posted
Palestinians who stayed in Israel are Israeli citizens, with equal rights.
Palestinians in the territories are not citizens.
I wish someone would please explain to me why it is Israeli's fault that the Palestinian economy is suffering. There are over a dozen other countries in the region that could trade with them, including Jordan.
For years, Israelis employed Palestinians. Then Palestinians started randomly blowing up Israelis. It was no longer safe for Israelis to leave the borders as open as they were. This made it hard for Palestinians to get to work (in some cases impossible). The Palestinian economy started suffering because of Palestinian actions, not Israeli.
Sometime I have to laugh at the games that people will play to try to assign guilt to those they think should be guilty, whether they are or not.
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A great part of the economic problem in the Palestinian Territory falls squarely on the shoulders of Yassir Arafat. A little while back, it came to light that he had been skimming huge amounts of money from the country and its received foreign aid.
In addition, he has set up state monopolies on things such as fuel, putting cronies in charge of these monopolies. They, in turn, give money back to Arafat directly.
If I recall from the 60 minutes report, it is estimated that Arafat's personal fortune ranges in the $35 Billion zone.
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Fugu, that's the point. The Isreali government is NOT in the wrong. They are protecting their people, the Palestinians living in the territories are not their people, and if they want free access to Isreal, then their leadership needs to end the suicide bombings.
There are many opportunities for finger-pointing, but protecting its people is the highest duty and priority of the Israeli government. By cutting off the source of the bombers, they are only doing what they are mandated to do. It may be ineffective. It may have undesirable consequences. It may be a sad, sad necessity. But if it works, it isn't wrong, no matter how many people in the territories lose jobs over it.
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GradStudent...that was such a gross oversimplification of the situation that I can't even begin to address all that you left out.
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Bob, you can't hit and run like that, though. If you disagree with her, I'd love to hear exactly why.
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Of course it is a gross oversimplification. A full explanation would take hours, if not days.
However, I still remain curious if anyone can explain why other countries (such as Jordan or Egypt, which both border) are not held responsible for the economic crisis as well.
I would suggest that the other Arab countries do not employ Palestinians because they get good PR out of the economic situation.
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I didn't want to completely derail the thread, but here's a start:
1) The current boundaries are arbitrary. 2) There are Palestinians still living in refugee camps within the Israeli borders because they refuse to accept the criminally small settlements offered to them by the government. 3) The vast majority of citizens of Israel and Palestine aren't involved in terrorism or land grabs. They generally want peace and are no more responsible for terrorism than you or I are. Yet they all suffer for it. 4) The response of Israel to terrorism is essentially racist -- branding all Palestinians. 5) Israel has for most of its history considered the Palestinian territories to belong to them to do with as they please. To claim that the Palestinians are anything but an occupied state is to ignore the history of the region since WWII. 6) Israel, without donations from the West would be a dustbowl just like the majority-Palestinian areas. 7) Israel has had the opportunity to invest in the areas that are non-jew but belong to it and has not done so, with the exception of the abhorrent practice of locating Jewish settlements on land claimed by ethnic Palestinians.
Should I go on?
There's plenty of stupid, criminal and just plain horrid things to tally against the Palestinians as well. I don't really feel like going through it all here.
The point is that both sides are composed of mostly peace-loving people led by some of the worst most corrupt and certainly racist and screwed up by religious-biases governments on the planet.
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Yes, go on, but with the list of Palestinian grievances. I'm not convinced you see them as heinous.
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Oh, sorry GS, we posted at the same time. I agree with much of what you just said. In fact, there's a feeling among many Palestinians that their cause is unlikely to be taken up by other Arabs for a variety of reasons including the one you cite.
There's also poverty.
With the exception of the Saudis, there isn't a country there that has a large enough economy to truly assist Palestine. And, from the point of view of making a real investment, as opposed to just giving aid and never expecting any return, Palestine is a bad bet. At any moment, whatever a 3rd party government helped implement there could be taken over by the Israelis without compensation. It's a very poor climate in which to invest.
And that's partly the Israeli government's fault too. They have a history of not respecting property rights of non-jews. So, why would anyone put their capital into that market?
So, the only way Palestine gets anything is in the form of handouts.
Add to that the blatant corruption of the Palestinian Authority (which basically siphons money off to build fine houses for the elite party members) and there's really not much that can be done there beyond the good old hand out.
