What should Israel do with Gaza?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is another great piece. Why havent the Palestinians been able to succeed? http://www.meforum.org/4758/stop-the-jew-hatred-and-build-palestine

Er, isn't this a bit simplistic, along the lines of "forgive and forget"? You're telling the oppressed people to forget about stolen land and property and just get on with things? That's not to defend Hamas at all, but actually, yes, Hamas is not just one thing. Hamas has a government wing that runs municipal services, collects taxes, runs schools and daycares and does the sort of mundane things that governments do. And there is, as a matter of fact, a theory that says Israel had serious concerns that a Palestinian unity government where Hamas has all but ceded power to Fatah may actually accomplish things, so it decided to start another spiral of a terrible, but familiar status quo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is another great piece. Why havent the Palestinians been able to succeed? http://www.meforum.org/4758/stop-the-jew-hatred-and-build-palestine

Er, isn't this a bit simplistic, along the lines of "forgive and forget"? You're telling the oppressed people to forget about stolen land and property and just get on with things? That's not to defend Hamas at all, but actually, yes, Hamas is not just one thing. Hamas has a government wing that runs municipal services, collects taxes, runs schools and daycares and does the sort of mundane things that governments do. And there is, as a matter of fact, a theory that says Israel had serious concerns that a Palestinian unity government where Hamas has all but ceded power to Fatah may actually accomplish things, so it decided to start another spiral of a terrible, but familiar status quo.

But everything Hamas does centers around hatred of the Jews. In the schools, they teach the children to hate Jews from preschool. And as clearly evidenced by the society, all the money they are given goes into building terror tunnels and missiles - they are not paying civil salaries, building infrastructure (and you can blame Israel for them not having building materials, but they certainly had materials to build the tunnels).

They destroyed the infrastructure - green houses, irrigation systems - that the Israelis left behind when they withdrew in 2005. And they did it out of hatred. They were finally given what they wanted - no more occupation and they threw away the opportunity to thrive and instead elected Hamas, a party of hate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is another great piece. Why havent the Palestinians been able to succeed? http://www.meforum.org/4758/stop-the-jew-hatred-and-build-palestine

Er, isn't this a bit simplistic, along the lines of "forgive and forget"? You're telling the oppressed people to forget about stolen land and property and just get on with things? That's not to defend Hamas at all, but actually, yes, Hamas is not just one thing. Hamas has a government wing that runs municipal services, collects taxes, runs schools and daycares and does the sort of mundane things that governments do. And there is, as a matter of fact, a theory that says Israel had serious concerns that a Palestinian unity government where Hamas has all but ceded power to Fatah may actually accomplish things, so it decided to start another spiral of a terrible, but familiar status quo.

Yes, a few Middle East analysts are reporting that Bibi is motivated by a need to keep the Palestinians divided at all costs.

[Anonymous]

Search for Pallywood on YouTube.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is another great piece. Why havent the Palestinians been able to succeed? http://www.meforum.org/4758/stop-the-jew-hatred-and-build-palestine

Er, isn't this a bit simplistic, along the lines of "forgive and forget"? You're telling the oppressed people to forget about stolen land and property and just get on with things? That's not to defend Hamas at all, but actually, yes, Hamas is not just one thing. Hamas has a government wing that runs municipal services, collects taxes, runs schools and daycares and does the sort of mundane things that governments do. And there is, as a matter of fact, a theory that says Israel had serious concerns that a Palestinian unity government where Hamas has all but ceded power to Fatah may actually accomplish things, so it decided to start another spiral of a terrible, but familiar status quo.

"
Isnt this what we tell everyone? The blacks after slavery - "you are free now, get over it"? And yes, I totally understand that Gazans did not have complete freedom and Israel still controlled some aspects of their lives and land, but there was no blockade and there was opportunity and they threw it away when they elected Hamas.

[Anonymous]

Looks like they already have genocide in mind. Today their tanks opened up on a school killing 15 children.

Maybe the administrators should consider closing the Holocaust Museum tomorrow in mourning for the Palestinian children Israel murdered today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is another great piece. Why havent the Palestinians been able to succeed? http://www.meforum.org/4758/stop-the-jew-hatred-and-build-palestine

Er, isn't this a bit simplistic, along the lines of "forgive and forget"? You're telling the oppressed people to forget about stolen land and property and just get on with things? That's not to defend Hamas at all, but actually, yes, Hamas is not just one thing. Hamas has a government wing that runs municipal services, collects taxes, runs schools and daycares and does the sort of mundane things that governments do. And there is, as a matter of fact, a theory that says Israel had serious concerns that a Palestinian unity government where Hamas has all but ceded power to Fatah may actually accomplish things, so it decided to start another spiral of a terrible, but familiar status quo.

"
Isnt this what we tell everyone? The blacks after slavery - "you are free now, get over it"? And yes, I totally understand that Gazans did not have complete freedom and Israel still controlled some aspects of their lives and land, but there was no blockade and there was opportunity and they threw it away when they elected Hamas.

