6/15/2003: Palestinians swarm for body parts

Little Green Footballs is my source for these shots. LGF is roughly dedicated to documenting radical Islamism and its activities and results, and has found this odd practice of Palestinians. When the IDF blows up one of the bad guys via a missile attack, tons of Pals rush the scene in a frenzy, searching for body parts. When they find something they hold it up and treasure it, sometimes parading it through the streets in a fervor, chanting Islamic slogans.



On the face of it, these things seem barbaric. LGF's tendency is to label the Pals a sort of blood cult, with children being taught hatred and death and destruction from infancy.

I do think that's a part of it. Even with the understanding that LGF is heavily biased, the factual information it presents just can't be ignored. It shows that the Palestinian leaders have cultivated the radical elements of their society for a very long time. It ensures a ready stream of suicide terrorists. It produces a public actually happy with the terrible conditions that result from complete economic collapse and disorder. (Their fervor instructs them that things are actually going well, y'see...)

While our natural western tendency is to find some kind of moral equivalence here, in fact doing that kind of thing often produces a complete misunderstanding of the real situation, and an instinct to explain away behavior like this.

In this case I feel we shouldn't. Whatever your political leaning, drop it; this is a cultural/religious thing. Their reaction to death is to truly celebrate it in detail as a victory for their side... no matter who dies. They love the death. That's wrong. No moral equivalence this time. Sorry.

The Islamic faith states that anyone who dies while killing 'infidels' is promised a seat at Allah's table (or at his right hand or something like that). Also any 'infidels' killed by someone of the Islamic faith is 'redeamed' and their soul is sent to Allah.

I guess you could say that the Christian God says 'Thou shalt not kill' and Allah says 'Thou shalt kill infidels and yourself'

(BTW: this is just an educated guess from snipets of info. Please tell me if I'm wrong... :D )

Also any 'infidels' killed by someone of the Islamic faith is 'redeamed' and their soul is sent to Allah.

Damn, I never heard that! How do you convince them not to kill when they believe they're doing the victim a favor, ie saving their soul.
I wonder what % of the arab population are Pals? Also, what do the rest of the arabs think about the Pals. Do they feel it's like garbage men... I don't want to do it but I'm glad someone does?
These are rhetorical UT. :)

<i>It shows that the Palestinian leaders have cultivated the radical elements of their society for a very long time. It ensures a ready stream of suicide terrorists.
It produces a public actually happy with the terrible conditions that result from complete economic collapse and disorder. (Their fervor instructs them that things are actually going well, y'see...)
In this case I feel we shouldn't. Whatever your political leaning, drop it; this is a cultural/religious thing. Their reaction to death is to truly celebrate it in detail as a victory for their side... no matter who dies. They love the death. That's wrong. No moral equivalence this time.
</i>

No, you simply don't understand. It's totally idiotic to suggest that any group of people would be happy with such terrible conditions-- humans are humans. It might make you feel superior to them, which helps justifiy the violence against them, but religion is not a particularly significant factor; many Palestinians are Christian or secular, after all.

Essentially here you have a population of poor indigenous people who have been driven from their land and inhumanely oppressed by a bunch of Europeans. That they have survived such a brutal occupation is an achievement in itself. They are not celebrating death-- it's the Israelis who tore this body to shreds, remember. They are simply honouring their war dead. Yeah, it may seem gruesome to you, but then again, you aren't surrounded by dead countrymen on a daily basis.

As for the suicide bombers-- yeah, they are horrific and terrible. But it's not hard to see how they develop. They don't come from the Palestinian leadership, which is non-religious and which the bombers don't actually respect (would you blow yourself up for bush?) They are the by-product of israeli aggression-- if another people invaded, stole your land, poured racist scorn over you, killed your family members, collectively tortured your people, you might end up hating enough to blow yourself up to. All humans have their breaking points.



