Battle for Palestine

[Natan]

Originally posted by Comrade Tribune


This would be much too open and honest. Much better to scare them away and kill some of the bastards in the process.

Yeah, the danger really keeps them away effectively. Israel could just argue that the area is too dangerous for journalists - they already argue that it's too dangerous for Israeli civillians, so it wouldn't be a big leap. Your claim here is prepostrous.

[Bereta_Eder]

Natan, if they said that the area is too dangerous for journalists then the journalists would say that this is all a pretext to keep them out.

It's better to SHOW them that it is "dangerous"



notice the troll smilie Natan

[CyberGnu]

I think it should be clear when I argue with your analogy that

Take a look at your 13-03-2002 15:45 post, which is the first post of yours after mine. There is not a single mention of airstrikes in this post.

In retrospect one could possibly see that you referred to the airstrikes in the first paragraph, but that is not at all obvious... We're not mindreaders, you know...

To make the point with the apparently necessary rhetorical sledgehammer, if you'd made a post about parking ticket violations as worse than the Rwandan genocide, I would have had the same reaction. One doesn't have to support a given action to think it recieves disproportionate attention or indignation.

Rhetorical sledgehammer? Are you confusing the Israeli assassinations and the murder of the suicide bomber?

Look, this is your statement:

But I think that's really a secondary or tertiary concern at this time. You won't see me complaining if some Jewish guy walks into a Mosque with a bomb or gun and is summarily shot after he is disarmed.

So, what you are saying is that 'well, it is a little bit wrong, but I think it is OK.'. It's the same logic people use when they defend police brutality. 'He was a dirtbag anyway, so it is OK that they killed him'.

No it isn't. A civilized nation does not kill innocent people, and a person is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. (or a state of war exists).

If you consider yourself a moral as well as a civlized person, you should also be clamoring for a harsh punishment of this police officer.

It's not a war in any formal sense, since we do not recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government.

Actually it is war... The U.S. is helping their (newfound) allies in the Northern Alliance to retake their land from the Taliban rebels. There is most definetly a state of war between the NA and the Talibans. Again, not that it matters.



It is amazing how hard it is to get you to debate the point of the matter though...

You consider the murder of innocent people right and just. Care to defend that without using either of the sentences 'The U.S. does it too' or 'The palestinians does it too'?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov
Let me remind you again.

We only killed people when we had no other choise. To prove that, compare some 30 people we assassinated, to 1000s we successfully managed to arrest and are now facing trial or already serving time

However, arresting, esp. big shot leaders, is tough and costly. And this, together with a hot-alert scenario (we know he's planning a terract really soon) is what makes us pull the trigger.

I always have a problem with the "ends justisfy means" argument. In this case, you're just saying it's more expedient to kill somebody without giving that person a chance to defend himself in a court of law. It's troublesome since the same kind of justification can be dished out against anybody a country doesn't like.

Originally posted by Sirotnikov
You criticize our assassinations, but then when we enter the terrotories and physically apprehend (those who aren't hiding in Arafat's office) terrorists, you criticize us once more.

You're violating another country's sovereignty to catch these allegedly terrorists. Do you think it's right that a country can blantantly ignore the jurisdiction of another country and just do whatever it feels right?

Originally posted by Sirotnikov
Arafat is not arresting anyone. It's all up to us. What should we do?

Maybe Arafat sees that arresting people have failed to meet any objectives set arbitrarily by the Israeli government? Maybe he thinks he's getting the short end of the shaft?

Originally posted by Sirotnikov
And finally, given the low rate of assassination compared to arrests, you can be sure Israel always acts on more than a "hunch" when assassinating.

Problem is, sometimes we miss

That's not the argument. Even if your ratio is 10000:1, it's still wrong. You are defending the notion that political expediency takes precedence over the cornerstone of the rule of law.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Dalgetti
*cough* bomb*cough* ... so you feel sorry for the suicide bomber? The only way I feel sorry for him that he was beeing used as a pawn by muslim leaders.

No, I felt sorry to see such atrocities against humanity as a whole. Let a court of law decide whether suspects are guilty instead of a "mob." There's no fundamental difference between a lynching mob and a group of policeman. In fact, the latter is far worse, since they are supposedly the defenders of law, so this trampling makes them at least twice as guilty.

Originally posted by Dalgetti
UR, about the perfect state : I was reffering to a mini-discussion we had in that other thread :'how can people prefer National Socialism to communism?'

