The State of "Palestine" Quiz

[yosi]

It's very amusing how you ask your question presupposing what my answer will be. No, I have no problem with an eventual Palestinian state having a military, although I would not be surprised if certain restraints on armaments are part of a final peace deal.

[VivaPalestina]

Like I said, vitriol. The offer is on the table if you'd like to actually discuss the issue with me thoughtfully rather than simply yelling angrily in public.

Also, how exactly is it that in your mind my support for a contiguous, sovereign Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza is equivalent to support for a "more comfortable open air prison"?

And there you have a microcosm of the israeli propaganda machine, the zionists agitate, lie, twist, spin and then blame the Palestinians for getting "angry" or resisting. They want "calm" negotiating or debate, when they have built walls, checkpoints and consficate land and people. The tanks roll in, the military helicopters fly overhead, a nuclear arsenal is at hand but the zionists would like to have all believe that the Palestinians are the angry arabs not willing to negotiate. Which leads to the two state solution debate, the Oslo Accords, a way to expedite the Allon plan of 1967 of "geographic inclusion, demographic exclusion." In return for the collaboration of Arafat, the Palestinians were supposed to get an independent state. "From the beginning of negotiations, restrictions were implemented on the Palestinians, first that the Palestinians don't constitute a single people, second, the fragmentation of occupied Palestinian territory into discrete units separated from each other by areas of israeli control, third, the transfer of the day to day administration and policing of the population to a severely limited form of Palestinian government and fourth, the maintenance of Israeli control over all external borders, airspace and territorial waters, so that all Palestinian contact with the outside world would be mediated by Israel" ----Saree Makdisi, p.81-82, Palestine Inside Out From there Arafat was to "negotiate" a state. The end result was the further cantonization, ie, imprisonment of Palestinians. The wall was built, settlements accelerated, and the creation of bypass roads, roads that only Jews are allowed to use, increased. The wall cut off Palestinians from their farm land, health services, jobs, education, etc. The two state solution? No thanks. The last time a two state solution was mentioned by a world leader was Obama, who stated that based on 67 borders the Palestinians should be able to build their own viable state. And that went over well didn't it? Netanyahu rushed over to the POTUS and bullied him into silence, the supposed leader of the free world. Did Obama dare to speak up about a two state "solution" again?

I am your equal, I have the right to live in my home country as your equal.

[Byrnzie]

Yes, you're right, when you're fighting in densely populated civilian areas civilians will be killed. That is an unavoidable fact, which is why the laws of war do not categorically consider civilian deaths to be unjustified. I would've expected you to know that already given how much you rant about international law. The difference between justifiable (though tragic) collateral damage and terrorism is this: collateral damage is the result of an attack on a legitimate military target; terrorism is an attack on a target that is categorically illegitimate. But again, I'm sure you already knew that.

Norman Finkelstein - 'Knowing Too Much' - Why The American Jewish Romance With Israel Is Coming To An End
P.116: "Indiscriminate attacks differ from direct attacks against civilians,' Israel's leading authority on International law, Yoram Dinstein, observed, in that "the attacker is not actually trying to harm the civilian population": the injury to the civilians is merely a matter of "no concern to the attacker." From the standpoint of LOIAC [Law of International Armed Conflict], there is no genuine difference between a premeditated attack against civilians (or civilian objects) and a reckless disregard of the principle of distinction: they are equally forbidden. [Yoram Dinstein - 'The Conduct of Hostilities under the law of International Armed Conflict' 2004].

[Byrnzie]

It is perfectly clear that every Palestinian terrorist who has killed a civilian meant to do so. That is not at all the case, and most likely not the case, for the vast majority of Palestinian civilian deaths.

Tell that to the 13-year-old Palestinian schoolgirl who was shot 17 times at close range by an Israeli Captain. '[Witnesses] said they saw the captain shoot Iman twice in the head, walk away, turn back and fire a stream of bullets into her body.
...[Witnesses] described her as at least 100 yards from the military post which was in any case well protected.

