Real politicians have curves.

were u checking Matt out then that you came up with such a teenage comment

Get a life

I mean seriously relevance of someone’s appearance…. how juvenile

ud know all about that

It’s a joke you clown. My belly is actually bigger. Your defence of him is a bit silly at this stage. I’m sure Matt is thick skinned……..

well it is a story about GAZA and felt you were travailing it..
.”ud know all about that ” my comment above should not be there..
..it seems to happen here a lot where one replies to a comment and your reply goes elsewhere…

sorry damn spellcheck trivialisng not travailing

Isn’t that the Carthy clown that made a song and dance about publicly tearing out the page that the Israeli Ambassador signed in the Monaghan town offfices? What did he expect on arrival in Israel- a red carpet and banquet? Publicity seeking idiots. Feck off and go in to Gaza through Egypt if you must!

I think you do know well who he is an MEP for your area got circa one hundred and fourteen thousand votes i think… and it was Carrickmacross not Monaghon Council

I knew it was somewhere up in dodgy diesel country.

You seem to know a bit bout dowl dodgy diesl urself

What are you trying to say ? something lost in translation i fear

Same publicity either way. Surely, the thing woudl ahve been to have allowed them entry. What are they afraid of?

Were the Palestinians asked if they would like the delegation to access their ‘country’? Can you imagine if invited people were denied access to the Republic from the North?

Very true, Chris. But at the same time, Gaza is deprived of ports and airstrips because of the Israeli blockade. Which is by no means fair for anyone looking to conduct business in that area. Palestinians can’t leave Gaza even from the sea because of the blockade.

@ were Jammin … I suppose they could always have gone in through Egypt although perhaps the accommodation in Sinai may not be up to Israeli standards!

Want tell us more about the accommodation there then ?

I’m very happy SF members didn’t get in as their first mission when home would be to try to bring self-attention for themselves from the tragedy that is Gaza! Similar to that FF Andrews fool who went out there on that flotilla a few years ago…all attention-seeking for themselves, absolutely zero help for the Hamas-inflicted people of Palestine.

@ Kevin I shall, now that the terrorists can’t get in (the wall) to blow the place up, it is now very safe to stay in Israel,

but one question comes to mind, leaving aside the Israel/Gaza situation for a minute, what is a group of EU people doing visiting a place (taxpayer funded) where only recently up to 50 people were taken out and murdered (some coming of a mosque) and dumped by the road, for “collaboration with Israel” (Sound a bit familiar! !!)

Where women get 6 years in jail for getting pregnant outside wedlock and they hang drug USERS after giving them a year in prison. (See the documentary “Life and death in Gaze” on You Tube ) I don’t suppose anyone will ask that awkward question either there or in the Dail!

I personally know Andrews and the work he done out there was fantastic…so quick to judge

Not just Sinn Fein members but elected members of the European parliament and ten of their fellow MEPs from six countries

Taxi you might like to try and make the above legible…. theres a good lad

@stiofan. Can you give some quantifiable examples of Andrews work in Palestine please?

Correcting spelling with grammatical errors. How embarrassing.

But Israel has the full support of the irish public. At least, the Israeli Ambassador said they had.

@Andrew, I hear them on the radio and read their comments in some papers, I see some of our great leaders support the far right government in Israel, but I am yet to meet in person a single Irish person that isn’t disgusted with Israels actions against the Palestinians.

I see Gabbi Johnston has had yet another derogatory comment removed from The Journal.ie – How many of your obnoxious pieces is that now Gabbi ?
As a supporter of Genocide in Gaza . You must be fast running out of opportunities to spread your hate message around !

Its not israels property to deny them entry to

It actually belongs to Rome.

says the man who twitter have suspended… Why did they do that I wonder ?

@ Philip Hogan

Just like all of history, it belongs to whoever wants it the most

Caoimhin – trolling sensitive internet babies, I would suspect.

hmmm more to it than that maybe

Gabbi Johnston – Our Resident Israeli Government Spokesperson, working for his Masters, as per usual !
Democracy, is a word unknown to this Nazi style, Israeli Government .

