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Slims 01-11-2009 08:29 AM
No, I don't think the US should have installed a dictator. But I do think that hosting elections when the only two choices are between Bad and Horrible was a stupid thing to do. It backfired.

We should have either stayed away and let Gaza sort itself out a little more prior to the elections, provided support for Fatah to re-legitimize them prior to elections, or convinced the arab countries involved to prop up a completely different party that was more interested in peace than killing jews.

Of course hindsight is 20/20 and now that it is done Israel is dealing with the consequences, for better or worse.

roachboy 01-11-2009 08:51 AM
Quote:
We should have either stayed away and let Gaza sort itself out a little more prior to the elections, provided support for Fatah to re-legitimize them prior to elections, or convinced the arab countries involved to prop up a completely different party that was more interested in peace than killing jews
here it is again, that shift which moves one from thinking about gaza in concrete terms and instead maps it onto some fictional eternal conflict, insoluble, in the context of which poor israel, which is just struggling to get by, is justified in doing absolutely anything, including using white phosphorus ordinance in civilian-populated areas. it's a move--in bold---that enables the intertwining of fiction and reality. it is a nice synopsis of the marketing undertaken by the israeli right, particularly in the united states.

leaving that tic aside, and the mostly fictional framework it sets up around the gaza elections, the place where i agree with you slims is an assumption in your post--that once the election process was in motion, there was no rational choice for the israelis but to accept the results.

if you want an idea of just how great the damage the israeli right is doing to israel itself in the longer run by way of this lunatic adventure in gaza, read this from naomi klein:


Quote:
Enough. It's time for a boycott
The best way to end the bloody occupation is to target Israel with the kind of movement that ended apartheid in South Africa


It's time. Long past time. The best strategy to end the increasingly bloody occupation is for Israel to become the target of the kind of global movement that put an end to apartheid in South Africa. In July 2005 a huge coalition of Palestinian groups laid out plans to do just that. They called on "people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era". The campaign Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions was born.

Every day that Israel pounds Gaza brings more converts to the BDS cause - even among Israeli Jews. In the midst of the assault roughly 500 Israelis, dozens of them well-known artists and scholars, sent a letter to foreign ambassadors in Israel. It calls for "the adoption of immediate restrictive measures and sanctions" and draws a clear parallel with the anti-apartheid struggle. "The boycott on South Africa was effective, but Israel is handled with kid gloves ... This international backing must stop."

Yet even in the face of these clear calls, many of us still can't go there. The reasons are complex, emotional and understandable. But they simply aren't good enough. Economic sanctions are the most effective tool in the non-violent arsenal: surrendering them verges on active complicity. Here are the top four objections to the BDS strategy, followed by counter-arguments.

Punitive measures will alienate rather than persuade Israelis.

The world has tried what used to be called "constructive engagement". It has failed utterly. Since 2006 Israel has been steadily escalating its criminality: expanding settlements, launching an outrageous war against Lebanon, and imposing collective punishment on Gaza through the brutal blockade. Despite this escalation, Israel has not faced punitive measures - quite the opposite. The weapons and $3bn in annual aid the US sends Israel are only the beginning. Throughout this key period, Israel has enjoyed a dramatic improvement in its diplomatic, cultural and trade relations with a variety of other allies. For instance, in 2007 Israel became the first country outside Latin America to sign a free-trade deal with the Mercosur bloc. In the first nine months of 2008, Israeli exports to Canada went up 45%. A new deal with the EU is set to double Israel's exports of processed food. And in December European ministers "upgraded" the EU-Israel association agreement, a reward long sought by Jerusalem.

It is in this context that Israeli leaders started their latest war: confident they would face no meaningful costs. It is remarkable that over seven days of wartime trading, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange's flagship index actually went up 10.7%. When carrots don't work, sticks are needed.

Israel is not South Africa.

Of course it isn't. The relevance of the South African model is that it proves BDS tactics can be effective when weaker measures (protests, petitions, backroom lobbying) fail. And there are deeply distressing echoes of apartheid in the occupied territories: the colour-coded IDs and travel permits, the bulldozed homes and forced displacement, the settler-only roads. Ronnie Kasrils, a prominent South African politician, said the architecture of segregation he saw in the West Bank and Gaza was "infinitely worse than apartheid". That was in 2007, before Israel began its full-scale war against the open-air prison that is Gaza.

Why single out Israel when the US, Britain and other western countries do the same things in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Boycott is not a dogma; it is a tactic. The reason the strategy should be tried is practical: in a country so small and trade-dependent, it could actually work.

Boycotts sever communication; we need more dialogue, not less.

This one I'll answer with a personal story. For eight years, my books have been published in Israel by a commercial house called Babel. But when I published The Shock Doctrine, I wanted to respect the boycott. On the advice of BDS activists, including the wonderful writer John Berger, I contacted a small publisher called Andalus. Andalus is an activist press, deeply involved in the anti-occupation movement and the only Israeli publisher devoted exclusively to translating Arabic writing into Hebrew. We drafted a contract that guarantees that all proceeds go to Andalus's work, and none to me. I am boycotting the Israeli economy but not Israelis.

Our modest publishing plan required dozens of phone calls, emails and instant messages, stretching between Tel Aviv, Ramallah, Paris, Toronto and Gaza City. My point is this: as soon as you start a boycott strategy, dialogue grows dramatically. The argument that boycotts will cut us off from one another is particularly specious given the array of cheap information technologies at our fingertips. We are drowning in ways to rant at each other across national boundaries. No boycott can stop us.

Just about now, many a proud Zionist is gearing up for major point-scoring: don't I know that many of these very hi-tech toys come from Israeli research parks, world leaders in infotech? True enough, but not all of them. Several days into Israel's Gaza assault, Richard Ramsey, managing director of a British telecom specialising in voice-over-internet services, sent an email to the Israeli tech firm MobileMax: "As a result of the Israeli government action in the last few days we will no longer be in a position to consider doing business with yourself or any other Israeli company."

Ramsey says his decision wasn't political; he just didn't want to lose customers. "We can't afford to lose any of our clients," he explains, "so it was purely commercially defensive."

It was this kind of cold business calculation that led many companies to pull out of South Africa two decades ago. And it's precisely the kind of calculation that is our most realistic hope of bringing justice, so long denied, to Palestine.

A version of this column was published in the Nation (thenation.com)

naomiklein.org
Naomi Klein: Enough. It's time for a boycott of Israel | Comment is free | The Guardian

this link takes you to the original along with the first page of often very testy comments, as you can imagine.

i post this because i think that like it or not you're going to see more of this--what i think a result of the gaza action is is that the israeli right's framing of its action and of the historical narrative that makes it appear rational is rapidly losing traction, and that along with this loss of traction you're starting to see a counter-discourse taking shape.

in place of the romantic post-47 historical narrative, a more accurate post-67 narrative is being established---instead of the story of a heroic nation of jewish folk who are just trying to make a homeland for themselves after the shocking, horrific experience of world war 2 you have a post-67 narrative of colonialism and apartheid. the narrative of return to a homeland is being replaced with parallels to south africa. the question of racism is becoming central. israel is being recoded as a modern nation-state and is being inserted in a narrative that links it to other modern nation-states, and the standards for evaluating its actions are shifting along with this.

i post this because it seems to me that this position expresses something that is far more abroad in the world that american supporters of the israeli right would like to think it is. and because the action in gaza is giving this narrative increasing traction.

so from a strategic viewpoint--and the framing of narratives is a central element in strategy because it enables action to be coherent and to be marketed as coherent---i see nothing but self-defeating lunacy in what the idf is doing in gaza.

time will tell whether my interpretation of the above is correct or not.


880 killed according to the latest information from medical sources within gaza. no update on the number of wounded, nor is there a new breakdown by category.
the new phase of the israeli action is taking the military toward heavily populated areas.

unless this is stopped, things are only going to get worse.

Pacifier 01-11-2009 09:50 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by powerclown (Post 2580978)
I was responding to a claim that the idf was lying about hamas goons launching mortars from schools. I think this video proves they weren't lying.
IDF officers admitted there was no gunfire from Gaza school which was shelled :

Quote:
The United Nations is claiming Israeli military officers have admitted there was no Palestinian gunfire emanating from inside an UNRWA school in Gaza which was shelled by an IDF tank.

Dozens of Palestinians were killed in the shelling.

