Here's why the Flotilla didn't submit to inspection.

[avshae]

Look, your basic flawed assumption is that you think the Israeli government owes the Gazan population jack shit.

I believe they owe them some land from what I understand.

It is quite clear to everyone concerned that Israel doesn't "owe" Gaza any land. Sorry, but your belief stems from ignorance of the basic facts surrounding the conflict.

[avshae]

Do you know the purpose of chocolate in a war zone?

Have you ever heard about starving people in Darfur or Bangladesh or areas of the sort, who are in dire need of chocolate to survive?!

Chocolate has nothing whatsoever to do with humanitarian aid.

For the Palis and Pali supporters chocolate is a political propaganda tool they think they can flash around in the media making Israel look bad in front of people who don't know the facts and basic background.

Did English kids eat chocolate in WW2? Did German kids eat chocolate in WW2? Most probably didn't. Did any of them go boohoohoo-ing in the media for sympathy on how evil the other side is for causing a war that prevented children from eating chocolate?

[ForumTroll]

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/06/03/second-aid-ship-reportedly-headed-gaza/?test=latestnews

"Israel maintains that cement can be used in rocket launchers, and not just for building construction."

[The Muslim Agorist]

It is quite clear to everyone concerned that Israel doesn't "owe" Gaza any land. Sorry, but your belief stems from ignorance of the basic facts surrounding the conflict.

Are you joking... that IS the conflict

[ForumTroll]

Isn't it ironic that the Jews have gone and created their own kind of Warsaw Ghetto?

[blackie]

http://www.hybridstates.com/2010/05/food-consumption-under-satans-administration-and-israeli-siege/

Nutritional planning in Auschwitz

According to Yediot’s “journey into the Nazi records“—i.e. “Satan’s administration”—carefully archived documents reveal that on a randomly selected day (Monday, December 7th, 1942), a “hard laborer” in Auschwitz received 450 grams of bread, 30 grams of margarine, and 125 grams of cheese. This yields a total of 605 grams per “hard laborer”. In calories, 450 grams of bread is about 1,200 calories, 30 grams of margarine comprises about 175 calories, and 125 grams of cheese constitutes about 425 calories (all numbers approximate). So the daily caloric intake of an Auschwitz laborer in December 1942 was about 1,800 calories. Note two things: (1) this is the absolute minimum recommended daily intake for men, according to the American College of Sports Medicine, and (2) billions of the world’s poor people live (and hunger) today under this caloric intake. I make these comments only by way of context; they should not be read to mean that Nazi nutritional policy had any positive qualities whatsoever. Exactly the opposite: they kept people at the bare bones of working survival so they could just manage to continue living as productive slaves.

Nutritional planning in Gaza

What about Gaza? After an Israeli NGO named Gisha sued the Israeli government under freedom of information legislation in order to find out exactly what is allowed for import into Gaza, and why, we now have a much better picture of Israeli siege planning. In particular, the court case surfaced four documents that describe the details of Israel’s siege, which is considered a “central pillar in the means at the disposal of the State of Israel in the armed conflict between it and Hamas.” The documents lay out details about how goods requests are processed, how shortages in Gaza are monitored, and the list of approved goods.

The fourth document, of primary importance here, is titled “Food Consumption in the Gaza Strip – Red Lines,” and it establishes what Israel considers to be the minimum caloric intake needed Gaza’s 1.5 million inhabitants, according to their age and sex. Thus, Israeli planners have given careful consideration to the minimum amount of calories to be allowed in to Gaza to simultaneously serve as a weapon against Hamas, to attain Netanyahu’s strategy of “no prosperity, no development, no humanitarian crisis” but still ensure the Palestinians get on a diet, in Dov Weisglass’ “joking” words (“It’s like a meeting with a dietitian. We need to make the Palestinians lose weight, but not to starve to death.”).

