With the UN calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinians in the Gaza Strip an article written by Gary Brecher and first published in 2012 by NSFWCORP (now part of Pando), lessons from Gaza - suggesting that Palestinian durability may beat Israel's high-tech weaponry, remains remarkably relevant today.
What's going on in Gaza is war, but not the kind any commander from the past would understand. On paper, Israel should be winning easily, because they've got the weapons, the numbers, the organization. The weapons Hamas is firing into Israel are primitive things, unguided rocket artillery, the kind that couldn't hit the ground if it wasn't for the law of gravity. On the other side, the Israelis get the best weaponry the US can give them.
But it's not that simple. Israel may win this battle, but it's lost the war already. You see that in the confusion the IDF shows about what to do. They've tried stomping hard on Gaza. In late 2008 through early 2009, "Operation Cast Lead" sent IDF troops and planes smashing into this tiny overpopulated slum. They killed 1400 Palestinians, and it didn't do much but make everybody sick to their stomachs - including even some Israelis, once they got over their initial gloating.
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The Independent reports on the secret report that aids Israeli public relations:
"Israeli spokesmen have their work cut out explaining how they have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them civilians, compared with just three civilians killed in Israel by Hamas rocket and mortar fire. But on television and radio and in newspapers, Israeli government spokesmen such as Mark Regev appear slicker and less aggressive than their predecessors, who were often visibly indifferent to how many Palestinians were killed."
The booklet is "...highly illuminating about the gap between what Israeli officials and politicians really believe, and what they say, the latter shaped in minute detail by polling to determine what Americans want to hear."
"The booklet is full of meaty advice about how they should shape their answers for different audiences. For example, the study says that "Americans agree that Israel 'has a right to defensible borders'. But it does you no good to define exactly what those borders should be. Avoid talking about borders in terms of pre- or post-1967, because it only serves to remind Americans of Israel's military history. Particularly on the left this does you harm. For instance, support for Israel's right to defensible borders drops from a heady 89 per cent to under 60 per cent when you talk about it in terms of 1967."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Sunday July 13 2014, @10:12PM
This is confusing PR and military wars. Israel could flatten most populated areas. The UN and the rest of the world would be displeased at least. Palestine has at a minimum, many country's dislike of Jews going for it as well as their underdog status. If they stopped lobbing missiles at civilians, kidnapping people, and fighting amongst themselves, the global pressure against Israel would be even higher.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tibman on Sunday July 13 2014, @10:24PM
I agree, it is a very silly headline. If Palestine "wins" by randomly blowing up parts Israel, then sure. But that doesn't win them anything but return fire.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by c0lo on Sunday July 13 2014, @10:49PM
For some value of win. TFA:
Man, if TFA is right - and it seems so to my mind - it's ugly: there's no clean exits from the hole they dug themselves
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 13 2014, @11:16PM
It is so depressing how that article, written in 2012, is still 100% relevant to what's happening today. I skipped the blurb at the top and would have sworn it was written yesterday.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by fnj on Monday July 14 2014, @12:18AM
Practically all of the rhetoric from Israel's 1947-1948 birth (and long before) is still found today. When you have an entire people inculcated with base unreasoning hatred, their souls completely taken over by it, that ain't goin' away any time soon. I don't care how much you crush militarily, try to talk, or even negotiation. Only one of two things could ever quench that fire decisively, and neither one of them would be welcomed by any sane mind.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Sunday July 13 2014, @11:17PM
Don't forget to add religion and being indoctrinated into hating another religion as part of their education. It really can't end well.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by c0lo on Sunday July 13 2014, @11:25PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by isostatic on Monday July 14 2014, @09:06AM
Not only did they grow up in a war, they grew up in a prison. Every day the IDF claims "go somewhere else". To a population of 2 million living in an area 1/10th the size of a Texan ranch [texasmonthly.com], surrounded by the IDF on all sides, there is nowhere else to go.
There really is very little else to do other than fuck and fight.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday July 14 2014, @12:17PM
"Logically, in classical military terms, it's simple: you'd massacre or expel the whole population. Israel doesn't quite have the ruthlessness to do that"
A lot of important people gain a lot of power and make a lot of money by "defending Israel" and on the other side "fighting Israel". Putting them out of business on both sides isn't happening unless you've got a better business plan for both sides to gain power and make money. Can't think of one? Yeah that's where the best minds have been stuck for about 60 years now.
Its an example of a situation that on an individual basis is very unstable, but the overall group dynamic is hyper stable and isn't likely to change in the future.
Setting up an embargo on the Palestinians / cutting off all USA aid to Israel would lower the death rate (at least temporarily) but would do nothing to disrupt the stability of eternal war as their primary business model.
