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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Israel's troubles
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
A few thoughts - Hamas has managed to kill a total of two people with its rockets. How many innocent Palestinian civilians would Israel have had to kill to prevent those two deaths? Given the hundreds its killed so far, clearly Israel places the value of a Palestinian life as many times less than the value of an Israeli life. I personally find that morally reprehensible.
The way people talk you'd think these Hamas rockets were actually hitting their targets and killing lots of people. They aren't.
[ 23. July 2014, 13:03: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
I wish people would accept this truth: the Palestinian military installations are deliberately placed in civilian areas. What do you expect Israel to do? Do you want them to say, 'Oh dear, we can't destroy these rockets because there are under someone's house or next to a hospital?' Oh yes, Israel should just allow the Palestinians to fire their rockets every day... even when the missiles are fired with increasing intensity from the hospital grounds themselves!?
And the reason so few Israelis are killed is because there are loads of air-raid shelters - something Hamas won't give its people.
And Israel does tell the Palestinian citizens to get out of the way while they target a military installation - but Hamas makes them stay put.
And yes, Palestinians do attack Israeli soldiers with a gun in one hand and a child in the other. They do use children and women as human shields.
These people are lunatics!
Can I ask what opinion you would have had in WWII when Lancaster bombers went to Germany and bombed the cities there in response to the blitz?
Would you have wanted nothing but political talks then and allowed the Nazis to grow stronger and then win the war?
I really don't think some opinions expressed here are in the real world - Isis is already in the Palestinian area, Hamas will never negotiate because it's aim is not peace but the annihilation of Israel.
And what do you make of Ban Ki-moon saying that Israel has the right to defend itself (whilst calling urging restraint, of course)?
Restraint, maybe, but certainly not inaction in the face of attacks on Israeli civilians.
Any reaction from the Israelis must be proportionate. What is the actual threat from Hamas rockets that justify now hundreds of dead Palestinian civilians? "Your rockets killed two of ours so we'll kill 500". Two wrongs don't make a right.
As for carpet bombing of civilian areas during WWII, that's just bad. Same goes for the atom bombs dropped on Japan.
[ 23. July 2014, 13:08: Message edited by: Ad Orientem ]
Posts: 2606 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2013
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
A few thoughts - Hamas has managed to kill a total of two people with its rockets. How many innocent Palestinian civilians would Israel have had to kill to prevent those two deaths? Given the hundreds its killed so far, clearly Israel places the value of a Palestinian life as many times less than the value of an Israeli life. I personally find that morally reprehensible.
The way people talk you'd think these Hamas rockets were actually hitting their targets and killing lots of people. They aren't.
Simple answers:
Israel has a decent anti-missile defence system - the Palestinians haven't.
Israel provide air raid warnings and shelters for its civilians and they are well-used - the Palestinians don't.
Israel tells its civilians to get out of the way - the Palestinians tell their people to stay put.
Israel doesn't deliberately and cynically put it's military installations in civilian areas - the Palestinians do.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
Aye. It's very hard to be morally comfortable with blowing a hospital to bits, killing patients in their beds and injuring scores more, in order to destroy a supposed cache of missiles which statistically are likely to kill precisely 0 people.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
A few thoughts - Hamas has managed to kill a total of two people with its rockets. How many innocent Palestinian civilians would Israel have had to kill to prevent those two deaths? Given the hundreds its killed so far, clearly Israel places the value of a Palestinian life as many times less than the value of an Israeli life. I personally find that morally reprehensible.
The way people talk you'd think these Hamas rockets were actually hitting their targets and killing lots of people. They aren't.
Simple answers:
Israel has a decent anti-missile defence system - the Palestinians haven't.
Israel provide air raid warnings and shelters for its civilians and they are well-used - the Palestinians don't.
Israel tells its civilians to get out of the way - the Palestinians tell their people to stay put.
Israel doesn't deliberately and cynically put it's military installations in civilian areas - the Palestinians do.
Poo poo! Even if true, completely irrelevant.
Posts: 2606 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2013
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
A few thoughts - Hamas has managed to kill a total of two people with its rockets. How many innocent Palestinian civilians would Israel have had to kill to prevent those two deaths? Given the hundreds its killed so far, clearly Israel places the value of a Palestinian life as many times less than the value of an Israeli life. I personally find that morally reprehensible.
The way people talk you'd think these Hamas rockets were actually hitting their targets and killing lots of people. They aren't.
Simple answers:
Israel has a decent anti-missile defence system - the Palestinians haven't.
Israel provide air raid warnings and shelters for its civilians and they are well-used - the Palestinians don't.
Israel tells its civilians to get out of the way - the Palestinians tell their people to stay put.
