Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[ChairmanPoo]

Relevant

[XXSockXX]

Why would it require a big military presence? Because Israeli's wouldn't be willing to do it without one?

Israel probably wouldn't put soldiers at such risk, no. And I was never in the military, but I can't imagine what you have in mind that it would not require something that looks very close to total occupation. If you imagine it is that easy, you might have a very wrong image of the realities there, and also of the practical implications of such an idea. I mean, even in this hypothetical debate, we are not talking about a bad neighbourhood or something, it's more like a barely pacified warzone with what amounts to an army of enemies (Hamas is estimated to have 15000-20000 men under arms in Gaza).

Are the UNRWA schools and their security staff seen as "occupiers"?

Probably not, since they are not a military presence, certainly to a lesser extent than Israeli forces (their hated enemy) would be. Maybe UN troops could pull something like this off, though there is the problem from which country these are coming etc. Also UN forces have come under fire too in many cases, like in Lebanon for example. Islamists have no problem with attacking the UN, and depending where they come from, it might not make a huge difference to them (you know, Christians in the Holy Land and all that).
People generally tend to see foreign troops as occupiers, and with Israeli forces this would be much worse. I mean, even here there are some people who see the American troops here as occupiers, and that is an entirely different situation.

I understand that you mean well and all, but this seems very impractibale to me and in the current situation it's not very close to looking realistic (as unfortunately are most peace plans).

Have they ever proposed as a term of a peace agreement a carrot of some sort? Actually giving something to the Palestinians rather than just stopping some bad thing they were doing?

Without looking it up: They have offered an independent Palestine. They have released thousands of prisoners. They withdrew from Gaza and abolished the settlements there. Abolishing the settlements in the West Bank is controversial in Israel, many want to do it, many don't, some governments were pretty much willing to go ahead with it though, back when the 2 state solution seemed like it might happen.

Also remember that while there were peace talks with Fatah, all talks with Hamas are merely about ceasefires, since Hamas does not want peace.

HAs there been any evidence at all of Hamas storing rockets/munitions in actively used schools and hospitals?

Yes, even in a UN school.

[GlyphGryph]

HAs there been any evidence at all of Hamas storing rockets/munitions in actively used schools and hospitals?

Yes, even in a UN school.

You should at least read the headlines of articles you link to before posting them, since that says exactly the opposite of what you are claiming?

[burningpet]

How does it destabilize the region?

Israel has nukes -> Iran gets nukes -> Saudi Arabia gets nukes -> Somebody is stupid enough to use them.

It's historically seen that it's unlikely for a power to maintain a nuclear hegemony.

On the other hand MAD is in effect, but it's only a matter of time before an unstable regime manages to lose one of their nukes to terrorists.

I strongly believe that Iran, Iraq and Syria would have attempted to acquire nuclear capabilities regardless of israel.

c) Yes, we all know Hamas is bloody terrible, and Palestine would be better off without them, but by your own logic Israel is "forcing" them to launch rockets, and we don't exactly have any influence over Hamas anyway.
d) And, if you're directly addressing my post, active is a keyword, finding stuff hidden in other unused buildings doesn't justify Israel bombing occupied ones because "their might be stuff their too".

C) This is where you are wrong. first, i can't see how israel is forcing them to launch rockets. evidence shown that their biggest offensive of the "intifada 2" happened during their highest degree of freedom and economic stability to date.
by taking part in their propaganda, you are enforcing their continuance presence in gaza.  once the world fully realize hamas needs to be removed and the strip to demilitarize, then the gazan people could start living peacefully. by thinking and propagating that hamas is the defender of the gazan people, by saying they are simply reacting to israel atrocities contrary to historic evidence, or by suggesting they do not commit the war crimes they have, you are legitimizing them and de legitimizing israel necessity to self defend itself against them and its attempts to remove them.

The world can remove hamas and demilitarize the strip. it just needs to actually decide to do so.

D) Yeah, they were not active because israel forced the civilians to evacuate after it found out they house rockets/tunnels/explosives while being active.