It's not all Israel's fault by a long stretch. Sadly, there's plenty of blame to go around. But that doesn't absolve Israel of its own actions either.
The soon-to-be-completed fence is a case in point.
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I mean you have energy to list all the things Isreal has done wrong, but listing what the Palestinians have done wrong is too much of a bother. If you're going to try to paint a picture of the situation, that's an alarmingly large chunk of missing information.
In other words, I know you're sympathetic to the Palestinians. I'd love to hear your take on their culpability.
As for the fence, is there another way to immediately address the fact that suicide bombers are coming over in droves? It isn't a long-term solution, but in the short-term, the government must do SOMETHING. There have been almost 600 civilians killed in the last three years by suicide bombers.
[ December 30, 2003, 05:30 PM: Message edited by: Javert Hugo ]
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1) The current boundaries are arbitrary. What boundaries aren't? They are the result of Israel being attacked, defending itself, and then gaining land in that war. They had offered to give back 90+% of it in the Camp David Accords.
2) There are Palestinians still living in refugee camps within the Israeli borders because they refuse to accept the criminally small settlements offered to them by the government. Sure. Ok. So why isn't any other country helping them out? Maybe the countries that started the war that could give them a hand. When has any country had an obligation to help the aggressors?
3) The vast majority of citizens of Israel and Palestine aren't involved in terrorism or land grabs. They generally want peace and are no more responsible for terrorism than you or I are. Yet they all suffer for it. No argument there.
4) The response of Israel to terrorism is essentially racist -- branding all Palestinians. What about all of the Palestinians that are Israeli citizens and get exactly equal rights. You know, the Arabs with the highest standard of living in the Arab world. The racism argument just doesn't hold water.
5) Israel has for most of its history considered the Palestinian territories to belong to them to do with as they please. To claim that the Palestinians are anything but an occupied state is to ignore the history of the region since WWII. Umm...except for when they gave 90%+ to the Palestinians. Or the time when the West Bank was occupied by Jordan.
6) Israel, without donations from the West would be a dustbowl just like the majority-Palestinian areas. Yes. You are 100% right. That money came from American and European Jews for the most part. So why aren't any of the immensely rich Arab countries doing what they can?
7) Israel has had the opportunity to invest in the areas that are non-jew but belong to it and has not done so, with the exception of the abhorrent practice of locating Jewish settlements on land claimed by ethnic Palestinians. I am against the settlements, both for Israeli and Palestinian interests. But there has been plenty of aid money for this kind of thing, including the contributions by Israelis themselves.
Including, in fact, my father. He has given a fair amount of money for a computer science school in Ramallah. Which was staffed by volunteer Israeli dot com workers. And shut down when the Palestinian police said they would not guarantee the safety of the teachers.
Israel is not blameless. But a very large amount of the blame rests squarely on the shoulders of the other Arab countries. And to ignore that is racist and myopic.
There are crazies on both sides, and unfortunately they speak loudly. But the Palestinians would have had their state twenty years ago if they hadn't been terrorists. In fact, right after Israel gained that land they volunteered to give it back. They didn't want it. And the Palestinians turned it down because it wasn't good PR.
I think it is completely reasonable to feel sorry for the Palestinian people who suffer under a corrupt government that is more interested in getting rich than helping their people.
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The fence is a good idea. It's just not in the right place. The settlements have to go. They are bad for the Palestinians.
And in the long run, they are bad for the Israelis. If they are going to take over that territory permanently (the only reason to have settlements in the first place) then they have to give the vote to everyone who lives there. And that would be the end of Israel as a Jewish state.
So many right-wing idiots in Israel. Including the taxi driver I had the other day who was preaching about how important the settlements were while running into about a zillion curbs.
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This is a situation with few good guys, going back to the formation of Israel as a nation.
The problem is, everyone (outside of Israel) wants to pick a side but in doing an Us and Them scenario, you can't fix the problems.
The Palestinian neighbors have attempted to do some things for the Palestinians, most times by starting wars with Israel. And once one goes into the causes just a wee bit, it turns out that what was done in the Palestinians' name was really just done against Israel with little real concern for the Palestinians.
