Without condoning the blowing up of innocent people's homes from afar, but there is something of a mis-match here, what I would call a disproportionate response. If somebody throws a stone at your window, would you go and throw a hand-grenade through their window?
The damage done to a house by a Palestinian rocket fired at Israel.
The damage done to a house by an Israeli rocket fired at Gaza.
Meanwhile the Western dignitaries sympathise with Israel and strongly condemn the Palestinians.
Photos from the BBC.
RE: DISPROPORTIONATE RESPONSE
ReplyDeleteWould I throw a hand grenade after someone through a rock in my window? Every individual's ultimate moral right is self defense. If you believe in freedom, you probably also believe in the non agression principle.
The Palestinians firing rockets are lobbing them in the hopes that they hit (any targets, of course, but probably more likely) civilian targets. The shots are random. The targeted building in Gaza most likely WAS the intended target.
Perhaps you think that it is preferable that the Israeli's respond rocket for rocket, mortar shell for mortar shell, and sniper fire for sniper fire in exact proportion, but with the same disregard for who the ultimate target is?
If a group of people decide to form a government to protect their lives and property, then the only mandate that government has is protection from and deterrence of attacks from without.
This isnt kindergarten. When you are protecting yourself and your family from bad guys, you escalate your response until the situation is over, one way or another. That is human nature.
The argument against disproportionate response is hollow.
In this situation, this statement of hitting in self defence can be compared to two fighting boys in a playground each saying "He started it first". When you speak of non-aggression you should also look at the map land of Palestine, and see how each year it diminishes in size, while Israel grows in exact proportion to the Palestinians loss. Under those conditions, who has the right to self-defence? If a similar land stealing was happening in say France, Britain or America, what do you think would be the response? No doubt it is different in that part of the world as it is God that is supposed to have given the Jews that land and those bloody Palestinians just will not get out of the way. Another point that is worth mentioning is that the Palestinians live under occupation, what people under occupation will not attempt to hit back at the occupying forces.As for the "targeted" strikes of the Israeli state, targeted or otherwise, it is still massively and overwhelmingly disproportionate.
DeleteBoth sides do not believe in non aggression.
ReplyDeleteThe reason I mentioned that is that if you accept an individual's right to organize with other individuals to create an entity for protection of persons and their property, then logically I dont understand criticising the Israeli military for going after the fighters lobbing rockets willy-nilly into civilian areas. If the IDF failed to do this, then they have failed in their primary raison de etre.
Yes, I agree with you, the He started it first stuff is ad nauseum and discussing it at all is like hitting one's head against a wall.
As far as who has the right to self defense? Anyone who feels threatened.
Neither side should expect the other to sit down and say "You know you're right, lets figure this out". Aint gonna happen. That reasoning works in a Western mind, but not in the middle eastern cultural and religious mindset, in my experience. I have spent years there over the past 26 years, and know Israelis and Arabs, religious and secular. I have read about the history of Israel and current events in the middle east nearly every day since some time in 1985, at times to the point of obsession.
I'm sure you've heard words to the effect of: you may have started this fight, but I'm sure as hell gonna finish it..." So for me it is logical that the Israelis, having larger rocks to throw, will throw those rocks--that's what they're for.
Its a bad bad neighborhood over there. Jacob hates Esau and vice versa.
As far as calling it an occupation, there are of course semantic arguments one could give for various terms. One is occupation, another is prison, another is blockade. It depends on how you define your terms. To me, the occupation ended when the Israelis under Sharon withdrew the three generations of Israeli's that had lived in the Gaza strip in 2005. That was supposed to end the constant violence. Of course we know how that turned out. The rocket fire has never fully ceased.
If you are careful to balance sources of information (whether you want to cynically call those sources "history" or "propaganda"), you may agree with my conclusion---I believe the Pals themselves and the Arab nations surrounding what is now Israel have played a large role in making the bed the Gazans now have to lie in, certainly as much as the Israelis.
As with all governments throughout history, the politicians that run Israel and Palestine are the scum that rises to the top of the pond, the biggest mafia. Doesnt matter which side you pick to back. They are led by scumbags with cronies that have specific economic and or ideological interests.
So what chance do the every day mundane blue collar Pals and Israelis REALLY have to just be left alone and live in peace? (I'm sure you realize the question is rhetorical)
BTW, have you spent any time in Israel or Palestine? If so, when and for how long? What do you read to keep up enough with the situation in Palestine?
--David
Perhaps we should be looking at the right to try to stop a foreign state from taking over your land and a right to defend yourself against that aggression.There is no way you can accept your land slowly being taken over and settled on by a foreign state and expect the people to sit down and hope that they'll stop and hand back all the land that they have stolen. I am not condoning the violence in that part of the world, but we have to accept that perhaps there is an injustice being handed out by one party against another and that has to be addressed rather than this poor little Israel trying to defend itself against these bad neighbours.
DeleteWhat do you consider a proportionate response?
ReplyDeleteI believe there is something in international law about "reasonable force". There might even be some moral law about reasonable force.Don't you agree?
Delete