Israel doesn't deliberately and cynically put it's military installations in civilian areas - the Palestinians do.
You've answered none of my questions with your comments. Again, how is it morally acceptable to kill hundreds of people in order to possibly save the lives of a few? Would you do it? Would you machine gun a hospital ward or a residential street to save the life of one person?
Believe me, there's nothing on this earth more likely to turn a Palestinian civilian into a militant than you blowing his children to bits in their own home. I incline towards pacifism, but I can't guarantee I wouldn't be manning the rockets myself if you did that to me.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
What is the actual threat from Hamas rockets that justify now hundreds of dead Palestinian civilians? "Your rockets killed two of ours so we'll kill 500". Two wrongs don't make a right.
Wait a minute - Israel is targeting military installations. it's not their fault if Hamas tells the Civilians to stay there.
Hamas, on the other hand, is deliberately targeting civilian populations - but Israel has an effective air raid system and moves the people out of the way.
It is not for want of trying that Hamas has only managed to kill a few Israelis. Their intent, their motivation, is shown in the thousands of rockets that have been fired. Do you think that Hamas is happy they've only killed a handful of people? The wanted to kill hundreds but Israel looks after its people better.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
A few thoughts - Hamas has managed to kill a total of two people with its rockets. How many innocent Palestinian civilians would Israel have had to kill to prevent those two deaths? Given the hundreds its killed so far, clearly Israel places the value of a Palestinian life as many times less than the value of an Israeli life. I personally find that morally reprehensible.
The way people talk you'd think these Hamas rockets were actually hitting their targets and killing lots of people. They aren't.
Simple answers:
Israel has a decent anti-missile defence system - the Palestinians haven't.
Israel provide air raid warnings and shelters for its civilians and they are well-used - the Palestinians don't.
Israel tells its civilians to get out of the way - the Palestinians tell their people to stay put.
Israel doesn't deliberately and cynically put it's military installations in civilian areas - the Palestinians do.
Poo poo! Even if true, completely irrelevant.
Posts: 2606 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2013
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
It all comes down to one question: do you think the state of Israel should exist? From the attitudes of many people - and I am grieved that so m any church goers are of this opinion - it seems that people would rather side with the Palestinian terrorists than the democratic and US-created Israel.
I think part of the problem with this debate is the whole notion that we have to take sides. There is no logical contradiction in holding that both Israelis and Palestinians have a right to self determination and that both Hamas and the IDF act in ways that constitute an Epic Fail in Just War Theory 101. There is some excuse for grotesque national chauvinism among populations which are being bombed; but none whatsoever among people pontificating on the subject from the safety of the United Kingdom.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider: I incline towards pacifism, but I can't guarantee I wouldn't be manning the rockets myself if you did that to me. [/QB]
And that is precisely the unacceptable view that the liberal chattering-classes come out with that deserves
Total Condemnation from all sides.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
What is the actual threat from Hamas rockets that justify now hundreds of dead Palestinian civilians? "Your rockets killed two of ours so we'll kill 500". Two wrongs don't make a right.
Wait a minute - Israel is targeting military installations. it's not their fault if Hamas tells the Civilians to stay there.
Hamas, on the other hand, is deliberately targeting civilian populations - but Israel has an effective air raid system and moves the people out of the way.
It is not for want of trying that Hamas has only managed to kill a few Israelis. Their intent, their motivation, is shown in the thousands of rockets that have been fired. Do you think that Hamas is happy they've only killed a handful of people? The wanted to kill hundreds but Israel looks after its people better.
It most certainly is their fault if knowing they are going to kill civilians they do it anyway. Suppose a bank robber has a bunch of hostages during a robbery. The Israeli action is a bit like the police storming the place, raking it with machine gun fire and killing half the hostages. They don't do that, because the whole point is not killing innocent people. Israel seems to me to be charging in and quite comfortable to kill innocents if they get a bad guy at the same time. Yeah, Hamas has plenty of blame for that, but so do the Israeli strategists saying "blow it up anyway. Shame about the collateral."
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
The entire problem, as I see it, is caused by Arabs. They invaded Israel the very day after the state of Israel was created and they've been fighting ever since.
Well, If I was a Palestinian I'd be pretty pissed off if all of a sudden my land was taken away by Jews from America and Europe, Jews whose forefathers haven't lived there for hundreds if not well over a thousand years.
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
It all comes down to one question: do you think the state of Israel should exist? From the attitudes of many people - and I am grieved that so m any church goers are of this opinion - it seems that people would rather side with the Palestinian terrorists than the democratic and US-created Israel.
I don't see that Israel has any more right to exist than any other country. States come and go. It would have been better had it not been created at all.
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
It's nothing short of Muslim-appeasing antisemitism.
