I would urge you to be sitting down as you listen to Jeremy Bowen’s latest report from Gaza. It’s amazing, isn’t it, to listen to such naked partisanship dressed up as reporting? Jeremy is nothing more than a pro-Palestinian talking head, doing everything possible to diminish the Israeli response to the savagery of Hamas. He concludes his ever so world-weary diatribe by saying “let’s hope there is a cease-fire soon”. Why? He is now offering opinion which favours one side (Hamas) in the conflict, is this not bias? And while we are at it, I notice the BBC is STILL pushing the death statistics of those in Gaza as one BIG media friendly number, whilst they breakdown Israeli deaths by military/civilian. We hear how many kids have allegedly died in Gaza, we never hear how many Hamas terrorists have been killed. Isn’t that a little odd? The BBC seem determined to portray the deaths of all those in Gaza as being the deaths of innocents. It’s sickening to behold.
GAZAN UPDATE.
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Alex | Homepage | 19.01.09 – 10:12 pm |
Not at all. If a group terrorists are firing extremely powerful and accurate rockets which are almost certain to kill several Israelis, while standing next to a couple of local farmers, Israel would have a right to fire back, provided it had no other realistic way of taking out the terrorists that would not seriously endanger civilians (for example snipers being way out of range).
If we’re talking small rockets with a fatality rate of below half a percent, and immensely destructive weapons being fired at a densely populated civilian area, no, there’s pretty much no way that could meet reasonable criteria.
Exactly. Since Israel isn’t going to launch small, erratic rockets back at Hamas, and there is no realistic way for Israel to fight back without ever possibly endangering a civilian, this means that Israel cannot fight back at all, ever. Which was my point.
Anyway, you missed my final question. How many Palestinians?
As many as it takes for them to stop. Why should they be allowed to continue to kill the odd Israeli just because you don’t like the math involved? You say you don’t think the Palestinians should be permitted to continue to launch the rockets, but you seem to mind Israeli civilian casualties less.
“Off you go then. But remember writing “they are justified” preceded by the word ‘fact’ and with the ‘are’ in italics doesn’t count as an explanation.
It does if you start from the premise that human beings have an inalienable right to defend themselves. Furthermore, I have already applied reason to a rational set of ethics. You’ve so far failed to refute them.
“Not “can” be ignored. Must be ignored. You can’t debate whether Israel is justified in its actions while assuming that Israel is justified is in its actions.”
I know that Israel is justified in its actions. That is my position in the debate. I don’t just “assume” that Israel is justified, that would suggest blind faith. I know that they are justified, because I know that humans have the right to defend themselves against the initiation of physical force.
“Israel is capable of predicting the consequences, Israel chooses to accept them. In legal terms, this counts as intent. And what is under discussion is not Hamas’ culpability but Israel’s.”
Of course Israel is capable of predicting the consequences. It accepts them because it has no choice if it wishes to exercise its right to self defense. No, this does not count as “intent” in legal terms in the same way that a murderer who sets out to kill his victim has “criminal intent.” Don’t be so stupid Alex. You cannot, moreover, just declare that the subject of Hamas’ culpability is not under discussion. Of course it is. It’s related to the question of Israel’s alleged culpability.
“And your choice of the certain death of an innocent person over the 10,000-1 chance of you dying is not at all selfish and wouldn’t keep you up at night? I hope you’re just tying yourself in knots to justify Israel here and don’t really think like that.”
I’m not saying it wouldn’t keep me up at night, but I would not blame myself for the action I was forced to take. What would keep me awake at night was a sadness that the gunman created a situation in which an innocent person had to die to neutralize an initiation of physical force against me which risked my life. I do not care whether it is “selfish” or not. The word selfish does not have a negative connotation in this instance because selfishness when it comes to protecting your own life is a virtue.
Cont…
…cont
“In your earlier posts you said the situation forces you to “choose” rather than forces you to “act”. In both cases you have a clear choice between acting and not acting, the gravity of the consequences reflects only the outcome of the decision, not the responsibility for taking it.”
I did not say that the situation forces me to choose rather than to act. Any action a human being takes is by choice. But when the issue is human survival and a rogue party has put me into a situation in which one choice results in my life and one in my death, then although outside of any ethical context I may be “responsible” for that choice in the same way I am “responsible” for breathing, inside the field of ethics the rogue party has forced me to take the choice of life (assuming that for me, life is the standard of value. For me, life is the standard of value and the value of my own life is worth more to me than the value of someone else, except those I love).
“Well, not in real life, no. Same as there’s not a real situation where your only possible option would be to blow up the house and everyone in it to prevent certain death at the hands of the terrorist.”
No it’s not the “same as” at all. In the situation I originally described, which is within the realms of possibility, those ARE the only options.
“I’m afraid it does. See above. We’ve also brushed aside the possibility of you and your family escaping from your house, of you using a sniper rifle to kill the terrorist, of him running out of rockets and becoming more vulnerable by leaving the house, of calling the police and the host of other potential ways out of the situation that don’t blow up a family of innocent bystanders, not to mention that your rocket might not kill him. You can’t tailor an impossible scenario that gives me no choice but to agree with you, then complain that mine isn’t very realistic.”
Not so. We can assume, for instance, that the house is too far away to use a sniper rifle. We cannot, however, assume that he will run out of rockets before one of them explodes on target since we do not have that information. Likewise, we cannot assume that he will leave the house. We can, however, assume that we don’t have a telephone line – and we can also assume that the immediacy of the situation prevents us from being able to wait for police to arrive. All of these are perfectly reasonable things to assume in our situation. But if the terrorist escapes, there is no way of assuming that he won’t take up his murderous agenda upon us unless we know he’s either dead or has been captured. That is outside of the realm of possibility.
“You’re the one being childish. So there.”
I wouldn’t count on any kind of support in making a claim like that.
“Again, you’re oversimplifying my point. I never claimed that Israel should “do nothing”. I claimed that Israel should do nothing that would create a greater risk to Palestinians than that threatening Israelis.”
Hamas creates the “risk to Palestinians,” not Israel. They have to do something. The fact that Hamas uses civilians as human shields is not the fault of Israel. This is the root of the entire issue, the fact that whatever Israel has to do in order to defend its citizens against the initiation of physical force is the fault of Hamas, not Israel. If they have no other option but to “create a greater risk to Palestinians” in defending themselves, then do you suggest that they should just do nothing? Is it your belief that if a rogue element uses human shields then they have won? That they should be permitted to continue firing rockets at civilians in Israel? As of yet you have not suggested any alternative, so I am assuming that the alternative you have in mind is for Israel to tolerate the rockets and make no attempt at stopping them. If that’s your position then fine…..but ultimately, it’s not going to sway anyone who believes that Israel has an inalienable right to protect its citizens. One may make the argument that in the long run, more Palestinians will be saved by taking out Hamas now and suffering the consequences now.
“To be honest, no, I don’t get it. I can’t see a situation ever arising where a party who can directly influence the outcome of the situation is entirely absolved of the consequences.”
Well let’s put it like this. If Israel adopts your mindset and refuses to act, then it is responsible for the “outcome” which ensues when Hamas continues to fire rockets into Israel and possibly increases its attacks safe in the knowledge that Israel will never respond. So Israel is force to accept either the consequences of allowing its own citizens to die, or taking out the threat and killing some innocent Palestinians in the process. It is forced to choose between its own citizens and Palestinians. Whomever forces it to make that choice, one way or the other, is responsible for what ensues. Put it this way. If Hamas weren’t firing rockets into Israel, the choice would not have to be made.
“You could equally argue that, given carte blanche to kill civilians in the pursuit of security, Israel would continually lower the bar for sufficient danger to act. Preventing regular barrages of rockets becomes preventing occasional barrages of rockets, becomes preventing occasional rockets, becomes preventing occasional bullets, becomes preventing occasional rocks, becomes preventing potential rocks. In extending Israel the right to take one innocent foreign life in the interest of protecting its own people, we cannot stop at two foreign lives, ten foreign lives or 1.5 million foreign lives. This kind of speculation is flimsy, pointless and immensely subjective. Besides, killing civilians in order to force the actions of their government has a name.”
It can build a wall to prevent bullets and rocks. It cannot build a wall high enough to prevent rockets. It must take out the source of those rockets. What you call “flimsy speculation” is actually a real situation in which people whose job it is to defend the lives of their innocent citizens have to project into the future and deal with the fact that if they do nothing to stop the rockets, the rockets will keep coming. Such an assumption is not “flimsy” any more than the prediction that if I leave my front door wide open, I will be burgled. Who said anything about “killing civilians in order to force the actions of their government?” Not me. You’re responding to a point I didn’t make. Kindly refrain from doing that.
“Generally human shields aren’t held responsible for not trying to escape. You seem to be holding pretty much every party involved responsible except the one actually firing the missiles. Let me ask you, under what circumstances would you consider Israel responsible for civilian deaths it caused?”
Oh so humans are not held responsible for trying to save their own lives if they can? Get out of here Alex! You become more nonsensical with every post. It is not outside the realm of possibility for the Palestinians to reject Hamas. And for the last time no, I do not hold Israel morally responsible for the consequences that result in the process of them defending their own lives in a situation that Hamas deliberately created. You ask what circumstances I would consider Israel responsible? If it were deliberately targeting those civilians, i.e. if Hamas weren’t hiding among them or if Hamas weren’t firing rockets into Israel. In other words, if Israel’s goal was to kill civilians outside of the context of self defense, then they would be responsible. The fact that they do everything they can to avoid civilians deaths, including using precision weaponry and dropping leaflets to warn civilians beforehand, strengthens my position that they are not responsible. Hamas is responsible for every single Palestinan death because it fires the rockets and then hides among civilians. You have so far failed in every respect to convince me otherwise.
“How many more? 15% margin? One hundred Gazans for each Israeli, as the figures seem to have been for this conflict?”
First of all, please consider that a large number of those dead have been Hamas terrorists – then revise your “figures.” The death of any Hamas terrorist is inconsequential. Secondly, Israel is justified in doing what it needs to do to remove the risk – and not being “terrorists,” they will do what they can to minimize civilian casualties. The responsibility then lies with Hamas to stop firing the rockets which force Israel to act in self defense – and with the Palestinians themselves, who have a responsiblity to save their own lives by ridding themselves of Hamas.
“Ok, why is it morally justifiable for Israel to prioritise preventing the deaths of Israelis over not causing the deaths of Gazans?”
Because its role as a state – the proper role of any state – is to protect the lives of its citizens. Hamas has forced it to choose, Israel did not ask to be forced into making that decision. The priority of anyone who cares a jot about the lives of innocent Palestinians should be to seek the removal or outright destruction of Hamas.
“Israel’s goal also seems to have been to minimise casualties among its own troops, which when ranked higher than minimising civilian casualties, is despicable and cowardly.”
It has the right to minimize casualties among its own troops, of course it does. It is the responsibility of Hamas to minimize civilian casualties, which it could do by not hiding among civilians. You can sit in your bedroom and call Israel “despicable and cowardly” until the cows come home, but at the end of the day your opinion on the matter is inconsequential and you have failed in every possible way to argue it successfully.
Why should they be allowed to continue to kill the odd Israeli just because you don’t like the math involved?
David Preiser (USA) | 20.01.09 – 12:52 am | #
Couldn’t have said it better!
Sue | 19.01.09 – 11:25 pm | #
I know, he’s like an annoying puppy isn’t he, bless his little cotton socks. Ultimately harmless, but still in need of a good smack around the chops with a rolled up newspaper.
Follow this whole thread for déjà vu.
http://www.haloscan.com/comments…5718385/ #394438
Sue | 19.01.09 – 11:25 pm
Nice one Sue, that thread ends with a comment from me which links to yet another thread involving Alex. I’m surprised he doesn’t get dizzy and fall of the merry-go-round that he’s created.
Why should they be allowed to continue to kill the odd Israeli just because you don’t like the math involved?
David Preiser (USA) | 20.01.09 – 12:52 am | #
Couldn’t have said it better!
Jason | 20.01.09 – 1:35 am
Or put another way:
“Has not the time come for us to fold our arms and say quietly, in the only language anyone understands, ‘Go to hell, all of you. Who are you to preach to us and who are we to have to listen to you?'”.
-Zev Jabotinsky
Biodegradable:
“I’m surprised he doesn’t get dizzy and fall of the merry-go-round that he’s created.”
That I‘ve created? I’ve never in my life linked to one B-BBC thread from another. This linking and cross-linking is all your and Sue’s doing. Though I suppose I gave you no choice but to ineptly take the piss out of me by disagreeing with you at length on several issues. I hereby accept responsibility for everything you have linked to.
David Preiser:
“Exactly. Since Israel isn’t going to launch small, erratic rockets back at Hamas, and there is no realistic way for Israel to fight back without ever possibly endangering a civilian, this means that Israel cannot fight back at all, ever. Which was my point.”
No, not exactly. Reading it again my post was quite ambiguous, so I’ll clarify. By “If we’re talking small rockets with a fatality rate of below half a percent, and immensely destructive weapons being fired at a densely populated civilian area”, I was comparing the firepower of both parties, and saying that Israel has no right to use that amount of destructive power to neutralise a relatively miniscule threat. I wasn’t suggesting for a minute that Israel should start using wildly inaccurate home-made rockets because that would be fair on Hamas. Nobody thinks that.
“As many as it takes for them to stop.”
I was afraid you’d say that. If it came down to Israel having to kill every man, woman and child in Gaza and the West Bank to stop rocket attacks, would that be justified?
“Why should they be allowed to continue to kill the odd Israeli just because you don’t like the math involved? You say you don’t think the Palestinians should be permitted to continue to launch the rockets, but you seem to mind Israeli civilian casualties less.”
Firstly, the “math” involved is innocent people being killed. Secondly, no, single-figure Israeli civilian casualties don’t bother me as much as Palestinian civilian casualties in the hundreds. Yet for some reason they seem to bother you a lot more. You also seem to have failed to grasp the distinction between “allowed” and “not prevented by killing innocent people”, which is a fairly substantial one.
Jason:
“It does if you start from the premise that human beings have an inalienable right to defend themselves.”
In this case, justification is not about whether Israel has the right to defend itself, but how Israel has the right to defend itself. As long as the sole consequence is an end to rocket fire, there is no question of justification. If the rocket-wielding maniacs also end up dying, it could arguably cease to be pure self-defence, but I think only the most hardcore ahimsa enthusiast would claim that was unjustified. Once there are further consequences than terrorists dying and rockets stopping, as is clearly the case now, the right to inflict those further consequences becomes involved as well as the right to self-defence.
