It's amazing to me that an atrocity committed by Christians (in response to Palestinian terrorism that included the blowing up of their leader) is always blamed on the Israelis.

The Israeli government established the Kahan Commission to investigate Sabra and Shatila--a little different from celebrating it with gunfire and handing out sweets to children, as the Palestinians do whenever there is an atrocity against Israeli civilians. The commission subsequently found Israel indirectly responsible for the event. The report said that Israeli commanders should have recognized the possibility of a revenge attempt, and not permitted Phalangists into the camps. Ariel Sharon was found to bear personal responsibility for "ignoring the danger of bloodshed and revenge" and for "not taking appropriate measures to prevent bloodshed." The commission recommended that Sharon be removed as head of the Defence Ministry, and he was.

The Sharon who became PM at the end of his life was a different man, as everyone knows.

Atrocities committed in Gaza are going to be investigated. The men who committed them will not be national heroes. Samir is a national hero. It's a difference.

For a bit of perspective, Professor, the word is now out, spoken by IDF soldiers who didn't like being ordered to shoot mothers and children, and elderly ladies, in a debriefing at the Oranim Academic College in northern Israel.

'Israeli human rights organisations ... called for an independent investigation and complained that the military police inquiry had only been announced after Haaretz published the story, "three weeks after the relevant materials reached the Chief of the General Staff. This tardiness follows a pattern of failures to investigate suspicions of serious crimes'.

For more details, see http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israels-dirty-secrets-in-gaza-1649527.html and doubtless other sources on the web.

How long will you ignore this, Professor?  And how long will you fail to admit that German refugees can return to Poland, Romania, and the Czech republic?  How long will you fail to understand that the EU is living proof of the success of talk, negotiation, and accommodation instead of demonisation and bellicosity?

Above all, how long will you continue to deny reality, that neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis are going away, and the only hope for the future is talk rather than war?

Clear skies!

For a bit of perspective, readers should consider the widerspread and official idolization of the murderer Samir Quntar, who killed an israeli father before the eyes of his four year old daughter and then bashed the child's skull in. Though a Lebanese, Samir received honorary Palestinian citizenship from the PA in 2006—and received a hero's welcome from Hezbollah in 2008 when this intentional murderer of children was released in a prisoner-exchange.

My evidence about the vile Palestinian and Hezbollah exaltation of the vile child-murderer Samir Kuntar is the NY Times, July 17, 2008.

Anyone who doubts that:

1) there were serious abuses (effectively murder) in Gaza perpetrated by elements of the IDF, and

2) not all the IDF are tarred with the same brush, and that there are Jews of conscience in the world at large, in Israel, and yes, in the IDF as well, who are not happy with this conduct,

would do well to look at the report given in the BBC at

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7952603.stm

Reports from an Israeli military college.  Reports given by Israeli soldiers who were there.  Reports of "an unusually high intervention by military and non-military rabbis, who
circulated pamphlets describing the war in religious terminology".

Defence Minister Barak: "the findings will be examined seriously".

Time will tell how seriously; previous experience tells us not to hold our breath.

Clear skies!

1. Big C, on Wednesday, replying to my argument that the Palestinians instead of taking the deal they were offered in 2000/2001 instead began the suicide bombing of the Second Intifada, here is what you replied:

Prof E: "What else could the Palestinians DO, in the face of such provocation [i.e., the Israeli peace deal of 2000/2001], but start blowing up hundreds of Israeli civilians, women and children mostly, with suicide bombers?"

Big C: "Yes. Why couldn't they just shuffle away and stop being inconveniently in the way of the great Zionist dream?"

This is to defend the Second Intifada.

2. Big C, President Clinton bitterly blamed the Palestinians--not the Israelis--for the failure of the 2000/2001 deal; and Arafat in 2002 blamed himself for not taking it. Your position therefore makes you more irredentist and irresponsible than Arafat himself. As a Turkish friend of mine said: "One-third of the present Turkish population are descendants of Turks expelled from the Balkans and Greece; it's time for the Palestinians to grow up."

3. Every piece of land that the Israelis had before 1948 had been sold to them voluntarily by Arabs, except for east Jerusalem where Jews had lived for 4,000 years (until ethnically cleansed by the military forces of the Amin al-Husseini in winter 1947-1948: remember, genocidal pro-Nazi you denied was the leader of the Palestinians). The rest of the pre-1967 territory consists of territory that was the result of a military victory won when the Jews were attacked by the Palestinians backed by five Arab states. I see no immorality here.

4. I support the Israeli removal of the settlements from the West Bank. The Palestinians were offered a deal on this in which they would get 97% of the WB plus 3% compensation of land elsewhere. They turned it down, and made no counter offer, not because they wanted all the WB (that wasn't their counter offer) but because they cannot live with the idea of Israel: hence, as Clinton says, Arafat's only contribution to the discussions was to deny the existence of the Second Temple (i.e., the one destroyed by Titus). Neither, of course, can you live with the idea of israel, Big C--you've made that clear. But at least Arafat realized he'd made a terrible mistake.

Ethan wonders why these dratted Palestinians won't accept having pleasant, fertile land with good water resources taken away in return for desert.  Why they won't accept Israeli checkpoints and Israeli-only roads on their land, never mind all the other conditions you fail to mention.

Also, I think you'll find that Germans can return to the Czech Republic, Poland, and Romania.  They're all part of the EU, in which there is free movement of people.  By law, an EU citizen can live and work anywhere in the EU on the same terms as a citizen of the country of residence.

Now there's a model for the Israelis and Palestinians.  Why don't you try it?  It only took us a few decades.

Clear skies!

Big C: why couldn't the Palestinians have accepted the independent state offered them on 97% + 3% (I think that equals 100%) of the West Bank, BC? Pretty provocative of the Israelis to make the offer, you say?

Or by "100%" do you really mean the pre-1967 Israel as well? If so, say so.

As for the refugee problem, Germans can't return to the Czech Republic, Poland or Romania, Hindus can't return to Pakistan, Greeks can't return to Egypt, and Jews can't return to Iraq, Libya, Egypt or Tunisia or Yemen (100,000 more Jewish refugees from those places than there were Palestinian refugees in 1948). These tragedies were all the result of the dislocations of the post-war world of which Israel is also one result; but THESE populations have all adjusted. You call it just shuffling away. I call it dealing with reality. The Palestinians had and still have a choice. You support suicide bombing instead, I see. Nice to know.

Iron Mike said it all about Mr. Calder on Saturday 9-14 at 19:45.

Anyone can judge the veracity of what Ethan says by those simple statements below.

He says I "normalize Hamas as an ordinary religious pressure group."

Anyone in any doubt of how Ethan perverts the language, lies about people's positions, modifies reality to suit his own prejudices, and so on has only to read a little further to see what I have been saying.

For the avoidance of doubt, I did not call the IDF "inhuman scum..." etc.  I called those members of the IDF who commited the atrocities, and those who justified them with the breathtakingly arrogant "voluntary human shields" justification, that.

I have repeatedly pointed this out, and Ethan constantly repeats the lie.

He says I claim to be neutral, but my "statements are subject to a quite different interpretation".

The only people who have made that different interpretation are those who, like himself, call me an anti-semite and racist for having the sheer temerity to criticise Israili policy and atrocities.  It is far easier to slander and slur than make reasoned arguments. 

This is a standard tactic of the apologists of Israel.  It stops quite a few people from standing up to them in public, because to be accused of being a racist and anti-semite is not very nice.  People think less of you. 

Sadly for the liars and slanderers of the pro-Israeli lobby, this tactic is starting to wear thin; thanks in part to the many Jews of conscience who themselves are starting to stand up in public and call these people what they are; unrepresentative of Jews as a whole, and themselves often racist thugs with no conscience.

In his other post, we get back to the tired old argument that Israel offered everything but the stupid Arabs refused it all.  Since I've got to get out now to plant the second earlies I shall just quote the good Professor himself.

Give me a break; get real.

Ethan's version of history is as perverted and untrue as his version of current reality.

Clear skies!

Calder writes: "every Israeli action I've seen over the past ten years or so has appeared to be aimed to provoke rather than calm."

I guess offering to give up 97% of the West Bank in 2001, with the other 3% being given as territorial compensation elsewhere, was pretty provocative by the Israelis.

What else could the Palestinians DO, in the face of such provocation, but start blowing up hundreds of Israeli civilians, women and children mostly, with suicide bombers?

Calder, get real. The Israelis are no angels, no state exists that wasn't born in sin, but...I mean, really.

Not only on other threads, but here on this very thread too, Calder has indicated his belief that all (well, here he changed it to most) Palestinian casualties in Gaza were innocents. This gives you a measure of the person. Calder has used the term "inhuman scum without an ounce of decency in their bodies" to describe the IDF, while he normalizes Hamas as an ordinary religious pressure group. He may see himself as always having been neutral, but his statements are subject to a quite different interpretation. For him to move to a median position is indeed an improvement, in my view.

1. Blockade is not control.  No, it isn't, and that's only part of it. The world can choose which of us is closest to Humpty Dumpty.  You call Gaza a state and Hamas a Government.  Who agrees with you?  Not the UN.  Not the USA.  Not the EU.  Not any other Government I know of.  Apparently, the policy of your Mr Netenyahu is against "the establishment of a Palestinian State in the West Bank and Gaza", so it seems he doesn't think it's  a State, either.

2. Israel wants peace, has always wanted peace, and just can't have it because there is no "partner for peace".

Yes, we've all heard that song before. Unfortunately, we have to judge people by their actions, not what they say, and every Israeli action I've seen over the past ten years or so has appeared to be aimed to provoke rather than calm.

For someone who is supposedly looking for peace, repeatedly painting your opponents as a "genocidal death-cult", while sounding good at a political rally or recruiting drive for the troops, is not the best way to search diplomatically for a solution.

You can demonise them as long as you like.  Until you start to talk to them, you're going to continue the violence.

Much as the rest of the world would like to see the antagonists involved eliminate each other a la Kilkenny cats, that would cause too many innocent deaths, and probably embroil the rest of us in your damned war.

Clear skies!

"for Calder, to agree that both sides are grey is a big moral advance for him".

For Ethan to say that is to prove he has no contact with reality, that he deliberately perverts what he reads to fit his own diseased and distorted world-view, that he has no conscience or regard for truth, and that all he cares for is to lie about, slander, and denigrate anyone who does not accept his one-sided dogmatic one-sided creed.  For him to even talk about morals is one of the biggest humbugs I have heard for years.

He knows I have condemned Arab governments and Islamist parties and Hamas, their attitudes, abuses, and atrocities since before he and I started crossing swords.  The evidence for that is on this website.

