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Israeli diplomatic staff in Egypt narrowly averts lynch by mob

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Infohawk said:
Because Egypt just had purportedly democratic reforms. If they can't protect foreign diplomatic corps its a sign of serious problems in Egypt.
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I have to agree with infohawk, but for the delusional post of this thread we can't beat sammy who says, "With each and every post you seem more delusional and detached from reality; at this point it is a true achievement. Egyptians are more scared of Hamas than than the Israelis are; Egyptians don't have the means or the domestic legitimacy to fight Hamas which turned Sinai into it's own ground together with Al Qaeda and Hizballah. Those three organizations are terrorizing the Egyptians, smuggling arms and drugs and attacking Egyptian forces.
They are a real danger to Egypt, which is why the latter requested a permission from Israel to get troops into Sinai against the Camp David agreement (Israel agreed).

Egypt wants nothing to do with Gaza, they are going to keep it under lock for the foreseeable future (unless the Muslim brotherhood takes place) and even then they know the weapons in the Gaza strip would be turned against them. "

As Sammy is likely to find he is wrong wrong wrong and wrong. As Hamas is considering transferring their alliegence from a dying Syria to Egypt.

Do we really think, paltry US aid to Egypt that amounts to less than $6.00 a person will buy any Egyptian allegence? As all Arab nations are even more united against Israel. Arabs may in future respect the integrity of Israeli embassies, but they will all support Palestinian rights. As even the saudies today sent a message to the USA, that if the USA vetoes a Palestinians State on 9/20/2011, the USA can kiss all Arab support goodbye.
 
Craig234 said:
It's unfortunate that the problems for Palestinians are ongoing and become 'the normal situation' so they aren't 'news'.
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That would be unfortunate if true, but the opposite is actually the case. We get stories about every individual or small group of Palestinians being killed. You can compare and contrast this with any other ongoing conflict that causes deaths. How many people die in a places like Darfur on a daily basis? While westerners have become generally aware that there is a humanitarian catastrophe there (after some Hollywood celebs called attention to it), we don't get stories about every person who dies there. We don't even get that many general stories about large scale killings.

Everything that happens in the Israel/Palestine conflict is under a magnifying glass. Just ask yourself why we have about 2 new threads started on the subject every day when conflicts causing 10-50x the number of deaths get one thread a year.
 
This is a point I don't think some pro-Israel people understand - that even if the Arab countries are terrible themselves to the Palestinians, that doesn't invalidate or negate the issue of their opposing ISRAEL being terrible to the Palestinians. That seems unfair, doesn't it.

But since when has that mattered? The US would scream murder about its enemies in the cold war oppressing the rights of people - like the Czech revolt in 1968 or Tianammen square - yet the US was doing things like installing Pinochet in our own backyard - almost analogous to Czekoslovakia for the USSR.

By the same token, the USSR would run photos of black children in the south attacked by racist white police, while committing far worse rights abuses.

Pro-Israel people point out the hypocrisy of arab nations as if it removes the issue. It doesn't at all.

Arabs can be outraged at the Israeli policies regardless of hypocrisy. It neither changes the issue for them, or addresses the issue of Israeli wrongs.

It's a fair point to make, but should not be considered a counter to the issue.
 
Craig234 said:
Arabs can be outraged at the Israeli policies regardless of hypocrisy. It neither changes the issue for them, or addresses the issue of Israeli wrongs.
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No, pro-Israel people point out that critics of Israel totally ignore the conduct of Arab nations both toward the Palestinians and in general. And that they decry civil rights issues in Israel which are vastly less severe than those in surrounding Arab countries. What they are pointing out, Craig, is a huge double standard and a huge hypocrisy. All you're doing here is ignoring that issue and knocking down a straw man instead. If you don't want to be called a hypocrit, stop criticizing Israel and ignoring everyone else's bad conduct.

This comment is also related thematically to my last post which you have so far ignored. Why all the obsessive attention on Israel?
 
