I’ve been having a bit of an email exchange today with Sarah Leah Whitson, the director of the Middle East Division of Human Rights Watch, over their decision, yesterday, to rush out a press release criticising the Gazans’ latest use of nonviolent mass action to halt Israel’s resumed practice of punitive home demolitions in Gaza.
The text of the HRW press release is now available on-line. It is titled OPT: Civilians Must Not Be Used to Shield Homes Against Military Attacks.
In Sarah Leah’s emails to me she has stressed two points: (1) The point, also made in the press release, that ““Whether or not the home is a legitimate military target, knowingly asking civilians to stand in harm’s way is unlawful.” And (2) that for Palestinian military commanders, in particular, to ask civilians to act as “human shields” in this way represented an unlawful attempt to pur civilians at potential risk.
I have pointed out to her that by these lights, for Mandela (who was a military commander, much more than Ismail Haniyeh– who was quoted in the HRW release– ever was) to call for South Africa’s non-whites to engage in nonviolent mass actions against the apartheid regime, which were often very risky indeed, would also likewise have been considered “unlawful” or even– as HRW grandiosely terms the situation in Gaza “a war crime.”
I pointed out that many other people, in addition to alleged “military commanders” also joined the mobilization effort in Gaza. I pointed out that there has been no suggestion of any coercion being applied on anyone to participate in this quite voluntary human-shielding action. (This is, of course, the most marked difference with the situation when Israel– in the past, and reportedly as recently as last July– has forced Palestinians at gunpoint to act as human shields during its actions in the OPTs. This issue of the presence or absence of coercion is surely a very important one indeed.)
I also wish I’d pointed out more forcefully than I did that– contrary to what SL said both in the press release and to me– it does make a significant difference whether the threatened target of Israel’s violent action was a “legitimate military target”, or not…
So the conversation will doubtless continue. I still strongly question why Sarah Leah and the rest of HRW’s staff [previous word edited on Jan. 28, 2009, with apologies for the earlier, very disrespectful characterization of these people ~HC] rushed to get this very definitive and accusatory press release out so very quickly. Especially given that– as I’d noted here yesterday– over the past four months HRW had said not one word about Israel’s horrible, very harmful resumption, back in July, of the practice of demolishing large numbers of family homes in the Gaza Strip for purely punitive purposes.
It was that practice that the latest “human shields” operation was trying to prevent… and thus far, successfully so…
HRW did have the grace– finally!– in yesterday’s press release to mention the fact and scale of Israel’s resumption of undertaking punitive home demolitions min Gaza… But that very salient fact was buried ways down toward the end of their press release. And notably, the text completely fails to call on Israel to cease this extremely harmful and violent practice, which– in the absence of any evidence at all that the homes in question were used to store weapons– is a quite evident and serious infraction of the Geneva Conventions.
I note, however, that the Israelis must have been very peeved at the success of the latest human shield operation because earlier today they sent ground force (tank and sniper) units into northern Gaza, installing some of these units in Palestinian homes as a way of thereby “converting” them into military positions. Given that the population density in Gaza is such that people usually live in all these houses, this almost immediately turns these individuals– whom the IOF usually keeps through coercive means as prisoners in one or more rooms of their own homes– into coerced human shields. What they are “shielding” there is of course the IOF’s aggressive and violent presence in and atop their home.
(Sarah Leah, where’s the outrage?)
One of the homes taken over today was that of female Hamas legislator Jameela al-Shanti, one of the main organizers of the recent civilian mass actions.
Here’s that AP account linked to above:
- Troops also took over the home of a Hamas legislator who earlier in the month helped to organize a women’s demonstration that let dozens of militants escape an Israeli siege on a Beit Hanoun mosque, the lawmaker, Jamila Shanti, told The Associated Press.
She was not in the house at the time…
A bulldozer chipped away at the walls of the two-story structure so troops could enter, relatives inside the house and neighbors told her, she said. Once inside, they locked about 15 members of her family, including five children, into a single room and threw furniture and clothes out of windows, she said.
