More than 500 killed so far in Gaza
I don't really know what to say or do about the over 500 people who have been killed so far in Gaza. But I think we at Blue Oregon should acknowledge that it is happening. And we should think about how to stop it. And we must all act in accordance with our own consciences to stop the killing now.
To begin the debate, here's a news clip from the alternative media source Real Network News to provoke some thought and discussion:
Josh Marshall at TPM says the heart of the issue is the exponential growth of settlements in the West Bank. His post on the subject is here.
But what do you think the U.S. should do now? What are you willing to do now?
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January 5, 2009 |
Chip Shields | Comments (168 so far)
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Comments
Posted by: Pete F | Jan 5, 2009 12:57:21 AM
I don't have any great insights, but I can't help but feel that one side, or both, are essentially sending a message to the Obama administration: put us on top of your priority list.
I know it's more complicated than that, but I have an unshakeable sense that that's a part of what's going on. And it bugs me.
Posted by: Ten Bears | Jan 5, 2009 4:39:00 AM
Israel is a Terrorist State, the Mother of All Terrorist States. An utterly foreign occupier perpetrating an American Taxpayer financed and morally sanctioned genocide upon an indigenous people. It has no "right" to exist.
And before you cry the inevitable cry, allow me to pose a question. But first, from my collection of nineteenth century dictionaries:
Two definitions from the Merriam-Webster dictionary...
Main Entry: Sem•ite
Pronunciation: 'se-"mIt, esp British 'sE-"mIt
Function: noun
Etymology: French sémite, from Semitic Shem, from Late Latin, from Greek SEm, from Hebrew ShEm
Date: 1848
1 a : a member of any of a number of peoples of ancient southwestern Asia, including the Akkadians, Phoenicians, Hebrews, and Arabs
b : a descendant of these peoples
Main Entry: an•ti-Sem•i•tism
Pronunciation: "an-ti-'se-m&-"ti-z&m, "an-"tI-
Function: noun
Date: 1882
: hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group
Question: If Semites include "Hebrews and Arabs," why is anti-Semitism just "hostility toward or discrimination against Jews" instead of all Semites?
I have a solution to our oil addition: if the talmund/koran/bible are of any value at all, it, they, are a documentation of a group of people’s six, perhaps ten, thousand year refusal to get along with each other. So as a compromise solution I propose we back our asses out of the middle east - the holy land - for five or ten years and let these animals kill each other off.
And then we’ll have all the oil!
Posted by: Zarathustra | Jan 5, 2009 7:05:38 AM
Well, I made a topic post attempt, but at 2000 words I guess it's too long, or inane. Anyway, I think the issue for US policy is that Obama's not saying much on the matter is rapidly loosing him any foreign policy honeymoon he might have had with the Arab world. Given his overall mandate for "change" he faces a conundrum. I heard it well summarized on the BBC's, "This Sceptred Isle" :
The 1870s were the decade of Gladstonian reforms and of Disraeli's return to power. The imaginative reforms of the Gladstone government are said to have drawn the template for the twentieth century state; education, the law, the civil service. Yet the very brilliance of Gladstonian changes helped bring about his government's downfall. Real reform means the reform of institutions, the institutions that make up the establishment. The establishment is the vested interest of the nation and thorough reform creates enemies within the establishment. So, perhaps Gladstone tried to do too much. Certainly the reform of the Army came too late to have an effect on the implementation of foreign policy.
Significantly, his "bridge too far" was trying to take the Irish troubles head on, by proposing a new university in Dublin that would allow Catholics to matriculate.
Posted by: Roy M | Jan 5, 2009 7:15:26 AM
How much or little we care about world events, seems to really depend on how it may impact each of us as individuals. This conflict could draw larger nations (meaning us) into a huge war. It is not unrealistic to believe that other Arab countries will collectively decide to go after Israel very soon. While this may not have been possible 5 or 10 years ago, it is not entirely unrealistic now (and even more likely a few years from now). When this occurs the West will help to defend Israel, or Israel might rely on their own weapons of mass destruction. Either way, the impact to each of us will be life changing.
In comparison, tens of thousands (not 5 or 6 hundred) continue to die every year from fighting, disease, and genocide in Darfur. Yet this news rarely draws as much national concern or outrage as the events occurring now in the Gaza strip. It is human nature to care most about those things that will most dramatically impact us, and events now in the Gaza strip certainly have that potential.
Posted by: Garrett | Jan 5, 2009 7:40:33 AM
While this may not have been possible 5 or 10 years ago, it is not entirely unrealistic now (and even more likely a few years from now). When this occurs the West will help to defend Israel, or Israel might rely on their own weapons of mass destruction. Either way, the impact to each of us will be life changing.
Won't happen until Iran has a nuclear weapon...or someone else in that region comes up with one. Pakistan is too worried about India to care so I'm not worried about them. If anything happens Israel will go after Iran's nuclear facilities first. They haven't yet, which leads me to believe Mossad knows their nuclear program is peaceful right now. The second they know it's not Israel has the capability to lay waste to every Iranian nuclear facility in 1 night.
This is a foolish war in Gaza that Israel is waging, but it's a war their leaders have to fight. They all know someone that's been killed/injured by a Hamas rocket and so does everyone else in Israel.
Posted by: mlw | Jan 5, 2009 8:31:45 AM
Yes, it's horrible that those terrible Israelis would want to do something about the nice terrorists firing rockets at them from Gaza! Why can't they just leave those nice fellas alone?
Get real, folks - the Israelis have a legitimate right to self-defense. The real questions are what is the desired end state and whether it be accomplished with military force. I have my doubts about the latter, which is the real issue.
Posted by: bear rug | Jan 5, 2009 8:37:47 AM
I know what Hitler would do - Nuke the Jews. And that's exactly what alot of democrats like "Ten Bears" post above are hoping for: the destruction of Israel and deaths of Jews.
I am willing to bet Obama will punish Israel for it's actions, pulling aid and support from them - and probably stepping up aid to the Palestinians.
