News From Gaza

[Billy T]

...The cycle will end when the victims on every side of this wrongful ethnic warfare stop perpetuating the violence. As a state enjoying a more responsive political structure than the beseiged and occupied Palestinians, Israel has much more opportunity for reform and de-escalation than Palestinians. ... To become a diverse nation, Israel must end her apartheid ethno-exceptionalist policy; Stop behaving much like a nazi state towards the Palestinians. It's getting harder and harder to behave like nazis as the world wakes up and connects- Racist or belligerently ethnocentric states can't commit atrocities against other ethnicities in such deep shadows any more. After 60 years, it's about time Israelis started thinking seriously about settling down among their non-Jewish cousins in the Mideast- not apart from them. Fortress-states are so passé. ...

I agree the violence must stop, but think it unrealistic to hope for direct transition to peaceful co-existance in one diverse state. Not only are many alive so filled with hate for their enemy that they can not think or even see that the 40+year old policy has failed, but also Israel is officially a religious state. Do you really think that Islamic followers, so filled with hate that they now gladly die just trying to kill Jews will join that religious state?

Thus, IMHO, a nearly a couple of generations must peaceful die in their beds of old age before that dream of a diverse nation is possible. I.e. what is the immediate need is perfect apartheid (even for the rockets, and missles each hurls at the other). Lets stop the killing by both sides with the plan (or something better, like it) I suggested in my last post's link:

http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=1124159&postcount=115

 

[Mr.Spock]

youll never get it. they dont want to co exist. 3 cops were run down this past few days, by arab israelis. in the north, arab youth throw rocks at israeli cars. in jerusalem, one gunman, and another man stabs a rabbi. the gunman family, raises hamas and hezbullah flags. a near lynch in east jerusalem. all of this, by arab israelis.

this leads to the conclusion war is imminent-the arab israeli population feels as though they are getting strong enough to kick us out. a friend of mine told me hes arab neighbors told him soon our houses will be theirs. ha, an arab nearly attacked me a week ago, near my house.

now, you might justify them as always, but dont talk to me about co existence. its not happening.

 

[hypewaders]

spidergoat: "The purpose of Israel is as a homeland for Jews, with the political power resting with Jews."

otheadp:"Exactly. And this isn't something to be ashamed of or try to hide."

It's something unworkable. A homeland carved out for the dominion of a single creed isn't acceptable, and I don't mean just unacceptable to me- the scheme is unacceptable anywhere one might attempt to carve one out today.

spidergoat: "it's unrealistic to think that Israel would exist in any other way."

otheadp: "Stop acting like it's a shocking new concept, hype."

The problem is, shock does not maintain a normal state. Can Jewish life express itself in the Levant harmoniously enough to have an accepted place under peaceful conditions?

Well, it's never been officially tried, but there is still the opportunity to repair and improve an ancient multi-cultural tapestry. In the modern and future context an accepted, fitting, intrinsic Jewish presence will require that Jewish culture (cultures if you prefer) estabish not a fortress in grand extrapolation on the medieval model- but instead a leading but not dominating form of expression as in other modern multi-ethnic states.

In other words, the United States is still a society where Europeans have gained a position that may not have been won peacefully. But the USA is now administered with sufficient enough (if still imperfect) justice that minorities are not at Whitey's throat and vice versa. Is the USA becoming less segregated, and less white-dominated? Yes, obviously. Could white Europeans enhance their ethnic security through violent confrontation? I don't think so, and I believe this is because multiculturalism is becoming recognized as the sanctuary of distinct cultures now and in the future. Fortresses have become obsolete vessels of distinct cultures.

Another American example are the Mormons. Their culture has found its greatest security and vitality not in confrontation with their neighbors, but coexistence. Would a campaign to change the name of Utah to Mormonia, and disposess "rival" neighbors be good for the prosperity of Mormon life? Doubtful. Why? Culture (in a species-spanning sense) is progressing beyond ages when tribes and kingdoms were hacked out in military conquest. We frown on that now. Zionists can blow off this macro-cultural change, but it is still operative. When Jewish Israelis come to understand as a majority the fairly-obvious reality that beating up and rounding up your neighbors in order to make them be nice to you doesn't work, they will devote themselves more concertedly to reconciliation. Arabs and Jews coexist in 3rd-party multicultural nations. I expect Jews to re-populate all over the Mideast again when zionism has been discredited and abolished. I expect Jews and non-Jews in the Levant will come to respect one another again - but it will never happen at gunpoint.

And through reconciliation, can the word "Israel" still describe a country where Palestinians also live as equals? What if the non-Jews take a hankering to calling it Palestine? Will Israel cease to exist? What if some foreigners called it the Holy Land, and some the Levant? How about Levantine Republic? To each his own.

Imagine if a city could exist for centuries with many simultaneous names, yet be shared by many cultures who each know all of her names and coexist using various names in different contexts. Wouldn't that be something amazing?

 

[draqon]

you dont have to.

I just posted a cartoon of the courageousness of Jews...what more can you ask for?

