Let's talk about Israel and Palestine...

[Undertoad]

Thank you Cyc, if nothing else we will get further if we are adult about it and all have respect for each other. Maybe we can find a better way to talk about it.

For me, human life is too precious to permit to be wasted.

That is absolutely the primary goal. Minimization of death.

Coming close behind is maintaining and promoting the idea that human life is too precious to permit to be wasted. It'll be simple to do when everyone believes it.

~

I thought about your earlier post and there is one more item I must take issue with. You believe that Israel would strategically bomb crop fields. This idea is ridiculous on its face for no other reason than no army in the world would waste expensive munitions bombing dirt. But what you should also know is that Israel provides almost all the fresh water for Gaza, and if it doesn't want Gaza growing crops, or if it wants to maximize suffering, it can merely shut the water off for a while.

If you saw images or video of dirt being bombed I will guarantee you that the rockets that rained down on the crops were fired by Hamas. Like all modern militaries, Israel actually tries to aim their bombs. Hamas points in the general direction and lets Allah do the aiming part. Their bombs often hit their own territory and/or citizens.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Cyclefrance

If we go back far enough you can blame us Brits.

Long before Brits, or Britain for that matter.

We're pretty good at carving up other people's land...

The main two reasons for the carving was to reward important people, and separate enemies from each other. Now people are mobile, the enemies can't be separated that easily.

For me, human life is too precious to permit to be wasted.

I certainly approve of that sentiment, but as I sit here reading about/pondering, the fucked up state of the middle east, nobody is kicking in my door. I'm reasonably certain there won't be anything coming through the roof, and I'm brazenly sitting right next to a window.

...but where we, Western governments that is, have the ability to influence a situation then I believe we should do so.

Those days are gone, especially with the cold war heating up. No unified Mom & Dad against petulant terrorist, they're playing off divorced Mom against Dad.

And it seems that maybe we do have the ability in terms of what is happening in Gaza, as we control the purse strings at least on one side.

The somewhere between $3 and $8 Billion the US gives Israel every year? In reality it's like the birthday card from grandma with $10 tucked in it. That money is appreciated, and will be used, but doesn't mean a tinkers damn to my lifestyle. It's more important as a reassurance that despite how I've fucked up, grandma still loves me.

The statement I made that 'no innocent person deserves to die' is my view of what the West should have as its overriding objective, such that any strategy it devises or action it takes to try to resolve the situation should only proceed provided that it upholds this objective.

That's a tough one for leaders that routinely write off millions of people as simply collateral damage in the control the empire game.

I think it's the right one, if you don't I'm happy to be convinced otherwise, but I'm looking for arguments as to how to stop what is happening continuing - and so views that there is a nuclear solution or that 'if you still live in Gaza, you're an idiot who deserves to die' aren't satisfactory solutions because, whether they were seriously meant or just expressions of frustration with the situation, they don't uphold the overriding objective that 'no innocent person deserves to die'.

I agree it's the right goal, and I hope those statements are from frustration over this never ending story, but then reality pops up and says, how? That's when people revert to the nuke and move quips as an escape from the migraine inducing puzzle.

Can the ordinary people influence their governments? Well, maybe they can. There's evidence that we are having some success at doing this over here,..

I look at what it took to get us out of Vietnam, at a time when the "people" still had some clout, the politicians still had to placate the masses to get reelected, and there weren't eleventy factions to align.
We've had relatively small groups (Sierra Club, Green Peace, Republicans) in which the supporters aren't offending their neighbors with picket signs, but using lobbyists and the courts to force big changes.

I know I haven't addressed individual criticisms of my earlier post.

Disagreement is not criticism.

I certainly don't think people here are ignorant...

Are to.

...so I will certainly apologise for creating that impression.

Never apologize.

I'm not sure what would be achieved by countering every point really,...

Don't you hate when people do that?

...but I will be back on some, just not tonight.

Sounds like a threat.

Who exactly was it who said that you will have more time on your hands once you reach retirement age? Certainly hasn't headed in this direction yet!

Some sadistic lying bastard. After you retire, you slow down and the world speeds up, until you've fallen and you can't get up.

Originally Posted by Undertoad

That is absolutely the primary goal. Minimization of death.
Coming close behind is maintaining and promoting the idea that human life is too precious to permit to be wasted. It'll be simple to do when everyone believes it.