In addition, UNRWA Thursday announced it will cease activities in the Strip due to the death of an UNRWA staffer in an IDF shelling during Thursday morning's humanitarian hiatus.
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UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness told Haaretz yesterday that the army had conceded wrongdoing.

"In briefings senior [Israel Defense Forces] officers conducted for foreign diplomats, they admitted the shelling to which IDF forces in Jabalya were responding did not originate from the school," Gunness said. "The IDF admitted in that briefing that the attack on the UN site was unintentional."

He noted that all the footage released by the IDF of militants firing from inside the school was from 2007 and not from the incident itself.

"There are no up-to-date photos," Gunness said. "In 2007, we abandoned the site and only then did the militants take it over."

The UNRWA is now demanding an objective investigation into whether the school shelling constituted a violation of international humanitarian law, and if so, that those responsible stand trial.

The UN reported Thursday that a Palestinian working for the UNRWA was killed by an IDF tank shell while driving an aid truck at the Erez border crossing. The organization claims the UN truck was well-marked and the incident took place during the humanitarian hiatus slated to allow Gaza residents to acquire supplies

TheNasty 01-11-2009 12:14 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by powerclown (Post 2582016)
Non sequitur.

Israel is allowed one lost war, while the Arabs and Persians can wage war against Israel forever.

The Palestinians are a lucky people, because their enemies are Jews.

Any other foe, especially other Arabs, would have wiped them off the face of the earth a long time ago.
One of the best posts on this thread.

700 casualties are 700 to many.

However, with a population of 3.3 million crammed into a small area, casualties could be much worse if a semblance of caution wasn't being used.

roachboy 01-11-2009 12:28 PM
that post is surreal in its wholesale inaccuracy, in its bad faith. it is nothing more and nothing less than a repeat of the extreme rightwing's justifications for killing palestinians in great number and then congratulating themselves for being such humanitarians. the place you see this nonsense repeated almost verbatim is amongst the fringe rightwing settler parties. you know, the folk who embarrass most israelis.

i post the following because it provides a sense of the marketing bubble inside israel with respect to the horror in gaza and indicates that the source of it is a *particular* politica viewpoint that speaks neither for judiaism nor for israel as a whole.

Quote:
Why Israel's war is driven by fear
Outrage at Israeli actions has mounted across the world as the Gaza conflict goes on. But as Israel expands its military action, support for the aggressive strategy is growing, while sympathy for Palestinians is receding. And, with an election looming, political attitudes are hardening

* Chris McGreal at the Gaza border
* The Observer, Sunday 11 January 2009
-------------

Yeela Raanan says she would prefer not to know about the war in Gaza. She doesn't want to see the pictures of dead children cut down by Israeli shells or read of the allegations of war crimes by her country's army as it kills Palestinians by the hundreds.

But there is no escape. Raanan can hear the relentless Israeli bombardment by air, sea and land from her home, just three miles from the Gaza border. Hamas rockets keep hitting her community. And somewhere in the maelstrom of Gaza, her 20-year-old son is serving as an Israeli soldier.

"I'd rather not know. I can't do anything about it. We didn't see the pictures of the Palestinian kids who were killed. It's easier not to feel," she said. "I just turn on the news for five minutes a day and that's it, just to see if anybody says anything about my kid."

But when Raanan thinks about her son - whom she prefers not to name - she also thinks about Palestinian mothers and their sons in Gaza. And that's when she finds her herself out of sync with the neighbours. "I don't talk to the neighbours about it any more," she said. "Hamas is violent. Hamas is stupid. I don't like what they are. But I don't feel angry towards them. I understand why they were elected, I understand why they act as they do."

Attempting to understand has earned Raanan, a former operations officer in the Israeli air force, denunciations as a traitor and accusations of "selling her nation to the devil". Doesn't she love her son?, they ask.

The world has reeled in horror at revelations of Israeli atrocities as the Palestinian death toll has climbed toward 800. The International Red Cross was so outraged it broke its usual silence over an attack in which the Israeli army herded a Palestinian family into a building and then shelled it, killing 30 people and leaving the surviving children clinging to the bodies of their dead mothers. The army prevented rescuers from reaching the survivors for four days.

Israel's shelling of a UN school that had been turned into a refugee centre near Gaza city, killing 42 people who had fled the fighting, drew further accusations of indifference to civilian lives. And Israel has struggled to justify the eradication of entire families, including small children, in pursuit of Hamas officials.

But ordinary Israelis have been told little about this and when they are they generally brush it aside with assertions that it is sad but Hamas has brought it on the Palestinian people. Israel is the real victim, they say. The mainstream Israeli press has stuck firmly to the official line that it is a war of defence, a moral conflict forced on Israel by Hamas rocket fire.

The scale of Palestinian civilian casualties is played down. The dead are overwhelmingly described as terrorists. The accounts of entire Palestinian families being wiped out are buried beneath stories of the Israeli trauma at Hamas attacks.

"The news said the Israeli army had killed 100 'terrorists' and also a bomb fell and 40 lost their lives," said Raanan about the shelling of the UN school. "That was more or less the rhetoric that was used, so the focus was on the fact that we had managed to kill terrorists rather than we had also killed 40 other people. We weren't told who they were." There are alternative voices in the press, but they are mostly dismissed or shouted down. Israeli Arabs who protested against the war have been arrested for undermining national morale. Television anchormen berate critics of the onslaught on Gaza, questioning their patriotism.

The paradox of Israel is that most of its citizens tell the pollsters they agree with Raanan and the peace lobby that there should be a negotiated agreement of the establishment of a Palestinian state. But a significant number of Israelis now question whether this is possible. They view the continued conflict after Ariel Sharon pulled Jewish settlers and the military out of Gaza in 2005 as evidence that Arabs don't want peace; that giving up territory does not bring security.

Support for the vague notion of peace has been further buried under the rhetoric of the looming Israeli election, where the right in particular, led by a former prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, is playing on fear of a nuclear Iran in league with Hamas. Netanyahu, who is likely to win the 10 February ballot, has no intention of dismantling settlements or relinquishing the control that Israel exercises over the lives of Palestinians on the West Bank. He dances around the issue of a Palestinian state and has made clear in the past that what he wants to see amounts to a canton or bantustan (homeland) surrounded by Israeli control.

And so the vast number of mainstream Israelis, while saying they support peace, once again find themselves in bed with the settlers and on the side of oppression. "I hate to say we told you so," said Yisrael Medad, a prominent Jewish settler from Shilo, deep inside the West Bank. "Now you hear all the time that it was a mistake to pull out of Gaza. You hear it on the television when it was never discussed before. More of the anchors are willing to ask that question. They would never ask that a year or two ago. They used to say ours was the extreme view. Now I would say that it's the mainstream, that no matter what we have done territorially speaking it's not going to satisfy them [the Palestinians]. They are always going to attack us."

The settlers might be an extreme minority, but their views as to why Israeli soldiers are fighting in Gaza are not exceptional. Raanan lives in Ein Habsor, a moshav or cooperative agricultural community of about 1,000 people. It suffers regular hits from Hamas rockets. "In the last few days we've had two a day. In the vicinity. A couple inside. Close enough that it could have been your house," she said. No one was hurt but a student at the nearby Sapir college, where Raanan teaches public policy and administration, was killed by a Hamas rocket in February. Roni Yechiah, a 47-year-old father of four, died after the missile hit the car park.

About a quarter of the families in Ein Habsor have left. "They didn't so much go because of the rockets. It was because of the war and being really scared. They closed the schools. Those with little kids have mostly gone," said Raanan. It's not an atmosphere in which to question whether Israeli troops should be in Gaza. Most of the residents of Ein Habsor see the assault as a straightforward and necessary response to Hamas rockets, uncomplicated by issues such as occupation or the Israeli blockade of Gaza.

But Raanan does question. She wants to see a government willing to negotiate seriously with the Palestinians, and she takes the view that just because Israel is strong enough to get one over on the Palestinians, that does not mean that it is in its interests to do so. Raanan also wants other Israelis to understand what the Palestinians are suffering. "My moshav is quite right-wing," she said. "They believe in using power and they don't particularly like Arabs. I don't talk to my neighbours much about these things.

"If you do open your heart to the fact that 40 completely innocent people in a United Nations school were killed you have a very hard time. It's difficult to open your heart to that place and also hold on to wanting the soldiers to succeed. It's a very hard split in personality. I think it's necessary but it's a difficult thing to do." Raanan says Israelis have dehumanised Palestinians to such an extent that they are no longer sensitive about who they kill. "It's so difficult for them to put themselves in the place of someone who lives in Gaza. I guess you have to be able to dehumanise to be able to accept this type of war," she said.

