… Israel’s ambassador to the US Ron Dormer for saying that the Israeli Defense Forces deserve the Nobel Peace Prize for their “unimaginable restraint” in Gaza.
You can see images as a result of this “unimaginable restraint” here, here, and here.
I will show just one from the first link that was from the assault on Shejaiya on July 20.
Well its nice to see you give an Israeli something I guess Mano Singham.
IIRC Taslima at No Country for Women has a rather depressing image showing some of that “unimaginable restraint” in action, too.
Also those cases you cite, do you really seriously think they are totally Israel’s fault?
Do you seriously not blame Hamas at all -- not even a little bit -- for firing rockets at innocent people in Israel and full knowing what the consequences of doing so are likely to be?
Do you honestly, truly, genuinely think that Israelis want to kill innocent people instead of those who are attacking them?
Israelis are NOT monsters. They are NOT out to kill civilians who pose them no threat.
Apart from anything else they know as well as everyone else on the planet that it hurts their cause unlike Hamas’es cause which exploits innocent (& guilty) deaths constantly.
Also really, would this war be happening if Hamas were not firing rockets and doing terrorism?
Seriously, please, Mano Singham, think about that and tell me, honestly. I do think you are a smart and good human individual.
Do you seriously blame Israel for all this when Hamas is actually to blame for it all?
Oh & yes, those images are horrendous and tragic and terrible and I wish we were not seeing them.
I wish we had peace instead.
I wish the world was not what it is.
Stevo, it’s funny (it’s not funny at all) how much you sound exactly like the bullies who used to beat the shit out of me at school.
“Why don’t you realize this is all your fault? If you’d just stop shoving your queerness down our threats in such a hostile manner, we wouldn’t have to keep beating you up!”
You’re like the cops who beat up Rodney King, or killed Oscar Grant. It’s about disproportionate response, you jackass. That you wilfully won’t see that just makes you the apologist for massacres, and that you will inevitably and hilariously insist that this makes me anti-Semitic/more-or-less Hitler just makes it the more obvious. Any thinking person should be able to see that the response by Israel to the popgun bullshit that Hamas is pulling has been wildly disproportionate, and calling it “worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize for its restraint”, while blowing a hundred children to bits, is simply grotesque.
@StevoR
I don’t think *all* of them do. But…
Israelis gather on hillsides to watch and cheer as military drops bombs on Gaza
People drink, snack and pose for selfies against a background of explosions as Palestinian death toll mounts in ongoing offensive
From the above article:
“Peretz says that she doesn’t worry about the Palestinian civilians caught in the bombing…”
Lovely…
@ ^ CaitieCat, getaway driver : No, I’m really not.
As a matter of fact I’m the victim of bullying far more than I’ve ever been the perpetrator of it.
I bear you no ill will whatsoever. I empathise with you and have been through shit like that myself. But that analogy is utterly wrong and very hurtful.
PS. I do not think you are and won’t call you anti-Semitic.
Yeah, Hamas is responsible for everything Israel has done to the Palestinian population for the last 50 years. The Israel government never had a choice but to invade and occupy the territories, suppress all the rights of the population, put them behind walls, and blockade the territories to starve the population…
That’s the exact same logic used by bullies. Both sides do it and neither take any responsibility (but I’m not saying they are equivalent). But when you’re in charge of a country, there are laws you should follow and you should be held accountable for your own actions. Especially if you’ve been ignoring every international calls for decades.
StevoR:
I’ve been bullied. I’ve sometimes responded by taking a swing at a bully’s face--and usually been left on my hands and knees vomiting from the resulting punch in the gut.
The party line is that the Palestinians would have been fine if they hadn’t fled their homes in the Six Days’ War--that Israelis drove around in vans with loudspeakers begging them to stay in their homes and not worry. Unfortunately the silly old things believed that Nasser was going to push the Israelis into the sea, and they didn’t want to be caught in the crossfire. If we pretend that story was the unvarnished truth, it doesn’t justify the decision not to let them return to their homes.
