[Kosh]

Re: Lest we forget : Mon Nov 19, 2012 9:58 pm  

Mugwump wrote:

The Palestinians are in a fight or die situation. Just because you don't put on the uniform of the IDF and drop white phosphorous on Palestinian hospitals this DOES NOT mean you are totally free from all responsibility. Israel is very much a participatory democracy. And if you participate in the destruction of an entire people you have no RIGHT to expect the other side to walk calmly onto Israeli guns and leave you to enjoy the fruits of THEIR suffering.

I'm fairly sure that the current Israeli government wasn't elected with 100% of the vote. Or even a 100% turnout.

What was your earlier point regarding collective punishment again?

[Kosh]

Re: Lest we forget : Mon Nov 19, 2012 10:01 pm  

Mugwump wrote:

I'd have thought it obvious. Any nation that has demonstrated such low regard for the lives of an entire people (including dropping white phosphorous on the al-Quds hospital in Gaza during the last campaign) must be considered serious about using any weapon in its arsenal.

You seriously think that even Netanyahu would drop nukes on Gaza or the West Bank? That's in the same league as Blair's claims regarding Iraq's long range missile capability.

Re: Lest we forget : Mon Nov 19, 2012 10:15 pm  

SmokeyTA wrote:

And as you have so clearly stated, numerous times, Hamas is a democratically elected leadership, your argument works both ways.

Hamas aren't the ones claiming to have half a trillion dollars of stealth weaponry accurate enough to fly up your urethrae without touching the sides. Do you even KNOW who the attacking side is here? Have you even looked at Cod'ead's maps?

Seriously, I just don't get this Israeli-fetishism you guys are taken by. How much more Palestinian land, how many more lives can the Israelis take - in your opinion - before you would at the very least consider the possibility that Israel has no intention of honoring a lasting peace - much less a Palestinian state?

Or is it simply impossible for you to admit such - even if the Israelis took every last acre and exterminated every last Palestinian?

Re: Lest we forget : Mon Nov 19, 2012 10:23 pm  

Kosh wrote:

I'm fairly sure that the current Israeli government wasn't elected with 100% of the vote. Or even a 100% turnout.

I didn't vote for Cameron. This doesn't mean I don't recognise him as the legitimate leader of the country. And if David Cameron decided to roll the tanks into Wales, kick the locals off their land and into squalid ghettos and then massacred 400 civilians to every 1 life lost on this side of the border I certainly wouldn't expect A RIGHT to safety from any Welshman just because I didn't vote for him. If you would you're a bigger fool than I thought.

What was your earlier point regarding collective punishment again?

Hamas has Israel under siege? I thought it was the other way around.

Re: Lest we forget : Mon Nov 19, 2012 10:27 pm  

Mugwump wrote:

Hamas aren't the ones claiming to have half a trillion dollars of stealth weaponry accurate enough to fly up your urethrae without touching the sides. Do you even KNOW who the attacking side is here?

I didnt think cost was really that much of a moral bellweather for war. Would it be better if Israel were doing the same damage with household products? Does it make it worse that a child died because of an expensive weapon than cheap weapons? Is there only one attacking side? Is Hamas' launching rockets at a school a defensive measure? Is Hamas' preaching vengeance and the rockets they were launching which gave Israel an excuse for this purely defensive? If so it was a pretty idiotic effort.

Have you even looked at Cod'ead's maps?

Yes, i found it strange that it conflated Israel with being Jewish. I found it strange that it highlighted were Jewish people were living, like the inference was Jews werent allowed to be in certain places or that Jews settling in these places was an inherently bad thing. I also think you could create a similar map showing the growth of Islam in certain parts of Britain, and i expect I wouldnt like the type of people who would choose to do that or the purposes they would use it for. Not that i am accusing codhead of anti-antisemitism.

Seriously, I just don't get this Israeli-fetishism you guys are taken by.

I'm not sure what you think i have said which fetishises Israel, would you like to provide us with some examples?

How much more Palestinian land

Meh, arbitrary boundries invoked to divide us are of little interest to me.

how many more lives can the Israelis take - in your opinion - before you would at the very least consider the possibility that Israel has no intention of honoring a lasting peace - much less a Palestinian state?

Probably quite a lot. I have no reason to believe Israel is some blood hungry nation fighting for the sake of it, im sure that Israeli's would rather not be involved in a violent, long lasting, expensive war, im pretty sure they would rather it wasnt happening. Until there is some evidence, ill stick with a more sensible and less fantastical expectation, that Israel would rather have peace, and if there was an acceptable plan on the table they would take it.

Or is it simply impossible for you to admit such - even if the Israelis took every last acre and exterminated every last Palestinian?

Or something a bit less dramatic, and something based a little more in reality.

Re: Lest we forget : Mon Nov 19, 2012 10:39 pm  

Kosh wrote:

You seriously think that even Netanyahu would drop nukes on Gaza or the West Bank? That's in the same league as Blair's claims regarding Iraq's long range missile capability.

Last year Haaretz reported that Israel has nuclear weapons permanently targeted at Gaza and Lebanon (you can bet Iran, Egypt and Syria too). They were unsure about the West Bank (no doubt because of all the settlements).

