Palestinian Twins Born Under Rocket Fire from Gaza

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Oh what fun. The same kinds of arguments and disagreements (which seem so petty here), kill and otherwise destroy lives constantly in the Middle East (on both sides of this line of hatred). And the continued fighting is what continues the hatred and also continues to make more terrorists (again on both sides - terrorists come in many forms in this conflict).

Yeah I guess this is a sicko's kind of fun. Too bad there are so many sickos and people enjoy the provoking and fighting, rather than working for peace. I think I'll stick to visa threads from now on, as I don't see anything productive going on here.

very easy solution..come to the table with a credible government on both side that can negociate an agreement and live up it.

Stating that your platform is to destroy the other will not work. Initiating terrorist attacks against the civilian population of the other will not do it, but will only invite a bigger response from the other side.

As long as the existing mentality continues, Israel will continue to defend itself.

Seems like a few of their neighbors have already come to the table with agreements and seem to have minimal problems co-exisiting with Israel.

Hm, I think it's probably easier to co-exist peacefully with Israel if they haven't stolen most of your homeland. Going against international law and building their beautiful settlements on what used to be someone else's home (people who now live in desperation in refugee camps).

Part of your solution above seems to be to blame the Palestinians for the violence. I think a true solution will be when both sides make concessions and compromises, and both accept shares of the 'blame' in this problem. Israel does more than just defend itself. It goes above and beyond that to making the lives of ALL Palestinians difficult, and who is to say that their overly oppressive reactions aren't part of the reason that the violence of Palestinians continues, and that Palestinians would turn to groups like Hamas to lead them?

Both sides act like they want to destroy each other. And one of them still owes the other their land back according to international law. So logically, how can anyone be so simplistic as to blame only the Palestinians for what is going on?

It should also be pointed out that there are indeed Jewish terrorist groups operating out of the disputed settlements. Terrorism isn't just a strategy employed by Hamas - though without a regular army or modern weapons its not really surprising that they're using the tactics they do. Israel has both an experienced modern military, and homegrown extremist organisations.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Oh what fun. The same kinds of arguments and disagreements (which seem so petty here), kill and otherwise destroy lives constantly in the Middle East (on both sides of this line of hatred). And the continued fighting is what continues the hatred and also continues to make more terrorists (again on both sides - terrorists come in many forms in this conflict).

Yeah I guess this is a sicko's kind of fun. Too bad there are so many sickos and people enjoy the provoking and fighting, rather than working for peace. I think I'll stick to visa threads from now on, as I don't see anything productive going on here.

very easy solution..come to the table with a credible government on both side that can negociate an agreement and live up it.

Stating that your platform is to destroy the other will not work. Initiating terrorist attacks against the civilian population of the other will not do it, but will only invite a bigger response from the other side.

As long as the existing mentality continues, Israel will continue to defend itself.

Seems like a few of their neighbors have already come to the table with agreements and seem to have minimal problems co-exisiting with Israel.

Exactly. Have enough self control to stop the rocket fire and see what happens. But I have a feeling the Palestinians like to play the victim.

[desert_fox 32]

Exactly. Have enough self control to stop the rocket fire and see what happens. But I have a feeling the Palestinians like to play the victim.

They have their own PR Spokespersons. One that posts on here quite often.

Its international law that a country has the right to defend itself.

Its well known if you hit them back than they hit you....that this should have some kind of deterrent effect.....but when you have religious extremists (on both sides I might add), that cconvince these idiots that they going to heaven....etc.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Exactly. Have enough self control to stop the rocket fire and see what happens. But I have a feeling the Palestinians like to play the victim.

They have their own PR Spokespersons. One that posts on here quite often.

Its international law that a country has the right to defend itself.

Its well known if you hit them back than they hit you....that this should have some kind of deterrent effect.....but when you have religious extremists (on both sides I might add), that cconvince these idiots that they going to heaven....etc.