"Israelis think of Hamas as a terrorist group and therefore anything we do to Hamas is OK. But the question is, why do we think it's OK also to kill civilians while we're killing or destroying Hamas? We rationalise; they do it to their own people. That's the rhetoric in Israel. It makes it OK to do what we're doing. In Israel we're brought up to be afraid of Arabs. It's a short step to hating them. It's unusual for people not to have hostile feelings toward Arabs, and it's racist feelings because it's a whole group."

In Shilo, Medad finds himself in agreement with Raanan on one thing. He sees Israeli public opinion as increasingly indifferent to Palestinian suffering. But he says it is because of foreign criticism of Israel's actions. "With the harshness of the criticism, they're slowly but surely turning off more Israelis to elements of humanity, consideration, so eventually they say: who the hell cares?" he said. "We don't see the human face. In that situation we can do anything we want. There's a lack of identity of who the enemy is. He's not human any more."

You might not know there was a war on while visiting Jerusalem's restaurants, Tel Aviv's frantic bars or the Azrieli shopping centre. The mall is one of the largest in Israel. Next door is the Kirya military headquarters, which houses Israel's defence ministry and the country's top military officers. The two buildings are linked by a bridge.

Through the Gaza war, Israel has accused Hamas of endangering civilians by establishing military installations in populated areas. It has been a central justification by the army for the killing of Palestinian civilians. The shoppers at the Azrieli mall see no contradiction between that claim and Israel building its defence headquarters next door to a shopping centre. "They might have a point if they attacked it," said Yoni Ahren, a computer engineer sipping coffee. "But they don't. Instead they send suicide bombers to blow us up in the mall. The Palestinians set out to kill any Jew. The Israeli army sets out to kill Hamas and, yes, innocent Palestinians get killed. But that is not why the army is in Gaza."

A soldier with Ahren, who declined to be identified because he was in uniform, said the Palestinians brought it on themselves. "They voted for Hamas and then Hamas attacked Israel so it's their problem," he said. "I don't know if this [attack on Gaza] will solve anything. Probably not. We cannot get rid of Hamas. But the lesson we've learnt is that we can't trust the Palestinians. We knew that with Arafat. Now we know it again."

That is the upside of the conflict in Gaza for Medad. He believes it could help assure the future of the West Bank settlements by reminding Israelis that control over what Israelis call Judea and Samaria is what keeps Hamas rockets from falling on Tel Aviv. "Things are changing. It's Gaza that's changed things," he said.

Shilo sits alongside the main road from Ramallah to Nablus, a long way from the "security barrier" Israel has built through the West Bank and Jerusalem. Shilo's residents are religious and mostly assert Israel's claim to all of the territory west of the Jordan river. A Palestinian presence is tolerated at best.

When Ariel Sharon pulled Jewish settlers out of Gaza in 2005, he called it a painful sacrifice for peace. Another view was that he had run out of political options and the pull-out was a way to stave off international pressure to talk to the Palestinians. What the dismantling of the Gaza settlements did not do was end the expansion of colonies on the West Bank. Shilo has grown by about 25% since 2005. The "outposts" around it, which are illegal even under Israeli law, have been expanding so fast that the "Shilo block", with about 10,000 residents, is now as large as the main settlement that was dismantled in Gaza.

Most Israelis tell the pollsters they would sacrifice Shilo for peace. But influential voices are against it, among them the man tipped to be Netanyahu's defence minister. Moshe "Bogie" Yaalon, the former military commander in the West Bank, pressed the government for months to attack Gaza, and is against a withdrawal from the West Bank.

Medad is confident that Yaalon's views will prevail. "If you don't have control over a population, you suffer. You want to call it occupation... fine. But there has to be some sort of control, supervision," he said. Yaalon recently asked: "What is the big difference between Gaza and Judea and Samaria - Judea and Samaria we can go in at night, we know where they are, and pick them up. In Gaza we can't do that."

It is a view largely shared by Netanyahu, who has called for the assault on Gaza to be carried through until it forces Hamas from power. Most Israelis may not want to go as far as Netanyahu, but he remains ahead in the polls. Even on the left, attitudes have hardened. Support for Ehud Barak, the Labour party leader and defence minister, has risen sharply because of the assault on Gaza.

Jeff Halper, a veteran peace campaigner, says this is further evidence that Israeli public opinion is principally shaped by fear. "The Israeli public is being held hostage by its own leadership," he said. "This whole idea there's no partner for peace has been internalised by Israelis. Everything has been reduced in Israel to terrorism because Israel has eliminated the political context of occupation and claims it only wants peace and has made generous offers and the Arabs always reject them."

"Seventy per cent of Israeli Jews say they don't want the occupation. They would be happy with the two-state solution. But what they say to us is: 'You don't have to talk to me about peace, I want peace. The Arabs won't let us because the Arabs are just terrorists.' There is in Israel a deeply held assumption that Arabs are our permanent enemies."

Raanan hopes not. She is counting the days until the Gaza assault is over and her son is pulled out. But the personal trauma will not be over if and when that happens. Her second son is due to be called up in six months. The way things are, he could be following his brother into Gaza.
Why Israel's war is driven by fear | World news | The Observer

sometimes you have more to say but find it so difficult to remain civil in saying it that it's better to hit not do it. this is one of them.

raeanna74 01-11-2009 12:31 PM
One thing that I'm not seeing in the news or anywhere is the number of Israelies that have been killed by this constant almost weekly bombing coming from the Hamas. The Palastinians in Gaza knew it was happening but I haven't heard of them doing anything to stop it. Doing nothing doesn't make you innocent, it actually implies guilt.
I feel that if you let something like that continue to happen in you own back yard and you do nothing to stop it, then I don't want to hear you crying about getting penalized for letting it happen.

If I had a rabid dog in my back yard, knew about it and did nothing to get rid of it (not even calling to report it) and it constantly attacks passersby. I have a feeling that I might be held liable when he attacks the wrong person.

So far I don't feel sorry for those who have drawn the ire of Israel. If you don't want to get hit, get out of the way. Quit allowing yourself to be a shield.

Willravel 01-11-2009 12:37 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by raeanna74 (Post 2582268)
One thing that I'm not seeing in the news or anywhere is the number of Israelies that have been killed by this constant almost weekly bombing coming from the Hamas.
Israelis and Palestinians Killed since 9/29/2000

roachboy 01-11-2009 12:38 PM
there have been very few casualties in the period running up to the israeli ground action. li do not remember the numbers. since then, i have not seen that there have been any casualties from them, but i could be wrong.

[[edit---the stats that will posted are useful, but they count casualties since 2000. i was specifically talking about the casualties that accompanied the breakdown of the cease fire after 15 december. just to be clear.]]

but there is something deeply offensive about comparing the palestinian population of gaza to rabid dogs.
you might join most people in seeing hamas as a Problem in many ways, but to go from that to saying that palestianians as a whole are dogs is moving straight into kahane-type racist terrain.

translated into policy, it's a logic of extermination, not negociation. why negociate with people that you think of as rabid dogs?

geez. get a grip.

Willravel 01-11-2009 01:03 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by roachboy (Post 2582270)
edit---the stats that will posted are useful, but they count casualties since 2000. i was specifically talking about the casualties that accompanied the breakdown of the cease fire after 15 december. just to be clear.
Oh. I believe it's maybe a dozen or so, but I can't find a complete list. Here's what I've found:
Quote:
Dec 27, 2008 - Beber Vaknin, 58, of Netivot was killed when a rocket fired from Gaza hit an apartment building in Netivot.

Dec 29, 2008 - Hani al-Mahdi, 27, of Aroar, a Beduin settlement in the Negev was killed when a Grad-type missile fired from Gaza exploded at a construction site in Ashkelon; 16 other workers were wounded. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.

Dec 29, 2008 - Irit Sheetrit, 39, of Ashdod was killed and several wounded when a Grad rocket exploded in the center of Ashdod. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.

