Hamas.
But he’s right. Saying, “attacks will be there even during peacetime” is kind of nonsensical. As long as attacks are happening, it’s not peacetime.
Besides, we Jews tried the whole “letting other people kill us with impunity” for a couple of thousand years, and we didn’t really like it. What you’re proposing is akin to suggesting that African-Americans slip some leg irons on and go pick some cotton.
Some level of attacks even during peace does not shatter a peace, nor should it. Organized crime, terrorism, and espionage happens now in the US. Would anyone make the argument that are at war with the mob just because a few bodies are found, or at war with Russian because some Russian spy is caught?
If Hamas tries to and succeeds in breaking the peace with a couple of rockets or a few suicide bombs, then there will never be peace. Real peace can be achieved despite efforts to thwart it, it will just take some dedication.
A few attacks does not equate to slavery. And if the goal is to have peace/end slavery, then historically, slavery has given us a better model of how to achieve these progressive goals than hunkering down and continue fighting. After official slavery ended, unofficial slavery continued for the next century. Racism was rampant. Groups like the KKK thrived. But the African-Americans didn’t make the excuse that it was just as bad, and they worked towards equality. And now, a 150 years later, we have a black president.
How far do you think the Jews will get with peace if all they do is overreact to every single attack? How will they ever have peace if they stop it after each rocket? It gives a single group or even person too much power to halt the peace process. It’ll never get done. So yeah, sorry to tell you, but you have to ignore the attacks and continue to press for peace. No matter what it takes, and it will take years, but eventually you’ll end up the better in the long term
So what constitutes breaking the peace for Palestinians, then? From what you’re saying, if Palestinian terrorists attack Israel, that’s not breaking the peace, but if Israel kills the terrorists, that is. So what actions by Palestinians would count as breaking the peace?
Your analogy is silly, as even you should realize. The Mob doesn’t have people strap on explosives and blow themselves up in public places, nor do they periodically launch rocket attacks on random cities. Russia doesn’t do either of these things either.
So, you are of the opinion that Israel should just turn the other cheek when they are being attacked…all in the name of ‘peace’? That’s…remarkably generous of you. Of course, my guess is you don’t live on the border where such a periodic rocket attack keeps you up at night, wondering if you and your family might be unlucky enough to be on the receiving end. At a further guess, you don’t have to worry very much about going to a mall or a cafe where an idiot with explosive undergarments may be planning a bit of a surprise, which makes it a little easier for you to be so generous with other peoples lives.
As Israel is a democracy though, I’m guessing that such a plan would not be met with the same kind of universal tolerance that you have shown here…which means that, in the real world, it ain’t gonna happen.
Conversely, how far do you suppose the Palestinian’s will get if they continue to allow (and encourage) these kinds of attacks? How far has it gotten them so far? Sorry to tell you, but so far their barbaric behavior has them sucking hind tit and scrounging in the dirt, without any country to call their own, and with all of their neighbors (all their ARAB neighbors) looking on them as rabid dogs who need to be penned up and kept out of family room.
-XT
If you let someone hurt you without responding, he’ll hurt you again, and again, and again. And then others will see him succeeding and start hurting you too. If you give them what they want, it’ll only get worse - they’ll see that hurting you worked, and they’ll hurt you again until there’s nothing left to hurt. That’s the way the world works. Human beings, I’m sorry to say, are bastards coated bastards with bastard filling.
What you’re saying, essentially, is that we should allow ourselves to be victims, out of some misguided belief in the inherent goodness of mankind. To which I respond: bah, humbug.
Yes it will and yes it should and yes it does by ontological, tautological necessity.
Peace is the absence of war.
While your Orwellian claim that war equals peace is nice rhetoric and all, it’s a bit hard to acknowledge that one nation being rocketed and another freely rocketing the second are at “peace” just because your favorite (or least favorite) nation isn’t responding.
That isn’t even war, precisely.
It’s a canned hunt.
And it still aint peacful, let alone a state of full blown peace.
