I have to ask here:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2012/11/12/israel-fires-at-syria-for-2nd-straight-day/1699103/

What exactly do the Palestinians firing rockets into Israel expect to accomplish? Palestinian leadership has yet to show the ability to win a battle against the Israelis, and until they have that, all this does is confirm them as too menacing to negotiate with but not menacing enough to actually pose a threat. Admittedly it's interesting that the West Bank seems to have fallen into a geopolitical black hole in terms of coverage and chaos in a time of revolution, and that the Gaza Strip has magically become the entirety of 'Palestine' but even with that, if there is any lesson of this endless firing rockets off it's to confirm the old rule that force should only be used where it is guaranteed to bring a decisive victory, otherwise it's wallowing in self-indulgent idiocy.

At the same time it's clear that Israel leveling entire neighborhoods in retaliation for a missile blowing up a bus or a single building is not working for the Israelis, either, so why they keep doing something that's not working is an interesting question in its own right. Personally I think that the real lesson here is that Charles de Gaulle should have been listened to in 1967 and Israel is going to keep paying for that mistake no matter what it does. I'm also not sure why they're exhuming Yasser Arafat to see if he was poisoned or not:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/13/world/meast/west-bank-arafat/index.html

As when he was alive that man could take the goose that laid the golden egg and turn it into a gander with constipation. I would think Palestinians would have just let him rot. But that's just me.

Comments

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

The Palestinian leadership has also proven to be totally incapable of winning concessions from Israel in any other way. When the situation is hopeless, and you can't really blame the Palestinians for thinking that it is, why not just troll the other side with whatever tools you have to hand?

That whole policy area is so depressing.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Well, if the tools aren't working, it doesn't help the problem any more than not doing anything does.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but at least it gives you a moment where it feels like you're doing something. If you're falling to your death, may as well flap your arms. Can't hurt, right?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The flapping? No. The falling? I hear you pass out before you hit the ground so who knows? ;)

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

What exactly do the Palestinians firing rockets into Israel expect to accomplish?

This is absurdly easy to understand - the Palestinians are goading Israel into a response that the international community will, with no doubt, describe as "disproportionate" and "wrong" (even though Israel has a basic right to self-defense), thus making the Palestinians out to be the victims instead of the aggressors.

This has been standard operating procedure for decades.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Funny, one might assume that the people who marched into the West Bank and Gaza Strip to occupy them and have shown no inclination to create Palestine when it's supposed to exist are the aggressors, but that implies a basic understanding of chronology, causation, and the role of the Mandate of Palestine. All three terms are ones you have repeated issues with the 2+2=4 parts of.

Israel has no claim of self-defense when it parks armies on territories and maintains all direct control of territories in what's an occupation when it wants it to be and not a war when it's not convenient for it to be. Nonetheless, futile use of force is still idiotic on the part of the people who think what hasn't worked the last 2,000,000 times it's been tried is going to work the 2,000,001st.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Funny, one might assume that the people who marched into the West Bank and Gaza Strip to occupy them and have shown no inclination to create Palestine when it's supposed to exist are the aggressors, but that implies a basic understanding of chronology, causation, and the role of the Mandate of Palestine.

Indeed. Next you'll tell us that it was Israel and not the Arab nations that attacked in 1948, right?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

By a strict reading of chronology, Israel is a British invention that backfired horribly on them. The Arabs and Israelis collaborated to nip Palestine in the bud and both have been paying dearly for that genius activity ever since. And to put it bluntly, no, the Arab nations did not attack in 1948. If it had been Israel v. Arabs, Israel could never have negotiated that very important agreement with Jordan that saved it in that war and cursed both sides with the PLO and its like-minded movements. Sorry, Jeff, once again you're showing a great absence of familiarity with the history everyone else knows. Put down the Tim LaHaye and read something else.

In 1948 what happened was Israel and the Arab states rejected the partition, both decided to grab as much of Palestine as they could get, and both forestalled it ever existing. From a strict support of the Palestinian cause King Hussein, the King of Egypt, the rulers of Syria, and David Ben-Gurion are hard to differentiate from each other. From a strict objection to terrorism it can also be hard to tell the likes of Menachem Begin and Israel's other 'saints' like Sharon from the people like Mahmoud Abbas.

I don't understand why an *atheist* would accept the narrative of Israel the great defender. At least the Fundies have an evil reason for doing it, what's your angle?

