Thank you for the effort of the second poll Running with Scissors. It’s a better presentation and if you care to read it in detail it supports some of the counter arguments you have been faced with as well as some of your own. I think it’s important to read these things with some nuance you know. Take the question that both polls pose regarding definition of terrorism. An overwhelming majority view the Israeli actions as terror and the Palestinian suicide bombings as not being terror. However an overwhelming majority also think that the rest of the world and especially the Israelis think the opposite. Now do the same poll in Israel and I think you’ll get pretty similar results but with the values reversed. I’m not saying anything about who is right or wrong here. I’m just pointing out the subjectivity of your position and the subjectivity of the position of anyone immediately involved in the conflict. It is also interesting to see that the support for armed conflict and terror has risen sharply in the period after the peace negotiations broke down.
This statement is an example of the mythology of hatred that keeps the current hostilities alive and festering. I would love to see any evidence that Jews have been “hated” for “hundreds of years.”
Under Islamic law, Jews and Christians were, as unbelievers, clearly second class citizens. However, after the initial surge of Islamic fervor swept across the Mideast, the anti-Jewish feelings were not steadily maintained for 1200 years. The Mideast has no history of pogroms, ghettoes, expulsions, and punitive laws such as Europe has. Most of the current “hatred” only began to spring up as European Jews began moving into the region in the last 100+ years, additionally fueled, beginning in the 1920s, with the importation by a few Arabs of European traditions such as Mein Kampf and The Protocols.
To make the historically inaccurate claim that the two groups have “always” been fighting is to buy into the notion that there can be no peace because it is instinctive or racial or something. By that token, the Germans and French are clearly doomed to another war sometime in the next 20 years because they “always” have hated each other. (In fact, the German/French feud lasted longer than the current Arab/Israeli feud hast lasted.)
Sparc, you’re saying, with no evidence, that a majority of Israelis would not consider it terrorism for their government to commit mass killing of Palestinian civilians. That’s quite an indictment of Israeli morality.
Not only is there no evidence to support that POV, there’s a certain amount of evidence against it. After all, Israel actually has the military means to kill Palistinian civilians at will, but they have never elected a government which was disposed to do so. In the recent Jenin incursion, Israel chose not to use aerial bombing, in order to avoid killing Palestinian civilians, even though the ground attacks resulted in many Israeli casualties.
Sparc, I know you consider yourself to be a fair-minded person. Can you please tell us how we can interpret your comment as anything other than anti-Israel bias?
Well, to anyone who can actually read and comprehend English, it appears that he has not made the absurd claim that you have carefully re-worded for him. Therefore, any fair-minded person would have to conclude trhat your blinders are so narrowly focussed that a claim that Sharon’s tie clashed with his suit would be interpreted by you as an anti-Jewish slur.
He clearly said “Israeli actions.” He did not say Israeli mass murders. The wholesale destruction of Palestinian homes of people suspected to be related to suspected terrorists can certainly be regarded as acts of terror without claiming that the Israelis are committing mass murder (which Sparc clearly did not say). The assassination of Palestinians by using helicopters to blow up their houses–regardless who may also be in the house or who may be living next door–can be regarded as terrorist acts. (I know that in a truly Orwellian bit of language destruction in another thread you described these as “extra-legal executions” or some such, but they are (to anyone with an understanding of reality or an appreciation of facts) clearly reprisal raids.) One may be able to make a claim to justify them, but if you deny that someone else would view them as terrorist acts, then you basically put yourself outside the realm of reality. (I am taking no position on the actual attacks. I am pointing out that Israel has committed acts that other people can view as terrorist and that your claim to Sparc is the worst sort of specious doublespeak.)
Well, there were no Cossacks chasing Jews in the Mideast, but how do you account for this?
Badges
Pogroms
Ghettoes
While there were periods of harmony between Jews and Muslims, most notably at the court of the Cordovan emirs in Spain, more often Arabs have persecuted Jews as badly as the Europeans did.