“They are only making us more stubborn,” she said. “We will resist with our last drop of blood.”
Bulldozers, skirting regular roads where mines could be planted, also created new routes of access by knocking down greenhouses in Jebaliya, Beit Hanoun and neighboring Beit Lahiya, and two small farmers’ houses.
The army confirmed it was operating in the area as part of its ongoing offensive against Gaza rocket squads, but gave no other details.
Poor Ms. Shanti. Just a couple of weeks ago the IOF’s artillery shelled her house, killing her sister-in-law Nahla, and terrifying all the children who live there. Can you imagine how the children felt during today’s ghastly, inhumane action?
In what possible way was the house a legitimate military target for the IOF?
… And finally, one last note on HRW’s application of what seem like evidently biased double standards regarding the whole “human shields” issue. You probably recall the furore back in July when a bunch of Israeli parents apparently took their “cute” little girl-children to visit a nearby and quite active artillery position in northern Israel, during the war with Hizbullah… and the girls all got to write little messages with felt-tip markers onto the large and very destructive artillery shells that were standing around there… And the whole scene was photographed and quite widely discussed in some parts of the blogosphere (including here, by Scott.)
This looks much more serious as an instance of “human shielding” than anything that happened in Gaza this week. The IDF artillery position was clearly itself a “legitimate military target”, and the commanders seem not to have tried to shoo the Israeli families away from the place. But can you only imagine the uproar if Hizbullah had targeted the position and hit it with its rockets– and 10 or 12 Israeli children had been blown up while they were there drawing their little designs and messages on the IDF’s artillery shells?
And Human Rights Watch said what about that incident??? As far as I can figure out, absolutely nothing.
But when the Palestinians of Gaza try to undertake an unarmed action of social defense of homes unjustifiably targeted for punitive demolition, HRW can’t hurry fast enough to issue its denunciation.
Truly, as I told Sarah Leah, I don’t understand what they’re thinking.
Very fine piece – it’s about as close as words can get to Goya – by Kathleen Christison on what the master race is doing to the Palestinian untermenschen in Gaza. URL is: http://counterpunch.org/christison11222006.html
Here’s her parting shot:
Here is the challenge: any Jew anywhere who allows Israel to commit these acts and pursue these policies in the name of all Jews — for Israel does claim to act in the name of Jews everywhere — without speaking out against Israel, without screaming protests, must be ashamed. Any American who allows the United States to support Israel — to support it militarily with infusions of arms in the billions of dollars every year and to sustain it morally and psychologically — without loud protest should be ashamed. The time has come to stand up and be counted as Americans truly interested in justice and human rights and humanity.
Can we not match Gideon Levy’s courage in speaking the truth? Palestine is the conscience of us all.
Human rights seem very politicized these days. The U.S. often uses these issues as a way to attack regimes they don’t like.
When is raising these issues a form of attack and when is it done with a positive intention? Are there criteria that could be used to make an assessment?
I wonder what exactly HRW thinks Palestinians should do in response to Israel’s assaults and the failure of the world community to oppose Israel’s crimes.
Speaking of the IDF tank and ground troops that Israel sent in, I saw an interesting bit from Palestine TV last night.
In this clip – proudly broadcast by the Hamas-controlled PA – we see “fighters” firing an anti-tank weapon at an Israeli armored vehicle – followed, of course, by hysterical shouts of allahu akbar. (An IDF soldier was wounded in the incident.)
What is interesting is that, right before the missle firing, a large group of Palestinian children are clearly seen swarming around the tank. Did the “fighter” hold his fire? It appears not.
JES (he who bobs up like a hammer in a pianoforte),
Fair point. But aren’t you overlooking the turd in the swimming pool – or the beam in your eye if you prefer. Namely the Israeli tanks in Gaza. Why are they there?
I wouldn’t want Israeli – or Palestinian – tanks here in London. Presumably you wouldn’t want Palestinian tanks in Israel.
