# Israel/Palestinians: Your Take **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 22, 2016, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-palestinians-your-take/749840 "2016-03-22T07:26:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2016, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-palestinians-your-take/749840/221 "2016-06-28T18:55:53Z")
It isn’t fine that your mother dies. It’s entirely regrettable, as a matter of fact. On the other hand, if you want to reduce a 70 year conflict to black and white conclusions by drawing incorrect analogies for the sake of simplicity, don’t expect to be taken seriously. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Economist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Evil\_Economist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Economist)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2016, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-palestinians-your-take/749840/222 "2016-06-28T19:07:35Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > On the other hand, if you want to reduce a 70 year conflict to black and white conclusions by drawing incorrect analogies for the sake of simplicity, don’t expect to be taken seriously. Agreed. If there’s the slightest inaccuracy in our analogy then we will never know how people will react to innocent family members being killed. The point of the analogy isn’t “how would you react if your mother was killed,” it’s “how would you react if your mother was killed, _as part of the historically accurate larger context of the Israel/Palestinian conflict_?” Thanks for clarifying. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2016, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-palestinians-your-take/749840/223 "2016-06-28T19:22:14Z")
> [@Evil\_Economist](#): > > Agreed. If there’s the slightest inaccuracy in our analogy then we will never know how people will react to innocent family members being killed. The point of the analogy isn’t “how would you react if your mother was killed,” it’s “how would you react if your mother was killed, _as part of the historically accurate larger context of the Israel/Palestinian conflict_?” Thanks for clarifying. Just so we’re clear, there’s enough blame to go around on both sides. Nobody’s hands are perfectly clean and neither side is going to kill their way to a peaceful solution. ---
**Author:** ![Gruff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/47e85d/32.png) [@Gruff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gruff)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2016, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-palestinians-your-take/749840/224 "2016-06-28T20:25:37Z")
> [@Evil\_Economist](#): > > I think of it this way: suppose someone in my neighborhood (I don’t know who) killed a policeman. The next night the police descend on my neighborhood and, in an act of “self defense,” shoot to death 100 of my neighbors. It’s a sad fact of collateral damage that some of the 100 they kill were entirely innocent. Including, say, my mother. > > Do you suppose the police have acted morally? Have they reduced the potential for future violence? Are they now safer in my neighborhood than before? Do you support their actions? If so, and it was your family members that they accidentally killed, would you still support them? If not why not? I don’t think your scenario matches the reality on the ground. For one thing, we’re talking about war here. Issues of national security. The right for a country to defend itself against aggressors. Israel faces an ongoing campaign of terrorist attacks against both military and civilians. Hamas was elected with their stated positions against the right of Israel to exist and in favor of killing Jews, waging Jihad against them, committing terrorist attacks. Syria right next door is experiencing a civil war where hundreds of thousands have been killed. That’s hardly news anymore. The Iraq War has resulted in hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths. And if you ask anyone on the streets of the US whether Iraqi casualties or the thousands of service members who gave their lives bothers them more, they’re going to answer the American service members. It’s only Israel we hold to this high bar, second guess, and find fault. > [@eburacum45](#): > > If you were a Palestinian, would you not want to fight back? If I were a Palestinian, I would want a deal. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2016, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-palestinians-your-take/749840/225 "2016-06-28T20:34:01Z")
Also, most people in Gaza are not Hamas terrorists or rocket-makers. Hamas has captured the region, and won’t allow an opposition party to form. The people are imprisoned twice, once by the Israeli/Egyptian blockade and once by Hamas. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Economist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Evil\_Economist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Economist)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2016, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-palestinians-your-take/749840/226 "2016-06-28T20:37:09Z")
