Israel's Crimes Against Humanity

ohio · Jan 15, 2009

rockwool said:
Blaming fear from persecution of being Jesus killers, and before that because of being the chosen people, do not justify their actions,

Thank you for demonstrating exactly the complete misunderstanding that I was speaking of.

ohio · Jan 15, 2009

Defenestrated said:
Killing 1050 people (including 300 kids) to avenge the deaths of 15 people is something I would venture to call sadistic.

That's just me.

Sadistic specifically means that the Israelis are enjoying the suffering of the Palestinians. Even if you want to pretend that the definition is not what it is, at minimum it means that the Israelis purposefully want to inflict suffering on innocent Palestinians.

That may very well be what the actions look like to us. However, it's not the reality of the situation and operating under that assumption ensures that this discussion goes nowhere. You don't have to like or agree with someone to put yourself in their shoes, and it's certainly not an easy thought exercise, but no one in this thread is putting even a modicum of effort into trying.

It's probably worth repeating that this is true of both sides. I'm no defender of Israel or their actions. See any of my arguments with stinkle in previous threads.

ohio · Jan 15, 2009

Samirol said:
Well, he is partially correct, because Israel gets away with this because they are supported by the US, the Holocaust and Jesus opening star portals.

No he is not correct, not even partially. Political positions are not the same as the thoughts and emotions that drive our behaviors, and in confounding the two you are demonstrating a shared belief that it is out of sadism.

To put it another way you and rockwool seem to believe that because they CAN do it (it = hurt and hill innocent palistinians), they want to. To hurt someone because you can is sadism, agreed. Do you really believe that Israelis specifically want to kill innocent Palestinians?

Do you think it's possible that there is a historical context (whether you think it's legitimate or not) that instills Israelis with a belief that responding with overwhelming force is the only way to ensure that they are safe? And again, I'm not asking for an examination of that history and whether or not the claim is legitimate. I'm asking you to put yourself in their shoes and try to understand why they way they do.

Defenestrated · Jan 15, 2009

Unfortunately, regardless if Israel enjoys the suffering of the Palestinians or not, they are still the ones with the power to reverse the Palestinian situation. And they have not demonstrated any intent or willingness to exercise this power.

ohio · Jan 15, 2009

Defenestrated said:
And they have not demonstrated any intent or willingness to exercise this power.

And this is incomprehensible, no?

Silver · Jan 15, 2009

ohio said:
Do you really believe that Israelis specifically want to kill innocent Palestinians?

Do you really think that there aren't SOME Israelis (just for giggles, let's make the group we're looking at smaller) in the Knesset who want exactly that?

edit: The weasel definition, of course, is that you say that there are simply no innocent Palestinians. I believe that is what Hamas extremists would argue the other way around, as well.

Defenestrated · Jan 15, 2009

yeah not very articulate on my part

ohio · Jan 16, 2009

Silver said:
Do you really think that there aren't SOME Israelis (just for giggles, let's make the group we're looking at smaller) in the Knesset who want exactly that?

Of course there are some. On both sides. There are evil people. But they are rare (Insulated and ignorant people are not, but that's another, related, thread). My argument is simply that neither population is evil. Both have rational reasons for believing what they do and acting the way they are. Disagreeing with them doesn't make those reasons disappear, nor does it make them evil, and it's impossible to have a constructive discussion (or resolution) until each side can recognize and understand (which is not the same as accepting) the grievances of the other.

If a bunch of internerds halfway around the world can't figure out how to examine the situation without picking sides, what ****ing hope do the real players in this have?

Transcend · Jan 16, 2009

ohio said:
If a bunch of internerds halfway around the world can't figure out how to examine the situation without picking sides, what ****ing hope do the real players in this have?

Sadly, none, while they continue to shoot at each other.

Silver · Jan 16, 2009

ohio said:
Of course there are some. On both sides. There are evil people. But they are rare (Insulated and ignorant people are not, but that's another, related, thread). My argument is simply that neither population is evil.

Agreed 100%.

Do you think part of the problem has something to do with the fact that the default position when discussing Israel/Palestine in the United States happens to be that one side is 100% evil? After all, if you debate about Israel committing a war crime, you may, after a couple of hundred dead brown kids get a person to admit that maybe Israel went a little overboard, but Hamas (and by extension the entire population of the Gaza Strip, since they voted Hamas in) is certainly guilty of war crimes. No debate on that at all, of course. It's the default position.

