1) Your analogy is, well, extemely wanting, IMO. This isn't something not involving the protestors, and on which they interfered. Additionally, even in your analogy, you just might if the police were not an impartial extension of law, but a partial extension of an opposing government's interest, and were pretty much firing in your dirveway every day of the week. To paraphrase Gandhi, when you allow the oppressor to establish your schedule or choose your fights for you, you have given up the only power an oppressed people have; to decide when and where they will peacefully protest. You are suggesting that the Palestinians should allow the Israelis to establish their agenda,which is silly. 2) You are confusing the circumstances with a predicated response, which is not the case here. The Isralelis made a choice, it was not forced on them. 3) Like unto the Wedding situation, you have leapt from supposition ( in the face of objective reporting) o conclusion. The reports said that the Palestinians were protesting the incidents at a nearby settlemt, not protecting tunnels. You ear something differently, and not only credit it without reservation, but construct a defense thereupon. 4) Many of us are quick to chastize the Palestinians for suicide bombers, etc. Yet, here, when they protest in the way we would prefer, and this happens, we automatically find a way to blame them for that, as well. In which direction do you suppose that will elad the next generation fo Palestinians, including the reasonable ones?
MacBeth, You didn't respond to Deji's salient point: the crowds were there to keep the Israeli military from doing it's job. Do you disagree with that assertion, or do you feel that it's true and the Israeli's should have stopped what they were doing when civilians were present?
here's some more from http://www1.idf.il/DOVER/site/mainpage.asp?sl=EN&id=7&docid=31354.EN A large procession of several hundreds demonstrators, among them gunmen, organized by the Palestinian Authority, left central Rafah along the main road towards IDF forces in Tel-Sultan. As the crowd, with the gunmen among them, drew near IDF forces, a warning fire of a single missile was fired from a helicopter into an open area, not towards the demonstrators. In addition, flares were fired in the air to deter the crowd and to prevent endangering the demonstrators. As this did not deter the crowd and they continued to converge on the troops, machine gun fire was opened towards a wall of an abandoned structure along the side of the road and then four tank shells were fired at this abandoned structure. At no point in this incident was intentional fire opened in the direction of civilians. It is possible that the causalities were a result of the tank fire on the abandoned structure. The details of the incident continue to be investigated. It should be mentioned that the scene of the incident is an area of combat and an area of frequent exchanges of fire. The road has been rigged with explosive charges planted by the Palestinians. The IDF has not yet cleared the road of these explosives. At this stage it is difficult to determine the cause of the civilian casualties. The incident is being investigated thoroughly at this time. The IDF expresses deep sorrow over the lost of civilian lives. The IDF has approached the Palestinians and offered medical assistance, including the evacuation of the casualties to Israeli hospitals.
Police firing back? This wasn't an instance of Israelis firing back. They did the firing in the first place. Here's an idea to avoid the confrontation, and control the crowd. Let the marchers march from point A to point B unhindered. In this case the marchers had a starting point, and a destination. Let them march their route. There wasn't a need to control them at all. Keep the IDF clear that way there would be no rock throwing, no need to control the crowd at all. The marchers moving from one place to another while protesting isn't comprable to a drive by shooting at all.
But the protest was a march. It would have passed. All that had to be done was to allow them to complete the march. The move from point a to point b and then aren't an obstacle anymore.
I addressed this in another post, but I'll deal with it here; When would Israel have not been doing it's job? What 'right' do they have to determine when and where the Palestinians can protest, peacefully? Would you have given the same authority to the South African Government? If so, how many 'convenient' times would there have been found? Additionally, this is their position, post fact. All reports from the incident itself said the protest was in response to an immediate and nearby issue ( did you read my second post in this thread?) None of this would in any way make firing on a peacefull protest justifiable. The soldiers who struck down Gandhi's march on the Salt Mines were even more legally justified than this situation, and were also 'just doing their job', but do we support their action? We repeatedly ask for the Palestinians to protest peacefully, and when they do, we find a way to forgive those who still oppress them, in a manner we never would have for South Africa, the Civil Rights movement, India, etc. There is no motivation to be non-violent if 'neutral' ( hah) outsiders are preconditioned to excuse whatever happens to you when you do.
Ok..its a poor analogy. Forget about it. The point is this wasn't a massacre. The casualties were alspo intially overreported by the PA. This was not a peaceful assembly of consciencous people. This was an angry mob trying to prevent the Israelis from dismantling tunnels used for transporting bombmaking material for Hamas, and the crowd would not disperse. This is a place known for its constant armed conflict. These people weren't out there to sing protest songs and peacefully demonstrate the pointlessness of war. They were there to prevent the IDF from removing a legitimate terror threat. And what happens after the accident? There is a prompt investigation, an apology and offer of medical assitance that the PA would never give Israelis.
Do you concede that your 'facts' are actually merely a repetition of one side's position? And the initial numbers were reported higher from an Israeli newspaper then Palestinian sources.
