this is where i begin to wonder whether it was worthwhile voting for you.attend to and tackle your own backyard first.there is NOTHING ANYONE can do about the middle east situation. there is NOTHING ANYONE can do to bring Israel down. read the Bible and get an education.

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PM before you go overboard can we ask you are you dame scare of the by election in KT that you have to engage the PDRM as BN election agent. Why are
they taking action on the opposition .?? They should be fair not one way track.

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What stand!Malaysia itself is is a laughing stock of the international community becos of her condoning the practice of discriminating against one half of humanity.

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How can he take a stand when himself is been accused of involvement in the killing of the mongolian model,Altantuya!He have to clear all allegations before he can take this stand.If he can take this stand,then all those in Sungei Buloh can take a stand also.

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there was NO palestine. but the Israelites were there way before them.they are lucky they may continue living. israeli arabs have more freedom.

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As usual,

Motion rejected - Speaker Pandikar Amin Mulia - not important or relevant.

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this is where i begin to wonder whether it was worthwhile voting for you.attend to and tackle your own backyard first.there is NOTHING ANYONE can do about the middle east situation. there is NOTHING ANYONE can do to bring Israel down. read the Bible and get an education.
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..tackle your own backyard first: agree

..read the Bible and get an education: nonsense, why not the Qu'ran of the Vedas?

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Dear Alan Cheong,

It is good that you have knowledge but it is more important to have wisdom and love.

Why bring in the bible when you know most people will not read it and some will be offended? A message is best conveyed in love.

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What about a motion to condemn Hamas' unlawful act of shooting rockets into Israel throughout the last month?

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Alan Cheong,

The many versions of the Bible are just collections of recollections of people and disciples of Jesus and the fact is what you see in there was selected by those in power then for you to see. They never included the accounts from Judas, Magdalene etc. so just how impartial is the Bible ??

Of course there was no Palestine just as there is no real "home" state for the Hakkas in China. The Arabs there were nom*** just as the Hakkas in China were, but that did not mean there were no people living there ! The whole trouble was caused by the USA and the Allies who just dumped the Jews in there and they arbitrarily formed Israel after World War II as the Jews could not return to Germany where most of them were from.

Hamas was stupid to start a war with rockets which they have no confidence of winning, but that does not mean Israel can commit GENOCIDE and we as human beings should shut up just because they are Israel ... you are a most sorry excuse for a human being !!

Even if Israel was indestructible, the fact that they are committing genocide should draw odium and protest from any human being. Even if they can't be defeated, we should fight against all that is wrong, regardless !! They have been defeated before, and will be again if they don't watch it.

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..NOTHING ANYONE can do to bring Israel down: Nonsense, two atomic bombs later from another group, who are their enemy with a similar belief they are ashes. Iran may be one.

Stop imposing others with bronze age myths...even many Jews have stopped believing that they are God's choosen people. Lewis Black is Jew, listen to him joke about the biblical myths (ignore his tendency to use the f-word) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWqtpqQjNug.

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Hamas have to be blame for provoking the Israeli with constant rocket fire.

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Pl ask , Pak lah Najib , Albar -- and the rest of the flock-- if they have ever donated any of their personal funds to the Palestinian cause ??

If Pak lah was given a choice to help Palestine or stay in power -----he will choose to stay in Power . This applies to every UMNO PUTRA. They will all bark for now to activate and appease the berserk crowd.! All empty vessels ! one man who worked till death for Palestine is Yasser Arafat . Arafat and Rabin worked without mixing religion. Both were truly men of peace! The forces of hatred were too strong , and it takes longer to achieve that peace.
Here it is different ! UMNO will take out their krises!

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Alan, you are wrong. There was a Palestine nation for many generations before our generation. The British had been rulers of Palestine from 1917 to 1948. For a summary, please read the Special Report by the BBC News. "Sixty years of Middle East division" by Jeremy Bowen, BBC Middle East editor
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7385156.stm

Sometimes, when we view history on a series of maps, we can understand the story more clearly. Here are five color maps of the region over the years since 1920.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7380642.stm

Notice that in 1947, the United Nations General Assembly proposed dividing Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, with Jerusalem as an international city. The plan was accepted by Jewish leaders but rejected by the Arabs and never implemented. Sadly, after Britain withdrew, the Jews declared the state of Israel. War broke out with neighbouring Arab nations. Eight months later an armistice line was agreed, establishing the West Bank and Gaza Strip under the control of Jordan and Egypt. Everything just got more complex after that. Sigh!

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solomon's namesake lacks the wisdom he so readily talks about.

John 6:61-64 When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you? But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him.

the Bible is the world's No 1 bestseller, translated into the most number of languages.
there will be those who read and take in some, take in more or not at all.
there will be those who scoff, with or without reading.
there will be those who'll be offended and those whose eyes shall be opened.
love is being extended even now, but TRUTH remains TRUTH.
but the time is nearing when that love will be replaced with judgement.
hypocrites and those who jump on bandwagons waste time and deserve to be told off to their faces. therein, too, is love.
for who is there who loves but does not chastise?
when the king gave his judgement concerning the babe that apparently seemed harsh and cruel, was not love there?

Socrates,
read up on HOW the Bible truly came to be.REad it and search it, spout not mere tired refrains.
Genocide? Le's hear ye talk about the hutus and tutsis, sudan, kurds, ongoing wars within africa, etc? genocide. d'you really know the meaning of the word?
and wherein my comments did i say we/people should not speak up against it?
wherein my comments did i condemn people for speaking up?

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PR should stop wasting time and money on this "stupid" war which is taking place half way around the globe when the actual fact is Israel has already have a foothold in this nation when they (BN government) allowed them to "mess up" with our boy in blue at PEACE HILL.

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After Isreal bomb Hezbollah properly in Lebonon Rocket attack stop. Enough Said! One would think Hamas, Fatah, Iran, Syria, Egypt understand that they are DHIMI to Isreal. Tak boleh terima. Padan muka Hamas! Hezbollah, Syria and Iran should attack Isreal Now, 4 prong attack!
PKR, PAS stop playing politics on this Palestine issues and win Islam Malay votes in KT. Yes I left out DAP because DAP could not care less about those brain washing suffering mothers and children and Stats and continual use of "Proportional" saksama statement. Non malays in Malaysia are discrimated for 51 years.what is the Big difference. Non malay were in Malaysia before Malays before UMNO Racist tried to change History? Can Palestine learn from GANDHI.lay down arms, or learn from Martin Luther King. Seems like these Pakatan is losing FOCUS on MALAYSIA Issues again. Lets list them something to Call Emergency parliament:
1. No Confidence vote on UMNO-BN
2. Judiciary
3. Police Thugs murderer
4. Corruption.linked to Development.so Bukit antarabangsa no issues anymore? Medan Damansara Development on 60 degrees slope all OK?
5 Malaysia Death Toll is non issues is seems.to Hell with this Palestine Issues. Let Arab nation do their Nothing ala Genocide in Somalia, Sudan Dafur!enough Said.Stop Kah Poh with Palestine.

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alan: the Bible is the world's No 1 bestseller, translated into the most number of languages.
--------------------------
Harry Potter is also a phenomenoally best seller. Does it proof there is any truth there?

There are many myths in the Bible, some have been shown what they are:

http://varnam.org/blog/2007/09/exodus_a_myth/
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/03/world/africa/03exodus.html?ex=1333252800&en=6f654bfd6c4fbcd8&ei=5088&partner=rssny

It is your right to belief with those myths and consider them truths, but we have to look at the Hamas-Israel dispute from the humanist point of view. From the facts, it is true that Hamas is the provoker and deserve to be punish, but the issue is whether Israel response has been excessive. Cheers

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written by alan cheong, January 05, 2009 15:47:14
pah!
there was NO palestine.
but the Israelites were there way before them.
invasion ... my foot.

they are lucky they may continue living ... israeli arabs have more freedom.

You speak exactly like UMNO and tanah melayu!!!

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As much as we want to condemn Israeli government for their invasion of Palestine, we too must condemn the violent act of Hamas in firing rockets at the innocent Israeli civilians. In fact this is what the Hamas has wanted, to perpetuate the waring states so that they can stay relevant in Palestine being glorified by the unknowing Palestinian civilians. The world has failed the civilians of both sides but common sense is very lacking when adults live with rhetorics and self serving interest, like those warlords of UMNO.

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I normally shun from issues related to the Israel/Palestinian conflict. It goes way way back when the problems started.

To be brutally honest, I think both sides shoulder the blame for what has happened and for what is happening now. And I believe that this matter will not be so easily resolved.