There are limits to the method and extent of self-defence. If you machine-gunned a man for shooting spitballs at you, I’m sure the court wouldn’t recognise your inalienable right to protect yourself.
“No, this does not count as “intent” in legal terms in the same way that a murderer who sets out to kill his victim has “criminal intent.””
It’s oblique rather than direct intent, but it’s still quite definitely “a decision to bring about, insofar as it lies within the accused’s power, the commission of the offence…no matter whether the accused desired that consequence of his act or not.” (Wikipedia)
“I’m not saying it wouldn’t keep me up at night, but I would not blame myself for the action I was forced to take.”
You were not “forced” to take this action. You had the very reasonable option of accepting the one in ten thousand risk of your death to prevent the certain death of a stranger. You take more of a risk if you brake or swerve for a pedestrian.
“The word selfish does not have a negative connotation in this instance because selfishness when it comes to protecting your own life is a virtue.”
Protecting your own life is not the only issue. There is also the issue of taking someone else’s. But maybe “selfishness” is not the word for choosing a massive risk to others over a tiny risk to yourself. Maybe “cowardly indifference to the lives of others” would be better.
“For me, life is the standard of value and the value of my own life is worth more to me than the value of someone else”
How many someone elses? How many strangers would you be willing to risk your life for? How many strangers would you be willing to kill to save your own skin? Or, more objectively and without the spur of the moment and emotive context, how many would you be able to justify to yourself afterwards?
For example: a terrorist fires a rocket at you as you come home from the newsagent’s. You know that if you step aside, which you can quite easily do, it will hit the crowded double-decker bus two hundred yards behind you, but if you stand your ground, only you will die. Do you step aside in self-defence, and blame the terrorist entirely, or do you take responsibility for the situation you’re in and give up your life. If you lose your nerve, do you feel even the slightest bit responsible for the sixteen people that die in the accident, considering you had the option of waiving your right to self-defence and saving them?
“The fact that Hamas uses civilians as human shields is not the fault of Israel.”
Whose fault is it that Israel shoots them? Who pulls the trigger for them?
“Who said anything about “killing civilians in order to force the actions of their government?” Not me. You’re responding to a point I didn’t make. Kindly refrain from doing that.”
It’s not exactly what you said, no. But what you were very much claiming is that Israel has a right to kill civilians as well as Hamas operatives if it will dissuade Hamas from firing more rockets. You’re basically claiming Israel has the right to kill indiscriminately as a deterrent from rocket attacks it doesn’t even know for sure will happen. We could of course, speculate the other way and say Israel’s actions could well provoke more rocket attacks, making the whole exercise a rather pointless and bloody one.
“Oh so humans are not held responsible for trying to save their own lives if they can?”
My point was not that they were totally absolved of any responsibility whatsoever (though that responsibility is miniscule in my opinion), but that it is absurd to claim that someone who failed to get out of the way in time is substantially more responsible than the person who killed him. As I said, you seem to be tying yourself in knots to justify everybody within a hundred-mile radius being responsible except the person who’s actually firing missiles at the school.
“The fact that they do everything they can to avoid civilians deaths, including using precision weaponry and dropping leaflets to warn civilians beforehand, strengthens my position that they are not responsible.”
What is it Colin Powell said about precision bombing? “As soon as they tell me ‘surgical’, I head for the bunker”. And your definition of Israel doing “everything it can” to avoid civilian casualties clearly doesn’t extend to avoiding weapons which it knows will kill civilians.
“First of all, please consider that a large number of those dead have been Hamas terrorists – then revise your “figures.” The death of any Hamas terrorist is inconsequential.”
Of course, we don’t know how large that number is, but we’ll assume the IDF’s most generous estimate is right and that it’s 650. So if we compare civilian casualties to civilian casualties, that leaves another 664 Gazan civilians, compared to three Israeli. So my apologies. It’s actually over twenty to one.
“Hamas has forced it to choose, Israel did not ask to be forced into making that decision. ”
Of course Israel didn’t ask to have to make that decision, any more than anyone asks to be forced into a decision. But it is Israel who makes the decision, and with a better idea than most of the consequences.
“The priority of anyone who cares a jot about the lives of innocent Palestinians should be to seek the removal or outright destruction of Hamas.”
We’d all like to see Hamas go, Jason. But I wouldn’t nuke the Gaza Strip to make it happen. If you genuinely care about someone’s life, your first priority should sort of be not killing them yourself. That’s something of a no-brainer. It says a lot that not killing them doesn’t come top on your list of priorities for protecting Palestinians.
Alex.
You are dragging everyone down. In the minutiae of your argument the whole plot is lost.
Do you believe that Hamas is a terrorist organisation whose stated aim to is get rid of Israel.
Do you believe Israel has a right to exist within secure borders.
Do you think war is a game of chess, or a bl00dy shambles.
Do you believe that anyone with a grievance should be allowed to stymie the rest of the world by using blackmail, taking hostages, hijacking aeroplanes, kidnapping someone’s granny or hiding behind some children?
Do you believe that a worldwide Islamic Caliphate is preferable to whatever it is we have now.
Do you believe that the BBC has given a fair, balanced and informed overview of the ME conflict.
We all know you like to play word games but that’s just what you are doing. You don’t give a toss about the subject, and I think the way you are endlessly exercising your debating, or should that be baiting, muscles is quite disgraceful.
read Melanie P and weep.
http://www.melaniephillips.com/articles-new/?p=639
Biodegradable:
“I’m surprised he doesn’t get dizzy and fall of the merry-go-round that he’s created.”
That I’ve created? I’ve never in my life linked to one B-BBC thread from another. This linking and cross-linking is all your and Sue’s doing.
Alex | Homepage | 20.01.09 – 10:53 am
I was referring to any one thread that you’ve hijacked – this one alone is a good example.
As Sue (at least I think it was her) said, perhaps part of your problem is that you don’t remember what you’ve already said so insist on repeating yourself and going round in circles. A kind of obsessive compulsive amnesia.
I’ve added Alex to my “scroll past” list along with “Atlas Shrugged” and a few others.
Alex | Homepage | 20.01.09 – 10:53 am |
If it came down to Israel having to kill every man, woman and child in Gaza and the West Bank to stop rocket attacks, would that be justified?
If every man, woman and child in Gaza were dedicated to the destruction of my family, and doesn’t stop trying to kill us, then yes, it’s justified. Because the alternative is the death of my family. You and the BBC will allow that; I won’t.
Once again you don’t seem to have any answer other than allowing the rockets and grenades and molotov cocktails and suicide bombs to continue.
You also seem to have failed to grasp the distinction between “allowed” and “not prevented by killing innocent people”, which is a fairly substantial one.
It’s also a false premise. You keep acting like killing innocent people is the main activity here, which it isn’t. Military action by Israel does stop the rockets, just like blockades and fences stop weapons and suicide bombers entering Israel to kill civilians.
You still refuse to admit that under your preferred scenario that Israelis will still die, but Palestinians won’t.
Your false premise also allows you to continue to deny that your position allows ongoing Israeli civilian deaths, but not Palestinian ones.
Hamas chooses to sacrifice their children. In civilized society, this would be considered child abuse and awful. But in this case you consider it a legitimate tactic. Your argument is also based on a lie – one spread by the BBC, among others – that Israel knows perfectly well that they’re killing innocents at all times, and doesn’t care. Instead, more of it is Hamas taking legitimate military targets and filling them with women and children, or putting rocket launchers on hospital roofs and Hamas headquarters in schools full of children.
With these tactics, no action by Israel is ever possible, according to your desired criteria. Ergo, your belief system allows Israeli civilian deaths, but not Palestinian ones.
The civilians – who elected them, by the way, and willingly chose this path – will have to kick them out. If Israelis continue to die and they don’t, they won’t. Simple.
Just like the BBC, you’re lost in a circular moral maze.
Biodegradable | 20.01.09 – 1:58 pm |
As Sue (at least I think it was her) said, perhaps part of your problem is that you don’t remember what you’ve already said so insist on repeating yourself and going round in circles. A kind of obsessive compulsive amnesia.
I’m sure Alex is aware of what he’s said in the past, and that we’ve all had this argument umpteen times already. But he hasn’t convinced us armchair murderers of the cold, hard truth yet, so he’ll keep trying.
Sue:
“Do you believe Israel has a right to exist within secure borders.”
I believe everyone has the right to live in safety. I just don’t think any country’s right to self-defence trumps any civilian’s right to life.
“Do you think war is a game of chess, or a bl00dy shambles.”
Not really, no. Though the former is a fairly common analogy and the latter applies to a fair few. I honestly don’t see what you’re getting at with this.
“Do you believe that anyone with a grievance should be allowed to stymie the rest of the world by using blackmail, taking hostages, hijacking aeroplanes, kidnapping someone’s granny or hiding behind some children?”
Blackmailers, kidnappers, and hijackers, and for that matter people who fire rockets indiscriminately into civilian areas should all be punished for their crimes. I just don’t think the hostages, passengers, grannies or children should be punished alongside them. Do you?
“Do you believe that a worldwide Islamic Caliphate is preferable to whatever it is we have now.”
Yep. I reckon it’d be brilliant. I’m actually writing a strongly-worded letter to Osama Bin Laden in the other window, demanding that he step up his efforts to bring one about.
“Do you believe that the BBC has given a fair, balanced and informed overview of the ME conflict.”
I believe it’s done its best, but given the difficulty in accessing Gaza and the difference in funding between Israeli and Palestinian media, particularly English-language media, that Israel’s actions have been largely whitewashed and its suffering emphasised.
“We all know you like to play word games but that’s just what you are doing. You don’t give a toss about the subject, and I think the way you are endlessly exercising your debating, or should that be baiting, muscles is quite disgraceful.”
If you mean the ones I use for typing, yeah, they’ve been getting a pretty good workout. Not sure how you worked out exactly what I do and don’t give a toss about though. That was pretty clever.
“read Melanie P and weep.”
A common reaction for most sane people.
“If every man, woman and child in Gaza were dedicated to the destruction of my family, and doesn’t stop trying to kill us, then yes, it’s justified. Because the alternative is the death of my family. You and the BBC will allow that; I won’t.”
If every man, woman and child was dedicated to and capable of destroying you and your family then good luck to you. But you know full well that wasn’t my question. If the only way of fully rooting out the minority of terrorists for sure was wiping out the entire population of Gaza and the West Bank would it be justified?
“Your false premise also allows you to continue to deny that your position allows ongoing Israeli civilian deaths, but not Palestinian ones.”
In the case where Palestinian civilian deaths outnumber Israeli civilian deaths, yes. Reverse the numbers and, surprise, surprise, my opinion reverses.
“But in this case you consider it a legitimate tactic.”
Where did I say that?
“Your argument is also based on a lie – one spread by the BBC, among others – that Israel knows perfectly well that they’re killing innocents at all times, and doesn’t care.”
They obviously don’t care enough to stop.
“With these tactics, no action by Israel is ever possible, according to your desired criteria. Ergo, your belief system allows Israeli civilian deaths, but not Palestinian ones.”
See above. My belief system allows, though regrets, Palestinian civilian deaths to the point where they prevent, but do not outnumber Israeli ones. The reason this does not justify Israel’s current actions is because they involve killing and maiming more, far more, Palestinians than they could possibly be saving Israelis from the same fate. Again, were the potential death tolls different, my specific opinion would be as well, without my general opinion having to change.
Now I might ask you, why does your opinion allow for Palestinian civilian casualties but not Israeli ones, even when the former outnumber the latter by two hundred to one.
“The civilians – who elected them, by the way, and willingly chose this path – will have to kick them out. If Israelis continue to die and they don’t, they won’t. Simple.”
See, this is what I find so creepy about this whole debate. Leaving aside the fact that not all Palestinians voted, let alone for Hamas, you lot not only seem to think, as in your actual genuine opinion, that the person who the missile kills is more responsible than the person who fires it, but also that voting is a more serious crime than bombing.
I should point out that, because Fatah were not protecting the Palestinians from deadly Israeli incursions, that they had no choice but to elect the other party. I know what you’re going to say, but it doesn’t matter, as I’ve said “no choice” and you can’t expect Palestinians to sacrifice themselves for the good of Israel.
“I’m sure Alex is aware of what he’s said in the past, and that we’ve all had this argument umpteen times already. But he hasn’t convinced us armchair murderers of the cold, hard truth yet, so he’ll keep trying.”
Good thing you stopped arguing long ago, or you’d look a bit of a hypocrite.
Not sure how you worked out exactly what I do and don’t give a toss about though. That was pretty clever.
Not really. Your disingenuousness shines through, somehow.
“Do you believe Israel has a right to exist within secure borders.”
I believe everyone has the right to live in safety. I just don’t think any country’s right to self-defence trumps any civilian’s right to life.
Alex | Homepage | 20.01.09 – 7:53 pm
I’ll take that as a “No” then.
Yes you are on my scroll-by list but I couldn’t help but see those first few lines.
(Sue, Jason David P. – did he saying anything worth reading after that?)
“I’ll take that as a “No” then.”
I’m sure you do. It’s either unconditional or not at all with you lot.
Bio & David P,
I can’t take the credit for saying that Alex doesn’t remember what he’s already said, at least I don’t remember saying it.
But I do think that Alex is like a sort of arguing automaton. If you turned him upside-down and shook him he’d pop back up still arguing, maybe about something else, or on the same subject but from the opposite side without a break in transmission.
Which is all well and good. Arguing might be a legitimate sport with league tables and trophies. Argulympics.
But Alex, your method dispenses with the need to know anything about the subject you’re arguing about, because you’re only dealing with wordplay, not ideas. Arguing on this subject is meaningless if your interest in it doesn’t extend beyond what the BBC tells you. You see, you don’t seem to be aware of the bigger picture, and neither does the BBC.
No-one thinks grannies should be punished, do they? Well, perhaps some of them should, but the idea that grabbing a granny gives Hamas and co free rein to Do the Terror is just not on.
You wandered off my post onto someone else’s, so I’ll leave it at that.
Biodegradable | 20.01.09 – 9:20 pm
did he saying anything worth reading after that?
Certainly not!
This thread will be off the page soon. Only about five of us here. We can say anything we like while nobody’s looking.
Bum.
“No-one thinks grannies should be punished, do they? Well, perhaps some of them should, but the idea that grabbing a granny gives Hamas and co free rein to Do the Terror is just not on.”
Rhetorical flourish. Though nobody thinks grannies should be specifically punished, I do get the impression that you think the grannies may be included in the punishment without qualms. Is that the case?
“You wandered off my post onto someone else’s, so I’ll leave it at that.”
Yeah, sorry about that. I was going to write “David:” but forgot.
