The Israeli response to terrorism is almost worse than the terrorism itself. It also has damaged the conscience and morality of the Israeli government.

How do you manage to write so much so often? And it's always good!?

Hunter S Thompson is a fucking genius!

Thanks for ur comments, I'd leave u a better one, but I should go sleep or something.

love Dylxxx

Hi Sherye,

I would say that it is worse than the terrorism. This is a city of 90,000. How many of those people could possibly be guilty. The problem with the Israeli government is that they forget the fundemental underpinning of justice - it is only justice if it brings only the guilty into account. Justice is not chemotherapy, you cannot afford to damage the surronding tissue. Anything else is terrorism.

Dyl,

Finally, a fellow HST aficionado.

Most people when there kids want to be fireman, poilcemen, you know, things in uniform ( i think in Freud's latency period sexual development gets transfered almost exclusively into a fetish for uniforms). When i was younger i wanted to be Hunter S.

And i usually write a lot normally. It's just that most of it gets aired out here now. I have the life of luxury and debauchery of a university student. I guess the trick is not caring if you're poor or not.

As always thanks for the wonderful comment..

"Justice is not chemotherapy, you cannot afford to damage the surrounding tissue."

Easily said when it is not your kids dying. This isn't about "Justice" it is about self defense, and sometimes that can be a lot like chemotherapy. The goal isn't Justice, it is to show the Palestinian people that condoning terrorism is dangerous, as it should be.

Quite frankly the Palestinian people as a whole are party to what is happening. They support it in their polls, they support it in their choice of leaders. The average German in WW2 didn't consider themselves a Nazi, but they were party to the "Ghettos" because they stood by and did nothing. If the "Palestinian people" want Israel to stop generalizing, they, themselves would be the most qualified to excise the terrorists out of their community.

They don't want to though, so they pay the price. As long as they collectively see blowing up children as an acceptable means of change, then they will be dealt with collectively. It is not for the pampered in the rest of the world to tell a nation how to protect itself.

This 'ghetto' is almost 60 years in the making, and has as much to do with Jordan, Lebanon, and the other neighbors to Palestine as it does Israel. I would suggest reading The Two Jordans: Why There Is No Such Thing As A Palestinian by Larry Kuperman here at JU. You'll have a hard time finding anyone here at JU more concerned and knowledgeable about the circumstances there.

What you say is hard to accept given that Israel was a gift from the British to Zionists.

The Arabs shed a lot of blood defending and taking back that land from the Turkish Empire which had governed it, and then when they had finished dying for it, the British took it away and left them without a country.

Think about. How would you feel.

I know that Israel has been a nation before, but never when the concept of a nation state existed. The people who now inhabit that small strip of land did not live there as a continuous line of ancestors until 1946.

Besides any argument about ownership, the way Israel is carrying out justice or its "defence" is not going to earn them any friends or any favors. It's not going to be anyone elses fault when world opinion moves against them, rather than being for them and condoning the suppression of a people who do not deserve it.

They fought and died for that land. They should be able to live there in peace.

I find it difficult to believe you can construct such an eloquent statement and completely ignore the fact that Palestinian terrorists are constantly killing Israelis. The impression I get, and I hope it is a misunderstanding, is that you think Israel deserves it.

Regardless of whether or not you think Israel should exist, it already does, and has long enough for a native population to exist. It was not Britain, but the UN, and Britain rejected the UN's decision and backed out, leaving the Israelis to fend for themselves, which they did. The statement:

"The people who now inhabit that small strip of land did not live there as a continuous line of ancestors until 1946."

is patently false. I would seriously go back and look over the article I linked and look at the facts of the creation of Israel. There have been Jews in Jerusalem and the Israeli area continually, though they have always faced a racist, barbaric Arab population. When the Arabs chose to side with Hitler in WW2, they devised their own doom.

I pretty basically disregard any "world opinion" that ignores the gut feeling an Israeli has when his bus stops to pick up someone carrying a backpack. The Palestinians face reprisals, the Israelis face racist attacks. You can spend your time blaming the people who are attacked all you want, but you ignore the instigator. Go and look at the worst attacks on Israel, and notice that the mercenary organizations that supposedly fight for Palestinian freedom choose the days before peace summits to attack.

