Okay, I'm of two minds regarding the situation in Palestine right now.
1) I realize that the Jews were busy during WWII, what with the Holocaust and all, but they've had over sixty years since then to read the bit where Germany tried to break the will of the British People with a massive bombing campaign, and failed. And dont try to tell me that Germany was defeated by bombing. The Allied bombing of German cities was just icing on the loser cake that the Nazis were eating on two fronts. It may have "sped up" the end, but it may also have been a war crime (see the fire bombing of Dresden). Bombing doesnt win wars, it punishes civilians. It is not fighting, but vengeance.
2) I believe the standard retaliation for conquering forces is one in ten, so the problem Israel has is that they arent being brutal enough. I mean, true conquerors want the defeated to cower in fear whenever they walk past, and the Israelis dont seem to be able to commit to that level. It's the same problem America always has - no will to crush your enemy into the mud, then to shit on their heads so they'll know who are the victors, and who are the scum beneath the victor's feet. After all, since when has mercy towards your defeated enemies ever led to anything good?
The best thing about the 1-in-10 method? You can't be accused of committing genocide, because there is always ninety per cent of the population left over after you're done.
So, having stated both the obvious and the ludicrous, I feel like I ought to present a third idea (because, after all, if there's anything that gets us all in trouble, it's acting as if there are only two answers to any question, and that only one of those is the "right" one). Here's the third idea:
3) When one has decided to have themselves a war, one needs to do it with soldiers, not impersonal long-distance weapons. Yes, those weapons save soldiers lives, but they also take the lives of innocent civilians, and if you see war as being merely some kind accounting game where you win if you loose fewer of your people and the enemy loses more of theirs, then you need to not be in charge of anything having to do with people ever again. If Israel has a problem with people firing rockets at them, then they need to send soldiers over to go house to house, find the rocket operators, then kill them. To simply sit far away and send powerful, sophisticated missiles out and indiscriminately* kill "the enemy" at a ratio of 50 or 100 to 1 is not only cowardly but also immoral and criminal. Soldiers die and kill, that is their function. To pretend otherwise is lie to yourself, and if you lead a nation, to lie to your People. If you dont want soldiers to die, dont start a war. If you started a war, and your soldiers are not dying (or are dying in far fewer numbers than your enemy), then you can bet that the war you started is utterly immoral.
Good Wars may exist, but they are never started by the side with the overwhelming advantage.
* I dont care how "guided" a missile may be; if it kills anyone but the intended person it was fired at, it is indiscriminate.
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Okay, so, the above was something I was working on yesterday (in terms of me writing this, not you reading it), and you know what, fuck all that. You want to know who's responsible for the Israelis killing all these Palestinians?
The United States of America, that's who.
Remember back in school, there was probably some kid who was always pulling some sort of shit, who had parents who couldnt, wouldnt, believe that their little angel was causing trouble? You probably hated that kid, didnt you? My wife is a teacher, and encounters at least one or two of those kids a year. She doesnt hate the kid, though, nearly as much as she hates the parents, because she knows who's responsible for that kids behaviour.
That "kid" is Israel; and that "parent" is us.
As long as Israel keeps the Palestinians corralled in their ghetto, restricts the flow of even staples to a trickle, then shoots at them like the fishes-in-a-barrel that they are, then Israel will continue to be one of the Bad Guys in this stupid, endless Hatfield and McCoy soap opera.
Would you like me to say that the Palestinians are Bad Guys, too? Okay, the Palestinians are bad guys, too. The excesses of the Israelis do not change the crimes of the Palestinians, but neither do the crimes of the Palestinians excuse the excesses* of the Israelis.
How about we look at it this way: One day, a bunch of new kids show up at school, and basically take over your hang-out in the school yard. Your friends ignore your plight, for the most part, and even when one of them tries to help (through violence, unfortunately), the new gang kicks their asses pretty soundly. Watching over all this is a principle who's obviously biased in favor of the new kids, and who's decided that you are a trouble-maker. Slowly the new gang make your life more and more miserable, until you find yourself unable to go to the local hangouts, and even getting into the school building is an ordeal (usually involving the loss of lunch money).