 

[spidergoat]

I agree it's problematic due to the context, but it's not theoretically problematic unless the area is large like Europe or America.

 

[Vkothii]

Or if the area is large, like Egypt, the Sinai, Iraq, Arabia, Syria and Iran? Maybe Turkey will give back the bit that God told Moses belonged to the Hebrews?

 

[hypewaders]

Billy T: "think it unrealistic to hope for direct transition to peaceful co-existance in one diverse state. Not only are many alive so filled with hate for their enemy that they can not think or even see that the 40+year old policy has failed, but also Israel is officially a religious state. Do you really think that Islamic followers, so filled with hate that they now gladly die just trying to kill Jews will join that religious state?"

States most often metamorphose within a generation, from Total War and siege mentalities, and from bitter, seemingly endless civil and ethnic wars back to normal life. Israel's hell has been sustained longer than normal, through unusual circumstances that are changing now.

Jews who live happily in Germany again today know that things change. I think you underestimate the welcome change that a real taste of peace and prosperity can bring in Israel. It's only been elusive because of thinking like this, which also can change precipitously:

Mr.Spock: "dont talk to me about co existence. its not happening."

Fear and hatred of the enemy seems interminable, until we look into that mirror that is the enemy in a new way. Peace takes over more overwhelmingly than war, because it makes life so very much better in every way. Just as there is a tipping-point into war, there is a tipping-point into peace. I expect it is going to become increasingly evident to Israeli Jews that while neither wiping out the remaining Palestinians, nor repeating the cycle of violence in stalemate is bringing peace, it's not an endless stalemate, because something is changing: Zionist ideology is losing legitimacy.

In the USA and in within Israel, this hellish cycle has been running on the assumption that it was a good idea to forcibly carve out a Homeland for the Jews at the expense of the human rights of others. The cycle has been running on the assumption that the sins of the Arabs, and the cycle of terrorism would always provide bigger villains to mask the ugliness within the Israeli system of dispossession and oppression. It also runs on the assumption that there are no alternatives, and that Israel's victims are forever bent on revenge and annihilation of the Jews. Both of these assumptions can be proven wrong through de-escalation. At the tipping-point of peace, Jews will give up zionism, and their victims of zionism will give up their desire for revenge for a normal life beyond their ghetto prisons. Israel will then thrive like never before- not as a dependent colony fortress, but as a unique and open multicultural society. There is an unfulfilled promise of coexistence in Jerusalem, that the whole world is ready to get behind (including the Arab world) when Israel abandons zionism.

 

[Billy T]

... States most often metamorphose within a generation, from Total War and siege mentalities, and from bitter, seemingly endless civil and ethnic wars back to normal life. Israel's hell has been sustained longer than normal, through unusual circumstances that are changing now.
Jews who live happily in Germany again today know that things change. I think you underestimate the welcome change that a real taste of peace and prosperity can bring in Israel. ...

Yes they do, but Hitler and his SS terror died MORE THAN TWO GENERATIONS AGO. I said "nearly two generations" of old dying peacefully in the beds would be required before there was any realistic hope of one nation of Islamist and Jews peacefully living together. Another thing, only hinted at in prior posts is also required:

That nation must have a separation between "church" and state -the exact opposite of the current constitution of Israel. I think this is easier to achieve than the eradiation (mainly by peaceful deaths in beds) of the current extreme hatreds. I say this as many, if not most Jews in Israel are already not "True believers" of the Torah, etc. Surely 95+% believe evolution's many years made man, instead of the "less than 6000 years ago God made Adam and Eve" story. (In this reguard, and education in general, Israel is far in advance of the USA.)

For example, the Rabbi's son, who taught me how to put on "tefillen" is now an atheist. In is a common occurrence that great education trends to undermine the simple faiths one gets as a child. I was an altar boy in my Lutheran Church.* I have not progressed via education as far as he has. I am only an agnostic. I went to Cornell and graduated in the top 20% of my class, but he went to Harvard and was third or second in his class. - Perhaps if I were as intrinsically smart as him and went to Harvard, I would be an atheist too. (Fact that he is a MD, pathologist probably also made him "progress farther" - I am a Ph.D. in physics and that tends to arrest one's "religious development" in a state of awe and wonder about the universe.)

I.e. the great Jewish tradition (Rabbi means "teacher") of education, which I greatly admire, I expect will in a couple of generation transform Israel, democratically, into a secular state.
-----------------
*Quite conflicted by my Christian duty to try to save the soul of my best friend, the Rabbi's son, but somehow while guest in their home that did not seem right - I only told of the merits of Christianity when he was guest in mine.** I never thought about it until just now, but perhaps he was a little "conflicted" too when teaching me how to use "tefillin." At the time, I really like the idea of symbolically "binding my mind and body to the will of God." - my "three in one" God of course, not his.

**Eating off of aluminium foil covered plates, only vegatables, as our meat was not properly slaughtered etc. One of my approaches was to point out the fact that instead of having two different sets of plates (one for milk other for meat dishes) that money could better be used to "feed the starving" etc. I was not direct - nor was he. We were both too smart and good friends for that.

