# Why Should I Support Israel? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 29, 2008, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-support-israel/479015 "2008-12-29T01:32:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2009, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-support-israel/479015/241 "2009-01-06T17:04:05Z")
> [@tagos](#): > > You can inform yourself too. Inform myself of what, exactly? That I showed you, within the last 48 hours unless I miss my guess, exactly where the Fourth Geneva Convention specifically allows strikes against military targets no matter if civilians are present at those locations or not? I already knew that. That you’re repeating an untruth despite having already your ignorance fought? I already knew that. That you’re pretending to support international law while explicitly rejecting what international law actually has to say about hitting military targets in the midst of civilians? I already knew that too. What, pray tell, should I inform myself of? ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2009, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-support-israel/479015/242 "2009-01-06T17:05:52Z")
[Geneva Convention](http://deoxy.org/wc/wc-proto.htm) > [@](#): > > Article 51: Protection of the Civilian Population > > 1. The civilian population and individual civilians shall enjoy general protection against dangers arising from military operations. To give effect to this protection, the following rules, which are additional to other applicable rules of international law, shall be observed in all circumstances. > 2. The civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians, shall not be the object of attack. Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited. > 3. Civilians shall enjoy the protection afforded by this Section, unless and for such time as they take a direct part in hostilities. > 4. Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited. Indiscriminate attacks are: > 1. those which are not directed at a specific military objective; > 2. those which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective; or > 3. those which employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by this Protocol; and consequently, in each such case, are of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction. > > 5. Among others, the following types of attacks are to be considered as indiscriminate: > 1. an attack by bombardment by any methods or means which treats as a single military objective a number of clearly separated and distinct military objectives located in a city, town, village or other area containing a similar concentration of civilians or civilian objects; and > 2. an attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated. You simply cannot blow up civilians, attack families in their homes, not even if you allege weapons are stored there. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2009, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-support-israel/479015/243 "2009-01-06T17:08:02Z")
Ok…I’ll try and say this without rancor or rolling of eyes (which was, I admit, my first inclination). > [@](#): > > You’re the one defending them so I assume you are following the news. Yes, I’m following the news. Rayyan deliberately made himself a target and he deliberately did so in a civilian area, putting his entire family at risk…again, deliberately. Additionally, though your cite doesn’t go into the details, it was pretty obvious due to the secondary explosions that there was a substantial weapons and ammo cache AlSO under his house. Let’s look back over what you claimed: [QUOTE=tagos] They are not just going after military targets. They are destroying apartment blocks and killing families just to assassinate an individual in their home. That is simply inexcusable barbarism. [/QUOTE] How was Rayyan NOT a military target exactly? Details on the strike on the school are still murky. I’ll point out a few things though. It was a single missile that struck the school which would tend to lead most people to suspect that this was probably an accident…i.e. that the Israeli’s were targeting something else near there (like, say, the rocket positions they claim they were shooting at). I will await further details on this. As for the Mosque cite I’ve read several articles (that were a bit more detailed than your 2 paragraph cite…funny that, ehe?) that show a bigger picture there. Here is one of them: > [@](#): > > JERUSALEM: Mosques and Muslim prayer halls have not escaped the relentless bombardment of Hamas targets in Gaza by Israel, which claims the Islamic militants misuse some of the holy sites as weapons depots and command centers. > > Yuval Diskin, the head of the Shin Bet security service, told the Israeli Cabinet Wednesday that Hamas leaders were taking shelter in the mosques “on the assumption that Israel will not attack.” You seem to be under the impression that because civilians were killed that means civilians were targeted, or because civilian structures were destroyed that means they were the target. And yet your cites don’t show this. You cite a high level military leader of Hamas being attacked and killed. You show a school hit in what is obviously a war zone as ‘proof’ of…gods know what. You show a 2 paragraph cite on a mosque destroyed without bothering to find out WHY a mosque was deliberately targeted (I’m sure you already ‘knew’ why, ehe?). > [@](#): > > If you feel able to express your views so caustically maybe you should, oh I don’t know, actually make some effort to keep up. Ah…the irony. It burns… -XT ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2009, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-support-israel/479015/244 "2009-01-06T17:17:24Z")
