Talk about genocide

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

I was looking at Salon when I found this pearl:

http://www.salon.com/2014/08/01/genocide_is_permissible_according_to_insane_times_of_israel_op_ed/

Beyond the complete lack of irony from the writer, or the desperate pull of the article by ToI, it makes me wonder, first, someone let that article go up without thinking anything was wrong with it, and second, how many people in Israel actually thinks this way? I heard reports of 90%+ support for the current operation in Gaza.

Note, I don't by any means support Hamas or the use of random violence, but this is the stuff that gets my blood boiling.

[Griffin NoName]

I believe the 90% support figure. I believe most Israelis think this way. This is based on my visit to cousins there in the 1980s. I abhor the violence and death of people in Gaza, but I am afraid to say, I can understand the problem where missile launchers and tunnels are dotted around civilian buildings leading to a question of who ultimately has those deaths on their shoulders. I can see how it is possible to say the civilians are to blame for allowing Hamas to have based munitions etc in their streets. I believe that Hamas wants to destroy Israel. If I were thrown out of the UK (and remember anti-semitism is on the rise again) I would want to protect Israel and may well be one of the 90%. I think it is quite easy to cast verbal disgust on Israel's actions, but I think if  they do they should come up with some solutions that entail Hamas accepting the Jewish State as well as creating a Palestinian State. Nothing less is going to end this "type" of war. While sickened by what is happening, there is a part of me that knows Israel cannot just sit back and allow rockets to  be fired on them, and wonders how on earth they are meant to be proportionate. What would proportionate mean?

I get your outrage Zono, but I think it is naive to think that most Israelis would disagree.

Of course, the "Jews in England" are also distancing themselves from that kind of rhetoric, but where would they go if dispelled from the UK and at risk across whole continents, and what would they do to protect themselves? I think attitudes of righteousness are displayed without actually having the guts to answer that question.

It's easy to play nice when not under threat.

Of course, Hamas being voted in, rather hoist the whole democratic thing with its own petard.

I do not mean to promote genocide. I just comment on some of the content of that man's ideas.

OK - debate away.

Edit - oh I thought this was in the Debating Chamber !

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Proportionate as in Israel: 66 dead, Gaza: 1712.

And I'm sorry but blaming schools, hospitals, and UN sites bombed on Hamas is like the mob telling you is your fault for the fingers they just broke. Yes, Hamas places and launches rockets from civilian areas, but then again is not like there is much space in Gaza to begin with (the red area is a buffer and Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on earth):

Besides, the overwhelming majority of Gaza residents were either 'relocated' or descendents of those relocated not long after Israel was constituted, so is not like they don't have any grievances.

And the rockets that aren't intercepted by the beloved iron dome rarely hurt anybody (not a justification at all, just stating the fact that the Israeli population is NOT under a real existential threat from Hamas).

Regardless of views of fault (there are plenty of those) what really bothers me is the basic justification for killing civilians wholesale. The irony (or perhaps not*) is that the more civilians Israel kills, the more Palestinians will be willing to kill Israelis.

I'm sorry, I sympathize with the Jewish people, but as it is right now, I do not sympathize at all with the state of Israel.

*lovely cycle which basically insures that there will always be Palestinians willing to retaliate, which in turn justifies Israel to keep killing them on a recurrent basis.

[Swatopluk]

I'd say the seed of destruction was laid with the way Israel got established as a state (not that it got established but how).
I fear there is not going to be sane or just solution for the time being.

Since my preferred Cyprus solution is just a daydream, I'd say there would be some solutions that would be fair but will not be chosen despite being feasible.

e.g.

1) Israel withdraws 100% from the Westbank and hands the settlements over to the Palestinians. The population of Gaza moves into those areas. Some suitable adjustments are to be made for an agreeable border. The Israeli settlers in turn move to Gaza. Maybe Palestine receives a land strip along the Jordanian border so the country gets access to the Red Sea (compensation for the lost access to the Mediterranean. Parts of East Jerusalem are to be part of Palestine. Free access to the Temple Mount.