 

[S.A.M.]

Israeli High Court closes off use of major highway by Palestinians within occupied Palestine :

The interim decision issued 10 days ago by the High Court of Justice on the use of Route 443 marks the first time the justices have issued a ruling to close a road traversing occupied territory to Palestinian use, for the convenience of Israeli travelers.

The interim ruling on a petition by six Palestinian villages adjacent to the highway, which links the coastal plain to Jerusalem, gave the state six months to report progress on the construction of an alternative road for Palestinian use.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/966013.html

So now we're progressing to infrastructure in Palestine that is only accessible to Israelis (apart from the illegal settlements, that is)

Background:

About 10 kilometers of Route 443 was paved on private Palestinian land in the early 1980s, on the grounds it was needed for the West Bank Palestinian population (and not for "security purposes"). A large part of the expropriated land had been earmarked for a housing development for local teachers. In response to a petition from a Palestinian whose land was expropriated for the road, the High Court ruled that the military government cannot plan and build a road system in an area held by its soldiers if the purpose is solely for the creation of a "service road" for the state. As a result, the state promised that the road was to be open to all.

So its just more land stealing, then

 

[Mr.Spock]

in Gaza all roads are Palestinian only. perhaps this is the policy intended by terrorists in the west bank?

hows Leonard Cohen song goes? first we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.

 

[S.A.M.]

in Gaza all roads are Palestinian only. perhaps this is the policy intended by terrorists in the west bank?.

Isn't Gaza in Palestine? Like the West Bank? Surely the roads should be for Palestinians only.

I hear the Israelis go into Gaza all the time. What roads do they use?

A Palestinian civilian on a donkey cart was shot dead by Israeli troops in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday, medics and witnesses said.

Hassan Abed, 60, was shot in Al-Qarara near the border fence between the Hamas-run territory and Israel, they said.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hExw9IefKVw7wyAEI54CmB_A52zA

 

[otheadp]

http://www.darwinawards.com/

 

[Mr.Spock]

Isn't Gaza in Palestine? Like the West Bank? Surely the roads should be for Palestinians only.

I hear the Israelis go into Gaza all the time. What roads do they use?



http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hExw9IefKVw7wyAEI54CmB_A52zA

another advertisement post? how much saudi arabia pays you for the PR?

the only thing going in to gaza are the trucks filled with aid.

Two Hamas militants were also killed and a third seriously wounded in an explosion that rocked a position south of Gaza City used by the armed wing of the Islamist movement that runs Gaza.

if only they built that country club.

 

[S.A.M.]

another advertisement post? how much saudi arabia pays you for the PR?

the only thing going in to gaza are the trucks filled with aid.



if only they built that country club.

Yeah amazing how they can identify militants from the air. Do they carry neon signs saying I AM HAMAS?

 

[Mr.Spock]

Yeah amazing how they can identify militants from the air. Do they carry neon signs saying I AM HAMAS?

actually that was a self made explosion. when you invest so much in weapons instead of construction, you get burned.

 

[S.A.M.]

actually that was a self made explosion. when you invest so much in weapons instead of construction, you get burned.

Sure it was

Meanwhile, conflicting reports said two Palestinian resistance fighters of the aL-Qassam brigades, the armed wing of the ruling Hamas, were killed and three others wounded in a new Israeli air strike on a Qassam post in the Tal aL-Hawa on the southern Gaza city shores.

 

[Mr.Spock]

Sure it was

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3521487,00.html

sure indeed

Palestinians claimed that the facility was attacked by the IDF, but the Israeli army denied striking in the area. Sources in Gaza did not rule out the possibility that the incident was a "work accident".

 

[S.A.M.]

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3521487,00.html

sure indeed

What "sources"?

Seems to me awfully strange that the IDF frequently kills "militants" with air raids, when they cannot seem to be able to see clearly even on the ground.

The three Palestinian children killed in Gaza on Tuesday were only playing near rocket launchers targeted by Israeli troops, and were not connected with the terrorists, an army probe determined Thursday.

Ten-year-old Mahmoud Ghazal and his 12-year-old cousin, Yehiya Ghazal, died immediately. Their 10-year-old cousin Sara Ghazal was critically injured and died later.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/899414.html

 

[otheadp]

Man... SAM and Spock, you were MADE for eachother!

 

[Mr.Spock]

What "sources"?
Seems to me awfully strange that the IDF frequently kills "militants" with air raids, when they cannot seem to be able to see clearly even on the ground.

i wonder what qassam rocket this kids were holding.

The Mercaz HaRav massacre, also called the Mercaz HaRav shooting and the Mercaz HaRav yeshiva massacre, was a shooting attack that occurred on 6 March 2008, in which a lone gunman shot multiple students at the Mercaz HaRav yeshiva, a religious school in Jerusalem, Israel. Eight students and the shooter were killed and ten more were wounded, five of them in serious to critical condition.[4][5][3][4] The attack began at 8:36 p.m. local time and ended about twenty minutes later.[1]

or are we going to hear how poor that gunman was for being molested?

another story of the occupation perhaps?