Israel - Palestine

[SirRumpole]

If somebody comes over and take your house and send your family packing to the garden shed and bring you food and water so you won't die.. you'd probably wish them ill too.

Why does every country in the world have armed forces? Are they all war mongers?

If you lock your doors and say have a gun or two, does it mean you hate the world and want to kill your neighbours?

Why must the Palestinians have their doors locked on the outside and their land and water and airspace being monitored like someone else's prisons?

I don't quite get the point you are trying to make.

Imo the Palestinians have got a raw deal, but as long as they vote for a group of jihadists to represent them their chances of getting much sympathy from the West (if that's what they want) is minimal. Their best chance is to renounce jihad and stop the violence. They will still get encroached upon by Israel for a while, but in the long term they will get more help from other countries who will put pressure on Israel to step back and give the Palestinians a better deal.

 

[luutzu]

Ironic that Israel has become the neo-Nazis,delving out collective punishment on any that oppose their occupations and invasions.
I was inculcated with films depicting partisans as heroes when they opposed the Nazi occupations.

I saw a few news clips and video interviews of Jewish people in Israel on youtube... and Israel is a country I definitely do not want live in.

From those videos, all the Israeli youths, maybe except for one teen girl, hates the Arabs... the only Israeli Jews who are sympathetic, who see Arabs as also human being too are the older, 60+ age group.

I'm not saying that these few clips are representative of the Israeli Jewish people... but if you look at the laws, the lawmakers, the judicial processes, the kind of brainwashing that have to take place to tell young people to occupy another group of people... I just hope it doesn't represent the norm, but it is still sad and frightening.

There's this town in Israel where most Arab-Christian Israeli lives. The guy that represent an association for some community works in Israel said that since 1967, all Arab Israeli lives there - there has been no new town, no new city where they can move to. So 3 generations of Arab Israeli just live in an area where their father and grandfather lives, and it just keep getting more and more crowded.

But of course the Israeli gov't tells the world that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, and where an Arab Israeli could become Prime Minister of Israel (the Israeli spokesman actually said that recently).

If I'm Jewish and I believe in God, and I've worked hard and try to be a good person all my life... If I also know a little of the racism that caused the murder of my people... If i'm that and all these time I've been told that Israel represents my people, doing my God's work, represents what I stand for and value... then I spend a week and youtube and see the things that I see, i'd be pretty upset... i'd be outraged.

 

[luutzu]

I don't quite get the point you are trying to make.

Imo the Palestinians have got a raw deal, but as long as they vote for a group of jihadists to represent them their chances of getting much sympathy from the West (if that's what they want) is minimal. Their best chance is to renounce jihad and stop the violence. They will still get encroached upon by Israel for a while, but in the long term they will get more help from other countries who will put pressure on Israel to step back and give the Palestinians a better deal.

First, when the UN and the international observers oversaw the election in Gaza in 2006 [?] where Hamas was elected overwhelmingly... all the international electoral witnesses say it was a fair election and Hamas won.

I don't think any outside power should have the right to dictate to a people who they should elect to represent them. But Israel and the US then declare Hamas a terror organisation and blockade Gaza since.

With the two wars to the one before the current one, Hamas was weakened, pretty much broke and couldn't pay their public servants.... and you can find this on most news debates... Hamas then talks to the Palestinian Authority of Abbas in the West Bank to form a unity gov't and to negotiate with Israel.

Norman Finkelstein, Dr. Stephen Walt and others I've seen have said that Netanyahu then call Washington to do something, call the EU to do something about this unity... both told him they want to see this going forward and see where it leads...

Netanyahu want to break this unity up so he, and Israel, can say to the world that Gaza is controlled by a terrorist organisation, Israel can't negotiate with Palestinians because there's no such thing as a Palestinian authority that represents all of them etc. etc.

Then the 3 Israel youth got kidnapped, by whom no one knows - kidnapped and killed by a Palestinian or two from the West Bank... but the blame was put on Hamas...

