Back from Mid-East, Ellison talks Israel-Gaza

“They didn’t seem to have any knowledge about the hell and damage the rocketing was causing on the other side of the border. They didn’t seem to — they were like, oh isn’t it like little pop rockets? I think they actually used the term bottle rockets. They didn’t seem to know. How much damage is being inflicted over there. And how much terror is being inflicted over there”
Are these the worlds dumbest people????

No Dano, you are. Taking such a simple minded approach is positive proof.

The fact is that people in conflict always ignore the reality of the situation in favor of demonizing the opposition. All you need to do is look at the comments coming from either side in this tragedy… do you think the Israelis understand the suffering they are causing? Both sides of this conflict are in the wrong and in the right yet neither is really seeing each others reality.

Amuseinc
Being that you don’t even know me speaks volumes about yourself.
That being said have a nice weekend.

Americans are an odd bunch, traditionally abhorring tyrants. Elsewhere tyranny is a comfort for many, a narcotic of ignorance and impotence. Blind obedience is usually the price with blind hatred a common surcharge.

Jews are frequently the target of that hatred. What other ethnicity has been persecuted so intensely, for millennia, and for absolutely no rationally justifiable reason? As always, ignorance is no defense.

What surprises me is that Keith Ellison obviously obeyed the U.S. instructions NOT to visit Gaza. (It’s a terroristic state, you see.) The “rockets raining down” that the Israelis talk about are unaimable rockets sent over the border by a breakaway group that refuses to obey Hamas’s instructions to stop sending them. Hamas hardly sounds like real terrorists to me, especially since they no longer say Israel has no right to exist but rather just say “So does Palestine.”

Were Ellison, and other U.S. politicians, to visit Gaza, they would see the suffering, the deprivation, the raw sewage running in the streets since Israel disabled the power plant that powers the water treatment facility, the mountains of rubble that can’t be replaced with new housing until Israel allows construction materials to enter Gaza, the humiliating check points (strip searches and other indignities) where people can spend long hours waiting to reach Israel for medical treatment — and where babies are sometimes born before their mothers can get through.

We may have assigned the “terrorist” label to the wrong group. Instead of Gaza’s legally elected leaders, Hamas, perhaps it is Israel that should be labeled as terroristic and held to account for its war crimes against Gaza and Lebanon and its land grabs on the West Bank.

You are woefully uninformed, Bernice. I have visited Israel and parts of the West Bank and East Jerusalem many dozens of times over the past few year on business and education. And I have visited rehabilitation centers in the South of Israel near the Gaza border, where hundreds of young Israeli children, as young as 3 years old, are treated for war related stress. From their playground bunkers, where they scrabbled for safety when rockets fall, they hear and feel the bombardments. Even hardened soldiers, in Afghanistan, break under those conditions. But to you they are just Jews who deserve what they get.

These terrorists are not break-away groups at all. They are Hamas proxies who do what Hamas no longer wants to do openly. Hamas has no trouble murdering opponents who wish to make peace. But you say Hamas cannot control allies who need Hamas weapons to bombard Israel. You are either blind or just plain bigoted.

Your other comments are equally absurd, Bernice. Israel delivers tons of food, medicine, and other supplies to Gaza every week. Hamas seizes those shipments for its own use and sells most of them to finance its military operations. You can send nearly anything you wish, other than military supplies, to Gaza through Israel or Egypt. Israel even allows building materials for designated projects where those materials are not used for bunkers and other military facilities.

Your claims of long lines at Gaza check-points are nonsense. Israel does not allow Gaza residents to enter Israel at all. Israel completely withdrew from Gaza and has no further social responsibilities for a Gaza population at war with Israel. Gaza residents have no innate right to free medical care from Israel including birthing. There are hospitals in Gaza capable of providing medical services superior to those in most Arab countries.

[...] Ellison took to Gaza. (When he came back from that trip, Ellison met with a local Jewish group and told them about his conversations with Gazans “who didn’t seem to appreciate how devastating the [...]