Let's talk about Israel and Palestine...

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by DanaC

The officer, identified by the army only as Captain R, was charged this week with illegal use of his weapon, conduct unbecoming an officer and other relatively minor infractions after emptying all 10 bullets from his gun's magazine into Iman al-Hams when she walked into a "security area" on the edge of Rafah refugee camp last month.

...and other relatively minor infractions or. ...and other, relatively minor infractions...?

I got stuck there.

[DanaC]

No idea - I didn't write it :p

Really interesting comment piece in the Guardian:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...curity-council

[xoxoxoBruce]

That Guardian piece,

Gaza: how international law could work to punish war crimes

We see this kind of theorizing often, in both traditional and electronic media.
But the key is the word "could", which means it's possible but everyone, including the author, knows it won't.

For shits and giggles let's say the ICC investigates, ruminates, and castigates.
Israel says fuck you.
Now what, send an officer of the court to handcuff Israel and bring them to justice? Tell them to pick up bread, milk, and Putin on their way back.

Despite all the civilized trappings like the U.N., ICC, and various international do-gooder groups, the reality remains, what you're powerful enough to take and hold, is yours. Maybe even more so today with most people wary of starting WW III

[xoxoxoBruce]

Oh, and just in...

[sexobon]

Oh, the humanity ... must've stepped on the edge of a tunnel ... launch another offensive!

[xoxoxoBruce]

A newspaper article published in Saudi Arabia by a writer with ties to the Saudi royals, spells out why the Saudis want peace between Israel and Gaza.

The growing power of the Shiite axis is threatening the kingdom and its Sunni allies. After 1,300 years of Muslim history in which the Sunnis controlled the Shiites, this balance is about to change.

The Shiite axis of Iran, Iraq (the al-Maliki government, Syria (the Alawites) and Lebanon (Hezbollah) is maintaining its strength. In addition, the Shiite-Zaydi tribes of the Khotis in Yemen are threatening the Saudi Arabia's huge southern border and are also supported by Iran. The worst threat to the Saudis is the Iranian nuclear race which could destroy them.

The strangest of bedfellows, indeed.

[Undertoad]

We're going to do this? OK

Three years ago I'd have been all-in. These days I just can't do it. I don't know where my disinterest in the argument has come from. I don't even know if that's a good thing.

[glatt]

Is it because it's just so boring? The same old bullshit in the Middle East?

Terrorists are terrorists and Israel is reacting justly, but overreacting yet again. Bastards kill one of ours, and we kill 100 of theirs.

They both suck.

In the latest round with Lebanon, Israel didn't crush Hezbollah, so Hezbollah counted that as a victory. Now Israel is doing the same thing with Hamas. Is Hamas going to consider this a victory?

What was Israel's goal? Did they find all the tunnels? Did they seize all the rockets? Did they assassinate all the Hamas leaders? Is the mission accomplished yet? One thing they did for sure is drive home the lesson in another generation of Palestinian youths that Israel is the enemy.

Insert Foot's video here.

[sexobon]

Originally Posted by glatt

... What was Israel's goal? Did they find all the tunnels? Did they seize all the rockets? Did they assassinate all the Hamas leaders? Is the mission accomplished yet? One thing they did for sure is drive home the lesson in another generation of Palestinian youths that Israel is the enemy. ...

If Israel was a person, it would be classified as a professional victim. There can be good money and, more importantly to some, fame in being a professional victim. It's a trade that can be plied for generations even though the capability to extricate itself exists.

[henry quirk]

"it would be classified as a professional victim"

Agreed.

Israel shoulda 'got up early and went and killed them first'.

[Undertoad]

Maybe. But maybe it's more of a general thing. My bosses are slightly political at work and I don't lean in exactly the same direction they do, and I just want to figure out a way to get along and still earn their favor.

Also it seems to me that, in life, nobody has asked my opinion about much of this stuff, so maybe I should not be so gung-ho about spouting it. I dunno.

[xoxoxoBruce]

in life, nobody has asked my opinion about much of this stuff

Exactly, and when the butcher, baker, or candlestick maker spouts off on this stuff, I exit as quickly as possible.

[DanaC]

Interesting comment piece in today's Guardian (US edition)

Late last week, the White House decried Israel’s attack on a UN school in Gaza as “totally unacceptable” and “totally indefensible”, then proceeded to approve $225m in funding for its Iron Dome. On Monday, the US state department went further, calling the airstrikes upon a UN school “disgraceful” – and yet America provides Israel with more than $3.1bn every year, restocking the ability of the Israel Defense Force (IDF) to hit more schools, and to wage total war against an imprisoned people, because of their nationality.

