the USA, Israel, and national interest

"What you said they should" was genocide, if I remember correctly

So is a stateless collection of people with various pockets of short-term leadership off the hook for any responsibility for their actions?

There is no "their" there

OMG i was just about to make that joke

I think I'd take calls for the punishment of Palestinians more seriously if their state hadn't already been almost completely destroyed and the actual culpable rocketeers rounded up and put on trial, rather than the collective punishment meted out by IDF helicopters and tanks but you know.

xpost -

That's not an attempt to be glib or land a zinger, by the way, so I'll do the boring explanation:

It's just that you say "their actions" as if there's an identifiable collective there, and then you talk about it as if the "their" in question is the same thing as "Palestinians." It's not, obviously. The reason you're being reminded that it's a stateless collection of people with etc. etc. is that this severely complicates the idea of anything called "their actions." There's no single actor; there's a tumultuous collection of factions working toward different purposes and beholden to one another in different ways and with various levels of legitimacy and authority that are rarely honestly and freely derived from the people (and when they are it's not necessarily for the reasons that would make things morally simple for us).

Nobody's said anything about people not being responsible for their actions, mind you. This is more a reminder that you have to think a bit about how broadly that "their" stretches and how that works when you're making broad moral claims.

Right, just like peace activists in Israel probably don't deserve blame for these attacks, even though they are a part of the Israeli state.

But the people who voted Hamas in? The people in Hamas? Both those sub-groups seem to deserve some responsibility for their actions...and both groups have the ability to influence their own future, so they ain't powerless.

I think I'd take calls for the punishment of Palestinians more seriously if their state hadn't already been almost completely destroyed and the actual culpable rocketeers rounded up and put on trial...

the rockets were still coming down, to be basic. the violence will be counter-productive but it's not being done on a whim.

all of what nabisco says -- "There's no single actor; there's a tumultuous collection of factions working toward different purposes and beholden to one another in different ways and with various levels of legitimacy and authority that are rarely honestly and freely derived from the people " -- would also apply if palestine were a "properly functioning" state, surely?

it applies -- ta-da -- to israel as well.

or are we saying that civilian members of democracies are legitimate targets as a result of "their" governments' actions?

Yes, that's exactly what iatee is saying isn't it?

Or course it applies to Israel as well: that's why we all agree that rocket attacks are not good things! That's why we agree that they're terroristic, and not justifiable reactions to the actions of Israel as a state! And one reason some of us worry about Israel's offensives is that Israel does not have a very good track record of extending that same courtesy toward Palestinian civilians.

Iatee, I'm not sure anyone is arguing that Hamas is powerless, or does not have responsibility for its institutional actions. Much of what Tipsy has argued in this thread is that this sort of response toward the actions of Hamas is counterproductive -- that it strengthens Hamas, that it's not part of a coherent long-term strategy toward peace and security for anyone. The response he's mostly gotten has been "yeah well that's what happens when you fire rockets," which isn't much of a response, and doesn't address his point. We're not just talking about the lack of coherent authority in Palestine for moral reasons, we're also talking about it for practical reasons, because it influences what you can do or should plan to do in terms of a long-term strategy for not having this problem anymore.

Nabisco, I think you're misunderstanding my argument. I'm not defending Israel, per se. I'm simply suggesting that we do both sides of the conflict a disservice by pretending that one is incapable of stopping violence and the other is. Not only have stateless peoples been able to secure rights for themselves in the past, but, as Brohan points out, both parties are full of individuals. Shalom Achshav is an Israeli political party. There is no "their" there in the knesset either. I'd like to see Hamas man up and take responsibility for their people and their actions. Israel should not be babying the Palestinians. It's degrading and unuseful. They should take care of their people, and their state, and let the Palestinian leadership figure out best how to take care of their people. If at some point it becomes evident to Israel that taking care of the Palestinians is most useful to the Israeli population, then maybe they'll do that. But to ask them to ask selflessly because the Palestinians are little children is pretty racist, IMO.