If we accept as true that Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, etc., refuse to accept Palestinian refugees--which I do accept--that doesn’t justify Israel’s decision to corral them in camps. The choice isn’t “leave the country or live in the camps.” Most of them (the ones who weren’t already refugees from the 1948 war) had homes in Mandatory Palestine, and were prevented from returning to them. Their homes were since given, in many cases, to Israeli Jews. This is not humane treatment.
Having corralled them in camps, having established checkpoints restricting their movements, and having blocked them from even seeking day jobs inside Israel proper, they are in desperate economic circumstances. Anger at occupation, and economic desperation, makes some of them willing to don explosive vests, and others willing to fire pitiful, mostly homemade, rockets into Israel. I don’t excuse these behaviors, any more than I excuse my decision to strike out at my bullies. However, the analogy is apt. In fear and desperation I struck out--fear and desperation not of my making, but of the bullies’--and I received a disproportionate, overwhelming answer of force.
The bullies then tattled on me for “starting it.” If your timeline includes only that recess period, they were right. As Bibi Netanyahu has said, “That’s a perfectly sensible view, if your sense of history begins with breakfast this morning.” In the larger context of an entire school year, though, it becomes clear that I was consistently the victim of a vastly superior force, who waffled between running and hiding, finding excuses to skip recess, and sometimes lashing out, but always and consistently suffering much more than any of my bullies.
… their “unimaginable restraint” in Gaza.
Well, it is practically impossible to imagine (to visualize) a negative quantity.
Poor Israel, getting picked on for the ungrateful attitude of those multi-generational Palestinians they keep so well in their concentration camps.
If Israel had no restraint Gaza could be done away with in 30 minutes.
If Hamas had nukes there would be no Tel Aviv.
Did you by chance see Jon Stewart Monday night? Mano, you are usually posting Stewart or Colbert, and I have enjoyed them thoroughly through this blog. So let’s here discuss physics, or atheism, or the history of Ceylon, all topics in which you have some credible expertise and therefore some usefulness as a rational referee.
Yes, because Professor Singham doesn’t have any knowledge of living through sectarian violence, he obviously can’t be expected to know immoral violence when he sees it. Excellent point, except for those pesky facts…
One minor point for our second favorite genocide enthusiast to consider. Hamas was created by Israel. When the Palestinians were herded into their concentration camp and were forbidden by the occupying power to have contact with the outside world, then what did the Israeli governments think was going to happen? Did they think the Palestinians would sit idly by, grateful for any crumbs Israel might toss their way? Even our second favorite genocide enthusiast should be able to come up with the right answer to this given enough hints.
I doubt our favorite genocide enthusiast, Mr Frankenburger-Fan himself, would be able to figure this out, regardless of how many hints are given.
That echoes what Bill Maher was saying on his show last Friday: Hamas would kill every man, woman and child in Israel if they had the ability; Israel does have the weaponry to to kill every Palestinian in Gaza, but have restrained themselves to only killing several hundred, therefore they have the moral high ground.
Trickster Goddess @17, but realpolitik considerations* lauded as a “moral high ground” are less than convincing, and here the metaphorical high ground is a swamp.
—
* I doubt that a literal genocide would be seen as good strategy.
I don’t quite understand the logic of comments #13 and #17.
Let us assume for the moment that the hypothetical that Hama would nuke Israel if they had nukes is correct, even though the only basis for it is the unsubstantiated assumption that the leaders of Hama are suicidal maniacs since a nuclear war initiated by them would be insane and result in their own immediate annihilation and that of all of Gaza.
Even granting the hypothetical, let’s find an analogy. Suppose someone is out to harm me. Do I have the moral high ground merely because I do not obtain massive weaponry and kill him and his family and his neighbors as well in addition to bringing the entire neighborhood to rubble?
I don’t quite understand the logic of comments #13 and #17.
Let us assume for the moment that the hypothetical that Hama would nuke Israel if they had nukes is correct, even though the only basis for it is the unsubstantiated assumption that the leaders of Hama are suicidal maniacs since a nuclear war initiated by them would be insane and result in their own immediate annihilation and that of all of Gaza.
