SteveHill, the terrorist wannabe

SteveHill:

“They’ll trade that concession for something worthwhile in peace talks. They won’t give it up for nothing. That’s just realpolitik.”

Did it ever occur to you that no nation negotiates its “right-to-exist” ?

“What do you suggest for a title? Since the one above seems to upset you so much why don’t the editors use the statement from your post – viz, ““If I lived in Gaza, I too would be looking to get my hands on Qassan (sic) rockets.””

Editors. I’ll live with that too. I said it. Therefore it does not misrepresent me. And no doubt despite a few dozen people pressing the “report abuse” button on CiF, the Guardian’s legal people decided it was not abusive and defamed nobody.

“you will make yourself look even more foolish if you threaten libel action against yourself, not to mention the press coverage you will get – positive for CiFWatch but not so positive for you”

I can’t litigate in the UK under an alias. But if I did so, I would have nothing at all to be embarrassed about. And CiFWatch would no longer be able to publish in the UK, which frankly a lot of people would cheer to the rooftops..

Steve Hill, why do you make the silly false equivalence between the I/P issue and the IRA conflict in Northern Ireland?

Even Lord Alderdyce, the architect of the Northern Ireland peace treaty, is on record (I know, because I heard him say it) that the I/P conflict is much more toxic.

At his lecture, Alderdyce said that the initial phase in the Northern Ireland peace talks, were, in fact, “talks about talks”, before the factions even sat together. It says much about them that they succeeded eventually. Can you envisage the same happening between Israel and Hamas? As it is, Hamas won’t even recognise Israel let alone countenance talking to Israel.

Steve Hill, you have chosen to publish the statement you made under your own name and, I presume, your avatar is your own picture.

You have chosen to post contentiously about one of the most contentious issues in the news, under your own name and using your own photograph rather than a moniker or using another avatar.

That being the case, you have deliberately incited the replies you got, and are indeed the architect of your own misfortune and therefore for you to whinge about being linked on Google to what you wrote is nonsensical because you deliberately set it up to happen.

stevehill

You protest too much when faced with your own words.

You seem to have a rather legalistic and casual approach to matters of life and death of others in Israel and Gaza, while living comfortably, you state in your bio, in “A sleepy village in North Oxfordshire”, even though your legalisms are based on a long string of errors and false impressions about what is actually going on in Gaza. Your apparent concern for Gazans is matched by a total lack of concern for the terror inflicted on Israelis by incessant firing of rockets and mortars into their towns, villages, and homes.

In your own words, on 29 Dec 09, 10:19am (on CiF)you wrote that:

“There is a view that rather than being “terrorists”, Hamas are legally justified in using military means to seek to alleviate Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza which is killing civilians on a daily and continuing basis (e.g. the breakdown of sanitation and medical facilities; the inability to rebuild basic housing; rolling power cuts)”.

As has been pointed out, this “blockade” is actually an embargo on materials that could be used for military rather than civilian purposes. In fact, the only blockading power is Egypt, which, while permitting illegal smuggling, apparently provides no passage of food or materials to Gaza in the same way as Israel does on a daily basis. As for all the rest of the errors, I’ll leave that for another time.

You wrote of Hamas: “There is a view that rather than being “terrorists”, Hamas are legally justified in using military means”.

Although the phrase is poorly constructed, it is quite evident that what you intended was:

“There is a view that rather than carrying out terror attacks Hamas are legally justified in using military means”.

You ignore the fact that the only “military attacks” that Hamas carries out are, in fact terror attacks – firing missiles at civilian targets in Israel, sending would-be suicide bombers into Israel, and so on. There are no Israeli military targets in Gaza, and, by definition, I think you would have to agree therefore that there are no “military means” being used by Hamas.

In the last year, since the end of the Cast Lead operation, Hamas and friends have fired approximately 286 missiles into Israel, all aimed solely at civilian targets, yet you choose to ignore this terror activity – in fact, you condone it by writing “There is a view” – by which you clearly mean that it is “your view” – and if you dispute that, I invite you to state clearly that it is NOT your view – “that Hamas are legally justified in using military means to seek to alleviate Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza”. However, apart from stating that “there is a view” and “legal justification” (on what grounds you do not make clear) to support your opinion, you provide no example of a legitimate authority that supports the firing of those missiles into Israel.

