Part 6: Israeli-Palestinian conflict

[AndHarry]

Sorry, lost the end of the thread there!

Thread 5

You might want to check out this definitive statement of Israeli's uncomfortable legal position: www.Israellawresourcecenter.org/internationallaw/studyguides/sgil3f.htm. Also covers many of the topics discussed here, including apartheid, anti Arab discrimination, occupation, democracy etc.

Sorry, the links to the other discussions are at www.israellawresourcecenter.org

how was i absolving? my point is that even if this did happen it would not justify the response.

let's stop confusing 'hamas' with the entire palestinian population. though of course i support the populations right to elect hamas - they have lived under occupation and siege without hope for so long that sooner or later they were bound to elect a promise of resistance and retaliation.

hamas doing or not doing something does not excuse israel using the full force of it's military power against the general palestinian population. we're back to that collective punishment again.

Nobody is absolving Hamas. In fact, signing up to the ICC will mean that Hamas is also held to account for any crimes committed.

Netanyahu has signed off the final go ahead for the settlements and the Israeli foreign minister has declared that it is Palestinians who have been an obstacle to peace. Oh and he also mentioned that Sweden should look instead at Syria and Iraq! The whole Israeli government and its apologists are all into the deflection thing!

deflection and that smoke and mirrors that tries to make a civilian population synonymous with hamas.

QnB - I did not say Hamas are making Israel attack it. I am asking why Hamas fired from schools and hospitals.

QnB - I never said that Hamas "should" expect retaliation. After all, thousands of Hamas missiles were fired before Israel retaliated. Once retaliation was underway, however, to continue firing from civilian zones was questionable to say the least.

HoneyBadger - I never conflate Hamas with Palestinians in general. I agree it is very important to separate the two.

Gazans did not elect Hamas when they were occupied. They elected them after the withdrawal. And they did not elect them when they were under siege; the blockade came afterwards. They did elect them when they were having an otherwise raw deal and extremists often get power in times of extreme desperation.

Lots of accusations of deflection here. But you have all deflected my question. Why do Hamas fire from schools and hospitals? Do you all agree with my theory that they are using their own population as human bait? Or do you have another take on it?

let's not pretend there's not a contested view of what 'occupied' means here. would you have called the nazi ghettos occupied territories even though the nazis remained the other side of the fence most of the time? international law recognises gaza as an occupied territory and it is clearly also under siege. you don't have to be living 'inside the fence' to occupy a territory.

the point of not answering your question as you'd like it answered is that actually it's irrelevant - EVEN if they did, and they were terribly wrong for doing so it would do nothing to justify responding with world class military weaponry against citizens.

international law is international law btw. not well it stand so long as your enemies are 'nice', or it's ok to break it if your enemies do not very nice things, or civilians are only civilians till someone on their side of the fence does something that makes it convenient to blow civilians up.

likewise assault is assault whether the person you attack is an innocent victim or someone who's a bit provocative when pissed.

and punching someone in the face because someone near them spat on you and they should have made sure they spat from an empty space is not justified.

and the examples i'm using are way way way way more trivial because they do not involve the deaths of hundreds of innocent civilians including children at school or sick people in their hospital beds.

SM you seem to have a reasonable IQ. i can't really believe you would find the actions of israel moral or justifiable can you?

it's almost like the end times doomsayers are right and we really are splitting into clear camps of light and dark, death and life, for the innocent or for the corrupt.

TheHoneyBadger - I am not sure if you are deliberately misunderstanding me or if I am being unclear.

I am not talking about whether bombing civilians in retaliation is justifiable.

I am proposing that Hamas deliberately fires from schools and hospitals, to use its own citizens as human bait.

I am theorising that the Hamas strategy is to deliberately sacrifice its citizens (including children) and maximise innocent casualties with the aim of drawing the world's censure on Israel.

As one example of this censure, the UK has responded with reducing arms supplies to Israel, so this could be considered as worthwhile military objective from Hamas's eyes.

Your suggestion that there is no other space from which to fire can be dismissed from a quick gander at Gaza via Google Earth.

