion that Germany was not involved in the Arab Jewish conflict in Palestine of 1936-1937.

link to full article:

Palestine and Nazi Germany
by Sara Reguer

Francis R. Nicosia. The Third Reich and the Palestine Question. Austin: Texas University Press, 1985. xiv, 319 pages.

link: http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/site/pp.asp?c=gvKVLcMVIuG&b=395105

Thousands of Palestinians fought on the side of the British during World War II. Though the Mufti clearly did support Hitler as did many nationalist leaders throughout the former colonial world, it would be completely anti-historic to say the Palestinians supported the Nazis. Following that logic the leadership of the Stern Gang and the Irgun who were attacking the British in Palestine while Britain was in a state of war against Nazi Germany would make the Zionist movement partially responsible for the holocaust. But, I would not go that far. To suggest the Palestinians as a people had something to do with the holocaust is not only completely anti-historic it is downright reprehensible

[pscot]

35. That 's the problem with conquest

The losers aren't always willing to submit. Do you think the defeat of the Cherokee gives you a claim on reservation land in Oklahoma? Could you bulldoze an orchard and blow up a stock tank and drive a family from their home, as is happening today in the West Bank? The Jewish claims to Palestine are based on 2500 year old writings of dubious reliability, but Palestinians are supposed to forget all about what's happened to them in the last 60 years? That ain't happening either.

[appal_jack]

37. At this stage, the Talmud & the Koran are both window-dressing.

At this stage, the Talmud & the Koran are both window-dressing.

Israel's claim to the land within the 1967 borders are based upon a UN mandate, not the Talmud. Israel occupies the West Bank and is now fighting house-to-house in Gaza searching for rockets and tunnels thanks to a strong military and its perceived need for security, not the Talmud.

If anyone is hung up on 2500 year old texts of dubious reliability, it seems to be Hamas, and their buddies in the Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS. But they still seem to put more faith in guns & rockets than in their mouldering texts of Bronze Age mythologies.

-app

[intaglio]

20. Ahhh, so Churchill was responsible for the deaths of Londoners in the Blitz

And the Spanish Republicans were responsible for the bombing of Guernica.

Apologists for oppression like you are always funny - in a sick kind of way

[7962]

26. This explains a lot of it:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014853517#post32

[RobertEarl]

43. I found this of yours, 7962.

Scenes from a militarized America: Iowa family ‘terrorized’
Source: Wash Post

Watch this video, taken from a police raid in Des Moines, Iowa. Send it to some people. When critics (like me) warn about the dangers of police militarization, this is what we’re talking about. You’ll see the raid team, dressed in battle-dress uniforms, helmets and face-covering balaclava hoods take down the family’s door with a battering ram. You’ll see them storm the home with ballistics shields, guns at the ready. More troubling still, you’ll see not one but two officers attempt to prevent the family from having an independent record of the raid, one by destroying a surveillance camera, another by blocking another camera’s lens.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/opinions/wp/2014/02/04/scenes-from-a-militarized-america-iowa-family-terrorized//?print=1


This "no knock" shit has got to stop.
Posted by 7962 | Tue Feb 4, 2014, 05:24 PM (9 replies)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014718724

[7962]

44. Yes, and? I stand by my statement; no knock warrants need to go.

[RobertEarl]

45. Really? You don't get the dichotomy of your opinions?

What Israel is doing is a "No knock" attack on civilians of Gaza.

[7962]

46. Actually, you're WRONG. Israel notified the people they were coming. The cops didnt.

You just made your own argument look foolish. The cops just walk up and kick in your door. The Israelis have been telling the people to leave that area for weeks. They've dropped leaflets, which Hamas told the people to ignore, they've called the residents, they've even sent mass text messages.
The cops just kick in the door.

[RobertEarl]

48. Of course they did

They told all the children just when and where they were going to bomb?

Like those kids on the seashore?

What you are doing here is blaming the victims.

