Resistance Leader Chuck Schumer gives sloppy blowjobs to Netanyahu every chance he gets. The only issue upon which democratic and republican party establishments are united.
"death toll rises" — no one was killed and no one specific party did the killing, the death toll just mysteriously "rises" "clashes" — launders all power asymmetry "2,400 people have been injured" — all 2,400 are Palestinian but lets go with "people" https://t.co/7mUy6xSXIY
The death of one person is a tragedy. I assume we can agree that there could be a plausible scenario where Israel was justified in killing one person. Keep in mind, we are dealing with Hamas here. The moment we admit this and grant Israel the principled right of killing in self-defense, where does that end and start becoming a massacre? If Israel has the principled right to kill in self-defense, we might still question particular practices, but that would require a high degree of on the ground knowledge. Barring that, since we have conceded the principle, we have no choice but the IDF make its call as tragic as that might be.
I have defended neither apartheid nor killing people who are unarmed. Hamas is clearly armed. If you believe that Israel is an apartheid state then clearly our disagreement is on a different level.
Note that my argument was premised on the assumption of a baseline Israeli right to self defense. If I were to accept the premise that the Nazis had a right to build a greater Germany in order to defend against a Jewish threat then Nazi atrocities would suddenly become quite defensible.
Step 1: Clarissa, can I kill just one person? Please? It’s just a Muslim, who cares. Come oooon. Pretty please?
Step 2: AHA! Gotcha! See if it’s ok to kill one, then it’s ok to kill many by the same principle. QED bitches! LogicDude wins again!
This genocide lover is allowed to be in contact with children. Gets paid for it too lol.
Start saving money for your children’s therapy, dude.
I certainly do not support genocide nor killing people for being Muslim. One can make a far better case that you support Hamas killing Jews, as long as it is not that many.
Ben, I have no idea why WordPress was censoring your comments. I have now restored them. It wasn’t my doing, that’s for sure. I wish I noticed earlier but I was offline.
It is up to 57 and rising now. It will get much higher because no US or European politician will ever sanction Israel for fear of being called “anti-Semitic.”
This is obviously a massive violent riot organized by Hamas terrorists. So-called “peaceful unarmed protestors” are throwing pipe bombs, burning tires, stones, and other objects toward the Israelis and trying to destroy the border fences. Hamas has been paying families to take their women and children to the front areas, deliberately setting them up to get injured and even killed in the mayhem.
The IDF has been quite restrained in carrying out its duty to defend Israel’s border areas. Considering that the IDF was confronted by 40,000 violent rioters, the death toll has been remarkably low.
If there is a clear incentive to figure it out, they’d figure it out. The only possible incentive right now is international pressure. That would help. But it’s clear none is forthcoming.
Btw, wanted to ask: if thousands or even only hundreds Palestinians storm the border fence during the approaching ‘Nakba Day’ riots, should IDF let them enter?
People have got to be completely desperate to throw themselves at the military by the thousand. This is not a couple of fanatics. This is a lot of people who don’t see any value in the life they have to lead.
“This is a lot of people who don’t see any value in the life they have to lead”
I think this has entered the Vietnam phase. The Vietnamese were willing to die in vast numbers in order to get the Americans out of their country and the Palestinians are willing to die in vast numbers in order (from their point of view) to get the Israelis out of theirs.
Neither side is willing to share the land and so it’s going to be the annihilation of one side. That’s how almost the entire globe was settle with its current populations.
Nobody just sits there and waits for a confrontation unless they want the confrontation. Even Trump is managing to negotiate with North Korea. This needs to be negotiated in advance. 2,500 wounded as of now. How will many more help anything?
What should Israel have offered Hamas to convince them not to send people across the border? Keep in mind that Hamas sees Tel Aviv as occupied territory.
Obviously not all people in Gaza support Hamas. That being said, this was a Hamas event. Is it possible to consider a practical solution to the situation that does not take Hamas into account? And Hamas is actively trying to send people over the border to kill Israelies.
It’s very clear that Hamas is riling up people. But these are people who are easy to rile up because they are living in really bad conditions. The worse they live, the easier it will be for Hamas to rile them up. And then eventually even that won’t be needed because the anger and the resentment that brew generationally will simply boil over. What’s Israel’s plan for the long-term? It’s obvious that this anger is not going away. It’s also obvious that the bad living conditions of Palestinians are making the anger worse. So what’s the plan?
Even if it’s Hamas riling them, these were unarmed protesters. What is the justification for killing them?
“What’s Israel’s plan for the long-term? ”
Is this a rhetorical question? You know it, everyone knows it. Shave off the population, a little at a time, through ‘managed’ starvation, rationing of water and electricity, and the occasional massacre. Keep dispossessing the land, keep making new settlements. Until there aren’t any Palestinians to worry about. Literally every action the state of Israel has taken supports this thesis.
