The Territories are controlled by their legitimately elected government. ISrael has had complete control of the territories in the past - did they employ different engagement techniques then?
Which (true or not) has what to do with policing vs. military action? “Oh, these terrorists want to destroy our state, so of course it follows more civilian deaths are acceptable” sounds right in your head how, exactly?
So you admit it’s just a cost-benefit thing.
That’s meaningless unless you also show that the non-civilian deaths have* not *also been reduced at the same time. Which they have.
Which addresses the point that policing works better than rockets how? I’ve explained my reasoning behind why I think Israel does what it does - where the hell do you read “bigot” in any of that? Israel chooses the cheaper and internally politically expedient path. I *can *fault them for it, but it’s still understandable. I *haven’t *said that Israel doesn’t place any value on Palestinian civilian lives, for instance, or even just “Jews hate Palestinians”, because *that *would be bigoted. And stupid.
I’m not saying that everyone who attempts to shut down objections via ad hominem attacks is a dishonest debater - only that stereotypical behaviour in Israel threads can lead to that conclusion.
Any monstro you see that there is some debate over what defines “anti-Semitism” as well.
The second class status of Jews in the old Arab world with the smattering of massacre here and there, far less than in Europe - was that anti-Semitism? Jews were officially respected compared to most other non-Muslims. Certainly different than the massacres that occurred in the lead up to Israel’s creation and to the old European style Jew hating that has been part of mainstream Arab thought since.
Is holding someone who is Jewish and involved in foreign policy in suspicion as someone who may have dual loyalty (and they are usually “just asking”) anti-Semitism? Is thinking that Jewish success is due to clannishness anti-Semitism? Is holding a stereotype in your mind that you never actually act on anti-Semitism? Not to anyone who holds those beliefs or who thinks that maybe, just maybe those things are true. (And someone who believes that Blacks are overall less intelligent than Whites is not racist in their own minds.) And it isn’t violent actions …
Well, it seems a little sad because it’s celebrating the failure (or just the effort). Whereas there are many things which I would think they would want to celebrate…there are certainly many successes.
Thank you. This is the sort of erudition we need around here.
Regardless of how many happy times there have been in the history of the Jewish people (and I suspect it is not a large number), it would be even odder to celebrate a success on Holocaust Day. Israel does celebrate Victory Against the Nazis Day (I forget the exact name) sometime in May, and Independence Day, which I think floats because it’s designated on the Jewish calendar.
Celebrating sad things is hardly unique to Israel. Remembrance Day, which is celebrated in some fashion in nearly all of the Commonwealth, is celebrated on November 11, because that’s when the Germans officially surrendered in WWI… but the point is remembering the people who died in the war, not that we won it.
Conversely, US Memorial Day is on the last Monday in May (and was originally celebrated on May 5) precisely because it’s not commemorating any specific event.
From my understanding, some are and some are not. One of the primary sources of irritation is that the ultra-orthodox are not subject to conscription.
Fair enough.
Just busting your chops a little. That Parizeau quote never grows old!
Though any sort of ethno-nationalism is, invariably, going to be exclusionary to an extent. How can it be otherwise, when those not sharing the majority ethnicity are considered ‘outside of society’?
Note that this is a problem equally for Israel and Quebec.
This is the point I keep making about these debates, and the problem I keep pointing out. A basic command of the facts is required before anything can be discussed with any semblance of rationality.
“I don’t know the facts, but I’m prepared to be difficult!” is not a formula for a sanguine discussion.
I knew what you were talking about Ibn, I’m not sure many others did. And you’re right, it’s because it doesn’t fit into the narrative. The same way that the fact is that Jordan and Egypt’s invasion and subsequent control of territories in 1948 is what really prevented the formation of a Palestinian state. It’s the same reason that the deliberate and systematic massacre of Hama, Syria is ignored year after year. It’s the reason why people are up in arms during pretty much each and every single Israeli military operation, ever, but when Lebanon indiscriminately shells Palestinian refugee camps, nary a word is heard. It’s the reason why numerous Arab states have actual laws on the books which prohibit Palestinians from immigrating to and/or working in their countries, but the world doesn’t care.
Honest questions RNATB, since I’ve made my views clear…
-What do you think it would say about someone’s narrative, if they self-identified as an informed supporter of the Palestinians, and they’d never heard of Kuwait’s expulsion?
-Why do you think it is that there wasn’t a global outcry, and there still isn’t a vocal movement to condemn Kuwait and/or get them to make things right?
I don’t know. I am not a Palestinian supporter, informed or otherwise. I was about 10 when it happened, which may be why I didn’t know about it.
I don’t know the answer to that, either. I would be inclined to suggest that there’s no outcry in Europe because the European press isn’t reporting it, but there’s no outcry here either. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, I supposed I would be forced to conclude that it’s possible nobody cares about the Palestinians except as a tool to bludgeon the Israelis with. The article doesn’t really discuss what the Kuwaiti Palestinian community did; if they (rather than just the PLO) actively supported the Iraqi occupation, I might be inclined to accept that the Kuwaitis were well within their rights to kick them out.
