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And weirdly enough, that's precisely what I said about settlement construction. Israeli isn't trying to stop, they're only going through the motions. You know, if you actually read my posts and all.
hummusandkimchi.blogspot.com
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/FriedRice-1814/hero/11834264
That's part of Israel's point; what's the point in negotiating when the other side is incapable of delivering on its promises? If Hamas cannot stop the violence, why negotiate with them until they can?
This becomes doubly difficult when it comes to Fatah. Fatah may be even less capable of delivering on its promises than Hamas. That makes concessions by any particular Israeli party politically problematic for it. If the public believes that they made concessions for nothing, then they will be compromised, voted out, and probably replaced by those who are more hard-line.
So your point is completely correct; unfortunately, it only complicates the path to peace.
hummusandkimchi.blogspot.com
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/FriedRice-1814/hero/11834264
They would also release that kidnapped soldier, Gilad Shalit, after Israel released 20 women prisoners. Instead, Israel just received a proof-of-life videotape and negotiations for a genuine release broke down soon after that.
Kinda makes you think Hamas never really had intentions of a release at all. That, plus the odd rocket attack and the recent collaborator executions makes it pretty clear they hate Israel to the core.
I'm not saying both sides haven't committed their share of grievances, but I'm little more willing to give Israel the benefit of the doubt over Hamas.
Female prisoners guilty of what exactly? You have to consider the value of an Israeli soldier and just how many innocent people are in Israeli jails.
And the value of an Israeli soldier? I'm afraid to ask what that means. Are you seriously advancing the notion that capturing/kidnapping a soldier who was simply at his post is warranted in any way, shape, or form? He's obviously being used as a bargaining chip. In my eyes, when you start using innocent people as human currency, you lose just about all credibility. It's no better than being a Somali pirate or FARC "freedom fighter".
And what about those executions? How is that in any way justified when you're, supposedly, trying to make peace with the very people those two were accused of collaborating for? Death to all spies?
Thats exactly what I'm contending.
As for the soldier, yes he's abselutely being used as a bargaining chip. One of the very few bargaining chips that Hamas has. Israel detaining hundreds of Palestinians on bogus grounds doesn't really impact us in the west because they're Palestinians and who really gives a shit right? An Israeli soldier on the other hand is a huge issue because its very easy to play into Israeli sympathies. He's a good looking jewish white guy and that makes him a big thing in negotiations. Its a sad fact that Palestinian lives have been devalued but its still fact.
Unfortunately, you can't have it both ways. Either Hamas can control its territory and is therefore a useful negotiating partner or it can't control its territory and negotiation is largely meaningless. The United States is very capable of preventing its citizens from launching persistent attacks against the civilian population of neighboring states. When was the last time you saw a crazy American start lobbing rockets into Mexico or Canada? And even if that happened, the US would come down on them like a ton of bricks so any negotiating partner would know that such events would be the exception rather than the rule. The persistent nature of "unlicensed" terror attacks either means that Hamas cannot effectively prevent future attacks or that Hamas has no interest in completely stopping them. Either, it's a no-go for negotiations.
Israel doesn't blow up Hamas' stuff because they get too powerful; Israel attacked Hamas network of tunnels from Egypt into Gaza because the range of Hamas' rocket attacks started threatening Tel Aviv (and therefore, Israel's link to the global economy). If Hamas had finished consolidating political power without ramping up rocket attacks, Israel wouldn't have attacked. They had nothing to gain and everything to lose in terms of PR (which they do care about). Even now, they know they've only bought some time.
Israel's left recognizes that they need partners in the West Bank and Gaza that are willing and able to live up to the terms of any future peace agreement. Right now, they don't have that. And until they do, I honestly doubt any peace process is doomed to failure.
