Ziggurat
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Jun 19, 2003
- Messages
- 61,708
I've been tied up lately, so this response has been a few days coming.
Evidence is bountiful, but here's a sampling. First, a section of Raiyshi's statement about why she blew herself up:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3397461.stm
"I have always wished, and went too far in wishing, that my body would be shrapnel that tears the sons of Zion, and I have always wished to knock at the door of heaven with the skulls of the sons of Zion."
Note the desire for death: not just of her enemies, but of herself as well. She WANTED to kill herself. And she believed that God wanted her to do this, and would reward her.
A PA-appointed Fatwa council had this to say:
http://www.memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SR2504
"Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country. Fight them, wherever you are. Wherever you meet them, kill them. Wherever you are, kill those Jews and those Americans who are like them – and those who stand by them – they are all in one trench, against the Arabs and the Muslims – because they established Israel here, in the beating heart of the Arab world, in Palestine. They created it to be the outpost of their civilization – and the vanguard of their army, and to be the sword of the West and of the Crusaders, hanging over the necks of the monotheists, the Muslims in these lands. They wanted the Jews to be their spearhead… Allah, deal with the Jews, your enemies and the enemies of Islam. Deal with the crusaders, and America, and Europe behind them, O Lord of the worlds…"
And now let's look at what Bin Laden has to say:
http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP47603
"The [Islamic] Nation has also been promised victory over the Jews, as the Prophet Mohammad has told us: 'The Day of Judgment will not arrive until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them, until the Jew hides behind the stones and the trees; and each stone or tree will say: Oh Muslim, Oh servant of God, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him; apart from the gharqad,[18]which is the tree of the Jews.'[19]This hadith also teaches [us] that the conflict with the enemy will be settled by killing and warfare, and not by disabling the potential of the Nation for decades by a variety of means such as the deception of democracy."
No fundamental difference here. Those who insist that Palestinian terrorism is somehow fundamentally different from Al Qu'aeda are hiding their heads in the sand. I've provided you enough evidence on this matter, if you need more convincing I suggest you do your own research. It should now be clear that the goal of palestinian suicide bombers is not simply their independence, but the destruction of Israel and the genocide of the jews. Hence my point: their fundamental goal is evil, not just their methods.
If you're interested in what's going on in the middle east, www.memri.org is pretty much required reading. It's really the best place to get information about what arabs are saying to each other - much of it incredibly racist, paranoid, and delusional, but there are also intelligent, serious and informed calls for major reform within the arab world as well. I'm telling you to check that site out not just because it supports my argument here, but because it's a great source for general information.
Yes you have. Morality is not binary. There are always degrees, and reasonable people need not even agree completely on the degrees for two different actions/events. You did not establish that the two (Israeli targeted killings and Palestinian suicide bombing) are equivalent, so "universality" isn't a relevant concept in comparing them, and in fact as I explained, they aren't equivalent.
The whole bloody point is that the actions *aren't* equivalent, so nothing here follows. Again: Israeli targeted killings DO have legitimate targets, and their goal of stopping suicide bombings are also justifiable. That cannot be said of Palestinian suicide bombing. If you want to argue that Israeli targeted killings are on balance immoral, you need to weigh the benefits against the costs, and again, I don't claim to be able to do that. But there are no moral benefits to Palestinian suicide bombing. So there is absolutely no reason to believe that universal principles of morality would make these equally immoral actions. Hell, I'm not even going to claim that all Palestinian suicide bombings are equally immoral, and frankly that's beside the point. Your insistence on making that claim betrays your agenda.
I thought you claimed to be a skeptic? What actually makes you think that targeted killings lead to more suicide bombings? I've never seen any evidence. I've heard claims, always from those with an interest in stopping the targeted killings, but never any evidence. But you've bought that argument, hook line and sinker, because it sounded right to you. The Palestinians already hate the Jews. Their anger has pretty much saturated, they'll try to do suicide bombings no matter what the Jews do. The limiting factor is not Palestinian hatred, but operational capability. Maybe targeted killings do increase suicide bombings more than they hamper operational capability, but without knowing a LOT about the details of these groups on the local level, I can't say. And neither can you, unless you're privy to a lot more information than you have so far indicated.
What I am not going to do in this argument is agree to be the only one presenting facts and evidence. If all you're going to do is say "I don't believe you, show me more evidence", then frankly I'm not going to bother. I've presented more details, as per your request, but if you want more evidence for my side, you're going to have to start putting up some evidence for your views.
Wow: you try to jump all over me for not backing up my statements, and you throw out stuff like this? Since when is attacking an occupying power automatically a good thing? Since when should that be a moral principle? It shouldn't. The fact that a foreign power is occyupying your land does not in itself make that power a legitimate target (example: our occupation of Germany and Japan, where we, the occupiers, were the good guys, and their former native leadership had been the ones ultimately responsible for their greatest suffering).
