Israelis Sue Government For Laser Cannons 736
An anonymous reader writes "Residents of a southern Israeli town want a real-life laser cannon to protect them against Palestinian rocket attacks. And they're suing the national government, for failing to provide the ray gun defense.
The U.S.-Israeli Tactical High Energy Laser project was widely considered to be the most successful energy weapon ever built. But the toxic chemicals needed to generate THEL's megawatts of power made the thing a logistical nightmare. It was scrapped. Now, the residents of Sderot want it back. And they're taking Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to court to make it happen."
Sweet! (Score:1, Insightful)
Please stay on topic (Score:5, Insightful)
The residents of Sderot have every right to expect their government to protect them and if the government is refusing to take any preventative action, while over 7,000 rockets have fallen on the town, then suing the government seems a very reasonable action.
Please note that they're not strapping bombs to themselves and running into cafes or government buildings - they're taking a legal action in a desperate request for help.
To pre-empt the comments that will follow, it's not relevant to point out Israeli action in Gaza and get into a debate over whether it's justified or not - this topic is about residents of Sderot taking completely non-violent, legal action, over repeated aggressive and violent attacks from a neighbouring region.
If only everyone in the region sought such a solution, instead of violence meets violence.
Laser Cannon? (Score:0, Insightful)
If a country needs this much defense. . . (Score:2, Insightful)
Precision... (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, has anyone of you ever seen the damage katyushas make? Calling those things rockets or spending money to intercept them is ludicrous.
Re:If a country needs this much defense. . . (Score:3, Insightful)
Serriously? Israelis with FREAKING lasers! (Score:1, Insightful)
They're not going to just cry and go running home after a FREAKING laser attack. Oh no. You can bet that handfuls of Qassam missiles will rain down on a pretty regular basis. What Israel needs is a good read of Dr. Suse's Butter Battle Book [wikipedia.org] and have a sudden outbreak of common sense. Palestine needs to grow the hell up and stop acting like an angry child too.
Escalating weapons and violence rarely solve anything unless EVERYBODY is just charcoal in the bottom of a big-ass crater. Then the problem pretty much solves its self.
Re:If a country needs this much defense. . . (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead, we should stick to the track of "Palestinians/Muslims are evil", right?
over 7,000 rockets have fallen on the town, then suing the government seems a very reasonable action.
So New York citizens should also sue over the WTC attacks?
Sderot taking completely non-violent, legal action, over repeated aggressive and violent attacks from a neighbouring region.
should probably read "over repeated aggressive and violent attacks from a neighbouring region, over repeated aggressive and violent attacks from its nation, over repeated aggressive and violent attacks from a neighbouring region, over
If only everyone in the region sought such a solution, instead of violence meets violence.
Agreed. It's a circle of violence that is not restricted to one side, and the only way to break it is for one side to just stop. Unfortunately, the Palestinian side is probably too disorganised to commonly decide on anything. That means the only hope is for Israel to stop it, but I'm not too hopeful that will happen.
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:3, Insightful)
Who wants to bet the chemicals would kill more people than the rockets?
Re:If a country needs this much defense. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
A few points:
- There are Arabs living happily in Israel. The Druze are happy Israeli citizens, and the Bedouin are generally friendly with Israelis.
- Even the Arabs living in Israel who AREN'T happy with Israel would rather live in Israel than in Palastine (West Bank/Gaza).
- The Palastinian refugees living in Arab countries (like Lebanon) are treated much worse by the Arabs than those in Palastine are by the Jews.
It's true perhaps that Israel goes a little overboard in their responses to people attacking them, however, they do have at least one neighbor who has sworn explicitly to destroy them, so it is kind of understandable.Re:Please stay on topic (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Serriously? Israelis with FREAKING lasers! (Score:4, Insightful)
Probably not, seeing as how the laser has been proposed as a strictly defensive weapon, to shoot down the rockets/missiles that are ALREADY raining down on a 'pretty regular basis'. Matter of fact, the citizens of the town could suddenly decide to start lobbing explosives back the other way and the attacks wouldn't increase significantly, as Palestine is already throwing as much as they can at them.
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:3, Insightful)
No, we should stick to the topic at hand. I never once said anything about Palestinians/Muslims being evil, you just made the assumption that I must hate them, because I don't hate Jews. Is the world that black and white to you? You either hate Jews and love Palestinians or vice versa?
So New York citizens should also sue over the WTC attacks?
Sure, why not? Sue the Saudi government, if you can prove a link. Sue the US government for not detecting it. Whatever - if someone has negligence, then so be it. If no one has negligence, then you don't sue.
However your example is a bad one - the US govt. can reasonably claim it had no idea of the impending 9/11 attack - the Israeli govt. cannot make such a claim; when rocket attacks occur each and every single day. Therefore, there's more of a genuine complaint of negligence.
