“Execution of collaborating Palestinians?” Since when? When was the last such act? How do you know what the PA media says? You learn this from MEMRI, CAMERA, etc. I presume.

I’m so pleased you’ve undertaken to be a one-man band enlightening my readers as to the distorted, twisted, dishonest picture of Israeli life presented here (or so you would claim). But I like to think my readers are intelligent enough to judge for myself bet. my view & yrs. of the I-P predicament.

Israeli society does not encourage or reward terrorism vs. Palestinian civilians - such acts are illegal and are prosecuted.

Except when the act is committed by a member of the IDF or Border Police, when it is swept under the rug.

Most palestinian ‘militants’ are males over 12. The fact that Israel’s kills are 95% males over 12 shows they do not indiscriminately attack arabs

Notice that “Einstein” can’t seem to acknowledge that ‘Palestinians’ actually merits a capital “P” meaning he doesn’t acknowledge that they are a “people” which is another violation of my comment rules.

Now, let’s examine the logic of this: since “most Palestinian militants are males over 12″ and 95% of Israeli “kills” are males over 12 this proves conclusively that Israel only kills bad guys. Doesn’t this leave out the huge number of Palestinian male civilians who are killed who are over 12 but not militants????

The IDF tries to minimize civilian casualties

If that were true I’d have nothing to write about & I’d stop publishing this blog or rename it and write about something else. But if you can get the IDF to stop killing civlians it would go a long way to putting me out of business (which I’d love, btw). Why don’t you start now?

Yr claim about Palestinians not prosecuting terrorists is bullshit. Don’t you recall there were 7 PFLP militants imprisoned in the Jericho jail for allegedly assassinating Rehavam Zeevi, till Israel mounted a faux military operation destroying the jail, kidnapping the prisoners & imprisoning them in Israel. If there’s no punishment then why were they in jail? Were they on holiday?

Israel prosecutes almost NO IDF officers for crimes against Palestinians. If it did there would be hundreds in prison or facing charges given the numbers of civilians killed either in cold blood or through heinous negligence. You’re a pathetic apologist & not even a very good one.

As for the rest of your reply, the fact still remains the PLO and Hamas encourage their civilians to do whatever they want vs. any Israeli citizen. They reward terrorism and certainly never try to prosecute ANY palestinians for planning harm or acting against any particular Israeli. The same is not true of the Israeli government, which prosecutes even IDF officers, which even you admit to, just like any other civil country in the world.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3540085,00.html

That’s a very recent article on IDF brutality. Check out comment #16 on the article. It’s a disgraceful minority you are focusing on.

As for the information you gave on sentences, thank you, although its rather ironic that the article you linked to is about sentences being reduced. However, the vast majority of Israeli killers of Palestinian civilians are not “vigilante or renegade Jews” but IDF personnel, and in many cases their crimes are not even investigated, and in very few are they punished. All I’m getting from you is the same old double standard–Palestinian violence justifies Israeli violence, but nothing Israel ever does can justify Palestinian violence. What you’re demanding of the Palestinians is the same demand occupying powers always make of the occupied–that they hold the lives of their oppressors more valuable than their own. It won’t happen.

2. The fact that I had to actually show evidence of Israel incarcerating its civilians for attacking/killing arabs speaks volumes of your devoted readership here. How could they not be aware that Israel not only discourages, but imprisons vigilante or renegade Jews who try to hurt or kill arabs? I think you need to admit that due to your five years of 1-sided arguments against Israel, readers who sympathize with your views get a very distorted picture of actual life in Israel.

3. Do you actually see equivocation with this example of the PA not acting against their civilians who plan and carry out terror attacks vs. Israel and Israel’s policies in these matters? If so, how? Whether jewish terrorists have their sentences reduced or not, the fact is that it’s impossible to compare PA and Israeli policy here. Israeli society does not encourage or reward terrorism vs. Palestinian civilians - such acts are illegal and are prosecuted. The same cannot be said of the PA or Hamas. Can we at least agree that on this issue, it certainly seems Israel is FAR more devoted to peace than palestinian leadership?

4. Most palestinian ‘militants’ are males over 12. The fact that Israel’s kills are 95% males over 12 shows they do not indiscriminately attack arabs like the arabs target Jews. There’s no equivocation here either. Simply looking at the total number of those dead is not a fair comparison. We all know if the palestinians had more effective weapons and were more successful with their attacks, the number of dead Jews would far exceed dead arabs. Intent is important here, Richard. The IDF tries to minimize civilian casualties while the arabs try to maximize them.

5. How do prisoner/military swaps paint Palestinian leadership favorably? They want deliberate murderers of women and children completely free in their own society and they will do zero to prevent them from repeating such attacks. Can you admit this is a major obstacle to true Tikun Olam?

Are you implying in pt. 2 that because the IDF kills only men that this somehow indicates that their killing is “discriminate??” God, I hope that’s not yr argument. A true indication of how discriminate IDF killing is is counting the civilian deaths of which there are too many to count.

the IDF is mostly composed of LW progressives

Say what?? Are you plum loco? The IDF is the settlers’ best friend. Are you arguing that an Israeli army that stands by while settlers pillage & brutalize unarmed Palestinian farmers is composed of left wing progressives?? Einstein, can’t you do any better than this? I won’t deny the army has its share of progressives just as the population as a whole does. But beyond that you’re just grasping at straws.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D04E4D91138F937A35751C0A96F958260

2. If the IDF indiscriminately kills Palestinians, recall there was a study a few years ago on combatants vs. non-combatants killed on both sides. 95% of Palestinians killed were males 12 or older, whereas it was about 55-60% male Israelis killed (meaning far more women, children, elderly killed by the Palestinians).

Also, let’s assume you’re right. However, the IDF is mostly composed of LW progressives and has been since Israel’s inception, when labor dominated politics until the 70’s. Do you think the problem is that jewish progressives in the IDF aren’t as moral as you think you are, for some reason? I’ll bet most of them think they’re moral, outside of a few stragglers. To what do you attribute such thinking among the vast majority of the IDF’s LW progressives?