Gaza demonstrators condemn death of bin Laden

[oberliner]

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Some two dozen Palestinians have gathered in the Gaza Strip to pay tribute to Osama bin Laden.

About 25 people holding pictures and posters of the slain al-Qaida leader rallied outside a Gaza City university on Tuesday. The crowd included al-Qaida sympathizers as well as students who said they opposed bin Laden's ideology, but are angry at the U.S. for killing him and consider him a martyr.

On Monday, Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister of Gaza's Hamas government, condemned the U.S. killing bin Laden. He called bin Laden a "Muslim and Arab warrior."

Hamas police did not interfere in Tuesday's demonstration.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42874250/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa

[customerserviceguy]

1. Ten years ago, they earned my indifference to their plight

when they cheered on the events of 9/11, today, they confirmed why my feelings for them haven't changed. As far as I'm concerned, whatever Netanyahu does to them, they've earned.

[Douglas Carpenter]

2. "Some two dozen Palestinians gathered in the Gaza Strip "

"Some two dozen" demonstrators out of 1.4 million people living in the Gaza is worth the indifference?

" Getting rid of bin Laden is good for the cause of peace worldwide but what counts is to overcome the discourse and the methods -- the violent methods -- that were created and encouraged by bin Laden and others in the world," PA spokesman Ghassan Khatib said. "

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/02/us-binladen-palestinians-idUSTRE7414SS20110502

[TomClash]

3. It's just another day at the office for some

25 people! They would barely be able to assemble two teams on the pitch.

The story actually proves the opposite of what it was intended to prove.

[Jefferson23]

20. True enough. n/t

[azurnoir]

4. yes but the US needs its bogeymen and considering this

from LBN on DU we appear to have found them

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4835460

[oberliner]

5. "bin Laden received his highest level of support among Muslims in the Palestinian territories"

Among the six predominantly Muslim nations recently surveyed by the Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project, bin Laden received his highest level of support among Muslims in the Palestinian territories – although even there only 34% said they had confidence in the terrorist leader to do the right thing in world affairs.

http://pewglobal.org/2011/05/02/osama-bin-laden-largely-discredited-among-muslim-publics-in-recent-years/

And the elected leadership in Gaza has said the following:

Hamas slams killing of 'holy warrior' Osama bin Laden

The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas on Monday condemned the killing by U.S. forces of Osama bin Laden and mourned him as an "Arab holy warrior."

"We regard this as a continuation of the American policy based on oppression and the shedding of Muslim and Arab blood," Ismail Haniyeh, head of the Hamas administration in the Gaza Strip, told reporters.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/hamas-slams-killing-of-holy-warrior-osama-bin-laden-1.359416

[shira]

8. Team Palestine says Pew Polling WRT Palestinians is unreliable if it portrays Palestinians badly...

...so these findings should be ignored.

:eyes:

Leave the Palestinians alone; better to bash the neocon, zionist Israelis.

[azurnoir]

17. Team Palestine? ??? however I would look at those numbers

it would seem that support for Bin Laden has fallen quite sharply among Palestinians from 72% in 2003 to 34% now while it has risen slightly among Nigerians from 43% in 2003 to 48% in 2010
if one reads the polls it would seem that Pew doesn't much like to poll Nigeria and the Palestian territories in the same years

[shaayecanaan]

10. Compare with...

According to a 1986 survey conducted for the American Jewish Committee by Professor Steven M. Cohen, 14 percent of American Jews professed strong sympathy for Kahane, a proportion that rose to 30 percent among the 500,000-strong Orthodox community. (Pg 6)

http://www.lukeford.net/profiles/profiles/meir_kahane.htm

The American Jewish Committee published a similar survey in 1992, although I havent been able to find a link. From memory although only 14% of American Jews professed strong support for Kahane in the survey, about a further 25% supported him "somewhat".

This was after Kahane's Jewish Defence League was linked to a number of terrorist attacks against Arab and Soviet targets.