> [@Gruff](#): > > I don’t think your scenario matches the reality on the ground. For one thing, we’re talking about war here. Issues of national security. The right for a country to defend itself against aggressors. Israel faces an ongoing campaign of terrorist attacks against both military and civilians. Hamas was elected with their stated positions against the right of Israel to exist and in favor of killing Jews, waging Jihad against them, committing terrorist attacks. In general I’m not comfortable with discussions that begin: “You wouldn’t think it’s moral to kill thousands of innocent people, but…” ---
**Author:** ![DerekMichaels00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f14d63/32.png) [@DerekMichaels00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DerekMichaels00)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2016, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-palestinians-your-take/749840/227 "2016-06-28T20:49:18Z")
> [@Johnny\_Ace](#): > > As Derek sits at home, crying for the ‘kinder, gentler’ '50’s. > > Amazing how many stereotypes are purveyed in just that one paragraph. or maybe, the 1990s or 2000s were an example of when the left in America was a lot more moderate and normal. ---
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2016, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-palestinians-your-take/749840/228 "2016-06-28T21:13:20Z")
> [@Johnny\_Ace](#): > > There’s this concept called proportional response. A 90-to-1 kill ratio is not proportional, no matter how much you try to paint it otherwise. Bottom line, as I’ve been beating the drum for this entire thread, is that NEITHER side is clean. You can deny it all you want, but it’s the reality. I have heard reports that leaflets are air dropped near target sights to try to warn people to get clear as a strike is imminent, that tells me all I need to know. One group is trying to defend itself while also making some attempt to preserve innocent life, while the other is deliberately trying to murder innocents, less effectively because of their own lack of power, and using their own innocent population near rocket sites as a magnifying lens of carnage to make Israel look worse to the leftist fools around the globe who laser focus on the incidental body count of their retaliation rather than willful acts of murder. You know what the kill ratio would have been if the palestinians were not firing rockets from civilian sites? ZERO. Got that? Z E R O. I sometimes wish I could wave a magic wand and let people like Ace live under the conditions and restraints they wish upon Israel. Neighborhood in range of rocket fire? Suck it up. Fire back? Sure, oh wait, they put the launch site on top of a hospital building (lovely move there), never mind, fire away! We can’t attack that site, innocent people will be killed, more than are in danger on our side! With all do respect to the attitude that demands such restraints, f\*ck that. The worst part of all of this are the decent palestinians are held hostage by the savages that care more about using their dead bodies as PR shots for Europeans and leftists than making their lives better. THESE are the people that are the greatest barriers to peace, how the hell can ANYONE make peace with that behavior and attitude? Without them the Palestinians would have had a state decades ago and have long since moved on. ---
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2016, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-palestinians-your-take/749840/229 "2016-06-28T21:20:52Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Also, most people in Gaza are not Hamas terrorists or rocket-makers. Hamas has captured the region, and won’t allow an opposition party to form. The people are imprisoned twice, once by the Israeli/Egyptian blockade and once by Hamas. Would that the left focused more animus towards HAMAS as they do towards Israel. (but that would be “punching down” or pointing out that oh, maybe brown skinned non western people can be the bigger problem in a conflict too!) If Israel had a more credible partner for peace, that was not under the boot of entities like HAMAS, the far right would be drastically weakened. Israelis are far more decent than the far left gives them credit far. I can’t say the same for a large chunk of the Palestinian population. It reminds me of the perverse mindset that allows one to support a group that is so harmful, just because they might provide some other assistance to the poor. Que Tarek Fatah for more moral clarity against this type of thought/argument. [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEwq_e31WaU) ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Economist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Evil\_Economist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Economist)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2016, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-palestinians-your-take/749840/230 "2016-06-28T21:37:25Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > The worst part of all of this are the decent palestinians are held hostage by the savages If only there was some way those decent Palestinians didn’t have to die! Oh well, gotta break some eggs to make an omelette. P.s., it’s “due” ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2016, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-palestinians-your-take/749840/231 "2016-06-28T21:40:24Z")
