Israel, Gaza, and the Middle East Conflict

[Radagast The Brown]

The criticism is in place of course, and there's a lot of criticism within Israel as well (especially in the columns of Ha'aretz). I assume we agree Israel has the right to defend itself. I even agree Israel's reaction was somehow improportionate: attacking UN buildings was a big mistake even if Hamas was shooting from some place nearby, and using the phosporous in Gaza Strip is stupid; that said, I feel the criticism on Israel is by far greater than on any other country in the world: Russia and Chechnya (about 100,000 civillians killed in the last 15 years or so), the US and Iraq, god knows what's going on in Africa (Sumalia, Congo). Against none of those mentioned above 100,000 Spanish went demonstrating in Madrid to stop the violence; I don't remember the Russians were compared to the Nazis in protests in Paris; but when Starbucks branches in London are being vandalised just because the owner is Jewish, and in a demonstration in Norway they call "Death to Israel, death to jews" I think we go too far. I really don't understand this hatred people have towards Israel specifically, and more importantly - towards the jews.

Also, I can't see any other way to fight Hamas without killing innocent citizens in the process, as long as Hamas uses the population as human shields, hiding ammunition in mosques, shooting rockets from roofs of houses etc.. with such tactics, there could simply be no other result.

btw, hello all, long time no see..

[Jonathan]

Hi Gal! It's certainly been a while since you posted here. Nice to see you on Entmoot again

Originally Posted by Radagast The Brown

Also, I can't see any other way to fight Hamas without killing innocent citizens in the process, as long as Hamas uses the population as human shields, hiding ammunition in mosques, shooting rockets from roofs of houses etc.. with such tactics, there could simply be no other result.

It is as you say. Media reporting is skewed and fails to adequately portray Hamas' actions and tactics. The organisation wants there to be civilian casualties since it effectively turns Israel into an international pariah.

[Earniel]

Nice to see you again, Radagast. Did this thread lure you back?

Originally Posted by Radagast The Brown

Also, I can't see any other way to fight Hamas without killing innocent citizens in the process, as long as Hamas uses the population as human shields, hiding ammunition in mosques, shooting rockets from roofs of houses etc.. with such tactics, there could simply be no other result.

There is definitely something in that, and I agree Hamas' tactics should also get more critique. But I suppose almost everyone takes it for granted that a terrorist organisation uses inexcusable tactics, while people will automatically also assume that a democratic goverment such as that one of Israel, will not use any questionable tactics in turn.

And the way it looks now, one gets the impression that the Israelian army in response doesn't take any, or little, measure to prevent civilian casualties from their own actions. The excuse 'someone was firing at us from that building' was enough to flatten the whole thing regardless of who else might be inside.

[inked]

Earniel, you err. The Israelis called into the ares and warned the populace before the attacks on specific rocket sites. Of course Hamas moved people into the are to get up their body count.

Personally, I think that Israel ought to send a rocket into Gaza for every rocket Hamas has fired. I don't think the Israelis have reached the 3000 rocket mark that Hamas has.

Also, I'm thinking that Hamas ought to give up its constitutional claim that Israel has no right to exist, but your mileage may differ.

[BeardofPants]

I have absolutely NO sympathy for those hamas $#%@ers. They are brutal monsters for how they treat the palestinian peoples. Life is so cheap over there. It is such a complex issue. I feel a great deal of sympathy for both Israel & Palestine (the people, certainly not those hamas asswipes). I understand the Palestinian need for nationhood, and I understand the Israeli difficulty with being bombed to ****. *sigh* No easy solution.

Nice to see you again, Rad!

[Coffeehouse]

Originally Posted by inked

Earniel, you err. The Israelis called into the ares and warned the populace before the attacks on specific rocket sites. Of course Hamas moved people into the are to get up their body count.

Personally, I think that Israel ought to send a rocket into Gaza for every rocket Hamas has fired. I don't think the Israelis have reached the 3000 rocket mark that Hamas has.

Also, I'm thinking that Hamas ought to give up its constitutional claim that Israel has no right to exist, but your mileage may differ.

Let's begin with the simple reality that Gaza is a city of millions and that Hamas therefore did not, would not and could not simply "Move people into the area to get up their body count". Gaza is a civilian city just like London, Paris or New York, not the Local Rocket Ramps Complex of Hamas.

