The Israel-Palestine Conflict Mk.III

This is all such trite *******s.

So, Jews are persecuted on and off by Christians and Muslims for at least a thousand years and conclude that they can't fully trust Christians and Muslims to keep them safe. And its the Jews who are the racist ones! Perlease.

Then, having said that its complete bull**** to compare the Holocaust with events in the West Bank and Gaza, you want us to accept that there is no real difference between some members of the IDF and the Nazis. Why? Because at the end of the day someone was killed as a result of their actions. Again, perlease.

So do you think it's anti-Semetic to use the word holocaust to describe the Armenian holocaust using the word holocaust? I know a lot of zionists feel very protective of the holocaust being exclusively Jewish.

I do view them emotionally because it is murder of innocent people

not only are you being anti-semitic your also infringing there copyright! how dare you claim that other people have been massacred in history!

It's interesting that you perceive Jews, Christians and Muslims to be homogenous and inflexible collectives with no trace of individualism, and that all within said groups share the same outlook and conduct. If a Jew says that they "can't trust non-Jews to keep them safe" then it's no less racist than a white bigot saying that they "can't trust non-whites to keep them safe". It's an intolerant position that isn't grounded in fact. By your reckoning, because "Jews have been persecuted...for at least a thousand years" it would be impossible for Jews to ever be racist. That because of tragedies inflicted on Jews in the past, then Jews deserve special dispensation when it comes to intolerance directed toward others. That's exactly the sort of mentality that defines Israel's conduct toward the Palestinians.

I've asked you whether you condemn two separate things. The first is the obscene propagandistic legitimation campaign wielded by the Israeli right, where the Holocaust and other persecutions are used to justify an aggressive foreign policy, and, second, war crimes committed by IDF servicemen which have not been investigated or punished. Instead of doing so you've just resorted to using petty swear words. What a shame. It's no wonder that Israel gets off with its crimes so lightly when you're not even willing to condemn its most flagrant breaches of international law and human rights.

Your position of liberal purity would be so much stronger if you didn't do exactly what you condemn. So its racist to make generalisations about Jews and their history of persecution at the hands of Christians and Muslims. However, its OK for you to say that your weird interpretation of what I said (I have no idea how you go from what I said to the notion that Jews cannot be racist) is the sort of mentality driving Israel's policy. Odd how one generalisation is racist and the other is fine.

I'm not talking about "operatives". I'm referring to civilians. You can't call the shooting of an enemy soldier in war a "murder". It can conceivably be argued that a Palestinian civilian killed in a bombing raid on a civilian area, where there is almost a guarantee that civilians will be killed, is a murderous war crime. That's in spite of the stated motive behind it. A Pakistani or Afghan civilian killed in a particular drone attack, where it's also conceivable that civilians will be killed, can too be placed under this heading. Indeed, that's why raids of the OBL-sort are more desirable than a drone attack; because there's a near-guarantee that the casualties will be combatants. I would say that "an American civilian killed in the World Trade Center attack" has neither more nor less worth than a Palestinian civilian killed in an indiscriminate bombing of occupied Palestinian territory (which, of course, shouldn't be under Israeli control according to all standards of international law) or a Jewish civilian killed in a Nazi death camp or a Kurdish civilian killed by Iraqi poison gas or an Afghan civilian slaughtered by the Taliban or, of course, an Afghan civilian slaughtered by an American soldier (as I have argued in the past). I find it grossly disingenous to compare and contrast the consequences of different atrocities. One can argue about the motives behind them, and the nature of the groups which conduct them, but that's a completely separate question. Do you think there's a real difference between Samir Kuntar and Shimon Peres, when the latter has been responsible for more deliberate civilian deaths? If so, do the actions of Peres make Kuntar's actions any less grotesque, or his victims any less worthy of consideration? Of course not. The nuances of what is and is not acceptable in conditions of war are not made any more or less important by the stated motives of those behind such atrocities.