So if Sderot need to sue their government into action, so be it.
should probably read "over repeated aggressive and violent attacks from a neighbouring region, over repeated aggressive and violent attacks from its nation, over repeated aggressive and violent attacks from a neighbouring region, over
I don't see residents of Sderot lining up to fire rockets into Gaza. They're just families trying to get on with their life. Why should they be forced to suffer attack after attack, over actions of other people?
Unfortunately, the Palestinian side is probably too disorganised to commonly decide on anything. That means the only hope is for Israel to stop it, but I'm not too hopeful that will happen.
So the Palestinians are absolved of all responsibility? How convenient!
Re:If a country needs this much defense. . . (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:If a country needs this much defense. . . (Score:3, Insightful)
Worth Spending All This Money On (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:3, Insightful)
When has that ever worked?
Total despair means nothing left to lose and people with nothing left to lose make ideal suicide bombers.
Re:Precision... (Score:3, Insightful)
They are pretty pathetic in terms of damage. However, their military value is in their psychological impact, and to a certain extent, economic impact (with everyone running to shelters several times a day). Hamas' thinking is that they will be able to use the rockets in response to future IDF attacks as a form of deterrent. It's a dangerous game.
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok, so let me start by saying that I think suicide bombings and random rocket attacks on civilians are wrong, immoral, and inexcusable.
Now that I've gotten the obligatory "I'm not a terrorist apologist" crap out of the way, let me say this:
They should be suing to force their dumbshit government to start a serious peace process with the Palestinians and develop a working 2-state solution which provides security and prosperity for both peoples. The Israel's government's actions against the Palestinians - the harsh, collective punishment and indiscriminate killings - need to stop, and the Hamas government needs to be taken seriously and negotiated with.
And before anybody comments that Hamas has pledged to destroy Israel and how you negotiate with someone that believes that, I say, big fucking deal. The Soviets pledged to bury the US, and spent the better part of 50 years pointing enough nuclear weaponry at the other half of the earth to wipe out humanity several times over. Still, there were talks, and attempts to reduce the hostility and bring peace about. You can and must deal with your enemies.
Terrorism is a bad thing. But terrorism is just a tactic, and one that's used when the warfare situation is asymmetrical. The Israelis have a very modern, well equipped and well trained army, and they make extensive use of it in what they see as a battle to ensure their survival. The Palestinians have no military to speak of, and so it makes sense to them to resort to terrorist attacks in what they see as a battle to gain the right to self determination and freedom the control of Israel.
Re:Worth Spending All This Money On (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Politically incorrect solution (Score:2, Insightful)
Uh, you do realise that the Islamists are already quite happy to blow themselves up in order to make a political point?
You've fallen into the common trap of projecting your own morals and rational thought, onto people brainwashed their entire lives to hate Jews and want to kill them. Meanwhile, after tens of billions of dollars in 'aid' from the US, EU and even Israel, the only significant thing the Palestinian society produces, is terrorism.
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:-1, Insightful)
Hmmm, actually, it is. If there was a credible counter-measure to Qassam rockets, then much of Israel's behavior towards Gaza would cease to have a defensible reason. If you support the peace process and the plan to get Israel the heck out of the occupied territories, then deploying this type of weapon makes a lot of sense. Add a defensive fence, on pre-1967 boundaries, and Israel can mind its own business, get out of the territories and stop bottling the Palestinians up.
In other words, support for this is very different from supporting airstrikes into Gaza and I don't see too many ethical red flags about defending the suffering civilians of Sderot and the Gazans. All $3billion US military aid should be re-routed to defensive systems, not offensive ones.
Re:Sweet! (Score:3, Insightful)
The Palestinians try and kill as many babies, women, children and non-combatant civilians as possible. When it happens, they celebrate, just as they did on 9/11 and just as they did last week.
The Israelis do not try and kill non-combatants, however their job is made harder because the rockets are fired from the middle of townships, as Hamas knows dead Palestinian kids make for good propaganda. Certainly no Israeli celebrates when it happens. That's the difference and it's important.
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Precision... (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:sorry, the whole world is obsessed with jews (Score:2, Insightful)
Sikhs make the news way more than "jews" but way less than "israel"
Re:Sweet! (Score:5, Insightful)
The part where "terrorist" is defined as "whoever we killed"?
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:3, Insightful)
However, the lesson of the Holocaust is that Jews are not simply going to die this time.
The Arabs don't quite seem to get that.
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:-1, Insightful)
- A moderate government don't use its mass media to incite violence. Fatah's media recently praised the terror attack on a religious school.
- The "moderate" Palestinian president Abbas recently bragged on how he had been involved in the "resistance" (code word for terrorism).
