by Eric Martin
Apparently, this was self defense:
Nine Turkish activists killed in an Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound aid ship were shot a total of 30 times and five died of gunshot wounds to the head, Britain's Guardian newspaper reported on Friday.
Autopsy results showed the men were hit mostly with 9mm bullets, many fired at close range, the Guardian said, quoting Yalcin Buyuk, vice-chairman of the Turkish council of forensic medicine which carried out the autopsies on Friday. […]
The autopsy results showed that a 60-year-old man, Ibrahim Bilgen, was shot four times in the temple, chest, hip and back, the Guardian said.
A 19-year-old, named as Fulkan Dogan, who also has U.S. citizenship, was shot five times from less than 45 cm (18 inches) away, in the face, the back of the head, twice in the leg and once in the back, it said.
Two other men were shot four times. Five of those killed were shot either in the back of the head or in the back, the Guardian quoted Buyuk as saying.
In addition to those killed, 48 others suffered gunshot wounds and six activists were still missing, he added.
Paintball.
I’m not sure what your point is, here. If, as the Israelis claim, the commandos were attacked by the ship’s passengers with improvised clubs and such, you would expect the forensics to show that the shots were fired at close range. If evidence showed the shots had been fired from long range, that would lend credence to the claims that shots were fired even before the commandos landed on the ship.
Yeah, and shots to the back of the head? Multiple?
Shots to the back of the head could result from the person being shot in the front and then being spun around by the impact as the shooter continues to fire. The person could have been shot as they attacked someone else so that they had their back turned to the shooter. They could have been next to other people who were attacking the shotter and got hit by stray bullets.
Another interesting thing from that article is that all but one of the bullets recovered in the autopsies were 9mm. That gives credence to the Israeli claim that initial boarders were armed with paintball/pepperball rifles and sidearms with live rounds. 9mm is the caliber for a sidearm. Battle rifles would have a 7.62mm or 5.56mm caliber.
Uzis are also 9mm.
Uzis are also 9mm.
so are some Tavor TAR-21s, which is the IDF’s new assault rifle.
Today, Israel seized an Irish-flagged ship after boarding it from boats alongside rather than from helicopters. According to reports, no one was injured.
The deaths aboard the Turkish-flagged ships earlier this week were the foreseeable result of the Israeli decision to seize the boat by force from above. Israel has seized other boats peacefully in the past, and has shown that they have the knowledge and skill to prevent or minimize casualties. My conclusion is that they wanted to display force in the case of the Turkish flottila. The blowback that they are experiencing is the result of their own political decisions and reckless actions.
It’s odd that Israel keeps jumping back and forth between claiming that this is a military blockade and claiming that it’s sanctions depending on what they’re trying to justify. If it’s a military blockade, Israel is mandated to allow purely medical shipments through (even if they’re solely intended for Hamas militants). If it’s sanctions, there needs to be some international approval if sanctions include blocking international shipping in neutral waters. Israel’s claiming this is a military blockade today (so that their boarding is legal) without fulfilling the requirements of an occupying power under Geneva. They claim that they do not occupy Gaza, but rather control its borders.
“Shots to the back of the head could result from the person being shot in the front and then being spun around by the impact as the shooter continues to fire. ”
Would a person hit by a 9 mm pistol bullet spin around so quickly that the shooter could then inadvertently put bullets into the back of his head before he hits the ground? The first bullet would have to be off center on the torso (unless it hits an arm) to cause the spin and then the other bullets hit the head. This seems implausible.
Anyway, Fulkan ” was shot five times from less than 45 cm (18 inches) away, in the face, the back of the head, twice in the leg and once in the back, it said.” I’m no forensics expert, but that sounds suspicious, as does the four bullets in various places on the 60 year old man.
The different ships are different sizes and laid out differently. Boarding from the side may not have been practical.
The number and closeness of the wounds don’t contradict the claim of self-defense. Given the videos, it’s dumb to claim it wasn’t.
It’s nuts to attack armed soldiers with sticks and knives. This is the result. The people on the other boats did not attack and did not experience violence.
Shots to the back, even of the head, are not evidence that it wasn’t self-defense. And there is no alternative theory that fits.
You can see from the results of the other 5 boats and the recent stoppage of a boat on Saturday that the Israelis are trying hard to avoid violence. Implying otherwise is slander.
You can see from the results of the other 5 boats and the recent stoppage of a boat on Saturday that the Israelis are trying hard to avoid violence.
well, they are now. it doesn’t take much of a genius to know they’d like to avoid any more negative attention.
Yes, there is a rather simple alternative theory that fits, Areaman. Witnesses claim the IDF opened fire from the air, and that one person – the journalist Chetin Genghis – was shot. The autopsy reports also says he was shot from above.
Would you be all meek and agreeable if your best friend just was killed with shot in the head, before your eyes?
Links of interest:
A flotilla passenger committed to and with long experience in nonviolent resistane, beaten repeatedly by the IDF.
Marcy Wheeler on how the U.S. response to the attack on the flotilla fits into the larger framework of our “war on terror”.
“Nine Turkish activists killed in an Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound aid ship were shot a total of 30 times and five died of gunshot wounds to the head, Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported on Friday.”
According to the IDF, the people actually doing the fighting onboard the ships were wearing those bullet proof vests mentioned earlier. That would certainly explain a large excess of shots relative to kills, and most of the kills being due to head shots.
“Based on preliminary results of its investigation into the navy’s takeover of the Mavi Marmara, which ended with nine dead passengers and more than 30 wounded, the IDF said on Thursday that the commandos were attacked by a well-trained group of mercenaries, most of whom were found without IDs but with thousands of dollars in their pockets.
The group was well trained and was split into a number of squads of about 20 mercenaries each distributed throughout the upper deck, the IDF said. All of the mercenaries wore gas masks and ceramic bulletproof vests and were armed with either bats, slingshots, metal bars, knives or stun grenades.”
I remember back when the Israelis were good at propaganda.
Now they just turn out crap that only their right-wing and their groupies in America swallow.
It almost doesn’t matter to me whether or not the commandos were shooting in self-defense. Even if they were, it was still an unnecessary escalation of the situation to send them in at the time and in the manner and place that the IDF did. I say almost because it would certainly be worse for them to have just started shooting people for no reason at all (to be the King of the Obvious, I). But the self-defense argument doesn’t exonerate Israel, just the individual commandos. While not moot, it is also not crucial.
“I remember back when the Israelis were good at propaganda.”
I remember when you could tell the difference between a ‘liberal’ and an anti-semite. But that’s only because I’m over 50…
Look, I don’t think the Israeli government is particularly nice. OTOH, “nice government” is something of an oxymoron. There are maybe a dozen governments, world-wide, that are significantly less nasty than Israel’s, and, not coincidentally, none of them are surrounded by mortal enemies. There are at least a hundred governments that are significantly nastier than Israel’s, and they don’t get half the criticism Israel gets.
Hell, China probably murders more people on any given day than Israel does in a year, and how much time do you clowns devote to complaining about them? They can commit GENOCIDE, and get less grief about it than Israel gets closing a border with a neighbor that’s raining missiles on them.
Man, talk about double standards…
Hell, China probably murders more people on any given day than Israel does in a year, and how much time do you clowns devote to complaining about them?
I condemn the murderous assholes in China, just in case you think I don’t condemn murderous assholes. But really, do you think I don’t condemn murderous assholes in general or are you just complaining that I don’t do the obvious all the time?
Do all of us need a disclaimer at the front of our posts/comments listing the assholes that are worse than the ones we’re about to complain about such that we’re not “clowns?”
“Man, talk about double standards…”
China gives the U.S. money whereas Israel takes U.S. money.
Besides, there’s a big difference between executing corrupt businessmen and gunning down civilians.
Apparently?
Actually on the world stage, I think it is completely fair to notice that China gets less crap for ongoing genocide in Tibet than Israel gets for even their individual bad acts like this flotilla incident. And it is also fair to notice that even in aggregate, Israeli actions don’t approach the level of Chinese actions in Tibet.
That isn’t much of a defense of Israel, of course. As “better than China” is a really crappy standard.
I would say that as a practical matter, Israel gets more crap than a lot of countries because it goes back and forth on whether or not it wants to be heavy handed. Syria for example pays no political price for Hama (literally executing 400 males at random as collective punishment for terrorist bombing, creating a death penalty for being a part of the Muslim Brotherhood, and then shelling the city from afar, killing 10,000-30,000 citizens at random to break the back of the insurgency). Interestingly, for what it is worth, the Muslim Brotherhood has publicly renounced political violence vis-a-vis Syria, a step that Hamas has never taken vis-a-vis Israel.
But again, “better than Syria” sucks as standard too.
I honestly despair at the whole thing. I can’t imagine any likely scenario that leads to peace.
If we’re going back to 1982, Syria’s killing in Hama was on the same scale as Israel’s killing in Lebanon. Israel ran a torture center in Khiam
with its partner the SLA during its occupation there. The American press downplays Israeli human rights violations. I don’t think they are the worst country in the world in that respect,but I also don’t think there’s any reason to think that only a dozen countries are better or that 100 are worse, despite what human rights experts like Harold Bloom or Brett might want to claim.
As for crap received, Israel gets much verbal abuse from many countries, but love notes and a few billion dollars per year from the US and I think in practical terms the latter matters to them more. We don’t support Syrian human rights violations–we support Israel’s.
“We don’t support Syrian human rights violations–we support Israel’s.”
I should correct that, since Maher Arar would disagree. We don’t support Syrian human rights violations to anywhere near the level that we support Israel’s.
Donald, if Israel shelled Gaza from afar and killed 20,000 people it would probably end the uprising, just as Hama broke the back of it in Syria.
Do you think that Israel would get off as easily as Syria?
I doubt it. (Frankly I hope not).
This shouldn’t be interpreted as cheerleading for Israel. I honestly don’t see a good end to any of this. Hamas is not going to stop bombing Israel, and the international community isn’t even interested in pressuring them to stop. Israel isn’t going to just sit back and let it continue, and the international community isn’t able to force them to allow Hamas to keep bombing them.
So I don’t forsee anything good. (Which to be SUPER clear, is said with despair, not something like anticipation).
Sebastian, you’re comparing Syria’s 1982 action with Israel’s 2009 action–I’m comparing Syria in 1982 with Israel in 1982 and they are quite comparable in brutality in that year. They both got away with it, except for some verbal abuse. The world no doubt yelled more about Israel–big deal. We kept giving them aid and diplomatic support, a lot more than we give to Syria. And among people who actually follow the Mideast, Hama is as well known as the 1982 Lebanon War.
Yes, Israel gets more condemnation in the UN. That’s a problem,though not because Israel gets the criticism, but because other countries don’t get enough criticism themselves. As for Israel, I think they care more about what the US Congress says about them and there the problem is exactly the opposite of what it is in the UN.
Hamas did stop bombing Israel in 2008 and it was Israel that broke the ceasefire on November 4–a ceasefire that they never really honored in the first place, since they maintained the blockade. Hamas demanded an end to the blockade (part of the original agreement) as a condition for reinstating the ceasefire in December. Israel didn’t lift it and the war (if one wishes to call it that) began at the end of the month.
There appears to be a moderate element within Hamas, just as there was in the PLO decades ago when talking to the PLO was seen as capitulation to terrorism. What the US and Israel have been doing is saying that we will pick the Palestinian leaders for them and we will help instigate a civil war to do it and then we point to that as evidence of Hamas extremism.
I remember when you could tell the difference between a ‘liberal’ and an anti-semite.
I recall when you could tell the difference between a conservative and a playground bully. Just kidding: actually, I don’t.
Sebastian: Donald, if Israel shelled Gaza from afar and killed 20,000 people it would probably end the uprising
Well, temporarily, yes. And by “temporarily”, I mean probably till the next Palestinian generation grew up.
The only final solution to uprisings in an apartheid state such as Israel is, well, a Final Solution. I do the Israelis the credit that they prefer a continuous program of harassment, discrimination, substantive legal inequality, bombings, assassination, and casual killings, to actually rounding these inconvenient people up and slaughtering them en masse.
Israel can take down the walls around Gaza and the Israeli-only towns in the West Bank, and grant legal equality as citizens to all of the Palestinians inside Israel’s defacto borders, and that will end the war. So long as they perceive it as preferable to kill and harass Palestinians at little risk to themselves, they will continue to do so.
I remember when you could tell the difference between a ‘liberal’ and an anti-semite. But that’s only because I’m over 50…
Jeez Brett, what about all the liberal Jewish critics of certain of Israel’s behavior in America? Anti-Semites I suppose. Right?
Regardless, as mentioned above, Israel is the largest recipient of US aid. As such, citizens of the US have certain expectations, and consequently, are held to a degree responsible for the Israeli government’s actions.
So even if they are slightly better than other odious regimes, an worse than others still, the criticism of American liberals is directly tied to those levels of aid, the complicity and, for many others, a belief in the concept of Israel and a desire to see Israel do the right thing.
Absent a two state solution, Israel will either cease to exist as a Jewish state, commit massive genocide/ethnic cleansing, or continue to administer a brutal, oppressive apartheid state.
Not sure why those that are trying to get Israel to change that course are considered the anti-Semites, but there you have it.
“Absent a two state solution, Israel will either cease to exist as a Jewish state, commit massive genocide/ethnic cleansing, or continue to administer a brutal, oppressive apartheid state.”
I entirely agree. The problem is, achieving a two state solution isn’t just up to Israel, it’s also up to the Palestinians. They’ve elected a government officially dedicated to Israel ceasing to exist.
It’s kind of hard to achieve a two state solution when the other state is dedicated you your destruction, even if they ARE too puny to achieve it.
They’ve elected a government officially dedicated to Israel ceasing to exist.
This is not true. Hamas has renounced that plank, and officially recognizes Israel’s right to exist.
And Israel is hardly dedicated to such. See, ie, the settlement activity, and the way in which Sharon disengage from Gaza – in a way that, as was predicted at the time, would empower Hamas.
I’m not sure what your point is, here.
The point is that this was stupid and unnecessary. See Mike’s 3:51 for details.
Actually on the world stage, I think it is completely fair to notice that China gets less crap for ongoing genocide in Tibet than Israel gets for even their individual bad acts like this flotilla incident.
You’re a front-pager, start a “Chinese genocide in Tibet” thread. Rather than, frex, enabling Brett’s threadjack here.
I remember when you could tell the difference between a ‘liberal’ and an anti-semite.
Were ObWi not the polite and measured place that it is, the appropriate response here would be “FU”.
Since ObWi is what it is, I will instead mention that throwing claims of anti-semitism around every time somebody criticizes the political state of Israel is cheap, weak BS.
There is, in fact, very real anti-semitism in the world. You hang out in militia circles, you should be quite familiar with it.
Pointing out egregiously bad behavior on the part of the political leadership of the nation of Israel is not anti-semitism. Anti-semitism is when you hate Jews. The two things are not the same.
And every person in the United States of America has a material stake in how the political leadership of Israel does, and does not, behave, because their actions affect our interests as well as their own. We have every reason to offer our opinions on the matter.
It’s time to lay the f**k off the “anti-semitism” thing. And I especially direct that to folks who are quite happy to make invidious comments about other ethnic and racial groups.
Leave it alone, dude.
Hope all of that is clear.
Not sure why those that are trying to get Israel to change that course are considered the anti-Semites, but there you have it.
For the same reason Americans who opposed the invasion of Iraq were called traitors.
When you don’t have a decent argument but you desperately want to start killing people anyhow, you put your fingers in your ears, close your eyes, and start calling everyone who doesn’t agree with you nasty names, in a very loud voice.
I remember when you could tell the difference between a ‘liberal’ and an anti-semite. ~Brett
Let’s see, I’m a conservative. And I remember the days of the 1967 when my (Jewish) college roommate and I were watching and feeling, in the words of a columnist back then, “Go Israel go!” But I think on this one Israel screwed up big time.
Does that make me suddenly a liberal? (And won’t the liberals I know be startled to hear that!) Or does it somehow make me an instant anti-Semite? Kinda confused here, Brett.
I remember when you could tell the difference between a ‘liberal’ and an anti-semite.
welcome to the pie filter, jackass.
“You’re a front-pager, start a “Chinese genocide in Tibet” thread”
That’s a good idea, Sebastian. Or pick any human rights topic you want–I’m pretty sure you’d get a fair amount of agreement and maybe some disagreement about details and almost certainly about what policy to follow, but not too many ObiWi people are going to come out and defend (frex) China’s treatment of Tibet.
Jeez Brett, what about all the liberal Jewish critics of certain of Israel’s behavior in America? Anti-Semites I suppose. Right?
Actually, Eric, the usual derogatory term for those critics of Israeli policy is “self-hating Jew”. If the facile equation of “liberal” and “anti-semite” isn’t dismissive enough.
“Or pick any human rights topic you want–I’m pretty sure you’d get a fair amount of agreement and maybe some disagreement about details and almost certainly about what policy to follow, but not too many ObiWi people are going to come out and defend (frex) China’s treatment of Tibet.”
Actually lets experiment. Even though I’m pointing it out openly here, I strongly suggest such a thread won’t get nearly the commentary attention that the four recent Israel posts have. Hmm.
“Do all of us need a disclaimer at the front of our posts/comments listing the assholes that are worse than the ones we’re about to complain about such that we’re not “clowns?””
Yup, pretty much. If you complain about the mote in one person’s eye, while ignoring the beam in twenty others’, what’s to be concluded except that you have it in for the first person?
” Even though I’m pointing it out openly here, I strongly suggest such a thread won’t get nearly the commentary attention that the four recent Israel posts have. ”
If so, it might have something to do with the fact that it’s noncontroversial to say that China is guilty of massive human rights violations. OTOH, with Israel you have the overwhelming majority of our politicians lining up behind Israel either defending what they do or criticizing it in the most limited of ways. always being careful to blame Palestinians as much or more. Obama, for instance, criticized Israeli settlements and Palestinian terror in his Cairo speech–he wouldn’t ever condemn Israeli war crimes. Quite the contrary–in the case of the 2006 Lebanon War he took the standard US politician stance that civilian casualties there were because Hezbollah used them as human shields. No nuance, no claim that maybe that happened sometimes (which is debatable), but other times it was Israel’s fault–no, Israel was completely innocent. This total absolution given to Israeli violence is the norm. The rule of thumb in US political circles is that you criticize the settlements if you criticize anything at all, but never accuse Israel of crimes with the same emotional intensity that one would use when discussing Hamas’s actions.
What drives the focus on Israel among most leftwing types in the blogosphere is the support our government gives combined with the hypocrisy of it all. It’s the same story with other human rights violators–American lefties tend to focus on the violators our own government supports (or the violations we ourselves commit). You can disagree with this emphasis, but there’s no mystery about it.
Brett has come out and said it’s anti-semitism. Is that what you are implying?
“Actually lets experiment.”
By all means. After all both instances you cite undoubtedly have a large, vociferous, politically active, and powerful domestic US constituency that is determined to defend anything the perpetrator has done, and include hugely important geopolitical implications having to do with our current fascination with the Middle East where, if I am not mistaken, we continue to be embroiled in two wars….but whatever.
I’m sure a post about the current status of my golf game (another example of evil inhumanity) would also really run up some numbers (just like my scores) 🙂
Even though I’m pointing it out openly here, I strongly suggest such a thread won’t get nearly the commentary attention that the four recent Israel posts have. Hmm.
I agree with that prediction. But I think the reasons are also far more complex than just “everyone’s picking on Israel.”
Israel was created by / with the collaboration of Western/European powers, partly (largely?) in response to the Holocaust, which was perpetrated by a European power. It is heavily supported by our tax dollars.
Speaking as someone who has just spent 5 weeks in China, and whose son has been there for two going on three years (and who in effect majored in China in college) — Europe is right next door compared to China. When my son decided to take a job in China, one of my lighthearted attempts to cope with my sadness at missing him was a joke about how I wished he would have gone to Europe instead; it’s on our doorstep, comparatively speaking. Also culturally speaking, linguistically speaking, ethnically speaking, etc.
Europe is where a large percentage of Americans have their ancestral roots. Many of us still remember the European immigrant generation in our families; hell, in many families the European immigrant generation is still alive. The beginnings of the US as a nation were as colonies of a European nation, not an Asian nation. The inhabitants of Israel for the most part come from centuries or millennia in European countries.
Our dominant language, and our most dominant second language (nationally speaking; I mean Spanish) — both are European.
There are many more Jewish Americans than Tibetan Americans.
As little as the average American knows of world history, I would bet that the average American knows a lot more about European history than about Asian history, separate from the Middle East. And a lot of what Americans know or think they know about the Middle East is related to Israel’s positioning there.
