EU condemns "disproportionate" use of force by Israel

[Scurrilous]

<snip>

"The European Union on Sunday condemned what it called "disproportionate use of force" by the Israeli military in Gaza after 54 Palestinians were killed in the highest single day toll since fighting erupted in 2000.

In a statement, the EU urged Israel to halt activities that endanger civilians saying they were "contrary to international law."

It also called for an immediate end to Palestinian rocket attacks on Israeli territory and insisted that the peace process should not be interrupted.

"The (EU) presidency condemns the recent disproportionate use of force by the Israeli Defense Forces against (the) Palestinian population in Gaza and urges Israel to exercise maximum restraint and refrain from all activities that endanger civilians. Such activities are contrary to international law," said the statement issued by the Slovene government on behalf of the EU.

Slovenia currently holds the EU's rotating presidency."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-03-02-eu-israel_N.htm

[Crunchy Frog]

1. All a bunch of anti-Semites.

:sarcasm:

[Boojatta]

4. Are we certain that the US military isn't using disproportionate force in Iraq...

or is Iraq a lower-priority concern for the European Union?

[LeftishBrit]

19. The EU as a whole opposed the pre-emptive action in 2003

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/27c/241.html

Of course, they were ineffective. Partly because of lack of unity (Blair and a few other EU countries' leaders co-operated in the war); and partly because they don't have any jurisdiction over the US or Iraq.

[Boojatta]

24. Is opposing the original invasion good enough?

I still don't know whether or not the EU thinks that, under commander-in-chief GWB, the US military is using excessive force in Iraq.

[Fredda Weinberg]

2. I'm glad the force used is disproportionate. I don't want more Israeli

casualties than necessary. If Hamas did their own policing, this wouldn't be necessary.

[pretzel4gore]

13. Freda! a state based armed force versus civilians!

I understand your point, but...do the Palestinians need to deploy a 100 megaton nuclear bomb to force Israel to leave them alone? (and remove the reasoning behind the rocket attacks, which hardly affect Israel anyway)
the word 'Israel' has become a synonym for sickest cruelty, and unlike the US, Israel can't hide behind its goofy stupidity

[Fredda Weinberg]

15. Armed civilians? An oxymoron who can't spell my name.

Palestinians all over the world are left alone ... Hamas is shelling. Interesting how you support their provocation with their own.

[pretzel4gore]

17. i didn't bother to edit the miss-spelling cuz it's obviously a typo...

i've loved Israel since i read 'House on Garibaldi street' as a kid, and only contend with your logic because the extremists use that logic- and the world sympathises with the underdog. You win the argument, as does foxnews/cnn, meanwhile.

[Fredda Weinberg]

21. You brought up the word 'cruel'. I reject that - anyone subject to this

provocation would act, and acting in force simply makes military sense.

[grassfed]

20. self delete

i need to stay out of this.

[Hydra]

3. "contrary to international law."

When did that ever bother anyone?

[Boojatta]

5. Since when does the European Union have the authority to decide

what is or isn't a violation of International Law?

[Hydra]

6. Thank you for proving my point n/t

[Boojatta]

9. What's your point? Does the African Union have the authority to

decide that EU agricultural subsidies are a violation of international law?

[Hydra]

10. That's why it's "International law"

I can call something as a violation of international law, if I am familiar with it, and familiar with the situation.

You highlighted the problem perfectly. If only certain people are allowed to declare if a law is broken, it's not a law, is it? A murder is a murder. A theft is a theft.

If you say it's not a murder unless an approved group says so, you are saying that the body of law you are speaking of is meaningless to you.

So as I said- "since when did that bother anyone?"

[Boojatta]

11. Anyone can have an opinion about violation of law,

but if there is to be law enforcement, then there has to be a recognized authority that includes judges, law enforcement agents, etc.

If you got a variety of different trial judges to independently judge a case, you would get conflicting judgments. Then what would you do? In American law, you appeal a trial court judgment to a higher court, not to another trial court that is at the same level as the trial court that made the original judgment.

[Hydra]

16. So have the UN do it

I seem to recall that they were unhappy with Israel for killing their peacekeepers in Lebanon during the last invasion.

We both know that won't happen, though. Even if someone were to care, The US would throw it's weight around again, and we'll be back to the original point. The EU is unhappy- now what?

[Fredda Weinberg]

22. Maybe they remember how Hezbollah shelled from their peacekeepers' position

and drew return fire?

[Hydra]

23. Oh, was that my ignore list calling?

It seems I forgot someone from the last time I posted in I/P.

