Israeli murder of 30 Gaza activists in international waters

[tcda]

Is that the point?

I don't know that the siege of Gaza is justified ethically or morally, though a case could probably be made. My point is that we need to think about the situation in terms of real truths, not poses of outrage.

Real Truth number 1: The Israeli state is not going to allow millions of Palestinian refugess (which include large numbers of Hamas and al-Fatah militants) into their country. They're just not... it would mean the end of Israel.

Real Truth number 2: The Israeli state is not going to allow shipments of large quantities of uninspected goods into Gaza. They know that the Palestinians and their advocates have no qualms about shipping arms under the guise of humanitarian aid, and to allow such shipments is to facilitate more rocket attacks on Israeli civilians. It's not going to happen.

Real Truth number 3: Arab leadership could solve the practical problems of the Palestinian refugees. The Palestinian population living in Gaza and the West Bank is perhaps five million; there are 18 million people living in the Cairo metropolitan area alone. Over the course of several years the refugees could be resettled in other countries, other cities, as many as a half-million per year, and they could have real futures and real opportunities... but the Arab world cares more about its grievance against Israel than it does the plight of these people.

And if you think that Israel should be made to give up its land, or forced to accept the Palestinian refugees back into its territory, then I encourage you to take up a Kalashnikov and join the military of some state bordering Israel... Syria, perhaps... and make them do as you wish.

Because if you have a problem with Real Truth number 3, then you need to reconsider Real Truths 1 and 2. The Israelis will not bend to your will voluntarily. Therefore, if they are to be made to bend, it will have to be accomplished by force. Therefore, either take up a rifle or please stop airing your endless grievances... your complaints accomplish nothing.

QED.

"real truths".

History is unwritten. Mass global action against Israeli interests could weaken the state significantly and its relation with the US, and could allow for ruptures within Israeli society and the defeat of the Zionist project. All it takes is collective organization. Neither of us has a crystal ball. To paraphrase Marx: "you can advance just one day in 20 years, and then 20 years in one day".

Your point regarding the Arab states: so apparently you are in favour of Arab states opening their borders, but not the much richer Israel or the much richer and more spacious USA and the Palestinians being given a choice? How funny.

Your point about the end of Israel: if a state can only exist by keeping millions of people in exile or in ghettoes, it tells you soemthing about the legitimacy of the state.

Regarding your other point, I am politically active, and have the right to debate on a forum in my spare time. If you don't want to read my grievances, don't click the thread. Otherwise, debate, and don't just shout "stop whining" like a petty authoritarian.

[Not_Me]

If North Korea were to pull the same stunt and kill a few Americans, the United States government would be outraged and would be busy calling for sanctions from the United Nations.

Not if the Americans were drug smugglers. Many governments have killed Westerners for breaking their laws.

But it's Israel that killed and injured Americans, Turks, and others. And the president only says that he "regrets" the loss of life???

Those people should not have tried to lynch the commandos. If the activists pulled the same stunt on any other nation, they'd likely suffer the same fate.

As for the Americans killing a Canadian terrorist... well... I don't know about that... I don't have enough information...

Read up on the beloved Khadr family. About 10 years ago, the Canadian government intervened on his behalf when he was arrested for terrorism. At least the story had a happy ending when he had the courtesy to get himself killed. The wife is back in Canada, enjoying the benefits the country she despised.

The son that killed an American soldier is still in Gitmo. The Canadian gov't has thus far refused to intervene.

but the incident with a Canadian citizen who was detained by the United States and shipped to somewhere in the middle east (I think that it was Syria), where he was tortured...

That guy and his family is set for several lifetimes, with $13 million bucks,courtesy of the Canadian taxpayers. He's trying to sue the Americans now.

[Not_Me]

What about if it's living on stolen land

That's debatable. But even if it was true, the Israelis could appeal to ancient history also.

and its state is responsible for a hundred more times civilian deaths every year, than your supposed Hamas terrorism?

Hamas is responsible for the civilian deaths. They should not use their own as human shields in a war.

The only answer to your double-standards is that you value Jewish lives above Arab ones.

It's not about who's more valuable. It's about who has the choice. The Palestinians can stop the war by simply refraining from firing rockets into Israel.

[Peguy]

However, as you might have heard, Turkey is starting to sound a bit hostile towards Israel.
Now... Turkey has what most of the Islamic countries does not.
A modern, well-equipped and large army. Most of them has the latter, but not the others.
Last time I checked, Turkey had an active armed force of over 600 000.
Over 400 000 of these being in the Turkish Army (land forces).
Turkey is in fact even a bit stronger and better than the IDF.