Even granting the hypothetical, let’s find an analogy. Suppose someone is out to harm the US president. Does the president have the moral high ground merely because he does not use the massive weaponry at his disposal to kill his enemy and his family and his neighbors as well in addition to bringing his entire neighborhood to rubble?
Hamas would kill every man, woman and child in Israel if they had the ability; Israel does have the weaponry to to kill every Palestinian in Gaza, but have restrained themselves to only killing several hundred, therefore they have the moral high ground.
Bizzare. That’s like saying that Mike Tyson has the moral high ground because he only punched a toddler once, when the toddler punched him.
Moral high ground is when the powerful, who cannot be restrained by others, restrain themselves. Because they understand that the weak that cannot protect themselves from the strong, are due restraint from the strong.
Israel’s trying to have it both ways: “oooh, look, we deserve a cookie because we could have been fully genocidal but instead resorted to a bit of ethnic cleansing.”
Mano,
If you are evenhanded between one side who will live peacefully and another side devoted to violence, you are supporting the violent side.
Israel would co-exist peacefully with the Palestinians. Hamas charter is dedicated to the destruction of Israel. Hamas is no longer some fringe terrorist group; it is the elected government of Gaza. The condition of democracy in Gaza that, I remind all of you,once was said if met would result in peace. It has not.
Did you believe the U.S. Dept. of state when it reasoned that the upside to Hamas being elected was now it was saddled with the responsibility of governance? Did you nod along with the idea that this would cause Hamas to mature? Did you ever argue that the Israeli occupation of Gaza was the ‘root cause’ of the violence, attributing no agency to Hamas? Israel left Gaza. It does not want it. It does not want to bomb it. It does not want to occupy it. The random bombs continued.
You will say now that Gaza is not a ‘real state’. That if it were it could control all its imports and exports without Israeli inspection (food and medical supplies continue, even through the present fight). Israel cannot take the chance that something far more dangerous than a rocket gets into Gaza. Given the recent historical record of Hamas, why should they?
There is talk of disproportion of power between the sides as if this variable alone is morality. What matters is how you use your power. When Israeli teenagers killed this Palestinian teen Netanyahu condemns the act and brings the perps to justice and warns his populace against thinking they did some kind of good thing. When the Palestinians snuck into Itamar and decapitated a baby Palestinian newspapers praised the act along with Hamas, the Gazan government. There is a disproportion between the parties, yes, and it is morality.
Reversed that for you, since the logic works both ways. If Israel’s actions are rendered good and just by charaterising them as a reaction to the actions of Palestinians, then the reverse can be done. You say that Israel’s violence is justified by the attacks launched by Palestinians, that Israel is only defending itself, but you avoid making the same concession for those that have recieved much greater violence and have done much less harm.
You say that the Gazans could spare themselves the recurring beatings by ousting Hamas and meekly submitting to their own opression, but I and many others are saying with renewed vigour, that Israel could have averted so much more by not opressing them in the first place. Remember, Israel is in charge of this war, they are the architects of the misery of those in Gaza especially because they are the ones that displaced the eariler inhabitants and confined them in a small corral with air, sea, and land blockades. Why are you surprised that they are hated?
@13, 17
By your logic, If I shot half of someones cattle herd, I should be praised because I only killed half of them even though I had the ammunition to kill them all.
Or, if I drug and then rape someone, I should be praised because at least I didn’t also murder them while they were helpless.
It’s funny how easy it is to demonstrate the injustice of Israel’s actions; all we need to do is remove the pro-Israeli sentiment and BAM! Obviously criminal activity is obviously criminal.
@22. md : Very well said and seconded by me.
@21. Marcus Ranum : What a ridiculously absurd comparison! Hamas aren’t toddlers and firing rockets is a lot more serious than throwing punches. israeli civilians can and have been killed by Hamas rocketfire. You okay with that?
@16. Al Dente :
Numbers adding for ease of reference and understanding.
1) Who are you referring to precisely there? As far as I’m aware nobody here is a “genocide enthusiast.” I’m certainly not -- I oppose and condemn genocide and think it is utterly wrong -- and Colnago80 who no longer seems to comment here for unknown reasons also has previously stated that he too prefers a peaceful negotiated settlement. There are no commenters I know of supporting genocide. Supporting Israel’s right to protect itself from enemy attack is something completely different.