...After soldiers first opened fire, she dropped her schoolbag which was then hit by several bullets establishing that it did not contain explosive. At that point she was no longer carrying the bag and, the tape revealed, was heading away from the army post when she was shot.'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/nov/16/israel2

You could also tell it to the wheelchair-bound Palestinian man who was shot and then run over by a tank:

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2003/ ... -does-fit/
Human Rights Watch reports that of the “twenty-two civilian killings” during the Israeli siege of Jenin, “Many of them were killed willfully or unlawfully, and in some cases constituted war crimes. Fifty-seven-year-old Kamal Zghair, a wheelchair-bound man, was shot and then run over by IDF tanks on April 10 as he was moving his wheelchair—equipped with a white flag—down a major road in Jenin. Thirty-seven-year-old Jamal Fayid, a quadriplegic, was crushed to death in the rubble of his home on April 7 after IDF soldiers refused to allow his family to remove him from their home before a bulldozer destroyed it.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/sep/06/israel
Israeli soldiers tell of indiscriminate killings by army and a culture of impunity

In recent months dozens of soldiers, including the son of an an Israeli general, all recently discharged, have come forward to share their stories of how they were ordered in briefings to shoot to kill unarmed people without fear of reprimand.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/sep/06/israel1
Israeli troops say they were given shoot-to-kill order

Israeli military prosecutors have opened criminal investigations following allegations by soldiers that they carried out illegal shoot-to-kill orders against unarmed Palestinians.

Some of the soldiers, who also spoke to the Guardian, say they acted on standing orders in some parts of the Palestinian territories to open fire on people regardless of whether they were armed or not, or posed any physical threat.

The soldiers say that in some situations they were ordered to shoot anyone who appeared on a roof or a balcony, anyone who appeared to be kneeling to the ground or anyone who appeared on the street at a designated time. Among those killed by soldiers acting on the orders were young children.


Also, on the subject of not intentionally harming civilians, how do you explain the following?:

Norman Finkelstein - 'Knowing Too Much' - Why The American Jewish Romance With Israel Is Coming To An End
P.145: In February 2008 HRW [Human Rights Watch] issued a report entitled 'Flooding South Lebanon: Israel's use of cluster munitions in Lebanon in July and August 2006'. The report found that Israel dropped as many as 4.6 million cluster submunitions on south Lebanon during the war. It was the "most extensive use of cluster munitions anywhere in the world since the 1991 Gulf war," while relative to the size of the targeted area the density of the attack was historically unprecendented. (Apparently the only reason Israel did not drop yet more cluster munitions was that it's stocks had been depleted). Some 90 percent of these cluster munitions were dropped "during the final three days when Israel knew a settlement was imminent," the U.N ceasefire resolution having already been passed but not yet gone into effect.

P146: Israel's cluster munition attacks on Lebanon were indiscriminate in multiple respects: the inaccuracy of their delivery (or carrier) systems; the "wide dispersal patterns" of such weapons; and the "high dud rates" endangering civilians returning to their homes after the ceasefire. In addition, the saturation use of these weapons in civilian areas multiplied manyfold the inherent dangers posed by them.

P.147: HRW reported that Israel's cluster attacks "blanketed" both "built-up areas" and "fields", resulting in the high saturation of towns and villages," and the "systematic 'flooding' of certain villages and populated areas."

The "vast majority" of cluster munitions targeted "population centers" such as towns and villages. In the village of Yohmor, "bomblets littered the ground from one end...to the other. They were on the roofs of all the houses, in gardens and spread across roads and paths. Some were even found inside houses." In the village of Zwtar al-Sharkiyeh deminers had to remove "2000-3000 submunitions" inundating a primary school and it's environs, although "Hezbollah had not used the school at any time during the war and there had been no Hezbollah forces anywhere in the town."
Meanwhile, according to a "very conservative" estimate, "submunitions contaminated at least 26 percent of south Lebanon's agricultural land," transforming olive and citrus groves and tobacco fields into "de facto minefields." Many fields were simply "abandoned," while desperate farmers continued to work others despite the lethal hazards. From the ceasefire until December 2009 the explosion of duds caused 227 civilian casualties, of whom 35 percent were children.

