[Lorric]

2. I reject the ethical argument that the principle that a government must protect its people is more important than the principle that people have a right to live (and that if lives must be taken, fewer is better). Any group of people (including a nation) can conclude, on the basis of "people have a right to live", that if action is possible to protect the life of a member of that group ("from an outside threat" is optional), that action should be taken. There is no reason this should apply to groups ranging in size from "two best friends" up to "nation", but not to the largest group of people, "all human kind".

I am surprised at how much resistance there is to this. I can't advocate it in such pure terms as you due to what I talked about before about self-preservation or I would be a hypocrite expecting people to meet standards I could not meet if I was in the killzone.

However, there is definitely a limit as far as I'm concerned too. Scotty said it would be okay to kill a thousand civillians for one wounded. I could not accept that ratio even if I was in the kill zone. Even the nazis when they rounded up civilians in conquered countries for the firing squads to punish the acts of resistance fighters killing and wounding German soldiers didn't come close to that. The worst I've heard of is 50 civilians for a wounded German soldier and 100 for a dead one.

If Hamas terrorists were launching rockets from a compound full of civilians, resulting in the wounding of one Israeli, and Israel responded by flattening the compound, killing 1,000 innocents, that would not be acceptable, that would be a war crime and is not just stepping over the line for me, it's sprinting over the line and over the horizon.

If a big guy punched a small guy in the mouth and said he was going to do it again, the small guy would not get away with burning the guy's house to the ground in the night with that guy and his whole family inside in order to make sure he doesn't get attacked again. And yes, I know he should have to call the police, you know what I'm trying to say. Maybe this would be more apt to have the police burning down the house.

[jr2]

Hamas

Israel

[Beskargam]

What a disgusting abomination

[karajorma]

Electing organisation which loudly proclaims to the World it wants to erase Israel = get a pass. Electing guy with dodgy views on events that happened decades ago = reprehensible!

Are we really going to hold the downtrodden and under-educated Palestinians to a standard that the citizens of most western countries are unable to live up to themselves?

You have literally done this by quoting that old comment. That comment was that I believe people should spoil ballots or write in a candidate rather than elect someone because they are the best of two dreadful candidates. But this is something that doesn't happen even in the Western world and you are basically condemning the Palestinians for not being the first people in history to ever do it.

I think the Palestinians were idiots to elect Hamas, but who the **** were they going to elect? I hold the Palestinians responsible for electing Hamas, but not to the point where I think they should die for it. Not to the point where I think that we can point to every single dead person and say "The Palestinians are 100% to blame for those deaths cause they cast a vote in an election"

I also love how you deliberately cropped out the following statement.

And that's not an issue which only affects the Japanese, but pretty much every democratic nation.

Which makes it clear what I was actually talking about.

[Lorric]

I think the Palestinians were idiots to elect Hamas, but who the **** were they going to elect? I hold the Palestinians responsible for electing Hamas, but not to the point where I think they should die for it. Not to the point where I think that we can point to every single dead person and say "The Palestinians are 100% to blame for those deaths cause they cast a vote in an election"

I also love how you deliberately cropped out the following statement.

And that's not an issue which only affects the Japanese, but pretty much every democratic nation.

Which makes it clear what I was actually talking about.

Well, that's more or less how I feel about the Palestinians too. So I am happy with that.

As for the left out bit, I just didn't think it was relevant. I'll add it to my OP.

[DarkBasilisk]

I am leery of getting into this, but it caught attention. Will try and pose some questions and responses briefly in as least inflammatory manner as possible:

Palestine is not a nation, and the news regularly is disingenuous by using terminology that assumes it is. Both Hamas, and the PNA, are at best, psuedo-governments, because as far as many international judgements go, it is an occupied territory rather than a sovereign nation. While not all people object for this reason, this is the reason why supporters can claim special treatment for the Palestinians in the public eye.  Israel is a sovereign nation and official signatory to many treaties involving international law and war crimes. Palestine is not on the former and has muddled status on the latter. I'm all for being able to condemn both side when appropriate, but when Israel does something, legally, the international response can be more clear cut because no one can dispute Israel has responsibilities under the treaties it's signed. Similarly, referring to attacks on Israel as 'external' makes sense in a cultural sense, but the political and legal support of that matter can become muddled because of Gaza's political status.

