# American civilians are legitimate targets in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 4, 2009, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-civilians-are-legitimate-targets-in-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict/479819 "2009-01-04T16:35:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-civilians-are-legitimate-targets-in-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict/479819/81 "2009-01-04T23:40:00Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > Theres plenty of us who are upset that this is happening but believe the fault lies with the cowards hiding among civilians to attack another country, not the country defending itself from attack. Israel was not being attacked. That is the essential lie in all of this. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-civilians-are-legitimate-targets-in-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict/479819/82 "2009-01-04T23:42:28Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] Israel was not being attacked. That is the essential lie in all of this. [/QUOTE] Explain the lie then. How is Israel not being attacked? [QUOTE=DSeid] And as Alessan points out [/QUOTE] Democracies tend not to be too good at that kind of thing. We tend to start beating our collective chests and demanding that the politicians DO SOMETHING! And the politician types generally give us what we asked for…which isn’t always what we either wanted or needed. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-civilians-are-legitimate-targets-in-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict/479819/83 "2009-01-04T23:42:45Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > **newscrasher** rationalizing the intentional _targeting_ of civilians, be they my family, your friends, or others, with incomplete and somewhat false information, seems like a poor way to promote justice in the world. I said I didn’t agree with that, but you have no moral high ground as long as you support the targeting of Palestinian civilians. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-civilians-are-legitimate-targets-in-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict/479819/84 "2009-01-04T23:44:17Z")
Israel was not being attacked? WTF? True the attacks were not highly effective but they were attacks and they were transitioning to longer range rockets that have more potential to hit major population centers. It doesn’t count as an attack unless you wait until they get a large hit on a major population center perhaps? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-civilians-are-legitimate-targets-in-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict/479819/85 "2009-01-04T23:44:38Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Explain the lie then. How is Israel not being attacked? It’s not being attacked in the same way that it’s not being devoured by a Cloverfield monster. Your question makes no sense. The rocketing from Hamas is too impotent to really be called an “attack.” ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-civilians-are-legitimate-targets-in-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict/479819/86 "2009-01-04T23:45:44Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Israel was not being attacked? WTF? True the attacks were not highly effective but they were attacks and they were transitioning to longer range rockets that have more potential to hit major population centers. It doesn’t count as an attack unless you wait until they get a large hit on a major population center perhaps? That’s correct. You actually have to get attacked before you can claim you’re being attacked. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-civilians-are-legitimate-targets-in-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict/479819/87 "2009-01-04T23:48:09Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] It’s not being attacked in the same way that it’s not being devoured by a Cloverfield monster. Your question makes no sense. The rocketing from Hamas is too impotent to really be called an “attack.” [/QUOTE] I’m sorry, but your analogy is silly and your assertion is biased. If Hamas tosses rockets at Israeli targets, even if it hits no one, that still constitutes what is generally accepted by the term ‘attack’. I could go through the pointless exercise of looking up and posting the definition of ‘attack’, but that would be silly since we all know what that term means. So…justify your answer. How is launching rockets at Israeli targets and killing Israeli civilians not an attack? -XT ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-civilians-are-legitimate-targets-in-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict/479819/88 "2009-01-04T23:48:51Z")
Yay! Now we get to trade dictionary definitions of “attack”. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-civilians-are-legitimate-targets-in-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict/479819/89 "2009-01-04T23:50:40Z")
> [@Gala\_Matrix\_Fire](#): > > [71% of Americans](http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/999741.html) think the US should not take sides in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. 1. It was an internet poll. 2. The question was hopelessly vague and didn’t elaborate on what it actually meant. Like asking people “Do you support universal health care?” without adding “…if it would increase your taxes by X dollars?” 