Protests against Israel?

tallus

interesting indeed, I suppose it says a lot that any one country has to take those kind of steps. Does anyone know if it's a first for internet forums ?

Sgt. Sensible

tallus wrote:

interesting indeed, I suppose it says a lot that any one country has to take those kind of steps. Does anyone know if it's a first for internet forums ?

I have a suspicion that americans use something similar. I've never seen a board or email discussion group that didn't have at least one ultra right wing american apparently parachuted in to do their thing. I'm not going to mention the particular site I'm thinking of.

zuma

FYI wrote:

If you are still wondering why you have noticed an influx of pro-Israeli posters, this could be your answer:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,174-2289232,00.html

"In the past week nearly 5,000 members of the World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS) have downloaded special “megaphone” software that alerts them to anti-Israeli chatrooms or internet polls to enable them to post contrary viewpoints. A student team in Jerusalem combs the web in a host of different languages to flag the sites so that those who have signed up can influence an opinion survey or the course of a debate."

Didnt they have a contest in Israel before with intellignet College students travelling around Europe debating the Israel/Palestine issue with the attending audiences?

From what I remember it was a bit of a failure.

Propoganda at its best!!!

tallus

Ok I mean I think everyone deserves a voice be they right wrong or indifferent. If we all agreed politically, these forums would be boring as hell.

Morlar

My opinion on that is that its pretty sickening, manipulative and completely disgusting behaviour & it speaks volumes on the israeli mentality that this is a government organised campaign. I dont know if that has gone on here but its right down there with marketing shills (who have previously been banned from this forum) in my opinion.

In case anybody is too lazy to follow the link here is whats at that times.co.uk site:
~ ~ ~~ ~ ~~

"WHILE Israel fights Hezbollah with tanks and aircraft, its supporters are campaigning on the internet.

Israel’s Government has thrown its weight behind efforts by supporters to counter what it believes to be negative bias and a tide of pro-Arab propaganda. The Foreign Ministry has ordered trainee diplomats to track websites and chatrooms so that networks of US and European groups with hundreds of thousands of Jewish activists can place supportive messages.

In the past week nearly 5,000 members of the World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS) have downloaded special “megaphone” software that alerts them to anti-Israeli chatrooms or internet polls to enable them to post contrary viewpoints. A student team in Jerusalem combs the web in a host of different languages to flag the sites so that those who have signed up can influence an opinion survey or the course of a debate.

Jonny Cline, of the international student group, said that Jewish students and youth groups with their understanding of the web environment were ideally placed to present another side to the debate.

“We’re saying to these people that if Israel is being bashed, don’t ignore it, change it,” Mr Cline said. “A poll like CNN’s takes just a few seconds to vote in, but if thousands take part the outcome will be changed. What’s vital is that the international face of the conflict is balanced.”

Doron Barkat, 29, in Jerusalem, spends long nights trawling the web to try to swing the debate Israel’s way. “When I see internet polls for or against Israel I send out a mailing list to vote for Israel,” he said. “It can be that after 15 minutes there will be 400 votes for Israel.

“It’s very satisfying. There are also forums where Lebanese and Israelis talk.”

Israel’s Foreign Ministry must avoid direct involvement with the campaign but is in contact with international Jewish and evangelical Christian groups, distributing internet information packs.

Amir Gissin, the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s public relations director, said: “The internet’s become a leading tool for news, shaping the world view of millions. Our problem is the foreign media shows Lebanese suffering, but not Israeli. We’re bypassing that filter by distributing pictures showing how northern Israelis suffer from Katyusha rocket attacks.”tyusha rocket attacks.”

Morlar

tallus wrote:

Ok I mean I think everyone deserves a voice be they right wrong or indifferent. If we all agreed politically, these forums would be boring as hell.

No one is saying that we all should agree - or that the israeli opinion on this isnt welcome here (it is imo) - the fact is that if this was in an irish context - ie say if there was a thread on the budget or on some legal bill to change the constitution or whatever - and people were talking about the increase on vat or whatever - can you imagine a government department where they had people working to sway public opinion by taking part (while pretending to be joe soaps) in online forums ? Would that be acceptable behaviour ? I honestly think for any other country that would be enough to bring a government down.

tallus

Fair comment, Morlar, but regardless of new posters here I think most of the regular posters are pretty much well informed.

oscarBravo

Sgt. Sensible wrote:

I've no idea what the IRA has to do with the middle east...

Nothing. Don't go there. Thanks.

the_syco

clown bag wrote:

Are you pro-IRA tactics and Pro- Israeli military tactics but anti-Hezbollah tactics

Yes, I'm pro-telling-people-you're-gonna-blow-up-a-bomb-at-a-certain-military-area, and yes I'm pro-dropping-leaflets-at-an-area(which_terrorists_use)-you're-gonna-shell, but I'm anti-shoot-random-missile's-at-random-civilain-populated-area's-to-create-massive-causulties.

clown bag wrote:

Some people are however denying that Israel has hit soft targets and are supporting their tactics.