He knows this because it has been pointed out to him more than once. Yet has continued, again and again, to repeat that I am a supporter of Hamas, that I only "attack" Israel, with "venom" already.

This is dishonest.  Dishonest, because he knows it is untrue, but he continues to repeat it.  Because he wants it to be true, because he has no conscience, because he can't help himself from repeating untruths.

I suppose he will now say that he was welcoming my movement from one-sided support of his opponents to a more median position (which of course, is still wrong, because Israel is pure white).  This is still the same lie, because it assumes that I previously supported the Arab side, which I patently did not.

Clear skies!

1. Blockade is not control, Mr. Calder. It simply isn't. Blocade of a hostile entity is, if anything, proof of the absence of control. English words have meanings, those meanings are not infinitely expansive, and you need to stick to them if we are going to have an intelligent conversation. As it is, you're in the position of a famous character from Alice: “When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."

2. The Israelis are ready to talk peace, made a compromise peace offer in 2000-2001 that was turned down flat by the Palestinians, who did not even offer a counterproposal, President Clinton blamed Arafat for the disaster, and Arafat blamed himself for it (2002). Even today, after the Second Intifada with its suicide bombers and Gaza with its rockets have cut the legs out from under the Israeli left because of what was shown about Palestinian culture becoming a genocidal death-cult, the Israelis are prepared to make "very painful decisions" (Olmert said so yesterday). I assume he means the West Bank, where the settlements were something I always myself opposed.

But the problem is that there is no one to talk to on the other side. The Palestinian position is that Israel should either commit suicide or be destroyed. This is now called "the one state solution". This was the position that the Arabs and Palestinians took in 1948, when their attempted genocide failed, and it is one they have consistently maintained since 1948.

However, for Calder, to agree that both sides are grey is a big moral advance for him. I hope he takes it seriously.

1. Israel is already in control of Gaza. They are already responsible for it.

What is the blockade if not control? What is interdicting airspace but not control?

Suggesting that because there is local adminstration as a result of the Israelis abdicating some of their responsibilities that that is a "Government" is pure sophistry.

2. Hamas took control of the local administration that Israel left behind.  That there was violence I do not deny or condone, but even you cannot deny that Hamas had majority support at that time.  For Israel to turn round and blockade because it didn't like the complexion of the local administration is just more evidence of their control.  Hamas no more rule Gaza than Plymouth Council rules South Devon.

You mention Egypt.  Yes, I am aware that Egypt was complicit.  The Egyptian government has its own arguments with Islamist movements, and is also very dependent on the USA.  I have no doubt that pressure was applied, but also that they were not necessarily averse to being pressured.  Once again, your point would be?

Once more, we have the well-worn litany of all the bad things that the side opposing you have done, and no sign whatsoever of any understanding that Israel is anything but whiter than the driven snow.

Outside your dogmatic coccoon, the rest of the world can see that both sides are a very dirty grey spattered with a lot of blood.  Hamas wields a flick-knife and murders dozens; Israel wields an axe and murders thousands.  Neither have any moral validity.

Until you both cut the cycle of violence, accept that your own sides are as bad as the other, and start working together towards something more acceptable, the rest of the world will look on you both with distaste.

Otherwise, you will continue fighting like Kilkenny cats.  If you don't know the rhyme, one version is:

There once were two cats of Kilkenny,
Each thought there was one cat too many;
So they fought and they fit, and they scratched and they bit,
Till excepting their nails and the tips of their tails
Instead of two cats there weren't any.

The rest of the world would applaud such a situation, except for the fact that a lot of the dead would be people not at fault, and except for the danger that it might end in a more general conflict affecting us all.

Clear skies!

1. Calder, you cannot demand that a govt take responsibility for a territory they do not control. The only way they can take responsibility for it is if they take actual control of it. If you are not recommending that, then your position is not serious.

2. Hamas took control of Gaza in a violent coup in 2007. The blockade of certain material, and some electricity, only began then. I suppose the Israelis could have moved in to stop the coup, but they didn't, either because they thought Fatah could handle the violence or because they simply didn't know what to do. Hamas then ruled Gaza. Do you deny it, Calder? Egypt also partially closed the border--the Israelis weren't alone in their action. Did you know that, Calder?

But as for Hamas vs. israel, Hamas had already declared war on Israel in its Charter, and as recently as Friday showed itself immovable on this. Hamas had also overtly approved suicide bombings of Israeli civilians, praising them, and thus concretizing the genocide proclaimed in its Charter. They also continued the rocket-fire on the town of Sderot, which had begun in 2000 (mostly populated by Jewish refugees from Morocco, but never mind that, right? It's only the Palestinians who have suffered "ethnic cleansing"). The rocketing did not lessen but rather it intensified after the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005. The intensification of the rocket-fire was a highly irresponsible act, and it came from Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The population-density of Sderot is slightly greater than that of Gaza.

No govt can put up with this sort of thing.

Ah well, yet again we set sail on the Good Ship Newspeak, with our jolly Captain "Prof Ethan II".

Long boring post warning; you'll have seen most of this before; my pointing out where PE is inventing "facts", attributing to people what they have not said, raising sophistry to new heights (or should that be "depths"?), redefining the language, and so on.  There is something new, however; he gets one point right, and I defer to him! Astounding!  On the whole, though, it's much the same as ever, and if you're reading this it's your own fault; I have sworn not to let him get away with anything, and I will haunt him to his grave, or at least until he stops peddling this tosh.

"Calder admits that the Israeli pre-emptive attack was not illegal under internaitonal law. That's why he'd like to change it."


Rubbish. I said nothing of the kind, PE misses the whole point, as usual, or perhaps deliberately misreads it to suit how he would wish the world to be.  Pre-emptive attack or war is a grey area in international law.  It is not addressed or defined, that is the whole point.  It is not defined; its proponents declare it to be defensive war, and covered under Article 51; its opponents say it is nothing of the kind, it is aggressive war and illegal; some jurists say "Ah, but", as they always do, and outline elements that may make it one or the other.

I very carefully did not say whether or not I consider the attack of 1967 to be illegal or not; we have enough problems with today's issues and I don't want to stimulate another bait-ball of red herrings.  I know that many involved with this area like to go back to exercise ancient wrongs, but if we encourage this, we'll be back to Shalmaneser V's administration of Samaria before you can say "eminent domain".

What I'd like is greater clarity, and a greater readiness to question the acceptance of the justification whenever a superpower or bully state uses it to squash whoever is currently annoying it.  (Hint; I'm not just talking about Israel, or the USA.)  I'm concerned with the future, not the past.

Let's not forget what is at stake.  We're talking about the lives of people now and in the future, not some facile point-scoring contest.

The next paragraph is his usual list of propaganda points against one side.  Tell us something we don't know, Professor.  Again, he fails to point out his own side's misdeeds, the blockade of Gaza which is an illegal collective punishment, and so on.  When he will get into his head that we outside are calling "a plague on both your houses", I don't know.  Professor; please see the point above about facile point-scoring.

Here it is; his "Footnote"; you've got me there, Professor!  I admit I got it wrong. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

He even goes on to mention one of the points the Arab nations used against the "self-defence" argument, and scarcely tries to trash it at all.

Well done, Professor!  Could this be the start of something?  The admitting that there may be two sides to the story, that is.  Let's hope so.  I would only point out that if he's going to use Sofaer's elements, he's ignored the one about exhausing all other avenues, but let that pass, let that pass.

Now his "Point 2".   Oh dear.  Back to "Never mind the reality, let's talk about the situation as I see it".

Sorry, Professor, you can't redefine words like that.  Calling a goldfish an apple-corer doesn't make it so, no matter how many others make the same mistake, and how many times you repeat it.  I know it would simplify your argument, but there you are.  Life's a bitch, sometimes.

Gaza is not a state, Hamas is not a government, Israel is responsible for security and a whole lot else in Gaza.

Does that mean I think Israel should go in all guns blazing and reduce Gaza to rubble?  Of course not.  That's what they did, and that's what I'm complaining about.

What should they have done?  That is not for me to say; I'm not an expert in policing and security, but there are surely many alternatives.

For example, they could try to work with the administration in Gaza instead of demonising it.  They could try not stoking the flames with petrol by actions such as the blockade.  I realise that this is unlikely to appeal, however.

If they are hell-bent on hard power and not giving an inch, which is more likely, there are still alternatives, working from the situation they are in now, for example using ground troops strictly in response to specific incidents, working under rules of engagement that are a little closer to acceptable norms.

It would be better if what they did could be seen to be closer to policing than annihilation.

I realise that these may seem very namby-pamby compared to what we may characterise as the "Curtis LeMay" approach to diplomacy ("Bomb 'em back into the Stone Age"), very wishy-washy and "liberal" (by the way, anyone describing me as "liberal" is likely to get their face altered), and would doubtless take a long and difficult time to work, given the current levels of hatred and distrust, but they have one superlative advantage compared to Israel's current policy; they just might work.

So, no contradictions here, I'm afraid, Professor.  Just a request that Israel stand up to its responsibilities in a responsible manner, instead of acting as a state terrorist. (And before he accuses me of partiality, inconsistency, or hypocrisy, no, Hamas are not state terrorists, because they are not a state.  Some members of Hamas are individual terrorists, where they perform individual acts of terrorism.  Others are just unsavoury characters.  Some might actually be quite nice chaps, mistakenly taken up with bad company.  Who knows.  I know you call Hamas a "terrorist organisation", but that isn't their sole raison d'etre.  They do a lot of other things; I know you will say that this is to get support for their terrorist program, but the fact remains that they do them.  It's like the Conservative Party in the UK, really; they're not all wicked.)

Finally, PE accuses someone (me, vicar? I never called Hamas a government) of inconsistency.

There is only one inconsistency here, which I believe many have pointed out.

Israel claims the right to blockade Gaza and the West Bank, to control movements in and out, to control internal movements, to control the airspace, to deny the population any control over the vast majority of areas of government, to annex what parts of their land it chooses, on grounds of security, on religious and folk-history grounds, on all sorts of grounds, but mainly "Utpote inquam sic" ("Because I can"). Israel also claims the right to determine the future nature, extent, and boundaries of any Palestinian political entity.

It is, in other words, an Occupying Power over Occupied territories.  This isn't just my assertion, let's be clear; this is what the UN says.  Even, let it be said, the USA.

Israel also claims the "right to self-defence" according the Article 51 of the UN Charter.  This article, quite rightly, expressly limits the right of self-defence to action against state actors.  Not elements of one's own population; not the peoples for whom an occupying power is responsible.  When bombs are set off in London, the UK Government does not, surprisingly, bomb Bradford, or even specific housing estates there; not even after "warning" the inhabitants that they'd better clear out or be designated as "fighters".

That is the inconsistency.

Clear skies!