Zzzzz!
Posts: 2606 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2013
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider: I incline towards pacifism, but I can't guarantee I wouldn't be manning the rockets myself if you did that to me.
And that is precisely the unacceptable view that the liberal chattering-classes come out with that deserves
Total Condemnation from all sides. [/QB]
So it's unacceptable to draw attention to the fact that killing people tends to make their relatives do unreasonable things?
And I didn't say I would man the rockets. I hope I wouldn't. I'm just not sure that in my grief and anger I wouldn't.
But here's a thing. You're saying that the Israelis shouldn't just take the missile fire. But you react with horror to any suggestion that the Palestinians might not just sit and take the slaughter of their citizens. Why?
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
Originally posted by Ad Orientam:
quote:
I don't see that Israel has any more right to exist than any other country. States come and go. It would have been better had it not been created at all.
Unfortunately, unless you are planning to hop into your TARDIS and single handedly defeat the Haganah in 1948, we are rather stuck with a large number of Israeli nationals who have grown up in the place and rather regard it as their own. And who, as you may have noticed, have rather a lot of kit and no compunction about using it in defence of home and hearth. Which rather inclines me to the view that it might be both prudent and moral to suggest that any solution to that particular conflict might just have to take that particular consideration into account. Or you can wait to the glorious day until the resurgent armies of Hamas rise up and drive the Israelis into the sea. I must say that hasn't worked particularly well for them, so far.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
quote:
originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
You've answered none of my questions with your comments. Again, how is it morally acceptable to kill hundreds of people in order to possibly save the lives of a few? Would you do it? Would you machine gun a hospital ward or a residential street to save the life of one person?
Protecting the lives of it's citizens against attacks from foreign entities is one of the chief responsibilities of any government and has been since governments existed. So, yes, I would expect any government to value the lives of it's people over the lives of others. The question is why doesn't Hamas value the lives of their citizens over ginning up supportive rhetoric from the Western Left and Far Right.
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Last night I heard a very intelligent (he's an engineer and religious leader), quiet, gentle Islamic Londoner explain how he became radicalised back in the 80s and 90s to the point he celebrated 9/11 and fought for Jihad in Afghanistan. His story reclarified how the Palestinians are radicalised.
He talked about the racism and abuse he suffered on the streets of London, the feeling of despair as Iran and Afghanistan were invaded by the posturing Christian leaders of Bush and Blair, how he was brought up in a strict Islamic household and he, with many of his fellow students, felt they had to get involved.
The aim of Israel seems to be to drive Palestine as an area out of existence. The policies of the Israeli government are making the lives of the Palestinians so difficult with the wall as a border, ploughing up of the orchards and olive trees, lack of access to water, to jobs, to medical treatment. Israel was only formed in 1948, in living memory for many, in what was the land of those Palestinians, and since Israel has been formed it has grabbed land and resources and redrawn the borders continuously. One of the desires of the Palestinians is to go back to the agreed 1967 borders, before the 6 days war and more land grabbing. And still Israel continues to grab more, leave the Palestinians with less and less. There are thousands of Palestinian refugees across the Middle East, in Syria, in Jordan. Why would the Palestinians not be radicalised? Why would this not be a cause for Jihad?
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
The entire problem, as I see it, is caused by Arabs. They invaded Israel the very day after the state of Israel was created and they've been fighting ever since.
A bunch of Western governments took their land and gave it to someone else, and they didn't just sit back and accept it? How very dare they! Those uppity ragheads should just know their place, right?
quote:
It all comes down to one question: do you think the state of Israel should exist?
It's a moot point, because Israel does exist and we have to work with that. But I for one think that its creation was a big mistake.
quote:
From the attitudes of many people - and I am grieved that so m any church goers are of this opinion - it seems that people would rather side with the Palestinian terrorists than the democratic and US-created Israel.
Just like the way people - church goers included - sided with the terrorist Mandela over the democratically-elected South African government.
quote:
It's nothing short of Muslim-appeasing antisemitism.
That's no truer than the idea that your side is founded on Jew-appeasing Islamophobia and racism.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
quote:
originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
You've answered none of my questions with your comments. Again, how is it morally acceptable to kill hundreds of people in order to possibly save the lives of a few? Would you do it? Would you machine gun a hospital ward or a residential street to save the life of one person?
Protecting the lives of it's citizens against attacks from foreign entities is one of the chief responsibilities of any government and has been since governments existed. So, yes, I would expect any government to value the lives of it's people over the lives of others. The question is why doesn't Hamas value the lives of their citizens over ginning up supportive rhetoric from the Western Left and Far Right.
