israel responds to terrorism by killing civilians

[DogOnPorch]

Yah - I remember...but what did he do in the navy.......certainly he did not wash the decks.

Maybe he hung out the washing on the Siegfried Line...ask him.

[Bob]

Israel should be open for all...all should be welcomed to visit or live in this old holy place. If you are not Jewish - you are not as fully welcomed as you might like to be...of course Judaism is exclusive - and they do exclude.

You know, most of the things you say make absolutely no sense.

[Saipan]

Well, you can continue to claim that Gaza isn't occupied.

Unlike Tibet "gaza" was never a country, anymore than Ozarkia is.

[Jonsa]

Unlike Tibet "gaza" was never a country, anymore than Ozarkia is.

and exactly how is that relevant?

[Saipan]

and exactly how is that relevant?

How do you occupy non-existent country?

Did Serbs occupy their own province?

[bud]

I didn't think anyone would be given a break from your dishonest posts, but it was worth a try.

I didn't "question" it at all. There is nothing to question. I said you have no idea what he thinks/feels. You can't put yourself inside his head. The only way you would know that he didn't care about civilian deaths is if he said he didn't care about civilian deaths, and he has never said any such thing; and that includes in your video. He did not say what you claim he said. Furthermore, if you think there's a politician on this planet who doesn't speak differently when the camera is on them, if you think there is or ever has been a politician who hasn't said anything 'deceitful' when the cameras aren't on them, you're pretty ignorant of what goes on in the real world of politics.

An honest person would not post the misleading/altered/B.S. that you post, or claim to know what goes on inside another's head, but fortunately intelligent people don't fall for it; they call you on it and roll their eyes knowing that you'll continue pushing your agenda by whatever means you feel necessary.

Case in point. Your video. Netanyahu doesn't say what you claim he said at all. The He says nothing about "carnage." Even the translation in the video is deceptive. He is speaking of "the Arabs" who "are currently focusing a war of terror," and speaks of how Israel must "hit them." That's what he says. "The main thing, first of all, is to hit them." Then [the Palestinians] is added, in brackets, as if that's what he said/was talking about. Obviously he was not speaking of Palestinian civilians but of "the Arabs currently focusing a war of terror." Unless you think that the Palestinian civilians fall into that category? He then goes on to speak about the Palestinian Authority, ie: the government, which we all know is NOT the same as "Palestinians;" we've certainly heard a thousand times that "the U.S. government" and "Americans" are two very different things. And even when speaking of the Palestinian Authority there is nothing about "carnage" or killing.

But do keep pushing your agenda/BS. Perhaps there are some out there who are falling for it. At least you can always hope .........

oops. there you go again typing bs. here is the transcript. it's your word against bibi's words:

Note in the first passage how Bibi brags that he has America wrapped around his thumb. The cynicism is breathtaking. Here is Dena Shunra’s translation:

Bibi:…The Arabs are currently focusing on a war of terror and they think it will break us. The main thing, first of all, is to hit them. Not just one blow, but blows that are so painful that the price will be too heavy to be borne. The price is not too heavy to be borne, now. A broad attack on the Palestinian Authority. To bring them to the point of being afraid that everything is collapsing…

Woman: Wait a moment, but then the world will say “how come you’re conquering again?”

Netanyahu: the world won’t say a thing. The world will say we’re defending.

Woman: Aren’t you afraid of the world, Bibi?

Netanyahu: Especially today, with America. I know what America is. America is something that can easily be moved. Moved to the right direction.

Child: They say they’re for us, but, it’s like…

Netanyahu: They won’t get in our way. They won’t get in our way.

Child: On the other hand, if we do some something, then they…

Netanyahu: So let’s say they say something. So they said it! They said it! 80% of the Americans support us. It’s absurd. We have that kind of support and we say “what will we do with the…” Look. That administration [Clinton] was extremely pro-Palestinian. I wasn’t afraid to maneuver there. I was not afraid to clash with Clinton. I was not afraid to clash with the United Nations. I was paying the price anyway, I preferred to receive the value. Value for the price.

In the following segment, Bibi boasts about how he emptied the Oslo Accords of meaning by an interpretation that made a mockery of them:

Woman: The Oslo Accords are a disaster.

