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When you describe someone as "anti-semite and pro-Hamas", there really is only one interpretation that you can take from that. That interpretation would not be "stretching logic in favor of one side". If that was all you were trying to convey, your choice of words is equal parts inexplicable and indefensible.

 

Stop conflating. This is about Hamas and not Iran.

And whatever you say, inspections actually do work. They are only routinely denounced as ineffective by politicians who don't like them attesting to results they don't like. A hard line political view generally holds that the other side cannot be trusted, and that they probably cheat - thus nothing the other side comes up with is ever good enough proof of the absence of any alleged threat - resulting in the assertion that inspections fail. You do still remember that inspections only failed to find the Iraqi WMD program because there was none?

People for whom politics is a zero sum game, and that includes the Israelis, view neutrality (i.e. inspectors, observers etc.) as at best getting in the way of a kill, or as outright aiding the enemy. Either you're with them, or against them. That explains the hostility of such players towards neutrals. That is about politics, and an attitude and world view problem, and it has little to do with facts.

That captures it nicely. So distrustful ... I'd wish you'd spread your scepticism more evenly. As it is now, the Palestinians get all the scepticism, whereas the Israelis get all the benefit of a doubt. Why that is so is exceedingly simple to pinpoint: In a sense, it isn't about arguments or facts. It isn't about reason either. It's about sympathy.

Whatever you think Hamas will do with any good that Israel for whatever reason decides to blacklist is simply a reflection of that. Or projection if you so want.

 

Ragusa, the comment on neutrals was really good -- which is why IMHO neutrals need to come in with a show of force, as in "we are not here for one side or another side, but by god, if either side shoots at us we will wipe them the <snip> out!" As it stands, UN neutrals tend to merely bail out when things get hot (I think of the Suez crisis, and the Rwanda debacle that nearly drove Romeo Dallaire to suicide.)

 

Conflating? Is that when you light intestinal gasses on fire?

 

If I'd say that that's what it means I would have written an insult! I didn't and I won't!

 

Funny, they still have rockets to fire. Thousands of them every year, it seems. They're manufacturing those. And doing so using some of those 'unreasonably banned' items, like sugar and fertilizers. I guess if they started making them out of paper mache, I'd even consider a ban on paper to be reasonable. Not pre-emtively, though.

No, that comment was about international inspectors, not directly about Hamas or Iran. No conflation going on here, just a comparison.

Yes, and you remember how Saddam was kicking out inspectors every five minutes for no good reason?

Wrong. Dead wrong. The Israelis have earned at least a little trust with restraint. Hamas, on the other hand, is a terrorist organization that targets schools and busy marketplaces. Gee, I wonder why I don't trust them.

Wrong again. And, again, dead wrong. It's a reflection of their history of using anything and everything they have to try to kill Israelis. You do know how explosive compressed oxygen is, don't you? Do you really think Hamas wouldn't use a potential explosive? They've used everything else they could so far. I distrust Hamas, I expect them to betray every confidence, because so far they have earned it. You're inherrant willingness to trust them seems increadibly nieve to me. I'd call it self-destrictively so, but it wouldn't be you being hit by qassam rockets.

 

If the Israelis knew they were manufacturing them and not getting them from elsewhere (blackmarket sales for example) they would bomb the living crap out of every conceivable place you could manufacture them (and at times, they have done exactly that).

You are right that they seem to have rockets in unlimited supply. This certainly suggests that they are being massed produced somewhere, and it's not Akbar the terrorist in his basement making each one by hand.

 

I thought they were getting them from Iran...but I could be wrong.

 

If the United States provided the same level of support to Hamas that it does to Israel, then Hamas could shoot children from helicopters and carpet bomb civilian settlements too. There would also be no need to worry about them manufacturing home made rockets from sugar and cow manure! Everyone would be happy!

 

Ok, I had to go and look:

It might be a possibility....

