I believed it was inflammatory because I was under the impression that the Big Bully analogy was referring solely to the Palestinians, which seemed a bit ridiculous to me.
If it refers to the all of the surrounding Arab states, I can see where it holds more water. I still don’t think it is very apt though because it has these connotations that portray the Arab states as being ever so powerful over the state of Israel, which has one of the most advanced militaries in the world. They have consistently won their battles and they are a nuclear power. I don’t think that there is the disparity of power that the Big Bully analogy implies. I also think that analogies aren’t the best way to explain this situation to people. Just my opinion.
As per cites. First of all the Times has crappy access to their back issues. I can’t afford their system of pay per article so I can’t cite it for you. As per your wish, I retract it.
I do have to ask you, what does that litany of facts do?
I don’t think it accomplishes much. The pro-Israeli side is already well versed in the long list of Palestinian violence so it isn’t granting them any new knowledge and it just inflames the pro-Palestinian side who will do their best to discredit that info.
Just as I have said before, it works the other way around. What if I were to spit out a lengthy list of Israeli atrocities? You would do your best to critique the validity of that list.
Guess what? I think everything thrown down would be true to a certain extent. The lists of atrocities would probably be mostly accurate. The critiques would have a grain of truth as well.
But it doesn’t do jack squat. And the vicious cycle continues.
On a side note…Did anyone see Arafat today? I think that something is wrong with his health. Perhaps his afflictions have reached a later stage than they have described to us.
Siding with the underdog - Israel is the David, the surrounding states are the Goliath. True as far as it goes but doesn’t cover all the ground.
If I were a palestinian I probably would throw rocks too. Being treated as a citizen second class is humiliating. Also, being treated as an underdog makes you behave like an underdog.
As stated in my post above: the israelis pride themselves as not giving in to force. Obviously, the palestinians feel the same - despite 80+ dead and 3000 wounded, they go on throwing stones. And if you believe Arafat ordered it all - why do the palestinians follow these orders? They don’t have to follow his orders.
Two possible reasons:
They are religious fanatics (all of them??? I doubt that in any given population, more than 5 or 10% lean towards true religious fanatism - and probably that number is far overstated. “Religious fanatism”, if occurring as a popular phenomenon, has to be backed up by bad treatment, percieved or real, or the group which is attacked.
They do feel humiliated and treated badly (all of them).
Remember that the israelis, in answer to terrorist attacks, have bombed civilians - lots of times. And now they complain that the arabs hate them? Come on. I have said it and I say it again - they have lost the high moral ground even against the palestinians. Now both sides have the same amount of blame.
In 1948, the arabs attacked the new-founded israelic state.
That was morally reprehensible. But also consider that before the second world war, there were next to no jews in palestine - nearly all the ground was owned by arabs. The Zionists brought a lot of money and bought large pieces of estate. So far so good. But after Israel was founded, large pieces of land were appropriated (is that the correct word?)
from arabs - not only plantation-sized but also homes of poor arabs. That is also morally reprehensible.
Today we like to think that all people are equal. This is, of course, far from being true. People should be treated equally, and all should have the same chances. Even this is far from achieved, but officially we try to achieve this goal. South africa was an international pariah because of the apartheid policy - and I hope rightly so? Nobody shunned or admonished the south african blacks if they rioted in the ghettoes.
You don’t think this is a valid comparison? So did I, until shortly ago.
But the comparison is even better than I thought in the beginning: The white in south africa were also heavily outnumbered, they were better armed, they looked down on the “niggers” (not all of them, but enough), they had the economic advantage and did everything to keep it, they crowded the blacks into townships and gave some of them badly-paid jobs. The townships were even declared independent states by the south african government, and in case of rioting they were cut off, and nobody was allowed to leave.
Come to think of: The first white settlers in south africa thought it was their god-given right to drive off the blacks since they were an inferior race.
The israelis thought it was their god-given right to drive off the palestinians since they owned this piece of real estate 200 years ago and was promised to them by god.
The longer I think about this comparison, the more it frightens me: Is it really that similar??