“In this case, justification is not about whether Israel has the right to defend itself, but how Israel has the right to defend itself. As long as the sole consequence is an end to rocket fire, there is no question of justification. If the rocket-wielding maniacs also end up dying, it could arguably cease to be pure self-defence, but I think only the most hardcore ahimsa enthusiast would claim that was unjustified. Once there are further consequences than terrorists dying and rockets stopping, as is clearly the case now, the right to inflict those further consequences becomes involved as well as the right to self-defence.
There are limits to the method and extent of self-defence. If you machine-gunned a man for shooting spitballs at you, I’m sure the court wouldn’t recognise your inalienable right to protect yourself.”
As usual, complete and utter baloney. Killing the rocket-wielding maniacs is a fully justifiable part of self-defense. You kill them, they can’t fire any more rockets at you. You don’t kill them, they can. They are religious fanatics who know no sense of reason, have no concept of consequence and have devoted themselves to the death of Israelis. Kill them, kill them, kill them and then kill them some more. You are simply arguing in circles now Alex – for the reasons why Israel has the right to defend itself even if Hamas’ human shields are killed, see every single one of my posts above.
Shooting spitballs at someone is not a deadly attack. Firing rockets is. Please, for the sake of your own self respect, see the difference.
“It’s oblique rather than direct intent, but it’s still quite definitely “a decision to bring about, insofar as it lies within the accused’s power, the commission of the offence…no matter whether the accused desired that consequence of his act or not.””
Regarding your wikipedia link – firstly, the quote you used is not on that page and secondly, the page gives this definition: “An agent’s intention in performing an action is his or her specific purpose in doing so, the end or goal that is aimed at, or intended to accomplish.”
Israel’s end goal, what it intends to accomplish, its specific purpose, is to neutralize the threat to the lives of its people. Given that it also takes enormous steps to prevent civilian casualties as much as it can, your attempt at using the word “intent” to invalidate Israel’s right to defend itself becomes even more ridiculous. You’re not convincing me in the slightest.
“You were not “forced” to take this action. You had the very reasonable option of accepting the one in ten thousand risk of your death to prevent the certain death of a stranger. You take more of a risk if you brake or swerve for a pedestrian.”
Given that I am not prepared to accept an initiation of physical force upon myself by someone who has the intent to kill me – and given that I cannot live my life with the fear of a real possiblity of being shot dead by such a person every day, then I am forced to take action. It is of no consequence to me that someone of no consequence, like you, believes that I should just “accept” these odds. As far as I am concerned, the bullet may very well be in the next position in the chamber, in which case the threat would be an emergency situation. Just because it’s a 1 in 10,000 chance does not mean it won’t happen very soon. No, it is not “reasonable” that I should just accept this threat. If there is no way on earth for me to remove this threat without killing the human shield, then it’s going to happen and I make no apologies to you for that. As far as I am concerned, the man who intended to kill me killed his human shield by imposing the situation.
As for braking and swerving for a pedestrian – that’s something which typically happens very suddenly and does not give the driver much chance to weigh risks. But if I have time to look into my rear view mirror and see a juggernaut right up my arse, I’m not braking and the pedestrian pays the price. If I brake for him and get rear-ended by an eighteen wheeler, the pedestrian isn’t likely to survive that either. If swerving carries a risk, for example there’s a lane of traffic coming the other way, then I’m not doing that either. If Alex thinks that makes me a monster, then Alex can think what he likes.
“Protecting your own life is not the only issue. There is also the issue of taking someone else’s. But maybe “selfishness” is not the word for choosing a massive risk to others over a tiny risk to yourself. Maybe “cowardly indifference to the lives of others” would be better.”
Nothing doing here Alex, you still don’t make me feel a jot of guilt. It’s an initiation of physical force with an express intent to kill me, so I’m dealing with it. Words like “cowardly” mean nothing to me and I will reiterate that your opinion of me in this respect is inconsequential. The gun could fire on the next attempt. I’m going to do something about that.
“How many someone elses? How many strangers would you be willing to risk your life for? How many strangers would you be willing to kill to save your own skin? Or, more objectively and without the spur of the moment and emotive context, how many would you be able to justify to yourself afterwards?
For example: a terrorist fires a rocket at you as you come home from the newsagent’s. You know that if you step aside, which you can quite easily do, it will hit the crowded double-decker bus two hundred yards behind you, but if you stand your ground, only you will die. Do you step aside in self-defence, and blame the terrorist entirely, or do you take responsibility for the situation you’re in and give up your life. If you lose your nerve, do you feel even the slightest bit responsible for the sixteen people that die in the accident, considering you had the option of waiving your right to self-defence and saving them?”
Loved ones, I would risk my life for. Strangers, no. In defending myself from the initiation of physical force from someone who intends to kill me, I will do whatever it takes to remove that threat. If the killer has taken human shields, then as far as I am concerned he has murdered them since he is aware of such things as “survival instinct” when he embarks on his action. As for the missile fired at me – yes, I would step aside to save my own skin. I would then feel extreme anger at the terrorist who fired it and killed a bus load of passengers.
“Whose fault is it that Israel shoots them? Who pulls the trigger for them?”
Whose fault is it that Israel shoots them? Hamas. They are entirely to blame.
“It’s not exactly what you said, no. But what you were very much claiming is that Israel has a right to kill civilians as well as Hamas operatives if it will dissuade Hamas from firing more rockets. You’re basically claiming Israel has the right to kill indiscriminately as a deterrent from rocket attacks it doesn’t even know for sure will happen. We could of course, speculate the other way and say Israel’s actions could well provoke more rocket attacks, making the whole exercise a rather pointless and bloody one.”
No Alex, I didn’t say anything about “dissuading” anyone. You will not find that word, nor any related word like “deterrent” in my arguments. It’s at this point that I have to ask you to refrain from telling lies. You can put as many words into my mouth as you like, but that doesn’t mean I said them. Israel’s intent is to kill the rocket threat. Hamas kills the civilians, not Israel. If Israel’s actions provoke more rocket attacks, then they will simply have no choice but to launch a full scale invasion of Gaza and carry on until every last trace of Hamas is obliterated.
Cont…
“My point was not that they were totally absolved of any responsibility whatsoever (though that responsibility is miniscule in my opinion), but that it is absurd to claim that someone who failed to get out of the way in time is substantially more responsible than the person who killed him. As I said, you seem to be tying yourself in knots to justify everybody within a hundred-mile radius being responsible except the person who’s actually firing missiles at the school.”
The fact that you think that people have a “miniscule” responsibility to save their own lives just about sums up your collectivist mentality. If someone has the chance to save themselves or to rid themselves of the source of their threat – in this case, Hamas – then that makes them entirely responsible for doing so. Given the moral dynamics of the situation, which is that Israel has every right to and will act in self defense, then the Palestinians have the utmost responsibility to prevent it coming to that if it can. Unless you think that Palestinians have no choice whatsoever but to accept being used as human shields (and they very much DO have a choice, given that Hamas was “elected”) then their responsibility is anything BUT miniscule. I’m not tying myself in knots at all Alex, I’m very confident about my prinicples and how I arrived at them. You’re tying yourself in knots trying to “prove” that I’m a bad person, basically. You’re tying yourself in knots trying to refute my reasoning and you are failing.
What’s more, you seem to be tying yourself in knots trying to absolve Hamas of the ultimate blame for all this, even though it is THEY who fire rockets at Israel and use their people as human shields. When I think of the knots you’ve tied yourself into so far, when at the end of the day Hamas could just stop the rocket attacks and volunteer to stop being a deadly threat, it just amazes me. Hamas has a responsibility to stop firing rockets into Israel. The Palestinians have a responsibility to stop Hamas from using them as human shields (since they quite clearly have the option to take action against Hamas). Israel however, does not have a responsibility to lay down and do nothing about rockets being fired at its citizens.
“What is it Colin Powell said about precision bombing? “As soon as they tell me ‘surgical’, I head for the bunker”. And your definition of Israel doing “everything it can” to avoid civilian casualties clearly doesn’t extend to avoiding weapons which it knows will kill civilians.”
I don’t care what Colin Powell said about precision bombing. It’s clearly not a perfect technology yet. But since there is not a weapon available which will kill Hamas and spare everyone else, then yes Israel is doing everything it can. Remember, the fact that civilians are being killed is not because the “wrong weapons are being used” – it’s because Hamas uses them as human shields.
“Of course, we don’t know how large that number is, but we’ll assume the IDF’s most generous estimate is right and that it’s 650. So if we compare civilian casualties to civilian casualties, that leaves another 664 Gazan civilians, compared to three Israeli. So my apologies. It’s actually over twenty to one.”
A ratio which is the consequence of Hamas using Palestinians as human shields. Of course if Hamas didn’t use them as human shields (which it would not be doing if it were not firing rockets into Israel) then the ratio would be far less unfortunate.
“Of course Israel didn’t ask to have to make that decision, any more than anyone asks to be forced into a decision. But it is Israel who makes the decision, and with a better idea than most of the consequences.”
Of course Israel makes the decision. It makes the decision to defend itself and to go to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties. It does it’s “part” in avoiding civilian casualties. The rest of the responsibility falls on Hamas, who could do its “part” by simply not using civilians as human shields.
“We’d all like to see Hamas go, Jason. But I wouldn’t nuke the Gaza Strip to make it happen. If you genuinely care about someone’s life, your first priority should sort of be not killing them yourself. That’s something of a no-brainer. It says a lot that not killing them doesn’t come top on your list of priorities for protecting Palestinians.”
It is not necessary to “nuke the Gaza strip” and neither has Israel shown any intention of doing so….in which case, why even say it? To add a fraudulent layer of melodrama into an argument you know you can’t win, that’s why. It’s all very well to care about somebody’s life, but that doesn’t mean that you should ignore the initiation of physical force upon yourself by someone whose intent is to kill as many of you as possible. In this situation, “not killing them” would involve taking no action. It is not the intent of Israel to kill civilians, the fact that it is unavoidable is completely and utterly the fault of Hamas, without a shadow of a doubt. I note in all this you have failed to offer one alternative, aside from insinuating that Israel has some kind of suicidal responsibility to do nothing about the attacks.
Also, if you really cared about protecting Palestinian life, then you would agree with me that since Hamas and their actions are directly responsible for the death and misery which result, the best way to “protect Palestinian life” is to see the end of Hamas terrorism. It really is as simple as that. You’ve done absolutely nothing to convince me or anyone else here of your arguments and it just seems like you’re intent on spinning on your back like a bluebottle in protest. Whatever, Alex.
“I’ll take that as a “No” then.”
I’m sure you do. It’s either unconditional or not at all with you lot.
Alex | Homepage | 20.01.09 – 9:43 pm
Excuse me young man, but a question as simple as “Do you believe Israel has a right to exist within secure borders?” doesn’t really admit any other kind of answer than yes or no, unless you wish to impose conditions on Israel’s existence.
Do you know of any other country on earth whose existence is conditional on… well, anything?
Does England have a right to exist?
“Well, only if it doesn’t adopt the Euro…”
Does France have a right to exist?
“Well, only if the French use less garlic…”
Silly, isn’t it?
Israel is, therefore it exists. Or put another way, Am Yisroel Chai!
http://www.peoplesrepublicofcork.com/forums/showthread.php?t=66610
It should be pointed out that some experts on counter-terrorism believe that the only way to handle a terrorist is to kill him, thus preventing such actions as hijackings and hostage takings to gain his release. If and when a terrorist is released, he becomes a threat again, often reverting back to savage atrocities that their code condones. Terrorists have no moral dilemma regarding killing soldiers, police and civilians, and thus give up any right to appeal to the same laws which govern the rest of us. Terrorism causes much further damage than just the lives of the innocent being lost; it make otherwise free societies prisons. The elimination of terrorists by soldiers or police ensures that future terrorists will know that their chosen profession will likely lead to a violent end as counter-terrorist units become ever more proficient at their jobs.
And also:
“It’s oblique rather than direct intent, but it’s still quite definitely “a decision to bring about, insofar as it lies within the accused’s power, the commission of the offence…no matter whether the accused desired that consequence of his act or not.”
This argument could prevent you doing anything at all, just in case anything you do obliquely caused unintended harm to anything you might be dimly aware of. Walk on grass?(might kill beetle) buy food? (might exploit worker)
“You were not “forced” to take this action.”
This ignores the fundamental reality that Hamas are a bunch of extremist Islamists who are dedicated to kill Jews and obliterate Israel.
Israelis are not Forced to stay alive, but they are entitled try.
“one in ten thousand risk of your death to prevent the certain death of a stranger.”
Where did you get that figure?
“Protecting your own life is not the only issue. There is also the issue of taking someone else’s. But maybe “selfishness” is not the word for choosing a massive risk to others over a tiny risk to yourself. Maybe “cowardly indifference to the lives of others” would be better.”
This ignores the fundamentals. A massive risk to others? Don’t you even know that Israel is a tiny country that exists in a sea of hostility. The massive risk is to Israel, and by extension, Jews.
You argue as if you don’t know anything.
Assuming you are aware of the history, at least of the last century, and assuming that you are aware of the similarities that are emerging with the 1930s and the present day, your position, and that of your ilk, is uncannily similar to that of “ordinary Germans” who aligned themselves with Nazi ideology and turned a blind eye to the demonisation of the Jews.
You dismiss Melanie Phillips as Mad Mel, and you would have Dreyfus hanged drawn and quartered in the blink of an eye. I’m no Zola, but J’accuse!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreyfus_affair
Jason:
As usual, complete and utter baloney. Killing the rocket-wielding maniacs is a fully justifiable part of self-defense. You kill them, they can’t fire any more rockets at you. You don’t kill them, they can.”
I believe my exact words were: “it could arguably cease to be pure self-defence, but I think only the most hardcore ahimsa enthusiast would claim that was unjustified.”
I was not giving my own opinion, but mentioning in passing the rather narrow grey area under which killing your assailant in self-defence falls. At no point did I claim killing the militants was unjustified and I have frequently expressed opinions to the contrary. You are either reading my posts incredibly lazily or deliberately misrepresenting me. Which is it?
“Shooting spitballs at someone is not a deadly attack. Firing rockets is. Please, for the sake of your own self respect, see the difference.”
My point exactly. There are limits to the right to self-defence, and using disproportionate force (of which lethal vs. non-lethal is only an example) is one of them. The right to self-defence simply means that, for the duration of the attack or when a further attack is a distinct possibility, the victim’s right to life and safety vastly outweighs the attacker’s.
“firstly, the quote you used is not on that page and secondly, the page gives this definition:”
Er, yeah. Last time I use “copy shortcut” without testing. It seems to redirect you to the wrong one so here‘s one you can use, but you have to click the one that’s not a TV show. Sorry.
