Judging by the above posting, it would appear that there is a question. Or at least subtleties. There usually are.
Personally, the more I read about this issue the less I believe either side; it’s one of those situations where practically every statement begs the question one way or another, as each side accuses the other of being an apologist (and both sides have a point). What bothers me is this notion that there is greater moral outrage in “directly targetting civilians” rather than simply shooting them as bystanders. Frankly, dead is dead. While I can accept that there are inevitable civilian losses involved in counter-terrorism and warfare, the methods used to achieve these goals deserve examination as well. There is a big difference between using some discretion and taking out terrorists and blowing up (or shooting up) city blocks because you’re pretty sure that there are some terrorists there. The question of “necessary civilian losses” is whether all of said losses are necessary, and I remain yet to be convinced that that is the case. Using dynamite to swat a gnat is not morally justifiable, whether you manage to get that gnat or not. Rules of engagement exist for a reason.
Israel is most definitely dovish and conciliatory.
Consider for a moment the fact that they’re surrounded by people who for the last forty years have repeatedly proven both by word and deed, that they want destroy them completely.
The Palestinians have had repeated opportunities at full Israeli citizenship, which they rejected. Insstead the palestinians went to stay in neighboring Arab states while those states attacked Israel and sought to destroy it. These Arab states failed to do so, and got sick of putting up the Palestinians. So, the Palestinians went back to Israel were offered full citizenship, again refused it. They wanted their own country. “Fine,” Israel said. “You don’t want to live with us smelly jews that you hate so much? Here. We’ll give you some space in our own territory. You can even have a degree of self-governance, with more to come as long as you can prove you’ll be good neighbors and not use the land as a base to attack us from.”
The Palestinians moved in, and promptly used the territory as a base to attack Israel from within.
The Palestinian’s aren’t satisfied with anything less than the destruction of Israel. I think it’s pretty damn dovish and conciliatory what the Israelis have done.
If my next door neighbors were trying to destroy me, but they didn’t have enough beds to sleep in, I’d consider myself pretty dovish and conciliatory to let some of them sleep in my house. Yet, that’s what Israel’s doing.
The Mideast Arab nations are highly religious states. If you want to live there, you live under Moslem rule, and must follow Moslem law. When in Rome, right? It is considered proper and fair that they be allowed their own right to self-determination as far as how they live within their own borders is concerned. Yet, this same standard isn’t applied to Israel. They’re expected to accomodate other groups’ beliefs even if one of the cornerstones of those beliefs is the destruction of Israel!
Now, the fact is that not all Palestinians acted as stupidly as described above. Many went to live elsewhere. Some took Israel up on its offer of citizenship, and are a part of the Israeli population, as are their children.
The fact is the people that are left in Israel who identify themselves as “Palestinians (though there really is no such thing”) are the die-hard stalwarts who have been fighting Israel’s basic right to exist for over fifty years, and who have indoctrinated their children into the fight as well.
I personally think Israel has shown too much forbearance in their civilized treatment of the Palestinians. Had they simply used the six-day war as an excuse to expand their borders, and either wiped out the Palesinians or told them to go pound sand somewhere else, Israel wouldn’t have its current problems.
I think though, that the legacy of the holocaust left Israel reluctant to destroy their enemies, and they’ve been paying the price for their mercy ever since.
It’s rather telling that in a post defending the notion that Israel is dovish and conciliatory, you spent the first 90% of it describing how ignorant and violent the Palestinians have been, and the last 10% stating that the Israelis should have used even more violence. In other words, you think that because they haven’t used as much force as they might have been justified in using, you consider them a bunch of bleeding heart peacenicks. Okey doke. I’ll keep that in mind next time the Israelis open a can of Dove Brand Whoop-Ass on the Palestinian Authority.
FTR, I wholeheartedly agree with the great majority of what you said about the Palestinians, who have been and are, IMHO, acting like a bunch of short-sighted barbarians. I’m just not delusional enough to think that the Israeli response has been to hand flowers to the rock-throwers and try to start a round of Kumbaya.
Really? How often do we see Israelis purposely sending their children to where guns are being fired?
