Author Topic: Gaza Border Cutting - Hamas the Provocatur or Israel the Deadly Bully  (Read 852 times)

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Offline JBG

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A Day, a Life: When a Medic Was Killed in Gaza, Was It an Accident?

Rouzan al-Najaar, a 20 year old self-educated "medic" as described by the New York Times, was killed during June 2018 by an Israeli soldier's bullet. That is about all anyone can agree on. Hamas had commenced so-called "protests" which I consider to have been an attempt to wash away the Gaza-Israel border by force. Israel, predictably, responded with force as it considers its border to be a legitimate demarcation of national sovereignty. The above-linked NY Times article (link) states that "technically, it (the border marked by a fence) was not even a recognized border, only the armistice line drawn in 1949, after the Israeli-Arab war." The Israeli army had "warned that anyone coming close to the (border) fence would be shot." The implication of the article, of course, is that Israel should not be there.

The article states that:
Quote from: New York Times
Her death was a poignant illustration of the cost of Israel’s use of battlefield weapons to control the protests, a policy that has taken the lives of nearly 200 Palestinians.It also shows how each side is locked into a seemingly unending and insolvable cycle of violence. The Palestinians trying to tear down the fence are risking their lives to make a point, knowing that the protests amount to little more than a public relations stunt for Hamas, the militant movement that rules Gaza. And Israel, the far stronger party, continues to focus on containment rather than finding a solution.
The New York Times writes, as fact rather than as editorial:
Quote from: New York Times
A senior Israeli commander told The Times in August that 60 to 70 other Gaza protesters had been killed unintentionally, around half the total killed at that point.

Yet the Israeli army’s rules of engagement remain unchanged, the military says.

That alone may constitute a separate violation of international humanitarian law, experts say: After enough civilians have died, commanders have a duty to make changes to ensure that they aren’t needlessly targeted.

“You lose the right to say, ‘Oops,’” said Noam Lubell, a professor of the law of armed conflict at the University of Essex.

The large number of accidental killings, and Israel’s failure to adjust the rules of engagement in response, raise the question of whether they were a bug or a feature of its policy.
Hamas is using civilians as an essential part of the "war effort." And the Times wishes Israel to focus on "finding a solution."

Unless someone else has any other ideas, the only such "solution" is to evacuate Jews from Israel. One dovish Israeli musician said as much to me when I asked what Israel's recourse was if the Arabs would not agree to any borders at all for a State of Israel. He said "wouldn't raising children there be child abuse"?

I believe that Israel has every right to exist as a Jewish state, and fight aggressively in that pursuit.
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Offline Squidward von Squidderson

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Religion poisons everything.
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Offline kimmy

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Why don't the Palestinians just go live somewhere else?

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Offline waldo

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Offline kimmy

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But most Palestinians don't even live in Gaza.  And surely if people who do live in Gaza wanted to leave for elsewhere, Israel wouldn't hold force them to stay. Israel would no doubt prefer it if they left, obviously.

The majority of Palestinian refugees live in other Arab nations. The large majority of these refugees have never actually lived in the land they claim is their own, and claim it only through heredity-- their fathers, or grandfathers, or great-grandfathers were among those originally displaced.

And of all the Arab nations, only Jordan offers Palestinian refugees citizenship. Elsewhere, the refugees have been kept in these camps for generations and denied the chance to start new lives because the Arab states are determined that Israel be returned to Arab ownership.

Syrian refugees fleeing the war there have come to new countries with the chance of starting new lives and leaving Syria behind for good. Palestinians have not been given that chance, mostly because of the political aims of their supposed kinsmen.

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Offline waldo

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But most Palestinians don't even live in Gaza.

the waldo: on topic/target... others, not so much!

Palestinians have not been given that chance, mostly because of the political aims of their supposed kinsmen.

did you just answer your own question?

Offline Squidward von Squidderson

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Why don't the Palestinians just go live somewhere else?

 -k

Really?   You think taking your family to a refugee camp somewhere that doesn’t want you either is a solution?   ::)
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Offline kimmy

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the waldo: on topic/target... others, not so much!

the kimmo sees little value in discussing the death of a single medic, tragic though it may be.

If we're doing the Israel/Palestinian thing again, I would like to see a broader discussion that goes beyond questions like "does Israel have a right to exist?"

did you just answer your own question?

I don't know... did I?  I presented a hypothesis... perhaps others will disagree with it.

I believe that this conflict would have faded away generations ago had the neighboring countries absorbed the displaced Palestinians into their own populations. But that wasn't permitted, because the political agenda was not to help Palestinians displaced from Israel, it was to keep them separate and segregated for the purpose of reclaiming ownership of Israel under an Arab banner.

It seems to me that these descendants of Palestinians are being punished because of their ancestry, essentially incarcerated, denied the chance to start new lives in their new locations for no reason other than having male ancestors who were displaced from their homelands when Israel was created. What had been a number of several hundred thousand at the time is now somewhere around ten times that... people for the most part born and raised in captivity as pawns in a political struggle.  They've been segregated from their current host countries for the purpose of recolonizing Israel, which is expressly antagonistic to Israel's ongoing existence.