This is not even to mention that the religious roots of the majority of Americans are connected to Israel and the Middle East. Speaking in terms of the land itself, Israel is “the Holy Land” to many if not most Americans. China and Tibet are too far away and too foreign to play anything but a bit role in the imaginative lives of most Americans.
For the record, while I was personally made very welcome in China, there is a lot of chippiness in China about their relations with the West, now and historically. No Chinese person I talked to (or that my son has ever talked to), even the ones that aren’t entirely thrilled with their system of government (to put it tactfully), has the slightest doubt that Tibet and Taiwan are and have always been part of China. (I’m not saying I agree with them.) They’re convinced that the US played almost no role in defeating Japan in WWII. Etc. Etc. But they also are mindful of a history in which — just for example — Britain went to war with China in order to force China to allow the British to keep selling opium in China. They don’t really think we have a leg to stand on in criticizing them.
This is scattered and I don’t have time to make it less so. But I think Sebastian’s prediction is right, I highly doubt I would agree with his reasoning about why.
(P.S. I know that not everyone who comments here is American, or European-American. But though it’s always uncertain what’s behind the handle, my impression is that there are very few Asians or Asian-Americans. gwangung, are you out there somewhere? And in this massive lumping, I’m not counting Middle Easterners (e.g. Egyptian-Americans, hi Turb) as Asians. My point is that the US, Europe, and the Middle East are far more enmeshed with each other than any of them is enmeshed with China. Hence the allotting of our attention more in one direction than in the other.)
Yup, pretty much. If you complain about the mote in one person’s eye, while ignoring the beam in twenty others’, what’s to be concluded except that you have it in for the first person?
I’ll keep that in mind next time you criticize Obama without mentioning Kim Jong Il.
Who gets to be Israel — Tibet or China?
Or maybe the Palestinians are Tibet? Or, are they Beijing?
Taiwan’s going to feel left out.
I’m a self-hating Republican, by which I mean I’ve never changed my registration and I hate myself for it.
It could be that many of the commentariat here object so strenuously to Israel’s behavior in the flotilla incident because (I would say “we”, but I hate everyone, ha ha) they expect so much more from the Israelis.
And maybe some feel a little ownership over the weapons the Israelis used, since we probably paid for a least a portion of them, whereas Beijing at least has the good taste to be assholes on their own ticket.
Or, are we selling weaponry to the Chinese now too?
I can’t keep up.
I’ll keep that in mind next time you criticize Obama without mentioning Kim Jong Il.
I’m more looking forward to Brett’s explanation of how the Michigan Militia and the Hutaree movement are full of people who just love the resiliency of Jewish culture.
How bout we offer a slogan to the Israeli government:
“Israel, not quite as bad as China or Sudan”!
Anyway.
Basically, what I said upthread, that Brett has not responded to.
Also what Russell, DJ and bobbyp said.
It’s simple.
1. Israel gets more in US aid than any other nation. I hereby vow to pay less attention to their gross human rights abuses when our aid stops.
Deal?
2. China’s abuses and, say, Sudan’s are obvious and almost universally decried. Especially here in the US, you won’t see any politicians defending them. Not only do we not offer those regimes rhetorical support, we don’t given them any aid. Israel, on the other hand, gets billions. Each year. Billions.
3. The story in the US is so one-sided in favor of Israel, that it creates a hornet’s nest of controversey to try to discuss basic facts and what would otherwise be obvious conclusions about wrongful actions.
But to blame that on people that criticize some actions of some ruling regimes in Israel, and further to blame that on anti-Semitism, is as insulting as it is absurd. Again, especially considering how many Jews and how many Israelis themselves! are critics of those same policies and ruling factions.
By Brett’s ingenius calculus, not only are large swathes of American Jewry anti-Semitic, but so is – depending on the topic – a large chunk of Israel’s population itself.
Brilliant!
I strongly suggest such a thread won’t get nearly the commentary attention that the four recent Israel posts have. Hmm.
If so, it might have something to do with the fact that it’s noncontroversial to say that China is guilty of massive human rights violations.
To that I will add:
China’s violations of human rights don’t complicate our relations with a billion and a half people with whom our relationship is already pretty freaking fraught.
China’s violations of human rights don’t inspire young Tibetans to murder Americans or other Westerners wherever they can be found.
We don’t fund the material infrastructure of China’s army and police to the tune of billions a year.
But by all means, in a thread on the topic of bad behavior on the part of Israel, let’s not discuss whether their (Israel’s) policies and actions are good, moral, constructive, legal, or helpful in any way to either their interests or ours.
Let’s talk about China, and whether all liberals are anti-semites.
To set the record straight:
China’s human rights policies have bugger-all to do with the topic at hand.
Liberals are not invariably, usually, or even commonly anti-semites.
If you actually do want to find anti-semites, they are bloody easy to find. Go out in the woods on the weekend and look for the guys running around with guns, wearing camo over their lily-white skin, and trading stories about the one-world gummint.
That’s where you will find your anti-semites.
Yup, pretty much. If you complain about the mote in one person’s eye, while ignoring the beam in twenty others’, what’s to be concluded except that you have it in for the first person?
See, that’s not actually the correct biblical reference. You have it completely wrong, and your rather basic mistake reveals the purpose.
The point is NOT that you should never criticize behavior unless you criticize every other bad behavior ever in the history of the world for all time.
The point is that you shouldn’t criticize someone else’s behavior when you yourself are exhibiting that exact same behavior.
Meaning, Brett, that you totally missed the point.
If you actually do want to find anti-semites, they are bloody easy to find. Go out in the woods on the weekend and look for the guys running around with guns, wearing camo over their lily-white skin, and trading stories about the one-world gummint.
Bingo!
Also, see, the KKK and other White Pride/Power groups. Ain’t hard to find. But being critical of certain policies of right wing Israeli governments is not prima facie, or even tangential, evidence of anti-Semitism.
You’ll note that most Jews – the overwhelming majority in fact – vote for liberal politicians again and again. Odd that.
Okay, Brett. You’re argument is ridiculous, for all the reasons already listed. And you’re just embarrassing yourself by continuing in this line when you have other at least arguable points.
And I’ll add another point to the ones already made. It isn’t merely that Israel gets money from the U.S. It’s that the U.S. is held accountable for actions Israel (by which I mean this particular government) takes, which hurts our credibility and makes us a target. Add to that the fact that the U.S. government cannot bring itself in any way to criticize Israel for its actions, and you have a situation where we are made complicit in actions many of us see as wrong.
Insofar as the U.S. does not condemn China for its treatment of Tibetans, you see a considerable amount of consternation and anger from “liberals.” And if we had a situation where we had video of Chinese troops killing activists in the process of protesting that treatment, we’d have a nice point of comparison.
But you don’t have comparisons like that, which really exposes the weakness of your attempts to deflect valid and necessary criticism of Israel’s actions here. You don’t see rash of debate about genocide in Africa, certainly not to the extent that this flotilla has gotten it. You want to blame that on anti-semitism? Your point is that we don’t generally care about human suffering, but we all really hate Jews?
Wow. Just, wow.
Those of us who have bent over backwards to accommodate Israel’s positions over the years do so because we understand how problematic their situation is. But you haven’t engaged the substance of this particular incident. Or the fact that Israel’s own evidence, even assuming what they’ve shown us is correct, doesn’t prove what they say it proves and doesn’t justify their actions.
I mean, really. The fact that the activists were wearing bullet proof vests proves that they were violent? Or proves that they were up to no good? When you consider how much Israel has controlled the information in this situation so completely (holding the passengers, confiscating their recordings, reediting their recordings), and what they’ve come up with is still such weak tea.
And we haven’t even gotten to the three-year old blockade and its effects on the people of Gaza. I’m not horrified because I think that this is the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. I’m horrified that the excessiveness of these actions by our ally are so transparently unjustifiable and that pointing out such a simple fact is enough to have random people call you an anti-semite.
“You’re” argument may be ridiculous, but your spelling is fine.
Hamas has renounced that plank, and officially recognizes Israel’s right to exist.
No, they haven’t.
It’s not worth hunting down the exact quote, but Brett has quite recently said something to the effect that he agrees with a lot of people here more often than we think, and that he mostly only writes when what he says will be controversial.
Controversial would be one thing, however; inanely provocative, nasty, superior, and insulting thread-jacking is quite another.
I’m with cleek. Time and attention are precious commodities, and Brett isn’t getting any more of mine. And when threads get deflected to where Brett wants them to go, and many many comments end up engaging Brett to no useful end, Obsidian Wings itself is that much less worth reading.
Charles Bird’s link is definitely worth reading, as it shows some evidence of Hamas moderation. They haven’t officially renounced that plank, but Meshal is obviously willing to abandon it in practice.
That’s the kind of incipient moderation that should be encouraged, not dismissed.
Back to the beginning…..somebody gets shot FOUR TIMES IN THE BACK OF THE HEAD AT CLOSE RANGE and this is written off with specious ballistic ruminations or justified on the grounds that the victim was wearing protective clothing.
It strikes me as a cold blooded execution of the “this could happen to you” variety.
What DJ said:
They offered peace for land. Exactly what Brett said they wouldn’t.
Even if not repealed, it seems at least a discussion point, or moot considering the land for peace offer.
“Brett has come out and said it’s anti-semitism. Is that what you are implying?”
Anti-semitism is absolutely a factor in the equation to varying degrees. I think it is certainly why the issue gets played up so much by Arab governments while they mistreat Palestinians at home.
I actually tend to think it is more of a bullying factor combined with self righteousness. People see human rights issues and want to make a response. Seriously proposing that Israel be treated like South Africa (mandatory disinvestment or the like) makes them feel like they are doing something. If they tried that with China they would risk actual war with an actually strong power, and they would risk economic meltdown. Israel for two major reasons: A) they aren’t ruthless enough to decisively end the conflicts, relegating the worst of the violations firmly in the past; B) they aren’t a big player, so picking on them doesn’t have much of geo-political cost. (Arguably it is difficult to imagine that picking on them has ANY geo-political cost).
Does this operate on an individual level? I’m not sure. But it definitely operates on a systemic level. Amnesty International, as an organization, is perfectly well aware that their reports on Tibet are going to be completely ignored by the world. No major power is going to risk one ounce of energy seriously confronting China on Tibet. But European powers practically fall all over themselves to criticize Israel, and are perfectly willing to take actual steps against it because doing so isn’t remotely dangerous for Europe. So systemically, Israel gets criticized because it is weak. That isn’t an anti-semitic impulse. That is a bullying impulse.
Now why it gets more criticism than say Syria, or Saudi Arabia is more arguably anti-semitism.
I should have said “Israel gets more criticized because it is weak”
I’m well aware that AI issues its reports on Tibet, just as I’m well aware that it spends more of the political capital/press capital that it has on Israel.
“Even if not repealed, it seems at least a discussion point, or moot considering the land for peace offer.”
Thats a rather significant change of opinion. Earlier in the thread it sounded like you thought the repeal was a really important point used to refute Brett’s comments on the two state solution.
So lets revisit that. How tenable is the two-state solution so long as Hamas continues to say that Israel has no right to exist and continues shelling, bombing, and firing rockets into Israel? Are Israelis crazy to at a minimum ask for change in the party plank recognizing their right to exist? I mean that doesn’t seem like a really big minimum to me.
Hell you could change the party plank and still secretly harbor a desire to destroy Israel. Governments do things like that all the time, see for example China’s stated policy with Tibet. Isn’t the fact that Hamas won’t even do that a pretty serious sign that maybe they believe it? Which then causes some rather thorny problems for
a two state solution.
Further, doesn’t Israel get the same benefit of the doubt? In the past, they’ve gone further than merely ‘mooting’ a freeze on settlements, or offering as ‘discussion points’ an end to the blockade in exchange for ACTUAL peace. So they are in pretty much the same position as the Gazan government right? Both sides have vaguely offered the hint of change, and neither side has taken particularly useful practical steps–even easy purely rhetorical ones.
Okay, enough of this crap. It’s time somebody came to China’s defense…..
http://www.index-china.com/index-english/Tibet-s.html
….even at the risk of inciting an “economic meltdown”(?)
Israel, not as bad as Syria and Saudi Arabia. The point is that Israel set itself up, and continues to present itself as a beacon of democracy in a still-benighted region. Then, when it carries out actions that contradict this image it–and its enablers–start throwing charges of antisemitism around. Israel’s enablers also take quite a different line when it comes to the other democracy in the region…Turkey.
Note that I do not use the term “supporter” in this case. Israel’s supporters, among whom I count myself, want to see Israel survive and ultimately prosper in a degree of harmony with its neighbors, and a resolution of the Palestinian issue in a way that allows peaceful commerce between Israel and the Palestinians. When Israel does something that is manifestly counterproductive in support of a policy that is unsustainable, supporters should be able to criticise Israel; and Israel should take it very seriously and act on it. Criticism from opponents and enemies can be ignored, criticism from supporters must not be, or they may risk that support.
Those who claim to support Israel no matter what–for tribal or theological reasons–it does are not supporters, they are enablers.
There’s no need to bring China into it if you want to talk about bullying. What is the chance that a high-ranking American will be tried for war crimes? What is the chance that any high-ranking Western official will be tried for war crimes? Somewhere around zero. Israel is a member of the club–you’ll have activists trying to get Israeli officials arrested when they visit other countries, but it’s not going to work because there’s this useful fiction around that Western democracies police their own war crimes. The precedent set by having a Western official answer for war crimes is not one American officials would like to see. That’s also part of the reason Obama isn’t investigating Bush’s war crimes.
And you’ve said nothing about the ridiculous pro-Israel bias among US politicians. Given that the US is the only hyperpower in the world and is the dominant outsider in the “peace process”, that bias ought to be some cause for concern.
As for Amnesty International and other groups, it’s their job to do the best they can reporting on human rights violations around the world and what you find is that they are quoted favorably when they attack America’s enemies and ignored or attacked in the American press when they criticize America or its friends. Bush I cited AI when making the case against Saddam Hussein back in 1990. I don’t think he cited them too often when discussing El Salvador or Guatemala in the 1980’s. More recently you had one of the founders of Helsinki Watch (Richard Bernstein) accusing HRW of anti-Israeli bias. Nevermind that the vast majority of their Mideast reports are about countries other than Israel or that their reports on, say, the 2006 Lebanon War were carefully balance, with some focusing on Israeli crimes and others focusing on Hezbollah crimes. They get criticized by some lefties for this, though not by me and others who think that’s exactly what they should be doing. And as for the spending of political capital,all that means is just what I said–human rights groups don’t have to be worried that they are going to get much criticism in the West when they write reports about China. China will dismiss them as biased, as every human rights violator will do when this happens. AI knows damn well they’re going to be dismissed as biased by many Westerners when they criticize a Western country. Since their base is in the West, I suppose you could say they spend more political capital when they take on the US or Israel than when they take on China.
There is obviously anti-semitism among the Arabs and some Westerners–nobody denies that. There is equally obviously anti-Arab racism among Israelis and many of their Western defenders.
Se bastian: How tenable is the two-state solution
The two-state “solution” is not tenable at all. About half of the people who live in Israel – mostly the non-citizens to whom “two states” are being offered as a “solution” – do not want to live in bantustans, which will not be permitted by Israel to have sovereignity over their own borders or to be allowed democratic freedom to elect its own government.
The only tenable long-term solution for peace is the one-state solution: Israel has to take down the walls and fences around Gaza and in the West Bank, and admit all the inhabitants to full Israeli citizenship.
Until then, that Israel keeps killing the non-citizens and crying “provocation” when the non-citizens fight back, will make the various bantustan “solutions” proposed untenable as well.
Anti-semitism is absolutely a factor in the equation to varying degrees. I think it is certainly why the issue gets played up so much by Arab governments while they mistreat Palestinians at home.
I don’t believe the claims of anti-semitism that we’ve seen on the various threads concerning the flotilla raid were made in reference to Arab governments.
Whenever people *in the United States* are critical of the policies or actions of the political state of Israel, the first smoke bomb that gets thrown is “anti-semitism”.
It’s a load of crap.
Anti-semites are people who *hate or discriminate against Jews*. To my knowledge, those people aren’t participating here, and are not particularly numerous among the American critics of Israel’s actions regarding the Palestinians.
Being critical of the actions of the state of Israel is not synonymous with, and in the United States has no meaningful correlation with, anti-semitism.
Next freaking topic, please.
So lets revisit that.
OK
How tenable is the two-state solution so long as Hamas continues to say that Israel has no right to exist….
I cannot imagine a two state solution whereby Israel did not get this concession as part of the outcome.
Are Israelis crazy to at a minimum ask for change in the party plank recognizing their right to exist?
Yes. I find the insistence of the right of an apartheid regime to exist rather abhorrent. You apparently feel otherwise.
It’s time somebody came to China’s defense…..
http://www.index-china.com/index-english/Tibet-s.html
China coming to China’s defense on this issue is a lot like Israel coming to Israel’s defense about the flotilla.
Chinese people will sit by the hour extolling the glorious 5000-year Chinese history of practically everything, including e.g. bai jiu, the favorite drinking game liquor, which has been made in China, from corn, for 5,000 years………
Chinese people will also tell you with a straight face, as I mentioned earlier today, that the US had very little to do with the defeat of Japan in WWII.
Their credibility, especially about their own history, is not stellar. Not that the average American’s credibility about our history is a whole lot better, in my view.
Or was your tongue in your cheek?
They offered peace for land. Exactly what Brett said they wouldn’t.
Not quite, Eric. Hamas also demanded the right of return. Because such a condition is a dealbreaker–and I’m sure Hamas knows this–their position has not changed. But the point is that you said “Hamas has renounced that plank, and officially recognizes Israel’s right to exist.” The statement is false. They haven’t done so. They said they would do so but only under unrealistic and untenable conditions.
@Seb:
How tenable is the two-state solution so long as Hamas continues to say that Israel has no right to exist and continues shelling, bombing, and firing rockets into Israel?
How tenable is the two-state solution so long as Israel continues to say that Palestine has no right to exist as a sovereign nation and continues shelling, bombing, and firing missiles into the the Occupied Territories?
@Brett:
According to the IDF, the people actually doing the fighting onboard the ships were wearing those bullet proof vests mentioned earlier. That would certainly explain a large excess of shots relative to kills, and most of the kills being due to head shots.
This was pretty well dealt with upthread, but I find it rather amusing that you quote the text you quote, given that this IDF press release originally identified these “mercenaries” as having been identified as AQ operatives before silently retracting that claim. Not exactly what I’d call a credible source to cite. Just sayin’.
“Or was your tongue in your cheek?”
Planted firmly therein. But it’s nice to find out the Chinese are much like everybody else in this regard…so much for ‘exotic orientals’.
But seriously, do you support Tibetan independence, and deny Chinese claims to sovereignty?
Seb’s forthcoming thread should be a real kick-ass affair.
bobbyp, in general I’m not in favor imperialism or expansionism. In general I don’t trust the Chinese about their own history or a lot of other things. In general I have no wish to see anyone live under the system of government they have in China.
But that’s more a set of emotional reactions than a historically informed assessment of anyone’s claims to anything, including China’s claim to Tibet.
However. Another “fact” I heard in China — which might give a clue to how likely I am to support or deny China’s claims — was that Moscow was once a Chinese village.
This assertion is apparently linked to the fact that the Mongols conquered China, and then they conquered a lot of what is now Russia….
I certainly don’t want the Chinese running my life, so I have a lot of sympathy with any Tibetans who don’t want the Chinese running theirs. Of course, that could be extended further…but I’m not going there.
Another “fact” I heard in China — which might give a clue to how likely I am to support or deny China’s claims — was that Moscow was once a Chinese village.
You know, a few years ago a Celtic plaid garment was found in China.
I think it’s time we admitted that the whole world really belongs to the Scots.
Anti-semitism is absolutely a factor in the equation to varying degrees. I think it is certainly why the issue gets played up so much by Arab governments while they mistreat Palestinians at home.
This kind of logical fallacy is beneath you, Sebastian. As others noted, those who expressed negative attitudes toward actions by the Israeli government were labeled anti-semitic. Whatever other motives someone else might have for using an argument neither makes the argument anti-semitic nor addresses the motives of individuals who make it.
In other words, regarding the question of whether the Israeli government’s actions were justified or not, what motives these Arab states have is entirely irrelevant, both to the overall question and to the motives of those of us who find their actions unjustified.
Paul, I was responding to a particular question which you seem to be expanding well beyond my answer. Further, I explained what I thought was the functional answer, and it didn’t have to do with anti-semitism.
