Senate Israel/Palestine

LostonHoth

You seem to have a somewhat favorable view of Hamas. I personally think they're a group of thugs. Consider the fact that they were founded by the Muslim Brotherhood which is a radical Islamic group. Also consider that they spread anti-semitic propaganda and insist that the potocols of the Elder of Zion as factual.

Also keep in mind that as a radical islamic group they oppress women, a good example is when they murdered a female for being unchaperoned in her fiancee's car.

So far from being the "Braveheart" of Palestine, as you so eloquently put it, they're more like a group extremists with a political agenda, not just to free Palestine but also to take control as a political party and gain power.

 

The Palestinian people are comprised of both Muslims and Christians and I can tell you from personal experience that not all religious people are fundemantalists. Not all of them allow their religion to define their every action and thought. Being a Muslim is like being male or female. It's something you are born with. However, there are varying degrees of adherence and care factor. I know you are influenced by people like Sam Harris. I've read one of his books. He is a very good writer and I agree with most of his conclusions but much of what he writes is commentary it is not research based.

The Palestinian people have had any number of 'rulers' over the course of their history. However, whenever there was a change of ownership, say from Ottoman rule to British mandate, there was little practical effect. The predominantly agricultural population still went about their daily lives in the same way as they had for hundreds of years. However, with the creation of the state of Israel, this fundamentally changed because Israel is at its core a 'Jewish' state and its core basis is the belief that for a Jewish state to be viable it has to be populated with Jews. Thus, the Palestinians must leave and stay absent. Every aspect of Israeli society is designed to provide the maximum incentive for the Palestinians to leave, to go to Jordan, Syria, Egypt wherever. Whilst there are groups within Israel who push for peace it is not and never has been official Israeli policy, or at least, not a 'just' peace. Rabin tried to facilitate a 'just' peace and he was murdered for his trouble. Murdered by a Jewish extremist. I'm happy to talk about the so called 'peace process' if you wish but that might require another thread.

 

Two years ago, in Lebanon, they bombed a thousand civilians to death and destroyed the Lebanese economy for no good reason. That's not pushing for peace.

The Israeli government has a bad habit of lashing out, getting people killed, pissing off the international community, and then running and hiding behind the U.S., playing the righteous little victim. Think of the Middle East as a classroom, and the Israeli government as the obnoxious teacher's pet. And we're the teacher, who constantly shields the teacher's pet from everything, no matter what he does.

In church, in politics, and to a large extent in school, we're taught here that Israel is the good guy, defending itself from bullies. But the fact is that Israel is just as much a bully as any other country in the region, sometimes ? like in Lebanon ? more so. It's not the good guy. There are no good guys in that conflict. Frankly, especially since none of the other countries in the region are a military threat to Israel (remember that time everybody else went to war with them at once, and lost in six days?), I think we ought to take a step back and let them sort it out themselves.

 

First of all, it's not Jews and Muslims. It's the governments and the people who support them. Not all Jews or all Israelis or all Muslims or all Christains or all Palestinians want anything.

Second, atrocities have been committed on both sides. Someone above me said that there are no good guys. I'd take that and say that there are good guys on both sides but that neither side is good. Rabin vs. Begin and Sharon. Sadat vs. Arafat.

Third, the situation is not going to improve any time soon, I fear. I don't know much about Livni, but she couldn't form a big enough coalition in the Knesset, even with Barak agreeing to unite with her, and Sharon's successor is still in power until the election. He's Sharon's protege, and Sharon is a former general and a man who always met violence with more violence and gave up on peace talks and deals too soon. Last I heard, the predicted winner of the election is the Likud party. Those people are conservatives, they'll likely get the the fundamentalist Jewish groups to form a coalition, and they are the party of Begin and the former party of Sharon. Netanyahu would become the prime minister and the Israeli government wouldn't change its stance on how to deal with the Palestinians.

Fourth, violence has gotten us nothing. Peace hasn't done a lot either (I say again, Sadat and Rabin, murdered by their own people). But Israel, if only because it is an established country, deserves its existance. An independent state of Palestine also deserves to exist, uncontrolled by anyone but the Palestinians. And the attacks from both sides need to stop.

 

To my uneducated point of view, it really seems a case of two immovable objects dealing with two unstoppable forces, although I do think medieval Christian Europe is the ultimate cause of the conflict. I say that because Christian Europe twice adversely affected the Palestinian region and done it irreparable damage, as follows:

In the 1090s or so, Alexius I, the Emperor of the Byzantine Empire (the remains of the Eastern Roman Empire) was having trouble with (IIRC) Arab military raids on the eastern borders of his empire, centred around southeastern Turkey and Palestine. He wrote a letter to the Catholic Pope, Urban II, requesting a small amount of military assistance, assuming the Pope had a similar small, professional, paid army at his disposal as Alexius did.

