Source files at: link to www.hamoked.org.il
Israeli human rights organization HaMoked today distributed a press release warning that Israel had passed a new military order that requires all residents of the West Bank obtain an Israeli issued permit.
On Tuesday, April 13 2010, the Order regarding Prevention of Infiltration (Amendment No. 2) and the Order regarding Security Provisions (Amendment No. 112) are to enter into effect. The orders, signed by the previous GOC Central Command, Gadi Shamni but not revealed, are worded so broadly such as theoretically allowing the military to empty the West Bank of almost all its Palestinian inhabitants.
Despite the severe ramifications of the orders, the authorities did not publicize their existence among the Palestinian population as required, which raises grave concerns that they intended to pass them secretly without public debate or judicial review.
The orders substantively change the definition of “infiltrator” and in effect apply it to anyone who is present in the West Bank without an Israeli permit. The orders do not define what Israel considers a valid permit. The vast majority of people now living in the West Bank have never been required to hold any sort of permit to be present therein.
Israeli journalist Amira Hass reported in Ha'aretz today that the order would initially likely target Gazans living in the West Bank, as well as Gazan and foreign spouses of West Bank Palestinians.
It also seems clear that international activists and independent journalists living in the West Bank—to whom Israel is hardly likely to issue permits—would also be threatened, but the most disturbing fact remains that the wording of the order—as HaMoked warns—seems unambiguously to threaten the presence of all Palestinian inhabitants of the West Bank.
The military order allows for violators to be imprisoned for up to seven years or deported.
Nigel Parry is a former webmaster of Birzeit University, co-founder of the Electronic Intifada, and a longtime independent media activist. He currently lives in Pittsburgh, PA.
Jim Crow’s inheritors are alive and kicking (Palestinian semites) in Israel.
Shouldn’t we be hunting down the 21st century nazis already?
What I wouldn’t give for Witty to come on here and exonerate Zionism in the face of this. But we all know he picks what he considers easy fights and low hanging fruit.
Separating Jewish families into different prison camps was one of the hallmarks of Nazi occupation.
“Easy fights and low hanging fruits”.
I oppose forced removal if you haven’t read.
You are adept at turning a potential ally (hundreds of thousands) into opponents.
The separation of permits, that is privilege accorded selected individuals by the physical and economic power of physical and economic force, from rights, that is, basic entitlements given to all by natural law and/or God, is everything.
Witty knows this. He is all for the status quo. Why not? Look at where he lives, and who protects him there. Do you see him moving to Israel? Do you even see his son joining the IDF (let alone the US military)?
Witty says he opposes forced removal which assumes other ways of removing Palestinians from occupied Palestine would be acceptable.
There is a forced removal that I suspect much of the world would support and that is of every last Jewish settler from the West Bank and the Golan Heights.
What the Israelis with their racist paranoia about demographics do not realize is that the presence of millions of Palestinians on both sides of the green line represents a life insurance policy. Should the Israelis make the entire area under their control “Arabrein,” that is “clean of Arabs” they will be encouraging the likelihood that the land one day, not long thereafter, will become “Judenrein.”
“Witty says he opposes forced removal which assumes other ways of removing Palestinians from occupied Palestine would be acceptable.”
I am glad you said that Mr. Blankfort, it is good to know that some can interpret closed and open statements that these Zionists persistently and dishonestly use.
“Witty says he opposes forced removal which assumes other ways of removing Palestinians from occupied Palestine would be acceptable.”
In ways, your logic is similar to likud’s, I assume that you realize that. That is that you are very willing, indulgent even, in presumption, and then shooting first and harshly.l
A good Stalinist.
Witty: Do you oppose this particular military order and call it for what it is: an attempt to destroy families, uproot multiple contributing members of a society (as my family was before we were forced out by this law in 1997) and potentially provide legal basis for ethinic cleansing?
Remember, this law isn’t new — the punishment is.
I think its a dumb policy.
I don’t know the details sufficiently to “condemn”.
I’m more interested in change and reform than in condemnation.
I’m surprised that so many on the left, that post here, are so enamored with the condemnatory rather than actually attempting to make change in policy.
What, can’t wrap your brain around the concept of Palestinian children as victims?
Ack. I confused this for the other thread. Although what I say still applies — a lot of the people this would affect, would be children. All rendered homeless to make room for Jewish colonists.
you are lying once more Witty but nothing new with your likes.
Ethnic cleansing of Palestinians is core strategy of Zionism, it started in 1947 et never ended so far and you know this very well but so if you are serious about your pseudo “opposition of forced removal” than you are anti-Zionist?
That you and VR derive backbone from Blankfurt’s character assassination, tells enormously about your reasoning and motivation.
Another good Stalinist.
Not quite RW, every aggressive move which Israel has made, in the aftermath you have defended. Why should we think any differently now with such a track record?
Oh, lord, Witty. The “Yer a Commie!” canard? Seriously? Do you know how stupid and ironic that is, given that Jews were a prominent target of the Red Scare?
If you consider that the absence of condemnation is defending, then your statement may be true, VR.
As I regard condemnation as generally beyond my authority, you will then conclude that of my comments consistently.
To condemn in my mind requires a very high degree of confidence in facts, context, strategic goal. I find that you are willing to shoot first. I’m not.
With all due respect RW, you never have gathered the facts in the aftermath, you just let the atrocities conveniently slip away. Making you totally disingenuous because it is your consistent practice, you hide in silence – and after hundreds of examples of this practice, silence is complicity. Or all of the above in short form – bullshit
Please don’t pretend due respect VR.
What I don’t say, you just don’t know. The most that you can do is infer, but that is at least largely a guess on your and others’ part. And, if you bear bias, not even a guess.
I regard Hamas bombing civilians, school buses as atrocities. I regard Hamas shelling civilian towns as attempted atrocities, thankfully most often failing.
I regard the escalation of shelling following the end of the formal cease fire to be an atrocity, that REQUIRED military response, was begged for by the sequence of escalation prior to Israeli military response.
And, I regard the excessive Israeli response as excessive, unnecessary.
I have goal, not reaction. Reaction is self-talk, narcissism. It is time for you personally to actually reflect on the degree of success resulting from your efforts. Have your efforts improved the lot of Palestinians?
Hopefully, when you conclude, “no”, you won’t then conclude, “I’ve got to do something more excessive”, as that will nearly certainly accomplish even less.
You where an anarchist hat, but seek to coerce.
Unless you are aiming at Gazans, Witty. Then you apparently fire with extreme prejudice.
Witty on Palestinian atrocities–
” regard Hamas bombing civilians, school buses as atrocities. I regard Hamas shelling civilian towns as attempted atrocities, thankfully most often failing.
I regard the escalation of shelling following the end of the formal cease fire to be an atrocity, that REQUIRED military response”
No hesitation there. He calls them atrocities, has enough information to condemn. No argument from me on that. Of course he’s back to his usual line–Israel “responds” to Palestinian violence, it doesn’t matter at all how much violence Israel inflicts or how they refused to lift the blockade. All irrelevant, since only Palestinian provocations count as provocations.
Witty on Israeli atrocities–
“And, I regard the excessive Israeli response as excessive, unnecessary.”
The word “atrocity” is suddenlyu absent. The excessive response was “excessive”. Such harsh language. In the face of such moral clarity, how could anyone think Witty had double standards?
You support peace, talk about “REQUIRED” military responses and refuse to talk about Israeli actions as criminal, whereas you consistently describe all Hamas’ actions as criminal. You’ve even described their adherence to the cease fire as having criminal intent.
