Tikun Olam-תיקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

Pages

• Home
• Photo Gallery
• Advertising
• Comment Rules
• Subscribe to Posts (per post)
• Tikun Olam Store
• Donate
• Subscribe (daily digest)
• Contact
• About
• Monthly archives
• Terms of Use

3 Responses to “David Kimche: On the Gaza Crisis”

1. Akiva says:

   May 30, 2007 at 6:14 AM

   First, the Jerusalem Post as a neocon paper? In the past, it was true. After the last purchase??? They let Glick hang around as their token conservative, perhaps you haven’t been reading their other material.

   Next, all the nice examples that Kimche provide are nice remote wars. Algeria, Vietnam, etc. Wars that, when they aren’t going well are just…annoying, not threatening to local national security. (Horrible, resource draining, etc, all true, but not a local threat.) Having missiles destroy the livability of your southern towns and border is another world and another situation. Better examples would be the British and Northern Ireland, the French and the FLNC (Corsican Liberation Front), Spain and Eta (Basque Homeland and Freedom), and Russia and Chechnia.

   Finally, the problem with sending international forces is they’re only good at maintaining a basically predefined peace situation which both sides are striving to, and therefore both sides tolerate the neutral application of force to hold the objective situation stable. With the PA, no common position has ever been accepted, no previous ‘agreement’ or compromise ever, ever, kept, and they have yet to back down from a “slaughter and destroy the enemy to the last man, woman, and child” position. Further, as we see through their childhood education programs, school textbooks, TV shows, etc, they continue to indoctrinate their population, especially the children, in the most radical position possible.

   Reply
2. Richard Silverstein says:

   May 30, 2007 at 10:50 AM

   the Jerusalem Post as a neocon paper? In the past, it was true. After the last purchase???

   I don’t read the Post as frequently as I do Haaretz or the NY Times, but I read it often enough to recognize a decided Likud-oriented ideological slant that continues even now. The Canadian family (the Aspers I believe) that now owns the Post has politics regarding Israel that are little diff. from Conrad Black’s.

   Algeria, Vietnam, etc. Wars that, when they aren’t going well are just…annoying, not threatening to local national security.

   I’m not sure what you’re getting at but…if you think Algeria and Vietnam weren’t “threatening local national security” then you’re mistaken. Millions were killed in Vietnam and huge numbers in Algeria as well. If what you mean is that there’s an inter-ethnic, cross-border element to the fighting, then I suppose you have a point. But in ea. of those conflict that you & Kimche mentioned military means alone did not resolve the conflict. That would be Kimche’s & my pt.

   the problem with sending international forces is they’re only good at maintaining a basically predefined peace situation which both sides are striving to, and therefore both sides tolerate the neutral application of force to hold the objective situation stable.

   That is certainly the optimal situation for the most effective use of such a force. But in Lebanon there is no understanding whatsoever bet. Hezbollah & Israel, yet so far the force has worked fairly well after a few initial cockups.

   With the PA, no common position has ever been accepted, no previous ‘agreement’ or compromise ever, ever, kept,

   This is certainly unfair. I could easily argue that the PA has broken, ignored or refused to honor as many agreements as the Israeli government has done. Honoring agreements is a mutual phenomenon. If you do it you should expect your opponent to as well. If you don’t you can’t expect yr opponent to either.

   we see through their childhood education programs, school textbooks, TV shows, etc, they continue to indoctrinate their population, especially the children, in the most radical position possible.

   You’ll have to explain to me how Israeli children are brought up to hate Palestinians by spitting at them (in Hebron) or growing up to become their murderers as in a number of recent spectacular settler terror attacks against Palestinians (& let’s not forget Yigal Amir as well). You don’t think these individuals are being taught to hate by their Israeli Jewish peers and society? I’m opposed to hate wherever I find it on either side. Why is it that you get on yr high horse about hate coming fr. one side but conveniently forget or ignore hate coming fr. yr own side?

   Reply
3. Karole du Pont says:

   August 10, 2007 at 2:13 AM

   As far as the heinous speeches are concerned in media or in education, one must not stop campaigning for a constitutional upgrading of international institutions. There have been condemnations from the International tribunal on the use of Radio Mille-Collines in the genocide in Rwanda and it has also been seen in ex-Yougoslavia break away provinces that the international forces were obgliged to close tv stations because of heinous talk endangering the work of that force whose goal is to keep belligerents at bay. These are precedents that are self-commanding internationally.

   Reply