Wasn’t there some country we used to be friends with that then invaded another tiny little country on a pretext that we sorta appeared to agree with in advance, and then we turned around totally shocked and invaded our former friend? Twice.

From the International Herald-Tribune article you linked to:

Israel criticized the report as “unable or perhaps unwilling” to address Hamas rocket attacks from Gaza or the threat of terrorism, citing Saturday’s failed attempt to explode a car bomb in a Haifa mall parking lot as the most recent manifestation.

“The report claims to examine Israel’s actions while it willfully ignores and downplays the terrorist and other threats we face,” Ambassador Aharon Leshno Yaar told the 47-nation Human Rights Council.

In other words, “But what about thooooose guys?” Typical.

I don’t mind that Israel is willing to be every bit as vicious and bloodthirsty as their opponents. Well, yes, I do, because the other side isn’t getting my tax money. But what really gets on my nerves is the hypocritical whining.

Somehow, each Israeli is a unique and precious individual, whose loss would be a great tragedy, but Palestinians are created in bulk, like Orcs, so one is just the same as another, and therefore the loss of somebody’s child is no big thing as long as that somebody is Palestinian…

Same holds true for the Americans and Iraqis…

Sick…

And don’t forget the Israeli tee-shirt scandal for another great look into the souls of some Israelis…

It seems to me that the U.N. operates under the common sense idea that maybe an established, stable state military ought to have better standards for human rights than some irregular militia. Now, as an anarchist I find that extremely naive, but that’s how most of the world sees it.

Why even run suicide training school when you’ve got the IDF practically handing you the next generation of suicide bombers?  If Canadian troops stormed my town, grabbed me or my family members, and tried this shit, I lose a large number of reservations about exacting the most serious form of retaliation I could think of.

In other words, “But what about thooooose guys?” Typical.

If only the Palestinians could come up with a leader who could encourage them to become a coherent nation strong enough not to turn to this sort of barbarity.

Oh, wait - every time such a leader comes along, the Israelis murders him. “Targetted killings”.

Ity’s like complaining that no matter how much you beat a dog, it still acts violent and vicious…

Let’s get some inevitable blowback out of the way, shall we?
* Mentioning that Israel has any moral obligations to anybody is antisemitic.
* Mentioning that Israel can or has done anything wrong at any time is antisemitic.
* Mentioning that the United States may want to reconsider giving Israel a blank cheque for everythat it does is antisemitic.
* Advancing the notion that it is possible to consider what Israel does wrong whilst simultaneously finding the attacks on Israel deplorable is antisemitic ... and just wrong because nobody can hold both thoughts!  (C’mon, admit it!  Nobody can care equally about the death of innocent civilians regardless of nation or creed!  Nobody! LALALALALA can’t hear you!  LALALALALAAAA!)
* Having any sort of debate over whether Israel’s interests and actions and policies are necessarily worthy of American support is antisemitic.
* Re, the previous point: Noting that Israelis have these sort of debates all the time in a vigorous and open fashion isn’t permitted, and is antisemitic.  Exception to this rule: defenders of Israel in the US can point this out in order to make the point that Israel is Good embodied and her enemies Bad embodied is permitted, but asking that Americans and their media and public bodies have such a debate, too, is, you guessed it, antisemitic.
* Pointing out that most American politicians would rather barbecue puppies on CNN than criticize Israel in any way is antisemitic.

This list is not complete or conclusive.

If only the Palestinians could come up with a leader who could encourage them to become a coherent nation strong enough not to turn to this sort of barbarity.

Oh, wait - every time such a leader comes along, the Israelis murders him. “Targetted killings”.

This leads into something that I always found frustrating about Israeli policy when Arafat* was in charge: whenever the ditchers like Hamas did something violent, Israel often retaliated against what little security infrastructure there was in Palestine.  Hamas attacks a bus?  No problem!  Have a helicopter blow up the nearest Fatah-loyal police station!

* - Leave aside the fact that Arafat was a corrupt, useless POS who was quite happy to see Palestinians in endless limbo: if things went totally to hell, then they’d turn to Hamas (which they did); if Palestine became a viable nation state then he’d have had to figure out how to understand economics and finance, govern and administer effectively and without rampant corruption, none of which he knew about or cared about.

* - Leave aside the fact that Arafat was a corrupt, useless POS who was quite happy to see Palestinians in endless limbo:

The sort of leader the Israelis could live with.  A Mandala would be dead, dead, dead…

A Mandala would be dead?  PiaToR, what on earth do the Israelis have against concentric diagrams having spiritual and ritual significance in both Buddhism and Hinduism?

(Sorry.  Typoripostes are below the belt but I just couldn’t resist that one.)

The Israelis propensity to assassinate anybody who engages in or plans against attacks against their civilians is well known.  (It is also difficult to reach down into one’s gut and find a problem with killing people who are trying to kill you.)  But when your two posts seem to refer to anybody competent and inspirational at all.  Can you cite?