If you look at the terrorist groups working in Palestine, you'll find a very amazing thing... most are not Palestinian organizations. Perhaps on the surface they pay lip service to being Palestinian, but many are supported by Iran, Syria, Egyptian radicals, even Pakistanis. Their reasons run the gamut from the religious to creating buffer zones between Israel and their own countries (i.e. Syria's support of Hezbollah's positions in southern Lebanon).
But, on the other hand, you have got, as Bob aptly said, Israeli settlers who pursue sometimes violent squatters rights in areas that are traditionally and ethnically Palestinian. That intimate proximity is what started the resurgence of major violence back in the 1980s and has led to where we are today.
The US has done what it could, I feel. We've supported Israel in an effort to keep up our involvement in the establishment of the Israeli state. It has also, sadly, served as a testing ground for our weapons systems and given us our best reconnaisance of Soviet-era weapon systems deployed by many Islamic countries.
We have also voiced our opinion that an independent Palestinian Authority should be established and upheld, with guaranteed rights of its citizens and statehood. We've sent money and aid.
But the problem keeps unravelling like a cheap sweater as individuals and organizations pick at any thread they can get their grubby fingers on. Sadly, what can we do after all of this except throw our hands up, urge them to peace but in the end let them fight it out on their own?
It is a sad and tragic thing, no matter which side we look at it from.
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And lastly, almost any country could help out the Palestinians if they really wanted to. The things they need are hospitals, food, microloans, etc.
My family has always believed that the long-term solution is Palestinian economic development (schools, etc). And they were working towards that end. But obviously, that can't continue now that it is not safe for Israelis or Americans to cross into Palestine. One of my Palestinian friends called me crying the other day because she had to uninvite me to her wedding because it's not safe. Obviously the Israelis can't go into Palestine to build anything without fearing for their lives.
How do you see this mess ending?
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I'm sorry - I didn't mean to derail this thread into Israel/Palestine territory. I was trying to find an example where I agree with OSC about a government having an obligation to protect its own citizens first without bringing up the Iraq war, which I do not agree with.
I'd still love to hear Bob's take on Palestinian culpability, though.
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quote:There have been almost 600 civilians killed in the last three years by suicide bombers.
Care to list the number of Palestinian civilians killed by the Israeli military in the last 3 years?
Look, you are attacking me for answering your question. I said I didn't want to get into it, and you feel like unless I prove that I know that there's a balance of blame in the region, that I can't say it.
Then I go ahead and answer the thing about why I think the earlier statement by GS was a gross oversimplification and you jump on me for not wanting to go into all the arguments on the other side.
Do you not know them? Or are you thinking that I'm being intellectually dishonest unless I use a two-column approach and match one bad thing about the Palestinians for every bad thing I list about Israel. When the original point was that making Israel sound blameless (as I thought GS was doing) was a gross oversimplification.
Anyway,
The main problems with the Palestinians' over the years have been:
1) They spent far too much energy complaining about their lost land and far too little energy improving what they did have. Most of the land that was "grabbed" was practically useless and certainly "underutilized." Israel came in, developed it and made it fertile again. The Palestinians could've done that and more had they been willing to swallow their defeat and work hard at something constructive.
2) The choice of Arafat as leader has been a complete disaster. The man is a terrorist. He is corrupt. His cronies are the very model of a goon squad. They squash dissent and, protestations to the contrary there are very few who believe that there isn't a very real quid-pro-quo going on between the PA and groups like Hamas.
3) The Palestinians haven't even tried to counter the terrorists. At least not seriously. And if they can't or won't do it, they have no reason to expect that Israel will just roll over and leave themselves exposed to terror.
4) The Palestinians who left the country and now whine about wanting their land back (or the right of return) are just nuts. They deserve no consideration.
I could think of more, I'm sure, but I suppose this is enough to prove that I think about this stuff in a balanced and equally provocative way towards both sides of complete idiots who have managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory time and again since the dawn of recorded history (Abraham being the patriarch honored by both sides).
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Never mind, wrong number, still researching.
Yes, actually, I did want a list of wrongs from both sides. It seems like every source I look up and whatever I get the side from, it's slanted in some way. I know you know a lot about this - I wanted to know what your take on both sides was. Since you do know a lot about it and are willing to go in details for what Israel has done wrong, it felt unfair to not mention the other side.
