Comments on: An open letter to Khalil from Gaza

By: Robi Michael Schiffman

Robi Michael Schiffman — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 11:53:13 +0000

@ Erilk K Patterson
1.4 million Muslims live in Israel as full Israeli citizens they have equal right and protection under law, they have the right to vote and influence government and policy. Why have none of the arab countries done anything to assist their poor brethren? – because Gaza is far from a shanty town, squatter camp or refugee camp, it has shopping malls, beautiful apartment blocks and beaches, it has water-parks and water and electricity and sanitation and medical services (provided by Israel) there is no shortage of food or supplies as tens of thousands of tonnes pass from Israel to Gaza weekly.
What they don't have is freedom – they elected hamas and must pay for it

By: Robi Michael Schiffman

Robi Michael Schiffman — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 11:44:27 +0000

@Kavi Singh Might I suggest you do some research into the history of Israel and Jerusalem before making banal comments. Jerusalem (part of the West bank by your logic) is the eternal indivisible capital of Israel and home of the Jewish people and our religion it is the SINGLE most important place on EARTH for Jews yet we are expected to divide or relinquish it to a religion that prays with their asses to it? a religion that destroys other religious places and monuments wherever they invade?

The palestinians were promised half of the land of Jordan by the same resolution that gave Israel independence – why don't you and the pallys take king Abdullah to task???
Why doesn't the world demand Abdullah give up the land? Why doesn't the world scream for vengeance after Black September?

because you Mr Singh and the rest of your ilk are simple anti-semites.

By: Mark Brown

Mark Brown — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 01:15:11 +0000

That is a complete lie Mr. Logan. What is your source for those scriptures? Every Muslim I have ever met is a wonderful, peaceful, giving person. Islamic terrorists and violent entities are as much a misrepresentation of the religion as George Bush and Mitt Romney are of Christianity.

By: Mark Brown

Mark Brown — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 01:15:11 +0000

By: Larisa Zelbovitz

Larisa Zelbovitz — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 20:23:59 +0000

I agree with Abdullah Tayyab. There's mistakes being made on both sides.
I've met so, so many wonderful Muslims, and I feel affinity for a peace-loving person of any religion.
I don't believe that Hamas has any interest in peace, but I do think that the settlers should not be in the West Bank, and I am optimistic that progress can be made with Fatah. (Perhaps naively optimistic… But I do maintain my faith in humanity.)

By: Larisa Zelbovitz

Larisa Zelbovitz — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 20:23:59 +0000

By: Shehrayar Khan

Shehrayar Khan — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 02:12:52 +0000

Here is an open letter to all Israelies.Dr. Ezzeldeen Abu al-Aish, a Palestinian doctor who trained in Israel, has been a regular fixture on Israeli television during the 21-day-old war against Hamas militants, bringing witness accounts of the medical crisis facing Gazans to Israeli living rooms.

His report Friday was drenched in grief as he sobbed through a cell phone that three of his daughters and a niece were killed by an Israel Defense Forces shell. Abu al-Aish said he hoped his three daughters would be the last victims of the fighting in Gaza, and that their deaths would help bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

"I want to know why my daughters were harmed. This should haunt (Israeli Ehud Prime Minister) Olmert his entire life," Abu al-Aish said on Israel's Channel 10, speaking through a cell phone in Hebrew as he has throughout the war.

He added that his daughters were "armed only with love."

Gazan officials identified Al-Aish's deceased daughters as 22-year-old Bisan, 15-year-old Mayer and 14-year old Aya. His niece was identified as 14-year-old Nour Abu al-Aish.

The press conference at Tel Ha-Shomer became tense at one moment when an Israeli woman and mother of three IDF paratroopers began yelling at Abu al-Aish, demanding that he explain why there was weaponry in the house.

Throughout the war, Abu al-Aish had put a face on the Palestinian suffering, making regular reports by cell phone to Israel's Channel 10. He is a rarity among Palestinians, a Hebrew-speaker who trained in two Israeli hospitals – the Soroka hospital in Beersheba just 18 miles from Gaza, and Tel Aviv's Tel Hashomer hospital.

His tragedy prompted numerous calls of concern to the station, many from people who know him.

"We all know and love him well at Soroka, and we really hope the situation gets better," Dr. Shaul Sofer, head of the ER at Soroka who taught Abu al-Aish.

Abu al-Aish, a 55-year-old gynecologist, also is a known peace activist who was involved in promoting joint Israeli-Palestinian projects, and an academic who studied the affects of war on Gazan and Israeli children. He works at Gaza's main Shifa Hospital.

