Have they finally gone too far and forced the U.S to chose between world peace and them? If not then what would they have to do before the U.S. turns against them? How many palistian (sp?) children equal one Jewish child?
The only reason Palestinian women and children die in Israeli reprisals is because Palestinian terrorists choose to hide amongst women and children.
Palestinian suicide bombers, on the other hand, have no problem walking into crowded civilian areas with no military purpose whatsoever and blowing up innocent Israelis.
When the Palestinians start sending suicide bombers into Israeli military barracks, then and only then will the two situations be analagous.
Interesting question. Here’s a follow up. How many Afghanistan lives are worth being sacrificed for one American life? Al Quaeda killed 3000 of us, but we have cut off food and pharmaceutical supplies and put 7.5 million Afghani civilians at risk of starvation. Tell me again the evidence that linked the Afghan civilian population to 9/11?
Israel commits horrible atrocities. Palestine commits horrible atrocities. But due to our incredible power, the atrocities we commit do far more damage then both of theirs combined.
The US is not choosing world peace. We are, currently, the primary aggressor in its way. We are bombing a nation, not following throughj on humanitarian promises, and showing every indication of expanding our wars. Hell, even at home we’ve begun destroying our own liberties. It’s ridiculous to condemn Israel as a threat to peace without mentioning its partner in crime, America.
*Note- In no way do I agree or sympathize with the acts of AL Quaeda, or any other terrorist organization. But because we’re big and they’re small does not make our human rights abuses any less reprehensible.
I find it hard to believe that the U.S. has purposely killed a single Afghan civilian. Now if you want to talk about killing civilians then how many German civilians were killed when the allies tried to eliminate the Nazi threat?
America should not “dump” any of its allies. This country needs all the friends it can get in this world. The fact is that Israel is under attack by Palestinian terrorists. America should support Israel’s right to defend itself just as we are defending ourselves against terrorism. The Palestinians have lost all credibility. These are the same people who cheered when the Twin Towers were destroyed. Israel’s enemies are our enemies. We need to work together.
Would you “dump” Canada if it was attacked? :wally
Prove that Israel purposely targeted prople it knew were civilians.
That’s an odd statement, to say the least. Not only are you invoking Godwin’s Law, you’re doing it to work against your own point.
Your OP is fundamentally flawed, justinh. How is the US choosing between Israel and world peace? Do you think that if the US “dumped” Israel then the Pakistanis and Indians would kiss and make up? That al-Qaida would lovingly accept US bases in Saudi Arabia? That the Hutus and Tutsis would run through the hills hand-in-hand? Get real. Israel is just a factor in the US/terrorism campaign. Changing our support of Israel would win no friends in the world and may tacitly precipitate anything from regional to world war to an anti-Israel ethnic cleansing campaign from the Arab League.
What are we trying to say here? That killing civilians in war is a bad thing? That is an obvious point not worthy of debate.
Drawing the line on militants killed:civilians killed ratio is obviously impossible, subjective, and totally situational. In Afghanistan, the US has a fairly easy time keeping the ratio nice and high because al-Qaida and the Taliban fled to the mountains, letting the US bomb the holy hell out of them. In WWII, it was significantly lower because the US had to basically depend on dropping unguided bombs with primitive bombsights out of B17s flying through partial cloud cover while getting shot at by heavy antiaircraft. Vietnam was only slightly better – we had better weapons but this time the militants were often hiding amongst the civilians.
Israel/Palestine is more analagous to Vietnam. Israel is at war. It is under nearly constant attack by bombers and gunmen aiming to take out as many civilians as possible. The PA can/will not do anything about this. The situation has only deteriorated, to the point that the only recourse Israel has is to try and dismantle the terror infrastructure by itself. Since this means picking individual militants out of crowded cities, there are collateral injuries. Like Vietnam.
I don’t agree with every decision Israel has made, but it is clear that they have not gone to either extreme : laying back and taking it from the militants (many of whom only seek to destroy any Jewish presence in the Middle East) or total overrun of the West Bank. They have tried to walk a fine line, and have succeeded in taking out a whole crapload of militants to date with relatively few civilians considering that they have been at war for over a year.
