Senate Israel/Palestine

Guys can you watch this video and tell me what's accurate and what is made up? I'm pretty clueless about the specific history mentioned but I'm pretty sure it's bull **** because the dude I know who posted it is an idiot. Thoughts?

http://www.israelvideonetwork.com/the-most-important-video-about-israel-ever-made




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He's right that Israel recognizes the right of Palestinians to have their own state. He conveniently omits the fact that the current government of Israel (and other recent governments) include their illegal settlements in the West Bank as part of the state of Israel.

Also, lol, the video shows Sudan in its current state (sans South Sudan) rather than as it looked at the time.

And the Sinai peninsula is a bit different than the West Bank and Gaza. It was always internationally recognized as a part of Egypt occupied by Israel and Israel never really wanted to keep it.

And I got bored halfway through.

 

This is the guy who didn't want Keith Ellison to be allowed to take his oath for congress on a Koran because it was "unamerican." He's a well known Islamophobe. Whether or not individual points in the video are correct or not, I wouldn't be using it as a source for anything other a drinking game.

 

....and one using nothing more expensive than Schlitz Ice.

 

Yeah, and it's kind of hard to have a two state solution in which the Israeli settlements remain -- even if the Palestinians agreed to it, it wouldn't be viable due to the placement of the settlements.

 

Team Rocket blasts off again​

To protect the world from devastation! To unite all peoples within our nation! To denounce the evils of truth and love! To extend our reach to the stars above! ​