There's also the added factor that Turkey is a member of NATO, and its charter clearly states that an armed attack on one member is to be considered an attack on all members.

[lowtech redneck]

The Palestinians historical lands are in Palestine, and that is where they have the right to return to. Most people outside the USA recognize this, and this problem won't go away for the Zionists.

The Palestinian historical lands are now occupied by the descendants of Jewish refugees ethnically cleansed from the collective Arab world in the wake of the original war. A population exchange along the lines of Greece and Turkey has effectively taken place; since it is the actions of the other Arab states which caused this mass exodus which effectively secured the existence of Israel as a densely populated Jewish state, it is reasonable to expect them to accept as citizens the Palestinian refugees that have lived within their borders under conditions of artificial poverty and marginalization for decades.

What is your definition of "Zionist" anyway? You seem to have expanded the definition to include anyone who is not in complete (not to mention vehement) agreement with the Palestinian position.

[IlyaK1986]

Yes I am opposed to that. Though ironically most of those on here who moralize against that, have no worries imposing a seige on Gaza or keeping 5 million Palestinians in exile.



What about if it's living on stolen land and its state is responsible for a hundred more times civilian deaths every year, than your supposed Hamas terrorism? The only answer to your double-standards is that you value Jewish lives above Arab ones.

1) Chicken and egg problem about rockets vs. siege. When one side believes that might makes right, the other side has no choice but to oblige. If I'm going to keep punching you, you'll probably want to find a way to stop me from punching you, and if that means wrapping me up in a mattress pad so that I can't move my arms, so be it.

2) Stolen land? Oh, you mean that was stolen from the Jews 2000 years ago by the Romans? Oh, right. If you're going to use that "stolen land" argument, then go back. Waaaay back.

3) Double standard about valuing Jewish lives above Arab ones:

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. I don't care if it's politically incorrect to say so. Sure, both sides have their dreck. My father is Jewish and he's as big a deadbeat as I've personally ever seen or heard of and has made life for me and my mother as much a living hell as he could. Bernie Madoff ran a $50 billion Ponzi scheme. Orly Taitz is a nutcase birther.

Yeah, those are all bad...but compare it to people like Mahmoud Ahmanutjob, Osama Bin Laden, and Hamas's Ismail Haniyeh. There's no contest. There's simply not a contest.

As for preferring Israelis to Palestinians (or Arabs for that matter)...well gee, you have the nation with the highest Nobel laureates per capita, producers of some of the finest engineers and thinkers in the world, and generally, a second Silicon Valley in the middle east crammed into a country with less area than most American states.

And you contrast that with...

At best, a bunch of uneducated innocent people all herded around like sheep ready to be indoctrinated by dictators with a very finite timespan on their innocence of mind.

And at worst, a bunch of terrorists training day in day out for another opportunity to attack Israeli civilians.

In a perfect world, we could have some magical force sort out the Palestinians and evacuate all of the peace-hoping innocents and give them a bright and shiny future that they're deserving of, and smite all of the evildoers.

But when the evildoers deliberately use innocents as human shields and who must be slain at all costs in order to save Israeli lives, we mourn the loss of innocent life in the collateral damage, whether through bombing or through siege.

What the Palestinians need to know is that they'll achieve nothing through violence. If Martin Luther King tried to obtain equal rights for blacks through violence, the racist whites would have been far more justified in their segregative practices. Throughout history, had the side that used peaceful civil disobedience and peaceful resistance instead turned to violence and force, then the general populace would have been absolutely justified in drinking all of the kool-aid so to speak, because they'd have legitimate reasons to be afraid.

Israelis have very legitimate reasons to be afraid of Palestinians because of the rockets. And therefore, the Israeli government has a very legitimate reason to blockade Gaza. I don't care how much some imbeciles on this board support the Palestinians' rights to forceful resistance. So long as they're attempting to resist forcefully, Israel has every right to blockade them, since they are in armed conflict.

Basically, this blog post states it much better than I ever can (NOT a lawyer--my logic is statistical and quantitative, not verbal and legalese!)

Opinio Juris

Anyhow, the long and short of it:

Israel and Hamas are in armed conflict. Hamas shoots rockets, Israel shoots a lot of other more badass stuff, etc...either way, there's a permanent state of armed conflict, and therefore a blockade is legal. Does it suck for the civilians? Hoo boy, does it ever.

