IDF General Sued For "Targeted Killings"

[Orwell]

Uh... Wildcat and Jocko keep forgetting they're on my ignore list.

 

[WildCat]

Wildcat and Jocko keep forgetting they're on my ignore list.

Yet somehow you responded...

You're right to put me on ignore, it will make you feel better if your beliefs are not challenged w/ facts.

 

[davefoc]

ZN wrote:

Now as far as King David is concerned we have the Tel Dan Stele which says in ancient Aramaic "of the House of David" and "king of Israel". Which is 100% more proof than anyone has ever shown me regarding God or Santa.

Here is an interesting book review on King David at the nytimes if you are interested in reading more.

Thank you for the links. The historical nature of David is something that I have been curious about and something that I have previously pontificated about a bit: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=534021&postcount=52

But I think you have missed the source of my confusion with regards to why you bring up David with regards to the Israeli/Palestinian dispute. How is the non-existance or existance of David related in anyway to a justification for the founding and expansion of Israel? If this is your logic it seems like the Seminoles that ImaginalDisc mentioned have got a lot stronger moral claim to his house than do Jews who are trying to base a claim on the possible existence of somebody that they believe shared something of a common ethnicity with 3000 years ago?

Suppose that somebody discovers some bones that were proven to belong to David and some DNA testing is done that establishes the Palestinians are more closely related to David than most of the European Jews that have populated Israel? Can we now expect Israel to apologize to the Palestinians and leave Israel to the Palestinians because the Palestinians are the rightful genetic heirs to Israel?

 

[davefoc]

The vast majority of the immigrants were not religious. Modern Zionism has been largely a secular affair.

I believe there may be something of a semantic dispute here. I do not dispute that the Zionist movement was largely secular and that its leadership was largely secular.

I doubt that the vast majority (meaning something like more than 80%) of the Jews that immigrated to Israel were not religious.

When I used the phrase non-Islamic religious zealot I was thinking mostly of the people that preceded the great population influx following WWII. Many of these were people that made great personal sacrifices to live in Israel for what they believed to be a noble cause. The leadership of the Zionist movement favored the creation of a segregated state. They put pressure on the indigenous Jewish population to stop hiring Palestinians and they bought up land with the goal of eliminating indigenous Palestinians from it either as owners or as workers.

To me that at least sounds like racial purity zealotry. Since the principle religion of the people implementing the rules promulgating this racial purity were Jews and not Muslims, I used the term non-Islamic religious zealots. I don't think I would use the term again because it implies that I believed that Judaism was the only or principle driver behind this racial purity zealotry. I don't think that and didn't mean to imply that. I don't think it would be any more appropriate to call the white founders of South Africa Christian Zealots for imposing their racil purity ideas on the indigenous South African population.

I think a phrase that better suited my intent when I wrote the sentence with the phrase non-Islamic religious zealots might have been non-Islamic, non-Arab racial purity zealots.

 

[Mycroft]

Mycroft, I used definitions out of a couple of dictionaries. I even gave links to web dictionaries.

Orwell, that thread was more than ten pages of you spamming seeming random links of anything at all that Google could find that criticized the IDF. If somewhere in that pile of dreck was a piece of useful evidence you think was unfairly overlooked, then it’s your fault for burying it.

You can’t simultaneously reserve for yourself the right to act like a baby, to call people names, to purposefully annoy them, and then turn around and complain that you’re not treated like an adult and taken seriously for the one moment when you feel you said something that should be paid attention to, all while dismissing without comment (or just an insult) all counter-arguments to your opinion.

I’d bet if you were willing to try again, to resurrect that old thread or start a new one and present the dictionary definition you believe conforms to your view and then two or three of the best links you believe support your opinion, that you would get serious discussion from all of those you deem “partisan hacks”.

 

[Mycroft]

I doubt that the vast majority (meaning something like more than 80%) of the Jews that immigrated to Israel were not religious.

There is a huge difference between being religious and being a religious zealot.

