UPDATE: Hamas has denied responsibility for the killing, and so, until more information comes out, I’ll assume that the perpetrators are simply unknown. Their denial, of course, doesn’t mean they didn’t do it. As for my hearing they were responsible, I did, so what I said below was true. The title of this post, however, is inaccurate for the present. Stay tuned.
___________
As the Israel/Palestine crisis seems stalemated, the forces of terror continue their beastly depredations against Israel. This time, according to both the New York Times and the Telegraph, three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped and killed last week. Hamas was suspected, and has now, so I hear, admitted responsibility.
The teenagers, Gilad Shaer and Naftali Fraenkel, both 16, and Eyal Yifrah, 19, were kidnapped while hitchhiking, and then shot. Their bodies were found under a pile of rocks yesterday. The kidnappers are apparently known to Israel, who entered their homes, blowing off the doors after being refused entry.
As well as committing this cold-blooded murder, the Palestinians, without provocation, also fired 18 rockets into Israel before the bodies were discovered. The aim, of course, was to kill and terrorize Israeli civilians. Israel has responded by going after 34 targets in Palestine. Some sources mistakenly report that the Israeli strikes were retaliation for the kidnappings. In reality, they were a response to the missile attacks. (As we all know, Palestine fires its missiles from civilian areas, endangering innocent people nearby and inhibiting retaliation.)
As the Times of Israel notes:
Three Israeli teenagers, Naftali Fraenkel, Gil-ad Shaar and Eyal Yifrach, were kidnapped and murdered in cold blood on their way home from school only because they were Israeli Jews. Their Palestinian Arab murderers, as identified by Israel, did not know their victims and they did not care. The objective was to attack some hated Israelis, and perhaps exchange them or their bodies for jailed murderers. Any random Jews would do.
Can you deny the truth of that? The “Islamophobia” card is a canard, leveled at those who dislike the tenets of Islam, not Muslims themselves. But those who kill children, or want to wipe out Israel, are anti-Semites, pure and simple. This is not hatred of the tenets of Judaism. It is hatred of Jews themselves: a hatred that permeates the Arab world just as it permeated medieval Europe. Europe has largely (but not completely) gotten over it; the Middle East has not. Every day vile anti-Semitic caricatures and videos appear in the Arab media.
The Hamas charter still calls for the complete elimination of Israel. It also includes references to the discredited Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a Czarist forgery supposedly laying out plans for a worldwide Jewish conspiracy. If you were an Israeli, surrounded by those who wish to push you into the sea, how would you feel if three innocent kids were kidnapped and killed for the crime of being Jews? How would you feel if rockets were being fired randomly into your country?
In the face of this, President Obama urged “restraint on both sides” (though he at least had the decency to call it a “tragedy”). What does that mean? Israel is supposed to stand by idly while its children get murdered and it remains the target of randomly-fired rockets? Did we exercise restraint when the World Trade Center went down? Would we exercise restraint if, say, the Mexican government fired rockets into Texas and their operatives killed three American teenagers in Arizona?
As the Times of Israel argues, this is not a “cycle of revenge” that perpetuates the stalemate, but unilateral and unconscionable acts of terrorism against Israel:
Similarly, today, there is no “cycle of revenge,” as many journalists, diplomats and self-proclaimed human rights activists often claim. A cycle means symmetry, automatic tit-for-tat, mindless action and reaction, in which all sides, and none, can be held morally responsible.
But attack and defense, terror and counter-terror, incitement and fear are not symmetric or morally equivalent. When diplomats and academics repeat the “cycle” analogy, and meekly issues calls “to both parties to exercise restraint,” as the European Union, the UN and even the US did after the kidnapping, they are endorsing a dangerous fiction. When journalists invent an artificial balance and an immoral equivalence between attacker and victim, or an NGO with European and US taxpayer funds equates the mother of a Palestinian terrorist with the mothers of Gilad, Naftali, and Eyal, this is fundamentally immoral.
For years, Palestinians and their supporters have been able to peddle the fiction that murderous terrorists in Israeli jails are political prisoners, guilty only of participating in the “cycle of violence,” including opposing the “occupation,” albeit with violent means. European human rights funds have also channeled government money to lobbying groups (non-governmental organizations) to promote this fiction and the public campaigns on their behalf.
I still favor a two-state solution for this problem, but it’s not going to happen so long as Israelis are being targeted in this way and so long as Hamas swears to destroy Israel. And if you think a two-state solution is going to stop the attacks on Israel, I have a bridge over the Jordan I’d like to sell you. The Palestinians, and other Arab states, are simply too deeply permeated with the hatred of Jews.
And if you say that the rocket-firings at civilians and the murder of children are justified by Israeli “apartheid” (a false comparison if ever there was one), then you’ve lost your moral compass. These are the acts of monsters. They are given a pass by the West because, for some reason, anti-Semitic Muslims are not held to the same standards of civilized behavior as everyone else.
http://www.dw.de/israeli-troops-kill-2-more-palestinians-in-search-for-teens-in-west-bank/a-17727759
Don’t leave links unless you want to say something about them.
All Palestinians killed during the search for the boys were people who actively (with rocks, Molotov coctails and even granades) tried to hinder the search. In every country if you need to come into a house of a dangerous suspect and you can’t open the door, you just remove it. I can’t see why you call the frantic search for three kidnapped boys “despicable”.
Hmmm…whose opinion are you referring to? I just did a word search for ‘despicable’ on this page and nobody has said that word except you (and now me). Nobody has called the search that…except you.
It is nearly certain that Malgorzata’s comment was a response to a comment that was removed. It was probably removed between the time she began composing her response and the time she actually posted it. When that happens the software posts the response on the main thread since the subthread no longer exists.
Interesting. My post, currently numbered 49, is in response to Eric’s post, currently 47, who commented on Malgorzata’s post, currently 46.
The WordPress software is kind of wonky with comments where the target has been deleted. It casts them adrift and doesn’t allow responses to them.
The posts are certainly listed strangely today. My first post, a couple of days newer that the first response to this is listed as #1, darrelle’s are #6 & #7; all the others are numbered oddly. Maybe we’ve had another solar mass coronal ejection.
Speaking of rock-throwing, after the boys’ bodies were recovered and were being taken away in an ambulance, Palestinian Arabs attacked the ambulance and broke its windows! What kind of frenzied hatred was behind that? I don’t think it’s about a “cycle of violence” but rather constant, day in day out incitement in the Palestinian media to hate Jews and hate Israel. If the PA had any interest in peace at all, wouldn’t it prepare its people for the possibility instead of this indoctrination?
So some uniformed person in the field just decides that inhabitants of a house or neighbourhood are ‘dangerous suspects’, and that relieves them of any duty to… just not kill people.
In Australia, in the century or so after the British invasion of 1788, there were numerous examples of individuals or small groups of aborigines opportunistically spearing convicts or sheep. These were always followed by punitive expeditions by settlers and/or local military commands, and often quite barbaric massacres of families or entire local populations. Official government policy was that killing of blacks by whites without judicial process was criminal, but this policy was unpopular with soldiers, settlers and convicts; there were very few convictions for such murders, and no hangings (when this was a common punishment for property offences). White settlers went armed everywhere, while a man with a spear could be shot on sight. Things aren’t all that much better today, with a vastly disproportionate amount of police time and prison cells taken up with the indigenous segment of the population.
I don’t know why I even brought that all up. Israel doesn’t behave anything like a colonial power, does it?
No, Israel doesn’t behave like a colonial power and Israel has absolutely nothing in common with what you described. It is good that you yourself question why you dragged it out.
HAMAS is a ruthless murder regime. Period.
It is also true that the Israeli government sometimes abuses it’s power.
Consider that it recently bulldozed the orchard of Palestinian family, at their farm, Tent of the nations. The family has lived on their land for almost 100 years! AND they have title to their land yet the Israeli government has been trying to confiscate their property as it has of others.
Eli Chacon was harassed by the Israeli government when he tried to build a school and he had to get help from the U. S. government in order to operate his school, Etc.
PPlease read his book Blood Brothers.
There are plenty of cases of the abuse of power by Israelis against Palestinians, including Palestinians who aren’t negative toward the Jewish people.
I
I do not doubt that Israeli authorities, like state authorities in all other countries in the world, are sometimes braking the law, acting like bullies or are just plainly stupid and incompetent. However, situation in Israel, especially when it comes to land ownership, it extremely complicated, with laws from the time of Ottomans, time of British still applicable to some degree. When it comes to “The Tent of Nation” it is an extremely complicated story, easily converted into a simple anti-Israeli propaganda. Try to read this: http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=118&x_article=2723
And, about those “sins” of Israeli government: are they really so much greater and more frequent than in other democratic countries? In Poland, which is democratic for 25 years now, media are every day reporting one or other “sin” of authorities but Poland is never singled out as accused at UN, AI, HRW etc. Israel is. Of course, it is better not to mention abuses of state power in Syria, Yemen, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon because, really, you just cannot compare the degree of those abuses to Israel’s.
But israel isn’t just any other nation! It is supposed to be a light to the nations.
AAt least that is what some Jewish writers say. I used to teach Jewish literature and the Holocaust to students every year for many years. And when I lived and worked on a kibbutz, one Israeli leader emphasized the equality of all humans, even was supportive of Palestinians.
It’s a travesty how the Israeli government is treating the Tent family for the last 20 years. ETC
Stand up for justice and mercy for everyone, then we are standing up for Israel.
The Israeli government needs to repay the family, and then get off Palestinian land.
Here we differ profoundly. Israel is just another nation and another state in the family of nations and states on Earth. And Jews are just normal people, like any other people, normal human beings. Some are wise, some are stupid, some are upright, some are scoundrels. I cannot see the reason to judge Jews and Israel according to any other standards and criteria than those you are judging anybody else
Judging Jews/Israel by higher standards makes them look bad – whatever they do.
Judging Arabs/Muslims by lower standards makes them look good – whatever they do.
So some Jewish writers and Israeli citizens have high ideals and great hopes for their country, and when they fall short you blame them more than you would citizens of some other country who do not have the same high ideals. Is that fair? Why not praise them for having a moral compass and trying to live up to it instead of condemning them for being less than perfect?
? I was referring to what Jewish and Israeli leaders said
Stealing land, destroying a farmers orchard, opposing such crimes by the government of Israel isn’t . even holding Israel to some high standard. . It’s a very basic beginning. The Israeli government needs to do what is best people
“Stealing land” is not so much a crime as a canard. After all, the land set aside to be the “Jewish homeland” originally included what is now Jordan, and Israel has already traded land for peace with Egypt. The first Zionists were very careful to buy the land they settled on. The Palestinian line is that all of Israel is “theft”, of course.
Its not “Palestinian land”. It may be land owned by an Arab, maybe a former Jordanian, or a former subject of the Ottomans or British, but surely not “Palestinian”. The only land that could be called “Palestinian land” is land the Israel agreed to hand over to the “Palestinian authority”, which includes predominantly Arab population centers of the West Bank, and the Gaza strip. The remaining territory between the Jordan river & Mediterranean sea is either sovereign Israeli territory, or non-sovereign Israeli territory.
On the contrary! The Palestinian family and other have lived and owned this land for years, some Palestinians have lived on Palestinian land for hundreds of years.
I know my history, taught story of Israel and Palestine for many years to students.
What needs to happen now is reconciliation and sharing. Israeli confiscation of land needs to be stopped. Members of my kibbutz wouldn’t support the current injustices.
And Palestinians need to stand up for Jewish people as some Palestinians have. (THAT last comment is for any palestinians reading this blog.
Like I said, just because land is owned by an Arab, doesn’t make it “Palestinian land”. You totally ignored my point.
? I’m sorry I misunderstood you point
. Maybe an example help clarify.
I agree with you that Early Zionist were honorable and did purchase land. They also were friendly to Arabs, hoped for friendship. But Tragically some Arabs were thugs, thieves, and murderers. Jewish people had to form defensive groups.
Some Zionist when I lived for a shot there were also just. They condemned stealing land from Arabs, condemned ant-Arab rhetoric.
Taking land from Arabs when they want to keep it is stealing and contrary to early Zionists. As I recall they would have condemned the Israeli government going onto Palestinian land and bull dozing a whole orchard.
Palestinian people and Jewish people have lived on land there for thousands of years,
Whatever Balfour said in his infamous letter isn’t of any worth. Israel/Palestine isn’t the homeland of the English but only so for a while by conquest.
Is that more clear?
I’m not familiar with the “bulldozed orchard” story, but Israel is not a lawless country so I have a hard time believing it was a case of state-sanctioned land theft.
Palestinian people and Jewish people have lived on land there for thousands of years
Why make a distinction between “Palestinian people” and “Jewish people” ? If you call the inhabitants of the land Palestinians, then Jews are also Palestinians. (answer: because the inhabitants were referred to as Arabs and Jews, not Palestinians).
Israel/Palestine isn’t the homeland of the English but only so for a while by conquest.
Same for the Arabs. They just stayed long enough to for you to believe its theirs.
Balfour is not the reason Israel exists today. Israel exists because it declared independence in 1948 and proceeded to ward off a 5-army invasion. The “Palestinians” were Jordanians and Egyptians until the Arabs changed tactics and created the PLO. Not a single word was uttered about Palestinian statehood until it was clear that Israel couldn’t be defeated on the battlefield. This is all basic stuff, and clear to anyone who isn’t either ignorant of history, or invested in the anti-Israel narrative.
I know the history! People who live in the area where the Israeli s stole land has been called Palestine since the time of the Romans.
Secondly, the Hebrew people also invaded the land we are talking about in about 1200 bce.
On the tragic theft and destruction, Google tent of the nation’s.?
Also read Palestinian Eli Chacor, his autobiography, Blood brothers
I know the history! People who live in the area where the Israeli s stole land has been called Palestine since the time of the Romans.
