Coicidentally, from an obit of David Brinkley today
http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/national/will/story/6837913p-7787977c.html
Camel News Caravan?
"Our top story tonight - Silicon hump implants - cosmetic surgery or death sentence?
And in sports news, the recent winner of the International Desert Crossing Championships was disqualified when he admitted he was actually quite thirsty, and had been sneaking sips of Gatorade when nobody was looking.
Film at eleven."
Regards,
Shodan
Can Shodan or somebody explain why Israel’s blowing up of the innocent is any less morally repugnant than suicide bombing civilians on a bus?
Killing a terrorist leader? Yes, I can see a case for it although tactically I’d say it’s unwise at this juncture unless your aim is to destroy the roadmap…
Killing his wife and 3 year old child at the same time, plus injuring or killing anyone unlucky enough to be in the street?
link
Not in my mind yet I see no howls of outrage here, just one sided condemnation. So is it alright to slaughter the innocent so long as they are Palestinian?
As I understand it, the Israelis said they did not know that the Hamas leader was travelling with his family. Cite. In other words, they were striking at a military target, and his family suffered. What they call “collateral damage”.
And I think the idea that there are no howls of outrage is as exaggerated as my statement that “nobody says boo” to Palestinian terror attacks.
But, as I see it, Israel takes the first, tentative baby steps along the road. Hamas rejects the idea of a cease fire. Then they and their allies kill five Israeli soldiers. So Israel strikes back. And Hamas sends in suicide bombers to kill 17 civilians.
Israel is striking against military targets, and (if you believe what they say) hitting civilians by accident. Hamas is striking against civilians, on purpose, as well as soldiers.
We don’t know for a fact that Israel has chosen terror tactics. We do know for a fact that Hamas has.
But AFAIK, the latest wave of violence started because Hamas wanted it to start. Abbas can’t bring about a cease-fire with the terrorist groups, and is afraid to risk his position by trying too hard. So Israel has made the decision to try to take the Hamas leadership. Yes, innocent people are getting hit along the way. On both sides.
But which side makes a point of attacking civilians?
Regards,
Shodan
All these questions about who’s more right or who’s more wrong, who started this crap, who’s more guilty, etc. are a complete waste of time. I also believe that outsiders who keep debating who’s more right or wrong and keep listening to the sob stories from both sides are not helping the matter.
Seems to me the Israelis and the Palestinians both do their thing (and I agree with Edwino and others who recognize no party has clean hands), claim victimhood, and justify their actions as a legitimate response to terrorism or oppression (depending on your perspective). By constantly claiming victimhood, the parties can absolve themselves of their own responsibility.
I think those of us who are not Israelis or Palestinians can do them both a favor and quit indulging them when they bitch to the world about their plight. If we want peace, what we should do is refocus the debate from “Who’s right?” to “What kind of future do you want?”
Simply put, Sharon made a decent first step last week when he acknowledged the ultimate futility of continually sitting on 5 million people, which hurts the Israeli economy, damages Israel’s reputation, and demoralizes its citizens. Abbas, to his credit, acknowledged the futility of the current Intifada (as an aside - Palestinians and their sympathizers can bitch about Sharon to their heart’s content, but the fact is, Sharon was dead in the water politically until 1998, when Arafat walked away from Camp David and launched this idiotic Intifada, thus marginalizing the Israeli doves, strengthening Sharon, and hurting regular Palestinians).
The fact is, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not just a tribal war, but has turned into a ideological proxy war between (generally speaking) right and left, America and Europe, the West and Islam. Nevertheless, pretty much all of us “outsiders” share a common goal - a just peace.
IMHO, what we can do (no matter what side we sympathize with) is stop indulging those Israelis and Palestinians who both absorb and commit atrocities and then cry to the world “See!? Look at the inhuman monsters we are confronting!” We should work to get them both talking about their interests and their children’s futures.
The Israelis and the Palestinians (as well as us “outsiders”) will never agree on the past. I say, who cares? Let’s make them start talking about the future.
The biggest misconception some people have is that Palestinian terrorism has the goal of forcing the Israelis to make peace. No, the suicide bombers don’t want peace, that’s the whole point. The suicide bombers want war. And Hamas has specifically stated that there are no innocent Israelis, every Israeli is a legitimate target. So Israel finds itself at war. It seems to me that militarily attacking each and every known Hamas member–as declared enemy soldiers–is a perfectly reasonable response.
What, kill someone without trial for simply belonging to a proscribed organisation???
Hamas and Islamic Jihad didn’t appear until after almost 30 years of Israeli occupation, so the question is why the hell didn’t they get out before then?
Shooting missles into a busy street is not any sort of legitimate military or police tactic.