Is it an occupied territory, a semi-autonomous zone, a nation, or an occupied nation? Depending on which way you answer this question, the Palestinian and Israeli responsibilities toward each other change drastically.

In addition : the claim that any nation would suffer severe hits to stability after refusing to respond to an attack, or loss of life by another aggressor is historically untrue. The United States has chosen not to respond militarily to quite a number of incidents in the past 50 years:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Liberty_incident
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Pueblo_%28AGER-2%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Stark_incident
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_007

Most notably, the last one involved the USSR shooting down a passenger jet carrying a US congressman. Not only did our failure to respond militarily to these events not doom our country's security, in several cases, defusing the situation was the overwhelmingly sane thing to do.

Thirdly. I, do not in any way celebrate Hamas's tactics, but as I think I saw Kara mention, the claim that all aggression has to stop from Gaza and things would be fine, seems... really shaky. Pragmatically, the Palestinians have next to no ability to exert political pressure on Israel in any other manner, and no guarantees of anything good happening for their side if they were to disarm. They'd have to remove their last remaining means of achieving local and international attention, on just the good faith that Israel would then deal with them, when the evidence so far to that indicates a less than optimistic picture of things. And even that situation is unbalanced:

You can say both sides have this issue of taking things on faith, but the difference is that if Israel was attacked in an overt fashion (i.e. the scenario painted that if not for the blockade, Palestinian forces could stream across the border into Israel, or the idea that an Israel that didn't power project would invite a massive attack by nearby Arab nations), not only can Israel expect some level of international assistance, they also arguably nowadays have such a powerful Military and Intelligence agency that they could win an extended fight like that. Iran is probably the only nation in the area that poses any threat to Israel, and Iran becoming involved would damn near guarantee the US would become involved militarily, and Iran is likely aware of this. Contrast that to the idea of Gaza taking things on faith and going completely disarmed. They'd be completely at the mercy of Israel, and the shaky hope that the only defense they'd have left would be the international community might help in time, something that seems less and less likely considering how little the international community has been willing to become involved in Syria or Ukraine.

I'm torn between condemning attacks on civilians while also understanding that many people in Gaza may have the perspective that they have no other option. Both sides are claiming that they don't want their people to be wiped out, yes, but one side has a dramatically higher risk of being wiped out than the other. Historically earlier in their history Israel might have been able to claim the reverse, but for right now, the Palestinians have a better claim to say their right to exist is in danger.

[Sandwich]

What the place needs is a peacekeeping force. Israel's ... military is the most modern and advanced in the Middle East and literally every citizen could be sent to fight if they needed that.

Not quite true. Arab Israeli citizens are exempt from military service, as are many religious Jews (not for the same reasons). Reservists are composed of 21-40 year olds, and once released from reserve service (ie. at or around 40 years old), by law you cannot be called up again into military service, even if the country is in a full-blown war and needs every bit of manpower it has.

Also, we tried international peacekeeping forces 14 years ago. Some of the more veteran HLP members may remember the 3 kidnapped IDF soldiers in 2000, Benny Avraham, Adi Avitan (both of whom I knew personally) and Omar Sawaid. The UN had a "peacekeeping" force in South Lebanon at the time actually filming the abduction, and they did absolutely nothing: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3685705,00.html

So you can understand our tendency towards the mentality of "if you want something done right, do it yourself" - especially when it comes to the security of Israel being placed into the hands of, well... not-Israel.

Conquering enemies went out of fashion somewhere between WWI and WWII...

I guess our neighbors didn't get the memo on that.

Is [Gaza] an occupied territory, a semi-autonomous zone, a nation, or an occupied nation?