The Israeli invasion was a direct consequence of barrages of rockets into southern Gaza, which although numeous, thankfully rarely hits buildings and almost never kill people.
While Israel is right to act in self-defence against attacks on its civilians (whom, unlike Gazans, have bomb shelters in every neighbourhood), (it should be as unpermissible to maim them as any Palestinians), they do not have the right to indiscriminately launch artillery strikes from sea, land and air into densely populated areas where the death toll can become uncontrollable.
The 1,300 deaths so far in Gaza are a testament to indiscriminate warfare, and are an insult to Israel's assurances.
Any part in this conflict that indiscriminately maims the lives of civilians should be brought to justice because it's completely unacceptable. It's a war crime be it Hamas or Israel, makes no difference.

The question the world is asking itself is why, when it was already apparent early on that civilian lives were being taken in the hundreds. The notion that Israel somehow could have eradicated Hamas is unbelievably ignorant and serves as an ill excuse to continue those attacks.
What the continued warfare in the weeks after New Year show was that contrary to squashing Hamas the Israeli army has radicalized yet another segment of civilians in Gaza, maimed yet another new generation of Gazans from the youngest infant to teenagers. I wonder what life lessons these kids will learn in the coming years and how they can ever not view Israel as their eternal enemy. Hamas does not even need to ask anymore.

What is outrageous is that this conflict could have been avoided by both parties, Hamas and Israel.
If we go back to the 24th of December 2008, a journalist in the Jerusalem Post writes:
(http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...cle%2FShowFull)
"The way out of such a war is for Israel to lift the blockade - to let trucks, ships and planes pass to and from Gaza - and, in return, for Hamas and the other Gazan factions to stop firing rockets at Israeli border towns. They don't bother us, we don't bother them."

"The alternative is to let the fighting keep escalating until very soon, we end up in a war in which nearly a million Israelis come under rocket fire; Gaza becomes a killing ground for Israelis and Palestinians alike; Israel ends up with the privilege of ruling the Strip and its 1.5 million desperate, hostile people again; and the dilemma of "what to do about Gaza?" not only doesn't go away, it becomes incomparably harder to solve."

"Right then, right after we got our soldiers and settlers out of the Strip, we should have offered the Palestinians the deal that Hamas is offering us now - you don't bother us, we won't bother you. You don't fire rockets at Sderot, we won't blockade Gaza, just like nobody blockades Israel or any other free country."

"But Israel wasn't willing to live and let live with Hamas - it was intent on making them cry uncle or, ideally, on getting rid of Hamas altogether by turning Gaza's population against them. That's the reasoning behind the blockade - to make life for Gazan civilians so miserable that they turn Hamas out and bring in new leaders who will agree to leave Sderot alone.

It hasn't worked that way, though. What seems to have happened, instead, is that the prolonged deprivation caused by the blockade has made Gazans feel they have nothing to lose from a war with Israel."

"Yet we imagine that the people in Gaza are laughing at us. We picture them sitting around twirling their moustaches and sniggering at the innocent, frightened Jews as they think up new tortures, new tricks. And so the idea of ending the blockade in return for an end to the Kassams seems to us like surrender - the Palestinians have already got the upper hand, and now we're supposed to give them even more of an advantage?

Never. We'll see who blinks. We won't go like lambs to the slaughter. If they want war, they'll get it.

This is crazy. Israel is the superpower of the Middle East, but because we still think we're the Jews of Europe in the 1930s, or the Israelites under Pharoah, we spend a lot more time fighting our enemies than we might if we looked at the whole picture, not just our half of it.

There may be a way out of this war, and if Israel does not take it - if it does not accept Hamas's offer of a cease-fire, which it should have offered Hamas from the beginning - then the principal blame for the war will lie with us. Our arrogance and blindness will get a lot of innocent people killed. And no one has a clue about when, or where, or how it will end."

The Human Rights Watch on the 7th of January summarising the death and injured toll so far in Gaza and southern Israel: http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/01/0...-investigation, but focused primarily on a school that was attacked by the Israeli army, which according to its owners, the United Nations, did not house any Hamas fighters shooting rockets, contrary to Israeli assertions.

What the Israelis have done in Gaza is unacceptable because the retribution for attacks on its soil is way, way out of proportion. A death toll of 1,300 is indefensible.