It is disingenuous in the extreme to allege that “Most of the current ‘hatred’ only began to spring up as European Jews began moving into the region in the last 100+ years,” thus blaming the Jews for their own persecution at the hands of the Arabs.
tomndebb, I know you are thoughtful and intelligent. Perhaps you posted in haste. Well, let’s do the reading exercise:
The Palestinian “actions” referred to in the survey are suicide bombings, which are mass murders of civilians. Saying that a majority of Israelis would take the same POV “with the valuses reversed” means they would NOT regard the mass murder of Palestinians to be terrorism. That’s what Sparc wrote.
I agree. Sparc didn’t say that. He said that IF Israel were to have a policy of mass murder, the majority of Israelis would not regard it as terrorism.
My impression was that in these cases Israel was seeking to blow up empty houses, rather than kill people (which they easily could have done.) Please provide a cite or withdraw the statement that the destruction of houses was done “regardless who may also be in the house or who may be living next door”
OK. So?
This is backwards. I’m objectiing the Sparc’s implicit statement that most Israelis would NOT consider intentional murder of Palestinian civilians to be terrorism. You think the destruction of houses is terrorism. You certainly think the intentional killing of civilians is terrorism. Therefore, you ought to agree that it is a slur to claim that a majority of Israelis would NOT consider such murders to be terrorism. Such a statement alleges that Israelis are less moral than you are, in respect of what constitutes terrorism.
Thank you Tom you just saved a few of my veins from bursting, I truly appreciate it.
december, please just lay off will you. You should know my stand regarding both this issue and you by now. I would truly appreciate if you would stop baiting me, no matter if you do or not I will not bite anymore.
Values reversed refers to the values in the poll results not the values that you speak of.
I would take for granted that such a poll would be carried out based on the current state of things. I did NOT posit a poll where the question would be “if Israel commited mass murder of Palestinians would that be terrorism?” I repeat I did NOT SAY THAT. As Tom correctly notes I was speaking of the actions by the IDF and the difference in subjective evaluation of these depending at which end of the bulldozer or helicopter you happen to be.
I have no intention of getting involved in this debate, which is merely a re-hashing of the usual claims and counterclaims of the Israelis and Palestinians. But this one I’ve got to call you on:
Hitler was hardly the beginning of European anti-Semitism. It was the Dreyfus affair which (in the quote you were responding to) indicated that “things were beginning to get hot for them in Europe.”
You may now all return to the ongoing Middle East debate.
He clearly contrasted the suicide bombings against “Israeli actions” and said the polls would be the same. The “reversal” mentioned was whether the poll was taken among Palestinians or among Israelis. Your desire to see persecution throughout the entire world makes you misread every statment that you perceive as anti-Israeli. (I dread the day that someone in IMHO comments on Sharon’s tie.)
I appreciate your response. I now think I understand what you meant, and understand that my interpretation was wrong.
I would like to re-state I believe follows from what you said, in order to dramatize the LACK of moral equivalence.
*A majority of Palestinians consider reprisal raids, aimed at destroying houses and arresting Palestinian terrorists, to be terrorism, but consider the bombing of Israeli citizens not to be terrorism.
A majority of Israelis consider the bombing of Israeli civilians to be terrorism, but do not consider reprisal raids, aimed at destroying houses and arresting Palestinian terrorists, to be terrorism.*
The first statement was demonstrated by survey. I agree that the second is reasonable. Again, I want to emphasize that these two are not morally equivalent.
You’ll forgive me if it took a while to understand this december, but I have now finally gotten it! You truly don’t get it. It’s not that you’re baiting me at all; you just don’t get what I am saying. Therefore I shall be patient with you from now on.
Look at it like this way instead: The same poll containing the following two questions is presented to one Palestinian and one Israeli group of statistical significance:
Do you consider suicide bombing an act of terror?
Do you consider the IDF activities acts of terror?
The Palestinian group is more likely to contain several people who answer no to the first question and yes to the second.
The Israeli group is more likely to contain several people that answer yes to the first question and no to the second.
Let’s say for arguments sake this poll is now concluded and a majority answered the way I suggest in my example. Then the ONLY statement we can do based on that result is the following:
While a majority of Palestinians do not consider suicide bombing an act of terror a majority of Israelis do.
While a majority of Israelis do not consider the IDF activities acts of terror a majority of Palestinians do.
