OK, let’s look at this aspect, then. I found an interesting analysis of Palestinian and Israeli fatalities at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy here.
It looks at the six years both before and after the signing of the Oslo accords and analyzes the fatalities on both the Israeli and the Palestinian sides.
From Dec 1987 to 13 Sep 1993, there were:
–212 Israeli fatalities; and
–1,236 Palestinian fatalities.
Of those Palestinian fatalities:
–86.5% were at the hands of the Israeli military; and
–6.6% were at the hands of Israeli citizens.
From 14 Sep 1993 to Jul 1999, there were:
–287 Israeli fatalities; and
–391 Palestinian fatalities.
Of those Palestinian fatalities:
–74% were at the hands of the Israeli military; and
–13.8% were at the hands of Israeli civilians.
Firstly - do you really think all 1,627 of those Palestinians over this 12-year period were all on suicide missions when they died?
Secondly - the numbers don’t seem to support your assertion that Palestinians overwhelmingly died at the hands of hard-working Israeli citizens defending their home and their children. The army killed 1,358 of those Palestinians, or 83% of the total.
On the other hand, 22.4% of the 212 Israel fatalities before Oslo - or 47 deaths - were attributable to Palestinian political groups like Hamas, while 50.9% of the 287 fatalities - or 146 deaths - were caused by those same political groups after Oslo. That’s only 193 Israeli deaths due to Palestinian terrorism - a mere 14% of the total of Palestinian deaths from the Israeli military.
It’s pretty clear to me who the terrorists are in this scenario, and it’s also quite clear to me that there isn’t even the scantest shred of equality of violence committed on either side.
To me too. Where does that leave us? I don’t believe you can simply count numbers on both sides, than decide who is right or wrong. I suppose you would feel better if there where similar numbers on both sides? That’s disgusting.
I don’t see Israel as the aggressor here, and you do. Based on any historical, logical or ethical argument the situation is at very best debatable, and from my POV very much slants toward Israel for one simple reason - they are a sovereign nation, with every right to protect their citizens. No country on earth has been subject to this much criticism for simply existing. The deaths of innocent Palestinians are as horrible as the deaths of innocent Israelis, but Israel doe not look to kill innocents, no matter how you try to twist numbers. They are defending their country.
Simply saying that everything they do is terrorism because they have no right to be there will not fly. Oh well, this debate has gone around many times, sorry for high jacking the thread from its previously well-rounded, factual discussion.
Let us examine two incidences of a Palestinian fatalities (taken from www.phrmg.org again):
The unborn child of Amneh Abdel-Karim Safadi (herself only 19 years old). According to the notes:
Omaya Hmad allahOmrran, age 25 at death on 24 Sep 2001.
Please explain to me how the unborn child is not an innocent, and how preventing two women from receiving urgently needed post-natal medical care is “defending Israel”.
Care to enlighten us, then, on exactly WHY Israel holds up ambulances? It’s because the TERRORISTS have already been caught using ambulances as cover to carry out attacks against Israeli civilians.
Israel’s not the terrorist here–Arafat and his crowd carry that burden.
I admit being somewhat weirded out by your response. The point is that the US and Israel are open societies which tolerate -heck encourage- the free expression of a diversity of opinions. And that furthermore, among democratic countries, demonstrations involving 10% of the country are extremely rare. In fact, large demonstrations against actions of ones government when culpability is more ambiguous than, say, My Lai are fairly rare.
For examples of nations in denial, see Turkey (no Armenian genocide) and Austria (oh, we were WWII victims).
True, but I didn’t claim that. Indeed, I stated that Sharon may be a war criminal - rather strong words, IMHO.
It was a protest against the massacre.
Put it another way. I’m aware of large anti-Vietnam war demonstrations in the US. I’m not aware of any huge anti - My Lai demonstrations, despite the fact that this US atrocity was directly carried out by US citizens.
BTW, here’s a BBC link on the story. Note that the conservative Israeli government protested against their treatment of the subject. Here is the BBC summary:
"Nearly 20 years ago the man who is now Israel’s Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, sent Lebanese militiamen into the Palestine refugee camps of Sabra and Shatilla. When they left 36 hours later at least 800 people lay dead after a rampage of murder, torture and
rape.
