You're not affiliated to Fatah, are you?

Anyway.....

Things WE can do:

1) Tahajjud & Dua - There is no doubt that there is nothing more greater than turning to Allah (swt) to seek His Mercy and His Assistance during these difficult times and as the Prophet said, "Our Lord descends to the lowest heaven during the last third of the night, inquiring: 'Who will call on Me so that I may respond to him? Who is asking something of Me so I may give it to him? Who is asking for My forgiveness so I may forgive him?' [Al-Bukhari]

2) Donate Money - The Palestinian people are in urgent need for your donations for urgent medical aid and you can donate to Interpal in a number of ways:

* Phone: Call the Interpal hotline: 02089619993
* Online: Go to www.interpal.org and follow the online instructions

Interpal Account Details:

Account Name: Interpal
Bank: Islamic Bank of Britain
Sort Code: 30-00-83
Account Number: 01095401
BG52LOYD3096401024192

3) Attend the demonstrations

4) Sign the following petition: http://www.petitiononline.com/gaza2812/petition.html

5) Email/Telephone/Send Letters/Meet your local MP - The MPs have been elected to serve us and we should make sure that we contact them and pressurise them to do something against this Israeli brutality. Attached is a template letter that you can use to send your letter to your local MP.

6) Call the Foreign & Commonwealth Office - Express your concern with the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, please call 020 7008 1500

Attachment:
- Letter to MPs - Gaza 281208.doc

I am impressed with Israel's targeting. I cannot see how Israel can attack Hamas cleanly, and I cannot see how Israel can not attack Hamas. The result and for some the purpose of humanitarian intervention is that Israel can never defeat Hamas or Hizbollah, but I would like Israel to defeat Hamas and Hizbollah. I would like them to do so as responsibly as possible with regard to innocent life, and by Hamas' own estimates the majority of Israel's strikes have been spot on. This is not a flippant dismissal of the deaths of innocents, war is not a flippant thing. You could ask Hamas, who are sworn to war.

@MuslimBro - are interpal still running? I thought that I had heard they had their accounts ceased.

As for Ghosht, the question I would ask is if he is telling the truth as he sees it. I have the impression he is here to just cause chaos with no will to discuss or do good.

@ J de V - yes, the death toll could have been much higher. and most of the sites hit have been "affiliated to Hamas", but since Hamas is in charge over there, those places they are hitting are also the control of civillian architecture. Police stations etc do not (just?) hold weapons to fight Israel.

What Israel is attacking is the very signs on society. They may be affiliated with Hamas, but that is because Hamas has control over Gaza. It runs the police which provides justice and it also runs many other institutions - not all of which are there to oppose Israel.

There was also the university that was bombed.

I am impressed with Israel's targeting.

I am not. It would be hard to kill anyone who is not affiliated to Hamas. It would be easy to link any bit of Gaza infrastructure to Hamas.

Bombs by their very nature are different from Sniper rifles. They are indiscriminate.

Just like how the more or less ineffective rocket fire can turn the whole of Israel more in favour of violence, just think how the reverse works too. Hundreds of tons of bombs will NOT make the civillians more tolerant. The spiral of violence will increase.

wednesday wrote:

But Jo don't you see WHY Hamas is so stubborn?

I'm pretty good on the history.

Please tell me why these organisations have charters promising to eradicate Israel, rather than explain their point of view from the false premise that they have a purely humanitarian goal for their brothers and only want Israel to withdraw to 1967 borders (and you could also recall that Egypt refused to take Gaza back, preferring it to be a refugee camp and a shame upon Israel). If you like you can explain that Israel's actions are what causes the Hamas and Hizbollah charters to be so and we can politely differ since I will point out that Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood respectively crafted those charters while Jordan was busy committing large scale massacres - far beyond comparison with Israel - of Palestinians who the Hashemites saw as a threat. Israel doesn't have it in for the Palestinians. It has groups sworn to fight Israel and Israel attacks those groups with superiority and varying degrees of mercy.

You wrote:

There was also the university that was bombed.

I am impressed with Israel's targeting.

A chemical lab at the university was bombed. Hamas had taken over the university, which had been promising, and used its facilities to fight Israel. Israel didn't destroy the university and they were right to attack the facility. No doubt not everything Israel is doing can be justified but I genuinely am impressed with Israel's targeting.

