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trish123: When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I was not a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak outMartin Niemoller

Antjo39: That is the political CV of Konrad Adenauer, one of those that later on was glorified with all the adjectives and clichés the official press of the world uses.

LILLYLADY: This is very interesting Trish. However, it seems that Hamas should have had enough sense to realize when they had a "gold mine" right in front of them. That alone should have given Hamas leaders reason enough to stop shooting rockets into Israel and sign a permanent peace treaty. As the article says, this would have brought 2 million dollars to the Palestinians and much needed medical, food and other needs into their territory.This would have been good business smarts for Hamas. There would be no need to have UN convoys of food and supplies and so many more people would be smiling and living.
Evidentally, this business deal wasn't satisfactory until every Jew was eliminated too.
It would appear then that out of Hamas's constitution to eliminate the Jews,their leaders have brought self anihilation to their people.
Any country that has a warring neighbor that keeps taunting it with rocket firing, has to have a strategic plan of action to implement or they will be caught by surprise by even more than taunting. Israel is no different considering they have been caught by surprise many times and just came out of the Lebanon campaign.
They were surprised in the past by rocket attacks,the underground tunnels, abduction of their soldiers, terrorist bombings in marketplaces,kibbutzes,restaurants, discoteques,and even at Lod Airport. They were attacked many times with minor skirmishes and major wars.

Antjo39: Yes I know. Sorry I was a little messy here, I just had to say that it was his CV but the last verse, as Adenauer survived all the incidences with cowardice/complicity and eventually was even glorified by the whole world after the war.I just mention that just to recall how the brave fighters for freedom and democracy of this world, say, those Bush-type and alike always have the whole machinery to pound the human mind with the same message: "we will tell you who the good ones are and who the bad ones are, just follow the orders"

Antjo39: The previous post in response to Trish.

Antjo39: Well, you present the things again in an abstract way that can only suggest the same: Palestinians are screwed up just by their own hand. Israel is always willing to let them live peacefully and be prosperous.

Well, when it comes to this precious source of energy, anybody has to think about that. Israel needs the gas and Israel has always done all what it has been able to do just to reduce Palestina down to a Protectorate (in the best case). Or the blockade is an act that one civilised state can do to another at any time?

Of course the launching rockets and other episodes work well for Israel and its intervention, then the question if terrorism is positive for Israel in the end should be answered positively, and as for the question in what degree Israeli intelligence manipulates the terrorist actions just to profit from them, that is a question that has good factual evidence (including the mere fact of the obvious Israeli moves and actions in the area) but still needs more research. Obviously the results will jump sooner or later.

LACali: Keep posting and I'll keep reporting. Gives me something to do.

TOI 5 Jan 2009:

Two factors that are not being talked about much, but have figured prominently in the Israeli calculus are: natural gas and the upcoming elections to the Israeli Knesset, their parliament.

Gaza is a small strip of land on the Mediterranean Sea. Its territorial waters extend to about 35km off the coast. In 1999, the oil firm BG International discovered a huge deposit of natural gas 32km from the Gaza coast. The Gaza Marine gas field contains 1.2 trillion cubic feet of gas valued at over $4 billion. As per the Oslo
peace accords, which created Gaza, Israel has security control over air and water around Gaza. So, it wrangled a deal with BG to get access to Gaza Marine gas at cheap rates.

But before the deal could go through, Hamas won the elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council in 2006. This sparked off a bitter power struggle between Hamas and the pro-west Fatah. Ultimately, the Palestinian Authority split in 2007, with Hamas taking control of Gaza and Fatah taking control of West Bank. One of the first things that Hamas did after getting elected was to declare that the natural gas deal would have to be renegotiated.

Then began the Israeli blockade of Gaza, which prevented much required food and medicines from reaching the hapless Gazans. Crammed into about 360 sq km, 1.5 million Gazans saw their lives crumble into dust. To get food and medicines, Gazans built tunnels under the Israeli barriers, and once even broke through on the Egyptian side. But the Israeli and Egyptian army
tamped them down.

It appears that the current Israeli move is to try and turn the Gazans against Hamas, paving the way for a more pliable administration, so that the gas deal will go through. Reports from Israel indicate that preparations for this attack were underway since several months ago, with the ceasefire offered by Israel being just a ploy to lull Hamas.

In addition, the coming elections in Israel are predicted to see a tough challenge to the Kadima party-led government of Ehud Olmert by the hardline Likud party, led by Benjamin Netahnyu. Even within Kadima, Olmert is facing a challenge from foreign minister Tzipi Livni. Olmert has come under much criticism for the botched invasion of Lebanon in 2006. Many see the Gaza attack as an attempt by Olmert to revitalize his position within Israel.

arranroot: Did I hear somewhere that the Palestinians have weapons of mass destruction? Every war is about MONEY, rich people have it and want more of it so they kill whoever they have to in order to get it. They cant just do what Hitler did as other countries would step in and there goes all the gas so they provoke the Palestinians into firing rockets and start a war telling the world is over terrorist attacks. Weapons of mass destruction was to stop a nutter destroying the world except the nutter had no weapons of mass destruction, only oil. What have the Palestinians got? Only gas.

Antjo39: Wow! I am trembling like a dog in the cold.
I suggest something better to do: read anything with clear mind (prejudices aside), process the information and finally confront the new information with the previous prejudices. Eventually have the chance to go a little bit forward in personal views.

It is never a bad exercise.

trish123: But pertinent to the current situation, they potentially only have that till the Israeli elections on the 10th of feb......... I think there are something like 41 contenders in the race so who the heck knows whats going to become of the current stalemate after the elections.......

ceasefire NOW !!!!

LACali: You've been banned over and over Jose13 (though last time I had nothing to do with it.) Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn what you have to say. And when your posts become too offensive then I will report. I learned the hard way not to engage.

LACali: You've been banned over and over Jose13 (though last time I had nothing to do with it.) Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn what you have to say. And when your posts become too offensive then I will report. I learned the hard way not to engage.

trish123: Please will you take stuff like this to private mail - with all respect, enough of these threads have been pulled already cos of petty arguing.....

I think its essential that information on this stuff gets out and am feeling pretty intolerant of anything which compromises exchanges of important information

arranroot: If you want to build a house you start with a foundation. The politicians dont own the oil wells do they? The people that own the oil wells make big 'contributions' to political parties. They dont care who the party is. They want to build the foundation and then the walls with the next government if need be and so on. The war will go on till they have what they want regardless of whos in office. Their bigger than politicians. They have more money and therefore more power.

trish123: the stock marketeers are nothing other than screw miesters........