Secondly, the Hebrew people also invaded the land we are talking about in about 1200 bce.
On the tragic theft and destruction, Google,
Also read Palestinian Eli Chacor, his autobiography, Blood brothers
Yeah, and in Roman times “Palestine” was inhabited by the Jews. And before Roman times it was the sovereign homeland of the Jews.
Maybe if the Cannanites and Jebusites were still around, and stateless, we could talk about a 2-state solution. I don’t see the justice in dividing the one tiny Jewish state, in order to create a 23rd state for Arabs.
For the record, I do not support the continuation of the status-quo simply because Israel has no peace partner. If Israel believes this is their land, they should bite the bullet and extend full sovereignty to the West Bank, grant automatic residency and an offer of citizenship to all. Ideally, it would be a comprehensive solution that includes Egypt annexing Gaza, but I doubt President Al-Sissi is interested in that.
We disagree on history, but agree that HAMAS should be moved out of Gaza.
HAMAS, not only has murdered innocent Jewish people, it has executed Palestinian Arabs also.
It’s so tragic that Gaza voted in these thugs. Remember when HAMAS kneecapped /tortured Palestinians who didn’t agree with them!
Jake, I did see something about the “Tent of Nations” orchard and it appears to be quite complex. There was no documentation to prove ownership of the extra land and the owning family did not manage to get their appeal in in time. At most it’s a cock-up caused by red tape. On the other hand, the family may have just been hoping to get away with planting an orcherd on land that, er, wasn’t theirs.
? I’m sorry I misunderstood you point
. Maybe an example help clarify.
I agree with you that Early Zionist were honorable and did purchase land. They also were friendly to Arabs, hoped for friendship. But Tragically some Arabs were thugs, thieves, and murderers. Jewish people had to form defensive groups.
Some Zionist when I lived for a shot there were also just. They condemned stealing land from Arabs, condemned ant-Arab rhetoric.
Taking land from Arabs when they want to keep it is stealing and contrary to early Zionists. As I recall they would have condemned the Israeli government going onto Palestinian land and bull dozing a whole orchard.
Palestinian people and Jewish people have lived on land there for thousands of years,
If a Jewish person owns land it is Jewish. If a Palestinian owns land it is Palestinian.
Whatever Balfour said in his infamous letter isn’t of any worth. Israel/Palestine isn’t the homeland of the English but only so for a while by conquest.
Is that more clear?
? I’m sorry I misunderstood you point
. Maybe an example help clarify.
I agree with you that Early Zionist were honorable and did purchase land. They also were friendly to Arabs, hoped for friendship. But Tragically some Arabs were thugs, thieves, and murderers. Jewish people had to form defensive groups.
Some Zionist when I lived for a shot there were also just. They condemned stealing land from Arabs, condemned ant-Arab rhetoric.
Palestinian people and Jewish people have lived on land there for thousands of years,
If a Jewish person owns land it is Jewish. If a Palestinian owns land it is Palestinian.
Whatever Balfour said in his infamous letter isn’t of any worth. Israel/Palestine isn’t the homeland of the English but only so for a while by conquest.
Is that more clear?
But israel isn’t just any other nation! It is supposed to be a light to the nations.
AAt least that is what some Jewish writers say. I used to teach Jewish literature and the Holocaust to students every year for many years. And when I lived and worked on a kibbutz, one Israeli leader emphasized the equality of all humans.
Stand up for justice and mercy for everyone, then we are standing up for Israel.
The Israeli government needs to repay the family, and then get off Palestinian land.
That some Israeli soldiers MAY have overreacted to a Palestinian man who approached them in a “threatening manner” does not speak to the killings and rocket attacks covered in the post above. I believe this would be an example of the false “cycle of revenge” that the Times of Israel cited.
sub
I’m Israeli. I very much appreciate what you say.
sub
What does “sub” mean?
subscribe
Meaning “agree”?
I am interested in reading future comments on this thread topic. If I click in the “Notify …” circle and then click on the “Post Comment” button, I will not enable follow-on email w/comments; to automatically receive those, it is necessary also to enter something, anything, in the Comment dialog box. “Sub” is short for “subscribed”, of course, although any words or keyboard character will accomplish the same goal if entered into the Comment box.
Thanks for the explanation!
No, meaning you’re subscribed to the thread.
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I agree with you. But, among other things, Israel should stop extending the settlements in order not to worsen this hatred towards Jews. Overall, the a peaceful solution or any kind of agreement seems to be far away while we have a terrorist organization in control of Palestine.
So you think the murders and rocket firings are justifiable in view of the settlements?
I am sorry but I have not said any of that. The settlements are completely unfair and a aggression at Palestine. My point is that it is sickening to see so many human lives being wasted on both sides so I support any action that reduces the confrontation. It is clear for me that the settlements issue helps to worsen the situation and even gives a false legitimacy (propagated by Anti-Israel media and scholars) for continuous attacks against Israel.
On the Palestine side, it would be fantastic to remove the terrorist organizations from power. But, I do not see how this can be accomplished. War is not an option for me.
I agree
Not me,btw 🙂
Do you know the history of the settlements? They were being built before “Palestine” was a word people used to describe the territory. They were being built after Israel captured the territory from Jordan, a country that had no legal right to the land in the first place. The PLO was granted power by Israel (Oslo accords) in the predominantly Arab population centers of the West Bank with the possibility of future withdrawals, for peace, real peace. The settlements are not being built in those Arab population centers, they are being built on open non-sovereign land. The PLO has shown itself to be the vile terrorists they always were and therefore have not gotten any further withdrawals, and probably never will. So long as Israel has no peace partner there is no reason to pretend it will withdraw from any more territory and to leave beautiful land untouched for the fantasy of a future moderate PLO state. It will never happen. The eventual outcome will most likely be Israel annexing the entire territory and granting all residents Israeli citizenship. Since that is still the likely outcome, there is no reason to stop building on non-sovereign territory.
The murders and rocket firings are unjustifiable period. Nevertheless, the settlements are wrong on principle and for the practical reasons that they provoke further violence and reduce the likelihood that a two state solution will ever be reached. Even if that violence is inexcusable (violence usually is), it is wise not to set it off.
Jerry, there is a possibility that both of the parties are doing wrong things.
You just tell that the palestines are doing evil things, and nobody can deny that, period. True enough, but that doesn’t justify every possible thing that Israel may do. So it is very legitimate question to ask if Israel is doing wrong things or right things.
Israel is a rich, well-organized and democratic country. If there is going to be any positive developement in that country, it has to be the Israel government that makes it possible. Conquering new territories from other countries or doing things mainly in revenge is not very good politics in any case.
I don’t think that every single Palestinian has the responsibility for everything that some Palestinians have done, so revenge is a bad reason to do something. The goal should be preventing further damages and having better future for everyone.
So, what should Israel do in your opinion? What should be it’s goal in long run?
I agree with you. The settlements are illegal under international law and a waste of money and I very much oppose them. However, I doubt that we, Israel, would be any more loved around the world if they were not there.
I do not know about loved, but I know several Israeli scientists and all of them respectable and hard working, regardless of their country’s politics.
Since many years back the settlements are not being “extended”. There is building of new homes inside existing settlements. New, illegal (according to Israeli law) settlments are destroyed by Israeli authorities. The absolute majority of settlements are on the territories which in a final deal were thought would go to Israel in exchange for some other parts of Israel proper.
Really?
That’s quite incorrect. And in fact Israel uses settlement expansion into disputed areas as a “weapon” when they are unhappy with the Palestinans, such as:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/foreign-secretary-deplores-israeli-decisions-on-settlement-expansion
From Peace Now (not really the most pro-Israeli givernment organisation)report on April 19, 2012:
“According to reports, Prime Minister Netanyahu stated this week that the Government will approve the establishment of three settlements (Bruchin, Sansana and Rechalim), in the upcoming cabinet meeting on Sunday, April 22. This decision is required in order to legalize the illegal outposts…. If approved next Sunday, it will be the first time since the Shamir Government in 1990 that the Israeli government is deciding on the establishment of new settlements”.
That means that in 23 years, Israel has approved exactly three new settlements.
Since then, no new settlements have been approved. Peace Now also has a report on settlement activity since Netanyahu was re-elected and not one new settlement is mentioned.
There are also data from Israeli government which say the same thing.
Palestinian murderers should be apprehended and HAMAS should be ended.
But the Israeli government’s unfair practices and violence against toward nonviolent Palestinians should also be stopped.
How would we like it if the government came in and bulldozed our orchard?
Have to fight to try and to keep our land which we have title to? Have lived on for 100 years. Etc.
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27883685
Also, please read Blood Brothers by Eli Chacour, the story of a Palestinian family who supported Jewish people, but then their church and village were destroyed and the father and one brother kidnapped by the Israeli military:-
No one gets a “free pass” to do wrong in order that good may come.
It seems you’re far more exercisted by the “occupation” by the murders, judging by your perfunctory first line and then the rest of your post.
Not so.
When I lived in Israel a Palestinian murderous attack occurred just a mile outside of our kibbutz. My friends with guns walked the perimeter of our farm every night.
The Palestinian killers attacked innocent people living in an apartment complex.
But as you said (in another comment), the whole situation is complex.
I also knew Palestinians.
I’m much more troubled by killing than by occupation.
I agree, although I would caution against drawing a direct comparison between the extension of settlements, which Isreal should stop, and the tactics of Hamas. I have never been a fan of PM Netanyahu and I am not surprised that little progress has been made on this issue during his tenure, but there is no comparison between Likud and Hamas. One is a group of misguided neo-cons with a flawed approach to policy, the other is a terrorist organization. It’s the difference between voting for the Republican Party and voting for the KKK.
Good analogy.
I think we should distinguish between “Jews” and “Israelis” in this type of discussion. I don’t know if Palestinians hate anyone of Jewish heritage, but they seem to be targeting the nation of Israel rather than Jewish citizens of other nations.
Clearly your life has remained unpolluted by discourse with Muslims.
What do you mean? I live and work in Israel, and I have plenty of Moslem friends (some are Israeli, some are refugees from Africa). I have not experienced hostility to Jews.
I was hoping those kids were going to be found and it was so sad to read that they were all murdered. Such a heartbreaking story.
Extremely well said and 100% accurate.
The cowards of Islamic terrorism hide under the skirts of women and behind the backs of children. They are the ones responsible for others being killed
Yes. It’s misguided liberalism, exactly what Sam Harris writes about. And isn’t saying “Well the other side provoked the attack” the ultimate defense for bullies of all sorts and of course terrorists? It is disheartening to see intelligent people still believe that if something bad happens (murder after all!) there must have been a mitigating reason.
The occupation of the West Bank is illegal under international law. Israel can stop the killing of its citizens if it retracts behind its legal borders.
Note always more innocent Palestians die than Israelis – who by their very presence are the provocative party.
“Israel can stop the killing of its citizens if it retracts behind its legal borders.”
Only a clueless, ignorant person who doesn’t live in reality would believe that.
Agree 100%.
Yup.
“Note always more innocent Palestians die than Israelis – who by their very presence are the provocative party.”
Yeah, Jews have always had this unfortunate ability to provoke other people to murderous violence simply by existing.
The population of Israel proper is (I think) about 25% Arab. Contrast this with the stated position of the Palestinian leadership that no Jews will be allowed to remain in their proposed West Bank/Gaza state. And yet it’s still the Israelis who are accused of practising “apartheid”!
There’s a reason why fewer Israelis are killed. The build SHELTERS for the population. Hamas, on the other hand, routinely sites rocket launchers in heavily populated areas.
Yes, the civilian casualties are a planned counter in their moves.
Site your rockets in civilian areas:
1) You aren’t attacked for fear of civilian casualties. Win!
2) You are attacked and civilians are harmed in the process. Trumpet this to the world. Win!
“Yeah, Jews have always had this unfortunate
ability to provoke other people to murderous
violence simply by existing.”
Fantastic retort. It’s like half the commenters here completely missed the section in the post about the “false cycle.” I think it’s partisan orthodoxy to a large extent. I am a life-long progressive, but this is one of those issues about which American progressives are usually mistaken.
From the end of 1870 until beginning of 1970 there were no “settlements” – yet Palestinian Arabs killed Jews. There is not one settlment (and no one Jew) in Gaza – yet rockets are falling almost daily on Israeli civillians. Did you ever asked what international law says that Jews are forbidden to live in the West Bank (until Jordanian occupation of this territory 1948-1967 called Judea and Samaria)? I suggest reading this article: cifwatch.com/2014/06/06/one-mans-illegal-settlement-is-another-mans-historic-jewish-homeland/
Oh yeah! Israel withdrew unilateral from the Gaza Strip 9 years ago and have been rewarded with rocket attacks, like the one the other day. If Israel withdrew unilaterally from the West Bank, it would be rewarded with rocket attacks on it’s major cities.
The Palestinians are very fortunate that I’m not in charge in Israel as I would take a page from the Assad, pere and fils, playbook and impose Hama Rules on the Gaza Strip.
“The Palestinians are very fortunate that I’m not in charge in Israel as I would take a page from the Assad, pere and fils, playbook and impose Hama Rules on the Gaza Strip.”
So just for the record, you approve of indiscriminate, retributive massacre of civilians by the tens of thousands. Okee dokee.
No doubt you’d also claim to hold the moral high-ground.
Not at all. I believe in a whole face for an eye.
I wish your view were correct. But it’s not likely to occur. Only more war.
Look what happened when the Israeli army pulled out of Gaza, uprooted Jewish villages, allowed the Gazans to run their own government, the Palestinians then voted in HAMAS, a ruthless terrorist organization. Read in the news about how they train even their little kids for war.
What first has to happen is that Jewish people and Palestinian people need to learn to share. They both been there for thousands of years. Time to
do what a progressive Israeli leader said when I lived there: see each other first as equal humans!