One may have been able to argue that Gaza was an "occupied territory" before 2005 (the term "disputed territory" is actually the precise legal term), but there has been no Israeli presence in there since then. Yet there have still been how many rockets fired at us from Gaza? Over 11,000? :-/

In addition : the claim that any nation would suffer severe hits to stability after refusing to respond to an attack, or loss of life by another aggressor is historically untrue. The United States has chosen not to respond militarily to quite a number of incidents in the past 50 years:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Liberty_incident
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Pueblo_%28AGER-2%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Stark_incident
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_007

Most notably, the last one involved the USSR shooting down a passenger jet carrying a US congressman. Not only did our failure to respond militarily to these events not doom our country's security, in several cases, defusing the situation was the overwhelmingly sane thing to do.

So much wrong with this comparison.

First off, you've got four incidents in 50 years. Perhaps there were more, I won't deny that. Were there 10,996 more incidents? I doubt it.

Secondly, 3 of the 4 incidents were against military targets, not civilian population centers.

Thirdly, all instances occurred beyond the national borders of the US. Israel is receiving rocket barrages on her sovereign territory.

Finally, none of those instances were continuous, repeated attacks that have been going on for years.

Historically earlier in their history Israel might have been able to claim the reverse, but for right now, the Palestinians have a better claim to say their right to exist is in danger.

Patently untrue:



Don't get me wrong... I'm not saying that Israel's existence IS in imminent danger by homegrown rockets fired from Gaza - we're not quite that weak, regardless of any Hamas propaganda to the contrary. What I'm saying is that if the violence against Israel comes to a screeching halt and does not resume, the Palestinians are more than welcome to live in peace, without fear of Israeli attack.

I'll end with this. The latest, humanitarian truce yesterday? It resulted in the death of one of my unit-mates, Barak Degorker, by mortar fire from Gaza.

Some truce.

[Dragon]

Well, I think that by this point nobody argues that Hamas has to go if there's to be a peace in the region. Those guys are tyrants, traitors and religious nuts to boot. If they didn't kept breaking their own ceasefires and treaties, there could be some hope of negotiating with them. That's why I'm saying that Hamas giving up and going for peace is unlikely. They don't care for their own people, for their country and are only interested in maintaining their own power. They're also past the "point of no return" (in that if they should back off, they'd fall apart and get no mercy or help from anyone) and they know it, so they'll fight until they're forcibly removed.

As for the UN conduct in the incident you mentioned, well, that's just a disgrace. Perhaps a "dedicated" mediation force specifically meant to solve this particular problem would do more, but I understand that this didn't help make calling on the UN seem like a good idea.

Perhaps the way to deal with Hamas would be to cooperate closely with the "other legitimate Palestinian government", i.e. whoever is ruling the West Bank. Currently that's Fatah, IIRC. I'm pretty convinced they could be reasoned with much easier. Handing over a few modern, Israeli-built settlements would certainly sweeten any deal made with them, that's for sure... Anyway, having struck a deal with them, they could claim Gaza as Palestinian territory and march in supported by Isreali troops and equipment. Following that, they should hunt down and arrest Hamas members as rebels and terrorists they are (they'd probably be executed later, but that's fine with me). Israel could then pull out after Fatah establishes it's own police and military presence. They could give them both humanitarian aid and money/supplies in order to both improve their image and maintain good relations with them.

Now, it's not like Fatah are saints, but they do seem less "kill and burn" oriented. They probably do have a few grievances with Isreal on their own (many of them probably legitimate), but compared to Hamas, they're a beacon of reason (not that it's saying much). The biggest problem is that from what I've seen, they're spineless and rather corrupt. Perhaps a new election is in order... Anyway, I believe that the best shot Israel has at peace is to create a strategic ally on the West Bank and then leverage this is to pacify Gaza.

[Phantom Hoover]

http://blogs.channel4.com/snowblog/bring-israelis-palestinians/24316

[Aardwolf]

Electing organisation which loudly proclaims to the World it wants to erase Israel = get a pass. Electing guy with dodgy views on events that happened decades ago = reprehensible!