Anyone can hold any view they like, but in fact it is widely accepted by most of the civilized countries of the world, including the one in which you live, and of which you are a citizen, that Hamas and its alphabet soup of associated terrorist groups are terrorists. In fact, this “view” is so well accepted that Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organization in the UK:

http://security.homeoffice.gov.uk/legislation/current-legislation/terrorism-act-2000/proscribed-groups.html

Hamas Izz al-Din al-Qassem Brigades:
Hamas aims to end Israeli occupation in Palestine and establish an Islamic state.

On 29 Dec 09, 10:30am (on CiF), you wrote:

If I lived in Gaza I too would be looking to get my hands on some Qassan rockets. There comes a point where all that is left is fighting back. As I said in the other thread today, there’s a pretty cogent argument that far from being “terrorism”, a military response (however outgunned Gaza may be) is a legitimate response to an illegal blockade which in killing civilians on a continuing basis.

Now, being legalistic, you might protest that there is a difference between “getting your hands on some Kassam rockets” and actually firing those rockets. It’s a bit like the argument used by the NRA in the US – “guns don’t kill people, people kill people”. But that is surely a stretch. It must be reasonable to assume that what you intended is that if you were a member of Hamas, your purpose in “getting hold of Kassam rockets” would be to use them, rather than for any other reason. In addition, you immediately refer in the same paragraph, to “fighting back” – it’s a reasonable presumption, again to use your own words, that by saying “if I lived in Gaza” you mean that you would “fight back” by firing those rockets.

The targets would be the Israeli towns and villages around Gaza, and there is a widely “accepted view”, or “cogent argument” to paraphrase your own words, that firing rockets into civilian settlements is an act of terror.

So, to summarize, you have come out in print stating:

1) That some – by which, it is reasonable to assume that you – have “a view” that Hamas’ actions are legitimate and “legally justified”- i.e., you support the activities of a terror organization, Hamas, proscribed by your own government

2) That if you lived in Gaza, you would try to obtain Kassam rockets, whose only purpose is to be used to fire into Israeli civilian targets

3) That you regard the firing of these rockets as a “legitimate response” which is “legally justified”even though the targets have invariably been civilians

4) By using the words “legally justified” and “legitimate response”, specially given the implication in your references to your previous career which suggest that you have a legal background, you indicate approval for those actions and dispute the characterization of Hamas as a proscribed, illegal, illegitimate organization.

You never said, for example, that “There is a view, even though I do not agree with it”, that Hamas’ actions are legitimate. You expressed understanding for their actions. Yet in your comment on this thread threatening legal action, you protest that you do not support terrorism and that you are indignant that CiFWatch has pointed out the implicit support for terrorism in your own words.

I came to this thread late due to the time difference between the US and the UK, and I notice that you are now back-tracking:

CifWatch: January 3, 2010 at 4:46 am

I have no time for Hamas at all. They are terrorists. But they did win an election and are representative of some people’s views.

Israel has some (not all) responsibility for so radicalising people that such an election result could come about.

Let’s leave the politics aside for now, and Israel’s responsibility for Hamas.

In this more recent statement, you claim that Hamas ARE terrorists.

Which is, in fact, “your view”?

Are Hamas terrorists , or aren’t they?

Are their activities justified? Or are they not?

If you lived in Gaza and could “get your hands on a Kassam” and could fire it into Sderot, would this be an act of terror, or a military response?

Would you be a “terrorist” like a member of Hamas in that case, or a “legitimate” … whatever.

Rather than threatening lawsuits, you should examine your words, your conscience, and the consequence of encouraging others to terror and murderous violence. Any reasonable reading of your words implies support for firing rockets at civilian centers, an act you condone in others and would undertake yourself if you were in Gaza.

Steve Hill

You have several times told us that Israel does not allow toilet paper into Gaza.

http://www.paltrade.org/cms/images/enpublications/GAZA REPORT OCT- NOV 2009-Final.pdf

If you open this link you will see that tissue paper is explicitly named as one of the products that goes in. One can presume toilet paper goes in too – why tissue paper but not toilet paper?

That presumption is strengthened by this link:

http://www.camera.org/index.asp
x_context=2&x_outlet=55&x_article=1675

The Palestine Trade Center (PalTrade) publishes detailed monthly reports about the Gaza crossings. As of March (latest I can find) toilet paper was certainly allowed in.

Yet again you have been caught out!

How about doing your own research instead of believing everything you read in The Guardian and Ha’aretz?

It’s not as if you don’t have time, what with living in sleepy Oxfordshire and having taken early retirement – is it?