Bitter Scribe, as a mother of an 11 year old, I’m now officially ready to ram your goddamn computer keyboard into which ever orifice you possess where it will cause the most damage, and pound it in deep with a large sledgehammer.

Just using your very own twisted fucked up idiotsucking logic, that’s all.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/23/gaza-war-crimes-drones

The Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz discovered that the IDF’s international law division (ILD,) the body responsible for advising Israeli forces on the legality of their actions, had authorised an easing of the rules of engagement in Gaza.

A copy of the rules of engagement for Operation Cast Lead was obtained by Ha’aretz in the days before the offensive began. According to a journalist who saw the document, the new, less stringent rules were approved at the highest levels of the Israeli military.

Ha’aretz was repeatedly blocked from publishing the document by the military censor. ...

The former head of the ILD, Colonel Daniel Reisner, spoke frankly to the Israeli media in the aftermath about the role the body plays in pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable in war.

“What we are seeing now is a revision of international law,” Reisner said. “If you do something for long enough, the world will accept it. The whole of international law is now based on the notion that an act that is forbidden today becomes permissible if executed by enough countries.

“International law progresses through violations. We invented the targeted assassination thesis and we had to push it.”

Ms Kate: Chill. I don’t know what “logic” you’re referring to, but no one advocates violence against 11-year-olds, least of all me.

Sorry - just tired of hearing from the apologists using excuses of the sort that are no longer accepted on the grade school playground.

It does beg the question: why shouldn’t moms of 11 year old boys ram keyboards into orifices of apologists for this crap.  Isn’t that what they want?

Mrs Kate, I think Bitter Scribe was criticising Israel for effectively saying “if they can kill a few Israelis then we can kill a lot of Palestinian civilians”, rather than supporting Israel…

God knows I’m no apologist for Israel. Maybe I was a bit cavalier in my first comment. When I said “hypocritical whining,” I was referring to the Israelis.

If anyone cares, my position on the Middle East conflict is “a plague on both your houses.” Usually, I despise that position as morally and intellectually lazy, but I honestly can’t think of any other attitude to take. Both sides suffer from homicidally stubborn leadership (freely chosen by their own people, of course).

The only reason to condemn the Israelis more strongly, if any, is that Israel is our putative ally and recipient of our tax dollars.

Pretty much everyone in my family is left of center, but even they have a pretty big blind spot when it comes to Israel, and I just don’t need to stir up that particular shitstorm.

I have the exact same problem in my family (have blogged about it a couple of times recently) - that’s exactly what it is, a blind spot. It’s really as if they don’t realize that Israel is a country like other countries to which ordinary moral standards should apply. Do you find that that’s a vestige of religion? None of mine are very religious, but maybe when you’re indoctrinated with it that’s one of the holdovers.

I think that in mentioning money, Bitter Scribe puts his finger on why the tide of public support for Israel is ebbing slowly away at the same time that it is rising in Congress.  The public realize that they’re paying for these Israeli actions, and resent it; there is a greater understanding of the Palestinians and a greater sense of Israel as a country like any other, and an occupying country at that.  (I’m convinced that AIPIC is such a fan of the Iraq war because having America tied at the “totally hated occupier of Arabs” hip forces the two countries into the same boat with the same enemies, and that’s good for Israel.  A less hated and less committed America is an America which might have a more balanced [i.e. less automatically pro-Israel] policy.)

The so-called “Israel Lobby” understands this public persona/preference problem clearly, which is why so phenomenal an effort goes into ensuring that senators and congressional reps toe the line: they’re losing the half-century-old automatic public consensus in favour of Israel thus reinforcing the need to ensure that that loss of support is not heard or reflected in DC.  It’s basically modern and grown-up version of “have the ear of the prince and you need not listen to the words of the peon”.

In case that wasn’t clear - I’m sorry that I misunderstood BitterScribe’s post in a fit of mom fury.  So, Bitter Scribe: I’m sorry.

The IDF has spent the better part of its existence insisting that it has higher standards than its enemies. Its as much Israel’s idea as anyone else’s.  Unfortunately, in war that always bites you in the ass.  Especially if the war is tribal, and waged in an environment that might as well be one human per square inch.

Seeker, the Israeli’s used to blame Fatah as much as all the other factions.  THings have only changed because Fatah isn’t Hamas, and Abbas seems willing to play ball in ways no one else would.  Course, he’s got no ball to play with.

A Mandala would be dead?  PiaToR, what on earth do the Israelis have against concentric diagrams having spiritual and ritual significance in both Buddhism and Hinduism?

Look, I type like I make love - using two fingers, and usually not pressing the right buttons.

But when your two posts seem to refer to anybody competent and inspirational at all.  Can you cite?