- Books for schoolchildren distributed by the Palestinian government still contain incitements such as Jews are descendents of pigs and apes (funded by the West, mind you), Holocaust denials and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion hoax.
- The terrorist group Al-Aqsa Martyr Brigade is a military wing of Fatah (headed by "moderate" Abbas)
- PLO charter still contains the destruction of Israel as a goal.
- The terrorists are using weapons given by the US intended to strengthen the "moderate" president Abbas.
The only long term solution available only exists if the Palestinian government is willing to crush terror groups, but that's unlikely. They had so many opportunity to do so but failed. They could have used the aftermath of Israeli operations to clean up weakened terror groups, but the "moderate" Palestinian government only stands aside and curses Israel for oppressing the terrorists. Arafat and Abbas always complained how weak they were and how they were unable to reign the terrorists (in English) but they say the opposite in Arabic. In short, expect the conflict to keep on dragging with no solution.
Re:Sweet! (Score:2, Insightful)
That's what they do, not what they say they do. If you ask Hamas, they'll tell you that they're shooting at a military base near Sderot but - oy vey gevult - they don't have any guided missiles like Israel does, hashem knows where their rockets will land. Who cares if it hits Sderot citizens, all citizens of Israel are terrorists anyway by Hamas's definition.
Then the Israelis get mad and fire back. They use guided munitions. They hit exactly where they want to hit. "want" is they key word here. They know that the rocket launching teams are hiding out amidst civilians. They have a choice: fire back at the precise location, possibly killing lots of innocent bystanders, or look weak because they didn't retaliate to each and every provocation. They choose to murder terrorists and anyone in the vicinity because they think the image of a merciless butcher is a better reputation to have than a touchy-feely nice country that's only defending itself. Besides, all citizens of Gaza are terrorists or terrorist sympathisers anyway.
It's this kind of fucked up thinking on both sides that mean a permanent state of warfare until one side is completely and utterly wiped out. And my money's not on the Arabs.
Re:Sweet! (Score:4, Insightful)
Those same people frequently believe that armed rebel terrorists firing the rockets at them do not deserve to be shot back at by the Israeli military.
I don't understand it myself, but I'll tell you when I do.
Re:Serriously? Israelis with FREAKING lasers! (Score:2, Insightful)
Islamic fundi's would NOT stop harassing Israel even if Israel did nothing in return. These are people who whine about fights that happened thousands of years ago and threaten death over Mohamed cartoons. Zealots don't stop.
I agree Israel's attitude doesn't help, but Islamic fundi's run Gaza far more than Zionist fundi's run Israel.
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:5, Insightful)
Or maybe the solution is for Palestinians to kill Israeli civilians for every hectare taken until the Israelis figure it out and stop?
solve the cause, not the symptom (Score:1, Insightful)
Instead of treating the symptom, why don't the Israelis solve the cause? The cause is that in Gaza live two groups of people. One group simply wants to live, work, go to school, live in peace, and mind their own business. The other group wants to blow stuff up. To solve the cause, the group that wants to blow stuff up needs to be blown up first.
Here's the trouble with this simple statement:
- Trouble number 1: This isn't a conventional war, where the army of one state fights the army of another. This is a state, which has to abide by laws and wants to avoid killing innocent bystanders, fighting bands of rebels, who abide by no law, target children, and hope to kill as many innocent bystanders as possible. When a terrorist shoots rockets at children and dreams of blowing himself up, does he have morals or care about the consequences of breaking laws? No way!
- Trouble number 2: The enemy knows that Israelis value life and want to avoid killing the bystanders I just mentioned, so they use that to their advantage by deliberately firing their rockets from the vicinity of homes or schools. This has two advantages for the terrorists: First, Israel will hesitate to strike back for fear of killing innocents; second, if Israel strikes back and innocents get killed, it makes for great anti-Israel PR for the terrorists. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
So the trouble is that you really must kill the terrorists because they pose a danger to both sides of the Gaza border. How do you do that? You have to enlist the help of the innocent people who live in their midst. Israel has to send a few elite battalions into Gaza to stamp out this problem once and for all, and must provide a means for the innocent residents of Gaza to join forces with Israel against the terrorist elements that surround them. Only then will the tens of thousands of terrorists in Gaza be overpowered. And stamp them out one-by-one, destroy their bomb factories, blow up their underground tunnels, and put an end to the problem of terrorism in Gaza once and for all.This is the solution. This is a painful solution. It will require a tremendous effort, a fight that will last a very long time, and many lives will unfortunately be lost in the process, from all three sides. But this is the only way to end the daily barrage of rocket fire from Gaza onto several Israeli towns, and the terror that the residents of both areas feel on a daily basis.
Building ray guns and all kinds of weird stuff will NOT solve the problem.