It ain’t gonna register I know – but every time I read you guys I wonder, do you have any idea how you come across to the rest of us? You surely know what I mean: squid ink as opposed to real ‘splainin. The latter’s what’s called for. The former doesn’t cut it anymore.
I also found it a strange standpoint. Does that mean that anyone who cooperated or encouraged the brave man we all remember from Tiaman Sq was a war criminal? Or Ghandi when he would gather large crowds to face down British soldiers was a war criminal? Or those responsible for gathering students at Kent university, were they war criminals? The position of HRW seems to in one feel swoop totally undermine the principle of civil disobedience as an alternative to armed struggle. A strange position indeed.
Or Cheney, Goodmn and Schwerner. (No, not that one.)
Or Albert Einstein.
Or David Grossman.
Or Israeli refusniks.
Or Martin Luther King.
Or Paul Wellstone.
Or that rabbi from Nazareth way back when. Step-son of a carpenter.
lenny this type of ‘nonviolence’ is coordinated with and facilitates armed struggle…it is in no sense an alternative. this distinction seems to be lost on helena as well.
corrigan israel is in gaza because that’s where the missiles come from. none of the hamas propagandists have proposed any alternative means of relief. any more questions I can help you with?
Corrigan: “aren’t you overlooking the turd in the swimming pool – or the beam in your eye if you prefer. Namely the Israeli tanks in Gaza. Why are they there?”
Dare I respond? Here goes: ‘Our tanks are there because the Palestinians shoot their stupid home-made rockets at Israeli towns and settlements ( ignore the fact that they are kinda like real big fire-crackers, ’cause the past 300 or so have caused 2 deaths, as opposed to the 250+ of them that we have wiped out since July). You know why they fire rockets? Because they are crazy. They are inherently violent people. And their religion indoctrinates them with savagery and violence. They are crazy since they get all angry when we take their land. But it’s not their land, it is ours. We have the title-deed from 5000 years ago. And they were not even living in it for the past 1200 years; the place was empty when we got there. They were a bunch of primitive nomads just roaming around. They had no cities, no agriculture, no schools, nothing! That’s why we have said from the get-go “A land without a people, for a people without a land”. As our great aunt Golda has wisely said “There is no such thing as a Palestinian people… It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn’t exist.” Yes, yes, those pesky British Mandate documents may show that 87% of privately owned land in 1946 belonged to Arabs, as opposed to 11% belonging to the Yishuv, but that is just because the damn Brits are a bunch of appeasing Arab-lovers. And now they are upset that more than 80% of them live on less than 2 dollars a day? Who cares; it is their own fault. If they worked hard enough like us, they would be comfortable too. They should capitualte and become 2nd class citizens under our sovereignty, and all become rich, happy and prosperous. We keep giving them all sorts of great opportunities; never mind the occasional destruction of power plants, schools, hospitals, universities, regularly demolishing their homes and uprooting their olive groves, and a little sniping here or there at their school children. What harm can there be in a little bit of good old fashioned collective punishment? C’mon, Adolf and Josef did it all the time. Or an even better offer: if they don’t like it, why don’t they just go and live with their Arab brothers across the border. We have always offered them “transfer” from the good old days of Jabotinsky in the 1920s. Afterall we did it to a few hundred thousand of them in 1948-49; we will do it again. Just flock them up nicely, load them into trucks and dump them on the other side of the border. That would both end their suffering and get rid of our demographic time-bomb. Hey, there are 250 million of them, what’s a few more?! This is a generous offer, like all our previous magnanimities. Take it while it stands! But alas, they are foolish and never know what’s good for them. As Abba Eban said “The Palestinians never lose and opportunity to lose an opportunity”. It is their fault, and they brought this upon themselves. Wretched fools!’
You get the picture !
Corrigan: “aren’t you overlooking the turd in the swimming pool – or the beam in your eye if you prefer. Namely the Israeli tanks in Gaza. Why are they there?”