“..The twisted logic he displays is one of justifying the Arabs’ right to hold a gun to their own heads while pointing a finger at Israel, howling and blaming Israel while they keep pulling the trigger and turning their collective heads just enough to miss…..and to relive the experience again the next day…”

In the words of the Arab proverb – “He strikes me and weeps, and then he runs ahead of me and accuses me of striking him.”

To Steve Hill
“It has crossed my mind. My best guess is it suits them to leave the ambiguity unresolved, to play to the domestic gallery that they can “play hardball” (when actually, they don’t have the capability to do so in any real sense). And it would show weakness, to that gallery, to admit that they don’t really mean that, and that they know damn well there is no solution which does not accept Israel’s right to exist.”

Hamas is a proxy of Iran, who supply it with weaponry, explosive materiel and technical advisors. They are currently importing via Egyptian tunnels, masses of new and longer range and purpose built rockets like Grads which are far more sophisticated and perhaps able to be targeted. Hamas and Iran are fighting an assymetric war – using effectively guerilla tactics against a theoretically far more powerful enemy, Israel, just as Iran is backing other assymetric campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan against UK, US and Nato troops.

In Israel, Hamas have, through a continued campaign of missile launches created an atmosphere of fear in Sderot and towns, villages and communities within reach of the current range of rockets. Normal life is impossible – the streets are littered with bomb shelters so safety may be reached during the 15 second warning following a missile launch.

Before New Year, I was in Sderot and was shown the effects, both physical and mental of the campaign being waged by Hamas. You say you speak as a humanitarian yet I see no evidence of that in respect of the citizens of the south of Israel. You only write about Palestinian Arabs, as if only one side was the victim of this ongoing conflict.

By taking the line that you did at the top of this page, you encourage a continuation of the conflict, which from your place in a north Oxfordshire town is safe enough and at no cost to you. Its a shame that you nor your colleagues in demonising Israel only are so cavalier with the lives of both Gazans and Israelis. How can you claim to be a humanitarian?

Strange that Mr Hill doesn’t mention a sugar shortage (ie the exploding sugar – see http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2007/12/shum-mishtake.html – not being allowed into Gaza.

Shame that. It’d have given a real zing to someone’s coffee.

cityca, Mr Hill accuses CiFWatch of “defaming” the Guardian and it’s plain that, lawyer or not, he hasn’t the first idea what that means. It’s perhaps an index of his peculiar fix on the world in which he lives that he doesn’t clock the defamation of Israel, and often of Jews, which is the staple of CiF – Rusbridger himself apologised for it, albeit grudgingly, at the Jerusalem book fair, and Matt Seaton promised that there would a lot less antisemitism (which of course clarifies that he knew that antisemitism exists on CiF).

Cityca: Apart from the lack of tranquillity, these are children who have never been allowed to play outside, never rode their bicycles or skateboards, never stood outside their classrooms chatting to their friends, never climbed trees.

Margie
They do get outside but at all times with an eye on the nearest shelter.

From the age of one, babies are taught to understand what the Code Red siren means, and to run for cover.

Kids take school buses. If a Code Red is sounded, the driver stops and kids get off the bus and look for shelter as best they can. Inevitably the terror means that often kids mess themselves and when the alarm is over, worried parents come looking for their kids to ensure they are ok and have to return home to change their clothes.

And of course during the height of the missiles, attacks took place at school time and at home time.

I wonder what Steve Hill, the great humanitarian has to say about that? Can he even begin to empathise with the children and parents that live in Sderot and its environs?

AKUS
It is a very pretty little town. We had a tour and a 1/2 hour meeting with the mayor but unfortunately ran out of time to do any shopping. We went to the top of the town where there are some new, white villas recently built (Shikun Rabin maybe) and from where you can see across to Gaza. Apparently from Beit Hanoun, Sderot is just 850 meters, 1/2 mile away.

Interesting point. When a missile hits a building in Sderot, it is repaired as quickly as possible, so as not to damage morale in the town. Compare that with the victim mentality across the border.

Indeed, cityca. And I’ll bet that there are not hoards of press and TV cameras waiting either, primed and ready to interview the shaken citizens of Sderot who are at the mercy of the kassams.

I hear regularly from Sderot and particularly about the incidence of PTSD among the population there, even among little children. Strange that Steve Hill’s humanitarian concerns do not extend even to a mention them. Perhaps he doesn’t realise that they exist.