American taxpayers should not be paying for this. And the western world should stop rejecting serious inquiries about Israel’s moral inconsistencies, or allow it to benefit from cognitive dissonance and information overload amid the current crisis in Gaza.

There is a land grab going on. The Israeli prime minister, Binjamin Netanyahu, has shrunk Gaza’s habitable land mass by 44%, with an edict establishing a 3km (1.8-mile) buffer zone, a “no-go” zone for Palestinians – and that’s quite significant, because a good part of Gaza is only 3 to 4 miles wide. Over 250,000 Palestinians within this zone must leave their homes, or be bombed. As their territorial space collapses, 1.8m Gazans now living in 147 square miles will be compressed into 82 square miles.

Gaza’s entire social and physical infrastructure of housing, hospitals, places of worship, more than 130 of its schools, plus markets, water systems, sewer systems and roads are being destroyed. Under constant attack, without access to water, sanitary facilities, food and medical care, Gazans face an IDF-scripted apocalypse.

With Gaza’s land mass shrinking due to Israeli military action, it’s about time someone asked: What is the end game? Three weeks ago, Moshe Feiglin, deputy speaker of the Knesset, called for Gaza to “become part of sovereign Israel and will be populated by Jews. This will also serve to ease the housing crisis in Israel.”

Israel has a housing crisis? After the “no-go” buffer zone is evacuated, there will be 21,951 Palestinians per square mile in Gaza, while Israel’s population density stands at 964 persons per square mile.

Deputy Speaker Feiglin wants the Palestinians in Gaza to lose all of their land. One must not assume that Mr Feiglin or his Likud faction speak for the main government actors like Prime Minister Netanyahu. After all, Knesset politics are complex and divergent. But since Gaza has just lost control of that 44% of its land, it may also be time to ask: does the establishment of that 3km zone represent the unfolding of a larger plan? Is that the end game?

Read the rest here:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...ennis-kucinich

[Clodfobble]

So if the general understanding is that no one really has a legitimate claim to the land, as illustrated in foot's video, then the traditional rule is whoever can hold it keeps it. Let them go at it.

If you still live in Gaza, you're an idiot who deserves to die. If you think that living in Jerusalem near the West Bank is better than living in New York City, where there are almost twice as many Jews as there are in Jerusalem anyway, you're an idiot who deserves to die. Anyone intelligent would move themselves and their family the fuck away from that part of the world. Anyone who is still there at this point is driven purely by ideology, on both sides, and they can all kill each other for all I care.

And frankly, yes, if we're going to support one side or the other, I'd vote for supporting the side that doesn't also hate the Great Satan America. We've had--currently have, in fact--far worse bedfellows. I'll reserve my outrage for when actual innocents die, which includes no one over there. (And yes, the children on both sides are in theory innocent, but stupid parents have always gotten their children killed. Better for the gene pool that way.)

[DanaC]

Yeah, I know about Iron Dome. I thought it was a really useful thing and might give Israel some breathing space to engage in other methods than wholesale slaughter. With the Iron Dome system in place, Hamas is effectively almost neutralized as a threat to Israeli citizens. Three weeks and thousands of rocket attacks and only three civilian deaths - more people die from road traffic accidents.

It's one of the reasons I find their current actions so deplorable and incomprehensible. They don't have to do this to defend their people. When Hamas joined with Fatah and agreed that they could live with a two state solution that no longer called for the destruction of Israel - the time was ripe for a real solution.

Hamas is a toothless enemy. They are the knight in Monty Python's Holy Grail - on the floor with no arms or legs, shouting at their opponent to fight them and threatening to bite their ankles.

I have friends who have spent time in Gaza and the West Bank (and Israel as it happens). There is a lot of misinformation on both sides. But there is also an undeniable truth: what is happening in Gaza is a massacre. Whatever Israel's right to self defence I do not believe it extends to the slaughter of thousands of civilians, the displacement of hundreds of thousands more and the effective imprisonment of the entire Gazan population.

And @ Clod: as for the idea that anybody who stays in Gaza deserves to die: they cannot leave. That's why people have started referring to it as an open air prison. They have no choice but to stay. They are boxed in by land, air and sea.

I wasn't going to come in here again. But I saw you'd (bruce) responded and I usually find that you have a very balanced view of these things. I feel much better for having read your post. I'm probably going to stay out of here though from now. It just makes me feel like crying.