Ever think that maybe perhaps even they may not have any wish to go to your imaginary property

@ Gabbi. …It’s the usual publicity stunt, ” look at SF aren’t we great”, we have to go through Israel, Egypt won’t let us in either (we won’t mention that)

I doubt if they will venture into a real conflict (Syria or Irag,) and give us the benifit of their trip, but the photo ops and accommodation isn’t up to much, and they might meet people who might not let them back OUT again, let alone let them in! .

Gabbi grow up

wow TAXI Sinn Fein doind so well in the Local and European elections in Limerick has seriously pissed u off

Unless you didnt hear about it taxi but all people from western countries have been advised to stay out of syria and iraq due to the ongoing wars and the high probability of being kidnapped by isis. But dont let that take away from your argument that they only want to go to gaza because they hate jews and israel. Its pretty standard for politicians to visit war zones after the cessation of hostilities to assess the damage and the magnitude of any humanitarian crisis that results from the war. Its happened all over the world in different countries affected by war so why should it be any different for gaza?

@Peter – eh thanks for setting me straight Peter i’ll try.

@cal we are all sinners.

Blah blah blah same old same old lines different day

some chance of that lol

They weren’t all in SF or did you bother to read the article?

Why cant they be compared DeWit? the only difference is the scale of their crimes.What israel is doing to the people of Palestine is just as wrong as what the Nazi’s did to the jews (and other minorities),just because the Nazi’s murdered millions as opposed to Israels murder of thousands doesnt make the actions of Israel any less horrendous.

They are making a darn good attempt at it though

No it’s not the same. If the Palestinians were all to up sticks and leave for somewhere else do you think Israel would hunt them down? Israel’s occupation and subjugation of Palestine is unquestionably criminal and utterly wrong in every sense, as is the hypocrisy of the likes of the EU not supporting sanctions against them. But the nazis wanted to kill everyone except white Europeans and Slavs, the latter to be kept in servitude and regarded as sub-human. They herded millions of people from all over Europe onto trains, to be sent to camps and worked to death or simply eradicated like you would an infestation of vermin. Comparing these things takes credibility away from the free Palestine campaign and I wish people would stop doing it.

Yet they call it genocide themselves. Do you remember the article that appeaered in The Times of Israel:. Title: ‘When Genocide is Permissible’

http://www.vox.com/2014/8/1/5959635/heres-the-full-text-of-the-deleted-time-of-israel-post-backing

The reasons the nazis did those atrocities have been whitewashed from history, much in the same way that we are not taught about our slave past. The germans were treated atrociously by the jews after the first world war. You will never read that in a history book ever but that is the truth. There is so many holes in the complete story of world war two.

Cal,what did Paul Murphy hope to achieve by going to Gaza on a boat? How is that going to help the 10 kids?

Ryan makes a very succinct and valuable point about the left – they don’t care about Palestine, they just hate Israel. They want confrontation and their picture in the paper, if they cared, as Ryan said they would engage with the Israeli’s and other NGO’s, like Red Cross or Amnesty, and seek permission and meetings with Israeli policy makers and legislators, as well as Palestinian leaders. Champagne socialist is a very apt description of many on the Irish left.

Jason, by continuing to shine the light on Israeli crimes against humanity, it may force a policy change in Israel and force the Israelis to make a fair deal with the Palestinian people they have been terrorizing for decades. Saudi Arabia does not have an open air prison housing 1.8million people in the same area as half the size of county Louth (Irelands smallest county).
By refusing the MEPs access to Gaza just re-enforces the Prison mentality of both the Palestinians and the people reading this thread and comment section.
You can make jibes about the looks of the MEPs, call them whatever name suits you, but it is not going to change the fact that Israel blocked a number of our European MEPs from doing a direct observation of the situation the Palestinians are suffering today. I hope they shout their message loud enough on their return to the EU parliament and force a change of tact when dealing t=with the terrorist state of Israel. A full embargo of imports to the EU would be a very good start. Freezing bank accounts and refusing entry to Europe for all Israeli government party members should be the next stage. That will bring the terrorists to the table quickly enough to deal with this conflict once and for all.

