Israel's insanity

People in Gaza chose the PLO and that took them no where and they were still bombed, then they made the change to Hamas and that took them no where they have been ceased under a blockade becasue of their decision for 2 years; not getting medicine, food, elctricity, clean water, medical supplies, education, jobs, ...etc for 2 years and no one helped them. What do you expect Hamas leaders to do after they moved from a military group to a political group to help the Palestinian people? Their decision was I guess politics is not working and we have to feed our starving ill people and Israel pushed them back to being a military group.

I do not have to give equal considerations becasue what is wrong is wrong I would not give Hitler any considerations for what he did to the Jewish people becasue what he did is wrong and now I now I would not do it for Israel either and believe me it is not about loving one group over another.

 

That response, as inoccuous as it seems, sums up what I see as the pro-Palestinian/anti-Israeli sentiment.

You guys condemn Israel regardless of what it does.

Which is why I have stopped participating in this thread (until now).

 

1 rocket/1 mortar, 1 rocket/3 mortars, 8 rockets/3 mortars, 4 rockets/8 mortars, 5 rockets/3 mortars... good thing they were basically not being attacked. I understand your point, but not basically not really.

 

God is omnipotent. I bet you could find him in Costa Rica. Or Sweden. Hell, even Canada.

I have zero sympathy for either side. I consider them to be the equivalent of the bear suit man during the hurricane.

 

I do not really think it is pro one and against another it is just shedding some light on the recent events and the amount of suffering that is happening on mainly one side vs. another.

 

It most certainly is anti- Israel.

 

Israel broke the terms of the cease fire (namely lifting the blockade on Gaza), which was Hamas' primary concern and ultimately the deal breaker (this is why Hamas refused to extend the cease fire).

Yes the rockets fired into Israel brought about the invasion and heavy bombardment, but in reality the cease fire was null and void long before it expired.

 

I would like nothing more than to support Israel. Indeed when there periods of more than a year where Palestinians stopped the bombings, and missile attacks, but never were granted the concessions they were supposed to receive, but instead were subjected to more settlements, travel, work, food, and business restricted even further or at the same levels despite their peaceful approach, what should one believe?

I seriously am curious what other conclusions would be reasonable to draw from those instances.

Again Palestinians have definitely broken accords in the past, and there are elements in their govt. that are every bit as bent on the destruction of their traditional foes as there are members of the Israeli govt. that are bent on the destruction and removal of the Palestinians.

The only difference I see is that at times the Palestinians have at least pursued a moderate course for a significant period of time, but Israel hasn't responded in kind. I don't recall a time where Israel gave in and held up their end first for any such period time. I wasn't inherently pro Israel or Palestine, and don't mind calling both out for their barbarous acts. But looking at it realistically the Israelis haven't given the Palestinians any real hope that moderate policies and a cessation in violence will win them any progress toward statehood from Israel.

 

I see the inverse. I see years and years and years with Palestinians and Arabs screaming for blood while the Israelis tried to live side by side. The Palestinians/Arabs basically fought, lost, fought, lost, etc. After each round of fighting, they'd come to a peace briefly, and then immediately start preparing for the next fight. I think in the past 20 or so years, Palestinians have turned to peace out of desperation, but still send mixed signals like, "slaughter the Jews" chants. They still won't accept cohabitation with the Israelis. They talk about eventually setting up an Arab state “from the river to the sea” while they smile from the other side of their face and hold out their hand.

On the other side, I see a puppy who has been kicked and abused so much that it won't trust easily, even with the clearest, most unequivocally friendly approach. With the current ambiguously concillitory attempts at peace, couched as they are in hate and rage, the dog barks and bites as it has learned from experience to do. The past 70 years of being kicked and yelled at have made the dog vicious and wild. It has learned from experience that this is the effective behavior for survival.

If you are Israeli and think that everybody around you is out to get you, that isn't paranoia. It is truth.

 

I'm not sure when the Israelis tried to live peacefully side by side, except for during the Rabin years.

As far as turning to peace while claiming to want to wipe the other side out and never recognize their state has been identical on both sides. Israel's own ruling party at the time of the statements was proclaiming that no matter what the Palestinians did they would never be allowed to have a state neighboring Israel.

Furthermore Israel has instituted bigoted policies that have nothing to do with their own security over the years. They denied Palestinians rights to dig new water wells slant drilled taking water from existing wells, had orders to destroy any Palestinian business that could rival or compete with an Israeli business. Expanded settlements the whole time.

Because the Palestinians have attacked civilians and called for the destruction of Israel, I understand some measures that might seem cruel but were done for Israel's protection. But policies like those listed above that don't really have anything to do with security and discriminate based on ethnicity are wrong, and caused the Palestinians to live in an apartheid style of existence.

