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The Forum > Article Comments > 'There is a bomb coming your way' > Comments

'There is a bomb coming your way' : Comments

By Neve Gordon, published 12/1/2009

In addition to its remote-control, computer game-like qualities, today's warfare is also characterised by a bizarre new moral element.

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Neve,

Are you suggesting that Israel should ignore the rockets fired by Hamas?
Posted by Seneca, Monday, 12 January 2009 10:45:27 AM
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Seneca, they're firing them for the same reasons that oppressed, starved and brutalised Jews rose up in 1943 in the Warsaw Ghetto. Gaza is, to the eternal shame of Zionist policy, Israel's own Warsaw Ghetto.
Posted by mike-servethepeople, Monday, 12 January 2009 11:39:56 AM
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Dear Neve... I assume that because your piece was publised here, you are also viewing the comments and feedback?

You focused on the rather narrow perspective of the immediate events, and neglected to examine the framework/big picture.

Mike.. you also bomb out in this.

Many times over the past weeks, the news has carried stories which mention the Hamas Charter and its clear assertion of the goal of destroying Israel.. "obliterate" is word used "Until ISLAM obliterates it".

Now.. given that Jews of all people have a rather more refined understanding about what clear statements of genocide translate into in real world behavior, u know..ovens...camsp..trains.. mass graves.. quicklime... (If OLO allowed it, I'd post just such an image right here)

Mike mentions 'Israel's warsaw ghetto' and Neve just doesn't mention anything other than comparative tragedy.

Sorry folks.. we need to go deeper.

Gaza could be much nicer for those there if Hamas simply
-Renounced it's genocidal charter.
-Stopped launching war crimes rockets at Israeli civilian towns.
-Surrendered (as war criminals and despots)
-Closed up all tunnels from Egypt.
-Destroyed publically all unfired rockets
-Handed over all weapons except those needed by Police.

The victims here are the Gaza Arabs.. but the PERPETRATOR is ISLAMIST HAMAS.

Remove the Cancer and the body will heal.

Hamas can learn the same lesson as one of it's sons Moussab Hassan, son of a HAMAS founder to embraced Christ and learned the secred of "Love your enemies".

For those clinging to the militant,oppressive and aggressive doctrines of Islam.. they have only one path..down..down and down further.
Posted by Polycarp, Monday, 12 January 2009 1:04:57 PM
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Polycarp,
Another solution would be if Israel simply renounced it's policy of relentless oppression and ceased carrying out it's own war particular brand of crimes.

Failing this, it could -
abide by it's own "cease fire" agreement and lift it's ongoing blockade,
withdraw it's forces,
allow the restoration of essential services such as water, electricity and medical relief and
release the citizens it recently kidnapped.

This would eliminate the need for those evil tunnels that many Palestinians also rely on for essential supplies.

They could allow independent foreign journalists into the area to determine the viability of the situation or at least an independent peacekeeping force.

Relations would be further enhanced in the region if it complied with at least some of the international requests made over the decades for the withdrawal of it's forces and continual theft of territory. It could also renounce it's plans for future territorial expansion within the region.

This is as unlikely as Hamas obliterating Israel.

By the way, there are also Christians in Palestine (and Israel).
Posted by wobbles, Monday, 12 January 2009 3:10:16 PM
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Hypothetical:

I share a duplex with a poor neighbour, one who doesn't like me and who feels I, or my ancestors have wronged him or his anscestors, in countless ways intolerable ways.

My neighbour throws rocks at my children, so I throw a brick through his window and demand that he stops.

He continues to throw rocks at my children, So I throw rocks at his kids and demand that he stops.

He continues to throw rocks at my children, so I fire a gun at his house and accidentally kill one of his children and demand that he stops throwing rocks at my children.

He continues to throw rocks at my children, so I throw a bomb over the fence and kill a bunch of his children and demand that he stop throwing rocks.

He continues throwing rocks at my children, so I go over there smash up his house, kill a bunch more of his kids (he seems to have an endless supply), beat him up and demand that he stop throwing rocks at my children.

He keeps throwing rocks at my children.

Surely everyone can see where this must lead. Whilst I might have done all the wrong things in the world, if my neighbour persists in the view that he will continue to throw rocks as long as he is able, then there is only one way I can stop him throwing rocks.

