Discussion History Main / CryCute

@70.83.9.160

I agree that the effects of indirect warfare or other hardships linked to it are worth paying attention to (and not just looking at it from the Israelis to the Palestinians, things like the Siege of Jerusalem in 1948 are also notable). But the idea that there are a thousand dead Palestinian Arabs for every dead Israeli doesn\\\'t hold water at all (something that big would\\\'ve popped up on the population as a whole, just like we can measure the Khmer Rouge\\\'s massacres by looking at how the entire Cambodian population visibly declined).

And secondly, the effects of things like deaths from starvation, fatigue, and the like are tricky to measure at the best of times, and even trickier to append to an actual perpetrator. There are exceptions (like the Ottoman Turkish military blatantly starving Armenian and Greek civilians on a forced march), but this isn\\\'t one of them.

So I\\\'d say that the 60,000 deaths is a fairly reliable figure. But if we can find some sort of reliable evidence I\\\'d be all for it.

@renner

\\\" renner
06:25:20 AM Mar 24th 2011
They\\\'d like to be able to commit genocide, though, if they could get away with it. \\\"

False. I can safely say that *some* Israelis would doubtless wish to commit genocide if they could get away with it and/or had the opportunity, but that\\\'s far from the mainstream.

On the whole, it\\\'s worth remembering that the Israelis have an overwhelming conventional military advantage and have been dealing with the Palestinian (Arab) population in the same territory as several wars. In other words: *they\\\'ve had plenty of opportunity to commit genocide and haven\\\'t taken them.* While genocide is a fairly intense action, you don\\\'t need a lot to carry it out; the Hutu Power nutjobs did it with some machetes and planning. If we\\\'re supposed to believe one of the most advanced and militarized war machines on the planet doesn\\\'t have the resources to do it I\\\'d say \\\"pull the other one.\\\"

If the Israeli population had a truly significant portion of the population that wanted genocide and had the power to do it, we probably wouldn\\\'t even be writing on the \\\"Arab Israeli Conflict\\\" page; we\\\'d probably have the \\\"1967 Israeli genocide in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.\\\" That doesn\\\'t mean they are saints, but even Sharon, Dayan, and the other stereotypical hardcases haven\\\'t slunk that far.

@SteveDemi

\\\"If you dispute any of the factual information I raised, I\\\'m certainly happy to listen. \\\" Very well, I\\\'m going to trust you and take you at your word.

\\\"The notion that the situation in Gaza is \\\"not so bad\\\" is easily refuted by even a glance at UN and Red Cross statistics.\\\"

Hardly. As someone who actually reads UN and Red Cross statistics in my down time, they tend to have as many problems as anything else and their Gaza Blockade work was far worse than the norm. There\\\'s a reason why it\\\'s been caught up in a hailstorm of controversy over inappropriate politicization, inaccuracy, corruption, and flat out incompetence. Especially since it contradicts plenty of the *other* reports coming out, sometimes from the same source.

\\\"We\\\'re talking about a place in which nearly half the population is unemployed\\\"

And? By what count and whose standards?

Yes, that figure is downright apocalyptic by Western and even regional standards, but I find it difficult to take at face value in any sense of the word, or even to think it is that catastrophically bad. The unemployment rate has on occasion hit that bad for Palestinians in Jordan (ex: during the massive botch up when the Hashemites in Jordan believed the PLO was trying to overthrow them, when it suddenly became poison to be known as a Palestinian) and the West Bank (ex: after the Yom Kippur War, when the last major Arab League aid to come on a regular basis fell through) but there\\\'s a reason nobody really remembers those.

It also doesn\\\'t help that the figures don\\\'t accommodate *well* for things like the Grey and Black Markets, subsistence work, or the truly unpleasant amounts of \\\'shopping that tends to happen to them. But in any event, a 50% unemployment rate being reported is *not* a pleasant sign, but it\\\'s also far from the catastrophic diversion from the norm you make it out to be.