1. I knew we were going to 1967. Calder admits that the Israeli pre-emptive attack was not illegal under internaitonal law. That's why he'd like to change it.

If he's interested in "raising the bar," perhaps he'd like to go into Gaza and arrest the govt there, which violates the Geneva Convention ab initio through its illegal employment of human shields while shooting thousands of rockets at other civilians.

Footnote: Egypt didn't "threaten" to close the Straits of Tiran, as Calder says--it did close them. Hence after the 1967 war the Arab states in the UN didn't argue that the closing was merely a "threat"; they argued that even if the Israelis had a right of passage through the straits when the straits had been closed to them, the Israeli response was disproportionate, because the closure was not an "armed attack" which allows self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter.

2. If Calder believes that Israel is legally responsible for the actions of the government in Gaza, then he should be supporting Israeli re-occupation of Gaza, and arguing that the operation in Dec-Jan did not go nearly far enogh, because it puts a govt in an impossible position to hold a govt responsible for an area as an "occupying power" when in fact it not only does not occupy it, but the area is in the hands of another and hostile govt. Somehow, I don't think that's Calder's position--I'm just pointing out the contradictions he has gotten himself into.

There are times when people here declare Hamas the legal govt of Gaza (elected, etc), and there are other times (when it suits their polemical purposes) to deny it has legal control of Gaza at all. This sort of instability of argument needs to be underlined.

The relevance, professor, is to the subject of the essay above; international law with regard to war, and its development to justify acts which were previously shunned.  Gaza is only part of that.

Thank you for attempting to explain away what I was talking about; unfortunately you got it wrong, as usual.

Preventive war, such as Iraq, is already dealt with quite satisfactorily in international law.  I'm glad you admit Iraq was a preventive war; I would have expected you to deny it.

Absent specific authorisation from the UN, preventive war is aggressive war, and illegal under the UN Charter.  Hence the necessity to get a figleaf resolution from the Security Council.  When he didn't get that, Bush claimed that vague drafting of earlier resolutions gave the necessary approvals.  Of course, nobody is going to prosecute the USA for waging aggressive war.

Pre-emptive war, or pre-emptive strike, is war that is argued by its proponents to be defensive, on the grounds that it was necessary to defend against an immediate threat posed.  The Israeli 1967 war was a pre-emptive war, started by Israel on the grounds that Egypt moved six divisions into Sinai and threatened a blockade of the Straits of Tiran.  The Arab side says that was in response to Moshe Dyan's (later admitted) provocations against Syria in the Golan Heights.

Pre-emptive war was always considered to be aggressive war, and is not specifically covered in current international law, though some jurists have suggested there should be various principles considered.  Sofaer suggests:
The nature and magnitude of the threat involved;
The likelihood that the threat will be realized unless preemptive action is taken;
The availability and exhaustion of alternatives to using force; and
Whether using preemptive force is consistent with the terms and purposes of the U.N. Charter and other applicable international agreements.

My contention is that we should be pushing for a far higher bar for the acceptance of pre-emptive war, which seems in the public mind to be becoming more acceptable.  Sofaer's principles are fine so far as they go, but there are no acceptable metrics that can be applied; this makes them dubious at best, leaving them open to claim and counter-claim.

If there is no acceptable test, then the door is open.

I have answered Ethan II in more detail about the "justification" for the Israeli attack on Gaza in another thread today.  Contrary to his and Israel's claims, Gaza is not an independent sovereign entity against which Israel has a "right of self-defence" - it is an Occupied Territory for which Israel is the responsible Ocuppying Power, responsible for security in that territory for both the security of Israeli citizens and also Palestinian citizens, to both of which it owes a duty of care by means of appropriate levels of policing.  Repeat, policing; not indiscriminate bombing and collective punishment, both of which are very definitely war crimes, whether a declared war is in progress or not. 

Sadly, we will doubtless have to point this out again and again as Ethan repeatedly shovels out his predigested propaganda.

Clear skies!

I think Calder actually means preventive war, a term which the political scientists employ to mean a war undertaken to deal with a possible long-term threat, i.e., to attack first when there is no immediate likelihood of being attacked.

Preemptive war is different: political scientists employ this term to mean a war undertaken to deal with an immediate threat, i.e., to attack first when one is clearly about to be attacked.

Iraq 2003 was a "preventive war", and preventive wars are usually controversial at home as well as abroad precisely because the threat is unclear and not imminent. And we see how well Iraq has worked out...

I don't see the relevance of any of this to Gaza, however, which is the issue on this thread. Hamas shot 6,000 rockets into pre-1967 Israel before the Israelis responded with the December-January operation. The Israelis were thus responding not to possible future attack, or even to immediately imminent attack, but to actual on-going attack (aimed intentionally at civilians, but neve mind).

To start another hare, let me suggest that this may be the time to reconsider the notion of pre-emptive war.

I realise that in the present environment it is extremely unlikely that the UN or any other international organisation is going to re-address the legality of this idea, but there may be virtue in bringing it into public debate so that public perception can see it for what it is.

The Nurenberg principles at the end of World War II were clear; aggressive war was a crime against peace, and pre-emptive strike, insofar as it was even considered, came under that heading.

The UN charter was based on those principles, and it is arguable that under current International Law, pre-emptive strike is still illegal.  Preventive war certainly is.  Article 51 allows self-defence, and it has been argued that this covers preemption where there is a clear, present, and overwhelming danger, though others would argue that there are other principles that should be involved, such as the exhaustion of other means.

We have only come to accept the notion of pre-emption because the powerful have used it and, at least to their satisfaction, justified it.

My view is that we should not accept this, and be prepared to censure its use much more than seems presently to be the case.

Clear skies!

IronMike:

Thank you.

I can be called, on multiple occasions, a hypocrite, a racist, and an anti-semite.  In my country, the last two terms are, at least, slanderous.

I call someone else in response, once, "inhuman scum", which while strong and childish, is mere abuse. This gets edited.

I did not ask for editing, in fact I specifically requested no editing.  I merely asked that the gentleman in question be asked to refrain from slanderous accusations of anti-semitism, racism, and hypocrisy.

It is clear that he will now feel free, given your approbation, to continue with these scurrilous abuses.

Thank you for your fair and unbiased  judgement, which is what I would expect from an ex-officer in the United States Forces.

Clear skies!

Michael Calder,

First, I apologize for the slow response--moderating is done in my spare time and that has been in short supply lately.

I reviewed the threads and I'm sorry but frankly I don't find Prof Ethan's statements sufficiently egregious to warrant editing. Differences of interpretation do not mean one party or the other is lying about the other. The bolded comments that you find offensive merit a reply, not censoring. I find complaints against your post equally vague with the exception of a direct statement against Prof Ethan which you admit is an attack. If Prof Ethan has fired a similar "face shot" at you, please cite a specific posting and I am happy to review it. Otherwise, I encourage you to continue what has largely been an enlightening, though spirited discussion.

IM

By the way, Big C has consistently shrugged off as irrelevant the genocidal sections of the Hamas Charter on the grounds that at one point last year Khaled Mashal hinted at recognizing Israel. Well, Big C, consider then the following from today's Jerusalem Post: one of the sticking points stopping a Hamas-Fatah govt is that Fatah wants to recognize Israel's right to exist and Hamas...um...refuses to:

"Barhoum and other Hamas spokesmen reacted angrily to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's demand that a new Hamas-Fatah government accept the conditions of the Middle East Quartet, namely recognizing Israel's right to exist, renouncing terrorism and accepting all agreements between the PLO and Israel.

Taher a-Nunu, spokesman for the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip, said he wasn't optimistic about the Cairo talks. Fatah's demand that the next PA government accept the PLO's political agenda, which supports the two-state solution, was unacceptable, he said.

"Fatah wants a government that accepts the two-state solution, and this is something that Hamas can't and will never accept," Nunu said. "We are prepared to accept a Palestinian state in the 1967 boundaries only as a temporary solution, without recognizing the Zionist occupation of any inch of our homeland."

A little splash of reality for BC

Correction: for every Palestinian who was killed in Gaza, the Israelis knocked down ten buildings. War is terrible, every death is terrible, but this statistic in itself tends to show that the Israelis were not engaged in indiscriminate shooting of human beings (and there's a lot more evidence along those lines).

I assume, however, that Calder won't get the point.

Those who fire at terrorists using human shields are required by Geneva Convention to be as careful as they can, but they are not required to do nothing. It is the terrorists who have set up the situation and they bear the responsibility.

It would be a war crime if the Israelis acted not merely carelessly but without any intention of sparing civilian life. Hundreds of thousands of phone-calls suggest a different scenario, and so does the fact that 100 times more buildings were destroyed than Palestinians (civilians or fighters) were killed. The leading British terrorist expert Richard Kemp said in mid-January that the Israelis in Gaza acted as carefully as they could, and far more carefully than any other army he knew of (including the U.S. in Afghanistan). Calder will deny this.

Any death is tragic. War is awful. But the IDF says that of the 1300 people killed in Gaza, 2/3 were Hamas fighters. Calder has stated elsewhere in opendemocr his belief that they were all civilians.

Again, Prof Ethan II deliberately ignores the point.

For Hamas to use human shields is a war crime.

Ergo Israel is allowed to kill the shield without it being a war crime.  What nonsense.  That is the greater crime, for that is the actual killing.

You all note that PE invariably emphasises the first, and totally ignores the second.

Ethan says, "the terrorists--and ONLY they--are responsible". 

No, Ethan. The people who did the killing are responsible also.

No, Ethan.  The people who made up that preposterous doctrine are responsible also.

No, Ethan.  The people who justify such barbarism are responsible also.

He never addresses the Israeli war crime.

I do not have to be "even-handed", Professor.  I have to apply the same standard to both sides, which is what I do.  You speak much of the definition of anti-semitism when you call others anti-semitic; I've actually read the draft definition of which you spoke, and it explicitly says that calling Israel to the same standards as other countries cannot be regarded as anti-semitism.

The point is that the killing of the innocent is done by the Israelis, in large numbers.

I condemn the killing by Hamas; I did long before this argument with PE.  I condemn the killing of innocents by Israel.

Then why do I spend more time on Israel?

Because for every one killed by Hamas, a hundred are killed by Israel.

Because Israel claims to be a western democracy, and claims to share the values of the west.  Because the country I live in is persuaded to supply weapons of war to Israel.  Because the country I live in is worth hundreds of millions in trade to Israel.  Because Israel wants greater ties with the EU. 

All those make it my business, because if I do not condemn israel, I share the guilt.  I will not have that.  That is what happened in Nazi Germany.  People refused to stand up to the barbarians, and failed to speak up about the abuses; we saw where that led.  The barbarians are in charge of my country, and colluding with other barbarians to drag it farther into the mud.  I want no part of that.