I remember that. I was just not sure if you're just referring to that discussion or whether you think there's some connection between that and this thread.

[ZoboZeWarrior]

[SIZE=1] Originally posted by Sirotnikov [/SIZE

Since, I agree it will be difficult to deal with them. I think only when palestinian will have a wealthier situation (less poverty, more job, clean house or flat) they will be less influenced by hatred. Western country must build social structure (that Israel will not destroy!).

Hmm...
Let me refresh your memory:

Sept 2000

The most successfull economical year for ISrael and the PA
Many cooperation efforts
After camp david didn't work, Barak continues to negociate peace in Tab'a.

And then, somehow, someway, terror erupted.

The conclusion is that this eruption was infact NOT fueled by the people but rather instigated by Arafat.

And the longer this conflict draws, the more devastation it creates for both sides.

If we on Oct. 2000, crushed the PA, so many lives would ahve been saved on both sides.

Yes, maybe, but what the point with what I've wrote ?

Of course, some leader are fueling hatred of pals citizen. But Israel does it too.

[DinoDoc]

People still take CT's threads seriously?!?! I was under the impression that he was the "Eurocoms" answer to Bob Dornan.

[CyberGnu]

bumpeliebumpelibump

[Sirotnikov]

While the situation for the palestinians were better in 2000 than they'd been in 50 years, they were by no means good.

Point?

I'm not entirely sure what your point is though... Yes, Arafat has most likely salted away some of the aid money for himself. But you also said yourself that before the second intifada the palstinians were enjoying the highest standards of living in many years.. Obviously he is doing something good with the aid money... Especially considering that Israel has been very busy destroying the things he built...

Many of the things were built as israeli-palestinian projects. IIRC universities and such.
Plus alot of gifts by the EU and rich arabs.

A major chunck of the money went to the purchase of weapons and to the personal pockets of Arafat and friends.

You know, I don't think the suicide bomber wanted to die. Think of it as a soldier who throws himself on a grenade to save his friends...

Yes, I'm sure killing israeli children who were on their way home is somehow similar to this

It's not a deathwish, it is a sacrifice. The suicide bomber is trying to help his people the only way he sees fit. Whether this is a good way is another question.

I'm sorry, but suicide bombers intentionally target innocent people.

You try to present him as the most moral person on earth, while in reality - he's a children slayer, caught redhanded.

I would like to remind that this is a counterproductive strategy (much like the Israeli 'retalitory attacks'), if indeed Israel is trying to create a safer situation.

So if we wouldn't have stopped him, he'd decide what he was doing was wrong and would have gone back to his village?

Is Israel any safer now that this man is dead instead of locked away in prison? Doubtful.

I don't know that.
If he indeed made attempts to denote his belt while on the ground - yes, israel is safer.

But every single future suicide bomber knows that giving up only means summary execution.

Execution by the palestinian gunmen, who freely shoot those who they conisder "collaborators with israel".

This means they will fight to the utmost to take someone with them if they are caught... Which will inevitably lead to more deaths.

Excuse me, but I would have thought that going to the middle of town with 15lb of TNT strapped to your chest already means you are ready to die in battle.

Even if ten suicide bombers are killed immediately, it only takes one person who instead of giving up does manage to kill a bystander for this policy to be a complete failure...

That's nonsense.
If only 1 out of 11 suicide bombers blows up, it's a huge success.
This means this saved 11 x 15 people from death, and 11 x 50 people from injury.

And don't take just my words for it... This is well known in warfare. In ww2, Gobbels propaganda machine spent considerable effort in manufacturing footage from fictional British POW camps, showing how germans soldiers were tortured to death. The brits, on the other hand, allocated airplanes that could have carried bombs to carry fliers in stead, with testaments from german soliders who were actually POWs... All to influence the likelyhood of german soliders to give up instead of fighting to the last man.

But we are not dealing with logical men here.

We are dealing with people who decided to give their life away long before.

Additionally, you're basing your lecture on your blelief that we killed him just like that. I don't believe that as there are numerous counter-examples.

Siro, you seem to have misunderstood the entire critisism of the Isralei assassination policy. The people you assassinate are not even tried in a court of law in their absence. They are identified as terrorists by the army, who summarliy executes them. This puts you on par with Stalin, Hirohito etc.

You seem to have misunderstood the entire idea of war, where you kill potencial threat before it kills you.