Too bad, though, because as debatable as the morality of the blockade is, it is technically legal. As for "supporting the Palestinians' right to resist by force", that's just ideological hoo-hah spouted by an ideologue. Because there's a logical consequence to that as well. Support the right to launch rockets at Israelis or even attack 19-22 year old conscripted soldiers, and you also support the right to murder those same attackers (logical consequence of war), and of the inevitable collateral damage that will follow (ditto).

Of course, note that Hamas is deliberately attempting to maximize civilian casualties--on both sides. Hamas has no qualms about sacrificing the very Palestinians they claim to be fighting for just for a short-term PR stunt, and of course, want to kill as many Israelis as possible (whether civilian or not).

If the Palestinians want the siege lifted and their lives to improve, they will lay down their arms. So long as the state of armed conflict perpetuates, Israel has legal rights to do a lot of things which are undoubtedly very horrible to civilian populations, but are an inevitable consequence of the actions it must take in order to defend her own civilian populations.

And once again, if we're talking about moral high grounds, Israel is far higher than Hamas and Hezbollah here. If Israel had the same philosophy towards war as Hamas did (scour them all, and let god sort them out), we'd have no more Palestinians to speak of. F-15s and F-16s with napalm and white phosphorus bombs and M1 Abrams tanks with depleted uranium shells would reduce all of Gaza to a desolate wasteland in a matter of weeks.

Though, frankly, IMO, this is what it takes to win wars. Ever since WW2, the world has become soft, and the Geneva Conventions are the ultimate evidence of that, I think. To win world war 2, the allies didn't just fight the German military--they also broke Germany's economy by wrecking rail lines and factories, and moreover, broke German will to fight by simply firebombing entire German cities, just to maximize body count and shatter morale of not only the German military, but to make the German people as a whole despair beyond any desire to fight anymore, but to simply curl up in a fetal position and wish it to end so they wouldn't be at risk of dying in the next bombing run.

IMO, that was what won WW2--not necessarily military might alone, but to completely and utterly shatter all will to fight.

Want peace in the middle east? Then the guttural, natural will to fight must be crushed. This has been done not too long ago in history. World leaders need to realize that sometimes, this may be necessary when your enemies are so indoctrinated by religion and fanatical dictators that they are beyond the reach of reason.

[Peguy]

The bombing of German cities did little to win the war. German production kept outpacing itself til the last year or so. Not to mention it united the people more behind the Nazi regime. By attacking the civilian population, you drive them further to their rulers' hands. Just like Nazi brutality in the East drove much of the Soviet population behind Stalin, despite being hailed as liberators in the beginning.

Deliberately targeting civilians is an atrocity of the worse kind.

[Peguy]

Follow up:

Although designed to "break the enemy's will", the opposite often happened. The British did not crumble under the German Blitz and other air raids early in the war. British workers continued to work throughout the war and food and other basic supplies were available throughout.

In Germany, the outcome was little different, even in the face of a bombing campaign which was far more extensive and comprehensive in effect, scope, and duration than that endured by Britain.

Post-war British and American surveys showed official claims were "far in excess of the facts."[136] Although nearly half a million German civilians, their dwellings and possessions were destroyed,[137] the bombing had very little effect on German armaments production or on the German people's general commitment to the war. The targeting of civilians had the reverse effect of actually strengthening the will of the German people.[138] In the words of the British Bombing Survey Unit (BBSU): "The essential premise behind the policy of treating towns as unit targets for area attack, namely that the German economic system was fully extended, was false." This, the BBSU noted, was because official estimates of German war production were "more than 100 percent in excess of the true figures". The BBSU concluded: "Far from there being any evidence of a cumulative effect on (German) war production, it is evident that, as the (bombing) offensive progressed ... the effect on war production became progressively smaller (and) did not reach significant dimensions."[139][140]


Strategic bombing during World War II - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Oberon]

Your point regarding the Arab states: so apparently you are in favour of Arab states opening their borders, but not the much richer Israel or the much richer and more spacious USA and the Palestinians being given a choice? How funny.

My point is this, precisely: What I want and what you want are irrelevant. Israel simply isn't going to open its borders to Palestinians.

And I'm not at all certain that the US is either richer or more spacious than the collective Arab world, at that.

[tcda]

My point is this, precisely: What I want and what you want are irrelevant.

Then why express an opinion? Or even bother having one?

what I don't get is, if the future is inevitable, why are so worried about me having an opposing view?