the Israel situation.

[Skepticus Rex]

what do people here think about the israeli situation?

i shall review the basics of what has happened so far (i went through archives of articles on bbc.co.uk a while back to try and trace the beginnings of the current crusade):

the peace process between israel and palestine was looking good, it was really going somewhere (i can give details if people want). there were still terrorist attacks happening, but both sides acknowledged that they were independant operators that weren't sponsered by the palestinian government (either party), Israel was running limited operations to track down and eliminate those.

then, on the 10th of june, an explosion on a gaza beach killed a family of palestinian civilians. Hamas claimed the israeli's did it, and broke the truce to fire rockets at israel.
the next day israeli airstrikes begin against hamas militants. israel issues a statement that the explosion on the beach couldn't have been one of their shells, claiming that they could tell from photos of the aftermath, no one believes them and the UN calls for an independant investigation.
on the 15 june, Hamas offered to restore the ceasefire, but israeli airstrikes continue. Israel begins night raids into gaza to seize people they claim are hamas militants, one of these raids succeeds in capturing 2 alleged militants (24 june).
the day after that capture, a palestinian raid on an israli border post succeeds in capturing an israeli soldier (one of the 3 they are still trying to get back).
the Israeli government vows to give a 'painful' response to the capture, and refuses any prisoner exchanges for the missing soldier.
from that time onward, the Israeli has carried on raids and airstrikes into gaza, kidnapping government officials, bombing infrastructure (including government offices, bridges and power plants) and occupied parts of gaza for some length of time before moving onto to other areas.

on the 12 july, Hezbollah captures 2 israeli soldiers (the other 2 of the 3 israel is fighting for) and announces that only talks will secure their release. Israel starts bombing bridges and roads in Lebanon that very day. the next day a sea and air blockade is in place. the day after that, Israel starts attacking Lebanon by air, sea and land, including bombing Beirut airport and a power plant.
the raids, airstrikes and sea bombardments continue until the 23 july, when they are joined by a major ground offensive involving israeli tanks and troops.

since then all facets of the assault on Lebanon have been expanded, and Israel has on several occasions bombed UN observation posts and Israel has ignored all calls for ceasefires. Israel decided on a 48-hour reduction in bombing of residential areas to allow investigations into a particularly bad bombing and aid workers to get through (although israel insists that all aid convoys must apply for protection 3 days in advance, and no advance warning was given of the partial ceasefire)


i think Israel has behaved atrociously (indeed, Israel is facing investigations of war crimes when this is over, due to their seemingly indiscriminate bombing of Lebanese residential areas), if they had agreed to a ceasefire with hamas when it was offered (presuming it was kept by both sides), and continued peace talks, then the situation would have improved considerably by this time.
there was due to be a referendum in palestine on 26 july, to decide upon a bilateral (two state) solution to the conflict, but i don't think that actually happened (it wasn't in the news at all). that solution would have seen an independant palestinian state that would have recognised Israel as a nation (at it's original boundaries, before occupying the west bank), which would have left only independant terrorists to keep fighting, and a joint operation between Palestine and Israel could have dealt with them better than is possible at the moment.

however, Israel has thrown all that away for a chance to expend resources and sacrifice many lives, which will just serve to recruit more opposition.


update: apparantly a massive Israeli assault is underway in Baalbek (in north-east lebanon), with unprecedented numbers of Israeli gunships hovering over the city and heavy airstrikes.

[Ginger Rogers]

On a basic level, it's like a battle of wills between spoiled children - or perhaps one spoiled child and a child trying to defend himself.

In seriousness though, what is it really about? why does Israel hate palestine and lebanon so much?

