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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: 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.