<i>While our natural western tendency is to find some kind of moral equivalence here, in fact doing that kind of thing often produces a complete misunderstanding of the real situation, and an instinct to explain away behavior like this.</i>

Your smugness is unjustified. It has nothing to do with being eastern or western; it has everything to do with the torture endured by the palestinian people, paid for with our tax dollars.




<i>I guess you could say that the Christian God says 'Thou shalt not kill' and Allah says 'Thou shalt kill infidels and yourself'

(BTW: this is just an educated guess from snipets of info. Please tell me if I'm wrong... )</i>

This is not an educated guess, anymore than The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was written by Barbara Streisand. This is plain old bigotry.

Originally posted by Stonan

I guess you could say that the Christian God says 'Thou shalt not kill' and Allah says 'Thou shalt kill infidels and yourself'

(BTW: this is just an educated guess from snipets of info. Please tell me if I'm wrong... :D )

I think you're oversimplifying the situation. For one thing, to imply that Christianity has forsaken violence in its history and that Islam is only about violence would be an oversimplification. It might be more correct to state that Christianity, at least at the upper levels, outgrew violence. During the Dark Ages, the word 'heretic' was as much a death sentence as 'infidel'. Personally, any belief which considers strangling you before you were burned to be their version of 'compassionate conservatism' needs to grow up.

Religions provide social order. Social order depends on belief in the religion, in this case belief in a comfy afterlife for putting up with s**t in this one. Anything which challenges those beliefs, say a large population of unbelievers, is inconvenient and can be seen as threat by their very existence.

A good, if long book on the subject is Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews: A History. I have not come even close to finishing this book, it is 750 pages.

While looking for the Amazon link, I also ran across this book. The Shade of Swords: Jihad and the Conflict Between Islam and Christianity

What it comes down to is that popular religions are a lot like species of animals. To survive, animals have to be either prolific or tough and nasty. Yes, fluffy bunnies are survivors, but in general survivors are spiky, venomous, armored creatures you would not want to adopt.

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are thousands of years old. Part of that was by being prolific, but part was also by adapting and countering threats to their existence. Judaism was dispersed after the second revolt and the destruction of the temple. In our case it was more a matter of trying to blend in wherever we went. Once the Roman Empire became the Holy Roman Empire, Christianity didn't have to hide from anyone.

Now that we are in the third millenium, I hope we can adopt a wait-and-see attitude as to who is right about the nature of G-d. I personally am a little tired of killing in the name of this individual or that individual, who, if one can believe their followers, are actually nice guys.

As far as I know, religion, like law, is a human invention. This means that it is imperfect, and sometimes bloody.

I'm still waiting for everyone to grow up.

<i>Essentially here you have a population of poor indigenous people who have been driven from their land and inhumanely oppressed by a bunch of Europeans.</i>

But when you think about it, that describes an awful lot of colonies and former colonies. Some cultures produce a Ghandi in response to occupation. And some produce the above. What's the difference? Both are only human, why the vastly different response?

They have now been offered a state. Some of their response to the offer was to kill or maim 120 innocent bystanders and bus riders with rusty nails. A majority of Pals believe that "occupation" includes the entire land of Israel. Those are the facts of the last few weeks; how does this square with your understanding of the situation?

Originally posted by Undertoad
A majority of Pals believe that "occupation" includes the entire land of Israel.

Doesn't it?



UT, stuff like this is happening in many different places, and I fear that Ghandi was the anomaly. Situations such as this are not something that I like to see or recognize, but they are happening in way too many places now to ignore. I (somewhat) blame modern weaponry for allowing extremists to use children to fight; how the wars have been fought has changed in modern times, though the animosity has been there for generations in many cases. Children are being trained to hate the enemy in many battlefields around the globe. Children are robbed from their parents and forced to join fighting forces at gunpoint. That is wrong, but most Causes realize that their Cause will die if the impressionable children do not support them.