A parable (this is a true story. It happened on Times Square, something like 25 years ago, when my brother was a teenager. We’re getting old!):
My brother and a few of his friends were hanging out around Times Square when, on one of the side streets branching off from it, they saw a large crowd. Being curious, they wandered over and saw a little Arab attempting to get loose of two of his friends and beat up on a large black man who was watching, amazed, this little Arab work himself into a frenzy. The Arab was screaming “I want to die with honor!” The amazing thing about this story for my brother was not what was going on between the participants but the fact that a Maserati had been left with the engine running just waiting for someone to hop in and take it for a spin. Needless to say, my brother stood there and wished he could do that, just take it around the block and bring it back. Even if he wanted to, the crowd watching the goings on was too thick to get the car out of there.
Anyway, the black man’s girlfriend was there and pulled him away and into a taxi that was waiting there. As they got into the taxi and closed the door, the little Arab broke free, ran up to the taxi, and began banging on the door and the windows, trying to get at the black man, still screaming “I want to die with honor!”
Well, our man had had enough. Getting out of the taxi, he grabs the little twerp and begins banging him against the side of the taxi, yelling “Why you wanna fuck with me?” until he’s unconscious. The girlfriend and a white man from the crowd pull the black man away from the Arab. The white man pulls a badge out and id’s himself as an undercover cop. “Look”, he says, “I saw the whole thing. Just get back in the taxi and get out of here.” In the girlfriend and the man go, and the taxi pulls away from the scene.
In the meantime, the little Arab had been tossed in the back seat of the Maserati, and his two friends get in and start negotiating the car’s way through the crowd. As this is happening, the little Arab wakes up, sees where he is, and starts banging on the windows of the car (it must have been a two-door job) screaming again, “I want to die with honor!”
Remind you of anyone?
You may now go back to your previously scheduled thread.
Like any good parable, yours is a bit difficult to interpret. Should it be interpreted on all levels? Or only on one? You >can< apply it to both sides (Arafat/Sharon), you know.
P.S.: I have used “morally reprehensible” for both the intention of killing a whole nation on one side, and appropriation of lands on the other side. I did not want to equate them. My point only was that no-one in this mess has the moral high ground.
Well, of course. There are two sides to every story. In mine, Bill Bully has to have some justification for what he is doing. Otherwise the rest of the neighborhood (from whom he is trying to draw support) would just tell him to bug off.
I will respond to a few of Batard’s points at a time. My initd seems to be going wiggidy-wiggidy-wack, and the system keeps having kernel faults. Nice.
and
Again, this comparison between Israeli Arabs and South African Blacks or African Americans before Jim Crow is inflammatory rhetoric IMHO. It is no better than the old line about “Jews treat Arabs like Hitler treated Jews.” Israeli Arabs have the right to travel, the right to gather, the right to vote, religious freedom, freedom of speech and freedom of the press. This makes them free in my book. South African Blacks were not free – trust me, I was born there. I do think that Israeli Arabs are underpriveleged. Maybe a good comparison would be between them and African Americans today. In some places, African Americans are forming a psedo-underclass, and battle against societal bias (another thread, another time), but there are no laws against them rising to the highest ranks of the country.
Another nitpick – the “n-word” was not used in South Africa. They had an equally reprehensible “k-word.”
Maybe this is because when the Ultraorthodox riot, the IDF generally isn’t afraid for their lives. The Ultraorthodox tend not to storm police stations, find unarmed reservists in the office of the police commissioner, stab them several times, throw one of them out a window, beat him until he is dead, then mutilate the body by setting it on fire and dragging it through the streets behind a car. The IDF can contain Ultraorthodox riots, but have to act to stop Palestinian riots lest they themselves be killed.
See my above posts about arguing over the legitimacy of the State of Israel. The fact of the matter is that there are 4 million Jews there, and saying that the place that they live in has no right to exist is the equivalent of telling them all to move back to Europe. This is the equivalent of saying that all African Americans need to go back to Africa.
We are talking about Ha’Aretz. As in “The Land.” As in the Land of Israel. Of course they are going to have an Israeli bias. They are Israelis. I can guarantee you, however, that Ha’aretz is more objective than any of the Arab newspapers around the world.
