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Hosea said: “They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.” This captures the nature of the Israeli Occupation precisely. Bernard Avishai uncovered a damning piece of evidence about the Dimona suicide attack thanks to the researchers’ friend, Mr. Google:
Fifteen year-old Mohammed Salem Al-Harbawi from Hebron is a case in point. According to the Defense for Children International, he was arrested in the beginning of July of 2003 and taken to Atzion detention centre. Like many other prisoners, the report continues, Al-Harbawi was visited by a lawyer, but was unable to see or communicate with his family:
The unhygienic conditions in this centre mean that most inmates, including Mohammad, have contracted skin diseases, including boils. By July 28, 2003, Mohammed was affected so badly that he was taken for hospital treatment. After the doctor had examined him, Israeli border guards took him back to the prison. On the way, the guards stopped the jeep and started to attack him inside the vehicle. The five guards beat him to such an extent that he lost consciousness.
I stumbled over this report of his stay in prison when I Googled Al-Harbawi’s name. Last Monday, now a child of 20, he blew himself up, along with Lyubov Razdolskaya, 73, in the streets of Dimona…
In his post, Avishai notes the ever louder pounding of the drums of war by the Israeli political and military echelon. Supposed moderates like Haim Ramon and Meir Sheetrit are baying for Gazan blood in the aftermath of the incessant assault that Sderot is suffering from Qassam rockets.
Avishai’s point is that all an Israeli attack on Gaza will do is increase manifold the number of future Al-Harbawis eager to take their revenge against their Israeli abusers. It isn’t that often that the brutal reciprocity and cylicality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be seen so clearly as in the case of the 15 year-old Al-Harbawi.
A young boy beset by five brutal Israel prison guards beating him unconscious merely for the fact that he has contracted boils in prison. While none of us would justify taking the life of another because of such treatment, can any of us say for certain what we would do were we in this boy’s shoes? Faced with an unending Occupation and the ongoing insult of the Gaza siege, might the thought of personal revenge so overcome our minds that we might resort to such a terrible act? And can any of us who are reasonable doubt that an Israeli invasion of Gaza will not only fail miserably just as the Lebanon invasion did–but that it will make the problem of suicide bombing and future terror that much worse?
The Israeli Occupation sows the wind and Israeli (and Palestinain) civilians reap the whirlwind.
Related posts:
- What Three Years in an Israeli Prison Will Do to You
- Obama’s First Year: an Appraisal
- Banning Palestinian Students from Israeli Universities
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Tags: al-harbawi, bernard-avishai, israeli-plan-to-invade-gaza, qassam-rocket-attacks
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Amir has said, “Can we think of anyone who was held for over five years in an enemy prison, severely beaten and tortured and didn’t end up a hateful suicidal bomber? Maybe he ended up a senator and candidate for US president.” Boy, Amir, what a specimen you have chosen as your exemplar! John McCain, a leading Presidential candidate, is now speaking as if he might like to turn us all into one collective suicide bomber. Maybe he’s just whoring for his party’s far right-wing votes, but there he is, your man, babbling into the mike about war and more war. And just as a pleasant little additional soupçon, he, the tortured one, apparently now thinks torture just might be okee-dokey, and thus his recent vote against banning torture. Whoring again? Maybe. I suggest that you hereafter choosefor your counter-example a less maniacal or at least more honest individual.
Richard:
I don’t want to just jump in and argue with you, but I think that you’re causal assumptions are not well founded. To quote you:
” Again, you have it ass backwards. The IDF & Israeli prison system got to him before Hamas did.” Where is your proof of this? We are all acquainted with Palestinian T.V. children propoganda shows, glorifying matyrdom. We can only wonder what would happen if the Palestinians were lucky enough to have a leader like the Dalai Lama, and an ideology that didn’t glorify violence and death.
I think, Mike, that “if the Palestinians were lucky enough to have a leader like the Dalai Lama, and an ideology that didn’t glorify violence and deat”, Israel would by now have ethnically cleansed from the Mediterranean to the Jordan, including Jerusalem, all Arabs and erected settlements throughout, the international community be damned, and America no doubt at least temporarily upset.