[Skepticus Rex]

well the Jews/Israelites believe they were promised the land by God in biblical times, and they did live there for quite a while (well, someone going by the name of israelites, modern Jews might not be them), but due to being conquered several times, and the habit of conquerors to deport populations and move in other people (no resistance movement you see), they were spread far and wide.

so in modern times, the jewish people were scattered pretty much everywhere, with the christian populations of 'western' countries being paranoid about them.

after world war one, the state of Palestine was created/controlled by the British. after world war II (and the holocaust), it was decided that there needed to be a Jewish state, so (under pressure from america), Britain created Israel on the land that was Palestine and all the Jews moved there.
the problem arises because Palestine wasn't an uninhabited wasteland, it was full of Palestinians, who weren't very happy at having their country taken away from them.

so the Palestinians think it's rightfully their land, and the Israeli's think it's rightfully their land (except Israel also thinks it should rightfully have more). that's why there's such a problem.

[Ginger Rogers]

But Palestine and Israel are mentioned in hte Bible are they not?? and I do believe the bible was written 1000's of years ago. Therefore why can't the two countries go back to their original borders? and the israeli's live in israel and the palestinians live in palestine, and does it matter if palestinians live in Israel and visa versa? what does killing each other acheive :-\

[Skepticus Rex]

i think you should actually read sources before you reference them.

in the bible, the palestinians (and others) were living in the land that is now palestine/israel, lebanon, and most of jordan. the family of jacob/israel moved to egypt during a famine (has no one seen joseph and his technicolour dreamcoat?), and multiply over a few hundred years into a whole people.
the egyptians used them as slaves, they eventually escaped (with help from god sending plagues), they were promised the land of canaan (palestine/isreal, lebanon, and jordan in modern terms), and eventually (after wandering in the desert), they fell upon the people of canaan like a storm, conquering all their cities and killing off half the population and chasing off the rest.

this is essentially what the new Israeli state tried to do shortly after it's formation in the 40s. all the palestinians that weren't in the gaza strip or the west bank were locked up or chased off (there are still camps of palestinians living like refugees in the surrounding countries, a source of terrorists), and quite a large proportion of those locked up were killed.

so the palestinians hate the jews because they invaded their land, and the jews hate the palestinians because they are on the land that they were 'promised'.

[Jocky]

after world war II (and the holocaust), it was decided that there needed to be a Jewish state, so (under pressure from america), Britain created Israel on the land that was Palestine

To be a little more specific, the modern nation of Israel was created by a resolution of the General Assembly of the UN. Here it is (http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/a06f2943c226015c85256c40005d359c/7f0af2bd897689b785256c330061d253!OpenDocument).

As I understand it, this resolution intended to create "Israel" in a geographical area covering a majority of, but not all of, the region referred to as "Palestine" (which had been under the control of Britain since the collapse of the Otttoman Empire after WWI).

Since then, starting in 1967 Israel has occupied additional parts of Palestine, this time in defiance of UN resolutions. The first and most celebrated of these is here (http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/7d35e1f729df491c85256ee700686136!OpenDocument).

The points at issue seem to be:

Was the UN right to create Israel in the first place
Was Israel justified to occupy and settle additional tracts of land outside its original boundaries
How do the peoples of both Israel and Palestine aquire sufficient security from the depredations of the other to allow them to live peacefully

Every cycle of violence I can remember (going back over 30 years now) have revolved around these points. Both sides have become ever more radicalised, and ever less able to come to a lasting agreement on these points.

A plague on both their houses >:(

[Skepticus Rex]

one problem with the situation is that people from other countries tend to be wary of criticising Israel because of the holocaust.

i wonder if it would be possible to estimate the number of arabic people Israel has killed in unnecessary military actions and in during it's occupations.
if it's over 6 million i think Israel has negated any preferential treatment it gets from having suffered so much.

[Jocky]

OTOH, Arabs have killed a lot of Israeli people too.

It is verging on the impossible to define "unnecessary" in the context of military actions in any way which is going to be remotely agreeable.

IMO, going back over past losses (including all the alleged prehistoric ones in the Bible) is not going to provide a resolution of the basic points at issue. It is only by agreeing that the future does not have to be beholden to the wrongs of the past that any lasting solution could be found.