Dec 29, 2008 - Warrant Officer Lutfi Nasraladin, 38, of the Druze town of Daliat el-Carmel was killed by a mortar attack on a military base near Nahal Oz.
Victims of Palestinian Terror since Sept 2000

Quote:
Two Israelis were killed Monday evening as Gaza militants pelted southern Israel with rockets and mortar shells, as Israel concluded its third day of aerial assaults on the Gaza Strip.
Rockets fired from Gaza kill 2 Israelis within hour - Haaretz - Israel News

Quote:
On Day 3 of Israel's Gaza operation, Dec. 29, Hamas hit back hard with volleys of rockets and missiles at points closer to central Israel than ever before. The three Israelis killed were IDF career officer, Sgt. Maj. Lutfi Nasr e-Din, 38, from Daliat Hacarmel, at Nahal Oz, a woman motorist, Irit Sheetrit, 39, mother of four, who sought shelter in the Ashdod bus terminus, 30 km from Gaza; and earlier in Ashkelon, Hani al-Mahdi, 27, a construction worker from the Bedouin Negev village of Ar'ur.
DEBKAfile - Three Israelis killed, 32 injured in 100 Hamas missile attacks Monday

Quote:
South under heavy fire: Mother of four killed on way back from gym as Gaza terrorists fire long-range rockets at city of Ashdod; victim's sister wounded in strike. Meanwhile, mortar shells fired by Palestinians kill IDF career officer near Gaza
South under fire; 2 Israelis killed - Israel News, Ynetnews
-----Added 11/1/2009 at 04 : 06 : 33-----
Quote:
Originally Posted by raeanna74 (Post 2582268)
The Palastinians in Gaza knew it was happening but I haven't heard of them doing anything to stop it. Doing nothing doesn't make you innocent, it actually implies guilt.
What are you doing to stop the war in Iraq? If you're doing nothing, you're clearly guilty.
Quote:
Originally Posted by raeanna74 (Post 2582268)
If I had a rabid dog in my back yard, knew about it and did nothing to get rid of it (not even calling to report it) and it constantly attacks passersby. I have a feeling that I might be held liable when he attacks the wrong person.
This is not appropriate. :no:

TheNasty 01-11-2009 01:34 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by roachboy (Post 2582267)
that post is surreal in its wholesale inaccuracy, in its bad faith. it is nothing more and nothing less than a repeat of the extreme rightwing's justifications for killing palestinians in great number and then congratulating themselves for being such humanitarians. the place you see this nonsense repeated almost verbatim is amongst the fringe rightwing settler parties. you know, the folk who embarrass most israelis.

It would be a miracle if you replied to a post without developing a straw man.
-----Added 11/1/2009 at 04 : 44 : 14-----
Quote:
Originally Posted by Willravel (Post 2582276)
Oh. I believe it's maybe a dozen or so, but I can't find a
What are you doing to stop the war in Iraq? If you're doing nothing, you're clearly guilty.
If people in my community were firing rockets at the community 5 miles down the road, I certainly would do more than sit in my house, especially if I knew the community 5 miles away wouldn't do what many in this forum suggest and just ignore the rocket fire.

Willravel 01-11-2009 01:53 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheNasty (Post 2582284)
It would be a miracle if you replied to a post without developing a straw man.
Followed by:
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheNasty (Post 2582284)
If people in my community were firing rockets at the community 5 miles down the road, I certainly would do more than sit in my house, especially if I knew the community 5 miles away wouldn't do what many in this forum suggest and just ignore the rocket fire.
No one has said to ignore rocket fire. That's called a strawman.

Baraka_Guru 01-11-2009 01:53 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheNasty (Post 2582284)
If people in my community were firing rockets at the community 5 miles down the road, I certainly would do more than sit in my house, especially if I knew the community 5 miles away wouldn't do what many in this forum suggest and just ignore the rocket fire.
Easier said than done. I imagine you'd normally have to do more than just sit in your house if you had a family and only made $10/day, especially during a blockade.

Also, I don't think the militants conducting the rocket attacks are open to suggestion. How would you go about doing "more than sit in your house"?

roachboy 01-11-2009 03:01 PM
all i did was to position your viewpoint in the space it belongs--the far right of the israeli political spectrum. and then, because i was inclined to actually take you a bit seriously in the context of this debate, i posted an article that demonstrated what i was saying.
which i do not expect you actually read. notnasty.
your position requires no actual information, so it's not surprising, somehow, that there is no particular need to acquire any.


one of the most tiresome tasks that has come up over and over in this thread, and in nearly every other debate involving palestine and israel, it pushing back at this tendency on the part mostly of american supporters of israel who seem imagine that because they only know one political line on the topic that there is only one political line. over and over the same thing.

it is ultimately not my problem that you appear to know nothing about the political spectrum in israel, that you appear to know nothing about the diversity of views in israel. if you knew what you were talking about, you wouldn't be so quick to buy into this one-dimensional narratives that are free of any context and so are free of any danger of actually addressing what's happening.

over and over, the reverse side of this one-dimensional view of gaza is another--that somehow if you are critical of the patent lunacy of the israeli action that you support hamas, that if you focus on the civilian population of gaza which is trapped in place BECAUSE of the israeli blockade that you are somehow excusing rocket attacks.

sometimes, in particularly delightful examples of one-dimensional thinking on this, you get these quaint little scenarios involving abstract house number one and abstract house number two, in which one house is full of people who just decided one fine day to start lobbing rockets at the other. no context, no information, no nothing.

every last bit of these arguments is made up of nothing but strawmen, lined up one after another.

things get complicated when you start actually look at and thinking about a world that is not locked into moralizing fables the sole function of which is to justify the occupation in general, the actions within the occupation, the demonization of palestinians and by extension to rationalize away what is by any rational standard a sequence of atrocities interspersed with an all-considered, self-defeating military action.

hiredgun 01-12-2009 06:12 PM
Israel bans Arab parties from running in upcoming elections - Haaretz - Israel News
BBC NEWS | Middle East | Israel disqualifies Arab parties

Israel has disqualified two Arab parties from running in upcoming parliamentary elections.

Willravel 01-12-2009 06:16 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by hiredgun (Post 2582752)
Taxation without representation seems to rear it's head pretty often.

Maybe it's time for a Mediterranean tea party?

Baraka_Guru 01-12-2009 06:23 PM
It's interesting how the parties that filed for the ban are on the far right, while the parties that were banned are progressive (ostensibly...I'm open to being enlightened otherwise).

Don't disqualify the Arab lists - Haaretz - Israel News

roachboy 01-12-2009 07:22 PM
this is a digression-->if i were to blame the poisoning of the political atomosphere after 67 on one thing--and this includes the modalities of occupation--it would be the settlements in general and the far right politics that has taken hold amongst the settlements in particular. because the israeli parliament was so fractured---WHICH WOULD NOT BE POSSIBLE WERE THE RIGHT'S THE ONLY VIEWPOINT HELD BY ISRAELIS--likud entered a period of coalitions with the far right: to my mind, things were not great before that, but this is the point at which things started to really turn to shit. it caused an ideological shift within the right. and that was not good. not good at all.<----this is the end of the digression.

yeah, see, this is the kind of thing that raises the memory of apartheid pretty explicitly.

TheNasty 01-12-2009 08:06 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Willravel (Post 2582289)
Followed by:

No one has said to ignore rocket fire. That's called a strawman.
Roachboy's position, as I understand it, is that Israel's treatment toward the Palestinians is what causes the rocket attacks, so really it's Israel's fault they are getting rocketed.

If I'm not understanding the position correctly, that's my fault, but it sounds really close to "ignore the rocket attacks" to me.

At this point in my view it's pretty clear that a political solution isn't going to work as long as the ability to produce home made rockets exists.

There might be a large segment of the Palestinian population that might want to live in peace with Israel. For whatever reasons, that segment of the population is unable to prevent their government from launching rockets and conducting suicide bombings inside of Israel.

With around 700 casualties in an area crammed with 3.1 million people, Israel has to be using some semblance of caution while executing this military engagement. Maybe they really are just trying to go after Hamas's ability to make and launch home made rockets, and aren't really embarking on wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian people.

raeanna74 01-12-2009 08:11 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by roachboy (Post 2582270)
...but there is something deeply offensive about comparing the palestinian population of gaza to rabid dogs.
you might join most people in seeing hamas as a Problem in many ways, but to go from that to saying that palestianians as a whole are dogs is moving straight into kahane-type racist terrain.

translated into policy, it's a logic of extermination, not negociation. why negociate with people that you think of as rabid dogs?

geez. get a grip.
FINE Aggressive people who like to throw rocks at bypassers. I was only trying to get the point across that if you ALLOW something that is harmful to someone else YOU are guilty as well. Get a grip yourself. Geez why does it seem like you are taking this personally. Have you joined the Hamas??

