Midnight Oil

[Powderworks] NMOC: Glitch's comments

Julian Shaw julian@monkeyfamily.freeserve.co.uk
Sun, 24 Mar 2002 11:22:09 -0000


Can of worms...

I don't know why I felt I had to reply to this but I too found these
comments a little biased.

<<With all due respect (I do enjoy your posts), you need more information on
the 1982 "massacre" in the Palestinian refugee camps.  The mere fact that
the UN General Assembly condemned these actions by Israel's surrogates
proves nothing, except that a majority of the nations are anti-Israel and/or
anti-Semitic (there are more Muslim nations and Muslims than there are
Israelis and Jews in the world).  This was not the first time or the last
time the UN has scolded Israel.  But look at the source of the condemnation.
It's entirely political and thus objectively meaningless.>>

How can you try and explain away a massacre of 3,000 people (many women and
children) by saying it was politically condemned?!?! You even have the gall
to put "" around the word massacre! Do you not think it happened? Or do you
just have no heart?? These were people! Some may have been terrorists. I
don't know and I don't need to know. Whatever the context I find it
impossible to believe there is ANY justification for this terrible act in
which thousands of innocents died. Too many times in this world people
dismiss evil acts by saying "look at the context" or "look at the history of
this country" or "it's all political". It is views like these that have
created apologists for Robert Mugabe and Mr Milosovic. Evil is evil no
matter what the context!

<<War is hell, and the Sabra incident was hellish and inexcusable.  But if
those pictures disturb you, perhaps you need to look at pictures of Israeli
citizens blown to bits or peppered with nails from a suicide bomb while they
shopped or ate pizza with their families.  So long as the Palestinians
engage in terrorism targeted at citizens, Israel will not stop its military
incursions into the so-called Palestinian territory.  Please note that
Israel always targets military and/or political locations and personnel,
which is permissible in "war."  Although citizens are also killed and
wounded, the numbers relatively small, and the point is that at least Israel
doesn't intend to kill them, as the terrorists do Israeli citizens.  Why is
it that the Palestinians continue to whine about Israel's violations of the
Oslo Accord, when their terrorism is the fundamental and primary violation
of the Accord?>>

Both sets of pictures would disturb me. Both are disgusting. Why do you need
to qualify it and put all this into the argument? I feel for Israel as a
lone democracy in a sea of dictatorships. I wish Israel good luck but from
what I hear about this situation in the British press Israel is acting
pretty stupidly. The destruction of the infrastructure of The Palestinian
Authority, for example the blowing up of police stations, will not help
Arafat to lock away the perpetrators and ring leaders of the terrorist
groups. What's more Israel is carrying out extrajudicial executions of
people it suspects of either committing crimes or going to commit a crime.
This is inexcusable and should never happen.

I find it offensive when you try and play the numbers game on the number of
deaths but if you were to go down that path I think you would find that
Israel has killed a lot more people with it's tanks, guns, bazookas and
airplanes than the poorly armed Palestinians have with their home made bombs
and stones.

<<Until they learn to negotiate in good faith, something Arafat has never
done, and to play by the rules of western civilization, peace will not be
achieved.
To support the Palestinians' actions means one is either Arab/Muslim or
woefully misinformed.  Just as the US is entitled to respond to the
September 11 terrorist attacks, Israel is entitled to protect itself from
Palestinian terrorism.  For the record, I am not a total Israel apologist; I
think they should pull out of all occupied territories and give the
settlements (which should never have been established) to the Palestinians.
They need to get back onto firm moral ground in this dispute.  The Gallup
Poll just did a survey which found that 55% of Americans support Israel,
while only 14% support Arafat et al. (the other 31% presumably have no
opinion or just don't care).  But Arafat's negative rating is 73%, the
highest it has ever been.  And rightly so.>>

 If you are wanting to base the legitimacy of Israel's actions on "America
has the right to defend itself, so has Israel" well yes Israel has that
right. But the way they respond is the crucial thing. It depends on whether
you think America always acts in a legitimate way. The US is not the ideal
role model when it comes to human rights and has in fact violated
international treaties. I'm not being a US basher here (honest!) but if you
think the logical conclusion to all this is that Bush may nuke Iraq (which
wouldn't be such a huge leap at the moment) than you could say that Israel
should nuke Arafat.

I'm not excusing the Palestinians, Arabs or terrorists of any kind here.
They have some very evil people amongst them who use religion and violence
as tools to hold onto power. They commit terrible and inexcusable acts. But
there was no need for the 'my massacre is worse than your massacre' attitude
which I read in your post.

Thanks and apologies if I offended anyone.

(...just stepping down from my high horse...)

Julian Lewis Shaw
Man, Myth or Monkey? Find out:
http://www.jlshaw.co.uk