Israel to World: "Suck It."

more likely, shrug, business as usual xp

captain optimism here

Israel frankly screwed itself. It refused to make (or at least enforce) compromises, elected a far right guy even less likely to make compromises, then got the least sympathetic US president in recent memory. And now the whole region is falling apart, and pushing Israel off the political map (figuratively). They couldn't possibly have set themselves up for trouble better if they tried. Though maybe they did!

If this leads to countries like Syria doing less talking out of both sides of their mouth re the Palestinians (oh Israel should settle all of them, but we'll keep our Palestinian refugee community in refugee camps and refuse to let them integrate into Syrian society) then I think it'll be better for everyone. Especially if the 'right of return' becomes a non-issue because refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt become settled then there will be a lot more space to come to a compromise. I think it's always been a super longshot making a lasting peace between Israel + Palestinians while Israel is surrounded by violent demagogues -- if you don't feel safe with your supposed 'allies' you certainly won't feel safe with the ppl firing rockets into your borders. A change in governments could change everything.

And I think this 'oh this is real regional uncertainty' thing is totally insane. Is this more uncertain than the second intifada? Or the Yom Kippur war (which has the same kind of psychic impact on Israel today as Vietnam still holds on the US)? Or living on the border of Lebanon or Gaza? Things have been uncertain for a long time. They're maybe just uncertain in different ways now.

yom kippur war was a long time ago - my instinct is that yes, the current evolving situation is less secure for Israel than any other time in the last 20-30 years (more insecure for everyone basically) but I am willing to be schooled on this

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/reconsidering-the-goldstone-report-on-israel-and-war-crimes/2011/04/01/AFg111JC_story.html

Goldstone says that if he wrote his report today it would've come out different. Good job, dude!

Did you actually read the article? He's not really taking anything back, just adding some nuance.

I'm going to turn your question back on you -- it's quite clear that he's taking a number of things back. First of all, "If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document" is a direct quote from him, so I didn't write anything that he didn't say himself. Second of all,

Although the Israeli evidence that has emerged since publication of our report doesn’t negate the tragic loss of civilian life, I regret that our fact-finding mission did not have such evidence explaining the circumstances in which we said civilians in Gaza were targeted, because it probably would have influenced our findings about intentionality and war crimes.

This is a significant shift.

(oh Israel should settle all of them, but we'll keep our Palestinian refugee community in refugee camps and refuse to let them integrate into Syrian society)

That might be Lebanon you are thinking of. My understanding is that Palestinians in Syria do not have to live in camps and are allowed to integrate into Syrian society.

For obvious reasons it's hard to know exactly what the situation is in the Syria but afaik Palestinian refugees are not allowed to become citizens. There are 129,457 refugees officially registered in 9 Syrian camps (UNRWA stats) and I've heard that the actual number (including unregistered refugees) is as much as 400,000. Life is Lebanon is for sure worse (and in terms of percentages, 27.1% of Syria's Palestinian population live in RRCs, 53.1% of Lebanon's do - by comparison 25.4% of the West Bank is in RRCs and 45.8% of Gaza). All these countries should be settling their entire Palestinian population though -- the vast majority of these registered refugees were born in these countries. Of course even Jordan, where quality of life is relatively high by comparison, is holding out for the right of return for the refugee populace and won't settle their refugees.

More UNRWA statistics: http://www.unrwa.org/userfiles/2011031065331.pdf

My understanding is that while Palestinians in Syria cannot become Syrian citizens they pretty much have the same rights as Syrians (with all the caveats that that implies).

What I have heard from someone who lives in Syria is that many Palestinians live in camps because they like living with other Palestinians. And the word "camp" is a bit misleading, calling to mind rows of tents or chalet-style accomodation. In actuality they are basically neighbourhoods.

I don't believe there are any refugee camps that are tent camps. Jabalia Camp for instance is primarily housing (highest density, biggest camp in Gaza). So I wouldn't read much into that. Plus "they want to be with their own ppl" is classic anti-immigrant sentiment. It helps explain why their communities are stagnant, economically depressed, dysfunctional- "oh they like living that way"

But you might be right that it's still better than Lebanon. Not much of a hurdle to leap.

Palestinians in Lebanon and Syria are a different sort of "immigrant" than most others I'd have thought

Different than what? Tons of immigrants go to new countries bc they are otherwise refugees. It's like a primary cause for immigration.

Sorry, just seemed like you were talking about Palestinians in Syria and Lebanon as the same kind of person who might move from China to New York, live in Chinatown, be happy there, etc

Plus "they want to be with their own ppl" is classic anti-immigrant sentiment.

I'm pretty certain my friend heard from a Palestinian that some Palestinians in Syria like living with other Palestinians, and do so, while others do not and so live away from Palestinian areas.

I don't want to sound glib or snarky so please don't take this that way, but claiming that the refugees enjoy living in RCs because they like being among their own kind and not because they are denied citizenship, have less economic opportunities and are disenfranchised sounds like some kind of excuse for their conditions.

