Politicians aren't as foolish as most people believe. They know. They just don't give a shit about you. They're beholden not to their constituents, but to whatever ghoul funds their operations. I can respect someone like Jeremy Corbyn, you genuinely get the sense he cares about the common person beyond appearances and his policies reflect that. Not afraid to take the less popular but scrupulous position that will get him smeared when needed, Palestine is a good example.
Let me ask you this, where would you feel more comfortable? Palestine or Israel? I would be fine walking around the streets of Israel, Palestine not so much, especially if they knew my lifestyle.
I'll always support the country that wouldn't kill or imprison me for how I live and what I believe in.
Here's your great Palestine...
Bloody child's shoe after Palestinian attack on an
Israeli shopping mall
In the 1930s, the emergence of organized youth cadres was rooted in the desire to form a youth paramilitary. It was believed that armed youth might bring an end to
British hegemony in the Middle East. Youth were cajoled into violence by Palestinian political figures and newspapers that glorified violence and death. The
Palestinian Arab Party sponsored the development of storm troops consisting solely of children and youth. A British report from the period stated that "the growing youth and scout movements must be regarded as the most probable factors for the disturbance of the peace".
[90]
As a youngster,
Yasir Arafat led neighborhood children in marching and drills, beating those who did not obey. In the 1940s, Arafat's father organized a group of militants in Gaza which included Yasir Arafat and his brothers. The leader, Abu Khalid, a mathematics teacher in Gaza, gave Arafat the name Yasir in honor of the militant Yasir al-Bireh.
[91]
Main article:
Child suicide bombers in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict
According to researcher
Vamik Volkan, most suicide bombers in the Middle East are chosen as teenagers, educated, and then sent off to blow themselves up when they are in their late teens or early to mid-twenties.
[citation needed] There have been instances where Palestinian children were involved in attacks, either as
child suicide bombers or bomb transporters. On March 16, 2005, an Israeli border guard found a bomb in the school bag of 12-year-old Abdullah Quran at a military checkpoint near
Nablus. His life was saved only because a cell phone rigged to detonate the 13-pound bomb failed to set off the explosive at the checkpoint as it had been designed to do. Eight days later, on 24, March 16-year-old
Hussam Abdo was captured wearing an
explosive belt, having allegedly been paid by Fatah's Tanzim branch to blow himself up at the same checkpoint. According to the
Israel Defense Forces, from September 2000 through 2003, 29 suicide attacks have been carried out by youth under the age of 18, and, more than 40 youths under the age of 18 were involved in attempted suicide bombings that were thwarted.
[citation needed]
Main articles:
Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel § United Nations, and
Human shield § Israeli-Palestinian conflict
According to the
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon,
[92] Hamas is launching rockets inside schools in order to use the death toll as a media stunt and deter Israel from attacking Gaza.
[93] This tactics is usually referred to as the
Human Shield.
Women in particular have increasingly associated political violence with expanded citizenship rights due to the perceived failure of nonmilitaristic tactics to achieve political goals, primary amongst these, the achievement of Palestinian autonomy.
[94]
The profile of the female Palestinian suicide bombers has been the subject of study by Katherine VanderKaay, who presented her profiling of the subjects at the
American Psychological Association's annual meeting. While the first suicide bombing undertaken by a Palestinian took place in 1994, the first
female suicide bomber from among Palestinian society did not emerge until January 2002. The bomber was
Wafa Idris, a 28-year-old paramedic and a supporter of secularist parties.
[95][96]
Qassam rockets fired at
Sderot
According to
B'Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, 500 Israeli civilians were killed by Palestinians from September 29, 2000, to March 31, 2012, in Israel, and another 254 Israeli civilians were killed in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
[97]
B'tselem reported that the main argument used to justify violence against civilians is that "all means are legitimate in fighting for independence against a foreign occupation". B'Tselem criticized this argument, saying it is completely baseless, and contradicts the fundamental principle of
international humanitarian law.
"According to this principle, civilians are to be protected from the consequences of warfare, and any attack must discriminate between civilians and military targets. This principle is part of international customary law; as such, it applies to every state, organization, and person, even those who are not party to any relevant convention."
[98]
B'Tselem further noted that Palestinian spokespersons distinguish between attacks inside Israel proper and attacks directed at settlers in the
Occupied Territories, stating that since the
settlements are illegal and many settlers belong to Israel's security forces, settlers are not entitled to the international law protections granted to civilians. Human rights group B'tselem rejected this argument, and stated:
"The illegality of the settlements has no effect at all on the status of their civilian residents. The settlers constitute a distinctly civilian population, which is entitled to all the protections granted civilians by international law. The Israeli security forces' use of land in the settlements or the membership of some settlers in the Israeli security forces does not affect the status of the other residents living among them, and certainly does not make them proper targets of attack. B'Tselem strongly opposes the attempts to justify attacks against Israeli civilians by using distorted interpretations of international law. Furthermore, B'Tselem demands that the Palestinian Authority do everything within its power to prevent future attacks and to prosecute the individuals involved in past attacks."
[98]
See also:
Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel
Israeli boy crippled by Palestinian rocket fire.