2) Not really it actually wasn’t. Israel may have enabled and encouraged it somewhat at one very early point back in the early 1980’s but it was actually created as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and six other Palestinians.* Early on its history, Hamas wasn’t as violent and powerful of course as it soon became.
All this relatively ancient history is also irrelevant to what Hamas is doing now and in no way justifies it starting and continuing this latest war.
3) That statement is simply false. There are no “concentration camps” in Israel and claiming otherwise is a silly and offensive lie. Gaza isn’t a concentration camp nor are the West Jordanian bank town as nor are Israelis jails. This implies an attempt to diminish the significance and reality of the Shoah which you should be utterly ashamed of.
Nor are Palestinians cutoff from the world, they have been permitted transport at crossings, Hamas leader Khalid Meshal is based in and gives the orders from Damascus or maybe now elsewhere, they have the tunnels of course journalists and activists and others frequently visit and are even currently inside Gaza as well as the West Bank.
4) Well since your earlier premise addressed at (3) is false you’ve already lost on that point. Israel simply wasn’t doing what you claim. However I think when the Israelis unilaterally handed back land the israelis won at high cost in blood, sweat and tears, they expected peace and anew understanding to develop -- not being fired on and attacked by ever more dangerous and nasty Islamists Jihadists. The idea that the Jewish state could swap land for peace ” has in fact been comprehensively demolished by the the collapse of the Oslo accords, Arafat’s second intifada war and the subsequent Hamas control of Gaza and its use as a terrorist base and enemy state.
5) “Crumbs” like peace and their own state -- something the Palestinians claim to want yet have repeated rejected in favour of attempting to exterminate all of Israel? Those are a lot more than crumbs. Israel has always been serious about trying to get peace and move on -- it has made enormous painful concessions and sacrifices in numerous failed attempts to end this conflict. Yet the terrorist, Arab side still refuses to acknowledge Israel even exists and demonises it completely.
Why do you, Al Dente, not see this and why do you keep arguing for the Hamas and Israel-hating side?
* Source : Wikipedia -- Hamas page : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas#Early_Islamic_activism_in_Gaza
@23. Holms :
Hamas fault -- yes. This war is happening because Hamas are firing rockets and innocent people and won’t stop doing so. (Gaza is the name for the land, Hamas is the problem and its current ruler.)
That would be a false statement -- the Israel Defence Forces are firing at guilty Hamas terrorists who are committing multiple war crimes including using their own civilians as human shields. Israel takes extreme measures to try to prevent innocent deaths, Has does the opposite. This war is happening because Hamas are firing rockets at innocent people and have refused ceasefires and so, yes, they have full responsibility for all the consequences of it.
Yes. Hamas (not Gaza again) have made absolutely no secret of that! Hamas at least revel in and celebrate all the bloodshed that they’ve created and these are the same people who danced in the streets on 9-11. Hamas terrorists have proudly waved their blood-stained hands in the air after lynching Israeli soldiers.
Yes, they really are -- and if you think otherwise, then you don’t know anything much or true about them.
That statement is the exact opposite of reality. Simply wrong.
The IDF is NOT doing terrorism. It is fighting terrorism. This war is a response to Hamas ‘es rocketfire and terrorism and that is the undenibale reality.
Mano Singham’s failure to answer the questions I posed at #3 is noted. I think we therefore must conclude he is unable to do so and thus concedes I am right.
Hamas as I’ve noted numerous times is to blame for all this conflict and could stop it at any time by ceasing to fire rockets, ceasing terrorist attacks and preferably surrendering themselves to justice for their war crimes.
As you can see, the logic doesn’t work both ways because of the factual reality of this issue.
Hamas are terrorists, Israel is not.
Hamas started this war, Israel did not.
Hamas are trying to kill innocent people, Israel are not.
Because it is *untrue* to say that Hamas are defending themselves! Hamas btw NOT the Palestinians as a whole. Israel isn’t attacking the West Bank Palestinians -- and we all know why. Except maybe you it seems. It is because those W.Bank Palestinians are NOT attacking Israel.