Urban, though, seized on the opportunity to expand the authority of the Papacy in medieval Europe and basically made a declaration at Clermont in 1098 that those who went on crusade to the Holy Land to free Jerusalem from the Muslims would receive his reward in heaven.
(Sound familiar, incidentally?)

What happened in the wake of that announcement was no less than a mass migration: tens of thousands of Christian military men, nobles, and commoners went in vast pilgrimages from various points in Europe through Turkey, smashing its way through Palestine and taking Jerusalem in 1099. (I might point out that the Teutonic (i.e. German/Northern) crusaders, in a chilling fit of apparent piety, slaughtered whole villages full of Jews on the way to the Holy Land.)

The stupidest part of it was that up to that point Jerusalem was more or less a harmonious environment for Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Apparently the Muslims did impose some fees for Christians to visit certain holy places in Jerusalem shortly before the Crusades began, but by and large folks more or less got along in their own separate quarters of the city.

It was this crusade that set off a good two hundred years of warfare in Palestine, and by its end, the Muslim nations of that area had evolved from semi-peaceful, moderate civilisations into exactly the warrior, jihading stereotypes that Urban had alleged they were to begin with. The anti-Western sentiment in the Holy Land is ultimately an echo of this period, and it continues even today; Robert Hollister, a medieval historian who visited Istanbul only ten years ago, tells an anecdote where his tour guide still spoke of "those damned Crusaders" in reference to the sacking of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade.

The other thing Christian Europe did, which led to the current problem in Palestine, was to persecute Jews for several hundred years right up until the twentieth century. This was a holdover from the old Christian stupidity from the Bible that the Jews had apparently deserved condemnation because they killed Christ: "Let his blood be upon us and upon our children", etc. etc. Jews generally were restricted in the things they were allowed to do in Christian settlements, and eventually turned to moneylending. Shakespeare himself played into this anti-Jewish sentiment when he wrote "The Merchant of Venice" -- the antagonist was a Jewish merchant upon whom Shakespeare poured about as much evil and villainy as he'd done Macbeth (another similarly-maligned historical figure courtesy of the Bard.) This is not saying Shakespeare was anti-Semitic ... only that he knew his audiences and he knew his time.

The Jews' moneylending activities led to great resentment from the commoners in Europe; indeed countries like Poland and Germany persecuted and discriminated against the Jews on a pseudo-religious basis for centuries. And Adolf Hitler tapped into this resentment as part of his rise to power. The West also likes to avoid talking about exactly how widespread anti-Jewish sentiment was before World War II broke out; look for details on the voyage of the SS St. Louis in the 1930s. Hitler sent a boatload of Jews off from Germany, predicting that nobody in the world would take them, and he was right:

 

The point I'm trying to make is that by using violence at all, the Palestinians are just setting themselves up for massive fail. When you commit violence against a nation, that nation is more or less free to respond in whichever way it deems fit. For the Israelis, that's massive retaliation.

All the Palestinians are doing are allowing the Israelis to blow the living crap out of them and basically be able to get away with it, because they're protecting their citizens from people trying to kill them. Other nations accept that, however grudgingly.

If the Palestinians started staging sit-ins and peaceful protests, then Israel wouldn't have a legitimate excuse to use violence against them. And if they did use violence to break up a peaceful rally, then not even their trick of getting behind the US would work, because they'd be moving themselves from a morally grey area-"yes, we're killing civilians, but solely because they're killing ours"-to one whose company is the Third Reich and the USSR in Hungary.

The Palestinians may have a right to use violence to express their righteous indignation. Whether or not it'll actually get them anywhere besides mini-states that Israel could gobble back up in the blink of an eye-No.

 

I understand what you're saying but the reality is that the firing of rockets and suicide bombings seem to make the news, all other forms of peaceful protest are ignored. The Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem has documented Israeli violence and aggression towards any form of protest whether it is peaceful or otherwise:

http://www.btselem.org/English/Beating_and_Abuse/Index.asp

http://www.btselem.org/english/publications/Index.asp?TF=14

http://www.btselem.org/english/statistics/Casualties.asp

http://www.btselem.org/english/statistics/Minors_in_Custody.asp

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have also documented examples of Israeli defence forces firing rubber bullets, live ammunition and tear gas to disperse protesters, including children. In the West Bank and Gaza it is illegal to raise a Palestinian flag and make V sign. I'll post the specific reports when I can.

