Angry Israel/Palestine Ranting Thread.

Every time Lum, every time. Sorry if I have a different point of view then you do.

It isn't a matter of "point of view" when it comes to what people are saying. Either they say that or they don't.

Ignoring the morality argument (which I think is a bit naive in a world where the primary superpower reserves the right to execute anyone anywhere by remote missile launch), Israeli counter measures are counter productive in the long run. Palestinian resistance is a hydra with infinite heads, there will always be more people willing to fight the occupying power. Demographics alone dictate that it's in Israel's best interests to evacuate the territory taken since 1967 and help build a viable PA. That's the only way to "fight" Hamas, since they grew out of a vacuum where a normal state should have been. It would also have the side-benefit of weakening extremist groups in the greater Middle East, who use the ongoing battle against "Zionism" as a recruiting tool.

The only viable solution is to rename rockets as "single use self-detonating drones". That way nobody will mind them and peace talks can begin in earnest.

IIRC, they did when we were taking the land. Notably, the Fourth Geneva Convention when we all agreed this is a barbaric practice (taking land, oppressing the natives) was signed far after all that happened. But I'm pretty sure we had a lot of shooting wars with the Native Americans while taking all their land, and even a few when it was in theory sold to us but a few groups disagreed.

Is your point that insurgency never happens, or is your point that Israel is behaving in a manner that's pretty much universally considered a dark stain on American history? Because more recently we've even had internment camps, but I think we can universally agree it was a terrible thing.

edit: are we really going down the thought process of "well the US had the Trail of Tears so this is totally not the worst thing ever!" Brett? Because you're going to be hard pressed here to find knee jerk reactions of "Of course the US doing it was okay!" instead of "holy shit no it was hellishly wrong and it's almost like we have examples of exactly why things like collective punishment and settlements and relocation camps are horrible fucking things that fuck groups over for generations"

The latest events are making Starsiege look prophetic.

Good. I hope both sides blow each other up.

Fuck the Palestinians. They're a bunch of fucking dicks who decided that genocide was their best option and it cost them dearly. Then many of 'em decided to leave their homes on the advice of their "Arab brothers", only to find out that they were duped. Now they whine to someone else about it without ever challenging the people who duped them in the first place. They elect terrorists groups to lead them, harbor those assholes and then cry when bad things happen to them. They wouldn't know the meaning of the Quran if it bit them in the ass. They can't even throw a rock straight. They deserve zero sympathy for the consequences of their decisions. They made their bed, let them lie and die in it.

Fuck the Israelis. Of any group in the world who should know better than to practice apartheid, they should. Yet they elect friggin' racist leaders who prey on their fears (much like the Republican Party nowadays) and accept their two-class system. They use fear as an excuse to perform some of the worst civil-rights abuses since the fall of South Africa. They say one thing in the name of peace and do another in the name of war. They have the power and wield it recklessly like a kid with his father's gun. They've milked the sympathy for WWII absolutely dry. They made their bed, let them lie and die in it.

Maybe both sides can nuke each other and let the radioactivity spread over Iran and kill those fuckers too.

Or maybe, just maybe, both sides will get tired enough of fucking each other over and elect leaders who have enough human decency to actually come to an agreement. But I ain't counting on it.

You do realize there's a stark differences between the Palestinians and the Israelis at the only time that matters, the present. One has a functioning society with self determination and military might. The other is a horribly oppressed by the first and cordoned off into dysfunctional and shrinking regions under conditions similar to concentration camps with daily threats of violence and virtually every aspect of life subject to the whim of others.

How they got there isn't really relevant, what's relevant is the situation as it is today and what it will become in the future. The Palestinians got a shit hand, no doubt but Israel is absolutely at fault through their oppression and created and continue to maintain the conditions that allow terrorist organizations to thrive. I can't blame the Palestinians for fighting back, it's what anyone would do and it is currently their only option for survival. It is up to Israel to empower the Palestinians to have other viable avenues to explore but as long as they keep them under their thumb and keep them oppressed and living in a dysfunctional state the Palestinians only have the options to fight or die.

Sorry, I reject that entire line of thinking. How they got there is entirely relevant. Your entire post is just an excuse for terrorism and can be applied to virtually any group in the entire world that somehow feels victimized. Do you think you might be as sympathetic if Native Americans starting launching rocket attacks in NYC? Or if the Ainu decided to start bombing the Tokyo railway system? (and both of those groups are far less at fault for their circumstances than the Palestinians)

They made their choices - repeatedly poor ones - and now you think all should be forgiven by one side since they hold the power. No thanks. As I said, fuck all of 'em. They deserve each other and until both sides actually start making substantial concessions my opinion of both sides won't change a lick.

