Israeli Blockade: Who didn't see this coming?

[Pablo]

[Jack_Ian]

[JF*]

[Nsof]

First I want to thank everyone for contributing to the discussion, i have and still am enjoying it (not the correct term but closest i could find). I really appreciate the effort participants put into this.

[Nsof]

[Nsof]

[Samadhi]

An interesting quote by Thomas Sowell.

[Nsof]

unfortunately i am going for two days to do reserve duty and so wont be able to continue this until later.
Pablo, you will be surprised to learn how much i do understand your opinion. The fact that i disagree with you does not mean i dont understand you. (think on what it would imply if "disagree with you means didn't understand you". you are not all knowing)
_________________
Will sell this place for beer

[extropalopakettle]

[Pablo]

[Pablo]

[Jack_Ian]

[Pablo]

Good try, Jack. A for effort.
_________________
All religions are the same - Guilt....just with different holidays.

[Termital]

Brevity Point Taken. Still big, but covers much more ground.

Antrax: Palestinian Onomastics
State trappings do not a people make (Gypsies, Okinawans, Jews, Kurds). Nativity need not correspond to administrative barriers ( Indians, current Athenians, the whole colonial world). Care to suggest another name? Am I just to forget non-Jews used to live there in large numbers for ever?
Also agreed: colonies aren't countries, but current Gaza mess isn't closer.

Antrax:98
"They wanted to provoke a clash": Word, but provocateurs on trawlers hardly constitute a force which can twist any state's arm.

Antrax/Nsof: Tariffs
Excuse the digression, but could someone enlighten me on the rationale behind Art.10 (currency and tariffs) of the Separation Plan? Esp. the legislated asymmetry in Gaza - rest of Israel trade.

Nsof: Rocket fire
Antrax suggested that disruptive as they are, rockets are minimally fatal. Thus a lot of past military response has had grossly disproportional results, and rockets were still around. Again acc. to Antrax, the blockade isn't really helping. However, it makes life on the strip even more miserable. So while you are within your rights to defend yourselves, you aren't doing a stellar job, just hurting lots of people a lot.

Rockets need money and ground to launch them from. Since you're not really increasing much the cost of an already hot commodity, and it is most likely externally financed anyhow, you're not scoring there yet. Perhaps you need to get on the other end of the pipeline. Get those crack spies and US surveillance to find and publicise routes and depots abroad. Money trails too. Some backers are currently interested in improving relations with the West, so work the diplomatic channels for once. Some (e.g. Iran) may not care, some (e.g. Syria) may prove pliable. Alternatively, you could wield a carrot on the damaged north of the strip, taking some land out of the equation. It's not like current damages and countermeasures are free. This may need the intervention of trusted dispensers (Jordan if you can get them), can range from food or micro loans to factories or hospitals right on the border region. Give'em something to lose, and something to consider before militarising their chicken coop.

Pablo: Money trails
Florida constituency is well and good, but how about...
US gives Israel money -> Israel uses money to buy from US, mostly guns -> Pork barrels / graft from added profit push through next year's aid.
And even..
Palestinian mess radicalises opposition in various middle Eastern regimes -> Said regimes crave more guns -> US takes their orders and some oil concessions in the process.

Pablo: Relocating Israelis
Isn't that what got us in this mess in the first place? Why would second time around be different? I could be wrong, but all uninhabited land is uninhabitable. Not to mention that countries are more than land, even more than added value (infrastructure, resources) spread on land. I don't find letting Israelis die a palatable option either, no matter what their hand in making their bed.

Israeli solution: One state
...if only because the logistics of it seem so much simpler than other alternatives. You don't get a nation-state to call your own, you get a long term averaging of prosperity (crucially offset by the peace divident), you get a symmetric expansion/constriction of the law of return, and you get to share the neighbourhood, school and voting booth with your brother's killer. Bitter as these points may be, they are finite in number and tractable in scope. In return, you get the highest possible guarantee of internal and external security. Of course, none of the current rulers of any side would be relevant in such a context, so fat chance.
However, more painful rounds of exoduses, relocations, and just plain culling, to achieve racial purity along continuous map lines, then more of the same to make them desirable lines, doesn't appeal to me. At best, you would get a destitute, non-functioning Palestine state neighbouring an Israel where head honchos are also the top brass. I don't see how that not-so-radical change would lead to stability and peace. In this case, electing Hamas may be a blessing in disguise iff you can somehow get them to negotiate. Big iff, but it's their word that matters now, so it's nice that it's more straightforward getting it.