Your problem is that you fall back on this moral equivalence stance that Israel unwittingly killing civilians is somehow the same (or worse) than Palestinians aiming to kill civilians.
A Hamas leader orders a suicide bombing which kills 20 Israelis eating pizza. Israel issues demands for his arrest, and when he is still wandering free after a week, they kill him with a missle to his car and a passing pedestrian is killed. Tanzim militia men fire at Israelis in hardened positions from the midst of an otherwise unruly but nonviolent demonstration. Return fire is needed, resulting in civilian deaths. Militants fire a mortar from a school courtyard, thus precipitating return artillery, and schoolchildren get killed unknowingly. Your entire argument necessitates that the action is somehow morally equivalent (or even more moral) than the reaction. I cannot bring myself to understand how any sane person can convince himself of this. Please expound on this if you wish to continue this debate.
My contention is that Israel is only our “friend” because we pay for their defense. If we stopped propping them up then we would soon see how much of a friend they are. The palestinians would change their name “american lovers” if we gave them 1/100 of the support that we give Israel.
Of course this is a moot point. If we didn’t support them then they would be overrun by the indigenous people of the area, they would use the nukes we gave them and then we would have a mess. There would be no more Israel or Palestinians . only a glass wasteland. Then the fighting would have to wait for the area to cool off.
I think one has to classify what is collateral damage to say that. The US has closed the palestinian border, cutting off all the food envoys. That fucks millions of civilians but makes escape tougher for the Taliban. How many dead civilians are worth one captured terrorist?
Millions. Doesn’t make it right. Could we have won the war without fire bombing Dresden? Most certainly. Dresden was an atrocity. Eliminating the Nazi threat was necessary and just, but killing those civilians was not.
or are the Palestinians defending themselves against the Israeli oppressors? Both sides have extremely valid arguments. Both sides are committing disgusting atrocities. Both sides are wrong. No countries should ally with either nation until said nations agree to a cease fire and to respect human rights.
First of all, not they didn’t. Those were the Egyptians you saw cheering. Though it wouldn’t surprise me if they did…they see the Israelis as oppressors (which to them, they are…imagine if you had an 8 PM curfew and could be restrained at any time for any reason) and America gives unwavering support to Israel no matter its policies or actions. America is not a benevolent nation to most countries, and is not treated as such. I doubt you’re crying for the Afghanis killed, and nor are you likely to shed a tear if Iraq is bombed. That’s how they feel about us.
Ezra
The people I saw cheering were in East Jerusalem. So Palestinians. There were numerous rallies after Sept. 11th, which the PA forbid journalists from reporting. This was a widely reported fact in September of last year.
Israel is a democratic regime. The reason we support them is because we get things in return – namely a safe port in the region, people on the ground for intelligence. Furthermore, a prosperous democratic country in the region may serve as a model for its neighbors. Obviously this kind of crumbles during war, but trade with Israel has done nothing but make countries like Turkey and Jordan richer and more moderate.
Both sides have committed atrocities, but your definition of atrocities seems to be rather narrow. As I read it, you imply Israeli atrocities as needless arrest/searching of civilians and occasional needless death. Palestinian atrocities are strapping a bomb on an 18 year old and having him blow up a crowd of Israeli teenagers, or allowing a mob to kill two Israelis in a PA police station who had accidently wandered into PA controlled territory. You try to paint this as moral equivalency, that neither side is “good” or deserving of aid. Again, I don’t agree with everything that Israel has done, but the vast majority of aggression has come from the Palestinians. Israel has just been responding. While I would agree that the settlements are illegal, that is not an excuse to kill civilian settlers. And, Israel offered to withdraw the settlements in a peace agreement refused by the Palestinians twice. Israel is the better behaving party here, the one with an intact rule of law, the one which investigates needless civilian death, the one with a functioning democracy, legal opposition parties, and freedom of speech.
