Go Israel Go!

Off Topic Politics and World Issues
41

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Phate89 wrote:
Gkhan wrote:
Phate89 wrote:
Reminds me of the book " THe sum of all fears" Tom Clancy.
Which is exactly what happened.

Saw the movie. Did not read the book. Can you explain more about this?

“After the Palestinians start using non-violent protesting and one of the unarmed, seated protesters is murdered by an Israeli police official, the U.S finds that they can no longer support Israel. But the U.S. also cannot leave Israel without this support since it would risk destabilizing the region. A clever plan to accelerate the peace process is put into action, and to everyone’s surprise it seems to work.”

Pretty much the world saw that Israel is the aggressor, and for th e first time the world saw that Israel wasn’t the “innocent state trying to defend itself”

Serious question.

Why don’t they take a non-violent approach? There is no doubt it would work better.

[/quote]

They did initially. The First Intifada was mostly non-violent, or rather very low violence, Palestinian kids throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers, and often being shot in response. This was consciously done, and indeed when Palestinians started using Molotov cocktails their leadership quickly cracked down on the practice. The First Intifada was basically a success, led to Oslo and the first serious discussion of a Palestinian state. Israel is pretty immune to international pressure, indeed in the Eighties it did a lot of business with other isolated states, i.e. Taiwan and appartheid South Africa. But it is not immune to (very rare) pressure from the U.S.

But I think Israeli intransigence and continual bad faith in negotiating, along with worsening living conditions in the Territories, led to Palestinian frustration. More extremist elements (Hamas, and far worse, like Islamic Jihad) came to the fore. This was also due to Fatah’s corruption. So when the Second Intifada exploded after Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount, it was going to be violent. And of course the change from secular nationalists (PLO, PFLP) to Islamists (Hamas, Islamic Jihad) added the whole cult of martyrdom to the mix.

Retired Marine Colonel T.X. Hammes has a good two chapters contrasting the two Intifadas in his book “The Sling and the Stone.”

42

[quote]lixy wrote:
dk44 wrote:
I personally am not happy that children are dead. I agree that the OP is a little “too happy,” but I don’t mind Israel doing whatever it takes to protect itself. I hate the fact that women and children have to die, men too for that matter. But…you have to admit that Israel isn’t exactly fighting a “known” enemy, and as the U.S. is showing, it is an uphill battle trying to kill evil motherfuckers that hide so well with average joes.

Thing is, you cannot win that battle without slaughtering everyone and her brother. Obviously not something Israel (or the US) can do. The current state of affairs is only exacerbating the tensions and creating yet another generation of pissed off Arabs over there.

The only alternative is dialog and addressing legitimate grievances.[/quote]

Reasoning with Palestinians is like reasoning with the King of Morocco. No matter what you say, even if its only a joke, you’re screwed.

43

[quote]GDollars37 wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
Phate89 wrote:
Gkhan wrote:
Phate89 wrote:
Reminds me of the book " THe sum of all fears" Tom Clancy.
Which is exactly what happened.

Saw the movie. Did not read the book. Can you explain more about this?

“After the Palestinians start using non-violent protesting and one of the unarmed, seated protesters is murdered by an Israeli police official, the U.S finds that they can no longer support Israel. But the U.S. also cannot leave Israel without this support since it would risk destabilizing the region. A clever plan to accelerate the peace process is put into action, and to everyone’s surprise it seems to work.”

Pretty much the world saw that Israel is the aggressor, and for th e first time the world saw that Israel wasn’t the “innocent state trying to defend itself”

Serious question.

Why don’t they take a non-violent approach? There is no doubt it would work better.

They did initially. The First Intifada was mostly non-violent, or rather very low violence, Palestinian kids throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers, and often being shot in response. This was consciously done, and indeed when Palestinians started using Molotov cocktails their leadership quickly cracked down on the practice. The First Intifada was basically a success, led to Oslo and the first serious discussion of a Palestinian state. Israel is pretty immune to international pressure, indeed in the Eighties it did a lot of business with other isolated states, i.e. Taiwan and appartheid South Africa. But it is not immune to (very rare) pressure from the U.S.

But I think Israeli intransigence and continual bad faith in negotiating, along with worsening living conditions in the Territories, led to Palestinian frustration. More extremist elements (Hamas, and far worse, like Islamic Jihad) came to the fore. This was also due to Fatah’s corruption. So when the Second Intifada exploded after Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount, it was going to be violent. And of course the change from secular nationalists (PLO, PFLP) to Islamists (Hamas, Islamic Jihad) added the whole cult of martyrdom to the mix.