I believe that Hamas militants want epic fail. They want Israel to adopt its usual policy of collective punishment because the more dead Pelstinian children there are the more sympathetic coverage they get. It's sad and pathetic but that is what it has come down to. That is what 40 years of oppressive military occupation does to people.

 

Hmm.

I may have to lower my belief in the basic goodness of people if there's that much documented abuse towards peaceful protestors in Israel and nobody honestly cares.

 

Well both sides are screwed up and wrong. People who think one side or the other is right are wrong.

As far as this particular conflict goes, I don't buy this argument that the Palestinians deserve sympathy because Israel is using all available means and they don't have any means. In other words, I don't see Israel actions as violating the principles of jus in bello. They should have thought of that before they started throwing rocks at the guys with the big guns. Of course they have reasons to resist, but weak minorities can't fight back and then complain about the consequences of fighting a much larger power. Of course Israel needs to control itself and I don't know if the ground invasion was the best move at this point. But really both parties are like two kids in the back of the van beating the crap out of each other. They know at some point the car is going to pull over and they will be forced to stop, so the more damage you can do, the better. And expecting them to resolve it themselves is just silly.

Oh and don't forget that Egypt shares a border, and the Muslim world for all its outrage has never bothered to end the suffering themselves by allowing the displaced into their countries.

But the other thing to remember is that this conflict isn't due to the political leaders, each side has had democratic elections and both have chosen this path to violence.

 

Unfortunately, yes. Both sides have, IMO, violated basic human rights and committed atrocities. It's situations like these when I wish the UN was powerfu enough to say "**** this ****" and step in and end it.

 

60 even. Or aren't we counting refugees?

One side has a country and an army, the other doesn't.
One side can elect any war criminal as their leader, the other can't.
One side is being allowed to build a wall, the other side can't have a road.
One side has no houses torn down, the other side eiighteen thousand.
One side can move around the whole world, the other side can't leave their country or visit their family.
One side has had 123 children killed since 2000, the other side 1050.
One side has been targeted by 65 UN resolutions, the other side none.
One side has a thousand political prisoners, the other side one.
One side is backed by a world power, the other side isn't.

So I think you should reconsider that statement.

 

Emotional hyperbole is not an argument.

One side has a country and an army, the other doesn't

They do have terrorists and rockets directly targeting civilians. The fact they aren't very good at it doesn't come into a type of moral argument against them.

One side can elect any war criminal as their leader, the other can't.

Terrorists are war criminals, and they did elect the party who promotes terrorists.

One side is being allowed to build a wall, the other side can't have a road.

They didn't build the wall until the people started blowing themselves up.

One side has no houses torn down, the other side eiighteen thousand.

Not sure how having rockets shot at your house is much better than it being torn down. Either way you can't live in it.

One side can move around the whole world, the other side can't leave their country or visit their family.

That isn't something Israel has done, it is something the world has done. The Arabs are just as much at fault as anybody.

One side has had 123 children killed since 2000, the other side 1050.

The side that had so many children killed was due in part because they were being used as human shields by that same side. Both have killed children, one is too many.

One side has been targeted by 65 UN resolutions, the other side none

One is a country that can be targeted, the other isn't. Last time I checked, terrorism wasn't accepted by the UN as a valid form of warfare.

One side has a thousand political prisoners, the other side one.

One side doesn't take political prisioners, they kill them.

One side is backed by a world power, the other side isn't.

What does that have to do with who is morally right?

Don't take this as a proclamation that Israel is morally superior. At best they are only marginally so, but my point was that neither side is right, and nothing you have said is an argument that doesn't have a counterpoint.

 

I agree with DarthBoba, I feel like the Palestinians' can't just try and use violence, but then again, I agree with the idea that in America and in India, while non-violent protest was glorified and ultimately won out, there was plenty of violent rebellion. And let's not forget how the United States won its independance in the first place.

People talk about a two state solution. What would the borders be? What about Jeruselum?

Espy, you have to admit that this conflict is in no way a fair fight. I want to try avoiding terms like "who is right and who is morally justified" etc. On the other hand, we should try and be critical of both sides. Espy, we all tend to agree that violence should be avoided. Hamas should not be throwing rockets into Israel's backyard, they are just asking for trouble.

But is their anything Israel can do (other than raining down fire on innocent civilians) to improve the situation of the Palastinian people? Are there any civil or human rights concerns you have regarding how Israel runs the region?

