the USA, Israel, and national interest

FWIW, I regret saying children. I just said "people" earlier, and should have stuck to that, but it's hard not to use emotive language, isn't it (and I think to most people, the fact that it is children dying does make it worse, whether that is right or not)? And there are specific actual children who are dead.

Would be easier in a world where kids were always were non-combatants.

Yeah, but most of the time they are. Most of the time kids, up to a certain age, make very few decisions for themselves and are, by and large, not responsible for where they are at any given time. Kids don't choose to go to school, they are taken there and if it was up to most of them they probably wouldn't go.Would be easier in a world where kids were always were non-combatants.

Yeah, but most of the time they are. Most of the time kids, up to a certain age, make very few decisions for themselves and are, by and large, not responsible for where they are at any given time. Kids don't choose to go to school, they are taken there and if it was up to most of them they probably wouldn't go because when kids do make decisions they are often not fully informed or wholly rational.

The above example is fucked up but even then you do what you can to avoid killing the child.

To Tracer: people use the tactics available to them. If you lined up in uniform and took on Israel you would die, quickly. If as a state you take on Israel, you will lose. Hence non-state actors emerge, and use non-traditional tactics. People call them "weapons of the weak". It's completely predictable and it has little to do with religious fundamentalism, as the same or similar tactics have been adopted in other contexts.

But this isn't exactly right -- not every desperate, oppressed people resorts to the same measures. Suicide bombing is certainly not something you find in most places in the world and it DOES have something to do with a particular kind of religious fundamentalism. The onetime Japanese version of it may not have been religious, but it was highly ideological and in fact seemed to have little to do with desperation.

and methamphetamines

Suicide bombing originated in Sri Lanka and had nothing to do with any kind of religious fundamentalism

xtreme sport?

tamil version of punk'd

This is starting to remind me of Nabisco's posts way upthread (which I criticized), where he talked about the need for symbolic representations of evil on the "other side" in order to justify the potentially troubling consequences of one's own actions.

Individuals can be "depraved", and so can governments. But it's a dangerous word to throw around, because one's actions in the face of true depravity (something like true evil) need not be held to the same standard as one's actions in the face of a morally comprehensible opponent. What we do to defeat the depraved need not conform to the standards that might govern us under more ordinary circumstances. As a result, accusations of depravity can become devices of moral and/or military convenience. The U.S. has struggled with this kind of thinking in its current "War On Terror".

By claiming that Hamas intentionally endangers Palestinian children in order to exploit their corpses when they die, we are making a at least two sub-assertions:
1) That this is not merely something that has happened, but a fair characterization of Hamas policy.
2) That we understand and have fairly characterized everyone's motives and behaviors in whatever did actually happen.

I'm not willing to grant either sub-assertion. I'm simply not willing to grant that Hamas, as policy, intentionally and directly murders Palestinian children in order to achieve its aims. I will grant that agents of Hamas have killed children. As have IDF soldiers. As have American soldiers and military contractors. I'm not trying to say that Hamas is "just like" the Israeli government, but rather the statement that HAMAS = TOTAL DEPRAVITY seem based on a bunch of shaky, self-justifying assumptions.

Also a lot of what Jeff Goldberg says in that article actually has to do with the moving of corpses for media purposes rather than actually putting anyone in harms way -- not the most noble practice but hardly on the level of using human shields.

mordy pinefox is making a pretty important point and its unfair of you to dismiss him out of hand like that

What's his point then? Maybe I misunderstood it.

Because my point was that the children that I'm using rhetorically aren't enemy combatants. If we want to debate the ethics of killing children combatants, that is a different discussion. What we were discussing upthread tho were non-combatants. I think it is pretty clear what "women + children" signifies in that context.

how many rockets have been launched into israel from the gaza strip over the past few years? just curious. i have heard it was thousands?

ok seriously I go to bed and you guys spend all morning arguing about the ethics of using kids to protect yourself from high-yield ordinance. Good job everybody.

The Qassam rockets were being used as one component of an array of military tactics deployed by Gazan groups before the pull-out, the Gush Katif colonies being the prominent target. This was a response to a wave of violence and expulsions in which, for example, 13,350 residents of Rafah had their homes and life belongings destroyed in the year preceding the withdrawal, courtesy of Israeli tanks and Caterpillar bulldozers. Parts of Gaza came to resemble Grozny. The Israelis frequently attacked ambulances, at one point using the argument that UNRWA had allowed Qassam rockets to be loaded on board one such vehicle (this turned out to be a lie, but it is still repeated on many a media outlet and website). The vast majority of casualties from their use date back to the period of formal colonialism. After the withdrawal, the rate at which these were used diminished dramatically. Their use has spiked in response to serial atrocities against Palestinians, such as the slaughter of the Ghaliya family on the Gaza beach, (in which Hamas broke an eighteen month unilateral ceasefire).

