Part 7: Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

[AndHarry]

Thread 1 - started when 3 Israeli boys were found murdered

Thread 2 - Operation Protective Edge

Thread 3 - Operation Protective Edge, the wider conflict and international involvement

Thread 4 - Operation Protective Edge and the different views in Israel and the wider international community

Thread 5 - in which Operation Protective Edge came to an end and the discussion continued

Thread 6 - themes of the conflict, what happens next and how ordinary people can get involved

Welcome to Thread 7.

Given the extremism on the Palestinian side and the very real fear that IS have strongholds in Gaza and the WB, I doubt anyone would want to intervene. Wishful thinking perhaps. What on eart would this intervention be? The unilateral and forceful establishment of a Palestinian state? Removal of settlements?

Most Israelis couldn't care less.about the settlements. They want to know that any future Palestinian state, only tens of kilometres from tel aviv, wont be a launching ground for attacks and a stronghold for IS. Unfortunately, the Palestinians.have played perfectly into the hands of the. Israeli extreme right who always warned that it would happen.

Extremism begets extremism.

they should care.

I'm philosophizing rather here but to me at least it's as though land and those material things are side-issues compared to the hatred-engendering fear each side has of the other. I don't see how this can be solved properly without addressing that.

I wonder how it would be if at the next peace talks the Israeli and Palestinian leaders asked each other, "Tell me something good about your people. Tell me about your children. What do you like to do as a family?" and spoke to each other as humans rather than adversaries.

Going back to the Second World War, when it was over the USA pumped vast amounts of money into rebuilding the countries they had previously fought as bitter enemies. They had a carefully thought-through plan put together of how to rebuild key infrastructure, the economy and political institutions. I wonder if the Israelis have anything like that for a Palestinian state? They should.

And the violence continues
www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4583138,00.html

Andharry

I think those personal relationships develop between the negotiators in the peace talks.

Originally, Israel was helping develop a Palestinian state. The civil service Dept I worked in in Israel had a whole program of technical cooperation and capacity building with our Palestinian counterparts in Ramallah (who were top notch professionally). The destruction of this infrastructure during the 2nd intidada was very short sighted Imo.

That's interesting Shakshuka. What sort of thing did they do?

How about Netanyahu and Abbas? Do they have any sort of personal relationship?

I don't know but I'm pretty sure that Abbas and Netanyahu have a shitty relationship!

Europe seemingly talking consequences for land grabbing: www.haaretz.com/mobile/1.622099

And yes, violence begets violence. www.almanar.com.lb/english/adetails.php?fromval=1&did=23&grid=23&eid=177010
www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/in-west-bank-palestinians-gird-for-settler-attacks-on-olive-trees/2014/10/21/eb4f5096-54a8-11e4-892e-602188e70e9c_story.html

"it's hard to imagine how, in modern times, you could go more extreme than nutty" ...hmm, perhaps look no further than Abbas, who praised the terrorist who killed a 3 month baby girl this week as a hero.

Can you give us an unbiased link to Abbas's comment? I can only find references, hyped in rather unbalanced reports, emanating from either netanyahu himself (and as we know he's not averse to misrepresenting the truth when it suits) or Palestine media watch, whose testimony was thrown out of an Israeli courtroom just 3 weeks ago as biased and unreliable. I also don't believe the US in particular would ignore such a statement, which also makes me question its veracity. Surely people on this thread don't automatically believe everything that's printed? It's very easy for inflammatory but unfounded claims to cause a good deal of damage (kidnappings, hospital command centres and the like being examples).

I doubt Abbas said that. Netanyahu said he incited but there's plenty of that on both sides. It was khaled meshal who thought the murder of a 3 month old baby should be celebrated.

JI feel sorry for Abbas, he's stuck between a rock and a hard place. I think he's a pragmatist, not a megalomaniac like Arafat, although I'll never understand why he turned down Annapolis.

I don't believe for a moment that Abbas said that either. What I have read today is that a 14 year old boy has been killed by Israeli soldiers. Israel's response? They prevented an attack! I am so angry again. Another dead child. This is every day life for the Palestinians. Their children die every day due to Israeli brutality.

Link: www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/24/us-mideast-shooting-idUSKCN0ID1ZJ20141024

Also disgusted that the Israeli guy who killed the 5 year old Palestinian girl is not even arrested as it was deemed an accident! Well that's ok then, since when does a Palestinian child's life have any value!

I was reading somewhere that what Palestinians face is worse than what black people faced during South Africa's apartheid. If I find that link again, i will post.

