(no subject)

[meanfreepath]

Why does Israel have to be put on the defensive internationally after its commandos use limited force in response to being attacked with potentially deadly weapons? Would anyone be complaining if the men and women of the US Navy were to use lethal force to defend themselves in the course of interdicting Somali pirates?

Comments

[indecisionwins.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I hadn't heard about this at all before today--was it in the news because the ship was heading towards Gaza with clear plans to challenge the blockade? Or was it actually sitting in the Mediterranean trying to convince the Israelis to make an exception to (or drop) the blockade? I'm guessing it's the former?

Oh, and I'm also not sure that I'd call what was on that YouTube video negotiation; I mean, they gave them a chance to turn around, but Israel clearly never made any offer to do anything about the policy that was being challenged. And I mean, maybe that's a justifiable decision, I don't know--but it seems like the current Israeli government is generally very stubborn, and insists on sticking to what it thinks it needs to do for defense, no matter how many other countries it angers... (ccommack also raises some interesting issues about why Israel really shouldn't have picked this situation to stick stubbornly and absolutely to a policy that seems questionable to begin with...)

[meanfreepath.livejournal.com]

Blockades, and their maintenance through force, are a legal and long-established tradition in warfare. To my mind it would have been justifiable in military terms for the commandos to have withdrawn once attacked and then to have naval or air assets blow the ship out of the water.

[rose_garden.livejournal.com]

a legal and long-established tradition in warfare

Assuming that you are at war.

Unrelated to the main topic, but I'm having a tough time controlling my emotions in this response

[arctangent.livejournal.com]

I'm not a big fan of the "We're at war so it's okay" thing.

But then I don't see war as morally neutral. Things can get rather complicated and messy on the ground, but I'm skeptical of the claim that on the grand scale wars never have good guys or bad guys, that it's impossible to determine who's the aggressor and who's the defender.

And I'm sorry, but Israel-as-defender is a narrative that has lost all meaning for me and that I now unequivocally reject. It makes no historical sense whatsoever and trying to make it make sense does violence to every single moral principle of Western liberal democracy we Americans like to pretend we hold dear.

Even if we pretend history started 20-30 years ago it still doesn't make sense. The dominant Israeli narrative of the "war" involves looking at thrown rocks and baseball bats and "missiles" that are glorified firecrackers and have casualty rates in the *single digits* every time every time a new barrage comes and imagining it to be the entire Nazi army with banners waving at the gates.

I just can't stomach it anymore. It almost literally makes me sick.

Re: Unrelated to the main topic, but I'm having a tough time controlling my emotions in this respons

[meanfreepath.livejournal.com]

I don't go to bed worried that I might wake up for the last time to a barrage of rockets. Nor do I ever bother to contemplate the possibility that I might be blown to bits or maimed by a suicide bomber every time I board a bus or go shopping.

Hamas rockets may be relatively ineffective compared to most modern ordnance, but you do not deny that they do kill people and destroy property. Hamas has unequivocably expressed the intent to destroy Israel, and were it not for Israeli military actions they might well succeed in attacks significantly more destructive than harassing fire.

Re: Unrelated to the main topic, but I'm having a tough time controlling my emotions in this respons

[sildra.livejournal.com]

Nor do I ever bother to contemplate the possibility that I might be blown to bits or maimed by a suicide bomber every time I board a bus or go shopping.

Neither do Israelis. That's a ridiculous exaggeration. In fact, I've never met an Israeli who was at all concerned about this possibility except when they were discussing politics, and the ones with integrity mostly dismiss it even in that context. It's just not the kind of thing one worries about in real life.

As my father always told me when I was concerned about this as a child, I was more likely to die in a freeway accident in LA than I was to be in a bus bombing when I visited Israel.

Re: Unrelated to the main topic, but I'm having a tough time controlling my emotions in this respons

[ccommack]

Hear hear. The rocket attacks from Gaza are scary, but they've killed <30 Israelis in the last decade. I think you're statistically more likely to die from medical malpractice.

Re: Unrelated to the main topic, but I'm having a tough time controlling my emotions in this respons

[meanfreepath.livejournal.com]

That may be true. But you do not deny that the threat does exist, and I think that it is only because of Israel's tough security and military stance that the threat is not more serious.