Israel hasn’t oppressed them. Israel gave them an opportunity and their own freedom from Israel’s rule -- and then Hamas took over, ended that freedom, destroyed their opportunities for happier better lives and is oppressing the other Gazans. How totally ignorant are you -- lookup the Gaza disengagement and what happened next incl. the Fatah-Hamas Palestinian civil war.
One side of this war -- Hamas, unfortunately, is in charge of the other side of it hence the horrific carnage is continuing to everyone’s torment.
Correction :
Hamas are NOT monsters. They are NOT out to kill civilians who pose them no threat.
Yes, Hamas really are – and if you think otherwise, then you don’t know anything much or true about Hamas.
Not all Gazans are Hamas members.
@ 24 StevoR
You just don’t get it do you? Nobody is “okay” with the handful of Israeli deaths, they’re just also not okay with the slaughter of hundreds and hundreds of Palestinian civilians.
Most people here simply don’t share your bigoted mindset that a hundred Palestinian civilian lives aren’t worth one Israeli life. They think a life is a life whether it’s Palestinian or Israeli. Get that through your head and you’ll understand why the criticism is overwhelmingly of Israel in this current conflict.
You appeal to the factual reality of this issue?
“Hamas are terrorists, Israel is not.”
Yet Israel terrorises far more than Hamas does.
“Hamas started this war, Israel did not.”
Yet Israel is the one prosecuting the war, and the casualties are overwhelmingly within Gaza.
“Hamas are trying to kill innocent people, Israel are not.”
Yet Israel is the one succeeding at that, while is Hamas not.
—
The facts are what they are, and their import does not fit your narrative.
Bill Maher’s wrong, then. Hamas could be killing far more Israelis than they currently are; all they have to do is go back to suicide attacks, which they quit doing around ten years ago. The death toll from a year’s worth of rockets is nothing compared to the death toll from a few determined folks with guns or explosives. For that matter, they could be poisoning reservoirs and so forth. They could kill a lot more people if they were quiet about it.
Palestinian paramilitary groups use rockets for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that (as they believe) the rockets are more effective than any other form of force in pushing Israel to make concessions. Killing as many Israelis as possible is not the goal.
@ StevoR
Israel is doing itself a great disfavour in perpetuating the mindset that rationalises the dreadful things they are currently doing to innocent people. You are so steeped in that same mindset that you, too, seek to justify their own actions with apportionment of blame to others. They are responsible for their own actions StevoR.
“Baby, look what you have done. Why did you make me angry? Now I have to beat you up again… I told you to STFU, now you have to suffer the consequences.”
Bleeeaugh!!!
No, StevoR you ingenuous fuck! They have no other options. When Hamas shout jump, the IDF shouts “How high?”
[/snark]
The Israeli’s are NOT monsters. They are human beings visiting inhuman suffering on other human beings. They are BEHAVING like monsters.
They have, as I have noted previously, a perfect case study in conflict resolution. They could take the high road here and work towards a lasting solution. Instead they squander the remainder of what little good will they had in the world. How many centuries they going to keep this shit up?
30 years ago you would be saying:
Thank fuck you weren’t around to give anyone advice back then. What rather happened, was that a selfrighteous, warmongering government sat down with “terrorists”. They both left their guns and attitudes behind, cracked open a bottle of whiskey and poured their hearts out to each other.
No, the result is not perfect. But is the result better than having continued in the same old beligerent fashion?
HELL YES!
In every post he makes, it becomes clearer that Mano is a smart and good human individual.
(StevoR, why do you start addressing Mano as a “human individual”, yet fail to adress the human individuals in Gaza as such? That is what they are.)
Your wifebeater mentality really creeps me out. Please stop this.
Funny… How so many innocent people have died… In their homes… If the IDF is only firing at guilty Hamas terrorists. Are they all guilty, then?
@24
Don’t be coy, Al Dente is clearly referring to you. But if you dislike the term ‘genocide enthusiast’, why not something more general? How about ‘war crime enthusiast’? It’s actually unambiguously true*, what with your endless attempts to justify the current exercise in collective punishement (a war crime) and internment (another war crime).