The leadership of the Zionist movement favored the creation of a segregated state.

I dispute that.

Herzl did not. He described a society (stateless) where people of all religions and ethnicities could participate equally.

The Zionist leaders were a democratic congress consisting of about a half-dozen prominent factions, all of which had very different visions on how to achieve their goals, or even what their goals truly were. To claim they had a common goal beyond merely encouraging immigration and (prior to and during the holocaust) providing a refuge for those that needed it is a misrepresentation.

They put pressure on the indigenous Jewish population to stop hiring Palestinians…

The idea was proposed that Jewish employers (not limited to indigenous Jews) restrict their hiring to Jewish immigrants, both as a way of discouraging Arab immigration and to give support to Jewish immigrants.

Except the idea never caught on. The idea, while proposed, was never adopted, and the Zionist congress wasn’t an authority that could make or enforce such rules anyway. Jewish employers and land owners continued to hire Arab workers anyway, mostly because it’s what they had done before, and often they were willing to work cheaper.

But that the idea was proposed makes good fodder for anti-Zionist propagandists.

…and they bought up land with the goal of eliminating indigenous Palestinians from it either as owners or as workers.

On the contrary, the Jewish Agency targeted empty land, with the goal of minimizing antagonism among the Arab population.

To me that at least sounds like racial purity zealotry…

I don’t think that’s justified at all, particularly given the times. They created a multi-ethnic society, and there was never any serious alternative. Yes, they did want Jews to be the majority, but that far from “racial purity.”

 

[davefoc]

Mycroft, obviously I disagree with some of your conclusions based on our discussions of these kind of things in the past. However, at times, it seems that you are just bent on disagreement for the sake of disagreement.

David Swidler wrote:

The vast majority of the immigrants were not religious. Modern Zionism has been largely a secular affair.

davefoc wrote:

I am aware of this to some degree, although I doubt vast majority is accurate. I think Ben-Gurion might have been an atheist, but playing to relgious zealotry was at least part of the pitch.

Mycroft wrote:

Then I can only suggest you do more reading.

davefoc wrote:

I believe there may be something of a semantic dispute here. I do not dispute that the Zionist movement was largely secular and that its leadership was largely secular.

I doubt that the vast majority (meaning something like more than 80%) of the Jews that immigrated to Israel were not religious.

Mycroft wrote:

There is a huge difference between being religious and being a religious zealot.

Why would you write something like that? I don't think I could have been any clearer. I said I doubt that the vast majority of the Jewish immigrants were not religious which is what David Swidler wrote. I was specifically expressing skepticism of that claim. Is it possible that occasionally even people that disagree with you in fundamental ways concerning their views of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict can say something which is not wrong? Do you believe that the vast majority of immigrants were not religious? OK, that is possible, but then the appropriate response to my skepticism would be some kind of evidence for a high rate among the immigrants of non-religiousness.

 

[Mycroft]

Mycroft, obviously I disagree with some of your conclusions based on our discussions of these kind of things in the past. However, at times, it seems that you are just bent on disagreement for the sake of disagreement.

I spent a lot of time researching for information to form my opinions, so I present them, so I present them wherever appropriate. I don't think that's disagrement just for the sake of disagreement any more than your presenting your opinions is.

Why would you write something like that? I don't think I could have been any clearer.

Because it seemed to me you were suggesting that unless they were non-religious, they must have been zealots. I think that in order to get a ballanced view, it's important to refute that.

Many of them were religious. Those that fled the Russian pograms of the late 19th century undoubtebly were, but that doesn't make them zealots. Their immigration was not driven by their religion, but by their persecution.

Others were driven by social ideals. They wanted to creat utopian societies based upon socialistic ideals. These people were not driven by religion.

Religious zionism has always existed, but with little or no force. Individuals, families or small groups would immigrate, but never in significant numbers. The religious belief was that God would make it happen "someday."

