I’m not sure why they let it happen or don’t make laws against it.
I have a simple solution.
Make it a capital offense to throw a rock during a protest punishable by life in prison, I think that would put a quick stop to it.
What do you think?
I think a better question would be why shooting an unarmed 12-year-old to death in his father’s arms is tolerated in the Middle East.
hmmm, a simple solution to a complex problem? You must be either a genius or a dummy!
BTW, a capital offense is one punishable with capital punishment.
So you think passing a law making it illegal to do something will make it stop? Good luck to you.
Olentzero:
Tell you what: You prove to me that whoever fired the fatal shot into the kid was aiming for him (rather than the kid being accidentally caught in the crossfire between two gun-fighting factions), and I’ll find out why such a thing is “tolerated.”
If I remember the event correctly, only one side was shooting.
So the question here might well be “why do people throw rocks in protest in the Middle East?”
I have a couple of guesses:
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Until recently, it was very difficult to procure firearms. So if you want to hurt someone or break something, you have to find something else.
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Rocks are all over the damned place over there. Unlike a pike or a sword, rocks can be thrown from a position of partial concealment.
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A thrown rock can be fatal, but it is more likely to simply hurt someone. A thrown rock can cause a lot of material damage, too. Let’s give our Palestinian pals a nod here: rocks are scarcely more dangerous than the “non-fatal” ball-bearing filled grenades that the Israelis use for crowd control. Can’t you see? They’re trying to be civil about this…
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We’re talking tradition here. A good stoning was one way for the public to show contempt for an inexcusable act. I think that tradition is alive and well.
There is also another ancient tradition in the ME: slinging. You’ll notice above I tried to use the term “thrown rock.” A rock delivered by sling can have a much longer range, a much higher velocity, and is deadly. Toss a rock at a tank, and you’re making a social statement. Sling a rock at anything remotely near an exposed human, and you’re trying to kill someone.
Olentzero:
You don’t remember correctly. Here’s some quotes from yesterday’s Newsday (emphasis mine):
Mohammed al-Durra died in his father’s arms after the two were trapped in crossfire
“There was an investigation by the major-general of the southern command and apparently [the boy was killed by] Israeli army fire at the Palestinians who were attacking them violently with a great many petrol bombs, rocks and very massive fire,” Giora Eiland, head of army operations, told Israel Radio.
The boy’s mother, Amal, told Newsday the father and son were returning from a fruitless trip to buy a car and stumbled into the gunbattle.
Chaim Mattis Keller
You don’t remember it correctly. Last night I turned on my television to see Palestinians with AK-47s firing into Israeli positions. I’ve been seeing it for a week. I am pretty sure the AK-47 is not a rock-throwing device.
This is one of those unfortunately common cases where both sides are generations away from being mature enough to solve the problem on their own. It’s cliche, but for all intents and purposes, they’re both wrong.
Let’s see if we can’t get this tossed over to Great Debates 
…
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by RickJay *
**
RickJay, I disagree with your last point, but I don’t think I can convice you.
Let’s start waaaay over here: If the colonies had lost the Revolutionary War, would we be British today?
So does the fact that he may have been caught in crossfire make that boy’s death any more acceptable? Or is it just an unfortunate incident resulting from the Palestinians’ obstinate refusal to be steamrollered into submission?
Perhaps I’m reading too much into cmkeller’s original challenge, but it smacks too much to me of “If the Palestinians didn’t use guns or even have them, that boy wouldn’t have died in the first place.”
**OlentZero[/b[,
Of course the boy’s death is not “acceptable;” No death is ever “acceptable.” The boy is a casualty of Revolutionary War.
A Revolution which, at last check, his side is losing.
>> the Palestinians’ obstinate refusal to be steamrollered into submission
Well, it seems the rest of the world keeps brokering peace agreements where the Palestinians get land from the Israelis in exchange for peace. No sooner do they get the land when they start the violence all over again. In this case even their leader, Arafat, is unable to control them. Not to mention the abuses already publicised by palestinians on palestinians in the zone they control.
Olentzero, I’m going to ignore, for the moment, your propagandized view of history. Instead, I will simply point you back to the intent of this thread.
The original poster asked, with extreme hyperbole, why rock-throwing, an intentional act of violence, is tolerated to the extent that it does not carry a capital sentence.
You responded why the death of this 12-year-old boy (who you call “unarmed,” but who had, apparently, been amongst the stone-throwers earlier…another point I’ll ignore for now), was similarly “tolerated.”
I responded that the 12-year-old’s death was an accidental casualty, and as such, shooting 12-year-olds is not in any way considered tolerated behavior for Israelis. I thus challenged you to prove that shooting 12-year-olds was considered tolerable behavior. You have yet to prove that.
As an aside, in the course of that post, I had said the 12-year-old’s death occurred in the middle of a gun fight. You said that you didn’t think both sides were shooting guns. I gave you some quotes from Newsday, with a link to the article (which should last a week before it goes into their payment-required web archive), indicating that both sides were indeed shooting guns.
