No, they’re not. But they’re all resentful. If Israel could somehow manage to identify and round up all the militants and terrorists, there would be a new crop within a month – as the French found out when they tried to hold down the Algerian insurgency. (See The Battle of Algiers.) The only ways the Israelis can change that would be:
Kill all the Palestinians.
Drive all the Palestinians out of Palestine.
End their occupation, dismantle their settlements, and withdraw west of the Green Line.
You apparently ignored the part I quoted. I’ll do so again:
You mean the bulldozer operator who was knocking things down where he couldn’t see, without any outside guidance, despite driving a vehicle with terrible visibility while civilians were around?
Ever heard of ‘asymmetrical conflicts’? The very question is dumb. You can do stuff to keep a first-world power from using first-world techniques against third-world civilians. You can’t do much to block what the third-world insurgents are doing against the first-world civilians, unless you are somehow able to learn the names of specific insurgents, or get wind of particular attacks before they happen. This is called ‘espionage’ and is not exactly something amateurs from another part of the world can do.
And this is exactly the sort of thing that shows how dumb the rest of your comment was. I’m sure Israel has plenty of pizza parlors and bus stops; one could spend a lifetime hanging around them with the intent of thwarting a terrorist attack, and never have the opportunity.
I don’t think I have. The means that Israel uses to fight its war are indicative of how little it cares about civilian casualties. As the UK paper The Observersaid, “On the night of Corrie’s death, nine Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip, among them a four-year-old girl and a man aged 90.”
Your original suggestion was that Israel had launched rocket attacks against civilians. Do you have any proof for this, or just shifted goalposts?
[/quote]
If you’re shooting rockets where you know civilians are likely to be, and where terrorists are likely to be, then you are shooting rockets at civilians as well as terrorists.
I don’t see how that is debatable.
I’m starting to wonder if you’re deliberately misinterpreting my remarks, to score cheap points.
Remember where this started:
I’m not in any way, shape, or form debating the notion that such actions justify a military response of some sort. I am arguing that such a response as the Israelis have committed here is excessive, disproportionate, and barbaric.
It’s solid tactics - I can’t disagree there - but to say it’s ‘just’ solid tactics to deny water and power to 700,000 people in the heat of a Gaza summer is to gloss over one hell of a lot. What you’re saying is that tactical considerations in service to a low-level goal justify causing enormous harm to the civilian population.
That, sir, is barbaric.
The point of alegbra is that you can insert anything you like in place of the letters, and it works. It disengages the truth or falsity of the proposition from the particulars of an example. Which in this situation is probably a Good Thing.
And if you can’t figure out which letters go with which specifics in this particular example and do the substitution on your own, I pity you. It’s not like there are even that many combinations to try.
But because I’m in a good mood, one obvious set of plug-ins would be:
X = what the Israelis are doing in Gaza now
Y = the release of 1000 terrorists from Israeli prisons
Z = the killing of the kidnapped soldier
No, I thought it was pretty obvious that the ‘hornet’s nest’ the Israelis were whacking was the whole damned Gaza strip, and not just a few terrorist dens.
Judging by BrainGlutton’s comment, it was obvious to at least one poster other than myself.
At any rate, the analogy is neither here nor there, whether you want to call it a strawman or not. But since you say, “Care to stop beating up on that man made of straw,” feel free to explain what other strawmen I’ve been raising.
Oh, gimme a break. I made the ‘hornet’ comment in response to Alessan’s said that causing this degree of hardship to most of the residents of the Gaza Strip was justified.
But feel free to beat this dead horse some more if it pleases you. You’re making a hell of a big deal about the proper interpretation of a rather offhand remark to another poster.
See bolded stuff near the top of this post.
False dichotomy. It may be preparation for war, but it’s still mass punishment. Just because it’s one thing doesn’t exclude it from being the other.
Then explain how your comment, “The world has, to a degree, infantalized them [the Palestinian terrorists]. “Awwww, they murder women and children and target civilians, but it’s not their fault. You can’t blame them or hold them responsible for their actions”,” isn’t a defense of what the Israelis are doing now.
Because if it is, you are in fact saying that in order to not infantilize the Palestinian terrorists and fail to hold them responsible, no course of action less onerous to the Gazan general population was available. And that’s bullshit.
No.
Your use of the word ‘often’ rather than ‘without exception’ pretty much answers your own question, don’t you think?