So how many Palestinian civilians is it acceptable to kill to save one Israeli? 10? 100? 1000? All of them? Is there a limit to this "valuing more"?
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
Oh, and Muddy - I don't side with any terrorists; I side with the Palestinian population who are being blown to bits and I don't accept Israel's argument that it's justified to kill hundreds of them to save a few Iaraeli lives.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Mudfrog, before you start chuntering on about 'Muslim appeasing anti-semitism' just pause and reflect a moment.
Ad Orientem is Orthodox. The last time I looked, many of the Orthodox can be pretty anti-Muslim. The internet is full of Orthodox complaining that the West isn't doing anything to help Christian minorities targeted by ISIS and other extreme jihadists.
Sadly, some Orthodox - like some Protestants and some RCs, can take an understandable repulsion towards radical jihadists into a generally anti-Muslim sentiment per se.
Equally, some Orthodox can also be anti-Semitic. And that is a concern.
I certainly believe that Israel has a right to defend itself. I've already said that I can understand them blowing up the tunnels and shooting the Hamas fighters who come through them to infiltrate their territory.
Neither am I naive enough to believe that Hamas aren't capitalising on the whole thing by persuading civilians to stay put during Israeli bombardments.
But I will 'call' you for blaming the whole thing on the Arabs.
You will undoubtedly try to deny this because you find it unpalatable, but Israel massacred Palestinian civilians back in 1948.
Arabs were fleeing their homes and being driven out by Israelis before the State of Israel officially came into existence.
As British troops were pulling out they had to stand idly by and watch it happen. The killings began to take place within moments of the British withdrawing towards the troop ships.
The Israelis LIED about the number of Palestinians living among them, claiming that the land was empty. It wasn't.
Ok, so the number of massacres and the scale of the ethnic cleansing has been exaggerated but there is no doubt that the Israelis did wipe out Palestinian villages in 1948 in order to terrorise the Palestinians into leaving the newly created state of Israel.
There is no doubt about that. No doubt about it whatsoever.
Equally, the Palestinians committed atrocities against Israeli civilians. Two wrongs don't make a right.
These things are reprehensible whichever side commits them.
Blaming the whole thing on the Arabs is just as blinkered as blaming the whole thing on the Israelis. Both sides are culpable.
But the more killing there is, the more killing there is to come.
Lord have mercy.
Meanwhile, if you are accusing others of offering simplistic solutions then take the plank from you own eye and stop using Hal Lindsay's 'The Late Great Planet Earth' and poorly digested dispensationalist eschatology and apply some serious thought to the matter.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Marvin the Martian: It's a moot point, because Israel does exist and we have to work with that. But I for one think that its creation was a big mistake.
This is my position too.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
quote:
originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
You've answered none of my questions with your comments. Again, how is it morally acceptable to kill hundreds of people in order to possibly save the lives of a few? Would you do it? Would you machine gun a hospital ward or a residential street to save the life of one person?
Protecting the lives of it's citizens against attacks from foreign entities is one of the chief responsibilities of any government and has been since governments existed. So, yes, I would expect any government to value the lives of it's people over the lives of others. The question is why doesn't Hamas value the lives of their citizens over ginning up supportive rhetoric from the Western Left and Far Right.
So how many Palestinian civilians is it acceptable to kill to save one Israeli? 10? 100? 1000? All of them? Is there a limit to this "valuing more"?
Sure, when Hamas stops trying to indiscriminately kill Israelis, the limit will have been reached. Frankly, I'm with Mudfrog. With every rocket fired, Hamas hopes to kill as many of it's own civilians as it does Israelis. So why give Hamas what they want? Israel is willing to allow Hamas to achieve its goal of ginning up supportive rhetoric from the Western Left and Far Right in order to stop the attacks on its citizens. Hamas doesn't care about the average Palestinian in Gaza any more than Israel. Given Fatah's reputation for corruption, it's hard to see how they do either.
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
We're shouting over each other's heads here (which is what the whole world is doing about this).
Can we have some reliable sources for the following assertions:
-That Hamas uses human shields in combat (not just that it places military installations among homes, hospitals, schools, etc.). After the last Israeli invasion of Gaza, a UN investigation determined that Hamas did not use human shields in combat.
-That Hamas tells Gazan civilians to not flee when Israel tells them to (what does it tell them to do then? Fight?).
-I have heard reports that even when Gazan civilians have fled the areas that the Israeli military told them to leave, some of them have still been killed by Israeli attacks. Does anyone have a reliable source to confirm this?
-Does anyone know the exact chronology of this current conflict. I know that three Israeli boys were abducted and killed, then a Palestinian boy was abducted and rather brutally killed (I haven't seen any public release of how the Israeli boys were killed), then six Israeli men were arrested for the killing of the Palestinian boy. What triggered the large-scale firing of missiles by Hamas that prompted the Israeli bombing and later invasion?