In a serious conflict, there is going to be hatred. Whether atrocities are committed by helicopter or on the streets, they are still atrocities, something that I worry that people forget, the assumption that authority and establishment make right. The victims that the Palestinians can get their hands on are (probably) either conceived of as martyrs or defeated oppressors; both are worth parading through the street.


richlevy: Christianity might not have had to hide any more, but there were still many struggles between the various sects of Christianity and they still fought the people on the outside (such as the Native Americans and the Muslims). How many people died trying to decide whether Jesus Christ was made of God-stuff or human-stuff? How many people died trying to decide whether the Pope held the keys to Heaven?

UT has exposed two cults in this diatribe, one among the Palestinian people and one among the American people. It takes a special belief system to take a photo of the IDF's life affirming activity and spin it into a de-humanizing rant about the person blown up. Insert cult like anti- intervention rant here.

But when you think about it, that describes an awful lot of colonies and former colonies. Some cultures produce a Ghandi in response to occupation. And some produce the above. What's the difference? Both are only human, why the vastly different response?

The two cases are just too different. The Indians numbered in the hundreds of millions; the British could not crush them militarily or ethnically cleanse them from their land-- it just wasn't feasible, nor were the British interested in stealing and settling the land. Nor were the Indians so brutally decimated. Yes, the British performed massacres, but they could never have made life so miserable for every Indian as the Israelis have done for every Palestinian man, woman, and child. So nonviolence was a viable option in India. The Palestinian population is small enough to control and grind away at. If there were a Palestinian Gandhi, we simply wouldn't hear about him, or he would be targetted by the Israelis, or run over by a bulldozer as the current non-violent activists. There are plenty of non-violent activists in Palestine, and I admire them greatly, but we don't hear much about them. We only hear about the crazy suicide bombers which fuel our stereotypes of Palestinians as an entirely barbaric people who just hate because they are taught/born to hate.


They have now been offered a state. Some of their response to the offer was to kill or maim 120 innocent bystanders and bus riders with rusty nails. A majority of Pals believe that "occupation" includes the entire land of Israel. Those are the facts of the last few weeks; how does this square with your understanding of the situation?

The occupation (no need for quotes, that's the legal word for it, and even Sharon has used it) of course includes the whole land of what is now called Israel. However, the majority of Palestinians do not insist on taking it all back; they realize that that is now an unrealistic goal and all they want is 22% of their land back-- the 1967 territories. The majority accept that! But they have never been offered a <b>viable</b> state-- if you bother to check out the details, you will see that they are being screwed. The Israelies are trying to take as much of that remaining 22% of possible, offering either nothing or worthless land in return, and maintaining control over water and other important things in the reservations they are offering the Palestinians.

Here's another chucklehead that deserves an inoperable tumor at the base of their spine.

rumi -

Do you ever think the Palestinians will get what they want when extremists make it so easy for the Israelis to justify the occupation? Why do you think popular support for the occupation in Israel is so high?

Surely rational minds such as yourself are needed to calm the tensions; unfortunately, they are <b>never</b> heard over the extremists. Whereas the extremists in Israel are despicable and need a reality check, those on the Palestinian side are <b>even worse</b> (in <b>deliberately targetting innocent women and children</b>) and make it a cakewalk for Sharon and other far-right politicians in Israel to justify "retaliatory" attacks on Palestinians.

To the world, a girl shot point blank in the head in her home is far harder to justify than one who happened to be in the car of her militant father when it was hit by a missile.

deliberately targetting innocent women and children

So it's OK to target innocent men?
Isreali women and children have no part in the persecution of Palistinians?
Palistinian women and children aren't "innocent"?
IMHO, the blame has to be shared by EVERYONE in the region. There are no innocents.

Originally posted by xoxoxoBruce
So it's OK to target innocent men?

Absolutely not. But let's not kid ourselves - men <b>are</b> more able to defend themselves.

If you <b>had</b> to kill someone, would it be easier to shoot a grown man or a five year old girl?

Isreali women and children have no part in the persecution of Palistinians?

Children? Are you serious? No, they don't. Just like Palestinian kids don't have anything to do with the persecution of the Israelis.

Adults on each side are responsible for the persecution of the other.