The start of modern Zionism were secular events. Russian pograms, the Dreyfus Affair, new emerging social models, and ultimately, the Holocaust.

I said I doubt that the vast majority of the Jewish immigrants were not religious which is what David Swidler wrote. I was specifically expressing skepticism of that claim. Is it possible that occasionally even people that disagree with you in fundamental ways concerning their views of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict can say something which is not wrong?

If I use agreement with me as my standard of "wrong" then the answer is no.

Isn't that what we all believe?

Do you believe that the vast majority of immigrants were not religious? OK, that is possible, but then the appropriate response to my skepticism would be some kind of evidence for a high rate among the immigrants of non-religiousness.

I say even if they were religious, it does not mean they were zealots.

 

[Orwell]

Orwell, that thread was more than ten pages of you spamming seeming random links of anything at all that Google could find that criticized the IDF. If somewhere in that pile of dreck was a piece of useful evidence you think was unfairly overlooked, then it’s your fault for burying it.

I mostly linked dozens of cases taken from the websites of Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and B'tselem, all well known a credible human rights organisations, along with articles from the Guardian, and a few other sources. It was all evidence of Israeli human rights abuses that you refused to even acknowledge.

You can’t simultaneously reserve for yourself the right to act like a baby, to call people names, to purposefully annoy them, and then turn around and complain that you’re not treated like an adult and taken seriously for the one moment when you feel you said something that should be paid attention to, all while dismissing without comment (or just an insult) all counter-arguments to your opinion.

I "reserve myself" the right to call a spade a spade, and of pointing out the bleeding obvious.

I’d bet if you were willing to try again, to resurrect that old thread or start a new one and present the dictionary definition you believe conforms to your view and then two or three of the best links you believe support your opinion, that you would get serious discussion from all of those you deem “partisan hacks”.

No it wouldn't. I posted the links with the best evidence supporting my case repeatedly on that thread, and they were ignored, re-interpreted, spinned away, or justified with arguments my ten year old wouldn't use.

It is useless to debate you on this. You are a partisan hack.

 

[Mycroft]

I mostly linked dozens of cases taken from the websites of Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and B'tselem, all well known a credible human rights organisations, along with articles from the Guardian, and a few other sources. It was all evidence of Israeli human rights abuses that you refused to even acknowledge.

The thread started after I looked at your first two links and pointed out that neither of them said the IDF targeted civilians, but said Palestinian groups did.

Your claim was that the IDF targeted civilians, not that they were guilty of human rights abuses.

I wouldn’t call B’tselem credible; they have a long history of exaggeration, misinformation, and of repeating unverified and very questionable claims. AI and HRW are much better.

I "reserve myself" the right to call a spade a spade, and of pointing out the bleeding obvious.

The problem is very often what’s “obvious” to one person isn’t obvious to anyone else, and may not stand up to scrutiny. That’s why we have discussions, debates, and ask for evidence, etc. Sometimes when one “points out the obvious” someone else still proves them wrong.

No it wouldn't. I posted the links with the best evidence supporting my case repeatedly on that thread, and they were ignored, re-interpreted, spinned away, or justified with arguments my ten year old wouldn't use.

In other words, people to didn’t agree with your interpretation of the evidence were willing to debate with you, telling you how any why they disagreed.

That’s what these forums are. When you state your opinion, someone who disagrees with you will object and tell you why. It’s not a place for people who can only stand to hear agreement.

It is useless to debate you on this. You are a partisan hack.

I’ve spent a lot of time building the foundation of information on which I form my opinions; you’re not likely to change my mind just by calling me names and saying I should believe something else. I’m still learning new things and am more than willing to change my opinions given new knowledge, but that’s not really what you’re attempting to do.

 

[demon]

gnome:
"Demon... will you lay off? I'm not upset you criticize the IDF, but webfusion doesn't deserve what I can only describe as snarling-- especially after speaking with such candor and thoughfulness, I think he deserves the same respect from critics."