Posted by: Jason | Jan 5, 2009 8:46:11 AM
"Israel is a Terrorist State, the Mother of All Terrorist States. An utterly foreign occupier perpetrating an American Taxpayer financed and morally sanctioned genocide upon an indigenous people. It has no "right" to exist."
This is the most uniformed, ignorant, insidious, arrogant comment I've seen in a long time. Looks like someone has no historical context or understanding of anything in the Middle East.
Wow!
Posted by: melch | Jan 5, 2009 8:57:43 AM
"I know there is a lot of liberal guilt for the Palestinian plight but what is Israel supposed to do about Hamas lobbing rockets into Israel?"
Let them have an economy? Free trade? Education? Jobs? Healthcare? A respectable portion of the land where they'd lived for two thousand years before its colonial ruler, Great Britain, purported to hand their entire land over to the European Jewish people who had moved back there from elsewhere? Maybe stop assassinating their leaders?
Israel will never "win" by continuing to beat the Palestinians down, telling them to call elections and ignoring the results, locking 1.4 million people into a territory one-fourth the size of Multnomah County (Gaza strip 140 sq miles, Multnomah County 466 sq miles), denying them access to basic services, pouring raw sewage onto what little territory they're allowed, and on and on.
The "liberal guilt" to blame in this mess is the guilt which led Great Britain and the United States to support tearing Palestine out from under its people and handing it over to European Jews in the wake of the tragedies of World War 2. Anyone lacking sympathy for the Palestinians in this mess lacks any sense of justice or proportion.
Posted by: Facts | Jan 5, 2009 9:05:34 AM
It's virtually impossible to have anything approaching a rational debate concerning the Israeli Government's actions in the US because ANYTHING critical of the GOVERNMENT's actions leads the reactionaries and Pod-people in the US to shout "ANTI-SEMITE" "JEW HATER" "HITLER." Ask Noam Chomsky....a Jew.
There's a much more rigorous debate within Israel that isn't even acknowledged in the US press. Oh, on Democracy Now radio this morning they did mention the 10,000 Israelis (Self-Hating Jews I suppose?) in Tel Aviv marching in protest of its government's actions.
Unfortunately, what these reactionaries don't recognize is that their reflexive anti-Palestinain, "Israel can do no wrong" rhetoric fuels anti-Semitism and enables the murderous behavior is the US's most beloved client state.
Posted by: Kevin | Jan 5, 2009 9:25:16 AM
I've been writing about this on my blog - and pissing off some of my Israeli-apologist readers in the process. Some disjointed thoughts/observations:
1. Josh Marshall is spot on - the ongoing expansion of Jewish settlements is a core issue that's not going to go away no matter how many Palestinians the IDF kills.
2. Not that it should matter but... I am Jewish.
3. I would be the first to agree that Israel has a legitimate right to self defense. But we're are all being offered an utterly false choice by all of the major players including Hamas: Do absolutely nothing -OR- respond with massively overwhelming military force (and collateral damage be damned). There is a HUGE swath of possible military responses which lay inbetween those two extremes. Stopping at day 1 would have been one possible choice. Stopping at day 2 another. etc. The longer this Israeli reaction goes on, the more extreme a choice it represents and the less believable is the proffered explanation that Israel is honestly trying to avoid unnecessary collateral damage.
4. Given the objective historical fact that every single Palestinian entity which Israel has ever waged war on has emerged stronger than before... while those whom Israel has ever comparitively befriended have been weakened (i.e., Fatah), wouldn't it make a great deal more sense - not to mention costing vastly fewer innocent lives - for Israel to befriend Hamas? The overwhelming weight of history veritably screams that it would be.
I know, I know... it'd be damn hard to wallow in the righteous indignation of victimhood if Israel were to befriend Hamas. But the historical evidence is clear. That would be the one proven effective way to weaken Hamas. Just ask President Abbas...
Of course, doing so would also underscore the self-evident fact that Israeli policy bears a great deal of responsibility for having indirectly created Hamas and like-minded groups in the first place (there is no Yin without a Yang, no Up without a Down, no Black without a White). But then aknowledging that requires intellectual honesty and I see precious little evidence that either combatant side is interested in going there...
Posted by: Bob Tiernan | Jan 5, 2009 9:33:40 AM
Garrett:
I know there is a lot of liberal guilt for the Palestinian plight but what is Israel supposed to do about Hamas lobbing rockets into Israel?
Melch:
Let them have an economy? Free trade? Education? Jobs? Healthcare?
Bob T:
In Gaza, the Israelis had built lots of greenhouses
to grow lots of food. When they withdrew, the
Palestinians trashed them (like the way the Egyptians
salted the cultivated fields they found in the Sinai when the Israelis withdrew from it after Camp David.
There were also some factory buildings in Gaza that
could have been used as equipment was still in them.
They were wrecked, too.
What are the Palestinains doing for themselves to
show an example?
Bob Tiernan
Posted by: Bob Tiernan | Jan 5, 2009 9:40:15 AM
Ten Bears:
Israel is a Terrorist State, the Mother of All Terrorist States. An utterly foreign occupier perpetrating an American Taxpayer financed and morally sanctioned genocide upon an indigenous people. It has no "right" to exist.
Jason:
This is the most uniformed, ignorant, insidious, arrogant comment I've seen in a long time. Looks like someone has no historical context or understanding of anything in the Middle East.
Bob T:
Jason, too many so-called lefties have been viewing Israel as a Nazi state for so long (coupled with a drooling worship of some of the most anti-liberal people on the planet) that they cannot reverse themselves. It makes them feel so good. Oh, did Rachel Corey stand in the doorway of an Israeli ice cream parlor and shout out a warning to any bomb-belt wearers to stay out of there? I didn't think so.
Yeah, Ten Bears is correct that he's not an anti-Semite. He's just a Jew hater.
Bob Tiernan
Posted by: Dan Petegorsky | Jan 5, 2009 9:58:13 AM
Thanks for the post, Chip. One thing that progressive Jewish readers can do is support the actions of two organizations who are trying to bring a voice of sanity to the discussion and to weigh in with policymakers: J Street and Brit Tzedek v'Shalom (Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace).