Dare I respond? Here goes: ‘Our tanks are there because the Palestinians shoot their stupid home-made rockets at Israeli towns and settlements ( ignore the fact that they are kinda like real big fire-crackers, ’cause the past 300 or so have caused 2 deaths, as opposed to the 250+ of them that we have wiped out since July). You know why they fire rockets? Because they are crazy. They are inherently violent people. And their religion indoctrinates them with savagery and violence. They are crazy since they get all angry when we take their land. But it’s not their land, it is ours. We have the title-deed from 5000 years ago. And they were not even living in it for the past 1200 years; the place was empty when we got there. They were a bunch of primitive nomads just roaming around. They had no cities, no agriculture, no schools, nothing! That’s why we have said from the get-go “A land without a people, for a people without a land”. As our great aunt Golda has wisely said “There is no such thing as a Palestinian people… It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn’t exist.” Yes, yes, those pesky British Mandate documents may show that 87% of privately owned land in 1946 belonged to Arabs, as opposed to 11% belonging to the Yishuv, but that is just because the damn Brits are a bunch of appeasing Arab-lovers. And now they are upset that more than 80% of them live on less than 2 dollars a day? Who cares; it is their own fault. If they worked hard enough like us, they would be comfortable too. They should capitualte and become 2nd class citizens under our sovereignty, and all become rich, happy and prosperous. We keep giving them all sorts of great opportunities; never mind the occasional destruction of power plants, schools, hospitals, universities, regularly demolishing their homes and uprooting their olive groves, and a little sniping here or there at their school children. What harm can there be in a little bit of good old fashioned collective punishment? C’mon, Adolf and Josef did it all the time. Or an even better offer: if they don’t like it, why don’t they just go and live with their Arab brothers across the border. We have always offered them “transfer” from the good old days of Jabotinsky in the 1920s. Afterall we did it to a few hundred thousand of them in 1948-49; we will do it again. Just flock them up nicely, load them into trucks and dump them on the other side of the border. That would both end their suffering and get rid of our demographic time-bomb. Hey, there are 250 million of them, what’s a few more?! This is a generous offer, like all our previous magnanimities. Take it while it stands! But alas, they are foolish and never know what’s good for them. As Abba Eban said “The Palestinians never lose and opportunity to lose an opportunity”. It is their fault, and they brought this upon themselves. Wretched fools!’
You get the picture !
I wouldn’t want Israeli – or Palestinian – tanks here in London.
Then it’s a good thing that the British aren’t firing rockets or missiles into Israel!
Look, I’m reporting what I saw on PA television. Irrespective of why the tanks are there, the “fighter” firing a missile at that tank did so with total disregard for civilians – in this case children – who were gathering around the tank. You should take a minute to think about that and let it register in your brain. And while you’re at it, you should also think about why those children apparently didn’t fear approaching the tank in the first place!
Great piece, DSW! And JES, thanks for setting him up.
Re: Vadim – women and children are part of the coordinated armed struggle, and in no way can be called non-violent.
Vadim, I ask you, when Israel is overrun or nuked 20 years from now, remember what those women and children were stuggling against – a vicious criminal murderous occupation resisted with pinpricks – and the culture – an admittedly backward, disorganized ghetto riven by inner conflict and patriarchal attitudes – from which they stuggle.
As Corrigan and DSW point out above an Israeli tank in your town is a death-spewing “turd in the pool”. Were Israel to be occupied, should the women and children sit it out?
What a happy day it would be for you Vadim, if, after the U.S. goes bankrupt, the arabs supply the Palestinians with billions of dollars worth of tanks, helicopters, nuclear weapons, and the palestinian diaspora controls the debate, sets agendas in powerful rich muslim countries and remits further millions back home, lets say by drives for Palestine Bonds.
Then the unco-ordinated women and children could stay home while the equaly well armed forces duke it out to the bitter end, no?
You don’t need to be “co-ordinated” to resist where you can when the occupier appears in your midst. You just need to be alive.
“You should take a minute to think about that and let it register in your brain. And while you’re at it, you should also think about why those children apparently didn’t fear approaching the tank in the first place!”
jes: If those questions are real, I need to mail you a needle, maybe you can poke a hole in your ideological bubble.
