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Throwing rocks at armed border guards isn’t a harmless kid’s prank and the kids doing that know exactly what they’re doing.
Kid with rock "I've got a lock on the target"
In the sense that they train their soldiers about what is legally defensible and what is not. It’s like coaches training footballers about offside rules. Players are coached to play to the letter of the law and have plausible deniability if they offend.
Now who can argue with that?
It accepts that there is international law and that it chooses to ignore it?
It accepts that there is international law and that it chooses to ignore it?
You must be anti-Semitic(*)
(* I know this is a complete non sequitur, but it's de rigeur to label criticism of Israel as being anti-Semitic on a regular basis, and we haven't done so for a while)
Given that all images can be propaganda including barefooted Palestinian boys, shall we have this one to balance it out a bit?
They look like soldiers to me, how 'bout you?
Now, obviously they're not anything like as well equipped the Israeli military, but neither are they wee kiddies throwing rocks. I doubt either that one of these Hamas lads pictured against the tank would elicit the same response. Would Israeli soldiers have legitimate claim to attack them? certainly British Army soldiers would. If it dresses like a soldier, acts like a soldier, treat it like a soldier...
How did that geezer get a NATO helmet? And why has he got much more ammo than anyone else?
If we're swapping pictures, how about these lovely cuddly boys?
how about these lovely cuddly boys?
Well they look proper hard, they apparently don't need helmets - they are that hard.
And why has he got much more ammo than anyone else?
He drew the short straw probably.
Why not post up pictures of the casualties then ?. Oh wait, theres none on the Israeli side and all on the Palestinian side, many of them children.
Why not post up pictures of the casualties then ?. Oh wait, theres none on the Israeli side and all on the Palestinian side, many of them children.
Those "children" are just terrorists in a cunning disguise. I know that's true cos the Israelis say so.
Why not post up pictures of the casualties then ?
Don't Israeli troops regularly target photographers?
Apparently they are quite camera shy.
Perhaps cameras are some of the best tools to bring about peace in the region:
Though of course, those peddling arms are unlikely to welcome that outcome
Perhaps cameras are some of the best tools to bring about peace in the region:
Unlikely, Israelis see someone pointing a camera at them as even more of a threat than someone throwing stones.
Saw five broken cameras back when it was released. Absolutely brilliant documentary.
Imagine getting a night time visit from the army because your pre teen child had allegedly thrown a rock. I'm afraid the argument that Israeli army follows the law in a limited, specific or indeed any kind of way is nonsense.
They shoot camera operators and children as that documentary shows quite clearly.
16 kids in the last few days.
Why is it that if Irael is the baddie that Egypt also has a virtually closed border with Gaza?
You mean the Egypt that until recently has consistently been one of the largest recipients of US military aid?
So whilst Palestine is effectively prohibited from forming an army to protect itself, Israel continues to receive vast amounts of military aid…
Why is it that if Irael is the baddie that Egypt also has a virtually closed border with Gaza?
What a strange question. Israel's appalling treatment and repression of the Palestinians does not preclude other governments from also behaving in an appalling way. Did you think it did?
Israel is the main aggressor against the Palestinians, stealing their homes and lands and imprisoning them on Gaza. The behaviour of other governments who ignore justice for the Palestinians and support Israel, including western governments, is also deplorable.
The plight of the Palestinians is the great injustice of modern times, quite simply because so few governments care.
The Palestinians are expected to pay the price for horrendous crimes committed by Europeans.
Pretty much sums it up Ernie 👍
Well, this thread is about whether Palestine is the same as Ukraine. It spilled over from the Ukraine thread, where it was proposed that the U.S. should supply Palestinians with HIMARS rocket launchers because they are being supplied to Ukraine.
The short answer is that Palestinians are deliberately firing rockets at Israeli civilians but Ukraine is not deliberately targeting Russian civilians. That's a very important difference, so the two situations are not identical. If the U.S. supplied Palestinians with weapons, they would almost certainly be used against Israeli civilians. The U.S. and other NATO countries are not going to do that or support anyone who supplies weapons used to attack Israeli citizens.
That doesn't mean that Israeli policy is justified or correct. It's just the answer to the question that kicked this thread off - why not send HIMARS to Palestinians?
From the Ukraine thread:
jivehoneyjive
Free Member
Strange how NATO are not sanctioning apartheid Israel & arming the Palestinians…
DrJ
Free Member
Maybe if the US supplied Palestine with tanks and HIMARS the Palestinians would not be reduced to attacking civilians. Note also that the attacks on civilians produce far fewer casualties than “surgical” attacks on Palestinians.
If the U.S. supplied Palestinians with weapons, they would almost certainly be used against Israeli civilians.