> [@DerekMichaels00](#): > > or maybe, the 1990s or 2000s were an example of when the left in America was a lot more moderate and normal. Your characterization of the left has been extremely inaccurate and seems to be plucked from right-wing radio. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2016, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-palestinians-your-take/749840/232 "2016-06-28T21:43:13Z")
Part of the Palestinian tragedy is that they have been using tactics that have had a proven track record in the decolonization conflicts of the '50s through '70s - only, they are dealing with what amounts to a local ethnic conflict, not a decolonization conflict. The Israelis are not ‘colonists’, they are now local inhabitants. They cannot be frightened or shamed into leaving, as they have no ‘metropolitan’ nation to go to. Half the current population’s ancestors in any even were immigrants from - elsewhere in the ME. Israelis are not reliant on economic exploitation of an Arab majority, as in SA: the conflict is not about such matters, but is more akin to balkanization - with Israel attempting, in the absence of a deal, to impose one by force that sees them getting the biggest cut. Therefore, these tactics have no hope of success. All they have succeeded in doing, is in inheriting a certain amount of legitimacy among Western sympathizers who are attracted to the rhetoric of decolonization. A small consolation for their currently wretched state. ---
**Author:** ![DerekMichaels00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f14d63/32.png) [@DerekMichaels00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DerekMichaels00)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2016, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-palestinians-your-take/749840/233 "2016-06-28T23:24:40Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Your characterization of the left has been extremely inaccurate and seems to be plucked from right-wing radio. shame that Alan Dershowitz, a liberal at heart like myself, [agrees with me](http://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2016/06/27/exclusive-alan-dershowitz-problem-democrat-care-american-exceptionalism-israel/). ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2016, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-palestinians-your-take/749840/234 "2016-06-28T23:42:24Z")
> [@DerekMichaels00](#): > > shame that Alan Dershowitz, a liberal at heart like myself, [agrees with me](http://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2016/06/27/exclusive-alan-dershowitz-problem-democrat-care-american-exceptionalism-israel/). He’s a moderate at best. In any case, you and he are wrong, especially with your repeated totally false accusations towards Obama. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2016, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-palestinians-your-take/749840/235 "2016-06-29T00:01:20Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally Posted by DerekMichaels00 View Post > shame that Alan Dershowitz, a liberal at heart like myself, agrees with me. Just popping in to say, don’t click on that link. It will grab your browser and won’t let go without some serious ctrl-alt-del. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2016, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-palestinians-your-take/749840/236 "2016-06-29T01:51:30Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > The problem with your argument is that “proportional response” isn’t an arithmetic exercise. It isn’t some notion of _fairness_, as in ‘you killed one of us, so we can only kill one of you - two at most’. Yet some people appear to assume that it is, as in “A 90-to-1 kill ratio is not proportional, no matter how much you try to paint it otherwise”. Please. It doesn’t even approach proportional. You know it, I know it, the Israelis know it, the Palestinians know it. > [@](#): > > In Just War theory, as embodied in various articulations of international law “proportionality” means that a military action is not a “war crime” if it meets a couple of tests: > > (1) The attack wasn’t a deliberate attempt to kill civilians; and The Israelis clearly knew that civilians would end up being targeted. Go back and read that article about the Israeli Gaza attacks I posted. They had a technique where they would hit a building that was to be bombed with a non-explosive missile one minute before they hit it with an explosive one. (Pretty stupid on its face, because you’re also warning possible terrorists to get out.) Even given the (unlikely) lack of knowledge that they were going to kill a large proportion of civilians, you can’t claim that they didn’t know it after the first and second Operations, either. > [@](#): > > (2) The attack wasn’t launched in the knowledge that gaining the civilian casualties resulting from the attack would be “clearly excessive” in relation to the military objectives that the attack was supposed to achieve. This is the “proportionality doctrine” that you are misusing here. > > In short, you could in theory have a war in which one side, totally outclassed, suffers 100% of the deaths. They declare war and attack with spears against machine guns and get mowed down to the last soldier: 1000 of them die, none of their enemy. This is not a war crime and is not a violation of “proportionality” . Their enemy has exactly zero requirement to allow a “fair” distribution of deaths. > > Similarly, the same advanced enemy could attack with cannon a fortress being held against them, blow a breach