Re:sorry, the whole world is obsessed with jews (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:3, Insightful)
A handful.
Show me the threat.
Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a variant of this type of game that disallows communication between teams. It's been shown that with that setup, there is exactly one way to play:
1st round: no information is available, so assume maximal cooperation from all other teams, and play your turn accordingly.
2nd round: Reciprocate the other teams' play: if they played greedy, play greedy. If they played nice, play nice.
3rd round: repeat approach from round 2 until the end.
The logic behind this is that greedy players will only play nice when they see the exact consequences of their actions imposed on themselves, and when they see that playing nice is rewarded.
Applied to the Israel/Palestine conflict, it could mean that the appropriate response to random rocket launches is an immediate retaliatory strike with equal destructive power, aimed at the source of the rockets. On the other hand, the appropriate response to suicide bombers is a little more fuzzy. Send in robot-bombers? Drop a bomb in a random place? Also, it is unclear what the positive feedback for no rocket launches or suicide bombers would be. Resume normal conditions? Stay put? Unlock frozen support funds for hamas?
I definitely think though that Palestinians in general have to understand that rockets being launched from their territory means that rockets will be launched against them in general as well. It'd be difficult to implement, as it's a completely different approach to dealing with rocket attacks and suicide bombers: personal responsibility and punishment is out, collective punishment is in. Not to mention that a lot of the current preventive measures would have to go out the window as well.
I doubt that anybody in Israel has the courage to experiment with that.
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:5, Insightful)
The people of the village of Sderot want to take that bet.
Please pay attention.
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:3, Insightful)
Should they concede to all the Hamas demands? Clearly that won't work since, as you've pointed out, Hamas won't stop demanding until Israel is gone. It takes TWO sides to negotiate, and both have to be wanting peace. Until Hamas is willing to compromise, what can Israel do?
As I see it, there are a few strategies:
You have a great idea: Israel should negotiate. That is fine, but until both sides want peace, it isn't possible. For the time being I'm not sure there is anything they can do that will cause an immediate peace.
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:-1, Insightful)
People need to read their history. Look up the Irgun. Fine bunch, they are.
Re:solve the cause, not the symptom (Score:2, Insightful)
A very, very important point that cannot be overemphasized must be made here: The terrorists actually want innocent Palestinians to get killed when Israel fights back. Yes, this is absolutely true. As has been documented time and again, they fire their rockets from right next to a school, or a mosque, or a home where there are many children. If Israel fights back, innocent people are sure to get killed. The terrorists want their neighbors to get killed because it serves their cause. Innocent people get killed, and there is a worldwide uproar against Israel. That's where you get statements like, "120 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military." Yes, it is a factual statement numerically, but you forgot to mention that most were terrorists. Some innocent bystanders were killed too. That is very unfortunate, and it's a situation the Israelis try very hard to avoid. It happens. It's the unfortunate result of being at war. Innocent Israelis are getting killed all the time, too. Don't forget that.
But let's talk about innocent Palestinians for a moment. Suppose someone is shooing at a police officer. The police officer, in self defense, shoots back. Unfortunately, an innocent bystander gets killed. Who's fault is it? It is legally and morally the fault of the criminal, NOT the police officer. Had the criminal not initiated the shooting, none of the following events would have taken place. Since it was the criminal who forced the police officer to shoot, it is entirely the criminal's responsibility and fault that someone got killed. Does this prevent the police officer from having nightmares about this for the rest of his life? No. And such is the case with Israel. The terrorists in Gaza fire rockets. Israel fights back. Some innocent people get killed on both sides. Israelis feel terrible when this happens. But it's not Israel's fault. Israel is fighting in self defense. The terrorists against whom they fight are fighting to get innocent people killed. There is a huge difference. There is no moral, ethical, or legal equivalence between Israel's accidental killing of innocent Palestinians and the terrorists' deliberate killing of both Palestinians and Israelis. When people get killed in this conflict, it is entirely the terrorists' fault, not Israel's, not America's, not the UN's, not George Bush's, not even CmdrTaco's.
Re:If a country needs this much defense. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
For the record: I do not condone attacks on civilians by either side, and am as disgusted at the Arab militants as I am at the Israelis. It's just that you're making it sound like Arabs are welcome to live in Israel, whereas this is obviously not true "by definition". Indeed, that's what the whole right-of-return issue with the Palestinian Arabs is all about.
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:3, Insightful)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Camp_David_Summit#Refugees_and_the_right_of_return [wikipedia.org]
Israelis asserted that allowing a right of return to Israel proper, rather than to the newly created Palestinian state, would mean an influx of Palestinians that would fundamentally alter the demographics of Israel, jeopardizing Israel's Jewish character and its existence as a whole. The Israelis also argued that a larger number of Jewish refugees had been pushed out of Arab countries since 1948, and were not compensated, and that most of them ended up in Israel.