For real, and the saddest part is that there are things that the Israeli authorities could do that would undermine organisations like Hamas far more profoundly than killing a high-ranking member of those organisations whilst simultaneously making things better for Israel.

False equivalence. Also, pretending that you think both sides are equally responsible for their own situations is cute.

Eh, not all terrorism is motivated by widely agreed legitimate oppression. What Israel does to the Palestinians in the modern era is pretty much internationally recognised as bad behaviour but a lot of terrorist groups are motivated by oppression that only exists within their own warped world view. For example, the Taliban pre-911 weren't really being oppressed by modern life out in their caves and pretty much nobody agreed that they had a legitimate grievance against the US. Similarly with domestic terrorists feeling oppressed by the IRS. Their feelings of oppression might be real to them but they aren't what the rest of us would call facts on the ground.

On the more general point, if you actually want to solve modern problems then its usually best not to get overly bogged down in a tit for tat history of who started what. There will always be some of that, of course, but the reality of life today should be the consideration given most weight.

You're damn straight it's false equivalence. The Palestinians are far more responsible for their fate than that of the Ainu or Native Americans.

So, the Palestinians didn't attack in '48 (which is what started all of this shit)? They haven't kept up a constant state of war since then between the Fedayeen, PLO, Hamas, etc.? They don't launch thousands of rocket and mortar attacks a year into Israel? War is war. That doesn't justify what Israel does, but don't even attempt to justify what the Palestinians do as some sort of righteous cause. So long as they support thugs, terrorists and murderers, they're no different than those whom they oppose.

I agree with you, Dan.

You're right, both sides have to let go of some of that history to move forward. But neither side wants to at this stage and hence my disdain for both groups. When one leader finally gets control of their side and extends a real, honest olive branch, then that's the side that will have finally earned some respect. Until then, fuck 'em.

You mean Palestinian Gazans under Hamas rule. The present (as you said) conflict is in Gaza with Hamas, an Iranian proxy. Rockets are not flying back and forth from the West Bank. Iran and Egypt have a vested interest in keeping Gaza a military hotspot (it worked beautifully in Southern Lebanon). Israel is absolutely complicit in playing into their hands, but don't think this entire thing happens in a vacuum.

I'm pretty sure what started all of this was the declaration of a Jewish state in Palestine without the approval of the majority of the people who lived there. The rest of the Israel-Palestine conflict is all rooted in that act of colonialism.

e: In this sense, neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians "started this"; foreign powers did.

And then who attacked who, Alex? Which side adopted a policy of genocide?

That seems irrelevant to me, if the question is "who started it". What started it is the division of Palestine, and on that much everyone can agree (though we can disagree about whether or not that division was legal or moral). You seem to be asking "was the way the war conducted moral or legal", and obviously it wasn't - there were atrocities on both sides and the rhetoric from the Arab League was pretty gruesome. But lets not move the goal posts: you said the conflict started with the invasion of the Palestinians, which is simply not true. It started before that, with the British-led attempt to partition Palestine despite majority opposition to the plan.

I haven't moved the goal posts at all. One side decided to start killing the other side. That's a large part of the reason for the entrenched attitudes to this day. Trying to gloss over that isn't productive. It has to be accepted, acknowledged and then work past it. It ain't water under the bridge. I'm sorry if that doesn't fit in with the Israel = Bad, Palestinians = Good world view that some here seem to have, but so be it. I find it awfully interesting that people justify Palestinian actions because of Israeli past and present actions, but want to condemn Israeli actions regardless of Palestinian past and present actions.

Both sides are wrong. Both sides have done wrong. Both sides continue to do wrong. And until both sides decide not to do wrong, they get what they deserve. Is Israel doing the "more wrong" now? Yep. But have the Palestinians done the "more wrong" for decades? Yep. So fuck 'em both.

Whoa, was the store sold out of brushes that weren't incredibly broad? The vast majority of Palestinians are not terrorists. Fact is, Palestinians have no real agency over their political fates at this point either way. That some of them choose to act out with a fake form of agency is not a reason to take a "fuck 'em" stance to the whole group.

No offence.
But in this day and age, I'd hope we could come up with something better then an arguemnt that boils down to "Screw it. Kill em all and let God decide"

In Gaza they elected Hamas, a group with the stated goal to wipe out Israel. That is a choice they made that they have to live with, no one forced them to vote for a terrorist organization like that.