If you look up some of the news debate, some have said that the Israeli security have heard the call from one of the youth that were kidnapped and from the recording, assumed they have already been killed at that moment. But Netanyahu suppress that on grounds of National Security, send in the army to the West Bank and capture some 100 Hamas leaders/suspect/former prisoners... Hamas then fire their rockets and here we are.

 

[luutzu]

Alexander sounds like a very smart man.

Don't know much about him but was listening to a lecture on him a while back and after he defeat Darius II [?], marched into the Persian capital and instead of killing everyone, or at least the royal family... he declared to the Empress Dowager that he will treat her as he would his own mother, her children as his own siblings... and to the Persians, he declared that Darius has brought them to ruin but Alexander will make them great again...

Then yea, tax them, ahaha

My mum once told me that the Jewish people are a very smart group of people. Seeing the policies of Israel, either the Jewish aren't that smart or the Israeli gov't aren't Jewish, or not representative of Jewish intellectuals.

I mean, why spend so much of your energy and resources to make another group of people weak? They will try and fight back, some of your people might get kill, you kill them to get them in line for a while... repeat... and through all these, you can't use their labour, can't use their ingenuity... and given what has happen to your people, it's just incomprehensible that you'd repeat similarly unjust and racists laws and action to your people on another people.

 

[bellenuit]

I don't quite get the point you are trying to make.

Imo the Palestinians have got a raw deal, but as long as they vote for a group of jihadists to represent them their chances of getting much sympathy from the West (if that's what they want) is minimal. Their best chance is to renounce jihad and stop the violence. They will still get encroached upon by Israel for a while, but in the long term they will get more help from other countries who will put pressure on Israel to step back and give the Palestinians a better deal.

Exactly my point too. When Luutzu suggesting reading material for me, he overlooked the fact that I had specifically stated that my comments were in relation to the current immediate conflict that was going on not on the justification or not of the Jewish state.

Israel, it seems, have now decided to carry on with this immediate aggression until Hamas is effectively destroyed. Unfortunately the Palestinians people are pawns in this war and the consequences to them could be catastrophic. Apart from the dead and injured, much of their infrastructure is damaged making life for them intolerable.

Macquack asked "What do you expect Hamas to do, continue to take it up the ****?"

This is what Hamas can do. They can get out of Gaza. They are of no benefit to anyone on this earth, least of all to the Palestinians, just like Al-Qaeda is of no benefit to anyone. They do not defend the Gazian Palestinians from Israel, but instead attract retribution. Every major incursion into Gaza in the last few years, most resulting in hundreds sometimes thousands of deaths and injuries, has been a consequence of Hamas rocket fire into Israel. They do not forward the cause of an independent Palestinian state one bit, but instead are an obstacle preventing it being achieved as their goal of the complete annihilation of Jews forces uncommitted Israelis to the right giving the hardline Zionists the upper hand. And their goal isn't just the annihilation of Jews in Israel, but the complete annihilation of all Jews, no matter where they live. If you don't believe that, just check out their charter. This tarnishes all Palestinians who support them with the same brush making it difficult for world governments to throw their support behind the Palestinian cause because of the commitment to never let the Holocaust happen again.

Of course Israel is playing the Holocaust memory for all its worth and are getting away with atrocities that they would otherwise be condemned for, particularly from within the US. European leader are more forthcoming but also muted in their responses. And one of the main causes of this reticence is Hamas and what it stands for.

And there are also lots of others, some of the writers I pointed to as well as people I speak to, who criticise Israel but are not blind to Hamas, what it is doing and what its objectives are. They see Hamas using the Palestinian people as pawns in its goal to annihilate the Jews. They know that the rockets are not being fired to defend the Palestinian people (how on earth could that in any way be a defence?) but to attract retribution and the more deadly and gory the better as far as they are concerned. Because Hamas knows that the nightly scenes on TV will get the myopic "masses" on to the streets who will condemn Israel but have nary a word to say against Hamas.

I have condemned Israel's action as excessive, but I am not blind to or forgiving of the role played by Hamas and I will certainly not be a puppet in their jihadist strategy.