Posted by: joebob | Jan 5, 2009 10:25:50 AM
Sure a lot of folks with scorecards here, adding up the number of missiles fired at Party A by Party B. Thing is, everyone's got a different idea about which was the first inning in this particular ball game. As though that mattered: whether you get killed in the 5th inning or 6th inning, you're still dead.
Posted by: marv | Jan 5, 2009 10:44:10 AM
As I read that Israel is raining down white phosphorus on
women and children I recall that the same substance was
used in Iraq. Three thousand injured thus far in the latest demonstration of power in Gaza. Forty percent are
women and children. Genocide. We are responsible. We
make this possible. Because we, The United States of
America, are the world's leading terrorist nation. And we
are led around by the nose by AIPAC. Shame on us. Because it is too profitable to kill women and children.
Posted by: Clackamas | Jan 5, 2009 11:06:19 AM
So the Palestinians are radicalized by having their country taken away from them and 50 years of economic suffering, while the Israelis are radicalized by being a tiny, natural resource poor country in a very hostile region that is constantly targeted by terrorist (which is really just a form of asymmetric warfare.)
We encourage the Palestinians to democratize. Because of their economic plight and hopelessness, they vote for Hamas, who lobs rockets at Israeli civilians. Israel responds by again invading the remaining Palestinian territory and further destroying their infrastructure/inflicting civilian casualties. Which radicalizes even more Palestinians, who become stronger supporters of Hamas, because Hamas appears to be the only institution fighting back.
A nice vicious cycle that spins out of control, in turn fueling our own middle east headaches.
What to do about it? I dunno.
It seems to me that the timing of Israel's military action has as much to do with the transition of power in the US as it does any immediate need to address the rockets. They are trying to force Obama into a box, where he has no choice but to continue to provide them with military and economic subsidies and carte blanche to carry out such activities, or risk a major split in the Democratic Party just as he takes office.
The conflict won't end till the Palestinians see a future for themselves where they can have a independent state and decent quality of life without destroying Israel. Contrary to what some of the chest-thumpers here have proclaimed, you don't win a guerrilla war by killing so many people that the rest get the message and give up. Unfortunately, if there is any resolution to this it is going to have to be negotiated by the Europeans. Obama and the US will continue to be politically paralyzed by anything effecting Israel.
Posted by: joel dan walls | Jan 5, 2009 11:12:02 AM
There is legitimate attention given to lobbying groups like AIPAC, but IMHO our wacky policy towards Israel and Palestine has even more to do with the wingnut "Christian Zionists", who are gleeful at any violence that they think is going to bring about Armageddon and the 2nd Coming of Christ. And guess what? The Christian Zionists are not reading this blog.
Posted by: Bill Bodden | Jan 5, 2009 12:39:06 PM
Josh Marshall at TPM says the heart of the issue is the exponential growth of settlements in the West Bank.
This is something I learned from "Righteous Victims" by the Israeli historian Benny Morris. When the Zionists arranged for Jews to move into the Palestine Territories in the early part of the 1900s, there were essentially two groups of Jews among them. One was content to live and work in peace with the Palestinians. The other had a plan to take over what they saw as the land of Israel (the Palestine Territories and Trans-Jordan, now a part of Jordan) and transfer the Palestinians elsewhere in the Arab world, or wherever. They didn't care. (We now refer to this as ethnic cleansing.) The latter, being more aggressive, decided the future and after years of terrorist activity established the state of Israel. There appear to be descendants of this dominant group continuing the original plan to get rid of the Palestinians. It is the only road map for the Israeli-Palestinian problem that seems to be working. So Josh Marshall's point is valid.
There are also in Israel descendants of the Jews noted for their humanity and enlightenment. Unfortunately, they appear to be in a distinct minority barely keeping this better aspect of Jewish heritage alive.
To be fair, Israel's right-wing and its lobby in the United States didn't do all they have done alone. Many others can share in the guilt. One of the Israelis' shrewdest moves was purchasing the incumbents in the White House and almost all of the senators and representatives in Congress. If the Palestinians want a fair shake or to be dealt a better hand, they will need to up the ante and outbid the Israeli lobby when it comes to campaign donations.
For many people nothing shows the Israeli corruption of the American government more than the attack on the USS Liberty at the beginning of the 1967 war. This was a deliberate attack ordered by Moshe Dayan to destroy the ship and kill the entire crew. President Lyndon Johnson ordered a cover-up. Admiral John McCain, father of the former presidential candidate, loyally saw that the cover-up was taken care of, even though it meant betraying the crew of one of the ships under his command.
Posted by: mp97303 | Jan 5, 2009 12:55:37 PM
@Jason:This is the most uniformed, ignorant, insidious, arrogant comment I've seen in a long time. Looks like someone has no historical context or understanding of anything in the Middle East.
Just for everyone's benefit, what is your educational background? I assume it is a Ph.D in Middle Eastern History.
Posted by: Steven Maurer | Jan 5, 2009 1:34:42 PM
About a year ago I suggested that the next Democratic president put the onus on the Palestinians to actually propose a peace plan. Up until now, all "land for peace" plans have been proposed by the Israelis, and rejected by a majority or significant minority of Palestinians, who express their displeasure by sending suicide bombers into Israeli cafes when they were allowed free movement, and firing rockets now that they aren't.
To be clear, a "peace plan" is not "Muslims Win. Jews Die. Israel is Destroyed. We Have Peace (until we start fighting among ourselves)". Any proposal which results in the immediate or eventual destruction of Israel is not acceptable. This means the following cannot be part of a Palestinian peace plan: 1) Any plan which makes Israel militarily undefendable, 2) Any so called "right of return" to flood Israel with people hostile to it, 3) Any plan that is non-final (land for another temporary cease fire is not a peace plan), 4) Any plan that has no mechanism to return to Israel the land given for "peace", in the event that Palestinian terrorism continues after the plan, 5) Any plan that is not subject to a referendum and passed overwhelmingly by Palestinians.