The reason they did what they did, the person shooting and the children and the women making the human shield, is because that is what people do in guerilla wars. The Warsaw Ghetto fighters against the Nazis did a lot of crazy things. Read the story of the French Resistance. The anti-Nazi “Partisans” in the Balkans did very risky things;risk to themselves and the civilians they live among. So did the FLN in Algeria. Lumumba’s ” MNC Liberation” in the Congo The common strand among all of these, in case you missed it, is being faced with an assymetrically powerful enemy conducting a brutal occupation. What did you expect the fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto to do? Fetch a few tanks and Messerschmitts and fight the Nazi’s in the open fields “like a man” ?! [That line is from Halutz.] No, they hid among and shot from buildings full of people.
You are not actually original in what you say. Your line of reasoning has been used by the Israeli military since the late 40’s (as well as the Gestapo in the early 40’s – irony of ironies!). But it makes no sense. Desperate people do desperate things. Your logic is the exact equivalent of blaming the rape victim for during crazy things – DURING the rape! “Oh you are throwing that ashtray; that could really hurts someone seriously!!” From your side of the fence (or should I say the Apartheid wall) it may not seem like that, but the rape and brutalization of a people has been everyday business in the occupied territories for decades. Implying that it is the victims’ fault, and that they are all crazy and violent without any rational reason is worse than the crime. No their children are not crazy. Most of them, have seen several close relatives killed, often first hand, in raids, bombings, sniper attacks, “targetted assasinations” that often kill 15 others standing too close to the intended target, and “artillery malfunctions”. They see all this with their own eyes, from their earliest days. Now, you are blaming them for standing close to the tank?!! I know I am not going to change your mind, and open your eyes. Tribalism and not seeing, let alone having empathy for, the pain of the other side is a scary thing.
And before anyone says it, this is not a “defence/apology for terrorism”. All acts endangering innocents are evil. All. But the blame belongs not to the struggling oppressed, but the brutal occupier. Yes, it was the Nazis crime, not the fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto. Rape victims will continue to struggle and fight back, even if it looks crazy to you.
Happy Thanksgiving Everyone.
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More on the topic of Human Rights Watch and their unfair press release on so-called human shields:
Here is an article on an American priest and nun who just traveled to Gaza:
http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/11/23/priest-nun-gaza/
“On November 21 and 22, Fr. Peter and Sr. Mary Ellen of the Michigan Peace Team visited the homes in Jabalya and Beit Lahia, Gaza, that have been surrounded with Palestinian men, women, and children, in order to prevent the IOF from destroying them… While the media has been reporting that Hamas is using people as human shields, which is a violation of international law, Fr. Peter and Sr. Mary Ellen have found that this was not the case. The people in Gaza have voluntarily decided to use their presence as a form of non-violent resistance against Israel’s overwhelming military power. Men and women alike are keeping a continual presence at the house, which is home to four families – 22 people, 10 of whom are children – and have stated that they will not move until the demolition is completely called off and the soldiers apologize.”
And here is another article of how this tactic got started and the role of some very courageous women in this process:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20061120.MIDEAST20/TPStory/TPInternational/Africa/
“Saturday night, Dr. Shanti (a Hamas lawmaker from Beit Hanoun and founder of the party’s women’s wing) got a call from Mohammed Baroud, the local leader of the Popular Resistance Committee, who had just received a warning from the Israeli army that he and his family should leave their house, which was to be destroyed in an imminent air strike…”I told [Baroud] they should refuse to depart. Then I offered to bring more people to his house to protect them, like we did at the mosque in Beit Hanoun,” recalled Dr. Shanti, who holds a doctorate in English…It was decided that a group of men would guard the two homes that night and a team of women would stand in at sunrise.”
Sending out civilians to aid and abet the escape of a terrorist or to protect a terrorist’s position is not non-violent action, no matter how many times Helena tries to say it is.