This is from Henry Siegman of Politico:

"The notion that it was Israel, not Hamas, that violated a cease-fire agreement will undoubtedly offend a wide swath of Israel supporters. To point out that it is not the first time Israel has done so will offend them even more deeply. But it was Shmuel Zakai, a retired brigadier general and former commander of the IDF’s Gaza Division, and not “leftist” critics, who said about the Israel Gaza war of 2009 that during the six-month period of a truce then in place, Israel made a central error “by failing to take advantage of the calm to improve, rather than markedly worsen, the economic plight of the Palestinians in the [Gaza] Strip. … You cannot just land blows, leave the Palestinians in Gaza in the economic distress they are in and expect Hamas just to sit around and do nothing.”

This is true of the latest cease-fire as well. According to Thrall(analyst Nathan Thrall of the New York Times), Hamas is now seeking through violence what it should have obtained through a peaceful handover of responsibilities. “Israel is pursuing a return to the status quo ante, when Gaza had electricity for barely eight hours a day, water was undrinkable, sewage was dumped in the sea, fuel shortages caused sanitation plants to shut down and waste sometimes floated in the streets.” It is not only Hamas supporters, but many Gazans, perhaps a majority, who believe it is worth paying a heavy price to change a disastrous status quo."

Here is the whole article if you'd like to read it:

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/07/israel-provoked-this-war-109229.html

[Anonymous]

All Israel can do is shout "Hamas, Hamas, Hamas" as it murders more children and earns the enmity of the world community for the civilian casualties. Several countries, including emerging powers, are withdrawing their ambassadors to Israel, and Israel's response was to call them Hamas sympathizers and diplomatic dwarves, when what they were actually doing was protesting the disproportionate response of Israel and the deaths of so many innocent children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is another great piece. Why havent the Palestinians been able to succeed? http://www.meforum.org/4758/stop-the-jew-hatred-and-build-palestine

Er, isn't this a bit simplistic, along the lines of "forgive and forget"? You're telling the oppressed people to forget about stolen land and property and just get on with things? That's not to defend Hamas at all, but actually, yes, Hamas is not just one thing. Hamas has a government wing that runs municipal services, collects taxes, runs schools and daycares and does the sort of mundane things that governments do. And there is, as a matter of fact, a theory that says Israel had serious concerns that a Palestinian unity government where Hamas has all but ceded power to Fatah may actually accomplish things, so it decided to start another spiral of a terrible, but familiar status quo.

But everything Hamas does centers around hatred of the Jews. In the schools, they teach the children to hate Jews from preschool. And as clearly evidenced by the society, all the money they are given goes into building terror tunnels and missiles - they are not paying civil salaries, building infrastructure (and you can blame Israel for them not having building materials, but they certainly had materials to build the tunnels).

They destroyed the infrastructure - green houses, irrigation systems - that the Israelis left behind when they withdrew in 2005. And they did it out of hatred. They were finally given what they wanted - no more occupation and they threw away the opportunity to thrive and instead elected Hamas, a party of hate.

I think, again, that this is a very simplistic explanation that demonizes a force you'd rather not understand because you simply do not want to consider a possibility that they may have a legitimate grievance.

In the context of Israeli-Palestinian history, Palestinians have excellent, excellent reasons to hate what Israel has done to them. Why would you blame Hamas for teaching children what they do? "Daddy, why do I live in a refugee camp?" "Er...because in 1948 we got expelled from our village, and the world said it's OK because otherwise the Jewish state wouldn't exist and ethnic cleansing is OK in certain cases, and no, we can't go back to our old house because we aren't Jewish and the Jews said our house is not our house anymore and we can never go back." Out of hatred?? What's to love???

On the missing salaries, I think you have bad information, since it was the nonpayment of salaries for Hamas civil workers that contributed to the current flare-up. See this article from Haaretz: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.606952

On destroying the infrastructure, I don't know if you've ever lived through war, but if a hostile occupying force FINALLY withdrew from my land, I'd burn everything they left behind and piss on the ashes, too.

Also, Likud also doesn't recognize the Palestinian state (or did not until recently), insists on a dogged pursuit of expanded settlement and says Israel's eastern border is the River Jordan. They are better than Hamas why?

[Anonymous]

Here is an opinion from a LEFT-WING, for chrissakes, Israeli historian Benny Morris, who is close to Ehud Barak. Is he the only Israeli who negotiated himself into the position that horrible things are OK if they are good for Israel? I think not.

http://www.palestine-studies.org/files/correct_BM.pdf

Benny Morris, for decades you have been researching the dark side of Zionism. You are an expert on the atrocities of 1948. In the end, do you in effect justify all this? Are you an advocate of the transfer of 1948?

There is no justification for acts of rape. There is
no justification for acts of massacre. Those are
war crimes. But in certain conditions, expulsion
is not a war crime. I don’t think that the expulsions of 1948 were war crimes. You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs. You have to dirty your hands.

We are talking about the killing of thousands of people, the destruction of an entire society.

A society that aims to kill you forces you to destroy it. When the choice is between destroying or
being destroyed, it’s better to destroy.

There is something chilling about the quiet way in which you say that.