There’s only one thing worse than your Anti-Semitism: Using said Anti-Semitism as an excuse for Muslims to behave badly.
You probably also blame the USA/Israel for all the problems that happen in the Muslim world too.
Why do you hold Muslims to lower standards?
Don’t you believe Muslims when they say things like Allah told me to behead infidels and that he would reward me in Porno-Paradise for it?
“Israel can stop the killing of its citizens if it retracts behind its legal borders.” That is hardly likely, but what are those “legal borders” exactly? There is no border because the Palestinians, expected to help sort out an agreement after 1967, have so far failed to do so or even to show willing. There is an armistice line from 1948, but it is not a border.
One key fact is glaringly missing in your original article, Jerry – the fact that the three murdered Israelis were residents of the occupied territories. I do not condone murder, nor do I condone anti-Semitism in form. However, the Israeli occupation of the West Bank is illegal under international law, and it should surprise no one that, as long as it persists, responses such as these from those subject to the occupation will continue.
You are rationalizing murder. You also know,of course, that putting weapons like missiles in civilian areas is ALSO a violation of international law.
To rationalize these deaths the way you have is to excuse them. You don’t kidnap and kill innocent kids because you’re reacting to an “occupier.”
And yes, I am surprised. Is it understandable for people to go murder civilians when they are “occupied”? Woould YOU do it? If not, why doesn’t it surprise you? Or do you hold the Palestinians to lower standards than you hold yourself?
Jerry – one thing stands you – you have an illogical reaction to anyone who dares explain the chain of provocation. You jump several steps to claim the person is justifying murdering civilians, which is not at all the case.
I daresay your response is almost religious.
To pretend that such acts happen in a vacuum is not at all sensible. The commenter did not justify the murders, which are represhensible, rather he stated it should not be surprising that the response to illegal acts are more illegal acts.
Moreso, it’s disingenuous to pretend that that Israel is just sitting there minding its own business, innocent in totality as a state, while the bad Palestinians are attacking for reasons that nobody can figure out.
Nobody doubts that there is a deep, poisonous anti-semitism in the Arab world. But these are not just good guys and bad guys. It is a lot grayer than you make out here.
***One thing stands *out* – sorry for the typo –
As always, I don’t mind you making arguments, but calling me “almost religious” and “illogical” is rude, and yes, I do understand the situation’s complexity, but I disagree with you about moral responsibility.
At any rate, you can’t post again without an apology for the slurs. Read the Roolz.
I’m sorry, Jerry, I did not mean to call you “religious” – only that the nature of your response seemed to jump over a couple of logical steps, and it reminded me of such. I will be clearer in the future and will refrain from such off-color characterizations. My respect for you has always been deep and abiding, as your website and your core group of commenters played a significant role in my escape from religious delusion.
I wish more users of the internet were as civilized and well read as the members of this forum. That was a very classy apology you wrote there, well done.
@ToonForever
Yes, apology well done!
“Almost religious” and “illogical” are not slurs.
I agree that one should never rationalize murder (the killing of unarmed civilians, especially teens or children). This act was another instance of the atrocious behavior of HAMAS or a related terrorist organization. There’s a bunch of them.
But keep in mind that Americans do this and have done this repeatedly (as has every other country. I don’t know of a single country which hasn’t justified killing civilians if it helped them win).
Humans usually justify murder when it is done by them, condemn it when it is done by their enemies.
We had a terrorist attack just a mile outside our kibbutz when I lived in Israel/Palestine.
The individual Israelis and Palestinians were kind and generous, but bring up politics and they would kill.
This also shows that it’s not only religion that is dangerous.
All the Israelis on my kibbutz were atheists.
Nationalism tends to a religious sort of fervor, does it not?
Yes, I agree. In fact in my education and experience based on living for a short time in the Middle East, nationalism is its own fanaticism.
I suppose that’s why in history, religion and nationalism often go together–they’re killin’ cousins.
It seems that many Israelis have replaced the biblical god with their country, Israel, which is the absolute.
In contrast most Palestinians are traditionally religious, at least in a nominal sense or kill-justifying sense (God is Great). Their hatred/violence/terrorism is centrally based in extreme nationalism.
On the other hand, one of the most Palestinian-positive leaders I heard speak was Jewish.
And, on the Palestinian side there are figures such as Eli Chacour who has founded a school for several thousand kids of ALL backgrounds, and Sari Nusseibeh author of Once Upon a Country.
I am amazed by anti-semitism in its liberal cloak. It’s part of the more general misguided liberalism that Sam Harris writes about. Isn’t saying “Well the other side provoked the attack” the ultimate defense for bullies of all sorts and organized terrorists? It is disheartening to see intelligent people still believe that if something bad happens (murder after all!) there must have been mitigating circumstances.
Harris has another major point. One that goes beyond the mere “excuse” that attacks are provoked.
The fundamental reason for the violence by Muslims and the disgusting way they treat half their population (women) which is to say nothing about their children, is firmly rooted in the reprehensible pages of their “holy” book.
Why, asks Harris, when Muslims do good, we take them at their word. If they say, “I give charity because the Koran tells me to,” we believe them. But if they say, “I will martyr myself in a crowded market and receive the reward that Allah as promised me in the Koran,” Then some people say, “No, that can’t be it, it must be because of the USA and Israel.”
And Harris is 100% correct. Islam teaches hate and malicious behavior from early childhood.
You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught.
I’m not sure if it is still there, but Sam Harris used to have a standing response on his website to all of the outlandish criticisms leveled at him by Glenn Greenwald. Greenwald is a terrific journalist, his work on the wikileaks/NSA wiretapping story was brilliant and I doubt that that story would have broken the way it has if not for his efforts. Which makes it all the more damnable when someone like Greenwald attacks Sam Harris for “Islamophobia” as though there has ever been one factually assailable syllable uttered by Sam on the subject. I hate calling out political correctness since the people who most often decry it are bigots whom are usually bloviating about being put-upon or having their freedom stolen from them because there is now a social penalty to be paid for being a racist, homophobe, xenophobe or what have you, but the incessant wielding of the “Islamophobia” card by ill-informed liberals is political correctness so toxic and absurd that it condones the most irrational of violent acts.
I believe only one of the children lived beyond the green line, the other two within Israel.
Do you think the kidnappers checked before choosing their victims?
Occupation is not justification for murder.
Murdering innocent teenagers in never justified. But I’m interested if you think occupation is never justification for killing?
Interesting question. I would have to say no.
I live in America and next door is Mexico, one of the most beautiful countries in the world and yet I do not visit there anymore because there is a lot violence. It is not ubiquitous, but it is immediately concerning and stressful.
The Mexicans do not occupy any sort of territory that is ‘mine’. And yet, as a country, either through politics or religion or lack of education, they have made their territory, in my view, an occupation. They occupy a place that makes it stressful for me to go, when it does not have to be that case. So a few people make the whole situation an occupation experience.
No one in that country deserves to die because of the violence that only a fraction of their population is imbuing on the other fraction.
I would argue that with proper education and certainly no religion and no corruption, Mexico would become unoccupied, in my view.
Note that, in this sense, if you do not care for the culture, geography of Mexico you would not feel the same way. You would not care so much. You would think, Mexico is just impoverished and tarnished by corruption. So part of what makes us think a place on our planet is occupied is because we think it is worth visiting or hanging on to.
Nor are some of the occupation practices of Israel justified.
Holy shit, irony is definitely not dead. There are several facts pertinent to your comment that you sort of just casually stepped around.
They weren’t “residents”of “occupied territory”. They merely went to school there.
All of Israel’s Arab neighboring nations tried to rub out the country in 1967 and 1973. (And the Arab Palestinians tried in 1948.) The only reason they have amended their stated policy of rubbing out the state of Israel is because they couldn’t do it and finally figured out they were better off living side by side.
No one should be surprised = this is normal.
When I think back on the occupations of the past, the response has not been to randomly target civilians the way Hamas does. The response has been against the structure of the occupying force: Military, logistic, administrative, intelligence. Where that was not the case (e.g. IRA bombings against civilian targets) they were roundly condemned.
Anything short of straight condemnation here reads as approval.
What is your message here?
“Anything short of straight condemnation here reads as approval.”
I don’t want to speak for someone else, but I took that to mean anything short of a clear and unambiguous condemnation of the targeting of civilians, which got the IRA universally condemned, reads as approval of the tactics. Again, I feel this is a case of misguided progressive apologetics. I doubt anyone on the left would rationalize the actions of Hamas if they were a bunch of wealthy businessmen from Texas or Califoria. I think the Guardian is one of the best papers in the World, but Glenn Greenwald doesn’t seem to recognize turpitude unless it comes in the form a western multi-national corporation. I’m not taking a shot at progressives, I very much am one, but I feel that we are in the weeds on this issue.
I agree with you,jbililie.I also think you’ll get flak,…
For context on my opinions – I am an Israeli expat living in New York. My opinions are anathema in Israel and part of the reason I left Israel is because I find the beliefs and actions of Israel and Israelis morally repugnant.
I find this incident is a good view-point in how poorly educated people (in and outside of Israel) are about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the narrow field of things not a week goes by when the Israeli military does not kill 1-2 innocent children in the occupied territories. Usually it does not even hit the news in Israel much less the rest of the world, and if it does – the matter is “settled” by a laconic statement of “regret” by the office of the spokesperson of the IDF. This is the daily life for Palestinians, along with restriction of movement, casual harassment and humiliation and more. Yet when a tragedy like this (and no murder is ever justified) happens, the portrayal of Israel and Israelis as the ultimate victims in the conflict is hypocritical and cynical when it is not misinformed.
Those poor boys were living in a place where their very settlement there is a war crime. There is a certain absurdity that demonstrates the false equivalence when Israelis who live in conquered territory that has never been annexed to the state expect perfect safety for themselves, while expecting the majority of the people around them to peacefully succumb to the daily terror of their regime.
Horrible actions are perpetrated by both sides of the conflict, usually motivated by religion on both sides. Hamas are a terrible example of the lack of humanity that religion and trauma can force on a person. The Israeli defense forces commit crimes that are much worse, and are whitewashed by the trappings of state and military.
The situation is complex, yet the balance of power is startling in its simplicity: the Israeli people and government do hold the power to make decisions and changes that can affect their future and lead to a solution. The Palestinians do not have that power. Their choices lie either in passive acquiescence to Israeli aggressiveness and control, or violent resistance that is savage and inhumane. Both are equally ineffective and lead to similar results.
Thank you for your comment wich reflects what I think. Now I can go back to reading the other comments.
The fact that you are/were Israeli citizen does not shield you from believing things which are simply not true. I’m sorry but your information about 1 or 2 innoicent Palestinian children killed every week is not true. Palestinian children killed by Israel either were engaging in activity dangerous to human life or were in the company of terrorists. Of course, sometimes they are killed when the bomb targeting a terrorist goes in the wrong direction. I do hope you didn’t count among those children killed by Israel all those kids killed by Hamas rockets which “fell short”. The latest victim was a 3-years old girl last week. And there are many more. Your general accusation about “horrible crimes” of Israeli army are not convincing. Most of the accusationa of Breaking the Silence turned out to be hearsay or fables and those few that were real were investigated by the army and perpetrators were punished (while Palestinian murderers get salaries, accolade and a title of hero).
And why should Jews be forbidden to live among Palestinians when Palestinian Arabs are living (with the same rights) as Israeli citizens. They didn’t deport even Ms. Hanan Zoabi, a Member of Knesset who said that Palestinians have the right to kidnap Israelis (and many more vile things as well)?
Israeli citizens in southern Israel (especially Sderot) also are subjected to restrictions of movement and humiliation – they have 15 seconds to run into the shelter, they have to close their schools when terrorist feel like it, and – instead for harassment – they run a risk of death and maiming from rocket fire.
I’m afraid that the data is on my side:
1. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_casualties_of_war) even the most pro-Israeli sources list the amount of Palestinians killed in the last decade in the thousands. Only a few months ago an unarmed Palestininan was shot in the back in one of the many security checkpoints and the video camera suddenly suffered an error (very conveniently). These are not denied by the Israeli establishment. Nor is outright pre-meditated murder such as the opening volley on the war on Gaza where Israel killed traffic policemen in their swearing in ceremony despite their complete un-involvement in any armed struggle. This was as gleefully celebrated in the news media as is any antisemetic revelry on the other side.
2. The people of Sderot have faced very few casualty and very few losses to property, compared to more than a million and a half of Palestinians, none of which have even basic human rights or anything remotely approaching a normal life. I lived in Jerusalem, Haifa and Tel Aviv. I lived a very normal life, nothing compared to what I’ve seen in Hebron or Ramalllah. I am not trying to trivialize the suffering of the people in Sderot, but unlike the people in Gaza they can do something about their predicament. They choose to willfully continue the cycle of violence, with each escalation crying out for bigger stronger more violent revenge. What is that quote ? “Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results”.
3. Jews should be forbidden to live there, because it’s a clear violation of the Geneva Convention and the United Stations international war crimes law. It is seized conquered land that has never been annexed to the state of Israel. Annexation would also have been illegal but Israel could have claimed that it had a claim to the land. It was never annexed since that would have required Israel to grant citizenship to the Palestinians, which would have been the death of the Apartheid state there. Why should they be forbidden to live there? because they enforce a reality where they can move freely and safely on their own roads, exploit the local natural resources for their use – while the locals get nothing and are exploited in their own land. A land that they’ve been living in for hundreds of years, unlike the Israeli colonization of the late 19th and 20th century. There is no moral justification for what’s happening in the occupied territory if one does not appeal to the biblical history and morality. Readers of this blog should know how much that’s worth.
“They choose to willfully continue the cycle of violence”
. . . and Hamas doesn’t?