Norman:
You’re entitled to your opinion. I assume it is based on an extensive familiarity with Israel and Israelis (you may even be one). I don’t think that you can deny that the Israeli Army is entirely capable of ‘cleansing’ the Gaza strip, and I cannot see how you can make the argument that it is Hamas, and the PLO which is preventing them from doing it. If anything the violence and ideology would be an encouragement to be rid of them. On the other hand Hamas and the PLO are lucky that they don’t have the PRC on the other side.
First, the Tibetans did once engage in violent resistance against China in 1959 & lost. Second, the Dalai Lama, while an extraordinary figure, has achieved little more than the Palestinians in liberating his country fr. Chinese tyranny. You may find him an admirable human being. But in terms of effectiveness, he hasn’t produced results. I don’t blame him for it. Nor do I blame the Palestinians for choosing a path of more vigorous resistance (though I do deplore suicide bombings & Qassam attacks on civilians).
As for ideologies glorifying violence & death–you seem to have forgotten the Masada & Trumpeldor Israeli nationalist myths which do precisely that. Not to mention Baruch Goldstein admired to this day by extremist settlers.
I know I said it before but the root of war (legalized cockfighting) is when humans mimic and think like animals. McCain is no hero to me. McCain left the root of war (United States) to go to war. I believe that is a sin. Cockfighting will becaome illegal in Louisiana USA in August 2008. Until then this makes the United States the root of war. I know this because I was raised on a legalized cockfighting farm (the root of war) in Schriever, Louisiana USA. PEACE.
americangoy: I also have a movie for you to see amir. It is about the French counter insurgency techniques in Algeria when the Algerians revolted against being a territory of France in the 50’s and early 60’s.
Yes, let’s use a movie to debate our points – it’s so much better than actually reading up on the subject. The French occupation of Algeria is not really comparable to the current israeli situation, because Algeria never attacked France, and was located across an ocean. But the Arabs did attack Israel the day after its founding (and ever since) and the west bank is not only directly adjacent to Israel, but it carves out a very vulnerable chunk right in the heart of it. But there is something that is very comparable. After a long desperate fight to get rid of the French, the Algerians “won”. I put that word in quotes, because 50 years later, the situation is quite different. Now Algerians are jumping over fences in European enclaves in Africa, and risking their lives in makeshift boats in desperate attempts to enter France and elsewhere in Europe to escape the Islamic “paradise” that they set up for themselves. If Israel completely withdrew, I predict the same thing would happen, but it wouldn’t take 50 years. In fact, we already saw Arabs fleeing after Hamas took over the Gaza strip last year.
Richard Silverstein said: Why I don’t see a comarable condemnation of Hamas on your site?
Because you’re too lazy to actually read my blog to find it. I take it you’re either in the U.S. Army or else serving in some capacity at the Wiesbaden base. I do hope you do a better job of reading yr service manuals than you do of reading my blog.
I am a soldier (blog bio here) True, I don’t have the time to read your entire blog, but just a little perusing and I see your priorities; I find tons of criticism of Israel and zionism and not yet anything about Islamic terrorism.
Again, you have it ass backwards. The IDF & Israeli prison system got to him before Hamas did. Hamas exploited his humiliation at the hands of the Occupation forces. That is certainly damnable on their part. But as I’ve written–no Occupation, no humiliation, no suicide bombing. Israel was the first cause.
If I wanted to, I could go back to who started the Arab wars in 1949, and see who really was the first cause. Look, nothing justifies beating a 15 year old kid in jail. Nothing. But the fact is that if Middle Eastern nations stopped attacking Israel and/or supporting Hamas and Hizbollah, Israel would have stopped it’s war a long time ago as well.
