(no subject)

[sabremeister]

I am disgusted.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7851545.stm

Okay, yes, the warmassacre may have been triggered by Hamas-aligned/sympathetic militants firing rockets into Israeli territory, but why were they fired in the first place? Because Israel is not recognising the lawfully elected government of an independent state, and is starving Gaza to death. And notice how they timed their brutal assault that left 1300 civilians dead (compared with the 30 killed and injured by Palestinian rockets) to coincide with the end of a notoriously anti-Muslim PotUS's period in office.

The world needs to stand up and tell Israel what's what. Politicians need to grow a pair, and the media need to stop labelling every criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism. Suppose this had all taken place in an ex-satellite state of the USSR, or somewhere in East Asia? There would be a huge outcry at all levels against not the extremists firing a few rockets at their oppressors, but at the vast and looming military machine that has just spent three weeks trying to genocide the inhabitants of a few hundred square miles, after three years of starving them to death.

In my opinion, it is not Palestine, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank under Hamas that is the terrorist state, it is Israel.

Comments

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

I don't doubt either your facts or your emotion, but when you say "extremists firing a few rockets at their oppressors" ... not arguing with oppressors or extremists, but "few", really?

I think Israel has gone totally mad with this attack (not that their previous actions have necessarily been totally sane ...) but "few" for dozens of rockets per day (on some days) ... I can't find any source that I trust for how many in total have been sent ... one source says 3,000 in 2008 alone, I heard an Israeli army press person declaring their bombing had reduced the rockets to only ten on the day before ... 3,000 would be fewer than ten a day for the year ...

so no, I don't call several thousand rockets "a few rockets".

And it's that sort of detail that those that disagree with you will pounce on to dismiss the rest of your statement.

Given how few Israelis have been killed by the rockets over eight years (round a dozen I believe), I really can't understand why Hamas/other militants continue to use them ... they are just not effective as a killing weapon ... to my mind it seems the only reason is like a kid poking at a dog with a stick ... eventually the dog will bite and then, I presume, the kid hopes the dog will be put down. Terrible analogy I know.

Again I am depressed by this war/whatever as neither side is coming out of it well, but the Palestinians have my deep sympathy for being caught between the militant extremists and the Israelis ... but I think the Israelis are in a dream land if they think that their actions are going to bring about peace ... they are just helping to breed a new generation of resentment and revenge.

I don't know who started it, and in many ways I don't care ... I want both sides to be able to co-exist in peace and for justice to hold sway ... and if that means having to say "amnesty for both sides, just stop fighting, shake hands and live in peace" then I'd be all for that ... but I can't see that happening as there will be idiots and people with justifiable feelings of hurt and need for revenge on both sides who will start it all up again.

::sad::

[artela.livejournal.com]

We started it. Us in the West. We started it when we took land off the people who already lived there and gave it to the incomers to call Israel :-(

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

I didn't think you were that old ... certainly I'm not.

And apportioning blame won't save a single life (I believe) ... but we may have inherited a responsibility for the actions of others with whom we share a land of birth or infant nurture....

Do you have a solution?

[artela.livejournal.com]

Apart from a bloody great wall with ditches and independent people (e.g. the UN) patrolling it to stop the one side continually encroaching on land that doesn't belong to them (which is a large part of the problem), no, I don't have a solution :-(

(However, given that my answer to "the cold war" was "give the Soviets bases over here next to the US ones and just let them lob grenades at each other over the wall" I may not be the world's best diplomat! *LOL*)

[sabremeister]

Do you mean the wall around Gaza that the Israelis erected some years ago? The one that the International Court of Human Rights (or some similar organisation) declared illegal, and demanded be taken down? Hmm, yeah, looks like that worked, didn't it?

But, yes, carving out a country in someone's holy land by fiat, in some silly attempt to make up for the attempted extermination of one religious sect, was not a good idea in the first place. The type of negotiations that are going on now should have happened 60+ years ago, so that they wouldn't have to be having them now.

