the USA, Israel, and national interest

I also would express a little bit of pique, the same annoyance I heard this week in the voice of lefties calling in to NPR to speak with Francis Fukuyama. His new book basically says that Iraq was a big mistake -- that he was wrong -- and as a result, a lot of his former neo-con buddies don't speak to him anymore.

Anyway, my pique comes from the fact that after say, 40 years, hitched to Israel's wagon, after we have SO alienated the Muslim/Arab world, NOW they say a more circumspect view of Israel would be valuable. Mearsheimer is probably right, but at this point it's too little too late. Especially in terms of US national interest. More pressure on Israel might lead to peace but I'm not sure how much Arab-Israeli peace would actually help the US now.

I think it would help immensely, in the same way that, when a shoe is rubbing you raw, it helps to take off that shoe. The healing isn't instantaneous and much of the pain remains for a time, but at least it removes the pressure from the sore spot.

Pertinent companion reading, perhaps: http://foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3359

hese individuals are more likely to turn to terrorism when the economy is weak and jobs are in short supply. When the economy is good, “high-quality” persons generally have access to lucrative jobs relative to their “low-quality” counterparts, and the cost of leaving a good job in order to participate in a terrorist movement is relatively high. That helps explain why engineers and other technical persons with a history of underemployment get involved in terrorism. They are both available and desired by terrorist organizations, particularly during periods of economic stagnation and downturn.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/furniture/northern_ireland/understanding/parties_paramilitaries/ira_290.jpg

After all, what harm does Israel actually do to the region outside of its immediate vicinity (Lebanon, the territories)? I suppose once Arab powers could have argued that Israel was an expansionist threat, but since it gave back Sinai and hasn't made any attempts to grab land beyond its wranglings within the territories I don't think this is a legitimate argument anymore. What military action Israel has taken in the region has always been on the pretext of threats to its own security, which are largely quite real.

Certainly the plight of the Palestinians is dire, but it's an awfully big leap of logic to say that it justifies a man from Yemen or Pakistan attacking American civillians.

I think it's dangerously naive to assume that if we cut support to Israel we'd be any closer to ending the threat of terrorism or improving our situation in the Middle East.

M&W's stuff about Israel is very zeitgeist... I have had loads of hits (well, three or four) on my boring academic blog because I mentioned them and their article. That's more than it normally gets in a month! Go Mearsheimer and Walt!

Mearsheimer's entry on Wikipedia suggests that, like most Realists, he is a raving lunatic.

Otherwise, I do sometimes wonder myself what the US gains from the alliance, but I assume it must gain something. Perhaps it sees Israel as a kind of last resort ally should the rest of the region turn against us. I imagine there's a lot of intelligence information exchanged.

I think the case that our support of Israel is due to the Israel lobby and "Jewish vote" is greatly exaggerated. Jews are a small minority in this country, and though they may tend to vote in blocs, the majority of Jews went against Bush, the candidate perceived to be giving Israel freer reign. The lobby is powerful, but I think its power is overstated, including by AIPAC itself. Lobbyists like to exaggerate their influence because it helps them pull in money. There are plenty of equally or more powerful lobbies that could counter the Israel lobby were support of Israel truly against their interests -- the oil lobby in particular comes to mind, and that's our primary "practical" interest in the region in the first place, isn't it?

except for oil, as you mention, but oil isn't hurting from present US policy. the autocratic regimes currently in power in oil-rich arab countries allow US oil companies to do their thing, right? i don't know for sure but i suspect that US oil companies are doing well in iraq at present, and will be as long as it is being occupied by the US military. the bad case for oil companies is identical to the bad case for israel: islamist regimes coming to power.

even if what the authors reprehensibly label "The Lobby" (which btw they explicitly state is not synonymous with the "jewish american vote") is not the sole or even the major mover behind US israel policy, i'm still curious about the question of "if a voter decides it isn't in the US's best interests to remain israel's strong ally, can s/he vote for anyone who will represent his/her view?" and if the answer is no, is that a problem?

Well, according to the article's claims, it should matter very much to big oil what Israel does in the territories, because that's supposedly one of the big reasons we have a problem with fundamentalist Muslims. But if that were true, wouldn't big oil want to do something about it, since Islamic fundamentalism is probably the biggest threat to our access to oil? Yet the big oil administration we have now seems to take less interest than any past administration in what Israel does in the territories. And again, most Jews vote Democrat.

i think this is a good question and i'd be interested to know if there is a debate about this within the upper echelons of big oil, how they deal with this in their strategic vision, etc. there is a question of the importance of looking at short term interests (supporting israel so status quo does not change) vs long term interests (brokering a peace before future trends harmful to israel [demographic shifts for instance] make israel's position less tenable)

Yet the big oil administration we have now seems to take less interest than any past administration in what Israel does in the territories.

this could be seen as evidence of a differences in the relative influences of "The Lobby" and big oil (just saying)

After all, AIPAC may be powerful, but Bush, his family, and his cabinet are probably more tied to oil than to any other single influence.

I thought you might like to ponder the relative death statistics of children killed by the Israeli government and those killed by the variety of non-state actors issuing forth from an occupied territory. Or indeed the ratio of deaths in this conflict.

I'd hate to get all human rightsy on yo asses, but you know, it kinda misses the point to get all pol-sci when the root cause here is that the majority of people in the territories, doing their wrangling shit, aren't influenced by the fact that AIPAC exists. they react through the moral indignation of seeing a country praised for being 'one of us' in lib-dem western industrial circles whilst engaging ion shit which, well, I thought we invaded folks for doing.

In other words - if Israel is a genuine liberal democracy, then it shouldn't do what it does. If it isn't a genuine liberal democracy, then we're being myopic in our selection of one side in this conflict. That seems to be the long and short of it.

Let's pretend, though, that we have handed bucketloads of cash, military technology and a lockstep vote at the UN to China. How does that rebound badly for the US? At just a strategic, pragmatic level, over whatever timeframe you want to give it? It's hard to see. With Israel, it's not hard to see at all.

You asked: Is it pragmatic or strategic to ally oneself to the hilt with a country that assassinates people and doesn't even lie about it?

Well, why isn't it, to be perfectly cynical?

These relationships pale with the cash, diplomacy, technology and support the US has given Israel. You can't compare them.

you can't compare US presence in the stans w. support for israel?

in this case it is important because of who are saying it - arch securocrats like Mearsheimer & Walt, not liberal pinko pantywaist t-head lovers.

Is it pragmatic to grant most favored nation status to a nation that jails dissidents and tortures Tibetan nuns?

Bear in mind that Mearsheimer advocates the cutting of trade ties with China, because he fears that in the future China will become the USA's enemy. One of the reasons he gives for being down on the Israel alliance is that they are treacherously passing technology on to China.

A more sensible Realist might say that being friendly with China is a good idea because they are powerful and important, while Israel is only powerful and important because the USA is friendly with it.

I don't see where I've been talking about morality at all.

I said: Is it pragmatic or strategic to ally oneself to the hilt with a country that assassinates people and doesn't even lie about it?

To which you asked: Well, why isn't it, to be perfectly cynical?

I guess my answer would be a set of questions: who are they assassinating, in what part of the world is it, what are those peoples' feelings about our unqualified support? If the answers are "Palestinians," "The Middle East," and "violent resentment" I'm not sure if I'd call that support very "strategic."

It would be quite interesting to see what would happen if Arab countries made a concerted effort to punish the interests of "US" oil companies because of support for Israel -- say through joint ventures with Russian companies, for example. I don't know the exact links well enough to say what levers there are. The point being directly pitting "big oil" vs. the "Jewish lobby."

what's your point? it's be 'interesting' to see the US economy get further stiffed by energy-holding dictatorships and the destruction of israel?

They're careful, to a point, to refer to the lobby as the Israel Lobby, not the Jewish Lobby.

But oil-producing states would probably not do that because of Israel, and if they would, it would have very little to do with the plight of the Palestinians.

Mid-east governments like to use Israel as a scapegoat and a political issue with which to distract the "street," but have otherwise shown little sympathy for the Palestinians.

Their interest in Israel may also have to do with a perceived military threat, but if that's truly the case it kind of suggests that the U.S. does in fact have a strategic reason for its alliance. Iran, for example, probably has two reasons for being so loud about Israel -- 1) the potential threat to its nuclear ambitions, and 2) It makes a good political scapegoat.

Frankly, if Israel does pose any real threat to Iran's nuclear ambitions then the U.S. has good reason to support it.

OTM - see my born-again Chinese tax person who, upon finding out I was Jewish, told me how great her last trip to Israel was, what a beautiful holy land it is, and how I should go there immediately and see where Jesus walked...

And I'm not enough of a scholar to give a thorough answer, but I'm sure one of the main reasons is that the Arab nations sided with the USSR during the cold war, so obviously they were out of the question during the time when we began supporting Israel so heavily (which was really post-1967, from what I understand.)

well, they kind of tried this with iraq didn't they!? and they did try to bring round other countries in the cold war, but it just didn't go over.

When does it become 'wise' to backdate to? After the morally problematic stuff like the Stern and Orgun gangs had packed it in?

Anyway, here is a view from Israel: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/698302.html

Anyway, I'm not a big fan of the idea of political "realism" either. On one hand, it presumes that there is such a thing as an objective national interest and that the government can know what it is.

"Harvard to remove official seal from anti-AIPAC 'working paper'"

The study also accused the pro-Israel lobby of monitoring academics to ensure that they do not diverge from the pro-Israel line. They will undoubtedly see proof of this contention in Harvard's decision to distance itself from the study due to pressure applied by pro-Israel donors. According to the New York Sun, Robert Belfer - who gave the Kennedy School $7.5 million in 1997 in order, among other things, to endow the chair that Walt now occupies - called the university and asked that Walt be forbidden to use his title in publicity for the study.

Oil is the single most important strategic concern of the 21st century. Everyone knows that. And the Middle East is mainly important because of its oil. Therefore any country in the region perceived to be a threat to the U.S.'s access to oil is perceived to be a threat to the US, and having a foothold in the region is perceived to be crucial to US interests.

Now the article establishes two things about Israel and the Iraq war -- that the Israel lobby is influential in the United States, and that Israel wanted the war, and then concludes from this that the U.S. went to war mainly because of Israel.

But that conclusion does not follow logically from the evidence given. It's possible, indeed I'd say it's much more likely that Israel only helped the Bush administration push toward something it wanted to do anyway, which is to make an attempt at protecting its oil interests. Whether that attempt was well-considered and whether it was successful are other matters.

After all, no one assumes that the AARP dictates domestic policy, though I'm sure it has considerable influence.

And I'm not enough of a scholar to give a thorough answer, but I'm sure one of the main reasons is that the Arab nations sided with the USSR during the cold war, so obviously they were out of the question during the time when we began supporting Israel so heavily (which was really post-1967, from what I understand.)

-- Abbadavid Berman (Hurtingchie...), March 22nd, 2006.

Is it realist to think that if we stop supporting Israel completely that it will no longer be "our problem," or that fundamentalist Islam will stop spreading?

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Israel_Public_Affairs_Committee

A couple of noteworthy paragraphs:

"In 2002, the pro-Israel lobby successfully targeted African-American representatives Earl Hilliard (D-AL) and Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) for defeat in Democratic primaries. Hilliard and McKinney were both vulnerable for reasons unrelated to Israel. McKinney, for instance, was defeated in part because the open primary allowed Republicans angered over her comments about the September 11 attacks to cross over and vote against her in the Democratic primary. Nonetheless, their defeat enhanced the impression that the pro-Israel lobby wields great power in electoral politics," Beinin wrote.

The AIPAC conference of 2005, billed as its "biggest ever," ended a week earlier. Despite all the claims of undiminished power, it's two conference goals were rejected by the White House within days. Bush met with Pres. Abu Mazen at the White House and offered him $50 million in direct aid. This despite AIPAC "talking point" that aid be linked to dismantling of Hamas (Bush did not even mention the dismantling issue). And, Bush approved Iranian entrance into WTO despite AIPAC "talking point" calling on US to apply new sanctions or go to war with Iran.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=21749

It clearly goes too far ("Sharon's actually a great guy!" "The Barak peace offer was flawless!"), and some of its arguments are shoddy, but there are some good points in there as well.

Is it realist to think that if we stop supporting Israel completely that it will no longer be "our problem," or that fundamentalist Islam will stop spreading?

The "peace process" is a sham anyway, so it's actually not in our interest at all to broker a solution that either side is going to be unhappy with. And until both sides are satisfied with their outcome (which will *never* happen), it's a waste of resources to even care. Let someone else deal with it (like the Brits or the UN, as you say above).

The recuriting effort loves videos of Palestinian women getting gunned down, etc. This is well-documented. It's ridiculous to think that the absence of those images would make their jobs any easier.

i) Mearsheimer & Walt are International Relations experts. It's odd that in this article they primarily apply themselves to domestic US politics. It might have been better if they had written a long article outlining why they feel the US-Israel alliance is not in the USA's interests, and then left it to others (like people whose specialities are the process of government policy formulation or interest group action or that kind of stuff) to analyse why this apparently dysfunctional policy had been adopted.

ii) Mearsheimer & Walt are Realists, whose views can be simplified as meaning that they believe states in the long run always act in their own interest. Yet in their article they are talking about how a state has adopted a policy inimical to its own interests for internal political reasons. This is odd, and it suggests that Mearsheimer & Walt's views are evolving towards those of the Social Constructivists, who see states as evolving "interests" through interaction with the world, rather than their having actual objective interests per se. Arguably the giving of unequivocal support to whatever Israel fancies doing is a core interest of the United States, simply because all its policy makers think it is.

iii) The emerging campaign against the two is entertaining, given that it seems to amount to saying "They say X, as do certain bad people, therefore they are bad". The removal of the Harvard logo from a study by one of their star academics is probably a better testimony to the strength of the pro-Israel lobby in the USA than anything in their article.

Specifically he rebuts the idea that the Israel Lobby is really as powerful as the paper alleges. He also questions the view that Al-Qaeda would not have attacked the US if it were not for its ties with Israel.

He also points to the example of other countries that enjoy close military ties with the US, such as Turkey and Pakistan, which have both "carried out appalling internal repression and even more appalling external aggression". He argues that the fact that US ties to these countries do not invite the same level of criticism as its ties with Israel has more to do with the "eternal fascination that attaches to the Jewish question" than the relative moral or political merits of the alliances.

http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20060328.htm

-- o. nate (syne_wav...), April 7th, 2006.

That's not irony at all. First of all, it makes logical sense that a lobbying group would exaggerate its influence to a private donors. Second, the "defenders" who "rally around it" (me and other people on this thread) are not AIPAC supporters at all. At least I'm not (and neither is Chomsky, obv.) I just don't really believe that they're as influential as that article claims. In fact I think the article comes off a bit paranoid.

Those without experience in critical analysis of conventional doctrine can be very seriously misled by the particular case of the Middle East(ME).

i first i thort that chomsky was like "i.e. people like myself!"

I think the paranoia of the authors (if that's what it is) is a natural result of attempts by defenders of Israel & its policies to intimidate academics. Perhaps the "Lobby" does not have the power to single-handedly move American foreign policy, but it does have the power to threaten academics. Universities have come under pressure for hiring Middle Eastern professors with pro-Palestinian views. There have been accusations of anti-Semitism against those professors who advocate these views in their classrooms at Columbia and other schools. It would only be natural for professors who are faced with these kinds of intimidation to over-estimate the influence of their attackers, especially when their views seem so disenfrachised from the political mainstream.

The title puns on one of Walt or Mearsheimers celebrated works.

The Storm over the Israel Lobby

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/12/AR2006071201627.html
(free registration required)

And an online discussion with the author of the piece:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2006/07/14/DI2006071400780.html

I wish I knew a way I could specifically contribute money against AIPAC.

http://www.tikkun.org/

Yes, that's true- I think it's important to remember that AIPAC is no more secretive or conspiratorial than any other lobbying organization. They make no effort to conceal their aims and activities. To call them a conspiracy would be improper, and -- due to the unfortunate history of anti-Semitic myths about Jewish international conspiracies -- anything that even hints of a conspiracy theory is sure to get some hackles up, and rightly so.

