One-sided views of the I/P discussion, and why they hobble understanding as well as resolution.

Great Debates
1

Tom closed another thread whose tangents spiraled around to this topic, and I’d like to elaborate on a point that I was making before the sucker got locked. Somewhere in the discussion, Desmond Tutu was put forward as something of an objective broker of peace. The problem is, Tutu’s own words contradict this as he’s proudly embraced a double standard in the past.

From Tutu’s authorized biography:

[

](Desmond Tutu: Rabble-rouser for Peace, the Authorized Biography - John Allen - Google Books)

Of course, France, Britain, Germany and the US had all also supplied SA with arms. But they’re not lights to the nations, I suppose.

As with one of his fellow “Elders”, Jimmy Carter, Tutu’s views are based on a very odd misunderstanding of Judaism and politics.

In the past, Tutu has claimed that ancient Jews attempted to monopolize God, causing Jesus to be angry at them for not allowing other human beings into a relationship with God. (evidently Tutu had never heard of the Noahide laws). Claimed that “People are scared in [the U.S.], to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful—very powerful.” He’s conflated Jews as a group with pro-Israel lobbying elements (the phrase “Jewish lobby” is a good clue ;)) and claimed that Jews as a people are arrogant since they have “an arrogance—the arrogance of power because Jews are a powerful lobby in this land and all kinds of people woo their support,””

It’s the same myopia, and the same attempt for Christians to hold to some chimerical philo-Semitism that demands Jewish exceptionalism that led to Jimmy Carter, proudly lecturing an Israeli Prime Minister on just how their nation should follow Judaism according to his Christian understanding of the religion. It’s the same myopia that causes Tututo lie and claimthat Jesus is the Jewish messiah who was prophesied in scriptures and to use distorted views of Jewish scripture to bludgeon the Jewish and Israeli people into following his edicts.

It’s the same one-sided myopia which led Tutu to be part of the truly deplorable UN Beit Hanoun investigation.

[

](http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/06/23/human_rights_travesty/)

It is the same myopia that led the ICJ to conduct a kangaroo court on Israel’s separation barrier that was supposed to determine if, according to the 4th GC, military necessity justified the barrier. Except the ICJ deliberately, and egregiously, did not include any considerations of military necessity.

It’s the same myopic conduct that causes Tutu to demand sanctions and divestment from Israel in order to effect an immediate end to Israeli self defense such that Hamas’ rockets could begin landing on every Israeli town, village and city… while at the same time only offering up mere rhetoric about how it would be nice if Hamas/the PA stopped violence, accepted Israel’s right to exist, stopped teaching their children to aspire to the genocide of the Jews, and so on.

Now, none of this shows where Tutu is wrong (his errors do that). But it does help to show why Tutu is wrong.

It’s why Tutu calls the military occupation that’s authorized by the 4th Geneva Convention ‘apartheid’ but fails to mention the defensive nature of that occupation or bring himself to admit things such as that the security barrier, in the words of Palestinian terrorists themselves, makes it virtually impossible to carry out suicide bombings. It’s why Carter has lied about things as blatant as Hamas publicly taking credit for attacks while claiming that the only real problem in the region is that Israel needs to stop all efforts at self defense, which he classifies as aggression. It’s what led to Walt and Mearsheimer claiming that an “Israel Lobby”, amorphous, ill defined and protean, containing groups who are in opposition to each other, dictates foreign policy in the US while almost entirely avoiding the word “oil” in their first broadside.

As I’ve pointed out in numerous ME threads over the years, the immediately and vitally relevant facts of the situation go back to before the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire (if we are to understand the nature of land rights in the region). They include the rise of the the Grand Mufti and his pact with the Nazis as well as the rise of the Haganah and Irgun (the former was formed after the Arab Riots of 1920 and 1921 and the latter was formed after the Hebron Massacre of 1929). They include such uncertainties as the exact number of Arab refugees created in 1948, and the various reasons that caused various percentages to flee in the first place. They include the rise of the PLO (founded before the 1967 war) and the Arab states’ use of the refugees as political pawns at the Refugee Conference in Homs Syria where it was decided that any solution to the refugee problem that didn’t entail the complete elimination of Israel would be counted as treason. And we all know what treason is punishable by.

They include the lip service that the UK gave as well as the actual actions that the UK took in order to frustrate the actual creation of the state of Israel. They include the role that Israel played in the US’ cold war calculations as the Soviets tried to woo Arab states to their cause.