Your own cites shows that your argument is full of shit Tagos. It specifically says that civilians can not be the _object_ of an attack, but Israel has been has _military_ targets as the object of their attacks. Attacks targeted against military targets aren’t indiscriminate, so I have no idea why you even wasted the electrons to quote that. Targeted attacks are actually the antithesis of indiscriminate attacks, so you’ve been hoisted by your own petard. Israel has, in fact, not treated disparate military targets as one single object. This is proven by the fact that they’re using guided munitions to hit individual cites rather than carpet bombing the entire area. And, of course, even the last line says that it is only disallowed if it is excessive to the direct military advantage to be gained. Using the smallest possible level of force to take out military targets _obviously_ does not violate that. > [@](#): > > You simply cannot blow up civilians, attack families in their homes, not even if you allege weapons are stored there. Sez you. The GC calls bullshit. You are explicitly denying the legitimacy of international law while pretending that it’s what you’re using to support your position. The 4th GC specifically and unambiguously states that the presence of protected persons does not render valid military targets immune from attack. So yeah, if weapons are stored there, the GC says you can bomb it. You are busy inventing a position and pretending that it is in line with the GC. It aint. And it’s threadbare. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2009, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-support-israel/479015/245 "2009-01-06T17:19:08Z")
[QUOTE=tagos] You simply cannot blow up civilians, attack families in their homes, not even if you allege weapons are stored there. [/QUOTE] Good grief…did you even bother to read the part you cited there?? Let alone the rest of it? > [@](#): > > 1. Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited. Indiscriminate attacks are: And what are they? > [@](#): > > 1. those which are not directed at a specific military objective; > [@](#): > > 1. those which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective; or Just so you understand: > [@](#): > > 1. an attack by bombardment by any methods or means which treats as a single military objective a number of clearly separated and distinct military objectives located in a city, town, village or other area containing a similar concentration of civilians or civilian objects; and This would be carpet bombing. Which is a no-no. Which isn’t what the Israeli’s are doing. So…you are wrong. If you ARE attacking a specified military objective then you aren’t doing attacking indiscriminately…which means it’s not prohibited. You see…they actually thought about these things and took into account that some cowardly bastards WOULD try and hide military targets among a civilian population at some time and use them as shield. I’m not going to bother doing it, but if you read further you will find some REAL violations of the GC…and you’ll never guess who are the one’s in violation. Not that it matters since it’s not like it will either change your mind or that they will send in the GC police to round up the perps and cart them off to GC jail. -XT ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2009, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-support-israel/479015/246 "2009-01-06T17:28:42Z")
BTW, one really funny thing form tagos cite (well, aside from the hilarious bit about him not reading it and citing something that actually blew away his own position): > [@](#): > > Article 49: Definition of Attacks and Scope of Application > > 1. “Attacks” means acts of violence against the adversary, whether in offense or in defense. > 2. The provisions of this Protocol with respect to attacks apply to all attacks in whatever territory conducted, including the national territory belonging to a Party to the conflict but under the control of an adverse Party. > 3. The provisions of this Section apply to any land, air or sea warfare which may affect the civilian population, individual civilians or civilian objects on land. They further apply to all attacks from the sea or from the air against objectives on land but do not otherwise affect the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict at sea or in the air. > 4. The provisions of this Section are additional to the rules concerning humanitarian protection contained in the Fourth Convention, particularly in Part II thereof, and in other international agreements binding upon the High Contracting Parties, as well as to other rules of international law relating to the protection of civilians and civilian objects on land, at sea or in the air against the effects of hostilities. I don’t remember whether DtC’s classic attempt to re-define what the word ‘attack’ means was in this thread or one of the others but just thought I’d add this cites take on what it means. 😛 -XT ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2009, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-support-israel/479015/247 "2009-01-06T17:34:20Z")
Well, there’s glory for you. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2009, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-support-israel/479015/248 "2009-01-06T21:03:31Z")
