Israel and the boats

[kenberg]

I'll bet to the blockade in a bit. First dome general thoughts.

 

Contrary to Winston, I think the world should ignore it. Shocking, yes. But I generally try to stay out of other people's fights. Hamas hopes to destroy Israel. Israel hopes to destroy Hamas. I am not suggesting equivalence, I favor Israel by a wide margin in this struggle. But they each wish to destroy the other and I fully expect that to be true tomorrow and the day after tomorrow and five years from now. Hamas, the Wik tells me, has "only" been around since 1987 but in the broader sense these guys have been killing each other for my entire adult life. And, I suppose, long before. We can help both sides most, and ourselves the most, by butting out when either side comes shouting "Look what they have done". It's not isolationism, it's not even not caring about the horrible pain and suffering, it's realism. As long as Israel exists, this will continue. I do not favor abandoning Israel.

 

Now to the blockade: It's stupid to blockade something and not enforce the blockade. Quite possibly this means that it is stupid to blockade. Let them figure it out.

[helene_t]

But from the news bytes I heard the claim from Israel was in keeping with the same reasoning that established the Bush Doctrine, i.e., we have the right to go anywhere and do anything to anyone in order to stop our enemies from acting against us.

"Anywhere" includes Iraq (for the US) and Gaza (for Israel)?

 

I think there is a difference. I think Israel's stakes in Gaza are a lot more real than USA's stakes in Iraq.

[hrothgar]

As long as Israel exists, this will continue. I do not favor abandoning Israel.

I do.

 

They made their bed, now they get to lie in it.

 

I think that we should let most any Israeli citizen who wants emigrate to the US.

 

The rest of them should get treated just like South Africa.

End all US military and economic aid + trade embargo.

[kenberg]

As long as Israel exists, this will continue. I do not favor abandoning Israel.

I do.

 

They made their bed, now they get to lie in it.

 

I think that we should let most any Israeli citizen who wants emigrate to the US.

 

The rest of them should get treated just like South Africa.

End all US military and economic aid + trade embargo.

While we make different choices here, we might ?) agree that really this is what it comes down to.

[hrothgar]

the following article does a pretty good job summarizing the timeline

 

http://www.salon.com/news/israel/index.htm..._reconstruction

[helene_t]

The government offered to transfer any humanitarian aid to the Palestinian territory, but the flotilla's organizers refused, saying their goal was to break a blockade they considered illegal.

[Winstonm]

But from the news bytes I heard the claim from Israel was in keeping with the same reasoning that established the Bush Doctrine, i.e., we have the right to go anywhere and do anything to anyone in order to stop our enemies from acting against us.

"Anywhere" includes Iraq (for the US) and Gaza (for Israel)?

 

I think there is a difference. I think Israel's stakes in Gaza are a lot more real than USA's stakes in Iraq.

I don't think it matters - the Bush Doctrin IMO is an abortion. There was a reason the Nuremberg came with the decision that an act of aggressive war was a war crime. Iraq has simply shown why Nuremberg was wise and the Bush Doctrine so glaringly wrong.

 

If we start into the well they did so-and-so first, yeah, but you-did-whatchamacallit then you go down the same idiotic slope that the middle east has been sliding about on forever.

 

Maybe we should just ask god who started it all - hmmm, but then we have to figure out which god to ask, don't we?

[gwnn]

http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/8422/youtubeonlysomuchyoucan.gif

[Winstonm]

I thought Justin Raimondo of anti-war.com made an interesting observation about the realtionship between the U.S. and Israels. Perhaps the U.S. is misguided and living in the past?

 

It is often said, by Israel’s defenders, that the Jewish state is part and parcel of the West: that Israel, the only democracy in the region, must be defended because they are, after all, reliable allies who share our values, the heritage of Athens and Jerusalem. That has been the conventional wisdom – and it’s wrong. The Mediterranean Massacre underscores the wrongness of this assumption.

 

Israel is not a Western country, and hasn’t been for some time: helped along by this latest incident, the realization of this fact by Western governments and peoples will represent a turning point in the Jewish state’s relations with the civilized world, especially including Jews in the Diaspora. I have argued this for years: that the successful aliya program pushed by the Israeli government has displaced the old European-derived Israeli elites with a new, more Asiatic influence, one that is now – with the rise of the Israel far right – the dominant factor in Israeli politics.