Here, btw, is a pretty good summary on an Israeli blog of the Gaza massacre and the events leading up to it, including all the details about Israel’s responsibility for the violence that Witty refuses to acknowledge.
link
Actually not Chaos.
You just differ with my observations and conclusions about Hamas.
You’re still on the picking sides approach. You want to ignore the parts of Human Rights Watch assessments or Goldstone, that identifies Hamas as war criminal.
I seek to turn down the heat, and in that setting oppose injustice. You seem to seek to turn up the heat.
You consistently go one step forward, get gleeful, and then slide two steps bakc, consistently, over and over.
And, it results from your carelessness, from your utter failure to recognize that the Israelis and Palestinians are neighbors and the only way they will realize any justice is through a mediative approach.
Neither likud nor Hamas are pursuing a mediative approach, but you are taking potshots at liberals and thereby utterly disempowering them, as if addressing western right-wing influences isn’t enough of a struggle.
Your radical approach will be extremely unlikely to realize the critical mass to affect actual change. In contrast, the electoral in both Israel and Palestine can, if pursued.
Is Israel guilty of war crimes, Witty? You’ve stated you believe Hamas is guilty of war crimes. Do you believe Israel is guilty of war crimes?
You accuse me of picking sides. Now it’s time for you to own up.
“Neither likud nor Hamas are pursuing a mediative approach, but you are taking potshots at liberals and thereby utterly disempowering them,”
Unfortunately, liberals are part of the problem, at least part of the time. It’s complicated. Well, not that complicated–it boils down to the fact that humans often have conflicting motives. In your case, your loyalty to Zionism conflicts with the imperative to be completely honest about the crimes committed by Israel, so you whitewash them. On the pro-Palestinian side, some people defend Palestinian crimes.
Liberals like yourself oppose the rightwing Zionists, but you can’t face the fact that liberal Zionists are also guilty of crimes, so you twist the facts to fit your worldview. That’s a problem. And of course it’s not just you–you represent a pretty widespread pov among American liberal pundits. (Tom Friedman, for example)
Pingback: Israeli Order Threatens Expulsion of Palestinians Under Occupation « Cienfuegos
this is mindboggling, just truly amazing. is israel begging to be hated?
Israel doesn’t care if they’re hated, as long as they continue to own the US politicians, who will support any crime whatsoever.
Yep. No problem. The key that needs to be destroyed is the US electoral campaign finance laws.
This is exactly right and why it continues.
The US puppet government (of Israeli ownership) now – on cue – issues a statement declaring this new Israeli military order “unhelpful.”
Then back to the regularly scheduled ethnic cleansing…
Doesn’t this completely remove the facade of self-governance from the corruption that calls itself the Palestinian Authority? It’s high time for their leadership to refuse international ‘donations’ that are but thinly veiled payoffs for compliance with the occupation, and reconstitute themselves as a one-man/one vote equal rights movement.
I realize that they don’t want to. However, life isn’t fair and it is a better option than being ethnically cleansed from the entire Occupied Palestinian Territory rather than merely be pushed into smaller portions of it. I guess now we will see just how much IDF spittle dripping down their faces PA leadership can stomach before refusing the bribes and consequent privileged lifestyles.
I’m betting they’ll take it until their socks get wet.
Israel is now to be referred to as the Racist State of Israel with deportations of Palestinians from their land (a crime according to the Geneva Convention), and the deportation of “infiltrators”, a bad word for refugees, (Palestinian and Sudaneses) and deportation of children of immigrants.
Israel is a military/police state with military censorship, illegal imprisonment of protesters, journalists, political activists, whistleblowers, children who throw stones and anyone who dares to fight for human and legal rights.
The IDF injure and kill Palestinians every month and answer to no one, but make up a litany of excuses for these brutal deaths.
Israel is above the law not only on matters of illegal nuclear weapons. Israel is not governed by the Geneva Conventions or International Human Rights Treaties and the U.S. and EU are giving this country a free pass to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity!
RE: “Israel is now to be referred to as the Racist State of Israel…” – kalithea
MY COMMENT: Since the Israeli government insists they be called “the Jewish state of Israel”, I would suggest the “Jewish, Racist State of Israel” or (my favorite) “the Jewish, apartheid state of Israel”.
What is the difference?
THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE
maan news
wapo/reuters plays it down
Shingo brought this up in a previous post, my reply is the same –
The route continues to the complete expulsion, ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, as I have spoken about repeated times here. No one seems to listen and thinks that Israel will do much less, well here is more for you. Really, I am not psychic, I just know the nature of the beast. Perhaps many of you should start listening the points I make in regard to the USA, it might look more like you know what you are talking about.
Sorry if I seemed a bit inattentive, VR, but I had already grasped the idea that the Israelis want to get all, or at least most of, the Palestinians out of the West Bank. I think that they have plans for taking over the East Bank, as well.
RE: “New Israeli military order on ‘lawful permits’ would seem to allow expulsion of all West Bank Palestinians…” – Parry
MY COMMENT: Is this what they call “lawfare”? Paging Franz Kafka!
Along with the attack dogs Israel plans to unleash on Palestinian children, this policy will contribute greatly to the total collapse of the terrorist state’s apartheid apparatus and the collapse of the terrorist state itself. Then, morality and the rule of law will return to the Middle East. There’s nothing like a gangster doing himself in.
The military order allows for violators to be imprisoned for up to seven years or deported.
So where are they going to imprison these “miscreants”? In the West Bank? It’s already a prison! In Gaza? It’s already a prison! In Israel itself? Not bloody likely!
So where are they going to deport these “miscreants” to? Jordan? Won’t take them! Egypt? Woon’t take them! Lebanon? Won’t take them. Gaza? It’s already a prison so that would be double punishment. Perhaps they will build “deportation ships” that can be towed out into the Mediterranean and cast adrift.
I wonder if the Israelis are preparing to make an offer to Palestinians in the West Bank for a settlement of the Z-P dispute. Vote for the crappy terms we are offering and receive a permit to remain in the West Bank. Vote against the crappy terms and say goodbye to that permit. Or better yet, that yu will receive a permit only if one hundred percent of the voters accept the crappy terms. There are enough scummy polititians in the US, the EU and the Arab World who would go along with that, even, I suspect, Obama himself.
Next stop? Extermination Camps?
Back in the 1980s, Israel deported hundreds if not thousands of Palestinians to Lebanon and Jordan. Under Israeli army escort, the Israeli buses would stop at the border and the Palestinians would be pushed across the border and prevented from ever returning. That was part of Sharon and other Israeli PMs proud policy of “Transfer”.
I wasn’t aware of this Avi, could you be more specific, i’d be interested in researching this further.
I’m partly inclined to believe that your interest in this is purely with the intent of looking for some hasbara cite to “explain” and whitewash what happened, but I do actually have some hope that, despite the fact that you are young and seem more interested in the conflict as a chance to cheerlead for “your team” than as a issue with important moral implications, that eventually you might find your moral bearings . So, in that interest, and with the belief that you might really just want to learn about this, I offer you a few articles for your perusal.
The first is by Professor Ann M. Lesch, giving a detailed historical background on Israel’s deportation policies in the West Bank and Gaza since 1967.
The Exiles
The other one is a NY Times article from January 1988 regarding the deportations at that particular time.
link to nytimes.com
Note that the deportees were never allowed to see the specific charges or evidence against them, and that by Israel’s own admission most of them were accused of organizing demonstrations, or “inciting” unrest, which in essence make free speech for Palestinians a “crime” punishable by deportation.