 

[bellenuit]

I don't think any outside power should have the right to dictate to a people who they should elect to represent them. But Israel and the US then declare Hamas a terror organisation and blockade Gaza since.

It doesn't matter whether they were elected fairly or not. Hamas IS a terrorist organisation. Their charter calls for the killing of all Jews. With that in their charter, Israel has every right to go after and annihilate them, but as I said, not irrespective of the consequences to others.

That Hamas was elected by a majority of Gazian Palestinians is a great shame on those Palestinians.

 

[Julia]

The media and the public seem to think (with some justification) that Syria is one lot of crazies against another lot of crazies and whatever happens there is the result of lawlessness and lack of respect for life on both sides, and there is not a lot anyone can do about it.

And the bombing etc from Israel is quite different? What makes Israel's actions not just as crazy?
The Palestinians have nowhere to go. Even the UN schools which one would hope were a place of refuge have been bombed.

Priority for their own life and their family's livelihood.
No matter how much the Arabs just hate the Jews, I still can't imagine them just sitting around hating Jews and thinking of wars to kill them. They got other priorities, like getting a job, like listening to music, studies, take care of their family....

Good heavens! That seems a rather naive view. Wouldn't the Israeli people similarly prefer to be getting a job, listening to music, and taking care of their family also? Rather than living with the constant awareness that their neighbours do not consider they have any right to exist?

Imo the Palestinians have got a raw deal, but as long as they vote for a group of jihadists to represent them their chances of getting much sympathy from the West (if that's what they want) is minimal. Their best chance is to renounce jihad and stop the violence. They will still get encroached upon by Israel for a while, but in the long term they will get more help from other countries who will put pressure on Israel to step back and give the Palestinians a better deal.

Seems reasonable if somewhat optimistic. As long as the Arab world believes Israel has no right to exist, it's hard to see any softening anywhere.

 

[luutzu]

It doesn't matter whether they were elected fairly or not. Hamas IS a terrorist organisation. Their charter calls for the killing of all Jews. With that in their charter, Israel has every right to go after and annihilate them, but as I said, not irrespective of the consequences to others.

That Hamas was elected by a majority of Gazian Palestinians is a great shame on those Palestinians.

Miko Peled - the son of a famous Israeli general who was an officer in the Israeli "militia" [wasn't a country and wasn't an army back then] in the wars before 1947-48... and was an IDF general in the 1967 war... Miko Peled have said that the IDF is, to quote him: "... the most well fed, well armed, well organised terrorist organisation in the world.".

I don't know enough about Hamas to make any stance, and I will never condone any violence or act of terror from any side... but come on, can you honestly excuse any power to do what Israel does to people who "wrongly" elected their own leadership?

Yea, I'd also prefer this and that leader in this and that country or that party... but what right do I get to put an entire population under seige and periodically invade their homeland just because I don't like their leadership and what the leadership said.

You're ignoring all the facts that just about every objective observer have said regarding who broke all the ceasefires; most importantly, you're ignoring reality and real political objectives of any leadership.

If you're running for office in Gaza, are you going to say vote for me, I love the Israelis? You're probably going to the parents who lost their children, to the children whose friends, whose limbs are lost... and you tell them, I'm no pawn of Israel, I'll do this and that nasty thing to them all...

But assume that you are right that if Hamas has the arms, or have any money, it will spend it all on trying to kill the Jews and clean up Palestine off Israel... that's just dreams, and in the real world where you could barely have enough water or food, dreams like having an air force, tanks and war ships to take vengeance just ain't going to happen.

We all know the story of the boy who cry wolf... But i suppose the Israeli gov't think that there will never be a wolf in their neighbourhood and big Uncle Sam will always come to their aid so playing the victimised, noble, self defensive, righteous warriors is going to be OK.


Maybe because I didn't bother to look things up before, but I've only seen two documentaries a long time ago that talk about this conflict, and both of the one i saw simply show the daily hardships and suffering of the Palestinians under occupation.

I didn't like what I saw, I thought it's wrong that the Israeli army could just bulldoze a person's home if their son or daughter was in the resistance... but I thought, that's just Israel being tough to defend itself, it's sad but if it's really undeserved or unjust, I would have seen or heard it on the news...


