Israeli-Palestinian Conflict - Interesting Statistics

Clintons Cat

Nope. I wasn't talking about suicide bombings (of which the LTTE have, indeed, performed many), but rather of "suicide propaganda" - that is, a deliberate policy (or the effect of a deliberate policy, were there one) of getting people on one's own side killed without causing material harm to the other side.

Just to be clear on this, You are not talking about suicide bombings when you are talking about suicide propaganda,you talking about then Rock Throwing? Civil Disturbance is not unique to the Palestinian situation,as sparks pointed out it forms an integral part of the NI troubles.
What the British figured out quickly,and the Israelis authorities dont seem to pay enough attention to is that Disproportionate rettalliation is counter productive.Bloody Sunday when the paratroopers cracked down on the Derry No Go Areas was the most effective recruitment propaganda tool the I.R.A could wish for,because it legitimises resistance.
This was a basic tennet of Urban Guerrilla Warfare as laid down by Moa and refined through Che Guevarra's writtings and featured in virtually every nationalist and revolutionary groups campaign since.

Hobbes

Originally posted by Don Radlauer
Less inclined, perhaps - but I can't say exactly how wealthy they'd have to be made.

The point to get across wasn't how much money it requires to get rid of Terrorism (a silly point). It was to show that the fact the children are living in poverty are more inclined to turn to throwing stones at tanks or listen to the proproganda.

I think to really solve the problem of "martyrdom-seeking" behavior among young Palestinians would take a concerted effort at deprogramming.

Deprogramming is one thing, to stop the programming to begin with works better.

Keep in mind that at the beginning of the "Intifada", when a large proportion of the "suicide propaganda" deaths took place, Palestinians were economically much better off than they are today; in fact, their economic situation at that time compared pretty well with other Arab populations in the Middle East.

Yet you have people who aren't terrorists living in poverty and the killings are just as bad. I don't understand how you can say things are better. Better for who?

Don Radlauer

Sparks wrote:

Don,
In that post you managed to both condemn those that hold the opinion that Israeli settlements are in violation of Oslo, and put forward the opinion that Israeli lands have been illegally occupied by arabic states including Palestine.

I fail to see how you cannot understand the viewpoint of those on the other side of the argument, when past Israeli leaders have:

quote:

---

"If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti - Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault ? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?" -- David Ben Gurion (the first Israeli Prime Minister) Quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), pp121.

---

1) I said nothing about settlements being "in violation of Oslo" - which they aren't, as you'd know if you'd bothered to read the Oslo agreements (a major chore). I wrote about whether the settlements were in violation of "international law", in its relevant incarnation as the Geneva protocols.

2) I said nothing about "Israeli" lands being illegally occupied; I talked about Jewish-owned lands, which is not at all the same thing. The relevant lands were never under Israeli sovereignty, but political sovereignty and land ownership are two different things.

3) I never said that I could not, or did not, understand the viewpoint of the Arabs. However, understanding is not agreement, and not all viewpoints are valid. During the 1967 Six Day War, Egyptian radio assured its listeners that the Arabs were in the process of crushing Israel, and Israeli planes were "dropping like flies". Israel won the war despite the "viewpoint" created by the Arab media.

The Arab "viewpoint" that we Jews have "stolen" Israel may in fact make it very difficult ever to reach real peace with our neighbors. In fact, in Israel it is the right-wingers who frequently remind the rest of us that the Arabs will never accept Israel's existence; it is the Left that constantly tells us that the Arabs are now ready to sit down and negotiate sincerely to reach peace agreements. Am I to assume, then, that Sparks is a Likudnik?

Seriously: Many Arabs really believe that Jews use Moslem and/or Christian blood as an ingredient in Passover matzot. Do such "viewpoints" really need to be treated respectfully?


4) With only limited time to search, I have been unable to find the full context of the Ben Gurion quote you cited. I do note that the quote is cited in a series of uniformly anti-Israel websites, many of them with the same misspelling of "Paradoxe" that your version has. Given the provenance of the quotation, I am very suspicious that it has been distorted - or at least taken out of context to indicate something other than what Ben Gurion was in fact saying. (At a minimum, remember that Ben Gurion was probably talking before Israel's capture of the Territories in 1967 - so the "stolen" country he was referring to was not the West Bank and Gaza Strip.)

Don Radlauer

Clinton's Cat wrote:

Just to be clear on this, You are not talking about suicide bombings when you are talking about suicide propaganda,you talking about then Rock Throwing?

Correct. Suicide bombing (I personally prefer the term "human bomb" to "suicide bomber", for reasons I won't explain unless you want me to, since I do tend to blather on) is boring, as far as I'm concerned, in that it makes too much sense to be really interesting as a social-scientific question. History is full of "suicide squads", "suicide missions", kamikazes, and the like; combatants who are not worried about their own individual survival are too obviously useful to nations and sub-national groups engaged in combat.

Civil Disturbance is not unique to the Palestinian situation,as sparks pointed out it forms an integral part of the NI troubles.
What the British figured out quickly,and the Israelis authorities dont seem to pay enough attention to is that Disproportionate rettalliation is counter productive.Bloody Sunday when the paratroopers cracked down on the Derry No Go Areas was the most effective recruitment propaganda tool the I.R.A could wish for,because it legitimises resistance.
This was a basic tennet of Urban Guerrilla Warfare as laid down by Moa and refined through Che Guevarra's writtings and featured in virtually every nationalist and revolutionary groups campaign since.

Exactly - and, as I've said before, I'm hoping that the Israeli government and military establishment will come to realize this. As I've also said before, it's an uphill struggle - especially given the high level of terrorism we've had to deal with almost continually for the last 80 years, the Holocaust, and the fact that we're surrounded by large and hostile populations who do not recognize our right to live here. These factors color the thinking of our population and our leadership; and it's difficult for even the brightest military leader to be ready to fight another full-scale war for Israel's survival, and at the same time to respond to "civil disturbance" in a properly nuanced manner.

A lot of what I'm trying to convey by posting here - after all, you are all just about as far away from being participants in this conflict as it's possible to be - is that what's going on here is not simply a matter of innocent Palestinians minding their own business and nevertheless getting bombed and shelled by evil Israelis. There is a dynamic going on here among multiple actors, in which the interests of the Palestinian leadership are not necessarily the same as the interests of ordinary Palestinians. And in my opinion, the foreign press and foreign politicians, who so often seem to take an extremely simplistic (and almost universally anti-Israel) view of the conflict, are part of the problem rather than part of the solution.

By publicizing only one side of the story - Palestinian victimization - the well-meaning foreigners encourage those Palestinian leaders and organizations that are only too ready to see their own constituents impoverished and killed as the price of their own continued power. And, by encouraging a "the whole world's against us" mentality among Israelis, these foreigners effectively increase Israeli fears (or paranoia, if you insist) and reduce Israel's flexibility in dealing with the "Intifada".

Don Radlauer

Hobbes wrote:

Deprogramming is one thing, to stop the programming to begin with works better.

Agreed. Please tell the Palestinians this, and set up effective international monitoring of the Palestinian education and broadcasting systems.

quote:

---

Keep in mind that at the beginning of the "Intifada", when a large proportion of the "suicide propaganda" deaths took place, Palestinians were economically much better off than they are today; in fact, their economic situation at that time compared pretty well with other Arab populations in the Middle East.

---

Yet you have people who aren't terrorists living in poverty and the killings are just as bad. I don't understand how you can say things are better. Better for who?

I'm afraid I don't understand what you're asking here. I said that things were better for the Palestinians before the Intifada, and indeed during the beginning of the Intifada before the level of terrorism began to increase dramatically.

