UAE denies visa to Israeli tennis player [OFFTOPIC]

[excal]

An update:  Tennis Channel won't air Dubai tournament

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/TV/02/19/tennis.channel.dubai/index.html

Think I might add this channel is Jewish owned.

Unless all the shareholders are Jewish, I think your assertion is wrong. I mean, Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi have stakes in the company and they certainly aren't Jewish.

[SoLe!]

Agree with Excalibur, i don't think they made the decision simply because the station is owned by Jews (which i doubt) but rather that the tournament has become politicised rather then focusing on tennis.

[TrueLight]

uh Hamas was democratically elected...and it is ISrael's blockade and isolating the palestinian that are driving them to helplessness. they don't have f16 jets so they just use what they got... ....

offtopic... and turkey also took control of greece for a lot of years and did horrendous things back then..so not just to armenians.. and took constantinople as well...

anyway .......lol    this thread is going on and on and on........

[suenoga]

lol....
No Hamas' actions are not excusable, but they have been nowhere near the scale of Israel. Depriving starving people of aid and necessities is far worse then living in fear. Killing over 1200 Palestinians is far worse then then 13 Israelis killed in the conflict.

UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)
 The Agency is responsible for feeding 900,000 refugees in Gaza, yet can only get food packets out at a daily rate of 30,000, giving an idea of just how long those at the end of the queue have to wait.
“We have the infrastructure, we have the staff, but we don’t have the food,” he said, adding that the situation was about to become even worse since Israel has banned the import of plastic and UNRWA will run out of essential plastic packets for the food distribution by Sunday.  UN news centre 5/2/2009

Gaza is a prison with 45% unemployment, the highest in the world according to the United Nations. Half the population is under 18 and a third of the population lives in refugee camps. Palestinians have little land and few rights. This fuel of despair and humiliation gives rise to new generations of extremists.
p.s gfb, your not really helping your argument br0sefs

if you think your arguments are strong enough to rebut mine  why do you feel the need to say LOL and ROFL at each point I make?

The situation in Palestine is shocking. Innocent Palestinians have been caught up in an endless cycle of violence. As have the Israeli's.  However,  you can not simply blame Israel. Palestinian leaders have "never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity" Many have acted for their own benefits in the wider Arab world rather then to help their people. At the same time Israel look like the perpetrators to the world as they protect their own citizens from the the countless number of extremists in the territories. Surly, you can't excuse the actions of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the like, by saying "Israel have killed more people, they must be worse".  

[SoLe!]

Sorry suenoga, force of habit on internetz forums . No of course, Israel is not solely to blame. Many times they have offered favourable peace agreements to the Arabic states, only to be refused. No, Hamas cannot be excused, i'm not saying that they can, im just suggesting that if Israel really wanted peace, they should be prepared to make a few concessions, and visa versa. Israel has gone about achieving peace the wrong way, and i think I'm gonna have to bring out the big guns.

Ephraim Halevy, the former head of the Mossad intelligence service, wrote in the Israeli press today that the government in Jerusalem could have stopped the rocket attacks long ago by lifting its siege of Gaza. But, he said, Israel has a broader interest — to ensure that it is the Fatah party of President Mahmoud Abbas, who is popularly known as Abu Mazen, and not Hamas that is politically dominant in the Palestinian territories.
"If Israel's goal were to remove the threat of rockets from the residents of southern Israel, opening the border crossings would have ensured such quiet for a generation. But the real objectives of the operation include preserving Fatah's status as the sole sovereign in the Palestinian Authority and as a partner for negotiations," he said. Guardian.uk newspaper 4/1/2009


ted turner

[suenoga]

Sorry suenoga, force of habit to internetz forums . No of course, Israel is not solely to blame. Many times they have offered favourable peace agreements to the Arabic states, only to be refused. No, Hamas cannot be excused, i'm not saying that they can, im just suggesting that if Israel really wanted peace, they should be prepared to make a few concessions, and visa versa.

I agree 100%

[gfb]

uh Hamas was democratically elected...and it is ISrael's blockade and isolating the palestinian that are driving them to helplessness. they don't have f16 jets so they just use what they got... ....

offtopic... and turkey also took control of greece for a lot of years and did horrendous things back then..so not just to armenians.. and took constantinople as well...

anyway .......lol    this thread is going on and on and on........

Proud of my ancestors. ISTANBUL SINCE 1453 ( not constantinople)


This thread is gonna be a record..

[kryptonate]

lol....
No Hamas' actions are not excusable, but they have been nowhere near the scale of Israel. Depriving starving people of aid and necessities is far worse then living in fear. Killing over 1200 Palestinians is far worse then then 13 Israelis killed in the conflict.

UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)
 The Agency is responsible for feeding 900,000 refugees in Gaza, yet can only get food packets out at a daily rate of 30,000, giving an idea of just how long those at the end of the queue have to wait.
“We have the infrastructure, we have the staff, but we don’t have the food,” he said, adding that the situation was about to become even worse since Israel has banned the import of plastic and UNRWA will run out of essential plastic packets for the food distribution by Sunday.  UN news centre 5/2/2009

Gaza is a prison with 45% unemployment, the highest in the world according to the United Nations. Half the population is under 18 and a third of the population lives in refugee camps. Palestinians have little land and few rights. This fuel of despair and humiliation gives rise to new generations of extremists.
p.s gfb, your not really helping your argument br0sefs

if you think your arguments are strong enough to rebut mine  why do you feel the need to say LOL and ROFL at each point I make?

The situation in Palestine is shocking. Innocent Palestinians have been caught up in an endless cycle of violence. As have the Israeli's.  However,  you can not simply blame Israel. Palestinian leaders have "never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity" Many have acted for their own benefits in the wider Arab world rather then to help their people. At the same time Israel look like the perpetrators to the world as they protect their own citizens from the the countless number of extremists in the territories. Surly, you can't excuse the actions of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the like, by saying "Israel have killed more people, they must be worse".  