It is really a watershed moment for american liberals and american jews. They can no longer pretend that the state of israel is negotiating in good faith, and that there’s any hope for peace if israel continues along this path.
I want to hear what the supporters of this have to say. Because that can’t be what their official narrative is.
And it’s a dumb plan anyways because this is a large population that isn’t going anywhere. I’m not even mentioning the immorality of the approach because that’s clear enough.
I readily admit that there may be no good moral solution in play. (Obviously, a Dresden style bombing of Gaza does not count as moral.) As long as Hamas is in charge of Gaza backed up by Iran, you are stuck between two choices. Either you continue to blockade Gaza, leading to a humanitarian disaster and more confrontations like this, or you allow Hamas to gain access to weapons it will use to kill Israelis. No sovereign state can take the latter option and still count itself as a state.
Something you need to keep in mind when judging Israel is what is the bare minimum that a state must do in order to protect its citizens to still count as a state. Anyone who crosses this line is no longer arguing about Israeli policy per se but about whether there should be a State of Israel at all. I support a two-state solution. I would be curious if some of your anti-Israel readers can say the same.
To get back to my original comment, it is important to recognize a realm of moral authority in which one has the right to act, distinct from whether something is a good idea. Within that realm, it is the person’s call to make. For example, if police tells a person to halt and that person starts running, his life becomes forfeit. Obviously, such people do not necessarily deserve to die and it is important for police to attempt alternatives. That being said, it is the police’s call. Without that authority, they are not police in any meaningful sense. How much more so when dealing with soldiers of a foreign state. You approach a border and a soldier tells you not to attempt to cross and you do not listen, your life is forfeit. This is not to encourage soldiers to open fire on foreign civilians but, at the end of the day, it is their call to make. That is what it means to be a sovereign state.
Let me forestall certain criticism. Nazis do not count as a legitimate government so halting when ordered to by the Gestapo does not apply. This is not a defense of police nor is it a license for them to do as they like. On the contrary, this is a reason to avoid using police as much as possible. When you do, this is what you are signing up for. For example, as a libertarian, I oppose the drug war in part because of the wide license it grants police to order young black men to halt and all that might follow.
But that’s crazy, though. All that waiting is going to bring is more desperation for Palestinians. One passionate supporter of Israel after another goes and sees how Palestinians live, the subhuman conditions, everything, and grow immediately horrified. And these are passionate supporters. You’ve got to be dumb, deaf and blind not to see that this mistreatment is creating a horrible trauma that won’t go away for generations.
There is currently NO viable plan that would be remotely acceptable to all sides.
The Hamas terrorists’ ultimate goal is to wipe Israel off the map. The officially recognized Palestinian Authority (which has no control at all over the Palestinians in Gaza) has vague dreams of a “two-state solution” with an independent Palestinian state consisting of Gaza and virtually all of the West Bank territory seized by Israel in 1967, but that’s no longer a realistic hope because Israel has built a multitude of settlements in the West Bank and will no longer consider giving most of that land back under any circumstances. Netanyahu would like to annex most of the West Bank settlement areas and force the Palestinians to accept a small rump state that includes Gaza, and some of the Palestinian’s old “allies” (like Saudi Arabia and Egypt) are privately telling the PA that it had better accept whatever deal it can get before its options get even worse.
No combination of external powers (not the U.S., not Russia, not the U.N.’s version of “international law,” and not the ridiculous BDS effort) are going to physically force either Israel, Hamas, or the PA to a final solution that nobody will be happy with.
So like it or not, justice served or not, there’s no current plan at all — and that’s simply the way it is.
So, a few months ago a 8 year old muslim girl was gangraped in a hindu temple over a period of a few days, then killed. Hindu mobs, among them sitting MPs of the ruling party BJP, marched to protest the fact that a case was registered against the perpetrators. Lawyers representing the kashmir lawyers association physically prevented the police from entering the court premises to present evidence to a judge. Modi remained silent.
Middle class India, the so-called educated class, has completely lost its humanity. I don’t know how to explain this.
“Obviously, a Dresden style bombing of Gaza does not count as moral.”
I have no idea where this comment is going to be posted, but it’s addressed to @Benzion Noam Chinn.
A Dresden-style bombing of Gaza would have solved the Hamas problem decades ago. The only practical — and the most moral — way to fight a war is to bring it to a successful, permanent victory as quickly as possible. That’s how you end the slaughter and save the most lives . Eternal, incremental war that avoids “collateral damage” but keeping adding to the endless death toll is a game for self-righteous fools. World War II was the last war that the victors fought coldly but intelligently — and in all the long years since, no nation seems to have learned its lessons.
