General Israel/Palestine discussion thread

[Eddie Dane]

And here we go again.

retaliations for retaliations for retaliations etc etc etc.

Then a big military action lasting weeks, a thousand plus dead Palestinians, lofty military objectives not reached, international condemnation, pull out, parliamentary inquiry about failure to meet goals, trickle of cross border rocket attacks from Gaza, targeted assassinations from Israel, slow escalation, big military action lasting weeks etc.

Surely humans must be capable of breaking such a cycle?

 

[commandlinegamer]

Bulls eye!

Yeah, excellent work in taking out those infant terrorists*.

* - If what is being reported is correct. Some accounts say that a four year old and a baby were killed (there's a particularly gruesome picture of a blackened corpse on a gurney online), others that they were merely lightly wounded. Even if you can justify assassination of a particular individual how much collateral damage will you accept?

 

[Hallo Alfie]

Yeah, excellent work in taking out those infant terrorists*.

* - If what is being reported is correct. Some accounts say that a four year old and a baby were killed (there's a particularly gruesome picture of a blackened corpse on a gurney online), others that they were merely lightly wounded. Even if you can justify assassination of a particular individual how much collateral damage will you accept?

Can you show us the accounts please? Who has issued them? Any chance they are propaganda of some description? Whose children were they; the target's?

Some more info would be appreciated.

That aside, are you throwing us a hypothetical ethical dilemma fallacy?

 

[bit_pattern]

I can really see that this thread will take a unique and independent trajectory from the existing Israel/Palestine thread

 

[Eddie Dane]

I can really see that this thread will take a unique and independent trajectory from the existing Israel/Palestine thread [qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/images/icons/icon14.gif[/qimg]

I'm sure it will a refreshing debate that will bring many new insights into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Either that or a replay of every other Israel-Palestine thread on the JREF.

Maybe the mods can temporarily let Parky and Sceptic into the thread, for those of us who are feeling nostalgic.

 

[bit_pattern]

I LOL'd out loud IRL

 

[McHrozni]

And here we go again.

retaliations for retaliations for retaliations etc etc etc.

Then a big military action lasting weeks, a thousand plus dead Palestinians, lofty military objectives not reached, international condemnation, pull out, parliamentary inquiry about failure to meet goals, trickle of cross border rocket attacks from Gaza, targeted assassinations from Israel, slow escalation, big military action lasting weeks etc.

Surely humans must be capable of breaking such a cycle?

But of course we are! It's actually quite easy. What complicates things is that we need to break such a cycle without resorting to genocide. To say it's tricky is a major understatement, nigh-on impossible suits it better.

McHrozni

 

[McHrozni]

I think that Ghandi-style nonviolence would be more effective strategically than a terrorism-based strategy or rocket-based strategy, neither of which will win much sympathy for the cause.

Had Palestinians embraced nonviolence and coexistance with Israel, they would have a state within a decade, and probably sooner. However Israel, alongside every other intelligent country on Earth, realizes that many Palestinians in general and Hamas in particular don't want that and will never accept it. Hence the current situation that benefits no one, except maybe creatures like Assad that use Israel as a scapegoat and maybe Palestinian 'refugees' as shock troops from time to time, depending on conflict.

McHrozni

 

[commandlinegamer]

Can you show us the accounts please? Who has issued them? Any chance they are propaganda of some description? Whose children were they; the target's?

Some more info would be appreciated.

That aside, are you throwing us a hypothetical ethical dilemma fallacy?

Here's a couple of reports (I'm not making any claims for veracity - propaganda, yes quite possibly).

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/11/15/3-dead-after-gaza-rocket-strikes-southern-israel/

http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/hamas-reeling-but-defiant-as-israel-pounds-gaza

Ethical dilemma fallacy? Probably that also.

Just wonder if the target wasn't actually siting a rocket launcher at that precise moment why not send him tickets for a complementary spa weekend, and then off him while he's having a soothing massage. Less risk, IMO.

In any event, just find it tasteless celebrating death, unless it's humorous.

 

[bit_pattern]

But of course we are! It's actually quite easy. What complicates things is that we need to break such a cycle without resorting to genocide. To say it's tricky is a major understatement, nigh-on impossible suits it better.