Why do you think that - because as I pointed out earlier Israel in violation of the Geneva Convention uses civilians as instruments of conquest?
If the Palestinians were provided with accurate weapons with which to defend themselves and drive out foreign invaders from their occupied lands the very obvious targets would military. Are you assuming that because the Israelis target civilians the Palestinians would do the same?
And if that really was a cause for concern then the solution would be very easy - the US and NATO could take on the responsibility of driving out the occupying forces from Palestinian lands. Everyone trusts NATO not to kill civilians when they fight wars in the Middle East - do they not? They certainly have plenty of experience of fighting "liberation" wars in the region, if not directly indirectly.
However the huge problem for the Palestinians is that not only is land wanted by people fleeing persecution from places such as New York, but very few Palestinians are heads of global banks or oil-rich Sheikhs so western governments don't give a **** about them.
Are militants in Palestine using IDF tactics and intentionally targetting civilians?
Or is it merely that they only have access to primitive weaponry to counter the regular bombardments they face from occupying forces who are more heavily armed to an exponential level?
Whatever the truth may be on that front, I'm not convinced Hamas are Palestine's best hope of liberation; especially as their formation can be traced back to funding by Israel's security services, in much the same way that Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State were spawned from covert training and weapons trafficked on behalf of Western Intelligence agencies (Though Israel were involved in both Operation Cyclone and Timber Sycamore, it would be unfair not to include the arguably larger roles played by the CIA, MI6, Saudi Intelligence etc etc)
It's hard to avoid the conclusion that flooding weapons into a situation is never the best solution (unless you're in the 'defence' industry, or a shareholder thereof)
https://twitter.com/ivan_8848/status/1556396523390369794
Are you assuming that because the Israelis target civilians the Palestinians would do the same?
It's not an assumption. Palestinian groups have a long history of targeting Israeli civilians, it's their policy. Palestinian rockets are crude unguided weapons that are pretty much useless for hitting any military target. They are launched at Israeli cities to terrorize the civilian population. So it's not that "the Palestinians would do the same", it's that Palestinians have been doing exactly that for decades. That's why Israel is critical of human-rights groups - attacks on Israeli civilians are ignored but Israeli responses are condemned.
Sending any weapons to Palestine is a terrible idea. Palestinian militants are not going to defeat the Israeli army. Israel defeated Arab armies in multiple wars and nobody seriously thinks that Palestinians are going to do any better. If somebody did send tanks and GPS guided missiles into Palestine, those weapons would automatically become legitimate targets for the Israeli military and they would be quickly destroyed because they would be very difficult to hide, unlike the home-made rockets the Palestinians currently use. Condemning Israel for shooting at teenagers throwing rocks is one thing, but it would take some pretty serious mental gymnastics to argue that someone with a tank is an unarmed civilian. So, sending weapons to Israel would not lead to Palestinians overthrowing Israel, it would just give Israel more justification to bomb Palestinians. Really, really silly idea.
It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that flooding weapons into a situation is never the best solution (unless you’re in the ‘defence’ industry, or a shareholder thereof)
For info, that is now an old figure but still a current problem, albeit one being worked on.
Back in April, he estimated that just "30-40%" of the supplies coming across the border reached its final destination. But he says the situation has significantly improved since then and a much larger quantity now gets where it's supposed to go.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukraine-military-aid-weapons-front-lines/
That CBS story has been widely criticized as misinformed. It refers to supplies, not weapons. The weapons that the U.S. and NATO are supplying are very carefully documented. They aren't just taken across the border and handed to whoever shows up, they are formally transferred to the Ukrainian military and signed for. The big-ticket stuff like HIMARS is easy to track and is not being diverted to black market operators. Doesn't mean that stuff won't get stolen, but it's not credible that 70% of the weapons supplied have been stolen.
The short answer is that Palestinians are deliberately firing rockets at Israeli civilians but Ukraine is not deliberately targeting Russian civilians.
That may change when Russian "settlers" arrive; it is probably already be the case that Ukrainians are killing pro-Russian civilians in Donbas.
As you say, sending HIMARS to Palestine would be militarily ineffective, but that's not the reason they are not sent. The US and friends are content to ignore the vile outrages perpetrated by the Israelis on a daily basis because it is strategically and politically convenient for them to do so.
Palestinian militants are not going to defeat the Israeli army. Israel defeated Arab armies in multiple wars and nobody seriously thinks that
You have selective memory. Hezbollah was specifically formed to fight Israel's illegal occupation of South Lebanon.
Eventually Hezbollah defeated Israel and her Lebanese fascist allies and 22 years after UN Resolution 425 calling for Israel's immediate withdrawal from South Lebanon Israel was humiliatingly forced to comply.