The Israeli government argued in the court case that releasing the specific numbers of calories, and the goods lists (which include terrorist goods like coriander, crayons, and pasta), would damage national security, so we do not know the exact numbers for comparative purposes.

What we do know comes from two main sources. The first, the Gaza Gateway project, charts goods entering versus goods needed; typically allowances comprise between 25% and 33% of estimated daily need for Gaza’s 1.5 million residents. We also know from the IDF spokesperson (via the IDF Twitter feed: @IDFSpokesperson) the daily amount of goods they allow into Gaza. Let’s take yesterday to be our random day. According to the IDF tweet, 109 truckloads were allowed to enter (this is very, very close to the mean over all days, and is thus representative of average daily allowances) with 1,853 tons of humanitarian aid.

Now, how to compare? Well, let’s be as generous as possible to the IDF. Let’s assume all these tons of aid have no packaging and so every single gram aid has caloric value (to humans); this is, of course, an absurdly strong assumption that works in the favor of the IDF’s “benevolence.” Under this assumption, then, the IDF yesterday let in almost 2 billion grams of food—1,681,000,000 grams to be exact. For every individual in Gaza, therefore, the IDF allowed in about 1,120 grams of food.

Of course, our assumptions were stringent and unrealistic, so the real quantity of food is probably very much lower. We know from an IMF study that “75 percent of the population has been forced to reduce the quantity of food they buy, while 89 percent reduced the quality.“ But we cannot calculate calories because Israel won’t tell us what it allows in. Making these numbers even more unrealistic is the fact that this humanitarian aid includes shelters (from international agencies, foreign governments, and NGOs) and other non-edible items; this also means the amount of food is lower. If we assume that only one quarter of the humanitarian aid is non-edible, then we are left with something like 840 grams of food per person in Gaza. This is a reasonable upper bound on possible, per-capita nutritional allowances for Gaza.

This (admittedly rough) estimate suggests that Israel allows Gazans to consume (at most) about 40% more grams of food than the Nazis did their Auschwitz laborers. So generous!

The lavish humanitarianism illustrated by Israel’s Gaza policy is the final, definitive proof that critics of the Gaza siege are anti-Semites, as far as I am concerned. Israel’s siege differs from Auschwitz’s nutritional policy by 40%! Time for the critics to shut their mouths.

Or not. As long as you have scientists and military officials sit down to determine the lowest possible caloric intake you can provide to an imprisoned population, and then write policy documents explaining your methods, you are culpable for such comparisons, hyperbolic or not.

[John Shaw]

At this point I just wish they'd all blow each other up and spare the rest of us their bullshit.

Fucking tired of the stupid fucking planet Earth and their stupid fucking religions.

[avshae]

It is quite clear to everyone concerned that Israel doesn't "owe" Gaza any land. Sorry, but your belief stems from ignorance of the basic facts surrounding the conflict.

Are you joking... that IS the conflict

I expected ignorance from 'davnan', but you too? Israel does not occupy Gaza since 2005, remember?

[The Muslim Agorist]

It is quite clear to everyone concerned that Israel doesn't "owe" Gaza any land. Sorry, but your belief stems from ignorance of the basic facts surrounding the conflict.

Are you joking... that IS the conflict

I expected ignorance from 'davnan', but you too? Israel does not occupy Gaza since 2005, remember?

The idea that the conflict is not about land ownership is idiotic, but I'll entertain the idea.

What do you think the conflict is about?

[avshae]

http://www.hybridstates.com/2010/05/food-consumption-under-satans-administration-and-israeli-siege/

Nutritional planning in Auschwitz

...

Nutritional planning in Gaza

...

Debate Handbook 101: Troubleshooting Section: When at a loss, compare anything to the Nazis, that'll raise up a nice emotional smoke screen.

The responsibility for feeding the Jew in Auschwitz lay in the hands of the German authorities, of which the Jew was a subject. (They of course abused it).

The resposibility for feeding Joe Gazan lays in the hands of the Hamas authorities, of which Joe Gazan is a subject.