2) Palestine receives territory along the border with Egypt, so the Westbank and Gaza are territotially connected. Eilat becomes a neutral zone somehow or an Israeli exclave. The Jewish settlements in the Westbank get reordered so that they form a contiguous block with main Israel (with smooth borders, not the fractal ones there are now) leaving a corridor to Jerusalem for Palestine. Free access to the Temple Mount.

In any case, the young Palestine state receives international help contingent on good behaviour. Unfortunately it will be hopeless to persuade the US to do the same with Israel.

That would/should remove the majority of obstacles* to peace for those that can be persuaded in the first place and thus withdraw a lot of support from the radicals.

---

One thing Israel will have to tackle sooner or later: it has to become a secular state for good, starting wit the introduction of civil marriage. The supreme rabbinate (or what its official title may be) must be stripped of any real power. I see it as one of the main well-poisoners**. It's like the US education system being run by Pat Robertson and Oral Roberts and both having a veto power on all social legislation.

*the status of Jerusalem, the separation of the Palestinians in two territories, the access to the holy places, economic viability of Palestine (including access to the sea or lack thereof resp.).
**Yes, this term was chosen deliberately here and I am well aware of the old anti-Jewish libel. But this agency acts like the nazi agency in charge of the racial purity testing and a 'WE decide who is a real Jew!' attitude.

[Griffin NoName]

Swato, your solutions are my solutions. It's exactly the plan I always have in my head. As far as I see, it should work for everyone. Except Hamas, who want not to obtain peace and acceptable land divisions but to destroy Israel entirely.

I don't see the likelihood of stripping the religious far right of their political power. It's always been the Rabbi's thay have controlled the populations throughout 2,000 years. They do decide who is a genuine Jew. They do here, let alone in Israel. My ex and I had to prove our parents were married in an orthodox* synagogue in order to be allowed to marry in the synagogue we wanted**. We had to submit to rabbinical instruction on marriage. etc etc. The Rabbi is always the head of the community. To strip them out of politics would be like destroying the State.***

* I now half belong to a LGBT synagogue (I think the only such in England) - I believe in testing the extremes of comunnities at both ends. I say half belong, because for the first few years I paid my dues, but despite not paying up for severeal years, they still treat me like a member.

** Of course this palavar ensured our children's rights. Not sure why I bothered now.

*** which is not to say I am happy for that to be the case.

[roystonoboogie]

Unfortunately, a big part of the problem as I see it is democracy.

When the deal was brokered to elect a Palestinian Authority in 2006, all the interested parties were hoping for Fatah to be returned to power, but I suppose Israel's continued belligerence caused a swing towards the more radical Hamas. If the US and Israel had said "We will only deal with Fatah, we will broker a sustainable ceasefire and a sustainable settlement with them and no-one else" instead of brokering elections, we might be looking at a very different situation right now.

But Israel's democracy is also a big issue. Israel uses a national list system, possibly the most sensitive and representative electoral system there is. Israel also has a long history of absolutely crazy governments, coalitions incorporating the wackiest of opinions and political / theological standpoints. This kind of thing never happened in Tito's Yugoslavia or Franco's Spain, did it? As much as I am usually a fan of democracy, I think that having two seemingly implacably opposed electorates who consistently elect the party that offers them 'Death to [insert name here]!' is a big part of the problem.

There is no benefit being offered for living at peace with one another. A big part of the reason that Europe hasn't had a decent war since 1945 (apart from the demise of Yugoslavia, obviously) is that we depend on each others' economies. Don't go to war with your business partners, don't bomb your customers. Where is the mutual benefit of peace between Palestine and Israel? Because merely staying alive is not benefit enough, apparently. They need a reason to live at peace with each other, and nobody is offering them such a thing. Not us, not the USA, not Egypt, not the UN, not the EU. I'm beginning to think 'we' (as in our leaders) couldn't really care less - it's all good for the arms business, after all.