[Rossoneri]

Liked this quote in Thomas Friedman's latest column: When Friends Fall Out

This quote from the article sums up my sentiment:

 

I have no problem with Turkey or humanitarian groups loudly criticizing Israel. But I have a big problem when people get so agitated by Israel’s actions in Gaza but are unmoved by Syria’s involvement in the murder of the prime minister of Lebanon, by the Iranian regime’s killing of its own citizens demonstrating for the right to have their votes counted, by Muslim suicide bombers murdering nearly 100 Ahmadi Muslims in mosques in Pakistan on Friday and by pro-Hamas gunmen destroying a U.N.-sponsored summer camp in Gaza because it wouldn’t force Islamic fundamentalism down the throats of children.

 

A friend of mine showed support for the protests in London on Facebook. So I asked him, North Korea killed 46 when they sank the South Korean naval ship without provocation, so why are you not protesting against them? His reply was highly unconvincing.

[andrei]

Liked this quote in Thomas Friedman's latest column: When Friends Fall Out

This quote from the article sums up my sentiment:

 

I have no problem with Turkey or humanitarian groups loudly criticizing Israel. But I have a big problem when people get so agitated by Israel’s actions in Gaza but are unmoved by Syria’s involvement in the murder of the prime minister of Lebanon, by the Iranian regime’s killing of its own citizens demonstrating for the right to have their votes counted, by Muslim suicide bombers murdering nearly 100 Ahmadi Muslims in mosques in Pakistan on Friday and by pro-Hamas gunmen destroying a U.N.-sponsored summer camp in Gaza because it wouldn’t force Islamic fundamentalism down the throats of children.

 

A friend of mine showed support for the protests in London on Facebook. So I asked him, North Korea killed 46 when they sank the South Korean naval ship without provocation, so why are you not protesting against them? His reply was highly unconvincing.

+1

 

Israel actions in Gaza: all over the news, first page in all newspapers

Syrians, Iranians, North Koreans actions: right after the sports news or in page 23.

 

Sad to see how people are manipulated by the media.

[helene_t]

Sad to see how people are manipulated by the media.

I think it's the other way round.

 

People hate USA and because Israel is an ally of USA they hate Israel, too.

 

Or they just hate Israel because they hate Jews.

 

And the media tell people what they want to hear.

[hrothgar]

A friend of mine showed support for the protests in London on Facebook. So I asked him, North Korea killed 46 when they sank the South Korean naval ship without provocation, so why are you not protesting against them? His reply was highly unconvincing.

Simply put, we expect better from the Israeli's

 

The world sat back and watched while millions of African's hacked each other to death with machetes. We - the US in particular - didn't bother to raise a finger to try to stop this. We cried a few crocodile tears after the fact, however, this is Africa. We expect it to be screwed up.

 

In a similar vein, compare the Holocaust in Germany with a number of other genocidal activities. (Pol Pot in Cambodia, Stalin's actions in the Soviet Union). I'd argue that the reason that the Holocaust has captured the world's imagination isn't the unique characteristics of the victims or even the systemic / even clinical nature of the process. Its the fact that this atrocity was carried out by Germans. (And once again, the world expects better from the land of Goethe).

 

In the case of Israeli

 

1. The world has a (high) set of expectations regarding Israel

2. Historically, these expectations are what justify the enormous amounts of continuous military and economic aid that flow from the US to Israel. Its also what stops the world from treating Israel in the same way that they treat other apartheid regimes.

3. If the Israeli's want to break these expectations, so be it. However, they need to be aware that there are consequences to these actions.

[PassedOut]

1. The world has a (high) set of expectations regarding Israel

And not so high for, say, North Korea.

 

Because of the strong linkage between the US and Israel, every mistake by Israel reflects badly on the US as well. The US is trying to recover from the stupidity of invading Iraq, and incidents like this one hurt that effort.

[luke warm]

A friend of mine showed support for the protests in London on Facebook. So I asked him, North Korea killed 46 when they sank the South Korean naval ship without provocation, so why are you not protesting against them? His reply was highly unconvincing.

Simply put, we expect better from the Israeli's

why do you expect better from the israelis than, say, the syrians? or the iranians? or even the n. koreans?

If the Israeli's want to break these expectations, so be it. However, they need to be aware that there are consequences to these actions.

i'm interested, what would you expect to happen if the u.s. suddenly withdrew military and other support from israel? do you think that if israel was left to stand alone the middle east would be more or less peaceful? for my money, if the u.s. wasn't in that picture there would surely be all out war over there (with the exception, perhaps, of egypt), and israel would almost surely come out of it with even more land that it now has

[jocdelevat]

focusblog.ro

If you go this site and scrol down till the end then start scroll up you''ll find some expert opinios and some interesting antiterror rules. The article is in Romanian the first part but the end where the expert opinios are it is english.