This is what pisses me of the MOST. Trying to make the suffering of both sides equal, when this FAR from the truth. Israels recent offensive was not even a "war", which usually has two opposing armies. It was a massacre, carried out by the third largest air force in the world against a defensive civilian population.

Vast majority of the civilian casualties in Gaza were children under 13. The statistics are 1230 Palestinians vs 14 Israeli, more than 84:1 ratio. Ehud Barak confessed that this obscene offensive was premeditated for months that the IDF was preparing for a blow against the "terrorist enitity" called Gaza. Logic of genocide.

[enwiabe]

Ephraim Halevy, the former head of the Mossad intelligence service, wrote in the Israeli press today that the government in Jerusalem could have stopped the rocket attacks long ago by lifting its siege of Gaza. But, he said, Israel has a broader interest — to ensure that it is the Fatah party of President Mahmoud Abbas, who is popularly known as Abu Mazen, and not Hamas that is politically dominant in the Palestinian territories.
"If Israel's goal were to remove the threat of rockets from the residents of southern Israel, opening the border crossings would have ensured such quiet for a generation. But the real objectives of the operation include preserving Fatah's status as the sole sovereign in the Palestinian Authority and as a partner for negotiations," he said. Guardian.uk newspaper 4/1/2009


ted turner (Image removed from quote.)

That's common knowledge? Of course if Israel had given in to Hamas' demands, then they would have stopped the rocket attacks. But opening up the borders would open up Israel to vulnerabilities of the past like suicide bombing attacks (of which there have been very, very few since the initiation of the blockade). It's also no great secret that the Israeli gov't wants to wipe out Hamas so that Fatah (a now non-terrorist organisation) can bring some sort of sensibility into the peace process.

The rocket attacks are a lesser evil than the suicide bombings, thus the blockade is in effect. Once Hamas shows good will in ceasing its terrorists actions without the need for Israeli force, Israel will respond in kind with easing the blockade.

[SoLe!]

VCE Notes - home of the ROFL

/endthread

p.s - Enwiabe, how is removing the blockade giving into Hamas demands? It's helping countless civilians in dire need of aid.

[enwiabe]

That's one of Hamas' demands... lift the blockade.

[gfb]

To ease the tension.

Heal the world
Make it a better place
For you and for me and the entire human race
There are people dying
If you care enough for the living
Make a better place for
You and for me.

[SoLe!]

No, my point is that, it's not so much giving in, as opposed to helping out hundreds of thousands who need that aid. Fine, "give in" to Hamas, who gives a shit, if it's gonna help that many people I'm sure Israel can afford to take the high ground, but alas, if your petty argument that if Israel eases up the blockade before the rocket attacks stop, that it is giving in, i can see how we got in this mess. Also to shutdown your final point (kinda annoyed as you can tell) WHY THE F*** DIDN'T ISRAEL STOP THE BLOCKADE IN THE 6-month CEASEFIRE PRECEEDING THE INCURSION? ROCKET ATTACKS WERE DOWN 98.2% FROM PRE-CEASEFIRE LEVELS. IF THEY WERE REALLY SERIOUS ABOUT HELPING, SURELY THEY WOULD HAVE LIFTED THE BLOCKADE AT THIS POINT. YES MY CAPS LOCK BUTTON IS BROKEN :].

NO MORE POSTS, NEED SLEEP.

[Glockmeister]

Ephraim Halevy, the former head of the Mossad intelligence service, wrote in the Israeli press today that the government in Jerusalem could have stopped the rocket attacks long ago by lifting its siege of Gaza. But, he said, Israel has a broader interest — to ensure that it is the Fatah party of President Mahmoud Abbas, who is popularly known as Abu Mazen, and not Hamas that is politically dominant in the Palestinian territories.
"If Israel's goal were to remove the threat of rockets from the residents of southern Israel, opening the border crossings would have ensured such quiet for a generation. But the real objectives of the operation include preserving Fatah's status as the sole sovereign in the Palestinian Authority and as a partner for negotiations," he said. Guardian.uk newspaper 4/1/2009


ted turner (Image removed from quote.)

That's common knowledge? Of course if Israel had given in to Hamas' demands, then they would have stopped the rocket attacks. But opening up the borders would open up Israel to vulnerabilities of the past like suicide bombing attacks (of which there have been very, very few since the initiation of the blockade). It's also no great secret that the Israeli gov't wants to wipe out Hamas so that Fatah (a now non-terrorist organisation) can bring some sort of sensibility into the peace process.

The rocket attacks are a lesser evil than the suicide bombings, thus the blockade is in effect. Once Hamas shows good will in ceasing its terrorists actions without the need for Israeli force, Israel will respond in kind with easing the blockade.

Actually, it's interesting. The Australian government does not consider Hamas itself to be a terrorist organisation, but only its military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, whilst the United States considers both it and Hamas in general to be terrorist organisations.

In any case, the nomenclature doesn't matter. Sovereign nations have in the past done deals with 'terrorist' organisations to bring peace to their cities. For example the British Government had to negotiate with the IRA in Northern Island as their military might was unable to stop the IRA completely.

[mypurpleundercracka]

^^^

The Ottoman Empire invaded and oppressed Balkan nations for centuries.

LMFAO. Croat. Can't expect a different approach. The topic is about Muslims and Jews here, not Yugoslavia xD.

The Ottomans were the greatest empire of that era, so this is normal. Power & Faith combined can get you many things.

LMFAO? what is so funny about annexing and oppressing foreign lands and people and treating the original inhabitants of a nation as second-class citizens