There are other more abbreviated articles on the deportations, but Lesch’s article is one with the most detail among those that are available without a fee over the internet. I’d sincerely advise you to read that one at length.
One more source I found, without a fee.
Israel’s Deportation Policy
thank you tree, i will read these articles when i get some time to.
You’re welcome, yonira.
yonira, i think you should review the history of Zionism which is based on lands stealing, massacres and ethnic cleansing.
It’s much more likely, as Noam Chomsky has said, that Israel is preparing to annexe large swathes of West Bank (area’s around Jerusalem, large settlements, the relatively less populated Jordan Valley) rather then attempting to depopulate the West Bank as a whole. They will/are doing this by internal transfers and permit restrictions within the West Bank, so this is the next phase of that program – ‘internal transfer’.
They’re probably doing this to impose a unilateral ‘settlement’, thereby undercutting or pre positioning themselves for an expected attempt by the Obama administration at some kind of US imposed solution. We’re watching the creation of illegal Bantustans basically, although, unlike the case with the RSA, the Israeli Govt expects the world will have no option but to except it as reality.
You Americans are funny. There are millions of illegal immigrants in the US that if caught will be deported. How many immigrants have died trying to get into the US?
This new military order is either legal or not. I am sure that this will reach the Israeli supreme court who will give a decision. Let’s wait and see. Why jump to conclusions before hand?
Illegal immigrants? Ypu mean the european jews who steal the land of Palestine? they are the illegal immigrants eee, Israel is illegal, and Palestine will be free!
“I am sure that this will reach the Israeli supreme court who will give a decision.”
Like this is going to make one bit of difference, there are dozens of rulings which have been ignored from the Supreme Court. The only reason the Supreme Court makes the judgments is to give the appearance of legitimacy while the rest of the state apparatus ignores what is ruled upon, and the rulings it makes which are illegal are just par for the course. All of the Israeli institutions are vitiated by the occupation, you are a proverbial joke, and if it were not so serious the laughing stock of the entire world.
However, I do appreciate the hasbara squad for sending a more blatant poster, so we can see how ridiculous your convoluted arguments are. For the casual reader, I want to let you know that this is the common stock and fare that comes out of Israel.
This is the same guy who keeps throwing around “You’re prejudiced” accusations.
Hey, genius, instead of dodging the question, why don’t you explain how come you don’t read or write Hebrew despite claiming to be Israeli born and raised and currently living in Israel. A simple explanation would suffice.
How much longer do you think that shoot-and-cry tactic of yours is going to work?
Diversionary debate tactics. So old, so last year. What’s the matter does “you’re all anti-Semites, self-hating, Israel-haters” not work anymore?
Why don’t you take a week off to think of something original?
Avi,
Kama pa’amim ani tsarich le-hochiach le-cha she-ivrit zot sfat ha’em sheli?
If that’s your excuse, then use this:
link to mechon-mamre.org
אבי, עברית זאת שפת האם שלי
Mazel toff, it speaks.
Good. Now we know you’re an average racist from Hod-Hasharon.
Next!
I am an average Israeli from Ramat-Hasharon.
And you are a blatant liar that cannot even admit he made a mistake.
Now, where were you raised? Answer my question.
Ask nicely and I’ll think about answer you.
There’s a difference between lying and prodding to get someone to answer a question. Don’t you know that?
Ask nicely and I’ll think about answer you.
Avi, his mother language is goat…lol
Avi, there’s a little problem with eee’s Hebrew – don’t know if you noticed – quite proper, no? Also yesterday he had no Hebrew keyboard (I called him on it too). Today he does. Interesting.
There’s another problem: his English smells of a real mother tongue (despite protestations). Yet, his knowledge and familiarity with American issues is nanometer deep. I suggested elsewhere that he is likely an oleh hadash (maybe 5 years) from another anglo country, probably Canada. Just the right amount of Montreal blandness and eagerness (me xenophobic? nah…).
BTW, you are the fifth person he calls liar (like the count I love to count). I am lucky – got only as far as a blind hypocrite thus far.
Enjoy the interchange – if you can. I decided to stop feeding him his gruel – on the sage advise of Shmuel.
I asked you several times very nicely and you never answered.
Avi,
You said you knew for sure I was not an Israeli or not born in Israel. How is that not lying?
Danaa,
its not the keyboard that allows you to type hebrew. I could type hebrew fine in Davka on my english keyboard.
Danaa,
You are making false allegations, that makes you a liar.
Where is your proof that I was not born in Israel or raised there?
Where does your prejudice come from? Why can’t an Israeli write good English?
And why shouldn’t I speak and write proper Hebrew?
Furthermore, please explain why you need all this inspection of my personal life. Really, why is this important at all?
Keep calling everyone who confronts you a “liar,” eee, that’s really endearing.
eee…. ya…eee…..ya…oh, that hurt.
And this makes me the 7th liar (!) – finally, I made the grade from a mere hypocrite…..
Actually, eee, I am an amateur detective, specializing in troll varieties. And you just don’t add up to what you say you are. Wrong look and feel. I recommend starting from scratch with a new persona, maybe with a bit more of the truth to make your comments somewhat credible. Between you, me and the keyboard, it’s actually very hard to stick it out with a false persona for very long. The stress is showing….
BTW, you sure are up early…..
נולדתי בבילינסון (רבין היום) ועד גיל ארבע חייתי ברמת-גן
מגיל ארבע אני חי ברמת-השרון
The sad part is that you think you’re a liberal among Israelis. Just think of the image you’re painting when you claim that attack dogs on children are aimed at helping Palestinians. The average reader will wonder, “what does a radical in Israel espouse, gas chambers for free”?
Keep defending “democracy” in the same twisted way you do now. It’ll go a along way in de-legitimizing Israel. And that’s exactly what Israel needs now, someone like you, to do what none of its enemies could ever accomplish. You should be proud.
How do you say “Arbeit mach frei” in Hebrew, anyway?
Chaos, you’ve never answered this, but what is with your obsession w/ Naziism, are you trying to get a job for HRW?
Naziism was just as brutal to homosexuals as it was to Roma, Dissidents, mentally handicap, Jews, etc.
You say that like getting a job for HRW would be a bad thing. What do you have against international human rights watchdog organizations? Especially ones that which were founded prevalently by Jews?
ahhh you missed that one completely. Google Marc Garlasco
I have much more respect for HRW after they decided to act like an international human rights organization, not just a mouth piece for the anti-Israel movement.
link to ngo-monitor.org
…After? As if they weren’t always?
You’re a real piece of work, yonira. Still making a show of digging in the Iraqi dirt, pretending to search for nonexistent WMDs, proverbially speaking.
you mean after AIPAC started corrupting the organization? crying scandal because Israeli Nazi atrocities against unarmed children were prevailed? Its too late yoni, the wold know who is the monster!
Avi,
And you probably think you are doing other Israelis a favor and saving them from something. Well you are not. In every generation there are Jews like who think they know better than the rest of us. If you don’t respect other Jews, become a christian or a muslim. If you want to change what Jews and Israelis think from within, then argue respectfully.
Aha, the old “You’re a traitor to the Jewish race” canard. So now you’re alternating between calling people liars and traitors? That’s not exactly a whole lot of repertoire, there.
EEE,
The primary issue of concern is of Israeli expansion.
