quote:
(CNN) -- Hamas founder and spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was killed in an Israeli airstrike Monday morning as he was leaving a Gaza City mosque.Seven others were killed in the strike, Palestinian officials said. Sixteen people were wounded in the attack, including two of Yassin's sons; seven of the wounded were in critical condition, hospital spokesmen said.
Palestinian security sources told CNN that Yassin's car and vehicles carrying his bodyguards were hit by three rockets as he was leaving a mosque after morning prayers. He was heading to his home, a short distance away.
Thousands of Palestinians marched and chanted in the streets of Gaza City soon after the attack.
Black smoke rose over sections of Gaza City as Palestinians burned tires, and explosions could be heard. Hamas gunmen fired weapons into the air, promising revenge against Israel.
"We condemn the assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin," the Palestinian Authority said in a statement. "It is a crime. It's a cowardly act. It shows that Israel has chosen the path of more violence and further escalation."
An Israel Defense Forces spokesman said: "This morning, in a security forces operation in the Northern Gaza Strip, the IDF targeted a car carrying the head of the Hamas terror organization, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, and his aides.
"Yassin, responsible for numerous murderous terror attacks, resulting in the deaths of many civilians, both Israeli and foreign, was killed in the attack. The Hamas leadership, led by Yassin, was directly involved in planning, directing and launching terror attacks carried out by the organization.
"The Hamas leadership is also responsible for the cooperation with the other terror organizations. Following the attack, a complete closure was imposed on the Gaza Strip and the West Bank."
The Palestinian militant group Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a nationalist military offshoot of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, promised to wage war against Israel and attack Israeli settlements.
Palestinian protesters clashed with Israeli troops protecting the Khan Yunis settlement in southern Gaza, Israeli officials said.
A Qassam rocket was fired Monday into the Erez industrial zone at the border crossing between Gaza and Israel, a Hamas spokesman told CNN. There were no reports of casualties.
And in Tel Aviv, a Palestinian armed with an axe attacked Israelis, authorities reported. There were no serious injuries. The Palestinian was arrested.
Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erakat deplored Yassin's killing as part of a "vicious cycle."
"I think the whole situation is going down the drain," Erakat said. "I think any time you have such things as the crime this morning, this will mean that things will be slipping outside our fingers like sand."
He called on the international community to step in and revive the peace process.
"Where do we go with this vicious cycle?" Erakat asked. "Bullets will breed bullets. Violence will breed violence.
"It's more of the same. We break this vicious cycle only through reviving hope in the minds of people that peace is doable."
Hamas scheduled Yassin's funeral for 12:30 p.m. (5:30 a.m. ET) Monday, with the body to leave al Shefaa hospital at 11 a.m. (4 a.m. ET).
Yassin founded Hamas in 1987, during the Palestinian intifada. Hamas is an Islamic fundamentalist organization whose military wing, Izzedine al Qassam, has carried out attacks on Israeli civilian and military targets. The U.S. State Department and Israel consider Hamas a terrorist organization.
An Israeli court convicted Yassin in 1989 of ordering Hamas members to kidnap and kill two Israeli soldiers.
He was sentenced to life in prison but was freed in 1997 under the terms of a deal arranged by King Hussein of Jordan, who asked Israel to release Yassin in exchange for two Israeli Mossad agents who had attempted to kill Khalid Mishaal, a Hamas leader, in Jordan.
The Palestinian Authority had placed Yassin under house arrest on a number of occasions since his release, most recently in December 2001, after a series of terror attacks that killed 25 Israelis.
That detention triggered demonstrations and clashes with Palestinian police.
Yassin was born in 1938 in what was then the British mandate of Palestine. His family became refugees in Gaza during the violence that followed Israel's creation in 1948.
In September, Yassin, who used a wheelchair, was lightly wounded in an Israeli missile strike in Gaza City. At the time he vowed that "jihad will continue."
Thousands of Palestinian Hamas supporters marched through the streets in support of Yassin after the strike last year.
Monday's airstrike was part of stepped-up operations launched by Israel in the aftermath of a terrorist bus bombing that killed eight people February 22 in Jerusalem. The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility.
Al Aqsa Brigades has attacked military and civilian targets in Israel, and in Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel and the U.S. State Department consider it a terrorist organization.
Israel says the operations are meant to target terrorists preparing to take part in attacks on Israelis. Several Palestinians have died in the operations, including civilians.
Last week, twin suicide bombings jointly claimed by Hamas and Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades killed 10 people in the Israeli port city of Ashdod.
Immediately after the terrorist bombings, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon canceled a planned meeting with Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei.
The scheduled talks were an attempt to revive the so-called "road map" to Mideast peace.
The plan, backed by the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia, calls for steps by both sides aimed at ending the conflict and establishing an independent Palestinian state by 2005.