Faulting the IDF to be quicker than the PA with press releases is not saying that the news media are particularly biases towards the IDF. They just get more information from them. Given the current state of affairs in Israel and taking point 1) into account, they are also going to trust the IDF releases more than the PA ones. The USA didn’t broadcast Japanese and German propoganda during World War II.
The IDF feels it is justified, so it releases press reports telling how it feels it was justified. That, and they are in a crisis, and so of course they are looking to boost morale. So they don’t publish all of their screw-ups.
I agree with your points on Arafat, except I have now become cynical. I feel that the purpose of Oslo was a “withdrawal with strength” approach to the West Bank. Peace would have been an amazing side-effect. The fact of the matter is the Israelis don’t want to send their sons into the West Bank any more than the Palestinians want them there. The Israelis need to guarantee that the Palestinian state will not work against Israel and not work to destabilize Israel. A good cite is “Let the Palestinians Declare Independence” by Douglas J. Feith in the September 11, 2000 “New Republic.”
Barak wanted to seal the deal Rabin and crew started. So, he came to Camp David this year with reasonable compromises on the 3 hangup points – settlers, Jerusalem, and refugees. On each, he was rebuffed. The Palestinians did not want to negotiate.
You see, Arafat knows perfectly well that, until he gets exactly what he wants, he can hold out and gain favorable propoganda points with the world media by sending stone-throwing children into the line of fire. He plays into the underdog sympathies of the world and the Israeli Left. And, it has worked. He is a genius. The problem is that he has now lost control.
This brings me to your last point, about population. The large Arab population is yet another fact exploited by Arafat on the refugee issue. Barak showed up at Camp David with a reasonable plan – take back tens of thousands (out of a million) and pay billions for the rest. Keep in mind that these are by and large indigent, violent, and rabidly anti-Israeli people. Arafat refused – he wanted guaranteed right of return rights for all 1 million refugees. Try to imagine a country of 4 million taking in 1 million of these refugees. This is like imagining the US taking in 65 million violent anti-US refugees. It isn’t a reasonable offer. Arafat knows it, the Israelis refuse, and he makes them look like the bad guys when the 12 year olds start to riot in the PA again. Genius.
The quickest way to a legitimate Palestinian state with a stable economy (and thus control the population) is the foundation of a peaceful Palestinian state which can coexist with Israel. As I have mentioned before in this thread, this new state would have a lot of stuff going for it, and they could receive large amounts of foreign aid from many sources (Arab nations, World Bank, USA, even Israel). Israel and Palestine in my world could be symbiotic. At first, Palestine would supply labor to Israel. With a stable and peaceful government, living conditions will improve. Its prime location for tourism would boost its fledgling economy. It already has infrastructure – docks, airports, and roads. A decade down the road, they could have the first heavy industry. Within 20 years, Israel and Palestine could both be happy and rich. They would be each other’s greatest trading partners.
But this assumes that Arafat will settle for a Palestinian state while Israel is still around. With every day that passes, I doubt this more and more. He could compromise – he just plain is not going to get Jerusalem while there are still Jews alive in the region to defend the Kotel. He is just plain not gonna get the right of return for 1 million refugees. He needs to be able to guarantee safety for Jews in Palestine, and guarantee access to Jewish and Christian holy sites.
He has not accomplished or compromised on any of these things.
[QUOTE]
*edwino *
**I will respond to a few of Batard’s points at a time. My initd seems to be going wiggidy-wiggidy-wack, and the system keeps having kernel faults. Nice.
and
It was not meant to be inflammatory - and I overstated with the citizen second class >legally<, I have to agree.
What I had in mind was a report in Haaretz that by administrative moves/whatever, they (i.e. israelic arabs, citizens of Israel) were not eligible for housing funding, their lands were appropriated (and AFAIK, this is still going on), which often subsequently ended/ends up in jewish hands - private and corporate. Again this is not citizen second class legally - you are right, they can vote and be elected, but it is still far from being treated fair, it is denigrating their rights - I hope you agree. You cannot argue that it was appropriated for the Jews still arriving from Europe who needed the lands to survive - the might does not make the right. I don’t want to compare it to Hitler - he did the same but also things far worse, but I can compare it to the serbs in Kosovo (although not Bosnia, that was worse, too).
