An Israeli Looks at Israel's Response to Non Violent Protests

I don't think anyone is stupid enough to deviate from the premise. You hate muslims in general. To try and sidetrack it like that is a weak attempt tbh.


And for the record I support full Israeli independence and its right to exist. I just wish it was less discriminatory, their oppresive policies only help to reproduce whats already there.

 

Yes, casualties are higher on the Palestinian side, because Israel uses more effective weapons. The ratio of civilian casualties to military casualties is much worse in Israel than in the territories, because by and large the Palestinians do not attack military targets.

 

or sometimes, like in the First Intifada, no targets at all.

 

Yes, you can cherry pick time frames for either side when they killed no one.

 

Can I see these statistics?

I see you've worded it in a way to exclude innocent civilian deaths as a result of pursuing military targets. Let's not even argue whether lateral damage is even taken into account when pursuing these targets.

Anyways, your claim is a powerful one, and one I think you should back up or withdraw. I'll be completely honest that I have no idea if it's true or not, but I don't think it really matters to anyone's argument as much as it does to yours, so that's why I found it odd that you would say this.

It's easy to argue that Israel is defending a border when Israel is denying Palestinians the right to a state.

I think what's clear here is not that the Palestinians are doing something bad, or that Israel should let these people walk across the border. These are logical sequences, no matter how much we may disagree with them. You would act the same as the Palestinians and I would act the same as the snipers if we were in their shoes. The problem here is that, as time passes, it is becoming clearer that such tactics are part of a strategy rather than an emergency back up plan. Israel has allowed this situation to unfold by preferring to allow settlers to steal land rather than grant Palestinians a state. Many Israelis know the frustration of not having a country and being discriminated against and being treated like cattle and many of those Israelis are making their feelings known about the way the government of Israel is dealing with the big picture. They are, like you and me, fully aware that if they were told "we won't even discuss the possibility of your sovereignty unless you withdraw your request that we follow our own laws and stop the settlers from stealing land", they would behave exactly the same.

At the end of the day, these are all humans. They all have hopes and dreams. Some have more money, tools, education, security, influences, socio-political pressures, etc. But they are human, and they are acting human. I don't blame a sharpshooter for following orders from the people who have brainwashed him. I don't expect a Palestinian to stay calm and take it up the poop-schute based on the orders of the people who have brainwashed them.

if I can take it a bit further, I feel bad for the Palestinian who feels that his/her only salvation is to walk across a border knowing he/she will get shot. I feel bad for the young and no fear-infested soldiers who had to follow orders and take a person's life for wanting exactly what he wants.

But from a large-scale strategic standpoint, the people walking across the border are acting on their own instincts, whereas in Israel someone signed an order approving the actions. This is something which needs to be taken seriously. Israel's state of security has improved dramatically over the last 5-10 years and I think we will be surprised when we look at the number of innocent Palestinians vs Israelis killed. That's even more dramatic I think if you take Hamas/Fatah/AlQaeda/IDF out of the picture.

 

Sure. Here is an article quoting human rights group B'Tselem. If you run the numbers, about 47% of the Palestinian casualties are non-combatants. About 68% of the Israeli casualties are non-combatants.

I did no such thing. I was including those who died as collateral damage resulting from strikes against military targets.

If it is a powerful claim and matters specifically to my argument, why would it be odd for me to say it?

Israel has said over and again that they are in favor of a two state solution. I don't remember the last prime minister that was against Palestinian statehood. The terms need to be negotiated. They are not going to return to the 1967 borders, but they are not denying Palestinians the right to a state.

Please don't presume to tell me what I would do.

These actions are not mutually exclusive. I expect that many of the settlements will remain part of Israel when all is said and done and the Palestinians have a state.

The representatives of those people could not form a government. That is why Bibi is back as Prime Minister.

Yes, the IDF are all brainwashed zombies, thank Allah for those brave Palestinians for showing them who is boss.

I feel bad for the Palestinian who feels that invading a sovereign nation is the way to salvation as well. Maybe they should stay in the territories and try to work to make thing better. Maybe they should pressure their representatives into getting a deal done with Israel instead of electing a terrorist organization to represent them. I feel bad for people that do deeply stupid things, but I don't excuse them.

What instincts. These are not migratory birds, they are people making conscious decisions.