The only solution I can think of is removal of both players from the fight. Send all the Jews to ... I donno which is kinda a problem, new york city or skokie or someplace I donno, and kick out all the Palestinians, and then nuke the empty land from orbit to be sure. Thats the nice way to do it. The not so nice way is ecological, wait until famine arrives and wipes out both sides, or geological, wait long enough and a tidal wave will kill them all, even if it takes 1M years.
I'm not sure what would happen if you sent in another power and victimized both sides for awhile and then left. Basically a UN or USA peacekeeping mission. Embrace, extend, and extinguish the existing warfare business model by becoming the new bad guy on the block killing 100 people a day on both sides for like a decade, THEN take off and leave and hope they cooperate. Good luck. Even if you had to try this like 10 times until it worked, that's only what, like 7 million people total, and at the current death rate you'd come out ahead in the long run after only 400 years or so.
A close analogy to the peacekeeping mission would be a new religious conversion. Perhaps both sides converting to Scientology would patch things up a bit. Unfortunately this might be their best hope.
(Score: 1) by fadrian on Tuesday July 15 2014, @03:25PM
I donno which is kinda a problem, new york city or skokie or someplace I donno...
Well, there's always Palm Springs and Miami, too, for the older ones.
That is all.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Sunday July 13 2014, @11:14PM
Wait, why is this modded flamebait?
It is a concise statement of the problem.
If Israel responded with indiscriminate random bombardment on a large scale, all of these stupid missile attacks would cease.
Israel isn't fighting a military campaign. It is strictly a Public Relations campaign.
(One, by the way, which has never succeeded in all of history. Its pretty much a fools errand).
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Sunday July 13 2014, @11:24PM
It's modded flamebait because it's not in support of the side winning the PR war. I also see the term "apartheid" being brought up to stir the pot.
Part of Israel's problem is that they are treating the problem as a military conflict in the same way that the US treated Vietnam when it started. They either need to treat it fully as a military problem, or as a PR problem. Or,m both sides could perhaps put religion and history aside and come to a compromise that would help both sides. I have very little confidence that it will happen of course, primarily for the reason that history and religion will *not* be put aside.
(Score: 1) by Arik on Sunday July 13 2014, @11:39PM
A military problem? The existence of indigenous peoples is a military problem? Quite simply, that implies genocide.
A PR problem? It will all go away if we just convince Important People to quit paying any mind? No, that does not work either. The people are real, their suffering is real, and that is the problem. Ignoring the wound only causes it to fester, and that is how we got here. Treating it as a PR problem only makes sense if you define the problem as the prohibitions on genocide, in which case see above.
The problem is that the Israeli national narrative defies reality. It denies the existence of the very people it rules. It denies their past, their present, and their future. No Israeli government will ever be able to negotiate peace until a sufficient portion of the electorate escapes from the myths that have been built up to justify the occupation, and then you have the incumbent government working overtime to reinforce and extend the same myths, to rally the voters behind them.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1) by Techlectica on Monday July 14 2014, @05:21AM
Ha! Both sides should be so lucky. Unfortunately there appears to be no Palestinian claimant to the mantle of Nelson Mandela, (and if there was, AIPAC and Israel-friendly interests in USA media corps would make sure you never heard about them). Israeli right wing fanatics also seem to assassinate any possible P.W. Botha emulators. There might have been a chance to accomplish something lasting in the 80s after the Camp David Accords, but that was deliberately sabotaged. Shamir, Netanyahu, and Arafat are the architects of this Charlie-Foxtrot. One of these days Israel is going to be facing a loony tune who won't care that Israel has nukes (the self-styled Caliph leader of ISIL is the current best bet but it's doubtful he'll be the last), who will tap into a lot of deep-seated anger at Occidental (mainly American) intervention in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East (thanks to W), and who Russia and China will be more than happy to supply with weapons to weaken American Middle Eastern influence.
At this point the best we can hope for is that if it goes biological it won't spread too far beyond the Middle East (a faint hope at best given commercial aviation). OK the real best we can hope for is that something like Polywell will make fusion a practical replacement for oil and result in nobody caring about about the Middle East except for its inhabitants, but there's a lot of entrenched interests who prefer those funds get spent on tax breaks for multinational oil corporations and propping up the Israeli economy.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday July 14 2014, @09:09AM
I also see the term "apartheid" being brought up to stir the pot.
Have you ever been to Israel? Have you ever taken a drive from Jerusalem to somewhere like Ramallah? Past the Berlin Wall, used your western passport to get through the military checkpoints, while watching anyone with a Palestinian ID card being forced into metal cages on their walk over the border (no way they're allowed to drive)?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 14 2014, @11:10AM
> used your western passport to get through the military checkpoints, while watching
> anyone with a Palestinian ID card being forced into metal cages on their walk over
> the border (no way they're allowed to drive)?