And again, without being glib, my understanding is that Palestinians in Syria do not have to live in camps and many choose not to.

I don't see what that is relevant to. Only 45.8% of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are living in camps. They also don't "have" to. That doesn't change anything about them being second class non-even-citizens, or change the fact that due to economic/social/political circumstances they "choose" to live in refugee camps.

I was only talking about Syria, following on from what I think is an untrue claim from you about the status of Palestinians in that country.

In other news, Israel seems to be back to its odd habits of kidnapping people in other countries and transporting them to Israel: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12957071

I don't have anything like the knowledge you do of the subject, Mordy, but it seems to me that the govts of Lebanon and Syria would probably not want their Palestinian refugee populations to become normalized, because doing so would be a tacit acceptance of the status quo vis a vis right to return, Israeli settlements, etc

DV that is a fucked up story

Tracer - that is indeed the logic of Syria and Lebanon not fully normalising the status of their Palestinian populations, though the status of said Palestinians is much more normalised in Syria than Lebanon. I think even in Lebanon there was a slight move to greater normalisation recently, though it is still not very normalised.

"Normalised" is a great word.

idk they could still normalize them. withholding it hasn't proved a killer bargaining chip thus far, and has been a cause of suffering and exploitation. you could put it down to israeli settlements, which i guess means land taken in 1967, but then, they were pretty mean to the palestinians before 1967.

im not sure that they've treated the palestinians as second-class citizens because they want justice for palestine

Meaning?

What they say about Lebanon is that the country's internal politics made some people less than keen about giving Palestinians citizenship rights, as this would cause the country's Sunni muslim population to leap enormously as a proportion of the total population.

I'm not saying that is a reasonable ground for denying citizenship rights.

im not sure that they've treated the palestinians as second-class citizens because they want justice for palestine

yussss, I think basically they (Lebanese governments) treated them as second or third class citizens primarily because they hoped they would go away.

I see, thanks DV.

That's kinda the Palestinian experience in a nutshell isn't it

Meaning?

― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand), Monday, April 4, 2011 3:24 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark

in lebanon at least, there's a lot of bad blood from the 70s and 80s, when not everyone there welcomed the PLO. know less about syria.

I'm going to turn your question back on you -- it's quite clear that he's taking a number of things back. First of all, "If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document" is a direct quote from him, so I didn't write anything that he didn't say himself. Second of all,

Although the Israeli evidence that has emerged since publication of our report doesn’t negate the tragic loss of civilian life, I regret that our fact-finding mission did not have such evidence explaining the circumstances in which we said civilians in Gaza were targeted, because it probably would have influenced our findings about intentionality and war crimes.

This is a significant shift.

― Mordy, Saturday, April 2, 2011 4:46 PM Bookmark

Sorry, but how so? All I see here are vague, out-of-context quotes. Saying it would be "a different document" -- well that's true if any changes at all would be made, even minor ones. HOW would the evidence have influenced the findings, and what was the evidence, and what specific findings would change?

It does seem like Goldstone has changed his position a bit, in that he is saying now that the Israeli armed forces were not deliberately charging civilians and do seem to be properly investigating incidents in which civilians were killed. He might have reached these conclusions in the original report if Israel had cooperated with his inquiry.

A separate issue really is one of collateral damage - how careless do you have to be in targetting enemy combatants before the effect is more or less the same as targetting civilians?

Also, as Bradley Burston (an Israeli journalist writing for Haaretz) has said, it might be wise if, next time the Israeli armed forces are blowing up somewhere, Israeli government figures do not say things that suggest that actually they are indiscriminately targetting civilians (see: http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/a-special-place-in-hell/the-next-israel-arab-war-goldstone-will-be-there-1.353865 )

I was only talking about Syria, following on from what I think is an untrue claim from you about the status of Palestinians in that country.

I wrote: "(oh Israel should settle all of them, but we'll keep our Palestinian refugee community in refugee camps and refuse to let them integrate into Syrian society)" So it's kind of a joke to be like, "they like hanging out with themselves. Syria would totally let them integrate into Syrian society if not for that," and then give the punchline, "oh yeah, also they aren't allowed to be citizens." I don't see how the first thing makes sense with the second. Maybe they're more allowed to integrate than Lebanon refugees but they are completely disenfranchised, and primarily for the reasons mentioned above (to give them a bargaining chip re right of return as well as prevent a reality on the ground situation where the refugees are just de facto Syrians).

Sorry, but how so? All I see here are vague, out-of-context quotes. Saying it would be "a different document" -- well that's true if any changes at all would be made, even minor ones. HOW would the evidence have influenced the findings, and what was the evidence, and what specific findings would change?

