Senate Israel/Palestine

I wouldn't go as far as saying that Hamas is *targeting* civilians. The rockets they have aren't accurate over a long range. At best they can just aim in a general direction and hope it hits something good.

 

Vivec, you're pitifully naive then. HAMAS has, from time to time, made overtures to ditch its constitutional clause to oversee the destruction of Israel, but it's almost childlike to suggest they're not aiming at civilians when the rockets are never fired at vaguely military targets.

Alpha-Red, did you just invoke WWII? Congrats for making the single most stupid post this thread has.

Yes, the settlements are provocative in addition to stupid and illegal. But when the conflict goes like this: HAMAS fires rockets killing 4; Israel retaliates, killing 7 including 3 militants; HAMAS responds, killing 11; Israel responds, killing 14 (including 4 militants); HAMAS responds; Israel responds; HAMAS responds; Israel responds...

It's hard to blame any one side in particular.

 

"HAMAS responds, killing 11" lol

 

Except when HAMAS attacks nobody gets killed and when Israel attacks civilians die. The only one 'pitifully naive' here is you thinking both sides are equated.

168 Palestinians have been killed: 133 of them civilians. Of those, 36 are children. 1140 Palestinians have been injured: 296 children and 233 women (where's all that feminism we've been hearing from you lately?). 5600 Palestinians are now homeless.

Israelis have managed to harm more civilians than terrorists can.

 

You know precisely what I'm getting at.

I'm sorry, are you saying that no Israelis have died in HAMAS rocket attacks?

 

I get what an effective protest is. What I dispute is that this is an effective protest. From what I've seen: it isn't. The rockets keep getting fired; Israel keeps retaliating disproportionately while thumbing its nose at any international criticism and building settlements.

 

that's not a reason to decrease international criticism, its a reason to increase it. turn up the pressure. dont abandon the palestinians to slow and steady displacement

 

Read my edit.

The amount of Israelis killed in rocket attacks are negligible compared to the amount of Palestinians that get massacred in Israeli attacks. That's not to say that their lives aren't important, but it completely rebuts your whole scenario where somehow HAMAS is killing more and more Palestinians in the escalation.

 

I'm sure you're ready to present a more effective protest.

 

On that I agree. Israel still should be criticized.

 

Nice backpedaling there VivecsLaMent.

But Israel's largely immune to international pressure, so what next? No Arab state will go to war for the Palestinians, because they hate them. They may dislike Israel but they're well aware an attack in Israel is a precursor to military defeat. Realistically the best solution is an Israel that doesn't feel it's under siege negotiating. What the Palestinians, and their supporters like you, fail to realise is that a besieged Israel will never engaged in any good-faith negotiations.

 

i advocate economic embargoes against israel. their state project is too dependent on immigration to suffer sustained economic hardship the way palestinians have been forced to. initially, teh greater brunt of pressure will be on the palestinians, but in the long-term israel will be forced to negotiate.

i agree that part of the specific pathology of israeli nationalism is the siege mentality, but i dont think

1. that will go away just because the rockets that kill ~2 people a year stopped coming. they're still outnumbered in identity terms, which is what matters to the mentality. like the sinhalese in sri lanka being "surrounded" by tamils

2. making israelis comfortable will lead to concessions for the palestinians. i can hardly think of a more ashistorical position on world politics to take

 

The issue I think is that Israel has recognised and broadly resigned itself to the notion of a two state outcome; the advantage for them is that so long as the Palestinians behave like "animals" or "savages" or whatever term Bibi can pat himself on the back for using, the longer they can delay that outcome and harder they can make it for everyone. So yes, dropping back the level of threat to justify a siege mentality is the outcome most likely to lead to any meaningful progress.

 

im just having a hard time thinking of a historical situation where an oppressed class achieved its goals by de-escalating tension. people in power tend to be quite happy with that power, and you need to hit them where they live to make them let go. pleading alone is never effective

 

Yes, but you also would have a hard time finding an analogue for the Balfour declaration and UN ratification (of sorts) of it. Simply put, I think the whole this is unique in history.

 

Ender, one would think you would have a better argument than just calling your opponent VLM.


There was no backpedaling. You know what my post meant. You're well versed enough in math to know what negligible is. And you know that in this round of war there has been no Israeli deaths. Which makes your escalation scenario where HAMAS is killing a lot of Israelis a non sequitur at best.

I'd love for you to actually defend that scenario, but I guess the best I can hope for is a portmanteau of my name and VLM's. Sad, really.

Something witty something phone something typos.

 

This topic is intensely personal to me so I will just ask if you're trolling. If you are, pick a better topic to troll about. If not, you may just be a misled fool. I don't know which is worse.

 

protip: never ask someone like ender or me if we're "trolling". if there's even a clear distinction to be made between when we're "trolling" and "not trolling", we wouldnt tell you about it

 

Dude, I don't know anything about you guys.lol

 

Why is it of interest to you, Blubeezel?

 

I agree and I disagree. Stopping the rockets on its own isn't going to do much in the way of gaining concessions or making Israel "feel safer" -- clearly it goes deeper than that and I distrust Israel's desire for peace or a two-state solution. But at the same time I don't think the rockets are giving the Palestinians much leverage either: they aren't doing huge damage; they're just giving Israel excuses to launch these attacks of retaliation. What do they gain the Palestinians? Some international finger-wagging at Israel when innocent Palestinians are killed and buildings and lives are destroyed? That's a steep cost IMO.

The sad thing is that I wouldn't be surprised if at this point Israel's endgame is to just keep encroaching on the occupied land until a two-state solution becomes untenable and the neighboring countries agree to take in Palestinian refugees.

 

Which the neighboring countries don't want, on account of a general antipathy towards Palestinians among other Arabs.

But let's also not forget that rockets form part of, but not the whole of, the Palestinian arsenal. Suicide bombers were common during the intifada too, as were concealed marketplace type bombs. None of these managed to achieve their objectives, but then again, terrorism at this level has been spectacularly unsuccessful in the past too.

 

well i just mean you've been posting around us long enough that you shoudl have some inkling of what kind of posters we are by now

 

dude we've already talked about algeria in this thread so i dont know where you get off making that claim

 

Mike, on average, how many instances of terrorism have achieved long term goals vs how many have failed?

Did the Americans using terrorism (economic) in Cuba topple Castro?
Did the PLO, PFLP, or PFLP-GC succeed in creating a Palestinian state?
Did Baader-Meinhoff, Red Army Faction, Action Directe et al succeed in bringing capitalism down?
Did JRA start a world revolution after bringing the Japanese govt down?

No. In the short term, success might've been found by way of trading hostages for imprisoned comrades for example but long term goals and success have largely eluded terrorism. I don't see this as a contentious point of view; taken as a whole, this path of action has been unsuccessful (especially compared with revolutionary guerilla warfare).