Margie, my contact in Sderot told me about the Sderot children’s peace overture and the reaction to it from across the border. What do you expect? You and I both know how Palestinian children are educated.

Editors, I believe Steve Hill is trying to intimidate you into silence. This is a sure sign that you have him and others, who prefer to remain in denial, rattled too, and that you are wobbling their distorted reality big time. I find it strange, if not rather amusing, that none of the Guardianistas are here in Hill’s support, since he’s namedropped the Guardian’s legal department, presumably also to try to frighten you.

Perhaps he’s contacted them to try to have the offensive post removed. I think that he should certainly retract it here.

“They’ll trade that concession for something worthwhile in peace talks. They won’t give it up for nothing. That’s just realpolitik.”

You actually believe Hamas will join “peace talks”.

The fallacy of the GWV. They will only join peace talks when they are disarmed or destroyed.

Steve Hill says “For the record, I am concerned about all victims of violence including those in Sderot.”

No, you aren’t because that would be very much at odds, Steve Hill, with your statement at the core of this thread. Were you as concerned as you would have us believe then you would not be excusing Hamas from firing rockets at them – you know the sort of thing – “…They can’t help it…. they were driven to it… were I in Gaza I would be doing the same ….” etc etc.

Steve Hill you show your ignorance even more blatantly later on in your post. The majority of Israelis do understand that there will one day be a Palestinian state.

If the sort of Palestinian state their government envisages was not at the expense of Israel’s existence then there would be no need for you to resort to drivel at the end of your post. As it is Hamas wants the land where Israel is as well as the West Bank and Gaza and nothing else but Israel’s demise will satisfy it. You and the others on CiF are geeing them along by supporting their “right” to wipe out Israel and arguing that Israel has no right whatsoever to defend herself.

Immediately prior to Cast Lead, whilst Hamas rockets were raining down on southern Israel, the Israeli government wrote two letters, to Ban Ki Moon and the Security Council, asking them all to step in to prevent the attacks on Israeli civilians. They were met with deafening silence from the UN and the rocket attacks increased and led to Cast Lead. In other words, far from being launched in self-defence, Hamas chose to attack Israel and Israel defended herself to the utmost.

You blether on about Palestinian self-defence (which is in fact their getting their retaliation in first and then bleating when the Jews defend themselves) as if this is what motivates the suicide terror, the abuses of Palestinian children’s human rights by Hamas and the launch of kassams, still, at Israel. It is plain that you don’t have the first idea of what you are talking about.

You are wrong, Steve Hill. I am not the one who is being obtuse.

It’s interesting to me that you don’t perceive Hamas’ suicide terror attacks over the years as well as the shelling for the eight or so years and leading up to Cast Lead to be a serious threat to Israeli civilians’ safety. What might be a serious enough threat in your opinion – a wholesale invasion?

Are you seriously arguing that Hamas attacked Israel under the guise of defending Palestinian human rights? Unless you have been in a cave until recently, you must realise that Hamas cares little or nothing for Palestinian human rights – it infringes Palestinian children’s human rights routinely when it gets them on top of buildings as human shields and tortures people in front of them. It infringed its people’s human rights when it deprived them of an opposition party. When it escalated the shelling just before Cast Lead, what do you think it hoped to achieve other than to goad Israel to defend herself fully and deliberately putting its citizens in harm’s way?

You keep on and on about Northern Ireland. The two are not the same!

Your advice about Tony Blair is redundant. And for me the jury is still out as regards Senator Mitchell. Let’s wait and see whether he can influence Hamas.

No Palestinian is driven to terrorism except deliberately by Hamas. Go ahead, deplore Hamas for manipulating its people’s despair, for murdering their hope because it refuses even to countenance peace with Israel and punishes those who dare to speak openly about it, and gives its people no way out except to love death, and from that recognise that Israel has the right to defend herself against such Hamas terror.

Once that happens then I believe we will have gained some common ground.

Steve Hill, I am glad that you respect Israel’s right to exist within whatever borders.

The problem is, that Hamas does not, Hamas is running Gaza and in your haste to “understand” the Palestinians’ desperation (deliberately brought about and exacerbated by Hamas) you have actually said that if you lived in Gaza you would probably bomb Israel too!

How does your stance I have described in the preceding paragraph tie in with your respecting Israel’s right to exist, presumably securely and not under threat of attack? Please explain how you can hold and believe two mutually exclusive ideas? Shouldn’t you be concentrating your energies on arguing that Hamas should be preparing for state building rather than trying to destroy Israel?

