Share this if you agree that Israel has the right to self defense

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

http://news.yahoo.com/southern-israel-residents-scared-determined-193440738.html

Southern Israel residents scared but determined

By ARON HELLER | Associated Press – 1 hr 31 mins ago

BEERSHEBA, Israel (AP) — After days of incessant rocket fire, the largest city in southern Israel has been turned into a ghost town. Schools are closed, stores are shuttered and normally bustling streets are empty.

Aside from emergency errands, residents avoid the outdoors and hunker down in their homes around the clock. Yet they still insist the military should carry on with its offensive in Gaza, to eliminate the rocket threat against them once and for all.

"We're not heroes. It's scary but we must carry on," 60-year-old Richard Atwan said Sunday, sipping a cup of coffee in the nearly vacant Negev Mall. "We're prepared to suffer now, so that it will be better in the future."

Moments earlier, a siren had sent him and a dozen others scampering to a bomb shelter for cover. Crowded inside, they gasped as a pair of explosions was heard.

Atwan's first foray from home since fighting began ended minutes later when his phone rang. "It's my son," he said. "The rocket landed near our house and he's coming to get me."

In just five days of fighting, Israel has been struck by more than 550 rockets. Gaza militants have stunned Israelis by reaching further into their homeland than ever before, including the first ever attacks on the country's two largest cities, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Three Israelis have been killed and more than 60 injured.

Israel has carried out more than 1,000 strikes against militant sites in Gaza, targeting rocket launchers, weapons depots, and the homes and offices of Hamas leaders. The attacks have killed 70 Palestinians, including 36 civilians, according to Gaza health officials.

The vast majority of the Palestinian strikes on Israel have been in the south, where 1 million residents have faced the danger for more than a decade. The frequent attacks have caused occasional casualties and constant stress. Parents say their children have been traumatized by the sounds of sirens and explosions, while daily life and commerce has been disrupted.

Beersheba's nearly 200,000 residents live just 25 miles (40 kilometers) from Gaza.

Four years ago, they were hit with some 40 rockets in a 3-week war between Israel and Hamas militants. On Saturday alone they were targeted by nearly as many. Thanks to Israel's "Iron Dome" missile defense system, which knocked down about half of the projectiles, and residents who followed instructions to stay in shelters at home, no one was harmed.

At his weekly Cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the "restraint, determination and resilience" of the Israeli home front.

In his war room underneath City Hall, Mayor Ruvik Danilovich monitors the rocket strikes on interactive maps projected on giant plasma screens.

More than 100 have already hit his city and he oversees a relief effort that includes military and police personnel tasked with soothing a jittery public. In just a matter of days, Danilovich has been transformed from an administrator into a general.

"We've got all the time in the world to wait this out. And it will go on until the other side understands that there can be no more fire toward our cities," he said. "We are victims of terror, of crimes against humanity. We are innocent people who have harmed no one and are being attacked for no reason."

The moment she heard Israel had launched its Gaza campaign by assassinating the Hamas military commander last week, manicurist Adi Cherry called her salon saying she would not be going back to work. For five days she never left home, sleeping in the family shelter with her husband and 5-year-old daughter, Osher.

"She watches the news. She knows what's going on. She counts the booms she hears outside," Cherry said of her daughter. "But I have anxieties. I'm deathly scared."

On Sunday, she finally built up enough courage to return to work at the mall. There were barely any customers, but it was still busier than it had been in recent days.

Cherry couldn't relax, constantly checking her "Code Red" iPhone application that tracks where air raid sirens were sounding to warn of impending rocket strikes. Nearby were signs to the closest shelter.

"Yesterday I couldn't even go to the bathroom," she said. "Nearly every time I got to the door I heard a siren."

At the adjacent Aroma coffee shop, 15-year-old Shir Damari was enjoying a chocolate shake.

"It's my first time out of the house. I'm going crazy there. It's so boring and I'm getting fat because all I do is eat," the 10th-grader said. "I want to get out and see the world, but there is nowhere to go."

A few minutes later, the siren sounded. The Aroma waiters ushered Damari and others into the shelter.

"I'm so scared," she said.

Police said two people were slightly wounded in Sunday's attack. Afterward, the few shops that were open began shutting down, some out of fear, others for lack of clients.

The big-screen TV in the Foto Life shop blared news of the latest strike.

"It landed right next to my mom's place. She said the whole building shook," said Etti Gabai, a 45-year-old clerk. "She's not well. She had to take some anxiety pills to calm down."

