[MellySingsDoom]

Radioactive etc - with all respect, Hamas' charter calls for more than a restoration of "pre-1967" borders. Hamas' charter is explicit - the replacement of Israel with Palestine. Fine, OK, at least they are more honest than Fatah these days.

Israel do a lot of frankly indefensible military actions. As do Hamas. Both sides play the race card. So who wins? No-one. Come on, Israel could've wiped Gaza off the map decades ago (and the West Bank too, come to think of it) but have not. And Hamas could've been smart and played their cards well too, but have not.

So where does that leave both sides? Fucked. So let's stop arguing semantics here for a minute..and PLEASE don't bring up the "what's happening now" card...rather, let's look at the long term plan - both sides HAVE to live with each other, so where do we go from here?

I have no easy answers at all, and there are no easy answers for this thing. Whatever is agreed, Israel is not going to go away, and neither are the Palestinians. Let's concentrate on THAT first, eh?

[acousticrock87]

Originally Posted by Daddylikes

Comparing the Israelis to Nazis is a lot like comparing Apples to Rocks.

It's more like comparing spoiled apples to, say, cancer.

[acousticrock87]

Originally Posted by MellySingsDoom

So where does that leave both sides? Fucked. So let's stop arguing semantics here for a minute..and PLEASE don't bring up the "what's happening now" card...rather, let's look at the long term plan - both sides HAVE to live with each other, so where do we go from here?

I have no easy answers at all, and there are no easy answers for this thing. Whatever is agreed, Israel is not going to go away, and neither are the Palestinians. Let's concentrate on THAT first, eh?

Yes.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by MellySingsDoom

Israel do a lot of frankly indefensible military actions. As do Hamas. Both sides play the race card. So who wins? No-one. Come on, Israel could've wiped Gaza off the map decades ago (and the West Bank too, come to think of it) but have not. And Hamas could've been smart and played their cards well too, but have not.

6. Proportionality. A state must, prior to initiating a war, weigh the universal goods expected to result from it, such as securing the just cause, against the universal evils expected to result, notably casualties. Only if the benefits are proportional to, or “worth”, the costs may the war action proceed. (The universal must be stressed, since often in war states only tally their own expected benefits and costs, radically discounting those accruing to the enemy and to any innocent third parties.)



"Jus in bello refers to justice in war, to right conduct in the midst of battle. Responsibility for state adherence to jus in bello norms falls primarily on the shoulders of those military commanders, officers and soldiers who formulate and execute the war policy of a particular state. They are to be held responsible for any breach of the principles which follow below. Such accountability may involve being put on trial for war crimes, whether by one's own national military justice system or perhaps by the newly-formed International Criminal Court (created by the 1998 Treaty of Rome).

We need to distinguish between external and internal jus in bello. External, or traditional, jus in bello concerns the rules a state should observe regarding the enemy and its armed forces. Internal jus in bello concerns the rules a state must follow in connection with its own people as it fights war against an external enemy.
There are several rules of external jus in bello:


3. Proportionality. Soldiers may only use force proportional to the end they seek. They must restrain their force to that amount appropriate to achieving their aim or target. Weapons of mass destruction, for example, are usually seen as being out of proportion to legitimate military ends."

6. No reprisals. A reprisal is when country A violates jus in bello in war with country B. Country B then retaliates with its own violation of jus in bello, seeking to chasten A into obeying the rules. There are strong moral and evidentiary reasons to believe that reprisals don't work, and they instead serve to escalate death and make the destruction of war increasingly indiscriminate. Winning well is the best revenge.

from the

 

The issue with Israel is that they consistently use excessive military force, defying the just war principle of proportionality. This is wrong, regardless of how many palestinians blow themselves up on buses or how many scattered amateurs fire rockets with blow up some fields and occasionally kill or hurt an Israeli, Israel is NEVER justified in its outrageous military responses.

[Daddylikes]

Yeah. Pretty much so. One bakes a mean pie, and the other kills you.

[Radioactive Poltergeist]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

the usual left-wing pap is the knee-jerk assumption that the weak are good and the strong are evil. hence hamas is seen as "good" by virtue of having less power than its enemies.

Ok, but this is speculation (which I think is groundless by the way) and has no role in this discussion.