It also doesn\\\'t necessarily mean something is main Israel\\\'s fault rather than the result of incompetence, for the same reason that Castro blames America for nearly everything wrong with the Cuban economy. Contributing factor? Perhaps. But that doesn\\\'t explain the boom in the other Palestinian area.

\\\"and nearly all of the water (I believe the specific number is 95%) is unfit for human consumption.\\\"

Yeah... as a Renaissance and Medieval fan I believe the former like I believe a cannon took off my head. So if that\\\'s true, where\\\'s the massive die off?

The problems with this are twofold:

A: If this were true, we should expect to see some truly massive and bloody side-effects to have popped up long before we got even this high. But we haven\\\'t.

I\\\'m not talking about the laundry list of unpleasant side effects or health damage you can probably dig up for Gaza (or for the Indian communities along the Ganges River for that matter...). I\\\'m talking about the sorts of things you would see in a city under a siege designed to starve them out and leave them thirty until they outright die. Like you would\\\'ve seen in this neck of the woods around the time of the Crusader Wars.

Population decline. Considerable daily mortality. Crippling wounds or complications taken UpToEleven on a large part of the population still alive. Infant mortality through the roof if not in excess of the replacement rate. All the hallmarks that this community is actually dying of thirst or the contaminated stuff they\\\'re being forced to drink.

Heck, don\\\'t even bother with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict today. Just check out the historical record on the Horns of Hattin, the 1948 Siege of Jerusalem, the fall of Renaissance Siena, or Gondar in WWII (where the Italians threw up the flag *immediately* after their water supply got contaminated). All of which we have the fortune of having more or less reliable accounts of, and all of which show just how important water can be for a fortress, let alone a major city/region.

And none of that has happened in Gaza, certainly not on that scale. Most of the figures the authorities of the city and international observers (Including the geniuses who provided this figure) have pointed to a significant, sustained population *increase.* That doesn\\\'t happen where the water supply is that hostile to life, let alone in sieges on top of it.

So there are either two ways to look at this:

First, that the \\\"5%\\\"/remainder is big enough itself to obliterate the minor side effect of \\\"half the population dies from inability to get a relatively safe drink.\\\"

Secondly, that the figures aren\\\'t worth the paper they\\\'re written on.

I don\\\'t pretend to know which is which or even be an expert. I\\\'ve just played a few games, read a few books/studies/reports , and had the pleasure of drinking Gangetic river swill for myself. And this sends off alarm bells for me, especially with the other evidence we\\\'re seeing.

Second: What is defined as \\\"fit for human consumption\\\" on reports like that would Roman Legionnaires or plenty of plucky Palestinians and Haitians would look at funny. Unclean or sub-par water is no laughing matter whatsoever, But it is a very different thing from what is actually flat out unfit for human consumption, even on a regular basis.

The problem is that the former tends to get labelled as the latter, even if it means we should be amazed anybody is alive in the world because of the nominal amount of \\\"unfit for human consumption\\\" water that most had to drink.

That doesn\\\'t mean this is A-Ok; that figure is a bad sign even with the hideous shopping it was probably subject to. But it does make me believe that this isn\\\'t a reliable figure to use when determining what\\\'s wrong. And I can\\\'t give a bigger condemnation for any figure than that.

In order to fix something, it\\\'s important to have an accurate idea of what\\\'s wrong. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to believe that these figures (especially the safe drinking water one) actually reflect what the problem is accurately, unless we\\\'re supposed to believe a major urban center like Gaza has been undergoing a population boom in conditions small castles have died out to. That means that it isn\\\'t part of the solution, it\\\'s part of the problem.

\\\"Similar facts can be found quite easily.\\\"

You can find plenty of things \\\"quite easily\\\", that doesn\\\'t mean they\\\'re actually worth finding.

The problem with facts that can be found quite easily is that the same applies to absolute BS, and it is hard to find good analysis get to the bottom of something. That the reason why echo chambers are a pain in the rear to deal with. Falsehoods can travel halfway around the world while truth can take years to catch up; just look at how many people know the actual terms of the Gulf War ceasefire.