Yes, I might still be the bad guy after I do what must be done to protect my kids, but you'd have to admit my neighbour is either mighty stupid or doesn't care much about his own kids.
Posted by Kalin1, Wednesday, 14 January 2009 1:48:15 PM
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Kalin1, I suspect your "neighbour" is a lot less stupid than you. Your only response is to escalate the dispute. If you'd brought in a mediator when his first rock was thrown at your children, you might have found out by now why he is aggrieved, and taken some timely advice to seek a compromise to avert future damage. If you'd found out that more than a thousand years ago ancestors of both of your families had shared the house, and that since that time his people had lived in it; that an international crime syndicate had "returned the house" to you so that out of gratitude and dependency you'd allow yourself to be used as a base for their standover tactics in the neighbourhood; that as a consequence of the house being "returned" to you, your neighbour had been unceremoniously kicked out and forced to squat in the ramshackle one room dump that you've now reduced to ashes in order to "defend" youself; if you hadn't in the meantime pinched a further half of what he'd been allocated when his house was "restored" to you; if you hadn't built that bloody monstrosity of a fence that keeps him in, without food, clothing or medicine except on your terms....but I give up. Your neighbour is, as I said, a lot less stupid, and more deserving of respect for his perseverance and resilience, than you, my friend.
Posted by mike-servethepeople, Wednesday, 14 January 2009 2:12:22 PM
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Kalin, I think you forgot a couple of other factors in your neighbourhood dispute. For example:

a) the people over the road hate you and, while they don't always throw rocks at you and your kids, they have often said that they would like to.

b) the people a bit further down the road are of a similar mindset.

c) your neighbours on the other side feel the same way.

d) while these neighbours don't particularly like your stone-throwing neighbours, they will side with them over you any day.

e) on several occasions, these other neighbours have attempted a hostile takeover of your house - not necessarily to give it to your neighbours, but to get rid of you. You repelled them quite effectively, driving them well into their own yards, but have given most of the occupied space (won in battle) back.

f) almost all of your neighbours - including the stone-throwers have, at one point or another, indicated their desire not only to remove you from your neighbourhood, but from the face of the earth altogether.

g) the simple reality is that, even if you wanted to move, to do so is nigh-on impossible. There's nowhere else for you to go, and it's not really fair to pack up your family and force them all to leave just because they are being bullied.

The reality is, short of erecting a forcefield out of your house, you're not going to be safe from the stone-throwers. Certainly your brick-throwing might slow things down, but it won't solve things. As long as you live in the neighbourhood, you are likely to be hated, and a victim and, at times, a criminal.
Posted by Otokonoko, Wednesday, 14 January 2009 4:06:43 PM
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Thanks for the response Mike.

As a professional, I deal with the mediation process regularly(admittedly in a rather different context). Unfortunately, I have to say that it is not a magic bullet to resolve conflicts. Certainly, it has been tried many times between the Palestinians and sraelis, and at best, only modest results have been achieved. The whole premise of mediations is that a neutral third party (the mediator) will be able to show each party that a resolution has more pros than the status quo and that accordingly, each party can be pursuaded to compromise a little on their wants to find some point mutually acceptable to the parties. Unfortunately, it inevitably fails if one party or the other is not prepared to make any concesions, or inadequate concessions. Hamas has, by the terms of its charter (look it up online) made it clear it has no interest in any lasting compromise and it follows that mediation offers no answers to any dispute between Israel and Hamas.

In terms of my analogy, mediation efforts have been made and have inevitably ended with my neighbours position being that he will stop throwing stones when I leave my house (which he believes is rightly his - Hamas doesn' go this far but I'll humour you), and me refusing to move (the prevailing community view being that I am entitled to live there, though with some reservations about the boundaries).

Can anyone really expect me to sit on my hands whilst my neighbour throws stones at my children, when I have the means to 'end' the whole debacle.

If my neighbour provokes me in this way, having refused to entertain a compromise, should anyone really feel sorry for my neighbour when the inevitable comes to pass?

What if he (like Hamas toward Israel) pronounces his intention to kill me and my children? How do you negotiate with that, or should I just pretend he didn't say that, or didn't mean it (when all evidence is to the contrary)?
Posted by Kalin1, Wednesday, 14 January 2009 4:26:25 PM
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Kalin1, your argument against mediation is essentially that your neighbour will only stop throwing stones when you leave your home,and that you are not going to do this. Yes, Hamas, which you promoted to outmanoeuvre the Palestinian Authority, is more confrontational, but its recent statements accept the 1967 borders of Israel (which you tacitly admit by saying that "Hamas doesn't go this far" in respect of the demand that you leave the house that you stole from your neighbours.