The Iraq war is a great example - did the Israel lobby push for it? Yes. Were some of the neocons that supported it Jewish people who were big Israel supporters? Sure. But if you want to explain why we really went to war in Iraq, it's pretty obvious that you'd have to put energy security and business interests high on the list, followed maybe by the neocon policy of "spreading democracy" (making regions more U.S.-friendly). I mean Ahmed Chalabi did a lot to push the war too but no one's accusing anti-Baathist Iraqis of pulling all the strings.

uh, what? you do know about curveball or screwball or whatever the dude's codename was, right?

More later when I reach the chapter where he talks about the REAL REASON why USA wuvs teh Israel.

I'd say the Lieberman loss is more evidence against the Walt-Mearshimer theory.

The Israel lobby is a powerful lobby, but I don't think it's "The" Lobby.

I wish someone would come up with a new explanation for the US-Israel friendship. what about the Lions and the Rotary Clubs? Hamas' charter fingers them, so they must be up to something.

The centrality of the Middle East for many "religious conservatives" is due to several factors: some religious conservatives see war against Muslims as a religious battle in defense of Christianity, some see it as necessary to secure the existence of a "Greater Israel" which many Christians believe is a prerequisite for the return of Jesus, while still others see bellicosity as a test of loyalty to the Cause or even as proof of one's belief in the exceptionalism of the tribe, whether the Tribe is "America," "Christianity," or "conservatism."

Walt was on Terry Gross just now. He was pretty reasonable and nuanced, much moreso, even, than he was in his own article in the LRB, which makes me wonder if he's either learned to be moreso, or if Mearsheimer is harsher.

They followed with Abe Foxman, but I had to turn it off because I couldn't stand listening to the man hyperventilate. He distorted everything Walt said, but I think he really believes his own distortions. I still came away thinking Walt overemphasizes the role of the Israel lobby and the impact of our support for Israel, but Walt maybe brought me a bit closer to his viewpoint.

Looks like it's archived:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14154082&ft=1&f=13

Here's the Foxman part:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14154089

"There are only two groups that are beating the drums for war in the Middle East - the Israeli defense ministry and its 'amen corner' in the United States." Pat Buchanan - September 15, 1990

pat buchanan is such a monumental jackass

sorry, i mean "patrick j. buchanan" lol

still lolz @ "amen corner"

a year after making that quote buchanan, when running for president, visited a confederate cemetery but wouldn't cross the street to visit the black cemetery

oh he's a total asshole no argument there

Pat Buchanan is one guy who actually gets fairly labeled an anti-semite

This shit never gets old, huh?

http://firedoglake.com/2008/12/27/israeli-attack-on-gaza-bombs-fall-as-children-go-to-school/

Medics said civilians had been hit, but the majority of the victims appeared to be members of Hamas, branded a terror group by Israel and the West.

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Israeli_air_strikes_kill_over_200_1227.html

a friend of mine just got back from israel. she spent a week consulting for a secondary school that's expanding their curriculum and building a new site. apparently it's close enough to gaza that rockets fall on the school all the time. apparently the kids don't like to be outside at all, even though they have beautiful landscaped park space all around the school.

well, anyway, nice to see both sides here stooping to each other's level.

tsk, tsk Israel. attacking Hamas after Hamas declares the cease fire is over and drops rockets on your cities. fuck you. show some restraint.

it's true; restraint never accomplishes anything.

who cares whether it does or not? this shouldn't even be a conversation. palestinian leadership is fucking retarded at the moment. why didn't they work the cease fire and try to parlay that into a better solution? why the fuck do they move to rocket shooting every fucking month?

are the palestinians a bunch of children who aren't responsible for their actions?

jews did 9/11

peace

in fact, as i was looking at my colleagues pictures of the bomb shelters at the school, i was thinking that they should probably just build a missile base instead of a new school.

well anyway this new round of bombing will probably show the palestinians the error of their ways

you know israel is a democracy right? you can't remain in government and not retaliate when you're attacked. otherwise you don't get to stay in power for much longer.

i know a little bit about israel

though i did cancel my plans to go there this summer (well before any of this happened)

ok. so they didn't retaliate to get the Palestinians to stop. they retaliated, mostly, because they have to if they want to keep their jobs. they basically ignored Sderot for 5 years. eventually you can't ignore them anymore.

i'm trying to say, this isn't like two kids and you expect the older kid to act more maturely. israel is a country, and countries and politicians have to act a certain way in the world. they didn't 'stoop down' to anything. they are a fucking country. if mexico was bombing texas, we'd burn them to the ground without a second thought.

"we'd" = the US.

WTF GUYZ?

Sorry, wrong thread. That belonged in the NFL thread.

to answer the original question: no

This stuff about it being disproportionate because loads more Palestinians get killed than Israelis isn't right. The rule isn't an eye for an eye. It's: is there a threat needing action? And if so, does Israel do only what is necessary to neutralise it? It's only disproportionate if Israel goes beyond what is necessary. If the threat requires burning Gaza to the ground, then doing so isn't disproportionate (it would have to be some threat, obviously, but not totally inconceivable e.g. if Hamas got the bomb, or everyone there planned a mass suicide mission)

it's true, we'd do that to mexico. we did that to afghanistan. although i do remember being in favor of restraint in that case. and the taliban are going to be back in charge any day now, right?

are the palestinians a bunch of children who aren't responsible for their actions?

actually, some of them are, though i doubt a laser-guided bomb (or a qassam rocket) can tell the difference.

i do wonder, if we beat a child when it's young, are we responsible for how it turns out as an adult? being an immigrant, i recall getting more beatings than my school friends, and harsher ones at that. and i turned out a model citizen, actually, if somewhat hampered in life by a tendency toward introspection. and as a teacher, i do wonder a lot if maybe some of my students could have done with a little less carrot and a little more stick.

i don't understand this disproportionate discussion at all. who determines whether it was proportionate or not? it seems to me like a lot of the people complaining think that any reaction would be disproportionate. Obviously Israeli leadership thinks it's a proportionate response.

ok, so it's fine. you can ask for restraint. but to complain about israel acting like a country seems totally bizarre.

Re disproportionate, what I said is the rule under international law. Which means pretty much that nobody determines whether it is disproportionate or not, or to put it your way you makes your determination for yourself. BBC Have Your Say contributors are not, thankfully, the ruling authority on the matter

but not all countries act that way. the US was acting like a country when, after WWII, it realized that "the threat" of japan and germany wasn't just their ability to mobilize tanks planes and soldiers, but also the threat that the regime after next when the americans left (well, they never really did, i guess) would be as bad or worse as the one they'd just dismantled. are the israelis ever thinking that far ahead?

unfortunately that sort of thinking is rare - apparently since WWII we've gotten much worse at thinking that far ahead.

i think if israel was once thinking about that, being demoralized by half a century of continuous war has made them want to just focus on the now.

i know, it's sad. but then the teachers and students in that school my colleague visited were showing some pretty-good long range thinking!

i think the "proportional" thing is totally a red herring. how is a nuclear country with a modern, bureacratic military supposed to respond proportionally to a country of guerilla fighters where it's not even clear who's really in charge at any given moment? it's funny to think they could even attempt such a thing, since the power dynamic is so unbalanced in the first place.

i do question the wisdom of knocking down a developing country's infrastructure so soundly ... can they really expect the *next* infrastructure to function more rationally than the first?

"This stuff about it being disproportionate"

Israel tried to be proportional about it for years - with no results- hamas keeps shooting. (except for the ceasefire which is now over)

"they retaliated, mostly, because they have to if they want to keep their jobs"

don't forget theres an election in a month and a half in israel,after Olmert had to resign cause of corruption investagation against him.
all polls in israel shows that Netanyahu will be the prime minister(again), and he is not involved at this operation at all.
of course everyone want to earn some political power from this situatuion but it's not the main reason for it.
Olmert (and the idf) got loads of bad criticism in israel after and beacuse of the 2006 Lebanon war, so they wont get involved in another military operation unless israel didnt have a choice.

“In the cabinet room today there was an energy, a feeling that after so long of showing restraint we had finally acted,” said Mark Regev, spokesman for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, speaking of the weekly government meeting that he attended.

lashing out always feels good at first. it doesn't usually make for good policy.

i hate hate hate these stupid arguments about "justification." the question isn't a moral one, ffs. it's a practical one. unless israel intends to kill every single palestinian, it needs an endgame. it doesn't have one. it says that's the palestinians responsibility. but the palestinians don't have the power, the resources or the leadership to resolve the situation. and just blaming the current situation on hamas totally ignores the roles both israel and the u.s. have played in creating it. there is not an easy solution, but there is a hard one, which is also the only one possible: finally negotiating a two-state treaty. and that will require everyone. hamas will have to be at the table. if the point of this bombing was to force hamas to the table, that would be one thing, but it isn't, really. it's just punitive. israel has no political will to do what has to be done. that leaves this up to the u.s. and i'm not at all sure the obama crew really has the guts to do it either, because it would mean calling out israel, right out of the gate.

fwiw -- and this is totally anecdotal -- none of the obama-voting new york liberals i've talked to in the last few days have anything but disgust for israel's handling of this.

(which does not mean anyone lacks sympathy for israelis being shelled, or has sympathy for hamas. but we've seen way too much of this back and forth bullshit for too long, and it just doesn't work. plus it also kills a lot of people.)

but the palestinians don't have the power, the resources or the leadership to resolve the situation

i don't understand what this means. they have the power to not shell Sderot. that is totally within their power. they could do it easily, and we would still have a cease-fire, and Hamas officials wouldn't be dead tonight.

yeah yeah yeah.

i don't even argue about this shit anymore. if you want to keep having the same stupid fights for the next 20 years as the last 20, feel free.

but israel is in a worse position now than it was 10 years ago, and it will be in an even worse position in another 10 years if this keeps up. you have to decide whether a stable future matters more than the satisfaction of bombing the shit out of some bad dudes.

http://i41.tinypic.com/2w2isd2.jpg

but israel palestine is in a worse position now than it was 10 years ago, and it will be in an even worse position in another 10 years if this keeps up. you have to decide whether a stable future matters more than the satisfaction of bombing shooting rockets at/suicide bombing the bad dudes.

omg are the palestinians really killing people? I HAD NO IDEA.

fuck. ok, no, i really don't argue about this anymore. if anyone thinks israel's doing itself any favors with this horseshit, you're as stupid as the totally incompetent israeli leadership.

here's the problem, tipsy. you apparently think that the Palestinians are a bunch of children and Israel is the only adult. there are two people involved in this conflict. why is all the censure aimed at one?

if anyone thinks israel's palestine's doing itself any favors with this horseshit, you're as stupid as the totally incompetent israeli palestinian leadership.

i think what iatee tried to say is that both sides are to blame for this situation.
true, almost on one in israel, leadership and the public, wants to talk with hamas.
the palestinians,esp. in Gaza, prefer the extremists terrorism of hamas over abu mazen (who negotiate with Olmert on regular basis).

in this sad situation, the only realistic solution is whats going on.

but we've seen way too much of this back and forth bullshit for too long, and it just doesn't work.

It works to some extent. There's been a big decline in suicide bombings since 2003, even as the number of rocket attacks has increased. Did Oslo or the withdrawal from Gaza work any better?

but it doesn't "work" in the sense of moving toward an actual resolution. it just pushes the cycle around for another spin.

the withdrawal from gaza was handled horribly. oslo was killed through bad faith on both sides -- on the palestinian side moreso, but israel could have elected to keep pressing forward. instead sharon came to power and what happened happened. meantime, israel's international standing is at its lowest point in a generation, and if you don't think that matters -- if you think that all that counts is whether people in the west bank and gaza are just scared of israel or scared shitless -- then you're not really thinking about the future of the country.

and if palestinians aren't children, israel should stop treating them that way. as it is, israel is acting like an abusive parent who thinks the problem with the surly rebellious teen is that he just hasn't been beaten hard enough. they are not equal powers, and therefore not equally responsible. israel has greater responsibility, and greater capacity to resolve the situation, and has basically refused to. the united states also has significant power and capacity, and has also and likewise refused. the problem is not going to go away, and it is not going to be bombed into submission. and the suggestion from people in the israeli cabinet that this is a way to get their mojo back after the similarly stupid excursion into lebanon just makes the whole thing that much more idiotic. what do they think, the palestinians forgot they have bombs?

and here i am arguing about this again, with people who think short-term revenge is a solid basis for foreign policy and future stability.

It's not parent vs. child, it's child vs. child. Why is the scared, angry Israeli populace expected to act more logically and reasonably than the scared, angry Palestinian populace? Cause they're slightly whiter?

here's the problem, tipsy. you apparently think that the Palestinians are a bunch of children and Israel is the only adult. there are two people involved in this conflict. why is all the censure aimed at one?

― Mordy, Sunday, December 28, 2008 9:33 PM (29 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

it has nothing to do w/ adult vs. child mordy, and everything to do w/ stable powerful democratic govt vs. unstable decentered power structures

like, you keep saying "the palestinians could stop killing israelis" but... which ones? according to the orders of whom?

Why is the scared, angry Israeli populace expected to act more logically and reasonably than the scared, angry Palestinian populace?

because they have more guns, more money, more power and more control over the ultimate outcome.

also, xpost, what max said.

which ones? according to the orders of whom?

uh, hamas, and hamas?

So tipsy, countries with more guns, money and power are expected to be filled with people who make political decisions with their brains instead of their guts?

It's not parent vs. child, it's child vs. child. Why is the scared, angry Israeli populace expected to act more logically and reasonably than the scared, angry Palestinian populace? Cause they're slightly whiter?

― iatee, Monday, December 29, 2008 2:56 AM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is the dumbest shit ever

stable powerful democratic govt vs. unstable decentered power structures

These aren't accidents of history. Any progress the Palestinians make to go from unstable decentered power structure to stable powerful democratic govt is going to come from them, not from the Israelis. Why is it that other peoples are able to self-determine, but the Palestinians are totally dependent on Israel to do so? I think it's more demeaning to Palestinians to censure Israel for the conflict than to say that they are equal partners. And if Palestinians have more to lose from the conflict than Israelis, than maybe they should act like it.

dude it's not like palestine is an autonomous country like israel... it's occupied... that kind of makes a huge difference in terms of self-determination.

(It's not unlike college administrators saying that if a woman goes to a frat party, gets drunk, undresses, and has consensual sex, that she was raped because the man shouldn't have taken advantage of her inebriated state. There are unexamined, implicit sexist arguments being made there, even though it has the guise of a very enlightened modern argument.)

Many occupied countries, including English-occupied Jewish Israel, were able to self-determine. Are the Palestinians too stupid to figure out what numerous modern states have figured out?

also i agree that israel is a country, not a moral force or a relative of mine, and should be judged by any other country's standards. at the same time, as a jew, that also means to me that it's important to judge its actions the way i would judge any other country's--and not as the only legitimate embodiment of my heritage and the faith of my fathers.

(just saying)

Many occupied countries, including English-occupied Jewish Israel, were able to self-determine. Are the Palestinians too stupid to figure out what numerous modern states have figured out?

― Mordy, Monday, December 29, 2008 3:15 AM (33 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

english-occupied jewish israel did this with no small amount of what you might call "terrorism."

yes and how do you judge the palestinians? as helpless occupied victims just like any other helpless occupied victims?

Yes, it did. I'm not saying that the Palestinians are evil and the Israelis are good. I'm saying that in historical conflicts, sometimes making moral arguments is stupid. If the Palestinians think terrorism will work, they should try it. But we should stop crying when Israel responds.

yes and how do you judge the palestinians? as helpless occupied victims just like any other helpless occupied victims?

― iatee, Monday, December 29, 2008 3:18 AM (39 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

who said that? i mean, besides you? saying that it's racist not to attribute palestinians magical powers of agency is a dumbass strawman argument.

so pretend I kept that at one sentence. how do you judge the palestinians?

which ones?

the ones who voted for hamas, howbout

a lot of votes for hamas were votes against fatah. and there were plenty of reasons to vote against fatah.

but anyway the question isn't how do you judge the palestinians, it's how you live with them. and likewise the question for the palestinians is how to live with israel. and there is really a limited menu of options. you either have two autonomous states, one combined state, or the current situation of one state plus one quasi-state plus one outlaw territory. israel seems locked into the current situation. gaza is clearly locked into the current situation (i.e. hamas by itself cannot force either a two-state or one-state resolution). fatah and the west bank is a point of leverage, but israel isn't even using that wisely. and the u.s. has essentially been an absentee caretaker of the whole thing for the past eight years.

the current bombing isn't aimed at trying to force any kind of resolution. it's apparently mostly aimed at demonstrating israeli "toughness." but its toughness is not the thing in doubt.

and what's the hamas rocketing aimed at?

getting israel to do this kind of stupid shit that endangers its future.

mission accomplished.