It\\\'s a lot easier to cite superficial factoids than to actually dig for evidence, and the same reason why people still think the Great Wall of China can be seen from space (easily, without a major telescope or low orbit) is the same reason why subpar fact checking and quality control can fly under the radar.

\\\"Your claim that Egypt during the Mubarak days didn\\\'t receive any criticism for upholding the blockade is irrelevant (whether or not people pay attention to Egypt has no bearing on the validity of criticism of Israel) as well as untrue (Egypt received plenty of criticism) and misleading (though Egypt kept the Rafah crossing closed, it didn\\\'t control Gaza\\\'s territorial waters, control its airspace, and control the vast majority of the border that is with Israel).\\\"

I agree with the untrue and somewhat agree with the misleading; I flatout disagree with the irrelevant. I\\\'d like to say that what people do or do not pay attention to should have no bearing on criticism of something else, but that isn\\\'t completely true. There\\\'s a reason why we have the trope DoubleStandard and it\\\'s worth observing; especially given the less than wonderful track record of many of the bodies supposed to be checking this out (like vaunted Human Rights\\\' Commission or the Red Cross and Crescent missions on location).

That doesn\\\'t mean that the PLO/Hamas/Egypt/whatever\\\'s crimes or blunders are always relevant to Israel\\\'s or vice versa, but it is worth factoring in. Especially since Egypt has had the opportunity to take responsibility for the Gaza Strip several times (and indeed did briefly after 1948) and hasn\\\'t.

\\\"As for the West Bank, Palestinians there regularly receive brutal treatment for any sort of protest against their conditions,\\\"

The problem with saying that is that one can easily say the same about Detroit or plenty of other places not in the throes of an apocalyptic human catastrophe, as my (Liberal, Democrat, pro-Palestinian, Lawyer-in-training) friend pointed out. Abuse happens in each and every system even when everybody is trying their best (and I doubt that is the case here). But unless it can be quantified, throwing things out like that is not worth much.

Particularly if we compare to things across the border in Jordan or even int he US, especially when we see evidence of endemic fabrication and spindoctoring getting into the figures (doubtless from both ends).

\\\"are denied 4/5 of the West Bank\\\'s water resources,\\\"

I would really like to see the sources for this, because my gut instinct is to call BS. It doesn\\\'t pass the smell test at all.

There\\\'s a difference between simply not getting water and actively being denied it; just look at the lovely legal boondoggles over the Colorado River in between the States if you doubt that. The latter is pre-meditation and conscious denial; the former is simply one getting a cut of the pie the other doesn\\\'t. The former would be the actual human rights violation, the latter might be unfair but that wouldn\\\'t be the only thing. As it stands, the major advantage is that the Israelis got their infrastructure up and running almost from the word go decades ago and have had the resources to keep it running, while the Palestinians have not for reasons I\\\'m not going to get into (Israeli interference, incompetence, misuse, not particularly relevant what right now).

In fact, one of the most common complaints actually comes from how the Israelis have used that advantage to *sell water* to the Palestinians. That\\\'s one of the biggest markets there is between them, and a common complaint/grievance source is that it is a LeonineContract. So this claim goes directly against what the PLO and even some of the extremist whackjobs outside it say. It\\\'s claiming they\\\'re being denied water consciously by the Israelis on the whole when if anything the result is just the opposite and even Israel\\\'s enemies claim it.

\\\"and are denied the rights guaranteed to them under international law,\\\"

Certainly more reliable, though it also requires clarification. Because on top of whatever Israeli actions there have been, there\\\'s also the facts that the Palestinian leadership has often taken a look at opportunities to gain those rights and *kicked them away of their own free will*, and have often acted in ways that would remove the protections of international law (Hello Hamas, I\\\'m looking at you). The fact that the Palestinian population actually has gotten a bit sick of it is something the article itself mentions. So blaming Israel for the whole lock, stock, and barrel makes zero sense.