P148: According to HRW, individuals bear responsibility for "war crimes" if they "intentionally or recklessly" authorize or conduct attacks "that would indiscriminately or disproportionately harm civilians." In other iterations HRW defines war crimes as attacks that are "knowingly or recklessly indiscriminate or deliberate"; the "knowing or reckless disregard for the foreseeable effects on civilians and other protected objects"; "deliberate attacks on civilians, as well as indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks when committed with knowledge or reckless indifference to their illegal character": military justification and with criminal intent."

P.149: Consider now HRW's description of the Israeli cluster attacks on Lebanon:

By their very nature, these dangerous, volatile submunitions [i.e, the duds] cannot distinguish between combatants and non-combatants, forseeably endangering civilians for months or years to come.

It is inconceivable that Israel...did not know that...it's strikes would have a lasting humanitarian impact.

Many of the cluster attacks on populated areas do not appear to have had a definite military target. Our researchers...found only one village with clear evidence of the presence of Hezbollah forces out of the more than 40 towns and villages they visited.

The staggering number of cluster munitions rained on south Lebanon over the three days immediately before a negotiated ceasefire went into effect puts in doubt the claim by the IDF that it's attacks were aimed at specific targets or even strategic locations, as opposed to being efforts to blanket large areas with explosives and duds.

Cluster munition attacks on or near population centers, like those launched by Israel, give rise to a presumption that they are indiscriminate, as the weapons are highly imprecise with a large area effect that regularly causes foreseeable and excessive civilian casualties during strikes and afterwards.

P.150: Given the extremely large number of submunitions employed and their known failure rates, harm to remaning and returning civilians was entirely foreseeable.

Israel was well aware of the continuing harm to Lebanese civilians from the unexploded duds that remained from it's prior use of munitions in South Lebanon in 1978 and 1982.

The paucity of evidence of specific military objectives, the known dangers of cluster munitions, the timing of large scale attacks days before an anticipated ceasefire, and the massive scope of the attacks combine to point to a conclusion that the attacks were of an indiscriminate and disproportionate character.

A senior U.N demining official said he had "no doubt" that Israel had deliberately hit built-up areas with cluster munitions, stating "these cluster bombs were dropped in the middle of villages".

Israeli soldiers were well aware of the large numbers of duds their cluster strikes were producing. A soldier said that his...commander gave a "pep talk" after a period of heavy fire, saying, "just wait until Hezbollah finds the little presents we had left them".

Given the sheer number of cluster duds on the ground, casualties are unavoidable.

P.151: In South Lebanon in 2006, Israel employed a means of warfare that was likely to cause significant harm to civilians - unreliable and inaccurate submunitions used widely and heavily in populated areas. Despite ample past experience of the deadly effects of cluster duds on the civilian population of South Lebanon, awareness of the impending end of the war, and the knowledge that there would be a legacy of unexploded duds creating de facto minefields, the IDF did not refrain from launching these attacks...The post-ceasefire casualties have to our knowledge all been civilians or deminers, and civilian access to agricultural areas and property has ben severely affected. The aftereffects of israel's cluster strikes were foreseeable by the IDF.

The paucity of evidence of specific military objectives, the known dangers of cluster munitions, the time of large-scale attacks days before an anticipated ceasefire, and the massive scope of the attacks themselves lead to the conclusion that the attacks were of an indiscriminate and disproportionate character.

We found scant evidence that would demonstrate a concrete and direct military advantage with relation to any possible military objectives, such as attacking fighters, rocket launchers, or strategic locales.

When considering the foreseeable civilian damage that could ensue, the anticipated and soon-approaching end to the armed conflict weighs heavily against Israel's last-minute saturation of civilian areas with old cluster stockpiles...The fact that duds would turn civilian areas into de facto minefields, given the large number of submunitions employed and their known failure rates, was foreseeable - testimony from soldiers (and the reported IDF prohibition of firing cluster munitions into areas it would subsequently enter) indicate that the IDF knew this.


A composite distillation of these HRW statements would read: Just before an agreed-upon ceasefire Israel saturated Lebanese civilian areas having no military targets with cluster munitions; the inevitable and foreseeable - in fact foreseen - consequence was that many Lebanese civilians were injured and killed.


P.152: Like HRW, the U.N Commission of Inquiry found that Israeli cluster attacks were indiscriminate...many towns and villages were littered with the bomblets as well as large tracts of agricultural land," and that "the use of cluster munitions by [the] IDF was of no military advantage."

