Hamas military chief Ahmed Jabari killed by Israeli strike

[dps]

It's an acronym? Didn't know that.

Yeah.  Don't know what the Arabic words are, but they translate as "Islamic Resistance Movement".

I think I need to clarify my points.

Well, I at least certainly misunderstood what you were getting at.

The status quo cannot remain any longer( and for about 20 years now too). They cannot live as neighbors nor can they live together. One of them has to leave. The Jews are not going to, they don't have anywhere else to go. The Palestinians do, it surrounds Israel from all sides.

I don't advocate that Israel kills them per se, I have no horse in the matter. Only the end game of peace matters.

I know this sounds terrible, but if you and I have no horse in the matter, why does the end game of peace matter?  Why should we care if the Isrealis and Palestinians are still killing each other 20, 40, 1000 years from now?

Or, put another way--if we think that one side is the culprit in the matter, and it can only be resolved by one or the other being exterminated or driven out, then if we actually care about acheiving peace, it seems we should doing everything in our power, up to and including the use of our military power, to expell the culprits.  (OTOH, if we fell both sides are at least somewhat equally to blame, I'm not sure what we should do.)

[dps]

Of course this applies to all of them.

A murderer who signs a peace accord is no less a murderer. The fact that Begin was elected to the highest level of government reflects poorly on the people who put him in office.

Does this apply to Nelson Mandela and South Africa?

Did Mandela ever actually murder anyone?  Nelson, that is;  we know that his wife did.

[Valmy]

Did Mandela ever actually murder anyone?  Nelson, that is;  we know that his wife did.

He bombed alot of places, but he may have never actually killed anybody I do not remember.  If he did it was probably not by design.  His organization killed alot of people though, but that might have been after he was arrested.

But still he was an advocate of violence.

[Neil]

Lets say, you are locked in a tight urban area surrounded by enemies who are at best blithely callous of your fate and at worst plotting genocide against you. Do you send commandos through the tunnels or sewers to murder their civilians as your only means of resistance? Well, I know what the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto didn't do. They didn't even try to kill any of the German civilians, often the wives and children of the SS men getting ready to send them to Auschwitz.

Wait, are you for or against that?  Because the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto were annihilated.

Yes, they were. But that is besides the point. DGuller claimed it was inevitable that murder of civilians must be done by those facing desperate conditions. I merely showed that in the same time period, facing much worse odds and much more evil opponents drawn from the same ethnic and cultural group as the zionists of 1947 the jews choose not to murder civilians like the palestinians do. The palestinians still have a moral choice to make regardless of how hopeless their military situation might be.

Morality doesn't matter when you're the one under the boot.  The Jews didn't realize what was going to happen to them, and figured they'd survive this the way that they'd survived previous persecutions.  The Palestinians, on the other hand, know exactly what their fate will be.

Lets say, you are heavily outnumbered by a more technologically advanced foe with modern army leadership equipped with some of the best planes and tanks in the world and you are only equipped with home made bombs and small arms. Do you refuse to negotiate and kill any and all enemy civilians you can find? Do you permit murderous terror groups to operate freely? Well, I know the Jews in the 1947 war were outnumbered by Arab state armies equipped with Spitfires and Shermans equipped only with light arms. The Jews arrested terrorist leaders like Menachim Begin and disarmed groups like the Irgun and Stern Gang who did carry out murders of civilians.

I guess it depends on which method you think will get you a better deal.

I suggest that the jews got a better deal in 1948 than HAMAS got in 2009.

The Jews in 1948 were dealing from a position of strength.  Terrorist attacks are the only leverage that HAMAS has.

[Viking]

It depends on who you ask tho. I don't think Nazis leaders thought their final solution was stupid.

Look how that turned out for them.

It's an acronym? Didn't know that.

It's short for Islamic Resistance Movement, but the arabic word "hamas" means enthusiasm.

Interestingly FATAH is also an acronym, but it is backwards. HATAF is short for Palestinians National Liberation Movement, but unlike the positive connotation that "hamas" has, "hataf" means death or sometimes hate in arabic. So they spelled it backwards as FATAH which means conquest or victory over the infidels. 

I think I need to clarify my points.

The status quo cannot remain any longer( and for about 20 years now too). They cannot live as neighbors nor can they live together. One of them has to leave. The Jews are not going to, they don't have anywhere else to go. The Palestinians do, it surrounds Israel from all sides.

I don't advocate that Israel kills them per se, I have no horse in the matter. Only the end game of peace matters.

I used to be more pro-palestinians but Languish has made me hard. Muslims are idiots.