[Swatopluk]

A cynic would say that mutual business and war are not mutually exclusive. During the whole of WW1 opposing countries still payed licence fees for components of the weapons they used (e.g. Britain paying licence fees for the Krupp fuses used in British grenades) and at least one British pilot got courtmartialed for accidentally bombing a German factory whose owners had business deals with Britain (instead of that next door that hadn't). This was used by red propaganda as proof that the whole war was just a plot in favor of arms manufacturers.

Sorry  

I doubt that there is an actual conspiracy between Israeli and Palestinian radicals to undermine a peaceful solution. It is not necessary. Both sides' radicals draw profit form the absence of peace, they don't have to meet in smokefilled backrooms to coordinate strategy since they both know what to do.

---

Edit: My proposed solutions above have a slight flaw. I misremembered that the Egyptian-Israeli border is not more or less East-West. A land bridge between Gaza and the Westbank would thus not be feasible, so at least one of the two states would have to have a non-contiguous territory. With a territorial swap (Gaza becoming part of Israel) the need for access to the sea for Palestine would be difficult ot meet too. It would be an awkwardly narrow corridor far down to the Red Sea (Jordan is not going to cede any territory, I presume).

So, back to the Cyprus solution (with Palestine on the Oder river) and China nuking the Temple Mount 

[Aggie]

Unfortunately, a big part of the problem as I see it is democracy.

When the deal was brokered to elect a Palestinian Authority in 2006, all the interested parties were hoping for Fatah to be returned to power, but I suppose Israel's continued belligerence caused a swing towards the more radical Hamas. If the US and Israel had said "We will only deal with Fatah, we will broker a sustainable ceasefire and a sustainable settlement with them and no-one else" instead of brokering elections, we might be looking at a very different situation right now.

But Israel's democracy is also a big issue. Israel uses a national list system, possibly the most sensitive and representative electoral system there is. Israel also has a long history of absolutely crazy governments, coalitions incorporating the wackiest of opinions and political / theological standpoints. This kind of thing never happened in Tito's Yugoslavia or Franco's Spain, did it? As much as I am usually a fan of democracy, I think that having two seemingly implacably opposed electorates who consistently elect the party that offers them 'Death to [insert name here]!' is a big part of the problem.

I am not a fan of democracy.  I'm a far bigger proponent of benevolent dictatorship.  The latter is never a realistic option (if simply because those who rise to power do so out of greed and lust for power, not to serve the best interests of their people), but at least it's possible in theory to have a country well-run from the top down, in an idealized world.  IMNSHO, the people are always going to act like a troupe of primates en mass, so any truly democratic state will include a lot of poo-flinging and monkey business.

[Griffin NoName]

I just received an email with the UK Liberal Synagogue's cheif rabbi's statement on the topic. It is extremely wishy washy and mealy mouthed, and mainly says everyone should make up and be friends - sort of, well, liberal.

I should point out that one reason I stopped paying my synagogue dues was that they affiliated to the liberals.

[Swatopluk]

Preferring 'Gimme me that old time religion' or do you mean the party that sold its soul to Tory?

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

At this point I think that the whole thing should be heavily nuked underground so that it goes into the sea, from Eilat to the north of Haifa, all of it, not a squared meter for Palestinians or Israelis. They should be warned, of course, a week or so should suffice, and if any fanatics want to stay they would be welcome to endure their rapture.
-----
If the actors were honest about their stated goals, Israel/Hamas wouldn't mind if UN peace keepers remained in Gaza, for instance. It also bothers me how adamant is Israel from allowing the West Bank statehood (much less say allow the settlements), which also is quite telling.

(BTW, talking about conspiracies, how about the radioactive elements found in Arafat's exhumed body?)
-----
Lastly, it's easy to forget how incompetent and corrupt Fatah is/was which explains how Hamas (and BTW Hezbollah in Lebanon) got their influence: delivering basic services to the populations under their control. True, at this point Hamas has brought (indirectly, obviously) the destruction of their power and water processing plants, which means that Gaza has the same diseases of a medieval town now, but the population has seen them doing way more than Fatah did.