You are right that Israeli attacks incur resentment, but since we have learned that Israel's intention is to absolutely cripple Hamas' capabilities and let other enemies put their cards on the table - and Iran is doing that - I believe that objective shouldn't be interrupted. The argument that Israeli attacks on Hamas incur the hatred of the ordinary citizen is correct but useless if Israel is to fight Hamas at all.

I do not think there is anyone in the region that has treated the Palestinians well. At best they are a political football that some Arab nationalists use.

As for the Hamas charter - to me it does not matter. They cannot weaken it when under attack. If on the other hand if they were presented with a carrot, I am sure that the people would choose it.

However if the carrot is just a stick but coloured orange, then well, its a stick.

(Ariel Sharon had the idea of pummeling the Palestinians to the point where they would accept whatever they were offered instead of what they wanted. The actions by later governments seems the same or similar to me.)

And then there is the thorny question if this is all being done as part of elections manouvres...

Joie de Vivre wrote:

A chemical lab at the university was bombed. Hamas had taken over the university, which had been promising, and used its facilities to fight Israel....

Thanks for that info.

Joie de Vivre wrote:

You are right that Israeli attacks incur resentment, but since we have learned that Israel's intention is to absolutely cripple Hamas' capabilities and let other enemies put their cards on the table

I really do not think this is possible.

Joie de Vivre wrote:

...and Iran is doing that...

Interesting... expand/Any links?

You wrote:

I do not think there is anyone in the region that has treated the Palestinians well. At best they are a political football that some Arab nationalists use.

As for the Hamas charter - to me it does not matter. They cannot weaken it when under attack. If on the other hand if they were presented with a carrot, I am sure that the people would choose it.

However if the carrot is just a stick but coloured orange, then well, its a stick.

(Ariel Sharon had the idea of pummeling the Palestinians to the point where they would accept whatever they were offered instead of what they wanted. The actions by later governments seems the same or similar to me.)

And then there is the thorny question if this is all being done as part of elections manouvres...

I don't think that's Sharon's policy but you're right there is a keen and quite nasty awareness of what constitutes a bargaining chip - kidnapped Israeli soldier, Hamas members in Israeli jails, any part of the hostile status quo you have the power to change - and probably there is toleration (on the Israeli side, we know Hamas has no limits) of acquiring more bargaining chips. On the other hand Israel is fond of projects to support Palestinians that are bipartisan or Israeli run. Not so the UN which has put all sorts of caps on Israel's attempts to contribute for some truly disgusting reasons vis a vis the Palestinians' status. I don't really think that is what it is about. But in the context of this current round of attacks, Israel has made up it's mind it wants Hamas ruined. There may be an electoral angle but that is more likely intended for Hamas than for the Israeli public. The timing is more to do with the expiration of the ceasefire and the pressures brought on Israel by increased Iranian supplies to Hizbollah and now Hamas.

To exist?

Both of you, I absolutely don't want this to be bitter even if I am not taken at face value and I appreciate very much that we have been having this conversation politely. It is educational to compare notes. Admin, the Iran thing: http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5807

wednesday wrote:

To exist and to apply.

To apply what? I think You is correct.

Thanks.

(I think it has been civil so far...?)

I do think you believe what you say to the same degree as we do. and I also think this is an argument that we will not agree on.

I do still see value in the discussion. Such as that link. I woiuld have not got it otherwise.

Love to you both, I'd better get back to some tidying before some shuteye! And as grim as it is I look forward to continuing our discussions.

Wait! that link is not loading.

EDIT - read the gist of it from another place, but it does not hold much water to me. Just another state trying to make political gain from the tragedy IMO.

OK! Debka's been hit and miss this evening but you'll see it on the front page - Debka.com - possibly better from Firefox than Chrome, I just found. I hope I'm not sending you on a wild goose chase. Just to brief you on Debka, it is useful but there is PoV and also some slightly shaky predictions, but as it happens neither of these criticisms applies to the article in question which is well sourced.

Your other comment there may well be correct.

Wednesday, I'm already all over this thread and I want to tread carefully - not to lecture or propagandise or be closed to discussion or incur too much confrontation - but hopefully that won't get in the way of a comprehensive exchange over time. Explaining this because I didn't respond fully to your thoughtful comment concerning the conversation.

In Damascus there is no Israeli or American embassy to protest outside (I wonder why....)

SO... there is a demonstration outside the Egyptian embassy! Yay!

Salam

It is most likely that Israel will lose this
war on Gaza, as it lost its war in Lebanon in 2006.

Hamas are now too hard to beat.

Israel should have finished them before 2005
election which brought them to power.