And if you're asking what Israel has to gain pragmatically from retaliated against rockets, I mentioned a possibility earlier: If you want to run a government, sometimes you need to take action when assholes keep attacking your constituents. You can't run a state if your coalition keeps falling apart.

(retaliating*)

Israel isn't retaliating or dishing out punishment to civilians because of fault - it's taking action to get the rockets to stop because it faces a threat from them. There's no justification for targeting civilians, whoever they may have voted for (and let's not forget that Hamas runs Gaza totally because they seized power in a coup, not because they won certain powers in the last round of elections). But, when Israel faces a threat, it is entitled to use force to stop it, and whether civilians get killed during that use of force is largely irrelevant. Which is why the phrase 'collateral damage', while horrible, is accurate - targeting civilians is just not part of war any more

NB the other side of this coin, and why it would work in a traditional war, is that military installations should not be based in civilian areas. Hamas ignore this rule, presumably because of the propaganda value of high casualties (also seen in their current refusal of Egyptian medical assistance)

So is a stateless collection of people with various pockets of short-term leadership off the hook for any responsibility for their actions?

― iatee

There is no "their" there

― nabisco

This is the problem with a lot of the dialogue re: Israel & Palestinians/Hamas/whatever. Both of these encapsulations are too simplistic to be meaningful. Of course a "stateless collection of people" is not the same as a nation, but then again, it's not as though we're talking about a bunch of mutual strangers who just happen to occupy the same region. So while it's clearly unfair to wage war against all Palestinains in response to the actions of a violent few in their midst, the reality is more complex than that. The violent few are not so few, and they often seem indistinguishable from a provisional government.

Moreover, most war is waged, to some extent or another, against "innocent" civilian populations. Physically speaking, we do not fight governments, but rather the citizens and structures that enable those governments to function militarily. This includes those who render direct assistance to their government, willingly or not, and also those who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. We do not pretend that this is morally correct, but rather understand it as an unfortunate neccessity that accompanies war, the greatest "unfortunate neccessity" of all.

I'm not trying to justify Israeli brutality, but simply to suggest that things aren't as simple as they might seem, and morally correct solutions are difficult to arrive at in situations such as this.

Not to mention that personally, I'm not sure that a two-state solution that includes the West Bank is in Israel's best interests. I don't know how they'll handle the strategic fact that the Golan can be cut off from the Gaza with two side-by-side tanks if they aren't policing the West Bank. And I don't know how Jerusalem can be protected geographically if there is a two-state solution. Plus, Syria wants parts of the Golan to be given back to them, which, if you know anything about the water situation in Israel, could obviously lead to huge problems. So if you're Israel, and you need to protect your citizens, and the people you are negotiating with aren't ceasing violence - why would you feel confident about them ceasing violence after you've ceded autonomy in the West Bank, or whatever it is that you're hoping Israel does?

Which isn't to say there isn't a solution. But I think it's understandable that Israel responds to rocket launchers with retaliation and not with, "Hey dudz, here is some Peace, man!"

Iatee, I'm not sure anyone is arguing that Hamas is powerless, or does not have responsibility for its institutional actions. Much of what Tipsy has argued in this thread is that this sort of response toward the actions of Hamas is counterproductive -- that it strengthens Hamas, that it's not part of a coherent long-term strategy toward peace and security for anyone. The response he's mostly gotten has been "yeah well that's what happens when you fire rockets," which isn't much of a response, and doesn't address his point. We're not just talking about the lack of coherent authority in Palestine for moral reasons, we're also talking about it for practical reasons, because it influences what you can do or should plan to do in terms of a long-term strategy for not having this problem anymore.