I do. But I think it’s not arguable that you are targeting both, if you know they’re both within the blast radius where you’re aiming. If I’m playing William Tell only with a grenade launcher rather than bow and arrow, it hardly matters if I’ve ‘targeted’ the apple if your head gets blown up too.
:sigh: Once again, see the bit I bolded up top.
Feel free to explain how I’ve done that. It should be good for a giggle or two.
And yet, I was clearly talking about terrorists, and you accused me of advocating genocide.
Lil’ difference there.
Well, I certainly can’t disagree with a movie’s presentation of a situation in another country at another point in history.
You keep making statements like this… it just seems that you haven’t done much research into the issue. You are aware that there are many groups who don’t recognize the green line, and want the total destruction of Israel? You can’t sell a pipedream and claim to have made a valid point.
Here is a third way that the situation can be ended: Palestine agrees to the stop of civilian targeted terrorism and comes to the negotiating table.
And it’s one that doesn’t require genocide, ethnic cleansing, or a fantasy that the next Israeli good faith gesture will yield roses and candy from Hamas et al.
I agree, and there’s another word that can be stuck on there: ineffective, at least so far. If Israel’s heavy-handed response doesn’t produce Corporal Shalit alive, then their efforts amount to a complete debacle. Of course, Israel can always fall back on the old “deterrence” chestnut, as if the terrorists hadn’t got everything they wanted and more out of the current situation.
No. You failing to make a definitive point does not mean I ignored anything, I’m happy to say. How much actual harm has been done by this so far? How many Palestinian deaths? How many days ago did the operation commence?
Yeah, civilians certainly weren’t told to leave and wouldn’t have had time to get out of the way. :rolleyes"
Oh, I agree. Asking me that is indeed a very dumb question.
Ah, argument by fiat. Very convincing.
How about, as I already suggested, sitting at Israeli targets as well so that international outcry would follow their murders?
Yep, because you can do something to stop a first world nation, but making terrorism against Israelis an international issue and earning international condemnation is impossible. You said so, I believe it, that settles it.
The fact that your argument is disingenous alternating with intellectually dishonest? Yeah… I suppose I could see how that might make my comment dumb.
And certainly knowing that any random one of those might have international activists wouldn’t make a statement, at all. Hey, if they don’t have a chance to thwart a terrorist attack, it just wouldn’t be very dramatic, so why do it?
What you think really isn’t all that relevant here… as you have yet to provide a single cite that Israel deliberately targets or targeted Palestinian civilians for attack via rocket. You can’t think that away, but you can shift the goalposts.
Ah, goalposts shifted. No cite for deliberate attacks targeting civilians and no cite as to the cirsumstances or manner of those deaths. Check.
Nope, and intellectually dishonest to boot. The question was whether Israel had targeted civilians, not whether they targeted terrorists who were hiding among civilians.
Should that surprise me?
Yeah, that’s exactly what’s happening. :rolleyes:
Oh, certainly you’re not. Nope… it’s just that any military response against them will necessarily incur civilian casualties which you claim means that the IDF is targeting civilians, which, in case you’re unaware, is a war crime. But you’re not in any way, shape, or form debating the justification for a military response.
Luckily I’m sure you can come back and be suitably condescending in your response.
So Hamas is a ‘low level’ objective now?
No, it doesn’t. But it is interesting that you think an abstraction which doesn’t take into account the particulars is somehow more true or accurate. Which is, of course, why I wanted you to elaborate on exactly what your terms were that you were substituting for your oh-so-difficut-to-plug-into letters in some rather convoluted and poorly written sentences. What a pity, eh?
So:
all you’ve done is say exactly the same thing which you’re denying, just tack on that they’d be letting the terrorists out in exchange for a soldier. The terrorists are still let out, and your little game of obfuscation doesn’t do anything constructive. But you are playing with the pronouns, perhaps due to your idea that any algebraic formulation will necessarily apply in any time, place, situation, or context.
And here I thought it was a response to Hamas. Go figure.
You really should try to distinguish what’s obvious to you, and what’s actually said.
Since you’re so full of pity today, please figure out for yourself what ‘that man’ would indicate about the number of men under discussion.
“… in dealing with Hamas.”
Intellectual honesty restored.
about the proper interpretation of a rather offhand remark to another poster.
See the fact that an argument by fiat is not very convincing.