Nice use for Signature. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-support-israel/479015/249 "2009-01-08T11:42:50Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > -XT I’m glad you are comfortable parsing words and facts to be an apologist for utter barbarism. Killing a family just because you believe there MIGHT be weapons there is evil. These rockets have killed no more than 20 people in their entire history of usage so slaughtering civilians indiscriminately on the off-chance you might assassinate someone and get some ALLEGED weapons is just plain savagery. And clearly disproportionate by any definition of the word. But carry on with your apologetics. This is a nation of war criminals fighting a nation of terrorists. One side has glorified bottle rockets the other has F16’s. Fuck the lot of them and fuck anyone who justifies either side’s actions. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-support-israel/479015/250 "2009-01-08T12:59:22Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > They’re not civilian targets any more if they store weapons and shelter millitants. I’m not so sure. To take the first example : in a regular war, would it be OK to target and blow up a family’s house because a general lives there? And for the other examples, we don’t know what was the target, we don’t even know _if_ there was a target, so how could you tell? ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-support-israel/479015/251 "2009-01-08T14:12:30Z")
The likelihood of things like this destruction the UN refugee site happening as the operation expanded scope and continued beyond the minimum is what I have been so afraid of. Look **xtisme** I completely agree that there are circumstances in which a certain amount of “collateral” (I hate that word - it just seems such a mealy way to say it) damage is unavoidable, especially when the enemy has positioned itself intentionally within civilian areas. In each circumstance a decision needs to be made: what is the risk and likely number of civilian deaths vs how important that military objective is to achieve. Obviously some here believe that the ethical balance should be way shifted to point where (if it is Israel at least) no number of deaths caused is worth any objective, and obviously I am not one of those people. But the number of civilians who are getting killed in this expansion of the effort are gaining little additional for Israeli objectives and may actually be harming them. From an ethical perspective it is declaring that the Israeli leadership does not place much value on the lives of civilians lives. Not quite as little value as Hamas places but that is no bar by which to judge. It further reveals that they do not understand how providing Hamas with the civilian deaths that they so desire is serving Hamas’s ends more than Israel’s. Just because it is true that _a_ degree of civilian death and harm is ethically acceptable does not make _any_ degree of civilian deaths acceptable. There is no bright line where that changes but as fuzzy as that line may be I think Israel has now crossed it. Israel needs to halt this operation, should not have proceeded with it beyond the first several days of relatively precision bombing, has harmed _itself_ in taking it this far, and needs to be pressured by America to halt it. I say that as a strong supporter of Israel. On a separate note, **clair** , I would appreciate a response to my post# 229. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-support-israel/479015/252 "2009-01-08T14:32:00Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > On a separate note, **clair** , I would appreciate a response to my post# 229. Well… I noticed your post, but it seemed to be merely an expression of your views, and not particularly requiring a response, so I’m not really sure what you would want me to answer to. ETA : Also, despite being connected, I’m on and off the site trying (vainly) to sleep, so I might not answer immediatly. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-support-israel/479015/253 "2009-01-08T14:43:20Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > I’m not so sure. To take the first example : in a regular war, would it be OK to target and blow up a family’s house because a general lives there? Certainly, if it was being used as the general’s military HQ. Similarly, if a regular army established a machine-gun nest on the second floor of a house, the whole house becomes a legitimate target. How could it be otherwise? If one allowed military figures to use civilians as shields, you are in effect condoning their inclusion into warfare as a legitimate tactic. The humanitarian intent of international norms of conflict is, to the extent possible, to differentiate between civilian and military persons - allowing some sort of absolute rule of exemption for civilian casualties has the paradoxical result of encouraging armies to tie kiddies to the top of tanks as a sort of living armour. Hence the notion has developed that it is those deliberately using such tactics who are in ethical violation, not those shooting at them. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-support-israel/479015/254 "2009-01-08T14:44:42Z")
[QUOTE=tagos] But carry on with your apologetics. [/QUOTE] > [@](#): > > This is a nation of war criminals fighting a nation of terrorists. One side has glorified bottle rockets the other has F16’s. Fuck the lot of them and fuck anyone who justifies either side’s actions. Well, it skates around the insult rules of GD but I think on this note I’ll shuffle off. There is simply no point trying to continue this with you. You have no idea what you are talking about and your insults aren’t even interesting enough to make me want to play the snark game with you. Maybe Finn will still play with you. For my part, ado. -XT ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-support-israel/479015/255 "2009-01-08T16:35:15Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > Well… I noticed your post, but it seemed to be merely an expression of your views, and not particularly requiring a response, so I’m not really sure what you would want me to answer to. > ETA : Also, despite being connected, I’m on and off the site trying (vainly) to sleep, so I might not answer immediatly. No