Are we really going to hold the downtrodden and under-educated Palestinians to a standard that the citizens of most western countries are unable to live up to themselves?

You have literally done this by quoting that old comment. That comment was that I believe people should spoil ballots or write in a candidate rather than elect someone because they are the best of two dreadful candidates. But this is something that doesn't happen even in the Western world and you are basically condemning the Palestinians for not being the first people in history to ever do it.

I can't tell what you're saying... who has done what my quoting what? You mean Lorric quoting me? Please clarify.

I'll end with this. The latest, humanitarian truce yesterday? It resulted in the death of one of my unit-mates, Barak Degorker, by mortar fire from Gaza.

Some truce.

So he was killed even though the fighting was supposed to be stopped? If there's a causal relationship between the truce and that guy's death, I'm not seeing it.



@Phantom Hoover: some description would be nice.

[Scotty]

He's saying that the truce is a farce because Hamas is still lobbing **** anyway.

[Aardwolf]

Well duh. But Sandwich said "It resulted in the death of one of my unit-mates, Barak Degorker". Farce or not, I don't see the causal relationship.

[Lorric]

I can't tell what you're saying... who has done what my quoting what? You mean Lorric quoting me? Please clarify.

Don't worry about that. It had nothing to do with you.

[swashmebuckle]

Are the Hamas authorities actually in control of the people doing the fighting or is it more like they give suggestions?

[DarkBasilisk]

...

First : am deeply sorry about your loss.

The official definition is still Occupied Territory, as per the UN. Israel wants to call it a disputed territory because the semantic difference is building settlements in a disputed territory isn't a Geneva Convention violation. Which is just my point. I think, the only way we're getting peace is with a third party guaranteeing the rights of the weaker party. In some means more toothed than the UN. They don't trust Israel, and evidence has sometimes shown that's not an entirely wrong belief for them to have.

Patently untrue:

I don't even need to try and debate the motivation differences for a cease fire. Just, a more simple question. Explain to me how breaking cease fire agreements erases the reality that Israel's military is one of the most powerful in the region, their covert operations capacity is world-class, and even today in the midst of this temporary condemnation, international opinion is still massively on their side.

Gaza has none of that, and no reason to trust the idea of "don't make any trouble and you'll be fine". Settlements continue to be made in the West Bank. The blockade is unlikely to be lifted without significant time spent without any shred of violence towards Israel (something, I imagine, that would be hard to Hamas to guarantee even if they agreed to it). I say that they're the ones facing a threat to existence because, given what we've see with Syria and Ukraine, Israel could very well annex the territory entirely, and the international community would issue a "stern condemnation" and nothing more.

You could say that these things just listed have reasons, and the Israelis are not necessarily wrong to do them. On some of the things, particularly the blockade, I could grudgingly agree with you. But it still doesn't change the fact that it gives the people in Gaza no reason to trust that they'll be ok. Hamas is horrible, but the fact that people still back them just goes to show you that they feel that Hamas is their *safest* bet for survival. That's wrong. Someone needs to fix that, if you did, Hamas would be gone in months.

EDIT:

So much wrong with this comparison.

People said many times in thread, without any qualifiers, that no nation could ever afford to not respond, because of the social contract of government. I showed that a nation safely didn't respond where they were called to do so. I agree that the examples need a bit more work for best results, but still, I feel i adequately responded to the point as originally stated.

[Phantom Hoover]

I did like how many of those who jumped to the social contract to justify their position were self-described right-wingers. I guess it's not so unshakeable when you have to pay your taxes.

[Dragon]

Well duh. But Sandwich said "It resulted in the death of one of my unit-mates, Barak Degorker". Farce or not, I don't see the causal relationship.