Willravel 01-12-2009 08:12 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheNasty (Post 2582809)
Roachboy's position, as I understand it, is that Israel's treatment toward the Palestinians is what causes the rocket attacks, so really it's Israel's fault they are getting rocketed.

If I'm not understanding the position correctly, that's my fault, but it sounds really close to "ignore the rocket attacks" to me.
You're assuming a false dichotomy. It's not just either:
1) Respond with extreme force or
2) Sit there and twiddle your thumbs
There are a lot of options.

roachboy 01-12-2009 08:20 PM
Quote:
Have you joined the Hamas??

TheNasty 01-12-2009 08:25 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru (Post 2582291)
Easier said than done. I imagine you'd normally have to do more than just sit in your house if you had a family and only made $10/day, especially during a blockade.
I agree, I should have been clearer.

It is my opinion that those in Palestine that want peace with Israel aren't doing much to ensure that happens.

Quote:
Also, I don't think the militants conducting the rocket attacks are open to suggestion. How would you go about doing "more than sit in your house"?
What could you do if Agents of your own government were launching rockets into a neighboring country?

Quite the Catch 22, on one hand you could try to change your own government and likely be tortured and killed. On the other, your government continues to launch missles and conduct suicide bombings within Israel and you get to deal with the IAF.

The difference, the later gets forum warriors the world around in an uproar.

:)

To be serious though, I honestly don't know what could be done, but I can't help but think not much is being done by the segment of the population that wants peace with Israel.

The whole situation has been circular for a long, long time. Political cease fires aren't going to work, Hamas and other organizations won't follow them, but the only real answer is for them TO follow them.

If Israel, tomorrow, would remove all blockades and Israeli nationals out of the Palestinian territories, suicide bombings and rocket fire wouldn't stop, for multiple reasons already brought up in this thread. A cease-fire continues the circular nature of this confrontation that has been on going for longer than most of us have been alive.

In essence I think that everything over the past 40-50-60 years has created a situation where these guys just have to fight it out. Not every situation in this world has an ending that is fair, or logical, or just. I really think this is one of them.

The question becomes, what happens next? At some point we've got to accept an all out offensive from Israel into Palestine is inevitable, once we create the baseline we can then try to control future moves in the chess game to minimize the global implications of any war.

Earlier in this thread, on the first page, Roachboy discussed what has Israel's policy got them so far? My question is what has Palestine's policy got them so far? Surely the people of Palestine knew what Hamas stood for, I know that Hamas built schools and roads and what not for the people of Palestine, but surely they realized that if elected they would be legitimizing Hamas's effort against Israel.

The only legitimate ending for this centuries old conflict is for one side to stop throwing stones (or bombs.) One side of the fight believes, justly or not, that if they stay strong that they will be eliminated. If Hamas/Palestine/whoever would, starting tomorrow, leave Israel alone I believe everything would be over. I don't believe that would apply if the roles were reversed.

The only ending is for Hamas, and other organizations that terrorize Israel and her people, to stop. Or be forced to stop.

Just my opinion, if the 10 or so months I've been reading and not participating on these forums have taught me anything the majority will likely disagree. :)

Willravel 01-12-2009 08:28 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by raeanna74 (Post 2582813)
FINE Aggressive people who like to throw rocks at bypassers. I was only trying to get the point across that if you ALLOW something that is harmful to someone else YOU are guilty as well.
You're putting fourth this line of logic without supporting it. If all Palestinians are responsible for the actions of Hamas (except for those few that speak out against them), can't that same logic be applied to you? What are you doing to reduce violent crime in your city or town? If nothing, based on your logic, aren't you guilty of violent crime?
Quote:
Originally Posted by raeanna74 (Post 2582813)
Have you joined the Hamas??
Even if rb wasn't a member of the staff, I can't imagine this being appropriate.

TheNasty 01-12-2009 08:36 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Willravel (Post 2582814)
You're assuming a false dichotomy. It's not just either:
1) Respond with extreme force or
2) Sit there and twiddle your thumbs
There are a lot of options.
At some point it does become that dichotomy. A political solution has been tried for how long?

Peace process in the Israeli?Palestinian conflict - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Again, this isn't advocating either side, but with so many peace treaties/agreements/talks/whatever failing, it does beg the question of how long can the circular nature of this conflict continue?

We're quickly approaching the point where it is either Respond with force or twiddle your thumbs.

For a crude analogy, that isn't painting one side or the other as the victim or the bully.

A bully picks on you and you try to solve it by asking him to stop, by talking with your parents, by talking with the teacher, by talking with the principal, and by trying to avoid him. Eventually the only solution is to punch the bully in the nose.

I think we're to option (F) in the Israel/Palestinian conflict. Israel's punch is bombs and tanks. Palestine's is crude home made rockets.

Willravel 01-12-2009 09:00 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheNasty (Post 2582831)
At some point it does become that dichotomy.
Very few things in life are black and white, especially when it comes to war.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheNasty (Post 2582831)
A political solution has been tried for how long?
Okay, there's a third option. We have blow them up, do nothing, or political solution, and it's in the latter that I suspect we'll find an answer.

And I know it's not worked perfectly in the past, but you have to admit that Oslo demonstrated that it's possible. There can be a peaceful solution.

roachboy 01-13-2009 05:15 AM
thenasty---i haven't necessarily been arguing a clear and simple line in this thread in part because there isn't one, not that makes sense anyway. i don't buy your bully analogy for example--the palestinians have been under occupation since 1867, there has been a substantial official/unofficial policy of settlements---israel is a militarily by far the most powerful country in the region--on and on. within this, there has been a political dynamic in which all parties have played their part in the cycle of deterioration--but i see israeli policy choices as in some cases reacting to problems, but in many cases driving them. there's alot of information in the thread, so i'll just refer back to it from here.

i've linked the horror in gaza to a specific set of political choices made by israel and the united states in jan 06. i've linked that in turn the the logic that has been driving that deterioration, which is the same logic that informed the imposition of a seige---that a military substitute for good-faith peace negociations and ultimately an independen viable palestine makes sense, will work---it doesn't, it hasn't, it won't. i see gaza as a kind of psychotic demonstration of the impotence of the logic of force.

where does this logic of force come from? what enables it politically and ideologically? the israel right.
does this mean i think the palestinian population has been well-served politically by the organizations there? hell no.
does that mean i think there is no responsibility for, in this case, hamas?
i don't know how many times i have to say that i hold hamas in part accountable for this wreckage--but the cause of the incursion, really, is the policy choices that the israeli right made from january 06 onward.

as for the idea that the palestinians are "bullies"--consider today's casualty counts.
as of this morning, medical sources in gaza say that 935 palestinians have been killed and 4,300 injured. in the context of a siege, in the context of reduced medical supplies, erratic water and electricity.
there have been 13 israeli casualties. 10 of them are soldiers.

then there's the following:

Quote:
Demands grow for Gaza war crimes investigation

Israel is facing growing demands from senior UN officials and human rights groups for an international war crimes investigation in Gaza over allegations such as the "reckless and indiscriminate" shelling of residential areas and use of Palestinian families as human shields by soldiers.

With the death toll from the 17-day Israeli assault on Gaza climbing above 900, pressure is increasing for an independent inquiry into specific incidents, such as the shelling of a UN school turned refugee centre where about 40 people died, as well as the question of whether the military tactics used by Israel systematically breached humanitarian law.

The UN's senior human rights body approved a resolution yesterday condemning the Israeli offensive for "massive violations of human rights". A senior UN source said the body's humanitarian agencies were compiling evidence of war crimes and passing it on to the "highest levels" to be used as seen fit.

Some human rights activists allege that the Israeli leadership gave an order to keep military casualties low no matter what cost to civilians. That strategy has directly contributed to one of the bloodiest Israeli assaults on the Palestinian territories, they say.

John Ging, head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency in Gaza, said: "It's about accountability [over] the issue of the appropriateness of the force used, the proportionality of the force used and the whole issue of duty of care of civilians.

"We don't want to join any chorus of passing judgment but there should be an investigation of any and every incident where there are concerns there might have been violations in international law."

