phil, would you mind posting figures on how much total aid the US gives to Israel on a yearly basis, so we can compare?
Olentzero - are you saying that Israel has no right to exist? I just want to know where you stand.
That little girl was not deprived of her liberty. She was torn to little bits of flesh by a bomb packed with nails. On purpose. By someone who bravely took on a fucking bus station.
“Give me death**” does not mean “Me and the 30 people waiting for the 5:15 to downtown Haifa.” It means me. If a bunch of Palestinians want to immolate themselves, more power to them. When they start taking little girls with them, I have a big, big problem with that.
I wasn’t responding to a statement regarding comparative levels of support for Israel and the Palestinians, so yeah, I do mind. I was responding to a claim that the US did not support the Palestinians at all. That claim is demonstrably false, and in fact I demonstrated it. You want the other numbers, look 'em up yourself. I don’t have “Olentzero’s Research Assistant” stamped on my forehead.
Ah, but you see they were. We recently had this discussion in another thread. Here is a clarification on the issue:
If you want the cites you’ll find the original post here, since I’m too lazy to repost them.
Sparc
And you completely missed my point.
Deal with the here and now. Israel is here and will not disappear because you or anyone else says that it’s very existence is immoral or an injustice.
The Palestinian people in the here and now have a choice: go on fighting a fruitless war, murdering innocent civilians (and causing civilian deaths of their own people as part of the process), or make peace, build your country and live your lives. The choice is theirs.
Zev Steinhardt
Surely if the Palestinian cause had the sympathy of the world, the world would start to take more notice of the Palestinian’s actual plight rather than shake their heads at the disgraceful killing of children. If the people of the US and Europe put pressure on their governments to do something to make things right, for example, this, ultimately, could lead to the world putting more pressure on Israel and Arafat to come to an agreement and make things better. Obviously, we don’t know this, but it seems to me it is wholly possible that sympathy could raise the global awareness, focus people’s horror on the people’s plights, and indirectly help towards freedom and peace for all.
That’s my take on it.
**
If necessary. If Canadians started lobbing bombs into upstate New York, you’d better believe we’d be in Canada in a second.
**
You’re making the assumption that if the settlements disappeared tomorrow everyone would be happy and the war would be at an end. If only it were that easy. If the settlements disappeared tomorrown and Israel still existed, there would still be suicide bombers. Hamas’ stated goal is not the end of the settlements. It’s the end of Israel.
Zev Steinhardt
Huh.
:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: Do you really mean this???:eek: :eek: :eek:
Many of you IMHO are guilty of oversimplification. This is most decidedly not a cycle of violence. Much of the suicide bombing has little to do with Israeli occupation. There have always been other options for the Palestinian people – you need nothing for civil disobedience – which have always been ignored because of Arafat’s history and his impotence to control popular momentum.
The suicide bombings are carried out mainly by three groups, al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad. Hamas and IJ have repeatedly said that their aim is not an independent Palestine on territory conquered in 1967, their goal is to end any Zionist occupation in the Middle East. al-Aqsa has been kind of hazy on the matter, using code words like “the occupation of Palestine must end” where they may or may not mean the West Bank and Gaza versus all of Israel.
If Israel pulls out completely, Hamas and IJ have already made it quite clear that they will not stop suicide bombings. Every major peace accord, every major peace conference, every major initiative for about the past 10 years has been accompanied by terror attacks on Israeli civilians. This week’s attacks come suspiciously close to a peace initiaitve that was to be presented by Bush.
Arafat has never outlawed these groups or attempted to control them for any permanent period. Whether he has just not had the political capitol to do so or he is genuinely supportive of them remains to be seen. Today, Hamas and IJ and al-Aqsa (his own party!) run around promoting, organizing, and conducting suicide bombings with no real consequences. We have reached a point where Arafat is basically irrelevant to both sides. This is a dangerous situation, because the militants control Palestinian actions (Hamas and IJ rejected a call to end the terror), and Israel is forced into a reactive mode. A few deadly terror attacks, and the whole idea of Israeli restraint will go out the window. Expect full reoccupation and deportation of the families of militants.
Israel’s response of building a wall IMHO is the morally correct thing to do. It gives the Palestinians a presumptive border, it gives them something to work for. It gives the Israelis some semblance of security, and will IMHO begin a process of restraint. Of course Arafat doesn’t support it – it lets him stew in his own juices and he loses part of that big political bargaining chip of Israeli occupation. Sharon’s policy of taking land for terror should also strike fear into Arafat’s heart – it is the converse of “land for peace.” Hopefully these two policies will have an impact where nothing has worked before.
