(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

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]

No. The primary reason the threat is not "more serious" and that Hamas is not building nuclear silos is that *Hamas has almost no money*.

The Palestinians are among the poorest people in the world. The gulf between Palestine's actual economic means and the possibility of serious military threat is similar to the gulf between my economic means and the possibility of building my summer vacation home on the moon.

Hamas' own leaders know this, which is why any claims one hears about Hamas having the intention of "sweeping Israel into the sea" should be taken with the same grain of salt as hearing a drunken Red Sox fan talk about "burning down New York City" -- it's not serious because THEY COULDN'T POSSIBLY DO IT IN A MILLION YEARS AND THEY KNOW IT.

The purpose of the rocket attacks is to galvanize a deeply angry and embittered citizenry into supporting Hamas because Hamas, by taking token, useless violent actions, thus displays a more authentic and credible sympathy with Palestinian emotional outrage at Israel's actions than Fatah does. It makes Hamas more authentically Palestinian (in the twisted logic of violence = authenticity) in much the same way as Republicans' gung-ho willingness to blow up Iraq makes them more authentically, patriotically American in this country.

But any claims that Hamas has, at this point, any kind of realistic long-term goals other than simply maintaining power within Palestine by being a proxy for their constituents' impotent rage are basically baseless. The idea that Israel is actually vulnerable to "genocidal threats" coming from Palestine is as ludicrous as the right-wing fantasy that a small handful of radicalized Al-Qaeda college students might succeed in blowing up Washington DC with a homemade nuke.

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

[rose_garden.livejournal.com]

Not that you think the Israelis should turn off the rocket sirens that warn people to run to the bomb shelter. Right?

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

[meanfreepath.livejournal.com]

Agreed. arctangent -- I doubt the citizens of Sderot and other towns plagued by rocket fire would agree with your assessment. Just today several rockets were launched from Gaza. Unless you would be really willing to go to Sderot and stand up in the open without a helmet and body armor during a rocket alert, I would hesitate to describe Qassam rockets as "glorified firecrackers."

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

[ccommack]

The citizens of London *did* put up with a much deadlier threat throughout the IRA's 1980s era bombing campaign, and while *reasonable* security measures (like the Ring of Steel around the City of London) were taken, the UK did *not* suspend civil liberties, did *not* start indiscriminately leveling Ulster or Liverpool, nor did the UK invade and reoccupy Eire. The most common reaction was to shrug it off and say "[we've] been blown up by a better class of bastard than this". And in case we've forgotten, that campaign included hundreds of millions in property damage, including the gutting of Center City Manchester and the destruction of the national-rchitectural-treasure Baltic Exchange, and damn near killed Margaret Thatcher's entire Cabinet. A Qassam would have to get a very lucky hit in order to render a wood-frame house structurally unsound.