Perhaps he let his guard down because he thought Hamas would actually stop shooting. Or his superiors did, and posted him where he could be endangered, on assumption that he won't be, because of the truce. I suspect that something like this occurred. Indeed, this might've been the whole reason why Hamas agreed to it. To betray Israelis and score hits on some of the more trusting/idealistic ones. Hamas has no honor nor dignity, so it was to be expected that they would try something like that. They don't seem to be splintered or have an internal struggle for power going on, which is perhaps the only thing that would justify how the ceasefire went. They're just a bunch of traitorous bastards.

[Scotty]

I did like how many of those who jumped to the social contract to justify their position were self-described right-wingers. I guess it's not so unshakeable when you have to pay your taxes.

Now this is patently false.  I'm hardly conservative, and neither is MP-Ryan (I can't rightly speak for Mongoose).  That's 90% by volume of the social contract discussion right there.

[jr2]

Interesting guy here :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosab_Hassan_Yousef

Now if we could get enough of his kind together and replace/overthrow  Hamas...


Edit: a good quote from Mr.  Yousef (who converted  to Christianity) :

Religion steals freedom, kills creativity, turns us into slaves and against one another. Yes, I am talking about Christianity as well as Islam. Most Christians I have seen seem to have missed the point that Jesus redeemed us from religion. Religion is nothing but man's attempts to get back to God. Whether it is Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, animism, any ism. Religion can't save mankind.

[MP-Ryan]

but they can't get rid of them because they're in power and staying that way through force of arms... a situation that every idiot Westerner, who has not one clue about history or geopolitics but gets outraged at Israel on the basis of body count, forcing Israels hand and playing precisely into Hamas tactics and agenda to begin with, perpetuates.

Armchair politics isn't going to affect crap, especially not whether Hamas continues to suppress voters.

And just because people disagree with you doesn't mean they're stupid or ignorant. As an example: myself. I am not stupid, and contrary to whatever conclusions you may have reached in order to explain to yourself why I persist in disagreeing with you, I am not nearly as ignorant as you might believe. I have perfectly good reasons for disagreeing.

None of your reasons mean a thing to the larger picture; the longer that the West puts pressure on Israel to withdraw on the basis on complaints of their largely uninformed citizenry, the longer Hamas stays in powe in Gaza, and the longer the larger conflict continues with perpetually increasing body count.  I repeat:  Hamas now holds Gaza at the point of a gun.  This will not change by internal forces alone.  People who assert that Israel should not respond to what is, by its definition, terrorism against its residents by a group that holds its own residents at the point of a gun perpetually are part of the problem.  If fewer deaths, both in the short or long term are what you're after, that requires the crippling of Hamas' ability to hit at Israel.

That's not a fair comparison.  No citizens of Western countries have voted knowingly, into power, a party that refuses to recognize another country and has that other nation's destruction as a primary goal of the party organization.

1. They've not been in a position where they would have to recently. Are you seriously telling me you don't think it could happen again in the west?

2. Depends what you claim is a Western nation. Serbia for instance did exactly that.

1.  It hasn't happened in over 100 years of Western democracy.  It is similarly unlikely to happen in the forseeable future.  Nor were Gazans forced to vote for Hamas.

2.  Serbia is not a 'Western' nation.  The term (at least in the modern geopolitical sense of the history of warfare) typically refers to the primary Western democracies who were not members of the Soviet Bloc during the Cold War.

Yes, Hamas probably seemed like the only viable alternative to Fatah.  That said, they knew full well that Hamas was going to continue to strike at Israel, and they knew from history that they would use ordinary Gazans as shields.  "Rock and a hard place" seems an apt description.

Which is kinda my point. Had Israel not systematically hobbled Fatah, Hamas wouldn't even be in a position of power now.

True; nevertheless, Gazans ultimately elected them, fully informed about what that would bring down on their heads.  Nations are accountable for the governments they elect.  You don't get to cede authority to someone knowing what they'll do with it, then absolve yourself of ceding power to them in the first place.  It would be one thing if Hamas had renounced all forms of violence and recognized Israel prior to being elected, then turned around on that promise and started governing by force afterward, but that isn't what happened.