Hey I agree! I just don't feel a lot of sympathy for those doing that, or those who put them in power.

Israel should just do a full invasion and finally eliminate 100% whatever is opposing it. Boo hoo palestinian children with no food! Who cares, life is hard and war is reality when a people wants to wipe you and your entire culture out on a global scale. What's Israel going to do, back up its bags and move to Europe? I'm sure they'd love that over there.

Liberals make me so embarrassed sometimes.

19 years old. embarrassed.

Burt, just fuck off and at least read some books like 80% of us have.

me like book

Tipsy my point is it's not clear there's anything Israel could do right now that would effectively "move toward an actual resolution." The prospects for a two-state solution are pretty terrible. Eliminating the rocket attacks on southern Israel may be the best they can hope for, and trying to do that through military action isn't necessarily a stupid, idiotic, and incompetent policy choice.

however terrible the prospects for two states are, the prospects for everything else are even worse -- especially for israel. there are no alternatives for preserving a jewish state.

Personally, it seems to me that this violent conflict is historically nothing new. Groups of people have been having violent conflicts forever, the only novelty is that we're a bunch of educated US citizens who have the time and luxury to make ethical and moral (and even pragmatic) arguments about what the two sides should do. Sometimes there isn't something that the two sides should do except what they are continuing to do. Maybe historically the Israelis and Palestinians need to exhaust each other on war for fifty more years before something emerges. I'm not saying it doesn't suck, or that there isn't fault to spread around - but that we need to assume that nation states are going to act in their self-interest. Isn't there like an entire field of study based on the assumption that groups of people act in predictable manners and with predictable results? If I ever make Aliyah, which I'd like to do eventually, I'll participate politically and voice my opinions. But it seems stupid to sit in my NYC apartment and rail against either side. Neither of them give a shit what I think - and they really shouldn't.

i'm sure israelis give a pretty humongous shit what american jews think.

It depends which Israelis and which American Jews. Some politicians obviously care. But no one I know living in Israel gives a shit.

I don't agree with most of what Rosner thinks, but I think he's right in this interview about how American Jews don't know shit about Israel on either side of the conflict. http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/12/shmuel_rosner.php

tl;dr

Isn't there like an entire field of study based on the assumption that groups of people act in predictable manners and with predictable results?

there's an entire field of study based on how those manners and results become unpredictable when you change their assumptions. this is a little bit like arguing "simple economics predicts the environment's fucked, no matter what" ... except that there's an entire field of economics emerging that shows how stewardship of a forest or a fishery can be more profitable in the long-run than just taking as much as you can as fast as you can. or how you can be more profitable selling "green" or "organic" products to savvy consumers than selling the cheapest shit possible.

i also really don't like that line of argument: that violent conflicts are as old as history itself, so we should all throw our hands up and be blase about it when it comes up. "oh well, nations will be nations". outrage over violence is as old as violence itself, should that have stopped goya from painting "the horrors of war"? i think there's some value in a sense of moral outrage; given the choice i'd sooner have bitching on the internet about war than no bitching on the internet about war. it's easy to bitch about the situation in the middle east, or choose "sides" when we're so far away from it; but isn't it *easier* if anything to pick cynical armchair realpolitik?

just because a person or institution doesnt give a shit what you think doesnt mean that you shouldnt have an opinion, or that having a considered opinion isnt valuable

Groups of people have been having violent conflicts forever, the only novelty is that we're a bunch of educated US citizens who have the time and luxury to make ethical and moral (and even pragmatic) arguments about what the two sides should do.

totally disingenuous. the u.s. is deeply involved in the situation. it is the 3rd major player, after israel and the palestinians. there are other players too -- syria, iran, the e.u., etc. -- but none of them come close to the power the u.s. wields (or declines to wield). when we're this enmeshed in something, we absolutely should make ethical, moral and pragmatic arguments about it.

xpost: yeah i never buy the "those people have been fighting for thousands of years" bit, no matter who it's said about (irish and english, sunnis and shia, hindus and muslims, whatever). it's generally not true, for one thing. history is always more specific and complicated than that. and it also is sort of a moral handwashing that frees anyone from any obligation or expectation to stop the fighting.

that's not what i'm saying. or at least not what i'm trying to say. i'm trying to say that there was a cease fire. for whatever reason, Hamas decided to break it explicitly and with violence. for whatever reason, israel decided to respond to that with violence and retribution. to now sit down and say, "omgz, y do Israel do these things? it doesn't help them??" as though Israel didn't pick the completely obvious and understandable response, is disingenuous. you want a complex, and large group to act in a specific manner that you have decided is the ideal, rational manner to act (i'm not actually sure what it is you want them to do, actually). but they are acting in a manner that a country would act when a cease fire was broken and rockets were shot into their territory. i don't understand why they deserve censure for that.

or to put differently, you seem to be saying, "Israel has responded to violence with violence before, but it didn't work. Why don't they give peace a chance?" But Israel has also responded to violence with NON-violence before and not taken action. And there was more terrorism. What is the magic response Israel should have that will make everything better?

oh come on. israel has only sporadically been seriously engaged in seeking a real final deal. more often they've set unrealistic conditions (like the cessation of all violence as a precondition for negotiations) that in effect guarantee that nothing will happen. the israeli right wing doesn't want a deal, they're locked into a permanent defensive posture, no matter how damaging it is to the country in the long run. which is why the u.s. will have to force it to happen, if anything's going to.

cessation of all violence is unrealistic? so all negotiations should end with "... but we are still allowed to kill you, right?"

as a precondition for talks, it's unrealistic, yes. it effectively gives the power to anyone with a gun or a rocket to call the whole thing off. it lets the terrorists set the terms. it's not the position of a country serious about solving its problems. the violence is not going to end before a settlement is reached. any settlement will have to happen despite the violence. (and it's not going to end immediately afterward either. but the only chance of it ending at all is to resolve the very large problem of an impoverished and stateless population.)

people who think that what needs to happen is the "violence just has to stop" are being no more honest about the situation and its possible outcomes than people who think what needs to happen with illegal immigration is that it "just has to stop." there are some things you simply cannot dictate, no matter how loud you say them or how many bombs you drop.

the cessation of all violence as a precondition for negotiation is only unrealistic when you think you're negotiating with animals. if you believe the Palestinians are humans, they should be able to deal with that very basic condition.

they're not animals ffs, they're just not monolithic. palestinians have factions, and factions within factions. there are some of them who do not want a settlement (just as there some israelis), and they will do what they can to stop it. the point is to make it harder for a few guys with guns or bombs to decide the fate of the region, not easier. israel has been handing the reins to the terrorists for years.

(and I think they are able to deal with that condition to talks, and if Hamas engages in violence, it is an indication they don't want to negotiate. when they want to negotiate, they will be able to respect a cease fire. this isn't like a random person is performing an act of violence and then negotiations are called off. the other party is committing an act of violence.)

yes, it won't be easy! obviously. actually getting hamas to talk seriously will be very, very hard. dealing with the whole situation will be even harder now than it was 8 years ago. but israel has a certain amount of responsibility for that.

and anyway the fact that it will be very difficult is no excuse for not doing it. it's not going to get easier. there's still only one way out.

i don't even argue about this shit anymore.
― tipsy mothra, Monday, December 29, 2008 2:20 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

^^
evidently not true, btw. but the argument is dishearteningly repetitive and familiar.

Israel should be erased from the pages of the book of time if they're going to move against an entire people for a renegade move maybe made by ''Hamas'' or whoever gets a handful of rockets. 200 dead is a joke meant to provoke Hamas to act in a way that will push the Israeli government way right in the elections in February.

There is no way the Palestinians can act like a state because of the dehumanizing embargo imposed against them. The Jews who run Israel are terrible in their media face and I bet that reflects across the board of their government. Self-righteous idiots. Ahmadinejad gave a Christmas address on BBC 4 that's more decent than anything I've heard from a Western leader besides Obama. And fuck Israel for ruining Iceland, pouring poison in their ear and flushing their money. Neocon Israel is Nazi, and they're playing their cards so the Greens, Ashkenazis et al won't sweep into power. Death to Reaganite governments everywhere, by any means necessary.

I was not aware that the Jews were responsible for the crisis in Iceland? But that does make a lot of sense, doesn't it?

Ahmadinejad gave a Christmas address on BBC 4 that's more decent than anything I've heard from a Western leader besides Obama.

He also wants Israel wiped off the map and denies the Holocaust, so fuck a Tehran cunt by any means necessary.

Maybe he's just confused.

''... Wiped off the map'' is a common phrase in Arabic. It translates to ''clean slate.''

Sheik Yitzhak Patrin V. burt stanton:

GO

Patrin, are you gonna explain how Israel ruined Iceland? I'm pretty interested.

ahmadinjead: now there's an animal

did you ever notice how much he looks and acts like george w?

xxxp RF hacking tunneled through Bobby Fischer's fillings.

I'm glad we got that settled. I wanted to straighten this out in the HuffPo comments, but it's such a hassle to post there.

wau, Likudniks reprazentin'

glad we were able to incorporate ahmadinejad into this discussion

that was Morbius, not ahmedinejad

there are two sorts of people in this debate: those who spell ahmadinejad correctly, and those who don't

Things will surely be different when we have a former IDF adventurer as White House chief of staff.

there are two sorts of people in this debate: those who spell ahmadinejad correctly, and those who don't

lol

احمدی‌نژاد

^^ ahmadinejad "spelled correctly"

solution: move israel to baja

jews benefit, arabs benefit, mexico benefits

those who transliterate ahmadinejad correctly, those who don't, and wanton clever-clogs

احمدی‌نژاد احمدی‌نژاد احمدی‌نژاد احمدی‌نژاد احمدی‌نژاد احمدی‌نژاد احمدی‌نژاد احمدی‌نژاد احمدی‌نژاد احمدی‌نژاد احمدی‌نژاد احمدی‌نژاد احمدی‌نژاد

Some charged that Emanuel was an Israeli citizen or a dual U.S.-Israeli national (he is neither, he was born in Chicago in 1959); or, they alleged that he served in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), losing his finger confronting a Syrian tank during the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon (he did not serve in the IDF, and lost his finger in a freak accident while working as a teenager in an Arby's restaurant). A few accused Emanuel of skipping U.S. military service to join the IDF in 1991 (also not true -- in the midst of the 1991 Gulf War, while U.S. forces were manning Patriot missile batteries in Israel and the Arab Gulf, Emanuel volunteered for a few weeks, as a civilian, doing maintenance on Israeli vehicles).

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-zogby/rahm-emanuel-and-arab-per_b_143976.html

Gustafus
Party: NA
Reply #9
Date: Nov. 6, 2008 - 12:47 PM EST
The first thing Obama did betray his anti war base. Game set match - Israel. Rahm Emanuel has an Israeli passport. Rahm Emanuel served in the IDF in 1991. Rahm Emanuel means more war on Islam. Rahm Emanuel means OBama lied to his base... he drank the kosher kool aid to win the election.... all done behind the scenes of course... complete with psyops operations against the anti war supporters... with stories planted that Jews in Israel were 'fearful'... that Obama was a closet Muslim.... ooh.... Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer... and all of Tel Aviv are toasting their historic defeat of the American electoral process.....Obama - lawn jockey for Israel. I'm disgusted. And everybody on this site should feel betrayed and angry. THIS is what Jew hatred is all about - now, before, always... we are the suckers and the dopes... and they pull all the strings... and make and break the kings. I'm rootin for Iran. Save us IRan... save us.

morbs?

Emanuel volunteered for a few weeks, as a civilian, doing maintenance on Israeli vehicles

split those hairs, baby

yeah, you wouldn't ever want to know too much about anything

interesting, from the latest issue:

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20090101faessay88105/walter-russell-mead/change-they-can-believe-in.html

btw

baby

lol

two good posts on talkingpointsmemo, by josh marshall and, from just before the current bombardment, bernard avishai. avishai's is especially to the point:

Hamas is growing in power--in the West Bank, too--directly as a result of this grotesquery. It is absurd to think of Gaza as a separate matter. Nor will the Hamas leadership be intimidated by shows of force. Actually, they thrive on it--precisely because eruptions of violence allow them to be seen as the steadfast opposition to the inertial expansion of Israeli occupation. An Israeli attack on Gaza, which must be bloody, will be play right into Hamas's hands.

... The simple fact is, this problem is too big for Israel. We will need the world's involvement; anyone who tells you something different is either covering for the settlers, or afraid for electoral reasons to appear squishy about Israeli autonomy, or arrogant, or ignorant, or thick, or all of these at once. This post is not the place to describe what involvement means, though the contours of a two-state deal have been obvious for many years. The point is, what Hebron represents cannot be solved by this deal in a few decisive months, like the evacuation of the Sinai was. New changes to the landscape will take years. Or the landscape will look like Bosnia.

avishai's whole blog is worth paying attention to.

and tom segev, in haaretz:

But the assault on Gaza does not first and foremost demand moral condemnation - it demands a few historical reminders. Both the justification given for it and the chosen targets are a replay of the same basic assumptions that have proven wrong time after time. Yet Israel still pulls them out of its hat again and again, in one war after another.

Israel is striking at the Palestinians to "teach them a lesson." That is a basic assumption that has accompanied the Zionist enterprise since its inception: We are the representatives of progress and enlightenment, sophisticated rationality and morality, while the Arabs are a primitive, violent rabble, ignorant children who must be educated and taught wisdom - via, of course, the carrot-and-stick method, just as the drover does with his donkey.

...As a corollary, Israel has also always believed that causing suffering to Palestinian civilians would make them rebel against their national leaders. This assumption has proven wrong over and over.

...here is another historical truth worth recalling in this context: Since the dawn of the Zionist presence in the Land of Israel, no military operation has ever advanced dialogue with the Palestinians.

Most dangerous of all is the cliche that there is no one to talk to. That has never been true. There are even ways to talk with Hamas, and Israel has something to offer the organization. Ending the siege of Gaza and allowing freedom of movement between Gaza and the West Bank could rehabilitate life in the Strip.

(Tipsy, thanks for keeping up the better side of this "disheartening argument" -- I appreciate it, because I don't like doing it either, and there are some statements on this thread that boggle my mind too much to respond to reasonably and calmly.)

Mordy, some of your analogies in particular -- like the one about this being a conflict between "two people," or the comparison with Mexico and Texas -- seem to spell out in themselves what you're willfully avoiding about the situation: things like the difference between a functional democracy and a stateless collection of people with various pockets of very short-term leadership (or the difference between Mexico and the U.S. occupying Chihuahua.) These things aren't even the subtle complexities of the situation, they're the basics of it, and it seems bizarre to me to bring such strong opinions to the table without acknowledging them. (Also it's weird to hear you defending Israel by asking for Palestinian self-determination, but that's another story.)

Well, looks like Israel is doing exactly what I said they should. you can keep your book lernins

"What you said they should" was genocide, if I remember correctly

So is a stateless collection of people with various pockets of short-term leadership off the hook for any responsibility for their actions?

There is no "their" there

OMG i was just about to make that joke

I think I'd take calls for the punishment of Palestinians more seriously if their state hadn't already been almost completely destroyed and the actual culpable rocketeers rounded up and put on trial, rather than the collective punishment meted out by IDF helicopters and tanks but you know.

xpost -

That's not an attempt to be glib or land a zinger, by the way, so I'll do the boring explanation:

It's just that you say "their actions" as if there's an identifiable collective there, and then you talk about it as if the "their" in question is the same thing as "Palestinians." It's not, obviously. The reason you're being reminded that it's a stateless collection of people with etc. etc. is that this severely complicates the idea of anything called "their actions." There's no single actor; there's a tumultuous collection of factions working toward different purposes and beholden to one another in different ways and with various levels of legitimacy and authority that are rarely honestly and freely derived from the people (and when they are it's not necessarily for the reasons that would make things morally simple for us).