The job for Pres. Obama's administration, for the United Nations, i.e. the world at this moment, is to force Hamas and the Israeli government to sit down and talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. If you talk you don't shoot. If you don't shoot you don't kill people. There's an uncannily simple logic to this which has to be the basis for the cease-fire and new peace talks.
Enough half-promises and evasion of responsibility. This time both Hamas and Israel have to sign up to promises and keep them. The world with its only superpower in the lead must make it clear that enough is enough.

---

In the end, Russia's war in Chechnya, the US war in Iraq, the wars in Sudan, Somalia and Congo: they are all atrocious.
There are many important reasons why there is less public focus on Chechnya, Sudan, Somalia and Congo. Iraq on the hand has been the occasion for demonstrations in the millions that are unprecedented and that even largest public demonstration on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has yet to supercede.
Chechnya is obvious: It is a forgotten conflict, with intense media coverage for a few years in the 1990s, but since it is under-reported in the media the public simply takes less note of it. Tragic, but true, and the same goes for the conflicts in Africa.
Somalia is such a mess that no one, not even most journalists, understand the conflict. Demonstrations against loss of life only are rare, they usually require a tint of politics for people to become actively involved. And since most people outside of Somalia cannot identify with the conflict for various reasons its attention becomes restricted.
Congo, in discrete rounds at the time, gets overwhelming coverage, much like Darfur, but the area that the conflict covers is simply too large, the environment is too confused and unfamiliar and as the population of the Western world has become accustomed to, there's always some war in Africa anyways!
Radaghast, the conflict in Israel-Palestine gets so much attention for a couple of obvious reasons: It's one of the longest-lasting real-estate twists (probably the oldest) yet, it has a fiercely demarcated boundary between two peoples: Jewish state of Israel established against the backdrop of the Holocaust and the Palestinians, whom have lived there, under some name or another, for hundreds of years. This conflict ties in large-scale conflicts such as WWI, WWII, human tragedies such as the Holocaust, countless of images of small kids throwing rocks at soldiers, hundreds of checkpoints in fashion of the South African apartheid era, and the easily identifiable, yet recent addition to the media stage, of the Islamic jihadist.
When you ask why Israel receives much attention for its occupation of the West Bank and its relationship with Gaza the answer is simple: it is a democracy and must be held to the same principles as it is lecturing that it defends. On the other hand, Hamas receives as much criticism as Israel does, and is, contrary to Israel, labeled a terrorist organisation by most countries in the world and the illegitimate government of Gaza (despite its democratic election victory and the fact that it did not include the 'lack of Israel's right to exist' in its 2007 election charter nor later government charter.

[Earniel]

Everyone, we all know this is a sensitive topic, so let's all discuss this maturely. This means, no personal attacks, no flame-baiting, no egging people on. Everyone's entitled to their opinion, we just want you to state them politely. I have deleted several posts that I felt were bordering on the unacceptable. If you see posts you deem unappropriate, try not to react in kind, but please report the post instead.

[Earniel]

Originally Posted by inked

Earniel, you err. The Israelis called into the ares and warned the populace before the attacks on specific rocket sites. Of course Hamas moved people into the are to get up their body count.

I don't think I erred. (I also specifically stated this was how it seemed to me, not that it was the reality.)

But for one, I doubt the Palestinians will have allowed Hamas to continually keep them penned in, in the very areas they know will be bombed soon. I'm pretty sure there would have been people enough present already without Hamas herding them to those areas.

Secondly, I have doubts concerning the Israelis warning every single area that it would be bombed, continually and accurately during the offensive. How else do you explain the bombing of UN buildings including a school where people were sheltering and an aid caravan that had just been allowed in? Also, if you read about stories like this, you cannot help but wonder if the Israelis did indeed all they could to prevent unnecessary civilian casualties.

[inked]

Earniel, I meant that Israel at least warned of areas of attack. I don't seem to recall Hamas doing anything like that all in even one case of the 3000 rockets fired into Israel.

And I don't recall any international concern over Hamas' rocket firing, lack of notification prior to doing that for 5 years, or for killing innocent Israelis. The UN on the other hand couldn't see a Hamas rocket launch if it went through their anus and out their mouth on the way to Israel as they have adequately demonstrated since they have been "on the job". (The UN is as useful as a bicycle to a fish - which has been adequately demonstrated over the years... .)