You argue that because Jews "are persecuted on and off by Christians and Muslims for at least a thousand years", then "the Jews" - who you seem to see as an homogenous unit (a bit like Hitler did) instead of numerous individuals with varying political inclinations - are not "the racist ones". By such nonsense you fail to make distinctions between Jews with an intolerant, bigoted and jingoistic outlook, such as those within the Israeli government and settler movements, and other Jews, i.e. civilians who were slaughtered in the Nazi genocide. Past crimes do not diminish the severity of other murders. But I haven't heard you acknowledge that once, even though I've called you up on it repeatedly. Why? I feel that when people repeatedly evade calls to condemn (i) obscene Nazi analogies by the Israeli government, and (ii) Nazi-like behaviour by specific people within the IDF (crimes which have been concealed and unpunished by Israel, under the pretense that the operation as a whole was to keep Jews safe), then the only explanation for it is an uneasy conscience or secret support for such behaviour. By what standard on earth is it racist for me to accuse a government of directing foreign policy with an absurd outlook? If you don't think Israel's stated priority lies with an ethnocentric obsession with "defending" the Jewish people - as counterproductive as it is - then you're right to say that it does not warrant further discussion, because you're simply an extremist.

You're either obtuse or deliberately disingenuous. Just as not all Christians nor all Muslims persecuted Jews, so too not all Jews reached the conclusion I suggested. Only a fool would think I was suggesting that every single Jew thought the same way on this topic.

Now, as for whether past crimes diminish other murders - of course they do. Again only an idiot would think they don't. Suppose, for example, that a man has a large family of 10 daughters. Now, this man and his daughters are blue. One by one, 9 of his daughters are murdered by green people who came to his house and killed them. One time a green person comes to his house and he murders the green person. Murder no doubt. But as severe as someone else who murders a green person. Piss off!

I don't find it obscene when some Jews refer to the Holocaust when discussing their world view and their motivations. Again you can piss off if you want to suggest that Jews shouldn't refer to their past when discussing the present.

It ought to go without saying that I condemn any murder. However, "Nazi-like"? Really? Didn't you start our conversation by pointing out the ludicrousness of such comparisons and yet now you are using it freely.

I conclude that you don't find such comparisons "distasteful and inaccurate" as you first claimed. The only thing you dislike is Israeli-supporters using the Holocaust and other persecutions in support of Israel. Using it to bash Israel is actually fine in your book as you have done so yourself. I don't really have anything more to say to you.

Then it would have served you better to word your argument a bit more carefully. You can't clearly state something and then, when picked up on it, say that you didn't mean it that way. The statement "Jews are persecuted on and off by Christians and Muslims for at least a thousand years and conclude that they can't fully trust Christians and Muslims to keep them safe. And its the Jews who are the racist ones! Perlease." is incredibly simplistic, and has no place in serious discourse. It is objectively racist for someone not to trust non-Jews solely on the basis that they are not Jews. This is an indisputable fact.

Your 'green person'/'blue person' argument is convoluted and quite strange, judging by your apparent need to keep bringing people's colour, ethnicity or creed into things. Every legal definition on earth contradicts it, considering a murder is always a murder, regardless of the historical background of particular groups. It's truly detestable for people to refer to previous cases of murder in order to justify those that are committed in the name of the group they purport to belong to.

As for your other point that I "start our conversation by pointing out the ludicrousness of such comparisons and yet now you are using it freely." You're quite clearly confusing things. I point out the ludicrousness of comparing the cumulative actions of Israel to those of the Nazis, among other things like comparing Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto, and other obvious anti-Semitic soundbites. It's certainly not ludicrous to compare an IDF soldier who deliberately shoots three young children and an old woman outside their home to a Nazi. In fact, it hurts Israel when it doesn't reprimand these individuals, because it only contributes to the country's moral degeneration. Your passivity in letting Israel do whatever it wants will only hurt the Israeli people in the long term.

Why do you insist on seeing the world without grey and then claiming that I am being simplistic?

In your worldview, in your morality, do motivation and context not matter?

