Why... I think that doggone anti-Semite Jimmy Carter has a point.

Great Debates
141

I’m not, really. There’s a big difference between understanding why one side or the other is rightfully pissed off, and condoning how they express it. Why is that so difficult to understand?

Has the memory of the summer of 2006 faded so completely already?? Holy shit.

I am against the first use of nuclear weapons in pretty much all situations.

Back during the run-up to the Iraq war, I argued that nukes were the one genuine weapon of mass destruction - that if circumstances were right, one might be able to kill hundreds or thousands with any lesser weapon, but a single nuke, even a small one, could easily kill hundreds of thousands.

Nukes are still so far beyond anything else we can throw at one another that I believe we should do everything within reason to reduce the risk that one will ever be used as a weapon, ever again.

Sure. If the deviations were to place the Fence further back, rather than further forward, to create a more defensible perimeter.

Anyway, there’s your answers, despite my lack of interest. Is there a point you’re driving towards here? Because if there isn’t, my answering your questions is no longer in the realm of debate, but would seem like a fishing expedition of some sort.

142

RTF, I am not fishing. I am interested in exploring why one side gets so much sympathy and understanding for targetting “the occupiers” (=Israeli civilians), and how far it would go. A nuclear bomb goes too far, but where do you draw that line and why there? I also asked about a dirty bomb. How about a (/11 style attack if they could pull it off? The other side gets litttle understanding from you at all. A few sq kms for security is beyond understanding.

Forget the Summer? I assume you mean the conflicts over the rocket attacks and kidnappings that led to a response that escalated into a war on Hizbollah with significant civilian harm to the Lebanese public. Perhaps you are looking for hypocrisy from me? Allow me to point out my position then was full support for what I called “the snapping turtle” approach: retreat behind a defensible shell but know that others can still poke at you. When they do snap back quick and hard enough so that they think twice before poking you again. My support however was for a quick measured snap and I was then quickly quite critical of Israel’s actions in prosecuting the action to the degree that she did. It was no longer a snap, it was a foolish attempt to destroy the poker no matter what the cost.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=379879&highlight=Israel (before the bombing began full force)

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=377511&page=4&pp=50&highlight=Israel

For my part I give neither side a free ride. Israel was right to respond militarily to attacks from other soils, but it was required that she respond in a way that minimized civilian casualties and harm, even as Hizbollah did everything possible to force Israel to inflict that harm. She failed to do so and in so failing also failed to serve her own best interests.

When Palestinian groups, or those acting on their behalf, target civilians, (target mind you, not just fail to adequately avoid harming them in pursuit of a military objective) they even more so fail to meet my basic standard, and they even more so fail to serve their own best interests.

The best interests of Palestinians lie in a negotiated peace that accepts Israel as a reality that is unavoidable and finds ways eventually to even partner with her for mutual benefit. Not because they love each other but because that is what will get their children fed and clothed and educated. Because a future of opportunity is better than what they have now or can expect to have without a negotiated peace.

Israel is best served by a negotiated peace too but without that by disengagement (seperation that is, apartheid, to some, I guess) one way or the other and if unilaterally then by responding to attacks with short snaps of strength and then back in the shell. She is best served by getting out of the OT as much as she can and by doing the best she can for her own minority Arab population. Out of informed self-interest.

And neither is served by rhetoric that only demonizes the other side.

143

It isn’t so much sympathy as acknowledging human reality. Who wouldn’t be pissed that furriners were occupying your country? And even more so if they took the best of your land, and treated you as a foreigner in what they left of it, requiring you to wait in interminable lines to get from here to there within your own land?

We’re talking strictly about the occupation and colonization of the West Bank here. No matter how justified the occupation, one must expect, as a baseline reality of human nature, that the response to occupation would involve violence. And the colonization of the West Bank, and the resulting treatment of its legitimate residents (i.e. apartheid) is wrong, period. What sympathy should one have for Israelis seeking lebensraum?

No, it isn’t. I think it would be fine for the Israelis to give up a few square kms for security.

But it seems you look at this completely from one side: someone else must give up a few square kms for the Israelis’ security, even though they’re the ones engaged in an immoral colonization.

Apparently you have. Let’s replay the dialogue:

Apparently you have forgotten that Israel’s massive attacks on both the Gaza Strip generally, and on Lebanon generally, were in response to attacks on Israeli military targets.

