Report: Israel attacks flotilla, 10 die

[Sailor Steve]

Why stop with 1948? If the land should be "given back", why not reinstate the Ottoman Empire and give it all back to the Turks? Why not go back to Alexander and give it all back to the Greeks? Or the Italians?

[Skybird]

from
http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2010/06/israel-human-decency-common-humanity-by-eve-garrard.html

Israel, human decency, common humanity

by Eve Garrard

Fintan O'Toole thinks that Israel regards itself as 'exempt from the demands of common humanity' (via Z Word Blog). Iain Banks thinks that 'simple human decency' means nothing to Israel (see this normblog post).

Two well-known writers, very anxious to tell the world that Israel lacks humanity. Israel's not like the rest of us, the rest of the human family. Compared to other nations, it's inhuman. It doesn't recognize what everyone else knows about, the simple requirements of being decently human. It ought to recognize these things, it isn't hard to do so, since they're so simple; and most other people do, since they're part of common humanity.

Leave aside the sinister provenance of that claim, and let's just consider it on its own.

Turkey has killed between 30,000 and 40,000 Kurds in the last 30 years; it occupies North Cyprus; it blockades Armenia and denies its own historical genocide. But Israel lacks simple human decency.

Sri Lanka, at the same time that Israel was fighting in Gaza (around 1300 dead) killed about 25,000 of its own civilians in the course of repressing an insurgency. But Israel thinks it's exempt from the demands of common humanity.

Sudan has killed something in the order of 200,000 people in Darfur, with countless rapes and tortures alongside. But Israel lacks simple human decency.

Iran rapes and tortures and murders its own dissidents who ask for democracy; it hangs young gays, it oppresses women. But Israel thinks it's exempt from the demands of common humanity.

Yemen is blockading South Yemen, it lets no food, medicine or water through; unlike Israel, which lets around 15,000 tons of supplies into Gaza every week. But Israel lacks simple human decency.

Egypt is considering a law to strip their citizenship from any Egyptian who marries an Israeli; it persecutes Copts; it blockades Gaza. But Israel thinks it's exempt from the demands of common humanity.

Russia kills 25,000 to 50,000 Chechens, and almost completely razes the capital city of Grozny; its soldiers inflict hideous tortures on their prisoners before killing them; investigative journalists are murdered. But Israel lacks simple human decency.

China kills somewhere between half a million and one and a quarter million Tibetans in the course of quashing Tibet's independence. But Israel thinks it's exempt from the demands of common humanity.

In Pakistan, Christian churches are burned, hundreds of Ahmadiyyas are killed, violence towards women is endemic. But Israel lacks simple human decency.

In Saudi Arabia, no churches are allowed, no Israeli Jews may enter, women are subject to gender apartheid. But Israel thinks it's exempt from the demands of common humanity.

Congo: what can one say about Congo? More than that 5 million - 5 million - people have been killed in its wars, alongside innumerable rapes and hideous tortures? But Israel lacks simple human decency.

Now, here's one especially for Iain Banks: the USA and the UK initiate a war in Iraq in which more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians are killed. But Israel thinks it's exempt from the demands of common humanity.

France trained and armed the Hutu genocidaires who killed around 800,000 civilians in the Rwanda genocide, and continued to protect them even as they lost power to the incoming Tutsis. But Israel lacks simple human decency.

Three things to note. First, most of the other cases I've mentioned have involved far worse horrors than anything Israel has done. But Israel is the one which Banks and O'Toole charge, not with acting wrongly, or having bad judgement, but with being deliberately impervious to morality, with not even rising to the most basic level of decency. Banks and O'Toole (and indeed many others) level this charge at Israel alone. We won't be hearing them say that the Chinese are deliberately impervious to morality, or that the Turks lack simple human decency. Only Israel. Why is this?