I agree with all of this, I think the majority of the things the Israeli government does are counterproductive and very bad for its long term-interests. Where I differ is that I don't expect the Israeli people to be acting any more rationally when they're in this sort of psychological position than the Palestinians do (or the Americans did...) just because they have a more organized political structure and bigger guns.

the issue is not -- or at least shouldn't be -- the relative responsibility or accountability of the palestinian or israeli populations. that's a moral rabbit hole. the only thing that matters is whether actions make an ultimate resolution more or less achievable. if this attack seemed like or could be justified as part of a coherent move toward that resolution, that would be one thing. that is, if the military devastation of hamas was likely to actually remove obstacles to eventual peace, it would be easier to justify from a practical stanpoint. but there's no indication of that, at all. as tom segev says in that column, this is just the same thing over and over, and it doesn't lead anywhere good.

also let's not exaggerate the threat of the rocket attacks. the threat is real, for the people who live in those areas, but it is hardly existential. the real existential threat is the inability to come to terms -- however painful -- on a two-state agreement. anything that makes that agreement harder to reach is a much graver threat to israel than any number of poorly aimed and randomly fired peasant rockets.

(a "practical stanpoint" = the point of view of yr average stan)

I'm not going to try and quantify the existential threat, but I think that Israel ignoring rockets drop on Sderot for over a year because it's one of the poorest cities in the country is a pretty huge existential threat.

Mordy I think it is really disingenuous to try and compare the "no their" of a democratic state to the "no their" of Palestine -- yes, obviously neither is a hive mind, both are just collections of people with different agendas, but one of these has a working, central, legitimate authority and the other struggles to have anything even vaguely resembling one. I suspect you know that's disingenuous, too.

Contenderizer I think that's a reasonably fair way of putting a lot of that, but keep in mind that I'm saying "there's no 'their' there" in response to a whole lot of earlier posts that seem to act as if the situation is symmetrical. It's just ... really, really, really not symmetrical.

P.S. Mordy I'd note here, just in passing, that a lot of Hamas's popularity in Palestine stems from the perception that it did a much better job "taking care of people" -- in terms of things like hospitals and schools -- than Fatah did. This isn't a defense of Hamas, or anything, just a note that development and peace are not necessarily polar opposites for such groups, which is definitely a problem in figuring out how to respond to them. Israel's strategy has seemed, for a while, to be to make them polar opposites, by strangling and destroying any positive progress that doesn't come along with peace; a lot of signs suggest this creates a vicious circle that helps no one.

...military installations should not be based in civilian areas. Hamas ignore this rule, presumably because of the propaganda value of high casualties.

-- IK

Yeah, sure, "presumably".

Or presumably they do this because they are not granted the right to have a military in the first place, and thus must hide it. Or presumably because they are massively, MASSIVELY overwhelmed militarily and have no ability to win in a direct, "fair fight". Or presumably because they don't really own the land they occupy, or much of anything at all, and therefore lack the luxury of such conventional manners.

Insisting that military rules developed by and for rich, powerful, first-world nations must apply to all-but-powerless, third-world non-nations in their conflicts with the former = the height of hypocrisy.

I'm not being disingenuous, I'm just suggesting that your comparison is meaningless. If your argument is that Palestinian authority can't be held responsible for rogue terror - I don't disagree. But when the elected leadership is claiming responsibility for those attacks, what do you gain from saying there's no "their" there? Weren't most of the retaliatory installations hit those of Hamas leadership?

also let's not exaggerate the threat of the rocket attacks. the threat is real, for the people who live in those areas, but it is hardly existential. the real existential threat is the inability to come to terms -- however painful -- on a two-state agreement. anything that makes that agreement harder to reach is a much graver threat to israel than any number of poorly aimed and randomly fired peasant rockets.

Rocket attacks / suicide bombings are psychological threats - and they were meant to be. Obv way fewer Israelis die, but they still succeed in freaking everyone the fuck out. In that sense, they're exactly as successful as the IDF attacks.

the only thing that matters is whether actions make an ultimate resolution more or less achievable. if this attack seemed like or could be justified as part of a coherent move toward that resolution, that would be one thing. that is, if the military devastation of hamas was likely to actually remove obstacles to eventual peace, it would be easier to justify from a practical stanpoint.