Here's that horrific moment where Raj Shah calls 55 dead Palestinians and nearly 3,000 injured an 'unfortunate propaganda attempt' by Hamas pic.twitter.com/b5auF8Z1va
— Adrienne Mahsa Varkiani (@AdrienneMahsa) May 14, 2018
As US blames Hamas for Gaza deaths, world condemns Israel
White House iterates support for Israel in wake of Gaza Strip riots, says ‘no justification for Hamas recklessness, cynicism’; South Africa recalls ambassador after condemning Israel’s ‘violent aggression on Gaza border’; UN Security Council to convene to discuss riots, deaths of 52 Palestinians.
…
“There is no justification for the recklessness and cynicism Hamas has shown in urging people to engage in violence that exposes them to terrible risk. As the Secretary of State has said, Israel has a right to defend itself,” a White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said in a statement.
The official further maintained a solution needed to be found to the “serious humanitarian challenges facing Palestinians” in Gaza.
I like how shooting people dead is the only crowd control option this wretched human being can think of. It’s like this is the first time in the history of mankind that a crowd has assembled and gosh, we just don’t have any answers on how to deal.
The crowd didn’t assemble out of nowhere either. This is a consequence of a long-standing policy. It’s not like all of a sudden people just assembled and start throwing themselves at the troops and everybody is like, wow, what’s gotten into them all of a sudden.
I never understood and keep not understanding what the long-term plan is for Israel. You can’t shoot them all dead. What’s the plan? How long can this go on?
// Hundreds of Palestinian rioters vandalized and set fire to a fuel complex and a conveyor belt on the Gaza side of Kerem Shalom, the strip’s main cargo crossing with Israel, causing more than $9 million in damages and disrupting the import of diesel fuel and building materials.
According to the IDF, the fuel installation is the only way to bring diesel fuel into Gaza for operating generators for hospitals and other key facilities.
A video from the Kerem Shalom crossing shows Palestinians cheering as a fire was set.
It was the second such attack on the facility in a week. “Hamas continues to lead the residents of Gaza to destroy the only assistance they receive,” the IDF said.
Nissim Jan, the director of an Israeli company that operates Kerem Shalom in partnership with private Palestinian companies, said he spent large sums to repair last week’s damage. “This time I can’t repair and will not repair it. Where shall I bring money from?” he said.
@Clarissa:
A bit off-topic, but your WordPress program inserts comments in such a bizarre order that after a while it becomes impossible to tell who is responding to whom in a lengthy comment section like this one.
Nope. The system is performing exactly how it should. There’s a cutoff for how many levels of nested comments that can be displayed. I think it’s 3 here. More than that and it’ll start to fuck with the page width. Each nested comment (reply to a comment) has an indentation that lets you know it’s a reply to a comment. After the cutoff is reached, each new reply just vertically stacks at the bottom of that comment thread, in the order that it was received.
It’s very consistent. You don’t even see the ‘reply’ button after the cutoff is reached.
This is why I tend to quote the person when I reply to a reply to a reply because at that point I can’t be assured that my words will be shown just below the comment I was replying to.
What makes it extra worse is that themes that have a small indentation in replies to begin with get confusing rather quickly, in comparison with themes that allow for a larger indentation.
I know, this stinks, and I don’t know how to repair it. It’s the worst with my own comments because the system puts them wherever it wants and I end up sounding like I’m ignoring people or answering comments they didn’t make. Unfortunately, I have no control over it.
It is obvious that there is no quick and easy solution… And whoever said that no one can force the Israelis and the Palestinians to find any solution and then adhere to that solution while it does not satisfy anybody was correct.
Also, such contentious issues have high inertia… Think of the Soviet Union and the parts of the Russian Empire that SU reoccupied in 1940… There is still a lot of animosity 25 years after independence… But to start somewhere I think all countries should, in an ideal world, cease any military aid to Israel. That will not destroy Israel, Israel is strong enough. But it will hopefully encourage Israelis to gradually recognize that they got carried away in their nation-building efforts and adjust their policies.
I also hope no more countries recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. From a purely technocratic perspective, Israel functioned pretty well for many years with Tel-Aviv as a capital. And could continue doing that forever, without anyhow specifically endangering the existence of the state of Israel. The highly symbolic gesture of recognizing Jerusalem is just encouraging the Israels to feel that they are entitled to the sole ownership of the whole that area. This kind of showing a middle finger to the Palestinians was totally unnecessary.
But, unfortunately, the US does the things the US does, and sometimes it is hard to see a rational explanation for that, so weird religious arguments reported by Stringer Bell start sounding true…
As a UK kid growing up in the 70’s and 80’s, I’ve heard a lot of comments & rhetoric before… about Northern Ireland. And that conflict was negotiated to a peaceful solution. I reject the idea that this could not happen again.
“As a UK kid growing up in the 70’s and 80’s, I’ve heard a lot of comments & rhetoric before… about Northern Ireland. And that conflict was negotiated to a peaceful solution. I reject the idea that this could not happen again.”