Benjamin Netanyahu, address at the opening of the 2014 Knesset summer session​

Imagine, if you dare, the sheer horror of living near an ideologically motivated amateur youth rocketry club. Something like the Socialist Youth Committee for Space Exploration, for instance, or the Young Tories Science Society. While at first it might be heartwarming to see teenagers developing an interest in politics and an involvement in practical physics, rather than indulging in their usual habits of playing violent video games all day or viciously cyberbullying each other to death, this would quickly grow tiring. The sudden bangs in the night, the scattered debris in the morning, the occasional terror as an errantly and implausibly airborne tin can goes screeching over your leafy suburb: it’s more than anyone could reasonably be expected to bear. Surely nobody would blame you if, after a few days of these potassium nitrate-powered hijinks, you and a few of your sensible middle-class neighbours got together to launch a combined military assault on the part of town where these kids hang out, killing them, their families, and several dozen others stupid enough to be in the area. It’s not that you’d get any particular pleasure from murdering all these people, but everybody deserves a decent night’s sleep.
This is the strange and inhuman scenario that the Jewish Anti-Defamation League invites us to consider. After one of the routine nightly Israeli massacres in the Gaza Strip, they posted a series of posters online, asking What if Hamas was in yourneighbourhood? This question is accompanied by a map in which the Gaza Strip is superimposed on a major American city, appearing as an invasive white blob, cordoned off by a dotted line, radiating threatening circles and bristling with comically oversized missiles. Of the series my favourite is probably that showing New York: the contours of the Gaza Strip almost exactly match the line of the Hudson River, with the result that the genteel citizens of Brooklyn and Manhattan appear to be under mortal threat from rocket-powered proles in New Jersey and Staten Island. Most of these images implicitly raise the thorny question of exactly how Gaza came to be transplanted to the middle of Chicago or Houston; the New York poster neatly answers it. Gaza is already there; it always was. When the ADL talks about Israel defending itself, its audience are to imagine their own secret fantasy: having an excuse to fly over those awful poor neighbourhoods full of dreadful tacky people, and bombing them all to extinction.
Whenever the Israeli government feels the need to kill a few dozen Palestinians, everyone suddenly starts talking about rockets. The famously biased BBC, known to most Zionists as the international media wing of Islamic Jihad, led its coverage of a night in which 24 Gaza residents had been killed with the headline Israel under renewed Hamas attack. Meanwhile, ABC News in the United States showed images of Palestinians standing in front of the rubble that was once their homes and identified them as Israeli victims of rocket attacks. Even those nominally supportive of the Palestinian struggle are apparently compelled to add a bit of blather about how awful the rockets are. In the Guardian, a terrifying live-action Tintin figure calling itself Owen Jones felt the need to make – in an article about media distortion over the discrepancy between the two sides, no less – the caveat that there is no defence for Hamas firing rockets into civilian areas, and as sirens wail in Israel, the fear among ordinary Israelis should not be ignored or belittled.
Of course, the damage done by rockets to ordinary Israelis should never be understated. In Sderot, several people have tripped while running for bomb shelters, in some cases spraining their ankles; Tel Aviv’s summer morning lie-in was seriously disturbed by air-raid sirens as a flying tube of horse manure puttered its way to an empty field outside the city. It’s absolutely necessary for commentators of the prissy tepid left to utterly condemn any attempt by Palestinians to bring any object into aerial motion (be it a Qassam missile, a rock aimed at a heavily-armoured vehicle, or a fleck of spittle; in the West Bank and Gaza, the law of gravity is enforced by tanks and helicopters), because only by doing this can they hope to become the Palestinian Nelson Mandela – the secret ambition of all liberal quasi-Zionists. These people want to support liberation struggle, but first the oppressed have to stop firing rockets and learn instead to embrace non-violence; they need to bring their political programme down to the level of the inspirational quote set against a stock photo of a sunset. Still it’s not exactly clear what form this non-violent protest should take. During the First Intifada Israel was still heavily reliant on Palestinian labour and industrial action seriously threatened its smooth functioning; the arrival of immigrants from Africa and southeast Asia has solved that problem, and helpfully given the Israeli ruling class a new set of people to despise and brutalise. Weekly checkpoint protests in the West Bank are admirably peaceful, but have only really succeeded in boosting profits for the manufacturers of tear gas. All that’s left are rockets.
The rockets being fired from Gaza are a form of non-violent protest, and one that works. As military weapons they’re utterly useless. A 2012 analysis revealed that the 12,000 missiles fired over twelve years resulted in twenty-two Jewish fatalities – a kill rate of 0.175%. This is because they’re not really weapons. There are plenty of ways for resistance groups to inflict mass civilian casualties; the fact that they’re firing rockets instead shows that this isn’t on the agenda. It’s not a military campaign; it’s a highly visible protest against those forces that would prefer to turn Gaza into something like its representation in the ADL posters: a blank, white, empty expanse. The rockets are a reminder of the continued existence and the continued will to resist of the Palestinian people; insisting on this will without killing is a highly effective non-violent strategy. Given the dearth of any actual casualties in the rocket campaign, reports often focus on the psychological trauma suffered by Israelis living close to Gaza (and sometimes even their pets). This is taken as proof of Palestinian brutality, but when commentators decry the fear that the Qassams inspire, the implication is that they’d prefer a resistance strategy that had no effect whatsoever on the occupiers; in other words, one that could be safely ignored and might as well not exist. This point was most powerfully put by a spokesperson from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine: The rockets are both a practical and a symbolic representation of our resistance to the occupier. They are a constant reminder that the occupier is in fact an occupier, and that no matter how they may engage in sieges, massacres, fence us in, deny us the basic human needs of life, we will continue to resist and we will continue to hold fast to our fundamental rights, and we will not allow them to be destroyed. So long as one rocket is launched at the occupier, our people, our resistance and our cause is alive. This is why they targeted the rockets – the rockets do make the occupier insecure, because every one is a symbol and a physical act of our rejection to their occupation.

 

Really? Rockets as a "non-violent protest?"

 

sam kriss' always funny, always horrifying, and, for once, accessible take on those darn rockets we always hear so much about

did you read the article, dp4m? i probably shouldnt have just bolded the end like that

when he says "non-violent" in an article that starts off with benjamin netanyahu being compared to pokemon villians, he's being somewhat cheeky. but the point is, how would you have the grossly disadvantaged people of gaza protest? labor protests are no longer an option now that israel has imported an new underclass from africa and southwest asia. the arab israeli underclass no longer has effective avenues of truly "nonviolent" protest open to them

we are expected to fault them for being marginally effective in making the occupation cost the occupiers something. meanwhile the israelis are given a pass for murdering swaths of civilians in order to end that marginally effective protest because hey, "what do you expect us to do! they shot ROCKETS at us?!"

 

I did read the article, but -- and I say this given the state of coverage of the rocket attacks on Israel -- it wasn't immediately clear that it was satire (if that's what it is).

 

are you trolling right now because this is precisely what he's condemning in the article, for well outlined and documented reasons. the rockets have a kill rate of .175% over 12 years. 22 israelis. more palestinians than that were killed in one day of israel's latest bombing campaign to "stop the rockets"

here's a look at the numbers for the "exchange" in 2008

 

Do the rockets have a kill rate so low because they're older technology and Hamas is crap at aiming them (and therefore, if they could guarantee a 1:1 strike rate of rocket-to-people they would)?