-- tipsy

Sometimes our responses to situations -- even the best available responses to situations -- have less to do with acheiving an "ultimate resolution" than with solving an immediate, short-term problem. Here, I think the Israeli response isn't an attempt to resolve the conflict as a whole, but simply to stop the rockets from falling, if only for a while. On that level it seems entirely reasonable, if not entirely prudent.

Insisting that military rules developed by and for rich, powerful, first-world nations must apply to all-but-powerless, third-world non-nations in their conflicts with the former = the height of hypocrisy.

Insisting that there are certain moral standards that might be applicable to *everyone in the world* = not exactly the height of hypocrisy.

Air assault won't bind terrorists to submission. It will motivate them to suicide attacks, despite what the moderates think. Terror lives in the cracks of society, and Israeli intelligence is obviously nowhere near capable of squashing it, because it would have arrested the faction directly responsible for the rocket shots. If that's its motivation in attacking at all.

So how should Israel act? It can't let Palestine become a conduit for ''mad'' ''Islamofascist'' leaders of surrounding states? More Westerners need to adopt the morality of religion en mass? Learn to communicate with ''culturally backwards people''? Relocate to Florida ?

Insisting that there are certain moral standards that might be applicable to *everyone in the world* = not exactly the height of hypocrisy.

― iatee

True enough, but that leaves a lot of middle ground.

Don't murder is pretty much a human code dating really far back. It's application in military code is an allowance (fine, you can murder THESE people), not a stringency.

Insisting that military rules developed by and for rich, powerful, first-world nations must apply to all-but-powerless, third-world non-nations in their conflicts with the former = the height of hypocrisy

No, that's absolutely wrong. Those rules are there to make war as humane as possible. If you can't adhere to them, don't fight. What you don't do is ignore them and make up your own rules to your best advantage. Israel could nuke Gaza by that logic.

Sometimes our responses to situations -- even the best available responses to situations -- have less to do with acheiving an "ultimate resolution" than with solving an immediate, short-term problem.

but if solving the short-term problem actually exacerbates the long-term problem, then there's an inherent self-destructiveness in it. plus, this is not just about rockets. it's about israel wanting to muscle up after the embarrassment of lebanon and to counter the growing national sense of directionlessness and insecurity. it's a short-term shot of courage with the possibility of a serious hangover. not a good idea, for people or countries.

tipsy, I wonder what you think this longterm existential crisis is for Israel? Are you referring to the population crisis? Because it seems to me that Israel has more to gain from keeping attacks at bay in the short run than they do rushing Palestinians into an autonomous State. I'm all in favor of Democracy and self-determinacy, but I'm curious what you think the cost of Israel's current strategy is. I'm not convinced that giving the Palestinian's autonomous leadership is going to curtail any rocket sending. Syria (I'm not sure if they still do this) wasn't ghettoized, and they certainly had no problem shooting rockets in Israel. Saddam Hussein used to shoot rockets into Tel Aviv. Certainly the Palestinians aren't going to form a society more self-dependent than pre-War Iraq, are they?

Klata, If Palestinians played by the ''rules of war'' and fought in grids or however retarded armies used to fight, where would the average US citizen get his drugs? From Rockefeller Pharmaceuticals?

I mean, if Israel's only motivation is, Stop Hitting Us with Fucking Rockets, than maybe they'd like an assurance of that before helping the Palestinians further?

What the hell does that mean? I'm hardly making a controversial point here xp

Sometimes our responses to situations -- even the best available responses to situations -- have less to do with acheiving an "ultimate resolution" than with solving an immediate, short-term problem.

^^ If you believe this please do not ever start doing heroin

Without resistance to ''democracy'' you wouldn't be able to smoke pot and thus unable to sympathize with your enemy.

Those rules are there to make war as humane as possible. If you can't adhere to them, don't fight.