I also spend more time on Israel because of you, PE, and people like you; who crawl out of the woodwork whenever Israel is called out and set up a smokescreen, make wild accusations, and generally obscure and obfuscate.  It's my job to blow away the smoke, and make clear where there is obscurity, and I will continue to do so as long as you try to hide your crimes.

PE totally fails to address the Israeli war crimes.

PE totally fails to address the issue of "voluntary" human shields.

PE brings in another set of irrelevancies.

It won't wash, PE.

Civilians?  "I do not have to show consideration for them."  "They are taking part in the fighting."

Once they are warned, whether they receive, understand, or believe the warning or not; whether they can do what is demanded of them or not; whether there are even Hamas fighters there or not; their homes are then "military targets"; they are "fighters"; they can be shot or bombed. This is not my assertion; this is stated Israeli policy.

War crimes. By Israel.

Lest we forget.

Clear skies!

A Lebanese Shia explains how Hezbollah (read: Hamas) uses human shields, and the dilemma it is intended to create for the Israelis:

In a letter to the editor of the Berlin daily Der Tagesspiegel (July 7, 2006) a Lebanese Shia explains how after Israel’s withdrawal from South Lebanon, Hezbollah stored rockets in bunkers in his town and built a school and residence over it.

"I lived until 2002 in a small southern village near Mardshajun that is inhabited by a majority of Shias like me. After Israel left Lebanon, it did not take long for Hezbollah to have the say in our town and all other towns. Received as successful resistance fighters, they appeared armed to the teeth and dug rocket depots in bunkers in our town as well. The social work of the Party of God consisted in building a school and a residence over these bunkers! A local sheikh explained to me laughing that the Jews would lose in any event because the rockets would either be continually fired at them or else if they attacked the rocket depots, they would be condemned by world opinion on account of the dead civilians. These people do not care about the Lebanese population, they use them as shields, and, once dead, as propaganda. As long as they continue existing there, there will be no tranquility and peace."

Dr. Mounir Herzallah
Berlin-Wedding

Original:

Ich wohnte bis 2002 in einem kleinen Dorf im Süden nahe Mardschajun, das mehrheitlich von Schiiten wie mir bewohnt ist. Nach Israels Verlassen des Libanon dauerte es nicht lange, bis die Hisbollah bei uns und in allen anderen Ortschaften das Sagen hatte. Als erfolgreiche Widerstandskämpfer begrüßt, erschienen sie waffenstarrend und legten auch bei uns Raketenlager in Bunkern an. Die Sozialarbeit der Partei Gottes bestand darin, auf diesen Bunkern eine Schule und ein Wohnhaus zu bauen! Ein lokaler Scheich erklärte mir lachend, dass die Juden in jedem Fall verlieren, entweder weil die Raketen auf sie geschossen werden oder weil sie, wenn sie die Lager angriffen, von der Weltöffentlichkeit verurteilt werden ob der dann zivilen Toten. Die libanesische Bevölkerung interessiert diese Leute überhaupt nicht, sie benutzen sie als Schilder und wenn tot als Propaganda. Solange sie dort existieren, wird es keine Ruhe und Frieden geben.

Dr. Mounir Herzallah
Berlin-Wedding

Source: http://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/archiv/30.07.2006/2660279.asp

Use of civilians shields is a war crime under the Geneva Convention. It is the preferred tactic of Hamas ab initio. Thus they are war criminals as a matter of choice, yet no one here calls them that. But why should we expect even-handedness, when Calder disdains even-handedness overtly?

When terrorists hide within a civilian population and use them as human shields from which to fire 6,000 rockets intentionally at the other side's civilians, the terrorists--and ONLY they--are responsible for what then occurs, for whatever casualties result from the inevitable (though in this case long delayed) counter-fire.

But I wonder whether Calder believes that Hamas intentionally uses human shields.

The Nazis stuff wasn't brought up by me, but I finally protested the "Israelis-as-Nazis" motif on this blog. I'm not alone in protesting it.

Again, what would these folks say if hundreds of thousands of warning messages HADN'T been sent?

Isn't it a shame that "Prof Ethan II" (PE) has achieved a victory (of sorts)?

He has managed successfully to distract attention from the original purpose of this thread, which was to talk about, inter alia, one of the newest most vile strategies of war in an increasingly vile world.

He has managed to turn it into a slanging match about supposed anti-semitism, and invented comparisons between the Nazis and the Jews.

It's fairly clear that this is a standard tactic of the apologists of Israel, here and elsewhere; where there is a cool and analytical appraisal of what Israel is up to, send in the bulldogs, start throwing the acid.  Whenever someone points to the ill-doing of an Israeli, the fanboys crawl out of the woodwork and yell "Anti-semite! Holocaust! Nazis!" - and all calm is lost.  The original point is lost. 

All that is remembered is that a Friend of Israel called someone an anti-semite.  And filth sticks, warranted or not.

Lest We Forget.

What started this is the Israeli justification for reckless killing by the use of the excuse that "We warned them not to (insert action here; get out of their houses/do not return to your houses/whatever).  Since they disregarded this, we do not have to consider them as civilians in our actions because they have accepted the role of voluntary human shields."

A moment's thought shows that this argument is not even specious. 

First the warning.  How was the warning delivered? It may have been sent, but was it received?  What proportion of the people "warned" received the warning?  Was it understood?  Are we to accept a level of proof of delivery of a warning on so substantive a matter that would not be accepted as proof of delivery of a letter or parcel in a civilised country?  Is it even credible?

Secondly the action required of those "warned".  Was it a reasonable action for them to take?  Would it appear to put them in danger? Was it even practical? Could it seem to be a ploy by an enemy to make them places themselves in even more danger?  Do you believe your enemy will shoot at you anyway, so you might as well stay in the safest place?  Put yourself in the position of a frightened civilian surrounded by an armed enemy who is shelling your neighborhood; you are in the dark (literally); you yourself are mobile but you have parents in the house with restricted mobility.  Even if you have received the warning, do you believe it?  Should you?  Is there anywhere else to go, safer or not?  If you make a trial movement and the bullets fly, do you hunker down? Do you try again later, or do you crouch ever harder into the corner?  I could go on.

Is this the time for rational thought?  You are not a trained soldier, experienced in how to keep calm under fire, to advance under an artillery barrage while your unit takes casualties - oh, sorry, no; that was how it used to be, wasn't it?  Now the soldier sits 50 miles away, controlling a drone plane, passing on instructions to an artilleryman a few miles away who pulls a lanyard, or a helicopter pilot sitting safely in his cockpit, flicking a switch to terminate a dozen lives or more.  You can't even call it real killing any more can you?  It's so sanitised, so easy, so safe - on the part of the big batallions, at least.

Civilians?  What civilians?

"I do not have to show consideration for them."  "They are taking part in the fighting."

Direct quotes.

That means they can be shot.
That means their houses, and they in them, can be shelled and rocketed. 
Since they are "taking part in the fighting", they can be subjected to any "legitimate weapon" - and we know what that means.  It means any weapon in the attacker's current armoury.

And in the end, the body count.  We're so sorry we killed a couple of civilians, we tried not to, made such strenuous efforts, really.  No, all the others were fighters; after all, we warned them.

That's what we were talking about, before PE started up the diversionary tactics, firing smoke, poisoning wells, playing loud music through huge speakers at hundreds of decibels.

What are we to think of a soldier, an army, a state, that, as a matter of policy, on so thin a ground of argument, can say that such an alleged "warning" turns a civilian into a fighter, who can be shot, shelled, or bombed, regardless of any other considerations?

We used to call this "voluntary human shield" killing "war crime".

Now the barbarians are trying to persuade us otherwise.  It's justified.  It's legal.  Let's face it, this is war.  Other people do far worse.  If we didn't do it, civilisation would fall.

I can't use the proper words to describe those arguments, because there aren't any strong enough.

These are war crimes.  The people who perpetrate them are criminals.  People who justify them - well.

Next time PE calls anyone a racist, or anti-semite, or a hypocrite, or says Israel is fighting for its life, or talks about the Nazis, or how the Grand Mufti believes in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, remember what he's trying to hide.

War crimes.

They would be, if it was a war.  But this isn't a war, is it?  This is Israel policing territory under its administration, for which it is responsible.  Occupied Territory.  It doesn't matter that they've abandoned their responsibility for day-to-day security; they still enforce the boundaries, stop movements across them, stop all international connection, patrol the skies, send in their troops, make other military incursions at will, in fact, perform all the control functions of a state except any that might actually help the population.  Still, a war crime is still a crime if there's no war on.

Oh, and by the way, I'm not a racist.  That'd be silly coming from me; I'm definitely a mongrel.  But remember about psychological "projection" - people put onto others faults they consciously or unconsciously see in themselves.  When the "racist" slur is used, take a look at the person dishing out the dirt, and their views.

War crimes.

Lest We Forget.

Clear skies!

I'm tempted to leave it here, I've made my point when Calder admits he's not even-handed.

I'll just add that Calder is the person who on another thread asserted that every single person killed by the Israelis in the Gaza war was an innocent civilian. QED.

And now yet another repetition!  He clearly has no shame.

I would not respond, but for the addition of another accusation; now I am one of the "far left".

For your information, Professor, I am not of the left, far or near.  You can have no evidence for that assertion, as it is not true.

Yet another example of your making up "facts" as part of your ammunition, and trying to apportion guilt by association. (Whether Ms Churchill is guilty of anything I don't know, never having met the lady or indeed heard of her before her introduction here by the good Professor.)

Whether you think being of the "far left" is good or bad will doubtless depend on your viewpoint. My point is that I refuse to be incorrectly categorised by the ignorant.

Clear skies!

I'm still waiting for a moderator to tell this person to stop his abusive and inaccurate lies

"Prof Ethan II":

5. Calder can now re-interpret however he wants his message about survivors of the Holocaust, and their descendants, gloating over images of Gaza. He didn't mean Presbyterians. People can read for themselves.
He also claims he's even handed in his condemnation of both sides. It's true that--prompted by me--Calder finally called Hamas, briefly,
"thugs." But gimme a break; I urge anyone reading this to go back
through the threads dealing with Israel and read his constant, deeply emotional, and constantly vilifying comments about Israel.

Yes, Professor, people can read for themselves. Further repetition of a lie doesn't make it true.

Your pure invention of "his message about survivors of the Holocaust, and their descendants, gloating over images of Gaza" is just that; pure invention.  Let me quote what I actually said: "the people who should have been the audience for it would now see it as a book of trophies."  That's all. Full stop.

