You know how that ended, right? The Empire lost its grip soon thereafter.
Even those who manipulate history fail to learn.....
"Israel clashes with protesters at Syrian border; Attempt to cross frontier leaves 22 dead" by Isabel Kershner, New York Times / June 6, 2011
"Isabel Kershner.... is an Israeli citizen.... possible family ties to the Israeli military"
Just the kind of reporting I like, straight from the horse's mou.... well, try the other end.
JERUSALEM — Israeli forces fired at pro-Palestinian protesters on the Syrian frontier yesterday as they tried to breach the border for the second time in three weeks, reflecting a new mode of popular struggle and deadly confrontation fueled by turmoil in the Arab world and the vacuum of stalled peace talks.
Related: Nakba a Nightmare For Israel
Wave after wave of protesters, mainly Palestinians from refugee camps in Syria, approached the frontier with the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. Israeli soldiers opened fire on those who crossed a new trench and tried to attack the border fence near the towns of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights and Quneitra in Syria.
It's amazing, isn't it? Unarmed people attacked.
By nightfall, the Syrian news agency SANA reported that 22 protesters had been killed and more than 350 had been wounded. Israeli officials said that they had no information on casualties but suggested that the Syrian figures were exaggerated.
Even so, it was the worst bloodshed in the Golan Heights since Israel and Syria fought a war there in 1973.
The protest, on the anniversary of the start of the 1967 Middle East war, followed a larger, coordinated assault by demonstrators three weeks ago on four fronts — Syria, Gaza, Lebanon and the West Bank — and attempts on two others, Egypt and Jordan, that were thwarted by those governments.
Poow wittle Iswael awmed to the teeth getting attacked and undew assault!
This time, Lebanon and the Hamas government in Gaza kept protesters away from their borders, and the turnout was low in the West Bank.
The focus was on Syria, where thousands of protesters tried to force their way across the border.
I notice that about my newspaper.
Syria’s decision to allow the protest appeared to reflect a calculated strategy to divert attention from its own antigovernment uprising.
No one would know better than the USraeli Empire.
Still, the protesters said they counted the day a success because they drew Israeli fire on unarmed demonstrators, generating outrage at Israel.
Sure TOOK 'EM A WHILE to GET THAT OUT, 'eh?
At a time when the peace process is already strained, that reaction is likely to increase international pressure on Israel to create the conditions for resumed negotiations with the Palestinians, and to bolster support in the UN for the Palestinian appeal for statehood.
At the weekly Cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would not allow “extremist elements” to penetrate Israel’s borders. “I have instructed the security forces to act with determination, with maximum restraint, but with determination to maintain our sovereignty, our borders, our communities and our citizens,” he said.
Where are those borders, anyway? Why don't you declare some before ripping off more Palestinian land and putting up more zettlements.
A military spokeswoman, Lieutenant Colonel Avital Leibovich, said that Israeli forces warned the protesters not to approach the border, in Arabic with megaphones; used nonlethal riot dispersal means like tear gas, which failed to deter them; and then fired warning shots in the air.
When the demonstrators reached the fence, soldiers were “left with no choice,” she said, “but to open fire at the feet of the protesters.”
Then how come 22 Palestinians are lying there dead?
Syria’s role also creates a quandary for Israel. Although the countries technically remain in a state of war, Syria has kept the border quiet for 37 years.
Protesters there could not have approached the border without government acquiescence, and analysts said the decision to allow the protest was aimed at deflecting attention from the protests sweeping Syria against the government of President Bashar Assad.
And thus the stepped-up calls and attempts for regime change there.
The protests marked the anniversary of the 1967 war, which Palestinians call the “naksa,” or setback, when Israel captured territory including the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights....
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Now let's compare that with what I pulled down from the BG website a day earlier. Think of it as a turn-the-tables type of thing:
"Israeli troops battle protesters in Syria, 20 dead" by Daniella Cheslow Associated Press / June 5, 2011
Pro Palestinians protesters try to rescue a wounded man after he was shot by Israeli troops along the border between Israel and Syria near the village of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights, Sunday, June 5, 2011 . Israeli troops opened fire across the Syrian frontier on Sunday to disperse hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters who stormed the border of the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, reportedly killing four people in unrest marking the anniversary of the Arab defeat in the 1967 Mideast war. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
I just wanted you to see the rolling barbed wire of Israel's borders.
MAJDAL SHAMS, Golan Heights—Israeli troops on Sunday battled hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters who tried to burst across Syria's frontier with the Golan Heights, killing a reported 20 people and wounding scores more in the second outbreak of deadly violence in the border area in less than a month....
Need I type it?
After nightfall Sunday, Syria's state TV said there would be an open-ended sit-in at the border, and thousands more protesters were on their way.
The protests began around 11 a.m. with what appeared to be several dozen youths, brought in on buses. It gained strength through the day....
You get the implication, of course.
A small group of youths managed to cut through a recently fortified coil of barbed-wire and took up positions in a trench inside a buffer zone about 20 yards from a final border fence. Israeli troops periodically opened fire at young activists jumping into the ditch, sending puffs of soil flying into the air.
Gee, my printed pos from the NYT made it sound like a massive wave with Israelis siege.
As the standoff stretched into the evening, Israeli forces fired heavy barrages of tear gas to break up the crowds. Hundreds of people fled the area in panic, while some 20 people laying on the ground received treatment. It was not immediately clear whether the crowd would return to the front lines.
