Excellent, so you know I'm not making this stuff up and spewing conservative talking points for rhetorical reasons.
Indeed, my initial reaction was mainly towards how your explanation was incompatible with the knee-jerk idiotic "criticism against Israel = ANTI-SEMITISM" that appeared earlier in this thread.
Do you also believe that someone's actions can put them in harms way, or a position to be "victimized" / Say, for instance I got pulled over for speeding and exited my car brandishing a baseball bat threatening the cop. He draws his gun and gives me a warning, I refuse to comply and he shoots me. Wouldn't I be complicit in getting myself shot ?
Yes, but he would still be the person who shot you, and if you are killed because of this, he is still the one who murdered you.
I can't agree with that. HAMAS's charter calls for the destruction of Israel and I fail to see why someone who does not subscribe to that idea would even consider joining HAMAS.
I know no one who is a member of HAMAS, but I do not think it at least theoretically impossible that the sort of people I describe exists. The Swedish Social Democratic Party has since its founding in the 19th century had the abolition of the Royal Family in its charter, yet that has never happened despite them having won roughly 3/4 of the elections since general suffrage was granted. There are still people in the party today who are royalists, and thus while I wouldn't join HAMAS while that section was in the charter, I cannot hold it for impossible that other people might.
Then how do you guys get organized, if your website is outdated?
Wild and improbable guesses: mobile phones, Twitter, blogs, radio, text messages, word of mouth, posters, fliers, leaflets, pamphlets.
Indeed. Of course since only one side actively instigated violence and the other side did it's best to show restraint until faced with lethal force, it's easy to guess which side you'll support.
The first Swedes kidnapped and detained by Israel have now returned and been interviewed by Swedish radio. Their stories (from other ships than the
Mavi Marmara does not align well with your statement. Rather, they all amount to a situation where the Israeli forces demand total and immediate obedience, or they would start shoving, pushing, shooting with paintball pellets, using tazers, and in at least one case push someone to the ground and step repeatedly on his face. Of course, I only have eye-witness reports heard over the radio about this. Note, however, that this was on one of the boats where the peace activists actually followed the agreement supposedly reached before setting off, and therefore using non-violent methods of resistance.
Can we please stop calling them "peace activists?" This Orwellian bit of vocabulary is surreal.
Would "activists opposing the forces of oppression" be preferable to you?
I was enjoying the juxtaposition of phrases like "the peace activists violently attacked the soldiers boarding the blockade runner with improvised weapons" and your plan would somewhat obscure the glaring hypocrisy involved.
It gets even funnier! Just have a look at this:
"the peace activists violently attacked the soldiers and were subsequently slaughtered by soldiers specially trained in non-lethal take-over"
See? Endless fun!