-- IK

Those rules also privilege wealthy, powerful, industrially/militarily established nations over unruly, impoverished rebels. American mythology tells us that its Revolutionary War might not have succeeded had it been conducted in accordance with the almost courtly rules of engagement that prevailed in its day. And American actions in Vietnam and Cambodia might have gone very differently had the Vietnamese and Cambodians agreed to "play fair".

It's all well and good to insist on basic wartime moralities, but if you're sitting in a first-world country that happens to be fighting a war with third-world upstarts, then you kind of lose the high ground when lecturing them on the decency of their strategies.

Then again, maybe you're talking to me from Switzerland, so who knows.

If you believe this please do not ever start doing heroin

― nabisco

Hee. Fair point, but I think you're oversimplifying again. Triage has value. Ideally you integrate your short-term tactical responses with a coherent long-term strategy, but sometimes the long view terribly cloudy.

gorilla warfare != explicitly targeting civilians

trying to stop children from dying = first-world country snobbery

tipsy, I wonder what you think this longterm existential crisis is for Israel? Are you referring to the population crisis?

it is the population crisis, but it is a lot more than that. it is very clear that israel cannot reach a state of normalcy and security without resolving the palestinian problem. even if the current situation of the palestinian people were morally tolerable (which it's not, imo), it is obviously not sustainable. it is unstable and dangerous and every attempt to punch it back into submission just makes it moreso. a permanant state of siege is not a condition that either israelis or palestinians can tolerate. as we've seen, the longer this goes on, the more radicalized the palestinian population becomes (and the israeli population too, for that matter), and the the harder it gets to reach any non-apocalyptic resolution. (and also the more openings are created for iran, syria, et al.)

the possible solutions are very limited: one state (which would be the end of the jewish state) or two states (the only hope for preserving the jewish state). anything not working toward two states is effectively working against the longterm survival of the jewish state. plenty of israelis understand that. and of course, hamas understands it too.

(and i'm not even touching the moral argument about whether there should be a permanent jewish state, just saying that if that's the express goal -- which it is, of israel and the u.s. -- then there are things that need to happen that aren't happening.)

Ha, don't worry, it was a bit of a lazy zing. I don't have much left to argue here, I don't think -- I've mostly been stressing the "no their" idea about Palestine because there were so many posts from yesterday that seemed to want to talk about Palestine an a coherent entity somehow equivalent to Israel, or something, and that seems like madness.

I will say that I really hope it's true that this weekend's offensive has mostly killed actual militant-related Hamas members; I do hope that turns out to be true.

Tipsy, I almost want to ask you to unpack this:

one state (which would be the end of the jewish state)

I mean, I wouldn't argue for a one-state solution because it just doesn't seem remotely practicable. But you're objecting to it ... culturally?

xpost - hahaha never mind

gorilla warfare != explicitly targeting civilians

― Mordy

trying to stop children from dying = first-world country snobbery

― iatee

What's with the cheap reductionism? I'm not saying anything like either of the above. I'm saying, first, that there might be more to Hamas' placement of its military resources than a cynical attempt to boost civilian casualty figures, and second, that insisting that Hamas fight out in the open according to traditional rules of engagement is functionaly equivalent to insisting that they commit suicide.

and Tipsy OTM about everything

putting a smaller group's self-interests and survival above the safety of civilian population = a bad thing

I really don't see where the first-world snobbery comes into that.

Those rules xp are from the Geneva Conventions, which are accepted by pretty much every state (including Palestine, which is kind of pertinent). They don't favour one state over another - there's plenty of scope for different tactics within them - they're just designed to limit the carnage. What favours the first world isn't the rules, it's the better technology, better training, better equipment and larger armies. Without the rules, they would just totally obliterate their punier opponents

Hamas doesn't have to fight out in the open. Morally, though, they should stop bombing Sderot. Like, period. No discussion. You can't explicitly and intentionally bomb children and maintain any kind of moral ground, no matter who you are.