““An agent’s intention in performing an action is his or her specific purpose in doing so, the end or goal that is aimed at, or intended to accomplish.””
That’s the general, rather than legal, definition. See working link above.
“Given that it also takes enormous steps to prevent civilian casualties as much as it can, your attempt at using the word “intent” to invalidate Israel’s right to defend itself becomes even more ridiculous.”
As I said before, this “attempt” to prevent civilian casualties has still allowed 664 minimum in under a month, and of course does not extend to avoiding aerial bombardment, cluster bombs, white phosphorus or any other weapons which disproportionately kill civilians.
“If someone has the chance to save themselves or to rid themselves of the source of their threat – in this case, Hamas – then that makes them entirely responsible for doing so.”
Really? Is Hamas not at least partly responsible then?
“It is of no consequence to me that someone of no consequence, like you, believes that I should just “accept” these odds. As far as I am concerned, the bullet may very well be in the next position in the chamber, in which case the threat would be an emergency situation. Just because it’s a 1 in 10,000 chance does not mean it won’t happen very soon.”
And it’s clearly of no consequence to you if someone of no consequence to you dies to save your own miserable skin. I’ll assume you’re not lying about it to support your opinion on Israel. So is it that you value the right to self-defence far higher than the right to the life you are supposedly defending, that you consider absolutely no notion of responsibility in pursuit of self-preservation, or is it that you quite rationally consider your own life worth ten thousand times more than that of a stranger? Because either one of those is utterly morally bankrupt. Cowardice and selfishness are at least natural human reactions.
“As for the missile fired at me – yes, I would step aside to save my own skin. I would then feel extreme anger at the terrorist who fired it and killed a bus load of passengers.”
An understandable reaction. But would you never feel a twinge of guilt for choosing your life over others’, or privileging the right to self-defence over the right to life because it suited you?
“Whose fault is it that Israel shoots them? Hamas. They are entirely to blame.”
That’s like blaming your cook entirely for making you fat.
“No Alex, I didn’t say anything about “dissuading” anyone. You will not find that word, nor any related word like “deterrent” in my arguments.”
Not your exact words, no. I believe you said:
“If Israel should not act to protect its citizens in this way because Hamas uses human shields, then we can reasonably assume that not only will the attacks continue indefinitely into the future, but that they may escalate once Hamas realizes that it has a blank check to spend on murder.”
Which I interpreted as meaning that if Israel does not act against Hamas, Hamas will assume it can fire as many rockets as it likes. Therefore it is quite clearly implied that by killing the Hamas operatives behind the rocketing, Israel is also deterring the organisation from further, more intensive attacks. Is this not what you were getting at? Sincere apologies if I misread you.
“What’s more, you seem to be tying yourself in knots trying to absolve Hamas of the ultimate blame for all this, even though it is THEY who fire rockets at Israel and use their people as human shields.”
Again, I have never tried to absolve anyone of anything, except perhaps the innocent bystanders. Arguing that Israel may be partially responsible is not arguing that Hamas bears responsibility.
“But since there is not a weapon available which will kill Hamas and spare everyone else, then yes Israel is doing everything it can.”
You’ve conceded that “precision”
bombing is not perfect yet, yet you make the absurd claim that it will “spare everyone else” and not miss, set off chain reactions or catch other targets in the blast.
“Remember, the fact that civilians are being killed is not because the “wrong weapons are being used” – it’s because Hamas uses them as human shields.”
That would be the case if the “human shield” strategy worked equally well (or do I mean badly) regardless of what weapons are being used. This is not the case. It is most effective against targeted attacks with weapons than cause multiple casualties with one shot. By continuing to use missiles, bombs and shells instead of bullets and bayonets, Israel is deciding to call Hamas’ bluff, even if that means killing more human shields.
“A ratio which is the consequence of Hamas using Palestinians as human shields.”
An indirect consequence. It is also the consequence, and directly, of Israel shooting the human shields.
Jason: (cont’d)
“It is not necessary to “nuke the Gaza strip” and neither has Israel shown any intention of doing so….in which case, why even say it?”
To illustrate that, for me, the removal of Hamas does not take precedent over avoiding innocent deaths. It is absurd to claim that if I sincerely value Palestinian lives should prioritise the removal of Hamas above their preservation, as it is to claim that anyone who values something must therefore prioritise something else.
“To add a fraudulent layer of melodrama into an argument you know you can’t win, that’s why.”
Sorry, I didn’t realise the above was a rhetorical question. We were no longer discussing Israel at this point, we were discussing priorities for Palestine.
“It’s all very well to care about somebody’s life, but that doesn’t mean that you should ignore the initiation of physical force upon yourself by someone whose intent is to kill as many of you as possible.”
Again, not what I was arguing.
“I note in all this you have failed to offer one alternative, aside from insinuating that Israel has some kind of suicidal responsibility to do nothing about the attacks.”
What was all that stuff about ground attacks versus airstrikes then? But yes, Israel has several options. Total inaction or civilian evacuation of Sderot are extreme examples and not ones I would consider reasonable. Diplomacy and compromise are a far more reasonable possibility. Rocket attacks fell dramatically between the start of the last truce on 19th June and the Israeli incursion on 4th November, I make it 99 over five months, mostly it seems from Islamic Jihad, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and some kind of Badr organisation, although many went unclaimed. After the truce was broken by Israel, this rose to 574 over a month and a half. Since the truce officially ended, less than one month ago, 650 rockets have been fired at Israel (wikipedia, works this time). When Israel keeps its promises, dialogue works, and has prevented more rocket attacks, therefore saving more Israeli lives, than blowing people up has. Cast Lead has actually endangered more Israeli civilians than doing nothing would have. Undermining Hamas support by being nicer to Palestinians might work too.
Biodegradable:
““Do you believe Israel has a right to exist within secure borders?” doesn’t really admit any other kind of answer than yes or no, unless you wish to impose conditions on Israel’s existence.”
Not in specific terms, but I believe that a people comprising a local majority have the right to declare statehood. I believe people have the right to migrate as individuals and en masse. And I believe nobody should be denied the right to live in the land of their birth. And so, yes, I support in hindsight the right of Jews to move to and remain in Palestine and to declare and maintain statehood, though in historical terms I have my doubts as to whether Zionism was the best solution to the problems facing European Jewry. So, for the reasons above, my answer is yes, Israel has as much right as any other state to exist within its borders. Which borders exactly, and Israel’s right to overstep its them, you may have noticed, is trickier and would require a more specific question.
However that was not your original question. You asked about safety, not existence. As with everyone, Israel’s right to safety is contingent on its respect for the safety of others, and in the event of a conflict, the right of the party in the greatest danger must take precedent. In this case, that is clearly Palestine.
May I ask you, do Palestinians have the right to safety and statehood within their borders?
Sue:
“This argument could prevent you doing anything at all, just in case anything you do obliquely caused unintended harm to anything you might be dimly aware of. Walk on grass?(might kill beetle) buy food? (might exploit worker)”
It could indeed. In fact, as this is a principle written into law, you’re not actually allowed to do anything if you know it will result in you doing something illegal. So it’s a good thing neither of the things on your list are actually illegal.
“This ignores the fundamental reality that Hamas are a bunch of extremist Islamists who are dedicated to kill Jews and obliterate Israel. Israelis are not Forced to stay alive, but they are entitled try.”
I never denied that Israelis have an inalienable right to life. I simply claimed that the Palestinians have one too. I only disagree that Israelis are entitled to try to preserve this life when, by trying, they violate Gazans’ right to life. In this case we balance out the right to life of both sides, and I’m afraid with 664 civilian deaths to 3 in this conflict, Gazans take priority.
“Where did you get that figure?”
Jason. He said the gun holds ten thousand bullets and that there’s only one in it.
“This ignores the fundamentals. A massive risk to others? Don’t you even know that Israel is a tiny country that exists in a sea of hostility. The massive risk is to Israel, and by extension, Jews.”
I do know that. A lot of people want to destroy Israel, none at the moment realistically have the wherewithal. If they do, or look like they’re about to, then Israel has the right to prevent its own destruction. Even when the objective is to kill as many Jews as they can, as many as they can is not many. Again, if they get bigger, more accurate weapons, I will form my opinion based on the level of danger.
“You dismiss Melanie Phillips as Mad Mel, and you would have Dreyfus hanged drawn and quartered in the blink of an eye. I’m no Zola, but J’accuse!”
An apt nickname, but not one I’ve ever used personally. As for Dreyfus, can you accuse with a bit more evidence instead of l’invention fachée de merde?
Biodegradable:
“”Do you believe Israel has a right to exist within secure borders?” doesn’t really admit any other kind of answer than yes or no, unless you wish to impose conditions on Israel’s existence.”
Not in specific terms, but I believe that a people comprising a local majority have the right to declare statehood.
That’s not what I asked so I still take your answer to be “no”.
I believe people have the right to migrate as individuals and en masse. And I believe nobody should be denied the right to live in the land of their birth.
You’re not talking about Israel, are you?
Your answer then is still “No”.
And so, yes, I support in hindsight the right of Jews to move to and remain in Palestine and to declare and maintain statehood, though in historical terms I have my doubts as to whether Zionism was the best solution to the problems facing European Jewry.
That seems to be a pretty comprehensive and emphatic “no”.
So, for the reasons above, my answer is yes,
ROTFLMFAO! 😆
This springs to mind:
“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them”.
– George Orwell
Israel has as much right as any other state to exist within its borders. Which borders exactly, and Israel’s right to overstep its them, you may have noticed, is trickier and would require a more specific question.
Indeed, but the question asked none of that, and I infer by your multitude of evasive answers, and your general thrust in this discussion, that really, honestly, you’d much prefer it if those pesky Jews rolled over and died, and for Israel to just disappear.
I just wish you’d be honest enough to come out and say it instead of beating about the bush so.
Well done Alex you are simultaneously arguing singlehandedly with about four people.
Does your theory about not retaliating if it incurs risk to an innocent life extend to all wars, or just I/P?
Biodegradable:
“– Not in specific terms, but I believe that a people comprising a local majority have the right to declare statehood.
– That’s not what I asked so I still take your answer to be “no”.”
Don’t be so impatient. I’m coming to Israel. But if you’re that desperate to find out I can give you a hint: you’ve guessed wrongly.
“– I believe people have the right to migrate as individuals and en masse. And I believe nobody should be denied the right to live in the land of their birth.
– You’re not talking about Israel, are you?”
Not yet, no. I’m starting off with the general principles according to which I support Israel’s right to exist. I like to be consistent in these things.
“– And so, yes, I support in hindsight the right of Jews to move to and remain in Palestine and to declare and maintain statehood, though in historical terms I have my doubts as to whether Zionism was the best solution to the problems facing European Jewry.
– That seems to be a pretty comprehensive and emphatic “no”. ”
Right down to the ‘yes’ at the beginning. Thinking in hindsight that Theodor Herzl’s approach was not ultimately in his people’s interest says nothing about whether Israel, now existing, should continue to do so.
““Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them”.
– George Orwell”
Kindly point out which parts of my post are contradictory.
“I infer by your multitude of evasive answers, and your general thrust in this discussion, that really, honestly, you’d much prefer it if those pesky Jews rolled over and died, and for Israel to just disappear.”
I bet you had that ready and waiting on your clipboard before you read my answer.
By the way, I’ve now answered two of your questions about Israel’s rights, what of my question about Palestines?
Sue:
“Well done Alex you are simultaneously arguing singlehandedly with about four people.”
I know. I have to say, you and Biodegradable are easier than Jason and David Preiser. I’d say they count as two each.
“Does your theory about not retaliating if it incurs risk to an innocent life extend to all wars, or just I/P?”
All wars, everything. Of course, I never mentioned retaliation, only self-defence, which makes me wonder if you understand the distinction.
Any more evidence for what you j’accused me of earlier, or are you quietly retracting it?
Alex:
Biodegradable:
“- Not in specific terms, but I believe that a people comprising a local majority have the right to declare statehood.
– That’s not what I asked so I still take your answer to be “no”.”
Don’t be so impatient. I’m coming to Israel.
Sorry, life’s too short.
“- I believe people have the right to migrate as individuals and en masse. And I believe nobody should be denied the right to live in the land of their birth.
– You’re not talking about Israel, are you?”
Not yet, no. I’m starting off with the general principles according to which I support Israel’s right to exist. I like to be consistent in these things.
Can you hear me drumming my fingers on my desk?
I’ll make it easier for you:
Do you believe Israel has a right to exist?
That question mark works like a full stop. Period.
I can’t even believe I’m asking this question!
“- And so, yes, I support in hindsight the right of Jews to move to and remain in Palestine and to declare and maintain statehood, though in historical terms I have my doubts as to whether Zionism was the best solution to the problems facing European Jewry.
– That seems to be a pretty comprehensive and emphatic “no”. ”
Right down to the ‘yes’ at the beginning. Thinking in hindsight that Theodor Herzl’s approach was not ultimately in his people’s interest says nothing about whether Israel, now existing, should continue to do so.
I think it does show what a head-scratcher this question is for you.
And by the way, it wasn’t just a “problem” facing only Europe’s Jews.
Read this:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=F7A3494C-0F97-4940-9852-ABD9F5B44A13
You still haven’t answered my other question regarding why this question should be asked of Israel, and only Israel, at all.
“I infer by your multitude of evasive answers, and your general thrust in this discussion, that really, honestly, you’d much prefer it if those pesky Jews rolled over and died, and for Israel to just disappear.”
I bet you had that ready and waiting on your clipboard before you read my answer.
You lost the bet, so fuck off.
By the way, I’ve now answered two of your questions about Israel’s rights, what of my question about Palestines?
Which Palestines are they?
“Which Palestines are they?”
The ones I briefly failed to punctuate impeccably, thus earning your utter disdain. Is “Palestine’s” better? Can you actually give me an answer now?
“Do you believe Israel has a right to exist? That question mark works like a full stop. Period.”
Yes, as specified and for the reasons mentioned above. Any advances on why my post was “contradictory”?
“You still haven’t answered my other question regarding why this question should be asked of Israel, and only Israel, at all.”
That’s true, I missed that one, or possibly glossed over it thinking it was meant rhetorically. If you want a short answer, it’s it shouldn’t. Longer answer to a subtly different question follows, feel free to scroll past if you’re not interested as everything from here on in is an aside, but if you do read it, please read to the end.
The question to “Why is this question asked of Israel, and only Israel at all?” is, in my opinion, far more interesting. Of course, the legitimacy of lots of younger nations, from Kosovo to Tibet is often called into question, but Israel does seem to have got more than its fair share.