I can’t dig out the cite immediately, alas.  It was something I read a while back, probably in the Nation.  We will note, however, that the claim that those assassinated are “anybody who engages in or plans against attacks against [Israeli] civilians” is made by the IDF, who are not all that disinterested - how exactly would you go about proving it after the fact?

However, check out this article.  This guy, Thabet Thabet, sounds like precisely the sort of person the Palestinians need if they’re to move beyond their current stalemate.

Two things people here may be interested in:

1. Last week American citizen and Oakland resident, Tristan Anderson, was shot by the IDF in the head by a tear gas bullet and is in critical conditon. Anderson was at a protest against the continued confiscation of West Bank land in the village of Ni’liin by the Israeli government. Here’s more from the facebook group solidarity with tristan Anderson:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=81746657048&ref=ts

Here’s a very graphic video of the IDF shooting a handcuffed and blinded Palestinian from the same village of Ni’llin:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIVBB-iRHfQ

It sometimes amazes me how far the usual discussion is skewed toward israeli government policies. It’s only because things like shooting random civilians for the hell of it or torturing a child and putting his life at risk are so far beyond the (non-Bush-Cheney) limits of human decency that this report is making waves. For the rest of the time, people notice that Israel has an established legal system and established rules of engagement and then stop looking, much the way that people must have noticed that the Jim Crow south had laws passed and a judiciary elected by the majority of those who went to the polls and stopped looking. (I was struck by this over at anotehr site, here a poster felt compelled to say that he wasn’t stating any moral equivalence between expansion of settlements—backed by guns and tanks—and suicide bombing or rocket attacks. Why the eff not?)

Hey, no hard feelings, Ms Kate. If I didn’t get flamed now and again, my life on this board would be pretty dull.

I’m trying to construct what sort of defense would legitimately make sense.

The only one I can think of is they’re attempting to apply movie logic to the real world: no one lets the cute kid die. They have immunity.

but that doesn’t make them a great shield, as that just means the bullets go around them and hit you, especially if you’re mean enough to victimize them and earn your villain points.

“having read some, but not enough TVTropes” is the only excuse that makes sense. as there’s kind of no way to make child human shields into a “turnabout is fair play” situation. Since if you’re fighting someone evil enough to do that, then you know children’s lives don’t mean enough to them for that kid to work as a shield.

karpad: I guess their argument is basically that they think their enemy *isn’t* as evil as they themselves are? And actually *wouldn’t* put a little kid in harm’s way like they so happily do? Clever plan ya got there, guys…

The IDF have been using Palestinian civilians (usually children) as human shields in this way for years. It’s quite well documented.

Eurosabra: I’d consider the argument if we were talking about a civilian adult. I might not accept the argument, but I’d consider it.

But, sorry: Kid. Bullshit.

Eurosabra, that’s just a long-winded take on the “he did it first” argument. Sorry, but that’s not a moral justification where I come from.

The most significant post-2000 cultural change is that Israelis have seen their streets clogged with bodies,

Let’s see - the Israelis claim  1,179 people have been killed by “Palestinian violence and terrorism since September 2000”.

Of those, a significant proportion are IDF soldiers or security forces in the occupied areas - part of an occupation army.  Suicide bombers in Israel are terrorists, Palestinians taking potshots at soldiers in the Gaza and West Bank are not, by standard definitions.

A conservative estimate is that 6,348 Palestinians have been killed by Israelis in (roughly) the same period. The vast majority of these are, of course, in the Palestinian territories.

So, Eurosabra, if you believe Israel is able to justify repression due to its streets being “clogged with bodies”, what exactly are Palestinians able to justify?  Or, you know, are Israelis more human than Arabs, and their lives more real?

You didn’t actually address the point.  You state “No one in the PA has a monopoly on violence and all factions except the National Initiative continue to strike Israel pretty much at will.” - what about Israel’s responsibility for Palestinian deaths?  You may recall - Israel is occupying Palestine, not the other way around, Israeli settlers have engaged in ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, not the other way around, and far more Palestinians have died than Israelis.

It’s really as if they don’t realize that Israel is a country like other countries to which ordinary moral standards should apply.

That would be a crushing argument if it weren’t for the fact that it’s not, in fact, quite the case.

You can’t have it both ways - continue to pay Israel to militarise (let’s be clear here, US tax dollars are not buying school books or hospital beds over there), but demand that it excercises that military power lawfully and morally. It’s like every other case of prostitution: the responsibility is at the demand end, not the supply end.

The extent of the moral outrage in the West about Israeli abuses of Palestinian human rights (or conversely Palestinian atrocities against Israeli civilians) is in direct proportion to the moral culpability of the West in creating and perpetuating the violent dynamics of the Middle East.