Norman Finklestein, whom I somewhat cheaply but none-the-less legitimately point out is a son of Holocaust survivors, has this to say: "We have the Arab League, all twenty-two members of the Arab League, favoring a two-state settlement on the June 1967 border. We have the Palestinian Authority favoring that two-state settlement on the June 1967 border. We now have Hamas favoring that two-state settlement on the June 1967 border. The one and only obstacle is Israel, backed by the United States. That’s the problem."

And it's a problem not because you are Jewish (or have taken on that identity as the appropriator of the house in question) or because of the atrocities committed against your people in Europe and elsewhere, but because of the political cause of Zionism which led you to "reclaim" your house and expel your neighbour. You have members of your family all over the world to whom you have given the right to come and live with you, but they find your house and yard too small and are grabbing bits of your neighbour's land to "settle" on.

Your neighbour refuses to be "sensible" and to compromise on your terms, so you are reduced to warning that "there is only one way I can stop him throwing rocks", and "I have the means to 'end' the whole debacle".

So Zionist "lebensraum" ends up as the threat from a Zionist of a "final solution"!

I retract my comment about your "stupidity". Your articulation of and familiarity with mediation displays your intelligence. But use it! Think about what you are saying
Posted by mike-servethepeople, Thursday, 15 January 2009 8:40:57 AM
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Firstly, I am not Jewish, or Israeli and my post wasn't trying to address the morality of the Zionist movement. It just seems to me that Hamas, by incessantly provoking, and provoking, and provoking their massively more powerful neighbour are being stupid, and makes these periodic outbreaks of violence inevitable with ruinous results for the Palestinians of Gaza. Clearly Hamas are either idiots, or more likely, are placing their organisations objectives (as set out in the Hamas Charter) above the interests of the people they now represent.

As to your suggestion that all the Arab world is ready to commit to a two nation solution along the lines of the 1967 borders I have to say I am ignorant of this and would be pleased if you would tell me more of this 'agreement' which you imply requires little more than the signature of the Israelis to come into effect.

My own understanding is that the immediate sticking point is that Hamas takes a position that it will not be satisfied with anything less than the total destruction of Israel and the expulsion/elimination of the Jews in Palestine, and I gain this impression both from the rhetoric of Hamas and from their charter.

(to be continued)
Posted by Kalin1, Thursday, 15 January 2009 4:08:32 PM
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Also, from what I have read, a big part of Hamas's problems dealing with both the Palestinian Authority and the international community at large, has been that they won't even honour the agreements of their predecessors in Gaza (the Palestinian Authority).

Neither of these postitions, leaves much scope that Hamas will abide by any mediated agreement once its usefulness has passed. Accordingly, until Hamas agrees to amend its charter to recognise Israel's right to exist, and renounces its intention to destroy the state of Israel, negotiations are doomed to failure.

This of course, does not invalidate the validity of your points with regard to Iraeli settlers occupying lands which have been earmarked in previous negotiations as part of an ultimate Palestinian state. The Israeli conduct in this regard is highly provocative, and in my view also rather stupid. Nevertheless, Israel has shown, from time to time a willingness to remove these settlers in order to further negotiated terms.

Also, as a matter of 'legal' commonsense (I know, for many that is an oxymoron, but bear with me) unless a deal is actually DONE and honoured by one side, that side has no right to complain that a breach of any agreement has occurred.

Another major issue, which I understand relates to any settlement along the lines of the 1967 border relates to the Golan Heights which are highly militarily strategic, though sparsely populated and economically insignificant, such that Israel remains reluctant to hand them back to neighbours who have repeatedly proven extremely hostile. The heights are not actually worth much to anyone outside Israel except as a base for attacking Israel. Nevertheless, I suspect this issue could, with the right undertakings, and third party commitments be overcome. Perhaps Israel would agree to the return of the Golan heights conditional upon a sufficient period continuous peace (just a thought).
Posted by Kalin1, Thursday, 15 January 2009 4:48:58 PM
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Kalin1, thanks for the exchange of views. It looks like it's just you and me throwing verbal stones, so maybe we can have a ceasefire of our own! Here are two articles on Hamas, including the one I referred to by Finklestein:

http://www.counterpunch.org/finkelstein01132009.html

http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/nasser120109.html

Regards,
Mike
Posted by mike-servethepeople, Friday, 16 January 2009 9:09:52 AM
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