It isn't the details of the unwarranted attack, it is the outcomes, only worse, for the children of Gaza.

I guess as long as it is someone you support and like, it's ok to circumvent justice?

[SnakeEyes]

54. IDF announces beforehand

Didnt you know that?

But of course you have hamas telling people not to believe the warnings. They want dead palestinians for anti-israel propaganda. They love human shields

[RobertEarl]

61. I heard that they tell you

We are gonna bomb this place you are in, leave. Then they don't, and the next day they tell you again. And they don't. Then after a few days of telling people that and the people get complacent or have left and returned, then they bomb the place.

So how about the kids on the sea shore? Did they get warned?

Has the IDF told them where the safe places are that will not be bombed?

You say that Hamas wants dead Palestinians killed by the IDF just to make Israel look bad. And IDF falls for it? Well, we agree: Israel does look bad. Israel looks bad because they are killing people that have no where to run. Like shooting fish in a barrel. And then blaming the fish because they are in a barrel.

I'm glad to see some of you agreeing that Israel is looking bad. That's a big step for some of you.

Now, how can Israel make itself look better? That is a direct question, an answer should be easy to come by.

Oh, one more.... what's the death toll so far? Just how many people has Israel killed? Maimed? These should be easy for you to answer.

[delrem]

41. The same was done to Lebanon.

The Israeli war propaganda, dutifully repeated in the US MSM, was that it was a war against "Hezbollah", not against Lebanon and the Lebanese people. It's an old pattern now.
But the technique is blown to exponential power in the Israeli war against Palestine, since Israel refuses to recognize the existence of Palestine and a Palestinian people. Again, the US MSM dutifully accepts Israel's terminology, without question - and gives no voice to Palestine.

[intaglio]

22. The people from whom Hamas draw their membership are oppressed

You know concentrated in a series of camps in close proximity in a small geographic area.

Isn't there a name for that sort of oppression - perhaps you might like to remember that.

[SnakeEyes]

55. All Hamas has to do is stop firing rockets

And this ends

[intaglio]

63. All Israel has to do is to follow UN res 194

then shut down and remove the illegal settlements, allow Egypt to open its border to Gaza, open its own border to Gaza, prosecute members of the IDF and the Israeli government for the war crimes they have committed, destroy its illegal nuclear weapons, stop targeting humanitarian sites, stop persecuting journalists ...

[Avalux]

28. What is Israel's best weapon against Hamas?

Hope. It's really that simple. Give them hope, give them a reason to look forward to tomorrow, give parents a reason to believe their children will grow up and be able to live free. Give them the ability to have a home, a Palestine.

Israel's oppression and violence has allowed Hamas to thrive in Gaza. I'm sick of the justifications, the religious bullshit, all of it.

The violence must end. Too many innocent people are dying.

[G_j]

33. +1000

[Uncle Joe]

60. + Infinity, you nailed it, Avalux. n/t

[sabrina 1]

67. Just stop, PLEASE! This horror requires all decent people to stop trying to turn us away

from it, it CANNOT be done, do you understand? Just ONE innocent child should be enough to say 'enough'. I simply do not understand and never will, ANYONE who can say 'yes, it's terrible BUT.

The whole world except for the US shamefully is outraged. There is not one single excuse that is going to ameliorate the growing anger against the Far Right Wing Israeli Government, not one.

[democrank]

3. Heartbreaking, gut-wrenching savagery

~PEACE~

[malaise]

4. K & R

NO words just tears

[broiles]

24. Lots of tears.

[Divernan]

5. "the orchestra of the Israeli war-machine starts its gruesome symphony again,"

"salvos of artillery from the navy boats just down on the shores, the roaring F16, the sickening drones (Arabic 'Zennanis', the hummers), and the cluttering Apaches. So much made in and paid by the US."

"The rivers of blood will keep running the coming night. I can hear they have tuned their instruments of death."