On one hand I can understand why Israel behaves the way it is doing now but understanding does not mean that I condone such barbaric behaviour. Innocent lives are lost and whatever the justification one just can't mow down the innocent women and children.

The problem is that we are not faced with a normal open war between 2 armies. What Hamas is doing is a form of guerilla warfare. It's difficult to find the culprits who lobbed those 'bombs' over the wall into Israel provoking them to retaliate the way they are doing now. But the form of retaliation is just totally unacceptable.

To fully understand the enormity of the middle east problem one needs to go back a long long way. I for one, however, do not believe in harking to the past to justify the present. Truth be said, we can't hold the present generation accountable for crimes which were commited aeons ago and use those crimes to justify more crimes in the present. If this continues, it will never never end.

The logical thing to do is to acknowledge the existence of both parties and their equal rights to live on the land. The big question to ask is whether both sides are mature enough to accept this and the ensuing peace instead of continuing with the non-ending violence.

In many ways the Palestinian conflict draws some parallels of the problem in Malaysia. Non-bumiputras are still treated as pendatangs and not accepted in Malaysian society as Malaysians. But non-bumiputras who are born in Malaysia cannot be discriminated against just because their ancestors and forebears migrated to the region in the past; for locally-born non-bumiputras did not ask and did not have a choice not to be born here.

This simple logic seems to be just too complex for UMNO to comprehend .... sigh...

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The question The Scribe wants to ask Minister Zahid is, "Can he or any leader of the OIC guarantee Israel that they will stop and act against Hamas or any party that carries out attacks and terrorists activities within the Palestinian territories against Israel assuming Israel agrees to a ceasefire?". If you are an Israeli, would you trust Zahid? Anyway, what chance does the Malaysian armed forces have against the might of the Israeli army? Just imagine, Hamas lobs a few rockets into Israel to provoke an Israeli response and our boys get annihilated by the Israelis. Sorry folks no 'Syahid' (martyrdom) for our troops here.

Zahid like Khairy Jamaluddin and all the other idiots in Umno just don't understand the politics of the Middle East. In fact my Arab brothers are already telling me that the Evil BN/Umno regime are merely Arab wannabe showmen who are trying to score for their own political survival by using religion to make it look like they are behind their Muslim brothers in Palestine. The Arabs I meet here are calling Malaysian politicians first class hypocrites!...More http://margeemar.blogspot.com

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Do you think Israel give a damn with the rest of the world when the rest of the world don't give a damn about rockets constantly landing on his backyard? What will you do if you are in Israel shoes?

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The Fatah and Hamas clashes had killed many Palestinians, but somehow nobody seem to make noise when muslims kills muslims. Enter Isreal and many condemns unreservedly and blindly.

Don't lose focus of our own backyard war, Pakatan, particularly the upcoming KT battle. If the Oh I see(OIC) and UN cannot do anything about it, what can you do other just adding more distracting noises?

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Just as we do not want others to meddle in our "internal" affairs, why are we "kay pohing" other people's country internal affairs?

Just take care of our "internal" problems first ok?

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Egypt,Jordan immediate neighbours to Israel and Gaza/WestBank, know better what to do, than passing ineffective resolutions here in Malaysia. What were you all doing when Hamas was fighting Fatah, and when Muslims kill Muslims in Iraq, Pakistan,Sudan, No Fatwa or resoultions. All quiet here in Malaysia.

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See...I knew that DSAI would support Palestine...U guys who support Israel better just vote for BN in the next GE. We dont what ur kind here.

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i don't wish for killing of innocent civilians BUT, Alan Chong is right.Anyway, it is a very lengthy subject so best leave it to the experts! However, I must say this; all the idiocrisy of boycotting US PRODUCTS and mass demonstration all over the Muslim world on this particular issue is STUPID! If you want to talk about genocide, there are so many incidence all around that went unattended to. I call this "selected" preferences.

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Do they seriously think that Israel will just sit around, do nothing and wait for the rockets to drop on their head ? Much as I deplore the ferocity of their reaction and sympathise with those innocent people who died, I personally think that Hamas should stop raining down the rockets on the innocent people on the other side. Why not ask the UN to debate this as well ?

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My support is to the people of Palestine, but not to Hamas.

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i do not think malaysian trying to "kah poh" (just learned means busybody) with palestine but this show that malaysian care about human kind.

b4 most here asked pkr to stop care about other country, watch our back yard, have you do that? watch over your own back yard? i do not think so...

pkr fighting to release malaysian from jaws of ummnoputra or b-end are on going job scoop.

once a while we need to switch channel to get better, clearer thought of life....

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since we commentators can't do much about this conflict, why not just pray and ask God/Allah for His sovereign hand upon this whole war since we can't come to a conclusion. if you are so adamant that you are right, buy a plane ticket and join the war if you are so supportive of either one. prove it with your own sacrifice. those who think Hamas is no wrong and deserves support, join them for the fight against the army .... i think most probably you will be crushed by the tank flat like roti canai. those who are insistent that the Israelis are always right, join them and get blown up by the Hamas missle.

all these aside, i hope both side of the politicians should not politicize this whole war. it is about life and death of so many ppl. we should pray for both side for the best outcome and trust God for divine intervention.

we should now start to condemn politicians who politicize this bloody war.

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Hebrew means 'No land people' or people who don't have land. Irael people since in the begining are "Pelarian" or penumpang di atas tanah orang. Israel are very much like those "UMNO-Malays" in Malaya--penumpang di tanah orang dan akhirnya mengaku tanah yang ditumpang adalah tanah NENEK-MOYANGnya.

Stupid HAMAS and those people who are blinded by Utusan Malaysia news.

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An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. When are all the wars in the world going to end? Our mother nature is already critically sick! Wars will only drag human beings and all other innocent lives to the point of death!

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What's up with the Hamas baboons? They have a prior ceasefire and they rather have war.Now they have one, they like the ceasefire better.BUt they rather their Arab neighbors beseech the West for one.And whatever happened to the brave talk about fighting to the last drop of blood.Well, get on with it so we can hear the last of you or your enemies.

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Congratulations to Pakatan for - finally! - taking a stand on the genocide that has been going on in Palestine. Few people in history have suffered more, and most unjustifiably so. My heart weeps, more so because an innocent people have found themselves victims in a situation created by decisions made for them thousands of miles away.

Milo - never knew your thoughts about this matter until now: God bless you.

LChuah

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Hallo, solve our shittiness b4 looking into others. btw, if Egypt & Jordan has accepted Israel & made peace with them, why not the others. Israel has offered the olive branch, the others must do likewise. it boils down to the basic fact of acceptance of each other. nobody is right or wrong in the middle east issue. we can overcome by a simple act of acceptance of each other. then u will see the real difference. let there be peace in middle east.

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I wish to add my opinion but first let me state my stand. I am against violence of all kind to solve disputes.

The situation in Gaza is complex. Israel acted as they were threatened, not by what Hamas has done but rather by what Hamas seems to be surely gearing towards, that is increasing their military ability. Israel is practically desperate and running out of options. Hamas made a very significant strategic gain when they took control of the border between Egypt and Gaza. Israel has to act to prevent a similar war in Lebanon in 2006.

Does that make Israel right? I cannot say. If I look from a military perspective, they should attack Gaza. But from a humanitarian point of view it is disproportionate and extremely harsh as after all they already block access to the region.

Again as in previous postings I think the solution should come from both sides. Let's see it this way, no rockets from Gaza will mean no excuse for Israel to attack. If there be any effective ceasefire, both sides must stop and a sincere commitment to peace must be instilled. At the moment there is little hope of that happening. The Palestinian Authority is Fatah who do not have real control over Gaza. Hamas is inflexible and refuses to talk. In fact Hamas' growth depends on more violence.

As much as I want to condemn Israel's use of force, I cannot help but also rebuke Hamas. Both use violence and both are wrong. The victims are the innocents while Hamas and Israel play their war games.

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Alan Cheong,

Here is your 1sr sentence "this is where i begin to wonder whether it was worthwhile voting for you.attend to and tackle your own backyard first"

Of course we have to tackle our backyard, but that does not mean we should stop being human beings while tackling our backyard ! Have you heard of multi-tasking ?? Expressly, you are telling Pakatan Rakyat to mind its own backyard. implicitly you are telling PR to shut up about the invasion of Gaza.

Your following cry of ignorance and inhumanity gives you away for the soulless human being that you are "NOTHING ANYONE can do about the middle east situation. there is NOTHING ANYONE can do to bring Israel down. read the Bible and get an education." It seems that you are advising people to just walk away when the foe seems to be indomitable ... your cowardly streak showing through ... no matter how strong and mighty anyone is, when they do something wrong we must all speak up or it will be the end of the human race.