It seems pretty self-evident to me that he is writing that if they had the full evidence before writing the report he would not have claimed that there were war crimes on both sides of the conflict. Remember that war crimes is a tightly defined claim and doesn't mean the same thing for a UN report as it does for a pundit calling a President a war criminal. It seems obvious to me that he would not have used that term (esp re evidence that showed that civilian deaths came about from legitimate military information and a right to military action). I think this is a huge split on the original report. Also, I don't really get why you think he wrote this op-ed if he was just making "even minor" changes. He's obviously not writing, "Oh, there were some small negligible differences that might've been produced if we had more information earlier" -- you don't need a very public column in a major newspaper to make that non-point. He's saying that there would've been fundamental changes were the report created today. I think you're pretty obviously misreading his comments.

nb I think Israel can still be censured for the way they conducted Operation Cast Lead, but there's a significant gulf between 'war crimes' and other kinds of criticism.

I think you're pretty obviously misreading his comments.

― Mordy, Monday, April 4, 2011 11:07 AM Bookmark

I think you're pretty obviously doing the same -- I don't see where it says "I no longer believe war crimes were committed."

Although the Israeli evidence that has emerged since publication of our report doesn’t negate the tragic loss of civilian life, I regret that our fact-finding mission did not have such evidence explaining the circumstances in which we said civilians in Gaza were targeted, because it probably would have influenced our findings about intentionality and war crimes.

How do you think it would influence their findings about intentionality and war crimes without - you know - changing their minds about whether there was appropriate intentionality and war crimes? Is there some third pole where it's war crimes but still changed? Like, how are you even reading that quote? What does it mean to you? "It probably would have influenced our findings about intentionality and war crimes. But I still believe they committed war crimes so I guess it wouldn't really influence those findings." Are there some other findings you think it might have influenced?

HOW would the evidence have influenced the findings, and what was the evidence, and what specific findings would change?

So obviously he doesn't include a lot of examples of this kind of thing, but he does include one.

For example, the most serious attack the Goldstone Report focused on was the killing of some 29 members of the al-Simouni family in their home. The shelling of the home was apparently the consequence of an Israeli commander’s erroneous interpretation of a drone image, and an Israeli officer is under investigation for having ordered the attack. While the length of this investigation is frustrating, it appears that an appropriate process is underway, and I am confident that if the officer is found to have been negligent, Israel will respond accordingly. The purpose of these investigations, as I have always said, is to ensure accountability for improper actions, not to second-guess, with the benefit of hindsight, commanders making difficult battlefield decisions.

The original assumption was that this was a war crime. That the Israeli government, with intention and malice, ordered an attack on a home that had 29 innocent civilians in it. B/c these things are required to declare this a war crime, this became a war crime according to the UN. After research they discovered that the commander erroneously interpreted a drone image. The results are still tragic and should be condemned, but without intention and malice this is not a war crime. Unless you don't believe it makes a difference if it's a war crime or not, this is shift from the original Goldstone Report.

Remember that war crimes is a tightly defined claim and doesn't mean the same thing for a UN report as it does for a pundit calling a President a war criminal.

ha this is cute

you're otm in the other argument

"ha this is cute"

I could have made that argument more eloquently. What I really meant is that even if you believe that intentionality doesn't matter here - ie: that this action with intentionality/malice is morally equivalent to the same action without intentionality - Goldstone obviously disagrees with that. So even if you don't believe he's actually making a shift, he clearly believes he's making a shift.

Haaretz op-ed:
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/growing-mideast-democracy-could-benefit-israel-too-1.354143

OK, can someone explain to ME why suddenly seeking a two-state solution based on the '67 borders is some kind of treachery toward Israel? I thought that was the standard, mainstream position. IDFGI

About 300k settlers live outside of the 1967 borders - a fair proportion of them are going to be voting for Netanyahu. Israel has, as far as i'm aware, never regarded a return to the old borders as a mainstream position as it would, in their view, leave them vulnerable to attack and require them to uproot fairly significant populations from East Jerusalem and newer settlements. The debate in the past has been about how much Israel wants to keep (about 6%), how much Palestine is willing to give (about 2%) and what kind of compensation they can expect to get for it (not much).

Obama's move is the right one - morally and legally. It's certainly also the dominant position internationally - within Europe and the UN. It's not something that Netanyahu's going to accept without a fight though.

My understanding was that settlers wouldn't necessarily have to be "uprooted" but that equivalent land would be taken off Israel in a kind of tit for tat game? Hard to see how that would work though TBH. Especially given differences in the land, like "We'll take this verdant valley and you can have that nobbly old rocky hill over there"

Yeah, a literal return to the 1967 borders would require significant displacement of people. A negotiated settlement informed by the 1967 borders would still require a lot of people to move but not so many. I doubt Netanyahu would rule out the latter and i doubt Obama was really proposing the former.

Oh yeah, THIS is the thread where history mayne started calling me antisemitic. Nice.

great detective work there sherlock

ah so this is where 67bordersgate got talked about.

and god damn, it manages to be even more infuriating than the usual flap about israel! even though nobody died! well done, planet.

RAFAH BORDER CROSSING, Egypt -- Hundreds of Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip arrived here by the busload on Saturday to pass through the reopened border into Egypt, taking the first tangible steps out of a four-year Israeli blockade.

lolwat?