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[PDJane]

1. That's not terribly helpful.........nor true. Great propaganda, though.

[Mosby]

10. Sam Harris is being truthful

So you throw him under the bus.

who's the propagandist?

[geek tragedy]

17. Truthful in that Dick Cheney, Richard Perle sort of way nt

[Spider Jerusalem]

2. Sorry, but...

regardless of what the religious/political views of groups like Hamas are, it doesn't excuse Israel's actions in abrogating its responsibilities under international law w/r/t the occupied territories, nor does it excuse the fact that Israel's treatment of the Palestinians amounts to de facto apartheid. Saying "Hamas is bad, so I won't criticise Israel" betrays a fundamental ignorance; Israel welcomed Hamas as a means of destabilising the secular Fatah. They created the problem through tacit support and encouragement of Hamas.

[cheapdate]

4. I believe Harris said far, far, more than "Hamas is bad".

"Consider the moral difference between using human shields and being deterred by them. That is the difference we’re talking about. The Israelis and other Western powers are deterred, however imperfectly, by the Muslim use of human shields in these conflicts, as we should be. It is morally abhorrent to kill noncombatants if you can avoid it. It’s certainly abhorrent to shoot through the bodies of children to get at your adversary. But take a moment to reflect on how contemptible this behavior is. And understand how cynical it is. The Muslims are acting on the assumption—the knowledge, in fact—that the infidels with whom they fight, the very people whom their religion does nothing but vilify, will be deterred by their use of Muslim human shields. They consider the Jews the spawn of apes and pigs—and yet they rely on the fact that they don’t want to kill Muslim noncombatants. [Note: The term “Muslims” in this paragraph means “Muslim combatants” of the sort that Western forces have encountered in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. The term “jihadists” would have been too narrow, but I was not suggesting that all Muslims support the use of human shields or are anti-Semitic, at war with the West, etc.]

Now imagine reversing the roles here. Imagine how fatuous—indeed comical it would be—for the Israelis to attempt to use human shields to deter the Palestinians. Some claim that they have already done this. There are reports that Israeli soldiers have occasionally put Palestinian civilians in front of them as they’ve advanced into dangerous areas. That’s not the use of human shields we’re talking about. It’s egregious behavior. No doubt it constitutes a war crime. But Imagine the Israelis holding up their own women and children as human shields. Of course, that would be ridiculous. The Palestinians are trying to kill everyone. Killing women and children is part of the plan. Reversing the roles here produces a grotesque Monty Python skit."

[stranger81]

8. This is racist, dehumanizing, reductionist

bullshit at its finest.

[geek tragedy]

11. any other PNAC talking points you want to fit in there? How about 'dhimmis' and 'Islamofascism?'

Reminder that the body count is about 1000 dead Palestinian civilians and 3 Israeli ones.

[Mosby]

15. is dhimmitude a western invention?

like it or not, Islam has aspects that are clearly bigoted.

BTW there are 52 IDF fatalities not 2.

[geek tragedy]

16. it's a term that went unused for centuries until Neocon bigots started trotting it out

to smear anyone who didn't want to kill a bunch of Muslims.

[stranger81]

19. But since Israeli lives are worth so much more,

Harris may see the count as roughly even.

[Spider Jerusalem]

12. That's a bullshit accusation.

While human rights organizations haven’t yet addressed “human shields” allegations in the ongoing round of Israel-Gaza violence, they did after the 2009 round when Israel killed at least 773 Palestinian civilians, compared to three Israeli civilian casualties (a ratio of 257:1), and used the same “human shields” argument to deflect responsibility for those deaths. When the dust settled, Amnesty International investigated the matter and concluded that there was “no evidence that [Palestinian] rockets were launched from residential houses or buildings while civilians were in these buildings.” More attention-worthy was the report’s note that,

in the cases of [Israeli] precision missiles or tank shells which killed [Palestinian] civilians in their homes, no fighters were present in the houses that were struck and Amnesty International delegates found no indication that there had been any armed confrontations or other military activity in the immediate vicinity at the time of the attack.

Israel’s Use of Human Shields

By contrast, the same report found that “in several cases Israeli soldiers also used [Palestinian] civilians, including children, as ‘human shields’.” Going back in time just a little further to put this into context is important: when the Israeli Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that the Israeli military had to stop using Palestinian civilians as human shields, the Israeli “defense” establishment objected to the ruling. The appeal against the ruling failed, and the practice remains technically illegal, but Israel implicitly encourages it to continue by offering an “inadequate … slap on the wrist,” as Human Rights Watch put it, to Israeli soldiers caught using this reprehensible tactic.

This reveals two important things: the first is the moral hypocrisy and chutzpah on display when Israel ignores its own use of human shields as it accuses its enemies of using them. The second is Israel’s self-contradicting logic: If Palestinian militants had such disregard for Palestinian civilian lives, why was the Israeli military so invested in maintaining the ability to use Palestinians as shields? The fact that the Israeli army wants to use Palestinian human shields actually proves that they believe Palestinian militants prefer not to endanger their own civilians.

http://www.salon.com/2014/07/18/israels_military_has_no_moral_superiority_and_its_time_the_media_covered_gaza_fairly/

[AgingAmerican]

14. Wow!

Dick, is that you?

[cheapdate]

3. Wow. n/t

[stranger81]

5. Hamas may talk genocide,

but it's Israel that practices it.

Sam Harris is way off base on this one, and frankly does so much back pedaling that he sounds uneducated about the conflict.

[geek tragedy]

6. Same crap the Neocons have been peddling since 9/12/01.

And, there is no great moral divide. Israel's big debate isn't peace vs war, it's whether they should emulate PW Botha or Slobo Milosevic in dealing with the Palestinians.

[JI7]

7. ISIS and Al Qaeda are mostly attacking other Muslims, this is typical right wing ignorant crap

stuff like "they hate us for our freedoms".

and i do agree that there are many who hate Israel, and more specifically Jewish people. we see attacks around the world right now for this.

but the stuff in your post is mostly right wing

[LeftyMom]

9. Sam Harris is notoriously racist. He defends profiling.

He's a big fan of wars against countries that happen to be Muslim. For an atheist his feelings about religions are... tellingly uneven.

You should read more before reposting his bullshit.

[bemildred]

13. Sorry, not joining your crusade. nt

[Iggo]

18. Oy vey.