Just to provide you with a bit more context:
-The expulsion of Palestinians from Kuwait was roughly equal (probably a bit greater), in numerical terms, than the Palestinian refugees from the 1967 war.
-The number of Jewish refugees from Arab countries in and around 1948 is roughly equal to the number of Palestinian refugees created by the 1948 war.
Neither of those are things that people talk much about.
Control over territories isn’t the issue. I made a mistake thinking Basque country was a part of Spain and I corrected it.
The difference in Spain is that (and I’ll again be overly simplistic here) is that Spain could give the Basque country some independence, because the government of Basque country isn’t run by a bunch of terrorists and they aren’t calling for the destruction of Spain. It makes the territory less hostile to police efforts than the Palestinian territories.
I’ve maintained that Israel doesn’t have a real choice in the number of civilian deaths they cause. If someone wants to destroy the state then it’s less likely you will negotiated with them, and it’s more likely that the territory would be more hostile to Israeli policing. Therefore, you’d have to rely on a military strategy and not the two other more peaceful strategies (negotiated and policing.)
By bringing negotiation into this I’m somewhat debating all the ways Israel could cause less civilian death. If you want to stick to the policing v. military action debate then just ignore what I said about negotiating.
Every decision is a cost-benefit decision. I can always choose not to eat any food for the next month. I don’t because the benefits of eating outweigh the costs. But it’s also fair for me to say that not eating isn’t really a choice. And you should understand that when I say that I mean that the costs are too high for me to take the decision seriously.
With Israel, the costs of using a policing strategy are too high for them. A policing strategy would not suppress the terrorists as well as a military strategy would. I don’t believe that Israel should tolerate the death of their citizens any more than they have too. Saying that Israel should take on more civilian deaths to spare the lives of more civilians in Palestinian isn’t really a choice.
I see now that you’re talking about reducing civilian death during the time of the attack? Then the Iraq wasn’t a good example. I don’t have evidence that going into a territory with more troops means less civilian death, but here is my theory on why that would happen:
More troops means terrorists are more likely to surrender faster.
More troops means that we could send soldiers to more places at the same time, therefore reducing the need to use rocket fire on enemy territory where we can’t send soldiers.
More troops means there are more soldiers available to stay in areas cleared of terrorists to make sure the terrorists don’t come back.
Now, more troops could mean that you could attack more areas at the same time, which would increase death totals in the short term. But overall I think it would end civilian death because it would end the conflict a lot quicker.
I think we’re arguing pass each other.
To backtrack a little, I’m only maintaining that stereotypes against Israel lead to the conclusion that Israel has the power to prevent civilian death in Palestine.
It appears that we have very different views of what it means that Israel can’t prevent civilian death. As I explained above, to me it means that they can’t achieve their objective of suppressing all the terrorists in Palestine, without risking more civilian lives at home, by using a strategy other than the one they’re using now.
I agree that policing would prevent more civilian death. But it wouldn’t achieve Israel’s objectives.
Again, you’re not a bigot. The reason I pointed that out is that it seemed to me that you thought I believed that your views could only be reached through prejudices and not logic. I wanted to make it clear that I believe that rational people could disagree with Israel’s military policy. I reread my posts in this thread and this didn’t seem clear to me, so I wanted to clarify it.
I don’t really want to respond to anything in this thread other than this sentence that bothered me a bit. I know very little about overall Jewish history and haven’t seen the film, nor do I intend to see it. I am reading the thread out of curiosity and am learning quite a bit. That said:
Really Not All That Bright, back toward the end of the Ottoman Empire there were these two guys Enver Pasha and Talat Pasha who blamed Ottoman Armenians for their incompetent leadership. They reasoned their failures were due to Ottoman Armenians helping the Russians. Are you inclined to think they were within their rights to ethnically cleanse the Armenians from their lands? Or would it have been better to intern them?
I’m not sure what the point of your questions is. What I’m saying is that you seem intent on misrepresenting what others have written in a way to create hysteria rather than debate.
For example, you are asking me who the leader of the ‘Israel lobby’ is? You told me you read the book, but that question suggests you didn’t really understand their arguments:
B) Researchers consider that individual and group differences are due to environmental and genetic variation.
Are all groups neurologically identical, statistically? There isn’t much evidence for that, but the problem is that most people have trouble thinking in terms of statistics and might make unfair inferences about individuals.
By now I am sure you’ve learned that this is not the proper forum to discuss your “friend’s” erm, fetishes? So you’ll pardon me if I don’t respond to that part of your most excellent post.
As for the examination question, I see that an answer has already been provided – so allow me to query you back.
Do you consider The Nakba a discrete historical event or an ongoing political process?
ETA: Because, obviously, “Jew-hater” and “anti-Semite” weren’t enough now they’ve become “good niggers.” Holly shit…some “debate” this is. The SDMB must be proud of hosting it. :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
That Parizeau quote never grows old!