Meanwhile, the Palestinians just made history with the use of the first Grandmother suicide bomber. Well organized people power indeed!
As for HRW, they have regularly condemned and criticized Israel. The fact that they do not share Helena’s incessant hatred does not mean they aren’t doing their job.
Gee DSW, I never thought of that. Comparing Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto, how clever!
Of course there is the little bit about the Jews not firing rockets into German towns, or a lack of Jewish calls for genocide, or the absence of a Jewish history of ethnically cleansing Germans from their towns. And then, as I recall, the Jews in the Warsaw and Lodz Ghettos were more concerned with smuggling food and medicine, rather than weapons, until those “evil” Zionists like Mordechai Analewitz and Haika Grossman suggested they bring in a few arms.
But so what if the comparison isn’t “perfect”, either in this or your previous post (where you reminded me once again that the Palestinians need bear absolutely no responsibility whatsoever for their acts, because they’re “natives”.)
What is important is that you’ve really got Bibi Netanyahu’s style and level argument down pat (do you also make that “doe-eyed” stare that he uses so effectively?) You should probably stop wasting time with me and go find him to debate you. Anyway, lots of luck, and God Bless!
Joshua,
A few questions for you. What’s a “terrorist?”
Are Palestinians ever terrified? Or terrorised? What are we to call the perpetrators of the actions that terrify Palestinians? Can you quantify these matters? If you were to graph these matters – a sort of Richter scale of terror in Israel and in Gaza (and the West Bank) – how would the two lines compare? Are Palestinians less “terrified” than Israelis? Or more?
JES,
Do you ever worry about ghettoisation? Literal ghettoisation – the wall. And figurative ghettoisation – an us against the world mentality. And what that portends over the long haul – i.e., ever increasing levels of estrangement and mutual incomprehensibility and malignity.
Mr./Ms. Jes,
– The anti-Nazi fighters across Europe (rightfully) blew up many German railroad cars, and quite a few non-military people were killed. Guerilla wars are just that, and they use assymetric tactics. And, again, desperate people do desperate things. End the desperation, the acts will cease. Refer to the histories of other liberation movements mentioned above, and try to draw some parallels.
– The fighters in Warsaw, Lodz, Vichy strongholds, the Alsace (esp. Strasbourg) were actually quite adept at smuggling weapons and explosives. How do you think they fought the Nazis so effectively, with good will and peanuts? Many of them had formal executions of Nazi collaborators.
– No one, even themselves, has said that the Arabs or Palestinians are absolved of responsibility for many wrongs. The point is to attribute responsibility proportionately.
– If you would like to talk about ethnic cleansing, I suggest some light reading about the fate of the Arabs of Haifa, Yaffa, most of the coastal region, the Negev, …. and I suggest not Arab but Israeli Zionist sources like Benny Morris, Shlomo Ben Ami, Tom Segev, …
– How is it that the talk of Judeocide by some crackpot Arabs deserves collective punishment, destruction and demolition, and all-out war, but actual Judeocide on the scale perpetrated by the Germans doesn’t? If it was proportionate, there should not be one building standing between the Rhine and the Danube!! Could it be that it’s easy to use these excuses for land-grabs against weak people in camps and destitute villages, but when it comes to powerful countries one has to be more judicious and pragmatic?
– If you are not of the Bibi school of thought, I don’t know what we are arguing about. The basic premise is that the occupation is the source of all the evil. End the occupation, all else is possible. You cannot ask for normal behavior during a rape.
– Since you mentioned her name, short quote from Hiaka, about her pre-Knesset days: “… our movement was large and strong and it was beautiful, even in its defeat … You must know how to live, and more than that, how to die. We knew that by our death everything would not have ended, that our death would become a symbol upon which a generation would be educated …” When the Palestinians say this, they are said to follow the “cult of death”.
Peace and many blessings to you too.
If you are not of the Bibi school of thought, I don’t know what we are arguing about. The basic premise is that the occupation is the source of all the evil. End the occupation, all else is possible.