One crucial reason why Hezbollah was able to force Israel to comply with UN Resolution 425 was because they had, through Iran, access to modern and effective weapons. Otherwise Israel would still undoubtedly be in South Lebanon - Western governments would not have forced Israel to end her illegal occupation. It took Iranian backed militants to do that.
Mornin' thols, hope you slept well old chap!
The CBS report has been criticized by those responsible for the failings exposed, because they're generally used to gushing PR, rather than scrutiny for their actions. Reading between the lines it sounds like they shat themselves at being discovered and rushed a high ranking General out to tidy things up pronto.
I've extracted the only indisputably true bit I can find in your ramblings...
Palestinian rockets are crude unguided weapons that are pretty much useless for hitting any military target
The reasons for this have already been covered
The Lebanon invasion was a catastrophic mistake on the part of Israel. Their military is very effective at beating regular armies in open warfare. Trying to occupy another country is a different matter. Utterly stupid of them.
The problem for Palestinians is that militarily defeating Israel would require invading Israel with tanks and soldiers. That's exactly the type of battle that Israel excels at. Sending tanks and HIMARS to the Palestinians would not help them at all, it would just give Israel more targets to bomb. The Palestinians cannot defeat Israel militarily and no Arab country is going to try invading again.
Clearly I was wrong to even consider comparing the plight of Palestinians with that of Ukrainians...
quite aside from their being prevented from access to any significant arms to defend themselves from the constant onslaught of Israeli military might on the civilian population and the collective punishment bought about by regular cuts to both electricity and more shockingly water, they also have to contend with increasing levels of racism.
https://twitter.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1557077632482963456
they also have to contend with increasing levels of racism.
To be pedantic, the racism might not be increasing. Israel was founded as a Jewish state, that's the core of many of their problems, it's a very small step from that to apartheid. Having Israel defined as a Jewish state makes a one-state solution to the Palestinian problem impossible (because it would have to be a secular state with a majority Palestinian population), but a two-state solution is not possible without both Israel and Palestine extremists backing off from their demands. Palestinian extremists would have to stop calling for the destruction of Israel and sign a peace treaty with it and Israeli extremists would have to accept a viable Palestinian state, which would mean returning land annexed in 1967, as well as bulldozing the settlements built since then.
That actually looked possible back in the 1990s, but extremists on both sides sabotaged the peace process with brutal attacks on civilians. Those attacks were deliberately intended to stop any peace settlement by brutalizing civilians, they weren't aimed at military targets.
So, now the moderate Israelis and Palestinians who wanted to negotiate a peace deal have been discredited by both the Israeli and Palestinian extremists, and the view of Israel as a Jewish homeland fighting to prevent a second holocaust is what unites hard-line Israelis. Westerners who refuse to acknowledge that Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians are terrorism and who suggest supplying weapons to Palestinians just make it easier for Israeli extremists to discredit moderates who push for a peace settlement.
And what do you think refusing to acknowledge that the IDF uses terrorist tactics achieves?
But the reality is that Israel and her backers aren't interested in peace at all. Why should they be - it is the Palestinians who pay the price for the continuous violence, not the Israelis.
The murder rate in the United States is 2 times higher than it is in Israel. So an American Jew immigrating to Israel is actually moving to a substantial safer place.
There is absolutely no incentive for Israel to seek peace.
There is absolutely no incentive for Israel to seek peace.
This is what Israeli right-wing extremists say to moderate Israelis who do want peace. A peace deal would have to be based on Palestinian recognition of the state of Israel, just as the neighboring countries have done over the last few decades (plus it would require Israeli recognition of a Palestinian government and territory.) Any group that calls for the destruction of Israel cannot be part of any peace process, so attacks against Israeli civilians have to stop before any peace is possible. That's not just a moral argument, it's a pragmatic one - every time Palestinians launch an attack against Israeli civilians, right-wing Israelis say, "I told you so, you can never trust Palestinians to live in peace." If a Palestinian government can't prevent extremists from attacking Israel, it means that Palestinians don't recognize the legitimacy of their own government. In turn, that means that Israel would be foolish to recognize it as a legitimate government.
Sending weapons to Palestinians gives Israel legal cover to search for and destroy those weapons. The weapons are militarily ineffective, they are used to target civilians, not military targets. The extremist Palestinians do that for propaganda reasons - they need to keep up support among their supporters as defenders of the Palestinian cause. For them, any peace deal is just as politically unacceptable as it is for Israeli hardliners. A peace deal would mean the militant groups would have to cede power to a civilian Palestinian government.