Second, we can't in fact leave aside the sinister provenance of these charges. O'Toole at least claims to know about the Holocaust, and what led to that horror; it's possible that Banks knows something about it too. It's a commonplace of historical explanation that one of the enabling factors was the dehumanization of the Jews, the constant Nazi propaganda about how they weren't fully human, how they didn't have the normal moral sentiments and beliefs, about how they saw themselves as the chosen people, above ordinary morality. Here we see these dehumanizing lies being reproduced, 60 years later, about Israel, and only about Israel. Why is this?

Third, and most importantly, every point I've made in this post has been made before, by many others, many many times: forcefully, cogently, analytically; both passionately and dispassionately; with humour and with despair. It hasn't made the slightest difference to the likes of Banks and O'Toole. Nor to the many others shouting or whispering at us, in the teeth of the evidence, that Gaza is the new Warsaw Ghetto, and that Israel is really Nazi Germany come again - and so it's fine to hate Israel, it's to your credit to hate it, it shows the world that you have simple human decency.

Why is this? And where will it lead? (Eve Garrard)

Norman Geras' blog? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Geras

Every one is talking about international law so wasn't Palestine divided by international law to Jews and Palestinians?

No, because the legal foundation of this was based on a document which pretty much guaranteed that such an event could never really happen.
Plus of course there were a pile of other terms and conditions which were broken which makes it illegal as something is only properly legal if it ticks all the required boxes.

Isn't ISRAEL a Jewish land?

It depends on what you call Israel. Where are its borders and where is its capital?
But hold on, in one of you divergent moments didn't you go on about how Israel is not a Jewish land?

Fintan O'Toole thinks that Israel regards itself as 'exempt from the demands of common humanity'

Thats a good article O'Toole writes. I do like the ending line.
It does spell out an essential truth, a truth that is demonstrated here frequently by Isreals "friends" holding positions which are not to Israels benefit. Like Sky with his unrestricted war which gives legitimacy to the worst terrorist attrocities imaginable, or those who like the right of conquest which means the palestinins have the right to keep on killing until they win something.

[MH]

Originally Posted by Tribesman

Thats a good article O'Toole writes. I do like the ending line.
It does spell out an essential truth, a truth that is demonstrated here frequently by Isreals "friends" holding positions which are not to Israels benefit. Like Sky with his unrestricted war which gives legitimacy to the worst terrorist attrocities imaginable, or those who like the right of conquest which means the palestinins have the right to keep on killing until they win something.

Good point but actually people like you legitimize Palestinian leadership double standard behavior.
People like you who back up suicidal bombing or any means while talking about human rights.
We don't treat Palestinians as subhumans(visit Israel sometimes)they treat themselves this way because its serves their purpose.

Israel was even so stuped and naive to be ready to give up All so called territories and go back to 67 borders (thats compromise isn't it?) but got slap on the face.

The only way to force peace here is to stop falling for that double standard behavior like pouting wind in sails of organization like hammas and similar to them.
You Tribesman and people like you make peace here impossible -you just don't understand that because you don't know what middle east is all about.


Now if you think we are the conquerors then OK we are conquerors of historically our land...but we want to compromise and we want to live at peace within SECURE borders.

[Bilge_Rat]

Originally Posted by MH

So if you think that Arabs are right then OK let them be right but we are not going anywhere....

Exactly.

I would love to live in a place where everyone loves his neighbour, everyone gives based on his capacity and receives based on his needs, but we do not live on paradise, we live on earth where humans have been exploiting and killing each other for thousands of years.

In 48, there were 1.2 million arabs and 600,000 jews living in Palestine. As a result of the war, 800,000 arabs went into exile. Am I happy it happened? No.

I am also not happy that 1,000,000 jews who had been peacefully living for centuries in the ME and north africa were booted out after 48.

I would be even less happy if we had lost the 48 war and 600,000 israelis had been killed or booted out.

Israel is not perfect. It is a nation-state trying to survive under dangerous circumstances in one of the worst spots on earth. Like any other governments, it makes mistakes, yet it has managed to remain a democracy governed by the rule of law. It may not be perfect, but I would stack it up against any nation-state in the region and most on planet earth.

No one knows if Israel will survive long term, but one thing which is certain is that we will go down fighting and so far, we have a pretty good track record.