The simplest explanation for this is anti-Semitism, though I’m sure a fair few anti-Semites are all for Israel’s existence if it means they see the back of some olim. Bill O’Reilly’s comment here is particularly revealing. But definitely Israel’s historical claim to a major Muslim holy site has made it a lightning rod for the religion’s less calm and rational adherents who otherwise wouldn’t care much for the Palestinian cause, and not only intensified existing anti-Jewish sentiment in the Muslim world, but caused a hefty amount to be imported from Europe (the ingredients of matzos and plagiarised French satires spring to mind).
Israel’s religious justification for its existence is also a minor factor. The fact that it’s one only religious Jews can believe in (and some Armageddon-fixated Christians, but let’s not pretend they have the Jews’ best interests at heart) means the many secular arguments for Israel’s existence are more likely to be overlooked.
Another problem is Israel’s borders. While what Israel does outside its UN-mandated borders should not affect its right to exist within them in the slightest, but disputes over their exact position has brought the debate over Israel’s statehood closer to the surface and to the attention of a lot of angry and irrational people.
Finally, Israel and Zionism are basically entirely unprecedented. There have been mass-migrations, secessions and states with artificially-drawn borders before, from Czechoslovakia to Iraq, but never all together at that speed. Israel basically went from an idealistic pipe-dream in Central Europe to a proper country in the Middle East complete with revived national language in little over fifty years. Which means Israelis can’t really point to another country and say “They did it, why can’t we?”
Naturally, none of these factors should affect Israel’s right to statehood, but they all go to explain the level of debate over it.
Any more evidence for what you j’accused me of earlier,
Alex | Homepage | 21.01.09 – 2:45 pm |
Who needs more when we’ve already got plenty?
More or less everything you have said to date represents a willingness to ascribe evil intent to Israel and Jews. Your debate with Jason shows you are applying moral equivalence, that means not recognising the difference in moral outlook between Jews of Israel and Islamists in Arab countries, …..
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110005100.
and from Wiki:
“In the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the term is commonly used by defenders of Israel. They accuse of moral equivalence those who describe acts of Palestinian terrorism, such as suicide bombing against civilians, on one hand, and the retaliatory acts of the Israeli Defense Forces, on the other, as equally reprehensible.”
[cont.]
…….willful disregard of the history of Israel and the Jewish people, that means doubting Israel’s legitimacy and not recognising the significance of the historically widespread persecution of Jews and their subsequent resolve not to succumb this time round – “never again,” deliberate demonisation of everything Israel has done recently to defend its citizens and disbelieving that it is doing its utmost to avoid civilian casualties, and repeating many other things that originate from Palestinian propaganda and are routinely regurgitated uncritically by the British and European media.
If you’re interested have a look at: http://www.mythsandfacts.com/Conflict/mandate_for_palestine/Mandate%20for%20Palestine-11-20-07-English.pdf
Some of the above may not have been said by you personally, but it has by those of your ilk, those who agree with you, or as you put it to us, “you lot.”
But I put it to you that you are not really all that interested in any of that. You are merely Doin’ the Arguin’ for the sake of it. And I am glad you find Bio and myself easy, although I would suggest a large part of that is because you ignore a very large part of what we say.
or are you quietly retracting it?
No, I’m not. It’s up to you now to defend yourself if you can.
“Your debate with Jason shows you are applying moral equivalence, that means not recognising the difference in moral outlook between Jews of Israel and Islamists in Arab countries”
Naturally. The discussion was not on professed moral outlook but on actions.
“willful disregard of the history of Israel and the Jewish people, that means doubting Israel’s legitimacy and not recognising the significance of the historically widespread persecution of Jews and their subsequent resolve not to succumb this time round – “never again,””
At no point have I cast any doubt on Israel’s legitimacy, though I have, repeatedly and to wilful misunderstanding, made explicit statements to the contrary. Nor have I “disregarded” historical Jewish suffering any more than Jason, David or Biodegradable, who have also chosen to conduct the debate without reference to it. Though I would be interested to hear how the suffering of Jews at the hands of one set of people justifies Israel’s actions against an entirely different one.
“deliberate demonisation of everything Israel has done recently to defend its citizens”
Demonisation is a strong word. Examples please.
“disbelieving that it is doing its utmost to avoid civilian casualties, and repeating many other things that originate from Palestinian propaganda and are routinely regurgitated uncritically by the British and European media.”
Even by its own most conservative estimates, Israel has killed twice as many civilians than combatants. Though it may have made a few efforts to stop it reaching thrice, “utmost” is clearly not the word. And as for my regurgitating propaganda, again, examples please.
“In the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the term is commonly used by defenders of Israel. They accuse of moral equivalence those who describe acts of Palestinian terrorism, such as suicide bombing against civilians, on one hand, and the retaliatory acts of the Israeli Defense Forces, on the other, as equally reprehensible.”
Yes, this does seem to be what you’re doing. I didn’t need wikipedia to tell me that.
“Some of the above may not have been said by you personally, but it has by those of your ilk, those who agree with you, or as you put it to us, “you lot.””
I see. At first, I expected you to argue that because I disagree with you on a general issue which is relevant to a Jewish state, that I automatically believe Jews to be by nature disloyal to France and likely to spy for Germany. What you actually meant was that I believe everything everyone who ever disagreed with you on anything to do with Jews believes. I’m afraid you’ll have to work harder than that if you want to get away with offhand accusations of such a despicable nature.
“No, I’m not. It’s up to you now to defend yourself if you can.”
If you insist. I don’t know a lot about the Dreyfus affair, but from what I’ve read on it it sounds like a colossal miscarriage of justice.
Thank you for the link, by the way. It will actually prove very useful to me for something entirely unrelated to this argument.
Though I don’t have anything useful to give you in return, have something funny. From the Neo-Nazi version of wikipedia:
http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/List_of_notorious_Jewish_ritual_murders
“Which Palestines are they?” The ones I briefly failed to punctuate impeccably, thus earning your utter disdain.
You earned my disdain a long time ago.
Is “Palestine’s” better? Can you actually give me an answer now? If by that you mean, “Does ‘Palestine’ have a right to exist?” here’s my considered response.
First of all “Palestine” as a state doesn’t exist and never has, and if the Arabs continue as they’ve been doing for the last 61 years there never will be a state called “Palestine”. So the question isn’t really of equal validity or import as the question of Israel’s existence.
One answer of course is that what you call “Palestine”, the Arab homeland envisaged by the British Mandate, does already exist, except it’s called JORDAN. That is where the Arabs who left what is now Israel rather than remain as Arab Israeli citizens should be.
Now, if we’re going to impose conditions on the existence of the yet-to-exist Palestinian state, as you have done with regards Israel, I’d have to say that such a state as envisaged in this statement by a founder member of the PLO has no right to exist whatsoever, if the objective of that state, as declared, is solely to destroy the state of Israel:
“The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct “Palestinian people” to oppose Zionism. For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa. While as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.”
(PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein, March 31, 1977, interview with the Dutch newspaper Trouw.) “Do you believe Israel has a right to exist? That question mark works like a full stop. Period.”
Yes, as specified and for the reasons mentioned above. Any advances on why my post was “contradictory”?
Well, here’s what you said: “- And so, yes, I support in hindsight the right of Jews to move to and remain in Palestine and to declare and maintain statehood, though in historical terms I have my doubts as to whether Zionism was the best solution to the problems facing European Jewry.
If one accepts that Zionism is the expression of the Jew’s eternal desire, since his expulsion from Eretz Yisroel by the Romans, to return (note: return to, not “move to”) to that land I simply don’t understand how you can in the same paragraph both support it and cast doubts on it.
As I pointed out it was not only a “problem” for European Jews, Jews born in Arab countries were also expelled from the homes they’d lived in for generations. You didn’t answer my question as to where they should, or could have gone if not to Israel.
“You still haven’t answered my other question regarding why this question should be asked of Israel, and only Israel, at all.” That’s true, I missed that one, or possibly glossed over it thinking it was meant rhetorically. If you want a short answer, it’s it shouldn’t.
Well done, but I expect a “but” here soon…
Longer answer to a subtly different question follows… Of course, the legitimacy of lots of younger nations, from Kosovo to Tibet is often called into question, but Israel does seem to have got more than its fair share. Yeeees?
The simplest explanation for this is anti-Semitism, though I’m sure a fair few anti-Semites are all for Israel’s existence if it means they see the back of some olim. Gosh, it seems you’re actually saying something I can’t find much fault with… for how much longer, I ask myself…
Bill O’Reilly’s comment here is particularly revealing. I’m afraid I couldn’t really see the relevance of the article you linked to, and had to search for the comment by O’Reilly.
But definitely Israel’s historical claim to a major Muslim holy site… Hold it right there!
You have it arse about face. It’s the Muslims who have fabricated their claim to the al-Aqsa for the same reasons articulated by PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein above.
Jerusalem is not mentioned once in the Koran or the Hadiths and this claim to be the third most holy site is a recent invention.
Israel’s religious justification for its existence is also a minor factor. It’s so minor as to be insignificant…
Another problem is Israel’s borders. While what Israel does outside its UN-mandated borders should not affect its right to exist… The original UN mandated borders were actually far more ample than Israel’s actual recognised ones. But the UN never actually mandated any borders as such. If you disagree please see the maps here: http://www.mythsandfacts.com/Conflict/mandate_for_palestine/
Finally, Israel and Zionism are basically entirely unprecedented. Jews are quite unique too, in many respects.
Israel basically went from an idealistic pipe-dream in Central Europe to a proper country in the Middle East complete with revived national language in little over fifty years. No, Israel has always been regarded by Jews as their homeland. There have always been Jews, however few, living in “Palestine” for thousands of years, and, not to use a religious justification, the Old Testament is full of references to specific places. Even the Christams carol refers to “David’s royal city”. each Passover prayers are ended with the phrase, “next year in Yerushalaim (Jerusalem).
Israel is not just some modern construct “dreamt up” by post-war European Jews.
Naturally, none of these factors should affect Israel’s right to statehood, but they all go to explain the level of debate over it.
You hit the nail on the head when you mentioned antisemitism. That is really the only “reason” or cause for Israel’s existence to be questioned. Whether it’s antisemitism expressed by Western intellectuals or ny Islamist fundamentalists it doesn’t matter, indeed it becomes ever more difficult to tell the difference between the arguments used by each of those two groups.
Though I don’t have anything useful to give you in return, have something funny. From the Neo-Nazi version of wikipedia:
http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/ Lis…_ritual_murders
Alex | Homepage | 21.01.09 – 5:14 pm
That’s not at all “funny”!
http://www.shofars.org/persecution/default.htm
“The Jews are a nervous people. Nineteen centuries of Christian love have taken a toll.”
Benjamin Disraeli
Though I would be interested to hear how the suffering of Jews at the hands of one set of people justifies Israel’s actions against an entirely different one.
Did you pick that up too from the Neo-Nazi version of wikipedia?
You continue to surprise and disgust me.
Point 1. You’re splitting hairs.
Point 2. Glad you recognise Israel’s legitimacy. Well, not glad really because your approval is not all that important, is it?
Point 3. Suffering of Jews gives us the luxury of hindsight. Now we know not to just lie down and die.
Point 4. At first I couldn’t understand what you were trying to say. Then, what you actually meant was still incomprehensible. I’m afraid you’ll have to work harder than that if you want to get away with offhand accusations of such a despicable nature. Oh look, you said that too.
Point 4. Demonisation. From your Guardian.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/apr/07/whatdoesdemonisationmean
One man’s demonisation is another man’s criticism. I say demonisation, you say criticism; let’s call the whole thing off.
P.S. “though I would be interested to hear how the suffering of Jews at the hands of one set of people justifies Israel’s actions against an entirely different one.”
That’s what all the girls say. Apply it to any war you like, and it’s the same thing. There can be no justification that makes any killing a good thing. It’s always bad. But self preservation dictates that it happens. And as for an entirely different one – well not so ‘entirely’. Heard the one about the Grand Mufti Amin al-Husseini and Hitler? http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate_grand_mufti.php
When I say these things Alex, I’m not necessarily just talking to you. I’m talking more – as you do when you talk to Bio David and Jason and me – to “you lot”
“I believe my exact words were: “it could arguably cease to be pure self-defence, but I think only the most hardcore ahimsa enthusiast would claim that was unjustified.”
I was not giving my own opinion, but mentioning in passing the rather narrow grey area under which killing your assailant in self-defence falls. At no point did I claim killing the militants was unjustified and I have frequently expressed opinions to the contrary. You are either reading my posts incredibly lazily or deliberately misrepresenting me. Which is it?”
The narrow gray area under which “killing your assailant in self defense” just happens to encompass the situation in which your assailant is a terrorist sworn to the cause of your destruction. So why even bring this up? In fact, you mentioned that you thought the killing of your assailant was not important to you – the purpose being of course to insinuate that anyone to whom the killing of an assailant was important is somehow motivated by something other than self defense – bloodlust, anger, revenge and the like. You claimed that you would just as sooner let the terrorist go as long as he stopped firing the rockets. I pointed out that in the case of a terrorist fixated on an ideological goal which includes your death, killing the bastard is completely and utterly within the realm of self defense and indeed an essential part of it. I am not misrepresenting you at all. If anything, you have misrepresented me on a number of occasions throughout this thread.
“My point exactly. There are limits to the right to self-defence, and using disproportionate force (of which lethal vs. non-lethal is only an example) is one of them. The right to self-defence simply means that, for the duration of the attack or when a further attack is a distinct possibility, the victim’s right to life and safety vastly outweighs the attacker’s.”
Somebody who fires spitballs at you does not have your death as his goal. Furthermore his spitballs are not going to cause your death even he did. Someone who fires rockets at you does have your death as his goal. Israel is not using “disproportionate force” – it is using the required amount of force in order to destroy Hamas. Unless you can think of a non-lethal way for Israel to destroy Hamas then your stance in this matter is absurd. Since further attacks on Israel are a distinct possibility, the victim’s (Israel) right to life and safety vastly outweighs the attacker’s (Hamas). Which is why Israel has every right to do what it does.
“Er, yeah. Last time I use “copy shortcut” without testing. It seems to redirect you to the wrong one so here’s one you can use, but you have to click the one that’s not a TV show. Sorry.”
There is nothing on that link that challenges my idea of “criminal intent” Alex. Sorry.
“That’s the general, rather than legal, definition. See working link above.”