\\\"which the occupation (beyond being illegal in itself, as the acquisition of land through military conquest is illegal under international law)\\\"

Even as someone who views himself as mostly a realist or supporter of independent sovereignty, I believe international law on the whole is a good idea and I\\\'d try to adhere to it. But I refuse to dignify that clause with my attention or effort because it\\\'s a waste of time. Especially when applied to this.

It\\\'s noble in theory, but in practice it\\\'s a dismal and often counterproductive failure waiting to happen. It\\\'s too contrary to how states work to be practical; the number of times it has actually been enforced (even in cases far, far, Far worse than this by any measure) are things I can probably count on my fingers, and in the end it undermines the entire framework of international law by that weakness.

To give an example, taking and occupying land by military force is illegal. But so is genocide and waging war without a proper declaration, and decades of Syrian artillerymen who sighted their shots from the Golan Heights and promptly spammed shells down have proved the problem with that (and if you wish to doubt that, just check up the pedigree of some of the Syrian military\\\'s artillery units).

By the logic of such a law, stationing Belgian/British/French troops on the Rhineland after WWI to prevent German militarists (plenty of whom- like Hitler- were genocidal and even more who were still vocal in baying for blood) from taking up arms and using it to cause even more damage. That logic does. not. make. much. sense. Either as rules for a very imperfect world or even as a foundation for a better one like they were intended to be.

I\\\'d be more concerned about preventing thousands of preventable deaths than enforcing a one-sided and hypocritically enforced provision.

\\\"completely violates.\\\"

I\\\'ve studied complete violation (or as close as you can get to it) of the relevant laws. I\\\'m not convinced even Assad is doing that, much less the Israelis.

\\\"These illegal policies include the common demolition of Palestinian houses (destruction of property, this violates the Fourth Geneva Convention),\\\"

Where do I start?

A: Fourth Geneva- like most other forms of international law to govern combat- is meant to protect its\\\' signatories and those who abide by it. Those who don\\\'t in either case are not protected by it. To quote:

\\\" Nationals of a State which is not bound by the Convention are not protected by it.\\\"

It sucks but that sort of passive-aggressive strongarming is sort of how international law came to be applied in the first place.

B: As the related laws make clear, there is wiggle room around that provision. It isn\\\'t to be done for the sake of pure terror, but if there is an actual military or security objective to be obtained and doing this was a reasonable (IE: as little damage as possible) route to do it, then it is fine.

We know this because the near-obliteration of the city of Aachen in WWII was deemed to have passed muster under this criteria because German forces continued to defend it and used structures- including civilian ones- to do it from.

If that isn\\\'t enough to convince you, the UN itself (which has taken upon itself to be more or less the enforcer of these laws) had one of its\\\' peacekeeping *commanders* do this himself. As he showed by rolling a bulldozer through several civilian buildings after receiving intelligence that the Turkish Army on Cyprus was setting up an illegal bunker in a DMZ.

Does this mean that absolutely every little thing the Israelis have done is justified? *Heck No.* But it does mean that just taking down buildings isn\\\'t in violation of it.

\\\"the checkpoints (denies freedom of movement, this violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights),\\\"

Oh Good God no. The legality of deploying checkpoints (even in dense concentrations in and of itself) has never been seriously called into question in and of itself. If this were the case than every Police Department on the planet would be in violation of the law for erecting a barrier (because after all, any obstruction deployed or enforced is a violation of the pure freedom of movement). But they aren\\\'t, because it\\\'s legal if they can provide a compelling enough argument to justify the limit.

The issue is not deploying checkpoints in and of itself, it\\\'s determining what the intent is, whether it\\\'s valid, and whether it can be reasonably said to be the least restrictive thing that can be done. That is something that would have to be determined elsewhere and I have zero doubt a lot of good could come from looking into that. But for the love of God, let\\\'s at least look at it in the way the law itself says.

\\\"the separation barrier (denies freedom of movement and destroys property, this violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Fourth Geneva Convention)\\\"

See above; the problem in determining legality under those isn\\\'t just seeing what applies, it\\\'s determining if there\\\'s any valid rationale and if so whether that justifies the steps taken. There\\\'s a reason why eminent domain exists and why governments are allowed to put up fortresses or blocks on your yard if they do it validly. Speaking as objectively as I can (though I personally support the wall), looking at those is going to be key to deciding one way or the other and making it stick not only in court but in actuality.