This means that it is in the interests of both Palestinian and Israeli hardliners to keep the conflict going as a low-intensity thing that furnishes propaganda for their side. Westerners who call for sending weapons to Palestinians and refuse to acknowledge that Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians are crimes are not contributing to any peaceful solution, they are just handing right-wing Israelis the best propaganda they can possibly ask for.
This means that it is in the interests of both Palestinian and Israeli hardliners to keep the conflict going as a low-intensity thing that furnishes propaganda for their side.
There's every chance there's some truth in that, in much the same way, it's in NATO's interest to ensure conflicts and threats continue, to ensure funding and increase membership...
Maybe if Israel stopped occupying Palestinian land first Thols? Shouldn't that be the first step?
Maybe if Israel stopped occupying Palestinian land first Thols? Shouldn’t that be the first step?
If you want a peaceful resolution, that would have to be part of a package of actions on the part of both sides.
Just imagine if Israel did that unilaterally. Say they withdrew to the pre-1967 boundaries and recognized a Palestinian state. The reality is that there is no single authority over all of those Palestinian territories and there are militant groups that vow to destroy Israel. Those groups would continue to launch attacks on Israel. However, instead of having the status of illegal combatants (because they aren't fighting for a sovereign state), they would now be considered by Israel to be soldiers fighting for a sovereign state. That means that Israel and Palestine would be at war (because an attack on Israel was launched from the Palestinian state) and Israel could legitimately blockade the Palestinian state and bomb any site used to manufacture, store, or fire weapons from. They would also be entitled to invade Palestinian lands and occupy them until a peace treaty was signed because that's perfectly legal when two countries are at war. The Palestinian authorities would have to disarm any militia groups and recognize Israel as a legitimate state before any peace treaty could be negotiated.
So, if Israel did unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state and withdrew from Palestinian lands, the situation would instantly revert to what it is now, except that Israel would have legal cover that they were fighting a defensive war against another country. The reality is not going to change until Palestinian leaders recognize Israel as a legitimate state and are able to disarm militant Palestinian groups. Hard-liners on both sides know this and deliberately sabotage any attempts at meaningful peace deals. Sending weapons to Palestinian groups would make things worse for Palestinians, not better.
Edit: Also, if Israel recognized Palestine as a sovereign state and captured Palestinians who had deliberately fired rockets at Israeli cities, they could demand that they were tried for war crimes because they are no longer just outlaws, they are soldiers who are subject to the laws of war. What that means is that the Palestinian leaders would have to disarm those groups themselves. If they endorsed indiscriminate attacks on civilians, the Palestinian leaders would also be liable to be tried for war crimes.
So the fact that for whatever murky reason the international community fails to recognize Palestine as a sovereign state is the reason Israel can continue a campaign of war crimes with impunity?
Careful with all the arm-waving, thols, if the wind changes you risk taking off. We get it - the Palestinians are to blame for everything, OK?
Palestinians are probably a bit like the Native Americans in that regard...
So the fact that for whatever murky reason the international community fails to recognize Palestine as a sovereign state is the reason Israel can continue a campaign of war crimes with impunity?
Quite the opposite. If the two countries were at war, Palestinians would be guilty of war crimes for attacking civilians and Israel would be justified in invading. Because Palestine isn't recognized as a state, the legal basis for Israel's behaviour is much murkier. Whatever the case, there won't be any peace deal until Palestinians agree to recognize Israel as a state and stop indiscriminately attacking Israeli civilians. Sending weapons to help them do that won't improve things, it would just give right-wing Israeli's the best propaganda they could wish for.
Whatever the case, there won’t be any peace deal until Palestinians agree to recognize Israel as a state
Stop that nonsense. There won't be any peace until a Jewish homeland is built somewhere other than on Palestinian land.
The idea that someone from New York or London can claim to be Jewish and kick Palestinians off their land and set up home there, due to a ridiculous claim concerning what God might have said a few thousand years ago (made all the more ridiculous by the fact that most Israelis don't consider themselves to be religious) is by any measure a gross injustice of monumental proportions.
It is an undeniable fact that injustice breeds violence......there can never be peace without justice.
Quite the opposite. If the two countries were at war, the Natives would be guilty of war crimes for attacking civilians and the Colonizers would be justified in invading. Because Native land isn’t recognized as a state, the legal basis for Colonizing behaviour is much murkier. Whatever the case, there won’t be any peace deal until Natives agree to recognize Colony as a state and stop indiscriminately attacking Colonizing civilians. Sending weapons to help them do that won’t improve things, it would just give right-wing Colonizers the best propaganda they could wish for.
Just a little experiment to see how it reads from a generic perspective...