I think that there is a wide range of variation in opinion between the shallow, simplistic arguments of Bibi on one side and Saeb Erekat on the other.
Chanting, as you do, “End the occupation, all else is possible” is typical of this shallow, slogan-laden type of argument. You are correct: there is no purpose in discussig it with you, because you really have nothing to offer and, apparently, no real stake in the issue.
Peace be upon you too.
Those settlements aren’t worth the price you’re paying. Let alone the price you’re going to pay.
How did Bernard Malamud put it, “you’re on the wrong line every station is wrong.”
Brad,
Did I say that I thought the settlements were worth it? Did I say that I was in favor of holding on to the settlements?
Brad, Jes:
What is hard to understand is that while there are so many smart Israelis who feel the same way (that the path went astray after 1967 with the pursuit of the colonial settlement project, and that the settlements are not worth all this bloodshed on both sides) why do this “silent majority” stay silent? I understand some of the complexities of Israeli electoral system, that allows the settler vote to act like the tie-breaker in the Knesset, making them the indispensible part of ruling coalitions, but it still doesn’t make sense. Most of the Israeli friends I talk to say the same: pull back from the settlements and make peace. Of course this may be my chance exposure and not a statistical representation of the population, but most polls I have seen show this too (But not all: a poll in yesterday’s Haaretz showed approx. 60% in favor of keeping the Golan, which practically means never having peace in the North with Syria and Lebanon). But I would really be grateful if anyone can provide a reference to a good psycho-social analysis of why the Israeli politics and national gestalt has been controlled by the fringe nut-jobs for so long. And please don’t answer back that “So are the Palestinians.” That is not the answer to the question here. The question is: Why do the silent majority in Israel not get their way in the most important national question, in a country that boasts of its democracy?
JES,
You didn’t say. So by all means get out the old scorecard and rack this one up: you’ve just scored a point!
But these aridities aside – because after all a few Palestinian lives and perhaps an Israeli life (or two) will end this weekend because of those settlements – why don’t you “say”? If you are an Israeli – are you? – I’d very much like to know what your position is? And why? How you arrived at it?
I’m just an appalled long distance observer. An appalled long distance observer who – it needs must be said – has made the long march from a head full of Leon Uris visions of wonderful, plucky little Israel 40 years ago to feelings of shame and loathing and rage about my government’s funneling my tax dollars from the U.S. – where they’re desperately needed – to that ghastly wall and those vile “settlements”, where they’re helping to pile wickedness upon cruelty upon something that’s just fundamentally wrong.
Yes, you got it in one. From here – from my vantage point – and, yes, apart from those tax dollars I don’t have what you call a “stake” – I’m disinterested – from my vantage point the whole “project” is an abomination.
Well Brad, I didn’t say in this thread, but I have said before. I have never supported settlement policy in Israel. Among other reasons, as an Israeli who pays taxes, I don’t think that they are, as you say, “worth it”.
The other thing that I have said here before (and this relates to Dave’s question as well) is that this whole thing is not about territory and it’s not about the “occupation”. If it were, there would have been a settlement years ago.
It’s not about “points”, as you say. What bothers me is the fact that you, Brad, are not the first here to make an assumption about my, or someone elses, political leanings based on the fact that I dare to support my right of self defence. Without asking or inquiring, you simply suppose that I must support the settlements and settlement policy.
Well Brad, that’s called prejudice plain and simple, and it seems to be a characteristic of Helena and many of her slack-jawed followers here when they don’t get absolute agreement for their own positions.
JES, you spend a lot of time here, engaged in debates with, like me, are mostly people preaching to themselves and the choir.
I say to you now, if you are in Israel, are an Israeli, or a human being anywhere who watches television news, and you are not fervently engaged in every way you can with oppossing, stopping or reversing Israel’s current stance and actions, you are selfish, if not prejudiced. I am not Jewish, an atheist, live in Canada, used to be an armchair cold warrior, aspired to be a Katsa in my youth, but I spend a good deal of every day trying to engage anybody, write my parliamentarians, HRW, do letters for Amnesty, for that part of the day my peers spend consuming, watching tv. video games whatever.