Although it would seem intuitively obvious that poverty would increase susceptibility to "martyrdom" propaganda and a general sense of grievance, there doesn't seem to be a one-to-one relationship. The "Intifada" is not understandable simply as a response to poverty, since the Palestinians at the time the "Intifada" started were more prosperous (on average) than most other Arabs. It is likely, of course, that Palestinian poverty relative to Israel is part of the problem.

Unfortunately, since its creation the Palestinian Authority has been a rather spectacular failure as a "developing country", despite foreign aid amounting to more than U.S. $1,000 per capita. Incredible amounts of foreign development aid have wound up in Swiss bank accounts, or have been funneled to Fatah and (to a lesser extent) other terrorist organizations. The failure to develop a self-sustaining Palestinian economy has been a major reason for the suffering of ordinary Palestinians, and will likely continue to be so after the creation of an independent Palestinian state.

Hobbes

You seem to have a running theme of "it is thier fault, so we can do what we like".

Agreed. Please tell the Palestinians this, and set up effective international monitoring of the Palestinian education and broadcasting systems.

Which is a good idea. Why not let Israel and the US allow it then? After the both countries have veto'ed any actions by the UN to put in peacekeepers/inspectors into the region. Why is that? Because Palistinains aren't serious about peace?

By publicizing only one side of the story - Palestinian victimization

This is another misconception you have about us. We don't hear one side of the story. We hear numerous sides, and we listen to those sides.

For example, at the moment it looks like Sharon is less willing to agree to peace then Palistine. Want a ceasefire with Hamas (which yes I know are the enemy), then stop assinating them and treating people as collaterial damage.

But back to the kids. It's a good example again about it's thier fault.

No matter how well things get, your chances of stopping terrorism is going to be near zero. It's a simple fact. Most of the high level terrorist groups tend to have unstable characters (either mentally or due to actions in the environment). You remove the factors that would cause a person to terrorism (eg. giveing a better way of life) and you cut it before another generation begins.

At the moment all Israel is doing is ensuring that the current generation of children will join terrorist ranks. And killing them or thier family isn't going to help matters.

after all, you are all just about as far away from being participants in this conflict as it's possible to be

Which is probably why we can be a bit more subjective and horrified at what goes on then someone living in it.

A good example. BBC did a documentry on the IDF + Hamas (2 part). To be honest Hamas came across as complete whackos.

However the IDF one was intresting (as news/proproganda up to that point trys to point IDF as civilised).

What was intresting in the show, and to be honest scared the hell out of me. One point in the documentry they are trying to arrest a possible terrorist. They go to the apartment complex where he lives and tell him to come out (he is the only one wanted) or they will blow up the whole building. The IDF then (on TV) start to plant charges around the building. Shortly afterwards the guy comes out, and you can clearly see women and children in the building while all this is happening.

Afterwards all the IDF were totally normal as if this sort of sh!t goes on all the time.

It's that sort of stuff that scares the hell out of us. You may take all that in our your stride living close to it, but that sort of crap simply isn't on. The disregard for human lives.

Don Radlauer

Hobbes wrote:

You seem to have a running theme of "it is thier fault, so we can do what we like".

I don't think you'll find anything I've written that would serve as a blanket endorsement of Israel's actions. All I've done is try to provide some balance, to try to shake the picture of Israel as the devil and the Palestinians as St. Stephen (the Human Pincushion, if I'm remembering my hagiology/art history accurately).

quote:
----
...set up effective international monitoring of the Palestinian education and broadcasting systems.
----

Which is a good idea. Why not let Israel and the US allow it then? After both countries have veto'ed any actions by the UN to put in peacekeepers/inspectors into the region. Why is that? Because Palistinains aren't serious about peace?

Israelis are cool to the idea of United Nations monitors for some very good reasons.

In the past, U.N. forces have consistently acted in a manner that protected Israel's enemies, but have vanished like smoke when Israel itself was threatened. (Classic examples: the U.N. force in Sinai which fled with its tail between its legs before Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran in 1967, and UNIFIL's collaboration with Hezbollah in facilitating/covering up the abduction of Israeli soldiers across a U.N.-sanctioned border.)

Further, the voting record of the U.N. - especially the General Assembly - has been consistently and unfairly anti-Israel (at least) since Israel's creation. Remember, this is an organization that puts Libya in charge of the Human Rights Commision, but keeps Israel as the only member state that is not allowed to be a member of a regional group.

In short, we Israelis do not see the U.N. as our friend. Rather, it's a sort of semi-enemy we have to pretend to like, or at least tolerate. But we don't have any confidence whatsoever that the U.N. can be trusted to uphold any Israeli interest, up to and including our survival.

What would happen if U.N. (or E.U., for that matter) observers were installed to separate Israel and the Palestinians? We have full confidence - based upon sad and fatal experience - that the terrorists would find the "peacekeepers" to be a permeable boundary, while our own forces would be prevented from doing anything effective in response, or to prevent further attacks. No thanks.

This is another misconception you have about us. We don't hear one side of the story. We hear numerous sides, and we listen to those sides.

For example, at the moment it looks like Sharon is less willing to agree to peace then Palistine. Want a ceasefire with Hamas (which yes I know are the enemy), then stop assinating them and treating people as collaterial damage.

It's almost impossible to detect one's own lack of balanced information, since one is paying attention to all the information that one thinks is available and relevant. What sources of information are you really tapping into, though? Do you read the Jerusalem Post daily? That would be a start. Have you actually read relevant documents like the "Roadmap", U.N.S.C. Res. 242, et al., or have you just read what some reporter wrote about them?

(Sadly, modern "real-time" news media - print as well as electronic - have largely abolished the concept of "foreignness". We get so many snippets of news from so many places that we think we know what's going on all over the world. But this "knowledge" is utterly superficial, without context in culture or history. This is why I would never attempt to comment on the situation in Northern Ireland, other than perhaps on a technical point of counter-terrorism: Despite my being a reasonably well-informed person with a fair background in history, I have no pretension that I truly understand the conflict well enough to have an opinion that anyone, myself included, should be interested in hearing. And that's a conflict conducted in my own native tongue!

(I'm constantly amazed at how much people think they understand about the Israeli/Arab conflict, despite the fact that they speak neither Hebrew nor Arabic, don't read Israeli or Palestinian newspapers, and in most cases haven't even read a good general history of the region or the conflict. If I can get people on this forum to accept one single message from all my posts, lengthy and dry as they are, it's this: Do not make the mistake of thinking that you understand this conflict, when even the most intelligent and well-informed experts living here have been unable to find practical solutions to it! If you chuck the rest and just learn to see the limits of your knowledge, I've accomplished a great deal.)


As far as "wanting a ceasefire with Hamas", we don't. The Road Map didn't promise us a ceasefire (READ IT!); it promised us affirmative Palestinian action to fight terror, disarm the terrorist organizations, and remove the threat of terror. A hudna does no such thing; the archetype of the hudna is in the Koran, and it was a purely tactical truce that Mohammed used to gain himself time to increase his strength before conquering an initially more-powerful tribe. Hudna, for us, doesn't mean peace; it means a brief interregnum at best, followed by renewed attacks by terrorist organizations that have used the time to recruit, train, raise funds, and re-arm in "peace". Again, no thanks.

The fact that you refer to Israel's lack of enthusiasm about a hudna with Hamas and its fellow terror organizations as Ariel Sharon's being "less willing to agree to peace than Palestine" is not a very good advertisement for your claim: "We hear numerous sides, and we listen to those sides." This is exactly the kind of casual, inadvertent ignorance of the realities of the Middle East that we who live here find maddening - not to mention extremely dangerous.