"According to the 1954 Hague Convention governing cultural property to which Israel is a signatory, occupying powers must prevent the removal of cultural property from occupied territories."
Ironic when you consider that this year there have been several stories like this one:
Edit: Re:
"Slingshot Rat passed at least one military checkpoint to reach Tel Aviv. Both the Israeli military and Cogat, the Israeli defence ministry body responsible for civilian governance in the West Bank, said they had no knowledge of the artwork or its journey."
It brings into question how tight security on the West Bank/Israeli border is. Presumably if a huge lump of concrete can be smuggled in small weapons shouldn't be a problem?
There won’t be any peace until a Jewish homeland is built somewhere other than on Palestinian land.
That's right. Moderate Israeli's recognized that back in the 1990s and there was a real hope of a land-for-peace deal. The basic idea was that Israel would return to its pre-1967 borders and Palestinians would recognize Israel and stop calling for its destruction. Hard-liners on both sides rejected this and kept brutally attacking civilians on the other side in order to derail the peace process.
Attacks on Israeli civilians are not intended to have any military purpose, their effect is just to harden right-wing Israeli opinion against any peace deal. Every time a Palestinian fires a rocket at an Israeli city, the right-wingers say, "I told you so, we can never trust the Palestinians to live in peace." Sending weapons to Palestinians would make things worse for Palestinians, not better, because Israel would be fully justified in attacking those weapons and killing or capturing anyone involved with using or supplying them. It's a spectacularly bad idea.
Say for example Palestine was recognized as a state and was then able to form an army with which to defend it's civilian population from bombardment by Israel's huge and subsidized arsenal... surely Israel would then lose the right to dictate what weapons Palestine was allowed to defend itself, which would give them the ability to use something other than crude rockets that are as much a show of defiance as any significant threat to lifestyles in the constantly expanding Israeli settlements?
Not that I favour escalation; surely de-escalation is key to peace, as opposed to lining the pockets of the ghouls who profit from war, conflict and land grabbing
Just a little experiment to see how it reads from a generic perspective…
You're applying 20th century legal doctrine to 18th century situations. I think you'll find that governments around the world have recognized that the treatment of indigenous peoples was genocide and would not be tolerated today.
The situation in Israel is that there was no state there pre-1948. There was a brutal war between Muslim and Jewish Palestinians over territory. The Jewish side won and Israel was created. It's a member of the United Nations and Muslim countries have mostly recognized it too so its existence is a fact that has to be accepted before any peace deal is possible. Because Israel is a Jewish state, a one-state solution is untenable. A two-state solution with a Palestinian state neighboring Israel would require Palestinians to formally recognize Israel and to stop attacking Israeli civilians. In exchange, Israel would have to return annexed territory. That seemed possible 30 years ago, but it doesn't seem possible now. Attacking Israeli civilians serves no military purpose, it's just one more thing that is making a peace deal impossible. Encouraging it is not doing Palestinians any favours.
Say for example Palestine was recognized as a state and was then able to form an army with which to defend it’s civilian population from bombardment by Israel’s huge and subsidized arsenal… surely Israel would then lose the right to dictate what weapons Palestine was allowed to defend itself, which would give them the ability to use something other than crude rockets that are as much a show of defiance as any significant threat to lifestyles in the constantly expanding Israeli settlements?
Where would they get those advanced weapons? How would they finance and train that army? What would they do when the Israeli military noticed hundreds of tanks, helicopter gunships, combat aircrafts, etc. on Palestinian territory and destroyed them? The Palestinian territories are pretty small and it would be impossible to build up a military capable of challenging Israel without it being noticed. No Arab country would supply it with weapons and train it because they do not want another war with Israel. Iran would definitely do that if they thought they could get away with it, but Israel has atomic weapons and Iran is not going to provoke Israel by doing something open like that.
Point here is that the idea of Palestinians beating the Israeli military is a childish fantasy. Nobody is going to supply those weapons and, if they did, Israel would destroy them the moment they were spotted out in the open.
It brings into question how tight security on the West Bank/Israeli border is. Presumably if a huge lump of concrete can be smuggled in small weapons shouldn’t be a problem?
Interesting question... after all, we know Israel was involved in Hamas' creation; whatsmore, there's evidence of agent provocateurs:
But surely Israeli security forces wouldn't stoop so low as to arm the militants who do so much for the cause of hard line settlers colonizers?
Point here is that the idea of Palestinians beating the Israeli military is a childish fantasy.
The United States provides Israel with approximately $4 billion of mostly military aid annually.
The US doesn't do this because it has a few spare $billions washing around which it doesn't know what to do with. It provides that unprecedented level of aid to Israel because it believes that it is absolutely vital to Israel's survival, it wouldn't do it otherwise.