I am inviting posters here to give me an alternative theory as to why Hamas would use its schools and hospitals in this way.

serg, why are you trying to distract us from the really key issues? You haven't answered my earlier, very general (and less loaded) question as to why you think Hamas declared itself against the iIsraeli state. Why go off on the tangential question of why they fire rockets 'from schools', which isn't even an established fact??? (Sreenivasan jain, BTW ndtv, points out that it's unreasonable to expect Hama'sto go sit in an empty space to fire their 'ineffectual' rockets: he notes that would be plain 'suicidal'. A slightly more relevant question would be how far away they could be from populous areas whilst still under some sort of cover. So you've got an answer to your tangential question, now please answer mine!)
Incidentally, I deplore the rocket tactic (from anywhere, whatever the FACTS actualy are). It's never an acceptable thing to do. It should be investigated and if/when proven, punished, as should ALL other alleged war crimes/ crimes against humanity & violations of international law. Hmmm, i wonder whether Israelwill cooperate with the coming investigation - unlike with the Goldstone report...

Why didn't you talk about whether 'bombing civilians in retaliation is justifiable'? Just for once, can you not deflect attention away from this and actually say whether you DO you think it is justifiable? And also, where would you stand on that if - as i do - you strongly dispute the 'in retaliation' element of that idea???

You cannot just keep making bold statements like they are truths ("Israelonly ever retaliates"!!!! Yeah, see the iIDF'sown website with numbers of rocket attacks on given dates and compare that to the dates of (often not widely reported) iIsraeliincursions, ttargetedassassinations ("oops,sorry about all the collateral damage to noncombatant family members" - like its even OKto assassinate any combatants!!!), 'cross fire shootings' of innocent standers-by (like the 16 year olds in the west bank) etc etc. Its bloody obvious whose 'actions' provoke 'a reaction'. But then, yyou'renot evaluating the available evidence. Again. YYou'rejust regurgitating propaganda. That'swhy i feel like you're peddling lies.

You have to engage with the evidence presented here on eg violation of international law (why no comment on the legal resource site I posted??? If you think its wrong, please explain why), or the occupation/right to resist and proportionality. It's not sufficient to just reiterate "we withdrew, so we're not occupying Gaza.". Refutation of the points raised, please, re all sorts of restrictions and controls, changes to (military!!) laws etc etc.

Second, you say you don't imply Hamas are making iIsrael attack them, but you then say Hamas strategy is to 'deliberately sacrifice' palestinians as human bait. 'Baiting' is a provocation. You cant suggest one side is provoking a reaction then claim the other isn't being 'made to react'!! Not that i in any way go along with this preposterous theory BTW. Just trying to help you to iron out the convoluted reasoning.

And tbh, I'm ecstatic any time tthere'sany reduction in sales of arms, never mind hoping for the things never to be used, especially in the absurdly unnecessary quantities iIsrael did this summer.

i'm not deliberately misunderstanding - for me the focus is those dead civilians. and they died at the hands of israeli military weaponry and personnel.

their deaths don't require theorising or proposing ideas. they are fact and whose hands their blood is upon is fact.

I want to answer your specific points, but it will have to be later today or tomorrow.
But as a quick aside...
I am not here to distract, deflect, deceive or be otherwise devious.
I am here to learn more about alternative views and represent my own viewpoint to those who clearly feel differently to me.
I find it tiring to say that I think a + b and then for others to infer that I mean c + d. I do try to be clear and frank. And to be accused of supporting mass murder, being brainwashed, belonging to the dark side and other reductio ad absurdum remarks doesn't really get us anywhere.
I am wondering whether any common ground can be found between us, because if not, what hope for the actual peace negotiators?
I am continuing this debate in that spirit.

sergeant how does discussing point z add to the chances of resolving point c?

do you concede that if party a stopped mass murdering civilians of party b and treated party b more fairly then party a might have less need/desire to elect rulers who have a 'resist, fight, attack the enemy' mentality?

the reality is that if israel had not killed all these civilians and had allowed the union with the leadership of the west bank (with the effective stepping down of hamas) to occur then naturally, progressively, palestinian people would have had less desire/need to elect a party like hamas again. instead we've seen mass murder of civilians, obstructing of unions that could have moved things forward and antagonism that clearly only propagates the conditions that lead to voting for parties that promise to protect you and strike back at those who have killed your relatives, neighbours and friends.

i think where we split is that whereas we may both disapprove of hamas actions in a bubble like abstraction i'm lookiing at it from the contemporary perspective and understanding why such actions may emerge from the conditions people are subjected to. it is not that i approve of hamas actions but that i acknowledge they emerge from something and that that 'something' is so unjust, so inhumane, so criminal etc that it is inevitable that eventually resistance will take on forms that out of context would seem terrible but within context are actually understandable.

re: if you kick a dog long enough and hard enough eventually you will produce a dog that bites.