Retired Marine Colonel T.X. Hammes has a good two chapters contrasting the two Intifadas in his book “The Sling and the Stone.”[/quote]

The First Intifada came after decades of terrorist acts and was not nonviolent.


The intifada was violent from the start. During the first four years of the uprising, more than 3,600 Molotov cocktail attacks, 100 hand grenade attacks and 600 assaults with guns or explosives were reported by the Israel Defense Forces. The violence was directed at soldiers and civilians alike. During this period, 16 Israeli civilians and 11 soldiers were killed by Palestinians in the territories; more than 1,400 Israeli civilians and 1,700 Israeli soldiers were injured.

They really need the Ghandi type nonviolence, not the rock/molotov coctail throwing type.

44

Excerpt from the last report of John Dugard, South-African law professor and militant anti-Apartheid (you know…in the era where Reagan and Tatcher labelled the ANC a “terrorist” organization):

Common sense, however, dictates that a distinction must be drawn between acts of mindless terror, such as acts committed by Al Qaeda, and acts committed in the course of a war of national liberation against colonialism, apartheid or military occupation. While such acts cannot be justified, they must be understood as being a painful but inevitable consequence of colonialism, apartheid or occupation. History is replete with examples of military occupation that have been resisted by violence - acts of terror. The German occupation was resisted by many European countries in the Second World War; the South West Africa People�??s Organization (SWAPO) resisted South Africa�??s occupation of Namibia; and Jewish groups resisted British occupation of Palestine - inter alia, by the blowing up of the King David Hotel in 1946 with heavy loss of life, by a group masterminded by Menachem Begin, who later became Prime Minister of Israel. Acts of terror against military occupation must be seen in historical context. This is why every effort should be made to bring the occupation to a speedy end. Until this is done peace cannot be expected, and violence will continue. In other situations, for example Namibia, peace has been achieved by the ending of occupation, without setting the end of resistance as a precondition. Israel cannot expect perfect peace and the end of violence as a precondition for the ending of the occupation.

45

[quote]lixy wrote:
Excerpt from the last report of John Dugard, South-African law professor and militant anti-Apartheid (you know…in the era where Reagan and Tatcher labelled the ANC a “terrorist” organization):

Common sense, however, dictates that a distinction must be drawn between acts of mindless terror, such as acts committed by Al Qaeda, and acts committed in the course of a war of national liberation against colonialism, apartheid or military occupation. While such acts cannot be justified, they must be understood as being a painful but inevitable consequence of colonialism, apartheid or occupation. History is replete with examples of military occupation that have been resisted by violence - acts of terror. The German occupation was resisted by many European countries in the Second World War; the South West Africa Peopleâ¿¿s Organization (SWAPO) resisted South Africaâ¿¿s occupation of Namibia; and Jewish groups resisted British occupation of Palestine - inter alia, by the blowing up of the King David Hotel in 1946 with heavy loss of life, by a group masterminded by Menachem Begin, who later became Prime Minister of Israel. Acts of terror against military occupation must be seen in historical context. This is why every effort should be made to bring the occupation to a speedy end. Until this is done peace cannot be expected, and violence will continue. In other situations, for example Namibia, peace has been achieved by the ending of occupation, without setting the end of resistance as a precondition. Israel cannot expect perfect peace and the end of violence as a precondition for the ending of the occupation.

http://www.diakonia.se/documents/public/IHL/Publications/Dugard_January2008.pdf[/quote]

The problem with all that is groups like Hamas say they will stop at nothing short of the destruction of Israel.

46

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
The problem with all that is groups like Hamas say they will stop at nothing short of the destruction of Israel.[/quote]

With what? Rocks? Katyushas? Incantations?

47

[quote]Phate89 wrote:
This is why I hate zionists.

You forgot to mention out of the 50 , 18 were children.

Death to israel.[/quote]

Perhaps the Arabs shouldn’t have been shooting from behind children in order to score points with Reuters, AP, and other news services.

48

[quote]lixy wrote:
fatcat wrote:
I think the original poster is wrong in being gleeful about the Arab deaths, considering a number of them are innocents, but the other side of the coin is that the rockets fired at Israel come, many times, from densely populated neighborhoods. There is an extremely powerful picture illustrating my point here by Emilio Morenatti:

Gaza is easily one of the most dense places on Earth. And last I checked, Hamas has been democratically elected.[/quote]

What’s your point? Hitler was democratically elected as well. If Mohammed were alive today, he would claim he was democratically elected to be the Arabist leader of the entire world.

49

[quote]lixy wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
The problem with all that is groups like Hamas say they will stop at nothing short of the destruction of Israel.

