Talk politics.

Yep.

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Call it the "payback's a bitch" doctrine.

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Except it's like Germans killing Roma to get back at the Allies for Dresden...

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From the Nazi POV, that's what they saw the Holocaust as: killing Jews to revenge the 1918 defeat. Of course the reality was that they started a war they couldn't win and reality showed that they really couldn't win it and they refused to accept reality. Nonetheless they did use this as their rationale for their little murder program.

The irony here, too, is that the Israelis keep fucking over the Palestinian movements trying to use legal means, showing the inherent respect for law at the root of the colonial state.

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yes-justice.livejournal.com

Bibi responded to the UN declaration? I can build settlements any goddamn place I want! Dividing up Gaza doesn't bode well for two state solution.

Edited Date: 4/12/12 01:51 (UTC)

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Y'know, for this alternate universe themed month, try tweaking various electoral processes and see what happens. Israel is a perfect example. To get into the Knesset, IIRC, ministers must get a pittance of the national vote, something like just over 1%. This means lots of extreme-right-wing Zionist separatists hold office. They are literally the 1%-ers.

The more moderate parties must broker deals to woo the wingnuts into coalitions, promising things to appease wingnuttery like cracking down on non-Jewish residents, expanding settlements, giving Talmudic "scholars" a free ride with enough benefits to reproduce wildly, or (as is the requirement now) forcing emigrants to Israel to live very, very kosher for a year to "prove" they're really Jewish enough for citizenship.

What would happen if entry into the Knesset were a bit harder? Even Germany, with flourishing diversity in its parliament including an almost functional Green party, demands about 3% of the vote.

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That's what we call Westminster system in the reductio ad absurdum variety. The real life consequences of this, of course, are going to be unpleasant as they are here,

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Would you care to be more explanatory (and perhaps less Underlankers-of-the-past)?

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The Westminster system (i.e. Parliamentary politics) has produced deadlocks where small parties exercise influence all out of proportion to their numbers. Israel, due to its threshold to secure seats and relative (this doesn't apply anywhere equally for Arab-Israeli political parties) freedom to provide movements is the absurd extreme of where this tendency leads to. Which is not in the end to anything like stability.

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That influence of minor parties can be very useful in making sure that minorities have a voice, however. I agree that 1% is probably a bit low, but 6% will get you a senate seat here. As our now extinct third party The Democrats used to say they "keep the bastards honest".

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I agree. Germany has (IIRC) a 3% threshold. Things seem better managed there by far.

Perhaps we in the States should consider adding congressional districts until we get to a better ratio, say 100K people per district, rather than the current 700K. Heck, until 1910, it was 60K.

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brother-dour.livejournal.com

I read an article that said those settlements will make a cohesive Palestinian state all but impossible.

That is what Israel hopes to accomplish. It's their rather spiteful and petulant reaction to the UN. granting Palestine observer status.

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The settlements already do that much. This is just confirming that Israel has no real interest in peace and will never have that interest.

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fizzyland.livejournal.com

Israelis never use the term 'Palestinian', instead they refer to those people as arabs - the official line is that they are just rabble-rousers who refuse to return home.

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The irony in this line of argument on the part of Israelis, of course, is profound. 98% of Israeli Jews have zero ties to Palestine, even if they're from the Middle East. Using this to argue against the legitimacy of Palestinians would also make Israel itself illegitimate......

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I can't get past the idea of a foreign policy troll.

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Also, I wonder why Palestinians chuck rockets at them? It's really an unsolvable mystery in my mind. Perhaps they hate their freedom or something.

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It sounds like you are saying that it is understandable, maybe even justifiable, that the Palestinians send rockets into Israel civilian populations over settlements?

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These aren't the Palestinians who do that. Besides, if I may ask, if Israel's able to expand settlements of what it itself has said is supposed to be Palestine, how are Palestinians actual threats to Israel?

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These aren't the Palestinians who do that.

I'm well aware of that. What did Hamas do when Israel withdrew from Gaza? Increase their rocket attacks. My point being that settlements aren't a justification for rocket attacks.

Besides, if I may ask, if Israel's able to expand settlements of what it itself has said is supposed to be Palestine, how are Palestinians actual threats to Israel?

I'm not sure the Israel justifications for settlements are for protection against Palestinians, if that is what you are asking.

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1) When did I say that they were?

2) Then why would Palestinians accept a peace that leaves them with a balkanized state where occupiers are taking more and more of their land?

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1) When did I say that they were?
You didn't say much of anything, other than a short, vague, factual statement and another vague question that wasn't in a response to anything I said. A question I did my best to answer.

2) Then why would Palestinians accept a peace that leaves them with a balkanized state where occupiers are taking more and more of their land?

You are asking questions not as a response to anything I say, but as a means to say what you want to say. Kinda like leading a witness, except I'm not a witness. I'm just an annoyed commenter on LJ who is still convinced you read nothing you respond to.

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1) I asked a simple question: if Israel can settle Palestinian land, how are Palestinians threats to Israel? That's not vague. You might not like the implications, perhaps, but that's not vague. My OP was about the West Bank. The people in the Gaza Strip are irrelevant to it.