I do. Since I have no influence on whether a bunch of religious and nationalist idiots in the middle east keep killing each other, about the only thing I can do that may possibly have a miniscule effect is to point that out. It's likely useless, since I'm obviously an anti-semite (not as much as you, of course, since I don't hate myself!) because I think that Palestinians deserve human rights.

What else are you going to do? When you go home from the bar alone, why not jerk off? At least you feel a bit better for a few minutes.

$tinkle · Jan 16, 2009

anybody catch charlie rose last night? panel was rashid khalidi, david makovsky, and roger cohen. if you've heard/read them before, you'd agree there's not a zionist among them, so it was good (for me) to get an understanding from the palestinian pov.

video not up yet, but will link when it comes available.

$tinkle · Jan 16, 2009

if haraatz article is true, that's all kinds of bad.

2 truly bizarre stories about martyrdom in the region:

“We are not running after them like before,” said the fighter wearing slippers, a junior member of Hamas who is responsible for planting bombs but not yet allowed to shoot rockets. “Ten fighters go to confront them. Not 100 like before.”

The fighter is 22, has a degree in psychology and wears glasses. He wears slippers because he was wounded in battle and cannot wear close-fitting shoes. He was not carrying a weapon and, abiding by Hamas’s secrecy rules, spoke on the condition that his name not be used.

He spoke outside a hospital, with his cellphone battery and SIM card removed because he feared that Israeli detection devices would identify him.

He had taken a lesson from what he said was a guided-missile attack on his friend, who had been talking on a cellphone in a building. The missile punctured a concrete wall, killing his friend.

As for the famous tunnel network that laces the territory, he said that Israel had hit many of the tunnels, “but not all.”

In a different part of town, another young fighter and his wife were getting ready to go see her brother, 20, who had been wounded in southwest Gaza City two nights ago while bringing food to fighters. The fighter, 27, in dark jeans and Timberland-style boots, swaggered with words about Islam and duty to his people. Hamas is doctrinally opposed to Israel’s right to exist.

“It’s either victory while alive, or martyrdom,” he said. “Both ways are victory.”

His wife, in a white head scarf, agreed.

“Two days ago, he was very tired and he didn’t want to leave the house,” she said. “I told him you have to leave, you have a responsibility.”

But the sight of her brother unconscious in the hospital bed seemed to jolt the couple into an alternate reality, one where they were vulnerable and afraid. The man’s eyes glistened with tears as he asked the doctor question after question.

Back outside, the woman regained her composure.

“I prefer you as a martyr,” she said to her husband.

“What if I am injured?” he asked.

She repeated her preference for death.

nytimes

and then from latimes

Reporting from Tyre, Lebanon -- Hiba Qassir dreams of making movies. She's ambitious and precocious enough. At 18, she's taught herself how to edit video and sound on a computer, and has her sights set on directing gripping social and psychological dramas.

But if the movie business doesn't work out, that's OK. She has other dreams: perhaps to become a cop or a pilot. Or maybe a suicide bomber.

"Martyrdom is the shortest way to heaven, and the history of martyrdom is not like any history," Hiba says. "It made victory. We wouldn't have achieved victory without these martyrdoms."

ohio · Jan 16, 2009

Samirol, I agree with you at a strategic military level. However, the military has the leeway for this approach not just from the complicity of the United States, but from the complicity of the Israeli populace who they serve. I think this thread treats it as a given that the public shares the motivations of the military, and I don't think that's the case.

I DO think that there's an element of "they have been targeting our citizens, why shouldn't we target theirs?" (which is relatively new... that attitude was not prevalent when i was there in 1991)... the military in turn uses that as justification to launch a shock campaign, when the real but impossible solution to that cycle would actually be to facilitate isolated and direct conflict between militaries; impossible because of the asymmetry of resources (ironically created by Israel).

Obviously there's much more than that and I think the discussion is much more fruitful at that level.

$tinkle · Jan 16, 2009

ohio said:
I DO think that there's an element of "they have been targeting our citizens, why shouldn't we target theirs?"

for all the wanton circumcised knob gobbling i may do, i don't abide by revenge against civies

charlie rose segments still not up...trust me: it's going to be worth the wait

ohio · Jan 16, 2009

$tinkle said:
for all the wanton circumcised knob gobbling i may do, i don't abide by revenge against civies

And actually, as I re-read that, I meant it more like "they've been targeting our citizens, I'm not going to lose sleep over us 'accidentally' hitting theirs."

rockwool · Jan 16, 2009

ohio said:
Thank you for demonstrating exactly the complete misunderstanding that I was speaking of.