This is an essay by a former soldier in the israeli defense force who was assigned to work internal checkpoints in palestine. He describes how these sorts of situations destroy the souls of both the people who pass through and the people who man the checkpoints. It is intense and heart-rending and it might help outsiders understand how corrosive the situation is for all involved.
The Checkpoint. [bostonreview.net]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 13 2014, @11:41PM
I asked the same thing when I saw it, which is why I modded it up.
Please, please, moderators, do a better job. The moderation system is not to be used as "+1 Agree" and "-1 Disagree/Fuck You".
(Score: 2) by keplr on Monday July 14 2014, @05:30PM
Exactly. That's why they have their ambassador to the USA telling us on NPR, in perfect Midwestern news-anchor accented English, that this is all about the Israeli government's responsibility to defend their citizens. They made it seem like they had no idea what could possible be angering the Palestinians. It's just brave Israel, beset on all sides by anti-West Islamic enemies, standing alone against unprovoked assaults.
This is going to go on forever until the entire area is split roughly in half. This will require Israel to shrink in size, which isn't acceptable to the Israeli hardliners. They'd rather keep the land and suffering a permanent smoldering conflict. A few scores of people killed every year is acceptable if they get to hold that land. Nothing will change until that attitude changes. It doesn't help that the primary motivation to hold that land is fundamentally irrational: a belief that a supernatural being promised their ancestors exclusive rights to it in perpetuity.
I don't respond to ACs.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Monday July 14 2014, @12:36AM
Why is this flamebait? All the people of Gaza are doing is making sure they get to attend a LOT of funerals and get to live in rubble, whereas if they were to use peaceful non violent protest they could easily make it another South Africa. As long as they keep playing videos of "jihad is great and fun!" on their TVs while constantly lobbying rockets? There isn't going to be any sympathy for them, at least not from anybody but the same ME countries that keep printing the old 1930 anti-semite propaganda and look like whack-a-doodles.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Monday July 14 2014, @01:13AM
That's not even quite true. There already seems to be a great deal of support for them, probably more than they truly deserve. All thy need to do is help themselves by stopping the rhetoric and violence, or at least attenuating it drastically. Last I heard they (Hamas?) wouldn't even rescind their stated goal of destroying Israel. It's hard to throw full support behind them (for many ... not all).
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 14 2014, @03:39AM
There are no moderates on the Muslim side of this thing. Israel has to few moderates, granted - but there are no moderates on the other side. It's all or nothing. That is the rule of this entire conflict. The rule is stated quite clearly, and you will not modify that rule of war.
No, it does not conform to any Geneva convention. No, it does not conform to western ideals. But, it doesn't have to conform to our ideas of proper rules of war. This is THEIR war, and the Muslims will conduct it on their own terms.
There are almost no Muslims in the world who will refer to Israel as a state, or a nation, or a country. It is always the "Zionist entity". Israel can only win it's existence with a genocidal campaign of it's own. Islam has already promised to eradicate Israel, at any cost.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 14 2014, @04:20AM
> There are no moderates on the Muslim side of this thing.
Attitudes like yours are what escalates this conflict.
I married a girl from a muslim family. Her niece married a jew.
You have no idea about the real world and your black-and-white thinking prevents you from figuring it out.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday July 14 2014, @09:43AM
Last I heard they (Hamas?) wouldn't even rescind their stated goal of destroying Israel. It's hard to throw full support behind them (for many ... not all).
Believe it or not, Hamas are actually the "moderates" in Gaza. There's a large portion of american allies in there (Saudi Wahhabists) and that would replace Hamas at the drop of the hat if they showed any weakness.
Despite the current death-toll in Gaza, the population is still increasing. The net growth is about 144 per day, the extra deaths from Israeli bombing is about 25 per day. Israel will have to do a lot more to even arrest growth in Gaza.
Israel suffers an existential crisis, not from a few missiles which are barely stronger than fireworks, but from a demographic mismatch. Even if Israeli population growth accelerated to match that of Palestinian, Israel would run out of room and resources. Throw in 50 years of growth and you end up with region with 30 million people in an area the size of Wales that's currently half desert. Add climate change and water problems into the mix and it's a disaster.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday July 14 2014, @02:40PM
They've tried that before, and it hasn't worked. Heck, Fatah hasn't attacked Israel from the West Bank for about 15 years now, and all it's gotten them is losing approximately 2/3 of the territory of the West Bank. Hamas gets the support they get for rocket attacks on Israel because they look at what's happening to the West Bank and assume it would happen to them too if they didn't fight.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 14 2014, @06:57PM
israel has been stealing land, expelling, brutalizing and killing palestinians for decades. the will go all the way to the end and nobody will intervene.
"global pressure against Israel would be even higher?" -- wtf?!?? there has been no real pressure whatsoever. ever.