They include the fractured nature of Israel’s coalition politics and the fight, going on even now, to break the influence that the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox have. They include the fractured nature of Palestinian politics, and the nuances in relationships between the various armed groups. They include continued Israeli legal support for equal rights in tandem with societal pressures that make anti-Arab racism a perennial concern. They includea Palestinian indoctrination to genocide and anti-Semitism as well as the Palestinian people’s unwilling status as human shields in wars and battles launched by Hamas, Islamic Jihad, et al.

Nor does faux evenhandedness solve matters. Declaring, for instance, that settlements are a “roadblock to peace” in the same way as actual violence is, obscures the actual issues and legitimate grievances with a smoke screen. You can have peace while there are disputes over property, but you literally cannot have piece while there are high explosives being lobbed over the border. Declaring that both sides in the conflict have sins to answer for does not mean that they’re the same sins or that they’re fungible.

A just resolution would include compensating Palestinians for their lost property the with, ideally, the surrounding Arab states (especially those who went to war against Israel in '48 and '67) helping to upgrade the standard of living of the Palestinians as well as the Arabs nations who expelled their Jewish populations in and around 1948 compensating them for their lost property. It will include both security for Israel and autonomy for Palestine. It will include a gradual process of negotiation and alteration rather than a bolt from the blue which will simplify everything in one fell swoop.

The situation is, in a word, complex.

Ideologues like Carter or Tutu practice approaches which make it exponentially more difficult to find any political solution. Demanding unilateral disarmament and a cessation to all defensive measures will end in Hamas being within rocket and mortar range of every single Israeli town, city and village with the ability to import whatever weaponry they want. This is not a plan for peace, but war. And demonizing Israel for not accepting it does nothing to elucidate the actual complexities involved in finding a just and lasting peace. It’s sloganeering at its worst.

And the slogans don’t work. We’ve seen, for instance, that the economy in the West Bank is improving where Abbas, a moderate only by some very strange standards, has done his best to clamp down on violence. It may quite possibly be the first real steps towards a strong and independent Palestinian state. We’ve seen that, even after Israel pulled out of Gaza, leaving not one single soldier in it, that the Egyptians still kept their border with Gaza sealed most of the time and Hamas brought down misery and carnage on their human shields when they insisted on launching rocket after rocket, poking the tiger with a needle. We’ve seen that the same myopia reigns, and people will talk about the Israeli border with Gaza being closed without mentioning Hamas’ attacks/infliltration through it or that Egypt could certainly choose to truck in tons of wheat, or what have you.

Any solutions we see will have to accurately address all of the groups’ needs and valid aspirations. Claiming Israel should just stop all defensive measures and there will be peace without a similar commitment from the Palestinians is as nonsensical as claiming that if the Palestinians all put down their arms there would be a two state solution without the political will for it in Israel. Impotent sloganeering obfuscates, it does not elucidate. Every fallacious analogy to South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation can be balanced out by Zimbabwe’s Mugabe. Ignoring the complexities and what would happen upon unilateral disarmament is not wisdom, it is folly driven by an ideology that is divorced from the facts.

Expecting to place enough pressure on only one side and have that, as if by a miracle, work out to peace overnight is the worst kind of oversimplified feelgoodism. The demands of ideologues like Carter and Tutu are not paths to peace, but to carnage. Carnage for which any military response would, itself, be demonized and prohibited if they had their way.

As one of the longest running, most complex issues of our time, truth and a nuanced reaction are more important than slogans and blind ideology.

2

Ah, I do believe that the complaint is that Israel supposedly supplied arms well-after the Apartheid regime came under international embargo. I shan’t speak to American actions, but for the Commonwealth, one can certainly say that by the mid-80s the UK and most of the Commonwealth had effectively embargoed military sales to the Apartheid regime. It is my understanding that even at very late dates, Israel never did, quite the contrary.

A wee black mark.

ICJ kangaroo court?

Quite the loaded the language, given your complaints about Tutu, eh no? While there is some irony in you calling him an ideologue I suppose.

In any case, is there any particular precedent for ICJ to include “considerations for military necessity” or did the ICJ exclude such considerations as they found Israeli claims in that area to be dubious or not relevant to the legal matter under consideration? (I rather suspect someone other than the OP needs to check that)

Certainly the queer coincidence of that “separation barrier” (wonderful bureaucratic language that, so dry) annexing disputed lands gets Israel into a bit of a spot to say the least in presenting said barrier as merely a necessity, rather than a violation of an occupiers duty relative to occupied territories (as well as a security move)…

Ehhhhh… myopic?

Afraid your logic here escapes me. Hamas is a non-state actor, right? There is fuck all for investment in the Territories, right? And Israel controls all going in and out, right?