I'm sorry, there probably are more reasons that I couldn't/can't remember. What I do remember is seeing Israeli officials repetedly say during this agression that "they're trying to destroy Israel, they want us in the sea", while all (almost) I can see is the destruction of Palestine and its people. Surely missing some reasons but indeed the continuous self victimization is a great part of their collective psychology.

That said to evaluate a situation we need to view what goals they have, both part stage goals, as well as the end goal; a new Grossdeutchland. Looking at that, their claims of what their resons are, seem like nothing but smokescreen.

But please tell me of their feelings, I sincerely want to know.

ohio said:
Sadistic specifically means that the Israelis are enjoying the suffering of the Palestinians. Even if you want to pretend that the definition is not what it is, at minimum it means that the Israelis purposefully want to inflict suffering on innocent Palestinians.

Please, I thought we was beyond that stage. The (Jewish) Israelis aren't all united behind the slaughter. Things like these are so obvious they shouldn't need to be expained or mentioned.

ohio said:
That may very well be what the actions look like to us. However, it's not the reality of the situation and operating under that assumption ensures that this discussion goes nowhere. You don't have to like or agree with someone to put yourself in their shoes, and it's certainly not an easy thought exercise, but no one in this thread is putting even a modicum of effort into trying.

War is horrible, yes, and civilians and their property suffer, yes. Look at the damage of the Qassam's for an example. But tell me something, if the master of sulfur him self was waging a war on a people and their territory, what would that look like, like the suffering of the Israelis or like the suffering of the Palestinians?

ohio said:
It's probably worth repeating that this is true of both sides. I'm no defender of Israel or their actions. See any of my arguments with stinkle in previous threads.

We know you're not. To get somewhere it is important that we assess the objectives of respective side and look how they fall in with the actions taken by them respectively.

ohio said:
No he is not correct, not even partially. Political positions are not the same as the thoughts and emotions that drive our behaviors, and in confounding the two you are demonstrating a shared belief that it is out of sadism.

To put it another way you and rockwool seem to believe that because they CAN do it (it = hurt and hill innocent palistinians), they want to. To hurt someone because you can is sadism, agreed. Do you really believe that Israelis specifically want to kill innocent Palestinians?

Are you even following their actions and claims enough to come to the conclussion that they don't? 6300 victims and a great percentage of their infrastructure is wasted and another great percentage is damaged. A total of 12 health institutions have been hit, yesterday the Red Crescent and a big hospital.

Are you going to be a $tinkle and tell me that they had a Qassam launch from up high on that hospital balkony? They don't give a **** of what and who they hit. They have laser guided bombs and an artillery is very precise within one to some few meters (depending on crew).

ohio said:
Do you think it's possible that there is a historical context (whether you think it's legitimate or not) that instills Israelis with a belief that responding with overwhelming force is the only way to ensure that they are safe? And again, I'm not asking for an examination of that history and whether or not the claim is legitimate. I'm asking you to put yourself in their shoes and try to understand why they way they do.

Yes, I belive the Israeli people in general belive that. But how often have the masses of any country had good enough knowledge in all needed areas to make a correct decision? Anybody who has some knowledge in psychology and who looks at history can see the misstake in thinking that.

Israelis and US Americans are the two people in the world that are exposed the a far greater amount of information than any other; 14h/day compared to Swedes 8h/day. This takes its toll on any person. Couple that with that both their countries are those who's propaganda and general political atmosphere is the most cynical and you have the reason to why the Israelis belive that.

$tinkle · Jan 16, 2009

as promised: http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/9976

rockwool · Jan 16, 2009

ohio said:
Of course there are some. On both sides. There are evil people. But they are rare (Insulated and ignorant people are not, but that's another, related, thread). My argument is simply that neither population is evil. Both have rational reasons for believing what they do and acting the way they are. Disagreeing with them doesn't make those reasons disappear, nor does it make them evil, and it's impossible to have a constructive discussion (or resolution) until each side can recognize and understand (which is not the same as accepting) the grievances of the other.

If a bunch of internerds halfway around the world can't figure out how to examine the situation without picking sides, what ****ing hope do the real players in this have?