Now, let's see who "should have been the audience" - well, for a start, who were the audience for the original book?  The Nazi perpetrators of the atrocities?  PE would have you believe that, so that he can then say that I am saying the audience for the Gaza photographs should be "the Jews", so that I am comparing "the Jews" to the Nazis, so as to tar me with the anti-semite brush.

Sorry, PE.  The audience of "Lest We Forget" wasn't the Nazis; it was published in England, and the intended audience was the decent people of the world.  My grandmother, for one, who also made sure that I was one of the audience, as well. So that we were shocked and sickened, so that we wouldn't fall for the same ideological nonsense or inhuman barbarism no matter where it came from.

Just so, the audience for my hypothetical book was the whole world, so that they would be sickened, and not fall for the sirens of barbarism. And what did I say about the world?  I said, "times have changed. Sensibilities are no longer what they were."

And so they have.  The inhuman monsters are abroad again.

The beauty of what I said is that it is self-defining.  Those who should be the audience are those who would see the images as trophies.  I didn't say who would; I said that there were people now who would, people who no longer have the sensibilities that were aroused by those original atrocities. There are people of that kidney in every country, and in every religion and none.

I displayed a general garment; PE claims it is cut to his fit; very well. But that is his assertion, not mine.

PE, to claim that your interpretation is a sustainable one is a blatant, dishonest, defamatory perversion worthy only of one who has no interest in truth, decency, or accuracy.  Your constant repetition of such egregiously infamous falsehoods is breathtaking; your continued sustained abuse of me while having caused my opinion of you to be restricted by moderation is cowardly.

PE also says that it was his prompting that caused me to "briefly" call Hamas "thugs".

Another lie. First, the phrase I used on that occasion was "Hamas are mindless thugs, unthinking adherents of irrational religion; and many of them are doubtless guilty of many crimes"; I wouldn't necessarily call that "brief", but of course, to one of PE's prolixity...

Secondly, I have condemned Hamas and others on several occasions, entirely unprompted by him.  The texts are here on this website and others.  I do not need his permission or prompting to condemn anyone.

Finally, PE also says that I claim to be "even-handed in my condemnation of both sides".

Wrong, Professor; I do not.  I do hold both sides to the same standard, which is an entirely different thing, but as I've said before, I condemn most where I see most to condemn.  I do not, as you accuse me, "vilify Israel"; I condemn it for the atrocities it continues to perform.  I do not vilify Israel; Israel has quite well vilified itself.

Clear skies!

Calder originally wrote:

"For one moment I thought that what should be done now is to publish a similar volume, with photographs of the corpses of Gaza.
Then I realised that times have changed. Sensibilities are no longer what they were.
And the people who should have been the audience for it would now see it as a book of trophies."

I thought he meant Jews,--who else would Calder think were once the natural audience for images of concentration camps but now see such images from Gaza as "a book of trophies"? Certainly not the ordinary Briton! And this interpretation of what Calder wrote fits well with the theme of Sarah Churchill's new and despicable play "Seven Jewish Children"; i.e., it's become a trope of the far left. So I think I have good reason for my interpretation of Calder.

But on the other hand BC thought Calder didn't mean Jews but rather Israelis, or maybe some Israelis. But meanwhile Calder now denies he meant either. But if PE and BC have BOTH wrongly interpreted Calder according to Calder, whose fault is that? It's not evil intention on anyone's part; it's Calder's writing.

I remain convinced, however, that my interpretation of what Calder wrote, especially given the context of his entire oeuvre on opendemocr, was and is eminently reasonable.

1. The IDF may or may not contain racists; what I cited was an overt statement from the PA government itself.

2. I sent you a method to find the EUMC statement on the FRA website; I don't know why it didn't work for you, it did for me.

3. BC, you wrote that Israel--Israel per se, i.e., as a predominantly Jewish state--is "a racist construction": please explain to me how this statement is different from vilification of Israel as a Jewish collectivity" (one definition of anti-semitism in FRA Report, 2009, p. 23).

4. BC, up to 1947, all land on which Jews lived had been sold to them voluntarily--I repeat, voluntarily (at high prices). Nor was it all sold by absentee landlords (though if that is your issue, take it up with Ottoman social structure 120 years ago). The UN decreed partition; they were attacked.

The situation was no different from what happened in unified India when Britain and the UN decreed partition because a minority wanted its own state while 2/3 did not, except that the scale of violence in India and what became Pakistan was infinitely greater than what occurred in the Mandate, with 2 million dead from communal violence, and 15 million people on both sides were displaced. Similarly, while 750,000 Palestinians were displaced in the war of 1948, 850,000 Jews were expelled from Arab lands as a result of that war. That's 100,000 more Jewish refugees than Palestinians, and they hadn't attacked their neighbors (unlike the Palestinians), and they were made penniless, and some Muslim is enjoying their confiscated property as we speak, and this is never brought up in the UN.

5. Calder can now re-interpret however he wants his message about survivors of the Holocaust, and their descendants, gloating over images of Gaza. He didn't mean Presbyterians. People can read for themselves. He also claims he's even handed in his condemnation of both sides. It's true that--prompted by me--Calder finally called Hamas, briefly, "thugs." But gimme a break; I urge anyone reading this to go back through the threads dealing with Israel and read his constant, deeply emotional, and constantly vilifying comments about Israel.

6. BC, Jabotinsky was always a small minority in Zionist thought and Israeli politics; Amin al-Husseini by contrast was and remains a Palestinian national hero, and his forces were the first to engage in ethnic cleansing (of Jews, in east Jerusalem, at the beginning of 1948), and in his memoirs he is overtly genocidal, stating that he wanted to kill every Jew in the Middle East (as his friend Hitler had promised him he could do).

I repeat for you, BC--Husseini was and is no minority extremist; this is the Palestinian national hero. BC, your position--here as earlier in another thread--seems to be that he isn't. You are simply wrong on this, and you have to accept the implications of it.

Normally, I wouldn't refer anything to  moderators (I'm old and ugly enough to look after myself, and in any case I believe in freedom of speech), but since I have been censored, and the good Professor continues to repeat his lies here, I feel I have to call a halt, as it is pointless to continue to debunk PE's continued repetition of untruths.

On one occasion, I have abused PE.  He complained, and had the abuse moderated.

This after repeated abuse of myself by PE.

On more than one occasion he has said my "hypocrisy smells", because I only attack Israel, and support or do not condemn Hamas.  As any fair minded person will see from looking at my posts on this site, I have on more than one occasion condemned Hamas. He says, paraphrasing, "only Israel is called 'inhuman scum', never Hamas". No, PE, I did not call Hamas "inhuman scum"; I called them "thugs".  This is of course supporting them, so I am a hypocrite. A fair minded reader would also note that the "inhuman scum" comment was made specifically and precisely about those who promulgate the "voluntary human shield" meme; I stand by that.  I am, I hope, fair-minded, and certainly do not think that all Jews, let alone all Israelis, support that meme in all its inhuman arrogance.  But to PE, any criticism of any Israeli is a one-sided attack on Jews in general, and therefore bound to be hypocritical; so he says my hypocrisy smells; I call that abuse.

On more than one occasion he has called me, directly and indirectly, "racist".  Why, I am not exactly clear, other than, yet again, he assumes that any criticism of any Israeli is an attack on all Jews.  Again, any fair-minded person reading my posts will have seen that I make it specifically clear that I am only talking about those people who perform, support, and glorify the abuses which we are discussing.   It is clear from my posts that I admire many Jews, particularly now those independent-minded Jews who themselves condemn the acts and ideas perpetrated in their name. Yet he repeats the "racist" slur; on one occasion even, for some reason, accusing me of racism against the Palestinians.  Strange.

Finally, let us scotch once and for all this vile calumny that I am anti-semitic by virtue of accusing all Jews, and only Jews, of glorying in the vision of dead Palestinians.  BC has kindly repeated my original post below, and it is available elsewhere, so there is no point in my repeating it.

If you look at the original post, you will see that it does not refer to anyone, Israeli, or non-Israeli, Jewish or non-Jewish.  It deplores a general loss of empathy and humanity in everyone, but in these and other associated posts EthanII adds the references to "victims of the Holocaust", "(i.e. the Jews)", and "It is clear whom he meant. It wasn't Presbyterians"; and takes it as directed purely at Jews and all Jews and uses it as evidence of racist anti-semitism.

Moderator, I am sorry if this gives you a problem, but PE's additions, comments, and repeated accusations here are a clear, obvious, dishonest, and deliberate lie, the evidence for which is directly before you, in my words and his.

Let me repeat; the post was aimed at anyone and everyone who does not feel disgusted at the sight of the corpses of slaughtered innocents.  It did not and does not qualify any target person or group.  That includes some Presbyterians, PE; it certainly includes a wide swath of fundamentalist Christians across the globe, as well as some  (but certainly not all) Jews, and many people of all religions and none.

In summary, "Prof Ethan II" has repeatedly made abusive and slanderous comments about me, accusing me of hypocrisy, racism, and anti-semitism. I confess that I have in response on one occasion descended to abuse of my calumniator, at which he complained and demanded moderation.  As with his analysis of Israeli action, he demands a one-sided view of the world; he demands the right to be heard and to defame others with impunity, but shrieks in anger if called to account for views of his own which others consider vile.

I believe I have answered these accusations, and the evidence for and against is available in these threads. "Prof Ethan II" has  a track record of repeating such accusations after they have been answered and thoroughly debunked, and I am tired of repeating the same defence.

So, I request that you pass moderator judgement and tell him that he must desist from making these untrue and defamatory accusations in future.  I also request that his posts and this discussion be left unedited as an example to all.

Clear skies!

BC, the EUMC definition was employed to gather official data on anti-semitic incidents. I was able to access that information using one of the url's I gave you. I'm not lying.

The current FRA definition of anti-semitism includes vilification of israel as a Jewish collectivity. That fits you, as I see it. Perhaps you can explain how it does not, since you condemn Israel as a "racist constuction" (Monday at 21:50).

Fatah--a government--apologized to Goerge Khoury's family for its men killing George Khoury: he only looked Jewish (which was evidently enough), while they intended to kill Jews. That's
the PA, a government, which different from a few extremists like Kach. And if israel is racist, apartheid, and all the other bs, what is a Palestinian doing jogging in an upscale Jewish neighborhood in the first place?

When an "analogy" is so tenuous, it deserves to be parodied, as Diogenes did with Plato: that's the point. Zionist ideology is not exterminationist and never was, Nazi ideology was exterminationist. There's no analogy. Or, if your objection is to nationalism, then Zionist ideology = Polish ideology, or Czech ideology, or Irish ideology. Do you call them Nazi?

Mainstream Zionism intended to live with the Arabs--which is why, despite the wars, there are large numbers of Arabs in Israel today. Where are the Jews in Gaza? And which regime is racist? You can't equate Zeev Jabotinsky with all of Zionism.