Question: what is the justification for the US to veto the UN Palestinian statehood measure, if most of the world approves it?

Everyone says they want Palestinian statehood. Israel, the US, other nations, the Palestinian people. So if this measure is close enough for majority support...

It really raises questions again about having 'veto power' for some nations, whether it's Russia or China or France abusing it - or us.

I'm not sure in this time of the 'arab spring' if it's the time for the US to side with another 'occupier of Muslims', when every dictator overthrown, we had supported.
 
Craig234 said:
Yes, Iran's youths in fury at the US protecting the Shah took the US Embassy hostage.

The US had installed a dictator to rule their country 25 years, not nearly as bad.

The US demanded the man who killed 3000 be handed over, or they'd go to war.

The Iranian youth demanded the man who killed more than that, put in place by us, be handed over or they'd take the embassy hostage. Much less justified, clearly.
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You are stating that there is now justification for attacking an embassy because one does not like the politics of the country.😕

You used to have decent reasonable skills up to this point.

FAIL.:thumbsdown:
 
Craig234 said:
Question: what is the justification for the US to veto the UN Palestinian statehood measure, if most of the world approves it?

Everyone says they want Palestinian statehood. Israel, the US, other nations, the Palestinian people. So if this measure is close enough for majority support...

It really raises questions again about having 'veto power' for some nations, whether it's Russia or China or France abusing it - or us.

I'm not sure in this time of the 'arab spring' if it's the time for the US to side with another 'occupier of Muslims', when every dictator overthrown, we had supported.
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The Palestinians & Arabs have had 60+ years to obtain this state. When the time was ripe; no one came forward for such.

The Palestinians were told up front (documented courtesy of LL) that they needed to shape up to earn recognition.

Up to this point; they have refused.

Everyone wants to feel sympathy for the Palestinians; but no country steps up to the plate to actually do anything except IRan via it's terror proxies.
 
Liar liar pants on fire EK, as EK falsely says, "The Palestinians were told up front (documented courtesy of LL) that they needed to shape up to earn recognition.

Up to this point; they have refused."

The point is and remains, the Palestinians under Abbas have earned IMF support for building the institutions of a State. As over 2/3rd of UN nations are prepared to vote for Palestinians Statehood. Its Israel that is not being reasonable and almost everyone knows it no matter how many time EK tells the same great lie.
 
Lemon law said:
As Sammy is likely to find he is wrong wrong wrong and wrong. As Hamas is considering transferring their alliegence from a dying Syria to Egypt.
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Your analysis is nearly as bad as your posting skills. Nearly. Hamas has no allegiance to Syria, other than the fact some of the leadership is hosted there. Hamas today has ties with Iran - that's where they get their weapons and money from. Egypt knows that Hamas brings Iranian influence to their back yard and they fear it much more than they fear Israel. The LAST thing Egypt wants to do is to sponsor Gaza in any form or way.

Do we really think, paltry US aid to Egypt that amounts to less than $6.00 a person will buy any Egyptian allegence? As all Arab nations are even more united against Israel. Arabs may in future respect the integrity of Israeli embassies, but they will all support Palestinian rights. As even the saudies today sent a message to the USA, that if the USA vetoes a Palestinians State on 9/20/2011, the USA can kiss all Arab support goodbye.
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Sauds are ruling because of the Americans. The moment Obama withdraws support - like he did to Mubarak - and military hardware, they are left to hang in the city square. They don't give a fuck about the Palestinians, only their interests. Their interests are good ties with US and an alliance against Iran, together with the last word in American military hardware.

Your understanding of the region amounts to no more than your wishful thinking. It is pathetic.
 
Craig234 said:
This is a point I don't think some pro-Israel people understand - that even if the Arab countries are terrible themselves to the Palestinians, that doesn't invalidate or negate the issue of their opposing ISRAEL being terrible to the Palestinians. That seems unfair, doesn't it.
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I want a Palestinian state. I'll be the first to support it. The current situation is not sustainable in the long run.