Go back to your Bible and bury yourself there, like the ostrich that you are, refusing to see the Bible for what it is, and refusing to see or do anything when acts of gross injustice is being committed. Is that the behaviour of a good Christian ?? I think not. None so blind as those who won't see !!

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Hi LChuah,
I feel very upset each time irrational religious reasons are invoked to justify or explain what is happening in the middle east. The solution lies in taking a rational and humanistic approach to the issue, which cannot happen if religion is invoked. One side will be claiming they are Gods' people and thus automatically has certain "special" right over others, while the other side will claim they are fighting satan forces. How will it ever end? And at the meantime, innocent people are dying while weapon crooks are profiting.

Religion preach of love, but do we see any there? Just the opposite! To me both sides are nuts! Hamas is shooting rockets practically begging for a reaction, and the other side is excessive in her response almost everytime. Sorry if my postings on the issue seem crude, the intention is to punch some points through.

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The problem that all Arab nations (except Jordan, Egypt, Saudi, Turkey and Kuwait) and people fail to address is not Palestine or the Israelist, but the bloody Hamas, the terrorist group. The Jew govt will stop shelling Hamas if not Hamas provoking the war. Palestiners died not bec'os of the shelling from the Jews govt, but Hamas is using Palestiners as a bait for their glory dan so-called fight for Islam. The truth is they are just terrorist like Al-Qeada. Lets bring down the Hamas and let the Fatah to lead the peace talk.

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Dear Milo,
I understand your feeling. Though a Christian (or perhaps BECAUSE as one)I'd to bear a lot of inane theories about the Middle East too. But let's turn to the topic under discussion.

Under another article, I'd asked how Hamas was born, who funded it, and why a secular PLO from the largely secular Palestinian society suddenly found a religious organization like Hamas to replace it. It didn't occur by chance.

Below is one view.

LChuah
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From http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8449
January 27, 2006
Hamas, Son of Israel

by Justin Raimondo
Amid all the howls of pain and gnashing of teeth over the triumph of Hamas in the Palestinian elections, one fact remains relatively obscure, albeit highly relevant: Israel did much to launch Hamas as an effective force in the occupied territories. If ever there was a clear case of "blowback," then this is it. As Richard Sale pointed out in a piece for UPI:

"Israel and Hamas may currently be locked in deadly combat, but, according to several current and former U.S. intelligence officials, beginning in the late 1970s, Tel Aviv gave direct and indirect financial aid to Hamas over a period of years. Israel 'aided Hamas directly – the Israelis wanted to use it as a counterbalance to the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization),' said Tony Cordesman, Middle East analyst for the Center for Strategic [and International] Studies. Israel's support for Hamas 'was a direct attempt to divide and dilute support for a strong, secular PLO by using a competing religious alternative,' said a former senior CIA official."

Middle East analyst Ray Hanania concurs:
"In addition to hoping to turn the Palestinian masses away from Arafat and the PLO, the Likud leadership believed they could achieve a workable alliance with Islamic, anti-Arafat forces that would also extend Israel's control over the occupied territories."

In a conscious effort to undermine the Palestine Liberation Organization and the leadership of Yasser Arafat, in 1978 the government of then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin approved the application of Sheik Ahmad Yassin to start a "humanitarian" organization known as the Islamic Association, or Mujama. The roots of this Islamist group were in the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, and this was the seed that eventually grew into Hamas – but not before it was amply fertilized and nurtured with Israeli funding and political support.

Begin and his successor, Yitzhak Shamir, launched an effort to undercut the PLO, creating the so-called Village Leagues, composed of local councils of handpicked Palestinians who were willing to collaborate with Israel – and, in return, were put on the Israeli payroll. Sheik Yassin and his followers soon became a force within the Village Leagues. This tactical alliance between Yassin and the Israelis was based on a shared antipathy to the militantly secular and leftist PLO: the Israelis allowed Yassin's group to publish a newspaper and set up an extensive network of charitable organizations, which collected funds not only from the Israelis but also from Arab states opposed to Arafat.

To be continued

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Continued

Ami Isseroff, writing on MideastWeb, shows how the Israelis deliberately promoted the Islamists of the future Hamas by helping them turn the Islamic University of Gaza into a base from which the group recruited activists – and the suicide bombers of tomorrow. As the only higher-education facility in the Gaza strip, and the only such institution open to Palestinians since Anwar Sadat closed Egyptian colleges to them, IUG contained within its grounds the seeds of the future Palestinian state. When a conflict arose over religious issues, however, the Israeli authorities sided with the Islamists against the secularists of the Fatah-PLO mainstream. As Isseroff relates, the Islamists
"Encouraged Israeli authorities to dismiss their opponents in the committee in February of 1981, resulting in subsequent Islamisation of IUG policy and staff (including the obligation on women to wear the hijab and thobe and separate entrances for men and women), and enforced by violence and ostracization of dissenters. Tacit complicity from both university and Israeli authorities allowed Mujama to keep a weapons cache to use against secularists. By the mid 1980s, it was the largest university in occupied territories with 4,500 students, and student elections were won handily by Mujama."

Again, the motive was to offset Arafat's influence and divide the Palestinians. In the short term, this may have worked to some extent; in the longer term, however, it backfired badly – as demonstrated by the results of the recent Palestinian election.

The Hamas infrastructure of mosques, clinics, kindergartens, and other educational institutions flourished not only because they were lavishly funded, but also due to being efficiently run. Sheik Yassin and the future leaders of Hamas acquired a reputation for "clean" governance and good administrative practices, which would greatly aid them – especially in comparison to the PLO, which was widely perceived as corrupt. Indeed, "clean government" – and not the necessity of armed struggle – was the main theme of their successful election campaign.

The response of Israel and the U.S. has been shock, horror – and a stated refusal to deal with any government dominated by Hamas. U.S. congressional leaders – who unhelpfully passed a resolution prior to the Palestinian poll that demanded Hamas be banned from running – are now calling the entire "peace process" into question. Yet no one acknowledges that the victory of the Suicide Bombers Party demonstrated, in practice, an ancient principle expressed, I believe, by no less an authority than the Bible (Galatians 6:7):

"Be not deceived. God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."

This "blowback" principle applies to Hamas not only insofar as Israel was involved in funding and encouraging Mujama, but also, after the consolidation of Hamas as an armed group, due to Israeli military policy. The much-touted "withdrawal," which amounts to Israel giving up Gaza while strengthening its hand elsewhere in the occupied territories, has been grist for the radical Islamist mill, as has the Wall of Separation and the attempt to quash the vote in East Jerusalem. Israel's relentless offensive against its perceived enemies – first Fatah, now Hamas and Islamic Jihad – has created a backlash and solidified support for fundamentalist extremist factions in the Palestinian community.

Likewise, the victory of Hamas will embolden the ultra-Zionists in Israel, who similarly mix a fanatic theology with faith in a military "solution" to the Palestinian "problem." The electoral victory of Hamas was only a few hours old before Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu went on television explaining why any concessions to the Palestinians – including the Gaza pullback – only served to embolden the most radical elements, such as Hamas.

The stricken Ariel Sharon lies in his hospital bed, unconscious – while his unilateral "land for peace" plan suffers from a very similar condition. Sharon's newly-formed Kadima Party is the big potential loser in all this, with Netanyahu's Likud looking to gain bigtime. The irony is that, as defense minister, it was Sharon who helped conceive and oversee the Village Leagues scheme that did so much to implant and empower Hamas. Like some Middle Eastern version of Dr. Frankenstein, he wound up being struck down by his own monstrous creation.
There is a lesson in there, somewhere, though it isn't one the Israelis or their American sponsors seem capable of learning just yet.

~ Justin Raimondo

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LChuah, that article fails to explain how a "humanitarian" organisation became a violent one.

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While in London on a visit, I have been attending the widely publicized anti-Israeli demonstrations for its aggression against the defenceless Palestinian people in Gaza. Anti-war demonstrations have been taking place in many European cities, large and small.

It was heartening to see among the demonstrators a significant youth element. The media here in the letters columns also contains a strong representation of public opinion expressing revulsion against the Israelis for perpetrating its holocaust against the Palestinians.

A joint statement by the all parties in the Malaysian Parliament expressing its moral outrage against the Israeli war crimes will be welcome indeed. One of the demands by the peace movement is to initiate a boycott against the Israeli apartheid state as had recently been successfully done against the apartheid South African regime.