No, Mike, I’m not an Israeli, simply a very liberal American Jew whose wishes for a truly ethical, viable and wonderful Israel doesn’t include Israeli violence against a basically unarmed people, whose single most effective weapon is, alas – and I deplore it biologically and morally – the suicide bomber of whatever age and gender. I suspect the violence such a bomber represents, however, hardly equals that offered by Israeli F16s, helicopter gunships, modern tanks, and, yes, even Caterpillar tractors. And much of such Israeli violence seems largely designed to create reaction useful for continuing the violence, in itself a means ultimately to occupy all of what might be thought of as Greater, or Biblical, Israel. I’m somewhat reminded in all this back-and-forth of that arrogant and rampant mediocrity Condoleeza Rice when she fulminated against the insurgent beheaders in Iraq, calling them barbarian – and indeed they are – but hers was a gross sin of omission. We Americans have killed directly or indirectly something like a million Iraqis by now, and of course such slaughter includes the use, for instance, of cluster bombs, so beloved by those who perhaps do not consider ripping a child apart barbaric. All of this is agonizing, of course, I suspect to both of us, but one must take an honest look at what is really so and, if so inclined, summon up a good deal of simple understanding, decency, and a deep desire to make this continuing tragic outrage otherwise.
Since you are a soldier, you should know that the Battle of Algiers, to which AmericanGoy refers is considered THE quintessential film about counter-insurgency used by armies around the world to teach their officers how not to deal with conflicts like the one in Algeria. It is also not entirely true that the Algerians did not attack France as there were such incidents within France itself.
You’re betraying an ideological anti-Islamic perspective. If you were honest you would recognize that migrants are flocking to Europe from many third world countries, not just Arab ones. And the liberation struggle of the 1960s has nothing whatsoever to do w. this migration. MIgrants are not fleeing Algeria because it is an Islamic paradise since it isn’t Islamic nor is it a paradise. Aren’t you aware that the military regime there has fought a decade long struggle to PREVENT a democratic Islamic takeover of the country’s political system?? Algerians (and Moroccans, & Tunisians, & Sierra Leonians, & Liberians, & Guatemalans, & Mexicans, etc.) are fleeing purely for economic reasons as migrants have for millenia (our original Jewish forbears were economic migrants fleeing famine to find bread in Egypt).
I do hope you understand military doctrine better than you understand Islam & Arab history.
Gazans are fleeing Gaza because there is no bread, hardly any medical treatment, no jobs, no travel, no nothing–all this because of the ISRAELI siege. Not because of anything Hamas has done.
The operative phrase is “just a little perusing.” Apparently not enough to find what you claim isn’t there. Here’s a tip though if you’d bothered to read my About page. I am a Jew. I have lived in Israel. I am a progressive Zionnist. My blog exists not so much to praise or condemn Islam or Arabs as to provide a perspective on Israel, it’s policies & the ways it can achieve peace. There are thousands of blogs which condemn Islam. Adding another to the list would do little to clarify anything. But there are very few blogs that propose a progressive resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That’s what my goal is here. So if you want condemnation of Islam I’m sure you know where to go to find it.
Do us a favor & do some reading about the Israeli-Arab conflict (there is a link in my sidebar to my blog store which features many great texts about Zionism and Israeli history) before you make historical errors of the sort you make here. The conflict did not begin in 1949 nor did Arabs start it when it did begin. Jews decided to return to Zion in the early 20th century beginning decades of tension & conflict which culminated in all the current violence we now see. Blaming one side as you do (& I want to make clear that the above sentence is not meant to place all the blame on the Jews who returned to Eretz Yisrael) is not only historically erroneous it shows blindness to truth & reality.
As Rabbi Hillel said: “Now go and study.”
I was going to reply to the American “soldier” and his “understanding” of Algerian war of independence. But thank goodness I didn’t, because after reading his characterization of Algeria as “islamic” the words that came to my mind were “moron”, “idiot” and “dumb piece of s**t”.
The ethnic cleansing that was the 1948 war of Israeli independence (from both sides) being characterized as the Arabs only fault also got my blood boiling. At least he didn’t say that in 1948 there were no people (arabs) living there in Palestine and that the Jews settled on empty land.
