European Union takes tougher stance on Israeli settlements

[regexcellent]

Did it make the bombers not believe they'd get the 72 virgins?

I don't know if the bombers were motivated by the promise of 72 virgins or not, but in my experience people tend to care way more about concrete stuff like their families getting a big windfall.

[Sava]

but in my experience

Which is what?

[Elok]

I'm saying the Geneva Conventions aren't a description of what is moral, and moreover just because something was allowed in 1945 but forbidden in 1960 or vice versa doesn't make it moral or immoral. Moreover, the Geneva Convention is only enforceable through the threat of not following it if your enemy doesn't.

No, you can also refuse to deal with people who break it, if you happen to be a third party. See OP.

[Elok]

It's the latter. Saddam Hussein and later Saudi princes as well as the PA were paying suicide bombers' families money in return for their children blowing themselves up. Destroying the houses removed the financial incentive.

It would be tragically hilarious if they had to blow up two more kids to afford a new house. Failing that, creating a large, homeless, unemployed, angry underclass is really not conducive to long-term peace; either Israel is planning to liquidate these people, or they're idiots. Dumb, evil, or a little of both? Who knows?

[kentonio]

I'm saying the Geneva Conventions aren't a description of what is moral, and moreover just because something was allowed in 1945 but forbidden in 1960 or vice versa doesn't make it moral or immoral. Moreover, the Geneva Convention is only enforceable through the threat of not following it if your enemy doesn't.

No you gimp, it's enforcable through the treat of the rest of the world grouping together and kicking 16 types of **** out of whatever group of savage ass ****ing barbarians decide that murdering POW's, slaughtering civilians and wiping out cities indiscriminately is somehow ok. It took a long time for the world to reach a point where countries were democractic and civilized enough to reach that kind of understanding, and more to the point it took a few hundred million deaths and a couple of wars that ripped the established world to peices and through the application of modern technology tested every peice of established theory to its core.

The conventions (and international law in general) exist because when they didn't exist things happened which killed numbers beyond imagining. It's happened before twice now, and it can very easily happen again. The only thing that stops it is the world standing up and saying that some things are not acceptable. It's more than a little ironic that it was an American president who first led the charge for a league of nations to stand together with common values and protect the rights of all men. Now you happily piss on those ideals and a large part of America treats the concept of international law with contempt and disdain. Shame on you.

[Elok]

Seriously, this is simply a self-perpetuating cycle of brutality. People who grew up getting reamed by Israel are not going to decide to coexist peacefully with it. Keeping them in cages, stealing their land, and arbitrarily restricting their access to all kinds of supplies--that is not how you get people to come to the table and compromise. It hasn't worked in the past, and there's no reason to believe it will work in the future. Some of it might be explained by human weakness (fear, anger, spite, etc.) overriding human reason, but it's hard to believe that nobody sees how this won't work. Even if they keep up the pressure forever, they're still left with a large, disgruntled population on their periphery who can't sustain themselves or contribute to the country's economy. The best they can manage is to destroy their leadership; that works pretty well for the U.S., but only because we're not stuck living next to the terrorists afterwards. For Israel, it'd be almost worse, because without leadership of some kind there's no way to restrain or control them at all. It'd be like if South Korea decided to manufacture its own post-Kim-dynasty-collapse DPRK. Where does this end?

[Sava]

Seriously, this is simply a self-perpetuating cycle of brutality. People who grew up getting reamed by Israel are not going to decide to coexist peacefully with it. Keeping them in cages, stealing their land, and arbitrarily restricting their access to all kinds of supplies--that is not how you get people to come to the table and compromise. It hasn't worked in the past, and there's no reason to believe it will work in the future. Some of it might be explained by human weakness (fear, anger, spite, etc.) overriding human reason, but it's hard to believe that nobody sees how this won't work. Even if they keep up the pressure forever, they're still left with a large, disgruntled population on their periphery who can't sustain themselves or contribute to the country's economy. The best they can manage is to destroy their leadership; that works pretty well for the U.S., but only because we're not stuck living next to the terrorists afterwards. For Israel, it'd be almost worse, because without leadership of some kind there's no way to restrain or control them at all. It'd be like if South Korea decided to manufacture its own post-Kim-dynasty-collapse DPRK. Where does this end?

YEAH OKAY WHATEVER HITLER

[Elok]

Ken, I'd like that to be true, but honestly, we tend to hew, haw and stumble when it comes to actually stopping atrocities. Rwanda and Darfur went on largely unhindered, and most of us are barely even aware of the horrifying **** going down in the Congo. Let alone China or NK, who would be much harder to tackle.

Also, I think most of the (relative) peace since WWII is due to nukes. We had to stick to invading weak little nations and proxy wars, because the potential cost of direct imperialism was just too great.

[regexcellent]

No you gimp, it's enforcable through the treat of the rest of the world grouping together and kicking 16 types of **** out of whatever group of savage ass ****ing barbarians decide that murdering POW's, slaughtering civilians and wiping out cities indiscriminately is somehow ok.

In that case we should all be invading Gaza and kicking 16 types of **** out of them. Seems like the Israelis are the only ones who have gotten the message and are following through with it.

The idea of the Israelis stealing Palestinian land is also pretty ****ing stupid Elok, especially for the younger generation which has never seen what is supposedly their "home." They live in Gaza/West Bank now, that is their land, the end.

[Elok]

Oh, for the...

http://apolyton.net/showthread.php/203663-European-Union-takes-tougher-stance-on-Israeli-settlements?p=6243118&viewfull=1#post6243118

Or you can skip directly to

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_settlement#Land_ownership

Take your pick. Arabs are still routinely kicked out of their homes in favor of settlers.

[Hauldren Collider]

It would be tragically hilarious if they had to blow up two more kids to afford a new house. Failing that, creating a large, homeless, unemployed, angry underclass is really not conducive to long-term peace; either Israel is planning to liquidate these people, or they're idiots. Dumb, evil, or a little of both? Who knows?

Bulldozing the houses brought suicide bombings screeching to a halt. It was a pretty effective policy.

[Traianvs]

Bulldozing the houses brought suicide bombings screeching to a halt. It was a pretty effective policy.

Or, the other way around of course. Not surprisingly, the worst phase of suicide bombing happened when the Israeli government pursued a policy of landgrabbing.

[molly bloom]

Most of the world is tinpot dictatorships, I wouldn't think much of it.

There's that detailed, exhaustive and incisive analysis of history and politics I always eagerly look forward to. Stick to fetishizing firearms- at least then you're amusing, in a sad & mad way.