:DSorry, but I forget there are fools who believe this. I think people should wake up to the fact that every Hezbollah target is a soft target, as Hezbollah always have bases within civilain area's.

clown bag wrote:

Israel bombing innocent people in Lebanon is only ever going to result in more recruits for Hezbollah putting Israels long term security at an even greater risk.

The thing is, if you want a group of people dead, and you only have a grenade, you throw it at them. They'll die, but so will people nearby. If you drop leafelts telling people to flee, and then drop a bomb onto the target, people will die, and so will people nearby, but hopefully less will die, and the terrorist base will be destroyed.

If the base is located within an area where civilains live, and you want to blow up a house, you use a small bomb, so not to destoy too much nearby, but big enought to eliminate the threat.

spanner

there is loads of multi nationals in Israel if it was made look bad for them to continue doing business in europe I think they might start to think about setting up more business there. saying this they would have to come up againist the powerful jewish lobby which would rale in on them for pulling out of Israel.

I personally would not protest, but it does work. If you can mobilise normal people right across europe, Israel will get the message that what they are doing is not popular and as much as they may say they dont care about europe it is not true, they cant ignore the whole of Europe. Look at South Africa The trick is to get many different people out not just the serial protestors who would come out to protest about the weather if it didnt suit them

zuma

Whatever many people believe without the buying power of Europe....Israel probable wouldnt exist today as the US can only contribute so much to them in terms of aid.

spanner

zuma wrote:

Whatever many people believe without the buying power of Europe....Israel probable wouldnt exist today as the US can only contribute so much to them in terms of aid.

exactly, it knows it needs at least an indifferent Europe that is not to bothered about what it is doing. I dont think Israel has specific produce it exports, being a small country like Ireland it relies on foreign multi nation companies like intel and cisco who prefer not to annoy the powerful jewish lobby rather than the well meaning but less powerful anti war movement

Dirk Gently

the_syco wrote:

Yes, I'm pro-telling-people-you're-gonna-blow-up-a-bomb-at-a-certain-military-area, .

I don’t remember the RA ever giving notice about attacking a military target tbh. They did give warnings when bombing economic targets though.

the_syco wrote:

and yes I'm pro-dropping-leaflets-at-an-area(which_terrorists_use)-you're-gonna-shell,.

As for dropping leaflets, that’s no use if the people have no means of escape because all the roads are blown to bits and then those who do manage to flee get targeted by "smart" bombs anyway. I'm sure Hezbollah can read leaflets too and bunker down once they know the area will be targeted.To be honest the leaflet drops look more like a PR stunt than any real effort to avoid civilian deaths.

the_syco wrote:

but I'm anti-shoot-random-missile's-at-random-civilain-populated-area's-to-create-massive-causulties.

which is what Israel is doing mostly tbh.

the_syco wrote:

:DSorry, but I forget there are fools who believe this. I think people should wake up to the fact that every Hezbollah target is a soft target, as Hezbollah always have bases within civilain area's..

I don't think Israel would get half as much abuse from the international community or even from the people of Lebanon themselves if the IDF grew some balls and went in and actually got the terrorists instead of randomly dropping bombs on top of civilian areas hoping that among the many innocent deaths they might actually get the odd Hezbollah member too. It’s too late now though as any Israeli ground force is quite rightly going to meet massive resistance by an enraged population. I know it’s safer to bombard from the air than to engage in ground combat with the enemy but if Israel truly wanted to avoid civilian deaths and keep this war between Hezbollah and the IDF then they would put their soldiers at a greater risk than helpless civilians in Lebanon. If we assume that Hezbollah are cowardly terrorists who keep themselves relatively safe by hiding among civilians while lobbing missiles into Israeli civilian areas indiscriminately then how exactly are the IDF any different as they don’t put themselves in harms way either but instead choose to drop bombs on civilian areas from the relative safety of their jets and shell random villages from their armored tanks.