I'll also add that Israel needs a government of its own that is willing to do the same and make significant concessions. The current government does not meet this criterion imho. So I'd say that the status quo is going to reign until the political climate for both sides significantly changes.
hummusandkimchi.blogspot.com
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/FriedRice-1814/hero/11834264
Collaboration, such as it is, is not trying to come to a friendly, open agreement that leads to peace. It's pretty much treason; it's helping the other side to the detriment of your compatriots. Meting out the death penalty for treason isn't exactly unprecedented. That's not to say I'm cool with it, but it's a bit over the top to use that as an example of Palestinian intractability.
Meh. Israel does detain far too many people, often for doing little more than breaking curfew or other small infractions. This is a significant problem.
However, Hamas is not asking for only those people back. The most recent request in the Gilad Shalit negotiations involved the release of almost 1,000 prisoners, including over 400 who have direct ties to attacks that claimed Israeli lives. Hell, one of Hamas' leaders has boasted that if they get what they want, they'll start kidnapping children next to see what Israel will give them for a child.
I don't think the huge disparity in numbers is solely due to Israelis devaluing Palestinian lives (suicide bombing should give you an idea of what terrorists think of the value of Palestinian lives). It also reflects how much Israelis value their own soldiers' lives. There is fierce debate in the Torah, going back thousands of years, about the proper exchange of prisoners. Some rabbis said any price was worth paying to get back prisoners. Others said that exchanges were only ok if you did not pay more than what the prisoners were worth.
Remember that Israel's army is not a volunteer army. The soldiers are drafted and face consequences if they do not serve. So Gilad Shalit represents far more than one soldier. He is everyone's son, everyone's brother, everyone's boyfriend or husband or uncle or cousin. The Israeli military promises to do everything in its power to get back its soldiers, for good reason. And they are trying to make good on that promise.
hummusandkimchi.blogspot.com
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/FriedRice-1814/hero/11834264
Well, I honestly don't know how to respond to that. To be crystal clear, you're accusing Israel of, essentially, institutionalized and widespread kidnapping of Palestinians?
And as I said, once you start using innocent people as human currency, you lose all credibility. You might as well also exonerate those Somali pirates or FARC guerrillas. If Israel is guilty of KNOWINGLY kidnapping people to advance some agenda, okay, you've got yourself a huge case, but that's ONLY if.
No, of course not. I'm a big fan of every human having an inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness just so long as they're not hurting the next person. However, a "bogus" ground to you might be really effin' serious to the average beat cop or Israeli counter-terrorism agent.
I remember reading that every rocket launched during the months of June-October -- of which were were something around the number of 11 -- were claimed by other groups such as the PFLP and Islamic Jihad. A few were in retribution for Israeli assassinations of Palestinian leaders in the West Bank (because as everyone loves to forget, the territories are not disconnected). I also remember that Hamas took measures to stop these independent rocket launches by jailing and otherwise punishing the culprits.
Not to defend Hamas or anything, but claiming that they didn't do enough to hold up their end of the bargain is bullshit. It's about as convincing to me as the argument that Israeli needed to bomb the living shit out of Lebanon's civilian infrastructure in order to punish the Lebanese populace for "tolerating" the existence of Hezbollah.
Israel, on the other hand, plainly did not hold up its end of the bargain. Hamas demanded two things: no attacks and increased supply crossings. Israel actually decreased supply crossings in August and October, and the crossings reached a record low in November. And as has already pointed out, it was Israel who broke the ceasefire -- by bombing a tunnel that both Jimmy Carter and internal IDF reports have described as "defensive" and "not an imminent threat."
Who's the unreliable partner for peace again?
This isn't a case of the Nazis executing an Allied spy (or vice-versa). These are people who are, presumably, trying to make some semblance of peace. What would've been the better gesture toward that end? Killing these two or the far more humane option of exiling them (probably to Israel)?
Did the agreement cover tunnels? I tend to doubt there was no sort of loophole, as that would be regarded by Israel as a huge problem if Hamas decided to prepare for a wave of attacks. Also, I'd like to see your source for the IDF, as I suspect it was Carter who called it defensive without any sort of briefing on the matter and the IDF that ruled it to not have been an imminent threat after the fact.