The massacre provoked international outrage. In Israel itself 400,000 people took to the streets in the largest demonstration the country had ever seen. Ariel Sharon was forced to resign as Israel’s defence minister. "
If you know examples where a single Palestinian has ever lost face in his community due to excessive brutality, let me know. (IMO, mass murder in a pizza parlor, school bus or religous celebration should certainly qualify as excessive brutality).
Israel is an open society which engages in healthy self-criticism which tends to restrain excess. Indeed some of the best critical works on 1948 are by… get this Israeli historians, and in the case of Morris, not even one well-disposed to the Ps. (Morris’ research indicates, e.g. that expulsions did happen in 48, that the Arabs calling for Ps to flee is unsupported in the historical record etc. He also documents nastiness on both sides.)
1948, a lot of bad things happened. All around. Israeli society has matured.
P society has not. Now I can see many reasons for this, and under-development is one. But the fact is P leadership could do better while still aiming for their goals.
I don’t care for ugly P bashing and demonization, for the thinly veiled sand-nigger stereotyping that creeps into too many comments here. But neither do I care for what begins to sound like Jew-bashing (thinking of another thread actually) and a disturbing blindness and spin to demonize the Israelis (thinking of this thread.)
Well, how do you explain the recent protests in Bahrain? As far as I understand it Bahrain isn’t exactly a bastion of democracy, especially given the argument some have forwarded on this board that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East.
As for tolerating diversity of opinions, am I wrong in understanding that Arab citizens of Israel, while they have the vote, are legally prevented from forming political parties on the grounds that they might be anti-Zionist?
I think it highly unlikely that every last Turk or Austrian were of the exact same opinion. I’m not sure what this proves here, except perhaps that some governments are better than others at scrubbing the nastier bits out of their official history books.
I’m not sure where this tangent is leading, to be honest with you. I provide some information that, IMO, proves Israel’s - and Sharon’s - direct complicity in a particularly heinous crime, and you reply “Yes, but look! There was a protest in Israel afterward!” What point are you trying to make?
If Israeli society had matured as a result of its excellent self-criticism, then the massacre in 1982 should never have occurred. “Oh, bad things happened, and we were responsible for some of them…” and then they turn around and do it again.
I am not completely unaware of the cost in Israeli lives of this conflict, nor do I believe that suicide bombings are a productive method of struggle. But IMO Israel is a product of Zionism, which has at its heart the idea of a Jewish homeland occupied exclusively by Jews, separated from the rest of the world so that no more persecutors will ever harm them. That goal has led to almost 125 years of strife and conflict with the inhabitants of the territory they chose (“land without a people” indeed), relying on other undemocratic powers to back them up in their quest, and then relying on brute force when those same powers could no longer directly intervene. There is a lot of unpleasant truth behind the history of the State of Israel, and if you would rather avoid the discomfort of confronting it by claiming it’s all demonization, there’s little I can do to stop you.
And Britain did all kinds of bad things back in its colonial power days. And the U.S. didn’t treat the Natives all that well, or the slaves for that matter. Even peaceful Canada has had its share of atrocities - our entire airborne infantry was disbanded after a scandal just a few years ago in which it was discovered that some of them tortured and murdered a Somali captive.
But why is it that Israel’s past is always used against it in this manner? If Britain were attacked tomorrow, would we stand around wringing our hands about what it did in India?
And why are so many people who are willing to criticize Israel’s actions 25 or 50 years ago unwilling to look at the actions of Yasser Arafat last bloody week? Remember the Achille Lauro? The old Jewish man that was pushed into the ocean? That was done on orders from Arafat. Remember the massacre of the Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich? Arafat again. But we don’t have to go back even a year. Arafat’s personal orders directed suicide bombers who have killed dozens of Israeli citizens in the last couple of months. So why are you going on about Sharon’s crimes from 20 years ago, while ignoring Arafat’s numerous crimes committed continually for decades?
Oh, and your body-count comparisons are grotesque and meaningless. But if you want to play that game, in WWII the U.S. suffered 292,000 battle-related casualties. The Nazis had 3,500,000 battle-related casualties. By your analysis methods, that would make the U.S. over 10 times more evil than the Nazis were.