For an unambiguous example, check out the recent Pandagon post about the Sri Lankan Tamil freedom fighters, another ethnic minority group waging a long and violent campaign of self-determination, suffering a crushing defeat and admitting to their cause being more or less annihilated by government forces. Oh wait, there wasn’t one.

For the record, I’m Israeli. Check out how I haven’t accused anyone of antisemitism yet - pretty freaky, huh?

I’m very glad that there is news coverage in the West right now about human rights abuses in Gaza that can be verified and for which people can be brought to book. It might just prove to be the necessary kick up the wazoo that the IDF needs to clean up its act.

I’m also glad that the two state solution is looking like such a pipe dream right now - it might just make people re-examine the idea of a federalised one state solution, something that ordinary people craving an ordinary life should be campaigning for like crazy.

But let’s not kid ourselves that Israel/Palestine can become that kind of country - a Belgium or a Switzerland - just by wishing. Or by us counting the body bags and then hurling abuse at it from overseas.

The kind of external intervention this conflict needs is in the form of money for peace, effective mediation, a proper grievance and justice process… But the world can’t offer this to the Plestinians and Israelis without empathy for the fears and hopes of both sides, and that seems to be in short supply - after all, it’s easier to just claim the high moral ground, whether it’s eleven year old human shileds or eleven year old suicide bomber victims. I say, let’s all stop building our politics on the backs of eleven year olds, and the Israelis and Palestinians may just follow suit.

That would be a crushing argument if it weren’t for the fact that it’s not, in fact, quite the case.

It’s not really an argument so much as a statement about the way people I know personally think. No, not all Jews, not all Israelis. Actual people that I actually know - most acutely, my mother and one of my classmates - who think that criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic. Check out how I’m not accusing you of playing the anti-Semitism card - pretty freaky, huh?

You can’t have it both ways - continue to pay Israel to militarise (let’s be clear here, US tax dollars are not buying school books or hospital beds over there), but demand that it excercises that military power lawfully and morally. It’s like every other case of prostitution: the responsibility is at the demand end, not the supply end.

I’m not exactly clear on what you mean - by “continue” do you mean such that the US wouldn’t say to Israel “C&D;right now or no more funding?”

I’m also glad that the two state solution is looking like such a pipe dream right now - it might just make people re-examine the idea of a federalised one state solution, something that ordinary people craving an ordinary life should be campaigning for like crazy.

How does the ongoing conflict make a one-state solution any more feasible? (For the record, I’m a fan of a two-state solution.)

Israel COULD withdraw from everywhere to minimize Palestinian deaths

Or, you know, while occupying, they could actually look at helping to build a viable Palestinian state other than a series of bantustans, with a credible stake in peace.  Granted, this is probably more difficult than tearing down houses and shooting kids, but still…

Israel delenda est, eh?

Oh, please.  Firstly, stating that Israel is occupying Palestine is not wishing that Israel would be destroyed.  Secondly, the rockets are terrorism - not an existential threat to Israel.

Improving circulation between Palestinian towns means reducing checkpoints, which means more bombs in Israeli cities.

Explain to us how preventing Palestinians from moving from one Palestinian town to another Palestinian town protects Israeli cities.

The other problem is that empowered Palestinian security forces tend to turn on Israel,

Gee, I can’t imagine why...

During Operation Cast Lead, Israeli forces killed Palestinian civilians under permissive rules of engagement and intentionally destroyed their property, say soldiers who fought in the offensive.
[...]
The squad leader said he argued with his commander over the permissive rules of engagement that allowed the clearing out of houses by shooting without warning the residents beforehand. After the orders were changed, the squad leader’s soldiers complained that “we should kill everyone there [in the center of Gaza]. Everyone there is a terrorist.”

The squad leader said: “You do not get the impression from the officers that there is any logic to it, but they won’t say anything. To write ‘death to the Arabs’ on the walls, to take family pictures and spit on them, just because you can. I think this is the main thing: To understand how much the IDF has fallen in the realm of ethics, really. It’s what I’ll remember the most.”

I note that despite the polite and intellectual tone of Eurosabra, his/her argument is essentially the same as that advanced by the more frothing types:  that asking Israel to stop occupying somebody else’s territory, destroying their infrastructure and killing them by the thousands (and having Israel’s having its most radical countrymen stealing their land, too) is exactly synonymous with wanting Israel destroyed, its streets filled with the bodies of dead Jews, their murdered corpses lying on ground sown with salt.

There’s an awful lot of people like me—pro-Israel non-Jewish Zionists—who are more than a little tired of people like you insisting that such a Manichean worldview is the only frame for this situation, sick of you sweetly rationalizing whatever the hell Israel does.  If Israel wants to be a psychotic Middle Eastern state just like any other, as dismissive of human life as any other then fine, it can be so.  It just can’t claim the moral high ground—and the automatic support of other nations—if it chooses to do so.