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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.
(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.