Not on purpose (presuming they aren’t a threat – which is not always a correct presumption), but since they often send them into the zones where other Palestinians are firing weapons, they put themselves into a position where death is likely. In the middle of a warzone, it’s hard to determine which of the people are firing the guns at you and which are just there to be human shields.
Strawman argument. Nobody here has made that argument.
Are you purposely misstating what I said? I specifically said “The Israeli army” (emphasis added this time so maybe you’ll get it). So what do you do? Quote back what some extremist settlers did. Apples and oranges.
Bombs landing randomly? Cite?
Perhaps if the snipers and bomb-makers wouldn’t use those areas as hiding places, things like that wouldn’t happen. But like I said earlier, the problem is there is no specific place to strike back, so they do what they can – if a settlement is allowing terrorists to use their area as a base, well, I hate to paraphrase President Bush, but those who harbor terrorists are as bad as the terrorists themselves.
Want to know what’s really funny? Jews are complaining that NPR is biased against Israel. I figure if everybody is complaining they are biased against their viewpoint, they must be doing something right.
Incidentally, FAIR is not exactly the most unbiased source of news, either.
Oh, this is cute. You complain about bias but then call what happens to Palestinians “murders” but what happens to Israelis are “deaths.”
It’s good to see that you’re an unbiased source.
So? Are we supposed to judge who is right and who is wrong by the number of deaths to each side? In that case, the Tabliban was clearly in the right and the U.S. is evil.
And of course, the Israelis had no reason whatsoever to conduct anything but an objective and unbiased investigation. :rolleyes:
And , again, you accept unconditionally the racist and insulting notion that Palestinians are so evil and subhuman that they would not only put their own children in harms way, but actually kill them for PR purposes. As the article to which i linked previously indicates, Palestinian children do get involved in the conflict. But again, you ignore the evidence that not only do Israelis do exactly the same thing, but that when they do they are not judged in the same way as the Palestinians by the US media. Surely if you are arguing that it is morally reprehensible to use children in conflicts, then you must apply the same standards to both Palestinians and Israelis.
We also need to ask: What exactly is a “child,” for the purpose of this argument? I notice that many media outlets and reporters in America who complain about the Palestinians’ use of “children” are often the same people who, here at home, advocate charging 14 and 15 year old criminal offenders as adults because they are “old enough to know what they’re doing.” These people want it both ways - when it’s convenient for their argument, teenagers are responsible for their own actions, and when it’s not, they’re not. What’s your position on this issue?
Well, firstly, you admit that you have made no real effort to determine the accuracy of reporting on this issue. Then you assume the accuracy of that reporting and state that it’s “clear” what the situation is. And like others on this thread, you also make no attempt to determine whether something other than unprovoked “hatred against Israel” is responsible for Palestinian actions.
What would you consider an “unbiased source”? Maybe an Israeli TV report? You overlook one of the key aspects of American media coverage of this conflict - any Palestinian source is automatically considered suspect, yet official Israeli sources are often quoted unreflectively as if they told the unvarnished truth. And when the only witnesses to an action are the perpetrators and the victims, as in this case, where is your unbiased source going to come from?
Here is a report from the Guardian on Sara Abdul Azeem’s death. The last line, a quote from the father, is particularly instructive:
This last incident referred to here was captured by a cameraman, and according to the same Guardian report:
This report indicates that it is pretty simplistic to argue that parental incitement is the only reason Palestinian youths and children becoming involved in the conflict. These people see their friends and relatives killed, and feel the need to retaliate.
Now, while this next report contains no information on Sara’s death, you might be interested in what Amnesty International had to say about Israeli killings of children, and the use of children by the Palestinians (unless, of course, you think AI is a hopelessly liberal apologist for Palestinian terrorism). Their 2001 report Borken Lives: A Year of Intifada, available on the web here in PDF, says:
I have bolded what i think is a key part of this report. I have not been arguing, and nor was i arguing in my earlier posts, that Palestinian children do not get involved in the conflict. Nor have i argued that their elders have played no role in inciting this involvement (although the AI report blames “older youths,” not adults). What i have been trying to show is that the Palestinian actions are rooted in something more complex than simple, unreflective hatred (as asserted by the OP), and that, no matter the reason behind the involvement of children, the Israeli security forces have showed little willingness to minimize the violence of their response. Their tendency to resort to deadly methods of crowd control when not in any imminent danger and when they so dramatically outgun the demonstraters is, in my opinion, as abhorrent as a suicide bombing.
