Turkish flagged vessel attack [What if?--becomes What now?]

Great Debates
641

Yet again, rather obviously, who decides who is an occupying power and how is the 4th Geneva Convention applied? Did you even bother reading the rest of my post about how the US’s position of having veto rights and blindly supporting Israel in everything limits the UN’s ability to enforce anything?

Do you have a cite for that more recent than 20th March 2008?

As I have this from that date. It is from “The Supreme Court of Israel sitting as the Court of Criminal Appeals” and states:

And

You can find both of those in the last paragraph on page ten.

642

(bolding mine)

No, we will hear the biased point of view of protesters with a baldly stated goal of harming the Isreali position. They have no more claim to be ‘the truth’ then the Isreali side does. We may get more of thier persepctive but it will definately be colored by thier own anit-isreal agenda and spun to make them look them the best and Isreal to look the worst.

Perrsonally, I would give less weight to statments of any of the people on the boats since they have a greater need to make Isreal look like a monster, since that was thier primarly purpose in being there in the first place. Actually getting aid to Gaza was secondary to breaking the bolckade.

643

Okay, we get it… everyone involved with sending humanitarian aid to Palestinians = Bad, potential target for removal with extreme prejudice; everyone on the side of the Israeli’s = Well-intentioned, totally self-less individuals.

Have you got any more insightful snippets for us?

644

Does this to mean that you are “tentatively” on the side of Israel but are open to being convinced otherwise or if further facts develop that cause you to change your current position.

Thats right, the USA has the right to inspect all ships coming into the USA, we do not have the right to inspect all ships coming into Cuba. Noone could stop us if we wanted to do this but the “right” to inspect all ships going into Cuba is different than our ability to inspect all ships going to Cuba. Israel is exercising its MILITARY power to maintain a blockade that means they have whatever rights their military force can enforce (stop me if there is something somewhere that blows this idea out of the water). They are acting within the boundaries of international law in enforcing the blockade (assuming the humanitarian crisis doesn’t make the blockade illegal in its current form.

One of the ships had nothing but concrete and building materials so that whole ship would have been rejected. Who knows perhaps the others ships were filled with chocolate and mangos. Still the point was that they were trying to get things (other than weapons) into Gaza that Israel did not want going to Gaza.

645

I’ll point out the errors with this claim:
-As already cited, quoted, and discussed again and again, if Israel did not maintain the blockade it would be illegal and would therefore have to end.
-The effort was not to reform the blockade, but the flotilla’s organizers admitted that it was to completely end it.
-By aiming to end the blockade and not merely provide food for the hungry and yadda yadda, the goal was to prevent Israel from maintaining a blockade. This is obvious. Equally obvious is that by preventing Israel from maintaining a blockade, one is explicitly allowing Hamas to import weaponry.
-There have been claims, for years now, that there is an “imminent humanitarian crisis!” looming in Gaza. And yet the birth rate in Gaza is roughly three times that of the US and there have been no large number of deaths due to this “crisis”.

I’ve already stated that I think that the blockade should be eased as it caused undue hardship, but calling it a “humanitarian crisis” cheapens the claim for when we face actual humanitarian crises. That’s the problem with crying wolf. There are actual humanitarian crises where people are actually dying and where aid is urgently needed with no delay. It’s okay to state that the situation in Gaza is one that you don’t agree with and think should be ameliorated to a significant degree. Claims that it’s a “crisis” are nonsensical. What kind of dire humanitarian crisis exists for years, while the population continues to rapidly increase?

No, actually it’s a fact. You can’t claim that something that leads to Hamas attacking Israel is a “peace” plan or doesn’t lead to war. Whether or not shooting rockets at another country is “peace” is not a matter of opinion.

Let me remind you:

Saying that Israel does not have a right to continue the blockade means that it lacks the right of self defense and Hamas can freely arm and launch another war.

With fewer caps "pretext"The admitted goal of the flotilla was the end the blockade, an action guaranteed to thereby allow Hamas to import weaponry and initiate more violence.

No, you can also modify the blockade to make it less stringent and still prevent weapons from being imported. Which is what I said. However, what you said is…

Not modify the blockade. Not ease the blockade. Not set up new policies under which the blockade will be conducted, but stop, as in end, as in completely cease the blockade. That does mean that Hamas gets to import anything it can ship in.

646

I know there have not been cites about a large number of deaths, and I don’t think there has been a cite about malnutrition. However the birth rate doesn’t mean anything out of context. High birth rates are associated with poverty, and they don’t indicate anything about overall heath or life expectancy, especially if you don’t include infant mortality rates.

647

Are condoms on the list of embargoed items?

648

Exactly. Pretty much all of Africa has a high birth rate despite the widespread poverty. If you have six kids then maybe two or three will survice, which is probably better than have a couple of kids and both die.