The question is how long can the United States maintain that level of crucial support? The simple answer is not for ever.
The United States is widely seen as having peaked in its position of global dominance and is now experiencing a slow but irreversible decline. Some have compared it with Great Britain's peak in 1900 and its subsequent post-World War One decline.
Like Great Britain previously the United States's global dominance is totally centred on its financial strength.
Don't expect the United States to prop up non-viable countries in 50 years time in the way they currently do today.
Israel as it exists today will eventually no longer exist, it is just a matter of time.
The question is how long can the United States maintain that level of crucial support? The simple answer is “
notfor ever”.
FTFY. Economically, the U.S. can easily afford that. Politically is a different question.
Israel as it exists today will eventually no longer exist, it is just a matter of time.
Israel has a large weapons industry of its own, it is at the cutting edge of military technology. If, for some reason, the U.S. refused to supply weapons, Israel would turn to Russia, or China, or India, or Korea, or Taiwan, or Japan, or Indonesia, or Malaysia, or Brazil, or Saudi Arabia, or the UAE, or some other country that wants access to Israeli technology and will cooperate on manufacturing.
Keep in mind, Israel has nuclear weapons that it can launch from submarines. Even if they lost the support of the U.S., no other country in the region would dare to try and invade because a successful invasion would result in Israel unleashing their nuclear arsenal.
The idea that Palestinians are going to militarily defeat Israel is a fantasy. That fantasy has to be rejected before any realistic peace settlement is possible.
The Colony has a large weapons industry of its own, it is at the cutting edge of military technology. If, for some reason, the U.S. refused to supply weapons, The Colony would turn to Russia, or China, or India, or Korea, or Taiwan, or Japan, or Indonesia, or Malaysia, or Brazil, or Saudi Arabia, or the UAE, or some other country that wants access to Colony technology and will cooperate on manufacturing.
Keep in mind, The Colony has nuclear weapons that it can launch from submarines. Even if they lost the support of the U.S., no other country in the region would dare to try and invade because a successful invasion would result in The Colony unleashing their nuclear arsenal.
The idea that Natives are going to militarily defeat The Colony is a fantasy. That fantasy has to be rejected before any realistic peace settlement is possible.
Does it alter the perspective somewhat? Personally, I'm not sure, what do you think?
The idea that Palestinians are going to militarily defeat Israel is a fantasy. That fantasy has to be rejected before any realistic peace settlement is possible.
Ther real fantasy here is that Israel will ever of its own volition agree to live in peace with the Palestinians. Whether that means that it can be forced to (unlikely) or that it will eradicate the Palestinians in its own version of a Final Solution (current policy) remains to be seen.
no other country in the region would dare to try and invade because a successful invasion would result in Israel unleashing their nuclear arsenal.
Yup, it is widely seen that Israel is quite unique in the world as the only country with nuclear weapons, not as a deterrent against the possibility of a nuclear attack, but as viable weapons in a conventional war. A truly deplorable nuclear weapons doctrine so thank you for highlighting it thois.
But you have completely missed the point concerning Israel's dependence on the United States. It is not that Israel can't manufacture its own weapons or buy them from elsewhere.
It is that Israel needs to rely on the sort of vital military strength which only large and extremely wealthy countries can afford.
The total population of Israel is about the size of the population of Greater London - what sort of world class military super power do you imagine Greater London could afford to be if it was an independent state?
And good luck with a declining US global power pumping $billions into Israel. Israel's final demise is unlikely to occur because of an invading force, as you seem to think.
It is much more likely to occur because as Israel becomes weaker and less of a military super power life will become less pleasant for Israelis. Immigration into Israel will stem whilst those leaving will increase, presumably with US passport holders at the head of the queue.
This will result in an increasingly militarily and economically weaker and less secure Israel, leading to even less immigration and more exodus, and so on. People who immigrate and live in Israel don't do so because they are fleeing persecution.
They do so because they want to enjoy the good life - they certainly don't want to live like Palestinians and be subjected to violence and poverty.
Nuclear weapons won't come into it and they won't save them. In the same way that nuclear weapons didn't save Israel's very close friends the brutal white supremacist racists of apartheid South Africa, with whom they shared nuclear secrets.
Ther real fantasy here is that Israel will ever of its own volition agree to live in peace with the Palestinians.
In the 1990s, moderate Israelis realized that a peace settlement was the only long-term option if they didn't want to be in a permanent state of war. The only way to achieve that was through some sort of land-for-peace deal. That was sabotaged by extremists on both sides. The right-wing Israelis refused to accept the return of land on the grounds that Palestinians could never be trusted and giving up land would be a suicide pact for Israel. On the Palestinian side, extremists refused to accept Israel as a legitimate state and vowed to destroy it (and implicit in that is a promise of a second holocaust). Both sides brutalized civilians as provocations to derail the possibility of any peace deal.