And her attack isn't even useful in that regard. Does it damage Isreal militarily? Nope. Does it actually help improve the Palestinian side? Nope. Does it make the Israelis want to concede anything? Nope. What it does, and what she even SAID she was trying to do, is kill Jews. That's what she said she wanted to do, and there is simply no moral justification for that. If Tonge didn't know this about Raiyshi's motivations, she's an idiot for blabbing about something she doesn't understand. But worse is if she DID know this, and decided to express sympathy anyways. I'm willing to assume the former, but idiocy is still sufficient reason for repremand to be justified.
This is actually a good point, but I'm not sure if you grasp the significance of what you're saying. On the individual level, these bombers just want to kill Jews. I used to think that this was the main driving force at the command level, but I'm actually changing my mind about that. Although that's certainly a factor, I think perhaps an even more important reason is jockeying for prestige by various groups within the palestinians. That explains why they announce the names of suicide bombers (to claim credit) even though that brings reprisals against the families, and why they don't engage in activities that would be militarily MUCH more useful but would have little or no prestige they could attribute to themselves, like sniper campaigns.
I'm actually now convinced this is the only way. Palestinians have long believed that time was on their side, that things would slowly change to their favor, so why bother making peace? This changes things: time is no longer on their side, if they actually want not only peace but concessions from the Israelis, they damned well better put something forward on their side, and fast, or they're going to lose. Arguments about where exactly the wall should run are quite frankly secondary.
This conflict is only going to end when one side is thoroughly defeated. That is the sad fact of the situation, and nobody can change it, though many outside the conflict cling to the illusion that compromise is possible (despite all evidence to the contrary). The Palestinians never deliver on promises to stop the violence (why is irrelevant), and any time Israel makes a concession, the Palestinians take this as a sign of weakness and merely step up their own efforts, rather than make concessions of their own. So the conflict will not end until one side is defeated.
The question is what will defeat look like, and how can one side be defeated? If the Israelis are defeated militarily, that means mass killing (and possibly the use of nuclear weapons). That is unacceptable, but also fortunately unlikely. Israel would also be defeated if there were total integration: a Palestinian majority in a democracy would likely end up treating the Jews like Mugabe treats white farmers in Zimbabwe, with the ensuing chaos and economic devastation as well. The Jews will never risk their own destruction this way, so it's also not going to happen.
So now we get to the question of how the Palestinians can be defeated. Conventional military oppression certainly won't work. What may work, though, is unilateral disengagement. Build a wall, physically isolate the Palestinians from Israel. Withdraw troops, and let the Palestinians do whatever the hell they want on their own plots of land. This would defeat them, because it would basically spell doom for their true objective, the destruction of Israel. This is the real reason they're so frantic about the wall being built: it spells their defeat, and they know it. But the only people in a position to actually stop Israel is the US, and we're not in a sympathetic mood. And quite frankly, we shouldn't be. In the long run, defeat will be good for the Palestinians. It's the ONLY possible way that they can overcome the fundamental flaws in their own culture that produce such systematic misery, violence, and corruption. It would be nice indeed if a negotiated settlement were possible, but there really is no reason to believe that any more. "Winners never quit, and quitters never win, but if you never quit AND you never win, you're just stupid."
Not if they merely sat on their asses, no. I never claimed that. But unlike the Palestinians, it's actually possible to appeal to the conscience of the Israelis. What they should have done is what Ghandi did in India. That would have worked to get them their own land - maybe not the 1967 borders, but an imperfect solution that works is better than no solution or a "perfect" one that fails completely. The Palestinians would do well to abandon their all or nothing strategy and start settling for what they can actually get. But they didn't do that for a number of reasons, one of which is their real goal is the destruction of Israel, not simply getting their independence, and that simply isn't possible without violence.
Cain claims that Barak's offer was not acceptable to the Palestinians. Perhaps, but it was more than they were offered before, and instead of seeing that as a good start to continued negotiations and improved relations, they viewed it as a sign of weakness, that if Israel made that concession after some violence they'll make even more concessions after increased violence.
Hamas isn't in the habit of phrasing it like I do, but again and again they call for the destruction of Israel, generally rejecting calls for truce. Hamas and other Palestinians often say they want to kick Isrealis off "their" land - sympathizers in Europe like to read this as meaning the west bank and gaza, but that is not what they mean: they mean ALL of Israel.
Check out Hamas' charter document:
http://www.palestinecenter.org/cpap/documents/charter.html
A choice quote:
"[Peace] initiatives, the so-called peaceful solutions, and the international conferences to resolve the Palestinian problem, are all contrary to the beliefs of the Islamic Resistance Movement. For renouncing any part of Palestine means renouncing part of the religion..."