Besides, and most importantly, what is your “some level*”? *
One suicide bomber a month is “peace” but two is war? Three? Five? Maybe only one bomber every two months, that’s "peace? But what if he blows himself up in the middle of a maternity ward? Or a disco? Or a bus? Is blowing up a bus “peace” but blowing up a maternity ward is war? How about rockets? 50 rockets a financial quarter is “peace”? 25? 15 rockets and 2 missiles, as missiles cost five points?
Who gets to decide what “some level” of “peace” is actual and what’s rhetorical obfuscation?
You pretty much just picked three things at random there.
-Organized crime is, as hinted at by the name, a criminal matter not a military one, at least not in all but the most extreme cases. We would not say we are at “war” with organized crime (although politicians do try to sell us a “war on crime”). We would accurately say that we consider criminals to be harmful to the well-being of society itself and as a result we have set up an elaborate apparatus for the creation, implementation and punitive enforcement of laws which are set up to protect the public.
As such we would not say we were “crime free” if the Mafia only killed 5 witnesses a year.
-Espionage is not an act of violence, it is something all nations (that can) engage in against all other nations that they can. Absent espionage during the course of wartime for martial purposes, nobody can die from espionage. Unlike acts of [del]war[/del] mild-peace.
-Terrorism is, rather obviously, an act of war if carried out by one organized nation upon another.
Every single one. And it’s the Jews who’re doing it, too!
No no no. You’re getting it all wrong. We’ll achieve Peace[sup]2[/sup].
We’ll have the kind of peace that involves rockets being shot at you times the kind of peace that involves someone shooting missiles back at the rocket launching sites.
If the Peace you are trying to sell will lead to harmony, then obviously Peace[sup]2[/sup] is, like, twice as good.
BTW, wasn’t taking the piss about article titles…
[
](Israeli missile attack endangers truce | The Independent | The Independent)
Yeah, but that was, like, 2005, man. To a word definition, four years is like, an eon, man.
Why does Hamas get a pass on this? If there was a political party in Israel that was occasionally firing a couple of rockets into Gaza or sending a few suicide bombers into the West Bank independently or semi-independently from Israel’s government would you really be asking Palestinians to let it slide and not disrupt the peace?
This is a misrepresentation of my post and does not make for debate.
I do not see any dispute that looters are to be shot on sight. No-one has inquired whether the looters/settlers are Jews or not. Of course a proportion are but who is counting.
Plenty of examples? “Muslim state free of infidels”? Actually there are none. We are in “Big Lie” territory. The lie animating Israel is that their enemies plan genocide. Not, “end of Israel”, not “Greater Palestine under Islamic rule”. No it is “If all Jews leave for Greenland and Iceland then Hamas and the collective Arab world will pursue to those ends of the earth”.
There appear to be 2 major purposes to the Big Lie:
- To make monsters out of the Israeli population,
- To press buttons marked fear and panic in the American population, like our friend Ms Lavender.
With all the success the Big Lie enjoys it is no wonder it continues.
Which part? The “we should be truthful part”, or the “we should treat people equally in a principled manner” part?
It certainly is not a misrepresentation of your posts, which in and of themselves don’t make for debate.
Who do you think you’re trying to kid? You’ve made it very clear who you’re talking about.
I don’t consider a random citizen of Palestine part of the Palestinian government trying to make peace. That is the mistake I see people making here. It seems people want to say every Palestinian, or simply every terrorist attack is the fault of the Palestinian government, that there is no disconnect between random psychos and a government and bureaucracy trying to make peace. It would be as if a random New Yorker blew up a government building and the federal government shut down the entire state with martial law, saying that unless all murders, bombings, rapes, assaults, thefts, and jaywalking stops, then it means New York isn’t serious about peace and martial law will not be lifted.
Accept that as a fairly weak but the only government, Fatah will not be able to stop every attack. The people who attack from their territories are not their fault, and should be ignored and peace continued. Don’t blame Fatah for every attack, blame the actual guy who attacked, punish him and his supporters, and continue to make peace
If the Russian did that, would we declare war on Russia? If the mob blew themselves up in public, would we shut down every Italian business in the country and round up Italians?