To continue expansion in any area that is prospectively Palestine, and in the shape of expansion that cuts Palestine into a puzzle, is the primary aggressive pursuit.
Torah does not sanction aggression. There are RARE exceptions in the case of obvious self defense, but NOT in any manner of rationalization.
I don’t know if you are religious or merely nationalistic, but you are killing Israel by advocating for expansion, killing its body and killing its soul.
The Israeli primary law identifies simultaneiously Jewish AND democratic as fundamental. Israel is not Israel if it is just Jewish, and it is not Israel if it is just democratic.
The two-state solution applied in a manner of being a good neighbor (rather than an indifferent or hostile one), is the only long term path for Israel’s existence as Israel.
Killing its body in spreading its defense thin, and in a maze. Killing its soul in twisting the Golda Meir quote of “they force our children to kill”, to “YOU forcing our children to kill”.
Please value your own soul more so that you substantively advocate for defending only and not offending.
Actually, I would have thought that the primary issue of concern is the denial of fundamantal human rights. Israeli expansion, then, is merely one facet of that primary concern.
“Torah does not sanction aggression…” You have got to be kidding RW, what makes you think anything Israel does is based on Torah? What an “amazing” conversation.
This has nothing to do with Judaism, it is Zionism, a religion of “the land,” understand? Stop trying to confound the two.
Well, I’ll give you that much credit that you’re actually confronting him, Witty. Maybe your encounter with actual Israelis and the actual products of Zionism in action will finally open your eyes to what you are throwing your support behind.
To give Witty credit, he’s opposed to the expansionist Israelis who want to take over the West Bank and their defenders here. You see this more clearly at “Realistic Dove”, but he’s also fairly clear about it here. He’s generally someone who whitewashes Israeli atrocities, as he did for about the thousandth time in this thread, but actually, that’s almost a defining characteristic of many liberal Zionists. They oppose the extremist right, but are still too wedded to their Zionist ideology to be completely honest about the crimes committed in its name.
I’m hoping his interaction with actual Israelis might lead him to re-evaluate his support for Zionism. Is that too much to hope for, do you suppose?
Yeah, I think it is, unfortunately. The most he’s going to do is admit that some Israeli violence is “excessive” and he will also criticize the Israeli right–they function as the scapegoats for all Israeli sin. He’s not now and not ever going to employ the same standards to judge Israeli crimes that he uses to judge Hamas crimes. The latter he calls atrocities (and he’s right), but he can’t bring himself to say that about Israeli policies.
He would support a two state solution along the lines of the Geneva Accord–whether that is good enough for Palestinians is a separate question and whether a two state solution is even possible now is another question.
I’ve been lied to too many times to allow myself to gullibly ingest the language of condemnation. I’ve been in personal situations where I discredited a colleague based on a rumor, later to find out that the rumor was innaccurate or incomplete. I caused harm and just am reticent to condemn.
So, while most dissenters here (including Phil) are willing to condemn without complete knowledge and context, I am not.
You use the term “judge Hamas crimes”. I am not a judge. I state opinions and observations. You can derive insight from them, or describe how they conflict with your understanding.
That you call any Israeli military response to Hamas terror on civilians a crime, is a bad sign to me.
There is a Hindu term ahimsa, that is often translated as non-violence or non-harming. Others have more wisely described ahimsa as minimal harm. I believe that that is a theme of centrist Israeli military norms. I note the accusation, which sounds plausible to me, of likud “relaxation” of restraint.
If you are interested in candid and respectful discussion of what strategy results in the minimal violence net, that is a wonderful discussion, that we’d likely find some agreement on, mostly because we would be forced to be speaking about the same question.
The name-calling is utterly uninspiring, and frankly does not address differences. It affects no change in my thinking or in witnesses’ thinking, unless already converted.
So you aren’t willing to recognize what Israel did when it bombed hospitals and shot up ambulances and set fire to relief supplies to be war crimes, do you, Witty?
On Chaos’ assumptions of my passivity or ignorance. I don’t know how old you are, but if you are as old as you appear, I’ve been actively supporting Palestinian humanity and assertion of rights for likely longer than you’ve been alive.
Phil is also a newby relatively.
Always focusing on peace, NEVER on retributive justice. I’m also a newby to solidarity with Zionism. Until the mid nineties I was indifferent to it, much more of a committed progessive humanist. In the mid-nineties I ran a progressive audio library called Green Island Cooperative Library, which included an archive of Chomsky’s and a couple early Finkelstein lectures, also Edward Said and others.
I found the tone of the left, including the original recorders of the tapes (David Barsamian and Radio Free Maine) to be angrier than peaceful. About the same time, I spent a lot of time around War Tax Resisters, led by some very humane individuals, but followed by some very insensitive, ideological individuals to the point of cruelty to those that differed with them.
Hearing offensive and often illogical and/or presumptive comments from dissenters (even those that taught “non-violent communication” for peace organizations) soured me to ideological oriented politics.
And, at the same time, I faced the choice of how to bring up my children, yogic (impossible after the discovery that one monk in the meditation path that I had been following organized an arms shipment for the Tamil Tigers in a “fundraising” effort, an escalation from smuggling stolen Russian gold through the new republics), or Jewish or something else. With urging from my parents and in-laws, we chose Jewish. Something is very compelling about being married to the child of holocaust survivors.
I don’t buy the ideological, the encouraged anger. It strikes me as wrong and utterly unproductive, even when stated in the name of “justice”.
You refused to answer my question, only tried to dodge it.
You characterize what Hamas has done as criminal.
Do you do the same to what Israel has done? Or do you make an exception for the “Jewish state?”
As I don’t know the specifics you are speaking of, I am not willing to describe those actions as war criminal, as you do also without knowing the specifics.
Have you ever served on a jury? Did you convict with prejudice, acquit with prejudice, or listened to the evidence presented beyond a reasonable doubt.
Please don’t predictably state, “read Goldstone”.
I definitely distinguish the intention of an innaccurate weapon aimed at an entirely civilian town from the military operations of a state that adopts restraint (at least signficantly) as its rules of engagement.
I can’t say whether the exceptions to appropriate restraint occur .01% of the time, 1% of the time, 40% of the time. I presume that it is in the 1% of the time scale, not gross pattern of exceptions, not incidental pattern, somewhere in the low middle.
The targeting choices are a different question. That is not statistical as much as each choice is statistically significant.
The percentage of time that a shell or rocket fired at Sderot, Ashdod, Ashkelon, being a war crime is 100% though.
You’re a hypocrite. You describe Hamas as criminal and are dead certain of that judgement, and when it comes to Israel you suddenly become vague and aloof.
At least I’m honest about what side I’ve chosen. I don’t make a phony out of myself, like you do.
“You use the term “judge Hamas crimes”. I am not a judge. I state opinions and observations. You can derive insight from them, or describe how they conflict with your understanding.”
You are quite possibly the least self-aware person of anyone I have ever met online or off.
You didn’t use the term “Hamas war crimes”. Instead, you referred to Hamas atrocities. Same thing. All your reluctance to judge, your unwillingness to reach conclusions flies right out the window when it’s a question of Arabs murdering Jews and you’ve demonstrated this over and over again. You only start preaching the reluctance to judge when it comes to Israelis murdering Palestinians. You’ve managed to combine the peace and love rhetoric of the 60′s with a moral tribalism in a way that I don’t recall ever seeing in anyone before. It’s a uniquely nauseating combination and one hopes it stays that way.