Miko Peled, the son of a general, whose sister went to school with Bibi, who was himself a soldier in the IDF... he grew up idolising his father, love his country - and by what I see, he still does... and it took him 2 years to come round to the facts that what Israel is doing is wrong. I mean, he said his father - one of the generals who command the 1967 war, fought for Israel's rights to exists but right away advised the gov't to set up two states... but Israel want it all so here we are and will be for a forseeable future.

 

[luutzu]

Good heavens! That seems a rather naive view. Wouldn't the Israeli people similarly prefer to be getting a job, listening to music, and taking care of their family also? Rather than living with the constant awareness that their neighbours do not consider they have any right to exist?

Like I said, if i come up to a house and with powerful friends forcefully divide half that land... should I expect the home owner to accept it?

They put up fights, can't win so eventually forced to accept.

I think Arafat in the 1980s, under the Oslo Accord [?] have agreed to the existence of Israel, agreed to give up 80% of historical Palestine to Israel, has agreed that the new settlements can be Israeli but Israel to fairly agree to a land swap so it's still 80-20%... Israel said no.

I've heard from many other sources on this and other peace proposals and Israel rejects all of them.

So yea, keeping people under occupation for 47 years, deprive them of all human rights and dignity and then complaint that they are not "quiet".

 

[SirRumpole]

And the bombing etc from Israel is quite different? What makes Israel's actions not just as crazy?

Israel's actions are disproportionate, but they have rockets aimed at them as well, and the firing is usually started by Hamas. The bombing of the UN school was totally unjustified, it can only diminish support for Israel in the UN.

 

[DeepState]

"War is a mere continuation of policy by other means."

"The best strategy is always to be very strong, first in general, and then in the decisive point."

"The simultaneous use of all means intended for a given action appears as an elementary law of war."

- Von Clausewitz, 1832

Is this not politics? Within borders of a functional state, one set of morals applies. Once politics moves across borders, there is often no effective law enforcement available. Atrocities have always occurred in exhorting political will and its objectives. The desire for power projection is also pretty standard fare (Mearsheimer), even if some states are unable to achieve it.

Without a functional political structure, you get...Syria. Without functional power you have anarchy.

Countries trade to get what they want ("When goods don't cross borders, Soldiers will"). In this case, they want land, or the elimination of a race. These goods cannot be traded. And so, war. Set aside moral bleatings. Ours is not a world of blissful Kantian democratic peace. Is it not evident that this is a blood feud? It doesn't end until one party is in total control. Equal power is the most dangerous state in overall casualty terms. Overwhelming power, with its drawbacks, offers the prospect of stability. If the positions were reversed, do you imagine peace would reign?

This is also a proxy war, in part, but it is not a clean division when we say "the US is supporting Israel".

 

[Macquack]

It doesn't matter whether they were elected fairly or not. Hamas IS a terrorist organisation. Their charter calls for the killing of all Jews. With that in their charter, Israel has every right to go after and annihilate them, but as I said, not irrespective of the consequences to others.

The Israel government is a terrorist organisation. Their charter is the systematic displacement of Palestinians from Palestine.

Hamas "has every right to go after and annihilate them."

What is the difference, bellenuit?

 

[bellenuit]

I don't know enough about Hamas to make any stance, and I will never condone any violence or act of terror from any side... but come on, can you honestly excuse any power to do what Israel does to people who "wrongly" elected their own leadership?

Did I excuse Israel? Maybe you should read what I wrote.

You're ignoring all the facts that just about every objective observer have said regarding who broke all the ceasefires; most importantly, you're ignoring reality and real political objectives of any leadership.

And which facts have I ignored about the immediate conflict that is going on? That Israel has used excessive force? I stated that. That Hamas are terrorists? I stated that, but you admit that you don't know much about them. That Hamas deliberately tries to provoke a violent response from Israel as that furthers its cause by allowing it to exploit the myopic view many hold on this conflict? That is part of the reality, but it is you that is ignoring it.