Where did I say it didn't matter? If you look at post #4957, I clearly said that "important as they are, I'm not talking about general motivation or the systems in which soldiers operate. I'm not talking about events as a whole." I'm talking about the qualitative nature of these murders as standalone cases. At the end of the day, the IDF soldier who executes three young children and an old woman outside their home is motivated by the same bloodlust as an Einsatzgruppen trooper doing the same thing, give or take some ideological differences. You'll note that in that same post I said "It would be insincere and obscene to mention Israeli policy in the same breath as gas chambers, slave labour or so-called "medical" experiments" because, of course, a reasonable comparison ceases at the point of criminal shootings.

The Nazi's actions are certainly more institutionalized, as I already observed in post #4952, but the IDF man's behaviour is still institutionalized, given that he was not reprimanded for his actions, that IDF soldiers were ordered to behave wantonly in one of the most densely populated areas on earth, and that violence and aggression are obviously integral to all armed forces. To counter your accusation, this takes varying shades of grey into account more than your apparent position of 'Nazis bad, Israel good', 'Jews vs. Gentiles', and so on.

You make a number of assumptions that are to greater or lesser extents unfounded.

The first is that there are IDF soldiers guilty of what you accuse. I don't, for a second, trust any "testimony" from Palestinians about that.

Second, you assume that the IDF never reprimands soldiers for things. This is flat out untrue.

Third, you assume that the motivation of a soldier who hypothetically kills unarmed Palestinian civilians in Gaza is the same as a member of the Einsatzgruppen. Unless you equate the Israelis with Nazis this assumption is quite ridiculous. The situations are so different that to assume that the motivations are identical is unfounded. In one case you have a soldier fighting armed terrorists, dressed as civilians hiding among unarmed civilians in a dense urban environment. Moreover, the general group of people he is fighting are directly responsible for the murder of hundreds of Israeli civilians and continued rocket attacks against thousands more. So if it happens that he kills unarmed civilians we do not know whether that was a mistake, whether he panicked, whether he thought he was under threat or whether his hatred for the terrorists had spilled over. To compare him to a member of a group whose entire role was to roam the countryside in order to hunt down and murder unarmed Jews who belonged to a group that had never posed any threat at all to Germany is obscene.

Finally, to generalise all armed forces into the same is likewise obscene. Yes soldiers are trained to kill. Does that make all soldiers essentially indistinguishable from Nazis? **** off. Grow up. Please find your way to the real world. All this moral equivocation is boring and silly. I have no time for it.

If you want to move the discussion on, please do so. But don't expect me to respond any more to ridiculous comparisons of Israelis to Nazis. Either you compare everyone (or at least all soldiers to Nazis) or you don't compare Israeli ones to them. If you try and compare only Israeli soldiers to them then I won't respond because it is simply ludicrous and not worthy of further responses.

Once again, I don't compare "all soldiers" to Nazis. I've never said that because "soldiers are trained to kill...that make all soldiers essentially indistinguishable from Nazis". I've said that war crimes were "more institutionalized" (the third time I've had to say that now) within the Nazi system than they are within the IDF system. I compare this soldier to a Nazi. As I've also compared a particular U.S. soldier in Afghanistan to them (RE: Robert Bales). Deliberate executions of women and children were fundamental Nazi traits. I don't see why you find the comparison so absurd.

You may not believe any Palestinian testimony, but that simply exposes you as an extremist with a deep-rooted mistrust toward Palestinian civilians for the sole reason that they are Palestinians. It may serve you better to ignore the sufferings of Palestinians, but for most people it's been going on too long. Furthermore, I did not just relay "testimony". What I relayed is a detailed report by Amnesty International into war crimes committed in Gaza during the 2008-09 invasion. Tell me, what should I trust? A respected international human rights organization like Amnesty International, or your fantastical faith that IDF soldiers can never be motivated to commit war crimes? Hmm. And you say that I need to grow up?

