the USA, Israel, and national interest

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

but they can still watch The Real World

that shows boring, no rockets

salient point Morbs

total tangent but it is somewhat distressing to realize that "The Real World" has been on TV longer than my college-aged cousin has been alive

(There is some new "Confessions of a Teen Idol" reality show on VH1, and Eric Nies from the first one is the only person on it where I know who he is. This is not because they're too young for me, it's because they were never teen idols.)

well now we know who deserves the most condemnation at least

guys take the real world talk to the thread i started

REAL WORLD: brooklyn

lol nabisco is too young to remember "The Blue Lagoon" mania

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

I've reread this several times and can't figure out whether you meant "It was partly 'our' fault so we should STFU" or "It's not about us so we should STFU".

Though I suppose the S-ing TFU is really the key bullet point, there.

Haha Dan you beat me to it. Not to mention that flick where Christopher Atkins is a lol college student/male stripper who nails his teacher, Lesley Anne Warren:

http://www.overthinkingit.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/night-in-heaven.jpg

i have friends who have been protesting at the israeli consulate in los angeles and my gf is the daughter of a holocaust survivor and the latter issue has made me very wary of getting into it with the former, which i have been sorely tempted to do (not in a "fuck you guys" kind of way but in a neutral ground kind of way, but i worry it might get less diplomatic than i would like).

charlie I was just saying that the india/pakistan situation also has a similar history as regards the UK's involvement

My problem generally is that everybody is eager to condemn. Each side seems far more interested in leveraging their victimhood than in actually trying to find a real solution. Hamas are hallucinatingly crazy and the Israeli settlers alone have done far more to damage Israel than Hamas has ever done. I've debating this all over the planet with Israelis, Syrians, Palestinians, Egyptians, Algerians, American Jews, leftists, rightists, etc..., and as usual (and I'm not proud of this) I am left with the urge to shrug, throw my hands in the air and walk away.

well yeah, you're not a stakeholder in this. none of us are except Mordy.

The unthinking switch reaction is a. partly due to whoever the crazy decision makers are in Israel at the time and b. due to the collective psychologies of the Israeli masses who vote for the bastards. Basically, I'm curious as to how a non-unthinking switch group could realistically gain control of the country? Change the attitudes and perspectives of a majority of Israelis? Okay... how?

I am left with the urge to shrug, throw my hands in the air and walk away.

I understand this impulse, because I've had it about other foreign affairs, but for some of us this isn't an option with this particular affair.

iatee, read the thread before you post

oh sorry, we're talking about MTV now?

iatee, read the thread before you post

Tom, his point is fairly valid. Given that Israeli elections are more predictable and transparent, that way may lie the path to some kind of breakthrough. Hamas may have won an election but methinks they'll be like the Nazis or Communists and not really consider voluntarily stepping aside after a fair election. So how do you get Israelis torealize that, yes, they have a right to self-defense but pushing Gazans to the brink isn't more likely but less likely to leave them susceptible to the demagoguery of extremists?

Wrt to the Gandhi jest above, I merely meant that they need to see that violence is not the only way to achieve their ends. There is a long history of glorified violence in the Arab world - it made them what they are today as opposed to sleepy inhabitants of the Arabian peninsula - and the Israelis after the Holocause and several punishing national wars for survival are eager to appear as tough as anybody. Awesome. Kudos, hardmen. Nice biceps, but can you now use your fucking brains for once. War and struggle aren't about looking tough, they're about getting to the end with the best result possible and, for both sides, several 'unacceptable' results have been passed by in the past and won't be viable options ever again. The good options are dwindling.

this isn't an option with this particular affair.

Mordy, I failed to write in my post that I've been having these discussions since at least '83 or '84, so while I know it's not an option, the idea of walking away from it has a certain appeal nonetheless.

My cynicism in regard to Israel is sufficient that I should probably not engage in this thread, but I must align somewhat with M. White in regard to the bloody-minded futility of Hamas choosing to engage in acts of war against an opponent they cannot defeat militarily, and knowingly inviting massive retaliation. This strategy obviously has much deeper roots in power-seeking by Hamas than in any discernable plan to rectify the situation of the Palestinians. In my view, for this, they are shitheels.

Israel, otoh, is either totally blind to its own role in perpetuating the wretched quality of Palestinian leaders, or the government is so committed to a policy of lebensraum that they happily pay the price of endless war as the only possible means to this end. Being deeply cynical, I presume the latter is true. In my view, for this, they are the bigger shitheels.

but pushing Gazans to the brink isn't more likely but less likely to leave them susceptible to the demagoguery of extremists?

That's backward, btw. Sorry.

xpost - iatee, I feel like you're asking "how does one solve the Israeli/Palestinian crisis," which ... if I could answer that I would probably stop posting to ILX.

But you have unthinking-switch positions on both sides here, obviously. "We will vigorously defend ourselves against all threats" versus "we will fight forever against the entity that traps us in glorified refugee camps and periodically demolishes them." Or "we will give nothing to Palestine unless our security is assured" versus, well, good luck finding anyone to assure you of that without some massive changes. Both make sense, neither helps.

Part of the asymmetry I was talking about way, way upthread is that it really does strike me as more likely for Israel to be able to skew away from that "switch" position, if only because a functioning informed democracy with actual authority over its citizens is in a way better position to take coherent long-term positions about things. (Beyond which the very logic of an occupation, the burden of it, is that you have put yourself in this position of control: occupying and controlling people and then saying it's all up to them is not in my opinion a very realistic position to take; it's that abdication of your own role in things I was talking about upthread.) And there's a weird sense in which Israel has a greater stake here, in the sense that it has more to gain and more to lose. (Progress comes best in those moments when more Palestinians feel they're in this position, too, of having a stake beyond occupation and poverty.)