A more Humane and civilised approach (which one would expect from a non-terrorist military force) would be to at least ask the Lebanese Government for tactical support while IDF units sweep south Lebanon and take out the Hezbollah on the ground, making sure they actually get Hezbollah and not everyone else except Hezbollah. Of course what ever chance they had of getting any support from what was a fairly decent if also weak Lebanese government has long evaporated since the IDF basically destroyed the country. Obviously the Lebanese Government would have been cautious about supporting Israel against Hezbollah for risk of civil war but I think pressure could have been applied and faced with the risk of civil war but the support of Israel in any potential civil war or else face certain slaughter and destrucion of the country by Israeli jets then I think a joint Israeli / Lebanese crack down on Hezbollah might of been possible before the current conflict kicked off. Even Israeli soldiers have admitted that the only way they are going to get Hezbollah is if they go in and flush them out of the bunkers and the hiding spots by engaging in close ground combat. Unfortunately they came to this realisation only within the past few days. Israel tried to move in to south Lebanon but started to fall back as soon as they came up against Hezbollah fighters. It is obvious that the IDF would rather try and get lucky by killing as many people as they can whether they are women, children, babies or Hezbollah rather than risk their own military personnel by taking on Hezbollah man to man. I see that as being cowardly and terrorist. Its not like Israel are in any danger of loosing the war with Hezbollah, its just they would rather see massive Lebanese civilian causalities rather than risk a few casualties within their own well armed military. Aerial bombardment is grand when taking out military bases and military targets but when it is not possible to do that without risking massive civilian casualties then its time to grow some balls and do the hard job of engaging directly with the terrorists and avoiding the civilian population.

The Israelis have the best intelligence service in the world, it’s hard to believe that mossad together with some of the best trained and best armed soldiers in the world are incapable of fighting Hezbollah without so much innocent people getting slaughtered, or "collateral damage" as it is called by us so called civilised people in the west.

New_Departure06

Israel is behaving like King Herod.

Akrasia

Morlar wrote:

“We’re saying to these people that if Israel is being bashed, don’t ignore it, change it,” Mr Cline said. “A poll like CNN’s takes just a few seconds to vote in, but if thousands take part the outcome will be changed. What’s vital is that the international face of the conflict is balanced.”

It's hardly balanced to rig polls so they reflect your point of view.
Especially if the same people who rig the polls then go around using those results as evidence for how the public is reacting favourably to their position.

It's wrong when politicians do it, and its wrong when zionists do it. It would be wrong if left wing activists had the same kind of mechanism in place.

Akrasia

the_syco wrote:

Yes, I'm pro-telling-people-you're-gonna-blow-up-a-bomb-at-a-certain-military-area, and yes I'm pro-dropping-leaflets-at-an-area(which_terrorists_use)-you're-gonna-shell, but I'm anti-shoot-random-missile's-at-random-civilain-populated-area's-to-create-massive-causulties.

The claim that Hezbollah are firing rockets at random into civilian centres isn't quite true. Only 15 Israeli civilians have been killed, 8 of whom were in a train station, which is no less a military target than the roads and bridges and airports and seaports that Israel have been blowing up for 3 weeks now.

In fact, although no one is making the point, Hizbullah’s rockets have been targeted overwhelming at strategic locations: the northern economic hub of Haifa, its satellite towns and the array of military sites across the Galilee.

Nasrallah seems fully aware that Israel has an impressive civil defence program of shelters that keep most civilians out of harm’s way. Unlike Horowitz I won’t presume to read Nasrallah’s mind: whether he wants to kill large numbers of Israeli civilians or not cannot be known, given his inability to do so.

But we can see from the choice of the sites he is striking that his primary goal is to give Israelis a small taste of the disruption of normal life that is being endured by the Lebanese. He has effectively closed Haifa for more than a week, shutting its port and financial centres. Israeli TV is speaking increasingly of the damage being inflicted on the country’s economy.

Because of Israel’s press censorship laws, it is impossible to discuss the locations of Israel’s military installations. But Hizbullah’s rockets are accurate enough to show that many are intended for the army’s sites in the Galilee, even if they are rarely precise enough to hit them.

It is obvious to everyone in Nazareth, for example, that the rockets landing close by, and once on, the city over the past week are searching out, and some have fallen extremely close to, the weapons factory sited near us.

Hizbullah seems to have as little concern for the collateral damage of civilian deaths as Israel -- each wants the balance of terror in its favour -- but it is nonsense to suggest that Hizbullah’s goals are any more ignoble than Israel’s. It is trying to dent the economy of northern Israel in retaliation for Israel’s total destruction of the Lebanese economy. Equally, it is trying to show Israel that it knows where its military installations are to be found. Both strategies appear to be having an impact, even if a minor one, on weakening Israeli resolve.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=107&ItemID=10643