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, this piece by Zizek [lacan.com] seems to be the best critique of "lessons" of the Holocaust.
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:3, Insightful)
> give it a chance to run Palestinian territories
They more or less did, right up to the point where Hamas staged a military coup in Gaza and started firing rockets over the border. Note that Abbas didn't dissolve the government until after said military coup.
A sovereign government firing rockets over a border at the territory of another sovereign government. It's usually called an act of war...
> If the latter, the Hamas government, while fucking with Israel,
> would have driven their own people into further misery
That's exactly what's going on right now, yes.
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:3, Insightful)
Before you start blabbing about Ghandi and the power of non-violent resistance, let's get something clear: there is a MASSIVE difference between fighting a foe who actually cares about being humane, and fighting a foe who'll do anything to achieve your annihilation. Ghandi facing the Brits was the former, which is why it worked. The Jews facing the Nazi's was the latter, which is why it didn't. I'll leave it to you to figure out which camp the Pallies fall into.
What Israel needs to do for peace (Score:3, Insightful)
2) Begin negotiating with Haniya. Like it or not, he is the fairly elected representative of the Palestinian Authority. The problem is that, as you point out, Hamas sees its goal as the destruction of Israel, but Haniya has shown that he is more moderate than that, and negotiation is the only way to change the propaganda. Note that good thing can grow in questionable ground-- Shamir was an old wannabe Nazi* and yet he contributed greatly to the peace process. Sharon was a convicted war criminal** and yet his administration began the abandonment of large sections of settlement blocks, paving a possible road to peace. If we judged everyone by the past, Israel's leadership would be disqualified for past affiliations/war crimes/etc.
* This is not meant to invoke Godwin's law. Shamir was a top leader during WWII of a group which was fighting for Israeli independance against the UK. This group (ELHI, aka the Stern Gang) was a terrorist organization which openly idolized the Nazis, celebrated Nazi field victories praised the rounding up of the Jews by the Nazis (on the basis that this way at least they were effectively self-governing), and even in 1942 attempted to form a military alliance with Hitler. Funny-- celebrate Nazi victories, try to enter into an alliance with Hitler,
** Sharon was convicted of an Israeli military tribunal of being in part responsible for the massacres in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebannon in the 1980's.
My own suspicion is that we are going to see yet another "Operation Defensive Shield" which will force the government to once again consider abandoning settlement blocks. No, Israeli politics is far from rational. It would be laughable if it weren't so tragic. In the end, though, the civilians on both sides are the losers.
Re:Sweet! (Score:5, Insightful)
And there are just as many idiots that believe that unarmed Palestinians deserve to be shelled. A Jewish soldier shoots and kills a few Muslims boys playing football so a Muslim soldier (we call them terrorists because we don't like Muslims) fires a rocket at a Jewish village so the Jewish army send in a helicopter to blow up a Muslim market and the Muslims go and blow up a Jewish market...
and the plebs take sides. Why can't people see that until we stop killing each other there will never be peace. The people in power, both Jewish and Muslim, do not want peace. They are not stupid. They make their money from the fighting. All the shouts of "He started it" just sound like 10 year old boys fighting in the playground. They are both killing each others children and the fighting will not stop until those in power give peace a chance.
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sweet! (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you take the same attitude to WWII?
When people's countries are occupied by others who believe they have some ancient right to lebensraum, you can't expect to be able to scold both sides and tell them to play nicely. This is life, not the playground.
Re:Sorry... (Score:3, Insightful)
That would be very scary.
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:2, Insightful)
Yet somehow it isn't a problem when Israel spends money given to them by the US on weapons. Even when Israel kills US citzens!
The way the US behaves here just makes little sense.
Re:Sweet! (Score:5, Insightful)
No, I didn't think so.
If Palestinian children are being hit by gunfire, perhaps Palestinian gunmen shouldn't be firing from near children.
It happens all the time in Israel and abroad. Islamists know dead children and crying mothers are good shields when alive and good propaganda when dead.
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/05/22/lebanon-battles-070522.html [www.cbc.ca]
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2006/06/index.html [typepad.com]
http://yalibnan.com/site/archives/2007/03/iraqi_jihadists.php [yalibnan.com]
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't. Is it any worse because the attacker kills himself too? Otherwise, isn't that just what the Americans have been doing in Iraq and Afghanistan? Sure, it's harder to fight people who don't mind if they die as part of their attack. But people who invade other people's countries don't get any moral right to control what's going on - you shouldn't do it if you can't take a joke.
Re:Sweet! (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody, for some reason, can admit that BOTH are wrong, and probably share equal blame in the matter. The Israelis invades already occupied land and expects them to hold the Israelis sovereign because some ancient book says so, of course the Palestinians fought back. In this Israel is wrong. The Palestinians purposely targetting civilians is ALSO wrong. The Israelis near genocidal clamp down on said Palestinians is ALSO wrong. And so it goes.