Is it that you agreed with the rest, so you focused only on the point you disagreed with?
As for my thoughts on general Israeli justification re the blockade:
They are absolutely 100% justified in having a blockade and searching every single ship for weapons. That justification continues *at least* until Hamas really sues for peace–i.e publicly accepts Israel’s right to exist and ceases the bombings. Hamas is at war with Israel, and Israel absolutely has the right to blockade weapons. Denying this, is difficult to justify and would make me suspect anti-semitism.
They are not justified in having a blockading shipments of food, medicine, etc. to the civilian population. Denying this is difficult to justify and would make me suspect Israelophilic tendencies.
The justification for blockading dual use items, like manufacturing equipment is somewhere in the middle I’d have to think more on it. Probably reasonable minds could reasonably disagree.
Israel should have exercised their right to blockade weapons in a better fashion than they did with the recent ship in question. That was both unnecessary and wrong.
Israel is a sacred cow! Don’t criticize! Besides, the US wants the unfettered right to open fire and avoid questions later. Criticizing Israel on this is like being unpatriotic! Treason!
Brett: “Hell, China probably kills more people on any given day than Israel does in a year…”
How long have you hated all Chinese people?
minnesota phats — how dare you accuse Brett of antisinitism!
All Chinese may believe that Tibet is, and should be, part of China. But it is worth remembering that the basis for this is simply that it once was conquered and a part of a Chinese Empire. Not that is was ever populated by Chinese, just that it was conquered territory for a while.
And on that basis, Japan has as good or better a claim to Manchuria, not to mention other parts of China. (Of course, Japan is not making any such a ridiculous claim.)
But it is worth remembering …
Has anyone here expressed any support for what “all Chinese” believe?
Russell: I think it’s time we admitted that the whole world really belongs to the Scots.
The constitution of the One World Government:
1. January 25 will become an international holiday
2. The captive breeding of farmed haggis for slaughter will become illegal, and all haggis reivers will be vrocht.
3. Awbodie complains o want o siller but nane o want o sense.
Jes, I was hoping you’d take that one and run with it!
There is a distinction between Hamas, who are clearly anti-semites that want to wipe Israel off the map, incinerate Jews, and wipe the sons of pigs and monkeys off the face of the earth, and the people who merely support Hamas. So the progressives support Hamas, is that so surprising? The eradication of the Zionist Entity is the ultimate end of billions of community organizers, from the UN world stage to the suicide bomber. Israel does not have that many sympathizers. After all, most every NGO, the UN Human Rights Council, Europeans, Chinese, every Muslim country, plus Venezeuela, Cuba, etc. hates the Jews. How can they not be right? It is consensus like Global Warming. I expect that the Michigan militias do not really even think so much about Israel and Jews. (More about Waco and Ruby Ridge.) Progressives, however, as you can easily see from this blog, they do really hate Israel Not all Jews! Jews are bad if they want their own country, but tolerable otherwise except for Joe Lieberman. I suppose that this isn’t anti-semitism, but why all the full-throated support for Hamas and the other anti-semites?
DaveC,
How have you survived this long with reading comprehension skills this poor?
So bad I thought this was satire. (Or, wait…)
We’ll never know what happened. Israel will conclude they aren’t even capable of a plausible whitewash and do no significant public investigation. Obviously the fix is already in between Israel and the U.S. on any independent (to say nothing of UN) investigation. It’s over.
Regarding Hamas “recognizing Israel’s right to exist”: there is nothing they can possibly do that will be correct here.
If Hamas says “We recognize Israel’s right to exist” then they’ve just conceded literally everything to Israel in negotiations. After all, Israel does not have well accepted borders. When you say Israel, does that mean “everything between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River”? Or does it mean the green line/1967 border? Or what? So if Hamas says it simply accepts Israel’s right to exist, come negotiation time, it will be hammered for insisting that it get some piece of land for Palestinians since it already (in they eyes of Israel and the US and the press) acknowledged that everything under the sun belongs to Israel. At which point everyone will be able to mock Hamas’ perfidy and their unwillingness to seriously and honestly negotiate will become another well worn talking point that everyone just accepts.
If Hamas says “we recognize Israel’s right to exist subject to the following conditions”, they’ll be castigated for not being serious about peace since they’re trying to foreclose options at the negotiating table. Or maybe Charles Bird will mock them by accusing them of being unwilling to negotiate seriously since they establish “impossible” preconditions.
No matter what Hamas does, it loses the media narrative and gets hammered as being unwilling to negotiate. The truth is that there are some definitions of what “Israel” means that Hamas can accept and some that it cannot. But the specifics need to be hashed out at the negotiating table with Israel. A simple assertion WILL be used against them in the media narrative.
How have you survived this long with reading comprehension skills this poor?
Paulk, just so you know: DaveC is a troll who was banned a year or two ago. He admitted to deliberately writing insulting and inflammatory comments here on OW because he didn’t have the guts to confront people at his wife’s church who hurt his feelings with their liberalism. He’s basically an incredible coward who isn’t smart enough to know that if only he had kept quiet about his motivations he probably could have continued trolling here forever.
After first reading through this thread this morning, I’m still chuckling heartily at the irony of a libertarian — a libertarian! for pete’s sake! — trying to categorize criticism of a government as ethnic bigotry. A man for whom government is, literally, equivalent to the Mafia, is trying to shame others criticizing a government by casting them as antisemites!!
One is tempted to point out that, since Palestinians are anthropologically Semitic, his portrayal of them as “rabid dogs” is TEH REAL ANTISEMITISM DUR HURR HURR. But that would be taking Brett seriously, which is not to be done except by professionals and under extremely controlled circumstances.
But I’ll make Brett a deal: He can come stand with me in front of my late grandmother’s grave at Mt. Sinai Cemetery in Mayfield, OH — where most of the gravestones are in a combination of English, Russian and Hebrew — and call me an anti-Semite. In return, I will break his face for him.
So the progressives support Hamas, is that so surprising?
Take it outside, Dave.
This is like some kind of weird dysfunctional family thing.
“If you don’t support me 100% in every thing I do, then you are against me and you’re my enemy forever!!!”.
It’s a load of toxic crap.
The Israelis did not need to board the flotilla ships at night special-ops-ninja style to keep weapons out of Gaza.
As a result of their doing so, several IDF guys had the crap beaten out of them, and a generous handful of the folks trying to break the blockade were killed.
Unnecessary. All of it was unnecessary.
Israel quite often takes a position that if you cross them, they will not only prevent you from doing whatever it is you want to do, they will louse you up in the deal, and that but good. And if they break the law in doing so, that’s your problem. Go ahead and try to make them stop.
Examples of this abound. Abuse of UK passports to travel around the world assassinating people they don’t like. Bombing buildings where Hamas leaders happen to be, regardless of who else is in the building. Supporting settlements by Israelis in areas that properly belong the the Palestinians.
They reserve the right to f**k up anybody they don’t like, and if you object, you can pound sand.
I appreciate the unique history of Israel as a nation, I appreciate the humanistic and democratic ideals that are the philosophical basis of their government, and I appreciate that they are a very small country in a very hostile environment.
None of that gives them license to shoot unarmed aid workers, regardless of context. It doesn’t give them license to drive over Rachel Corrie with a bulldozer, it doesn’t give them license to deny food, basic building materials, and access to medical care to the Gazans, it doesn’t give them license to engage in any of the very many brutal practices they rain down upon the heads of the Palestinians that they share their geography with.
They did not need to kill these people to prevent the blockade from being broken. They were wrong.
It’s got nothing to do with pro-semitism, anti-semitism, whatever. I has nothing to do with whether they’re Jewish or not.
A nation that we provide enormous support to, and whose actions, by virtue of their geography and history, have enormous implications for the interests of this nation, is acting like a gang of mobsters.
We are entitled to an opinion about that, and it’s got nothing to do with god-damned freaking anti-semitism.
And if you want to scare up some real, honest-to-goodness by-god anti-Semites in this country, place one to look is in the ranks of the paranoid, black-helicopter fantasists that surround the militia movement.
If you need examples, let me know, I will be only too happy to provide.
Next topic, please.
I haven’t commented for a while; the loss of hilzoy and the loss of my job, plus the seeming inability of so many people to listen to each other, made me sign off for a while. but i feel the need to chip in.
1. To be blunt, international law recognizes the law of conquest. Israel, by force of arms, has the right to exist within some boundary.
2. Given the paucity of democracies worldwide, international law is unsurprisingly thin on the rights of people as against their states. Different classes of citizenship, weak or meaningless voting rights, a biased judiciary, dispossession of historic property rights are all too common around the world (not to mention the relatively recent history of those states, like the US, which claim to live up to a higher standard).
So you’d think that Israel would have a reasonable claim to be left alone, to treat its non-Jewish occupants pretty much the way it wishes, much like the rest of the world. (just how do Turkey and Iraq treat their Kurdish minorities, anyway?)
3. BUT! a. Israel has a special relationship with the US that goes far beyond military aid. American Jews have succeeded in this country since WWII in a way that is remarkable. And Israel arose out of the ashes of the Holocaust to create a powerful nation in a very tough neighborhood.
and b. Israel’s treatment of the non-Jewish people in the West Bank and Gaza (let’s call them Palestinians, for short) is simply shocking. Other nations have civil wars. Israel can’t seem to decide whether Palestinians are Israeli or not. (If a bunch of US militia types started setting up settlements in Canada, I’d expect the US govt to tell them to deal with local law enforcement, ie, Canadians. But the explicit approval of West Bank settlements seems to indicate that the Israeli govt considers the West Bank to be available for appropriation into Israel.)
But pinning over a million people into a tiny strip of land and denying them any ability to establish a working economy is no way to run any country, much less one that claims to hold Western-ish democratic and social values.
by the way, the unique characteristic of Israel is that it’s a theocracy, albeit a democratic one. Why exactly should the US be upholding the right of one religious group to suppress the rights of a different group?
by the way, the unique characteristic of Israel is that it’s a theocracy
Another “unique characteristic” of Israel is that it was, as a nation, created, by fiat, by other parties, and the land it was created on was taken from the folks it is currently treating like second-class humans.
Just to round the picture out a bit.
Israel is, it seems to me, within their rights to prevent weapons from getting into Gaza. They are likely within their rights to stop and inspect ships heading to Gaza from other places.
There are ways to do that that do not involve getting unarmed people killed.
We can discuss the history of Israel, the intricacies of international law, and the nefarious statements in Hamas’ charter all night long.
None of that will change the fact that Israel chose to enforce their blockade with a stupidly excessive and unnecessary level of force, resulting in the deaths of people who were unarmed, and who, absent the forcible boarding of the ships, would have posed no significant threat to anybody.
Slingshots and glass marbles, y’all. And some sticks.
It takes some tough defense force to counter that mighty, mighty threat.
“billions of community organizers”
I remember the days when that would be considered a Jewish conspiracy.
You know, by the Republican and confederate Democratic party filth in the 1930s who wanted to murder progressives, and then by the Republican cocksuckers in the Nixon Administration in the 1960s and early 1970s who wanted the same.
Fred Malek. Now a Virginia State Government consulting anti-Semite. A Sarah Palin consulting anti-American anti-Semite.
But, of course, now we have a former community organizer as President who’s a horse of a different color.
Cracker anti-American now confederate republicans always like imagining some good hate between the blacks and the Jews, the better to crack the Progressive coalition.
That Muslims are mostly swarthy and semitic is like a wet dream for the Birtcher subhumans who run the Republican Party now.
Also, Louis Farrahkan can kiss my ass.
Shorter Brett: If you don’t think the US should send Israel billions of dollars every year and simply STFU, than you’re an anti-semite.
The friend in this Andrew Sullivan post sums it up perfectly for me when he unapologetically admits Israel comes first and somehow feels that that should be OK from an American citizen:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/06/quote–2.html
If you are an American citizen who thinks that Israel comes first then how about you do us all a favor and f**k off? Feel free to think that way if you want, but do so in the nether reaches of extremist websites. This kind of thinking needs to be banished from “in-bounds” American political discourse ASAP. Enough already.
If you’re Jewish and under 35, you most likely don’t feel this way. Well find your balls, pick up the phone, call your parents, tell them to grow up and realize Israel need some tough love, and we need their help to get our politicians to give it to them.
What, pray tell, is it going to take to get people’s collective heads out of their a**es on this issue? Astounding. Just astounding.
Francis! Send me an email.
Oh, I see that it’s not enabled. Send me an email at handle dot gee-mail.
“Cracker anti-American now confederate republicans always like imagining some good hate between the blacks and the Jews, the better to crack the Progressive coalition.
That Muslims are mostly swarthy and semitic is like a wet dream for the Birtcher subhumans who run the Republican Party now.”
And this, somehow, is supposed to be less objectionable than what I said…
And this, somehow, is supposed to be less objectionable than what I said…
Because you meant it…
The story in the US is so one-sided in favor of Israel, that it creates a hornet’s nest of controversey to try to discuss basic facts and what would otherwise be obvious conclusions about wrongful actions.
I don’t see it this way, but it’s just my impression from what I read. Someone with Lexis needs to do a search. I don’t have it or I would.
Meanwhile, this. I tend to believe that many in the MSM share Thomas’ attitude but keep it to themselves.
And compare the coverage of Corrie with others five years ago. .
Another “unique characteristic” of Israel is that it was, as a nation, created, by fiat, by other parties, and the land it was created on was taken from the folks it is currently treating like second-class humans.
Just to round the picture out a bit
As to the first part, I guess you have to forget Jordan for Israel to be truly unique.
None of that will change the fact that Israel chose to enforce their blockade with a stupidly excessive and unnecessary level of force
Hmm. Not sure if it ultimately was unnecessary. IMHO, the only way to both enforce the blockade without the same loss of life would have been to use more force initially or at least show more force initially. The mistake from a blockade standpoint was the restraint.
Sounds rather like the United States, up until relatively recently.
Meanwhile, this. I tend to believe that many in the MSM share Thomas’ attitude but keep it to themselves.
bc, you need to start perusing media outside of the United States. The US media is remarkably pro-Israel such that US audiences are almost completely deprived of both sides, balanced coverage. Helen Thomas’ remarks are not at all prevalent – quite the opposite.
I mean, which of these media moguls, jounralists, pundits, periodicals (and their editors and journalists) are anti-Israel:
Rupert Murdoch, Conrad Black, the Washington Post, Fox News, The New York Times, New York Post, New York Daily News, Fred Hiatt, Charles Krauthammer, David Brooks, The New Republic, The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, David Ignatius, CNN, Jonah Goldberg, the National Review, the Weekly Standard, Bill Kristol, Rush Limbaugh, ABC/CBS/NBC, Mort Zuckerman, the LA Times, Thomas Friedman, Time Magazine, Newsweek, US News and World Report, etc.
Thats a rather significant change of opinion. Earlier in the thread it sounded like you thought the repeal was a really important point used to refute Brett’s comments on the two state solution.
Yes Seb, I heard the early report on Hamas, but not the later clarification. Still, Brett said they wouldn’t go land for peace, and they said they would. See, also and especially, Turb’s comments.
bc: And compare the coverage of Corrie with others five years ago.
And compare the coverage of Corrie with others: Nivin Jamjum, age 14, a Palestinian girl killed by Israeli settlers in Hebron, July 28 2002. Tareq Maher Ahmad a-Najar, age 13, a Palestinian boy killed in a carpentry shop in the Gaza Strip where a fire broke out as a result of IDF gunfire on March 1st 2003. ‘Abd a-Rahman Mustafa Muhammad Jadallah, age 9, killed by the IDF while he was attending a funeral, March 2 2003. ‘Aziza Dib al-Qeyser, age 55, killed in her home in Rafah when the IDF demolished her house with her inside it. on March 3 2003. ‘Abdallah al-Ashab, age 75, shot in the neck on March 4 2003, in Deir al-Balah.
On the day Rachel Corrie was killed, March 16 2003, a 17-year-old boy named Muhammad ‘Issa ‘Abd al-Hadi, who lived in Khan Yunis, went to help a person who had been wounded near his house, and some soldier at the army post at the Neve Dekalim settlement shot and killed him. Had you ever heard his name before, bc? Do you think that we ought to know the name of a boy who was killed trying to help the wounded?
The day after Rachel Corrie was killed, Ilham Ziad Hassan el-‘Asar, age 4, was shot by the IDF: he lived in a-Nuseirat Camp, Deir al-Balah district, in the Gaza Strip. Had you ever heard his name before? Do you think that the US media ought to give equal attention to Ilham as to Rachel?
Tom Gross mentions Rachel Thaler, who was killed by a suicide bomber on February 27, 2002. He does not mention Inas Ibrahim Saleh, age 7, who was struck by IDF shelling of Jabalya Refugee Camp, North Gaza district, on February 13 2002, and who died on March 2 2002. He does not mention Mahmoud Hassan Ahmad a-Talalkah, also age 7, who was killed on March 1 2002 next to Nissanit, North Gaza district, by gunfire. He does not mention Maryam ‘Awad al-Bahabsah, age 30, who was killed by IDF gunfire, from a tank, in her home in Khan Yunis, on February 18, 2002: nor does he mention Muna al-Bahabsah, Maryam’s 10-year-old daughter, also killed by the same IDF gunfire that killed her mother. Had you ever heard those names before, bc?
952 Palestinian minors have been killed by Israeli security forces in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip since the first intifada in 2000. Does Tom Gross ever complain that the media just doesn’t cover those 952 dead children in the same way it covers Rachel Corrie?
Rachel Corrie went to do what she did because, at that time, it was still believed that the additional publicity the death of a foreigner would receive would mean the IDF would be cautious about killing her or others with her. She was killed when she tried to stop a house demolition party by the IDF – the kind of party that killed ‘Aziza Dib al-Qeyser.
Her death was not unique. But protesting that the media give her more attention than they do other victims looks horribly one-sided, if you can’t even pretend to care about the many who were killed at the time she died.
As to the first part, I guess you have to forget Jordan for Israel to be truly unique.
Right you are, my mistake (as regards uniqueness).
My point there was that the Palestinians have been living there a long time, and have a reasonable claim to continue living there.
The mistake from a blockade standpoint was the restraint.
I guess they could just blow the ships out of the water.
I know SCUBA diving is dangerous and all, but didn’t think I might get shot and killed for it. (and yes it seems they were likely up to no good)
For sharing thank you very much good very beautiful work
Well, this ought to be interesting.
I look forward to the photographs of lethal musical instruments displayed on deck that we’ll be told were used to assault guys belaying down from helicopters.
You wouldn’t believe the damage a saxaphone can do.
Not to mention the charges and counter-charges:
“We were assaulted by a 75-piece orchestra –the string section attacked first and then the brass and woodwinds, who were concealed under tarps, came out of nowhere. Many of our soldiers have clarinet wounds.”
“Rubbish! The ship was carrying little more than two violins, a viola, and a bass violin. It was chamber music and nothing more! Geez, we hit you with a little Schubert in self-defense and you cry Mahler!
“Oh yeah, and what about the electric guitars and the drum kit that sunk the boarding vessel? Chamber music my as-, you came after us with a full-scale piano concerto!”
“Well, alright, we Germans, even Jewish Germans, like to pack a little heavy metal just in case. What of it?
I look forward also to the charges over at Redhate regarding these self-hating, anti-Semite Jews: “These people stayed behind. Do you know why? They liked Auschwitz! They’re the ones who flagged down the trains and boarded them, volunteered for showers, turned in their fillings, and formed a voluntary queue for gassing.”
“They take direct orders from that hag, Helen Thomas.”
The latter of whom, may also kiss my as@.
“He came at me with an accordion. No jury would convict me.”
However wrong Israel may or may not be with regard to Gaza or the blockade I can’t escape the sense that this incident was consciously provoked by the flotilla people on deck. Agreed that glass marbles fired from a slingshot are not likely to be deadly, but this doesn’t speak to what possible purpose could they have had other than to provoke violence? I’ve read reports that in fact the Israelis were already firing on the ship from the air and that the violence they were met with was in response to this. This makes no sense to me. If they had already been firing as they came down, why were they then so susceptible to attack? It’s one of those situations where I really don’t want to give the Israeli soldiers a complete pass, but it still irritates me that so many people seem to not be willing to look at this particular situation critically because of their feelings about the Israeli gov’t or past behavior of their soldiers. I’d love to hear an explanation for what the protesters’ plan was if not to provoke violence.
I can’t escape the sense that this incident was consciously provoked by the flotilla people on deck.
IDF soldiers boarded a ship flying a non-Israeli flag in international waters, without following the normal protocols for doing so.
