Another take on Arabs vs. Israel

[ghostdog2]

And then say goodbye to Jerusalem, and possibly D.C.
 
Way to distinguish between "terrorists" and "all Muslims".
posted by Feistymouse

Really? Do you think Jerusalem stands today because of Arab good will? Seriously, do you really believe that Muslim terrorists could undo Israel but just don't?
IMHO they only take their present course of action because they can't do more. When they can do worse, they will.
And, respectfully, I don't think we need to "understand" them to take appropriate action. Do we understand serial killers? rapists? pedophiles?
Should we stop arresting and punishing them 'til we do?
My A bomb post was a bit of a send up. What I mean is that society's first imperative is self protection. Understanding comes later. That, and a serious reference to the historical validation for ending at least one plague of suicide attacks by taking the fight to them.
Yes. I know it's not simple. But it's not that hard, either. A bunch of murderous thugs hate us, our civilization and our ally Israel. We'd best do unto others....and do it first.

 

[Flatlander]

And then say goodbye to Jerusalem, and possibly D.C.
 
Way to distinguish between "terrorists" and "all Muslims".
posted by Feistymouse

Really? Do you think Jerusalem stands today because of Arab good will? Seriously, do you really believe that Muslim terrorists could undo Israel but just don't?
IMHO they only take their present course of action because they can't do more. When they can do worse, they will.
And, respectfully, I don't think we need to "understand" them to take appropriate action. Do we understand serial killers? rapists? pedophiles?
Should we stop arresting and punishing them 'til we do?
My A bomb post was a bit of a send up. What I mean is that society's first imperative is self protection. Understanding comes later. That, and a serious reference to the historical validation for ending at least one plague of suicide attacks by taking the fight to them.
Yes. I know it's not simple. But it's not that hard, either. A bunch of murderous thugs hate us, our civilization and our ally Israel. We'd best do unto others....and do it first.

I think you may find it useful to consider a couple of things:

1) Investigations are ongoing in the hunt for known terrorists.
2) Not all Palestinians are terrorists, in fact, proportional to the population, very few are terrorists.
3) Militant Palestinians pose little to no threat to the continental US - not so much that your Homeland Security shouldn't catch them before they do. That's what Homeland Security is for, right?
4) You do not destroy a neighborhood in L.A. because the murder rate is high. You educate and empower the residents there to improve their situation. Why would your overseas policy be any different? Are foreigners less deserving humans than Americans?
5) Your unfortunate position on this is very similar in quality to the ideology of the "enemy" you have sworn. Only an ocean separates you. What makes your position correct in your mind, given that you and your enemy are both morally equivalent?

I'm not sure we need to understand anybody's mindset or motivation to win this struggle. We've had experience with suicide bombers before. They were called Kamikaze, I believe.
We dropped a couple of A bombs on them and they became lamb like.

Irrelevant. Kamikaze pilots were acting on behalf of the Japanese government. Palestinian suicide bombers are not. Need I detail the logical separation? Furthermore, the dropping of an atomic weapon on the people of Japan as being an appropriate response is not a sentiment that is shared by everyone. American extremists, perhaps. Talk about targetting civilians. Einstein himself was appalled.

 

[MisterMike]

Kamikaze pilots were acting on behalf of the Japanese government. Palestinian suicide bombers are not. Need I detail the logical separation? Furthermore, the dropping of an atomic weapon on the people of Japan as being an appropriate response is not a sentiment that is shared by everyone. American extremists, perhaps. Talk about targetting civilians. Einstein himself was appalled.

I think that by not dropping such a weapon (or others of mass destruction) shows the restraint we have had and concern for innocent life in Iraq. Something which has been ignored or refuted many times on this topic.

I also believe that the Afghan government was supportive of the groups they allowed to train there.

Lastly, whether it was intended or not, taking the fight to Iraq means the terrorists are fighting us there rather than on our own soil.

I know....looking for the positive in all of this makes me a warmonger

 

[Tgace]

Kamikaze pilots were acting on behalf of the Japanese government. Palestinian suicide bombers are not.

Well..that point could be debated. Things MAY be different now hopefully.