\\\"the transportation of Palestinian prisoners to Israeli prisons (denies the right of occupied people to remain in the occupied territory for the duration of their incarceration, this violates the Fourth Geneva Convention),\\\"

Again: non-signatories and non-abiders are not protected, and the transportation of prisoners to extraterritorial areas is permitted within the bounds of reason. Especially in times of war or extreme crisis that can be shown to reasonably justify it, and if it can be proven to not be done just for the sheer hell of it.

\\\"the expropriation of water resources from the West Bank (utilizes resources in the occupied territory for the occupying power\\\'s own use, this violates the Fourth Geneva Convention),\\\"

Ok. Before I get into this, this goes largely against what you said earlier featuring the \\\"denial of water\\\", which as I covered is not so (people would not be making large amounts of money exploiting the market and even exploiting the Palestinians if that were the case).

Secondly: by the logic of this interpretation of the law it would be illegal for an occupying soldier to drink a drop of water from a free-flowing river even if they would otherwise die of thirst. Clearly, that hasn\\\'t been struck down by the law and for good reason. Forces conducting themselves on occupied soil are allowed to use resources from the area within reason and especially to fulfill their international obligations (as the Israeli pumps do according to the UN itself given the crucial West Bank-Israel water traffic). This was made to prevent wholesale shakedown, loot-n-bun like what happened under the Soviets in Manchuria or in Darfur, designed to effect an entire region negatively for no justifiable reason.

Thirdly: the above claim does not factor in how private ownership meshes with that (though the current answer is \\\"Not Well\\\", and that isn\\\'t much reason for confidence either). Not the least of which given under what terms and by who those Aquifers were build and are still maintained.

\\\"the settlements (transfers the population of the occupying power to the occupied territory, this violates the Fourth Geneva Convention),\\\"

No contest and agreed. The problem comes from enforcing one line in the sand when *both* sides can and have moved past it in their own directions. This isn\\\'t just a matter regarding the Palestinians, the Bedouin are a particularly infamous case throughout the entire region for this (and something Israel and the PLO ironically agree on.... imagine that.....).

\\\"and so on.\\\"

The problem with the \\\"and so on\\\" is that if your prior examples are indicative, there\\\'s plenty of reason to doubt your judgement and word on this. So far you\\\'ve been looking at things through one eye, and sometimes particularly badly (like with the easy acceptance of the \\\"the water in population booming Gaza is at levels that lost the Crusaders their Holy Land strongholds\\\" reports at face value). There\\\'s more to it than that, and if you don\\\'t look carefully you *will* be taken for a ride if you haven\\\'t already.

Your passion and your cause are admirable, no matter what you say to me here. But how that is executed leaves a lot to be desired, and that\\\'s particularly bad because there *are* so many unjust things anyone can try and help fix here.

\\\"As for your numbers, no where near 20,000 Israelis have been killed over the course of the Israel-Palestinian conflict (which is what the troper was referring to, not the broader Arab-Israeli conflict).\\\"

Again, pull the other one. Even the way it is phrased makes it dubious even if the core issue was true, given the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has a very similar (if not identical) runtime to the wider Arab-Israeli one (and the two have major overlaps). But Beyond that, even that is dubious. While even I would need to do more research to figure out the specifics, it is certainly plausible. Even if it were only a very-higher-end--figure.

\\\"You are right in saying that genocide has not been practiced in the occupied territories. So far, that has been limited to Israel\\\'s actions, which were indeed of quite a genocidal nature,\\\"

Alright, pull the other one because this is flat out \\\'\\\'false\\\'\\\', and the sort of thing anybody could disprove with just a few hours of trawling through the incidents reports or Hamas\\\'s charter. This is like saying no Israeli has ever committed a war crime, and/or that Kahane does not even exist. Even a half-arsed reading of the pre-Suez wars/uprisings or even some of the nastier moments of the Intifada show it. Any sort of examination of radical literature on either side (like what the Arab League spewed out during the wars, the combat history in 1948, the artillery logs of Syrian artillerists or Palestinian irregulars, the vocal sayings of too many terrorist groups to count, etc) *shows* it isn\\\'t true.