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
quote:
Sure, when Hamas stops trying to indiscriminately kill Israelis, the limit will have been reached. Frankly, I'm with Mudfrog. With every rocket fired, Hamas hopes to kill as many of it's own civilians as it does Israelis. So why give Hamas what they want? Israel is willing to allow Hamas to achieve its goal of ginning up supportive rhetoric from the Western Left and Far Right in order to stop the attacks on its citizens. Hamas doesn't care about the average Palestinian in Gaza any more than Israel. Given Fatah's reputation for corruption, it's hard to see how they do either.
What is this? Stop making sense, start making war week?
Last time I looked Israelis had moral agency. If the IDF drop a bomb on a hospital the moral responsibility for emergency ward ten going up in smoke lies with the IDF. Everything else is blowing smoke and the amateur geostrategists equivalent of "But Miss, he started it..."
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
Beeswax Altar, by that logic if I get a group of freaks together and we start murdering people from Indiana, it's okay for Hoosiers to murder any available Chicagoans until someone manages to stop my group from our murderous rampage?
I believe you are a bit naïve about how the police would handle a gang of freaks going on a murderous rampage through the city of Chicago. If you got a group of freaks together and went on a murderous rampage, the Chicago PD would stop you even if it meant innocent bystanders were killed in the process. If you used supportive bystanders as shields while continuing to randomly kill Hoosiers, there would be a greater chance those bystanders would be killed.
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
Thanks Beeswax Altar - I appreciate the support ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
I do recognise the very complicated history.
I do recognise the dreadful things that Israel did at the end of the 1940s - no nation on earth can say they conducted their wars according to the rule book and without any deserved reproach. That does not of course absolve Israel from its crimes.
I do reject the idea that Israel is deliberately killing a hundred Palestinian civilians in order to protect one Jewish one. What they are doing is destroying rockets to prevent further minor damage and minimise the terror felt by its citizens and also any future capability to do greater damage. Seriously, what do you want Israel to do, stop destroying Palestinian installations to allow Hamas to stockpile more and more rockets so that one day even Israel hasn't the capability to withstand the onslaught when they all eventually get launched in a mass attack on a scale we dion't see today??
Israel is not simply marching in and killing civilians - they are giving them fair warning - it's Hamas that is keeping the women and children there!
What it also very telling and significant is that when Egypt tried to bet a ceasifre going last week, Israel immediately agreed but Hamas took their tiome to refuse it. And then, when there was a 5 hour ceasfire, it was Hamas that launched missiles within a couple of miniytes of it ending.
What people do not realise is that Israel is the defender in all this. The Palestinians are the aggressors - every time.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
Note also that many of the Palestinians who lived in the British Mandate at the time of its dissolution and the founding of the State of Israel (and the war that resulted in what remained of the intended State of Palestine being annexed by Egypt and Jordan) - many of these Palestinians had not lived there for generations (many indeed had, though). As Zionist settlement of Palestine proceeded in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the economy developed to the point that Arabs migrated there from other regions. I am sure you can find many families, though, who can trace their residence in Palestine back centuries.
It is also worth noting that before, during, and after World War II, there were plenty of examples of other countries refusing entry to Jewish refugees or of making those refugees feel unwelcome once they migrated. The example of the the ship St. Louis being refused at port after port during the Nazi persecution of Jews has been given. Even if more of the surviving Jews that were freed from Nazi camps after World War II could have gone to, say, the US at the time (not that the US would have accepted all of them), it is understandable that emerging from the Holocaust they would not feel safe anywhere but a country that they felt was their own (we can argue about how legitimate their feeling that Palestine was their "home" at that time was - but the British Empire had already begun to give legitimacy to that idea with the Balfour Declaration (even if it had reversed much of that support for Zionist migration to Palestine with the White Paper during World War II). Also, many of the Jews who migrated to Israel after its founding were not from Europe. Many were Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews fleeing countries in the Middle East and North Africa that had become very hostile to Jews following the Arab-Israeli war.
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
In answer to Mudfrog
So the encroachment on land or ploughing up of orchards or refusal of access to medical attention or access to water is not aggressive?
xp with Stonespring
[ 23. July 2014, 14:20: Message edited by: Curiosity killed ... ]
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
Any reaction from the Israelis must be proportionate.
So, in your view, what would a proportionate response look like?
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Thanks Beeswax Altar - I appreciate the support
I do recognise the very complicated history.
I do recognise the dreadful things that Israel did at the end of the 1940s - no nation on earth can say they conducted their wars according to the rule book and without any deserved reproach. That does not of course absolve Israel from its crimes.