Tutu’s logic seems pretty much similar to that he used in the case of South Africa - where similar arguments about safety and security, rocketing, etc were made: the State Actor needs to be embargoed; the non-state actor needs to engage. (In that case of course it was the Apartheid regime and ANC and the other liberation movements).

The other items you throw in… well you want Tutu to engage in laundry list denunciations. Fine.

Not particularly.

This … this is “interesting.”

First, of course, there’s the ‘authorisation’ bit under the Geneva conventions. The Fourth Convention governs, it does not ‘authorise’ as such. Occupations are facts, Fourth Convention tries to set humane rules. Mighty peculiar point of argument, insofar as Israel is fairly clearly in violation of its duties under said conventions relative to No Collective Punishment, Protection of Property (no expropriation), Forcible Deportations, etc. (http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/FULL/380?OpenDocument) Now, there are certainly “mitigating” circumstances, although the Convention doesn’t allow for such. But pleading “authorisation” under this is… well it shows a certain degree of chutzpah I believe is the word. Spin is another.

Let us leave aside the barrier building conveniently did not follow the recognised 1967 border, but has taken rather convenient twists in annexing lands, etc. It makes a simple pleading of a “defensive nature” … less obvious than you advance. As such criticisms are well-known, your presentation is most interesting.

Well, this is getting tedious. In any case, there is a fair degree of irony in an OP complaining about “one sided views” and then proceeding with such a presentation, which is a fairly one-sided statement of an Israeli position, packaged in reasonable language. Forgive me if I find that deeply ironic.

But unintentionally it does illustrate why the bloody I-P conflict will drag on forever. Too many Righteous People involved, with the view that the argument they disagree with is “one sided” and the other side are “ideologues.”

3

You are wrong.
With America’s Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986, Israel forbid any new military contracts to be made with SA and only those sales already contracted would be carried out.
As of 1987 Israel had officially condemned the Apartheid government.
Nor did Israel’s weapons trade with SA continue for more than a handful of years longer than other western nations.

Ironically enough, yet again nuance and context are highly important. The boycott against Israel which had lasted for decades was one of the main reasons that Israel needed to prop up its economy. Estimates have suggested that Israel’s exports and investment in Israel were cut by roughly 10%.

I rather suspect that you probably should have checked it before you questioned it. As it happens, I’m quite right. The ICJ didn’t even look at matters of military necessity. Quite apart from looking at them and then rejecting Israel’s claims. It was so blatant that one of the ICJ judges himself stated “I am compelled to vote against the Court’s finding on the merits because the Court did not have before it the requisite factual bases for its sweeping findings”

Being that Israel has not, in fact, annexed that territory and the barrier’s route has indeed been changed, numerous times based on the IDF being able to or failing to prove security concerns to the SCOI, you are wrong about that too.

Rather egregiously wrong, actually. Also a non sequitur. If Hamas had remained unelected they would still be a vital security consideration.

Also quite wrong. And if Abbas’ enforcement of peace holds, the trend should continue quite nicely. Which was my point.

Also wrong. Rather obviously, the West Bank shares a border with Jordan and Gaza shares a border with Egypt.

I’ve already dealt with this fallaciously false analogy.
As should be obvious, the two situations are not, in fact, fungible.

I’ve never said any such thing. In fact, I pointed out the difference between the actual actions he was calling for WRT Israel and the mere rhetoric he used WRT the Palestinians.

There’s really no need for semantic games here.
That behavior which is explicitly listed as legal under international law by the 4th Geneva Convention is specifically that which is authorized.

The 4th GC authorized internment, among other measures that Israel has carried out. More to the point, I’d be willing to wager that everything that you might point out other than destroying houses of suicide bombers’ families is explicitly authorized by GC4. Nor, it should be noted, is house destruction integral to the occupation, while checkpoints and such are, and are authorized by the GC.

Present specific actions which you claim are not authorized by GC4 and which constitute collective punishment.

This is either lacking in nuance, or fictional, depending on what your actual claims are. Of course the word “expropriation” appears nowhere in GC4.

Property is, in fact, not protected if military necessity requires its destruction.

Further, occupying powers are authorized to remove protected persons and place them under interment if security needs dictate, thus clearly allowing them to be forcibly relocated away from their personal property.

GC4 also grants rather broad rights to an occupying power in order to maintain security.