No, I didn’t say that Hamas doesn’t. I said that the Palestinians have no real options: they can either passively surrender to Israeli aggression, dictates and violence (much like Abu-Mazen does) or can respond with terrorism and violence. Neither have been very effective (although the few achievements the Palestinians have had are only due to violence. The Madrid process would have never started sans the PLO and the first Intifada. Israel has hardly incentivized non-violence)
Ok, I see what you’re saying and I whole-heartedly agree that Israel has not incentivized non-violence, I simply feel that, at times, some identify Israel as western imperialist aggressors invading arab lands, which completely ignores the Jewish diaspora, which leads them to make false equivalencies or even excuse the behavior of Hamas while they excoriate the Israeli Government (which is not to say that I’m accusing you of doing that.) I think that particular position is likely the result of confirmation bias, in that conservatives are often much more openly supportive, usually for nefarious reasons, of Israel than liberals. So, some people fall into the trap of adopting the diametrically opposing position from that of their political adversaries. To put it simply, I think a lot of western progressives, and I am very much one of those, adopt a position of sympathy towards Palestine, simply because conservatives tend to reflexively support Israel.
‘To put it simply, I think a lot of western progressives, and I am very much one of those, adopt a position of sympathy towards Palestine, simply because conservatives tend to reflexively support Israel.’
I don’t know how accurate this claim might be. I certainly will not accept it is true of any progressive individual without accompanying corroborating evidence, let alone countenance that it may be an accurate generalization of tens — if not hundreds — of millions of Americans.
I acknowledge that there is a faction of those who identify as conservative Christian who have simplistic eschatological yearnings which require a Jewish state with its capital located in Jerusalem engaged in conflict with anyone who is not Judeo-Christian, and I think this desire is literally insane and enormously dangerous.
I would note that one may support the existence of the nation of Israel yet be simultaneously virulently opposed to any religious zealotry, all while also sympathizing with the wretched existence of stateless Palestinians.
You showed your hand with the phrase “Jews should be forbidden to live there.” You could have written, “Israeli citizens should be forbidden to live there,” for the reasons you give. That would have been appropriate language for the seemingly political point you are trying to make. But you slipped. It’s not about Palestinians and Israelis; it’s about Jews (bad) and non-Jews (good). (And yes, I realize you are probably Jewish, but that doesn’t change anything. I know plenty of “self-hating Jews” who speak and act as anti-Semitically as any Klan member.)
I appreciate your comment. Most western media really don’t care about palestitian children killed as part of the conflict. As you mention they rarely even make the news. And when they do it is usually within a “they brought it upon themselves” mentality, as several messages here imply. It is almost impossible not to assume that for most western media the life of an innocent palestinian child is much less valuable than the life of an innocent israeli child.
Strange. Even little Omar Masharawi was on the first pages of all newspapers and on all TV screens. The condemnation of Israel was total. Of course, when it turned out that he was killed by Hamas’s rocket which “fell short”, not many media outlets published correction.
However when two Palestinians knifed to death a family: parents, an 11 year old boy, a 4-year old boy and 3-month old baby it was somehow met with silence. BBC had to apologise that they didn’t say anything about it, but a Parliament interpelation was needed for that. Hadas Fogel? Ever heard about her?
Last week a 3 year old girl was killed, in Gaza, by a Palestinian rocket. Hamas even admitted it. And yet, within hours, the “PSC” crowd were touting the photograph as an example of Israeli butchery. It’s taken me quite a while to understand this kind of thing, as I didn’t think any advocacy group would lie so blatantly. Sadly, I was mistaken.
There is also the false equivalence of “people who live in Sderot are scared (though very infrequently injured) – therefor it’s ok to punish millions and butcher thousands”
It shouldn’t be surprising. Under the politically correct veneer the assumption that a brown person’s life isn’t really all that valuable. Not many people care what’s happening in Africa, not many Americans cared about how many non-Americans died in Iraq.
But that’s hardly the point. Any death of anyone cripples entire families. I am named after my father’s brother who was killed in the 1973 Yom Kippur war. My father never recovered, nor did my Grandmother. I know full well the burden of grief, and numbers don’t reflect that.
The point is who is perpetuating the cycle? I don’t doubt the hate on the Palestinian side (and if people think Israelis are any better they should look at my facebook feed that is inundated with cries for mass murder). But the Palestinian side is relegated to passivity and reaction, it has no power to break the cycle other than to surrender to Israeli aggression. The Israeli side has the power to start ending the cycle and build a better future (in several generations perhaps, people have memory for such crimes. Ask any Jew with family who survived the hollocaust, or Armenians who survived their own Genocide in Turkey) – but Israel works hard to not only perpetuate the cycle but make the reality worse. Even if you choose to ignore decency and morality and just look at the RealPolitik – it’s dooming Israel/Palestine to a future that is either permanently sealed in a racist occupying regime, or a reality where there is no national homes for Jews.
Frankly, after a few thousand years of constant persecution culminating in the murder of two-thirds of the world Jewish population you can hardly blame the existence of a Jewish state on racism. If it wasn’t so inane it would be disingenuous.
Through the unfortunate events of history and the inconvenience of geography Israel exists today where it does.
To be surrounded by people who view you as cannon-fodder is to expect many unfortunate deaths. That the relentless hatred of Jews by Muslims is mandated by their “holy” book and taught constantly to them the world over is to expect many more.
My question to you is this: Why do you hold Muslims to lower standards than you hold Israelis? Is this not in and of itself an insult to Muslims?
“Why do you hold Muslims to lower standards than you hold Israelis?”
It’s called wishful thinking. Something to do with post-Enlightenment European culture, democracy, having social services and an education system that hasn’t been shut down by war for generations. And yeah, Islam.
Why do you not hold Israelis to a much higher standard?
Israelis ARE held to MUCH higher standards.
At least in the universe I live in.
Not in yours?
It’s too bad that the Government of Israel doesn’t take a page out of the Assad pere/fils playback and impost Hama Rules on the Gaza Strip. That would give the Uriels of the world something to really whine about.
This is the second time in this thread you’ve informed us of your desire to see civilians massacred by the tens of thousands in retribution for something they had no part in.
I thought I was nauseated by the thinly-veiled antisemitic comments these posts always stir up, but you’ve managed to out-nauseate them by leaps and bounds.
Yes, thank you.
Thank you for providing balance to the conversation and information that all too often gets whitewashed in the US media. More and more I have also found the attitudes and actions of the state of Israel less and less moral, to the point that I feel it was a huge mistake for the world to have foisted this political entity on to that area of the world. Yes, it is terrible that ANY children are killed because of all of this, but the balance in terms of reporting these incidents to the public have definitely been weighed in favor of the Israeli tragedies. For years it has been this way. The Palestinians have no group like AIPAC to lobby our government or to provide talking points to the media. So I do not like to see attempts to shut down the views of those who are trying to right this imbalance.
Hmm… Reading NYT as the only American newspaper and otherwise only European media, watching resolutions of UN Human Rights Council, decisions of EU, statements of John Kerry etc., not to mention all the “Israel Hate Weeks” on campuses (otherwise known as Israel Apartheid Week), I have an absolutely different opinion about who is supported and who condemned by world’s opinion. And I wonder where would you place all those Jews who always lived in their ancestral home in the Middle East, and all those Jewish refugees who came there from the second half of 19th century, running for their life from Russian and Polish pogroms, from Muslim persecutions, and – ultimately – those remnants of European Jewry who survived the Holocaust. Ever heard about Evian Conference 1938? Nobody wanted those Jews. This was the only place on Earth they could find shelter.
About Palestinians not having any AIPAC I suggest you have a look at “The Arab Lobby” by Mitchell Bard.
So many people forget that the Arabs from many countries attacked the Jews and Israel in 1948 and again in 1967 and again in 1973.
Before 1967, the Arabs has no settlements to use as an excuse.
Well actually Israel initiated the attacks in 1967 and 1956, and 1982. You can talk about provocation and justification, but in that neck of the woods that chain goes back a long long time. And while they did not have the settlements for the excuse they did have the “excuse” of hundreds of thousands of people banished from their home and relegated to refugee camps (again in violation of war crimes laws). They also had an “excuse” of fighting European colonialism, which is what the Jewish settlement in Israel looked like. You may disagree with that position, but you can’t just position it as mindless hatred. Dehumanizing people you disagree with is a good first step in justifying inhumane actions yourself.
There are no saints on either side of the dispute, and plenty of monsters. Generally the Israeli side gets much better PR compared to what it actually does in reality but that’s not the point – the point is that the Israeli side is by far the one most responsible for the deterioration and worsening of the situation.
Well said.
But not true. Israel attacked those times because several Arab countries amassed thousands of soldiers on Israel’s borders, surrounding them. Any country can defend itself. I detest the revisions of the truth.
I’m not sure who’s the revisionist. A preemptive attack, even if justified, is still an attack.
I guess you would lie down and sun bathe when troops and tanks and missiles are moved to surround you. You can define’ attack’ any way you please, but you would still be wrong.
You said:
“Arabs from many countries attacked the Jews and Israel in 1948 and again in 1967 and again in 1973.”
As a matter of fact, Israel launched the attack in 1967. We could discuss whether that attack was justified, and I would probably agree with you, but that does not change the fact that Israel attacked the Arab states in 1967.
I answered this once already.
Even if, according to your definition, Israel attacked Egypt and Syria, it definitely didn’t attack Jordan. On the contrary, Israelis begged the King to stay out of the war. In the mistaken belief that Arabs are winning Jordan attacked. And Israel ended with West Bank in an defensive war.
You mean that when somebody, who previously attacked you and openly said many times that he wants to kill you, is coming running towards you with a huge knife, screaming that this time he will massacre you and your family, you are an attacker if you strike him before he kills you or your children? Interesting idea.
Yes, I would be the attacker in that situation. “Attacker” is not synonymous with “in the wrong”.
I remember the 1967 war. Israel was DEFINITELY not the aggressor.
I too remember the 1967 war. Three Arab armies massed on Israel’s borders and waited for the signal to make a concerted attack. Israel struck before they could. Israel most certainly did not start that war. If it had not struck when it did, it could have been totally destroyed. After all, that was the Arab plan.
Uriel, you speak of refugee camps as though it is Israel’s fault that some Palestinian Arabs and their descendants have been refugees since 1948. Israel, too, had many (in fact, roughly the same number) refugees–Jews who were thrown out of their homes in Arab countries–but it assimilated them, and their children and grandchildren are Israeli citizens and living productive lives. Jordan has accepted some Arab refugees as citizens, but many others have been purposely kept in refugee “camps” (towns, in fact) by governments who should have resettled them. There were 11 million refugees in Europe after World War II, and none of them had a “right of return”. There were refugee camps in Europe then, but the last was vacated about 60 years ago.
Oh my. Ole Uriel has had a brain fart. He has ed fact that Nassar, the dictator of Egypt, ordered UN peacekeeping troops out of the Sinai Desert and moved a hundred thousand troops up the the border with Israel, proclaiming on Egyptian radio stations that his plan was to drive Israel into the sea. Israel mobilized its armed forces but several weeks went by with nothing happening. Israel was faced with a Hobson’s choice situation, namely that the mobilization was having a deleterious effect on the Israeli economy and that it was either stand down, which would have invited an Egyptian attack or attack the Egyptian forces arrayed on the border. Of course, the first option was suicide so the only feasible action was the second option.
Whatever the actions of Israel, there is no excuse for murdering three young people. Thank you Jerry for your clear statement of the issue.
I don’t see why both sides can’t be seen as wrong. Yes, Palestinians fire rockets into Israeli territory, and that’s wrong, even though they almost never kill anyone or damage any property. Yes, it’s wrong to kidnap and murder people.
But Israel also routinely fires rockets (or missiles or bombs) into Palestinian territory and they pretty much always kill people and destroy things. Israeli soldiers routinely kill and maim innocent people, and settlers attack Palestinians, and this happens far more often.
I don’t disagree with your articles about Israel, but I haven’t been able to see why you seem so outraged about Palestinian rockets that rarely hit anything but not about Israeli missiles that destroy hospitals, homes, and schools, or about violence committed by Palestinians but not by Israeli settlers and IDF forces.
Ah gee, the poor Palestinians, their crude weapons aren’t very effective. How’s about giving them some better rockets so they can actually do some serious damage to Israeli facilities, all in the interest of fair play don’t you know. Maybe we should have given the Germans some B17s during WW2 so they would have had a fair chance to hit back at the US and Britain for the bombing raids against German targets.
End snark.
In response to Prof. Coyne’s post I have only one thing to say. Right on brother.
Neither state really wants peace, so neither state is going to produce it.
Part of the problem is Palestine is, quite frankly, a little shit.
They’re the small kid who constantly causes trouble with the bigger kids, only get get the snot beaten out of them.
Which results in the bigger kids getting into trouble, because little shits are relatively insignificant in terms of threat so retaliation ends up looking like aggression.
Palestine doesn’t stand a chance in a straight up fight with Israel, yet it is pretty constant in trying to start one.
Let Israel off the guilt leash to settle it. Otherwise we will still be talking about the problem twenty years from now.
I think the Israelis would accept peace but I don’t think they’re going to get it, because the palestinians don’t want it.
Also a point I haven’t seen made yet is that many of the surrounding arab countries don’t want peace either, and this exacerbates the problem. Its been 68 years since the founding of Israel, and 41 years since the Yom Kippur war, and AFAIK Egypt, Syria, and Jordan will still not allow palestinians residing in their countries to have citizenship. So of course the palestinians fight for a country – because none of their surrounding arab ‘brother’ nations will allow them to put down roots and live normal lives anywhere else.
It’s not that the Palestinians don’t want it. It’s that it is impossible to have at all.
There is no person and no group of people that can move to make a genuine, lasting peace with Israel. The pressure from Muslims the world over is just to great.