And as I do not get tired of saying, to understand what occurred when the Palestinians attacked their neighbors in 1947/1948 and lost the war though backed by five Arab states, you have to read Benny Morris, "1948".

On another thread, Michael Calder said that those who should have been most offended by the images coming out of Gaza (i.e., the Jews) instead took them as trophies. That was a lie to begin with, but in any case the point is that Calder meant Jews.

Calder referred to those who had suffered from the Holocaust viewing these allegedly similar images as trophies. It is clear whom he meant. It wasn't Presbyterians.

For a similar slander, see now Sarah Churchill's play "Seven Jewish Children". (Note--it's not "Israeli Children"). Thus I saw Calder's assertion as part of a new pattern of slanderous accusation against Jews.

Perhaps now Calder will say he didn't mean Holocaust survivors in toto but--following a way out offered him by BC--only Israelis, and, even narrower, only Israelis who supported the Gaza operation. But there was no reference to Israelis, Zionists or supporters of the Gaza operation in Calder's statement.

Note, too, that to "support the Gaza operation" does not mean--despite Calder--that one is happy with images of destruction. The only people who are happy with civilian deaths (either Israeli or Palestinian) are Hamas; they happily put Israeli children at risk daily--and happily put Palestinian children at risk as well (just google "Fathi Hamad + civilian shields"). But though they glory in civilian deaths, intend those deaths, use the Nazis salute, and have a genocidal promise in their Charter (article 7, and see article 22 on "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion"), Hamas are never called "Nazis" on Opendemocr, let alone "inhuman scum".

Coming back to this after a few days, I note that one of my posts has been edited by a moderator.

The language I used was, I accept, intemperate in that it identified an individual as well as being a general comment.

However, one of the excuses I used to myself was that I had, repeatedly, been called a "racist" (and by fairly direct implication, anti-semitic) by the individual concerned; this being so, I presumed that he accepted a rougher level of debate than I would normally indulge in.   (Edited to correct misquotation.)

In the interests of balance, therefore, I now seek an equivalent declaration by a monitor that this accusation of anti-semitism is unfounded and that "Prof Ethan II" must from now cease making the accusation.

For me not to request this, and for the monitor not to accede to it, would be to accept that I am not allowed to descend to mere abuse, but that "Prof Ethan II" is allowed to make slanderous accusations with impunity.

I am specifically not asking for "Prof Ethan II"'s posts to be edited; indeed, I wish them to remain in their entirety as examples of special pleading, false rhetoric, sophistry, and "economy of the actualité".

Clear skies!

"I have sparred with Mike for a long time and I am quite confident that he would accept that. We disagree vehemently about almost every aspect of human existence (no, I'm not exaggerating!) but we respect each other's right to hold our respective views without resorting to more-well-read-than-thou patronising."

Absolutely! BC wins my vote for the Communist I'd most like to have a beer with in the local pub. ;-) As for analogies between Warsaw and Gaza, I think it's an issue of relative strength. Because BC can find a tenous comparison at the policy level (which I have not yet conceded), that does not make a strong analogy.

Like Prof Ethan, I reject the analogy because of the overwhelming disproportionate scale of violence in Warsaw which IMHO renders the analogy absurd on tactics and bodycount alone. I reached the point long ago to grab the ejection handles on any discussion in which one party interjects Nazi or Hitler because the argument quickly deteriorates into "Reductio ad Hitlerum" (AKA, Godwin's Law) and becomes pointless.

[I'm sure both of you are familiar with this fallacy, but for others: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_Hitlerum ]

It becomes more of an emotional argument instead of an intellectually honest debate. If we could agree that Warsaw and Gaza are NOT analogous and argue analogies in policy, the debate might be worthwhile. But BC, surely you have to acknowledge there is no analogy in the violence or the tactics between Gaza and Warsaw. The facts of Warsaw as Prof Ethan outlined them above just don't support your position.

1. As for racism, in March 2004 George Khoury, a Plaestinian, was jogging in an upscale Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem. He was killed by Fatah terrorists passing in a car, shot twice in the head, because he looked Jewish. Fatah later apologized to the Khoury family: they meant to kill Jews, not a Palestinian.

Think about this sequence of events.

Also, what percentage of the Israeli citizen population are Palestinian Arabs, vs. how many Jews are allowed to live in the PA or Gaza? Let's have a comparison, in terms of "racism". But one gets BC onto his moral high horse, and about the other he shrugs his shoulders (just like the Sudan).

2. BC, I think your re-statement of your position re Israel fits perfectly the definition of an anti-semitic position as set forth in the 2009 FRA Report. You don't think Israel as a Jewish collectivity should exist, and you vilify it as Nazi. Seems to fit the definition in the FRA report.

3. I can't speak for Iron Mike, but he called comparisons between israel and the Nazis not merely "absurd" but "too stupid to merit a response."

4. As to analogy, here's how you think it works: as Diogenes said when Plato defined man as "a featherless biped", holding up a plucked chicken he proclaimed "Behold Plato's 'man'!" That's BC, the Nazis, and Israel.

5. When the term "Nazi" is used, it generally refers to exterminationism--that's what gives it its moral punch, that where "Warsaw Ghetto" came in on Opendemocr to describe Gaza. But now BC wants it to mean something else when he uses the term, he wants it to be a special term , the pre-1939 Nazi policies, which he now claims are similar to Zionist policies, about which he is still wrong and again--at the risk of appearing (God forbid) scholarly--I urge him to read Benny Morris, "1948" before speaking on this topic. To use an analogy, BC's special definition of "Nazi" here is similar to his special belief that the majority of Israelis are not "Zionists", and therefore when he speaks of Zionist ideology as comparable to Nazi ideology he is not calling Israelis Nazis. Oh, please.

Thanks, Iron Mike--I'm glad at least one person around here understands the stupidity and absurdity of comparing Israel with the Nazis. But the problem is that most people on oD do not. They have drunk the radical Kool-aid.

Briefly: 1. It was Hamas leader Mahoud Zahar (sorry, I was wrong, it was not Khaled
Mashal), who on January 6, 2009 warned that Islamists would kill Jewish children anywhere in the world in revenge for Israel’s devastating assault on Gaza.

2. If anyone wishes, they can Wikipedia to European Fundamental Rights Agency, go to publications, 4.2, and you will see the EUMC definition of anti-semitism.

3. I got involved on this blog when opendemocr posted an idiotic article comparing Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto, i.e., (once more) Israelis as Nazis. The Warsaw Ghetto consisted of peaceful civiians; they hadn't shot 6,000 rockets at anybody. Again, in the Warsaw Ghetto 300,000 people were killed over time (100,000 through starvation), with a final spasm of 55,000 in spring1943 alone. Is that really Gaza, whose population has consistently gone up rapidly since 2002?

I will continue to protest this "Nazi" stuff about Israel. An analogy has to be between similar things; this is so different as not to work in the least for most rational human beings. It's either stupidity (as Iron Mike says) or it's a tool of radical psychological warfare, using the wound of the most dreadful part of Jewish history to wound Israel (and Jews) again today. In my view it is morally perverse.

I suggest it's only ironic if you don't know the facts. BC's "editing" last month was within the rules; this month it is not. It's integrity, not irony at issue.

But on the discussion topic, I agree with your point on the absurdity of the Nazi comparison. Personally, I found the Nazi comparison too stupid to warrant a response. It is yet another attempt (of many) to reduce subjects to absurdity with comparisons to Hitler. Not everyone on oD is a Liberal Kool-aide drinker.

1. It was Hamas leader Mahoud Zahar (sorry, I was wrong, it was not Khaled Mashal), who on January 6, 2009 warned that the Islamists would kill Jewish children anywhere in the world in revenge for Israel’s devastating assault on Gaza.

2. Wiki European Fundamental Rights Agency, go to publications, 4.2

3. Big C, you deny the validity of Israel as a Jewish state, you see the very idea as "racist", and thus you vilify Israel as a Jewish collectivity, and hence...p. 23. Though the report notes that this is mostly Muslim hate-propaganda, it also notes in passing that the far left is buying into it. I urge you to rethink your position and either change it, or accept the implications.

4. BC, in terms of "Nazi", you paralleled Israel with the U.S. and the Indians, with the Turks killing the Armenians, and (finally!) with Sudan: but the Comanches, for instance, lost 90% of their population between 1850 and 1875; the Turks killed 2 million Armenians, the Sudanese govt has killed 400,000 civilians in Darfur (now with the support of Hamas)--and yet the population of Gaza has gone UP every year (and the Palestinian population has one of the highest growth-rates in the world).

Don't you see the problem? Don't you see the problem in the sewer of vituperation flowing against Israel as "Nazis"--and this vilification is only against Israel on this blog--in the face of the contrast in these statistics?

I got involved on this blog when opendemocr posted an idiotic article comparing Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto, i.e., (once more) Israelis as Nazis. Again, in the Warsaw Ghetto 300,000 people over time were killed, with a final spasm of 55,000 in spring 1943. Is that really Gaza?

I will continue to protest this stuff. An analogy has to be between similar things; this is so different in scale as not to work in the least for most rational human beings. It's just psychological warfare, using the wound of past dreadful Jewish history to wound Israel (and Jews) again today. In my view it is morally grotesque. And it is doubly grotesque when the vituperation isn't directed at states that have done far, far worse things than Israel, but only against Israel. It smells.

4. Iron Mike, I understand that the rules have changed. But I'm in a position where BC censored me last month on his own hook (later approved by higher ups) but now says he can't censor Calder when he calls me "inhuman scum", and says I have to appeal to the higher ups. I'm sure you see the irony.

Prof Ethan,

BC correctly stated OD moderator policy and e-mailed me to review this thread. These are rules that we moderators respect to eliminate the appearance of conflicts of interest in threads in which we materially participate. It is not "taking refuge in bureaucracy" as you inaccurately characterize it.

IM

Go to wikipedia, go to "European Union Fundamental Rights Organization", go to Publications.

"Vilification of Israel as a Jewish collective" seems to me to fit your position, BC. Hence your calls for its disappearance, including out of "embarrassment", like South Africa.

Finally, after weeks of my badgering at you, you briefly say that the term "Nazi" can be used of the Sudanese, the Turks, etc (yesterday, Saturday, at 13:09). But you well know that the use of the "Nazi" language here has for months been used to refer to Israel and only Israel, and that your brief and unemotional remarks simply constitute a cya that was said with no feeling, unlike the sewer of vituperation flooded here at Israel.

Use of this term to describe the Israelis, or Zionism, is not analysis nor analogy. It is simply either ignorance of what the Nazis really were, or it is psychological warfare. I'll be on the watch for it, and I feel it is my duty to combat it when it appears.