For my part I was never talking about the population and I haven't read anybody else doing that either. I was talking about the military and civilian leadership that commands sertain things, and those on the ground following orders taht sometimes, or rather very often during this agression, are very wrong or even despicable.

Watching these warcrimes happening I can't understand how a person of morality fails to pick a side. The measure of wrong against wrong is rediculously uneven.

ohio said:
And actually, as I re-read that, I meant it more like "they've been targeting our citizens, I'm not going to lose sleep over us 'accidentally' hitting theirs."

Yeah, that is natural but up to a point. Naturally, that point varies a bit from person to person, but by now there should be quite a strong outcry among a very large percentage (but we have to consider that the Israelis have a very limited view of what's happening, just like us westerners, unless they're/we're watching Al Jazeera). Anybody got an uptodate article on Israeli opinion?

rockwool · Jan 16, 2009

$tinkle said:
as promised: http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/9976

A fresh breeze in an ocean of diarrhoea.

ohio · Jan 16, 2009

rockwool said:
Please, I thought we was beyond that stage. The (Jewish) Israelis aren't all united behind the slaughter. Things like these are so obvious they shouldn't need to be expained or mentioned.

No less obvious than the endless statements from you that Israel's actions are unconscionable and from stinkle that Hamas's actions are unconscionable. And if it's so obvious, why is it so plainly overlooked in an endlessly circular discussion about who is "right."

There is no right.

rockwool said:
I can't understand how a person of morality fails to pick a side. The measure of wrong against wrong is rediculously uneven.

And yet, a large proportion of people have picked the opposite side to you. Perhaps you should ponder why that is. If your answer is Jewish conspiracy or guilt, think harder.

ohio · Jan 16, 2009

Just watched the Charlie Rose discussion. Khalidi's summary at the end (roughly min 24) sums up largely how I feel about the situation, though I believe the threat of surgical strikes (zero-collateral standard) from Israel against known terrorists (not conspirators) needs to remain in place even as the blockade is ended, settlers withdrawn, etc.

ohio · Jan 16, 2009

Samirol said:
Well, we all know the answer to that Ohio, have you seen any American media coverage on the conflict in the past 3 weeks? Luckily, the internet has loosened the monopoly on information that the mainstream media has.

So you think it's just the inertia of our default position?

Defenestrated · Jan 16, 2009

Not much of a humanist are you ohio?

rockwool · Jan 16, 2009

The UN General Assembly just passed a vote with 142 for, 4 against, and 8 abstained, that in a mild way is condemning Israel.

rockwool · Jan 16, 2009

ohio said:
No less obvious than the endless statements from you that Israel's actions are unconscionable and from stinkle that Hamas's actions are unconscionable. And if it's so obvious, why is it so plainly overlooked in an endlessly circular discussion about who is "right."

There is no right.

And yet, a large proportion of people have picked the opposite side to you. Perhaps you should ponder why that is. If your answer is Jewish conspiracy or guilt, think harder.

Israels actions are " unscrupulous and lacking principles or conscience" (to quote wiki), that don't mean that the Israelis aren't pawns in the games of their leaders (just like all of us are more or less). Israel doesn't equal Israelis.

Of course there is a right, but that don't mean that the Palestinians are above/beyond critisism.

What is the single most thing that I speak of that isn't a country, a person, nor a conspiracy?

ohio · Jan 18, 2009

Defenestrated said:
Not much of a humanist are you ohio?

I would argue that I am, and that if you find yourself picking a side in a conflict where both (or all three or all four) sides are so incredibly wrong, then you can't be one.

When I say "there is no right" I'm not saying that there are no absolute goods like basic human dignity. I'm saying that IN THIS FIGHT, neither side is right. The fact that Israel is committing atrocities (and they are) does not justify Hamas or move them any closer to "the right", not by any stretch. The fact that Hamas started launching rockets the day after the embargo was ended does not justify Israel's barrage, not by any stretch. It helps us understand each sides' actions, undoubtedly, but as soon as you use one side's moral ineptitude as justification for the other side's, judging that because one side is worse the other is in the right, you become a relativist, not a humanist, and that is all I see in this thread.

Defenestrated · Jan 18, 2009

Ohio you are operating under the assumption that Hamas is synonymous with the Palestinian people.

rockwool · Jan 18, 2009

I just read an article that made me understand these below remarks a litte better, but more so, to understand the emediate background of this conflict; what's proven true in claims and counterclaims.

