What's wrong with Israel?

[jbarter]

I've always thought the terms 'Chosen People' and 'Master Race' were equally scary. Right up there with 'Manifest Destiny'.

BTW, before anyone points it out, I know that Britain has shown the same attitude in the past. We just didn't have a handy slogan to go with it.

[Azalin]

That's Azalin

Damn. Just call me Dan Quayle.
I really wanted to mend the burning bridges.

Don't worry Flyingkersor, there's no bridge to mend

[Azalin]

By the way I edited the main post to better reflect what I really think.

[dwinterfield]

This is an interesting string. From my understanding, some of the comments are exactly right while others display ignorance, simplicity, arrogance, anger etc etc.

I'll simply add a few more thoughts, which I believe to be true.

****Isreal is not a monolithic country. There is a very conservative, Jewish religious faction that has a great deal of political and social influence. Ariel Sharon is their most visible leader and they support full restoration of historic (from around 70AD) Jewish lands. Because Sharon runs the govt that's what we in the US, mostly see. However their are many secular Jews and other with less extreme religious/social beliefs. Also, a significant non-Jewish population that does not appear to have the same rights as Jews. (Actually the same rights as religious Jews. One tenant of Isreal is the "right of return" or that any Jew may come to Isreal to live. Conservative Jews would like to limit that right in a way the would take it away from many less conservative Jews.) Everyone wants safety and security and there is a raging, constant debate on whether this is best acheived through aggression and expansion or negotiation and withdrawal of occupied territories.

**** Palestinians as a group have many of the same strereo-types in the Arab world as do Jews in the West. In most of the Arab oil states, displaced Palestinians play key roles as lawyers, money managers etc. They are very middle class. Among the various middle eastern Arab cultures, they tend to be among the most educated and progressive. They play a key financial and policy role in supporting the various Palestianian political groups.

**** Prominent Isrealies have terrorist histories, especially in the post WW2 era. Begin participated in blowing up the King David Hotel, the Bristish military HQ. Also, Palestinians remember Dier Yassim a village in which 100-200 Palestinians, mostly civilians were killed by Isreali military in 1948. My only point is that political theorists talk about achieving goals "by any means necssary". Well I guess it all depends on which side one is on as to what constitutes terrorism.
***Both sides have lots facts and lots of fiction to support their position. My own view is that aggressive violent solutions will never succeed. As we've seen in other divided lands, progress only happens when the majority of folks on both sides decide they can only achieve peace by refusing to tolerate the violent segments of their own communities. Sadly I think that day is a long way off in Isreal.

[Flyingcursor]

Good cynical post Darwin. Just my type. However I thought the first talks of turning Palastine into Isreal began in WWI.

[Wombat]

Good cynical post Darwin. Just my type. However I thought the first talks of turning Palastine into Isreal began in WWI.

Talks occurred in 1917 I think. The Balfour Declaration was a sort of promise but it did stipulate that Arabs living in what was to be Israel were to have their rights respected.

How seriously is one to take this? The background is that Arab nationalists had just assisted the British and French in ousting the Ottomans on the promise of independence after success. This would have resulted in a large pan-Arab state involving Iraq, Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon and Syria at least. How many layers of treachery were involved? What, if anything, was really intended apart from continued European hegemony over then-Arab lands? This, by the way, implicated Lawrence of Arabia in what was effectively a double-cross.

Is all this beginning to sound frighteningly familiar?

[Jeff Stallard]

**** Prominent Isrealies have terrorist histories, especially in the post WW2 era. Begin participated in blowing up the King David Hotel, the Bristish military HQ. Also, Palestinians remember Dier Yassim a village in which 100-200 Palestinians, mostly civilians were killed by Isreali military in 1948.

Small point of order. Neither of these events was terrorism. Terrorism involves illegal combatants (as defined by the Geneva Convention) targeting non-combative civilians. In the situations above, that isn't the case.

[glauber]

[sarcasm]Sure, by definition, when Israelis murder Palestinians, it's not terrorism.[/sarcasm]

[Azalin]

Also, Palestinians remember Dier Yassim a village in which 100-200 Palestinians, mostly civilians were killed by Isreali military in 1948.

Small point of order. Neither of these events was terrorism. Terrorism involves illegal combatants (as defined by the Geneva Convention) targeting non-combative civilians. In the situations above, that isn't the case.