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99206219

 

Chandos,
Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) was founded and for eight years led by Martin Indyk, a former research director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). WINEP as a think tank focused primarily on influencing the executive branch. In contrast AIPAC focuses primarily on influencing congress. As a lobby group they have an advocacy position. You won't find a single critic of U.S. support for Israel, or of Israel proper for that matter, at WINEP. WINEP is not just pro-Israel, but pro-Likud, i.e. pro right wingers in Israel. I take their take on Iran with a grain of salt.

WINEP has close links to the Israeli government, and some of their staff are employed at Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, led for a long time by a former head of Mossad. Interestingly, Indyk was formerly a US ambassador to Israel, until his security clearance was revoked while he served in Israel over him not reporting meetings with Israeli officials back to Washington. He left the State Department soon after. Make of that what you want.

The Leveretts are in contrast proponents of the realist school of thought. The policy struggle between the two foreign policy wings is going on for a long time now, vis a vis Iran since ca. 2006.

On Iran the WINEP minded crowd apparently has been winning, but I may be mistaken.

BTA,
thanks for the explanation on the Qassam missile, and for pointing out how simple and easy to manufacture a weapon it actually is. As a result I didn't have to do it and that is free time I can spend on pleasant things!

 

Eh, I guess it's a debated issue, but either way it's reason to at least have the ban. The use of last-ditch materials without guidence suggests local production, though.

Ah, but if the US gave Hamas that level of support, Hamas would nuke Israel. Israel hasn't nuked Hamas. Or turned the entire region into a wasteland with carpet bombing. Or even destroyed every building on the surface. They haven't applied even a fraction of their potential power. That's restraint.

 

LOL, no they wouldn't. It wouldn't be in anyone's best interests to do, given how Palestine is on the doorstep of Israel. However, they probably would show similar restraint to that of the belligerent occupiers, and shoot Israelis from helicopters miles in the air and bombard their civilian areas with mortar fire.

Why would you nuke the land that you are pillaging and building settlements on?

Well, the Israelis do seem to love destroying buildings which aren't Israeli. And they love spraying pesticide on crops grown by natives on their ancestral land.

"Those filthy goy, who do they think they are, building houses on their own land without getting a permit from us? Growing crops needed to feed themselves, instead of being held hostage to the imports that we blockade? The nerve!"

No, it's the strategy of a very smart occupier.

Countries in the West have/are making reparations for the exact same things that Israeli is doing now. If a country such as America or Australia went and sprayed the crops of their natives, which they relied on to survive, a shitstorm would ensue.

I have no sympathy for Israel. None. Zip, nada, nil. They can go **** themselves. If the country were to 'wiped off the map', I could care less.

 

See, guys? Aren't Ragusa and I looking pretty moderate now?

 

Ah yes. I recall you used that before. So, indeed, they didn't. So what?

Several points that come to mind off the top of my head:

(a) It would make Israel look sorta bad.
(b) Hamas isn't enough of a threat to justify that. Hamas in Gaza is penned in, but under control, despite the occasional missiles.
(c) Killing a couple hundred thousand people or so would make some noise, especially when done with something as conspicuous as a nuke. Israel would finally become the pariah state with whom about nobody but the US would have diplomatic relations.
(d) It would be a suicidal and singularly stupid move for and by a people as small in numbers to alienate a billion Muslims over a mere nuisance such as Gaza. There is always the day after that attack.
(e) It would send the likes of Al Qaeda into a raging frenzy, and never mind that nuclear weapons are probably un-Islamic, they would make an exception just to get even. There would be retaliation. Worried about an Islamic bomb? Nuking Gaza would guarantee there will be one and what the target would be.
(f) For any Israel nutty enough to consider nuking Gaza, Gaza is probably considered a part of Greater Israel, as indicated by the now evacuated settlements that were built there. You don't crap on your porch, so to speak.
(g) There is a risk the wind would blow the fallout from the Mediterranean up the cost and probably into Israel. Israel is a small country. There is also the risk the fallout would travel to Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon or Syria.
(h) It is relatively close proximity to Israel's, hmm, research reactor at Dimona, which could be hit by the fallout as well.
(i) Israel doesn't have nukes. Ask them. In nuking Gaza they would come out of the closet, and they apparently like their posture of 'strategic ambiguity' too much to lose it over Gaza.
(j) That is relevant insofar as US law prohibits trade with states that have a secret nuclear weapons program. That's just for fun, as it is likely that congress would dutifully enact an exception if the point was raised.