Absolutely. And look at Spain and the Basques. ETA laid down arms in 2011 and officially dissolved itself last week. And the Spanish government is massively funding the efforts to preserve the language and the culture. So yes, you could negotiate and resolve these situations. It’s not hopeless. Ukrainian army is not going in arms blazing into the “separatist” territories. Because it would only make things worse. Negotiating stinks, it lasts forever, it keeps everybody unhappy for a long time but that’s the only way. The approach of “let’s wipe them all out” is insane, it’s ridiculous, and it only makes the negotiations that will have to start happen eventually so much harder.
The video includes an interview at 7:48 with a Palestinian from a refugee camp. This interview and a woman interviewed immediately afterwards show why it’s hard for me to believe in any peaceful solution. There are many people who think like that.
Palestinians: What is your solution to the conflict?
Nobody can reasonably expect people to sit in a refugee camp, amidst subhuman conditions, and then feel all peaceful.
The other day I read a story about this village where 2,000 Palestinians can’t go outside because it threatens the 30 Jewish settlers. If somebody tried to prevent me from leaving the house even once, I’d heap the worst kind of verbal abuse on them and hate them forever. Wouldn’t you?
If somebody comes to my village, posts soldiers on every corner and restricts my movements in any way, I’m organizing the intifada in about three days. Wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you at least think “I hate these bastards”? Or would you say, these are the grandchildren of the folks who suffered the worst trauma in history (which is a fact), so I need to be kind and understanding and sacrifice my life to right the wrong I didn’t commit?
Honestly, wouldn’t you feel exactly like the folks this guy interviewed?
Have you watched this part of the video? The man from a refugee camp refused even to think of any possibility of agreement to divide the land, not even 1967 borders , because he thinks “it’s better to keep suffering than for our rights and our lands to go away” and talks about the great war promised in Quaran after which the Jews will disappear. He tells us, Israeli jews, to go where we came from and that agreements are a waste of time. The woman after him says the Jews should leave Middle East and then occupation will end.
I do not want him to love me, I do not even expect him to understand Jewish point of view. But how can any agreement be made to divide the land if no side wants it? There are many men like this one. How am I supposed to negotiate with them?
I see you decided not to answer my questions. 🙂 And they were actually aimed at helping you arrive at the answers to yours.
Let’s try again. Let’s say you can’t walk out of your front door or drink uncontaminated water or go to school without passing through checkpoints for 3 years. Would you be angry? Would you be willing to give the people who are doing this the benefit of the doubt and say ok, let’s negotiate in good faith and arrive at a mutually satisfying resolution? What would need to happen to put you in a frame of mind where you’d be interested in negotiating?
So my answer is: the way things are right now, of course no negotiation is possible. But it’s crucial because things are dire. It will be a long, difficult road towards the place where negotiations can begin in earnest. But it’s doable! People here have given examples of deadly conflicts where negotiations did happen. And eventually they were successful. But it begins with recognizing that people have a legitimate grievance and the grievance has to be addressed. The very first step is to move away from “Look at these animals! They are so angry and completely unreasonable! It’s useless to negotiate because they wouldn’t see reason anyway” and towards “I might have felt the same way as they do in their situation. They are not that different from me.” That’s how it begins. And I’m sure it will begin in Israel one day. I’d just rather it began sooner.
Good news which I hope happen soon (without any connection to Iran):
Intel min. says US may soon recognize Israel’s hold on Golan
Yisrael Katz says US official recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over the northern strategic plateau is under serious discussions as sequel to Jerusalem recognition: ‘It’s the most painful response you can give the Iranians.’
I recently heard from somebody who traveled to the Golan Heights and said it’s the best food in the world because of the water quality. This is a person who is very widely traveled, so I trust her. The way she described those tiny Jewish restaurants was very poetic.
Clarissa's Blog 
The most moral army…the only democracy…
Resistance Leader Chuck Schumer gives sloppy blowjobs to Netanyahu every chance he gets. The only issue upon which democratic and republican party establishments are united.
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The death of one person is a tragedy. I assume we can agree that there could be a plausible scenario where Israel was justified in killing one person. Keep in mind, we are dealing with Hamas here. The moment we admit this and grant Israel the principled right of killing in self-defense, where does that end and start becoming a massacre? If Israel has the principled right to kill in self-defense, we might still question particular practices, but that would require a high degree of on the ground knowledge. Barring that, since we have conceded the principle, we have no choice but the IDF make its call as tragic as that might be.
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but to let the IDF make its call
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Hey everybody, if you have kids that need enrichment, he’s your man! Makes house calls, too!
‘Let me logic my way into justifying apartheid and violence against unarmed people’.
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I have defended neither apartheid nor killing people who are unarmed. Hamas is clearly armed. If you believe that Israel is an apartheid state then clearly our disagreement is on a different level.
https://polldaddy.com/js/rating/rating.js
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Nazis killed many Jews for the same reason.