 

I guess what I am saying is that I don't care it is not a fair fight. It not being a fair fight doesn't mean we should excuse Hamas. My original point was that there isn't a "morally justified" or "right" side. I would agree there are other things they can and should do besides the current military action, and should consider that doing nice things for people like letting them eat would stop some from trying to kill them. But the current situation does make an interesting case for genocide. If they keep this up for a couple more thousand years, it would have saved more lives in the end just to eliminate one side. Coin toss to determine the loser.

 

Given that Hamas seeks Israel's elimination, what else can Israel do?

You cannot really negotiate with people who intend to commit genocide. Well, put it this way, Israel right now is carrying out the only possible negotiations.

 

Hamas is the creation of Israeli policy in Gaza. Hamas is the inevitable result of Israel imposing a brutal military occupation upon 1.3 million people living in squalid conditions. If there was no brutal military occupation then there would be no Hamas. You will note that where the Israeli military occupation is less oppressive and less brutal (such as parts of the West Bank), more moderate Palestinian leadership prevails. It's a simple fact of life that if you systemically abuse and brutalize a person for long enough then that person will react in the same manner.

If any of us were subjected to the same conditions of abuse, I guarantee we would all react in the same way.

Israel has created such conditions of hate and desperation that any Palestinian leadership in Gaza that doesn't call for the destruction of Israel would most likely be lynched.

 

Espy, I'm just going to ignore your ridiculous genocide comment and pretend you never said it. The fact that it isn't a fair fight doesn't mean we should excuse Hamas, fine, but what about excusing Israel? Do you think its a proportional and justified response? What if America, after 9-11, decide simply to nuke the entire middle east? Now clearly, I am not saying this is the same as that, I am just trying to illustrate the idea that even a provked attack can lead to overreaction. Do you have any feeling that Israel overreacted, or perhaps is using the attack for political purposes?

JediSmuggler, I disagree. Just because a political party has taken a hardline stance does not mean your only recourse is shut off their people's electricity, deny them aid, bomb their church's and schools, and kill their citizens. Is such suffering really necessary to ensure the survival of Israel? Maybe it is, I hope it isn't.

Furthermore, the Soviet Union sought the elimination of the United States and pretty much all other countries, but we were able to negotiate peace with them in the end weren't we? I mean, Hamas is an organization that is unfortunatley taking a hard-line anti-Israeli stance, but does that mean we give up all hope? Heck, even Darth Vader came back from the dark side. I believe people can be changed, and that we should always be working towards that goal of peace.

 

The genocide comment wasn't serious, I was just pointing out how things are so bad, even the worst option isn't much worse than a continuation of the current situation.

It is possible for Israel to overreact, and they did so during the conflict two years ago. Right now we don't have much information, and using a lot of force isn't the same thing as an overreaction. From the numbers I have seen, it seems most of those killed so far were affiliated with Hamas, and considering that Hamas hides in heavily populated areas, civilian casualties are expected by both sides. I don't think it is fair to expect Israel to not kill any women or children.

I do think Israel should give more humanitarian aid to the people, and we should put more pressure on them to change. But we can't allow Hamas to win because they hate us to. Israel is still our dog in this fight. Yes they fight dirty and it is our interest they don't get us pulled into fights we don't want to be int, but they also can be used against our enemies without us having to get our hands dirty.

 

Wow, Smuggler and I are on the same side.

It is a very complicated issue, but rather than dissect who is to blame or who "started it", I would like to make some general points:


1) The concept of proportionality-Israel gets blasted for being "excessive", yet the world media tends not to point out the fact that they actually have one of the most humanitarian militaries on the planet. For example, they warn civilians in areas they are going to target, both by leaflets and text messages in arabic. Name me any other army that does that. Secondly, there is this "idea" that the fact Israel has better weapons and a superior military means that any response against terrorism is an "overreaction". Does this mean that if Israel fired Qassam rockets back into Gaza then it would be "ok"?

I've always wondered about that. The fact that the Israelis have better aim doesn't make their response "disproportionate".

2) Terrorism vs. legitimate war-whatever the situation in the past, Hamas is now the democratically-elected government of the Gaza territories. As such, when they started firing rockets into Israel after the truce expired, they committed an open act of war. When the government of one state attacks another state, they are in fact declaring war. The reality, that they attacked a superior, better trained, better equipped fighting force, doesn't in any way, shape or form diminish their own culpability.