Evidence is bountiful, but here's a sampling. First, a section of Raiyshi's statement about why she blew herself up:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3397461.stm
"I have always wished, and went too far in wishing, that my body would be shrapnel that tears the sons of Zion, and I have always wished to knock at the door of heaven with the skulls of the sons of Zion."
Note the desire for death: not just of her enemies, but of herself as well. She WANTED to kill herself. And she believed that God wanted her to do this, and would reward her.
A PA-appointed Fatwa council had this to say:
http://www.memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SR2504
"Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country. Fight them, wherever you are. Wherever you meet them, kill them. Wherever you are, kill those Jews and those Americans who are like them – and those who stand by them – they are all in one trench, against the Arabs and the Muslims – because they established Israel here, in the beating heart of the Arab world, in Palestine. They created it to be the outpost of their civilization – and the vanguard of their army, and to be the sword of the West and of the Crusaders, hanging over the necks of the monotheists, the Muslims in these lands. They wanted the Jews to be their spearhead… Allah, deal with the Jews, your enemies and the enemies of Islam. Deal with the crusaders, and America, and Europe behind them, O Lord of the worlds…"
And now let's look at what Bin Laden has to say:
http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP47603
"The [Islamic] Nation has also been promised victory over the Jews, as the Prophet Mohammad has told us: 'The Day of Judgment will not arrive until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them, until the Jew hides behind the stones and the trees; and each stone or tree will say: Oh Muslim, Oh servant of God, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him; apart from the gharqad,[18]which is the tree of the Jews.'[19]This hadith also teaches [us] that the conflict with the enemy will be settled by killing and warfare, and not by disabling the potential of the Nation for decades by a variety of means such as the deception of democracy."
No fundamental difference here. Those who insist that Palestinian terrorism is somehow fundamentally different from Al Qu'aeda are hiding their heads in the sand. I've provided you enough evidence on this matter, if you need more convincing I suggest you do your own research. It should now be clear that the goal of palestinian suicide bombers is not simply their independence, but the destruction of Israel and the genocide of the jews. Hence my point: their fundamental goal is evil, not just their methods.
If you're interested in what's going on in the middle east, www.memri.org is pretty much required reading. It's really the best place to get information about what arabs are saying to each other - much of it incredibly racist, paranoid, and delusional, but there are also intelligent, serious and informed calls for major reform within the arab world as well. I'm telling you to check that site out not just because it supports my argument here, but because it's a great source for general information.
Yes you have. Morality is not binary. There are always degrees, and reasonable people need not even agree completely on the degrees for two different actions/events. You did not establish that the two (Israeli targeted killings and Palestinian suicide bombing) are equivalent, so "universality" isn't a relevant concept in comparing them, and in fact as I explained, they aren't equivalent.
The whole bloody point is that the actions *aren't* equivalent, so nothing here follows. Again: Israeli targeted killings DO have legitimate targets, and their goal of stopping suicide bombings are also justifiable. That cannot be said of Palestinian suicide bombing. If you want to argue that Israeli targeted killings are on balance immoral, you need to weigh the benefits against the costs, and again, I don't claim to be able to do that. But there are no moral benefits to Palestinian suicide bombing. So there is absolutely no reason to believe that universal principles of morality would make these equally immoral actions. Hell, I'm not even going to claim that all Palestinian suicide bombings are equally immoral, and frankly that's beside the point. Your insistence on making that claim betrays your agenda.
I thought you claimed to be a skeptic? What actually makes you think that targeted killings lead to more suicide bombings? I've never seen any evidence. I've heard claims, always from those with an interest in stopping the targeted killings, but never any evidence. But you've bought that argument, hook line and sinker, because it sounded right to you. The Palestinians already hate the Jews. Their anger has pretty much saturated, they'll try to do suicide bombings no matter what the Jews do. The limiting factor is not Palestinian hatred, but operational capability. Maybe targeted killings do increase suicide bombings more than they hamper operational capability, but without knowing a LOT about the details of these groups on the local level, I can't say. And neither can you, unless you're privy to a lot more information than you have so far indicated.
What I am not going to do in this argument is agree to be the only one presenting facts and evidence. If all you're going to do is say "I don't believe you, show me more evidence", then frankly I'm not going to bother. I've presented more details, as per your request, but if you want more evidence for my side, you're going to have to start putting up some evidence for your views.
Wow: you try to jump all over me for not backing up my statements, and you throw out stuff like this? Since when is attacking an occupying power automatically a good thing? Since when should that be a moral principle? It shouldn't. The fact that a foreign power is occyupying your land does not in itself make that power a legitimate target (example: our occupation of Germany and Japan, where we, the occupiers, were the good guys, and their former native leadership had been the ones ultimately responsible for their greatest suffering).