[azurnoir]

30. Yeah that was the "line" then and now

however more recently the UN is unhappy about their bomb removal people being killed while trying to remove the uxcb's from southern Lebanon, Israel refuses to assist in any way even to providing bombing patterns.

[Fredda Weinberg]

31. Do you have an official source for this? Because the only one

I found had a disclaimer.

[azurnoir]

32. Please be more specific as

to exactly what it is you want to know, that way any "confusion" can be averted

[Fredda Weinberg]

33. For the claim that Israel isn't cooperating w/the UN n/t

[azurnoir]

34. BBC

however it is old, if there has been a change post a link please

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5382192.stm

[Fredda Weinberg]

35. I'd expect the BBC to present both sides

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1585565,00.html

Clark may call the information useless, but you can't claim Israelis are not trying to cooperate. That's BS.

[Boojatta]

12. Are you planning to personally execute OJ Simpson or have you determined that he's innocent?

[Hydra]

14. I don't care that OJ Simpson is a killer

He doesn't live by me. If he did, you can be sure that I would be on the squad to dump him in a trashcan. :evilgrin:

[Middle finga]

7. The EU is all talk and no action, Israel ignores them like they are

irrelevant and continue to do as it pleases all the time.

[Boojatta]

8. If the Israeli government consists of European colonialists, then

why isn't the Israeli government concerned about the opinions of other Europeans?

[LeftishBrit]

18. And what action do you expect them to take?

Israel isn't an EU member, and as such isn't under their jurisdiction. They can, should, and do express their views, but that's about it.

[Middle finga]

25. Sanction their asses, put an Embargo on them, Establish a No-Fly Zone

for starters, No nation should be allowed to ignore as many UN resolutions as Israel.

[Vegasaurus]

26. MAybe you would like rockets falling on your houses and schools

or terrorists blowing up your pizza parlors and buses. Maybe you would like to live with that day after day and not be allowed to respond.

How about that?

[Middle finga]

27. How would you like to be treated as sub-human, living in slums

under a miltary occupation with no hope for the rest of your life. How would you like that?

[AdHocSolver]

28. The PLO was given BILLIONs of dollars over the years by the US, European states and Arab states.

The Palestinian leadership stole it rather than build infrastructure for the people. Arafat alone was believed to be worth almost a BILLION dollars when he died.

Honest Palestinian leadership who criticized Arafat were thrown into prison, if they were lucky. Many critics were accused (falsely) of "aiding" Israel and executed.

The Palestinians who were kept in refugee camps were kept there by the Palestinian leadership to be used as pawns in its propaganda war against Israel. The UN gave billions of dollars to the PLO over the years to assist the refugees and most of that was stolen, as well.

Israel absorbed a half a million Jews from Arab lands who were kicked out of their homes, where they had lived for generations, some for over a thousand years. They were forced to leave their savings and their belongings, when they left, often being lucky to get out alive.

Israel did NOT force these refugees into camps and keep them impoverished for political reasons, as the Palestinian leadership did with their people. Instead, Israel educated its refugees, found them jobs, and helped them to start businesses.

Today, Israel has the highest standard of living in the Middle East, and that includes Israeli Arabs. Israel excels in technology, medicine, science, and the arts above any country in the Middle East. They have done this without having any oil to sell.

The Palestinians are a highly educated people. They could have started businesses and improved their lot substantially. Instead, their leadership chose to use the billions of dollars they were given over the years to make themselves richer at the expense of their people, to buy rockets to fire at Israel, and to pay suicide bombers to blow themselves up to kill civilians.

After the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, at the time when Israel took in a half-million Jewish refugees from Arab lands, Jordan invited the Palestinians who left Israel to settle in Jordan. The Palestinians showed their gratitude to Jordan by trying to assassinate its king and overthrow its government.

The Jordanians threw them out, whereupon Lebanon invited the Palestinians into its country. Within a short time, the Palestinians instigated a civil war in Lebanon from which Lebanon has never recovered. The Palestinians made stopovers in Lybia and Egypt and in every case caused trouble for their hosts.

In the meantime, the Palestinians were instrumental in developing the methods of modern terrorism: hijackings of planes and boats (Achille Lauro), assassinations (such as the Munich Massacre at the 1972 Olympic games, among others), suicide bombings, missile attacks on civilians with launchings from civilian areas, etc.

The Palestinian leadership has shown that it is more interested in revenge against the world than it is in helping its people and developing its own society. That is why the Palestinian people are suffering. That is the sad truth.

[Middle finga]

29. I see you've done your homework on this subject, your argument

is convincing. So what is the solution? A never ending conflict between the two sides until one wipe the other out. This may sound stupid but why can't they just have one state in which all citizens are equal and they all share power.