I am very pessimistic that any peace deal will be possible in our lifetimes, the last thirty years have just cycles of violence with both side pointing to atrocities by the other. Any moderates on either side who argue for the compromises that would be needed for a peace deal are denounced (or murdered) by the extremists on their own side.
What is clear is that nothing is going to be possible while people think that indiscriminate attacks on Israeli civilians are acceptable. They achieve no military purpose, they aren't going to force Israel to the negotiating table, they just harden opinion among Israelis that the world doesn't care about the murder of Jews. So, supplying Palestinians with weapons is just a terrible idea. Not because Israel should be annexing Palestinian territory, but because Israelis will never trust any peace negotiations while attacks on civilians are ongoing.
Yup, it is widely seen that Israel is quite unique in the world as the only country with nuclear weapons, not as a deterrent against the possibility of a nuclear attack, but as viable weapons in a conventional war. A truly deplorable nuclear weapons doctrine so thank you for highlighting it thois.
Israel has them as a deterrent. They are a doomsday weapon, they ensure that any country that defeated Israel would also be destroyed. They aren't intended to be used as a battlefield weapon in the way that NATO and Warsaw pact tactical weapons were.
So it's better to let apartheid continue unabated and unchallenged?
So it’s better to let apartheid continue unabated and unchallenged?
This thread spilled over from the Ukraine thread. People asked why Palestine is different from Ukraine and why the West isn't supplying Palestinian fighters with weapons. The two situations are not the same. Ukraine has a very good chance of forcing Russia to withdraw from Ukrainian territory if they are supplied with weapons. They are also the unambiguous victim in that war and are not deliberately targeting civilians as part of their strategy. The situation in Palestine is not as simple, the Palestinian territories aren't a formal state. There are multiple armed groups operating there and there is a strategy to deliberately target civilians.
Western democracies are not going to supply weapons to non-state groups that deliberately target Israeli civilians. That's pretty much it. That has to stop before anything else is going to happen.
Israel has them as a deterrent
Not as a deterrent to nuclear war - you have just admitted it yourself that Israel would use nuclear weapons in a conventional war.
And a deterrent is only effective if it is publicised - who has ever heard of a judge passing a sentence as a deterrent but insisting that it is not reported in the media?
Israel won't even admit to having nuclear weapons, never mind flaunting them.
What is clear is that nothing is going to be possible while people think that indiscriminate attacks on Israeli civilians are acceptable.
But at the same time it's fine for Israel to bomb apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, shoot children, nurses, journalists, drive bulldozers over peace activists and so on ad nauseam. Yes - it all makes sense now.
People asked why Palestine is different from Ukraine and why the West isn’t supplying Palestinian fighters with weapons
Not exactly. People (or me, anyway) asked why it is that Ukrainians are seen as the victims and given unlimited support, whereas the Palestinians are seen as the villains and their murderers excused. Your contributions to this thread have provided ample evidence of this phenomenon
And a deterrent is only effective if it is publicised
They aren't officially acknowledged. Everyone knows Israel has them. That suits everyone. If Israel officially acknowledged them, the other countries in the region couldn't pretend Israel didn't have them and they would be under intense political pressure to get them too. That would trigger a nuclear arms race which every country knows would be a catastrophe. Once a Muslim country got nukes, there would be constant pressure from hot-heads to use them to destroy Israel.
The other countries are clearly not thrilled about Israel having them but they understand that Israel will only use them in response to an existential threat to Israel. Much safer for everyone to go along with the pretense that they don't exist than to have a nuclear arms race.
whereas the Palestinians are seen as the villains and their murderers excused.
Ordinary Palestinians are seen as the victims caught in a terrible conflict. The Palestinians who launch rockets at Israeli cities aren't seen as the victims. They are committing war crimes. The West is not going to supply weapons to them because of that.
So thols, since you chose not to answer the question regarding apartheid (and misrepresented the nature of this thread), is it safe to say that you yourself support apartheid?
Ordinary Palestinians are seen as the victims caught in a terrible conflict.
Clearly not, or the e.g. Palestinian-American journalist recently murdered by the Israelis would have been avenged by the US.
They are committing war crimes. The West is not going to supply weapons to them because of it
But, as previously noted, it's OK to supply the bombs that Israel drops on children.
They aren’t officially acknowledged. Everyone knows Israel has them. That suits everyone.
What do you mean it suits everyone? It very obviously does not suit everyone.
