The Islamophobia split on the left.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Maybe they wouldn't think that if the Palestinians hadn't elected an organization to lead them whose written sworn reason for existence is the utter annihilation of Israel.

So when the organisation supports a coalition geared towards peaceful solutions and which recognises the state of Israel you'd think the organisation that the Israelis elected would support that move.

Wouldn't you?

edit: By the way, since the Americans have elected Obama, maybe you Americans can stop complaining about the dude? After all, you elected him. And don't cop-out by stating you didn't vote for the man, the Palestinians don't get that kind of leeway either.

 

[Funky]

If you're going to portray yourself as a civilised country fighting against terrorists then I think you ought to be held to a different standard!

I will only comment on this, as it seems to be at the root of your perception of the issue. First, Israel is not portraying itself as a civilized country fighting terrorists, it largely is a civilized country fighting terrorists. Should we criticize its military operations which have let to a disproportionate amount of civilian casualties? Absolutely. Should we hold it accountable for the cases when it has violated international law? By all means. But to appear intellectually honest and morally reasonable, we simply must hold the other side to the same standard.

As said before, the charter of the Hamas explicitly calls for the genocide of the Jews. The Hamas doesn't give a damn about international law. The military operations conducted by the Palestinian side have the goal to kill as many Jews as possible, no matter if they are civilians. At ages as young as five, kids in schools are systematically indoctrinated to hate Jews. I see no reason whatsoever to give these actions a pass. By any objective standard, the intentions on the Palestinian side are far, far worse. The only reason we don't read on a daily basis about Jews being slaughtered in the streets or being blown to pieces by missile strikes is the stark superiority of the Israeli military and of its defense systems.

Not once have you criticized the Palestinians in this thread. When armed Hamas forces hide in a school and Israel bombs the school, dispatching the terrorists, but killing several school kids in the process, it is appropriate to criticize Israel. But it is even more appropriate to criticize Hamas for using human shields in the first place! If you are unable to agree on this basic moral common sense, I don't see how any further sensible discussion of the issue is possible.

 

[Mouthwash]

For starters it's not: counter-insurgency is done by foot patrols and highly localised use of force rather than bombing anything. If you really want to dislodge the rocket from the civilian house, you have to shoot the guy operating it or the machine itself with a good old-fashioned bullet. If the choice is between shooting at an unacceptable target and withdrawing, you withdraw. That's how the laws of war work.

Reoccupying Gaza is basically impossible. The IDF simply doesn't have enough soldiers, and rocks thrown by civilians are just as deadly as guns.

Only if you keep it within the paradigm of 'last one breathing wins' - those campaigns are 'won' when the people that the enemy work amongst are convinced that your side is better for them than the insurgents, and that your side can protect them from reprisals. Once the civilians stop supporting the insurgents, they can't operate.

There are many, many grassroots terrorist organizations who would attack the Great Satan as well, but from half a world away it's easy to neutralize them. Regardless, they cannot be 'eliminated' unless you go for the butcher-and-bolt strategy: control the borders, aim at everyone and everything in the area that even might be connected to the organization, and leave behind admonitory piles of corpses. The fact that Israel does not do this to such groups which congregate on its borders and facilitate endless war is already a huge concession on its part.

 

[classical_hero]

http://www.preoccupiedterritory.com/idf-hires-egypt-for-gaza-genocide-so-no-one-will-care/

Rafah, Egypt, October 30 – The world’s apparent apathy at Egypt’s forced relocation of thousands of this city’s residents has prompted the Israeli military to outsource its operations in and around the Gaza Strip to the Egyptian army so that the latter can resort to the necessary harsh measures without the international opprobrium that would result from Israeli operations against the same Palestinians.

Egypt has begun bulldozing hundreds of homes in a buffer zone it seeks to create with the Gaza Strip, evicting residents and offering relocation or compensation only to those whose homes do not contain entrances to tunnels to and from the Gaza Strip. The international community has remained all but silent, leading IDF commanders to conclude that any and all methods of dealing with the threat of violence from Gaza should be contracted out to Egypt, up to and including the ethnic cleansing of the coastal area if necessary. Both nations have faced attacks from Islamists operating from Gaza, but the world has barely reacted to Egypt’s measures to suppress the attacks, while continuously condemning Israel for less audacious or sweeping activities against the militants.

The move comes after years of a blockade enforced against the Gaza Strip by both countries. Though Israel places some restrictions on goods imported into Gaza in order to cut off supplies for terrorist attacks, Egypt has effectively sealed its border. Nevertheless, international outraged has focused solely on Israel. IDF Chief of Staff Beni Ganz, Minister of Defense Moshe Yaalon, and Minister of National Infrastructure Silvan Shalom met with Egyptian counterparts this week to negotiate a deal in which Egypt would receive a steep discount on the supply of natural gas from Israel, and Egypt would extend its operations into the Gaza Strip itself.