They would be seen as traitors and murdered.
sub
Given that Arabs are also members of the Semitic race, couldn’t we come up with a more specific term than anti-semitic to describe
dislike of Jews, like anti-zionist or something?
The term anti-Semitic is too ingrained to change, I fear, and everyone knows what it means. Anti-Jewish would be more appropriate, because anti-Semites don’t just hate Zionists.
And few anti-Zionists hate Jews.
I disagree with this. I think probably the overwhelming majority of “anti-Zionists” hate Jews. I put “anti-Zionist” in quotes because in my experience plenty of people who hate Jews but know it is not acceptable to express that in public hide behind the term “anti-Zionist” instead. Many true anti-Zionists may really not hate Jews, but I think that’s a tricky label that some Anti-Semites use as a kind of “get out of jail free” card – “I don’t hate Jews, I just hate Israel and think it should disappear from the Earth.”
I have never met an anti-Zionist as you described. I have many Jewish friends who are anti-Zionists, and no, they are not so-called “self-hating Jews” (there is no such thing).
“I have never met an anti-Zionist as you described.” Then consider yourself lucky. I’ve met them.
“(there is no such thing)” Well I suppose if vierotchka says it, it must be true.
I am far from being the only one. Perhaps you might learn from this article:
http://www.jewishquarterly.org/issuearchive/article2366.html?articleid=432
Interesting, because someone pointed out to me recently – it’s really quite simple. Half the Jews in the world live in Israel, so anti-Zionism is basically Jew-hatred. Yes, you can criticise the Israeli government’s policies – Israelis do it all the time – BECAUSE THEY CAN. Contrast that with any of Israel’s neighbours. I criticise my government’s policies all the time (I’m a Brit) BECAUSE I CAN. But you have to draw the line somewhere. I recently went to Brighton to join Sussex Friends of Israel in their anti-BDS picket of a local shop. I thought – if my grandfather (an Irish docker) could fight the Moseleyites at Cable Street, the least I could do was to eat a bagel outside the Sodastream shop. This boycott nastiness has unpleasant echoes of 1930s Germany.
Actually, one third of Jews live in Israel, one third in United States, and the rest elsewhere.
You could be right, these figures were given to me by a British Jewish person. I think her point still stands, though.What’s yours?
The point is certainly valid. I was just adjusting the details.
Or why not return to the old, plain Judenhass (Jew-hatred) which Germans in 1870d thought too plebeian and invented “antisemitismus” – sounding so much more refined (only towards Jews – Hitler himself explained to diverse Arab leaders and notably to Hajj Husseini that it had nothing to do with Arabs).
Yes, I like plain language and calling them Jew haters is much more immediate and accurate.
Islam may acerbate the hostility between Israeli’s and Palestinians but it is not the main cause, it seems to me. If a Jewish refuge state had been carved out of Mexico, I expect there would be some Mexicans who would commit heinous acts of terrorism against its citizens.
Humans have evolved to be territorial and tribal. Once tribes are in conflict there is always some previous atrocity to justify retaliatory atrocity in the minds of the retaliators. Moral outrage directed against one side and not the other, while also part of human nature, only fans the flames, especially when we rarely have all the correct facts. Sympathy for innocent victims is probably the most rational response – easy as it is for me to say.
I don’t know. I am not so sure about your analogy with Mexico. There is a history of enmity stretching deep into the past between these two cultures, both of which are largely defined by their religions. Religion is an aspect of culture, and in the two cultures in question it has always been a very large aspect. Though in recent modern times that is starting to change in Israel, there is a lot of inertia to overcome.
Shorter, you can’t separate religion from culture, and I think religion is defintely a major cause of this conflict and its longevity.
Yebbut there’s a socking great big wall between Mexico and the USA.#Where’stheoutrage
No. Just no.
The is no mandate in Mexican culture to hate Jews and they do not have a holy book instructing them to kill Jews and promising them a reward in the afterlife for doing so.
Nor have Jews recited for centuries, “Next year in Mexico City.”
What’s your point here? In this hypothetical Israel in Mexico scenario, does the fact that Jews have not recited for centuries, “Next year in Jerusalem” make conflict between Jews and Mexicans more likely or less likely?
I guess my point is that the Mexico analogy is beside the point. Israel is where it is because that’s where Israel is.
Fair enough.
When the first European settlers came to North America in the 1600’s, there was no long history of enmity defined by cultural and religious differences between European settlers and native Americans – just a land grab – but violent hostilities including kidnappings and murders continued for over 200 years, and even into the 20th century (and grievances still are felt today).
One of the ways religion evolved was probably to justify such invasions, i.e., our gods are better than your gods, so we deserve your lands more than you do.
My interpretation is that he’s asking people on both sides not to engage in vigilante justice, punishment-by-proxy or collective punishment, but rather let the official agents of the government(s) find and punish the actual perpetrators instead.
Kinda hard to do if Hamas is the perpetrator, but we can still try and prevent either group from killing more innocent civilians in retaliation.
The MSM reports what their corporations let them report.
Tarachansky gives us a closer insight and a different take on the incident.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=12063
Here we go again with folks claiming that Israel is to blame, whether it be the settlements, or past aggression, or a cycle of violence, whatever. The point you’re choosing to ignore is that Hamas doesn’t care what Israel does, their stated charter is to drive Israel into the sea and the extermination of every Jew on the planet, period, done, end of argument. You can make any excuse you like, but at the end of the day, Hamas is going to kill Jews because that is their goal. There can be no peace as long as Hamas and what appears to be a sizable portion of the middle east are not held accountable for their actions and are forced to change.
Shame on anyone who thinks Israel should lay down and die, because you know you wouldn’t let it happen to you, pacifist or not.
No one who makes suggestions are claiming (or likely even thinking) that “Israel should lay down and die”.
Neither are those who dearly want the situation to change going to “lay down and die”. Empathy prohibits it.
How practical is your suggestion? Not much I think: what would be the means?
Try this exercise.
You can play any one you want, Israel, the EU, the US, the international community at large, an Antarctic penguin, what ever you like and you can use any diplomatic means you can think of to broker peace.
I’ll play Hamas and my response to anything you do will be “Israel cannot be allowed to exist, all Jews must die”
Now tell me how you are going to broker peace without changing my base position?
I’m not being flippant, I’m merely pointing out that the goal of Hamas is nothing short of genocide, the complete extermination of all Jews. If you can’t change that view, you can’t get anywhere.
To ignore this as the main point is to deny reality. Hamas will continue to kill Jews because they want to and they get away with it.
If you’re asking me how to stop Hamas, I have no suggestion but I do know that ignoring that fact that goal of Hamas is genocide will do nothing but get more people killed. If you want to talk about the settlements, you first have to get Hamas to change.
If we are going to discuss only terrorism, and not the social situation driving it, fine.
Then the only contribution I can make that urging “restraint on both sides” is a common tactic in preparation for getting people to sit down and discuss peace/withdrawal. You can’t apportion blame in such a situation, that is what the talks mitigate by proposing practical solutions.
But in the larger context I don’t think it is useful to analyze terrorism, terrible as it is, as operating in a vacuum. Besides the history of the area, I take it Israel still holds occupied territories that UN and The International Court of Justice agrees on are unlawful gains re international laws.
Again, approaching it as peace negotiations, these territories should be unilaterally returned. (I see Gaza has already been treated thusly, nice!) It won’t stop the terrorism at once of course, but it supports the international law that protects nations including Israel. (And it would weaken the terrorists for sure. But Israel draws other conclusions on the practical returns I think.)
Not that the terrorist organizations, their agendas and their public support shouldn’t be unilaterally dropped much, much faster! Like yesterday. Palestine gets away with a lot that they shouldn’t get, in other situations the public do not support terrorists or their supporters. I’m not sure how that happened, it is exceptional.
Again, approaching it as peace negotiations, these territories should be unilaterally returned. (I see Gaza has already been treated thusly, nice!)
Not nice, the rockets being fired against Sderot and other cities in Israel are being fired from Gaza. The IDF and the settlers were withdrawn from every inch of Gaza 9 years ago and the result is not peace but rocket attacks. The Palestinians don’t understand nice, they only understand the mailed fist and it’s about time that it be shown to them.
So far, no evidence that Hamas was behind this has been offered. The first reports, quickly changed, was that the three lads’ burnt bodies were found in a burnt-out car. What or who burnt that car nobody really knows except for the perpetrators, and it could have been Israel for all that matter.
You are a fountain of misinformation and fabrications.
That comment is just patently not true.
The bodies were found in a rock wall. There is some evidence that Hamas is responsible, so I stand by my statement that your statement is misinformed/fabricated.
There have been several conflicting reports about where the bodies were found. The first ones I heard on the Swiss news (radio) was that their burnt bodies were found in a burnt car near Hebron.
The latest one states that they were found buried in a field.
None of them stated they were found in a wall.
A dozen news agencies reported them found in a rock wall.
http://mobile.news.com.au/world/bodies-of-three-abducted-israeli-teens-found-under-rocks-in-a-field-near-hebron-terror-group-blamed/story-fndir2ev-1226973110941
“Under rocks” is not “in a wall”. The only wall mentioned in that article is “Western Wall”: “Israelis held daily prayer vigils, including mass gatherings attended by tens of thousands of people at the Western Wall, the holiest prayer site in Judaism, and in a downtown square in Tel Aviv.”
The headline of that article is “Bodies of three abducted Israeli teens found under rocks in a field near Hebron, terror group blamed”
I quote again from that article you linked:
“ISRAEL’S Prime Minister has ordered a bombardment of Palestinian strongholds in Gaza after the bodies of three missing teenagers were found dumped in a field two weeks after they were abducted.”
What is wrong with you? I am laughing. I guess your ‘case closed’ is also misinformation.
Personal insults and false accusations from you. Congrats. Did you not read Da Roolz?
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/da-roolz/
Yes, I read the rules, unlike you who fabricated that the Israelies killed the teens and you are spreading misinformation. It is you who ignores the rules.
I did no such thing. I wrote “it could have been Israel for all that matter” which is not a fabrication but a possibility among others. In the first report I heard on the radio this morning it was said that the origin of the fire (of the car) could be, among others, an Israeli missile. I merely succinctly reported what I heard on the news. So please stop accusing me of spreading misinformation and of ignoring the rules. Subject closed.
The subject of your misinformation is not closed.
Maybe it was the Swiss guards that did it. See, I can speculate also.
Indeed, Sarah. I used to be on the mildly anti-Israel side until I did a bit of research and read some history. One of the things that REALLY distressed me was some of the things I found out. EG the Palestinian children’s programme, “Pioneers of Tomorrow” involving the Palestinian Mickey Mouse (who was, predictably “martyred”) and the odious Nahoul the Bee, abusing animals in Gaza Zoo. And an interview with a lisping 3 year old whose mother was killed in a suicide bombing. “She killed 4 Jews” said the tot, holding up 4 fingers. Despicable.
Exactly right. The Palestinians are taught from birth to hate and act sub-human. This is not unique to Palestinians since many other Islamic counties also do the same.
A recent article in a Dutch newspaper referred to a new Dutch language video about the war in Syria and Dutch citizens (ergo brainwashed Muslims) who travelled there.
http://www.ad.nl/ad/nl/1013/Buitenland/article/detail/3678137/2014/06/24/Nederlandstalige-jihadvideo-Oh-Oh-Aleppo-opgedoken.dhtml
The picture in the article (a still from the video) has a subtitle which reads:
Yup… This is the face of Islam. Frankly, it doesn’t even matter if the Koran says it or not because the overwhelmingly vast majority of Muslims believe that martyrdom is holy and there is a reward for it. Probably over 90% of them.
Actually, it does say it in the Koran too.
Here is the link to the vid… Sorry, it’s all in Dutch. It’s YouTube, you’ll have to complete the link yourself: /watch?v=miqGbVdj2xQ
On a slight aside, you might find this video, produced in Israel by Israelis, very informative:
Long time reader but rare comment-er : I want to be clear that I am not defending the actions of Hamas in any way, nor am I justifying the murder of these three youths.
I will say that in all the years I’ve read him, I don’t remember Jerry ever writing a word of condemnation about the war crimes and continued subjugation of an entire population. In fact, anyone who points this out is immediately attacked (as I expect to be).
What has happened to these boys is a crime of the worst degree. But ignoring the ongoing provocation and injustice of Israel and continually highlighting one side of the conflict smacks of propaganda.
Topics related to Israeli/Palestine conflicts for some reason lead to huge mess in the comments. Post too often against Hamas/Hezbollah and you’ll accused of supporting Israel and “being fine” with the immoral actions of Israel. Post too often condemning Israel and you’ll be accused of “being fine” with the murder of innocent civilians. Even if you post condemning both, the ratio betwewen the number of sentences you devote condemning each side of the conflict could be presented as the measure of “how much you really support one side”.
But back to your point, no, Jerry has posted or at least declared that he does not support building settlments and the various other actions Israel does but yes, he often posts “anti-Hamas” rather than “anti-Israel”.
+1
Ah yes, the Palestinians were “provoked” into kidnapping the three young men, just like Schicklgruber was provoked into attacking Poland in 1939.
I don’t understand what benefit Hamas could see in kidnapping and murdering these three young men (assuming they are responsible – in the latest news reports I have read they are denying it). Was it simply opportunistic, or a deliberate attempt to provoke Israel or somehow part of a wider strategy?
Do Hamas have a centralised military command or do individuals and small cells have some autonomy when it comes to acts of violence?
No. When the ceasefire is violated, Hamas can shrug its souders and say “Nothing to do with me, gov” when rockets are fired from Gaza. Ditto this. So, that’s all right then.