[ December 30, 2003, 05:55 PM: Message edited by: Javert Hugo ]
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I have often suggested that the only way there will ever be peace there is if we just pull out and let them kill each other. However, people seem to have come to the conclusion that I am some kind of ditto-head or other right-wing nut.
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I do agree about OSC about Merril Streep and wonder how he'd feel about Emily Watson who is brilliant.
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syn--- i remember in his review of punchdrunk love that he liked her. but that was quite a while ago, though i distinctly remember a positive vibe in reference to her. i think she's great, too. ^_^
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I think the Israeli government is in the wrong. And many Israeli soldiers agree with me, oddly.
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Any soldiers willfully disobeying a direct order out of conscience is many, particularly in a highly defense minded society.
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OSC did influence me heavily with one of his columns, but it was to the good.
When my wife and I went in search of a new mattress, I did a Google search on the Tempur-pedic beds. Sure enough, a column that OSC did about Tempur-pedic beds came up. I read it and knew we had to try one.
He was right on the money and we bought one with almost all the works. Within a couple of nights, my wife's chronic back pain had disappeared, my allergies slacked off big time and we've gotten the best nights of sleep you can imagine. He also reviewed the Tempur-pedic pillows saying they were great on regular beds, but not quite as good on the Tempur beds. He was right about that as well.
So yep, there's at least one instance. He's also suggested some great local restaurants in his columns.
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*amused* Are you saying that his influence on me was to the bad? I don't think I appreciate that.
Fugu: OSC convinced me that a government has the obligation to protect its citizens, even if protecting its citizens has a deletorious economic effect on the people trying to kill those citizens. What part of that do you disagree with?
[ December 31, 2003, 10:53 AM: Message edited by: Javert Hugo ]
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That OSC persuaded you of it? None. That its correct? None of it.
However, its both a straw man and leads into a false dichotomy on his part. The straw man: NOBODY disagrees with this (there are a few, but nobody who's in a position to make or influence policy, and not many people who aren't)! Its not debated. He states it as if he's delivering some great insight, when this is the presumptive operating principle for the state of at least the past couple hundred years.
Then comes the false dichotomy. He acts like this shows how Israel's current actions are justified. It shows no such thing. Allow me to demonstrate a logically identical argument:
1. States are justified in taking actions to reduce violence against their citizens even if those actions economically harm others.
2. One country, lets call it Laersi, is subject to terrorist attacks, and the terrorists come from a group of people, we'll call them Nainitselap's.
3. Laersi has implemented a policy to lock all Nainitselap's up in concentration camps, where they will be given a minimal diet of bread and water, watched over by guards, executed if they try to escape, and allowed access to no medical care.
4. Since this is an action which fits our above criteria, a country reducing violence against its citizens even though the action is to the economic detriment of others, it is justified.
(I'm not saying this is what Israel has actually done, though they are moving closer and closer to it, but a logically identical argument to the one put forth by OSC).
Baloney! To justify Israel's actions, you must justify them particularly! You can't sweep them all under the "this general sort of action is justified" rug! As the above, ridiculous, argument, shows, there's an important logical step left out: why the action doesn't violate any other principles. Otherwise I could use generally accepted maxims like "you should do what you want to with your life" to justify killing people.
OSC's argument (as are many in his column) to justify Israel's actions did no such thing. He created a position that almost no one has to argue about, then proceeded to act like the only courses of action were what Israel was doing now and doing nothing.
So, you agree with my statement - that a nation's first and primary responsibility is to protect its people, not massage the economies of those trying to kill its people - but not with OSC using that statement as a justification for every nasty thing Isreal dreams of doing.
Okay, I agree with that.
With that responsibility in mind, what do you think Isreal should do? Long term, bring peace, of course.
In the immediate, short-term, bombers-are-murdering-civilians-and-their-people-support-and-applaud-them situation, what do you think the Isreali government should do to live up to its responsibility to protect its people?
[ December 31, 2003, 11:40 AM: Message edited by: Javert Hugo ]
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For some reason, with the Palestinian situation, I keep being reminded of Black Jack Pershing's answer to the Mau Mau problem in the Phillipines before WWI.
The Mau Mau were Islamic natives of the Phillipines and decided to revolt against the Americans who had recently received the islands as a post-war concession from the Spanish government.