[artela.livejournal.com]

No, not like that one... one that actually goes along the properly defined border instead of trying to grab yet more land at the same time.

It's also rather daft that creating the state of Israel split the Palestinians into two separate areas - that was really stupid.

[sabremeister]

I wasn't aware that it was 3000 rockets a year, I thought with the low casualty numbers there were a lot less (maybe a dozen a month). But I bet the Israeli military fired more than 3000 exploding-things during the 22 days.

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

That response is exactly why this war can't end. If people keep saying "well the other side is bad so that justifies whatever I decide to do" then atrocities will continue to happen.

It doesn't matter whether Israel fired 1,000 - 3,000 or 50,000 exploding things in the 22 days. It doesn't matter that Hamas have sent maybe 15,000 rockets (or 10,000 or 5,000 or 20,000) into Israel. The *numbers* don't matter, the suffering does.

And having lived in London during times when you didn't know when you entered a train station whether there'd be a bomb there today, *one* death is one death too many.

And when you're as paranoid/stressed as Israel, and as armed as Israel, poking away with rockets every day for eight years is going to provoke a response, and anyone that couldn't see that is, pardon me for saying it, an idiot or trying to start a war. And yes, I'm sure there were justifications for sending the first rocket over ... go back to 1948 and there are reasons, go back to something BC and there are reasons ... and taking land away from the people who lived there is never going to make things easy for either (look at Cyprus, east Germany, Tibet, the USA etc.)

The Israeli response was over the top IMHO but I see their reasoning, even if I think it's flawed and stupid. The militants are using civilians for shelter and attacking using schools, temples, civilian housing etc. as places to launch rockets ... the Israelis think that if they make it *really* clear that if you have a terrorist next to you and don't do something to stop it, then the next thing is *your* house is going to get bombed, you'll stop supporting the terrorists ... they don't seem to get that if you kill the child/father/mother/wife of a peaceful person you may well turn them into a terrorist and/or suicide bomber. And that for each one of theirs you kill, they will want to take out five of yours ... so the Israelis have escalated to 100 to 1 ... and unless there can be a negotiated peace, the only hope for peace in Israel is if they wipe out *all* the potential terrorists ... at least that how it appears from here ... do you disagree?

[sabremeister]

No. I agree entirely. The Palestinian militants are causing suffering because they are rightfully aggrieved. Israel is causing much more suffering, and creating much more reason for militants to be aggrieved, because the bigotry of the military and leadership is so fucking stupid and blind, it cannot see that their methodology for stopping the aggrieved militants, is actually the cause of the aggrieved militants.

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

That's certainly one viewpoint ... but artela believes that the cause of the first aggrieved militant was the west creating the state of Israel back in 1948.

So lots of people lost their land, their homes etc. and were aggrieved ... and maybe someone threw a rock, or even just some rude language (who, and on which side, will forever remain a mystery, and it's likely many people did little things to start with) and at some point it escalated and whether it is the 1973 war, the Golan Heights, or the 22 days there are aggrieved people by the ton on all sides.

So no, I reject your statement that their current methodology is "actually the cause" ... it long predates the current difficulties.

And again you say that one side is "rightful" because the other side is bigger, has more guns and has killed more people. It doesn't work like that. Terrorists are terrorists even if you agree with their cause ... they are still killing non-combatants, children, old folks, people's families and destroying their homes and jobs ... and it doesn't make them better if someone does a more effective job of doing wrong.

There are many that say our carpet bombing of Dresden was wrong during WWII was wrong, or that the US bombing of Nagasaki was wrong for much the same reasons ... but we won so we get to write the history books. Thankfully we don't get German militants suicide bombing London ... though we had enough IRA bombings back in the day ...

... I am not defending Israel for a moment, but I'm also not defending Hamas and terrorists, there is no "that one is better than the other" only "that one is *worse* but both are bad" ... and I should make it clear I support the Palestinian people's right to life, food, shelter, medical supplies, education, a land of their own and safety.

But you are entitled to your own opinions, that's one of the things that marks out the sort of society I respect.