Anyway, I think you are hopeless. There’s a trace of decency in you, but it is powerless against your bigotry on certain subjects.
When Witty is presented with acknowledging Israeli crimes, this is what he has to say:
“Have you ever served on a jury? Did you convict with prejudice, acquit with prejudice, or listened to the evidence presented beyond a reasonable doubt.”
“I can’t say whether the exceptions to appropriate restraint occur .01% of the time, 1% of the time, 40% of the time. I presume that it is in the 1% of the time scale, not gross pattern of exceptions, not incidental pattern, somewhere in the low middle.”
But when faced with Hamas crimes:
“The percentage of time that a shell or rocket fired at Sderot, Ashdod, Ashkelon, being a war crime is 100% though. ”
Yes, no room for doubt. Suddenly Witty casts aside all objectivity and appoints himself the judge, jury and executioner in one fell swoop.
A great force of peace and mutual reconciliation you are, Witty.
Shooting rockets at civilian towns is 100% war crime.
What percentage of rockets shot at civilian towns do you think are?
Vile apologetics. Israel has the capacity to murder hundreds of thousands of Gazans–all they have to do is refrain from doing this and for you that means they are exercising restraint. Well, yes, in the same sense that most human rights violators do. It’s rare that you’ll find a government which kills as many people as it possibly could. The Nazis and perhaps a few others like Pol Pot came close. Israel is in the realm of the ordinary human rights violating oppressor–they kill and oppress, but not on a Nazi-like scale. Three cheers for them–Pinochet could say the same, as could apartheid South Africa.
If you ever did read some of the human rights reports or reporter’s accounts of Israel’s behavior in war it’s obvious that they target civilian infrastructure, use indiscriminate firepower in urban settings, and sometimes target individual civilians. It’s as obviously criminal in the one case as it is in the case of Hamas and Hezbollah. As it happens, there are people who have made rationalizations for the rocket firing of Hamas and Hezbollah and while I don’t agree, I think that those rationalizers are doing a service in that they show that two can play the game that you play. Of course any number can play, since there is no moral intelligence required–all one has to do is do what humans do best, which is to say that my side is good and means well and your side is bad and means ill.
And as for Gaza, the majority of the deaths were of civilians, and much or most of the property damage was of no military importance, so they were not restrained in how they used the violence they did use. They were only “restrained” in that they didn’t kill hundreds of thousands. Obviously that’s good enough for you, and so you go back and reassure yourself that it was really only those Arabs who were the savages.
Shooting rockets at civilian towns is 100% war crime.
And the IDF is just practising ahimsa , right Witty?
You don’t want my honesty Donald, you seem to want my compliance.
Again, I am confident that Israel does adopt rules of self-restraint in its mode of operations and choices of targets. And, I agree that that self-restraint appears to be rationalized away more than incidentally.
But, 100% of rockets fired at civilians are terror.
Maybe the heroic actions of Hamas fighters when Israeli soldiers cross the border are defensive, but the rocket firing is not. In the case of December, it was not deterrent, not defensive, but offensive. The rationalization is that the rockets were small, compared to Israeli power, that they are at most “irritants”, but that is innaccurate.
The rockets are large enough scale to kill, to damage, and shot at a frequency to terrorize. 100% of them.
Do you differ on the percentages? What percentage of Israeli weapons used would you estimate are in violation of international law? What percentage of Hamas?
Probably not practising ahimsa in practice.
If you assert that net minimal harm is a value that you apply and urge to apply in your solidarity, then we can talk about how to make that happen.
Yesterday, Human Rights Watch issued a statement summarized as saying that neither Israel nor Hamas has undertaken the recommended review of its actions in the December, 08 conflict.
What do you think of that conclusion, Shebrsi?
“Shooting rockets at civilian towns is 100% war crime.
What percentage of rockets shot at civilian towns do you think are?”
100 percent, IMO. And the same for anything that Israel fired in a Gazan town that was bigger than a small caliber bullet aimed specifically at an armed man firing at him. Even if for the sake of argument one pretended to believe that Israel’s invasion of Gaza was justified (and it was not, because they never offered a serious ceasefire that involved the lifting of the blockade), they were under the obligation to take scrupulous care not to cause the loss of innocent civilian life and they clearly didn’t come close to doing this. That’s why the civilian death toll was so high. They also inflicted wanton property damage.
Witty? Israel still actually has government bureau buildings.
If you’ll recall, the Palestinian civil government buildings were among the first to be leveled by Israel.
Hamas has other priorities than holding investigations. Like doing something about the lack of water, food, medicine and other basic supplies for 1.5 million people.
What’s Israel’s reason for not complying?
Israel has rules of engagement designed to minimize civilian casualties, procedures that put Israeli soldiers at higher risk than they would otherwise, all for international law and morality.
And, as I stated, they find too many rationalizations for not applying that, some valid, some invalid.
In contrast, Hamas shelling Israeli civilian towns is 100% war crime, no possible even rationalization, no measurement of extent or identification of exception to norm.
Ignoring that percentage is also vile denial.
The majority of Gazan deaths were civilians partially because of Israeli excesses, and partially because the Hamas fighters “heroically” hid.
You are misrepresenting my comments in attributing the low-blow remark of “Arab savages”. That is a malevolent mischaracterrization on your part.
“Two can play the game you play”. Your commitment to universal human rights is thin Donald. You just rationalized the justice, the good, of assault on civilians.
Please acknowledge that.
I get that you equate Hamas with Gaza, and that Hamas exposing Gazans to suffering by picking a fight and then hiding, is too much for you digest. Think it through though.
Two parties to a conflict, not one. Each making good or bad decisions, that either are confident or need reform.
By restrained, I mean that they obviously took some pains to distinguish civilians from fighters, as a norm. You’d have to go further than suspicion to conclude that the norm was not a norm. Maybe that is true, and Israel is really in trouble.
It takes educating to the actual conditions, including from the perspective of the Israeli soldier on the ground, to evaluate their decisions.
Accusation is too easy.
Israel had no right to be in Gaza at all. They never offered Hamas a ceasefire that would include the lifting of the blockade. Under those circumstances they were in the wrong and virtually every act of violence they committed in Gaza was an immoral act. Try reading the link I provided above at the blog “Israleft” and go through their analysis of why Israel was at fault and tell me where they are wrong. If I typed up details you’d ignore them anyway, so I’d prefer you ignore the details someone else has already typed.
As for the rocket fire, I think it was all immoral, but faced with your hypocrisy on the subject has had the utterly unwanted effect of making me empathize more with the rocket firers. They were wrong, morally and pragmatically , but faced with a nation of Richard Wittys I think I would go mad. No action taken by Israel ever justifies violence, it seems–Palestinians are just supposed to absorb it all. But let some rockets be fired and the nation of Richard Wittys rises up as one (or anyway, as 90 percent or so) and says this cannot stand. Real people are being hurt. Violent measures must be taken, by the very organization we know beyond question is going to go far beyond carefully targeted attacks on the actual firers of rockets.
In short, Richard, the side which oppresses the other bears some responsibility for all the violence of BOTH sides. This doesn’t exonerate the Palestinian rocket fire, but the rocket fire is a less serious crime than that of Israel in provoking it.
Probably not practising ahimsa in practice.
Then why attribute ahimsa, a concept that is patently incompatible with the military (an instrument of violent force, whether destructive or defensive is another matter), to be “the centrality of Israeli military norms?”