[Byrnzie]

Racism, alive and well in Israel

come on byrnzie.. its not racism.. i know perhaps im being presumptive but this is to do with ethnicity and i think you know that. i think you know that racism is a social construct.

No, racism isn't a social construct. You were right the first time; it has to do with ethnicity.

rac·ism
   [rey-siz-uhm] Show IPA
noun
1.
a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others.
2.
a policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering such a doctrine; discrimination.
3.
hatred or intolerance of another race or other races.



http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/ju ... grant-hate
Israel turns on its refugees

Firebombing of house containing 10 Eritreans is latest example of growing racism stoked by politicians and media

Harriet Sherwood
guardian.co.uk, Monday 4 June 2012


Behind the metal door and up a narrow, blackened stairwell, fear hung in the air along with the smell of smoke. No one wanted to talk. A young woman scrubbing clothes in a plastic basin mutely shook her head. A man sweeping the floor with a toddler clinging to his legs said one word: "No." Another, bringing bags of food from the nearby market, brushed past without making eye contact.

As for the 10 Eritreans who had been trapped in a ground-floor apartment when the blaze began at 3am, they had gone. Four were in hospital suffering from burns and smoke inhalation; the rest had fled.

The overnight firebombing of a downtown Jerusalem building which houses refugees from sub-Saharan Africa was the latest in a string of attacks set against the backdrop of rising anti-migrant sentiment in Israel, fuelled by inflammatory comments by prominent politicians. Often described as infiltrators by ministers, the media, the army and government officials, migrants have also had labels such as "cancer", "garbage", "plague" and "rapists" applied to them by Israeli politicians.

The arsonists who struck the Jerusalem apartment, located in a religious neighbourhood of the city, scrawled "get out of our neighbourhood" on its outside wall. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said: "This was a targeted attack which we believe was racially motivated." The foreign ministry condemned the "heinous crime".

But on the street outside the building, the official response had little resonance with a man who arrived in Israel from Eritrea 14 years ago but was too scared to give his name. "People look at you, they curse you. They say, 'Go back to your country.' We are very afraid," he said.

Tensions were inevitable, according to Moshe Cohen, the owner of a nearby jeweller's shop. "They drink, they fight among themselves, they play African music on shabbat [the Jewish sabbath] when people want to pray. What started in Tel Aviv happens here now."

He was referring to a series of firebombings of apartments and a nursery over the past month in southern Tel Aviv, an area in which African migrants are concentrated. Shops run by or serving migrants were smashed up and looted in a violent demonstration last month in which Africans were attacked. Many Israelis were shocked at the display of aggressive racism in their most liberal city.

Political leaders did not allow the violence to temper their verbal onslaught against the migrants. Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Israel's national identity was at risk from the flood of "illegal infiltrators". Interior minister Eli Yishai suggested that Aids-infected migrants were raping Israeli women, and all, "without exception", should be locked up pending deportation. They do not believe "this country belongs to us, to the white man", he said in an interview.

And, while touring the fence that Israel is building along its border with Egypt to deter migrants, MP Aryeh Eldad said: "Anyone that penetrates Israel's border should be shot – a Swedish tourist, Sudanese from Eritrea, Eritreans from Sudan, Asians from Sinai. Whoever touches Israel's border – shot." He later conceded that such a policy may not be feasible "because bleeding hearts groups will immediately begin to shriek and turn to the courts".

According to the immigration authority, there are 62,000 migrants in Israel, where the population is 7.8m. Over 2,000 migrants entered Israel via Egypt last month, compared with 637 last May. The construction of the 150-mile (240km) southern border fence, due to be completed later this year, is thought to be increasing in the short term the numbers attempting to cross into Israel .

Nearly all are given temporary permits to stay in Israel which must be renewed every three or four months and specifically exclude permission to work. Many end up being employed on a casual basis for a pittance, living in overcrowded, rundown apartments and confined to the fringes of society. In desperation, some turn to petty crime.

On Sunday, a law came into effect allowing the Israeli authorities to jail migrants for up to three years. People helping or sheltering migrants could face prison sentences of between five and 15 years.

