. . you have made many statements in this forum that are easily interpreted as justifying violent attacks against Israeli civilians. They are too numerous to list here. But, let's look at the full context of this particular statement that you are defending.
I am not trying to badger you on this but the theme of many threads in this forum started by pro-Palestinain members are that Israel purposely targets Palestinian civilians and that we pro-Israel members support those attacks which are - if your accusations are true - war crimes and crimes against humanity. We defend against those accusations by pointing out the lack of evidence that Israel targets civilians - and therefore we can not be accused of supporting such things.
There is no question that Palestinians attack Israeli civilians - every day - they purposely target them with the intent to kill them. And pro-Palestinian members like you often attempt to justify those attacks in various ways. It gets a bit much when you then deny that you do so - when your words are right there for anyone to see.
Please explain how this particular exchange - taken in full context - is anything but outright support for attacking innocent Israeli civilians. You justify it, you say it is OK and that the situation warrants it. It is evident from many of your other posts that this is your position. Why don't you defend it? Instead you deny what you obviously said.
Starts here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=124&topic_id=183898#183988Shaktimaan response to Reply #16
19. Please explain. How do you see Qassam attacks or suicide bombs directed at civilians as being defensive? They seem retalitory to me. Not defensive though.
ProgressiveMuslim Response to Reply #19
22. I think those are the actions of basically unarmed civilians who are resisting the occupation and attempted destruction of the culture and livelihoods, as well as the outright stealing of their land. I know your camp tries to soft-peddle what Israel does. It's a bunch of bullshit. Those kassams are a drop in the bucket compared to what Israel has wrought on the people in the WB, East Jerusalem and Gaza. I wish to heck they'd knock it off, because it's ineffective, and it (insanely) gives Israel the high moral ground on some level. You always try to paint this conflict as though it's 2 euqally matched warring nations, one of which has an unwarranted hatred toward Israel.
I like to reflect on what the US would do if after 1800 more years, a small band of folks from another nation decided this was their homeland, got support from a powerful nation or two, and set about trying to drive us off. Would we allow ourselves to be driven off without a fight? I highly doubt it. I sure hope not.
Shakti, your "aw shucks Israel?" thing holds no water with me. Been there. Done that. Seen with my own 2 eyes.
I would inject here that your first response in this sub-thread is totally directed at justifying the attacks on civilians. You make no attempt to deny that they occurred. Your only problem with them is that they "aren't effective enough" and they "(insanely) gives Israel the high moral ground on some level". Is that what you call being opposed to attacks on civilians based on moral principles?
Shaktimaan Response to Reply #22
29. Wow.So you think Hamas and Islamic Jihad are essentially unarmed civilians? Really? For real?
It seems that you are saying that Palestine's lack of military resources and ability to effectively engage Israel on equal terms entitles them to commit really egregious war crimes, targeting civilians, etc., and should be judged by different standards than Israel. Basically, because you agree with their cause and see Israel as the oppressor, the rules of war, geneva conventions and so on should not be applied to their actions, right?
Whether they have cause to hate Israel or not is irrelevant. Israel does not engage in the kinds of policies or tactics that Hamas does. Do you feel that the Israeli government and the Palestinian government should be judged by different standards because they are unequally matched militarily? The way I learned it, war crimes are war crimes. One is not excused from them merely because their army is too weak to attack anyone other than unarmed civilians.
I still fail to see how attacking Israeli children is in any way a defensive strategy. What is being defended? What strategic objective is being met? For instance, when Israel singles out a Hamas leader for execution and rockets their car, it is a defensive strike because they eliminated someone who was a direct and immediate threat. Without that leader, Hamas will have a harder time organizing attacks against Israel, thus crippling their capabilities. How is singling out young children in a playground similarly a defensive action for Hamas?
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Shaktimaan Response to Reply #22
31. OK.
"I like to reflect on what the US would do if after 1800 more years, a small band of folks from another nation decided this was their homeland, got support from a powerful nation or two, and set about trying to drive us off."
But that is not what happened in Israel, is it?
Look, if the Palestinians are unable to win a conventional war, then why why why did they begin attacking Jewish people in Palestine at the very start of this conflict? Why did they instigate the Arab uprising? Why did they consistently refuse to accept the idea of a substantial Jewish population living in Palestine?
No one was being driven off their lands when this conflict started. Reflect on what you would do as a recent refugee to an as-yet-unformed-nation where your community purchased undeveloped land and you found yourself facing an angry indigenous population who wanted you either out of their claimed land or dead. Would you be driven off without a fight?
All of the problems faced by the Palestinians can be traced back to their refusal to engage their problems on any level other than violence. The partition plan resulted from a need to seperate the two ethnicities because of unyeilding Palestinian attacks. The nakba resulted from the Palestinian's refusal to accept the UN's Plan and disputing it by way of waging war on the Jews, yet again.