Nobody's said anything about people not being responsible for their actions, mind you. This is more a reminder that you have to think a bit about how broadly that "their" stretches and how that works when you're making broad moral claims.

Right, just like peace activists in Israel probably don't deserve blame for these attacks, even though they are a part of the Israeli state.

But the people who voted Hamas in? The people in Hamas? Both those sub-groups seem to deserve some responsibility for their actions...and both groups have the ability to influence their own future, so they ain't powerless.

I think I'd take calls for the punishment of Palestinians more seriously if their state hadn't already been almost completely destroyed and the actual culpable rocketeers rounded up and put on trial...

the rockets were still coming down, to be basic. the violence will be counter-productive but it's not being done on a whim.

all of what nabisco says -- "There's no single actor; there's a tumultuous collection of factions working toward different purposes and beholden to one another in different ways and with various levels of legitimacy and authority that are rarely honestly and freely derived from the people " -- would also apply if palestine were a "properly functioning" state, surely?

it applies -- ta-da -- to israel as well.

or are we saying that civilian members of democracies are legitimate targets as a result of "their" governments' actions?

Yes, that's exactly what iatee is saying isn't it?

Or course it applies to Israel as well: that's why we all agree that rocket attacks are not good things! That's why we agree that they're terroristic, and not justifiable reactions to the actions of Israel as a state! And one reason some of us worry about Israel's offensives is that Israel does not have a very good track record of extending that same courtesy toward Palestinian civilians.

Iatee, I'm not sure anyone is arguing that Hamas is powerless, or does not have responsibility for its institutional actions. Much of what Tipsy has argued in this thread is that this sort of response toward the actions of Hamas is counterproductive -- that it strengthens Hamas, that it's not part of a coherent long-term strategy toward peace and security for anyone. The response he's mostly gotten has been "yeah well that's what happens when you fire rockets," which isn't much of a response, and doesn't address his point. We're not just talking about the lack of coherent authority in Palestine for moral reasons, we're also talking about it for practical reasons, because it influences what you can do or should plan to do in terms of a long-term strategy for not having this problem anymore.

Nabisco, I think you're misunderstanding my argument. I'm not defending Israel, per se. I'm simply suggesting that we do both sides of the conflict a disservice by pretending that one is incapable of stopping violence and the other is. Not only have stateless peoples been able to secure rights for themselves in the past, but, as Brohan points out, both parties are full of individuals. Shalom Achshav is an Israeli political party. There is no "their" there in the knesset either. I'd like to see Hamas man up and take responsibility for their people and their actions. Israel should not be babying the Palestinians. It's degrading and unuseful. They should take care of their people, and their state, and let the Palestinian leadership figure out best how to take care of their people. If at some point it becomes evident to Israel that taking care of the Palestinians is most useful to the Israeli population, then maybe they'll do that. But to ask them to ask selflessly because the Palestinians are little children is pretty racist, IMO.

And if you're asking what Israel has to gain pragmatically from retaliated against rockets, I mentioned a possibility earlier: If you want to run a government, sometimes you need to take action when assholes keep attacking your constituents. You can't run a state if your coalition keeps falling apart.

(retaliating*)

Israel isn't retaliating or dishing out punishment to civilians because of fault - it's taking action to get the rockets to stop because it faces a threat from them. There's no justification for targeting civilians, whoever they may have voted for (and let's not forget that Hamas runs Gaza totally because they seized power in a coup, not because they won certain powers in the last round of elections). But, when Israel faces a threat, it is entitled to use force to stop it, and whether civilians get killed during that use of force is largely irrelevant. Which is why the phrase 'collateral damage', while horrible, is accurate - targeting civilians is just not part of war any more

NB the other side of this coin, and why it would work in a traditional war, is that military installations should not be based in civilian areas. Hamas ignore this rule, presumably because of the propaganda value of high casualties (also seen in their current refusal of Egyptian medical assistance)

So is a stateless collection of people with various pockets of short-term leadership off the hook for any responsibility for their actions?

― iatee

There is no "their" there

― nabisco

This is the problem with a lot of the dialogue re: Israel & Palestinians/Hamas/whatever. Both of these encapsulations are too simplistic to be meaningful. Of course a "stateless collection of people" is not the same as a nation, but then again, it's not as though we're talking about a bunch of mutual strangers who just happen to occupy the same region. So while it's clearly unfair to wage war against all Palestinains in response to the actions of a violent few in their midst, the reality is more complex than that. The violent few are not so few, and they often seem indistinguishable from a provisional government.

Moreover, most war is waged, to some extent or another, against "innocent" civilian populations. Physically speaking, we do not fight governments, but rather the citizens and structures that enable those governments to function militarily. This includes those who render direct assistance to their government, willingly or not, and also those who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. We do not pretend that this is morally correct, but rather understand it as an unfortunate neccessity that accompanies war, the greatest "unfortunate neccessity" of all.

I'm not trying to justify Israeli brutality, but simply to suggest that things aren't as simple as they might seem, and morally correct solutions are difficult to arrive at in situations such as this.

Not to mention that personally, I'm not sure that a two-state solution that includes the West Bank is in Israel's best interests. I don't know how they'll handle the strategic fact that the Golan can be cut off from the Gaza with two side-by-side tanks if they aren't policing the West Bank. And I don't know how Jerusalem can be protected geographically if there is a two-state solution. Plus, Syria wants parts of the Golan to be given back to them, which, if you know anything about the water situation in Israel, could obviously lead to huge problems. So if you're Israel, and you need to protect your citizens, and the people you are negotiating with aren't ceasing violence - why would you feel confident about them ceasing violence after you've ceded autonomy in the West Bank, or whatever it is that you're hoping Israel does?

Which isn't to say there isn't a solution. But I think it's understandable that Israel responds to rocket launchers with retaliation and not with, "Hey dudz, here is some Peace, man!"

Iatee, I'm not sure anyone is arguing that Hamas is powerless, or does not have responsibility for its institutional actions. Much of what Tipsy has argued in this thread is that this sort of response toward the actions of Hamas is counterproductive -- that it strengthens Hamas, that it's not part of a coherent long-term strategy toward peace and security for anyone. The response he's mostly gotten has been "yeah well that's what happens when you fire rockets," which isn't much of a response, and doesn't address his point. We're not just talking about the lack of coherent authority in Palestine for moral reasons, we're also talking about it for practical reasons, because it influences what you can do or should plan to do in terms of a long-term strategy for not having this problem anymore.

I agree with all of this, I think the majority of the things the Israeli government does are counterproductive and very bad for its long term-interests. Where I differ is that I don't expect the Israeli people to be acting any more rationally when they're in this sort of psychological position than the Palestinians do (or the Americans did...) just because they have a more organized political structure and bigger guns.

the issue is not -- or at least shouldn't be -- the relative responsibility or accountability of the palestinian or israeli populations. that's a moral rabbit hole. the only thing that matters is whether actions make an ultimate resolution more or less achievable. if this attack seemed like or could be justified as part of a coherent move toward that resolution, that would be one thing. that is, if the military devastation of hamas was likely to actually remove obstacles to eventual peace, it would be easier to justify from a practical stanpoint. but there's no indication of that, at all. as tom segev says in that column, this is just the same thing over and over, and it doesn't lead anywhere good.

also let's not exaggerate the threat of the rocket attacks. the threat is real, for the people who live in those areas, but it is hardly existential. the real existential threat is the inability to come to terms -- however painful -- on a two-state agreement. anything that makes that agreement harder to reach is a much graver threat to israel than any number of poorly aimed and randomly fired peasant rockets.

(a "practical stanpoint" = the point of view of yr average stan)

I'm not going to try and quantify the existential threat, but I think that Israel ignoring rockets drop on Sderot for over a year because it's one of the poorest cities in the country is a pretty huge existential threat.

Mordy I think it is really disingenuous to try and compare the "no their" of a democratic state to the "no their" of Palestine -- yes, obviously neither is a hive mind, both are just collections of people with different agendas, but one of these has a working, central, legitimate authority and the other struggles to have anything even vaguely resembling one. I suspect you know that's disingenuous, too.

Contenderizer I think that's a reasonably fair way of putting a lot of that, but keep in mind that I'm saying "there's no 'their' there" in response to a whole lot of earlier posts that seem to act as if the situation is symmetrical. It's just ... really, really, really not symmetrical.

P.S. Mordy I'd note here, just in passing, that a lot of Hamas's popularity in Palestine stems from the perception that it did a much better job "taking care of people" -- in terms of things like hospitals and schools -- than Fatah did. This isn't a defense of Hamas, or anything, just a note that development and peace are not necessarily polar opposites for such groups, which is definitely a problem in figuring out how to respond to them. Israel's strategy has seemed, for a while, to be to make them polar opposites, by strangling and destroying any positive progress that doesn't come along with peace; a lot of signs suggest this creates a vicious circle that helps no one.

...military installations should not be based in civilian areas. Hamas ignore this rule, presumably because of the propaganda value of high casualties.

-- IK

Yeah, sure, "presumably".

Or presumably they do this because they are not granted the right to have a military in the first place, and thus must hide it. Or presumably because they are massively, MASSIVELY overwhelmed militarily and have no ability to win in a direct, "fair fight". Or presumably because they don't really own the land they occupy, or much of anything at all, and therefore lack the luxury of such conventional manners.

Insisting that military rules developed by and for rich, powerful, first-world nations must apply to all-but-powerless, third-world non-nations in their conflicts with the former = the height of hypocrisy.

I'm not being disingenuous, I'm just suggesting that your comparison is meaningless. If your argument is that Palestinian authority can't be held responsible for rogue terror - I don't disagree. But when the elected leadership is claiming responsibility for those attacks, what do you gain from saying there's no "their" there? Weren't most of the retaliatory installations hit those of Hamas leadership?

also let's not exaggerate the threat of the rocket attacks. the threat is real, for the people who live in those areas, but it is hardly existential. the real existential threat is the inability to come to terms -- however painful -- on a two-state agreement. anything that makes that agreement harder to reach is a much graver threat to israel than any number of poorly aimed and randomly fired peasant rockets.

Rocket attacks / suicide bombings are psychological threats - and they were meant to be. Obv way fewer Israelis die, but they still succeed in freaking everyone the fuck out. In that sense, they're exactly as successful as the IDF attacks.

the only thing that matters is whether actions make an ultimate resolution more or less achievable. if this attack seemed like or could be justified as part of a coherent move toward that resolution, that would be one thing. that is, if the military devastation of hamas was likely to actually remove obstacles to eventual peace, it would be easier to justify from a practical stanpoint.

-- tipsy

Sometimes our responses to situations -- even the best available responses to situations -- have less to do with acheiving an "ultimate resolution" than with solving an immediate, short-term problem. Here, I think the Israeli response isn't an attempt to resolve the conflict as a whole, but simply to stop the rockets from falling, if only for a while. On that level it seems entirely reasonable, if not entirely prudent.

Insisting that military rules developed by and for rich, powerful, first-world nations must apply to all-but-powerless, third-world non-nations in their conflicts with the former = the height of hypocrisy.

Insisting that there are certain moral standards that might be applicable to *everyone in the world* = not exactly the height of hypocrisy.

Air assault won't bind terrorists to submission. It will motivate them to suicide attacks, despite what the moderates think. Terror lives in the cracks of society, and Israeli intelligence is obviously nowhere near capable of squashing it, because it would have arrested the faction directly responsible for the rocket shots. If that's its motivation in attacking at all.

So how should Israel act? It can't let Palestine become a conduit for ''mad'' ''Islamofascist'' leaders of surrounding states? More Westerners need to adopt the morality of religion en mass? Learn to communicate with ''culturally backwards people''? Relocate to Florida ?

Insisting that there are certain moral standards that might be applicable to *everyone in the world* = not exactly the height of hypocrisy.

― iatee

True enough, but that leaves a lot of middle ground.

Don't murder is pretty much a human code dating really far back. It's application in military code is an allowance (fine, you can murder THESE people), not a stringency.

Insisting that military rules developed by and for rich, powerful, first-world nations must apply to all-but-powerless, third-world non-nations in their conflicts with the former = the height of hypocrisy

No, that's absolutely wrong. Those rules are there to make war as humane as possible. If you can't adhere to them, don't fight. What you don't do is ignore them and make up your own rules to your best advantage. Israel could nuke Gaza by that logic.

Sometimes our responses to situations -- even the best available responses to situations -- have less to do with acheiving an "ultimate resolution" than with solving an immediate, short-term problem.

but if solving the short-term problem actually exacerbates the long-term problem, then there's an inherent self-destructiveness in it. plus, this is not just about rockets. it's about israel wanting to muscle up after the embarrassment of lebanon and to counter the growing national sense of directionlessness and insecurity. it's a short-term shot of courage with the possibility of a serious hangover. not a good idea, for people or countries.

tipsy, I wonder what you think this longterm existential crisis is for Israel? Are you referring to the population crisis? Because it seems to me that Israel has more to gain from keeping attacks at bay in the short run than they do rushing Palestinians into an autonomous State. I'm all in favor of Democracy and self-determinacy, but I'm curious what you think the cost of Israel's current strategy is. I'm not convinced that giving the Palestinian's autonomous leadership is going to curtail any rocket sending. Syria (I'm not sure if they still do this) wasn't ghettoized, and they certainly had no problem shooting rockets in Israel. Saddam Hussein used to shoot rockets into Tel Aviv. Certainly the Palestinians aren't going to form a society more self-dependent than pre-War Iraq, are they?

Klata, If Palestinians played by the ''rules of war'' and fought in grids or however retarded armies used to fight, where would the average US citizen get his drugs? From Rockefeller Pharmaceuticals?

I mean, if Israel's only motivation is, Stop Hitting Us with Fucking Rockets, than maybe they'd like an assurance of that before helping the Palestinians further?

What the hell does that mean? I'm hardly making a controversial point here xp

Sometimes our responses to situations -- even the best available responses to situations -- have less to do with acheiving an "ultimate resolution" than with solving an immediate, short-term problem.

^^ If you believe this please do not ever start doing heroin

Without resistance to ''democracy'' you wouldn't be able to smoke pot and thus unable to sympathize with your enemy.

Those rules are there to make war as humane as possible. If you can't adhere to them, don't fight.

-- IK

Those rules also privilege wealthy, powerful, industrially/militarily established nations over unruly, impoverished rebels. American mythology tells us that its Revolutionary War might not have succeeded had it been conducted in accordance with the almost courtly rules of engagement that prevailed in its day. And American actions in Vietnam and Cambodia might have gone very differently had the Vietnamese and Cambodians agreed to "play fair".

It's all well and good to insist on basic wartime moralities, but if you're sitting in a first-world country that happens to be fighting a war with third-world upstarts, then you kind of lose the high ground when lecturing them on the decency of their strategies.

Then again, maybe you're talking to me from Switzerland, so who knows.

If you believe this please do not ever start doing heroin

― nabisco

Hee. Fair point, but I think you're oversimplifying again. Triage has value. Ideally you integrate your short-term tactical responses with a coherent long-term strategy, but sometimes the long view terribly cloudy.

gorilla warfare != explicitly targeting civilians

trying to stop children from dying = first-world country snobbery

tipsy, I wonder what you think this longterm existential crisis is for Israel? Are you referring to the population crisis?

it is the population crisis, but it is a lot more than that. it is very clear that israel cannot reach a state of normalcy and security without resolving the palestinian problem. even if the current situation of the palestinian people were morally tolerable (which it's not, imo), it is obviously not sustainable. it is unstable and dangerous and every attempt to punch it back into submission just makes it moreso. a permanant state of siege is not a condition that either israelis or palestinians can tolerate. as we've seen, the longer this goes on, the more radicalized the palestinian population becomes (and the israeli population too, for that matter), and the the harder it gets to reach any non-apocalyptic resolution. (and also the more openings are created for iran, syria, et al.)

the possible solutions are very limited: one state (which would be the end of the jewish state) or two states (the only hope for preserving the jewish state). anything not working toward two states is effectively working against the longterm survival of the jewish state. plenty of israelis understand that. and of course, hamas understands it too.