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

well it's stated in their charter that their goal is the destruction of israel, not a return to pre 1967 borders. if you have the sources for what you're saying, please provide, i'd be eager to read that, meanwhile, check this out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas#Hamas_documents

sorry to use wikipedia but it's really hard to find reliable sources and this is as neutral as i can get.

This is false. They were elected having made no call for Israels destruction and their amended charter dropped calls for destruction.

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

yeah, but how do the rockets help their desperate situation? how does provoking a much stronger adversary help their people? the only thing this might accomplish is to boost their image as hardasses, but at the expense of their own population.

In their position I would not want to sit there and do nothing.

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

I disagree with this completely, especially because it ignores the internal struggles within the body politic of Israel. I call bullshit.

Care to elaborate? I think it is ridiculous to call bullshit and then to not even attempt a rebuttal. This is an issue I have spent a lot of time researching and I don't accept such a curt dismissal from someone who offers no response of their own.

There is of course internal disagreement, but that is typically due to differences in method, and not so much aim. It was Golda Meir, widely touted as a dove, who said herself that Palestinians did not exist and are in fact Jordanians, so they should go their. This, for Israel, is the doveish position.

More recently for instance Sharon's old coalition government openly included a party Molodet which advocated expelling all Palestinians from the occupied territories. Countless army general admitted ordering their troops to maximise Palestinian civillian casualties. This is all in the open. If you want to call bullshit it is simply because the plain facts don't support your position.

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

The problem with this argument is two-fold: one, is what different groups define as "illegaly occupied", and I don't know what you mean by it; two, is that the israeli right wing has argued that they need a buffer zone to protect themselves from artillery: they pull out of Gaza and the attacks increase instead of diminishing-- sort of proves their point and encourages a continued occupation of the West Bank-- which I think most people would agree would be a fucking tragedy.

I refer to the occupation as illegal because that is what international law defines it as.

Secondly they can stop the bombings by adhereing to international law. Simple.

Also, if you look at a map of the current Israeli attacks on Gaza you will see they fall in areas that have not been used to launch rockets and in fact fall in dense urban areas.

[MellySingsDoom]

SuchFriends - I see where you're coming from, and yeah, it makes sense. Alas, in the I/P conflict, such niceties have been regularly ignored. On the one hand, the first invasion by Israel into Lebanon in 1982. On the other, the frankly insane methods of Hamas.

In this case, there are no "heroes". The whole thing is a complete horror-show. I only wishg that some sense somewhere would prevail...

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by MellySingsDoom

SuchFriends - I see where you're coming from, and yeah, it makes sense. Alas, in the I/P conflict, such niceties have been regularly ignored. On the one hand, the first invasion by Israel into Lebanon in 1982. On the other, the frankly insane methods of Hamas.

In this case, there are no "heroes". The whole thing is a complete horror-show. I only wishg that some sense somewhere would prevail...

First, lets distinguish the rocket attacks and suicide bombings from the govt of Hamas:

" In January 2006, Hamas won a dramatic victory in Palestinian elections and became the dominant political power in Palestine.Since that election, Israel and many Western powers have struggled with how best to interact with a group that is at once labeled terrorist and, at the same time, is the legitimately elected leadership of the Palestinian National Authority."


And not all of the rockets and bombings even come from the militant arm of Hamas either, many come from pissed off people who are unaffiliated. These are not coordinated rocket attacks or military strikes by Hamas, these are by and large individual instances, where as the Israeli military always responds with tanks and air strikes.


It is plain and simple use of disproportionate force by Israel, regardless of what happens to Israel, they literally overreact.

[Daddylikes]

From Israel's perspective, they know that their use of force is disproportionate. The message they are trying to send at this point is "if you fuck with us at all, we will FUCK YOU UP." The reason they are trying to send this message, is that they are hoping that Palestinians will realize the futility of striking Israel. In realizing this basic truth, that if you attack Israel, you are in turn making life hell for everyone you want to elevate, then the Palestinians will begin to police themselves, and exert pressure on each other to refrain from terrorizing Israel.

This is a tactic most often seen used in Elementary School classrooms by teachers who often times will punish an entire class because of the wrong doings of a few "rogue" classmates.

If it works or not is for us to find out... so while this use of force is indeed disproportionate, it fits within the construct of a broader use of force to create an incentive for Palestinian society to change it's collective policies towards "mainland" Israel.