Nothing more nothing less comes out of that poll. It only tells us their opinions. What you think. What I think. What God thinks and what is actually right or wrong does NOT come out of it.
Uh, no. Terrorism is the use of violence on a civilian population with the intent to use the fear instilled in the general populus as a means to accomplish your goals. What you describe may be a human rights violation, but it is certainly not terrorism.
gobear saved me the effort. Islamic society was occassionally open and kind, was ususally better than Christian Europe was, but still had many massacres and systemic persecution of Jews. It goes back to Muhhamad being po’ed that the Jews didn’t all accept him as a new prophet with new revelations.
Is there any reason to believe that a Palestinian State will of its own accord be a freindly neighbor to Israel?
Any reason to believe that the government in a Palestinian state could control those who desire Israel’s destruction even if they were so inclined?
No, but there are lots of reasons to believe the opposite. Israel did not control the West Bank until 1967. 1948 to 1967 were marked by many coordinated attempts to destroy Israel. Why should next year be different? These survey’s also lead Israelis to be very nervous about having a potentially hostile unsupervised neighbor intent on its destruction sharing a long border and its capitol city.
I (and most Jews, Israeli and worldwide) do believe that a Palestinian entity is just. Both for the Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza and for the long term interest of Israel. But if, and only if, Israel can be assured that its security would be absolute. A promise will not be enough. Naive hope that all hate would disappear and LOVE would pervade with democracy for all, is also not enough. Prove security first. Then a permenant settlement can be negotiated that is in everybody’s best interest.
Call me on? There is no need to call me on anything at all my dear fellow, none at all.
Well, Chaim let us examine the overall history. France: there is the Dreyfuss affaire, which ultimately Dreyfuss’ is vindicated in of course, an indication of French anti-Semitism. However, at the same time, we have increasing integration of Jews into European society generally: German speaking Jewish integration (in the Reich and in the Austro-Hungarian empire western territories) is proceeded apace, laying the foundation for the secularist integrated POV which ultimately betrayed them when Hitler took power. The same story more or less in the low countries and England to my understanding. All signs not of increasing but rather decreasing social barriers – although there is the ugly undercurrent of anti-Semitic thinking in the dark and nasty history of ‘Scientific Racism’ – but the process is clearly one of declining expression of anti-Semitism, greater opportunities for social advancement (thus the highly integrated above average prosperous –in contemporaneous terms- Western European Jewry of the 1940s which was so badly betrayed by the collapse of rational secular politics in Germany). A further example, French colonial authorities are extending full civil rights to Jews in Algeria and later North African territories as part of a program of divide and conquer – a gradual process through the 19th century, the exact timelines escape me but as I recall it starts late mid-century. The same thing happens under the British in Egypt, where Jews are given the opportunity to avail themselves of European privileges and immunities from the quasi-feudal quasi-mamlouk state.
It is hardly the case that before the mid to late 1920s that Western Europe – whence the majority of funding for Zionist projects came – was getting “hot” for Jews, rather it was cooling down. Now, Eastern Europe, yes, always an ugly situation and arguably not getting any better at all in the same time period.
None of this, by the way, is to speak to the legitimacy of Israel – Israel exists, it is and has every right to be. It only speaks to the mythologization of the process of state creation in re Israel. Nice warm fuzzy story like Georgie Washington never telling a lie, but real history is done by human beings, not archtypes.
As to gobear: Yes the material seems largely accurate in its particulars, although if one reads actual works rather than selective websites with something of a clear agenda you will realize that the selection is resolutely on the negative to the exclusion of the positive. Perhaps a useful corrective of exaggerated replies to the mythology of endless conflict between Jews and Muslims, but no less of a spin job for all that. However DSEID’s characterization strikes me as quite fair and accurate.
As to his question:
Absolute rubbish and myopic ahistoricism. There are plenty of reasons to believe so. Now, none of this would sure but ultimately nothing in the future is sure.