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\ Nazis killed many Jews for the same reason.
I have never thought Jews tried to throw Germans from their land.
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Some of them, yes. Like some Palestinians are from the Hamas.
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\ Some of them, yes. Like some Palestinians are from the Hamas.
David, either you said something insane or I haven’t understood you.
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Note that my argument was premised on the assumption of a baseline Israeli right to self defense. If I were to accept the premise that the Nazis had a right to build a greater Germany in order to defend against a Jewish threat then Nazi atrocities would suddenly become quite defensible.
https://polldaddy.com/js/rating/rating.js
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Really, the logic at display is stunning.
Step 1: Clarissa, can I kill just one person? Please? It’s just a Muslim, who cares. Come oooon. Pretty please?
Step 2: AHA! Gotcha! See if it’s ok to kill one, then it’s ok to kill many by the same principle. QED bitches! LogicDude wins again!
This genocide lover is allowed to be in contact with children. Gets paid for it too lol.
Start saving money for your children’s therapy, dude.
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I certainly do not support genocide nor killing people for being Muslim. One can make a far better case that you support Hamas killing Jews, as long as it is not that many.
https://polldaddy.com/js/rating/rating.js
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Ben, I have no idea why WordPress was censoring your comments. I have now restored them. It wasn’t my doing, that’s for sure. I wish I noticed earlier but I was offline.
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My conservative friends would say that this was some kind of SJW conspiracy. 😇 It is good to be able to engage in civil dialogue.
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Every once in a while this happens and I’m yet to discover what the algorithm is. I’m pretty sure it’s not ideological, at least. 🙂
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It is up to 57 and rising now. It will get much higher because no US or European politician will ever sanction Israel for fear of being called “anti-Semitic.”
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Read the entire article and tell me what Israel should do instead:
https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5260097,00.html
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This is obviously a massive violent riot organized by Hamas terrorists. So-called “peaceful unarmed protestors” are throwing pipe bombs, burning tires, stones, and other objects toward the Israelis and trying to destroy the border fences. Hamas has been paying families to take their women and children to the front areas, deliberately setting them up to get injured and even killed in the mayhem.
The IDF has been quite restrained in carrying out its duty to defend Israel’s border areas. Considering that the IDF was confronted by 40,000 violent rioters, the death toll has been remarkably low.
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If there is a clear incentive to figure it out, they’d figure it out. The only possible incentive right now is international pressure. That would help. But it’s clear none is forthcoming.
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Btw, wanted to ask: if thousands or even only hundreds Palestinians storm the border fence during the approaching ‘Nakba Day’ riots, should IDF let them enter?
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No, they should line them up against that fence and kill them all.
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\ No, they should line them up against that fence and kill them all.
I suppose you don’t have a real answer you would like, so use this evasion tactic instead.
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People have got to be completely desperate to throw themselves at the military by the thousand. This is not a couple of fanatics. This is a lot of people who don’t see any value in the life they have to lead.
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“This is a lot of people who don’t see any value in the life they have to lead”
I think this has entered the Vietnam phase. The Vietnamese were willing to die in vast numbers in order to get the Americans out of their country and the Palestinians are willing to die in vast numbers in order (from their point of view) to get the Israelis out of theirs.
Neither side is willing to share the land and so it’s going to be the annihilation of one side. That’s how almost the entire globe was settle with its current populations.
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Nobody just sits there and waits for a confrontation unless they want the confrontation. Even Trump is managing to negotiate with North Korea. This needs to be negotiated in advance. 2,500 wounded as of now. How will many more help anything?
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What should Israel have offered Hamas to convince them not to send people across the border? Keep in mind that Hamas sees Tel Aviv as occupied territory.
https://polldaddy.com/js/rating/rating.js
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The Hamas is not the Palestinians in general like Jewish bolchevists were not all Jews.
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Obviously not all people in Gaza support Hamas. That being said, this was a Hamas event. Is it possible to consider a practical solution to the situation that does not take Hamas into account? And Hamas is actively trying to send people over the border to kill Israelies.
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It’s very clear that Hamas is riling up people. But these are people who are easy to rile up because they are living in really bad conditions. The worse they live, the easier it will be for Hamas to rile them up. And then eventually even that won’t be needed because the anger and the resentment that brew generationally will simply boil over. What’s Israel’s plan for the long-term? It’s obvious that this anger is not going away. It’s also obvious that the bad living conditions of Palestinians are making the anger worse. So what’s the plan?
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Even if it’s Hamas riling them, these were unarmed protesters. What is the justification for killing them?
“What’s Israel’s plan for the long-term? ”
Is this a rhetorical question? You know it, everyone knows it. Shave off the population, a little at a time, through ‘managed’ starvation, rationing of water and electricity, and the occasional massacre. Keep dispossessing the land, keep making new settlements. Until there aren’t any Palestinians to worry about. Literally every action the state of Israel has taken supports this thesis.