Other than that, Palestinians could propose whatever they felt was fair. All or most of the territories back? Of course. Reparations? Sure. Some "right of visitation [subject to background terrorist check]"? Possibly. Admittedly, Likud wouldn't be happy with any Palestinian peace plan. But if the Palestinians actually offered peace - instead of lies - at least the Israelis would be actually have something tangible to reject.
Until such a thing occurs, however, Israel deserves no criticism. For 60 years Muslim Arabs, driven by pathological religious extremism and a belief they're going to win a 'victory of the cradle', have chosen war over repeated entreaties for some form of accommodation. And they have suffered the consequences for that. In truth, Israel has treated its defeated enemies far more gently than any other nation on earth, including the U.S. (In fact, it is due to this gentle treatment that Hamas has felt safe in continuing their attacks against Israel; not a nation on earth would have waited longer to respond than Israel did.)
But in the face of unrelenting hostility, Israel has the right to fully engage in war to defend themselves from enemies pledged to their destruction. And there is no mythical requirement for "proportionality". We weren't "proportional" to Germany when it was run by the Nazis; they don't have to be proportional to Hamas or the Palestinian supporters who live comfortably among them. To paraphrase General Patton, it' is not an IDF soldier's job to die; it's their job to make the other poor bastard die. Period.
Posted by: Harry Kershner | Jan 5, 2009 1:42:18 PM
Top 5 Lies About Israel’s Assault on Gaza
"...Israel has long held Gaza under siege, allowing only the most minimal amounts of humanitarian supplies to enter. Israel is bombing and killing Palestinian civilians. Countless more have been wounded, and cannot receive medical attention. Hospitals running on generators have little or no fuel. Doctors have no proper equipment or medical supplies to treat the injured. These people, too, are the victims of Israeli policies targeted not at Hamas or legitimate military targets, but directly designed to punish the civilian population."
Ten Bears: We have met "the Mother of All Terrorist States", and it is US, not Israel. We are Americans, and it is therefore our first duty to end our own crimes against humanity, including the crimes that are committed by our proxy in the Middle East, which depends on OUR military, political and economic support.
If there were no oil to control in the ME, the U.S. attitude toward Israel would be the same as it was toward the Jews of Europe during the war against fascism, and there would be no U.S. troops there.
Posted by: Kevin | Jan 5, 2009 1:55:44 PM
That's an excellent and important point, Bill.
It doesn't go into much detail but this Israeli timeline does make clear that there were factions and not all of them were interested in using violence. It also makes clear that outright terrorism was used (repeatedly) by the more violent factions.
Posted by: Ten Bears | Jan 5, 2009 2:22:44 PM
I, Jason, have studied the middle east for over forty years, and have accesss to information you do not.
No, not merely a "Jew hater", a jew/muslim/christian cult hater. There's a difference.
The answer to my question, however, was indeed answered, though somewhat peripherally: somewhere between the original publication of Webster's Dictionary and the 1880 publication marks the initiation of the Zionist Conspiracy to TAKE Palestine and establish the state of Israel. In that conspiracy lay the seeds of the propaganda machine perfected by Hitler and not quite flawlessly executed by his financier's grandson GWBush: lie to the public enough and, because they're doped out on ambien, prosaic, television and viagra dumb f_cks, they'll believe it.
Don't talk to me of history, boy, I've forgotten more than you'll ever know.
Posted by: Kevin | Jan 5, 2009 2:49:45 PM
Ten Bears,
My sole criticism of what you said would be to point out that there are precious few ethnic groups anywhere on the planet who didn't get where they're currently at without displacing someone else who was there first.
There is perhaps a tribe somewhere in central Africa and a few Native American tribes and probably most Polynesians who didn't displace someone else at some point. And if we include proto-humans then few if any of even these didn't displace someone else at some point.
The past is the past and there's very little that any of us can do to fully undo any of it. That's not to say that wrongs weren't committed. Just that truly undoing any of it that wasn't fairly recent is likely impossible regardless of our best intentions. But we are all fully responsible for today and the future ramifications of the same, both of which we wield near total control over (and thus responsibility for).
Posted by: Dan Petegorsky | Jan 5, 2009 3:17:03 PM
Steve Maurer: Up until now, all "land for peace" plans have been proposed by the Israelis
Given the tenor of this 'discussion' trying to inject facts may be pointless, but there have in fact been numerous plans proposed by Arabs and non-Arabs alike. One of the most significant was the Fahd Plan, put forward by the Saudi Crown Prince in 1981. That was before the 1982 Lebanon war, and where the dynamics involving Israel, Lebanon and the PLO were depressingly similar to the prevailing Israel/Gaza/Hamas dynamics today.
Here are the elements of the plan from about as neutral a source as I could find (about.com) - or, if you prefer, from the Knesset.
Both the Israeli and the Palestinian leadership (to say nothing of the US) have always had alternative paths from which to choose; sadly, they've almost always chosen poorly. Let's hope that any new leaders who emerge have the wisdom and courage to choose better.
Posted by: Bill Bodden | Jan 5, 2009 3:52:30 PM
About 40 years ago when I was assigned to a ship my supervisor told me that when I went to sea I would meet the best and worst of people with the rest somewhere in between. Time proved he was right and observing a variety of other groups of people (nations, professional groups, unions, etc.) suggests the same rule applies almost everywhere. There are exceptions in political groups, some of which are devoid of the basics of humanity and moral persuasion and their opponents seeking liberty and justice for all.
After World War II a British historian, I believe A. J. P. Taylor, wrote a history of that war and estimated that about six percent of the German people supported Hitler, about ten percent opposed him and the remainder were apathetic. The situation is probably similar in Israel but with, perhaps, a higher percentage supporting the right-wing and a smaller percentage endorsing humane, just and civilized policies. In between there are the unthinking masses buying into the prevailing propaganda.
In the United States the political demographics appear to be worse with the vast majority of people supporting the mendacious and hypocritical duopoly currently demonstrating its capacity for criminal foreign policies, a very small percentage believing in the Constitution and justice, and the remainder apathetic.