And Amnesty also has much to say on the issue of collective punishment that i brought up earlier, where the Israelis make little attempt to determine the individual responsible for certain actions, but instead carry out punitive action against the whole Palestinian community. The AI report, which has a whole section on this issue, begins the section in this way:
And in response to David B’s most recent post:
Well, first of all you ask me for citations about Israeli bombing of Palestinians, while yourself making the unsubstantiated assertion that
The AI report quoted above may not refute your unsupported assertion completely, but it certainly calls it into question.
I know they didn’t. If you read my post you’ll see that the argument was made in the context of my comments on US media coverage.
And maybe you’ll get it one of these days that the Israeli army also does this. And to separate the army and the settlers might be convenient for your argument, but to the Palestinians they represent different aspects of the same problem. Indeed, the army often comes in to quell the disturbances caused by these “extremist settlers,” and take a wild guess as to whether they are more violent towards the settlers or towards the Palestinians with whom the settlers are clashing.
Perhaps randomly was the wrong word. But if you’ve watched any news coverage at all of this conflict you’ll be well aware that Israeli bombardments often hit houses and businesses of people totally unconnected with any actions against Israel. Who knows, maybe you’re right and those aren’t random occurrences, but a deliberate policy of terror on the part of the Israeli army? And, as the AI citation from the Geneva Convention shows, this form of collective punishment is illegal under the convention.
And what of the people in those areas who might have absolutely no knowledge of who or where these “terrorists” are? The AI report that i cite above states:
Again, in case you’re not getting it still, i’m not arguing that some Palestinians don’t support and help the suicide bombers. Nor do i support Palestinians who murder Israelis for any reason. I am simply trying to move beyond the simplistic “palestinian hatred” model of explanation, and also beyond the tendency of many on this thread to make every possible excuse for Israeli violence and no possible excuse for Palestinian violence. In supporting the cause of the Palestinians, i have explicitly repudiated the use of force of their part quite a few times on this thread. Yet those who defend Israel shrug Israeli use of force off while condemning the Palestinians unreservedly.
And as i said in an earlier post, i do not hold all Israelis responsible for the actions of a few. Many Jews in and out of Israel are horrified at their government’s policies and actions, and refusals to serve in the occupied territiories are increasing in the Israeli Defense Forces. Some school students are now even signing pre-emptive declarations refusing to go to the West Bank etc. when they enter the IDF.
I never asserted that FAIR was perfect; i just gave an example of a particular study. What do you dispute about the FAIR reports? Do you dispute their figures? Or their interpretation of the figures? Or are you content simply to dismiss them without examining their argument? You would be well served by an argument that did something more than simply say that FAIR is not a perfect source.
If you read that paragraph, you will see that i use the term “murders” to describe killings by both Israelis and Palestinians. The term “deaths” was what i said resulted from the murders.
If you have trouble determining the meaning of complex sentences, may i recommend Fowler’s Modern English Usage or a similar usage book? The demonstrative pronoun “those” used in my paragraph above refers back to the antecedent “murders.” Parsing the sentence in order to remove the word “those,” it would read:
“The day-to-day, one-by-one murders carried out by the Israelis actually add up to more deaths than ** the murders** carried out by Palestinians, yet we never hear of most of them.”
Now, in case you’re having trouble with this, i’ll say it unambiguously: In my opinion, killings by Israelis and by Palestinians that are not carried out in self-defence against an immediate and clear threat to life, are all murders. You can dispute my definition of what constitutes murder, but don’t attribute something to me that i never said.
Again, you pull a statement made in one context out and use it in another. This sentence was made, like the other one you cited earlier, in the context of my argument about US media coverage of the issue, and the way in which it fails to reflect the reality of how many people die on each side in this conflict. It was not a statement about relative evil. In fact, if i remember correctly, i have yet to accuse either the Israelis or the Palesitinians of evil.
And what would your point be? We can’t really judge whether the Israeli’s actions were appropriate or not without analyzing what they were reacting against. Naturally, that’s where I spent th bulk of my effort.