The Zionists, without dispute have mastered the dark art of propaganda, ironically, from the Nazi tormentors and killers of Jews. Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister, who said, "If you tell a lie long enough, it becomes the truth”, would be proud of the Zionists for their deep grasp and masterly application of his propaganda principles.

The big lie that is being sold to the world by the Israelis is that their action in Gaza is defensive and that they launched this massacre against the Palestinians because Hamas had been firing home made Qassam rockets against Israelis in the southern towns and that Hamas had refused to renew the ceasefire. Even the Czech President of the EU declared this Israeli bombardment of Gaza to be a ‘defensive act’.

The ability of the Israelis to divert attention from their war crimes and for turning Gaza into a concentration camp and make it seem normal is almost reminiscent of the Nazi concentration camps populated by Jews and other minorities. The main difference being the world at large were not aware of the Nazi camps until much later, whereas the Gaza concentration camp has been in the glare of some media outlets despite the best efforts of the Israeli and US spin doctors to blot it out of the public consciousness.

Uri Avneri, the Israeli peace activist and former member of the Knesset has a great deal to say about the big lie being bandied about by the Israeli leaders and their US backers and repeated by the western media justifying the attack on Gaza.

He writes in the Gush Shalom website: “As a matter of fact, the cease-fire did not collapse, because there was no real cease-fire to start with. The main requirement for any cease-fire in the Gaza Strip must be the opening of the border crossings. There can be no life in Gaza without a steady flow of supplies. But the crossings were not opened, except for a few hours now and again. The blockade on land, on sea and in the air against a million and a half human beings is an act of war, as much as any dropping of bombs or launching of rockets. It paralyzes life in the Gaza Strip: eliminating most sources of employment, pushing hundreds of thousands to the brink of starvation, stopping most hospitals from functioning, disrupting the supply of electricity and water.
Those who decided to close the crossings – under whatever pretext – knew that there is no real cease-fire under these conditions.
That is the main thing. Then there came the small provocations which were designed to get Hamas to react. After several months, in which hardly any Qassam rockets were launched, an army unit was sent into the Strip “in order to destroy a tunnel that came close to the border fence”. From a purely military point of view, it would have made more sense to lay an ambush on our side of the fence. But the aim was to find a pretext for the termination of the cease-fire, in a way that made it plausible to put the blame on the Palestinians. And indeed, after several such small actions, in which Hamas fighters were killed, Hamas retaliated with a massive launch of rockets, and – lo and behold – the cease-fire was at an end. Everybody blamed Hamas…"

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"Some time ago I wrote that the Gaza blockade was a scientific experiment designed to find out how much one can starve a population and turn its life into hell before they break. This experiment was conducted with the generous help of Europe and the US. Up to now, it did not succeed. Hamas became stronger and the range of the Qassams became longer. The present war is a continuation of the experiment by other means…
Throughout the Arab world, from end to end, there echoed the words of Hassan Nasrallah: The leaders of Egypt are accomplices to the crime, they are collaborating with the “Zionist enemy” in trying to break the Palestinian people. It can be assumed that he did not mean only Mubarak, but also all the other leaders, from the king of Saudi Arabia to the Palestinian President. Seeing the demonstrations throughout the Arab world and listening to the slogans, one gets the impression that their leaders seem to many Arabs pathetic at best, and miserable collaborators at worst.
This will have historic consequences. A whole generation of Arab leaders, a generation imbued with the ideology of secular Arab nationalism, the successors of Gamal Abd-al-Nasser, Hafez al-Assad and Yasser Arafat, may be swept from the stage. In the Arab space, the only viable alternative is the ideology of Islamic fundamentalism.
This war is a writing on the wall: Israel is missing the historic chance of making peace with secular Arab nationalism. Tomorrow, it may be faced with a uniformly fundamentalist Arab world, Hamas multiplied by a thousand.”

Read the whole piece by Uri Avnery in Gush Shalom.

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Now that PR has issued the formal and inane condemnatory note, PR should just get back to work.

They never included the accounts from Judas, Magdalene etc. so just how impartial is the Bible ??...It seems that you are advising people to just walk away when the foe seems to be indomitable ... your cowardly streak showing through ... no matter how strong and mighty anyone is, when they do something wrong we must all speak up or it will be the end of the human race.

Well said Socrates1. The naive think we do not know the quran, bible and history.

LChuah, this (Palestinian issue) is bigger than it seems. It seems to be choreographed to take place after the Mumbai blasts.

Israel has never attacked Gaza. Since 2001, Hamas has lauched 37,000 rockets into Israel, more than Hizbollah did. In 2008 alone Hamas launched 3,000 rockets. In the last two days of 2008 they launched 80 rockets and mortars. The invasion was waiting asking to happen. They waited till after Mumbai.

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Assamlaksa, Justinian Raimondo decribed Israel's handiwork with quotation marks("humanitarian"), meaning it wasn't conceived to be as such. There was no way a truly humanitarian group could rival the PLO. For that to happen, as the article described, Hamas must be allowed to store up weapons. The idea is, as Raimondo puts it, to dilute the PLO's authority. That, after 911, Hamas started to replace the PLO was a Godsent gift to Israel: the world will now forget the nationalist struggle of the Palestinians, and lump all of them as terrorists. Was this Begin's original plan? Did Begin envision the possibility of galvanizing the whole world against Islam even in those days - during the late seventies? Such a possibility would connect the seemingly disconnected events and give rise to what some people called "conspiracy theory." IF, however, Begin and the Israeli hawks didn't expect the rising militancy of Hamas (natural for a people under a most inhuman seige, as decribed in the posting by Shahidan), then it's really another case of "blowback."

Temenggong: the Hamas-Israeli nexus has been noted by those in the know, and it's all too conceivable that there're still people within the Hamas organization that react to orders from Tel Aviv. So, were Hamas' attacks timed to give Israel the excuse to conduct one of its habitual ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian/Arab peoples? From Deir Yassin to Sabra and Chatilla, such similar violence against a helpless people is not unknown to the world. But of course most Arab quislings, and their so-called "supporters", will pretend to be "shocked", lodged a few protests, and then go back to collaborate with their masters in the imperial Centers of the world.

LChuah

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The above articles provided by LChuah & Shahidan provides a good historical account of the causes and development of the problem. It has now developed to the stage where momentum and multi-front probelms will cut off all solutions.

Israel drive to escalate the problem is obviously wrong. But they now are in a self-created problematic situation which guarantee they "cannot" stop, which is one of the real danger to permanent peace. They have riled so many parties and so deeply with their cruel actions that these parties are now permanent enemy to Israel. This will in turn cause a situation where Israel cannot let these enemies any sufficient breathing space to increase their capacity. The proverbial "riding a tiger and cannot dismount" is a good analogy for Israel's current situation. Under such circumstances, it makes a lot of sense for Israel (and to our horror), for self-preservation reason, to continue creating situations that permit aggression. This again will ensure the growth of "enemy states" who will think of ways to attack more and more potently, providing the fuel for the growth of radical Islamic militants in the region. The problem in the region as we see is turning circular.

Driven by such religious belief these Islamic militants like Hamas will not stop until Israel is destroyed. Look at Hamas' founding charter as an example: Article 7 of the Hamas Covenant states the following: "The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (the Cedar tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Muslem).

Hamas BELIEVED that the Jews will be destroyed in the end! With such a belief driving them, it also means they CANNOT stop fighting the war. Religious belief which drives Hamas action overrides all logical reasoning for peace! In other words, peace is no longer an option. Death is no longer feared once they believe that the afterlife in heaven is awaiting them, since God is on their side as is mentioned countless times in their holy book.

Why did the US support Israel? Because US is essentially a Christian Nation. The fundamentalists in particular believed that Israel is the promised land provided by God to the Israelites as is "confirmed" in holy scriptures, which means it cannot be wrong! You will note there are commenters here who hold the belief that Israel is indestructible! With such incredibly belief hold buy the largest gruop of religious people in the world, christians, it is hardly difficult for Israel to get support worldwide by just playing by the wordings in the holy scripture. The more religious the believers are, the easier it is for Israel to manipulate the situation to their advantage!


With BOTH sides believing God's is with them in the war as CONFIRMED by their respective Holy Scripture (which cannot be wrong!), and worst still, both believing in Armageddon and each believing they will be the eventual winner, you have a potentially highly octane charged explosive situation. If Iran were to developed nuclear weapons and spread the technology around to these militants to hasten the realisation of Armageddon, what would you think would happen? Based on holy scriptures, you have to conclude that these religious zealots actually think it is BEETER for them that the world end tomorrow! Why would they want peace when the end of the world means an everlasting life in heaven?