[Billy Budd]

7. Palestinian trail of tears... Rivers of Blood Years of Darkeness

I ask the Universe to bring the sword of Justice on the Gangster Settlers who have built a huge altar in Gaza to sacrifice the Palestinian people to land thieving schemes ....Israel does not want Peace because it is the chronic state of war that allows it to expand and takeover more and more Palestinian lands ...

[Trust Buster]

10. The author lost me when he asked if our President has a heart.

Perhaps he meant to write " does Netanyahu have a heart ?"

[G_j]

12. I think we already know the answer to that

" does Netanyahu have a heart ?" ...um..no

but perhaps there is a tiny ray of hope that Obama can have a change of heart.

[hack89]

15. Why didn't he write a letter to the leaders of Hamas?

ask them to come out of their bunkers and walk among the populace?

[kelliekat44]

16. We aren't claiming certainty about who shot down flight 17 even with overwhelming evidence yet we

are more than certain that Hamas kidnapped those three Israeli teens even though Hamas claims they had nothing to do with it. Yes, Mr. Obama and the rest of the American government sitting in the House and Senate...do any of you have a heart? We are certain the Bibi does not.

[former9thward]

50. Hamas released a statement celebrating the kidnapping.

In its first statement on the issue, Hamas praised the kidnapping but did not claim responsibility. It referred to "the success of the kidnapping" and said that "the movement pays tribute to the heroes who are behind the kidnapping".

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/15/israel-raids-hamas-kipdnapping-netanyahu

[MohRokTah]

17. At first I felt that Hamas brought all of this on the Palestinian people

But after it went longer than a few hours and the innocent body count grew, Israel has gone way over the top and needs to stop immediately.

[SnakeEyes]

56. Sadly, innocents die

when you put your rockets and targets among civilian populations by design so that you can use their deaths for anti-israel propaganda.

[riderinthestorm]

21. I hope Kerry can work a miracle. This cannot continue. nt

[Mosby]

23. If Hamas terrorists can keep the airport closed to international travel

Things are going to get a lot worse.

[Comrade Grumpy]

30. Israelis are getting a small taste of what it's like to be a Gazan.

Just the tiniest hint of a taste. Blockaded, besieged, trapped.

[NealK]

27. K&R

[seveneyes]

29. I did not see where he suggested Hamas stop firing rockets into Israel

Perhaps an oversight.

[justiceischeap]

36. Just because Hamas fires rockets into Israel

doesn't mean that civilians are cannon fodder. Just because Hamas kills innocent people doesn't mean Israel should kill innocent people.

In all of this, the killing of innocents on both sides furthers the problem of indiscriminate killing and, sadly, creates more terrorists. Hamas gets to say look at all the innocent people you killed, we'll shoot more rockets. Israel gets to say the same thing when Hamas kills innocents. So instead of going into the "I know you are but what am I" routine, we should be thinking about both sides and the consequences all the actions have because there are innocent people on BOTH sides.

[SnakeEyes]

57. Difference is Israel isnt targeting innocents

Sadly it's hard strike only enemy rocket installations and targets when the other side puts them among civilian populations for the purpose of using civilian deaths for anti-israeli propaganda.

[justiceischeap]

64. So those 4 kids that died on the beach in Gaza

were Hamas and near rocket installations? The hospital that was bombed was a rocket installation? There's been enough reports from Gaza to refute that Israel is only targeting rocket installations. And if Hamas is storing rockets in a hospital? Why not send in a strike team instead of bombing the hell out of said hospital?

I get that Hamas puts its civilians in danger but that doesn't mean they are complicit in this war and that their deaths should be taken lightly. We should be outraged by this because guaranteed there are civilians in the US that are living near unknown (to them) military targets and would we not be outraged if someone targeted them because of their proximity to a military target? Were we not outraged when the US bombed targets in Iraq that needlessly harmed civilians?