The point about malnutrition and how you don’t have to starve to death for there to be a food crisis was pointed out to FinnAgain, but he chose to ignore it. He also chose to ignore the cite from UNICEF regarding the increase in infectious diseases due to the water crisis.

649

Um, no. No facts have been cited to show that Israel’s blockade is valid under international law. What has been provided are a set of legal arguments which have been supplied by Israeli government which as far I can tell have not been accepted by most of the world. No international court or international body has ruled in Israel’s favor and AFAIK few if any governments have accepted Israel’s arguments.

The traditional law of blockade applies to a state of war between sovereign states. Gaza is not a sovereign state and many have argued that Israel is still an occupying power and therefore does not have the right to impose a blockade on occupied territory.

650

And let’s not forget that we are waiting for FinnAgain to provide a cite from more recently than March 2008 that states, from the Israeli Supreme Court, that Israel is an occupying power. I’ve given my cite from that date of the supreme court explicitly stating that Israel is not, but FinnAgain has repeatedly claimed that Israel’s Supreme Court has stated that Israel is an Occupying Power.

We are waiting, FinnAgain.

651

You are correct, I was unaware of the 2008 decision. *Of course that still doesn’t change the fact that you claimed the 4th GC couldn’t properly be applied if a state didn’t self-identify as an occupier. *

It is a very strange decision though, asUSA v. Wilhelm List et al. at Nurenberg established the precedent that it was the potential to exercise military control over an area, rather than the stationing of troops there, that determined if an occupation existed and that the occupying powers were still occupiers even while limited forms of local goverment were in effect or when insurgents held control of certain areas.

It came to the conclusion that “the test for application of the legal regime of occupation is not whether the occupying power fails to exercise effective control over the territory, but whether it has the ability to exercise such power.”

If you want to get back to your earlier claim that the lack of self-identification makes it improper to apply the 4th Geneva Convention, then you remove a great many protections, including all of the affirmative obligations to provide things to Gaza. Are you sure that’s your argument?

Because otherwise the blockade is illegal and must be dissolved. A blockade that’s enforced by the shippers voluntary inspection prior to shipping is not legal.

652

Good, so we accept that when you repeatedly stated that Israel’s Supreme Court’s current ruling was that Israel is an Occupying Power was indeed completely wrong.

I can’t believe I have to post this again:

  1. As Israel does not see itself as an occupying power Israel does not feel the need to act as an occupying power as set by the Geneva Conventions.
  2. The UN argues that Israel is an occupying power.
  3. (My guess) The UN Security Council is responsible for enforcing such things and creating resolutions regarding Israel and the occupying power status.
  4. The US, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council with veto rights, throws a hissy fit whenever Israel is even remotely criticised and hence nothing gets done.
    A convention is only of any use if anyone enforces it. That’s the whole bloody point and this has been pointed out to you in this thread. You either didn’t see it or willfully ignored it. I have even asked you, to no reply, who gets to decide if Israel is an Occupying Power.

So I’ll ask again:

  1. Who gets to decide if Israel is an Occupying Power?
  2. Who gets to enforce the checking (and punishment if required) that Israel is following the Fourth Geneva Convention?
653

The context would be a cite that those born aren’t surviving to maturity. So far we’ve had to cite on an increased death rate, infant mortality rate, etc… absent that, the context shows that the birth rate does, indeed, mean something. The CIA factbook lists Gaza as having one of the single highest population growth rates in the entire world.

Without evidence of any actual crisis going on, this is indeed evidence that claims of “starvation” are, let’s say, less than accurate.

No. Actually you cited wikipedia to maintain a false-to-facts definition whereby “starvation” meant to do something other than starve. I think that was some time around the point where you declared that chcocolate is an essential food in everybody’s diet as proven by the fact that the US army included cigarettes in their ration packs. Or chocolate. One of them was included and that showed it was essential and the other was included and that showed nothing, I forget which standard you’re using. I believe you also claimed that any food, at all, that has antioxidants must be a necessity due to the presence of antioxidants, just like elephant flank steaks are a necessity since people need to eat protein.

In any case, to claim that there’s a crisis while people are not at any risk of death which again, you still won’t actually cite but keep talking about a “crisis!” An increase in infectious disease (which I did not ignore, quite contrary to your inaccurate claim) does not constitute a crisis either.

Words have meaning.
You can talk about a problem, you can talk about the actual number of people effected, but if your argument is based around bombast then it means nothing. If people being in no danger at all of starvation and receiving adequate calorie counts is a “crisis and people are starving!” then it’s pretty clear that it’s an argument in search of facts rather than facts informing an argument.

And by the way, before posting about how much “waiting” you’re doing, please make sure that I’ve actually responded to the thread since then and/or more than 32 minutes have elapsed. :rolleyes:

Of course they have. You can disregard them if you wish, but to claim that haven’t been cited is simply false.