There were few such rockets fired during the six-month ceasefire, even though Israel didn't respect its terms, but their use was increased again as Israel broke the truce on November 4th (burn that date into your brain and remember it next time someone tells you that those nasty Hamas thugs wouldn't renew the ceasefire). Now, there are legitimate arguments about both the efficacy and ethics of using such weapons. To my mind, they have very little going for them as a tactic of resistance. But the apparently widespread belief that Qassam rockets are the vindictive and jubilant response of sneering Palestinian jihadists to Israeli mushiness is not justified by any evidence....

http://leninology.blogspot.com/2008/12/qassam-rockets-myths.html

i didn't know about the Ghaliya family and was gonna look it up but the first google result is from st0rmfr0n+ :(

BRAND: First, Israel is rejecting a proposed ceasefire in Gaza, saying conditions are not right. Meanwhile, Hamas says it will study truce proposals. So far, nearly 400 people have been killed in Gaza, many hundreds more wounded. On the Israeli side, five people have been killed in the latest fighting by homemade rockets fired from Gaza.

Most of those rockets land less than a mile away from the border in the small Israeli city of Sderot. Since the second intifada began eight years ago, thousands of rockets have hit Sderot. And just this morning, there were new rocket attacks. Joining us now is Sderot resident Anav Silverman. And, Anav, how many rockets fell this morning in Sderot, and what was that like?

Ms. ANAV SILVERMAN: In Sderot today, in comparison to yesterday, we've had fewer rockets, but in the past 24 hours, close to 50 rockets have been fired. This has become a regular routine here in Sderot, no different from when the ceasefire began in June. Everyone here in Sderot is in a very high state of alert. Most of the families are in the bomb shelters just waiting for the nightmare to be over at some point.

http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=98879854

Has anybody perhaps considered the problem that children do not, in fact, effectively shield anything from the effects of 200kg bombs? This is why Hamas needs more training and Gaza needs better infrastructure. A civilized person would realize that children are terrible building materials for a bunker and instead choose the accepted western solutions, reinforced concrete and steel. But no, the Israelis have so stripped the Palestinian population of Gaza of their textbooks and cement mixers that even the Palestinian elected representation are forced to toil in pits shored up by eight-year-olds.

Thousands is the oft-quoted number. It is important to understand that even though they have resulted in a relatively small number of deaths, it is difficult for a government to tell its citizens that they should live in bomb shelters and deal with constant explosions and fear. Not a justification, but essential to understanding the situation.

Hamas has always been an extremist group with very belligerent rhetoric toward Israel. They have expressed some willingness toward a "hudna" -- sort of like a temporary truce but with the understanding that the ultimate goal is to establish an Islamic state in all of Palestine (something that, by the way, did not exist prior to the state of Israel). I have always believed that if Israel softened its policies toward the territories, Hamas's support would weaken, but this is a tough sell for any Israeli politician who believes it.

I'm simply not willing to grant that Hamas, as policy, intentionally and directly murders Palestinian children in order to achieve its aims.

I feel fully entitled to come to a moral judgment of Hamas wrt the deaths of Palestinians (including children) regardless of whether it is their policy to kill them or not. What do they expect to come of missile attacks? What has Israel warned would happen in the case of suspension of the cease-fire? Their stubborn insistence on macho sword rattling when they haven't the means to actually win militarily may assuage their battered egos but it serves practically no other purpose. One can argue that Israel's response is disproportionate to the provocation and may actually impel more people to support them, but Hamas's stand is the umpteenth in Palestinian error and delusion and I won't excuse it for a second. Not because I think Israel's case is so great but because I think it's absolutely fucking tragic, and predictably so, for Gazans.

I'm simply not willing to grant that Hamas, as policy, intentionally and directly murders Palestinian children in order to achieve its aims.

And it's not as if both sides don't have a vested interest in putting their own people in harm's way. The bloodthirsty types are always secretly pleased when something bad happens, whether the bombs show up on foot or via air -- they WELCOME it -- because it gives them a pretext to do what they want to do anyway: engage in more mayhem, destruction, and violence upon an enemy who, by dint of their recent atrocities, are no longer human.

