Israelis Killing Palestinians

[HemlockGrey]

Does anyone have any sources on the apparently frequent death of Palestinian civvies at the hands of Israelis? Any sources on Israeli shelling, etc.?

[Mr Bean]

Does anyone have any sources on the apparently frequent death of Palestinian civvies at the hands of Israelis? Any sources on Israeli shelling, etc.?

You want an entire list? So many people die each week in Isreal its like trying to track casulities on Normandy WHILE your invading! Its a bit of a hard thing to do

By my count on CNN there are over 200 Reported deaths on each side by CNN each month

Dunno of a website that lists them all however

[Coyote]

Any of the News agencies will have lists, especially the bleeding hearts that love to cry about how the poor and innocent Pals-- who've never once ever done anything wrong in their entire innocent, blameless lives-- are being ground into paste by the evil tyrant Nazi Israelis.

("Seriously, Coyote, how do you really feel about this?")

[Joe]

Any of the News agencies will have lists, especially the bleeding hearts that love to cry about how the poor and innocent Pals-- who've never once ever done anything wrong in their entire innocent, blameless lives-- are being ground into paste by the evil tyrant Nazi Israelis.

("Seriously, Coyote, how do you really feel about this?")

Ah, that's a bit of a strawman; many of the people who disapprove of Israel's policy towards the Palestinians are fully aware of what certain Palestinians are doing, and disapprove of it.

[AdmiralKanos]

Ah, that's a bit of a strawman; many of the people who disapprove of Israel's policy towards the Palestinians are fully aware of what certain Palestinians are doing, and disapprove of it.

Of course, but that's the standard Israeli-apologist debate method. When someone criticizes Israeli behaviour, scream that the Palestinians deserve it. If that doesn't fly or people start bringing out lists of pre-adolescent kids being shot for throwing rocks (and which is pretty hard to morally justify), then resort to plan B: say that Palestinians are doing bad things too.

Of course, the best-case outcome from plan B is to show that the Israelis and Palestinians are just as bad as each other, which is not exactly a victory, since it then leads to the question of why we should be sending billions of dollars per year in military aid to one of these two sides.

[Joe]

Ah, that's a bit of a strawman; many of the people who disapprove of Israel's policy towards the Palestinians are fully aware of what certain Palestinians are doing, and disapprove of it.

Of course, but that's the standard Israeli-apologist debate method. When someone criticizes Israeli behaviour, scream that the Palestinians deserve it. If that doesn't fly or people start bringing out lists of pre-adolescent kids being shot for throwing rocks (and which is pretty hard to morally justify), then resort to plan B: say that Palestinians are doing bad things too.

Of course, the best-case outcome from plan B is to show that the Israelis and Palestinians are just as bad as each other, which is not exactly a victory, since it then leads to the question of why we should be sending billions of dollars per year in military aid to one of these two sides.

I'd say that the Israelis are worse than the Palestinians, but only because they are in power. The Palestinians would be just as bad, if not worse were they in power.

[Jim Raynor]

Any of the News agencies will have lists, especially the bleeding hearts that love to cry about how the poor and innocent Pals-- who've never once ever done anything wrong in their entire innocent, blameless lives-- are being ground into paste by the evil tyrant Nazi Israelis.

("Seriously, Coyote, how do you really feel about this?")

If anything, the media is heavily biased towards the Israelis.

[Coyote]

A lot of my reaction is also because as much as I try to be objective, I cannot completely be neutral in my viewpoint. I am scared that my friends over there are going to die. I support the peace movement over there not out of love and compassion for the Palestinians (who, in more lucid moments, I realize their suffering and its injustice) but simply because I want it all to stop.

I don't care if the Pals go and build a paradise with streets of gold or if that all go eat shit and live in mud huts, just so long as the goddamn war-without-end over there stops.

The situation is so polarized that if you support the Pals and criticize the Israelis you're automatically anti-Semitic; but if you criticize thje Pals and support the Israelis then you're a supporter of tyranny.

I don't apologize for the Sharon government, he is a major contributor to the problem-- my desire is for my friends to be safe (the fact that Palestinians will also be safe is not lost on me, however I have no personal ties to them so it is not as imperative with me).

My point is that when someone criticizes Israel for "killing innocent people" I ask what of the innocents killed by the Pals; I also ask "what is an innocent" when the women and children are combatants and state their intent to engage in Jihad; killers who run into crowds of civilians as cover and surround themselves with their own innocents to increase international outrage when Israel retaliates; when Israeli civilians are gunned down or blown up-- not soldiers, civilians, including many attacks on children, the elderly, and once even a crowded bus stop full of mentally-challenged children. Legit military targets?