[pbradley]

Originally Posted by Radioactive Poltergeist

What do you mean by this? I suppose you mean someone like Mahmoud Abbas who has been championed by most Western governments as the acceptable moderate.

No, I don't specifically mean that man. I am in favor of any person on either side who is willing to negotiate and compromise for the sake of peace and liberty. If such men do not exist, then I favor no side.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Radioactive Poltergeist

Ok, but this is speculation (which I think is groundless by the way) and has no role in this discussion.

ok

Originally Posted by Radioactive Poltergeist

This is false. They were elected having made no call for Israels destruction and their amended charter dropped calls for destruction.

the ones who dropped the destruction of israel from their charter were the PLO, not hamas!

Originally Posted by Radioactive Poltergeist

In their position I would not want to sit there and do nothing.

neither would i, but why pursue the asinine course?

Originally Posted by Radioactive Poltergeist

Care to elaborate? I think it is ridiculous to call bullshit and then to not even attempt a rebuttal. This is an issue I have spent a lot of time researching and I don't accept such a curt dismissal from someone who offers no response of their own.

ok. let me try with next paragraph.

Originally Posted by Radioactive Poltergeist

There is of course internal disagreement, but that is typically due to differences in method, and not so much aim. It was Golda Meir, widely touted as a dove, who said herself that Palestinians did not exist and are in fact Jordanians, so they should go their. This, for Israel, is the doveish position.

golda meir came out of the israeli war of independence, the war with egypt, the 6-day war, and had to face the incident at the munich olympics adn the yom-kippur war. what the fuck did you expect her to say?

jordan and egypt actually dumped the palestinians into israel's lap. the territories were indeed part of jordan before the war, but the jordanian bedouins found it convenient to leave the palestinians as a ticking time bomb. there are old palestinians who still have jordanian passports today.

Originally Posted by Radioactive Poltergeist

More recently for instance Sharon's old coalition government openly included a party Molodet which advocated expelling all Palestinians from the occupied territories. Countless army general admitted ordering their troops to maximise Palestinian civillian casualties. This is all in the open. If you want to call bullshit it is simply because the plain facts don't support your position.

no shit, sharon is a fucking pig even in a coma, and an extremist party in his pigfuck coalition does not represent israel monolithically. israel is an open society with free press and a wide political spectrum. to identify a whole country with its right-wing fascist extremists is wilfully ignorant.

and this is precisely why i called this thread "israel vs. hamas"-- i do not identify all palestinians with the terrorist organization that governs gaza.

Originally Posted by Radioactive Poltergeist

I refer to the occupation as illegal because that is what international law defines it as.

ok, so you're referring to the occupied territories as illegally occupied--i agree with that view. however, there are people who think that the whole UN partition of palestine was illegal in the first place, and i wasn't clear about which was your definition.

Originally Posted by Radioactive Poltergeist

Secondly they can stop the bombings by adhereing to international law. Simple.

Also, if you look at a map of the current Israeli attacks on Gaza you will see they fall in areas that have not been used to launch rockets and in fact fall in dense urban areas.

as i stated before, i believe the goal of this campaign is deterrence-- i do not agree with these methods, but i understand their rationale. i think ehud olmert is a fuck, i think what he was doing by continually expanding the borders of jerusalem as a mayor was abusive and illegal, his war with lebanon a fiasco, i think netanyahu is a pig fucker, but i also think that hamas leadership is the second worst blight that could befall upon the palestinians in gaza-- the first one being an israeli invasion.

[pbradley]

Originally Posted by acousticrock87

I'm not familiar enough/at-all with those things to even try to respond. Touche, I think.

Yeah, sorry, when philosophizing there comes a point when one prefers specialized lexiconic "isms" or the names of dead men to long lectures repeating their meaning.

And I'm trying to limit my lecturing on the internet for my own sanity. Though I think our impasse occurred at the start in that I called God a "existential concept" and you replied to it as a "rational concept." By calling it an existential concept, I mean that it is a conclusion on the meaning of existence itself when one comes to the leap of faith which may or may not appeal to a rational argument to arrive at it.

[acousticrock87]

Originally Posted by pbradley

Yeah, sorry, when philosophizing there comes a point when one prefers specialized lexiconic "isms" or the names of dead men to long lectures repeating their meaning.