People expect terrorists to be evil and brutal, and have already written them off. People expect more from a civilized democracy: not only to do the best they can, but also to be SMART. That’s the difference in the criticism directed. And recent polls suggest that many Israelis seem to agree.
The point is not that these guys in Hamas don’t deserve killing. The point is that this strategy isn’t going to change anything about the violence, and to strike back so indescriminately certainly IS giving groups like Hamas a fantastic platform, rather than hurting it as a (relatively decentralized) organization. And it’s destroying any possibility that Abbas has to solidify his position further. You can blather on and on about how everyone is untrustworthy and they’d keep on killing anyway, but what does that accomplish as far as getting us any closer at all to having a Palestinian leader who can rein in these groups and appear credible to the public?
If they are trying to kill your people, yes, without so much as a “pretty please”. If the Israelis had been able to bring it off without killing any civilians, which is what they purportedly were trying to do, I for one do not believe that Israeli soldiers should read them their rights before opening fire.
If by “they” you mean Israel, this is more or less beside the point. Hamas and Islamic Jihad are not acting to get Israel out of anywhere, but to bring an end to the nation of Israel altogether. Which is pretty much what the enemies of Israel wanted in the 1967 war.
The whole charter of the PLO called for the elimination of Israel, and that was adopted in 1968. This is nothing new. The goals of the terrorists are the same now as they were thirty years ago - the end of the state of Israel. Which is why they not only won’t negotiate, but try to prevent anyone else from doing so.
On preview -
Hamas refused a ceasefire, and Abbas can’t or won’t force it on them. How does it help Abbas to rein in terrorist groups for the Israelis to simply accept the terrorist attacks and do nothing?
They struck at a military target. I do not believe that the reaction from the Palestinians would have been any different if it were the most surgical operation ever staged. And it would have made no difference at all to Hamas - they are going to do whatever they can to sabotage any peace process.
The Palestinian goal (for the non-terrorists among them) is peace, and their own state. The Israeli goal is peace, and their own state. The terrorists don’t want peace for anyone, and don’t want Israel to have her own state.
If Israel does nothing, they will suffer more terrorist attacks. Hamas is not going to observe a cease-fire, and Abbas cannot (apparently) end or reduce terrorism. So, the best bet (from Israel’s point of view) is to try to kill the terrorists, and reduce terrorism that way.
I have asked it before - why is Israel the only side that is expected to sit still and suffer atrocities, and do nothing about it?
Regards,
Shodan
How does killing Hamas’s spokesman increase Israel’s security? How can such a large and ineveitable amount of collateral damage (the civilians killed were actual inside their own homes at the time) be justified when your attacking someone who is essientally a politician, all be representing not a very nice organisation?
Shodan as you well know those parts of the PLO chrater were renounced by Arafat.
I don’t know how someone who claims to be a Christian can sit there, defend and justify the actions of a government that has one of the worst human rights record in the world.
The side that doesn’t have any tanks, fighter jets, or helicopter gunships, has been living under a military occupation for 35 years, and has become desperate. I’m not saying that suicide bombing of commuter buses is a good thing, but I don’t think anyone should be shocked, shocked, that the Palestinians have resorted to such tactics.
MC, there you go again. I certainly wouldn’t say that Israeli policies are all sugar and spice, but one of the worst in the world? Didn’t we go through this before? Please just visit Amnesty International’s or HRW’s sites and see the shit that goes down across the world that mostly gets little Western attention or concern. Including in many Arab countries, including in countries that are on the UN’s Human Rights Committee. You do not make your case by overselling it; you become a noncredible source.
Early,
Civilian sites were targeted by Arab governments before the 67 War. With rockets, etc. Terror as a technique has not just started; it has a long pedigree (yes, including some early proto-Israeli terrorists too)
This peace process was dead as soon as Abbas ruled out the use of force against the militants under any circumstance. Israel’s error was that they lost a chance to dramatically influence world opinion: if Sharon had made his move to begin dismantling settlements and refrained from extrajudicial executions for a short time, then it would be clear that the PA is not interested taking on the cost of delivering their side of the deal and many would accept the need for Israel to do what it takes to do it herself. Moderate Arab forces would have a chance to gain some steam. The targeted killings and the collateral deaths of innocents shut those less radical forces down* and gives Abbas less man on the street support if he had been inclined to take Hammas on.
*Just like the terror attacks have taken the wind out of the Israeli Peace movement.
I think the peace process was dead as soon as the Quartet and Israel pushed Abbas on the Palestinian people and gave him little or no power with which to forge legitimacy. So basically, a few months before this current push began.
Abbas can’t go after Hamas for the same reason Arafat couldn’t go after Hamas. They are popular and they would kill him if he started after them with force. What is really needed is some heavy-duty power to counter the threats of Hamas.
In light of this, I am trimming my above peace plan down even further. This whole thing could be worked out with 2 things – international or US peacekeepers and a big-ass wall. The details will be worked out later, after things calm down.