In other words, your little comparison is totally, utterly, meaningless.
Actually, that’s not true. There are several Arab parties, among them Hadash (formerly Rakah), a leftist Arab party which now defines itself as “Jewish-Arab”…it’s lately signed up a lot of Jewish members, the United Arab List, which is actually a coalition group comprised of the Democratic Arab Party, the National Unity Front and the Islamic movement, and Balad, which comes from a union between the National Democratic Alliance and the Arab Movement for Renewal, which advocates strict seperation of church and state, and the removal of any Jewish-specific character to the state.
Well, Britain didn’t displace an entire population already living in London, Manchester, York, and Edinburgh, either.
Well, I don’t hold Sharon alone responsible for all Israeli atrocities, and mostly I’m bringing what I do know up in order to combat this twisted idea that Israel has been on the defensive from Day One.
Well, if my analysis methods were limited to that and that alone, I can see where you might think I was arguing that. Of course, I would be ignoring the fact that the Nazis were vicious, reactionary, expansionist, anti-Semitic scum. Nor am I really out to play the “Who’s more evil?” game. I’m bringing up information I’ve discovered that doesn’t seem to fit in with the assertions that Israel has been totally on the defensive since 1948 and that they’ve actually gotten nicer since they admitted they made mistakes all those years ago.
Going back over to POWER_station’s thread here, I found a discussion of just this subject with a few links.
The earliest mention of Palestinian militant organizations using ambulances in any of those links is one from Nov 2000 on the ADL website, which contains no hard proof, just an allegation.
Two articles in the MFA speak about this as well. The older of the two, from 14 February 2002, has this to say:
“We don’t know how she got in. It’s possible she used an ambulance, but that’s only a guess.”
The second article dates from late March 2002 and details the seizure of explosives from a Red Crescent ambulance. However, as tomndebb noted in the other thread, Ha’aretz reported
In other words, the first clear proof of the use of an ambulance for purposes of war came six months after the deaths of the baby and the woman I spoke of earlier. And even if there had been solid proof of a credible threat before September 2001, how could that possibly justify keeping ambulances at the checkpoint for five hours? I’m presuming they were in ambulances rather that being driven in privately owned vehicles by family members, since I cannot find any detailed information on the cases.
As far as I know, all the parties I mentioned advocate the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and the West Bank, and the establishment of a Palestinian state. I think they all advocate the right of Palestinians to move into Israel proper, also.
Israel does say you can’t discriminate by religion or race, so if a party wrote in its bylaws “Membership in this party is restricted to Arabs” that might be (I’m not sure) illegal under non-discrimination laws. Maybe that’s what your friend was talking about?
It is a sad fact of life that humans on occasion commit crimes and governments on occasion commit atrocities.
The question is whether these things happen with impunity. Using your example, it would appear not: Sharon was forced to resign as Defense Minister, when forces under his command looked the other way as Lebanese Christians killed over 800 Lebanese Palestinians. I support that action by the Israeli government. Any complete portrayal of the massacre would note that event. I might recommend that you spend more time at, say, the BBC website than at the website of the International Socialist Yada Yada Party.
I am not aware of any PLO official being disciplined for excessive brutality. If you know of any, let me know.
Big picture: there is reason to distrust Sharon’s motivation in general and his commitment to the (Oslo) peace process in particular. But when evaluating the A/I conflict it is surely relevant to note that intransigence dominates the Arab side of the conflict much more than it does the Israeli side (IMO).
Minutia:
Silly. That’s not a peace protest or a protest in favor of accommodating the foreign opposition. Let me quote, “Death to America! Death to Israel!”
It is reasonable to speak of a rough consensus existing in certain societies on certain issues. Such mass beliefs are potentially measurable with opinion surveys. I do not recall claiming unanimity. I also think its fair to note the connection between national belief and international behavior.
Hm. I’m kinda skeptical about the “occupied exclusively” bit. “Dominated” might be a more accurate characterization, although “governed” would probably be best. This sort of illustrates my problem with your POV. While it’s good to see a poster defend the Palestinians, your posts seem a little, um, unbalanced. Though I hasten to add that much the same can be said about many of the rather more prevalent pro-Israeli posts on this board.