In recent times there have been multiple periods of over a year in which the violence from the Palestinians have stopped. They were not repaid by concessions, but by more oppression, encroachment, etc.

None of this excuses terrorism from the Palestinians or missile attacks on civilian areas.

I guess rather than explain the way I see it again, I'm curious what concessions you believe the Israelis have made along the way? They've agreed to several, but I would want to know which ones they've actually kept.

Their are always different ways to look at the same issue, so I guess I want to know what steps you think the Israelis have taken to show that they attempted to live as good peaceful neighbors with the Palestinians.

 

Which wars has Israel started with the express intent to destroy neighbor states? The 1948 war was all about the Arab League trying to destroy Israel, not the other way around. In '48 they were happy to live side by side. Who started the 6 Day War? Who started the Yom Kippur War?

Israel has abided by the terms of the Camp David Accords. They returned Sinai to Egypt. Egypt has abided too. But I'm not sure the last time I saw people marching in the streets of Tel Aviv screaming "Death to Egypt". In fact, I can't rightly recall Israelis marching in the street screaming, "Death to" anyone.

I can recall nothing but rage from Arabs in relation to Israel. All my life, any Arab I've known (that was actually Arab, not Arab-American) has shown nothing but rage and hate for Israel. I've known tons of Israeli Jews as well. The worst I've seen from one is absolute indifference towards Arabs. The least angry Arab I've known was 1000x as angry as the angriest Jew. When I was like 14, a Saudi kid I knew who was my friend took a swing at me and threatened to beat me up because as a stupid child, not knowing the difference between Arab and Jew, I asked him if he was Jewish (which was laughable as he was 1/2 my size, doughy, and pudgy in case you want to attribute my opinion to some scars of childhood).

Undoubtedly, there are angry ultranationalist Hassidic Arab hating Israelis. But seriously, the rage I see from Arabs everywhere is pathological. From the nation state to the individual, this is all I've seen for my whole life, and all I see when I read history.

 

Israel has kept the peace with Egypt. That's terrific.

The '48 war was not started by the Arabs. It was started before Israel was officially it's own state. I think that has been gone over.

This is from Bibi saying that there must NEVER be a Palestinian state.

http://www.netanyahu.org/netcalforend.html

http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Politics/664.htm

The thing with this is they aren't talking about unless conditions are met by the Palestinians. They are talking about never, no matter what.

As far as anger it goes both ways.

This is from the IDF

http://www.poica.org/editor/case_studies/view.php?recordID=1621

There are countless other stories of ISraeli Settlers initiating, fighting, and using violence against Palestinians.

Though in honesty the Palestinians have a right to be angry against Israel because the of the injustice and discrimination they face daily.

There are Palestinians that attack Israeli civilians, and there is no valid reason for that ever to happen. The Palestinians who do this are 100% wrong no matter what provocation they receive.

The 1967 war was not really a threat to Israel. These are quotes from the people involved.

Look at what Begin said about it? Israel used it as an excuse to grab land.

Look what Rabin said about it.

Israeli terrorist Moshe Dayan also felt is about opportunity to grab better land.

There are many Jews who are in search of peace, in fact one group Jews for Peace work on it all the time. Israelis that I've spoken with say that most Israelis are actually against the illegal settlements, but they also live with the real threat of someone blowing up their pizza shops, families, and children, and of course have their self interest in mind first. That is understandable.

Again since Oslo, what has Israel done to show that they are serious about the concessions they've talked about. What has been their response to the periods of time of longer than one year that the Palestinians had given up violence?

I will agree with you that Palestinians have been guilty of starting or at least co-starting some wars, and that it is to their shame that there are only a couple periods of more than one year that we can point to where all of the attacks were halted.

I just want to see at what point the Israelis have shown they were serious about a viable two state solution, and holding up their end of the bargain.

 

To follow up on FB's posts. You have stated earlier that you are playing devil's advocate on this issue and that you recognize both the problems of both sides but if you this is what you seriously believe I have time buying that you are as unbiased as you have stated you are. Clearly from our debates you understand the history of Zionism and Israel well but if so then you must know that there are and were radicals on both sides of the conflicts who would like nothing better than to either see the Israelis pushed into the sea or the the establishment of a completey Jewish Eretz Israel that encompasses all of the ancient kingdom of David.

Also the extremism on the part of Israeli radicals isn't something that has just come about from decades of hostility but predates the creation of Israel among radical Zionists. I posted in another thread a quote from Avaraham Stern justifying terrorism in the Zionist struggle and we also discussed the ongoing fighting between Arabs and Zionists prior to the creation of Israel including the massacre by the Irgun at Deir Yassin. More recently lets not forget that it was an Israeli that assasinated Rabin for making peace, it was an Israeli that shot up the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron and even to this day radical settlers in Hebron assault and intimidate Palestinians.