Is that a mistake in your judgment, or is the Israeli military norms based on ahimsa and not practicing it? Please make this clear.
If you assert that net minimal harm is a value that you apply and urge to apply in your solidarity, then we can talk about how to make that happen.
Witty this point of minimal harm is a perverted view of yours. Ahimsa is an ideology which while preaches non-violence in very strict terms (even harmful words are tantamount to injury and violence against others, as an example), it still has room to acknowledge that one cannot practically life life without causing “minimal harm.” However, your understanding of the ideology (and your attribution of it being the core of Israeli military norms) allows minimal harm to be the guiding force of ahimsa, which is a corruption of the concept altogether. Just because one cannot live life without minimal harm, does not mean that one can engage in free reign of “minimal harm,” at least without violating to the core principles of ahimsa.
This is without even getting to the blatant policies and actions of the Israeli army which are diametrically opposed to the philosophy and practice of ahimsa.
What percentage of rockets shot at civilian towns do you think are?”
100 percent, IMO. And the same for anything that Israel fired in a Gazan town that was bigger than a small caliber bullet aimed specifically at an armed man firing at him.
Thank you for that.
I disagree with you about the range of Israeli military actions that constitute war crimes.
My reasoning is that Hamas intended for there to be war, not skirmish. If they wanted to issue a warning to Israel, they would have shelled the desert and maybe a couple shells at Sderot. They didn’t do that. They shelled for 9 days, escalating range and size of rockets, UNTIL Israel responded militarily.
There is a scale of provocation that insists on more strategic ground assault in actual war. In actual war, the strategy cannot be to expose ground soldiers alone and isolated, but requires removal of obstacles from lines of sight, lines of fire, facilitating the securing of strategic positions.
There probably were incidents that were genuinely not military, but only collective punishment. There are some real bastards in the IDF. (My wife’s uncle described his military service in Israel as the worst of his experience there, that some of his officers were “nazis”, his language, an adament Zionist.)
And, at the same time, there nearly certainly are incidents that are widely and “obviously” reported in the left as only punitive, that are in fact strategic, rational, appropriate to the scale of conflict initiated.
Lets actually talk about the concept before you condemn my understanding of it.
The concept of minimal harm is inherent in all civilized military discipline by international law and best practices.
There are exceptions, which are either moderate or gross. If a military adopts norms of minimal harm, then it does. If it doesn’t then it doesn’t. It takes causitive evidence to prove one way or another. The Finkelstein standard of supportive evidence ratherthan causitive, is not it.
I teach management accounting for an MBA program in sustainable business management. In it, there are two tacks. One is the tack of definition of sustainability that is more purist, original, attempting to form the institutions within a sustainable society, a redesign.
The second tack is the conventional, say of an aluminum company that makes toxic aluminum, but has improved its processes over a decade, so that its energy consumption is down 70%, its toxic emissions are down 80%, etc. Not sustainable, but relatively. It can’t help that it is in the aluminum business, the only thing that it can do is to be in the aluminum business with the lightest footprint that it can.
Ahimsa is the same. It can be purist and comprehensive, a good individual effort. Or it can be relative and institutional. Both are applications of the concept.
It turns out that in the aluminum world, reducing the carbon emissions by 50% has a larger effect on the ecosystem than the 100,000 purists succeeding. Both are necessary and reinforce each other.
And, when the aluminum company drops its high standards, the negative effects also multiply.
Its necessary to shine the light on Israeli military performance and behavior. Its just that to accomplish good, it takes the relativist approach, the reform approach, not the summary judgemental and giving up or destroying approach.
And they accomplished that by stopping the rocket attacks long enough for Israel to be the one to break the cease fire, huh.
You know… like they statistically are prone to do.
link to huffingtonpost.com
Witty, you can’t get away with this blatant dishonesty.
And what part of Operation Cast Lead jives with your “reform” approach? Bombing eight hospitals? Destroying the water treatment plant? Dropping bombs on police graduation ceremonies? Tell us just what component of Operation Cast Lead you approve of, specifically.
““Two can play the game you play”. Your commitment to universal human rights is thin Donald. You just rationalized the justice, the good, of assault on civilians.”
I said that others have done this and I said that two can play the game you play. I am saying that your rationalizations of Israeli atrocities has been matched by those who rationalize Hamas atrocities and I value the rationalizations in demonstrating the bankruptcy of the rationalizations of both sides. But you know that. You’re just lying to score points. Now in the later post I acknowledge that talking to you makes me understand in some slight degree the rage that must possess Palestinians having to face racist Israelis convinced of their own moral superiority, who lecture and patronize and condescend to the lesser beings about their need to refrain from violence while actually endorsing the violence committed by their own side. They should not give in to that rage, but reading you always reminds me of my white racist friends growing up–they too were smug complacent lecturers when it came to the crimes of black people and I can only vaguely imagine what it must have been like to be black and be surrounded by attitudes like yours, among self-described liberals as well as the more openly racist. It’s easy for me to preach nonviolence–imagine a Palestinian facing a country of people like you, utterly convinced of their own moral superiority, defending the morality of a harsh blockade on Gaza while crying hysterically about any boycott of Israel, and with a capacity to ignore the detailed record of Israeli cruelty as documented by Israelis (the ones who really do care about human rights).
Israeli rules of engagement mean nothing. One thing Western history teaches is that Western governments are very good at doubletalk and even doublethink. The results of the Gaza massacre speak for themselves, although we also have the views of Israelis beforehand which tell us they intended to cause civilian suffering. The Gaza blockade itself is intended to cause civilian suffering–Bronner, to his credit, is quite open about this.
“I get that you equate Hamas with Gaza, and that Hamas exposing Gazans to suffering by picking a fight and then hiding, is too much for you digest. Think it through though.”
More patronizing BS. I don’t “equate” Hamas with the Gazans. We’ve had this conversation countless times and every single time you say something like this, though I’ve told you every single time I condemn Hamas in exactly the same way that Human Rights Watch condemns Hamas. But then, you cheerfully defended Bernstein when he falsely accused HRW of ignoring the crimes of Arabs, so I shouldn’t take it personally–you lie about everyone and every organization if they make you feel uncomfortable. You want me to list Hamas crimes? I despise them, frankly, or at least some elements within the movement. They are oppressive and committed human rights violations against their own people, according to HRW. But you’ve seen me say this before and conveniently you forget it all five seconds later.
As for the rocket fire, I get that I can tell you over and over and over and over and over and over and over again (and add a few more “overs” to be accurate) that I think Hamas rocket fire was wrong and you will ignore this.
I suppose the only way you can argue with me is if you make up positions that are the mirror image of your own tribal views.
“y restrained, I mean that they obviously took some pains to distinguish civilians from fighters, as a norm.”
They must have gone into Gaza blindfolded, then, because they sure killed a lot of civilians. What’s obvious to you is obvious mainly due to your tribalism.
I probably have had this conversation more times than I can count. Read the Israleft link–go through it line by line and post on why it is wrong. That might be interesting. This is boring.
I get that I can tell you over and over and over and over and over and over and over again (and add a few more “overs” to be accurate) that I think Hamas rocket fire was wrong and you will ignore this. I get
Ahimsa is the same. It can be purist and comprehensive, a good individual effort. Or it can be relative and institutional. Both are applications of the concept.
Incorrect.
One person can practice ahimsa to the core, and it can be said that the person practices ahimsa while following it to the letter. Another person, can commit a violent crime (which is deeply prohibited and antithetical to the very concept itself) and claim to follow ahimsa. But only one of these persons has any credibility in claiming to follow the philosophy. I’ll leave you to guess which one.