There are certainly some aspects of the current coalition government in Israel, in particular Avigdor Lieberman's party, that I find distasteful. Trying to seize more land through unfettered settlement expansion in the West Bank is more likely than not counterproductive, and arguably immoral. But there is no denying that Hamas is a terrorist organization dedicated to the destruction of Israel, and that negotiations are unlikely to succeed. I therefore feel that perhaps Obama needs to tighten the screws on Netanyahu with respect to West Bank settlement expansion, and that engagement between Israel and the moderate elements of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank should be facilitated, but that there is little alternative to pounding/starving Hamas into submission.

Re: Unrelated to the main topic, but I'm having a tough time controlling my emotions in this respons

[arctangent.livejournal.com]

I don't go to bed worried that I might wake up for the last time to a barrage of rockets. Nor do I ever bother to contemplate the possibility that I might be blown to bits or maimed by a suicide bomber every time I board a bus or go shopping.

The Republican Party tried to use this exact logic after 9/11 to claim that any and all foreign-policy actions taken by the USA were justified because otherwise we would all, from that point forward, "live in fear" of dying in 9/11-like attacks.

The issue, of course, is that whether one lives in fear of something is distinct from how high a probability that thing has of happening, and the main reason there were in fact people living in fear of their own personal hometown being annihilated by a barrage of suitcase nukes/hijacked passenger planes/rapidly expanding clouds of weaponized anthrax was the Republican propaganda itself.

[rose_garden.livejournal.com]

they gave them a chance to turn around

That's not how I heard it. The soldiers said that if the ship docked at Ashdod, then the supplies would be delivered. (Except not the cement.)

[indecisionwins.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...yeah, you're right--that is importantly different from telling the ship to turn around.

Of course, the people on the ship might say that they don't trust that the supplies would get there through Israel (although apparently Israel did offer to allow them to observe the transit, so I don't know how much weight that holds).

More importantly, as I understand it, it seems like the goal was actually to challenge the blockade (which the people on the ship considered unjust in itself, I think?), rather than just to deliver one ship's worth of aid. But then, I guess that might lead to a negotiating position that's just about as inflexible as the Israelis'.

I don't know--as with most things involving Israel, it's hard to really know which side is more right, without much more knowledge than is easily obtainable...but yet, people (e.g., on my Facebook news feed) tend to want to take a black-and-white position anyway...

[rose_garden.livejournal.com]

Now posted on my lj: Do I want to go to a pro-Israel infosession?

[ccommack]

The metaphor I encountered online a few days ago which I find apt is: Israel is an abused child who has now grown up and is abusing others. Only a heartless bastard wouldn't feel some sympathy, and it may be unclear what would be the just thing to do, but when his kids start coming to school with bruises you absolutely must start moving heaven and earth to stop it.

[rose_garden.livejournal.com]

Heh, what is North Korea? Ameria?

[arctangent.livejournal.com]

America is more like the spoiled, privileged child who grew up to be a bully because it never really got used to having to play nice with others and treat them like equals, rather than having the truly embittered, hysterical tang of the cycle-of-abuse kind of bullying. It is possible to get America to get bored and give up; this is far less true of other aggressive nations.

[rose_garden.livejournal.com]

Curious... what would you have done if you were in charge of Israel?

[arctangent.livejournal.com]

I would never take charge of Israel for the same reason I don't want to be in charge of America's withdrawal from Iraq. It is a huge, intractable mess that can never be resolved without hurting a whole lot of people. The only way to cleanly fix things would be to have a magic time machine that would allow you to reverse history so that it never happened in the first place -- but it's impossible now to actually return to that status quo ever, not without a ton of death and destruction.

(Seen from this perspective the common Palestinian opinion -- "We wish Israel didn't exist" -- isn't genocidal, it's a wish for a return to that status quo that unfortunately cannot now happen without something approaching ethnic cleansing/genocide. But I don't think that makes the wish unreasonable.

This is partly because I now look at the basic and foundational argument of Israel's existence -- wishing Israel didn't exist equals wishing that the Holocaust would recur, because Israel is the only possible insurance policy against another Holocaust -- and I think it's crap.

It's crap for numerous reasons, but one of the primary reasons I dislike it is that it's only a tenable position if applied evenhandedly and NO ONE actually proposes applying it evenhandedly. Not even for ACTUAL VICTIMS OF THE HOLOCAUST -- who is out there campaigning for the creation of a Romany homeland?)