I mean, I really don't think one can talk about this conflict without making it clear, at every step, that each side is trying -- intentionally or semi-unintentionally -- to provoke the other into doing something so horrible that, from the world's perspective, "they have no choice" but to escalate matters and hit back ten times as hard. Every indignity imposed upon the Palestinians, every anxiety inflicted on the Israelis, contributes to this end.

One might say that only a small percentage of the population wants to escalate, of course, but it's usually that way anyway.

The thing is, for Israel, ramping things up seems like a losing strategy. They're outnumbered, not only from without but from within: as many people have said before, the #1 winning strategy for Palestinians would be for their brethren who have Israeli citizenship to reproduce like mad, get the majority, and either change the rules or force Israel to engage in mass deportations. It's a long game, but it beats the hell out of blowing yourself up.

Even failing that, Israel's biggest advantage -- nuclear weapons, with which they'll presumably incinerate Tehran and Damascus if they're ever invaded again -- isn't exactly going to last forever, you know?

Now, there are legitimate arguments about both the efficacy and ethics of using such weapons. To my mind, they have very little going for them as a tactic of resistance. But the apparently widespread belief that Qassam rockets are the vindictive and jubilant response of sneering Palestinian jihadists to Israeli mushiness is not justified by any evidence....

Legitimate arguments WHICH I WILL NOT BOTHER TO MAKE while creating a strawman to knock down.

Their stubborn insistence on macho sword rattling when they haven't the means to actually win militarily may assuage their battered egos but it serves practically no other purpose.

It keeps them in business, like the Bush family. Biggest mistake dubya ever made was letting them hang Saddam, you know.

I mean where does "myth" enter the picture of whether it's right to deliberately launch rockets at exclusively civilian areas or whether a government can be expected to respond.

There were few such rockets fired during the six-month ceasefire, even though Israel didn't respect its terms, but their use was increased again as Israel broke the truce on November 4th (burn that date into your brain and remember it next time someone tells you that those nasty Hamas thugs wouldn't renew the ceasefire). Now, there are legitimate arguments about both the efficacy and ethics of using such weapons. To my mind, they have very little going for them as a tactic of resistance. But the apparently widespread belief that Qassam rockets are the vindictive and jubilant response of sneering Palestinian jihadists to Israeli mushiness is not justified by any evidence....

― Dr Morbius

That is some heavy-duty, high-spin, one-sided bullhsit, Morbs.

They're outnumbered, not only from without but from within: as many people have said before, the #1 winning strategy for Palestinians would be for their brethren who have Israeli citizenship to reproduce like mad, get the majority, and either change the rules or force Israel to engage in mass deportations.

This is hilarious. Yes, the Arab genome comes with a dominant HATE JEWS allele. They all have it.

As if both sides haven't broken innumerable cease fires.

WTF? It's not about "HATE JEWS" at all. It is, however, about the question of what Israel's going to do when it's no longer a majority-Jewish state, or how it's going to keep that from happening.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v134/tracerhand/12304045985t78.gif

That girl's head looks like a thumb.

not...linking...Perrin's...Gaza jokebook

feel fully entitled to come to a moral judgment of Hamas wrt the deaths of Palestinians (including children) regardless of whether it is their policy to kill them or not. What do they expect to come of missile attacks? What has Israel warned would happen in the case of suspension of the cease-fire? Their stubborn insistence on macho sword rattling when they haven't the means to actually win militarily may assuage their battered egos but it serves practically no other purpose.

― Michael White

Agree with this, but still don't condemn Hamas for its failure to surrender, or consider them more responsible than Israel for the consequences of Israeli actions - even if they have provoked those actions. And they have. You have to consider the sorts of voices and leaders that will likely come to the fore in a place like Palestine. If Israeli hawkishness is excusable, Palestinian hawkishness must be moreso, no matter how pathetic and suicidal it seems.

http://bestmessageboardever.com/uploads/av-579.gif

Some days I feel like carpet-bombing the Middle East with bios of Gandhi.

Some days I feel like carpet-bombing the Middle East with bios of Gandhi.

But, in fairness, the British could go home.

Nabisco's posts way upthread (which I criticized), where he talked about the need for symbolic representations of evil on the "other side" in order to justify the potentially troubling consequences of one's own actions.