Peace in many places has become difficult, if not impossible, because of these irrational beliefs. Take away these irrational beliefs, you have a much better chance. Dogmas prevent this possibility.

In some ways, Malaysians including political leaders have taken for granted the peace we are enjoying here. The attempts to inject more religion into the administration is a call for disaster. Abrahamic religions in particular have tenets that CANNOT be question, and hence cannot be changed, even when they are flawed and dangerous. When people are so sure they are right, they can turn out so wrong. The unsolvable situation in the middle east has its beginning in religious scriptures. But we never learn, do we?

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Before we talk of providing solutions to the war in the middle east, those who are Christians and Muslims will have to ask themselves these question first: Do you believe in ARMAGEDDON? Do you believe that there will be a "final war" between good and evil and the your side will come out winner? Do you believe that the final war between good and evil will be in Israel?

WEll, if your answers are a resounding yes to each (which should be if you are truely religious), you have good news! The war in the middle east is leading to the fulfillment of the scriptural prophecy. Your holy scripture is right! So why are we complaining since this is part of God's plan? Or, did you not believe it is God's plan that it will happen as it did?

You cannot have it both ways - either you believe and celebrate; or don't believe, which you earn the right to condemn the war!

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In an editorial in The Guardian in January 2006, Khaled Meshaal, the chief of Hamas's political bureau denied antisemitism:

"Our message to the Israelis is this: We do not fight you because you belong to a certain faith or culture. Jews have lived in the Muslim world for 13 centuries in peace and harmony; they are in our religion "the people of the book" who have a covenant from God and his messenger, Muhammad (peace be upon him), to be respected and protected. Our conflict with you is not religious but political. We have no problem with Jews who have not attacked us — our problem is with those who came to our land, imposed themselves on us by force, destroyed our society and banished our people."

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What Mr. Khaled Meshaal forgot to mentioned in that the Israelites also believe in the prophecy of God as mentioned in the their book, the Torah. Israel IS a land promised by God to his people! Many christians also believed so because it is also in the Old Testament, which is basically from the Torah. So they HAVE TO support the Jews!

Logic tells one side got to be wrong, but who? which holy book? Religious people are not illogical in everything; they are only so when logic contradicts their religious text. The agruement is God "acts in mysterious ways, and we mortals with our little tiny brain can never under God but God himself". But somehow, despite that claim, those who make it can somehow understand God and his intention, or that they have the extra ability to know the unknowable. That's why you can find highly qualified people can believe in illogical things when it comes to religious matters.

Look at what is happening in Malaysia and ask: Do the Christians have a religious duty to convert as many as possible to Jesus Christ? The answer has to be yes! Do they have a religious duty to convert the muslims? Putting the legal-political obstacles aside, the answer has to be a yes too? So, is it a wonder that the muslim leaders in the government are concern! Why do they ban translation of the bible into Bahasa Malaysia? Because, from the legal standpoint, it is unconstitutional, but from the religious standpoint they are right because this is to protect muslims from being proselytized! All will notice, the government has not banned any Buddhist books from being translated to Bahasa? Why the double standard? The reason is Buddhists do not have a culture of proselytizing as the basis of the religion does not encourage that! The religion is based on karma or action, not labels. In other words, you are a 'buddhist' based on your behavior and mental development, not by labelling yourself a buddhist.

In short, to the christians, converting others to Christ is a religious duty; but not so to other practices.

Now the matter (translating the bible) is in the court. Is it going to be a potentially explosive problem? Likely as it is a political v legal v religious duty situation. Is the type of religious belief a cause? Definitely! This will only happen to highly invasive religious beliefs, like those which believe others can only be saved through their 'specific' religious believes.

What I am trying to demonstrate is that religious beliefs, expecially dogmatic beliefs, should be kept private. Once it spills to the public domain, it would create a potentially explosive environment. For this reason, Malaysia must be kept secular, where the respective religions are practiced only in their community. The Hamas-Israel conflict should be a lesson, if we can learn at all...

Cheers!

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For those of you who would stand silent while this takes place, read this ...

Unconventional weapons used against Gazans
Akram al-Sattari, Press TV – January 5, 2009

Dr M*** Gilbert

Doctor M*** Gilbert is a member of a Norwegian triage medical team present in the besieged Gaza Strip. The team has exposed that Israel has used depleted uranium weapons in its war on the impoverished territory which is home to 1.5 million Palestinians. He described the conditions inside Gaza in an exclusive Press TV interview.

Press TV: What can you tell about the uranium findings?

Dr. M*** Gilbert:The findings about the uranium I cannot tell you much about, but I can tell you that we have clear evidence that the Israelis are using a new type of very high explosive weapons which are called Dense Inert Metal Explosive (DIME) and are made out of a tungsten alloy.

These weapons have an enormous power to explode.

The power of the explosion dissipates very quickly and the strength does not travel long, maybe 10 meters, but those humans who are hit by this explosion, this pressure wave are cut in pieces.

This was first used in Lebanon in 2006, it was used here in Gaza in 2006 and the injuries that we see in Shifa [Hospital] now, many many of them I suspect and we all suspect are the effect of DIME weapons used by the Israelis.

On the long term, these weapons will have a cancer effect on those who survive. They will develop cancer we suspect. There has been very little research on this but some research has been among other places in the United States, which show that these weapons have a high tendency to develop cancer. So they kill and those who survive risk having cancer.

Press TV: And what do you have to say about this?

Dr. M*** Gilbert:All that is happening in Gaza here now is against international law, it is against humanity and I think it is against what it means to be a decent person. You don't treat other people like this. Even if you disagree with him… maybe even if you fight with them, you don't treat civilians, children and women like this.

And I have an appeal to the Israeli doctors and nurses. They are my colleagues. We belong to the same international community, the medical community. I wish that the good doctors and nurses in Israel tell their government to stop these atrocities. We cannot continue with this. We may differ in opinions, but you cannot treat the civilian Palestinian population in Gaza in this way.

Today, they were bombing in Gaza City; we received 150 wounded and more than 50 killed.

Press TV: Only at Shifa?!

Dr. M*** Gilbert:Yes, here in Shifa. I treated a ten-year-old boy. He had his whole chest filled with fragments from the bomb. On his lap was another person's leg that had been cut off. We resuscitated him and did everything we could do to save his life but he died between our hands.

This is such a terrible experience and behind the numbers that you report all the time, there are human beings, families, women, grandmothers, children. That is in fact the reality in this situation. Those who are paying the price for the Israeli bombardments now are the common people, the Palestinian people.

Half of the population in Palestine are below 15 years and 80 percent of the people in Gaza live below the level of poverty defined by the UN. Now they don't have food, they don't have electricity. It's cold they don't have warmth and in addition to that, they are killed.

This must be stopped.

Press TV How many people did you see that are effected by this weapon?

Dr. M*** Gilbert: Almost all of the patients we have received have these sever amputations. They seem to have been affected by this kind of weapon. Of course, we have many fragment injuries and burns but those who have got their limbs cut off, constitutes quite a large proportion.

You know we have a lot to do. Palestinian doctors, nurses and paramedics do an incredibly heroic job to save their people. Doctor Eric and I are just a small drip in the ocean, but we learn from them. Unfortunately, we don't have the time to do research, we have to save lives, but this question should be researched by the international community.

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About Hamas attacks and Israeli response

Hi LChuah, temenggong, AsamLaksa, and Milo,
Thank you all for your discussion. LChuah asked questions about Hamas development into a violent group, and temenggong wondered about the timing of Hamas attacks. AsamLaksa explained his stand “against violence of all kind to solve disputes” and his observation “the victims are the innocents”. Milo highlighted the danger of confusing religious belief with political ideology.

Please allow me to contribute a few insights from my recent readings.

First, what changed as Hamas developed? Well, somehow it got political. Over time, Hamas leaders began mixing politics and religion. Hamas is now a political organization, effectively the government of Gaza. Why does Hamas behave like a guerrilla group? Because Hamas has domestic competitors to both the right (Fatah) and left (domestic terrorist groups such as Islamic Jihad, and trans-national terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and its affiliates). Hamas also has internal organizational conflicts, in particular divisions between Hamas “politicians” (the Gaza-based faction led by Ismail Haniyeh) and Hamas “militants” or “hardliners” (the Damascus-based faction led by Khaled Meshal).

Second, the question of why Hamas chose to intensify its rocket attacks against Israel in recent weeks. The actions were stupid and irrational. The following explanations have been suggested: As Gaza has deteriorated, Hamas is increasingly isolated, so Hamas decided to provoke Israel in order to build pressure internally and externally for a unified Palestinian response to Israel. Hamas wants its perceived legitimacy and popularity to increase, so Hamas got Gaza into a crisis which would put Arab governments under pressure to rally behind the Palestinians. Hamas wanted to get better cease-fire terms. Hamas may be trying to influence the upcoming Israeli elections.