My problem with this is when someone has the balls to criticize Israel they get branded either pro-Palestinian, or worse, anti-Semitic. To entertain a probable straw-man, don't say that EVERYONE does this, you rarely hear of the Israeli terrorists, or the Palestinian freedom fighters, these terms are just as valid this way, as the way they are commonly used thanks to the brutal tactics on BOTH sides. And yes, both sides can be looked on with sypathetic rhetoric, the Israelis are fighting for their existence, and the Palestinians are fighting against tyranny. Fine... To me this is an indicator that siding with one faction is impossible, since both are semi-justified, and semi-evil.
Neither side wants compromise, so bloodshed they shall get, and probably deserve.
The only point of policy I can come down on is that the U.S. has no right to assist either side. Either way we are left morally tainted and bloodied. This is especially true today when our support of Israel is a major contributing factor to the hatred of the West. I'd support which ever side decided to deal with things in accord with international law, and humanistic values, and for the time being it looks like neither even want to come close to this.
The only fair (albeit now dated) version of this conflict I've seen way David K. Shipler's Arab And Jew [amazon.com]. Both sides are indoctrinating each other towards pure hatred and violence, there will never be a valid conversation on this until that stops.
Re:Sweet! (Score:4, Insightful)
No, they are called terrorists since they are not legal combatants, and their targets are explicitly civilians. A legal combatant is not allowed to conceal his identity as such prior to an attack.
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:3, Insightful)
Let me ask you something - if there were Israeli tanks rolling down your street right now, and Israeli soldiers shooting American civilians, what would you do? Fight back, or sit on your arse and wait for the bullet?
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:4, Insightful)
Yet, they are still establishing colonies and have yet to comply with UN resolutions.
The Palestinians decided that launching rockets from their new land at the Israelis was a fine thing.
Obviously now the best idea I can think of. Even when only thinking in terms of Palestinians' good.
We (the U.S. and Europe) have poured billions of dollars into the hands of the Palestinians.
I would suggest you first compare the amount of money the US sent to the Palestinians to the amount of money it sent Israel (hint, at least an order of magnitude difference). An even more interesting thing to look at is the amount the US gives Israel (billions *per year*) vs Israel's military budget. Basically, the US is pretty much paying for all the military gear Israel uses to kill Palestinians.
I've always thought that if the US had been on the Palestinians' side, we'd see Palestinians bombing Israel with F-16s and Israelis blowing themselves up in Palestine while throwing home-made rockets. Hell, put any two nations in the same economic/political context and you'll see pretty much the same outcome.
Fuck the Palestinians. They don't want peace. They only wish to kill more Jews, no matter what the cost.
This is exactly why this conflict isn't going to be solved any time soon. You've got a majority of people on each side who *do* want peace, while at the same time there's a vocal minority that doesn't want peace and blames it on the other side.
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:3, Insightful)
In fact, I'll go one further - how about this?
When they have the laser, and the toxic chemicals, and people living near the laser start getting ill and having weirdly deformed babies (or whatever hideous consequence this will bring), they'll sue the Israeli government for making them ill by siting that bloody stupid laser near their homes.
Re:Old Ground (Score:2, Insightful)
If that was true, they'd deserve to have it taken away again as punishment for doing exactly the same to the Palestinians ever since. These people are not nice, clean-shaven pseudo-American suburbanites under inexplicable attack from nasty, bearded Arabs, as the US media would have you believe. They're heavily armed military colonists.
Re:Sweet! (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait, are you talking about the Israelis or the Palestinians there? Both?
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:3, Insightful)
True, "Israel's Jewish character" may become a thing on the past and Jews will have to learn to live side-by-side with muslims and see their children enter mixed marriages. Let them adjust like the rest of the world did. Prejudice is no excuse for taking land away from people who lived their for a hundred generations.
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:3, Insightful)
Both sides are 100% in the wrong. If someone came and took my land, I'd probably fight. If they had the military backing of the most armed nation on Earth, and this lasted years with no REAL attempts at reasonable compromise, I'd probably get desperate. If the invaders put me into ghettos, and restricted my livelihood, some people might get desperate enough to blow themselves up. Add two (or three with the American Christian apocalypse cults) ultra-conservative religious sects into the the mix, and you have a recipe for general nastiness and all around war.
Yes, I did just paint that from the "terrorist" side, but only because I have some empathy for them. I also, though, understand the Israeli side, they are fighting for some modicum of identity and religious heritage (the meaning of which is another debate). Both sides, in the end though, break international laws, and humanistic standards with impunity.