One of the things we Israelis have found most frustrating and frightening about outside powers' attempts at intervening in the Middle East conflict is exactly this kind of "agreement creep". That is, both sides ostensibly agree to some plan - in this case the Road Map. The plan says that the Palestinians will take positive actions to combat terrorism and disarm terror organizations. Then, as soon as the handshakes in front of the cameras have been completed, the Palestinians start shifting the goal posts: Instead of taking positive action to fight terror and disarm the terrorists, Abu Mazen wants to get the terror organizations to agree to a temporary cease-fire - which they can turn to their own advantage - and refuses to take any actions more confrontatory than asking the terrorists very politely to stop killing us for a few weeks. (And maybe not even that - maybe they'll only have to agree not to kill us inside the Green Line. Nursery-school teachers in the Territories will be fair game. Some "peace"!) And when Israel cries foul, we're accused of "not wanting peace"!

Nobody in Europe, it seems, will ever confront the Palestinians and say, "Sorry, but you agreed to do X, and you didn't even try to do it, so we're dropping you like a rotten apple. Have a nice time without us!" Even the United States, in our experience, is prone to negotiate agreements and then ignore flagrant violations by the Palestinians. Before anyone accuses Israel of "not wanting peace", it would be gratifying if s/he would actually take the time to read the agreements that Israel and her negotiating partners have signed, and take a close look at Israel's level of compliance versus that of our "peace partners".

What was intresting in the show, and to be honest scared the hell out of me. One point in the documentry they are trying to arrest a possible terrorist. They go to the apartment complex where he lives and tell him to come out (he is the only one wanted) or they will blow up the whole building. The IDF then (on TV) start to plant charges around the building. Shortly afterwards the guy comes out, and you can clearly see women and children in the building while all this is happening.

Afterwards all the IDF were totally normal as if this sort of sh!t goes on all the time.

It's that sort of stuff that scares the hell out of us. You may take all that in our your stride living close to it, but that sort of crap simply isn't on. The disregard for human lives.

Ahh, but your prejudice (and perhaps the BBC's - it has a terrible reputation in Israel) is showing. You tell the story as if it all made complete sense - the IDF was about to blow up, in cold blood, a building full of women and children if a guy didn't give himself up to arrest. What's the problem here?

The problem is that NO SUCH INCIDENT EVER RESULTED IN A BUILDING'S BEING BLOWN UP. We may have threatened something like this as a negotiating tactic, but the fact is that the "explosives" the BBC filmed were likely fake. They weren't used. You (and, evidently, the BBC) are acting as if the IDF had really killed all those innocent women and children. In fact, had we not threatened to do so, we would have had to send forces into the building to make the arrest - and some of those innocent women and children probably would have been killed. Would that have shown less "disregard for human lives"?


I'm sorry if I seem a bit irritable about all this. I'm not upset by your attitude towards Israel per se, but rather by your lack of realization of how unbalanced and incomplete your information is; and by how ready you are to condemn Israel on the basis of truly inadequate, sketchy, and inaccurate "knowledge". Were I to express such viewpoints about issues relating to Ireland based upon my having made a few business trips to Dublin, you would rightly dismiss me as an ignorant loudmouth. I hate the fact that so much of the world feels ready to pontificate about the Middle East, while really knowing so little about it.

shotamoose

By publicizing only one side of the story - Palestinian victimization - the well-meaning foreigners encourage those Palestinian leaders and organizations that are only too ready to see their own constituents impoverished and killed as the price of their own continued power.

It annoys me that you assume such naivety on our part that we believe only one side of the story, that "simply a matter of innocent Palestinians minding their own business and nevertheless getting bombed and shelled by evil Israelis."

I can see how it would be useful for both sides to argue that their pain is ignored while the sins of the enemy are ignored. I'm sure many on both sides actually believe that. But we're discerning adults here, and we're capable of making up our own minds. We don't have all the facts and our interpretations of those facts are subjective, but nobody has all the facts and nobody is objective. So since you either think board.ie is a a medium for lectures or you're inviting a free exchange of opinions, I'll give you mine. You'll probably disagree with plenty and you're probably more of an expert than I am - at least, I should hope so - but that's opinions for you.

Yes, it is a devilishly complex situation. Yes, both sides have suffered so much and so unjustly that to ask either to compromise with the other seems almost an insult. Yes, there are Palestinians (not uncoincidentally, frequently the most powerful ones) who have more to gain out of war than out of peace.

But I can't help but think that the cycle of violence will only be broken when the cycle of competitive self-pity is broken first. So some people in Israel think they're the unfairly-maligned underdog. Well, tough. Both sides are in the wrong, and if Israel is going to act the part of the only democracy in Middle East it had better democratically grow up and take the first steps to peace. After all, if the Palestinians are so chaotic/corrupt/anti-Semitic, we'll be a long time waiting for them to make the first move, won't we?

Unfortunately, since its creation the Palestinian Authority has been a rather spectacular failure as a "developing country", despite foreign aid amounting to more than U.S. $1,000 per capita. Incredible amounts of foreign development aid have wound up in Swiss bank accounts, or have been funneled to Fatah and (to a lesser extent) other terrorist organizations. The failure to develop a self-sustaining Palestinian economy has been a major reason for the suffering of ordinary Palestinians, and will likely continue to be so after the creation of an independent Palestinian state.

Like Israel is a self-sufficient entity (America only recently stopped trying to pass off its aid to Israel as 'overseas development aid'). And like Israeli elements have not repeatedly undermined the economic capacity of the Palestinians.

What would happen if U.N. (or E.U., for that matter) observers were installed to separate Israel and the Palestinians? We have full confidence - based upon sad and fatal experience - that the terrorists would find the "peacekeepers" to be a permeable boundary, while our own forces would be prevented from doing anything effective in response, or to prevent further attacks. No thanks.

You're right, it's not even worth a try. The present situation is much better. Oh wait, I forgot the Peace Wall. Yes, there's an acceptable solution.

Do not make the mistake of thinking that you understand this conflict, when even the most intelligent and well-informed experts living here have been unable to find practical solutions to it! If you chuck the rest and just learn to see the limits of your knowledge, I've accomplished a great deal.

Please. I don't understand everything about this conflict, nor could I. But I have my opinion, and the opinions of complete strangers are clearly important to you. I've found your posts interesting, but don't kid yourself that you've taught me some sort of life lesson. If the only thing you learn is that you can't start arguments with people in a foreign country then dismiss their statements because they live in a foreign country, then you'll have accomplished a great deal.

Hobbes

Originally posted by Don Radlauer
It's almost impossible to detect one's own lack of balanced information, since one is paying attention to all the information that one thinks is available and relevant. What sources of information are you really tapping into, though? Do you read the Jerusalem Post daily?

Yes. I have read it from time to time when I have found stories elsewhere. A good one I recall was where the IDF planted a bomb to kill a terrorist, instead killing children. What do they do? They blame it on Hamas. Only after an investigation it's shown that they did it. What's happens to them? Nothing.

This was reported in that paper as well. It was without the undertones of "Death to Israel" that you would get from the other side. It was more a "So what".

I do read various sides. I don't take any side as gospel or a lier (although both sides do lie). You appear not to. A good example the deaths I listed eariler in the thread, you were willing to check your stats until I said I got the information from ISM site. At which point you dismissed it as lies. Yet I had before that checked up news sites for the names as well.

I don't take a single site as gospel.

Already your trying to dismiss my opinion.

As far as "wanting a ceasefire with Hamas", we don't. The Road Map didn't promise us a ceasefire (READ IT!);

So you believe that you will achieve peace by bombing the fuk out of the other side? Because that is what it looks like to me. How can you have a peace process if one side is still willing to attack the other?