Under the terms of the deal, Egypt would receive carte blanche to suppress Islamists in Gaza, primarily the Hamas movement, which originated as an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, currently outlawed in that country. Israel does not maintain a presence in Gaza, in contrast to massacres that took place in Lebanon while Israeli forces were present. Christian Phalangist militias killed Palestinians there in 1982, but Israel stood accused of allowing the killings to take place if not authorizing them outright. In the case of Gaza, the complete absence of Israeli troops will, it is hoped, forestall accusations that Israel is perpetrating genocide. At the same time, as current events demonstrate, the fact that it is not Israel engaging it what is likely to become a brutal operation will allow it to proceed with little, if any, international outcry.

The plan faced some opposition within the Israeli cabinet. Though they were outvoted and the deal approved, several ministers argued that Israel would still face accusations of genocide from Palestinians and their supporters, since that charge has seldom been associated with actual facts.

After all Egypt just dismantled 800 homes and not a peep from the world, so this seems to be a good idea since no on cares what Egypt is doing there.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Not once have you criticized the Palestinians in this thread. When armed Hamas forces hide in a school and Israel bombs the school, dispatching the terrorists, but killing several school kids in the process, it is appropriate to criticize Israel. But it is even more appropriate to criticize Hamas for using human shields in the first place! If you are unable to agree on this basic moral common sense, I don't see how any further sensible discussion of the issue is possible.

Well, there isn't anyone here making the case how righteous Hamas is in their actions. The discussion usually revolves around how justified Israel is in their actions against the Palestinians. It is generally agreed that firing rockets into civilian areas and wanting a lot of people dead isn't beneficial to peaceful dealings.

But in that light I am having quite a bit of trouble of making sense of this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/06/w...ement-plans-draw-swift-condemnation.html?_r=0

Israel has condemned the new government backed by Hamas, the Islamic militant group that refuses to recognize Israel and is considered a terrorist organization by much of the West. While the government does not include any members of Hamas or other Palestinian partisan movements, Israel says such a distinction is irrelevant.

[...]

Israel’s settlement move threatened to isolate it further just as it was urging the world, without much success, to shun the new Palestinian government.

Though the new government is the outcome of a reconciliation pact between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Hamas, which has controlled Gaza since 2007, the cabinet is made up largely of nonpartisan professionals. The government has said it will follow a peaceful program and is committed to international principles like the renunciation of violence and the recognition of Israel. Hamas itself has not accepted those principles.

Experts said that the settlement announcement could set off an escalation of Israeli and Palestinian countermeasures and that it signaled a breakdown of coordination with the United States, Israel’s principal ally.

So all, or at least most of everyone here condemns Hamas' actions. The reason it's not pronounced is there is no one defending Hamas. As opposed to Israel.

 

[Phrossack]

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a regular military cannot hope to defeat an irregular guerrilla militia except in the very short term.

Britain in Malaya and Kenya, IMRO, the American occupation of the Philippines, most of the rebellions against British rule in India, the defeat of the Tamil Tigers, the Baltic rebels against Soviet occupation... guerrillas lose quite often, even in protracted campaigns. Guerrilla warfare is fundamentally a strategy of the weak, since it takes a long time, often fails, and usually results in widespread destruction in the guerrillas' homeland. Those who can afford to wage conventional war, and when guerrilla movements gain enough strength, they do, too, like Mao Zedong or the Viet Minh.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

http://www.preoccupiedterritory.com/idf-hires-egypt-for-gaza-genocide-so-no-one-will-care/


After all Egypt just dismantled 800 homes and not a peep from the world, so this seems to be a good idea since no on cares what Egypt is doing there.

Meanwhile, one day before that article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/30/world/middleeast/egypt-sinai-peninsula-gaza-buffer-zone.html
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29825889
http://www.timesofisrael.com/egypt-begins-work-on-gaza-buffer-zone/

You want more? I've got lots!

 

[Arakhor]

I'm guessing that the Preoccupied site is a spoof site, especially with headlines such as "Israeli Scientists Find Way To Spread Autism With Ebola Cure". Either that or it's such a part of the lunatic fringe (see Poe's Law), that it's worth instantly discounting.

 

[Borachio]

Britain in Malaya and Kenya, IMRO, the American occupation of the Philippines, most of the rebellions against British rule in India, the defeat of the Tamil Tigers, the Baltic rebels against Soviet occupation... guerrillas lose quite often, even in protracted campaigns. Guerrilla warfare is fundamentally a strategy of the weak, since it takes a long time, often fails, and usually results in widespread destruction in the guerrillas' homeland. Those who can afford to wage conventional war, and when guerrilla movements gain enough strength, they do, too, like Mao Zedong or the Viet Minh.

Britain in Malaya did quite well, but they didn't do it conventionally. They went out of their way to undermine the grass roots support of the Marxists with a deliberate hearts and minds policy, which has been much admired but rarely copied.

Kenya went disastrously wrong.

The British lost India against the non-violence of Gandhi.

I don't know what happened with the Philippines nor, to be honest, with the Tamils. (beyond the fact that they "lost") *

As far as I know the Baltic States are no longer part of the Soviet empire. And the Vietnamese conducted an unconventional war for a very long time, only to win in the end due to American domestic public opinion.

