Palestinian Children Tortured, Used As Shields By Israel, UN Says

Great Debates
141

So they are a de facto state then? So why so much kerfuffle about just recognizing their statehood instead of trying to block UN recognition? Do they intent to reabsorb this para-state at some point? Are they afraid that once they recognize the obvious they lose some sort of leverage?

I mean, its not a crime.

So how do the number of Gazan civilians killed by the IDF compare to the number of civilians killed by Hamas?

You’re going to ruin a perfectly good debate by pointing out stuff like that.

Well, they have offered a 10 year truce, haven’t they? For 1967 borders?

I don’t recall those incursions into Gaza costing a lot of Israeli lives.

Sometimes its because people on your side of the argument throw around accusations of anti-semitism.

142

See, this is what I’m talking about. Reflexive accusations of anti-semitism. Also consider the scare quotes in other posts around the word “Zionist.”

When I use that word, I mean what I say. I mean those who have/had that specific political agenda. The US should not be supporting such an endeavor, and Zionism is not unique in this regard.

I had never heard of either of the controversial episodes regarding Ms. Weir until just recently, so I took a quick look. If you don’t trust her, do you trust Ray McGovern?

143

Not based on that link.

The attack on the Liberty has never been a secret. The motives and actual actions have been publicly debated for over 40 years, (including numerous occasions on this message board).
Whatever the truth behind the events, the “Israel Lobby” has never succeeded, (or even appears to have tried), to suppress the publication of that story. Despite all the handwaving about the “Lobby,” McGovern does not present a single bit of evidence (or anecdote) that suggests that anyone other than the U.S. and Israeli governments have been behind any efforts to suppress any information.

If one need only leap up and scream “Israel Lobby” any time the U.S. fails to bomb Israel, then one creates a claim that cannot be falsified.

In fact, I would tend to agree that there are supporters of Israel, both professional and personal, who address issues in which both the U.S. and Israel have interests. Of course, from that perspective, there is the “Britain Lobby,” the “Canada Lobby” (somewhat smaller and more polite, of course), the “Ireland Lobby,” the “Mexico Lobby,” the “Germany Lobby” and so forth. There are also an “Egypt Lobby,” a “Saudi Arabia Lobby,” a “Jordan Lobby,” etc.

However, it is only when one needs to find a boogeyman that the supposedly sinister “Israel Lobby” is trotted out as though it has speshul super sekrit powers.

As Israel has been a focal point in both the Cold War and the unrest in the Middle East, (from which we buy huge quantities of petroleum), there will certainly be a lot more people publicly involved in promoting (and opposing) U.S. interactions with Israel. (Funny how none of the opponents get lumped into an evil “M.E.N.A. Lobby” or some such.) This discussion has also been run out on this board on multiple occasions. Aside from rather silly (and never supported) claims about the AIPAC, no one screaming “Israel Lobby” has demonstrated that there are actually sinister forces at work, here.

144

Well, that would be nice, except that the actual Zionist movement was a specific phenomenon of the late 19th and 20th centuries. By using the word so loosely as to mean anyone who fails to hate Israel, one aligns with the various anti-Israel states of the Middle East and a number of explicitly antisemitic people in the West who also use the word to mean anyone who provides any support of any sort for Israel.

I doubt that anyone, here, would object to references to David ben-Gurion as a Zionist. When one slaps it on a large number of other people who have never been part of the actual Zionist movement, but who happen to support the right of Israel to exist, then one evokes the scare quotes and invites comparison to folks like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

If one does not like that association, then one should avoid associating in that way.

145

They just infiltrate message boards to shout down anyone who’s anti-Israel?

You know, between my Big Pharma activities and Israel Lobby work, I should be able to retire from my job and live handsomely off shill payments. Still haven’t seen a dime though. Someone’s gonna get a nasty e-mail about this.

Haven’t seen it yet, even with talk of a “kernel of truth” in the blood libel fantasy.* Talk about your boogeymen.

*I’m reminded of the former poster who got in a dither in one of the Israel threads about how horribly unfair it was that a newspaper cartoon had been slammed for dredging up blood libel imagery, that it was yet another case of false anti-Semitism accusations, etc. etc.
Turns out the cartoon in question showed a King-Kong-sized Ariel Sharon eating Palestinian children. How shocking that such a serious attempt at debate was shouted down. :frowning:

146

You are missing an “e” at the end of the adjective.

The Israelis are turning Hamas into newts?

Regards,
Shodan

147

Gaza isn’t asking for state recognition.

Really, the de facto statehood of Gaza is a barrier to the recognition that is in fact being sought - for “Palestine”. By the PA.

Presumably, “Palestine” is supposed to include Gaza and the WB. Problem is, they are ruled by antagonistic parties - Hamas, and the PA.

Hence the problem. Is “Palestine” one state, or two? Note this is an internal Palestinian problem, not one created or imposed by the Israelis.

Randomly targeting civilians is a war crime - one that Israel is often accused of committing, in fact.