Posted by: David Hickson | Jan 5, 2009 4:06:38 PM
Ten Bears:
Israel is a Terrorist State, the Mother of All Terrorist States. An utterly foreign occupier perpetrating an American Taxpayer financed and morally sanctioned genocide upon an indigenous people. It has no "right" to exist.
Jason's analysis of Ten Bears racist comment:
This is the most uniformed, ignorant, insidious, arrogant comment I've seen in a long time. Looks like someone has no historical context or understanding of anything in the Middle East.
Hey Ten Bears, we can all tell you have "40 years experience" studing Middle Eastern issues - from an Islamic fundamentalist point of view. Your kneejerk bigotry is actually illegal in some countries, as it would be considered incitement to racially-motivated violence and grounds for arrest. In other words, hate speech. You know absolutely nothing about the Middle East, about Israel or about the Arabs who call themselves Palestinian, that much is obvious. Your sole point of reference seems to come from Al Manar television, courtesy of Hizbullah, otherwise you would be forced to admit what is blatantly obvious: Israel and the IDF are defending themselves from a group which proudly and candidly lists genocide as its top priority and goal. Hamas is not interested in governing, nor is it capable. It is a criminal organization which the bulk of the "Palestinian" people voted for in a fair election. That alone renders moot most arguments based on your deliberately faulty reading of history. Hamas has, in effect, declared open war against the state of Israel through its continuing and ongoing acts of violence against civilians. It is not the IDF's fault that Hamas hides among children and the clergy, either. At any scene of an IDF airstrike you will not see rescue crews, you will see ghoulish Hamas thugs with video cameras more interested in the carnage and saving whatever weapons weren't destroyed in the strike than in helping people.
In short, Jason's analysis of your vitriol is dead on. You can claim whatever type of racist garbage you want Ten Bears. But, one, it doesn't make it remotely true. And, two, it's just a damn shame that hate speech is still legal in this country because I would personally make a citizens arrest once I tracked you down and handed you over to the FBI. You are one dangerous individual.
Posted by: Steven Maurer | Jan 5, 2009 4:11:12 PM
Dan, you are most welcome to inject facts into the discussion. But as part of those facts, please do not make any implicit assertion that I am not being factual.
The Fahd Plan was not a peace plan. It was a plan for Israel to surrender its sovereignty by flooding it with people hostile to the very existence of that nation. Let me explain again that "We win. You die." or "We fill your country with people to vote for you to die, before we turn it into yet another religious dictatorship common to the region" is not actually a peace plan.
Israel has never been offered peace by any Arab leader. In fact, it may be impossible for any Arab leader to do so, because the religious extremism that runs through the region makes our own Christian Dominionists look like Unitarians; whatever calls for peace might very well be ignored, the leader assassinated. Look at the way the Sunnis continue to bomb the Askariya shrine, the Shi'ite version of the Vatican. Or the female suicide bomber who killed a dozen Shi'ite pilgrims just a few days ago. Those are fellow Muslims they're targeting, and the intent is purely a religious attack - there's no strategic benefit in it. Do you seriously expect people from a culture like this to ever accept Israel?
Again, the fix is obvious: Israel returns the territories, the "right of return" becomes the right to move into those territories and compensation for those who prefer not to. The sticking point isn't Israel. It's that the substantial minority of Palestinians don't want a just peace with Israel. They want it destroyed. That's why they elected Hamas.
Posted by: Clackamas | Jan 5, 2009 4:23:30 PM
Maurer, your right. Right of return is a silly idea. I mean, proposing that families who lived in an area for hundreds of years but were then forcibly evicted be given the right to return? That is crazy talk! I mean, that would be like proposing that Japanese American internees in World War II be allowed to return to their home communities!
The idea that Israel can ever have the security it desires while maintaining an apartheid system separeting Jews and Palestinians is silly. While you certainly can't go from where we are today to Palestinians and Israelis living side by side in peace, you also can't expect Palestinian families who were forcibly evicted from their own country to just forgive and forget.
Posted by: David Hickson | Jan 5, 2009 4:28:16 PM
Chip, you want to stop the killing? One obvious way is to make it clear that racist hate groups like Hamas are unacceptable under any circumstances. If people like this are allowed to take any form of power, conflict, violence and war is the inevitable result. It from a toxic style of religious fundamentalism, and no country should be expected to come to an accomodation with groups like Hamas until and unless they transform themselves into exclusively non-violent organizations dedicated to the democratic process. Until Hamas swears off war and violence as its chosen means of dialogue, they can expect nothing but the same in return. Simply asking Israel to turn the other cheek against a group like this is the quickest way to ensure continuing violence.
I could expend thousands of words explaining why Israel is fully justified in embarking on a military campaign against Hamas, but the history behind this conflict and the facts on the ground are so obvious that it shouldn't be necessary. Working toward peace under current circumstances seems to require working to see the "Palestinian" people pried from the clutches of Hamas. And if the "Palestinians" don't want to be saved from themselves, as evidenced by their support for Hamas in a fair election, you see clearly what is happening now in Gaza. It is the result of Hamas ideologies based on relgious fundamentalism and racial supremacy. It is an implacable set of ideas, and should not be accomodated. If that means civilians supporting these ideas have to suffer, then so be it. No country in the world would stand back for as long as Israel has in the face of constant rocket attacks on schools, retirement homes and playgrounds. Nor should they be expected to.
Posted by: Dan Petegorsky | Jan 5, 2009 4:56:25 PM
You're a funny guy, Steve. You trash peace plans that have been put forward on the grounds that they'll force Israel to accept enemies within the state (ignoring, by the way, one of the most significant features of the Fahd Plan, which was to suggest compensation for refugees in place of actual return) - while in the real world it's the occupation and annexation of Palestinian lands that will, sooner or later, create an Arab majority within the territory now controlled by Israel.
In other words, forestalling a two-state solution for so many decades is rapidly making a "one-state" solution all the more likely - as even Ehud Olmert has belatedly recognized. That may delight both secularists and eliminationists (of either the Hamas stripe or those like David Hickson, who can't even bring themselves to use the word Palestinian)who think their side will prevail, but it's obviously not what you yourself suggest you support.
