Bolivia declares Israel a terrorist state

http://news.yahoo.com/bolivia-declares-israel-terrorist-state-184920411.html

Bolivia on Wednesday renounced a visa exemption agreement with Israel in protest over its offensive in Gaza, and declared it a terrorist state.

President Evo Morales announced the move during a talk with a group of educators in the city of Cochabamba.

It "means, in other words, we are declaring (Israel) a terrorist state," he said.

The treaty has allowed Israelis to travel freely to Bolivia without a visa since 1972.

Morales said the Gaza offensive shows "that Israel is not a guarantor of the principles of respect for life and the elementary precepts of rights that govern the peaceful and harmonious coexistence of our international community."

More than two weeks of fighting in Gaza have left 1,300 dead and 6,000 wounded amid an intense Israeli air and ground campaign in response to missile attacks by the Islamist militant group Hamas.

In the latest development, 16 people were killed after two Israeli shells slammed into a United Nations school, drawing international protests.

Bolivia broke off diplomatic relations with Israel in 2009 over a previous military operation in Gaza.

In mid-July, Morales filed a request with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to prosecute Israel for "crimes against humanity."

and ISIS has been executing hundreds on a daily basis and the Syrian military has indiscriminately killing tens of thousands of it's own people the last 2 years.

But Israel bombing and invading Gaza in retaliation to a radical group launching rockets into Israel that was also voted in by it's own people to govern them ends up being the worst thing in the middle-east.

Sorry, I'm not a pacifist.

Yes but that's just arabs killing other arabs.

Israel should know better

Honestly, **** a ceasefire. A ceasefire is only gonna make it last longer. Let Israel do what they want with the Palestinians at this point.

Gaza needs to be glassed.

Doesn't that suck.

Maybe Bolivia's neighbors should shoot some rockets into Bolivia to see how they react.

@LJS9502_basic: exactly, I dont understand how people see this another way. War is terrible, civilians are going to die. Hamas wanted to keep screwing around now Israel is the bad guy? I've got alot of respect for what their doing despite having almost nobody backing them up.

also: bad news for the 12 israelis who visit bolivia each year

however, the real problem with this news is not that israel is not a terrorist state, its that 75% of countries are effectively terrorist states

Well they'd have to start some s*** for that to go down. People don't launch rockets just because.

No logic in that post. At all. LOL

Hmm

Tell that to the countries ISIS has invaded. >_>

Will have to look into this more to see how I feel about Bolivians decision

lol Who gives a shit what bolivia thanks.

More countries should have the balls to stand up for the truth and follow suit.

Who the **** from Israel wants to go to Bolvia anyway?

Also, are the rocket firing Gazans getting the same treatment?

It's a terrorist state whether Bolivia declares it or not. Still, I admire their political stand.

Lol...

ONLYDEMOCRACYINTHEMIDDLEEASTCHOSENPEOPLEBIBLESAYS!

As long as the world is hating motherfucking Jews, its all good in the hood, amirite?

Anyone who doesn't see that both sides share the blame in this obviously cannot analyze and interpret.

There's no symmetry here; one is using force to annex land from an entire people, the other is resisting the annexation. The resistance is met with terror from the state. It's an old story of Western colonialism.

It must be nice to live in a bubble where you make up history and the rules.

Don't even bother. Just do what I am doing and sit back reading and laughing at the sheer stupidity being displayed in these types of threads by the idiots. I would say a good 75%+ of the GS community is clueless children.

The Palestinians shot rockets into Israel for 3 weeks, before Israel struck back.

During those 3 weeks, Israel told the Palestinians that if they didn't stop, Israel would be forced to fight back.

The Palestinians didn't care. They fired more rockets and then murdered 3 Jewish teenagers who were on vacation..

And THAT is when Israel finally attacked the Palestinians.

Liberals are trying to pretend that none of that ever happened.

They also fired rockets during a called cease fire. And I have no expectation of critical thinking where OT is concerned.

who the **** goes on vacation in the west bank?

lol Bolivia. My metric for which South American countries to take seriously is based on how well they do in the World Cup; they haven't qualified since 1994.

Best Falafel this side of the east baby!

LMFAO

Are a lot of civilians being killed? Yep. Just as Hamas intended. Hamas goes out of it's way to use the people in that tightly packed spit of land as human shields. They keep weapons in and launch attacks from civilian locations packed with innocent people, then when Israel takes out that location (and they even warn the people there first), they act all shocked and invite journalists in to take pictures and act like this is just such a terrible thing, oh the humanity. When people are shooting rockets into your country, you can't tell your citizens "sorry, we can't protect you from those, they are being fired from civilian locations".

You have to DO something. Israel will stop killing civilians when Hamas stops forcing them to do so. Israel is in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation. You either do something to protect your people with a lot of collateral damage, or you do nothing and allow your people to be terrorized by gutless pussies who launch their attacks from behind women and children.

Standing ovation towards Bolivia. First country to have the balls to stand up to so much international apologist BS.

The Palestinians have been warning the Israelis to leave the illegally occupied lands or they would retaliate. The israelis didn't care. Conservatives seem to be ignorant about this as usual. You get it now?