Yes, it does. If one is going to war against valid military objectives, then the goal is military and not mass punishment. Unless of course you’re using punishment as a synonym for hardship, instead of its much better accepted meaning.
It’s bullshit on many levels, let me start you off.
First, it’s bullshit in that you’re responding to my quote about how people react as if cecessation of terroism isn’t a valid prerequisite for negotiation and instead say that Israel has to (again) be the only one to make any good faith gestures. Perhaps, as evinced by your algebraic fascination, you believe that the general always applies to the specific?
And, as long as I’m at it, what ‘less onerous’ course, exactly, would you have Israel take to deal with Hamas? Invasion? Shell the landscape down to rubble? This isn’t just about one soldier, how would you deal with hamas once Gilad’s safe?
You’re quibbling over the difference between devestation and massive devestation and thinking that you’ve executed some brilliant 'gotcha!".
War often produces massive devestation. War always produces destruction to the area in which it’s fought, that’s what war is.
Nope, you’re just playing games with the language and ignoring what the word targeting actually means. In a nutshell; if the terrorist was in a different place, the missile would be too.
So… again, what’s the military response that’s okay with you, since you claim that one is justifiable? Invasion? Massive ordinance barrages? How would you actually remove the Hamas terrorists in a less ‘onerous’ way?
Once again, produce an answer to how to deal with Hamas by less onerous means, and don’t be disingenous enough to call an organized and massive terrorist threat a ‘low level’ goal.
What, play obfuscatory games with language?
Said that targeting terrorists and targeting civilians are the same thing?
Or is there something else you’ve forgotten?
You said, the way to respond to being stung by hornets is to “go in and kill all the hornets.” As I said, in this case that would require genocide, for reasons I’ve already explained. Nothing short of genocide would be effective.
I’m just gonna respond to a couple of these, because I think they adequately give the flavor of the seriousness (or rather, complete absence of that quality) of your arguments.
You cited a source saying dual-use sites such as power plants were legitimate military targets. I pointed out that your source also said that there were many situations it didn’t, including situations that sounded a hell of a lot like this one. You have not even acknowledged those words of your cite, let alone given any argument for how the words in question didn’t apply.
Maybe you missed my explanation of the completely unrealistic nature of that course of action.
I said no such thing, and you know it.
Your suggestion that international activists should just hang around random Israeli bus stops and pizza parlors is definitely one of the stupidest ideas I’ve heard at the Dope, and for comparison purposes, I’ve been debating with Ryan_Liam lately.
If your goal is to punish a small group of terrorists, but you deny water and power to most of a million people in the middle of a Middle East summer, it hardly matters that your goal is limited.
Only in the FinnAgain bizarro-world where the intent of killing bad guys absolves one of the harm one does to any number of innocents in the process.
Yes… your reasons. The ironclad argument that in another region, in another era, in a different context, with different nations, something happened, and it must always happen that way in any similar situation. How could I possibly argue with logic as tight as that?
Kill the terrorists. Impose a united international front until the PA comes to the negotiating table. Institute a two state solution with security and economic/agricultural viability for both regions.
Funny, no genocide.
Gee thanks. If debate gets you this flustered pr’aps you should post more in the Pit. Just sayin’.
While you’re busy casting judgment about the quality of my argument, you might want to look up the phrase ‘burden of proof’, and puzzle out why it’s not my job to say how they don’t apply, but yours to say how they do. And as you will not, and evidently can not find a less onerous solution to dealing with Hamas, I will assume that no elaboration is in the works, just more thinly veiled insults in lieu of actual discussion.
Good show.
You can rest assured that even though you hold yourself in very high esteem, that doesn’t mean you argument-via-fiat holds any weight, I’m afraid. Yes yes, you used phrases like “that argument is stupid” quite a bit, but you’ve proven nothing. If you fail to understand how a random deterrent still serves as a deterrent, I cannot be of help.
And, by the way, your ‘explanation’? Ignoring that the possibility of also defending Israeli targets, and pretending that they’d have to be spies (:rolleyes:) is, indeed, a ragingly well thought out and stunningly incontrovertible argument.
“Shut up, he explained.”
Were you lying then, or are you lying now? Is it a completely unrealistic proposal, or not?
Ooooh, chilling factual refutation! It’s stupid. I see. Excellent rebuttal. Perhaps you would like to cast some more empty phrases my way and see if they form a coherent argument? I’ll try to nail some jello to the wall, and we’ll see who gets done first.