So, what do you do? Suffer nobly, hoping that one day it will all end? Curl up and die? Fight Back? If the answer is "fight back", you're going to get your ass kicked pretty soundly if you do so in a straightforward manner, arent you; so you have to come up with something sneaky, something underhanded, and probably, something considered "unfair" by the gang and their supporting Authority; is that what you choose? Are there any good choices here?
Not for Palestine, that's for sure. The Israelis arent going to back down either, at least as long as they've got those slippery-slope thought processes going on that interpret any sign of letting up on the Palestinians as the path to their immediate destruction.
America, on the other hand, has some very good choices that we simply choose not to take. Like not ignoring thier bad behavior. Or like not selling Israel any more missiles until they learn not to shoot them at people outside their country. Or like telling Israel we wont be supporting them anymore until they really try to negotiate in good faith, including the dismantling of all those illegal settlements in Palestinian territory (or better yet, getting the settlers out and leaving the settlements intact for the Palestinians - as a exchange for some of the areas they've lost, perhaps); while at the same time warning any nations who might see a "unsupported" Israel as vulnerable that while we dont like what Israel is doing, and will no longer help her, we will not tolerate any funny business towards her either.
Honestly, if the Israelis and the Palestinians want to duke it out, I dont really care. People who want to kill each other should be allowed to, so that the rest of us get on with our lives without their annoying presence. But the United States has no business taking sides, especially when taking sides comes in the form of providing overwhelming firepower and a turning of a blind eye to its use. At that point, we become a member of that extended family of hillbilly inbreds.
Which family? Does it matter, really?
* I would have prefered to use the word "crimes" here, too, but "excesses" scans better and is just as accurate.
Addendum: Unsurprisingly, someone says it better than me, this time Steel Phoenix in a comment at the Osterly Times:
...the term “terrorism” means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents. If Israel weren't recognized as a nation, Its acts would be those of terrorism. Israel doesn't recognize Palestine's right to exist, therefore, Any military action taken by Palestinians falls under the international legal definition of terrorism. Israel uses this to their advantage in ways they couldn't against another sovereign nation, which is the real reason any peace talks inevitably come to a screeching halt with each side demanding recognition as a nation.
Israel should be held accountable for every innocent death. That is what it is supposed to mean when you decide civilian losses are acceptable; that the situation is so dire that you will accept all repercussions and try to make amends, not to claim that it was Ok because there were probably terrorists in the area. The Palestinians on the other hand should be treated as individuals, since the acts are not those of a nation's military. Until we close Israel's loopholes we will see no proportionality.
1 comment:
"After all, since when has mercy towards your defeated enemies ever led to anything good?"
Arguably Japan. Sure we nuked them, but that was before they surrendered. I also think it was a bit of a fluke. I'm from viking stock. I can't imagine my ancestors finishing a war by rebuilding all of the defeated nations stuff and giving it back to them, or by walling them in and cutting off their food. What has happened to our concept of war? If we are going to be liberators, we need to be damn sure we know who we are liberating. There is no justification for oppression.
"if there's anything that gets us all in trouble, it's acting as if there are only two answers to any question, and that only one of those is the "right" one)."
Perhaps even worse is the American concept we call compromise that says the third idea is the right one and it lies exactly at the midpoint of the other two ideas.
Indiscriminately killing the enemy isn't just immoral, it is counterproductive. For every innocent you kill, you create a family worth of terrorists.
I like your kid/parent analogy.
Thank you for the quote. I've been holding back on the whole Israel thing because it is such a hateful topic on all sides. I really didn't want to get dragged down in it, but It is past time we quit holding our tongues. Enough is enough. I've been impressed by the Osterly times as well. I'm on the opposite end of the political spectrum, but I find we extremists are agreeing more with each other every day in our frustration with the business-as-usual moderates slowly running our world into the ground.
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