Sorry gnome, but Orwell is right. Webfusion is a propagandist and a myth maker and if you post in threads about Palestine/Israeli then you should be aware of that. If not, then you need to acquaint yourself with the subject in more depth. Webfusion`s rather absurd cobbling together of extremist nationalist propaganda is a good indication of the trap you fall into when you make statements like "Demon... will you lay off?"

 

[demon]

webfusion:
""Natives"? Who said the Palestinians are natives? They are mostly descendants of immigrant arrivals during the years between ww1 and ww11."

Whereas the Israelis, by contrast....

This stuff about Arab immigrants is rubbish and displays an extraordinary ignorance of the movement you preport to support. That`s what always astonishes me about people who recycle Joan Peter's fraudulent recycling of propaganda texts written for western consumption in the 1940's. Are you not interested in the history of Zionist settlement? In Israel this thesis was received with deep embarrassment even by Zionist historians. It was only supported by western members of the literary right. They never even bothered to translate Peters into Hebrew. A purely American phenomenon, not even an Israeli one.

From 1967 until the late 1980's there was almost no violence directed against Israel from inside the occupied territories against Israel or Israelis, and certainly no organised campaign inside the territories. The occupation continued, any expression of national sentiment was banned, and administrators did their best to make life as uncomfortable as possible for Palestinians in the hope that they would leave.
Then the first Intifadah came along and Israel was forced to make some concessions. Unfortunately Israel has spun out negotiations over land it has no right to for the best part of 14 years. Hence the violence. Unsurprising really. I can think of no similar case were a colonised people are occupied and negotiations go on for 14 years with an absolute refusal to recognise that they have a right to sovereignty that is not conditional on the occupying powers security (Palestinians after all do not exist for the benefit of Israel).

Your claims about Palestine are ridiculous. There never was a land of Israel. It was always disputed territory.

While we`re at it, it`s rubbish too, all that crap about Israel's wonderful development of the region. In the first few decades land which had been farmed by Palestinians for decades was left fallow and the fruit rotted. All this is the usual Israeli propaganda (insulting and racist it is to boot).

One really does need a Zionist filter when they start with this nonsense.

Webbie, you simply expouse what Baruch Kimmerling has referred to as "politicide": an on going campaign to delegitimise any expression of Palestinian identity as a political identity, something which has dominated Zionist propaganda for about forty years, and found expression in internal laws in Israel (involving colonial style segmentation of the "Israeli Arab" population), open political repression in the occupied territories, and frequent bouts of collective punishment and violence inflicted on both communities and individuals outside Israel.

One difficulty in Zionist discourse is its lack of flexibility to accomodate even the idea of Palestinian nationalism. The denial of the legitimacy of both Palestinian and Arab Nationalism is a precondition for a coherent Zionist discourse. It`s what makes things so hard even for those Zionists who genuinely want peace. The dominant political ideology of Israeli nationalism largely precludes it.

Culture is not the same all over the Arab world as Zionists like to pretend. That`s just willfull ignorance but Israel was and is a dagger aimed at the heart of all Arab Nationalism, part of a system of alliances stretching from the Shah right through to the Saudi monarchies aimed at destabilising any possibility of great powers emerging in the region.

I`ve heard the Zionist mantra that "arab culture exends more or less homogeneously" too many times. That is of course just ignorant **** reminiscent of that goon Melanie Phillips and her vision of an amorphous sea of Arabs into which the Palestinians can just be dropped.
It`s rubbish. Just a couple of years back, Iraq was merely full of "Arabs" to many people, but since the invasion the scales have fell from a few eyes on that score and people have begun to notice that not all Arabs are the same.

It is always astonishing how little many Americans and Euro-centric flatheads actually know about the cultures that they, with their imperialistic hauteur insist on commenting upon.
Palestine is not some hejaz franchise, it is where Palestinians have always lived. People need to see through this Zionist shtick and think about why they are persistantly denying the Palestinians the right to be Palestinian.

 

[webfusion]

Cut into the ton of words, and we end up with...

