"UT"? I take it that's "uncomfortable truth"?

There was a piece on Channel 4 News last night about 2 volunteer Norwegian doctors who had managed to get into Gaza before the closing of the border to help at the main hospital. They were shown consoling the family of a 14 yr old boy whose brain had been almost liquified by the nearby explosion of an air-burst munition, and who they were unable to save. The doctors were working 24 hours a day in atrocious conditions, with frequent energy black-outs and a chronic shortage of basic equipment.

It kind of puts into perspective the posturing by the various right-wing Israeli apologists posting on this thread.

From today's Guardian (link below) -

How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe

"Oxford professor of international relations Avi Shlaim served in the Israeli army and has never questioned the state's legitimacy. But its merciless assault on Gaza has led him to devastating conclusions"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine

"Imagine if Hamas had chosen not to deliberately break the ceasefire by bombing Israelis."

It didn't. Israel broke the ceasefire first. Read/watch unbiased news.

"Imagine if Egypt took down its wall across the entire southern border of Gaza"

If it does Israel will say IT is caretaker of Gaza...freeing Israel to be more brutish.

"Imagine if the Palestinian leadership had used the $7.6 billion in aid allocations in 2008 to build roads, hospitals, and sewage treatment plants."

8 billion? Even St. Israel didn't get that. Besides, how could it build roads when Israel won't let in even basic food supplies? Meanwhile Israel uses U.S. tax-payers money to build walls and settlements atop stolen land.

"Imagine if Hamas had distributed food and medicine instead of guns and rockets."

How can it distribute food and medicines that Israel blocks? Plus why do Israelis "honor" gentiles who helped Jewish militias smuggle arms? Oh, I forgot: Israelis are "good" terrorists. It's okay for THEM to smuggle weapons.

"Imagine if the Arab countries that hold Palestinians in refugee camps let them out."

Why are they refugees in the first place? Oh yeah: Israeli gangs terrorized them to flee.

"Imagine if Palestinians were free to travel to any of the other 20 Arab countries besides Jordan."

As if they can even travel to Israel! The Jewish State blocks all exits, bombed its airport, and blocks construction of a deep-water port. Jews want Arabs to leave. Just like Germans wanted Jews to leave. That's why Israelis prevent economic viability, farming, proper sanitation, irrigation, etc.

"Imagine if the Palestinians were allowed to own land in any of the other 20 Arab countries, or become citizens or vote there."

Imagine if Germany had shipped Jews to Madagascar during WWII. Imagine if Jews had left Germany when asked, too, instead of helping the Gestapo round each other up and into gas chambers.

"Imagine if Iran didn’t fund terrorist organizations like Hamas."

Imagine the United States no longer funded the Israeli terrorist state.

"Imagine if the international community offered to build schools and hospitals in Gaza instead of offering cash that could be used to buy weapons."

Imagine if America pulled the plug on Israel, forcing it to get along with its neighbors or disappear. Besides, any time foreign governments build something in Gaza, Israelis blow it up. And what about Israel's using American money to make ever-more war instead of peace?

Imagine, too, if the world had asked "squabbling" Germans and Jews to "get along" in the 1930s-40s, holding them equally guilty.

(Hey, the world did!)

"Imagine if Arab countries offered peace prizes to Palestinian families instead of cash bonuses to surviving family members of suicide bombers."

Imagine if Palestinians had weapons to match the IDF and could engage in fair fights with a country that never faces equals...a country that ran like weenies when facing Hizbollah in Lebanon.

"Imagine if Palestinian organizations did not have the planned destruction of Israel in their charters."

Imagine that the "destruction" of Israel is not literal. Did the destruction of the USSR mean dead Russians? When East Germany perished did all its residents die?

Imagine if Israelis taught their children the truth about the Nakba.

Imagine Israeli leaders not using war to build political cred.

Imagine Israeli Arabs being treated equally.

Imagine prominent Israelis not calling Arabs names straight out of Goebbels lexicon.

Imagine discussions about Israel where hysterical supporters don't bring up shopworn platitudes and anti-Arab demonizations.

"Imagine if Hamas offered to negotiate."

It has. Repeatedly. Each time Israel refused because it needs war to steal more land. That's why it never defines its borders. It wants ALL the land.

Now...

Imagine a world fed-up with 60-year-old racist, arrogant, tribal, only-we-matter, God-loves-only-us, war-mongering, socialist, parasitic Israel...and moves it to Antarctica.

Imagine an Israel that didn't always choose war. It's become the Fourth Reich, treating and describing Arabs like Aryans did Jews. It runs amok, the abused child who grew up and now beats her own kids while terrorizing the neighborhood.

The world would be safer if endlessly-at-war, endlessly-abusive-to-Arabs Israel "disappeared" politically.

Heard in Belgium yesterday at a Hamas rally. I can't say it's a bad idea.

and killed many people who had no involvement with politics or religion as, for instance, a kiosk-owner and a worker in Canary Wharf, a financial centre in London; another example of death by explosive occurred when people who had attended a dog-show were dining in a restaurant and were blown to kingdom come, for whatever reason. The number of innocent people killed and mutilated by the IRA, the INLA and, on the other side, the UVF and the UDA. Btw, the Semtex is said to have come from Czechoslovakia, as it was when the bombing campaign was at its height. Americans have very little understanding of what happened in Northern Ireland during those terrible years from 1969 and 1998 and I hardly understand it myself: Leon Uris' book on Ireland "Trinity" was a load of hogwash. The Irish situation is NOT similar to that of Israel and Gaza. The Plantation of Ulster with Scots Presbyterian settlers took place at the very beginning of the 17th century, inspired by what was happening in North America at the same time; the Scots and the Irish are Celts who enjoy the same kind of music and once shared a language and the "planters" have been in Ireland for 400 years now and are as Irish as anyone else.

Renegade Iconoclast, I have to tell you that you know nothing of any worth about the IRA and it's not clear whether you mean the Official IRA or the Provisionals (the Provos) the group that broke away in 1969, I think, and sometimes murdered each other when not otherwise engaged. Whatever point you want to make about Israel's merciless pounding of Gaza, please leave Ireland out of it as you are talking through your nether orifice.