It is MHO that Israel is certainly justified in going after these ringleaders. They are international criminals and murderers in every sense of the word, in every Western legal system, in every treaty of international law out there. Addressing root causes of crime is always a good way to solve things in the long term, but its short term effects are pretty much nil. You have to go after the criminals and not just educate them on how much better life could be.
I just think that the way that they go after these guys is ham-fisted. It is like trying to get rid of a fire-ant mound by jumping on it. Yeah, you may kill some ants, but you are probably just going to get bitten repeatedly. It is also against all common reason, has been shown to be detrimental in the past, and is enormously damaging to Israel’s image in the eyes of the world.
DSeid, This current Israeli government has completly ignored the Geneva Convention, Amnesty International and even the Protestant Bishop of Jerusalem has asked people not to sell arms to Israel, which even the UK has an arms embargo against Israel.
Sure it’s not the worst human rights abuser but it is still one of the worst.
Anyway, I won’t press the point as it’s slightly subjective.
You have to admit though that the last assasination was extremely heavy-handed though. Five hellfire missles fired into a civilian street, when a single hellfire missle is enough to destroy a tank.
Yes, I agree with that. I do not like even judicial executions, “extrajudicial” ones bother me more and ones that accept the probability of innocents dieing as a consequence are wrong unless absolutely necessary to prevent massive other deaths from an imminent and immediate threat.
Edwino,
I have been a reluctant proponant of the big-ass wall for a long time. I hate it but it may be the only solution. As to the international force … enforcement has to come from within the PA, or at least under its direction, if peace (rather than a reduction in violence) is ever to be achieved. Manpower, training, and/or materials can be provided by an international consortium, but under the PA’s willing aegies. Abbas’ power has to grow, which can happen only if he is able to deliver motion from the Israeli side, which he can do if he demonstrates some will to do more to actually try to deliver the goods on his side. Even if he fails in the attempt. Yes, it means civil war for the PA, yes it means he puts his life in danger. The Israeli side had a leader killed because of his leadership in the past; that is a risk a true leader takes.
I think there are major problems with the two leaders. In Abbas you have a man with no powerbase and no more authority than that that is given him by Arafat (which is why I wonder why Israel and the US just don’t cut out the middle man and deal with Araft directly). In Sharon you have someone who has significant pressure from his party, coalition partners and those who voted for him not offer any kind of fully independant Palestinian state (hence his attempt to remove any reference to an independant Palestinain state from the roadmap. Also you have Hams in the equation who despite a recent signal that they would be willing to negoitate under a peace-plan that made concrete demands on Israel not just the Palestinians are unwilling to participate with the roadmap.
I don’t think there will be any peace until the Likud party which derives most of it’s support from the settler movement and it’s strong-arm military tactics is replaced by the Labor Party who formerly dominated Israeli politics and whose leaders have payed more than just lip-service to peace.
Yes, exactly. Just like US soldiers killed Iraqi soldiers without trials, and Iraqi soldiers killed US soldiers without trials and it was all perfectly legal. Israel is at war. The fact that Hamas is not a state-level organization doesn’t mean that they are not legitimate military targets. The Geneva Conventions do not require that both sides of a military conflict be states, one side may be a state and the other might not be.
Hamas is a military organization that is dedicated to using violence to destroy the Israeli state. Each and every member of Hamas is a legitimate military target. Whether it is wise to use missile strikes to kill them when they are surrounded by human shields is another question. But the US didn’t have to get a warrant to drop bombs on the Iraqi regime’s people and infrastructure, and neither does Israel.
No not every memebr of Hams is a legitamate target, only combatants, remembr Israel has extra duties as the occupying power which means it cannot kill people without trial. Individuals are not military targets.
You say ‘human shields’ like it it was the targets fault that there were civilians near when the Israelis attacked.
Each settler movement is dedicated to stopping the formation of a Palestinian states and used vioplence to acheive this end, by your logic every settler is a legitamte target.
Define combatants. A US soldier is a legitimate military target even when they are sleeping in their barracks, or peeling potatoes on KP duty. If Iraq had bombed non-combatant support personell in Kuwait that would have been a perfectly legitimate military target. Each and every member of the US armed forces was a legitimate target. We bombed all kinds of civilian infrastructure during the war, all completely legitimately, even if we knew that civilians would be killed. We did not have to arrest, try, and convict every member of the Iraqi army or every Iraqi irregular. War doesn’t work that way.
And no, I don’t blame the civilians for being in the way. I blame Hamas.
And of course, your last statement is exactly how Hamas operates, except they don’t confine their targets to “settlers”. Hamas has stated explicitly that every Israeli and every foreigner in Israel is a legitimate target for death. Israel should return the favor.