If you're running for office in Gaza, are you going to say vote for me, I love the Israelis? You're probably going to the parents who lost their children, to the children whose friends, whose limbs are lost... and you tell them, I'm no pawn of Israel, I'll do this and that nasty thing to them all...

So advocating genocide is acceptable to you then?

But assume that you are right that if Hamas has the arms, or have any money, it will spend it all on trying to kill the Jews and clean up Palestine off Israel... that's just dreams, and in the real world where you could barely have enough water or food, dreams like having an air force, tanks and war ships to take vengeance just ain't going to happen.

You naivety knows no bounds. The capacity of terrorists to do enormous damage with few resources is well recognised. And when backed by other Islamic states such as Iran or with potential access to dirty bombs because of the collapse or near collapse of close by ME states, Israel has to ensure that Hamas never even gets remotely capable of being able to do what it states it would like to do.

Maybe because I didn't bother to look things up before, but I've only seen two documentaries a long time ago that talk about this conflict, and both of the one i saw simply show the daily hardships and suffering of the Palestinians under occupation.

I didn't like what I saw, I thought it's wrong that the Israeli army could just bulldoze a person's home if their son or daughter was in the resistance... but I thought, that's just Israel being tough to defend itself, it's sad but if it's really undeserved or unjust, I would have seen or heard it on the news...

It is mostly undeserved and unjust what they are doing to Palestinians. But Hamas makes it worse for them, not better.

... fought for Israel's rights to exists but right away advised the gov't to set up two states... but Israel want it all so here we are and will be for a forseeable future.

I would love to see a two state solution and there are many Israeli's who would settle for that but their voices are being drowned out by the extreme right who see all lands as their birthright. It is the actions of Hamas that makes it difficult for the moderates to be heard and gives oxygen to those on the far right.

 

[wayneL]

A curious observation if I may:

Generally, the left supports Hamas, the right supports Israel.

Why?

 

[So_Cynical]

In Israel/Gaza we have a country that purports to be civilised shelling schools, homes and refugee camps. That obviously brings up difficult questions of what action the rest of the world should take against Israel for these atrocities.

I'm reading a history book at the moment and the treatment of Jews in America in the 1920's is one of the subjects touched on, one Jewish trait is quoted as "the ruthless pursuit of self interest" sounds like exactly what we are seeing in the Ghettos of Israel at the moment...pretty much what we have seen from the Jewish state for the last 40 years.

 

[SirRumpole]

A curious observation if I may:

Generally, the left supports Hamas, the right supports Israel.

Why?

I think only the uninformed support either of them, they are both crazy.

But I think your general observation is true. It's a "Conservative vs radical" mindset again. The Israeli government is a far right religious organisation (ring any bells ?) and the Left are against anyone the Right supports.

The more idealistic on the Left don't like the Establishment crushing the "little people", and so they will support the underdog.

Conservatives don't like upstarts who challenge the "natural order" so they support the status quo.

Does that make sense to people ?

 

[bellenuit]

But assume that you are right that if Hamas has the arms, or have any money, it will spend it all on trying to kill the Jews and clean up Palestine off Israel... that's just dreams, and in the real world where you could barely have enough water or food, dreams like having an air force, tanks and war ships to take vengeance just ain't going to happen.

Militants ‘blow up UNRWA clinic,’ killing 3 soldiers

http://www.timesofisrael.com/3-idf-soldiers-killed-in-booby-trapped-unrwa-clinic/

With the amount of concrete Hamas poured into the tunnel project, two hospitals, 20 schools, 20 healthcare centers, and 100 kindergartens could have been built, he said.

Criticism Grows after Rockets, Booby Traps Discovered at UN Schools and Clinics

http://www.thetower.org/0815-critic...y-traps-discovered-at-un-schools-and-clinics/

 

[overhang]

Apologies if this offends, a slightly humorous take on the history between two.

 

[luutzu]

Did I excuse Israel? Maybe you should read what I wrote.