As for your third point. Again, it does not withstand close scrutiny. To cite this for a third time, "The evidence indicates that none could have reasonably been perceived as a threat to the soldiers who shot them, and that there was no fighting going on in their vicinity when they were shot". The examples I detailed were overt cases of, (i) civilians being shot while taking relatives to hospital after being forced out of their homes by a white phosphorous shell, (ii) a woman being shot near a group of women carrying a white flag, and (iii) three young children and their grandmother being shot at close-range in front of their homes. They don't sound like cases of "mistakes", "panic" or being "under threat" to me. Are you going to wilfully ignore the "testimony" of a Palestinian woman who's lost her mother and three of her children to an IDF executioner because it counters your presumption of Israel as a means to "defend Jews", or a shining beacon of the world, or whatever you may see it as? Not only do you want to ignore, and by that not prosecute, war crimes, but by doing so you seemingly want Israel not to prosecute crimes carried out by their own soldiers. What good is that going to do? You're simply a fanatic and an ideologue.

I don't distrust Palestinian testimony purely because they are Palestinian. I distrust it because so many many times in the past Palestinians (by which I mean a large number of individual Palestinians either acting alone or conspiring together - you pedantic moron) have claimed that the IDF have done something that it turns out they didn't do and that their accusers knew they didn't do. Many times in the past Palestinians have been caught staging events such as funerals or attacks against them. And since Amnesty International base their reports on testimony from Palestinians, their reports are no more trustworthy than the Palestinians themselves.

The problem here is that you of course believe whatever you are told if it is against Israel. So if someone (no matter who) claims that an Israeli committed a war crime or a deliberate murder you will believe them. If an Israeli investigation reveals that the claim is untrue and so no action is taken, then you prefer to believe that they are lying bastards who are evil and anyone who trusts the Israelis over the Palestinians is a fanatic.

However, consider the situation when an Israeli did undeniably commit an act of unprovoked murder - Boruch Goldstein. Did Israel ignore it? No. He was condemned by everyone. The political group to which he belonged was broken up. Others who were suspected of sharing his belief were forced to hand over their weapons.

So to summarise. Palestinians (meaning people who are Palestinian) have been caught on so many occasions lying deliberately about the actions of Israel and its soldiers that I do not trust accusations whose only source is people who are Palestinian. Since that is the only source relied on by Amnesty, I do not trust Amnesty on this issue either. Without knowing more details I trust the Israeli authorities over the claims of Palestinians.

However, you choose to believe the claims of Palestinians absolutely and therefore conclude that the Israeli investigations that find those claims false are merely cover-ups. I find your position to be the more fanatical and ideologically based since mine, at least, is based on actual fact. Even you, I think, will find it hard to deny that Palestinians have made hundreds or thousands of false claims about Israel, continue to do so to this very day and have been caught out staging events for sympathy. You are free to choose to believe them absolutely (maybe because you think that to not do so is racist) but I think that makes you either naive and foolish or else fanatical and ideologically blinded. I personally prefer to rely on experience which tells me to be extremely hesitant about believing anything that someone Palestinian claims about Israel.

EDIT: Just to clarify that last point because you're bound to get the wrong idea. I don't dismiss the claim out of hand because a Palestinian makes it. I am suspicious of the claim because a Palestinian made it. I therefore have more faith in investigation by Israeli authorities and when those investigations find the claim untrue I believe them since I have no evidence to the contrary other than the original claim which I was suspicious of to begin with.