Lemme ask you this: when was the last time you heard of an Israeli woman suicide bomber?

Palistinian women and children aren't "innocent"?

Are you asking stupid questions just to ask them? I'm not sure how you could infer that from what I wrote, since I said nothing of the sort. The innocent ones, of course, are innocent. No offense, but quit being a retard.

IMHO, the blame has to be shared by EVERYONE in the region. There are no innocents.

Okay, then why are you asking stupid questions like the ones above? You seem to imply that, indeed, children are guilty.

Blanket thinking like this is what breeds extremism. Extremist Palestinians think along the same lines, as do extremist Israelis. There <b>are</b> innocents in the conflict, both on the Palestinian and Israeli side. They are killed on each side, by the other and sometimes by their own. The difference is that, generally speaking, innocents are not targeted by the IDF, whereas they <b>are</b> targeted by Hamas, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Islamic Jihad, etc.

Originally posted by dave

Absolutely not. But let's not kid ourselves - men are more able to defend themselves.

Against hidden bombs and attack helicopters armed with missiles? We're not talking fisticuffs here.

<i>Lemme ask you this: when was the last time you heard of an Israeli woman suicide bomber?</i>

When was the last time you heard of a Palestinian Apache helicopter strike killing 9 children? A Palestinian tank running over disabled, elderly Israelis in their homes? A Palestinian F16 firing into the Knesset?

One of the reasons there are suicide bombers is the grim fact that they very few ways of attacking their enemy. If our tax dollars paid for tanks, missiles, bombs, bulldozers, fighter jets etc. for the Palestinians, then the suicide bombers would surely use those instead of their primitive explosives, and save their own lives in the process.

Similarly, it's unfair to say Palestinians are worse because they shoot 5 year olds in the head while Israelis kill innocents only incidentally. (By the way, I think anyone who shoots a child -- Palestininian or Israeli -- is just evil.)

-The Israelis kill a lot of children, and intentionally, with their tanks and rubber coated bullets. That's a well-documented fact, and one of the reasons the Israelis don't want an international force there to monitor crimes and keep the peace in the occupied territories.
-The majority (or at least a very significant minority) of Palestinian casualties are children. The stats show that is the Palestinian kids who are dying, much more so than the Israelis... by a factor of 7 to 1 or something like that.
-In our legal system, there is no difference between killing someone intentionally and killing someone unintentionally while trying to kill someone else, if you know that there is a likelyhood that innocents will die.

You can't say the Israelis are better or more humane at all. They are simply better equipped to kill with more efficiency.

We should simply stop equipping them... and insist that they do the right thing. The violence will disappear naturally, because the root cause --the occupation-- will be gone.

Originally posted by Happy Monkey
Against hidden bombs and attack helicopters armed with missiles? We're not talking fisticuffs here.

We're talking about people breaking in to homes and executing the occupants.

The problem is that if we stop equipping the Israelis, we've done nothing to quell the extremists in the Palestinian side. Whereas many Palestinians would be happy with their own state, many will not. And it doesn't take many to make a situation ugly. Watch two or three suicide bombers derail end-of-occupation talks. Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Al-Aqsa's, etc will always be able to muster the requisite numbers when their goal is to breed hatred. Why is this their goal? Because it is necessary if their ultimate goal is to come to fruition - the destruction of Israel. Hamas has no power if Abbas succeeds. He is being sabotaged from many sides, and I, for one, do not envy him.

Again, the problem with suicide bombers, no matter how you argue them, is that it keeps Israeli support for occupation high, and it gives Israel an easy excuse for firing those missiles. How could Israel possibly justify an attack against a peaceful society that had renounced violence in all forms?

men are more able to defend themselves.

Bullshit. EVERY woman in Isreal can handle an Uzi. Universal service sees to that.

Children? Are you serious? No, they don't. Just like Palestinian kids don't have anything to do with the persecution of the Israelis.

Damn right, I'm serious. By the time a kid (on either side) can walk and talk, they've been taught to hate and how to throw rocks or worse.