 

[kenpo tiger]

The point that the Palestinian terrorists are not a really organized group has some merit. However, *one* might reflect upon where these individuals/small groups get their funding for their weapons. It's not out of the realm of possibility that Al Qaida have a hand in stirring the pot - not to mix metaphors (gawd, how I love words!)

 

[Flatlander]

I believe that a lot the funding is coming from Iran.

 

[ghostdog2]

Iran's next.

 

[kenpo tiger]

Whether it's Iran as a country, Moslems as a group, or Al Qaida masquerading as something else, the funding is there, which means the hatred is, too, regardless of whether it's spoken or implied.

All the more reason for defending Israel's borders and attempting to exert some type of control over terrorist acts so that everyone who lives within those borders is safe.

 

[pete]

Kamikaze pilots were acting on behalf of the Japanese government. Palestinian suicide bombers are not.

ahh, i see. the palestinian bombers are not acting on behalf of the japanese government. that's makes things more difficult. now, if one wanted to nuke the palestinians, on who's soil would the bomb go?

All the more reason for defending Israel's borders and attempting to exert some type of control over terrorist acts so that everyone who lives within those borders is safe.

i'd rather see that everyone who lives within THESE borders is safe, and let the other borders fend for themselves. if that's what you mean, kt, then let them have at it all they want on their own dime.

pete

 

[Loki]

This thread seems to have spread out in several directions, so I'm going to attempt to reply to whatever I can remember.

1) The incredible part to me is that she survived on grass and water. Can humans survive on grass and water (for seven years)? If anyone has a link explaining this, I'd love to see it (especially if it goes into the physiological mechanisms and all).

2) There seemed to be something going on about Jewish terrorism in Palestine (meaning pre-1948 Israel) and whether they should be called terrorists or freedom fighters. The question depends on means and ends:

The Jewish end was a Jewish state, which was accorded to them on November 29th, 1947 as part of a partition plan that would split Palestine into two countries. It was the Arabs who utterly rejected this plan. The Arabs' end seems to have been the removal of Jewish presence from Israel. They insisted on an Arab only occupation of the country. It seems strange that this insistence came into existence only once the Jews wanted their own state. The Ottoman Empire held Palestine for enough centuries to solidify Arab dominance in it. They never bothered to. If Jerusalem is so holy and important to them, why was it never made a capital of any sort, like Mecca and Medina?

The idea that only the state may wage war against another state through means of an army is an outdated concept that no longer reflects reality. It's based on the Clausewitzian concept of Trinitarian War (state, army, people) that was only relevant a bit before and a bit after Clausewitz's time. War in that sense of the word hasn't been around since before WWI. So since you have a group of civilians waging an armed struggle against an army doesn't automatically make them terrorists.

What makes them terrorists is how they wage that conflict. The Jewish Irgun (Etzel) conducted skirmishes with the arabs, effectively two groups of civilians waging war against each other. The Lehi (or Sternists), extremists who waged actual terrorism against the British by assassinating a British official and murdering British civilians, were condemned by the Jews. When the IDF was formed, Lehi were left out. The Irgun, Palmach and Hagannah, by using force against persons only when it was necessary (threatening to kill kidnapped British officers if their own arrested men were killed) and relying mainly on sabotage acts, were fighting for their freedom.

The Palestinians terrorism is indiscriminate and random, targeting civilians and military as one. Detonating a bomb in a nightclub, stabbing a person on his way home from prayer at the Wall and blowing oneself up in a bus isn't fighting for your freedom. It's flat-out terrorism. Assassinating civilian leaders isn't something a freedom fighter does, and deserves to be condemned when performed by Sternists or Hamas. Running into a kibbutz home and shooting a family to death isn't freedom fighting. If the Palestinian terrorists were to plant bombs in the King David Hotel, would they make three different phone calls to warn in advance? Some could say they have to shock and fight to earn what they deserve. Agreed that they deserve a country, but I don't recall Mahatma Gandhi calling for his people to blow themselves up anywhere.

