Israel’s 60
With Israel’s 60th birthday coming up (May 14th), both our friendly neighborhood Jews, their proponents, and their opponents have been making a lot of noise. I’m not the biggest fan of Israel’s operations in Palestinian land, and I think a lot of the settlers use the victim mentality to justify pushing injustices on others. And no, criticism of Israel’s foreign and domestic policies does not equate to Anti-semitism.
But signs like “Israel @ 60: Celebrating Genocide” do not help the discussion of a convoluted and complicated issue. And yes, I saw those over campus today, including other ones that said “Celebrating Racism” and “Celebrating Terrorism”. I’m interested to see what else these clowns come up with.
I don’t know about you chaps, but I can say that the death penalty deters me.
ah, missed teh 🙂
As there was in mine… : )
I think there was a hint of sarcasm in Sean’s last comment.
Vincent, you’re still off the mark I think.
Even with nukes not in the picture, conventional warfare is deterrent enough in that no state-actor would take Israel on and expect to win. Thus, we are back to non-state-actors pecking away to no avail…
Guerilla warfare and state-actors supporting non-state militants is nothing new. I’d argue that we’re in the status-quo when it comes to that. As for nuclear proliferation, every shred of evidence I can find leads me to believe that you’re worry over the ‘spread’ of nuclear stuffs is misplaced. What makes you think that non-state actors can or are getting their hands on something like a suitcase nuke? I don’t think it’s impossible, but the odds are stacked against them. Not to mention that those with the nukes don’t want the detonation trail leading back to them.
I’m not so sure that offering 9/11 up as an instance where the US was ‘touched’ in a truly significant way has a place in what we’re talking about. If anything, it’s the same sort of thing as rockets falling on Sderot. Granted, the latter is far more expected and something Israelis have become accustomed to. If anything 9/11 stands out for the US merely because ‘we’ had never been hit like that. Still, it was not a major hit and 3,000 dead with a few square blocks being disintegrated out of pure luck is nowhere near what the US has done because of this attack. Normally, there is a general rule where actors hit each other about as hard as they’ve been hit…proportional response. 9/11 was a peck in a major US urban center that hurt the US but did not threaten its existence in any way. What the US has done in response has hurt everyone, including the US. It’s ironic, but I’d also argue it’s what Bin Laden, et al. were looking for the US to do. Sadly ironic.
I’m not saying that 9/11’s or terrorist attacks in general are tolerable, but in as much as they threaten the US or Israel, it is very minimal. I would argue, as I hinted at above, that the US response (as with some of Israel’s responses) does more damage than the original terrorist attack.
“The Israeli government has the same responsibility to its citizens.”
I agree. However, Israel is not a benign actor in this. If your Canadian situation happened and the US was not antagonizing or doing anything questionable (i.e. establishing settlements in Quebec in a strategic network of locations) then the response would be swift and justified. Israel responses tend to generate more of the same…and vice versa….and the cycle continues. Israel has more responsibility to Israeli’s than merely responding to attacks…
“And yet, placing Lebanese and Palestinian civilians directly in harm
I think the most obvious solution is for Israel to make punishments for convicted suicide bombers harsher, possibly including the death penalty.
The death penalty has demonstrated much evidence in being effective in deterring violent crimes.
You think deterrence doesn
You think deterrence doesn’t work? At the most basic level, Israel has a last-resort in its nuclear arsenal. Of course, we all know that it would never get that bad given Israel’s allies and inherent ability to destroy Arab militants/militaries. Israel isn’t facing a true existential crisis unless one looks at the notion of Israel being a Jewish state for Jews. That is, if Palestinian lands were brought in under a greater Israel it would be demographic suicide (I’m pretty sure that’s what ‘they’ call it). The two-state solution, if it ever gets put in place, would only legitimize Israeli defensive action against a state actor. For now, Israel is pecked at by non-state actors who truly pose no threat to Israel’s existence. It is the same thing going on in Iraq with the U.S. military. Militants there stand no chance against the US conventionally, so unconventional warfare rules the day and US troops are slowly killed in relatively small numbers, but killed nonetheless. Of course, there is a greater trauma to unconventional warfare for those who survive and are not killed (i.e. PTSD). We see this sort of trauma playing out on a national scale in a place like Israel where this sort of thing is a part of many people’s daily lives and there is mandatory service.