It is really a watershed moment for american liberals and american jews. They can no longer pretend that the state of israel is negotiating in good faith, and that there’s any hope for peace if israel continues along this path.
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I want to hear what the supporters of this have to say. Because that can’t be what their official narrative is.
And it’s a dumb plan anyways because this is a large population that isn’t going anywhere. I’m not even mentioning the immorality of the approach because that’s clear enough.
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I readily admit that there may be no good moral solution in play. (Obviously, a Dresden style bombing of Gaza does not count as moral.) As long as Hamas is in charge of Gaza backed up by Iran, you are stuck between two choices. Either you continue to blockade Gaza, leading to a humanitarian disaster and more confrontations like this, or you allow Hamas to gain access to weapons it will use to kill Israelis. No sovereign state can take the latter option and still count itself as a state.
Something you need to keep in mind when judging Israel is what is the bare minimum that a state must do in order to protect its citizens to still count as a state. Anyone who crosses this line is no longer arguing about Israeli policy per se but about whether there should be a State of Israel at all. I support a two-state solution. I would be curious if some of your anti-Israel readers can say the same.
To get back to my original comment, it is important to recognize a realm of moral authority in which one has the right to act, distinct from whether something is a good idea. Within that realm, it is the person’s call to make. For example, if police tells a person to halt and that person starts running, his life becomes forfeit. Obviously, such people do not necessarily deserve to die and it is important for police to attempt alternatives. That being said, it is the police’s call. Without that authority, they are not police in any meaningful sense. How much more so when dealing with soldiers of a foreign state. You approach a border and a soldier tells you not to attempt to cross and you do not listen, your life is forfeit. This is not to encourage soldiers to open fire on foreign civilians but, at the end of the day, it is their call to make. That is what it means to be a sovereign state.
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Let me forestall certain criticism. Nazis do not count as a legitimate government so halting when ordered to by the Gestapo does not apply. This is not a defense of police nor is it a license for them to do as they like. On the contrary, this is a reason to avoid using police as much as possible. When you do, this is what you are signing up for. For example, as a libertarian, I oppose the drug war in part because of the wide license it grants police to order young black men to halt and all that might follow.
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El has proudly mentioned that Israel should just ‘wait it out’. This is the only end game these people have in mind.
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But that’s crazy, though. All that waiting is going to bring is more desperation for Palestinians. One passionate supporter of Israel after another goes and sees how Palestinians live, the subhuman conditions, everything, and grow immediately horrified. And these are passionate supporters. You’ve got to be dumb, deaf and blind not to see that this mistreatment is creating a horrible trauma that won’t go away for generations.
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“And it’s a dumb plan anyways because this is a large population that isn’t going anywhere.”
Larger population than Yemen?
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There is currently NO viable plan that would be remotely acceptable to all sides.
The Hamas terrorists’ ultimate goal is to wipe Israel off the map. The officially recognized Palestinian Authority (which has no control at all over the Palestinians in Gaza) has vague dreams of a “two-state solution” with an independent Palestinian state consisting of Gaza and virtually all of the West Bank territory seized by Israel in 1967, but that’s no longer a realistic hope because Israel has built a multitude of settlements in the West Bank and will no longer consider giving most of that land back under any circumstances. Netanyahu would like to annex most of the West Bank settlement areas and force the Palestinians to accept a small rump state that includes Gaza, and some of the Palestinian’s old “allies” (like Saudi Arabia and Egypt) are privately telling the PA that it had better accept whatever deal it can get before its options get even worse.
No combination of external powers (not the U.S., not Russia, not the U.N.’s version of “international law,” and not the ridiculous BDS effort) are going to physically force either Israel, Hamas, or the PA to a final solution that nobody will be happy with.
So like it or not, justice served or not, there’s no current plan at all — and that’s simply the way it is.
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“You’ve got to be dumb, deaf and blind”
So, a few months ago a 8 year old muslim girl was gangraped in a hindu temple over a period of a few days, then killed. Hindu mobs, among them sitting MPs of the ruling party BJP, marched to protest the fact that a case was registered against the perpetrators. Lawyers representing the kashmir lawyers association physically prevented the police from entering the court premises to present evidence to a judge. Modi remained silent.
Middle class India, the so-called educated class, has completely lost its humanity. I don’t know how to explain this.
https://theprint.in/governance/twitter-removes-handle-of-man-booked-for-his-tweet-encouraging-rape-trafficking-of-kashmiri-women/57967/
This is a highly educated, top 5% salary-earning employee in the software industry. This is what he thinks like:
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I’m stunned. Stunned and horrified by the story of the 8-year-old girl. Yes, it’s a complete loss of humanity.
What is this? Propaganda? Groupthink? It’s truly scary even to think about it.