Netanyahu also ordered ministers to accelerate efforts to deport 25,000 migrants from countries with which Israel has diplomatic relations, principally South Sudan, Ivory Coast, Ghana and Ethiopia.

He conceded it was not possible to deport around 35,000 migrants from Eritrea, Sudan and Somalia. Eritreans and Sudanese make up more than 90% of those who have illegally crossed the Israel-Egypt border in recent months.

One out of 4,603 applicants was granted asylum status last year.

Although some commentators and community activists have said that Israel, a state founded by and for refugees from persecution, should be sympathetic and welcoming to those fleeing violence and oppression, the prevailing mood is one of intolerance.

"This phenomenon is getting bigger and bigger," said Poriya Gets of the Hotline for Migrant Workers, based in Tel Aviv. It was being stoked by politicians and rightwing organisations, she added. "We now see hotspots of tension between refugees and local people in many towns."

Her organisation had also been targeted. "We've had phone calls, people cursing and saying ugly things, like, 'We hope you will be raped and we are coming to burn you.' The politicians must take responsibility. They are trying to make the fire bigger."

[Byrnzie]

Also, numbers do not prove intent. It is perfectly clear that every Palestinian terrorist who has killed a civilian meant to do so. That is not at all the case, and most likely not the case, for the vast majority of Palestinian civilian deaths.

In case there's still any doubt as to the complete falsity of your comment:


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... ry-mindset


Rachel Corrie verdict exposes Israeli military mindset

Corrie's parents have not received justice, but their quest reveals the lie of the IDF's claim to be the world's 'most moral army'


Chris McGreal
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 28 August 2012


Reporters covering Israel are routinely confronted with the question: why not call Hamas a terrorist organisation? It's a fair point. How else to describe blowing up families on buses but terrorism?

But the difficulty lies in what then to call the Israeli army when it, too, at particular times and places, has used indiscriminate killing and terror as a means of breaking Palestinian civilians. One of those places was Rafah, in the southern tip of the Gaza strip, where Rachel Corrie was crushed by a military bulldozer nine years ago as she tried to stop the Israeli army going about its routine destruction of Palestinian homes.

An Israeli judge on Tuesday perpetuated the fiction that Corrie's death was a terrible accident and upheld the results of the military's own investigation, widely regarded as such a whitewash that even the US ambassador to Israel described it as neither thorough nor credible. Corrie's parents may have failed in their attempt to see some justice for their daughter, but in their struggle they forced a court case that established that her death was not arbitrary but one of a pattern of killings as the Israeli army pursued a daily routine of attacks intended to terrorise the Palestinian population of southern Gaza into submission.

The case laid bare the state of the collective Israeli military mind, which cast the definition of enemies so widely that children walking down the street were legitimate targets if they crossed a red line that was invisible to everyone but the soldiers looking at it on their maps. The military gave itself a blanket protection by declaring southern Gaza a war zone, even though it was heavily populated by ordinary Palestinians, and set rules of engagement so broad that just about anyone was a target.

With that went virtual impunity for Israeli troops no matter who they killed or in what circumstances – an impunity reinforced by Tuesday's verdict in Haifa.

The Israeli military commander in southern Gaza at the time was Colonel Pinhas "Pinky" Zuaretz. A few weeks after Corrie's death, I (as the Guardian's correspondent in Israel) spoke to him about how it was that so many children were shot by Israeli soldiers at times when there was no combat. His explanation was chilling.

At that point, three years into the second intifada, more than 400 children had been killed by the Israeli army. Nearly half were in Rafah and neighbouring Khan Yunis. One in four were under the age of 12.

I focused on the deaths of six children in a 10-week period, all in circumstances far from combat. The dead included a 12-year-old girl, Haneen Abu Sitta, killed in Rafah as she walked home from school near a security fence around one of the fortified Jewish settlements in Gaza at the time. The army made up an explanation by falsely claiming Haneen was killed during a gun battle between Israeli forces and Palestinians.

Zuaretz conceded to me that there was no battle and that the girl was shot by a soldier who had no business opening fire. It was the same with the killings of some of the other children. The colonel was fleetingly remorseful.