Meanwhile, the Israeli brutal response is not another round of tit for tat. Some observers suggest Israel has taken advantage of the American political calendar to launch a land invasion of Gaza. Bush had previously given unwavering support to Israel, so in his final days in office Israel slams Hamas as hard as possible. A few suggest that an attack on Gaza is actually an attack on Iran, because Gaza is on the western edge of Iran’s “new economic empire”. Whatever the case, there will be "unforeseeable consequences" for the region, warns former UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. He laments the short-sightedness of Israeli politicians.

What is happening in the Middle East is very sad. So many ordinary people are displaced from their homes. So many have been killed. We can only pray for a ceasefire soon. May peacemakers be more successful this year.

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..there are commenters here who hold the belief that Israel is indestructible! With such incredibly belief hold buy the largest group of religious people in the world..

Excellent observations Milo. The gullible christians are led by the nose. Armageddon and all that prophecies are abrahamic hallucinations which we asians want nothing to do with. In that wwe are not limited by that thinking. Of course Israel is destructible. That's why they have to fight harder. There know their weakness. Anwar Sadat almost did it but was foiled by US intelligence. Israel still can be destroyed now, but we will not tell the arabs how. Their abrahamic belief systems has condemned them to be limited by the box. Israel too.

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Dear Milo and all:
While religion has a lot to do with what's going on, it's ultimately secondary to things material. History tells us that for centuries Europeans had been trying to find a trade route to China, and between that route stood the Arabs and other Central Asian peoples. Though the Crusades had a religious bent, an equally important reason might be the promise of more trade as the Middle Ages came to an end. The Age of Imperialism saw the defeat of the Ottoman and the breakup of that region into smaller states. This, to the Arabs, brought little benefit for the local tyrant was merely replaced by more powerful, though distant, imperial entities. The Arabs' struggles for independence were violently put down: the first gas attacks in the region were perpetrated by the British, not Saddam Hussein. So were the first air attacks. As the entire world was brought under Europe's control, the goal of controlling trade routes was supplemented by military and strategic imperatives. The Suez canal was built not merely to facilitate trade, but to better police the colonies east of Suez. Though WW2 brought an end to the White Man's enterprise, colonialism continued in other forms as former colonies were made dependent on the West for trade and local compradors nurtured to safeguard Western interests. To reinforce their control, ethnic, national, and other factors including cultural and religious differences were used to divide and control these Middle Eastern/Asian states. During the immediate post-WW2 years, many Asian states were conscious of such Western machinations, but as time went on lesser leaders succumbed to Western designs and some even started fighting among themselves.

In the Middle East, it was felt that having a Western beachhead would ensure the West's dominance. Hence, though the Zionists did play a part by bringing about the Balfour Declaration, the idea worked only because it tailored to the goals of the West as a whole. To ensure that the new Israel would remain pro-West, white, non-Semitic Askenazi Jews were sent to populate the lands. Most modern day Israeli leaders come from this group, whereas the truly Semitic Sephardic/Mizrahim Jews are often marginalized.

Hannah Arendt had noted the racist-imperialistic nexus, and there are few examples more striking than the use of Asknenazi Jews to do the West's bidding. The twist is that some of these people have acquired great financial powers, and through their monopoly of the mass media, have reversed the situation to the extent that, as Pat Buchanan described, "Washington DC is now Israeli-occupied territory."

All that happened, therefore, is more of a socio-political quest, a quest for world domination and through that, wealth and power. Religion and ideologies such as Communism, Capitalism, or Islam, Christianity, etc., are just weapons used to further that quest.

LChuah

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If we all know the game plan of the West but we still play by their rule, can we conclude that some people is not that intelligent? If intelligent level is not the reason, can we say some civilization or culture is rotten?

Above is a sincere question, not a statement.

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Well, Rhan, there's a saying "Sin ha sau why keong" which in Cantonese implies that the first move brings with it a huge advantage. A quirk of history has located the world's first Industrial Revolution in the West, and it has never allowed any rival to emerge since then. Even the Russians, who were described by Churchill as "Tatars" beneath their skins, were put down whenever they threatened to upset the mainly Anglo-Saxon applecart. The all-Western invasion of Russia during the founding of the Soviet Union is one example. Subsequent containment policies that led to the collapse of Russia is another.

But I do think there're ways to end the Western (Anglo-Saxon) overlordship. A few hundred years isn't a very long time, from a historical perspective.

LChuah

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Dear LChuah,
Indeed religion has somewhat seem diluted into the background, looking more faded as others more immediate matters have emerged in the current conflict. But the underlying fuel for what is driving the conflict still has its basis in religion. For example, Islamic suicide bombers are still in abundance supply for little or no other reason more than religious indoctrination based on holy scripture, that those who died will be guaranteed a place in heaven. And Israel would never have been able to garner critical support from US and elsewhere to continue their agression if not because of the founding belief rooted in Scripture that Israel is a promised land from God that Christians have a duty to defend. You do not even have to look further than looking at comments in this thread to get a confirmation. There are other causes mixed in, of course, but without religion in the way, it would have been much simplier the issue to resolve, don't you think? And with the conflict escalating in intensity by the day, hatred of the victims and the hidden intention of Israel to exterminate Hamas will ensure it will take on a life of its own with or without further religious influence.

In any case, my intention is to point out the danger of letting religious doctrine control state administration using what we are observing in the middle east as cogent examples. Be it UMNO or PAS, the religious agenda is slowly but surely sipping into the administration without much resistence. The principal reason is because of ignorance of the danger and the false choice we are led to believe that PAS's Islamic State and Hudud under PR is better than the corrupt UMNO-BN regime, so it is okay to have them. A good analogy and lesson we can be derived from the Hamas-Israel conflict. Hamas, which is perceived as not corrupt (just like our PAS) has replaced the largely corrupt secularists of the Fatah-PLO regime (which can be compared to our UMNO), but the conflict is getting worst with Hamas's "terrorist" tendencies. I kept seeing comments here that say the Islamic State concept and Hudud are not threats to non-muslim. Well, this is something I have great doubt on (and so does the DAP leaders and many others). By the time you realised its danger, it is already too late. There must be sufficient drive from the ground to ensure this sort of idea are never to take root. PAS must be made to understand we support them because of the acceptability of the Pakatan concept, not the Islamic concept!

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Dear Milo;
I understand where you're going, which was why I said that "religion has a lot to do with what's going on." Religions, like all other belief systems, are powerful motivators of human action. Witness how other belief systems, such as Communism and Capitalism, separated the world into two nuclear-armed camps, each ready to exterminate the other within minutes. Some American soldiers who bombed napalm and Agent Orange on Vietnamese villagers did so because they thought they were, in Cardinal Spellman's words, "soldiers of Christ." But many more believed they were dying in defence of democracy, human rights, and a free market economy. On the Vietnamese side, some died simply because they got in the way of the warring sides, but many also died for "patriotism," and still more died defending "the proletariat" against American imperialism. Unlike animals, human beings will die defending abstract notions of right and wrong, of particular worldviews or belief systems or ideologies, of which religion is probably the most potent.

Religion is often the most potent because of its totality - it involves or engages the individual in all aspects of his life. It gives the believer his sense of who he is and his place in the universe. It reinforces its tenets in daily actions, in rituals involving the body (physical) as well as mind (spiritual). Religion is always total or comprehensive: it provides answers not only for this life, but for the next life as well. Some religions, such as Buddhism, even talk about the previous life. Because religion is a total belief system, it's very difficult for most people to think outside it.

Philosophy used to be similar in its totality. However, things started to break down at the turn of the 20th century. Hegel was probably the last well-known philosopher with a self-referential system. Bertrand Russell and Wittgenstein were among those who distrusted anything that smacks of a total worldview. This philosophical turn was probably due to discoveries in quantum physics, most notably Heisenberg's Principle of Uncertainty. For the first time, we were not so certain what to believe. The paradigm shift that resulted from Newtonian physics being replaced by the Einsteinian variety was earthshaking.

Uncertainties in the sciences seeped not only into the world of philosophy, but also in the social sciences. Russia's Bakhtin began to talk about the non-finality of everything, including arguments. Equally important changes could be found in literature which saw, in England, the breaking down of Victorian prudishness, the attacks on the hypocritical gentility of the bourgeoisie. Lawrence and Joyce popularized a trend of explicit descriptions in the sexual act: the four-letter word became common and today it's banned only in M-T.