At the Castro clothing store, one of the few shops to remain open, employees turned to the only topic in town.

Eden Lankri, a 21-year-old saleswoman, said she has been largely confined to her room and, making matters worse, her boyfriend had been called up for military reserve duty. Even so, she hoped the offensive would continue.

"We don't want a cease-fire yet. We can continue to absorb it all so long as eventually it will stop once and for all," she said. "If we stop now it will be a waste. There have to be results this time."

[himher 634]

We don't want a cease-fire about summarizes things

[himher 634]

We don't want a cease-fire about summarizes things

Until they do it is my opinion that they should slug it out. A back-slap / back-hand for either side if they kill any more Americans

Edited November 19, 2012 by himher

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

Until they do it is my opinion that they should slug it out. A back-slap / back-hand for either side if they kill any more Americans

They only way it's going to be resolved imo is if they slug it out. For the Americans who chance going into a war zone, or better yet the ones who try to stop CAT D-9's with their body...well that goes back to natural selection by nature.

[IR5FORMUMSIE 850]

Yeah I know and that's kind of my point. Israel is a true ally. It gives and takes. Others only take. We share technologies, intelligence, military knowledge and strategies(for instance Israel's experience with urban area battles has helped the US alot in Iraq and Afghanistan and there's Marines training in Israel all the time). It's a mutual beneficial relationship.

Not like Canada, I suppose.

[OriZ 3,157]

Brigitte Gabriel's speech she made at duke university

"I'm proud and honored to stand here today as a Lebanese speaking for Israel, the only democracy in the...Middle East. As someone who was raised in an Arabic country, I want to give you a glimpse into the heart of the Arabic world.

I was raised in Lebanon where I was taught that the Jews are evil, Israel is the devil, and the only time we will have peace in the Middle East is when we kill all the Jews and drive them into the sea.

When the Muslims and Palestinians declared jihad on the Christians in 1975, they started massacring the Christians city after city. I ended up living in a bomb shelter underground from age 10 to 17, without electricity, eating grass to live, and crawling under sniper bullets to a spring to get water.

It was Israel who came to help the Christians in Lebanon. My mother was wounded by a Muslim shell and was taken into an Israeli hospital for treatment. When we entered the emergency room, I was shocked at what I saw. There were hundreds of people wounded, Muslims, Palestinians, Lebanese Christians, and Israeli soldiers lying on the floor. The doctors treated everyone according to their injury. They treated my mother before they treated the Israeli soldier lying next to her. They didn't see religion, they didn't see political affiliation; they saw people in need and they helped.

For the first time in my life, I experienced a human quality that I know my culture would not have shown to their enemy. I experienced the values of the Israelis, who were able to love their enemy in their most trying moments. I spent 22 days at that hospital; those days changed my life and the way I believe information, the way I listen to the radio or to television. I realized that I was sold a fabricated lie by my government about the Jews and Israel, which was so far from reality. I knew for a fact that if I were a Jew standing in an Arab hospital, I would be lynched and thrown to the ground as shouts of joy of “Allahu Akbar” (God is great) echoed through the hospital and the surrounding streets.

I became friends with the families of the wounded Israeli soldiers, one in particular, Rina, whose only child was wounded in his eyes. One day, I was visiting with her and the Israeli army band came to play national songs to lift the spirits of the wounded soldiers. As they surrounded his bed playing a song about Jerusalem, Rina and I started crying. I felt out of place and started walking out of the room, and this mother held my hand and pulled me back in without even looking at me. She held me, crying, and said, "It is not your fault." We just stood there, crying, holding each other's hands.

What a contrast between her—a mother looking at her deformed, 19-year-old only child and still able to love me, the enemy—and a Muslim mother who sends her son to blow himself up to smithereens just to kill a few Jews or Christians.

The difference between the Arabic world and Israel is a difference in values and character. It's barbarism versus civilization. It's democracy versus dictatorship. It's goodness versus evil.

Once upon a time, there was a special place in the lowest depths of hell for anyone who would intentionally murder a child. Now, the intentional murder of Israeli children is legitimized as Palestinian "armed struggle." However, once such behavior is legitimized against Israel, it is legitimized everywhere in the world, constrained by nothing more than the subjective belief of people who would wrap themselves in dynamite and nails for the purpose of killing children in the name of god.

Because the Palestinians have been encouraged to believe that murdering innocent Israeli civilians is a legitimate tactic for advancing their cause, the whole world now suffers from a plague of terrorism, from Nairobi to New York, from Moscow to Madrid, from Bali to Beslan.

