Moral Stupidity

Frank

Quote:

But I also don't think there is a significant moral disparity between the way the Palestinians are conducting themselves -- and the way the Israelis are conducting themselves.

Frank- let me give you a hint, Ready? IT'S THE TARGET.!!

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au1929 wrote:

Frank

Quote:
But I also don't think there is a significant moral disparity between the way the Palestinians are conducting themselves -- and the way the Israelis are conducting themselves.

Frank- let me give you a hint, Ready? IT'S THE TARGET.!!

au

Let me give you an even better hint! READY!

It don't mean **** to a person whose arms and legs are blown off -- or who is killed -- if it happens because someone targets civilians -- or because someone sends rockets into areas where there are civilians without actually targeting them.

If you can just detach yourself from wanting Israel to be right and the Palestinians wrong -- you'd see that there is not a significant moral difference between the way the two parties are conducting themselves.

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cjhsa,

Back it up. Other than disagreeing with what they say why is it antisemetic?

Frank said Isreal explodes ordinance that it knows will kill civilians. Illustrate why that is an antisemetic comment.

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Frank

Quote:

It don't mean **** to a person whose arms and legs are blown off -- or who is killed -- if it happens because someone targets civilians -- or because someone sends rockets into areas where there are civilians without actually targeting them.

When I asked you Is that the policy we should follow in Iraq and Afghanistan as well?Your answer is no. What is the difference? The legs we blow off are acceptable?

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cicerone imposter wrote:

I truly believe the Israelis make every attempt to minimize innocent killings, but one must wonder if their continued settlement expansions justifies what they do for their own security. c.i.

They have begun dismantling those settlements, even as the Palestinians continue to target and murder innocent women and children.

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au1929 wrote:

Frank

Quote:
It don't mean **** to a person whose arms and legs are blown off -- or who is killed -- if it happens because someone targets civilians -- or because someone sends rockets into areas where there are civilians without actually targeting them.

When I asked you Is that the policy we should follow in Iraq and Afghanistan as well?Your answer is no. What is the difference? The legs we blow off are acceptable?

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying here.

I despise the fact that we have blown humans to pieces in Iraq and Afganastan. I opposed both wars -- although I acknowledge the arguments of the people who were advocates of the actions.

But whether the supporters of the wars are right -- or we who opposed them are right -- certainly there are moral questions we must face because of the carnage caused.

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Scrat wrote:

They have begun dismantling those settlements, even as the Palestinians continue to target and murder innocent women and children.

C.F.R. wrote:

Q&A: Will Israel Dismantle Settlements?

The government has announced that, of some 140 Israeli settlements in the contested West Bank and Gaza Strip, it will dismantle 14 "unauthorized outposts"-- none of which are counted as official settlements and 10 of which are uninhabited

Alexandra Zavis Associated Press Writer wrote:

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told his Cabinet Sunday that Israel should continue building settlements - but quietly - despite his acceptance of a U.S.-backed peace plan that requires a construction freeze.

Also of note is that Isreal has killed more people than the Palestinians have clouding the issue.

Isreal's targets have also become more dubious as to military value and they have started targeting persons not directly involved in attacks by targeting symbolic figures of the Palestinian intifada. A distinction that difficults the end of violence because the Palestinians also see Settlers, for example, as symbolic of Israeli conquest of their territory leading some to conclude that an attack on a symbol of Palestinian uprising who is not directly involved in terror is the same as an attack on a symbolic Israeli who is settling their land. Even if the settler is not involved in the deaths of Palestinians.

Isreal has also assasinated people at critical junctures raising questions in my mind as to whether they want an agreement or to continue the status quo, in which their territorial expantion is being furthered.

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Frank Apisa wrote:

The notion that the Palestinians target civilians -- and that the Israelis do not is absurd.

Both explode ordinance that they KNOW will kill civilians. Neither is innocent.

Any ordnance, except the paint balls of the toy pistols may be lethal.
Let us compare two instances of the civilians' killing without referring to Palestine and Israel.
A rank-and-file citizen is engaged in a skirmish with a felon while defending himself against an armed robbery. He shoots and misses the target. A bullet enters some private apartment, and kills some random person. The citizen is, surely, aware that the bullets of his pistol are intended to kill.
Another situation. A serial killer thoroughly aims a random person and kills him/her. He is also aware that his bullets are lethal ordnance.
I am sure that these two instances of killing the innocent person are not tantamount one to another, either in moral, or in legal aspects. If both plain citizen and serial killer from the examples mentioned are brought to court, the first (in the worst case) may be convicted for negligent manslaughter (and may be exonerated, since his shooting was caused by force majeure), and the second will be definitely considered being a first degree murderer.
The same difference exists between actions of Israel and Palestinians. The latter, by the way, deliberately create dangerous situations by deploying military facilities in the middle of the living neighborhoods. Those that like to blame on Israelis allegedly committing war crime should know that deployment of military facilities in civilian neighborhoods is a war crime. Israelis in such a case have the only way to prevent a collateral damage among enemy's civilians: to surrender to terror and not to respond, since all the facilities that are used for preparing the terror attacks are deployed in densely populated neighborhoods: terror organizations' headquarters, residences of leaders, ordnance warehouses, explosives manufacturing factories, etc.
I accuse Palestinian terrorists not only in killing of the Israeli civilians (I think, there is no need in examples, there are lots of these in all the accessible media), but in deliberate endangering their own compatriots that is done for PR purposes.
Of course, support of Palestinian case is like a member card of the elitist intellectual club (just like despise toward President Bush, support of affirmative action and freedom of abortions, criticism toward transnational corporations, what else is "cool" currently?), and any person having a college degree or more (I do not aim anyone personally, sapienti sat) wants to feel him/herself a fine intellectual...