It does not matter, then, if the latter course of action is perceived to be more “practical” or “sustainable,” it is not the ideology with which it started. In fact it is the very destruction of its most sacred principles. Then you cannot call it ahimsa, pure or an offshoot. That is revisionism.
And if you are going to change the philosophy to the extent that it stands in stark violation of its starting principles, then it’s followers must have the requisite courage to admit as much – because when they claim to follow ahimsa while committing acts which are against it, it is offending person who is painted negatively, not the ideology he claims to be following.
“My reasoning is that Hamas intended for there to be war, not skirmish. If they wanted to issue a warning to Israel, they would have shelled the desert and maybe a couple shells at Sderot. They didn’t do that. They shelled for 9 days, escalating range and size of rockets, UNTIL Israel responded militarily.”
There are probably elements within Hamas that wanted war and I agree those elements acted immorally. And again, I’ve said this in virtually every discussion we’ve ever had and you forget or pretend to forget every time it comes up again. That doesn’t justify Israel. Israel never lifted the blockade, which was a just demand by Hamas all along, and Bronner has clearly explained why–it’s an intentional effort to make Gazans suffer. The war was the extension of that policy. They don’t go in killing everyone they see–that would be obvious genocide (a word I mostly avoid in this conflict). So they killed around 1000 civilians and destroyed an enormous amount of property. It wasn’t militarily necessary to do this, and furthermore, there were plenty of signals ahead of the war that Israel planned to do precisely this, in part to win back “face” after their perceived failure in the 2006 Lebanon War (in which they acted the same way).
“There probably were incidents that were genuinely not military, but only collective punishment. There are some real bastards in the IDF. (My wife’s uncle described his military service in Israel as the worst of his experience there, that some of his officers were “nazis”, his language, an adament Zionist.)”
Well, that’s a step forward. I don’t recall ever seeing you make that sort of admission before. And in turn I don’t think all IDF people are terrible–some, of course, even quit out of principle. Not very many people have the sort of moral courage it would take just to say “I won’t participate in the oppression of the Palestinians”. Maybe some serve and do their best to restrain the bad actions of others–I couldn’t say.
“And, at the same time, there nearly certainly are incidents that are widely and “obviously” reported in the left as only punitive, that are in fact strategic, rational, appropriate to the scale of conflict initiated.”
Doubtful. There could be genuine accidents in even a relatively “just” war, but the Gaza “War” was part of Israel’s policy of treating Gazans like animals.
Israeli media are totally censored from divulging Qassam rocket targets, especially if they are IDF military bases, which many, if not most, of them are. That is why you get so many headlines saying: ‘Rocket Strikes Southern Negev’. I don’t know how many legitimate Israeli military targets surround Sderot, but I imagine quite a few.
This is in complete contradiction to all the breast-beating about Hamas, etc targetting civilians, which they do not do.
If there were military bases around Sderot, then the rocket fire would still be indiscriminate and still a war crime. A small one compared to Israel’s, of course, something that Witty doesn’t admit. He can never admit that Israeli crimes are worse than those of Arabs. And he persistently refuses to discuss anything except rocket fire in the lead up to the Gaza massacre. I give him credit for admitting that there are some real bastards in the IDF–baby steps. But I probably give him too much credit even there.
“My reasoning is that Hamas intended for there to be war, not skirmish.”
Based on what evidence Witty?
Would Israel have gone to war over 6 dead Israelis, especialyl if they’d been killed by a ceasefire violation?
“If they wanted to issue a warning to Israel, they would have shelled the desert and maybe a couple shells at Sderot.”
How do rockets that have an accuracy of less than 1% pose any kind of warning? And if that is a suitable warming, why didn’t Israel warn hamas by firing a few missiles into some open fields in Gaza?
Oh, I keep forgetting. One rule for Israel, another for the Arabs right?
Laughable. Its like you are trying to NOT understand my comments.
You get the distinction between skirmish and war? A skirmish is an exchange of limited fire.
Do you think that Hamas wanted Israel to invade Gaza or to stay out? If they wanted Israel to stay out, why would they have escalated shelling and rocket fire rather than been content with a limited example?
The “warning” is in the limited shelling. Stopping rather than escalating.
All you are interested in is how to focus all the blame on Hamas for the war. It won’t wash–Hamas shares some blame, but if Israel wanted to avoid a war they wouldn’t have continued to treat Gazans like animals in a cage. But you are unable to understand this.
Richard,
I am completely for the two state solution and an atheist Jews to boot.
Whether you were religious or atheist is irrelevant. The primary importance of the two-state solution is that it creates a setting of live and let live.
In the last two days, you’ve argued that you favored a single-state, a Jewish single-state, and that you didn’t see any reason why Israel shouldn’t ethnically cleanse, and/or expand.
And, now you state that you are a supporter of the two-state approach. It is confusing to say the least.
There is a theme in Judaism that we are co-creating the world, which is also articulated in Buddhist, social ecological thought and elsewhere. I believe that that is important, that our goals, our actions, our words, our thought, the tone, characteristics of the language that we use, are components of that co-creation.
Palestinians are Jewish Israeli’s neighbors. It is incumbent on those of us with conscience and imagination to do what we can, to say what we can, that makes coexistence possible.
I agree with you that the careless and maximalist rhetoric of too many of Palestinian solidarity, greatly deter that. But, I suggest that you control your own tongue, to not offend verbally or physically.
Richard,
Read carefully what I wrote. I am parodying the one state solution.
Where did I say that I “didn’t see any reason why Israel shouldn’t ethnically cleanse, and/or expand”?
Richard, if you want to influence the solution come to Israel and live here. Otherwise, you can keep saying what you want but it doesn’t carry much weight. You need to have skin in the game. You can’t be suggesting something and then have someone else suffer if your suggestion is bad. Those who will pay the price of a bad decision need to make the decision.
“There is a theme in Judaism that we are co-creating the world, which is also articulated in Buddhist, social ecological thought and elsewhere.” Now we are into shades of Teilhard de Chardin…lol
Or anarchism (you know “Mutual Aid”)
thank you Mr Kropotkin
“Richard, if you want to influence the solution come to Israel and live here. ”
I live in my home in the US. I have family in Israel and a small but growing number of friends.
I don’t buy the “its impossible to make peace with them” tack. Its an out that allows you to avoid your responsibility to use your abilities to make it happen to the extent that it can.
The question about paying the price of bad decisions, includes inquiry into your actons as well, your use of words, your time, your action, your thinking, your voting.
We don’t need more rationalization, more ridiculing. We need reconciliation, translation, empathy, assistance, collaboration.
israel just keeps upping the ante … perhaps the best use of U.S. forces is to redeploy them into israel and take over that government and force regime change there, and then impose the borders that work for U.S. interests and make Jerusalem a U.N.-run and secured “international city” and keep israel on short leash for the rest of time
eee, as far as I can see, this is an english language site. There are some who say Israelis are exquisitly rude people…….. you have a chance to disprove that here, by speaking the language we all understand.
כל אידיוט יכול לכתוב עברית באמצעות גוגל
True potsherd, but some are more idiotic than others…lol
ואתה מוכיח את זה
You have “proved” nothing here eee, in fact, you excel at it hehe
LOL, i love you guys, its all cool when Shmuel starts the conversation in Hebrew and then Avi calls EEE a fake Israeli because he doesn’t speak Hebrew on here, but once EEE does start speaking Israel you make a generalization of all Israelis being exquisitely rude. That is the comment section of Mondoweiss in a nutshell. Logic need not apply.