When we're essentially talking about the military occupation of a largely civilian population, it would be a stretch to call it "defense", especially when that policy has historically involved collective punishment and the destruction of residential neighborhoods as an act of retaliation. This is what the international community has been saying for years.

The problem here is that the religious nuts on both sides have the ear of their respective governments - making any resolution or compromise all but impossible. The situation is worse now, given the way that Palestinian government has splintered.

That being the case - the situation in Israel is perhaps worse than its ever been. And that is in noone's best interests...

[mawilson 2,133]

Exactly. Have enough self control to stop the rocket fire and see what happens. But I have a feeling the Palestinians like to play the victim.

They have their own PR Spokespersons. One that posts on here quite often.

Its international law that a country has the right to defend itself.

Its well known if you hit them back than they hit you....that this should have some kind of deterrent effect.....but when you have religious extremists (on both sides I might add), that cconvince these idiots that they going to heaven....etc.

When we're essentially talking about the military occupation of a largely civilian population, it would be a stretch to call it "defense"

But we're not. Israel has no military presence in Gaza. They do have control over activities that rely

on transit through Israel, and they do control the air space and sea access to ports in Gaza, but it would

be a stretch to call that "military occupation".

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Exactly. Have enough self control to stop the rocket fire and see what happens. But I have a feeling the Palestinians like to play the victim.

They have their own PR Spokespersons. One that posts on here quite often.

Its international law that a country has the right to defend itself.

Its well known if you hit them back than they hit you....that this should have some kind of deterrent effect.....but when you have religious extremists (on both sides I might add), that cconvince these idiots that they going to heaven....etc.

When we're essentially talking about the military occupation of a largely civilian population, it would be a stretch to call it "defense"

But we're not. Israel has no military presence in Gaza. They do have control over activities that rely

on transit through Israel, and they do control the air space and sea access to ports in Gaza, but it would

be a stretch to call that "military occupation".

Would it?

It is what it is.

[LaL 418]

This thread is closed pending review.

[William33 110]

This thread is closed for violating the TOS.

[eric&gen 0]

When a Palestinian woman gave birth to twins in an Israeli hospital she experienced what it is like to be the target of rocket fire from the Gaza Strip

The humming noise in the sky over Beit Lahia grows slowly louder. It sounds as if the buzzing of a hornet were being amplified by loud speakers in a football stadium. Residents of the Gaza Strip call them "Sannana," or the humming ones, the small unmanned drones that the Israelis use to scan the border region for rocket commandos -- and then to liquidate them with precisely targeted missiles.

Ashraf Shafii has climbed onto the roof his house and is looking across strawberry fields toward the border wall. The smoke-belching towers of the power plant in the Israeli city of Ashkelon jut into the sky along the horizon. His wife is over there in Ashkelon today.

Shafii, a 34-year-old lab technician at the Islamic University of Gaza, glances at his six-year-old daughter. "We were so desperate to have more children," he says. For years, he waited in vain for his wife to bear a son. When she turned 30, the couple decided to get fertility treatment.

Iman Shafii finally became pregnant. During an ultrasound examination, doctors discovered four small embryos. The first died in the fifth month of pregnancy and the second died a few weeks later. Shafii was admitted to the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, but the condition of the two remaining embryos became increasingly fragile. "You have to go to Israel," the doctor told her.

Because Israel refuses to engage in any contact with the authorities in Hamas-controlled Gaza, patients turn to private brokers who submit their entry applications to the Palestinian Authority of moderate President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah. But it can be a lengthy process.

The Shafiis were lucky. Iman was permitted to enter Israel after only 24 hours. She took a taxi to a spot near the Eres border crossing, and then she was pushed in a wheelchair across the last 500 meters of bumpy ground. She reached the Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon just in time. She gave birth on Feb. 25, by Caesarean section, to a girl, Bayan, and to the couple's long-awaited son, Faisal.

Iman Shafii, 32, wearing a headscarf and oval glasses, and speaking in a soft voice, sits on a chair between two incubators. Today is the first day she is permitted to hold her babies in her arms. A nurse brings out the boy first, then the girl. As the tears well up in her eyes, Shafii kisses her children on their foreheads. "If the children had stayed in Gaza, they would not have survived," she says.