As Alessan has pointed out, Israel has never pursued a policy of purposefully targeting civilians. While one can argue that the PA hasn’t, just about everyone else in the territories has (including Hamas, IJ, Yasser Arafat’s own political party Fatah, PFLP, Hizbullah, etc.) and there has been no attempt to stop it. There is no moral equivalency.
I think it hurts the U.S. because it is viewed as supporting a non-arab side against an arab side. They have always persecuted the palestinians (curfews, seizures , and such) and not without some valid reasons. Now they have stepped up their tactics to include armoured attacks on civilians. The arab world think of suicide bombing of civilians as a tactic of war. I don’t see a good side vs. bad side.
We are trying to give the impression that we are for world peace and against terrorism and the world needs to bond together and fight this threat. At thesame time we are supporting an enemy to every arab in the world. that seems contradictory. Its one thing to think that cousin ayamsda can’t go driving at night because of the Israelites curfew. Its quite another to think of old cuze run over by a tank while he was sleeping with his family. And the U.S. is supporting this. Why should we help them with the Al Queda when they are helping Israel do these things?
My point is that public opinion is changing. Its no longer Paul Newman and the poor Jews against the dirty Arabs. Its 2 people fighting for a piece of land.
One other thing.
Is the U.S. starving any civilians over there? That would seem to be the worse political move possible even if you ignore the moral aspect.
justinh
What the hell are you trying to say? That we can’t support and Arab foe because we ourselves are attacking Arabs? I don’t see a lot of public pressure to up our support for totalitarian Arab regimes right now, and I don’t think that will change. Frankly, Arab countries aren’t that fashionable right now while I think people have viewed the Israeli violence at least partially as some of the same fight that we are conducting in the hills of Afghanistan. Please explain how Israeli military doctrine amounts to terrorism.
If suicide bombers were being raised in my neighborhood I wouldn’t mind an 8 o’clock curfew. Curfews aren’t that bad, cry me a river.
Anyway, when we closed the border with Pakistan we dropped tons of food and medical supplies by air to the Afghan populace, and none starved as a result of our closing of the border. However, the collateral civilian damage was the lowest the US has ever achieved, and the Afghan people were liberated from a tyrant rule. Furthermore, we’ve dedicated thousands of troops to protecting the people and pledged over a hundred million dollars to the Interim Government. I don’t think you could legitametly claim that the Afghan people are suffering due to American pressures.
As a personal point: I’d never shed a tear over the bombing of Iraq. We mainly bombed their military, and the majority of civilians that died were victims of Saddam’s “put civilian bunkers under important military facility” policies. It’s tragic, but it’s not something I’d lose sleep over.
I think there is nothing that would make the palestinians fond of the U.S. Those people would do the same thing as the people in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc have done: Accept our aid as long as it suits their purposes, then turn around and attack them. The palestinians who live the good life just a few blocks from me in Paterson, NJ didn’t have any love for us when 5000 bodies were laying in the still-smoking rubble of the World Trade Center. They danced in the streets. And you think the people in Gaza will be more grateful and appreciative than the palestinians who actually live here?
Not likely.
A. The Israelis are every bit as indigenous to the area as the Arabs are.
B. They don’t need much of our help to keep the surrounding nations from overrunning them. Without fail, every time Israel has been attacked, they have mopped up the floor handily with their enemies. It’s not their fault the Arab leaders are slow learners and keep trying to attack.
C. We didn’t give any nuclear weapons to Israel, according to anything I’ve ever read on the subject. If they have any, they developed them on their own (who else would sell them nukes? China? Snort Russia? HA! Maybe it was Saddam!). Of course, if you have cites showing otherwise, I’d be interested to read them…
D. Israel is under constant attack by cowardly opponents who INTENTIONALLY target civilians, then hide among their own civilian population so that they can vilify the Israelis for retaliating (because think of the children! the CHILDREN!!).
Israel has made a much more than reasonable effort to secure peace. They have accepted outrageous offers, only to have the opposition back out at the last second. I guess the offer was only good if Israel had rejected it.
When they defeat their enemies, they don’t keep rolling over them until the entire Arab world truly IS a shambles. They give back captured territory (ask Syria and Jordan) and stop fighting when victory is clearly established. They are defending reasonably against opponents who are fighting a total war, whose objective is their annihilation.