I’m not suggesting that Israel uses nukes against suicide bombers. The ace-in-the-hole is merely stating, in my opinion, that Israel has nukes to rely on if its existence is indeed threatened. I would argue that the results of conventional warfare in the past are enough to have pushed many nations into peace with Israel, and I would imagine that the same people realize that a nuclear Israel is 100% insurmountable. A suicide bomber carrying a suitcase nuke presupposes that they can get their hands on one. That’s highly doubtful despite the problems in the former-USSR and the nuclear weapons/tech that is unaccounted for. As romantic as the notion seems to be, the reality is that most nuclear powers are pretty good at controlling and/or monitoring the flow of nuclear technology. There’s also the fact that a nuclear weapon is 100% traceable. Whether this means that the weapon was stolen or purchased may not matter in the end, but at the very least ‘we’ would know where it came from. I’m also hesitant to equate any of HAMAS’ or Hezb’Allah’s tactics with the use of nuclear weapons. Ditto for Iran. Arabs may be pissed off, but I’m sure that they’re fully aware that a nuclear blast in Israel means that Palestinians, Iraqis, Syrians, Kuwaitis, Qataris, Bahrainis, Saudis, Jordanians, Omanis, Emirati’s, et al. would feel the heat, so to speak. The wind blows from the west. Of the two, Hezb’Allah is the only one that has internationalized its actions. HAMAS is good about fighting local and regularly re-asserts its lack of desire to internationalize (yes, even with guys like Meshaal in Damascus). Iran is in no hurry to assure its destruction either. Civilian sacrifice when it comes to your enemy is one thing, killing your own civilians is another.
I’m not sure how you have current tabs on Israel’s nuclear arsenal, but I would be shocked if you were right in your assertion. Even the US arsenal is enough that we could remove our military completely and still rest assured that no one would touch us and risk nuclear attack. Of course, our military isn’t really in place for self-defense. At least, not entirely.
As always, good to hear from you.
Of course, this fact kind of begs the question as to why Israel is apparently paranoid of ever coming to an end as a nation-state. They have the ultimate ace-in-the-hole when it comes to violent negotiation.
Doesn’t this rather presuppose that deterrence still works? I mean, it’s not like Israel is facing an existential crisis from state actors so much as non-state actors who receive substantial financial and material support from a number of different state and non-state sources.
It’s highly doubtful that Israel would ever use its nuclear capabilities in any event short of ICBMs headed in its direction, in which case it would already be too late. A nuclear arsenal, however, is not particularly effective as an “ace-in-the-hole” when dealing with a suicide bomber carrying the proverbial “suitcase nuke” and whom is more than willing (as Hamas and Hizb’Allah tactics have repeatedly proven) to sacrifice civilians — Israeli and Arab — in the service of the cause.
Much like the US’s nuclear arsenal, Israel’s is something of a relic. It might’ve been useful when it was facing the threat of invasion, but most of its neighbors, save the Palestinian territories and those parts of Lebanon controlled by Hizb’Allah, seem to have given up the ambition of throwing the “Zionist Entity” into the sea by massed force of arms.
Yeah. There’s more than a few disingenuous arguments in that person’s commentary…though, I hesitate to say that it’s purposeful.
Personally, I think one can acknowledge militancy on either end and have plenty to say about the militancy of various Arab ‘resistance’ groups and not resort to the canard of “large-scale” militant Islam. There are 250 million Arabs in the Arabic-speaking Middle East. There are approximately 1 billion Muslims in the world. Surely, if things were as “large-scale” as it is often stated, Israel and others would have their hands full of a lot more than what they’re dealing with now…..
Then, when you look at potential violence, 1.25 billion Arabic-speakers and their Muslim brethren can’t quite reach the power that a full-nuclear-launch on Israel’s end could. If they wanted to, I imagine Israel could turn every Muslim/Arabic-speaking urban center into a glass parking lot by morning. At the very least, 17 million Egyptians could be vaporized by morning–and that’s just Cairo and the Cairo Metropolitan area. Of course, this fact kind of begs the question as to why Israel is apparently paranoid of ever coming to an end as a nation-state. They have the ultimate ace-in-the-hole when it comes to violent negotiation.
Your shekels are worth nothing to me.
But yes, I also wanted to point out that inaccurate rockets and even suicide bombs don’t really stack up to helicopter gunships, tanks, and F-16s.
I’d argue that a near-majority of people in settlements are there because it’s government subsidized housing and what they can afford. That being said, there are politically-motivated (read: religiously-motivated) settlers, and I would contest the notion that there are not those among them who are as violent, or more so, than Palestinian terrorists in general. Look at what happens in Hebron/Khalil with Kiryat Arba types. They’re not representative, but it is their ilk who assassinated an Israeli leader…others (i.e. Baruch Goldstein) are commemorated as martyrs for their bloody murders of Palestinians.
“and they don
A very obviously subtle pro-Israel comment.
The mere choice of language when discussing this issue is grounds for criticism from either side.
Sean, you said “I
Not really. There is help for those who do that.
It’s called Euthanasia.
Anyone who marches around putting up signs proclaiming “Israel @ 60: Celebrating Genocide” is beyond help.
Sickening.
Throw who?