Phase one of the plan calls on Palestinians to end their attacks and Israel to freeze settlement activity and dismantle settlements erected since March 2001.
Israel seized Gaza in 1967 during the Six-Day War and began building settlements there soon after the conflict.
In 1994, under the Oslo Accords, Israel ceded most of Gaza to the Palestinian Authority but kept control of the coastline, borders and 24 Jewish settlements, where about 7,500 Israelis live in heavily guarded enclaves.
Gaza is separated from Israel by a fence, but Israeli troops remain in the area to guard the settlements.
Palestinians have formal self-rule over 58 percent of Gaza, according to the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs.
sigpic courtesy of This Guy, original modified by me
The Israeli and Palestinian's all line up face to face - man woman and child - all get together in a room only just big enough to fit all of them, then all engage in hand-to-hand combat until either one side or the other is annihilated.
As violent and unfair as that sounds, it's a lot less bloody than what they're doing right now.
"The Israelis are making it very hard for me to make statements which don't sound anti-semitic."
quote:
Faelynn LeAndris attempted to be funny by writing:
I'd just blow up the whole middle-east and solve everything.
An endless sea of glass. An eternal monument to the idea that sometimes you should just shut the fuck up and deal with it, instead of making more trouble.
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So quoth Naimah:
The palastinians would wage war anyways. Might as well give them a reason to and kill some of their leaders. I wish America had the balls to be that direct.
There have been many failed assassination attempts on Saddam Hussein.
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Niklas Model 2000 was programmed to say:
There have been many failed assassination attempts on Saddam Hussein.
Our policy is that we don't assassinate leaders anymore. Not after what happened in Argentina(?).
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The logic train ran off the tracks when Alek Saege said:
Our policy is that we don't assassinate leaders anymore. Not after what happened in Argentina(?).
Well, you see the point. However you twist it, it was a bad idea to assassinate this guy in my ever so humble opinion.
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Verily, Niklas doth proclaim:
Well, you see the point. However you twist it, it was a bad idea to assassinate this guy in my ever so humble opinion.
Oh definitely, hence the policy.
"Rec Center lock-in, works every time."
hey if it worked for the Cryps and the Bloods. Why not with the Middle East?
"Life is not like the songs sweetling, you may learn that one day to your sorrow." Petyr Baelish to Sansa Stark ~ From "A Song of Ice and Fire
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How.... Reynar.... uughhhhhh:
Why is it we keep giving Israel so much aid again?
A: They are one of our strongest allies.
B: They are the only Democracy in that area.
C: They are under constant attack from numerous terrorist groups.
D: They are under constant threat of attack from the surrounding countries.
If we pull our support they all die. Not a few, not just some. I promise you 90% of the population would be killed or enslaved.
I would have more sympathy for the Palestinians if there actually was ,or ever had been, a Palestine.
I can not grasp where people come from when they say Isreal is in the wrong here. They have been attacked constantly. So they strike back. If they dont' strike back they still get attacked. Peace is NOT the answer here because the Palastinian terrorist will not accept peace. [ 03-22-2004: Message edited by: Azizza ]
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Azizza had this to say about Pirotess:
A: They are one of our strongest allies.
B: They are the only Democracy in that area.
C: They are under constant attack from numerous terrorist groups.
D: They are under constant threat of attack from the surrounding countries.
If we pull our support they all die. Not a few, not just some. I promise you 90% of the population would be killed or enslaved.I would have more sympathy for the Palestinians if there actually was ,or ever had been, a Palestine.
I can not grasp where people come from when they say Isreal is in the wrong here. They have been attacked constantly. So they strike back. If they dont' strike back they still get attacked. Peace is NOT the answer here because the Palastinian terrorist will not accept peace.
There was a "British Mandate of Palestine" as the article points out. The Jews and the Palestinians were both groups in the same area that never really had their own state, then Israel was created, much to the chagrin of the moslems in the area, and it went from there.
And despite they're our strongest friend in the area (right now I'd say our "closest ally" is probably Canada or Britain), and a democracy, and something we helped opt to have created...they're making a lot of BAD decisions under Ariel Sharon's leadership.
Say you have a friend. The friend is like a little brother. He's scrappy, he's the underdog, you like him a lot. Well your friend, for all his good points, likes to get drunk. And when he's drunk, he tends to get in a fighting mood. Now there's a next door neighbor to your little friend, and they get drunk too, and they're every bit as scrappy and wont to get into a fighting mood as your friend. And these two little scrappy drunken fighters continue to sock one another in the eye whenever they get the chance. Now...in the past, the little neighbor drunk has called in his big brothers, which means your scrappy friend has to call in you and your buddies.
Still with me? Good.