[XXSockXX]

HAs there been any evidence at all of Hamas storing rockets/munitions in actively used schools and hospitals?

Yes, even in a UN school.

You should at least read the headlines of articles you link to before posting them, since that says exactly the opposite of what you are claiming?

You're right. I overlooked that bold part.

Here is another one, also vacant, though UN staff there could imply that it was still in some kind of use.

[GlyphGryph]

Have they ever proposed as a term of a peace agreement a carrot of some sort? Actually giving something to the Palestinians rather than just stopping some bad thing they were doing?

Without looking it up: They have offered an independent Palestine. They have released thousands of prisoners. They withdrew from Gaza and abolished the settlements there. Abolishing the settlements in the West Bank is controversial in Israel, many want to do it, many don't, some governments were pretty much willing to go ahead with it though, back when the 2 state solution seemed like it might happen.

Also remember that while there were peace talks with Fatah, all talks with Hamas are merely about ceasefires, since Hamas does not want peace.

...none of those are carrots. Those are all "we'll remove the stick" things. "We'll stop hurting you" is not a carrot.

And yes, I'm talking about the arguments with Fatah, I don't think negotiation with Hamas is likely to have good results, but successful negotiations with Fatah could certainly serve to undermine Hamas (although Israel has instead decided to drive Fatah into Hamas's arms by making them look weak).

Edit:
Oh shit everyone shut up BBC NEWS HAS THE SCOOP!

[palsch]

I'm on my phone now so can't pull up the link, but if you look at the UN's own condemnation of the rockets being stored in the school they state it is a building between two other large, used schools with thousands of civilians in them. At the same time the whole compound is a UN secured zone, supposedly a safe haven for refugees. Nitpicking over whether that particular building was in use is just that. It's scoring internet debate points over actually establishing facts.

As for the rest, a quick google gives you the IDF's footage of rockets being fired from hospitals and discovered in other schools. There have also been articles about journalists being attacked online for tweeting about rockets fired from around hotels, hospitals and similar. Not to mention the famous image of a hospital being used as a Hamas media centre (with historical claims it has been a military command centre for years). I know you won't accept/trust most of those, but they exist and are trivially easy to find.

[XXSockXX]

Right, the official condemnation is that last link I posted:

Today, in the course of the regular inspection of its premises, UNRWA discovered rockets hidden in a vacant school in the Gaza Strip. As soon as the rockets were discovered, UNRWA staff were withdrawn from the premises, and so we are unable to confirm the precise number of rockets. The school is situated between two other UNRWA schools that currently each accommodate 1,500 internally displaced persons.

[Wolfhunter107]

An interesting article about the Israeli's who refuse the call to serve in the current conflict, for a variety of moral reasons

Those people are true hero's.

[GavJ]

...none of those are carrots. Those are all "we'll remove the stick" things. "We'll stop hurting you" is not a carrot.

The confusion arises from 4 types of basic behavior modification tactics, but only two objects (carrot/stick) in the analogy.  There's:
Positive punishment -- I will hit you if you do bad things
Negative punishment -- I will stop giving you carrots you if you do bad things
Positive reinforcement -- I will give you carrots if you do good things
Negative reinforcement -- I will stop hitting you if you do good things


An independent Palestine would qualify as a carrot / positive reinforcement. However, it can change from a juicy to a rotten carrot pretty easily depending on exactly where this independent Palestine includes on the map.
However, ceasing occupation and releasing prisoners are not carrots. Those are negative reinforcement.

[GavJ]

HAs there been any evidence at all of Hamas storing rockets/munitions in actively used schools and hospitals?

Nobody seems to have answered this critical question here. If it's "No" or only like one example in the last several years or something, then... wow.

I've been taking it on faith that these were basic facts... if it does turn out that those places weren't even ever actually rocket or munition sites, then Israel is gonna get demoted in my mind to "a country that my cat could determine was committing war crimes, they're so obvious."