Not at all, I just don't want to confuse the argument with analogies. What is it about the press release and aerial photo from the IDF's press that you refute? Why are these "protesters" protesting, MacBeth? Israel is pulling out of Gaza. Why would they protest an occupying army that is on its way out? The only thing is, they are trying to dismantle every apparatus of terror they reasonably can before they leave, since the settler blocks on the way out will no longer be around and getting into these places will be near impossible in the future. That's what these people are protesting. With their kids. In a war zone, full of bombs their own people have laid for the Israelis... Sounds real peaceful. And you want to compare this to Gandhi's march on the salt mines?! Who are you kidding? Plus, despite all this this is an ACCIDENT. Complete with sincere apologies and offering the use of Israeli hospitals. As for the Israeli paper, they get their facts from the same places everyone else does. If the PA is saying right as it's happening that 20 people died, they are going to attribute that just like any other paper would. And if you mean Ha'artez, you can expect it to often be anti-Israel, and leaning increasingly left. Left enough that Meretz voters joke about it, Moshe Arens' columns aside.
Con a protest be considered peaceful if it is lead by armed gunmen? Would you think it was okay if a group led by Osama bin Laden and containing many armed members of al-Queda decided to march through an area where the US was trying to conduct anti-terrorist operations? It is good that the Palestinians are deciding to protest, now they need to do it without weapons and a bunch of terrrorists in their midst.
This discussion still begs the question of what exactly the Palestinians were protesting, because no one seems to know or say. Whatever it was, it was worth knowingly endangering their lives and the lives of their children.
That wasn't clear. I'm not unsympathetic to what life in Rafah must be like for them. Still, the Israelis are trying to dismantle offensive terrorist capabilities. And leave. That's legit. This crowd was there to stop that, and represented a potential threat in itself. The Israelis could have kept firing into empty fields and abandoned buildings, and eventually the protestors would have left. But there was an accident, and one that was likely from the Palestinans' own munitions. Even if you reject the goal of what the Israelis are trying to do in reagards to the disengagement plan or the methodology they use to combat terror, it still is a far cry from what was characterized:
Deji: You keep citing Israeli position statements as fact. Of course they're saying it's an accident; what would you expect? Of course they're saying they were there to do good things...smae goes. But you keep treating their position...in a situation wherein they were the initiators of any violence...as proven fact, and wondering why anyone has a problem with this innocent mistake on behalf of brotherly love and peace in general. They fired at/near/over/around at a peacefully protesting crowd, and several people were killed. You can argue their intentions, but you can't argue their responsibility.
let me use a similar analogy to reply to the "ACCIDENT". if there was a driveby, and there were cops there to set up a curfew, and then some people started walking towards the crime scene and the cops fired a few warning shots, but the people still kept on continuing with their path, and then a cop "ACCIDENTLY" shoots a man, and the man dies... is this justified, would you just sit there and say the people shouldnt have been there at all, Well whoopidy doo, you don't put peoples lives in danger because of something as stupid as a protest...
MacBeth.. why do you keep insisting that this was a "peaceful protest?" Did you not see the pictures of kids throwing rocks or the reports of the presence of armed gunmen? THIS WAS AN ANGRY MOB
Just because I side with Israel on this makes me a sycophant? When did I say that the deaths of the children were ok? The only thing that is digusting is your judgement of me.
I don't know about shooting, but he'd be legally authorized to use force. But your analogy is at least as weak as mine was and doesn't accurately describe the situation. In a perfect world, there would be no Jewish settlements in Gaza to evacuate, no terrorists tunnels to destroy, and nothing to protest because there isn't an occupying army suspiciously scrutinizing your every moments, and paranoid of you attacking its people. But that's the world these people live in. And I don't envy the situations that either are forced to face every day. No one fired into the crowd. The fifth shot from one of the tank rounds exploded, where the first four did not. Whoever fired that shot had no idea that his shell would hit something explosive. That was the accident. And the Israelis have taken full responsibility for it. They theory that it hit a Palestinian bomb is plausible, especially considering where they were operating. I find this easier to believe than Arafat's statement that it was a deliberate massacre. And I think the fact that the number of dead went from 22 to "over 10" to 8 was a bit suspect as well. I also don't think there is anything radical about believing in the crediblity of the Jerusalem Post and the IDF website over Yasser Arafat. It's still a country with a free press, and plenty of people were there. Rafah, where this all happened 4 days ago, the IDF blew up a bomb factory used by Islamic Jihad and El-Anzar. http://www1.idf.il/dover/site/mainpage.asp?sl=EN&id=7&docid=31172.EN The Israelis were there for a good reason, and the nature of their work is ugly, and the people there have good reason to be pissed. But no one fired into a crowd of people, and this wasn't a massacre. It was an accident. And if it wasn't an accident, I'd really like to hear an alternate explanation, so that this thread dosn't become pages of beligerent denial of whatever it is the Israelis say. Their lives aren't in danger because of a protest. Their lives were in danger because they are trying to protest in the middle of an ACTIVE WAR ZONE, where their own people have been laying bombs and shooting at Israelis. It's probably not the ideal place to bring your kids and air out your grievances and throw rocks at pissed off soldiers whose friends are getting killed.