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I have no idea where this comment is going to be posted, but it’s addressed to @Benzion Noam Chinn.
A Dresden-style bombing of Gaza would have solved the Hamas problem decades ago. The only practical — and the most moral — way to fight a war is to bring it to a successful, permanent victory as quickly as possible. That’s how you end the slaughter and save the most lives . Eternal, incremental war that avoids “collateral damage” but keeping adding to the endless death toll is a game for self-righteous fools. World War II was the last war that the victors fought coldly but intelligently — and in all the long years since, no nation seems to have learned its lessons.
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As US blames Hamas for Gaza deaths, world condemns Israel
White House iterates support for Israel in wake of Gaza Strip riots, says ‘no justification for Hamas recklessness, cynicism’; South Africa recalls ambassador after condemning Israel’s ‘violent aggression on Gaza border’; UN Security Council to convene to discuss riots, deaths of 52 Palestinians.
…
“There is no justification for the recklessness and cynicism Hamas has shown in urging people to engage in violence that exposes them to terrible risk. As the Secretary of State has said, Israel has a right to defend itself,” a White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said in a statement.
The official further maintained a solution needed to be found to the “serious humanitarian challenges facing Palestinians” in Gaza.
https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5260692,00.html
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I like how shooting people dead is the only crowd control option this wretched human being can think of. It’s like this is the first time in the history of mankind that a crowd has assembled and gosh, we just don’t have any answers on how to deal.
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The crowd didn’t assemble out of nowhere either. This is a consequence of a long-standing policy. It’s not like all of a sudden people just assembled and start throwing themselves at the troops and everybody is like, wow, what’s gotten into them all of a sudden.
I never understood and keep not understanding what the long-term plan is for Israel. You can’t shoot them all dead. What’s the plan? How long can this go on?
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How is this rational?
// Hundreds of Palestinian rioters vandalized and set fire to a fuel complex and a conveyor belt on the Gaza side of Kerem Shalom, the strip’s main cargo crossing with Israel, causing more than $9 million in damages and disrupting the import of diesel fuel and building materials.
According to the IDF, the fuel installation is the only way to bring diesel fuel into Gaza for operating generators for hospitals and other key facilities.
A video from the Kerem Shalom crossing shows Palestinians cheering as a fire was set.
It was the second such attack on the facility in a week. “Hamas continues to lead the residents of Gaza to destroy the only assistance they receive,” the IDF said.
Nissim Jan, the director of an Israeli company that operates Kerem Shalom in partnership with private Palestinian companies, said he spent large sums to repair last week’s damage. “This time I can’t repair and will not repair it. Where shall I bring money from?” he said.
https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5257868,00.html
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https://twitter.com/darianworden/status/996075506549383169?s=21
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@Clarissa:
A bit off-topic, but your WordPress program inserts comments in such a bizarre order that after a while it becomes impossible to tell who is responding to whom in a lengthy comment section like this one.
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You should’ve listened to people smarter than you who told you this was because of the new theme.
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Bullshit, Stringer Boy — this was the situation LONG before this new theme started.
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Nope. The system is performing exactly how it should. There’s a cutoff for how many levels of nested comments that can be displayed. I think it’s 3 here. More than that and it’ll start to fuck with the page width. Each nested comment (reply to a comment) has an indentation that lets you know it’s a reply to a comment. After the cutoff is reached, each new reply just vertically stacks at the bottom of that comment thread, in the order that it was received.
It’s very consistent. You don’t even see the ‘reply’ button after the cutoff is reached.
This is why I tend to quote the person when I reply to a reply to a reply because at that point I can’t be assured that my words will be shown just below the comment I was replying to.
What makes it extra worse is that themes that have a small indentation in replies to begin with get confusing rather quickly, in comparison with themes that allow for a larger indentation.
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I know, this stinks, and I don’t know how to repair it. It’s the worst with my own comments because the system puts them wherever it wants and I end up sounding like I’m ignoring people or answering comments they didn’t make. Unfortunately, I have no control over it.
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“What is this? Propaganda? Groupthink? It’s truly scary even to think about it.”
It’s both. Just like Trump, the ruling party will lose eventually, but I’m not sure Modi-ism will go away. It’s here to stay.
Lok Sabha TV is the indian version of C-SPAN.
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This is why I always say that language creates reality. You repeat it enough times and people accept it uncritically. The next step is to act on it.
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It is obvious that there is no quick and easy solution… And whoever said that no one can force the Israelis and the Palestinians to find any solution and then adhere to that solution while it does not satisfy anybody was correct.
Also, such contentious issues have high inertia… Think of the Soviet Union and the parts of the Russian Empire that SU reoccupied in 1940… There is still a lot of animosity 25 years after independence… But to start somewhere I think all countries should, in an ideal world, cease any military aid to Israel. That will not destroy Israel, Israel is strong enough. But it will hopefully encourage Israelis to gradually recognize that they got carried away in their nation-building efforts and adjust their policies.