Since you now agree that Hamas gave publilc support to the "Nazi-like" Saudanese govt in its genocide in Darfur, I ask you, BC, to seriously consider exactly what Hamas has in mind for the Israels (and Jews generally, according to Mashal the Ultimate Leader last month; he's living in Syria)--as laid out in their Charter.

1. I now see that the EUMC was succeeded by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) in 2007. But the FRA is simply the successor organization and still lists all EUMC publications on its official website, including the working definition of anti-semitism as one of its publications as of 1-26-2009.

I found it. BC, you should be able to. Look under annual reports (2005) on the FRA website, under Studies and Discussion Papers.

In addition, the FRA's Annual Report for
2009 report on anti-semitism can be found at http://fra.europa.eu/fraWebsite/
attachments/Antisemitism_Update_2009.pdf

One of it's definitions (p. 23) is vilification of Israel, which it views as a primary way
of expressing "secondary anti-semitism."

2. Calder wrote: "And the people who should have been the audience for it [his hypothetical book of Gaza photos] would now see it as a book of trophies." He's talking about victims of the Holocaust, i.e., Jews. Do you think he has any other audience in mind? There's no reference to Israelis, Zionists, extreme-Zionists, or the IDF as the audience.

3. Note you say again "Israel" can be compared to the Nazis. But not Hamas, no. Not the Sudan, no. I don't think you can escape the fact, BC, that on this blog ONLY Israel is called "Nazi". You are only one of several people who consistently do it; you are unique in defending the usage. I urge again that this sort of language be dropped. I am not making an extreme recommendation.

4. Pass on my complaint about being called "inhuman scum", please.

BC,

1. I didn't have any trouble finding the EU statement today.

2. Calder referred to those who had suffered from the Holocaust viewing these alleged similar images as trophies. It is clear whom he meant.

3. You were willing to censor me yourself directly, you proclaimed it, but take refuge in bureaucracy when Calder calls me inhuman scum.

4. You may be reproving of other states' behavior, but nowhere is the over-the-top language, the sheer fury, the vitriol, the poisonous slander that is used of Israel here to be found in anyone's comments here about any other state--and that includes your own comments Though other states have done far far worse than the Israelis, only the Israelis--2/5 of whose population are actual survivors of the Nazis, or descendants of those actual survivors-- only the Israelis are called "Nazis" on this blog. It's morally grotesque.

5. You clearly do see the EU definition of anti-semitism as some sort of conspiracy by the American Jewish Committee. You just don't use the word conspiracy, but you think their involvement was sinister, somehow.

6. It's clear from the many facts I've had to put up on this blog that you, BC, actually don't know much about the actual history of Israel. You do have your pc opinions, of course. I can't help that, though I've tried to educate you somewhat.

1. On another thread, Michael Calder said that those who should have been most offended by the images coming out of Gaza (i.e., the Jews) instead took them as trophies. That was a lie to begin with, but in any case the point is that Calder meant Jews. When I say something, I have facts to back it up.

2. The point of those EU organizations concerned with combattting antisemitism, racism and xenophobia is that to apply one standard of behavior to Israel and not to apply it to anyone else is anti-semitism. Here is part of the definition currently used by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights

a. Denying the Jewish people their right to self determination.
b. Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.

You deny that you're saying this definition is the result of a conspiracy by the American Jewish Committee--but then you reiterate American Jewish Committee's involvement in the creation of this definition, as if that is somehow sinister. Make up your mind.

3. Your answer when I point out that earlier you were personally ready to censor my alleged personal attacks on me, but now, when I am called inhuman scum by Calder, your position is fend for yourself, take it up with higher authorities is that this is, indeed, your position.

4. Your version of the creation of israel is a gross historical distortion. We've been over this ground before.

4. You have yet to condemn Hamas for officially supporting a truly genocidal government, the one that exists in the Sudan: 400,000 dead. This action does not call forth from you--or from anyone else on opendemocr-- cries of "Nazi-like ideology"! or "Inhuman scum!" No, no--that terminology is only reserved for Israel.

I again urge everyone here to drop the use of this "Nazi" language, and all over-the-top language.

1. BC, Nazism is exterminationism, and you know it. That's what gives the power to the equation of Zionist ideology with Nazi ideology; you say they are "comparable." But then you say that obviously most Israelis don't want to exterminate the Arabs. You can't have it both ways, using over-the-top language for your debate moments while pulling back when facing actual facts.

If you mean nationalism, how is Israeli nationalism different from Polish nationalism or Czech nationalism? I urge you and everyone here to stop using this sort of "Nazis" language.

2. You threatened to censor me personally because you are a moderator and you claimed I was making personal attacks on you. But when I am called "inhuman scum" your answer is take it up through channels. The hypocrisy smells.

No reader will have taken my phrase "fend for yourself" to be an actual quote from you--it's merely a summary of what you meant on this issue, and what you still mean, as opposed to your previous position, which was that you as moderator intended personally to censor my postings ab initio. If you like, since your're a moderator remove the quotes. Fine with me. The meaning stays the same.

3. You can't argue that the EU institutions that are specifically tasked with fighting racism, anti-semitism and xenophobia don't exist, or don't use a definition of anti-semitism which fits your conduct. They exist, that's the definition they use, and your conduct fits.. Your further response (on another thread) was to claim that the definition was the result of a conspiracy of the American Jewish Committee. Don't you see the weakness here?

4. You say I'm distorting your position regarding Hamas in that I claim that you shrug your shoulders at their genocidal Charter on the grounds that it is irrevelant in the real world--then you repeat that the genocidal Charter doesn't matter in the real world.

5. I see, in your great sensitivity to Nazism, that the Hamas endorsement of a government responsible for killing 400,000 civilians in the Sudan does not lead you to accusations about "Nazism" on Hamas' part, or claims that Hamas are "inhuman scum". No, those terms are only used here for Israelis (or, in Calder's case, Jews) and you pass over the news in silence. The hypocrisy, once again, smells.

6. Anger at the boy who says that the emperor has no clothes on is, of course, quite natural.

Another little item to put into the hopper here:

Jerusalem Post, March 6, 2009:

"A delegation of Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups are visiting Sudan today to support Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir."

To repeat, Bashir's govt has killed 400,000 civilians according to UN estimate. Yet no one here on opendemocr--no one--has ever called Hamas or Omar al-Bashir "inhuman scum" or "Nazis." That is language reserved only for Israelis, and those who dare to say the Israelis have a right to protect themselves from 6,000 rockets fired into pre-1967 Israel.

Big C,

If you somehow think that most Israelis won't defend the idea and ideal of Israel in preference to the genocide promised them by Hamas and Hezbollah, I'd say you were wrong.

Nazism was exterminationist. Zionism isn't exterminationist, just nationalist. Hamas is exterminationist, and Hezbollah is exterminationist, both in ideology and action, but no one around here calls them Nazis, let alone "inhuman scum". And when, BC, the only nationalism you object to in such violent terms is Jewish nationalism, then you are engaged in anti-semitism as the EU institutions current concerned with combatting racism, xenophobia and anti-semitism officially define it. And when your response to my informing you of this fact was to say that the current definition is the result of a conspiracy headed by the American Jewish Committee, you confirmed that EU definition by your own statements.

I think I have evidence and reasons when I say something.

2. In our debates, BC, we have both used rough language. Now, I was the one directly threatened with censorship by you, a moderator; yet now when someone here calls me "inhuman scum" because I dare to defend the Israelis from absurd and slanderous attacks, your response is suddenly "we've changed our policy, fend for yourself".

That fits. And the hypocrisy smells.

Here's another example of it: Big C calls Zionist ideology "Nazi-like"; that's grotesquely wrong (confusing nationalism with Nazism), but when--a person so concerned with Nazism, i.e., exterminationism--he was confronted with the overtly genocidal Hamas Charter, was his response even concern, let alone anger? Or worry? Or condemnation of Hamas as Nazis, or "inhuman sucm"? Why, no! He defended Hamas by saying ITS overtly genocidal charter doesn't count in the real world! (This occurred on another thread).

I repeat: although Hamas loves Hitler and has an overtly genocidal Charter, and its soldiers practice the Hitler salute, and they idolize Amin al-Husseini who was an indicted war-criminal at Nuremburg for his work with the Nazis, it is ONLY the Israelis around here who get called Nazis. Again, the response on threads dealing with the Sudan, where the government has actually killed 400,000 civilians in a Nazi-like fashion, is not condemnation of them as "inhuman scum" or "Nazis", but mild recommendations for dialogue with that government.

What angers people on opendemocr who claim to be "humanitarian" is when I point out, as in the examples above, their ridiculous hypocrisy, and what it ultimately means. And getting called "inhuman scum" in return? Well, that's always the fate of the boy who points out that the emperor isn't wearing any clothes.

.

I see, BC--Zionism is a "Nazi-like ideology" but most Israelis aren't Zionists. Well, that statement ranks with Calder's all 1300 killed in Gaza were civilians (on a previous blog).

The far-left dream-world. I'm just amazed at how you guys've ended up boxing yourselves in.

BC, you objected to use of personal vilification on this blog. Take a look at Calder's last statement about me--now I'm "inhuman scum". Well, living with so much hypocrisy as you do, I'm sure that you, as one of the moderators of this blog who let that last line in, can easily live with a little more.

Unbelievable.

Thank you, BigC.

You're correct.   I'm not calling all Israelis "human scum".

I am calling those who commited the atrocities, such as those the IDF is making sure are not identified, and those who justify their actions,...[edited--IM].

Clear skies!

1. Big C, I doubt that anyone will accept your desperate attempt to avoid what you said, or the direct contradictions in what you said. You wrote that "Zionist ideology is comparable to Nazi ideology", and you wrote that "I stand by that statement." Then you said (please read carefully) "No one here is saying they have a Nazi-like ideology". Make up your mind.

The easiest thing to do, if you don't believe that "Zionist ideology is Nazi-like" is to say you flew off the handle in the heat of debate. But you can't have it both ways. Unless you think that most Israelis are not Zionists. Is that your argument?

2. Meanwhile, people like rosross invoke concentration camps (when were concentration camp inmates armed to the teeth by a foreign country and shooting 6,000 rockets at their neighbors?), and the Warsaw Ghetto (300,000 killed there, not 1300 who were mostly fighters), i.e., he's calling Israelis Nazis. Maryf then contributes her own slanderous accusation (which I refuted), and Calder calls Israelis "inhuman scum". I note that this sort of language is never used here about Hamas--and never used to describe the govt of the Sudan, which has actually killed 400,000 civilians. But then the Sudanese government is "anti-imperialist," and it has received the direct and public political support of the Arab League as a direct response to its atrocities. Yet no one calls the Arab League "inhuman scum" either. No, this language is used here ONLY about Israel.

