Bigthink - Idea Comments Feed

Comment on: Re: Is the threat to Israel different today?

Bigthink — Thu, 08 May 2008 04:59:43 +0100

I agree with Mr. Sketchley. This is a seriously flawed argument which on one hand is nice to hear "straight from the horses mouth", but on the other hand is an off-handed attempt to promote what Chomsky calls the "imperial" mindset. The reason I say this is because the religious fanaticism as stated above is not a one-sided issue. We must reexamine the underlying reason as to why Israel continues to lay claim to the land it occupies right now and why are the Palestinian people upset on a human level. The motivations were religious, but on a human level, any collective people who are physically and violently removed from their land will understandably be upset.

Even more upsetting, again on a human level, is the fact that what is legally defined by the UN as collective punishment is being placed on several million people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israel has only exacerbated the situation by limiting food and fuel supplies (basic needs) to Gaza. From several articles I have read in the NY Times, IPS, and other media outlets, the only result I have seen coming from this unilateral action against Palestinians is that support has rallied behind what the US and Israel have termed either "terrorist organizations" or non-state actors; namely Hamas and Hezbollah. Both are Palestinian recognized political parties. Hamas had actually acquired a majority of votes in the last election in 2007. Both parties are political forces which, if Israel is even seriously considering reconciling differences with Palestinians, must be recognized and met with. As of last week, Israel has rejected peace negotiations with Hamas and thereby tacitly agreed to continue using aggression and collective punishment.

The typical response to overwhelming power is to skirmish with and sporadically harass the aggressor since the weaker entity, in this case Palestine, does not have the ability to subdue Israel. Hence suicide bombers which are also a common occurrence in Iraq.

An article on the parallels between the Iraq war and the current conflicts in Israel and Palestine.

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/83169/?page=entire

Comment on: Re: Is the threat to Israel different today?

Bigthink — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 14:50:32 +0100

Meridor's reasoning is seriously flawed, as is all Likudnick discourse.

He starts his reply that the 'threat' is indeed different due to 'religious fanaticism' which he says is turning 'national conflicts into...religious wars'.

This is a straw man. Nothing has changed since 1948, as the problem was started by religious fanaticism in the first place - the religious belief that one can reclaim territory 2,000 years on because your God 'gave' that territory to you, and then actually taking the land by force and imposing your own religion as the only means to citizenship.

He then cites his second reason: 'the phenomena of non-state actors' such as Hamas and Hizbollah. He says they%u2019re %u2018just organisations%u2019 that %u2018only make trouble%u2019.

This argument is ludicrous. Is any political party in any country a state-actor? Presumably when they have won elections and become the governing party. So, in this definiton, Hamas is a state actor. It won democratic elections in Palestine in 2006 which Edward McMillan-Scott, the British Conservative head of the European Parliament's monitoring team described as "extremely professional, in line with international standards, free, transparent and without violence". His colleague, Italian Communist MEP Luisa Morgantini said there was "a very professional attitude, competence and respect for the rules." (1) It then formed a legitimate government which was finally ousted illegally by the Quartet who withheld funds to the PA and along with Israel and the US.
The NYT on 14 Feb 2006 reported that %u201CThe United States and Israel are discussing ways to destabilize the Palestinian government so that newly elected Hamas officials will fail and elections will be called again, according to Israeli officials and Western diplomats.The intention is to starve the Palestinian Authority of money and international connections to the point where, some months from now, its president, Mahmoud Abbas, is compelled to call a new election. The hope is that Palestinians will be so unhappy with life under Hamas that they will return to office a reformed and chastened Fatah movement.%u201D (2)
This is a perfect description of collective punshment.
The third reason cited by Meridor is that the threat to Israel is different because of suicide bombers. He says the overwhelming majority of bombers have been motivated by the ideology of Islamist martyrdom %u2018looking for a life after life%u2019 and %u2018are not taking their own lives for a cause%u2019.
However, suicide attacks are nothing new. In fact, the very first recorded suicide attack on civilians was undertaken by a Jew, Samson. In all wars, citizens are and have been deliberately targeted by all sides. The US targeted the civilians of Hiroshima and Nadasaki, the British targeted the civilians of Dresden, and the Israelis have continuously targeted Palestinian civilians since 1948.
Further, Robert A. Pape, Professor of political science at the University of Chicago, has studied %u201Cevery suicide terrorist attack around the world from 1980 to early 2004. More than half of all suicide attacks were carried out by secular groups and individuals. In fact, the world's leader in suicide terrorism was the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, a Marxist group that is completely secular and that recruits from Hindus. More than a third of all suicide attacks by Muslims were also carried out by secular groups, such as the Kurdish PKK in Turkey and the Communist Party in Lebanon.
What more than 95 per cent of all suicide terrorist attacks around the world have in common is not religion, but a specific political goal to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland or prize greatly. From Lebanon to Sri Lanka to Chechnya to Kashmir to the West Bank, the central objective of every suicide terrorist campaign since 1980 has been to compel a democratic state with military forces on territory that the terrorists prize to take those forces out.%u201D (3)

Once the Israelis rid themselves of this false narrative, they will realise that until they renounce their attempts to conquer territory by war there will always be resistance.

Links:
(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_legislative_election,_2006

(2) http://tinyurl.com/28pw8w

(3) http://tinyurl.com/23vdh9

Comment on: Re: Is the threat to Israel different today?

Bigthink — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 16:56:37 +0100

The number one thing that can be done to stop terrorism is education. A lot, not all, but a lot of the terrorists are kids who have seen the effects of war, and never dealt with it, and thus, are a bit fucked up in the head. They are ripe for the picking, as they say, and ripe for anyone to come in with a glimmer of hope for them to grab hold to.

Hamas and Hezballah might be non-state actors, but the reason they are so popular is because of their social welfare programs. They are the ones the people see helping them. Not their government (who don't really have the resources to help and/or are too corrupt to care).

Sending direct aid to "educate" these people on their choices in the world would help immensely. Showing them that these terrorist groups are not the only ones helping their cause.

Also, not having a war over there, where thousands upon thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians die, would be a great first step. And not having Israel house/village demolishing tactics would help too (because yes, if your son is found to be a terrorist, then bulldozing his parent's house that he lived in with his family and uncle and cousins and grandparent's is really gonna show them who is boss).

Comment on: Re: Is the threat to Israel different today?

Bigthink — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 07:27:50 +0100

Ambassador Meridor echoed the same concept as Prof. Dershowitz, in that we need new tools to deal with suicide bombers.

The tools proposed by both men are preemptive in nature, but I rather like Ambassador Meridor's mindset better, and perhaps America should adopt it.
With enough intelligence, perhaps intercedence is not necessarily faulty. There is always the option of drawing a line of distinction between commiting a terrorist act, and conspiring to commit a terrorist act. I wonder what the difference in the punishment enforced would be....?
Israel doesn't have the resources to keep an eye on all that they must, but America might. I wonder if it might even be feasible with our current defense budget.

I feel it worthy of America's attention, but not at all worth the cost of even some of the civil liberties we have already sacrificed.(They're the "martyrs" and WE secrificed something!) Let us throw money away at an attempt to solve the problem BEFORE we throw away pieces of the Bill of Rights.

Comment on: Re: Is the threat to Israel different today?

Bigthink — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 20:27:30 +0100

Has this fear of threats upon Isreal not perpetuated by our governmental actions?