Have you ever even bothered to *look* on the wonders of- say- Hamas\\\'s literature, some of the things that still get turned out by Fatah itself (though thankfully not nearly as much), or even the war(s) that turned these into \\\"the occupied territories?\\\" Because right now it doesn\\\'t look like it.

So I\\\'ll go back again. Genocide has a very, Very distinctive few patterns, whether it\\\'s the \\\"line them all up and shoot them/starve them to death\\\" one like we see in the Holocaust or the \\\"genocide on the go/combat\\\" one, and neither is the hardest to do. Backwater Anglo-American colonists did it at Mystic and the Chinese did it in Sinkiang with cumbersome smoothbore guns and melee weapons. The Jews supposedly did it to their competitors in what they called the Holy Land in prehistory, and a group of Hutu extremists working with some of the crudest weapons imaginable, 100~days, and leadership so incompetent they couldn\\\'t hold off the rebel group they were fighting had a pretty good (read; disgustingly bad) go at it.

The Israelis have had decades to commit genocide, and most of that time they\\\'ve been the unquestioned military powerhouse of the neighborhood. Even in the face of tit-for-tat violence and plenty of carnage on and by both sides, they not only haven\\\'t done it but it isn\\\'t even remotely popular. Think about that for a second.

\\\"Do you know anything about what happened in the 1982 Lebanon War, in which IDF strategy essentially consisted of annihilating refugee camps (both the people there and the schools, hospitals, and other infrastructure that had developed over time)\\\"

Yes, I do know what happened in it, and saying that is like saying \\\"Finnish strategy essentially consisted of annihilating Russia\\\'s food supply.\\\"*

*= Namely, the *very military* field kitchens being deployed on a war of aggression.

If you have done *any* research on PLO infrastructure or the Lebanese war at all, you\\\'d know most of the PLO refugee camps across the borders until (hopefully) very recently (if that) were anything but normal refugee camps. They were also integrated military camps that were serving as staging grounds for combat operations.

Again, in violation of more international laws than I care to name right now.

IDF strategy centered around eliminating the militarized features of them for the same reason militaries go after *other* officer training schools and military bases. They\\\'re valid targets and a danger to anything they set their sights on. In the months and years before 1982 they had been involved in defacto armed takeovers of large amounts of Beirut regardless of what anybody said about it.

However, that never extended to actually seeking to destroy the refugee populations or civilian infrastructure. We know this perfectly well because when their Falange allies *did* go and do that, the Israelis not only stepped in to stop it (far, Far too late), they wrote a scathing report against one of their own units saying it was indirectly responsible. Simply for *not getting what the Falange was doing and Not Stopping It.*

That is why a summary of that is misleading at best and inaccurate at worst.

\\\"and then wreaking destruction on to Beirut once refugees had fled there.\\\"

Welcome to war. It happens. And a lot of the refugees (who again lose that status when they take on a militarized role) were already wreaking plenty of havoc on their own.

\\\"In contrast, ethnic cleansing in the territories and Israel itself dates all the way back to the state\\\'s very founding.\\\"

The same can be said about the Palestinian State(s) if we really want to get into grievance and corpse stacking. And actually *would need* to be said about that if we\\\'re going to get a full story. If anybody is seriously claiming either side has clean hands, I would like to know what they have to say for themselves.

\\\"One needs only to look at Plan Dalet,\\\"

Please read Plan Dalet and the relevant parts of international law again. The main part of it was more or less a generalized defense plan (like the legitimate bread and butter of every military is). The relevant parts of it focus on Haganah policy for operating in/moving through Arab/Muslim villages, and even those specify that the population is to be expelled *if there was any resistance.*

Key word there, because that transforms the village into a combat zone, and turned the resistors into combatants stripped of the protection of non-com status. In which case the latter could expect no more protection beyond that, and the former would make it legally valid (at least to a degree) and possibly even legally obliged for the occupying forces to get an evacuation in order to remove civilians from the wonderful free-fire zone that is a modern battlefront.