What does that have to do with anything? Hamas, as a military force, is hopelessly weak compared to Israel . Being hopelessly weak doesn’t make them morally superior.

Oddly, when you engage in a war with someone and lose, you generally don’t get to dictate the terms - and for a truce (not peace!) at that.

I can’t imagine in what world this makes sense. It is the equivalent of the Germans in WW2 offering the Russians a 10 year “truce” in which to re-tool the Wehrmacht, on condition that they pull back to the pre-1939 lines … when the Red Army was busy knocking at Hitler’s bunker in Berlin.

Other than for foreign consumption for propaganda purposes, I can’t imagine how anyone could possibly believe that makes a lick of sense.

Again, why is this important?

In this thread, we have at least two people - Honesty and Redfury - show up specifically to pre-emptively threadshit in the opposite direction.

148

Don’t you worry about your mental state – 'cause I’ve been doing just what you are asking for, for the past 13 years or so to no avail; just check my posting history on this topic. So I’m the crazy one. Which is just fine by me.

149

What a load of horseshit. :rolleyes:

150

Yeesh, yeah, I see enough of this sort of thing on reddit.

Person A: “My opinion is unpopular here, I’m always shouted down!”
Person B: “Yeah! Me too!”
Person C: “Totally, I agree, we can’t speak our minds about our hugely unpopular opinion without fear of suppression.”
Person D: “Well, I disagree —”
Persons A - C: “Zip it, you shill!”

151

Wow!

Just, wow.

152

This just never dies, does it? Remember when you were asked to provide instances of this alleged common practice of tossing around accusations of anti-Semitism, you could only come up with a single example, in the BBQ Pit, by brazil84, a poster whose extreme positions are regularly slammed by those in this thread you’d consider pro-Israel? Being that this is GD and not the Pit, I’ll have to restrict myself to noting he has bizarre behaviors and really has his own ‘side’ in such arguements; both ‘your side’ and ‘our side’ disagree with him.

Tell me about it. I’m gonna have to demand extra compensation for not doing it out of Dual Loyalty™ either.

153

Really? Because I didn’t say Weir was an anti-semite. I just quoted some of her beliefs. If you spotted any anti-semitism it was in her beliefs and not in what I said.

154

Well, he’s right. Having inferior weapons doesn’t make it any more morally acceptable to fire those weapons at civilians. “They don’t kill that many people!” is not a defense when the reason they don’t isn’t from lack of trying, but rather lack of means.

155

By that argument, “attempted murder” would be a punishable offense. Man. I just don’t like that kind of slippery slope.

156

Indeed. Being militarily weak does not confer moral status. I would have thought that uncontroversial.

In fact, I’ll go further. An entity that is hopeless weak is wrong to engage in war against one much stronger, because it has no hope of success: the costs of war have no corresponding benefit. This is seen with Hamas in particular and the Palestinian cause in general, that choice of war over other methods has done nothing for their people other than inflict untold misery upon them.

Under “just war” theory it is morally wrong to engage in a war that you know in advance is hopeless. Other means should be used, unless there is really no choice (for example, a war of extermination).

That isn’t the only problem with Hamas of course from a “just war” perspective.

157

That’s not true. Zionism is an ongoing affair, with considerable similarity to the founding sins of the United States. Some Palestinian families still have the keys to their former houses. Unlike most similar places in the world, it’s not too late for justice in Palestine. I’m not sure why the Palestinians had to (and have to) suffer for the crimes of the Nazis and pro-Nazi collaborators. Yes, I know about the Grand Mufti’s pro-Nazi stance, but what of it? Was that also the fault of the Palestinian masses, speaking of guilt by association?

Everybody wants citations, and here’s one from the Daily Telegraph. Here’s a column in Haaretz, which indicates to me that some Israelis are well aware not only of the terrorist actions of their country’s founders, but that said terrorists were not always on the lunatic fringe, and were welcomed into the country’s political establishment in the years that followed.

If anyone wants to hand-wave this by pointing to British reluctance to admit unlimited numbers of Jews into Palestine, that’s intellectual dishonesty as bad as any of the accusations in this thread. The British had years of experience at seeing how the influx of Zionists was infuriating the other locals, who knew full well about their agenda. The British (and Count Bernadotte) wanted to prevent more violence and bring the situation in Palestine to some kind of soft landing, and found themselves under fire for doing so.

The United States should not be supporting such a venture, nor should it be siding with anybody else in the region. It’s not American business.

158

Paranoid Mandroid:

[obligatory Simpsons reference]And “attempted chemistry” should be a Nobel Prize category.[/oSr]

159

Well, speaking as an Israel, all being a Zionist really means to me is that I love my country and want it to continue to exist. As for its founding sins… I remember a countryman of mine once saying something about casting the first stone.

160

You do realize that the opposite of this is also true. Having superior weapons and superior foreign support in the ratio unseen in any other conflict before allows you to kill 10 or 20 times more civilians only as “collateral damage”.

That’s an evil “superior” morality, my friend.