Is Israel's killing of Hamas leaders a good strategy in the long run?

[Olentzero]

@cmkeller

Well, when the specific question at issue is what the Palestinian Arab response was to the UN Partition Plan, that’s pretty glaring. As you no doubt know, their response was to reject the Plan and immediately attack the newly-created Zionist state, alongside the armies of several already-established Arab nations.

Right, and I believe I’ve addressed that particular point in my most recent post.

Then what else was Israel doing to them before that?

Well, since you haven’t positively discredited Hanan Ashrawi’s assertions (hint: saying she’s capable of outright lying won’t cut it; you have to provide concrete evidence she is) I’m going to have to go with her accusations against Barak.

What it does make, though, is a blow to anyone who seriously argues that disenfranchising Palestinians for the sake of land acquisition is an Israeli policy for its own sake rather than a reaction to Arab acts of war and/or terrorism.

I won’t respond “check and compare the maps I linked to in my last post” every time you make this assertion, but it bears repeating once.

Hardly. But given the choice between a spokesperson for an autocrat running a territory with no non-state(so to speak)-run press and a spokesperson for a government whose every action can be examined both in open political debate and in a free press, I’ll more likely believe the latter.

Even if concrete evidence directly contradicts that government spokesperson? I can’t help but ask if you still believe everything Bush says these days.

Do you see anything in Ashrawi’s article that specifically alleges that what she describes took place earlier than that?

No, I admit it’s weak evidence at best, and I’d like to follow that lead further. But it’s still more than an accusation I make myself with no backup at all.

“Palestinians” as a distinct national entity (to whatever extent they have ever existed as such) did not have the ability to carry out attacks on that sort of scale.

Exactly. So how can you say that their MO is the same as Israel’s?

(And speaking of the scale, your “2000” number is more than twice as high as the actual highest estimate of dead in that incident…that high estimate coming from the Israelis. It has since become inflated in Palestinian/Arab propaganda only.)

Cites, please.

Nonetheless, the Palestinians and other Arab nations have armed Islamic militias and sent them into Israel with the intention of killing as many as they’re capable of, sometimes dozens at a time - do you deny that?

It’s a war over there - a 55-year war. War ain’t pretty, and it doesn’t involve throwing snowballs. We can hurl opprobrium at the other side for the way they fight, but taking that alone without understanding why they’re fighting the way they are, or even why they’re fighting in the first place, reduces the debate to merely shouting “Your side’s meaner” and replying “No, yours is”.

Finally, mass Arab-government violence is hardly limited to being against Israel. What about Jordan’s Black September? Or Iraq’s gassing of Kurds? The ongoing repression of what Western countries consider to be basic human rights in most, if not all, of these countries?

Disgusting, all of them. But human rights violations in the Middle East as a whole aren’t the subject of discussion here - Israeli treatment of Palestinians is.

But in Israeli history, these incidents are discussed, dissected, blame is publicly assigned, and they therefore stand out like red flags for the world community to criticize.

And I’d have much more faith in the claim that Israel was committed to maintaining human rights if Ariel Sharon, a proven butcher time and time again, were rotting in a Tel Aviv prison rather than Prime Minister.

Zionist violence where…in the Arab countries that did those? Can you point me to a cite for such an allegation?

That’s not what I was alleging, although I can see how you took it that way. I was talking about Zionist violence in Israel - now it may not have been the case that the local Jewish populations would have gotten up to the same thing, but there’s no underestimating the paranoia of governments, absolutist or otherwise. It’s still disgusting, but as I’ve said that isn’t the point of discussion, and saying “They did it too” washes away neither the bloodstains nor their stink.

I could also cite how Kuwait effectively removed Palestinians following the Gulf War due to their support - merely in word, not material support - of Iraq.

And what, exactly, was the situation in Kuwait at the time? An absolutist monarchy that owed its continued existence to the military efforts of the only healthy superpower on the planet suddenly hears an emigrant population, which was already persona non grata in the eyes of the US, voicing its support for the enemy just vanquished by that selfsame ‘liberator’. You’re an absolute monarch with unchecked powers; what are you going to do to please your more powerful friend who’s just bought you a new lease on life? Kick out the loudmouthed anti-US emigrants, of course. Again, still disgusting. Again, not the topic of discussion. And again, meaningless if you only look at the ‘what’ and ignore the ‘why’.

Which plays to a point I had been trying to make earlier: Somehow, this sort of thing is simply shrugged at and ignored/accepted if Israel is not involved.

In threads about Israel specifically, that’s hardly surprising. Doesn’t mean it’s ignored/shrugged at completely.