And I doubt I will win Randi's million when I predict that many more people will die before that comes close to happening :(

[Skepticus Rex]

i wasn't proposing an accounting of the dead as a solution, i just think it would put things in perspective a bit. many people i've talked to about israel say that they're justified in all their actions because they suffered so much and deserve some leeway.

i think the bilateral proposal would stand a good chance of working, but Israel has said if no agreement on a bilateral solution is reached, they will unilaterally decide their final borders, which isn't a good thing

[Jocky]

I agree that unilateral establishment of borders is bound to end in conflict.

I also agree that justifying actions now based on the horrors of sixty years ago is not a valid argument.

Basically, both sides have to find the political will to curb their own extremists: on the one hand, zionists who want to sweep the arabs out of the whole of biblical Israel and then defend it to the last man; on the other the arab extremists who believe that the state of Israel must be completely destroyed and every jew driven from Palestine.

The trouble is that neither side posesses that will - to some extent the lunatics are running the asylum in both camps. And of course the higher the body count grows, the more the desire to negotiate erodes.

The tragedy is that the extremists on both sides are fighting for something which is completely unrealisable. I often wonder what really motivates them - it can't be any realistic chance of achieving their goals.

[Ginger Rogers]

I agree that unilateral establishment of borders is bound to end in conflict.

I also agree that justifying actions now based on the horrors of sixty years ago is not a valid argument.

Basically, both sides have to find the political will to curb their own extremists: on the one hand, zionists who want to sweep the arabs out of the whole of biblical Israel and then defend it to the last man; on the other the arab extremists who believe that the state of Israel must be completely destroyed and every jew driven from Palestine.

The trouble is that neither side posesses that will - to some extent the lunatics are running the asylum in both camps. And of course the higher the body count grows, the more the desire to negotiate erodes.

The tragedy is that the extremists on both sides are fighting for something which is completely unrealisable. I often wonder what really motivates them - it can't be any realistic chance of achieving their goals.


Couldn't have put it better myself Jocky. So what is the point? pride I guess.

[Jocky]

Yes, I suspect that pride does have something to do with it.

Religious fanaticism does as well >:(

There are also probably greater underlying geopolitical factors. The politics of envy may well apply to Palestinians to some extent, as they see Israelis enjoying a higher standard of living than them. The Israelis have been encouraged to take the kind of action which they are currently taking in Lebanon (and have taken on many other occasions in the past) by long-standing and robust American support, which is motivated by a mixture of domestic US politics and a desire to have a friendly client state in an important region.

Iraq and Afganistan don't make things any easier, of course. Neither does the present stand-off with Iran.

And so it goes on. And on.

[Skepticus Rex]

i don't think it's religious fanaticism in this case.
it's more ethnic Jews against Arabs. ethnic jews tend to be religious jews, and arabs tend to be muslim, but even unreligious people in israel and palestine support their side.
muslims around the world will tend to support the arabs because arabs originated their religion. but it isn't a religious conflict

[Jocky]

Yeah, but then where does 'cultural' or 'ethnic' end, and 'religious' begin?

As you said earlier, the Torah gets quoted a lot in the course of this debate. And there is no doubting the religious motivation of suicide bombers - witness those horrid sickening videos they leave behind them ...

I think that religious fanaticism is a fuel to the fire, although perhaps a socio-economic clash of communites is the basic dynamic and the religion is just adding some extra flavouring.

[Skepticus Rex]

Yeah, but then where does 'cultural' or 'ethnic' end, and 'religious' begin?

religious is 'god has said we can do this', cultural and ethnic are involving actual human interactions. for example, 'god has promised us this land' is religious, but from then on stuff like 'israel took our land', 'palestinians/israel blew up this restaurant' is cultural and the historical emnity between arabs and jews is ethnic.
it's quite a definitive boundary really.


And there is no doubting the religious motivation of suicide bombers - witness those horrid sickening videos they leave behind them ...
palestinian suicide bombers become terrorists because they feel there land has been stolen and there is no way to get it back, the suicide factor is partially religious with the 'paradise' facet to it, but soldiers in all conflicts may well go on suicide missions if they believe in the cause enough (or even without a cause except orders, look at the lightning brigade).