Israel arrests senior Hamas lawmaker AP

[madokie]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060820/ap_on_re_mi_ea/isra...

RAMALLAH, West Bank - Israeli troops detained a senior Hamas legislator on Sunday, pushing forward with a crackdown on the Islamic militant group, Palestinian officials and relatives of the man said.

Troops surrounded the home of Mahmoud al-Ramahi, secretary-general of the parliament, in broad daylight and detained him, said his sister, Yaqeen.

Al-Ramahi had evaded arrest since Israel began its crackdown on Hamas officials following the June 25 abduction of an Israeli soldier by Hamas-linked militants in the Gaza Strip. Israel is now holding five Cabinet ministers and more than two dozen lawmakers.

The Israeli army had no immediate comment.

[madrchsod]

1. isn`t the hamas the democratically elected government of Palestine?

interesting...i guess a country that doesn`t like their neighbors democratically government can arrest their leaders. what a novel concept

[azurnoir]

14. Maybe someone could tell

Canada, heck Canada and the US could do each other a mutual favor for that matter.

[SweetLeftFoot]

2. Unbelievable

Israel whines on and on about the need for democracy in Palestine and Lebanon, and then when the people do vote in free and fair elections, attacks them anyway.

[madokie]

4. I have lost faith in Israel ever doing the right thing

they have a weird sense of fairness if you ask me.

[eccles12]

3. What is unbelievable is that the rest of the world stands by and allows

this to take place without any penalties imposed on Israel. Just what would happen if Hizbollah began taking leaders of Israeli government as prisoner, arresting folks as they resided peacefully in their homes? There would be such an outcry as was the case when Hizbollah captured two Israeli IDF soldiers out in a war zone.

[The Sower]

5. So much for democracy.

Those troublesome Palestinians just won't elect the people Israel wants them to.

[msmcghee]

6. Damn those Joooos.

With the recent spate of Katyusha's being fired from Gaza, gunmen killing Israeli soldiers at checkpoints, recent kidnappings of IDF and attempts by Hamas terrorists to enter Israel with explosives strapped to their bodies - Israel arrests the leaders of the group that organizes and trains the terrorists and finances the ongoing slaughter of Israeli civilians?

Obviously, this is the work of deranged maniacs, Can't they understand that have no right to defend themselves from attack like other nations. They're Jooos damn it. Won't they ever learn?

[breakaleg]

7. Israel at all costs right? All other be damned?

If this kind of post is indicative of the majority opinion in Israel, then it looks like they brought these problems on themselves.

[Igel]

8. The same could be said of Hamas.

When they get a country, things, I would assume, will be different.

Right now they're in a gray area: they have a democratically elected government in an occupied territory of no country, with sections of the government devoted to destroying the occupier--not just driving him from the country. (And, yes, terms shift meaning in that sentence.)

[breakaleg]

9. You are comparing an invading Army to a resistance organization.

I think their methods are more a product of their different positions. One marches into Gaza with bulldozers and machine guns, and the other uses what they can get ahold of to fight back.

I expect more from Israel, not less. They shouldn't abuse their power, the should be more responsible with it. And they are the opposite.

[Igel]

10. Yes.

And arresting them is part of the resistance resistance. Certainly better than having a 500 lb bomb land on them as they eat their lamb. Best would be for no need for arresting them, and for there to be a country. But for that, there needs to be at least some shared perceptions. There are none.

I don't like Hamas, because I don't like theocrats saying they have a right to land because it's sacred to them. I'd probably be opposed to Zionists, if I were 47 years old and it was 1921. Why impose yourself on a bunch of claustrophobic xenophobes? But it's done.

I expect more from those that call themselves the best of communities, but who seem to command evil and prevent good, whatever their backgrounds and whatever they call themselves.

[breakaleg]

11. Arresting them is debatable to me.

They seem to arrest them arbitrarily, and then hold no court trial, and let them rot in jail. Where is the double checking mechanism to prove they are guilty of the crime they are accused of?

And they don't just arrest them - the kidnap them and kill innocent civilians around them in the process. And they bulldoze their homes. They bulldoze the homes of people in the occupied terriroties without cause, and without justification.

And are any of the IDF soldiers charged with murder? Why not? Why the double standard?

It makes no sense.

[msmcghee]

16. You should study a little history.

For 5000 years at least - and up until recently - people in this part of the world have been having wars - or battles actually, where city-states were put under siege. The cities had high walls and were self contained with water springs and food stores to last months. Because if they fell to the attackers - every person in the city was either tortured and killed or put into slavery. One reason the Crusades lasted so long and resulted in the deaths of so many Christians is that those Europeans had no idea (at first) who they were fucking with. As time went by European monarchs and popes simply saw it as an effective and "holy" way to get rid of the millions of children who could not be fed under the existing feudal economy.

There were no trials or tribunals to see who was guilty - or not. If you won you won everything including the lives and all the property and possessions of the defeated. If you lost you lost your life as well as the lives of every member of your family and all your friends and fellow city-zens. Such "rules of engagement" made for enthusiastic fighters.

Today, many Arabs have adopted western ways and sensibilities and would prefer to live in a democratic state - if they could. Many of those Arabs now live in places like Detroit. I suspect that many who cling to the old ways and remain in places like Gaza (or S. Lebanon) have found the intifada-like existence to their liking. At least the TV pictures of the demonstrations bear this out as do the pronouncement of the occasional Hamas or Hizbullah leader re-dedicating his life to Israel's destruction. Unfortunately, it only takes a minority of those clinging to the old ways to make a peaceful existence impossible.

