Since nonviolent resistance has not worked, what would you advocate we do?
I'm not convinced they've really tried nonviolent resistance and that's been part of the problem. They've been their own worst enemies because once they start targeting civilians - PARTICULARLY children, then they turn people away from their cause. I happen to feel their cause is just. They are not "squatters", they have as much right to be there and to have a homeland as the Jews do - but they don't have a right to take innocent life in the process.
I think they're trying nonviolent resistance right now, Coyote. The people of the west bank have no weapons to speak of. They are throwing stones and are getting shot with live ammo, after which the Zionists say "no, it was rubber bullets, they were really killed by their own people" or "those bodies were imported from Syria" (if so, indicating some very sloppy border patrol on Israel's part). They are arresting 6 and 8 year old children under the rubric of "terrorists" and holding them indefinitely under administrative detention without recourse to legal representation.
International law holds that settlements, ALL settlements, are legitimate targets. Don't tell me these are civilians. THEY ARE NOT.
They are heavily armed, to the teeth
I'm having a hard time with the "heavily armed" imagery here....
I agree. There is a lot of injustice in the treatment of the two populations: attacks made by the settler population on the Palestinian population are often poorly prosecuted (if at all) - while attacks by Palestinians on Jewish Israeli are right up highlighted in the press, heavily prosecuted and the sentences often harsh. Treatment of Palestinian children in the system is especially worrisome. Those are inequities that need to be addressed but you don't address them by murdering innocents. Two wrongs don't make a right.
I'll hold my stand that the settlers are legitimate targets under international law, they have been informed of this, are well aware of what they are doing, which is forcibly trespassing on another peoples' land. They are VERY heavily armed, Palestinians have stones.
If Israel wants any concessions, let them state what they will be offering, because so far they have held out no basis for compromising on the settlements. We have already compromised on the 1948 borders, look what we got in return, nothing.
Yes they are all human. However....where do you draw the line Amity? When do you decide an action is going to far?
Yet you are justifying it.
You might be able to make an argument that adults could be legitimate targets because they are all required to serve in the IDF thus could be military, and are mixed in the civilian population like the Palestinian militants are - but how can you make that argument against a 3 yr old child? And, some of these people who's actions you are defending are TARGETING children.
I acknowledge that there ought to be a difference between adults, who are responsible for their own actions and for awareness of what they are doing, and children, who are there with no volition. And personally, trying to think myself into that situation, I would make the distinction, and leave the children alone. But as I said, its easy for me as an armchair analyst. I would not argue that Palestinians make any concessions on settlements as
legitimate targets until Israel expresses a willingness to identify what of its
illegitimate tactics it will give up in exchange.
So I am personally sorry if kids get hurt. Like I said, I was a teacher for a good while. But there is no doubt that settler parents are placing their kids in harm's way, and there is no doubt that they will be hurt whether anyone wants it or not.
If you feel that attacks targeting civilian populations are legitimate...then does that mean you also support Israel's attack on Gaza in 2008?
No, I DO FEEL THAT TARGETING CIVILIANS IS WRONG and I don't defend it. And I do not feel that children should be targeted. But settlers are not civilians. Even the U.S. has acknowledged this during negotiations. Even ISRAEL acknowledges the military role of the settlements. And their role in establishing claims on the ground to territory which is illegally held since 1967 is much too obvious for anyone to deny. There is no equivalence between
1) Palestinian civilians living on their own land bothering no one in Gaza, and
2) armed settlers who are trespassing and trying to assert an illegitimate claim to land that does not belong to them.
And unfortunately no one can control the fury of some people who can't even see straight as a result of what has happened to them. Look, Zionists did the unthinkable, and are still doing the unthinkable, trying to commit a genocide against the Palestinians. (If you dispute that that is what it is, I can defend my assertion, and we can start a new thread to do so.) And the only thing that made it possible for Zionists to work such a psychological change in themselves necessary enable them to do inhuman things to an uninvolved people ... is the Holocaust. Horrendous denial of rights and life does something transformative to people, and Eli Wiesel might be spinning in his grave, but I don't think it ever makes people more peaceful.