Great post, Olentzero . It’s sad that I have to state this (such is the nature of Israel/Palestine debates), but obviously I can’t condone suicide bombing tactics. BUT…
The fact that we are having this conversation at all might be because of suicide bombers. A suicide bombing is more of a symbolic move, isn’t it? This isn’t “standard” warfare. They aren’t going to defeat the IDF with these tactics. They obviously aren’t going to scare Israeli citizens away at this point. A suicide bomb shocks and frightens the world. It kills innocent civilians, yes, but that happens all the time, really (sorry if that sounds cold but if you buy the American line about clean, precise war, you’re shockingly gullible).
But the idea of a person so desperate and angry that they would rather kill himself than submit quietly is a potent symbol. It raises world awareness. Nothing has been solved but we can’t deny that this is a topic on the minds of many people. Without suicide bombs, the Palestinians might just be another long-forgotten colonized people.
Does this justify suicide bombing? No, not in my view. There are other ways to get your message across. But here were are talking about it.
Do the indigenous people of Guatemala produce suicide bombers? Not that I know of, but we certainly aren’t talking about them and their severe repression.
How about the East Timorese? How many people have heard of them? The Kurds might have an armed resistance, but not many suicide bombers. Probably shouldn’t expect too many Great Debates about their situation.
I wasn’t talking about monetary support, but since you brought it up, it pales in comparison to the monetary support given by the US to Israel. I’d like to see those figures, also–along with the total amount of financial aid the US has given Israel since its founding. Why? Because Israel couldn’t bulldoze the homes of equally cute little Palestinian children and take away their parents with no explanation without the support they’ve gotten from the US.
As far as the UNRWA funds–divide that by the number of camps. Also, consider that when your infrastructure is controlled by people who don’t give a damn about your quality of life and who have, in the past, tried to eradicate you, that infrastructure is going to pretty damned shoddy.
They can’t build a country they haven’t got for crying out loud! They can’t live their lives when they don’t have basic civil rights! People rounded up in the middle of the night, without cause or reason, never to be heard from again…
I’m trying to avoid an invocation of Godwin’s law, here, but the parallels are frightening.
But you don’t have a problem with the children murdered by the Israelis? :rolleyes:
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Your first sentence forgot to add “…kill himself **and innocent children ** than submit quietly…”
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So using this mentality is it ok for me to take out a bus stop or restaurant for the purpose of furthering my cause (whatever that may be)? Sure it’s wrong, but at least people are aware. :rolleyes: Christians in Sudan are being slaughtered at an alarming rate. Should I take out some innocents to raise awareness?
Suicide bombings are wrong, but they are seen by those who plan and perpetrate them as the last, desperate chance to draw attention to their plight. To deal with the symptom (suicide bombing) without treating the disease (occupation and oppression) is shortsighted and doomed to failure.
Fair enough ending the settlements and other agressions on the Palestinians wouldn’t destroy Hamas and hence a threat might remain. Because I do take for granted that you don’t mean to imply that Hamas is synonymous with all Palestinians; wouldn’t you say that there was a good chance that a more moderate behavior from Israel could take away some of the public support that Hamas currently enjoys, thereby making it easier to get to them. Then again we’ve seen that Mr. Sharon seems more interested in getting at the PA than the militant extremists, as several others before me I can only wonder; why would he want to do that?
It is remarkable that while most of us seem to agree that the suicide bombings are morally unacceptable and must stop unconditionally, a large portion of the board seem to believe that a show of strength and forceful measures from Israel are ways towards a solution. Violence feeds violence, and the fact that one side’s violence is more reprehensible does not make that less true for all sides. Maybe the wall will help, but only if the seizure of land and aggressions through settlements in Palestinian territories cease as a part of it.
Sparc
Don’t put words in my mouth, Squish. Period.
Maybe in whatever alternate reality you inhabit, Estilicon. (And, remember, we’ve seen your take on other important issues of the day.) I daresay the innocent civilians who’ve been targets of the killers don’t find it all that amusing.
And yet Israel continues to try to negotiate with the chief terrorist of the Palestinians.
Your “book,” as you’ve shown before, is worthless.
On the other hand, there actually are good guys and bad guys in this issue: the good guys are the innocent civilians who’ve been murdered. The bad guys are the murderers.
What the fuck?! 
When the hell did I ever do that???
Does Godwin’s law also include references to slavery and Hiroshima, or just Hitler?
A lot of hypocricy here. Be careful justifying the killing of innocent civilians to acheive a political end. Your statement can easily be turned around to say “if sending 100 tanks a day to kill every Palestinian in the West Bank is necessary to live in peace than so be it.” Why is your statement less outradgeous just because the Palestinians are the “underdog”?