Then, as soon as the handshakes in front of the cameras have been completed, the Palestinians start shifting the goal posts:

Well that's odd, because Israel has been advertised more of changing the goal posts then Palistine. Even in US papers. You know you can't really blame one side of an action if your doing that exact same action.

Even the United States, in our experience, is prone to negotiate agreements and then ignore flagrant violations by the Palestinians.

It appears to ignore incidents on both sides.

Ahh, but your prejudice (and perhaps the BBC's - it has a terrible reputation in Israel) is showing. You tell the story as if it all made complete sense - the IDF was about to blow up, in cold blood, a building full of women and children if a guy didn't give himself up to arrest. What's the problem here?

The problem is the nature in which it was used to get him from the building. Threatening to blow up an apartment complex with innocent people in it to get one person is unthinkable in any other civilised country I can think of.

That fact is, Israel sees this as normal.

The problem is that NO SUCH INCIDENT EVER RESULTED IN A BUILDING'S BEING BLOWN UP.

Yet, IDF have dropped a bomb on at least one occasion into a populated building to kill one person. Or how about the destruction of a UN building with tanks using the same threats (despite being told they could search the building).

Sorry, but your wrong. Either that or the whole world is wrong.

but the fact is that the "explosives" the BBC filmed were likely fake.

I believe the reporter asked them if they were fake. They weren't, and they were certainly acting like it was real. Real or Fake this sort of thing is not on.

(and, evidently, the BBC)

It was actually the most impartial I've seen. What if I told you I saw the documentry on RTE? Do they lie as well? (Before you wonder, it was shown on more then one station).

It's a culture thing. What you see as run of the mill, comes across as barbaric and inhumane. Which makes the IDF no better the Hamas.

Actually quick to dismiss the documentry as lies, then prehaps thier protrayal of Hamas is lies too?

are acting as if the IDF had really killed all those innocent women and children. In fact, had we not threatened to do so,

They made it quite clear on TV that they planned to blow up the building and were well aware there was women and children in it. Depsite not doing it, using it as threat towards people they are claiming moral superiority too is a bit stupid.

we would have had to send forces into the building to make the arrest - and some of those innocent women and children probably would have been killed. Would that have shown less "disregard for human lives"?

Strawman.

Were I to express such viewpoints about issues relating to Ireland based upon my having made a few business trips to Dublin, you would rightly dismiss me as an ignorant loudmouth. I hate the fact that so much of the world feels ready to pontificate about the Middle East, while really knowing so little about it.

Ad hominem.

dathi1

and while yez are at it.......a quick ad:
1. Norman Finkelstein Book Launch

The Irish Palestinian Support Group (in association with Verso publishers) proudly present Norman Finkelstein, US academic and author, launching the new edition of his book 'Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict' at 7pm on Wednesday 25th June, at the Writers' Centre, 19 Parnell Square, Dublin 1. Norman will introduce the book and discuss the chances for peace. He will also be available to sign copies. All welcome. Refreshments will be provided.

For more information about Norman Finkelstein and this book visit: http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/

Don Radlauer

Hobbes wrote:

So you believe that you will achieve peace by bombing the fuk out of the other side? Because that is what it looks like to me. How can you have a peace process if one side is still willing to attack the other?

While most of your post isn't really worth responding to - that is, I'd just be repeating the same things I've already said many times, and you'd continue to ignore them - this point deserves some comment.

The problem with your rhetorical question is in how it defines a "side". Israel's position is that Hamas and "the Palestinians" are not the same "side". Attacking Hamas leaders is not synonymous with attacking "the Palestinians" - or at least, it shouldn't be.

As far as Israel is concerned (and according to the Road Map), the Palestinian Authority needs to make a choice: If it wants to achieve peace with Israel, it must repudiate and fight against Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other terrorist groups. If the PA wants to take a more nuanced approach, such as a temporary ceasefire to be followed by disarming terror groups and converting them to normal political parties, Israel can live with that. But the existence of armed terrorist forces which completely reject Israel's existence is unacceptable, save as a brief interim stage before disarmament begins.

On the other hand, if the PA - or Palestinian society in general - is unwilling to distance itself from terrorism and terror organizations, then they have completely and irreparably breached the terms of the Road Map, and there is no longer even the pretence of a "peace process". Israel wants peace with the Palestinians, but it does not seek peace with an armed and murderous Hamas. To seek peace with such a group is just as futile and dangerous as it was for Britain to seek peace with Hitler.

Israel has made it very clear - and the Road Map backs us up on this - that in order for the Palestinians to be treated as "peace partners" they have to stop sitting on the fence. They can't get into bed with us while they're still in bed with Hamas. It is likely (I can't say how probable - I'm no prophet!) that the Palestinian Authority will continue with the Arafat fence-sitting approach: saying nice things to us in English while being oh-so-polite to Hamas, requesting little hudnas when the world is looking, but never actually doing anything to remove the threat and actuality of terrorism from the picture. We fell for that once or twice, but we won't (I hope) fall for it again. If Hamas doesn't face Palestinian bullets, they'll face Israeli ones - with some form of peaceful (but rapid, mandatory, and complete) disarmament the only other alternative. (Sneaky approaches like appointing armed terrorists as "policemen" as a way of sanitizing them won't work either. We fell for it once; we won't fall for it again.)

...you were willing to check your stats until I said I got the information from ISM site. At which point you dismissed it as lies.

No, I didn't. I did say that the ISM was an unreliable source, which it is. Once you gave me the correct name, I checked our database and found the victim you mentioned. (Her name in the database is Kamila, not Kamla, BTW. Did I ever mention that I'd found her?

Originally posted by Don Radlauer
The problem with your rhetorical question is in how it defines a "side". Israel's position is that Hamas and "the Palestinians" are not the same "side". Attacking Hamas leaders is not synonymous with attacking "the Palestinians" - or at least, it shouldn't be.

Thats a fair point, but it also underlines the difficult nature of conflict resolution.
Drawing a paralell with what has happened here in Ireland for instance, bitter resentment on one side or the other breeds support for these types of organisations.
It takes years to end that resentment.
Arguably now 81 years after partition and nearly 60 years after a complete break with Gt Britain, there are very few IRA supporters in the Republic of Ireland.
Support for Sinn Féin in NI has grown hugely since the peace process was followed there.
And while theres still a lot of violence, the murder and mahem of thirty years has calmed to a virtual stop.
There is normalisation to a degree up there, even if the resentment is just a scratch below the surface still.
My point being, hard and tough as the decision is, the only way to peace is negotiation and that means Israel must cease fire regardless of whether fanatics continue their evil deeds.
Otherwise, theres deadlock literally.
mm

bonkey

Originally posted by Don Radlauer
to try to shake the picture of Israel as the devil and the Palestinians as St. Stephen (the Human Pincushion, if I'm remembering my hagiology/art history accurately).

You have argued at length that it is impossible for foreigners to understand the situation with Israel/Palestine quite simply because we're not there.

And yet now you wish to tell us that you understand us and our motives from nothing more than a short term visit to this web-site?

Are we somehow less complex than you? Are our thought processes so transparent? Are you that well informed about our media?

If not, then I would humbly suggest that you apply your own logic to yourself (i.e. you cannot possibly understand what we do and do not think or do because you dont live where we do), and tone down some of the criticisms of our apparent lack of knowledge. For a start, we never claimed to be experts.

Sorry, but there is nothing that p1sses me off more than anyone coming into an argument using "you do not and cannot understand X because of Y" and then turn around and ignore that logic themselves completely when it suits their own argument.