Personally at this point I think that the west hasn't learned how to deal with the parts of the world in crisis, either they think like the US right, believing that a free market capital can exist without order or infrastructure, or like Europe that after their disastrous colonialist period don't conceive tying moneys given to results or non-for-profit external management. In Palestine every time they give money left to build infrastructure it is bombed or bulldozed. In Haiti the money is either retained, misspent or robbed, and so on and so forth. Interests are very quick to insert themselves for a quick profit and at the end the result is frequently worse than the at the beginning.

If leaving them alone to kill themselves and do their middle age in peace isn't possible (see, Afghanistan, Somalia, the middle east, etc) there should an effort to do meaningful things without giving 80% of the money to western interest (from agribusinesses to weapons manufacturers) and the remaining 20% to the corrupt structures in the places supposedly 'helped'.

I am not a fan of democracy.  I'm a far bigger proponent of benevolent dictatorship.  The latter is never a realistic option (if simply because those who rise to power do so out of greed and lust for power, not to serve the best interests of their people), but at least it's possible in theory to have a country well-run from the top down, in an idealized world.  IMNSHO, the people are always going to act like a troupe of primates en mass, so any truly democratic state will include a lot of poo-flinging and monkey business.

Any power structure has to deal with a collection of disparaged interests and -hopefully- balance them. In in most systems big capital is the main game in town, frequently at the expense of the population. The hypothesis of democracy is that the population has the knowledge to choose their own interests, but in most places the majority of the population isn't either educated or engaged enough, therefore the choices are frequently poor.

Personally I'd love to have a bicameral system where one of the chambers is filled totally at random. I suspect that while not ideal it would work way better than the current systems.

[Griffin NoName]

Personally I'd love to have a bicameral system where one of the chambers is filled totally at random. I suspect that while not ideal it would work way better than the current systems.

Like the UK Jury system. I'm never sure it's a good idea really. (not the american where juries are pruned - I don't know what you'd call that system, choosing the prettiest perhaps).

They noted on the news tonight that Israel are creating more and more people who hate them. So what's new?

[Aggie]

They noted on the news tonight that Israel are creating more and more people who hate them. So what's new?

What's new is that people like myself who should be / formerly were sympathetic to them based on the history of the Jewish people are now equating them with the Nazis. From afar, and without paying much attention to the rhetoric, it seems like Israel is a well-developed and fairly prosperous state who are keeping their boots on the heads of the less-fortunate populations that they've ghettoized into unregulated concentration camps (Gaza) or are illegally pushing off their land by force due to their ethnicity (settlements). Choice of words here is intentional.  I'm not defending this as being a correct or well-thought out opinion, but it's not hard to get that impression.

I understand why the Israeli public holds a fear of persecution, but it's not helping their cause. Israeli 'civilians' (men and women) are required to undergo military training and a period of service, plus have a reinforced security room in their home.  Do you think these things might have anything to do with the national attitude? 

[Swatopluk]

At least the last part is or was not uncommon elsewhere too. For decades new houses in Europe had to be fitted with bunkers/shelters because the next air war was just a matter of time. The Israeli version is just a modern adapation. As for conscription, the only point where Israel really differs is that it is indeed universal and not just the male population. I actually like the idea, if a draft system is in place (or a militia system as in Switzerland). I am a bit sceptical of the old 'school of the nation' concept but I see a certain appeal in youngsters having to do some kind of public service independent of their status (especiallly the spoiled brats and upper-class twits).
I see the flaw not in the system but its practical application.

[roystonoboogie]

They noted on the news tonight that Israel are creating more and more people who hate them. So what's new?

What's new is that people like myself who should be / formerly were sympathetic to them based on the history of the Jewish people are now equating them with the Nazis.

You know about the cycle of abuse, right? The abused become normalised to abusive behaviour, don't have the same social barriers about abusive behaviour, and are more prone to becoming abusers themselves? Maybe it applies to nations too?