[ccommack]

Well, first off, if I were in charge of Israel, I would not be blockading Gaza. It's a ridiculous, stupid, self-defeating, and dishonorable policy. But if I were in a position where I had no choice and really, really, needed to enforce the blockade? Well... There are plenty of options to get an unarmed merchant vessel to stop. I might actually have authorized boarding by helicopter, but in daylight and after due warning had been issued, including through naval gunnery across the bow. Mostly, I would have refrained from storming the ship until it was at or imminently about to cross the 12-mile limit, or any alternative announced and posted blockade line.

[rose_garden.livejournal.com]

it seems like the goal was actually to challenge the blockade

OK, this raises an interesting question: Suppose you want to challenge the blockade. What is the best way to do it?

Well, the blockade's official purpose is to keep weapons out of Gaza, because such weapons will surely be used to attack Israel. The blockade's purpose isn't to keep the Gazan people in poverty -- that would be evil and counterproductive of Israel. It just happens to have that effect.

So the number one goal would be to challenge the blockade with materials that are purely humanitarian. This is complicated by the fact that Israel bars certain ambiguous materials from reaching Gaza, like cement and other building materials.

If I were going to challenge the blockade, I would want to carry items that were indisputably humanitarian.

But maybe it's a better challenge to the blockade if the IDF shoots and kills some of the people on the aid flotilla. But something tells me that there won't be any real changes as a result of this event.

[indecisionwins.livejournal.com]

I'm not actually certain of the purpose of the blockade--is it just to keep weapons out? Or is it to keep the Gazan people in poverty to punish them for electing Hamas leaders, and maybe persuade them to elect somebody other than Hamas? If it's the latter, that seems stupid and counterproductive to me, but that doesn't mean it's not part of the thinking.

Otherwise... Well, i think you're right that what this ship did is the most effective way to challenge the blockade. Also, though, I think the IDF shooting some people on the ship is probably better for the political goals of the people on the ship than it is for Israel. After all, what happened is bringing a lot of attention to the issue, and there does seem to be pressure on the Israeli government as a result of this to stop being so hard-line. That doesn't mean that they'll listen, of course, but I think they'll have to consider it more seriously than they would have before this. (That might also mean that Israel would have been better-served letting this ship land in Gaza, even if they did want to keep the general blockade up. But then that would have made them look weak, and there clearly would have had to be a breaking point somewhere--but that breaking point could have been in a situation that didn't make Israel look as bad as it does now. So then the question is whether a loosening of the blockade to avoid conflict here would have actually been a problem for Israel's interests, or whether it's just that Netanyahu and/or others who were responsible just didn't want to look weak.)

[rose_garden.livejournal.com]

That might also mean that Israel would have been better-served letting this ship land in Gaza, even if they did want to keep the general blockade up.

But why should they assume that this ship is what it claims to be? There really are weapons being transported into Gaza. A ship could very well be carrying weapons to furnish Hamas with more means to shoot missiles at Sderot.

[rose_garden.livejournal.com]

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/06/gaza_flotilla

"[E]mploying a bit of violence in your protest, enough to provoke a murderous reaction, is more effective than eschewing violence altogether. Five of the six ships taken over by Israeli commandos put up no resistance. They didn't make the news. The sixth, the Mavi Marmara, had about 600 passengers on board, and of those, 570 or so appear to have stayed below deck as the commandos arrived. They didn't make the news either. The other 30 went up on deck."

[rose_garden.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I hadn't heard about this at all before today--was it in the news because the ship was heading towards Gaza with clear plans to challenge the blockade? Or was it actually sitting in the Mediterranean trying to convince the Israelis to make an exception to (or drop) the blockade? I'm guessing it's the former?

Oh, I guess it left Cyprus yesterday, so "days" is an exaggeration. I heard about it on NPR while it was en route. I don't completely know the extent of the communication between the Marmara and the IDF prior to the helicopter boarding, but based on the IDF video I'm guessing the Marmara wasn't really interested in talking to the IDF.

[indecisionwins.livejournal.com]

based on the IDF video I'm guessing the Marmara wasn't really interested in talking to the IDF.

Interesting--but of course, beyond that video, it also sounds like the IDF/the Israeli government wasn't very interested in talking to the Marmara. And they're the ones with big guns...so if they don't want to be accused of overly aggressive use of those big guns, it seems like they have more of a responsibility to talk. The ship was just being peacefully provocative, as far as I can tell; the IDF was the one contemplating (and eventually taking) violent military action...

[meanfreepath.livejournal.com]

There was plenty of warning, I think, and no doubt that the Marmara was being provocative. There was no need for the people on board to try to seize the commandos as soon as they slid down there ropes, as is clearly evident from the videos.