Now I realize that possibly you are a US soldier – it’s the internet, so who knows, could be true. I realize that to cope with the reality of war and occupation, the dehumanizing of the enemy and the painting them as eeeeeevil has its place. Or perhaps you are one of those wacky Middle Ages mentality xtian “taliban” fundamentalists.
Whatever.
Here’s the deal soldier.
The US attack and occupation of Afghanistan was 100% justified. It was done with full support of the world’s community, with France, Russia, Iran ALL applauding the move and sharing intelligence on the taliban and al queda. What needed to happen was to show the islamic world that we mean business and that we, AMERICA, are a nation of our words. Turn Afghanistan perhaps not into paradise, but a more viable country. Kill or better yet capture bin laden. Kill the al queda chechens and other nations extremists. Give aid to Afghans. Make it work.
That would eliminate al queda and its message of jihad against America. Would defang it – make it a non issue.
Instead what happened was that the “war on terror” was cynically used to manipulate America into an illegal war in Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11. A war that was a blatant grab for oil. Abu Ghraib. Torture. Occupation a la Israel in the West Bank.
Now the world hates us. HATES us. Fears us. Recognizes us as a cynical bully, instead of the Superman with a red cape we tried to project ourselves as. France and Russia are actively working against us. So is Iran, which shared intelligence on al Queda before with us.
We had an opportunity to be a world leader, just like we were after 1945. We had an opportunity to be great – again.
And we blew it.
You know, soldier, that what we are doing in Iraq is just plain WRONG. It’s not our country; not our land; not our business. If we had to “liberate” these people from a cruel dictator, we could have done so and then worked with the UN to make it work. Get other armies there to help us also. Make a REAL coalition of the willing.
Instead, we now have soldiers dying for business profits. For oil. For an insane neocon ideology.
Here is a book for you, soldier:
http://www.amazon.com/Imperial-Life-Emerald-City-Vintage/dp/0307278832/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203127842&sr=8-1
Read it. It’s short and yet powerful.
But… why bother.
I won’t explain it here to you.
Richard did the explaining so much better than me anyway.
That’s exactly my point. The upbringing, morals and values from ones home and society is much more important than anything that supposedly happened in prison. The HAMAS and their ideology is what killed Harbawi and turned him into a murderer.
You are also forgetting all the suicide bombers that were college students, or relatively affluent or who were receiving medical care in Israel.
Blaming the occupation doesn’t explain why the suicide bomber phenomenom hasn’t reached the Golan Heights which you undoubtedly consider occupied territory.
The occupation clearly is not the root cause of the conflict. If it were than the Oslo agreement, the withdrawal from Lebanon, the withdrawal from the Gaza strip all would have brought us closer to peace.
The root of the conflict is the refusal of the Arabs and Islamists to accept Jewish sovereignty. They are driven by an ideology emanating from Iran and Saudi Arabia, two regions, which to the best of my recollection, were never occupied by zionists.
And Norman, I never said I supported McCain for president, I used his as an example as a person who got his life together after a very difficult experience.
That’s horsecrap & you know it. If you don’t think that John McCain’s torture & imprisonment is a deeply traumatic & core experience of his life which has not only defined him as a human being, but broken him in some sense–then you have no idea how such abuse works on the human spirit. McCain’s military background & family history prepared him for the experience in the sense that it allowed him to go on & recover fr. it in some measure & lead a productive life IN SPITE OF it. Al-Harbawi had no such preparation for the torture he endured as a 15 yr old boy.
As for the rest of yr comment you’ve repeated yrself ad nauseum saying the same things you’ve said scores of times before in the comment threads & I’m tired of repeating myself in replying to you. Please do not publish any further in this thread.
WRONG.
I have no idea what yr pt. here is.
“Clearly” to you, but to almost no other readers of this blog or any other reasonable observer of the conflict.
I’ve addressed these issues seemingly 100 times before & doing so again is beyond tiresome. Oslo was a good beginning but it never proceeded beyond where it stopped and never led to final status negotiations. Lebanon has not been resolved because Israel has refused to return Shebaa Farms to either Lebanon or Syria. The Gaza withdrawal was a sham peace ploy because it was negotiated with no one other than Sharon himself & resolved none of the underlying issues separating Israel from the Palestinians.