I’ve been hearing this reasoning for years, and had assigned to it a certain underlying validity: “what’s really bad about the Palestinians is that they don’t have the guts to attack the Israeli military, but instead, they’re a buncha cowardly moral lepers who go after Israeli civilians.” Apparently the Israelis themselves thought this was a bullshit argument. Have it out with them.

144

Excuse me but what imagined world have you been living in? Qassam rockets had been raining from Gaza and Southern Lebanon at Israeli civilian targets. The attacks from Gaza began pretty much as soon as Israel withdrew and had been increasing in number. The territorial violation and kidnapping of the soldier was the just the when, not the totality of the why, that Israel responded. And those acts, made with the approval of the ruling entity of the PA, amounted to an overt act of war. Hamas and Hizbollah intentionally place military targets within civilian areas in order to have the use of human sheilds and to force the human tragedy PR bonaza if Israel responds. Never heard the “cowardly” bit. Amoral, yes.

My analysis stands.

145

Sorry to doublepost, but your just making stuff up that sounds good to you really needs to be called out.

As has been well established in this thread already, there has been no displacement of Palestinians off of land (with that one notable possible exception of a small area within Hebron) the “best” of it or otherwise. Before Israel won that Six Day War and occupied the area Palestinians were not ruling their own country. They were being kept in camps under dire conditions without any autonomy by their brethern Arabs.

146

Not so. The sourced question is a re-statement of the OP, to wit: Is Israel an apartheid state? The majority are convinced that Israel does earn its rank amongst abominations this way.

Even where the opposite view is advanced, it inevitably comes from co-religionists and the like, making a gesture of support without any real commitment. They mail it in.

Does it merit such a title? The solution is for there to be 2 states? Hardly seems an analysis to me, too facile. No, even accepting that solution in preference to the one-state solution, the way to conduct an analysis is to explore *how *to do it. Sure it is clear what Israel should do. As is abundantly clear it has no intention of doing so. The question is what argument or compelling persuasion will guide the Israelis to a reversal, whereby they do what you posit and withdraw entirely from the West Bank.

Heaps of it, in fact.

147

Yeah. Sheer coincidence. And twice in just over a month, too. Go figure. :rolleyes:

If the Mafia sets up shop in my neighborhood, the FBI is still wrong to bomb the whole freakin’ neighborhood, no matter how evil the Mafia is.

It doesn’t, but that’s the subject of another thread. Start it up, and I may come debate with you.

Is there Israeli-created apartheid in the West Bank? Darn tootin’. Is it justified? No freakin’ way. Unless you have new arguments that bear on that, seeya in another thread.

148

There are times I wonder if I even should bother to state things this obvious. Afterall Sev’s and RTF’s minds are not only closed, they have demonstrated an amazing ability to both create facts consistent with their worldviews and to ignore that which is inconsistent with those same views.

But still, others read this …

While the use of the word “apartheid” evinces a bias against Israel, such a bias does not equal viewing Israel as “an abomination” and I still see no evidence that “a majority” of public opinion even believes that, even though it may be true. Carter, for example, would hardly endorse a stattement that Israel is an abomination.

Certainly I have been quite clear that I feel that great care needs to taken to protect civilians during military actions. And I feel that Israel had decided to purdue military targets with possible benefits not worth the civilian toll. But there is always a balance. Compared to most military actions Israel has generally done well especially given the intentional placement of said targets in civilian areas.

Yeah, RTF “seeya” … don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

And to all a good-night.

149

If you want to believe that you’ve “dismantled” anything that’s certainly your right. As you don’t actually know anything about the situation, I can only assume that much like your claim of a ‘non sequitor’, that you’re simply making things up and hoping that a few stick. You don’t actually know whether or not you’ve refused anything, but boy can you type stuff. Speaking of which…

Thank you for proving my point that you have no intellectual honesty, nor any desire to debate from a position of knowledge.

You don’t know what’s in the Hamas charter, so you can’t possibly speak as to whether or not it’s relevant. Yet, you still do. Without even a hint of shame. What basis, exactly, do you have for calling the charter relevant or irrelevant? No basis, at all? You have no knowledge of it, at all? And yet… you still want to make claims about it?

Can you state why it is supposedly a non sequitor? Or are you just typing again and hoping that your lack of knowledge won’t stop you from starting an argument RTF? Curiouser and curiouser.

So, your claim of a ‘non sequitor’ is based on 100% total ignorance and, like much of your other performance in this thread, a desire to stir some stuff up whether or not you’re right? Evidently, a desire to cause trouble that is not based on whether or not you actually know anything about the topic, but just because you’d like an argument, or you’re a partisan for an issue and discovering the facts of a situation is just to booooring. If you could be making things up for a partisan cause, why waste time with learning stuff?