That would make them the provocateurs, in this case.
National defense and police forces board ships all the time to make sure those ships are not engaged in illegal activity. There’s a protocol involved, which prevents their doing so from being considered an act of piracy or war.
Israel did not follow that protocol, and some people were killed as a result.
Israel f***ed up. I’m not sure what’s unclear about it.
” I can’t escape the sense that this incident was consciously provoked by the flotilla people on deck.”
I can’t escape the sense that you aren’t trying to escape the sense that it was consciously provoked. The NYT story isn’t clearly written, IMO, but it sounds like the Israelis were firing plastic bullets initially and even those can cause casualties. The people on deck might have thought it was live ammo, or they might just have been pissed off and fought back. (I would be pretty ticked). Then the Israelis switched to live ammo. There is probably some blame on both sides, though I think it’s more the fault of the Israelis–they either screwed up or were deliberately brutal.
We won’t have the full story unless Israel releases (without tampering) all the video evidence and even then we might not have the full story.
As for the blockade, it is immoral in the way it punishes the whole population and if it weren’t for the activists we wouldn’t have all this attention focused on that fact.
On the contrary, Curious. Eric and most of those commenting are being skeptical. People aren’t accepting the testimony of the activists at face value. But neither are they accepting the word of the Israeli’s at face value.
Your point of skepticism about whether the government’s troops would fire first is valid. But don’t be contented to stop there. There are, unfortunately, many, many loose ends to piece together here, and aside from the fact that by their own accounts, the IDF appears to have been at best stupid and at worst criminal, there’s also the fact that the Israeli government has done everything in its power to create a particular narrative and shut down any contrary one (including, but not limited to, releasing only edited portions of videos stolen from the activists).
As for whether the activists were “provoking” violence, we pretty much don’t know enough. I still find it utterly bizarre that supports of this raid look at the fact that people were wearing bullet proof vests as evidence of either malicious intent or justification for head shots. (They didn’t have the good manners, apparently, to comply meekly, surrender their person, or die from a chest wound.) Whether Israel had a legal right to board this ship in international waters is debatable, but to pretend that the boarded party is somehow to blame when armed troops drop out of helicopters onto their deck is odd to say the least.
The point of the whole exercise was to provoke. They believe the blockade is wrong. They wanted Israel to try to stop them or to let them go. What everyone is appalled by is the manner by which Israel tried to achieve the first and (now) moral outrage over the nature of the siege itself. (Many of us who have long supported Israel’s right to defend itself were shocked into consciousness of just how unjustifiably Israel has been acting.)
Some here on the boards apparently object to the fact that we don’t believe whatever Israel claims is true (which would be funny since I don’t even believe what my own government claims is true). For the record, I don’t uncritically accept the stories or stated intent of the activists. But neither do I assume that because they too are horrified by the blockade and were shot by the IDF that they somehow have less credibility.
So let me second the idea the people should be more critical. Would that Israel’s knee-jerk supporters here did as much.
I support Israel and Israelis and Jews and their right to live and defend themselves. And I’m going not going to remain silent when I see them acting foolishly. What good friend would?
One thing I will say for Helen Thomas–her statement was vile, but she apologized and then “retired” from her job. (I haven’t seen the text, so I’m assuming it’s an apologetic apology, not one of those non-apology apologies.) That’s more than one can say for all the people all through the years (including Huckabee and Dick Armey) who’ve said that the Palestinians should just live in one of the numerous Arab countries or who defend the Nakba or deny that there was an ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the first place.
So Helen made her vile statement, was forced to apologize, and then “retired”. It sets a nice precedent for how these things should be handled.
Helen Thomas:
Can you imagine your grandmother’s entire legacy based on what she said one afternoon at 89 years old?
I think I choose to ignore this utterance. I may not agree with her politics (though I don’t really know), but I don’t think this is something that should define her.
Paulk: I couldn’t agree with you more on almost all of your points. Intuitively I would tend to trust the accounts of those not representing power (the activists) moreso than the Israeli government or soldiers – this sentiment not unique to Israel by the way, I wouldn’t take any official statement from any state/corporation/military at face value. But it looks pretty clear to me that a small number of these activists reacted to Israeli boarding with force and it looks like they were prepared with slingshots. I can find no explanation for these two facts other than that they were trying to provoke violence from the Israelis. It was no surprise they were boarded – maybe they were taken off-guard by being violently attacked, even shot at by the Israelis, but if I imagine myself in that situation there is no way I would react in any way other than putting my hands in the air and hoping not to be the next one shot. Or possibly hiding. What would I possibly hope to achieve with any other reaction? What am I to think these activists were trying to achieve? What were the slingshots for in the first place? I guess I would support international participation in an inquiry (can’t hoit), though I doubt Israel is unique in refusing this. Another thing – as soon as anyone is designated an “Al Qaeda operative” my BS detector immediately buzzes. But these guys do look like provocateurs to me. Why the slingshots?
russell and Donald Johnson: Well, I certainly agree that either these soldiers screwed up or someone higher up because they (Israel) definitely lost more than they gained by the way this thing played out. And I am willing to entertain the idea that this was essentially piracy as has been alleged, but I’m just having trouble understanding how the activists were prepared to retaliate with slingshots. No way would slingshots actually repel the boarders, in fact, they could have been armed with rocket launchers etc. and they wouldn’t have won that fight. So the mystery as to what the slingshots were for remains and I can’t come up with a better explanation than that they were in fact provocateurs. OK, maybe this question is dwarfed by the bigger issues about Gaza and the blockade and so forth, but it still seems important to me. In any case hopefully the Israeli investigation will at least yield lots of eyewitness testimony and hopefully this will all be public. Which brings up another question to those in the know: is this a likely outcome of the Israeli investigation?
I think you are focusing far too narrowly, Curious, at which range every action can take on whatever character we desire. I remember, for example, during the (first) Rodney King abuse trial, defense attorneys slowed the clips down to milliseconds to highlight every slight twitch on the supine King as indicating hostile movement, though such a perspective bore no resemblance to human experience.
What I’m getting at is that it helps sometimes to step back and look at things in full motion. Why did these people have slingshots except to provoke the Israelis? I’m not sure. Perhaps slingshots are useful for killing small animals and were part of the cargo to be used by Palestinians. Or maybe these were the only kinds of weapons that would be allowed into Gaza that wouldn’t incite arguments of arming people who want to use something for self defense (from thieves, even, though you can imagine other uses).
Or, maybe they brought slingshots onto the boat to take potshots at fully armed IDF forces, who would respond by shooting them.
You’ve settled upon this last reason as the most logical conclusion that seems to make sense in this scenario. But it’s also a little bit ridiculous. If it’s crazy to think that Israeli soldiers would randomly start to shoot at an unarmed ship in international waters, it’s also a little crazy to think that these people were trying to get themselves shot.
That is, perhaps, what I find most strange about the government’s attempt to characterize this group as violent. If their intentions were violent, I think they could have chosen a better plan than incapacitating troops and stealing their guns then.
Pretty much everyone agrees that trying to attack these soldiers was stupid, whether the IDF fired first or not. They were clearly outgunned from the start. All of this makes the argument that this was some kind of premeditated attack by the activists seem even more ridiculous. They were utterly unprepared for an invasion of brute force. The slingshots CONFIRM that, not the reverse.
The question isn’t why did they have slingshots if they were peaceful. The question is, why didn’t they have guns if they weren’t?
Of course they were trying to provoke the Israeli government and to bring attention to the situation and themselves. Such doesn’t justify this particular response, nor does defending yourself (with slingshots, kitchen knives, anything) necessarily constitute aggressive intent.
I think it’s most likely that a few idiots got themselves worked up (maybe even over rubber bullets) and prepared to not go peacefully. That does make them complete and total idiots. But until we get the full, unedited tapes, there are several other possible conclusions we can draw.
I don’t see the mystery, curious. Rubber bullets were apparently fired by the IDF and the activists might have thought they were live ammo or they might not–in either case, some hotheaded young guys reacted by trying to beat the hell out of the Israeli soldiers. The Israelis then opened fire with real bullets, and may have been rather careless about who they shot. There was unnecessary roughness by the IDF (though no serious injuries AFAIK) on the other boats. On one boat a combination of fear, testosterone and outrage took over and led to deaths and serious injuries.
Which is speculation, but reasonable speculation based on the evidence. If it is right, there’s some blame for both sides, but I would personally blame the Israelis more.
Why the slingshots?
I’ll offer two possibilities. You tell me which one seems more likely to you.
1. They thought they might be boarded by the IDF and thought they would hold them off with slingshots and glass marbles.
2. Rats.
I’m surprised they didn’t have guns. Not because of the IDF, just because.
I am not a fan of Hamas, I am not a fan of any of the Palestinian movements that think they are going to achieve their goals by blowing up Israelis. Yasir Arafat was not a guy I ever thought of as a hero.
I think the Israelis should continue to live in Palestine. I don’t want them to “go back to Germany and Poland”.
But no matter how you want to slice it, the Palestinians were screwed in 1948, and they’re being screwed today.
The Israeli blockade of Gaza is as much to punish the Gazans for electing Hamas to run their tiny little strip of the coast as it is to keep weapons out.
And the Israeli action in this case was stupid and unnecessary.
There is a protocol for stopping ships at sea if you think they are engaged in hostile or unlawful activity. That protocol is designed to minimize the likelihood of violence.
The Israelis chose to ignore that protocol, for whatever reason. IMVHO, that reason was likely to make a point about how they will f**k you over, and that but good, if you cross them. It would surely not be the first time they rolled that way.
Whatever the reason, it blew up in their faces.
They were at fault. The motivations of the blockade-runners, whether they had bullet-proof vests and slingshots, none of that is to the point.
The Israelis went above and beyond what was necessary to prevent the blockade from being run. The deaths in this case are on their hands.
Yup, pretty much. If you complain about the mote in one person’s eye, while ignoring the beam in twenty others’, what’s to be concluded except that you have it in for the first person?
Brett, just want to point out that this is not at all the situation, at least by your own argument. You are claiming that there *is no mote* in Israel’s eye. If you were to say “of course, the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians is wrong, but pales in comparison to China’s actions vis a vis Tibet”, then your use of the proverb would make sense.
But trying to justify Israel’s actions outright as good, proper, and justified shouldn’t require comparison to more-or-less odious regimes.
I think you have to pick your argument here: either Israel is in the wrong and we can talk about how their wrongness fits into some global scale of wrong & why it might or might not be worth discussing, or we disagree on the wrongness of Israel’s actions and can debate that point.
Trying to have both debates simultaneously seems to me like a way of muddying the waters in order to have neither.
As to the more general point, where between you and Sebastian you’ve managed to assign criticisms of Israel to anti-semitism, bullying, and geopolitical convenience- it seems to me that all of these ad hominems lack even the pretense of examining the possible arguments in favor of such behavior: the closeness of Israel to the US, the criticality of that relationship to our relationship with the Muslim world and to Muslim extremist terror, the funding of the Israeli state (and therefore it’s activities in the OT) by the US.
Ad hominem psychoanalysis is usually ugly, pointless, and a failure. This is no exception.
But I’ll make Brett a deal: He can come stand with me in front of my late grandmother’s grave at Mt. Sinai Cemetery in Mayfield, OH — where most of the gravestones are in a combination of English, Russian and Hebrew — and call me an anti-Semite. In return, I will break his face for him.
Twice in his life my grandfather related stories to me about hiding from pogroms. So now Brett wants to stand on his grave and call me an anti-semite. Even without the posting rules I don’t have words to properly describe this classless, churlish, cowardly behavior.
russell: I’m surprised they didn’t have guns. Not because of the IDF, just because.
I imagine they weighed the imponderable risks of being boarded by pirates who weren’t Israeli military, and the actual known risks of people getting shot by the IDF if they are seen carrying guns whether or not those guns are fired, plus the excuses the IDF would offer if guns were found aboard even if obviously for self-defense and never fired, plus the hazard that if the IDF were criminally stupid enough to attack at night, in force, and one or more of the people aboard got killed, someone with access to a gun might use it… and decided that the risk of pirates other than the IDF was the lesser hazard.
According to the papers over here everyone boarding the ships (before departure, not during the attack) was checked for firearms like at an airport. The organizers were well aware that even a single firearm could spoil the whole thing and would be construed as smuggling arms under the cover of humanitarian aid.
The slingshots I have seen were all of the non-professional type that any child could produce. How many were found in total btw? It would look a wee bit different, if they had been one of these metal contraptions with armrests (those are legally forbidden over here since the last revision of weapon laws).
Absent a two state solution, Israel will either cease to exist as a Jewish state, commit massive genocide/ethnic cleansing, or continue to administer a brutal, oppressive apartheid state.
///
The problem is, achieving a two state solution isn’t just up to Israel, it’s also up to the Palestinians.
Right, but this doesn’t change the balance of interests between the parties in so doing. As we know, the political reality of Palestinian resistance is that the ideal reality is the one in which modern Israel never came into existence. A two-state solution has always from the Palestinian perspective been a deep compromise of basic aspirations, and not something they truly want deep in their hearts. You can say that amounts to denial of Israel’s right to exist, but there it is nonetheless. They never have had a great interest in a state on a small fraction of the land they were free to roam across not two generations ago, and to pretend that their interest insodoing grows as the land available to create the state upon erodes is simply unserious.
Contrast this with Israeli interests. Seven decades ago, there was no state of Israeli – Jewish, democratic, pluralistic, liberal in character or otherwise. Then the state was established but for reasons historians will puzzle over for centuries, it proceeded to engage in regional expansionism that planted the seeds (which need not be brought to maturity) of its destruction as a Jewish and democratic state. Now, Israel faces a reality in which the lands it controls will not contain a Jewish majority for very many more years. As such, over coming years, Israel will either grow desperate to conclude a deal divesting itself of its empire in order to ensure the sustainability of its Jewishness and democratic nature, or else simply resign itself to one of the other options Eric laid out.
As such, while it is obviously correct to note that any negotiation depends on the actions of each party, including following through on actions specified in agreements, it is in fact misleading to suggest that the responsibility for concluding a deal lies equally with each of these parties. So, unless Israel is saying that it is prepared to enter full pariah status as an apartheid or genocidal state (or both) – or cease to exist as Jewish – then from the standpoint of the expectations of the international community looking at the situation objectively, as they cannot condone one of the first two options and wouldn’t ask Israel to countenance the third, the responsibility for concluding this deal – meaning adopting negotiating terms that have a good chance of leading to a conclusion – will clearly lie primarily with the Israelis, while the Palestinian responsibility will be seen to lie primarily in effectively ending resistance when acceptable term have been reached.
Also, The Original francis is of course 100% right that the thing that sets Israel apart from other bad actors on the world stage is not that their actions are objectively worse than those others (people mention all sorts of examples but when all else fails, there’s always Bur – I mean Myanmar – to point to). Instead, what gets Israel’s so much attention is that, no matter how much “crap” they take from other quarters of the international community or especially from backwater parts of the American commentariat like this blog and its comments section (With love! I kid with love!), it still retains the all-but-unstinting support for each and every one of its actions and the resulting shield from international opprobrium, all backed by billions of dollars a year in military aid and materiel, of the government of the world’s lone hyperpower, acting, as always, in the name of the people of that nation. As Eric points out, this renders that people not merely observers striving for disinterested impartiality, but rather implicates them directly as parties to Israel’s actions. A situation like this I think reasonably will tend to cause a people’s ears to prick up a bit more when it comes to the nature and context of said actions, and the fact that it is the hyperpower acting in such a way likewise tends to cause others to pay attention as well.
That China, Burma, North Korea, or Iran commit extensive atrocities simply isn’t denied by a substantial set of international actors, least of all by the American government. To suggest in that context that to pay attention to the actions of our client state rather than issue redundant condemnations of regimes whose pariah status is not in dispute is to unfairly single out the client (don’t we in any case buy the right to criticize, even if it’s civil society rather than the government who does so?), is simply daft from where I sit.
“Brett, just want to point out that this is not at all the situation, at least by your own argument. You are claiming that there *is no mote* in Israel’s eye. If you were to say “of course, the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians is wrong, but pales in comparison to China’s actions vis a vis Tibet”, then your use of the proverb would make sense.”
I don’t think there’s any point in responding to a comment that demonstrates this kind of reading comprehension problem, but I suppose it’s not the first futile gesture I’ve made.
My points were, and I expressed them, even if you didn’t notice:
Israel’s government is moderately nasty. The governments which are less nasty are a distinct minority in the world, the governments which are more nasty are legion. Not surprising, government is inherently a nasty institution.
Those governments which are less nasty tend not to be surrounded by mortal enemies. Cause? Effect? Anybody here think Israel would be liked by the Muslim world if they laid down their arms? Show of hands?
Those governments which are more nasty tend to get less criticism for it than Israel. A lot less.
As a result of this wildly disproportionate criticism, there’s the vague perception that Israel really IS a lot nastier than those countries which are merely committing genocide on a massive scale, murdering the political opposition, and the like.
Why does Israel get such a wildly disproportionate share of international condemnation? In part, it’s that it’s relatively safe to criticize Israel, unlike some of the bigger nasties. In part it’s because there’s some vague hope that criticism will cause Israel to change it’s policies; Again, who thinks the same of Russia or China?
But, in large part, it’s anti-semitism. You think Helen Thomas was an aberration? I don’t. There are a fair share of anti-semites dishing out the criticism, and a guaranteed market for the criticism due to anti-semites in the audience.
Israel is a constant, nagging reminder that the Holocaust wasn’t completely successful. That annoys a lot of people who wish Israel would just go away.
It’s unclear to me where it is proven that Israel receives more criticism than worse regimes. What is being measured, counted? It seems clear to me there is near-universal agreement about the misdeeds of your Chinas and Irans. If the reiterations of the condemnations don’t add up to as many individual statements as the criticism created in the ongoing live war of words around Israel’s action created by the fact that it retains the moral imprimatur of the worlds traditional human-rights beacon and hyperpower, supplemented by its continuous military largesse ensuring Israel’s military dominance of its region, I guess you’ll just have to count me as less than short of breath at what is apparently supposed to be the peculiarity of such a discrepancy.
Israel is a constant, nagging reminder that the Holocaust wasn’t completely successful.
It’s certainly clear enough that hating on the Jews is neck and neck in worldwide historical popularity with hating on black and brown people.
I’d think it was also clear enough, based on years of comments and stories from personal histories, that on this board Jew-hating is probably not a likely motivation.
“The governments which are less nasty are a distinct minority in the world, the governments which are more nasty are legion.”
Asserted as though it had been proven somewhere. There are some governments which are worse. And Israel is a relatively small place, so the numbers involved are smaller than many other places. US-occupied Iraq is an ongoing atrocity on a much larger scale, for example.
Anyway, replying to Brett is,as someone said, largely a waste of time.
What DJ said.
We explained, in thoughtful and careful detail, why Israel occasionally gets criticized by some bloggers, and other assorted pockets of US citizens (see russell, DJ, me and others on this).
Brett ignores this, doesn’t respond, doesn’t engage, doesn’t refute, and just repeats the same anti-semitism crap – althgouh, with his ties to militias, Brett does have some expertise on the subject.
Nevertheless, in reality, be it in the media, or from political leaders, Israel gets almost zero criticism, whereas places like China, Sudan, Iran, Syria, Libya, Iraq (pre glorious liberation), Pakistan, North Korea, etc. all get heaps of official and media criticism.
So, it’s not true that Israel gets criticized more. And the fact that some US citizens are criticial of CERTAIN actions of CERTAIN Israeli political leaders has a very logical basis that is not in any way related to anti-Semitism.
That’s the last I’ll discuss this subject with Brett unless he actually does choose to engage the actual arguments rather than repeat already refuted drivel.
Curious: It is pretty clear now that the IDF was firing tear gas and flash grenades during an early morning raid that included rappelling commandos.
Even in the IDF’s own highly edited, highly redacted videos, you can see people on the ship throwing flash grenades and tear gas back at the IDF at the outset.
Given that, it is logical to expect some people to put up resistance out of fear – which can lead people to irrational decisions.
That is, however, why there is a smarter, less confrontational protocol for boarding ships in international waters (and territorial waters I might add). Israel departed from the normal protocols in many ill-advised ways. That was the trigger.
Why does Israel get such a wildly disproportionate share of international condemnation? In part, it’s that it’s relatively safe to criticize Israel, unlike some of the bigger nasties.