There it is, classic troll analysis … lol
nice input troll, LOL LOL HA HA
I just found it too temptingly funny that you would use the word “logic” toward the end of your post. The only “logic” you know is that of colonialism, logic in a box is you’re forte. Israelis that support the current course of Israel (and non-Israelis) are not necessarily rude in their delivery, they are just rude in thinking that anyone would accept such reasoning as if we were brute beasts that cannot see their transparent hubris.
Wow. I think this is the first post I’ve read of your where you didn’t resort to using the words “shit,” “fuck,” or “asshole,” yonira.
Wow Chaos I think this is the first post i’ve read where you haven’t venerated Naziism.
Venerated Nazism? You know, normally I try to restrain myself a little bit, but…
Fuck you, you sorry excuse for a phony Jew. Leave your poor Native American girlfriend alone for once and take your frustrations out on a sheep. My grandfather fought and almost died to end the monster that was Nazi Germany. What did your grandfather do, you pathetic white rural hick?
battle of the bulge and iwo jima Chaos.
Chaos4700, yonira apparently cannot tell the difference between pointing out Israeli parallels to Nazism from veneration. Than again, he might think it is a compliment…lol
Well, then, I apologize to your grandfather. And extend to him my condolences for what an utter disappointment as a Jew his grandson turned out to be.
no, one grandfather (the gentile) fought the Nazis and the other (the jew) fought the Japanese.
LOL you are funny Chaos. Think about our grandfather’s and their generation, then think of the lifestyle’s we consider ourselves to be a part of, then think of whose grandfathers would be more disappointed…..
The Battle of the Bulge happened between December 1944 and January 1945. The battle for Iwo Jima was between February and March 1945. I find it strange that your dear old grandfather managed to be a hero in both places (6000 miles apart) at about the same time.
Perhaps he was teleported to save the situation?
YoniraThe Battle of the Bulge was between Dec 1944 and Jan 1945. The Battle for Iwo Jima was Feb-Mar 1945.
Was your dear old grandpa teleported 6000 miles to Iwo Jima just to help them out, or what?
yonira, i can fully understand Chaos. The resemblance between between Zionists like you and Nazis is great. But i still can’t get what you mean by “venerated Naziism”, How can Chaos venerate what he fights? I mean why do you constantly try to put Chaos in the same camp as you? YONIRA you are the ZioNazi, not Chaos so fuck you yonira fuck you phony!
yonira, the difference is that Shmuel can speak in any language he wants and we’ll relish it just the same. eee, OTOH – or, for that matter you, no matter what language you try, it’s one too many already. Because, well, life is not fair – and some people are more special than others.
jesus, was that english? I saw a lot of english words strung together, but it didn’t really make sense to me.
danaa, can you (or anyone else) address my real question, why there is a double standard?
Come back when you’ve finished your GED, then.
I’ll spell it out for you yonira. We like Shmuel more than we like you. How’s that for simple?
Now be good and go commiserate with eee….
maybe some of your Nazi friends can help me study Chaos.
Chaos do you prefer virtual Nazis or do you like hanging w/ them in real life more?
Were you born a walking douche bag, yonira, or did that take a special operation for the necessary implants?
“Chaos do you prefer virtual Nazis or do you like hanging w/ them in real life more?”
Ask the ones in your neighborhood Yonira.
“Chaos do you prefer virtual Nazis or do you like hanging w/ them in real life more? ”
Virtual Nazis? i thought you were talking about JIDF and its supporters, you are the baby killers not Chaos yonira. Can’t you remember the use of white phosphorus on school children last year?
“Can’t you remember the use of white phosphorus on school children last year? ”
Or the use of cluster bombs on children 2 years earlier?
exactly Shingo, i just gave him one example of so many!! the list is along…
How do we know that the self-hating Khazar swindler eeee didn’t get a friend to type hebrew for him? Or that he suddenly figured out that thousands of ‘Instant Translation’ are sites available on the net
No proof either way renders the score: naught.
Who cares, Taxi? If he wants to claim he’s from Israel, let him I say. He’s pretty damn useful to the anti-occupation movement that way. :)
I’m not usually all that engrossed with David Grossman but sometimes..
David Grossman at Sheikh Jarrah: “We cultivated a kind of carnivorous plant that is slowly devouring us”
“I think that we are all beginning to grasp — even those who maybe don’t really want to — how 43 years ago, by turning a blind eye, by actively or passively cooperating, we actually cultivated a kind of carnivorous plant that is slowly devouring us, consuming every good part within us, making the country we live in a place that is not good to live in. Not good not only if you are an Arab citizen of Israel, and certainly if you are a Palestinian resident of the Territories — not good also for every Jewish Israeli person who wants to live here, who cherishes some hope to be in a place where humans are respected as humans, where your rights are treated as a given, where humanity, morality, and civil rights are not dirty words, not something from the bleeding-heart Left. No. These are the bread and water, the butter and milk of our lives, the stuff from which we will make our lives, and really make them lives worth living here.”
link to coteret.com
TGIA, Buber made even shorter work of the situation than that, he said Israel chose the Nazi path. This was his mature conclusion toward the end of his life.
Netanyahu Won’t Divide the Land
Larry Derfner
“Which way will Bibi go? This seems to be the big question – whether Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will bow to American pressure, exchange his right-wing/religious government for a “peace coalition” and start taking down the occupation, or whether he will dig in.
I don’t think there’s any doubt about it – he’s going to dig in. This is not the prime minister who’s going to divide the land with the Palestinians.
To begin with, of the 69 MKs in an imagined Likud-Kadima-Labor-Meretz coalition, the great majority are totally opposed to paying the well-known price for peace – removing 100,000 settlers from the West Bank’s interior and relinquishing Arab Jerusalem to the Palestinians for their capital. No Likudnik sees this as anything less than treason, and all but a few Kadima members would agree. The peace coalition actually numbers no more than about 20 MKs, and even with the outside support of the Arab parties, they’re a hopeless minority, for now anyway.”
link to realclearworld.com
Thank you to tree and Avi for sharing the information about Israel’s past deportation policies. I would expect this new policy to be used mainly in a similar manner. In other words, rather than mass expulsion, targeted expulsions of activists, organizers, and journalists (as the IDF overlords see fit). Regional expulsion of the kind BenjaminS brings up seems like a worst case scenario, although it may be the most likely since it fits with apparent Israeli territorial aims.
Regardless of how Israel uses or plans to use this policy, the fact that it is claiming the right to arbitrarily deport (people it does not acknowledge as subjects and citizens in the first place) is alarming enough.
If not suprising, given of course Israel’s longstanding sanction of arbitrary murder.
This seems to be very good news. For too long only Jews have been expelled for zoning violations. We need to follow the letter of the law exactly with illegal Arab housing as well.
I applaud this moral action.
“I applaud this moral action. ”
Spoken like a true Nazi.
Here is the true face of Nazi UNIX.
Read some history NaziUnix, you might learn that one thing is common among all the ZioNazi ideologies, they all fall down.
I would ignore UNIX’s unique contribution to this discussion if his message didn’t happen to be the last comment before I posted.
For too long only Jews have been expelled for zoning violations. We need to follow the letter of the law exactly with illegal Arab housing as well.
Where are all these ‘expelled Jews’? Have they lost their homes or legal properties?