If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the is trite but true, and the problem is thoughtless illegal state violence on a massive scale, not the resistance to it.
Thank you Charles for expressing the opinion that yours is the only valid opinion. I appreciate your candor. I also liked seeing that trite quote from the 60s (Eldridge Cleaver was it?).
Let me put this to you: If you are a human anywhere with human values and you are not fervently engaged in every way you can be with opposing, stopping and reversing the reactionary racist stance of groups such as Hamas and Hizballah, then you are just pissing strawberries and whipped cream.
I think that, instead of writing letters, you might learn something by spending a few weeks in Sderot and then a few weeks in Gaza. Until then, feel free to continue your preaching, but not at me, please.
Jes:
May I suggest going on a little field trip, with tents and camping and all the other fun stuff, to Jenin or Rafah? Or if that would too tough on you, flip through the pages of a great comic book I recently read called “Palestine” by Joe Sacco; seriously, it’s a cominc book.
P.S. I know that the people of Siderot suffer and it is not fun living under risk of enemy fire. But doesn’t it matter that since the beginning of this last round in Gaza, the tally stands at approx. 310 to 3 ? You actually compare their kitchen-maid “rockets” to laser-guided bombs from stealth aircraft and airborne artillery from Apache and Black Hawk helicopters?
David,
The last time Israeli Jewish civilians wandered into a Palestinian town they were dragged out into the street and summerily murdered. But if you go back and read what I wrote to Charles, I also suggested that he spend time in Gaza.
Of course it matters that many more Palestinians have been killed. I think that it also matters that there is, at least, prima facie evidence that the majority of the approximately 310 were combatants (many of whom had just fired rockets, were about to fire rockets, or were retrieving launchers). You need to take that into consideration as well. Take a look here and see how many were “killed while participating in hostilities” over the past six months:
http://www.btselem.org/English/Statistics/Casualties_Data.asp?Category=1
Your characterization of “kitchen-maid ‘rockets'” is misleading at best. They carry about four to five kilograms of TNT (smuggled by the ton into Gaza over the past year) and are capable of inflicting horrible damage on people. I know that you want to downplay the effect on the people of Sderot. I don’t know whether you have ever experienced a rocket of that type landing near you, but I have, and it is not something to be taken lightly. Experiencing it on a regular basis over a period of years must be highly traumatic.
Jes,
No, many Israeli friends go into “the territories” on a daily basis. A smaller number actually live there. One I personally know is Amira Haas, the Haaretz journalist (called “Arab whore” by the settlers). The 310 I quoted was from a Ynet article I saw yesterday; could not find it now to post the link, but it said that an approximate 170 of the 310 were civilians. And yes, I happen to have experienced explosions sufficiently to have resultant hearing loss. But we all know that the 5 kg. of TNT in the poorly guided devices usually lands in farmlands and, thank goodness, no one gets harmed; this is far cry from 180mm artillery shells, laser guided bombs, … crashing into the dense residential camps of Jabaliya and Rafah [Jabaliya with more than 110,000 people in less than 1.4 km2 is the most densely poplulated place on earth]. I do not wish to downplay the traumatic suffering of those living in the towns near Gaza, or in the North, but when mentioning them, it is fitting to mention the suffering of “the other” that happens to be many orders of magnitude greater. We may be at war with them, but they are humans.
This reminds me of a story: I visited the Vietnam memorial wall in DC a few months after it was openned to the public, with an old man who is now gone. By that time, other than loonies, everyone admitted that Vietnam was a huge and catastrophic mistake, with innumerable war crimes committed. We saw the wall and as we were about to leave, he kept turning back. When asked why, he said: “Since we all say it was wrong, and we have now erected this immense wall to the memory of the 58,000 young men who fell there, I am looking to see if we had the decency to put up a small 1 foot by 1 foot plaque, in memory of the 3.5 million that those 58,000 killed!”
Jes,
By the way, thank you for the civilized response.
D