Citizen second class factually, however, is correct. If the description in the Haaretz on the riots in Nazareth was correct, the israelic arabs were punished by IDF troops for defending against jewish rioters. You can claim error, or you can claim reflex (they are, arabs, after all, and the distinction between israelic arabs and palestinians is mostly a legal one). An error I could swallow - although then they should admit it - but reflex just underlines my point that the isaelic arabs are not treated, and not >viewed< as people with the same rights.
Concerning the comparison between south africa and the situation in israel/palestine - The parallel is between the blacks and the palestinians - >not< the israelic arabs. I did not state it in the part you cited but you should have been able to conclude it from the facts I stated in the following paragraph. The townships, the closing off the borders during violence, which prevented those who wanted to go to work from doing so, the “independent homelands” (not only Gaza, but also the pockets with palestinian rule within the occupied territory - for comparison, take a look at a thankfully obsolete map of the Homeland Bophutatswana. The geographic coincidence may be chance - the israelis probably set it up to maximize their control - but is (or should be) still embarrasing.
I will concede that in every case the israelis had good security reasons for cutting them off during rioting - but the comparison is there, and the reason is that the enclaves are simply too small to be economically self-sufficient in any significant way. The palestinians >had< to look for jobs in israel, where, of course, they only got the badly paid, marginal jobs (again, probably no direct intention).
Now, Israel/palestine is smaller than south africa, so partially this could not have been avoided - example Gaza - but the splintering of the enclaves on the west bank must have been deliberate policy - the same as the jewish settlement in e.g. Jericho, close to the jordan and far from the green line (mostly following the border line of 1967, I suppose)
[QUOTE]
*edwino *
As someone pointed out in this thread (too lazy/busy to find the citation), it is quite difficult to kill someone with a thrown stone.
Use of fireweapons by the palestinians during the intifada is, AFAIK, a new development which does not apply to previous encounters, whereas the use of rubberbullets by the IDF is.
[QUOTE]
*edwino *
If I#m correct, this happened after 80+ palestinians were shot dead and over 3000 wounded with shot to head and upper torso. After that (and listening to the no doubt inflammatory rhetoric of the formal and/or informal palsetinian leaders, I probably would have helped them if I were palestinian. The palestinians trowing stones now are young - what they have heard from the history will be distorted; what they experience from Israel is infuriating, and one can stand only so much.
I see that, give or take a few differences, we basically agree.
Another point: I doubt that Arafat fully rules the palestinians; I doubt that every riot has been ordered by him, and that he could stop any uprising >whenever he chose<. This is the weak point in the argument against Arafat, which goes like: “Either he is in power, than he does not want to stop the rioting, or he is not, then we don’t need to talk to him.”
I rather think he is in a position where he sits on the back of a running tiger, sometimes able to steer him by grabbing his ears, sometimes able to stop him, and sometimes deliberately enraging him.
On one hand you have Arafat with unclear political aims, on the other hand you have the palestinian people (most of them young & born after 1967, and indoctrinated - with words from one side, which help to interpret the deeds from the other side), which after so many years were fed up with the situation.
If their situation - especially the economic, but also the legal side - gets better, and visibly so, the full belly will think twice before picking up a stone. And no, some will go on throwing stones and buying Kalashnikovs, And no, the PA propaganda doesn’t help either.
If you don’t have any success with Arafat, you might think about ways to communicate with the palestine people directly. And with communicate I don`t mean exclusively talking. Fair treatment (I repeat myself), where it does not interfere with security, will help. Start with the israelic arabs - they are israelic citizens, after all.
So, this took quite long. I’m not sure if I will be able to go on discussing it at such length.
Eek! Batard, please check out our primer on Vbb coding so that you can learn how to quote properly. Also, if possible, please quote only the selected excerpts you are responding to, rather than the entire post. I would fix your post so it is easier to read, but I can’t even figure it out well enough that I know how to clean it up!