If you expected me to burst into tears, I’m sorry to disappoint you. I will not do that.

So when the commanders of Operation Dani
are standing there and observing the long and
terrible column of the 50,000 people expelled from Lod walking eastward, you stand there with them? You justify them?

I definitely understand them. I understand their motives. I don’t think they felt any pangs of conscience, and in their place I wouldn’t have felt pangs of conscience. Without that act, they would not have won the war and the state would not have come into being.

You do not condemn them morally?

No.

They perpetrated ethnic cleansing.

There are circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing. I know that this term is
completely negative in the discourse of the 21
st
century, but when the choice is between ethnic
cleansing and genocide—the annihilation of
your people—I prefer
ethnic cleansing.
And that was the situation in 1948?
That was the situation. That is
what Zionism faced. A Jewish st
ate would not have come into
being without the uprooting of 700,000 Palestinians
. Therefore it was necessary to uproot them.
There was no choice but to expel that population.
It was necessary to cl
eanse the hinterland and
cleanse the border areas and cleanse the main roads.
It was necessary to cl
eanse the villages from
which our convoys and our settlements were fired on.
The term “to cleanse” is terrible.
I know it doesn’t sound nice but that’s
the term they used at the time. I adopted it from all the
1948 documents in which I am immersed.
What you are saying is hard to listen to
and hard to digest. You sound hard-hearted.
I feel sympathy for the Palestinian people, which
truly underwent a hard
tragedy. I feel sympathy
for the refugees themselves. But if the desire to
establish a Jewish state here is legitimate, there
was no other choice. It was impossible to leave
a large fifth column in the country. From the
moment the Yishuv [pre–1948 Jewish community in
Palestine] was attacked by the Palestinians
and afterward by the Arab states, there was no c
hoice but to expel the Pa
lestinian population. To
uproot it in the course of war.
Remember another thing: the Arab
people gained a large slice of
the planet. Not thanks to its skills or its great
virtues, but because it co
nquered and murdered and
forced those it conquered to convert during many
generations. But in the end the Arabs have 22
states. The Jewish people did not have even one
state. There was no reason in the world why it
should not have one state. Therefore, from my poin
t of view, the need to
establish this state in
this place overcame the injustice that was
done to the Palestinians by uprooting them.
And morally speaking, you have no problem with that deed?
That is correct. Even the great American demo
cracy could not have been created without the
annihilation of the Indians. Ther
e are cases in which the overall,
final good justifies harsh and
cruel acts that are committed
in the course of history.
And in our case it effectively
justifies a popula
tion transfer.
That’s what emerges.
And you take that in stride? War crimes? Ma
ssacres? The burning fields and the devastated
villages of the Nakba?
You have to put things in proportion. These are
small war crimes. All told, if we take all the
massacres and all the executions of 1948, we come
to about 800 who were killed. In comparison
to the massacres that were perpetrated in Bosnia
, that’s peanuts. In comparison to the massacres
the Russians perpetrated against the Germans at
Stalingrad, that’s chicken feed. When you take
into account that there was a bloody civil war here
and that we lost an entire 1 percent of the
population, you find that we behaved very well.

There is a part 2, as well.

[Anonymous]

I used to wonder why some palestinian people would engage in actions that would only provoke the aggressor further. Then I realized that to ask a people live quitely, while they have no justice & no freedom is to ask them to live "peacefully" as slaves.
its like asking a battered women to live "peacefully" with her abuse. We all want the bloodshed to stop. But what about the daily humiliation & institutionalized oppression?

Consider this : If a women is being raped, things would be a lot more "peaceful" if she didn't resist. But asking her not to resist--just because her attacker is physically stronger--is asking her to accept her own abuse & oppression for the sake of "peace".
This is what the world is asking Palestinians to do.

And sometimes what seems to the world as just ineffective tactics, like throwing a rock at a tank, is in fact an act of resistance. It is a powerful statement to the oppressor--and the world--that they refused to be enslaved. That dignity and self-respect are even more beloved to them than their own lives.

It is a statement that you can take their lives. But not their freedom.

[Anonymous]

Israel needs to acknowledge and GIVE BACK Palestine their land.then and only then will there be a shred of a chance for peace.

[Anonymous]

Remember another thing: the Arab
people gained a large slice of
the planet. Not thanks to its skills or its great
virtues, but because it co
nquered and murdered and
forced those it conquered to convert


Please save us from your stupidity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Remember another thing: the Arab
people gained a large slice of
the planet. Not thanks to its skills or its great
virtues, but because it co
nquered and murdered and
forced those it conquered to convert


Please save us from your stupidity.

Ugh and how did the Europeans get a large slice of the planet? The Asians?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Remember another thing: the Arab
people gained a large slice of
the planet. Not thanks to its skills or its great
virtues, but because it co
nquered and murdered and
forced those it conquered to convert


Please save us from your stupidity.

This is how the Christians won the world. I'll just choose some of the highlights:

Europe: It started with a man of faith. And his Army.






South America:


North America:


Africa:


Asia:
(Look, here is Britain trying to force its opium on China