Again, the explanation for the over-the-top language used about Israel and no one else, even those who have killed 400,000 civilians, is because for the far left, "anti-imperialism" long ago trumped anti-fascism (i.e., fascist and racist Hamas, genocidal Sudan). I'm sure it makes people feel real good to be such "anti-imperialists."

Just imagine what people on this blog would be calling Israelis if they HADN'T warned people to leave targetted houses!

Prof Ethan II (not verified) says:

"I wonder what shelters Maryf thinks were intentionally bombed by the Israelis?"

From the article:

The chief of northern command, Gadi Eisenkot, explains what this means: "we will wield disproportionate power against every village from which
shots are fired on Israel, and cause immense damage and destruction...
This is not a suggestion. This is a plan that has already been authorised" 

An officer at the international-law division:

"The people who go into a house despite a warning do not have to be
taken into account in terms of injury to civilians, because they are
voluntary human shields." 

"The military claims that it made 250,000 such warning calls during the Gaza attack (a strange number if true, since there are only about 200,000 homes in Gaza)."

"The Israeli military's ability to warn people in Gaza about the
impending destruction of their homes has also allowed it to define most
buildings in Gaza as legitimate targets."

So.

That's why virtually everyone killed was a terrorist.

That's why no "shelters" were bombed by the Israelis. 

There weren't any shelters.  The Israelis had defined every building, cave, tunnel, construction, whatever, in Gaza as a "military target", and "warned" everyone, so they were all "voluntary human shields", so the IDF was perfectly justified in shooting them, bombing them, burning them with phosphorus.

Why, the IDF could quite justifiably bomb, kill, etc. them even if there weren't any terrorists or fighters around - they were all "voluntary human shields" because they'd been"warned" they were in "legitimate military targets", so they could be killed.

The logic is impeccable.  It's all legal.

That's why the Israelis are carefully making sure that nobody involved can be identified.

That's why people like "Prof Ethan II (not verified)" are constantly raising irrelevancies, clouding the issue, claiming other people do far worse, slandering everyone who raises an eyebrow as "anti-semitic".

They're not inhuman scum without an ounce of decency in their bodies performing and justifying inhuman, immoral, and illegal atrocities.

They're proud upholders of the law showing us all the way to behave, ethically and morally.

Clear skies!

I wonder what shelters Maryf thinks were intentionally bombed by the Israelis?

Perhaps she's thinking of the famous "UN School" incident. But this has turned out to be lying Hamas propaganda. The UN itself now admits that the school wasn't hit, no one on the school grounds or in the school building was hit, that mortars not large-scale artillery or airplane bombs were used by the israelis, that the dead were killed in the street outside the school, where as the AP reported from Palestinian sources, Hamas fighters were firing on the Israelis. All this was admitted by John Ging, the head of UNWRA in Gaza, on Feb. 2, 2009 (Toronto Globe and Mail). The retraction story, however, was buried in most media. This, after screaming and false headlines around the world about an Israeli atrocity in which dozens of innocent people who took refuge in the school were killed. People, in short, were taken in by Hamas's lies.

Haaretz, which is a left-wing Israeli newspaper, puts the total number of dead in the street by the school at 12 (not 40), and says that 9 of the 12 dead turned out to be Hamas fighters. Not surprising, since the Israelis were returning fire which had come from the street. One might want to blame Hamas for attempting to use the school as a civilian human shield--but, around here? No.

The cynical use of lawyers as described in this article tracks closely with that of the Bush administration's misappropriation of the Office of Special Counsel in the Justice Department to figure out a way to torture -- which violates multiple laws -- legally. The clear intent is to stretch the law as far as possible without actually winding up being prosecuted.

The farcical use of "warning calls" or dropping leaflets from the sky, telling people to leave their homes when they have nowhere to go inside of an open air prison, or to head to shelters when you know damn well you plan to bomb those as well, is a gross offense to the spirit of humanitarian law.

BC,

You wrote "Zionist ideology is comparable to Nazi ideology." That is your statement and it is indeed the same as calling Israelis Nazis. How can it not be? Perhaps you can explain your position a bit better. But by "comparable" you don't mean "in contrast to" or "not the same as"! And you then stand by your statement, i.e., that "Zionist ideology is comparable to Nazi ideology." What else can that mean but "Nazi-like"?

In the face of your statement that "Zionist ideology is comparable to Nazi ideology" you then say the very next day that "No-one is saying they have a Nazi-like ideology". This is a palpable self-contradiction. Because that's exactly what your statement says--that Zionist ideology is Nazi-like. How can you deny it when you write that "Zionist ideology is comparable to Nazi ideology"?

Perhaps you can explain yourself better, but as it stands, BC, you're right in the boat with rosross here (Thursday at 04:27), with his references to Gaza the "concentration camp" and "the Warsaw Ghetto". And rosross, incidentally, also disconfirms your several statements to me that no one on opendemocr is calling Israelis (or, more broadly Jews) Nazis. It's part of the far left's bag of debating tricks.

1. Outside Arab military intervention in up to regimental size began in January 1948, months before "Plan Dalet". In this period of winter 1947/1948 the outside intervention was led, among others, by the forces of al-Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem (operating from Egypt). Husseini was a friend of Hitler and Himmler, a war-criminal indicted at Nuremburg; he had raised Muslim SS troops who committed horrid atrocities in the Balkans; and he wrote in his autobiography that his purpose was genocide. His relative Abd al-Qadir al-Husseini led the Army of Holy War.

Similarly, the Secretary of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, speaking over Cairo Radio, declared: "'This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades." Discussion in Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, p. 219.

The fighting in the "civil war" phase was initiated by the Palestinians (November 1947), not the Jews. There was little aggressive response from the Jews to Palestinian attacks until spring 1948: up to that point, their operations were mostly defensive, to preserve their settlements. There were occasional local retaliatory raids, though, in response to Palestinian attacks. Discussion in Benny Morris, 1948, pp. 98-101.

One effect of the intervention of the Arab forces was the "ethnic cleansing" of Jews from east Jerusalem, where these ultra-Orthodox Jews had lived for thousands of years. The first attempt at this was made in December 1947. It was accomplished in May 1948. It was done by the Jordanian Arab Legion, aided by Palestinian milita. The largest and most sacred synagogue in Jerusalem was intentionally blown up by them; the Jews fled (the Legion let them go; the Palestinians wanted a massacre), their houses were pillaged. No one talks about this event anymore, but to understand what was happening, any historian will tell you that you have to examine the whole board.

2. The first Palestinians to become refugees were Christians--driven out in autumn 1947 not by Jews but by Palestinian Muslims. Discussion in Benny Morris, 1948, pp. 93-94.

3. Use of the term concentration camp and Warsaw Ghetto to describe the situation in Gaza (by rosross) is typical of the language one finds here--to make Jews into Nazis, when the only people who love the Nazis are Hamas, who draw from the Nazis genocidal ideology and use the Nazi salute. The dead in the Warsaw Ghetto numbered 300,000--not 1300 (2/3 of them fighters). The Warsaw Ghetto didn't shoot 6.000 rockets at its neighbors: as the leading film-star in the Arab world said, "Did they expect the Israelis to respond with flowers?"

Here's another example of what goes on around here, this from Big C:

BC on Tuesday Feb 24-2009 at 23:13: "Zionist ideology is comparable to Nazi ideology" I stand by.
BC the very next day, on Wednesday Feb 25-009 at 21:04: "No-one is saying that they [the Israelis]
have a "Nazi-like" ideology.

The use of this terminology is not analysis, nor it is analogy. It is merely psychological warfare--to wound Jews (and Israel) with their own history, and perhaps to make the speaker feel he's properly "left" and "humanitarian".

Yet the problem on the far left is that "anti-imperialism" (and I use the term in quotes) has for several decades past trumped anti-fascism (like the "understanding" and compassion extended by the far left to fascist and overtly racist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah).

I don’t believe that one of Israel’s goals with the war on Gaza was to change IHL. If this happens it should be considered a bonus. Nor do I believe that Israel’s primary interest in IHL is its use to convince the outside world that its actions are justified. The primary interest of Zionists in IHL is its use to convince themselves that Israel’s actions are justified. After they have convinced themselves they have all arguments available to convince outsiders of course

Reading on in the link to a Haaretz article I found this quote from an Israeli general:

This is another example of how Zionists convince themselves of their high moral standards. Interestingly, this “bases-rationale” is the primary rationale used in Plan Dalet, the blueprint for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948. According to this plan, starting a few days before the expected Arab invasion the Zionists defended themselves against it, not by fighting the invading armies, but by attacking Palestinian villages that were deemed bases or possible bases for these forces. This included almost all Palestinian villages in the areas controlled by the Zionists.

Splendid. (But fix typo? "To communicating a 'warning' can be to save a life..." Make it "To communicate...)
with thanks.

Bravo Mr. Weizman,

This is the first argument that details the legal counter-offensive against the 1977 Geneva Protocols that legitimized guerilla attacks on a State.  Granted you are *against* this argument -- which is too bad -- but I thank you anyway.  Puts Hamas and other Palestinian rejectionists into an odd quandry.  Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of losers.

I think 'lawfare' is a fascinating idea but not entirely correct. If Israel had waged this legal battle and planned its strategy before and during the militaty offensive, they would not be so busily distorting the evidence today. Furthermore they used IHL as a justification of the war: Hamas was indeed making no distinction between civilians and combattants. Israel was 'in the right' because they were...verbally. Paying lip serive to the law of war means they consider it significant for something.

Paying lip service to IHL however is not enough. The collateral damage far exceeded the military necessity. If Israel were to drop a nuclear bomb on a clearly marked military object in the Gaza strip, and the entire population of the Gaza strip happened to die as a result - would it be a violation of IHL? yes, but only because of the excessive civilian deaths - the same analogy can be applied to their use of airial bombardments, cluster bombs and white phospherous. 

I think law's meaning lies in its interpretation and its strength in its application. As the numerous Israeli offensives have proved - it can get away with anything and not worry what anyone will do or say. It acts with increasing violence and irationality because it knows that it can! And the world is incapable or reacting rationally towards Israel. For IHL to have any strength and meaning, the international community needs to condemn these violations and punish the offenders accordingly.

"our goal was not to fetter the army, but to give it the tools to win in a lawful manner."

What is the line? The law is an ass? What farce. The Israelis lock 1.5million people into a concentration camp and then bombard them with bullets, bombs and missiles and this is presented as a 'war' which can be won in a 'lawful manner.'

One presumes the Germans could have made the same argument about the Warsaw Ghetto.

In this case the law is not only an ass it is sick . to the point of being evil.