No country, anywhere, can sit on its thumbs and do nothing while the citizens are slaughtered-- and when one of the guerrilla leaders gets on TV and tells people not to feel remorseful since only "pigs and monkeys" died that day (Sheikh Nasrullah after the Sbarro Pizzeria bombing in Jerusalem).

Before you say it, I'm not trying to shield Israel by saying that "the Arabs do it, why not we?" Bad bahvior on one's part does not justify bad behavior for another-- I want the Israelis out of the Territories as much as the Pals do (for different reasons). It's killing us, we're losing ourselves in there...

But just remember that for all the dead Palestinian children there are also dead Israeli chidren, but where is the outrage for that? Was that 8-year-old girl from Hadera guilty of the sins of Ariel Sharon? Did a 12-year-old boy from Netanya have to be the sacrifice for some politician's asininity? Why are their deaths acceptabe, without outrage?

Please do correct me if I'm wrong, I want to be wrong here... but it just seems to me, by your post, that every dead Palestinian is an unspeakable tragedy; every dead Israeli is a good start. I may haunt the wrong forum, but I almost never see anyone here present this in an even light, it always seems to be 'evil Israel/good Palestinians'.

Or is my close connection to the issue clouding my eyes from some obvious thing I'm missing?

[weemadando]

10 palestinian deaths = 6th page, 2 column inches.
10 israeli deaths = 3rd page, half page above fold with photos.

There is a bias in the media, undebatably. But it doesn't change the fact that any death on either side from violence is a personal tragedy.

[Coyote]

If anything, the media is heavily biased towards the Israelis.

That used to be the case. But if anything, now the bloodmongers at CNN show a bombing in Tel Aviv and a couple seconds of ambulances and sheet-covered bodies...

...then cuts to the wailing and sobbing Palestinian family, the mothers and sisters and aunts all convulsing on the floor in grief, the sullen-eyed men looking down at the floor, etc.

We don't see many shattered Israeli familes. They mostly remain nameless, faceless cyphers-- their grief is unimportant and unreported. Unfelt. The families of the bombers get all the sympathy shots, the wails and sobs and emotion.

By playing the underdog card, they got all the sympathy and won the PR war here. As a result, Palestinian blood is now worth more than Israeli blood.

It's so hard to confront this without sounding like i am justifying the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza-- I'm NOT! We MUST pull out, it is the ONLY solution acceptable.

I'm just sick of the assumption that because the Israeli GOVERNMENT is bad, then every Israeli PERSON killed deserved it, and the pain his/her family felt is earned.

The racist Settler policy of Israel is criticized; is the racist statements of PLO or Hezbollah ever criticized? No-- they are allowed ot say things that would make a fucking Klansman blush. The say they want to "push the Jews in the sea", the comment about "pigs and monkeys", the summary executions of Pals that are only suspected of collaborating with Israel...

Face it-- the Pals are allowed to act as hideous and ghoulish as they want to be, but if the Israelis shoot one single person then its the fucking Holocaust all over again.

[Howedar]

Whats it like living in a box?

[Coyote]

Of course, the best-case outcome from plan B is to show that the Israelis and Palestinians are just as bad as each other, which is not exactly a victory, since it then leads to the question of why we should be sending billions of dollars per year in military aid to one of these two sides.

Hard to argue that case, if the US devoted as much money to investigating real peace solutions we'd be somewhere by now. But the Pals have to play ball too.

But the EU sends scads of money to the Palestinians, and while they starve in the streets Arafat has something like 3.2 billion in a Swiss account, and they too buy tons of weapons with their money -- like was discovered in the Red Sea on the Karin-A when 40 TONS of weapons, ammo, mines, plastique, rockets, mortars, RPGs, grenades, etc. were discovered-- all while showing hungry Palestinians on CNN and extolling their suffering.

Yes, like you said, both sides have their faults and both sides have their assholes (get rid of Sharon and Arafat both). But neither the US will reign in its client (Israel), nor will the EU reign in its own-- but both sides continue to make excuses for their chosen fighters. And neither side is willing to exert the pressure needed to get these guys to work on a decent plan.

[Coyote]

Whats it like living in a box?

????