TFA is mere propaganda, pretending there's an actual conflict where there's nothing but genocide. israel has lost nothing but humanity. as for their goals, they are close to win: they have patiently pursued them and are close to finish the first phase, which is cleansing palestine which they say is their holy land. but i don't see any reason why they would stop there.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by mendax on Sunday July 13 2014, @11:00PM
I am not a big fan of the Israelis, mainly because successive Israeli governments have acted in ways that are contrary to the country's long-term interests with regard to the Palestinians. They continually push the solution to the Palestinian problem onto the next generation. Yet, there is no doubt that it is a problem that will be solved. The only question is whether the solution will be bloody or not. The longer they delay the issue, the bloodier it will get and the chances that Israel will survive it as a nation are reduced.
It's ironic that a nation founded by survivors of the Holocaust have managed to turn large parts of their country into a large concentration camp. Yet, the Palestinians ought to be grateful that it's the Israelis they have to deal with instead of the Egyptians, the Syrians, or the Jordanians. The Israeli's will probably kill a a couple thousand people, maybe a few more, in the next ground war in Gaza, but the Palestinians other neighbors would not stop there. They would devastate the Gaza Strip, bomb the hell out of it, and kill tens of thousands of people in the process. The Israelis are not saints but at least, as a whole, they are reasonably restrained.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Nerdfest on Monday July 14 2014, @12:39AM
Admittedly, "reasonably restrained" when referring to the middle east is damning with faint praise.
(Score: 2) by mendax on Monday July 14 2014, @04:07AM
Agreed, especially when compared to the Syrians. If Bashar al-Assad, for example, were facing this problem, he's probably solve this problem by dropping a few fuel air explosives [wikipedia.org], if he had them, on Gaza and permanently obliterate the problem. Who needs nukes when you have propane, a altitude-based detonator, and a parachute and a plane to drop the bomb from?
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday July 14 2014, @06:16AM
Really? damning with faint praise?
Even when Israel takes down a house used for missile storage or launching, they knock on the roof [independent.co.uk] 15 minutes ahead of time, letting occupants know its time to get out.
Its clear they are after the missiles, not the Palestinians.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 14 2014, @08:21PM
too bad for your delusional thinking that neither syria, nor egypt, nor jordan has ever attempted any claim on palestinian land.
israel has. but plaestinians should be grateful, you say.
not sure if you either are targeting a moron audiencie or are a moron yourself, or both.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Sunday July 13 2014, @11:05PM
VietCong: Millions of impoverished peasants with very little military training and some cast-off equipment from China with no naval or air forces to speak of.
United States: The most technically advanced and capable military power in the world, with complete air superiority and control of the water.
Winner: The peasants. Any questions?
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Sunday July 13 2014, @11:34PM
"The country must be conquered, for out of the country
a new military force may be formed.
But even when both these things are done, still the War,
that is, the hostile feeling and action of hostile agencies,
cannot be considered as at an end as long as the will of
the enemy is not subdued also; that is, its Government
and its Allies must be forced into signing a peace, or the
people into submission; for whilst we are in full occupation
of the country, the War may break out afresh, either in the
interior or through assistance given by Allies. No doubt,
this may also take place after a peace, but that shows
nothing more than that every War does not carry in itself
the elements for a complete decision and final settlement."
Carl von Clausewitz - On War.
Your example can also include Iraq and Afghanistan.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fnj on Monday July 14 2014, @12:08AM
Yeah, I don't have any questions, but I have some corrections.
The NLF guerillas (loosely and incorrectly referred to as VietCong colloquially) didn't have any advanced heavy weapons such as tanks and planes, but they had a vast profusion of perfectly effective light weapons, a scourge of RPGs, and plenty of mortars and all but the heaviest artillery.
North Vietnam, co-involved in the war, had plenty, notably an array of AA weapons which the Third Reich would have been proud of, heavy artillery, rocket launchers, MiG-15,17,19,&21 jets, helicopters, light, medium and heavy tanks, self-propelled guns. Some of their units and weapons crept into the ground war in the south, and are what kept things going after Tet. Far from "nothing", their Air Force contested their airspace to the end, winning approximate parity in air-to-air kills even as they had to build it from nothing.
The NLF, as an effective force, was WIPED OUT by Tet, when they committed effective mass suicide. Yeah, they gave a DAMN good account of themselves, but they had no mystical way to deny their own destruction; the forces arrayed against them were too much. The US chose to prosecute North Vietnam to a negotiating table, at which they won a satisfactory draw and walked away eagerly.
North Vietnam then took three years to build up and cynically launched an all out conventional attack on the south led by tanks, which the US did not choose to resist.
You want to view that as "the peasants won", I can't stop you.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Monday July 14 2014, @01:03AM
You are leaving out the fact that those "peasants" had a magic shield that kept a LARGE portion of their turf from being bombed in the form of Soviet advisers...Gaza doesn't have that advantage.