So you give me a link which links to the page you actually want me to look at. A little thought on your part would not go amiss here. Anyway, not only are you forgetting that this is not a case of criminal malice but a case of self defense, but you’re also neglecting to consider the phrase “desires it to happen.” Israel does not desire the deaths of Palestinian civilians and goes to great lengths to avoid their deaths as much as that is possible given that Hamas deliberately uses them as human shields. If anyone has the “intent” here, it’s Hamas, who knows fine well that its actions will require Israel to defend itself and who knows beyond any shadow of a doubt that using its civilians as human shields will result in their deaths. Since Hamas doesn’t have the excuse of “self defense” when it comes to its part in all of this, then its desire is the death of Palestinian civilians. Especially women and children. The more the merrier – their motive is propaganda. Their strategy is to force Israel to defend itself and then to forcibly throw its own civilians into the direct path of that defense so that the world will turn against Israel and side with Hamas. It’s just a shame that so many people are stupid enough to fall for it. Israel is not “falling for it” because it is acting as it must, in self defense. Nobody else has any reasonable excuse to dance to the tune of Hamas.
“As I said before, this “attempt” to prevent civilian casualties has still allowed 664 minimum in under a month, and of course does not extend to avoiding aerial bombardment, cluster bombs, white phosphorus or any other weapons which disproportionately kill civilians.”
That’s an unfortunate number but it is after all due to the fact that Hamas uses civilians as human shields. If they didn’t use civilians as human shields then that number would of course be a tiny fraction of itself. Israel also has a right to seek to minimize the lives lost on its own side – more than it has a responsiblity to minimize deaths on the Palestinian side, which after all are the responsibility of Hamas. To this end, the weaponry it uses serves that purpose. I think the point you’re trying to make here is that you don’t believe Israel should worry about the deaths of its own military and that they should tolerate the deaths of perhaps hundreds more Israeli soliders in order that the lives of Palestinian civilians be saved. Again, it all comes down to Israel having to make a choice between the lives of Palestinians and its own people. It chooses its own people. I’m sure it would prefer not to have to make this choice, but that’s impossible given that Hamas forces them to make the choice. If only Hamas would not force them to make the choice, they wouldn’t have to make that choice, which is inevitably going to be “Israelis” since the objective of Israel is to protect its own lives first and foremost, including those of its military, who are working in the capacity of self defense and not offense.
“Really? Is Hamas not at least partly responsible then?”
Hamas is responsible for creating the situation in the first place. But if it is possible for the victims, in this case Palestinian civilians, to save themselves, then the fact that Hamas puts them in that situation does not lessen their responsibility to save themselves one jot. If I am sitting in the middle of a field and a car driven by a psycho is speeding straight toward me, then the fact that the driver is entirely responsible for the situation does not mean that I am any less responsible for saving my own life. If the fact of the driver’s responsibility for the situation meant that I had any less than full responsibility for saving myself then that of course would give me some justification for not moving, wouldn’t it? Put another way, if I have the option to save myself but don’t move because the situation is “not my fault” then the end result is: the driver is 100% responsible for killing me and I am 100% responsible for not saving myself. Israel has a responsibility to act in self defense and does – the Palestinians have a responsibility to act in self defense but don’t.
“And it’s clearly of no consequence to you if someone of no consequence to you dies to save your own miserable skin. I’ll assume you’re not lying about it to support your opinion on Israel. So is it that you value the right to self-defence far higher than the right to the life you are supposedly defending, that you consider absolutely no notion of responsibility in pursuit of self-preservation, or is it that you quite rationally consider your own life worth ten thousand times more than that of a stranger? Because either one of those is utterly morally bankrupt. Cowardice and selfishness are at least natural human reactions.”
I didn’t say it “wasn’t of consequence” to me Alex – there you go with your shameful lies, yet again. Of course I would feel something if I had to kill someone in the course of acting in self defense to save my own life. But like I’ve said, your opinion of me as a person is of no consequence to me whatsoever since I have no respect for you, your views or your mindset. My skin isn’t “miserable” to me and it doesn’t matter one little bit if it is to you. The above paragraph I’ve quoted contains another lie: you claim that I’ve said I consider no notion of responsibility in the pursuit of self preservation. That isn’t true. I fully believe that if you have the option to save your life without killing a human shield than you should. Israel shares this view, otherwise it wouldn’t take the steps it does to prevent civilian death in its act of self defense. As for your last question, yes I consider my own life to be worth at least 10,000 times more than a stranger’s life – but I will not initiate an act of physical violence upon him unless it’s in self defense. I don’t care in the slightest if you think this is “morally bankrupt” – I have no respect for your idea of morality.
“An understandable reaction. But would you never feel a twinge of guilt for choosing your life over others’, or privileging the right to self-defence over the right to life because it suited you?”
I would feel sadness and maybe a twinge of guilt in my weaker moments, but never regret. Additionally, the preservation of my own life “suits me,” yes. My Alex, you make the choice of self preservation sound like the act of choosing a tie!
“That’s like blaming your cook entirely for making you fat.”
It’s nothing like blaming my cook for making me fat at all. Nice try though.
Cont….
…Cont
“Not your exact words, no. I believe you said:
‘If Israel should not act to protect its citizens in this way because Hamas uses human shields, then we can reasonably assume that not only will the attacks continue indefinitely into the future, but that they may escalate once Hamas realizes that it has a blank check to spend on murder.’
Which I interpreted as meaning that if Israel does not act against Hamas, Hamas will assume it can fire as many rockets as it likes. Therefore it is quite clearly implied that by killing the Hamas operatives behind the rocketing, Israel is also deterring the organisation from further, more intensive attacks. Is this not what you were getting at? Sincere apologies if I misread you.”
The fact that a consequence of not acting in self defense would likely be that Hamas feels like it has a green light to escalate its attacks on Israel in the future does not mean that Israel’s attacks on Hamas are for the purposes of “deterrence.” Their primary purpose is to destroy and incapacitate Hamas outright, not “deter” them. If in the act of decimating Hamas they are also “deterred” then this is a good thing also. It does not mean that deterrence is Israel’s goal or moral justification for its actions – and neither did I imply or insinuate any such thing. The reason why I brought it up was in response to your arguments regarding proportionality and math. If Israel must, according to you, think in terms of a ratio of Palestinian to Israeli deaths (which I maintain they don’t) then in following that line of reasoning it is only fair that Israel considers how many Israelis are likely to die in the future if they don’t act…and in making that forecast, it is only fair to consider the possibility that their inaction would result in Hamas increasing the number of rocket attacks it perpetrates. So yes, you misread me, misunderstood me and tied yourself in knots in an attempt to make it look as though I meant something I didn’t. I will therefore decline to accept your apology since it was theatrical and phony.
“Again, I have never tried to absolve anyone of anything, except perhaps the innocent bystanders. Arguing that Israel may be partially responsible is not arguing that Hamas bears responsibility.”
Since not acting in self defense is not and must never be an option for Israel, then I maintain that Hamas bears full responsibility. Since Israel does everything it can to avoid civilian deaths in the course of defending itself, then it is not responsible for those deaths. That responsibility lies entirely with Hamas, who deliberately and willingly uses them as human shields.
“You’ve conceded that “precision”
bombing is not perfect yet, yet you make the absurd claim that it will “spare everyone else” and not miss, set off chain reactions or catch other targets in the blast.”
This is just getting ridiculous now Alex. In no way could my words be construed to mean that I claim that the weapons available to Israel will “spare everyone else.” Please stop lying. If there were a weapon available to Israel which would kill Hamas and spare everyone else then you know as well as I know that they would use it.
“That would be the case if the “human shield” strategy worked equally well (or do I mean badly) regardless of what weapons are being used. This is not the case. It is most effective against targeted attacks with weapons than cause multiple casualties with one shot. By continuing to use missiles, bombs and shells instead of bullets and bayonets, Israel is deciding to call Hamas’ bluff, even if that means killing more human shields.”
No, by continuing to use missiles, bombs and shells instead of bullets and bayonets Israel is minimizing the loss of its own people. Why else do you think they use them? With the intent to kill as many human shields as possible? Of course not. The intent of Hamas, in contrast, is that as many civilians are killed as possible. Israel cares more about the lives of ordinary Palestinians than Hamas does.
“An indirect consequence. It is also the consequence, and directly, of Israel shooting the human shields.”
It is not an indirect consequence at all Alex. Here you are again, doing everything you can to deny the culpability of Hamas despite their sick intent of their actions. The blame for the consequence of Israel accidentally shooting human shields in the course of defending itself lies fully with Hamas. There, I’ve said it again.
“To illustrate that, for me, the removal of Hamas does not take precedent over avoiding innocent deaths. It is absurd to claim that if I sincerely value Palestinian lives should prioritise the removal of Hamas above their preservation, as it is to claim that anyone who values something must therefore prioritise something else.”
Since “the removal of Hamas” is a statement which can be used interchangably with “defending innocent Israeli lives from Hamas’s rockets,” then yes the removal of Hamas takes precedent. Israel prioritizes the safety of its own citizens over the safety of Palestinian citizens, not because it has the intent or the wish to kill Palestinian citizens but because Hamas, in attacking Israeli citizens then hiding behind Palestinian citizens, forces Israel to decide between one and the other. If Israel could wave a magic wand to remove its need of making that choice then they would. Since there are no magic wands and the removal of Hamas takes physical force and since it is not possible to use physical force against Hamas without running the risk of killing the civilians they use as human shields, then unfortunately it has to make that choice. Sometimes a doctor has to choose between saving one life and saving another. It doesn’t mean that he intended the unlucky candidate to die. He was forced into making that choice. If you would like to then go off on another tangent about “proportionality” then I will simply refer you to the 10,000 words above these ones which respond to that argument as well.
“Sorry, I didn’t realise the above was a rhetorical question. We were no longer discussing Israel at this point, we were discussing priorities for Palestine.”
Huh? Israel has never once left the picture in this discussion.
“Again, not what I was arguing.”
Since you have yet to offer one self-defense alternative to “using force against Hamas,” there are many who would say this is entirely what you are arguing.
“What was all that stuff about ground attacks versus airstrikes then?”
A deliberate attempt to ignore the fact that Israel also prioritizes the lives of its drafted civilian soliders?
“But yes, Israel has several options. Total inaction or civilian evacuation of Sderot are extreme examples and not ones I would consider reasonable. Diplomacy and compromise are a far more reasonable possibility.”
You never, under any circumstances, compromise with an enemy who has no morals whatsoever. Diplomacy is not an option when it comes to sub-human religious fanatics who celebrate a culture of death and martyrdom.
“Rocket attacks fell dramatically between the start of the last truce on 19th June and the Israeli incursion on 4th November, I make it 99 over five months, mostly it seems from Islamic Jihad, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and some kind of Badr organisation, although many went unclaimed. After the truce was broken by Israel, this rose to 574 over a month and a half.”
If rocket attacks “fell dramatically” then that means that they continued and thus there was no legitimate truce. Acting in self defense in response to this is a legitimate reason for breaking a truce, although none existed in this case.
“Since the truce officially ended, less than one month ago, 650 rockets have been fired at Israel (wikipedia, works this time). When Israel keeps its promises, dialogue works, and has prevented more rocket attacks, therefore saving more Israeli lives, than blowing people up has. Cast Lead has actually endangered more Israeli civilians than doing nothing would have. Undermining Hamas support by being nicer to Palestinians might work too.”
The only “success” would be a complete cessation of rocket attacks into Israel. It’s not a case of “preventing as many rocket attacks as possible,” it’s about stopping them completely. In this case, dialog obviously does not work. The insinuation underneath all of this is that Israel should just “accept” a few rocket attacks. It won’t and neither should it. It does not matter one little bit that the likes of you believe that it should. There is no evidence that Cast Lead has “endangered more Israeli civilians than doing nothing would have.” Being “nicer to Palestinians” would only be possible if Hamas would stop firing rockets into Israel outright. Then Israel could be as nice to Palestinians as they wanted. However, given that the ultimate goal of the Palestinians is not to live in friendly peace with their neighbor but to see the end of the Israel state (a goal to which end they’ve had a fantastic old time blowing themselves up in pizza joints and buses in the past), there is no evidence that being nice to Israelis would lessen the support of Hamas one bit. Put it this way – they even support Hamas as it uses their children as human shields.
Look, Alex, another sparring partner for you on the thread above!
Go! Argulympics.
I know, I should just mind my own business.
“The original UN mandated borders were actually far more ample than Israel’s actual recognised ones. But the UN never actually mandated any borders as such.”
Really? Didn’t know that. How come? There’s another reason for the ubiquity of the debate, anyway. Official permission to exist shouldn’t be a requirement, but it would definitely shut some people up.
“Jews are quite unique too, in many respects.”
They definitely win on having a frustratingly complicated history.
“Israel is not just some modern construct “dreamt up” by post-war European Jews.”
Never claimed anything of the sort. But a secular movement to re-establish the Biblical state, and the manner in which it happened was a peculiarly modern phenomenon (though it did go back to well before both wars).
“You hit the nail on the head when you mentioned antisemitism. That is really the only “reason” or cause for Israel’s existence to be questioned.”
See above. To clarify, these aren’t reasons why it’s Israel’s fault but what I see as troublesome political realities for a country with no predecessors to learn from.
“Whether it’s antisemitism expressed by Western intellectuals or ny Islamist fundamentalists it doesn’t matter, indeed it becomes ever more difficult to tell the difference between the arguments used by each of those two groups.”
I disagree, while Islamist fundamentalists really do pull out the stops, Western liberals still do attempt to justify it in terms of internationalism and universal principles. Of course, when they don’t bother with anything they could apply to anyone other than Jews, yes, they end up looking like horse’s arses and I get quite embarrassed for them.
“That’s not at all “funny”!”
Not at all? Not even the length of the “list” in comparison to, say, the kinds of list that normally appear on wikipedia? Not even the number of cross-links that actually lead to articles? Try imagining how the author hoped the list to look when finished, then look at it. Maybe imagine a Hamasnik firing a rocket at Israel, and the rocket misfiring and blowing him up and nobody else, and transfer that to an online encyclopedia.
““The Jews are a nervous people. Nineteen centuries of Christian love have taken a toll.””
Good quote. I might have that.
Sue:
“Point 1. You’re splitting hairs.”
Not at all. The extent that one party has a right to take innocent lives in self-defence should not change according to whether I agree with them or not.
“Point 2. Glad you recognise Israel’s legitimacy. Well, not glad really because your approval is not all that important, is it?”
It seems to be quite important to you and Bio, for all the fuss you’ve made between you.
“Point 3. Suffering of Jews gives us the luxury of hindsight. Now we know not to just lie down and die.”
Which changes Israel’s attitude and not its rights. Any rights it has should be the rights extended to any country, regardless of history.
“Point 4…One man’s demonisation is another man’s criticism. I say demonisation, you say criticism; let’s call the whole thing off.”