Netanyahu: Yes. You know that and I knew that…The people [nation] has to know…

What were the Oslo Accords? The Oslo Accords, which the Knesset signed, I was asked, before the elections: “Will you act according to them?” and I answered: “yes, subject to mutuality and limiting the retreats.” “But how do you intend to limit the retreats?” “I’ll give such interpretation to the Accords that will make it possible for me to stop this galloping to the ’67 [armistice] lines. How did we do it?

Narrator: The Oslo Accords stated at the time that Israel would gradually hand over territories to the Palestinians in three different pulses, unless the territories in question had settlements or military sites. This is where Netanyahu found a loophole.

Netanyahu: No one said what defined military sites. Defined military sites, I said, were security zones. As far as I’m concerned, the Jordan Valley is a defined military site.

Woman: Right [laughs]…The Beit She’an Valley.

Netanyahu: How can you tell. How can you tell? But then the question came up of just who would define what Defined Military Sites were. I received a letter – to my and to Arafat, at the same time – which said that Israel, and only Israel, would be the one to define what those are, the location of those military sites and their size. Now, they did not want to give me that letter, so I did not give the Hebron Agreement. I stopped the government meeting, I said: “I’m not signing.” Only when the letter came, in the course of the meeting, to my and to Arafat, only then did I sign the Hebron Agreement. Or rather, ratify it, it had already been signed. Why does this matter? Because at that moment I actually stopped the Oslo Accord.

Woman: And despite that, one of our own people, excuse me, who knew it was a swindle, and that we were going to commit suicide with the Oslo Accord, gives them – for example – Hebron…

Netanyahu: Indeed, Hebron hurts. It hurts. It’s the thing that hurts. One of the famous rabbis, whom I very much respect, a rabbi of Eretz Yisrael, he said to me: “What would your father say?” I went to my father. Do you know a little about my father’s position?

…He’s not exactly a lily-white dove, as they say. So my father heard the question and said: “Tell the rabbi that your grandfather, Rabbi Natan Milikowski, was a smart Jew. Tell him it would be better to give two percent than to give a hundred percent. And that’s the choice here. You gave two percent and in that way you stopped the withdrawal. Instead of a hundred percent.” The trick is not to be there and be broken. The trick is to be there and pay a minimal price.

Here are a few of Levy’s choice characterizations of Bibi’s performance in this video:

…Israel has had many rightist leaders since Menachem Begin…but there has never been one like Netanyahu, who wants to do it by deceit, to mock America, trick the Palestinians and lead us all astray. The man in the video betrays himself in his own words as a con artist, and now he is again prime minister of Israel. Don’t try to claim that he has changed since then. Such a crooked way of thinking does not change over the years.

Forget the Bar-Ilan University speech…this is the real Netanyahu. No more claims that the Palestinians are to blame for the failure of the Oslo Accords. Netanyahu exposed the naked truth to his hosts at Ofra: he destroyed the Oslo accords with his own hands and deeds, and he’s even proud of it. After years in which we were told that the Palestinians are to blame, the truth has emerged from the horse’s mouth.

…The government of Israel is led by a man who…thinks that Washington is in his pocket and that he can pull the wool over its eyes.

[DogOnPorch]

Oh, yawn...2001...a casual conversation with a family. This is from a poster who'll try to tell the viewing audience that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem is some sort of cup-cake you can buy at Timmy's. I've seen others of your ilk try to make like this was the Second Coming of Dave Thomas of Wendy's fame. This is all you can muster these days? Time to go back to I-8-Zionists school 4 U.

[Guest American Woman]

oops. there you go again typing bs. here is the transcript. it's your word against bibi's words:

If it's bs, it's your bs. You're the one who posted the video I quoted from. Here's exactly what your video transcript says:

"The Arabs are currently focusing a war of terror and they think it will break us. The main thing, first of all, is to hit them [the palestinians]. "

Which is exactly what I posted. Netanyahu didn't say "Palestinians," he said "Arabs ... currently focusing a war of terror." So I'll ask again: do you think "Arabs currently focusing a war of terror"is synonymous with "Palestinians?"

Edited April 4, 2011 by American Woman

[Rue]

You know, most of the things you say make absolutely no sense.

You realize you just complemented Mr. Bach. More to the point I wouldn't advertise your intellectual limitations so quickly.

Its called sardonic humour. I know it zips past your little world of literal, rigid, stunted prose.