On the execution, this is the pertinent portion:
My Google-fu is weak on this one, but generally speaking: Jimmy Carter and Hamas were the ones to describe the tunnel as "defensive," while Israeli government and IDF officials described it as a "ticking tunnel" (with a few important dissenters recognizing that it was in no way an imminent threat).
This Haaretz article will have to suffice:
In short, the Israelis knew about the tunnel for months, knew that they could provide simple countermeasures on their side if it was indeed intended for kidnappings, knew that attacking it would lead to retaliation and an end to the ceasefire, and attacked it anyway.
This is pretty par for the course for IDF behavior from what I've read in history: break ceasefires, bait retaliations, respond with massive "defensive" operations and say "he started it!"
Personally, I don't think Hamas is a valid partner for peace. It's power amounts to nothing more then an insurgency group with a good degree of control over a particular territory, and sub-par weaponry. It does not have the means or ability to enforce it's will fully even in that small territory.
Yet it's done more to control terrorism then Israel has done to control settlement growth. This is not an opinion, there are actual recorded long periods where Hamas has been able to curb terrorism. It's doing this right now. There is not a single instance in the history of this conflict where Israel has done ANYTHING to stop it's ongoing colonialism. This does not mean that Hamas is "good" or "peaceful", but the fact is, a terrorist organization has been more willing and able to to stop it's harmful activities then Israel has.
And honestly, if Israel didn't keep on with it's ongoing colonialism and exploitation of the Palestinians, Hamas would not have ramped up it's rocket attacks. You can't say that it's okay for one side to respond to other's horrific actions but not for the other. Doing that just leads us all the way to 1948.
A question to you. Have you ever head of an organization called "Mossad"?
Because kidnapping innocent people (as in civilians) is what they pretty much do when there is nothing good coming out of TV that day. When they really want to advance some agenda they start assassinating and car bombing people, etc. shooting innocent Norwegian waiters.
And since when kidnapping soldiers from the opposing force isn't a valid military tactic? I was in the recon corps, they taught us the valid way to smash them in the head with the butt of your gun. There isn't literally an army in the world that hasn't executed an operation intended to capture opposing enemy combatants at least once.
It is not a legitimate argument to say "X is not a partner for peace because they don't have agency" if that organization doesn't have agency because you keep blowing them up.
its as if a man walks into an establishment looking for a job. He introduces himself to the HR department where he is swiftly hit in the back with a baseball bat. The HR manager then says "I am sorry, we only hire healthy people here, and Jesus, look at your back; you can't lift boxes with that kind of injury."
If Israel wants a partner for peace in the region they're going to have to stop blowing up people who try to achieve that and well...
Israel doesn't want a partner for peace.
Honestly, this is no more a struggle between two states. For 50 years Palestinians have been under the complete control of Israel. Most of their generations have been Israeli subjects for all of their life. This is a struggle between a country and a part of their population wanting independence. And like every such movement Palestinians have insurgency groups and "governments" who however hold no true power in their day to day lives. It's almost like a civil war except that they have never been unified in the past under a single state.
It's another of the endless reasons why I think two-state solution is becoming more and more impossible. Wait 20-30 years and there isn't a single Palestinian alive in the West Bank or Gaza who hasn't been an Israeli subject for all their lives.
http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/topofthetimes/world/la-fg-gaza-hamas-20100423,0,6101754.story
There is no greater way to destroy the spirit of la Resistance then for it to actually attempt governing, especially in this situation. PLO turned moderate, split into different parties, of which Fatah turned moderate, suddenly Hamas was the bad boy in the arena, now that they have been whipped into shape by constant blockades and bombing, I guess Islamic Jihad is next. Waiting for the inevitable civil war between Hamas and Islamic Jihad where Gaza City is halved.
I was going to say that in 20 years we won't be hearing anything about Hamas, but hell, they rose to prominence only in 2006. Give it five years and it's Islamic Jihad we are all hearing about.