During the call-ins, Abu al-Aish often spoke of his fears for his eight children as Israeli shells punished not only the Hamas militants they were targeting but civilians who live in the crowded enclave, unable to leave. His wife reportedly died recently of cancer.

When Channel 10 called him on Friday, he answered the phone crying that his house in the northern Gaza strip town of Jebalia had been hit by Israeli shells and his daughters killed. Eighteen members of his extended family were in the house at the time.

That Doctor served in Israeli hospital saving Jewish kids lives and hv shown only love for his own Daughters.You cannot dehumanize the other side.

By: Shehrayar Khan

Shehrayar Khan — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 02:02:19 +0000

So we spend millions of dollars on missiles, which are kind of like rockets, only they’re accurate, and they allow us to hit the warehouses full of rockets and launchers……..In just one incident, 12 children, including 10 siblings from the Rayan family were killed along with their parents in a missile strike on their home in Jabalya refugee camp by Israeli forces on January 1st, 2009. These children: Asad, 2; Aisha, 2; Reem, 4; Halima, 5; Maryam, 5; Abdul-Rahman, 6; Abdul-Qader, 12; Ayah, 12; Zainab, 15 and Ghassan, 16, were as innocent and undeserving of their cruel death as the Fogel children…We do care about our children but Israel kills them they call it Collateral damage as though they are not human but some animals worthy of dying.This article is really biased against Palestine.

By: Shehrayar Khan

Shehrayar Khan — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 01:58:34 +0000

Why is someone like Rabbi Dov Lior, who said just last month that the killing of non-Jews, even children, is allowed under Jewish law, allowed to remain in his post as the Chief Rabbi of the Kiryat Arba settlement in Hebron, in the southern West Bank (http://www.imemc.org/article/60606)? Even Hamas, among the most extreme of the Palestinian resistance movements, condemns the killing of children under any circumstances.

In 2007, a year which saw 92 Palestinian children killed (thankfully, no Israeli children were killed in 2007), Israeli reporter Gideon Levy wrote these words about a tour he made of the Gaza Strip: "The day after Rosh Hashanah we traveled to Rafah. Dam Hamad, 14, had been killed in her sleep, in her mother's arms, by an Israeli rocket strike that sent a concrete pillar crashing down on her head. She was the only daughter of her paralyzed mother, her whole world. In the family's impoverished home in the Brazil neighborhood, at the edge of Rafah, we met the mother who lay in a heap in bed; everything she had in the world was gone. Outside, I remarked to the reporter from French television who accompanied me that this was one of those moments when I felt ashamed to be an Israeli. The next day he called and said: "They didn't broadcast what you said, for fear of the Jewish viewers in France." (http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/magazine/twilight-zone-t…30132).

By: Shehrayar Khan

Shehrayar Khan — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 01:56:54 +0000

Using White phosphorous bombs on civilian population is an act of Humanity?

By: Shehrayar Khan

Shehrayar Khan — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 01:55:22 +0000

So why is there no equivalent renunciation by the Israeli government of its military, which kills children on a regular basis? Why, instead, did an Israeli internal investigation, which released its findings just two weeks ago, say that a 2002 missile strike in Gaza that tore apart the small bodies of 8 children asleep in their beds was 'justified', and that there was 'no wrongdoing' committed by the perpetrators of this horrendous act? (http://www.imemc.org/article/60728)

The killing of children is never justified! Under any circumstances! Why does the Israeli government condemn the killing of children when the victims are Israeli Jews, and allow the killing of children when the victims are Palestinian Arabs? This kind of double standard is blatantly racist and unjustifiable.

By: Lee Fogel

Lee Fogel — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 06:39:29 +0000

Yes, John: if this argument is reversed, your examples are true. This is so with any disagreement: one view is, by definition, another's opposite.

Your proposal's flaw – and the Israel supporter's claim – is that one must disregard substantial contrary evidence to reverse this argument; so much evidence, in fact, that one might call it intellectually dishonest.

By: Lee Fogel

Lee Fogel — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 06:39:29 +0000

Yes, John: if this argument is reversed, your examples are true. This is so with any disagreement: one view is, by definition, another's opposite.

By: Peter van der Hoog

Peter van der Hoog — Sat, 24 Nov 2012 02:31:44 +0000

Both sides have strong arguments but this one ("why don't you do anything about Tibet") I find by far the weakest. Many people are concerned about Tibet. You could ask them the same, you only get worked up over the Tibetan problem?

By: Ina Shneor

Ina Shneor — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 20:11:04 +0000

After meeting many Arabs and Muslims living in UK I think this can't help because the Muslim world actually teaches that every Jew is evil. Asking these people to think about the children is nothing because they believe its for the best of causes.