I think it is also because it is a democracy. We expect better from democracies. Criticism from this perspective is welcome. Too bad criticism not always or even usually from that perspective.
in reality, be it in the media, or from political leaders, Israel gets almost zero criticism,
Eric: C’mon! We ALL read the same things about Cast Lead, the 2006 Lebanon War, etc. How can you say this with a straight face?
Israel departed from the normal protocols in many ill-advised ways.
I’m no ship boarding expert, but you and Russell have been making this claim. What protocols did they not follow? And where can I find these protocols?
Curious: It is pretty clear now that the IDF was firing tear gas and flash grenades during an early morning raid that included rappelling commandos.
Even in the IDF’s own highly edited, highly redacted videos, you can see people on the ship throwing flash grenades and tear gas back at the IDF at the outset.
Eric: I’m not saying this is or is not true, but can you point out how you get to your conclusion that the activists were throwing flash grenades back at the IDF vs. throwing them in the first place? I haven’t seen that.
bc, not Eric nor do I play him on TV, but I presume if the Israelis had found any evidence that the flash grenades had been brought with the convoy, not thrown aboard by the IDF,they would have broadcast that evidence far and wide. If there had been any evidence at all aboard any of the boats that the convoy was trying to bring in any kind of weapons, even flash grenades, we’d have heard about it from the Israelis as a justification for their attack on the convoy.
Mike: “They never have had a great interest in a state on a small fraction of the land they were free to roam across not two generations ago, and to pretend that their interest insodoing grows as the land available to create the state upon erodes is simply unserious.”
Do you mean as Egyptians or Jordanians? And the reason neither Egypt nor Jordan is interested in getting the land back is that those Palestinians have generally been quite a bit of trouble for them too. The fact that Palestinians didn’t have a state pre-Israel either makes your contrast less contrasting. The fact that the Palestinians have been violently troublesome in at least 3 nearby states also suggests that it isn’t all about problems with Israel. (See especially starting civil war in Jordan).
“As such, over coming years, Israel will either grow desperate to conclude a deal divesting itself of its empire in order to ensure the sustainability of its Jewishness and democratic nature, or else simply resign itself to one of the other options Eric laid out.”
They’ve tried that. They left Gaza. And they didn’t blockade it until Gaza elected a government which is openly dedicated to the destruction of Israel and is currently and was at the time actively bombing, attacking, and sending rockets against Israel. You can’t really talk about ‘responsibility’ and be so quick to gloss over that.
Gaza didn’t have to elect Hamas. Alternatively, even if just for show, the government could have pretended that it would try to get along with Israel and modified the formal charter. Instead, Hamas assumed power, went on a killing spree of Fatah members and repudiated the peace agreements previously negotiated. They aren’t exactly trying very hard.
Eric: C’mon! We ALL read the same things about Cast Lead, the 2006 Lebanon War, etc. How can you say this with a straight face?
I can say it because it’s undeniably true. BTW: You didn’t respond to my prior comment on the media. C’mon! Give it a shot!
I’m not saying this is or is not true, but can you point out how you get to your conclusion that the activists were throwing flash grenades back at the IDF vs. throwing them in the first place? I haven’t seen that.
Not even the IDF has claimed that the passengers were armed with such ordnance, and they’ve already made a lot of BS claims that they’ve backed away from (al Qaeda links, doctored audio, etc)
I’m no ship boarding expert, but you and Russell have been making this claim. What protocols did they not follow? And where can I find these protocols?
Use the google. Ships are supposed to attempt radio contact first – instead, the IDF jammed their radios. Ships are supposed to travel alongside for a certain distance, attempt to divert by charting a course that makes it necessary, fire warning shots in front of ship to slow down/stop, and board in an orderly, manner.
Not rappel with flash grenades, tear gas, etc.
They’ve tried that. They left Gaza. And they didn’t blockade it until Gaza elected a government which is openly dedicated to the destruction of Israel and is currently and was at the time actively bombing, attacking, and sending rockets against Israel. You can’t really talk about ‘responsibility’ and be so quick to gloss over that.
Gaza didn’t have to elect Hamas. Alternatively, even if just for show, the government could have pretended that it would try to get along with Israel and modified the formal charter. Instead, Hamas assumed power, went on a killing spree of Fatah members and repudiated the peace agreements previously negotiated. They aren’t exactly trying very hard.
Funny story: When Sharon left Gaza, Fatah was fearful because of the way in which he was leaving was empowering Hamas and leaving Fatah at a disadvantage. They made this clear, but Sharon did what he did anyway.
Then, the US backed the most brutal and militant factions against Hamas, and those factions went on a wild killing spree.
Then Hamas fought back, and yet Seb leaves out the first part.
“I’m no ship boarding expert, ….”
I am.
But, unlike most experts, I never descend down a rope, my nether regions exposed, into a bunch of angry people wielding gardening and carpentry tools.
I’m also an expert at stopping mammoth oil leaks. I won the office pool with the closest estimate of how much oil is surging out of the Gulf well. BP engineering experts knew squat.
I know exactly where Osama Bin Laden is hiding.
Sebastian,
Actually, if your history is correct, the fact that their seeming ambivalence toward the idea of achieving statehood is so long-standing and well-established actually reinforces the point of the differential in interest between them and Israel in the levels of real desire or need to achieve two states at this point in time.
Perhaps, though, you can explain better to me than I can see for myself what is at stake for the Palestinians and how that fits in to their revealed aspirations in the question of having a state established for themselves according to whatever terms at this point Israel will finally agree to. Because I have a hard time seeing where we can conclude that Palestinians in fact are, or that they even objectively should, pine much at all for the thing that they will end up with which will be called the Palestinian state. If previous powers had to deal with similar ambivalence about the idea, that only confirms my doubts in my view.
Eric: “That is, however, why there is a smarter, less confrontational protocol for boarding ships in international waters (and territorial waters I might add). Israel departed from the normal protocols in many ill-advised ways. That was the trigger.”
I want to take this opportunity to completely agree with Eric. They could have disabled the ship. They should have in fact done that. They aren’t in a war where there is such danger at the seas that the only only option was to immediately board and kill people.
Sebastian: The fact that Palestinians didn’t have a state pre-Israel either makes your contrast less contrasting.
This? Is BS. Really, honestly, it’s the kind of ahistorical crap that gets spouted thoughtlessly by people who have no idea (and don’t want to know) of the historical background of the area.
The country Palestine was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1516. It existed as an identifiable country back then, which is more than the United States, Germany, Pakistan, or the United Kingdom did.
The Ottoman Empire lost WWI, its dominions were split up, and the British Empire got, among other winnings, Palestine.
The Palestinians wanted independence. They didn’t get it in the 1920s, and the Balfour Declaration notwithstanding, it’s far from clear that Palestinian independence then would have entailed chopping up the country and letting the European and American Jewish settlers have part of it. They didn’t get it in the 1930s, but by that time they – along with many other countries, including the US – were blocking large-scale Jewish immigration. They didn’t get it in the 1940s, either, and from then on we’re in a part of Palestinian history that no one pretends didn’t happen.
But Palestine was historically a country, and the people of that country – mostly Arabs, mostly Muslim, some Christian and some Jewish – were always called Palestinians, right up until the founding of the modern Jewish state meant the Jewish Palestinians had a brand-new identity as Israelis.
This may be obvious to everyone else, but I just had a startling revelation as to where Brett Bellmore (and Glenn Beck etc.) are coming from with their gross accusations.
American Conservatives self-identify with the State of Israel. Each of them sees itself representing Good, surrounded by a sea of enemies. Each of them thinks that it are under ceaseless attack from the press, from academia and from traitors. Each sees itself as barely strong enough to hold off the forces of Chaos.
While the rest of us see that US Conservatives frequently have held substantial political power in the US since 1980, that the press will print any Conservative political statement, no matter how gross the lie, that a major network is in fact a branch of their party, that the multi-trillion dollar large corporate community is almost entirely on their side, that the US is a global hyperpower and that Israel is a regional nuclear-armed superpower.
Liberals and Islamic states are, to Brett and his ilk, both Lilliputians trying to tie down the great, honorable and mis-understood Gulliver.
The fact that the Palestinians have been violently troublesome in at least 3 nearby states also suggests that it isn’t all about problems with Israel.”
On the one hand Arab governments are blamed for not being more welcoming and on the other the Palestinians are blamed for being “violently troublesome”. The Jordanian government wasn’t the good guy in the 1970 war–they behaved like Asad did in Hama or Israel in Lebanon in 1982. They were brutal.
Lebanon is complicated,with blame for all sides, and Israel was involved in supporting some of the most murderous militias–if Palestinians are guilty so are Israelis.
Who is the third? Kuwait?
Anyway, refugees are a pain in the ass when they persist in wanting to go home. Which is why some people on the Zionist side have said the solution to the problem would be if they just moved to those other Arab countries and settled down. Which brings us to Helen Thomas and why Huckabee should join her in retirement.
Ships are supposed to attempt radio contact first – instead, the IDF jammed their radios.
Pretty sure they did that. I understand IDF contacted WAY before. Are you talking about the boarding itself? I presume by that point the IDF was trying to prevent a coordinated response. Different issue.
Ships are supposed to travel alongside for a certain distance, attempt to divert by charting a course that makes it necessary, fire warning shots in front of ship to slow down/stop, and board in an orderly, manner.
From what I’ve seen, they did try that. But it’s not clear (I’m referring to the video that shows the activists throwing stun grenades down on the IDF).
They aren’t in a war where there is such danger at the seas that the only only option was to immediately board and kill people.
Not sure where the “immediately board” comes from, seb. I don’t get that at all from the facts. Those soldiers that were beat up certainly weren’t “immediately” killing people.
OTOH, disabling makes sense. But then so does trying to board. If the IDF tried to board alongside, I place the blame on the ship. That video showing the boat alongside shows pretty passive soldiers.
But, unlike most experts, I never descend down a rope, my nether regions exposed, into a bunch of angry people wielding gardening and carpentry tools.
Yeah, I don’t garden with those! All sarcasm aside, it did take some serious stones to go down the rope with a paint ball gun into that mob.
“Actually, if your history is correct, the fact that their *seeming ambivalence* toward the idea of achieving statehood is so long-standing and well-established actually reinforces the point of the *differential in interest* between them and Israel in the levels of real desire or need to achieve two states at this point in time.”
I have absolutely no idea what you are trying to say in this paragraph. I’m especially confused by the asterixed parts. I don’t believe the Palestinians want two states. They want one, and one without Jews in it. Is that what you are trying to say? Or are you saying something else?
“Perhaps, though, you can explain better to me than I can see for myself what is at stake for the Palestinians and how that fits in to their revealed aspirations in the question of having a state established for themselves according to whatever terms at this point Israel will finally agree to.”
Since their stated aspirations involve the destruction of Israel, I doubt I can better explain it to you.
Jesurgislac, what are you talking about? The history of the area is:
Greek rule: 333BCE to 140BCE
Jewish rule: 140BCE to about 63 BCE
Roman rule: 63 BCE to 330CE
Byzantine rule: 330 to 640
Islamic Caliphate rule: 640 to 1099
Crusader rule: 1099-1187
Contested psuedo-peace: 1187-1270
Egyptian (Mamluk) rule: 1270-1516 special note, they destroyed many of the ports to intentionally make the area unliveable to make the return of the Crusaders difficult.
Ottoman Empire: 1516-1831
Egypt again:1831-1841
Ottoman again: 1841-1917
During that entire time starting from the Romans, ‘Palestine’ was at best thought of as a province of one of those ruling powers.
British rule: 1928-1948
And then, the modern era of Israel and Jordan with various contestations therof.
bc,
“From what I’ve seen, they did try that. But it’s not clear (I’m referring to the video that shows the activists throwing stun grenades down on the IDF).”
Where have you seen that “they did try that,” where “that” is
“travel alongside for a certain distance, attempt to divert by charting a course that makes it necessary, fire warning shots in front of ship to slow down/stop, and board in an orderly, manner.”
Can you please link to the video?
“Funny story: When Sharon left Gaza, Fatah was fearful because of the way in which he was leaving was empowering Hamas and leaving Fatah at a disadvantage. They made this clear, but Sharon did what he did anyway.”
Yes and the alternative was to support Fatah, which is what the US did, and which, if I recall correctly, is a decision you hate. The reason Fatah was fearful was because Hamas was going to win the election. Your story is rather bare on the “because of the way in which he was leaving” part. Gaza, Fatah, and Hamas and been constantly agitating for decades for Israel to withdraw. They finally did. To raise that as an additional complaint is a bit crazy.
Fatah and Hamas hate each other because thug regimes are inherently rival goods. Gaza preferred the “never deal with Jews” Hamas over the “sometimes pretend to deal with Jews” Fatah.
During that entire time starting from the Romans, ‘Palestine’ was at best thought of as a province of one of those ruling powers.
And yet, for all your denial, the country Palestine was still there – and the Palestinians still existed.
This kind of backformatting of Palestine out of history, pretending that it not only does not exist now but never did, is excusable only by ignorance.
The withdrawal from Gaza still left Israel in control of the borders along with Egypt,including the border with the sea. And if you google you’ll find James Wolfensohn complaining about Gaza being a giant prison after the withdrawal and before the elections.
link
Yes and the alternative was to support Fatah, which is what the US did, and which, if I recall correctly, is a decision you hate.
Not exactly. Didn’t hate the decision to back Fatah. Hated the manifestations of that support. We tried to spark a civil war – were successful in some ways – by backing Fatah assassins and thugs and giving them weapons and intel to spark the fight.
I can actually think of a few other alternatives.
Gaza preferred the “never deal with Jews” Hamas over the “sometimes pretend to deal with Jews” Fatah.
Actually, there were many other issues involved, and not all of Gaza voted for Hamas.
Fatah was also notoriously corrupt and this was a major factor in the vote.
Gaza, Fatah, and Hamas and been constantly agitating for decades for Israel to withdraw. They finally did. To raise that as an additional complaint is a bit crazy.
Few thoughts: they didn’t withdraw completely, and they still left Israel in charge of the borders as DJ points out. I’ll look for a link that discusses some of the other elements – elements that left Israel experts predicting that the manner of withdrawal would be a boon to Hamas.
It seemed deliberate – but then, Israel helped create Hamas deliberately in the first place.
Yeah, I don’t garden with those! All sarcasm aside, it did take some serious stones to go down the rope with a paint ball gun into that mob.
Paing gun and sidearm. They had actual guns – guns that shot people with bullets. And killed them. At least 9 of them. Your constant repetition of the paintgun red herring is nauseating considering the body count.
Otherwise, I’d be willing to look at your links as requested by Julien.
Are you talking about the boarding itself? I presume by that point the IDF was trying to prevent a coordinated response. Different issue.
Well, yeah. Same issue.
Seb,
The argument is this:
Sharon disengaged from Gaza unilaterally, and outside of the peace process. Thus, instead of rewarding Fatah and providing a boost to Fatah, it hurt Fatah. Especially because Sharon subsequently boosted settlement activity in the West Bank (Fatah’s homebase).
This was a major setback to Fatah and the peace process in general. But then, even Sharon’s people see this as a feature, not a bug (hint: there will be less calls for withdrawal from the West Bank now, and the peace process nuisance has been iced).
From Wiki:
In an October 6, 2004, interview with Haaretz, Dov Weissglas, Sharon’s chief of staff, declared: “The significance of the disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process… When you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Disengagement supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians”
Um, mission accomplished.
This from Vanity Fair tells of the civil war that the Bush team sought to spark:
After failing to anticipate Hamas’s victory over Fatah in the 2006 Palestinian election, the White House cooked up yet another scandalously covert and self-defeating Middle East debacle: part Iran-contra, part Bay of Pigs. With confidential documents, corroborated by outraged former and current U.S. officials, the author reveals how President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Deputy National-Security Adviser Elliott Abrams backed an armed force under Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza and leaving Hamas stronger than ever.
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/04/gaza200804
Re: Israeli control of Gaza. I’m interested in what the official Israeli position was after implementation of the disengagment plan, but before the labeling of Gaza as an enemy entity.
When was the position adopted that Gaza is no longer occupied?
From Haaretz in 2005:
“Sharon has adopted the Foreign Ministry’s position that it would be out of place to declare “the end of the occupation” in Gaza, at least as long as the Palestinians do not control the border crossings, airspace and territorial waters. Instead, the ministry prefers “the end of Israeli responsibility.”
Following Jes’s 12:15, Seb’s 12:50, and Jes’s 12:58, to darken the outlook even more:
From Jeffrey Goldberg:
But it’s okay to deny the Palestinians the truth of their own history, and to pretend that the current conflict has nothing to do with any history that came after a cherry-picked moment two thousand years ago. Did history stop two thousand years ago? That’s what the syntax says: “a nation whose history took place…” Not some of whose history took place, or whose early history took place….
Goldberg’s version has a big black hole where most of the past two thousand years belong, and in the Palestinians fell down the same black hole.
In An Ethic for Enemies, a book that explores collective guilt and atonement, Donald Shriver tells the story of visiting an area of Romania where there are many ethnic Germans. A minister/priest who is showing him around expresses the wish that all the Germans would just go back “home” — back to where they came from five hundred years ago.
Maybe we should all just go back to where our ancestors were two thousand years ago, or even five hundred years ago. We can hope for a Solomon to tell us mongrels where we belong.
What makes me despair about Israel and Palestine is when it just seems like a hall of mirrors. “My land, get the f*ck out.” It can’t end well until/unless that changes.
Julian: travel alongside for a certain distance . . .
This video. From what I can tell from this and other articles, it looks like the IDF issued repeated warnings it would board if the ships didn’t redirect or turn around. When that didn’t happen, the sent over dinghies, I assume from the corvette that intercepted. From the video, it looks like the dinghy rides alongside for some time taking some abuse. Redirecting in the dingy would have been worthless. Not sure if the corvette tried. But the IDF did try to redirect in the most benign way possible. I see the point that boarding shouldn’t have been the next step in escalating the confrontation, even if it is allowed.
Not sure how a warning shot or a potential collision (which is what redirecting alongside and trying to redirect might do)would have been safer. The gross tonnage of the corvette was about 1/4 that of the Mavi Marmara. What if a collision had occurred and there was a loss of life? I’m sure everyone would have been so very understanding.
Your constant repetition of the paintgun red herring is nauseating considering the body count.
Going in there even with a pistol took nerve. And then getting the crap beat out of you without firing (for at least a while) took nerve and showed restraint.
So it would have been better to come in with assault rifles, right? Look, if I was convinced that the soldiers were in no danger, that would be one thing. Can you show that? Doesn’t look like from the video footage. Were those nerf bars they were using? You and Russell pooh pooh the knives, etc. That doesn’t make sense. Some devote an entire martial arts career to killing with a stick, or (karate) with the open hand. I’ve played baseball. I’m reasonably sure I can put someone in fear for their life with such a stick. And, even though I suck as a red belt, I know what I can do with my limited skill. What about the recording of the commando repeatedly requesting authority to use his weapon? Has that been shown to be a farce?
What about the “kill the Jews” songfest I raised in an earlier thread? Has the authenticity of that video been challenged?
The IDF (wrongly) thought bring paintball guns and holstered sidearms would keep the situation non-lethal. If they fired without provocation, I’m all ears. But my eyes tell me something else.
Well, yeah. Same issue.
How so? Depends on motivation. I’d probably jam communications too to try to diffuse the situation and keep the troops safe. Don’t see how this is some argument against boarding.
Jes: “And yet, for all your denial, the country Palestine was still there – and the Palestinians still existed.”
What country? It was Israel. Then it was a province of Rome. Then it was a province of the caliphate. Then it was a province under Egyptian rule. Then it was a province under the Ottoman empire. That pretty much gets us to now. It pretty much hasn’t been a country for *at least* 2000 years until the British made it Israel and Jordan. So far as I can tell it was never the country of Palestine. It sounds like you are arguing that Utah has always been its own country, and that if it wanted to separate from the US it would be ok to shell Montana. Please tell me exactly which years you believe ‘Palestine’ was a country.
Eric, what part of the peace process was it supposed to take? Hamas has been demanding *unilateral/unconditional* withdrawal from Gaza for decades. That was supposed to be their entry point to negotiations back before it actually happened.
There may be some Palestinians who want one state with no Jews, this I can’t deny. To say “they” want that, however, is blood libel. Many of them simply want one state, with the populations both accommodated and free. In any case, the means don’t exist to eliminate Jews from. Yes, terrorists will continue to kill people. This is not, “they want one state with no Jews.” Some palestinians obviously to some extent want two states, but obviously we agree it is far from their first choice. This is in contrast to Israel, which will become desparate over the fairly short term to conclude a two-state deal or simply descend into completely isolated international ignominy. They can try to act crazy like they don’t care about that (which is what all this is about lately), but that’s just preposterous – over time they will cave to the harm to their interests in being isolated. They’re boxed in in terms of what they need out of negotiations, whereas Palestinians have a demonstrated record of not giving a shit about two states, and nothing much objectively to gain from it, at least compared to Israel’s manifestly desperate position. That has, or should have, consequences in the negotiations. That’s what I am saying.