Jack_Ian:
Well spoken. Time and again.
_________________
_{Better ways to push & pull!}

[Samadhi]

[Pablo]

[Pablo]

[casinopete*]

[casinopete*]

[Jack_Ian]

[Antrax]

I will have to return to this discussion soon, I'm a bit overwhelmed by the amount of directions it has suddenly taken. However, I was planning to stop the whole quote-quote style of posting, because it's getting too long.
After writing several posts here and reading the responses, I think I can try to succinctly summarise what I'm actually trying to say (I would have done so earlier, but I don't think I understood what I'm on about until several challenges from people here). Basically, I'm going against the perception that if Palestenians are victims, Israel must be abusive. It is my belief that both nations (people, countries, whatever) are victims, and in retrospect most of what I wrote was an attempt to show that Israel isn't fighting some holy war or trying to extend its influence on other people, but that it's engaged in a fight for survival after exhausting all other options. That's not making the point that the Palestenians are evil, because they're not. The notion that there must be one side that's the aggressor is a false dichotomy, IMO, and one that people seem to subscribe to.

So that's one point. As for US support, I could make two points about that. First of all, it wasn't that big of a deal until 73, so saying that we depend on US support is patently false. Currently we take aid from the US. If we didn't have it, we'd probably get aid from someone else (as we did in the past), or fend for ourselves (as we did before that - see the arab boycott), or die. I can't really guess which, as the world is constantly changing. A more important point is that I don't think it's aid. I think beyond the obvious economy stimulation, US interests are served by the existence of a friendly Israel, if only for the lightning rod effect.

As for the creative solutions, quite seriously, I said since I was about 16 and I still believe today, being a part of America would've been great. We have a similar consumerist mentality and most cultural trends are imported from the US after a time. There was also another solution proposed around 48, Israel could've been founded in Uganda. I wonder how that would have went. Too late to find out now. To say that Israel was founded based on religion and prophecies and whatnot is taking a very narrow view. I'm not sure how interesting the history of population here is, but after an initial wave of religious people, the next waves were actually European socialists trying to realise their ideals. Those people, as well as the people whose sole purpose is to prevent a second holocaust, wouldn't have really cared if it's Israel, Uganda or Northern America they would've gotten. So, don't write us off as fanatics, because the average citizen isn't.
However, I don't really think it's possible to transport an entire country. It would be an interesting attempt, one I would subscribe to, but it's not really grounded in reality (though it does happen on a small scale, many people emigrate when they decide they can't take it here any longer. My parents, for instance).

I think those are the main three vectors this discussion is headed in. The rest I'll have to get back to.

And BTW, Death Mage and casinopete, I appreciate the support but you should realise that I personally believe some amount of torturing Palestenians for the heck of it goes on all the time. Israel has the big picture stuff alright, but there are a hundred petty nuisances that I personally see no justification for except for a sort of bureaucratic evil. The blockade was 100% matter-of-fact until the Gilad Shalit incident, but the banned list grew since then and I seriously doubt you can build bunkers or make explosives with Coriander, for instance, and there are many more ridiculous items forbidden. Again, this would've exploded in the government's face, except the recent incidents push everyone into a sort of frenzied patriotism. Of course, when the US does it (say, in Iran) the blame lies with the US, but when Turkey does it for us, the blame lies with Israel. This is the kind of thinking I'm wary of, that the stronger side must be wrong. There's people everywhere, they're motivated by the same thing, and everybody make everybody else miserable. My earlier posts were an attempt to see if there's really a consistent moral principal beyond that, and frankly, I haven't seen one.
_________________
After years of disappointment with get rich quick schemes, I know I'm gonna get rich with this scheme. And quick!

[Samadhi]

[Jack_Ian]

[Zag]

I'm curious how much people think that the situation in Northern Ireland is like the situation in the Mideast. The latter seems far more intractable, to me, but I'm willing to believe that is my own prejudices. These are the reasons that I think so, but some of them might simply be wrong.

1. The general populace is less educated.
2. The propaganda is even more divorced from reality, yet because of #1, many common people believe it.
3. The culture is to have longer memories of injuries. I know that people talked about slights to grandparents in Ireland, but I understand that people talk about slights to 3Xgreat grandparents in the Mideast. (Is this accurate?)

[JF*]

[extro...*]

[JF*]

[Zag]

[JF*]

To me it's analogous to:

"How long would you picnic under a yellow jacket hive before you decided to move?" You could:

A. Throw stones at the nest until they moved (not likely)
B. Ignore them and accept occasional stinging
C. Move your blanket far away
D. Wait for the yellow jackets to evolve into a non-stinging species

Maybe I am seeing things to practically, but I am choosing C every time. When it comes to people shelling my homeland/neighborhood, the decision is even easier to make.