I'm on my phone now so can't pull up the link, but if you look at the UN's own condemnation of the rockets being stored in the school they state it is a building between two other large, used schools with thousands of civilians in them. At the same time the whole compound is a UN secured zone, supposedly a safe haven for refugees. Nitpicking over whether that particular building was in use is just that. It's scoring internet debate points over actually establishing facts

No it's not nitpicking, because UN zone designations do not change the physics of how airstrikes work. An advanced country like Israel should have technology to disable that building but not the schools, making it a quite relevant distinction.

[Zangi]

c) Yes, we all know Hamas is bloody terrible, and Palestine would be better off without them, but by your own logic Israel is "forcing" them to launch rockets, and we don't exactly have any influence over Hamas anyway.

C) This is where you are wrong. first, i can't see how israel is forcing them to launch rockets. evidence shown that their biggest offensive of the "intifada 2" happened during their highest degree of freedom and economic stability to date.
by taking part in their propaganda, you are enforcing their continuance presence in gaza.  once the world fully realize hamas needs to be removed and the strip to demilitarize, then the gazan people could start living peacefully. by thinking and propagating that hamas is the defender of the gazan people, by saying they are simply reacting to israel atrocities contrary to historic evidence, or by suggesting they do not commit the war crimes they have, you are legitimizing them and de legitimizing israel necessity to self defend itself against them and its attempts to remove them.

The world can remove hamas and demilitarize the strip. it just needs to actually decide to do so.

Well, if you want to remove Hamas and demilitarize the strip... you would need to occupy it and prop up a government of some kind...

But hey, Israel is not going to do that.  What Israel is doing though is going in to wreck the place, then pulling back out.  Afterwards, patting themselves on the back and saying: "Job well done. We did it!" 
Of course, give it a few more years and they'll be back to do the same.  Cause ya know, there is no real plan other then blow up stockpiles of weapons and cover up tunnels is there?

Seriously.  Removing Hamas ain't happening.  Not with the half-arsed measures being taken by Israel.    Not when the only possible alternative government body looks like a docile and loyal pet.  Not when there is no will to spend the time, money, effort and lives to occupy and govern the place.


Also, I dislike how you like to justify some actions done by Israel... by blaming Hamas for being worse/starting it.  Acting as if it would wash Israel's collective hands of its moral implications.  (Fun Tip: It does not.)

[GavJ]

Speaking of occupying and propping things up and the cost and difficulty of doing so... There have been situations in the past where communities suffered from epidemics of violence, and where modern conceptions of police and law enforcement were impractical, too expensive, and too unsophisticated/not invented yet. Such as medieval England. History shows us a wide variety of solutions to problems like these, and we could apply some of the more successful solutions again in the modern era.

For example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithing_(country_subdivision)
^
A law enforcement system by which a country was divided into groups of 10 men or households. If one of the members commits a crime, the other members are duty-bound to bring him to court (in one piece) to answer for his crimes. If they fail to do so within some amount of time, then they ALL answer to the crime(s) as if they were the ones who committed them. Or potentially it could be set up so that there is a lesser but still greater than zero punishment (like 1/2 sentencing or something). Kind of like a community watch, but on crack. All households have a strong incentive to prevent each other from committing crimes in the first place, and to help find criminals. All of the local networks and relationships and culture leverage to the advantage of justice, rather than undermining it.





This system also has the excellent characteristic that the people with the guns up at the top who are enforcing it don't really NEED to be experts in local neighborhood politics or details or relationships or culture, for it to work. As would be the case with, say, U.N. task forces.

This might be able to be enforced with U.N. forces running the criminal justice system, basically, with much less investment and war weariness and cultural inefficiency than full on occupation of every aspect of everything. (Applied to both Palestinians and Israelis, as part of a means of setting up a new one or two state solution with fewer resources than might otherwise be required)

Edit: this is in the context of a "demilitarized" entire region. In the sense of external military oversight and any non-sanctioned weapons usage being treated as regular domestic murder/assault, subject to the aforementioned tithings system, and only qualifying as "Self defense" in situations that would qualify as that in domestic cases (as in, only relevant if the person pulling the trigger was being actively shot at first in the moment and was backed into a corner. And still subject to separate weapons charges depending on any weapons used anyway)

[burningpet]

Well, if you want to remove Hamas and demilitarize the strip... you would need to occupy it and prop up a government of some kind...