To those of you who would condemn the Israelis, I’d like to ask this question, and I’m asking this honestly: Does the United States history of foreign policy over-reach, which I’d argue vastly outstrips that of Israel, justify the actions of Al Qaeda on September 11th 2001? The war on terror has, of course, been used as a pretext to justify a number of foreign policy follies, just as the war on drugs was used as a pretext for illegal US intervention in any number of Central and South American countries, but that doesn’t mean Pablo Escobar wasn’t real and a murderous bastard who nearly destabilized his country. Criticize Israel and Likud all you need to, there is certainly plentry to criticize, but don’t fall into the trap of thinking that Israel’s hawkish foreign policy, a lot of which is guided by the US, justifies the actions of Hamas. It doesn’t.
I’m not sure the comparison really holds; I’m not defending our actions and I’m not saying Hamas’ actions are justified, just saying the two situations are different enough to be disanalogous. We are a very large country with kind of schitzophrenic foreign policy whose interventions originate from a large panoply of motives – religion, leftover colonialism and manifest destiny, hawkish realpolitik and even a sincere liberal desire to ‘do good.’ We interfere all over the place, and are typically accused of being relatively blind to local geopolitics and local sensitivities. To many other countries, we’re the proverbial bull in the china shop. In contrast, Israel’s interventions in the Palestinian territories have a single, local, geopolitical focus. Their motive is pretty clear and well understood (sustaining the country of Israel in its current state), and their motive and foreign policy is relatively more standardized over multiple democratic turnovers of their government.
All in all, I’d say that while there are probably good reasons to condemn some Israeli policies and good reasons to defend other policies, the argument “oh yeah? Well look how America messes with other countries” is not, on its own, a good reason to take either position.
I’m not obtuse to your comments, there are factors in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict which make it unique on the geo-political stage, but that wasn’t the argument I was making. I’m not justifying the actions of either the Palestinians or the Israelis by comparing their foreign policy to that of the United States. On the contrary, I was cautioning against sympathizing with terrorists because of hawkish western foreign policy. Foreign policy over-reach is a bad thing and we should stop doing it, but it doesn’t justify acts of terror or even statements that deny Israel’s right to exist.
I really get a jolly when Israel bashers, especially American and Canadian Israel bashers, accuse Israel of “stealing” the land of Israel from its native inhabitants. This from the inhabitants of nations that stole the entire United States from Native Americans and the entire nation of Canada from First Nations. Always remember that when one points a finger at someone, the other three fingers are point 180 degrees in the opposite direction.
Not to lessen the gravity of this kidnap/murder madness, just think about what Muslims are not doing to each other in Northern Iraq.
They are doing it in the name of Allah and in the name of Mohammed the Paedophile too.
Calls have gone out to Muslims the world over to come and join them in their new Caliphate and do as is Allah’s will.
It’s a revolting religion and the deeds of its followers are revolting too.
Hey they have been doing it for 2 years in Syria.
The Times of Israel quote appears to be an example of the Israeli belief that to shout something loud enough, and often enough, will make it true. It is also a reflection of two very ugly aspects of Israeli culture: a) a concern for the safety of their own coupled with a contemptuous indifference to everyone else b) a seeming inability to comprehend the effect of their country’s behaviour on others.
Nobody in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip or any of the factories of misery dotted around the region – and I have seen them – has any need of irrational hatred or ethnic or religious prejudice to make them hate Israel. When the only Israelis you see are attacking your children in the street or bulldozing olive groves planted in your grandfather’s day, it’s always going to be a struggle to view them as people like yourself.
Further, how do we know who exactly did this and whether it was coordinated with the rocket attacks? On the subject of the latter, we might want to consider another false balance, between the feeble impact of these relative to the kind of ordnance Israel empties into Gaza, where to work fields near the wall is to risk someone tear you apart with .5″ machine gun fire from a comfortable control station deep within the fortifications. She may well be a US citizen, too.
As for Israeli apartheid, you might want to consider the words of John Vorster, the only Nazi sympathiser ever to make a state visit to Jerusalem. He declared Israel to be an apartheid state, and I guess he should know.
Does the Israeli government’s identification of the culprits seem a little rapid to you? Does it seem a little convenient in terms of Israeli goals, both in order to derail the peace process (and Likud and their far-right partners are about as serious about the establishment of a Palestinian state as they are about colonising Venus) and to isolate Hamas again?
Concerning siting of weapons in civilian areas – IDF units are often based in settlements, and the settlers themselves are heavily armed by the Israeli government.
I would also ask whether you have a ‘Jews behaving badly’ tag to match the ‘Muslims behaving badly’. Or Hindus, Christians (in the US, how hard can this be?), or Buddhists (Sri Lanka, Burma)?
Yes, there is indeed a “Jews behaving badly,” “Christians behaving badly,” “Hindus behaving badly” and “Mormons behaving badly,”(all of which I have used) and, as I find other faiths behaving badly, I add those tags too.
You’re way out of line with that kind of false accusation. I don’t give a pass to any faith.
Hi, Jerry. Could you produce some evidence that Hamas committed this crime as you claim in the title of this article? They have not–as you claim–accepted responsibility, and it is journalistically irresponsible of you to say that they have.
Please produce evidence or retract your false claim that Hamas has admitted it. Then retract your unsubstantiated claim that Hamas was responsible.
Thanks.
I’ve done an update since Hamas denies responsibility though some sources did say earlier that Hamas was said to be responsible.
As for you, bobo3, your demand is extremely rude and insulting. I suggest that you go elsewhere where you can be as rude to the host as you want.
Hatred towards Jews has been a constant feature in the whole Muslim world. There are ample evidence of that – in the times long before not only Israel, but even modern Zionism. During the centuries Jews lived under Muslim rule they were in the best cases tolerated as a third-class citizens, useful sometimes and protected by the ruling classes – protected from the hatred of the masses educated by Koran to hate them. In the worst cases they were massacred.
To blame this hatred on Israel is to carefully shut your eyes for the whole history of Jewish-Muslim relations.
BTW, are Christians and other minorities persecuted and hated in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Iran etc. because of Israel as well?
I’m pretty sure Israel is responsible for Saudi Arabia classifying atheism as a form of terrorism.
/sarcasm (just in case)
And the Hamas terrorist government is as serious about a peaceful solution as Frankenberger was about only wanting the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. By the way, there was, apparently, a Palestinian who was murdered in Jerusalem last night, apparently by Jewish vigilantes. Unlike the Palestinian’s “government” in Ramallah, the Government of Israel is making every effort to find the perps and prosecute them.
http://goo.gl/JpfqhY
How do we even begin to prevent this kind of shit from happening? Every time I read a story like this, I feel like obliterating the murderous bastards responsible for such atrocities, but any solution I think up seems futile. Direct military intervention, long-term peace talks against fanatics, underground media movements to combat the propaganda on the surface… Every time I think of a counterargument to these naive suggestions, I am struggling to resist saying “Fuck this, then; Nuke everyone involved and wipe the slate clean”, but it’s frustrating. Something must work, surely? Western Europe was in a bloody war a century ago, yet now we’re one of the safest places on the planet. How did we do it?
I served 20 years in the TX Army National Guard, with almost 5 years of that on active duty. I was deployed to Iraq twice. From my interaction with the locals while doing base defense operations in the middle of nowhere Iraq, I learned the following:
A significant proportion of the Iraqi populace only acknowledge equal rights and consideration to their equals. But you’re not their equal if you are from a different tribe, religion, ethnic group, from a distant city, female, etc. etc. etc.
The locals would often bring their sick and injured to our base for medical attention. The worst were the kids – the local parents thought that a good way to punish their kids was to burn them! They’d stick their hand in the fire, or in boiling water! I’ve seen toddlers with fingers burned to the bone with no flesh left.
These Iraqis didn’t respect their own children or hold them to be off any real value until they became adults. And then only the men were worthy of respect and the protection of law. The women are worth their bride price and nothing more. They respect men because men have strength. A man is strong and therefore has the right to rule over his wives (plural) and children in any way he sees fit. But a man must deal with his equals according to honor and the law.
Many of these Iraqis would gladly kill and die for personal, family, and tribal honor. At the age of 17, Saddam Hussein was tending his family’s flock. Using a knife, Saddam killed another shepard from a different tribe because the poor guy grazed his livestock on the wrong land.
The good news is that a well educated minority of Iraqis look to Europe, the US and the rest of modern world as a role model – freedom of religion, freedom of speech, protection of minorities rights, democracy – and they want that for themselves and their fellow Iraqis. But from my personal experience they are a very small minority.
Note that this is filtered through the Iraqi Arabic lens and may not directly translate to the Middle East in general.
I will also say this in defense of the forward thinking modern Iraqis.
Our interpreters were Iraqis. They were drawn from the professors and students of a college from a city about 1 hour to the southwest of our base. All but one of them, I would be just fine with having as neighbors here in the US. The students were just like American students – they loved blondes, sports (soccer), video games (FIFA04), rap music (about bling, blondes and soccer), blue jeans, fast food, and blondes.
Our senior interpreter was a very well educated, grandfatherly history professor. He spoke English, Spanish, German (or French) and of course Arabic. He went out of his way to explain the intricacies of Iraqi history and culture and answered any question I had about what life was like during Saddam’s reign. He was always apologizing to us for the stupidity and backwardness of the locals. He was ashamed of them. The land for our base was rented from a local tribe and was next door to a village of a few hundred. The nearest town was a few miles away, the nearest city an hour drive.
The other professor, tried to convince one of my squads to kidnap a little girl so he could take her home as a second wife so his first wife wouldn’t have to cook or clean. He was fired immediately. A few months later he blew himself up in a botched car bombing at the market in Babylon.
I wrote and rewrote and rewrote this post before limiting it to the above. I thought about including several other examples of the things I witnessed firsthand in Iraq, but that would be a thick book. A very horrible, thick, horrible book. So I didn’t. Horrible book.
Please write that book. The world needs to hear it.
+1 or a graphic novel like The Photographer
Seconded (or thirded). Write the book. The only editorial suggestion I’d make would be to alternate stories of the good/bad, ideally leaving people with a good story at the end. Not to misrepresent or deceive, but because I think being in the military you are likely to be exposed to more good than bad – it’s just the nature of the job, no different than a doctor seeing more sick people than well – so to balance out that skew I’d try and end on a high note.
Perhaps you can write a guest post for this blog?
Your comment reminds me of an anecdote I once heard about an Egyptian immigrant in Los Angeles. He saw a woman walking her dog and the dog was wearing little booties on its paws. Intrigued, he walked over and asked her why the dog was wearing booties. The woman said that the walkway gets very hot in the sun and she didn’t want the dog to burn its feet. The man then said something like, “what a country this is; you treat your pets better than we back home treat our children.”
Is antisemitism in the Arab/Muslim world driven by Islam or is it driven mostly by the Israel/Palestine politics? I understand that antisemitism in Europe (among Christians) had roots in theology. Are there similar theological roots of antisemitism in Islamic theology?
I think “cycle of violence” is the most appropriate term to use for the situation in Israel/Palestine. Since the roots of the problem go so deep, for every attack, provoked or unprovoked, justified or not, one can always find a previous transgression from the other side. This is evident even in all the comments above too. I don’t know where this ends!
I’ve already said that I think killing innocent civilians is always wrong. HAMAS and other Palestinian terrorist organizations are ruthless. There was a terrorist attack near our kibbutz when I lived in Israel.
But no one answered my more academic question (I’m a retired teacher).
Can anyone name a war in history when both sides didn’t kill innocent civilians?
Napoleon’s 1812 war against Russia?
The US wars against Iraq and Afghanistan?
The Falkland war?
Any war in which one country invades another country with which it doesn’t share borders?
Do you mean intentionally, as a military strategy? Or do you mean at all?
I doubt there’s been any war in history where civilians haven’t died as a consequence of soldier-on-soldier conflict. If nothing else, invading armies destroy crops and fields as they roll through, causing famine, plague, and so on. AIUI, prior to the 20th century, diseases promulgated during war often killed more people than the weapons did.
However, there have probably been a bunch of modern wars where military forces did not intentionally target civilians. Korean, Falklands, even possibly WWI. Even, arguably, the US war in Afghanistan.
A propos, Col. Richard Kemp has pointed out that the IDF goes to unprecedented pains to avoid civilian casualties, even when the Palestinians purposely put their own people in harm’s way. Here is a report he made to the UN when it was considering the Goldstone Report.
http://www.unwatch.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=bdKKISNqEmG&b=1313923&ct=7536409
I would point out that the War of the Spanish Succession was one in which the civilian population of what is now Germany was specifically targeted by the Duke of Marlborough who commanded the English contingent and Prince Eugene who commanded the Austrian contingent. They destroyed the countryside in Bavaria for the purpose of forcing the French Army to stand and fight, eventually at the Battle of Blenheim. Sherman’s march through Georgia has echos of Marlborough’s strategy.
Sub
Whichever way you cut it, the murder of these innocent teenagers is heinous, and I hope the perps are caught and brought to justice.
This Middle East conflict is like a maze with no way out. Human empathy and compassion have been driven out by insanity and hatred.
“Human empathy and compassion have been
driven out by insanity and hatred.”
There are a lot of astute points being made on both sides of this argument, but I don’t think it gets any more accurate than the above statement. So true. So sad.
“Did we exercise restraint when the World Trade Center went down?”
Umm, I think that’s the whole point (unless you think the Iraq war was a good idea).
Again, that wasn’t the question that was being asked. In 2002 Osama Bin Laden gave a list of justifications for Al Qaeda’s attacks on September 11th 2001. Those justifications include the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, U.S. support of Israel, sanctions against Iraq and the liberation of East Timor from a brutal occupation by Indonesia. Meaning that Al Qaeda is angry with the US for ENDING a brutal occupation of an independent nation because said occupiers were an Islamic nation. Do you agree? Does the US foreign policy record, in the context of Al Qaeda’s objections to it, justify their action on September 11th 2001? That was my question.