Just to clarify, this isn't at all what I was talking about -- it wasn't about symbolic representations of evil in the least. It was about taking rhetorical stances wherein you can (often plausibly!) justify unfortunate things you've done as being the result of other people's tactics. E.g.: we are going after Hamas, and if they use innocent children as human shields, and those innocent children get killed, this is a direct result of Hamas's actions. E.g.: we must go after Hamas over rocket fire, and if this involves destroying your home and killing one of your family members, do not blame us; blame Hamas for firing the rockets. It's a rhetorical stance that says you're forced, by other people, to do certain unfortunate things, and therefore the whole thing is someone else's responsibility.

In a lot of cases this is not an untruthful position to take; in a lot of cases it makes concrete sense; but I think if you sink too far into it you're not just abdicating responsibility for your actions -- you wind up abdicating any sense of control over the future, any sense that you too can play a role in improving your own situation. This is something I think Tipsy was addressing upthread -- the way that saying "well, we must naturally respond this way" stop making as much sense when there are good arguments that responding that way doesn't help you accomplish what you want to.

(While we're handing out blame, we should remember to give the Brits a share, inasmuch as they did their best to sow seeds of discord while they were in charge. They're not "responsible" for the whole shebang, but they do get a seat at the table.)

xpost

ok what m. white just said about gandhi bios is ridiculous and I know it's meant in levity out of exasperation but really thank you for bringing it all back to my point regarding the narcissism of westerners who all feel entitled to tell israel what to do when right across the continent the exact same shit is going on, yet nobody feels it's their place to tell Hinduism what to do.

E.g., I think Michael is maybe trending in the direction I'm talking about with this:

What do they expect to come of missile attacks? What has Israel warned would happen in the case of suspension of the cease-fire?

... which is a way of saying "we're not doing these things, Hamas is doing them; we're just an unthinking mechanism that's responding to a stimulus." I have a little bit of trouble with the moral logic of this, but that's beside the point -- I have more trouble with the idea that Israel's sometimes casting itself as this "unthinking mechanism" is, in the end, helpful to Israelis.

and dovetails nicely as well with charlie's "don't forget the UK!"

you wind up abdicating any sense of control over the future

yeah, this reminds me of BOTH bush prezs and iraq - they both were like "saddam hussein is the one responsible for our invasion - the iraqi people should blame him" as if military invasions were some kind of dead-man's switch on a train that activates automatically and it's like wow, saddam's in charge of the us military?

Nabisco: that's fair. I added the "symbolic representations of evil" bit to your original argument (which I didn't go back and look at - my bad). But I do think it belongs there. Symbolic evils aid the construction of the rhetorical stance, and help assuage guilt associated with one's own actions. I.e., it's much easier to say that your enemy has forced your hand if you assert over and over again that their behavior is depraved, evil, beyond the bounds of decency. Common tactic, goes hand-in-hand with what you were talking about.

Still, sorry for mischaracterizing your statements.

http://news.webshots.com/photo/2298296970103726530OBKYUv

And in the case of U.S. invasion of Iraq, special case depravity was used to make the "they've forced our hand" arguments stick.

Btw: I wasn't making the argument that Hamas' depravity excused any Israeli crimes. I was simply saying that condemning Israel more than Hamas made no sense. Hamas is at least, if not more, indefensible and morally corrupt. But I have no problem with condemning Israel. Personally I think this strategy is counter-productive. But I understand why they are doing it.

If anything, I think I'm humanizing Hamas more because I'm holding them accountable for their actions instead of claiming they are some poor animals that don't know any better.

That's fair, as long as we point the finger in both directions, evaluate the claims and actions of both sides with equivalent cynicism.

No problem, contenderizer, just feel a need to be clear after the snit about that upthread. Tipsy and others beat me days ago on the results of this thinking, too, this bit from Tracer --"and it's like wow, saddam's in charge of the us military?" -- and how taking tnhis kind of unthinking switch reaction gives power over everyone to exactly the "outliers" that were just discussed; it puts power over the whole thing in the hands of anyone with a bomb or a rocket, puts the fate of all in the hands of anyone who can reach the switch. (This goes for both Palestinian militants and the political pull of Israeli extremist factions.)

I was simply saying that condemning Israel more than Hamas made no sense.

I'm not sure anyone's trying to have this argument in such bald terms. Right? "Who deserves more condemnation" is an argument very few people seriously want to have (and many find themselves falling into along the way).

bcz the answer to "Who deserves more condemnation" is so bloody obvious.

very few people seriously want to have it after freshman year of college, you mean