See, this situation is pretty funny here. A Palestinian political party can either be moderate and become yet another lame duck excuse of a government with no power and be hated by it's people because of it's inefficiency, or a terrorist organization who gains the smallest grain of power through violence and threats and be hated by the world because they are a fucking terrorist organization. There is no middle ground.
It's either relations with the outer world or relations with your own people. A government can't function if it has to choose between the two. The terrorist groups who founded Israel were lucky in that they didn't have to choose between the two.
Seriously, how much proof do people need that he current Israeli approach won't result into nothing but ever-continuing cycle of yet new radical groups rising up from the Palestinians? If you don't give the moderates (PLO, Fatah, and I guess in a short while Hamas) anything when they stop their violence, then people have no incentive to vote them once they become moderates. They only see that they gain things by violence (no settlers in Gaza) but when they lay down their weapons the situation stagnates or gets worse. When this happens over and over and over again, what do you think an largely uneducated and fundamentalist populace is going to think?
I mean don't get me wrong, Hamas has totally dug their own grave here, you can't exactly call for the death of Israel and then expect the more insane radicals to back down when you say "sry guys, just joking". You reap what you sow. But maybe if Israel showed in turn that when you turn moderate you actually get something in return, Gazans wouldn't be so quick to buy a gravestone and turn to the next Muhammed Jihad Superstar who shows up. Because right now, only thing that Palestinians have learned that violence is the only thing capable of removing settlements.
Look, it all follows the same pattern. Violence is the only way a Palestinian government can get anything to the Palestinians. Through violence they can actually drive settlers away from their land. Fatah turned into governing authority from a resistance movement, but due to the restrictions placed by Israel they actually couldn't govern anything and fell into corruption and ineffectiveness. Come in Hamas, who won nearly everywhere they ran because they didn't play by Israel's rules and could actually get shit done.
And Hamas did dig their own grave here. They sided with some really fucking crazy people, armed them, supported the attacks and now they say "no, you can't do that". It's cool that they are changing now but it doesn't mean they are blameless from the past. It's not like other groups or countries don't do the same - I remember U.S. funding Saddam in the Iran-Iraq War, or the Mujahideen in the Soviet War in Afghanistan. You do things like that, you have a tendency to create your own monsters that you have to deal in the future.
The fact that no Palestinian "government" can efficiently govern after stopping violence - that is an issue directly the fault of the Israeli government. They hit them with the stick over and over again to get them stop the violence, but when they lay down their arms there are no carrots coming. So some other group will take up the mantle of the previous one - and have the popular support of the people because they can get things done. Rinse and repeat. It's a pretty clear strategy of Israel, because this way they always have someone to blame.
Long story short, Israel is freezing settlement in East Jerusalem, the only place settlements haven't been frozen already, Netanyahu has disavowed knowledge of the settlements that were approved when Biden was in the area (unlikely, as this is too closely tied to internal and international politics for the approval department to not be briefing his hourly, but still a good sign), and already approved settlement expansion is being stonewalled. This is all in an area Israel insists will be incorporated into Israel as a condition of any peace agreement.
Of course, this probably won't last long due to his need to pander to his base, so the long term hope is limited to some sort of pay-go rule, where settlements must release as much land as they plan on moving into, keeping the area fixed.; Even better would be defining settlement footprints, so that settlers can move in in any numbers they want provided they're willing to replace stand-alone homes with dense tenements and condos.
Jews were treated poorly by Germans. Now Palestinians are treated poorly by Jews. Isn't there some hypocrisy here?
This is good news. Though Netanyahu seems to insist that this freeze is a temporary measure, this move makes it clear that both he and Obama recognize that Israel's disputed annexation of East Jerusalem can't just be ignored in any future negotiation process with the Palestinians. A very good sign, because one of the things that sunk the Camp David process was the willingness from all parties to "temporarily" drop the issue of East Jerusalem (which the Palestinian hoi polloi were not happy with).