If there's a soldier who is armed and about to shoot you, you are not about to try him. Nor will you attempt to force him down and bring him to trial. You will shoot him.

The whole point is that civilized nations doesn't do that.

The whole point is that this isn't "crime fighting". This isn't "political disagreement". This is war between two nations.

Dalgetti and Siro:
You both seem to have misunderstood the whole concept of 'innocent until proven guilty'.

A) you seem to misunderstood that it is possible that while on the ground the terrorist still tried to detonate himself. - he's got nothing to loose except "quality time with shin bet".
B) you seem to forget he was caught with bomb caght to his chest, on a mission from any one of the terrorist organizations.

Should we have waited for him to explode and kill 20 people, before we can say "we knew it, now we can go back in time and stop him"?

We stop him by any means possible. Period.

If I shoot Bush on national TV and put down my gun immediately afterwards, I am innocent until a court of law has proven me guilty.

You've actually killed a person and a threat, so if a security guard will shoot you while you do that, or in the several seconds after, that it took him to respond, he's damn right.

A court will decide what type of crime was it, depending on circumstance.

However, if a guard will see you walking towards bush with a gun aimed at him - it is his duty to stop you at what ever cost, without waiting for trial.

That the conviction is a foregone conclusion is not relevant. and if a cop would shoot me as I'm lying on the ground with handcuffs on me, that cop would go to jail for shooting an unarmed man. Only if I'm threatening someones life can the cop shoot me.

Tell me you weren't just comparing a bomb charge to a gun?

You can not operate a gun while lying on the ground.

You CAN operate a charge while lying on the ground.

And in this case it is very clear (at least from the story) that the man was not posing a threat. the police who shot him is a murderer, and should be sentenced as such. If someone gave an order to shoot him, it is even worse...

He had a charge strapped to his chest, and probably tried to do something to make it explode, or make the policemen trigger it.

Of course, if the police can give a reasonable explanation, such as 'he was reaching for a trigger', that would be a different story.

Exactly my point.

But apparently the initial police report stated that he was shot because he resisted the police when they tried to remove his cloak...

And resisting with force while having a bomb on your body means that you are a threat.

This was before the pictures were shown, however, where it is very clear that he is not wearing a cloak when he was shot.

?
He could have had the cloack removed forcefully and shot because he continued to resist and tried to trigger the bomb.

It is a typical coverup, only revelead by the coincidental presense of a reporter.

I disagree.

And if nothing else, it should make you think... How many times have similar things happened when no reporter was present? How many palestinian accusation of brutality or premediated murder which you've written of as propaganda were actually true?

Not much.

Dalgetti, there are a whole series of pictures, showing how they subdue him, take of his clothes, and finally shoot him.

Do they show how he was trying to trigger the bomb?

Can a picture tell?

I have no reason to believe he was killed just like that, because until now, all terrorists who were caught alive, were NOT killed just like that.

Israel would much rather interrogate the man.

Furthermore, the disarming exciuse doesn't fly. If they wanted to disarm the bomb safely, the easiest thing would have been to tie his legs together, put a sharpshooter on him, untie his hands and run... and tell him that if he doesn;t remove the bomb belt he will be shot. But he never got that chance...

Give him a chance to explode himself?

A sharpshooter is not a threat to a person who wants to explode !!!!

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by CyberGnu
Oh, and take if from a chemist - TNT doesn't explode from rubbing it on the ground. You can even burn it in a logfire without it exploding. Hitting it with a hammer, that might make it go off. And from what I can tell from the pictures, he is in no position to use a hammer on his own waist...

TNT is an example.

I don't really know what he had used.

I do know that the bombs that trashed our merkavas were some 60% C4.

C4 was also captured iirc on the Karin A weapons shipment.

So far for Arafat not cooperating with the terrorists.

also figured out an easier disarming strategy... Just call in the closest ambulane, give him a sedative and wait until he is unconcsious. Then send in the robot. Since he was according to eyewitness prone on the ground for 30 minutes, a few more wouldn't have hurt...

It all depends on what he was doing.

What you say just makes me doubt you more, since if they wanted to kill him, they had 30 minutes to do so.

If they did, they probably noticed he was doing something and this was the only sure and fast way of stopping him.

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
I always have a problem with the "ends justisfy means" argument. In this case, you're just saying it's more expedient to kill somebody without giving that person a chance to defend himself in a court of law. It's troublesome since the same kind of justification can be dished out against anybody a country doesn't like.