Body of a murdered Palestinian boy was found overnight in Jerusalem forest, according to Israel Radio.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4537044,00.html
This is more than heart-breaking. The children must now pay for the crimes of rabid adults?!
” this is not a struggle between Jews and Muslims, but rather between Israel and its government and non-Jewish non-citizens under military rule,”
It’s not *all* Israelis. There is a large group of moderates, but as usual, we are inactive. Please come back home to Israel and work to make Israel’s behavior better? At least, to vote?
Susan (in Israel)
Bless you.
If the Palestinians laid down their weapons, there would be no more war. If the Israelis laid down their weapons, there would be no more Israel.
The Palestinians could have had a state in 1947. They could have had a state several times since then. They could have a state now! Why do they incline toward hate?
By the way, there are 22 Arab states. There is one Jewish state. Geographically, it’s minuscule. It’s about time that the anti-Semites get over it.
Anyway. Back to the football.
The only thing Islam is good at, is hating and killing, including their own people!
I am impressed with the comments in this forum. I have to say I have read all of them with the purpose of improving my English writing skills. I just feel disappointed that Jerry erroneously concluded that those criticizing Israel policies (e.g., settlements) were trying to justify the murders. The murders are not justifiable and we are just trying to visualize the options to mitigate the violence. The fact of matter is that Israel and Palestine have both contributed to hatred and violence towards each other, including killing civilians (Source: Amnesty International). Also, I have seen some naively claiming that criticizing the settlements is the same as saying this will stop the attacks on Israel. That is nonsense. The end settlements help to alleviate, not end, the cycle of violence. I must recall that the settlements are usually implemented with violence (Source: Amnesty International) including physical attacks, price tags arson attacks and destruction of Palestinian farmlands. If you say this does not contribute to the violence, well, I will respect your opinion.
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/jerusalem-lynch-mobs-attack-palestinians-after-israeli-teens-funerals
The horror and abomination of Jewish mob attacking Arabs and of killing a 16-years old Palestinian boy should be condemned without any “but”. Thankfully, it is already condemned by the mainstream media, authorities and a big part of social media (crazy fanatics exist in every sociatey and, of course, they are not condemning it). Police already arrested 28 people from the attacking mob (according to Jerusalem Post, according to the above link, 47 were arrested) and is working on catching the perpetrators of the heinous murder of the innocent boy. There are no joyful scenes on Israeli streets, no people sharing sweets to show ther satisfaction from this murder.
I think it is a very telling point that while Israel is horrified at the kidnapping of a Palestinian boy, Hamas has issued a handbook on the best way to kidnap people, what to do with the get-away car, how to hide the people while you hold them to ransom, and so on–everything you need to be a successful kidnapper. That says it all, doesn’t it?
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/182295#.U7P0epRdU6U
Just a note. Israeli settlers in East Jerusalem kidnapped a Palestinian teen and burned him to death. This was pay back. The article was in today’s Daily Kos written by David Harris Gershon.
It is possible that the boy was killed by revengeful, fanatic Jews. It is also possible that his horroble death was caused by somebody else. There is just one possible reaction: horror, condemnation and deep sorrow at the loss of a young life. This was already shown in Israeli society – nobody is rejoicing at this death, authorities vigorously persue the culprits – whoever they are – and all mainstream media, authorities and most of the society condems this crime. Here is a link to the reactions (Jerusalem Post): http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Netanyahu-calls-on-police-to-quickly-find-culprits-motive-for-murder-of-Arab-youth-361251
Yes, but Abbas did do the same. The leadership of both is having a hard time controlling the rejectionists, whether they be Hamas or Jewish extremists. The point is not allowing the extremists to control the politics, which is the real problem here; in both the Palestinian AND Israeli governments sit facists and extremists that are attempting to control the conversation the effect of which results in only half-hearted attemps and flowery language on both sides.
I wouldn’t think that Hamas, which is now in the unity government with Fatah in Palestinian Autonomy could in any way be compared to the most right wing elements in Israeli government. Moreover, the great difference is that the voice of Abbas, condemning the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teenagers, was a voice of one man who was later accused by the prominent elements in Palestinian society for being a traitor. Official Fatah page published a cartoon of the kidnapped boys as three rats dangling from a fishing rod. Sweets were distributed as a sign of rejoicing. Adults and children greeted each other with a new salute: three raised fingers showing the victory over three Israeli kids. What do we have on the other side? Almost general condemnation and horror in the face of murder of an innocent Palestinian boy – both from Prime Minister, government, mainstream media, and now even the family of one of the murdered Israeli teenagers. This is a very deep and very significant difference.
As far as i understand, extermists are a big problem for the Israeli government, especially the settler population which have a political significance in the Knesset that cannot be discounted. Why would Israel be immune to religious kooks and nationalists?
Look, all you need to do is go on YouTube or google and one can too easily find documentaries and home videos of “Death to Arab” chants, noxious graphity targetting palestinians, and extremists Jewish settlers uttering statement that you would only expect from Hamas that easily rival the anecdotes you have presented. Besides this, several agencies (including Israeli) have pointed out the increasing problem of settler violence and extremism.
The biggest difference I see is that Isreal has a stable central goverment and economy, control over its borders and military might to actually do something about it. This makes big different to the PA which has none of those.
Settlers violence exists, but if this boy was killed by them it would be one of a very, very few murders they committed. Mostly they engage in graffiti daubing, scaring Palestinian children and cutting trees. (This is somehow different from decapitating a 3 month old baby or knifing 11 and 4 year old boy or murdering two 16-yeras old and a 19-year old.) Moreover, this settlers’ violence is condemned and punished by Israeli society – while Palestinian society glorifies its terrorists, pays them salaries, names schools, summer camps, streets etc. after them. Just have a look how Abbas (and the whole society) greeted prisoners freed by Israel in order for Abbas to come to the negotiation table. They were all murderers: one murdered a 70+ old Holocaust survivor, another murdered two Jewish students on a hike, still another organized Sbarro pizzeria massacre – they all had quite a lot of blood on their hands. Of course, there are Jewish fanatics but they do not have too much to say in the government and in the whole society. 62% Palestinians (according to a survey from 2013) think that susicide bombing is justified – and other forms of terror as well. You are not going to find such attitudes in Israeli society. IDF has strong rules to try to spare non-combatants. According to Colonel Kemp, they manage to do it better than any other army in the world – that they do not manage all the time? Well, it just isn’t humanly possible when your enemy is shooting, hiding behind women and children.
Rumours are circulating that the Palestinian boy was killed by his family because he was gay, and indeed the police statement did mention the possibility of “honour killing”, as well as “ordinary criminality”.
Again, the only difference here is that Israel including it’s populace can “afford” to look nice. At the end of the day, palestinians are dying gruesome deaths as well and living in more desperate conditions that largly informs their actions. Excuse the pun but Palestinians would kill to live as Israelis do.
If Palestinians have some greater bloodlust to kill Israelis, it is important to address the question “Why?”
One (1) we know: religion, something shared on both sides. There may simply be a religious hatred for Jews driving the Palestinians to kill. This is obviously part of it and there is definately be a larger proportion of the Palestinian society that falls in this category then in Israeli society.
The second one (2) is state politics, one or more segments of a previously mixed population wishes to create a state with a religious identity (ie. Hamas and Israel; if you wish to argue this then just imagine a scenario of an Israel with a non-jewish majority). It wishes to maintain this identity and impelment tactics to stategies to protect it (militarily) and it’s ever-expanding borders and will continue to do so in order to exist. Naturally.
In terms of ratios, yes, Palestinians may share a greater proportion of (1) but violence in “protection” of it’s ever expanding state (2) is currently Israel’s pervue.
The irony is that (2) is obviously religious in nature and therefor direcltly feeds into (1). In this context, it’s difficult to pick apart motivations for a given scenario and the glorification of “martyrs” (as in other contexts these people would be called “partisans”). Are dead IDF soldier’s and the IDF itself not glorified? Hardly.
Again, the big difference is that Israeli’s can find more comfort within their relatively stable borders and machinations of a modern society but if this lifestyle was threatened (ie. to live as Palestinians do) I would expect to see some mushroom clouds and bigger trends towards extremism (1). If Israel starts losing, “nice time” will be over.
This is an extremist’s game to play no mater what kind of vaneer is put on it.
One may wish to talk about “those savage palestinians hoards” and “us civilized Israelis” but this is a false equivelancy to begin with given the actual situation.
The key is to address (1) AND (2) togther.
You should take a look at some more polls rather then just one.. the palestinian opinions are as diverse as Israelis. Only 0.8% want an Islamic state yet 34% of Israelis think that a Jewish state is more important than democracy!
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/palpotoc.html
Jews as people lived in Diaspora for 2,000 years. They retained their religion (yes), but more important, they retained their culture and a feeling of peoplehood. There are plenty of modern Jews who are not religious (sometimes they are even New Atheists) but they are still Jews. The decision to build a state in which Jews would be a majority and would no longer be at the mercy of others came together with Revolutions 1848 – and it was still not about religion. And when a century later, 1948, the Jewish state was proclaimed it consisted of impoverished population, refugees from Arab state and remnants of European Jewry, just barely alive after five years of Nazi hell. Their situation was surely worse than today’s Palestinians. (And they got no UN help with absorption of all those refugees.) There were artisans and farmers from Yemen, tailors and shoemakers from Poland, lawyers and businessmen from Egypt… Most of the population came from countries which never knew what democracy is (estimated 95%). Somehow they did manage to build a democratic, free, secular and prosperous country. Any argument that the world Jewry, which according to mythology is fabulously rich and omnipotent, was the reason for this miracle, could be countered with argument that international community gave Palestinians aid many, many times bigger than the Marshall plan for the whole Europe, and that they, too have fabulously rich Arab compatriots. Without religiously fueled hatred to Jews Palestinian Arabs could have build equally prosperous society. But their leaders’ (and Arab leaders) goal never was to build a good life for their citizens. From the very beginning the goal was to destroy Israel and do not allow their former dhimmis to build a shelter for themselves.
And I just wonder: do you really not see the difference between a soldier who died in battle (maybe trying to protect enemy’s civilians – like in the infamous “Jenin massacre”) and a terrorist who goes out to kill just civilians? I do.
And, yes, there are many polls. One is just out: http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Palestinians-biggest-supporters-of-suicide-bombing-says-new-survey-of-Muslim-world-361287
Interestingly enough, Palestinians have had it better than most of the middle east for over half a century.
As bad as it has been for many of them, life has been (on average) far better than it was for their brothers and sisters living under the countless – and almost universally brutal – dictators/regimes that are a feature of the Arab world.
In many ways the independence of the Palestinian people prompted said brothers and sisters to say, “I want mine too” which led, inexorably, to the Arab Spring.
(I’m not saying this after the fact. We had many discussions before the Arab Spring on the topic.)
“And I just wonder: do you really not see the difference between a soldier who died in battle (maybe trying to protect enemy’s civilians – like in the infamous “Jenin massacre”) and a terrorist who goes out to kill just civilians? I do.”
The fact that you can boil the question down to an “i do” may ease your mind but it really isn’t that simple and it certainly doesn’t deserve to be.
If we generalize it above formal structures of governance and consider the moral questions with respect to killing it would be more appropriate. Partisans in WWII did not belong to a formal army yet killed, on the other hand stategic bombings were actions performed by an army, the question remains the same..
Is the killing of civilians in order to further a political goal justifiable?
Is the distinction between purposeful and collatoral civilian killings meaningful in this conflict?
Stating civilian deaths as “collatoral damage”, yet claiming a magitude more lives by such means doesn’t count much against an enemy that is much less capable of making the distinction and it certainly does not make your position more ethical.
Suicide bombing and “home made” rocket attacks exists as a means of striking fear into a significantly more powerful enemy state. Most palestinians see this as a legitimate form of resistance given their means. Again, it certainly does not make their position ethical.
Which more ethical then the other? None.
If we want to measure the impact and fear caused by collateral vs. purposeful killing with respect to the Israel, West Bank and Gaza, a Palestinian will say that they simply see no difference with respect the amount of terror and fear they have experienced.
I think I will have to leave you with those philosphical questions. I am a down to earth woman and for me a person who takes a knife and decapitates a 3-month old baby differs enormously from a soldier who tries his best to avoid hitting civilians placed just by a rocket louncher – a rocket aimed at the civilians this soldier is supposed to protect.
I see the major difference is those bigotted things witnessed on YouTube are not systemic in Israel and not condoned or encouraged by their government. This is not at all so in Palestine where open bigotry and hatred are part of the system.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4537044,00.html. We don’t yet now who killed him or why, and the act has been UNRESERVEDLY condemned.
Apparently a rogue element (a “clan”) in Hamas is to blame.. interesting article about the surrounding politics:
http://bit.ly/1qLLf0x
But see: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/07/israel-hamas-kidnapped-settlers-teens-punishment.html criticizing the collective accusation of a very large family, consisting of many respected members.
http://www.jewishjournal.com/israel/article/how_does_israel_know_hamas_is_responsible_for_the_kidnappings
“As well as committing this cold-blooded murder, the Palestinians, without provocation, also fired 18 rockets into Israel before the bodies were discovered.”
These things were not done by “the Palestinians”, they were done, it may be, by *some* Palestinians. If it turns out that some Israeli settlers burned that boy to death, would you say the crime was done by “the Jews”? You should not, and almost certainly would not. It wasn’t done by “the Israelis”, either, or even by “the Israeli settlers”. The settlers are all committing a crime, but not that crime.
Your concern duly noted.
There is a difference, though, that has already been pointed out here.
When “some” Palestinians commit atrocities it is met with blanket rejoicing.
When “some” Israelis commit atrocities it is met with blanket condemnation.
“Your concern duly noted.”
Thank you so much!
“When “some” Palestinians commit atrocities it is met with blanket rejoicing.