Since then it has been one reprisal after another on both sides, confused and entangled enough that it is easy for people in your position to say
"everyone is wrong." In reality, not everyone is wrong, only two things are wrong:
1) Hitler's genocide against Jews and others, and
2) Zionists' dismantling and expulsion of virtually the entire Palestinian nation.
Jewish resistance to Hitler, and Palestinian resistance to Zionism, are NOT wrong even if they result in excesses.
And I say that as a blanket statement ... even if some Jews committed atrocities against Germans (as of course did happen), and even if truly innocent German civilians were killed in the process, and even if some Palestinians commit atrocities against Israelis, I will not openly condemn either because of the extremity of what they are going through and the limitations on opportunities for them to mount a resistance against military targets.
And believe me I am being very sincere. If I were in Germany in the early 40s I would have been killed for defending Jews. Then I would be a Righteous Among the Gentiles. Now I am doing nothing different in defense of the Palestinians, and suddenly I'm an animal.
If I (at the age of 60!) were to undertake a raid on a settlement, I would leave the children out of it. But I haven't been through what those people have been through either, so its easy for me to base my actions on lofty abstract principle.
I totally disagree with Israel's "settler movement" and consider it land theft. I abhor the pricetag terrorism that some engage in. But who's responsible? The settlers, who are civilians - or the government that encourages it, condones it and looks the other way at violations?
Thank you for having that insight. I appreciate it. But settlers are not civilians. If you are still convinced they are, please look this up under international law. Tinmore will be able to quote chapter and verse.
Genocide - seriously? A brief review of modern history here...
The Holocaust: 6 million Jews, 1 million gypsies...and many more.
The Soviet-induced Ukrainian Famine: 8,000,000
The Nigerian Civil War - 3,000,000 Igbos murdered
Cambodia - another 3,000,000
Rwanda - 1,000,000 Tutsi
Bosnia - 8,000 Muslims and the mass expulsion of another 25,000–30,000 Bosniak civilians
What do they all have in common? The deliberate mass execution and murder of civilians based solely on their ethnic or religious background.
The total death toll from years of conflict since 1920 and multiple wars is estimated at around 67,602 (according to one source) in almost a century of fighting. I do not see Palestinians rounded up, murdered and dumped in mass graves. A significant number of Palestinians DO live in Israel as Israeli citizens. This doesn't jive well with terms like "genocide". In fairness to Israel (and in comparison to "resistance fighters" such as those who slaughtered the Fogels) - Israel doesn't routinely target civilians in it's actions and they do make an effort to minimize civilian casualties. That's more than can be said for groups like Hamas at the moment. Do abuses occur? Yes. Absolutely. But when you try to equate it with genocide, your argument is no longer credible.
I will be totally surprised if there is not a mass grave somewhere. I am in touch with someone in Hebron who is worried about all his friends that have gone missing lately, since the three yeshiva students' abduction. They are probably just detained and will turn up again one day, but sometimes they don't. If you are confused about Israel's actions against the Palestinians constituting genocide, then either we should provide you with more info about Israel's actions, OR ELSE you should review the definition of genocide. Not sure which, but it belongs in another thread.
Palestinians, under the nomenclature of "Arabs" are tolerated in Israel in small numbers. As I pointed out, even though they are citizens, they
do not have basic civil rights, fewer civil rights that black Americans had in 1960. AND key to even that level of tolerance is that there are very few of them. As the so-called "demographic time bomb" detonates, we'll see what Israel does next.
Those in the know in Israel frequently defend their mass expulsion of Arabs (which of course they DO acknowledge) as necessary to ensure that Israel was both Jewish and democratic. Where do you know in world history that that argument has been made before? We will engage in mass deportations so that we can be a majority and still claim democracy? South Africa is about the only place I can think of.