Would Netanyahu authorize a strike? Only if the IDF suddenly becomes incapable of achieving the very same ends.

Re: Lest we forget : Mon Nov 19, 2012 10:51 pm  

Mugwump wrote:

Last year Haaretz reported that Israel has nuclear weapons permanently targeted at Gaza and Lebanon (you can bet Iran, Egypt and Syria too). They were unsure about the West Bank (no doubt because of all the settlements).

Would Netanyahu authorize a strike? Only if the IDF suddenly becomes incapable of achieving the very same ends.

So you are suggesting that Isreal intends to wipe out all those countries in your post, killing every person living there? , it has stated that as a fundamental part of its existence?

[Kosh]

Re: Lest we forget : Mon Nov 19, 2012 10:57 pm  

Mugwump wrote:

I didn't vote for Cameron. This doesn't mean I don't recognise him as the legitimate leader of the country. And if David Cameron decided to roll the tanks into Wales, kick the locals off their land and into squalid ghettos and then massacred 400 civilians to every 1 life lost on this side of the border I certainly wouldn't expect A RIGHT to safety from any Welshman just because I didn't vote for him. If you would you're a bigger fool than I thought.

And the really scary thing is that you're 100% serious. Deary me. Do you believe in Original Sin as well?

Mugwump wrote:

Hamas has Israel under siege? I thought it was the other way around.

Maybe you could quote the definition of collective punishment that stipulates siege as a condition?

Punishing an entire population for the transgressions of a subset of that population is collective punishment. Lobbing rockets into heavily populated civilian areas qualifies just as much as the larger scale atrocities perpetrated by the IDF.

[Kosh]

Re: Lest we forget : Mon Nov 19, 2012 11:00 pm  

Mugwump wrote:

Last year Haaretz reported that Israel has nuclear weapons permanently targeted at Gaza and Lebanon (you can bet Iran, Egypt and Syria too). They were unsure about the West Bank (no doubt because of all the settlements).

Would Netanyahu authorize a strike? Only if the IDF suddenly becomes incapable of achieving the very same ends.

Netanyahu would authorise the use of nukes in Gaza but not in the West Bank because of the settlements?

Do you have any idea of the range of effect of even 'tactical' nukes?

Re: Lest we forget : Mon Nov 19, 2012 11:46 pm  

SmokeyTA wrote:

I didnt think cost was really that much of a moral bellweather for war.

It isn't. But it certainly is true to say Israel possesses the cost-derived technical ability to hit with the kind of precision Hamas cannot.

Yes, i found it strange that it conflated Israel with being Jewish. I found it strange that it highlighted were Jewish people were living, like the inference was Jews werent allowed to be in certain places or that Jews settling in these places was an inherently bad thing.

It's an inherently **illegal** thing if you believe in democracy realised within the United Nations. And no-one is preventing Jews (or anyone else for that matter) from living outside the 1967 boundaries - just living under Jewish rule.

I also think you could create a similar map showing the growth of Islam in certain parts of Britain, and i expect I wouldnt like the type of people who would choose to do that or the purposes they would use it for. Not that i am accusing codhead of anti-antisemitism.

I was wondering when the old anyone-who-disagrees-with-Israel's-right-to-do-what-it-likes-against-anyone-it-chooses card would be played.

Meh, arbitrary boundries invoked to divide us are of little interest to me.

Then perhaps you could push yourself to discussing the boundaries that DO. Which - if not the all-but-universally agreed up 1967 boundaries Hamas has repeatedly offered to accept (with recognition of Israel's right to exist) - do you think Israel ought to honour?

Probably quite a lot.

80% of Palestinian land? 90%? Bear in mind not all is habitable.

I have no reason to believe Israel is some blood hungry nation fighting for the sake of it, im sure that Israeli's would rather not be involved in a violent, long lasting, expensive war, im pretty sure they would rather it wasnt happening.

Who said anything about "fighting for the sake of it"? Given the massive expansion of Israeli settlements into occupied land it's patently obvious Israel isn't fighting purely because it gets a kick out of slaughtering Palestinians, although given the wealth of pretty shocking quotes made by senior Israeli officials - right up to Ben Gurion - about Palestinains, describing them as "dogs" and even going so far as to deny their existence completely, it's pretty clear that at least some get a kick out of it. As for the expense - for years Israel was bankrolled by the US so money was no issue. Over the last few years war has become big business and Israel is making quite a tidy profit out of the arms business it has developed over the bodies in Gaza and the West Bank.

Until there is some evidence, ill stick with a more sensible and less fantastical expectation, that Israel would rather have peace, and if there was an acceptable plan on the table they would take it.

Only a fool or someone trying to convince himself more than anyone else can argue it is completely "fantastical" to believe Israel is engaged in the conquest of the Palestinians. One wonders how strong your "belief" in Israel's peaceful nature will be in, say, twenty years when the Palestinians are either dead, living in exile or scratching out a meagre existence on scrub desert bantustans. Will you jump ship with the rest of public opinion - or will you still be denying what everyone else will regard as somewhere between Apartheid and a full blown Palestinian Holocaust? I wonder ...