11 thoughts on “Palestinian Armed Resistance: Terror or Legitimate? – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
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  1. “In most western societies we can fairly easily distinguish between civilian and military-law enforcement. But this is much more complicated in Israel.”

    here it comes

    Really?
    Don’t American civilians support the American military and law enforcement by paying taxes that fund the military? Don’t American civilians raise their children to serve their country by enlisting in the armed services? Don’t American businesses and industries support the military, either directly, like a defense manufacturer, or indirectly, like a communications provider? You bet they do, and so do many contractors, service providers and suppliers.

    I am wrong, Richard?
    Is Israel so different from the United States?

    And BTW, Turkey illegally occupies Northern Cyprus, and Morocco illegally occupies Western Sahara, but I guess they’re not exceptional the way Israel and Israeli civilians are exceptional.

    Is Israel exceptional, or do some people just try to make it so?

    1. @ Chad: I never said that the US military doesn’t kill civilians. It certainly does. But unlike Israel, it doesn’t deliberately target them. There have been isolated cases in which soldiers have done so. In other cases, deaths of civilians have occurred due to our military negligence. But in these cases either they are brought before military justice; or at least their crimes are publicized and routinely denounced. In Israel, such criminals become prime minister or chief of staff.

      Not to mention that in the US there is a much clearer distinction between civilian and military. THere is no bleeding over between the two categories as there is in Israel. Further, many Americans denounce our defense contractors and their increasingly lethal weapons systems. There are members of Congress who oppose the weapons expenditures. There is nothing like that in Israel. Israelis admire their own military & weapons industry.

      So no, I don’t believe it is legitimate to engage in terror attacks targeting US civilians.

      I am wrong, Richard?
      Is Israel so different from the United States?

      Yes, you are.

      Turkey illegally occupies Northern Cyprus

      Oy, this is a tired hasbara meme. If you want to read about occupations in these places there are plenty of media sources to pursue. That’s not the subject of this blog. Stop with these deliberate diversions from the subject at hand. If you do this again, I will delete your comment as off topic.

      Is Israel exceptional, or do some people just try to make it so?

      FOr me as a Diaspora Jew, Israel is a betrayal of my Jewish values. So yes, my interest in the subject makes Israel “exceptional” to me. Go pursue Turks or Moroccans if you care about their crimes. Which you don’t give a crap about. That makes you a hypocrite.

  2. “the elderly, children, Israeli Palestinians, and those ultra-Orthodox Jews who are anti-Zionist.”

    Are you f–ing kidding? Is this some sort of salve for your conscience?
    Having decided which civilians are fair game for murder, please tell your readers at what age an Israeli child becomes a target? Aged 18, or the day he or she receives a draft notice?
    When does someone become elderly? At retirement age, or do we use actuarial tables do determine which civilians should live and die?
    What about Druze and Bedouin who serve in Israel’s military? Are their towns and villages air game too?

    To my Zionist ears, your claims about civilians sound like Nuremberg laws, and BTW, International law is dead set against you as well.

    Article 50 – Definition of civilians and civilian population
    1. A civilian is any person who does not belong to one of the categories of persons referred to in Article 4 A (1), (2), (3) and (6) of the Third Convention and in Article 43 of this Protocol. In case of doubt whether a person is a civilian, that person shall be considered to be a civilian.

    The civilian population comprises all persons who are civilians.
    The presence within the civilian population of individuals who do not come within the definition of civilians does not deprive the population of its civilian character.

    https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/api-1977/article-50

    Israel absolutely commits war crimes, and so to the Palestinians, who began committing war crimes before the Zionists did and well before Palestinian land was occupied? And BTW, it’s highly questionable whether Gaza, and it’s 3 million occupants, is even ‘occupied’. Israel voluntarily removed it’s citizens from Gaza many years ago,

    Even your Israeli and Palestinian death charts are sadly lacking. All those Palestinian rockets fired from Gaza were fired at civilian targets and meant to kill the most civilians possible. Is Israel to blame because her Iron Dome missile defense system interdicted incoming those Hamas rockets? Is Israel to blame because she hunkered down in bomb shelters throughout Operation Protective Edge and her advanced civil defense program minimized casualties?

    That ICC investigation has dragged on for years is investigating Palestinian war crimes as well.

    I’ve carefully avoided the ‘T’ word and kept my word count down, so please don’t delete the single comment you’ve already limited me to

    1. The settlers are people who moved to an illegally occupied territory to claim it for themselves. Like Germans during WWII who moved to Poland and settled there. Many of these Germans didn’t fight, they were “civilans”. After they refused to leave following the war, Polish people used force to exile them from Poland. Were they wrong to forcefully kick out the Germans who moved in during Germany’s occupation. Do you consider them civilians if they moved into abandonded Polish villages? What about those who served as informants?

      If you argue that the settlers were not valid targets of the Palestinian resistence, then you have to grant the same right to the German settlers to Poland during World War II, who moved into villages were Polish were exiled.

