News Is it fair that america gets the blame for israels actions ?

[marlon]

People with a too simple worldview of "good against evil" always end up
defending evil. Regardless of which side they choose.



Did you ever heard of the Sabra and Shatila massacre?

A (Belgium) Flemish guy was one of the senior commanders of the
Christian militias who slaughtered over 1000 civilians there in 1982.

This man was a regular guest in an Italian bar in Brussels (Laken) where
I had rented a room around 1984. I learned about his past after being
invited to his house several times, (He was looking for an husband for
his adopted daughter)

The people responsible for this slaughter were Christians (Catholics like
most people in Belgium) It all happened with the consent of Ariel Sharon
who had encircled the camps. Sharon was fired but unfortunately chosen
to become Israel’s president in march 2001.

This historical mistake of the Israeli's to make an alleged war criminal
their Prime Minister was just as stupid (if not worse) as the mistake of
the Palestinians to choose Hamas. It resulted in an avallange of violence
most notably in September of that year.

We are now witnessing another historical blunder.



Regards, Hans

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabra_and_Shatila_massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel_Sharon

Well, this may all be very true but this is NOt an answer to the very clear and simple question that i asked you. Please, don't just twist around. Again i ask you : what would YOU do when being in the position of the Israeli prime minister and knowing this situation as it is. I also dislike war very much but sometimes there is no other option. What alternative would you have for this situation ?

marlon

 

[Office_Shredder]

And it seems the Toronto Star aggrees with me :)

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1154382609690&call_pageid=968256290204&col=968350116795

No, the Toronto Star proves you didn't actually click on the link I posted. The Canadian observer isn't the name of a newspaper, it's referring to the actual Canadian who was in the UN observer post

 

[pcorbett]

It was the quartet: US, Europe, UN and Russia who laid out the "roadmap
for peace" which determined from which occupied areas Israel would have
to withdraw.

Not quite sure how that translates to "forced."

It was Sharon who, on his own, pushed through the exit out of the
Gaza Strip (Which is about 15 times smaller as the West Bank from which
they didn't withdraw. see the map in the link)

How does an Israeli prime minister effect a withdrawal from Gaza "on his own?"

 

[russ_watters]

You have turned it on its head, You *arent* allowed to bomb civilian, regardless of where the Soldiers are.


I think it is quite clear...

That passage has nothing at all to do with what you are claiming! It is a general provision that doesn't mention collateral damage or use of human shields. It simply isn't true that killing civilians is automatically illegal. The Geneva Conventions don't handcuff a military into submitting to the illegal acts of another.

Jeez, apply some logic to it! If what you were saying were true, then if a soldier walked behind a human shield, you'd be legally obligated to let that soldier go wherever he wanted!

What you are claiming is so straightforwardly absurd that I just don't know how to explain it. You aren't using any logic at all.

The wording of the part that actually applies is clear:

Article 28
The presence of a protected person may not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations.

This confims both points of mine:
1. Use of human shields is illegal.
2. The precence of protected persons (whether human shields or just coincidental presence) does not require the opposing military to back off. Ie, The crime is a crime only for the side who intentionally places the civilians in danger.

Wik's article on human shields: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_shields

 

[russ_watters]

i see a lot of people complaining about the hezbuulah terrorists but when will they be complaining about the jewish terrorists eg the stern gang and the haganah

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehi_(group)

What's there to complain about when the gang in the wik link (fixed) disbanded almost 60 years ago?

 

[russ_watters]

I know where you're at with this, but cannot easily be applied to real life. Logic is based on initial premises and must factor in values. Both premises and values are human and therefore subjective in nature.

The value of human life is subjective (and as a result, the initial premise debateable), but once you define what that value is, it becomes a quantity to be plugged into the equation and calculated. And yes, the values of your country affect which equations you use, but still - once you choose the premise and choose the equation, the logic follows directly.

Ie, (and this could have gone in my new thread...) in a country where individual human rights are paramount (such as the US), you are required to treat all people as individuals. That makes it unacceptable to apply the utilitarian principle to the issue - and as a result, the US tends to be more willing to negotiate than Israel, which applies a more utilitarian approach. But that just changes the way you use the equations: whether/how you negotiate becomes a matter of statistical probability.

Ie, for a hijacked Israeli airliner, the probability of death for the passengers is very high because of the fact that their death is a viable consolation proze for the hijackers. Because of that, using force to go after the hijackers is also the correct course of action from a probabilistic point of view.

Either way, in this case, the action being taken here doesn't really affect the prospects for saving those captured soldiers all that much. They are being protected as bargaining chips even during this little war, but they are just bargaining chips and because of that, their lives have already been subtracted from the equation.

 

[russ_watters]

It was the quartet: US, Europe, UN and Russia who laid out the "roadmap
for peace" which determined from which occupied areas Israel would have
to withdraw.

Israel isn't on that road because the arabs wouldn't join them (and the US solicited the formation of the quartet based on Bush's speech/policy on the issue http://www.mideastweb.org/quartet.htm ). And that roadmap did not include any way to force Israel to take it. They did this on their own.

It was Sharon who, on his own, pushed through the exit out of the
Gaza Strip (Which is about 15 times smaller as the West Bank from which
they didn't withdraw. see the map in the link)

Sorry, I got the wrong piece of land. The point still stands: Israel made a unilateral withdrawal.

Let me say that again: Israel made a unilateral withdrawal! Do you see how absurd/spectacular that is? Countries just plain don't do things like that. You always negotiate for peace. Israel has shown a level of commitment to peace unprecidented in the history of the world by saying 'we want peace so bad we're willing to take the road alone and make concessions before discussion even begins'.

 

[Hans de Vries]

Israel isn't on that road because the arabs wouldn't join them (and the US solicited the formation of the quartet based on Bush's speech/policy on the issue http://www.mideastweb.org/quartet.htm ). And that roadmap did not include any way to force Israel to take it. They did this on their own. Sorry, I got the wrong piece of land. The point still stands: Israel made a unilateral withdrawal.

Let me say that again: Israel made a unilateral withdrawal! Do you see how absurd/spectacular that is? Countries just plain don't do things like that. You always negotiate for peace. Israel has shown a level of commitment to peace unprecidented in the history of the world by saying 'we want peace so bad we're willing to take the road alone and make concessions before discussion even begins'.

Israel will never, ever want to give up the main occupied territories.

They gave up on a 130 square mile strip to get rid of the 1.4 million
Palestinians packed on there.

from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel's_unilateral_disengagement_plan_of_2004

In an October 6, 2004 interview with Israel’s Daily “Haaretz”,
Dov Weissglas, Sharon's chief of staff, declared:

"The significance of the (unilateral) disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process... When you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Disengagement supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians" [1]

(Edit- The text above is an abbreviation of the actual interview by the
Israeli editors. The original text is slightly less direct but clearly reveals
the ideas behind the strategy:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=485929

You might want to first skip the very long informal introduction and
read the sections: "Maneuver of the century" first and then
"The formaldehyde formula" . note: With "Arik" he means Sharon )
Regards, Hans.

 

[kyleb]

While Israel withdrew from Gaza they contued to expand their territory in the West Bank. That doesn't show any want for peace.

 

[Evo]

Hezbollah did actually say at the beginning of this conflict that they were willing to negotiation

You can't be serious. They kidnapped two Israeli soldiers. There is no negotiation, that was a criminal act.

This thread hasn't been on topic since the first few posts.