They blame suicide bombings on the "desperation of occupation." Let me tell you the truth. The first major terror bombing committed by Arabs against the Jewish state occurred 10 weeks before Israel even became independent. On Sunday morning, February 22, 1948, in anticipation of Israel 's independence, a triple truck bomb was detonated by Arab terrorists on Ben Yehuda Street in what was then the Jewish section of Jerusalem. Fifty-four people were killed and hundreds were wounded.

Thus, it is obvious that Arab terrorism is caused not by "desperation" or "occupation", but by the VERY THOUGHT of a Jewish state.

So many times in history in the last 100 years, citizens have stood by and done nothing, allowing evil to prevail. As America stood up against and defeated communism, now it is time to stand up against the terror of religious bigotry and intolerance. It's time for everyone to stand up and support and defend the State of Israel, which is the front line of the war against terrorism.

Thank you."

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

http://news.yahoo.com/israel-ready-gaza-invasion-prefers-diplomatic-solution-official-111632761.html

Israel ready for Gaza invasion, prefers diplomatic solution: official

Reuters – 14 mins ago

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel is ready for a ground invasion in the Gaza Strip but prefers a diplomatic solution, a senior official close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday.

"We would prefer to see a diplomatic solution that would guarantee the peace for Israel's population in the south. If that is possible, then a ground operation would no longer be required," the official told Reuters. "But if diplomacy fails, we may well have no alternative but to send in ground forces."

Edited November 19, 2012 by Bad_Daddy

[himher 634]

I know you like to be part of the hoodwinked America. The hoodwinked America is good for expansion <wink wink>

You otherwise know nothing of Americans and American values.

When I truly believed that Isreal was under attack and at war I believed in them and supported them. I have come to realize that though the media says you are constantly under horrible attacks (that only kill 10, 15 people annually while you return the favor in the hundreds)it is evident that you are no better and no different than your Arab cousins. You just have better DJ's. LOL

Do I believe you have the right to defend yourself? Everyone has the right to defend themselves. Including those who have their homes bulldozed and those who have been driven into barbed-wire camps (once known as concentration camps now known as palastenian refugee camps)

A teeny little secret about America sport. Your "conservative" christian buddies pray every sunday for Isreal to be attacked so that Jesus can save them (and you) just as you are on the brink of destruction and take you all into heaven to drink wine and sit around in white robes or some such all day. THAT is actually mainstream America and their hopes dont have a happy ending for you. Sorry to break the news sport.

This is one of those dirtly little things not discussed at parties though. Kind of how the Sanhedran teaches it's required to treat Jews one way, but quite OK to treat non-Jews a completely different way. Perhaps I should post some of my favorites from those writings. The ones about honesty would be good.

You probably dont discuss this with your "conservative buddies" either.

I have little further patience for your nonsense or your speeches or your cut and pasted commercials. You have a mind so speak - it's America and you are free to. What do I see on TV stations that we dont really watch here is a lot of dead women and children over around your borders with your big brave soldiers standing around smiling about it.

You lack so much basic understanding of so many things that talking to you is kind of pointless. Fortunately though, most Americans are nothing like you so don't act like you are speaking on their behalf. That's the America I'm proud to be part of. Not your kind of America.

[OriZ 3,157]

You can keep saying I know nothing about America till you're blue in the face and I'll keep saying the truth which is I know alot more than you, see where that gets us.

And in case you haven't noticed(well sure ya haven't, doesn't seem that intelligence is one of your virtues) I said I have friends on all camps. And, what you are doing is yet again, generalizing, and saying inaccuracies to say the least.

I'm free to speak whether it was America or Israel, however your Muslim buddies in my neighborhood don't offer the same freedom to their residents. And yes you are correct - there's alot of dead women and children here. But once again you fail to notice the soldiers you are talking about are anything but Israeli - they can be Syrian, Egyptian, Libyan, you pick.

It is blatantly clear to anyone who has half a brain you do not have a clue as to what you're talking about. Like I said, Thank God most Americans are nothing like you and your "values".

Edited November 19, 2012 by OriZ

[OriZ 3,157]

Edited November 19, 2012 by OriZ

[Krikit 1,165]

Post containing personal attack removed, along with the one quoting it. Further such posts will result in a thread ban.

[OriZ 3,157]

WASHINGTON - A majority of Americans believe that Israel's current military strikes against terrorists in Gaza are justified, according to a CNN/ORC International poll released Monday.

The national survey indicates that 57% of the American public says Israel is justified in taking military action in Gaza against Hamas, with one in four saying the attacks are unjustified.