No. They should attack those who attacked them, Hamas. And continue to have peace with Fatah. And they should empower and help Fatah in rounding up those responsible. At NO point should Israel say the peace has failed just because Hamas, a terrorist organization, happens to be successful in an attack. Peace should not be tied to how well Fatah polices its own because the insanely high criteria for peace makes it impossible for Fatah to police itself well
No one except people who live at the border can make peace? What an unsurprisingly harsh criteria for a peacemaker to be.
Even though these are all hypothetical situations, it is extremist for someone to even suggest that only those who suffer directly from attacks can make peace. Indirectly, this whole Israel/Palestinian thing affects a lot of people. If those fuckers at the border are so selfish as to hold up the process for everyone else just because they refuse to move and refuse to make peace, then yes, peace should be imposed on them
Yes, exactly. I’m not hiding under my bed everyday in fear of a rocket attack. I can go to the mall without fear. That makes me supremely qualified in not overreacting to a couple of bombs. That makes me qualified to say that if they make hard choices, they can be like me eventually and not hide under the bed and go to the mall without fear. In fact, people living in those areas are the worst qualified to make a decision, because all of their decisions will be extreme and based in fear. Fear makes people behave like shit, it is not a sound foundation on which to base a decision
They need to make a lot of tough decisions too. That’s why some of my 10 suggestions are directed towards them, among them: giving up the right of return, horribly cracking down on Hamas to the point of torturing them in public, eliminating their own history Stalin-like and forcing a pro-Israel curriculum in schools
It is telling and kind of horrifying to me to read you and those who posted after you ONLY attacking me for the positions that seem anti-Israel. Where are all of the posters saying “Hey you can’t tell the Palestinians to do that! That’s terrible!”? But no, only when someone speaks ill of Israel does a chorus spring up to chant loudly against it. Maybe for your next post, you’d like to be a little more fair and attack my other propositions?
Maybe the first part where you imply that Judaism is a corrupt evil cult that does nothing but back monstronsities and war crimes? Implications like that one are the reason the only relatives of mine still in Europe are nothing but ashes in ovens.
Critics like yourself do not hold the Israelis (or the Jews for that matter) to equal standards. You hold them to impossible standards and their enemies to no standards at all.
With friends like these . . . I swear I almost prefer the open naked anti-Semitism of Hamas.
So how’s that working out for Israel so far? Hated by most of the Arab and Muslim world. 60 years of paranoia, some of them legitimate. 60 years of military-like readiness for war at any second? Jews demonized throughout the world, now even spreading to civilized Western countries again. Your worst cataclysm, the Holocaust, denied. Allies attacked and demonized.
Yeah, its working real well.
Here’s the problem with your belief. You think that if Israel just keeps doing what its doing, attacking everyone who demonizes it, overreacting to every little slight, that things will change. It hasn’t and it won’t. Everything you think will happen by looking weak HAS happened. Do you think Arabs and/or Muslims will suddenly just stop trying to get back the land and suddenly stop hating Israel and Jews if the keep blowing up schools and hospitals?
The people who hate Israel will continue to attack it whether or not it shows weakness. There is no way to win some of them over. And killing them creates more. The only way to stop it is to look at things long-term and stop killing them, stop giving them excuses to hate. At first, it will be all one-sided. But eventually, people will come around, but it might take another 60 years. In the meantime, you just have to decide whether you think that wall’s going to protect the country forever.
Not completely. I never said Israel can’t protect itself or attack its enemies. However, they can’t do it if their enemies shoot from a school. Israel can send in people to hunt down terorrist, but no more tanks rumbling into Palestine, or bulldozing the houses of suicide bombers. They simply have to be willing to make more sacrifices.
Uh, they don’t. Israel should recognize Fatah and help them get rid of Hamas. Like I said in my 10 suggestions, some of which were directed at the Palestinians. Shit, I swear its like people see one sentence saying something mildly bad about Israel and they call that person Hitler. READ THE GOD DAMN PARTS ABOUT PALESTINIANS HAVING TO SACRIFICE!
For god sakes I suggested they eliminate their history and start teaching pro-Israel propaganda and shoot mothers in the street! Read that fucking part.