I'll get hate for saying this but...the Americans were facing something similar at the end of WWII and we slaughtered them, civilians and all, because they would not stop and I have a feeling the IDF is gonna reach that point soon enough. By Jan 45 neither the Japs nor the Germans had a hope in hell of winning, we outnumbered them by hundreds to 1 when it came to everything from tanks to bombers yet they just would not stop, would not surrender, so by the end the place looked like the moon for all the craters.
Like it or not there is NOTHING the Jews can do to stop this, nothing. The Shia and Sunni have been killing each other for how many centuries? The Islamist extremists will NEVER agree to peace so Israel could give them every demand short of the jews leaving the country and the rockets would STILL fall, just as they have done for many decades now. If the people of Gaza wanted a peaceful resolution it would be beyond trivial to get the world on their side just as what happened with South Africa...but they won't, because they've grown up on shit like Farfur teaching kids how great it is to kill jews and how wonderful jihad is.
lets face it folks, if Israel gets sick enough of this shit they could turn the place into a crater tomorrow and nobody would do shit because they have dozens of nukes and nobody wants to start WWIII, the only question is how much shit will they take? I've never been pro-Israel but this is just fucking STUPID, hell I can think of a half a dozen ways for Israel to come up with an excuse to just raze the place, everything from false flag to "detection of chemical weapons" at a couple of rocket attack sites, this just isn't the way to get anything but a nice slaughter of Gaza residents going, no real upside i can see for the people of Gaza.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 14 2014, @01:31AM
> I'll get hate for saying this
Well, at least you recognize that there are serious problems with your analysis.
The next step is to start working on improving your understanding.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 14 2014, @03:25AM
The fact that some people are going to hate you for your analysis doesn't mean that the analysis has faults. It is just as likely that the haters use faulty analysis.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Monday July 14 2014, @07:04AM
Well I feel I have a teeny tiny inkling of how the Israeli feel because i had a grandfather in Europe during WWII and a great uncle that was a marine in the Pacific and both used to talk about the sheer insanity and futility of the war in the last months. My great uncle used to slaughter japs by the hundreds with his "Ma Deuce" because they would just banzai charge, no chance in hell of survival, much less winning, but still they came, and my grandfather said they were shooting kids by the end because they were being used as snipers to free what few men they had for hunting tanks. again no chance of any kind of even stalemate, but at the end of the day it was them or you.
All you have to do is watch a farfur video to see what kind of people the Israeli troops are dealing with, people that see NO problem in teaching kids to hate based on race almost from the day they can walk....what else can they do against that? they will NEVER stop, hell the "rockets" are nothing more than primitive pipes filled with nails and TNT and have zero chance of doing anything of any military value...yet they keep on doing it, have done it almost since the beginning, and no matter what the jews capitulate they will keep on doing it....what else can they do, but what we did when we faced fanatics that refused to stop?
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by monster on Thursday July 31 2014, @05:21PM
I know this can easily turn into flamewars, so I'll try to show a different viewpoint just for playing devil's advocate.
If you just look at some facts, Israel has laws against israeli-palestinian marriages, laws restricting sales to palestinian people and laws against palestinian free movement. You may argue about the reasons, but the facts are that those laws exist and are enforced solely on a race basis. That looks pretty apartheidy to me, but I guess other people may see it different.
Now, about the hate, one could ask if that hate is the cause of the israeli treatment, a consequence of it or part of both. Let's do an experiment: Do you hate canadians? I guess you probably don't, since although it's a neighbouring country to yours, there haven't been recent conflicts between both of you. Now, suppose that instead of that situation, there have been skirmishes at the border for several years, you have been launching rockets in their direction and they have been doing airstrikes in yours. A lot of people have already died in both countries, maybe even some direct family of yours, or friends. Would you hate canucks now? Would you teach your kids to hate them? Would you understand people who did?
I think there is no easy way out of the current situation, because both parts have real grievances and feel entitled to their positions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 14 2014, @03:27AM
lol.
My favourite bit was...
"If the people of Gaza wanted a peaceful resolution it would be beyond trivial to get the world on their side just as what happened with South Africa"
Cos, ya know, it was like soooooooooooooooooooo easy getting South Africa to change.
And there certainly wasn't any violence involved.
It was trivial I tells YA, TRIVIAL!!!!!!!
(Score: 1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 14 2014, @03:31AM
I've said it many times, in many ways, in many places.
The world needs to just STFU and let them fight it out. When one side is so sick of bloodshed, so sick of being bombed, starved, so sick of watching their kin being buried (when possible) that they throw in the towel, and surrender unconditionally - THEN there might be peace.