Further as pointed out, if you do not know about the actual system of land ownership, one might assume that all land that isn’t Israel is owned by Palestine/Palestinians. This is not the case, and the great majority of land that settlements are built on was, in fact, never privately owned by Palestinians. The land that was, has still not been annexed. Thereby allowing for its return or negotiated transfer when and if Israel and the PA come Final Status talks.

Yet again, deportations are not a required part of the occupation, nor are they primarily what Tutu challenges (internment, etc… which is explicitly authorized under GC4).
Further, even B’Tselem confirms that Israel has not engaged in deportations since 1992, so your objection is almost 18 years out of date by now.

To begin with you are wrong, as there is no such thing as a 1967 border on the West Bank. Let alone a recognized one. In fact, the armistice agreement between Israel and Jordan specifically stated that the armistice line would not prejudice future negotiations aimed at establishing a border. The barrier does, of course, follow a route roughly equivalent to the balance struck between the SCOI, the IDF and Palestinian claims. Which is consistent with conduct authorized by GC4.

Yet again, this is fictional.

This, too, is fictional. I have, for example, clearly and unambiguously linked to my own demand that the US should threaten to cut off funding in order to pressure Israel into an immediate and total settlement freeze. That you would cast that as “an Israeli position” is jabberwockian.

Additionally, as the facts do indeed show that people like Carter blame everything on one side and people like Tutu demand sanctions to force only one side, they are objectively one-sided. Your use of a tu quoque fallacy falls flat.

4

Perhaps, it has long been my understanding that Israel continued secret provisioning to RSA.

[uote]I rather suspect that you probably should have checked it before you questioned it. As it happens, I’m quite right. …
[/quote]

Your post as your cite doesn’t work for me mate. A non-partisan analysis would, but neither your quote or yourself are non-partisan by long old English mile.

Queer, in fact Israel is in fact annexing lands. Settlements in the Territories, barrier rather clearly includes lands well beyond the internationally recognised borders. “Security concerns” doesn’t enter into Geneva, mate.

Your interesting habit of making flat out declarations is duly noted, it makes an amusing contrast to your calls for “nuance.” Apparently one way nuance, eh?

If I am not mistaken you have a bit of a timeline problem with Tutu and Hamas election, although again from a South African perspective, there’s a wee difference between a proper State Actor like Israel, and the government of a Bantustan with no real proper military capacity, control over its own borders, etc.

Your “security concern” is in fact the non sequitur to my observation on Tutu’s approach.

I can only shake my head.

So your cite is to… the existence of the PA’s investment authority as proof of…? And the fact Jordan Times is noting a bit of a dead cat bounce in the economy?

Fuck all for investment means no serious capital investment. Serious of course meaning, oh I don’t know, significant capital investment relative to GDP.
Your declarations of “wrong” are getting a wee bit absurd. Nice illustration of your extreme partisanship though.

Eh… yesssssss…? Perhaps you might want to read what I actually wrote, eh mate? The fact of “borders” pretty much is not the point. Israel controls the Jordanian border, yeah? Israeli officers manning and all that. The Egyptian-Gaza border is pretty much closed at Israeli request (and reinforced by the odd bombings of said border). I ain’t arguing right or wrong here, merely it is a fact.

Of course smuggling is happening (thus the bombing), but pretty much for the vast majority of Territories contact with outside world, sea, air, land (ex ‘illegal’ tunnels), Israel controls directly or by threat, mostly directly.

Jaysus, what is your thing about quibbling with clear fact?

Re Tutu’s Logic

Comparable, you mean.

Well, again, my point was not whether you perceive the analogy as correct (you’re clearly a rather extreme partisan, so… well we’d pretty much expect you not to eh?), but rather to highlight Tutu’s perception of the situation.

Whatever your “dealing” with the “fallaciously false analogy” (heh, doesn’t get more false for the doubling up, eh?), reasonable observers differ as to the analagousness of the situation.

I did not in any way say you said such a thing, it was (and is) my impression that this is in fact what you require, in reality. “Mere rheroric” …

Well then don’t engage in them, eh?

Afraid you did not write anything along the lines of behaviour, you wrote Occupation Authorised… That has a fundamentally different meaning than observing say “Israel occupies the Territories in compliance with Geneva conventions” - the Convention is about behaviours, not authorisation of occupations. Indeed, the Convention explicitly does not engage in authorisation. Permits perhaps, but authorisation in the proper English language has a rather different sense and indeed legal meaning.

Oh my oh my.

Well, at least you acknowledged one clear violation of Geneva obligations.

Again, the Convention obliges the occupying authority to NOT do certain things, that is not an authorisation to DO things as such.