I've seen it with oh-so-many discussions on the North of Ireland, quite a handful concerning the US, and now Israel/Palestine has joined the list.

The vast majority of people on these boards will generally and consistently (and regardless of which side they tend to have more support or sympathy for) say that both sides are wrong.

Do not make the mistake of thinking that you understand this conflict, when even the most intelligent and well-informed experts living here have been unable to find practical solutions to it!

So what you're saying is "do not think you understand this, because we don't either" ??? How, then, can you tell anyone that their view is wrong, if you don't actually know what view is right? And if your own view is wrong, why is it "more right" then my view? Is just because you're an Israeli and therefore naturally more informed? Would a Palestinian preaching "death to Israel" also not believe that he too was more informed and more correct than me (or indeed you) ???

From discussing the situation in the North of Ireland for years with various people from Belfast to Kerry, and with foreigners from abroad, I have come to one simple conclusion : Proximity doesnt make you more right, it simply changes the nature of your incorrectness.

Those involved tell those on the outside that they cannot understand what is going on because they are not there. (Funny - just like what you have told us about Israel/Palestine). Those on the outside can see that those involved are generally too close to the action to retain enough - if any - objectivity to fully understand what is going on.

Conclusion - all sides (involved, uninvolved) rightly believe that no-one else really understands the full conflict. However, they generally fail to recognise that their own understanding is just as incomplete.

Nobody in Europe, it seems, will ever confront the Palestinians and say, "Sorry, but you agreed to do X, and you didn't even try to do it, so we're dropping you like a rotten apple. Have a nice time without us!"

Well, no offence Don, but I havent seen anyone in Europe do that to Israel either. I'll go further - I havent seen any nation take that stance with any other in any sort of peace negotiations that I can ever remember, in fact.

Again - take the recent assassination attempt by Israel. Did the US - a nation who is vehemently against the use of assassination as a tool or weapon - come out and say "sorry lads, but thats not on - sort out your own problems" ??? If they did, I didnt see it. I saw them saying that it "raised concerns", and that they "needed to reach an understanding", and other such politico-speak.

The problem is that NO SUCH INCIDENT EVER RESULTED IN A BUILDING'S BEING BLOWN UP.

So you're saying that terror tactics and death-threats are ok as long as you're not actually going to carry them out....or at least as long as your bluff has never been called?

and by how ready you are to condemn Israel on the basis of truly inadequate, sketchy, and inaccurate "knowledge".

Yup, and by and large we condemn Palestine on similar inadequate, sketchy and inaccurate "knowledge" too. Are we wrong in doing that too?

See - this again strikes me as a situation where a binary assumption is being made : we criticse Israel, ergo we must support Palestine. Not so. We criticise Israel because we believe that it is wrong in its actions. Similarly we criticise Palestine for the same reasons.

Saying one side is wrong does not in any way imply that the other side right.

Were I to express such viewpoints about issues relating to Ireland based upon my having made a few business trips to Dublin, you would rightly dismiss me as an ignorant loudmouth.

Well, again, its nice to see that you can understand our culture so well, whilst insisting that we couldnt possibly understand yours. Would you like to tell me what I think about anything else while you're at it?

What would you prefer? That the entire world just turned its back on the region because we dont understand it, and just let you guys fight it out amongst yourselves? After all, if the average man in the street is somehow wrong to hold an opinion, then what right has his representative government to get involved? They can be no better informed - they don't live there either.

I'm curious though.....if you have found a large number of Pro-Israel supporters on this board, would you have told them that they too didnt have a clue what they were on about????

jc

Don Radlauer

Bonkey wrote:

You have argued at length that it is impossible for foreigners to understand the situation with Israel/Palestine quite simply because we're not there.

And yet now you wish to tell us that you understand us and our motives from nothing more than a short term visit to this web-site?

Are we somehow less complex than you? Are our thought processes so transparent? Are you that well informed about our media?

I never said I understood you and your motives; but I have read your posts carefully, and since you generally seem to be decent writers, I flatter myself that I have understood what you've written. If your posts are not representative of your thinking, that's not my fault.

There's a big difference between my claiming to understand Irish problems based upon my own limited knowledge, and my claiming to understand what someone on this board is expressing quite plainly. Your argument here is complete bollox.

I am not an expert on Irish media; but I do keep track of the British media and the international wire services, among others. If the Irish media are pursuing a radically different line on the Arab/Israeli conflict, posts on this board haven't shown any sign of it.

The vast majority of people on these boards will generally and consistently (and regardless of which side they tend to have more support or sympathy for) say that both sides are wrong.

This is common among foreign "observers" of the Mideast conflict. It represents an entirely incorrect logical and philosophical approach. Basically, what the "observer" is saying is that s/he doesn't understand the cultures, motivations, narratives, and histories of the players in the Middle East conflict - but instead of realizing that these factors all do exist, and that both sides' positions make sense within their own framework, the "observer" cops out and declares both sides to be wrong, crazy, whatever.

If someone is going to have anything intelligent to say about a conflict, I'd say that (as a rule of thumb) s/he ought to be able to find at least some respects in which at least one side is right. To say dismissively that "both sides are wrong" is... wrong.

So what you're saying is "do not think you understand this, because we don't either" ??? How, then, can you tell anyone that their view is wrong, if you don't actually know what view is right? And if your own view is wrong, why is it "more right" then my view? Is just because you're an Israeli and therefore naturally more informed? Would a Palestinian preaching "death to Israel" also not believe that he too was more informed and more correct than me (or indeed you) ???

You're stooping to sophistry here. When I said that local experts didn't have all the answers (I think I mentioned practical solutions) to the conflict, I certainly didn't mean that they didn't know and understand a great deal about what's going on. I just meant that even those with lots of knowledge and insight on the subject find it very difficult, at best, to envision a really good, practical solution. The idea that this in some way negates the value or reality of their expertise - that everybody in the world is equally expert on the subject - is silly. And to say that experts don't have all the answers is in no way the same as saying that they are "wrong".

My own view is not a priori more correct than yours because I'm an Israeli. As much as I disagree with some stuff said here, I've seen much worse spouted by some of my fellow Israelis, not to mention "armchair Zionists" living elsewhere. ("Armchair Zionists", by and large, give me a major pain.) If I didn't find the people on this board to be an intelligent bunch, I wouldn't bother posting here.

At the same time, I do make a pretty intense effort to keep myself properly informed in my areas of expertise. Unfortunately, I don't speak or read Arabic; but several of ICT's experts do. In discussing the sociology of the Intifada, among other things, I'm about as close to an expert as you're likely to find.


And yes, the Palestinian would, in many ways, be better informed than you - and in some ways, better informed than I.

quote:

---

Nobody in Europe, it seems, will ever confront the Palestinians and say, "Sorry, but you agreed to do X, and you didn't even try to do it, so we're dropping you like a rotten apple. Have a nice time without us!"

---

Well, no offence Don, but I havent seen anyone in Europe do that to Israel either. I'll go further - I havent seen any nation take that stance with any other in any sort of peace negotiations that I can ever remember, in fact.

Again - take the recent assassination attempt by Israel. Did the US - a nation who is vehemently against the use of assassination as a tool or weapon - come out and say "sorry lads, but thats not on - sort out your own problems" ??? If they did, I didnt see it. I saw them saying that it "raised concerns", and that they "needed to reach an understanding", and other such politico-speak.

Your first statement is pretty much completely untrue. Virtually no West-European leader (other than Berlusconi) will be caught dead saying anything good about Israel; our products are boycotted all over Europe, as well as our academics.

