A constructive Israel thread?

[DSeid]

Collounsbury returns sans expletives and toned down on the arrogant condenscension! I am only too happy to try to understand your POV. Even though I disagree with lots of it, I will try to treat your thoughts respectfully … I would appreciate the same.

Israel needs security from those who are and will continue to be dedicated to its destruction at any cost, a group that may be a minority but a very destructive minority. How to reliably shut these forces down was the question that was asked.

The borders between Israel and an effective successful Palestine will of necessity be more enmeshed and permeable than those of most countries. They’ll be sharing a capital city for God’s sake! Many Palestinians will be going to jobs in Israel every day.

Therefore the “gamble” that you propose is a very high stakes one indeed. Is the choice really either your way or “permanent war until demographics finally overwhelm”? Is any reason for Israel to believe that your proposed gamble is a good bet? Let us take your virgin metaphor: Your are engaged to a girl. She was no virgin, but she swore to be faithful. You find out that she was cheating, in fact that she was swinging and making porn flicks, all the time that you had been engaged. She says that she’ll stop but you continue to find used condoms in her bedroom garbage can and they are not yours. Do you gamble that once you get married that she’ll be faithful then?

As to the PA’s ability to deliver security … It seems to me that Arafat’s apologists are trying to say that he can’t stop the violent elements and besides he will only after he gets a deal that he likes. C’mon. My guess is that he can’t totally stop the violent elements, that he wouldn’t try because of the “costs” involved in taking on elements like Hamas, and that currently his PA is providing support for the violence even while mouthing condemnations. (There are not sections of the PA that have been restraining extremist elements.) But that the PA could make a substantial dent if it wanted to take on the task.

Israel tried unilateral ceasefires. It was met with bombings.

“IDF has largely left Hamas untouched.” ??? It has targetted Hamas to the best of its ability. Why, just this weekend,

Muhaned Taher, who is considered the most senior West Bank militant wanted by Israel, was killed Sunday evening by IDF troops in Nablus. Taher was commander of the Hamas military wing in the Hebron area. A second Hamas member, Imad Draoza, was also killed and another was injured and arrested.

A security services source said Taher topped the most-wanted list, making bombs that killed 104 Israelis - most recently, the bomb used to blow up a bus on the Patt road in Jerusalem, which killed 19 Israelis.

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=181382&sw=hamas

Clearly the Palestinians have more to gain by shutting down the terrorism than by continuing it. They will never have a state while Israel is under constant attack. Shutting down terrorism would allow the moderate elements in Israel to push for good faith negotiations and withdrawl from West Bank territories. It would remove the reasons for the Israeli actions in the West Bank that are percieved as “punches in the face”. Even restricting operations to clear military targets (not settler families) in the West Bank would allow for resumed negotiations.

As to the squalid conditions, well Jordan has never been a rich country.

She certainly had enough money for extensive military operations against Israel!

akohl Israel has a right to exist. The Jewish people have a right to survive. I am a Zionist and believe that the two are intertwined. But Jews do not have a right to live where ever they want. The occupied territory is not part of Israel. Hebron is no longer a Jewish community. Many Jewish communities across the MidEast are gone. Many Arab communities that were in what is Israel proper are gone. Cancel the absences out, or work out a compensation plan to both groups, but both sides need to give up on recapturing the past. What does the future need? A functional Palestine that is committed to doing what it takes to living peaceably with Israel. Israel isn’t going away. The Palestinians are not going away. Someday there must be a Palestine or we will be in Collounsbury’s state of perpetual war. Protecting you and other settlers, and your personal desire to live in Biblical Israel (or even to recreate more recent past Jewish communities) makes the creation of that State trickier. It puts other Israelis at risk providing security for you. Even if you had the right, the greater good would be served by your giving that particular dream up.

[system]

Rapidly, I am behind in things that count:

*Originally posted by DSeid *
Israel needs security from those who are and will continue to be dedicated to its destruction at any cost, a group that may be a minority but a very destructive minority. How to reliably shut these forces down was the question that was asked.

Precisely, military occupation, as Algeria proved, as numerous examples have proven, unless the occupier is willing to descend to the very depths of brutality -and with very few exceptions Israel has to be commended for resisting this idea- fails.

The question is how to break the cycle then.

Holding one’s breath and setting up impossible circumstances will not do it.

Imprisoning the more moderate parts of the PA, albeit perhaps for justifiable reasons, while letting Hamas go virtually untouched, does not get one forward. Making idiotic demands that the other guy change his leadership to your liking -after a history of trying to impose ‘house niggers’ -to use a brutal analogy- on a people- is not going to work.

I look to the example of the FLN or to the IRA and the French and the British negotiating. I note that neither got to select which terrorists they negotiated with. The Brits have had plenty of reason to doubt Mr Adams veracity and trustworthiness, plenty. I may be clear in saying I rather despise the IRA. Hard to shake my traditional WASP roots you know. However, when they are the game in town, they are the game in town.

Therefore the “gamble” that you propose is a very high stakes one indeed. Is the choice really either your way or “permanent war until demographics finally overwhelm”?

Any policy now is a fucking gamble. We have seen how well, historicaly and recently military occupation fights guerrilla warfare cum terror. Periods of queit are achieved before the cells regenerate, unless one addresses the root causes.

My sense up to about 2000 was that a critical mass of Palestinians were prepared to recog. Israel and live and let live with Jews. Not 100%, not with any deep love, but live and let live.

I say this as someone who speaks their language and in a way folks forget I am a Westerner.

Now, of course, hatred has come back to the surface.

Break the cycle or not.

Is any reason for Israel to believe that your proposed gamble is a good bet? Let us take your virgin metaphor: Your are engaged to a girl. She was no virgin, but she swore to be faithful. You find out that she was cheating, in fact that she was swinging and making porn flicks, all the time that you had been engaged.

Wonderful analogy. You forgot the part about you also stepped out and flat out lied about it or made excuses. That neither partner has particularly been faithful in the relationship.

The problem comes from both ends not being honest enough with themselves.

Now clearly the Palestinian problem with self-honesty is much much much worse. Function of a society which is neither democratic nor has ever known the same, and has grown up under occupation.

One either has to move forward within that context or condemn oneself to the cycle.