The problem is, so long as your scrappy little friend keeps throwing the first punch, he's not the good guy. He's not the innocent. If he keeps proactively going after people, then it will eventually get harder and harder for him to rile up aid from you and your buddies when he needs it. You can't hide under the auspices of "innocence" and "they're out to get me" when you're the one starting fights in the neighborhood.
That's Israel. They are surrounded by people who don't like them. And it's original cause probably was, at some time in the distant past, religion. At this point, however, they hate each other because they've always hated each other. And as bad as some of the Palestinian leaders are, Ariel Sharon is just as bad. Before the last guy got assassinated, they were making headway on the peace process. Then he gets killed and they bring in Sharon, who's entire life has been dedicated to the elimination of his nemesis, Yasir Arafat, and his whole Palestinian group, terrorist or civilian.
If Israel were not fighting back, or were a purely reactionary measure, there'd be all sorts of military aid there in a heartbeat, trying to force a peaceful settlement. But the fact is that Israel keeps violating agreements as a matter of wang waving, it keeps launching these abrupt attacks, it keeps stirring up the hornet's nest.
sigpic courtesy of This Guy, original modified by me
quote:
Faelynn LeAndris had this to say about Jimmy Carter:
I'd just blow up the whole middle-east and solve everything.
That's very american of you.........
(I do mean that in a condescending way)
Some notable exceptions. Isreal took out a Nuke plant in Iraq (I think it was) And that is the only successful attack against a Nuclear power plant in known history. Thier reason was sound and if they had not done it. Well lets just not go there. [ 03-22-2004: Message edited by: Azizza ]
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JooJooFlop had this to say about Tron:
Well hell, they were just about to stop with the suicide bombs until that happened.
Do you really think a country whose constitution includes: "We will push the Jews into the sea" will just up and stop attacking one day?
I shouldn't be surprised to hear this coming from the same guy that thinks being submissive during rape will lead to safety.
No doubt assassinating the spritual head of Hamas was 'retaliation'.
At this stage in the proceedings, who struck first becomes meaningless and they both simply have to stop.
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Mr. Parcelan had this to say about Punky Brewster:
Do you really think a country whose constitution includes: "We will push the Jews into the sea" will just up and stop attacking one day?I shouldn't be surprised to hear this coming from the same guy that thinks being submissive during rape will lead to safety.
You don't know sarcasm when you see it?
And I don't believe being submissive during rape will lead to safety. I thought maybe that made sense when someone else brought it up but the arguments I heard in response changed my mind, and I even said they did.
Care to try again?
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JooJooFlop stumbled drunkenly to the keyboard and typed:
Care to try again?
I landed on your space. You have to back to start.
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This one time, at Mr. Parcelan camp:
I landed on your space. You have to back to start.
I accept your apology.
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Azizza had this to say about Tron:
The only problem with your argument is that Isreal usually does not strike first. So you have the rolls backwards. Normally it is in reaction to a Terrorist strike. Unkile most countries though they dont' dick around after it happens. They take action against the people who did it. They don't target a training camp, they don't go after little guys. They go after the head of the snake.Some notable exceptions. Isreal took out a Nuke plant in Iraq (I think it was) And that is the only successful attack against a Nuclear power plant in known history. Thier reason was sound and if they had not done it. Well lets just not go there.
They've been around this long and still haven't learned a very important fact that the American forces in Somalia had to learn the hard way: Cutting off the apparent head does not in any way kill the beast.
And they never take into consideration the end result of their actions. It's like MAD in slow motion. It'll keep escalating. A week or more later is not "reactionary". They pride themselves on knowing where the bad guys are? Fine. Bomb? Return fire. If you wait past a reasonable amount of time, the "we're reacting to the bombings" explanation wears off, and as far as the people on the ground are concerned you're attacking out of nowhere, doing the same thing the other side has done.
Which, of course, is fine if you want to have things continue and steadily escalate.
If you want to resolve things, you either have to push the situation (and that's never an easy choice; it's amazing how fast allies will say "hey that's not what we think you should be doing"), or you have to negotiate (which takes time and you're not going to get everything you want), or you have to stack things in such a way that proves you're on the side of right.
Unfortunately, these days Israel's history is the only thing that remotely suggests they're in the right. Since the last leader's assassination, military actions have increased insanely in number. Israel has violated accords and continues to build in Gaza. Israel is not the poor defenseless innocent who only wants to exist peacefully. It's deliberately pissing people off in a "look mine's bigger" contest.
sigpic courtesy of This Guy, original modified by me
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Mr. Parcelan had this to say about (_|_):
There's no negotiating with a people who think it's their holy mission to kill you.