Despite the fragmented and incomplete historical record, experts pretty much agree that some popular beliefs about Jewish history simply don’t hold up: there was no sudden expulsion of all Jews from Jerusalem in A.D. 70, for instance. What’s more, modern Jews owe their ancestry as much to converts from the first millennium and early Middle Ages as to the Jews of antiquity…
But while these ideas are commonplace among historians, they still manage to provoke controversy each time they surface in public, beyond the scholarly world. The latest example is the book “The Invention of the Jewish People,” which spent months on the best-seller list in Israel and is now available in English. Mixing respected scholarship with dubious theories, the author, Shlomo Sand, a professor at Tel Aviv University, frames the narrative as a startling exposure of suppressed historical facts. The translated version of his polemic has sparked a new wave of coverage in Britain and has provoked spirited debates online and in seminar rooms.
Professor Sand, a scholar of modern France, not Jewish history, candidly states his aim is to undercut the Jews’ claims to the land of Israel by demonstrating that they do not constitute “a people,” with a shared racial or biological past. The book has been extravagantly denounced and praised, often on the basis of whether or not the reader agrees with his politics.
The vehement response to these familiar arguments — both the reasonable and the outrageous — highlights the challenge of disentangling historical fact from the sticky web of religious and political myth and memory…”
From:
Book Calls Jewish People an ‘Invention’
Yes, Jewish public consciousness continues to be formed by the idea that Jews were exiled from Israel by the Romans, whereas the truth is that close to two million Jews continued to live here until the fall of the Roman empire. Yes, a large portion of the Roman Empire Jews became Jewish by conversion, and hence most Jews today are unlikely to be descendants of Jews who lived here two thousand years ago. But, as Sand repeatedly points out, none of this is disputed by historians.
Yes, the Zionist narrative has created a semblance of continuity between the Jews living in Israel two thousand years ago and modern Jews, much more than actually exists. But, as Sand shows, all modern nation states have created narratives aimed at legitimizing cultural, linguistic and political hegemony of the dominant group. In this respect Israel is not different from Germany, Italy or Indonesia. Sand’s claim is that Israel doesn’t need to shroud itself in myth for its continued existence, and this, in my view, is the book’s most important merit, and should come as a relief rather than be seen as an attack on Israel.
[…]
One of the reasons for all these maneuvers is, of course, Hok Hashevut, the law of return, which allows Jews from anywhere to receive automatic Israeli citizenship. Sand argues that this law must be repealed. By turning Israel into a liberal democracy, all Israeli citizens at this point in history, never mind their ethnic provenance or religion, would be its sovereign. Given Israel’s current demography, this would guarantee Jewish hegemony without making recourse to non-democratic means ranging from the involvement of the Rabbinate in citizens’ private lives to Lieberman’s loyalty oath. Sand also argues that abolishing Hok Hashevut is necessary in preventing Palestinians from claiming their Right of Return, as nobody would, from that moment onwards, have an automatic right to citizenship.
More:
Shlomo Sand’s ‘The Invention of the Jewish People’ is a success for Israel
I don’t think you understand the meaning of “blood libel” or you wouldn’t have used it the way you did.
“Some Palestinians” is a lot of them, quite possibly a majority or near majority of those in Gaza from the polling I can find.
“This is in contrast to Israel, which will become desparate over the fairly short term to conclude a two-state deal or simply descend into completely isolated international ignominy.”
I strongly suspect that you are about 180 degrees wrong about the direction that “Israeli desperation” will take them. The past few years of non-peace after the Gaza withdrawal seems to have hardened Israeli opinion.
“They’re boxed in in terms of what they need out of negotiations, whereas Palestinians have a demonstrated record of not giving a shit about two states, and nothing much objectively to gain from it, at least compared to Israel’s manifestly desperate position.”
This seems almost schizophrenic. Which solution do you think that the majority of Palestinians want again? It seems like you can’t make up your mind between one non-Jewish state, one non-sectarian state, or two states as being the locus of Paelstinian opinion. Which is it? And if you think ‘none’ or ‘all of the above’, why do you think a lack of coherent position will *help* the Palestinians at the negotiating table. It could just as easily hurt–because the Israelis can credibly claim that none of the solutions will satisfy enough of the Palestinians for there to be a good chance at peace.
Seb: What country?
That piece of land, that you will be able to find on most good maps of the area made any time in the past couple of thousand years, named Palestine for most of that time.
I was born in a country called Scotland, which has suffered much the same process of denial and unhistory from its more powerful neighbor England, as you are demonstrating now towards Palestine.
Nevertheless: “what country?” will never make a country not exist.
“Some Palestinians” is a lot of them, quite possibly a majority or near majority of those in Gaza from the polling I can find.
The current polling afact is more shaped by the last decade-plus of violence etc than by some bedrock devotion to the destruction of Israel (based on the fact that it has been lower &, in my general experience, would get lower again if things calmed down and peaceful resolution seemed like a possibility). Don’t get me wrong, there are certainly Palestinians who hold such beliefs, but there are also a large number who are angry & may not see a solution beyond violence bc that solution has been so difficult to get to.
[nb By ‘solution’ here, I don’t mean the Palestinians giving up their aspirations and living peacefully in Bantustans under de facto Israeli control, I mean something that satisfies the moderates of both groups & that they can force their extremists to accept. Just to avoid the inevitable cry by someone that ‘peace’ is easily available to the Palestinians if they surrender, ergo they must prefer violence.]
The elephant in the room for the pro-Israeli position is that Israel contains her own radical elements, driven by religious fanaticism. Israeli policy eg the settlements, really makes no sense whatsoever without bearing this firmly in mind. The settlements have been a huge liability from a security standpoint and in terms of international relations. They serve no purpose other than hundreds of thousands of human anchors in the lands promised by the Old Testament.
This element in Israeli society is as destructive to attempts at long-term peace as the most hard-bitten member of Hamas.
“I don’t believe the Palestinians want two states. They want one, and one without Jews in it.”
That is not a statement about what some Palestinians want, or even what a majority want. It is a categorical statement about what Palestinians want. You’re right, maybe I don’t understand what blood libel is. Whatever it is, it is a grossly prejudiced statement until you qualify it as you now have but did not initially.
If I am 180 degrees wrong about where demography will lead Israeli public opinion and leadership, then fair enough, let the end of Jewish liberal democracy commence. That is my point: the only way for Palestinian ambivalence about or unfitness for statehood (and it’s really irrelevant what my account of their true desires is if we both agree, as we have said we do, that they don’t have much interest in the state that will be on offer as part of the two-state plans that have the best chances to be realized, and never have had) can be seen to enhance the Israeli bargaining position is for us to believe that israel is willing to embrace one of the outcomes other than two states Eric lays out. If that’s where you’re saying this is going, I’m willing to say that perhaps your finger is on the Israeli pulse more than mine. I admit I’m working out of an assumption, a faith in their long-term wisdom that they haven’t in fact displayed over their 63 years, that they can’t and don’t really intend really back up the threat that they’re okay with one of those outcomes over the long haul. I tend to think this last decade is something of a particular moment and that it will pass. But maybe the Lieberman vision really does best represent a durable new Israeli self-conception, which is a dark possibility I very much acknowledge but can’t bring myself to fully buy on available evidence.
If any readers in addition to Sebastian (who I am sure i will continue to hear from, and whose views I appreciate getting to engage), including main blog writers, would like to point out where I am mistaken in this line of thinking, I am entirely open to correction. But I have been thinking since I have started paying attention to these issues (and I admit I am a novice and shouldn’t be throwing around terms like blood libel, that’s my bad) these dynamics that I am describing are quite clear from the perspective of an outsider looking at this conflict, and therefore constitute a major unspoken reality underlying the enduring failure of the parties to come to resolution. But again, I consider myself in a position to be set right by a well-informed person who is not arguing one side or the other of the debate.
I shouldn’t say that the dynamics are entirely unspoken, but that among the major player it isn’t acknowledged just how much they are driving outcomes.
Mike: You’re right, maybe I don’t understand what blood libel is. Whatever it is, it is a grossly prejudiced statement until you qualify it as you now have but did not initially.
Yes, it was a grossly prejudiced statement. I frankly don’t think it gets any better when “qualified”. Carleton Wu’s comment (June 09, 2010 at 03:15 AM) hits the mark.
But “blood libel” is a specific term meaning the lie that anti-Semitic Christians used to spread about Jews using the blood of Christian children in their unleavened bread at Passover. As such, I really think it’s a term much better avoided unless you actually are discussing such anti-Semitic lies told against Jews.
Similiarly it was clarified for me quite recently on another blog that it was better to use the term “internment camp” for Gaza than “concentration camp”.
“What if a collision had occurred and there was a loss of life? I’m sure everyone would have been so very understanding.”
I’m not having luck with google searches, but I think Israel has collided with and nearly sunk a boat in one of the previous blockade breaking attempts.
” It sounds like you are arguing that Utah has always been its own country, and that if it wanted to separate from the US it would be ok to shell Montana.”
An utterly weird analogy, having nothing at all to do with the situation, but it does have the “benefit”, I suppose, of portraying the Palestinians as violent separatist freaks. Whether “Palestine” ever existed as a separate country is morally irrelevant–what is relevant is that Israel exists as a Jewish state because 700,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes in 1948 and not allowed back in. There could not be an Israel as a majority Jewish state without this and the contradiction between the desires of Zionists and the rights of people who already lived there is where the root of the conflict lies. You don’t even have to talk about whether there ever was an independent Palestine. How to solve this is the question, and the mainstream view in the US is that the Palestinians should just suck it up and accept their ethnic cleansing and haggle over whatever the Israelis are willing to let them have. This pov is occasionally defended by pointing to other examples of ethnic cleansing, but more commonly by employing euphemisms and politely avoiding the topic, or by devising ridiculous analogies.
A couple of decades ago, Joan Peters tried to argue that the Palestinians were mostly recent immigrants, drawn by Zionist economic activity and Helen Thomas’s rabbi interviewer repeats that old story (along with a number of other standard nonsensical claims) at his blog. The implication was that the Palestinians should just return from where they came from. Problem solved. Not sure where I’ve heard that lately. The Peters book was very favorably reviewed in the US, until Norman Finkelstein and various Israeli historians threw cold water on it (Palestinian opinion, of course, had no weight).
“How to solve this is the question, and the mainstream view in the US is that the Palestinians should just suck it up and accept their ethnic cleansing and haggle over whatever the Israelis are willing to let them have.”
There is a pragmatic defense of this position that I use myself–the two sides don’t want to live together and couldn’t do so in peace. I don’t know if it’s true, but there are at least a fair number of fanatics on both sides, and it only takes a minority to start a civil war. But one can take that position without conceding that Palestinians should simply give up the right of return, for instance. At the very least they should use it as a gigantic bargaining chip, and there could also be face-saving non demographically threatening ways to implement it. (I love that term, demographically threatening. It lets you know how little liberal democracy as we understand it has anything to do with the situation.)
A fair two state solution at this stage seems about as remote as a fair one state solution. What we have now is a one state solution, with an apartheid mode of governance.
Weird, I posted a thank you to Jesurgislac for setting me straight on misuse of the term, and the comment disappeared. Again: Thank you Jes; noted.
Or maybe it never posted. I thought I saw it up.
What country?
Give it whatever name you like.
People who lived in the area known as Palestine were uprooted and their homes and property given to other people. I don’t think they had a lot of choice in the matter.
I’m 100% supportive of the nation of Israel existing, where it is. It’s also bloody clear to me that the people who were living there before the nation of Israel was created by fiat have been booted around like a football in the sixty years since then.
It sucks to be them, and it is, plain and simple, unfair and inhumane to not recognize that.
Going in there even with a pistol took nerve. And then getting the crap beat out of you without firing (for at least a while) took nerve and showed restraint
It is not clear that soldiers that were assaulted showed restraint, but rather were disarmed. Not the same thing. And beaten is surely bad, but not compared to four slugs to the dome. Further, soldiers in the helicopters fired live rounds down on to the deck. Passengers claim that live rounds were fired first. It is pretty clear that at the very least, rubber bullets, flash grenades and tear gas were fired first. That’s not a good way to keep peace, and massively departs from standard protocol. No doubt about it.
You and Russell pooh pooh the knives, etc. That doesn’t make sense. Some devote an entire martial arts career to killing with a stick, or (karate) with the open hand.
“Some” do. So? Are you suggesting that the passengers were so devoted?
What about the “kill the Jews” songfest I raised in an earlier thread? Has the authenticity of that video been challenged?
Yes. Even the IDF has admitted to doctoring some of the audio, and the videos are obviously redacted.
The IDF (wrongly) thought bring paintball guns and holstered sidearms would keep the situation non-lethal. If they fired without provocation, I’m all ears. But my eyes tell me something else.
Again, they fired tear gas and flash grenades, and many claim rubber bullets, without provocation. It’s on the videos.
I’d probably jam communications too to try to diffuse the situation and keep the troops safe.
This would make contacting the ship difficult ahead of the boarding. Generally speaking, have you ever known protocol for boarding a ship to include rappelling commandos?
Eric, what part of the peace process was it supposed to take? Hamas has been demanding *unilateral/unconditional* withdrawal from Gaza for decades. That was supposed to be their entry point to negotiations back before it actually happened.
I’m not sure what you mean by this. Instead of negotiating the withdrawal from Gaza as part of the peace process (there is a formal process of negotiations you know), Israel did it unilaterally, thus ensuring that Fatah could not show it as fruits of its peace process negotiations. On the contrary, as predicted and warned at the time, it came across as a big victory for Hamas.
This was compounded by the simultaneous expansion of settlements in Fatah’s stronghold of the West Bank.
This was intentional. Sharon’s own cabinet bragged about it. To repeat:
In an October 6, 2004, interview with Haaretz, Dov Weissglas, Sharon’s chief of staff, declared: “The significance of the disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process… When you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Disengagement supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians”
You and Russell pooh pooh the knives, etc.
I’m not pooh poohing anything.
The IDF folks put themselves in harm’s way. I’m sure that took a more than average amount of courage.
The purpose of the blockade runners is, quite intentionally, to break the blockade of Gaza. It is, by definition, a provocative mission.
My points here are pretty simple:
1. Israel is within their rights to defend themselves, and to prevent weapons from entering Gaza, because they will undoubtedly be used against them.
2. Israel is not within their rights to deny necessary goods and services to the Gazans, or to use the blockade to punish the civilian population for electing Hamas as their political leadership.
3. There are rules for stopping and boarding ships flying a flag other than your own on international and national waters. The reason for those rules is to clearly distinguish between legal and reasonable actions by a sovereign state, and acts of piracy or war. It’s *extremely useful* for nations to observe those rules, just as it is extremely useful for them to observe all of the other protocols and conventions associated with national sovereignty.
We’ll see how this all turns out, but it does not appear that Israel acted well in this case.
Saying so is not evidence of anti-semitism or hostility to the nation of Israel. In particular because our own national interests are so enmeshed with theirs. Contra von, good “drinking buddies” are not “controversial, opinionated, and ready to fight”.
Just one correction to russell: traits of good drinking buddies might well include those mentioned, but the nature of alliances between nations is such that the relationship between drinking buddies is not at all the kind that you want to have as your model for your country’s alliances. IMHO.
“Instead of negotiating the withdrawal from Gaza as part of the peace process (there is a formal process of negotiations you know), Israel did it unilaterally, thus ensuring that Fatah could not show it as fruits of its peace process negotiations.”
What does “there is a formal process of negotiations, you know” mean to you?
‘Negotiations’ have been taking place for decades. Fatah caused all sorts of its own problems in being unable to show things as fruits of its ‘peace process negotiations’. One of the main ones being that it appeared to be invested more in having a peace process than in having a peace.
You can’t have it both ways, if Israel was ‘occupying’ Gaza, certainly it can withdraw, right?
Fatah could have ‘negotiated’ a withdrawal at any time since at least 1998.
You make suggestions that seem to hold the Israelis hostage to Palestinian will no matter what. They can’t occupy. They can’t leave. They can’t stop missiles. What *exactly* can they do?
Sebastian: You can’t have it both ways, if Israel was ‘occupying’ Gaza, certainly it can withdraw, right?
The Gaza Strip is within the sovereign borders of Israel. No one, least of all Israel, disputes that. Whether Israel wants to define Gaza as a bantustan within Israel or as an internment camp, appears to depend on how the Israeli government wants to treat the Gazans at any one time.
Eric Martin pointed out Sharon disengaged from Gaza unilaterally, and outside of the peace process. Thus, instead of rewarding Fatah and providing a boost to Fatah, it hurt Fatah. Especially because Sharon subsequently boosted settlement activity in the West Bank (Fatah’s homebase).
This was a major setback to Fatah and the peace process in general. But then, even Sharon’s people see this as a feature, not a bug (hint: there will be less calls for withdrawal from the West Bank now, and the peace process nuisance has been iced).
You have not yet addressed that.
You can’t have it both ways, if Israel was ‘occupying’ Gaza, certainly it can withdraw, right?
Of course it can! Mind you, it “kind of” withdrew (meaning, it kept control of borders, airspace, territorial waters, etc., as well as maintained the right to make any armed incursion at will).
Fatah could have ‘negotiated’ a withdrawal at any time since at least 1998.
Yes, the subject was part of the peace process. But then Israel circumvented the process and left Fatah looking weak and ineffective by making it clear that it was not Fatah and the peace process that had yiedled results – especially, and you have yet to address this, by simultaneously increasing settlements in the west bank.
You make suggestions that seem to hold the Israelis hostage to Palestinian will no matter what. They can’t occupy. They can’t leave. They can’t stop missiles. What *exactly* can they do?
Of course they can leave! How silly. If I were you, I guess I would point out that yo seem to be debating someone else.
To address your kind of strawish stuff, since states sometimes act strategically, it would have been advisable to leave in a way that supported the negotiating party that they, ostensibly, support (and we ostensibly support too). That would be Fatah.
Instead, they DELIBERATELY, as stated by Sharon’s ministers, withdrew in a way as to sabotage the peace process, make a two state solution less feasible, empower Hamas and thus make withdrawal from the West Bank an easy situation to defer – with plausible deniability.
And what do you mean when you say “they can’t stop missiles”? When have I ever said that?
Odd.
Fatah caused all sorts of its own problems in being unable to show things as fruits of its ‘peace process negotiations’. One of the main ones being that it appeared to be invested more in having a peace process than in having a peace.
Fatah could have ‘negotiated’ a withdrawal at any time since at least 1998.
Your thinking here appears to use the word “negotiations” as a substitute for “capitulation”. Fatah cannot “negotiate” on its own as your last sentence implies, it requires willing participation from Israel in order to do so- unless it unilaterally capitulates.
Again, your thinking fails to recognize the radical religious element in Israeli society- you assume that Israel is negotiating in good faith and therefore, the obstacle must be the Palestinians. But there is ample evidence that many Israelis viewed the negotiations as a stalling tactic as well, unwilling to ever make the actual concessions of territory required for viable negotiations.
I think that you ought to grapple with the Weissglass quote.
Namely, Sharon and Bibi do not want land for peace, they want land for…well, just the land part really.
Anyone who claims otherwise just isn’t paying much attention.
The Gaza Strip is within the sovereign borders of Israel. No one, least of all Israel, disputes that.
Then the blockade (without consideration of what is being stopped), at least as far as whether Israel is blockading anything other than its own border.
=====================
Sharon and Bibi do not want land for peace
“Land for peace” will never work, from the other side either. Let’s say that Israel gives up Gaza, the West Bank and the Golan Heights. There might be a few years without bombings or rockets, but what’s to prevent a new round of terrorism in exchange for more land?
“Land for peace” will never work, from the other side either.
Really? How many attacks have been launched from the West Bank lately? Hell, even Hamas has been enforcing a cease fire.
There might be a few years without bombings or rockets, but what’s to prevent a new round of terrorism in exchange for more land?
Not sure what this means ultimately. Israel has a choice: it can run an apartheid state, or it can come in line with its liberal aspirations, human rights and morality.
If the latter, and attacks persist, then the world would rightly recognize Israel’s right to defend itself – and would lend a hand.
However, it would be specious to use possible futures to justify current oppression in such an open-ended manner.