Posted by: Bill Bodden | Jan 5, 2009 6:06:24 PM
Robert Fisk: Bring in the peacekeepers? It's not as easy as it sounds
Posted by: Steve Maurer | Jan 5, 2009 6:12:20 PM
Gee, Clackamas, when are you leaving the United States? After all, isn't the land you're living on really the property of some descendant of the native peoples of the northwest? Certainly they should be able to take ownership of the land you live on and displace you. In fact, if it was really an option for them to obtain trillions of dollars of built up land tax free, I'm sure more than a few would do exactly that. So since you believe in the Right of Return so much, you should do the moral thing and leave the U.S. right now. Don't let the door hit you in your hypocritical ass on the way out.
And Dan, the idea that Palestinian refusal to accept a two-state solution is going to lead to a "one state" destruction of Israel through a victory of the cradle is one of the many fantasies that prevent any real movement on the Palestinian's part. (Really, you should talk to Muslims - even among American moderates there's this inexplicable belief that time is on the Palestinian side. For any one of a number of reasons, it's not.) And while Israelis are not angels - they have plenty of asshole settlers - unlike every other actor in the area, they're the only nation who has any willingness to control their extremists.
Posted by: Bill Bodden | Jan 5, 2009 6:48:49 PM
Chip, you want to stop the killing? One obvious way is to make it clear that racist hate groups like Hamas are unacceptable under any circumstances.
Would hate groups include settlers who continue to encroach on land owned by Palestinians?
Ten Bears: Judging by the personal vitriol directed your way, it appears you hit a couple of nerves. That is often a consequence to telling embarrassing truths.
Posted by: Bill Bodden | Jan 5, 2009 7:36:31 PM
Posted by: Bill Bodden | Jan 5, 2009 7:53:38 PM
Get real, folks - the Israelis have a legitimate right to self-defense.
But if they provoke aggression against themselves by a long history of human rights abuses and war crimes against others then they have no one to blame but themselves.
At any scene of an IDF airstrike you will not see rescue crews, you will see ghoulish Hamas thugs with video cameras more interested in the carnage and saving whatever weapons weren't destroyed in the strike than in helping people.
Then why has Israel banned international media from reporting in Gaza?
Posted by: Dan Petegorsky | Jan 5, 2009 8:04:06 PM
the idea that Palestinian refusal to accept a two-state solution is going to lead to a "one state" destruction of Israel through a victory of the cradle is one of the many fantasies that prevent any real movement on the Palestinian's part
It is indeed a destructive fantasy - with equally destructive fantasies on the part of many Israelis and right wing defenders in the U.S. And the two camps feed on each other in perfectly complementary ways.
Thirty years ago your exact arguments were the basis of both US and Israeli refusal to negotiate with the PLO and accept a two-state solution. We're now reaping the whirlwind: having virtually destroyed the PLO as a nationalist movement and supported creation of Islamist institutions as a way to weaken it, Israel now faces and even more intractable foes in HAMAS and Hezbollah. Having failed to develop effective state institutions that were not mired in corruption or that could gain any meaningful concessions from Israel, what you would probably call the "moderate" Palestinian leadership saw its authority eroded.
But I wouldn't be so sanguine about thinking that time is on anyone's side here. The festering wounds are making life increasingly miserable for all, and periodic bombing raids and re-invasions ultimately solve nothing, since once the military action is ended the fundamental political problems remain, while the weapons in the next round of fighting only get deadlier.
The parallel is certainly far from perfect, but the British and the Irish did eventually reach a settlement. And though they faced a prolonged campaign of terror by the IRA, I don't recall that the Brits ever sent the RAF to bomb Northern Ireland.
Posted by: joel dan walls | Jan 5, 2009 8:26:52 PM
I am completely baffled by Bodden's comment a ways up-thread that Hitler was supported by only six percent of the German population. WTF??!! The Nazis came to power in 1933 at the ballot box with 43.9% of the vote. The parties of the left in that election gained around 30%.
Posted by: joel dan walls | Jan 5, 2009 8:37:50 PM
I see that trying to figure out the score, and when the first inning took place, and how many strikes the umpire has to call before the batter is out, still occupy a lot of people's attention in this thread.
I think we can probably all agree on one thing: no self-identified nation is going to commit collective suicide. And thus IMHO the tragedy of Israel and Palestine: two nations, each one of which reasonably enough refuses to commit suicide, but each one of which seems to be convinced that committing suicide is precisely what the other one ought to do.
Posted by: Bill Bodden | Jan 5, 2009 8:42:38 PM
I am completely baffled by Bodden's comment a ways up-thread that Hitler was supported by only six percent of the German population. WTF??!!
First of all, Joel, the six percent figure was an estimate by a British historian who was active during the Hitler years. I didn't say "that Hitler was supported by only six percent of the German population."
I'm not sure that your figure of 43.9% of votes for Hitler is correct, but it is very likely that the historian's figure was referring to an earlier period when Hitler didn't do very well at the polls. If I recall correctly, the Nazi Party was close to collapse before it made a turn around in the early 1930s. Also, I wouldn't confuse votes with support. Many people voted for Obama and Merkley, not because they supported him but because they were more opposed to Hillary, McCain and Smith. In other words they were seen as the lesser evils, a status that is not synonymous with support.
Posted by: joel dan walls | Jan 5, 2009 9:08:38 PM
Mr. Bodden, please check the Wikipedia entry on Weimar Germany and the specific link to the 1933 election, which I gave above. The Nazis were the biggest party in Germany even before the 1933 election, which was followed shortly thereafter by their seizure of absolute power (something that was actually done in a quasi-legal way through an act of parliament). The Nazis polled quite well, especially for a parliamentary system with many parties, for at least three successive elections. Your assertion that people were voting National Socialist as a "lesser of many evils" choice is not credible, sorry.
Sorry about this detour, which has nothing to do with Israel and Palestine. We'd do well to avoid talking about Nazis, and not just for obvious reasons. The fact is, there were Arabs in Palestine under the British Mandate who thought the Nazis had the right idea when it came to Jews. One can play this sort of twisted blame game ad infinitum.