According to former State Department counter-terrorism official Larry Johnson, "the Israelis are their own worst enemies when it comes to fighting terrorism."

"The Israelis are like a guy who sets fire to his hair and then tries to put it out by hitting it with a hammer."

"They do more to incite and sustain terrorism than curb it," he said.

Who will save Israel from itself?

By Mark LeVine

One by one the justifications given by Israel for its latest war in Gaza are unravelling.

The argument that this is a purely defensive war, launched only after Hamas broke a six-month ceasefire has been challenged, not just by observers in the know such as Jimmy Carter, the former US president who helped facilitate the truce, but by centre-right Israeli intelligence think tanks.

The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, whose December 31 report titled "Six Months of the Lull Arrangement Intelligence Report," confirmed that the June 19 truce was only "sporadically violated, and then not by Hamas but instead by ... "rogue terrorist organisations".

Instead, "the escalation and erosion of the lull arrangement" occurred after Israel killed six Hamas members on November 4 without provocation and then placed the entire Strip under an even more intensive siege the next day.

According to a joint Tel Aviv University-European University study, this fits a larger pattern in which Israeli violence has been responsible for ending 79 per cent of all lulls in violence since the outbreak of the second intifada, compared with only 8 per cent for Hamas and other Palestinian factions.

Indeed, the Israeli foreign ministry seems to realise that this argument is losing credibility.

During a conference call with half a dozen pro-Israel professors on Thursday, Asaf Shariv, the Consul General of Israel in New York, focused more on the importance of destroying the intricate tunnel system connecting Gaza to the Sinai.

He claimed that such tunnels were "as big as the Holland and Lincoln tunnels," and offered as proof the "fact" that lions and monkeys had been smuggled through them to a zoo in Gaza. In reality, the lions were two small cubs that were drugged, thrown in sacks, and dragged through a tunnel on their way to a private zoo.

Israel's self-image

The claim that Hamas will never accept the existence of Israel has proved equally misinformed, as Hamas leaders explicitly announce their intention to do just that in the pages of the Los Angeles Times or to any international leader or journalist who will meet with them.

With each new family, 10, 20 and 30 strong, buried under the rubble of a building in Gaza, the claim that the Israeli forces have gone out of their way to diminish civilian casualties - long a centre-piece of Israel's image as an enlightened and moral democracy - is falling apart.

Anyone with an internet connection can Google "Gaza humanitarian catastrophe" and find the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Territories and read the thousands of pages of evidence documenting the reality of the current fighting, and the long term siege on Gaza that preceded it.

The Red Cross, normally scrupulous in its unwillingness to single out parties to a conflict for criticism, sharply criticised Israel for preventing medical personnel from reaching wounded Palestinians, some of whom remained trapped for days, slowly starving and dying in the Gazan rubble amidst their dead relatives.

Meanwhile, the United Nations has flatly denied Israeli claims that Palestinian fighters were using the UNRWA school compound bombed on January 6, in which 40 civilians were killed, to launch attacks, and has challenged Israel to prove otherwise.

War crimes admission

Additionally, numerous flippant remarks by senior Israeli politicians and generals, including Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister, refusing to make a distinction between civilian people and institutions and fighters - "Hamas doesn't ... and neither should we" is how Livni puts it - are rightly being seen as admissions of war crimes.

Indeed, in reviewing statements by Israeli military planners leading up to the invasion, it is clear that there was a well thought out decision to go after Gaza's civilian infrastructure - and with it, civilians.

The following quote from an interview with Major-General Gadi Eisenkot that appeared in the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth in October, is telling:

"We will wield disproportionate power against every village from which shots are fired on Israel, and cause immense damage and destruction. From our perspective these [the villages] are military bases," he said.

"This isn't a suggestion. This is a plan that has already been authorised."

Causing "immense damage and destruction" and considering entire villages "military bases" is absolutely prohibited under international law.

Eisenkot's description of this planning in light of what is now unfolding in Gaza is a clear admission of conspiracy and intent to commit war crimes, and when taken with the comments above, and numerous others, renders any argument by Israel that it has tried to protect civilians and is not engaging in disproportionate force unbelievable.

International laws violated

On the ground, the evidence mounts ever higher that Israel is systematically violating a host of international laws, including but not limited to Article 56 of the IV Hague Convention of 1907, the First Additional Protocol of the Geneva Convention, the Fourth Geneva Convention (more specifically known as the "Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 12 August 1949", the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the principles of Customary International Humanitarian Law.

