the USA, Israel, and national interest

There's a difference between targeting a Hamas building and hitting a child, and targeting a school and hitting a child. Surely you know that?

I didn't say you were a human xxxxp

Sorry 210, dude. I have no idea what you're talking about.

everybody knows only the Jews can build children xxp

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

― iatee

Absolutely. But you're presenting this as if it's something cut-and-dried. If not in the neighborhoods they actually inhabit, where should Hamas base their military operations? If they were to establish seperate, clearly identified military bases, they would be annihilated instantly. If they were to quit the territory they're fighting, for they would no longer be able to do so. Their actions are a product of their circumstances, just as Israel's are. A product more of necessity than morality.

And, yes: given the massive inequalities of power, given the physical circumstances of the conflict, and given the histories of the nations involved, it is somewhat hypocritical for Israeli, American and/or English citizens to fault Hamas' morality in this regard. Was the French resistance behaving immorally in operating out of civilian neighborhoods?

P.S. I'm not justifying Hamas attacks against Israeli civilians. I'm not even justifying Hamas' failure to distinguish itself from civilian populations. I'm saying that it's kind of hypocritical to fault them for the latter when your country is more-or-less at war with them.

"Your attempt to survive is immoral. You should come out into this nice clearing over here so we don't have to blow up all of your children while trying eradicate you."

^^ reductionist, I'm sure

you know, i told this story upthread about rockets hitting this secondary school but i don't think the qassam rockets were *aimed* at the school. don't they fire them from, like, a couple miles away, with no guidance?

Their actions are a product of their circumstances, just as Israel's are. A product more of necessity than morality.

summarizes my thoughts on the whole subject pretty well

I wonder if I might interrupt to ask all you experts to comment on where and why you disagree with the Geneva Accords/Initiative, and to do so in this thread about the 2009 election in Israel:

2009 elections: Israel/Palestine and Obama

But I never get anywhere with "constructive" policy threads...

a statement from the j street project.

From tomorrow's Times

great link!

Save the high street – ditch bad service and ugly sales girls

Pretty girls cost the same to employ as ugly ones. Nobody likes to be served by a boot-faced crow

That second statement is patently untrue and would be way more fun to talk about

I mean just basic common-sense macroeconomics here

is "the times online" something like the onion, for british people?

Thanks for the link, Ismael. Good column.

British Onion, as requested. Not as clever, but the swearing is better

It is a good column. I was expecting something much more one-sided.

Reading The Corner it really makes me sad that these are the people who claim to be Israel's defenders in the media. They are even retarded when I'm sympathetic to their beliefs. From a Daniel Pipes' post today: "10) The Israeli goal should be victory, not ending terrorism."

Fuck you, Daniel Pipes. Israel's goal shouldn't be abstract nonsense you came up with in shower-inspired platitudes.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/12/30/gaza.aid.boat/index.html

Among the passengers were physicians from Britain, Germany and Cyprus and several human rights activists, including former U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney.

OMG Cynthia McKinney!

aka, my president.

No harm to McKinney, FWIW. Lucky, that. Iraeli's don't seem tolerantly inclined at the moment...

"La de da gonna ride this boat into a war zone." In reality I have no opinion about this conflict, but man, these types of liberals are embarrassing (and I'm a little left wing). I bet they went in thinking, we're gonna help those poor Palestinians! "wtf, why are we getting rammed?" uhhh, it's a fucking war zone you morons.

eh, it was international waters, not a war zone.

Story sounds really suspicious to me. They claimed Israel didn't contact them, but they saw a patrol boat and they even tried to maneuver AROUND the patrol boat? At a certain point don't you open communications to the boat that you're afraid is going to ram you? Seems much more likely to me that Israel told them to turn back, they were like, "Fuck that, we're going forward," and then they got rammed.

That's an entertaining article. "The collision was so severe, Penhaul said, that the passengers were ordered to put on their life vests and be ready to get in lifeboats." - the fact that the sentence ends there does undermine the gravity of the incident a tad

So like, do you reckon that Israel has a right to ram any boat it wants to in international waters?

They basically got away with all but sinking a US Navy ship in international waters

Which the folks on the Dignity must have forgotten about

XXP Presumably they don't have that "right," but I don't really know what the provisions regarding international waters and war are. For all I know they do have that right. Countries have been known to fight wars over international waters, no?

they weren't travelling under a red cross or a red crescent, and it appears at least one of the flags in the photograph is palestinian, so this basically reeks of dumb stunt, especially knowing that american sailors died for less

Cynthia McKinney, I forgot about her. She's sorta the original Joe the Plumber.