To be continued

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Continued

For the most part, religion has remained aloof from this crashing of the barriers, whether in thought or in human behavior. Even though Christianity has changed much - witness Weber's talk about the "Protestant Ethic" and the idea that wealth is a manifestation of God's Grace - it remained largely unmoved in its basic tenets. The same goes for most other religions, especially, as Milo noted, the Abrahamic ones. Uncertainty is not a friendly notion for any religion.

Non-religious belief systems have copied much from their religious counterparts in terms of indoctrinating the populace. In Western countries, we have what Bellah called the "civil religion" which involves certain worldviews that thrived on uniformity of acceptance. These worldviews are stressed again and again in the mass media, including movies and even comic books. Superman talked about fighting for "the American way of life." American democracy always includes free markets and capitalism, a belief system which produced its greatest modern prophet in the form of Milton Friedman. Supporting this belief system are the common rituals of most modern governments: the flag, oath of allegiance, and burial ceremonies for the "heroes" of the nation (in the US that's Arlington, Westminster Abbey in England, The Kremlin in Russia, Babaoshan in China, etc).

Just as religious people got brainwashed in their places of worship, so do average citizens through their school texts, the mass media, and (as stated above) official rituals such as national holidays, etc.

So to cut a long story short - most of us are brainwashed one way or the other. If religion didn't ask us to die in its defense, the state does so in the name of patriotism, of perpetuating our system of government (or "democracy and human rights"), or in the name of our forefathers, etc. Let me assure all readers here: the people who died for capitalism or communism actually outnumber those who died for Christianity or Islam. And in most cases, they died for nothing.

Why? Because they only thought they were dying for their particular belief system, whereas in actual fact they were dying for some group of powerful persons who thrived in inventing belief systems in order to put the world's people at loggerhe*** with one another. These are the people who knew the world's belief systems, but rose above them partly because they were the ones who promoted the systems, and partly because they had the prescience to note that all kinds of beliefs are just that - beliefs.

That's why Leo Strauss, the guru of the group of people known as the neocons, talked about a particular way of reading the Bible. The neocons use religion for their own ends, just as their previous teachers used ideology for similar ends - the attainment of immense wealth and power.

So there's no dispute that religion can cause great harm and conflict, but behind all this are people who use all kinds of belief systems for ends that few Christians or Muslims or Hindus dream about.

Though a bit long, this posting is just some spontaneous scribbling, so it's neither well-organized nor comprehensive. Sorry.

LChuah

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Now back to the topic:
From http://www.counterpunch.org/eno01022009.html

LChuah
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January 2 - 4, 2009

An Experiment in Provocation
Stealing Gaza

By BRIAN ENO

It's a tragedy that the Israelis - a people who must understand better than almost anybody the horrors of oppression - are now acting as oppressors. As the great Jewish writer Primo Levi once remarked "Everybody has their Jews, and for the Israelis it's the Palestinians". By creating a middle Eastern version of the Warsaw ghetto they are recapitulating their own history as though they've forgotten it. And by trying to paint an equivalence between the Palestinians - with their homemade rockets and stone-throwing teenagers - and themselves - with one of the most sophisticated military machines in the world - they sacrifice all credibility.

The Israelis are a gifted and resourceful people who fully deserve the right to live in peace, but who seem intent on squandering every chance to allow that to happen. It's difficult to avoid the conclusion that this conflict serves the political and economic purposes of Israel so well that they have every interest in maintaining it. While there is fighting they can continue to build illegal settlements. While there is fighting they continue to receive huge quantities of military aid from the United States. And while there is fighting they can avoid looking candidly at themselves and the ruthlessness into which they are descending.
Gaza is now an experiment in provocation. Stuff one and a half million people into a tiny space, stifle their access to water, electricity, food and medical treatment, destroy their livelihoods, and humiliate them regularly...and, surprise, surprise - they turn hostile. Now why would you want to make that experiment?

Because the hostility you provoke is the whole point. Now 'under attack' you can cast yourself as the victim, and call out the helicopter gunships and the F16 attack fighters and the heavy tanks and the guided missiles, and destroy yet more of the pathetic remains of infrastructure that the Palestinian state still has left. And then you can point to it as a hopeless case, unfit to govern itself, a terrorist state, a state with which you couldn't possibly reach an accommodation.
And then you can carry on with business as usual, quietly stealing their homeland.
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Dear LChuah,

I think we have no problem agreeing that it is inviarably ALWAYS some human hands, hidden or otherwise, which is behind all kinds of harmful acts, fronted by all kinds of belief systems, religious or otherwise. Here are just some areas I would like to comment or clarify:

1. Brainwashing should not be equated with other types of positive influencing methods or general education that are neutral. Brainwashing often involves some form of propaganda-based indoctrination that involve falsehood or even force, and there are often done with hidden agenda to serve someone or org. at the expense of society or oneself in some ways. Those that promotes rational and critical thinking are in fact the opposite of what brainwashing does.Human freedom and harmless endeavours of people not in line with state religious beliefs can be curbed in a very irrational and even cruel manner.

2. Religion is not necerssarily bad. In fact on the whole, there are at least an equal amoung of good in the world can be attributed to religion. What I am saying is religion should stay out of politics, as the mixture of the two, in the wrong hands is a powerful weapon against society's wellbeing.

3. Religion, because it deals with the afterlife, is extremely powerful as a haman manipulation tool in the wrong hands. Because of this, we should always have mechanism to check such potential for abuses, such as legally separating religion from state/politic matters. It is not perfect, but it is the most workable we know for the protection of all, especially the minorities.

4. Because dogmatic religion is not based on reason, progress can be unnecessarily stiffled, if it happens a certain scientific truths were to be in conflict with religious doctrines. This has in fact happened frequently enough.

4. There is a great difference between dying for a belief system that is harmless to others and choosen based on free-will and rational thoughts versus dying for a belief system that one's has been brainwashed into to serve other people's agenda. While is it is often difficult to know the difference clearly, a progressive society should attempt to minimise such incidences by promoting more rationality in the public domain. Religious dogmas should not be given the force of law that affect the public; it should be kept private or within a community of believers.

I have no problem with religion in general. I only have an issue when religious leaders try to give it legitimacy hence enabling it to potentially infringe on other's rights, freedom and to practice based on their own belief system (as long as it is harmless to society). Cheers.

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cont..

A non-domatic approach to life in society is important for the simple reason that wrongs can be corrected, and this is the greatest disservice dogmatic religions put to society, inspite of all the good it has done. Even in MT we will note religious views cannot be changed no matter how much clear reasons or proofs you can provide to the believer. How much more dangerous it will be if given the force of law, and the implementation and interpretation power lies in the hands of religious authorities who will not tolerate dissent towards what be believed to be God's commands at work. At best this will be anti-progress, and at worst dangerous to the society it operates.

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Dear Milo: I'll leave alone your points that I agree with 100%. Yes, lots of harmful things are invariably caused by human hands, particularly hands that belong to the POWERFUL. The powerful are usually, logically, those that could marshal great resources, financial or otherwise, to effect events they like to see.

>Brainwashing should not be equated with other types of positive influencing methods or general education that are neutral ]]

Realistically, there's no such thing as a neutral education. When we call a thing neutral, its usually something that we agree with and/or something that has been normalized through propaganda. BUT this isn't always bad: as human beings we've to make a choice between good and bad propaganda - but always remember it's still propaganda.

Further, there're areas where we wouldn't really know what's positive and what's not. Is China's one-child policy good or bad for China? Good for the world? In a moral sense? Would more children result in more chances for geniuses that could solve China's - and the world's - population problems?

I understand the basis of your thoughts - they involve very obvious cases such as, for example, brainwashing people to kill innocent people. But here too things could get murky: what is war but, most of the time, the killing of other innocent people? The movie "All Silent on the Western Front" is a good expose on this matter.

About "hidden agenda." We might say, for example, that popularizing sports is good for people. But if we go into the history of modern sports, we would find that behind all the fun and health benefits was the hope that more people could be recruited for a country's armed forces. In fact, that was how the sport that promotes all-round physical development - gymnastics - came into being. Jahn and Gutsmuths had envisioned a sports that could create a healthy German population that in turn would also raise the martial spirit of Germans. Their gymnasiums or "turnvereins" were at times used as centers of rebellion against French rule. So was such hidden agenda good? What if, as later happened, German stress on physical culture became one of the factors for an aggressive Germany? So here the Islamic concept of "niat" or intention is important: as the saying goes, the path of good intentions is paved with sorrow or something like that.

>Those that promotes rational and critical thinking are in fact the opposite of what brainwashing does.]]