I'm about as pro-israeli as it gets here on languish it's just that I'm not anti-palestinian. But you bring up a good point. Normally when an enemy is totally defeated and refuses to make peace it just gets slaughtered. Basically palestine is like a wrestler that is pinned demanding that he be let up and declaring at the same time he will murder the other wrestler as soon as he is let up.

This is why there is no way for there to be a unilateral or a parallell unilateral solution to the conflict like they tried in '67 and '73. Yes, the palestinians have nothing more to lose, not because they have nothing left, but rather because the israelis are trying desperately not to destroy them. The palestinians see this as weakness so they press on thinking victory is near.

It has been suggested that at some point Israel will be forced to accept the bi-national state by demographic pressure. At that point Israel might be forced to choose between survial and dishonour I agree. But any action of that kind before that point is pre-mature since that kind of dishonour will mean that there will never be peace. But then again, HAMAS keeps telling the Israelis that there will never be peace.

Muslims are not idiots, they are products of their own societies.

[Viking]

Of course this applies to all of them.

A murderer who signs a peace accord is no less a murderer. The fact that Begin was elected to the highest level of government reflects poorly on the people who put him in office.

I agree. Will you, however, agree that imprisoning him in the first place reflects well on the same people?

[Viking]

The Jews in 1948 were dealing from a position of strength.  Terrorist attacks are the only leverage that HAMAS has.

The Jews of 1948 dealt from a position of strength because rather than going all bonkers and trying to murder as many civilians as possible for emotional reasons they built a strong state with a chain of command and a monopoly of violence which would act on the will of the government and promptly thrashed the disunited disorganized and quarreling Arabs. 

[Syt]

All I needed to learn about Arab nature I learned from Lawrence of Arabia.

[Grey Fox]

It's an acronym? Didn't know that.

Yeah.  Don't know what the Arabic words are, but they translate as "Islamic Resistance Movement".

I think I need to clarify my points.

Well, I at least certainly misunderstood what you were getting at.

The status quo cannot remain any longer( and for about 20 years now too). They cannot live as neighbors nor can they live together. One of them has to leave. The Jews are not going to, they don't have anywhere else to go. The Palestinians do, it surrounds Israel from all sides.

I don't advocate that Israel kills them per se, I have no horse in the matter. Only the end game of peace matters.

I know this sounds terrible, but if you and I have no horse in the matter, why does the end game of peace matter?  Why should we care if the Isrealis and Palestinians are still killing each other 20, 40, 1000 years from now?

Or, put another way--if we think that one side is the culprit in the matter, and it can only be resolved by one or the other being exterminated or driven out, then if we actually care about acheiving peace, it seems we should doing everything in our power, up to and including the use of our military power, to expell the culprits.  (OTOH, if we fell both sides are at least somewhat equally to blame, I'm not sure what we should do.)

I did like the point you made trying to understand what I said, it could work.

I don't know why I care that peace is the end game. Not much logic to that one I agree.

[Neil]

The Jews in 1948 were dealing from a position of strength.  Terrorist attacks are the only leverage that HAMAS has.

The Jews of 1948 dealt from a position of strength because rather than going all bonkers and trying to murder as many civilians as possible for emotional reasons they built a strong state with a chain of command and a monopoly of violence which would act on the will of the government and promptly thrashed the disunited disorganized and quarreling Arabs.

An option which currently isn't available to the Palestinians.

[DontSayBanana]

So there's a cease-fire now.  Of course, since everybody's likening this to the October 2008 incident, that may not mean much- IIRC, the first cease-fire in that case lasted less than 48 hours before Hamas started shooting again.

[celedhring]

The Egyptians are guaranteeing it, so it might carry some more weight.

One good thing about the new Egyptian government, by the way, is that it no longer will be seen as a pawn of the US and Israel like under Mubarak. If they are willing to play the part, they could be a positive influence.

[CountDeMoney]

The Egyptians are guaranteeing it, so it might carry some more weight.

I give it until tomorrow night.  Hamas is having too much fun with this.

[derspiess]

The Egyptians are guaranteeing it, so it might carry some more weight.

One good thing about the new Egyptian government, by the way, is that it no longer will be seen as a pawn of the US and Israel like under Mubarak. If they are willing to play the part, they could be a positive influence.

MURSI!!!

[DontSayBanana]

The Egyptians negotiated it, so it might carry some more weight.

One good thing about the new Egyptian government, by the way, is that it no longer will be seen as a pawn of the US and Israel like under Mubarak. If they are willing to play the part, they could be a positive influence.

To Abbas, sure.  The lingering problem is the remaining rift between Fatah and Hamas.  Would the Egyptian influence be enough to convince Hamas to recognize the ceasefire?