You could use the same excuse that the average Israeli doesn't deserve to give up any land or money because they're not in charge of their own fate. I don't buy that for a minute either.

Hamas - a known terrorist group whose spoken aim is the complete extermination of the Israeli state - won a majority of the seats in 2006. That means they won the popular vote from the Palestinian people in both Gaza and the West Bank. Electing Hamas was the definitive end of the illusion of any peace process. In other words, the Palestinians got what they voted for. So is that a broad brush? Yep. Is it deserved? Yep.

Man you can take it back further than that if you want. I mean why was their a demand for Israel to be created in the first place? Because of Hitler of course! Perhaps Germany should be picking up the tab for this mess. But then again really, Hitler's animosity and resultant genocide of the Jews was just him picking up on an already existing prejudice that dates back centuries. There was an underlying resentment built up between some european christians and jews that was just awaiting the right nutjob to pick it up and run with it.

So, where does that resentment originate? Probably a lot of it comes from the papal proscription against usury (the charging of interest) in intra-christian money lending that was taken very seriously up until around 1545. The result was, an at the time perception, of jewish domination, of the european money lending industry and everyone hates the guy they owe money to. Since charging interest was probably a lot more profitable than not doing so, and the minority jewish population were allowed to charge interest on loans to the majority christian population I guess there is a good chance that perception was factually based. Anyway perception or reality, the idea of jewish control over vast wealth still feeds into Jewish conspiracy theories and prejudice today. Maybe the Pope should pick up the blame for the Middle east conflict, I mean dude is supposed to be infallible right?

However, perhaps we can wind that back even further into myth; I mean the bible (and Mel Gibson) has the Jews down as the Christ killers right? Who wrote this thing? Can we track down their ancestors and make them pay? On and on it goes...

No offense taken, but it's not for us to come up with something. Both groups have to demonstrate a commitment to peace and neither one has. Neither side has a strong enough leader of forcing through any long-lasting peace. If neither side wants peace, if neither side votes for peace, if neither side works for peace, then neither side deserves it. I was sympathetic with the Palestinians for a long time. I'm not anymore because they're just as guilty as the Israelis. You know why I say fuck 'em? Because that's all they deserve at this point.

On a separate note (not directed at you, Jerid), if you want to visit Fantasyland with Kalle and Lum, you might believe that one side bending over and taking it in the ass would suddenly fix everything. It's not only unreasonable, it's naive. If Israel did what they wanted, there would likely be an all-out war within 5 years - either a civil war inside Israel or a war between Israel and one or more Arab states. And given that the Israelis are probably the most likely group in the world to use nuclear weapons, that's playing with fire. That's not fear-mongering, that's fucking reality. To get a real peace, you have to deal with the real issues and the problem is that neither side has the power or mandate to give the other side the confidence that they can deliver what they promise.

Hamas was not elected in a vacuum. Hamas was elected because if you look past the militant part, they're the people who clean up the mess Israel leaves when they go on these bombing campaigns.

Hamas only exists as a political power because the IDF blows shit up. Which is an unhealthy relationship, as Hamas wants more bombing campaigns to increase their popularity as the resistance, and the IDF wants more Hamas attacks to increase support for the IDF's bombing campaigns.

Why you see people poke Israel with a sharper stick than Gaza about this is simple: Israel is in a position where they can change the status quo. Gaza is pretty much struggling for survival and being collectively punished (also a direct and clear violation of the 4th convention), so it's a bit more understandable that they'd be pro-militant opposition to what are seen as oppressive invaders.

This is not entirely fair to Israel, but the basic concept is that Israel has the power(but not the political will) to make shit better. Gaza really doesn't have the power nor political will to do shit.

It seems incredibly naive and pie-in-the-sky to think either side will forget how it got to where it is today.

The amassed grievances, outrages and violence each has done to the other serve as the cudgel the most despicable leaders of each side use on their own people to keep themselves in power.

Lobbing rockets at Israeli citizens has not reclaimed one centimeter of ground for the Palestinians, but has rather allowed Netanyahu cover to not address the settlers, just as Israeli military action has not stopped the rockets.

Fair or not, I believe the Palestinians must renounce violence and endure until a moderate Israeli government is elected. Of course that would mean changing their own leadership, which isn't going to happen as long as Israel remains belligerent.
Vicious cycle and all that.

They elect their government, right? Which as a government maintains apartheid? And if they voted in a government that would end apartheid, apartheid would end, right?