(and i'm not even touching the moral argument about whether there should be a permanent jewish state, just saying that if that's the express goal -- which it is, of israel and the u.s. -- then there are things that need to happen that aren't happening.)

Ha, don't worry, it was a bit of a lazy zing. I don't have much left to argue here, I don't think -- I've mostly been stressing the "no their" idea about Palestine because there were so many posts from yesterday that seemed to want to talk about Palestine an a coherent entity somehow equivalent to Israel, or something, and that seems like madness.

I will say that I really hope it's true that this weekend's offensive has mostly killed actual militant-related Hamas members; I do hope that turns out to be true.

Tipsy, I almost want to ask you to unpack this:

one state (which would be the end of the jewish state)

I mean, I wouldn't argue for a one-state solution because it just doesn't seem remotely practicable. But you're objecting to it ... culturally?

xpost - hahaha never mind

gorilla warfare != explicitly targeting civilians

― Mordy

trying to stop children from dying = first-world country snobbery

― iatee

What's with the cheap reductionism? I'm not saying anything like either of the above. I'm saying, first, that there might be more to Hamas' placement of its military resources than a cynical attempt to boost civilian casualty figures, and second, that insisting that Hamas fight out in the open according to traditional rules of engagement is functionaly equivalent to insisting that they commit suicide.

and Tipsy OTM about everything

putting a smaller group's self-interests and survival above the safety of civilian population = a bad thing

I really don't see where the first-world snobbery comes into that.

Those rules xp are from the Geneva Conventions, which are accepted by pretty much every state (including Palestine, which is kind of pertinent). They don't favour one state over another - there's plenty of scope for different tactics within them - they're just designed to limit the carnage. What favours the first world isn't the rules, it's the better technology, better training, better equipment and larger armies. Without the rules, they would just totally obliterate their punier opponents

Hamas doesn't have to fight out in the open. Morally, though, they should stop bombing Sderot. Like, period. No discussion. You can't explicitly and intentionally bomb children and maintain any kind of moral ground, no matter who you are.

You're a bad pet owner and don't understand cats. Your cat scratches you, which is against the rules, so you put 300 cats to sleep and injure 1000.

Oh and Mordy, just as a note, I don't think the problem of controlling factions is at all meaningless here, and I think it's an issue on both ends. This is all stating the obvious, but . . . there are no long-term solutions here that don't involve two authorities being to make agreements and ensure that individuals keep to them. The main expression of this problem on the Israeli end is having settlers who won't cooperate with agreements, and having political pressures at home that make it touchy to go force them to cooperate. The main expression of this problem on the Palestinian end is, well, everything. It's not as if this isn't understood -- the P.A. itself is an effort to create some central authority on that side that can be dealt with -- but there are kinda more questions than ever about how you help achieve that, whether a militant central authority is better than none at all, etc. . . . Again, stating the obvious, but this stuff doesn't strike me as meaningless in the least!

Exactly, thanks for articulating my problem with the arguments on this thread. Palestinians aren't pets. XP

sorry, when Israel conducts air raids on a densely populated Gaza slum they're intentionally killing children too, unless you want to be Orwellian about it.

(Argh Mordy there's a very lazy retort to "Palestinians aren't pets" that I hope nobody makes here)

Yes, Morbius, and that is wrong.

There's a difference between targeting a Hamas building and hitting a child, and targeting a school and hitting a child. Surely you know that?

I didn't say you were a human xxxxp

Sorry 210, dude. I have no idea what you're talking about.

everybody knows only the Jews can build children xxp

putting a smaller group's self-interests and survival above the safety of civilian population = a bad thing

― iatee

Absolutely. But you're presenting this as if it's something cut-and-dried. If not in the neighborhoods they actually inhabit, where should Hamas base their military operations? If they were to establish seperate, clearly identified military bases, they would be annihilated instantly. If they were to quit the territory they're fighting, for they would no longer be able to do so. Their actions are a product of their circumstances, just as Israel's are. A product more of necessity than morality.

And, yes: given the massive inequalities of power, given the physical circumstances of the conflict, and given the histories of the nations involved, it is somewhat hypocritical for Israeli, American and/or English citizens to fault Hamas' morality in this regard. Was the French resistance behaving immorally in operating out of civilian neighborhoods?

P.S. I'm not justifying Hamas attacks against Israeli civilians. I'm not even justifying Hamas' failure to distinguish itself from civilian populations. I'm saying that it's kind of hypocritical to fault them for the latter when your country is more-or-less at war with them.

"Your attempt to survive is immoral. You should come out into this nice clearing over here so we don't have to blow up all of your children while trying eradicate you."

^^ reductionist, I'm sure

you know, i told this story upthread about rockets hitting this secondary school but i don't think the qassam rockets were *aimed* at the school. don't they fire them from, like, a couple miles away, with no guidance?

Their actions are a product of their circumstances, just as Israel's are. A product more of necessity than morality.

summarizes my thoughts on the whole subject pretty well

I wonder if I might interrupt to ask all you experts to comment on where and why you disagree with the Geneva Accords/Initiative, and to do so in this thread about the 2009 election in Israel:

2009 elections: Israel/Palestine and Obama

But I never get anywhere with "constructive" policy threads...

a statement from the j street project.

From tomorrow's Times

great link!

Save the high street – ditch bad service and ugly sales girls

Pretty girls cost the same to employ as ugly ones. Nobody likes to be served by a boot-faced crow

That second statement is patently untrue and would be way more fun to talk about

I mean just basic common-sense macroeconomics here

is "the times online" something like the onion, for british people?

Thanks for the link, Ismael. Good column.

British Onion, as requested. Not as clever, but the swearing is better

It is a good column. I was expecting something much more one-sided.

Reading The Corner it really makes me sad that these are the people who claim to be Israel's defenders in the media. They are even retarded when I'm sympathetic to their beliefs. From a Daniel Pipes' post today: "10) The Israeli goal should be victory, not ending terrorism."

Fuck you, Daniel Pipes. Israel's goal shouldn't be abstract nonsense you came up with in shower-inspired platitudes.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/12/30/gaza.aid.boat/index.html

Among the passengers were physicians from Britain, Germany and Cyprus and several human rights activists, including former U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney.

OMG Cynthia McKinney!

aka, my president.

No harm to McKinney, FWIW. Lucky, that. Iraeli's don't seem tolerantly inclined at the moment...

"La de da gonna ride this boat into a war zone." In reality I have no opinion about this conflict, but man, these types of liberals are embarrassing (and I'm a little left wing). I bet they went in thinking, we're gonna help those poor Palestinians! "wtf, why are we getting rammed?" uhhh, it's a fucking war zone you morons.

eh, it was international waters, not a war zone.

Story sounds really suspicious to me. They claimed Israel didn't contact them, but they saw a patrol boat and they even tried to maneuver AROUND the patrol boat? At a certain point don't you open communications to the boat that you're afraid is going to ram you? Seems much more likely to me that Israel told them to turn back, they were like, "Fuck that, we're going forward," and then they got rammed.

That's an entertaining article. "The collision was so severe, Penhaul said, that the passengers were ordered to put on their life vests and be ready to get in lifeboats." - the fact that the sentence ends there does undermine the gravity of the incident a tad

So like, do you reckon that Israel has a right to ram any boat it wants to in international waters?

They basically got away with all but sinking a US Navy ship in international waters

Which the folks on the Dignity must have forgotten about

XXP Presumably they don't have that "right," but I don't really know what the provisions regarding international waters and war are. For all I know they do have that right. Countries have been known to fight wars over international waters, no?

they weren't travelling under a red cross or a red crescent, and it appears at least one of the flags in the photograph is palestinian, so this basically reeks of dumb stunt, especially knowing that american sailors died for less

Cynthia McKinney, I forgot about her. She's sorta the original Joe the Plumber.

Tombot OTM, re: dumb stunt.

Israel is likely to interdict in international waters rather than allow entry into an active war zone, vs.

...Israel has a right to ram any boat it wants to in international waters?

not really sure how cynthia mckinney is the original joe the plumber

don't you see, she voted right nearly all the time in the House, just like Joe the Plumber.

greenwald, as usual, more OTM than anyone else: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/12/30/democracy/

A new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll of 18 countries finds that in 14 of them people mostly say their government should not take sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Just three countries favor taking the Palestinian side (Egypt, Iran, and Turkey) and one is divided (India). No country favors taking Israel's side, including the United States, where 71 percent favor taking neither side.

my bad I get her and Cindy Sheehan confused

McKinney's the one who tackled a police officer, right

she either threw a phone at or punched a capitol cop (depending on which report you choose to believe, the media reports or what the cop wrote down) after he chased her down and tried to tackle her for basically the crime of being a black person imo. she was repeatedly stopped trying to enter the capitol because the cops refused to, like, believe she WORKED there when she'd try to skip the metal detector line like the rest of the legislators. she was right to be fucking pissed with those meatheads, tho maybe hurling your phone naomi cambell-style isn't the right way of going about things.

well I'm glad she decided to quit politics and have indiana jones adventures full time

we should all be so lucky

In case anyone wonders where Brian Eno stands:
...
Gaza is now an experiment in provocation. Stuff one and a half million people into a tiny space, stifle their access to water, electricity, food and medical treatment, destroy their livelihoods, and humiliate them regularly...and, surprise, surprise - they turn hostile. Now why would you want to make that experiment?

Because the hostility you provoke is the whole point. Now 'under attack' you can cast yourself as the victim, and call out the helicopter gunships and the F16 attack fighters and the heavy tanks and the guided missiles, and destroy yet more of the pathetic remains of infrastructure that the Palestinian state still has left. And then you can point to it as a hopeless case, unfit to govern itself, a terrorist state, a state with which you couldn't possibly reach an accommodation.

And then you can carry on with business as usual, quietly stealing their homeland.

http://www.counterpunch.org/eno01022009.html

paw paw hebrew blowtorch

The Israelis are a gifted and resourceful people

Now 'under attack' you can cast yourself as the victim, and call out the helicopter gunships and the F16 attack fighters and the heavy tanks and the guided missiles, and destroy yet more of the pathetic remains of infrastructure that the Palestinian state still has left. And then you can point to it as a hopeless case, unfit to govern itself, a terrorist state, a state with which you couldn't possibly reach an accommodation.

And then you can carry on with business as usual, quietly stealing their homeland.

http://www.counterpunch.org/eno01022009.html

― vermonter, Friday, January 2, 2009 8:36 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

I don't think this is right. I mean it has some elements of right, but it's simplistic, and it displays a failure to distinguish between the current situation in Gaza and the current situation in the West Bank which are, fwiw, under different respective governments. I don't see any evidence that Israel wants to "steal" Gaza, they just don't want to deal with the government that happens to have been democratically elected there, and they don't want to relinquish control of its borders and economy (or lack thereof) until there is a more harmless "government" in place. Israel went to way too much trouble to completely evacuate its paltry settlements in Gaza to suggest that it has any interest in resettling people there. That said, Eno is basically right that Israel's own actions continue to inflame the situation it claims to be trying to end, and that results in a temporarily convenient political stalemate where nothing must be risked or given up. It is worth noting that the backers of Hamas also have some interest in continuing to provoke Israel by constantly firing rockets (in fact, the rockets are useless as a military/defensive weapon and aimed at civilian areas and thus can hardly be seen as anything other than provocation).

Israel's governing Kadima party is under pressure to look strong after its perceived weakness in Lebanon and from the civilian population who does not like dodging rockets. Israel's response is unconscionable and helps to create the problem it claims to be seeking to eliminate, but I don't see it as an expansionist move.

I still think it's funny how the Palestinians democratically (yay!) elected the enemy (boo!). But anyway.

jesus christ, who the fuck asked brian eno to weigh in?

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/06_02/gaza2R1506_468x316.jpg
Lest it be forgotten, this is a picture of Hamas coming to power to in Gaza. Democratic elections not quite the whole story here.

jesus christ, who the fuck asked brian eno to weigh in?

One of the editors of Counterpunch, presumably. What's your excuse?

Paul Craig Roberts
Whatever Happened to Western Morality?

Brian Eno
Stealing Gaza: an Experiment in Provocation

Ralph Nader
America Must Stop Shirking Its Responsibility on Gaza

Jordan Sarging
Can All of You Please Shut Up? (Part 1 of 2)

Alex Cockburn
Some racist shit about 'riper ethnic cauldrons'

Lest it be forgotten, this is a picture of Hamas coming to power to in Gaza. Democratic elections not quite the whole story here.

that picture was taken well after Hamas won the elections, after a Hamas-Fatah military dust-up in which Fatah ineffectually tried to shut them down there.

I still think it's funny how the Palestinians democratically (yay!) elected the enemy (boo!). But anyway.

http://weblogs.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/politics/blog/george-w-bush-picture.jpeg

taking gaza city by strategy

Why the fuck did the US veto away a UN-call for a cease fire?

I haven't been following this very closely but I assume because Israel is arguing that the Amateur Gazan Rocketeer Corps won't respect a cease-fire anyway? I mean, a cease-fire would obligate Israel to stop bombing the shit out of Gaza, and we can't have that, otherwise how will Hamas Learn Their Lesson?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v134/tracerhand/VisitIsrael.jpg

I haven't been following this very closely but I assume because Israel is arguing that the Amateur Gazan Rocketeer Corps won't respect a cease-fire anyway? I mean, a cease-fire would obligate Israel to stop bombing the shit out of Gaza, and we can't have that, otherwise how will Hamas Learn Their Lesson?

A new Hamas cease-fire would be just about the best case scenario for Israel, and would within their minds, justify this whole thing...

Ah OK - how come?

(By the way, I think the best caption possible for the above photo is "Or visit Gaza - exactly like the Gaza in the news")

Presumably because they could say that their bombing campaign brought it about?

and to a big extent it'd be true

bombing houses give you so much more?

I haven't been following this very closely but I assume because Israel is arguing that the Amateur Gazan Rocketeer Corps won't respect a cease-fire anyway? I mean, a cease-fire would obligate Israel to stop bombing the shit out of Gaza, and we can't have that, otherwise how will Hamas Learn Their Lesson?

― Tracer Hand, Sunday, January 4, 2009 8:55 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

what do you think israel wants out of this? given that the amateur gazan rocket guys have all been locked up (apparently), what *is* their beef? is it just wanton bloodlust or what?

As for what Israel wants, I think this op-ed's right about Israel's intentions in Gaza (i.e. get rid of Hamas and destabilize Gaza by killing large numbers of Gazans, cutting off supply lines and trying to show to Gazans that Hamas can't govern). Israel also prob. sees the US presidential transition period as a way to change the "facts on the ground" before Obama takes office.

Bloodlust plays a part too, imo.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1230733120252&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Israel's opening of the Gaza crossings to allow in humanitarian aid contributes somewhat to this sense of anarchy, because it makes Hamas look unable to govern. If the Palestinians must rely on Israel's green light to let food aid in from third countries, then that undercuts Hamas's argument that it is able to serve its public.
...
When it loses its ability to do this, when it loses its control of the situation, when its loses its grip on Gaza, then its legitimacy may be diminished in the eyes of its own people.

Palestinian apologists have argued since the elections that brought Hamas to power in the PA in 2006 that the Palestinian people did not really buy into Hamas's extremist ideology, that they didn't really want a Hamas government, but rather, they were just fed up with Fatah's corruption and ineffectiveness, and voted for Hamas because they wanted a government that could rule.

But Israel seems now to be betting that if Hamas can no longer govern effectively, then its public legitimacy may wane. And that, Jerusalem believes, is something that genuinely does scare Hamas.

Also, a reminder the people being bombed (from a report released Jan. 3):

80% of the population cannot support themselves and are dependant on humanitarian assistance. This figure is increasing.

According to WFP, the population is facing a food crisis. There are food shortages of flour, rice, sugar, dairy products, milk, canned foods and fresh meats.

The imports entering are insufficient to support the population or to service infrastructure maintenance and repair needs.

The health system is overwhelmed, having already been weakened by the 18- month blockade.

The utilities are barely functioning: the only electric power plant has shut down. Some 250,000 people in central and northern Gaza do not have electricity at all due to the damage to fifteen electricity transformers during the air strikes. The water system provides running water once every 5-7 days and the sanitation system cannot treat the sewage and is dumping 40 million litres of raw sewage into the sea daily. Fuel for heating, needed due to the cold weather, and cooking gas, are no longer available in the market.