There ARE reasonable solutions out there. Separate states being one of them. Yes, thanks to religion there will be continued zealotry on both sides, that would have to be combated, but it would be a workable solution for the normal folk on each side, who gives a shit about the religious goals. Let the Zionists and Islamic Fundamentalists duke it out and kill each other, as long as the average person isn't forced to suffer this shit anymore. And yes, I do believe that not all (nor even a majority) of Palestinians are fanatics, nor is the majority of Jews, these moderates and victims are the ones that we should care about.
Israel CAN'T have the whole damn pie, their going to have to settle for their own small slice, just like the original inhabitants.
For anything to happen we need to break the cycle of hatred. Giving the Palestinians less reason to hate would be good, but of course would never be an option, since Israel (or at least its politicians) play this as an all-or-nothing game (as do the vocal Jihadists).
Re:Sweet! (Score:3, Insightful)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_bombing_directive [wikipedia.org]
Re:Sweet! (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course the Palestinians retaliate. What do you expect them to do when their children, their brothers, their sisters, their cousins, their uncles and aunts, their fathers and mothers are killed?
I'm posting as AC because when I've protested these atrocities before, I've gotten threatening phone calls at home from thugs who looked me up ("we know where you live"). But when it's time for me to speak out in public, they can't intimidate me.
It is encouraging to me that most of the posters on Slashdot, who include a fair sampling of intelligent people, don't fall for this Israeli (and U.S.) propaganda bullshit.
I'm also glad to see a lot of insight into the fact that you can't rule the world with military superiority. That didn't work for Bush in Iraq and it won't work for the Israelis.
I'm afraid that if the Israelis continue in their arrogance, the Palestinians are finally going to come up with a weapon that the Israelis won't be able to defend against. I won't be happy to see that, but they're bringing it on themselves.
Re:It Was Scraped? (Score:5, Insightful)
With the added irony that if the Israelis do deploy these it'll most likely be the US paying the bill.
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:4, Insightful)
Which centuries? The 3rd and the 20th? Because there wasn't a lot of it in between.
Re:Sweet! (Score:1, Insightful)
No, they are called terrorists since they are not legal combatants, and their targets are explicitly civilians. A legal combatant is not allowed to conceal his identity as such prior to an attack.
So your telling me that special forces , army intelligence, CIA, FBI, Any freaking agency were they go under cover, are also illegal.
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:2, Insightful)
Serbs thought the lesson of the Holocaust (they experienced a fair bit of it as well) was that no people who was object of it is "simply going to die this time". But they died again (not simply... but still), they tried to defend themselves, those who threatened them in the end came out of it as good guys and righteous victims (all of the threats and WWII references were conveniently forgotten), and then, on top of it, Serbs got a label of "Nazis of Today" as well, so they are practically silenced and unable to complain. Apparently nothing is unjust as long as it is done to Serbs, who are some sort of unbreakable rubber toys that need no protection from others foul play, but everyone should be protected from them. History lessons are worth only as much as global media pimps them!
OK, rant off. The point is, I am not some war crime denier and Serbian war criminals' fan, but please consider our experience, which is: no sad story from the past gives anyone card blanch to be ruthless to others NOW. Our dead are to the world now not "dead innocent lambs" but "dead mad dogs who had it coming", because we thought "not this time" and didn't held back. Don't lose your souls. "This time" means nothing to Arabs, they were not part of "last time" and cannot see the things from your perspective (no implying that they are right or that you are right, it is just inability to become the other one in own imagination). Likewise, as you link the two in your heads and treat Arabs as some reincarnated Nazis and give them the revenge Nazis previously earned, you are (were, in beginning, before accumulated grief and hate culminated) probably seen by Arabs as overreacting and inexplicably cruel.
None can be deemed just and righteous who blames others for sins of their ancestors, their allies or rest of the world in general.
In our own case, in Balkans (and I am almost certain it goes for all of the sides), we had past conflicts with others which were put to rest for a long time and friendship was common, but once new conflicts begun, what was previously forgiven, forgotten, and put behind was immediately revamped and even little differences were seen as sign of "betrayal of trust", all of the accusations upon ancestors falling on heads of their descendants, in their adversaries' eyes.
IMHO, from what I read on places like this, this inability to understand or at least respect others' unique historical point of view seems to be ESSENTIAL misunderstanding in the conflict. It always seem (and I hear or read it a lot) like others are unreasonable, "paranoid", "whining" or "just faking it to get more then they should" and having such dismissive attitude to others' opinions, such rejecting of need to understand others, never yields true resolutions and peace.
Re:Sweet! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:5, Insightful)
If the Palestinians got what was fair, they would split the entire country 50/50 with equal access to the sea, and air, and equal rights to govern themselves and allow the right of return for Palestinians.