[sabrina 1]

70. When you target a heavily civilian populated area you are targeting civilians, period.

If Israel thinks anyone is buying this, someone needs to tell them they are delusional.

Clearly this is a talking point, as we keep seeing it. What it does is make people even more angry as it is in insult to the intelligence of the average person.

Someone has to stop this, clearly Israel is not going to stop so it will have to be some outside entity. Even if we buy their excuses, that would mean they are inept, they cannot handle the situation and end up killing hundreds, thousands of innocent people. The obvious conclusion is they cannot be trusted with this situation anymore.

A third party dedicated to keeping the peace, perhaps a coalition from all over the world, is badly needed there for the safety mostly of Palestinians and it would serve to protect Israel also.

But for the world to continue to watch these horrors every few years is a crime in itself.

They are losing the respect of the world, so I don't understand what they are trying to do.

Israel needs a new government, the Palestinians if they feel protected, also need new leaders. The US has failed those innocent victims so should stay out of any plan to end this. We are complicit, not to mention our own brutal and illegal wars.

[SnakeEyes]

72. Hamas makes sure their targets

are surrounded by civilians.

Israel will stop when Hamas stops the rockets

[sabrina 1]

73. Hamas fired no rockets for 19 months, so stop trying to use that old excuse, no one is buying it

anymore. These tragic deaths of so many innocent people are all on Netanyahu and the world knows it.

[SnakeEyes]

74. Not true. they were fired

And the firing of rockets again is what led to the current action. If Hamas stops again, so will Israel. But if they start again, Israel will too

[seveneyes]

38. The same doctor Gilbert that said 9-11 was justified?

http://www.ngo-monitor.org/article/dr_mads_gilbert_exploiting_medicine_for_propaganda_and_hate

In addition, the centrality of his ideology was highlighted in comments following Al-Qaida's terrorist attacks on USA on September 11, 2001, in which Dr Gilbert expressed sympathy with the terrorists. Days after the atrocity, in an interview for the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet Gilbert said "The attack on New York did not come as a surprise after the policy that the West has led during the last decades...The oppressed also have a moral right to attack the USA with any weapon they can come up with." When asked directly in the same interview, "Do you support a terror attack against the USA?," Gilbert replied, "Terror is a bad weapon but the answer is yes within the context which I have mentioned."

[defacto7]

40. But there's a common fallacy here...

The fallacy of Tu Quoque or two wrongs make a right. They do not. And because he made a comment that we disagree with, it does not negate the message he sends now. Each belongs in its own argument.

[G_j]

65. the doctor is recounting his first hand experience

you can't get closer to the tragedy than this. Attempting to discount a first hand witness experience because of a political statement they made over a decade ago, doesn't work.

[defacto7]

66. Yes, that's what I'm saying.

What he said over a decade ago is not relevant to his present experience. The previous commenter was trying to imply that because the doctor made a statement long ago it negated his present experience. It's purely illogical.

Maybe you meant to reply to the previous comment.

[G_j]

68. Oh yes

I was agreeing with you, and echoing your point, sorry if I wasn't clear.

[defacto7]

69. A-OK

[defacto7]

39. I know there are a few....

but how many of us 'really' know the smell of mass blood? How about burnt flesh? Dying flesh? All these together?

Maybe there is a lesson here about how much we can empathize.

[countryjake]

42. Kicking for the heroes.

[DeSwiss]

47. K&R

- Mads Gilbert, MD, you could have saved your breath sir. You see, Mr. Obama gives no shits nor any damns about any dead or dying Palestinians.

He does not give one fuck. So he will be declining your invitation to come see the carnage and killings.







Never forget, it's kids and babies.

[littlemissmartypants]

51. Love, Peace and Shelter. littlemissmartypants

[Major Hogwash]

62. So far, 1/3rd of those killed in Gaza are children.

Not terrorists, not Hamas, not a threat to Israel.

Brian Williams reported on this tonight.
And he also said that for the last 2 days a child has been killed every hour of the day.