[MH]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Why stop with 1948? If the land should be "given back", why not reinstate the Ottoman Empire and give it all back to the Turks? Why not go back to Alexander and give it all back to the Greeks? Or the Italians?

Common man... just drink you beer and play your guitar....
Not bad a band you got there BW.

[MH]

Originally Posted by Tribesman

But hold on, in one of you divergent moments didn't you go on about how Israel is not a Jewish land?

There are about a million Muslim and Christian Palestinians that live within Israel.
Some of them in eastern Jerusalem since 67 and villages some across Israel since 48.
Believe it or not they don't want to be part of Palestinian state and they are in great majority against the activist who want those territories to be a part of such a state.
The reason is that they live in only democratic country in middle east as they also know what Arab states are all about.

The relation between them and Jews are not perfect(a lot can be written about it) but have nothing to do with apartheid.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Or the Italians?

SPQR!

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by MH

The relation between them and Jews are not perfect(a lot can be written about it) but have nothing to do with apartheid.

Ironically, while Turkey now tries to present itself as the great friend of Arabs (closing trade relations, Syria) and Persians (Iran), and try to present itself as the mighty voice of Palestinian interests, the Turks traditionally look down on Arabs like Arabs look down on Palestinians. That I do not only read, but that I have witnessed myself many times in Turkey.

It's like this since the beginning of the Ottoman empire, for which the Arabs were nothing more than camel farmers, of even cattle that could bite and therefore one had to keep an eye on. So, again Turkey is instrumentalising the Palestinians and abuses them, with Palestinians even applauding them for it. Oh yes, arabs and Persians and Palestinians and turks - they all love each other, they are one big united family. HAHAHAHA!!! The only thing that unites them, is the non-racial, non-national, non-ethnical concept of the one, big, global Ummah. Beyond that, they maintain cut throat-brotherhood relations.

Add to this kind of family life the internal tribal rivalry of Arabs time ago, and you have an idea why Lawrence of Arabia (the title alone is worth laughing!) necessarily had to fail despite his good intentions.

In German, there is a nice phrase that describes the Turkish instrumentalisation of the Palestinians perfectly: "jemandem den Kakao zu trinken geben, durch den man ihn noch zuvor gezogen hat."

[DarkFish]

Originally Posted by Happy Times

Werent the Jews the ones that got conquered, expelled, and immigrated by the Arabs?

Many, many years ago. As I said, that battle has been fought. The Jews have lost it. But the Israel-Palestine battle is still going on. And in this battle the Palestinians are the ones that got conquered, expelled and immigrated by the Jews.

Then they got 80% of the European Jews killed in Holocaust.

After WW2 Jews where still persecuted in Eastern Europe, Middle East, North Africa and even UK and France.

Does that somehow give them the rights to claim a place as their own?

Millions displaced people.

Where the hell should they go?

I don't care where they should have gone - I do care that they came out of nowhere and stole the land from the Palestines.

How much shoud they give back, they dont really have that much.
Its a small strip with large part of it desert, half of Netherlands.
Its all they got.

It's all they got, but they shouldn't even have it in the first place.
As I said, I think it's too late to simply give all of Israel back to the Palestinians. Israel has a history already. There are new generations. Generations that have never lived anywhere else than Israel. These people have as much right to live there as the Palestinians.

As for how much should be given back, or what else should happen - I don't know.

They have the same problems every nation has to deal with, they bicker with themself as we do.
But added to that they also get rockets flying by the thousands from all directions, buses blowing up and maniacs developing nukes to nail them.

If you conquer a land, rockets, bus bombs and nuking maniacs is what you can expect. If you don't want war - don't conquer in the first place.

They really have to love the place to live there, they have to sacrifice a lot for that.
You cant be selfish in Israel, you have give your time and money or even life to the service of your fellow citizens and country.
They try to live normal lives but they cant just party all the time and chill.

It's tragic, but as I said it's what you can expect if you come and take over the country.

We should give them respect and see it from their point of view.

We should give the Palestinians respect and see it from the Palestinian point of view.

UN has no basis to do that to Finland, we have been living here since the ice melted.