The world will be shocked and horrified, just as it was shocked and horrified with Dresden, with Hiroshima. But - the casualty figures would actually be LOWER than allowing this conflict to continue for another hundred or five hundred years. One big heap of casualties over a couple of years, versus small and medium heaps over the years and decades. The aggregate will actually be smaller in the one huge conflagration.
I say, everyone back off, let Israel have what it has, let the Palestinians have whatever they have, and let them go at it.
And, if the neighbors interfere, I'm quite sure that Israel has the capacity to deal with them as well.
If not - oh well. No more Israel. But, the conflict will be over, and the body count will stop going up.
(Score: 3, Funny) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday July 14 2014, @01:57PM
How much has the West spent propping up this ongoing fucking nightmare? Why do I have to come home to news reports of dead children and flattened buildings all because two groups of idiots can't agree on how to not eat pork? As long as religion is mixed up in this shit, compromise is impossible. Here's my solution. If I was Supreme Emperor of the World:
1 - Confiscate all the money the Israelis are using to bribe the US gov, and all the money the crazy oil-princes are using to fuel the palestinians. If more cash is needed, take it from the Western military budgets - they will save money in the long run, trust me.
2 - Use the money to buy up a big Isreal-sized stretch of empty desert in the US somewhere, and another one in Australia[1]. Relocate the Isrealis to one and the Palestinians to the other.
3 - Once the area is empty of people and valuable goods, nuke the entire "holy land" into a radioactive crater that makes Chernobyl look like Eurodisney.[2]
4 - Using leftover money from 1, erect a massive, ugly, concrete monument in the exact centre of the smoking ruins of the freshly-renamed Blasted Forbidden Realm of Pride and Stubbornness. At the bottom of monument are engraved the names of all the people who were killed in the conflict in date & alphabetical order, jews and muslims all mixed together. At the top, in huge glowing radioactive letters legible from miles away, printed side by side in both hebrew and arabic, the following phrase: "This is why we can't have nice things."
[1] Sorry US and Australia, you'll just have to deal with them. You can flip a coin for who gets which. Maybe the US could build a new Israel on an artificial island off the coast of New York. Or maybe you could arrange the land in a long strip along the Mexican border, creating a buffer zone for your illegal immigrants & drugs smugglers. However it ends up, the refugees should consider themselves lucky: My original plan relocated the whole damn lot of them to Antarctica together to fight it out there and/ or maybe learn the value of co-operation, but I figured the penguins don't deserve that kind of shit.
[2]For extra points, this poisonous and inhospitable place[3] could double as a cheap dumping ground for radioactive waste, solving the problem that has held back nuclear power for decades and negating the need for middle eastern oil.
[3]The middle eastern radioactive wasteland, not Eurodisney.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Freeman on Monday July 14 2014, @05:43PM
I for one don't welcome our new "Supreme Emperor of the World". Forced re-locations have always gone so well, I mean just look at the Trail of Tears...
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday July 15 2014, @09:26AM
Who said anything about "forced"? They'd simply be invited to come and live in this nice new land that doesn't have raging jihadis/zionists next door and definitely isn't scheduled to be bombed into radioactive oblivion in 6 months' time.
Seriously though...
I was of course being facetious. The sad fact is though, that from where things stand now there is no neat, tidy solution that won't result in at least a generation of continued misery and murder. My 'solution' would undoubtedly create pain and suffering in the short term, but in twenty years (providing that the new territories are properly supported and not allowed to turn into ghettoes) the next generation of isrealis and palestinians would have a shot at a peaceful and productive life.
The alternative - leaving things as they stand - just guarantees another half-hundred years of bombings, counter-bombings and "he started it", "no, he started it" that brings nobody any closer to a humane solution.
That might look like a false dichotomy, but we've tried the "peaceful negotiation" thing and it just doesn't work. For the two sides to live peacefully where they are would require compromise and as I said in my original post, compromise is impossible when both sides believe they have God's explicit permission and blessing for every atrocious thing they do.
(Score: 1) by fadrian on Tuesday July 15 2014, @03:36PM
The middle eastern radioactive wasteland, not Eurodisney.
to be fair, it's sort of difficult to tell the difference, at least aesthetically.
That is all.
(Score: 2) by redneckmother on Monday July 14 2014, @03:49AM
The people in the "Middle East" have been fighting among(st?) themselves since before the beginning of recorded history. I believe they will continue to do so until well after the end of recorded history.
Mas cerveza por favor.
(Score: 2) by evilviper on Monday July 14 2014, @01:34PM
That's utterly false. They got lots of training and support from the USSR.
Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 13 2014, @11:12PM
The millitary power of Isreal is not even making a dent in the Palestinian population. To do that, they need to kill hundreds of thousands.
If the Palestinians stop retaliating against the occupation, they win because they have the law on their side.