[JF*]

[LordKinbote]

[Jack_Ian]

The problems in Northern Ireland were also thought of as "Intractable", and it came as a massive surprise to all concerned how quickly peace took hold once the peace train actually started moving.
I think that the problems in the Mideast are more complex though, given the many powerful agendas involved.
A major start here was when the British declared that they have no selfish strategic or economic interest in Northern Ireland. This essentially left it up to the people themselves to work it out.
A similar declaration from Iran, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, etc. would be helpful.
Jerusalem will also be a major stumbling block. I know Antrax maintains that religious fervour and biblical geography are not a driving concern, but the current policy of colonising Jerusalem indicates otherwise and the desire for both parties to have it as their Capital is not going to be easy to accomodate. ATM, only the U.S. recognises Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Everyone else still only recognises Tel Aviv, and considers Jerusalem to be part of the occupied territories that would need to be returned as part of an overall settlement. I suspect that some sort of joint jurisdiction including Palestine, Jordan and Israel will be involved in the final resolution of this issue.

One of the precursors to peace here, was the cooperation "on the ground" of the various factions. The statements and rhetoric of the leaders was still the same, but at grass roots level, the various factions got on with the business of local governance and commerce. Businesses were beginning to work together for mutual benefit. Relationships were formed across the divide and these relationships served to provide the glue that held everything together. This was not an easy thing to do, as fraternising with "the enemy" was likely to get you shot. This is one of the issues I have with the "Peace Wall". It may be a barrier to smugglers, but it is also a major barrier to peace and has resulted in the breaking of communication between the various sides. It has also prevented commerce from flourishing and so Israeli "occupation" loses all the benefits and is seen only as a negative.

I think it's easy to forget how things actually were back then. I've picked two stories semi-randomly from 1997 from a newspaper known for it's political support of Sinn Féin and the IRA. Enforced Curfew and Sniper kills Soldier. This was during a time of relative peace, when talks were under way to create "The Good Friday Agreement". I was unable to access earlier archives when things were much worse. I suspect that they were removed due to the incendiary language in them which has no place now in the political rhetoric.

Failure to acknowledge Israel's right to exist is solely a bargaining chip. I know it seems incredibly hostile and that some fanatics actually believe in it, but realism will overtake such nonsense and the acknowledgment will come as part of some "quid pro quo". The Republic of Ireland was not recognised as a valid state and likewise its legal system etc. but eventually all of these were acknowledged to the point where even the British Police of NI were recognised in 2007. Nobody in their right mind would have ever thought they would witness such a statement from Sinn Féin.

So don't give up hope. Peace is possible. Not easy, but certainly possible.

[Jack_Ian]

I edited this by mistake instead of adding a new post. As such Quailman is responding to a post that no longer exists.

It went something along the lines of…

[Quailman]

How is that working out with the Taliban in Afghanistan? Isn't Hamid Karzai trying to involve the Taliban in political talks, and aren't they staying away, preferring instead to continue their boming campaign?

[Jack_Ian]

Nobody could accuse the Taliban of "empowering individuals to provide them with an opportunity to pursue happiness and success".
Religious fervour is probably the most intractable of problems as it normally involves a suspension of logic.
But for the Taliban, they are more likely to remain powerful in this way. They have nothing to gain by joining a secular regime.
What would make them decide to stop? The promise of an Islamic State.
What would make them irrelevant? The education of their grass roots.

I really wish Saudi Arabia would create some sort of Islamic Council that could decree official Islamic policy. Having anyone who can read set themselves up as God's spokesperson, really makes it difficult to counter some of these regimes.

[JF*]

[Pablo]

[Samadhi]

[Samadhi]

FWIW I do think there is a huge difference between the IRA - UK conflict and the Gaza(and all other middle east countries really) - Israel conflicts. The Irish situation was almost purely political. Culturally Irish, Welsh, English, Pict (?) are all very much the same (ok not Picts).

The latter is entirely cultural. That fundamentalist culture is causing problems everywhere. Honor killings are just the most egregious example and this happens in western countries. Threatening people who draw mohammed with death? I don't think you can over come this with the same meetings of minds that the Irish and the UK did.

If it weren't Hamas in charge...maybe. But they are a vile death cult. They fit right into the pages of 1984. Except for the 2 minutes of hate, Goldstein is all the Jews.
_________________
And he lived happily ever after. Except for the dieing at the end and the heartbreak in between.

[Antrax]

Pablo, the point I was trying to make is that "your way" was also tried several times and failed. That's the cause for desperation. Moving everyone out wasn't tried, but I don't think it's feasible. My own pet plan is to have a large country conquer the entire region and then force peace on both sides, or maybe have aliens invade and we have to unite to stop them. I don't see anything short of that working during my lifetime, as every reasonable permutation of attempts has already been tried.
And I still don't get the "killing Antrax" comment.
_________________
After years of disappointment with get rich quick schemes, I know I'm gonna get rich with this scheme. And quick!