Fair enough. I would have liked to hear how my criticism counts as demonisation, but I imagine it would just end up going round in the exact same circles, and my fingers are getting tired.
“That’s what all the girls say. Apply it to any war you like, and it’s the same thing. There can be no justification that makes any killing a good thing. It’s always bad. But self preservation dictates that it happens.”
I’d agree with you there, that it basically comes down to the lesser of two evils. This is why I try to balance the evils of one action against the other, and come out with not significantly killing more people than you could possibly hope to save.
“And as for an entirely different one – well not so ‘entirely’. Heard the one about the Grand Mufti Amin al-Husseini and Hitler?”
Heard the one about the King of England and Hitler. The current Palestinians had nothing to do with the Holocaust, and the opinions of one unelected leader don’t really change that.
“When I say these things Alex, I’m not necessarily just talking to you. I’m talking more – as you do when you talk to Bio David and Jason and me – to “you lot””
In that case Sue, I would ask that you distinguish between “you” referring to me, and “you” referring to my ilk.
Biodegradable:
“First of all “Palestine” as a state doesn’t exist and never has,”
At some points in history you could have said the same for Germany, Italy, Czechoslovakia, the Czech and Slovak Republics, Yugoslavia and its current component parts, Sweden, The Republic of and Northern Ireland and several others. What’s your point?
“ and if the Arabs continue as they’ve been doing for the last 61 years there never will be a state called “Palestine”. So the question isn’t really of equal validity or import as the question of Israel’s existence.”
Still one worth asking though, and one you’ve been avoiding rather stubbornly.
“One answer of course is that what you call “Palestine”, the Arab homeland envisaged by the British Mandate, does already exist, except it’s called JORDAN. That is where the Arabs who left what is now Israel rather than remain as Arab Israeli citizens should be.”
I think it’s rather irrelevant what the British Empire envisaged. Or do you expect every country to have the Queen’s permission before declaring statehood?
“Now, if we’re going to impose conditions on the existence of the yet-to-exist Palestinian state, as you have done with regards Israel, I’d have to say that such a state as envisaged in this statement by a founder member of the PLO has no right to exist whatsoever, if the objective of that state, as declared, is solely to destroy the state of Israel:”
The only thing I could find along the lines of “destroying Israel” is “anti-Zionism”, which isn’t necessarily the same thing, considering the massive number of uses the word “Zionism” has taken on among Israel’s supporters and enemies alike. But assuming he did mean “Zionism” as in the existence of Israel, I still don’t see how one person’s opinion invalidates any claim to statehood.
“If one accepts that Zionism is the expression of the Jew’s eternal desire, since his expulsion from Eretz Yisroel by the Romans, to return to that land I simply don’t understand how you can in the same paragraph both support it and cast doubts on it.”
I’ll clarify. I understand entirely the pragmatic arguments for Zionism and why Herzl found fault with the assimilation movement, especially in light of the Dreyfus Affair (I think Barbara Honigmann summed its failings up best, saying that in practice Jews became “Ein Jude auf der Straße und ein Mensch zu Hause”). However I think not that only did the early Zionist movement massively underestimate the hostility they would encounter in the Altneuland, they also left the same structures in place in Europe that had caused Jews (and others) to be discriminated against. Herzl’s strategy, for me, is little more than moving the problem and has (so far) not done much more to keep the Jews safe. Though I might well be proven wrong in my lifetime.
On the other hand, due to mass Aliyah followed by reproduction, all this changes. Whether Zionism is the right strategy becomes entirely academic, and the only question is whether the Olim have the right to stay in their new home, whether their children have the right to live in the land of their birth and whether, as they now comprise a majority within their borders, they have a right to declare and maintain statehood.
“(note: return to, not “move to”)”
Let’s settle on ‘ascend to’.
“As I pointed out it was not only a “problem” for European Jews, Jews born in Arab countries were also expelled from the homes they’d lived in for generations. You didn’t answer my question as to where they should, or could have gone if not to Israel.”
Cross purposes. You’re fifty years ahead of me. I was referring to the problems of Jews in 1897, when I find the various motives and arguments much more interesting. Everything was more clear-cut in 1947, when Jews were in something of a tizzy and Israel was one of very few, if not the only way out. The responsibility for this need of course, lies with the many, many countries that refused to take Jewish refugees. Like you said, everyone loves a dead Jew, though I’d also point out that they often prefer live Jews in a desert a long way away to live Jews at home.
“Well done, but I expect a “but” here soon…
Er, if it makes you happy. …But they have to build a new city and name it after a novel.
“[Kosovo and Tibet] Yeeees?
Disputing the details of your question “and only Israel” while conceding that the general thrust of your question was right.
“Gosh, it seems you’re actually saying something I can’t find much fault with… for how much longer, I ask myself…
I’m amazed how long you’ve kept the anger up despite my agreeing with you on a lot of things.
“I’m afraid I couldn’t really see the relevance of the article you linked to, and had to search for the comment by O’Reilly.”
The one I meant was: “Bill O’Reilly knows that and doesn’t like it one bit, as evidenced by his response to a Jewish caller last December who said that he found O’Reilly’s views on Christmas objectionable. O’Reilly told him to ‘move to Israel.'” O’Reilly is using the existence of Israel to treat American Jews as outsiders and so dismiss their right to attempt to change their society. He is also considering all Diaspora Jews as Israelis, rather than Americans, despite their decision to stay pretty much proving their loyalty. Which is pretty nasty. Basically, he (and I’m sure he’s not the only one) likes having somewhere to tell Jews to fuck off to.
“It’s the Muslims who have fabricated their claim to the al-Aqsa for the same reasons articulated by PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein above. Jerusalem is not mentioned once in the Koran or the Hadiths and this claim to be the third most holy site is a recent invention.”
How recent, just so I know? Pre-1948 or post-? And since the importance of Al-Aqsa Mosque is largely due to what Mohammed did when he was dead, you wouldn’t expect him to say or write much about it when he was alive.
“Israel’s religious justification for its existence is also a minor factor. It’s so minor as to be insignificant…”
I disagree. I think that, apart from with the Holocaust, talk of the “Promised Land” often overshadows perfectly valid secular arguments, making it harder for Israel to persuade non-Jews. I heard the Biblical arguments for Israel when I was seven, it wasn’t until University that the political complexities of Jewish life in 19th Century Europe cropped up.
“The original UN mandated borders were actually far more ample than Israel’s actual recognised ones. But the UN never actually mandated any borders as such.”
Really? Didn’t know that. How come? There’s another reason for the ubiquity of the debate, anyway. Official permission to exist shouldn’t be a requirement, but it would definitely shut some people up.
“Jews are quite unique too, in many respects.”
They definitely win on having a frustratingly complicated history.
“Israel is not just some modern construct “dreamt up” by post-war European Jews.”
Never claimed anything of the sort. But a secular movement to re-establish the Biblical state, and the manner in which it happened was a peculiarly modern phenomenon (though it did go back to well before both wars).
“You hit the nail on the head when you mentioned antisemitism. That is really the only “reason” or cause for Israel’s existence to be questioned.”
See above. To clarify, these aren’t reasons why it’s Israel’s fault but what I see as troublesome political realities for a country with no predecessors to learn from.
“Whether it’s antisemitism expressed by Western intellectuals or ny Islamist fundamentalists it doesn’t matter, indeed it becomes ever more difficult to tell the difference between the arguments used by each of those two groups.”
I disagree, while Islamist fundamentalists really do pull out the stops, Western liberals still do attempt to justify it in terms of internationalism and universal principles. Of course, when they don’t bother with anything they could apply to anyone other than Jews, yes, they end up looking like horse’s arses and I get quite embarrassed for them.
“That’s not at all “funny”!”
Not at all? Not even the length of the “list” in comparison to, say, the kinds of list that normally appear on wikipedia? Not even the number of cross-links that actually lead to articles? Try imagining how the author hoped the list to look when finished, then look at it. Maybe imagine a Hamasnik firing a rocket at Israel, and the rocket misfiring and blowing him up and nobody else, and transfer that to an online encyclopedia.
““The Jews are a nervous people. Nineteen centuries of Christian love have taken a toll.””
Good quote. I might have that.
Sue:
“Point 1. You’re splitting hairs.”
Not at all. The extent that one party has a right to take innocent lives in self-defence should not change according to whether I agree with them or not.
“Point 2. Glad you recognise Israel’s legitimacy. Well, not glad really because your approval is not all that important, is it?”
It seems to be quite important to you and Bio, for all the fuss you’ve made between you.
“Point 3. Suffering of Jews gives us the luxury of hindsight. Now we know not to just lie down and die.”
Which changes Israel’s attitude and not its rights. Any rights it has should be the rights extended to any country, regardless of history.
“Point 4…One man’s demonisation is another man’s criticism. I say demonisation, you say criticism; let’s call the whole thing off.”
Fair enough. I would have liked to hear how my criticism counts as demonisation, but I imagine it would just end up going round in the exact same circles, and my fingers are getting tired.
“That’s what all the girls say. Apply it to any war you like, and it’s the same thing. There can be no justification that makes any killing a good thing. It’s always bad. But self preservation dictates that it happens.”
I’d agree with you there, that it basically comes down to the lesser of two evils. This is why I try to balance the evils of one action against the other, and come out with not significantly killing more people than you could possibly hope to save.
“And as for an entirely different one – well not so ‘entirely’. Heard the one about the Grand Mufti Amin al-Husseini and Hitler?”
Heard the one about the King of England and Hitler. The current Palestinians had nothing to do with the Holocaust, and the opinions of one unelected leader don’t really change that.
“When I say these things Alex, I’m not necessarily just talking to you. I’m talking more – as you do when you talk to Bio David and Jason and me – to “you lot””
In that case Sue, I would ask that you distinguish between “you” referring to me, and “you” referring to my ilk.
Jason:
“The narrow gray area under which “killing your assailant in self defense” just happens to encompass the situation in which your assailant is a terrorist sworn to the cause of your destruction.”
Provided the terrorist is the only possible casualty. This is the entire length of this particular grey area, which I have already pointed out constitutes legitimate self-defence in my opinion. The above is a description, not an endorsement of a point of view.
“So why even bring this up? In fact, you mentioned that you thought the killing of your assailant was not important to you – the purpose being of course to insinuate that anyone to whom the killing of an assailant was important is somehow motivated by something other than self defense – bloodlust, anger, revenge and the like.”
No, simply that unless killing the terrorist is a necessity (which, as you point out, it realistically is in this situation), then it no longer counts as self-defence. Regardless of importance, it is a secondary concern.
“Israel is not using “disproportionate force” – it is using the required amount of force in order to destroy Hamas.”
That’s very much a matter of opinion. As is whether Israel has any right to destroy Hamas’ civilian supporters and infrastructure.
“Unless you can think of a non-lethal way for Israel to destroy Hamas then your stance in this matter is absurd.”
Undermining them politically, or simply destroying their armed militant wing with bullets and bayonets and leaving it at that. Even wiping out all its supporters to a man wouldn’t kill the ideology, though it might well strengthen it.
“Since further attacks on Israel are a distinct possibility, the victim’s (Israel) right to life and safety vastly outweighs the attacker’s (Hamas). Which is why Israel has every right to do what it does.”
As long as only the victim’s and attacker’s right to life are at stake, yes. But it is disgusting to suggest that the innocent bystander (Gazans) forfeits any kind of right.
“Anyway, not only are you forgetting that this is not a case of criminal malice but a case of self defense, but you’re also neglecting to consider the phrase “desires it to happen.” Israel does not desire the deaths of Palestinian civilians and goes to great lengths to avoid their deaths as much as that is possible given that Hamas deliberately uses them as human shields.”
By the definition above, Israel can predict and does accept the civilian casualties that it doesn’t manage to avoid, therefore by the legal definition it does “desire” them. And killing people who are no threat to you most definitely is a criminal act regardless of motive. Yes, Hamas probably does desire the death of its human shields on some level, but we’ve never disagreed on that.
“Their strategy is to force Israel to defend itself and then to forcibly throw its own civilians into the direct path of that defense so that the world will turn against Israel and side with Hamas. It’s just a shame that so many people are stupid enough to fall for it. Israel is not “falling for it” because it is acting as it must, in self defense. Nobody else has any reasonable excuse to dance to the tune of Hamas.”
So what you’re saying is Israel does exactly what Hamas wants, and is therefore the only party not dancing to their tune?
“That’s an unfortunate number but it is after all due to the fact that Hamas uses civilians as human shields.”
Partially, yes. But only partially. See entire argument.
“Israel also has a right to seek to minimize the lives lost on its own side – more than it has a responsiblity to minimize deaths on the Palestinian side, which after all are the responsibility of Hamas.”
I disagree entirely. Nobody has any right whatsoever to value the lives of willing combatants over civilians’, and some vague way of blaming the other side does nothing to diminish this.
“To this end, the weaponry it uses serves that purpose. I think the point you’re trying to make here is that you don’t believe Israel should worry about the deaths of its own military and that they should tolerate the deaths of perhaps hundreds more Israeli soliders in order that the lives of Palestinian civilians be saved.”
Yes, that is exactly what I am arguing, and it is despicable, cowardly and quite frankly racist to argue anything else.
“Hamas is responsible for creating the situation in the first place. But if it is possible for the victims, in this case Palestinian civilians, to save themselves, then the fact that Hamas puts them in that situation does not lessen their responsibility to save themselves one jot.”
Funny, you argue the exact opposite with Israel’s reaction to the situations Hamas puts it in.
“Israel has a responsibility to act in self defense and does – the Palestinians have a responsibility to act in self defense but don’t.”
The responsibility not to commit cold-blooded murder sort of trumps the responsibility not to run away. How many other victims are you going to blame for not getting out of the way? Battered wives? Rape victims? All those Jews that didn’t fight the Nazis hard enough?
“The above paragraph I’ve quoted contains another lie: you claim that I’ve said I consider no notion of responsibility in the pursuit of self preservation. That isn’t true.”
It’s the only thing one could possibly infer from your many, many statements. You’ve let an awful lot of hypothetical innocent people die trying to preserve your own hypothetical life.
“As for your last question, yes I consider my own life to be worth at least 10,000 times more than a stranger’s life”
That’s pretty callous.
“It’s nothing like blaming my cook for making me fat at all. Nice try though.”
It is your cook who forces you to make the choice between his delicious meal and a bland green salad. The high calorie-content of your dinner is entirely of his making.
“Their primary purpose is to destroy and incapacitate Hamas outright, not “deter” them. If in the act of decimating Hamas they are also “deterred” then this is a good thing also. It does not mean that deterrence is Israel’s goal or moral justification for its actions – and neither did I imply or insinuate any such thing.”