The UN cannot even guarantee that relief supplies sent by international agencies won't be highjacked by Hamas and sold to the highest bidder. Hamas can and does guarantee that its government maximizes the risk to its population and denies them basics like food, medicine, and safety.

You get the government you elect. Hamas was elected. Perhaps the Palestinians should rethink that though I will grant that the population doesn't have leisure to think with Hamas' boot on its neck and Hamas' rockets sprouting from their hospitals, mosques, and population centres. Tough to get a recall election under those conditions.

[Coffeehouse]

Originally Posted by inked

Earniel, I meant that Israel at least warned of areas of attack. I don't seem to recall Hamas doing anything like that all in even one case of the 3000 rockets fired into Israel.

There's a balance in this, however wrong it may be. While Hamas does not warn its civilian counter-parts in southern Israel these civilians nonetheless are usually warned in time to run to the bomb shelters. That's a comfort.
Gazans, whatever warnings they get, have nowhere to go. This is one of the main grievances nations, international bodies like the UN and humanitarian organisations have against the occupying nature of the Palestinian territories: the Gazans in this situation are stuck in a nightmareish scenario where they're only home is a wrecked city of millions, bordered up by Israel (through its inhumane blockade which, although intended to harm Hamas, does what any blockade usually accomplishes, 90s Iraq, current-day Burma, current-day Gaza and the West Bank: civilian suffering on a massive scale), chronically and severely lacking in the fundamental needs of any human being. It's not right.

Originally Posted by inked

And I don't recall any international concern over Hamas' rocket firing, lack of notification prior to doing that for 5 years, or for killing innocent Israelis. The UN on the other hand couldn't see a Hamas rocket launch if it went through their anus and out their mouth on the way to Israel as they have adequately demonstrated since they have been "on the job". (The UN is as useful as a bicycle to a fish - which has been adequately demonstrated over the years... .)

That one's memory serves one short doesn't mean there isn't condemnation. Because there is: It is no more accepted that Israeli civilians die on buses, or Israeli school-children stand in danger of being killed beneath a collapsing roof after a Hamas KASSAM-rocket has hit.
I think it's fair to say that anyone who uses metaphores like those you use about the UN doesn't really understand much about the organisation, the tremendous work it does behind the scenes and the tens of thousands of people that work tirelessly on its behalf. That the Security Council of 5 permanent members (and a few lucky cycle short-term members), is another matter, and I think it's incredible that the outdated system of 5 countries having eternal vetoes still exists, but one can thank those 5 countries for this.
The UN is what the member nations make it, but don't ridicule what you don't comprehend.
For that matter I am interested in seeing, with a new American dawn of tough diplomacy, not the with-us-or-against-us-Bushism, an increased presence of the UN in Gaza: f.ex. a peace-keeping force that went into Gaza and West Bank on the premises that: a) Hamas and any other Palestinian-at-arms-organisation lay down its arms or incorporate themselves into a unified Palestinian police and armed forces, b) that Israel remove it hundreds of checkpoints and chokepoints, c) that ALL illegal Israeli settlements desert and that its settlers move back to the pre-1967 borders and d) that both sides do not violate each others physical territory or engage in any form of economic blockade. That would surely be a way forward. It will however take the weight of America to pull this through along with serious commitment from European and Arab leaders. I am pessimistic about this happening however..

It's anyways interesting that you underscore the need for the UN to get relief support to Gazans, while at the same time fail to acknowledge that several UN vehicles, buildings and even that school were bombed, not by Hamas, but by the Israelis. That's not acceptable collateral damage: that's a serious violation of international law: i.e. a war crime.

[Earniel]

Originally Posted by inked

Earniel, I meant that Israel at least warned of areas of attack. I don't seem to recall Hamas doing anything like that all in even one case of the 3000 rockets fired into Israel.

It's curious that you seem to take my criticism on the Israelian offensive as unspoken support for Hamas. I have none. What BoP wrote a little higher is also my opinion of them. They're cowards, murderers, and if I let my vindictive side speak, bombing is too good for them. But there are better ways IMO to get rid of them, and right now it's not just them that got showered with bombs.

You get the government you elect. Hamas was elected. Perhaps the Palestinians should rethink that though I will grant that the population doesn't have leisure to think with Hamas' boot on its neck and Hamas' rockets sprouting from their hospitals, mosques, and population centres. Tough to get a recall election under those conditions.