\\\"the Allon Plan,\\\"

The Allon plan didn\\\'t actually expel or kill anyone, which is sort of the definition to qualify for ethnic cleansing. it was an attempt to make a stable peace by *removing* most of the populated areas from Israeli occupation and looking around for a legitimate representative of the Palestinian people who would be willing to take it and then annexing the minimal (as they saw it) rest.

It\\\'s also worth noting that at this early stage, the PLO was still relatively nascent, and while the Israelis did negotiate with them there was an open question of whether they had the authority to actually make agreements on behalf of the Palestinian people. Which plenty of primary sources prove was a major consideration for Tel Aviv.

Considering Jordan had been created from the majority of the territory in Mandatory Palestine, was the largest recipient of the Palestinian refugees, and had a majority Palestinian population there was believe that it may be the legitimate authority regarding the Palestinians at the time. The deal fell through when the Jordanians said \\\"no\\\", and that was that.

We might be able to fault the Israelis for not recognizing the PLO earlier, but at worst it\\\'s like faulting the international community for not recognizing the KMT earlier. Regrettable, but understandable.

\\\"or even Tzipi Livni\\\'s proposals in the leaked Palestine Papers to see evidence of ethnic cleansing\\\'s popularity.\\\"

And at the same time ignoring the evidence of its\\\' *unpopularity* in those very same papers, the evidence of when and how things like that were not agreed to by various Israeli governments and others, et cetera?

\\\"Your references to Sudan, Rwanda, and Somalia, in addition to being irrelevant to this issue,\\\"

If they really are irrelevant, explain how.

\\\"fail to take into account that none of these countries have anything comparable to the political clout in the US that the Israeli government is.\\\"

Turtle Bay can beg to differ, especially since it is on American soil and routinely sees the Israelis under fire. To say nothing of the opposite sides of the Israel lobby (the Palestinian, Saudi, Sudanese (yes, it exists) etc lobby), and the like.

\\\"Obviously, there\\\'s no Sudanese organization comparable to AIPAC,\\\"

That would depend on the definition of \\\"comparable.\\\" If we are talking about an organization that plays a comparable role (like SIS/MI6 does to the CIA) then yes, there is.

\\\"one would be very unlikely to find editorials in The New York Times defending the Interahamwe during the Rwandan Genocide,\\\"

You have a very, very naive belief in the purity of the NYT. The Interahamwe in the Rwandan Genocide is one I do believe didn\\\'t happen, but the repeat carrying of plenty of other apologists more than makes up for it. Just ask the late, ingrate Noam Chomsky or others.

\\\"and it\\\'s inconceivable that Omar al-Bashir would even speak before the entirety Congress,\\\"

At present yes, but considering Mahmoud Achmadinijad made an equivalent visit and there was even talk of going further (again, for the diplomatic detente) ruling it out altogether is naive.

\\\"let alone receive the kind of reception that Binyamin Netanyahu did recently.\\\"

Part of that probably has to do with the fact that even the ICU has never slapped him with the same crimes or charges it has against Omar.

\\\"Your comments consist mostly of misleading statements, failed attempts to link criticism of Israeli government policies to old anti-Semitic canards, and irrelevant references to other countries that are the intellectual equivalent of someone criticizing American civil rights activists for complaining about the treatment of black Americans when black South Africans are treated even worse. \\\"

The problem is that I could say the same about your own post to a large degree. So I would like to second the suggestion that you do more research.

\\\"It is indeed Grey and Grey Morality, just as most conflicts are, but that grey morality is of a similar nature as, for example, the struggle against South African apartheid or the Algerian War of Independence. \\\"

Ironically, I would agree here, and find the latter particularly relevant. I just get the feeling we would differ over which is the equivalent on the latter.

Regards.