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

Just to head off a standard comment ... the French resistance, the Dutch freedom fighters etc. fought against the military of the invading forces, they didn't attack civilian targets. They didn't bomb crowded street markets or schools or civilian hospitals. And yes, this makes some of Israel's actions very much the actions of terrorists, just like Hamas.
And hopefully Israel will be called up in front of the international courts to answer for their apparent "war crimes" (such as the white phosphorus attack on the UN occupied building in Gaza), something it's much harder to do with Hamas, as the elected government will say they had nothing to do with the militant terrorists on their side.

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

And yes, with the US on their side, it's like Israel won't get much more than a slap on the wrist, and may even escape that ... sigh.

This is all very depressing.

[sabremeister]

Hopefully, with the change in administration of the USA, Israel won't be able to get away with it (or at least to such an extent) any longer.

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

It's definitely worth digging back through the history of the conflict during pretty much the entire 20th century, starting with the Zionist Jews buying farms and land in the Ottoman Empire and then when that empire was defeated, continuing to buy property under the British controlled Palestine, which is where the actual start of the current phase of conflict started (so from, say 1917 onwards).

In particular the Balfour Declaration of 1917 which said
the British government "view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people" with the understanding that "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine

And since the British government was given control of the part of the ex-Ottoman empire that included Palestine (and Syria), it allowed/encouraged the setting up of a Jewish homeland. And the rest is history.

Oh, and if it fills you with more anger (it does me), in the last eight years, the EU has given THREE BILLION EUROS to the Palestinians (and as only the UK and Germany are net contributors to the European budget, that means it's just those two countries that have given that money), and the infrastructure improvements, schools, hospitals etc. paid for with that money have been attacked and destroyed by the Israelis ... you can see why some people are hesitant about spending money rebuilding again, if the Israelis are just going to blow it all up again.

[sabremeister]

No. I agree entirely. The Palestinian militants are causing suffering because they are rightfully aggrieved. Israel is causing much more suffering, and creating much more reason for militants to be aggrieved, because the bigotry of the military and leadership is so fucking stupid and blind, it cannot see that their methodology for stopping the aggrieved militants, is actually the cause of the aggrieved militants.
That's certainly one viewpoint ... but artela believes that the cause of the first aggrieved militant was the west creating the state of Israel back in 1948.

It is the root cause, yes. But it has been going on so long, I suspect they are killing each other out of habit now. So the cause of the current crop of militants is the other side's idiocy.

And again you say that one side is "rightful" because the other side is bigger, has more guns and has killed more people. It doesn't work like that. Terrorists are terrorists even if you agree with their cause ... they are still killing non-combatants, children, old folks, people's families and destroying their homes and jobs ... and it doesn't make them better if someone does a more effective job of doing wrong.

I'm saying one side is more rightful than the other, because the side with more guns, more money, and better PR, is acting like a school bully and is relying on his big friends to back him up, against the pair of small kids who used to run the playground, but then started calling the bully's imaginary friend names. That doesn't make either side right, but it does, I feel, give the bullied party a legitimate grievance (which no-one is listening to).

... I am not defending Israel for a moment, but I'm also not defending Hamas and terrorists, there is no "that one is better than the other" only "that one is *worse* but both are bad" ... and I should make it clear I support the Palestinian people's right to life, food, shelter, medical supplies, education, a land of their own and safety.

But you are entitled to your own opinions, that's one of the things that marks out the sort of society I respect.

Again, we are in agreement - but apparently not with the EU Humanitarian Aid Chief.

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

I wasn't aware that it was 3000 rockets a year, I thought with the low casualty numbers there were a lot less (maybe a dozen a month)

It's probably worth checking the facts on both sides as far as possible before deciding either side are "the good guys".

[sabremeister]

I usually do try and check facts. Today was an exception, partly because of my disgust at the spinelessness of the EU Humanitarian Aid Chief, and partly because Israel are Villains¹ With Good PR, making it hard to find accurate in impartial information in a hurry - which I was.



¹ YMMV