CCCToad on 17/11/2012 at 02:32
Quote Posted by dethtoll
I'm surprised nobody's ever told you this, but nothing in this world is ever that simple or black and white. Israel goes out of its way to avoid civilian casualties, partly because no other country goes under the scrutiny that they do .
Just....no. Would a country that "goes out of its way to avoid civilian casualties" fire M825 shells at a residential area?
If you are curious, here is what it looks like.
Inline Image:
http://images.rednet.cn/articleimage/2009%5C01%5C22%5C92852976.jpgjune gloom on 17/11/2012 at 02:43
Be nice if you provided a source for that pic, maybe even an AP cutline. You won't, though!
Slasher on 17/11/2012 at 02:49
I remember seeing that picture in Lassiez Fair in the context of Operation: Cast Lead (late '08 or early '09). Unlike some other photos showing civilians getting their asses kicked in sideways (Lebanon 2006), I think this one is authentic.
SD on 17/11/2012 at 03:49
Quote Posted by Lazarus411
Not so. Today's Ashkhenazi Jews are descended from Khazars who converted to Judaism in the first millenium AD. Sephardic Jews I believe are descended from Spanish converts to Judaism.
The joke's old now, bubba.
faetal on 17/11/2012 at 04:48
My fianceé grew up in Beirut. Israel avoid civilian casualties? Hilarious. They're practically unique in their strong record of targeting civilian buildings without any International Law comeback due to the US Veto power. One of the world's few openly racist nations (count the number of Israeli Arabs in governmental positions - as well as the laws for who can serve in government, plus the minister for the interior (
http://my.firedoglake.com/edwardteller/2012/06/03/israeli-interior-minister-this-country-belongs-to-us-the-white-man/) saying as much).
Yes the Palestinian side aren't angelic, and I fully believe that if the tables were turned, there is a high chance that Palestine would try to do the same back, but when a nation does (
http://ozkaterji.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/palestine-pastrami-sandwich-landloss2000-maps.jpg) THIS to your land based on ancestral claims of spurious provenance (are the US going to follow that sentiment by ceding anything to Native Americans?, or will Israel support similar? - doubt it), then I don't think sitting tight and hoping that it will go away gets to be an option.
So yes, I concur with DDL - both sides are fuckwits and just making things worse, but only one side is systematically destroying the other while claiming the moral high ground and receiving media and financial (to the excess) support from the world's most powerful nation. The same side that was allowed to develop a nuclear arsenal without any of the checks, balances and sabre-rattling aimed at those with darker skin who show a hint of developing anything resembling nuclear capability. Israel is a nation out of fucking control. They may give the press the line that they go out of their way to avoid civilian casualties, but tell that to e.g. (
http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2006/08/02/fatal-strikes) Lebanon. They are basically ethnically cleansing an area of the land and the only reason that isn't the standard line is because of the complex history of the region and the vastly superior press resources of Israel over Palestine to essentially call it something else. If Native Americans came back for the US, I highly doubt the "Terrorist Americans" would take it lying down either.
I get that the Jewish lobby and vote have a lot of weight in the US, so I gather the media probably paints devil horns on anything Arabic in resemblance and makes Israel look like some uber-pure nation of moral paragons defending themselves against unprovoked rocket attacks (which without exception, always seems to involve levelling large areas of habitation and replacing them with Israeli settlements - the vast majority of which are illegal under international law, but there's that handy US veto again), which probably makes it hard to view objectively over there, but FUCK is it tiresome hearing about how Israel are the victims and Palestine are the oppressors here.
Jason Moyer on 17/11/2012 at 04:58
Quote Posted by faetal
Yes the Palestinian side aren't angelic, and I fully believe that if the tables were turned, there is a high chance that Palestine would try to do the same back
If the tables were turned there wouldn't be a Jew alive on the planet. When your leadership a.) has roots in Nazism and b.) has a mission statement that specifically calls for the death of all Jews you don't really leave yourself a lot of room for playing the racism card.