Stated holy mission to kill you or demonstrated? Arguably Israel is getting to the point where it's falling into the second category. And they're setting themselves up, by their actions, to do it more and more alone, which they won't be able to.
sigpic courtesy of This Guy, original modified by me
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Ja'Deth Issar Ka'bael obviously shouldn't have said:
Stated holy mission to kill you or demonstrated? Arguably Israel is getting to the point where it's falling into the second category. And they're setting themselves up, by their actions, to do it more and more alone, which they won't be able to.
Leniency is a death sentence. Israel is surrounded by terrorists and countries that would love nothing more than to make them a greasy smear on the map.
To show negotiation, cowardice, or restraint (they're all the same thing) is to invite everyone else to attack. Power is the only thing some people will respect.
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Mr. Parcelan thought this was the Ricky Martin Fan Club Forum and wrote:
To show negotiation, cowardice, or restraint (they're all the same thing) is to invite everyone else to attack. Power is the only thing some people will respect.
Instead of responding with words I'll repond with bottles.
*smashes empty bottles of Thomas Kemper ginger ale over Parce's head one right after the other*
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Check out the big brain on Reynar!
Why is it we keep giving Israel so much aid again?
They're the only country in the Middle East with a working nuclear arsenal and our backing is the only thing that stops them from turning a large portion of the world into a parking lot.
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JooJooFlop stopped beating up furries long enough to write:
Instead of responding with words I'll repond with bottles.*smashes empty bottles of Thomas Kemper ginger ale over Parce's head one right after the other*
You wasted good ginger ale! That ginger ale had a home in some Moscow Mule!
I WILL PUSH YOU INTO THE SEA!
And learn from mistakes. It's been 30 years and Israel still doesn't get that whacking off or disabling heads doesn't do anything but piss people off. Arafat, for all his posturing, is a spokesman and nothing more. Lock him up. Piss the people off. He has no power to quell his people, and in fact doing bad things to him just pisses the Palestinians off more. That speaks to me that the problem is a lot different from handling a negative political regime like Saddam's Iraqi regime.
Unfortunately, Israel doesn't react quickly, even to valuable targets. Cutting off a head does in fact cause a little disorientation. But not a lot, and not enough to warrant hitting a head a week or more after the fact.
Be strong, but don't be strong if it means you're being stupid. And Israel is being very very stupid, and it's costing them political aid in the long run. And they NEED political aid. And unfortunately, great as the United States Military is, we can't really afford a third armed conflict in the Middle East.
sigpic courtesy of This Guy, original modified by me
Going to lock them up? They won't give anything up.
Going to kill them? Go ahead! They're going to heaven anyways!
Going to negotiate? No way. God is on OUR side.
Cutting off the head won't work. Destroying civilian targets won't work. Destroying military targets won't work. There's no real way to put an end to religious fanatics. Even if you destroy them all, there are still more.
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Mr. Parcelan's account was hax0red to write:
The problem is, there's really no way to incapacitate religious fanatics.
Sure there is. Have your god beat up their god.
Which would suck because Israel isn't a bad place. It's a good place; it's just in a bad situation it's current administration seems set on making worse.
sigpic courtesy of This Guy, original modified by me
quote:
And I was all like 'Oh yeah?' and Mr. Parcelan was all like:
Leniency is a death sentence. Israel is surrounded by terrorists and countries that would love nothing more than to make them a greasy smear on the map.To show negotiation, cowardice, or restraint (they're all the same thing) is to invite everyone else to attack. Power is the only thing some people will respect.
Bullshit. If restraint and negotiation were cowardice we'd all be playing a Fallout LARP right now. Restraint and negotiation are more often than not the intelligent way to go about things.
The current measures don't seem to have broken the Palesitinians sufficiently. What do you suggest as next step in showing "Power"? A good round of ethnic cleansing to demonstrate that yes, a modern US-equipped army can indeed defeat a bunch of rag-tag civillians and terrorists?
The conflict will only end when one side becomes secularized enough to back off their 'holy land' in exchange for peace. [ 03-22-2004: Message edited by: Mod ]
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Mod had this to say about (_|_):
Bullshit. If restraint and negotiation were cowardice we'd all be playing a Fallout LARP right now. Restraint and negotiation are more often than not the intelligent way to go about things.The current measures don't seem to have broken the Palesitinians sufficiently. What do you suggest as next step in showing "Power"? A good round of ethnic cleansing to demonstrate that yes, a modern US-equipped army can indeed defeat a bunch of rag-tag civillians and terrorists?
Quit trying to apply a western philosiphy to an area where it will not work.
To the terrorist groups and many of the Muslim countries over there, Negotiation is a sign of weakness and that that thier bullying tactics work. Different culture, different mindset.
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How.... Mr. Parcelan.... uughhhhhh:
And how would you go about negotiating with a people who consider it their sacred right to kill you? Bratwurst party?
Those you kill. You let the more level-headed ones live and negotiate with them.
Not every muslim in the middle east would rather die than co-exist with Isreal.