None of this excuses or legitimises the firing of rockets or mortars by any Palestinian group at Israeli civilians and non-military targets.

As Richard Falk, the UN special rapporteur, declared in his most recent statement on Gaza: "It should be pointed out unambiguously that there is no legal (or moral) justification for firing rockets at civilian targets, and that such behavior is a violation of IHR, associated with the right to life, as well as constitutes a war crime."

By the same logic, however, Israel does not have the right to use such attacks as an excuse to launch an all-out assault on the entire population of Gaza.

In this context, even Israel's suffering from the constant barrage of rockets is hard to pay due attention to when the numbers of dead and wounded on each side are counted. Any sense of proportion is impossible to sustain with such a calculus.

continued below

rockwool · Jan 18, 2009

continued

'Rogue' state

Israeli commentators and scholars, self-described "loyal" Zionists who served proudly in the army in wars past, are now publicly describing their country, in the words of Oxford University professor Avi Shlaim, as a "rogue" and gangster" state led by "completely unscrupulous leaders".

Neve Gordon, a politics professor at Ben Gurion University, has declared that Israel's actions in Gaza are like "raising animals for slaughter on a farm" and represent a "bizarre new moral element" in warfare.

"The moral voice of restraint has been left behind ... Everything is permitted" against Palestinians, writes a disgusted Haaretz columnist, Gideon Levy.

Fellow Haaretz columnist and daughter of Holocaust survivors, Amira Haas writes of her late parents disgust at how Israeli leaders justified Israel's wars with a "language laundromat" aimed at redefining reality and Israel's moral compass. "Lucky my parents aren't alive to see this," she exclaimed.

Around the world people are beginning to compare Israel's attack on Gaza, which after the 2005 withdrawal of Israeli forces and settlers was turned literally into the world's largest prison, to the Jewish uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto.

Extremist Muslims are using internet forums to collect names and addresses of prominent European Jews with the goal, it seems clear, of assassinating them in retaliation for Israel's actions in Gaza.

Al-Qaeda is attempting to exploit this crisis to gain a foothold in Gaza and Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and Syria, as well as through attacking Jewish communities globally.

Iran's defiance of both Israel and its main sponsor, the US, is winning it increasing sympathy with each passing day.

Democratic values eroded

Inside Israel, the violence will continue to erode both democratic values in the Jewish community, and any acceptance of the Jewish state's legitimacy in the eyes of its Palestinian citizens.

And yet in the US - at least in Washington and in the offices of the mainstream Jewish organisations - the chorus of support for Israel's war on Gaza continues to sing in tight harmony with official Israeli policy, seemingly deaf to the fact that they have become so out of tune with the reality exploding around them.

At my university, UCI, where last summer Jewish and Muslim students organised a trip together through the occupied territories and Israel so they could see with their own eyes the realities there, old battle lines are being redrawn.

The Anteaters for Israel, the college pro-Israel group at the University of California, Irvine, sent out an urgent email to the community explaining that, "Over the past week, increasing amounts of evidence lead us to believe that Hamas is largely responsible for any alleged humanitarian crisis in Gaza".

I have no idea who the "us" is that is referred to in the appeal, although I am sure that the membership of that group is shrinking.

Indeed, one of the sad facts of this latest tragedy is that with each claim publicly refuted by facts on the ground, more and more Americans, including Jews, are refusing to trust the assertions of Israeli and American Jewish leaders.

Trap

Even worse, in the Arab/Muslim world, the horrific images pouring out of Gaza daily are allowing preachers and politicians to deploy well-worn yet still dangerous and inciteful stereotypes against Jews as they rally the masses against Israel - and through it - their own governments.

What is most frightening is that the most important of Israel's so-called friends, the US political establishment and the mainstream Jewish leadership, seem clueless to the devastating trap that Israel has led itself into - in good measure with their indulgence and even help.

It is one that threatens the country's existence far more than any Qassam rockets, with their 0.4 per cent kill rate; even more than the disastrous 2006 invasion of southern Lebanon, which by weakening Israel's deterrence capability in some measure made this war inevitable.

First, it is clear that Israel cannot destroy Hamas, it cannot stop the rockets unless it agrees to a truce that will go far to meeting the primary demand of Hamas - an end to the siege.