The Israeli military are accused of:

• Using powerful shells in civilian areas which the army knew would cause large numbers of innocent casualties;

• Using banned weapons such as phosphorus bombs;

• Holding Palestinian families as human shields;

• Attacking medical facilities, including the killing of 12 ambulance men in marked vehicles;

• Killing large numbers of police who had no military role.

Israeli military actions prompted an unusual public rebuke from the International Red Cross after the army moved a Palestinian family into a building and shelled it, killing 30. The surviving children clung to the bodies of their dead mothers for four days while the army blocked rescuers from reaching the wounded.

Human Rights Watch has called on the UN security council to set up a commission of inquiry into alleged war crimes.

Two leading Israeli human rights organisations have separately written to the country's attorney general demanding he investigate the allegations.

But critics remain sceptical that any such inquiry will take place, given that Israel has previously blocked similar attempts with the backing of the US.

Amnesty International says hitting residential streets with shells that send blast and shrapnel over a wide area constitutes "prima facie evidence of war crimes".

"There has been reckless and disproportionate and in some cases indiscriminate use of force," said Donatella Rovera, an Amnesty investigator in Israel. "There has been the use of weaponry that shouldn't be used in densely populated areas because it's known that it will cause civilian fatalities and casualties.

"They have extremely sophisticated missiles that can be guided to a moving car and they choose to use other weapons or decide to drop a bomb on a house knowing that there were women and children inside. These are very, very clear breaches of international law."

Israel's most prominent human rights organisation, B'Tselem, has written to the attorney general in Jerusalem, Meni Mazuz, asking him to investigate suspected crimes including how the military selects its targets and the killing of scores of policemen at a passing out parade.

"Many of the targets seem not to have been legitimate military targets as specified by international humanitarian law," said Sarit Michaeli of B'Tselem.

Rovera has also collected evidence that the Israeli army holds Palestinian families prisoner in their own homes as human shields. "It's standard practice for Israeli soldiers to go into a house, lock up the family in a room on the ground floor and use the rest of the house as a military base, as a sniper's position. That is the absolute textbook case of human shields.

"It has been practised by the Israeli army for many years and they are doing it again in Gaza now," she said.

While there are growing calls for an international investigation, the form it would take is less clear. The UN's human rights council has the authority to investigate allegations of war crimes but Israel has blocked its previous attempts to do so. The UN security council could order an investigation, and even set up a war crimes tribunal, but that is likely to be vetoed by the US and probably Britain.

The international criminal court has no jurisdiction because Israel is not a signatory. The UN security council could refer the matter to the court but is unlikely to.

Benjamin Rutland, a spokesman for the Israeli military, said an international investigation of the army's actions was not justified. "We have international lawyers at every level of the command whose job it is to authorise targeting decisions, rules of engagement ... We don't think we have breached international law in any of these instances," he said.
Israel faces calls for Gaza war crimes investigation | World news | The Guardian

are these charges true?
some are entirely consistent with information that's been coming out of gaza. some it's impossible to know about.

but the palestinians are the "bullies"?
what on earth are you talking about?

i maintain a few shreds of optimism about this situation.
i would hope that the israeli right would implode as a function of information concerning the needlessness of this entire situation, the brutality of the siege itself, the ill-advised ground incursion, the appalling consequences of launching in it in a situation where the civilian population is trapped in place.
but that may be naive.
conservatives seem to benefit from panic and to be able to conflate irrational responses to panic with forcefulness.

i would hope that this relation between israel and palestine is internationalized, and the sooner the better. this because it seem to me so long as the framework that has been in place remains in place, there will be nothing but carnage---inflicted on both sides---but disproportionate bourne by palestinians.

the american position has to change. getting rid of george w bush is a positive step, but i am not yet convinced that obama's administration will be particularly radical in their break with the nitwit policies of the past 8 years. but so far, he has said little. so we wait, like everyone else does, for the end of the bush administration and hope that no more damage comes while their ghosts trail about the house.

and to be clear, israel is a fact. it's existence is in no danger. it is given, it isn't going anywhere. it's well past time for israel to be understood as a nation-state like any other, obliged to act like a part of the international community which is bound by the same rules. on the other hand, there are fundamental, seemingly intractable problems--like the settlements in the west bank and ESPECIALLY the disproportionate ideological influence of the extreme right---that could be addressed but not in the context of the nation-state based approach that's been the only game in town so far.

internationalize the conflict.
remove the settlements. all of them.
move toward a two-state solution.

my underlying assumption is that the cycle of colonial domination and resistance to it leads to nothing but excuses for continuing the domination which leads to nothing but reasons to try to fight back against it. all sides are trapped in this, and nothing will change until the logic itself is undermined. and on this, i hope i'm right. it seems reasonable as a way of looking at post 67 reality, but no-one knows for sure whether things are in fact as simple as they seem when you project an idea forward in time.

but it seems worth a try. this sure as hell hasn't worked.

i've made this as clear as i can in this thread.

i'd prefer to think folk read the thread before they post.

even raeanna, who obviously did not.

tisonlyi 01-13-2009 07:16 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheNasty (Post 2582831)
At some point it does become that dichotomy. A political solution has been tried for how long?

Peace process in the Israeli?Palestinian conflict - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Again, this isn't advocating either side, but with so many peace treaties/agreements/talks/whatever failing, it does beg the question of how long can the circular nature of this conflict continue?

We're quickly approaching the point where it is either Respond with force or twiddle your thumbs.

For a crude analogy, that isn't painting one side or the other as the victim or the bully.

A bully picks on you and you try to solve it by asking him to stop, by talking with your parents, by talking with the teacher, by talking with the principal, and by trying to avoid him. Eventually the only solution is to punch the bully in the nose.

I think we're to option (F) in the Israel/Palestinian conflict. Israel's punch is bombs and tanks. Palestine's is crude home made rockets.
Just out of interest, should the British have carpet bombed, oh sorry, my bad... precision-stroked-that-just-happen-to-slaughter-untold-numbers-of-civilians-men/women/children-...-every-time-including-UN-schools, the Republican/Catholic areas of Northern Ireland?

I mean, they were bombing both N.I. and the mainland - with American dollars! (mostly)

powerclown 01-13-2009 09:27 AM
Most of the nations within the Middle East contain conquered people and conquerors. For an example right next door to the Palestinians, consider that the rulers and bulk of the population in Egypt are Arab conquerors who swept in from the southeast. The conquered indigenous people are the Copts, the descendants of the ancient Egyptians who built the pyramids and temples so familiar to tourists. The Copts converted to Christianity during the Roman Empire and have suffered from religious, political, and economic oppression for 1300 years, ever since the Arab conquest. Copts are periodically murdered by Arab-Muslim mobs and generally the Arabs are not prosecuted for the killings. You could read about this in U.S. Copts Association but you probably won't because the Copts are not violent.

At the Potsdam Conference the Allies granted Eastern European nations the right to expel their ethnic German citizens, i.e., people who had been living in these areas for generations but whose forebears were German and who spoke the German language. Roughly 12 million of these volksdeutsche were in fact expelled, their property confiscated, and as many as two million may have been killed in the process. The surviving volksdeutsche settled in crummy houses in Germany and Austria and integrated themselves with those societies. If there were a Volksdeutsche Liberation Army murdering Czech, Polish, and Hungarian civilians the world might pay some attention to the injustices suffered by this group.

The 870,000 Jews expelled from Arabs countries in the 1940s and 1950s similarly settled quietly in the U.S., Europe, and Israel. They aren't out there blowing up Iraqi, Moroccan, and Algerian embassies or airplanes, which is why you probably never think about them.

The list of people who were displaced by the events of World War II and decolonialization is endless. The only group that anyone pays attention to is the Palestinians. If the Palestinians were to stop blowing up airplanes and pizza shops people would stop paying attention.

Arab leaders don't care about non-violent Palestinians. If you were an Arab leader there is no reason to care about your own subjects, much less members of very distant tribes. The only Arab nation that has ever offered Palestinians citizenship is Jordan; a Palestinian family that has lived in Egypt or Saudi Arabia for several generations will still be aliens with no right to permanent residence. Thus there are more than 4 million people officially classified as Palestinian refugees despite the fact that the final British census before the 1948 war found only about 1 million people of all religions living in Palestine. The primary agency for these stateless souls is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). If you visit their Web site, UNRWA Official Homepage (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East), you'll see that the U.S. and European nations provide almost all of the funding. Historically in fact the Western nations provided 100 percent of the funding for UNRWA but in recent years Saudi Arabia has been shamed into chipping in. For 2006 the Saudis contributed $5.8 million, compared to a U.S. contribution of $120 million and Britain's $30 million. Most Arab countries contribute less than the cost of a new Mercedes automobile.