      As for you Gaza argument, that is a monstrous argument. All who frame Gaza withdrawal and the humanitarian disaster that followed as some kind of magnanimous deed are monsters. They have no idea what they are talking about. Sure it might have annoyed the citizens who had to move out, but in turn the whole region became a giant prison–cut off from the rest of the Palestinian population. Gaza is chock-full of people whose families inhabited many villages in the surrounding area. Many of them are refugees in that small strip. Of course they want to return to the land they previously owned. Israel does not allow that.

      These people never lived in Egypt or anywhere else in the Arab lands. They were refugees from the rest of Palestine who moved to Gaza hoping to return to their homes and now they are imprisoned there. They have families in the West Bank from whom they are seperated and whom they can not visit or have a very hard time visiting. They can not visit their people. Israel made Gaza into a humanitarian disaster where millions of people, who once cultivated the land of Palestine, are now dependent on international aid. Only monsters defend this as some Israeli charitable action.

      Also, you should write out that the Polish people are terrorists for using force to expel German settlers who settled in Poland during world war 2 if you wish to be consistent in your position that they are civilians.

    2. @ Jay:

      Having decided which civilians are fair game for murder, please tell your readers at what age an Israeli child becomes a target? Aged 18, or the day he or she receives a draft notice?

      Exactly, right. The day he or she takes up a weapon against Palestinians they become legitimate targets.

      When does someone become elderly?

      When they age out of miluim. If they no longer serve any military role due to age, they are no longer legitimate targets. Unless they live in illegal settlements.

      What about Druze and Bedouin who serve in Israel’s military? Are their towns and villages air game too?

      Druze and Bedouin who serve in the military are certainly legitimate targets. The majority who do not serve are not. Nor are “towns and villages” collectively “fair game.” Though for Israel, entire families and communities are routinely collectively punished, which is another war crime.

      International law is dead set against you as well.

      You apparently didn’t read the blog post. I very clearly indicated the protocols of international law. And very clearly explained why they are not relevant to the criminal reality of Israeli terrroristm against Palestinians. So I don’t give a fig about your sources in that regard. If we wait for international law to catch up to Israel we’ll have hundreds of thousands of Palestinian dead, instead of the 40,000 dead till now. I’m not willing to pay that price. You clearly are because you don’t give a rat’s ass about such lives.

      the Palestinians, who began committing war crimes before the Zionists did and well before Palestinian land was occupied?

      First, your claim is patently false. But even if it were true, it wasn’t Palestinians who flooded into an Jewish country by the tens of thousands. It wasn’t Palestinians who stole Jewish land from the peasant farmers working the fields. It wasn’t Palestinians who invaded Jewish towns and villages threatening their livelihoods and traditions. All these were Zionist provocations imposed and fueled by a European colonialist mindset. So of course there would be violence and conflict induced by the Zionist interlopers. They did not come in peace. They came to conquer as Ben Gurion & Jabotinsky made crystal clear.

      All those Palestinian rockets fired from Gaza were fired at civilian targets

      No. Palestinian rockets are not precision-guided cruise missiles. They are crude aerial fireworks. Where they land and what they target is totally a matter of chance. No Palestinian who fires such a weapon knows where it will land. Proof of this is that even before Iron DOme no more than a score of Israelis were killed or even injured by them over a 20 yr period.

      it’s highly questionable whether Gaza, and it’s 3 million occupants, is even ‘occupied’. Israel voluntarily removed it’s citizens from Gaza many years ago,

      You hypocritically quote me international law, then conveniently neglect to mention that international law declares that a country occupies another when it lays siege to it and prohibits or limits access via entry or exit. Israel occupies Gaza.

      Is Israel to blame because she hunkered down in bomb shelters

      Israel’s army and political leaders are to blame for provoking Palestinian missile barrages. They don’t spring ex nihilo. They are a response to Israeli terror attacks on Al Aqsa and Palestinian homes and villages. Israeli terror is met with Palestinian resistance.

      Read my blog posts carefully before you comment. You clearly didn’t in this case or you would not have raised issues which I addressed there. Those parts of your comment clearly indicated you hadn’t read those portions of my post.

      1. [comment deleted: This blog is dedicated to Israel-Palestine. I am not here to debate other subjects unless directly related to this. American war crimes are widely discussed elsewhere and doing so here is off-topic. Not to mention that this American-centric issue was brought up by another right-wing pro-Israel commenter. I merely responded.

        Stay on topic and comment directly on the content and subject of the post.

        Also, you may only publish a single comment in each comment thread. Once you’ve published that comment, you may not publish another.]

  3. With respect to the title question it’s a false dichotomy. The correct answer is “why not both?”

    Terror is an instrument of policy. It’s not exactly morally neutral, but then neither is any other instrument of policy that involves infliction of violence. There’s no morally neutral ground to be found in the former Palestine.

    It’s like that woman said, who did the Milk Bar cafe bombing that was depicted in Battle of Algiers. These civilians think they can make war upon the Palestinians while being immune to having war made upon them in return. https://wapo.st/3njKPXh

  4. [comment deleted: I’m willing to debate commenters who present pro-Israel arguments made with a certain amount of thought and care, despite my abhorring them. But those who try to present crude Arabophobic propaganda have no place here. You are now moderated. I will approve comments of yours as long as they don’t peddle crude hate speech.]

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