That’s dumber than dumb. Fatah does accept Israeli sovereignty. But sovereignty over what? Over Israel within the Green Line? Or Israel with the Separation Wall border? Or Israel including the Occupied Territories.
God, you belong at Little Green Footballs. Why do you waste yr time here? Their ideology is based on Palestinian nationalism pure & simple. You sound like a sock puppet for Dore Gold, Neyanyahu & the anti-Islamofascist crowd. Wouldn’t you feel more at home reading Frontpagemagazine’s and Campus Watch’s sites?
Richard Silverstein: You’re betraying an ideological anti-Islamic perspective. If you were honest you would recognize that migrants are flocking to Europe from many third world countries, not just Arab ones. And the liberation struggle of the 1960s has nothing whatsoever to do w. this migration. MIgrants are not fleeing Algeria because it is an Islamic paradise since it isn’t Islamic nor is it a paradise.
Yes, I was being SARCASTIC when I referred to Algeria as an “Islamic paradise” (that’s why the word was in quotes). Yes, its not just happening in Algeria, although I don’t know how that’s relevant. The point is that these people who not long ago desperately wanted to get rid of their European masters are now just as desperately trying to get back to them now that things aren’t working out.
Gazans are fleeing Gaza because there is no bread, hardly any medical treatment, no jobs, no travel, no nothing–all this because of the ISRAELI siege. Not because of anything Hamas has done.
hmmm – then a couple of questions:
1) Why did they start fleeing immediately even before the bread ran out?
2) Why don’t you consider the Egyptians to be the ones “sieging” Gaza? After all, it was part of Egypt, and they are fencing them in as well, even bashing heads at the border. And unlike the Israelis, they aren’t being rocketed on a daily basis.
Perhaps you need to do a little reading. Just a suggestion.
Here’s a tip though if you’d bothered to read my About page. I am a Jew. I have lived in Israel.
Like that matters how? I have met more self-hating Jews & Arab apologists than you would believe. If you do any reading you might actually come across some names like Norman Finkelstein or Noam Chomsky. Just being Jewish doesn’t count for much here.
But there are very few blogs that propose a progressive resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That’s what my goal is here. So if you want condemnation of Islam I’m sure you know where to go to find it.
I sincerely with you luck with that, but if you consistently condemn one side of the conflict you may not be treating the situation very fairly, but it is your blog.
Do us a favor & do some reading about the Israeli-Arab conflict (there is a link in my sidebar to my blog store which features many great texts about Zionism and Israeli history) before you make historical errors of the sort you make here. The conflict did not begin in 1949 nor did Arabs start it when it did begin. Jews decided to return to Zion in the early 20th century beginning decades of tension & conflict which culminated in all the current violence we now see.
Yes, LOL, I guess I should read up on the Jewish suicide bombers who revolted against Ottoman and British rule. It’s also completely disingenuous to claim that Jews only returned to Israel recently – they had never completely left.
americangoy said: The ethnic cleansing that was the 1948 war of Israeli independence (from both sides) being characterized as the Arabs only fault also got my blood boiling.
Well, then prepare to have it boiling some more. On May 14, 1948 (not 1949, as a typo on my part) Israel declared independence. The very next day it was attacked by Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq. Even the Arab nations don’t dispute this.
Now I realize that possibly you are a US soldier – it’s the internet, so who knows, could be true.
If you have any doubts, you can refer to some of my flickr photo sets here and here.
Instead what happened was that the “war on terror” was cynically used to manipulate America into an illegal war in Iraq,…
Instead, we now have soldiers dying for business profits. For oil. For an insane neocon ideology.
Sorry, I would love to show you the error of your ways right now but I’m sticking to one debate at a time. And I’ve been right in the middle of it, so I hardly need any lessons from you.