And yet, you have yet to provide any different solutions to how to deal with Hamas. But you sure do like the word ‘stupid’ and its synonyms.
Shall I take your refusal to answer this issue as an admission that you aint got nothin’? Well, nothing other than insults?
No need to ever invade again? Even if they, say, fire rockets from inside Palestinian territory into Israel? Make good on their threads to use WMD? Tunnel under the border and kidnap soldiers?
And if you’re going to block all Palestinians from Israel, what happens to trade? Or to all the workers who depend on work in Israel? Wasn’t that one of the big complaints against Israel already?
What if Israel discovers that there are bomb-making facilities in Palestine that are the source of smuggled suicide belts?
None of this is hypothetical - this is exactly what Israel has already been facing, and their response has earned your condemnation. In fact, this is what Israel has been facing for decades. Israel occupied the Golan heights because they were subject to constant shelling from there.
So are you saying that if Israel withdrew to the Green lines, and then responded to provocation the way they are now, you’d be okay with that?
Or are you suggesting that Israel just has to ‘suck it up’ and allow itself to be attacked from a neighboring state and never retaliate? Or what?
[shrug] You can’t have your cake and eat it. I think most Israelis would choose safety over prosperity, if it were entirely clear they had to make that choice.
Maybe. Depends on the provocation – and on all the circumstances within which it is embedded.
Look, what else do you think Israel might do to put an end to all this? I don’t think I’ve read any constructive suggestions from you.
Remember, also, that if the Palestinians had a truly independent state controlling their own borders with Jordan and Egypt, they would not be quite so dependent on Israeli employment as they are now.
Don’t you think Israel did withdraw fully to the green line in Gaza? For many of us here – especially those, like me, in favor of the Disengagement, this was to be a large scale (and very dangerous for us) experiment: what happens when the Palestinians have full control over their lives in part of the territory they are demanding. It also meant we’d be looking to see what our own government did if and when things went South vs. a fully definable and geographically clear entity. And how the world would respond when we did so.
Well, things did go South. And the government seems (to me, IMHO, YMMV) to be reacting in the best vein possible – very forceful reaction in order to make sure this doesn’t repeat, but without a full scale invasion and trying to avoid the bloodshed of innocents (how many non-combattant Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the latest round of violence? Zero, right!?)
But the world – is reacting the same as ever. “Why don’t you go back to the Green Line?” Erm… we just did. What did you expect, we’d just up and go home without seeing how a pilot case turned out? “How can you starve the poor, poor Palestinians?” Well, we weren’t. We’re running a blockade **now **-- which is certainly a valid military tactic – because they have effectively declared war by repeatedly shelling Israel – and now by invading Israeli territory proper – from Gaza, where there is a proper border that runs exactly along the Green Line. Etc… ad nauseum
I’d say it’s worth something to the people who live there.
Besides, what difference does it make? Even if the West Bank had some hypothetical inherent value (it doesn’t), why do you assume that the Palestinians would behave any differently if we left there too? Is it your faith in human nature?
Well, let’s see. How did you go about making your case and fulfilling the burden of proof? :dubious:
Which, as Allesan pointed out to you, but you neatly evaded, was an intellectually dishonest formulation which proved nothing. You deliberately ignored that it was about Hamas, and not just one soldier. You deliberately evaded any and all requests at defining a less onerous solution to the terrorists in Gaza.
Since you refused to have any intellectual honesty and refused to even suggest a more proportionate response (invasion? massive shelling?), it must be assumed that your dishonest formulation and lack of any ability to suggest a more proportionate military response means, quite simply, that you’ve, got, nothing.
At all.
The burden of proof still rests on you, and all you’ve done is complain about how your intellectual dishonesty isn’t being treated as if you actually made a point.
The difference is, if they had an independent West Bank they could get busy with all the real, important work of building a country. I think that might divert their attention from killing Israelis.
If they had the slightest intention of busying themselves with building a country, they had the opportunity to try their skills on Gaza; had they gone that route, it would have also had the positive side effect of making us that much more willing to try the “give them the land to govern as they see fit” model on the West Bank, as well.
“How can you starve the poor, poor Palestinians?” Well, we weren’t. We’re running a blockade **now **-- which is certainly a valid military tactic – because they have effectively declared war by repeatedly shelling Israel – and now by invading Israeli territory proper – from Gaza, where there is a proper border that runs exactly along the Green Line. Etc… ad nauseum