Violent Palestinians, by contrast, have no trouble getting support from fellow Arabs. In April 2002 the Saudi state television network ran a telethon that raised more than $100 million to aid the families of Palestinian suicide bombers (Associated Press, April 13, 2002). Iraq, which contributes nothing to UNRWA, had been donating roughly $10 million per year to the families of suicide bombers. Iran, another state that contributes nothing to UNRWA, sends weapons and money to anti-Israel groups such as Hezbollah and Hmas and the ex-PLO, most notably a 50-ton shipment of rockets and plastic explosives in January 2002 (notable because it was in violation of the agreements that Arafat had signed and because it was discovered and intercepted by the Israeli Navy).

The only way that a Palestinian can get his or her hands on a share of Arab oil wealth is by becoming a suicide bomber. "[Izzidene al Masri] lived with his 12 brothers and sisters and his parents in a neat, tile-floored house" (Knight Ridder, April 1, 2002, on the Sbarro pizza shop bomber). If you lived in poverty it might make sense to trade your life for the knowledge that Saudi Arabians would support your parents, grandparents, and 11 siblings in comfort for the rest of their lives.

This kind of poverty is likely to endure because Palestinians combine a low level of education and a high level of illiteracy (30 percent) with perhaps the highest birthrate of any world population, estimated for 2007 at 5 percent per annum by passia.org. This means that Palestinians need to generate economic growth of 5 percent per year, and preserve that growth from kleptocratic politicians, merely to maintain their standard of living. For comparison, the most rapidly growing population with which most Americans are familiar is Mexico; its population is growing at an annual rate of 1.47 percent (CIA Factbook 2007). In the 1990s, according to the World Bank, the average country enjoyed a 2.5 percent annual growth rate. Even if they succeeded in liberating all of Palestine, the Palestinians would have a difficult time growing at any rate close to 5 percent per year. They'd have one of the most densely populated countries in the world, one of the poorest in natural resources, especially water, and a complete lack of industry.

It may be a mistake to look too deep into Palestinian poverty for the roots of Palestinian violence. For most violent Palestinians we need not conjecture as to the motivation for their violence because they've explained it in their own words.

Here is an except from The Palestinian National Charter, July 1-17, 1968:

Quote:
Palestine is the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people; it is an indivisible part of the Arab homeland, and the Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation.

Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit. [Note that this would include the present-day country of Jordan, 70 percent of the land of the original British Palestine, split off and handed to Emir Abdullah in 1923.]

Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine.

Commando action constitutes the nucleus of the Palestinian popular liberation war.

The partition of Palestine in 1947 and the establishment of the state of Israel are entirely illegal, regardless of the passage of time, because they were contrary to the will of the Palestinian people and to their natural right in their homeland, and inconsistent with the principles embodied in the Charter of the United Nations; particularly the right to self-determination.

Source: The Avalon Project : Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy
Hamas has a Web site where they explain their goals:

Quote:
Hamas is a Jihadi (fighting for a holy purpose) movement in the broad sense of the word Jihad. It is part of the Islamic awakening movement and upholds that this awakening is the road which will lead to the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea.

... [settlement with the State of Israel] should not be allowed to happen because the land of Palestine is a blessed Islamic land that has been usurped by the Zionists; and Jihad has become a duty for Muslims to restore it and expel their occupiers out of their land.
Hezbollah also has a Web site (www.hizbollah.org) where they explain their objectives:

Quote:
Because Hezbollah's ideological ideals sees no legitimacy for the existence of "Israel" a matter that elevates the contradictions to the level of existence. And the conflict becomes one of legitimacy that is based on religious ideals. ... And that is why we also find the slogan of the liberation of Jerusalem rooted deeply in the ideals of Hezbollah. Another of its ideals is the establishment of an Islamic Government.

Hezbollah also used one of its own special types of resistance against the Zionist enemy that is the suicide attacks. These attacks dealt great losses to the enemy on all thinkable levels such as militarily and mentally. The attacks also raised the moral across the whole Islamic nation.

Hezbollah also sees itself committed in introducing the true picture of Islam, the Islam that is logical. Committed to introduce the civilized Islam to humanity.
Note that if we take seriously the words of the Palestinian fighters we can ignore 99 percent of the journalism and punditry to which we are exposed. The guys with the guns have explained very clearly why they are fighting and under what conditions they will lay down their arms. Their reasons for fighting and their conditions for peace have nothing to do with day-to-day events.

hiredgun 01-13-2009 09:52 AM
Jeremy Bowen from his journal in the BBC today:

Quote:
I have never liked comparisons between Northern Ireland and the conflict here. Apart from the fact that they are not always helpful, writing and broadcasting about the Middle East is a good enough way to make enemies. I don't need another set.

But think about this. For many years Britain faced an insurgency and at times a low-level civil war in Northern Ireland. Those sorts of terms weren't used all that much but that's what it was.

At different times the IRA planted bombs on the British mainland that killed people and did a lot of damage. The actions of the British security forces during three decades of the Troubles were very controversial, and still are today. Sometimes the British army killed innocent people.

But Britain never used heavy weapons, fast jets, air strikes and attack helicopters. Tracked armoured vehicles were very rarely seen.

And it has emerged that there were many secret contacts over the years with the paramilitaries. In the end, there were years of negotiations. Prisoners who were serving long sentences were released as part of the price of peace, even, in the phrase used in this part of the world, if they had "blood on their hands".

There is no doubt about the extreme suffering that Israel is inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza to protect, in its view, its own citizens. It is deepening the hatred for Israel that many people in Gaza felt anyway.

Israel has used what Prime Minister Ehud Olmert calls the iron fist many times before. And its citizens still feel insecure.

Will they feel any different when this latest episode is over?
I think that what he begins to say at the end is key (or a key, at any rate): What is the point of Israel, as a project and a society, if it never is allowed to become a normal state? If its citizens continue to live in dread and know only war? Some have a messianic belief that it has always, and will always be this way for 'The Jews' as a historic people. I don't share that belief, and it is not borne out by the history of the region, in which major strife between Jewish and non-Jewish populations is a twentieth century phenomenon. And if we then properly treat this as a political issue - not a messianic one - it's clear that this war isn't taking us anywhere good, isn't bringing us closer to peace. The only possible way that the present Gaza war might lead us to long-term peace is if Israelis really and truly believe they can break the Palestinians as a people, to completely and totally destroy their national will, to disperse them beyond repair. To do that would be abhorrent, I think, to Israelis' sense of their own morality (to say nothing of the world). To pursue this war and do any less than that, however, will simply deepen wounds, entrench hard-liners, and inflict an appalling human cost. Where is the endgame, here? Even in a best-case scenario for Israel, if Hamas utterly collapses, do they believe that whatever power structure takes its place will make lesser demands on the Israeli military/security apparatus, or make lesser demands for a contiguous and viable state? Do they believe they can empower Fatah by doing this, or are they tying its hands?

TheNasty 01-13-2009 09:58 AM
Powerclown summarized the situation better than I could have ever hoped to.

Very nice job.

Every day Joe Palestinian is stuck between a rock and a hard place, any decent person would feel for them.

That being said, this problem won't ever be solved if the answer is Political. Hamas/Hezbollah/militant arabs aren't seeking a political answer.

tisonlyi 01-13-2009 10:05 AM
The IRA clearly stated they would not lay down their arms until the island of Ireland was one nation. What people say and write down to convince other people that they're really, really committed isn't necessarily what they'll agree to in genuine efforts at negotiation.

With the notable exception of the Copts, whose plight I know nothing about, the others were not and are not the subjects of 40 years up to the present day of ongoing oppression, humiliation, torture, siege (which i'm pretty sure counts as collective punishment...), assassinations(some carried out in person by the current defence minister, that lefty labor peacenik man), killings (ditto) and massacres (take your pick of all the Zionist revisionists on the Israeli political scene) at the hands of an organised, modern state funded by the hegemonic superpower of the world.

History is bloody, everyone knows it. History is not an excuse for the knowing slaughter of innocents NOW, and it really doesn't matter that they're 'not deliberately targeted' which is as disingenuous a phrase as you'll find (and very much reminds me of Catch 22, with others telling Yossarian to calm down, because they're not really trying to kill him, they're trying to kill everyone!).