There has been significant destruction in the Gaza Strip, over 600 targets hit, including roads, infrastructure, the Islamic university, government buildings, mosques and civil police stations.

etc etc etc

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=upi20090103-173505-6888&show_article=1

Good thing they're working on such an achievable goal

Next they can take on, like, England

http://www.thebricktestament.com/judges/index.html

40 people killed after tank shells fired into a school. This war's Qana moment?

2006:

http://www.darrelplant.com/images/independent_ceasefire.jpg

the most jarring atrocity on document i've seen, from the end of last month in Gaza:

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/eOPBO7Z3KT0&hl=en&fs=1";></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/eOPBO7Z3KT0&hl=en&fs=1"; type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

truly reveals the extent of censorship and unexploited sensitivity keeping this stuff statistical.

&

I don't know how much it matters, but that video is probably from an accidental Qassam explosion four years ago, not from last month:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/01/04/terrorism/index.html
http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/7n4re/a/9rj2

oh. sorry.

I don't know how much it matters

Greenwald said something similar at the end of his article... why does it not matter? I think there's a huge difference between whether this was the result of an Israeli air strike or a Hamas shipment of Qassam rockets that accidently exploded. Duh.

This is like that picture of a beaten Arab from a few years ago who turned out to be a Jew that the photographer "mislabeled."

"Israel Resumes Gaza Attack After a Pause to Allow Aid Delivery"

not the onion

Youtube videos -- not the greatest thing to happen to journalism since the daily newspaper.

On a similar tip, an Israeli I vaguely know posted a video to his facebook labeled "Hamas using children as human shields." All that could be seen in the video was an armed, masked person pulling a child across a street and a bunch of other people standing on the sidewalk. It was in no way clear that there was any human shield-usage going on or any sense of what the situation was. But unfortunately a lot of Israelis are very ready to believe such things right now, and further as soon as one video appears to "prove" the use of human shields, it becomes taken for granted that such things must be general Hamas policy and not isolated actions.

At the same time, it is true that Hamas fighters regularly fight from and use homes, schools and other civilian buildings. I don't know if they have much choice, given the nature of Gaza, but I think this ought at least to be taken into account. I find it a little disturbing that some seem so eager to ascribe to Israel some kind of sinister desire to maximize civilian casualties; if such a desire truly existed the death toll would be much higher.

"Hamas using children as human shields."

This kind of claim has to be made, constantly, in order to work around the gut-level dissonance of this stuff -- the fact that Israel responds to actions that might harm or kill a handful of Israeli civilians (like rocket attacks) with actions that routinely, "collaterally," harm or kill many, many times that number of Palestinian civilians. The only way to mentally defer a sense of responsibility or blame for that fact is to say that it wouldn't have to be that way if only the enemy acted differently. And in some cases this might not even be a bad argument! But so many of the repetitions of it seem to have something else at stake, like it's this ritual truism that's necessary to absolve other stuff you know to be true.

Israeli propaganda = "stop hitting yourself", basically

Exactly -- "you leave us no choice but to do something that of course we do have a choice about, choices we should probably consider given that the old reactions aren't really getting us anywhere."

This kinda goes back to the arguments upthread claiming that some of us put more responsibility on Israel, or excuse the Palestinians from responsibility just on the basis that it's a fractious group. A lot of the Israeli stance on this involves the country putting itself in that position of responsibility, positing itself as this entity that must react certain ways, and therefore You Are Bringing This Reaction on Yourself -- but this is only vaguely politically true inside Israel, not some kind of unchangeable fact of life.

(We talked upthread about the problems of parent/child metaphors, but from the very definition of an occupation onward, there are a lot of Israeli positions here that seize that kind of dynamic in and of themselves.)

imo that argument got shifted a bit with the democratic election of Hamas.

plus longer range missiles from Iran being able to reach Dimona .

This kind of claim has to be made, constantly, in order to work around the gut-level dissonance of this stuff -- the fact that Israel responds to actions that might harm or kill a handful of Israeli civilians (like rocket attacks) with actions that routinely, "collaterally," harm or kill many, many times that number of Palestinian civilians. The only way to mentally defer a sense of responsibility or blame for that fact is to say that it wouldn't have to be that way if only the enemy acted differently. And in some cases this might not even be a bad argument! But so many of the repetitions of it seem to have something else at stake, like it's this ritual truism that's necessary to absolve other stuff you know to be true.

― nabisco, Wednesday, January 7, 2009 7:53 PM (53 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is unbelievably evasive bs imo, kind of ma-level critical theory. i mean fortunately one loses the patronizing italics in my quoted version.

I wasn't gonna put it so harshly as that, but I don't think the dissonance nabisco describes here is in any way unique to the Israeli situation. It's called going to war with a relatively weak enemy. I can't imagine any modern military power reacting any differently to the present situation, or handling the long-term back and forth any better. And, yeah, maybe that means I need to demand a lot more of my modern military powers, but that's a much bigger issue than what goes on in Gaza.

xpost - Please explain how that's remotely bullshit, or remotely evasive.

I don't think it should be remotely controversial to point out that (a) the average Israeli knows IDF actions affect and kill Palestinian civilians, (b) the average Israeli is a human being who is going to consider this somewhat unfortunate, and thus (c) arguments are going to be made and repeated that there was No Other Choice, that it's not what was desired, that it's what Palestinian militants forced the nation to have to do to defend itself -- this is not a complicated or controversial idea.

But so many of the repetitions of it seem to have something else at stake, like it's this ritual truism that's necessary to absolve other stuff you know to be true.

Part that might be hard to prop up w/ evidentiary support.

Not that I thought it was particularly patronizing in the first place.

xpost - Please explain how that's remotely bullshit, or remotely evasive.

evasive:

- does hamas use children as human shields?
- what's *really* at stake here?

or

- does hamas use children as human shields?
- the rockets only kill a few people

i mean, is it a 'ritual truism', or might it have some truth-content? it wouldn't necessarily 'absolve' israel, because in a place as densely packed as gaza there would be substantial collateral damage anyway, but the question is pertinent. as are other questions, like, what does israel think will be the outcome of this, etc, etc: it's still a legit question that can't be wafted away with a bit of discource analysis.

xpost -

It's an observation, not a lawsuit! Look, this just strikes me as flat-out mechanically true: what great practical reason is there to make strong claims that Hamas uses children as shields, except to explain why it is that you wound up killing children when you attacked Hamas? Which is sometimes a perfectly reasonable explanation! But it can become a claim that you have a stake in that goes well beyond dispassionate truth -- it can become a general claim that other people's actions are responsible for Bad Results you don't want responsibility for. It can become a larger stance, true at times and maybe not at others, that's somewhat similar to saying "I am just punching the air right here, and if you put your head in that space, it's not my fault I hit you."

xpost - ok, so by "evasive" you mean "you are talking about something other than what I feel like talking about" -- congratulations

Especially funny since I was not responding to anything you said, or remotely attempting to waft anything away

no, you were evading the question that your post started with: "Hamas using children as human shields"

of the two possible options talk about it or don't talk about it, you chose 'it's not real question, its symptomatic of something', etc.

That's not a question, that's a claim someone was making, and I was interested in some of the ways such claims operate.

I am not investigating whether or how often Hamas uses children as human shields because I am sitting at a desk in Manhattan, and have no expertise with which to affirm or deny the claim. If you want to evaluate the truth of the claim, feel free to work around my posts.

Meanwhile, I might make an observation about something else, which is not bullshitting, it's a thought/observation.

I did not say it wasn't a real question.

ugh ok, not a question but a claim.

if you do get interested in the truth of claims rather than 'how they operate', this dude seems to be talking from 1st-hand-knowledge in re human shields:

http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/01/the_worlds_pornographic_intere.php

Eh, whatever, please get interested in biting me

no, feel free to go about manhattan with your head up your arse.

the Israeli army (and I say this from personal experience) can be a big, rough bulldozer

unfortunate choice of words

it would be difficult to go around anywhere with a head up an arse

goldberg owes us his definition of pornography, because his must be pretty fucked up.

When you barely have a military and a completely non-functional infrastructure and society, human shields are kind of all you have left. It's galling to think that Hamas is being taken to task for the last resort of the totally defenseless.

It's galling to think that Hamas is being taken to task for the last resort of the totally defenseless.

This is a pretty compelling argument not to declare that you're going to end the prior cease-fire. The quixotic position, militarily, of Hamas is being shown to be as irresponsible and fuzzy-headed.

When you barely have a military and a completely non-functional infrastructure and society, human shields last resorts are kind of all you have left.

― Tracer Hand

^^ Would be a little easier to swallow. But only a little. Last resorts come in more flavors than "human shield".

When you barely have a military and a completely non-functional infrastructure and society, human shields are kind of all you have left. It's galling to think that Hamas is being taken to task for the last resort of the totally defenseless.

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, January 7, 2009 3:25 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

look i think this assault is disgusting and depressing in the extreme but this statement is just nuts. is a qassam rocket cheaper than someone else's kids?

I mean the Israeli-Palestinian conflict aside, this, as usual is also about Israeli doemstic politics and internecine Palestinian strife (aka Palestinian politics). Did Hamas win the last elections because they're 'push the Zionists to the sea' platform carried them or were people tired of the corruption and arrogance of Fatah? Whichever, they took over Gaza by force and they seem to be seeking some kind of legitimacy and esteem in the manner of Hizbollah, without the weaponry, foreign support or materiel that the latter had. Did they really think they could appeal to their hardcore base by lobbing missles, however fecklessly, into Israel and never see a response? Israel impio is trying to assure southern Israelis that they are being defended and also trying to show Gazans that support for Hamas isn't paying much in the way of dividends.

that said, in jeffrey goldberg's example, arranging bodies for western media seems like a secondary kind of evil to me than creating dead bodies in the first place

xp to myself

It's galling to think that Hamas is being taken to task for the last resort of the totally defenseless.

It's galling to think someone's trying to come up with a moral argument for human shields.

I am generally opposed to moral highhorsemanship and okay w the Tracer Hand, but yeah.

It's galling to think someone's trying to come up with a moral argument for human shields.

cf moral argument for bombing children

as usual I am totally disgusted by both sides in this never-ending, mind-numbingly pointless conflict

i hope youre talking about nabisco vs. enrique

sadly, no

How the hell are these two things equivalent?

1) Hamas rocket transportation blows up accidently and kills a whole bunch of Palestinians - someone takes a video and claims that it is an Israeli airstrike.

2) Israel claims that Hamas regularly takes human shields, and it's unclear whether their evidence is sufficient.

The first is an example of Hamas literally KILLING PALESTINIANS. You know, that thing that everyone has a problem with Israel doing. And then exploiting that manslaughter for PR purposes. It's totally mindboggling.

I see how they're comparable in terms of misleading video footage being used to make arguments that the video footage doesn't make. But the fact that someone posted a video claiming this was the devastation in Gaza from Israeli air attacks, found out it was a fake, and then people said it didn't matter (!!!) blows my mind. Seriously, wtf?

Did anyone read this article? It's really fucked up. Also, I really liked the 'stop hitting yourself' analogy used upthread.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123136613816062175.html
Israelis Watch the Fighting in Gaza From a Hilly Vantage Point
They Come With Binoculars and Lawn Chairs; Nurse Znaty: 'I'm Sorry, but I'm Happy'
...
Jocelyn Znaty, a stout 60-year-old nurse for Magen David Adom, the Israeli counterpart of the Red Cross, can hardly contain her glee at the site of exploding mortars below in Gaza.

"Look at that," she shouts, clapping her hands as four artillery rounds pound the territory in quick succession. "Bravo! Bravo!"
...
When a plume of smoke -- the result of an Israeli attack -- rose from what appears to be empty farmland Monday, Mr. Danino shook his head. "No, no, no," he said. "We should be hitting the greenhouses."

makes me want to vomit

how is that article fucked up? did you not realize these two populations actually want to kill each other?

I guess more importantly the thing that article makes clear to me is that even if 90 percent of both the hebrew and arab populations in any part of israel/palestine agreed that coexistence was a-okay and fine and something they wanted, the outliers will ruin it for you every time. And I'm sure, every time, that when the outliers start blowing stuff up and killing each other, more and more of the middle get that If You Can't Beat Em Join Em feeling, which most of the quotes in that article seem to illustrate.

One of the biggest failures of Israel has been to allow those "outliers" to gain increasing power and legitimacy over time. In Gaza, the outliers actually threaten you with violence for dissenting. In Israel, on the other hand, I'm never clear whether they're indulged for short-term political gains without any further motives or if there's a larger strategy at work.

uhh Rabin?

outliers support each other. we've seen how effective fear-mongering politics have been over here, just imagine it in that environment.

media writing about nurse znaty shit doesn't really help/reveal anything. you really think finding Palestinians celebrating horrible things would be that hard to find?

outliers support each other. we've seen how effective fear-mongering politics have been over here, just imagine it in that environment.

totally. I don't know if letting wingnuts hijack national policy is so much of a "failure" as it just seems like part of the democratic business cycle, if that makes sense.

and in a kind of lol but mostly sad non-coincidence, the books I've been reading about the rise of wingnuts in the GOP culminating in the last eight years trace a lot of their starting points back to 1973.

uhh Rabin?

Rabin should have provided grounds to target extremists, not to indulge them.

Yeah, of course they want to kill each other, often in ugly ways, but one side has billions in U.S. military support and a relatively large, well-trained army, and the other is a big refugee camp that's being humiliated and starved. Just by the crude measurement of a body count of how the "war" is going, it's up to around 700-3. For me, the power dynamic between the two sides is central to understanding what's happening (well, that, and race and religion and a dozen other things).

What's fucked up and sad about the article is how nonchalant the Israelis depicted are towards real suffering while living in relative comfort and wealth.

(xps)

that's not just israelis. you may find that in fact the entire developed world is nonchalant towards real suffering while living in relative comfort and wealth.

vermonter, are you trying to say that if we evened the odds and gave both sides a few billion each, and let hamas take some genius classes on artillery, that would make it better? I don't think the power dynamic has shit to do with anything EXCEPT in the macro game theory picture where mutually assured destruction creates the opportunity for a real ceasefire agreement that lasts for an entire generation or two.

(and no I don't really like those odds either)

(xp)
That's true.

I guess what's different about Israel for me is that it's younger and we can watch in real time the violence of creating a nation on someone else's land...kind of like being in the U.S. 400 years ago. Also we can't picnic on a hill and clap while our boys drop bombs overhead either, so there's a difference in proximity too.

You don't have to go time traveling, verm. You can look at lotsa places in the world today where relatively wealthy folks are killing relatively poor folks. And vice-versa. Just like in Israel/Gaza.

http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1053800.html

Seriously, fuck these guys.

DEEP THOUGHTS BY CONTENDO

Shlomi Regional Council head, Gabi Na'aman, told Channel 1 that local residents have been told to open their bomb shelters and that school has been canceled. The Home Front Command said, however, that no orders have yet been given to cancel school.

Which guys Mordy, the Shlomi Regional Council or the Home Front Command? I'm going with seriously fuck the HFC because yo schools out forever motherfuckers

Sorry, don't have much of a sense of humor about it. I have two brothers and a sister-in-law living in Israel right now.

I'm just really pissed. I want to know how Israel is responsible for Hezbollah breaking THAT cease-fire as well.

israel made the decision to exist, therefore they are responsible for shit that is done to them

israel shouldn't have worn that short skirt to the party. she was fucking asking for it.

ha - at least we agree about revolutionary road

It seems like a lot of the people that wsj article is talking about aren't really ideological extremists but just people who happen to live in Sderot.

btw vermonter in re birth of a nation, there's another UK partition project growing up before our eyes a little further east, and again the same thing is happening - attempts at secular democracy being hijacked by religious extremists. we're 230 years in and this happens to us, so I think it's safe to say it'll be a while. OTOH history goes faster every day.

Apparently making the British viceroys feel unwelcome is a one-way ticket to sturm and drang of the bloodiest variety

I know I was being simplistic in that last post, but damn, I really hate the argument that this particular situation calls for a special kind of one-sided moral outrage over the "very clear evil that those people over there are doing over there!" I mean, it is clear that great evil is being done, on both sides, but it's also clear that the situation exists as it does due to a big tangle of achingly complex sub-situations, and that any attempt to mash it down into a simple bad guy vs. good guy scenario is FUCKED - is seriously part of the problem. And that's why I was getting all moony-inna-joony with the deep thoughts back there.