"Although most Americans think the Israeli actions are justified, there are key segments of the public who don't necessarily feel that way," CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said. "Only four in 10 Democrats think the Israeli actions in Gaza are justified, compared to 74% of Republicans and 59% of independents. Support for Israel's military action is 13 points higher among men than among women, and 15 points higher among older Americans than among younger Americans."

According to the survey, nearly six in 10 say their sympathies are with the Israelis, with 13% saying they side more with the Palestinians and 11% saying their sympathies are with neither side in the conflict.

"That's nothing new," Holland added. "The number of Americans who sympathize more with the Palestinians has never been higher than 18% since the question was first asked in 1988. Sympathies for Israel have sometimes dipped below 50%, but have been over that mark for the past eight years."

It should be noted that the findings of the CNN survey coincide with polls taken during calmer periods. The fact that the number of Americans who support Israel (usually around 60%) did not dip during the Gaza operation may encourage those in charge of Israel's public relations efforts.

The CNN poll was conducted by ORC International from November 16-18, with 1,023 adult Americans questioned by telephone. The survey's overall sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points.

God Bless America.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

WASHINGTON - A majority of Americans believe that Israel's current military strikes against terrorists in Gaza are justified, according to a CNN/ORC International poll released Monday.

The national survey indicates that 57% of the American public says Israel is justified in taking military action in Gaza against Hamas, with one in four saying the attacks are unjustified.

"Although most Americans think the Israeli actions are justified, there are key segments of the public who don't necessarily feel that way," CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said. "Only four in 10 Democrats think the Israeli actions in Gaza are justified, compared to 74% of Republicans and 59% of independents. Support for Israel's military action is 13 points higher among men than among women, and 15 points higher among older Americans than among younger Americans."

According to the survey, nearly six in 10 say their sympathies are with the Israelis, with 13% saying they side more with the Palestinians and 11% saying their sympathies are with neither side in the conflict.

"That's nothing new," Holland added. "The number of Americans who sympathize more with the Palestinians has never been higher than 18% since the question was first asked in 1988. Sympathies for Israel have sometimes dipped below 50%, but have been over that mark for the past eight years."

It should be noted that the findings of the CNN survey coincide with polls taken during calmer periods. The fact that the number of Americans who support Israel (usually around 60%) did not dip during the Gaza operation may encourage those in charge of Israel's public relations efforts.

The CNN poll was conducted by ORC International from November 16-18, with 1,023 adult Americans questioned by telephone. The survey's overall sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points.

God Bless America.

We usually cite articles posted here, so that the source can be considered, among other reasons.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4308669,00.html

[himher 634]

There was also a lot of propaganda passed around in the 1920's and 1930's in Germany. The purpose of that propaganda was to establish public justification for ethnic cleansing. It was wrong then and it is wrong now and the people who fell for it then are just as stupid as the people who fall for it now. Summary: You can keep your silly posters (unless you want to include a blind soldier on a bulldozer? No? Well alrighty then)

My "Muslim buddies" in Saudi where I lived and worked had no problem with anything I had to say. It was not my sandbox either - it was theirs. Since I've been there and done that your neighborhood stories don't cut any ice with me either which makes me believe that perhaps your "different" experience is lack of ability to play well with others and not your neighbors at all. Just sayin'

In your excitement to cut and paste all kinds of propaganda ####### you forgot the most important statistic of all: Since 1998, roughly three-fourths of respondents have said the United States should take neither side in the conflict

OOPS. That would be me. That, sport, is AMERICA.

God Bless America (and God Bless Texas)

You can keep saying I know nothing about America till you're blue in the face and I'll keep saying the truth which is I know alot more than you, see where that gets us.

And in case you haven't noticed(well sure ya haven't, doesn't seem that intelligence is one of your virtues) I said I have friends on all camps. And, what you are doing is yet again, generalizing, and saying inaccuracies to say the least.

I'm free to speak whether it was America or Israel, however your Muslim buddies in my neighborhood don't offer the same freedom to their residents. And yes you are correct - there's alot of dead women and children here. But once again you fail to notice the soldiers you are talking about are anything but Israeli - they can be Syrian, Egyptian, Libyan, you pick.

It is blatantly clear to anyone who has half a brain you do not have a clue as to what you're talking about. Like I said, Thank God most Americans are nothing like you and your "values".

Edited November 20, 2012 by himher

[Póg mo 1,749]

[quote name=' timestamp='1353128006' post='5827162]

Is this some kind of joke?