I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned here yet. Brief summary as I understand it: Some Israeli settlers have been living in a house in Hebron. They claim to have bought it from its Palestinian owner. The said owner says he has not sold it to them. A court ordered the settlers to vacate; they refused; the army removed them forcibly. Other settlers are now rioting and throwing stones in the West Bank.
A bit of a switch for the Israelis to be the rioters. It seems the state of Israel is doing a reasonable job of being even-handed, though. As far as I can tell they're cracking down just as they would for Palestinian rioters.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Not so much a house as an apartment complex -- it held 250 people.
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
But note that the courts refused to even look at the proof of purchase. There's nothing even-handed here. At the same time that they decided to declare all the illegal Bedouin construction in the Negev legal, they threw the legitimate owners of the building out, violently, for political reasons.
I'm not as concerned about the ownership of the building as I am about the reports of Palestinian graves and homes being vandalized.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Pretty harsh words:
quote:Outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert opened his weekly Cabinet meeting on Sunday with sharp words for Jewish settlers who opened fire on Palestinians last week, saying their actions constituted a "pogrom." Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert spoke about the "pogrom" during his weekly Cabinet Meeting.
"We are the children of a people whose historic ethos is built on the memory of pogroms," Olmert said. "The sight of Jews firing at innocent Palestinians has no other name than pogrom. Even when Jews do this, it is a pogrom.
"As a Jew, I am ashamed that Jews could do such a thing."
He was addressing the riots last week in which Jewish settlers -- angry over the forced evacuation of a contested house in Hebron -- attacked Palestinians, setting fire to their houses.
In a statement released by his office, Olmert told the Cabinet that he chose the term "pogrom" -- a Yiddish word meaning an organized massacre, usually referring to such attacks against Jews -- "after much thought."
"I formulate these words with the greatest care that I can," the prime minister said.
Coming from someone who threw 9000 innocent men, women and children out of their homes, that's rich.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Do you support the vandalism of graves and the torching of homes, Lisa?
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
Nope. Well, the latter depends. If the home was built illegally on my land, I could see torching it.
Also, if my next door neighbor orchestrated a campaign to have my thrown out of my home, and then stood around celebrating while I was being thrown out, yeah, I might just torch his home. Maybe not cold-bloodedly, after it was all over, but during the explusion and celebrations? Yeah, I could see doing that.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
That doesn't seem to be the case here.
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
Sorry, I was editing while you posted.
Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
I've less than no interest in discussing the broader issue, but I'm curious about the machinations of Israeli politics, which I haven't been paying any attention to lately. My question is, assuming the Supreme Court panel was stacked to yield a certain outcome regardless of its correctness, what is the political gain?
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
That's too bad you posted the edit - your support of homeowners being forcefully evicted sounded much better before you suggested doing it to other people and destroying their homes in the process.
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
katherina, I didn't suggest forcefully evicting anyone. I did suggest (more than suggest, really) that if someone is throwing you out of your home, and your neighbors stand by celebrating their victory, that it's quite alright to share with them. To allow them to experience what they're so happy to see you experiencing.
Posted by Armoth (Member # 4752) on :
I don't imagine the neighbors would get the message if you did that.
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by twinky: I've less than no interest in discussing the broader issue, but I'm curious about the machinations of Israeli politics, which I haven't been paying any attention to lately. My question is, assuming the Supreme Court panel was stacked to yield a certain outcome regardless of its correctness, what is the political gain?
Twinky, I honestly couldn't explain that any better than Moshe Feiglin did in this interview he did last week.
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Armoth: I don't imagine the neighbors would get the message if you did that.
Oh, I think they would.
Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
That's pretty lengthy, so I'll have to catch up with it later today or tomorrow, but I just wanted to say thanks for the link.
Posted by Armoth (Member # 4752) on :
I hardly think Palestinians, or they that orchestrated the circumstances surrounding Israeli eviction, think of themselves as wrong. You really think that evicting them back will help them realize the error of their ways?
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
No, but I do think that doing nothing will further convince them that they have the upper hand. I don't think that's a good thing to do.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
But you think torching other people's homes is?
Posted by Armoth (Member # 4752) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lisa: No, but I do think that doing nothing will further convince them that they have the upper hand. I don't think that's a good thing to do.
I hear ya, and I'm at a loss for what to do as well. My gut tells me that we need to constantly make sure that we are morally superior, that we constantly play the bigger man. Hopefully that should help Israel on the world stage, but even if not, it would probably keep things from getting worse.
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by katharina: But you think torching other people's homes is?
Not just anyone's.
Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
Okay, I read the link. I take the implication to be that rather than being a maneuver to realize some tangible political gain, this is essentially part of the Israeli political left pursuing its underlying goals. Regardless of how accurate Feiglin's "culture war" take on the left's underlying motivations and goals is, that helps clarify for me that there are quite possibly political reasons for this despite the seeming absence of tangible political gains.
I don't mean to imply that his take is inaccurate, by the way. That isn't necessarily implied by what I wrote but I know that implication could be drawn from it, and in discussions around a subject as delicate as this I think it's worth it for me to spend extra words on being clear.
Thanks again for the link.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by twinky: Regardless of how accurate Feiglin's "culture war" take on the left's underlying motivations and goals is
Whether accurate or not, the majority of the right fervently believes it to be true. Personally, I think it is a likely cause of some but not all the things attributed to it.
Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
By your second sentence, do you mean that the "culture war" motivation (if I can use that shorthand) is a likely cause of some but not all of the things attributed to the left?
I just got confused because you used "it" twice.
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by twinky: Okay, I read the link. I take the implication to be that rather than being a maneuver to realize some tangible political gain, this is essentially part of the Israeli political left pursuing its underlying goals. Regardless of how accurate Feiglin's "culture war" take on the left's underlying motivations and goals is, that helps clarify for me that there are quite possibly political reasons for this despite the seeming absence of tangible political gains.
I don't mean to imply that his take is inaccurate, by the way. That isn't necessarily implied by what I wrote but I know that implication could be drawn from it, and in discussions around a subject as delicate as this I think it's worth it for me to spend extra words on being clear.
Thanks again for the link.
I appreciate your efforts to maintain clarity.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by twinky: By your second sentence, do you mean that the "culture war" motivation (if I can use that shorthand) is a likely cause of some but not all of the things attributed to the left?
No, I mean the "culture war" motivation is a likely cause of some but not all of the things attributed to the "culture war" motivation. (That is, I believe some of the time it really is the motivation, but many times the motivations are more complex (or completely different).)
Was that clearer or less so? Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
That was clearer, thanks. Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Don't at me.
I read my answer just before posting and was seriously unsure if it actually clarified anything. But I wasn't sure how to fix it.
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
I wasn't sure what you meant myself. Do you mean that you think that Feiglin (and others) are correct about "culture war" being the motivation of the left in some, but not all, cases?
If so, I agree. I suspect Feiglin would as well. But the other reasons are all reasons that people are aware of. I think there's a value to this motivation being pointed out -- even emphasized -- specifically because it's something most people would not have thought of.
Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
I was torn between the and the , but I felt the would have implied that overall clarity was not increased.
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