The question is, what guarantees are there to assure the safety of Israel once this state is formed? There is about 15 miles (or even less) between the Palestinian territories and Tel Aviv, who will assure this won't degenerate to the state Gaza is in and Tel Aviv will be bombarded by rockets night and day? Were you an Israeli, would you bet your life and family safety on that? We all saw what happened in 2005 when they got Gaza.

What reason is there for this time to be any different?
 
SamurAchzar said:
I want a Palestinian state. I'll be the first to support it. The current situation is not sustainable in the long run.

The question is, what guarantees are there to assure the safety of Israel once this state is formed? There is about 15 miles (or even less) between the Palestinian territories and Tel Aviv, who will assure this won't degenerate to the state Gaza is in and Tel Aviv will be bombarded by rockets night and day? Were you an Israeli, would you bet your life and family safety on that? We all saw what happened in 2005 when they got Gaza.

What reason is there for this time to be any different?
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I'm open to a discussion on the issue, which should have input from both sides.

Lay out the issue, lay out the ideas for solutions.

It's not going to be perfect. Our security situation with Mexico isn't, either (and those damn Canadians have it even better). Don't use it as an excuse to delay.
 
routan said:
and another:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mQAp1OjJcE&feature=related
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That is interesting. On the one hand, parts of it come across as more accusations against Israel than really proven statements.

But it is interesting to see Israel's version turn from 'Hamas took over the UN building and was firing from it' to acknowledging UN claims that was not the case and changing it to 'they're not saying there was fire from the compound, but from the area around the compound'.

It's also interesting seeing them oppose an 'independent inquiry' saying it's not possible. Of course it is.

After saying it was a mistake and they apologized for it, it becomes 'there might have been a mistake'.

We in the US are not used to seeing Israel held accountable this way.

It's not black and white what happened - how much of a defense Israel has - but they don't look that good here, appearing to rush to try to use a lot of claims.

While these journalists appeared to be pretty confrontational, and there might be some criticism, they're a whole lot better than our mainstream tv figures here, who doing the same interview seem like they would have done nothing more than have the officials state their arguments, and accept them.

An independent inquiry sounds like a good idea - one that might find that Hamas did something very wrong - or might find that they didn't.

Regardless, there are real questions whether the mortars at a known UN refugee site killing dozens of civilians were the equivalent of manslaughter.

Maybe more is known for an update one way or another, I'm not familiar with the incident before this thread.
 
Craig234 said:
While these journalists appeared to be pretty confrontational, and there might be some criticism, they're a whole lot better than our mainstream tv figures here, who doing the same interview seem like they would have done nothing more than have the officials state their arguments, and accept them.
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Perhaps they might appear confrontational, but in my opinion, their approach is taking the minister to task on the issue. There are other videos out there which has the UN repeatedly calling their Israeli counterparts and letting them know that they are under fire.
 
routan said:
Perhaps they might appear confrontational, but in my opinion, their approach is taking the minister to task on the issue. There are other videos out there which has the UN repeatedly calling their Israeli counterparts and letting them know that they are under fire.
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I understand. It's just the facts in the interview appeared to be limited, with things that could go either way.

For example, when the Israeli representative said 'if Hamas had taken over the building and used the people as human shields' in the fist interview, the journalist could have acknowledged that yes, that would be an issue; instead he just attacked the representative for the word 'if', as if 'if' proved the scenario wrong. Of course ideally, there would be facts whether it was the case.

And by the second interview, that appeared to be the case, where there was evidence of the UN claiming Hamas had not taken over the building, were not using 'human shields' as Israel alleged, and Israel had backed off the assertion, changing it to 'fired from the area of the building', with a very weak 'so they apologized' for killing dozens of civilians in a building attacks were not coming from.

It looks more and more like a coverup and avoidance of responsibility.

That's what I meant by Israel appearing to 'rush to a good story' of Hamas shooting from the building and using the civilians as human shields - until it didn't hold up.
 