If the Russian’s randomly attacked us with rockets and sent suicide bombers in to blow themselves up in our shopping malls, on buses, etc, etc?? Well…yeah. Of COURSE we would. Hell, there would be a huge out cry from the American people for blood. Have you forgotten the reaction of the American people to 9/11??
Are you saying the Mob is controlled by the Italian government?? Or has any ties to the Italian government? No? Then it’s a stupid analogy.
If the Mob DID resort to rocket attacks and suicide bombers then I have no doubt that there would be a hue and cry to go after them with all the means at our disposal. If they were hiding in, say, Mexico, then I can see military expeditions and operations to root them out at the demand of the people.
Seriously, even if you aren’t an American, surely you can see how this would play out with the public. One suicide bomber in a mall that kills women and children, or one random rocket that hit some families house and killed them would totally set off the American people, and they’d be howling for blood…and the politicians would be knocking each other down in their rush to assure the American people that blood would be forth coming.
How do you suppose they can do that, since Hamas hides amongst the population, and launches it’s attacks (deliberately) in the proximity of civilians? This leaves aside the actual support groups like Hamas gets from both the Palestinian people AND the government.
If Fatah wanted peace then THEY should police their own areas, and root out groups like Hamas. Seriously, if they can’t police their own territory, if they can’t prevent such attacks, then why should Israel turn a blind eye? It’s CITIZENS are being attacked for gods sake…just like here in the US, that tends to make said citizens a bit tense, and a bit in the mood for the government to Do Something™. No?
The only unsurprising thing is that you deliberately misread what I wrote there, and then made a silly comment that had nothing to do with my statement…while actually quoting me. I, for one, am militantly unsurprised.
That’s like a rich white person saying that the fact that they aren’t black and poor makes them supremely qualified to comment on the lives of poor blacks, since they don’t have any worries or fears, and so have a clear unbiased opinion on it. I’m trying to be good these days, so I’ll just leave it there and move on.
I don’t believe in draconian measures. If the Palestinian’s want peace, if they want territorial concessions, if they want to be looked at as something other than barbaric murderers (being painted with a broad brush by the lunatic fringe which is, unfortunately, not a small percentage of their population), then it’s up to them to first police their own, to absolutely ensure that NO attacks from their own territory are directed at Israel, to hunt down and capture or kill all terror related groups in their territory, and to prove that they can be trusted. Once they do that, then I think Israel will HAVE to make some concessions. Until then, they can expect attacks from Israel in reprisal for any and all acts perpetrated on Israel’s population from groups operating from Palestinian territory.
Not at all. I freely concede that Israel isn’t perfect, and that the Palestinian’s have a lot of real grievances. The problem is, as long as they keep attacking Israel through terrorist groups operating from their territory and supported by a non-zero percentage of their population AND government, the Israeli’s have the ‘moral high ground’, afaiac…countries have not only the right but the DUTY to protect their citizens from attacks. Your proposal that Israel should simply let such attacks go is completely unrealistic…no country does that, unless they are completely powerless and have no means to defend themselves. In which case, they won’t be a country for very long.
-XT
This is something of a fractal response…
(Jake, Chinatown, etc…)
If I count as one of these posters, I didn’t take your 10 points as being meant to be serious. If you are seriously proposing that publicly torturing Hamas members or requiring Palestinians to suppress all of their history prior to 1949 to be prerequisites for moving peace forward, they are completely absurd and the only good thing about them is that they are never going to happen because they are so absurd. Equally, if you seriously consider Israel building mansions to be given for free to Palestinians along with cars to be a workable solution to get around the right of return, it’s not. I doubt I really need to elaborate on why.
However, you seem to be serious on the position that Israel should allow itself to continue to be bombed and rocketed and call it peace. "If it doesn’t work though, they will have to accept deaths as a price,” well, surely you can see how volunteering the deaths of Israelis as the price for peace might bother some people, particularly Israelis. Be assured, if you considered Israelis blowing up Palestinians with no reaction from them to be peace and the price the Palestinians should pay for it, I’d be asking you why Israel should be given a pass on it, and surely you could see how volunteering the deaths of Palestinians as the price for peace might bother some people, particularly Palestinians.