Now get back to your Israel is poo chants. You'll tax yourself and hurt something.

Edited April 4, 2011 by Rue

[Rue]

Note in the first passage how Bibi brags that he has America wrapped around his thumb. The cynicism is breathtaking. Here is Dena Shunra’s translation:

Bibi:…The Arabs are currently focusing on a war of terror and they think it will break us. The main thing, first of all, is to hit them. Not just one blow, but blows that are so painful that the price will be too heavy to be borne. The price is not too heavy to be borne, now. A broad attack on the Palestinian Authority. To bring them to the point of being afraid that everything is collapsing…

Uh yah so where is the reference to Americans and his thumb? See your problem Buddy Boy is you can't tell the difference between the actual words and what you feel they should mean. That is the repeating defect in all your responses. You can't seem to differentiate between what people actually say or what the facts are, and what you want them both to be. You interchange your subjective fancy with reality and suggest reality has been altered by your consciousness.

Thanks I will take Mr. Bach's world any day. Unlike you he understands Alice in Wonderland as a parable not holy book of war. don't look now Buddy but you really do need to climb down off of your narcissistic tower of proclaimed reality. Yer just another delusional ranter to some of us.

As for Bibi here's a little hint-he's engaging in what we call bravado. Its not meant to be taken literally by his audience. It has coded words embedded in it for Hamas and Hezbollah. Try find out what they might me. Oh you can do it. You might have to strain yourself a bit but you can do it. First have some prunes though.

[Saipan]

Here is Dena Shunra’s translation

Dena is full of it.

[bloodyminded]

I missed the part with the children's names and ages. Anyways, the fact remains is that we're often placed in the position where it's us or them. Don't you get that? The people the IDF goes after murder Israelis and Jews around the world, and they certainly target children. We have to make that choice - either we kill these terrorists who are completely embedded within the civilian population and do our best to reduce harm to civilians, or we allow them to continue to operate with impunity and murdering us. That's what things boil down to. If I am ever in the situation where I have to choose between us and them, I will never flinch and make that decision one hundred times over. Killing terrorists like Yassin *saves lives*. Either way, the IDF monitors those is targets for assassination and does its best to find the best and safest opportunities to carry out its operations.

A pretty roundabout way to change your stated postion: that you doubted the "innocence" of the children who were killed.

It's a good thing a person like you isn't responsible for making these kinds of decisions.

Then I'm glad you have discovered a silver lining in this discussion.

[bloodyminded]

Short on time at the moment, so I'll just address this portion of your post for now.

I think it's a fair statement to say that people/nations hope to accomplish their intention with their actions, wouldn't you agree? Therefore, if one's intent is to kill civilians, and just the target is killed, one wouldn't have accomplished what one intended, right? And I think we can both agree that that's hardly the case in the situation(s) we are discussing. Quite the opposite. I don't see how anyone could argue differently.

And yet I do argue differently. If I choose to kill my neighbour, andf so blow up his house; and if I am aware that his children are present (or even if I know they might be); then yes, I am intentionally killing them. (The courts would agree with this summation, no doubt.) But the children were not the targets; the childen were not the purpose for my attack. I might even have preferred that the children were not home. And if they weren't, I would have considered my mission a success. It's a success either way, because my purpose (to kill my neighbour) has been successful.

[bloodyminded]

You're playing the game of semantics, and losing. Intending to do one thing doesn't mean you necessarily intend to do all associated likelihoods. If I apply for a job that you also applied for, and I secure the position, did I intentionally deny you work? By your twisted logic, yes. Your desperation at drawing false moral equivalence between the conduct of the IDF and that of the terrorists is really showing in this post.

No, you're playing with semantics. I'm simply stating the truth.

If I carry out an action, and know that inncoent people will (or even are likely to) die in the course of mya ction, then I have intentionally killed them.

That's elementary logic. And I'm not sure why you're so hostile to it; even though we're currently speaking of Israel, the logic has nothing to do with Israel; it applies broadly.

[bloodyminded]

Now, Israel generally tries to minimize civilian casualties, whether out of a sincere sense of wanting to spare civilians or, more cynically, because civilian casualties give bad PR. Either way, it is in Israel's interest to reduce civilian casualties. But when intelligence says that a target is somewhere inside an apartment building and killing that target ASAP is a high priority, the only way to ensure that the target will be killed is by doing something that is has a high probability to kill whoever may be in the building. That means other people in the building will also be killed. There is a price to be paid when dealing with terrorists, and civilian casualties are part of that price, as is the bad PR that goes along with inflicting such casualties.