The "assassination attempt" you're referring to wasn't an assassination attempt. It was an attempted arrest of a senior terrorist, who fired at the Yamam (elite Border Police anti-terrorist unit) members who were sent to arrest him. This is often what happens when we listen to those who demand we treat terrorists as criminals rather than combatants - we try to arrest them, endanger our own people to at least some degree, and often wind up killing people anyway. This time at least no innocent bystanders were killed. But again, your use of the term "assassination" for this incident does not speak well for your "balanced" information sources.

And by the way, where did you get the idea that the U.S. is "vehemently against the use of assassination as a tool or weapon"? How many times so far have they tried to bomb Saddam Hussein? It might be accurate to say that the U.S. opposes assassinations that they don't carry out themselves.

See - this again strikes me as a situation where a binary assumption is being made : we criticse Israel, ergo we must support Palestine. Not so. We criticise Israel because we believe that it is wrong in its actions. Similarly we criticise Palestine for the same reasons.

Saying one side is wrong does not in any way imply that the other side right.

Again, this is a moral cop-out. The problem is not that you're criticizing Israel - I criticize the Israeli government and army all the time. The problem is that you're criticizing it in the wrong way, using the wrong language, for the wrong reasons. What I've consistently seen in posts here is a readiness to accept Palestinian grievances, but no readiness to accept Israeli grievances. Palestinians react excessively to Israeli misdeeds, but the only side that is ever accused of unprovoked evil is Israel.

quote:

---

Were I to express such viewpoints about issues relating to Ireland based upon my having made a few business trips to Dublin, you would rightly dismiss me as an ignorant loudmouth.

---

Well, again, its nice to see that you can understand our culture so well, whilst insisting that we couldnt possibly understand yours. Would you like to tell me what I think about anything else while you're at it?

Are you telling me that you welcome foreigners who think they know how to solve all Ireland's problems? If so, you're more saintly than most! <g>

What would you prefer? That the entire world just turned its back on the region because we dont understand it, and just let you guys fight it out amongst yourselves? After all, if the average man in the street is somehow wrong to hold an opinion, then what right has his representative government to get involved? They can be no better informed - they don't live there either.

Yes. We'd actually much rather that the rest of the world didn't get involved in the Arab/Israeli dispute, especially the Israel/Palestinian subset of the wider conflict. We'd much rather that the world allocated its attention with a better sense of proportion; after all, our conflict is really a very small one compared to a lot of what's going on in Africa and many other parts of the world. The Arab/Israeli conflict is so vastly over-reported (but almost always superficially) that people seem to think that this is World War Six - and it's really more like a family squabble.

I'm curious though.....if you have found a large number of Pro-Israel supporters on this board, would you have told them that they too didnt have a clue what they were on about????

Absolutely. As I've written previously, I have pretty much given up on pro-Israel forums, having been accused of being "in the pay of the E.U." and "a Hamas supporter". In Israeli/Zionist terms, I'm actually a centrist - which means that I consider both the Left (typified by Yossi Beilin and his ilk) and the Right (typified by the National Union crowd) to be fools. I'm also very much an intellectual individualist, in the sense that I feel no obligation to agree with someone all because s/he's on "my side".

Hobbes

Originally posted by Don Radlauer
The problem with your rhetorical question is in how it defines a "side". Israel's position is that Hamas and "the Palestinians" are not the same "side".

They don't show that distinction in anyway. Otherwise the Palestinians would be treated with a bit more respect and Israelis wouldn't believe that palestinian children are just terrorist weapons to be used at a later date or threaten people with blowing thier house up because someone in the building is wanted by them.

As far as Israel is concerned (and according to the Road Map), the Palestinian Authority needs to make a choice: If it wants to achieve peace with Israel, it must repudiate and fight against Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other terrorist groups.

Yes, however having already read the roadmap it also states that Israel should stop any actions that would be seen to impede the process.

Roadmap
GOI takes no actions undermining trust, including deportations, attacks on civilians; confiscation and/or demolition of Palestinian homes and property, as a punitive measure or to facilitate Israeli construction; destruction of Palestinian institutions and infrastructure; and other measures specified in the Tenet work plan.

Now you can argue away that they haven't written down assinations (which is basically what they are) or detaining people in groups. Yet that is what Israel is doing. There is such a thing as going the against the spirit of the document.

Of course if you want to get into wordplay.

Israel, as expressed by President Bush, and calling for an immediate end to violence against Palestinians everywhere. All official Israeli institutions end incitement against Palestinians.

By that defination it would mean the end of Israels actions while the Palistinians work it out.

Now I'm sure you'll list off other excuses as to why Palsintine hasn't done item X on the list. But then Isreal hasn't done anything to help either.

No, I didn't. I did say that the ISM was an unreliable source, which it is.

Which I disagree with you, but even so it is possible to check up the facts of anything posted these days. So it is easy to smell the BS when it's posted, and IDF so wanting ISM to just disappear would be more then happy to point out all the errors (btw, point us out a few, seperate thread if you will. I'd be intrested to know what's wrong).

Lemming

Originally posted by Don Radlauer

Yes. We'd actually much rather that the rest of the world didn't get involved in the Arab/Israeli dispute, especially the Israel/Palestinian subset of the wider conflict. We'd much rather that the world allocated its attention with a better sense of proportion; after all, our conflict is really a very small one compared to a lot of what's going on in Africa and many other parts of the world.

The problem is, however, that the Palestinian/Israeli conflict has become a focus-point on a global scale. There are those who see the US as being the mother of evil because of the blank cheques it wrote (not sure if this was ended in recent times though) to support the Israeli military. Hence we get many fundamentalists on both sides of the equation using this "they're all the same. it's us or them" mentality to sway people to their cause. So the issue suddently spreads beyond what is a geographically small flash-point into the larger whole.

The Arab/Israeli conflict is so vastly over-reported (but almost always superficially) that people seem to think that this is World War Six - and it's really more like a family squabble.

I agree completely that it's over-reported, but at the same time there is a vast socio-political interest in this whole sorry mess. So we get one hand feeding the other and adding to the problems already existing within the flash-point with all this external weight coming in to add fuel to the fire.

I would, however, balk at your analogy to a family squabble and consider the phrase to be rather flippant given the fact that large numbers of people have been killed/maimed/adversely affected by this.

Well - that's my two cents and I've no doubt that I'm omitting something. But there ye go...

Don Radlauer

Lemming wrote:

The problem is, however, that the Palestinian/Israeli conflict has become a focus-point on a global scale. There are those who see the US as being the mother of evil because of the blank cheques it wrote (not sure if this was ended in recent times though) to support the Israeli military. Hence we get many fundamentalists on both sides of the equation using this "they're all the same. it's us or them" mentality to sway people to their cause. So the issue suddently spreads beyond what is a geographically small flash-point into the larger whole.

True enough. Current American military aid to Israel is about $2 billion per year; but this figure is actually very deceptive. Cutting a long explanation short, this aid (nowadays) actually has a lot more to do with preventing Israel from taking away U.S. arms export markets than with propping us up militarily.

In earlier days, U.S. military aid to Israel was of more strategic importance. At that time, of course, the Soviet Union was propping up the various Arab regimes around us; in fact, the U.S.S.R. evidently did a lot (perhaps unintentionally, perhaps not) to provoke the 1967 war.


The religious aspect is also relevant, of course. The fact that Israel/Palestine is the Holy Land for Christians as well as for Jews means that events here get special prominence - a factor that doesn't make peacemaking any easier, sadly.

I would, however, balk at your analogy to a family squabble and consider the phrase to be rather flippant given the fact that large numbers of people have been killed/maimed/adversely affected by this.