The situation quickly devolved into a sadly modern guerilla war with the rebels fading into the populace only to swing back out and attack Americans or villages that supported American rule.
Pershing, the commanding general of the US forces, finally had enough of it. He couldn't and wouldn't wipe out villages of the Mau Mau to get at the small numbers who were actually rebels. He did know, however, that the rebels were often supported by the village headmen. So, one day, he took a contingent of soldiers into one of the main villages and arrested the village headman, an old and respected man who was also the local religious leader.
The soldiers then brought up two pigs and slaughtered them in the center of the village and skinned the animals. Pershing turned to the headman of the village and explained very plainly that if the trouble didn't stop from this village, the US troops would come back and sew him up in the pig skins and then shoot him.
This threat worked because it hit the village elders in what was most important to them, their religion. To be placed in a pig skin and then slain would leave them forever unclean and unable to enter Paradise, no matter how they had lived their lives. Pershing basically said, stop the problem or I will consign you to Hell for eternity.
He then went to the next village and did the same. Again and again he did it. The rebellion didn't falter or die down, it collapsed over night.
Should this be done with terrorist groups? I don't know, it's very extreme and so politically incorrect, but it does strike at the core thread that binds so many of these groups together -- religion.
posted
I'm kind of doing this based on second-hand information, but if the question is whether or not a state is justified in doing anything at all to protect its citizens, the answer is clearly no.
If it's okay to economically harm another group of people to protect "your own" then we could easily justify denying subgroups of citizens their rights in order to protect us from the few of that group who ARE a threat. We did this with Japanese internment camps during WWII. It was wrong then, and it'd be wrong now, even though some have suggested we try it with Arab Americans. Thankfully, not many have proposed this. Maybe we can learn.
Israel has not learned this lesson. It will, someday. And it will be a painful lesson. Just as our national shame over Japanese internment is painful. It reminds us of our ability to fail when "safety" is used as an excuse to eliminate rights. And it reminds us that we have a strongly racist past, that goes far beyond the sorts of things that were sanctioned during slavery and on up into the 1960's in some parts of this country.
By the way, I didn't say it before because it seemed not to need saying, but this is a good time to point out that a small minority of rich arabs living within the confines of part of Israel's territory does not mean that Israel is not a racist state. It is.
1) The state exists primarily as a state designed for the benefit of the jewish people who live there. Secondary benefits to other ethnic groups do little to ameliorate the basic condition which is that there are two levels of citizenship, and the higher level is almost exclusively the province of one ethnic group.
2) Religion is tied up in it too. Despite the attempts to make the state look like something it is not, the truth is that Israel is also a religious state in many ways. The influence weilded by religious parties within the government is far beyond anything that we would accept as "normal" or "healthy" in American politics, seems to me.
The fact that Israel opened its doors to religious (not ethnic) jews from all over the world and then built settlements for them in the occupied territories is just one clear example of the influence of religion upon that state.
3) The policies Israel is putting forth recently, especially the stupid fence, are purely racist. They attack an entire group of people when there are just a small minority of that ethnic group who are actively seeking the destruction of Israel or want to harm her citizens. If that's not active racism, I guess we need to define the term a little better.
Again... I'm not saying that the Palestinians are blameless or deserve a pass on what goes on there. I think something along the order of a complete crackdown on terrorism is rightly expected of them and they have not even begun to deliver on that.
I do, however, think that the Palestinians are the underdog in this. They have less effective weapons. They are the occupied force. Their towns can be shut down completely by the Israeli army (and are on a routine basis).
So, all told, Israel has become a bully. In a sad mirror of the horrid ways that ethnic and religious jews were treated throughout Europe in the times leading up to the 2nd World War, Israel is not above mistreating people who it rules over in fact if not in name.
That sucks.
Terrorism is not a reasonable response to Israel's actions, though. That sucks too.
If I were in charge, not one dime of US money would go to either country. Private donations by American citizens would be sharply controlled and the two groups would be forced by economics to come to some sort of mutal agreement, or their governments would be removed -- one hopes.
As it sits right now, Arafat will have to die before any progress is even possible. Until then, Israeli voters will keep vassilating between doves and hawks searching for a solution that doesn't exist in the current climate.
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In the above situation, the Palestinians are supporting the bombing and murder of civilians.
