Barak’s Generous Offers[sup]TM[/sup] were by no means “everything they asked for”, I’m afraid. They asked for a viable state with enough farmland and water resources to get by, they were offered a barren, partitioned ghetto.
Yes, I do actually remember how the current intifada started. Strangely, it was nothing like your flippant description.
In a region rife with wars over symbols, Sharon decided to visit the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount, despite the fact that visit might be highly provocative to Palestinians. According to The Mitchell Report (note that I’m pulling this from an extremely pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian website),
See if you can find three ways that differs from your account. I’ll give you the first one as a freebie:
- It doesn’t demonize either side in the conflict.
Daniel
I haven’t read the whole thread yet, so I don’t know if anyone else has pointed this out, but, in the majority of cases where the UN has tried to take action about Israel, the USA has used its veto to block it.
See http://homepage.ntlworld.com/steveseymour/wecontrolamerica/WarCrimes.html
It’s sad, but I think anyone who envisions any kind of solution in the region is too optimistic. In reality, an edge will be taken off the hatred a couple generations from now when the young people of both sides ask themselves “How did all this bullshit start again?” Maybe then some progress can be made.
Sweet spirits of niter, Daniel. This is so naive that it is almost breath-taking!
I cannot imagine a scenario under which this would not lead to the greatest outburst of anti-Israeli terrorist attacks in recorded history. Every mother-fucking terrorist group in the region would instantly bomb every shopping mall, pizza restaurant, and street corner in Israel.
And every hostile Arab nation in the Middle East would increase funding for the terrorists. Every fucking night from now until Israel either is wiped out or responds would be Kristalnacht.
The other most likely scenario? *Israel wipes the Palestinians off the face of the earth. * There would no longer be any reason to try a measured response - it’s all or nothing. If the US is going to throw Israel to the wolves in a year anyway, they might as well do things thoroughly. If anything they do against terrorism (or anything the PA stages and blames on Israel) is going to leave them on their own, they might as well get ready for the Arab nations around them invading and remove the threat closest to hand.
This is like saying, “Some of our police are accepting bribes. Therefore, downtown is on its own - we aren’t going to try to arrest murderers or rapists or anyone else. WE ARE NOT FUCKING AROUND HERE about police corruption.”
I’m sorry - this “I can’t do anything about the Palestinian terrorists so I will put unilateral pressure on Israel to not do anything either” is morally bankrupt. It is like punishing a kid who is bullied because he gets in a lot of fights, but ignoring the bullying.
“Both sides are responsible. But we will only expect one side to change.” :rolleyes:
Regards,
Shodan
Totally off-base.
Let’s think about how we could put pressure on Palestinians for a moment. Ooh, I got an idea: howsabout we give military aid to their enemies?
We’re already putting a shitload of pressure on the Palestinians. What we’re NOT doing is putting any pressure on the Israel government.
Your first point, that this proposal acts as an incentive to terrorist groups, is well taken, however. The six-month deadline wouldn’t work. We need to find some other way to tie our military aid to Israel (i.e., the pressure we put on Palestinians) to human rights.
Maybe we could discontinue aid of any weapon system used to massacre civilians, for example. That might work.
Daniel
Wow… what a surprise. The IDF (allegedly) uses tactics that, mirror those that the Palestinians use during every single ‘maryterdom operation…’ or every time they machine gun civilians…
Lo and behold, there are those who ~gasp!~ want Israel held to a totally unequal standard.
Who’d a thunk it?
Remember a few things.
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The PA was calling Jenin a massacre while their own red cross was denying it.
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The PA has declared war on Israel: as a battlefield commander you would be hard pressed not to at least attempt to fire warning shots at a large and possibly hostile crowd that was gathering.
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The fact that the on-the-scene reporters didn’t notice weapons is hardly surprising, they routinely ‘miss’ the fact that the PA pays children to participate in the violence in the hopes that kids will be killed and make good news copy.
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Between 60 and 80 percent of the Palestinian populace supports suicide bombings. Many of those supporters offer moral and material support to terrorists. As such, the term ‘collective punishment’ begins to sound a bit hollow and meaningless. If 80 percent of a population is at war with your civilians, it seems logical to respond to them.
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Amnesty International and other groups are calling for a full investigation of Israel. Anybody want to tell me
the last time they called for a full investigation of Arafat?
Wonder why… couldn’t be a double standard at work, could it? -
This was a peaceful protest? Heading into a war zone? Do you expect me to buy that? Even if they had no weapons, they surely meant to complicate the military operations underway in Rafah. Doesn’t that make warning shots an acceptable form of deterrence?
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Again, this was a Palestinian protest, that was peaceful, and going directly into a war zone?
Peaceful? Were there rocks within grabbing distance that were light enough to be thrown?
- Rafah is the nexus for a large number of tunnels that carry weapons that are used to target Israeli civilians. The guns that were used to murder a woman and her children recently came through those tunnels. Those tunnels go through Palestinian homes. Those homes are bulldozed, and Israel is condemned on the global stage. (double standard? naw…)
And above all.