Her only impression of Israel has been the one she gets on Palestinian television, which usually shows tanks and soldiers, and celebrates attacks, like the recent shooting inside a Talmud school in Jerusalem, as acts of heroism. But now a doctor wearing a yarmulke walks into the room, says "Shalom" and asks her in English how she is feeling.

Dr. Shmuel Zangen, the director of the hospital's neonatal unit, doesn't care who he treats. "As a doctor, I enjoy the privilege of not having to think about it," he says. "It certainly is odd that we take care of Palestinian children while they shoot at us. It's the sort of thing that only happens in the Middle East."

'Not a Just War'

In the past, Shafii saw the Israelis exclusively as perpetrators, but in Ashkelon she is encountering, for the first time, victims of the acts of terror committed by her own people. One of them is nine-year-old Yossi, who is sitting in a wheelchair. A steel frame holds his left shoulder together. It was fractured by shrapnel from a rocket that landed in the city of Sderot. "The people in Sderot are suffering just as we are in Gaza," she says.

There was a sharp increase in the Palestinian rocket attacks after Israel cleared the Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip in September 2005. The Israeli military counted 2,305 hits last year, and there have already been 1,146 in the first two months of this year. Until now, almost all of the missiles have been Qassam rockets, which are made in the Gaza Strip and have a range of about 12 kilometers (seven miles).

But the breaching of the border fence between the Gaza Strip and Egypt by Hamas in January made it possible to bring in Russian and Iranian rockets with longer ranges. This means that cities considered safe in the past are now threatened. One of them is Ashkelon. On the second day after the birth of Bayan and Faisal, a Soviet-made "Grad" rocket landed on the hospital grounds. "I heard it hit, 200 meters away from me," says Shafii. The neonatal unit was moved to a bunker the next day. "The groups that are firing the rockets are not fighting a just war," says the Palestinian mother, adding that they are not abiding by what the Prophet Muhammad said: that wars may only be waged between soldiers, but not against civilians.

The buzzing drone in the sky over Beit Lahia has flown away to the south. The sound of an Israeli missile striking its target can be heard a short time later. Within a few minutes, there are reports that a member of the group Islamic Jihad was killed.

Ashraf Shafii describes how young, masked men repeatedly set up their rocket launchers under the cover of houses in Beit Lahia. "They shoot at Israeli civilians, which is completely unacceptable," says Shafii. "And they put us Palestinian civilians in grave danger, because the Israelis shoot back."

Why doesn't he object? "They are armed," says Shafii, "and they shoot at anyone who gets in their way."

The father is holding the first photos of his newborn twins in his hands. He is worried about the rockets being fired at Ashkelon. He says that he would never have believed it possible that he could be indebted to the Israelis for anything. "What a confusing situation," he says.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/...,540689,00.html

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"Tyrants from Hitler to Mao to Stalin have sought to disarm their own citizens, for the simple reason that unarmed people are easier to control. Our Founders, having just expelled the British army, knew that the right to bear arms serves as the guardian of every other right. This is the principle so often ignored by both sides in the gun control debate. Only armed citizens can resist tyrannical government."

-Ron Paul, June 26, 2006

[sparkofcreation 0]

Resurrecting two locked posts on the same day? Man, you're just *begging* to be suspended, aren't you?

[Ban Hammer 13,643]

deja vu.

[eric&gen 0]

I am doing something called freedom of speech just watch what you say looool.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Let's talk about this story without it getting personal.

[Dan J 277]

I am doing something called freedom of speech just watch what you say looool.

This site can set whatever rules it wants. But you do have the right to take your speech elsewhere.

[eric&gen 0]

I am doing something called freedom of speech just watch what you say looool.

This site can set whatever rules it wants. But you do have the right to take your speech elsewhere.

So you dont want to have rights to speak your mind with in reason here you let the mods bully you around suck up lol.