Some families get along better than others. <g>

Really, though, consider this: Since the beginning of the "Intifada", Israel has suffered nearly 800 killed, of whom over 600 were noncombatants killed by Palestinians; and during the same time span, Israel has lost something between 1500 and 1700 people due to traffic accidents. The Palestinians have lost a higher number to the "Intifada", but their losses are still very much "sustainable" at a societal level. (And there is little, if any, evidence that the Palestinians have tried to minimize their losses as Israel has.)

This doesn't mean that the deaths on both sides aren't tragic. I'm just trying to point out that what we've got going here is very far from a full-scale war.

Don Radlauer

Regarding Hobbes' remark about the ISM's reliability:

Here's one website to check out: http://tinyurl.com/f4bb

I wouldn't bother starting a new thread about the ISM - the level of passion and conviction surrounding them far exceeds the quality of verifiable information. In other words, lots of smoke but not much light.

bonkey

Originally posted by Don Radlauer
If your posts are not representative of your thinking, that's not my fault.

Sorry Dan....but to quote your own words back at you :

Your argument here is complete bollox.

No-one entering a conversation with an indivual or group for the first time can expect that during the course of the conversation they will see all aspects of the other's beliefs and/or stances.

And yet, when it is pointed out that the assumptions you have made of unstated stances of ours is wrong, you defend that by saying its not your fault?

Why is it not your fault that you assumed our criticism of Israel was somhow a condoning of the actions of Palestine? I cant see anyone saying they condoned the Palestinians. This is an assumption you appear to have made simply because it fit your model of a binary stance, and we hadn't offered anything to contradict it.

You seem to be saying that its not your fault for making that assumption, but rather its our fault for not providing the evidence to contradict such an assumption before it was clear you had made it.

Lets not get sidetracked into a punch-n-judy finger-pointing ecercise, though. The simple truth is that anyone who stands up and defends an opinion in this forum is likely to have plenty of others stand up and knock it. Thats what has happened. We are - for lack of a better term - challenging your stance. That doesnt mean we disagree completely with you, nor that we agree fully with the opposition. It means that we don't agree 100% with you. Thats all.

So lets not talk about fault...lets just remember why we're here

If someone is going to have anything intelligent to say about a conflict, I'd say that (as a rule of thumb) s/he ought to be able to find at least some respects in which at least one side is right. To say dismissively that "both sides are wrong" is... wrong.

I can find many aspects of the behaviour of both sides which I can classify as "right". Unfortunately, conflicts of this nature are generally not fought over the rights, but the wrongs. People don't go to war because they are right....they go because someone else is wrong, and that wrongness needs recitifcation. Conflict is perpetuated by both sides reacting to the wrongs performed by their counterparts. Peace is generally achieved when one side (or both) chooses to cease their wrong-doing, and/or is rendered incapable of doing wrong in one way or another. Indeed, in long-running conflicts, the original wrongs seem to lessen as a significant factor, with most cycles of violence being little more than a tit-for-tat reaction to the latest wrong carried out by the other side.

Recognising and understanding the wrongs of a conflict is the first step to finding resolution. Understanding the rights is simply a means to choose sides.

At least, thats my belief. Hopefully that doesnt preclude me from having anything of intelligence to add to the discussion about the conflict

My own view is not a priori more correct than yours because I'm an Israeli.

No, but our viewpoint is, apparently, a priori less correct because we are neither Israeli nor Palestinian. Indeed, not only less correct, but it seems to be "a priori wrong" for that reason. Maybe I'm reading an unintended harshness into your stance.......if so, then apologies.

It was an attempted arrest of a senior terrorist, who fired at the Yamam (elite Border Police anti-terrorist unit) members who were sent to arrest him.

I see. Where, exactly, does Israel get the right to enforce its laws outside its own borders, through use of its own forces (including a military gunship) ???

I would also ask how the use of a gunship in foreign air-space is considered an appropriate response to a suspect refusing to be arrested by people who have no legal jurisdiction in the location where this all occurred?

Also, as a matter of interest, do you have any figures on the number of these operations which have led to peaceful arrrests vs the number which have devolved into gunship attacks or other forms of firefight? I'm working off guesswork here, but I'd say that the "successful arrest" figure is a pretty low one.

(This is all relevant....I'm not just changing tack here....read on...)

But again, your use of the term "assassination" for this incident does not speak well for your "balanced" information sources.

No, my use of the term "assassination" was deliberate, because I firmly believe that it was no co-incidence a gunship was on hand to use lethal force when the inevitable refusal to be arrested occurred, nor do I believe that the Israeli's in charge of authorising the op ever seriously expected the situation to resolve itself in any other way. Either nothing would have happened (i.e. quarry disappears), or what happened would have happened. These were the only two expected and likely outcomes. Ergo, it is not unreasonable to assume that the implicit purpose of the raid was to kill this person, not to arrest.

Given the questionable - at best - authority the Israeli's have in the location where this occurred (see, I did say it was relevant), and the (assumed) history of lack-of-peaceful-success with such operations, it is hard to see how the arrest attempt can be considered as genuine.

That is why I used the term assassination - because when I strip away the fancy packaging, thats what I see - an attempt to kill this guy using enough wrapping to make it arguably legit.

Perhaps I could borrow a phraseology from you and term it a "propaganda arrest-attempt".

How many times so far have they tried to bomb Saddam Hussein? It might be accurate to say that the U.S. opposes assassinations that they don't carry out themselves.

Yeah, fair point (and one I've argued myself before), although I'd revise it further to say "that they, the British, or the Israelis don't carry out", personally.

Are you telling me that you welcome foreigners who think they know how to solve all Ireland's problems? If so, you're more saintly than most!

More saintly than most what? People, or Irish People?

Huge numbers of the people of this country came out to applaud Clinton when he came and paid a visit. They didnt line the streets to boo him as a bloody foreigner who should keep his mouth shut, they came out to applaud him for getting involved in the situation "Up North".

While many were more skeptical of Bush's reasons (and timing) for getting involved, it was still a generally held belief that if this guy could offer anything, then he was worth being there. Generally speaking, this attitude has pervaded the peace process in Ireland. They took advice from anyone willing to offer it and then decided on the merit of that advice. They even went to S.A. to find out about how a peace process can work.

So maybe we really are the land of Saints and Scholars I dont think so, though...... Generally speaking, I woudl be of the opinion that the only people who don't welcome foreigners views (or butting-in) are those who are so ensconced in their own absolute right that any dissenting voice is unwelcome.....and given that the "locals" are generally already on one side or the other, making foreigners unwelcome is simply an easy way of not having to rejustify old decisions, and not having more dissenting voices on new ones.

At the level of "the common man", I believe that a watered down version of the same logic holds true. I expect that when discussing the Irish situation with a foreigner that there will be some degree of genuine misconception or lack of information on their part. Sometimes I'm surprised, oftentimes I'm not. However, that does not preclude their ability to offer me some new perspective, regardless of how well informed they are. Indeed, hearing their "we had something like this back home once" stories generally help me understand things better (rather than believing that if their anecdote doesnt fit my preconceived belief its because their "back home" is just not the same as our troubles), as it can perhaps help me understand other people's stances, or refine/revise my own.

which means that I consider both the Left (typified by Yossi Beilin and his ilk) and the Right (typified by the National Union crowd) to be fools.

But....To say dismissively that "both sides are wrong" is... wrong. Right?

jc

bonkey

Originally posted by Don Radlauer
The religious aspect is also relevant, of course. The fact that Israel/Palestine is the Holy Land for Christians as well as for Jews means that events here get special prominence - a factor that doesn't make peacemaking any easier, sadly.