And the UN defines palestinian territories as occupied, does that make the presence of the legal israeli army still legal? The UN also declared the new wall illegal, and Israel's own legal system declared the destruction of properties belonging to palestinians in East Jerusalem illegal, but it's still not terrorism because... ? Because the murderers are part of an official army backed by the US?

[dwinterfield]

**** Prominent Isrealies have terrorist histories, especially in the post WW2 era. Begin participated in blowing up the King David Hotel, the Bristish military HQ. Also, Palestinians remember Dier Yassim a village in which 100-200 Palestinians, mostly civilians were killed by Isreali military in 1948.

Small point of order. Neither of these events was terrorism. Terrorism involves illegal combatants (as defined by the Geneva Convention) targeting non-combative civilians. In the situations above, that isn't the case.

Jeff:

Here's a reference.
http://brneurosci.org/israel-terrorism.html

I can't vouch for this site or the specifc details. I grabbed it quickly from google. It's consistent with info I've seen from many other sources. Begin's history is well known. The incident at Dier Yassin is also well documented. None of this remotely excuses the horrible Palestinian terrorism of recent years. I only submit it to remind us that no side has "clean hands" and that forgetting history often leads to self-rightous attitudes that won't help anyone get to peace.

1) Begin
However, on Monday, July 22, 1946, Manachem Begin, the commander of the Irgun, retaliated against Operation Agatha by blowing up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, where the documents proving their guilt had been stored, killing 28 Britons, 41 Arabs, 17 Jews and 5 others, for a total of 91 dead. This massive terrorist act destroyed what remained of the Unified Resistance organization completely, with the Hanagah denouncing it and announcing unilateral termination of the "struggle" against Britain. The massacre also provoked bitter anti-Zionist and anti-Jewish sentiment in Britain.

On October 30, the Irgun under Begin blew up the Jerusalem Railway Station. On Jan 31, 1947, the British began evacuating British nationals considered nonessential and installed security zones, surrounded by barbed wire, to prevent further attacks.

On Saturday, March 1, 1947, Jewish terrorists attacked the British Officers' Club within a security zone at Goldschmidt House on King George Street in Jerusalem, killing 17 British officers, including several senior intelligence officers. Jewish militants also mined interurban roads, attacked army depots at Hadera, Pardes Hanna and Beit Lyd, and attacked an army vehicle lot in Haifa. In the course of these operations, dozens of British soldiers were killed and injured.

In response, the British imposed martial law on the Jewish quarters of northern Jerusalem and on the districts of Tel Aviv, Ramat Gan, Bnei Barak and Petah Tikva. In the tradition of silly military names that continues to this day, this was called Operations "Hippo" and "Elephant", and involved over 20,000 British troops. However, acts of terrorism by the Irgun and their sympathizers continued; during the 16 day period in which martial law was in effect, a total of 68 terrorist or terrorist-like acts were committed. The British public, who recognized that Britain had no strategic national interest in Palestine, and no doubt bitterly regretting the 1917 Balfour Declaration that had gotten them involved, was seriously questioning Britain's commitment to the region.

On Sunday, May 4, 1947 at 4 pm, members of the Irgun, disguised as British and Arabs, attacked the prison at Acre with explosives, grenades, and kerosene, securing the release of 20 Irgun, 7 Lehi, and 182 Arab inmates at a cost of 9 attackers killed during the attack and 5 captured and subsequently hanged by the British.

2) Dier Yassin
By April 1948, the situation had deteriorated into low-level war. In the first urban battle of the so-called "War of Independence", the Israelis occupied Dier Yassin on April 9, a military action that resulted in what is known by the Palestinians as the 'Deir Yassin Massacre' in which between 100 and 240 Arabs, including many civilians, were killed by Israeli soldiers.

[s1m0n]

Terrorism involves illegal combatants (as defined by the Geneva Convention) targeting non-combative civilians.

That definition is nonsense. "Terrorism" as a term predates the geneva convention by more than a century, for one thing, and the truth is that there is NO internally consistent definition of terrorism, anywhere, which is capable of distinguishing our friends from our enemies.

The US state department has it's own; the CIA had it's own, and the army has two; those are merely the ones I could find in a half hour of poking on the web. All of these definitions were different in several key areas.

The UN has attempted to address this issue, and has failed, repeatedly. There is NO concensus as to the nature of terrorism, chiefly because it is a swearword, not a descriptor.