@cAL they’re not shining a light on anything you’re living in
a fantasy land if you really believe that, you’ve clearly no idea of what the Israeli
perspective actually is like, every time one of those rockets fires they feel like the victim, under
seige, and when they retaliate with a house bombing they don’t see that as we do (As a war crime) they
see it as just doing to them what they’re doing to us. So that strategy is clearly failing

How can anyone look at the Hamas strategy now and think it has a hope of success, you’d have to be
delusional, human beings don’t work that way they don’t try to see things from their enemys perspective
look at Serbia during the NATO bombings the entire world was calling them s__m of the earth for the
ethnic cleaning they were doing did it make them feel remorse and change their ways?
NO it just made them hunker down and dig in even more that’s human nature.
The only way to really play world opinion to get Israel to stop is to go the non violent route because then the
Israelis CAN’T just say ”were only responding to the hamas violence”

I mean do we wanna do PR stunts and wave signs or do we ACTUALLY WANT THE MURDER TO STOP? If it’s the latter then we need to advise them to adopt a smarter strategy , a good friend is not a yess man, a good friend is someone who can shake you and say ”what you’re doing is wrong”, telling them what poor victims they are…they’ve enough people doing that, SF has the chance to give them a unique perspective from a side that has been EXAACTLY where they are and gotten peace out of it, they are missing a massive chance to share that important historical perspective with them, maybe it’s cos the MEPs are too young to have really known the troubles but they should still be trying to get them to adopt a smarter strateggyy

Ryan, once more… The Israeli army has murdered many kids in the West-Bank in the last 12 months. They have a policy of arresting children under 10 years old there too (A quota of 700 per year). They hold them over-night and torture them. They used to hold them in open air cages for days at a time without blankets during the winters until 5 years ago. Hamas do not have 700 child warriors under the age of 10 in the West-Bank. No rockets have been fired from the west-bank.
Why do you keep going on about the rockets etc when Israel has its policy of terrorizing children. Did you deliberately ignore my last point? Drop the Hamas charade. Hamas only came into existence in 2007. Israel has been terrorizing children in both Gaza and the West-Bank for decades.

lots of things seem to annoy Ryan in particular anything that highlights the plight of the Palestinian people at the hands of their Israili oppressors

it s u are in a fantasy land… that Israel is a normal decent democratic country

Cal you are not listening to me, you’re talking past me with empty rhetoric instead of responding to my actual points, forget about what Israel is doing for a second. I’m not disputing any of that, I’m saying quite simply JUST THIS AND NOTHING ELSE I’M GONNA SPELL IT OUT A THIRD TIME PLEASE PAY ATTENTION THIS TIME:

SF, because of their history with the provos here, had a unique opportunity here to advise the Palestinian leadership to adopt a smarter strategy, to show them from their own experience violence alone does not get you anywhere. The only strategy Israel has no moral leg to stand on would be a nonviolent strategy by them, looking for statehood through the UN, if Hamas stops firing rockets the Israelis have no support base left in the west, they can’t claim to be just defending themselves.
That would be a smarter strategy for the Palestinians.

Just posting on websites saying how evil Israel is…that’s not working….explaining to everyone how evil ISreal is IS NOT GETTING THEM ANYWHERE, IT’S NOT WORKING.
If they continue the way they are Palestine is going to have no land left, they will just rob the rest of their land and brutalize them into surrender or a de-facto defeat
What they are doing now is playing right into the strategy of the Israeli right wing, they WANT them to respond with rocket attacks because that pushes the moderates right into THEIR camp and they get to say ”SEE you can’t talk to these people, all they wanna do is kill us? we’ve offered them their own state twice now and they said no, they keep going back to violence? the only soloution is a unilateral soloution imposed by us” and the moderates agree the more rockets get fired.

They need to adopt a smarter strategy, what they are doing now is just playing into the Israeli rights hands.

The Shinners should go talk to Amnesty International?
But they’re not allowed into Gaza either.
Israels trying to cover up its war crimes. That’s they’re agenda.

http://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/gaza-israel-playing-games-human-rights-organisations-denied-access

Ryan there were no rockets fired by hamas for 19 months before those 3 teens were killed but israel killed plenty of civillians in that time. They arrested a lot of kids and demolished a lot of homes so to keep deflecting from the oppression of the occupied people of palestine shows you up for what you are and what you believe. Israel has continued with stealing palestinian land unabated throughout all ceasefires and periods of calm showing their hand in what has become so obvious to most onlookers in that they have no interest in a 2 state solution and have less interest in a 1 state solution with equal rights for everybody. They have now effectively herded the palestinians into bantustans in the west bank where they have no hope for a life like any other country, they are corralled into small areas surrounded by settlements and outposts. Now another land grab has been authorised making life even worse. The west bank will soon be like gaza and all you people who have supported israels ethnic cleansing will one day look back in shame and realise that you were complicit in the destruction of an entire people