Tombot OTM, re: dumb stunt.

Israel is likely to interdict in international waters rather than allow entry into an active war zone, vs.

...Israel has a right to ram any boat it wants to in international waters?

not really sure how cynthia mckinney is the original joe the plumber

don't you see, she voted right nearly all the time in the House, just like Joe the Plumber.

greenwald, as usual, more OTM than anyone else: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/12/30/democracy/

A new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll of 18 countries finds that in 14 of them people mostly say their government should not take sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Just three countries favor taking the Palestinian side (Egypt, Iran, and Turkey) and one is divided (India). No country favors taking Israel's side, including the United States, where 71 percent favor taking neither side.

my bad I get her and Cindy Sheehan confused

McKinney's the one who tackled a police officer, right

she either threw a phone at or punched a capitol cop (depending on which report you choose to believe, the media reports or what the cop wrote down) after he chased her down and tried to tackle her for basically the crime of being a black person imo. she was repeatedly stopped trying to enter the capitol because the cops refused to, like, believe she WORKED there when she'd try to skip the metal detector line like the rest of the legislators. she was right to be fucking pissed with those meatheads, tho maybe hurling your phone naomi cambell-style isn't the right way of going about things.

well I'm glad she decided to quit politics and have indiana jones adventures full time

we should all be so lucky

In case anyone wonders where Brian Eno stands:
...
Gaza is now an experiment in provocation. Stuff one and a half million people into a tiny space, stifle their access to water, electricity, food and medical treatment, destroy their livelihoods, and humiliate them regularly...and, surprise, surprise - they turn hostile. Now why would you want to make that experiment?

Because the hostility you provoke is the whole point. Now 'under attack' you can cast yourself as the victim, and call out the helicopter gunships and the F16 attack fighters and the heavy tanks and the guided missiles, and destroy yet more of the pathetic remains of infrastructure that the Palestinian state still has left. And then you can point to it as a hopeless case, unfit to govern itself, a terrorist state, a state with which you couldn't possibly reach an accommodation.

And then you can carry on with business as usual, quietly stealing their homeland.

http://www.counterpunch.org/eno01022009.html

paw paw hebrew blowtorch

The Israelis are a gifted and resourceful people

Now 'under attack' you can cast yourself as the victim, and call out the helicopter gunships and the F16 attack fighters and the heavy tanks and the guided missiles, and destroy yet more of the pathetic remains of infrastructure that the Palestinian state still has left. And then you can point to it as a hopeless case, unfit to govern itself, a terrorist state, a state with which you couldn't possibly reach an accommodation.

And then you can carry on with business as usual, quietly stealing their homeland.

http://www.counterpunch.org/eno01022009.html

― vermonter, Friday, January 2, 2009 8:36 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

I don't think this is right. I mean it has some elements of right, but it's simplistic, and it displays a failure to distinguish between the current situation in Gaza and the current situation in the West Bank which are, fwiw, under different respective governments. I don't see any evidence that Israel wants to "steal" Gaza, they just don't want to deal with the government that happens to have been democratically elected there, and they don't want to relinquish control of its borders and economy (or lack thereof) until there is a more harmless "government" in place. Israel went to way too much trouble to completely evacuate its paltry settlements in Gaza to suggest that it has any interest in resettling people there. That said, Eno is basically right that Israel's own actions continue to inflame the situation it claims to be trying to end, and that results in a temporarily convenient political stalemate where nothing must be risked or given up. It is worth noting that the backers of Hamas also have some interest in continuing to provoke Israel by constantly firing rockets (in fact, the rockets are useless as a military/defensive weapon and aimed at civilian areas and thus can hardly be seen as anything other than provocation).

Israel's governing Kadima party is under pressure to look strong after its perceived weakness in Lebanon and from the civilian population who does not like dodging rockets. Israel's response is unconscionable and helps to create the problem it claims to be seeking to eliminate, but I don't see it as an expansionist move.

I still think it's funny how the Palestinians democratically (yay!) elected the enemy (boo!). But anyway.

jesus christ, who the fuck asked brian eno to weigh in?

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/06_02/gaza2R1506_468x316.jpg
Lest it be forgotten, this is a picture of Hamas coming to power to in Gaza. Democratic elections not quite the whole story here.

jesus christ, who the fuck asked brian eno to weigh in?

One of the editors of Counterpunch, presumably. What's your excuse?