[InnerBrat]

Coyote,

This is a little bit off-topic, and I know I'm in danger of getting a rep for asking stupid questions, but I think you're the best one to answer this - please don't read anything into it other than a request for information:

Anway, do you know anything about the Orthodox groups in major cities like London and NY that believe that the existence of an Israeli state is blasphemous? I read something about it in the Observer a few months ago but have forgotten the details and have no access to the relevant scriptures...

Thanks.

[HemlockGrey]

That's bizarre. If anything, the OT supports the Israeli state.

[Joe]

Not exactly, the concept of nation-states did not exist as it does today when the Old Testament was written.

[AdmiralKanos]

Hard to argue that case, if the US devoted as much money to investigating real peace solutions we'd be somewhere by now. But the Pals have to play ball too.

Nobody will play ball until forces to.

But the EU sends scads of money to the Palestinians, and while they starve in the streets Arafat has something like 3.2 billion in a Swiss account, and they too buy tons of weapons with their money -- like was discovered in the Red Sea on the Karin-A when 40 TONS of weapons, ammo, mines, plastique, rockets, mortars, RPGs, grenades, etc. were discovered-- all while showing hungry Palestinians on CNN and extolling their suffering.

Surely you jest. The weapons in Palestinian hands are insignificant next to the vast stream of weapons being sent to Israel by America. 40 tons sounds like a lot, but I think you're severely estimating the quantity of war materiel that $3 billion/yr in discounted American military hardware represents.

Yes, like you said, both sides have their faults and both sides have their assholes (get rid of Sharon and Arafat both). But neither the US will reign in its client (Israel), nor will the EU reign in its own-- but both sides continue to make excuses for their chosen fighters. And neither side is willing to exert the pressure needed to get these guys to work on a decent plan.

Cut them off the dole. Israel is holding all the cards; it's not as if they'll be overrun if you cut them off assistance, but it might force them to the table.

[Coyote]

Coyote,... do you know anything about the Orthodox groups in major cities like London and NY that believe that the existence of an Israeli state is blasphemous?

Yeah, there is a sect of Orthodox Jews who believe that the re-birth of the state of Israel can only be done by the command of God alone, ie, when the Messiah comes. Any attempt by mankind to rebuild the State of Israel before then is a perversion of God's will.

Theoretically, when the Messiah comes, the Kingdom (not State) of Israel will be rebuilt in all its Biblical borders (some of which are unknown, and some of the modern borders extend beyond the ancient lands as well). The monarchy of David will be crowned, the Temple will be rebuilt, and animal sacrifices will be performed again. This is the extremist viewpoint.

This extremist sect, many of whom refuse to live in Israel or visit it, have been known to attend pro-PLO rallies and anti-Israel protests, and in Israel itself some of them have even sheltered terrorists...

Anytime!

[jegs2]

I'd say that the Israelis are worse than the Palestinians, but only because they are in power. The Palestinians would be just as bad, if not worse were they in power.

[sarcasm]Nah, the Palestinians would form a Democracy and allow its people to freely elect their government officials, thus becoming the very first Arab democracy or democratic republic![/sarcasm]

[Coyote]

But the EU sends scads of money to the Palestinians, and while they starve in the streets Arafat has something like 3.2 billion in a Swiss account, and they too buy tons of weapons with their money -- like was discovered in the Red Sea on the Karin-A when 40 TONS of weapons...all while showing hungry Palestinians on CNN and extolling their suffering.

Surely you jest. The weapons in Palestinian hands are insignificant next to the vast stream of weapons being sent to Israel by America. 40 tons sounds like a lot, but I think you're severely estimating the quantity of war materiel that $3 billion/yr in discounted American military hardware represents.

I realize the imbalance of forces as far as numbers and size, even the Palestinians admit that they'd lose a force-on-force clash. But 40 tons of weapons is devestating, especially to the people on the recieving end. Remember, the Israeli targeting of civilians occurs when terrorists have gone into a civilian environment to use them as human shields or when the civilians engage in combat-- real or symbolic (stones vs. tanks). Yes, very imbalanced. (An exception to this is the checkpoint, where individual Palestinians are harrassed and humiliated-- but no one attacks the checkpoints, where the soldiers are).

But-- compare that with the Palestinina policy of engaging civilian targets as a matter of first priority. It is not hard to find soldiers in Israel, bases, trucks, jeeps and military busses are everywhere. The checkpoints would be very symbolic targets. But the Pals seek out targets such as school bus stops, hotel lobbies, and shopping centers-- where there will be no soldiers but a mass of civilians clustered together. Why does this not draw outrage?