Ryan, i am not talking past you … i am clearly demonstrating that even though the West-Bank has been relatively quiet for over a decade, the Israelis are still murdering and terrorising the children of the West-Bank. The Palestinians there have done everything you are now suggesting the Gazans do… What part of ‘Israel will not genuinely seek peace until they get a full EU embrago on importing any goods from the state of Israel do you not get. Israel needs the EU more than the EU needs Israel. This is the only way to force a peace settlement.

Once again…..you don’t need to tell me what they’v e done bad I’m aware of all of it, in fact I’m aware of a great deal more than you are likely, but you continue to miss my point, telling the world what bad guys they are is not working as a strategy.

The key words there are ”before the 3 teens wwere killed”. They need to end the violence 100%. If you are killing their civilians and firing rockets at them you are HANDING them the moral highground, they have the power to take that away from the Israelis today by stopping the violence.
Then start a campaign where every land grab and air strike is shown in graphic detail to the world, eventually Israeli support abroad will collapse and pressure will come on them to come to the peace table.

If you keep responding by telling me how bad the Isrealis are I’ll realize I’m talking to a brick wall and just give up
You don’t know me, you don’t know anything about me, so stop reading into my motives and just take what Im saying at face value, I’m not saying they are bad, I’m saying their strategy is not smart and is just handing their oppressors moral victory. If they stop the violence and focus on trying to get their own homeland by peaceful means, Israeli support abroad will collapse, that support it only there because of the terrorist attacks on Isreai, take those attacks away and this goes, in PR terms, from being a thing where they are 50% wrong 50% right to 100% victims 100% in the right, and that will change everything.

The diff between us is you wanna tell them what poor victims they are and how right their cause is, and I actually want them to adopt a strategy where they will stop being victims and start winning the PR war internationally.

If you have a friend who is being beaten by her husband, the friend who advises her how best to get away from him is more helpful than the one who just tells her what a poor victim she is without providing her with any useful advise.
SF because of their history have a unique perspective v few others in the world have that they could share with the Palestinians, and they are wasting it but telling them what poor victims they are, something we already know. They’d be better off telling them that the best thing to do is adopt a smart strategy.

I want the murder and oppression to end, and I know politics and I know how politics and national security play, because they’re my job, so I’m trying to come up with something that will actually help end the bad situation, telling them what poor souls they are and how bad the Israelis are….and telling others how bad they are..that’s not getting them anywhere they’re just loosing more and more land.

Ryan, 10 years of peace in the West-Bank … not one iota of benefit to the Palestinians living there. All they got was more of the same and then a big giant land-grab prison wall was built around their homes. Israel does not want to voluntarily go into a peace deal with the Palestinians. They are doing very nicely stealing land here and there and keeping the population under military threat all the time.
Israel needs to be forced to the table with economic sanctions. No other method is going to work. If you think otherwise, i must disagree with you. The Israeli government today just demonstrated again that it does not care one iota about the EU’s opinion of its actions. What makes you think for one second that if Gaza falls into line that all of a sudden the Israelis are going to have a change of heart.

That is me talking to you, not at you. We don’t have to agree on the method, i am just glad you agree that Israel must stop and must stop now. I just think my proposal is a much quicker and effective method than your proposal.

Ryan you sound like just the chap to get this all sorted – do the negotiators have your number in case they needs you because you know politics and national security play?

Jason you have your head in a very dark place, get a life

I’ve no problem with sanctions, I’d have the EU impose a total trade embargo on them, I’d boot out their ambassadors. THe key is the US though the only way to really break past AIPAC and the idea in US and EU politics generally that this is a 5050 moral play is for the Palestinians to stop the violence.
If they do that, then the Israelis can say nothing…what can they say? they can’t say they are just defending themselves if there are no attacks, it’s a total no brainier.
Look at those shrinking maps of Palestine, eventually there will be nothing left and the next Isreali govt even if they’re a Labour govt will say ”well we didn’t wanna put them there but they are there now and we can’t take them away” and then a Palestinian state is too small to be viable, and they are just stateless refugees forever.