^^ which is more of the same, I suppose...

israel made the decision to exist, therefore they are responsible for shit that is done to them

― TOMBOT, Thursday, January 8, 2009 1:52 AM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

israel shouldn't have worn that short skirt to the party. she was fucking asking for it.

― Mordy, Thursday, January 8, 2009 1:54 AM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark

Well let's not be completely obtuse. 1) Israel's decision to "exist" did involve displacing a ton of people and they've been a bit slow to confront the consequences of that. 2) Israel has made normal life in Gaza pretty much impossible since the Hamas election in 2006, which is almost since the withdrawal.

haha yeah it is unfortunate that deontological ethics doesn't work at the level of nation-states

xpost to contendo

or, you know, any time you're making decisions that actually affect other people

1) Israel's decision to "exist" did involve displacing a ton of people and they've been a bit slow to confront the consequences of that. 2) Israel has made normal life in Gaza pretty much impossible since the Hamas election in 2006, which is almost since the withdrawal.

Re: the first point, yes, there was displacement. But there was also an enormous displaced Jewish community living in Cyprus internment camps and a sizable Jewish community in Israel from before the war. Obv. displacing one community with a second isn't a good thing, but it's not like a colonialist oppressor threw people off their land to make way for new citizens. (And before the war, there wasn't much displacement - which doesn't mean it's right and okay, but does explain a bit the circumstances.)

Not to mention that the generation growing up in Israel now didn't kick Palestinians out of their homes to clear the road to Jerusalem in '67.

NOT TO MENTION that, as shitty as displacement is, if Arab armies didn't lock down Jerusalem, attack the Jews living there, and didn't blockade settlements so that people couldn't eat, the army wouldn't have felt it necessarily to throw Palestinians out of their homes to clear the blockade.

This wasn't a fucking colonialist army trying to abuse the poor, innocent civilians living there. There was some huge fucking evil shit that the Palestinians were complacent in to get things to this point. And it doesn't excuse the current situation (esp since current Palestinians weren't the ones blockading thousand year old communities), but it does lend a little understanding to the matzif.

(Sorry if I sound snitty or pissed. I'm just upset right now about the situation in general. When family are in a war-zone, you feel this shit intensely.)

Re: the first point, yes, there was displacement. But there was also an enormous displaced Jewish community living in Cyprus internment camps and a sizable Jewish community in Israel from before the war. Obv. displacing one community with a second isn't a good thing, but it's not like a colonialist oppressor threw people off their land to make way for new citizens. (And before the war, there wasn't much displacement - which doesn't mean it's right and okay, but does explain a bit the circumstances.)

Oft-repeated and obfuscating statements. There is a "sizable" Indian immigrant population living in New Jersey -- would that somehow help to justify displacement of non-Indians for the creation of an Indian state there? And what difference does it make to what I said whether they are "colonialist oppressors" or not? They wanted the land and they took it. And my point is that at very least that leaves the country with some kind of moral responsibility to repair some of the damage.

NOT TO MENTION that, as shitty as displacement is, if Arab armies didn't lock down Jerusalem, attack the Jews living there, and didn't blockade settlements so that people couldn't eat, the army wouldn't have felt it necessarily to throw Palestinians out of their homes to clear the blockade.

― Mordy, Thursday, January 8, 2009 3:00 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

This is nonsense. Displacement was part of Ben Gurion's plan. It may not have been a part of every version of zionism, but it was a part of the Ben Gurion version, which is the one that prevailed.

His plan was buying homes, which Israel did. They bought up a shitload of real estate, mostly using donations from the Diaspora community in America. They didn't throw people out of homes because of some grand plan tho. They did that to open up blockades.

none of this is relevant in 2008.
except for the interesting coincidence that harvey milk decided to be a homosexual at exactly the same moment that jews decided the torah said something about canaan in it.

Also, I happen to believe that the post-WWII Jewish community didn't do anything wrong by moving to Israel. I think they had a crisis of placement (for reasons the Palestinians aren't to blame for), and they wanted to return to a historical, cultural and, yes, religious homeland. And until the 6DW, they didn't throw any Palestinians out of their homes.

Oh come on, Mordy. Maybe we could have avoided all of this if the Marshall Plan had included a free boat trip and USA citizenship coupon for any survivor who wanted out of Europe.

Maybe, but it didn't. My point is just that blaming the Jews in Israel for displaced Palestinians is fucked up. Yes, there are displaced Palestinians, and yes, that needs to be fixed. But the Israeli's didn't /do it/ to them.

(please nobody show up and tell me that the marshall plan did in fact have that somewhere in it)

They weren't innocent victims. This isn't like the English settled Native American territories, and killed and displaced them to take their land.

I think the Marshall Plan explicitly didn't have that. Don't remember it totally off-hand, but I think the US pretty clearly did not want all those survivors.

haha "explicitly"

SECTION 33B-II
THERE WILL CERTAINLY NOT BE ANY PROVISIONS MADE TO OFFER CITIZENSHIP COUPONS OR FREE BOAT RIDES TO SURVIVORS OF HITLER'S ATTEMPT AT GENOCIDE NO NO NO NO NO

Right. I remember that section.

In a surprising twist, that particular article was lobbied for most heavily by none other than Dr. Brown, who some have speculated was acting on behalf of established northeastern deli operators who didn't want any more competition.

back to being vaguely serious, I think it's funny how easily the current situation regarding israel gets reduced to "displacement" when nobody would think to say the same thing about similarly dire and ludicrous shit happening in India and Pakistan, despite the fact that as far as I can tell there was no nationalized effort to systematically exterminate Hindus in the past century.

It's because, like I said earlier in the thread, people expect more from white Israelis and think that all those third-world people are too stupid to not kill each other.

(Not actually sure if this is true, but sometimes people's justifications for Hamas terror certainly sound like they think Palestinians are unable to act like normal people.)

I wouldn't put it all down to crypto-bigotry as much as everybody feels entitled to have an asshole about the Holy Land (also lol white people think the bible is about them) while they never had to learn about the babri mosque vs the ram mandir.

a moral argument for human shields.

I'm not sure where morality comes into it. Just try to imagine how fucking desperate you'd have to be to use your own most vulnerable people as shields for your own weapons. There's nothing moral about it. But there is a logic to it.

What human shields? Fucking hateful construction that.

Just try to imagine how fucking cynical you'd have to be to use your own most vulnerable people as shields for your own weapons.

What is this desperation bullshit? Loads of just as (or more) desperate people DON'T kill people.

Jeez, but I am stupid, I broke an unwritten law never to get involved in anything whatsoever on the internet about Israel, never never never be so stupid

There's nothing moral about it. But there is a logic to it.

^^^ could refer to a LOT of things on BOTH sides.

also I'm not sure hamas can really be called 'desperate'. there's some very simple things they could easily do to improve their own situation and the lives of the palestinian people, like say, stop shooting rockets and have a dude say "we recognize the state of israel." but I guess that'll happen when they're REAL desperate though? until then, human shields.

So your they're not desperate, just fundamentally depraved?

(Note how I am completely granting that "human shields" are an ongoing Hamas tactic, when I have no idea if anything of the sort is true)

I don't think the Palestinian people are depraved. I think they are in a tough position with bad leadership. I do believe that the people who abuse their own people, put children in harm's way, and attack innocent civilians are fundamentally depraved.

Hamas?? Yes.

In fact, I would argue that if these actions aren't actions of depravity, then there are no depraved actions in the world.

OK good to know.

I do believe that the people who ... attack innocent civilians are fundamentally depraved.

IE the fucking IDF.

No?

Maybe where we disagree, Tracer, is I believe there are some actions that are inexcusable no matter what the circumstances. Maybe you think someone's environment can possibly justify certain behaviors? I mean, this isn't someone mugging a dude for his wallet because he can't afford his rent. This is a guy telling his kid (or his nephew, maybe) to stand in front of the antiaircraft defense so that if Israel strikes, he'll be able to put his kid's picture in the newspaper as an example of Israeli brutality.

If someone in the IDF attacks and kills a civilian with intentionality, then yes. That is also depravity. No question.

So if Hamas are depraved subhuman animals, what does that make the people who voted for them?

I didn't use the words subhuman or animals. I just used the word depravity. Lots of human beings do depraved things. We don't excuse them tho. Madoff is depraved - he is still human.

And the people who voted for them wanted certain social services that it looked like Hamas could provide over Fatah...

Look, are you guys fucking serious?

So if Hamas are depraved subhuman animals, what does that make the people who voted for them?

It makes them some people who voted for some depraved motherfuckers.

I do believe that the people who ... attack innocent civilians are fundamentally depraved.

IE a lot of people on both sides

And if a politician orders an attack, in the full knowledge that hundreds of civilians and children will be slaughtered? Or perhaps orders attacks only on Shia civilians, not Sunni or Christians, as in Lebanon in 2006. Is this depraved?

I'm not sure throwing words like depravity or evil around helps, however much I may feel they apply.

yes

Why do you keep conflating between someone ordering a military maneuver that may result in civilian casualties, and someone ordering an attack on civilian casualties? They are self-evidently different. XP

The former bothers me, but I understand it and can relate to it. The latter is disturbed and depraved and fucking evil.

(And if it makes you feel better, I'm using Hannah Arendt's "evil," not some Biblical definition.)

They are not different, because there is no "may".

Ordering an attack that WILL 100% DEFINITELY NO SHADOW OF A DOUBT result in hundreds of civilian deaths IS an attack on civilians.

If you can't see that, I don't know what to say.

I guess that pretty much includes all wars ever?

are you trying to argue that war is bad?

It's moral cowardice to say anything else. Either it is right to kill those civilians because you believe in your cause, or its not.

Hiding behind "regrettable" civilian deaths, as if they were somehow an accident is just deceitful.

I guess that pretty much includes all wars ever?

Not really

Well, sorry, I don't see it that way. I think sometimes bad things result from necessary actions. I don't think all of our actions can be pure of negative consequences, and often we just need to hedge them to get the most positive consequences. This isn't some Kantian ideology, I understand, but it's what I believe. I wish the other way worked, but I don't think it's pragmatic. I don't think the Allies could have won WW2 without some civilians dying. You should obviously try to limit these deaths to a minimum and take as many precautions as possible.

But certainly if you believe IDF officers ordering attacks that result in civilians dying is depraved, then you agree with me that Hamas is depraved?

I mean, a fortiori.

no Mordy, only one side is allowed to be bad. we need good guys in this movie.

Depraved is not a word I throw about much

spost to Mordy

OK, that's a defensible position, but you are saying we will kill x amount of people for y aim, and its worth it. Hamas are saying we will kill x amount of people for y aim (although x is a very small number here) and its worth it.

To pretend these are somehow morally different is infantile.

So you get down to what are the aims, and how effective are all these deaths in acieving them.

Then you start weeping at the horror of it all.

I said before that I don't think it helps throwing words like depraved around, but do I think Hamas's actions are wrong? Yes. Do I think Israel's actions are wrong? Yes.

There are no good guys.

But that's not equivalent. Israel doesn't say we will kill x amount of people for y aim. Ie: They never say, "We need to kill 20 random people to instill fear in the Gaza population." Ideally, they wouldn't kill anyone, and they take precautions (maybe not enough) to not kill civilians. Hamas says "We will kill 20 random people to instill fear in the S'derot population."

Hamas are saying we will kill x amount of people for y aim (although x is a very small number here)

I agree with your overall sentiment, but I'm pretty sure that the "although x is a very small number here" isn't their reason for killing people.

There is a difference between direct, intended action and indirect, unintended action. Ie: Different criminal penalties for accidental manslaughter or reckless manslaughter or murder.

This could get circular, but it's not an accident if you KNOW it's going to happen. That is a direct predictable consequence of ones actions.

Mordy I don't consider it my position to excuse or not excuse anyone's actions.

I was just trying to figure out what unbelievable mindset one would have get oneself into in order to think that human shields are a good idea, or that blowing oneself up is the best possible course of action to take. Have you ever thought about that?

I have. I've also wondered what it would take to get someone to gas a bunch of innocents and then burn their bodies in furnaces. I've found Arendt's explanation the easiest to understand; their unconsciousness and thoughtlessness has lead to depravity. The banality of evil. I don't think we need to excuse it, though.

And to Jamie; Voluntary manslaughter isn't an accident either. It's still distinguishable from murder.

DING DING DING DING GODWIN'S LAW ACHIEVED

Uh, that's not Godwin's Law.

Oh, it is (looking it up). Still, nothing wrong with that. But for Nazi, you can substitute any behavior that obviously beyond the parity of human ethics.

What would it take for the Spanish Crown to burn people at the stake for not converting to Catholicism? I used Nazis because that is who Arendt was writing about.

I was just trying to figure out what unbelievable mindset one would have get oneself into in order to think that human shields are a good idea, or that blowing oneself up is the best possible course of action to take. Have you ever thought about that?

since when is religious extremism an unbelievable mindset?

Mordy, have you not spotted a teeny little power imbalance between, say, the Catholic Church (or Nazism) and Hamas? Or do you think that's irrelevant when discussing military desperation?

iatee, many Israelis are religious extremists too, but they don't blow themselves up. Have you ever wondered why?

Tracer, I think (and this /is/ Kantian influenced) that some actions are depraved no matter what the extenuating circumstances. It's never cool to intentionally, consciously, and willfully kill a child. No matter what the circumstances. Ever.

cause they realize that tanks and bombs are more efficient?

Because their religious beliefs say that suicide under any circumstances is a sin? And Muslim doctrine does not say the same?

Muslims invented martyrdom, that's a fact

Mind you, I don't think Jewish religious extremists or Christian extremists are good and Muslim extremists are bad. Fuck all religious extremists. (Again, no matter the circumstances.)

I didn't say they invented it? Wtf dude?

I didn't say you said it

It's never cool to intentionally, consciously, and willfully kill a child. No matter what the circumstances. Ever.

Do you think I'm arguing this??

Yes, I think you're trying to excuse Hamas murder of children (either Israeli children, or their own children by negligence) by citing their circumstances and desperation.

Also, martyrdom is dying for your beliefs. Not suicide bombing.

Many xposts

I would say the argument that Israel uses, which amounts to it refusing to take moral responsibility for its actions (and which Mordy has echoed here), is a clear example of "unconsciousness and thoughtlessness" leading to "depravity".

If you have the guts to say we are killing these children and it's worth it because it will secure Israel that's one thing, but if you say these are regrettable and unintended consequences of our other, more justifiable, actions, then it becomes a much easier argument to make. And because it's easier to think that way, evil actions happen.

Jamie, you're not addressing the argument I'm making in any substantive way. I said that we distinguish between murder and manslaughter. We understand there are differences in intention, in motive. That these things are important. We code our legal statutes to reflect this. I don't see how this is a misleading case to make.

I'm really not sure what the difference is, except "we are killing these children and it's worth it" probably doesn't sound so great on CNN

The difference is that Israel doesn't set out to kill children. If they could adjust their plans to not kill children, but still accomplish protecting their old children, they would. If I found out that an Israeli leader said that we SHOULD kill their children as retribution, and not as accident, then yes, I'd say he's evil. But I can distinguish between the two people.

their own* children

We could try some pathos arguments on each other, but it seems to me the logos really ends here. I think we can distinguish between the two, and you don't. I understand your position, I even sympathize with it. I don't agree with it though. If you'd like, I can try to better explain my position, but I think I've tried that already. I'm not sure where else this can go...

To Tracer: people use the tactics available to them. If you lined up in uniform and took on Israel you would die, quickly. If as a state you take on Israel, you will lose. Hence non-state actors emerge, and use non-traditional tactics. People call them "weapons of the weak". It's completely predictable and it has little to do with religious fundamentalism, as the same or similar tactics have been adopted in other contexts.

None of this makes it right, though, does it? Blowing yourself up on a bus full of ordinary people is plain wrong.

I suppose I'm just not very interested in the psychology of the individuals.

This could get circular, but it's not an accident if you KNOW it's going to happen.

posts that sum up threads

xpost to Mordy - I did say it could get circular, so I will leave it there.

xpost

Is killing children worse than killing other human beings?