But, yes, I think you're right that guerrilla movements are a sign of weakness and that people would rather get a quick and conventional victory.

I'm not persuaded that they're beatable, though, since every conventional action merely acts as a recruiting agent for their cause. Or has done so far.

*edit: yeah, looks to me like the LTTE tried to take on conventional forces conventionally. They did very well, but failed to "melt away" and fight another day, so maybe not as guerrilla as they could have been. Still, that's only my opinion. And an ill-considered one, at that.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

I'm guessing that the Preoccupied site is a spoof site, especially with headlines such as "Israeli Scientists Find Way To Spread Autism With Ebola Cure". Either that or it's such a part of the lunatic fringe (see Poe's Law), that it's worth instantly discounting.

Check out the Avalanche article: "by 2050..."

 

[Traitorfish]

Britain in Malaya did quite well, but they didn't do it conventionally. They went out of their way to undermine the grass roots support of the Marxists with a deliberate hearts and minds policy, which has been much admired but rarely copied.

They also engaged in the systematic terrorisation, torture and displacement of civilians. There were incidents of outright massacre, and it was common for civilians and prisoners of war to be "shot while attempting to escape". They would also display the mutilate and publicly display the bodies of partisans as a matter of routine, which casts recent criticisms of ISIS in an interesting light. So let's not forget that the carrot came with some stick.

 

[Borachio]

Yup. No doubt.

The Briggs Plan was multifaceted, with one aspect which has become particularly well known: the forced relocation of some 500,000 rural Malayans, including 400,000 Chinese, from squatter communities on the fringes of the forests into guarded camps called New Villages. These villages were newly constructed in most cases, and were surrounded by barbed wire, police posts and floodlit areas, meant to keep the inhabitants in and the guerrillas out. People resented this at first, but some soon became content with the better living standards in the villages.[citation needed] They were given money and ownership of the land they lived on.[citation needed] Removing a population which might be sympathetic to guerrillas was a counter-insurgency technique which the British had used before, notably against the Boer Commandos in the Second Boer War (1899–1902), although in Malaya, the operation was more humanely and efficiently conducted

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayan_Emergency

 

[Arakhor]

Check out the Avalanche article: "by 2050..."

Oh God. That is a such ridiculous article, I wonder why CH thought that site was worth quoting. I guess it's like certain US media figures getting taken in by articles in The Onion.

 

[Tahuti]

Reoccupying Gaza is basically impossible. The IDF simply doesn't have enough soldiers, and rocks thrown by civilians are just as deadly as guns.

How about hermetically sealing Gaza Strip just like a Mediaeval style siege? After all, humanitarian goods are what causes Gaza to tolerate Hamas rule anyway, and it is not that non-weapon goods are never stolen by Hamas only to be sold on the black market.

In the long term, a lot of people will be saved, as it hastens the end of the conflict. You do not negotiate with the likes of Hamas, other than accepting their surrender.

 

[Arakhor]

I imagine that a full-scale armed invasion of Palestine would hasten the end of the conflict too, but after that situation, it would probably be just too difficult to claim that Israel is still the wounded party.

 

[Borachio]

That is a such ridiculous article

Just no.

Asia in general has been a relative underachiever in Jew-killing. Whereas Europe has devoted the better part of the last two thousand years alternately tolerating and massacring Jews, Asian nations have concentrated primarily on oppressing or exterminating their own local ethnicities. East Asian countries in particular have a less than exemplary record of achievement in Jew-killing, with WWII Japan, an ally of Hitler, allowing thousands of Lithuanian Jews to find refuge in Kobe, and then in Shanghai, China, which they controlled. At the time, Japan’s efforts at oppression, persecution, and extermination focused mainly on the Chinese and Koreans.

This is serious stuff.

http://www.preoccupiedterritory.com/after-gaza-eu-also-seeking-to-give-funds-to-avalanche-that-killed-israelis/

 

[Farm Boy]

Reoccupying Gaza is basically impossible. The IDF simply doesn't have enough soldiers, and rocks thrown by civilians are just as deadly as guns.

Ok, that just reads weird to me. Israel may not have enough soldiers to occupy Gaza if it had the inclination to, and thrown rocks can be and are deadly, but they're nowhere near just as deadly as guns. They're not as deadly as slings, they're not as deadly as spears, or swords, or bows. All of which are less deadly than flintlocks. The difference in the order of magnitude of the destruction presently being caused by one side on the other is what has most people that are fed up with Israel fed up with Israel. And it's probably worth scratching at the sentiment that those rocks are equivalent to military rifles if it was a statement that was meant rather than for dramatic effect.

 

[bhsup]

Looks like someone from Illini country needs to watch Apacalypto.

 

[Farm Boy]

Seens it!

Braveheart III The Prequel, I call it.

 

[Tahuti]

I imagine that a full-scale armed invasion of Palestine would hasten the end of the conflict too, but after that situation, it would probably be just too difficult to claim that Israel is still the wounded party.

I think such could potentially bring so many military casualities on the Israeli side as to trigger a military coup.