McHrozni

I think Israel has two choices, ultimately;

1. Man up and expel the civilian population of the West Bank and seize the land for themselves, telling the international community to go **** itself. Then tell Egypt Gaza is now their problem.

2. Accept that it has charge over a large population and absorb them into the country as citizens equal in every way to every other Israeli.​

Any other measure that maintains the status quo - i.e. indefinitely subjugating and dehumanising a civilian population - will destroy Israel from the inside, eat at its soul like the maggots eating at the corpses of the ghosts of Christmases past.

It's time they took some responsibility for the situation they have found themselves in..

 

[PhantomWolf]

Surely humans must be capable of breaking such a cycle?

Well when one side has repeatedly proven that they have zero interest in stopping it...

How long would the US stand by idly if the Mexican Government was firing hundreds of rockets into Texas and California?

 

[McHrozni]

I think Israel has two choices, ultimately;

1. Man up and expel the civilian population of the West Bank and seize the land for themselves, telling the international community to go **** itself. Then tell Egypt Gaza is now their problem.

2. Accept that it has charge over a large population and absorb them into the country as citizens equal in every way to every other Israeli.​

Any other measure that maintains the status quo - i.e. indefinitely subjugating and dehumanising a civilian population - will destroy Israel from the inside, eat at its soul like the maggots eating at the corpses of the ghosts of Christmases past.

It's time they took some responsibility for the situation they have found themselves in..

As I said, breaking the cycle without genocide is nigh-on impossible. I agree that these two options are practically the only ones Israel has right now (and that the third - status quo - is bad), and (surprise!) both involve a genocide. The first one is a textbook example of one, the second one would lead to a genocide over Jews of Israel within a few years at most, as you well know.

Any ideas that don't involve a genocide?

McHrozni

 

[Safe-Keeper]

Dear amateurs:

Welcome to Fourth Generation Warfare. It's been going on for a few decades while a lot of you weren't noticing.

Learn it, and learn how it is fought, or risk losing. I don't care if you chose the war or not, it is in progress.

Remember what that pretty Lannister bitch said to Ned Stark?

"In the game of thrones, you win or you die."

Try thinking about that before you sound off about how various political bodies use force to achieve their ends. I get why the Taliban do what they do: it is the means they have available.

I'm not sure if I understand the point of your post, especially the last part..

I can't help but wonder how many of the Gazan people could have been feed by the money spent on those 120+ rockets

This.

How many rockets did Gandhi have to fire before the Brits were out of India?

See, this is what really gets me about "Palestine supporters" -- seriously, think. A country can't simultaneously complain about harsh reprisals and sanctions and civilian casualties and insist on carrying on a fight, using acts of terrorism, against an enemy that's superior in every way.

Oh, and if we're going to glorify Gandhi and, for example, the peaceful resistance of Afro-Americans during the Civil Rights Movement, shouldn't we also condemn "homeland defense" through acts of terrorism and blind fanaticism where-ever we see it? Even if the victims are Israelis? If terrorism is the only way to defend your country or culture when you perceive it as threatened, shouldn't Gandhi have dressed as a police officer and gunned up a youth camp, rather than sitting there like some commie bleeding heart liberal trying to talk things out with the British?

And here we go again.

retaliations for retaliations for retaliations etc etc etc.

Then a big military action lasting weeks, a thousand plus dead Palestinians, lofty military objectives not reached, international condemnation, pull out, parliamentary inquiry about failure to meet goals, trickle of cross border rocket attacks from Gaza, targeted assassinations from Israel, slow escalation, big military action lasting weeks etc.

Surely humans must be capable of breaking such a cycle?

Yes. It's called surrender. It's what the adult countries do when faced with a superior foe. The more, shall we say, immature nations keep on fighting because, "oh, they're protecting their homeland against the evil Israelis" .

 

[bit_pattern]

As I said, breaking the cycle without genocide is nigh-on impossible. I agree that these two options are practically the only ones Israel has right now (and that the third - status quo - is bad), and (surprise!) both involve a genocide. The first one is a textbook example of one, the second one would lead to a genocide over Jews of Israel within a few years at most, as you well know.

Any ideas that don't involve a genocide?

McHrozni

They could give the Palestinian their state under the 1967 UN resolution?