Mhendo: Okay, let’s see here… I said that the Palestinians incite their own children to violence, and used as an example such things as training camps where children practice being bombers and using weapons, and that schools teach hatred towards Israelis. I also pointed out that children are intentionally released from school in order to participate in potentially deadly protests. I said that children are often killed by Israelis firing into crowds because gunmen open fire in otherwise peaceful protests.
Based on this, you call me a ‘racist’, and claim that my views are highly distorted. To support this claim, you cite an Amnesty International report that says that Palestinians incite their children, let them out of school to participate in potentially deadly protests, and that there are camps children go to where they learn to be terrorists, and that most of the Israeli killings happen when crowd control gets out of hand during violent protests.
If that’s your idea of a refutation, you need to do some more work.
Incidentally, can we call a moratorium on accusations of racism in this particular conflict, please? Race has nothing to do with this. Accusing someone of racism is just a shortcut for more substantive criticisms of their position.
Part of the problem with the Palestinians is that they refuse to take the blame for ANY of this. If a parent doesn’t want his child to protest, he can damned well keep him home. If some Palestinians don’t agree with the terror tactics of their government, they can speak up or leave. If Arafat doesn’t agree with the tactics of some in his own government, he can speak up.
If the world saw the Palestinians honestly trying to correct the injustices perpetrated on their side, then we would be more willing to take Israel to task for their own problems. But the Palestinians will not concede ANYTHING. They won’t negotiate, they won’t compromise, they won’t accept responsibility for even the most horrific acts perpetrated by suicide bombers.
Arafat was offered the best deal he is ever going to get by an Israeli government in 2000. It gave the Palestinians about 95% of everything they said they wanted. He turned it down flat. I don’t recall any Palestinians protesting Arafat to accept that offer. I don’t recall any suicide bombings of PA headquarters to try and get Arafat to change his mind. I don’t remember any Arab nations pressuring Arafat to take what was clearly a good deal for the Palestinian people. Instead, he called off negotiations and started the intifada.
The other possibility is that we should just take the Palestinians at their word - in Arabat, the Palestinian authority still calls for the destruction of Israel. Israeli children are taught that Israel is not a legitimate state. Is that what they really want? To destroy Israel? If not, why do they teach it? If so, then exactly how is Israel supposed to negotiate with them?
Do Israelis send their youth into places where people are eating pizza or shopping or praying to blow themselves up?
Do Palestinians send their youth into places where people are eating pizza or shopping or praying to blow themselves up?
Who is more credible, Sharon or Arafat? Why are Palestinians on CNN demanding that the U.S. do something to stop the violence? Do they want peace or do they want attention?
The point is simple, Scylla. The Israelis are not acting like Gandhi. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but they’re being no more dovish and conciliatory than the U.S. has been in the wake of 9/11.
Anyway, where are the Palestinian moderates? Where is THEIR peace movement? Why is there absolutely no pressure whatsoever on Arafat to moderate his viewpoint? Where are the Palestinian protests against suicide bombings?
Yes, I agree that Israel is not practicing non-violence. However, I think Isreal’s policy IS more dovish than the US.
The US declared al Qaeda arch-enemies and put the Taliban with them. They then overthrew the Taliban government. They boast about killing as many all Qaeda and Taliban as they can, using thermobaric weapons, daisy cutters, smart bombs, etc.
The analogous policy would be for Israel to classify the Palistinan Authority as terrorists because they harbor terrorists and their leader calls for terrorist acts. Then Israel would overthrow the PA, substitute a different government and kill as many member of Hizbollah, Islamic Jihad, etc., regardless of collateral damage.
We may see this policy at some point, but it hasn’t happened yet.
[sub]I was feeling sad, when a man told me, "Cheer up; things could be worse. So I cheered up, and things did get worse.[/sub]
So what you are saying here is while Palestinian suicide bombers are terrorists Israeli soldiers and settlers who target civilians with lethal forces aren’t.
Perhaps it would serve you well to spend the bulk of your efforts in understanding that Israel has no legal right to occupy the lands it has gained in much of the wars it has been involved in.
In fact, it has been against the UN law since 1949, yet the most anyone can seem to ask Israel to relinquish is the territory taken in the 1967 war; Not that they seem all that willing to let that go either.
