The New Catastrophe in Gaza

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All in all, I firmly believe that Israel has in the recent past behaved just as the Palestinians, or any other Arabs, have - terror for terror, assaults for assaults. If anything, their vastly superior army and budget allows them to be that much more effective. They have given as bad as they have got, and often they did it first. That itself I can accept, albeit with a lot of regret. It is the inherent hypocricy behind those statements that prompted me to start this thread. It's the same when they start raising all hell that Iran develops nukes, or that its neighbors have some army maneuvers somewhere.

Israel withdrew from the Gaza strip, but neither fully nor for long. I'd disagree the "nothing to do with it" bit. It always retained a lot of importance over how life went on there - through the checkpoints, for example, political pressure, and sometimes violence. There were shellings and attacks every week, some in retaliation, some not. And that, you can imagine, feeded the remains of the radicals who would have otherwise died off.

 

Everyone forgets that Hamas came through the polls and they kept to their ceasefire for more than a year, dispite provocation from Israel.

In N.Ireland the 2 largest parties have links to terrorists - Sinn Fein and DUP. The reason why we are more successful is that we allow our people to persue their goals through politics rather than violence.

 

I wonder if Israel and Palestine will take as long as England and Ireland to make peace, or something like it. I'd wager for more, unfortunately.

 

i know what america's response would be if this were happening to them, and i admire israel's restraint from that point of view, but its time to end this, palestine is a terrorist state, led by terrorists, bomb them so hard that their descendents will feel it for hundreds of years

 

I will never again wonder why the troubles in this region persist. It's attitudes like this that are the problem.

 

Unfortunately longer, from the way things are going.

Restraint???? You call what's been happening there for the past 80 years restraint? Where DO you get your news I wonder?

Well when you hear things like "bomb them so hard that their descendents will feel it for hundreds of years" or "Israel must be wiped off the map", it's no wonder things never work out.

 

its worked in the past, the USA is a prime example, wiped out the locals and took control of the land

had this been happening to the US palestine wouldnt exist now, it would just be a mass of firebombed cities and uninhabitale wasteland - and israel posesses the power to make this happen, yet they havent, that is restraint.

 

It's also one of our nation's greatest shames.

This example is also invalid because of the nature of Arab culture. To the rest of the Arab world, the Palestinians are their brothers and sisters not only in Islam, but in language, culture, and blood. Mess with Palestine and you mess with the whole family. If Israel started a genocidal war with Palestine, all of the Arab world would join together, swoop down, and wipe them out. The only thing stopping such a thing from happening now is diplomacy and the surety that the western world would intervene. (Ever since the inception of Israel, Arab newspapers and media have referred to Jerusalem as "Qods al-muhtella"; meaning "the occupied Jerusalem". The Arab world has never stopped seeing the Israelis as occupiers.) If Israel actually attempted to prosecute a genocidal war, however, no ammount of diplomacy and no threat from the western world would be able to stop them. The powder keg that is the middle east would explode regardless of the consequences.

 

One shouldn't confound religion, language and culture, it is a much more complicated issue. Arabs are not only Muslims, they can be Christians and Jews as well.

Considering the bombing/restraint argument, it is worth to bear in mind that the area that we're talking about is really tiny... Turning this place into a "wasteland" would cut both ways.

The future seems rather bleak and this impression is only reinforced by comments such as these "if you can't deal with a people in a civilized fashion you are reduced to wiping them out"...

That's a rationalisation of extermination plain and simple...

How much more suffering is needed before some people can eventually come to realize that violence and warfare only bring hatred and a wish for retribution?

 

Non-muslims make up well under 10% of arab culture and Islam permeates nearly every aspect of it as well. I have known many Christian Arabs and have yet to meet one who will drink or eat pork....for cultural (not religious) reasons. If you do not understand Islam, you will not be able to understand the Arab world.

 

It varies from one country to the other, I'm not discussing the point that Muslims are a majority, I'm stressing the fact that a commonly shared and widespread assumption saying that every Arabs are Muslims is inaccurate.
(It would be off topic to discuss this at large but I can assure you that I have met Christian Arabs who didn't respect such proscriptions).

 

I can't disagree with that.....being that I was trained as an Arabic linguist by the Navy. On the other hand, Muslims are the ones in power in every single Arab nation. When looking at how a government is going to respond to something, the opinions of a (less than) 10% minority really aren't going to factor in.

 

really? id put my money on israel, after all, they have nuclear arms, highly trained disciplined soldiers, massed armoured cavalry and a powerful airforce made up of US fighter planes

i know where im putting my money

 

Shoshino, the Arab world has the numbers, and plenty of nukes from Iran, to make up for it.

One nuke on Jerusalem, one on Tel Aviv, and Israel is gonna be in a world of trouble. Add a couple of hundred tanks rolling in from every direction except the west, and you have one confined Israel.

Off course, Israel have USA, and the Arab world would never unite that way, but if those two weren't included, I think we would have a massive asskicking in the process.

 

Well said. We can only hope that one day the Palestinians will realize this and leave Israel alone. Until then as also previously mentioned we can only hope that Israel continues to use restraint and doesn't adopt a policy of genocide.

 

@The Great Snook: to be quite clear, I quoted your post because I was appalled by what you wrote... One should never speak so lightly about genocide.

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. The Resistance were terrorists for the German forces occupying France during WWII (by the way don't misunderstand this remark: I'm not trying to compare Israelis with Germans).
After the war some enlightened leaders -French AND Germans- were able to look beyond rancour and hatred and managed to create the budding EU, turning the old enemies into partners to end the cycle of war.

What is needed is not a 'vae victis' mentality but the will to give peace a chance. The Oslo Accords were a momentous step in this direction:
If you want peace, prepare for peace not war.

 

Sorry, but this just isn't possible. When Israel bombs Palestine, they act as a nation. When a Palestinian commits a suicide attack, he acts as an individual. You are suggesting that we hold the whole of Palestine accountable for the actions of individual Palestinians who are acting independently. That's like killing a man's family because the man commited a murder. It just doesn't make any sense.

 

During many of the peace talks and agreements during the Clinton years, Arafat insisted that the actions that often went again peace agreements he signed were not approved by him and were, in fact, beyond his control. Terrorists work in cells. They don't have strong, centralized leadership. The control that Hamas can exert over individual terror cells is actually quite minimal.

Regarding the United Arab world facing Israel.....I would hardly call the incident to which you are referring the United Arab world. It was more aptly explained as an attack by a few of Israel's neighbors. Most of the Arab world actually stayed out of that conflict.