NO STRATEGY will work without the Hamas stopping the violence, because too many power players in Europe and the US will say, to quote one I talked to: ”I’m not sticking my neck out, and taking their side on Monday if they are gonna round up an murder 3 Israeli teenagers on Tuesday…I’m just not doing it”
Trust me any time you talk to them about an embargo or terminating diplomatic relations it’s ”but they are doing killing too, how am I meant to support them when they are murdering hostages”, and what can I say to that? How CAN you support people who are doing that? Even if the actual kill ratio is 10:1 on the side of the Palestinians (for no of victims) they still see it, morally, as a 5050 thing because of the Hamas violence.

The civilians killed in bombings they come back to you with ”well thats not on purpose, it’s accidental, Gaza is a very dense area it’s impossible to do a bombing without hitting someone”
To the land grabbing they say ”well they’ve tried offering them a state and they turned it down, so they think a unilateral soloution of an imposed deal is the only way out now” and since they HAVE turned down to offers of their own state and keep returning to violence how can you respond to that?

Now imagine there is a total Hamas ceasefire, open ended, not a single killing no matter what the provocation, the Palestinians have all the moral high ground, the Israelis are on the back burner totally, the power players who are on the AIPAC payroll have a really hard time defending them , eventually it gets to the stage where the AIPAC money is not enough cover because of the floods of calls into their offices from outraged constituents and they eventually desert the Israelis.

I know how political leaders think, I’ve worked around them too long, and I know PR it’s one of my two professions, I’m trying to outline a strategy that will actually work….we can call the Israelis ba___rds until the cows come home that is not enough. We need something that will actually work, not what just feels good.

Gabbi anyone can make a snide smart comment on here, it’s easier to throw rocks at a house than to try to build one. I don’t know any SF people so I’m trying to get a message across to them that they have a unique perspective they could share and because of their history the Palestinians might listen to them.

You are just dolling out cheap sarcasm, i’m quite comfortable with how the two will compare to an objective person.

‘Its easier to throw rocks then build them’.. but a bird in the bush is worth two in the hand.

Right ryan i see your point but in fairness the last time the palestinians came close to statehood was under arafat, and while the common story is that they refused it was not entirely true. That government of israel continued with the expansion of settlements all while telling the world they were going to pull out and dismantle them thats what caused the breakdown in peace, and that was a very moderate israeli goverment. Since then no israeli goverment has implemented the freeze on the settlements that was agreed on for the peace talks to resume. So do you really believe that israel will care if hamas disarms? They will continue with their same push removing the palestinians from.the land whether or not hamas are there. Whatever the true motives of this stunt by the meps ,its still better to highlight to the world the boorishness and downright indifference that israel has towards the international community than to do nothing at all. Anything that helps show their complete disregard for the welfare of the palestinian people has got to be encouraged. I seriously cant see hamas ever disarming unless the israelis make some big concessions and i cant see the palestinians abandoning all support of hamas while israel continue to keep taking over their lands so that leaves it up to the right minded politicians of which there are few that arent influenced by israel to do whatever they can to show up israel for what they are

The problem with your suggestions ryan is that you don’t seem to be able to grasp that Israel do not want peace with Palestine, proved once again with the latest land grab. Also you are failing to understand that the ira did not back down until the status quo had already begun to change. Try and actually research organisations like Breaking The Silence before dictating what oppressed people should or shouldn’t do!

Lets not forget that the last time there was talk of Palestine applying for full UN member status the USA said in no uncertain terms, that they would halt aid to any country they were supplying aid too, if they voted in favour of Palestine. It resulted in an application for observer status only as the USA had no veto on observer status. Despite the warnings, delegates representing 80% of the worlds population voted for Palestine.

Ryan 10 children were arrested in GAza yesterday theres supposed to be a ceasefire and hamas aren’t firing any rockets. I think Israel are losing the war actually the huge public change in attitude is testament to that. The hasbara and brainwashed propaganda trolls aren’t working either. People are informed Israel are a nation without any conscience or erhics. They just have their US buddies to help them bully who they want to now

Did it even occur to you cal that it may have been for their own safety?

There’s always one !

Yes true, is it not said somewhere that ” the exception proves the rule”

They could get hit by a Hamas rocket.

As long as it is not Gaza then, is that right?

As long as it’s not dangerous