"Palestine is not some hejaz franchise, it is where Palestinians have always lived.

No, they haven't always been "Palestinians". If you refer to Gaza, they were Egyptians. If you refer to the West Bank, they were Jordanians. If you refer to the Golan Heights, they were Syrians.

And until these now-stateless people reject terrorism as a means to their end, they will find themselves with less than nothing. No land, no political base, no support anywhere on this planet.

• 
  Israel will enforce a new off-limits zone in the Gaza Strip with artillery, helicopter and gunboat fire, to assure that the Palestinians "will get the message and that this will stop the rocket squads," Deputy Defense Minister Zeev Boim told Israel Radio. "If we must, we will have to tighten the screw further."

 

[Orwell]

The thread started after I looked at your first two links and pointed out that neither of them said the IDF targeted civilians, but said Palestinian groups did.

Your claim was that the IDF targeted civilians, not that they were guilty of human rights abuses.

Aw come on! Not this again! In that thread, I said that IDF soldiers have shot at civilians, killed civilians, maimed civilians, and destroyed property belonging to civilians! I said that the "accidental killing of civilians during military operations argument" does not explain a large number of the events described in the links I provided in that thread: it does not square with eyewitness accounts, casualty lists, and descriptions given by human rights organisations (which I linked and which, by the way, have a lot more credibility than the IDF, the Israeli government and you guys). It's stupidly simple: intentionally shooting civilians, bombing civilians, destroying civilian property is TARGETING civilians. See? Simple. Now, I never said that this was official IDF policy, but I did advance, based on refusenick quotes, that the higher ups in the IDF don't care. Finally, the targeting civilians is a human rights abuse.

I wouldn’t call B’tselem credible; they have a long history of exaggeration, misinformation, and of repeating unverified and very questionable claims. AI and HRW are much better.

I wouldn't call you credible either, so if I have to choose between what you say and what B'tselem says, I will opt for B'Tselem.

The problem is very often what’s “obvious” to one person isn’t obvious to anyone else, and may not stand up to scrutiny. That’s why we have discussions, debates, and ask for evidence, etc. Sometimes when one “points out the obvious” someone else still proves them wrong.

Yes, Mycroft, I'm aware of the fact that partisan hacks have trouble seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts. As the real Orwell said about one kind of partisan hack (i.e. nationalists): "Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage — torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians — which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by ‘our’ side."

In other words, people to didn’t agree with your interpretation of the evidence were willing to debate with you, telling you how any why they disagreed.

That’s what these forums are. When you state your opinion, someone who disagrees with you will object and tell you why. It’s not a place for people who can only stand to hear agreement.

People who disagreed with my "interpretation" (the "interpretation" wasn't actually mine, I simply reported what AI, HRW and B'Tselem where saying) tried to refute my links and commenst with invalid arguments: most of the time, they essentially said "it ain't so" without backing their assertions up. I've asked this question repeatedly: why should I believe you and not Human Rights watch, Amnesty International, B'Tselem, the refusenicks quoted in bunch of newspapers, etc.? What makes you more credible than them?

I’ve spent a lot of time building the foundation of information on which I form my opinions; you’re not likely to change my mind just by calling me names and saying I should believe something else. I’m still learning new things and am more than willing to change my opinions given new knowledge, but that’s not really what you’re attempting to do.

I have called you a partisan hack because you don't change your mind, Mycroft! You like to pretend that you're this reasonable guy, that you're open to discussion, when in fact you typically pretty much made up your mind a long time ago, and you have no intentions of honestly considering arguments coming from other folks. Debating you is a waste of time, and often a rather frustrating experience, in great part because you have a tendency to come up with arguments that sound plausible but misleading, if not fallacious; sophistry, in other words.