Sorry, but no. Hamas does terror attacks whether or not they're nominally in charge of the parliament, if you noticed. They were elected because the only other option was massively corrupt and was failing to provide basic services even at the extremely low level possible under Israeli rule. Hamas is a pretty fucked up organization but it's also a pretty complicated one, and distilling all of Palestinian politics into "a vote for Hamas is a vote for terrorism" is nothing short of insulting.

Wow, that's an easy game.

Which government has an active policy of terrorism? If they voted in a government that weren't terrorists, terrorism would end right? Then the other side would feel secure enough to resolve this thing, right?

Oh, it's so simple. Let's head to Camp David!

Your last sentence is irrelevant. Hamas won virtually every single contested seat in 2006 in large part due to the splintering of Fatah, but that still doesn't excuse the fact that it's a known terrorist organization who has and continues to use terrorist tactics. If you vote for a terrorist organization, you're supporting terrorism. There's no way around that. If you actively help a murderer, then the blood is on your hands too.

The reason the Palestinians won't lay down arms is that the last time they had a cease fire, the settlement creation and expansion rate skyrocketed. Basically if they stop being dicks, the other side takes that as an excuse to fuck them over.

Palestine can't be the only people working towards peace here. If they lay down their weapons, settlements building new buildings needs to be a major crime or it simply turns into "please roll over so we can take all your shit, we promise eventually this will turn into peace"

Seriously, the solutions all probably involve a fuckload of UN troops keeping the two parties away from each other for a decade or two to cool off. Otherwise it's one drunk asshole on either side away from being a shooting war again.

I don't disagree with you. But, as military action (which consists primarily of lobbing rockets at Israeli citizens) has gained the Palestinians nothing, and only serves to keep the world (including the United States) from applying leverage against the settlements, it would behoove them to "Go Gandhi".
Or, everyone can wait another generation, wait until the current leadership dies and try again. Of course, Fatah was replaced by the more radical Hamas and Isreal re-elected Netanyahu last time there was any hope of change...

Not to mention that most of the world, especially the West, needs to get over this superstitious nonsense about Israel being some magical fantasyland that must get special treatment or the Apocalypse gets triggered. I think an embargo wouldn't be a bad idea if you could somehow get it passed without all these Left Behind-reading yahoos screaming "BUT THEY ARE THE CHOSEN ONES HOW DARE YOU NOT ACKNOWLEDGE THEIR SPARKLY MAGICAL SPECIALNESS!!!" - just get a coalition together that says "Okay, Israel? Until you stop these policies of segregation and institutionalized apartheid, you don't get to play with the rest of the kids until you're mature enough to sit at the big table." while at the same time saying "Palestine! Put the fucking rockets DOWN. No one told you you can have rockets. No flag, no army, NO ROCKETS. If you pull out a rocket, I will stand back and let the IDF bend you over the smoking ruins of your house and cornhole you and I will hand them the lube."

But of course, since everyone seems to believe that Invisible Sky Dude thinks Israel is his own pet project, nobody's going to nut up and intervene like should have been done thirty-plus years ago.

Well no, because as I said in the post you quoted, Hamas carries out terror attacks independently of its actions as a political party. It did it before it even started being a political party, it did it before it won a majority in parliament, it does it now, and it will continue to do it if it is voted out of power. That's their thing. So no, ordinary Palestinians do not have the ability to stop Hamas from carrying out terror attacks.

Well, easy for you to say. You're taking an entire group of people to task for not choosing to a symbolic--and make no mistake, a symbol is all it would be--gesture by not voting for Hamas instead of making the practical choice of voting for the only even marginally functional government that was on offer. It's fine that you want to take a principled stand on this but I'm not willing to condemn all Palestinians just because most of them haven't take a similarly principled one.

I don't know why people have so much trouble understanding this. Put yourself in the Palestinian's shoes for a minute. Would you fight back?

I kind of wonder how anyone could of that Israel as god's pet project, look at Israel as it exists today, and not lose respect for god completely.

More displays of agressive ignorance of history I see. How about you pick up a book instead. You might learn something. Don't worry, you won't suddenly develop a sense of justice, that requires a capacity for empathy.

One man's policy of genocide is another man's defense from having their land taken by colonists of another nation, though. As such "but they fired first" isn't always a decisive argument.

For what's worth, Israel taking and occupying something like 60% of the territory they weren't supposed to get as part of the UN partition plan as the followup is a huge part why you have this conflict continuing to this day -- as the Palestinians officially admitted by now that "refusal to accept the partition decision was a mistake they're trying to rectify".