Perhaps, given my first sentence above you yourself would like to be the special envoy to the Middle East? Perhaps understanding Hamas’ need to kill Israeli Jews, whilst at the same time respecting Israel’s right to exist in peace and security is the golden key to peace and if you can sell it to yourself you can sell it to Hamas!

Steve I think Avraham Burg (former speaker of the Knesset) is one of those few brave souls willing to understand instead of merely condemning…

‘It is very comfortable to be a Zionist in West Bank settlements such as Beit El and Ofra. The biblical landscape is charming. You can gaze through the geraniums and bougainvilleas and not see the occupation. Travelling on the fast highway that skirts barely a half-mile west of the Palestinian roadblocks, it’s hard to comprehend the humiliating experience of the despised Arab who must creep for hours along the pocked, blockaded roads assigned to him. One road for the occupier, one road for the occupied.

If all this were inevitable, divinely ordained and immutable, I would be silent. But things could be different, and so crying out is a moral imperative’.

Of course we should also never forget the words of Ben-Gurion…

“Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves … politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves… The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country.”

Ahh margie…..wasssaaamatter, don’t like uncomfortable truths being revealed?

Sorry Margie, of course you are right. Stones wouldn’t know, much less admit the truth if it bit him on the behind.

“you have actually said that if you lived in Gaza you would probably bomb Israel too!”

No I have not.

I have said I would, in the position of a Gazan citizen, feel like arming myself for my own self-defence.

I have never said anything about what I would do with such arms, or whether I would target civilians (I would not, for the record).

I would however feel justified in making anyone thinking about taking an unjustified potshot at me or my family pause for second thoughts.

That is – precisely – Israel’s “logic” for having nuclear weapons.

RepublicanStones: Avram Burg demonstrates real wisdom, and not a little courage.

This is the same Steve Hill that posted on the….. Vanunu:Our duty to speak up……. thread

“But as I said before,I’m personally happy to treat Israel as a pariah state and am a supporter of the boycott,disinvestment and sanctions campaign”.

This so called lawyer speaks with a nasty and forked tongue,he comes here trying to come on as a measured and reasonable human being,he’s anything but,just a sad and bored man,with too much time on his hands.

I have a feeling that most of these anti Israeli posters who post on the Guardian are,old sad senile,ill tempered and bored codgers,who have too much time on their hands.

Oh dear, just as I thought we might all be maturing into some sort of civilised discourse, it’s playtime again.

What would you want with the kassams then, Steve Hill?

Would you put them on your mantle piece as ornaments?

Would you use them for walking stick or umbrella stands?

You’d just rattle them at your perceived enemy, would you?

You are sure that you would never use them?

Are you confident that you could resist launching them if Hamas ordered you to do so?

What a pity Hamas hasn’t your self-control!

There’s a huge difference between your situation, if you were in Gaza, and one particular Israeli I heard about in Sderot – a salutory tale which shows the civilised attitude of Israelis. Pin back your ears:

This man had access to explosives and before Cast Lead he built himself a kassam equivalent in his garden, in case Hamas shelled him or his family.

The Israeli police, however, were tipped off and confiscated it and charged him for recklessness for building it and storing it. They were concerned, you see, lest it explode and injure him, or his family, or his neighbours.

Can you imagine Hamas doing that?

No, they deliberately store kassams in houses, launch them from children’s playgrounds, with the children playing around them. They often misfire and explode on their launchers, but deaths and injuries are laid not at Hamas’ door but at Israel’s and the blood and gore is paraded before the world’s media.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3644801,00.html

See also

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/946111.html

http://www.wildolive.co.uk/Sderot.htm

Mr. Hill – do you know what those Quassam missiles you wanted to get your hands on actually are? They are not a weapon of self defence or a deterrent – they are missiles used exclusively to terrorise a civilian population. So to say ‘I’d get some, but I wouldn’t fire them at civilians’ is extremely silly and just makes you look as though you are trying to be smart, particularly when the next part of your original statement mentioned nothing about making anyone think, but said quite clearly ‘There comes a point when all that is left is fighting back’.

BTW, would you also suggest that the residents of Sderot arm themselves with Quassam missiles and fire them indiscriminately into areas of civilian populations whenever they feel that someone on the other side needs to be made to think twice?
If not, why not?