And I'm trying to limit my lecturing on the internet for my own sanity.

Haha don't worry about it. My roommate is a philosophy major. I just know when I've gotten in over my head.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by Daddylikes

From Israel's perspective, they know that their use of force is disproportionate. The message they are trying to send at this point is "if you fuck with us at all, we will FUCK YOU UP." The reason they are trying to send this message, is that they are hoping that Palestinians will realize the futility of striking Israel. In realizing this basic truth, that if you attack Israel, you are in turn making life hell for everyone you want to elevate, then the Palestinians will begin to police themselves, and exert pressure on each other to refrain from terrorizing Israel.

That by definition makes Israel a terrorist state, what an irony huh?

2. Discrimination and Non-Combatant Immunity. Soldiers are only entitled to use their (non-prohibited) weapons to target those who are, in Walzer's words, “engaged in harm.” Thus, when they take aim, soldiers must discriminate between the civilian population, which is morally immune from direct and intentional attack, and those legitimate military, political and industrial targets involved in rights-violating harm. While some collateral civilian casualties are excusable, it is wrong to take deliberate aim at civilian targets. An example would be saturation bombing of residential areas. (It is worth noting that almost all wars since 1900 have featured larger civilian, than military, casualties. Perhaps this is one reason why this rule is the most frequently and stridently codified rule in all the laws of armed conflict, as international law seeks to protect unarmed civilians as best it can.)
3. Proportionality. Soldiers may only use force proportional to the end they seek. They must restrain their force to that amount appropriate to achieving their aim or target. Weapons of mass destruction, for example, are usually seen as being out of proportion to legitimate military ends.
6. No reprisals. A reprisal is when country A violates jus in bello in war with country B. Country B then retaliates with its own violation of jus in bello, seeking to chasten A into obeying the rules. There are strong moral and evidentiary reasons to believe that reprisals don't work, and they instead serve to escalate death and make the destruction of war increasingly indiscriminate. Winning well is the best revenge."

Israel has no right to terrorize the Palestinians with acknowledge excessive force, that excuse didn't work for Serbia and it eventually, when the blinders of Christian Zionism fade away, Israel will be held accountable for this use of state terror against the Palestinians.

[Daddylikes]

What I said in no way violates the rules you've stated above.

Their use of force is disproportionate with the level of force levied upon them, however it is not disproportionate with the goals and ends that they seek. For the usage, their use of force is directly proportionate.

And, the goal in their retaliatory strikes is not to injure innocents, but to target the people who are striking them.

Based upon your source cited above, Israel is well within the boundaries established.

[ricechex]

Originally Posted by Daddylikes

What I said in no way violates the rules you've stated above.

Their use of force is disproportionate with the level of force levied upon them, however it is not disproportionate with the goals and ends that they seek. For the usage, their use of force is directly proportionate.

Good point. I'm just checking in here and there. What is the point of Israel using a proportionate level of violence, really?

[pbradley]

Favoring Hamas in this crisis is merely the appeasement of terrorists by cowardly relativists.

[GeneticKiss]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

6. Proportionality. A state must, prior to initiating a war, weigh the universal goods expected to result from it, such as securing the just cause, against the universal evils expected to result, notably casualties. Only if the benefits are proportional to, or “worth”, the costs may the war action proceed. (The universal must be stressed, since often in war states only tally their own expected benefits and costs, radically discounting those accruing to the enemy and to any innocent third parties.)



"Jus in bello refers to justice in war, to right conduct in the midst of battle. Responsibility for state adherence to jus in bello norms falls primarily on the shoulders of those military commanders, officers and soldiers who formulate and execute the war policy of a particular state. They are to be held responsible for any breach of the principles which follow below. Such accountability may involve being put on trial for war crimes, whether by one's own national military justice system or perhaps by the newly-formed International Criminal Court (created by the 1998 Treaty of Rome).

We need to distinguish between external and internal jus in bello. External, or traditional, jus in bello concerns the rules a state should observe regarding the enemy and its armed forces. Internal jus in bello concerns the rules a state must follow in connection with its own people as it fights war against an external enemy.
There are several rules of external jus in bello:


3. Proportionality. Soldiers may only use force proportional to the end they seek. They must restrain their force to that amount appropriate to achieving their aim or target. Weapons of mass destruction, for example, are usually seen as being out of proportion to legitimate military ends."