So if a person approaches you with a loaded gun and targets you, I'm supposed to wait for him to kill you, and not try to stop him?

You're violating another country's sovereignty to catch these allegedly terrorists. Do you think it's right that a country can blantantly ignore the jurisdiction of another country and just do whatever it feels right?

"what ever it feels right"?
Don't you feel that stopping people who are about to target innocent civilians is a just cause?

Oslo accords specifically state that Israel grants sovereignity to the PA on the basis of their promise to resist terror. It's the PA responsability to catch them.

They are not doing that, and infact they are the ones performing and controlling terror.

Therefore - no sovereignity for them.

You're trying to protect a soveraignity of a country which chooses to use it to support murderors. You are infact by this means justifying terror supporting regimes like the ones in Syria, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia. USSR in it's time.

Are those really the regimes you want to protect, and are you willing to weave the rights of life of innocent terror victims, to protect a soveraignity of a ****ty country??

Maybe Arafat sees that arresting people have failed to meet any objectives set arbitrarily by the Israeli government? Maybe he thinks he's getting the short end of the shaft?

On what basis have you made those conclusions?

When he arrested people in 1992, we went to Oslo.
When he arrested people in 1999, we went to Camp David.
When he arrested the 5 murderors of Ze'evi, we ceased the house arrest.

But other than those 3 cases, he has done close to nothing to stop terror, and everything he could to promote it.

Namely, releasing hundreds of known and convicted terrorists from their jails, in the autumn and winter of 2000.

That's not the argument. Even if your ratio is 10000:1, it's still wrong. You are defending the notion that political expediency takes precedence over the cornerstone of the rule of law.

You are defending the notion that each and every combatant should stand on trial before he is killed by a rival combatant - which is ludicrous.

WAR = WAR = WAR.

If someone is out to get me, I get him first.

It's not "criminals". They are combatants.

They aren't soldiers per se, since they don't have a single organized army or sponsorship, or an official recognition as such, nor do they respect war conventions.

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by ZoboZeWarrior
Of course, some leader are fueling hatred of pals citizen. But Israel does it too.

Oh when does israel fuel the hatred to pals of it's israeli citizens?

Do we say that pals drink blood?
That they use jewish body parts in thier hospitals?
That they are devil's children?
That they are arch-enemies of judaism?

No we don't.

However palestinian schoolbooks and media contain all those claims about jews.

http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2002/03/19/LatestNews/LatestNews.45493.html

[Sirotnikov]

Re: Last News

Originally posted by Comrade Tribune
The Austrian government has evacuated our journalists *in an armoured car*. This is the only place your life is safe in occupied Palestine: In an armoured car.

Nope.
Merkavas get destroyed as well.

The Italians didn´t realize that fast enough. An Italian journalist who didn´t travel in an armoured car has been slaughtered by the IDF with no less than *six* bullets. Hard to explain that as an accident. Perhaps Israel has something against foreign eyewitnesses?

Which enquiry comission proved it?

Just like muhammed el-durah was killed by IDF ??

http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2002/03/19/LatestNews/LatestNews.45495.html

[Tom201]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov
The whole point is that this isn't "crime fighting". This isn't "political disagreement". This is war between two nations.

Really? So why does the Israeli Government refuse than to declare it a war? Most journalists say Israel doesnt because they dont want to obey genfer conventions.
So it is officialy crime fighting and has to be judged as those (or Israel has to declare war).

Originally posted by Sirotnikov

If I shoot Bush on national TV and put down my gun immediately afterwards, I am innocent until a court of law has proven me guilty.

You've actually killed a person and a threat, so if a security guard will shoot you while you do that, or in the several seconds after, that it took him to respond, he's damn right.

In that example the criminal would be unarmed when the guard has the possibilty to respond. The guard would shot an unarmed person. Under this circumstances he is not "damn right", he would get in real trouble (well at least in Europe).

[KrazyHorse]

Just like muhammed el-durah was killed by IDF ??

No more like Huda Hawarjeh was.

http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2002/03/19/mideast_censor020319

"Self-censorship"? What a bunch of bull****. Something's embarassing for the Army so they "request" that the TV stations don't show it? How many stories don't you see aired, Siro? Maybe ch. 2's ushering in a new era of journalistic integrity in your country...