Not with some toxic device. Nope. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sweet! (Score:2, Insightful)
Your right on the history, but you can see how it can be interpreted either way
It would take a great amount of spin for people to get this wrong and in my view this is precisely what is going on in media centers around the world (even in the US and Canada). Anyone who spends more than 30 minutes reading up on the history of the middle-east should know better. The problem is that people only know what they watch on TV (few people open books or research stories in depth online). The problem with news agencies is that they:
1) Present very short sniplets with no historical context.
2) Side with the perceived underdog, regardless of their past actions.
3) Apply double standards to Israel and other countries all over the world.
Let me give you a specific example of what I mean.
1) They only cover terrorist attacks in Israel. Rarely (if ever) do they cover anything positive in Israel. This is precisely why people think you're insane if you say you're planning to move to Israel or vacation there. Everyone thinks is a constant war-zone, which it is not.
2) The real struggle is between all of the Arab countries and Israel, not the Palestinians versus Israel, yet the media never presents it in this light. Let's be honest here: everything that goes wrong in the UN happens because of the automatic majority of middle-east tyrants hold there. All the money, weapons and political pressure which Palestinian terrorist groups come directly from Arab countries. If this was a simple dispute between Palestinians and Israelis it would have been over decades ago. Secondly, the media seems to ignore the past actions of the Palestinians. Take for example Mr. moderate Abbas and the great Arafat before him. In both cases these people have repeatedly denied the Holocaust and called for Israel's destruction through terrorism but the media refused to carry this story. So these people carry one saying one thing in English and a totally different thing in Arabic. You can't report this story honestly unless you report on their full history. You can't claim Abbas is a moderate when he repeatedly exalts "the sacrifice of martyrs". When that psycho gunned down children in Jerusalem last week Abbas glorified his actions on official PA television. You can bet this story never made it to North American TV, because it doesn't fit nicely into the dumbed-down story they're trying to sell you.
3) When Hezbollah shelled Israeli civilians, killed some soldiers and kidnapped others, Israel replied by declaring war on them. The UN and NGOs immediately blamed Israel for sparking a war and even the UN cautioned Israel not to do anything rash. The same story repeated when Gaza shelled Sderot civilians with over 7000 missiles over the past couple of years and Israel finally decided to respond. We keep on hearing the words "disproportionate response" coming out of people's mouths. In my view, a "proportionate" response would be for Israel to shell Gaza indiscriminately and pass out candies in the streets with civilians get hurt or die. What Israel has been doing is sitting on its hands while its civilians get massacred. As far as I'm concerned anyone other country would have shelled the crap out of Gaza if it would have pulled this sort of thing on its own civilians and it's outrageous for them to ask Israel to show more restraint than they would.
A lot of bloodshed would be spared on both sides if Israel was allowed to kick the crap out of these terrorist groups, deport their people and make sure they never came back. The sooner all the extremists get kicked out, the sooner Palestinians moderates can take power and form a sovereign state. Israel wants this as much as anyone else. Can you begin to imagine how much everyone's economy would benefit from a true peace agreement in that region?
Your also right it is a holy war, but I don't think the term just pertains to the Muslims, why else would the future Israelis really want that land?
Israel has tried, repeatedly, to
Re:Hahaha... (Score:4, Insightful)
B. Millions of other refugees were created by WWII around that time, none of which remained refugees 30 years later. These Palestinian refugees are still considered refugees 60 years later! They should assimilate into whatever lands they live in, they are not refugees anymore.
C. Even if any wrong was done 60 years ago, the grandchildren of the refugees from 1948 are indeed "bad" to be shooting rockets at the grandchildren of the Jews from 1948, who were born to parents who were born there. Whatever happened 60 years ago is now irrelevant to who the lands belong to.
D. They are not really trying to "conquer back the lands", which would, if successful, require another holocaust, but are just trying to kill as many civilians as they can. They know they cannot conquer the lands or achieve anything but propaganda success with violence, and are indeed focusing on the propaganda side.
Re:Sweet! (Score:3, Insightful)
- targets with absolutely no military or strategic values are attacked with full force
- friendly civilian casualties are part of the battle plan
- always disguised as a civilian
- central command structures, guidelines and rules are flexible, nonexistent or a joke
Apart from "always disguised as a civilian" you have described both sides of this dispute. The true definition of 'terrorism' is about the use of fear as a weapon. To instil terror as a weapon. Both the Jews and the Muslims are doing that.
Israel was established by terrorist activity so the Jews are by definition terrorists. There is no dispute here, they were blowing up embassies etc. in what was Palestine. Now they continue to blow up and kill innocent people but with US backing so it is OK... The Muslims carry on retaliating as any normal person would. If you blow up my family I will do what I can to get revenge, just as any other person would. So as I said before, the killing will continue because both sides want it to.