With what? Rocks? Katyushas? Incantations?[/quote]

As you well know, lixy, Hamas and Hizb’allah are sponsored by Iran and Syria. When Iran finally acquires nuclear weapons, they simply have to give one to one of their proxies to blow up near the fence. Israel is small. Of course, according to you, Iran is building nuclear plants for peaceful purposes.

50

[quote]lixy wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
The problem with all that is groups like Hamas say they will stop at nothing short of the destruction of Israel.

With what? Rocks? Katyushas? Incantations?[/quote]

The King of Morocco is pissed at the Israelis. The Israelis are done now, for sure. No more web access for them!!!

51

[quote]lixy wrote:
fatcat wrote:
I think the original poster is wrong in being gleeful about the Arab deaths, considering a number of them are innocents, but the other side of the coin is that the rockets fired at Israel come, many times, from densely populated neighborhoods. There is an extremely powerful picture illustrating my point here by Emilio Morenatti:

Gaza is easily one of the most dense places on Earth. And last I checked, Hamas has been democratically elected.[/quote]

I believe you missed my point. The reason I mentioned the population density was to point out the fact that even if Israel does try to reduce collateral damage, civilian deaths are inevitable when they are attacking militants who reside in residential areas among innocent civilians. But then again you can say the reason it is so densely populated is because Israel maintains the largest open-air prison in the world. The argument never ends.

52

So, is it safe to say that Israel would not have invaded Gaza unless it was attacked.

If these rocket and or suicide bomb attacks stopped, what would the chances of a unilateral Israeli invasion of Gaza be?

53

[quote]Gkhan wrote:
So, is it safe to say that Israel would not have invaded Gaza unless it was attacked.

If these rocket and or suicide bomb attacks stopped, what would the chances of a unilateral Israeli invasion of Gaza be?[/quote]

Zero. And that is the bottom line.

54

[quote]GDollars37 wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
Phate89 wrote:
Gkhan wrote:
Phate89 wrote:
Reminds me of the book " THe sum of all fears" Tom Clancy.
Which is exactly what happened.

Saw the movie. Did not read the book. Can you explain more about this?

“After the Palestinians start using non-violent protesting and one of the unarmed, seated protesters is murdered by an Israeli police official, the U.S finds that they can no longer support Israel. But the U.S. also cannot leave Israel without this support since it would risk destabilizing the region. A clever plan to accelerate the peace process is put into action, and to everyone’s surprise it seems to work.”

Pretty much the world saw that Israel is the aggressor, and for th e first time the world saw that Israel wasn’t the “innocent state trying to defend itself”

Serious question.

Why don’t they take a non-violent approach? There is no doubt it would work better.

They did initially. The First Intifada was mostly non-violent, or rather very low violence, Palestinian kids throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers, and often being shot in response. This was consciously done, and indeed when Palestinians started using Molotov cocktails their leadership quickly cracked down on the practice. The First Intifada was basically a success, led to Oslo and the first serious discussion of a Palestinian state. Israel is pretty immune to international pressure, indeed in the Eighties it did a lot of business with other isolated states, i.e. Taiwan and appartheid South Africa. But it is not immune to (very rare) pressure from the U.S.

But I think Israeli intransigence and continual bad faith in negotiating, along with worsening living conditions in the Territories, led to Palestinian frustration. More extremist elements (Hamas, and far worse, like Islamic Jihad) came to the fore. This was also due to Fatah’s corruption. So when the Second Intifada exploded after Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount, it was going to be violent. And of course the change from secular nationalists (PLO, PFLP) to Islamists (Hamas, Islamic Jihad) added the whole cult of martyrdom to the mix.

Retired Marine Colonel T.X. Hammes has a good two chapters contrasting the two Intifadas in his book “The Sling and the Stone.”[/quote]

Throwing rocks isn’t non-violent, it’s just under resourced. Besides I could throw a rock at someones head and kill them.

55

[quote]lixy wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
The problem with all that is groups like Hamas say they will stop at nothing short of the destruction of Israel.

With what? Rocks? Katyushas? Incantations?[/quote]

Why don’t they get there arab friends to help them? Oh yeah, they don’t have any friends.

56

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Gkhan wrote:
So, is it safe to say that Israel would not have invaded Gaza unless it was attacked.

If these rocket and or suicide bomb attacks stopped, what would the chances of a unilateral Israeli invasion of Gaza be?

Zero. And that is the bottom line.[/quote]

Yup.

57

[quote]pat wrote:
GDollars37 wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
Phate89 wrote:
Gkhan wrote:
Phate89 wrote:
Reminds me of the book " THe sum of all fears" Tom Clancy.
Which is exactly what happened.

Saw the movie. Did not read the book. Can you explain more about this?