[oberliner]

11. Look over there! Look over there!

A survey from twenty-five years ago! See - other folks are bad too!!

Incidentally, how many people did the JDL murder? And how many did Al-Qaida murder?

Great comparison there.

Really good stuff - very helpful.

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

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[oberliner]

14. You drew the comparison between support for Kahane and support for Bin Laden.

So how many people did Kahane's group murder and how many did Bin Laden's group murder?

Funny, but not surprising, how you try to deflect the question by talking about a half dozen other Jewish groups (but for some reason not listing a half dozen other Muslim groups) and making some kind of comment about per capita terror attacks of different religious groups.

Why you feel the need to turn this into a "Jews vs. Muslims" debate is beyond me.

I can list a half dozen leaders of Muslim terrorist organizations or individual Muslim terrorists who are extremely popular among Muslims worldwide.

How about Samir Kuntar? Can we maybe find a survey in Lebanon with respect to public opinion on Kuntar? Would that be helpful?

But you brought up a survey about support for Kahane 25 years ago, so you are suggesting that support for Kahane 25 years ago is akin to support for Bin Laden today.

So my question is related to those two men - how many murders are each of them (or their organizations) directly responsible for?

[shaayecanaan]

15. Indeed I did...

"Why you feel the need to turn this into a "Jews vs. Muslims" debate is beyond me."

Surely you jest. Do you honestly think it wasn't a "Jews vs Muslims" debate in the first instance? After all, wasn't this the intention of your post?

"I can list a half dozen leaders of Muslim terrorist organizations or individual Muslim terrorists who are extremely popular among Muslims worldwide."

20 years ago you could have done the same for the Irish. 30 years ago you could have done the same for the Basques. And 60 years ago you could have said the same for the Jews.

Jewish terrorism flourished whilst the British occupied Palestine, in the same way that the occupation of the West Bank inspires terrorism against Israel, and the occupation of Afghanistan does the same for the United States. No doubt if Syria invaded and occupied Israel, Israelis would wage terror attacks against Syria. There's nothing particularly mystical about any of this.

Of course, once you have F-16s, you don't really need molotov cocktails any more. So terrorism is often the recourse of those too weak to have an organised military. That Israel wages war against the Palestinians with helicopter gunships rather than pipe bombs is not moral, it is merely convenient in the circumstances.

How many deaths is the Kahanist movement responsible for over the last thirty years or so? About 50 according to my tally. A lot less than al-Qaida, but still, a lot more than the Ku Klux Klan or just about any White supremacist group over the same time period.

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[virginia mountainman]

18. Agreed, whole heartedly AGREED......

I was still in a state of shock watching the news unfold, when the footage from the west bank was shown...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMOZvbYJMvU

Since then, I literally could NOT care less about their "plight".

..So be it..

[oberliner]

19. Do you think this is a majority or minority opinion among Palestinians?

I would say - sizable minority.

[parkia00]

6. Again... Dozens?

Look, some dozens of people does not represent the whole. If I were to use this type of silly argument I can looks up behavior by the most right wing zealot Jews and use these "dozens" as representing the whole lot. But I would look really shallow and pathetic for doing something like that.

And you made two posts concerning the same story....

[oberliner]

7. Not a large gathering, that's for sure

Yet, a thread about a similar number of people gathering in support of the JDL garnered a thread with numerous responses.

"Scurrilous" felt it was important enough to post such a thread here, in spite of the fact that it involved only 20 protesters (and did not take place in Israel):

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=124x349592

As you can see, over 50 responses to that thread.

Also, I would point out that there has been only one post made by me on this story.

There was this protest that took place in Gaza, and another gathering that took place in Jerusalem that I also posted about (a completely separate incident).

[henank]

9. The head of Hamas itself condemned the Bin Laden killing

A demonstration, small or large, is totally irrelevant.

[sabbat hunter]

12. yeah some warrior

holed up in a million dollar compound away from any fighting.