I also hope no more countries recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. From a purely technocratic perspective, Israel functioned pretty well for many years with Tel-Aviv as a capital. And could continue doing that forever, without anyhow specifically endangering the existence of the state of Israel. The highly symbolic gesture of recognizing Jerusalem is just encouraging the Israels to feel that they are entitled to the sole ownership of the whole that area. This kind of showing a middle finger to the Palestinians was totally unnecessary.
But, unfortunately, the US does the things the US does, and sometimes it is hard to see a rational explanation for that, so weird religious arguments reported by Stringer Bell start sounding true…
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Oops, sorry, not Stringer Bell, but David
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As a UK kid growing up in the 70’s and 80’s, I’ve heard a lot of comments & rhetoric before… about Northern Ireland. And that conflict was negotiated to a peaceful solution. I reject the idea that this could not happen again.
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“As a UK kid growing up in the 70’s and 80’s, I’ve heard a lot of comments & rhetoric before… about Northern Ireland. And that conflict was negotiated to a peaceful solution. I reject the idea that this could not happen again.”
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I have started watching videos of a Canadian Jew Corey Gil-Shuster who moved to Israel in 1995 and in 2012 was “working towards his PhD at University of Haifa researching Palestinian culture and conflict.”
There is 2012 interview with him here, but what interested me was the video I linked below:
http://www.sharnoffsglobalviews.com/surveying-arab-and-israeli-attitudes-an-interview-with-corey-gil-shuster/
The video includes an interview at 7:48 with a Palestinian from a refugee camp. This interview and a woman interviewed immediately afterwards show why it’s hard for me to believe in any peaceful solution. There are many people who think like that.
Palestinians: What is your solution to the conflict?
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Nobody can reasonably expect people to sit in a refugee camp, amidst subhuman conditions, and then feel all peaceful.
The other day I read a story about this village where 2,000 Palestinians can’t go outside because it threatens the 30 Jewish settlers. If somebody tried to prevent me from leaving the house even once, I’d heap the worst kind of verbal abuse on them and hate them forever. Wouldn’t you?
If somebody comes to my village, posts soldiers on every corner and restricts my movements in any way, I’m organizing the intifada in about three days. Wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you at least think “I hate these bastards”? Or would you say, these are the grandchildren of the folks who suffered the worst trauma in history (which is a fact), so I need to be kind and understanding and sacrifice my life to right the wrong I didn’t commit?
Honestly, wouldn’t you feel exactly like the folks this guy interviewed?
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Have you watched this part of the video? The man from a refugee camp refused even to think of any possibility of agreement to divide the land, not even 1967 borders , because he thinks “it’s better to keep suffering than for our rights and our lands to go away” and talks about the great war promised in Quaran after which the Jews will disappear. He tells us, Israeli jews, to go where we came from and that agreements are a waste of time. The woman after him says the Jews should leave Middle East and then occupation will end.
I do not want him to love me, I do not even expect him to understand Jewish point of view. But how can any agreement be made to divide the land if no side wants it? There are many men like this one. How am I supposed to negotiate with them?
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I see you decided not to answer my questions. 🙂 And they were actually aimed at helping you arrive at the answers to yours.
Let’s try again. Let’s say you can’t walk out of your front door or drink uncontaminated water or go to school without passing through checkpoints for 3 years. Would you be angry? Would you be willing to give the people who are doing this the benefit of the doubt and say ok, let’s negotiate in good faith and arrive at a mutually satisfying resolution? What would need to happen to put you in a frame of mind where you’d be interested in negotiating?
So my answer is: the way things are right now, of course no negotiation is possible. But it’s crucial because things are dire. It will be a long, difficult road towards the place where negotiations can begin in earnest. But it’s doable! People here have given examples of deadly conflicts where negotiations did happen. And eventually they were successful. But it begins with recognizing that people have a legitimate grievance and the grievance has to be addressed. The very first step is to move away from “Look at these animals! They are so angry and completely unreasonable! It’s useless to negotiate because they wouldn’t see reason anyway” and towards “I might have felt the same way as they do in their situation. They are not that different from me.” That’s how it begins. And I’m sure it will begin in Israel one day. I’d just rather it began sooner.
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Good news which I hope happen soon (without any connection to Iran):
Intel min. says US may soon recognize Israel’s hold on Golan
Yisrael Katz says US official recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over the northern strategic plateau is under serious discussions as sequel to Jerusalem recognition: ‘It’s the most painful response you can give the Iranians.’
https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5269114,00.html
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I recently heard from somebody who traveled to the Golan Heights and said it’s the best food in the world because of the water quality. This is a person who is very widely traveled, so I trust her. The way she described those tiny Jewish restaurants was very poetic.
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