Of course, beyond destroying houses of relatives of suspected or actual terrorists, of course Israel engages in other forms of expropriation etc.

Getting into a laundry list of this sort of thing doesn’t particularly interest me. I think it sufficient to note you’re making a presentation of facts every bit as skewed and selective as the opponents you complain about. No doubt you’ll delcare this Imperiously Wrong, but what can one say?

Sorry mate, not going to play that boring game with you, not enough time to bang me head against your wall.

I’m amused with your entertaining usage of the word “nuance…”
I’m skipping the rest of this potential pissing match. I’ve seen your I-P i"debates", and don’t have the time or inclination for tenditious arguments, hair splitting and other highly partisan argumentation.

5

First, I notice that you have not retracted your factual errors that I have pointed out. Do you plan to?
In some cases you have actually gone on to repeat your factual errors and ignore factual refutations. Will you stop doing that?

The quoted statements by the members of the ICJ and the statements of facts from the SCOI are hardly my post. Please click on and read links before you attempt to define let alone deny their contents. Please do not make blatantly factually incorrect statements and pretend that the SCOI and ICJ justices are me.

I would appreciate it if you would stop posting fiction please. This is Great Debates, not Cafe Society.

You cannot provide a cite for this “annexation” of land because you have invented a fiction, as already pointed out Israel does not have a border in the West Bank let alone an internationally recognized one, and I just quoted the 4th GC where it specifically talks about security concerns as well as military necessity. Please do not ignore factual refutations in posts directly addresd to you and then go on to repeat the same mistakes again.

You are mistaken about that, too.
And as pointed out, it would not matter as Hamas is a security concern that must be dealt with whether or not they are a state actor.

As already pointed out, the fact that Tutu ignores valid security concerns and makes demands of sanctions and divestment against only one side is quite relevant to the fact that he holds a one-sided view of the conflict due to his status as an idealogue who demands Jews and Israel function as a light unto the nations. That you want to claim the actual impact of his demands is a "non sequitur " when talking about the impact of his demands and that the faulty logic behind applying the SA analogy has nothing to do with your claim that his analogy makes any sense is, of course, up to you

Yet again, please click on and read links before you attempt to define let alone deny their contents. Had you read the link, you would see the PIPA has detailed information on the economic status of the Palestinian economy, including but not limited to GDP and GDI.

Likewise, claiming that a massive 7% rate of growth is “a dead cat bounce” is nonsensical. In order for it to be a DCB, there would have to be no fundamental improvement to investments in the West Bank. But of course, as the article (and current events beyond that which are being discussed in quite a few other places) makes quite clear, the increase in growth is indeed directly caused by and related to the increase in security, peace and freedom of movement in the WB.

The fact of borders is exactly the point. On the one hand, you are wrong about Egypt-Gaza as Egypt has shown numerous times that they can and will open the border when they see fit, despite Israeli protests. The border there stays closed most of the time largely because the Egyptians want it to. It is also a poor dodge to claim that a sovereign nation chooses to close its own border, but it’s Israel’s fault and Israel is “controlling everything that goes in and out” and it is Egypt’s sovereign choice in the matter. Also, in relation to Jordan, after Oslo the Allenby Bridge was administered by PA security forces. The Second Intifada changed that, but even with it roughly 1.5 million Palestinians are allowed to cross it yearly and no, Israel still doesn’t control everything that comes in and out. Unless of course you’re shifting the goalposts and by “control everything that goes in and out” you mean “doesn’t allow bombs and such smuggled in.”

By which rationalization, of course, the US government is controlling my mail.

When you are wrong on the facts you should retract your mistakes rather than shifting the goalposts and then claiming that the actual facts are “quibbles”.

First, no, even a cursory knowledge of the region, its history, its demographics, its current events, its international influences, its religious influences, etc… will show why it is a false analogy. Since it is a fallacious analogy, it is useless. As pointed out, there is exactly as much support for the SA analogy as the Zimbabwe analogy. Or the Pakistan analogy or the Germany analogy or any other, for that matter. Ignoring the massive differences which render it a fallacious analogy is not justified by anything other than a plan to shoehorn one preferred analogy in rather than looking at the actual facts of the matter and not resorting to wildly different situations.

Nor is ‘but it’s his point of view!’ worth the electrons that it’s printed on. As pointed out, that Tutu uses a decided one-sided approach to make demands of Israel that he wants backed up by sanctions and directs mere rhetoric at the PA/Hamas that he wants backed up by nothing, due to his belief that Israel must be a light to the world shows that he is an ideologue who has adopted a pointedly one-sided approach. And that approach calls for unilateral and instant Israeli cessation of self defense, leaving Hamas within ordinance range of every Israeli citizen. Whether or not he has come to this one sided position of blind ideology because of a fallacious analogy does not change the fact that his demands are one-sided.