I do reject the idea that Israel is deliberately killing a hundred Palestinian civilians in order to protect one Jewish one. What they are doing is destroying rockets to prevent further minor damage and minimise the terror felt by its citizens and also any future capability to do greater damage. Seriously, what do you want Israel to do, stop destroying Palestinian installations to allow Hamas to stockpile more and more rockets so that one day even Israel hasn't the capability to withstand the onslaught when they all eventually get launched in a mass attack on a scale we dion't see today??
Israel is not simply marching in and killing civilians - they are giving them fair warning - it's Hamas that is keeping the women and children there!
What it also very telling and significant is that when Egypt tried to bet a ceasifre going last week, Israel immediately agreed but Hamas took their tiome to refuse it. And then, when there was a 5 hour ceasfire, it was Hamas that launched missiles within a couple of miniytes of it ending.
What people do not realise is that Israel is the defender in all this. The Palestinians are the aggressors - every time.
Yes, yes, we get, we know, how terrible and evil Hamas are. The problem here is most of the people getting blown to bits are not members of Hamas - they're ordinary people. People like you, like me, people with children, and often, now, thanks to Israeli airstrikes, people with dead children. People who may, however much you might like to try to call Godwin on the illustration, be more likely to become members of Hamas as a direct result.
You ask what do we want Israel to do? Desist from blowing civilians up in their attempts to get at the bad guys. End the settlements on Palestinian territory and house its population within its own borders, like any other country does. Stop doing the things that Curiosity refers to. Then, if the terrorism continues, you'll have a much stronger moral argument.
[ 23. July 2014, 14:26: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
What people do not realise is that Israel is the defender in all this. The Palestinians are the aggressors - every time.
The Palestinians aren't engaging in land grabs and ethnic cleansing by forcing Israelis to leave ancestral homelands then building their own settlements there.
The Palestinians aren't forcing Israelis to pass through checkpoints just to go to work or school - or, more frequently, denying them the ability to do so at all.
The Palestinians aren't holding the Israelis under a de facto siege by refusing to allow aid and supplies to reach them.
But of course, none of these things are "aggressive", are they? It's only when the victims try to do something to stop them happening that it becomes "aggression", right?
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Last night I heard a very intelligent (he's an engineer and religious leader), quiet, gentle Islamic Londoner explain how he became radicalised back in the 80s and 90s to the point he celebrated 9/11 and fought for Jihad in Afghanistan. His story reclarified how the Palestinians are radicalised.
He talked about the racism and abuse he suffered on the streets of London, the feeling of despair as Iran and Afghanistan were invaded by the posturing Christian leaders of Bush and Blair, how he was brought up in a strict Islamic household and he, with many of his fellow students, felt they had to get involved.
The aim of Israel seems to be to drive Palestine as an area out of existence. The policies of the Israeli government are making the lives of the Palestinians so difficult with the wall as a border, ploughing up of the orchards and olive trees, lack of access to water, to jobs, to medical treatment. Israel was only formed in 1948, in living memory for many, in what was the land of those Palestinians, and since Israel has been formed it has grabbed land and resources and redrawn the borders continuously. One of the desires of the Palestinians is to go back to the agreed 1967 borders, before the 6 days war and more land grabbing. And still Israel continues to grab more, leave the Palestinians with less and less. There are thousands of Palestinian refugees across the Middle East, in Syria, in Jordan. Why would the Palestinians not be radicalised? Why would this not be a cause for Jihad?
I think despair is an important word here. Palestine is now extinct - it ain't going to happen, as Israel has sliced and diced the West Bank to smithereens. The 'international community' has made feeble protests, but also armed Israel.
I don't know what I would do if I was a Palestinian. I suppose you can emigrate somewhere, and give up the idea of a Palestine state. Or you can somehow sublimate your despair, or you can take up violence. But Israel has won, and everybody knows it, but keeps quiet.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gildas:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
quote:
Sure, when Hamas stops trying to indiscriminately kill Israelis, the limit will have been reached. Frankly, I'm with Mudfrog. With every rocket fired, Hamas hopes to kill as many of it's own civilians as it does Israelis. So why give Hamas what they want? Israel is willing to allow Hamas to achieve its goal of ginning up supportive rhetoric from the Western Left and Far Right in order to stop the attacks on its citizens. Hamas doesn't care about the average Palestinian in Gaza any more than Israel. Given Fatah's reputation for corruption, it's hard to see how they do either.
What is this? Stop making sense, start making war week?
Last time I looked Israelis had moral agency. If the IDF drop a bomb on a hospital the moral responsibility for emergency ward ten going up in smoke lies with the IDF. Everything else is blowing smoke and the amateur geostrategists equivalent of "But Miss, he started it..."