[cherdanno]

The government offered to transfer any humanitarian aid to the Palestinian territory, but the flotilla's organizers refused, saying their goal was to break a blockade they considered illegal.

Obviously the easiest way to bring humanitarian aid into Gaza is just to hire some trucks. If you wanted to bring some forbidden goods (such as coriander) you could use one of the many tunnels going underneath the border.

But that´s maybe a little besides the point. The Israel embargo isn´t meant to starve people in Gaza to death. Nor are they just trying to prevent weapons from getting in.

Instead it is meant to systematically bring the Gaza economy to a halt, as a collective punishment for electing Hamas. It includes such stupidities as forbidding high school graduates to go to college in West Jordan land.

See http://www.economist.com/node/16264970 for a silly list of permitted and forbidden goods to bring to Gaza.

 

But you cant do anything about a halted economy by bringing in humanitarian goods. Instead, they tried to create awareness for the situation. It certainly seemed to have helped, I would doubt cherdanno would have written a post about this on BBF otherwise.

[gwnn]

What would have happened if there had been a similar number of casualties on both sides? Alternatively, what would have happened if there had been only minor injuries on the "peace activists" side? What is the fundamental difference between these two scenarios and the actual one (I concede that the fourth possible scenario, that of many Israeli soldiers killed and just a few activists, is quite unlikely)?

 

Not trying to make a point, only thinking out loud. I concede that it is somewhat grotesque to play around with the number of dead people like NT ranges but I would like to understand the specific causes and parameters of this global outrage.

[Winstonm]

I think we are well past the point in time that Israel is given a free ride for its actions. The new Israel has shown itself to be ruthless, inhumane, and without mercy to any who would oppose her. In other words, Israel has shown itself to be little or no different han the enemies it defies.

 

As long as the U.S. blindly supports Israel because of a historical impression of early post war Israel when that country clearly is not what it established itself to be , then there will be hatred and attacks against the U.S. that are hard - if one is honest about it - to continue to discount as totally unwarranted and completely unprovoked.

 

(Edited as the previous sounded more harsh than internded. I am not saying Israel should be totally castigated, but we should treat Israel no different than any other country at this point - blindly supporting them is bad foreign policy.)

[helene_t]

Since this is the water cooler, we need a photo of an Israeli soldier petting a cat:

[hrothgar]

i'm interested, what would you expect to happen if the u.s. suddenly withdrew military and other support from israel? do you think that if israel was left to stand alone the middle east would be more or less peaceful? for my money, if the u.s. wasn't in that picture there would surely be all out war over there (with the exception, perhaps, of egypt), and israel would almost surely come out of it with even more land that it now has

I'd be shocked if there were any kind of large scale war.

 

The Israeli military is incredibly dependent on the US for fuel and ammunition resupply. (Please recall, we had to rush the Israeli's all sorts of extra cluster bombs the last time they went to town on one of their neighbors). Simply put, the Israeli's wouldn't be able to launch an significant offensive actions since they wouldn't be able to risk completely depleting their suppies.

 

At the same time, I don't think that there is any significant chance that any of the neighboring countries would launch an attack.

 

Egypt is a US client state.

The Iraqi military was destroyed.

Lebanon is a shambles.

Jordan is happy with the status quo.

The thought of Iran invading is laughable

 

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see some upsurge in attacks from nonstate actors, however, this isn't any kind of existential threat. Quite honestly, if you try to maintain a colonial/apartheid state as do the Israelis, you need to view rocket attacks as a cost of doing business.

 

I would expect to see significant emigration out of Israel in the short term which I view as a good thing. (As I've said before, we should try to evacuate the sane portions of Israeli society)

 

Long term, I'd expect to see the Israeli arpatheid regime crumble and die in much the same way as South Africa. The country simply isn't viable as a fundamentalist autarky.

 

My major concern is that the effects of a trade embargo would fall disproportionately on the poorest parts of the economy.

[pirate22]

This Topic could only be aired "Pot Boiler"-----The situation has been going on now for 50 years----------it goes back to Lawrence of Arabia.........and when certain

ocupiers left,and the carve up created,broken promises----------

I agree Israel has a point --also the palestinians have point--so do the Turks/lebonese/iraqui's/irananians./russians/egypt/emirates

why dont they all form a comittee exlude USA/UK/France/germany/italy/greece,

get round the table and PUBLISH-who wants what and publish the "Ayes/Nays"

 

regards

[kenberg]

Richard, I think your above reply to Jimmy is very thoughtful. I am not convinced, but I will think about it.