In the OP I clearly referred to “the military occupation that’s authorized by the 4th Geneva Convention”. It does not exactly take a leap of divine inspiration to figure out that the occupation I was referring to was Israel’s occupation of the territories. Equally not requiring a bolt from the blue, the occupation is made up of the actions which compose the occupation.

Please do not play semantic games and then claim that you have an objection is to hair splitting, or that once you’ve started playing semantic games if I ask you to stop, I’m somehow the one playing them.

The military occupation that Israel is engaging in (which, again,by rather obvious definition consists of the actions that make up the occupation and which make it distinct from other occupations) is what Desmond Tutu was objecting to and calling “Apartheid” and what is explicitly authorized by GC4.

Please refrain from voicing fictions that have just been debunked in a four post thread. I just cited several places where GC 4 explicitly, clearly and unambiguously specifically authorizes occupying powers to engage in certain actions in the course of occupation. If you read your link, you will see that there are quite a few more where GC4 explicitly and clearly authorizes certain actions that an occupying power may engage in.

So you claim that there are things other than house demolition that are prohibited as collective punishment, but you refuse to even mention them? Why, then, are you posting about them in a GD thread?

The “boring game” whereby you make an assertion and then refuse to provide a specific example let alone defend why it’s an accurate example of your claim? Why, then, are you posting about them in a GD thread?

6

Factual errors? Well, there is a sole and single fact you have corrected. The Israel never sanctioning RSA during the apartheid era.

So, let me:
Retract
Denounce
Withdraw
Utterly prostrate before the Truth
Acknowledge
etc.

However, as to Israeli sanctions dodging, and continued post-87 funny games, I feel it sufficient to note this arty: http://www.nytimes.com/1991/10/27/world/the-middle-east-talks-israel-arms-deal-escapes-south-africa-sanctions.html as confirmation of the Fact that there was (and continues to be) reasonable grounds to suspect Israel maintained security relations with the Apartheid regime. It may be that said suspicions are misplaced, although given the Israeli general comportment relative to international sanctions, etc, one would suspect not.

Do you plan to become less of an extreme and narrow partisan?

You seem to have queer relationship with the world Fact, confounding it with Belief or Point of View.

Do you plan to become less of an extreme and narrow partisan?

Boring. I’ll wait for a non-partisan analysis without cherry picking etc.

Israel doesn’t have a border with the West Bank. My, that is most physical intriguing. Apparently there is some form of strange physical discontinuity in the Holy Land.

As for your reply, well, I have no intention of getting into word games with an extreme partisan such as yourself. I would merely direct readers to the ICJ site and its attendant commentaries. A

That you claim Israel annexing lands is a fiction, well… how very surprising. As for cites, I hardly see the point, given your tendentious approach to this subject. There’s no convincing you, so it just becomes a really tiresome and tedious pissing match.

You’re really quite good at repeating yourself, with theatrical hand waving added. I’ve not much interest in that.

I see no reason to go on with your continued hatchet jobs on Tutu; you’re partisan blinders have you looking at him in a fashion, no changing that.

Your capacity for misplaced snideness and sneering really does impress. You linked to a general front, page to assert there is actually significant investment (relative to the question of sanction and disinvestment, that would imply FDI of course, that’s what disinvestment campaigns are about after all). Not to the date page (easy enough for you to fucking link to eh mate, but that would deny the opp to sneer, misplaced).

As it happens, I actually did read the bloody site, and yes, there is GDP figures. But GDP is not what we were talking about, capital investment, FDI really. I mentioned GDP in relationship as a ratio to cap invest (that would be the proper comparable). There ain’t no such figures there mate.

So… either you’re being obtuse or playing a smokescreen game. Part of the hyper partisan nature of the approach I suppose.

No it isn’t. Something we see in rebounding post-conflict economies all the time. Get 7% up one year, then 1%, then down. See DRC for example.

I’d leave off the economics mate, you’ve not got a good grasp, eh.

Ah boy. You’ve got a reallllllly interesting relationship with facts. In any case, the cold facts are Israeli security forces control all points of entry, by sea, air or land to the Territories except the Gazan frontier, and in that instance, Israel has considered it appropriate to bombard the frontier where it believes crossings are taking place.

Well, enough of this, it’s boring and I have already seen the performance elsewhere. If you want to know why I decline to play a pissing match with you, open a pit thread.