The difference is that, generally speaking, innocents are not targeted by the IDF, whereas they are targeted by Hamas, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Islamic Jihad, etc.

So "generally speaking" collaterals don't matter. Methinks I detect some bias here. I firmly believe there are worse things you can do to a person than killing them, therefore body count isn't the best measure of good and evil. Or bad and less bad.

We should simply stop equipping them... and insist that they do the right thing. The violence will disappear naturally, because the root cause --the occupation-- will be gone.

That's not likely. The generations of hate and hurt won't go away just like that. The sides have to be separated, and kept separate for a long, long time. That means moving the Isrealis out of Arab areas AND the Arabs out of Isreal. Then they'll only have to deal with border clashes.
The only true innocents are refugees who have fled to other countries to avoid being hurt...or hurting.

Bullshit. EVERY woman in Isreal can handle an Uzi. Universal service sees to that.

Know many women that can bench 350 or curl even 150? Know many women that can leg press half a ton? As a whole, women are far less strong than men - and therefore less able to overpower attackers.

Damn right, I'm serious. By the time a kid (on either side) can walk and talk, they've been taught to hate and how to throw rocks or worse.

Not true. Many kids are this way, but it's hardly correct to make blanket statements. And there's hardly anything that some TLC couldn't correct.

So "generally speaking" collaterals don't matter. Methinks I detect some bias here. I firmly believe there are worse things you can do to a person than killing them, therefore body count isn't the best measure of good and evil. Or bad and less bad.

Collaterals <b>do</b> matter, but again, what is worse - shooting a girl in the face, or accidentally shooting a girl in the face? The outcome is the same and cannot be disputed, but one is an inherently wrong act whereas the other is a pretty serious fuckup.

The sides have to be separated, and kept separate for a long, long time.

I wholly disagree. If anything, I think they need to be forced to live with each other. About ten years ago there was a program to bring Israeli and Palestinian youth together. What came out of it? A bunch of kids that loved hanging out with each other. They all eventually grew apart, and in the separation, became alienated. When they were brought back together this last year, the conversations were less than friendly. There are Israelis that are friends with Palestinians and vice versa, and they are the ones setting a good example. Separating the two only increases their ability to see the other side as less than human.

Your pseudo-solutions are typical of someone who does not understand the problem. I suggest you pick up some books on psychology and stop looking for easy answers to hard questions.

And stop with the tax money already. Before the US ever got interested in Israel, it had already fought and won several full-out wars. They could certainly peck away at the west bank and gaza if the US didn't send any money at all. That money is largely from a peace agreement and a similarly large amount of money goes to Egypt.

My next question is why doesn't Arafat use some of his billion$ to improve the situation? He's rich beyond our wildest dreams. But it turns out he would rather keep the Pals where they are -- it benefits him.

They've been offered a state, and turned it down to start the current intifada. The roadmap offers a state but they don't want the one they've been offered -- they want the one next to it.

Rumi:

Yes, the British performed massacres, but they could never have made life so miserable for every Indian as the Israelis have done for every Palestinian man, woman, and child. So nonviolence was a viable option in India. The Palestinian population is small enough to control and grind away at. If there were a Palestinian Gandhi, we simply wouldn't hear about him, or he would be targetted by the Israelis, or run over by a bulldozer as the current non-violent activists. There are plenty of non-violent activists in Palestine, and I admire them greatly, but we don't hear much about them. We only hear about the crazy suicide bombers which fuel our stereotypes of Palestinians as an entirely barbaric people who just hate because they are taught/born to hate.

You don't understand Gandhi. Gandhi lifted people up. He encouraged both Muslim and Hindu Indians to protest cooperatively and nonviolently as a group. Example: The Indian boycott of British textiles.

The population of the West Bank and Gaza is 3.3 million.

The Arab population of Israel is 1 million.

The Jewish population of Israel is 5.4 million.