You're free to ignore Amnesty International all you want, but it will not suffice to say that Israeli investigations - which you seem to believe are non-partisan - are more trustworthy, simply by referring to the case of Baruch Goldstein. On the contrary, Goldstein is a perfect example that exposes Israeli hypocrisy. Goldstein was reprimanded because he uncontroversially violated Israeli law in the Occupied Territories, and, as a religious extremist, was an easy target. Let's look at the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre. What were the casualty figures? 29 civilian deaths. An orthodox Jewish fanatic carries out a massacre of Palestinians, we can all shout and scream about it, we can disband his party, etc. After all, no-one likes it when "one of our own" commits mass murder, right? Unfortunately, it's only half of the story. When it comes to less easy targets, i.e. those in the Defense Ministry, the entire situation changes. Now, let's look at the Qana massacre in Lebanon in 1996. What happened there? The IDF relentlessly shelled a UN compound, killing 106 civilians. Without even resorting to testimony, Amnesty International concluded that "the IDF intentionally attacked the UN compound, although the motives for doing so remain unclear. The IDF have failed to substantiate their claim that the attack was a mistake. Even if they were to do so they would still bear responsibility for killing so many civilians by taking the risk to launch an attack so close to the UN compound", and Human Rights Watch has identified that "The decision of those who planned the attack to choose a mix of high-explosive artillery shells that included deadly anti-personnel shells designed to maximize injuries on the ground—and the sustained firing of such shells, without warning, in close proximity to a large concentration of civilians — violated a key principle of international humanitarian law." It's far more difficult to indict a figure within the Israeli establishment, as opposed to a known psychopath and religious fanatic. Shall we look at who this Israeli establishment figure is? Shall we? Well, he's none other than the current President of Israel: Shimon Peres. Allowed to run for public office after being guilty of what human rights organizations have concluded to be a war crime. Just like Ariel Sharon was allowed to run for office after the massacres at Sabra and Shatila. This is why internal investigations of the IDF can't be taken seriously.

Hmm so when something goes wrong during war time it is hard to pin the blame on the guys right at the top of the chain of command. Shocking. I'm totally shocked and flabbergasted. I would never have suspected it. I, like you, would assume that the Prime Minister of a country at war would be automatically banned from further office and put on trial if one the countries soldiers commits a war crime. That's clearly how the entire world operates. Typical Israel for not acting like the rest of the world!

And now that the sarcasm is over. In the case you cite of Qana, the most that could be pinned on Israel was that they shouldn't have attacked the area because they knew that a UN base was nearby. Only an idiot would think that anyone in any position of high authority in Israel would have wanted the Israeli army to kill 100 civilians in a UN compound. Clearly that result was not wanted and not anticipated. So it boils down to whether Israel should have refrained from attacking the spot where Hezbollah terrorists attacked from because Hezbollah was using the UN compound as a human shield effectively. And this is clearly a grey area. Don't forget that before this incident, Hezbollah had murdered UN troops who had tried to prevent them from firing on Israel from so close to UN compounds.

Yes it was a terrible thing to have happened and there is a strong case to say that Israel should have let the terrorists get away because of the risk to the UN compound. However, Israel claims that they thought the compound was somewhere else and it was a tragic mistake. I don't, for a second, believe that Israel would have deliberately tried to kill civilians in the compound because such a thing makes no sense at all. I only think that they didn't care enough about those civilians and the UN to give Hezbollah free reign to fire on Israel by firing from such places.

But as for the claim that Shimon Peres should never have been allowed to stand for office again because he was Prime Minister at the time - that's just stupid nonsense that clearly isn't applied by any other country.

Perhaps, though, you could enlighten me. If you were in charge of the IDF and you knew that Hezbollah were firing at you from next to UN compounds. Would you resolve never to fire back because of the risk to civilians? Would you leave your own soldiers and civilians undefended in order to save civilians whose fellow countrymen are putting them in harms way?

To repeat, "the IDF have failed to substantiate their claim that the attack was a mistake". You're making claims that even the IDF themselves are unable to convincingly demonstrate as true. It may "make no sense" for you to believe that Israel deliberately committed war crimes in Lebanon, but we already know that you have an unrelenting faith in Israeli compassion, despite the detailed non-partisan evidence to the contrary. You have every right to believe that the "result was not wanted and not anticipated", but that analysis contradicts that of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and all non-partisan observances. As it happens, I'm not going to get into an intricate debate about Hezbollah. I have no interest in what tactics Hezbollah may have been using to defend Lebanese soil this time. (You ask: "Would you resolve never to fire back because of the risk to civilians? Would you leave your own soldiers and civilians undefended in order to save civilians whose fellow countrymen are putting them in harms way?"; the answer is that I wouldn't be illegally occupying part of another sovereign state in the first place). I'm talking about the comparative responses to two different massacres: one carried out by the IDF, the other carried out by a fanatical zealous settler.