Did the Jew complain why England or the US weren't sending him enough food? So why do you think Joe Gazan has the right to complain to anyone except Hamas?

[blackie]

http://www.hybridstates.com/2010/05/food-consumption-under-satans-administration-and-israeli-siege/

Nutritional planning in Auschwitz

...

Nutritional planning in Gaza

...

Debate Handbook 101: Troubleshooting Section: When at a loss, compare anything to the Nazis, that'll raise up a nice emotional smoke screen.

Israel Debating Handbook 101: Call anyone who doesn't agree with your position a terrorist, or a terrorist supporter.

Anyway, I noticed that Netanyahu likes to do the Nazi comparison thing.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/netanyahu-it-s-1938-and-iran-is-germany-ahmadinejad-is-preparing-another-holocaust-1.205137

"It's 1938 and Iran is Germany. And Iran is racing to arm itself with atomic bombs," Netanyahu told delegates to the annual United Jewish Communities General Assembly, repeating the line several times, like a chorus, during his address. "Believe him and stop him," the opposition leader said of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "This is what we must do. Everything else pales before this."

The resposibility for feeding Joe Gazan lays in the hands of the Hamas authorities, of which Joe Gazan is a subject.

Not when Israel imposes a maritime blockade. Israel has taken responsibility for Joe Gaza by doing so.

[Cognitive Dissident]

Isn't it ironic that the Jews have gone and created their own kind of Warsaw Ghetto?

Concur, but to be frank, I don't remember hearing a lot of stories about an armed resistance...not that it would necessarily have changed much else in history.

Note: I originally completely agreed, but I added the caveat.

[Sam Gunn (since nobody got Admiral Naismith)]

An "armed resistance" in PA territory would be great if it were directed against the true oppressors: Hamas.

I guess that's why Hamas has been putting Fatah members down in the streets since the day they rose to power.  They're afraid of the competition.  And they'd rather kill fellow Muslims than see Muslims pursue a legitimate peace process.

[Cognitive Dissident]

An "armed resistance" in PA territory would be great if it were directed against the true oppressors: Hamas.

I guess that's why Hamas has been putting Fatah members down in the streets since the day they rose to power.  They're afraid of the competition.  And they'd rather kill fellow Muslims than see Muslims pursue a legitimate peace process.

I won't even go into that bullshit with you.

[Sam Gunn (since nobody got Admiral Naismith)]

An "armed resistance" in PA territory would be great if it were directed against the true oppressors: Hamas.

I guess that's why Hamas has been putting Fatah members down in the streets since the day they rose to power.  They're afraid of the competition.  And they'd rather kill fellow Muslims than see Muslims pursue a legitimate peace process.

I won't even go into that bullshit with you.

So then I guess Hamas fascists weren't shooting Fatah members in the streets every since their rise to power?  Sorry buddy, but they were.  It's a shitty situation.  Hamas launches rockets at Israeli kindergartens so that they can kill little kids because they are Jewish.  Then they turn around and shoot their political competitors and oppress the local populace.  It's like gang warfare at its very very worst. 

It's what happened when a vacuum of power was created when Israel withdrew its troops from the Gaza strip and Arafat died.  Arafat was a fuckhole fascist too, but at least when he was in power things were at least somewhat stable.  So Hamas was able to fill the vacuum in Gaza and Fatah was able to fill the vacuum in the West Bank.  Unfortunately Hamas directly and indirectly caused the deaths of thousands of Gazans (I'm talking public political executions of rival party members on the streets, use of human shields both voluntary and involuntary, use of children as suicide bombers, etc.).

Hell I wouldn't be against giving some of the right people a bunch of AK's if they were going to use them to hunt down and wipe out Hamas.  Too bad they would probably fill those shoes once Hamas was gone.  That's how this cycle of irrational violence works, and I can't really think of a good solution to it besides wiping out all of the terrorists at once, and that's not exactly easy to do without mass murder.