I doubt the Palestinians looked particularly forward to the political disaster and splitting up of the territory under the two fractions that followed on the elections. But this is not the government they elected. Hamas may have won the elections, but Fatah was not completely out of the picture either and they had to make a coalition. The resulting powerstruggle and the ugly aftermath was not exactly something the Palestinians voted for.

[Coffeehouse]

Originally Posted by Eärniel

It's curious that you seem to take my criticism on the Israelian offensive as unspoken support for Hamas. I have none. What BoP wrote a little higher is also my opinion of them. They're cowards, murderers, and if I let my vindictive side speak, bombing is too good for them.

Likewise here.. because it should be possible to be critical of the way the Israelis have attacked the city of Gaza, and at the same time keep in mind that Hamas is a violent arms-organisations with brutal methods that belong nowhere. Its methods should be renounced at every turn and there should be one demand from the international community: no more rockets into civilian areas of Israel. One rocket is one too many.

But this is no less true of Israel. Although the death toll in Gaza is horrific the chief harm that Israel does to the Palestinian people is through the constant blockades of the necessities of life and desperately important needs in the winter such as fuel and adequate amounts of clothes. It's the invisible hardship that is difficult to capture on camera, but it's brutally efficient, and no less wrong.
A bullet is a bullet, a rocket is a rocket and a civilian is a non-combating human being with a heart and mind. As long as Hamas and the Israeli army unabatedly continue ignoring the lives of civilians they should be condemned in the most possible strongest language. I think we Europeans are failing in that respect. We're not gutsy enough.

[The Gaffer]

Originally Posted by Eärniel

It's curious that you seem to take my criticism on the Israelian offensive as unspoken support for Hamas.

No it isn't. It's a typical tactic of putting words into the opponent's mouth.

Hopefully this sort of attitude is on the wane, as it will achieve nothing but further suffering. What I find curious, and worrying, is how easily the extent of the suffering inflicted on the "opposite side" can be marginalised.

The only effective way of dealing with terrorists is to treat them like criminals.

Now, when the criminals get voted in (although you can bet that there are plenty of other things Hamas does apart from lob rockets into Israel), you have no choice but to deal with them.

History shows that in these situations people generally don't vote for the moderates. They vote for the ones which are "most" on their side. In Northern Ireland, they voted for Sinn Fein / IRA and the Democratic Unionists, even when the peace process was well underway. Also, if the other side is busy getting less moderate, you're not going to vote for someone who will just hand over more concessions to the opposition by being soft.

Indeed, whenever there is talk of a peace process in the Middle East, each side often initiates an offensive, in order to do a sort of "land grab" so that they can negotiate from a stronger position.

[Coffeehouse]

I think you're on to something Gaffer. While there will be those Gazans who have become disgusted by the dangerous gambling with lives that Hamas has been doing since it came to power, there will be a large part of Gazans becoming embittered and desperate, verging on violent-minded, after having seen their loved ones get shot, bombed and buried in the rubble of the city. The Israeli offensive defeats not the radicals, but the voice of the moderates. It's the tragedy of the Palestinian territories.

[The Telcontarion]

I am reading this thread and I am like wow, you people believe everything reported on the news.

This is the reality of the situation.

"Israel" created Hamas and they are involved in False flag terror:

"In 1954, Israel sponsored bombings against US and UK interests in Cairo aiming to cause trouble between Egypt and the West.[5] This operation, later dubbed the Lavon Affair, cost Israeli defense minister Pinhas Lavon his job. The state of Israel (where it is known as "The Unfortunate Affair") finally admitted responsibility in 2005."

Thanks to the Mossad, Israel's "Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks", the Hamas was allowed to reinforce its presence in the occupied territories. Meanwhile, Arafat's Fatah Movement for National Liberation as well as the Palestinian Left were subjected to the most brutal form of repression and intimidation

Let us not forget that it was Israel, which in fact created Hamas. According to Zeev Sternell, historian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, "Israel thought that it was a smart ploy to push the Islamists against the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO)".

In Ha'aretz today, Brad Burston, an Israeli journalist, offers ten ways that the Israeli right both helped create Hamas and keeps it going. None of this is particularly surprising to those of us who follow Middle East events closely but it will certainly upset those who believe that Israelis always prefer Palestinian moderates to Palestinian radicals.