And your explanation for why the palestinians can't respond to Israel nonviolently is because there are not enough of them?

Find me an example of a Palestinian who is on a hunger strike until Hamas stops their violence. That is the Gandhian way. Gandhi said: 'We promise not to be violent to our enemies. We do not promise not to be violent to ourselves.'

As long as the Palestinian people support the violent methods of Hamas, they will reap violence--that's what Gandhi predicted.

If Native American Indians were carrying out homicide bombings against US cities, do you think that they would have lasted as long as the Palestinians have?

The fact is that if the Palestinians had responded to the Israelis non-violently, they would have had their state 30 years ago.

But to distance myself from others on this thread, I find LGF to be racist, jingoistic, reprehensible warmongers.

Originally posted by dave We're talking about people breaking in to homes and executing the occupants.

I guess I found that one place where you mentioned the girl being shot, but that's the only place in the thread where that method was mentioned. In any case, men don't have that much of an advantage over women in an armed raid in which everyone is military trained, either

Know many women that can bench 350 or curl even 150? Know many women that can leg press half a ton? As a whole, women are far less strong than men - and therefore less able to overpower attackers.

Know many men that can catch a bullet in their teeth?

Not true. Many kids are this way, but it's hardly correct to make blanket statements. And there's hardly anything that some TLC couldn't correct.

TLC from whom? Parents that fear and loathe?

The outcome is the same and cannot be disputed

Absolutely.

I suggest you pick up some books on psychology and stop looking for easy answers to hard questions.

Stop looking for the solutions in psychology books and look at reality. The easy answer is to let them kill each other off or nuke 'em all but those are plain wrong. Separateing them is not easy.

BTW, I love you, man. :D

The suicide bombers are not a natural response of an oppressed indigenous population or any rot like that. They are tools of whoever is sending them, nothing more.

Israel seems to have finally figured out that they can make as many concessions as they want provided they condition them on the ending of Palestinian violence -- because there's no one on the Palestinian side who can say "stop". Any of the various factions can say "go", and most of them do.

Given that Israel is basically an American colony, I can't see any circumstances under which America will apply any serious pressure to stop the Palestinian holocaust. They'll all be dead or displaced within 20 years.

Originally posted by russotto
there's no one on the Palestinian side who can say "stop".

I think that may very well be the crux of the matter. Arafat sure as hell isn't in control, even if he did want to stop the violence. And it looks like Abbas isn't gonna do much, either.

Hamas thumbed their nose at him, and he basically caved.

Originally posted by Undertoad
And stop with the tax money already. Before the US ever got interested in Israel, it had already fought and won several full-out wars. They could certainly peck away at the west bank and gaza if the US didn't send any money at all. That money is largely from a peace agreement and a similarly large amount of money goes to Egypt.

Could you back this up? As far as I know, the United States has been sending Israel money ever since the State of Israel was proclaimed.

How could Israel possibly justify an attack against a peaceful society that had renounced violence in all forms?

So the Palestinians ought to roll over and die, like the Jews used to do?


goethan: The point is that British India was largely an economic occupation. The Indians vastly, vastly outnumbered the British in India. By your numbers, the Palestinians are outnumbered.

(this is second hand, but...) I believe that Gandhi said that what he did would only have been possible in British India.

[edit: I removed a stupid comment to dave.]

Given that Israel is basically an American colony,

Oh really? Then if that's true, the tail is wagging the dog.

Eck, I've become one of those people who posts large posts that reply to many people and doesn't say much coherent!

(this is second hand, but...) I believe that Gandhi said that what he did would only have been possible in British India.

On the contrary, Gandhi said that his method would even work against Hitler.

Backing it up:

http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/US-Israel/U.S._Assistance_to_Israel1.html

Summary: the real money starts in 1974, after the wars in which the current borders were established. The US gave minor economic assistance in the early years which quickly dropped off to nothing. Military loans were minor until 1971 and certainly meaningless in the 1967 war where that land was taken.