TheHoneyBadger, it seems that you do not wish to continue the debate in the spirit that I described. But I'll carry on regardless.

Actually we don't split on the point that you suggest. I agree that grave injustices and severe threat often (though not neccessarily and by no means always) lead to the election of extremist governments. It's fully understandable. There are many examples in recent history.

The interesting thing about this conflict is the mirror image of both sides. Do you ever wonder why Israelis prefer their politicians to have a military background and why, as tensions escalate, they tend to elect more hawkish governments?

QnBoudi - I have now several times stated my understanding of and sympathy with the Palestinians' grievance and my desire to see them have a fair deal and a state of their own. I can't extend that sympathy to Hamas: they disgust me and they do the Gazans no favours at all.

I have said at least once before that I abhor the bombing of civilians and do not seek to justify it. But I have not heard the same from you regarding the Hamas bombing of Israeli civilians. Is that justified then?

I didn't think much of your legal resources website tbh. It speculated regarding Israeli transgression of international law. It didn't really add to my understanding one way or the other. Also, I couldn't identify who was behind it - always good to know.

You can't appoint yourself the judge of what issues are key and which are tangential. I'm bang on topic. If you want to debate with yourself, do so, but here you'll have the inconvenience of another point of view.

With regard to Hamas firing from civilian areas, why do you think it militarily necessary to fire from an area packed with innocents? If you insist that it is essential to fire from a city, would you not think they would evacuate the area before turning it into a war zone? Or fire from empty, already bombed-out areas? Why didn't they?

P.S. It has been admitted by Hamas that their command centre was sited under a hospital. So if I'm "peddling lies", those lies would be theirs.

Sarg, if you reread my post you'll see that I stated categorically that I deplore the hamas rocket tactic, that i think it's never acceptable and should be investigated. I think that's an example of you overlooking key information and losing perspective. How can the nitty gritty of where rockets are fired from be more important than the underlying rationale for resorting to such tactics? This also fails to take account of the big picture.

As Honey, i'm not prepared to divorce actions from motivation. That's why proportionality and the full historical context can't be ignored to resolve this situation. Nor can the right of return simply be swept under the carpet. You'll never understand my point of view if you won't consider these issues.

As to the the difference between arguments and 'lies', you've called data I presented 'flimsy' without explaining how or why. Now you've dismissed a very detailed outline of relevant legislation which illustrates why Israel is accused of establishing an apartheid regime, how it is maintaining occupation etc etc. Meanwhile you're happy to claim that 'hamas admitted siting a command centre in a hospital'. I have searched for evidence of this, but can only find Israeli sources, deriving ultimately from the idf. Im not saying it isnt true, i dont know, but im not prepared to believe it is true on the say so of one side, given the several instances of official Israeli misinformation. Prefixing the statement with 'Hama's says' isn't sufficient to change the value of the source for anyone truly interested in the facts.

To go back to retaliation, heres an article considering the order of events.
mondoweiss.net/2014/08/ceasefire-against-evidence
There's also a piece by henry siegman from July 22 called "Israel provoked this war" in politico.com magazine web archives tho I can't get the link to work.

wasn't it an 'ex' hospital in reality? this misrepresentation was bandied by mr 'let's be clear' and rebuffed by John Snow - it was a building that used to be a hospital.

Anyone watching BBC2 the gatekeepers about shin Bet? I have missed most of it!

The Shin Bet guy is saying that in 1993, there were 100000 settlers when the peace process kicked off. 6-7 years later, there were 220000 settlers there.

That was a really informative programme. I urge everyone to watch it. There is now a panel debate on.

It was very thought provoking. I'd like to watch the whole thing again from the start and concentrate on it.

Makes you wonder if there will ever be any kind of solution that will allow both side to exist in a meaningful way. It all looks so bleak.

Annoyed I missed that! The figures quoted about settlements just say it all about Israel's commitment to the 'peace process'.
I wonder what will happen in the vote tomorrow? No reply from my MP. All kinds of dissent in the Labour Party apparently- utterly pathetic, spineless, useless party stuffed with friends of Israel.