And just a hint, in case you want to actually hold a debate in the future rather than simply typing lots: The “arbiter” of what one must know to participate in any debate is common sense. If you don’t know the history of the situation, if you don’t know the players in the situation, if you don’t know the dynamics, problems, or which solutions have been tried in a situation, then you really don’t have anything to offer, do you? See, that doesn’t change for any topic up for debate. You can understand that, can you not? Whether the topic is quantum mechanics, the history of US jurisprudence, or the situation in Israel, you actually have no know something about it.

And since you don’t, you don’t really have any good intentions or desire for an honest debate, do you?

Didn’t think so.

150

If I don’t know anything about the situation, it will surely be easy for you to demonstrate that. Rather, you refuse to ‘rise to the bait’ of a point-by-point rebuttal. That says it all.

I’m making no claims about it at all. But if it had something important to tell me about Hamas that I didn’t already know, it’s kind of up to you to tell me what that is, in order to actually, y’know, dispel ignorance, rather than claiming secret bullshit knowledge.

I know that Hamas is a good deal more radical and hostile to Israel than Arafat was. (I’ll leave the discussion of what a brilliant idea undermining Arafat was for another day.) Is there some important detail I’d glean from reading their charter? Please tell me, o wise one, what I’m missing.

Sure. It’s a non sequitur because (a) Hamas essentially didn’t exist when Israel began colonizing the West Bank, which colonization is the driver of the apartheid system we’re discussing; (b) while Hamas’ radicalism may justify various Israeli responses to counter Hamas, colonizing the West Bank and instituting a system of apartheid there isn’t one of them; and (c) the Israeli apartheid plays right into the hands of Hamas anyway, by radicalizing the Palestinian population generally.

You know, it’s really easy to say crap like this. It’s harder to actually debate the facts and issues.

Exactly. You have held up the Hamas charter as some sort of touchstone, and have failed to demonstrate how specific knowledge of its charter, as distinct from a general idea of where Hamas stands, materially contributes to the knowledge of the players, the dynamics, the history, etc. Common sense would say that reading every last source document isn’t a necessity for informed debate. You have repeatedly posted to claim I must read this document, but have failed to once give any indication of why.

Put up or shut up.

151

Feel free to start a Pit thread if you want to get personal about a poster.

This has nothing to do with West Bank apartheid.

Like I said, I’m still quite here, if you want to debate West Bank apartheid.

But if you want to widen the discussion into a wide-ranging discussion of everything Israel has done, or that has been done to Israel - which is what you seem to be determined to lead me into, AFAICT - then I’ll join you in another thread that you start for that purpose. I will not any further be a party to turning this thread into a general Israel v. Palestinians, Lebanon, Ay-Rabs, etc. slamfest.

152

Just like I’m here to discussing whether you still beat up your wife, apparently. :rolleyes:

No the debate does not assume, has not assumed, that there is apartheid and discusses it. The debate has centered around how inaccurate that word is and whether the use of an inaccurate and inflamatory word serves any purpose other than to reveal the biases of the user and to poison the well of constructive dialogue. In that regard it is of note that a promoter of the word’s use feels that Palestinian targeted murder of Israeli civilians by any means “within their power” is understandable, but anything less than a complete withdrawl (or more) of the occupied areas for security considerations is not. It is of significance to the argument that promoters of the word’s use have demonstrated a closemindedness about the general subject of Israel and the Palestinians. And fallacious non sequitor asides cannot be left to be repeated often enough that they become a Big Lie that others accept as truthful.

Meanwhile feel free to exit Jr. Mod status and “report my post.”

153

Nope.

Much the same way as I would not be obligated to deal with one of your intellectual brothers, a Creationist, who was deliberately misstating the facts about evolution and who refused to acknowledge or retract his mistakes, let alone clear up his ignorance. Those type of people aren’t interested in an informed and honest debate, although they sometimes pretend to be. Much like you’ve done.

And you still don’t know about The Three Noes, or the Refugee Conference at Homs, Syria, do you? You don’t know about The Muslim Brotherhood, Ahmad Yassin, or effective strategies that Israel has to take in order to secure its citizens? You don’t know, and you’re probably not interested, and the most you’ll do is to complain at me for not dealing with your willful ignorance instead of you looking them up for yourself, right?