Moral agency? The IDF would argue double effect. You might disagree with them. Besides, ethics went out the window a long time ago. Israel is the only side of the conflict even giving lip service to the rules of war. Personally, I've always thought the rules of war worked only so long as everybody followed them. Once one side stops following them, what's the point? Few people are going to sacrifice their lives in order to stay within the moral principles held by those thousands of miles away who care more about those principles than they do the lives of those they expect to live by them.
No, when it gets right down to it, Israel and everybody else who believes they are fighting for the survival of their way of life, will do whatever it takes to win. Look what the allies were willing to do during World War II when they believed they were fighting for the survival of their way of life. It takes a lot of gall to then to tell others what rules they must follow when they feel their survival is threatened.
What about the Palestinians? At some point, they need to realize they've lost and sue for the best peace deal possible. Will they win the right of return? I doubt it. Will they be able to keep Eastern Jerusalem? Maybe not. However, they will be able to govern themselves independent of Israel. I'd say that's better than the status quo.
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Mudfrog,
This quote:
What people do not realise is that Israel is the defender in all this. The Palestinians are the aggressors - every time.
is patently bullshit.
As ck points out, there are numerous examples of Israeli oppression of Palestinians. To attribute all or most if the blame to one side is a moronic, pinheaded argument.
Don't take it from me, actually listen to Israeli politicians.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
I'm put in mind of the kid in the class who's constantly not actually physically assaulted, but constantly left out, insulted, sneered at, has his stuff nicked, has false rumours spread about him, is constantly told how much everyone hates him, who finally snaps and beats the shit out of his latest tormentor, and that tormentor, after beating the kid senseless for daring to finally fight back, then turns round and says "Miss! He hit me first!"
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Augustine the Aleut
Shipmate
# 1472
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
I'm afraid I don't see how it does, Croesos. The Hebron branch of Hamas is operating, obviously, in the West Bank, away from Hamas' power base in the Gaza Strip. It may or may not act with a high degree of autonomy, but it is - nominally at least - an arm of the same movement that is governing Gaza.
The parallel doesn't hold true with Northern Ireland. The IRA was not an arm of the Irish government nor was it regarded as such by the UK. The IRA, or its political representatives, did not govern the Irish Republic.
Perhaps not, but perhaps you might have been surprised to the extent which IRA leadership, both Provisional and Official (and don't forget the IRSP), arrogated to themselves the authority of the Irish state. I well recall references to the True Republic, and how decisions, taken in "an authentically republican spirit," trump the actions of the authorities of the Republic of Ireland. Statements that no-one speaks for the people of Ireland but the army of the people of Ireland were frequent enough at rallies.
And in the 1970s, there were enough Unionist voices expressing the belief that the authorities of the Republic were using the IRA for their own longterm ends.
Rhetoric in these situations sometimes took on the air of surreality.
For these reasons, as well as the more substantial ones, few expected that the strife would ever end, but it did. Seamus Heaney's poem could stand rereading: “So hope for a great sea-change / On the far side of revenge. / Believe that further shore / Is reachable from here. / Believe in miracles / And cures and healing wells.”
Posts: 6236 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: Oct 2001
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
hosting/
This is obviously an issue over which tempers can flare quickly. Don't raise the temperature by using unnecessarily inflammatory language - or if you must, then do so in Hell.
/hosting
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
Completely true about the police reaction, I suspect. But it wouldn't be an intentional killing of bystanders. They wouldn't fire bullets into a crowd just because we were in it, I think. (Teargas more likely.) I see that as what Israel is doing.
No, the Chicago PD uses tear gas when rioters get out of hand. Get an armed band together and go on a killing rampage on the streets of Chicago and SWAT will show up as well armed as a military unit. Will bystanders be killed? Yes. Will the Chicago PD claim they did everything in their power to protect the bystanders? Yes. Will some people say that whatever the Chicago PD did to protect bystanders wasn't enough and they are a bunch of murderous goons? Absolutely they would. I know that because that's what happens every single time the police use deadly force and anybody gets killed much less a bystander.
And that is what's happening in Israel.
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
quote:
Moral agency? The IDF would argue double effect. You might disagree with them.
Well yes, I would, if you drop a bomb on a hospital you can hardly claim that it is forseen but unintended.
quote:
Besides, ethics went out the window a long time ago. Israel is the only side of the conflict even giving lip service to the rules of war. Personally, I've always thought the rules of war worked only so long as everybody followed them. Once one side stops following them, what's the point? Few people are going to sacrifice their lives in order to stay within the moral principles held by those thousands of miles away who care more about those principles than they do the lives of those they expect to live by them.