Look at this in context.
If, after a full investigation, it’s proven that the Palestinians aren’t (again) making shit up to look good for the international news, if it’s shown the IDF attack was authorized, then YES, it is a horrible incident. But you will also note, and this is a key difference ** The Israelis are not dancing in the streets and calling it a glorious operation!!!**
You will also note that none of the anti-Israel posters in this thread were posting in similar threads about Palestinian violence and claiming that the international community had to stop supporting the PA. (double standard? naw…)
P.S. For those who call Palestinan terror ‘rag tag’, remember it is funded by no fewer than two sovereign states and the legal government of Palestine.
P.P.S. What do the arguments about ‘democracy’ and ‘technology’ really mean? Because Israel is a democracy with a strong military it’s not allowed to fight back? How is that logical? ( If you and your friends were happened to be good folks who had money, does that mean you’d not be allowed to fight back if someone threw a brick at your head or tried to blow you up?)
Or… does it mean that some on the left view the Palestinians as Under Dogs and are thus romantically involved with the ‘freedom fighting’ movement regardless of the evidence?
(Oh, and just something that struck me as funny. If the current Intifada wasn’t caused by a political visit to the Al Aqsa mosque, then why do the Palestinians refer to it as the Al Aqsa Intifada?)
You can put all the pressure on Israel you want, but don’t kid yourself that it would do anything to stop the killing.
The Palestinians (and neighboring Arab countries) are unwilling to accept anything less than the irradication of the Israeli state, and the Israelis are stubbornly insisting on staying alive. There’s no middle ground.
I don’t see that at all.
No, you aren’t getting it.
The enemies of peace in the region are the terrorists - not the Palestinians in general, but the terrorists. They don’t want peace. Especially they don’t want peace for the other Palestinians.
And we aren’t putting any pressure on the terrorists. And your idea of unilateral pressure on the Israelis only isn’t going to pressure them either - just the opposite. Unilateral pressure on Israel gives the terrorists a free hand to escalate without fear of retaliation. It actually increases their incentive to do so.
If they can goad Israel into responding, they win, because the US cuts aid to Israel. Even if they can’t, they lose nothing, since they are not interested in a peace. And the PA can always disavow responsiblity for whatever the terrorists do.
It’s a win-win for the terrorists. Strike against Israeli civilians, and maybe you can get Israel to react and the US will cut aid. If Israel doesn’t act, you can increase your prestige and work for military advantage in the war you expect to wage. You’ve been given a free hand by the US.
Thanks, suckers.
Regards,
Shodan
All you’ve done is point out a small semantic imprecision in my post above. I’ll go ahead and correct this:
So yes, we ARE putting pressure on the terrorists. How could we possibly put MORE pressure on them? (Let’s assume for the moment that we’re not going to stoop to their tactics of targetting innocent people in order to terrorize them into accepting our political will). There’s nothing unilateral at all about my suggestion; there’s everything unilateral about what we’re currently doing.
That said, peace has more than one enemy in the region. Troops that massacre marchers are not the friends of peace.
I’m not even saying that the GOI is an enemy of peace (although there’s a strong case to be made for that, given the current GOI). For all I know, a couple of insanely racist soldiers are wholly responsible for the massacre, a couple of murderous thugs who see Palestinians as a culture of savages who deserve death.
Regardless, the GOI employed these killers, gave them uniforms and weapons and vehicles with which to shed blood. And they bought those weapons and vehicles with my money. Unless we see the GOI making serious and fundamental changes to prevent such killers from killing again, I don’t want to give them more money.
You keep talking about how terrorists will “goad” the army into committing another atrocity. What is this, second grade? Israel is responsible for its own actions. Go after terrorists, sure–but that’s not what I’m talking about. Don’t go after peaceful marchers. Not even if there might be some terrorists hiding out with the marchers.
Daniel
Left Hand of Dorkness, Could you please tell me how, when and where we’ve put pressure on the Palestinian terrorists? I’m serious. I don’t see any at all. As for your money; How about mine? The Dutch [have] sent money to the Palestinians, in order to help with the infra-structure. Schools, etc. All they have done with the money is buy new weapons. Like FinnAgain said: **When was the last time they called for a full investigation of Arafat? **
Double standards indeed.
FinnAgain, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. The *wannabe * left-wingers think the Palestinians are the underdog. A mixed-up romantism. Little do they know that the thinking part of the left, has long ago said farewell to the endless, mindless, terrorism of the Palestinians.
Sure thing. According to WRMEA, which on its surface looks reasonably nonpartisan (please correct me if I’m wrong), we put $1.8 billion worth of pressure on Palestinian terrorists every year. That’s the amount of military aid we give to Israel every year; Israel’s army’s primary occupation seems to be fighting Palestinian terrorists.
Why the fuck are you guys doing that? STOP DOING THAT! DON’T GIVE MILITARY AID TO THE PALESTINIAN TERRORISTS!
