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Post by Dave Homewood on Mar 28, 2005 20:34:45 GMT 12
What did people think of tonight's episode? I found it rather sad and moving. I feel so sorry for the Palestinians who are treated like scum by the Israelis. It is as bad as apartheid.
It is a shame that so many of our NZ service personnel have to be put into harms way to keep the peace in other nations like that, but they do a stunning job.
One of my very good mates when I was in the RNZAF, Brent King, was a chopper pilot. He went off to do the same thing in Bosnia, acting as an unarmed observer. He ended up being kicked out by the UN for saving a girl and then rescuing her across the border. He left the RNZAF and they got married in the end. I lost touch with him and I last saw him on Holmes when he and his wife had written a book on their experience of smuggling her out of the wartorn country and his treatment by the UN for defying orders to save her. By then he was an ostrich farmer, so I guess he probably has a new profession again now knowing how long that fad lasted!
I knew another officer, Jimbo Anderson, who did the same thing in Bosnia and he told us a few scary stories of walking out into the middle of a gunfight alone and unarmed, and negiotiating with both sides of the warring forces when he didn't so much as have a pen knife to defend himself. Amazing courage really.
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Post by turboNZ on Mar 28, 2005 20:40:54 GMT 12
Yes I did like the episode tonight also.
That wall is really intimidating.
Yes the Palestinians are made out to be scum but we've only heard one side of the stories (not meant to be a pro-Israeli comment BTW).
But yes, I agree with you Dave, very moving.
Cheers
Chris
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Post by Dave Homewood on Mar 28, 2005 21:05:25 GMT 12
My two sisters went and lived in Israel for a while (no idea what made them decide to, not religion or anything, just adventure I think). From what they've told me and what I can make out from news, and people I have listened to at the university, the Israeli authority are far worse than many of the regimes on the so-called Axis of Evil, including the former Iraqi regime.
I have no political persuasion for any party or country, I look at situations and make judgment calls on evidence. So I am neither pro nor anti Israel politically. And neither pro nor anti Palestine.
But I can see the UN has ignored a major miscarriage of justice in that country. I cannot accept it when so many Jewish people preach that the world must remember what Hitler did when he put them into ghettos and made them second class citizens, when they've done exactly that to people in their own country. Entire Palestinian villages and towns were bulldozed and they were shunted down to the Gaza strip and West Bank and locked in! They live by strict rules and curfews that don't affect others. If they break the rules they are murdered. That is exactly as bad as Hitler's ghettos.
I really began to take note and think about it about two years ago when Palestinian students made an impassioned public plea at university for Kiwis to do something or at least take note. I happened to be passing by and took the time to stop and listen, along with the rest of the large crowd. It was incredible.
I listened to Palestinians now living here in Hamilton who have been shot when they were sitting watching tele and Israeli troops burst in and shot them for no reason. One man showed us about seven bullet wounds on his body. Another said his grandfather was attacked in his home. The next day his brother and father went to visit him in hospital and the troops shot all three dead, in the hospital, without warning.
There were many instances given of this - and they all swore blind that they were just going about their daily lives and not plotting against the Governemnt or anything like that. It seemed that the troops were simply using them as sport because there is nothing governing what they do - they get away with it. Just like the Yanks in Iraq.
One man described how the Israeli troops now have weapons that see through walls using heat seeking technology, and they've developed bullets that go through any wall, even thick concrete. So soldiers sit in a street at night, and pick people off in their homes as they go about their business indoors.
This group allowed questions and debate from the crowd, and answered all eliquently. They were clearly intellectuals, students, who had got out before they were knocked off themselves. One said that he understood the suicide bombers motives because the troops left thm with nothing else once they'd shot all their family randomly, etc, and destroyed their lives. I can understand that too.
In my eyes the Palestinians are not terrorists, they are resistance fighters exactly like the French Resistance in WWII.
Sorry to get so political. But honestly, we do only see one side of things - through the eyes of US and western media, and of course suicide bombings and attacks is what the Israelis want you to see, their own brutality is covered up. The US media is not going to show it when there is so much Jewish money in the broadcasting and entertainment industry, are they. And no-one will go and save the Palestinians till someone discovers oil in the West Bank!
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Post by turboNZ on Mar 29, 2005 12:17:38 GMT 12
Wow, that's a great post, Dave.
Make's us feel so lucky we live in a country which is free of that.
Cheers
TNZ
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Post by Dave Homewood on Mar 29, 2005 16:43:55 GMT 12
Sure does.
The University of Waikato is situated in a suberb of Hamilton called Hillcrest. It is low budget accomodation for students bascially, and not an appealling place to live. One of the poor chaps who was telling his story remarked, "Can you imagine how bad it would be living in Hillcrest and having tanks and soldiers in your street every day, threatening to kill you at any time."
I thought for a minute and realised I can't imagine how bad it would be to even just live in Hillcrest! haha
But yes, It certainly makes you think. As Fred Dagg says, "We don't know how lucky we are, mate. We don't know how fortunate we are in the circumstances!"
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