Israel and Palestine

BBC version for those who'd like to avoid the Heil.[1]

Plus, the Israeli argument (as reproduced in the BBC article) is that they're trying to deter these crimes by letting it be known that it'll hurt a perpetrator's family as well as the perp themselves, tacitly acknowledging that whether the family has done something wrong is irrelevant. As discussed earlier in this thread, though, collective punishment, despite being illegal under Israeli law and a human rights abuse under international law, is fairly standard when dealing with Palestine, with the most extreme example being the notorious Dahiya doctrine.

Whats there to do, somtimes the only one who can stop a kid from taking a knife and going to kill are his parents.

Call it immoral or illegal or whatever, but murder is also illegal.

'Criminals commit crimes, so law enforcement should also commit crimes'? What the hell? That's awful logic.

I should also reiterate that home demolitions were abandoned as official policy by Israel in February 2005 because they were found to have a minimal deterrent effect at best and antagonised the communities where the demolitions took place instead.

edited 27th Nov '14 4:21:29 AM by Iaculus

You give them legitimate justification to attack when you do things like that. The idea that thats the best way to stop them doesn't have long term merit, and the short term gains aren't worth the medium and long term consequences.

Alright then, no action is made after a person goes and kills a few people then dies to police. Now we have ten people cheering instead of ten people being angry, and even more people willing to go on killing sprees because "Israel is weak, no consequences for shahids".

That same reasoning can be turned back on itself, you know. What if for every one IDF member who killed (murdered in their view) a family member you went out to kill ten related Israelis? Because, guilt by association means guilty as charged.

It's perfectly fine, right? After all: they murdered one of yours. Cue... spiralling, nationalist vendettas on both sides. Oh: but you already have that, so it's OK. Don't mind me. <_<

edited 27th Nov '14 11:41:21 AM by Euodiachloris

That's just about the worst possible way to deter crime.

Indeed. Declaring that, just because one member of a family has been caught running extensive identity theft and fraud... all members of the family (and any friends) must have known something and, therefore, must be guilty of something along those lines... so get rid/ bang them up/ kill them?

I'd not want to find out if my cousin had do something dodgy (again) when I thought he'd been doing OK and had got beyond all that. <_<

edited 27th Nov '14 12:28:49 PM by Euodiachloris

In all due fairness that's basically what they already do. Plus, to my knowledge, Israel isn't killing the families of terrorists, "just" destroying their homes and livelihoods.

Dahiya doctrine. Linked further up.

And seriously, Superdark? No consequences? The dude who did it was fucking riddled with bullets. That's about as extreme a consequence as you can get. I mean, if they're linked back to an organisation who helped them carry out the attack, then sure, retaliate against them, but bringing uninvolved civilians into it is indefensible, and it's kind of horrifying that you're trying.

edited 27th Nov '14 12:52:08 PM by Iaculus

I think Superdark was trying to say that death isn't considered much of a consequence to the attackers,suicide bombers are called that for a reason.

Right, and if a significant part of your population is deciding that death holds no fear and that the best option is to spray themselves across the landscape, then depriving even more people of their homes and livelihoods is probably not going to improve the situation.

Seriously, this isn't 'actions have consequences'. It's the exact opposite, delivering consequences whether people have acted or not. As criminal justice goes, that's ludicrously ass-backwards. It's like demolishing the mayor of Boston's home because a couple of guys decided to bomb the marathon there.

edited 27th Nov '14 1:22:16 PM by Iaculus

If it was the Mayors relatives who bombed the Marathon then they would tear down his house,under the current policy.

Has nobody learned any of the lessons of Northern Ireland? We've got statements by former IRA members who said "well if I'm goign to be punished for doing nothing I might as well try and kill some British soldiers and be punished for something I actually did". All collective punishment does is make more enemies, if some guys family are goign to be punished for his actions they might as well join in, I mean they can't keep him under control and they're going to have their lives destroyed anyway, might as well take down some Israelis with them.

Congratulations, you have no agreed to become the moral equivalent of Hamas, remind me again why the rest of the world should support Israel?

...or Hamas, or the PLA? ^note  I'm extending a point here

Then why didn't the IRA get a Free Pass?

edited 27th Nov '14 2:56:14 PM by Greenmantle

Which doesn't really make it better, does it? It should also be noted that home demolitions are not exclusively targeted at immediate family members of perpetrators - that's just the resurrected policy popping up here. The bulldozings during Brother's Keeper, for instance, were far less discriminate.