If you want, I’ll tell the Dutch government the same thing. But it’d probably be more effective coming from you, since you’re a part of the Dutch electorate and I’m not. If I find out that my own government is militarily supporting the Palestinian terrorists, I’ll yell my head off about that, too.
Yeesh. An inability to understand the central argument indeed.
Daniel
Aw, fuck. I hate sloppy Googling. I just ran across a page on WRMEA’s site that talks about how their message gets suppressed by the “Zionist Lobby.” My apologies for relying on them for foreign aid numbers; I just went to the first promising Google link and did a cursory look around (at their “About WRMEA” page) before deciding to trust them.
If anyone has a more reliable source for numbers, lemme know; I’ll also look some numbers up. I just wanted to get this mea culpa in early.
Daniel
Okay, this decidedly pro-Israel site lists annual military aid to Israel for the past thirteen years ranging from a low of 1.8 billion to a high of 3.12 billion. I’ll use those figures to represent what I see as the pressure the US is putting on Palestinian terrorists.
Daniel
Originally posted by Left Hand of Dorkness
Hey, I KNOW! It wasn’t supposed to be military aid. The money was for “poor kiddies with no school”. If we had known weapons would be bought and the “poor kiddies” rather throw Molotov cocktails at Israeli citizens than go to school, we wouldn’t have.
And the Double standards was a remark on the OP. I can read. Thankyouverymuch.
Serious thanks for the link. I’ll await the next one.
Crosspost.
Thank you. Do you think giving money to Israel is considered putting pressure on the terrorists?
More mea culpas. It sure looked to me as if you were referring to a double standard on my part. I apologize for the misunderstanding.
On the Palestinian terrorists? Absolutely. Who else is the Israeli army busy putting pressure on?
Other than Palestinian civilians, of course. And that’s precisely the problem.
I’m okay with putting pressure on the Palestinian terrorists. I WANT to put pressure on the Palestinian terrorists. But I do NOT want to put pressure on the relatively weak peace movement in Palestine.
By spending my tax dollars to massacre marchers, that’s what the Israeli army is forcing me to do; if they don’t propose a way to quit forcing me to do that, I’ll advocate withdrawing the aid that they’re using to pressure the Palestinian terrorists.
Daniel
Same question as gum. What pressure are we putting on the terrorist?
In particular, how does your plan that “Israel can’t do anything regardless of whether the terrorists kill children or not” put pressure on the terrorists?
That is certainly a legitimate question. And you are certainly correct that Israel should not make terrorist tactics official policy. Which I do not believe is the case now, even in this instance.
But even if we can’t come up with an idea to put more pressure, at the very least we should not remove any.
Or maybe it wasn’t a massacre. Like Jenin wasn’t a massacre. Or it was wrong, and an isolated incident. I am not willing to take what the PA says as gospel, and dismiss anything the IDF says out of hand.
Obviously Israel does not have 100% clean hands. Maybe this even was as bad as you are making out. But if only one side gets punished for its screw-ups, and the other side gets a pass because we can’t think of anything to do to them, that is counter-productive.
No, it’s the Middle East.
Indeed it is, and it should be held responsible for those actions. But so should the ones who are trying to kill them.
Your plan is great for the first, but weak on the second.
Regards,
Shodan
Same answer as I gave gum.
It is the very essence of an illegitimate question, because it loathesomely rephrases my plan into something indefensible. Israel CAN do something, under my plan. They just can’t kill children themselves (more specifically, they must take very serious and sometimes difficult and often risky measures in order to avoid killing civilians). In exchange for this, we’ll continue putting the $1.8 billion pressure on Palestinian terrorists.
I’m not taking what EITHER of them says as gospel. I’m taking the accounts of reporters who were on the scene as the likeliest story about what really happened.
Again: we’re giving close to two billion dollars of military aid every year to Israel, on average–recently, we’ve been giving more than that every year. They’re using this money to punish the Palestinian terrorists for their horrible deeds. Right now, only one side is being punished for their actions, and the other side is getting a pass because some of us can’t think of anything to do to them. That IS counter-productive.
Thing is, it’s the Palestinians who are getting punished now, and the Israel army that’s getting a pass. That’s wrong, and that needs to change. Both sides need to be held accountable, not just the terrorists.
This is the exact opposite of the truth. My plan rectifies the first, and remains strong on the second. Our current situation does nothing for the first, and is very strong on the second.
Daniel
And yet more Mea Culpas [culpae?] “E pluribus unum”, huh 
I apologize for not being clearer.
But IF [big if] the Israeli army shot into “peacefull” marchers, the fact remains: There has been a public apology by the Israeli government.
NO cries of JOY, like I’ve seen among the Palestine people, when innocent Jews are murdered. Where was the apology from Arafat when the pregnant mom and her three kids got deliberately shot?
IMHO, if the wannabe lefties keep supporting terrorists and still think they’re all ‘en Vogue’ [never realizing they’re hopelessly out of date] doing so, the Palestinian people will never see the difference between right and wrong.