 

[webfusion]

comeback

There was a statement offered here by Orwell in regards to my credibility.
He thinks I'm lying, so I found it appropriate to offer some evidence about my real life. That is an extraordinary thing for an internet poster to accomplish, and is rare to see on anonymous forums. In fact, the only reason I even am making that attempt to dispel the wild disbelief of Orwell, is because this forum is hosted by Mr James Randi, and I have the utmost respect for the man and his method. I have no problem with Orwell being skeptical, but now that he is shown proof, I expect him to back down and admit his error.
I will be fascinated to see his response, and now that he has decided to re-join the thread and talk about the topic, rather than level personal attacks against his fellow JREF participants, we might have a useful discussion about the OP.

How about it Orwell? What do you think about the lawsuit against the IDF General who ordered the targeting of Kfar Kana in the middle of ongoing combat ops (Israel was under attack from weapons fired from that zone at the time)? Does a case like that have merit?

Does the current IDF response to the Palestinians firing of missiles and mortars have any justification? Do you think the statements of the Israeli Deputy Defense Minister (Boim) that I quoted, are reasonable and appropriate under the circumstances?

Here is what I posted, in case it was overlooked by Orwell in his rush to get a few shots in at Mycroft again...

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/661722.html

***** The Israel Defense Forces should target civilian areas in the Gaza Strip as part of its attempt to halt Qassam rocket fire on Israeli targets, current and former defense officials said Friday. *****


Orwell previously indicated he was leaving this thread, which now turns out to be untrue -- and this news report is such an interested real-time development which might bolster his claims. (or not) that I thought perhaps, maybe, he would like to spend a few minutes relating to the actual OP, instead of making this into an extension of his previous thread derail?

Lets see...

 

[webfusion]

A quick response to demon's mis-statement (just one among many, but I don't have time to deal with demon's ongoing cascade of fallacies) ---
"One difficulty in Zionist discourse is its lack of flexibility to accomodate even the idea of Palestinian nationalism."

• Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon proposed to US President George W. Bush a plan to allow the Palestinians to establish "a state with limited sovereignty." --- Israel Radio.

The idea of a Palestinian State, demilitarized in the fashion of Lichtenstein, is not a problem for Zionism or Israel. Many many efforts in this direction have been made, by all people of goodwill, yet it is the Palestinians who continue to launch rockets at Israel from their terrorist bases in un-occupied Gaza.

And they will end up with squat.

 

[WildCat]

It's stupidly simple: intentionally shooting civilians, bombing civilians, destroying civilian property is TARGETING civilians. See? Simple. Now, I never said that this was official IDF policy, but I did advance, based on refusenick quotes, that the higher ups in the IDF don't care. Finally, the targeting civilians is a human rights abuse.

And this sort of convoluted "reasoning" is why no one takes you seriously.

When you prosecute a war, civilians will get killed. Every time, and there's no way to avoid it short of surrender. Elevating such events to war crimes or "human rights abuse" is patently ridiculous.

Every country, even Israel, has the right to defend herself. The Palestinians are doing the military equivalent of bringing a knife to a gun fight, and they're going to lose every engagement they instigate. And this upsets the Orwells and demons in this world who sit back criticize from the safety of their comfy chairs, well boo-freaking-hoo.

 

[Skeptic]

When you prosecute a war, civilians will get killed. Every time, and there's no way to avoid it short of surrender.

Which is, of course, the real problem: that israel dares to defend itself after consistently being reminded it isn't a nice thing to do and that it is better, morally, to just suffer terrorist attacks without hitting back.

Come to think of it, they seem to have the same problem with the USA: the USA really blew it when it decided to hit back in Afghanistan and Iraq instead of accepting "beloved victim" status, didn't it?

 

[Orwell]

Well, you know those "partisan hack" accusations I have been making?

Q. E. D.

 

[webfusion]

Orwell? Why did you waste a post just to throw in that extra ad hom, instead of addressing anything being said here?

You called me a liar, and I'm saying you have to retract your words now that it has been proven I am an IDF veteran.

I posted a challenge to you to respond to the OP, and you are silent. That really says volumes about your inability to grasp the subject matter.