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

I don't understand why an *atheist* would accept the narrative of Israel the great defender. At least the Fundies have an evil reason for doing it, what's your angle?

History and reality, pretty much. I, unsurprisingly, find your history to be immensely different than most.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I'm sure you're ignorant of who Herbert Samuels is, as well as the whole history of the Zionists engaging in willful expulsion of the Arabs because they were able to reconcile the twin Terra Nullius and "70,000 Arabs in Haifa must go" without their minds breaking under the contradiction, just like all the other proponents of Terra Nullius who've ever lived. I'm also sure you're one of the ones who think Israel was defending in 1967, because pre-emptive war works as a 'defensive' concept when it's needed to make the world's largest Ghetto and summon Haruhi Suzumiya-er Jesus-to end the world.

BTW, it's intellectual frivolity to assume that 1) a history being different than most is the same thing as it being false, and 2) to not specify what exactly is different from most, and 3) defining which historians you've read who qualify as most.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

I don't know that it's logical. It's a decision based on anger and despair and pain. They're striking back at the people who are hurting them.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

So where are the attacks like this from the West Bank?

[dwer.livejournal.com]

I don't know. Aren't there effectively two separate governments for Palestine now? Maybe the West Bank group can't get the weapons, maybe they're not as unhappy?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, there's both two separate governments and an ongoing civil war. Mahmoud Abbas, who let's remember was very instrumental in the Munich Incident in the 1970s, is not the type to have real qualms with large-scale rocket attacks if it were that. My question here is a genuine one, as Hamas and Islamic Jihad aren't exactly making themselves popular among Palestinians with yet another failed set of attacks on Israel that will kill Israelis, result in more massive devastation of the Strip and change nothing.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

This map sort of sums it up, don't it?

[dwer.livejournal.com]

that's insane. There's no way anyone can expect them to simply tolerate that. Even if Israel decided they'd had enough and just took everything over, they'd never have peace.

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

Amazing map, btw.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

An map of very fractured Palestinian territory inside Israel, but done as islands in a sea.

[oportet.livejournal.com]

I think they're feeling left out - both of them. Everyone's talking about Syria and elections and crumbling economies and Iran and Libya and the end of the world and the Lakers - Palestine and Israel are little kids jumping up and down NOTICE ME NOTICE ME I'M IMPORTANT!

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

So why is it always the Gaza Strip and not the West Bank that does this?

[oportet.livejournal.com]

They're weak enough as it is - I'm guessing they don't want to split up those wanting to fight?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The West Bank and Gaza Strip have been in a civil war the last few years, so if Fatah has enough power to shoot at Hamas, I think they could probably find enough to shoot some at Israel, too.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

From an old post (http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/605004.html)

...I was in college in the late sixties. A friend of mine and I got into a heated argument. Although we were both opposed to the Vietnam War, we discovered that we differed considerably on what counted as permissible forms of anti-war protest. To me the point of such protest was simple — to turn people against the war. Hence anything that was counterproductive to this purpose was politically irresponsible and should be severely censured. My friend thought otherwise; in fact, he was planning to join what by all accounts was to be a massively disruptive demonstration in Washington, and which in fact became one.

My friend did not disagree with me as to the likely counterproductive effects of such a demonstration. Instead, he argued that this simply did not matter. His answer was that even if it was counterproductive, even if it turned people against war protesters, indeed even if it made them more likely to support the continuation of the war, he would still participate in the demonstration and he would do so for one simple reason — because it was, in his words, good for his soul.

What I saw as a political act was not, for my friend, any such thing. It was not aimed at altering the minds of other people or persuading them to act differently. Its whole point was what it did for him.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Which makes sense given we are talking about Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Whatever can be said or not said about the people running the West Bank, I think we can all agree that those two movements don't care about anyone else but their own benefit. Using force like this just makes Israel angrier without actually hurting it or altering the balance of power. The Fatah idea of using Oslo and its conditions to expose Israel's occupation for the colonialism it really is is rather smarter as Israel will increasingly have to explain why it won't leave, but that requires Fatah crush Hamas and its nastier cousin first.

Eh.

And as far as Vietnam is concerned, I still think the US Generals blaming their civilians and the USA as a whole like Hindenburg and Ludendorff was inexcusably cowardly and spiteful and childish. And a disgrace to the men in the ranks who won the battles but never won the war because those fools couldn't hack war as opposed to battles.