Why? Because these terrorist organizations are now billion dollar businesses, laundering money and selling drugs and funneling arms throughout the world. Peace in Palestine would be the kiss of death for a really good racket. So they have to kill Israelis to keep the money rolling in. Their tool? Poor Palestinians they pay as little as $20 to go and blow themselves up.

Palestinians will continue to be caught in the crossfire as long as they harbor and materially assist terrorism, support it's validity in polls, and elect leaders who sanction it. That is where they deserve to be. When they disavow the use of violence to make points, then maybe they will find more sympathetic ears throughout the world.

"When they disavow the use of violence to make points, then maybe they will find more sympathetic ears throughout the world."

You do understand that this could equally be applied to Israel. I just completed a google search for material regarding Arab complicity with the Nazis. It did not surprise me that at the top of the results list where documents disseminated by Israeli sources.

While it was true that the Nazis succeded in wooing the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and many other Arab leaders, and while there is evidence of less than favourable Arab sentiments towards the Jews, there was little evidence of any Arab tendency to exterminate the Jews until such ideas where imported from Europe.

Up until that time, Jews had been treated as second class citizens (as many other races, throughout the entire world, had been, proceeding, during and after that time), but they were protected under Arab law.

I can not agree with you and your conception of Terroism as a method of wealth generation. Wealth is with luxury and greater wealth in mind. Acts of violence do not generate wealth on their own, they are not profitable enterprises, and given that terrorist organisation spend money on nothing else other than more weapons and more terrorists, i fail to see how this idea can be valid.

You could conceivably use the same logic to conclude that the Israelis continue and exaserbate this strife to continue the flow of aid (military and otherwise, currently valued at $84,854,827,200Link) from the US.

I would argue that the Arabs did not overtly side with the Nazis as the Grand Mufti had to find refuge in Berlin and was finally tried as a war criminal in Nuremberg.

God, I could write about this for hours, but its ten to four in the morning and I'm tired.

BakerStreet - you always challenge me in the best possible way. Hopefully we can continue this conversation in the spirit of civility and the exchange of ideas, the spirit in which this conversation has so far been carried out.

I might have to write a post about this tommorrow. It's interesting.

Thanks BakerStreet. Hope that you don't take this as a sign of me backing out, because i don't plan to and i hope to hear from you soon.

Marco XX

I would suggest you look into the business of terrorism. It is a billion dollar industry in donations alone, not counting the traffic in drugs, arms, people, and money laundering. There are thousands of "Relief Organizations" that function as a front for terrorists to collect and launder money.

"You do understand that this could equally be applied to Israel."

No, this isn't chicken or the egg. Israel reacts to Palestinian terrorists, but the same cannot be said for the reverse. Hamas and the rest reject Israel's right to exist. As I said they are in the business of killing Israelis, and at the most promising times for peace they conduct their worst attacks. For that reason you can't say the "cycle of violence" would end if Israel stopped raiding Gaza. There are those in the Middle East that simply will not stop killing Jews until there are no more Jews to kill.

The assumption that Palestinian terrorism is a reaction to Israeli aggression is wrong, it is a reaction to Israeli *existence*. That, regardless of fairness, is a given now. Israel exists. The only people that can profit from the resistance to that fact are the mercenaries that want no peace. War to end the Israeli state would be akin to Native Americans waging war against the existence of the United States.

Good talking to you as well. .

We will never know the answer to these questions until the Palestinian people have a land they can call their own.

Like the Jewish people, all people need a homeland before questions of their actions as being either right or wrong can be justly judged.

Do not expect a frightened dog to act in a friendly manner. Leave it on the streets cold and hungry, if it has a home tear it doen with a bulldozer, without an owner, without love. Reign down blows on its head, and kick its pups. How often do you think this dog will bite?

I also realise that terrorist organisation deal in economies, but the question is - do their economies have at the centre of their reason for existence the motivation for profit?

Marco XX

"do their economies have at the center of their reason for existence the motivation for profit?"