Blood feuds are common in Arab culture. Gun fights using assault rifles and RPG's erupt in the street between rival gangs in almost all Arab countries that don't have Saddam Hussein-like dictators clamping down on dissent - and even in those that do. The Muslim religion is often used to institutionalize the patriarchal strong-man mode of control. Male honor is achieved through death - either your's or your enemy's. Israel and her Jews are the sworn blood enemies of almost all Arabs in those cultures - whether they are part of the old or new ways. They are taught in school at a young age that Jews are cunning and evil monsters who drink the blood of the Arab babies they kill - stories much like those told to German children in the thirties.

Unfortunately, what this means is that for Israel to exist with any real security for her citizens - Israel must become a monster - as far as Arab terrorist societies (those that have pledged to Israel's destruction) are concerned. These people can not be reasoned with. They will not stop killing Jews until they are all dead. All Israel can do, all any society can do under those conditions, is drop all pretense of fairness and civility and hope to keep the level of killings to an acceptable level through sometimes brutal control of the Arab population.

Many here already see me as a heartless neo-con sympathizer for these anti-Arab opinions. I submit that my views are closer to mainstream Dems than your's. I only ask for you to show me one case where kindness and attempts to reach agreements by the Israelis was not met with scorn and seen as an indication of Israel's weakness - a reason to step up the attacks and finish her off. If there was any evidence that anything less than brutal treatment would work to save both Israeli and Arab lives - please show it to me. And whilke you're at it you could explain why Israel has had peaceful relations with both Egypt and Jordan for many years now - if Israel is out to "oppress" Arabs, as you say.

Those here who worry that Israel is not respecting the democratically elected government of Gaza are laughingly naive. The Palestinians of Gaza elected a terrorist militia for God's sake, to run their affairs. After taking power Hamas was begged to just renounce their vow to destroy Israel - and they fucking refused. Think about that. Even though they have already killed thousands of Israeli civilians with their truck bombs and suicide belts and Katyusha's - they were only asked to say they would stop working to destroy the state of Israel now that they were democratically elected to speak for the Palestinians in Gaza - and they fucking refused.

People here have absolutely no idea what it means to have someone living a few miles from you, who has sworn to kill you and your children, people who are captured daily trying to cross your borders with explosives strapped to their waists and who send rockets filled with high explosives toward the schools where your small children are not being taught that Arabs are evil monsters. I want to shake you people. I want to say - imagine if these people were trying to kill your children. What if they were raising their seven year olds to grow up to kill your kids as soon as he could handle an AK47. What would you expect, no - what would you demand your government do about it? You'd demand they put a stop to it - no matter what it takes.

I would just say, without that "oppression" many more Israelis would be dieing than at the current rate - and probably many more Arabs as well. Without that "oppression" there would probably be no Israel today. That is what makes the "oppression" tragically necessary and justifiable.

There would probably be no Israel today. Those are the words that are never spoken. They always lie just below the surface in posts that are carefully crafted to seem so reasonable - because, if the truth were admitted, that's what many Americans on both the far right and the far left would actually prefer.

[The Magistrate]

21. On What Grounds, Ma'am

Would you hold Israelis to a higher standard of behavior than Arab Palestinians?

A person of impish disposition could lay out some odd implications following logically from it....

"Let's sing another song, boys. This one has grown old and bitter."

[azurnoir]

12. Once again

yes Israel has a right to defend it self, any sovereign nation does and whether you agree with them or not. That would include the Palestinians who had played nice from 9/05 to 3/06, why did Hamas restart firing Quasam rockets at Israel, may be had something to do with a raid on a jail in Jericho to take prisoner someone already in prison? Deranged? quite possibly, most Palestinians are born to a semiPOW status, that could have an effect on ones outlook. Maybe they wouldn't strap bombs to their bodies if the US supplied them with cluster bombs and the F-17's to carry them.

[The Stranger]

13. Get out of Lebanon and get real re peace with the Palestinians,

and stop pretending that it is all a function of anti-Semites.

[msmcghee]

17. Are you blind?

Israel has been out of Lebanon for six years.

[The Sower]

15. You're the one who brought up "Joooos".

Such tactics are idiotic and despicable.

[The Sower]

18. On a more diplomatic note...

If you don't deal with their elected leaders, if you arrest and kill them instead, then you'll have to deal with their un-elected leaders.

If you choose their leaders for them, then they're not their leaders.

[msmcghee]

19. Do you really think it makes any difference . .

. . who the Israelis deal with? Are you proposing that there are some in Hamas who are the "sensible" terrorists - who the Israelis can reason with? I must have missed the memo from Hamas suggesting that they'd like to talk this over with the Israelis while they destroy them and push them into the sea. What planet do you live on?

If I was the Israelis I'd simply make life as miserable as possible for as many of my enemies as I could. I'd imprison both the leaders and any fighters I could and if they resisted I'd kill them. Then I'd destroy their houses. The imprisoning part is charity. The only prisoners the Hamas take are for ransom.

When people are trying to kill you and your family and the UN doesn't give a shit then you do what you have to do - and fuck the UN. That's what I'd do.

[The Sower]

20. So much for diplomacy.

Enjoy the war.

[lumpy]

22. "If I was the Israelis I'd simply make life

miserable as possible blah blah blah....."
Don't worry kiddo they are managing to make life miserable for everyone around them. No one with half a sense of fairness is going to change their opinion of Israel's high handed mayhem of Palestinians and Lebanese that has been going on for too many years.