Today Hamas are popular among the Palestinians and
across the Middle East.

This is why Israel cannot win against such a group.

Omrow

Omrow wrote:

Salam

It is most likely that Israel will lose this
war on Gaza, as it lost its war in Lebanon in 2006.

That's quite a debatable suggestion. They didn't achieve their objectives - recapturing the kidnapped soldiers and destroying Hizbollah's stock - and the operation was cut short after international pressure. Hizbollah will claim a victory but then an enemy that can declare victory after absolutely any amount of a battering is quite the fool. In fact it is worse than that, pathetically tragic, that Hizbollah can tell the Lebanese all that destruction ended in a victory. Israel was definitely humbled at the withdrawal, but they were not outmaneuvered except by international diplomats. There are such diplomats at work again, but there are also many who will not be thus humiliating Israel for the sake of Gaza, which unlike Lebanon is entirely in the hands of the enemy group.

I'm not liking how I'm using the website right now, I shall spare you my company for a couple of days and come back in 2009 a little chirpier and my usual highly tolerable self and a tad less frequent, and if there's no questions addressed to me I shall do my utmost to let everyone talk about Gaza from their own point of view and without my involvement in that.

You wrote:

@MuslimBro - are interpal still running? I thought that I had heard they had their accounts ceased.

UWT (Ummah Welfare Trust), another charity who are more popular up north have also been targeted and they have received a letter recently stating that their account will close with Barclay's in 30 days. Coincidence?

FOSIS sent that email out to everyone so I'm assuming that Interpal is still running at the moment. They are considering changing banks but they are still fighting.

Five sisters killed in Gaza while they slept

The five Palestinian sisters were fast asleep when a night-time Israeli airstrike hit the next-door mosque in Gaza. One of the walls collapsed on to their small asbestos-roofed home and they were all killed in their beds. The eldest sister, Tahrir, was 17 years old, the youngest, Jawaher, just four.

"They grow up day after day and night after night. Within a second, I have lost them," the girls' father, Anwar Balousha, said yesterday. The 37-year-old, along with another three of his children, was himself injured in the attack on the densely populated Jabalya refugee camp...

The Independent

and that one strike is greater than ALL the casualties Israel has suffered. There is no denying that Israel is spreading misery and its excuses are IMO very thin.

Things like this at times make me wish for a wider conflict - but that would just be more death and destruction with no real peaceful outcome. Just a return to the status quo.

I think the following talk is relevant to the current situation. It's divided into five parts but taken from one lecture.

Dawn of New SuperPower (part 1)

Dawn of New SuperPower (part 2)

Dawn of New SuperPower (part 3)

Dawn of New SuperPower (part 4)

Dawn of New SuperPower (part 5)

The volume is abit low so make sure you turn all the volume up on your pc.

I have only listened to aprt one and the guy has not got to making his point yet, but I do not think it is a good idea to dream of becoming a superpower. What would be good is a balance of power. The world may be heading in that direction too, but chances are that none of the "great powers" would be Muslim Nations.

We need to sort out our actions before we can think about other things.

You need to listen to all of it to understand it fully. If you can't listen to all of it (which you should) then atleast listen to the last part.

For someone who likes reading, here's something for you: CALAMITIES ON MUSLIMS: CAUSES AND CURES

They are not strongly correlated to what is happening now.

Linking them is just the same as when missionaries try to sell the wrath of God whenever there is a natural disaster. Distasteful.

Obviously whenever any calamity happens you cannot point to exactly why it happened/is happening but it is true for many things which have happened, are happening and will happen.

Joie de Vivre wrote:

I'm not liking how I'm using the website right now, I shall spare you my company for a couple of days and come back in 2009 a little chirpier and my usual highly tolerable self and a tad less frequent, and if there's no questions addressed to me I shall do my utmost to let everyone talk about Gaza from their own point of view and without my involvement in that.

it would be interesting to hear the israeli argument.
does everyone is israel support the bombing of gaza?
is nobody condemning it?
how can anyone justifying such killing on a mass scale?
surely this is state terrorism?
from the almost 400 dead how many are 'hamas militants'?
hamas's d.i.y. rockets are their only way or resisiting israeli occupation- wouldnt you agree?
do israelis feel because they have the support of the U.S. they can do whatever they want?
how shocking that the world is silent- no real condemnation from anyone?

i think most ppl will conclude that palestinian blood is cheap. no one gives a monkey!