And which facts have I ignored about the immediate conflict that is going on? That Israel has used excessive force? I stated that. That Hamas are terrorists? I stated that, but you admit that you don't know much about them. That Hamas deliberately tries to provoke a violent response from Israel as that furthers its cause by allowing it to exploit the myopic view many hold on this conflict? That is part of the reality, but it is you that is ignoring it.

So advocating genocide is acceptable to you then?

You naivety knows no bounds. The capacity of terrorists to do enormous damage with few resources is well recognised. And when backed by other Islamic states such as Iran or with potential access to dirty bombs because of the collapse or near collapse of close by ME states, Israel has to ensure that Hamas never even gets remotely capable of being able to do what it states it would like to do.

It is mostly undeserved and unjust what they are doing to Palestinians. But Hamas makes it worse for them, not better.

I would love to see a two state solution and there are many Israeli's who would settle for that but their voices are being drowned out by the extreme right who see all lands as their birthright. It is the actions of Hamas that makes it difficult for the moderates to be heard and gives oxygen to those on the far right.

I don't, and I don't believe any sane person, find it acceptable to blow people up, be with bombs attach to their bodies or with bombs dropped from a fancy fighter jets.

I do not condone genocide or any form of killing, be it self defense or with booby traps or sniper or drones.

What you wrote is still there for anyone to take a look, I didn't put word in your mouth.

I could be wrong in that you really didn't mean what you imply, but I think that when you say something like... it's heart breaking that a person is kill but the killer was in an "impossible situation", that it was either kill or be kill, that it was a fight for survival or Shoah... I don't think my conclusion was unfounded.

Your comments regarding Hamas making it harder or force Israeli missiles on Palestinians... that Hamas do not want peace, do not want to negotiate, these are all misinformation.

I don't know the origin or the make up of Hamas, but from Finkelstein and Stephen Walt and others, they have said that Hamas, whatever their original intention or rhetorics, was forming a unity party recently with the PA and want to negotiate with Israel... Israel do not.

While I don't know Hamas or claim to read their minds, I think I do know enough about politics and history to say that people, if you see them as people like ourselves, don't win wars by wishing they could, would surrender and accept some kind of a settlement, some kind of a bargain that would show their people that at least they didn't completely sold them out.

People are generally realistic about the world.

I mean, Hamas is pretty stupid if you ask me... why they would want to fire rockets is hard to understand. It's understandable somewhat... I mean, you can't just not have anything... but it would be better if they didn't have any weapons.

The tunnels... how do you know those tunnels are not more defensive measures rather than offensive ones?
From Israel's portrayal of tunnels you'd think Hamas build them so they can rise from the ground into Israeli's homes and murder them in their sleeps.

I heard on a news channel, i think it was BBC, that Israel had long ago know about these tunnels - for at least 10 years.

I mean, the Viet Cong didn't dig tunnels into South Vietnamese land to win the war... they build tunnels to get away from American carpet bombings, build tunnels network so when face to face with South/US armies, they could have a chance of fight and run before the entire area is scorched.

While we're on VN... the US dropped more bombs on VN than the entire tonnage of bombs dropped during WW2... Guess who won the VN War.

 

[bellenuit]

What you wrote is still there for anyone to take a look, I didn't put word in your mouth.

I could be wrong in that you really didn't mean what you imply, but I think that when you say something like... it's heart breaking that a person is kill but the killer was in an "impossible situation", that it was either kill or be kill, that it was a fight for survival or Shoah... I don't think my conclusion was unfounded.

You have certainly put a lot of words in my mouth there. This is what I said and was referring to the Sam Harris article:

I think that article encapsulates what many of us feel about this conflict. Shocked with the overreaction of Israel, but somewhat understanding of the impossible situation they are in.

I said it then and have repeated it enough times that you should not need to draw such conclusions. I said I was shocked by what Israel did and that it was an overreaction. That they were in an impossible situation is beyond doubt. You simply cannot allow Hamas to fire rockets at your cities, but must do something to stop them. Was what they did correct? No, it was shocking and over the top.

None of my posts have condoned Israel's actions, but have sought to expose the role of Hamas in what is going on.