But hey, Israel is not going to do that.  What Israel is doing though is going in to wreck the place, then pulling back out.  Afterwards, patting themselves on the back and saying: "Job well done. We did it!"

 
Israel could not occupy and demilitarize the strip because the islamists propaganda deemed it impossible and this would cause an uproar with certain UN countries. so no, israel is not going to do that, nor do i think it should be the one doing so.

The western powers along the arab powers should and could do it.

Of course, give it a few more years and they'll be back to do the same.  Cause ya know, there is no real plan other then blow up stockpiles of weapons and cover up tunnels is there?

Agreed. the primary goal of israel is to ensure its immediate safety, yes. i have seen calls by some ministers that this operation should followed by an extensive international pressure to demilitarize the strip, but my bet is that won't happen thanks to the contribution of radical islam and other corrupted nations in the UN.

Or maybe the gazan people would finally decide they had enough of corrupted leaders that live on multi billion dollars investments in the luxury of the best hotels in doha while talking about sacrifices.

Seriously.  Removing Hamas ain't happening.  Not with the half-arsed measures being taken by Israel.    Not when the only possible alternative government body looks like a docile and loyal pet.  Not when there is no will to spend the time, money, effort and lives to occupy and govern the place.

Not with the half-arsed measures being taken by israel and not by the half arsed measures being taken by the west, agreed. so? israel should just let hamas dig offensive tunnel with the intent of invading multiple kibutzim near the gazan border? should it just let it fire rockets aimed at civilians?

If israel goes to completely conquer the strip, it will be ugly and all of you will condemn us. no, it can't do that. (And don't tell me lift the blockade. because that's treating the symptom, not the disease.)

This might be able to be enforced with U.N. forces running the criminal justice system, basically, with much less investment and war weariness and cultural inefficiency than full on occupation of every aspect of everything. (Applied to both Palestinians and Israelis, as part of a means of setting up a new one or two state solution with fewer resources than might otherwise be required)

Not sure how that system is any different to misprision of felony. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misprision_of_felony

Why would israel want, need or accept such a system or even any kind of UN intervention on its own state when it has one of the most highly developed states in the world? do you seriously suggest to punish israelis for the palestines inability to govern themselves properly?

Edit in response to your edit:
To demilitarize the entire region is to demilitarize the entire middle east, near east, east africa, then entire africa, turkey, russia, china and the entire asian continent. good luck.

[Frumple]

Seriously.  Removing Hamas ain't happening.  Not with the half-arsed measures being taken by Israel.    Not when the only possible alternative government body looks like a docile and loyal pet.  Not when there is no will to spend the time, money, effort and lives to occupy and govern the place.

I don't suppose there's some third, relatively local, party that could take funding and whathaveyou and come stabilize things for a while? Take care of rebuilding civil infrastructure and economy, keep terrorism down, keep Israel's bullshit out, all that good stuff. One that the Palestinians wouldn't mind much and Israel hasn't managed to piss off?* Kinda' seems like a potential solution when Israel's being a massive prick and the local alternative to the terrorists can't really work with them because of it. Just let someone else keep Hamas and co off Israel's back, get Israel the hell out of Palestinian land, and keep Israel from dicking gaza and everywhere else nearby. Since Israel can't be trusted to deal with the terrorists without massive civil damage and the locals can't really do jack (not insignificantly because of said civil damage, sure), why not find a party #3? Beyond the apparently unfettered bloodthirst of most involved parties leadership, anyway.

Actually, looking at what I just wrote I guess I kinda' realize that's not going to happen. Israel's not going to back off until everyone's dead, including themselves, is it? Or at least the ones at the helm of the joint aren't.

*Actually, is there anyone in the local area that Israel hasn't managed to piss off? I've forgotten at this point.