Not so. You insinuated that removing this deterrent increases the number of innocent Israeli lives at stake, and that this can be balanced against Palestinians in the same was as those threatened by not neutralising Hamas.
“it is only fair that Israel considers how many Israelis are likely to die in the future if they don’t act…and in making that forecast, it is only fair to consider the possibility that their inaction would result in Hamas increasing the number of rocket attacks it perpetrates.”
This increase, as you argued, is not due to the larger number of surviving militants, but the lack of a deterrent. You clearly see this “deterrence”, even if it includes innocent people dying, as a reasonable way to prevent future rocket attacks and one that should be taken into account.
“So yes, you misread me, misunderstood me and tied yourself in knots in an attempt to make it look as though I meant something I didn’t.”
I read something into your statements that was clearly implied.
“Since not acting in self defense is not and must never be an option for Israel”
I never claimed it should never be an option. Not once.
“This is just getting ridiculous now Alex. In no way could my words be construed to mean that I claim that the weapons available to Israel will “spare everyone else.””
Just read your post again. You actually said the opposite to that. Point retracted.
“If there were a weapon available to Israel which would kill Hamas and spare everyone else then you know as well as I know that they would use it.”
I’m assuming rifles don’t do that.
“No, by continuing to use missiles, bombs and shells instead of bullets and bayonets Israel is minimizing the loss of its own people.”
Which, for reasons mentioned above, when the people in question are willing combatants, is cowardly and despicable.
“Israel cares more about the lives of ordinary Palestinians than Hamas does.”
I’d say maybe “as much as”. Remember, as far as we can infer from its actions, Hamas is only willing to take the risk of civilian deaths during Israeli retaliation. Israel is willing to guarantee them.
“Here you are again, doing everything you can to deny the culpability of Hamas despite their sick intent of their actions.”
As stated times, I am not denying Hamas culpability but including Israel’s. It is only you that wishes to utterly absolve one party of any responsibility for its murderous actions.
“Since “the removal of Hamas” is a statement which can be used interchangably with “defending innocent Israeli lives from Hamas’s rockets,” then yes the removal of Hamas takes precedent.”
That depends how many Israelis are removed at the cost of how many Palestinians.
“Sometimes a doctor has to choose between saving one life and saving another. It doesn’t mean that he intended the unlucky candidate to die. He was forced into making that choice.”
And you would claim he bears absolutely no responsibility for making that decision?
“You never, under any circumstances, compromise with an enemy who has no morals whatsoever.”
Whether there exists anyone in the real world who has absolutely no morals at all, which I doubt, every enemy has interests, which one can bargain with.
“Diplomacy is not an option when it comes to sub-human religious fanatics who celebrate a culture of death and martyrdom.”
Israel seems to disagree, via Egypt. And with some success. And there is no such thing as sub-humans.
“If rocket attacks “fell dramatically” then that means that they continued and thus there was no legitimate truce.”
Hamas cannot be held responsible for rocket attacks it does not carry out itself, any more than Israel can be held responsible for the settler who tried to fire a rocket back. If Hamas was indeed behind some of these rockets, yes, that would be a violation of the truce. The fact that it was unable to prevent others with 100% success is not necessarily its fault, any more than the police are responsible for bank-robberies.
“The only “success” would be a complete cessation of rocket attacks into Israel. It’s not a case of “preventing as many rocket attacks as possible,” it’s about stopping them completely.”
Neither of which Israel has achieved. Which means, by your reckoning, 667 innocent people have died in vain. Reduction is better than nothing, and diplomacy rather than force achieved this.
“There is no evidence that Cast Lead has “endangered more Israeli civilians than doing nothing would have.””
Apart from the greater number of rockets than during the truce.
“Being “nicer to Palestinians” would only be possible if Hamas would stop firing rockets into Israel outright. Then Israel could be as nice to Palestinians as they wanted.”
Sounds like collective punishment to me.
“However, given that the ultimate goal of the Palestinians is not to live in friendly peace with their neighbor but to see the end of the Israel state (a goal to which end they’ve had a fantastic old time blowing themselves up in pizza joints and buses in the past), there is no evidence that being nice to Israelis would lessen the support of Hamas one bit.”
“The ultimate goal of the Palestinians”? That’s something of a generalisation isn’t it? I might as well give you some quotes from Avigdor Liebermann and tell you that’s what Israelis want.
“Put it this way – they even support Hamas as it uses their children as human shields.”
Do you expect them to support Israel as it fires rockets at their children?
Another thing you seem to be insinuating is that all the paramilitaries that Israel is killing are behind rocket attacks against civilians. This is highly unlikely. I’m sure that a lot of the militants that Israel is killing are only involved in firing on IDF troops. Do Palestinians have the right to attack the IDF in self-defence, or does this right only extend to Israel?
Phew.
“Provided the terrorist is the only possible casualty. This is the entire length of this particular grey area, which I have already pointed out constitutes legitimate self-defence in my opinion. The above is a description, not an endorsement of a point of view.”
No Alex, it isn’t limited to instances in which the terrorist is the only casualty. As I have argued throughout this whole thread, the right to self defense includes defending yourself from deadly attacks when your attacker uses human shields. He is fully responsible for those deaths as if he had murdered them. You have done nothing so far to convince me otherwise.
“No, simply that unless killing the terrorist is a necessity (which, as you point out, it realistically is in this situation), then it no longer counts as self-defence. Regardless of importance, it is a secondary concern.”
And since killing a terrorist for a reason other than self defense is not at all applicable to the subject of this argument, I’m still wondering why you brought it up. In fact I know why you brought it up. Because your role in this thread is simply to argue for the sake of arguing. I will repeat: you have failed to convince me, or anyone else here, to change their minds since your arguments just aren’t good enough. I’m exceedingly open to having my mind changed by an argumentative adversary and indeed it has happend on many occasions since I started taking part in online discussions. But in this case, your arguments just aren’t good enough to convince me.
“That’s very much a matter of opinion. As is whether Israel has any right to destroy Hamas’ civilian supporters and infrastructure.”
Yes, it’s very much a matter of opinion. I am of the opinion that they are not using disproportionate force and that they have the right to use force even if it means the unfortunate deaths of some of Hamas’ civilian supporters. You have done nothing whatsoever to dissuade me from this view. Furthermore, if it is simply a “matter of opinion” then Israel will, as you are no doubt aware, choose to ignore yours and carry on with doing what it decides it needs to do to protect its citizens.
“Undermining them politically, or simply destroying their armed militant wing with bullets and bayonets and leaving it at that. Even wiping out all its supporters to a man wouldn’t kill the ideology, though it might well strengthen it.”
There is no political solution to Hamas. Palestinians hate Jews and always will do. Until such a time as they work out that it’s alright to hate Jews if they want to as long as they refrain from expressing their hate physically, then they will continue to suffer the consequences of Israel’s self defensive measures. The reason why Israel does not simply use “guns and bayonets” to fight Hamas is that doing so would result on far more casualties on their side. Their aim is to minimize the threat to Israeli lives first and foremost – and secondly, to minimize the threat to innocent Palestinians. Israel values its soliders as much as it values its citizens and rightly so. There is no political solution that would “kill the ideology” either, so the only solution is to use force in the name of self defense. This also applies to the wider war on terrorism. As long as Muslims possess the goal to end the state of Israel, there will be no “peace.” The Islamist mindset is a scourge, a virus, a cancer, which celebrates death over life. They inhabit a universe full of ghosts and demons and they take those ghosts and demons seriously. Perhaps the only way to full end the nightmare is to spread liberal democracy and free trade throughout the Middle East. But as long as Palestinians vow the deaths of Israelis, the blockade will remain in place and Israel will not stop defending itself, as much as people like you believe they should.
“As long as only the victim’s and attacker’s right to life are at stake, yes. But it is disgusting to suggest that the innocent bystander (Gazans) forfeits any kind of right.”
Of course they have a right to live. That right is taken from them by Hamas, who attacks the civilians of a country capable of (and forced into) defending itself and then uses their own people as human shields. Sooner or later Alex, you HAVE to get it into your thick skull that Israel does not and should not base its actions on a “formula” which aims to match Palestinian deaths with deaths of Israelis. They are not in the bean counting trade, they are defending their country.
“By the definition above, Israel can predict and does accept the civilian casualties that it doesn’t manage to avoid, therefore by the legal definition it does “desire” them. And killing people who are no threat to you most definitely is a criminal act regardless of motive. Yes, Hamas probably does desire the death of its human shields on some level, but we’ve never disagreed on that.”
No Alex that is not, has never been and never will be the definition, legal or otherwise, of “desire.” Killing people who are no threat to you would be a crime if the motive was not self-defense and especially if those people were not being used as human shields but because it is and because they are, it is not a crime. Furthermore, there is no “some level” about it – Hamas desires the deaths of those human shields.
“So what you’re saying is Israel does exactly what Hamas wants, and is therefore the only party not dancing to their tune?”
Please read what I write carefully before responding. I did not say that Israel does not “dance to their tune” – I said that Israel has an excuse to dance to their tune. The excuse of self defense. The tune that Hamas wants others to dance to is the naive, gullible condemnation of Israel’s act of self defense and nobody has an excuse to dance to that tune.
“Partially, yes. But only partially. See entire argument.”
There is no “partially” about it. See entire argument.
“I disagree entirely. Nobody has any right whatsoever to value the lives of willing combatants over civilians’, and some vague way of blaming the other side does nothing to diminish this.”
They do if the operation is one of self defense. They have every right to minimize the deaths of their own soliders, who, incidentally, are drafted into a compulsary military service. My blaming of the other side is not “vague,” it’s as clear as day.
“Yes, that is exactly what I am arguing, and it is despicable, cowardly and quite frankly racist to argue anything else.”
I will disregard your pathetic use of the term “racist” since leftists like you love to throw it around like confetti at a wedding, especially when you’re not winning an argument. Israel will not sacrifice the lives of its people willingly in order to save the lives of Hamas’ human shields. They will take other steps to reduce the risk to Palestinians, but sacrificing their own people is not one of them. I have no respect whatsoever for your idea of “despicable,” “cowardly” or “racist.” It’s worth clearing that up before we go any further.
“Funny, you argue the exact opposite with Israel’s reaction to the situations Hamas puts it in.”
And how do you suppose Israelis “save themselves”? Pack up and move out, I suppose. Sorry, not an option. Their responsibility to save themselves takes the form of using their military to act in self defense. I don’t argue the exact opposite at all.
“The responsibility not to commit cold-blooded murder sort of trumps the responsibility not to run away. How many other victims are you going to blame for not getting out of the way? Battered wives? Rape victims? All those Jews that didn’t fight the Nazis hard enough?”
Acting in self defense is not “cold-blooded murder.” You can use whatever phrases you like as theatrically as you wish to demonize Israel’s actions and it won’t make a jot of difference. Furthermore, like I pointed out, responsibility as applied to different people within the dynamics of a situation do not “trump” each other, cancel each other out or affect each other in any way. A battered wife has the full responsibility to leave her husband if that’s a possibility (i.e. he’s not keeping her prisoner). But that doesn’t mean that the husband doesn’t also have the full responsibility to stop battering his wife. They are two different responsibilities applied to two different people – they are not a finite pie shared by the two.
“It’s the only thing one could possibly infer from your many, many statements. You’ve let an awful lot of hypothetical innocent people die trying to preserve your own hypothetical life.”
It’s the only thing an idiot like you could “possibly infer.” And before you start twitching in indignation – yes, that was an insult and I fully intended it to be. I made my position clear, that you have the responsibility to avoid casualties if at all possible, as long as it doesn’t affect your ability to save your own life. As I have also pointed out, the issue of whether or not you think I’m “despicable” for that is completely and utterly inconsequential.
“That’s pretty callous.”
Not to me it’s not.
Cont….
“It is your cook who forces you to make the choice between his delicious meal and a bland green salad. The high calorie-content of your dinner is entirely of his making.”
Alex don’t be so completely and utterly ridiculously stupid. The cook does not force you to eat either dish. If he held a gun to your head and forced you to eat one of the two options then that would be a different matter.
“Not so. You insinuated that removing this deterrent increases the number of innocent Israeli lives at stake, and that this can be balanced against Palestinians in the same was as those threatened by not neutralising Hamas.”
Go back and read what I wrote again. The frequency with which you fail to understand plain English is getting tiresome now. I did not talk of “balancing” anything and I clearly pointed out that deterrence is not Israel’s goal or moral justification for its actions.
“This increase, as you argued, is not due to the larger number of surviving militants, but the lack of a deterrent. You clearly see this “deterrence”, even if it includes innocent people dying, as a reasonable way to prevent future rocket attacks and one that should be taken into account.”
See above. I explained myself – and dealt with this exact same point – quite clearly. I do not care if you interpret the phrase “see above” as a cop out or an evasion – I’m simply sick of typing the same arguments over and over because you’re too stupid and/or too lazy to understand them.
“I read something into your statements that was clearly implied.”
Not at all Alex. You don’t have the sense of value judgment or interpretation to discern what’s being implied and what’s not. You simply twist yourself into pretzels in the attempt to create new arguments to throw into the ring. It’s an act of desperation and I don’t suppose there’s one other person reading this who doesn’t share this view.
“I’m assuming rifles don’t do that.”
No, they don’t. Furthermore, the exclusive use of rifles would mean the deaths of many times more Israelis.
“Which, for reasons mentioned above, when the people in question are willing combatants, is cowardly and despicable.”
And for reasons mentioned above, your idea of what’s “cowardly and despicable” is inconsequential. It wouldn’t be, if you had succeeded in selling your arguments to me, but you haven’t.
“I’d say maybe “as much as”. Remember, as far as we can infer from its actions, Hamas is only willing to take the risk of civilian deaths during Israeli retaliation. Israel is willing to guarantee them.”
No Alex, more than. Hamas wishes for the deaths of it civilians (the more the better) and Israel regrets the deaths of civilians in the act of defending itself (the fewer the better). Hamas guarantees the deaths of Palestinian civilians by forcing Israel to defend itself and then hiding behind those civilians.
“As stated times, I am not denying Hamas culpability but including Israel’s. It is only you that wishes to utterly absolve one party of any responsibility for its murderous actions.”
Since Israel’s actions are not “murderous” that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
“That depends how many Israelis are removed at the cost of how many Palestinians.”
There you go again with the bean counting. It’s not about counting Alex, it’s about one side defending itself from the other. The math of responsibility involved is the consequence of Hamas using civilians as human shields, not Israel defending itself.
“And you would claim he bears absolutely no responsibility for making that decision?”
On the shallowest level, yes. When it comes to apportioning blame for the death of one of them, no.