Don’t assume I read only the sources I quote in debates.
Oh, you mean ‘biased’? Well, there’s a reason for that, and it has to do with the reason why I quote a lot from Socialist websites - both of which are left as an exercise for the reader (i.e. you in particular).
And now Sharon is the Prime Minister of Israel, pulling the same sort of stunts in places like Jenin, Bethlehem and Nablus. Call me biased, but I just don’t think he learned his lesson. And I think there’s more than enough proof to indicate that forces under Sharon’s command did more than “look the other way” at Sabra and Shatila in 1982.
Sorry, a bit late replying to your post on the deaths of infant and mother held up in ambulances:
You notice I did not disagree with you that there are horrible circumstances for both sides - you have not once acknowledged that Israelis have been living with terrorism during the entire time Israel has existed. Never mind, it’s obvious you have your mind made up.
However, you continue to say that Israel’s claims to always be in the defensive are false - baloney. They did not start the wars with those around them, and have been taking steps to control terrorists who aim to kill Israelis every day. You have not once proposed another solution - i.e. some other actions they may take in their defense - other than to simply say they should not be there. You have continued to point out incidents that are horrible, but have not shown what the alternatives are for Israel.
If they are stopping ambulances, it may be that there is intelligence information to indicate they should. Even before hard proof existed they may have had their suspicions. However, I will agree that having stopped a pregnant woman about to give birth the soldiers should immediately seek to provide medical assistance, while continuing to search the ambulance. (BTW, I looked up your link, and could not find the stories you quoted, can you please let me know what section they are in. This site is of course heavily biased toward Palestinians as well – they call the Settlers criminals, but make no mentioned of suicide bombers being criminals). Their (Israeli soldiers’) motivation in stopping the ambulance was not to cause harm or death to the mother or child, but rather potentially prevent harm or death to would-be victims of bombs. That hardly matters to the dead infant or the family, but you know darn well what is going on, don’t pretend that this shows other motivation.
You ague that Israel is not on the defensive, but simply saying it don’t make it so – looking at the facts such as multiple wars initiated against them, oaths to wipe Israel off the map, continued terrorism, constant hate speech, constant threat from outside and within, all point to the fact that they are on the defensive. I disagree with your assessment completely.
Well, I have linked to one site - www.alnakba.org - which gives a chronology of events both before and after the declaration of the State of Israel, but for clarity’s sake I’ll post a few items here.
September 1946: Delegates from Arab States to Round Table Conference in London proposes unitary state of Palestine, preserving current Arab majority in which Jews would have full civil rights.
October 1946: Inner Zionist Council declares that only establishment of Jewish state can solve twin problems of Jewish people and Palestine.
What is so unreasonable about the delegation’s proposal? What justified the Zionists’ saying “Our way and our way only”? What were they defending themselves from then? Having to consider the Palestinians as equal?
August 1947: Haganah terrorist attack on Palestinian orange grower’s house near Tel Aviv kills twelve occupants including mother and six children.
What was this in defense of?
December 1947: Haganah launches Plan Gimmel, designed to destabilize Palestinian population and occupy strategic positions in country. Arab League organizes Arab Liberation Army (ALA), a voluntary force of Arab irregulars under guerrilla leader Fawzi al-Qawuqji to help Palestinians resist partition.
Why did Haganah set itself this goal? Were Palestinians already blowing up Jewish immigrants?
December 19, 1947: Haganah attacks village of Khisas (Safed district) killing ten Palestinians.
December 20, 1947: Haganah attacks village of Qazaza (Ramleh district).
Presumably these were parts of Plan Gimmel. What had the ALA achieved in the short space of time between its creation and those two dates for Haganah to attack two villages?
January, 1948: British sells 20 Auster planes to Jewish authorities in Palestine.
January 14, 1948: Haganah concludes $12,280,000 arms deal with Czechoslovakia, including 24,500 rifles, 5,200 machine guns and 54 million rounds of ammunition.