Merely by surviving (and it surely will survive) Hamas, like Hezbollah in 2006, will have won.

Israel is succeeding in doing little more than creating another generation of Palestinians with hearts filled with rage and a need for revenge.

Second, Israel's main patron, the US, along with the conservative Arab autocracies and monarchies that are its only allies left in the Muslim world, are losing whatever crumbs of legitimacy they still had with their young and angry populations.

The weaker the US and its axis becomes in the Middle East, the more precarious becomes Israel's long-term security. Indeed, any chance that the US could convince the Muslim world to pressure Iran to give up its quest for nuclear weapons has been buried in Gaza.

Third, as Israel brutalises Palestinians, it brutalises its own people. You cannot occupy another people and engage in violence against them at this scale without doing even greater damage to your soul.

The high incidence of violent crimes committed by veterans returning from combat duty in Iraq is but one example of how the violence of occupation and war eat away at people's moral centre.

While in the US only a small fraction of the population participates in war; in Israel, most able-bodied men end up participating.

The effects of the latest violence perpetrated against Palestinians upon the collective Israeli soul is incalculable; the notion that it can survive as an "ethnocracy" - favouring one ethnic group, Jews, yet by and large democratic - is becoming a fiction.

Violence-as-power

Who will save Israel from herself?

Israelis are clearly incapable. Their addiction as a society to the illusion of violence-as-power has reached the level of collective mental illness.

As Haaretz reporter Yossi Melman described it on January 10, "Israel has created an image of itself of a madman that has lost it".

Not Palestinians, too many of whom have fallen prey to the same condition.

Not the Middle East Quartet, the European Union, the United Nations, or the Arab League, all of whom are utterly powerless to influence Israeli policy.

Not the organised Jewish leadership in the US and Europe, who are even more blind to what is happening than most Israelis, who at least allow internal debate about the wisdom of their government's policies.

Not the growing progressive Jewish community, which will need years to achieve enough social and political power to challenge the status quo.

And not senior American politicians and policy-makers who are either unwilling to risk alienating American Jewish voters, or have been so brainwashed by the constant barrage of propaganda put out by the "Israel Lobby" that they are incapable of reaching an independent judgment about the conflict.

During the US presidential race, Barack Obama was ridiculed for being a messiah-like figure. The idea does not sound so funny now. It is hard to imagine anyone less saving Israel, the Palestinians, and the world from another four years of mindless violence.

Update: In a further challenge to the democratic process in Israel, on January 12, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the Central Elections Committee had voted overwhelmingly to bar Arab-led parties from participating in the upcoming parliamentary elections.

Also, there are reports that the claim that extremist Muslims are using the internet to collect names and addresses of prominent British Jews in order to attack them, might in fact have been a hoax.

Mark LeVine is a professor of Middle East history at the University of California, Irvine, and is the author of Heavy Metal Islam: Rock, Resistance, and the Struggle for the Soul of Islam and the soon to be published An Impossible Peace: Israel/Palestine Since 1989.

The views expressed by the author are not necessarily those of Al Jazeera.

http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/war_on_gaza/2009/01/2009110112723260741.html

ohio · Jan 19, 2009

Defenestrated said:
Ohio you are operating under the assumption that Hamas is synonymous with the Palestinian people.

No, you are operating under the assumption that the Israeli government is synonymous with the Israeli people.

ohio · Jan 19, 2009

Samirol said:
94% of the Jewish population in Israel supported the invasion, so it is fair to say that the Israeli government's actions is representative of the Jewish population in Israel.

No it's fair to say AN invasion is representative of the Jewish population's wishes. It is not fair to the Israeli governments actions (the manner in which they have chosen to carry out an invasion) are reprentative of the populations wishes any more than to say that the American people supported the invasion in Iraq because 99% of Americans supported military action in reponse to 9-11.

edit: and again, my point here is not to defend Israel's military actions (or the settlers, or any number of specifics). It is to try to convince all of you to stop rationalizing the actions of "your" side, based on the actions of the other. A belief that one side is in the right is what allows this disaster to perpetuate.

$tinkle · Jan 19, 2009

ohio said:
It is not fair to the Israeli governments actions (the manner in which they have chosen to carry out an invasion) are reprentative of the populations wishes any more than to say that the American people supported the invasion in Iraq because 99% of Americans supported military action in reponse to 9-11.

Israel's Crimes Against Humanity

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