But justification or the lack thereof is a separate argument.

You're in agreement with me and Jonsa on this point. The people with whom you're disputing are Bob and American Woman.

Edited April 5, 2011 by bloodyminded

[Oleg Bach]

You know, most of the things you say make absolutely no sense.

Heaven forbid some one call you an anti-semite for stating that Jews - are racists who put their own clan first and all others are secondary if not expendable.

[Bonam]

And yet I do argue differently. If I choose to kill my neighbour, andf so blow up his house; and if I am aware that his children are present (or even if I know they might be); then yes, I am intentionally killing them. (The courts would agree with this summation, no doubt.) But the children were not the targets; the childen were not the purpose for my attack. I might even have preferred that the children were not home. And if they weren't, I would have considered my mission a success. It's a success either way, because my purpose (to kill my neighbour) has been successful.

I don't think I wanna be your neighbour

[Bonam]

But justification or the lack thereof is a separate argument.

It is, and I addressed it in the paragraph immediately preceding the one you quoted:

Given that the terrorist posed a threat to Israel and to the lives of Israeli citizens, and that the first priority of a government should be to safeguard the lives of its people, Israel had only one morally correct choice, which was to eradicate the threat, and it carried it out.

[M.Dancer]

It is, and I addressed it in the paragraph immediately preceding the one you quoted:

Given that the terrorist posed a threat to Israel and to the lives of Israeli citizens, and that the first priority of a government should be to safeguard the lives of its people, Israel had only one morally correct choice, which was to eradicate the threat, and it carried it out.

A position protected by the Geneva convention articles of war.

[Guest American Woman]

But justification or the lack thereof is a separate argument.

You're in agreement with me and Jonsa on this point. The people with whom you're disputing are Bob and American Woman.

I doubt very much that Bonam's in agreement that Israel is targeting civilians. I'll await his response.

[Guest American Woman]

And yet I do argue differently. If I choose to kill my neighbour, andf so blow up his house; and if I am aware that his children are present (or even if I know they might be); then yes, I am intentionally killing them. (The courts would agree with this summation, no doubt.) But the children were not the targets; the childen were not the purpose for my attack. I might even have preferred that the children were not home. And if they weren't, I would have considered my mission a success. It's a success either way, because my purpose (to kill my neighbour) has been successful.

If the children were not the targets, and you would have preferred that the children weren't at home, then you were not targeting the children; just as Israel does not target civilians.

[Bonam]

I doubt very much that Bonam's in agreement that Israel is targeting civilians. I'll await his response.

I think it's a semantic argument which is why I haven't plunged into it too deeply. Certainly, it does not "target" them. Whether it kills them "intentionally" is a matter of the interpretation of the word "intentional": I think that they are likely sometimes considered an acceptable side effect of an operation, if the target is of a high enough value. While not ideal, such side effects are morally acceptable in the defense of one's nation. This is of course the same consideration ANY country makes when carrying out military operations.

Edited April 5, 2011 by Bonam

[Black Dog]

If the children were not the targets, and you would have preferred that the children weren't at home, then you were not targeting the children; just as Israel does not target civilians.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Israel doesn't intentionally target civilians.

They just don't really care if they happen to bag a few in the process.

[Guest American Woman]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Israel doesn't intentionally target civilians.

They just don't really care if they happen to bag a few in the process.

Some here have said that Israel targets civilians, and that includes bloodyminded, thus my response directed at him. Whether or not the "care if they happen to bag a few in the process" requires getting into someone else's head, which is impossible, and thus not a productive argument.

[M.Dancer]

Some here have said that Israel targets civilians, and that includes bloodyminded, thus my response directed at him. Whether or not the "care if they happen to bag a few in the process" requires getting into someone else's head, which is impossible, and thus not a productive argument.

I'm sure they care...but sometimes the value of the target outweighs the civilian loss....this is a principal outlined in the Geneva convention.

The presence or movements of the civilian population or individual civilians shall not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations, in particular in attempts to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield, favor or impede military operations. The Parties to the conflict shall not direct the movement of the civilian population or individual civilians in order to attempt to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield military operations.