Posted by: Bill Bodden | Jan 5, 2009 10:12:00 PM
Your assertion that people were voting National Socialist as a "lesser of many evils" choice is not credible, sorry.
Joel: If you re-read my comment more carefully than you did before you wrote the above you will find I didn't use the lesser evil analogy in the case of the Nazis. I used that in reference to Obama and Merkley.
I'll come back tomorrow on the point I made about the Nazis being in a very weakened position.
Posted by: Israel Bayer | Jan 5, 2009 10:15:40 PM
There's no excuse for the Israel's actions over the past week and half. None.
Posted by: gina | Jan 5, 2009 11:16:54 PM
Israel has a right to defend itself. Emphasize defend, not engage in all-out war.
Hamas wages a psychological war that kills 4, so Israel is justified to wage an actual war (and with it the given psychological war) that kills 534 and counting?
The IDF is the most disciplined army in the world, with US weaponry; Mossad is 2nd only to America's CIA (and is better in some cases), so you don't think they could have had a much more effective, less bloody conflict if they just went in and wiped out the head Hamas honchos?
Collective punishment is forbidden by the Geneva Convention, and the UN. But since when has Israel had any regard for the life of others? Case in point: the 131 UN resolutions Israel has blatantly ignored.
And who broke the ceasefire? You probably didn't notice because Israel cleverly did so on Nov 4, when we were too busy with Obama.
Does nobody realize that Israel just created an entirely new generation of Hamas leaders and standard-bearers?
Posted by: ws | Jan 6, 2009 12:03:38 AM
I read the following guest column in the O today, written by a person, Harris Zafar, who is a muslim and residing locally.
How Many Must Die Before Peace Prevails, Harris Zafar in the O
What he says makes about as much sense as I can understand about what's going on over there.
Posted by: Bob Tiernan | Jan 6, 2009 1:31:27 AM
Let me make some points to outline my views on this. Before listing these, I will point out that I've long believed that both the Israelis (Palestinian Jews as well as immigrant Jews) and the Palestinian Muslims should have their own states. Too bad the Muslims of the region more or less coerced the Palestinian Muslims into rejecting the two-state deal in 1947, even if the borders of those two states were perhaps unworkable in many ways and would have need to change in trade-offs.
Try to read the full list before commenting.
1) Israel was not created by Jews "kicking out" Muslims from their land. Most of the land that became Israel (particularly the UN partition version) had been purchased going back into the 1800s from absentee Muslim landowners. This land was then cultivated and/or plotted for towns.
2) Much of this area was devoid of people and very sparsely populated when many Jewish immigrants from Europe (including Czarist Russia) and other parts of the Middle East settled in that part of the Ottoman Empire, joining the many Jews already there who had been descended from those who had lived at the time of two early Jewish states (there never being a "Palestine" as anything but a name on a map as a region of first the Roman Empire and then the Ottoman Empire. Read what visitors to that area wrote, such as Mark Twain who described traveling over large portions of what is now Israel without seeing anyone at all.
3) Once many towns were laid out and started to grow, and many square miles of land cultivated (they did indeed take barren land and turn it into orchards, citrus groves, fields of vegetables and so on), many, many Muslims migrated to the area in order to take advantage of the active and growing economy. Many, many of the people calling themselves Palestinians today are descended from immigrants to the area who arrived even later than the Jews who arrived in 1890-1920 period.
4) Far from being a "racist" movement, Zionism was simply a movement to create a homeland with a Jewish identity (enough to prevent being victims like they had been in Russia and most of Europe), and did NOT exclude Muslims from being part of the community. If you think otherwise then you are ignorant of the views of many of those dedicated to Zionism in the 19th century. And if you read of the newly settled areas and communities surrounding the older towns and cities you'll find ample evidence of Muslims and Jews living and working together.
5) The Muslims of the Palestine region of the Ottoman and then out-going British Empire were tho ONLY pro-Axis colonial people offered their own state following World War Two. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, acknowledged leader of Muslims on the Palestinian region, spent much of the war in Berlin making radio broadcasts and aiding to raise Muslim combat units from then-occupied Yugoslavia. He made it clear that he planned to do with the Jews in the Mideast what Hitler was doing to them in Europe. The Grand Mufti is the one who really jump-started the serious hatred of Jews (in the 1920s or a bit earlier) and propagandized (brainwashed) many, many thousands into a no-compromise, irrational hatred that exists to this day. Among his accomplishments were various murder campaigns carried out against Jewish settlements.
6) Muslims in the Palestinian region weren't as interested in their own state so much as they were interested in being part of a greater Islamic state, or in particular becoming part of Syria. In fact, many or most of them called themselves "Southern Syrians" (and were, in fact, from Syria originally).
7) When the two-state partition plan was proposed (this does not include the already-created eastern Palestinian state known as Jordan, formerly Trans-Jordan, which is mostly Palestinian and prohibited Jews from living there), the partially-checkerboard borders were drawn up to create a majority of Jews in one and a majority of Muslims in the other without a single person needing to be relocated. Many Jews would have found themselves in the Muslim state, and many Muslims would have found themselves in the Jewish state. They had been living that way for decades already, for the most part (by then there was a record of murder raids by the Grand Mufti groups, and by the Jewish self-defense groups that formed in response to these), so apparently most knew they could live with this without seeming to change anything about their lives.
8) The future residents of the Muslim state foolishly turned down the deal when existing Muslim nations of the area convinced them that if they waited they would the entire Palestine region to themselves.
9) After some months of this impasse, the Israelis decided to declare their independence. No one was "kicked out" to creat this state (see next section).
10) The Muslim nations in the area immediately vowed to fight this new state to eliminate it, and the Muslim Palestinians were told to get out of the way so that they would not be killed by the Muslim artillery and air attacks in particlar. Many of these Muslim residents never got back because, as we know, their Muslim brothers failed to overrun the Israelis. These nations then refused to take in the refugees and kept them in that status ever since. In response to this fighting, in some areas of fighting the Israelis pushed out many of the Muslim residents if they were deemed to have been part of the effort to help the Muslim coalition forces overrun Israel. Prior to this they had been more than welcome to stay and be part of the Jewish state, as many did anyway (where they have a higher standard of living than if they were living in any other Islamic state in the Mideast).