I tend to be amazed at the amount of restraint Israel has. If Mexico were firing thousands of rockets into Dallas or Ireland were firing them into London those two countries would cease to exist within about a week.
faetal on 17/11/2012 at 05:05
So....shelling civilian power stations, water treatment facilities and areas of high habitation is restraint now? Interesting. How would you react if e.g. Canada had control of all of your water and electricity, controlled your airspace and took massive swathes of your territory in contravention of International Law? I don't agree with the sentiment to destroy Israel - it is detestable, but I don't think it stems from simple "we don't like jews" so much as "we can not take being subjugated to this extent any more". I'm seriously fucking stunned that you think they are being restrained. The more oft used phrase is "hitting a walnut with a sledgehammer". No race card was played - Israel are an openly racist, JEWISH (imagine the US calling itself a caucasian country) state which treats its Arabic population as second class citizens.
Also, I'm appalled that you are basically insinuating that there is no distinction between combatants and civilians with "If Mexico were firing thousands of rockets into Dallas or Ireland were firing them into London those two countries would cease to exist within about a week." - so what, we should expect that all of Palestine would rightly be levelled if Israel weren't so downright calm about everything? Women, kids the lot? The mind boggles.
Jason Moyer on 17/11/2012 at 05:08
When the enemy is hiding within the civilian population, you're going to get civilian casualties (both in terms of people and infrastructure). I don't think there's much Israel can do about that.
Israel didn't steal territory from the Palestinians. There was no "Palestine" nation at any point in the history of the region. They took territory from Egypt and Jordan after defeating them in battle like pretty much every other country ever, except that every other country ever wasn't surrounded by people trying to destroy them.
demagogue on 17/11/2012 at 05:19
My feeling is one should focus on final matters as fast as possible... Stop the finger pointing and get down to brass tacks. The Palestinians need a state, get its militant factions vetted, & its society normalized. What are the conditions to get to that point.
One of the major barriers right now to that is, first, Palestine getting its house in order so it can even make & keep pledges on behalf of its whole population; and second some Palestinian leader needs to have the cojones to basically sellout (from the average Pal's perspective), get themselves a state, vet their militant factions, and get the population to swallow it -- since they have the most to lose to non-agreement. Every day of the status quo demeans their population more, another generation unemployed, another generation uneducated, another generation cast into poverty, another generation brought up militarized... and Israel could go another 1000 years under the status quo and build up its tourism & technology industries, although of course it'd be happier if it didn't have to tolerate the rockets & could deliver something that would stop that threat and keep its own security.
The difference between Yasar Arafat and his model Michael Collins is that at the end of the day Collins sold out (depending on your interpretation) & delivered a state where at least a major part of the population got to live in some stability and build a respectable life for themselves, although many were unhappy & kept fighting over what they felt he sold out. But it's not good for a whole population to live their entire lives only knowing struggle when they should be going to school, working & having families; and that's what statehood allows a people to do. Also it's hard to vet your militants until you have a mandate; if you can deliver a state, that gives it to you.
But contra-Collins Yasar held his ground and now the whole Palestinian population has to keep suffering for who knows how many more generations... And now it's even worse because the Palestinians are themselves terminally split with two halves, the militant branch of which has a democratic mandate from their only election. Arafat had the best deal the Palestinians could have hoped for at the time from Olmert and turned it down. The expression Albright used was like "The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity." Now the best we can hope for is an Israeli administration can come back to that kind of deal and a Palestinian leader has the strength to pull the two halves together & the wisdom to leverage it into a state for themselves.
Generally, I believe most people want to have normal lives studying, working, and having family life, and it's when the social fabric rips apart that people are led into militancy; and it takes a long process of normalizing & rehabilitation, or outright vetting (DDR), to get them demilitarized again. But I don't believe its dyed into people. Just there has to be a workable process to get them to where they want to go.