Lets also not forget the highly obvious financial issue : the entire Middle Eastern region and its oil. Fear of escalation etc. means that the entire world has a vested interest in sticking its nose into things...for better or for worse...

jc

Hobbes

Originally posted by Don Radlauer
Regarding Hobbes' remark about the ISM's reliability:

Here's one website to check out: http://tinyurl.com/f4bb

You don't have anything else? That website was already posted in a different thread in this forum and to be honest every excuse to why Rachel was run over was shown to be complete horse crap (You will find the thread in here and humanities forums).

Got anything else? Or is that it?

I wouldn't bother starting a new thread about the ISM - the level of passion and conviction surrounding them far exceeds the quality of verifiable information. In other words, lots of smoke but not much light.

You said they lie. Now back up the statement.

Btw, here's a nice story about IDF vs ISM.
http://frontpagemag.com/articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=8371

Sand

In fairness, I dont think Don was saying that foreigners had no right to comment on, or had no insight on any given "internal" conflict. I think he was differentiating between people who are informed to a greater and lesser degree and the resulting wieght of their opinion. No one for example criticised Bill Clintons intervention in NI, but then he was informed - or at least advised by those informed - on the conflict and the state of play to a great degree. Bush got a much less warm reception - mostly due to the fact its widely believed he doesnt know there are places outside of the USA.

As an example a commonly held view is that all it takes, in broad terms, for peace to "break out" is for Israel to stop assassinating Hammas leaders and stuff and that *after* that Hammas will all of a sudden enter a cease fire and negotiate for an honourable peace for the good of both peoples.

This makes sense to us, it follows the sort of mentality that we broadly credit to the age of reason.

What if Hamas look more to the Koran for reference when discussing cease fires than to the Christian wests ideals? Dons raised that issue and its an example of what he seems to be talking about - the sort of cultural facet that only experts *or* people familiar with such a culture (i.e. locals/neighbours ) would know about.

DapperGent

I am one who finds it terribly difficult to understand why so many people choose to support a side in this conflict. I am utterly amazed why so many unequivocally come down on the side of the Palestinians. The lack of sympathy for the horror suffered by the civilians of Israel is shocking.

What is happening seems to my untrained eyes to be incredibly similar to the relationship between Sinn Fein, the IRA and the British government during our own troubles. While in reality Sinn Fein and the IRA were inextricably bound (with Gerry Adams chairing the army council), publicly they were separate. Sinn Fein could be recognised as a viable political entity and yet be intricately connected to a terrorist organisation.

In the face of this quite amorphous duality world opinion (quite unreasonably in some cases) swung against British "fúck-ups" but never swung back quite as hard against IRA atrocities. There was no one really there to criticise. The IRA was as invisible as Hamas. Sinn Fein was always standing there going "Those IRA lads are nuts, let me tell you. Give me this, this and this and we'll see if it'll persuade them to be reasonable."

I personally believe much the same sort of relationship exists between the Palestinian Government and Hamas, Islamic Jihad etc. Everyone seems to act (and criticise) on the basis that Yasser Arafat is utterly unconnected to these terrorists; a position that seems at best naive and at worst stupid.

It also appears (to me) to be horrifically dangerous. Palestinian politicians do not have to bear much political consequence for terrorist action but yet can enjoy its fruits. A ****ing recipe for disaster.

By contrast Israel has no such smoke to hide behind and so must conduct a necessarily dirty war in public. It suffers in the court of world opinion because it is a democracy with a western ethos not in spite of it.

To be honest I think just about everyone on this thread should give both Israel and Don Radlauer a break. Rooting for the underdog is fun in sports, it is totally irresponsible in a brutal conflict.

Hobbes

Originally posted by DapperGent
I am one who finds it terribly difficult to understand why so many people choose to support a side in this conflict. I am utterly amazed why so many unequivocally come down on the side of the Palestinians. The lack of sympathy for the horror suffered by the civilians of Israel is shocking.

No what is difficult to understand is how people equate Palestinians with Terrorists. Something your saying there in your comment.

Hamas may be Palestinians, but Palestinians are not all Hamas.

Likewise with Israeli's + IDF.

Both sides have terrorism against them, and if stats the page is right both sides are doing equally well at terrorising each other.

In the face of this quite amorphous duality world opinion (quite unreasonably in some cases) swung against British "fúck-ups" but never swung back quite as hard against IRA atrocities.

Actually I would say it was far from it, and probably why the situation lasted longer then it did.

Rooting for the underdog is fun in sports, it is totally irresponsible in a brutal conflict.

Who do you think people are rooting for? The terrorists? Get real.

Hobbes

As an example a commonly held view is that all it takes, in broad terms, for peace to "break out" is for Israel to stop assassinating Hammas leaders and stuff and that *after* that Hammas will all of a sudden enter a cease fire and negotiate for an honourable peace for the good of both peoples.

I only wish I was that naive. The peace process in Israel ever comes about, it will take years (maybe generations) not months. There is too much bad blood in some of the public, and the current situation is doing nothing to shorten that time.

However to make a step towards peace one side has to be willing to show they are serious. Something that is just not happening. Israels excuse is "Well they won't agree to peace, so why should we?", which concidently is the same excuse thrown by the other side.

bonkey

Originally posted by DapperGent
To be honest I think just about everyone on this thread should give both Israel and Don Radlauer a break. Rooting for the underdog is fun in sports, it is totally irresponsible in a brutal conflict.

First off, why should anyone give anyone else "a break" here? Its a discussion forum. Its for discussion - you know - the exchanging of views and ideas.

To "give someone a break" is to say that we shouldn't discuss our differences of opinion any more. To what benefit?

If someone feels that a discussion isnt worth continuing, they can simply say so...or just stop posting on the thread. I'm sure you've seen that happen before...its generally how threads die.

Don chose to come here and stand up for his statistics (which I applaud) and then has gone on to discuss more involved stuff concerning the situation in general (which I also applaud). I don't agree with everything he says, but I've found this a massively educational discussion in a number of ways, as well as (if I may say so) one of the more interesting discourses on the whole Palestine/Israel situation because it hasnt (yet) gone the Punch-and-Judy way of almost all previous such discussions.

If Don wants a break, I'm not gonna try forcing him to continue posting here, nor think less of him because he chooses to stop. What I will not do is decide that I should stop a conversation I'm interested in becase I think he needs/deserves a break. He's an adult - he's well capable of making those decisions on his own.

jc

Don Radlauer

Hi all -

Just letting you know that I haven't disappeared, given up, or anything like that. I haven't been feeling well, and I spent yesterday mostly in bed.

As soon as I can, I'll respond to a few posts from the last couple of days. In the mean time, peace may break out - which will give me a chance to catch up!

-Don Radlauer

DapperGent

Originally posted by bonkey
To "give someone a break" is to say that we shouldn't discuss our differences of opinion any more. To what benefit?

No. I was simply saying that I reckon (personally) people should be more sympathetic to Don's point of view and to Israel's use of force, not that I wanted anyone to shut up.

Though in the face of your long winded semantics I really wish you would.

Biffa Bacon

Originally posted by Sparks
Biffa,
Most posters here live in a country that has proven over the last thirty years that, unpleasant and ideologically distasteful as it is, the only way to solve such problems is through peaceful resolution and comprimise.

Wrong. The IRA were trying to unify Ireland by force. After 25 or so years they decided to give up. The only “compromise” was by militant republicans when they abandoned their armed struggle and accepted partition. The British never compromised on the principle that Ireland could only be unified by consent. That is the only reason there is peace in the North.

The Corinthian

Originally posted by Biffa Bacon
That is the only reason there is peace in the North.

I would not have agreed with Sparks’ assertion, but I would have to say yours seems overly simplistic by comparison.