Since the Palestinians won't stop their own from doing it, how should the Isreali government live up to its primary responsibility of protecting its citizens?
They MUST: 1. Stop the suicide bombers, by force if necessary.
They SHOULD: 2. Not be a bully doing it.
What's your solution?
I have the luxury of clutching my head in my hands and saying they are both at fault, but the Isreali goverment would be traitorous if they did nothing. What might they do?
quote:Private donations by American citizens would be sharply controlled
Talk about being a bully. Does that mean bullying is acceptable if you approve of the aims?
[ December 31, 2003, 01:57 PM: Message edited by: Javert Hugo ]
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The donations I'm talking about, in particular are those going to groups like Meyer Kahane's. Basically, these folks are intent on curtailing the rights of Palestinians inside and outside the recognized borders of Israel. That this guy is an American just galls me. That so many Americans buy into his crap really makes me angry.
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So what do you think the Isreali government should do to live up to their responsibility to protect the citizens of Isreal?
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I'll have more to say in a bit, but suffice it to say that many of their efforts using force to stop suicide bombers have, well, created more suicide bombers.
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Here's the solution to suicide bombers: Just have all the Jews in Israel move out, or even better committ suicide (while making sure no Jewish blood stains the land), and let the Palestinians move in and do what they wish. I garuntee you there wouldn't be anymore suicide bombings by fundamentalist Muslims after than.
See how this, and the other extreme being the extermination of all Arabs and Muslims, are not going to be realistic solutions and considering the fact that huge throngs of people show up to the funerals of suicide bombers I must repeat what I and others have already said, what would you have Israel do?
By the way, you know what doesn't make the news? All the failed suicide attacks that are stopped before they can occur usually by the "evil" method of the Israelis like checkpoints.
Finally, when people say that Arafat skims Palestinian funds that is a gross understatement. And Arafat would be even richer if he didn't use more of that money to buy weapons.
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I really am curious about the answer to this.
In the immediate situation, the Isreali government has an obligation to protect its citizens. While individuals have the luxury of neglecting their own safety, for the government to neglect to protect its citizens would be treason. They must do something.
The above posters agree with the obligation to protect, but disagree with the current method of walls and checkpoints.
In the immediate present, in order to protect its citizens, what can the Isreali government do instead?
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Well, as I said I'll have more in a bit, but some things of note:
Stop bulldozing places of residence, particularly apartment complexes and subdivisions. Turning people whose land you conquered, then promised to allow to continue to live there, out of their homes when they have done no wrong themselves has to be one of the more counterproductive practices out there, particularly as residences of various kinds are vast capital sinks.
Not opening fire on peaceful protesters (peaceful meaning, not threatening people at all).
Not making a fence that separates Palestinian communities as much as possible. You can't expect them to work together towards peace when they can't work together towards anything.
None of those things strike me as being very effective at curtailing suicide bombers (at least, many of these things are partially in place and if anything I've seen an increase in suicide bombings).
Now, as to proactive things:
Promote community organizations in Palestinian communities. In particular, promote organizations such as youth organizations and business organizations which stand a chance of supplanting the entrenched leadership with time.
Use the media as a promoter of cooperation and peace rather than an organ to justify government actions of oppression.
Don't unilaterally empower some palestinians over others. That's a surefire way to create conflict. See: Arafat.
Continue peace processes despite suicide bombings. The Palestinian authorities are not able to control all Palestinians, and the ones doing the negotiation had as little to do with the bombing as the Israeli government did, most likely. Using a bombing as an excuse to break off negotiations is absurd "There's violence, so we can't work together to end it".
Encourage trade with Israel. You don't need to loosen the restrictions on the movement of people to loosen the restrictions on the movements of goods. But structure the regulations to promote trade by small businesses and community organizations rather than magnates such as Arafat.
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Fugu, those are good things to do, but I see them more as long-term solutions.
What about the short-term? There is currently an intifada against Israel. Supporting the local YMIA isn't going to get it called off, and it isn't going to stop those intent on destruction.
[ December 31, 2003, 03:33 PM: Message edited by: Javert Hugo ]
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Some walls and checkpoints make good sense. But the walls shouldn't be used make the Palestinians dependent on Israel's goodwill to survive, and the checkpoints shouldn't be used to harass those who pass through them. Move the walls to encompass a region that makes sense as a Palestinian area instead of attempting to subdivide already Palestinian areas, and make the minimum requirements to pass through a checkpoint less onerous -- ensure the person isn't carrying any means of violence, then let them through.