Doesn't matter if there's a basis or not, would you like it? Would you agree with it?

Many of the so called Palestinians are fake people with forged identities, what is their claim to the place?

If they don't originally come from Palestine, their claim to the place is none.
But even more Israelians do not originally come from the Palestine area. What is their claim to the place?

I will bet that if the Palestinans get their state they will mess it up in a year and if the Jews where gone and they had it all they would blame someone else.

Doesn't matter if they'd mess it up or not.
This argument of yours is exactly the same as one of those semi-arguments for colonization in the past: "Those poor black people are too stupid to rule themselves, we white people should conquer Africa to bring them some civilization"

[MH]

Originally Posted by DarkFish

I don't care where they should have gone - I do care that they came out of nowhere and stole the land from the Palestines.

Thats exactly why we here.....

Good point but actually people like you legitimize Palestinian leadership double standard behavior.

Where have I said anything in favour of the Palestinian leadership?

People like you who back up suicidal bombing or any means while talking about human rights.

Really? Where?
Honestly MH you are just flailing about snapping without the faintest idea what you are trying to bite into.

We don't treat Palestinians as subhumans(visit Israel sometimes)they treat themselves this way because its serves their purpose.

That isn't actually true is it.
Just look at one example from that article Sky posted about the inhumane treatment Egypt is introducing. how long has Israel already had a similar policy?
You don't have to look far for piles of cases where inhumane treatment is meted out to citizens in Israel just because they are not the chosen people.
You keep on doing this MH attacking poeple for views they don't hold then agreeing that Israel ain't perfect while giving Israel carte blanche.

Israel was even so stuped and naive to be ready to give up All so called territories and go back to 67 borders (thats compromise isn't it?) but got slap on the face.

That isn't true either, come on this is simple everyday stuff. The sticking points are well documented from all sides so why do you bother making things up.

Now if you think we are the conquerors then OK we are conquerors of historically our land...

Wouldn't that be conquerors of land that historicly they conquered for a while before getting conquered by conquerers who in turn were conquered.......ad infinitum.

...but we want to compromise and we want to live at peace within SECURE borders.

Really? Yet the sticking points are always the few issues on which neither side will compromise.
BTW you frequently mention the word "we" yet there are currently more than half a dozen "peace plans" by various Israeli parties, some of those plans are very extremist and show absolutely no desire to compromise on anything. But thats the problem with taking yourself and identifying on a national level.

[DarkFish]

Originally Posted by MH

Thats exactly why we here.....

You mean you went there because nobody cared about you? In that case you have misunderstood my answer.

I didn't mean I don't care about the people who got homeless because of the Nazis.

I meant that it doesn't matter where they should have gone, because they didn't go there in the first place. They should have gone somewhere, preferably to where they lived before the war. I can imagine that'd be too hard for them. In that case they should have gone somewhere else.
Let's assume for the moment that this "somewhere" somehow "should" be Palestine. That still doesn't mean you can storm in and take over the country.

Being prosecuted and murdered in the Holocaust doesn't give you the right to conquer Palestine.

[MH]

Originally Posted by Tribesman

That isn't actually true is it.
Just look at one example from that article Sky posted about the inhumane treatment Egypt is introducing. how long has Israel already had a similar policy?
.

What policy -of not granting a Israeli citizenship to someone who comes from Arab country and marries an Israeli Palestinian?.

Yes it is true...there are lots of reason to that besides "chosen people" crap.
One of those reason is that we don't want to be overrun by masses of Arabs who find life much more attractive in Israel than in their own countries.
Which bring us to ...demographics
Yes it is the reason too-as i saied Iranian life style is not my choise.
If Israel was so evil we would not have to worry about that would we?
Isn't that also policy accepted in some CIVILIZED countries to deal with over emigration.

As for others point you brought up no point in answering them since i already did that earlier.


BW..Pardon my "we" i think that my opinion represents the vast majority of Israelis.
If you want to stick with extremist its your choice.
If some country has neonatzis or communists in it it doesn't make necessarily the country as such.