I think you will be surprised, since you were the one questioning me. I don't know why you would take out Hamas, Fatah, Al Qaeda (though I don't know what involvement you see there), and the IDF - those are the groups that are doing the killing. Did you only want to look at lone nuts or something?

 

True they go after soft targets but at the same time the Israeli tactics cause great suffering, deliberately, among the civilian population. While the Israelis have before tried to limit their strikes on militants, something practically impossible to do in dense places like Gaza city and Ramallah. It is Israeli policy to collectively punish the Palestinian population.

Also keep in mind that since Israel has a national draft and Israeli soldiers frequently mingle with the rest of the population often in uniform that military targets, soldiers both on and off duty, are dispersed throughout the Israeli civilian population.

As I've said before I don't really consider either side to have the moral high ground. Both sides engage in tactics that kill and cause suffering to the civilian population.

 

I looked at your link and it is interesting as a surface study but I think we would need to see more of the definition of who were considered combatants. For instance are the security personnel just soldiers on duty or do they include off duty soldiers? Also how do they determine who are combatants on the Palestinian side? Are they people who they could identify as having weapons on hand or were they people who died in an airstrike of a militant base? These numbers are a start but I don't think they are definitive.

The key point is viable state. Yes the Israelis could give the Palestinians a few square kilometers of desert and say that they have given them a state but that wouldn't be considered a viable state.

 

Yeah, I think it depends on if Israeli settlers are considered non-combatant civilian personnel.

They should not be. They are militants who are part of the main problem. They are armed and often are the first to attack.

 

I'm not skeptical that Palestinians want to go back to what is now Israel. I am skeptical this is some sort of organic movement and not the Assad regime exploiting the longing of Palestinians to try to stir up trouble with Israel to distract from domestic issues.

 

I think we can obviously rule out children of settlers, SM's link does mention minors, as combatants but you have a point regarding armed settlers and I am not sure how that is figured in SM's link. Also regarding Israeli citizens my understanding is that other than the hyper religious all Israeli's of fighting age and physical health are required to serve in the military and are also considered in the reserve when not actively serving. At that point it becomes difficult to distinguish who is really a civilian and who is a combatant in Israeli society.

I will emphasize again that I am not trying to justify terrorists tactics but I don't think a blanket argument can be justified that Palestinians are evil since they primarily go after soft targets while the Israelis are good because they, try, to target military installations. From what I've seen is that both sides deliberately try to inflict on each other's societies as a whole. Just because the Israelis have more advanced weaponry I don't think makes them morally superior.

 

Curious, I can't seem to find a time when Palestinian authorities killed non-violent Israeli protesters and beat Israeli children en masse.

hmm...also curious, isn't that why we're sanctioning Assad, and bombing Gaddafi?

 

That's not really shocking. The Russian Jews of today (as opposed to 1940s) are poorly educated and have not fit into the Israeli economy. They're caught in a squeeze. They can't compete for labor with the Arabs, African refugees, and Asians that have temporary permits. However, they dont have the education to fill higher level positions. The Russian immigrants don't really have a place in society right now.

As for the protests, I strongly believe the protests at the Golan Heights are a product of the Assad Regime. The Palestinian protests, however, probably are a product of something genuine but in terms of numbers they are actually quite small.

I said it in another thread but the palestinians dont really have the economic power to really threaten the Israelis with non-violence. (unless other countries decide to sanction Israel in response to protests) For all the talk about Gandhi and non-violence, the Quit India movement crippled the British economy at a time when they were already broke after World War II. Apartheid really only fell when foreign countries imposed sanctions on South Africa and businesses started to pull out of South Africa. So unless the international community is on board with sanctioning Israel, I dont see how much will happen. The Palestinians no longer control the labor pool of Israel and the Israelis are no longer dependent on trade with the West Bank.

 

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/20...y-on-the-brink-of-collapse-leaked-cable-says/

the Israelis are, morally, sadistic children playing with the lives of Palestinians. They just have bigger and better toys so they can look nicer doing it. It is very disappointing to consider that a stable democracy that believes in the rule of law, and was founded on the notion of sheltering people from oppression, can be so cruel.

 

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Couple it with this gem below and it kind of makes it not so off base...

 

Really off topic, but I've never seen anyone spell skeptical with a "c." Is that correct?