dublincitadel

I've been viewing many of the threads started over this particular middle east episode since the kidnappings began, and am saddned and worried at how spikey and emotional some of the postings have been. I havn't been using boards long, but have never witnessed more posters being banned for various reasons, it's a bit like the middle east situation itself with all parties shooting from the hip at every oppertunity.
The strangest Irony for me, to be honest, is the fact that when foreign dignitaries visit Israel they are met at the airport, taken from the aircraft and driven straight to the Yad Vashem Holocaust memmorial site, I find this a rather cynnical double standard, especially because of the fact that the holocaust DEFINITELY DID happen exactly as we have all been thought. With the world knowing this I find it hard to comprehend Israels scant disregard for innocent civillians who are suffering most as a result of the fighting.
It worries me also how this will feed into the armoury of Anti Semites around the world and give some credibility (although spurious) to their hate propaganda.
Of course I can understand any country defending itself from terrorist action, but what would the world think of the British had they flattened Dublin with bombs after the Canary Wharf bombing ? I feel it would have been the biggest recruitment coup in the history of the IRA at the time.
And what of the UN, is it any use anymore ?? No not if certain countries can feel free to ignore it at will, and be immune from critisism.
I understand delegates are having another meeting NEXT TUESDAY, how many more people will die on both sides between now and then..........?

Akrasia

The U.N. is redundant for 2 reasons.
1. The Security council, with it's stupid veto system means the U.N. is impotent to deal with any issue that negatively affects any of the 5 permenant members. And America has abused this priviledge more than any other country.

2. The U.N. is under resourced and under funded. The fact that Unicef requires private donations to fund it's charitable work around the world is a testiment to this.

It is extreme arrogance on the part of some of the more unilateral members of the global community that make international co-operation so difficult. America will never accept any decision by the general assembly that in any way affects them badly, and they will refuse to honour all international treaties when they become inconvenient.

InFront

I am a Muslim and completely opposed to the Israeli occupation, but also to the existance of Hezbollah. My most real concern is of innocent Lebanese people, and I feel that a boycott of Israeli goods is a small effort to make, but the most that I (or any of us) can do. If Hezbollah was a state who exported goods and services, i would boycott them too. But they are not so I cant do anything about that.

Does anybody know if there are any other goods that Israel exports to ireland? Thank you to the earlier poster who mentioned one:)

oscarBravo

New_Departure06 wrote:

Israel is behaving like King Herod.

ND06, stop trolling. You've been warned before.

HelterSkelter

InFront wrote:

Does anybody know if there are any other goods that Israel exports to ireland? Thank you to the earlier poster who mentioned one:)

Tescos stock coriendar from Israel. Sometimes some of their fruit is from Israel also (strawberries if i remember correctly)

darkmaster2

HelterSkelter wrote:

Tescos stock coriendar from Israel. Sometimes some of their fruit is from Israel also (strawberries if i remember correctly)

Dunnes` sweet potatoes are imported from israel

HelterSkelter

If you want to send an email to Tesco and let them know you are boycotting Israeli products and shops that sell Israeli products you can send them to customer.services@tesco.ie

The Saint

Tesco (in Rathmines at least) sell small potatoes like charlottes and baby spuds in trays from Israel. Some don't have alternatives either. I know there is other fruits and veg from Israel sold in Dunnes and Tesco too.

Jimboo_Jones

tesco's sometimes have tomatoes from Isreal as well

gandalf

Some posts moved to the "Is Isreal right" thread as they were more appropriate to it.

Please try and keep this on topic.

New_Departure06

Jaffa Oranges are exported from Israel. Boycott them to protest.

joeirish

The anger I feel and many others who have posted here is partly borne out of frustration at our inability to do anything in the face of the murdering being committed by the Israelis. Well how about boycotting Israeli products.

Don't buy Jaffa fruit.

Check the veg in Superquinn, some comes from Israel

Stanley Tools are made in Israel.

Anybody know more?

there is a US based list here
http://www.boycottisraeligoods.org/modules11748.php

DO IT

joeirish

tallaghtoutlaws wrote:

Do you honestly believe the Israeli government care what you think? Seriously they are Americas 3rd brother behind Britain. Besides how accurate are the 25% figures you gave for women and children dead ever hear of the lovely word propaganda? Are the Israelis right to bomb the Lebanon? Who knows? Were the Hesbala right to capture Israeli soldiers who knows.

It is tragic when innocent lives are lost but protesting will get you nowhere in fairness. If they wont listen to the UN they wont listen to a protest.

Which is why I suggested boycotting Israeli products. It worked with apartheid. It can possibly also work with Israel. After all Israel has been trying for some time to stop any economic development in Palestine.

InFront

Its very helpful of everyone to post up the names of Israeli products. But maybe we would be better off moving one step up the ladder by asking retailers not to buy Israeli products in the first place, seeing the wide concern that there seems to be in general society for the Lebanese.

Is there any petition or movement to try and influence Irish retail chains in this regard? It might even work to their economic advantage overall. HelterSkelter suggested emailing the supermarket and informing them, which is a good idea. But an additional petition wouldnt hurt. There doesnt seeem to be one for Ireland on google, unless posters know differently?