You say that Israel came in and pushed the Palestinians off of their land causing this animosity. When did that happen exactly? This fight started in the 1920's and the 1930's. The war begun by the Palestinians and later engaged by other Arab nations was in the 40's. Please show me where and when the Zionists or native Jews sparked the conflict in that time period. When did they try and destroy Palestinian culture and livelihood, causing this violent reaction?
At this point Shakti has refuted your description of the events that you say justify the attacks against Israeli civilians. He has not even questioned your support for those attacks as you have been very clear about that. Did you take this opportunity to deny that Palestinians attack Israelis civilians as a matter of course - or that you support those attacks? Obviously, not. In the following post you quote another author who obviously justifies the purposeful murder of Israeli civilians - including children in Day Care Centers, if necessary. You preface the quote with your assertion that here is someone who agrees with you.
ProgressiveMuslim Response to Reply #31
41. Many agree with my position. Read this by Michael Neumann:
The comparisons with the situation of the Palestinians are beyond obvious. To start, what I have written sneaks in some misconceptions. There were no people called "the Indians". They were diverse, as cultures and as individuals, some peaceful, some warlike, some responsible for the massacres, some not. It was, of course, the whites who lumped them together and demonized them (just as this sentence does to the whites). The Israelis kind of do that when they destroy the houses of old women and blockade cities to the point of starvation and medical catastrophe. And when anyone supports the Israelis, they are responsible for this sort of collective 'punishment', even if they don't - as they often do - indulge in the same coarse generalizations.
As for the other points of resemblance, not only Israeli, but much non-Israeli Jewish propaganda does its best to conceal them. But concealment is impossible. Guess what? The Palestinians didn't travel thousands of miles to dispossess the Jews. It was the other way around. Often the Jews had very pressing reasons to leave Europe. So did the whites who settled in North America. And both groups of settlers couldn't quite take in what they saw: that gee, there were other people already there, and the land was theirs. When possible, both engaged in sleazy land deals to get their foothold; when not, force was used. But always there was no question: the whole land would be theirs, and the state to be constructed would be their state.
Both groups of settlers somehow contrived, despite these goals, to believe that they wanted nothing but to live in peace with their 'neighbors'- neighbors, of course, because they had already taken some of their land. And sure, they did want peace, just as Hitler wanted peace: on his terms. The most casual survey of Israeli politics indicates that mainstream, official, respectable Jewish opinion asserts an absolute right to Israel's present boundaries, and at the very least would never abandon the continually expanding settlements. What is considered extreme Jewish opinion, which asserts rights over the entire area occupied by Palestine, is not the Israeli extreme. The far right in Israel claims a territory that stretches as far as Kuwait and southern Turkey. This matters, because, given Israel's fragmented politics, the extreme right wields a power out of proportion to its numbers. The conclusion must be that Israel, as a collective entity, wants peace with all the sincerity of, say, General Custer.
Like the Indians, the Palestinians have nowhere to go. All the Arab states either hate them, or hate having them there. And, like Indians, Arabs and Palestinians are not all alike: do we scratch our heads and wonder why, when the Cherokee were kicked off their land, they didn't just join the Apache or Navaho? Like the Indians, the Palestinians have not the slightest chance of injuring, let alone defeating Israel through conventional military tactics. Like the whites, every single Israeli Jew, down to and including the children, are instruments wielded against the Palestinian people.
Of course the two situations aren't quite analogous. Things are clearer in the case of Israel, where virtually every able-bodied adult civilian is at least an army reservist, and every Jewish child will grow up to be one. And the American settlers never spent years proclaiming how happy they would be with the land they had before embarking on a campaign to take the rest of it. One might add that the current situation of the Palestinians is more like that of the Indians in 1880-1890 than earlier, because the Palestinians have lost much more than half of their original land.
The Palestinians don't set out to massacre children, that is, they don't target daycare centers. (Nor do they scalp children, but according to the BBC, that's what Israel's clients did in Sabra and Shatila.) They merely hit soft targets, and this sometimes involves the death of children. But, like anyone, they will kill children to prevent the destruction of their society. If peoples have any right of self-preservation, this is justified. Just as Americans love to do, the Palestinians are "sending a message": you really don't want to keep screwing with us. We will do anything to stop you. And if the only effective way of stopping their mortal enemies involved targeting daycare centers, that would be justified too. No people would do anything less to see they did not vanish from the face of the earth.
http://www.counterpunch.org/neumannisrael1.html If he agrees with you, just what is it that you think he agrees with you about if it is not the justified killing of Israeli civilians (including children) as a form of necessary resistance against the injustices he and you perceive were carried out by Israel against the Palestinians. That was the whole thrust of all the comments both you and he made in this exchange.
I'm not sure what rule this post might violate but whenever I challenge you on your oft-stated beliefs on this topic my posts tend to get deleted. I've copied this in case you want to PM me with an explanation telling me why my interpretation of your pretty clear words on this is wrong.