What, why am I asking?
Of course you would.

154

Well, except fort the fact that no one claiming to be Irish ever hijacked a plane…

155

How did Wales come to fall under the power of the English Royalty? Israel was attacked by Arab nations, after kicking the ass of said Arabs, Israel captured land. THIS is how nations get land. Now, Israel is being asked to divest itself of the spoils of war, when war is still being waged on them. Nice, consistent, NOT

156

Brought up from the Pit thread:

I do not believe so, as it adds more context to the situation.

For instance, after waging a defensive war, Israel initally tried to return the OT’s to their rightful owners, but were met with the Three Noes. This is not the activity of an ‘Apartheid’ power.

“Hi, we didn’t want to go to war in the first place, but as your rules were about to attack us, we had little choice. So, you guys can go back to living your lives as full citizens of your nations and we’ll give up the territory we won, all we want is peace.”

After that point, Israel has repeatedly tried to find a negotiating partner in Palestine to take control of the Ot’s. That, again, is not the activity of an ‘Apartheid’ power.

“We really have no reason to keep military rule over you once you stop trying to drive us into the sea or blow us up in pizza parlors, so how about we negotiate and come to a two state solution?”

And while folks can quibble about the amount of land that might or might not be given back, giving a people autonomy is hardly the action of an ‘Apartheid’ power.

Likewise, there is the fact that this was a war fought with other nations, while SA oppressed their own people.; that one bears a different responsibility to one’s own citizens than to those of a hostile foreign power who have a large block in their government dedicated to genocide. There is the fact that the majority of Palestinians refugees from 1967 are Egyptian and Jordanian but their own countries don’t want them and that the Arab regimes have done their best to keep the Palestinians in their refugee camps, etc…

A nation that is attempting to keep a lid on a population which has large factions who are genocidal, and yet still wants, overwhelmingly, to achieve peace and/or unilateral withdrawal from those people is not an ‘Apartheid’ power.

But discussing the actual problems, successes, and military necessities of the occupation isn’t trendy I guess.

157

By which of course I’m referring to the “demonize Israel, handwave away Palestinian genocidal groups and terrorism.” strategy.

It’s also worth pointing out for the folks who use the “apartheid” absurdity, that even after a pullout from Gaza, the IDF still had to go back in because of security concerns and civilian targeted terrorism. The settlements are incidental, and certainly aren’t the reason for the occupation. And without the settlements, there will still need to be troops there unless there is peace. A peace founded, in no small part, upon the recognition that both nations have the right to exist, something that Hamas has not yet done.

Until that is dealt with, there will be no lasting peace. And, likewise, if the settlers are all pulled out but Israel needs to maintain its occupation for security purposes… where does that leave the folks who use “apartheid” as a buzzword?

158

Well, yeah.

You seem to want to discuss something else. Like whether Israel’s attacks on Lebanon and Gaza this summer were justified.

Not interested. Sorry.

At least in our discussion, this is a new issue. We have not discussed the question of Israeli military control over the West Bank absent Israeli colonization of the West Bank. I have no problem with that. I hope that a point can be reached where Israel feels it can safely accept the Arab League’s proposed trade where all 22 Arab League nations would recognize Israel and become co-guarantors of Israeli-Palestinian peace, in return for Israel’s giving up the West Bank and Golan Heights. But that’s a possible trade, and I would not dream of expecting Israel to give up military control of the West Bank unilaterally.

That’s not what we’re discussing here, though. But if it gets your strawman off your back, then maybe it’ll help the discussion, though.

I have from the beginning believed that the Israeli “settlements” in the West Bank were immoral and a senseless obstacle to peace. I agree with Carter that ‘apartheid’ is a good way to describe Israel’s dual governance of the West Bank in support of this colonization. That’s what we are debating here. Feel free to join in the debate.

I was assuming we were both adults, and that it was worth a try to resolve this issue such as this directly with you, person to person, rather than simply calling in the mods at the first opportunity.

That’s a strange definition of junior modding. But since you prefer that I report your post, then I shall do you that courtesy.

159

It’s still your role in this debate to demonstrate the relevance of these things. If my ignorance of such is such a deep flaw in my arguments, then surely you can cite from your knowledge of these things, and shred my pathetic arguments.

I’m waiting.

Look, if it’s too much trouble for you, you’re in the wrong forum.

160

And how long ago was Wales conquered? Last time I checked, it’s against international law to take land by conquest.

(If I’m wrong, please correct me)