I am at (j) in just 15 minutes. In conclusion: Since the Israelis know that it would be an idiotic move to nuke Gaza, it is silly to praise them for restraint for not acting that way since it isn't a realistic option in the first place.

It's like cheating on fasting during lent: You hate chocolate. Then promise to not eat any during lent. Then go to a fat lady and brag about your restraint. Which means it is a simple straw man that you built, and burned. I am not impressed.

 

Ok, "nuke" may have gone too far. Let's say MOAB. Or just carpet bomb.

... Right. Occasional. It's only a few thousand a year. That's, what, maybe 3-4 a day? And several times that many mortars? No serious problem there. It's only injured or killed hundreds of Israelis in the past decade, and produced PTSD levels around 75% for children, and 20-30% for adults.

I hadn't heard of this, so I looked it up. I found more complaints from Gaza that Israel stopped, and more demands that Israel provide more pesticides to Gaza, than even announcements that they ever had done it, much less complaints.

 

NOG,
and the Palestinian shelling of Israel is not in any conceivable way related to what Israel does, did and has caused in Gaza - people killed and wounded, physically and mentally? Just asking. There was an Israeli air strike on Gaza just yesterday. No empathy for Palestinian children and adults? Of course not. You keep ignoring that the circle of violence down there has two - willing - participants. Hamas', and Palestinian hostility in general, don't exist in a vacuum. Israel's actions are far from friendly either.

The rockets are something that kills and hurts people, causes property damage, greatly disrupts daily life and costs a lot of money, but it is not an existential threat to Israel proper. The political damage is far greater. It shows that despite the wall, Israel cannot guarantee safety. That is driving the Israelis nuts, and that is Hamas way of suggesting that it is better to talk with them - something that Israel, only after intense US arm twisting has eventually done, to the chagrin of the egregious Avigdior Liebermann. I'd be glad if something came of it.

It is noteworthy that Hamas have in the past stuck to their ceasefires. Rocket attacks out of Gaza have often been committed by groups other than Hamas. They have usually killed 'unauthorised' rocketeers they caught. Which usually didn't keep Israel from retaliating against Hamas, which to provoke probably was the attackers intent anyway.

 

Ahh, my apologies. I meant herbicides, not pesticides.

Note that common targets of crop killings are the Bedouins, the peaceful Bedouins, not the 'crazy' Palestinian Arab the media loves to demonise as baby killers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negev_Bedouin

Despite Israeli forces, some Bedouins do return to their ancestral home in the desert, where they plant crops. But Israel sprays their crops with herbicides so they return, hungry, dependent on the Israeli concentration camps.

I find it strange how you are unaware of this. It seems that Israel can abuse anyone it feels like, an not only does no-one protest, but it isn't even talked about. I guess it's because you Americans have a fair and balanced media, right?

 

Concentration camps? To put it mildly, it is far too strong a term. The Israelis have built villages to make the Bedouin abandon their nomad ways - social engineering if you so want. It didn't work well. Bedouins didn't really want that, prefer their old ways and their economic situation and the infrastructure and education in these villages is generally quite poor. They are low on Israel's list of priorities. Bedouins in Israel are considered Israeli Arabs i.e. they are Israeli citizens, that is, they have an Israeli passport in which Arab or Bedouin is written. Some serve in the Israeli army, usually iirc as trackers, controlling iirc the Nevev desert and the border to Egypt.

About the killings of Bedouins, I have no idea what you are talking about. I have yet to hear of Israeli killings of Israeli Arabs in the Negev. It seems quite implausible to me.