There might be a few years without bombings or rockets, but what’s to prevent a new round of terrorism in exchange for more land?
This presumes that there’s no cost to the Palestinian people for continuing the conflict, which is manifestly untrue. Consider Northern Ireland- when people got tired of the violence and an evenhanded deal was on the table, extremists on both sides either got wise and dumped their guns, or got marginalized even by their own sides into effectively criminal gangs instead of terrorist/resistance movements with broad bases of support.
Or, to put it another way- the “deal” that the Palestinians get now if they renounce violence is cripplingly bad. If they had a better deal, then trading that good deal for violence would be a much less reasonably or likely choice.
Of course, with your apparent bias you don’t even bother to ask whether the *Israelis* are bargaining in bad faith. Accusations of bad faith can be easily leveled against both sides here.
But even with some bad faith, I think it’s possible for a stable peace to exist, as long as both sides recognize that the breaking of the peace costs more to them than keeping it.
“Yes, the subject was part of the peace process. But then Israel circumvented the process and left Fatah looking weak and ineffective by making it clear that it was not Fatah and the peace process that had yiedled results – especially, and you have yet to address this, by simultaneously increasing settlements in the west bank.”
That was after the flat rejection of the peace plan by Arafat. All the criticisms you have of Israel are also true of Fatah circa 1998-2001. Israeli public opinion didn’t turn so harshly against the Palestinians until the 2 state rejection with no counter-proposal and the start of the second intifada instead.
Why does that get to count as ‘negotiation’ in your world?
“Or, to put it another way- the “deal” that the Palestinians get now if they renounce violence is cripplingly bad. If they had a better deal, then trading that good deal for violence would be a much less reasonably or likely choice.”
They had a much better deal. Instead of even trying to improve that deal with counter offers they started up the renewed intifada.
“Of course, with your apparent bias you don’t even bother to ask whether the *Israelis* are bargaining in bad faith. Accusations of bad faith can be easily leveled against both sides here.”
I’m not. I don’t believe either side wants peace at this point. I believe that last genuine attempts at peace came from the Israeli side, and that they were about a decade ago. I’m pretty sure that neither side has been negotiating in good faith for at least 5 years.
“If the latter, and attacks persist, then the world would rightly recognize Israel’s right to defend itself – and would lend a hand.”
Do you really believe this? I don’t. If Gaza was its own country, and there were still hundreds of rocket attacks and shelling per month (just like now), would the world lend a hand in defense? No they would not. And this isn’t hypothetical because rocket attacks came from Lebanon and the world told Israel to just suck up the civilians losses and ignore it.
“And what do you mean when you say “they can’t stop missiles”? When have I ever said that?”
What exactly do you believe Israel is permitted to do to stop the hundreds of missile attacks each month that originate from Gaza?
Sebastian: What exactly do you believe Israel is permitted to do to stop the hundreds of missile attacks each month that originate from Gaza?
About what the UK was permitted to do to stop the IRA bombings in the Troubles.
Which, incidentally, killed far more people. The missile attacks from Gaza are effective for two things only:
1. Hamas and Hamas supporters can feel they are in some way fighting back against the Israelis who have such complete power over them.
2. The Israeli government can propagandize these missile attacks as justification for the collective punishment they inflict on the internment camp they have made of the Gaza Strip.
The Israelis don’t need to try to stop the missile attacks – they’ve never been a serious threat to Israelis (“missile attacks” from Gaza rarely do more than break windows), unlike the IDF attacks on Gaza, which do kill many Palestinians.
If the Israelis did want to stop the missile attacks, their obvious moves are those the British government finally made to stop the IRA threat: make peace instead of making more terrorists.
But while the Palestinian terrorists are politically so useful to the Israeli government, and present so little threat to Israelis, I would imagine the Israeli government will continue its steady policy of making more terrorists. Starvation, brutality, murder, torture, and land-grab, are all good methods, and the Israeli governments have, from decade to decade, used them all.
I know it’s convenient for Sebastian to imagine that Arafat was entirely to blame for Camp David but there is blame for all three sides at Camp David
link
“And this isn’t hypothetical because rocket attacks came from Lebanon and the world told Israel to just suck up the civilians losses and ignore it.”
You ought to be more specific. It’s easy to portray Israel as the innocent victim of depraved Arab violence if you leave out the Israeli violence. That seems to be an extremely common pattern with Israel defenders in general.
So we see that Jes is in the “suck up 1200 missile attacks a year” group.
Arafat was to blame for starting the intifada in response to Camp David. That wasn’t exactly the most constructive way to continue negotiations, Donald.
And be more specific about what? Eric seems to think the world would help defend Israel from 3rd party attacks outside their borders. But in actual fact, the world, like Jes, seems perfectly ok with more than a thousand rocket attacks per year. And vis-a-vis Lebanon, the attacks could not have been stopped by ‘making peace’. Israel had made peace with Lebanon years before that, and was trying to negotiate with Syria at that very time.
“Arafat was to blame for starting the intifada in response to Camp David. That wasn’t exactly the most constructive way to continue negotiations, Donald.”
How do you know that? The Mitchell Report reached a much more nuanced conclusion. And nearly all the killing in the early stages of the intifada was done by the Israelis–the relative death toll only reached a 3 to 1 ratio (with 3 Palestinian dead for 1 Israeli) when the suicide bombing attacks began months into it. And don’t say it was civilians on the Israeli side–it was about the same proportion on both sides.
link
I asked for details because I didn’t know if you’re talking about 1982 or 2006 or what. The tension in 2006 was over Shebaa farms, and prisoners. Hezbollah started that one and if Israel had been proportionate in its response not many people would have criticized them. They were not.
A little more on Hezbollah and Israel. Israel isn’t exactly innocent here.
The first link is from a Haaretz article in 2004, talking about Israeli violence initiated against Hezbollah and Lebanon.
link
The second is from Diane Mason’s blog (which is where I got the first link)-
link
So you think starting up the intifada *was* the most productive way to continue the Camp David negotiations? That is just weird. It seems to me that the Palestinians were a hair’s breadth from A) having their own country and B) having a definitive settlement.
Arafat was in a position to control the intifada when it began. If he didn’t actively start it himself (Mitchell inconclusive), he certainly could have stopped it (Mitchell says he didn’t particularly try). And the Mitchell is quite passive voice on Camp David. The negotiations didn’t just ‘break down’ mysteriously. Arafat and the PLO walked away from them, didn’t negotiate further, and immediately started up with the intifada.
“The tension in 2006 was over Shebaa farms, and prisoners. Hezbollah started that one and if Israel had been proportionate in its response not many people would have criticized them. They were not.”
We aren’t just talking about criticism, we were talking about coming to Israel’s aid. Eric suggested that the world would ‘lend a hand’. That is a surprising conclusion, as the Lebanon situation BEFORE the war clearly illustrated. Hezbollah attacked Israel from Lebanon and the world did not ‘lend a hand’.
Israel can of course take action to defend itself. But clearly it cannot take any action with morality on its side – I don’t believe anyone claims that it could. There are things it can do and things it can’t while keeping on the right side of either international law or simple moral conscience. The key point to grasp is that the possibility exists that there exists nothing it can do within those strictures that will guarantee perfect security from future attack. The future cannot be foreclosed against perfectly, and while all nations are afforded the right to take action in their own defense, they are not afforded the right (though of course all nevertheless reserve it) to do absolutely anything in self-defense, much less absolutely anything in pursuit of perfect security, which is neither possible nor guaranteed to any nation. (All of this of course fully applies to the United States as well.)
So when we ask what can Israel do to protect itself from rocket attacks, we need to actually think first about what it can actually do to stop rocket attacks, if stopping rocket attacks is to be taken as the legitimate security concern in question. We need to work to identify what the most successful possible courses of action to pursue that aimthat don’t involve unjustifiably greater destruction or deprivation among non-Israeli civilian non-combatants might be, and then those measures are the ones that Israel “can” take to stop rocket attacks, along with others that have minimal destructive consequences that Israel may think will increase effectiveness.
But what Israel cannot do is to claim that the fact that the most effective possible proportionate measures against rocket attacks may not guarantee they will end justifies further measures that are unlikely to be significantly more effective against rocket attacks and that result in extensive human destruction or deprivation outside Israel, such as aerial bombing campaigns, invasions, or embargoes of basic living necessities. That is simply a policy of aggressive, disproportionate response which is neither legally nor morally justified. Perfect security is not guaranteed to any state, nor is unrestricted freedom to take with moral and legal sanction any and all destructive actions deemed warranted in pursuit of perfect security guaranteed to any state either.
Sebastian: So we see that Jes is in the “suck up 1200 missile attacks a year” group.
Nope. I’m saying the Israeli government is the “suck up 1200 missile attacks a year” group.
I’m in the “I think the Israelis should work to stop the 1200 missile attacks a year” group. By methods proven to work in other countries with similiar problems with terrorism.
So you think starting up the intifada *was* the most productive way to continue the Camp David negotiations?
Given that the Camp David “negotiations” apparently – from Clinton’s own testimony – consisted of Clinton and Barak explaining to Arafat the deal Arafat was supposed to accept, and Clinton’s belief that once Arafat understood the deal he would of course accept it immediately and require Palestinians to accept it too, I’m really not sure there was any productive way to continue the negotiations from that starting point.
To negotiate to stop terrorism, you need to begin with what the people from whom the terrorists arise actually want.
At the present time, as far as anyone can tell without sitting in on Cabinet meetings, the Israeli government finds the Gaza missile attacks perfectly acceptable and sees no reason to attempt to stop or prevent them: indeed, prefers to encourage them. They do little damage and provide an acceptable excuse for continuing to maintain Gaza as an internment camp.
Sebastian, did you read the links I supplied about Hezbollah and Israel? One came from Haaretz. There were constant violations of the border by both sides and according to the Israeli study cited in the Haaretz paper, at least as of 2004 the evidence showed Hezbollah reacting to Israel rather than the other way around. This portrait of Israel desperately wanting peace and constantly under attack leaves out the picture of Israel arrogantly assuming its own violence and provocations don’t count. This also applies to Gaza–in the US we always hear about the rockets going from Gaza to Israeli and never about the violence that went the other way, and how the one method which stopped almost all the rockets was a ceasefire with Hamas which Israel broke and in fact, with the blockade still in place meant that they considered themselves free to continue with their own act of war against the entire populace.
As for Camp David, the negotiations didn’t end–they continued for months more and the two sides allegedly came close to an agreement at Taba. It was the Israeli elections with Sharon coming in that ended them. Sharon is always portrayed here as a force of nature, rather than as an intransigent Israeli who wanted to use force. And while I said all sides shared blame for how things fell apart, you characteristically ignored the Israeli and American contribution. Sharon’s walk was seen as provocative even by Israelis-that started the intifada, which at that stage was rock throwing by the Palestinians, with Israelis reacting with deadly force. That’s why the casualties were overwhelmingly Palestinian for months, until the suicide bombing attacks began, and then they were still 3/4 Palestinian dead. Mitchell criticized both sides for lack of restraint and you only care about one.
Clinton also betrayed Arafat, ganging up with Barak against Arafat when the talks failed, which Clinton had promised he wouldn’t do. There was much talk in the US, including from Clinton, about Barak’s generous offer. It was generous by Israeli political standards, which should not be the standard an honest broker would use. Shlomo Ben Ami who was a member of Barak’s government, is no fan of Arafat (shown in his book “Scars of War, Wounds of Peace”) and doesn’t think Arafat wanted peace, admits the Camp David offer was unacceptable–it might have been nice to hear that from the US government or US press. The Palestinian position as outlined by the Malley/Agha article in the NYRB that I linked above was that they wanted their rights as affirmed by various UN resolutions, among others the idea that they should start with the 67 borders. They saw themselves as agreeing to just 22 percent of their homeland. They didn’t want to negotiate away the rights given to them by these UN resolutions and saw the Israeli/American attempts to get them to move away from the UN resolutions as a trap. The American “honest brokers” seemed to find that position outrageous.
All the criticisms you have of Israel are also true of Fatah circa 1998-2001. Israeli public opinion didn’t turn so harshly against the Palestinians until the 2 state rejection with no counter-proposal and the start of the second intifada instead.
Huh? I don’t recall ever saying that the Palestinian side was blameless. If that was your impression, please allow me to clarify: the Palestinians have made scores of big time strategic blunders. Hamas is not helping the Palestinian cause.
Do you really believe this? I don’t. If Gaza was its own country, and there were still hundreds of rocket attacks and shelling per month (just like now), would the world lend a hand in defense? No they would not. And this isn’t hypothetical because rocket attacks came from Lebanon and the world told Israel to just suck up the civilians losses and ignore it.
If belligerent groups mounted that formed an actual threat to Israel, then yes, I believe much of the world would come to its aid.
Shoot, as is, between the US and Europe, Israel ALREADY gets a ton of help from the rest of the world in terms of arms and cash. What, this would stop if all of a sudden Israel faced an actual imminent existential threat?
Now, sporadic rocket fire that has caused something like 20 deaths over a decade pursuant to an ongoing occupation and armed resistanc…that doesn’t seem to warrant bringing in foreign troops to help Israel. It’s quite capable of handling those situations on its own.
Honestly. The thought that the world could or would come to Israel’s aid every time a rag tag outfit like Hez or Hamas provokes it or lashes out in an ineffectual way (and is subsequently battered) is not what I was suggesting.
What exactly do you believe Israel is permitted to do to stop the hundreds of missile attacks each month that originate from Gaza?
First and foremost, there are not hundreds each month. There have actually been periods of cease fire – including right now. Some of those cease fires are actually ended by Israel, mind you, with attacks on Hamas.
One of the prior cease fires was actually ended by Israel prior to Cast Lead in a deliberate provocation to justify an invasion that was in the planning for almost a year.
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45350
Second, Israel is “permitted” to do whatever it wants to do and can get away with.
However, if Israel does not want to be accurately described as committing war crimes, then it has to respond in a way that does not constitute crimes of war. Armed response seems more than justified, while heavy handed, indiscriminate mass destruction…less so.
Cast Lead was a gross, gross overreaction, with rules of engagement that were outright barbaric (basically, shoot anything that moves). Most of the dead were children. The vast majority of the rest, civilians. The civilian infrastructure was deliberately targeted, and ravaged.
In terms of the Lebanon war, instead of punishing Hezbollah, Israel attacked the whole of Lebanon, razing Christian neighborhoods and other non-Hez related civilian infrastructure.
Further, if Israel doesn’t want to be criticized for implementing a cruel form of collective punishment by denying food, fuel, medicine and building material to Gaza’s 1.5 million residents, the majority of which are children (as well as deliberately ravaging its economy), then Israel could instead simply interdict arms shipments instead of witholding the aforementioned items.
The bottom line is this: Israel is justified in taking reasonable steps to protect itself from militant attacks. Heck, even if it strayed a bit from “reasonable,” that would be understandable.
However, simply because Israel has a right to defend itself does not mean Israel has a right to do anything and everything it chooses in its defense.
And if it chooses to respond in ways that are cruel and inhumane, sometimes gratuitously so, then it will face valid criticism for its violations of human rights.
That is all.
First and foremost, the average number of rocket attacks leading into and immediately surrounding the blockade was more than 100 per month. That is even AFTER you put in the 4 month cease-fire. Which by the way proves that Hamas actually controls the attacks when it wants to. Which apparently it currently does not want to control. (Also note that at various times Hamas actively brags about conducting the rocket attacks).
That is a government at war. It doesn’t get much clearer than that. It may be a stupid and ineffectual government at war, but it is definitely at war.
Second the additional number of mortar attacks was also over 100 per month. So more than 200 attacks per month on average, that were under Hamas’ ability to control. We know this because during the ceasefire Hamas was able to control those.
In 2008, the rocket attacks appeared to be down to 60 per month, though the mortar attacks do not appear to be down. In 2009 they were down to about 20 per month not counting the 400 or so in January.
That would indicate to me, that the much maligned border controls were finally working for the most part, rather than that Hamas made a super calculated decision to step from 100 attacks to 60 to 20 attacks per month.
That would suggest that removing the border controls, and allowing non-blockading of ships, would be bad for Israel.
Removing the border controls is of course the main thing that Hamas demands. It is also the main thing that world opinion seems to demand on my read of it (which admittedly is drawn from sources like the Guardian and Der Speigel not from me personally asking people in Europe what they think). The argument being that the slowdown to commerce of inspecting every truck and ship strangles the Gazan economy even if Israel only bans weapons and things that can easily be made into weapons.
So my read on the European mood, is that blockading and enforcing the checkpoints is unacceptable–even as limited to weapons.
I don’t see that as valid criticism for violation of human rights so long as Hamas is willing to launch rockets into Israel, which it clearly is, even now.
“If belligerent groups mounted that formed an actual threat to Israel, then yes, I believe much of the world would come to its aid.”
Why do you believe this? In the 1967 Arab-Israeli war against Egypt, Syria, and Jordan were at war against Israel and not only did the world not come to its aid, but Israel had trouble even counting on US aid. In the 1973 Yom Kippur war, Egypt and Syria again advanced into Israel and that time the aid came just from the US, not ‘the world’. France, the UK, Italy, Germany and Spain all refused USAF landing or flyover (reports at the time mentioned fear of an oil boycott). If it weren’t for Portugal alone allowing use of the Azores, it is quite likely that Israel would have lost and been destroyed right then.
So I don’t understand where you get the impression that the world will come to Israel’s aid if the threat becomes more ‘real’ to you.
Should Israel stop settlements? Yes. Should it restrict itself to arms interdiction in Gaza? Probably, and additionally it can restrict the type of commerce that could allow the creation of arms in Gaza. Should it go on indiscriminate killing sprees? No.
But you should note that Hamas doesn’t go out of its way to make it obvious where its military installations are, it often keeps them dual use and that occupying Gaza seems to be off the table. So even discriminate attacks are likely to get civilians killed.
But what I really don’t understand is your consistent suggestion that the world would help if Israel faced an ‘actual’ threat. That seems to be directly controverted by all the evidence available. No level of threat, up to and including the actual destruction of Israel is enough to get the European countries interested. So the Israeli impression that they have to be able to pretty much go it alone (or hopefully with US help) seems actually pretty accurate.
And if seen from that perspective (which seems to be the accurate perspective) than keeping military organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah from being able to mount ‘real’ threats rather than waiting for them to be able to mount bigger threats and hope for world opinion to help is much more important than you give credit for.
Should Israel stop settlements? Yes.
But they won’t. They have no intention of slowing, let alone stopping, the settlements, and they’ve made that amply clear.
And you’ll continue to support them unconditionally whether they do or not.
So why would you even throw that in, Sebastian? I guess you’re trying to make yourself look even-handed, but from here it looks more like blowing smoke.
First and foremost, the average number of rocket attacks leading into and immediately surrounding the blockade was more than 100 per month. That is even AFTER you put in the 4 month cease-fire.
Right, but not “each” month. You’re talking about an average – in which there are zero attacks in some months. That was my point.
Which by the way proves that Hamas actually controls the attacks when it wants to.
No, it proves that Hamas has some control over the situation, though not total control. And that control is slipping.
That is a government at war. It doesn’t get much clearer than that. It may be a stupid and ineffectual government at war, but it is definitely at war.
Well, the quibble I suppose would be with the definition of “government” moreso than “war.”
That would suggest that removing the border controls, and allowing non-blockading of ships, would be bad for Israel.
Yes and no. Israel could keep up with its activities of interdicting arms shipments without witholding food, medicine, fuel, building materials, and other items that drive the economy of Gaza.
Removing the border controls is of course the main thing that Hamas demands. It is also the main thing that world opinion seems to demand on my read of it (which admittedly is drawn from sources like the Guardian and Der Speigel not from me personally asking people in Europe what they think). The argument being that the slowdown to commerce of inspecting every truck and ship strangles the Gazan economy even if Israel only bans weapons and things that can easily be made into weapons.
No, not the “slowdown” due to inspections. Israel is actually witholding goods now, not slowing down their delivery, but ACTUALLY witholding them. Large amounts. For the purposes of waging “economic warfare,” and putting Gazan’s “on a diet” to use the Israeli government’s words.
From my most recent post: In the years prior to recent anti-Hamas tightening, Israel allowed an average of 10,400 trucks to enter Gaza with goods each month. Israel now allows approximately 2,500 trucks a month.
So my read on the European mood, is that blockading and enforcing the checkpoints is unacceptable–even as limited to weapons.
Seb, that would probably be what “some” Europeans think. But I’m not sure what that means to my argument.