You stated in an earlier post…
Indeed. You’re probably talking about the same type of hypocrisy that exists when a state can use a UN mandate to justify its existence, yet summarily ignore every single other mandate that requires it to stop occupying foreign lands or to develop settlements on foreign lands.
Double standard indeed.
It seems to me that all of this arguing over the tactics used by both sides is pointless, and does not answer the OP. All it really amounts to is debating which side has been more calculating in fighting a war while making it seem as though they are really just victims. For example, one person says, “I think Palestine has been more successful, because by using suicide bombers and children they make themselves seem forced to desperation, show the world they believe in what they are doing, and cleverly make it hard to retaliate properly.” Another says “Israel has been more successful, because they have better public relations with the US, because they offer land, which implies they currently own it, and because they use an official army which makes them not look like terrorists.” The problem is, why should we defend one side because they have been more devious? Isn’t there a more fundamental way to determine what to do than to side with the most devious?
These are two opinions of the fundamentals behind the conflict. I think the true reason is a combination- Palestinians do not believe Israel has a right to exist, but if they didn’t hate the Jews so much they would definitely have taken Israel up on some of its past offers. So the OP is in a sense right, in that stopping the hatred would solve the problem, but I have seen no good solution nor do I have one myself. As for the right for Israel to exist, the reason why the US would support them is no surprise. Israel is a small island in a sea of extreme hostility against them. They just want to protect their homes (I say homes in the sense that yes, that is where they have lived for some time.) For all the rhetoric used by both sides, the real reason US public sentiment is with Israel is that they are seen as having only a small amount of land, and people don’t understand why it is so vital to many arabs that they not be allowed to exist there.
I would like to see both sides explain their views on these fundamental problems, and what should be done about them, as the OP asked, rather than everyone continuing to boast that their side has been more clever.
I’m curious about how US public opinion feels towards Israel and the Palestinians. We know how the government feels, but how about the citizens? Does anyone know about the existence of polling data that might gleam this kind of information?
They mentioned on CNN yesterday that the people in the U.S. were favoring Israel’s actions by more than a 4-1 ratio. There is almost as much support for Israel’s actions as there is in Israel itself.
A few observations:
[list=1]
[li]“Palestinians” and “Israelis” are as united in their views about these issues as december and stoid are on the proper stance for American politicians to take.[/li][li]With that caveat taken into account, Palestinians are not interested in Israeli citizenship; they want to be citizens of Palestine, a separate nation. While the idea of a single nation occupying the land called Palestine before 1948 may sound reasonable to us sitting over here in America, Canada, Australia, etc., the fact of the matter is that Israel was founded as a state for the Jewish people. Palestinians no more “fit” the qualifications for being a good Israeli citizen than Billy Graham fits the qualifications for being a good citizen of the Islamic Republic of Iran.[/li][li]The issue is made more complex by religious issues brought forward by both sides. There are large parts of the Israeli populace who would not grant Israeli citizenship to any Palestinian even if he formally requested it – they would qualify only as “resident aliens.” (I’m sure one of our Orthodox Jews can supply the official Torah terminology for this, but the point is that to these people that is the sole role available to anyone not a Jew who cares to live in Israel.) While I’m not saying that the Israeli government buys into this, there is an Israeli equivalent to Jesse Helms with equal political power demanding that it be the case.[/li][li]The sincere beliefs of people on both sides that they are the rightful residents of the land and that the other side are interlopers do have to be taken into account.[/li][li]The issues cited above are not those of the true extremists. Less than 20 years ago the Gush called for the genocide of the Palestinians as the “new Amalek.” Two conspirators were stopped before they could carry out careful plans to blow up the Dome of the Rock. (cf. Karen Armstrong for cites) I trust that the activities of the Palestinian extremists need not be cited.[/li][li]Palestinians have not been offered a separate state, but merely autonomous areas to and from which access would be controlled by Israel.[/li][/list=1]
Quite simply, this is not a situation where “men of good will” can negotiate a compromise that everyone can accept. There are religious extremists, political extremists, pragmatic politicians seeking the best results for their side, and every other complication imaginable short of divine intervention (which religious extremists of both sides do expect, BTW).