2) I'm puzzled how that is given I can ask a simple question and get an Abbot and Costello routine in response. What's vague about asking the question of if Israel can settle Palestinian territories without being stopped how Palestinians are correspondingly a threat to Israel? Of course you're not interested in anything but stirring up trouble, as otherwise you'd actually answer the fucking question instead of complaining about what I write.

Edited Date: 4/12/12 17:48 (UTC)

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My OP was about the West Bank. The people in the Gaza Strip are irrelevant to it.
Gaza is relevant to the question of rockets, are they not? Considering that I was responding to someone about rockets, not your OP directly, I think you are directing your "irrelevant" stance at the wrong person.

Of course you're not interested in anything but stirring up trouble, as otherwise you'd actually answer the fucking question instead of complaining about what I write.

Please don't confuse my problems with your unrelated responses to my comments as trying to "stir up trouble." I'm merely pointing out my annoyance at you trying to change subjects so you can argue with me about what you want to argue about instead of what I actually said. I was merely pointing out that rockets having nothing to do with the settlement question when someone else brought it up, then you responded with some odd and unrelated question.

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Also, in addition to rocket attacks not having justifications rooted in settlements, it isn't reasonable to assume that rocket attacks would stop or even decrease in response to a total withdraw of all Israel settlements outside of Israel's borders.

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Except that rocket attacks, as you note, have nothing to do with settlements so you're knowingly raising a red herring.

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This is you not reading threads again.

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This is you attacking other people and raising nonsensical points that have nothing to do with anything again. I asked how Palestinians are a threat to Israel if they can't stop the settlements. You as usual not only refuse to answer the question but you make it all about the other person.

So how about my original question: Palestinians cannot stop the settlements, so where are they a threat to the Israelis? Surely a threat should be able to actually stop these settlements, yes?

I predict that you'll say I didn't read what you wrote, though there's precious little of substance to read, and evade the question once again. Nothing is so frustrating on the Internet as asking a direct question.

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My point was simple, and wasn't directed at you. Solely that rockets have nothing to do with the settlements. It was in response to anfalicious statement that people wonder why they shoot rockets at them. You then, after I made the point that rockets had nothing to do with settlements, said I was making a red herring by making the very same point and the proof that I was creating a red herring was because I admittedly made the point that I thought rockets have nothing to do with settlements! It's laughable! My brain nearly exploded while I read it! I can only conclude that you did not read the entire thread.

So how about my original question: Palestinians cannot stop the settlements, so where are they a threat to the Israelis? Surely a threat should be able to actually stop these settlements, yes?

You mean your totally out of the blue question that has nothing to do with what I was commenting on? Your questions foundation are built on a false premise. That is, the assumption that Palestine cannot physically stop Israel from building settlements therefor they cannot cause damage or be a threat to Israel, is fundamentally false. I would argue the reasons why are self-evident. This is why your question is vague, it doesn't doesn't flow logically while additionally having no context for me to fill in the gaps (as the question, again, was completely out of the blue). Answer me this! Since bacon is so salty and delicious why did Mohammad forbid eating pork? Surely such a delicious meat cannot come from a filthy animal and anger God, yes!?

Edited Date: 4/12/12 21:03 (UTC)

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I'm pretty sure you can make an argument to justify attacking a foreign invader, which is what the settlements amount to. I'm not saying I do, just that it's pretty easy to see how these things come about. After all, isn't that the argument that Israel is using to attack Palestine?

Again, I'm not saying I think they justify the attacks, but I'd be interested to hear your argument as to why you think they definitely don't, and also how you think that the two aren't at all linked.

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The largest reason is because Hamas carries out pretty much all of the rocket attacks out of Gaza. The Israels, of course, abandoned the settlements in Gaza. After Israels withdraw Hamas actually increased their rocket attacks. The West Bank, where settlements are now, actually doesn't launch rockets at Israel really at all. Based on that reason alone, I think it is very clear that rocket attacks are in no way a response to settlements and therefore it isn't reasonable to assume that settlements are a justification. Likewise, based on Hamas's patterns of rocket use, it would be unlikely that rocket attacks would decrease if Israel decided to forcibly remove all settlers out of the West Bank like they did in Gaze.

Now if we are talking about could settlements be used as a justification as opposed to they are used as a justification, then I think it difficult to find justifications of launching rockets with the sole intentions of killing as many civilians as possible. So much so that settlements are definitely insufficient cause.

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sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com

What does Israel expect to accomplish by moving new settlements into the West Bank, exactly?

Not much that they wouldn't have achieved anyway (http://www.volokh.com/2012/12/03/world-embraces-elimination-of-contiguous-viable-jewish-state/) but this way they get to appease their own hard-liners and thumb their noses at the arab states without having to fight over something that actually matters.

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Oh, come on. Israel was able to smack the entire coalition of Arab states around in 1967 without the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, so why does it need either, especially when it has more than sufficient nukes to saturate the region? Are you saying Israelis are so soft and Commie now that they can't even defend themselves, with the nukes no less?

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sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com

Nope, I'm saying that if you're going to russle up a war just to appease your own hardliners it's best not to risk a loss on something you (or your enemy really care about). They gain Baracka without risking any lasting political damage because they were going to get that land in any eventual peace deal anyway.

It's Arab rug-merchant negotiating tricks being played out on the national scale. A variation on wagging the dog.

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