That's more difficult than it sounds. At first it's like, well of course, who would not agree with that. Then it's, well, those crazy ______ terrorists. And those stupid _______ worshipers. Oh, the filthy ________ bastards. Etc, etc, ad infinitum.

Hey, maybe if we could get at least the major religions to condemn killing, we could... um.. nevermind.

[Cyclefrance]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Don't you hate when people do that?

Hard to imagine that someone really would

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Cyclefrance

Hard to imagine that someone really would

Heh heh heh, When I read, " I'm not sure what would be achieved by countering every point really...", I couldn't resist.

Jimmy Carter and the Camp David Accords, told us peace is here. After 13 years of post 9-11 carrying the load, (we carried the tent, allies carried the stakes), and hearing regular declarations of victory & peace being just around the corner, we're jaded. Many of us don't believe peace in the middle east is possible. At any cost. By anyone's intervention.

In the past, threads of this nature sparked a flurry of activity. But now I, for one, am sick of hearing solutions that evaporate faster than alcohol. Sick of hearing just a few billion dollars more. Sick of endless lies on all sides.

If I was diligently sifting through the monsoon of information/opinion available, I could probably figure out the truth. Then what? What do I do with it? Can't give it away because nobody has room for it without throwing away their own truth.

[Cyclefrance]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

I thought about your earlier post and there is one more item I must take issue with. You believe that Israel would strategically bomb crop fields. This idea is ridiculous on its face for no other reason than no army in the world would waste expensive munitions bombing dirt. But what you should also know is that Israel provides almost all the fresh water for Gaza, and if it doesn't want Gaza growing crops, or if it wants to maximize suffering, it can merely shut the water off for a while.

If you saw images or video of dirt being bombed I will guarantee you that the rockets that rained down on the crops were fired by Hamas. Like all modern militaries, Israel actually tries to aim their bombs. Hamas points in the general direction and lets Allah do the aiming part. Their bombs often hit their own territory and/or citizens.

It does seem ridiculous but maybe that's a reason that no one will beleve it happened when it did. It looks like I got it wrong that tunnels could be under farmland. I read today that the tunnel network is far more extensive than first believed, and this article, albeit from Palestinian sources seems to bear that out. So there would be justification in Israel's eyes to destroy the land under which the tunnels ran. The first article in which I found this information about farms and orchards being decimated was quite long and on a Palestinian news site, so there's always the possibility it was embellished. I've extracted the relevant text:

Qte
I’m writing now from my home, but I still feel dizzy from shock and nauseated by the sights and smells on my visit to Khan Younis and Khuza’a.
Yesterday I decided to use the opportunity of the ceasefire to visit my family in Khan Younis. I especially wanted to see my sister who had open heart surgery before Israel’s assault. I hadn’t seen her for 36 days. I’m lucky that I have enough fuel in my car to drive 24 kilometers (15 miles) so I struck out towards the south.
I drove down Salaheddin Road and passed rubble from mosques, houses, and factories. Some buildings were destroyed completely and some partially. Later on in my drive, I saw dozens of big trees uprooted and smashed, fruit trees destroyed and farms and gardens decimated and ruined. The Israeli bombs were aimed to destroy the infrastructure, to destroy Gaza’s economy. Even the main cookie factory was targeted and destroyed.
I passed UN trucks distributing food to people in long lines. This siege and assault by the Israelis has made everyone in the Gaza Strip live as a refugee, missing basic needs and struggling to survive.
As we set out to the east, my niece pointed out the devastation, “You can see where the Israeli tanks were—here and here.” We continued toward Khuza’a. It was a model Palestinian agricultural village with open fields and green everywhere. They had fruit trees and vegetable fields. But there was nothing left of the village I remembered.
The smell and the sights we saw were shocking. The moment we parked and I got out, a very strange smell hit us—the smell of dead bodies. That smell will never leave me; it is still stuck in my nose. We saw totally flattened houses and other houses partially destroyed. It reminded me of pictures from war-torn areas where years of fighting erased a village. This Israeli assault has hit the Palestinian people more deeply than the last two military attacks. This one is even more deadly and destructive. Whole neighborhoods and villages have been wiped off the map.
I ask myself now how can we start again?

By Dr. Mona El-Farra, Director of Gaza Projects, who is a physician by training and a human rights and women’s rights activist by practice in the occupied Gaza Strip.


Unqte

I looked for other reports of farmland destruction resulting from the current conflict and found a quite a few - some from Palestinian sources and others with UN tags being more factual with rather short references.