We do not live in 1967. We do not live in 1977. We do not even live in 1987. The Arab world has come a long distance since 1993 essentially and there is every reason to believe that given (a) a peace agreement which justly treats both sides concerns (b) constructive engagement to build opportunities for development and give the Palestinians something to lose – quite clearly they have nothing to lose now except their lives, that we have an opportunity to break the cycle of reprisals which currently exists.
It is not guaranteed to work but at least it is not guaranteed to failure as the present policies clearly are.
Trust is a two way street. It has to come from both directions and the Sharonista game of demanding the P’s unilaterally quit violence while their own rights in re land etc etc in the OT are not respected etc. isn’t going to work. No one is going to bend over and grease their ass, the IRA wouldn’t do it, no one operates that way. There are no virgins in this game, no shy maidens of good virtue if I may use the silly analogy, nor are there in any such struggle. Look to Northern Ireland.
This would seem to be a good description of the repeated destruction of civilian housing in the West Bank. The action is carried out against the civilian populace (generally a suspected relative of a suspected terrorist) with the intent to instill fear in the neighbors to refrain from purportedly supporting other terrorists. I’m not sure how you define this to take this utterly out of the realm of possible terrorism. The victims are civilians of the Palestinian population. The action is violent. The motivation is to instill fear. The goal is to “encourage” the civilians who witness the destruction to withhold support for Hamas or Islamic Jihad or whoever.
Now, you may argue that the actual inhabitants of the houses have always been “known” to be members of Hamas or whatever (although I doubt that such a claim can be verified), but the parents, spouses, and children of the objects of those attacks are certainly not all terrorists (and are, hence, civilians).
In any event, my statement was not that such destruction was clearly terrorist in nature–simply that it could certainly be so regarded, depending, as Sparc noted, on which end of the bulldozer you saw.
gobear, thanks for the cites. Grayzel, in his History, does mention the yellow badges of Caliph al-Mutawakkil (and mentions that Venetian merchants carried home the idea to Europe where the idea was gleefully siezed upon). However, he mentions that almost as an anomaly and tends to portray the Jewish life under Islam as much less harsh than that in Europe. Looking over his book, again, I have just noticed that after the rise of Islam and the fall of the Mesopotamian Talmudic schools, he almost abandons the story of the Jews in the mideast until around 1850. I’ll have to go look up some other sources to catch up on those gaps.
I do find the nineteenth century incidents interesting in that they reflect the types of attitudes common among the closest Europeans (ghettoes closer to Spain and Italy, blood rite accusations closer to Russia). I’d be curious to see the actual timeline for those practices.
My comment regarding the European movement to Palestine was intended to provide a date for the renewed antipathy, not to claim that one situation created the other. If the antipathy in that region predated the European movement, then there can be no claims of causality, obviously. I would never suggest that the Jews “brought it on themselves” in any way.
Now most of this back-and-forth has occurred as we got caught up in the particulars of specific incidents.
In regards to the OP:
I support Israel’s right to exist free of terror or threat;
I find it counterproductive to pretend that Israel has been eternally pure as the driven snow while the mad dog Palestinians savagely hate them for no reason.
There are reasons for the hatred–even though they do not justify the attacks–and pretending that the Palestinians have no reasons simply feeds into the idea that Israel has no need to address actual Palestinian grievances.
I’m with you now, Sparc, and I’d like to move to the point I was hinting at above. There actually was a poll showing that a majority of Palesinians considered IDF activities to be terrorism, but not suicide bombing. This result is striking, because suicide bombing seems a lot worse than the IDF activities to many of us.
You hypothesized that most Israelis would consider suicide bombing to be terrorism, but not IDF activities. I agree that this is likely to be true, because suicide bombing IS objectively worse than IDF activities. To see this, imagine how the polls would go if Israel were targetting bombs against Palestinian civilians. I believe majorities of both sides would call this terrorism.
So, here’s a repeat of my intended point in the prior post. WHY did you bring up the hypothetical result of some non-existent survey – a result which you now say leads to very limited conclusions. What point were you trying to make? I suspect that you may have been implying some sort of symmetry. If so, I was arguing against symmetry, because the nature of the UDF acts is so very different from suicide bombings.