Israel was the first nation to offer support and aid to the U.S. on the morning of September 11. While other countries were busy composing the perfect diplomatic statement condemning terrorism but admiring Islam, sympathizing with us, yet against nobody, Israel offered military aid to punish the attackers, and humanitarian aid to rescue survivors.
And yet people like you are still desperate to jump on the idea of cutting them loose. It’s amazing to see the subtle disguises that antisemitism has put on. It’s still a “hate crime” to discriminate against Jews, but when did it become ok to abandon our only faithful ally in the middle east? Especially when they’re less brutal and more civilized than their enemies.
But it’s currently in vogue to sympathize with the “freedom fighters”: the poor, downtrodden, oppressed suicide bombers, who take out such hardened, dangerous targets as a pizza parlor, a nine-month-old baby, and a couple of teenaged girls. :rolleyes: I just don’t get it.
As a side note: Israel does have nuclear weapons- at least 13. Their only assistance in their construction was from France, who gave them some reactor equipment. Here’s a report about Israel’s nuclear program from the Federation of American Scientists:
I think “world peace” is overrated. Is the world so perfect that there’s nothing left to fight for?
Never mind. On to the point-counterpoint:
You know very little about Israel, pal. Israelis love America; in fact, before the burst of patriotism this country has gone through over the past six months, I’d say Israelis loved America more than many Americans. If any Israeli goverment tried to break off relations with the U.S. they’d be voted out of office faster then you can say “no-confidence”.
And no, it’s not because of the money. There’s no way I can prove this to you, of course, but consider this - the U.S. gives Egypt nearly as much money as they do Israel, yet in a survey discussed here (and elsewhere) recently, the majority of Egyptians disapprove of America. Be as cynical as you want, but admit it - with Israel, you get what you pay for.
Nitpick - the U.S. never gave Israel any nukes or nuclear technology; Israeli was perfectly capable of developing these on it’s own.
So the U.S. should condemn Israeli violence, because it makes Arabs angry, but it shouldn’t condemn Arab terrorism, because that doesn’t? How about Arabs attacking the U.S.? Should America condemn that?
You’re talking about “appeasing the Arabs” and “not supporting Arab enemies”. Have you ever considered that the Arabs are the problem?
First of all, I’d like some cites. Second of all, what should Israel do? Ignore the fact that it’s citizens are being slaughtered? Or maybe you’re one of those people who believe that if Israel suddenly pulled back from the Territories, all violence will stop, as if Hamas and Islamic jihad - and Arafat, actually - will ever accept a Jewish state in the Middle East.
Counter-guerilla warfare is an ugly business; so is urban warfare. What we have here is a combination of both, and frankly, I’m surprised there aren’t more casualtues. I assure you, if the U.S. had been in the same situation, it wouldn’t have sent tanks; it would have sent B-52s. Israel has a responsibility - an obligation - to protect hewr own citizens.
Oh, and BTW - if anything, Sharon’s actions are not so much hindering world peace as they are hindering Bush’s war against Iraq. Dwell on that.
Well, if Israel is being careful about not targetting innocent Palestinian civilians, they’ve not got particularly good aim, have they?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1795000/1795362.stm
In the biggest challenge to the army’s authority since the Palestinian uprising began 16 months ago, the reservists have said they are not willing to fight for the purpose of **“dominating, expelling, starving and humiliating an entire people”. **
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A51367-2002Jan28
"We will no longer fight beyond the Green Line for the purpose of occupying, deporting, destroying, blockading, killing, starving and humiliating an entire people," declared a petition signed by the reservists and published in Israel’s best-selling daily newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth. The Green Line refers to the border between Israel and the West Bank.
“We all have limits,” reserve Lt. David Zonshein, 28, a software engineer and one of the men who drafted the petition, told Yedioth. “You can be the best officer, always be first . . . and suddenly you are asked to do things that should not be asked of you – to shoot people, to stop ambulances, to destroy houses in which you don’t know if there are people living.”
Their own words.