When “some” Israelis commit atrocities it is met with blanket condemnation.”
…and you know this because you *know* what “the Palestinians” and “the Israelis” do.
No, such blanket generalizations are of course blanketly false.
But your opinion is duly noted.
Tzvia Thier at demonstration against Israeli raids in West Bank.
Union Square, June 26, 2014.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYQnY4mJ58g
Comment by straightshooterable on YouTube:
Prophetic comments by 3 eminent Jews:
Asked to sign a petition supporting settlement of Jews in Palestine, Sigmund Freud declined: “I cannot…I do not think that Palestine could ever become a Jewish state….It would have seemed more sensible to me to establish a Jewish homeland on a less historically-burdened land….I can raise no sympathy at all for the misdirected piety which transforms a piece of a Herodian wall into a national relic, thereby offending the feelings of the natives.” (Letter to Dr. Chaim Koffler Keren HaYassod, Vienna: 2/26/30)
Albert Einstein, 1939: “There could be no greater calamity than a permanent discord between us and the Arab people…. Let us recall that in former times no people lived in greater friendship with us than the ancestors of these Arabs.”
Lessing J. Rosenwald, president of the American Council for Judaism, 1944: “The concept of a racial state – the Hitlerian concept- is repugnant to the civilized world, as witness the fearful global war in which we are involved. . . , I urge that we do nothing to set us back on the road to the past. To project at this time the creation of a Jewish state or commonwealth is to launch a singular innovation in world affairs which might well have incalculable consequences.”
We must remember, however, that neither the illegal Balfour Declaration nor the 1922 League of Nations British Class A Mandate for Palestine called for a “Jewish state” or “homeland” in Palestine and the latter prohibited it.
Einstein was opposed to a Jewish state/homeland and said so during his testimony before the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry in January 1946. When asked whether refugee settlement in Palestine demanded a Jewish state, he replied: “The State idea is not according to my heart. I cannot understand why it is needed. It is connected with narrow-mindedness and economic obstacles. I believe it is bad. I have always been against it.”
Subsequently, Einstein also made his views on partition very clear: “I should much rather see reasonable agreement with the Arabs on the basis of living together in peace than the creation of a Jewish state. Apart from the practical consideration, my awareness of the essential nature of Judaism resists the idea of a Jewish state with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power no matter how modest. I am afraid of the inner damage Judaism will sustain – especially from the development of a narrow nationalism within our own ranks, against which we have already to fight strongly, even without a Jewish state.”
Again, he was prophetic.
Here is a legal decision of League of Nations which unanimously declared on July 24, 1922:
“Whereas recognition has been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country.”
And this is description by League of Nations of British Mandate for Palestine:
“The Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country [ Palestine] under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish National Home, as laid down in the preamble, and the development of self-governing institutions, and also for safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion.”
And here is what Wikipedia has to say about Einstein and Israel:
Einstein was a prominent supporter of both Labor Zionism and efforts to encourage Jewish-Arab cooperation.[16] He supported the creation of a Jewish national homeland in the British mandate of Palestine but was initially opposed to the idea of a Jewish state with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power.”
It is late here in Poland and I just do not feel like correcting all those “fact” you quoted which are quite far from reality.
They were quotes posted on YouTube by some person. On the other hand, a quick google brings up some interesting results:
http://mondoweiss.net/2009/05/einstein-and-zionism.html
And another interesting result with links that should be followed
So much for being far from reality…
Oh, I see, I didn’t realise that your “facts” come from YouTube (and the same person posted it so this must be true!) and from notorious Jew-and Israel hating website Mondoweiss (yes, I know that both Phillip Weiss and Adam Horowitz are Jews, but when they present Jews as an octopus devouring the world and repeat incessantly the most vile Jew and Israel hatred, what does it matter if their parents were Jewish or not?). And, besides Mondoweiss you are getting your information from John Soptzler, who supports BDS and dismantling of Israel. What next? “Protocols of the Elder of Zion”?
So you dispute what Einstein said, they are not facts according to you? Your hateful and disingenuous caricature of Phillip Weiss and Adam Horowitz is very sad. They both frequently spend time in Israel, they are Progressive Jews.
I have never heard of either John Soptzler or BDS.
Note that I too am a Jew, and that my mother was one of the translators/interpreters at the Nüremberg trials. However, I find the policies and government of Israel to be quite shameful and criminal, and to blacken the reputations of all Jews.
You seem to wilfully ignore facts and BOTH sides of the story. That, of course, is your right.
I do not dispute what Einstein said. I’m saying that he lived a long life and a quotation of his words from one period of his life does not reprezent his later opinions.
Mondoweiss is infamous for it’s Jew-hating and Israel-hating publications. As I wrote: if they disseminate hateful propaganda, the fact that they are Jews or visit Israel is totally irrelevant. Jew-hating cartoon is a Jew-hating cartoon, no matter who drew it or who is spreading it. Likewise it is irrelevant who your mother is/was – what matters is what you say and do. And this is the basis for your reputation – not what Israel does.
You gave a link to John Spritzelr’s website (sorry for mistyping his name), and BDS movement if a Boycott, Divest, Sanctions movement led by Omar Barghutti who clearly stated that his aim is dismantling of Israel – a quite popular movement which organizes Israel Hate Weeks (aka Israel Apartheid Week) on campuses in U.S. and wherever they can in the world.
Mondoweiss is absolutely NOT a Jew-hating and Israel-hating publication.
I will have to check the links I gave you (I was simply looking for Einstein quotes) – but nothing in what I saw in them fit the description you made.
I think you need a nice cup of tea and to calm down, because you are showing a lot of hatred yourself, and hatred is never conducive to clarity and serenity of mind. Hatred begets hatred which begets more hatred in an ugly and lethal downward spiral.
As for the “Protocols of the Elder of Zion”, we both know that they are an ugly fraud. I really don’t understand why you mentioned them. I am not anti-Semitic but I am, as are a vast number of intelligent and well-informed Jews, anti-Zionist.
I mentioned my mother and who she was because she was a huge influence on me and on who I am and what I think.
Zionism was a movement to promote national self-determination for Jews after centuries of persecution in both Christian and Islamic countries. The only place in the world Jews could call theirs was the privince of Ottoman Empire which Romans almost 2,000 yers earlier re-named Syria-Palestina. When the modern Zionist movement was born in the second half od 19th century there already were Jews living there, partly those, who never left after expulsion, and partly those who century after century tried to return there against all consecutive forces occupying this sliver of land.
The aim of this movement was to build an independent Jewsih state and, after the Holocaust, the world finally agreed to give them a chance. Arab disagreed and invaded this newborn state but lost the battle. Today there is a country in which there live 6 million Jews and 2 million non-Jews as absolutely equal citizens. Being anti-Zionist means that you are for dismantling of the only state in the world where Jews, if persecuted somewhere else, can find a shelter.
Recently Jews from France are seeking shelter there, afraid of the growing Jewhatred in France, just yesterday a Jewish family from Syria (where just some 20 Jews were left after expulsion in 1950s and 1969s) was smuggled to the safety of Israel. If some country would start persecution of Poles, there is Poland which would welcome them. And so it is with other nations of the world. Jews should have the same rights which you seems willing to refuse them.
That’s the syrupy sugar-coated version.
What prominent Zionists have said:
1. “There is a huge gap between us (Jews) and our enemies, not just in ability but in morality, culture, sanctity of life, and conscience. They are our neighbors here, but it seems as if at a distance of a few hundred meters away, there are people who do not belong to our continent, to our world, but actually belong to a different galaxy.” Israeli president Moshe Katsav. The Jerusalem Post, May 10, 2001
2. “The Palestinians are like crocodiles, the more you give them meat, they want more”…. Ehud Barak, Prime Minister of Israel at the time – August 28, 2000. Reported in the Jerusalem Post August 30, 2000
3. ” [The Palestinians are] beasts walking on two legs.” Menahim Begin, speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, “Begin and the Beasts”. New Statesman, 25 June 1982.
4. “The Palestinians” would be crushed like grasshoppers … heads smashed against the boulders and walls.” ” Isreali Prime Minister (at the time) in a speech to Jewish settlers New York Times April 1, 1988
5. “When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle.” Raphael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defence Forces, New York Times, 14 April 1983.
More at (spool down): http://tinyurl.com/3fwbzx2
I better leave you to it – there are many more hate quotations on the Internet which you obviously relish (and not all are true, but what the hell).
Here are some absolutely faithful quotes:
http://www.nkusa.org/Historical_Documents/Herzl_quotes.cfm
Mondoweiss is most definitely anti Israel and even anti Judaism. The anti Israel part is undisputable, and I recently read an article that denounced Hanukkah as a genocidal holiday.
And I don’t beleive for one second that you are who you say you are. If so, you have a pathological bias against your own people which is, to say the least, odd. I could just as easily call myself Ahmed and declare that I’m an anti Palestine Muslim “like other rational Muslims”. Lets stick to the argument and leave personal unverifiable stories out of it.
That you believe me or not doesn’t change the fact that what I wrote is true.
I disagree with you regarding Mondoweiss. Just because it disagrees with the policies of Israel does not make it an anti-Semitic website. Also, your characterization of Phillip Weiss’ stance about Hannukah is completely distorted.
My word, now you rely on quotes from Naturei Karta, an extreme sect that not only wants Israel destroyed but has urged Iran to do it! Maybe Mondoweiss seems balanced in comparison.
Elsewhere you seem to suggest that drawing hatred to our attention is also hatred. That doesn’t follow.
Sarah’s right: that group doesn’t want Israel to exist. Do you really agree with that. I have to say that all I hear from Vierotchka is damning of Israel and sympathy for Palestine. And now quotes from groups like this. What are you trying to say, that Israel should be wiped off the map?
Saying that you’re Jewish doesn’t help, you know, for the tenor of your arguments is that everything Israel does is bad, and that the Palestinians are acting properly.
My stance on Israel’s policies are mild compared to the rabid and irrational hatred against the Palestinians shown here.
With regard to the Herzl quotes, the responses here have been an exemplary display of the logical fallacy known as “poisoning the well” and “consider the source”.
See http://www.ditext.com/fearnside/19.html and http://www.conservapedia.com/Logical_fallacy#Poisoning_the_well
It seems that opinions here are extremely one-sided at the detriment of a whole people. They are humans, not demons, something most people here seem to gleefully ignore.
Awwwww… Poow wittle Pawestinians…
Although you probably need to recalibrate your outrage. If you think civilised discourse on this site is to the detriment of anything at all then I suggest that you are reading between the lines too much.
Your moral compass seems to be a little dysfunctional. If you want to whine about “rabid” and “detrimental” there are plenty other sites to frequent.
Your petulance just makes everything you say look silly.
All I have seen here from most of the commenters is hatred for the Palestinians. I merely noted that hatred breeds hatred which breeds more hatred in response (Israel and the Palestinians) and this is a very negative and never-ending spiral which results in nothing but killings. So long as this particular dynamic continues, there can be no resolution to the problem save death.
A mature people takes responsibility for its actions and the consequences thereof. I have seen no maturity on either side of this awful conflict.
So you dispute what Einstein said, they are not facts according to you? Your hateful and disingenuous caricature of Phillip Weiss and Adam Horowitz is very sad. They both frequently spend time in Israel, they are Progressive Jews.
I have never heard of either John Soptzler or BDS.
Note that I too am a Jew, and that my mother was one of the translators/interpreters at the Nüremberg trials. However, I find the policies and government of Israel to be quite shameful and criminal, and to blacken the reputations of all Jews.
You seem to wilfully ignore facts and to desperately avoid to see BOTH sides of the story. That, of course, is your right.
Sorry about the double post, I don’t know how that happened.
sub
It breaks my heart, but humans tend to believe the best and first reaction to any disagreement is killing. The sand in that region of the world is so soaked in blood it is hard to believe there is any part of the ground that isn’t a rusty brown color. Not that the Middle East is the only place this happens. Religious differences, territorial disputes, ethnic differences, melanin concentration seem to be addressed with bloodshed, be it nation against nation, tribe against tribe, religion against religion or street gang against street gang or any other mob against mob. Sometimes I just wish all these violent dissenters would just kill each other off and leave the planet to rational people, except I’m not sure there are any.
As far as radical Muslims go, however, I think they hate each other more than anyone else.
I wish to apologize as I realize that my words offended and/or many of the posters here.
This is a subject I feel very strongly about, and I may have misunderstood some of the posts here, and some of my posts have obviously been misunderstood. I did not mean to insult anyone, I was in full reactive mode and my sense of justice was overblown.
I am not anti-Israel, neither am I not anti-Palestinian. I am pro-people, whatever their nationality and wherever they were born and live – most of these through no choice of their own. I do have a tendency to be the devil’s advocate as I strive to see both sides of a situation, and I also have a marked tendency to defend those I perceive to be the underdogs.
Please accept my apology and please understand that I was not seeking to aggress anyone in spite of the few aggressions I was subjected to in response to my comments.
It is an emotional subject, that’s for sure, and neither side in this conflict is completely blameless and innocent.
I wish to apologize as I realize that my words offended and/or hurt many of the people posting here.
This is a subject I feel very strongly about, and I may have misunderstood some of the posts here, and some of my posts have obviously been misunderstood. I did not mean to insult anyone, I was in full reactive mode and my sense of justice was overblown.
I am not anti-Israeli people, neither am I not anti-Palestinian people. I am pro-people, whatever their nationality and wherever they were born and live – most of these through no choice of their own. I do have a tendency to be the devil’s advocate as I strive to see both sides of a situation, and I also have a marked tendency to defend those I perceive to be the underdogs.
Please accept my apology and please understand that I was not seeking to aggress anyone in spite of the few aggressions I was subjected to in response to my comments.
It is an emotional subject, that’s for sure, and neither side in this conflict is completely blameless and innocent.