hurry. My position remains that both sides hold on to mythologies regarding that mandatory period. You had expressed a belief in one of those myths: that Jews came in and forced Arabs out of their lands in the Mandatory period. That is untrue. The reversal of Arab emigration out of the area to an immigration period coincident with Jewish immigration is confirmed by the numbers on [this Palestinian site.](http://www.pcbs.gov.ps/DesktopModules/Articles/ArticlesView.aspx?tabID=0&lang=en&ItemID=185&mid=10624) The significant Arab population growth during that period was no doubt also a reflection of fairly high birth rates and decreasing mortality (ie a natural increase) but it most certainly also included immigration as well. Many [new Arab villages were established](http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:MRZeNTnrc6oJ:social.huji.ac.il/newsletter/june/Seth%2520poster.ppt+population+palestine+mandatory&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=9&gl=us&client=firefox-a) during the mandatory period. No, Arab antipathy to the new Jews was not based on their being kicked off of their land or of being put into an economic circumstance that was worse than other areas around them. _Objectively_ Palestinian Arabs were better off as a consequence of Jewish immigration during most of the mandatory period. But that does not mean that the Zionist mythologies are any more accurate. A somewhat wordy but very fair explanation of how early Jewish immigration helped create Arab resentment can be found in [this Google books extract.](http://books.google.com/books?id=qBdvxmuAwxYC&pg=PA53&lpg=PA53&dq=population+palestine+mandatory&source=web&ots=QCGpJXoUCy&sig=BcXmr2MhGi-1WBVyQSFavlIydg4&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA53,M1) Even those two extracted chapters can provide a better understanding of how the two conflicting narratives developed and how those different narratives triggered the ongoing cycle of violence that we are now stuck with. There was a certain naive arrogance among the Jewish immigrants that the rising tide would convince the Arab population that Jews coming in was a good thing, yet many felt no need to build cultural bridges with their Arab neighbors. Most failed to learn Arabic or local customs and Arabs were more often employed _by_ Jews as laborers. They did not realize that a people can benefit from something and yet still be very resentful of it and how much that keeping themselves separate (by language and culture) would help create that very exploitable resentment. In retrospect, and stripping away the respective mythologies, it is not difficult to see what could have and should have been done differently. Neither side was made of evil people even if both sides had some bad actors among them. But mistakes were made and bad actors exploited the mistakes. My only hope in a response from you is a recognition that the early history is not so one sided as you initially expressed and a hope that perhaps some of us from each side can come to accept that the realities are not as Black and White as some on each side try to make them out to be. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-support-israel/479015/256 "2009-01-08T22:12:09Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Maybe Finn will still play with you. Nah, I’m not quite that masochistic. We’re now at the point where correctly stating international law is an ‘apologia’ (much like, I assume, correctly stating income tax laws are apologetics for taxation, I guess). Obeying the international laws of war are barbarism, but sitting back and allowing your civilians to be rocketed without end is enlightened leadership. The acts of specifically targeting only military objectives are indiscriminate attacks on civilians instead. Acting on military intelligence is not permissible and weapons caches are innocent until proven guilty by a jury of 12 of their peers, once Hamas is kind enough to bring their rocket launchers in nice brown boxes, as evidence to their trials. High explosive rockets deliberately fitted for anti-personnel uses and able to destroy buildings and vehicles are glorified bottle rockets. And, of course, we have the favorite canard of the pseudo-moral worldview: Israel’s actions must be “proportionate”, because “disproportionate” actions are wrong. And yet, no matter how many times the question is answered, not one single person who advocates a “proportionate” response responds that they’re actually okay with Israel indiscriminately launching rockets at Gaza every time a group in Gaza launches them at Israel. The demands for a “proportionate” response are a dodge, a smoke screen. Their motive is not for an even response military, but to rationalize the call for _no_ military response. That’s not even to mention how actions that are explicitly legal under the international laws of war are, actually, explicitly illegal because Tagos says so. When someone gets it into their head that the facts don’t matter and they can invent their own, willy nilly, it’s really not worth my time to break out the clue-by-four and crack heads with it. At least, not past the point where I get bored. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-support-israel/479015/257 "2009-01-08T23:44:42Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > No hurry. > My position remains that both sides hold on to mythologies regarding that mandatory period. You had expressed a belief in one of those myths: that Jews came in and forced Arabs out of their lands in the Mandatory period. That is untrue. The reversal of Arab emigration out of the area to an immigration period coincident with Jewish immigration is confirmed by the numbers on [this Palestinian site.](http://www.pcbs.gov.ps/DesktopModules/Articles/ArticlesView.aspx?tabID=0&lang=en&ItemID=185&mid=10624) The significant Arab population growth during that period was no doubt also a reflection of fairly high birth rates and decreasing mortality (ie a natural increase) but it most certainly also included immigration as well. Many [new Arab villages were established](http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:MRZeNTnrc6oJ:social.huji.ac.il/newsletter/june/Seth%2520poster.ppt+population+palestine+mandatory&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=9&gl=us&client=firefox-a) during the mandatory period. Note that I never mentioned in this thread the issue of Arabs being forced out of their land. Also, your cites and references don’t really address this issue. They don’t say anything about the transfers of property in Palestine and how it disrupted (or not) the Arab community, and was perceived by it. Regarding the growth of the Arab population, I had already provisionally conceded this point, and I would note that directing me towards a Palestinian site to support your figures does more to convince me than directing me to an aggressively Zionist one. > [@](#): > > No, Arab antipathy to the new Jews was not based on their being kicked off of their land or of being put into an economic circumstance that was worse than other areas around them. _Objectively_ Palestinian Arabs were better off as a consequence of Jewish immigration during most of the mandatory period. Here, I’ve a problem. Not with this idea, because I never assumed that the Palestinians were economically, on the overall, worse off due to the Jewish immigration, but with the conclusion one may draw from it. You’re talking about myths and narratives. And there’s one I’m quite familiar with due to the French colonization in Algeria and the stance of the former colonists : “We build this and that, we brought trade and prosperity, they were better off thanks to our presence, what the fuck did they complain about?” It’s not that it’s factually untrue, it’s the inability to recognize that it’s probably not a valid argument, and in any case not a convincing argument (evidence being that it rarely convinces the locals) . Sorry for using this word again, but it’s easily recognizable as a typically colonialist or neo-colonialist argumentation (something, by the way, that American posters might be less familiar with, and more oblivious to, than French or British ones). The presence of Jewish immigrants brought some level of prosperity. So what? Did this address the grievances of the Arab population? Did this justify ex post-facto their presence? I’m going to give a comparison, which, though not really applicable and a caricature, might be more familiar and have more resonance in Americans’ ears : “Aren’t blacks better off here than they would be if their ancestors have stayed in Africa?” > [@](#): > > But that does not mean that the Zionist mythologies are any more accurate. A somewhat wordy but very fair explanation of how early Jewish immigration helped create Arab resentment can be found in [this Google books extract.](http://books.google.com/books?id=qBdvxmuAwxYC&pg=PA53&lpg=PA53&dq=population+palestine+mandatory&source=web&ots=QCGpJXoUCy&sig=BcXmr2MhGi-1WBVyQSFavlIydg4&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA53,M1) Even those two extracted chapters can provide a better understanding of how the two conflicting narratives developed and how those different narratives triggered the ongoing cycle of violence that we are now stuck with. There was a certain naive arrogance among the Jewish immigrants that the rising tide would convince the Arab population that Jews coming in was a good thing, yet many felt no need to build cultural bridges with their Arab neighbors. Most failed to learn Arabic or local customs and Arabs were more often employed _by_ Jews as laborers. They did not realize that a people can benefit from something and yet still be very resentful of it and how much that keeping themselves separate (by language and culture) would help create that very exploitable resentment. I read the chapter you linked too, and it was a very interesting read. However, it is consistent with my perceptions and my stance regarding the Jewish immigration. It was a movement initiated in Europe, by Europeans who held the views Europeans typically had at the time. For instance the elements that you stress, disregard for the locals’ culture and aspirations, paternalism, a sense of a mission, an expectation to adapt the locals to the norms of the immigrants, but also despise and eventually an attempt to plainly ignore their presence. And Zionism on top of that, which means that there was a priority (the establishment of a Jewish state) that, when all was said and done, trumped any other consideration. This text also does not hide, even though it’s not its main subject, an early and constant opposition by the Arabs to the Jewish presence (it mentions for instance early attacks around 1920, the Arab educated elites who published the printed material available in Arabic, the Arab’s constant refusal to come to a political agreement). While you apparently seem to perceive them as tools manipulated by some power-hungry bad guys. Was mentioned also the idea that the Arab had, well, the whole Arabic world for them (Syria, Egypt, Iraq, etc…) and wouldn’t mind this little strip of land being used to create a Jewish state. Which of course was forgetting that Arabs were living in this little strip of land, considered it home and couldn’t care less about Cairo or Damascus staying Arab. And finally I would note that these “myths” and “narratives” are still obviously present in the mind of many very contemporaneous posters. Read the current threads, and you’ll find the same ideas, essentially, being rehearsed. The Arabs are better