“After the Palestinians start using non-violent protesting and one of the unarmed, seated protesters is murdered by an Israeli police official, the U.S finds that they can no longer support Israel. But the U.S. also cannot leave Israel without this support since it would risk destabilizing the region. A clever plan to accelerate the peace process is put into action, and to everyone’s surprise it seems to work.”

Pretty much the world saw that Israel is the aggressor, and for th e first time the world saw that Israel wasn’t the “innocent state trying to defend itself”

Serious question.

Why don’t they take a non-violent approach? There is no doubt it would work better.

They did initially. The First Intifada was mostly non-violent, or rather very low violence, Palestinian kids throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers, and often being shot in response. This was consciously done, and indeed when Palestinians started using Molotov cocktails their leadership quickly cracked down on the practice. The First Intifada was basically a success, led to Oslo and the first serious discussion of a Palestinian state. Israel is pretty immune to international pressure, indeed in the Eighties it did a lot of business with other isolated states, i.e. Taiwan and appartheid South Africa. But it is not immune to (very rare) pressure from the U.S.

But I think Israeli intransigence and continual bad faith in negotiating, along with worsening living conditions in the Territories, led to Palestinian frustration. More extremist elements (Hamas, and far worse, like Islamic Jihad) came to the fore. This was also due to Fatah’s corruption. So when the Second Intifada exploded after Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount, it was going to be violent. And of course the change from secular nationalists (PLO, PFLP) to Islamists (Hamas, Islamic Jihad) added the whole cult of martyrdom to the mix.

Retired Marine Colonel T.X. Hammes has a good two chapters contrasting the two Intifadas in his book “The Sling and the Stone.”

Throwing rocks isn’t non-violent, it’s just under resourced. Besides I could throw a rock at someones head and kill them. [/quote]

You’re missing the point. It was done consciously, because the strategy was to defeat Israel through international and domestic moral pressure, i.e. information operations.

And I think very few helmeted IDF soldiers were in danger from rocks.

58
59

[quote]GDollars37 wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
Phate89 wrote:
Gkhan wrote:
Phate89 wrote:
Reminds me of the book " THe sum of all fears" Tom Clancy.
Which is exactly what happened.

Saw the movie. Did not read the book. Can you explain more about this?

“After the Palestinians start using non-violent protesting and one of the unarmed, seated protesters is murdered by an Israeli police official, the U.S finds that they can no longer support Israel. But the U.S. also cannot leave Israel without this support since it would risk destabilizing the region. A clever plan to accelerate the peace process is put into action, and to everyone’s surprise it seems to work.”

Pretty much the world saw that Israel is the aggressor, and for th e first time the world saw that Israel wasn’t the “innocent state trying to defend itself”

Serious question.

Why don’t they take a non-violent approach? There is no doubt it would work better.

They did initially. The First Intifada was mostly non-violent, or rather very low violence, Palestinian kids throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers, and often being shot in response. This was consciously done, and indeed when Palestinians started using Molotov cocktails their leadership quickly cracked down on the practice. The First Intifada was basically a success, led to Oslo and the first serious discussion of a Palestinian state. Israel is pretty immune to international pressure, indeed in the Eighties it did a lot of business with other isolated states, i.e. Taiwan and appartheid South Africa. But it is not immune to (very rare) pressure from the U.S.

But I think Israeli intransigence and continual bad faith in negotiating, along with worsening living conditions in the Territories, led to Palestinian frustration. More extremist elements (Hamas, and far worse, like Islamic Jihad) came to the fore. This was also due to Fatah’s corruption. So when the Second Intifada exploded after Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount, it was going to be violent. And of course the change from secular nationalists (PLO, PFLP) to Islamists (Hamas, Islamic Jihad) added the whole cult of martyrdom to the mix.

Retired Marine Colonel T.X. Hammes has a good two chapters contrasting the two Intifadas in his book “The Sling and the Stone.”[/quote]

The big problem with Hammes take on the issue is he never examines the issue of jihad in the context of the “Palestinian Struggle.” Hammes is one of these neocon universalists like Thomas PM Barnett who believes everyone just wants to live in a democracy and at peace with other nations.

The Palestinians train their kids in Jew-hatred from day one. There’s several other Arab countries these worthless people can move to and live as Arabs thanks to the jihad in the 7th century. Indeed, Jordan is already 85% “Palestinian”, a term which itself is a misnomer because the word “Palestine” was a derogatory term the Romans gave to the land of Israel meaning “Phillistine land.” The Palestinians themselves were originally Aegean sea peoples, Phoenicians, and Canaanite tribes, and the Hebrews dating back to 1000 BC.

60

[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
There’s several other Arab countries these worthless people can move to…
[/quote]

Worthless? Honestly mate, you sound less and less like a Christian with every post…at least any Christian I know…