 -k
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Offline Michael Hardner

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I believe that this conflict would have faded away generations ago had the neighboring countries absorbed the displaced Palestinians into their own populations. But that wasn't permitted, because the political agenda was not to help Palestinians displaced from Israel, it was to keep them separate and segregated for the purpose of reclaiming ownership of Israel under an Arab banner.

Why do you think that absorbing Palestinians would have solved it ? 

Quote
It seems to me that these descendants of Palestinians are being punished because of their ancestry, essentially incarcerated, denied the chance to start new lives in their new locations for no reason other than having male ancestors who were displaced from their homelands when Israel was created. What had been a number of several hundred thousand at the time is now somewhere around ten times that... people for the most part born and raised in captivity as pawns in a political struggle.  They've been segregated from their current host countries for the purpose of recolonizing Israel, which is expressly antagonistic to Israel's ongoing existence.


 -k

The status quo exists for a reason.  Nobody wants this but it's better than the alternative.  And Israel can game the Palestinians into in-fighting, baiting and generally stagnating forever.

Offline kimmy

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Why do you think that absorbing Palestinians would have solved it ? 

What portion of our Syrian refugees are planning on going back to Syria? Some, perhaps.  What portion of our Syrian refugees' grandchildren do you imagine going back to Syria?  Very few, I expect. People start over and build new lives.   All over the world, people are eager to move from crappier circumstances to better circumstances.

Palestinians are unique among the world's refugees in that they're the only refugee population where most are refugees for hereditary reasons rather than having been personally displaced.  The whole concept of hereditary refugees is troubling.   What do you call the children of the Vietnamese refugees who came to Canada?  Canadians.  What do you call the children of Syrian refugees who are born in Canada?  Canadians.   Do we have segregated encampments of Syrian refugees in Canada waiting to be sent back to their land of origin?  No, we don't.   We would consider that abhorrent. Why would we support Arab nations treating their supposed brethren this way which we'd consider a national disgrace if it were done here?


The status quo exists for a reason.  Nobody wants this but it's better than the alternative.  And Israel can game the Palestinians into in-fighting, baiting and generally stagnating forever.

Why is it better than the alternative?

 -k
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Offline JMT

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Why don't the Palestinians just go live somewhere else?

Why didn't the Jews?  Why don't they now? 
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Offline Michael Hardner

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What portion of our Syrian refugees are planning on going back to Syria? Some, perhaps.  What portion of our Syrian refugees' grandchildren do you imagine going back to Syria?  Very few, I expect. People start over and build new lives.   All over the world, people are eager to move from crappier circumstances to better circumstances.

Palestinians are unique among the world's refugees in that they're the only refugee population where most are refugees for hereditary reasons rather than having been personally displaced.  The whole concept of hereditary refugees is troubling.   What do you call the children of the Vietnamese refugees who came to Canada?  Canadians.  What do you call the children of Syrian refugees who are born in Canada?  Canadians.   Do we have segregated encampments of Syrian refugees in Canada waiting to be sent back to their land of origin?  No, we don't.   We would consider that abhorrent. Why would we support Arab nations treating their supposed brethren this way which we'd consider a national disgrace if it were done here?


Why is it better than the alternative?

 -k

Ok but there would still be Palestinians in Israel.  Also diaspora would raise the profile of the problem.

Why is it better?  The alternative is two states or genocide.

Offline Pinus or Vid or...?????

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Does anyone find it hypocritical that North Americans stage "Israeli Apartheid Week" when Canada and the USA have done far worse to our First Nations people throughout Canadian history. At least the Jews can always claim that they were inhabitants of Israel and came back after they were expelled by the Romans.

Non-Aboriginals simply came over to the New World, committed genocide, confined them to reservations, and took away their children in a failed attempt to "eradicate the Indian in them."
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Offline Pinus or Vid or...?????

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the kimmo sees little value in discussing the death of a single medic, tragic though it may be.

If we're doing the Israel/Palestinian thing again, I would like to see a broader discussion that goes beyond questions like "does Israel have a right to exist?"

I don't know... did I?  I presented a hypothesis... perhaps others will disagree with it.

I believe that this conflict would have faded away generations ago had the neighboring countries absorbed the displaced Palestinians into their own populations. But that wasn't permitted, because the political agenda was not to help Palestinians displaced from Israel, it was to keep them separate and segregated for the purpose of reclaiming ownership of Israel under an Arab banner.

It seems to me that these descendants of Palestinians are being punished because of their ancestry, essentially incarcerated, denied the chance to start new lives in their new locations for no reason other than having male ancestors who were displaced from their homelands when Israel was created. What had been a number of several hundred thousand at the time is now somewhere around ten times that... people for the most part born and raised in captivity as pawns in a political struggle.  They've been segregated from their current host countries for the purpose of recolonizing Israel, which is expressly antagonistic to Israel's ongoing existence.


 -k

Nailed it.
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Offline Pinus or Vid or...?????

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Why didn't the Jews?  Why don't they now?

Simple. The Jews have won every war they have fought against the Arabs.

Maybe we should look in the mirror, and ask ourselves the same question. After all, we did the same thing to our Aboriginal population.
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