At this point, in the mainstream terrorist organizations, I think so. They are far too successful not to follow the laws of economics. It is not in there interest to win the peace for Palestine. I don't believe these people would toss away their careers and become insurance salesmen and accountants.

"Do not expect a frightened dog to act in a friendly manner."

You can't overlook the fact that this particular dog bites regarless of provocation. Do you allow rabid dogs to run in the street?

In the end it isn't the motivation that ever matters, it is the crime. If a poor, scared man gets fired and goes back with a gun and kills his co-workers, only the most callous would say "Can we really blame him?". When kids shoot up their High School because they were bullied, we don't accept that as a justifiable excuse to kill innocent people.

For that reason being a frightened dog doesn't give you the right to bite, and such dogs must be dealt with regardless of their motivation. Anything else threatens to excuse the crimes of any frightened dog with a grudge. We can't take the hard line against people like Tim McVeigh or the killers at Columbine and then defer judgement on Palestinian terrorism. They are the same beast.

Marco -

The Palestinians do have a country. It's called Jordan. BakerStreet asked you to review the history of Israel's foundation. Please do so. In recent years, Arafat turned down a Palestinian state twice. Once at Oslo; once when he refused to carry out the Palestinians' side of the Road Map.

MakeMineRed

MakeMineRed,

I have read the above mentioned article.

Basically the argument is almost synonymous with the scenario i will present forthwith;

The Italian nation has been wiped out by another European war.

In a previous war Australians fought by the side of the British to expel an occupying force (you must remember it was the Arab tribes along with British help who expelled the Turks from Palestine)

War has also come to Australia and the British have come to our aid, claiming our country as a protectorate until the geo-political climate stabilises.

Given that an Italian homeland no longer exists, the British create a a new Italy in what was formely known as New South Wales, having as its population Italians who have migrated here since the 1950's and new arrivals eager to establish a themselves in their new homes. Homes that were previously occupied by others.

They ask me to please move along to Victoria as that is now my new homeland, leaving behind my house and livelihood.

I don't mind Victoria. It is certainly as good a state as New South Wales, but this does not detract from the fact that New South Wales is my home and where i have my roots.

It is also not a good idea to present the writings of someone who holds equivelant views to yourselves and has no verifiable qualifications in the matter. I would rather the argument come from you, with you sighting relevent external material.

Marco

notsohighlyevolved : then by your logic we all need to board boats and go back to the old world and let the Native Americans have their land back... and the Australians have to move home, too. Come on. Israel exists now, there's no going back, there are native Israelis and children in Palestinian camps that have never been to Israel proper. The time has come to accept that Israel is gonna exist, and cut their losses.

Turning down every olive branch handed them is just gonna leave them without one, and killing more Israelis is just going to mean a lot more dead Palestinians.

I didn't present a logic. Just a counter logic to a weak argument.

The Israelis just need to give them a sovereign Palistine. At least then we will know if the Palistinians are carrying out their actions in the name of a genuine grievance or in the name of hatred.

Once that is done at least the Israelis would have legitimacy in carrying out military operations against an enemy state, not a people that are seen as being oppressed in their own homeland.

It just makes a lot more sense than what is going on at the moment.

Its not that i think the Israelis are totally wrong, or that they shouldn't be there. It is more a matter of method and legitimacy. A legitimacy they are fast losing (Both the US and the UN condemning Israel for their recent operations)

And when i say give them a homeland, i do not mean giving them a land that is fractured, destined to be poverty striken, away from water supplies, etc, and expect them to accept on grounds that expect compromise from one side and not another.

Marco

in the immediate aftermath of sharon playing the temple card--a terrorist act not unlike those he perpetrated in lebanon--israeli settlers launched an assault on olive groves belonging to palistinian residents. thousands of trees that had provided sustinence and income for the families to whom theyd belonged for generations were destroyed. that was a concerted act of economic and environmental terrorism analagous to the destruction of the buffalo on the american plains in order to decimate the native american population.

killing 10 or 3000 people in a matter of minutes is no better or worse than indirectly killing the same number over a period of years