Dr. Ron Paul Spoke on this fact as well as the fact that the USA trained Bin laden. The USA also trained and help install Saddam.

The truth!!

How long are the Palestinian people going to put up with this, and Oh my god, this.

Psalm 58:3
The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.

They have a right to fight by all means necessary but even so they have nothing to fight with, least of which are rockets. Nothing goes into Palestine except without the Israelis knowing. Anything there, is what the Israelis put there, period.

[Coffeehouse]

Some of the history you point to I agree with you on Telcontarian, the Israeli government has its hands dirty. I don't agree with some of the sources you use, or some of the material you use (it seems very open-ended and amateurish now and then), but the article from Har'eetz is spot on!

From support for terrorism in the form of strong contribution to the early Hamas movement..
..To locking away Mordegai Vanunu who was a former employee at one of the nuclear facilities in Israel and who revealed to the world that the Israelis had the nuclear bomb,
..To a year-by-year and month-by-month cynic approach to the amount of suffering Palestinians endure as a result of lack of clean water, lack of food, lack of fuel for heating, lack of fuel for cars and the ever-present checkpoints that can make a 30-minute ride to work become a 4-5 hour exhaustion.
This is a history that carries on as we speak and is one of the main reasons there is outrage over the occupation, the existence of completely illegal settlements on the West Bank and why many, including myself, believe that an occupied nation has a right to fight back. It's the right of every human being. That said I vehemently oppose lobbing rockets into Israeli towns where children and women can get hurt or killed, the despicable suicide bombings and the cowardly tactics by Hamas to attract Israeli fire into heavily populated areas.

You're absolutely right that there's injustice, but this conflict has dragged on since 1948 now and it is just in everyone's interest that enough is enough. They can't keep at this. The Palestinians and the Israelis have made an equal amount of missteps and failed opportunies. It's depressive! In the end Great Britain (cause 1# for this mess), France (cause 2# for this mess), the United States (world's superpower) and all other natoins must spend all their diplomatic skill and endeveaour to make these two peoples live border-to-border without being at war!

[The Telcontarion]

Originally Posted by Coffeehouse

...including myself, believe that an occupied nation has a right to fight back. It's the right of every human being. That said I vehemently oppose lobbing rockets into Israeli towns where children and women can get hurt or killed, the despicable suicide bombings and the cowardly tactics by Hamas to attract Israeli fire into heavily populated areas.

You're absolutely right that there's injustice, but this conflict has dragged on since 1948 now and it is just in everyone's interest that enough is enough. They can't keep at this. It's depressive!

I agree with what you said for the most part but here is an example of my point of view, Nat Turner. When I am faced with these issues I have to ask myself what would Nat Turner do in this situation. The only reason that Israeli woman is behaving that way is because she knows if those people actually try to defend their homes, Israeli soldiers would blow their heads off.

An opressed people have a right to defend themselves by all means necessary, all means. So, what would Nat Turner do, he would kill as many of them as he can. You talk about lobbing rockets (Israeli controlled Hamas is doing it anyway) were innocent Israeli women and children can get hurt, how many Palestinian women and children are dead since this began?

The Palestinians should kill as many Israelis they can until they are free, men, women and children. That is how you fight for freedom, especially when you have no military of your own so you can defend yourself conventionally. Keep in mind Israel has a very modern military and they keep killing women and children. They are wrong, they are murderers and they are no better than Hitler, period.

[The Telcontarion]

The Israeli kids are throwing stones and the Israeli soldiers are telling the Palestinian kids to go into their homes to avoid the situation, but the criminals, the Israeli children they not so much as look at them, this...is....

Again these kids are behaving this way because the soldiers allow it. Poor defenseless Israelis, right. Enough is enough...

Ecclesiastes 7:7
Surely oppression maketh a wise man mad; and a gift destroyeth the heart.

[thesenator]

I was surprised to learn that Israel censors military info and even banned international reporters from conflict areas. Here is an underground site called Israeli Uncensored News http://samsonblinded.org/news which runs some very odd reports.

[The Telcontarion]

Originally Posted by thesenator

I was surprised to learn that Israel censors military info and even banned international reporters from conflict areas. Here is an underground site called Israeli Uncensored News http://samsonblinded.org/news which runs some very odd reports.

They have been known to shoot reporters, not just ban them. I have completely had it with them, completely.