Israel could have long ago decided that enough is enough and that all Palestinian civilians are the enemy. They could have rained fire on them, killing many and causing the rest to flee across borders. They didn't. Israel is self-restrained. The Palestinian terrorists are not.

3) There was some talk about using nukes. Was that a joke or something? Pete, ghostdog 2, MisterMike, anyone care to elaborate?

4)

Irrelevant. Kamikaze pilots were acting on behalf of the Japanese government. Palestinian suicide bombers are not. Need I detail the logical separation? Furthermore, the dropping of an atomic weapon on the people of Japan as being an appropriate response is not a sentiment that is shared by everyone. American extremists, perhaps. Talk about targetting civilians. Einstein himself was appalled.

Too true. So was Oppenheimer. Another point to consider here is that Kamikaze pilots attacked military targets, a legitimate target in wartime. Civilians never are.

5)

And, respectfully, I don't think we need to "understand" them to take appropriate action. Do we understand serial killers? rapists? pedophiles? Should we stop arresting and punishing them 'til we do?

Actually, we do try to understand them. We conduct psychological evalution, research and study. In fact, there's a whole field of psychology dedicated to understanding these people. It's called criminology.

If I misunderstood what you're saying and you meant "sympathize", then the two cases are different. Serial killers, rapists and pedophiles are condemnable because they're actions are self-motivated. They hurt others for their selfish needs. Groups fighting for self-definition are fighting for an almost universally accepted ideal (methods for doing so notwithstanding), something many nations have done at some point in history, America included.

I think it was heretic888 who said that not trying to understand the enemy is a gross violation of Sun Tzu. I agree. Whenever faced with violence, just blast the enemy into submission? Sounds like bigotry to me. Even if it weren't, that doesn't work anymore.

 

[heretic888]

There was some talk about using nukes. Was that a joke or something? Pete, ghostdog 2, MisterMike, anyone care to elaborate?

Its rather curious how, for some people, "nuke 'em all and let God sort 'em out" is the first response for any act of political violence. Not naming names here (I have no idea who brought up nuclear warfare in the first place), just pointing out an interesting observation.

That being said, I wonder if such individuals realize how close their "solution" is to the rationale and methodologies of the terrorists??

Actually, we do try to understand them. We conduct psychological evalution, research and study. In fact, there's a whole field of psychology dedicated to understanding these people. It's called criminology.

A lot of this also has to do with how we actually perceive criminal acts in society.

The traditional, pre-modern, religious approach would essentially say that people commit these acts because they are intrinsically, inherently "that way". Ergo, this is more concern on "making them pay" or "exacting justice" than figuring out how to stop such acts from happening in the future.

A more modern approach sees that there are actual causes (or at least influences) to these behaviors, that human nature is in no way pre-defined, set in stone, or "fixed" (the traditional ideology usually goes along with a doctrine of predestination, an omniscient deity that knows what will definitively happen in the immutable future, and the division of humanity into the "saved" and the "condemned"). It could be psychological trauma, genetics, socioeconomic conditions, biochemical imbalances, or a number of other variables. Understanding these variables helps us to prevent such acts from occuring again in the future (as opposed to simply waiting for them to happen and "punishing" the perpetrator).

That being said, people do need to take personal responsibility for their actions. But, sometimes, self-control is not possible (in the case of violent schizophrenics, for example).

If I misunderstood what you're saying and you meant "sympathize", then the two cases are different.

For some people, the distinction (although real) is too fine to notice.

Serial killers, rapists and pedophiles are condemnable because they're actions are self-motivated. They hurt others for their selfish needs.

While I agree somewhat with this assessment, I feel the situation is much more complicated than that.

I think it was heretic888 who said that not trying to understand the enemy is a gross violation of Sun Tzu. I agree.

Yup, I recall saying something along those lines.

Whenever faced with violence, just blast the enemy into submission? Sounds like bigotry to me.

Yes, it is bigotry. Or, at the very least, sociocentric xenophobia (a fear of the Other).

Even if it weren't, that doesn't work anymore.

Especially since we're not fighting individual countries, we're fighting an extemist ideology. It'd be more wise to look into the causes of this ideology.

Laterz.