Another page at the site notes that "Between 1946 and 1971, the U.S. provided Israel with an average of about $60 million a year, a total of $1.5 billion. By comparison, the Arab states received nearly three times as much aid, $4.4 billion, or $170 million per year."

http://www.kamat.com/mmgandhi/hitler.htm

Q: "Mr. Gandhi, I understand the concept of non-violence and civil dis-obedience. Do you really think it would work in all situations? For example, against a monster like Hitler ?"

A: Non-violence does not mean making peace. On the other hand, it means fighting bravely and sincerely for truth and doing what is just. Like all fights, there will be a terrible loss and pain. But a satyagrahi (soldier of civil disobedience) must go on.
My success with civil disobedience in South Africa and in India has not come easy. A large number of people sacrificed a great deal, including their lives while fighting for truth and justice.

The doctrine of Satyagraha works on the principle that you make the so called enemy see and realize the injustice he is engaged in. It can work only when you believe in God and the goodness of the people to see that they are wrong. As a satyagrahi, I do believe that non-violence is a potent weapon against all evils. I warn you however, that the victory will not come easy- just like it will not come easy with violent methods such as fighting with weaponry.

Thank you UT, I hadn't realized that before. I had thought that the aid from the US had been pretty much steady since 1948. I had hunted for information on Google before posting that, and all of the sites that I found seemed to imply that the US had steadfastly supported Israel in financial and military (et cetera) manners.

goethan: Hm. I will have to search for where I heard that.

<a href="http://www.kamat.com/mmgandhi/mideast.htm">Gandhi on Palestine, 1938</a>

In the chart UT linked there is (pre 1984) about 12 B in loans. Does anyone know if these were repaid? Forgiven? Outstanding?

Originally posted by rumi
Similarly, it's unfair to say Palestinians are worse because they shoot 5 year olds in the head while Israelis kill innocents only incidentally. (By the way, I think anyone who shoots a child -- Palestininian or Israeli -- is just evil.)

Sorry, but a suicide bomber is a lot like a sniper. They get to look in the face of anyone they are about to kill. That means when they get on a bus or walk into a room they know who they are about to kill and have an opportunity to pick a different target.

The Irgun, which I believe Yitzhak Rabin was a member of, attacked the King David Hotel in 1946. Between the Arab rhetoric and the Israel rhetoric I found this site in the United Kingdom. Since the British were the targets of the attack, I used them as a moderate viewpoint.

The King David Hotel Attack

When was the last time Hamas called in a warning before a bombing? The suicide attacks are pure terror attacks against civilians, intended to cause as much bloodshed as possible.

-The Israelis kill a lot of children, and intentionally, with their tanks and rubber coated bullets. That's a well-documented fact, and one of the reasons the Israelis don't want an international force there to monitor crimes and keep the peace in the occupied territories.

If the Israelis wanted to kill, the bullets wouldn't be rubber. Most non-specific attacks by Israelis are against buildings, not people, and are reactionary. The Israelis don't wake up in the morning and say to themselves 'I'm going to kill some random person today'. I'm not personally a big fan of assasination, but since it is also the current US policy to target military and political leaders without a formal declaration of war, the Israelis use of rockets on vehicles at least shows an attempt to get to the people involved. The fact that Hamas and the other extremists don't go after military and political targets just shows what kind of pussies they are.

-In our legal system, there is no difference between killing someone intentionally and killing someone unintentionally while trying to kill someone else, if you know that there is a likelyhood that innocents will die.

Well then maybe you should stop trying to justify the killing of innocent civilians and try to work towards an equitable peace.

You can't say the Israelis are better or more humane at all. They are simply better equipped to kill with more efficiency.

Compare the Palestinians treatment by Jordan during Black September to their treatment by the Israelis during the intifadah. I personally think Sharon is a reactionary nut, but even he is limited by working for a democratic government that is not completely hard-line.

If the Palestinians did even 1/10th of what they have done in Israel in an Arab nation, as they did in September 1970, we would have no need for discussion, because no Palestinians would be left alive.