in the wall, and demand its surrender - and in the process kill a bunch of civilians who took shelter in that fortress. Not a war crime, as long as the “military objective” - taking the fortress - did not result in civilian casualties that were “clearly excessive” in relation to that objective. > > Now, many argue that Israeli wars against Hamas in Gaza resulted in “clearly excessive” civilian casualties. The issue is not as cut and dried as simply citing the ratio of deaths, as you have done, would assume. According to the actual doctrine, you have to examine the military objectives the Israelis were pursuing when the casualties were incurred. Dunno where you come from, but 50% is clearly excessive civilian casualties, especially on the scale of killing we’re talking about here AND given the fact that there’s no way the Israelis weren’t aware of it at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2016, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-palestinians-your-take/749840/237 "2016-06-29T01:58:30Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > I have heard reports that leaflets are air dropped near target sights to try to warn people to get clear as a strike is imminent, that tells me all I need to know. One group is trying to defend itself while also making some attempt to preserve innocent life, while the other is deliberately trying to murder innocents, less effectively because of their own lack of power, and using their own innocent population near rocket sites as a magnifying lens of carnage to make Israel look worse to the leftist fools around the globe who laser focus on the incidental body count of their retaliation rather than willful acts of murder. > You know what the kill ratio would have been if the palestinians were not firing rockets from civilian sites? ZERO. Got that? Z E R O. > I sometimes wish I could wave a magic wand and let people like Ace live under the conditions and restraints they wish upon Israel. Neighborhood in range of rocket fire? Suck it up. Fire back? Sure, oh wait, they put the launch site on top of a hospital building (lovely move there), never mind, fire away! We can’t attack that site, innocent people will be killed, more than are in danger on our side! > > With all do respect to the attitude that demands such restraints, f\*ck that. > The worst part of all of this are the decent palestinians are held hostage by the savages that care more about using their dead bodies as PR shots for Europeans and leftists than making their lives better. THESE are the people that are the greatest barriers to peace, how the hell can ANYONE make peace with that behavior and attitude? Without them the Palestinians would have had a state decades ago and have long since moved on. So glad you have heard reports. I guess the actual, you know, figures (i.e. evidence) contradicts you. I’m really getting sick and tired of people telling me how fantastical my point of view is. Go back and read post #175. Sorry if I don’t let Israel off the hook, as you’re clearly more than prepared to do. It ain’t that easy. But preach on how Israel are the white hats and Palestine are the black hats. The louder you say it, the more right you’ll be. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2016, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-palestinians-your-take/749840/238 "2016-06-29T02:46:31Z")
> [@Johnny\_Ace](#): > > . . . But preach on how Israel are the white hats and Palestine are the black hats. The louder you say it, the more right you’ll be. Well, in this case, I honestly do believe the Israelis are more justified in their actions than the Palestinians are. I don’t believe anyone is actually foolish enough to say it’s all one way (or the other.) It isn’t “black and white” and no one here actually has said that. Just off hand…what is your opinion of the rocket attacks? I can’t believe that you believe they’re the right thing to do. Do you actually condemn them? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2016, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-palestinians-your-take/749840/239 "2016-06-29T03:40:00Z")
> [@DerekMichaels00](#): > > Why is this thread in elections? Simple: because its a big electoral issue, hence why all the serious candidates went to AIPAC (Bernie is not serious, IMO, hence his absence, as well as pandering to the far-left). This might be an election issue, but your OP was so broad that it has turned into a Great Debate. Moving from Elections. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2016, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-palestinians-your-take/749840/240 "2016-06-29T04:16:49Z")
> [@Gruff](#): > > For one thing, we’re talking about war here. This I don’t get. How is it “war”? The situation is described by the Israeli High Court of Justice itself as a “belligerent occupation”. Israel controls (and increasingly claims) the territories, whose Palestinian inhabitants have no acknowledged nationality and no citizenship, and no effective or sovereign government other than Israel itself. What the violent Palestinians are doing is some combination of terrorism, guerrilla fighting, and colonial uprising, but I don’t think that’s really conveyed by calling it “war”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-palestinians-your-take/749840.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-palestinians-your-take/749840.md?page=13)