"Every name of a child here, it makes me feel bad because it's the fault of my soldiers. I need to learn and see the mistakes of my troops," he said. But Zuaretz was not going to do anything about it; and by the end of the interview, he was casting the killings as an unfortunate part of the struggle for Israel's very survival.

"I remember the Holocaust. We have a choice, to fight the terrorists or to face being consumed by the flames again," he said.

In court, Zuaretz said the whole of southern Gaza was a combat zone and anyone who entered parts of it had made themselves a target. But those parts included houses where Palestinians built walls within walls in their homes to protect themselves from Israeli bullets.

In that context, covering up the truth about the killings of innocents, including Corrie, became an important part of the survival strategy because of the damage the truth could do to the military's standing, not only in the rest of the world but also among Israelis.

The death of Khalil al-Mughrabi two years before Corrie died was telling. The 11-year-old boy was playing football when he was shot dead in Rafah by an Israeli soldier. The respected Israeli human rights organisations, B'Tselem, wrote to the army demanding an investigation. Several months later, the judge advocate general's office wrote back saying that Khalil was killed by soldiers who had acted with "restraint and control" to disperse a riot in the area.

But the judge advocate general's office made the mistake of attaching a copy of its own confidential investigation, which came to a very different conclusion: that the riot had been much earlier in the day and the soldiers who shot the child should not have opened fire. In the report, the chief military prosecutor, Colonel Einat Ron, then spelled out alternative false scenarios that should be offered to B'Tselem. The official account was a lie and the army knew it.

The message to ordinary soldiers was clear: you have a free hand because the military will protect you to protect itself. It is that immunity from accountability that was the road to Corrie's death.

She wasn't the only foreign victim at about that time. In the following months, Israeli soldiers shot dead James Miller, a British television documentary journalist, and Tom Hurndall, a British photographer and pro-Palestinian activist. In November 2002, an Israeli sniper had killed a British United Nations worker, Iain Hook, in Jenin in the West Bank.

British inquests returned verdicts of unlawful killings in all three deaths, but Israel rejected calls for the soldiers who killed Miller and Hook to be held to account. The Israeli military initially whitewashed Hurndall's killing but after an outcry led by his parents, and British government pressure, the sniper who shot him was sentenced to eight years in prison for manslaughter.

That sentence apparently did nothing to erode a military mindset that sees only enemies.

Three years after Corrie's death, an Israeli army officer who emptied the magazine of his automatic rifle into a 13-year-old Palestinian girl, Iman al-Hams, and then said he would have done the same even if she had been three years old was cleared by a military court.

Iman was shot and wounded after crossing the invisible red line around an Israeli military base in Rafah, but she was never any closer than 100 yards. The officer then left the base in order to "confirm the kill" by pumping the wounded girl full of bullets. An Israeli military investigation concluded he had acted properly.

Tuesday's court verdict in Haifa will have done nothing to end that climate of impunity. Nor anything that would have us believe that Israel's repeated proclamation that it has the "most moral army in the world" is any more true than its explanation of so many Palestinian deaths.

[Byrnzie]

Yes, you're right, when you're fighting in densely populated civilian areas civilians will be killed. That is an unavoidable fact, which is why the laws of war do not categorically consider civilian deaths to be unjustified. I would've expected you to know that already given how much you rant about international law. The difference between justifiable (though tragic) collateral damage and terrorism is this: collateral damage is the result of an attack on a legitimate military target; terrorism is an attack on a target that is categorically illegitimate. But again, I'm sure you already knew that.

Norman Finkelstein - 'Knowing Too Much' - Why The American Jewish Romance With Israel Is Coming To An End
P.116: "Indiscriminate attacks differ from direct attacks against civilians,' Israel's leading authority on International law, Yoram Dinstein, observed, in that "the attacker is not actually trying to harm the civilian population": the injury to the civilians is merely a matter of "no concern to the attacker." From the standpoint of LOIAC [Law of International Armed Conflict], there is no genuine difference between a premeditated attack against civilians (or civilian objects) and a reckless disregard of the principle of distinction: they are equally forbidden. [Yoram Dinstein - 'The Conduct of Hostilities under the law of International Armed Conflict' 2004].

Care to respond to this Yosi?