And what sort of duplicitous regime has a secret nuclear weapons programme? One which treats international law and UN Resolutions with complete contempt. Dispite your absurd claim that Israel studiously commits itself to complying with international law.
Palestinians are probably a bit like the Native Americans in that regard…
Sad, but true.
Have been boycotting Isreal ever since I can remember. Have a look at the country of origin of your peppers, tomatoes and other veg. Surprising amount comes from there.
Israelis I've met have been mostly fascist Tuesdays.... Actually, I met one girl and she was ashamed about the conduct of her country. The rest seem to be indoctrinated.
As I'm now officially German that probably makes me a nazi.
Now get off my allotment.
why it is that Ukrainians are seen as the victims and given unlimited support
The support given to Ukraine has been very much “limited”. Substantial, but limited. Why have other countries limited what kind of help they will supply? Because Russia is a nuclear power.
But, as previously noted, it’s OK to supply the bombs that Israel drops on children.
Israel has lawyers who have looked carefully at what is legal and not legal (which is not the same as moral or wise). It is legal to target sites used to launch, store, or manufacture weapons. If one combatant side parks a missile launcher at a hospital, that missile launcher is a legitimate target. The responsibility for that lies with the side who put the missile launcher there. This means that the side who uses human shields are in the wrong, not the side that attacks a weapons facility.
I think Israel is being extremely stupid here. They have lawyers pointing to what is legal but ignoring the optics that hospitals and schools are being bombed. They think they are being clever but they are just being stupid.
However, that's why nobody will supply weapons to Palestinians. The Palestinian strategy is to deliberately target Israeli citizens. The Israeli strategy is to edge right up to the legal grey zone of what is allowed which gives them just enough plausible deniability that other countries will complain but won't cut ties. The Palestinian policy of indiscriminately attacking Israeli citizens is not helping Palestinians, it's making it much easier for Israel to deflect criticism.
For heavens sake stop talking rubbish. As I said before, all you’re doing is being a textbook example of a person excusing anything Israel does.
For heavens sake stop talking rubbish. As I said before, all you’re doing is being a textbook example of a person excusing anything Israel does.
Not at all. Israel's annexation of Palestinian territory is one of the major obstacles to any peace deal. Reversing that is the only way that any peace deal can work. Another major obstacle is Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians. Israel is not going to accept any peace treaty with groups that advocate the destruction of Israel and attacks on Israeli civilians. Sending weapons to groups that attack Israeli civilians will just make things worse. That's why the West will not do that, it's a terrible idea, all it would do is get more Palestinians killed and turn every Israeli against any peace deal.
If you say things like this, you are part of the problem, not part of the solution.
DrJ
Free Member
Maybe if the US supplied Palestine with tanks and HIMARS the Palestinians would not be reduced to attacking civilians. Note also that the attacks on civilians produce far fewer casualties than “surgical” attacks on Palestinians.
Sending weapons to groups that attack Israeli civilians will just make things worse.
But it's OK to send weapons to groups that attack Palestinian civilians. Double standard noted.
Let's put it another way. Which specific Palestinian groups would you advise sending weapons to with confidence that they would only be used to attack military targets and wouldn't be passed on to Iran, Russia, or China to reverse engineer the technology? Western countries aren't going to just parachute crates of advanced weapons to random Palestinians, they need to know exactly who they are supplying. So, who do you recommend?
I'm not advising sending any weapons to anyone. I'm pointing out that what Palestinians can do is limited by their inaccurate weaponry on the battlefield, and by the refusal of Israel to make any meaningful attempt to end their policy of brutal subjugation. I'm also pointing out the double standard vis a vis Ukraine.
DrJ
Free Member
I’m not advising sending any weapons to anyone.
Guess your account was hacked then.
DrJ
Free Member
Maybe if the US supplied Palestine with tanks and HIMARS the Palestinians would not be reduced to attacking civilians. Note also that the attacks on civilians produce far fewer casualties than “surgical” attacks on Palestinians.
And the silence regarding apartheid continues...
So thols, since you chose not to answer the question regarding apartheid (and misrepresented the nature of this thread), is it safe to say that you yourself support apartheid?
So, we agree. Sending weapons to Palestinians would be spectacularly stupid. That's why the West doesn't do it.
Will you continue to avoid this question for another page?
So thols, since you chose not to answer the question regarding apartheid (and misrepresented the nature of this thread), is it safe to say that you yourself support apartheid?
So, we agree. Sending weapons to Palestinians would be spectacularly stupid. That’s why the West doesn’t do it.
So - now tell us what alternative support is given to the victims of Israeli aggression and why sending weapons to Israel is a great idea ....