If you need a 'point' to morality and honour you have, really, kind of missed the point of the exercise.
quote:
No, when it gets right down to it, Israel and everybody else who believes they are fighting for the survival of their way of life, will do whatever it takes to win. Look what the allies were willing to do during World War II when they believed they were fighting for the survival of their way of life.
And look at what the allied didn't do. We didn't, for example, machine gun prisoners of war. We tried War Criminals, rather than summarily executing them. Heck, we even acquitted some of them, or gave them determinate prison sentences. The point being, of course, that if one is fighting for civilisation you lose the war when you adopt barbarism as a way of life. That isn't, of course, to say that the Second World War was conducted by Queensbury Rules, of course it wasn't. And, of course, the war in the east was conducted in rather a different manner.
quote:
It takes a lot of gall to then to tell others what rules they must follow when they feel their survival is threatened.
Remind me how many Israeli casualties there have been so far? Hamas does not constitute an existential threat to Israel and it is mischievous and dishonest to pretend that it does.
quote:
What about the Palestinians? At some point, they need to realize they've lost and sue for the best peace deal possible. Will they win the right of return? I doubt it. Will they be able to keep Eastern Jerusalem? Maybe not. However, they will be able to govern themselves independent of Israel. I'd say that's better than the status quo.
No doubt. But given the somewhat bleak prognosis for any given Palestinian entity, it hardly follows that Israel is under desperate threat and can, therefore, dispense with the laws of war, does it.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
BA, I'm not clear whether you are disagreeing with me, but I think we are getting off topic. My point is that I don't think the police would fire on an innocent crowd because we were hiding in it. Nor should Israel.
Maybe the police would be more inclined to shoot at unarmed Hoosiers than unarmed Chicagoans.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
quote:
Hamas does not constitute an existential threat to Israel and it is mischievous and dishonest to pretend that it does.
Out of interest, if 1,600 rocket attacks in a month isn’t sufficient, how many rockets does Hamas have to launch against Israel before one can regard it as a threat without being mischievous and dishonest?
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
I used, occasionally, to have dealings with people who worked with SWAT teams and the object of the exercise was to end the scenario with no fatalities. Now that's not always possible, something which is pretty much implicitly acknowledged when you send a large number of blokes with guns into an area, but AIUI, a SWAT team member who decided the best thing to do in a scenario with possible civilian casualties was to shoot first and worry about the consequences later would either be out on their ear or busted so low they'd be saluting the cleaners.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
Out of interest, if 1,600 rocket attacks in a month isn’t sufficient, how many rockets does Hamas have to launch against Israel before one can regard it as a threat without being mischievous and dishonest?
About how many people would you say die from these rocket attacks? What is the replacement rate in Israel? How long would it take to empty the country at this rate? Do you know what "existential threat" means?
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:
Hamas does not constitute an existential threat to Israel and it is mischievous and dishonest to pretend that it does.
Out of interest, if 1,600 rocket attacks in a month isn’t sufficient, how many rockets does Hamas have to launch against Israel before one can regard it as a threat without being mischievous and dishonest?
I did use the word 'existential'. Hamas does not currently threaten the existence of the state of Israel. I suggest you try reading for comprehension before attempting cleverness.
No-one is suggesting that Hamas' actions are justified or that Israel does not have a right to defend itself. Given that it's missile shield is (quite properly) doing rather a good job at taking out Hamas' missiles I'm not sure what the strategic efficacy is in bombing civilian targets.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
Out of interest, if 1,600 rocket attacks in a month isn’t sufficient, how many rockets does Hamas have to launch against Israel before one can regard it as a threat without being mischievous and dishonest?
About how many people would you say die from these rocket attacks? What is the replacement rate in Israel? How long would it take to empty the country at this rate? Do you know what "existential threat" means?
Ah, so the threat and the fear and the disruption from these rockets, and the potential for death and destruction is not sufficient to do anything to stop them? Israel should just put up with all these rockets and treat them as an inconvenience?
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Ah, so the threat and the fear and the disruption from these rockets, and the potential for death and destruction is not sufficient to do anything to stop them? Israel should just put up with all these rockets and treat them as an inconvenience?
Jesus, Mudfrog, will you please read what I said? I didn't say any of those things. I was arguing against the absurd idea that the rockets posed an existential threat. I didn't say they were good, or okay, or not a problem. Only that they don't pose an existential threat. You really must respond to what people say, and not what you want them to have said, or fear they said, or think they said.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
No, when it gets right down to it, Israel and everybody else who believes they are fighting for the survival of their way of life, will do whatever it takes to win.
Including the Palestinians? The chief difference being that - unlike the Israelis - there is a clear, present and specific danger to the survival of their way of life.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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