We as a planet need to remember this. Israel, as a member state of the U.N., which the U.N. agreed to create back in 1948, has been condemned for exercising it's right to defend itself more than any other nation on the planet since its' inception. Have we ever stopped to ask ourselves why? What is the "undercurrent" that makes criticizing Israel so very easy, and so very satisfying? Is it anti-semitism, oil, fear of antagonizing a billion Muslims, or something more?

3) Hamas's role in the conflict-in 2005, Israel withdrew from Gaza, and foreign investment poured in. Hopes were high for a rising standard of living, education, infrastructure, growth. Instead, weapons were bought, military centers set up, rocket sites constructed-almost all in civilian areas. The needs of the palestinian people were ignored over what was perceived as weakness, and preparations were made for the war that is now occuring. Israel's actions in Lebanon made the situation worse, as it's mismanagement led to Israel looking weak and indecisive.

Yet we never hear of Hamas's use of the palestinian people as human shields. The arab world takes to the street to scream at the Jews, yet they never send aid to the Palestinians, only weapons. We've all heard the old argument "what would the US do if Mexico fired rockets into San Diego, etc", but no-one ever seems to ask the question why is it ok for Hamas to set up launch sites in people's homes, at schools; why is it ok for them to target civilians directly, as noncombatants?

Perhaps we need to ask these questions.

4) Iran-I will make this one brief. Iran has been fighting a proxy war with Israel for decades through Hezbollah and Hamas. If this continues, Israel may decide to make it open war with Iran, not a pleasant prospect. I have to wonder though, if the Iranian leadership really wants to keep selling weapons to Hamas and Hezbollah if the price is potentially a real conflict with Israel. Only time will tell on this one.

Finally:

5) Everyone's goals-Israel probably wants to stop living in a marshal society, which is going to be tough given that they are surrounded by enemies. However, Hamas's goals, which are the destruction of Israel and the death of every last jew, are written into its' charter. Sound biased? It is. My take on this situation is that by consistently provoking an Israeli response, one which kills civilians in large numbers, despite Israel's attempts to avoid this situation, Hamas is hoping to shift world opinion, specifically in the West, to a stance that puts the dissolution of Israel back on the ne

 

For example, they warn civilians in areas they are going to target, both by leaflets and text messages in arabic. Name me any other army that does that.

The US military does. There's actually an entire branch devoted to it-Civil Affairs/Psychological Operations. It's where information intersects with warfare. There's the humanitarian aspect-the civilian population is warned ahead of time, and there's the demoralizing effect on the enemy.

In fact, back during Desert Storm, when precision guided munitions were coming into their own, many of the Iraqi soldiers who surrendered en-masse indicated that the warning leaflets had the same effect as the bombs themselves. It ended up saving their lives because they didn't end up actually being bombed.

 

It would have caused less civilian casualties.

Umm, Israel had the Gaza territories under a blockade, which is an act of war

Are there any non-civilian areas in Gaza?

Do you ever wonder why Mexicans don't fire rockets at San Diego?

And as far as Arab and Iranian aid to Hamas, what about U.S. military aid to Israel, which we see is going to be $3,000,000,000+ per year over the next decade. Those bombs being dropped in Gaza were made in America.

 

Since the blockade and the ability of Palestinians to move freely have both come up, is there a reason why the Egyptian-Gaza border isn't an option?

 

Egypt has, for all intents and purposes, closed the border.

http://www.latimes.com/features/health/medicine/la-fg-border5-2009jan05,0,142707.story

 

Nearly every international human rights organization, including Israeli human rights organizations, disagree with your assessment that the IDF is the most 'humanitarian' military on the planet. Before you post on the human rights record of the IDF I encourage you to read the following reports:

Human Rights Watch "Investigation into Unlawful Use of Force in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Northern Israel"(2000)

http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2000/10/01/investigation-unlawful-use-force-west-bank-gaza-strip-and-northern-israel-october

Amnesty International "Excessive Use of Lethal Force" (2000)

http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/MDE15/041/2000

B'Tselem "Trigger Happy: Unjustified Shooting and Violation of the Open-Fire Regulations during the al-Aqsa Intifida"(2002)

Amnesty International "Killing the Future: Children in the Line of Fire"(2002)

http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/MDE02/005/2002

Amnesty International in November 2002 ?Israel and the Occupied Territories: Shielded from scrutiny: IDF violations in Jenin and Nablus (AI Index: MDE 15/143)

http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/f45643a78fcba719852560f6005987ad/3ba59a4aea94ec5085256c680057ee04!OpenDocument

You should also read the testimonies of a large group of ex Israeli soldiers who have documented IDF atrocities under the name of "Breaking the Silence".

http://www.shovrimshtika.org/testimonies_group_e.asp