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quote:make the minimum requirements to pass through a checkpoint less onerous -- ensure the person isn't carrying any means of violence, then let them through.
Okay, that's a suggestion I like. It means the way to avoid being harrassed is to not carry anything dangerous.
posted
Lets put it this way: suicide bombings are increasing. Therefore at least some of the short term Israeli tactics have almost certainly been counterproductive. So evaluate those ones and stop doing them.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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3) Close the borders to the Palestinian areas until someone other than Arafat is in charge.
4) Not send troops into the occupied areas, period.
I would essentially, put everything into a holding pattern. I would gather intelligence (which the Israelis do extremely well, by the way) and practice a bit of clandestine operations to eliminate anyone who was posing a serious danger (i.e., setting up a bomb-making operation).
But since the borders are closed, it really doesn't matter.
But first and foremost, they should just get out of the occupied territories. Just leave them one night when no-one is looking. Take all those who want to leave with them.
In response, the rest of the world should agree to cut off military aid to Israel and Palestine until they come up with a permanent negotiated settlement and implement it. The UN should get involved to ensure that the only aid coming is is either humanitarian or capital investment in infrastructure or education.
Probably impractical, but I don't see how what's going on now is doing anything but making the situation worse.
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
It's much easier to criticize and nitpick than to protect and build. The Isreali government is entrusted the protection of Israelis, not the economy of those intent on the destruction of Isrealis. I love the idea of locking them in a room until they come up with a solution, but I don't see the point of discussing impractical solutions. It's a luxury to be able to do so; the people entrusted with the power and obligation to act don't have that luxury.
What can they do to stop the bombings, if the current bit isn't effective?
There was an offer to retreat from almost all of the occupied areas, but the offer was rejected.
It is almost universally agreed that Arafat is somewhere between an obstacle and earthquake. Should they take him out?
[ December 31, 2003, 03:41 PM: Message edited by: Javert Hugo ]
Posts: 1753 | Registered: Aug 2002
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quote: Stop bulldozing places of residence, particularly apartment complexes and subdivisions. Turning people whose land you conquered, then promised to allow to continue to live there, out of their homes when they have done no wrong themselves has to be one of the more counterproductive practices out there, particularly as residences of various kinds are vast capital sinks.
They have done wrong by supporting suicide bombers. It also destroys the incentive that suicide bombers have to do what they do because their families will profit.
quote: Not opening fire on peaceful protesters (peaceful meaning, not threatening people at all).
They don't do that unless you consider throwing rocks to be peaceful and even then rubber bullets are used.
quote: Not making a fence that separates Palestinian communities as much as possible. You can't expect them to work together towards peace when they can't work together towards anything.
The fences separate Israel from Palestinians not Palestinians from Palestinians. I think that's reasonable when an incredibly large percentage of Palestinians would kill an Israeli if they got the chance.
quote: Promote community organizations in Palestinian communities. In particular, promote organizations such as youth organizations and business organizations which stand a chance of supplanting the entrenched leadership with time.
I would be concerned these organizations would promote terrorism or at the least promote an extremist interpretation of Islam.
quote: Use the media as a promoter of cooperation and peace rather than an organ to justify government actions of oppression.
Do you know what the media does? It believes in myths like the Jenin "massacre". It claims an Israeli bullet kills a Palestinian child when it really was a Palestinian's bullet. The media has consistently portrayed the Israelis as aggressors even when conflicts have been started by terrorists.
Israel has been trying to get rid of Arafat but no matter what he still manages to hold significant influence even he loses all but figure head power.
If the Palestinian government can't control terrorism then what power do they have in the first place.
Posts: 3446 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
Clearly what Israel is doing right now is increasing the bombings. Therefore they should change what they're doing.
Also, I'd point out that most of the people who are doing the bombings are ones who have perfectly legitimate reasons to pass through barriers. The fence isn't going to change that, and its primary reason is almost certainly to provide leverage for the eventual boundary setting of a palestinian state -- in a way that is really quite unacceptable, because it assumes Israel has the right to dictate those boundaries.
When Israel conquered the territories, they took on responsibility for the civilians in residence there as well.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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