Queer lives in Palestine and Israel

Here is an example: http://www.indybay.org/archives/archive_by_id.php?id=2475&category_id=49

Is it illegal for foreigners to escort children to school? Would the IDF prefer that there were no witnesses to attacks on the children?

http://www.indybay.org/archives/archive_by_id.php?id=2488&category_id=49
The wall is against international law, but does that really stop construction?

http://www.indybay.org/archives/archive_by_id.php?id=2132&category_id=49
Children killed after IDF attacks peaceful demonstratio: "May 19th A peaceful demonstration against the incursion into Rafah was attacked by Israeli soldiers leaving at least 23 dead, most of whom are children, when a tank shell exploded in the midst of the crowd..."

Ok, take out the Israe/Palestine question, the Jew/Muslim/white/Arab question, and think of it this way:

Imagine there is a demo in the US against the policies of the Department of Homeland Security (sic), or the war on Iraq/Haiti/Afghanistan/the poor/people who use marijuana to battle pain/etc, and the demo is attacked by the military (whose commander in chief was illegally selected to be president in 2000) and children are killed. Pretty bad, huh?

I think that a lot of people who were raised Jewish have a hard time looking beyond the belief that "Israel" should be their homeland cuz g*d said so have a hard time looking at the real situation on the ground, which is that there are a lot of people living there already who the government feels that it has the right to displace in order to make room for the people who have the real "right" to the land, even though they are moving there from the other side of the world.

And they have a hard time understanding the similarities between the situation on the ground there and how black people were "legally" treated in South Africa because the government said it was ok.

(a) No unarmed, non-combatant Palestinian children are attacked by IDF troops or border police. If they (the children) get attacked by Jewish residents, it's very likely that the kids had provoked those Jews (though this isn't an attempt to excuse unwarranted violence against children).


(b) The security barrier isn't exactly against int'l law. Both the Israeli Supreme Court and the ICJ seem to concur that the planed route -- prior to the rulings handed down by the Israeli Supreme Court shortly before the International Court of Jokesters' ruling -- infringed on a number of rights of Palestinians, and the infringement couldn't be justified on the grounds of national security, and therefore the erstwhile route violated ~certain international~ and humanitarian laws, but not all.

In the longer haul, the completion of the security barrier's construction will benefit Palestinians because it will reduce the need for Israeli military operations and the deployment of troops in Palestinian towns. Other security measures, such as curfews and checkpoints, that Palestinians object to may become unnecessary or be dramatically scaled back.


(c) >http://www.indybay.org/archives/archive_by_id.php?id=2132&category_id=49
Children killed after IDF attacks peaceful demonstratio: "May 19th A peaceful demonstration against the incursion into Rafah was attacked by Israeli soldiers leaving at least 23 dead, most of whom are children, when a tank shell exploded in the midst of the crowd..."

That demonstration was a procession which included Palestinian gunmen. As they drew near IDF forces, a warning fire of a single missile was fired from a helicopter into an open area, not towards the demonstrators. In addition, flares were fired in the air to deter the crowd and to prevent endangering the demonstrators.
As this did not deter the crowd and they continued to converge on the troops, machine gun fire was opened towards a wall of an abandoned structure along the side of the road and then four tank shells were fired at this abandoned structure. It is possible that the causalities were a result of the tank fire on the abandoned structure. Ten Palestinians died in this incident, not 23.
Another incident very similar to the one in Gaza was one in which about 40 Iraqis along the Syrian border were killed. In both events, local witnesses immediately claimed that military vehicles intentionally fired upon unarmed civilian crowds. In Gaza, the IDF immediately denied this; likewise in Iraq, US commanders firmly disputed it. Responsible news coverage should have conveyed the disputed nature of the two unfortunate incidents. Yet while most media outlets were careful to express the US position prominently in the headline and opening sentence, that same balance was denied to Israel. The effect -- a worldwide suggestion that the IDF deliberately murdered innocent Palestinian protestors.
After the 2002 Jenin experience, one would have thought journalists would have learned that part of the Palestinian strategy in this war is to disseminate false claims of Israeli "massacres". This, in the hope the falsities will make international headlines.


(d) >Ok, take out the Israe/Palestine question, the Jew/Muslim/white/Arab question, and think of it this way:
Imagine there is a demo in the US against the policies of the Department of Homeland Security (sic), or the war on Iraq/Haiti/Afghanistan/the poor/people who use marijuana to battle pain/etc, and the demo is attacked by the military and children are killed. Pretty bad, huh?

That's an invalid analogy as you're presuming the demo is attacked on purpose, which didn't happen in the May 19th incident in Gaza.


(e) >I think that a lot of people who were raised Jewish have a hard time looking beyond the belief that "Israel" should be their homeland cuz g*d said so have a hard time looking at the real situation on the ground, which is that there are a lot of people living there already who the government feels that it has the right to displace in order to make room for the people who have the real "right" to the land, even though they are moving there from the other side of the world.

This is almost what I would tern the standard issue hate soaked anti-Israel rant.
How would you like it if I started using quotation marks each time I talk about Palestinians vis-a-vis the events of the last two decades?

>And they have a hard time understanding the similarities between the situation on the ground there and how black people were "legally" treated in South Africa because the government said it was ok.

There are far more dissimilarities between those two disputes than simularities or parallels.

Anyway, what do your last two passages have to do with the safety of Palestinians...?