If the Isrealis stop oppressing the Palestinians, they loose because they don't have the law on their side. The Israelis need this conflict to go on and on forever. If the center of Israeli politics drift just a little bit to the left, the conflict cools down and they loose ( this particular conflict but nothing of importance ).
The best solution for the Palestinians is the two state solution. The size of their state doesn't really matter.
The best solution for the Israelis is the one state solution. They will have to share their country with others anyway because of their work force deficit and the huge economic gap between them and their neighbors.
The illegal settlements are irrelevant for the Palestinians. When peace kicks in they will be the problem of the Israeli government.
The only thing the Palestinians can do is to arm themselves with cameras and record the faces, actions and words of their oppressors. And click on "share".
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Monday July 14 2014, @04:45AM
That's basically what I said above. The problem is that it won't happen.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 14 2014, @10:15AM
For your information: loose [wiktionary.org] vs. lose [wiktionary.org]...
(Score: 1) by arslan on Monday July 14 2014, @02:38AM
If this was the Nazis or Imperial Japan, they would have long occupied the place and wiped the floor with every man, woman and baby. This is not about their high tech military might not capable, its more than capable. Its the people and politics that is holding it back, and thank goodness so, otherwise the slaughter/genocide would happened long ago.
(Score: 2) by redneckmother on Monday July 14 2014, @03:55AM
If my historical sources serve correctly, they would preserve the child-bearing-age women, and repopulate the conquered areas with more "docile" subjects.
Mas cerveza por favor.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 14 2014, @07:52AM
Surely that's the reason why absolutely all people in half Europe is german, and all the population in Manchuria is japanese.
Don't be silly.
(Score: 2) by tathra on Monday July 14 2014, @10:33PM
according to the bible, thats what they're supposed to do. the only thing keeping them from doing it might be that they know they'd lose all their international support if they did what their god tells them to do:
ironically, jews and muslims worship the same god, so they'd be killing them to prevent them from "teach[ing] ... all the abhorrent things that they do for [Yahweh]". naturally the commands from their god to commit genocide shouldnt apply to followers of other abrahamic religions, but you try telling somebody that their understanding of their religion is flawed; its usually not pretty.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 14 2014, @08:34AM
Keeping the armed conflict going requires great effort. It will eventually cool down. That is unavoidable. Once it does, Israel and Palestine equal in power. Israel will loose its ability to choose the one state solution, because the Palestinians will not want it. Perhaps there will be a new wave where they call the Palestinian opposition "separatists". The end result will be two states. Israel will be overrun by immigrate workers. This is all unavoidable.
This is not a complicated conflict. There are just a lot of smoke and mirrors.
(Score: 1) by shadov on Monday July 14 2014, @10:32AM
Israel doesn't want the one state solution. It would be a demographic suicide for the Jewish state due to the higher birth rates of the Muslim population.
I disagree about the armed conflict requiring great effort to keep going. It seems at this point pretty self-sustaining.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 14 2014, @06:48PM
Why do you keep saying "loose" over and over again. I expect that all the "loose" AC posts all over the place here are the same troll.
(Score: 2) by WillAdams on Monday July 14 2014, @12:00PM
You have to conduct yourself in such a way that you can enjoy an honourable peace.
Both sides are failing at that now.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday July 14 2014, @01:30PM
I have been watching this pageant all my life. Not because I want to, but because the American media are obsessed with Israel. Occasionally I think it might be nice, just for a change, to hear about religious hatreds and border disputes in other parts of the world that actually matter such as India/Pakistan/Kashmir. Alas, we get All-Israel-All-The-Time, wherein a minor country with less than the population of the greater Cleveland area and no discernible strategic value to the United States headlines the news almost every night. And I long ago stopped paying close attention to its drama because I have no dog in the fight, being neither Israeli, Palestinian, Jewish, nor an evangelical Christian egging them on hoping it will hasten Armageddon and the Rapture.
But even I can tell that Israel does not want to make peace with the Palestinians under any circumstances because it would remove the justification for the massive amounts of aid that the US gives them. Though they have nuclear weapons (which technology they stole from us and tested jointly with South Africa in the 80's) and the most powerful military force in the Middle East, somehow they still have the American polity hornswoggled into believing that they are the victims. They have perfected the art of playing the victim card and viciously smearing anyone who dares point out the absurdity of the US-Israel relationship (see Waltz and Mearscheimer, the fathers of modern international relations theory, and what happened to them when they authored a paper on that subject).
I have no sympathy for jihadis who blow up women and kids with suicide bombs nor special feelings for the Palestinians as a tribe, but I hope they give Israel two black eyes and a bloody nose because I hate bullies. It seems Israel has taken in all the worst lessons of the 20th century, lebensraum, apartheid, state propaganda, and has mockingly slapped a "modern democracy" label on it all as both a ruse and a jab at foolish, naive Americans who believe that life is about anything but naked power and the ability to inflict organized cruelty.