6. No reprisals. A reprisal is when country A violates jus in bello in war with country B. Country B then retaliates with its own violation of jus in bello, seeking to chasten A into obeying the rules. There are strong moral and evidentiary reasons to believe that reprisals don't work, and they instead serve to escalate death and make the destruction of war increasingly indiscriminate. Winning well is the best revenge.

from the

 

The issue with Israel is that they consistently use excessive military force, defying the just war principle of proportionality. This is wrong, regardless of how many palestinians blow themselves up on buses or how many scattered amateurs fire rockets with blow up some fields and occasionally kill or hurt an Israeli, Israel is NEVER justified in its outrageous military responses.

Interestly enough, I knew someone named Justin Bello when I was in school. I couldn't help but think about him as I read this.

As for the topic at hand...a bit back I saw a documentary on HBO about a suicide bombing in Jerusalem involving two teenage girls-one the victim, the other the bomber. They were around the same age and looked so alike that, when the father of the Palestinian girl pointed to his daughter on the cover of a magazine, he ended up accidently pointing at the Israeli girl at first. The primary "plot" of the documentary revolved around the mother of the Israeli girl wanting to meet with the mother of the Palestinian girl, who was understandably not pleased with her daughter's actions even though she knew where she was coming from. To make a long story short, when they finally did end up talking via closed circuit TV, they were able to agree that they were both victims. Unfortunately, the Israeli mother wanted the Palentinian mother to stand up and say what her daughter did was wrong and help her bascially start some sort of movement against suicide bombings (they refer to them as "martyrdoms") within the Palestinian community, and she would not. She said words that could be summed up sorta like this:

"We both want peace, but you are suggesting is surrender, and I cannot support that."

And that, my friends, is the biggest problem with the whole thing. Both sides think they are right. (way to state the obvious) But, the reality of the situation is that more people would benefit if Israel were the one to give. They are in the position to provide housing, jobs, health care, etc. to people of both races. Unfortunately, Israel the country was founded on the idea that it is Israel the homeland spoken of in the Torah, and that no one but the Israelites (Jews, Zionists, whatever) should be allowed to live there, and anyone who tries to interfere is messing with Jehovah's people, and that they should be destroyed and subsequently damned. As long as this attitude persists, the circle of terrorism will continue on both sides.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by Daddylikes

What I said in no way violates the rules you've stated above.

Their use of force is disproportionate with the level of force levied upon them, however it is not disproportionate with the goals and ends that they seek. For the usage, their use of force is directly proportionate.

And, the goal in their retaliatory strikes is not to injure innocents, but to target the people who are striking them.

Based upon your source cited above, Israel is well within the boundaries established.

the very goals they seek are wrong,
1. Just cause. This is clearly the most important rule; it sets the tone for everything which follows. A state may launch a war only for the right reason. The just causes most frequently mentioned include: self-defence from external attack; the defence of others from such; the protection of innocents from brutal, aggressive regimes; and punishment for a grievous wrongdoing which remains uncorrected. Vitoria suggested that all the just causes be subsumed under the one category of “a wrong received.” Walzer, and most modern just war theorists, speak of the one just cause for resorting to war being the resistance of aggression. Aggression is the use of armed force in violation of someone else's basic rights.
2. Right intention. A state must intend to fight the war only for the sake of its just cause. Having the right reason for launching a war is not enough: the actual motivation behind the resort to war must also be morally appropriate. Ulterior motives, such as a power or land grab, or irrational motives, such as revenge or ethnic hatred, are ruled out. The only right intention allowed is to see the just cause for resorting to war secured and consolidated. If another intention crowds in, moral corruption sets in. International law does not include this rule, probably because of the evidentiary difficulties involved in determining a state's intent. "

You defined their intention as:

"if you fuck with us at all, we will FUCK YOU UP." The reason they are trying to send this message, is that they are hoping that Palestinians will realize the futility of striking Israel. In realizing this basic truth, that if you attack Israel, you are in turn making life hell for everyone you want to elevate, then the Palestinians will begin to police themselves, and exert pressure on each other to refrain from terrorizing Israel.

That is definition of terror, which is not a just cause nor a good intention.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by pbradley

Favoring Hamas in this crisis is merely the appeasement of terrorists by cowardly relativists.

warmongering doesn't solve anything.