To the administrator – I just left a reply but it was captured by your spam filter (maybe because of the links I included). You can restore it if you want.
There has been a massive flight from Gaza since the Israeli siege. I see no evidence there was such a flight before that. Again, people leave for economic reasons, not ideological ones.
Egypt is quite content that Gaza is under siege since it hates Hamas only a little less than Israel does. However, Egypt allowed its border to be breached for over a week out of sympathy for the Gazans’ plight. Israel would never show such mercy.
If you even come close to hinting that I fall into that category I’ll ban you here so fast yr head will spin. Such terms violate my comment rules & don’t even think of trying it. There are plenty of sites like Little Green Footballs that welcome that kind of propagandistic language. Go there is you want to employ it. And Noam Chomsky & Norman Finkelstein are not self-hating Jews. I don’t know whether you yrself are Jewish. But if you are not, you have absolutely no right to define who is or is not a self-hating Jew. I don’t define for Christians who is a good one & who isn’t & I won’t allow non-Jews to do the same here.
Look, this is the 3rd time you’ve made this claim & the 3rd time I’ve told you it’s false. So don’t make it again. If you’re too lazy to search this blog then don’t bother writing falsehoods here.
Omigod, you’re going to teach me Jewish history?? I know perfectly well there have always been Jews living in what is now Israel. What any reasonable person would’ve understood was that I said the mass migration of Jews back to Palestine which began at the turn of the 20th century was what began the process of tension & conflict bet. Jews & Arabs.
“Instead, we now have soldiers dying for business profits. For oil. For an insane neocon ideology.
Sorry, I would love to show you the error of your ways right now but I’m sticking to one debate at a time. And I’ve been right in the middle of it, so I hardly need any lessons from you. ”
Do tell me please.
“Instead, we now have soldiers dying for business profits. For oil. For an insane neocon ideology.
Sorry, I would love to show you the error of your ways right now but I’m sticking to one debate at a time. And I’ve been right in the middle of it, so I hardly need any lessons from you.”
Please, don’t hold back. Explain.
Why did we go into Iraq, and why do we stay now as occupiers of a foreign country?
Saying that Norm Finkelstein and Noam Chomsky are NOT self hating Jews is an astounding statement. One that is truly at odds with every shred of evidence in their writings and lectures.
The term “self-hating Jew” is one of the lamest, most-abused, & simply obtuse terms ever invented to smear a Jew or any human being. It’s merely cover for an attack on someone whose political views you detest & a way to dismimss those views w/o actually engaging w. them.
Both individuals are proud of being Jewish hence claiming they hate their Jewishness is false. They are yr political enemies so you take the unfortunate short cut of calling them self-haters as if that will somehow discredit the political views you detest.
Yr definition of a proud Jew is one who waves an Israeli flag and sings Hatikvah at the top of their lungs. Theirs’ isn’t. That doesn’t make them self-haters.
I’m not going to get into a long argument about this term. It’s against my comment rules to use it. Period. So don’t.
Richard Silverstein said:
Egypt is quite content that Gaza is under siege since it hates Hamas only a little less than Israel does. However, Egypt allowed its border to be breached for over a week out of sympathy for the Gazans’ plight. Israel would never show such mercy.
“allowed it to be breached”? Hamas forcefully knocked down the barrier, and now Egypt is closing it back up. And “Israel would never show such mercy?” Israel is being attacked daily! Egypt is not. Israel gives full rights to its own citizens of every religion, Egypt does not. Look, the Gazans wanted independence, and like those Algerians, they are finding out that it’s not as great as they thought it would be. You also can’t commit war against another state, demand separation from it, and then act so indignant when that state actually decides to break off relations. This is part of an overall pattern; Arabs oppress other Arabs, and to the media it’s “business as usual, nothing to see here”. But when Israel or the US does it, it gets microscopic scrutiny from all corners. Did you know that Saudi Arabia has given billions to US universities alone – money that, if they really cared, could have done much to alleviate the Palestinian’s plight instead (Arafat also had hundreds of millions in his personal account when he died). It’s as if the Arab & other Islamic nations are far less interested in actually helping Palestinians than they are in keeping this conflict alive so they can milk it for political gain. Just about every Arab failing is attributed to Israel in some form or another. I have met many Iraqis, some very well educated (including one at Oxford) who blamed the Iraqi war on the “Jews who control America”. Jews are blamed for everything, sometimes even by other Jews, which brings us to the next point.