Terrorism is what they do; self defense is what we do.

~~

As well, the US, along with Isreal, is at odds with most of the rest of the world in it's stance on the geneva convention. The rest of the world has negotiated 1977's Protocol additional to the Geneva Convention, which afford combattant status to the kinds of military force typical of third world and colonised nations. The US refuses to ratify this convention.

In other words, because half the world's military force is determinedly marching to a different drum, there isn't anything like a clear definition in international law of who constitutes a legal combattant, and who doesn't.

[Sunnywindo]

I sincerely hope that the recent signs of the Palestinians actually reining in the militants will bring such a lasting peace and that Israelis and Palestinians can live along side each other in harmony. Both sides are children of Abram, and the family feud has gone on long enough.

A family fued where it's a bit hard to send the children off to sit in the corner without any supper until they can say sorry and get along again.

They have set themselves at such odds with one another.... As long as Israelis want to have a nation/existance in the Jeruslem area, there will be some Palestinians who will want to blow up Israelis.... As long as Palestinians blow up Israelis, Israelis will turn around and blow up/punish Palestinians. They either figure out a way to get along together and sincerely stick with it or they eventually blow each other off the map.

Amazing how the whole world can get their knickers in such a knot over such a relativly itty bitty chunk of land (Israeli/Palestinian conflict) when just as bad or worse conflicts/problems are ocurring all over the globe, some of which you hardly ever hear anything about... but we sure will hear a lot about Israel.

Sara

[Wormdiet]

Here's what I would like to see

probably not realistic
1) Settlers getting the hell out of the west bank
2) SOme type of non-violent civil disobedience/protest movement on the Palestinians' part until that happens.THat would buy a hell of a lot more sympathy than suicide bombs.

[Doug_Tipple]

In the Spring of 1997 I spent three weeks in Israel. My companion was giving a talk at the University of Haifa, and I was along to accompany her. She, by the way, was a Holacaust surviver, born in a refugee camp in Italy, and I, by a twist of fate, was born a few days later in 1943 in a comfortable hospital in Indiana.

After her talk we rented a car in Haifa (a beautiful town built on the side of a mountain on the Mediterranean coast) and travelled around northern Isreal. We stayed in several different kibbutzim in the northern part of Israel and travelled through the Gollan Heights near the Syrian border.

In our four trips to Jerusalem, I prayed in the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount, one of the most holy places in Islam. There is a terrific energy there that is hard to describe. I also meditated several times at the Wailing Wall of the old Jewish temple, as well as Christian holy places throughout the old city.

I think that it is obvious that there isn't a simple, straightforward solution to the resolution of conflict and a restoration of peace and a cooperative civility for this small country. I pray that all the world will give the assistance that is necessary to bring about an outcome that will promote peace and justice for all concerned.

[happyturkeyman]

What's wrong with Israel?

Why don't they give up the contested territories?

Palestine wants Israel completely gone. Not there at all. I believe that just because we call certain areas "contested territory" does not mean Palestine has recognized the remainder as uncontested. I'd have to check, but I think the government's official stance is still that Israel is an invader, occupying palestinian territory. Even if I am behind and this is not the case, surely a good bulk of Palestinians are still of this opinion. With that in mind, the suicide bombings and general hostility will not be stopped at all by ceding some territory.

On a larger scale, Israel is a tiny little country and has a historic precidence for military paranoia. Refer to the war of [insert year here] when [insert country or countries here] took up arms and tried to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. No matter what happens with Palestine, Israel will still be surrounded by hostiles. Giving up territory is exactly the natural thing for them to do.

There is nothing "wrong" (meaning unreasonable, as I figure it was used by context) with Israel.

There is nothing "wrong" with Palestine either, yet I'm too lazy to break down exactly why.

As I see it, theres not much that could happen now to stop the feud. Both sides are "right," hindering peace efforts, and neither is about to wipe out the other very soon.

If anything, we should be asking what was wrong with Europe and the US. "Hey, this land over here is technically 'ours', the Jews have an ancestral right to it, and heck, we can just shove the people that have lived there for centuries over to this side. What the hell could go wrong?"

Colonialism + Antisemetism = two raped peoples.

Two raped peoples + conflict of religions + close proximity in territory both have claims to = uhhh... this.