This is simply wildly fictional. The actual text of the actual laws has been cited, quoted and discussed at length.

Likewise, fictional. If you contend otherwise, you are welcome to cite wherever it actually says so in the Sam Remo Manual.

Also false.
Cited, quoted, re-cited, re-quoted, discussed and re-discussed: occupying powers explicitly and specifically have the right to control consignments.

654

Israel’s what it wants to be according to the occasion:

Piracy on the Blood-Red Sea

– underline mine.

655

To remind you, I have pointed out the precedent from US v. List.
You have now gone back to arguing on the importance of self-identification.

Please get the facts straight.
Israel’s supreme court evidently said that Gaza could not be considered an occupied territory, unless you have a cite to the contrary it has never said the same about the West Bank.

I can’t either. You were just arguing that you weren’t claiming that self-identification determined applicability of the GC. I pointed out that you were. Now you’re arguing it, yet again. But okay, one more time, with feeling.

As stated above, the first half is incorrect. The second is false as well. Under the 4th GC a station has a positive obligation to provide certain basic provisions to the occupied populace. Without such a rule in force, there is no such obligation at all. That Israel does view itself as being obligated to provide the adequate amount of supplies to Gaza gainsays your claim.

The 4th GC applies in a state of occupation. Occupying powers are granted certain courses of action which are allowable to them and restricted from others, as well as having certain issues mandated. An occupying power may, rather obviously, engage in allowed behavior under the laws of occupation even if someone else contends that violations are not properly punished.

656

That, unlike the birth rate alone, is somewhat significant.

The infant mortality rate in Gaza is 18.35 deaths per 1,000 live births. Worldwide it’s in the middle. It’s far below failed states, most third world countries, and those that are hit especially hard by AIDS. On the other hand it’s about triple the infant mortality rate in the U.S. It’s also a bit higher than the infant mortality rate in the West Bank, which is 15.96 death per 1,000 live births. In Israel it’s 4.22 per 1,000 live births.

On the other hand, countries with high birth rates and high infant mortality rates still have pretty high population growth.

Which is why several posters have moved on to discussing malnutrition.

657

You are citing a non-fact that’s already been cleared up many, many times in this thread. A legal blockade is not piracy.

Curiously enough, there are not quote marks around the alleged Lieberman quotes. That means that they’re not quotes, they’re paraphrases. Someone who describes a legal blockade as piracy might just not be the most trusted source for a paraphrase. That the author of the pieces goes on an explicitly, blatantly lies by claiming that enforcing a blockade is “piracy” rather cements that.

Bonus points for the rather blatant use of a token Jew to sell one of the author’s points while claiming that the enforcement of a legal blockade was “piracy” and “evil”, a statement about the lesser of two evils still being evil gets brought out and, lo and behold, the author makes a point of telling us that it’s a Jew who said that!
Rather predictable. Find something critical of Israel and then close with “And a Jew agrees!”

Why don’t you provide an actual cite for Lieberman’s actual words, so we can see what the discussion really was?

658

You think the Israeli point of view is not biased or in a number of cases out and out lies? They provide a snippet of a video but don’t show you what happened in the beginning of the raid? There’s a reason why they aren’t showing it and that reason is because they don’t want to expose what really happened. Now that activist have been released you will begin to hear what really happened and you are free to dispute what they say but they have the advantage of having been there when it happened unlike you or anyone else that’s relying on Israeli hasbara for their information.

659

Here’s the CIA World Factbook on the Gaza Strip, dated from 2000. If these numbers are reliable, infant mortality in Gaza is down over the last 10 years, life expectancy is up, the death rate is down, and the birth rate is down.

2000:

Today:

660

Unless I missed something, there haven’t. I did notice some claims that chocolate was an essential food.
But the closest anybody has come to discussing whether or not the Gazans are suffering from malnutrition and to what degree, unless I’m missing something, was a post that cited wikipedia and claimed that conflated starvation with malnutrition.

I’ve already said, many times, that the blockade should be eased and increased goods allowed as they’re unduly harmful to the Gazan civilians.
But it doesn’t appear that the current state can fairly be described as a humanitarian crisis, at all.

[

](WHO EMRO | WHO publications | Information resources | Palestine site)
and

[

](http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/tc/tce/pdf/UpdateFoodSecurityIssues-Gaza-04-02-09.pdf)

The facts about stunting seem to be fairly normal (if, again, something that should be dealt with by easing the blockade):

[

](Huge numbers of stunted children, says UN report - CNN.com).

There doesn’t seem to be sufficient evidence to call this a “crisis”. A problem that must be dealt with by changing the Israeli blockade policies? Sure. But there are actual crisis spots in the world, and this doesn’t seem to count.