 

The first war I followed with some attention was in Korea. I recall MacArthur explaining that if we crossed into North Korea the Chinese would of course stay out of it and if they did come in we could easily handle them. Hmm. Well, c'est la guerre.

 

In high school I had a friend who was much more interested in Israel than I was. He argued strenuously that it was absurd to think that tiny Israel could ever attack anyone. Maybe Nasser believed this.

 

Long ago I learned the story of the scorpion who talked a frog into carrying him across the Jordan River, explaining that of course he would not sting him since then he, the scorpion, would drown. So of course half way across the scorpion stung him.

"Now we will both die" said the frog. "Why would you do this?"

"It's the middle East".

 

I am generally very skeptical of moral arguments, I find your arguments, as given above, more to my taste, but I am not convinced that they hold up. I think this ("this" is intentionally vague) will end very badly, or else will just never end, but of course this pessimism does not relieve us of the obligation to make the least bad choice that is available.

 

As I recall ( I was 17, I never really followed the details) we largely managed to decline any great involvement in the Suez crisis, I remember some Brit saying "I hope those damn Yanks know what they are doing" . I really don't know if we did then, or if we do now. We can all hope. I think that if at all possible the best strategy is to wish everyone involved the best of luck and to keep ourselves out of the way of the shells.

 

Also, we should believe no one, absolutely no one, when we are told that if we just do X then the jihadists won't hate us anymore.

[mike777]

I agree with the other posters the number one reason for all of this is to break the blockade.

 

 

I can understand the frustation Israel must feel that so many other countries around them can practice Religious Apartheid and basically get away with it but Israel is held to a higher standard.

 

My guess the main reason for this is there really are so many people from Palestine willing to push the issue compared with say Jews and Christians or Hindus in other middle east countries.

 

The Palestines really feel this is their country and they are willing to die for it and teach their children to die for it.

 

As a result to preserve a Jewish Israel, 6 million Jews, a tiny country, must choose between thousands of rockets falling on them or active defensive measures that kill people or give up the idea of Jewish state.

------------

 

 

btw this war has been going on back to the old testament. Read it, it is full of bloody genocide.

[helene_t]

I can understand the frustation Israel must feel that so many other countries around them can practice Religious Apartheid and  basically get away with it but Israel is held to a higher standard.

Maybe someone with more Middle East knowledge than I can correct me, but I don't think it's fair to talk about "religious apartheid" in other Middle East countries than Israel.

 

OK, the overall human rights situation is probably better in Israel than in most if not all other Middle East countries, but I wouldn't use the term Apartheid for the kind of oppression of minority groups and individuals that take place elsewhere. Religious minorities may be subject to harassment but I don't think they are forced to live in ghettos. I could be wrong about this.

 

As for applying the term "Apartheid" to Israel and the West Bank, I don't think it is quite fair either. Palestinian West Bank residents are not Israeli citizens, and the West Bank does not fall under Israeli civic administration. The US didn't treat Iraqis as US citizens when Iraq was occupied by the US, either. Non-Jewish Israeli citizens are subject to various sort of discrimination - except for the Drusians they don't serve in the army which I suppose most of them are happy with, but also Jews can easily get Israeli citizenship while it is very difficult for non-Jews (so getting your foreign family into the country must be a lot more difficult for non-Jewish citizens), and I am sure there are other examples of legal discrimination. However, my impression is that the discrimination felt by non-Jews in Israel is more a social thing than a legal thing.

 

I am not going to excuse Israel's treatment of non-Jewish residents but I think the issues are of a different order of magnitude than Apartheid in South Africa, and human rights abuses in most other Middle East countries. Maybe it is fair to compare the conditions of West Bank residents to those of black South Africans under apartheid (to be honest, to me the West Bank was pretty much like I had imagined South Africa, and clearly the situation has gone a lot worse since then (1984)) , but again, it has a different legal basis as the West Bank is not part of Israel. One Palestinian I talked to said that he would hope that Israel would annex the West Bank so they could get the same rights as Arabs in Israel, but I am pretty sure very few would agree with him. When Israel annexed the Golan Heights it was condemned by a unanimous UN assembly (only Israel voted against) so it isn't fair to blame Israel for not treating West Bank residents as their own citizens - then again, there are plenty of other things to blame Israel for wrt the West Bank, for example the Jewish settlements on the West Bank are pretty inexcusable IMHO.

 

OK, I am not talking about the blockade of Gaza at all, that may or may not be a different kettle of fish. I just don't know enough about that issue. I have lived in Israel for 3 months and traveled a lot on the West bank, and had lots of conversations with people from all sides in the area, but it was before the time of the Palestinian authority, and also I don't know anyone with contacts in Gaza.