And her attack isn't even useful in that regard. Does it damage Isreal militarily? Nope. Does it actually help improve the Palestinian side? Nope. Does it make the Israelis want to concede anything? Nope. What it does, and what she even SAID she was trying to do, is kill Jews. That's what she said she wanted to do, and there is simply no moral justification for that. If Tonge didn't know this about Raiyshi's motivations, she's an idiot for blabbing about something she doesn't understand. But worse is if she DID know this, and decided to express sympathy anyways. I'm willing to assume the former, but idiocy is still sufficient reason for repremand to be justified.
This is actually a good point, but I'm not sure if you grasp the significance of what you're saying. On the individual level, these bombers just want to kill Jews. I used to think that this was the main driving force at the command level, but I'm actually changing my mind about that. Although that's certainly a factor, I think perhaps an even more important reason is jockeying for prestige by various groups within the palestinians. That explains why they announce the names of suicide bombers (to claim credit) even though that brings reprisals against the families, and why they don't engage in activities that would be militarily MUCH more useful but would have little or no prestige they could attribute to themselves, like sniper campaigns.
I'm actually now convinced this is the only way. Palestinians have long believed that time was on their side, that things would slowly change to their favor, so why bother making peace? This changes things: time is no longer on their side, if they actually want not only peace but concessions from the Israelis, they damned well better put something forward on their side, and fast, or they're going to lose. Arguments about where exactly the wall should run are quite frankly secondary.
This conflict is only going to end when one side is thoroughly defeated. That is the sad fact of the situation, and nobody can change it, though many outside the conflict cling to the illusion that compromise is possible (despite all evidence to the contrary). The Palestinians never deliver on promises to stop the violence (why is irrelevant), and any time Israel makes a concession, the Palestinians take this as a sign of weakness and merely step up their own efforts, rather than make concessions of their own. So the conflict will not end until one side is defeated.
The question is what will defeat look like, and how can one side be defeated? If the Israelis are defeated militarily, that means mass killing (and possibly the use of nuclear weapons). That is unacceptable, but also fortunately unlikely. Israel would also be defeated if there were total integration: a Palestinian majority in a democracy would likely end up treating the Jews like Mugabe treats white farmers in Zimbabwe, with the ensuing chaos and economic devastation as well. The Jews will never risk their own destruction this way, so it's also not going to happen.
So now we get to the question of how the Palestinians can be defeated. Conventional military oppression certainly won't work. What may work, though, is unilateral disengagement. Build a wall, physically isolate the Palestinians from Israel. Withdraw troops, and let the Palestinians do whatever the hell they want on their own plots of land. This would defeat them, because it would basically spell doom for their true objective, the destruction of Israel. This is the real reason they're so frantic about the wall being built: it spells their defeat, and they know it. But the only people in a position to actually stop Israel is the US, and we're not in a sympathetic mood. And quite frankly, we shouldn't be. In the long run, defeat will be good for the Palestinians. It's the ONLY possible way that they can overcome the fundamental flaws in their own culture that produce such systematic misery, violence, and corruption. It would be nice indeed if a negotiated settlement were possible, but there really is no reason to believe that any more. "Winners never quit, and quitters never win, but if you never quit AND you never win, you're just stupid."
Not if they merely sat on their asses, no. I never claimed that. But unlike the Palestinians, it's actually possible to appeal to the conscience of the Israelis. What they should have done is what Ghandi did in India. That would have worked to get them their own land - maybe not the 1967 borders, but an imperfect solution that works is better than no solution or a "perfect" one that fails completely. The Palestinians would do well to abandon their all or nothing strategy and start settling for what they can actually get. But they didn't do that for a number of reasons, one of which is their real goal is the destruction of Israel, not simply getting their independence, and that simply isn't possible without violence.
Cain claims that Barak's offer was not acceptable to the Palestinians. Perhaps, but it was more than they were offered before, and instead of seeing that as a good start to continued negotiations and improved relations, they viewed it as a sign of weakness, that if Israel made that concession after some violence they'll make even more concessions after increased violence.
Hamas isn't in the habit of phrasing it like I do, but again and again they call for the destruction of Israel, generally rejecting calls for truce. Hamas and other Palestinians often say they want to kick Isrealis off "their" land - sympathizers in Europe like to read this as meaning the west bank and gaza, but that is not what they mean: they mean ALL of Israel.
Check out Hamas' charter document:
http://www.palestinecenter.org/cpap/documents/charter.html
A choice quote:
"[Peace] initiatives, the so-called peaceful solutions, and the international conferences to resolve the Palestinian problem, are all contrary to the beliefs of the Islamic Resistance Movement. For renouncing any part of Palestine means renouncing part of the religion..."