But Israle doesn't want to do that, it wants to take as much of the WB as it can, powerful elements see that as the whole WB, but its populated by millions of people. Either take the land and expel the people or take the people and the land OR go back to the 1967 borders. Anything else is just a slow-burn genocide.

 

[bit_pattern]

Okay, so I've got a question that's not the regular Israel/Palestine grist.

This is the first incursion since the Arab Spring. How will that new dynamic effect this conflict, will Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood be put under intense public pressure to do something? Could the Syrian conflict come into the play?

I mean this is the ME, the place is a tinderbox, gazing into your crystal ball, what do you see/

 

[Eddie Dane]

Yes. It's called surrender. It's what the adult countries do when faced with a superior foe. The more, shall we say, immature nations keep on fighting because, "oh, they're protecting their homeland against the evil Israelis" .

Both warring parties are in political deadlock, within their own ranks, let alone with each other.

As soon as Hamas softens it's stance a bit (hey let's not shoot rockets into civilian areas this weekend), radicals immediately split off and start shooting those rockets anyway.
Hamas is currently facing split of even more radical radicals for whom radical isn't radical enough.

Israel has a crappy electoral system that requires deal making with the ever-growing Orthodox taliban. Their parliament seems unable to do anything apart from maintaining a status quo. No bold moves in any direction are to be expected, with or without genocide.
There was brief hope that Ariel "the Bulldozer" Sharon would throw his -ahem- weight behind a radical solution. But he had 4 servings of lamb-shoarma for dinner every day from 1974 till they had to feed him through a tube.
So that train went nowhere.

I'm not suggesting that there is a simple solution.

 

[Eddie Dane]

Okay, so I've got a question that's not the regular Israel/Palestine grist.

This is the first incursion since the Arab Spring. How will that new dynamic effect this conflict, will Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood be put under intense public pressure to do something? Could the Syrian conflict come into the play?

I mean this is the ME, the place is a tinderbox, gazing into your crystal ball, what do you see/

Egypt could do something pretty bad to Israel: re-militarise the Sinai.

Having the Egyptian army on it's borders would mean having a standing army ready and that would put a huge drain on Israel's economy.

OTOH Israel can probably wipe out the entire Egyptian army if they were stupid enough to sit in the desert.

The Brother's will have to throw the masses an anti-Israeli bone though.
Erdogan had it easy in that respect, he could just tell Shimon Peres to take a long walk on short pier on live TV, and all of Turkey loved him for it.

If the Brothers are really Machiavellian: Preach Jihad, call for volunteers, employ human wave attacks against Israel. The next twenty years no chance of revolution with all those angry young men gone.

 

[Giz]

Tweeted yesterday:

Paul Adams ‏@BBCPaulAdams
Spare a thought for Omar, 11-month son of our BBC Arabic Service colleague in Gaza, killed in today's Israeli air strike.

Yeah, excellent work in taking out those infant terrorists*.

What seems to be missing here is - if you are an active combatant, don't hide out with a bunch of kids.

Judging by some of these responses, if the Germans had organized school trips to the Atlantic Wall, then we would have been morally obliged to call off D-Day.


And one damn thing in particular - why the hell is a BBC employee using Hamas as childcare? That doesn't scream "professional unbiased reportage to me".

 

[fuelair]

Absolutely justified on the part of the IDF.

If Palestinians won't stop each other from launching missles into Israel then the Israelis will have to stop them.

Right on the nosie!!!!!!!

 

[fuelair]

What seems to be missing here is - if you are an active combatant, don't hide out with a bunch of kids.

Judging by some of these responses, if the Germans had organized school trips to the Atlantic Wall, then we would have been morally obliged to call off D-Day.


And one damn thing in particular - why the hell is a BBC employee using Hamas as childcare? That doesn't scream "professional unbiased reportage to me".

Though it does scream "I do not give a flying crap aboput my child!!! Meanwhile: Rules of war (as quoted verbatim many times on these types of thread): military activity in civilian area makes the area an unfortunate but very legitimate target. The Rules protect civilians as civilians from being legitimate targets. They do not protect civilians working in defense plants, war industrial plants, neighborhoods where cowardly military try to hide, neighborhoods with military equiptment parked in them, crowds of civilians trying to mask military or help military escape.....(etc. Get over it......)