I was not defending his actions.

Excusing them by saying “He was only following orders” is close enough.

No, but you do “passively allow” them to be massacring civilians when their stated purpose was to root out terrorists who had been responsible for the assasination of Lebanon’s elected president. And for that dropping of the ball, Sharon was dismissed from his Ministry portfolio.

…yet remained in the government where he was able to attempt derailing the Oslo accords. (You know, the accords you berate the Palestinians for not accepting.)

OK, let me get this straight: already under Barak, the Palestinians began a new uprising, and the Israeli public is supposed to re-elect him due to worry that they’ll be more pissed off otherwise?

No, you’re just not supposed to be surprised that the Palestinians get more pissed off when a proven butcher gains the leadership.

Aside from the questionable wisdom of electing a leader with the appeasement of one’s enemies in mind

Yes, far better to elect a man who wants to crush the opposition into dust and has the track record to back him up. A real stride towards peace in the Middle East.

the fact was that there was no indication that a second term for Barak would lessen the Palestinian pissed-offed-ness.

And no indication that a Sharon victory would inflame that anger?

Certainly the degradation of the standard of living in the Occupied Territories did not take a nosedive until the beginning of the Al-Aqsa intifada.

And the accession to power of an openly anti-Palestinian bigot with military might and experience behind him.

[FairDink]

Let me get this straight Olentzero.

1. pre 1947 - arround 600,000 jews scattered in small communities.
2. These Jews (half women and children) went about rampaging and pillaging the Arab community of a few million.
3. They did this in a land governed by a pretty tough mob including the forever helpful Imperial Crown.

The way I heard it was that some pathetic, cowardly, so-called soldiers got anhialated trying to masacre Jewish families, but failed miserably. The result somewhat resembling a masacre.

At the same time, the leaders of these “pagan” communities rallied together, for their childrens future and preasured the powers that be to the negotiating table. Arab leaders, content with their source of income, and their childrens future, didn’t give a f…

Maybe i’m just falling far Jewish propaganda.

[Captain_Amazing]

@Olentzero

which was answered by the 1967 war, which even the UN admits was an annexation by Israel:

Just as a correction to your earlier point, East Jerusalem was annexed by Israel…the West Bank and Gaza were not.

[Olentzero]

@cmkeller

And speaking of the scale, your “2000” number [of dead in the 1982 massacre at Sabra and Shatila] is more than twice as high as the actual highest estimate of dead in that incident…that high estimate coming from the Israelis. It has since become inflated in Palestinian/Arab propaganda only.

A transcript from the 1995 trial of General Radislav Krstic makes mention of the Sabra and Shatila massacre in Item 589, and includes a link to a footnote that reads thus:

There are varying estimates as to the number of victims. The Israeli commission of inquiry put the number of victims at 800. However, according to the ICRC, no less than 2,400 people were massacred. The massacre was perpetrated over two days, on 16 and 17 September 1982.

Who is this mysterious ICRC? None other than the International Committee of the Red Cross. Is the ICRC somehow susceptible to the undue influence of Palestinian and Arab propaganda? Or would they actually have a basis for that estimate because Red Cross workers helped bury the dead after the massacre and saw evidence of people they couldn’t bury because they’d been inside their homes when the Phalangists bulldozed them?

Another article, which seems to have been widely reprinted, reaffirms the ICRC’s estimate of at least 1,000 buried in communal graves, and also makes reference to Sharon’s declarations on the subject before the Knesset on 22 Sep 1982*****. There are two statements, apparently in Sharon’s own words, that are of great interest.

Also according to General Sharon, the Israeli commandant had received the following instruction: “The Tsahal forces are forbidden to enter the refugee camps. The “mopping-up” of the camps will be carried out by the Phalanges or the Lebanese army.”

This isn’t passive acquiescence, this is an order.And, on the evening of 16 Sep 1982, the first day of the massacre,

[Lebanese] General Drori telephoned Ariel Sharon and announced, “Our friends are advancing into the camps. We have coordinated their entry.” Sharon replied, “Congratulations! Our friends’ operation is approved.”

Sharon, if he were the man of peace he claims to be, could have stopped the whole thing right then and there - he had the opportunity to do so. Instead, he gives the green light in no uncertain terms. This is not “passively allowing” the Phalangists to commit an atrocity. This is direct involvement in making sure it happens.

Where was Sharon all this time? Miles away in Tel Aviv?

From 9am [on 15 Sep], General Sharon was present to personally direct the Israeli penetration, installing himself in the general army area at the Kuwait embassy junction situated at the edge of Shatila. From the roof of this six-storey building, it was possible to clearly observe the town and the camps of Sabra and Shatila.