The victims of apartheid tend to get a bit more leeway for being assholes. Hence why everyone kept backing the ANC despite all the necklacing and bombings.

edited 27th Nov '14 2:54:33 PM by Iaculus

Because they were white,hence the mainstream public felt they were more responsible for their own actions (racist but it's how people thing) as opposed to being motivated by simple urges like "Jew bad we throw rock" (racist but agin how quite a large part of the public did and does thing) Secondly, quite a few Americans supported the IRA, if I recall the donations only dried up once 9/11 hit. Finally,they were attacking a "respectable country", i.e Great Briton, as opposed to Israel and South Africa, the latter* being hated to an almost irrational level around the world.

• I often get latter and former mixed up, by the latter I meant Israel, apologies if I accidentally implied that the South African Apartheid government was in anyway justified.

I know it was not justified,or wise I was just correcting an error in your analogy.

edited 27th Nov '14 4:43:31 PM by JackOLantern1337

Actually, the IRA did get pretty decent press in much of the world. It's just that it's hard to spot that stuff when you're from the country doing the oppressing. There's also the fact that the UK's treatment of Ireland in the twentieth century, though certainly unpleasant, was never quite as horrific as Israel or South Africa's abuses. We never set up bantustans or levelled cities from the air, and we were a bit more coy about labelling Catholics as subhuman than SA was about black people or Israel is about Palestinians. Irishmen being 'white negroes' was a concept almost entirely ditched by the end of the nineteenth century.

Looks like Ynet was right - Netanyahu is courting the far-right zealots and moving to ditch the relative moderates in his coalition.

For all his many, many faults, the guy is s moderately canny political animal. The fact that he appears to consider this a viable electoral strategy is terrifying.

So does anyone see Israel surviving in the long term, because the way things are going I don't think it'll last,at least as Israel, and not completely absorber into "Palestine", till the end of the century, maybe not even the decade.

Why would Israel disappear? I find it much more likely that the Palestinian people will be wiped out than anything else. There is no real threat to the existence of Israel anywhere these days, Israel is the threat now a days.

Even in a worst case scenario for Israel it will likely just end up as the West's version of North Korea. An oppressive wackjob state surrounded by enemies that is kept alive by a large military and a P5 member that for some reason keeps protecting them even though it probably stopped being in their strategic interests years ago.

edited 27th Nov '14 6:24:03 PM by SilasW

As long as Israel has the unconditional support of the United States it will never stop. I don't think it can continue this kind of escalation for long though. The world is getting sick of it and sooner or later it'll come back to bite them in the ass.

That's what I meant. What is likely to happen is that a US president will eventually bite the bullet and withdraw support, probably to please the Europeans, ignoring the fact that we will probably continue to support far worse. From there everyone will impose embargoes. As terrorist attacks escalate the world will loose sympathy for Israel, indeed I won't be surprised if Hamas becomes heroes amongst certain political circles in the west. As the tech industry collapses from the sanctions most of the "normal" citizens will flee from the violence and increasing poverty, this will embolden the Palistinians, and further decrease international support for Israel,"anyone left is a religious nut job who deserves whatever they get." Eventualy the IDF will no longer be able to maintain it's budget,and collapse against a growing insurgency. Eventually it will end like Algeria, all remaining Jews being given a few days to evacuate or "face the consequences."

Ok I really have an overactive imagination. Sorry.

Edit: Oh and if the Nobel committee is feeling particularly smug they'll give the Peace prize to whatever Arab leader delvers the final blow.

edited 27th Nov '14 6:36:09 PM by JackOLantern1337

Or a US president withdraws support and the people of Israel go "Hey maybe the fact that the developed world is turning on us says something about what we've been doing" and elect leaders who aren't willing to commit war crimes and have a military that uses human shields. That change of leadership then results in the lifting of sanctions and things go on fine.

You seriously underestimations the Israel people if you think their response to western abandonment will be to go "MOAR GENOCIDE AGAINST ARABS!!!" as opposed to "shit man all our friends are telling us to cut this shit out, maybe we should listen to them?"

Plus nobody is goign to place an embargo on Israel, the US doesn't even have an embargo on North Korea. The most you'll see is the end of special privileges, and even that will take time. The EU right now doesn't even have the guts to stop its special privileges to Israel, why on earth would the US end its? Never mind impose an embargo.

edited 27th Nov '14 6:44:24 PM by SilasW