Fight on, Palestinians. Kick Israel in the nuts as hard and often as you can. Bullies must be made to suffer.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by evilviper on Monday July 14 2014, @01:41PM
It's been a long-time coming, that insurgent forces have an asymmetrical advantage over standing armies. That's why the US won the war of independence over Britain, that's why the US lost in Vietnam, that's why Iraq and Afghanistan were such long and drawn-out slogs. etc.
It doesn't eliminate the technological advantages, though, it just keeps them from obliterating the opponent with zero effort, as the balance of power would otherwise indicate it should. That technology is, instead, getting more and more important. It's the technology that allows soldiers under-fire to direct air-strikes at one house, without carpet-bombing/shelling an area and killing all the neighbors.
And it's not as if those at the top don't know it...
"I think you could say that there are two fundamental ways to fight the US Military: asymmetrically and stupid." -Major General Herbert Raymond McMaster (2014/05/24)
Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 15 2014, @01:27AM
The Assad Family Dynasty, in one city in the 1980s (Hama) killed about 20,000 people. That's more than all the combined operations against the Palestinians by the Israelis in the past thirty years. ISIS and the Assads now have turned Syria and parts of Lebanon as well as much of Iraq into a charnel house, with aid from Iran and the Saudis and other Gulf states (like the Qataris) on the Assad and Maliki and ISIS sides.
No one cares. No one cares about the comparatively few Palestinians killed by Israelis in retaliation for shooting rockets into Israel. No one cares really about some Palestinian kid killed by Israelis in retaliation for three of theirs being kidnapped and murdered. Why, just the other day ISIS went into a brothel and killed everyone (most victims were women). This in the heart of Baghdad.
Sure Muslims indulge their typical Jew hatred, the same for France and England's Black population. The ugly truth is this is nothing more than the hatred of the profoundly stupid for the smart. Ashkenazi Jews have, according to Lynn and Vanhannen ("IQ and the Wealth of Nations") the highest average: 115. Africans have among the lowest (70) and Muslims (perhaps due to endemic inbreeding, the UN reports that Arabs have the highest number of birth defects per region) not much higher.
Jews are hated because they are smart. Nothing else. After all, other Muslims slaughter Muslims in numbers that are staggering on their own and that dwarf the number of Palestinians killed by Israelis.
Being fairly stupid, violent, TRIBAL, the Palestinian people have no hope for peace, because what would they do with peace? The Chinese, the Koreans, the Japanese, the Indonesians, Malaysians, even the Indians have more manufacturing and service potential than the Palestinians who absent jihad-war donations from the Gulf and racketeering have no viable means of support. Heck a few generations ago the Japanese were bayoneting babies in Nanking, but at least their population was smart and fairly cooperative amongst themselves. Endemic Arab tribalism makes embracing modernity: an efficient and fair state with a monopoly of power, hierarchy of elites, mutual cooperation and non-violence, education, fair treatment of women, non-clan oriented society a non-starter.
Most of the commenters here are deluded that Arabs are simply White or Asian guys who pray five times a day and have extra colorful costumes. No sensible Korean, Japanese, Malaysian, Chinese, let alone American or Englishman would think the correct response to possible theft of his car is to get all his relatives and shoot up the neighboring block in retaliation, but that is how Arabs even half a century urbanized Arabs live. Its tribal, and all the implicit nuclear family, strong state, secular, non-clan/tribe/extended family ways of life of modern people are complete negated in an environment where "honor" of person and clan (see Honor Killings), social conformity, paradoxically near universal male armament and independence (what modern Japanese or Englishman carries around AK-47s in case his extended family needs him to help kill his neighbors?) combined with utter chaos and shifting alliances.
Not even Game of Thrones captures that sort of society though Martin comes a bit close.
Eventually Israel will tire of compromises, particularly when their gas fields come on line and Europeans will be desperate for an alternative to "High Price Vlad's Gas Emporium!" and will offer the Palestinians a rump take it or leave state of Gaza and part of the West Bank. When another intifada is launched they'll simply kill about 40-50% of the military age population and call it a day. The Israelis are modern people who don't like their sons getting killed nor their own getting rocketed. Their patience is not limited -- they are not built for constant fighting like tribal peoples and their solution is likely to be one of August 1945 vintage.
Over and over again, people stop fighting when about 40% of men 14-40 are killed. The German Army of say, August 1918 had reached that point and by October previously unimaginable desertions, Spartacists revolts, refusal to fight, were in full swing. Why? Because at that point about 45% of the German Army had been killed in combat. So they stopped fighting. When half your buddies almost are dead, you as a soldier stop fighting. No matter how motivated and dedicated. Even tribal people stop fighting then.
None of this is rocket science. All are ugly but hard truths better accepted than pretty lies.