Craig234 said:
EagleKeeper said:
You are stating that there is now justification for attacking an embassy because one does not like the politics of the country.😕
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That's not what I said.

I'm against the attack on the Israeli embassy. It was wrong.
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Yet it was OK in your book for the US embassy in Iran to be attacked?

Pick and choose does not work; an embassy is either sacred or open; not dependent on the country's politics
 
Craig234 said:
I understand. It's just the facts in the interview appeared to be limited, with things that could go either way.

For example, when the Israeli representative said 'if Hamas had taken over the building and used the people as human shields' in the fist interview, the journalist could have acknowledged that yes, that would be an issue; instead he just attacked the representative for the word 'if', as if 'if' proved the scenario wrong. Of course ideally, there would be facts whether it was the case.

And by the second interview, that appeared to be the case, where there was evidence of the UN claiming Hamas had not taken over the building, were not using 'human shields' as Israel alleged, and Israel had backed off the assertion, changing it to 'fired from the area of the building', with a very weak 'so they apologized' for killing dozens of civilians in a building attacks were not coming from.

It looks more and more like a coverup and avoidance of responsibility.

That's what I meant by Israel appearing to 'rush to a good story' of Hamas shooting from the building and using the civilians as human shields - until it didn't hold up.
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Understandable, however, the Israeli representative used "if". Without knowing with certainty, IDF attacked the UN base. Hence I believe the host was right to be aggressive.
 
EagleKeeper said:
not dependent on the country's politics
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I have been thinking about this topic and have come up with something.

Israel had an agreement with the Egyptian government. But when the Egyptian government was overthrown, all agreements were voided. The new government can not be bound to agreements made by the old government.

This does not excuse the actions of the people. Diplomats should have a sense of security.

Whatever agreements the Israeli diplomatic staff had with the old Egyptian government, no longer applied when the attacks happened.

Once the government was overthrown, were the people bound to the laws of the old regime?
 
Craig234 said:
I'm open to a discussion on the issue, which should have input from both sides.

Lay out the issue, lay out the ideas for solutions.

It's not going to be perfect. Our security situation with Mexico isn't, either (and those damn Canadians have it even better). Don't use it as an excuse to delay.
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It all comes down to who will supervise the terrorist activity in the Palestinian areas:

* Israel would do it the best but of course the entire idea of statehood is to remove Israelis from those territories, so this won't work

* A multinational force is simply not effective, as we see in Lebanon

* US won't send in troops to confront the Palestinians because it will do them very bad PR - they will basically assume the role of Israel in the conflict, again not very desirable

* Giving the Palestinians weapons and asking them to govern themselves seems like a noble idea - it is - but then again Israel did this during the Oslo accords and the very same weapons turned up against Israelis during the second Intifada

Finally, there is no single Palestinian entity; there is Hamas and there is PA, so there isn't even one body to assume responsibility.

The alternative is to let them fire whatever they want at Israel and let Israel retaliate as it would retaliate against a sovereign country, but it would be a bloodbath and I'm not sure it serves humanitarian goals very well.
 
Texashiker said:
I have been thinking about this topic and have come up with something.

Israel had an agreement with the Egyptian government. But when the Egyptian government was overthrown, all agreements were voided. The new government can not be bound to agreements made by the old government.

This does not excuse the actions of the people. Diplomats should have a sense of security.

Whatever agreements the Israeli diplomatic staff had with the old Egyptian government, no longer applied when the attacks happened.

Once the government was overthrown, were the people bound to the laws of the old regime?
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It is not about treaties; it is something that is universally accepted around the world ; an embassy is off limits and the host government has a responsibility to try to have it protected.
 
EagleKeeper said:
an embassy is off limits and the host government has a responsibility to try to have it protected.
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You hit the keywords "host government" - did Egypt even have a government when the attacks happened?

As far as I know, the people of Egypt are still forming a government.

I think there are 2 wrongs in this situation:

1 - Israel did not pulled its people out of Egypt.

2 - The Embassy should not have been attacked.
 
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