That seems to be the consensus here

but only when israelis do it

They are the ultimate "non-combatants" I suppose

^^^^^ hahaha right

Some adults are non-combatants

Some children are combatants, and / or have strong political beliefs or passions

Don't even know why I'm spelling this out, but to: the pinefox, not necessarily. But thematically (and literarily) children are symbols for pure innocence. Obv, caveats apply: not all children are innocent, not all adults have guilt. It's just shorthand - a stand-in. I assume this is obvious?

I mean, do we need to start deconstructing all rhetorical devices we use when we make arguments? I assume we have a common language here.

No, it's not obvious at all, to me. I thought 'killing children' was meant literally. If it's being used as a rhetorical device to suggest an attack on pure innocence, then I think that's unwise and unhelpful.

Yeah killing kids is worse than killing other human beings. I'm gonna regret getting involved here but....

Regardless of whether or not it's being used as a shield - which, apparently, it wasn't - you don't bomb a school. Ever.

Dude, you're being ridiculous. XP

It's not a symbol to suggest pure innocence as some platonic form. It's a symbol to suggest those who are innocent. Jesus.

(Jesus as expletive, not Jesus as someone who is pure innocence.)

I have a friend who's first year IDF, who's back in Israel and in Gaza right now. A week ago I asked him what the worst thing he'd been through was, and he said when a Palestinian kid pulled a toy gun on him, and he had to make the split second decision whether to shoot or not. Would be easier in a world where kids were always were non-combatants.

minus one 'were'

xpost: I don't get that, and don't think - especially on such an obviously contentious thread - you should assume that everyone shares your views or that your assumptions or 'rhetorical devices' or symbols are universally accepted and beyond question.

Sure, killing children sounds bad. Killing adults sounds bad also. Maybe it depends which adults. Maybe not.

Using children as a 'symbol' in discussions like this is unwise and unnecessary, I think, because they're not a symbol but are actually, empirically involved (as targets, fighters or whatever). It makes more sense to discuss them in those concrete terms than to view them as a rhetorical device to signify something else.

I'm not going to debate that here, pinefox, either way. If you want to discuss whether killing children is more or less wrong than killing an adult, I think you should start a new thread for it.

Killing people in general seems very bad, unless maybe they're bad people. But lots of people think that even killing bad people is wrong, and they could be right about that.

FWIW, I regret saying children. I just said "people" earlier, and should have stuck to that, but it's hard not to use emotive language, isn't it (and I think to most people, the fact that it is children dying does make it worse, whether that is right or not)? And there are specific actual children who are dead.

Would be easier in a world where kids were always were non-combatants.

Yeah, but most of the time they are. Most of the time kids, up to a certain age, make very few decisions for themselves and are, by and large, not responsible for where they are at any given time. Kids don't choose to go to school, they are taken there and if it was up to most of them they probably wouldn't go.Would be easier in a world where kids were always were non-combatants.

Yeah, but most of the time they are. Most of the time kids, up to a certain age, make very few decisions for themselves and are, by and large, not responsible for where they are at any given time. Kids don't choose to go to school, they are taken there and if it was up to most of them they probably wouldn't go because when kids do make decisions they are often not fully informed or wholly rational.

The above example is fucked up but even then you do what you can to avoid killing the child.

To Tracer: people use the tactics available to them. If you lined up in uniform and took on Israel you would die, quickly. If as a state you take on Israel, you will lose. Hence non-state actors emerge, and use non-traditional tactics. People call them "weapons of the weak". It's completely predictable and it has little to do with religious fundamentalism, as the same or similar tactics have been adopted in other contexts.

But this isn't exactly right -- not every desperate, oppressed people resorts to the same measures. Suicide bombing is certainly not something you find in most places in the world and it DOES have something to do with a particular kind of religious fundamentalism. The onetime Japanese version of it may not have been religious, but it was highly ideological and in fact seemed to have little to do with desperation.

and methamphetamines

Suicide bombing originated in Sri Lanka and had nothing to do with any kind of religious fundamentalism

xtreme sport?

tamil version of punk'd

This is starting to remind me of Nabisco's posts way upthread (which I criticized), where he talked about the need for symbolic representations of evil on the "other side" in order to justify the potentially troubling consequences of one's own actions.

Individuals can be "depraved", and so can governments. But it's a dangerous word to throw around, because one's actions in the face of true depravity (something like true evil) need not be held to the same standard as one's actions in the face of a morally comprehensible opponent. What we do to defeat the depraved need not conform to the standards that might govern us under more ordinary circumstances. As a result, accusations of depravity can become devices of moral and/or military convenience. The U.S. has struggled with this kind of thinking in its current "War On Terror".

By claiming that Hamas intentionally endangers Palestinian children in order to exploit their corpses when they die, we are making a at least two sub-assertions:
1) That this is not merely something that has happened, but a fair characterization of Hamas policy.
2) That we understand and have fairly characterized everyone's motives and behaviors in whatever did actually happen.

I'm not willing to grant either sub-assertion. I'm simply not willing to grant that Hamas, as policy, intentionally and directly murders Palestinian children in order to achieve its aims. I will grant that agents of Hamas have killed children. As have IDF soldiers. As have American soldiers and military contractors. I'm not trying to say that Hamas is "just like" the Israeli government, but rather the statement that HAMAS = TOTAL DEPRAVITY seem based on a bunch of shaky, self-justifying assumptions.

Also a lot of what Jeff Goldberg says in that article actually has to do with the moving of corpses for media purposes rather than actually putting anyone in harms way -- not the most noble practice but hardly on the level of using human shields.

mordy pinefox is making a pretty important point and its unfair of you to dismiss him out of hand like that

What's his point then? Maybe I misunderstood it.

Because my point was that the children that I'm using rhetorically aren't enemy combatants. If we want to debate the ethics of killing children combatants, that is a different discussion. What we were discussing upthread tho were non-combatants. I think it is pretty clear what "women + children" signifies in that context.

how many rockets have been launched into israel from the gaza strip over the past few years? just curious. i have heard it was thousands?

ok seriously I go to bed and you guys spend all morning arguing about the ethics of using kids to protect yourself from high-yield ordinance. Good job everybody.

The Qassam rockets were being used as one component of an array of military tactics deployed by Gazan groups before the pull-out, the Gush Katif colonies being the prominent target. This was a response to a wave of violence and expulsions in which, for example, 13,350 residents of Rafah had their homes and life belongings destroyed in the year preceding the withdrawal, courtesy of Israeli tanks and Caterpillar bulldozers. Parts of Gaza came to resemble Grozny. The Israelis frequently attacked ambulances, at one point using the argument that UNRWA had allowed Qassam rockets to be loaded on board one such vehicle (this turned out to be a lie, but it is still repeated on many a media outlet and website). The vast majority of casualties from their use date back to the period of formal colonialism. After the withdrawal, the rate at which these were used diminished dramatically. Their use has spiked in response to serial atrocities against Palestinians, such as the slaughter of the Ghaliya family on the Gaza beach, (in which Hamas broke an eighteen month unilateral ceasefire).

There were few such rockets fired during the six-month ceasefire, even though Israel didn't respect its terms, but their use was increased again as Israel broke the truce on November 4th (burn that date into your brain and remember it next time someone tells you that those nasty Hamas thugs wouldn't renew the ceasefire). Now, there are legitimate arguments about both the efficacy and ethics of using such weapons. To my mind, they have very little going for them as a tactic of resistance. But the apparently widespread belief that Qassam rockets are the vindictive and jubilant response of sneering Palestinian jihadists to Israeli mushiness is not justified by any evidence....

http://leninology.blogspot.com/2008/12/qassam-rockets-myths.html

i didn't know about the Ghaliya family and was gonna look it up but the first google result is from st0rmfr0n+ :(

BRAND: First, Israel is rejecting a proposed ceasefire in Gaza, saying conditions are not right. Meanwhile, Hamas says it will study truce proposals. So far, nearly 400 people have been killed in Gaza, many hundreds more wounded. On the Israeli side, five people have been killed in the latest fighting by homemade rockets fired from Gaza.

Most of those rockets land less than a mile away from the border in the small Israeli city of Sderot. Since the second intifada began eight years ago, thousands of rockets have hit Sderot. And just this morning, there were new rocket attacks. Joining us now is Sderot resident Anav Silverman. And, Anav, how many rockets fell this morning in Sderot, and what was that like?

Ms. ANAV SILVERMAN: In Sderot today, in comparison to yesterday, we've had fewer rockets, but in the past 24 hours, close to 50 rockets have been fired. This has become a regular routine here in Sderot, no different from when the ceasefire began in June. Everyone here in Sderot is in a very high state of alert. Most of the families are in the bomb shelters just waiting for the nightmare to be over at some point.

http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=98879854

Has anybody perhaps considered the problem that children do not, in fact, effectively shield anything from the effects of 200kg bombs? This is why Hamas needs more training and Gaza needs better infrastructure. A civilized person would realize that children are terrible building materials for a bunker and instead choose the accepted western solutions, reinforced concrete and steel. But no, the Israelis have so stripped the Palestinian population of Gaza of their textbooks and cement mixers that even the Palestinian elected representation are forced to toil in pits shored up by eight-year-olds.

Thousands is the oft-quoted number. It is important to understand that even though they have resulted in a relatively small number of deaths, it is difficult for a government to tell its citizens that they should live in bomb shelters and deal with constant explosions and fear. Not a justification, but essential to understanding the situation.

Hamas has always been an extremist group with very belligerent rhetoric toward Israel. They have expressed some willingness toward a "hudna" -- sort of like a temporary truce but with the understanding that the ultimate goal is to establish an Islamic state in all of Palestine (something that, by the way, did not exist prior to the state of Israel). I have always believed that if Israel softened its policies toward the territories, Hamas's support would weaken, but this is a tough sell for any Israeli politician who believes it.

I'm simply not willing to grant that Hamas, as policy, intentionally and directly murders Palestinian children in order to achieve its aims.

I feel fully entitled to come to a moral judgment of Hamas wrt the deaths of Palestinians (including children) regardless of whether it is their policy to kill them or not. What do they expect to come of missile attacks? What has Israel warned would happen in the case of suspension of the cease-fire? Their stubborn insistence on macho sword rattling when they haven't the means to actually win militarily may assuage their battered egos but it serves practically no other purpose. One can argue that Israel's response is disproportionate to the provocation and may actually impel more people to support them, but Hamas's stand is the umpteenth in Palestinian error and delusion and I won't excuse it for a second. Not because I think Israel's case is so great but because I think it's absolutely fucking tragic, and predictably so, for Gazans.

I'm simply not willing to grant that Hamas, as policy, intentionally and directly murders Palestinian children in order to achieve its aims.

And it's not as if both sides don't have a vested interest in putting their own people in harm's way. The bloodthirsty types are always secretly pleased when something bad happens, whether the bombs show up on foot or via air -- they WELCOME it -- because it gives them a pretext to do what they want to do anyway: engage in more mayhem, destruction, and violence upon an enemy who, by dint of their recent atrocities, are no longer human.

I mean, I really don't think one can talk about this conflict without making it clear, at every step, that each side is trying -- intentionally or semi-unintentionally -- to provoke the other into doing something so horrible that, from the world's perspective, "they have no choice" but to escalate matters and hit back ten times as hard. Every indignity imposed upon the Palestinians, every anxiety inflicted on the Israelis, contributes to this end.

One might say that only a small percentage of the population wants to escalate, of course, but it's usually that way anyway.

The thing is, for Israel, ramping things up seems like a losing strategy. They're outnumbered, not only from without but from within: as many people have said before, the #1 winning strategy for Palestinians would be for their brethren who have Israeli citizenship to reproduce like mad, get the majority, and either change the rules or force Israel to engage in mass deportations. It's a long game, but it beats the hell out of blowing yourself up.

Even failing that, Israel's biggest advantage -- nuclear weapons, with which they'll presumably incinerate Tehran and Damascus if they're ever invaded again -- isn't exactly going to last forever, you know?

Now, there are legitimate arguments about both the efficacy and ethics of using such weapons. To my mind, they have very little going for them as a tactic of resistance. But the apparently widespread belief that Qassam rockets are the vindictive and jubilant response of sneering Palestinian jihadists to Israeli mushiness is not justified by any evidence....

Legitimate arguments WHICH I WILL NOT BOTHER TO MAKE while creating a strawman to knock down.

Their stubborn insistence on macho sword rattling when they haven't the means to actually win militarily may assuage their battered egos but it serves practically no other purpose.

It keeps them in business, like the Bush family. Biggest mistake dubya ever made was letting them hang Saddam, you know.

I mean where does "myth" enter the picture of whether it's right to deliberately launch rockets at exclusively civilian areas or whether a government can be expected to respond.

There were few such rockets fired during the six-month ceasefire, even though Israel didn't respect its terms, but their use was increased again as Israel broke the truce on November 4th (burn that date into your brain and remember it next time someone tells you that those nasty Hamas thugs wouldn't renew the ceasefire). Now, there are legitimate arguments about both the efficacy and ethics of using such weapons. To my mind, they have very little going for them as a tactic of resistance. But the apparently widespread belief that Qassam rockets are the vindictive and jubilant response of sneering Palestinian jihadists to Israeli mushiness is not justified by any evidence....

― Dr Morbius

That is some heavy-duty, high-spin, one-sided bullhsit, Morbs.

They're outnumbered, not only from without but from within: as many people have said before, the #1 winning strategy for Palestinians would be for their brethren who have Israeli citizenship to reproduce like mad, get the majority, and either change the rules or force Israel to engage in mass deportations.

This is hilarious. Yes, the Arab genome comes with a dominant HATE JEWS allele. They all have it.

As if both sides haven't broken innumerable cease fires.

WTF? It's not about "HATE JEWS" at all. It is, however, about the question of what Israel's going to do when it's no longer a majority-Jewish state, or how it's going to keep that from happening.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v134/tracerhand/12304045985t78.gif

That girl's head looks like a thumb.

not...linking...Perrin's...Gaza jokebook

feel fully entitled to come to a moral judgment of Hamas wrt the deaths of Palestinians (including children) regardless of whether it is their policy to kill them or not. What do they expect to come of missile attacks? What has Israel warned would happen in the case of suspension of the cease-fire? Their stubborn insistence on macho sword rattling when they haven't the means to actually win militarily may assuage their battered egos but it serves practically no other purpose.

― Michael White

Agree with this, but still don't condemn Hamas for its failure to surrender, or consider them more responsible than Israel for the consequences of Israeli actions - even if they have provoked those actions. And they have. You have to consider the sorts of voices and leaders that will likely come to the fore in a place like Palestine. If Israeli hawkishness is excusable, Palestinian hawkishness must be moreso, no matter how pathetic and suicidal it seems.

http://bestmessageboardever.com/uploads/av-579.gif

Some days I feel like carpet-bombing the Middle East with bios of Gandhi.

Some days I feel like carpet-bombing the Middle East with bios of Gandhi.

But, in fairness, the British could go home.

Nabisco's posts way upthread (which I criticized), where he talked about the need for symbolic representations of evil on the "other side" in order to justify the potentially troubling consequences of one's own actions.

Just to clarify, this isn't at all what I was talking about -- it wasn't about symbolic representations of evil in the least. It was about taking rhetorical stances wherein you can (often plausibly!) justify unfortunate things you've done as being the result of other people's tactics. E.g.: we are going after Hamas, and if they use innocent children as human shields, and those innocent children get killed, this is a direct result of Hamas's actions. E.g.: we must go after Hamas over rocket fire, and if this involves destroying your home and killing one of your family members, do not blame us; blame Hamas for firing the rockets. It's a rhetorical stance that says you're forced, by other people, to do certain unfortunate things, and therefore the whole thing is someone else's responsibility.

In a lot of cases this is not an untruthful position to take; in a lot of cases it makes concrete sense; but I think if you sink too far into it you're not just abdicating responsibility for your actions -- you wind up abdicating any sense of control over the future, any sense that you too can play a role in improving your own situation. This is something I think Tipsy was addressing upthread -- the way that saying "well, we must naturally respond this way" stop making as much sense when there are good arguments that responding that way doesn't help you accomplish what you want to.