There is some truth to your post. Hamas is terrorist scum and no doubt they are in the wrong, incite violence, and spew their vile hatred and propaganda. But you are completely biased and one sided in your analysis.

You cannot use artillery fire, tank fire, and air to ground missile fire in highly dense urban environments without knowing you will kill many civilians. Hiding behind human shield arguments is pitiful, especially when the definition of human shield has now been broadened to mean in the general vicinity. Israel's own propaganda is designed to make these incidents seem acceptable, when they are absolutely not acceptable.

Moreover, in killing large numbers of civilians Israel is just replenishing Hamas' ranks. The IDF is the best Hamas recruiting tool ever. At the very least, this makes Israel stupid regardless of your opinion of the morality of their actions. Or you can look at the number of Israelis killed by terrorist action in the last 5 yrs since the previous major action and compare it to the loss of Israeli military lives in the past couple of weeks and again this demonstrates the pointlessness of the current action.

As for who is gutless pussies you might want to think that through. Perhaps the IDF should get out of their tanks and fight like real men.

It is obvious what you should do. You should try to undermine Hamas through non-violent means. Decades of trying to defeat extremists on the Palestinian side through violence has been a colossal failure. You might want to try something else.

Finally, while I am empathetic to Israel in the sense that they should be able to just live in peace, it is tiring to hear their apologists try to justify everything they do in a carte blanche way. It is particularly disturbing when people try to compare their actions to Hamas. No shit Sherlock; but I expect a liberal democracy to be held to a higher standard than a bunch of terrorists.

Yeah we get it....you believe there should be two different rules for countries based on your opinion. Want to bet your country was created over land disagreements with one side winning and one side losing? Doesn't mean continued war or attacks is right. And FYI when HAMAS shoots rockets they hope to kill civilians. Because they aren't good enough to do so does not mean they are innocent nor have "clean hands". I would love to know how you would feel if your country was under continued rocket attacks by a terrorist organization...ie HAMAS.

If Hamas decided to stop hiding behind and launching attacks from right in the midst of women and children, I'm sure the IDF would be more than happy to meet them on a declared field of battle man to man and just settle this once and for all. (because they know they would win)

Wouldn't know. My country is not occupying another one illegally. But I'll let you know when that happens.

Hypocrite....

This.

The Nazionists just don't care, they want blood.

There are a few things I think I should point out that the OP's article doesn't quite give enough detail on:

1. "More than two weeks of fighting in Gaza have left 1,300 dead and 6,000 wounded amid an intense Israeli air and ground campaign in response to missile attacks by the Islamist militant group Hamas." - From what I've heard most sources do say 1,300 dead, but there is some debate about those numbers. Also not all of the Palestinians killed in the fighting were killed by Israeli fire: about 100 Hamas rockets fell short of their goal and landed in Gaza, so it's likely that some of the Gazans killed in this conflict died from Hamas fire. Also Israel's offensive is not just in response to the "missile" attacks, it is also in response to Hamas' use of underground tunnels to infiltrate into Israel. Israel launched the air offensive before the tunnels where a big factor, but I think the ground offensive came after Israel foiled an attempt by 13 Hamas terrorists to use a tunnel to infiltrate into an Israeli kibbutz and kill and kidnap its residents. From what I understand, Israel didn't realize how extensive Hamas' tunnel network was until after the ground invasion. It also seems like the tunnels are a bigger strategic issue for Israel than the rockets are, and that a ground invasion is the only effective way to neutralize the tunnels.

2. "In the latest development, 16 people were killed after two Israeli shells slammed into a United Nations school, drawing international protests". The UN says the shells were Israeli, but Israel says they are still investigating. Israeli gov't spokesman Mark Regev has said that if Israel determines that it was their shells that hit the school, they will admit that. So it's still debatable who actually hit the school. Regev did say that Israel was taking fire from the vicinity of the school so it is possible that the school was hit when Israeli soldiers fired back. According to the UN they gave Israel the coordinates of the school so Israel should've known were it was, but obviously if Israeli soldiers are taking fire from near the school they are going to defend themselves and fire back. Also Regev pointed out that the day before this incident happened an Israeli soldier was killed by a sniper who was shooting from a UN facility. The UN needs to do a better job securing their facilities in Gaza.

A visa exemption does seem kind of strange anyway. Why allow people into your country without a visa just because they come from a certain country?

Pretty much.

Who wants to go to Bolivia?

Which country is your country?

It seems that the people who would be harmed the most by Bolivia's decision are the Bolivians themselves. Getting rid of this visa exemption will probably decrease Israeli tourism to Bolivia, and lead to Israel requiring Bolivians to have visas to visit Israel making it harder for Bolivians who want to travel there.

In the long road the big loser is Israel. Israel is losing fast their moral power/authority, Latin America is gaining it. Moral authority is more important than what people tend to believe. If Israel continues with this immoral massacre they are sealing their own demise.

What country are you from?

I fail to see why that is important or why you want to know that. I'm Latin American, I consider that my country.