Accidents happen on the west bank too. You don't know the details yruapita. Sadly there are many car accidents all over the world where children die. How come you're so interested in this one?

And,.unfortunately, many Palestinian children ARE recruited as suicide bombers. I remember one case where a 14 or 15 year old had been recruited as a suicide bomber. He.then changed his mind, poor thing, and he told the soldiers at the checkpoint. He had to lie down and remove the explosives belt himself. He was terrified.

You seem to get your information from very biased sources.

Btw, the ft article you linked to is subscription only. Perhaps you can copy and paste?

Yeah, here's the story of the child suicide bomber who changed his.mknd. It was 10 years ago but I remember it clearly.
www.nytimes.com/2004/03/25/international/middleeast/25BOY.html

Found the video of the boy being saved by the soldiers he was sent to blow up. If he'd have been shot, yruapita would have been outraged by the soldiers of course and not by the fact that a 14 year old had been sent to blow himself up.

Disclaimer because people like to twist things on these threads: there are too many deaths of palestinian children and in many cases Israeli soldiers have been too quick to fire. But you can't blame every death or injury of a child on Israel when they're clearly being used by Palestinians as combatants.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=PPU4UN03t7E

Of course it was an 'accident' because it was a settler with all the love they have in their hearts for Palestinian children. The Palestinian guy who ran into the Israelis in Jerusalem was not an accident and was shot dead - his family maintain it was an accident as he was not well. But nutty yahu claims that Abbas incited terrorism. Funny how when a settler does something vile, he doesn't even get arrested, but when an Arab does it, he is shot dead first and labelled a terrorist in the process. Apartheid in action.

Just going to find the FT link. I havent got a subscription for it but managed to read the article. Dont know how!

If you type 'israeli minister calls for new models' into the search engine, the FT.com article comes up. Click through that link and you bypass the paywall. Still unsure how that works!

the 14 year old boy was exploited by a Palestinian group and Israeli establishment. He was paraded in front of the world cameras, journalists were not allowed to ask any questions and then he was thrown into jail. Statistics show that he is just one of many many children in prison. figures are here

Numbers in solitary confinement are rising year on year. Do i need to dig out links to show the impact of solitary confinement on adults, let alone children? You must be so proud of Israel.

so even according to the israeli interpretation he was a child manipulated into carrying a bomb on his own person and gave himself up and removed the bomb himself (those bad palestinians treat children like soldiers) BUT israel's response to him doing that courageous thing was not social services, therapy and asylum but to throw him in jail.

so israel wants us to see the palestinian action as child abuse but see their throwing a child who they claim was manipulated and abused into doing something but somehow found the strength and morality etc to NOT do as ok.

what do you think would happen in the UK say if a child arrived at a border with a bomb strapped to them and admitted it and fully cooperated in removing it? would they be in jail now or being taken care of by the state, placed in foster care and receiving therapy?

no matter what that child did, no matter how courageous, brave and turning against everything he'd been made to value he would still be the wrong ethnicity and treated accordingly

what COULD that child have done to make israel see them as a child in need of help rather than a dirty arab who needs throwing in prison?

the trouble with claiming the higher ground is you have to ACT in ways that show that.

and in terms of pragmatics what does that lesson teach to the next poor child forced to strap a bomb to their body and walk to a checkpoint? you know? there's not even any intelligence applied or vague effort to pretend that the objective is to improve relations or win hearts and minds as the cliche goes.

the next child who walks in those shoes knows well that other kid did the 'right' thing and trusted these people to help him and look what happened to him.

Its funny how the Israel haters simply cant accept any responsibility on the part of the Palestinians.

Israel does many things that are wrong and I disagree with. Doesn't mean the Palestinians aren't pretty shit as well. They do some seriously messed up stuff.

The Palestinian who drove his car into.pedestrians - ive seen the video footage. He was clearly.accelerating into them. His family have both denied (to the Israeli and international) and celebrated (to the Arab) what he did. Funny that. Why did khaled meshal say what he did was so fantastic if it were just an innocent accident?

I live in the us. Children who commit serious crimes here are.charged as adults, even as young as 10. They also use solitary confinement. I also think that's wrong but Israel is hardly unique. I wonder what Russian soldiers would have done with a chechen child terrorist? The wannabe suicide bomber wasn't courageous. He just didn't want to die

And the 'courageous' wannabe child suicide bomber had been rumbled at the checkpoint. He only gave himself up at that point. He.got 2-3 years in prison. Even in the Uk, a 14 year old involved in conspiracy to murder might serve time in detention.

I don't understand why it's so hard toaccept tthat the Palestinians can be wrong too. And often are.