Palestinian rocket and
mortar attacks on
Israel from the
Gaza Strip have occurred since 2001. Between 2001 and January 2009, over 8,600 rockets had been launched, leading to 28 deaths and several hundred injuries,
[99][100] as well as widespread
psychological trauma and disruption of daily life.
[101]
The weapons, often generically referred to as
Qassams, were initially crude and short-range, mainly affecting the
Israeli city of
Sderot and other communities bordering the Gaza Strip. However, in 2006 more sophisticated rockets began to be deployed, reaching the larger coastal city of
Ashkelon, and by early 2009 major cities
Ashdod and
Beersheba had been hit by
Katyusha and
Grad rockets.
Attacks have been carried out by all Palestinian armed groups,
[102] and, prior to the 2008–2009
Gaza War, were consistently supported by most Palestinians,
[103][104][105][106] although the stated goals have been mixed. The attacks, widely condemned for targeting civilians, have been described as terrorism by United Nations,
European Union and Israeli officials, and are defined as
war crimes by human rights groups
Amnesty International and
Human Rights Watch.
Defenses constructed specifically to deal with the weapons include fortifications for schools and bus stops as well as an alarm system named
Red Color.
Iron Dome, a system to intercept short-range rockets, was developed by Israel and first deployed in the spring of 2011 to protect Beersheba and Ashkelon, but officials and experts warned that it would not be completely effective. Shortly thereafter, it intercepted a Palestinian Grad rocket for the first time.
[107]
The attacks were a stated cause of the
Gaza blockade, the Gaza War (Dec 27, 2008 – Jan 21, 2009) and other
Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip, including
Operation Rainbow (May 2004),
Operation Days of Penitence (2004), the
2006 Israel-Gaza conflict,
Operation Autumn Clouds (2006), and
Operation Hot Winter (2008).
A car hit by a rocket shot by Hamas.
Attacks began in 2001. Since then, nearly 4,800 rockets have hit southern Israel, just over 4,000 of them since
Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in August 2005. The range of the rockets has increased over time. The original Qassam rocket has a range of about 10 km (6.2 mi) but more advanced rockets, including versions of the old Soviet Grad or Katyusha have hit Israeli targets 40 km (25 mi) from Gaza.
[99]
Some analysts see the attacks as a shift away from reliance on
suicide bombing, which was previously Hamas's main method of attacking Israel, and an adoption of the rocket tactics used by Lebanese militant group
Hezbollah.
[108]
There have been a number of reports in the Israeli press about denial of service attacks by Palestinians on the
Magen David Adom and other emergency call lines.
[109][110][111][112][113][114][115] A spokesman said that they had received up to 2400 harassing calls per day to the
Beersheba MDA office
[111] deputy Mayor of Sderot said that after investigation that Palestinians were blocking the ability
[110] of citizens to seek for help after mortar and missile attacks. According to the MDA director in the Negev some callers identified themselves as Palestinians and said that they had been paid to make the calls.
[111] The director said the calls were intended to block the MDA's ability to provide emergency services particularly during major events such as mortar
[112] attacks.
[111] As of 2006
[111][113] filtering systems had been developed and deployed to handle with this type of calls, according to MDA 2008 report one filtering system recognized more than 129,000 phone calls as abusive calls.
[116]
In a testimony given to the congress, it had been reported that
Hamas was seeking to acquire chemical and biological weapons during 1990–1993.
[117]
In a statement by Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on The Worldwide Threat in 2000: Global Realities of Our National Security, it was stated that
Hamas was pursuing a capability to conduct attacks with toxic chemicals.
[118]
The plot for
Passover massacre included the use of
Cyanide. 4 kilos of Cyanide had been bought and prepared for a chemical attack.
[119][citation needed]
In 2003, one report by the CSIS stated
The Palestinian terrorist group that allegedly recruited a Canadian to carry out attacks in North America may be developing chemical weapons.[120]
On 26 June 2006,
Yedioth Ahronot published a report stating that Fatah's armed wing said it had developed biological, chemical weapons, which would be used if Israel invaded Gaza. 'We say to Olmert, Peretz: Your threats of invasion do not frighten us. We will surprise you with new weapons you have not faced until now,' Al-Aqsa Brigades says.
[121][122]
On June 29, 2006, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, claimed to have launched a single rocket with a chemical warhead against the southern part of Israel. An Israeli military spokeswoman said the army had not detected that any such rocket was fired, nor was there any report of such a weapon hitting Israel.
[123][124]
Israeli news reports have stated that chemical weapons, and missiles with chemical warheads from Libya have been transferred to Palestinians in Gaza,
[citation needed] with some allegedly transferred via
Sudan, although Sudanese officials have denied the accusations.
[125]
Main article:
Palestinian stone-throwing
Palestinian stone-throwing is a violent political statement celebrated in the literature of the Palestinian national liberation movement. Stone throwing was the primary tactic of the
First Intifada (1997 - 1993.) It encompasses the practice of throwing stones by hand and using powerful slings variously aimed at Israel security personnel, Israeli civilians, and at both civilian and military vehicles. It has resulted in the death of both Israelis and Arabs unknowingly targeted by stone-throwers.