Are we clear now? At no time did I say that the Palestinian possession of guns made the 12-year-old’s death acceptable. On the contrary, my point was that the death was accidental, in the middle of a shootout, and therefore could not be said to be an act that was “tolerated.”
Chaim Mattis Keller
You’re all over the place here, cmkeller. I see contradictions aplenty.
What, exactly, was the boy doing there? In your reply asserting there was crossfire (which I admit I was mistaken about), you say
But then you assert
**
So what is it? Was he caught in the crossfire on his way home or did he bring his death upon himself by rioting?
Where? I’ve read this thread three times and I see no such assertion from you previous to the post in which this appeared.
As to the point of our discussion:
And the gunfight that ensued wasn’t?! “We didn’t mean to start shooting, it was an accident!”
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No… you said
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which, if he was one of the stone-throwers you claim he was, you have just proven yourself.
No, that you did not. I merely said that such a sentiment seemed to me to be the underlying tone to the original challenge you posted.
I may have what you consider a propagandized view of history, but if that’s what you call decrying a country that asserted itself through such atrocities as the massacre at Dir Yassein, then I’m content to live with that.
Oh, yes… I wanted to post a link to this [url=“http://www.independent.co.uk/news/World/Middle_East/2000-10/fisk021000.shtml”]article* just as fodder for discussion.
Lemme fix that for ya.
So would moving this thread be the SDMB equivalent of relocating settlers?
My paranoid survivalist friend refers to his guns as “rock throwers” over the phone whenever he’s worried about somebody tapping the line.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by sdimbert *
**Let’s see if we can’t get this tossed over to Great Debates …
No, they wouldn’t. What’s the connection?
The conflict between Arab and Jew in the middle east just isn’t simple enough to say “they’re wrong, and they’re right.” Both sides have a long history of using deplorable and criminal methods in the pursuit of their goals. Neither side seems interested in a genuine resolution.
Some look at this and see bad Arabs and noble Jews; some see noble Arabs and bad Jews. I don’t see any nobility at all in the whole stinking mess.
OK, I’m a little biased here, but lemme lend a few cents :
I maintain the Oslo treaty was not about peace. It was about Israel making a strategic withdrawal from territories it no longer wishes to control while still maintaining face. The same thing happened in Lebanon, except the Israelis could not maintain face.
This being said, if the Israelis had a reasonable partner in Oslo, and could compromise with that reasonable partner, it would stand to reason that peace would be a side effect of Oslo. The Palestinians, getting a homeland, would have no reason to pursue violence against the Israelis.
So, what happened? Three thorns : settlers, refugees, and Jerusalem.
Now, as I see it, these thorns stood insurmountable by the Palestinians. I see the blame resting squarely on Arafat, even though he may not even have the public mandate to compromise on these points.
Barak came to Camp David this year with reasonable compromises. They could not take 1 million destitute, violent, and Israel-hating refugees back into Israel, so they offered to take 10,000 and pay billions for the others.
On Jerusalem, Israel could not compromise any more than it did at Camp David. They allegedly came with an offer of partial sovereignty for Temple Mount, and formation of a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem named Al-Quds, with incorporation of the large Jewish suburbs in East Jerusalem into Jerusalem proper. This was farther than anybody has ever gone, by far.
Arafat rejected both of these (allegedly). He needed total sovereignty in Jerusalem, and did not accept on the refugees. He stated that he is negotiating for Jerusalem with 1 billion Muslims behind him.
A little bit of background on the Old City. Temple Mount’s western margin is called the Western Wall. It is the holiest site in Judaism. 100 meters away, on Temple Mount, is the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa mosque (I think this is the name of the black-domed mosque) which is the 3rd holiest site in Islam. From 1948-1967, Jordan occupied Jerusalem, and all the synagogues in the Old City were destroyed. Access to the Western Wall was of course denied to Jews. In 1967, when the Israeli army took the Western Wall, they found a donkey stable on it, and had to climb through donkey excrememnt in order to pray there.
There must be a compromise on Jerusalem. Israel cannot afford to battle a jihad. Yet, history states that Jews need access to their holy sites. Barak cannot negotiate with 1 billion Muslims. Arafat cannot expect to put the needs of 1 billion Muslims ahead of his people, who are starving.
The last (and I will get flamed for this) point is this : I truly believe that the Palestinians (and most of the Arab world) cannot accept that there will be a Jewish state in 50 years. I think they view the Jewish presence in the Middle East as temporary, and that with enough momentum, they will be able to push the Jews into the sea. This I belive has been their attitude since 1948, when many of the people who would become the refugees left their homes voluntarily because the invading Arab armies told them that they would make short work of Israel. The Jews, in my opinion, have mostly been on the side of peace, from the beginning. They accepted the UN boundaries for Israel that did not include Jerusalem. The Palestinians never did even that, as from the beginning, they could never accept a Jewish state in the region.
catches breath
I know I’m relatively new here, but I just had to get that off of my chest. Flame away.