So, I think that settles it. War crime enthusiast.
In your attempt to refute the idea that Israel created Hamas, you accidentally provided good evidence for that idea. You note that the Hamas of yesteryear was less violent than it is today, but you failed to ask the obvious question: why did they change? Why did their hate for Israel increase over time? Answer: Israel’s own actions. Repeated invasions and theft of Palestinian land, displacement of previously-peaceful inhabitants leading to the world’s only multi-generation internement camp, drilling boreholes immediately outside the Gaza strip -- not actually put to use, but to lower the local aquifer and make it hard for Palestine to access -- oh! water, food, fuel and hence electricity deprivation… the list is long and incredibly cruel.
Expecting millions of people -- or even one person, for that matter -- to simply tolerate this endless bullshit quietly is already heavily ignorant of their own outrage at their own quite similar treatment under nazism. Blaming them for their anger and having the goddamn cheek to call them the aggressor is another contemptible layer, and completely omits (intentionally) the fact that Israel has almost exclusively been the aggressor since its inception.
I don’t know much about the conditions in the West Bank, since that is in the news to a much lesser degree, but Gaza is most certainly a larger than usual internment camp. “A camp where persons are confined [check], usually without hearings [check] and typically under harsh conditions [check], often as a result of their membership in a group the government has identified as suspect. [check, check, checkeroo]”
I can’t remember if I was replying to you or colnago80 in another thread, but I have already had to point out to one of you that Gaza is under land, sea and air blockade. Also, feel free to look up the Yasser Arafat International airport to confirm that it ran for less than two years before being forced closed. Later, it was destroyed by airstrike. Finally, in a gesture that can only be described as rubbing salt into the wound, bulldozers were brought in to destroy the runway, just in case, even though it was already useless from the earlier airstrike.
I bet you can’t guess which nation did this. Australia.
Whoops, no, it was Israel.
Also, your wording really gives the lie away: they have been permitted transport, and only at crossings. Wait, crossings you say? Yes, designated passages through the giant wall built around all of Gaza’s land border that happens to be patrolled by armed guards.
Your dishonesty is goddamn palpable
Except is isn’t, therefore he hasn’t.
……………………………………………………What the fuck? This is the exact moment in which you threw away all of your credibility, not that there was much left. You are a liar and apologist for war crimes, there is no ambiguity on this point.
*’Genocide enthusiast’ on the other hand is somewhat arguable, since “Genocide is the systematic destruction of all or part of a racial, ethnic, religious or national group” and hence rests on the interpretation of ‘in whole or in part‘.
Following up on my sentence above: “I can’t remember if I was replying to you or colnago80 in another thread, but I have already had to point out to one of you that Gaza is under land, sea and air blockade.”
I just checked, and it turns out that that reply was directed at you, StevoR. The fact that you simply continue to repeat the lie with no acknowledgement that it has been refuted puts you in the same ‘intellectual honesty’ category as Ken Ham.
Ban Ki Moon is shocked, shocked, to find the U.N. collaborating with Hamas to hide rockets in a U.N. run school.
http://news.yahoo.com/u-n-chief-alarmed-rockets-found-gaza-school-222549008.html;_ylt=A0LEVjtoAdFTYQ8AtL4PxQt.
The disproportionate morality extends to the U.N.
@ md
Meh. I remember those kinds of “states”. The Apartheid government was forever spinning off those things to dump excess menials, on crappy land, out of the way. They were called Bantustans. (Hey I can’t make this shit up… google that word.)
No, they didn’t “mature”, nor govern “responsibly”. How the fuck could they? They never had the resources. And the Apartheid regime did not want to bomb them (and unlike Israel, they didn’t bomb them), nor occupy them.
No md, it’s a fucking Bantustan! Pseudo-national dumping ground.
@ StevoR
Pissant salonfascist.
@ Holms
Yup… tacky, devious, iniquitous tricks … boereverneukery. There are a whole host pertaining just to fuck with Palestine’s water supply. What kind of sick bastards would sink so low, I wonder?
When I write “The Great Big Book of Charlatanism”, there’ll be a whole chapter devoted just to Israel.