7

The thread is six posts long, it’s not hard to find all your mistakes that have been refuted and that you have ignored and/or actually repeated. Some of them, in fact, appear about an inch or two below the lines you just quoted.

Like where you claimed that I was the ICJ justices and the Israeli Supreme Court.
Or when you again repeated your mistakes that Israel annexed land with the fence.
Or when you repeated your mistake that the Green Line is a border and it’s internationally recognized.
Or when you denied that the 4th GC’s explicitly mention that security concerns justify certain actions that it authorizes, despite the fact that I quoted one such bit of the GC to you, directly.

Is there any reason why you are ignoring and/or repeating factual errors of your which I have pointed out?

You’ve been caught in a factual error, and shifted the goalposts rather than retracting. Your assertion was not, in fact, that Israel maintained “security relations” but that “Israel […] supplied arms”.

Your own link says nothing of the sort, and does not mention a violation of Israel’s 1987 agreement, but the Convention for the Limitation of the Spread of Missile Technology and that what was transferred were components and technology. Claiming that’s “Supplying arms” would be a bit like claiming the a either rifle’s bolt or a schematic of a machine gun is a weapon.

More fiction. The analysis I linked to is exhaustive and not at all cherry picked and you are again fabricating claims of partisanship. Rather obviously, the ICJ justices themselves who went on the record will only be called “partisan” if you’re trying to ignore all the facts of the matter.

Of course, what I actually said I said that Israel doesn’t have a border in, not with the West Bank. I also pointed out that the Green Line is not a border, it is an armistice line which was explicitly not to prejudice further negotiations which would establish where an actual border was.

Yep.
Oh course, if you weren’t trying to sell a fiction it would be very easy to find a cite that showed that Israel had annexed territory in the West Bank. Of course you cannot because it never happened.

In other words, you cannot refute the fact that putting pressure on one side and one side only is a one-sided plan. You cannot deny that Tutu’s one-sided demands ignore Israel’s security concerns or that Hamas would lay down its arms if Israel stopped defending itself.

This is another bit of fiction. You claimed that there was “fuck all” investment. Then went on to shift the goalposts some more to saying that there was no “significant” investment. Now you are pretending that I said anything relative to the question of sanctions and divestment, which is also a fictional claim. Now, of course, you’re again shifting the goalposts from “investment” to “capital investment”. And then to foreign direct investment.

All indicators point to an increase in stability, freedom of movement and peace. In other words, there is no reason to predict a dip back down to lower levels of stability that a DCB requires. That you want to compare it to the Congo is elucidative.

This too is fictional.
Egypt has repeatedly opened its border with Gaza during the last few years, including as recently as four days ago. Your “bombardment” is fabricated.

8

D’oh cut and paste error that I only caught after the edit window expired.
That should read: “or claim that Hamas would lay down its arms…”

9

Skipping over your peculiar form of nasty tendentiousness there is one point I want to get to, just to illustrate how you so charmingly spin things (and why I find your OP to be so deeply ironic).

Probably because your “facts” and “corrections” I don’t give much credence if any credence to. Nor do I find it entertaining to engage in your pseudo-arguments. That funny American expression about wrestling with pigs comes to mind.

How did I know that this would devolve down to a ridiculous play on words and definitions… Hmmm, I must be clairvoyant.

No, I find engaging in this form of “argument” cum pissing match fundamentally a waste of time, and it rapidly loses its entertainment value. That is, I don’t find playing your partisan word games, etc. worth my while.

Now, the real reason I replied.

You do love that word fiction.

It doesn’t actually mean what you think it means, it would appear, but you do love it. Doesn’t really have the rhetorical value you evidently think it does though.

A recap I may:
I wrote: "There is fuck all for investment in the Territories, right? in responding to your OP line here causes Tutu to demand sanctions and divestment from Israel. My initial point having been that I found your complaints about Tutu far off base.

Now, while I did not spell it out in bold letters, and perhaps small words, I think it fairly reasonable to assume that a non-partisan reader would connect investments with “disinvestment from Israel.” Disinvestment campaigns are about FDI. I personally thought the connection was fairly clear, but then I should have taken a look at how you interact with other posters on the IP issue…

Now, then you came back with some non-relevant citations to the Palestinian Investment Authority, which actually gives no investment data, and a not particularly relevant article in the Jordan Times, which did not deal with investment (but did mention in passing an IMF projection of potential 7% growth).