When the British find a ton or so of weapons in Ireland, they crow about it for months. Because in the hands of skilled terrorists-- and the PLO and IRA are just exactly that-- even a half-ton of well-used weapons cause casualties and panic far disproportionate to their size. 40 tons of weapons employed in guerrilla or terrorist operations can prolong a war like this one for decades.

Also, bear in mind that the Viet Cong wore down US and French forces in Vietnam, by only targeting the military forces with weapons similar to what the PLO has. The Soviets were driven out of Afghanistan by guerrillas vs. Army clashes, not by terrorism in Kiev. No Viet Cong attacked civilian targets in Chicago or blew up a school bus in Boise. So a guerrilla force with outside help (other Arab states, the EU) can attack Israeli military units-- but no, they go right for the helpless civilians.

Cut them off the dole. Israel is holding all the cards; it's not as if they'll be overrun if you cut them off assistance, but it might force them to the table.

This idea is actually gaining popularity among Israeli peace groups, who see the aid as enabling the Sharon gov't to keep the economy patched together while continuing the war. Also, Israeli economists say that this continual propping up keeps the Israeli economy (potentially the strongets in the region) on perpetual crutches. In the PR war, it makes Israel appear to be a US puppet state, which leads to the assumption that the killing of Arabs is being done at US behest. Cutting back their aid (it would have to be done gradually at this point, and with provision limiting its military use) would go a long way towards solving problems for us, them, and the Pals...

[Sea Skimmer]

Hard to argue that case, if the US devoted as much money to investigating real peace solutions we'd be somewhere by now. But the Pals have to play ball too.

Nobody will play ball until forces to.

Surely you jest. The weapons in Palestinian hands are insignificant next to the vast stream of weapons being sent to Israel by America. 40 tons sounds like a lot, but I think you're severely estimating the quantity of war materiel that $3 billion/yr in discounted American military hardware represents.
[/quote]


Yet Israel doesn’t turn more the a fraction of what it has lose on the Palestinians. Give the active IDF a hour and a blank check to use everything they've got ready to go short of NBC and the current death toll would be five times what it is. As it is they've never even used artillery in the West Bank or Gaza.

Far as I'm concerned this is a war, there will be no peace until politics are set aside and both can simply fight it out as what it is. The Middle East and a dozen other guerrilla wars have shown that it won't end until one side is fought out, and with such limited war that could take a decade. Long in many cases, almost never less then five.

[data_link]

Far as I'm concerned this is a war, there will be no peace until politics are set aside and both can simply fight it out as what it is. The Middle East and a dozen other guerrilla wars have shown that it won't end until one side is fought out, and with such limited war that could take a decade. Long in many cases, almost never less then five.

Of course, that will never happen as long as we keep feeding them war supplies - wars only end when they aren't being fed by outside powers.

[Lord Pounder]

I have said it before and i'll say it again. I sympathise with the people of Israel. I have lived through a similar situation, being attacked from withing by a militant minority, the difference with the isrealies is their goverment have the balls to do something about it.

America was attacked by terrorists from Afghanistan and the world supported them in an attack. But when Israel defends it's country and it's civilians it is likened to the Nazi's. Any country has a right to deffend it self.

Sharon had bent over backward to accomodate the Paly's and he was shit on.

I will admit that the Israeli army has been a wee bit over zelous in defending itself but after seeing innocent civiliants bombed by suicide bombers i'd be a bit over zelous too.

[C.S.Strowbridge]

Cut them off the dole. Israel is holding all the cards; it's not as if they'll be overrun if you cut them off assistance, but it might force them to the table.

Why should they go to the table? 'Israel' has been devided three times, each time the Jewish part got smaller, that didn't stop the Arabs from attacking. What makes you think if they divid Israel up one more time the Arabs will stop attacking?

They lost the war, live with it. Move on with life. If the Palestinians spent more effort on imporving their lives instead of killing Jews they wouldn't be in the situation they're in.

[C.S.Strowbridge]

I will admit that the Israeli army has been a wee bit over zelous in defending itself but after seeing innocent civiliants bombed by suicide bombers i'd be a bit over zelous too.

I think that comes from the fact that you never know who the next attacker will be. Contrary to the opinion of some people in the Media (Turner) Jews and Arabs look the same. (Well, for the most part. Sammy Davis Jr. doesn't look like the average Arab.)