Apparently not. OK, so he was watching it all go down, and gave what is undeniably approval for what was about to happen. Surely that’s all the responsibility he bears, and this must just be a couple of bad decisions on his part.

Guess again.

From dawn on 15 September 1982, Israeli fighter-bombers were flying low over West Beirut and Israeli troops had secured their entry…
From midday, the camps of Sabra and Shatila - in reality a single zone of refugee camps in the south of West Beirut - were surrounded by Israeli tanks and soldiers, who had installed checkpoints all around the camps permitting the surveillance of the entrances and exits. During the late afternoon and evening, the camps were bombarded with shells…
By Thursday 16 September 1982, the Israeli army controlled West Beirut. In a release, the military spokesperson declared, “Tsahal controls all the strategic points of Beirut. The refugee camps, including the concentrations of terrorists, are surrounded and closed.” In the morning of 16 September, the following order was issued by the army high command: “The searching and mopping up of the camps will be done by the Phalangists/Lebanese army.” During the morning, shells were fired down towards the camps from high locations and Israeli snipers were shooting down at people in the streets.

This is not incompetence. This is not passivity. This is full knowledge, and moreover direct involvement, in the commission of an atrocity during wartime. Sharon is an unidicted, but nevertheless unmitigated war criminal. This is the man Israelis have elected to defend their country, and his strategy of Terminator-style assassinations of Palestinian leaders is nothing more than a continuation of those war crimes. In the long run all he’s doing is exacerbating the hostilities between Palestinians and Israelis (but he’s not alone in doing so, nor is he the first in Israeli history to do so) and adding powder to the keg which is destined to blow up in the faces of his children and grandchildren.

Captain Amazing, you are correct; Israel only occupied the West Bank and Gaza. But the Oslo and Wye accords sought to legitimize Israeli military and civil control over a significant and strategically superior portion of that occupied territory. What’s the difference between that and annexation?

*I realize this article is not the original source, but I have been unable to locate any sort of transcript from that day’s session of the Knesset. I would certainly be interested in seeing one, if anybody knows of such a thing online.

[Captain_Amazing]

@Olentzero

*I realize this article is not the original source, but I have been unable to locate any sort of transcript from that day’s session of the Knesset. I would certainly be interested in seeing one, if anybody knows of such a thing online.

I can’t find a copy of the Knesset transcripts, but here’s the relevant part of the Kahan report that confirms the order.

Once the decision was made to have the I.D.F. enter West Beirut, the appropriate operational orders were issued. Order Number I was issued at 12.20 a.m. on the night between 14.9.82 and 15.9.82, Orders Number 2 and 3 were issued on Wednesday, 15.9.82, and Order Number 4 was issued that same day at 2.00 p.m.; Order Number 5 was issued at 3.00 a.m. on 16.9.82; and Order number 6 was issued on the morning of 16.9.82. The first five orders said nothing about entering the refugee camps, and only in Order Number 6 were the following things stated (clause 2, document no. 6, exhibit 14):

“The refugee camps are not to be entered. Searching and mopping up the camps will be done by the Phalangists/ Lebanese Army.”

And, from the report, Sharon does seem to have been in Tel Aviv at the time the massacre occured. Also from the report, (I’ve excerpted his schedule)

On Wednesday, 15.9.82, the Minister of Defense [Sharon] arrived at the forward command post between 8:00 and 9:00 a.m. …
From the forward command post the Minsiter of Defense went to the Phalangist headquarters…
From there the Minister of Defense went to Bikfaya, to the Jemayel family home, to pay a condolence call…
From the meeting with the Jemayel family in Bikfaya, the Minister of Defense went to the airport, and on the way he met with Major-General Drori at a gas station…
From there the Minister of Defense went on to the airport and met there with the Chief of Staff [Eitan] and the Deputy Chief of Staff [Levi] at about 2:00 p.m., after which the Minister of Defense returned to Israel.

Here’s the complete Kahan report
http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/History/kahan.html

[Olentzero]

OK, I retract the assertion that he watched the whole thing go down. I don’t have anything that solidly contradicts the itinerary in the Kahan report and, quite frankly, I’m researched out for now. I still maintain there is sufficient evidence, however, to discredit the argument that Sharon merely “passively allowed” the atrocity to occur.

[alaricthegoth]

I cannot believe anyone still quibbles over Sharon’s ultimate responsiility for Sabra and Chatilla…

He is a pig and the son of pigs.

That said, re: the op, only if we are willing to countenance unlimited reiterations, because there will be unlimited replacements