My reply was evidently an unsuccessful attempt to convey you were / are hand waving about irrelevancies. That is, investment is about capital, investing capital, and Disinvestment Campaigns about FDI. Evidently I have to sign post things for you, given your interesting habit of passing everything through your quite queer and evidently naturally hostile partisan fun house mirror.

Now, as to actual FACT - real fact, not your “Fact” we can turn to this wee analysis, from World Bank, Palestinian Economic Prospects: Gaza Recovery and West Bank Revival (PDF link: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTWESTBANKGAZA/Resources/AHLCJune09Reportfinal.pdf) which is a trifle less… complimentary might be the word.

A few quotes, if I may be so indulged.

For actual registered GDP Growth:

Real decline registered. A rebound off of a real decline is oft termed a dead cat bounce, as typically economic declines have false bottoms as destocking runs its course, etc.

Sadly for your queer argument, what we see from this is that there is in fact little investment going on - due to Israeli restrictions in large part - and that current GDP is Consumption (Wage Bill of Palestinian Authority) in large part financed by outside support.

And specifically on Investment

In a sense domestic disinvestment continues as the Palestinians “eat their own seed corn” as the expression goes.

To illustrate:

Those are massive declines in terms of real economic activity, and of course off such declines, any inputs will sometimes produce transitory boosts.

Yes, all of … your - what is, ah, yes, “fact” indicators. Right. Well, I would hazard the opinion a look at at actual real facts rather paints, something of a different picture.

My comparison to DRC is merely elucidative of the fact that DRC is a well-known Post Conflict Country that World Bank and the like cite quite a lot. Deeply sinister that, must be anti Israeli or something I suppose.

But I am glad you hang on to your general method of (not) engaging others on this subject.

This is really funny. Any event, no point continuing, I am sure you’ll come up with something but anyone who wants to can pull up the reports on Israeli bombers striking crossing tunnels. You needn’t make your hyper-partisan fun house mirror replies so cartoonish all the time.

10

I don’t think that I have even seen any poster make quite as much effort as you have to continuously assert the desire or intention to quit a thread in the midst of posting 50% of the statements on that thread.

If you’re going to leave, leave. Don’t keep telling us how you are going to leave.

Speaking of old expressions, one regarding kettles and pots comes to mind.

I don’t care if you two continue your feud, but this is the beginning of the thread, not the end, and I would prefer that the nasty remarks about other posters’ styles be held in abeyance until some actual discussion has been undertaken.
[ /Modding ]

11

You cherrypicked the parts of that report that don’t have anything to do with my point. My point, and the facts I have referenced have to do with the West Bank, and what would happen if Abbas kept the peace and donors help rebuild as they’ve been doing, the next several years will see a steady trend of growth that will begin to bring the Palestinian economy back to near the level it was at in 2000 before Arafat launched his new war. Your own cite makes this same claimm.

And, of course, as your original mistake before goalpost shifting was that there is “fuck all” investing, which of course means “no, zilch, zip” investing, you’re wrong on that point too. There is a significant and non-trivial difference between “none at all” and “some”.

Edit whoops, didn’t see moderation note.
Oh and, we have a feud? News to me :smiley:

12

Anyways, I know that these threads often get bogged down in having to keep the facts straight (little details like whether there is already an actual border that defines Israel’s east or that the shape of Palestine as well as Israel will be determined via negotiation are kinda important…) We could spend the rest of forever correcting small but important mistakes, however I’d prefer that this not become yet another thread where fact checking is more important than the goal of the OP. While it may be possible to alter minor details in order to make various narratives stronger than others, I’d like to ask that anybody who responds agrees to stick to a discussion of the situation that is as scrupulously precise as possible. I recognize that there will have to be a bit of factual rebuttals going on, but I’d prefer if everybody attempts to minimize the need for that.

Thank you in advance.

Anyways, I’d really prefer to discuss the general premise of my OP, which is Where Do We Go From Here? Especially considering the difference between the West Bank and Gaza, Hamas and Fatah, and the fact that it’s finally looking like returning to the rough progress we saw temporarily due to Oslo and that might lead to a two state solution after all these years. And, as sub points, that we need to take all the factors into account rather than just having a one-sided plan that ignores the complexities of the situation and winds up disarming Israel while groups like Hamas are still publicly dedicated to violence targeted against Israeli civilians.

I’m curious as to what some folks’ positions are that take Israeli and Palestinian concerns into account rather than the sort of intellectual pablum offered by idealogues like Carter and Tutu whose idea of a solution is to put pressure exclusively on one group and ignore (or in Carter’s case, deliberately lie about) the entire reality of the other group’s actions situation, etc…

Anybody have any thoughts on the subject?