3. It’s directly at odds with virtually every other study conducted over the last decade, most of which shows that a majority of Americans support Israel over the Palestinians and a majority of Americans believe that our current support for Israel is either fine or too little. > [@newcrasher](#): > > According to the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits the collective punishment of a people. Obviously all Gazans are being punished for the miltitary actions of Hamas. This is as untrue as your invention of a nation called “Palestine”. > [@](#): > > Article 28 > > The presence of a protected person may not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations. [quote] Article 28 The presence of a protected person may not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations. > [@](#): > > Article 35 > > All protected persons who may desire to leave the territory at the outset of, or during a conflict, shall be entitled to do so, unless their departure is contrary to the national interests of the State. > [@](#): > > Article 42 > > The internment or placing in assigned residence of protected persons may be ordered only if the security of the Detaining Power makes it absolutely necessary. > [@](#): > > Article 49 > > Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive. > > Nevertheless, the Occupying Power may undertake total or partial evacuation of a given area if the security of the population or imperative military reasons do demand. Such evacuations may not involve the displacement of protected persons outside the bounds of the occupied territory except when for material reasons it is impossible to avoid such displacement. Persons thus evacuated shall be transferred back to their homes as soon as hostilities in the area in question have ceased. > [@](#): > > Article 53 > > Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons, or to the State, or to other public authorities, or to social or cooperative organizations, is prohibited, except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations. > [@](#): > > Article 78 > > If the Occupying Power considers it necessary, for imperative reasons of security, to take safety measures concerning protected persons, it may, at the most, subject them to assigned residence or to internment. > [@](#): > > Article 147 > > Grave breaches to which the preceding Article relates shall be those involving any of the following acts, if committed against persons or property protected by the present Convention: wilful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments, wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement of a protected person, compelling a protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile Power, or wilfully depriving a protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed in the present Convention, taking of hostages and extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-civilians-are-legitimate-targets-in-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict/479819/90 "2009-01-04T23:54:13Z")
Y’know **Dio** repeating untrue statements does not make them any more true. There is NO reason to believe, and every reason to not believe that Israel is targeting civilians. To use the word target as a synonym for unavoidable consequence of targeting a military objective is a twist of the truth that is unconscionable. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-civilians-are-legitimate-targets-in-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict/479819/91 "2009-01-04T23:55:08Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > I said I didn’t agree with that, but you have no moral high ground as long as you support the targeting of Palestinian civilians. I take it that you’re just making up your own words? “Target” has an actual meaning. “Attack” has an actual meaning. Please define how launching high explosive, anti-personnel rockets is not an attack and how directing attacks against valid military targets is directing attacks against civilians. Show your work. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-civilians-are-legitimate-targets-in-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict/479819/92 "2009-01-04T23:56:36Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > It’s more like someone throwing a rock at you and you responding by blowing up his house and killing his whole family. Well, no, it’s really not like that at all. Israel isn’t being harassed, they’re being attacked with deadly weapons. People have died. I’m sorry Israel’s armed forces is more powerful than Hamas, but that’s not a moral failing. The USA’s armed forces is stronger than Canada’s, but if Canada bombed Detroit the USA would be perfectly justified in opening up a can of whupass, and it would lend Canada no moral standing that they had an inferior military. You’re free to pretend Israel is not being attacked. I don’t know why you would persist with such a ridiculous fantasy, but go right ahead. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-civilians-are-legitimate-targets-in-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict/479819/93 "2009-01-05T00:01:30Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Y’know **Dio** repeating untrue statements does not make them any more true. There is NO reason to believe, and every reason to not believe that Israel is targeting civilians. To use the word target as a synonym for unavoidable consequence of targeting a military objective is a twist of the truth that is unconscionable. My word for what’s going on in Gaza would be “pogrom.” It has no defensive or military purpose. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-civilians-are-legitimate-targets-in-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict/479819/94 "2009-01-05T00:05:38Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] My word for what’s going on in Gaza would be “pogrom.” It has no defensive or military purpose. [/QUOTE] And yet you are unable to justify your assertions and simply keep making more outrageous one. Or, in the immortal words of Inigo Montoya “I dinna think that word means what you think it means”… -XT ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-civilians-are-legitimate-targets-in-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict/479819/95 "2009-01-05T00:06:15Z")
Israel was not being attacked people. Sorry. An attack on a state has to actually comprise some sort of plausible threat to the state _as_ a state. The rocketing from Hamas is criminal behavior, and is a threat to public safety, but it’s asinine to call it an attack on the state. There isn’t the slightest possibility that those rockets are going to destroy the state of Israel. This kind of thing remind me of when wife beaters always try to claim “she hit me first” as an excuse for breaking both her arms and putting her in the hospital. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-civilians-are-legitimate-targets-in-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict/479819/96 "2009-01-05T00:09:13Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Y’know **Dio** repeating untrue statements does not make them any more true. There is NO reason to believe, and every reason to not believe that Israel is targeting civilians. To use the word target as a synonym for unavoidable consequence of targeting a military objective is a twist of the truth that is unconscionable. I do not recognize any moral difference between targeting civilians and collateral damage. I have always been consistent about that no matter what state is doing it. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-civilians-are-legitimate-targets-in-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict/479819/97 "2009-01-05T00:15:06Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] An attack on a state has to actually comprise some sort of plausible threat to the state as a state. [/QUOTE] Since when? When did this definition arise and do you have a cite for this usage of the word ‘attack’? From a historical perspective are you saying that any attack that didn’t pose a direct threat to the state was simply a criminal activity? Because I can think of a few examples of attacks that were perpetrated without any intention or realistic expectation of defeating or destroying another state. > [@](#): > > The rocketing from Hamas is criminal behavior, and is a threat to public safety, but it’s asinine to call it an attack on the state. If you attack a nation states territory and it’s civilians you ARE attacking the state…whether you think you can destroy said state or not by your attack. Assuming though for the sake of argument that this is simply criminal behavior are you seriously saying that Israel should send in police too arrest the miscreants? Do you have a serious expectation that Israel COULD simply send in a few police officers to arrest those at fault…and that this would work?? Seriously? Or that the Palestinians would arrest those at fault if only Israel would stop bombing the crap out of them? > [@](#): > > This kind of thing remind me of when wife beaters always try to claim “she hit me first” as an excuse for breaking both her arms and putting her in the hospital. Except that in most of those cases the supposed attack was completely made up. In THIS case however, no matter how you attempt to parse the term, Hamas DID attack Israel with intent to kill and damage. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-civilians-are-legitimate-targets-in-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict/479819/98 "2009-01-05T00:19:56Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > 1. It was an internet poll. Cite? You seem to be suggesting the poll was self-selecting. It was not. It was a poll of 801 randomly-selected Americans. [Cite (pdf).](http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/IsPal_Conflict/IsPal_May02/IsPal_May02_rpt.pdf) > [@FinnAgain](#): > > 1. It’s directly at odds with virtually every other study conducted over the last decade, most of which shows that a majority of Americans support Israel over the Palestinians and a majority of Americans believe that our current support for Israel is either fine or too little. The Maryland study points out the failings of some earlier surveys: > [@](#): > > Numerous polls have asked respondents whether they blame the Israelis or Palestinians more, or with which side they have more sympathy. Given only these two options, a strong _plurality_ has expressed a more favorable view of the Israelis. But large percentages of respondents in these polls—sometimes more than half—have not answered either way, suggesting widespread discomfort with the question. For example, an April 16 Fox News poll asked, “Who do you think is more to blame for the failure to reach peace in the Middle East: the Israelis or the Palestinians?” A remarkable 55% refused to answer. Of the 45% that did, 12% blamed the Israelis more and 33% the Palestinians. > > When PIPA reasked the Fox News question cited above about blame for the failure to reach peace, it offered the additional response option of “both sides about equally.” The percentage refusing to answer the question dropped from 55% to just 5%. Most striking, a majority of 58% chose the new response option of “both sides about equally.” Of the remainder, 29% blamed the Palestinians more, while 7% blamed the Israelis more. ---
**Author:** ![Carol\_Stream](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c2a13f/32.png) [@Carol\_Stream](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carol_Stream)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-civilians-are-legitimate-targets-in-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict/479819/99 "2009-01-05T00:26:09Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Israel was not being attacked people. Sorry. An attack on a state has to actually comprise some sort of plausible threat to the state _as_ a state. So the attack on Pearl Harbor wasn’t an attack? After all, an attack on an overseas military outpost never threatened the United States as a state, right? ---
**Author:** ![robertliguori](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/46a35a/32.png) [@robertliguori](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robertliguori)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2009, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-civilians-are-legitimate-targets-in-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict/479819/100 "2009-01-05T00:26:54Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Israel was not being attacked people. Sorry. An attack on a state has to actually comprise some sort of plausible threat to the state _as_ a state. The rocketing from Hamas is criminal behavior, and is a threat to public safety, but it’s asinine to call it an attack on the state. There isn’t the slightest possibility that those rockets are going to destroy the state of Israel. So, since the leadership of Hamas is sufficently distributed that Israel’s retaliation can’t destroy it, neither side attacked each other? Oh, great. > [@](#): > > This kind of thing remind me of when wife beaters always try to claim “she hit me first” as an excuse for breaking both her arms and putting her in the hospital. If she did hit first, that’s a pretty good excuse. As noted above, moral worth is not gained by being the underdog. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-civilians-are-legitimate-targets-in-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict/479819.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-civilians-are-legitimate-targets-in-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict/479819.md?page=6)