I'm not holding my breath for a renewed peace process, especially with Israel's recent posturing towards Syria and Iran. Still, between this and Hamas's cessation of rocketfire, things seems to be looking up...
The Syria one makes sense, though. If a foreign militia (not military, Hezbollah, while a party in Lebanese politics, is not a government entity, so its militants are as legitimate as the militias the "Tea Party" is setting up) that has long been known to be backed by a country suddenly acquires advanced weapons from that country, it can and should be interpreted as a hostile act by that country.
Agreed. My expectations are tempered but at least there's some reason to be hopeful (if only until the next stupid thing happens).
hummusandkimchi.blogspot.com
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/FriedRice-1814/hero/11834264
Hezbollah's legitimacy as an armed force was guanteered by the Lebanese Cabinet in 2008. If you really want to make a militia comparison you could compare it to Basij in Iran. Separate from the Armed Forces but nonetheless allowed and supported by the country. It's a legitimate part of the Lebanese government and it has just as much right to make arms deals with Syria as IDF has with United States. A comparison to the Tea Party is intellectually dishonest as the U.S. government is in no way affliated with it.
Anyway, the whole settlement thing is good. It seems that U.S. actually held it's position here. I take it as a very positive sign.
Don't think it will go anywhere under the current situation, but I agree with the bolded.
And hey, remember the whole Hamas thing?
Hamas seems to be getting as greedy and corrupt as Fatah before it. It's so much easier to be the revolutionaries then the establishment. The pattern is already showing. One step forward, two steps backwards. Though it would be pretty cool if DFLP could gain some support in Gaza. Doubtful though, since Hamas has the primary armed strenght inside the enclave and it's not like they would be giving up their power in the name of democracy or anything.
I hope that something comes out of the discussions between Abbas and Netanyahu.
Say it aint so!
Namely, it has to tax, but because Israel keeps blockading Gaza, it has to excessively tax people whose main income is basically United Nations support money. Half of whom are currently unemployed. To govern a "nation" the size of Grenada with twenty times the population and half the GDP. So obviously, to get any reasonable amount of money whatsoever they have to screw over what basically is a refugee group. And to do that they have to do some nasty things.
And people wonder why Palestinians have a difficulty forming a government that doesn't regress into terrorism or corruption. Maybe because those are the only options available to them that laws of politics, economy and nature allow them.
Hamas = allied with Muslim Brotherhood
Muslim Brotherhood = HATED by the Mubarak administration. As in the administration sees it as it's biggest threat.
Plus, Israel would flip it's shit. Egypt doesn't care about the Palestinians. At least not more then it cares about just not making Israel flip it's shit. Days of Six Day War and so on are over, don't forget that it was the first Arab country to recognize Israel. Hamas has nothing to bring to the negotiation table.
Though they do have things to bring to the table. Significant trade would go on and there would be plenty of money to be made on the Egyptian side as the Gazan economy improves and they became able to buy huge amounts of goods that they couldn't get elsewhere.
I think the Gazan economy is so bad that the only thing Egypt would gain is more refugees.
They can open it to trade only (obviously people would need to transport the goods) and police it heavily to stop anyone unauthorised getting in or out. They could easily open a small section and not have any more people getting out than are able to already.
Maybe some of the poor Sinai farmers might somehow benefit from the trade, but workforce is really the only think Gazans can offer Egypt, and they don't exactly have a deficiency of young, mostly uneducated poor workforce (They have millions of Sudanese refugees already pouring over the border). Gaza pretty much just a glorified Palestinian refugee camp these days, one among many others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_refugee_camps
I fail to see how the tax on cigarettes is excessive and onerous and how this makes them regress into terrorism or corruption.
Or maybe i really just don't understand what you have been trying to say
Obviously monetary policies alone aren't the primary thing that makes Hamas corrupt, their refusal to let Gazans participate in the next election and oppress all it's political opponents is that too. They abolished any pretense of democracy as soon as they came to power. But the need for increased taxation and opposition from the people follows the same pattern as what happened to Fatah.