off in Israel than anywhere else, the Arabs are unwashed, barbaric masses who should grow up, the Arabs don’t know what is good for them, the Arabs are tools used by the evil Hamas leaders as if they would otherwise not have personal grievances, the Arabs have the whole Arabic world for them, and Israel only a tiny bit of land, so why do they complain, and so on. The “narratives” and “myths” don’t seem to have changed as much as you probably would want to believe. > [@](#): > > In retrospect, and stripping away the respective mythologies, it is not difficult to see what could have and should have been done differently. Neither side was made of evil people even if both sides had some bad actors among them. But mistakes were made and bad actors exploited the mistakes. It’s too easy in my opinion to ascribe the blame to “bad actors exploiting the mistakes”. Yes, leaders hold a special responsibility, but they don’t appear out of nowhere. If the “bad actors” got the upper hand over the good actors, it’s because their ideas were more in line with the aspirations of their respective side. Aspiration generally born from self-interest, with few regard for the well-being of the other groups, as it is essentially always the case. It’s not like the populations hadn’t really any strongly held opinions, some bad dudes came in 1948 telling them about starting a war and they answered “Oh, well! We’ve nothing else to do, so, why not?” > [@](#): > > My only hope in a response from you is a recognition that the early history is not so one sided as you initially expressed and a hope that perhaps some of us from each side can come to accept that the realities are not as Black and White as some on each side try to make them out to be. Well, I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed because, as I wrote above, these informations, though interesting, didn’t change my views, since essentially they’re perfectly in line with the perceptions I had. It’s not that I’ve a black and white perception, it’s that I think the Jewish immigration in Palestine was essentially a colonial enterprise, based on the same premises as other such enterprises, with a special Zionist flavour. And the informations you provided to me don’t contradict this perception of mine. If anything, it reinforces my perception because, despite some differences related to the specificity of the Zionist movement, I found described in the documentation you provided to me the same kind of reasonings, perceptions, expectations and prejudices I would find in a similar document about, to take again this example, the idealist supporters of the “civilizing mission of France” and the Algerian colonists at the same epoch. Which isn’t surprising since despite being Jewish, the theorists were essentially the same guys with the same cultural background. I went out for a moment before posting, and meanwhile wondered to what extent the opinion of people who strongly disagreed with me about the comparison between the Jewish immigration and colonialism could be the result also of a “black and white” (that is, utterly black) perception of the motives and history of colonisation during its most recent (late 19th century to the 50s) inceptions. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-support-israel/479015/258 "2009-01-08T23:52:09Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > Also, your cites and references don’t really address this issue. They don’t say anything about the transfers of property in Palestine and how it disrupted (or not) the Arab community, and was perceived by it. Ooops! On review, I notice I’ve missed your second link that might very well be addressing this specific issue. I’ll read it later. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2009, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-support-israel/479015/259 "2009-01-09T00:05:26Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Certainly, if it was being used as the general’s military HQ. I note that you added an “if”. Do you have informations about this house being used as a HQ, or are you only assuming so? > [@](#): > > Similarly, if a regular army established a machine-gun nest on the second floor of a house, the whole house becomes a legitimate target. And in the cases I was referring to, what are your evidences that there was a machine gun on the second floor? > [@](#): > > How could it be otherwise? If one allowed military figures to use civilians as shields, you are in effect condoning their inclusion into warfare as a legitimate tactic. The humanitarian intent of international norms of conflict is, to the extent possible, to differentiate between civilian and military persons - allowing some sort of absolute rule of exemption for civilian casualties has the paradoxical result of encouraging armies to tie kiddies to the top of tanks as a sort of living armour. Hence the notion has developed that it is those deliberately using such tactics who are in ethical violation, not those shooting at them. That’s interesting, but in my post, to which you are responding, I was stating “we don’t know what was the target, not even if there was a target, so how could you tell it was a valid target?” and this hardly answer the question I was asking. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2009, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-support-israel/479015/260 "2009-01-09T00:22:48Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > I’m not so sure. To take the first example : in a regular war, would it be OK to target and blow up a family’s house because a general lives there? Sure, wouldn’t it? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-support-israel/479015.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-should-i-support-israel/479015.md?page=14)