I certainly blame Sharon for some of where we are today, but every time I see the celebration which meets an announcement of a suicide attack, I have to give Sharon points for dealing with the situation. Terrorist is a very loaded word, which is sometimes used incorrectly to discredit guerilla or rebel actions. Terrorism is the cold-blooded targeting of random civilians in an effort to strike fear into a civilian population. It is not directed against soldiers in uniform or political leaders, it is directed against any target, the more shocking the better.

A terrorist is like a hunter who shoots a rabbit and pretends it's a lion. Its a craven act against a defenseless target. I personally don't think these guys are going to be rewarded in the afterlife. Compared to someone like Saladin, who fought (and won) against the crusaders they come up very, very short.

I look at the civilian body count in Iraq, the destruction of the Chinese embassy, and at the downing of a civilian airliner, and I have a hard time separating issues, motivations, etc. The best I can come up with is that in a war, you are measured by what actions you have taken to avoid civilian casualties, knowing that there will be casualties. In our country there are many kinds of killing - justifiable homicide, depraved indifference, manslaughter, and murder.

In almost any civilized army in the world, if they had a soldier who deliberately aimed his weapon at a woman or child (who presented no visible or percieved threat), and who pulled the trigger, that soldier would be in prison or dead. This does not always happen. There are massacres and cover-ups. But it is the stated goal. There are warriors and there are soldiers.

Terrorists are the lowest of the low. I'm sure they will get to see paradise. As soon as they get in the gates they'll probably hand them a broom. Someone has to clean up after the real heroes.:angel:

Well done ,Richlevy.:)

I have a radical idea, here....

Why don't we just mind our own business and let them kill each other? They've been doing it forever...who appointed us the world's policeman? Why should we get our people killed in something that affects us not at all?

Why are we so concerned? Really? I'm not being sarcastic. I wanna know. I wanna know why we feel we have to intervene in everyone's business, especially when it doesn't have anything to do with us.


Sidhe

I agree completely with Sidhe. Some might say that "with power comes responsibility". WHich is very true however, that responsibility is not the be the gestapo of the world, it is the responsibility to control our own power and not just fling out our long military arm wherever we deem fit.
Saying that, I am definitly not for isolationism though, just look where that got us in WW1. We need to re-evaluate where, how, and why we send our forces, our brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, off to fight and die.

Why are we so concerned? Really? I'm not being sarcastic. I wanna know. I wanna know why we feel we have to intervene in everyone's business, especially when it doesn't have anything to do with us.

The simple answer is we have a reasonably large Jewish population here in the US, and they care about what happens around Israel.

Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
Why are we so concerned? Really? I'm not being sarcastic. I wanna know. I wanna know why we feel we have to intervene in everyone's business, especially when it doesn't have anything to do with us.

Guilt over the Holocaust, along with what Clodfobble said.

Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
I have a radical idea, here....

Why don't we just mind our own business and let them kill each other?

Because Israel is one of our forward posts in our fight against the Evil Soviet Empire.:)

When picking allies in the world it is better to pick the ones that are democratic, productive, powerful, well-located for military operations, and don't cut off their women's clitorises.

Profound statement Toad !!!!!!
I see a tag line !!!

Okay, Toad...post some articles about the Palestinians and FGM.

FGM :confused: For Goyim Magazine?

Female Genital Mutilation

You'll get a reward.;)

Besides, you said "democratic, productive, powerful, well-located for military operations" and the Pals don't even have a damn country. :)

Originally posted by Undertoad
When picking allies in the world it is better to pick the ones that ... don't cut off their women's clitorises.

Well, they do cut off the tips of men's penises...

Damn, but religions are fascinated with genitals, aren't they?

Middle Eastern ones, anyway.

I thought that whole FGM thing was african not middle eastern.

The Saudis and Egyptians do it too

It seems to be a Muslim thing. I've not heard of cases outside that religion.

Predominant in parts of Africa...

http://www.religioustolerance.org/fem_cirm.htm