Israel has left the peace process in ruins
Tim Butcher

Before Op Cast Lead, 14 Israelis had been killed in four years of intermittent rocket firing from Gaza.

But the most intriguing thing about Op Cast Lead is its timing. Why send in the bombers in December 2008, when rockets have been landing in Israel for eight years? It had been six months since the last Israeli fatality. What led the Israeli military-political elite to choose this month to order a sustained attack?

The answer is quite simple. Israelis go to the polls in February and it is this that is driving this operation. The ruling Kadima party — until recently led by Ehud Olmert, who was forced to stand down over a series of corruption scandals — had been created back in 2005 to break the mould of Israeli politics by standing on a centrist, moderate ticket. No longer would Israeli politics swing between the extremes of the Left‑wing Labour party and the Right-wing Likud.

We must adjust our distorted image of Hamas
William Sieghart

The political leadership of Hamas is probably the most highly qualified in the world. Boasting more than 500 PhDs in its ranks, the majority are middle-class professionals - doctors, dentists, scientists and engineers. Most of its leadership have been educated in our universities and harbour no ideological hatred towards the West. It is a grievance-based movement, dedicated to addressing the injustice done to its people. It has consistently offered a ten-year ceasefire to give breathing space to resolve a conflict that has continued for more than 60 years.

Six months ago the Israeli Government agreed to an Egyptian- brokered ceasefire with Hamas. In return for a ceasefire, Israel agreed to open the crossing points and allow a free flow of essential supplies in and out of Gaza. The rocket barrages ended but the crossings never fully opened, and the people of Gaza began to starve. This crippling embargo was no reward for peace.

Israel's onslaught on Gaza is a crime that cannot succeed
Seamus Milne

Then, having seen a child dying in her parent's arms live on TV, consider what sort of western response there would have been to an attack on Israel, or the US or Britain for that matter, which left more than 300 dead in a couple of days.

You can be certain it would be met with the most sweeping condemnation, that the US president-elect would do a great deal more than "monitor" the situation and the British prime minister go much further than simply call for "restraint" on both sides.

But that is in fact all they did do, though the British government has since joined the call for a ceasefire. There has, of course, been no western denunciation of the Israeli slaughter - such aerial destruction is, after all, routinely called in by the US and Britain in occupied Iraq and Afghanistan.

From the ashes of Gaza
Tariq Ali

It is this response to everyday needs that has won Hamas the broad base of its support, not daily recitation of verses from the Koran. How far its conduct in the second Intifada has given it an additional degree of credibility is less clear. Its armed attacks on Israel, like those of Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade or Islamic Jihad, have been retaliations against an occupation far more deadly than any actions it has ever undertaken. Measured on the scale of IDF killings, Palestinian strikes have been few and far between. The asymmetry was starkly exposed during Hamas's unilateral ceasefire, begun in June 2003, and maintained throughout the summer, despite the Israeli campaign of raids and mass arrests that followed, in which some 300 Hamas cadres were seized from the West Bank.

What has actually distinguished Hamas in a hopelessly unequal combat is not dispatch of suicide bombers, to which a range of competing groups resorted, but its superior discipline – demonstrated by its ability to enforce a self-declared ceasefire against Israel over the past year. All civilian deaths are to be condemned, but since Israel is their principal practitioner, Euro-American cant serves only to expose those who utter it. Overwhelmingly, the boot of murder is on the other foot, ruthlessly stamped into Palestine by a modern army equipped with jets, tanks and missiles in the longest-armed oppression of modern history.

In addition to to actions that MuslimBro has mentioned, Id suggest reciting Qunut al-Nazila, which is a supplication (usually prayed at Fajr salah/namaz) when a major difficulty or tribulation is upon the Ummah. I understand that some masjids may be organising regular recitations of qunut al Nazila?

Heres a link to more information on how it is prayed (in Hanafi fiqh):

http://qa.sunnipath.com/issue_view.asp?HD=1&ID=1170&CATE=4

Hizb al Nasr
The Prayer of Victory

By Shaykh Abu Hassan As-Shadhuli
[about 800 yrs ago]

Arabic: http://www.bogvaerker.dk/NasiriDua.pdf

Audio: http://www.bogvaerker.dk/files/Audio/Nasiri.mp3

Translation: http://www.geocities.com/mutmainaa/victory_dua.html

** Many ulama have strongly recommended for everyone to read this dua for the people of Gaza, historically, it has proven to be very powerful and very useful, in times of difficulty and in times of war. ***