Yes, it is a WAR!!!
Un-flipping-real!
At nightfall, crowds of people fell to the ground in Muslim prayer, and several small groups lit bonfires, indicating the standoff would continue.
Israel had promised a tough response after being caught off guard in last month's demonstrations....
Protesters waved Palestinian flags and threw rocks and trash over the fence, and the sporadic pops of Israeli gunfire were heard throughout the day. The wounded were taken away on stretchers by groups of young men.
Just taking target practice. Israeli troops get tired if they don't fire their guns.
"We were trying to cut the barbed wire when the Israeli soldiers began shooting directly at us," Ghayath Awad, a 29-year-old Palestinian who had been shot in the waist, told the AP at the hospital.
Residents of Majdal Shams, ethnic Druse who remain Syrian citizens while living on the Israeli side of the frontier, watched the protest from rooftops, booing each time the military tried to speak and cheering on the protesters. When troops fired tear gas, a crowd of residents -- some holding Syrian or Palestinian flags -- began to scream and hurl stones from rooftops at the nearby forces. Israeli anti-riot police fired tear gas and moved into the town. Village elders with thick mustaches argued with the forces, but there were no signs of violence....
Capt. Barak Raz, an Israeli military spokesman, confirmed that protesters made it through a first layer of the border fence -- the area protected by barbed wire -- but got no closer than 160 yards away from the final fence. He said the army would "continue to operate" throughout the night to prevent border breaches.
Well, just HOW MANY FENCES and WALLS has ISRAEL PUT UP?!?!
So these protesters were NOT the THREAT the NYT POS implied? The NYT made it sound as if they were DESCENDING on the Israeli positions, didn't it?
He refused to confirm reports that Israel had laid land mines along the area, saying only that the army "took measures to ensure we wouldn't allow any crossing into Israel."
The army claimed that protesters threw firebombs that ignited land mines on the Syrian side of the border. There was no confirmation from the Syrian side.
That's Israel's way of admitting they deployed land mines. The lying that comes from Zionist mouth is so frikkin' outrageous it is literally beyond belief. I guess killing Palestinian refugees instead of imprisoning them contains a certain bit of psychopathic logic, 'eh?
The recent protests have drawn attention to the plight of Palestinian refugees who fled or were expelled from their homes during Israel's war of independence in 1948.
They were ETHNICALLY CLEANSED and it CONTINUES to THIS DAY!!
The original refugees, and their descendants, now number several million, and they demand "the right to return" to the families' former properties....
Around half a million Palestinian refugees live across 13 camps in Syria, a country with a population of 23 million. Palestinians are allowed to work and study in government and private schools, but they do not have citizenship and cannot vote. In neighboring Lebanon, Palestinian refugees are largely discriminated against and banned from all but the most menial professions.
I guess every country needs it's version of illegal immigrants.
:-(
Things were relatively calm on Israel's other borders on Sunday.
About 400 Gazans hoisting Palestinian flags and posters gathered near the main passenger crossing into Israel, but riot police from Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip, prevented them from marching toward the crossing.
Hamas is Israel's.... friend?
At the West Bank's main crossing into Jerusalem, several hundred Palestinian young people tried to approach the checkpoint. They threw stones at Israeli forces, who responded with tear gas and rubber bullets. No major injuries were reported....
Sticks and stones may break bones, but Israeli weaponry will surely kill you.
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Back to the newspaper, although I myself am wondering why:
"Syria sought distraction, Netanyahu asserts" June 07, 2011|By Joel Greenberg, Washington Post
JERUSALEM — A day after Israel used lethal gunfire to repel protesters from Syria who tried to breach the frontier with the occupied Golan Heights, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended the army’s conduct and suggested that the Syrian government had used the protest to deflect attention from its deadly crackdown on a popular uprising.
Syria said that 23 people were killed by Israeli fire during Sunday’s border confrontation, including a woman and a child, and it accused Israel of “flagrant aggression’’ against unarmed civilians.
The episode marked the second time in a month that Syrian security forces allowed hundreds of Palestinian protesters and their supporters to march toward Israeli lines, raising concerns in Israel that the long-quiet Golan border could be the scene of steady unrest as long as Syria is in turmoil. The frontier zone was quiet yesterday. Syrian police, who set up a checkpoint nearby, kept away a group of protesters who tried to march again toward Israeli lines, the Associated Press reported.
Netanyahu asserted that the Israeli Army, which used sharpshooters to stop scores of marchers who tried to cross the frontier Sunday, had followed international law, warning protesters not to approach and opening fire “as a last resort’’ after nonlethal means had failed to stop the demonstrators....
From 160 yards!!
The US State Department agreed with that assessment, with spokesman Mark Toner in Washington saying, “It’s clear that such behavior will not distract international attention from the Syrian government’s condemnable behavior on its own citizens.’’
Translation: Israeli hand firmly up AmeriKan a**.
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Some Israeli commentators called the use of gunfire against the protesters a two-edged sword, sending a firm message that Israel would not tolerate a breach of its frontiers, but risking mass casualties.
As if Israel ever cared!
Asked in a radio interview if the army would be under orders to shoot marchers crossing Israel’s borders, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that was a possibility, but that efforts were being made to deploy less lethal means.
Like making the story fade from the newspaper.
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