As for your experience that the most you've gotten out of an Israeli is extreme indifference towards Arabs where as all Arabs go batsh^t crazy over Israel that might be your experience but it hasn't been mine. I've known many Israelis and as I mentioned earlier dated someone in college who was an American Jew but after she visited Israel she went batsh^t crazy about Arabs and even believed that the US was going to sell Israel out to the Arabs. I haven't known many Arabs as an adult, I lived in Saudi Arabia as a kid for awhile, and while I've met a few who would go batsh^t crazy over thigns like Israel and the US for the most part they were fairly reasonable and friendly.

You've often criticized people making broad generalizations and rightly so but I think here you are making a broad generalization that most Arabs want nothing less than Israel destroyed while Israelis are peace loving and are only taking action out of self-defense. The truth is much more complicated than that.

 

The pro-Palestinian takes you make are just as biased the other way. And it's true the Palesitnians won't accept living with Jews.

 

Here is another broad generalization.

Majority of Palestinians are fine with a two-state solution or a bi-national state solution.

http://www.jmcc.org/publicpoll/results/2007/no61.pdf

 

I appreciate the desire to see all viewpoints. I think the fact that there are different sides to a story doesn't mean that all sides are equally valid.

Let me give you an analogy. Imagine we are talking about World War 2.

I say, "Nazis are evil." I say, "There is tons of evidence. Anybody who has read the Nazi literature, and really paid close attention to the evidence can say this."

You say, "Yes they were." You go on to say, "But you know, also during WWII the Allies committed war crimes. You can find lists detailing them. The Canicattì slaughter, Chenogne massacre, Dachau massacre, Biscari massacre, and many more. The USA committed war crimes, the Soviet Union committed war crimes, and the Nazis committed war crimes. There are Americans who were just as bat **** crazy as the craziest Nazi. There were all sorts of Nazis who really weren't that bad, but just got caught up in the times and weren't really bad people. These are all facts that everybody can agree on. So we've agreed that there are good Americans and bad Americans. We have agreed that there are good Nazis and bad Nazis. We have agreed that everybody committed war crimes and did evil. Naturally we must conclude that Americans and Nazi are both equal but different viewpoints and neither side can legitimately be described as better or worse than the other."

In my opinion, that is a good analog of the problem with your comments and the logical fallacy that you are committing.

Before anybody flips out, I'm not saying that one side or the other is the Nazis. Just using an example that everybody should be familiar enough with to know that one side was both qualitatively and quantifiably worse than the other.

 

The comparison is a bit flaky although it works (but perhaps on a different level then you intended). You're comparing one extreme political party of one country against, well, an entire country. While the Nazis did receive a lot of support from the common people, there were strong waves of antipathy against some of their most extreme methods, including euthanasia. This was especially pronounced since a significant amount of the population were Catholic.

I'm assuming that you're making a common mistake; equating WW2 Germany and all her citizens with the Nazis. One must remember that although they were democratically elected and that they did receive significant amounts of support, Germany was NEVER completely "Nazified"; the Nazis were the ruling, dictatorial party of Germany but that did not mean that Germany=Nazis or that all German soldiers=Nazis. The army maintained it's independence and although it swore loyalty to Hitler (which prevented overt resistance), this is where numerous assassination attempts and power struggles with the military and political wings of the Nazi Party originated. Many Prussian aristocrats despised Hitler and only the threat of Communism made them tolerate him. Many of the officer class were disgusted at the atrocities committed by the SS and the Nazis and this resulted in numerous plots to depose Hitler and Himmler (the most well known being the Stauffenberg plot). The Nazis were an extreme political party that essentially hijacked Germany.

Hamas, you could argue, is the same (thus how the comparison can work). They're extremists and not easy to deal with but they don't represent all of Palestine. This is where Isreal stepped over the line. Hamas was provocative and they're the scum of the Earth for putting their own civilians in danger, but really, Isreal has to be the bigger nation. In this case, Isreal is making all of Palestine suffer through it's disproportionate response. With today's pinpoint military arsenal, many civilian casualties could have been avoided; instead Isreal sunk down to the level of Hamas and "shock and awed" their way through.

This is why Isreal is now under flak; because deep down, everyone in the world sees one of the wealthiest nations in the world, supported by millions of American dollars, kick the living s*** out of the shi*hole that is Palestine and whether you like it or not, the world always loves an underdog and hates a bully. Isreal has been provoked by Muslim extremists who are overjoyed at the PR disaster she has engaged herself into it. This only legitimizes Hamas and other Arab extremists who share the view that Isreal must be destroyed.