The problem is that one could be rational and think critically in certain fields and yet be irrational in others. A good example were the Nazi scientists who certainly couldn't have produced their V2 rockets without being rational or lacking in critical faculties. Yet they could be irrational enough to believe that their country - ONE country - could overcome ALL the other big powers of the world.

Few people could be as rational as Isaac Newton, yet he stupidly dumped much of his savings in the South Seas Bubble. Stung by the ill-conceived venture, Newton admitted that while he could understand the workings of the universe, he couldn't figure out how the human mind works.

I'm pointing out all this just to show the difficulty in making value judgements. That does not mean that we should NOT make such judgements. As Sarte might put it, we've NO CHOICE but to make judgements. NOT to do so is, in existentialist terminology, "bad faith."

To be continued

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Continued

> What I am saying is religion should stay out of politics, as the mixture of the two, in the wrong hands is a powerful weapon against society's wellbeing.]]

I agree absolutely. What I'm saying is that ANY belief system could be dangerous if misused or abused.

>Because dogmatic religion is not based on reason, progress can be unnecessarily stiffled, if it happens a certain scientific truths were to be in conflict with religious doctrines. This has in fact happened frequently enough]]

Dogmatic communism and capitalism can also stifle progress - the present financial mess was precisely a result of market fundamentalism, of decades of deregulation that begun with the Reagan administration. Does this excuse religious dogmatism? NO! But as I said, ALL belief systems have their Achilles heel.

>There is a great difference between dying for a belief system that is harmless to others and choosen based on free-will and rational thoughts versus dying for a belief system that one's has been brainwashed into to serve other people's agenda.]]

As you rightly pointed out, it IS "often difficult to know the difference clearly." We simply cannot say that the American system of government wasn't chosen on free will and rational thoughts, yet from Washington onwards there were continuous attempts at genocide of native peoples and wars against other nations under the self-aggrandizing concepts of "American Exceptionalism" and "Manifest Destiny."

>A progressive society should attempt to minimise such incidences by promoting more rationality in the public domain. Religious dogmas should not be given the force of law that affect the public; it should be kept private or within a community of believers.]]

True. That was why many educated Americans were outraged at the religious Right for attempting - successfully in a couple of states, I think - to teach Creationism in American schools or, at least, to give Creationism equal time with Evolution. Then there was the sexual abstinence project in some Southern States which ended up with teenagers getting unwanted babies because condoms were discouraged, not to mention girls getting STDS in their mouths because they were afraid of getting pregnant.

We agree on a lot of things. I'm merely pointing out that all belief systems are inherently double-edged. And I do think, as implied in my previous posting, that religion is the most potent of all belief systems - hence it has the greatest possibilities for good and evil. But because value judgements are so difficult to make, we have to be careful in condemning one set of beliefs and/or endorsing another set. That does NOT mean we could run away from making choices. We MUST do so, and always hope that, as Lincoln puts it, "we would do the right, as God gives us the light to see the right."

Hope I'm not too confusing.

Regards,
LChuah

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I wrote:
>So here the Islamic concept of "niat" or intention is important: as the saying goes, the path of good intentions is paved with sorrow or something like that."

Should be:
"So here the Islamic concept of "niat" or intention is important: YET, as the saying goes, the path of good intentions is paved with sorrow or something like that."

LChuah

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Dear LChuah,

Be assured that those shades of grey in reality you pointed out are something I was aware and hence there is no disagreement. It is sometimes for brevity reason, difficulty in connecting words to thoughts and my own language expression weakness, that I have not qualified most of what I stated or to express them clearly, which may have given the impression I was not aware. Under this context, I see there is really very little disagreement between our views. But it is good you filled those in clearly to give a more complete perspective for other readers in MT. For instance, when I say rationality should be promoted, I am acutely aware it is always bounded and the degree of our bias varies with situation. Afterall, it is impossible to have full information on everything and neither are we experts in every aspects. So by stating things like "neutral education", I am just refering to those that are intended to factually inform with no intentional manipulation to skew them or to lace them with falsehoods in order to shape others' beliefs. Essentially, it is education that are not based on a lie. You mentioned the equal time 'creation-evolution' teaching controversial in the US. This case is a good example to illustrate the rationality vs dogma case I brought up. As a Christian, I don't know what are your own thoughts and beliefs on the matter. I take it that you are at least well informed of what the case is all about, not just the religiously slanted version I hope.

Young earth creationists (I am not sure you belong to this school of your faith) believed that the earth was created in about 6,000 years old. They hold on to this dogma despite clear evidence in ALL branches of science, archaeology, paleontology, evolutionary biology, cosmology, astronomy, geology, oceanography, etc. demonstrating beyond reasonable doubt that the earth is 4.5 billion years old. The oldest rocks which have been found so far (on the Earth) date to about 3.8 to 3.9 billion years ago (by several radiometric dating methods). Some of these rocks are sedimentary, and include minerals which are themselves as old as 4.1 to 4.2 billion years. They even have a "creation" museum that shows how dinasaurs walked with man. As Lewis Black, a stand-up comedian puts it when commenting on the museum, "It is like watching the Flintstones as though it is a documentary!"

This case is a good example of the danger of religious dogma because it shows how such beliefs can curb rationality to the extent it can completely blank out reality in the believers. That is not even the worst part! The US evolution-creationism controversial demonstrated in the Dover trial that creationists who are called as witnesses are even willing to lie in court under oath to prove their case. Is it justifiable that we lie for God? Apparently, it is okay with these people! It has not seemed to dawn on them that their God who is supposed to be totally moral and all powerful do not need his people to lie on his behalf.

Some of my christians friends here are also influenced by so call "scientific proofs" provided by Ken Hoven, venomfangx and those "scientists" from the Discovery Institute, which have been throughly debunked by scientists. The youtube series 1-26 of the title "Why poeple laugh at creationists?" and "Fundamental flasehood of creationism" are just some of the video responses from scientists that demonstrate the extent that religious leaders are prepared to lie or misled in order to get their way. Ken Miller, a devout Roman Catholic Christian and well-known Cell Biologist, put the case in perspective: "I believe in a God, but I do not believe in a false God that these people (creationists) are trying to create."

Now, back to the whole gist the point I was trying to make. Religion, no matter how ridiculous, is generally alright, if it is kept private. Because it is a powerful tool for shaping thoughts, and most religion have some form of dogmas that are potentially dangerous to the public, its sphere of influence should be carefully controlled. Given the diversity of religious and non-religious beliefs in Malaysia, it makes sense that laws that have a clear religious basis based on a specific religion should be avoided.

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Cont.

And, of yes, to be sure, I have unsubstantiated beliefs too, but I keep them private, and also keep it open for conversion by others who can produce evidence to the contrary (which in fact have happened many times).

As for the Gaza issue, I don't see we have a disagreement. Most of what you said is clear and comprehensive and in fact these info help to fill many of my knowledge gaps. Basically, the problem begins with a strong religious predicate, i.e. that Israel is the promised land from God to the Israelites, and is still driven by underlying religious factors, e.g. the Islamist militants belief in the afterlife reward for dying in a war against infidels. The relevance to our case back home is that, in a contextualised way, it should teach us how to blend our belief systems and to manage it to maintain peace.

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Dear Milo, we do agree on most things. I brought up the Creationism - Evolution affair partly to illustrate the danger of dogma, and partly to show that dogmatism is not unknown among Christians as well (or indeed among followers of any other religion). This matter - religion interfering in the teaching of science - was deemed to be so serious that an old acquaintance, a Dr. Patterson, felt compelled to thrash it out in a public debate against a fella called Duane Gish (and in the process allowed Gish to make a fool of himself in front of a college audience of several thousands). I like Carl Sagan, and from that you'd know that my belief as a Christian isn't too far from that of Ken Miller. It was the previous Pope(John Paul?) who explained that what's stated in the Bible are often allegories, and not necessarily truth in a scientific sense. I share that opinion.

The elusiveness of truth was known to thinkers thousands of years ago. Pontius Pilate even asked "what is truth?" and wouldn't wait for an answer. It's precisely our human limitations that persuaded me to be open-minded about other people's views and beliefs, though in the end I'd have to come to some conclusion myself, at least - as you put it - privately. About Israel and the Promised Land, that was simply a rationale for seizing other people's lands. Likewise, the Muslim response was to counter a religious rationale with an alternative interpretation from their own Scriptures. As I mentioned earlier, the Palestinian's resistance was formerly secular-based. It was Israel that tried to dilute the PLO's power by supporting and funding Hamas, not realizing that, like Al-Queda, there would be blowbacks.

Cheers
LChuah

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