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steissd,

The point Frank was making was not that the ordinance has the ability to be lethal but that it is employed in situations in which both sides have sufficient past experience to know that it will kill innocent civilians.

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CdK wrote:

Q&A: Will Israel Dismantle Settlements?

The government has announced that, of some 140 Israeli settlements in the contested West Bank and Gaza Strip, it will dismantle 14 "unauthorized outposts"-- none of which are counted as official settlements and 10 of which are uninhabited

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But you are arguing that it is morally equivilent that the Palestinians target Israeli civilians by blowing up buses and markets and Israel seeking out the planners of those bombings and killing them.

Granted neither are going to solve anything, but to say that both are equally immoral is wrong.

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Thank you for your reply to Steissd, Craven.

That pretty much sums up the direction my comments were taking.

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I agree. And I do not seek to rate them as equal. I think the Palestinian targeting of Israeli civilians is not only morally repugnant but strategically stupid (even for their side).

That in no way diminishes what I see as a willingness to prolong the conflict on the side of some Israelis. There are significant Israeli factions that oppose all peace settlements (or at least all that have ever been proposed formally).

It's less about morall culpability for me than it is the fact that what needs to be done to secure peace is ignore on both sides of a shifting border.

While I think Palestinians bear a greater moral responsibility for their senseless tactics I decry that Isreal has more power to change the vicious status quo yet reserves the right to use tactics that will only prolong it.

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CdK wrote:

steissd,

The point Frank was making was not that the ordinance has the ability to be lethal but that it is employed in situations in which both sides have sufficient past experience to know that it will kill innocent civilians.

No military experience is needed to know that the bullets kill people. I knew this for sure since age of 7-8, 10 years before having become a military man. No military experience is needed either to realize that when you shoot in the densely populated area some bullets may hit the undesired targets, including by the way, not only civilians, but fellow soldiers as well (the so called friendly fire is very frequent in the urban warfare). And the people that claim that they want their compatriots free, obviously want them free of life when they deploy explosives factories in close vicinity of their "defendants'" homes.
I was a witness of the following episode in Nablus (I took part in the "Defensive Shield" operation): Palestinians established the heavy machine gun (0.5") position on the roof of the two-storeyed residential building. The militants did not permit to the inhabitants to abandon the house, they hoped that Israelis would not attack them just for this reasons. And IDF abstained from usage of heavy weapons for three hours of fire exchange, having got one soldier seriously wounded. But when the attempts to neutralize the position failed (the house was located in the dead end with limited possibilities to approach it, and the machine gun endangered the forces moving along the perpendicular street), the rocket was shot from a helicopter; the militants were killed, part of the residents of the house were seriously injured (and received medical aid from the IDF medical services). When one of the house owners was asked why did not he leave the house after the machine gun was mounted on its roof, he replied that the militants promised to shoot anyone trying to escape.

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Walter Hinteler wrote:

I've taught antisemitism at Münster university, developed some strategics for the right-wing youth scene - which still are used.

Anti-semitism is a criminal offense, btw, in Germany.

(Insult and defamatory statement as well.)

Care to expound on this statement? It seems contradictory in and of itself.

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CdK wrote:

There are significant Israeli factions that oppose all peace settlements (or at least all that have ever been proposed formally).

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Steissd,

I am reminded of a Chris Rock routine in which he mocks people who pat themselves on the back for not being arrested or paying child support.

"You are supposed to" he would emphatically add.

In my opinion Isreal is not fulfilling their Roadmap obligations except to the degree that it can take some US pressure off itself and allow persons such as yourself to make such declarations.

Isreal's settlement activity is wrong and does not need anyone's actions to be ceased.

That being said, my qualm with Isreal isn't so much the degree to which they are fulfilling their Roadmap obligations (whcih I think has simply been symbolic with the most relevant one being words on Sharon's part to the effect that Isreal needs to admit to being an occupying army). My qualm is that I feel Isreal is using tactics that make it difficult to impossible for Abu to fulfill his obligations and that Isreal often reciprocates attacks in a manner that escalates rather the conflict and does little to nothing to increase their security.

In any acse Isreal's removal of settlements is not really happening and that is something they can and should do regardless of the Palestinian's actions.

Like Chris Rock said "You are SUPPOSED to".

It's not a "painful concession" it's just doing something they should have done years ago and that they aren't really doing now (because the "settlements" being dismantled are largely uninhabited and Sharon has expressed support for quiet expantion of settlements elsewhere).

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CDK, it is well known that anti-semitism clearly exists, and apparently in some quantity, throughout Europe. My only comment was that its influence, through the press, etc., could change the balance of ones thinking.

Do you think for one moment you could get a pro-Israeli commentary by reading a French Algerian newspaper?

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Cjhsa, Mr. Hinteler obviously meant that he had taught the studies on history of anti-Semitism. None of his postings gives any reason to suspect him being a racist.

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Steissd,

I am very proud of Sharon for his willingness to face down the more radical elements of Israeli society that oppose any peace that does not cede the Palestinian territory.

I am very proud of him for that and his use of the word "occupation".

That does not detract from the fact that I see many Israeli actions and inactions as sharing responsibility for the continued conflict.

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