I have met more self-hating Jews & Arab apologists
If you even come close to hinting that I fall into that category I’ll ban you here so fast yr head will spin. Such terms violate my comment rules & don’t even think of trying it. There are plenty of sites like Little Green Footballs that welcome that kind of propagandistic language. Go there is you want to employ it. And Noam Chomsky & Norman Finkelstein are not self-hating Jews. I don’t know whether you yrself are Jewish. But if you are not, you have absolutely no right to define who is or is not a self-hating Jew. I don’t define for Christians who is a good one & who isn’t & I won’t allow non-Jews to do the same here.
I don’t know you well enough to make that accusation against you, and I’m actually kind of surprised you find the term so offensive, since many Jews I have met on both sides of the debate have used it. But it’s true that the term is not terribly constructive since the definition is rather nebulous, so I’ll refrain from using it. In any case, the actual point I was getting at is that both Finkelstein and Chomsky bash Israel at every turn, often unjustly, and then use their Jewish ancestry as a shield against counter-criticism. I don’t think that’s right.
americangoy said:
Please, don’t hold back. Explain.
Why did we go into Iraq, and why do we stay now as occupiers of a foreign country?
I’m not trying to brush you off, but you can go to my blog, or many other place where I debate the subject in full; I find debates very hard to follow when they start branching off into too many side directions.
You don’t think a sovereign nation has the ability to close & seal its border should it choose to do so? You don’t believe Egypt deliberately chose to allow its border to be breached for two weeks in sympathy with Gazan suffering? You don’t believe Egypt has agreed in principle to freer flow across its border as a price for Hamas’ agreement not to breach the border again?
Yes, by several hundred militants firing rockets and mortars which land mostly ineffectually in Israel. Israel’s response is to cause immense suffering to 1.5 million innocent civilians. That is what I meant by Israel’s unwillingness to show mercy. Jews are a people of mercy and Israel’s treatment of Gaza is a betrayal of Jewish values regardless of the reprehensible actions of a very small minority of the Gaza population.
What in heaven’s name have you been reading and where did you find such bogus information? Are you reading Israeli foreign ministry press releases? My God man, read up on Israeli social history & you’d realize how complete erroneous such a comment is. Israel is a country which PROFESSES to grant equal rights to all its citizens regardless of religion. But it has not actually done so.
Gazans didn’t want a siege to the death. They wanted a Palestinian state. Instead they got the equivalent of the Warsaw ghetto though so far without the final liquidation.
This too is bogus. Israel hasn’t merely “broken off relations.” It is legally responsible for Gaza since it not only provides much of its electricity, water & other utilities, but also controls ingress and egress from Gaza territory. It has put Gaza under siege and Gazans have every right to “act so indignant” at such treatment.
You know, it’s quite humorous that you accuse me of only blaming Israel and not condemning the alleged sins of the Arabs when it is actually YOU who blames all the sins on the Arabs and not once has accepted any responsibility on Israel’s part for Palestinian suffering or the Occupation. How do you explain that?
Don’t be. ALL progressive Jews detest this phrase. If you actually knew any you’d know that. Clearly you don’t.
Name one progressive Jew who has ever called a right-wing Jew “self-hating?”
Finkelstein and Chomsky criticize Israeli policy. Such criticism is entirely legitimate. There is much to criticize in Israeli policy. If Israel ever signed a peace agreement with Palestine their criticism would either cease or be greatly muted. They are not opposed to Israel. They are opposed to Israeli policy.
Our debate in this thread has gone on long enough. Any questions I asked above were rhetorical & do not require a response. Feel free to comment in other threads on other subjects if you choose. But don’t comment further in this thread.