You may not agree with my POV, but I hope it has now been explained clearly enough to at least be comprehensible.
tomndebb, I appreciate your cites. They’re better than nothing, but they sure don’t prove an Israeli policy to “blow up their houses–regardless who may also be in the house or who may be living next door” At most, there are some cases of questionable decisions. Note the spin here:
Warfare is difficult. Everyone know that mistakes happen all the time in battles. Israel’s military is realtively sophisticated, but it isn’t perfect. If it were, there wouldn’t have been all those Israeli deaths in Jenin. These deaths were mostly due to mistakes by Israel’s military leaders.
If this reporter were paranoid in the opposite direction, he’d have evidence that Israel’s military leaders must have been seeking to get their own soldiers killed.
Who would take seriously this comment? He doesn’t have any evidence about Israel’s intent. And, Palestinians are notorious liars. After the myth they promulgated about the Jenin “massacre,” I wouldn’t believe anything they said against Israel, unless I had convincing independent evidence.
This is an obvious lie. How would Amro have seen this alleged Plan? Why would he know the contents of this Plan, when nobody else does? At best, he was just guessing. At worst, he was purposely putting out a malicious lie.
Tom, I respect your opinions in general but the last just seems wrong. I know you gave it the now standard post 9/11 disclaimer about “they do not justify the attacks”, but still.
Do the Palestinians have grievances? Yes. Are they legitimate? Yes. Should the Israelis’s address those grievances as the result of terrorism?
My answer would be unequivocally, no. Giving in to terrorism and terrorist demands is appeasement, and is morally wrong. It attempts to legitimize terror as a method of getting what you want, and encourages others to use the same tactic. It also justifies hatred, and since when is hatred a good thing?
I am not arguing symmetry. That would be subjective of me to do. I am arguing subjectivity. IMHO the suicide bombings are worse than what the IDF has done so far, OTOH I also think that we are talking about degrees in hell and comparisons quickly look like marginalizing suffering by comparing numbers of victims. To boot my opinion is not so relevant, but that’s another discussion.
So back to what I was saying; I am arguing subjectivity and the effects thereof. Now, you and I agree that suicide bombing is worse than losing a few civilians over the pursuit of potential new suicide bombers. You and I do not agree on that it’s acceptable to lose a few civilians over the pursuit of new suicide bombers in this specific case. I can’t say if you are right or if I am right. We have much too different moral values for that comparison to work. All I can say is that I don’t agree and I can observe that you don’t agree with me. I could of course drag you to the pit over it and vice versa.
Once in the Pit I can puke invective and rebuke all over you, which will look far more offensive than when you ridicule me with poor rhymes. But you know, we’ve tried that and it only led to both of us making fools out of ourselves without resolving our differences. Arguably I was the bigger jerk in that one, because I used a greater measure of verbal violence, but that’s just degrees in hell since you didn’t look that great either from an objective stand. So what can we do? Well for starters we can try to understand each other, and in order to do that we need to see things from each other’s perspective. I think, nay I hope that we are starting to do that, the last couple of posts show that at least we are now communicating on wavelengths that are closer to each other although we are still some ways away from respectfully disagreeing, we might get there though.
Now, throughout the last couple of weeks of our exchange I was thinking; “who the fuck is this oppressive dumb fucking ass that hates me enough to bait me all the time just because I’m European?” I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but I surmise that you were thinking things along the same lines. It wasn’t until I stopped for a moment and tried to wear your hat and see things your way that I realized that as a matter of fact we weren’t even communicating, I was just attacking you in response to what I perceived as an attack (which I surmise you just perceived as questioning my attack). Only when I understood this could I tone down the aggressiveness in my posts, because I gained respect for your stand by trying to see it from your viewpoint, even if I still disagree. It seems you’re doing the same.
My point is that it is essential to understand the other side’s viewpoint if you want to get beyond confrontation and into dialogue. You need to try to forget who is right and who is wrong for a moment and just try to understand. For Sparc and december that’s relatively easy, and if we don’t it’s not the end of the world considering that these are just words on a screen that we can walk away from.
For the unfortunate people caught up in the conflict in Israel it is a matter of life and death. Again, independent of right and wrong; I believe that only when there is a will to see things from the opposite side’s perspective will there be a way forward.