What sort of forces were Haganah defending themselves from with such armaments? The ALA? Let’s look at their activity:
January 8, 1948: First contingent of 330 ALA volunteers arrives in Palestine
January 21 - 28, 1948: Second and third contingents of 360 and 400 ALA irregulars arrive in Palestine
So in the weeks immediately following the arms deal, there are a total of 1,090 Arabs, in irregular military forces, entering Palestine. You certainly don’t need 24,000 rifles to defend yourself against a force of 1100. Were there other, more organized Palestinian organizations at the time?
March 30 - May 15, 1948: Second coastal “clearing” operation carried out by Haganah Alexandroni brigade and other units.
Attacks and expulsions drive out almost all Palestinian communities from coastal area from Haifa to Jaffa prior to British withdrawal.
If there were, how could Israel have cleaned out Palestinian communities so easily?
April 2, 1948: Haganah captures Palestinian village of Castel, west of Jerusalem, expelling its inhabitants.
Another expulsion.
April 9, 1948: Irgun and Stern Gang massacre some 120 inhabitants in village of Deir Yassin, western suburb of Jerusalem and three miles from Castel.
What were the Jewish casualties that caused this incident, I wonder? If there were 120 Palestinian deaths, there must have been quite a deadly Palestinian attack beforehand. And what was the body count on the Jewish side after this fight? The Palestinians surely must have been as well armed as Haganah, if they felt they needed 24,000 rifles in order to successfully defend themselves from the Palestinians overall.
I’m going to stop here, but I think the general picture is becoming clear. The oaths and terrorism and hate speech don’t come out of nowhere, or even some sort of ingrained anti-Jewish hatred. It comes from very specific actions and circumstances in which the future Israeli state was a vicious aggressor, getting what it wanted through brute force exerted on a much less organized and less well-armed opponent.
Click on the numbers in the breakdown on the front page; they’ll take you to the detailed listing.
And do all pro-Israel sites call the settlers criminals at the same time they spew vitriolic hatred on the suicide bombers?
And you would say that “spewing vitriolic hatred” is not appropriate toward those who would walk into a classroom and open fire with automatic weapons on school kids is not appropriate? Of course, I have not quoted any of those sources either, have I? Nice straw man.
Now, onto your usual one side of the story, here’s stuff you omitted from your own cite:
First, opposition to Jewish immigration to the region and land sales to Jews, just look at Chronology 1876 - 1918
1920
Disturbances in Palestine: 5 Jews killed and 200 wounded
1921
Outbreak of disturbances in Jaffa protesting large-scale Zionist immigration; 46 Jews killed and 146 wounded.
1929
Palestinians riot in several towns in reaction to militant demonstrations at Wailing Wall. In resulting clashes, 133 Jews killed and 339 wounded; 116 Palestinians killed and 232 wounded, mostly at hands of British military.
From a different source:
In the spring of 1920, spring of 1921 and summer of 1929, Arab nationalists instigated riots and pogroms against Jews in Jerusalem, Hebron, Jaffa and Haifa. The major instigators were Haj Amin El-Husseini, later Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, and Arif -El Arif, a prominent Palestinian journalist. The pogroms led to evacuation of the Jewish community of Hebron. About half the 5,000 residents of the Jewish quarter of the old city of Jerusalem were forced to flee as well. The violence led to the formation of the Hagana Jewish self-defence organization. http://www.mideastweb.org/BriefHistory.htm
In 1936 the Arab Revolt led by Haj Amin Al-Husseini broke out. Hundreds of Arabs and Jews were killed. The Husseini family killed both Jews and members of Palestinian Arab families opposed to their hegemony. The British took drastic steps to curtail the riots. Husseini fled to Iraq and then to Nazi Germany, where he subsequently broadcast for the Axis powers and organized SS death squads in Yugoslavia. http://www.mideastweb.org/BriefHistory.htm
Mind you, this source makes no qualms about reporting the aggression by both sides.
Further, on your question about arms purchases (“Why would Israel need so many…”) how about the countries around them threatening to attack (and later doing so)? That seems like a smart move, to defend yourself.
So, back to my point, we can continue to list the events (from different points of view) which bring us to today, but what about today?
There are also plenty of web sites that state the case for the Jewish rule of Israel and Jerusalem, based on history going back 3,300 years, and religious writings, etc. I’m not going to go there because I don’t believe in that myself. But they are out there just like the ones you point to making the case against Israel.