In the 1967 Arab-Israeli war against Egypt, Syria, and Jordan were at war against Israel and not only did the world not come to its aid, but Israel had trouble even counting on US aid. In the 1973 Yom Kippur war, Egypt and Syria again advanced into Israel and that time the aid came just from the US, not ‘the world’. France, the UK, Italy, Germany and Spain all refused USAF landing or flyover (reports at the time mentioned fear of an oil boycott). If it weren’t for Portugal alone allowing use of the Azores, it is quite likely that Israel would have lost and been destroyed right then.
So I don’t understand where you get the impression that the world will come to Israel’s aid if the threat becomes more ‘real’ to you.
More real to me? Huh? Do you really think that either Hamas or Hez constitute a real threat to Israel? Shoot, Hez is 100% incapable of seizing and holding even one square inch of Israeli territory. Some threat.
Regardless, ties between the US/Europe and Israel have increased exponentially since the early 1970s. It was during the Nixon admin that the decision to throw in with Israel all-the-way was made. Since then, the closeness has gotten so that you couldn’t pass more than a whisker between us and Israel – with Europe hopping on in many respects.
Compare the levels of military and financial aid in 1967/1973 and today.
Do you really think that this shift is meaningless?
But what I really don’t understand is your consistent suggestion that the world would help if Israel faced an ‘actual’ threat. That seems to be directly controverted by all the evidence available. No level of threat, up to and including the actual destruction of Israel is enough to get the European countries interested. So the Israeli impression that they have to be able to pretty much go it alone (or hopefully with US help) seems actually pretty accurate.
Seb, how much in military aid do we give Israel EACH year? They are not on their own. They have a military that could outduel Iran’s, Saudi Arabia’s, Syria’s, Jordan’s and Lebanon’s all at once. Not to mention a couple (or few) hundred nukes.
Hez and Hamas could never mount a “real” challenge to Israel. What either could do, maybe, is make holding on to Golan costly and refusing to give the Palestinians a viable state costly. But, no, even without the invasion of Lebanon and Cast Lead, Israel would not face a real threat from either organization. Unless you mean threat to maximalist goals, in which case, yeah to some extent.
Nevertheless, Israel has a right and is justified in striking back with proportionate force against those groups’ aggressions.
That is not what Israel has done. Cast Lead and the Lebanon invasion were shameful displays of wildly excessive brutality.
“Seb, how much in military aid do we give Israel EACH year?”
Maybe I’m confused by what you mean by ‘the world’. Do you *just* mean the US?
I’m perfectly willing to say that the US has been willing to back Israel in times of ‘real’ crisis that could have destroyed Israel. But the US isn’t ‘the world’ at all. The non-US world seemed perfectly willing to see Israel completely destroyed. And that apparently includes pretty much all of non-Portugal Europe for example.
“No, not the “slowdown” due to inspections. Israel is actually witholding goods now, not slowing down their delivery, but ACTUALLY witholding them. Large amounts. For the purposes of waging “economic warfare,” and putting Gazan’s “on a diet” to use the Israeli government’s words.”
I think maybe we are talking about different things. ‘The world’ does not appear to be ok with the arms interdiction. The non-US stance was that even the pre-slowdown checkpoints were unfairly damaging to the Gazan economy. (Amnesty International Israel for example suggests that Israel is not within its rights to have the inbound-to-Gaza checkpoints at all).
That is why I’m troubled by your contention that the world would have Israel’s back if Israel let things get to a ‘real’ threat level. The non-US world doesn’t seem ok with even the most basic steps that you and I are talking about. Not even the ‘proportional’ steps that you are ok with. Egypt was criticized for going along with the arms blockade.
I’m not denying that Israel has gone too far. I’m denying that ‘the world’ is interested in even helping Israel go appropriately far. (see especially arms interdiction).
Maybe I’m confused by what you mean by ‘the world’. Do you *just* mean the US?
Perhaps it is I who am confused: Are you under the impression that only the US has generous arms deals with, and gives aid to, Israel?
That is why I’m troubled by your contention that the world would have Israel’s back if Israel let things get to a ‘real’ threat level
Seb, Amnesty International is one thing. Governments of nations are another. Despite some objections from human rights groups, Israel has extremely close relations with all European governments (see, ie, Germany and Greece and Italy and the UK, etc).
Even Turkey, up until very recently, had very good relations with Israel.
If Israel were attacked by an armada of ME nations, I have little doubt that Europe and the US would provide direct aid to Israel sufficient to support it (countless US leaders have openly and repeatedly pledged as much). Heck, that same group of nations provided armed aid to Kuwait when it was invaded. I doubt those nations would stop at Israel, not now, not given the ties.
That would be an amazing thing.
And, regardless, Israel would not need the help because it is more than capable on its own.
It took me about thirty seconds to find this table showing the number of rockets and mortar shells fired from Gaza during the months when the ceasefire was in effect. Note the sharp increase in November and December–that’s after Israel killed militants on November 4.
This is a pdf file. Go to page six to find the month by month data.
link
The point being that if you want to see what the ceasefire did, you have to look at the data month by month, not year by year. It’s ridiculous taking an annual average and dividing it by 12–that almost totally masks the effect of the ceasefire. And yes, Hamas has control over most of the rocket fire, though they can’t stop everyone in Gaza who might want to fire off a rocket. That’s why there was still a handful of rockets that were fired in the months of July, August, Sept, and October.
It is pretty clear that at the very least, rubber bullets, flash grenades and tear gas were fired first.
. . .
It’s on the videos.
link? I haven’t seen a video showing the IDF fired first. I’ve read that the IDF saw that the upper decks had guys in gas masks, bullet proof vests, and metal bars and fired a stun grenade and warning shots to clear the deck which didn’t work. I can’t tell but I would think that was after trying to board on the side.
I can’t find a time line showing when the helicopter approach was made relative to trying to board from the side.
Even the IDF has admitted to doctoring some of the audio
link? I understood that the IDF “admitted” to taking out the silence in between comments. But the “go back to Auschwitz” and warning to the flotilla was authentic.
Generally speaking, have you ever known protocol for boarding a ship to include rappelling commandos?
No, not even specifically speaking. The only boardings I have seen are from Hollywood (no sarcasm intended). But I would guess the next thing to try after trying to board on the side would be by air. That or sinking the ship.
Russell:
or to use the blockade to punish the civilian population for electing Hamas as their political leadership.
We agree on the need to allow necessaries. I’m not convinced that’s not happening. After necessaries, what is wrong with blockading or setting up an embargo? I don’t see any difference (except the degree) between imposing an embargo (e.g. the U.S.’s embargo of Cuba, which in Spanish, is called el bloqueo or blockade) and a blockade.
And when I say “what is wrong,” I mean what is wrong from a legal perspective? I happen to think the embargo was the right idea while the Soviet Union still existed but am not sure now because the national security rationale is missing. That’s not the case with Gaza.
link? I understood that the IDF “admitted” to taking out the silence in between comments. But the “go back to Auschwitz” and warning to the flotilla was authentic.
Not just silence, but actual words too. And no, the “go back to Auschwitz” was not authentic in that it did not come from the ship that was boarded, or another ship in the flotilla.
link
No, not even specifically speaking. The only boardings I have seen are from Hollywood (no sarcasm intended). But I would guess the next thing to try after trying to board on the side would be by air. That or sinking the ship.
You lack imagination.
link? I haven’t seen a video showing the IDF fired first.
If you’ve seen videos of passengers throwing flash grenades back, and even the notoriously duplicitous IDF does not claim that the flash grenades were the passengers, well then…
We agree on the need to allow necessaries. I’m not convinced that’s not happening.
Huh? They are holding back vital medicine, food, fuel and building supplies. They are deliberately destroying the economy. Childhood anemia has skyrocketed to 46%. There is massive malnourishment.
What do you mean?
I don’t see any difference (except the degree) between imposing an embargo (e.g. the U.S.’s embargo of Cuba, which in Spanish, is called el bloqueo or blockade) and a blockade.
Completely different. Totally.
The embargo has to do with the US not sending material to Cuba. Cuba can still import that material from anywhere else. Further, the US is not boarding every ship headed to Cuba, removing food, medicine, fuel and building supplies, and then meting it out to Cubans at levels below international standards for what the population requires.
The same would be true of an embargo of the USSR. Or, for that matter, Gaza.
In other words, other than the fact that the Spanish word translates poorly, there really isn’t anything similar.
But…yeah.
“If Israel were attacked by an armada of ME nations, I have little doubt that Europe and the US would provide direct aid to Israel sufficient to support it (countless US leaders have openly and repeatedly pledged as much). ”
Why do you have little doubt? When it actually happened, during the Yom Kippur war, European countries including specifically the UK, France, Germany, and Italy, not only failed to provide direct aid, but they banned US refueling and fly over for support. The ONLY country that provided even that much aid was Portugal through the Azores. This was in a case where it looked very possible that without immediate aid that Israel could be completely finished off.
That is point to point exactly what you hypothesize except for the fact that the European countries actually reacted exactly opposite from what you suspect.
Donald, Wikipedia has that exact same data for every year that Gaza has had rockets available. That is where I got the information from and it matches exactly.
The data shows that Hamas has almost perfect control of the rockets. During their ceasefire very few got through. The problem with that observation is that it means that Hamas has almost perfect control of the rockets–so whenever there are rocket attacks, it is virtually certain that Hamas is ok with it.
“It’s ridiculous taking an annual average and dividing it by 12–that almost totally masks the effect of the ceasefire.”
I wasn’t trying to mask the effect of the ceasefire. Quite the opposite. It shows than when Hamas wants war, it sends 50-100 rockets and more than 100 mortar attacks in to Israel every single month that it wants war. Which apparently would be every single month but 4 in the last 48. And it appears that they have been slowing down in response to the blockade–i.e. that fewer rockets are getting into Gaza to be fired at Israel.
Why do you have little doubt? When it actually happened, during the Yom Kippur war
And that this happened almost 40 years ago changes the calculus…not at all?
I mean, I confess I don’t know the exact dynamic in 1973 vis a vis Israel vs. The Non-U.S. world, but it seems to me to be hard to believe that it hasn’t shifted significantly in favor of Israel since then.
Why do you have little doubt? When it actually happened, during the Yom Kippur war, European countries including specifically the UK, France, Germany, and Italy, not only failed to provide direct aid, but they banned US refueling and fly over for support. The ONLY country that provided even that much aid was Portugal through the Azores. This was in a case where it looked very possible that without immediate aid that Israel could be completely finished off.
That is point to point exactly what you hypothesize except for the fact that the European countries actually reacted exactly opposite from what you suspect.
Seb, we’ve already been over this.
You made this point, I responded.
Did you read my response? If so, please move the discussion forward by addressing my rebuttal, otherwise we will continue to remain at square one.
Those events that you cite occurred 40 years ago. They occurred at a time when ties between the US/Europe and Israel were tenuous at best.
Nixon and Kissinger, at that time, decided to throw in with Israel big time. It was the birth of the special relationship between the US and Israel, and we dragged along our European allies.
Over the intervening 40 years, ties between Israel and the US/Europe have grown, to quote myself from upthread, “exponentially.”
This has completely changed the game. Thus, the historical incident is not instructive.
Just as prior attacks by the US on Germany in 1944 are not indicative of how the US would react should Germany be attacked today.
Situations change. The relationship between the US/Europe and Israel has changed dramatically.
Those events that you cite occurred 40 years ago. They occurred at a time when ties between the US/Europe and Israel were tenuous at best.
And when threats of Arab oil embargoes were more credible than they are now.
Ugh, “The Non-U.S. world, but it seems to me to be hard to believe that it hasn’t shifted significantly in favor of Israel since then.”
Eric “Over the intervening 40 years, ties between Israel and the US/Europe have grown, to quote myself from upthread, ‘exponentially.’
This has completely changed the game. Thus, the historical incident is not instructive.”
What country in Europe are you specifically talking about?
The UK was much more friendly with Israel in the 1960s and 1970s than it is now. A huge part of early Israeli history is about going from the UK being a major supporter to relying on the US instead.
France, never really very friendly (largely aligned with Lebanon really–though strangely not as hostile to Syria as you would expect for a country aligned with Lebanon).
Spain? I don’t see much evidence of ‘exponentially’ better. Or even noticeably better.
Italy? Germany? None of these countries seem A) much better disposed to Israel than in 1973 nor B) willing to put military force in for them if they were to be ‘wiped from the map’.
Which country do you think we are talking about?
Again, it seems like we are only talking about the US. Which is fine, but then say “only the US”. Don’t bring in all this stuff about the rest of the world.
Now you can argue that the US is enough. But that is an argument with a totally different color to it. That is an argument in which Israeli hypersensitivity makes a lot of sense–because they correctly realize that pretty much no one has their back if the US falters even for a moment.
And I frankly think that Kuwait is non-instructive. Israel does not have oil and is not next to Saudi Arabia. If it hadn’t looked like Iraq could sweep into Saudi Arabia next, it would have been a completely different issue so far as Europe was concerned. And Israel is not next to anything with the strategic importance of Saudi Arabian oil.
“Which apparently would be every single month but 4 in the last 48. And it appears that they have been slowing down in response to the blockade–i.e. that fewer rockets are getting into Gaza to be fired at Israel.”
Of course Hamas has control over most of the rocket fire, though not 100 percent control. And the ceasefire ended nearly all of it, except for a literal handful they couldn’t stop. That’s what the graph shows. So obviously a ceasefire agreement is the way to go if Israel was concerned about rockets, and they could have ended the blockade, but they didn’t. Israel broke the ceasefire. They obviously preferred to blockade Gaza and break a ceasefire rather than allow Hamas to gain credibility.
And again, it’s not like in all those years before the ceasefire that violence only crossed the border one way. I’m not going to look it up right now, but the Gazans suffered far greater casualties from Israeli fire, on top of the blockade. But that never seems to enter your head or the heads of most American politicians including Obama.
Hamas can’t win with you. If they adhere to a ceasefire it means nothing and if they don’t adhere to a ceasefire it means they’re making war, nevermind what Israel is doing all this time. And for you the blockade “works”–I think it’s rather more likely that killing 1400 Palestinians “worked” and Hamas doesn’t want another war like that.
Seb,
I’m definitely talking about Germany, Greece, Italy, NATO in general, and even France and the UK.
Greece and Israel participate in joint naval exercises with some regularity now, and Greece’s fear of Turkey has pushed it very close to Israel. There is a lot of military cooperation there that wasn’t there before.
Italy has made a point of cultivating close ties with its Mediterranean neighbor much more in the past few decades than before.
Germany, as well, has, it seems, overcompensated in some ways and has become close allies with Israel.
Also, back then, France was supplying Israel’s opponents with arms. Now, France and Israel are swapping weapons moreso.
But in general, NATO has a much closer relationship with Israel now as opposed to then.
And, in general, the West would be less tolerant of aggression now than then – and would, as Hogan pointed out, have less fear of an oil embargo.
And I frankly think that Kuwait is non-instructive. Israel does not have oil and is not next to Saudi Arabia. If it hadn’t looked like Iraq could sweep into Saudi Arabia next, it would have been a completely different issue so far as Europe was concerned. And Israel is not next to anything with the strategic importance of Saudi Arabian oil.
What about the Balkans? Point being, interventionism is more reflexive now to battle aggression – even without direct mooring to vital strategic interests.
Besides, there are serious economic interests in Israel that European countries would not want to see overrun. Nor would the West want to see a collaborative marauding Arab army considering that all that oil is still right there in that same neighborhood.
Correction: I think I have the France arms relationship inverted.
Nevertheless, Wiki disagrees with your take on the trend with the UK – and highlights the closeness of German ties, and India (which we have failed to discuss, but which counts as non-US, obviously):
Foreign relations with United States, Turkey, Germany, the United Kingdom and India are among Israel’s strongest. The United States was the first country to recognize the State of Israel, followed by the Soviet Union. The United States may regard Israel as its primary ally in the Middle East, based on “common democratic values, religious affinities, and security interests”.[189] Their bilateral relations are multidimensional and the United States is the principal proponent of the Arab-Israeli peace process. U.S. and Israeli views differ on some issues, such as the Golan Heights, Jerusalem, and settlements.[190]
India established full diplomatic ties with Israel in 1992 and has fostered a strong military and cultural partnership with the country since then.[191] One study revealed that India was the most pro-Israel nation in the world followed by the United States.[192]
Germany’s strong ties with Israel include cooperation on scientific and educational endeavors and the two states remain strong economic and military partners.[193][194] The UK has kept full diplomatic relations with Israel since its formation having had two visits from heads of state in 2007. Relations between the two countries were also made stronger by former prime minister Tony Blair’s efforts for a two state resolution. The UK is seen as having a “natural” relationship with Israel on account of the British Mandate of Palestine.[195]
“What about the Balkans? Point being, interventionism is more reflexive now to battle aggression – even without direct mooring to vital strategic interests.”
Isn’t the Balkan intervention generally seen as a mistake by European policymakers or am I just reading too much Guardian/Der Speigel? I’ve always thought they were relatively mainstream? Are they not?
The wiki article is quoting bland diplomatic language straight from foreign office travel reports [see the source for footnote 195 for example]. I wouldn’t rely on those types of reports for a good understanding of overall diplomatic relations except on the very most obvious level (like: The UK has broken diplomatic relations….). I certainly wouldn’t rely on it to form an opinion on the likelyhood that they would militarily support Israel in the case of invasion.
And not to beat a dead Yom Kippur horse too much, but note that all of the mentioned countries refused even overflight rights for US support of Israel. They weren’t even asked for actual material support. They refused even that small gesture of support for Israel.
Hamas is responsible for every attack on Israel, by an upset refugee; like Israel is responsible for every attack settlers commit against their Palestinian neighbors.
Your average upset refugee doesn’t have rockets to shoot into Israel.
And Israel wants’ to keep it that way.
At least you recognize the power dynamic in this context.
You must realize that your average settler can do whatever he likes to your average upset refugee, while protected as a Israeli citizen.
Israel wants even more subs from Germany and would prefer that – again – the bill is paid by the German government. I guess the fact that said German government is thinking about letting the buyer also pay this time is an ‘hostile’ act (preceding the flotilla attack btw). To my knowledge there is no ‘serious’ discussion about not selling in the first place unlike an earlier occasion about a sale of minesweepers (ships!) to Turkey that was blocked because of Turkish actions against the Kurds (and their feared mountain navy, I presume).
Childhood anemia has skyrocketed to 46%. There is massive malnourishment.
Actually I think that was the pregnant women. In children it was 65.5%, coming down from 2007 and 2006.
Cause and effect? India had a rate of
70 percent in 2008.
Closer to home, it looks like anaemia has been a long standing problem in the whole region. And “palestine” has had a problem since at least 1995 . Yemen, Syria, Sudan, Iraq, Oman etc. are all “severe” and not a single country (including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Morroco, Egypt, etc.) are below “moderate” in terms of the problem in young children.
Not saying anaemia isn’t a problem, but I’m not sure you can trace it to the blockade.
Cause and effect? India had a rate of
70 percent in 2008.
Yeah, and malnourishment is a huge problem in India, and has been for decades. Not sure that is a comparison that helps your argument.
According to the UN and WHO, the rates have gone up post-blockade.
Eric:
According to the UN and WHO, the rates have gone up post-blockade.
What I can find says one researcher thinks it has but is awaiting a new study that was to come out in May. Doesn’t look like it has come out yet or what the increase will be.
My point is not that the situation is fine. My point is that high rates of anemia may have nothing to do or little to do with the blockade. If Gaza had comparable rates in 1995 and in 2002 (the surveys I saw) then the blockade is not making it worse. That it is coming down since 2006 may in fact indicate it is getting better (different diet on food aid?). And even if it is increasing, an increase from what it was in 1995 or 2002 to what is reported now isn’t significant, IMHO. It’s bad and it’s always been bad. It’s one thing to say “Gee, it’s really bad and the blockade keeps us from improving it” vs. “the blockade is causing 60% + anemia rates!!!!!!” Trumpeting anemia increase as an argument against the blockade without more factual support doesn’t work IMO.
I don’t buy the whole “look at the Roots Restaurant” line either. This article is consistent with what I think it is like in Gaza.
BTW, what do you think about Hamas taking a cut of smuggling? Without a “tax” on smuggling tunnels, what appears to be fairly abundant items in groceries that are apparently out of the price reach of ordinary Gazans would be less expensive.
BTW, what do you think about Hamas taking a cut of smuggling?
I think this is yet another way for the Israelis to keep Hamas in power and well-funded. After all, without Hamas in power in Gaza, what excuse would the Israelis find for treating Gaza as an internment camp?