Because, seriously, you're arguing that rocket strikes are "no big deal" because they kill so few people.

I'm totally not being ironic. Do not bring a knife to a gun fight. If you want to fire rockets, then be prepared for a military response. I don't agree with the Israeli Knesset on 100% (or, at this point, potentially not even 50%) but firing back into Gaza over rocket strikes isn't one of them.

 

they are a "big deal"! effective protests have to be a "big deal"! they let the israelis know, in terms they cannot ignore or shrug off, that palestinians are not happy. that's what the article is saying

and yes im sure if the palestinians had the industial base and technology that israel has they would gladly change tactics. to quote from the algerian terrorist leader confronted about terror tactics in The Battle of Algiers: "give us some of your bombers and we will gladly hand over our bombs in baskets"

 

The problem Rogue is that fundamentally, whilst I cannot blame the Palestinians for shifting to more radical positions over time given the complete lack of good-faith engagement on Israel's behalf, I also cannot fault Israel for taking the steps it has taken to protect its citizens. Fundamentally, the state is obliged to protects its interests. This is neither a shocking nor contentious position. Israel fulfils this role, albeit with no strategic objective apparently in mind. It's all tactical.

My point is this though; so long as rocket attacks continue, the situation will remain unresolvable. I appreciate that it's one of the only avenues the Palestinians feel is left open to them, but it's also massively counter-productive.

 

then let the palestinians have their own state. instead of keeping them in a giant concentration camp and bombing them every time they register their displeasure about it periodically when it seems convenient

 

I like how one side using artillery is bad but the otherside is merely registering their displeasure.

 

context is everything. this is perhaps the most grossly assymetrical situation i can imagine

i mean, lol at "artillery" and even "side"

 

Yeah, because all it takes is Hamas getting "lucky" and having it hit a rush hour commuter bus or school playground (and have them go off; plenty of reports of them landing in someone's living room and just not exploding)...

So that would for sure be terrorism then, right? Hitting one of those targets? But until they get "lucky" it's just civil disobedience?

 

you dont understand. of course its "terrorism", that's why its a more effective protest than, i dont know, staging a sit in when you dont have freedom of movement to stage a sit in where the oppressors would have to address it

its terrorism in the only sense that hasnt been rendered entirely meaningless -- shooting rockets, however ineffective they are at actually causing death or destruction, creates fear of death in the population. so does bombing large swaths of a penned-in area and killing families that live there. which do you think engenders the greater terror?

 

Uh, the "Israel attacked Gaza today" *is* an accurate description of the last panel. Not "Israel defends itself."

 

Well, terrorism only became a truly dirty, emotional, lose all sense of reason word after 11 September, which forced the world to examine things in an American-centric method. Before that it was more or less merely a tool for affecting change through political violence, and frankly if it could return to its proper definition I'd be happy.

Rogue, you're right. Protests won't work. And from the PLO to the PFLP to HAMAS etc there's been a growing radicalisation and desperation to Palestinian actions. My point is this though; they are no closer to their goal as a result.

 

and i dont blame them for not just lying down and dying

 

I think the Israeli government knows the Palestinians are displeased without the rockets. I don't think it wakes up every morning wondering (or caring) how mad the Palestinians are.

I'm with Ender on this one. I get where the Palestinians are coming from, but targeting civilians is unacceptable and, in this situation, not doing the Palestinians any favors. It's just prolonging the conflict. If they had the resources of their Algerian War counterparts, it might make strategic sense (not that I relish the thought of THAT bloodbath happening again), but they don't.

And no, Israel isn't "innocent" here either: repeated disproportionate attacks are wrong and are also further escalating the conflict. Clearly both sides are making the same mistakes over and over without a change in the results. They both need to stop.

 

i dont think you "get" what a protest is. an effective protest is an attempt to MAKE your oppressors care, so they'll stop oppressing you

 

No, they're standing up and dying and taking down a few innocents on either side as they go.

But it's good, because we can recycle the quote about doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

 

If Israel is at fault for perpetuating the conflict with their settlement expansions, then they are the ones who are responsible when tensions blow over and lives are lost. All the Poles and Germans who died fighting each other when Germany invaded in 1939, whose fault was it? Certainly not the Poles'.