Hopefully, after another couple of weeks of this mindless barbarity, the Israeli people themselves might cry out for a halt to the insanity... It's a long shot, but stranger things have happened. Eventually people will start finding videos on the net... Maybe there's a possibility of some sort of sane political party emerging in Israel.

I think it was Machiavelli who said that you either treat an opponent well, or wipe them out completely. People have the strange habit of seeking revenge for past, non-genocidal crimes against them.

TheNasty 01-13-2009 10:11 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by tisonlyi (Post 2582975)
The IRA clearly stated they would not lay down their arms until the island of Ireland was one nation. What people say and write down to convince other people that they're really, really committed isn't necessarily what they'll agree to in genuine efforts at negotiation.
So they really wanted peace, they just talked a big game and carried out bombings to keep up their street cred?


Quote:
Hopefully, after another couple of weeks of this mindless barbarity, the Israeli people themselves might cry out for a halt to the insanity... It's a long shot, but stranger things have happened. Eventually people will start finding videos on the net... Maybe there's a possibility of some sort of sane political party emerging in Israel.
What would that sane political party look like? One that ignores attacks from Palestine for as long as it takes? Or do you think Hamas just talks a big game and would stop attacking Israel tomorrow if they would remove blockades and wholesale leave the Palestinian territory, including Israeli civilians/citizens?

tisonlyi 01-13-2009 10:15 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheNasty (Post 2582970)
Powerclown summarized the situation better than I could have ever hoped to.

Very nice job.

Every day Joe Palestinian is stuck between a rock and a hard place, any decent person would feel for them.

That being said, this problem won't ever be solved if the answer is Political. Hamas/Hezbollah/militant arabs aren't seeking a political answer.
If the Israelis went over all the heads of those seeking to destroy them, and laid out a solution that went back to the 67 borders, with rights of return and a modicum of reparation, directly offering a referendum on that to the Palestinian people... then i think you'd find this problem could and would be solved. Imperfectly, with a lot of setbacks, but it would be solved.

And if the answer isn't political, then it's time to stop pussy-footing around and get busy with the extermination camps, forced evacuations and ethnic cleansing in an honest fashion.

Willravel 01-13-2009 10:22 AM
No one is saying to ignore attacks. What I think most are saying, though, is that this asymmetrical military response that Israel adores so much is clearly causing more problems than it's solving. Israel is killing a lot of innocent people along with the few guilty ones, and that's fuel on the fire of hatred towards Israel. And this isn't some kind of secret, a child could figure this out. If Israel wanted peace, they wouldn't be trying to exterminate the Palestinians, which leads us to...
Quote:
Originally Posted by tisonlyi (Post 2582980)
And if the answer isn't political, then it's time to stop pussy-footing around and get busy with the extermination camps, forced evacuations and ethnic cleansing in an honest fashion.
Oh. Snap.

tisonlyi 01-13-2009 10:24 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheNasty (Post 2582976)
So they really wanted peace, they just talked a big game and carried out bombings to keep up their street cred?
The island of Ireland is not one nation. The IRA have and are laying down their arms. The armed conflict is over. Your mini-narrative is ridiculous.

Quote:
Originally Posted by TheNasty (Post 2582976)
What would that sane political party look like? One that ignores attacks from Palestine for as long as it takes? Or do you think Hamas just talks a big game and would stop attacking Israel tomorrow if they would remove blockades and wholesale leave the Palestinian territory, including Israeli civilians/citizens?
Color-and-shade-blindness much?

There aren't just 2 options. Either you set out on a policy of massacre or you ignore the rockets fired at you... Can't you think of any other potential lines of progress from here?

The big stick doesn't work... the more Israel uses the iron fist, the more money will flow to the extremists, which they won't be using for flower arranging classes and pilates sessions.

TheNasty 01-13-2009 10:26 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by tisonlyi (Post 2582980)
If the Israelis went over all the heads of those seeking to destroy them, and laid out a solution that went back to the 67 borders, with rights of return and a modicum of reparation, directly offering a referendum on that to the Palestinian people... then i think you'd find this problem could and would be solved. Imperfectly, with a lot of setbacks, but it would be solved.
What sort of setbacks? Suicide Bombings? More Rocket Attacks? Israel should just ignore those setbacks in the name of peace, right?

Quote:
And if the answer isn't political, then it's time to stop pussy-footing around and get busy with the extermination camps, forced evacuations and ethnic cleansing in an honest fashion.
What, they aren't doing this already? :rolleyes:

Israel doesn't want that, and they've shown they haven't wanted that continually through their actions.

Willravel 01-13-2009 10:34 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheNasty (Post 2582986)
Israel doesn't want that, and they've shown they haven't wanted that continually through their actions.
When have they shown restraint?

roachboy 01-13-2009 10:34 AM
powerclown's narrative manages somehow to erase the fact of occupation. so the claims concerning poverty and their correlate in some strange essentialist distinction between the violent and non-violent end up being cast as eternal conditions.

if one integrates empirical and/or historical reality into this circular, self-justifying narrative, the sole function of which is to justify anything and everything the israeli right does--you'd end up in a position quite far from where powerclown himself does.

if you're going to tell "historical" narratives, there are rules. including factors that have for over 40 years now fundamentally conditioned the cycle within which the factoids you adduce have happened is a rule. if you don't do it, you're making fables and that's all you're doing.

similarly, it is self-evident that what an organization's official line is and what it's unofficial lines might be in negociation can be entirely different, and that it is somewhere between amateruish and disengenuous to pretend the contrary,

the sole reason for including the bit about saudi money going to unrwa is to delegitimate information coming from that organization about what israel is doing on the ground. i call bullshit on the move.

there's 40 years of debacle to show that the dominant approaches to this situation have produced nothing but suffering on both sides, violence on both sides. the logic itself is the problem---the logic that has shaped these approaches.

i see nothing but repetitions of that same logic from the folk who support anything and everything the israeli right puts into motion, who can excuse what's happening in gaza because they prefer to look at some pseudo-historical story that departs from and leads back to "kill em all and let god sort em out"

971 dead.
4,418 injured.

every once in a while through the fog of disinformation, these numbers are broken down into plausible fighter vs children, women, and (only sometimes) the elderly.

tisonlyi 01-13-2009 10:36 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheNasty (Post 2582986)
What sort of setbacks? Suicide Bombings? More Rocket Attacks? Israel should just ignore those setbacks in the name of peace, right?
Yes. It happened in Northern Ireland. More than a few times. People were still being kneecapped and such in many areas long into the times of the stormont assemblies, etc... The end to a protracted, low intensity war is not only with a few scratchings at a piece of paper.

Time. Patience. Tolerance.

Quote:
Originally Posted by TheNasty (Post 2582986)
What, they aren't doing this already? :rolleyes:

Israel doesn't want that, and they've shown they haven't wanted that continually through their actions.
You do know that Israel is massacring civilians on a daily basis at the moment, right? Flick on the TV, it's all over the news! Really!

TheNasty 01-13-2009 10:37 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by tisonlyi (Post 2582985)
The island of Ireland is not one nation. The IRA have and are laying down their arms. The armed conflict is over. Your mini-narrative is ridiculous.
Much like your assertion that if only Israel *really* wanted peace than Hamas would stop attacking them.



Quote:
Color-and-shade-blindness much?

There aren't just 2 options. Either you set out on a policy of massacre or you ignore the rockets fired at you... Can't you think of any other potential lines of progress from here?
Policy of Massacre!!!


This goes back to my original statement of, with around 700 casualties so far in this conflict there has to be some semblance of caution being used in this fight. I lean toward Israel is actually trying to remove Hamas' ability to attack them.

I understand that when you read that you roll your eyes.


Quote:
The big stick doesn't work... the more Israel uses the iron fist, the more money will flow to the extremists, which they won't be using for flower arranging classes and pilates sessions.
What other option does Israel have? You'll reply with "agree to peace, move out of settlement, etc etc etc", what happens when Israel does all that and Hamas still attacks?
-----Added 13/1/2009 at 01 : 38 : 13-----
Quote:
Originally Posted by tisonlyi (Post 2582992)

You do know that Israel is massacring civilians on a daily basis at the moment, right? Flick on the TV, it's all over the news! Really!
No, I had no idea of what's currently going on, Thanks for pointing that out Tis!!

.....

I don't paint situations with words as dramatic as possible to imply one side as bad and the other as victims.


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