11) After Israel was independent, the area known as the West Bank (considered by some to be a good candidate for a Muslim Palestinian state, or at least part of one) was an unclaimed area that was, I think, under some limited UN oversight. It remained so for five years and then Jordan annexed it. During the Jordanian occupation (until Israel overran it fifteen years later in response to years of attacks coming from that area), there was apparently no cry that this was an occupied Palestine that should be a Palestinian state for Muslims. It was only after Israel moved in that this became an issue. Gee, what a surprise. (Note: Israel should not have annexed either this area, or the Golan Heights, but they hadn't done so when they fought for independence in creating their own state from what was left-over empire land and the Palestinians refusal to accept Israel's existence all these years has allowed the Israelis to settle this area to a point that perhaps makes it impossible to give up entirely. The Palestinians are indeed their own worst enemies in many ways.
12) Israel has given up two pieces of land it had taken in response to aggression or planned aggression against it (1967 and 1973), namely, the Sinai and the Gaza strip, and in each case they forcible removed all of the Israeli Jews who had been living there. So it can happen again. Despite his flaws, I think Sadat was a good man because he realized the stupidity of being dedicated to eliminating Israel. And Israel responded. He was no Gandhi, but I'd like to know if the Left would like to see any Muslim Gandhis on the north, west, and south of Israel, and inside it. Or must they all be murdered as "traitors"? I had not realized that Gandhi was out of fashion.
13) Even though I support the creation of a Muslim Palestinian state, I have no illusions that it's going to be just one more Jew-hating Islamic despotism. Gee, what a concept.
14) Calling Israel a genocidal nation is another piece of nonsense. Considering all of the health care and the standard of living in Israel (many Muslim Israeli citizens don't want to be anywhere else), it must be one of the oddest efforts at genocide I've ever heard of. It's just another very over-used propaganda lie that does nothing but get many to reach a no-compromise stance.
15) Every single Israeli Jew (there are Israeli Muslims of course) is a legitimate target to those who want to overrun Israel. There is no such thing as incidental killings to them. On the other hand, the Israelis know that it's ineffective militarily to consider any and every Muslim within and around its borders to be a legitimate target. So they don't, despite the propaganda that they do. They have to be more selective in their targeting which is why they go after as many arms caches, bomb factories, militant hideouts and leaders as possible.
16) With the kind of Jew hatred taught to Muslims from an early age, is there anyone out there who thinks that this can be turned off if a Muslim Palestine is created out of, say, Gaza-Golan Heights-West Bank? If such a state is created, will the current supporters of the Palestinians be able to turn on those Muslims who still seek to eliminate Israel, and have the guts to support crushing them? If you want to see Israel eliminated, just come out and say it instead of hiding behind a claim that you're in favor of a two-state solution.
Because...
17) Those calling Israel a Nazi state while claiming support for a two-state solution puts them in a position of eventually accepting Israels continued existence even though the lesson of WWII is that no Nazi regime should be allowed to remain. Hence the stupidity of calling Israel a Nazi state (because they are not one anyway), or even an apartheid state similar to the old South Africa. I used to be anti-Israel until I read more and realized that I had been buying into all of the sh*t spewed by the pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel propagandists. I'm sorry I ever felt that way, particularly since any objective, rational comparison of the two sides clearly reveals too many of Israel's opponents in the region to be unworthy of much sympathy at all, in how they treat their own people, let alone the dreaded infidels of various stripes. Even in recognition of a number of things Israel does (even if all or most of it is in response to moves against it), anyone who does not think that Israel is by far the best nation in that region (justice-wise, fairness-wise, you name it) is, to put it mildly, a very ignorant and misguided individual.
Bob Tiernan
Posted by: darrelplant | Jan 6, 2009 2:20:45 AM
With the kind of Jew hatred taught to Muslims from an early age...
Gee, Bob, you're sure putting a lot of weight of the fathers on a population where (according to the CIA World Factbook) 44% of the population is under the age of 17.
I guess Republicans really believe in that first part of Christ's words: "Suffer the children..."
Posted by: melch | Jan 6, 2009 7:09:53 AM
"Any proposal which results in the immediate or eventual destruction of Israel is not acceptable."
Not destruction, of course. But the relevant comparison is Apartheid South Africa. European Jews occupied Palestine much the same way Europeans occupied South Africa. Eventually, the land was restored to those who'd actually lived there for over a thousand years. The same needs to happen in Palestine. So, in effect, the best result would be a single-state solution with Jews in the voting minority, as they would be if all residents of Palestine/Israel were fairly enfranchised as voters.
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Posted by: Garrett | Jan 5, 2009 12:38:00 AM
What am I willing to do? What are you suggesting I do?
I am going to sit back and wait for President Obama's team to take charge and hopefully they will suggest to the Israeli's that perhaps they should back off a bit and search for a negotiated settlement, which probably won't work because they never will.
Although...while I realize the Palestinian's have got a bad card draw here. What is Israel supposed to do exactly? I know there is a lot of liberal guilt for the Palestinian plight but what is Israel supposed to do about Hamas lobbing rockets into Israel? Sit back and tell everyone it's ok and they're going to just learn how to deal with it? To make that clear it would mean exactly this...Residents of Buffalo NY being cool with residents of Toronto Canada shooting rockets into their suburbs (granted there is a little more space but it's tough to find something close in America. Maybe something more accurate would be residents of Tijuana lobbing rockets into San Diego? You cool with that? Wanna sit back and take it?
So it's nice that the violence needs to end. I agree with you...but what is Israel supposed to do? Really...what are they supposed to do? Negotiate with Hamas more even though most of Hamas doesn't care and they would rather die than see Israel be recognized as a valid state in the Muslim world. They can't stand on their high horse and complain about innocent deaths because Sally Jo in San Diego with her 3 kids got blown up by a rocket fired from Tijuana last week.