So I think the answer I'm giving you here is no, I don't know how, but I don't think that kind of transformation is some unthinkable thing to hope for with Israel, especially when the alternative is calling the whole thing off as unsolvable.

And there's a weird sense in which Israel has a greater stake here, in the sense that it has more to gain and more to lose.

I feel like you, nabisco, or someone else on this thread has expressed this sentiment before. I wonder if you could elaborate on it? I'm not quite sure why Israel has more to gain/lose than Palestinians.

I'm actually going to resort to Bob Dylan to elaborate on it (i.e., "when you ain't got nothing, you've got nothing to lose"). One reason why economic development, basic services, infrastructure, etc. in Palestine are really a boon to both sides: there's a lot less call to militancy when you have something worthwhile to build and protect.

isnt that the theory behind fightin ~*tha insurgency*~ in iraq and afghanistan

(As far as things to gain, the huge things Palestine stands to gain are very, very long-term and shaky and dependent -- real, huge carrots, but somewhat distant and blurry ones in the big picture, you know?)

Part of the asymmetry I was talking about way, way upthread is that it really does strike me as more likely for Israel to be able to skew away from that "switch" position, if only because a functioning informed democracy with actual authority over its citizens is in a way better position to take coherent long-term positions about things.

― nabisco

^^ THIS! This is why it makes more sense to push Israel. For any number of reasons, it seems much more reasonable to think that Israel might be able to self-correct, to choose a more constructive path. Therefore, it makes sense to protest Israeli actions and to mobilize international support for the idea that Israel must change course. Risk with that is that it could make Israel defensive and thus more set on a hardline approach, but it's hard to know what else to do.

This isn't arguing that Israel is "the bad guy" or that Hamas/Palestinans are incapable of changing their ways - it's simple pragmatism. Israel's democracy is more functional. Israel's economic and military circumstances give it more waffle room. Israel is more likely to hear and respond to Western pressure.

Really? It seems to me that Palestinians can gain a State, infrastructure, etc. They can lose their lives. Israelis can live in a state of fear, or they can gain some peace and security. It seems to me like the Palestinians can lose a ton more, and gain a ton more.

I think the answer to "who has more to lose" is entirely dependent upon the values you're projecting upon the Israelis and the Palestinians. If you take nabisco's position that the Palestinians feel like they don't have anything, then he's correct in saying they have a lot less to lose by going militant-aggressive. If you take Mordy's position, he's correct in saying that the Palestinians have a lot more to lose; ie, their chance at a stable, viable nation. This all goes directly towards nabs' "short-term/long-term" post.

But see, the Palestinian's situation is fucked, they have little reason to hope for anything better, and they don't seem to be listening to the West anyway. So talking about what the Palestinians might hope to gain by doing things differently is beside the point. They're not tuned into the conversation, they're stuck in end-game mode, and have no reason to trust promises of peace and security anyway.

(CNN) – Joe Wurzelbacher: Plumber. Campaign celebrity. Foreign correspondent?

‘Joe the Plumber’ is headed overseas to try his hand at covering the conflict in Gaza, Wurzelbacher’s publicist Thomas Tabback confirmed to CNN Wednesday.

Wurzelbacher plans to spend 10 days in Israel reporting on the conflict for pjtv.com, a Web site run by conservative media outlet Pajamas Media.

The famous plumber will be focusing on the Israeli perspective on the situation. "It's tragic, I mean it really is,” Wurzelbacher told CNN affiliate WNWO “I don't say that in any little way. It's very tragic, but at the same time what are the Israeli people supposed to do.”

Wurzelbacher told WNWO he’s not worried about the potential dangers of his new gig. "Being a Christian I'm pretty well protected by God I believe. That's not saying he's going to stop a mortar for me, but you gotta take the chance,” he told the CNN affiliate.

“Israeli officials are very excited to have him,” Tabback told CNN.

I saw that and immediately knew I was going to hell for the mean thoughts that popped into my head.

yeah same here :/

I had a bad thought, but my God has room for evil thoughts regarding Joe the Plumber. In fact, He encourages them.

seriously if anything can unite israel and palestine imo it might be this noble cause

Oh, Joe, you magnificent ass, I do hope you don't die; that would be too good for you.

Speaking of human shields....

xpost - Mordy, that's why I said "in a weird way." We're talking on an individual psychological level here, not an institutional one (there's very little "institutional level" for Palestinians!). Israelis have a sense of security at stake; Palestinians don't hugely enjoy one even in the best of times. There is not a ton built there to hold onto. Yeah, lives and services matter as much as ever, but it's not easy to get loads of people in a space where they look happily on the entity that takes those things in an effort to have more of them. It seems pretty clear at this point that IDF bulldozer tactics don't encourage Palestinians to cooperate with Israel, they encourage Palestinians to take militant stances toward Israel, and to support militants. Whereas I think that when Palestinians have something concrete in their hands that they've built and gained, their internal politics are going to be more cautious; they're going to look toward leaders who offer a way of protecting that and don't risk falling back to nothing. But when you're already pretty close to nothing and very, very far from those gains and don't have the kind of institutional representation that takes larger, longer-term positions, then -- as Dan says way more succinctly -- it's much easier to drift toward militancy.

I dunno, Laurel, Joe might make a better projectile than a shield. Perhaps somebody could do some testing...

yeah no Xtians ever died in the Holy Land amirite

im glad were all wishing death on some midwestern goofball

Oh come off it, Max. He gave up the right to be considered a "harmless" "goofball" months and months ago.